Wikipedia talk:Categorizing articles about people/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality/Archive 2

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Categorization and duplication

This issue was settled at Wikipedia:Categorization a while ago. There is now consensus that there are good reasons to sometimes allow category duplication. I'm not sure how to change these guidelines to reflect this change. It seems that most of the discussion about ghettoization conflicting with categorization rules is now moot. --Samuel Wantman 10:32, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Mixing criminal and non-criminal categories that are semantically similiar

Currently there is a "list of courtesans and prostitutes". A subject BLP self-described as an "escort" but not a "prostitute" has caused a quandary. A solution is to expand the list to include "Courtesans, escorts and prostitutes". But it begs the question: does creating such a category make an association between prostitutes and courtesans that violates WP policy? Is prostitute (a criminal) being associated with courtesan (non-criminal) a problem? --Tbeatty 10:09, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

'Prostitute' is not intrinsically criminal, because prostitution is legal in many parts of the world. --Calair 23:50, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Propose change from "Categorization/Gender, race and sexuality" to "Categorization/Gender, ethnicity and sexuality"

This may sound petty, but the terms 'race' and 'ethnicity' aren't interchangeable. If you look up African American, one of the 'races' listed, you find an ethnic group. Race is just a leftover from the Eugenics movement that doesn't mean anything at all. Ethnic groups are distinguishable cultural groups, and should be used instead of 'race', which is highly subjective. You won't have to change anything but the name of the article. What do you think? Black-Velvet 09:09, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Not petty at all. If there are no objections, I will rename in a few days. -- Samuel Wantman 20:08, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Even if we are going to tell people not to categorise by race, it still makes sense to mention that in the title of the page.—Nat Krause^(Talk!) 23:33, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe 'ancestry' is a far better word than 'race' or 'ethnicity'. It relates just as well to communities that aren't ethnically homogenous (eg. Kurds, Jews) as to communities who are (eg. afro-americans) Miscreant 01:28, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Examples

Who came up with this example: "[etc. and] 'Indian' for a native person are not appropriate terms."? Who says "Indian" is inappropriate? When we were renaming the old Native Americans article, we came to the conclusion that there is no substantial difference in the appropriateness of "American Indian" or "Native American". I noticed, reading Charles Mann's 1491 recently, that the author uses "Indian" more often than not.

Also, "Eskimo" might or might not be offensive, but not all Eskimoes are Inuits, so it won't do to simply replace one with the other.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 01:07, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Regarding Indian, it is not appropriate in a category name to use terms that are not consistently accepted. You have to default to the least problematic naming option at all times — even if some native Americans self-identify as "Indian", if others reject it or find it offensive then it cannot be used as the default term for all of them.

And nobody ever said it was always acceptable to replace Eskimo with Inuit — what was said is that "Eskimo" cannot be used in a category name that's meant to be inclusive of Inuit. If you want to use "Eskimo" in a category name referring exclusively to Alaskan Yupik or Inupiat people, then fine, go right ahead. But Canadian Inuit are not under any circumstances to be included in any category that has "Eskimo" in its name. Bearcat 18:42, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

It seems to be a fact that some Indian people find the term "Native American" offensive. I've never seen any evidence that one term is more likely than the other to cause offense.

I have no problem in principle with not using "eskimo" to refer to Canadian Inuit people. This leaves no term embracing all such groups available for use in Wikipedia, though, implying that a category such as Category:Eskimos must be replaced with something involving a multi-word construction, perhaps Category:Inuit and Eskimo peoples (although this seems to give the incorrect impression that the term "eskimo", if and when it is used, does not include Inuit people).—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 19:42, 4 January 2007 (UTC)