Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethnic groups

Requested move discussion

Hello. The following requested move discussion would benefit from broader input: Talk:Turks in Bulgaria#Requested move 7 November 2015. Thanks in advance for your participation. Cordless Larry (talk) 20:54, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

The necessity of galleries of personalities in the infoboxes

Note: Please see the formal Request for comment in the section below. Fut.Perf. ☼ 02:30, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

I opine that a centralised discussion about all articles would be the ideal solution. We are talking about general arguments that apply for every ethnic group. I think that wikipedia should be consistent in the content that it provides or excludes on similar articles and the lack of a coordinated guideline regarding this issue makes this encyclopedia look messy.

I invite editors who already expressed their view on this aspect on other talk pages to post their comments here: User:Maproom, User:Spacecowboy420, User:Steverci, User:Anonimu, User:Iryna Harpy, User:Alessandro57, User:Cordless Larry, User:Ghmyrtle. Hahun (talk) 10:11, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

In principle I agree with Hahun: these galleries are intrinsically POV, its encyclopedic values is near zero (much better are pictures of single notables in the respective section of the article) and are source of recurrent edit wars among users. Because of that on itwiki some months ago they have all been removed. On the other side, I understand too that reaching consensus about a general removal is a quite difficult task. Last but not least, how could this consensus be enforced? Alex2006 (talk) 10:23, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

My primary concern with these galleries (and with notable people sections, for that matter), is that the inclusion criteria are rarely clear. At worst, all such galleries might be considered original research, because without a source, who is to say that the selection of people is representative of the group? Cordless Larry (talk) 10:24, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

I see no difference between having someone's picture in a gallery, and having them mentioned in the article. You're going to have to make a judgement about who is notable enough and fits certain criteria. I would agree that whatever decision is made, it has to be consistent within all articles. I am very much in favor of the galleries, however I would rather see them all go, or all stay than some go and some stay. They do benefit the article and wikipedia, encyclopedias have pictures, they spark an interest. We are making wikipedia a nice place for readers, not a nice place for editors. We should deal with the problems for the benefit of those who read the article, they don't care about edit wars, they care about content. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 11:19, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

I have found the galleries informative. I feel the articles are better with them. The attitude "it's too difficult to check the facts, so let's not bother with them" seems inappropriate in Wikipedia. Maproom (talk) 11:49, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Who is arguing that ""it's too difficult to check the facts, so let's not bother with them"? To be clear, I'm arguing that in none of the infobox galleries that I've seen have the inclusion criteria been clear. I've never seen a reference to a source that states that the particular selection of people are a representation of the group, for example. They all seem to be based on editors' own perceptions of who matters, and are thus original research. Cordless Larry (talk) 11:53, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

This is exactly the main problem. A clear example is the collage currently on display on Italians, for which there is clearly no consensus, and which is disruptive, since several of the people who are displayed there are simply not notable enough to be included among the 20-30 most notable Italians, unless special inclusion criteria are used (politically correctness, etc.). The problem is that also the decision about these criteria is POV. That's why I say: better no mosaic at all, than a bad assembled mosaic. Alex2006 (talk) 12:32, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Surely, the same rules would apply for inclusion on galleries as apply for notability in articles. Maybe this is a strange idea, but I couldn't care less if the gallery gets changed 10 times a day, as long as it is there, showing people who represent the article. Wikipedia manages to have articles about abortion, obama and hitler, editors can deal with this issue. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 14:07, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, a person would have to be judged notable to be included. But that is not selective enough since there are hundreds or even thousands of notable Italian, English, Indian, German-American, etc. people. The question is, of all those notable people, what criteria are being used to select those who appear in the infobox? Cordless Larry (talk) 14:18, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm leaning towards removal of galleries from ethnic group infoboxes. Yes, they are often informative, but even more often they are highly controversial and an arena for POV-pushing. I have myself been involved in several discussions and it's pretty hard to get a consensus on who is a representative of a certain nation. It'd probably be better to have images of notables in the respective sections of articles as proposed by Alex. Spacecowboy says he see no difference, but the inclusion of such images can easily be sourced, e.g. if we're talking about Germans's music section it's easily to find reliable sources pointing to a few composers as being the greatest and most influential German composers. --Երևանցի ^talk 14:21, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

@Spacecowboy420:, this was an idea which I had too to solve the problem: would it not be possible to rotate different galleries at certain times (something like FA on the main page)? I mean, if we have 200 notables on display, the criteria to choose them would not be so important anymore. Alex2006 (talk) 14:26, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Interesting idea, but I doubt it would work. We would still get the same kinds of fights over who is part of the 200 as we have now over who is part of the 25. How many slots among the 200 should be reserved for modern sportspeople? How many for women? How many for people considered national heroes in ethnicity X's favourite patriotic narrative? How many for figures included to score a point against neighbouring ethnicity Y, who are also claiming them as theirs? Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:35, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Personally, on my first thought there more pros than cons for galleries in infobox. The main con is the inclusion criteria, which for now does not exist, but there's no constructive reason to not be made. The personalities included should be from an array of society, like from politics, culture (art, literature, music), sport, science, religion and others. However, every gallery need consensus, and I just don't understand how it happened without it. It is clear editors omission, and that is not an excuse to remove galleries from infobox. One of criteria, like in the case of Croats for some specific field of dispute (like sport) was Wikipedia:Pageview statistics. Galleries have a significant contributon to ethnic group articles. For example, if someone wants to check some not so known ethnic group as Italians, like Volga Tatars, or for some Croats, visitors receive firsthand who are their most notable personalities, and how those people look like. It gives an impression no word can convey, an image "speaks thousand words". There's no replacement for an image. Just a list of names in respective section is not good enough. We're living in 21st century, and not just now, even centuries ago was felt the need to have portraits and pictures of people and events. Also would agree with note above, "all stay, or all go", there's no middle. Whatever discussion is here, it needs to include thoughts from each ethnic group projects editors.--Crovata (talk) 14:34, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, I'm going to take a look at the talk pages of articles with stable galleries and see how they got their stability. I have a question...can an admin make a specific rule, for a specific article? Sorry, I'm not the most experienced editor here. For example: The gallery will not be changed without consensus being gained on the talk page, any changes without consensus gained on :::the talk page will be reverted to the original state, without the reverting editor being subject to any 3RR (or similar) rules. Having said all that, I'm very much in favor of a rotating gallery, that might actually offer an significant improvement for readers. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 14:40, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

The stability depends above all from the competence of the involved editors. :-) For example, the gallery of the Germans is one of the best which I ever seen, but the simple reason is that German-speaking are generally vey competent (it is enough to have a look to dewiki to notice that). Unfortunately, this is a kind of exception on wikipedia... :-) Alex2006 (talk) 14:49, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

In none of these cases does membership require notoriety. Why do we assume that any of these articles are about well-known or distinguished members of a given ethnic group? What is the point to showcasing well-known or distinguished members of a given ethnic group? Bus stop (talk) 15:17, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Agree, editors need to have certain level of knowledge of own nation to "see" who are more notable from the others. Hmmm, "What is the point to showcasing well-known or distinguished members of a given ethnic group?", that's actually a good question. Perhaps contribution to human civilization? To own nation?--Crovata (talk) 15:42, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

I think the photo gallery dumbs down the article. Bus stop (talk) 15:51, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

What is wrong it dumbs down an article? Explain your thought.--Crovata (talk) 15:57, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

The depicted member is not necessarily representative of the group. Bus stop (talk) 16:18, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Aesthetically a group of c. 25 people is not, but people who politically and culutrally were significant ie. fought for, had and further developed ethnic identity and culture, I wouldn't say so easily they do not represent an ethnic group.--Crovata (talk) 16:28, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Now you are trying to concoct criteria. But the criteria that apply most are criteria of representativeness. Essentially this is a losing game. The choosing of people is a distorting process. If we were interested in accurately representing the group our highest priority would probably be randomness. That would probably include mostly anonymous members of a given ethnic group. Bus stop (talk) 16:57, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Even if the people are selected to be representative, that still seems like original research to me, unless we rely on a source that says "these people are representative of the group". I can imagine a source saying something along the lines of "Famous X-ian people include..." and us using that to base the selection on, but I'm yet to see one of these montages that is sourced in that way. Cordless Larry (talk) 18:27, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Should be no images of people at all. Nothing but a problem all over the place. Geneticists and social scientists agree that ethnic identity is socially constructed and cant be represented by individuals. Ethnic groups are represented/defined by communal and social norms ...not by individuals of said group -- Moxy (talk) 18:45, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

I think that these mosaics are created mainly to self-glorify the different groups. In fact only "good" notables are chosen. None ever dreamed to put Toto Riina in the Italian collage, although he depicts well the Mafioso type, and Mafia is an important component of Italian society. Alex2006 (talk) 18:58, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Articles which can be illustrated with appropriate images should have them. This is an explicit part of the good article criteria. Appropriate images can be identified visually, just as for any other article. In fact, original images are permissible. Nobody is complaining that the photo in Rosa kordesii constitutes original research since it wasn't published in a reliable source as an example of the species, or that it is POV since a visually attractive specimen was selected instead of an old and dying one. Since the definitions of ethnic groups do have sociological meaning whether we like it or not, I would strongly refute the claim that articles about them cannot be illustrated, or need photos of ugly or infamous people for a false and blatantly disrespectful sense of balance. Nor should the presence of content disputes about which photos should appear in articles about ethnic groups imply that no images should be used, any more than we would delete an entire article the moment a dispute arises. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 19:45, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Actually during GA and FA nominations these info-boxs full of individual people linked get removed most times because they do not lead to information about said group ..they reappear after time and get overwhelming like at Tamils..... but the norm for our best articles can be seen at Toraja FA Taiwanese aborigines FA British people GA - Aboriginal peoples in Canada GA - Banat Bulgarians GA - Mikea people GA - Eskaya people GA - African Americans in Omaha, Nebraska GA - Antemoro people GA. Put it simply as per the essay Wikipedia:Image dos and don'ts - Don't overload articles with images. Don't add images that are not relevant. -- Moxy (talk) 20:35, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I first became aware of the OR issue in the discussion at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/British Cypriots/archive1. Cordless Larry (talk) 21:57, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)British people stopped having such images in September 2013, rather by accident (copyright problems with one element in a montage), and we eventually discussed it in February 2015 at Talk:British people#Infobox images?. Arguments for and against included: difficulty of selection; endless arguments; tiny image sizes; lack of encyclopedic value; ineffectiveness; inevitable failure to represent the subject of the article; the advantages of illustration in general; existence of collages in other such articles; GA articles don't have such images.
Americans dropped such images from the infobox in November 2014, soon after it had briefly grown to seven rows of six,[1] following discussions (Talk:Americans/Archive 3#Getting rid of the infobox mosaic for good and Talk:Americans/Archive 3#Infobox images) which cited British people as a good example of doing fine without such infobox images.
A recent discussion at Talk:Italians#Need a mosaic., where such images have been almost the only subject in 2015, mentions that Russians and Bavarians don't have such collections in their infoboxes while English people, Scottish people, Greeks, Catalans, Basques and Sardinians (maybe the current record-holder at 50) do. NebY (talk) 20:40, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Sardinians only has 40, NebY. I say only... Cordless Larry (talk) 22:01, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Oops - dizzy from keeping too many tabs open. Thanks. NebY (talk) 22:15, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

NebY, the Russians article didn't have such a collection in its infobox in October 2015 (during the discussion at Talk:Italians#Need a mosaic.), but meanwhile a gallery was added, with the motivation "every ethnic group article got its own infobox pictures". Probably this is how most the galleries appeared: by following what was seen at other similar articles. Hahun (talk) 22:17, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Yep, that's how these things spread. See the comment recently posted at Talk:White American#Pictures, for instance. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:21, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Oh! And now Talk:Russians is largely about infobox images, with even more disturbing arithmetic than mine, at least in this oppose: "Suvorov is though to have been 1/4 Armenian. I believe that the general rule should be that someone is at least 1/2 Russian." NebY (talk) 22:29, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

• Having just dipped my head into this stuff at Russians, I agree. If an infobox needs a picture, it can be geographical distribution: more informative, less controversial, less ILIKEIT. Max Semenik (talk) 22:41, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

We have guidance on this matter already as per (guideline) WP:LEADIMAGE about how the image should be widely seen as representing the topic. (essay) Wikipedia:Image dos and don'ts - Don't overload articles with images and Don't add images that are not relevant. To me this implies that the image should be of the topic hand and if its linked they would be to more info on the topic. Having random small mini images that are linked to random topics is not a good idea for any article on any topic. -- Moxy (talk) 23:32, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) As a clarification as to where CON stood on the Russians article, the consensus last year was to remove it (see archived talk). The same goes for Romanians and a handful of other articles. At the moment there are disputes on the Ukrainians talk page about who can be defined as being Ukrainian, and how these definitions are arrived at. My take on it has not changed an iota: all of these galleries are POV and OR, and serve no other purpose than to act as an energy sinkhole for regular editors.

Further to the point, there are far more articles on ethnic groups that were not created by anyone from that ethnic group, and galleries have been added willy-nilly because someone, at some stage, thought that WP:ITSIMPORTANT to use the 'image' parameter in the 'ethnic group' template to create a gallery, therefore it's equally important that every ethnic group feature such a gallery. I've yet to come across anything in MOS suggesting that that's how the image parameter is designed to be used. I've been trying to copyedit and clean up articles on Latin American countries, as an example. Every time I get a watchlist alert for any of these articles, it's inevitably yet another IP popping in to change sportspeople, their favourite singers, etc. in the gallery. Much as I'd like to just remove all of the galleries on unwatched articles, neither do I WP:OWN them. Simultaneously, neither am I compelled to check on new celebs (et al) to ensure that they actually identify as being of that ethnicity. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:50, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Reply to Cordless Larry if "we rely on a source" which says "Famous X-ian people include..." - well, there exist books on Croats eg. "100 most significant Croats" and so on, but in that specific book's preface is written: "Author tends optimal objectivity, because he is aware that absolute objectivity in this kind of work does not and can not be ... deeply entrenched ideological divisions, and there are no unique scientific and historical criteria or undivided, generally accepted values ... [he] built and firmly established a criteria". I don't know what kind of criteria he built, but there several issues regarding so-called "small nations", but also "big nations". One of them is "small nations" proudly want to emphasize to "big nations" that they also contributed to human civilization, but here comes the problem - where begins and where it stops ethnicity and nationality, especially of those people who are of mixed ancestry, or specific ethnic ancestry, but later declared as members of another ethnic group, or cultural significance etc. There several cases among South Slavs (Croats and Serbs), where tried "stealing a national treasure" from each other, based on national, ethnical, cultural, historical reasons. For example, you'll find Nobel-winner Ivo Andrić, who was born a Croat in Bosnia and Herzegovina, initially declared as a Croat, to in later life while lived in Serbia, decided to declare as a Serb. He contributed in literature for all Yugoslavs, but he is claimed by ethnicity by Croats, Serbs oppose this and highlight it as their Nobel Prize winner, Bosnians claim his birth place. In the end, he is in infobox galleries and sections of all three ethnic groups, and not to mention that there were not controversies, kind of "yours Nikola Tesla (born a Serb), but Ivo Andrić (born a Croat) is ours", but this dispute was not settled on national and academical, far less on Wikipedian level. This is only one example, that shows, there's no strict criteria in the world, even less among editors to reach a perfect consensus for exact personalities. Now on second thought, galleries should be removed, it's not even fair for those ethnic groups who did not "contribute notable person", that does not diminish the value of human beings. This galleries are just "show off".--Crovata (talk) 00:51, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware of the issues in that part of the world. I'm glad that you now agree on the problems of these montages. Cordless Larry (talk) 08:42, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Members of one community tend to a myopia about the humanity and achievements of other communities.

If Wikipedia "national" portrait galleries of a few "representative" individuals help counteract such chauvinist ignorance by whetting curiosity about other communities, they may serve a useful purpose.

The effort to find consensus on gallery inclusion may inspire editors to give intelligent thought to inclusion criteria.

Nihil novi (talk) 04:02, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

That's a nice idea but the problem is that, judging by my watchlist, there is very little evidence of that being the case, whereas there is a lot of evidence of edit warring and lack of criteria-based consensus. Cordless Larry (talk) 09:01, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

I would strongly suggest getting rid of them. The informative value equals zero. There is too much room for interpretation (Was Mozart even an Austrian? Or Hitler?), and the potential for mischief of many sorts is endless. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 18:05, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Conveniences break

I have always found these galleries to be little more than a waste of space in the best case, and a massive quality and POV nightmare in the worst. In addition to the points raised by others above (unprincipled, no clear inclusion criteria, POV implications, frequent edit warring) I also observe the following:

• Unstoppable bloat. There is apparently an inexorable inflationary trend that forces these things to get larger and larger. I remember a time when we had galleries with just four or eight heads. Then there were 12 to 16; currently most of the heavily edited ones have at least somewhere around 25 or even more than 30, and the worst I've seen had 56. We get enthusiasts fighting to increase numbers on the basis of comparison: if group A has x images, then B "deserves" at least y – a logic that will guarantee that the trend remains unidirectional, with no end in sight. Some of these boxes fill about half the width of the article space on my computer screen, and go well beyond screen hight, eating up prime-value real estate on screen and pushing the actual information content of the infoboxes out of sight, thus destroying the actual function of an infobox.
• Inclusion of personalities without regard to quality and authenticity of depictions. Especially where patriotic editors are keen on including ancient founding figures of their group, we invariably end up with fantasy depictions of unknown provenance, dubious authorship or copyright status, low esthetic value and zero authenticity. You will find few boxes that don't include at least one or two entries that fail responsible editorial practice for historical portraits. Examples: 1 (at Greeks), 2 (at Berbers), 3 (at Turkish people), 4 (at Pashtuns), and so on. You could easily substitute each of these with this, without losing a single bit of encyclopedic information (and it would be more honest to the readers too), because their true information value is precisely zero.

In short, while I don't think we can (or should) come to some consensus here to actually deprecate the use of galleries altogether, and while I don't mind some galleries as long as they are well maintained, stable and moderate in size, I'd be strongly opposed to any renewed move towards universal use of galleries in the name of "consistency". Galleries are a Wikipedia fad, and there's nothing in them that would indicate they should be required across all articles. I'm extremely glad that editors on some articles (such as Russians and Romanians) have found the courage to resist the trend and demonstrate that an article can live well without one. If anything is to come of this discussion, it should be that we ought to recommend to local editors on other articles to give serious thought to this possibility, whenever a gallery starts attracting edit-warring or other editorial problems again. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:10, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately, there never seemed to actually be any consensus on the Romanians article for not having a gallery. Numerous editors trying to revive the gallery were met with comments along the lines of "we have consensus, we won't discuss it, we won't have a gallery". This seems like a pretty poor way to claim consensus, especially when there are editors on the article in question who are more than willing to put the time and effort into improving the article. If an editor thinks it causes too much drama and conflict to have a gallery, then they should step back from that particular discussion and allow the editors who are prepared to deal with it, to deal with it. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 12:38, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

I find the reason given by User:Future Perfect at Sunrise for removing a gallery (if "it starts attracting edit-warring") quite questionable. I thought that the argument for including something is the fact that it improves the article from the readers' point of view, not the fact that it is stable, creating no difficulties for the editors. The antidote for avoiding edit wars should be the protection of the article, not the deletion of the thing that generates disputes between contributors. If Albanian and Serb editors begin edit warring at Kosovo article should we just roughly eliminate the article or work harder for a compromise? Hahun (talk) 13:19, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

The inclusion of Ivo Andrić in Serbs gallery, or Ivan Gundulić and Ruđer Bošković among The 100 most prominent Serbs, generates dispute from Croatian readers' point of view, not only Croatian editors. The fact that galleries are based on OR consensus from real world, it is beyond our (Wikipedian) reach to compromise on something which does not have compromise in real world. Is it good we go against our NPOV principles and accept false criteria and status quo of the real world, or be an example to the world? And we can't see this galleries from "developed" nations point of view, but on a global scale for all nations and ethnical groups, eg. Amazon tribes. Showing off "notable persons" looks more like a nationalistic masquerade. A masquerade of national collective hiding behind individual deeds.--Crovata (talk) 13:59, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

@Hahun:, FPaS didn't give "it starts attracting edit-warring" as a reason for removing a gallery. Rather, I read him as pointing out that there are many reasons not to have a gallery and that that possibility could be recommended to editors especially when they are so engaged in an edit-war over selection of images that they may have forgotten it's questionable whether the very thing that they're fighting over must or even should exist at all. NebY (talk) 14:42, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise and Fut.Perf.:, this was exactly the problem by Italians: we reached a consensus to substitute the mosaic with an Italian flag, and after a couple of weeks someone arrived, started an edit war, and forced the others to accept the mosaic again. I am not interested at all to decide who has to stay in the collage, provided that is notable: Raphael can substitute Bernini, Baggio Pirlo, and Volta Fermi. But the problem starts when someone decides that a non-notable (or more) deserve to go there. For example, on the Italian collage a couple of months ago landed a wrestler (!!!) unknown person of a sport (sport?) which is not popular at all in Italy, and was put near Michelangelo and Dante...Another specialty of the house :-) are ancient Romans (like Caesar) who periodically appear on the collage of the Italians. Demonstrating that this choice is wrong takes away a huge amount of time, which could be much more usefully used to create new articles, correct wrong info, etc. Alex2006 (talk) 15:01, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Future Perfect at Sunrise, which article has 56 images in the infobox? I thought NebY's 40 was crazy enough. Perhaps there should be a prize (for finding, not creating, the article with the most). Cordless Larry (talk)

Seems it was Iranian peoples, a couple of weeks ago [2]. It's been reduced to 30 in the meantime though. Ironically, "Iranian peoples" (note the plural) isn't even an ethnic group at all. Greeks was at 40 for a while [3], now back at 25. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:49, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

How do we make the leap between "Iranian peoples" and well-known "Iranian people"? That is what I don't understand. The title of the article is not "Distinguished Iranian people". So, why the emphasis on celebrity? Bus stop (talk) 21:45, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

No idea, I never edited that article. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:17, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

That article is just an example. Any article, on any group of people, ethnic or otherwise, is ostensibly about that group of people. It is not about outstanding members of that group of people. The sorts of articles under discussion are invariably about groups of people sharing some common traits resulting in some degree of group cohesion. The articles are never about famous members of that group. The fame of the members featured in photo galleries is often unrelated to whatever qualities unite the group. They achieve renown in some sphere of activity and they are a source of pride to other members of their group. But if the article is ostensibly about that group of people and their common traits, then we are going far afield by picturing people whose accomplishments often have nothing to do with the group of people to which they belong. Bus stop (talk) 07:52, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Ah, true. Sorry, it seems I totally missed the point you wanted to make. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:39, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

I also think that editors are not aware of what these infoboxs look like in the mobile versions ...that Iranian people is so overwhelming with images (have to side scroll to see them all)..as a result I bet many simply navigate away from the page. Losing readers because of image spam of this nature. WP:LEADIMAGE talks about this problem. This type of image spam will be hard to stop -- Moxy (talk) 17:16, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) As the person who started the thread Talk:Iranian peoples#Images in infobox I can see both sides of the argument. My original concern was the 56 images (and growing) which was unreadable on some phones etc. and suggested a maximum of 25 (5 x 5) or 24 (4 x 6), although I would prefer fewer, whilst User:Zyma thought more were appropriate. I think a limited number of pictures in the infobox can be helpful, to show the history and diverse range of people within the scope of the article. The problem is, once a gallery has been set up, editors repeatedly add their "favourite" often plugging their favourite politician, pop-star or sportsperson - hence my suggestion of one per century to emphasize the depth of the history, not the hear and now.
Presumably, as with other infobox parameters, it would be possible to limit the number of images, so that images after the agreed number do not show. There could also be a guideline in the template documentation, requiring talkpage consensus for inclusions/removals. - Arjayay (talk) 17:31, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

The entire premise for the photo box in these articles is faulty. Most members of the group under consideration have no fame. Most of the members are anonymous. Most do not have articles on Wikipedia. They might have lived comfortable lives. They might have lived impoverished lives. They may have been gems of humanity or they may have been the dregs of humankind. Why are we engaging in the value judgements necessary to choose the handful of people highlighted by a photo box? It doesn't matter what criteria are used. Are we really trying "to show the history and diverse range of people within the scope of the article"? That may be a minor consideration. But the major consideration is that we show the world the great people that emerge from a given milieu—be it ethnic, nationalistic, or by some other factor of cohesion uniting a given group of people. If we are to have this discussion we should be honest about what we are doing. We should acknowledge that we are omitting 99.99% of the members of that group from the outset based on their anonymity and their absence of renown beyond perhaps a small circle of family and friends—or they did achieve renown, as another editor pointed out above, but we don't approve of the renown they achieved. If the article is about the group of people—why can't we just stick to the subject? Why the ton of editorializing? When people are shown who do not achieve fame or who only garner a modicum of fame, we show the reader the appearances of members of the group and this may be helpful to the reader. I think the images matter insofar as the physical characteristics of facial structure, body type, attire, and perhaps setting and a few other factors can be seen. Images in a photo box are capable of conveying characteristics common to that group of people. Bus stop (talk) 19:09, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

I agree with all above.. as seen by this edit the rational for inclusion is so odd. We should have a RfC on this matter...that is "not" to overwhelm the lead of articles with so many images that "do not" link to more info on the topic at hand. Add info to WP:LEADCLUTTER about this -- Moxy (talk) 19:42, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Wow, "people who aren't completely white, people for whom visual evidence is inadequate, and ugly people". Odd indeed. I think we have a rough consensus here, but agree that an RfC would be good to establish something with more support. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:46, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

And now someone has added Hitler to the gallery of famous Austrians. Who may very well have not regarded himself an Austrian. Just like Mozart. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 18:02, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Was the RFC ever called? Photo montages are being removed by citing this talk page thread, but I agree with User:Cordless Larry that a wider show of support is required. Meters (talk) 19:13, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Not that I'm aware of. I would be interested in taking part however. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 19:29, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

I think all galleries must be changed with the national flags like in Americans or maps, when some groupe of people has no flag, like Slavs. --Targatron (talk) 19:49, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

• Flags don't work either for ethnicity articles, since an ethnicity is not a nationality. One nation may contain multiple ethnicities. A single ethnicity can span multiple nations. And diaspora are not directly connected to the original nation (if there even was one at the time that people moved). It's inappropriate visual labelling, so should be avoided per MOS:FLAGS. It simply isn't necessary for an infobox to be festooned with cutesy images. It's an infobox, not an "iconsbox".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:36, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Proposal for the deletion of all the galleries of personalities from the infoboxes of articles about ethnic groups

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Should montages of notable people be removed from ethnic group article infoboxes? Cordless Larry (talk) 23:46, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

• Note: reworded on behalf of Hahun. Cordless Larry (talk) 23:49, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

What about national groups? Canada, for one example, makes a distinction between nationality and ethnicity. A standard Canadian census question asks for the ethnicity of its citizens. Until fairly recently "Canadian" was not an accepted answer. Meters (talk) 23:54, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

So, we're only discussing ethnic articles? I'm asking because the above discussion thread was being used to justify removing photo montages from national articles. Meters (talk) 02:19, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Nationality is sometimes defined ethnically in articles (see English people), so there is overlap. I suggest that we keep the discussion to ethnic group articles here, to keep things (relatively) simple. At least when nationality is defined in terms of citizenship or country of birth, group membership can be relatively easily verified (though further inclusion criteria would still be needed). Cordless Larry (talk) 08:07, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove: This is a constant source of strife (see, e.g., multiple ongoing threads at Talk:African Americans), which often spills over into bio articles. The main problems with it are POV with regard to who gets highlighted, and OR with regard to who is asserted as qualifying for the label. This is especially problematic when it's a "racial" label versus a truly ethnic one in the anthropological sense of ethnicity, since race is largely a social construct to which is attached a lot of highly variable politics. These collages are mostly okay on nationality articles, though that can raise problems, too, since borders can change, and people keep getting anachronistically infobox-categorized.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:29, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove It doesn’t belong in the infobox, since it doesn’t inform us about the content of the article. Mostly there are no criteria for inclusion or exclusion that are workable. They therefore become a point of unnecessary strife and edit wars. They are a source of all kind’s of mischief by people with an unencyclopedical agenda that want to aggrandize of belittle ethnic groups or other ideas about certain ethnicities or ethnicity in general. Sometimes the idea's about who does or does not belong to the ethnic group in question are vague and highly questionable. It can also become a platform for the promotion or demotion of certain personalities or their ideas, which is unrelated to the subject of the article, or a means of belittling a certain ethnic group by including unsavory persons. Or just an excuse to publish pictures of pretty people. This is not for Wikipedia Gerard von Hebel (talk) 02:03, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove No inclusion/exclusion criteria, inherently subjective and non-neutral, conflict magnet. And most importantly they are unnecessary.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 02:24, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove having 50 + images in the lead of random people is simply not good (especially for mobile users). Need to add info to WP:LEADCLUTTER about this -- Moxy (talk) 02:44, 1 December 2015 (UTC)y
  • Comment This RFC concerns only articles about ethnic groups. It would not be appropriate to modify WP:LEADCLUTTER based on this RFC since it applies to all articles. Meters (talk) 02:51, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

    LEADCLUTTER should still probably address this, and use this sort of thing as an example. This is not the only case in which an excessive amount of clutter is shoved into infoboxes, essentially making the top of the article a morass. Other cases include long lists of works by authors/bands, long cast/crew lists for TV/film articles, long lists of alternative names of common plants and animals that have multiple vernacular regional names, numerous {{OMIM}} codes for conditions that are symptoms of multiple diseases, etc., etc. It is a general principle.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:30, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

I agree, but this RFC is not the place to discuss the larger issue. Let's keep the focus of this discussion on photo montages of people in ethnic group article. There's already enough confusion about the scope (e.g., articles vs. info boxes, ethnic groups vs. nationality articlea). Settle this one here and now and then move on to the bigger issue. Meters (talk) 18:50, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

My point was that no "special exemption" exists for photo montage clutter. Infboxes are meant to be at-a-glance tools, and it's a problem when they they're too full of trivia to serve that purpose, whether it's because of superfluous images or not.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:16, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

• Comment On the Austrians talkpage, there are two discussions (one longer ago) about how Freud isn't an Austrian because he's a Jew. (Same on the Czech page for Kafka) and another one about how Hitler is the most famous Austrian ever. Guess what, Hitler is in the collage (a recent addition) while Freud has for some reason been omitted. I mean...... C'mon people! Gerard von Hebel (talk) 03:00, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Keep Then what would possibly take its place in the infobox? The lead section is "the first part of the article that most people will read, and for many, it may be the only section read", "It should define the topic, establish context", etc. I think that we would have even more edit warring removing bios in the infobox. Aren't these representatives of ethnic groups and nations? I don't see having an ethnic map, flag, or image of a couple in traditional costume would be any better. The community should agree on what (who) to include in the infobox, obviously. Could you guys please give some examples of long-standing edit-warring regarding this issue? This helps determining if there is a real issue (and where). When including bios in the infobox, an Image array should always be used, and never an user-created collage (one image). I agree there should be a reasonable cap on 16(4x4) or 20(5x4) individuals.--Zoupan 03:10, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
• Comment There should be a maximum of 10–12 personalities in the infoboxs. No more. I remember when Jews only had four images, and it looked quite eloquent. Such pictures are supposed to the illustrate the articles in question and invariably are the first things people see when they click on said articles. I agree that having 20, 30 or 40 photos is ridiculous. Ten to twelve of the most important (and well known) people from each group sounds about right. 23 editor (talk) 03:25, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Fewer images is worse, as it will makes the stakes of inclusion higher and hence will spark even more conflict and subjective argumentation over whom to exclude.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 03:53, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Fewer images is better, as it results in the inclusion of only the most notable representatives. Quicker, or determined consensus is reached through various ways, like voting for a chosen period, or if the community is reasonable and the right examples are given. I don't think conflict-stricken articles (which are these? No examples have been given) should determine the fate of the rest.--Zoupan 04:17, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

No, because the entire problem is that there is no good way to determine who is the most notable representative. The example given above about Austrians is perfect. If only one Austrian would be chosen then that might well be Hitler since he is universally known - but probably no Austrian would consider Hitler to be a good representative of the Austrians. So should the example be chosen to reflect well on the ethnic group (non-neutral pov) or should it be Hitler who clearly reflects very poorly on the ethnic group (also non-neutral POV). There is no good solution to this kind of dilemma which happens in all ethnic collages in different ways. Having fewer persons only increases the intensity of the problem, which is exactly why ethnic group collages have gradually moved towards being all-inclusive rather than exclusive.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 19:46, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Well, that's up to the community. If consensus is to leave out controversial individuals, like Hitler, then I see no problem in this "non-neutral POV". I would not have Hitler in the infobox.--Zoupan 20:25, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that is the status quo which as people have pointed out has lead to fruitless discussions of whom to include and exclude - discussions in which there is no objective baseline for argumentation, and which for that reason are doomed to be rehashed everytime a new person of the opposite viewpoint visits the page. Your solution is in fact the problem that we are aiming to solve here.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 22:23, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Comment User:Zoupan, what should take it's place in the infobox? Nothing much preferably. The infobox should say something about the article. Not about persons or their meaning in relationship to the article. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 03:34, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Well, then you could remove the infobox altogether. With the infobox largely composed of a table over diaspora communities, the infobox just seems dull. Does "100,000 Marsians on Jupiter" really define the topic? Should there be an image or not? If yes, what kind?--Zoupan 04:17, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Infoboxes are about more than just the galleries. Other types or articles have infoboxes that can do without them pretty well. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 05:31, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes, infoboxes, but galleries are an integral part of Infobox ethnic group.--Zoupan 20:36, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove Per above. About conflict stricken articles, Italians is one of them. There is practically impossible to reach a consensus (see discussion on the talk page, at the moment suspended waiting for the outcome of this proposal). Alex2006 (talk) 07:07, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Keep while there may be some articles that have drama because of the galleries, there are numerous articles that don't have any drama connected to this. The galleries benefit the readers, especially younger/non-native English speakers who require something visual.

However, there might be some rules that could be put in place to make it less stressful for the editors involved. At the end of the day, wikipedia manages to have a lot of controversial articles and images, we should not remove content just because it's awkward to deal with, we should deal with it. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 07:33, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Comment The "drama" arises from the extreme difficulty to apply Wikipedia rules to the creation of these galleries. In absence of rules, these galleries can become disruptive, giving false and distorted info about the ethnic groups to the "younger/non-native English speakers who require something visual". Alex2006 (talk) 07:38, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Comment Of course false and distorted facts should be avoided. Seeing the tools that admins have at their disposal, I don't see why it should be any harder to apply rules to these galleries than to any other element of wikipedia. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 07:43, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Ditto. If there are Accuracy disputes there are several ways to handle this.--Zoupan 20:38, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Comment Because, as I wrote above, the whole process of insertion is based upon POV. Example: in the last months, there have been different attempts to put in the Italian mosaic Maria Gaetana Agnesi, a distinguished third-rank 18th century mathematician (in Italy, the century of Lagrange and Riccati, among others) whose greatest contribution to Mathematics has been the compilation of a textbook (Source:Enciclopedia Italiana, DBI). However, she has been the first woman to be appointed Mathematics professor in an University (although she declined to serve). What should be preferred here: her actual contribution to her discipline (negligible) or the breakthrough which her appointment represented for women? And why should we - as another editor pretends - over represent in the collage southern Italians (a part of the population which, because of historical reasons, has given in the past a negligible contribution to the Italian civilization in comparison to center-north)? And why, if we reach a consensus on the underlying criteria (although this is practically impossible), these criteria should apply only on the Italians article, and be different on other articles? Alex2006 (talk) 08:03, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove Although sometimes useful, these galleries are always controversial, unscientific and an arena for POV-pushing. --Երևանցի ^talk 08:19, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
• Remove as original research. Cordless Larry (talk) 08:21, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

"such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist"; how is this OR? There are tons of works only dealing with notable people. What about Category:Greatest Nationals?--Zoupan 20:25, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes, there are sources establishing who is notable. That is not selective enough, though. Say that a source identifies 1,000 famous people of an ethnic group. How do we use that source to identify which people should be included in the montage? Cordless Larry (talk) 20:28, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove since there are no firm rules for what constitutes "ethnicity" and no fool-proof tests to prove either ethnic purity or ethnic identity. --Taivo (talk) 08:27, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
• Keep with condition to limit image inclusion: the images must be less than 12. I think one image is not enough, just like those in Thai and Balinese. Images satisfy our innate curiosity of "what do they look like?". As a visual creature and a graphic designer, sometimes I find the image gallery in infobox is helpful and visually pleasing. Such as those lovely gallery of Japanese people, it shows the cultural evolution and history in portraits, from traditional Japanese portrait painting, old monochrome to modern photography. It also shows the cultural aspects from traditional costumes or attire to current modern society. Nevertheless, after seeing the monstrous overgrown personality gallery in Tamils and Ukrainians infoboxes, I do understand the reasons for deletion proposition. My suggestion is a gradual steps, let's try to limit the gallery in.., I say to only 12 images? ranging from ancient to modern contemporary figures. If that did not work, maybe a single image or a deletion is an ultimate solution... Gunkarta  talk  08:52, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Comment This is not going to work. I proposed it on the Italians gallery a couple of months ago. At the beginning everyone seemed happy, then started to come several people, each one with his list of notables. From 12 we jumped to 16, now to 24. And the POV and OR problems have remained. BTW, On itwiki they had the guts of getting rid of the whole mess some months ago, and everyone is happy now. Alex2006 (talk) 09:17, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Comment Thank you, actually I see that coming; POV pushing and OR are indeed a persisting trouble here in wikipedia. The challenge is to have maturity and wisdom to achieve that consensus, to limit the image and to agree who pass into the list. If image limitation does not work, maybe a single image, a family portrait or a couple in traditional attire is sufficient to satisfy our "visual" need. Gunkarta  talk  09:25, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Comment In fact that is what we did on Italians: an editor had the great idea to substitute the collage with a large flag. Unfortunately, after a while another editor landed on the article, starting an edit war in order to put the collage again, and at the end he managed to do it. :-( Alex2006 (talk) 10:10, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Comment This RFC only pertains to ethnic groups, not people of a given nationality, so replacing the montage with a national flag is not a viable option. Meters (talk) 18:50, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Comment There should not be national flags in the infobox. Why wouldn't it pertain to nationalities? The supporters of removal basically claim that it is POV to have individuals as representatives of a people.--Zoupan 20:43, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Comment Gunkarta, would I be correct in understanding that your !vote has changed? If so, it would be appreciated if you could update it to reflect those changes. With thanks in advance. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:16, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove as the pictures serve no role beside subjectively making the page "nicer". There is no objective way to establish who is more representative of an ethnic group (and what should representativeness include anyway: facial features, intellectual prowess, sport abilities?). The fact that a lot of famous people tend to have mixed ancestry (either self-assumed, or "discovered" by others) inevitably results in constant edit wars and accusation that ethnic group X is trying to "steal" Y from ethnic group Z. Not to mention that a lot of pre-modern figures have been assigned to an ethnicity in the last 200 years or so, and it's impossible to ascertain whether those figures would have actually accepted such categorization (e.g. a progressive ruler from the early 18th century Eastern Europe firmly expressed his belief that the nobles and the peasants of his country were two different nations).Anonimu (talk) 09:40, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
• Remove: Not all ethnic groups have "notable personalities", and that does not make them less "notable" and "valuable" human beings (all people globally need equal treatment), while those ethnic groups and nations from which emerged "notable personalities", they use indiviudals and their personal deeds as a egoistic masquerade to hide behind own flaws and look "better" than other groups, but an indiviudal does not make a whole ethnic group and nation, also not to mention non-existent criteria in real world which cannot be used as an evidence and source for fallacious consensus per NPOV.--Crovata (talk) 09:54, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
• Remove: I'm absolutelly agreed with Crovata. And the editors lose a time in edit wars around §such non- encyclopedical disputes of some kind of sort " who is the greatest - Dante or Petrarch?". Nobody of them. They are just a different. --Targatron (talk) 10:24, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Sorry, I do not understand your above consensus. Should I be ashamed because neither Isaac Newton nor Leonardo da Vinci were Hungarians? Should I suggest that articles about them should not refer to their nationality/ethnicity, because WP should not serve English and Italian chauvinism? Borsoka (talk) 17:44, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

No, you shouldn't "be ashamed because neither Isaac Newton nor Leonardo da Vinci were Hungarians". But you should be concerned with the topic of the article. If the topic is a specific ethnicity, you should not construe that to mean only the greatest representatives of that ethnicity. The correct understanding of the subject of the article is the ethnicity itself, and all the members of that ethnicity, not merely those who have achieved renown and consequently have articles on Wikipedia. Bus stop (talk) 21:56, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

OK. I understand. If we write an article about a town, we should present an average house on an average street where an average family lives, without presenting the most representative buildings. Are you sure this is the proper approach? Borsoka (talk) 23:08, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove The grid is a problematic way of including images, and the article is not about notable members of an ethnicity. If it is felt that an image of a member of an ethnicity should be included in an article, the image should be integrated into an article at an appropriate point, in proximity to commentary relating to that image. These are not articles about individuals of an ethnicity who have achieved renown. The photo box distorts the real purpose of the article, which is not to highlight exceptional people but to discuss the ethnicity in general. Bus stop (talk) 12:18, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
• Remove An endless source of edit warring, and the inclusion criteria for ethnicity are hard to determine or agree on. Full agreement with the good analysis by User:Bus stop. Meters (talk) 18:23, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

At which articles is this endless edit warring taking place?--Zoupan 20:27, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

I wrote "endless aource of edit warring" as in edit warring on multiple article over the same issue, not as in continuous edit warring on any one particular article. The comments by other editors have listed many articles on which these image montages have been an issue. I don't see any need to list those ones again, or to list any of the many others. Meters (talk) 23:02, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Deprecate/Remove, per my reasoning in the thread above. (Procedural note: I'm not sure a consensus here can be strong enough to actually enforce removals, against potential resistance of editors on individual articles, but I'd certainly add my support to a general deprecation of the galleries by this wikiproject, barring well-considered local consensus in individual cases.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:19, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
• Keep. The galleries should stay. There's nothing wrong with variety and colour ... if this is what Wikipedians want, including Stalin among the Georgians and Hitler among the Austrians. The template needs to be redesigned to accept only up to "image30" similar to the template Infobox accepting only up to "image10". There would be no controversy in preformatting such general limitation based on the truly exhaustive and quite enjoyable discussion from above. Poeticbent talk 20:21, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Poeticbent—there is something wrong with "variety and colour". The text should be of primary importance as concerns the addition of any images of examples of individuals deriving from a given ethnicity. The imagery should only be added because it helps to support the text. If the imagery were not available, we should still want to use the text based on its pertinence to the article. The situation as it stands now with grid-like photo boxes is that implications are being conveyed by purely visual means with no corresponding verbal articulation. Bus stop (talk) 21:22, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

The situation here is similar (though of course entirely different from) the use of non-free imagery. One of the several requirements for the use of "non-free" imagery is that the image have "contextual significance". "Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the article topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding." I understand that we are not talking about "non-free" imagery here. But the screening process should be the same. Bus stop (talk) 21:37, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove as an energy sinkhole and breaching WP:NOR. While I'm aware that some 'ethnic group' articles are consensus-based, the consensus is always based on that of a small number of active editors at that point in time, meaning that 2 months later another editor will challenge the standing gallery per WP:CCC. Defining individuals as being examples of people who constitute a recognisable contemporary nation-state (particularly historic figures) is revisionist at best. More energy goes in to edit warring than does improving the content of the articles. The end product is WP:POV and WP:OR no matter how you look at it. Retaining 'some' will only work as a catalyst for edit warring over whether there's a 'consensus' version for others. It's lose-lose in retaining any. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:31, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
• Remove - The subject of articles in question are not individuals but groups. Lack of informative value.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 22:59, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
• Remove Subject of articles are groups, not individuals. Tough on mobile devices. --Enos733 (talk) 23:11, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
• Comment The proposal intends to delete the pictures from the infoboxes of the ethnic articles and if my understanding is correct doesn't want to touch the national articles. Could you clarify if for example the page of Hungarians is an ethnic or national article? Fakirbakir (talk) 12:22, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

User:Fakirbakir, that article is also targeted by this discussion. Nationality refers to the state of origin. The Hungarians article is about the members of an ethnic group who speak Hungarian and are primarily associated with Hungary. The article is not about people whose country of origin is Hungary. Your opinion on this subject is welcome. Hahun (talk) 13:36, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

The difference between "nationality" and "ethnicity" is minute at best. This question points up the number one problem with deciding who is a member of X ethnicity/nationality and who isn't. All factors that are often cited for X being a member of a particular ethnicity/nationality are variable and subject to debate--genetics, ancestry, language, personal identification, culture, religion, place of birth, etc. There are no perfectly objective measurements that cannot be argued to death. "She was born in Kiev, but she's not Ukrainian." This is exactly why all photo collages should be eliminated. --Taivo (talk) 15:28, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Regarding the discussion between Meters and Cordless Larry ("ethnic" vs "national" articles), I am still confused what the proposal is about. Fakirbakir (talk) 16:06, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

User:Hahun the RFC wording and the clarification by the requester User:Cordless Larry are clear that this RFC is for ethnic group article and does not apply to national articles. Please don't try to retroactively apply it elsewhere. At least one of the arguments in favor of removing the montages simplly does not apply to national articles (the difficulty in determining if a particular person is a member of a given group). My Remove is strictly for the ethnic articles, as is called for in the RFC. I disagree with the concept of introducing ethnicity into nationality articles. A citizen is a citizen. Meters (talk) 17:46, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

There are different varieties of nationalism: civic and ethnic. In the case of the latter, nationality is defined in terms of belonging to an ethnic group, not citizenship. Articles such as Hungarians treat the subject as both a national and an ethnic group. Others, such as British people, take a citizenship-based approach. I have tried to keep this RfC narrow by only asking about ethnic groups, but there is clearly overlap between the use of ethnicity and nationality in articles. I don't know how that could have been reflected in the RfC wording, though. If you think that the Hungarians article should cover all citizens of Hungary, regardless of ethnicity, then I think that that needs to be another discussion. Cordless Larry (talk) 17:59, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes, there's overlap, but the RFC clearly states that this is for ethnic groups. Attempts to expand the coverage invalidate the RFC since people will have used different interpretations of the scope. It's too late to change the wording now. Meters (talk) 18:11, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

To clarify, I am not trying to change the wording. Cordless Larry (talk) 18:37, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't mean to suggest you were. We're stuck with what we have. Meters (talk) 18:40, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove, subjective inclusion criteria. Frietjes (talk) 17:39, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

• Comment or question Can somebody please explain to me how a nationality can, per definition, not also be an ethnic group. And how we should separate the article about people's between the two categories? Gerard von Hebel (talk) 19:07, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
  • When nationality is defined in legal terms. A British national can be English, Scottish, Welsh, Indian British, etc. Compare this understanding with ethnic nationalism, which is what you seem to have in mind. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:10, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

"Nationality" in the old sense of the word (e.g. the Cherokee nation) *is* ethnicity. But the word is now more commonly used for membership in a nation state: i.e. citizenship. — kwami (talk) 19:27, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

What I have in mind is this; Many categories under discussion, like Germans, Dutch, Italians and what have you, can be understood as both a nationality and an ethnic group. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 22:31, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

The current discussion covers all the articles linked in the list of contemporary ethnic groups. Hahun (talk) 23:30, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Would that include all that can be found under these links:List of contemporary ethnic groups#Lists of ethnic groups? I mean, this links to articles that link to further articles. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 15:41, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

I think the pros and cons are basically the same, so a global rule should apply for all of them. Hahun (talk) 16:03, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove from info box, move to gallery section in text if editors think images are worth keeping. Perhaps create a guideline to limit the size of the gallery. There will be far, far less edit-warring if the collage is not in the lead. If this motion passes here, we should start same discussion for nationality info box. — kwami (talk) 19:11, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

• Comment I agree about the gallery. This has been also a proposal at Italians. Alex2006 (talk) 08:30, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

• Comment, off topic? having just read all the above discussion, the same can be said about who is named in these articles, next is there going to be a proposal to remove all names from such articles? To be consistent with the train of thought being followed here, there should be.Coolabahapple (talk) 16:56, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

No, the same cannot be said about that. We are specifically talking about infoboxes, and about the image gallery because experience shows that that is a constant source of discussion and editwarring drawing attention away from actually writing good well sourced articles about ethnic groups. IF there is ever a similar problem about mentioning names in the articles then that would be relevant. But currently it is not.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 17:44, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

The RFC is for galleries of images of people in articles about ethnic groups. It is not specific to infoboxes. Meters (talk) 00:57, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

No, Meters: "Should montages of notable people be removed from ethnic group article infoboxes?" How much clearer can that be? It's just for infoboxes. --Taivo (talk) 01:03, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. The header and the RFC wordings do not agree, and I was reading the wrong one. Meters (talk) 01:10, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

You're quite right. I didn't notice the title of the section. --Taivo (talk) 02:42, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Apologies for that. I was asked to reword the question by the editor who initially phrased it, but left the section heading as it was. I should have changed both. Cordless Larry (talk) 12:57, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove, if not for any other reason then to avoid eternal edit wars over who belongs and who does not. Also: Adds little or no information about the ethnic group. --T*U (talk) 19:21, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
• Keep. If constant sources of strife were removed from WP, WP would be a quite borring and misleading source of information. Borsoka (talk) 06:00, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

It's not just because these are sources of strife, but because there are absolutely no objective criteria to determine whether anyone belongs in the gallery or not. Every choice is 100% subjective as to what evidence to consider and what evidence to ignore. That makes each choice subject to violations of both no original research and no undue synthesis. --Taivo (talk) 06:16, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I do not understand your above remark. I have not experienced any serious debate about these galleries. Why should we delete consensual galleries from infoboxes? If there are specific galleries with specific problems, we should address them specifically, without adopting a new general rule to solve those specific problems. Borsoka (talk) 07:52, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Because they are original research without inclusion criteria, Borsoka (unless you can point me to a specific example where that is not the case). Cordless Larry (talk) 07:59, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Are there inclusion criteria in connection with pictures? Should we delete all pictures? Borsoka (talk) 08:27, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Where the images illustrate a list of notable people, I think we do need inclusion criteria, yes. Cordless Larry (talk) 08:59, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Why do you think that this is a separate problem, not part of the general problem of inclusion of pictures? How can we decide which picture is to be added to an article or is to be deleted? If we can decide that a picture about Queen Elizabeth II is relevant for an article about Australia or about the Moon is relevant or not, we must be able to decide whether a picture in a gallery is relevant. Borsoka (talk) 09:15, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

It's a slightly different issue. At Australia, the question is whether to include an image of the current head of state. If the consensus is that we should, then the only candidate is Queen Elizabeth II. Here, the decision is whether to include a range of 12, 16, 20, 24... representative individuals of an ethnic group, who then have to be individually selected. Cordless Larry (talk) 16:01, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Why do you think it is a different issue? The inclusion of a picture is the same issue: we have to decide whether a picture is relevant or not, and we also have to decide which one of the millions of possibly relevant pictures should be chosen. Borsoka (talk) 16:49, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

For the reason I outlined. Deciding which image to use of the Queen is not the same as picking a selection of people who are supposedly representative of an ethnic group, because the Queen is the only person who is the head of state of Australia, which makes the inclusion criteria pretty clear. Cordless Larry (talk) 16:54, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

However, it is the same method of choosing: we should decide whether a picture is relevant using reliable sources. Borsoka (talk) 17:28, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

I'd be interested to see a current infobox montage that uses a reliable source for the selection of images. I'm yet to encounter one. Cordless Larry (talk) 17:42, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

If you think that a piece of information is not verified, you can delete it, in accordance with WP:NOR. However, the existence of millions of pieces of unverified information in WP could not be the reason of deleting the whole encyclopedia. Borsoka (talk) 17:35, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

We're talking about the infobox, not galleries in the body of the article. If you check the 'infobox ethnic group' template, there was never was (and there is still no) a parameter for anything other than an image. Whether or not what meets with WP:PERTINENCE can be defined, the entire idea of what is representative of an ethnic group is WP:OR when it comes to defining the image - in this case a gallery of images - as 'who' is entirely subjective. Defining an ethnic group by use of multiple 'notable' individuals is not informative, particularly as historical notables wouldn't even feel any affiliation with the ethnic group claiming them as being their own retrospectively. That's known as revisionism... and such questions are merely the tip of the iceberg of what is wrong with such subjective claims. It's the antithesis of WP:ITSINTERESTING: it's misleading (read as disinformation). Did Leonardo da Vinci self-identify as being 'Italian'? What are objective criteria for 'notables' in an infobox gallery? --Iryna Harpy (talk) 09:05, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

If my understanding is correct, you assume that none of the galleries can be verified based on reliable sources. As I mentioned above, there are many galleries which have never been challenged. Why do you think that we should apply a general rule to problems specific to specific galleries? Borsoka (talk) 09:15, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

If a gallery hasn't been challenged so far, it does not mean that it is not challengeable. Since you are a member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Hungary, I will ask you the following: Matthias Corvinus has a mixed ancestry (he was 1/2 Vlach (=Romanian): Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III likewise knew that King Matthias had been "born to a Vlach father", and a Venetian man, Sebastiano Baduario, referred to the Romanians as King Matthias's people.), so how are we sure that he regarded himself as an ethnic Hungarian in order to include him into the infobox of Hungarians? Hahun (talk) 15:32, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Please read what WP:NOR means: we cannot base any information upon our own original research of primary sources. He is mentioned as a Hungarian historical personality by all reliable sources about his life. Consequently, his qualification as a Hungarian historical personality is not subject to debates. Borsoka (talk) 15:55, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

But what criteria do those reliable sources use to define "Hungarian"? Do they mean "He was born within the geographical territory that would one day be within the borders of Hungary"? Or do they mean "He lived and worked in a country that would one day be called "Hungary" (Magyarország)? Or do they mean "He spoke passable Hungarian"? Or do they mean "He acted like other Hungarians"? None of these are objective measurements of "ethnicity". A person could speak Hungarian, look Hungarian, have two Hungarian parents, act Hungarian, and be born in Berlin. It's all inappropriate synthesis and therefore original research. Two people could argue endlessly over whether to mark a person as "representative Hungarian" or not. I've been called Hungarian by "real" Hungarians simply because I could string together enough Hungarian sentences to be understood. --Taivo (talk) 16:24, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I do not understand your above question. I am not in the position (and WP policies do not require me) to decide whether you are or you are not a Hungarian. I am sure that ethnicity is an interesing subject to be researched in details, but I think WP is not the best place to publish our own thoughts of ethnicity. On the other hand, if somebody is described in most reliable sources as a Hungarian or Martian we can accept this or that qualification without further original research. Borsoka (talk) 16:40, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

If a source says that X is a Hungarian painter, how do we know that it refers to Hungarian ethnicity (and not to Hungarian nationality/citizenship)? Hahun (talk) 17:00, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

On a case by case basis, through the study of reliable sources. This is the normal way of editing WP. Borsoka (talk) 17:18, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

You just said it yourself: case by case with reliable sources. But that contradicts your previous statement that Wikipedia editors don't have to spend any time evaluating reliable sources. We do not just roboticly copy what any old reliable source says about anything. We have to evaluate them. And when one reliable source says that X is Hungarian, but another reliable source says that X is Vlach, what do you do? You have to choose. And people choose based on their personal biases. Then consensus is impossible to reach. That's the point here. Nothing whatsoever about ethnicity is clear-cut or unarguable. Different reliable sources will call someone "Hungarian" depending on what they care about: citizenship, birthplace, paternal identity, maternal identity, place of primary residence, language spoken, etc. There's not a single, solitary objective measurement for what makes someone "Hungarian" and your sources will vary depending on the particular circumstances of each individual. So without some kind of objective measurement, then building a gallery of "representative Hungarians" is entirely based on OR and SYN, not on the objective measurement (which doesn't exist) of so-called "reliable sources". --Taivo (talk) 18:47, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

No, it does not contradict to my any statements, because I have never stated that WP editors do not have to spend any time evaluating reliable sources. However, in most cases, there is no debate about ethnicity. Otherwise, debate is a normal method of editing WP. Borsoka (talk) 02:50, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

• Keep. Members of one community tend to a myopia about the humanity and achievements of other communities.

If Wikipedia "national" portrait galleries of a few "representative" individuals help counteract such chauvinist ignorance by whetting curiosity about other communities, they may serve a useful purpose.

The effort to find consensus on gallery inclusion may inspire editors to give intelligent thought to inclusion criteria.

Nihil novi (talk) 07:39, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

• Unfortunately the chauvinism comes mainly from those who make the galleries, not from those who ignore them. Looks for example to the gallery of Italians in France, which includes Napoleon. Now, try to delete Napoleon from that gallery. You will have to cope with a bunch of nationalist POV-pushers, edit war, and so on. That's the real problem, not the "chauvinist ignorance". Alex2006 (talk) 07:57, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

• The entire problem is who is "a representative individual". There are absolutely no objective criteria to determine what defines a representative "Ukrainian", for example. We've gone round and round on that page about the greatest of the kings of the old Kievan Rus. Of course Ukrainian nationalists want to include him to identify the ancient kingdom with modern Ukraine. But he wasn't "Ukrainian" since the Ukrainian, Russian, and Belarusian languages weren't differentiated yet. His parentage was also not 100% "Ukrainian". Yet there he is and woe betide anyone who tries to remove him from that gallery. But who is the most "Ukrainian"? Is it the most famous person? It is the most nationalist person? Is it the person who "looks" the most Ukrainian? This problem exists for every single gallery. There are absolutely no objective criteria for any ethnic group to determine who is "the most representative individual". It is all WP:OR and WP:SYN. --Taivo (talk) 15:46, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

• Bravo! You can replace Ukraininan with "Foo" because like you said, "This problem exists for every single gallery."--Antidiskriminator (talk) 16:59, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

• Keep, the only solution is strive for consensus with regard to the galleries, but the proposal of mass deletion is highly dubious. --Norden1990 (talk) 17:10, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

As we know, no ethnicity is composed only of notable people. What justification is there for a photo-box, at an article ostensibly about an ethnicity, filled with only notable people? Are we trying to suggest that the ethnicity in question produces an exceptionally high percentage of notable people—a percentage such a 100%? Bus stop (talk) 20:37, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I do not understand your above remark. Have you ever experienced that a WP user came to that conclusion? Borsoka (talk) 02:50, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Borsoka—the topic of the article is an ethnicity. The topic of the article is not great people who hail from that ethnicity. Bus stop (talk) 05:34, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Why do you think this is a problem? Towns are represented by their best known buildings, writers by their best known works and painters by their best known paintings, religions by their best known leaders, art styles by their best known representatives. Borsoka (talk) 05:52, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Because we are not concerned with "best known" here. The title of the article is not "Best known people from the ABC-Ethnicity". It is simply "ABC-Ethnicity".

As concerns ethnicity, the anonymous person is just as representative of that ethnicity as the person in the limelight. In fact they may be more representative by representing a typical person from that group. Bus stop (talk) 06:03, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I do not understand your above remarks and concerns. For instance, the article about Sydney is not titled "The best-known buildings in Sydney", but the infobox displays the Sydney Opera House. Should we delete that picture, because we can qualify it as a clear represantation of Australian chauvinism and it does not represent typical buildings in Sydney? Similarly, the article about London (not about the best-known buildings in London) displays the Palace of Westminster in its infobox. What a nationalistic approach! I am more and more convinced that you are just kidding. Borsoka (talk) 17:29, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Borsoka—a person is not a building. Furthermore we don't have photo boxes of buildings at articles on cities. By the way I didn't use the word "chauvinism". Bus stop (talk) 21:04, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the above information. If my understanding is correct, best-known buildings can represent a town, but best-known people cannot represent an ethnicity, because a person is not a building. Interesting logic. Borsoka (talk) 23:11, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

You really need to drop this particular stick. You are comparing apples and oranges. Town articles and ethnicity articles are not the same and shouldn't be treated the same. A town is something built, it's an accomplishment, nice buildings can represent that accomplishment; being born a member of a certain ethnicity isn't an accomplishment.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 23:22, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I do not understand you above remark. The building is the accomplishment of a human being, not of a town. If I accept your logic, we should not display pictures of buildings in articles about towns, because it is only by chance that a building was built here or there. Borsoka (talk) 05:01, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I can see you don't understand -- that is painfully obvious. That is the problem. Unless you're being purposefully obtuse, it's apparent that continuing this discussion won't help you to understand, either.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 05:10, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Borsoka—if the article is about an ethnicity, then it should be about the ethnicity, not some contrived reason to showcase a favorite individual—for a negative or positive reason. By "contrived" I am referring to the fact that the person may hail from that ethnicity. Are all people from XYZ Ethnicity like Joseph Stalin? Are a large percentage of people from XYZ Ethnicity like Joseph Stalin? If not, then what is the educational purpose to including Joseph Stalin in a "photo box" in an article ostensibly about the XYZ Ethnicity? Furthermore, if there is a reason, and I can't think of any, for including a picture of Joseph Stalin in an article on the XYZ Ethnicity, wouldn't it be better to place the image at the point in the body of the article at which Joseph Stalin is mentioned? Or is there some advantage to clumping all such contrived choices in a grid-like formation at the top of an article in a "photo box"? Bus stop (talk) 05:24, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

I think you are not talking about specific problems when a specific person is displayed, and not about a general problem. Specific problems should be addressed specifically. Borsoka (talk) 06:18, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove. Infoboxes are included to briefly summarise key points from the article. A single image such as a map, a picture of the person concerned or a single species or breed specimen serves well. Sometimes two or three disparate images such as a map and a flag or logo or coat of arms also serve to succinctly identify and summarise. They are not the place for galleries of individuals in whom certain editors take pride. If we stuff infoboxes with such images, we're failing to give good articles to our readers. Such galleries should only appear later in the article. It's likely that if they did, then as a bonus there would be less conflict over them and less eagerness to overfill them, in the same way that the body of an article often attracts far less editor attention than the lede. As it stands, given the way that Wikipedia works, that consensus is reached (or not) and disputes are mediated (or not), editors are drawn into conflict only to deliver a degraded experience to the reader. NebY (talk) 19:20, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
• Question - for clarification, this RfC only applies specifically to "notable" people in the infobox, correct? So "generic" (for lack of a better term) photos like those in the infoboxes of Cham people and Rade people would still be allowed? Also, would this cover infoboxes like that in Buddhism in Sri Lanka, which are, in principle, the same as those in ethnic groups?--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 03:22, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

The images at Chams and at Rade people are not problematic because they are on topic. The intellectual pursuit of Buddhism in Sri Lanka is well illustrated by the notable people illustrated in the photo box. It too is acceptable, in my opinion. Bus stop (talk) 05:41, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Question. So if I understand this petition correctly- we would remove infobox galleries from ethnic groups, but keep them for nationalities and religions? For example, remove from Afro-Mexicans but keep it for Mexicans and Judaism in Mexico. The Mexicans gallery currently has a few individuals (the first three) that weren't citizens of Mexico- if removed would it be allowed to stay? Also, would galleries be allowed on these ethnicity articles in sections that talk about notable individuals (Afro-Mexicans#Notable Afro-Mexicans)? Xochiztli (talk) 21:50, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

The proposal relates to ethnicity article infoboxes only, though there has been some debate here about the boundaries between ethnic and national identities. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:01, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

There is no advantage to photo boxes over other methods of including images in an article, in my opinion. I think that ideally images should be dispersed throughout an article at appropriate places in proximity to accompanying related text. I think this applies not only to articles on ethnicities but to other articles on groups of people. Bus stop (talk) 22:31, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

• Comment. Hmm. This would be controversial.--115ash^→(☏) 13:29, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. What a group looks like is an irreplaceable part of describing the group. The fact that people argue about what should go there is only a sign how important it is, not a sign that it should go. A picture truly is worth a thousand words. Without looking at the picture, would you be able to tell me what Tunisian Americans look like? Albanians? Finns?--GRuban (talk) 15:09, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

You say "What a group looks like is an irreplaceable part of describing the group". Would we need "notable" people from that group in order to see what they look like, or would unknown examples suffice? You say "The fact that people argue about what should go there is only a sign how important it is, not a sign that it should go". Are editors arguing over the appearance of the people in the photo box? No, they are not. Editors are arguing over the significance of the people for potential inclusion in the photo box. Their significance is not their appearance but rather what they have accomplished in their lives. Bus stop (talk) 15:58, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

And they also argue over whether or not a particular individual meets the subjective and individualistic standards of what constitutes a "pureblood". --Taivo (talk) 16:26, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Unknown examples would suffice, except that we generally don't have any way to find those examples. After all, say I put a picture of some random guy - say myself - in the infobox of some group. What proof does any other editor have that I'm really Tunisian-American, Albanian-Canadian, Swedish-Finn or whatever? With notable people, we may have reliable sources who wrote about their ethnicity and/or ancestry. With non-notable people, we generally don't (or they would be notable, that's most of what makes someone notable, when reliable sources write details about them). And "some people argue" is not a reason for deletion of what they argue about. If we deleted everything that was ever controversial we would have an empty encyclopedia. --GRuban (talk) 18:16, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Linking many mini images of people that do not lead to any-info on the topic at hand will help people understand the topic? A visual representation of 30plus people before any text is simply not what we are looking for to educate our readers. We can have a visual representation in the article with a large image .....over spamming the lead with mini images. A better way forward would be devoted articles that link from the main page that can have images like Aboriginal Canadian personalities - Moxy (talk) 20:42, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

In my opinion the photo box at Aboriginal Canadian personalities is fully justified because the article is about notable people. Bus stop (talk) 21:24, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

"Without looking at the picture, would you be able to tell me what Tunisian Americans look like? Albanians? Finns?" After looking at the infoboxes, I can tell you that Albanians mainly look like bearded white men, Finns are more bare-chinned, Tunisian Americans favour colourful headgear, and Albanians, Finns and Tunisian Americans alike tend to be very small and hard to see. NebY (talk) 18:25, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove after reading all the arguments above, it's clear that an ethnicity is more than just its prominent people. Having galleries of "notable" people in the infobox is distracting and misleading (i.e. it gives the impression that only notable people matter). It also gives the impression that these people "represent" the whole ethnicity, not just in their physical appearance but in other aspects, which is problematic especially when the person is a political figure for example. Generic anonymous images are by far more preferable.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 23:33, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Comment: I try to paraphrase your above statements, sorry for it: "after reading all the arguments above, it's clear that a town is more than just its prominent buildings. Having galleries of "notable" buildings in the infobox is distracting and misleading (i.e. it gives the impression that only notable buildings matter). It also gives the impression that these buildings "represent" the whole town, nut just in their physical appearance but in other aspects, which is problematitc especially when the building is a political symbol. Generic images of unknown buildings are by far more preferable." Do you agree? Borsoka (talk) 06:18, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Do not stress analogies too far. I do not think you would ever meet arguments like "That building belongs to town Y, so it does not belong here" or "The forerunner (or whatever the analogy of 'great grandfather' would be) of that building belonged to this town, so it belongs here". Let us please discuss ethnic groups, not towns. --T*U (talk) 09:06, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I have understood that one of the main reasons of the votes for "remove" is that there were and are debates about specific pictures in infoboxes. I think the removal of the pictures would be a highly artificial and superficial solution. The same debates would continue in other form, in the main text of the article: can Napoleon be mentioned as an Italian, should Hitler be mentioned as an Austrian, etc.... Borsoka (talk) 04:38, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

No, the problem is with the infobox specifically because they attract attention from editors who are too lazy and superficial to actually read the article, and who find their particular favorite to be missing or someone they dont like to be in excess. The problem is exactly that infobox discussions become the sole focus of editors to the articles, while the actual text that makes up the meat of article languishes and is never developed.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 06:15, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Any pictures in an Infobox (photo box) can be retained. This is not an RfC on getting rid of all photos presently found in Infoboxes. I think this is an RfC on the breaking up of the photo box and the dispersing of some but probably not all of the images to appropriate parts of the article and ideally in proximity to commentary relating to the image. I of course don't speak for everybody and this wording is not found in the original RfC. Bus stop (talk) 10:23, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

• Further comment: If it isn't already clear that WP:NOR is breached in creating such galleries, just a reminder that these are articles about ethnic groups per WP:TITLE. If the TITLE were "List of notable Xs [insert ethnicity here]", this would be an entirely different issue... but it isn't. Neither does notability exclude notoriety, therefore popping Mussolini into the Italian gallery would be as justifiable as any WP:ILIKEIT choices. He's certainly very, very notable... as is Stalin for the Georgians article. But, no, all of the choices are inevitably based on 'prettiest supermodel', 'favourite singer', 'amazingly intelligent scientist' criteria. That's not informative: it's a sales pitch. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 04:15, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
• Further comment: Very good point, Irina. BTW, in a poll which took place some time ago in Italy, Mussolini reached number two among the most important Italians in history. :-) Alex2006 (talk) 10:13, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
• Remove. In a perfect world, this would be okay but since we aren't there we just end up wasting more and more and more time on silly infighting. Max Semenik (talk) 06:10, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
• Strong keep- The images have encyclopedic value in and of themselves. They give a good visual representation of the groups in question. If you had no idea of what Tustis or Ryukyuans looked like, wouldn't it be nice to have this visual representation? ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 18:54, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi Sturmgewehr88—a Google Image search accomplishes that too such as here for Ryukyuan people and here for Tutsi. Bus stop (talk) 20:09, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Actually, Sturmgewehr, for many articles they don't show "typical people", but famous people. That isn't always the same. What is more informative are truly average (usually agricultural) people in traditional dress. But in articles like Ukrainians all you see are famous Ukrainians and none of them are wearing traditional dress. But this has absolutely to do with photos of typical people, or even famous people, that might be found in the body of the article. It's just about often-controversial galleries of images in the infobox. --Taivo (talk) 20:32, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

"a Google Image search accomplishes that too" is a terrible argument: half the text in our articles can be replaced by a Google Web search, does that mean they should be deleted? Of course not. We are here to be the sum of human knowledge. We are not here to only provide that which Google doesn't. --GRuban (talk) 22:21, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

GRuban—what are the advantages of our photo boxes over a Google Image search? Our page is not burdened down with images which take up bandwidth when the reader simply clicks on a Google Image search. There is a greater likelihood of seeing ordinary, everyday-looking people in a Google Image search; a Google Image search is not restricted to examples of people who have Wikipedia articles. The images that result from a Google Image search are free of Wikipedia's systemic biases although I don't think this is a serious problem. I am not saying that we should supply a link to the relevant Google Image search in each article although I'm not sure why this would be a bad idea. What I am saying is we should look for a moment at the good qualities of a Google Image search and compare them to our present photo boxes. What are the advantages of our photo boxes over a Google Image search? Bus stop (talk) 23:12, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Exactly the same advantages of the text of our article over a Google Web search. Our content is organized, it's referenced, it's been put together by a person, not a machine. A Google Image search will return images that are in some way connected to the search term, not necessarily illustrative of the search term. A Google Image search will be influenced by who you are, where you search from, what images are currently popular. Let's look for "Finns" for example. https://www.google.com/search?q=finns&tbm=isch What I get may be different from what you get. The first three results I get are three maps, one "what each country leads the world in", one "how finns see europe", and one - from Wikipedia, in fact - of blobs of ethnic groups on a map. Only the fourth is a picture of a person, it's Timo Soini, because he's been in the news lately. Then three more maps. Then again Timo Soini. Then some anonymous people that some random web page says are Finns, but how do we know they're actually Finns? And that will change if I search anonymously, or from your user id, because our search preferences and histories will be different. Do I need to explain further why our photo boxes are better? --GRuban (talk) 14:30, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

GRuban—the argument was made by Sturmgewehr88 that "The images have encyclopedic value in and of themselves. They give a good visual representation of the groups in question. If you had no idea of what Tustis or Ryukyuans looked like, wouldn't it be nice to have this visual representation?" I responded that "a Google Image search accomplishes that too such as here for Ryukyuan people and here for Tutsi." Your response to me was ""a Google Image search accomplishes that too" is a terrible argument". In fact several editors have defended the photo-boxes by saying that the photos show us a likeness of the people of the ethnicity. I think that this is important; I think we should want to show the reader the appearances of members of an ethnicity. But this can be accomplished by dispersing some of the images from within the confines of the Infobox throughout the article, in proximity to related text. Do you feel that there are advantages to keeping the images clumped up in a the grid within the Infobox that we presently call a photo montage or a photo-box? Concerning the Google Image search—there are advantages to it. I am not advocating using it, certainly not exclusively. But the Google Image search should show for us some of the shortcomings we presently deal with. Yes, there is a lot of irrelevant imagery turned up by such a search. But please look beyond that. Within the collection of Google Images for a given ethnicity are ordinary people, in addition to "notable" people. In an article ostensibly about an ethnicity, we are at least as interested in ordinary people as those with Wikipedia articles. Bus stop (talk) 15:08, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes. The infobox image illustrates the article as a whole; just as in an article about a person, we will put a picture of the person in the infobox, in an article about a group of people we should put a picture of the group of people in the infobox. We can put all sorts of pictures in appropriate sections throughout the article - we can put a picture of a prominent anthropologist who studied the group, for example, even if she personally wasn't part of the group. But the infobox picture should illustrate the article as a whole. I have no objections to putting pictures of non-prominent members of the group, but they need to be verifiable, which is just harder to do with non-prominent people. --GRuban (talk) 15:28, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

You say "The infobox image illustrates the article as a whole". No, it does not. It merely shows the unrelated fields in which some members of that ethnicity have excelled. These fields are unrelated to the core topic of the article. The photo box as it is now used is a curious sideshow in relation to the actual topic of the article. Bus stop (talk) 16:01, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

• Comment Nearly every argument against having images has been from the perspective of an editor, not taking readers into consideration. I think on an article about a certain race, 99% of the readers couldn't care less who is on the picture, as long as they are from that race. It's the editors who are getting all upset because a certain image doesn't fit in with their specific agenda of the day. Images make the articles interesting and attractive for the casual reader, and surely that should be one of our greatest priorities. I can't see a paper encyclopedia having this drama or even considering removing pictures, they would just accept that a tiny minority of their readers would get butthurt over a particular choice of image, while the vast majority would take pleasure in something visual, like normal humans do. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 13:39, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
  • The proposal is not to remove all images from ethnic group articles - just the montages from the infoboxes. Cordless Larry (talk) 13:50, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Which considering it's the first thing that people see (or as proposed, won't see) it's the most important image on the article. Some people don't make it past the first paragraph, if the article does not grab their attention. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 13:55, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
    • One could equally argue that readers often can't even see the first paragraph when they open the article, because the infobox is so huge. Cordless Larry (talk) 14:20, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
    • Agreed, there should be a maximum image size for the infobox. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 14:23, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

If we feel that "Images make the articles interesting and attractive for the casual reader, and surely that should be one of our greatest priorities" why don't we put naked people in our articles? That would make the article more interesting. In fact it is not one of our priorities. If the article is about an ethnicity we should be endeavoring to adhere closely to that topic. The "notable" people who find their way into our photo-boxes are exceptional people. They are not typical of that ethnicity. They have generally excelled in some sphere of activity. I think there is a tendency for notable people to be in some ways atypical of the background from which they emerge. We can decide to include such exceptional people in our article. But why should they be in a photo-box? I think that is the most important question. Bus stop (talk) 15:34, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Hahun Thank you for discussing this issue. While I do agree that this may lead to reduced conflicts between editors, I also feel that it will contribute to lessening the relatability of Wikipedia pages to readers / general public. While many users are those who prefer just reading an article, I feel many more are visual persons who prefer to see pictures of related personalities, which may then spark their interest further into reading the article and perhaps even contributing to it. Vdr11 (talk) 16:09, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

But remember that we are not talking about all photos and graphics throughout the article--just the galleries of notables in the infobox. --Taivo (talk) 17:39, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

In looking at the articles Vdr11 has worked on, I am swayed by the quality of the photo-boxes I see at those articles. For instance I see nothing wrong with the photo box at Punjabi Muslims. But this may be my perspective. Being from the United States, each of the twenty entries are interesting to me. I don't know what conclusion to make. An element of judgement is involved. There is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Bus stop (talk) 20:14, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, youre swayed. But what happens when someone isnt? Why even have different articles on Punjabi Muslims and Punjabi of other religions...·maunus · snunɐɯ· 06:02, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

@Bus stop: That's all very nice, but you are being swayed by an article recently created, has only had a handful of editors work on it, and who are still interested in developing the article. This is not representative of the hundreds of ethnic group articles which are not as proscribed in terms of who is of that ethnicity, and are overlooking the fact that notability is the singular criterion being applied for the galleries being used in the infobox of articles which are not exceptions to the rule. I dare say that, given another year, there will be edit warring over who is or isn't the best representative for this gallery... and is contingent on constant vigilance for drive-by changes and ensuring that the 'notable' in question self-identifies as being of that ethnic group, etc., etc., etc. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 05:45, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Ultimately I think photo-boxes should be gone from all articles on ethnicities. The reason is that ethnicity has nothing to do with notability except coincidentally. It is problematic that photo-boxes focus on people who have articles on Wikipedia. That problem is exacerbated by assembling them in a grid at the top of an article in the absence of any commentary. Bus stop (talk) 10:15, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Remove: I find these galleries to be an attention grabber of sorts so that's a positive, but the incessant conflict and edit warring that arises about who should be included in the gallery is overwhelming and toxic to the encyclopedia and is a symptom of the rampant nationalist-driven editing that often dominates pages about ethnic groups and nations. And although somewhat interesting, the galleries are of little encyclopedic value and could arguably serve as a distraction from the article's content, which has the potential to be more nuanced and neutral than a photograph of a random star personality who might belong to a certain group. --Al Ameer (talk) 22:43, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Remove. The first objective of these galleries is to increase the editcountities of the infobox-players. To take an example. I became surprised to see an admiral at the left-top of the Austrians page. So I came to see how many admirals were portrayed at the Koreans page. Not even one! As if Jang Bogo never existed! And the actress who portrayed Mishil? Missing also. And Sejong ? Missing also. And now the top ranking inclusion criterion. Since we have a rectangular gallery, one picture more requires a full row more. Pick at random a portrait of a painter. And another one to complete the $5\times 5$ array. And this gives 10 more bona fide edits in the Main Space. Have another player that prefers another actress and another painter, and your scores will soon rocket to the sky. Obviously, such a gallery suggests that 32% of Koreans are women, while 16% others are wearing spectacles. This is surely true, or perhaps the content writers became exhausted while trying to control these desinfoboxes. Pldx1 (talk) 17:37, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove: we have egregious edit summaries such as this one (removing "ugly people" and people "not completely white"?!), while at the same time we have a long discussion on whether someone with "one quarter African blood" qualifies as African American, and I have noted the clash there. This is just a big mess that should be done away with. No more little boxes of race-faces please. LjL (talk) 18:19, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
• Remove, please. Those galleries are (a) useless, and (b) irrelevant for those articles. Articles are about groups, and their group identity (religion, language, customs, etc.). So, individuals cannot and should not be representatives of group identity, no meter how important they are/were. Individuals can represent individual identity, which is exact opposite of the group identity, and so those galleries are useless. Articles about groups of people should have some photos representative of their group identity, not photos of individuals. Another problem with those galleries is that they are source of endless edit wars, as it is almost impossible to set inclusion criteria. Vanjagenije (talk) 20:10, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
• Keep Pictures are both useful and relevant. If editors are unable to establish a reasonable consensus then it's they that are the problem. But the RfC doesn't provide any examples so this seems quite hypothetical. Andrew D. (talk) 22:58, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Plenty of examples were provided in the parent section of this RfC (just above it), as well as in some of the responses to the RfC itself. There is nothing "hypothetical" about them. LjL (talk) 23:06, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

• In the section above, I see Italians given as an example. Looking at some related discussion, I see a sensible fellow list Italians who have been featured on bank notes. That's a good idea and I suppose that there are plenty more such good sources. My !vote stands.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrew Davidson (talk • contribs) 23:56, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

• @Andrew Davidson: You're failing to address the issue of what they have to do with the infobox per WP:TITLE. The titles of the articles in question are "EthnicgroupXs", not "List of notable EthnicgroupXs". There are separate namespace articles for many of these 'list of notable people' who are 'considered to' be members of the ethnic groups, or a dedicated subsection in the article... as well as many articles featuring images of notable members of the ethnic groups - or even galleries for them - in the body of the article. It's unjustified infobox clutter. Add to this the fact that many of these articles don't even have any Wikipedians watching them regularly and drive-by changes and additions that amount to WP:BLPVIO and you have an OR mess. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:24, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

• @Andrew Davidson: Your comment clearly shows that you have confused Italy with Italians by "list Italians who have been featured on bank notes". These notable Italians have nothing to do with illustrating the ethnicity or national identity and everything to do with illustrating the history of Italy. That's the problem that you fail to address--the galleries in the infobox are not illustrative of the ethnicity, but of celebrities who have contributed to a nation-state. --Taivo (talk) 02:30, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

• The choice of images for any article is always debatable; a matter of taste and editorial discretion. Collages are commonly used for broad topics such as London, Plant or Physics. There's nothing so special about ethnicity which means that we can't illustrate in just the same way. My !vote stands. Andrew D. (talk) 18:15, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

• Andrew Davidson—famous spots in London can illustrate London. There is not an emphasis on quotidian streets in the subject "London". On the contrary there is an emphasis on the quotidian when considering ethnicity. Ethnicity is not about those who excel. There is absolutely zero emphasis on success in any realm, negative or positive, when considering ethnicity. One is not of an ethnicity because one has won a peace prize or because one is a fierce killer. A person is not of an ethnicity because they have invented a slingshot that can go to the moon. These photo-montages are subtly conveying a misunderstanding of ethnicity. Ethnicity is based on some of the following: language, geographic area, and genetic similarity. A small percentage of the members of any given ethnicity achieve renown on a wider world stage. But they are not exemplary of that ethnicity. They are exemplary of their success (for the positive or for the negative) in a given realm. Bus stop (talk) 20:23, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Remove - The only purpose these image serve is to make the article nicer... That's it!, If we remove the galleries/infobox then we have no edit wars!/ –Davey2010^Talk 23:22, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

• We want our articles to look nice. But we don't want to appease those who engage in edit wars; they should be blocked for disruption instead. Removing the images won't stop such edit wars because this is Wikipedia where fanatics will happily edit war over the spelling of yoghourt and just about anything else – see WP:LAME for numerous examples. It's the editors which are the problem, not the topics. Andrew D. (talk) 23:56, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) @Andrew Davidson: Have you actually looked at example articles being pointed to in this painfully protracted discussion (it starts well above the RfC template) and their talk pages... and the archived talk pages... There is no parameter for a gallery in the ethnic group template, only a non-mandatory parameter for 'image'. This is something that someone, at some time, introduced because they thought galleries of notable people from one particular ethnic group or another is WP:ITSINTERESTING and WP:ITSIMPORTANT. No, it's neither: it's a WP:BADIDEA, and it has nothing to do with the WP:TITLE of these articles. I don't know how much involvement you've had as an editor in articles surrounding ethnic groups but, if you did, you would find that the entire concept is an energy sinkhole for editors. If I could be bothered, I'd do an estimate on how much time and energy has been invested in gallery edit wars and protracted disputes over the who, the why, the where, and the when (is it a DNA issue; a self-identification issue; a contemporary nation-state revisionist identification issue?) and I could guarantee you that the ratio of this kind of POV, OR contributions to developing the actual content of the articles to actual development of the content is out of control. We're talking about infoboxes, not off-topic boxes. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 03:42, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

• Andrew Davidson—you say "It's the editors which are the problem, not the topics." The "topic" is not notoriety. The topic is ethnicity. Ethnicity, in fact, has nothing to do with notoriety. Do celebrities constitute an ethnicity? Do politicians constitute an ethnicity? Do inventors, or scientists, constitute an ethnicity? Do women constitute an ethnicity? Do men constitute an ethnicity? All of the criteria used to arrive at the composition of a photo-box as we presently see it are inapplicable. It is not even a matter of using the correct criteria. The only criteria I can think of that would be applicable would be randomness and anonymity. An ethnicity consists of ordinary people. If they can be depicted photographically, fine. If no photographs are available, the article is still of value. The present photo-boxes are misconstruing the nature of ethnicity. Bus stop (talk) 12:37, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

• Question Will this proposal continue to allow a single image, previously published in a reliable source, depicting a group of people (e.g. the image in the infobox at Evenks)? 210.6.254.106 (talk) 03:30, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

A photograph such as that would contribute to an understanding of Evenks in general. The problem with photo box images is that they focus on exceptional people to the exclusion of ordinary people. Bus stop (talk) 03:46, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @IP 210.6.254.106: Well, there have been some proposals that the 'image' box be removed. In general, however, the image you're referring to does work in context as it's a general, historical photo of an ordinary family group/clan of Evenks in the context of the terrain in which the ethnic group lives (or the way in which they lived in a traditional manner). --Iryna Harpy (talk) 03:50, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

• Keep I've always found these galleries informative, especially those in ethnic groups I am not familiar with. Oftentimes I have clicked on one of the personalities depicted out of curiosity and learned about them, something I could not and would not have done without the galleries. I thus think these galleries are useful to our readers. While it's true that portraits of notable personalities can simply be added to the body text, there usually isn't room for more than a handful of portraits at best. I also do not find the main argument in favor of removal, namely, that they create edit-wars, convincing. That's what talkpages, consensus and dispute resolution are for. Lastly, even if there is some sort of consensus here that these galleries should not be included, the enforcement of a consensus achieved here to be applied all across wikipedia is on dubious grounds policy-wise and will be highly problematic, causing even more strife. Athenean (talk) 17:11, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

This RFC is listed among WP:Centralized discussion and it's taking place in an appropriate forum so I do not see why consensus shouldn't be pretty much binding. LjL (talk) 17:15, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Your high hopes for "consensus" in these infoboxes is sweet, but naive. Take a look at Talk:Ukrainians, for example. Almost the entire page is devoted to discussing the gallery of images in the infobox, with very little resolution based on consensus. It's a fools errand and a waste of time for something that really doesn't tell us anything at all about the ethnicity, just about famous people. These ethnicity articles are about average people of that ethnicity, not famous people. --Taivo (talk) 18:52, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

@TaivoLinguist:, I think you misunderstood LjL; they were responding to Athenean's gloomy prediction of strife resulting from this RfC and any elimination of infobox galleries. You, LjL and I seem to agree it's worth resolving that these infoboxes should not have those galleries. NebY (talk) 20:09, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes, of course. LjL (talk) 20:11, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Actually, I was responding to Athenean, but doing a lousy job of addressee reference. --Taivo (talk) 22:15, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Ukrainians, as with most Ukraine-related articles these days, can be expected to be a powder keg, gallery or not. By contrast, over at Greeks things have been more or less stable. So it can be done. Athenean (talk) 19:16, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

But the general problem persists: Are these photo galleries illustrative of the ethnic group or of simply famous people? None of the people in the Greeks gallery are dressed in any kind of traditional fashion, unless you consider a suit and tie to be "traditional". Why is Socrates a better example of Greek ethnicity over an olive farmer north of Athens? Here is an example of traditional Ukrainian clothing (which is actually gaining more popularity for formal occasions even in urban settings), but not a single solitary one of the famous people in the gallery at Ukrainians is helpfully or informatively wearing traditional Ukrainian costume. --Taivo (talk) 19:45, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)@Athenean:, the Greeks article which you describe as "more or less stable" was documented as follows by Future Perfect at Sunrise in August 2015: "Until January 2011, there were just 5 images in the gallery. In February 2011, there was a new collage of 25. In August 2013, the fixed collage format was replaced with the more flexible image array format. There were still 25 images. In August 2014, there were 30. In February 2015, there were 35. As of August 2015, there are now 40.... on my laptop screen I now have to scroll down two entire screenfuls from the top of the page until I see any real content of the infobox" See Talk:Greeks/Archive 8#Infobox gallery, once more for the ensuing discussion. NebY (talk) 20:09, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

From the Greeks article, there are 12% women among this ethnic group. This seems strange, isn't it ?

Yes very. And half of them are apparently made from stone and lack the lower part of their body.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 20:21, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

@NebY: By stable, I mean there haven't been the kind of disputes that would warrant removal of the gallery. Of course there have been disputes over the years, but I simply don't buy the whole "galleries cause edit-warring" argument as a compelling reason for removal. Athenean (talk) 20:27, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

WP:LEADIMAGE - are you sure having a whole bunch of mini images linked in the lead to unrelated articles will help our readers - as per our recommendation of lead images? Or would it be best to have larger images in the article that link articles of people that contributed to said groups? Is many images such an important thing to have in the lead - over topic specific images in article of people talked about in said article - is the question being posed?-- Moxy (talk) 20:47, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps one of the most absurd aspects of these galleries is that they aren't even photographs or photorealistic portrayals of the 'notable' person considered to be an imperative for the infobox gallery. Many of the portraits are stylised representations, or were executed a couple of hundred years after the person portrayed died... and no one actually knows what they looked like. How is that edifying for reader: they don't look like anything other than a generic rendition of a person in a style that was in vogue at various points in European history dependent on circumstance and their status in the society at a point in history (and we're arguing European history alone, much less global 'ethnic group' articles). --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:33, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

• Keep except where there is longterm dispute or edit-warring about inclusions/omissions that cannot be resolved on Talk, WP:DR, or noticeboards. I like these features and would find it a shame if they all disappeared. if some need to be deleted because they are too fractious, that's fine. Softlavender (talk) 06:06, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Do you have any thoughts on cases where there is not edit warring but there are no clear inclusion criteria, Softlavender? That's also part of the concern behind the RfC. Cordless Larry (talk) 08:32, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

No, unless there is major unresolved contention there is no reason to delete any given gallery in my opinion, and I find them valuable. Softlavender (talk) 08:34, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Since this RfC is only about placing galleries of unrepresentative famous people in the infobox, would you object if the gallery were moved out of the infobox to a position later in the article? --Taivo (talk) 08:44, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Just a note about your point on removing the infboxes from articles where the discord and disagreement is high and constant, I can say with confidence that this would apply to all of the ethnic group articles of the Middle East and North Africa. --Al Ameer (talk) 00:32, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

• Remove – constant source of edit warring, problems with selection, WP:OR, and, ultimatively, utter uselessness for the reader. The current version of oft-cited Ukrainians has 36 tiny images crammed in the infobox, barely visible with even a large monitor, and I won't even try opening it on a mobile device. They just look unprofessional, like, y'know, coming from a crowd-sourced website. I'm not against having a single image depicting e.g. people in traditional attire and/or a map, but the current state of affairs clearly shows that slippery slope is a real phenomenon.
  P.S. Collages in city article infoboxes next, anyone? No such user (talk) 10:04, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Let us compare http://www.day.kiev.ua/en/article/day-after-day/airport-named-after-prince-volodymyr-and-galicia with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Daniil-halitsky.jpg. Both crowns are similar. Both clothes are similar. Both heads are not. Which of them gives the best idea of the appearence of King Danylo ? And how much is the head of this notable person representative of the people summarized in the Ukrainians article ? Pldx1 (talk) 11:37, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

The issue of the (mis)use of fictional portrayals like this is in some way a logically orthogonal issue, but characteristic of the entire miserable state of affairs. Where they are used, their presence makes the galleries even more problematic than they'd otherwise be. Most boxes I've seen contain at least one or two such items, where the picture would be of zero encyclopedic information value even as an illustration in the article on the person themselves, let alone as an illustration for the whole group they are supposed to represent. See WP:PORTRAIT for a more general view on the issue. (Incidentally, File:Daniil-halitsky.jpg, which is used both on the person's article and in the Ukrainians box, doesn't even have a source. That's just perfectly illustrative of the abysmal quality of editorship that typically goes into the assembly of these galleries.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:53, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

• Keep. The reasons given for removing them are 1) they cause edit wars and 2) the galleries are OR or POV. Articles related to ethic groups tend to create some of our worse edit wars, but we don't ban articles on ethnicity because of it, we deal with the problems on a case by case basis - removing encyclopaedic content whole scale from Wikipedia because there are sometimes edit wars on part of that content is not what we do, and should never be what we do. The OR concerns are unfounded because on the Wikipedia pages for the notable individuals used in galleries there in the first sentence would be the ethnicity of that individual, and - if this were a contentious issue - a cite to a reliable source supporting the assertion of that ethnicity. It is part of what we do on Wikipedia to provide images as "an important part of any article's presentation". Banning topic identifying information from the lead section of hundreds of articles because a handful of disruptive individuals argue over the use of that information in a few articles is inappropriate and allows disruption to rule our content, which should never happen. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 12:33, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
  • On the OR point, SilkTork, your comment doesn't really address the issue of inclusion criteria. Yes, there might be sources establishing people's notability and ethnicity, but these infobox montages require editors to pick from perhaps tens of thousands of such individuals, which is where the OR comes in. Cordless Larry (talk) 13:57, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
  • SilkTork, your claim that "there in the first sentence would be the ethnicity" is factually wrong. On the contrary, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographies states explicitly that "Ethnicity, religion, or sexuality should generally not be in the lead unless it is relevant to the subject's notability". The reason is obvious: It is normally not the ethnicity that defines an individual. Therefore it seems far-fetched to use such individuals, usually famous for something complete different from their ethnicity, to represent the ethnicity. --T*U (talk) 16:29, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
• Remove – These galleries are not worth the time they waste. Ethnic groups cannot be reduced down to ten or so individuals, and doing so is an exercise laden with problems that compromise neutral point-of-view. This is the worst kind of WP:OR, and simply does nothing to improve the articles in question. Remove the pictures. RGloucester — ☎ 16:21, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Keep, these images provide common examples and give readers a quick impression on the ethnic group, similar to how a lead section acts as a summary of the article. sst✈^(discuss) 16:22, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
• Keep Leave it on discretion of people who edit specific pages (see discussion below). These galleries show to a casual reader some examples of highly notable people who belong to the given ethnic group. They are informative and promote positive feelings with respect to different peoples all around the world (as opposed to promoting ethnic hatred on certain WP pages, which should not be the case). Almost all pictures on WP pages are selected more or less arbitrary, and this is not an exception. The galleries also make WP page look nicer, which is an important consideration. My very best wishes (talk) 17:50, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

"Promoting positive feelings" is not one of the functions of an encyclopedia. Wikipedia should not be "promoting feelings" one way or the other--it is a factual presentation of information and "feelings" should have absolutely nothing to do with it. Adolf Hitler is the most notable German/Austrian individual in the last two centuries, but he illustrates perfectly why these galleries are inappropriate in the infobox of an encyclopedia: he is missing from both Germans and Austrians, in other words, his absence is a violation of WP:NPOV. --Taivo (talk) 18:02, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Note: While this discussion has been going, Hitler was placed in the Austrians infobox 30 Nov, removed again 14 Dec. (Also Schwarzenegger has had a short term in the box in the same period.) I thought Balkan infoboxes were problematic... --T*U (talk) 20:00, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

That's why I also said "informative" and "make WP page look nicer". By the same logic one could argue against inclusion of almost any figure in WP pages as "arbitrary". It is always more or less arbitrary (decided by consensus) which figures should be included to illustrate a page. There is nothing wrong with not including image of Hitler in a page that was not about Hitler. This is not an NPOV violation by any stretch of imagination. My very best wishes (talk) 19:15, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

It is not a POV violation no, but it is inherently based on the particular point of view of the person who argues to add or remove Hitler. And in practice arguments about whom to exclude and include are almost always based on political points of view, and the decision hence can never be politically neutral, which is a problem for the galleries whether or not it can be said to violate WP:NPOV. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 19:23, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Actually, after looking at something like this or this, it appears that people have extremely bad taste by including figures like Stalin, Putin, Lenin etc. right near other historical figures who would probably turned in their graves from such neighbors. In addition, a lot of these people had mixed "ethnicity". Counting who had "pure blood" would be definitely a racism. My very best wishes (talk) 20:02, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

POV violations are all dependent on reasoning. If Hitler were excluded because "he wasn't a nice guy" and not because of ethnicity problems, then that is a POV violation. And "bad taste" is certainly a POV violation rather than a neutral assessment of whether a certain figure is a member of a certain ethnicity or not. But even if you don't think it's a POV violation, the fact that I can make the POV argument so easily illustrates the inherent difficulty of these infobox galleries. These galleries of notables in infoboxes are far from informative or illustrative of an ethnicity. --Taivo (talk) 00:13, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes, this is something highly controversial. Looking at the gallery of presumably ethnic Russian, one might argue that a third of them were ethnic Jews, and the man who created modern Russian language was of African ancestry. My very best wishes (talk) 22:34, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

But I would not insist on "remove" because on can say that all illustrations are inherently "POV". My very best wishes (talk) 15:12, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove. I don't see a way to pick and choose these galleries without violating NPOV and NOR. --Regards, James(^talk/_contribs) 07:16, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
• Observation. Did Romanians set a new record with 40 images in File:Romanian_People.jpg? The contest is still open... No such user (talk) 12:01, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

• To be discarded, by breach of the rules. This single image is a collage of 40 unsourced pictures, and don't provide any link or rationale of any kind. Pldx1 (talk) 13:10, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

• Where are the pictures of the Romanians who do nothing but go to work, cook, play with the kids etc? Bus stop (talk) 13:22, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

• 40 isn't anywhere close to the record (although it might be a record for a gallery implemented in the traditional single-file way rather than in the more recent table-based format). The record according to the discussion above seems to be 56. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:34, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

• French people may have the density - or indecipherability - record, with nine images crammed into each 300px row. The roll-call below it takes more space. NebY (talk) 23:06, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

• Looking at Louis XIV of France, we have the following ancestors: 08. Antoine, Duke of Vendôme | 09. Jeanne III of Navarre | 10. Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany | 11. Joanna of Austria | 12. Philip II/I, King of Spain and Portugal | 13. Anne of Austria | 14. Charles II of Austria | 15. Maria Anna of Bavaria. This guy seems more useful to describe 'Ethnic Europeans' than 'Ethnic French people'. Or to describe how ethnicity is a not so serious topic ? Pldx1 (talk)

• An editor is trying to edit war the 40pic collage into the Romanians infobox with edit summaries like "It's standard on wikipedia articles" and "General consensus and wikipedia rules". But even without the Romanians, we have Sardinians at 40, and the last week also Slavs have swelled to 40. Quite an interesting edit summary there: "(removed some Celts, Germans and half- and 3/4-Slavs, added some (at least 80%) Slav". The criterium seems to be "has to be more than 75%, at least 80% ethnic clean"! In that case, many heads will have to roll. --T*U (talk) 09:57, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

• Sigh. Tagged the Sardinian one on Commons as another unsourced/copyvio specimen; removed two copyvios from the Slavs article. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:28, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove As others have said, these are an eternal source of edit warring. They are also an eternal source of people pushing non-free images into infoboxes against policy/guidelines. These galleries/montages are a constant source of friction. They add very little, if anything, of quality to the respective articles. --Hammersoft (talk) 22:31, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
• Remove - Too much contention, basically amounts to original research, doesn't work well in mobile view, and tends to grow without limits. Kaldari (talk) 05:15, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove: There is nothing encyclopedic about these galleries, they do not add anything to the value of articles, they are constantly a battlefield for edit warring, and they encourage this nationalist kind of "bragging" about the achievements of others who speak the same language as you. There are many other reasons why the images from these infoboxes should be removed, but most if not all of them have already been listed here. The gallery have caused Wikipedians plenty of problems already over at the Slavs page, and unsurprisingly it looks like similar things have been happening in other articles too, so I think the conclusion we can draw from that is clear. Also, sorry if this seems a bit opportunistic, but I would like to invite any interested individuals to share their thoughts about a different topic on this page (though just under the RfC, not within in). --Samotny Wędrowiec (talk) 01:49, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
• Remove. Invariably causes more trouble than it's worth. Jenks24 (talk) 03:24, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
• Remove - Ultra-fluffy galleries with no encyclopedic worth. Carrite (talk) 04:21, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
• Keep per Sturmgewher88 and GRuban. That the images are a source of drama only indicates we should place a moratorium on discussion. Removing a feature entirely isn't the right answer. Chris Troutman (talk) 11:47, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

This proposal isn't to remove images entirely. It's to not allow galleries of notable personalities in the infobox. Appropriate images would still be allowed in the body of the article and images of regular, everyday people would still be allowed in the infobox.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 12:03, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove Articles on ethnic groups should follow the example of Human, which uses images of everyday people to illustrate what humans look like. Cobblet (talk) 20:59, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Excellent point. It is commonality that matters in the sorts of articles we are discussing, not exceptionality. I agree that the article "human" sets the template for how we should approach the use of imagery in articles on various ethnicities. It may be more difficult to do this when focussing on relatively small subsets of humanity, but this is what we should be aiming for. Bus stop (talk) 21:14, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove - Inclusion results in long standing edit wars with which individuals to add. Meatsgains (talk) 21:47, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
• Keep in certain cases -> more precisely: Keep in case of consensus on a particular page. There are a number of pages, in particular those on Jewish history and Jewish ethnic subrgoups (e.g. Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardi Jews, History of the Jews in France, History of the Jews in Russia, etc.), where a set of selection criteria for the infobox images was developed and a consensus was reached based on these criteria. The basic principles were:
  • Keep the number of images in some limits, typically up to 16, such that a reader can overview them, even on a smartphone.
  • Demonstrate the diversity of the people. This means
    • A fair fraction of men and women,
    • People from different historical periods,
    • People representing different occupations/topics, usually no more than one for each topic. E.g. one politician, one writer, one musician, one mathematician, one war hero, one entrepreneur etc. Usually a most notable person from each subject was selected. Where several candidates were available, the choise was based on the other criteria, e.g. to cover different historical periods, to show both men and women etc.

If the editors can agree on such set of rules, then the galleries should be kept. Wherever the editors don't agree, they should be removed. --Off-shell (talk) 12:52, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

While it's great when there are clear criteria, it doesn't solve the "notable" problem, i.e., famous people are not really representative of the ethnic group. And there can still be edit wars surrounding them. I applaud the emphasis on diversity, however. Is Natalie Portman really the most representative individual for "modern Jewish woman"? I would offer Mayim Bialik, for example. She's openly observant, writes a "Jewish woman in the modern world" blog, etc. --Taivo (talk) 13:28, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

You may discuss your proposal at Talk:Jews, of course. A big fraction of modern Jews define themselves (or are defined by others) as an ethnic group, not only as a religious group. In this sense, Natalie Portman is a famous modern representative of people with Jewish descent, like Einstein etc. Edit warring is surely the biggest problem, but with such criteria (and sometimes after lengthy discussions) the issues were settled on these pages. The question of notability is in fact the same as with the whole content of Wikipedia. For each sentence in each article, it is the decision of the editor to include or not to include this sentence. You write one sentence in an article and provide a 400 page long book as a reference. How did you decide that it is only this sentence that matters from the whole book? I believe one cannot "formalise" completely the process of writing. There is always a personal choice involved. As I wrote above, wherever several persons with similar notability and similar topics were proposed, further criteria were involved, like time period, country, sex, etc. In your example, comparing Bialik and Portman with all other similar parameters, one may look at the traffic reports of their pages where Portman gets many times more hits. However, such a comparison might be inappropriate in other cases, e.g. when comparing 2 writers, where one is a modern bestseller author and the other is a Nobel Prize winner writing "serious stuff". Many cases of this kind were discussed in length on the Talk pages. --Off-shell (talk) 14:08, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

There is a big difference between Ashkenazim or Sephardim and History of the Jews in France or History of the Jews in Russia. In the first set, the articles are asserting there are ethnic differences between both groups while, in the second set, the main difference is the difference of the countries where the events occured. In the second set, notable persons are relevant. In fact, it is surprising that key people like Col. Dreyfus or Trotsky, largely covered in the body of the articles, are missing in the desinfoboxes. Moreover, it is surprising that these desinfoboxes using xxx Jews as titles and not History of Jews in xxx, i.e. are using a title that contradicts the title of the page. In other words, is the infobox arguing --contrary to the article-- that Trotsky was not a sufficient part of the History of the Jews in Russia because this guy was born in Bereslavka, Ukraine ? Pldx1 (talk) 17:09, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Hello Pldx1, I don't see why an article focusing on an ethnic group in general or on those in a particular country should have different rules in this respect. Events occur in a country, events occur with people from an ethnic group. There are notable people in a country, and notable people of certain ethnicity. Concerning the particular questions on Dreyfus and Trotsky, you may start discussions on the respective talk pages. A typical argument might be: Having so many famous names in Russia, is it necessary to have two politicians, Trotsky and Golda Meir? If you replace Meir with Trotsky, you will reduce the female faction etc. In some cases, the reason for not including someone was that a picture of the same person is shown elsewhere in the article. As for the collage titles, I don't know why the collages are named differently. Possibly because the articles were originally named so, and were then renamed? The collages include actual information (population numbers etc.), so it is preferred to keep theit titles. --Off-shell (talk) 19:30, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

You missed the point, User:Off-shell. The point wasn't that edit wars occur everywhere, but that the galleries of photos in the infoboxes 1) are not representative of an ethnic group because famous people are rarely representative of common people--they usually live lives actually separated from the ethnic group that they are supposed to represent; and 2) they tend to be subject to more edit wars than other parts of the article because they are subject to different POVs as to their notability/suitability and the choice is subject to original research. I wasn't trying to start a discussion on whether Mayim Bialik should actually replace Natalie Portman, just illustrating how easy it is for a non-specialist to start a discussion, which can turn into an edit war. Such personal points of view are far more likely in choosing famous people than they are in stating that the Romans expelled the Jews from Judea in 90 AD/CE. --Taivo (talk) 17:37, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

But you did make what I think is an inapplicable point: "Is Natalie Portman really the most representative individual for 'modern Jewish woman'? I would offer Mayim Bialik, for example. She's openly observant…" What does being observant have to do with anything? Bus stop (talk) 19:36, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Now it's your turn to have missed the point, Bus stop. Taivo just eloquently illustrated the kinds of POV arguments that arise due to the these galleries being a subjective, not an encyclopaedic, exercise. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 21:27, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Could you please stop rearranging other people's comments? I think User:Off-shell makes a point worth considering. They say "Keep in case of consensus on a particular page." Bus stop (talk) 22:39, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

I suggest that you check carefully before making accusation in a very public venue suggesting that I've been up to some sort of dastardly, insidious practices, Bus stop. The only person's comment I moved was my own response to you when I realised that I'd inadvertently typed it under someone else's comment rather than yours within 2 seconds of realising my mistake. This is entirely within the scope of good talk page practice in order to keep threads clear. What is bad practice here is your casting aspersions. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 09:17, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

You are saying that I "missed the point". But User:TaivoLinguist had written "I applaud the emphasis on diversity, however. Is Natalie Portman really the most representative individual for 'modern Jewish woman'? I would offer Mayim Bialik, for example. She's openly observant, writes a 'Jewish woman in the modern world' blog, etc." The reasoning there is problematic, in my opinion. What does being "observant" have to do with the choice of individual for placement in a photo-box? I misunderstood your movement of your post. I apologize for accusing you of doing something insidious and dastardly. Bus stop (talk) 12:43, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

I understood Taivo's example as being representative of the subjective form discussions take on in nominating notables for an infobox gallery. Everyone has their own criteria (i.e., PPOV) because there is no objective methodology. Is it most famous; most beautiful; most academically proficient? How does one objectively select who is most representative when there are no absolute parameters for the superlative other than each individual editor's personal perception and argument for inclusion? (Oh, and your apology is accepted with gratitude.) --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:08, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

There can be observant Jews and nonobservant Jews. User:Off-shell gave the example of Albert Einstein. User:Off-shell and I are making the same point yet you think we are "missing the point". Bus stop (talk) 22:58, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I can see the point you're both making, but that underlines further problems in the selection process. Ultimately, however, we're looking at a general outcome for this RfC, therefore there's nothing preventing an RfC for an exception to the rule as a procedural matter. Any exceptions that aren't WP:SNOW can be judged on a case to case basis in a similarly centralised RfC. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:08, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Consensus policy says: "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale."--Antidiskriminator (talk) 23:02, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Five pillars -> WP:IAR "policies and guidelines are not carved in stone". If the global consensus on this subject will be that a local consensus can override it, so be it. --Off-shell (talk) 23:32, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

I understood the arguments, Taivo. I just point out, that there are cases where the issues were settled using common sense in a civil discussion on a Talk page. Yes, it took quite some time and energy in some cases. And I agree, wherever people cannot do that, the collages should be removed. Concerning the argument that they are not representative of common people, one can put a caption like "Some notable xxx people". --Off-shell (talk) 19:28, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

@Off-shell: This being the case, are you going to stand on your position of 'keeping in some cases', or have you changed your position? If you've changed your stance, perhaps you should reflect this in changing your !vote. How does a gallery of 'some notable people from groupX' relate to keeping the infobox terse and relevant per WP:TITLE. Thanks. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 21:34, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Iryna, my point is that such a gallery is just an illustration. There is a parameter "image_caption" in an infobox. The title of the infobox will remain the same. Since this issue causes so much disruption on so many pages, I agree with a guideline generally discouraging such galleries, but allowing them as an exclusion in case there is an agreement among the editors expressed on the Talk page. You may call it alternatively Remove but allow exclusions in case of consensus. Such a guideline would allow/enforce immediate removal, as soon as frequent changes / an edit war is observed. --22:30, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove. As per all points supporting Remove. As an example we can take the Bosniaks article. The gallery includes the names of the people who lived long before this idea of Yugoslav Muslims promoted into the Yugoslav Muslims nation then Yugoslav Muslims nation into the Bosniaks. Elizabeth of Bosnia is among of them and many others who were Turkish citizens at the first place. Making fake relationship between the idea born in 1990ies and all those gallery names is an absurd.--X2Faces (talk) 18:48, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

  struck as apparent sock. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:04, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove - original research.--Staberinde (talk) 19:11, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

• Keep - none of the problems mentioned above are specific to galleries in infoboxes of articles about ethnic groups, and all problems could be solved if the relevant WP policies would be properly applied. Borsoka (talk) 08:55, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Struck as duplicate vote. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:46, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

You have already cast your !vote two weeks ago. You will want to strike out this second !vote. --T*U (talk) 09:12, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I understood that a new voting session was started under the new title. What is the purpose of the new title? Borsoka (talk) 09:17, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

If you mean the arbitrary section break, Borsoka, it's just there to aid navigation in what is becoming a very long discussion. Cordless Larry (talk) 12:08, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove. I disagree with objections based on NOR (sources for ethnicity often exist), and I also disagree with the NPOV justification for disallowing galleries of notable people. As editors we are capable of making decisions of what content to include; it might be difficult in this case, but not impossible, to select notable people in a neutral and balanced way. Furthermore, I think just because something causes friction between editors does not mean we should ban it. The reason I think these galleries should be removed from the lead is that they do not follow the encyclopedia-wide convention for what a lead image should be. In particular, WP:LEADIMAGE says: "Lead images should be images that are natural and appropriate visual representations of the topic". Are images of notable people of ethnic group X natural and appropriate visual representations for the ethnic group X? On balance, I would say not. I believe there are better images that could more appropriately represent an ethnic group (or nationality, for that matter). On the other hand, these galleries could well be appropriate for a subsection of the article called notable people of ethnic group X. But not for the lead image. Mark MacD (talk) 12:10, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Very well put, in my opinion. This reasoning roughly parallels my own. A small subsection of the article could address notable individuals. In most cases the images could be dispensed with; merely an internal link to the article on the individual could suffice, perhaps with some accompanying text tying in the notable individual to the ethnicity. It would be best if something could be said about their relation to their ethnicity. When we elaborate on ethnicity as it relates to that individual, we potentially shed light on the ethnicity itself, which is of course the core subject of the article. Bus stop (talk) 12:26, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Agree....some of the images are so far off its funny ....when thinking of Mizrahi Jews everyone thinks of Paula Abdul ...LOL --Moxy (talk) 00:00, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

What is the question to answer? Is Ovadia Yosef more notable than Paula Abdul among the Mizrahim or is he more representative than she of all the Mizrahi people ? Pldx1 (talk) 14:00, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi Pldx1, I think the point is that, in general, people who meet Wikipedia's notability criteria (such as the people you mentioned) are not really representative of a whole ethnic group. Mark MacD (talk) 21:11, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Maybe, I think the point is that, in general, notability and representativity are not the same concept. Pldx1 (talk) 21:44, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

• Strong keep Even though often there is much discussion about whom to include, how many women, how many people in total, still, those questions can be discussed. These templates add much to the articles, especially for the casual reader. The reader should not suffer from the problems of the editor. Debresser (talk) 06:22, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

There is a difference between adding something that is "interesting to the reader" and something that is accurate. Famous people are rarely typical or representative of the ethnic group to which they might arguably belong and photos of them rarely, if ever, show them in any informative way other than a thoroughly uninformative head shot in western business attire. These photos can always be added in the body of an article under a clear label that marks them as "famous people". But to include them in the infobox as if they actually represent their people rather than their own accomplishments is disingenuous at best. --Taivo (talk) 08:38, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

• Keep Although I hate to disagree with my friend Taivo, I agree with Debresser insofar as the average reader expects to see a few representative members of a given group who have given something of value or importance to the history of human civilisation. It is like a sample gallery of individuals within an ethnic group who have achieved something of importance in the continuum of history and civilisation of humanity. The infobox provides a high-visibility location to accommodate such a gallery of notables. I see nothing wrong with that. Dr. K. 01:22, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

This seems to be the only argument of those in favor of "keeping" (for those that even bothered to present a reason for their !vote). I must admit, however, that I don't understand this argument. The fact that an individual gave "something of value or importance to the history of human civilisation" is totally and completely irrelevant to their ethnicity. Their achievements are achievements of the individual, not the ethnic group. Their achievements or individual significance is of no value in objectively describing, as a whole, the ethnic group(s) to which they belong.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 02:04, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

I disagree. Individuals have identities. A big part of that identity is the national group in which they belong. Their achievement is reflected upon that group in the mind of the reader. Their achievement can also reflect the common struggle of the group during wars of liberation and independence. These individuals such as Simon Bolivar, George Washington and Nelson Mandela, to name a few, have achieved great goals which although are a source of inspiration for the wider humanity are also uniquely identifiable to their national groups and represent them in the mind of the reader. Dr. K. 02:24, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

But here is the great trap, my friend. Ethnicities are not collections of individuals striving to achieve great things that are judged great by the rest of humanity. The same ethnic group that gave us Mozart and Goethe and Martin Luther also gave us Hitler, who, in his own judgment, was also striving to achieve great things for his people. The criteria for selection of individuals to represent an ethnic group are not neutral, but are expressions of the POV of those who seek to promote the moral superiority of their group. But are the individual achievements of people really an expression of their ethnicity? If Beethoven is typical of Germans, then are all Germans so musically gifted? Are all Jews as intellectually advanced as Einstein? Are all Georgians as morally depraved as Stalin? --Taivo (talk) 03:07, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Taivo, please let's keep this type of rhetorical questions out of this debate. There is a great difference between simplistic stereotyping and identifying remarkable individuals as representatives of a national group. Of course this is not a hard science and no conclusive proof based on mathematics can be provided that my position is right or that yours is wrong. As such I tend to avoid these endless discussions, almost like the plague, given their considerable potential of becoming a uselesss time-sink. So I will not engage further. Best of the season to you regardless and Happy New Year! Dr. K. 03:32, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Dr.K.—you are referring to "remarkable individuals" within a group. But these articles are not about remarkable individuals within a group. That is the problem. The problem is the distortion that these photo-boxes provide for the article. The articles are primarily about ordinary people. A given ethnicity may eat a certain type of food, may commonly work in certain occupations associated with that ethnicity, may speak a certain language, may tend to reside in certain regions, may have what are seen by outsiders as certain quirks of dress style. Our aim should be, as much is possible, to capture and convey to the reader the particularities that tend to apply across a broad swath of that ethnicity. Why would we be preternaturally concerned with the rare individual that assumes some distinction that highly differentiates them from 99% of the group? This is a manifestation of our own preoccupation with "celebrity". These are all individuals with articles on Wikipedia. Therefore an internal link can suffice to apprise the reader of these "outliers". A paragraph somewhere in the body of the article can concern itself with "Well-known XYZers". Any reader interested in this aspect of the ethnicity can simply click on the names that are of interest. A brief description of their accomplishments can accompany their name, as well as a word or two about their association with the ethnicity. The images are unnecessary as they are only a click away. And this material should not be in the Infobox because it is of peripheral importance to the article. This belongs in a paragraph somewhere in the body of the article. Bus stop (talk) 11:05, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove I have always thought these were not a good idea. Why should some celebrities be shown and not others, nt to mention the ambiguity with race and ethnicity. AIRcorn (talk) 02:59, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

• Keep photos, remove galleries - Seeing as how the galleries of personalities will always be a source of conflict as long as they exist, I would support removing them. These articles probably aren't the best place for them, a better choice would be the 'List of xxx people" articles, which specifically focus on well known figures. However I do think the image section should still be used for photos of everyday people, with the photos that have the best quality being displayed. I've seen some editors replace the galleries with a flag, which isn't always a good substitution because some ethnic groups are in multiple countries. So I support removing the galleries, and support using images that best display said ethnic group instead. --Steverci (talk) 04:06, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

• Remove I agree with Maunus " No inclusion/exclusion criteria, inherently subjective and non-neutral, conflict magnet. And most importantly they are unnecessary." We have enough arguments about ethnicity as it is. Doug Weller talk 14:07, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
• Remove - and if possible reconfigure the infobox template so the galleries cannot be added. A current example of the problems is at Tajiks where, despite consensus having been reached on the talk page. a "new" editor (with a surprisingly good understanding of wikiformat) is edit warring to add the people they want - Arjayay (talk) 14:15, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
• Remove It would get rid of a lot of unnecessary edit wars. Cara777 (talk) 06:53, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Procedural discussion

This proposal is unenforceable. If you want to make this change, across many Wikipedia articles, you need to format this as a neutrally worded RFC, advertised in all of the important places and have it open for 30 days. I'm sure there are editors who have a strong opinion about this subject that don't happen to visit this WikiProject talk page. Any major changes made to articles based on this discussion can be reversed by consensus on the article talk page. It is a shame that this long discussion has gone on and needs to occur again under as a RfC. Right now, it's a collection of opinions. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:01, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Honestly I can't quite see what your issue is. I've voiced śome concerns about the possible degree of authority myself, further above, but in terms of proper procedure: it is an RfC. It is properly listed. It is neutrally worded. It is in the right place. I quite agree it should run for a decent amount of time, and you are certainly welcome to suggest further places where it could be advertised – short of "on all affected articles", because that's not feasible. This is the central talkpage of the wikiproject responsible for all these articles, and having discussions affecting many articles centrally is exactly what such wikiprojects are made for. Whatever ways we may find to improve the visibility of it, I really don't see why any of this would have to be discarded and re-run. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:24, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

The RFC is a very short, neutral question; it is listed at Template:Centralized discussion which AFAIK is the most, uh, centralized place it could possibly be listed on; it can certainly be kept open for 30 days or more. It already is an RFC, so I'm not sure why you're saying it "needs to occur again as a RfC". And finally, WP:Local consensus from a single article's talk page doesn't trump global, and this discussion is central and advertised as such. LjL (talk) 18:30, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

For thoroughness, I have informed other possibly related talk pages here and here; a relevant template's talk page had already been informed here. LjL (talk) 20:17, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

User:Liz, I don't think this discussion could have been advertised more. There are notifications on the talk pages of articles dedicated to all important ethnic groups. E.g. Talk:French_people#The_gallery_of_personalities_from_the_infobox, Talk:English_people#The_gallery_of_personalities_from_the_infobox, Talk:Russians#Invitation, Talk:Ethnic_groups_in_Europe#Proposal_for_the_deletion_of_all_the_galleries_of_personalities_from_the_articles_about_ethnic_groups, Talk:Koreans#Proposal_for_the_deletion_of_all_the_galleries_of_personalities_from_the_articles_about_ethnic_groups, etc. TravisRade (talk) 22:55, 15 December 2015 (UTC) Having User:Iaaasi socks mess with this RfC doesn't help matters. Fut.Perf. ☼ 02:16, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

I agree that we should keep the thread open longer, but as far as participation goes, this discussion has succeeded in attracting a very large number of editors who have voiced their opinions on the subject. --Al Ameer (talk) 00:36, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Why is Liz going around posting this comment to the talk pages of articles where this has been brought up? @Liz:, please respond to the comments here, where the actual discussion is taking place, and enlighten us as to why you don't consider this a "proper" RfC.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 01:30, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Because it is just a poll, getting people's opinions and is non-binding. See Wikipedia:Requests for comment. Specifically, it should follow the procedure outlined at Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Request comment on articles, policies, or other non-user issues which I don't believe it has along with the default duration of an RfC is 30 days. It also should have been listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Society, sports, and culture and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/History and geography not Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Language and linguistics. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:41, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

What exactly at Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Request comment on articles, policies, or other non-user issues does this RfC fail to do? Liz, I must say I find you going round and mass-posting your "that is not an RfC" comment on all those pages highly inappropriate and disruptive. So far, you are in a minority of one here in questioning its validity. Even if you had a point about some standard of best practice not having been followed (and you still haven't said what that deficiency would be), the claim that it "isn't an RfC" at all is just plain false, and the very least thing I'd have expected of you in this situation would have been to first wait for your concerns to be addressed and discussed here, before going round to poison the well on all those other pages. This is highly disappointing behaviour. Fut.Perf. ☼ 02:00, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

@Liz: Excuse me but what are you talking about?! It is listed at all the places you mentioned (as well as the "Language and linguistics" page), and more. An RfC, according to the very procedure you linked, is little more than a "poll getting people's opinion" with the correct RfC template and a simple question on top, which are present (if there is substantially more, please mention what specifically you have in mind). Should I post screenshots or something? It's almost like we're seeing different pages! LjL (talk) 02:02, 16 December 2015 (UTC) P.S. I can't believe I'm having to do this but which part of this is not an RfC like you claimed on some of the above diffs? LjL (talk) 02:06, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

I can only guess, but maybe Liz failed to see the third-level heading where the actual RfC template sits, and only saw the original second-level heading ("The necessity of galleries of personalities in the infoboxes") above it, with the original informal discussion there? Unfortunately, the Iaaasi socks that did most of the notifications on individual article talkpages were linking to that heading, not directly to the RfC itself. Fut.Perf. ☼ 02:27, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Please, instead of just linking to a page (that's good and all, but I'm sure most of us are already familiar with it), please tell us what exactly you mean by "I don't believe it has". I'm not sure why you keep bringing up duration when this RfC hasn't closed yet. And, as LjL points out above, it was indeed also listed in the locations you claim it wasn't. This RfC has attracted a lot of discussion. If those are your only objections, I'm not convinced.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 02:10, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

This must be a misunderstanding this RfC request posted the debate to the right places correct]? lots saw it obviously ..perhaps best Liz go back around and amends here posts. Not good to have the wrong info posted all over...best to make sure next time first.-- Moxy (talk) 02:56, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

This RFC is also included at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/History_and_geography, but apparently someone messed up the sections there and closed by mistake many sections. Someone please check the link and make the necessary correction (it is section no. 12) Dkfldlksdjaskd (talk) 08:02, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks to Future Perfect at Sunrise for fixing that. I'm still confused by Liz's claim on multiple article talk pages that this isn't an RfC. Perhaps it's not the best worded RfC, but I don't see how it can be described as not an RfC. Is it just that the link that was given in the original talk page posts is to the wrong section here? I'm also confused by the comment about the default duration of an RfC being 30 days. Has anyone here suggested otherwise, or that the RfC be closed early? Cordless Larry (talk) 08:52, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Have these claims been struck by Liz and amended to qualify that it is an active RfC? There are 12 full days to go as yet, allowing ample time for interested editors to read the arguments and weigh in. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 21:24, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

@Iryna Harpy: In answer to your question: Liz seems to have lost interest and has done nothing of the sort. Another editor has commented on most of the talk pages where the claim was placed. One was overlooked, so I have placed a similar notice here. --T*U (talk) 08:09, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

@TU-nor: Thanks for the update (and finding the overlooked notice). I've added a couple of notifications on related talk pages (that is, diasporic community 'ethnic group' articles, most of which also feature randomly chosen notables, emulating the top level 'ethnic group' infobox gallery because they've seen it featured on other such articles). Once these "DiasporicCommunityX Americans/Argentines/Australians/Brazilians/Chileans/YouGetThePictureans" are added to the equation, we really are talking about hundreds of articles using galleries of 'notables' where there has never even been any discussions about any content issues on the talk pages, much less can Wikipedia vouch for the fact that there aren't BLPVIO's and complete misrepresentations of these people's ethnicity. In fact, there's one young pop star who features as a Tamil Australian, a Burger Australian, a Samoan Australian and some other ethnic group Australian. I know a lot of editors are arguing down the WP:ITSINTERESTING path but, while they may find it 'interesting', we need to carry a disclaimer that veracity is by no means cite checked or guaranteed... Hmm, but we do have a problem, being WP:NODISCLAIMERS. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 09:32, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

With respect, the result of this RfC will be binding unless another global RfC overrides the consensus established here. Further, local consensus on a given page can not override the consensus that is achieved here. See WP:Local consensus. This RfC was properly established [4] and properly advertised. In addition to standard RfC notifications, it has been advertised on WP:CENT now for five days. Since the RfC opened, we've had 60 non-ip people edit this page with 359 edits being done. Any claim there hasn't been sufficient participation is simply false. With respect Liz, you're flat wrong on this one. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:19, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Legobot has just removed the RfC template as expired. Any thoughts on extending the RfC, or should I request to have an admin evaluate and close the RfC? --Iryna Harpy (talk) 03:06, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

New procedural discussion

Today, with this edit, the Legobot "removed the expired RfC template". What is the best way to proceed at this point? Should we relist it for continued discussion or request closure?--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 02:33, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

The ratios seem to be pretty steady. I'd say we have a good representation and can close. --Taivo (talk) 02:48, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I'm a bit slow off the mark as I hadn't noticed that a new section had already been opened to discuss this issue (see the comment in the section above which I've now struck). I don't see any advantage in relisting this, particularly as we've hit the quiet time of year when regular editors have IRL things to get on with. I agree with Taivo in that it has run its course and represents a good cross-section of editor input, therefore a request for closure is the way to go. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 03:37, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

I concur. New input has definitely slowed down and we seem to have a good cross section of editors. It's probably time to close. As this has the potential to affect a lot of articles (and ones that attract especially contentious editors), if the close does result in removal, I would like the closing statement to include, at the very least, a mildly-worded suggestion for editors not to race off and (trying to be the first) delete things simply for the sake of deleting. We should keep in mind our goal of trying to build an encyclopedia and remain constructive, making sure it's done in an orderly fashion by trying to find suitable replacement images when/where appropriate and causing as little disruption as possible.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 06:42, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Good points, William Thweatt. On the closure, new input seemed to have stopped entirely until the last couple of days, when it's picked up again. I'll leave it to others to judge whether the time is right to close, given my involvement in its opening and Liz's concern about the length of the RfC period above. Cordless Larry (talk) 09:10, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

I've posted a closure request at Wikipedia:Requests for closure [5]. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:20, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Note to closer

For reasons of transparency, I feel that I should point out that I reworded the RfC at the request of Hahun, who was the editor who made the original request. Hahun has since been blocked as a sockpuppet of Iaaasi, and there is currently an investigation open into a couple of other suspected socks. The closer might therefore have to disregard comments by some editors when assessing consensus. Cordless Larry (talk) 09:34, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

A request by a blocked sockpuppet is ... a request by a blocked sockpuppet. Good luck with assessing consensus in a situation where the fundamental principles of Wikipedia clash. I resent the fact that all keep votes were badgered to death, and that the fishing for socks is going to have to continue. Poeticbent talk 06:42, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

It's not ideal, but I don't think it should invalidate the RfC. First, the decision to start an RfC was a collective one as a result of a discussion above. It was clear even before the start of the RfC that opposition to these montages extended far beyond Hahun/Iaaasi. Second, I completely reworded the question and am happy to take responsibility for it. Working out who the sockpuppets are is admittedly a more significant challenge, in my view. Cordless Larry (talk) 09:55, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Yazidis: Kurds or not?

There have been several back-and-forths at Yazidis to push either the idea that this people is a religious group within Kurds or the opposite one that they are a completely separate ethnic group. I think the existence of this diatribe can be inferred from the very lead sentence of the article.

Right now, I'm particularly worried about a single-purpose account repeatedly adding a picture (to Kurdification, too) that's apparently of herself holding a "Ezidi are not Kurds" sign. I think that falls very short of WP:SOAPBOX, and we don't even have any means to verify that the person in the picture is in fact Yazidi.

LjL (talk) 23:52, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

I've seen that as well. I think that the present language in the lead that describes Yazidi's as Kurd AND as an ethnoreligious community is satisfactory. Any change to that should be supported by an unopinionated source. Which will be hard to get by. Also, Wikipedia doesn't get to decide the question at the top of this section. Neither does it have to. We are not a platform where people can establish their favorite "truths" and write them into stone. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 01:52, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Having read the lead better it doesn't say AND, but OR. I'm not sure if that's good. The controversy is explained, which is good, but the opening sentence could be improved. "Kurdish speaking (ethno)religious community"? Gerard von Hebel (talk) 02:11, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm not sure the lead is very satisfactory, there must be a better way to reflect WP:Conflicting sources than to say "snow is white or black" (at least, last time I checked the page it said "or", not "and", otherwise it could just say "a Kurdish ethno-religious community"). Anyway, I don't have an answer to the question in this section's heading and I don't expect us to answer it for the article, but I don't think it's appropriate for a WP:SPA to push their opinion to the point of WP:SOAPBOXing with pictures of their personal political slogans. Since there has been a fair bit of this SPA on the article lately with little to contrast it, I brought it here. LjL (talk) 02:15, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Semitic people

Forgive me if this is in the wrong place, I do not know my way around Wikipedia and its protocols at all. I am alerting you to the fact that an article of interest to you (and you are marked as this article being relevant to you, in your case it is a 'top priority' article) is currently being debated for removal/merging. It is being argued (I believe wrongly) that the article is irrelevant and has no place in having its own page, so I do think someone from your group should keep an eye on the discussion on the talk page. They already merged the article today into another article without any discussion but I managed to get an admin to move it back again. Conversation has now started on the talk page and I think it is definitely something you will want to keep an eye on. Talk page here; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Semitic_people Taurusthecat (talk) 14:38, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

@Taurusthecat: It is OK (even recommended) to inform WikiProjects about discussions in their scope. But, the information has to be neutral. Notice about ongoing discussion that is not netral is considered a kind of WP:Canvassing. You are notice above is not neutral, as you call other editors to join discussion and also tell them which side in the discussion is "wrong". You should not make such canvassing notices in the future. Vanjagenije (talk) 17:16, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Discussion regarding classification of Somalis in the UK

A discussion is taking place at Talk:Somalis in the United Kingdom#Classifications about, amongst other things, the classification of Somalis in official British ethnicity classifications. Input would be welcome. Cordless Larry (talk) 12:01, 30 December 2015 (UTC)