There is another possible approach -- that Jewish politicians are not
simple those politicians who are in fact Jewish, but politicians who
themselves consider that they are Jewish and say so
themselves--politicians who think of themselves as Jewish politicians.
I'd use the same approach with all similar categories. An
Irish-American politician is not an American politician with Irish
ancestry, but one who considers himself of Irish identity in the
political context.
There are several unmentioned problems in the background:
1/ people self-identify a Jewish but are not considered to be so by
some large portion of Jews, for example Messianic Jews ; some so
identify but are not considered Jewish by a s,a;l portion of Jews,
such as those who have been converted to Judaism by a non- Orthodox
rabbi.
2/ The desire of some people, usually Jews, to claim Jewish identity
for anyone famous who has Jewish background or ancestry regardless of
whether of not they so identify themselves.
3/ The desire of some people, usually anti-Semites, to consider people
they dislike, especially capitalists and left-wing politicians, to be
Jewish and--if apparently not Jewish--to be secret Jews and hiding the
fact.
4/ The fact that Jewish identity often has been and in some places
still is, a serious handicap or even a personal danger.
Similar things are true of other ethnic or religious or LGBT or other
group membership.
A gay author is an author who wishes to be known as gay. Whether or
not he is is not relevant, regardless of RSs about his sexual
behavior; --what we need RSs for, is his own statements of identity.
David Goodman DGG
On 6/1/07, Joe Szilagyi <szilagyi(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 6/1/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
And when they are sourced, the sourcing can be inconsistent, because
there's often no agreed definition of the term. So with the Jew lists,
any reliable source that has called someone a Jew means they're added
to the list, even if they're clearly not Jewish according to most
definitions, and don't self-identify. So all we''re doing is repeating
the mistakes of sources. Of course, we do this in articles too, but in
articles you can produce another source that says something else, and
you can discuss the nuances. But with the lists and categories, the
entry is either in or out.
But with lists, it should be subject to the exact same thresholds of
informational notability. First, if they aren't notable enough for an
article, get them off the list. No red links or flat black text for BLPs on
lists. Next, why on earth isn't there a rule that they can only be on the
list based on the proven sourcing from the articles? That's going to be a
trick, yes, because of possible errors on sourcing--but that's not our
decision to make, because that would be OR. We can't decide who's a Jew or
Christian or Wiccan; that's all just RS. If three or four RS say, "He's
Jewish!" even if know *know* it's wrong, but no source contradicts that
information, we can't justifiably keep it out. But, nothing should be in a
list except based on what's sourced on the articles themselves.
Ditto for categories, and I don't see why lists aren't just enforced as
slightly wordy/verbose categories.
Regards,
Joe
http://www.joeszilagyi.com
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