[WikiEN-l] Thoughts on naming people - article content, this time.

[Andrew Gray]

On 01/06/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/1/07, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It's a consequence of the endless debates about these various lists of
> > Jews that have been raging since the dawn of wikitime. It's to counter
> > the criticism that "how can you incontrovertibly declare that
> > so-and-so is Jewish?"
>
> Yeah it's a strange sort of category. I don't know whether it's Jews
> in particular doing it, but there have been some pretty concerted
> efforts to go around labelling as many scientists as possible "Jewish
> scientists" etc. I assume the intent is to promote or recognise the
> religion in some way, rather than to "out" the people in question, as
> the first post suggested.

I don't feel the intent is to out people - after all, the proect has a
page thanking people for being so proud of their gay friends, I think
we can assume well-meaning editors for actual content :-)

It's just that when read in conjunction with something about outing,
it does seem a little... uh. Slightly not quite right, you know?

Imagine, hum, "The following list of people are cigar smokers. The
list contains individuals who, in accordance with Wikipedia's
verifiability and no original research policies, have been identified
as cigar smokers by reliable sources."

Something about that sort of notice just oozes suspiciousness.

[I do *also* have issues with labelling people as Jewish or as "of
Dutch origin" or whatever based on inferences from known relatives or
the like, when they don't self-define as part of that grouping, but
that's another matter, one to do with article content, and partly
stems from an American/not-American cultural divide.]

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk