On 01/06/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 6/1/07, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain(a)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(a)dunelm.org.uk