Talk:Acadians/Archives/2016

This is an archive of past discussions about Acadians. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Spelling of Spanish "Luisiana"

@Kosmonaut: Dear Kosmonaut,
Thank you for your recent edit, correcting Luisiana into Louisiana, here. Like you, I had noticed this during an earlier visit, but left it as-is on the grounds that the Spanish name Luis would be a logical root for the Spanish spelling of Luisiana. In fact, the piped article on Louisiana (New Spain) shows the Spanish spelling as such.
It's up to you, but I was satisfied that the earlier spelling was factually correct and might possibly have helped readers to appreciate the Spanish dimension of the state's history.
Thank you.
With kind regards;

Patrick. ツ Pdebee.^(talk)^(guestbook) 13:07, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

@Pdebee: Dear Pdebee,

First, please accept my apology if this is the wrong way to respond to you - this is new to me and I'm not 100% sure of the proper protocols.

Second, thank you for your note. I immediately assumed "Luisiana" was a mere misspelling. Now after seeing your note and reading the page Louisiana (New Spain), I am no longer certain.

On one hand, I see your point in referencing the Spanish dimension of the state's history. On the other hand, it is not immediately noticeable, and many English speakers will assume it is a misspelling.

Do you have any suggestions moving forward? I am unsure of what to do.

Thank you.

Best,

K Kosmonaut (talk) 14:46, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

@Kosmonaut: Dear Kosmonaut,

Thank you for your prompt reply, which worked perfectly!

It's always best to communicate via an article's talk page when discussing its contents with other editors; the 'ping' template is therefore an excellent tool for enabling that connection. As you can see, another established practice is that successive exchanges are indented, by way of increasing numbers of colons.

About our dilemma, I agree with you fully that an initial reading of the Spanish spelling will often cause the reader to conclude it is a typo. I dare say we could consider turning things around, perhaps as follows:

"Many Acadians migrated to present day Louisiana state (known then as Spanish colonial Luisiana), ..."

If you think this will work, then please feel free to apply the change, and many thanks for your help and consideration.

With kind regards;

Patrick. ツ Pdebee.^(talk)^(guestbook) 15:27, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

@Pdebee: Hi Patrick,

I think that is a very good compromise, so I have edited the page with your suggestion.

Thank you so much for your input and for being so approachable.

Best,

K Kosmonaut (talk) 16:55, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

@Kosmonaut: Dear K,
Very many thanks for your helpful assistance and cooperation, and also for your kind comment. I have enjoyed working with you and would gladly do so again any time; so, get in touch if you ever wish to team up again.
Until then, please keep well and happy.
With kind regards;
Patrick. ツ Pdebee.^(talk)^(guestbook) 18:38, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Some Acadians were "Metis"

Metis is a cultural and political group in the Canadian mid-west. You may say that some Acadians (a small number) who were majority French had mixed origins with Natives. They were also mixed on similar levels with Irish, Basque, Dutch, Portugese and English. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.142.80.188 (talk) 10:13, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Dear fellow editors,

I am leaving this message out of courtesy to other editors interested in the present article. The purpose of my intervention is to explain why I am puzzled by the above remarks from IP user '67.142.80.188'. I am also explaining why I am taking an action, while also inviting other editors to participate in further discussions on this topic. Thank you.

On 22 January 2016, IP user '67.142.80.188' made a statement ("You may say that some Acadians (a small number) who were majority French had mixed origins with Natives.") which actually agrees with the sentence in the article ("Acadians are the descendants of French colonists who settled in Acadia during the 17th and 18th centuries, some of whom are also Metis.") against which s/he then attached the {{Disputed|section|date=January 2016}} template on the same day, here.

In the article, the latter sentence was already pinned with no less than four consecutive ref tags, each very detailed, to corroborate a straightforward point. It is therefore difficult to understand what the IP user was actually disputing—since his/her statement was echoing that sentence in the article: "some Acadians were Metis"—especially as the sentence already cited four sources to buttress that simple point.

It is possible (although that wasn't made clear) that the IP user's objection had something to do with his/her final sentence: "They were also mixed on similar levels with Irish, Basque, Dutch, Portugese [sic] and English." However, proving that the latter point is true and verifiable wouldn't in any way validate or invalidate the previous point ("Some Acadians were Metis"). Stated differently: if I were to carry out all the work of determining the proportion of Acadians who were descendants of French colonists mixed with all these other nationalities, my efforts would still have no bearing on the fact that "Some Acadians were Metis", with which the IP user actually agreed, and the dispute would never get closed.

Therefore, I have concluded that inserting (and keeping) the 'Disputed' template does not appear, at least to me, to serve any useful purpose whatsoever. Confusingly, this template has today been re-located away from the original sentence by another editor [@InVerrem:], thus removing the connection between the sentence and the IP user's original objection, whatever it may have been. In turn, it is difficult to determine why the template was re-located, since the editor did not offer an explanation in either the edit summary, or here at the talk page.

Looking at the article, I would say that it is well sourced (26 ref tags) even though some citations are still needed in three places (including one request for 'when?' and one request for a page number).

I am therefore removing the 'Disputed' template, and inviting other interested editors to review the current version of the article. If anyone disagrees with my conclusion and action, then please may I propose that we engage in further discussions in this section, to seek consensus about what, if anything, is disputed about the current contents of the article.

Thank you; I look forward to other editors' constructive participation.

With kind regards;

Patrick. ツ Pdebee.^(talk)^(guestbook) 00:22, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

As the editor who shifted the template in question, I apologise for the confusion. {{Disputed}} should be used when an article contains disputed information throughout, not to highlight a specific section, sentence or point (eg. "some of whom are also Metis") as being questionable. In this case, the proper template would have been {{Dubious}}.

Furthermore, the IP user did not add a link to this talk page section, so I assumed he hadn't left any further clarification for the "Disputed" label. Like you, I didn't see anything unreasonable about the argument "some Acadians are Metis," so I assumed the IP user was trying to use {{Disputed}} for its intended purpose (questioning the objectivity of the entire article) and had simply placed it incorrectly. To quote the template's documentation, it belongs "at the top of the disputed article," so that's where I moved it. It's a large, distracting template and it can't be placed in-line; it splits the paragraph in two.

Perhaps the fair thing to do is to insert {{Dubious}} in place of the removed template and open a discussion on whether "some of whom are also Metis" is an objective fact, but I have to say I agree with you: the citations are thorough and credible, more than enough to preclude a "dubious" tag. Until a near-equal number of respectable sources can be produced arguing that "Acadian" and "Metis" are mutually exclusive terms, I don't feel that a template is justifiable. — InVerrem (talk) 20:05, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

@InVerrem: Dear InVerrem,

Many thanks for your prompt and considered response. Please don't worry about moving the {{Disputed}} template; you did the logical thing and it is I who should apologise to you for not contacting you directly in the first place; my intent was primarily to connect with as many of the editors who watch this article as possible. Thank you for understanding, and please know that I am grateful that you responded as you did; thank you.

I agree with you about the IP's unusual positioning of the template although, in a way, it helped to clarify what s/he was disputing, albeit by us having to read between the lines to some extent. Like you, I dare say there was not much to dispute but I didn't like the idea of discarding the IP's concerns without thinking this through carefully and seeking consensus, as I did above.

I would like to propose that we leave things as they are. If another editor has verifiable sources about people of other nationalities mixing with the original French settlers, then I am sure that the section in question can simply be expanded, as an natural extension of the point being made that "some Acadians were metis".

If you are of the same view, then please simply add a quick update below, at your convenience, so that there is evidence that the two of us have agreed to leave things as they are for now. Thank you for your helpful assistance.

With kind regards;

Patrick. ツ Pdebee.^(talk)^(guestbook) 22:29, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Not to worry! I agree that the template's placement was helpful in clarifying the IP editor's meaning; I just feel that {{Dubious}} would have been a more appropriate and less disruptive choice, as it fits in-line just like a citation.

As I understand it, the IP user's argument was that "Métis" should refer to a specific ethnic group which excludes most Acadians: people in Western Canada with only French and indigenous heritage. In the context of this article, "Métis" is used to mean simply that some Acadians have some indigenous heritage — whether they live in Western Canada and have non-French European ancestors is beside the point. It would be impossible to argue that no Acadians have any First Nations blood; the disputes would be over which phrasing to use ("some of whom are also Métis" versus "some of whom have part-indigenous heritage") and whether or not the First Nations influence is significant enough (compared to, say, the Portuguese influence) to deserve a mention in the article's first sentence.

I can understand his point of view: the term "Métis" usually implies a primarily French—indigenous ethnic group, not a mixture of French with several other European nationalities and only a little First Nations blood. However, there have been no sources offered to support the claim that the Acadian identity is as much Basque or Dutch as it is native American, whereas there are plenty of credible cited sources supporting the article's use of "Métis," so I agree: things should be left as they are for now. — InVerrem (talk) 23:50, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

@InVerrem: Dear InVerrem,
Many thanks for taking the time to reply so promptly. You are quite right: the {{Dubious}} template would have been much better, but I am sure we can forgive newbies for their innocence; sometimes, I still feel like a newbie myself!
Your analysis is spot on and I agree with you fully. That said, the real challenge we face is that, IMHO, the IP user did not provide enough details to help us understand precisely what s/he wanted changed, and how to word it.
I am really hopeful that this IP user will return one day, and think of looking at the present talk page, and 'ping' both of us so we can address the concern once and for all, and improve the article by consensus and to everyone's satisfaction.
Until then, it's better to leave things as they are and I really appreciate your intellectual support in our effort to do the best for our readers. My main worry was that the template was more misleading (IMHO) than the prose as it stands and, since we can't really fix this IP user's concern, I am glad you agree that we leave things be for now.
Many thanks once again for your time and help, and please keep well and happy.
With kind regards for now;
Patrick. ツ Pdebee.^(talk)^(guestbook) 00:48, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Acadians/Archives/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

this is almost certainly the wrong place to put this, but I object to this article being included in this so-called "wiki project france". it should be included in a "wiki project canada" should one exist. Acadians have as much, if not less, in common with France as Quebecois do. 74.13.125.185 07:03, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 07:03, 19 September 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 06:34, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

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Acadian cuisine

Please develop and add sources or integrate with this page.Xx236 (talk) 08:59, 25 November 2016 (UTC)