Wikipedia talk:Centralized discussion/Lists by religion-ethnicity and profession/Archive -lists by religion-ethnicity and profession debate

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Related-article test

One possible yardstick is to ask if the topic could have a legit WP article if the "List of" were removed. We would never have an article about "Methodist dentists" but we certainly could about Muslim theologians, or the first black major-league baseball players. In other words, is the noun phrase religion profession (or ethnic profession) an encyclopedic topic in and of itself, or is it just an intersection of two unrelated topics? —Wahoofive (talk) 18:34, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I absolutely agree with this proposal, and I think that the point made above is an excellent yardstick. However, I think we need to encourage more people to join this discussion, as I'm sure some will disagree. --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 17:41, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
I guess as I was a defender of religion/profession lists I should speak. The idea of "would it work if you took out 'List of'" is actually good by me. Also both the religion and profession should matter to the people in the list. Lists should be sourced as well. That said I'd like to know why religion/ethnicity with profession is particularly upsetting. Because there really aren't all that many of them. I look at Wikipedia:List of lists/uncategorized and stuff in it seems way more trivial/irrelevant then even a Methodist dentist list would be. Especially as there isn't even a List of Methodists in the first place. In least religions and professions themselves have some encyclopedic value. Although it has a cult following, and I don't want it gone, I don't see how List of Firefly curse words is dealing with anything encyclopedic by any standard. There's also List of Kyocera products which is mostly red links and concerns a company whose article is itself a stub. Not to mention the List of lawsuits relating to haircuts which has three things and has been around since 2003. The youngest of the lists I named is from this April. The main things I've heard are "you can never know what people really believe", but the point of religion lists isn't to play at mind-reading. You can know what religion people say they believe or are active in. If you couldn't there'd be no need to have religion categories either. Another is "they are just advocacy to say XYZ group accomplished the following." To that I say no not necessarily. Most of the religion related lists I created concern religions I have no personal stake in at all. I'm simply interested in who is a member of what community from a historical perspective. When I came here that information was routinely ignored when it came to religion, even when the religion was vital to their life history. I don't think there was any mention that Kay Kyser was a Christian Scientist until I added it and it's very much mentioned on about every website dedicated to him as he was active in promoting it. Religions can also effect peoples' careers, sometimes in ways you wouldn't expect. Take the defunct List of Catholic businesspeople. Well there really are things like the Ave Maria Fund or businesses ran by monasteries. I know a barbecue sauce brand ran by a Benedictine monastery. Anyway I went on too long for a guy whose said umpteen times he's leaving for the holidays. I chanced by this though and a response was asked for.--T. Anthony 08:21, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
A lot of good points, Anthony. Yes, there are many other useless lists out there, and I encourage you to nominate them for deletion. I'd say the reason these lists are so emotionally charged is that many people create them with an agenda to either (1) prove some conspiracy theory regarding the religion or ethnicity involved or (2) prove that members of that religion or ethnicity are mainstreamed into our "diverse" society. Your Catholic example is worthy of discussion, but I think my litmus test applies here too: does the fact of their Catholicism so affect their business practices that it's worthy of note in itself? Or is it just as irrelevant as their shoe size? —Wahoofive (talk) 21:23, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll offer my approach first with respect to Jewish lists and second with respect to all lists of people by religion/ethnicity and profession:

  1. Jewish lists The question of who is a Jew really isn't for this discussion to decide. I encourage introductory statements that describe exactly what standard a particular list uses and I encourage headings and individual descriptions. I'd like to refer people to an unexpected place that addresses its own touchy subject quite well: List of athiests. Other lists may find it a useful model for presentation style.
  2. The broader picture Many lists by religion/ethnicity and profession suffer from a lack of sources and organization. I encourage improving these lists. The most salient aspect of IZAK's and SlimVirgin's amendment is the potential for extreme hate crimes. Most of that concern can be addressed within the original proposal and existing Wikipedia policy. I've made minor changes to the original proposal to address exceptional situations in generalized terms that could apply to any group that becomes a death target because of what they are.

I hope this approach treats all the major points of view with fairness and respect. Some of the suggestions that have arisen during this discussion could make good supporting standards within a final guideline:

  1. "The related article test" As an alternate and supporting method of determining whether a list is encyclopedic, ask yourself whether a corresponding article would be encyclopedic.
  2. "The grandparent test" could apply to some lists. I'd offer this under a special heading that would include caveats, examples of different cultural standards, and offer several alternative tests, including a link to the article Who is a Jew?.
  3. "Precedence" I'd advise list contributors to follow the guidelines established for that list. Query the discussion page before contributing if something seems unclear. Relevant existing lists can serve as examples when creating inclusion guidelines for new lists.
Durova 19:53, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
I suppose that's possible. Although for me I just do them for historical value and so I can have an article where I can get to these people easier. Another part of why I did List of Christian Scientists (religious denomination) is that I did a research paper on Nancy Astor which led me to learning some about Philip Kerr/Lord Lothian. It was useful for me to have something where I could easily get to both of them and if anyone else was interested in both it'd be the same deal. Yet it was put on VfD for awhile. Here recently though people working on the Church of Christ, Scientist article indicated it was useful as they were starting a section on "Notable Christian Scientists." As I'd already worked on a fairly well source list I just put a link to it for them and they seemed pretty good by that. Anyway I wouldn't recreate anything like the Catholic business deal because that was quite borderline. Still possibly something like a "Catholic philanthropists" list could make sense. Like a list of rich people who give to Catholic charities. Possibly that'd still be seen as smelling of advocacy or conspiracy, but I guess at some point I just say to heck with that. It says on lists that if they are valid if all the names are important to the topic described. If people need to see conspiracies or advocacy that's their issue.--T. Anthony 04:03, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I have said before, and will say again, that the list of African-Americans should become the list of notable African-Americans, and be revised only to include very important achievers and historical figures (basically a Wikipedia version of a Black History Month wall display). --FuriousFreddy 18:42, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

The naming conventions for list pages forbid this; see Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Lists. If you disagree, you should take it up there. —Wahoofive (talk) 21:17, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
This very situation was already discussed at Wikipedia:Categorization/Gender, race and sexuality as pertains to categories, and largely came to the same conclusion as is proposed here...namely that a category is valid if a legitimate encyclopedic article could be written about the grouping's cultural context, and not valid if one couldn't be written. Bearcat 05:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Part of why I proposed this is because there's a gray area at WP:NOT. These are sensitive topics for many people. If there's a formal guideline then fewer people would complain why one list stays while another goes, and the votes for deletion and retention would be more harmonious and consistent. Durova 03:36, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Someone added a question to the proposed guideline 2 about editing for relevance when there's a possible relationship:

Are these artists who are catholic or artists that contribute to catholic art and could, for example, be muslim?
That's a very good question. A good example would be the play "A Man for All Seasons", which has a specifically Roman Catholic theme and presents its story in a way sympathetic to Roman Catholicism. It's about the religious persecution of saint Thomas More under Henry VIII of England yet its playwright and screenwriter Robert Bolt was neither a Catholic nor a Christian. I suppose a list of Roman Catholic writers wouldn't include him but a list of Roman Catholic fictional works would list his play. Comments? Durova 03:59, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
The article I started on the Vatican Film List I think has A Man for all Seasons on it. Although I have Zimmerman in the article as they went by director. I can add the writers of each film, including Bolt, at some point. Or others can add the writers. It was kind of a "safe" list to do because it is an actual list, I didn't create it the Vatican did, and the religion of the writers/directors doesn't seem to be that important to it.--T. Anthony 06:41, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
The proposal recommends an introductory paragraph when relevance isn't automatic. Do you think that would resolve things if this were a List of directors of Vatican-endorsed films? Durova 08:31, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Should the proposal include examples?

When I was drafting the proposal I almost gave two examples of sports figures whose religion was relevant to their profession. One was Sandy Koufax, a baseball player who missed the opening game of the World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur. Another was Muhammad Ali whose conversion to Islam received prominent media attention. So a List of Jewish athletes and a List of Muslim athletes would include each of them respectively while not necessarily attempting to catalogue every athlete who shares the same religion.

Are examples like these necessary? And if they are, then could an editor suggest a substitute from somewhere other than the United States? Durova 17:57, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Such examples are certainly necessary because they show the unintended consequences of the implementation of the proposal. Should the proposal receive a green light, people who practice their religion quietly will not make it onto the lists, while the more vociferous folks will all be there. The proposed volubility criterion makes no sense to me. And what about obsevant Jewish baseball players who never had a chance of missing a World Series game because it fell on a religious holiday or missed a lower-profile game?--Pecher 14:26, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

These lists should be kept

For 2 good reasons: (1) They are of encyclopedic interest. I think it interesting, for example, that we can see the huge number of prominent Jews on lists other than Jewish Rabbis (say), knowing that this group (call it ethnic, religious, or whatever), never numerous, has been the target of some of the worst discrimination for such a long period. (2) Who is to say what is related or what relationship is demonstrable? (3) The proposal is both arbitrary and majoritarianist (read: racist). The Wiki audience will vote their stereotypes to call attention to what is related: Black Abolitionists or Black Civil Rights Leaders? Jewish Rabbis? Italian Popes? Male Generals? however, Jewish Scientists, Latino Boxers, Black CEOs will all be deemed irrelevant and Wiki will whitewash its pages (pun intended). Carlossuarez46 22:46, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Please refrain from inflammatory words such as racist and assume good faith. This proposal would offer consistent reasoning to retain more lists, which often lean toward deletion at AfD. Specific suggestions are welcome if you think things should be more inclusionist. Durova 00:26, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
I was irritated by the deletions, but it does say that names on lists should relate to the topic. I accepted it is good to be a bit stricter. In least requiring sources and that both things matter to the person. I really should be gone though as I have to wake up early today, bye!--T. Anthony 08:10, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Who is what?

There was a dispute about a week ago at Talk:List of Deists about how to define by faith. Maybe that deserves mention in these guidelines. I lean toward suggesting that a someone may qualify for more than one list. A person's beliefs may change over time. As applied to ethnicity, some people such as Tiger Woods have more than one heritage. Durova 20:17, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Jews, discrimination, and inconsistency of the proposal

The proposal is not internally consistent. "3.Keep the list if its members faced significant discrimination List of first black Major League Baseball players by team and date." However, " List of Jewish chess players, however, has no inherent relevance." To my knowledge, Jews did face more than significant discrimination, so all Jewish lists should be kept, contrary ro the exisitng proposal.--Pecher 14:10, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I think he means discrimination in the field considered. Did Jewish people face discrimination in the world of chess? If so when? What I know of Durova I think if you did "List of Jewish chess players in Tsarist Russia", or a similarly Anti-Semitic regime, he'd go for it. The problem I have with him on that is if you give a list a long title like that people will whine that the title is too long or awkward.
I'm just as willing to accept an introductory paragraph. And yes of course - regarding Jewish chess players, if there's a specific time and place where Jewish people faced barriers to competitive chess playing, then that would make sense. My point in the example is that international competitions give inherent relevance to list of nationality + sport. So List of Norwegian figure skaters would be a keeper but List of Norwegian-American figure skaters probably wouldn't. Durova 22:30, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
In a related vein I think there should be a list of Jewish people in profession basketball if there isn't already. I'd always heard there was a period that that was historically important and I'd be willing to learn about that. If there isn't one create it. If it gets put on delete I'll totally support you against listophobes.--T. Anthony 23:11, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
Putting it more broadly, I just don't see why discrimination should be a factor in the lists. Lists are one-stop shop for people researching a certain topic, and they serve both categorization and development purposes, i.e. you can include in the list items without articles, indicating that such an article should be created. I seems to me, however, that User:Durova erroneously believes that lists are created to trumpet achievements of a certain nation. That's not the case: Wikipedia is an informational, not propaganda resource.--Pecher 13:22, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
Easy there. It's not a good idea to put words into other people's mouths. Read my comments farther down. Durova 22:30, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Oh I quite agree. I enjoy working and using these lists of people. I remember when the Christian Scientists one was up for AfD many of the delete votes said it was advocacy. This greatly confused me as I created that one and I'm very far from being a member of that faith. In fact I'm not sure I've ever really known anyone of it except perhaps briefly/inconsequentially. Still I imagine some compromise can be done. Personally I think it's enough that their religion or ethnicity be confirmed and be relevant to their lives. I just know there are enough who want a stricter standard then that that something stricter has to be worked out.--T. Anthony 17:53, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
Don't lose track of what we're discussing here. Given a list, is it encyclopedic, or an indiscriminate collection of information? Pecher's "one-stop shop" only applies if there are a significant number of people who need the information. Is it notable? There's always going to be judgment required on this question, but that's why as a guide I proposed the yardstick that the topic itself could have an article written about it. T. Anthony: could an article be written about anti-Semitism in pro basketball (even if there isn't one, and you couldn't write it yourself)? It wouldn't be cut-and-dried, of course, but it would give us a sense of what we'd be aiming for. —Wahoofive (talk) 18:37, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
It's not so much anti-semitism as it is that there was a period of basketball history when Jewish people were very important. For example I see now that there is an article on the Philadelphia Sphas, but there was other significant Jewish players before WWII. List of Jewish American Athletes deals with this some, but not that much. Many essays have been written on the interwar "Jewish basketball" teams, but unfortunately I'm not good or especially interested in sports history as a rule. Therefore adding to a list would probably be as good as I could manage.--T. Anthony 20:15, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
As long as the list included a statement that explained the relevance, my proposal would keep it. Durova 22:30, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Requested modification of the proposal

I really think that the proposal should not be adopted. However, at Durova's resquest, I am putting forth a requested modification of the proposal, using Durova’s proposal as a template:

1. Keep the list when there's an inherent inclusion of historical figures: e.g., list of Catholic U.S. Presidents, list of Jewish heads of Governments, list of women Nobel laureates, list of gay Oscar winners, etc.... 2. Keep when in doubt whether there may be a possible relationship: list of Catholic artists, list of Jewish physicists, list of black authors; but not those which fall into #4 (e.g., Swedish blondes, or Jewish brunettes.) 3. Keep the list if (a significant portion of) its members faced discrimination: List of women Nobel laureates; list of black Olympic athletes (even those from Zaire, where there may have been no such discrimination); list of Catholic elected officials in the UK, or list of Protestant elected officials in Italy. 4. Delete lists that can have no hope of being comprehensive, where such lists consist of people who are inherently not noteworthy but for inclusion on the list: List of Methodist dentists, list of Germans with the given name 'Hans', list of Swedish blondes, list of Greek airline pilots, list of Albanian firefighters, etc...

Modifications and comments

A. Edit for relevance: situations may do well to rename the list to a restrictive title and/or include an introductory paragraph to inform future editors. Source citations, which are always a good idea, become particularly desirable to avoid possible disputes. I agree, but see the change to section C below. B. Gender based lists could use basically the same guidelines. C. Any attributions that might be contested should be sourced: no difference for race, nationality, religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. Why was sexual orientation singled out? I will assume good faith and that was done with no discriminatory intent so I will generalize the comment. By the way, I note that Wiki has no problem including mixed-race/religion/ethnicity individuals in the category of their minority component whether or not they self-identify with that inclusion; some segments of society’s discomfort with respect to homosexuality is just the vestige of society's more widespread discomfort with racial/ethnic/religious minorities in the past and we need not be a vehicle of its perpetuation. D.Overlapping definitions of religion and ethnicity have been known to cause Wikipedian disputes. These guidelines treat ethnicity and religion as functionally equivalent. If List of Jewish XYZ gets nominated for deletion, voters can reach a consensus about its encyclopedic value without necessarily agreeing on whether the subject represents a religion, an ethnicity, or both; provided that the bias should be toward keeping any list which fits the guidelines 1, 2, or 3 above under either ethnicity or religion, in those cases especially where discrimination was based differently on ethnicity than on religion. E. Citizenship is similar. A relationship can be encyclopedic for a country's citizens should be presumed to be encyclopedic for a related ethnic/religious group. Wiki has endorsed inclusion of Belgians who lived/died before Belgium existed. Ditto Germans. We would be hard pressed to say that Martin Luther wasn't German (to our sensibilities) although the nation-state of Germany did not exist for hundreds of years after his death. So 'citizenship' is really no different. A list of German authors is encyclopedic whether one interprets it as citizens of the nation-states called Germany (Reich, BRD and DDR), writers in the (modern?) German language, or writers who are/were ethnically German (which might include citizens of Austria and Switzerland, and subjects of the Kingdom of Saxony, the Free & Hanseatic City of Hamburg, etc. All are encyclopedic. F. Minority status may not be in itself encyclopedic, but we should resolve significant doubts toward keeping lists. Perhaps left-handed people have been subjected to discrimination (although one may argue that they are treated more favorably than right-handed people in sporting circles), however even if not, lists of left handed people should be kept; as should list of people with epilepsy; list of people living with AIDS (even those in countries where discrimination against them is prohibited by law) -- all of which are 'minority' populations. G. Majority status is rarely encyclopedic, and such lists end up being deleted from Wikipedia anyway: (yes, this is somewhat arbitrary but is not meant as racist, just as a fact). Often the noteworthiness of the list is that the people differed from majoritarian composition in some way. A list of white Nobel laureates; a list of male mayors in the US, a list of Islamic Emirs, Shahs, and Sultans, ought to be considered for deletion. A list of Nobel laureates, mayors in the US, or Emirs, Shahs, and Sultans without the majority racial, religious, sexual or ethnic label should be the list Wikipedia should endeavor to present.

So these are where Durova & I differ. I think the policy is most difficult of enforcement; democracy is a wonderful thing, and Wikipedia’s is not different, but majoritarian elements will use the power of the majority to silence the minority, so the bias should be to keep virtually ALL lists (I could even concede on point G, even though most of the authors who propose those lists are the ones who keep putting in pro-Hitler POV material so I suspect their motives). Carlossuarez46 00:54, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Responding to comments

Why was sexual orientation singled out? I will assume good faith and that was done with no discriminatory intent so I will generalize the comment.

Sexual orientation is harder to verify than the others. It's also the only one of these categorizations that might constitute slander. We're more likely to see vandals inserting hoaxes to this type of list than to other lists.

...provided that the bias should be toward keeping any list which fits the guidelines 1, 2, or 3 above under either ethnicity or religion, in those cases especially where discrimination was based differently on ethnicity than on religion.

The idea behind my original point - before this addition - was to state that when Wikipedia votes on a List of Jewish whatever the editors don't need to agree on whether being Jewish constitutes a religion or an ethnicity. This addition really belongs to another idea and ought to go elsewhere in the proposal.

Citizenship is similar. A relationship can be encyclopedic for a country's citizens should be presumed to be encyclopedic for a related ethnic/religious group.

See my comment about Norwegian figure skaters vs. Norwegian-American figure skaters. The point being made in the amendment about historic lists is a valid idea that belongs under a different heading.


My motives

It's not very pleasant to read attributions about my supposed motives, especially by people who assume bad faith. If you've followed the deletion votes for the last 6 weeks you'll see that I argued to keep many of the types of lists that some commenters suppose I would delete.

Right now Wikipedia has no guidelines for assessing relevance for this sort of list. Relevance is a requirement - any disagreement about that belongs in a different discussion about Wikipedia policy. I've noticed several tendencies when this class of list comes up on AfD:

  1. Some editors vote to delete any list whose relationship isn't immediate and obvious.
  2. Some editors vote to delete lists when they suspect the author of boosterism or of bigotry.
  3. Some editors vote to delete lists that aren't well defined, but change their votes to keep when the list gets better defined and edited for relevance.
  4. Some editors vote to delete or include because of whether they find the list entertaining.

What I'm attempting to do is to write consistent guidelines that can be fair to all groups. I'm also attempting to make those guidelines as objective as possible. This proposal identifies elements of relevance and noteworthiness that can apply to the entire class of lists. There may be other objective elements of noteworthiness that I haven't identified.

I'm avoiding hazy notions such as "lean to keep," "informative," "useless," and "research tool." The problem with subjective standards is that they're prone to inconsistent application. As an example, look at the deletion vote for List of female surgeons. We nearly lost this because the public at large is not well informed that female surgeons still constitute a very small percentage of medical doctors. That list clarified its definition and stayed with Wikipedia, but this was an uphill fight. I think we won the critical mass of editors by articulating objective standards. Durova 23:27, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I think people are being too critical as well. That said I'm not sure why a different standard, protocol, or proposal needs to exist here than elsewhere. The guidelines at Wikipedia:Lists, Help:List, and Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists) should be sufficient. The last is not anything official, but already has statements like

When deciding what to include on a list, ask yourself:

  • If this person/thing/etc., wasn't an X, would it reduce their fame or significance?
  • Would I expect to see this person or thing on a list of X?
  • Is this person or thing a canonical example of some facet of X?

Although again that's not any policy it seems sufficient as is. Granted some lists I've worked on the names may not entirely fit that. I've seen say Owen Gingerich on a list of Mennonites unconnected to Wikipedia and he's a fairly known example of a Mennonite. I don't think him being something else would reduce his fame or significance, what he has of that, except in a certain subsection. I'm also not sure how objective this can even get.--T. Anthony 09:34, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

  1. Durova, can you present a stronger case for List of female surgeons? You seem to take it for granted that the list should have been kept, and by implication attribute delete votes to ignorance, but the only argument you advance is that the length of the list would be small. The List of 7-foot-tall people who drive VW beetles would be small, too, but it shouldn't be a list on Wikipedia. Can you do better?
  2. I really think all these problems stem from the "significant discrimination" criteria in the current proposal. Not every act (or type) of discrimination is encyclopedic. It's a mistake to tie our inclusion criteria to an unrelated concept like discrimination, when a related topic (like is the subject encyclopedic without the list) is more relevant. Would we write an article about gender discrimination in surgery (i.e. is it significantly different from gender discrimination in any other field)? I'm going to keep pounding my initial proposal at the top of this page because the vague stuff we have now is never going to fly. —Wahoofive (talk) 22:37, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Your comments look like you responded without reading the AfD discussion. That addresses your concerns regarding List of female surgeons.

As for the matter of discrimination being a criterion of encyclopedic value, if we eliminate it altogether then List of first black Major League Baseball players by team and date would have to go. Most Wikipedians would want to keep that list for its historic research value. Obviously those players' ethnicity was related to their profession - whether or not they wanted it to be a factor.

Your question about gender discrimination in surgery may have been rhetorical, yet I see no reason Wikipedia would reject such an article. It could start with a historic overview of surgery in relation to medicine and midwifery. Barbers used to be surgeons a few centuries ago. Medical schools refused to admit women when the three fields consolidated into modern medicine. The article could discuss how that changed, naming specific institutions and the first female graduates. It could track subsequent informal training. I recall reading about one woman who graduated third in her class from medical school but whose only job offer was as a medical secretary. The article could summarize residency rates and board certification across a variety of surgical specialties. This would be very useful to a student researching a term paper or for a young woman considering a career. Durova 22:41, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Baseball color line is an article on the topic of early black major league baseball players, even though the title is somewhat different, so that list would stay under my proposal. My statement about surgery was not rhetorical, it was totally serious: if the community agreed that Gender discrimination in surgery was a valid article, I'd support the accompanying list too. Please, I'm only trying to keep this proposal from going into Wikipedia:Proposals which never got anywhere because everyone got mired in the details. Arguing about whether your pet list (or somebody's pet list of Jews) will be kept or deleted is missing the forest for the trees. —Wahoofive (talk) 22:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Then I misunderstood your tone. Please accept my apologies. I do like the related article test.
While I agree that "significant discrimination" is inexact, I've included this as a principle to help resolve disputes and foster harmonious improvements. This discussion has already had a positive effect on one such list. See Talk:List of African American jurists. Durova 20:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Proposed amendment: remove most Jewish-related lists

Those who agree with the above (project page) presentation, or wish to comment, please sign and add your comments below. Thank you.
  • Agree. IZAK 13:01, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree While I believe there are good intentions behind this discussion, I think that some of the arguments here are rather ridiculous, verging on hysteria or paranoia. In my opinion, to connect any list of Jewish personalities with Nazism, Communism, McCarthyism, Islamic terrorism, or other historical oppression of Jews is more than a little absurd. To argue that wikipedia could in who-knows-how many years become a vehicle for genocide based on the result of a list is ludicrous. By that logic, we shouldn't have any pages about diseases, warfare, serial killers, etc. Should we not have any pages on genocide because some future Hitler might get ideas? Let's get real, please. Saying that lists of Jews should be deleted because they enable JewWatch makes about as much sense as saying information on the Holocaust should be deleted because it enables David Irving. The connection between being "outed" as Jewish with identity theft is particularly bizarre. As far as people's motivations, that seems to be a problem that any project like Wikipedia is going to create, and I don't see any way around it. There are a lot of people on this thing, and presumably some of the contributors to the Judaism project might not like Jews. This doesn't mean that everything pertaining to Judaism on wikipedia should be scrapped; it means that the other contributors need to be on their toes and check each other's work. The one concern I do share is the issue of accurate sources and, as a corollary to that, of not citing places like StormFront or JewWatch. To that end, I would suggest a stronger enforcement of having people cite reliable sources in cases where the person's Jewishness may not be immediately obvious or apparent. I agree that there may also be issues with original research and possibly with consent (although your assumption that identifying someone as Jewish constitutes a propaganda effort or creates a "black mark" against them seems rather odd). I'm all in favor of fixing the problems, but would caution against throwing out the baby with the bath-water. ShalomShlomo 23:31, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
ShalomShlomo: I am not suggesting that ANY articles be deleted! I AM suggesting that 99% of the LISTS and CATEGORIES (but NOT the articles about the people in them) just that 99% of the lists and categories themselves be deleted (such as List of Jews, List of Ashkenazi Jews, etc and Category:Lists of Jews and Category:Jewish Americans etc). It is neither encyclopedic nor scholarly, nor should it be Wikipedia's unintentional "job", to tabulate who is or is not a Jew, particularly if the subjects of the articles themselves frequently do not fit many conventional definitions of Who is a Jew? in any case. If an article about someone wants to mention a RELEVANT connection that they have or may have had a connection to Jews and Judaism then fine, let the writer do so in the body of the article. But there is absolutely no need to create mosntrous lists of people, many of whom are of doubtful Jewish ancestry. Do not underestimate the threat of the Jew Watch phenomenon spreading and please do not twist my words out of context. This is a serious matter. Thank you. IZAK 05:25, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
IZAK: As I said, I think some of your arguments have merit; I just don't think that "JewWatch, Nazism, et al.", is one of them. As I see it, the real issues that you've pointed out are sources, original research, and relevance, all of which I think are certainly thought-provoking and might well be grounds for deleting the categories. BTW, thank you for correcting my mistaken impression of exactly what you were suggesting. In any event, I'll be interested to see the thoughts of others. (And of course, I reserve the right to change my mind!) ShalomShlomo 07:10, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
Comment If this goes forward and the lists are deleted, I think that EVERY SINGLE verifiable member on a deleted "List of Jews" must be transferred to a "Jewish somethings" category, and we can not "forget" to do that. Yid613 01:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't know if you've noticed, but I think this proposal includes deleting the categories, too. See the main page for the proposal itself, which mention "Categories" although this page does not. I think it's outright hypocrisy if we have "Roman Catholic actors" and "Irish-American politicians" but not "Jewish Americans" as categories. Vulturell 01:06, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, it appears I misread IZAK's statement immediately above. Yes, this seems very ridiculous. In order to avoid ambiguity and conflict on the issue of who's Jewish, the lists do (or maybe at least they used to) contain disclaimer templates indicating that the definition of who is a Jew is debated, describing, what various groups' opinion is on the matter, and stating that sometimes the reader must decide for him/herself if a certain person, given their circumstances, is Jewish. I think that the lists should be kept how they are. Oy vey indeed. Yid613 01:22, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Yid613:Just read your own words: "...disclaimer templates indicating that the definition of who is a Jew is debated, describing, what various groups' opinion is on the matter, and stating that sometimes the reader must decide for him/herself if a certain person, given their circumstances, is Jewish." Now could you explain how on Earth that has any meaning? It basically means, that tomorrow, any shmendrik can log on to Wikipedia, tap in a newly-dicovered definition of Who is a Jew? and add people fitting into the lists and categories of Jews. For example, what is to stop members of Jews for Jesus from being classified as Jewish Americans and then having their names added to the lists and categories of Jews? Would you like List of Jews who are Jews for Jesus or List of gentiles who claim they are Jews? Well it's all possible if, as you say "who is a Jew is debated, describing, what various groups' opinion is on the matter, and stating that sometimes the reader must decide for him/herself if a certain person, given their circumstances, is Jewish". Get it? Thus in order to avoid mass confusion and to forestall a mass identity crisis on Wikipedia regarding the religious and ethnic identities of famous people, being decided yet by unknown Wikipedia editors, it would be very wise to get rid and stop any types of lists and categories based on religion or ethnicity for any group of people, not just Jews. IZAK 09:48, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
May I point you to the original proposal and the amendment described at the bottom of the page? There seem to be two related issues: the desire to respect personal privacy as protection against discrimination and the thorny matter of group definition. In a broader sense, both of these concerns can apply to other ethnic and religious groups. There are legitimate concerns behind this proposed amendment. I'd like to craft a policy that addresses those concerns while retaining information of research value. Durova 21:05, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Durova: Thank you for your professional tone and approach. Yes, I do basically agree with your approach and, tentatively, I would consider it very wise to work along the lines and parameters you are suggesting. IZAK 09:30, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Then let's work on achieving harmonious agreement. If you agree that my proposal is an improvement over the current state of Wikipedia lists, then let's focus on the types of listings you find most objecionable. Using that as a starting point, I'd like to think in terms that would apply to any group that gets targeted for death because of what they are. Durova 18:09, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Durova: If you'd "like to think in terms that would apply to any group that gets targeted for death because of what they are" then all and any type of Jew should not be listed because according to the Nazi's barbaric Nuremberg Laws (see also Nazi Nuremberg Laws) any person with one Jewish great-grandparent was deemed a mischling (i.e. of "mixed" ancestry) that according to the "Aryan" Nazis "clearly" qualified the Jewish victim for extermination. That is why drawing up "Lists" and "Categories" of jews is both so odious and potentially dangerous (for living people or descendants of those no longer alive). Then, for your "enlightenment" see where this slippery slope could lead to: German Blood Certificate; Rhineland Bastard; Miscegenation; Interracial marriage; Compulsory sterilization...IZAK 11:41, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Broadly agree. It's like the thing with the number of Eskimo words for snow: it depends on what you mean by "Eskimo", "word", and "snow". I generally dislike lists of this aimless type, and when you have definitional problems like this, categories aren't much better. Why can't we just do without these lists and categories and mention Jewishness (properly explained and sourced) in articles when and if it is relevant? Rd232 talk 00:45, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Strongly Agree With the principle if not all of the detailed arguements. I dont like list of people segregated by ethnicity it's devisive and in my mind racist - however I dont like having the question of ethnicity dimisssed in articles when it clearly is VERY relevant to a persons actions see eg: Daniel Pipes or the Anne Baylefsky discussion in Israel and the United Nations talk pages. Unbehagen 01:21, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
    • This kind of well poisoning is precisely the kind of bias that should be kept out of Wikipedia articles. The implication that a Jew, by virtue of being a Jew, is inherently biased, is an example of the very racism you theoretically decry. Jayjg (talk) 16:43, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
      • I don't know this user's history, but perhaps they were simply pointing out that sometimes a person's Jewishness can be relevant to their professional career. Of course, that argument could potentially have elemements of well poisioning, too. Without getting too much into the political issue, I see this as being a possible worthwhile point in its connection to Jews who don't have necessarily "Jewish-specific jobs" (rabbi, kosher butcher, prof. of Jewish studies), but whose Jewishness may still (arguably) inform or be a major part of their professional identity (such as reporters, or, sometimes, pundits). The question as I see it is exactly where that cut-off point is, if there is even a definitive one in the first place. ShalomShlomo 06:28, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree with principles. However I don't see what action is planned or what guideline is proposed. "99%" sounds arbitrary. -Will Beback 02:29, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Once we can agree with the principles we can formulate a clear-cut policy. Perhaps it should be a "100% solution", meaning that the mere fact that a person is of Jewish ancestry or practices Judaism, should not be a reason for them to be on any sort of list or in any sort of category. Only if it can be clearly PROVEN in a convincing way that a notable person are central to Judaism itself, such as Rabbis, or that their Jewish ethnicity was a (or the) central factor contributing somehow to their fame (and not that they became famous in spite of of their Jewishness, but that they became famous because of their Jewishness) then it should be in the articles about them. But to run around, as in Category:Jewish American actors when suddenly all these people's Jewish ethnicity is highlighted and comes to the fore as if it's an important piece of information, when all it is really, is trashy trivia not worthy of an encyclopedia, when not even People Magazine would publish such nonsene. IZAK 09:03, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree. SlimVirgin (talk) 05:53, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree with principles. Which celebrities, Nobel Prize winners and historical figures are Jewish has always been of interest to the Jewish man in the street, but it does look like these lists have no clear criteria for what makes a Jew a Jew. Yoninah 10:07, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree with principles. Jayjg (talk) 16:43, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree with principles. I think the proposal is written with a little too much drama and shouting for my taste, but in general I concur that these lists are unencyclopedic, not useful, and may easily be pressed in to service for uses that Wikipedia would be ashamed of. On those bases, they should be deleted. Nandesuka 16:48, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Mostly Agree I think some Jewish categories should remain but almost all the lists should go. Antidote 20:38, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
  • delete 100% of poorly defined OR poorly sourced "people who are ..." lists. I always wondered why this insanity was allowed. WAS 4.250 21:14, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
    • I'm beginning to think that 100% is indeed better than 99%... IZAK 09:03, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree As per ShalomShlomo.--Pecher 22:15, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong disagree. I do not find a single one of your reasons the slightest bit compelling. Not even minutely. Allow me to address your concerns:
    • We shouldn't do it because the Nazis did it? The Nazis also ate breakfast, should we stop eating breakfast and delete Breakfast? Your comparisons to Nazism and apartheid do nothing but hurt your case. You seriously compare lists, words on a page, to systematic mass murder and oppression? Put things in perspective here.
    • Wikipedia will be an accessory to mass murder or terrorist attacks? By the same logic you could argue that we should systematically remove any mention of Jewish, black, or gypsy descent; all mention of homosexual orientation; and all mention of any religion from all our biography articles, since all of those have been used as a basis for killings and terrorism? Information can often be harmful. If we started removing information because it could maybe possibly potentially cause someone somewhere to get hurt, then Wikipedia would cease to exist.
    • WP:CITE, WP:NOR, etc. are no reason to delete the lists themselves. They're a reason to delete specific entries from the lists. And if you get into edit disputes, follow the normal procedures: RFCs, etc.
    • The definition of Judaism is a simple matter: in each article, define your terms, and follow that definition.
    Now, there may be arguments to delete all religion/ethnicity-based lists. Such arguments I would be open to. But to treat Jews as different from any other group, to give them special treatment just because they were the victims of the most widely-publicized genocide of the 20th century? Preposterous. You speak against singling out Jews, and then you yourself single out Jews in the very same proposal. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 10:31, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Simetrical: Actually, I do strongly favor "arguments to delete all religion/ethnicity-based lists" (as you say) so we do agree on something. YES, let's delete ALL those lists and categories based on ethnicity and religion (it's basically only an American craze in any case) AND create a consistent Wikipedia policy to keep them out of this encyclopedia. Since my area of interest and expertise is in Jews and Judaism I come here from that perspective first which does not mean I exclude other ethnicities from this problem. I (hopefully) just leave it to your imagination to extrapolate from there. But history does show that if Jews face certain unique problems, not always very evident at first, and then when they are mistreated, then other groups are bound to suffer next. And please cut out the ad absurdum baloney. You have obviously not really looked into the Jew Watch (together with the other hate sites) problem on the Internet (read that as I-N-T-E-R-N-E-T and not as "breakfast") and the possible ramifications it may have for all Jews on this planet (and there are not more than about thirteen million LIVING Jews of some variety or other FYI). I have read articles that the 9/11 planners got their information about where to hit the World Trade Center right off the Web, so I wouldn't poo-poo the threat of "innocent" information being abused by modern-day killers, unless of course you don't think Neo-Fascism or Islamist terrorism should be taken seriously (?). Anyhow, I do not mean to sound too alarmist. But the basic problem is that the "Lists" and "Categories" of Jews on Wikipedia is getting totally out of hand, and to just pick and choose this and that list or article for a VfD will not solve the problem at this point since so many of them are springing up. Thus, a more comprehensive and serious Wikipedia policy is now called for to right the matter. Finally, I repeat again, many of the living people in the lists of Jews and categories do not identify as such and would probably not want to be in such lists and categories and in many instances are not Jews according to all or any of the conflicting definitions of Who is a Jew? in the first place. IZAK 11:21, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
      • In general, I would agree that lists are typically not worthwhile for this kind of purpose; categories should always be used in preference to lists unless more information than mere membership is useful. (For example, Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles is a good list, because it includes the additional information of the individual's article's name and how much they've edited.) So I would agree with a proposal to delete all ethnicity/religion-based lists, except where useful extra information can be imparted by the list that can't be duplicated by categories (if there is any such possible information for any religion/ethnicity).

        By all means, collect the religion/ethnicity lists and bring them up on AFD. I strongly suggest you don't use the logic above, which (no offense) is somewhat rambling and overlong and on some points will probably raise a lot of eyebrows. Instead, try referencing Wikipedia:Lists a lot.

        As for ad absurdum, I know about sites like Jew Watch, and they're malicious but largely harmless. How often are Jews attacked these days because of their religion or ethnicity? Outside of perhaps France and on occasion Israel, a hell of a lot less often than, say, homosexuals are attacked based on their sexual orientation. There is no substantial danger to Jews in having these lists up. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 09:13, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

        • If all religion/ethnicity lists get deleted then I guess much of my work here will have been a complete waste of time. (Something I've suspected for awhile, but regardless) I'm a bit baffled by how prickly and uncomfortable people here are about religion or ethnicity anything. Mostly the place seems fairly liberal and then all of the sudden it's like the 1940s or at latest 1960s. The one element being the idea that if someone knows you're Jewish or Catholic or Latino or Romany they'll attack you or put you in a camp or something. There are people who do that, but not that many in the modern nations. Added to that people who seek out whose Jewish for Anti-Semitic reasons will do so anyway. Deleting all Jewish lists here isn't going to effect that. Adherents.com even has a list of Jewish converts to Anglicanism.[1] They also have an enormous Jewish list below the convert list they got from Wiki. The other this idealistic "we are all one, identity doesn't matter" stuff. Well, no identity does matter and it can't always be stated in a simple Category:People by religion. Many of these lists are why I ended up creating articles on Chinese painters, Catholic authors well known in Germany but not the US, scientists, etc. I wouldn't have known these names on my own, but I saw them on a list. Oh well. It's late, I'm tired, and I'm rambling or will be soon.--T. Anthony 09:59, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
          • Wait, so what benefit do you propose for lists over categories again? That lists can include nonexistent articles is the only point I picked up from that. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 03:39, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
            • I, too, prefer categories over lists. But this darned proposal is going to give the boot to categories as WELL as lists, which I find outrageous. Vulturell 03:42, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
              • I prefer lists for several reasons. For one I just don't like reading in multiple column format. Granted that's a petty thing, but I know other people who prefer one column. For another a list can give a citation of why this person belongs. I can put people in totally inappropriate categories and if they are lesser known people they may stay there for weeks or months or indefinitely. Also lists of some religions allow for expansion in our coverage of their community. I don't think Jewish people are underrepresented, but this threatens to effect all religious people lists. Look at say List of Hindus. There are red names there of great poets, scientists, etc. Our coverage of Hindus is kind of weak considering how important they are and things like that provide a single article that people can work on to expand it. You can't categorize a red name. Lastly lists work better on my watch page then categories. Outside I guess I'll brag a bit, but most of the lists I've worked on really do things categories can't. Like look at List of Christian Scientists (religious denomination) or List of Christian thinkers in science. You really think a category duplicates that? I think the "categories are so much better than lists" attitude has kind of made me go reverse. On my own I would've thought they are both all right, but now I think lists are often preferrable. Especially when it comes to religion and identity. When it comes to that categories are almost worthless as who knows why anyone is in a category. Maybe on a whim someone will think it's neat to put Jan Lievens in Category:Jewish Dutch history and who here knows enough of Dutch Golden Age painters to contradict? Heck for that matter for all I know he is Jewish.(Although I'm pretty sure he's not)--T. Anthony 07:11, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
                • These are very good points, I have to say. I have no problem with the lists and I would never vote against keeping them. If people like both lists and categories than they should both stay. It seems there are enough supporters of both. Vulturell 07:40, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree - If we can verify that x=a jew, then it is verifiable and sourced. Deleting lists of Jews, and not others, is clearly wrong. --Irishpunktom\talk 11:45, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Irish: This is not restricted to only Jews. By all means, let all lists based on religion and ethnicity alone be deleted as non-encyclopedic. In the case of Jews, it goes beyond your formula. Sadly, it's often more like this: x=a jew=anti-Semitism. IZAK 12:09, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
      • I disagree. The majority of people contributing do not seem to be anti-Semetic. Look at the vast effort Vulturell has added. Also, this is not aimed at all ethnic/religious lists. It is about making the lists of Jews exceptional owing to the prevailance of Anti-semetism. I would think that we should not go down that road.--Irishpunktom\talk 13:04, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
        • Irish: Obviously the majority is fine, the problem is that we have a lunatic fringe as per the Jew Watch-types. IZAK 09:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Mostly agree. Issues of vague definition, verifiability and reliability of sources are real. Also, WP:ISNOT an indiscriminate collection of information. Why should we have any lists of some people who have been identified by unknown sources as belonging to a randomly selected and poorly defined group? Who wants to know this stuff anyway? Same applies with many of the LGBT lists as well, as far as I can tell: I have seen lists containing people asserted by others to be gay, but with no reliable sources. There should be categories for Israelis, as there are for Americans and Britons; there should be categories for notable orthodox Jews as there are for notable Christians. Those are (IMO) uncontentious. Everything else is listcruft. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 12:17, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree with prejudice. I am a deletionist Wikipedian; I support deleting pretty much all lists of people who have been identified by some random source as being members of some random group that is not well-defined. Categories are far better than lists. Stifle 13:18, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree with principles. I've been a long-term opponent of lists that mention irrelevant attribute of people that are otherwise notable, e.g. their mode of death (unless that event itself made headlines) or the size of the mole on their left shoulder. For some people Judaism is a relevant attribute (e.g. when publically referring to one's Jewishness such as Joe Lieberman) while for others it is almost completely irrelevant (such as Norman Pearlstine). JFW | T@lk 17:15, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree Although on reading the reasons I admits it's not as strong a disagreement as I expected. Point 1, about lack of agreement on who even is Jewish, strikes me as worth considering. Maybe among the more valid points. However 9(privacy) and issues of sourcing are also valid. However the rest seems like special pleading in a way. I'm worried about how to say this, but I think the proposal implies Nazi genocide is much more likely to recur than is plausible. A kind of "circle the wagons, the Gentiles can't be trusted" approach that saddens and confuses me. I'm worried this is insensitive to the situation, but there's a lot of "The Nazis did this, that, and the other thing" in it. Even if that were valid the Roma were often targeted by the Nazis yet we have a List of Roma people. Even in the case of privacy issues I think things like List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people, also Nazi targets, would be more a concern. Still the amount of Jewish lists, which I believe is still greater than the combined number of Christian or Muslim lists, does give a skewed impression in a way. It either makes it seem that Jews are better than other people, because more lists of them can be filled, or that "the Jews control everything." So I do favor some scaling back, but this proposal is excessive. Now as for lists in general once again there are lists, even of people, in encyclopedias. My set of Encyclopedia Americana from the 1960s has an index and there are pages with lists. We even have Wikipedia:Featured lists. That said lists are maybe more appropriate for an Almanac then for an encyclopedia. If there is a Wiki-Almanac I could see moving lists to it. If there's not well I still don't remotely understand this listophobic stuff nor do I much want to.--T. Anthony 05:59, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
    • T. Anthony: Well, at least you recognize, and I agree with the your following assertions that (in your words): "Still the amount of Jewish lists, which I believe is still greater than the combined number of Christian or Muslim lists, does give a skewed impression in a way...So I do favor some scaling back...lists are maybe more appropriate for an Almanac then for an encyclopedia." So my question to you is, why do you "stop at the water's edge" so to speak, and solve the problem at its core once and for all? IZAK 10:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
      • I never indicated I felt these lists were always bad or anything. I find many of these lists useful. Not everyone in the world has sinister motives for wanting to know who is of what religion. Maybe I want to write a paper on one of these religions, but what I need is information on who is of them to do my own research. To give you a sense of that a list of leading figures in nineteenth century British science fiction would be a lot more useful to me than a Wiki article on the subject. Why? Because by having the major names I can look up in my regional library if they have bios of them. An article on the topic would only do the same if it had an enormous bibliography. Now let's say my thesis, instead of being Victorian/Edwardian British Science Fiction's effect on history, was on the history of the Jewish people. A List of Jewish historians could be useful to me. In some cases they may provide primary sources as it may include names of people documenting their own history. An article on Jewish historiography would not be the same. So lists form a function similar to bibliographies, indexes, etc. Recognizing that some of these lists are stupid doesn't mean wanting to delete 99% of them. Now if a Wiki-Almanac is created to then I'll be fine with transferring all lists to that. At present there is no such thing. Therefore the other place, I know of, besides Wiki to find these kinds of lists is adherents.com. On balance I actually find Wiki's religion lists more credible and more importantly I think they are more likely to improve as Adherents.com updates kind of sporadically.--T. Anthony 10:20, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Disagree I'm not even going to write down anything other than that it makes me sick to read the great "Izak"'s assertions, which essentially translate to him seeming to think that being Jewish is some kind of curse/shameful secret and that Wikipedia is "exposing" people who want their ethnicity/religion kept underwraps; or his apparent beliefs that if you're American, you basically have to be a Rabbi in order to be considered Jewish. And how exactly is the argument that if you delete the Jewish lists, you have to delete the Italian ones too a red herring? Vulturell 09:52, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Vulturell: Just take a look at your own words here. Firstly, who the heck said anything about me being "great" and what does that have to do with the subject here? Secondly, since I have written hundreds of articles and edited thousands more about Jews and Judaism on Wikipedia how could that mean that I "think that being Jewish is some kind of curse/shameful secret"? I just think that creating LISTS of Jews or placing them in CATEGORIES when done for the remotest reasons and when many of the people in these lists are NOT Jews either according to Judaism or themselves is pure fakery by those editors who view themselves as "authorities" about who is or is not a Jew when all their efforts prove is their ignorance of both Jewish law and Jewish history. Thirdly, I have never said that "if you're American, you basically have to be a Rabbi in order to be considered Jewish" which just reveals how pathetic your attack against me is, if you think that is what I mean. When I say that the List of rabbis is fine, I am not just talking about "American rabbis" but about an identifiable group of famous, well, rabbis -- whereas when you toss in every last celebrity who has absolutely NOTHING to do with Jews or Judaism in any significant or notable way into Category:Jewish American actors you essentialy make a mockery of three groups: Jews, Americans, and actors. Finally, your question about "how exactly is the argument that if you delete the Jewish lists, you have to delete the Italian ones too a red herring" reveals the red herring argument at work, and it shows that you do not comprehend and grasp the contents of the key Jew, Judaism, and Who is a Jew? articles, but instead you have decided that there is now a pseudo-yardstick for identifying, labelling, listing, and categorizing Jews which is to be found in a none other than the Jewish American article which is only a discussion about a phenomenon and was most definitely not created as a definitive "measuring tool" according to Jews or Judaism. Grow up. IZAK 10:25, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
You have not answered my question, and I have a feeling that you are not actually ever going to answer it. How is it a red herring? Do you really think that there is a clear and exact definition for what an Italian-American or an Irish-American is? If you have a mad-on for these types of lists and categories, knock yourself out and nominate ALL of them. This repetetive singling out of Jewish-related ones is just not fair. We can't have a list of Italian-Americans on Wikipedia but NOT have a list of Jewish Americans. No possible justification or explanation can make sense of that. Sure, Jews are different, etc. etc. YES EVERY single ethnic and religious group is different from one another. They all have their own history, accomplishments, tragedies, etc. If anything, Jews are more identifiable as a community because, besides the ethnic/cultural connection which you seem to disregard, there is ALSO a religious connection. Vulturell 19:48, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Vulturell old chap, I have already stated that all lists and categories based on religion and/or ethnicity are simply shoddy and pathetic attempts at recreating a past that is no longer with is in this age of Modernity. In the 21st century, most people in the West view themselves as SECULAR and COSMOPOLITAN (read the articles to understand the concepts behind them). If you haven't noticed, we live in the era following the Age of Enlightenment when much of the Western world has RENOUNCED the very religion and ethnicity you want to re-paint them with (why you are into this, is still a great puzzle). The present "Lists" and "Categories" on Wikipedia are simply not scholarly and definitely not encyclopedic. Why does Wikipedia have to be a glorified data base of worthless gossip of the kind that surrounds modern celebrities? For example, how many of the Category:Jewish American actors are really Jews in a serious fashion worthy of an encyclopedia entry??? Wikipedia can, and should, and hopefully, some day, will do better than recording the religion and ethnic origins of specific people en masse who just don't need or want to be where you are placing them. IZAK 09:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Point still stands, man, no matter how large your font is. "You have not answered my question, and I have a feeling that you are not actually ever going to answer it. How is it a red herring? " Why is it OK to list Italian Americans but not Jewish Americans? Vulturell 15:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
"In the 21st century, most people in the West view themselves as SECULAR and COSMOPOLITAN." Umm no we don't. Even in Western Europe something like 60% identify themselves as a religious person.[2] I agree with a secular state, mostly, but I'd never view myself as secular. (Even then I think churches should be able to state their public opinions and excommunicate/disfellow politicians) Although Wikipedia is fairly secular Category:Jewish Wikipedians or Category:Christian Wikipedians have many names.--T. Anthony 13:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
T. Anthony: If, as you say, that you "agree with a secular state" then it follows that the state represents the will of the people. I am not saying that people have zero religion in their lives, but relative to the times, and compared to the deep Middle Ages, and as a result of the Renaissance most Western people in modern times are highly secularized and do not act religiously in any overt fashion. Religion is at best secondary in the lives of most Westerners if it has any place at all. But this is not the core of the debate, since for most of the Jews in the lists and categories on Wikipedia, Judaism was not something they practiced or identified with strongly at any point in their lives. For example, someone had put the actor Yul Brynner of all people into the category of American Jews because someone claims he had a Jewish grandparent in Siberia!!! Does that a Jew make? Methinks not! However there are crackpots that have decided that anyone who has the word "Jew" connected to them on the Internet, no matter how remotely, it's instantly good enough for them to be classed as "Jews", something that reeks of rank stupidity to any intelligent person. IZAK 14:17, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Can I ask something? Why isn't just being stricter enough, kind of like the original proposal stated. Wikipedia says lists are acceptable if they are contributors to the topic or significant for being known in it. You can put up "verify" tags on these lists and if they don't get the warning after enough time you can do mass AfDs. Likewise get rid of the questionable ones.--T. Anthony 10:44, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Vaguely agree. Most of the listed reasons are ludicrous, and my agreement has nothing to do with Jewishness, but there are other good reasons against List of X that are Y, mentioned by other editors above, especially if Wikipedia is the original source of the compilation. Arbor 11:44, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Broadly agree, but not because of the potential for misuse, however horrible this has proved in the past. Any categorization that is so ill-defined that people can argue endlessly about inclusion or exclusion strikes me as a bad one. Wikipedia likes references; I say at most such categories should be restricted to self-described members with citable references. Same goes for Italian-Americans, gays and lesbians (and straights, for that matter), redheads, country singers, and U.S. presidents. (Okay, scratch the last; that's encyclopedic and uncontroversially verifiable. Well, except for David Rice Atchison. Oh, and maybe Dubya.) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 11:55, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree. Such lists are of encyclopedic interest and the reasons for deleting presented above seem paranoiac (and the rhetoric is presented in a rude manner). Jewishness is an ethnicity as well as a religion for many people and, whether they acknowledge this heritage or not, a non-practicing Jew coming from a Yiddish-speaking Eastern European background (for example) still has this distinct heritage, and this is of interest. Badagnani 12:01, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree. BACbKA 13:08, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree with principles. Delete unlinked or redlinked names in all lists of people. Categories of people with Wikipedia articles whose ethnicity/religion is given in those articles may be retained. That makes it straightforward to maintain such lists and adds no information that isn't already available. I would like to see this proposal rewritten along these lines and not for a specific religious, ethnic, sexual, etc., group. Walter Siegmund (talk) 13:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Strongly disagree with principles. Of course humanity takes precedence over knowledge; thus for example details of how to build a home-made bomb, while perhaps encyclopedic, are inappropriate because of the risk to the public of such knowledge being abused. However I don't believe there is much risk of someone's being victimised by an anti-Semite who found out they were Jewish from reading Wikipedia. There are separate questions (defining Jewishness; Lists vs Categories) worthy of discussion, but the underlying motivation of the proposal I don't endorse and the resulting blanket delete policy is much too crude.
    • As an aside: many of the "Agree-ish" voters seem to want to delete Lists but keep Categories. I would endorse that proposal, but I don't believe that is what is currently being proposed. The current title of the proposal is misleading given its substance. Joestynes 13:57, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree. I'm not convinced by the notability of such lists, being mindful of the precedent they set. Hiding talk 16:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree. The lists and categories are not really useful, since they are based on subjective assessments by other than the individuals themselves. Beyond their lack of real utility, I find these lists and categories not-so-subtly racist and offensive. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 16:48, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Strongly agree per IZAK. 172 13:29, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Strongly Disagree. Let me try to start my argument with as clean a slate as possible. I declare my interests. I am a practising but not very orthodox Jew. I am presently writing a thesis at University College London on the entry of Jews to the music professions in the early nineteenth century. The question of ‘who is a Jew’ is therefore, for me, extremely pertinent.
In fact in my research I frequently come across lists of Jewish musicians. Sometimes they are ‘pro-Jewish’ to demonstrate Jewish cultural contributions, or even supposed Jewish inherent musical ability. Sometimes they are prepared by Jew haters, (such as the Nazi Lexikon der Juden in der Musik of 1941). In almost every case, as it happens, they are full of errors, both of inclusion and of omission. In general they are pretty useless.
However the purpose of a book (or hyperbook) of reference should be, as ShalomShlomo pointed out near the start of this discussion, to provide verifiable information. If people are to be included in a list of Jewish musicians (or artists, or whatever), we should be able to show that they are Jews. As it happens there is an article on ‘Jew’ in Wikipedia: it states:
The word Jew […] is used in many ways, but generally refers to a follower of Judaism, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity; and often a combination of these attributes.
I have no problem with this. If the article ‘Jew’ is allowed to remain in Wikipedia (and why should it not be?) then categories which derive from the definition there should also be allowed, in the same way as lists of Irish, American, Muslim, or African should be. The uses to which wicked people may put such lists is utterly irrelevant. Clearly, if wicked people wish to kill, harm or defame Jews (or Africans or anyone else), they won’t bother looking them up first on Wikipedia, or to cite Wikipedia as a rationale.
Moreover, although I started my researches with an open a mind as possible (and I certainly do not share the view, racist in my opinion, that Jews have any sort of genetic predisposition to musical ability), I do believe that the lives and/or works of many musicians of Jewish origin, even where (as in the case of Felix Mendelssohn) those origins have been renounced, can display some common features which relate to Jewish culture. (I believe my thesis will in fact demonstrate this). But, to take more obvious examples, clearly Jewish life and culture inform the work of Oppenheim, Solomon, Chagall, Soutine and (a personal favourite) Anatoli Kaplan, amongst other artists. It is appropriate and helpful to have a list of Jewish painters so that people can have a chance to understand and assess what they may have in common (and indeed where they differ). Similarly with writers – I surely don’t have to go on producing lists of my own to prove my point…….This is exactly what a work of reference should do.
From the point of view of my own topic, it would also be helpful to have a list of musicians who have been alleged at various times to be Jewish, but definitely are not - maybe including Richard Wagner, Maurice Ravel, Gioacchino Rossini, Manuel García, Cornélie Falcon, Daniel Auber, Max Bruch, Pauline Viardot, Saverio Mercadante,…..damn, I’m getting carried away again……..
Smerus 19:26, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Strongly disagree Let me first say that I think a lot of the Jewish lists are of little or no encyclopedic value and should be modified or deleted. Secondly, I understand the concerns of others, and, I myself have concerns that the listing of living persons on these lists whose Jewish identity may not be common knowledge may be ill advised and, as IZAK said, be doing the dirty work of Anti semitic websites. For that reason I suggest that only deceased persons be included in the lists or those born before a certain date (see my proposal below). However, I think it is an absolute nonsense to say we cannot list people who are notable in Jewish history, which would be the result of this proposal. I believe IZAK is possibly motivated by strict Orthodox beliefs (Halakha) regarding who is Jewish but, really, it is taking things too far to say that if people disagree about who is Jewish then no lists at all should be allowed that contain Jewish people. People also disagree about who can be described as English, Welsh, British, Russian, Ukrainian or Czech. Are we to get rid of all lists containing these people? Arniep 21:40, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
If I am doing a project on Jewish writers, comedians or musicians, lists or categories would be useful to me. It will be up to me as the researcher to work out what effect Jewish culture does or does not have on their work, but if there are no lists or categories I won't be able to find them (on Wikipedia at least). Arniep 19:45, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree As per Irishpunktom Yid613 00:24, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree As per User:Vulturell Nice comments!Robert Taylor 02:14, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree. The Jews constitute a people. Prior to 1948, there was no Jewish state; even since that date, many of us who choose to continue to live in the diaspora, have (whether religious or secular) a strong attachment to Jewish identity. Most of the problems with saying exactly who is ethnically Jewish exist for all ethnic groups in the modern world; many of them are less of a problem for Jews than for most other ethnicities, because there are so many people who, regardless of where they live, are unquestionably Jews. Also, I don't like the notion that nation-state rather than ethnicity becomes such a universal identifier. To speak of a Yiddish-language writer living in Odessa in 1875 as a "Ukrainian writer" borders on misleading, even more so if he emigrated to the United States ten years later and continued writing in Yiddish there. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:10, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Jmabel, no one is debating that the Jews constitute a people. The debate here is the merit of building lists and categories of anyone who ever has the word "Jew" mentioned in an article about them, regardless of if and how that person is Jewish at all. For that reason alone, the lists and categories of Jews as they now stand, as well as similar lists and categories, will never be reliable, and should not be given the "imprimatur" of "validity" by Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not, and should not even appear to be, a kind of cyber-religious court, with a false claim to "neutrality", declaring who is or is not a Jew! IZAK 09:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
IZAK, the possible consequence of your suggestions is that people of significance in the history of the Jewish people cannot be identified as such. If someone is researching Jewish history why should they not have easy access to lists or categories on Wikipedia that contain notable individuals? Why should they have to go to the Jewish Encyclopedia instead? Arniep 13:57, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree. This seems to be a catch-all attempt by some Jewish, and somewhat fundamentalist, editors to remove certain people they do not approve of but consider themselves Jews from any category claiming to list Jews. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 15:46, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree. Per Vulturell. --Vizcarra 18:53, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree. What they said. Kuratowski's Ghost 14:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree I do not like the way IZAK has phrased his argument, but Judaism can't be classified as a simple religion or a culture. According to skeptic Smerus, the view that Judaism is passed down through the mother's bloodline is only 2000 years old. For argument's sake, if that's so and we include people in these lists with only Jewish fathers, we're discounting a 2000-year old view which happens to still be in use by the Orthodox, Conservative, and Traditional movements. Unless there's another proposed solution which can include both this view and the Reform view (i.e. List of Undisputed Jews and a List of People Who Reform and Liberal Jews Believe to be Jews), I'm going with IZAK.
How about the secular, ethnicity-based view? Vulturell 19:32, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
The reason that doesn't work is, despite historical revisionism, that the secular view isn't ethnicity-based, but ignorance-based. If someone says they're Jewish, they're secularly accepted as Jewish. Keep in mind the person who converts to Judaism through a Reform process--I don't consider them Jewish because I believe in halacha, but if they say they're Jewish, they'll convince secular society that they are. Same thing with people with Jewish fathers, but not Jewish mothers. Were there a disclaimer on every page saying, "Orthodox, Conservative, and Traditional Jews do not consider the peoples' with asterixes next to their names to be Jews", that might work, I dunno. The ethnicity-based view doesn't work because, really, not even Reform Judaism accepts that. Reform Judaism officially accepts you as a Jew only if you've been raised as a Jew. According to Reform Judaism, if your mother wasn't Jewish, you weren't raised as Jewish, you don't consider yourself Jewish, but you're father was Jewish...you're still not Jewish. Have a great Shabbos. --Yodamace1 19:45, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Actually the original proposal comes close to that. There's already a template to direct people to the Who is a Jew? article. The original proposal in this discussion encourages introductions, headings, and descriptive text. In a purely hypothetical example, a non-practicing Jewish filmmaker whose work reflected Jewish culture and heritage would go under a differerent heading from a filmmaker whose work might not reflect that heritage but who declined some international award because the presentation ceremony occurred on a religious holiday. Would that approach satisfy you? Durova 20:10, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
To Yodamacel, sorry I think you misunderstood. What I meant was we could have a list strictly from an ethnicity point of view, i.e. one that is explicitly not governed by any of the currently religious Jewish denominations, and let people make up their own minds based on what their own views are. Vulturell 00:28, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
I apologize. I have received 4 proposals, then: Vulturell wishes to have a "ethnically Jewish" page, Durova's asking me if I'd be willing to go with the original proposal, ArnieP (on my Discussion Page) has asked me if I'd be willing to go with a proposal for an Orthodox definition--with possible certain exceptions. From my POV, Vulturell's proposal (with all due respect) is ridiculous. Judaism is not ethnic by any so-called denomination's perspective. Ethnicity is not neutral--it's not considered at all. You might be able to do a List of Famous Hebrew So-and-Sos, but just because someone's Jewish doesn't mean he's a Hebrew (just like a Ford is a car, but a car isn't necessarily a Ford.)--and that would have to be at the top of the list. I don't really understand what ArnieP wants, but I would possibly be willing to go with it and/or Durova's proposal. The problem is that I can't--I'm probably going to stop going on the Wiki tomorrow because I'm moving for about a year to Israel--with G-d's help, that is. I apologize that I couldn't help earlier. I haven't seen the original proposal though, nor have I seen the arguments between the original proposal's propounders and IZAK. But I can't allow there to be an "ethnically Jewish" list for reasons stated above. Therefore, I am going with IZAK's proposal. --Yodamace1 02:31, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
You should say, "for me, there is no Jewish ethnicity." As an example, Ashkenazi Jewish communities lived alongside their non-Jewish neighbors in central Europe for many centuries, rarely intermarrying with non-Jews, and speaking their own language (Yiddish). I'd say that, for this group, this does constitute an ethnic group. Those who are members of that group yet do not practice their religion are ethnically Jewish. There are countless numbers of such individuals in North America and elsewhere. Badagnani 02:36, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Let's say your grandfather on your father's side was Jewish, but your mom isn't Jewish and your parents didn't raise you Jewish. You're not a Jew by any Jewish denomination's definition of the word, but you would supposedly be a so-called "ethnic Jew." I don't believe you can define an "ethnic Jew" that way, because--as just discussed--you're not a Jew. Judaism's a package, you can't--despite historical revisionism--separate "ethnic Jews" and "Jews by religious definition"--it's one deal. You may be of "Hebrew descent." You could do a Hebrew descent list. But you can't do an "ethnic Jew" list. Badagnani, you're attempting to define not the so-called "ethnic Jew", but the secular Jew. Big difference. Orthodox Judaism considers the secular Jew to be Jewish. It doesn't necessarily ascribe Judaism to the so-called "ethnic Jew. --Yodamace1
Hmm, well since you've left it's probably mirthless to add this, but you certainly don't have to have the "whole package", as you've said, to be Jewish in many senses, just like you don't have to be a Catholic to be Italian ethnically and culturally. Many ethnic Jews (or Hebrews, as you've said) consider themselves "Jewish" even if they practice no religion or another religion. And of course, converts to Judaism are certainly considered Jewish, but they don't have the "whole package" because they aren't of Jewish ethnicity. And "Ashkenazi" and "Sephardic" are explicitly ethnic and cultural differences, certainly more than they are religious differences. We have a List of Sephardic Jews on Wikipedia, and that one is done specifically by ethnicity, regardless of nationality. Anyway, the varying opinions on "who is a Jew", make it seem to me like the liberal view that is taken right now is best, so people have the complete information and can make up their own minds based on their own beliefs (since we do have these little notes by each person to explicate their background if they aren't "all Jewish"). Vulturell 06:23, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree. There's very little I can add to the arguments alreaedy made against this proposal. I will say, however, that if this proposal gets adopted, then we better also remove, at the same time, every other list of "ethnic" whatever. I volunteer to take out List of Greek actors; maybe somebody of Italian origin can volunteer to remove List of Italian-American actors. —Chowbok 20:41, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
I could take out Russian-Americans and Russian Jews. They'll never see us coming if strike fast. Vulturell 00:28, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree. Jewish Wikipedians and notables should have every right to be recognized as part of this project and its content. I believe it's discrimination to pinpoint one group and remove all lists in relation to that demographic. If a Jewish Wikipedian wants to be express pride in his Faith or his heritage, let him! If the user wants to remain anonymous or an enigma, let him decide that for himself. In this day and age there is a lot of anti-American sentiment, but we nevertheless identify them with categories, lists, and userboxes, in spite of the legal, physical, or emotional threat that may incite. Эйрон Кинни 20:20, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Hebrew Wikipedia model

  • El_C: It's no good and it's part of the problem! The so-called "Law of Return" has allowed over 300,000 non-Jews to enter Israel in the last twenty years. While it may work for filling Israel's immigration quotas, it's neither a good religious definition (i.e by the standards of Jewish law), nor is it helpful in PROTECTING similar types of human beings who may NOT wish to be identfied as Jews. So for example, a formerly persecuted and presently impoverished Russian with one Jewish grandparent may be desperate for a better standard of life in Israel and will do anything (including presenting false claims) to get there, BUT there are millions of people in the West (many very wealthy and comfortable being out of the "Jewish" limelight) with one Jewish grandparent (not to mention with a Jewish great-grandparent) who are RUNNING fast from being identified as Jews and would strongly resent being "outed" as being "Jewish" when they have never identified as such and have no desire to do so either now or in the forseeable future. So your solution is no good. We are not running the Jewish Agency here and we are not looking to recruit potential Olim ("emigrants to Israel"). We are trying to get out of the business of tagging thousands of people with a cyber-Yellow badge which will not have happy results for them or for Wikipedia given from what see on such sites as Jew Watch, as just one example. IZAK 14:02, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
    To clarify, that isn't, in fact, my solution, it's the Hebrew Wikipedia's. I, myself, do not hold a strong opinion for or against their scheme. El_C 16:55, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

While wikipedia is not in the business of protecting people (even Jews); it is also not on the business of listing non notable people such as everyone who dies in the 9-11 incidents. Being Jewish or Italian or dying in 9-11 does not make one encyclopedia worthy. And if one is encyclopedia worthy, we aren't going to not mention them just to "protect" them. WAS 4.250 21:19, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

  • WAS: Obviously Wikipedia cannot "protect" anyone by either mentioning them or not. The point is, most secularized Jews in the West (i.e. the majority of Jews in the United States), are not connected to either Judaism as a religion and have doubtful, confusing, and unreliable links to Jewish ethnicity through parentage or conversion, and in almost all cases have no wish or desire to be linked to the Jewish people in an open fashion. Therefore it should not be Wikipedia's job to have users serving as self-appointed "snooping dogs" and track down these people and then either insert that information into articles about them or to add them to lists and categories that they (i.e. the VIPs) would never in their wildest dreams place themselves into. This is more about accuracy and relevance, with the added problem that by having these lists and categories of Jews, Wikipedia is also playing into the hands of the Jew Watch types and their ilk. IZAK 08:36, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Absolutely. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the lists existing in the first place, only self-identified Jews should be in them at all. If someone repudiates a religion, why should they be identified as a member of it through some other definition? These categorisations are open to abuse from both sides: those who assert the "taint" of Jewish blood, and those who seek to claim as Jewish people who are not and have never been either practicing Jews, or active members of the Jewish community. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 12:23, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
May I point this discussion to the original proposal? The basic guideline would restrict lists to people whose ethnicity or religion bears a relationship to their work. That takes care of "snooping dogs" of all types. Durova 17:25, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

G. Jewish attributions should be limited to self-described individuals when referring to living people.

Amendment withdrawn. Two new changes to the original proposal discussed in a later section. Durova 00:24, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Another editor raises a very legitimate concern about discrimination that Jews still face in certain parts of the world. To give an example, Canadian journalist Ken Hechtman spent several days as a Taliban prisoner under a possible death sentence in late 2001. After his release he wrote the following for the Montréal Mirror:

The Canadian diplomats told me it had been a slow news week in Canada and my story was on all the front pages. One of those papers, the Journal de Montréal's, outed me as being Jewish. That put an end to my ability to be the Mirror and Straight Goods' man in the mujahideen. In every conversation with Talibs or mujahideen, within five minutes the question of religion comes up, and saying, "My grandparents are..." cuts no ice in this part of the world. [3]

I'd like to remind newcomers to this discussion that the original proposal limits lists to people whose ethnicity or religion was relevant to their career. So no amendment is needed to delete unrelated attributions. Philip Roth would be on a list of Jewish writers because his heritage informs his fiction. This proposal would reject writers whose Jewish identity is incidental to their work, such as Mr. Hechtman's was up until he confirmed it following his release from custody in Afghanistan. Most ethnic and religious lists on Wikipedia are created and maintained by people who belong to a particular group and are interested in its heritage. Editors can delete unsourced or poorly sourced attributions as unverifiable. Durova 23:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Question for you, and a point. Question is, if a writer chooses to keep his heritage private, then how do we know about it? Obviously the people are listed because they mentioned their Jewishness in an interview/media source/etc. We don't hire private detectives to find this info out. At worst, the info is taken from book biographies of (now-dead) people, but for those living, it's purely up to them to mention their Jewishness. That was the question. The point - this whole "Jewish heritage informs work" thing is very subjective. Daniel Handler, who wrote Lemony Snicket, jokingly said that Lemony Snicket was supposed to be Jewish, etc. in a couple of interviews with Jewish publications. But obviously there is no Jewish content in the books. Similarly, what about non-Jewish authors who write books about Jews? Jewish heritage, though not their own, informs their work. And this is just for authors. What about directors? Steven Spielberg may have directed two major movies about Jews, but he also made two about African Americans. Norman Jewison, who is not Jewish, directed the very famous Jewish themed movie "Fiddler on the Roof", not to mention a couple of other movies with Jewish subject matter. And what about actors? If we say Woody Allen's heritage informs his work, fine. But what about Robin Williams? He isn't Jewish but uses Yiddishisms and Jewish humour in his stand-up. What about Jason Biggs (not Jewish) who is famous for playing Jewish characters? Are you saying that a list of Jewish actors should essentially enforce a stereotype, and list actors (who happen to be Jewish) who have played Jewish characters? The whole point of an encyclopedia is to enform, and any good List of Jewish Whatevers should obviously include people who many do not realize are Jewish precisely because they don't adhere to a stereotype or play Jewish characters on screen. I can use the new movie "Match Point" as an example. Its director, Woody Allen, may not be much more of a practicing Jew than its star, Scarlett Johansson (whose mother is Jewish and who wore a Star of David in a couple of pictures), but because he fits a certain "Jewish stereotype" and has made a career out of this, this kind of proposal would list him but not Johansson, because she would never be cast as a stereotypically Jewish character (although she did buy the rights to and is going to play "Marjorie Morningstar", a 1950s-era Jewish woman, in an upcoming film), except for the occasional rarity. Therefore I think such a proposal is not very helpful and we are going to get hundreds of arguments about who belongs or whatnot. Vulturell 23:25, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
This amendment underwent a change and the new version is discussed in a later section. To answer your major points briefly:
  1. I've raised Ken Hechtman as an example of how a person's identity can become verifiable public knowledge without their consent, and how high the stakes can be. See the link to his article for the Montreal Mirror for details.
  2. I encourage explanatory statements and sources with lists, particularly where they clarify and define relevance.
  3. An early stage of this discussion discussed (non-X authors who write about group X) with Robert Bolt, Roman Catholicism, and A Man for All Seasons as an example. In all likelihood his play would appear on a list of Roman Catholic literature but he would not be listed among Roman Catholic authors. If he did appear anywhere on such a list, it would be with an unambiguous statement that he wrote a famous play about a martyred saint but was not himself a Catholic. His name would probably appear under a separate heading to avoid confusion. Apply that reasoning elsewhere as appropriate. Durova 00:24, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree here. I like these various lists, but I see where things are headed here. Besides that limiting it to those whose self-identified religion or ethnicity matters to them does make the lists more useful. I don't think any new special ad-ons is at all needed.--T. Anthony 06:02, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

But is 'self-identification' an unanswerable criterion as against verifiable fact? Example: the French critic Fétis compiled an important musical dictionary in the mid-19th century, which is still a valuable work of reference. Nearly all of Fétis's articles give indications, where known, of the professional background of his entries. The pianist Henri Herz wrote to him and asked him to withdraw the (true) statement that his (Herz's) father had been a Jewish banker. (It seems at the time he was hoping to make a Christian marriage). What would/should Wikipedia do in similar circumstances? (If you want to know what Fétis did, drop me a message).

Smerus 21:22, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what I'd do. If the person didn't want to be listed because they truly rejected being Jewish I think I'd de-list. If it's some kind of ploy to get in good with a family then I might think their reasons dishonest and list out of spite. Now as for the rest I like these lists and find them useful. The hostility to them baffles me and the explanations for it I still find unconvincing. (I mean all religion/ethnicity lists now, not just Jewish ones. I know some Scientologists themselves have expressed discomfort at List of Scientologists because they fear the people will be harrassed for it. I respect that, but think such a list can have some value) Much of my work at Wikipedia has been on religion/ethnicity lists and if they go away I have far less reason to ever come here. Also lists are useful in my own work as you mentioned it was in yours. That said I think there are some of these lists should be stricter. If someon's paternal grandfather is Jewish and they never really knew it this strikes me as fairly irrelevant. It also strikes me as doing people's geneological work for them and although that can be interesting I don't think it's really what this is about. Maybe requiring that they self-identify is going overboard in the other direction, to a degree I think it is, but I'd rather compromise on that then have them all deleted. Added to that I don't take a narrow view of "self-identify." If a person only has a paternal Jewish grandfather and doesn't go to synagogue, but is active in the community in other ways and considers themselves Jewish then leave them in. That kind of thing. I argued for keeping Santayana in List of Catholic authors even though I know full well he was agnostic or atheist, but my reasons were pretty well explained.--T. Anthony 22:40, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
But is 'self-identification' an unanswerable criterion as against verifiable fact? This amendment applies only to living people. It wouldn't affect how editors classify a nineteenth century musician. Durova 17:14, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Proposal to make Jewish lists and categories historical only

(Proposal moved to project page)

Those who agree with the above (project page) presentation, or wish to comment, please sign and add your comments below. Thank you.

  • Oppose I'm sorry but it just seems to me like every proposal here is brought on by the proposer's various interests, not to mention that it only applies to Jewish-related lists and not any other ethnic/religious group. IZAK seems motivated by Orthodox, as well as irritatingly paranoid beliefs, Arniep (per his own admition) is interested in, what it seems like, Jews who died before a certain date. How about we have a proposal that serves ALL interests and acknowledges any possible definition of "Jew", i.e. certainly acknowledging secular, ethnic Jews as "Jewish" is certainly a notable ethnicity. Vulturell 22:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Well I don't really see any encyclopedic value in listing say American sportspeople, actors or pop singers who have a Jewish grandparent as you do. But I do see an encyclopedic connection in literature, philosophy and some areas of the arts as I stated above. Arniep 23:18, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, that may well be true. But the points are: A. there are very few people with just a Jewish grandparent on the lists B. we list people who just have an Italian/Irish/Welsh/Portuguese grandparnet on those lists so C. you're going to have to complain about these lists as a whole and if you want it narrowed down to just a parent, instead of a grandparent (which is certainly not unreasonable) then it would have to be done for every ethnicity list. I am sick and tired of Jews getting "singled out" by people like IZAK, who outright express no interest in any other religion or ethnicity pages, and seem to claim that the Jews are unique - that it's a "Yellow Badge" or some such utter crap to be labeled as Jewish, but hey, it's cool to be labeled an Italian-American or a Mormon. Vulturell 23:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Vulturell: You are free to present and defend your own views on their own merits, BUT it is disgraceful for you to rant and rave against me for this-or-that-imagined belief that I may or may not adhere to. If you think the Holocaust happened to Jews for no special reason, or that anti-Semitism is no longer with us, and that a Jew who worries about such things happening again in the world is "paranoid" then it casts a huge shadow on you and raises serious questions about what you do believe since you are so casual about slapping people with "religion" or "ethnicity" tags as if they were indifferent items on a supermarket shelf for you to do as you please with no repercussions for you to consider and not to be held accountable to anyone. Furthermore, if you assume that I am in any way inferring that "it's cool to be labeled an Italian-American or a Mormon" your words reveal that you enjoy twisting other people's words out of context. IZAK 10:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm not Jewish so I'm a bit nervous how to proceed here. However you really think the Holocaust could happen again? This is a real concern to you? I admit I don't understand this. The world really is different then it was in the 1930s and even then the Nazis were deemed unusual. In most of the Christian nations today people have a mostly positive view of Jews and Judaism.[4] In parts of Eastern Europe things are more negative, but even there it's much weaker than hatred toward several other kinds of foreigners. In the Muslim nations views of Jews are highly negative, but in many cases their Jewish populations were already expelled or they have limited Internet access. Israel has won, or in least not lost, every war they faced with Muslim nations. Still possibly List of Jews from the Arab World could be removed due to this concern, but I just don't understand the rest. Also what about other peoples killed in the Holocaust? Should there be no Category:People with dwarfism or Category:Roma people for similar reasons? In Eastern Europe today Roma generally face worse discrimination than Jewish people do. I read somewhere they couldn't even go to college in some parts of Eastern Europe until the 1990s and often did conceal their identity due to association of them with criminal aspects.--T. Anthony 12:09, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
T. Anthony: I appreciate your honesty. If you lived in Israel and heard the latest rants from the new Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against Israel (he says the Israeli Jews should be sent back to Europe) and his unashamed Holocaust denial added to Iran's open ambition to build a nuclear weapon very soon, you would perhaps begin to understand the fears of many Jews, spoken and unspoken, about another Holocaust happening. It was Saddam Hussein's army that fired Scuds at Israel during the 1991 Gulf War as Israelis huddled in sealed rooms in fear that Saddam's missiles that hit Israel might be loaded with poison gas. This is not fantasy, this is fact. In the United Sates, the Anti-Defamation League keeps track of all manner of rabid anti-Semites chomping at the bit for the day when they could cut loose and do to the Jews what the Nazis did. People on Stormfront and Jew Watch openly admire Hitler and his "treatment" of the Jews. It's not a pretty prospect, and many people would prefer to ignore all this, but it not only stares one in the face, it's also in the news all the time. Most Jews are aware of rising anti-Semitism in the world today in spite of the comfortable life most of them lead in Western countries. IZAK 13:15, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
I hope I'm not assuming too much of the average Wikipedian when I say that anyone who follows international news should be pretty familiar with those facts. As someone who has done a reasaonable amount of traveling (sixteen countries, some of them Muslim) I've seen the distinctive features of several cultures. I also hope that Wikipedia can address the issues you raise with a less radical solution than the mass deletion of a group of lists and categories. Durova 09:21, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
When it comes to Mideast nations I did consider that. However I think some people were aware of in least some of these concerns. I voted to delete List of Jewish criminals and supported deletingList of Jewish bankers because both seem to open themselves up strongly to Anti-Semitism. Possibly lists of Jews in politics and in Mideast nations could also be removed. I guess I'm just kind of sad if things are still so bad you can't be in the same position as homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and other Nazi victims. I guess I just assumed this stuff had become fringe outside the Mideast.--T. Anthony 13:32, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
As an aside, it was the List of Jewish bankers AfD discussion that started me on the path to this proposal. That vote was a hard call for me. Early in the discussion several editors voted to delete and expressed the strong suspicion that the list represented anti-Semitism. Later on the editors who created it voiced an appeal to keep: they had restricted it to historic figures mostly from the nineteenth century and seemed to have put a good deal of work into creating something positive. I voted to delete. That was the first time I offered List of Methodist dentists as an example. I just couldn't see a relevant connection between banking and Judaism. Durova 09:21, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
As I said above there is also endless argument about who is included in the Russian, Ukrainian or Czech lists, but we are not proposing these for mass deletion. Arniep 23:18, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps when we are considering who should be included, we should use a suitable authority as a guide i.e. the Jewish Encyclopedia. Arniep 23:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
That's a great idea! Also, please bring in the Italian-American Encyclopedia", "The great guide to Roman Catholics" and the "Armenian Handbook" for those lists. Vulturell 23:43, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Sorry but the Jewish Encyclopedia is considered authoritative contrary to the impression you are trying to give (see the first few paragraphs of the article). Arniep 23:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Apology accepted! The Jewish Encyclopedia may well be accurate when it comes to historic Jews, but it has little to no information about living Jewish people. Vulturell 00:00, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
It seems one of the main problems here is that of labeling. I don't think anyone can seriously suggest that Felix Mendelssohn has no place in Jewish history, so, perhaps lists or categories could be created i.e. People in Jewish history, Category:People in Jewish history. Arniep 00:14, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
If there's a problem of labeling it has to extend to every ethnic and religious group. You can't sinlge out Jews and claim the problem only exists when it comes to Jewish people. The term Jewish History is misleading - what is exactly considered History? Some could claim that the 1990's are history as well. Mendelssohn is certainly notable and I would expect to see him on a list of Jews with a notation regarding his conversion, but obviously he is not famous for being Jewish, or for being a converted Jew, so I'm not sure if he's exactly notably under "Jewish History" of any kind. Vulturell 00:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm...not sure. There really are issues of identification with Jewish people that are different then most, but by no means all, other groups. There are some exceptions to that. To some degree I think Parsis are both a religious and ethnic group. To a lesser extent that might even be truth with say List of Sikhs in that Sikhism is strongly linked to the Punjab and Punjabi culture. However in those cases there is only a single list of those groups so the issue is more muted. Although interesting and perhaps resolving disputes I'm not sure this idea is very useful. If one wanted an understanding of contemporary issues in Judaism or Jewish intellectual culture it could be stifling. Be that as it may, and mentioning how I agree Jewish people have some differences, I think we're getting bogged down in proposals concerning this. Something needed to be said as it's a different situation, but if this whole centralized discussion is only about Jewish lists then I think something is going haywire.--T. Anthony 00:27, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
This is the crux of the matter. Mendelssohn may have been of Jewish descent, but if I recall correctly he was brought up a Lutheran, his father having repudiated Judaism. So to claim Mendelssohn as Jewish sounds like revisionism. Handel is generally described as English although he was born in Germany; Mrs Saxe-Coburg Gothe is usually considered English, and Philip Mountbatten is not generally characterised as a Greek except in satire. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 08:27, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
What is to prevent a list from containing a parenthetical citation after each name, stating such deviations from self-identifying/non-repudiated Jewishness (esp. for those of Jewish heritage who, for whatever reason, do not identify with this heritage, at least the religious aspect)? Mendelssohn is a bad example to bring up, because he does come from a long Jewish heritage (with a noted Talmudic scholar for a grandfather), one from which he could never fully dissociate himself during his lifetime (nor did he wish to). Badagnani 08:39, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
The point is it is ludicrous to say that Felix Mendelssohn has no place in Jewish history. User:IZAK is basically throwing the baby out with the bath water by saying that because reform, secular and some Orthodox Jews disagree with strict Orthodox Jews on who is Jewish there should not be any lists of people that are notable in the history of the Jewish people. This is just nonsense and it is a proposal that frankly if implemented is going to make Wikipedia look rather silly. Arniep 09:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Who is saying he has "no place in Jewish history?" The issue is this: according to my reading of the available evidence, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy never practiced Judaism, did not use his Jewish family name (preferring Bartholdy in all correspondence) and was brough up a Lutheran by a father who had repudiated Judaism. To claim him as Jewish sounds like revisionism. It's a bit like adding me to a category of French Wikipedians because my mother's family are descended from Huguenots. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 09:48, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, this is complete misinformation. Mendelssohn used "Mendelssohn" for his music, otherwise we wouldn't know him as that. He was very popular in his time under that name. Further, his father chose assimilation in order to achieve a higher social status. Mendelssohn clearly could, and did not dissociate himself from his long and proud Jewish heritage in the way that many American Indians in the USA today are Christian and do not speak their native language, yet remain Indian. Because the dominant culture's hegemony forced them into these positions does not mean that their ancient heritage is instantly negated. See also the following paragraph:
When Felix was a teenager, his parents were finally baptized as Lutherans. They also took the name Bartholdy and dropped the name Mendelssohn. They wanted Felix to do the same. Felix was always an obedient, well-mannered, and compliant son, but here he drew the line. His father, in fact, ordered calling cards for him with the name, “Felix M. Bartholdy.” Felix refused to use them. He insisted on retaining the name Mendelssohn. His father remonstrated with him by arguing: “There can’t be a Christian Mendelssohn any more than there can be a Jewish Confucius.” Nonetheless, Felix held his ground.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Mendelssohn2.html Badagnani 10:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

May I suggest that a person may have more than one identity? Tiger Woods could fit onto a list of Asian-Americans as well as a list of African-Americans. I suggest elaborating the distinctions through subheadings, explanatory statements, and references. Durova 00:31, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Proposal must be in effect for every possible list

Any proposal that we end up coming up with would have to be effective for any possible list by religion or ethnicity. I am sick and tired of Jews getting "singled out" for deletion, being labeled as "different" from any other ethnic and religious group. The people who do this claim they wouldn't mind seeing other ethnicity lists deleted too, yet they never take any steps to do so or mention that in their proposal. The above writings by Izak seem to share the POV that it's "Jews" versus "Everyone else" (i.e. every other ethnic group combined) and that it's not OK to mention the ethnic background or religion of Jewish people unless they are highly religious or it could be "exposing" them, but there's no problem with the mention of ethnicity or faith of any other group (i.e. "Are the living "Jews" in those lists and categories being Emailed for permission to list them as Jews?" Are the Italian-Americans being e-mailed with permission to list them as Italian-Americans? Do you care?). We have to come up with a proposal effecting EVERY SINGLE ethnic and religious group, otherwise it is blatantly taking up a POV towards a certain group. This singling out of Jews as a unique group is most assuredly a form of POV. Vulturell 23:56, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with much of this, but I have to say something on one thing. As I recall more than a third of the Catholic lists were deleted in a mass-deletion. To get a sense of this look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2005 November 17#List of Europeans which has listed Catholic and Jewish lists put up for deletion. I created a few lists that served the purpose of some deleted ones, but I had to get much stricter to do that successfully. For example List of Roman Catholic Church musicians has a standard intensely higher than the "List of Catholic musicians" or "List of Catholic composers" did. Even List of Catholic authors was put on deletion even though Catholic writing should, or in least can, be an obvious connection.--T. Anthony 00:40, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
I should add something. That makes it appear that List of Catholic scientists survived, but in fact it did not. They accepted, grudgingly, my recreating that as a redirect to List of Christian thinkers in science.--T. Anthony 00:44, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Having dozens of lists of supposedly Jewish people who have never practiced Judaism is also singling Judaism out. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 09:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Judaism is a more complex issue than most religions or ethnicities. It doesn't surprise me that this has become a particular topic of discussion. That said, I'm moving toward expanding my guideline about self-identification. Durova 18:06, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with using self identification as a strict rule. Mendelssohn did not describe himself as a Jew or Jewish as far as I am aware but as Smerus has said elsewhere he probably did consider himself to be part of a wider Jewish community and Jewish culture influenced his ideas and work. Arniep 19:34, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Actually this wouldn't change Mendelssohn's classification at all. This part of the proposal applies only to living people. What I mean by the above is an objection to "outing" people of whatever group. Common sense applies to what constitutes "outing." Such examples are usually unverifiable. In instances where the evidence meets normal verifiability standards, I lean toward waiting for the person's own public declaration of an identity before applying any other standard. Madonna doesn't necessarily become Jewish by self-identification. I'll leave that thorny issue to other editors. What I'm saying is, definitely remain silent until a living individual self-identifies. Then hash it out. Does that sound fair? Durova 23:36, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Madonna is not Jewish. And I mean she specifically has stated that although she is a Kabbalah follower, she is not Jewish. Vulturell 23:40, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Then I amend the example. If she were to convert, and did not convert by the most strict definition, then her decision to stop performing on Friday nights would be relevant to her career in a vaguely analogous way to - dare I suggest this? - Sandy Koufax's refusal to pitch in the opening game of the World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur. Of course in other ways the two celebrities are about as different as they could be. Durova 00:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Here is the specific article about Madonna's self-identification as non-Jewish [5]. It's discussed because a media source called her "Jewish", which is interesting relating to our topic. Honestly though, I have no problem with this term "self-identification" in this case. Most of the time it's pretty cut and dry. When it comes to Jewish actors at least, the only reason we know about their Jewishness, however partial, is because they mentioned it somewhere. To use a random example, actress Laura Prepon calls herself a "total mutt - half Irish Catholic and half Russian Jewish". So I would put her under the categories Irish-Americans, Jewish Americans, and the lists for them both. Does that sound reasonable to you? Vulturell 00:10, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
From me as an individual? No objection. Some Orthodox Jewish editors would probably ask whether the Jewish part of her heritage comes from her mother's side or her father's side. Durova 08:58, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Vulturell: You know it is totally amazing, here is someone (Laura Prepon) who calls themselves a "mutt" and you right away think it's some sort of glorified license or green light to go ahead and place this poor damsel into a serious so-called ENCYCLOPEDIC list or category that labels her "Jewish" with an air of "definitivenes" (by you). By what right do you get to decide that her statement "makes" her Jewish? Your brazen miscalculated, miscalculating, misguided and muck-raking chutzpah knows no bounds. Furthermore, that you even choose such an example to "illustrate" how you operate, creates serious questions about what is going on in your mind if you think that an example about Jews self-identifying can be conveyed by mentioning a "mutt" (like your example of poor Laura Prepo). You then have the gall and temerity to accuse me that I "seem to share the POV that it's 'Jews' versus 'Everyone else' " when you present such a sick "example" and then you ask and expect the world to accept it as "encyclopedic". Shame on you. IZAK 09:45, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

IZAK, name calling really isn't productive. Vulturell was asking a question for guidance. Wikipedia's single category lists of people by ethnic background are generally pretty open about including famous people. Assume good faith. When someone is half Irish or half Russian or half (nearly anything other than Jewish) and self-describes with that group, it isn't a loaded issue to categorize them according to their own public statement. As important as the issue of Jewish identity may be to you, it's not necessarily well known outside the Jewish community. Durova 10:45, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Durova: When someone like Vulturell, with zillions of files about people's ancestry available to him, cites and quotes as an example a person who called themselves a "mutt" to prove that person's part-"Jewish" ancestry, it is a highly provocative and dehumanizing move, literally. Who appointed him the dog catcher of the world's religious and ethnic "mutts" (to use his frame of reference)? Anytime any minor or major personage utters the word "Jew" or "Jewish" within earshot of a microphone they are in danger of being "recorded for posterity" on Wikipedia's lists and categories of Jews, which is all pretty sick if you think about it. That is why I propose that all lists and categories of Jews on Wikipedia be done away with, because they attract and reveal the wrong kind of attention that was paid to them somewhere along the line. You know, Hitler hated the Judeo-Christian heritage and therefore harbored a hostility to Christianity as well, to a large degree, so perhaps that should somehow serve to make "Christians into Jews" because Hitler saw the Judeo-Christian connection as unforgivable? There are no end to the crazy possibilities if one ignores what Jews and Judaism had once taught, but is now lost in the confusing cacophony of conflicting definitions of Jewish ethnicity and by the various Jewish denominations. IZAK 11:18, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Even if you feel Vulturell provoked you that doesn't mean you have to just go with it. I think this is getting overheated. Although I had some difficulties with Durova's initial views at this point I think he(is it a he?) is about the most sensible one here. Although Jewish lists do need a bit of extra-thought I think mostly the initial proposal should be the main discussion. We can maybe deal with Jewish lists separately later. And on a side issue I think you should concede defeat on the idea of eliminating all the Jewish categories. I really think it's undermining your point and I don't think it has much support. Especially as we do have categories for other disputed or persecuted peoples like Category:Jehovah's Witnesses, Category:Roma people, Category:Native American people, Category:Gay, lesbian or bisexual people, etc.--T. Anthony 21:32, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Let's suppose a high school senior is planning a term paper and wants to compare the fiction of two Jewish authors. If they visit Wikipedia today they'd have an easy time locating names, biographical data, and perhaps summaries of major works. If Wikipedia implemented your proposal then the ease of reference would be lost. Wouldn't you prefer a less severe solution? One that leaves information available for legitimate research? Durova 13:59, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
IZAK- The lists only reflect the "wrong" kind of attention paid to Jews when viewed through the lens that identifying Jews who aren't obviously or "overtly" Jewish is inherently negative, either presently or in the future. Isn't part of the whole point of this grand experiment to have ongoing interaction occuring between various editors contributing (and editing) each other's information? You seem to be one of the only people here who perceives listing people as Jewish to be an almost definite act of victimization or hostility. Why you would assume that the majority of subjects of the articles themselves are embarassed or concerned about being identified as Jewish, or that the editors who contribute such information have negative motivations, is really beyond me. Is it not perhaps more reasonable to assume that both subjects and editors are probably neutral on the issue of Jewishness, unless we know otherwise? What are you basing these assumptions on, aside from your own opinions about (not necessarily imediately identifiable) American Jews?
It is you who is proposing that a certain kind of information is automatically invalid or tainted, simply because you happen to feel that this knowledge has the potential to come back to bite people in the butt, or is inherently unencyclopedic. It is no more "muck-raking" to add information about someone's ethnicity than some other biographical tidbit. Suggesting that there is something inherently inappropriate in this behavior seems quite arbitrary and, frankly, confusing. Example: let's say that in the same interview, Prepon mentioned her theater alma mater. Someone feels this is relevant to her page and puts it down. Maybe they add her to a list of graduates. Seems reasonable. But hey, how do we know if she wants to be affiliated with her alma mater? Maybe they don't want to be affiliated with her? Maybe she doesn't really "identify" as a graduate of this place, etc...? For all we know, this place is a total clown (theater) college and "outing" her as a graduate of it could get her blacklisted from future job opportunities. We have no way of knowing any of this information, and it's ridiculous to assume it out of hand. We can't know these things, and it seems somewhat unreasonable to unecessarily limit the kind of information we put down here simply because some contributors think that the people in the articles might not like it. We don't have these issues about celebrities with learning disabilities, or who are from a specific country. Should we not list famous Polish-Americans because some of them might be embarassed to be of Polish ancestry? Where does this end? How far out should we extrapolate and second-guess ourselves? How much imaginary "consent" should we require? Are we going to send out forms to celebrities to get them to "approve" their articles? What happened to editors being responsible (and self-policing) and submitting information already in the public domain? Why argue that any of these pieces of trivia, and that's really what they are, are necessarily more un-encyclopedic, much less sick? How is it sick to contribute what's basically neutral information from a reliable source? It's not like these are lists of accused child molestors.
And I'm sorry to say it, but I for one think that suggesting Wikipedia operate according to the guidelines of "what happens if White Supremacists take over the US" is ridiculous and paranoid. Speaking of ridiculous, major mazel tovs on your "Without halakha, anyone Hitler hated is a Jew" straw man. ShalomShlomo 08:13, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

New proposal on general principles for lists by religion-ethnicity and profession

(Pecher's proposal) Those who agree with the above (project page) presentation, or wish to comment, please sign and add your comments below. Thank you.

  • Strongly agree. Much disagreement, ambiguity and conflict could be resolved if, as proposed, we keep the Jewish lists as they are now (with a "Jew" being a Jew ethnically and/or religiously), and a seperate list of adherents to Judaism. I support this proposal. The proposal to delete the Jewish lists is ridiculous. Yid613 09:35, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Yid613: See my response to you above. Thank you. IZAK 10:55, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree this seems a perfectly sensible option. As for Jewish lists, could we not name them something along the lines of List of adherants to Judaism and List of Jewish Nationals (needs rewording but its the best I can think of atm) Jcuk 10:59, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree. There is something wrong with lists of people by any arbitrary classification: unless the list has encyclopaedic content (such as listing the dates of birth and death, or sorting by the number of major tournaments won, in the case of sports people) a category is much better since it is largely self-maintaining.
There is aso a problem with lists by ethnicity, in that some ethnic groups claim for theior own anybody with even the most tenuous connection. This may be politically motivated (see Moldova for the riots which can be caused by competing definitions of ethnicity) or it might be ethnic pride or whatever. Should Handel be classified as a German composer? Should Holst be categorised as Swedish?
Categorising by profession is uncontentious provided that the person was self-identified as such
Lists of lists are problematic to me at least (and I don't think I'm alone in this). If there are lists of lists, it is a clear indication to me that we should be using hierarchical categories instead.
Finally I have a major problem with the idea of "ethnic Jews" which is implicit here. Partly because I have the same problem with lists of black foo - I know of no evidence of any ethnic correlation of any particular skills - but mainly because the definition of "ethnic Jews" is open to interpretation according to individual agenda. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 11:31, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
The problem is is that arguing these lists can be replaced by categories does not hold as User:IZAK attempted to delete all of those too. The result of what you are saying is that important figures in Jewish or black history cannot be classified as such in a category or list. Yet, people who were tied to a more fixed "nationality" such as French, or British can be. This would clearly be a nonsense. Arniep 11:45, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to add that lists have an advantage over categories in this type of situation. A list can offer an introductory statement, organize into subheadings, and include explanatory statements and references. Categories are limited to the most basic functions performed by lists. So lists are better than categories at addressing overlapping, ambiguous, nuanced, or disputed group membership. Durova 01:11, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
It's not about correlating ethnicity to a particular skill. It's a reference for a specific historical or cultural phenomenon. There are already articles on the Negro Leagues or Jewish music. Lists keep articles like that from being cluttered by too many names. In cases where they can't relate to any real article then you can go delete, but otherwise this listophobia is almost inevitably going to lead to articles being overwhelmed by a bunch of names.(Although I consider lists to also be articles. A great deal of work is put into defining and explaining the use of some lists. Just "delete them all" basically dumps on, in some cases, years of effort) Added to that Arniep is correct that Izak is afraid all categories will also be used for nefarious purposes. By removing both if you have legitimate interest in knowing Jewish musicians or what have you you are basically out of luck. Although it's likely not his intent there's a small vibe of "Gentiles can't be trusted" or enough of us can't be trusted that stuff like this should go.--T. Anthony 12:24, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Why should there be any special problem with the definition of "ethnic Jew'? A definition of any ethnicity - well, not just definitions of ethnicity, but pretty much anything in the world, including data on climate changes - is open to "interpretation according to individual agenda." Why single out the definition of "ethnic Jew'? Again, the point of the proposal is to establish some general principles to avoid reverting to the issue of Jewish lists time and again.--Pecher 13:57, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Strict Orthodox Jews strongly believe in Jewish law and its application. Anyone who is not a practicing Orthodox Jew, they believe, cannot call themselves a Jew. So, strict Orthodox Jews do not believe that secular or reform Jews have a right to call themselves Jewish. This is obviously a slightly extreme position and would prevent people whjo we commonly think of as Jewish being considered as such. This disagreement has already been discussed on list of Jews which I believe is how the article Who is a Jew? came about and it was agreed to annotate lists to indicate in what way a person is considered Jewish. Arniep 14:13, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Orthodox Jews do not believe that secular or reform Jews are not Jews. The Halakhic view is that a Jew is a child of a Jewish mother or a person, who passed through an Orthodox procedure of conversion. From this perspective, people born Jewish cannot cease to be Jewish even if they renounce their identity or convert to another religion.--Pecher 15:32, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
OK, thanks for clarifying. So actually there is less disagreement about who is Jewish if that is the case. Arniep 15:53, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Just to clarify: I do not mean that there is no problem in defining "who is Jewish." I simply point out that the definition of "Jew' is not unique in being problematic; there are also arguments as to "who is Ukrainian", "who is Russian", or "who is Polish".--Pecher 15:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
On a related note, conversions to Judaism are relatively common in North America. Approximately 5000 people a year convert in the United States. The largest subset of that group is non-Jewish women who marry Jewish men. This presents problems of definition because many of those converts do not convert to Orthodox Judaism. Hence, Orthodox Jews may not consider these women or their children to be Jewish. It's a bit simple to paint this in broad strokes. Some Orthodox individuals and congregations are more accepting than others. In general I suggest resolving matters of overlapping identity or conflicting definition through subheadings, explanatory statements, and sources. A person can have multiple identities. Durova 01:22, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
The main ones I've heard on this are "Who is an American Indian?" and "Who is an Arab?" On Indians there have been many Impostors and also people who claim partial ancestry to gain work in acting or New Age mysticism. The second I learned a great deal about while doing that paper on the Sudan. The northern Sudanese call themselves Arabs. Many Arabs, and even some northern Sudanese, think that's some kind of self-deception. That they are partially Arab, but mostly a mix of other mostly African groups. To "Sudanese Arabs" the idea of being "black" can be deeply offensive and unacceptable. The Arab League came to define an Arab as one who shares the language, culture, and "glory" with glory being a tad unspecified. That said I think Jewish people are still one of the only groups in the West where the term can mean a culture, an ethnicity, or a religion. Some American Indian tribes do indicate you can be adopted into them, although others don't, but none of them really think you can convert. The Arab League definition might allow a person to "convert to being Arabic", but in practice the idea never comes up. I think questions occur in several groups, but the Jewish situation is somewhat unique. Even with the Parsis, somewhat relational as religion/ethnicity, they do not allow conversion and neither does most Zoroastrianism. Lists related to them have included converts, but so far orthodox BPPish Zoroastrians haven't been on Wikipedia to object to that.--T. Anthony 22:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
The idea that because Izak wants to remove categories, then categories will be removed, is interesting. I think very few people would disagree with someone being categorised by ethnicity where that ethnicity has been of paramount importance to them (e.g. Martin Luther King). - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 23:22, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Hey, just follow the discussions, that's all. IZAK 12:12, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely Disagree.

In the proposal’s second sentence there is a fatal error: when principles have been established, there should be no ‘special’ case for Jews – principles are principles. It is better to have no guidelines at all until we can find some which can be generally applicable, without need of argument or specious application.

There is also a serious problem of category in this proposal. It stems from the circumstance which Pecher rightly points out, that we do not have in English convenient words for distinguishing ‘Jews by ethnicity’ and ‘Jews by faith’. There is also, in fact, a third category ‘Jews by ethos’ – expressed by the Yiddish word ‘Yiddishkeit’ – that is Jews by ethnicity who, whilst not practising the religion, are happy to identify themselves with Jewish traditions and behaviour. Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy and his son Felix, who have been quoted above with gay abandon by some as having nothing to do with Judaism, in fact frequently used Yiddish words amongst themselves (in their correspondence) and a high proportion of their close personal friends were Jews by birth, many of whom had converted, like Abraham, as much for reasons of convenience as on principle.

Thus, whilst (say) Bellow, Roth and I. B. Singer are all American writers, they are also all Jewish writers, even though only Singer was in any way a practising Jew. (Moreover, Singer is a Yiddish writer as well). There is a case perhaps for having ‘Jewish religious writers’ (e.g. Maimonides, Moses Mendelssohn, Louis Jacobs) as a category separate from ‘Jewish secular writers’ to sort out the believers from the culturally aligned. But for music, painting, etc. there is no meaningful division to be made on these lines – unless we go for something clumsy like ‘Jewish cultural painters/musicians/ whatever’.

But whilst every Jew, either by faith or by ethos, is Jewish by ethnicity, not every Jew by ethnicity is necessarily easily classifiable as a member of one of these subgroups – they may not categorise themselves as Jews at all. Such Jews themselves fall into two groups – those who are regarded (despite their own perceptions of themselves) as Jews, and those who are not.

Let us consider Karl Marx for example. His Jewish ethnicity is important, even though he regarded it as irrelevant, because others considered him to be a Jew and reaction to his ideas has undoubtedly been coloured by that perception. To deny that Marx is ‘Jewish’ in some sense would therefore present an unacceptable obstacle to discussing the history of his thought. And of course the Nazi period has numerous dramatic examples of people, like Victor Klemperer, suddenly discovering that their Jewish origins make a big difference. Klemperer’s diaries are essential to an understanding of Jewish identity, although Klemperer himself thought his ‘Jewishness’ an absurd irrelevance.

Yet under this proposal, Victor Klemperer, Karl Marx, Felix Mendelssohn, Philip Roth, Kafka and many others would not be ‘listable’ as Jews. This cannot be right.

As an opposite case, consider the music critic Eduard Hanslick. As it happens, his mother was Jewish. Richard Wagner taunted him for this. And yet there is no aspect of Hanslick’s lifestyle or writing which could be accounted Jewish in any way. He made fun of Wagner’s jibe and it does not seem to have disturbed him at all. I should say therefore that there is no reason to include Hanslick in any Jewish list. Similarly, Johann Strauss II had a Jewish grandfather – he never sought to disown his origins, he used occasional Judeln in his own conversation, but never displayed the slightest interest in Jews or Judaism whatever. Clearly not a candidate for a list of Jews, I should say.

Whether anyone is shrewd enough to design a set of rules to cover all these possibilities remains to be seen: the present proposal is not the one to go for.

Smerus 14:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Why would Karl Marx et al. not qualify for the list? I think I have stated explicitly that "it is acceptable to include a person into the list when that person is Jewish either by ethnicity or by religion." Ethnic, but not religious Jews, like those you listed, will qualify then.--Pecher 15:23, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
I am unclear then about what you mean by your standard 'for inclusion of people on the list of people by religion'. Are you saying that the term 'Jewish' is not be considered as denoting (purely) a religion, so that part 2 of your proposal would not apply to it? This has not seemed to me to be explicit in your proposal - but if it is the case, I would not object to the proposal, even though it does effectively condone in some of the lists a somewhat confusing mix of the sacred with the secular. Apologies if I have misunderstood you.

Smerus 16:12, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, of course, "Jewish" stands for both ethnicity and religion, so the second part of the proposal would apply only in case we wish to create a list that will include only religious Jews, e.g. List of Hassidic Jews.--Pecher 17:46, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

This being the case I withdraw my objections and would tend to agree Pecher's proposals - Smerus 14:10, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Agree I have no problem with this proposal, it seems fair. But it needs to go into more detail as to the extent of a person's ancestry in listing them - i.e. do we list people with a xxx grandparent, or do we stop at parent? IZAK was agonizing about Yul Brynner being in a category of American Jews up above, because he had a Jewish maternal grandfather, but of course IZAK did not care to remove or object to Brynner's inclusion in the category "Swiss-American people", because Brynner has a Russianized Swiss paternal grandfather, who was probably a lot less Swiss culturally then Brynner's other grandfather was Jewish (this information is from Brynner's son's book, btw). Such is the double standard that I have to face here, every day. That's why we need a strict cutoff point - me and editors working on similar pages usually accept using a "grandparent rule", it seems reasonable because a grandparent would have enough influence on a person ethnically/religiously/culturally/etc. This is the kind of thing we need to discuss, and it needs to be functional for every ethnic group, btw. Oh, and of course Marx, etc. would be on the lists. If a famous Italian-American Catholic writer was converted by his parents to Judaism at age 5, any Italian-American list with a brain in its head would list this person, because he is still an ethnic Italian, no matter what faith he practices. The same goes for ethnic Jews. Vulturell 16:46, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
The "grandparent rule" sounds like a useful standard for some but not all situations. A longstanding Moroccan tradition reinforces cultural ties by marrying the royal heirs to Berber women. The royal family defines itself as Arab because they trace their ethnicity through the male line. Malcolm X had one white grandparent but completely rejected that part of his heritage. Unless United States government policy has changed, it takes one great-grandparent to register as a member of a Native American tribe. Under the old Jim Crow definition, a single great-grandparent was enough to qualify as an octaroon and bring the full weight of discriminatory laws. A person who has one Japanese parent may self-identify with that heritage and culture through family ties, but would be unlikely to gain full acceptance within Japanese society. These are some of the reasons why I prefer flexible definitons. Durova 02:16, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Vulturell: Go ahead make Yul Brynner into a Jew, so what, then you can make Colonel Sanders, Uncle Sam, Abraham Lincoln and General Burnside into Jews while you are at it with your "research" because, hey, you know, they had nice bushy hair, or beards and even sideburns on their faces just like good ol' Moses had, right? As P. T. Barnum said, "There is a sucker born every minute" as he lured people into his Circus, it's just that I refuse to go along with the circus you have created with all the Jews' lists and categories -- as well as dabbling in the ethnic and religious backgrounds of any celebrity that has walked on the face of the Earth. As the "good lady" said in the Wizard of Oz (you know she was Jewish too, right? ) : "What a world!" (Oh, by the way, what the heck is "Swiss-American"? Is that something like Swiss cheese, a cross between Switzerland and cheese? -- Just keep on making things up, the world, according to you, has a hidden hunger for neologism's it seems. Yum-Yum, "Russianized Swiss-Americans" for breakfast and "Jewish American Actors" for dinner. What's for lunch, anything normal? ) IZAK 11:59, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
If we change this to "the grandparent test" and offer caveats, I do think it would be adequate for many other ethnicities. I'd like to follow this with a question for Vulturell: what would you propose for United States citizens of English ancestry? Few of these people would meet the grandparent rule. Some of these families have lived in the United States for close to four centuries. Due to shared language and cultural overlap there's not much they can do to explore their heritage. (Watch Benny Hill reruns?) Yet this is still an ethnic identity. Durova 20:30, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes it certainly is an ethnic identity, and I've been trying best as I could to fill up the category "English Americans" (not to be condused with the all-purpose term "WASP", which covers many ethnicities). Well, the large majority of these people are either A. been here so long that they are mixed with other ethnicities, including obviously other Anglo-Saxon origin groups (do note that Scottish, Irish, and Welsh Americans have their own separate categories and groups) or B. even if they do have a grandparent of English ethnicity they would rarely note it so C. "English Americans" is limited mostly to - English immigrants with US citizenship or people who have an English immigrant grandparent (see Britney Spears). There are certainly those long-term American people who identify themselves as of "English descent" and I would categorize them so, i.e. William Holden, Walt Disney, etc. so this ethnicity standard is certainly stretched to the English ethnic group. Vulturell 00:28, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
That sidesteps the question. Do you see the cultural bias that I perceive in that formulation? Welsh, Scottish, and Irish descent is Celtic and therefore "ethnic." English descent, past the point of a grandparent, is a sort of black hole. At least in North America it's presumptively "dominant" even though it's numerically smaller than several other ethnic identities and some of the poorest rural areas in the United States are populated by people of English heritage. Their music reflects English folk tradition, their dialects reflect historic English speech patterns, and some of their customs reflect historic English customs. Yet people tend to deny them a comparable group identity to - say - Cajuns. I presented this as a challenge because it usually escapes discussion. Durova 02:29, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Well I have no problem here, in fact I'm glad that you're acknowledging this group because I've gotten a lot of flack for categorizing people as "English Americans", by editors who claimed that these long-time Americans have no relation at all to England; I'm glad you disagree. Anyway I'm certain that Category:English Americans is incomplete (obviously), but as time goes I hope it is filled out more. The main problem seems to be that the subjects themselves are rarely mention this heritage, probably because they are almost never asked about it. Vulturell 02:35, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
As a thoroughly anecdotal side note, it's reasonably commonplace in some of those rural areas to have a Cherokee ancestor somewhere on the family tree. People who are almost entirely English by descent and who wouldn't qualify for Cherokee tribal membership often cherish that small part of their heritage. I suspect it grants an identity they're otherwise denied. Durova 08:41, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Question Could you elaborate this more in relationship to the original proposal? This seems to focus on the amendments. The discussion here was pretty quiet and harmonious for two weeks until a long and hotly worded addition appeared. I spent about a month drafting the proposal before opening this discussion. I'd like to move toward consensus. Your proposal seems pretty close to mine in spirit. Is there a way to formulate your idea into a friendly amendment? Or perhaps create a new joint proposal? Durova 01:05, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Let me put it this way: I do not view lists by religion-ethnicity and profession in and by themselves. If we have some overarching list, say a list of people by ethnicity, then lists by ethnicity and profession can be created: not because they are of encyclopedic interest by themselves, but because they can improve navigation through the overarching list, which certainly has encyclopedic value. Thinking from this perspective we can easily avoid the most thorny issue: in what cases do lists of people by religion-ethnicity and profession have encyclopedic interest? My answer is: it doesn't matter whether they have or have not; use such lists to improve navigation only, and everything should be fine. As always, there might be exceptions to this rule, but they must be discussed in each specific case.--Pecher 21:55, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
I see your perspective. Then how do you reconcile this approach with WP:NOT and its stricture against indiscriminate information? How would you deal with "outing?" Durova 00:14, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
If a single list does not violate WP:NOT, then several lists that contain the same information as the single list does certainly do not violate it either. "Outing" must be considered on a case-by-case basis, taking into account Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Presumption_in_favor_of_privacy.--Pecher 10:40, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Excellent citation. Would you agree with my proposal that some lists are conditionally encyclopedic and should demonstrate relevancy for their specific entries? Durova 13:08, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
What do you mean "some lists are conditionally encyclopedic"?--Pecher 14:26, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
It's the basic logic behind my proposal. Wikipedia can't encompass a list of every Muslim professional athlete. In some parts of the world where nearly everyone is Muslim the connection between Islam and sports could be as trivial as a List of Methodist dentists. However, I'd support a list of professional athletes who changed their names after converting to Islam such as Muhammad Ali and Kareem Abdul-Jabaar. Those name changes made the religious conversion a salient fact of the public persona. That's illustrates the difference between indiscriminate information and relevance. Durova 22:34, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Obviously it be stupid to list Muslim athletes in countries that are majority Muslim, or to list Jewish athletes from Israel. But a list of Muslim American Athletes would, in my opinion be perfectly acceptable. Arniep 23:37, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
However, we have List of Muslims that purports to do just that - list all Muslims with articles in Wikipedia. The list is useful, especially for those people who need information on, say, Muslim athletes. For one thing, the list helps to resolve a possible confusion between "an athlete from a predominantly Muslim country" and "a Muslim athlete". For example, Pakistani star cricketer Mohammad Yousuf was a Christian until recently.--Pecher 08:22, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
You may have a good point about the List of Muslims. I'm somewhat concerned about how this could lead to chasing information on minor matters. Maybe an athlete whose religion plays a small role in his or her life begins attending a Presbyterian church instead of a Methodist church because it's closer to home and offers better child care. Durova 18:57, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I think Pecher was saying the Muslim lists may be of interest to some people, not criticising them, so, I'm not sure how you think he was supporting your points. It may well be that you don't find some lists interesting. But, surely, there are plenty of things that are in encyclopedias that you wouldn't personally find interesting. The whole point about Wikipedia is that it's not meant to be governed by such strict rules as other encyclopedias. We are spending way too much time on this in my opinion when we could actually be doing something useful like reverting vandalism, mediating in disputes or making good articles. Arniep 19:33, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Two changes to the initial proposal

I encourage other editors to look at this proposal in broad terms. There are notable people of many religions who may choose to keep their personal faith a private matter. There are also people of various ethnicities who may choose to keep that background a private matter to whatever extent is possible.

Also, the matter of ambiguous or disputed membership applies to a variety of lists. Some people have several ethnic backgrounds. Some people change religion. I encourage editors to source these attributions. It may be appropriate to add notes or subcategories for people who meet some but not all definitions for inclusion in a list.

WP:NOT and WP:Verifiability already cover many of the concerns that some editors have expressed in proposed amendments. My original proposal helps to define how these policies would apply to lists of ethnicity/religion + profession. Most cases of vandalism or "outing" would be deletable for lack of verifiability or lack of relevance.

My changed proposal reflects the following principles:

  1. Wikipedia's concerns about ongoing discrimination are (mostly?) limited to living people.
  2. Wikipedia's concerns about ongoing discrimination do not apply to living people who identify themselves as belonging to some group in a public forum. Those individuals accept the consequences associated public knowledge.
  3. Within those limits, Wikipedia has a legitimate encyclopedic interest in listing prominent living people whose religion or ethnicity relates to their profession.
  4. Competing definitions for membership in a group can be resolved through good editing.

Durova 20:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Since when is discrimination Wikipedia's "concern"? I thought our concern was to write an encyclopedia. All decisions regarding content should be measured against its encyclopedic value, not how it affects social policy. —Wahoofive (talk) 20:51, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Earlier on this page I named Ken Hechtman as an example. This journalist was on trial for his life as a suspected spy in Afghanistan a few days before a Canadian newspaper "outed" his Jewish heritage. The Taliban picked up that information from the Internet and treated it as a subject of intense interest. He had to pretend to be Christian to leave the country. Had that newspaper story been published before his acquittal, the consequences could have been chilling. I agree Wikipedia does not exist to shape social policy. Neither does it exist to place people in mortal danger. Durova 21:23, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this proposal about whether such lists should exist at all, and if so, which ones, rather than who should be on them? —Wahoofive (talk) 21:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
This proposal is about establishing guidelines for such lists in accordance with existing Wikipedia policies. The principle behind it is that some such lists have indisputable relevance, some lists require editorial standards, and other lists are inherently unencyclopedic. These amendments concern the middle group where editing may be needed.
For example, Herman Wouk and Philip Roth would merit inclusion on a list of Jewish writers. Their work reflects their heritage. Writers who happen to be Jewish (by whatever definition) but who choose to keep this a private matter would not belong on such a list.
I've worded this in general terms because people of various backgrounds do get killed because of their heritage. Bosnia and Rwanda are recent history.

Durova 22:59, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Let's get this irrelevant Hechtman example out of the way, please. It was Hechtman himself who put himself in 'mortal danger' by going to Afghanistan, knowing that he was of Jewish ethnicity; not anybody's comments about him in the Canadian press or anywhere else. Suppose the Taliban had found out he was Jewish by going theough the birth columns or bar-mitzvah photos in the back issues of the 'Jewish Chronicle', or its Canadian equivalent? - would that then have to cease publication, or destroy its records? Hechtman's case has no bearing on creating an accurate encyclopaedia. See Wahoofive's comment of 20:51 today. - Smerus 22:28, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
What put Mr. Hechtman in mortal danger was the United States bombing of Afghanistan, which happened shortly after he arrived. In the aftermath the Taliban considered him a possible spy. Mr. Hechtman had taken reasonable measures to keep his heritage private. North America produces a number of journalists and aid workers who assume similar risks. Read the link: it was very specifically a Canadian newspaper report that caught the Taliban's attention. Wikipedia would be wise to learn from their mistake. Durova 22:59, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Whoa, hold on! Do many of you mean the Taliban or terrorists actually use Wikipedia as a source? If that is so then I think this brings up way bigger issues then this list deal. If anyone can edit and we're assuming there are Taliban or Al-Qaeda Wikipedians everything might have to be rethought. There are many many things unrelated to lists that could become dangerous. I don't even know how you'd begin to deal with something like that. Although for this specific issue we could just have a rule against stating the ethnic or religious identity of foreign correspondents.(An aside I was/am strongly in favor of the Afghanistan war.)--T. Anthony 01:22, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
His Wikipedia article was created later. The Taliban did use the Internet to research his background and found the original Canadian news story. This is a far cry from proposing some Al-Qaeda or Taliban cell among Wikipedia editors. What I am saying is that it's naive to assume that any country's government lacks the wherewithal to perform Internet research. Some periodicals remove old articles from the Internet. By naming and sourcing people who have been "outed," Wikipedia may preserve information that a person has good reason to keep quiet. This also applies to aid workers, foreign correspondents, and a variety of professions. Suppose an engineering firm accepts a contract to work on a project in Saudi Arabia. If the Saudi government learns that some particular engineer is Jewish then official policy revokes the visa and that person loses a livelihood. Durova 01:41, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Question for you, and a point. Question is, if a writer chooses to keep his heritage private, then how do we know about it? Obviously the people are listed because they mentioned their Jewishness in an interview/media source/etc. We don't hire private detectives to find this info out. At worst, the info is taken from book biographies of (now-dead) people, but for those living, it's purely up to them to mention their Jewishness. That was the question. The point - this whole "Jewish heritage informs work" thing is very subjective. Daniel Handler, who wrote Lemony Snicket, jokingly said that Lemony Snicket was supposed to be Jewish, etc. in a couple of interviews with Jewish publications. But obviously there is no Jewish content in the books. Similarly, what about non-Jewish authors who write books about Jews? Jewish heritage, though not their own, informs their work. And this is just for authors. What about directors? Steven Spielberg may have directed two major movies about Jews, but he also made two about African Americans. Norman Jewison, who is not Jewish, directed the very famous Jewish themed movie "Fiddler on the Roof", not to mention a couple of other movies with Jewish subject matter. And what about actors? If we say Woody Allen's heritage informs his work, fine. But what about Robin Williams? He isn't Jewish but uses Yiddishisms and Jewish humour in his stand-up. What about Jason Biggs (not Jewish) who is famous for playing Jewish characters? Are you saying that a list of Jewish actors should essentially enforce a stereotype, and list actors (who happen to be Jewish) who have played Jewish characters? The whole point of an encyclopedia is to enform, and any good List of Jewish Whatevers should obviously include people who many do not realize are Jewish precisely because they don't adhere to a stereotype or play Jewish characters on screen. I can use the new movie "Match Point" as an example. Its director, Woody Allen, may not be much more of a practicing Jew than its star, Scarlett Johansson (whose mother is Jewish and who wore a Star of David in a couple of pictures), but because he fits a certain "Jewish stereotype" and has made a career out of this, this kind of proposal would list him but not Johansson, because she would never be cast as a stereotypically Jewish character (although she did buy the rights to and is going to play "Marjorie Morningstar", a 1950s-era Jewish woman, in an upcoming film), except for the occasional rarity. Therefore I think such a proposal is not very helpful and we are going to get hundreds of arguments about who belongs or whatnot. Vulturell 23:25, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
I see you pasted your query. I answered it more fully above.
(a) Sometimes reputable sources publish information that people would rather keep private. This can happen when an unexpected event makes a person newsworthy.
(b) I encourage headings, explanatory statements, and references particularly in lists where relevance is open to question.
(c) For books and artistic works about a given group that whose creators did not belong to the group, the work would be relevant to a list of works about that group. The individual probably would not appear on a list of people who belonged to that group. If the individual did appear, the distinction between artistic contribution and actual group identity would have to be unambiguous. Durova 00:51, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I'm not understanding part C. My whole argument there was because you seemed to be saying that a list would/should only include people whose heritage "informed their work", so my argument was this could end up listing people who were simply stereotyped into a particular era of work, which might not even have to do with their heritage if they aren't even Jewish. I wasn't talking about a list of works about a group, but about the author themselves. 05:13, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
There's a fuller explanation of part C in my reply to your first posting a few sections above this reply. Near the top of the page you can find where where another editor posed basially the same question. The main example from our first discussion discussion was Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons, and Roman Catholicism. Durova 08:49, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
And as for verifiability, which prompted a separate treatment for sexual orientation, how can we verify that anyone belonged to nearly any of the groups mentioned: Can we be reallllllly sure that the Pope is really Catholic (and therefore Christian), and not the anti-christ as some faiths believe? How do we know that anyone is [fill in the blank]-American (and how much % do you have to be to qualify)? Children have been known to be born out of wedlock so let's be careful about descent through the male lines, right? Carlossuarez46 21:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
You're kidding, right? Durova 21:24, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
and anyway Jewish descent is through the female line :-} Smerus 22:28, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
I think this whole debate is getting silly! :D I think a lot of people have got very worked up about these lists due to various reasons, but really I think it has possibly got to the level of hysteria and reverse racism. I have some concerns about listing people such as academics who are Jewish, and, perhaps, I would question the listing of people with only one grandparent who identified as Jewish which is perhaps something people should stop doing. However, to remove all Jewish lists and categories is frankly silly as history of the Jewish people is a perfectly legitimate topic and it would be nonsense to say that we cannot list or categorise people in Jewish history accordingly. Arniep 23:12, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
These are sensitive issues and - like most sensitive issues - the discussion can become contentious. These same emotions spill over in other places. I'm proceeding from the optimistic perspective that this discussion can achieve a working consensus on some significant issues. If we succeed then this may lead to more harmonious editing in the future. Durova 00:51, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Ahem, ahem. That's a religious law exclusively, and it does not even apply to every single denomination of Judaism. It also has no relation whatsoever to the Jewish ethnicity, and unless you plan on using an "Italian Mother" rule for those lists it is best not to bring it up at all. Vulturell 23:31, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Let's sidestep the issue of who is a Jew and concentrate on the issues that this discussion has a better hope of resolving. Durova 23:41, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Continuing the discussion up above (the one that mentioned Japanese Americans and Malcolm X), and bringing in a new point. Well really this person would be under "Japanese Americans", not simply "Japanese people", in which case his correlation to Japanese society itself is not completely relevant. But here's the encyclopedic part - wouldn't it be interesting, on a list of Japanese Americans (for example), to have all these names up to a 1/4 just to see both the varrying accomplishments AND the varying reactions of the people listed themselves to their heritage? I.e. if we have a few people with a Japanese grandparent listed, this listing would be useful to compare their attitudes towards their heritage, etc. Malcolm X was a good example. If ever there was a list of famous African Americans with recent white heritage, it would be an effective tool, simply to compare and see how differently these people reacted to this heritage in their lives. And of course, as you said earlier, many, many, many people have more than one background and identity, and I think it precisely because of that that they should be on as many lists as possible (i.e. say, per the grandparent rule or whatnot), because that would better reflect the multi-cultural nature. If anything, maybe it's a good idea to divide these lists chronologically (i.e. separate sections for 1930's. 1990's), as opposed to the current listing by separate alphabetical sections. It would make them more interesting because someone could then distinctly look at an era and see the difference between (going back to Jewish actresses here) Lauren Bacall (1940's), Natalie Portman and Sarah Michelle Gellar (1990's), i.e. what being a "Jewish actress" meant in the 1940's and what it means 1990's - the subject's own treatment to their heritage and that of society around them. This chronology would also be useful because you could see, for the lists of Jews, that most listed during the large majority of the 20th century were "all Jewish", but as the decades went on there was a higher number of actors with only one Jewish parent, reflecting the rise of mixed-marriges; you would see a lot of Yiddish-speaking and religious actors in the early part of the century (including those in Yiddish theatre, of course) and you could see the near disappearance of that area as the century progresses and the emergence of more secular Jews. It would work the exact same way for Italian-Americans (and in fact that cultural group has similar patterns), etc. and it would be a way to make these lists mean something a little more. So, how do you feel about listing in chronology? (i.e., for an actor, decades in which someone was most popular or active). Vulturell 05:13, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
These examples illustrate some of the reasons why I would leave specific inclusion standards at the editors' discretion. What's of real importance is to reach a working consensus among the editors and to present those agreed standards to the reader. I'm not sure what subjects a list about Jewish actresses would explore, but I suspect from your comments that article format may be better for that topic. I have no particular preference for or against chronological organization. That's an editorial decision. Durova 08:49, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Vulturell: You know, as one reads how you go on and on and try to justify how you will be the judge of people's religions and ethnicities, it only shows how your approach leads to TOTAL CHAOS and DISASTER, because, and I will be very clear about this: ACCORDING TO Jewish law as it has been applied for the past three thousand years (but not as it has been ammended by the Reform Judaism movement) you are making Jews out of gentiles and gentiles of Jews with every edit and entry you make when "evaluating" so many assimilated and intermarried people who may or may not be Jews and then slap them with their Yellow badges, for better or worse. And even for those people who do qualify as Jews according to Jewish law, they mostly do NOT practice Judaism in any form or in a meaningful way so that what you do by calling people "Jewish" is also meaningless by the criterion of religious practice. Your mass listings and categorizations of people as being "Jews" or not, are not just just eye-sores, they are also painful reminders of how foolish people can be when they take it upon themselves to be "smarter" than the subject they are dealing with, and by this I mean you are trying to go beyond what Judaism and probabaly even most Jews consider a Jew to be. When will you end your mad rush to meaninglessness? And yes, Jews are different in that they are usually the first ones to feel the tide of prejudices in society, which you can't seem to get into your head for some odd reason. IZAK 10:25, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Izak, while I see the point at the heart of your statement and I view it with respect, your tone is off-putting. We're here to seek productive discussion and consensus. Sometimes people need to ask questions. Let's turn down the Richter scale and remember: if you're genuinely concerned about another user's edits you can check their recent history and revert in a few seconds. It's that simple. I hope you retract your inflammatory statements to Vulturell. Insults don't persuade people to share your perspective. Durova 11:09, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Durova: As I stated above: Durova: When someone like Vulturell, with zillions of files about people's ancestry available to him, cites and quotes as an example a person who called themselves a "mutt" to prove that person's part-"Jewish" ancestry, it is a highly provocative and dehumanizing move, literally. Who appointed him the dog catcher of the world's religious and ethnic "mutts" (to use his frame of reference)? ... IZAK 11:34, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
While I perceive nothing offensive about quoting a public figure's self-description, let's suppose your analysis is better than mine. That doesn't excuse your response. If you really believe some editor is insulting Jews as a group then take that through the appropriate channels. Durova 13:45, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Examples of well presented people lists

In the interest of advancing productive discussion I'm linking to some well composed lists of people. Some of these aren't lists by religion/ethnicity and profession. The presentation means more than the content for the purpose of this discussion.

Please add new lists above the dashed line and add responses below the dashed line.

  • List of atheists - Addresses definition issues in the introduction. Subheadings organize the names into several groupings: active advocates of atheism receive separate listing from people who were notable for other reasons and also happened to be atheists. Each name includes life dates and a short description. Durova 10:14, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
  • List of Catholic authors - A hierarchy of headings organizes these people first by whether they lived in a predominantly Catholic culture and second by language. Most of the names include a brief description. Also includes a brief section "Writers falsely considered to be Catholic." Durova 10:14, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Australian national cricket captains - Table format makes this list easy to read and several of the older entries include photographs. The introduction is also strong. This is a featured list. Durova 10:14, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Zimbabwean national cricket captains - Cricket enthusiasts have created several featured lists. This one organizes its content with headings, introductions, and a series of tables. Durova 10:14, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

People should put more care into these lists. It is tempting to get lazy with them and just throw out names. I think studying Wikipedia:Featured lists is a pretty good idea as it gave me good ideas on how to fix lists I did that got put on AfD. Of the lists you mentioned the only one I did much work on was List of Catholic authors, but I did enough on that I thank you for the compliment as I'm sure the others who worked there would.--T. Anthony 22:08, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Please add others that are worth emulating. Durova 00:03, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Important policies about lists on Wikipedia

All discussions taking place here should have in mind the concurrent formulation of policy that is taking place at the page indicated below. Thank you. IZAK 11:47, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

See the following at Wikipedia:Lists in Wikipedia:

Lists in Wikipedia was developed in response to concerns that such lists are sometimes used as subterfuges to bypass the Wikipedia content policies of No original research, Neutral point of view, Verifiability or What Wikipedia is not.

The usefulness of lists in Wikipedia is very clear as it often provides the starting point for readers to research a particular subject. For example, when researching Typesetting, the List of type designers and List of typefaces are excellent resources from which to begin exploring the subject.

On the other hand, lists, when applied to controversial subjects or to living people, could be misused to assert a specific point of view. This guideline has been drafted to provide some general best practices as it pertains to the creation and maintenance of lists in the article namespace.

Thus it is proposed Wikipedia policy that:

For more discussions about these subjects see: Wikipedia talk:Lists in Wikipedia

Comments:

Is there a reason you've posted about a quarter of a single Wikipedia page instead of just supplying one link? Durova 13:33, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Durova: All in the name of thoroughness. It's to make it easier to read up on, since many people do not bother clicking to other pages. It is also to make users here aware that there is a parallel process taking place that will have direct repurcussions on whatever may or may not be concluded here. IZAK 12:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Summary of the problem

Looking back on the discussions on the list of Jews it looks like it was agreed to list people whose parent was Jewish under the Reform Judaism principles. However, now we have User:IZAK and User:Vulturell who are both very vocal as can be seen on this page who are trying to pull apart this compromise that was reached. User:IZAK only thinks people whose mother was Jewish (under Orthodox traditions) should be listed, whereas User:Vulturell wants to list all people who only had one grandparent who was Jewish. To say that because we have two users with these opposing viewpoints we cannot list or categorize Jewish people in history is completely unreasonable. Arniep 14:29, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for this summary. On this basis, it all looks like much ado about nothing. IZAK's orthodox standpoint is of comparatively recent origin (i.e. only about 2000 years old), since 'Jewishness by the mother' seems to be post-Biblical (vide Old Testament passim). On his terms, Ephraim and Manasseh, for example, wouldn't get a look-in. Vulturell is perhaps going for a bridge too far. So why don't we just stick with the 'one Jewish parent' as the best we are likely to come up with. - Smerus 15:01, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
OK, someone just tried to change my password from ip 68.58.23.4 (a server located at Columbus, Indiana operated by Comcast Cable Communications). If someone has something to say please say it on here. Thanks Arniep 17:47, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
I haven't fully read the new responses by IZAK up above, and frankly I have no real interest in doing so, but I've noticed we've somehow come back exclusively to Jews. I am asking, again, that we come up with a solution that would work for every ethnic group, unless you plan on using terms like Reform and Orthodox Armenianism. I was just using "Jewish actresses" as one of a few examples up above. The same method of listing - i.e. chronological - is something I think would be a good idea for all of these lists, as it would certainly help to show the evolution of members of these varying ethnic and religious groups. Vulturell 17:53, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Vulturell the problem is you are just ignoring the views of everyone else. I don't think there is anyone here that agrees on listing everyone with a Jewish grandparent in lists of Jews and this is a great cause of the controversy that arisen over them. Arniep 22:36, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
As usual (and as expected) you addressed the issue just now to the very limited topic of Jews. What you should have said was I don't think there is anyone here that agrees on listing everyone with a grandparent of whichever ethnic group in a list of that ethnic group. That is how I am going to intrepret that statement, because that's the only way we can talk about this, the same standards for every group. In that case, I have zero problems with listing only people with a parent instead of grandparent, but again this would apply to every group. Having an Italian grandma doesn't make Hayden Christensen any more Italian than Freddie Prinze, Jr. having a Jewish grandpa makes him Jewish. Vulturell 00:16, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Respectfully, Arniep, there might be some Jewish lists that would use this standard. Nazi laws lumped Christians who had one Jewish paternal grandfather into the same category as devout Orthodox Jews. And respectfully, Vulturell, I doubt this discussion could achieve your goal. As Wikipedia grows it will include more cultures, religions, and ethnicities. The editors can agree on NPOV guidelines in accordance with the subjects they know best. Given Wikipedia's current demographic, any attempt to write those guidelines in advance would probably face eventual rejection as cultural imperialism. I'm in no position to determine who is a Shinto or who is a Sikh, who is a Maori or who is a Yoruba. Durova 00:44, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to reformulate this in a two pronged manner: one for the special case of Jewish lists and another for this class of lists as a whole.

  1. Wikipedia already has an article to address the definition of Jewish identity. People who wish to contribute to that discussion should move their contributions there, where future editors will be most likely to look. This discussion can address to present a list so that future readers will understand its relevance and future contributors can add within a consensus framework. I'd like to point other editors to an unusual place, a list that addresses its own sensitive subject well: the List of atheists. Other lists may find it a good model for organization and presentation.
  2. Many lists could use better sourcing, organization, and presentation. I hope this discussion leads to improvements that make them more useful as research tools. I've done my best to address most important concern behind IZAK's proposal with an amended proposal that can apply to any group that gets targeted for death due to extreme bigotry. The original proposal and existing Wikipedia policy address most instances of concern. I've made an amendment for the rare exceptions. I suggest other proposal writers amend their own statements to move closer to consensus and I suggest other editors offer supportive guidelines such as the "related article test." Durova 20:49, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia cannot endorse any definition of Jews: A possible solution

Ok, hi guys, let me just point out a few very important matters:

  1. Wikipedia is not in the business of endorsing any religion's or denomination's criteria or definitions for who and what constitutes a true and unquestioned "member of the flock".
  2. Thus to claim as User:Arniep says above that "on the list of Jews it looks like it was agreed to list people whose parent was Jewish under the Reform Judaism principles" is a just a major POV statement, because
  3. There are, and will always be, other serious Jewish denominations in play here all the time.
  4. It is also factually incorrect to say that the Reform definition is the implied acceptable one, because Wikipedia does not follow or endorse Reform Judaism or any brand of Judaism -- in order to remain a NPOV resource that reflects reality and not as a mirror of some people's imaginations or of their wishful thinking.
  5. My contention is very simple, that any usage of the word "Jew" or "Jewish" on Wikipedia is essentially, willy-nilly, governed according to Wikipedia's own three close-to-definitive NPOV articles: 1) Jew; 2) Judaism; and 3) Who is a Jew?
  6. It is thus NOT possible at the present time to have only one definition to use as some sort of hidden "premise" or "axiom", especially not from the Reformer theologians who changed the definition to accept patrilineal descent less than THIRTY years ago, in the late 1970s, after they had agreed with matrilinial descent for most of their two hundred year history. To say that Orthodoxy taught something new -- also a false and ignorant statement -- as "recently" as 2,000 years ago is a joke (based on obvious ignorance of Judaism and Jewish history) not worth responding to.
  7. Thus since Wikipedia CANNOT endorse any religious stream's criteria it is impossible to arrive at a so-called definition of anyone's status as a Jew on Wikipedia, which is why it is a mistake to create any lists and categories of Jews since Wikipedia's NEUTRAL articles on the subject inform us that in the present day there is no one consensus of who is and is not a Jew.
  8. The problem we are discussing cannot be "cut off at the pass" by talking into the air and saying "let's just be ethnic" ("like everyone else -- as if humanity is one huge mass of only similarities") as flippantly done by User:Vuturell who, it seems, would like to resurrect a sort of pseudo-anthropology as a subject to haunt everyone. Neither is the solution as the more focused User:Arniep would like to present it here that pretends that Wikipedia "endorses" Reform Judaism definitions when it does not, and it cannot even be done with User:Durova's diplomatic dexterity trying to bridge some impossible and impassable barriers.
  9. In conclusion, may I say, that Wikipedia is neither the World Court nor is it a Jewishly-recognized court and cannot set itself up as a "judge" of who is or is not Jewish or partially Jewish. (Needless to say, Wikipedia should NOT appear to be doing, nor give the appearance of doing, the latter-day work of the Nazi Nuremberg Laws, deciding who are the latter-day Mischlings -- as the wicked Jew Watch does today, and by implication land up handing out fake cyber-"German Blood Certificates" to many people unwittingly caught up in this mad rush to classify, categorize, and list Jews on Wikipedia.)
  10. As for other religions and ethnicities, I leave it to people familar with those religions and people to speak up, but I can only speak from the perspecticve of a subject I know about, and I am cautioning everyone here not to make either yourselves or Wikipedia look foolish in the eyes of the world (i.e the Internet) by coming up with so-called "solutions" that in the end will make it all a laughingstock for any readers out there who know something about the questions relating to Who is a Jew?

As a plea: I strongly suggest that the following Wikipedia admins who know a lot about Judaism and Jews and their interface with Jewish law, should be urgently consulted and asked for their DETAILED input, and what THEY say be incorporated here: User:Danny; User:Jayjg; User:Tshilo12; User:Jfdwolff; User:Eliezer. (There may be others who can help, based on their proven knowledge in these areas.) It's no use consulting "film critics" about matters that pertain to the Jewish religion and the Jewish people. It's like consulting a shoemaker about astrophysics. Thank you. IZAK 13:15, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

IZAK, numerous sites run by Jewish and Israeli organizations list notable Jewish people in history- are you contacting these sites to get them removed? You stated on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Antidote#User:IZAK that the only categories or lists that should exist are Category:Rabbis and Category:Israeli people. Why do you not want notable Jewish people in secular culture to be listed? Arniep 13:53, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Arniep: So what? All you are saying is that "two wrongs should make a right". We cannot do anything about other sites, but Wikipedia is trying to be a responsible encyclopedia. How serious are those other sites? They are just seeking sensationalism and who knows what else. As for your last comment, may I remind you that I am making a "99%" suggesting and that I do think that a few lists, such as the List of Jewish Nobel Prize winners is great and one of my favorites because it is about verifiable fields and about very notable people. I also exclude Israelis because they are a nationality that includes over a million Israeli Arabs and many non-Jews, such as the over 300,000 from the former Soviet Union who provably and openly are not Jewish. So since Israel itself has not accepted a definition KeHalachah (i.e. according to Jewish law), so saying that one is Israeli does not mean that they are Jewish. Sad but true. IZAK 14:03, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
IZAK, why are you posting this here? Wikipedia already has an article on your subject. The original proposal respectfully avoids the question of Jewish identity and seeks consensus on a separate subject. Durova 16:29, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Durova: I was responding to "Summary of the problem" above. IZAK 16:32, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
IZAK, were you refering to myself when you said "film critics"? (if so, then thank you, I am flattered). But the point is, all the various Jewish lists do not claim to definitively decide "who is a Jew", they claim to list, liberally, all people who may be considered Jewish, either through religion (Orthodox or Reform) or ethnicity. As such the lists do not strictly follow an Orthodox point of view, or a Reform point of view, or an ethnicity point of view (i.e. they list honest converts, who aren't ethnic Jews), because indeed every one of those is a point of view and obviously Wikipedia can't pick one of the above - the only NPOV way of doing it is listing a person and putting in a note beside them if they wouldn't be considered Jewish by every view (i.e. "Jewish father; raised Jewish" or "Jewish mother; raised Christian"). The pages would not be neutral if they just listed the names as is, but the notes let the viewers know the subject's "story" if they aren't "just Jewish", and thus the viewers can make up their own minds based on their own points of view; thus, the lists are just information; of course you can say that the information is unnecessary, etc. but that's another story. I think if there is a problem it would be with the definition at the top of every page - right now it links to the Who is a Jew page, maybe it needs to have more detail in it. There is nothing that any of the editors you linked us to can really do, beyond repeating whichever denomination's (or secular) description of a "Jew", but Wikipedia obviously can't follow either of those. As for your suggestion on the other lists, problem is ethnic groups don't usually have rules to decide who is a Greek or who is an Italian, because ethnicities don't usually have rules anyway, only religions do. I was having a big argument with a Greek-American editor who wanted to put in every single person with a drop of Greek blood, however distant, under "Greek Americans", and not even put in a note like the ones we have in the Jewish lists. I know Italian gangsters have the "100% Italian to be made" rule. By the way, when you mentioned the "300,000" non-Jewish Israelis, were you referring to people who were simply not practising religously, or people who were just not ethnically Jewish at all? Because, as I'm sure you know, some of the founders of Israel were not practising Jews, but obviously felt Jewish by ethnicity and culture, which is what many non-religious, ethnic, Jews do. Ariel Sharon's entry even mentions that his parents were socialists with a secular worldview.Vulturell 07:46, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Vulturell: At least you see the depth of the problem in defining who and what Jews are. The 300,000 Israelis who are not Jews refers to the recent arrivals (over the past thirty years) from the former Soviet Union, and is according to Halakha ("Jewish law"), and additionally a large number of them practice Christianity. They are not Jewish for various reasons, because their mothers were not Jewish, or they claim to be "Jewish" by dint of being married to a Jew, or a claim to having one Jewish grandparent or great-parent. Israel let these people in because in most cases they were related to others who claimed complete Jewish parentage. It's a mess. It's in no way like the people who came from Russia in the day's of Ariel Sharon's parents in the early twentieth century who, while they may have been 100% secular, were nevertheless not intermarried and came from homes where both parents were often religious Jews. The times they surely have a' changed. In the USA presently, the confusion is even greater where you have a religious denomination (Reform Judaism) that has changed the over two thousand year old ground-rules, and that now accepts people who want to be Jewish whose father was a Jew and mother is not just not Jewish, but could also be a practicing Christian. It's pretty chaotic, and by now Wikipedia is reflecting that chaos instead of tightening up it's lists and categories (by trying to limit them) it's opening them up to all and sundry, making the definitions of the Jewishness of the people on the lists and categories meaningless. IZAK 19:04, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
IZAK. The fact is most Reform Jews still have a Jewish family background, and in that background there is an inherited cultural identity. Vulturell has already explained to you that on the Jewish lists, if a person is not Jewish under Halakah it is explained what connection they have with Jewish culture, i.e. whether it is through paternal lineage or through conversion. Arniep 21:40, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Proposal for all ethnicity-based lists (and by "ethnic groups" I do also means Jews)

Simple. We list 1. any person at all who is "fully" of that ethnicity 2. any person at all who has a parent of that ethnicity 3. any person with a grandparent of that ethnicity who has explicitly identified with that ethnic group above others (so any person with a random grandparent, like Yul Brynner, would not be listed because he didn't explicitly identify with Swiss/Jewish in his background). I would, as such, include "people with a grandparent only" such as Robert DeNiro in Italian-Americans, Tyrone Power and Harrison Ford (feels "Irish as a person and Jewish as an actor", despite only having an Irish grandfather) in Irish-Americans, Kate Hudson (raised Jewish) and Robert Downey, Jr. (identifies self as "half Jewish" despite only having a Jewish grandparent). Howabout it? Your reponse should not have any references to any possible religious rules, as they do not apply (and frankly do not even claim to apply) to the ethnic and cultural backgrounds of individuals. Thank you. Vulturell 00:36, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I didn't know that of DeNiro. That said I think I'd only do the grandparent thing if the grandparent was significant to the person's life. Totally disqualifying having one grandparent I'd agree is probably a bad idea on reflection as some people were partly raised by a grandparent. I think there are way to many proposals here though. It's starting to become the proposal of a million sub-proposals and not in a gradual accumulation way. In the last week we've had how many new proposals suggested on this discussion page? I've never been involved in these before though so maybe that's normal.--T. Anthony 01:03, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm glad I could inform you in some way of DeNiro; this is, in my opinion, the #1 reason these lists are useful. They teach you that not all Italian-Americans look like DeNiro (who isn't really all that Italian either) and not all Jews are like Woody Allen. There are way too many proposals here, agreed, but I hope that by keeping this one simple and to the point it could be easier to discuss. See, "grandparent" pretty much translates to "parent" if said grandparent was influential (i.e. Downey, Jr. says that "his father is Jewish" despite it only being a paternal grandfather, so you can see that Jewish identity had influence on that side of the family). We can only really know how much influence a grandparent had through the person themselves, and this proposal acknowledges that, so you wouldn't get people like, say, Hayden Christensen on an Italian list or Yul Brynner on a Jewish or Swiss list, since they've never really claimed a major influence or called themselves "Swiss" or "Italian" or "Jewish". Vulturell 01:28, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Please post a copy of this to the main project page. I doubt this will fly but all proposals deserve a fair chance. Durova 02:00, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I just did. But thanks for noticing. Do you agree or disgaree with it yourself? Vulturell 02:09, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Not the way you're presenting it. It's useful for many identities, especially in North America, but in the wrong situation it becomes inflammatory. I'm surprised to see you present this as a proposal after all the discussion this page has already seen. You've validated some of IZAK's accusations. What I suggest is to withdraw this as a blanket proposal and offer it instead as one of several possible guidelines, sort of like the "related article test," and include caveats that it may not apply to every list. I'd like to gather a list of suggested guidelines that editors can adapt as appropriate to their particular articles. Durova 02:46, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Does this mean IZAK is going to come back here in a couple of hours with an angry speech, type in BIG FONT and use wikilinks to random terms like goldfish or magic carpet? Anyway, I don't see what's particularly off-putting with this proposal, since it takes into account a subject's own self-identification, which is certainly more important in the case of someone with a "grandparent" only, and would exclude people whose Jewish (and Swiss) grandparent's heritage wasn't important to them, like Yul Brynner. Vulturell 02:51, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
I doubt IZAK will rejoin us until his sabbath ends. In the meantime it isn't fair to put words in his mouth. Durova 03:01, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Durova: Thank you for your understanding. It is now early Sunday morning and I have responded above. Best wishes. IZAK 16:14, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Headache

Sorry, guys, my head is now spinning and the page is too long. Could some good soul make a summary of all the the proposals that are now in fact before us, and can we just invite folks to put agree, don't know, or disagree votes against them, without further elaboration. I think all the issues that are going to arise are contained somewhere in the discussion above. Shabbat shalom - Smerus 14:24, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

The reason it's confusing is that there are at least three different topics being discussed simultaneously:
  1. How to determine whether lists like List of Methodist dentists are encyclopedic or mere collections of junk info
  2. Whether lists of members of a particular religion or ethnicity should be divided by profession when they get too large
  3. How to determine whom to include on a particular list, with particular attention to Jews.
—Wahoofive (talk) 20:20, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
The proposals are:
  • 1. Durova's initial proposal, which is hard to summarize, but it started this whole thing
  • 2. IZAK's proposal to delete all lists of Jews from Wikipedia forever (does not include references or guidelines to any other lists)
  • 3. Hebrew Wikipedia model, which no one seems to have paid any attention to
  • 4. Arniep's proposal to keep the Jewish lists but keep only historical (i.e. RIP'd) people. Once again, no reference to any other ethnicity/religion lists
  • 5. Pecher's proposal, which tries to apply to all lists, essentially opts to keep most lists
  • 6. Vulturell's (ahem) proposal for all ethnicity-based lists, basically a guide that editors would have to follow on who to list

Vulturell 08:22, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Cure

I suggest on reflection, and with the help of recent comments by others, that we are all on a wild goose chase, and I propose that all the above proposals should be allowed to lapse (and never be revived).

The facts:

  1. There is a Wikipedia definition of Jew
  2. There exist Wikipedia categories
  3. There is therefore no Wikipedia rule or convention which should exclude Jewish categories per se.

All the proposals which I have seen seem to contravene these essential Wikipedia standards.

Jews of course should not be regarded as a special case in this respect, and any other nation and/or religion can, and should, be substituted in the above statements. But there are (to myself and I think to most people, Jewish and gentile) moral reasons, rooted in history, why we should condemn any attempt to discriminate against Jews in this sort of way. It is very surprising to me that Durova who seems to have initiated this also wrote the article Thou shalt not give Hitler posthumous victories. If we are not allowed to refer to the significant input which Jews made to Western art, science and society then we are making the world Judenrein in a way of which Hitler would have highly approved.

The only argument should be about the content of the lists, that is, whether entries are verifiable. Here again there are existing Wikipedia standards. If an entry in a list cannot be justified, it should be deleted. The various proposals about who should and shouldn’t be included, even when they are enhanced by bold type or CAPITAL LETTERS, all basically fail because they try to graft something additional (suiting the particular case) onto Wikipedia standards. The Wikipedia definition of Jew, must, if Wikipedia is to have the necessary consistency of an encyclopaedia, apply to people listed as Jews. If people want to stretch things (for Jews or anyone else) to grandfathers or earlier generations, they should supply the evidence that this Jewish or Irish or whatever provenance is relevant to the persons concerned. If there is no evidence – then deletion from the category should follow.

Arguments based on paranoia – ‘wicked people might do such-and-such’ - are enemies of the truth and should have no place in an encyclopaedia.

Wikipedia depends on responsible additions - and deletions. I am cautious about the latter. Examples: I recently noticed in an article about a well-known British personality that he was ‘a practising Catholic’. I know this individual personally and know from conversation that he is not a practising Catholic. I deleted this reference. I saw in the entry for Sigismond Thalberg that he was listed as a Swiss pianist. As a matter of convenience, Thalberg’s birth took place in Geneva but he does not seem to have set foot in the country thereafter and never evidenced the slightest connection or interest in Switzerland. I deleted him from the category. These are just common-sense, evidence-based, decisions. I frankly doubt the need for a list of Swiss pianists at all – but I wouldn’t delete the list itself as long as it is accurate according to its terms – in the old Rabbinical phrase, who forbids it?

This leads on the issue of lists of methodist dentists –i.e. subcategories. There are Wikipedia rules for these but I got lost looking for them. Once again, common sense, allied to verification, provides the appropriate guidelines. German painters carried out their art in a way which is affected by their common attachment or relationship to Germany. Methodist dentists don’t carry out their work any differently to Muslim or Jedi dentists. Ergo, no category. Swiss pianists? I personally doubt any relevance here, but I can’t get worked up about it – leave it as it is.

By the way, two Jewish categories have been specifically singled out as allegedly pointless – chess players and anarchists. Those who have wished to dismiss these should think again. Chess has long been an important part of Jewish culture and the success of Jews in chess during the nineteenth century had some role in developing Jewish self-esteem and certainly provided role-models amongst Jews which meant that their relative prominence in this pastime has continued. Anarchy was very attractive to many Jew, particularly those who lived in the Pale of Settlement; many prominent Jews were anarchists and there were Jewish anarchist parties (although that sounds like an oxymoron). These categories therefore seem to me evidentially justified. - Smerus 10:07, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I agree to my proposal - Smerus 10:07, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment-Durova's initial statement didn't really specify Jewish anything. I think this is like a bill in Congress that spawns counterproposals to infinity until the initial point is lost or it's unclear if there ever was one. I'd agree with letting this whole thing die and then maybe dealing with it again where we can separate out the Jewish issue. (It maybe shouldn't have to separated out, but it's clearly going to be separated into alternate proposals or what have you. In least this seems inevitable)--T. Anthony 10:49, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Actually the original proposal specifically avoided the debate about Jewish identity and stated that it did so. The proposal was crafted to seek a common ground and to address encyclopedic value as a separate matter. That's as far as any propoal can go to to "separate out the Jewish issue." Durova 16:15, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Comment: The argument appears to me to be specious. The article says: "The word Jew (Hebrew: יהודי transliterated: Yehudi) is used in many ways but generally refers to a follower of Judaism, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity; and often a combination of these attributes" - in other words, there is a Wikipedia article on Jew, but it starts out by saying that the word Jew has more than one meaning. Making any list of Jewish foo problematic unless it specifies which of the several definitions will be used for inclusion. And anyway, categories are better. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 13:41, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
This comment refers to the Who is a Jew? article and not to my proposal. Durova 15:58, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Comment You might look in the mirror before you use the word 'specious'! The Wikipedia definitions and articles about American, French etc.,all give multiple meanings which may be attributed to these words. That does not apparently lead to (many) people wishing to delete categories using them. Actually I believe that the great majority of readers of Wikipedia have the necessary modicum of intelligence to arrive at an understanding of these, and indeed many other, words. To those who do not, no amount of finagling of the rules wll have any effect.
Why, btw, do you single out 'Jewish' in your response? My proposal applies to all categories. Smerus 14:01, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Exactly, as I pointed out before there are also arguments about who is English, Welsh, British, Czech, Russian and Ukrainian yet we are not proposing deleting those lists just because it is not always black and white as to who is what. Arniep 14:05, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Question What part of the original proposal violates any Wikipedia policy? This discussion saw two weeks of quiet and mostly harmonious discussion until some very "hot" counterproposals introduced new and contentious subjects. The original proposal states specifically that this sidesteps questions of Jewish identity. Although I'm loath to use a strong term, the discussion has been hijacked. This "cure" throws the baby with the bathwater. There is a problem with Wikipedia's status quo on this subject. And this subject is lists of religion/ethnicity and profession. People are missing the forest for the trees. Durova 15:54, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Support/Agree with Smerus's (new?) proposal. This seems to make sense, and supports that someone with a grandfather or whatever would only be listed if we can prove they've identified with their grandparent's culture/group above others, which is reasonable and takes out people whose random grandparent's ancestry had no effect on them. Vulturell 20:56, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Question: why is all this discussion about categories? The title of this proposal is about lists. —Wahoofive (talk) 18:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
IZAK brought it up in suggesting that 99% of Jewish categories and lists should be deleted. Arniep 19:35, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Poll on the original proposal.

This was a quiet and harmonious page for two weeks until some very contentious proposals arrived and changed the focus. This was not about Jewish identity. Since the initial proposal hasn't had a poll, I'll hold it here. What do you think of the initial proposal on the project page? Support or Oppose below with a one line explanation, please. Durova 16:36, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Please set out your proposal again here (or better move the whole thing to a new page) so everyone can be perfectly clear what they are voting for or against - Smerus 17:04, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I think Durova is asking for a poll on this Wikipedia:Centralized_discussion/Lists_by_religion-ethnicity_and_profession#Initial_proposal Arniep 17:29, 8 January 2006 (UTC).
  • Oppose We cannot pretend that lists by nationality and profession are only there to subdivide people by geographic area. There is obviously an element of national cultural identity in linking these two data sets. Therefore, if it can be argued that an ethnicity or religion has an identity comparable to that of a nationality I don't agree that it should be prevented to link that ethnicity or religion with profession in lists or categories. I actually would be in favour of removing national, ethnic or religious separation for some occupations in categories but only if it was done for every country or group. Arniep 17:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Arniep, please reread the proposal. The proposal is about ethnicity, not nationality. This really doesn't concern geography. Durova 06:31, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I did read and fully understood your proposal. I think you misunderstood what I said, which was, basically that lists by ethnicity should not be treated differently to lists by nationality. Arniep 09:35, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Citizens can represent their country in international competitions. That's the difference. Durova 12:24, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
If that is your only reasoning to regard them differently, it is very weak, especially as it would only normally apply to sports. Arniep 12:43, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Durova, you have given as an example in your proposal that the category of 'Jewish chess players' serves no purpose, whereas 'Israeli chess players' does, because they could represent their country in a team. Because it is true that Israeli chess players can make a team, it does not logically follow from that, in any way, that a list of Jewish chess players serves no purpose. One could put forward a case that the number of leading Jewish chess players in the 19th century assisted consciousness of Jewish identity, provided role models and encouraged chess-education amongst Jews such that there is still a relatively high proportion of Jews amongst champions. These are historical items (I would call them facts) which surely have an encyclopaedic validity. - Smerus 16:02, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
If someone made a serious argument along those lines then the subject could become encyclopedic. I based the example on the idea that there is no Jewish theory of chess. Durova 07:09, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose (In 1 line!) - See Arniep above, more or less - Smerus 18:29, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
  • No vote. Poll is premature. Someone has to boldly break this page up into pieces, and at least put the unrelated proposals about Jews (and their attendant discussions) on another page. This page is much too unfocused. —Wahoofive (talk) 23:30, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
one thing I don't really understand about the proposal is if the lists created are obviously stupid (like Methodist dentists) why can't we just rely on afd to get rid of them? Arniep 23:55, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
That's an extreme example that I don't think is even meant to be representative. There wasn't even any kind of list of dentists until I created List of dentists, largely as a response to the example. Likewise there is no List of Methodists. I think what's meant is that when the two things have no real connection they shouldn't be a list, even if neither thing is silly. For example there is a rather large List of photographers, but having say a List of Christian photographers would be deemed disconnected. Likewise the athlete section of List of Latter-day Saints is huge, but to spin it off into its own list would likely be deemed connecting to unconnected things.--T. Anthony 01:43, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I realize that the example was extreme, but I think arniep is right. If someone has a problem with a particular list they can A. edit it themselves or B. AFD it and see what happens. A lot more people have access to the decision making process in that situation than they do to this place. Vulturell 04:56, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Most of these Centralized Discussions are intended to make policy to make AFD easier in borderline cases, and that's what I've always thought we were discussing. —Wahoofive (talk) 05:23, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
The thing is, these discussions do become contentious and inconsistent at AfD because of the middle group: the relevant-if-edited lists. When things don't go as far as AfD things can still be difficult for the editors because some Wikipedians plaster them with flags and threaten to AfD them. A consistent policy would head off this sort of problem. (BTW I support the idea to move the discussions of Jewish identity to another page. Could a more seasoned Wikipedian do that please?) Durova 06:39, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Question is, do we need the discussion on Jewish identity at all? Because A. IZAK's proposal was to delete all Jewish lists, it had nothing to do with "who is a Jew" B. I thought we were using the same standard for every ethnic group, and that standard is what this page was trying to decide? and C. We already have a page, Who is a Jew?, so what is there to discuss? Vulturell 07:27, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
No, we don't need the discussion of Jewish identity. That's what hijacked the dialogue about dual category lists. Durova 09:21, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
It is relevant to your proposal, see my point above. As to applying relevance criteria, in my opinion, that would just be a recipe for endless edit warring. Unless the list is patently frivolous and is factual and verifiable I don't see a problem. Arniep 09:43, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
This proposal leaves individual list entries up to the list editors and it handles ethnicity and religion as functional equivalents. My proposal would remain unchanged no matter how the Jewish identity debate resolves itself. Also, WP:NOT establishes a relevance requirement. Durova 12:20, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I note WP:NOT states "Of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contributed to the list topic.". Arniep 12:47, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
That does support my point, doesn't it? Durova 02:14, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Well Durova's attempt to get us to vote on her proposal with one line comments is evidently already lost, so it seems that Wahoofive's no vote suggestion above is the only way to proceed without getting lost in eternal navel-inspection. - Smerus 09:49, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Can't vote until we agree what we're talking about. —Wahoofive (talk) 04:06, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
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