Talk:Genocide of indigenous peoples

Wiki Education assignment: Disrupting the Status Quo- Social Justice in Technical and Professional Com

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 January 2022 and 2 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Brookecur (article contribs).

Nellie massacre

The Nellie massacre is a reverse example and does not belong here. The victims, in this case, were migrants and the perpetrators were indigenous. Chaipau (talk) 15:44, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Canadian genocide of the First Nations into Genocide of Indigenous peoples#Canada

There is currently more info on this topic in the overview article. The imbalance should be fixed by merging or summary style. (t · c) buidhe 23:17, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Support. Too little meat for such a big fork ;) — kashmīrī ^TALK 00:23, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

yup....support merge Moxy🍁 16:23, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Very weak oppose, there is probably much more that can be written about this topic than would fit in a section here. But since it presently isn't written, I agree a merge with the redirect tagged {{R with possibilities}} and probably with a see also link to Canadian Indian residential school system (where most of the writing we do have on this topic is) would be appropriate. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:58, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Canadians originally had a standalone article..... like many other nations..... however they were all merged here many moons ago. I'd rather see everything merged out of here into its own article. As per WP:Does deletion help. Moxy🍁 20:34, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Oppose. Would seem to warrant its own article (though perhaps its scope could be extended to Genocide of Indigenous peoples in Canada). Summary style is the solution. Graham (talk) 05:38, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. I could see expanding this into Genocide of Indigenous peoples in Canada but not merging in Genocide of Indigenous peoples, which has a worldwide context. Yuchitown (talk) 15:37, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Seems like this discussion should be taking place at Talk:Canadian genocide of the First Nations. Right now Genocide of Indigenous peoples is beyond 5 times larger than the recommended article length. The information here about Canadian First Nations should be transferred to Canadian genocide of the First Nations and then summarized here. Yuchitown (talk) 15:58, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

• Strong oppose -- this article already too long. Agree with Yuchitown that this article should be split and summarized.  oncamera  _{(talk page)} 18:39, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose -- Agreed with both Yuchitown and oncamera. This article is much too large already. It should be split into individual articles where possible and summarized here. --ARoseWolf 14:26, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose. Should be split and merged into the main article, with this page being reserved for summary style. Agree with Yuchitown that it should be renamed "Genocide of Indigenous peoples in Canada" or something like that.

PersusjCP (talk) 18:47, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose - since this is a significant topic that warrants it's own standalone article. Good points are made above by Yuchitown, ARoseWolf, PersusjCP, Graham11. Netherzone (talk) 00:58, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. This article is already too long, and the Canadian genocide of the First Nations article requires an article of its own since the topic has so much depth. Hogo-2020 (talk) 06:42, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. While the current version of this article is brief, the existing body of scholarship on the topic is so vast that any non-stub version of this article would be far too large to merge with Genocide of Indigenous peoples. Merging would encourage an unnecessary and unhelpful reduction of content. Some content from Genocide of Indigenous peoples could be transferred to this article, and more can and should be added to expand this article to summarize the balance of current scholarship. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 04:43, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

RFC: Palestinian genocide accusations

The following text has been added and removed from the article several times over the past couple months. It had been included under the "contemporary examples" section, under the subheading "Israel", and had a {{main article}} link to Palestinian genocide accusation. Should this, or some version of it, be included in this article?

Throughout the extended Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the State of Israel has been accused of committing a genocide against Palestinians. Events such as the Nakba, the Sabra and Shatila massacre, the blockade of the Gaza Strip, the 2014 Gaza War, and the 2023 Israel–Hamas war have been used as examples of evidence for a genocide committed by Israel. Statements made by Israeli officials have also been described by genocide scholars as dehumanizing the population of Gaza and used as evidence for "genocidal intent."

-- Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 20:23, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

No. Definitely shouldn't be included in this way which clearly violates NPOV. Since this claims are clearly contested. Vegan416 (talk) 18:22, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

References

• Comment - there can be no reasonable debate as to whether or not Israel's actions in either the current conflict or the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been described by some prominent writers as genocide; we have a whole article about it which currently cites 379 sources. The question I suppose is whether or not Palestinians are considered an indigenous people. I don't know if that question is settled, and/or what the implications are for this discussion either way, so I'm going to wait for more comments before giving an opinion. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 20:36, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
• Leaning no. Arabs (including the ancestors of the people now using the demonym Palestinian) came in later, meanwhile the Jews (descended of the earlier Canaanite population there) were pushed out of this area for many centuries, with modern-day Israel later being established over the course of ca. 1920-48 through Jewish re-immigration. So, looking at it one way, both of these Semitic groups have a claim to being indigenous in some sense, and looking at it another more restrictive way, neither of them do. So, there is not clearly a case here of a colonial people imposing genocide on an indigenous people (even if there is mounting evidence that something genocidal is happening). It's either a newer colonial group oppressing an earlier but also colonial one; or a former and recently restored indigenous group oppressing an intermediary group that is also indigenous within a modern contextual understanding.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:39, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

  @SMcCandlish: As noted in some of the sources below, this is a flawed assertion. The Arab conquests did not involve significant population displacement in Palestine. The Palestinian population is instead composed of Arabized and Islamicized descendants of all the peoples that went before: Canaanites, Philistines, Israelites, Judahites, Samaritans, presumably with some Greek and other admixtures in there. The Palestinian population didn't displace the ancient Jews; they are the descendants of the ancient Jews that never left, together with the Musta'arabi Jews, who also Arabized but retained their existing faith. Also, AFAIK, the concept of restoring indigeneity 2,000 years later is not a framework that is supported by the academic mainstream. It would be a bit like anyone of Anglo-Saxon descent claiming retrospective bygone indigeneity to northern Germany. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:11, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  That's an oversimplified and mostly incorrect account of history. While some Palestinians do descend from ancient Jews and Samaritans, many are likely descendants of later migrants to the region. Historical records document Muslim migrations into the area, including Arab tribes, Bedouins, Kurds, Turks, Bosnians, Hejazi Arabs, and Transjordanians arriving in recent centuries. Most Palestinians say they come from Arabian origins to be honest. HaOfa (talk) 17:57, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  Arab identity politics and self-identification aside, it doesn't matter how many other groups loped around the area over the centuries unless there's evidence that they had a meaningful impact on the local population. Suppositions of "many are likely..." yada yada are futile unless supported by sources. Below, however, you will find academically published sources attesting the indigeneity of the Palestinian population. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:49, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  And this entire side-debate is irrelevant to my actual point: We (WP editors, in wikivoice) cannot declare one of these groups "indigenous" and the other not (and within this context "genocide of indigenous peoples" means and only means genocide of an indigenous people by a non-indigenous one, not conflict between two indigenous ones or two non-indigenous ones) without running badly afoul of WP:NPOV and WP:NOR policies by picking sides in who gets to count as "indigenous" when there is no overwhelming preponderance of independent RS material declaring Palestinians to be indigenous and Iraseli Jews to not be.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:15, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  @SMcCandlish: Editors aren't declaring anything here. There are sources declaring what the RFC proposes adding. The only OR here is the unevidenced and sourceless false equivalence and false balance that is being argued for in opposition to the proposal. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:27, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  So show us the overwhelming preponderance of independent reliable sources that define Palestinians as "indigenous" and Jewish Iraelis as "colonials" or otherwise non-indigenous. Sources that simply claim there is a genocide happening don't quality; that's an entirely different question (which this discussion so far has barely touched) that isn't dependent in any way on the victim group being "indigenous".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:17, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

  So show us the overwhelming preponderance of independent reliable sources that define Palestinians as "indigenous" and Jewish Iraelis as "colonials" ... They're literally listed and linked on this very page. I'm begging you, or any of the "no" voters, to please, just provide one source to back up your opinion. You all keep saying "it's complicated", "it's political", "there's no consensus", "it doesn't belong here", yada yada yada, yet not one of you has managed to offer up even a single source to back all that up. Why are we all wasting our time with this meaningless drivel? Dylanvt (talk) 13:00, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

  Actually I am not sure about that. It seems to be a debate. Vox calls it a “debate” and an “argument”, and writes that “Settler colonialism does not have a definition under international humanitarian law.”[1]

  I think Palestinians are indigenous because some of the genetic composition of some of them have been studied which show Levantine origins. See some of the sources in Origin of the Palestinians. Likewise, the Israelis also share genetic overlap with Palestinian Arabs (also in that Wikipedia article).[2] Genetically, both these populations had ancestors that were “indigenous” (as in they lived in the region for an extended period during ancient times). The Israelis were expelled and became a global diaspora for a longer period of time than those identifying as Palestinians, though. Wafflefrites (talk) 23:44, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

  That all may be so, yet ultimately we should remember that the text proposed for inclusion doesn't state unequivocally that (non-indigenous) Israel has committed genocide against indigenous Palestinians, it states that "the State of Israel has been accused of committing a genocide against [indigenous] Palestinians". Many, many sources have been provided that do exactly that: they accuse the State of Israel of committing a genocide against indigenous Palestinians. Given these facts, there is no grounds to exclude the information. Dylanvt (talk) 01:07, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

  I think the title of this Wikipedia article needs to be changed to Genocide of Indigenous people and accusations of genocide. There are definitely accusations of genocide, but there is still debate among experts [3]. Unlike the Uyghur population, which has declined due to Chinese government policies, the Gaza and West Bank populations have steadily grown over the years [4]. Wafflefrites (talk) 01:24, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

  Even if that wasn't a routinely debunked and fallacious framing of genocide, the population is obviously not rising at the moment in Gaza. There probably couldn't be a more tasteless point in time to make this assertion. And an article from CBC, which has recently been panned for white-washing crimes in Gaza, from back in early December, well before much of the debate over the last six months, as well as the ICJ ruling, is hardly a credible and compelling source. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:55, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

  My understanding is that the genocide accusation is not limited to Gazans during the current war but from 1948 onwards. Tastelessness aside, you have not provided sources that the population growth framing (not the growth itself) is “debunked”, which is a counter argument I often hear. The ICJ did not rule that Israel’s actions were genocide; it ruled that Israel needs to take actions to prevent genocide and did not even call for a ceasefire [5] Time has also brought up the genocide debate back in November. [6] If you think that there isn’t a debate, perhaps the title of the Palestinian genocide accusation page would also need to be changed.

  We have the genocide point being a source of debate, and the settler colonialism being another. Only thing I am not debating is that Palestinians do have some claims to being indigenous. As this “Genocide of Indigenous people” article is currently titled, I am not sure the examples that are genocide accusations (including the ones outside of the Palestinians) belong. Or at least we should put a sentence in the lead that says the article also includes accusations.

  Didn’t mean for my post to be triggering. I am wondering if Selfstudier will be responding to my posts as well… Wafflefrites (talk) 06:58, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

  The Vox piece is principally debating the specific "settler colonialism" framing, not the indigeneity of Palestinians – the only relevant point here. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:58, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, that is what I was replying to. I said I think Palestinians are indigenous based on some studies of genetic makeup, which I trust more than all the other non scientific studies that say Palestinians are indigenous. Wafflefrites (talk) 06:25, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

• No - (Summoned by bot) The Israel-Palestinian conflict with history going back to 1947-48 is a political conflict, national conflict, and perhaps an inter-communal conflict. It can't be categorised as a conflict between "indigenous" and "non-indigenous" people. That topic doesn't belong here. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:42, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

  That's not the case, see Zionism as settler colonialism. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 16:54, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

• Absolutely there is no reason not to include what is neutral, reliably sourced and notable. The fact that the Palestinians are indigenous to the area is undisputed, and so is the fact that the overwhelming majority of Israel's Jews migrated from elsewhere (they made aliyah from other countries). Those who are not familiar with the topic should read Nakba, the Nakba denial and the Palestinian genocide accusation (the second is an eye-opener). M.Bitton (talk) 21:25, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
• No. Neither the population of modern Israel nor the inhabitants of Palestine can be uncontroversially termed as indigenous people. The former started settling down in larger numbers in the first half of the 20th century, being a very diverse group genetically and culturally; the latter were either nomadic Bedouins or similarly descendants of migrants from a few centuries earlier. No modern-day ethnic group can claim to be native to the current Israel-Palestine region IMO, so it would be a bad example for the article. See also SMcCandlish's excellent comment. — kashmīrī ^TALK 21:46, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

  Comparing those who have always lived there to those who arrived in living memory is rather strange. By that that standard, no ethnic group can ever be described as indigenous to anywhere but Africa (where it all started). M.Bitton (talk) 23:15, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

  But we can find better examples for this article, can't we? — kashmīrī ^TALK 12:40, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

• Yes. People who are arguing it doesn't belong because Palestinians "aren't indigenous to Palestine" better start removing the section on Afghanistan, since the Hazaras have Mongol origin (gasp!). Oh, and the Chakma people of Bangladesh "gradually migrated to Arakan and extended their territory to the nearby hills of the Chittagong Hill Tracts", so they're not indigenous to the region either. Oh right, and the Uyghurs, they descend from diverse Turkic and Mongolic populations of Central Asia that settled gradually in East Turkistan, so... they're not indigenous either... Hmmm... Well, why stop there? By y'all's logic the Mongols of Inner Mongolia aren't indigenous either! And the Karen only migrated into Myanmar about 1500 years ago! And Yazidis only emerged in Iraq in the 12th century! Our very own article on indigenous peoples states that "there is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples" but that "the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territory, and an experience of subjugation and discrimination under a dominant cultural model, all of which apply to Palestinians in Palestine, as the sources state. There is no justifiable reason to exclude this information. Dylanvt (talk) 02:22, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
• Also comment. Here are more scholarly sources that discuss genocide against Palestinians and refer to them as an indigenous people:
  1. Nijim, M. (2023). Genocide in Palestine: Gaza as a case study. The International Journal of Human Rights, 27(1), 165–200. https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2022.2065261
  2. Rashed, H. & D. Short (2012). Genocide and settler colonialism: can a Lemkin-inspired genocide perspective aid our understanding of the Palestinian situation? The International Journal of Human Rights, 16(8), 1142–1169. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2012.735494
  3. Masalha, N. (2015). Settler-Colonialism, Memoricide and Indigenous Toponymic Memory: The Appropriation of Palestinian Place Names by the Israeli State. Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies, 14(1), 3–57. https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/hlps.2015.0103
  4. Barakat, R. (2018). Writing/righting Palestine studies: settler colonialism, indigenous sovereignty and resisting the ghost(s) of history. Settler colonial studies, 8(3), 349-363. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/2201473X.2017.1300048
  5. Rashed, H., Short, D., & Docker, J. (2014). Nakba memoricide: genocide studies and the Zionist/Israeli genocide of Palestine. Holy Land Studies, 13(1), 1-23. https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/hls.2014.0076
  6. Shalhoub-Kevorkian, N. (2014). Human suffering in colonial contexts: Reflections from Palestine. Settler Colonial Studies, 4(3), 277-290. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2201473X.2013.859979
• Is this enough for you all??? Dylanvt (talk) 02:33, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
• No, technically there probably are no 'indigenous peoples'. Almost everyone, almost everywhere has supplanted an earlier group, so the only practical WP criteria is whether the 'supplanted' are generally seen and referred to as 'indigenous'. Although there clearly are some sources, they don't come anywhere near the number required to make the assertion that the Palestinians - rather than the ancestors of Israeli Jews, are the 'indigenous people'. I commend SMcCandlish's and Ivanvector's summaries of the main issues.Pincrete (talk) 05:43, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  You commend SMcCandlish's WP:OR on whether Palestinians are considered indigenous, but ignore the 6 peer-reviewed scholarly sources linked right above this that consider Palestinians indigenous? Dylanvt (talk) 12:40, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  I commend SMcCandlish's summary of the issues. I deal with the subject of the (relatively small) number of sources Although there clearly are some sources, they don't come anywhere near the number required to make the assertion that the Palestinians - rather than the ancestors of Israeli Jews, are the 'indigenous people'. What is the cut-off point historically for being 'indigenous', the C12th CE or several millenia BCE? I would argue neither unless a very broad majority of sources used one or the other. Pincrete (talk) 07:59, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

  There is no need for us to engage in some irrelevant WP:OR since we have the WP:RS that describe the Palestinians are indigenous. M.Bitton (talk) 12:33, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

  I would note the following extracts: "Palestinians are the descendants of all the indigenous peoples who lived in Palestine over the centuries; since the seventh century, they have been predominantly Muslim in religion and almost completely Arab in language and culture." (P.221, 2008. Polity); "Palestinians are an indigenous people who either live in, or originate from, historical Palestine.... Although the Muslims guaranteed security and allowed religious freedom to all inhabitants of the region, the majority converted to Islam and adopted Arab culture." (P.700, 2012. "Genetic Disease in Palestine and Palestinians".Oxford University Press); "Zionism itself was also defined by its opposition to the indigenous Palestinian inhabitants of the region. Both the "conquest of land" and the "conquest of labor" slogans that became central to the dominant strain of Zionism in the Yishuv originated as a result of the Zionist confrontation with the Palestinian "other". (P.93, 2014. Cambridge University Press). I don't just see sources; I see unequivocal statements in academic sources of the highest calibre. If there is serious academic debate or confusion on this point, I am hopelessly unaware of it and require enlightening. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:53, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  Zionism itself was also defined by its opposition to the indigenous Palestinian inhabitants of the region Was there not also at the same time an indigenous Jewish population in the region? My understanding is that there was, relatively small, sometimes unsympathetic to Zionist 'incomers' and aspirations, but nonetheless Jewish and 'indigenous', (if that word is the opposite of colonialist 'new-arrival').

  If there is serious academic debate or confusion on this point, I am hopelessly unaware of it and require enlightening. So you have never heard of Zionism's claim that Israel is the historic homeland of the Jews? An odd, historically anomalous and AFAIK unique claim, I acknowledge, but an oft-repeated, much-acknowledged claim nonetheless. There are two groups here both making claims to be 'indigenous'. Pincrete (talk) 06:24, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

  Zionism as a modern political and territorial program really has nothing to do with the underlying question (of whether an indigenous group is suffering genocidal violence from a colonial or otherwise non-indigenous one), since the Jews like the Palestinians are originally native to the region (at least back far enough that it matters for any modern sense of indigeneity; the Bronze Age onward really should suffice on that account). If the Cherokee concentrated today in Oklahoma, having been moved there by the US government, were to decide en masse to relocate back to their southeastern-states original homeland, by force if necessary, few of us (more to the point, few independent reliable sources) would be willing to classify them as "non-indigenous" and "colonizers".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:11, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

  While Judaism as a religion is culturally indigenous to the region, much as Christianity is, that does not translate to making all modern people who identify as Jewish indigenous to Palestine, least of all everyone identified as Israeli – lest it be forgotten that the Israeli population includes, among other constituents, those who have simply converted to Judaism (as long as they're not Palestinian), including former pentecostal Afrikaners and the like. History, and the literature on it clearly distinguishes between Zionist immigrants and indigenous Jews "Zionist settlement in Palestine was complicated by previously existing communities comprised of about 25,000 anti- (or at least non-)Zionist Jews: Sephardim (of Spanish origins, exiled in 1492), Maghribim (of North African origins), and Musta'aribun (Arabized Syrians, Iraqis, Yemenis, and others). They lived primarily in Jerusalem and Jaffa, and in smaller numbers in Hebron, Safed, and Tiberias. The Zionists sought to "Zionize" these communities, which they disparagingly called the "old Yishuv" (settlement). Those unwilling to embrace the Zionist project, like the ultra- Orthodox haredim , were marginalized. [...] As late as February 1919, when the First Palestinian Congress met to express its opposition to Zionism, its manifesto distinguished between Zionist immigrants and indigenous Jews" [7] On the subject of the specifically colonial nature of the Zionist project in Palestine, beyond the basic discussion there are even sub-narratives on the different relationships that different Jewish groups have had to the project. "Israel’s Mizrahi majority has been part of the Zionist settler colonial system itself while, at the same time, it has been greatly marginalised from the mainstream Zionist discourse led by white Ashkenazi Jews." [8] To be oblivious to all of this is simply to be oblivious to the topic and literature. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:55, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

  +1 M.Bitton (talk) 02:00, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

• No. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a very sensitive topic, and presenting this detail could be misconstrued as favoring one side over the other. Ideally, encyclopedia entries should strive for neutrality and avoid letting narratives influence factual information. Both Israelis and Palestinians have historical claims to the land, and both can be described as indigienous by some and colonists by others. Because of that complexity, I don't think this info is relevant for this article at all. 13:27, 28 May 2024 (UTC) ABHammad (talk) 13:27, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
• Support the proposed, or something along the same lines. By the assessment of a significant following of human rights and genocide scholars, the Palestinian people have been exposed to genocide. The academic consensus as it stands also proclaims the Palestinian people as an indigenous group – something that sources above attest. The better question, and one which has not been adequately addressed here, is: are there any serious arguments backed up by sources to indicate that the Palestinian people are somehow not an indigenous people exposed to genocide? ... that is, of course, without recourse solely to the type of Israeli historiography works steeped in historical negationism that are warned of at Nakba denial. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:26, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  The academic consensus as it stands also proclaims the Palestinian people as an indigenous group – something that sources above attest. That claim will need a stronger proof. Talking about historiography, to be honest, Nakba Denial seems to be steeped in another type of historiography itself, doesn't look really encyclopedic but more like narrative, but that's I guess an issue for another day... HaOfa (talk) 17:50, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  There is plenty of sourcing for this claim above. What I'm not seeing is any source for any counterclaim. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:53, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

•  Support. Many reliable sources agree that Palestinians are Indigenous. Omission gives preferential treatment to a white nationalist point of view.  — Freoh 17:19, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  Who are you referring to with "white nationalist"? HaOfa (talk) 17:46, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

• No, Jews are not less indigenous than Palestinians, so I don't see how this is relevant to this page. Sorry. HaOfa (talk) 17:46, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  Are the Balkan Jews indigenous to the Balkans? A simple yes or no will do. M.Bitton (talk) 17:56, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  Balkan Jews are part of the Jewish diaspora, that is the dispersion of Jews out of their ancient ancestral homeland, the Land of Israel. HaOfa (talk) 17:59, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  You didn't answer the simple question. Please try again. M.Bitton (talk) 18:01, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

• No, agree with SMcCandlish and many others here. This isn't a clear-cut case of a colonial power committing genocide against a indigenous population. We're looking at two groups, both with historical ties to the land, both claiming indigenity. Jews have always seen themselves, and were seen by their neighbors all around the world, as being from this area. O.maximov (talk) 19:15, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  WP:OR that contradicts what the RS say carry no weight whatsoever, regardless of how many editors agree with it. Now, are you suggesting that Jews cannot be considered as indigenous to an area even if they lived in it for thousands of years? M.Bitton (talk) 19:30, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

• No, the statement, aside from being one sided, doesn't belong in this article. One sided because while Israel is being accused of "genocide" for measures taken during war, there is rarely ever any acknowledgement that the people of Palestine have been calling for the total destruction of Israel for generations, and teach this stuff to their school children. Indeed now we are seeing naive college students, most often coached and instigated, protesting and chanting, "Death to Israel" and "Death to America!". As such, it's sort of difficult to take seriously the concern for "genocide" coming from this camp.. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 19:24, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  The accusations of Genocide are an undisputed encyclopedic fact (backed by solid RS) that cannot be dismissed. M.Bitton (talk) 19:30, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  "undisputed "?? Sorry, but the accusation needs more support than from one encyclopedia. The term "genocide" is almost always used in a biased capacity and too often is used against anyone winning a war. They typically they take 2+2 and try to make it amount to 100. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 20:10, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  @Gwillhickers: Sorry, I'm sorry to be a buzzkill here, but what's your reference case here for this supposed cynical (and pointless) accusation of genocide? Because it sounds a hell of a lot like OR of the tone deaf variety. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:19, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  @Gwillhickers: Looks like you missed the "Death to the Arabs" refrain used by the actual participants in an actual genocide, as opposed to suspect claims of refrains. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:42, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  "suspect claims of refrains attributed to college kids"? They openly advocate for the destruction of Israel, as do the Palestinians. Sorry. Difficult to take the word of hypocrites very seriously. Also, the article to which you link explains that the term is usually used during the heat of war, unlike the Palestinians who have made it clear that they want the country of Israel and the Jewish peoples wiped off the map. Israel is not calling for the extermination of all Arab peoples. Big difference. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 20:10, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  @Gwillhickers: Not sure how your segued from "Death to X" chants to different chains, but regardless, calling for the disassembly of a genocidal apartheid regime is a pretty legitimate position at this point. I'm still not sure how such calls (purely hypothetical ones) bear any relation to the actual topic here, which is an actual genocide in motion. I understand that there's a snowflake-ish vogue right now in the US to view verbal threats as somebody proximate to actual bodily harm, but back in the real world, actual genocide remains worse than threatening sentiments. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:27, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  Re: the phrase, "genocidal apartheid regime is a pretty legitimate position at this point." "Legitimate" only on its face. This accusatory label, "genocidal apartheid regime", is highly opinionated and obviously biased. Once again, the term "genocide" has been loosely used against anyone engaged in war, esp against those who are winning it. Once again Israel is not calling for the total extermination of anyone, as is Palestine/Hamas, and while we're at it, Iran. They have publicly and openly made that perfectly clear. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 21:32, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  The equation of a genocide attested to be genocide scholars to the story of the little boy who cried wolf, if I am reading that correctly, is just disturbing. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:34, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  I'll also remind you and anyone else who happens by here that it doesn't matter how many editors say "No because I feel like it", when around a dozen reliable sources have been provided establishing the fact that Israel has been accused of genocide against indigenous Palestinians. These aren't votes to be tallied, they're meant to be arguments on the merits of the discussion, based in Wikipedia policy. Dylanvt (talk) 19:47, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  Conversely, it doesn't matter how many people say yes, because I feel like it. The attempt to dismiss this RfC because the NO votes are piling up is underhanded. Until such time when it is plain that the Palestinian people are actually being wiped out wholesale, all such claims will remain in the category of biased sourcing, regardless of scholarship. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 20:10, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  "being wiped out wholesale" – oh dear, it appears someone hasn't got the memo over the past eight months and registered that the crime of genocide is defined as only entailing the destruction of a people "in whole or in part" (my italics), which can involve killing, or "serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group" or "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part". Better to acquaint oneself before pronouncing on a topic. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:39, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  You're free to note that several of the "yes" votes have provided sources that give merit to their arguments – in accordance with Wikipedia policy – whereas the "no" votes continue to provide nothing but WP:OR. The fact that there are many reliable sources making the claim of genocide against indigenous Palestinians is indisputable, and several of them have been provided above for everybody's convenience. Dylanvt (talk) 20:43, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  Regarding this obtuse claim... "genocide is defined as only entailing the destruction of a people in whole or in part"... So by this definition any sort of warfare can get the term "genocide". IOW, when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing many Jews and taking hostages, they were committing "genocide". As I've always maintained, the term "genocide" is conveniently aimed at anyone engaged in any sort of warfare, just as we are witnessing of late. Thanks for supporting that idea. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 21:20, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  No, only acts of genocide attested to by genocide experts (RS). Iskandar323 (talk) 14:35, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  Rhetoric. it doesn't take an "expert" to determine if the process of real genocide is occurring. If only "experts" are able to discern such matters, then obviously there has to be many variables to consider, many of which are no doubt, at this point, being hyped on the one hand, and ignored on the other. So what else is new in international matters like this? Above we were just told that "genocide is defined as only entailing the destruction of a people in whole or in part" Is that the position of these self anointed experts? i.e.Any deaths during war is considered to be "genocide". Thanks guys. It's becoming more and more clear that Israel is being judged by a kangaroo court. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:34, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  Regarding the sources used in this discussion. The author's names all appear to be Arab. i.e. Nigim, Rashed, Masalha, Barakat, Rashed and Shalhoub-Kevorkian, as are some of the titles, e.g. Reflections from Palestine — Citing a bunch of like minded sources doesn't make their claims undisputed. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 21:51, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  Are you suggesting that scholars with Arab sounding names should be considered as unreliable? M.Bitton (talk) 22:06, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  All that is done is to point out the inherent bias in these sources. Reflections from Palestine?? What would be your reaction if someone listed only Jewish sources? -- Gwillhickers (talk) 22:14, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  Is that a yes? M.Bitton (talk) 22:20, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  Of course. Avoid the question, even though your unresponsive reply speaks volumes. -- Thanks. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:16, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  The author's names all appear to be Arab. Eh? What? And? Selfstudier (talk) 22:35, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  Please don't pretend to not get it. It's no coincidence that most, if not all, the Arab nations despise Israel and the war she has waged against Hamas, so of course sources from them are going to hype the idea of "genocide". i.e.Any form of warfare is "genocide". Such hype-speak does a disservice to those who have suffered real genocide. Can you cite one, just one, Arab source that holds that Isreal is not committing "genocide" in their war against Hamas? -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:20, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  Setting aside this... unusual and slightly disconcerting line of argument, you do realize that articles like these, published in academic journals, always undergo peer review, right? It's not just some random "Arab-sounding" person in an echo chamber. It's a rigorously researched and reviewed scholarly work. Dylanvt (talk) 22:54, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  Also lol... The last author from my list above – Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian – is literally from the School of Social Work and Social Welfare, Faculty of Law, Institute of Criminology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in Israel. Dylanvt (talk) 22:57, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  Wait, you can't even say that Arabs (400+ million individual humans) are like minded nowadays? It's political correctness gone mad. Sean.hoyland (talk) 04:05, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  @Kashmiri: does the above (dismissal of the sources based on the subject's supposed ethnicity) ring a bell? M.Bitton (talk) 11:32, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  Empty Rhetoric. Please don't pretend to be naive. Name one Arab source that holds the position that Israel in not committing "genocide". -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:13, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  It's ironic that you use Shalhoub-Kevorkian as an example for the acceptance of this theory in Israel. She self-identifies as Palestinian and was recently investigated for questioning the occurence of atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7 attacks, including rape, and calling to abolish Zionism... HaOfa (talk) 06:31, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  Alas, an Israeli national, an academic, in Israel, who identifies as Palestinian being "investigated for questioning" something doesn't tell us anything about acceptance levels in Israel. Sean.hoyland (talk) 07:11, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  Hundreds of RS are cited in the Palestinian genocide accusation article. Help yourself to what you need. M.Bitton (talk) 11:37, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

• You might disagree with this content but it is well sourced and should be included in some form. The no votes have not provided any sources to back up non-inclusion. Support (t · c) buidhe 04:52, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
• No, the question of whether or not Palestinians are indigenous is too unclear, and it's likely that Jews have an at least comparable if not older and potentially stronger claim. Per the arguments made above (particularly by @SMcCandlish, inclusion would be improper and lacks broad support by sources that Palestinians are the only one of the two which are indigenous. FortunateSons (talk) 07:57, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  Perhaps you can answer the question that that keep getting ignored:

   Question: Are the Balkan Jews indigenous to the Balkans? A simple yes or no will do. M.Bitton (talk) 11:25, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

• Comment, I'm providing still more reliable sources to support the inclusion of the information (something none of the "no" votes have managed to do yet):
  1. "The Zionists eventually developed a strong organization with a single-minded focus on Palestine. When it came to that land, the Zionist reference points were all self-centered. That is, they were creating a closed information environment wherein they spoke exclusively of their own needs and “rights” almost solely to themselves and those who supported them. They lacked vital contextual knowledge of the actual situation relevant to the indigenous population, its history, culture, and present aspirations." Davidson, Lawrence. 2012. Cultural Genocide, Rutgers University Press.
  2. "The present genocidal wave has, like all the previous ones, also a more immediate background... Ever since June 1967, Israel searched for a way to keep the territories it occupied that year without incorporating their indigenous Palestinian population into its rights-bearing citizenry. All the while it participated in a 'peace process' charade to cover up or buy time for its unilateral colonization policies on the ground." Pappe, Ilan. 2014. Israel’s incremental genocide in the Gaza ghetto, The Electronic Intifada.
  3. "In the dynamics of Occupation, the indigenous Palestinian population is subject both to management and gradual elimination." Lloyd, David. 2012. Settler colonialism and the state of exception: The example of Palestine/Israel, Settler Colonial Studies, 2(1), 59–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/2201473X.2012.10648826
  4. "This article explores the resurgence of Indigenous/Palestinian solidarity that occurred during the Wet’suwet’en protests against the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline in Canada contemporaneously with the release of the Trump Middle East “peace plan” in early 2020... In my use of the term Indigenous/Palestinian, Indigenous refers to the native people(s) of Turtle Island for the purpose of distinguishing them from the Palestinians. I use a forward slash to denote that many Palestinians also consider themselves Indigenous people." Desai, Chandni. 2021. Disrupting settler-colonial capitalism: Indigenous intifadas and resurgent solidarity from Turtle Island to Palestine, Journal of Palestine Studies, 50(2), 43–66. https://doi.org/10.1080/0377919X.2021.1909376
  5. "Vanishment refers to the processes of erasure that rely on the appropriation of the earth’s elements, the removal and replacement of native landscapes, and the erasure of indigenous culture through a system of conditional inclusion. Palestinian lands, particularly the olive tree, figure into the process of eliminating what was deemed to be a characteristically Palestinian landscape—that is, a racially abject and soiled environment in need of colonial modernity’s raking and raping." Sharif, Lila. 2016. Vanishing Palestine, Critical Ethnic Studies, 2(1), 17–39. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/jcritethnstud.2.1.0017 Dylanvt (talk) 12:35, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  Israel doesn't grow olive trees? No olive trees in Gaza? This RfC forum is not the place to be resorting to Wikipedia:Wall of text and Soapbox. Also, you are suggesting that being "indigenous" somehow endows a people with more rights than those who are deemed not to be, so such a contention is racist at its core. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:54, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  @Gwillhickers: Actually, unlike you, they are using properly (I suggest you familiarize yourself with WP:TPG). M.Bitton (talk) 16:57, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not "suggesting" anything, I'm simply providing sources to support the inclusion of Israel's genocide against indigenous Palestinians in this article, something that you have still failed to do in support of your position. It doesn't matter how "well articulated" your WP:OR is; all of it has precisely zero impact on the matter being discussed, since, as you and other no-voters have been reminded repeatedly, Wikipedia relies on sources, not on the opinions of random editors, as Selfstudier eloquently put it below. Dylanvt (talk) Dylanvt (talk) 17:25, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  Please. Anyone can assert a slanted point of view by abiding by the rules No one said they couldn't refer to such sources. It was only asserted that the lot of these sources are those who are merely preaching to the choir, and try to pass of any sort of warfare as "genocide", or e.g.make an issue over olive trees, as already explained. . -- Gwillhickers (talk) 17:05, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  Please indent you comments properly and given this edit, I also suggest you read WP:REDACT. M.Bitton (talk) 17:08, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

• Yes The provided sourcing clearly justifies inclusion in some form. The no !votes read more as WP:IDONTLIKEIT opinions than anything else. Selfstudier (talk) 13:51, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  Such a sloppy estimation of editors who voted NO, for reasons that were well articulated, only tells us that You don't like it, and have to rely on sources who try to pass off any sort of warfare as "genocide". -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:43, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  WP does rely on sources last time I checked and not on the opinions of random WP editors. Selfstudier (talk) 17:16, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

• TIME TO STEP BACK. — The issue is whether or not to include the passage in question.  It doesn't matter if the passage can be cited with sources; it's already assumed that it would be. Consensus has maintained that the passage doesn't belong in this article, and flooding this RfC with endless talk doesn't change that. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 17:29, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  What consensus? Dylanvt (talk) 17:30, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  I see that you're still struggling with the indentation. Anyway, do you realize that consensus is being built and that the !votes that are not based on policy carry no weight whatsoever? M.Bitton (talk) 17:33, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

There are 9 NO votes and only 4 yes votes. The issue is whether to include this material in the article. You can have a list of sources, it doesn't change the issue. And by the way, as already explained, advancing a slanted POV, regardless of how popular, raises neutrality issues. All your sources are pro Palestine. Until such time when we can include an appreciable amount of Jewish sources, and other sources, we can take up POV matters, but the issue remains, this RfC is over whether ot not to include the passage. if you feel that the NO votes are in violation of some policy, take the matter to a Noticeboard. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 17:42, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

!Votes that are not based on policy don't count. You should know the rules. M.Bitton (talk) 17:48, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

If you assume nine editors are in violation of some policy take it to a noticeboard. No sense in beating a dead horse. Good luck-- Gwillhickers (talk) 17:54, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm not responsible for your what you assume (you take you responsibility for that). What I said (the !votes that are not based on policy carry no weight) stands and if you don't like it, ANI is thataway. M.Bitton (talk) 18:00, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Anyone is welcome to provide any further sources at any point (though the presumed ethnic identity of their authors remains, as ever, irrelevant). As it stands, there appear to be exactly zero arguments grounded in sources in opposition to the proposal. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:13, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

As already explained, no one is contesting that the passage is not sourced, only that it doesn't belong here. We could have a piece about Napoleon's war tactics, cited with a string of the best sources, but one doesn't have to cite any sources to hold that it wouldn't belong in this article. Again, if you are going to try and dismiss votes because they don't cite sources then you, and/or M. Bittton, will have to pursue the matter at ANI. You can continue to carry on here, but what you are trying to advance would, again, be a matter for ANI. Again, good luck. I'm done here.. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:27, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

only that it doesn't belong here based on what policy? Selfstudier (talk) 18:34, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

it doesn't belong here that is the definition of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. M.Bitton (talk) 18:35, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

No, it's not; you appear not to have read WP:IDONTLIKEIT at all, which is about deletion of material from the encyclopedia (not moving it from a non-relevant article to a relevant one) on no basis other than personal PoV about what the information conveys or the underlying subject of that information. That's not what this discussion is in any way. It's an entirely routine consensus discussion about relevance, within the context of WP:LISTCRITERIA and WP:COATRACKing and to some extent WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE policy, with a thick layer of WP:NPOV and WP:NOR policy concerns on top because of the promotional versus condemnatory baggage that comes with trying to label one of these groups "indigenous" and the other not.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:14, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

The sources are the ones doing the labeling, you personally are the one saying that the sources doing that is a problem. Guess what, your opinion does not trump sources. Selfstudier (talk) 11:18, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

WP:IDONTLIKEIT is used in throughout the project's discussions to refer to the arguments that carry no weight (the ones that base their rejection of what the RS say on WP:OR).

trying to label one of these groups "indigenous" since the reliable sources are doing the labelling, then what some random editors think of it is neither here nor there. M.Bitton (talk) 12:25, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

• No. This is a complex conflict, and I don't think the terminology 'indigenous peoples' is being properly used here. Hogo-2020 (talk) 10:57, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

  Another editor that thinks their personal opinion trumps reliable sources. It doesn't. Selfstudier (talk) 11:19, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

  That's a fallacious Israel–Palestine trope. Myth #1: The conflict is too complex to possibly understand. Vox. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:06, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

  I didn't say I didn't understand the Israel-Palestine conflict, I said it is a complex conflict (and it is), and throwing another complex terminology in the mix, such is 'indigenous peoples' in globalized times, makes this more a political debate rather than something based on clear-cut fact. Hogo-2020 (talk) 07:51, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

• No. This is a political conflict, not a conflict between indigenous and non-indigenous people. Magnolia677 (talk) 10:58, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

  Ever heard of the Nakba and the Nakba denial? M.Bitton (talk) 12:28, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

  not a conflict between indigenous and non-indigenous people Number one, this is WP:OR and thus completely immaterial to the discussion. Number two, you're seriously trying to tell us that conflict between indigenous people and a colonial power isn't political?? Dylanvt (talk) 13:04, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Who are you writing this to? Also, could you indent one space. Thanks. Magnolia677 (talk) 17:12, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

It's obviously written to you, seeing as I quoted you and indented one space from your comment. Dylanvt (talk) 17:58, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

How is "indigenous and non-indigenous" immaterial to a discussion on an article about Indigenous people? Magnolia677 (talk) 18:56, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

As I already said, because it's WP:OR. Dylanvt (talk) 20:43, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Ah. Magnolia677 (talk) 22:52, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

• Leaning No - As other editors have pointed out, the question here is not "have some RS called this a genocide?". The answer to that question is clearly "yes", but that is not sufficient to include OP's proposed passage in this article. A more pertinent question is "do RS generally characterize the Palestinians as indigenous people?" I do not know the answer to that question. But I do know that neither of the two references cited by the OP adopt that framing. For that reason, I'm leaning "no" here, but I'm open to changing my mind. Pecopteris (talk) 02:03, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

  Many sources have been provided above in this thread, if you'd like to scan through them and evaluate. I provided 5 in one comment and 6 in an earlier one. Iskandar also provided 3 in a comment up above. All 14 of these sources frame Palestinians as the indigenous population and Israeli as a colonial power. Dylanvt (talk) 02:41, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks, @Dylanvt. I will definitely check them out, but I'd like to add one more thought first.

  I'm currently reviewing all of the open RFCs on politics, and I've noticed a pattern. One side of a dispute presents a lengthy list of sources, and says "yes, per my sources", and the other side presents another list of sources, and says "no, per my sources". But a real, collaborative conversation about weight often does not take place, and the content dispute becomes subject to a popularity contest, rather than a sober review of the literature.

  Do some RS characterize the Palestinians as indigenous people? The answer is definitely yes. At least 14, by your count, and probably many more. My follow-up question is "does a thorough review of all available sources lend enough weight to that characterization for us to describe the Palestinians as indigenous in Wikipedia's voice?" To be transparent, I have not reviewed the literature thoroughly enough to answer that question, but my general understanding so far is that the notion "the Palestinians are indigenous" is contested.

  The first step towards answering that question, in my opinion, would be to compile four lists: a list of RS describing the Palestinians as indigenous (as you have done), a list of RS explicitly saying that the Palestinians are not indigenous, a list of RS that describe the Israelis/Jews as indigenous, and a list of RS that engages with the topic by presenting some other position that does not fit within the first three options.

  If something like that has already happened, perhaps you could kindly point me in the right direction, so I can be better informed about my vote. If someone demonstrates that the answer to my above "follow-up question" is "yes", I will change my vote accordingly. Pecopteris (talk) 02:57, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

  So far none of the "no" voters have provided sources explicity saying that the Palestinians are not indigenous, they've just been engaging in WP:OR claiming they aren't. I suspect it would be hard to find such sources, but anyone is welcome to provide some at any time.

  I do understand your point, but given the current status of what sources have been provided, the default consensus is that Palestinians are an indigenous people undergoing genocide from a colonial power. Until a significant number of sources explicitly rejecting that framing are provided, we can't reject it either. Dylanvt (talk) 12:38, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

  Here's the results of going through the first six pages of Google Scholar results on "Palestine genocide".

  • No mention of indigeneity Martin, S. (2010). Palestine in an international historical perspective on genocide. Holy Land Studies, 9(1), 1-24.
  • No mention Robinson, W. I. (2024). Palestine and Global Crisis: Why Genocide? Why Now?. Journal of World-Systems Research, 30(1), 485-498.
  • No mention Lendman, S. (2010). Israel’s slow-motion genocide in occupied Palestine. In The Plight of the Palestinians: A long history of destruction (pp. 29-38). New York: Palgrave Macmillan US.
  • Palestinians are indigenous Abdullah, D. (2019). A century of cultural genocide in Palestine. In Cultural Genocide (pp. 227-245). Routledge.

    "The Zionist mission was, therefore, to ethnically cleanse the land. Theodore Herzl, the movement’s founder, was convinced that the fulfilment of their dream would result in the acute suffering and misery for the indigenous population."

  • No mention Segal, R. (2023). A textbook case of genocide. Jewish Currents, 13.
  • Palestinians are indigenous Pappe, I. (2007). The ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Simon and Schuster.
  • No mention David, L. (2017). Holocaust and genocide memorialisation policies in the Western Balkans and Israel/Palestine. Peacebuilding, 5(1), 51-66.
  • No mention Levine, M., & Cheyfitz, E. (2017). Israel, Palestine, and the Language of Genocide. Tikkun, 32(2), 50-55.
  • Palestinians are indigenous Nijim, M. (2020). Genocide in Gaza: Physical destruction and beyond.
  • Palestinians are indigenous Culverwell, S. M. (2017). Israel and Palestine-An analysis of the 2014 Israel-Gaza war from a genocidal perspective.

    Cites others and adopts their framework: "Pappé (2005), Shaw (2010), Docker (2012), Lloyd (2012), Rashed and Short (2012), and Rashed, Short and Docker (2014) have all analyzed the 1948 conflict from a settler-colonial perspective. In this relationship, these scholars recognize the Zionist Jews as the ‘settlers’ and the ‘Arab Palestinians’ as the indigenous population."

    Later: "As the occupying and settler-colonial state, Israel has successfully implemented the Gaza blockade which has virtually able to control over what enters and exists the Gaza Strip" (sic).

  • No mention Sultany, N. (2024). A Threshold Crossed: On Genocidal Intent and the Duty to Prevent Genocide in Palestine. Journal of Genocide Research, 1-26.
  • No mention Üngör, U. Ü. (2024). Screaming, Silence, and Mass Violence in Israel/Palestine. Journal of Genocide Research, 1-9.
  • No mention Chomsky, N., & Pappé, I. (2015). On Palestine. Haymarket Books.
  • No mention Segal, R. (2023). Statement of scholars in holocaust and genocide studies on mass violence in Israel and Palestine since 7 October. Contending Modernities, 9.
  • Palestinians are indigenous Atallah, D. G., & Awartani, H. (2024). Embodying Homeland: Palestinian Grief and the Perseverance of Beauty in a Time of Genocide. Journal of Palestine Studies, 1-9.

    "Her arrest and Israel’s ongoing efforts to dehumanize her teach us about the power emergent from a uniquely Indigenous, woman-led resistance of thought so firmly rooted in place, purpose, and an abundance of love—like Indigenous feminisms transnationally."

  • No mention Amir, M. (2017). Revisiting politicide: state annihilation in Israel/Palestine. Territory, Politics, Governance, 5(4), 368-387.
  • No mention Burdman, D. (2010). Genocidal indoctrination: Palestinian indoctrination to genocide. Genocide Prevention Now, 2.
  • No mention Boyle, F. A. (2000). Palestine: Sue Israel for genocide before the International Court of justice!. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 20(1), 161-166.
  • No mention Ashiq, S., & Kausar, S. (2021). Religious Genocide: A Case Study of Kashmir, Palestine and Rohingya’s Muslims. Al-Azhār, 7(01), 96-108.
  • No mention McDoom, O. S. (2024). Expert Commentary, the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, and the Question of Genocide: Prosemitic Bias within a Scholarly Community?. Journal of Genocide Research, 1-9.
  • Indigeneity is about identity, not practice, and both Israelis and Palestinians incorporate it into theirs Busbridge, R. (2018). Israel-Palestine and the settler colonial ‘turn’: From interpretation to decolonization. Theory, Culture & Society, 35(1), 91-115.
  • Implies in passing that Palestinians are indigenous Moses, A. D. (2011). Paranoia and Partisanship: Genocide Studies, Holocaust Historiography, and the ‘Apocalyptic Conjuncture’. The Historical Journal, 54(2), 553-583.

    "the mufti still features in Zionist literature as a co-perpetrator of the Holocaust, converting him from an indigenous, anti-colonialist to an Arab-Muslim-Nazi, the ancestor of Hamas, Hizbollah, Iran, and other 'Islamofascist' enemies of Israel"

  • No mention Harkabi, Y. (1970). Liberation or genocide?. Trans-action, 7(9), 62-67.
  • No mention El-Affendi, A. (2024). The Futility of Genocide Studies After Gaza. Journal of Genocide Research, 1-7.
  • No mention Saleh, Y. A. H. (2022). From genocide to permanent security and from identity to politics. International Politics Reviews, 10(1), 26-31.
  • No mention Hanafi, S. (2013). Explaining spacio-cide in the Palestinian territory: Colonization, separation, and state of exception. Current Sociology, 61(2), 190-205.
  • Palestinians are indigenous Tabar, L., & Desai, C. (2017). Decolonization is a global project: From Palestine to the Americas. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 6(1).

    "In 1948, the Zionist settler colonization of Palestine culminated in the mass eviction of the overwhelming majority of the indigenous Palestinian people"

  • Palestinians are indigenous Said, E. (1999). Palestine: memory, invention and space. The landscape of Palestine: Equivocal poetry, 3-20.

    "The link between the metaphors of buildings and housing, and erasure, with the necessary steps to the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine was always clear to the country's indigenous inhabitants"

  Dylanvt (talk) 13:55, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

  Then the answer to the posed question "do RS generally characterize the Palestinians as indigenous people?" appears to be "no", with only a small minority making this claim. If you do a search on something like Jews indigenous Palestine, you can find a number (but also another minority, among the overall source material on Jews Palestine) making similar claims about the Jews, or about both groups, plus a few more making them about Palestinians (in the present ethnic-group sense versus the broaer sense of "humans who have populated Palestine") but not Jews. It's just too inconclusive to suggest that there's a real-world consensus that either group "is" indigenous.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:17, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

  That's not the right conclusion to make. I specifically took a sample of sources about the genocide of Palestinians to see if they classify it as a "Genocide of Indigenous peoples", as that's what this article is about. Of those that include a framework of indigeneity in their analysis, all but two definitively present the Palestinians as an Indigenous people. One sort of implies it, and one argues that both sides have a claim to indigeneity.

  The remaining sources don't reject that Palestinians are indigenous, they simply don't address the question. Again, given the presence of dozens of sources asserting the truth and relevance of the claim in question, the presence of dozens of other sources that make no mention of the claim is neither here nor there. What you would need to support exclusion of the information is the presence of dozens of other sources rejecting or questioning that claim. In my large sample I found only one such source. Dylanvt (talk) 19:02, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

  And I should add, even then, as Ivanvector points out below, there still remains the incontrovertible fact that many, many reliable sources make the claim, so suppressing it would go against NPOV. If it were some fringe view published in a couple opinion pieces, sure. But we've already provided over 20 peer-reviewed sources making this exact argument. It clearly has weight. Dylanvt (talk) 19:07, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

  Comment - @SMcCandlish's comment above got me thinking more about weight. In this RFC, and other active RFCs on politics that I've been looking at, I see a common theme: two competing approaches about how to measure the weight of labels. The two methods I've observed seem to be incompatible with one another, as they lead to opposite conclusions. Could a more experienced editor clarify which approach is more advisable? I think some more precision on this point would help guide the conversation.

  Approach #1 - Make a list of sources describing the Palestinians as "indigenous". Then, make a list of sources that explicitly negate that, by saying "the Palestinians are not indigenous". Since there are very few sources that specifically say "the Palestinians are not indigenous, approach #1 would lead to a "yes" vote in this RFC.

  Approach #2 - Make a list of sources that talk about Palestinians in general, or the "genocide" of the Palestinians in particular. Then, divide that list into two categories: sources that characterize the Palestinians as "indigenous", and those that engage with the topic, broadly construed, but choose to refrain from characterizing the Palestinians as indigenous. Since the majority of sources that discuss "Palestinians" or "genocide of the Palestinians" do not specifically call the Palestinians "indigenous", approach #2 would lead to a "no" vote in this RFC, because "the Palestinians are indigenous" is a view expressed by a minority of RS.

  Tbh, approach #2 makes a lot more sense to me, which is why I'm a "no" on this RFC. Approach #1 seems like it would favor the nearly-indiscriminate use of labels, even labels used by a minority of RS, since it's very rare to see those labels directly negated by RS. If an RS disagrees with a label, they usually just refrain from using it, they don't go out of their way to say "label X does NOT apply".

  From what I can tell, another active RFC is wrestling with the same question. For example, some editors are arguing for approach #1, while OP appears to be arguing for approach #2.

  Would love to hear some feedback from more experienced editors about how to approach weight in situations like these. Pecopteris (talk) 20:29, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

  Even approach 2 wouldn’t tell us to exclude the information. WP:WEIGHT doesn’t tell us to exclude minority views, but to avoid giving them “undue weight”. So a reasonable alternative to inclusion that could be advocated for wouldn’t be exclusion, but rather a statement to the effect of “others have rejected/called into question this analysis” with a couple citations. Dylanvt (talk) 23:16, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

  I see your point. Although I'm partial to approach #2, I'd be open to including something in this article about the accusations of genocide against the Palestinians, as long as it's made clear that the Palestinians' status as "indigenous" is disputed/a minority view within RS.

  I think that it would be nice if everyone got on the same page about which approach should be used, #1 or #2 - if two groups of editors are using two completely different methodologies for determining weight, then we will all be talking past each other and won't be having a real conversation. Pecopteris (talk) 00:03, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  "the Palestinians are indigenous" is a view expressed by a minority of RS is the real answer here. Per MOS:LABEL, a contentious label should not be applied to a subject unless it is predominant in the source material. This situation is actually far more dubioius for such labeling than usual, because this is not simply an "are Palestinians indigenous?" question, but a matter of multiple competing claims, including about whether Israelite Jews are indigenous, and whether both groups are simultaneously indigenous. Under either of those latter scenariosm the ongoing warfare in Palestine cannot qualify for this list, which is about genocidal oppression of a definitionally indigenous population by a non-indigenous one, not about two indigenous populations going after each other, or a population considered indigenous doing terrible things to one considered non-indigenous. That is, there is a triple/treble not just single hurdle for inclusion in this case.

  Anyway, the obvious problem with "Approach 1" above is the prove-a-negative issue. E.g., I can probably find more sources (market analysis reports, etc.) that refer to Toyota as a company or an asset to trade, without happening to include the words "car" or "automombile", than sources that do (because way more stuff is published every day about the stock market than is published in an entire year about company histories and the classification or market segementation of a particular corporation). But that doesn't magically mean I can use that reportage skew as "proof" that Toyota doesn't qualify as a car/auto manufacturer. What matters is that the sources that do cover Toyota's industry classification overwhelmingly put it in that category. Do the sources that do attempt to classify either Israeli Jews or Arab-ethnic Palestinians as ethnic populations overwhelmingly refer to the latter as indigenous and the former not? The answer is "No." By contrast, it is probably correct that most sources that address the enthnicity and ethnic history and even general history of the Navajo, the Yanomami, the Maori, and the Ainu (as some random examples), do actually refer to them as indigenous (or a synonym thereof like native, aboriginal, autochthonous, pre-colonial, pre-[dominant other ethnicity], per-[event/period of their domination by outsiders], etc.

  PS: As for Pecopteris's WEIGHT matter above, that's not applicable here, because this is not an article about Palestine. Whether Arab-ethnic Palestinians constititue an indigenous population (exclusively or co-indigenous with Jews) and according to whom, is a matter that might (probably should) be covered at an article about them and/or about the region. But it has no bearing on a pass/fail WP:LISTCRITERIA test like this one.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:15, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  Palestinian Indigeneity is a significant viewpoint, one could write an article about it and it would pass GNG (one could do the same for Jewish Indigeneity).

  Center for World Indigenous Studies, Indigenous Israelis and Palestinians

  "While each of these nations challenges the cultural and political legitimacy of the other serious scholarship informs us that both the Palestinians and the Israelis are indigenous to the territories that was once known as Canaan."

  There may well be heated and/or polemical debate involving narrative push but that is not a reason to exclude. Selfstudier (talk) 09:01, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  Do the sources that do attempt to classify either Israeli Jews or Arab-ethnic Palestinians as ethnic populations overwhelmingly refer to the latter as indigenous and the former not? The answer is "No." What basis do you have for this assertion? No literature review has been provided on sources dealing with Palestinians or Israelis as an ethnic population. I only included a lit review of sources dealing with the genocide of Palestinians, and most of those didn't touch on the question of indigeneity. Those that did overwhelmingly classified Palestinians as indigenous and Israel as a colonial power.

  Moreover, the claim isn't about Israeli Jews vs. Palestinian Arabs. It's about Israel vs. Palestinians.

  Per MOS:LABEL, calling Palestinians "indigenous" is not a value judgment. It is a descriptive label used by many reliable sources to classify them as a people.

  And again, per WP:WEIGHT, the fact that a significant number of reliable sources characterize the genocide of Palestinians by Israel as a genocide of an indigenous people by a colonial power compels us to include the information, as Wikipedia is not censored. Dylanvt (talk) 16:20, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  Sources dealing more closely with describing or classifying the Palestinian or Israeli people, rather than directly about the genocide. This time the Google Scholar search was "Israelis indigenous". First 4 pages of accessible results.

  1. Palestinians are indigenous Abu-Saad, I. (2001). Education as a tool for control vs. development among indigenous peoples: The case of Bedouin Arabs in Israel. Hagar: International Social Science Review, 2(2), 241-259.
  2. Both have a claim to indigeneity Ukashi, R. (2018). Zionism, Imperialism, and Indigeneity in Israel/Palestine: A Critical Analysis. Peace and Conflict Studies, 25(1), 7.
  3. Palestinians are indigenous Pappe, I. (2018). Indigeneity as cultural resistance: Notes on the Palestinian struggle within twenty-first-century Israel. South Atlantic Quarterly, 117(1), 157-178.
  4. Palestinians are indigenous Blatman, N., & Sabbagh‐Khoury, A. (2023). The presence of the absence: Indigenous Palestinian urbanism in Israel. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 47(1), 119-128.
  5. Palestinians are indigenous, Israelis are explicitly non-indigenous Veracini, L. (2015). What can settler colonial studies offer to an interpretation of the conflict in Israel–Palestine?. Settler Colonial Studies, 5(3), 268-271.
  6. Palestinians are indigenous Nasasra, M. (2012). The ongoing Judaisation of the Naqab and the struggle for recognising the indigenous rights of the Arab Bedouin people. Settler Colonial Studies, 2(1), 81-107.
  7. Palestinians are indigenous, Israelis are explicitly not Krebs, M., & Olwan, D. M. (2012). ‘From Jerusalem to the grand river, our struggles are one’: Challenging Canadian and Israeli settler colonialism. Settler Colonial Studies, 2(2), 138-164.
  8. Palestinians are indigenous, Israelis are explicitly not Yiftachel, O. (2003). Bedouin-Arabs and the Israeli settler state. Indigenous people between Autonomy and globalization, 21-47.
  9. Palestinians are indigenous, while Israelis are attempting to become indigenous Monterescu, D., & Handel, A. (2019). Liquid indigeneity: Wine, science, and colonial politics in Israel/Palestine. American Ethnologist, 46(3), 313-327.
  10. Palestinians are indigenous Abu-Rayya, H. M., & Abu-Rayya, M. H. (2009). Acculturation, religious identity, and psychological well-being among Palestinians in Israel. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 33(4), 325-331.
  11. Palestinians are indigenous, Israelis are explicitly not Blatman-Thomas, N. (2017). Commuting for rights: Circular mobilities and regional identities of Palestinians in a Jewish-Israeli town. Geoforum, 78, 22-32.
  12. Palestinians are indigenous, Israelis are explicitly not Nabulsi, J. (2023). Reclaiming Palestinian Indigenous Sovereignty. Journal of Palestine Studies, 52(2), 24-42.
  13. Palestinians are indigenous Murphy, T. (2010). ‘Courses and Recourses’ Exploring Indigenous Peoples’ Land Reclamation in Search of Fresh Solutions for Israelis and Palestinians. Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict, 54-69.
  14. (about Negev Bedouins) Israelis are not indigenous Kram, N. (2013). Clashes over recognition: The struggle of indigenous Bedouins for land ownership rights under Israeli law. California Institute of Integral Studies.
  15. We should move beyond a settler-indigenous framework Bashir, B., & Busbridge, R. (2019). The politics of decolonisation and bi-nationalism in Israel/Palestine. Political Studies, 67(2), 388-405.
  16. Hebrew rock is indigenous music Regev, M. (1996). Musica mizrakhit, Israeli rock and national culture in Israel1. Popular music, 15(3), 275-284.
  17. Palestinians are indigenous, Israelis are explicitly not Sasa, G. (2023). Oppressive pines: Uprooting Israeli green colonialism and implanting Palestinian A’wna. Politics, 43(2), 219-235.
  18. Palestinians are indigenous Khatib, I. (2021). Attitudes of indigenous minority leaders toward political events in their trans-state national group: Between identity, conflict and values. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 27(2), 149-168.
  19. Israelis are not indigenous, they've merely attempted to claim indigeneity Cheyfitz, E. (2014). The force of exceptionalist narratives in the Israeli—Palestinian conflict. Native American and Indigenous Studies, 1(2), 107-124.
  20. Palestinians are indigenous Arar, K. (2012). Israeli education policy since 1948 and the state of Arab education in Israel. Italian Journal of Sociology of Education, 4(1), 113-145.
  21. (about the Druze) Israelis are not indigenous Yiftachel, O., & Segal, M. D. (1998). Jews and Druze in Israel: state control and ethnic resistance. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 21(3), 476-506.
  22. Palestinians in Israel see themselves as indigenous while those in Palestine don't. Author doesn't really take a view Agbaria, A. K., & Mustafa, M. (2012). Two states for three peoples: the ‘Palestinian-Israeli’in the Future Vision Documents of the Palestinians in Israel. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 35(4), 718-736.

  Dylanvt (talk) 17:13, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

• No, per Pincrete. Icebear244 (talk) 11:33, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
• Include - there is a lot of good discussion here but a lot of it is getting off the topic of whether or not Israel's actions in Palestine have been described as a genocide of an Indigenous population. Going by the sources that have been given by several editors above, this is clearly a significant viewpoint, and NPOV compels us to describe all significant viewpoints with due weight and appropriate context. Omitting controversial viewpoints or those that are not the majority is not what we do here. Whether or not Palestinians are provably Indigenous is not the point here and we're not going to settle the matter in this discussion anyway; it only matters to Wikipedia that a significant sampling of sources describe Israel's actions in this way. The section needs to be edited to present that POV in appropriate voice, that's all. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:30, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
• No, I don't think edit that would be deemed controversial on a topic this sensitive would be appropriate without a clearer consensus. Who is regarded as "indigenous" to Israel, and the classification of genocide, lack a consensus to make such a change. Jcoolbro (talk) (c) 18:56, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
• No. If we want it, then the item should be first included to the List of genocides. The Palestinian genocide accusation is not there. Perhaps the criteria for inclusion into the list should be relaxed (I am not opposed to such idea), but it would require a separate RfC with new consensus and would result in inclusion of many additional items to the List of genocides. The issue is further complicated by the question about Palestinian Arabs being Indigenous peoples (as our page says, "there is no generally accepted definition of indigenous peoples", please see a wide variety of views as described here). My very best wishes (talk) 21:46, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
• Comment regarding the comments speculating on the indigineity of Palestinians, insinuating through verbiage they are not "indigenous enough" to a land their ancestors live(d) and die(d) on, and thus somehow "lack" a big enough affinity to be considered as such, stop. Please inculcate a semi-decent level of decorum and self-awareness before contributing further. There is currently a war going on and whole families are being wiped out from their ancestral homeland, with their native family names being made extinct.([9]) Whether Palestinians are indigenous is not up for debate. JJNito197 (talk) 12:08, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Support including the original text. The information is notable, presented neutrally, and belongs in the article. The reader can make up their mind as to the credibility of the claim of genocide against the Palestinian people, as well as their claim to indigeneity. But enough people are making that claim that it ought to be included. Unbandito (talk) 14:42, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

• No per Kashmiri, Pincrete and others. I appreciate Dylanvt's careful analysis of sources. It seems to me there are two different uses of "indigenous" in play here. There's a simple claim that Palestinians (and/or Jews) are indigenous to the territory (just as for example the British National Party make a big deal of white British people being "indigenous" in the British Isles - but this is very different to the concept of an indigenous people (let alone "Indigenous" with a capital I!) in the sense used of First Nations/Aborigional/Native peoples such as Native Americans, Torres Straits Islanders or Adivasi communities in India, who the "peoples" properly referred to in the title of this article. Both Palestinians and Israelis, and their advocates, have attempted to make claims to indigeneity in both senses, but these are fiercely contested and best left in articles other than this one. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:55, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

  I don't think it's up to us to decide that the myriad sources describing the conflict as one between an indigenous people (Palestinians) and a colonial power (Israel) mean anything other than exactly that. Most of these sources aren't just using "indigenous" to mean native or local to an area; they're specifically using it in the context of settler-colonial vs. indigenous relationships. The wine article by Monterescu & Handel is a good example where they clearly go beyond "indigenous" as "local" (the grapes) to "Indigenous" as "the oppressed side of a colonial interaction". Same with Sharif 2016 "Vanishing Palestine". Dylanvt (talk) 02:22, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

• No The population of pre-1948 Palestine nor modern Israel can be termed as indigenous people in conventional terms. Cossde (talk) 04:25, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

  @Cossde: Except they always have been. Sure of Superiority, Settlers Feel They Can Win Natives by Reason or Force NYT. March 20, 1947. Iskandar323 (talk) 03:51, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

  @Iskandar323, this article refers to the local population. Has there been WP:RS establishing the pre-1948 Palestine as the indigenous people of the land? Cossde (talk) 08:03, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

  @Cossde: There are a whole bunch just above in this very thread. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:04, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

  Also "natives" is an entirely different register from "locals", and coupled with "settlers" the connotations are clear. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:26, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

  Here's some more:

  Dowty, Alan (2008). Israel/Palestine. London, UK: Polity. p. 221. ISBN 978-0-7456-4243-7. Archived from the original on 29 November 2023. Retrieved 29 November 2023. Palestinians are the descendants of all the indigenous peoples who lived in Palestine over the centuries; since the seventh century, they have been predominantly Muslim in religion and almost completely Arab in language and culture.

  Gelvin, James L. (13 January 2014). The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War. Cambridge University Press. p. 93. ISBN 978-1-107-47077-4. Archived from the original on 29 November 2023. Retrieved 29 November 2023. Furthermore, Zionism itself was also defined by its opposition to the indigenous Palestinian inhabitants of the region. Both the "conquest of land" and the "conquest of labor" slogans that became central to the dominant strain of Zionism in the Yishuv originated as a result of the Zionist confrontation with the Palestinian "other".

  Abu-Libdeh, Bassam, Peter D. Turnpenny, and Ahmed Teebi. 2012. "Genetic Disease in Palestine and Palestinians". Pp. 700–11 in Genomics and Health in the Developing World, edited by D. Kumar. Oxford University Press. p. 700: "Palestinians are an indigenous people who either live in, or originate from, historical Palestine.... Although the Muslims guaranteed security and allowed religious freedom to all inhabitants of the region, the majority converted to Islam and adopted Arab culture."

  Walid Khalidi argues otherwise, writing that Palestinians in Ottoman times were "[a]cutely aware of the distinctiveness of Palestinian history ..." and "[a]lthough proud of their Arab heritage and ancestry, the Palestinians considered themselves to be descended not only from Arab conquerors of the seventh century but also from indigenous peoples who had lived in the country since time immemorial, including the ancient Hebrews and the Canaanites before them." Khalidi, W., 1984, p. 32 Selfstudier (talk) 10:43, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

  @Iskandar323, this is good research, however, its inconclusive, this is not represented mainstream thinking. In fact the History of Palestine has detailed population movements in the region. If it can be established that the mainstream acceptance of pre-1948 Palestinians as the indigenous people of this land, then yes, I will agree we can add it. As Palestinians been listed as an indigenous peoples by global organizations such as the UN? That would be a place for you to start. Cossde (talk) 13:33, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

  There are sources for it and you have presented no evidence against them. Selfstudier (talk) 14:00, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

• Yes - This information should absolutely be included. We don't have to say as a fact that there is or has been genocide against the Palestinians, nor that the Palestinians are definitively indigenous to the region - but we should include with attribution the significant number of RS which state these things. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 17:03, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
  • For an RS on this see the UN Special Rapporteur's recent report titled "Anatomy of a Genocide", which states for example: "The context, facts and analysis presented in this report lead to the conclusion that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Israel's commission of genocide is met. More broadly, they also indicate that Israel's actions have been driven by a genocidal logic integral to its settler-colonial project in Palestine". IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 05:08, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
• No – Initially I planned to put forward some sort of compromise wording that acknowledged the contested status of indigeneity for the two sides, but I don't think it would be workable and appropriate for inclusion, nor would be the proposed section. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 02:29, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

  Care to provide a policy-based reason for your "no" vote? Dylanvt (talk) 14:48, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

  • WP:V 5225_C (talk • contributions) 04:19, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

    The 44+ sources verifying this information that have been provided in this very thread aren't enough for you to consider it verifiable? Dylanvt (talk) 13:48, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

    • Nope. If the language was softened to acknowledge the contested indigeneity status, then I'd be more open to it. The proposed language around allegations of genocide is appropriate. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 03:40, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

• Yes so long as it is open to challenge and includes reference to the Israeli POV

Alexanderkowal (talk) 10:23, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

No, absolutely not. Even if we take the claim of indigenous, then we'd have to include the genocide of the Jews several times in this article. As to current events, war is war, but to call it genocide is more a political maneuver which should not be in this article. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 15:52, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Well good thing dozens of sources have been provided discussing the genocide of Palestinians by israel, and that the personal opinions of random wikipedia editors are irrelevant to this question. Dylanvt (talk) 16:04, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

• Yes per Ivanvector's !vote and the plethora of reliable sources provided by Dylanvt and Selfstudier throughout this section. I see no No !votes that have provided any examples showing that sources reject applying the concept of indigeneity to Palestinians. The mere absence of the concept from a source does not indicate that that source then supports the rejection, simply because especially-high-quality sources include only that which is important to the source's aims/goals. This question is ultimately about sources where indigeneity is an important concept, and so far the only sources provided point to broad consensus that Palestinians are an Indigenous people. Here on WP we follow what sources tell us (and we don't override what sources tell us based on our own interpretations of things) and, from the evidence so far, sources tell us that Palestinians are Indigenous. --Pinchme123 (talk) 02:47, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 25 May 2024

Genocide of Indigenous peoples → Genocide of indigenous peoples – "Indigenous" is only a proper name when adopted as conventional for a particular ethnic group, and when applied to the specific groups who have done so. As a general, global adjective it is not and cannot be a proper name (any more than the opposite, "colonial"), so should not be capitalized. See in particular the lead paragraph of MOS:CAPS: WP does not capitalize that which is not capitalized consistently across nearly all independent reliable sources, and "indigenous peoples" is not so capitalized (indeed, it is overwhelmingly lowercase [10][11], except in highly retrictive contexts that refer to specific populations who have adopted the term self-referentially as a name in English). This same situation is true of all such terms such as "native" and "aboriginal". "Aboriginal" is capitalized in reference to autochthonous Australians, and "Native" is capitalized in "Native Americans" in reference to the autochthonous peoples of what is now the US and sometimes (in mostly US usage) all of the Americas. But "native" is not capitalized (by the preponderance of modern reliable sources) in reference to Australians, nor "aboriginal" in reference to Americans, and neither is capitalized in "the native (aboriginal) peoples and languages of Siberia and Central Asia before the Soviet Union", etc. PS: There may be other over-capitalized articles of this sort, but perhaps take them one at a time, since some might pertain more narrowly to groups that have taken on "Indigenous" as a self-referential name/label.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:42, 25 May 2024 (UTC); revised 06:03, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

• Support - per nom, who left nothing in need of saying. Primergrey (talk) 08:28, 25 May 2024 (UTC) Primergrey (talk) 08:28, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
• Support – Per above. Svartner (talk) 08:33, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
• Support - per nom. Psychastes (talk) 13:49, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
• Support - I was thinking the same thing, SMcCandlish beat me to it. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:43, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

  I have to change to oppose after thinking about this some more. The style guides that were posted below by Yuchitown are pretty convincing, for one thing. I don't disagree with SMcCandlish, but I think there's confusion with the part of speech that the word represents in this title. Take for example the phrase, "The Indigenous Peoples of Canada are the people who are indigenous to the land now known as Canada", which I believe is correctly capitalized. The first "Indigenous" here is part of a proper noun referring to specific groups of people, which would be capitalized in any context. The second "indigenous" is an adjective, describing a property of its subject ("the people"); the style guides are in disagreement or ambiguous as to whether the word should be capitalized in its adjective sense. But that's irrelevant: "Indigenous" in the title still refers to specific groups; even if the specific group is "all Indigenous Peoples" it's still a group, and therefore it should be capitalized. The style guides are also ambiguous as to whether or not "people" should be capitalized in this context, but I think we're fine to leave it as is. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:58, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

  Your reversal is a misunderstanding of every applicable guidleline, as well as a linguistic misunderstanding. By that reasoning we would have to write Universities and Republic and King and Oceans and River and Counties and Court and Clans and so on at every generic reference as well. When a term is (or is part of) a proper name (or something conventionally treated as a proper name by capitalizing it; we need not wander into the WP:PNPN minefield of trying to use conflicting philosophy-sector notions of what "proper name" means, as this is entirely about typography) within a particular context, it does not transmogrify into a captalized proper name in another context, including a genericized one that happens to be inclusive one of or more things to which the proper-naming capitalization might more narrowly apply. It's Harvard University and Oxford University, but two "universities" and pursuing a "university" education. King Charles III of England and King Mswati III of Eswantini are two kings not "Kings". Clan Buchan (headed by Chief Charles Buchan of Auchmacoy) and Clan MacGregor (headed by Chief Sir Malcolm MacGregor of MacGregor) are two Scottish clans not "Clans", with clan chiefs not "Clan Chiefs" – no matter that some non-encyclopedic writing can be found here and there that over-capitalizes in all these ways.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:03, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

• Support per nom. Graham (talk) 05:24, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. See WP:INDIGENOUS and MOS:RACECAPS. Indigenous is capitalized when referring to human beings, as per WP:MOS, as well as AP style, Chicago style, APA style, etc. Absolutely no good reason to go against the well-established styles in scholarly literature, mainstream news, and Wikipedia. Yuchitown (talk) 15:35, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

  That WP:INDIGENOUS material only applies to Native Americans (and by extension to another specific group that has also explicitly adopted the term as a proper-name form of reference). It absolutely does not imply capitalizing this term at every generic-usage instance. Please actually read guidelines before pasting in shortcuts to them.

  Next, WP considers external style guides in the course of building and refing our own, but is not beholden to any of them in particular. AP Stylebook is essentially meaningless for us; WP has taken virtually nothing of any kind from that or any other journalism style guide, and WP is not written in new style as matter of policy; it sharply diverges from encyclopedic writing in many ways.

  The CMoS blog is an opinion piece written by someone offering their interpretational and rather extrapolational advice; it is not a style guide or other reliable source (even on CMoS own actual usage advice, as I'm about to demonstrate), and is a primary op-ed source. The actual current edition of CMoS (17th) does not address this term at all, so that blogger is just making up their own personal opinion.

  1. What CMoS does say is to defer to "an up-to-date encyclopedia or other trusted resource" with regard to ethnicity terms (§7.10), i.e. it is depending on Wikipedia and its ilk to tell CMoS and its readers what to do, not vice versa. At §8.38, it says "Names of ethnic and national groups are capitalized. Adjectives associated with these names are also capitalized." But "indigenous" in the generic sense does not qualify as either. (Even one that unambigously does in most cases and ways, e.g. "French", still takes lower-cases, in CMoS's view, when divorced from its specific-referent context, e.g. in "french fries" which aren't actually French.) This section also leaves it to publisher preference whether to capitalize things like "black" in an ethno-racial sense. The most recent editor of that section seemed to refer "Aboriginal" being capitalized even in a generic sense, but there is no "rule" stated to do that there, and it does not address other generic terms such as "indigenous" and "native" (outside the specific term "Native American") at all.
  2. Worse for this isolated "Aboriginal" blip and the CMoS blogger, capitalizing things like "Indigenous" and "Aboriginal" in a generic sense is directly contrary to the advice at §8.61, to lowercase terms derived from proper names when the proper-named referent is not the literal meaning. (That is, if one wants to take the tack that "Indigenous" for specific groups has become a proper name, CMoS's main section on such matters would not have it capitalized when not refering to such a group in particular.)
  3. This principle is restated at §8.1, on proper names in general, and refers to over-capitalization of generic uses of terms, that in some contexts are (or are part of) proper names, as a journalistic style and "non-academic". This section also declares CMoS's default to be "down-style" (i.e., lower-case when in doubt, what it calls "sparing use of capitals").
  4. §8.79, on capitalization of cultural matters generally, leaves it to editorial discretion again, and suggests consistency over exception-making.
  5. CMoS lacks a specific section on lower-casing of [sometimes-]proper names when used in an out-of-context manner or when pluralized or genericized; instead, the entire work is consistently against such capitalization, as can be found again and again in specific sub-sections on what to capitalize and why and when (e.g. §§ 8.62–8.65 inclusive, and many others).
  6. In short, it appears that one or two people with some editorial input at CMoS and its associated blog would like to shift toward generic "Indigenous" and "Aboriginal", but this is contrary to a lot of other and longer-standing material in CMoS and there is certainly no new rule to do it.

  Your third supposed smoking gun: APA Publication Manual (which is not what you cited, but another blog) is that of a particular American journal publisher in a particular field (psychology, which is not cultural anthropology or even related to it other than they're both classed as social sciences). APA's actual manual could in theory be used to try to support this "always Indigenous" thing, but it is highly divergent, especially on capitalization, from encyclopedic writing style. E.g., it uses jaw-dropping constructions like "The manner of citing Traditional Knowledge or Oral Traditions (other terms are “Traditional Stories” and “Oral Histories”) of Indigenous Peoples varies depending on whether and how the information has been recorded—only certain cases use a variation of the personal communication citation." And they want to apply this even further to any "terms related to Indigenous Peoples", and provide further exmples like "Vision Quest" and even "Elder". (7th ed., pp. 397–398 in the PDF e-book edition) This is absolutely not how WP would write (per MOS:SIGCAPS, MOS:DOCTCAPS, and more), nor how much of anyone else would write. It doesn't even match other such material in their own book, and is clearly an advocacy injection by someone who had little regard for either the rest of the publication's advice, nor actual academic publishing norms. Later in the same material it is made clear that the intent of this is "demonstrat[ing] respect for Indigenous perspectives" in the specific context of patients and research participants; i.e., it is intended to make specific individuals comfortable with being psychologically probed (and that probing being written about), and has nothing to do with how to communicate encyclopedic-style information to a general audience. Regardless, APA is ostensibly reliable for particular style matters within its subject field (how to spell and abbreviate pyschology terms, for example), but it is not a reliable source on general writing of the English language.

  In closing: Cherry-picking a trio of outlier publications that seem to agree (to disparate degrees) with your preferences does nothing of any kind to dispel proof that actual usage, including in very recent publications, is very strongly lower-case for this sort of generic phrasing [12][13]. Even if a whole bunch of other style guides (actual style guides, not blogs making sometimes incorrect claims about style guide content) moved in a capitalizing direction on this, it would still take time for that change to propagate into predominant real-world usage, if it ever did. (No guarantee of that; e.g., New Hart's Rules, the dominant British English academic style guide, made numerous questionable changes between the last two editions, and virtually none of them have demonstrated a measurable effect on actual published output, despite the last edition coming out just shy of a decade ago; reviews of it are predominantly negative. WP's MoS is based on the edition before that and to some extent the one before that, as Oxford Style Manual, along with many other academic style guides that are not radically divergent; WP has picked up virtually nothing from the 2014 New Hart's edition, because there's no evidence the real world is following it.) WP does not engage in language "reform" advocacy, or bow to it, much less act as the champion of some particular organization's preference, be they a specific journal publisher or a certain university. We write English the way other contemporary academic-leaning reliable sources write English, and for this it is proven lowercase almost all of the time. Here's that proof again, in case anyone missed it: [14][15].  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:03, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

• Strong oppose, goes against Wikipedia policy perWP:INDIGENOUS and MOS:RACECAPS.  oncamera  _{(talk page)} 18:38, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

  Nope. Only applies to Native Americans (and by extension to another group that has adopted the term as a proper-name form of reference). It does not call for capitalizing this term at every generic-usage instance in which humans are the referents. And it is not a policy, it's a guideline with no more authority than MOS:CAPS (and far, far less consensus acceptance than the latter).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:03, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose changing/moving Indigenous (upper case) to indigenous (lower case). When Indigenous is used to describe human beings, communities, individuals (rather than things like plants or rocks) it should be capitalized (this also goes for citizenship, tribes). Per WP's own guidelines WP:INDIGENOUS and MOS:RACECAPS in addition to the: APA Style Manual which states: "Capitalize 'Indigenous' and 'Aboriginal' whenever they are used.; the Chicago Manual of Style which states: "We would capitalize 'Indigenous' in both contexts: that of Indigenous people and groups, on the one hand, and Indigenous culture and society, on the other. Lowercase 'indigenous' would be reserved for contexts in which the term does not apply to Indigenous people in any sense—for example, indigenous plant and animal species."; and the the Associated Press 2019 Stylebook states: "The news organization will also now capitalize Indigenous in reference to original inhabitants of a place.". The Indigenous Journalists Association (formerly the Native American Journalists Association) also follows the AP stylebook.[16]. Netherzone (talk) 14:33, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
• Support Not persuaded by the opposing votes and I find WP:INDIGENOUS vague and excessively Americacentric. The article covers indigenous group all around the world and should be seen as an umbrella term in the title, not something referring to individuals and their citizenship. Killuminator (talk) 16:47, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
• Strong support per my comment here and per respectable dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster, Collins, and Cambridge English Dictionary. — kashmīrī ^TALK 21:28, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
• Support WP:INDIGENOUS is incredibly US-centric and doesn't deal with the use of indigenous in this global sense. Traumnovelle (talk) 04:01, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  It is not US-centric in intent; it accurately records that for a particular ethnic group, "Indigenous" is treated as a proper name. It should probably be expanded with additional groups for whom this is provably the case with reliable sources. But that does not magically turn into a new principle, against all our other relevant guidelines and against the clear intent of that guideline, to always capitalize evry occurrence of the word "indigenous" in relation to humanity. If you want to work on improving that guideline in having updated coverage, with good sourcing, the place to do that is WT:INDIGENOUS, not by trying to impede the applicability of the guideline just because you don't like its present wording. WP doesn't work that way.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:03, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

• Strong oppose - The title in question it is part of the proper noun. We can have separate argument whether Indigenous should always be capitalized when describing people because it is always part of the proper noun but in this case it absolutely is and should be kept how it is. I don't see a compelling argument made here in support based on MOS or policy. The only argument is it being America or US-centric but that is not a policy based argument. It is an opinion based argument and entirely subjective and somewhat overplayed.WP:LOCALCON come into play here as well. --ARoseWolf 12:32, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  Indigenous isn't even consistently capitalized in this article, it shows a cultural disconnect between editors. Killuminator (talk) 22:06, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

• Comment Google Scholar results from 2020 onward overwhelmingly capitalize Indigenous when referring to people. The capitalization of Indigenous in Canada is even stronger than in the United States. Example style guide from UBC: "Following Principle 13, terms for Indigenous identities; Indigenous governmental, social, spiritual, and religion institutions; and Indigenous collective rights should be capitalized." As Comeson College in British Columbia states: "Indigenous style uses capitalization to acknowledge or demonstrate respect for Indigenous identities, institutions, and collective rights." Encyclopedia Brittanica also capitalizes Indigenous (example). Example from Oxford University Press. Example from the Australian government. As in New Zealand—example from the University of Auckland. This is a Wikipedia style already, in keeping with style guides the world over. There is no good reason to exert the effort to deviate from this. Yuchitown (talk) 15:52, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  In all these links, the term is used as a proper noun for predefined ethnic groups. But here, like, we're not talking the Moon; we're talking moon (natural satellite) in general. — kashmīrī ^TALK 17:13, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  No, they are very clear that it gets capitalized when referring to anything to do with Indigenous peoples, same as this article title. Yuchitown (talk) 00:46, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  Kashmiri is correct; the first is about Aboriginal Australians, the second about Indigenous New Zealanders (Maori), and the third about Indigenous Australians as a blanket term for Aboriginal Austalians [mainland] and Torres Strait Islanders; these are all probably established-enough usages that a case can be made for capitalizing them when say, "pre-Celtic indigenous people of the British Isles" would not take a capital I. Regardless, no amount of cherry-picking a few examples of writers who like to capitalize can possibly do anything to contradict the proof that these terms in the generic use we are employing in this article title is provably and alreaby proven [17][18] almost always lower-case, including in very modern RS material. No one has disputed or doubts that some people do exist that like to capitalize these things at every opportunity. That is not what is at issue here.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:03, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

• Support per nom. And reflect this in the various essays and conventions where the projects have pushed for over-capitalization in even generic contexts. Yuchitown says "no good reason to go against the well-established styles in scholarly literature, mainstream news, ...", but the evidence shows that style is not really that well established; lowercase is still very common, as nom showed; lowercase certainly dominates in scholarly literature. Dicklyon (talk) 16:04, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  I've actually furnished links as evidence. The style change may be recent (2020s) but it is sweeping. Yuchitown (talk) 16:15, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  I did look at your links, as well as at other evidence. I don't see the sweeping change you're referring to. Some of your style guide links were not that clear on the point. Dicklyon (talk) 03:36, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

•  Oppose. Capitalized seems a lot more common these days, especially among specialist scholars and actual Indigenous people.  — Freoh 17:19, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  Except I've already demonstrated it is not. You provide no evidence of any kind for your assertion, much less evidence that proves my evidence is somehow wrong. But let's go over this again more narrowly, constraining results to post-2019 journals [19] and post-2014 books (since the book n-grams cap at 2019) [20]. Still overwhelmingly lower-case in this generic sense and capitalized conventionally only in reference to some specific ethnic groups who have adopted it as a favored term.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:03, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

• Comment. It seems like a fast decision is about to be made with far-reaching ramifications. There are certain places, like North America, where it seems proper to capitalize Indigenous when referring to people, and always when referring to the name of a group of people. There are other places where indigenous refers to any original people of the land and should not be capitalized. I think more research is needed to determine if there really is one worldview. It will effect other articles about Indigenous/indigenous people, like Indigenous people and Indigenous people of Canada and other related articles. In the case of Canada, Indigenous people is an inclusive term for several groups of people, so "Indigenous", should always be capitalized. The style guide comments are very compelling, particularly where they are regularly used (Aside from the U.S., I am not sure where that might be).–CaroleHenson (talk) 18:34, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  Quick edits.–CaroleHenson (talk) 18:40, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  Strong Oppose. The more I think about this, it IS a strong oppose for now. Nothing should be done until it's thought through. I don't think this is the kind of situation where the most votes should quickly "win".–CaroleHenson (talk) 18:44, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  Your oppose sounds invalid - the reason you quoted is that you need more time to think this through. So please take your time before voting! — kashmīrī ^TALK 18:48, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  In terms of research, does anyone know whether or not "Indigenous" is capitalized for people around the world? Does anyone know what style guides used around the world say about capitalization of Indigenous? If not, IMO it's too soon to take a vote.–CaroleHenson (talk) 18:59, 28 May 2024 (UTC) For style guides by country / international, see List of style guides.–CaroleHenson (talk) 19:04, 28 May 2024 (UTC) Google query of use of the term around the world here. Both will take time, unless someone knows of a quicker answer somewhere - UN? Top 15 NGOs in the world? Other?–CaroleHenson (talk) 19:11, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  So far, what I am finding supports capitalization of Indigenous - and I keep Strong Oppose. Here's one of similar explanations:

  "Starting in the 1970s, it became a way for Indigenous peoples to articulate the common challenges they faced as communities impacted by colonialism, settler governments, displacement, and exploitation. This new understanding of the term offered a way to describe contemporary realities and an orientation for fights for self-representation, recognition, and rights. So, why capitalize 'Indigenous'? ...we thus capitalize Indigenous when referring to people so we clearly point to this more recent definition that accounts for political and historical realities."[21] This isn't thorough research, but the article also says "Indigenous activism helped shape understandings of “Indigenous” that were later adopted by the United Nations."–CaroleHenson (talk) 19:26, 28 May 2024 (UTC) The magazine, Sapien, writes about people around the world. I can keep doing research if someone wants more info, but I don't need it. This does it for me.–CaroleHenson (talk) 19:41, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  ...capitalized for people around the world? Nearly half of the world's population use scripts that have no concept of capitalisation. Of the remaining half, the vast majority use languages other than English, where the term is not capitalised[22][23][24][25]. A minority of countries use English to discuss their populations. Of those using English, most publications about indigeneous peoples come from the US and Canada where the term Indigeneous is used predominantly as an ethnonym for local groups.

  By the way, essays are not a reliable source for Wikipedia. — kashmīrī ^TALK 08:15, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  It has nothing to with "most votes" or "strong" feelings, only to do with source usage. The preponderance of independent reliable sources shows this generic usage is overwhelmingly lowercase, and capitalization is conventional only with regard to particular ethnic groups such as Native Americans, which exactly matches our own guidelines. Trying to capitalize it in every instance is activist "language reform" PoV pushing. There is nothing further to this, of any kind. The couple of editor above trying to opponse on the basis of WP:INDIGENOUS clearly did not even read the guideline they are linking to, which has us capitalize this term in reference to Native Americans in particular, not everyone on the planet.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:03, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  "it seems proper to capitalize Indigenous": There is no such thing as "seems" here. This is not a language-reform advocacy, opinion, and preference farm. Either you have evidence to present that the capitalization actually is used "consistently in a substantial majority of independent reliable sources", for this generic-usage sense in particular (and evidence which trumps the strong evidence to the contrary already presented [26][27]), or you do not.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:03, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

• Comment Amnesty says "The UN now uses the capitalized ‘Indigenous Peoples’ in response to demands from Indigenous representatives. It’s intended to act as a recognition of their status as peoples in international law and the right to self-determination." Selfstudier (talk) 22:10, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

  WP has its own style guide, and is not written to the UN style guides (which both vary widely between UN agencies, and are divergent from publishing norms in natural dialects of English like British and American, on various points). We have our own style guide for a reason, and how we write here is not dictated to us by particular external third parties. And, further, the UN rationale for doing this is a highly specific matter of parity of political address within a legal framework, and has no relation of any kind to how to write encyclopedic English for a general audience. Unless and until the overwhelming majority of independent sources consistently write "indigenous" in a generic sense as "Indigenous", then WP has no business doing the latter, and doing it is against multiple of our guidelines, especially the lead of MOS:CAPS, MOS:SIGCAPS, and WP:NCCAPS, as well as both the clear intent and the actual specifics of WP:INDIGENOUS which are about a particular ethnic group (and should be extended to include some additional specific ones), not generic usage of the word.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:03, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  Hope everyone agrees that Amnesty's justification is laughable. Will they now capitalise everyone whose rights are being violated? Next what – Refugees, Migrants, Women, Children, the Disabled? — kashmīrī ^TALK 08:04, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  Amnesty's justification is fine for Amnesty's purposes. Amnesty is an advocacy organization, and it chooses its writing style to promote its goals, which are different from Wikipedia's goals. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 08:27, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  Agree with SMcCandlish, Kashmiri and BarrelProof. Capitalization also raises neutrality issues, per my vote/comment below. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 23:36, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  I'll add to BarrelProof's and Kashmiri's notes that it is trivially easy to find capitalization of all sorts of terms that refer to any identifiable grouping of people, such as "Disabled", "Unhoused", "Migrants", "Immigrant", "Lesbian", "Nonbinary", "Lower Middle Class", "Veterans", "Senior [Citizen]", and insert 100 more here, all motivated by the exact same activistic/advocacy desire to [mis-]use capitalization as an importance/uniqueness/respectfulness signification to a particular specialized target audience (either members of the group being referred to, or other activists, or both at once). No instance of this is qualitatively different from any other, including "Indigenous" used in this utterly generic sense. They're all covered by MOS:SIGCAPS; it is simply a heavily PoV-laden, encycopedically inappropriate, persuasive writing technique that Wikipedia does not entertain.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:11, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

• Support—I absolutely agree with SMCandlish on this. Same as President Johnson, but three presidents since 1992 have ...". In Australia "Indigenous" refers to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. But indigenous plants are being wiped out by logging would never be be capped in sentence case. Tony (talk) 04:37, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
• Support – in this title, the word in question is used to establish a broad category, not an identification of a specific group such as a demonym or ethnonym. Similar good arguments have been put forth well by several other supporters above. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 07:35, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
• Support: When indigenous is used as an adjective to describe a kind of people, it should be lower case. If there was a culture which has taken on the name Indigenous People, that should be capitalized, but that does not appear to be the case. Indigenous people around the world have an important shared experience and that is part of a shared identity, but that does not make them a group with a proper name. The same could be said of other groups which have shared experiences but not a group identity. I would not want to capitalize colonists. SchreiberBike | ⌨  12:03, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose Imo, Indigenous Peoples (both words capitalized), is a proper name per WP:NCCAPS (like White House), with a definition as per the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, used for example by the United nations and not just in one or other geographical location. The modern trend is to capitalize, many style guides now recommend the capitalization of the word Indigenous (and Peoples), I see no good reason why WP should not do the same. Selfstudier (talk) 18:30, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  Whose proper name? — kashmīrī ^TALK 07:36, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

• Support  The term "indigenous" is an adjective, something that denotes a characteristic, condition, etc. Just as we would not capitalize "democratic governments", we likewise would not do so in this instance. We do not abandon proper grammar simply because it's assumed that this is some sort of trendy occurrence. Easy math. Capitalization of "indigenous" seems like a superficial attempt to glorify the idea while trying to diminish the status of peoples who may not be indigenous in a given land. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 23:20, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
• Comment: I'm astounded how much energy people are exerting to lowercase one word; however, this effort will undoubtedly result in NO CONSENSUS. Just because apparently Indigenous peoples is emotionally triggering to many editors here doesn't mean we are going to breach Wiki MOS to accomodate them. Yuchitown (talk) 02:21, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

  Rhetoric aside, your comment is yet another example of "how much energy" is going into this issue. Good for you. Interested editors are what makes Wikipedia tick. Having said that, the term "indigenous peoples" like the term "democratic governments" is a generic and general term used for a wide range of entities. If a particular group has "Indigenous" in their title, then okay, we apply it, per MOS, but again, this is a general term in reference to all indigenous peoples. Many references to humans can't be capitalized. Should we capitalize "non-indigenous peoples", when used in a sentence? -- Gwillhickers (talk) 03:51, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

  There's no reason at all this would result in "no consensus", since the facts are firmly on the P&G and sourcing side for lower-case. This is not a head-count vote, and no amount of emotive special-pleading, or cherry-picking of a handful of pro-caps sources, or fudging of their wording and intent, can magically get around the fact that this term and ones like it are almost always lower-case in the source material when used generically like this. There just isn't a way around that.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:59, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

  All the mainstream style guides I've posted stands, as well as those by User:Netherzone. I am Native American and we actually contribute to Indigenous articles. You can repeating yourself forever, but my STRONG OPPOSE stands as well too. Yuchitown (talk) 04:05, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

  You posted two blogs and one style guide. The one is for journalism/news writing and not of influence here; of the two blogs, one contradicted the actual underlying style guide, and the other agreed with its own for once, but that one's clearly about how to write to appease the concerns psychology patients/subjects, and not pertinent at all to our context. Even if you had three style guides, of encyclopedia-writing relevance, and they entirely agreed with your language-reformation position, it would do nothing to contradict the fact that other style guides don't go along with this, and more importantly actual published usage in RS do not, by a wide margin. Whether you're Native American or not is irrelevant. I'm from a Scottish background, but that doesn't give me veto rights over editors who do not want to see "Scottish clans" and "clan chiefs" over-capitalized as "Clans" and "Clan Chiefs", and that spread even further to globally generic usage like "the nature of clan-based social organization across classical Eurasia" or "chiefs or other tribal leaders in forager societies". (And perhaps you'd like to see that as "Tribal Leaders and Forager Societies"? APA's advocacy-pushing editor certainly would, but WP does not write that way and never will.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:25, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

  Let's add that there exist style guides that advise the capitalisation of "black" but not "white". Laughable virtue signalling.

  @Yuchitown: On a more serious note, instead of looking up random guides that propose, as you shared, capitalization to acknowledge or demonstrate respect for (...) identities, institutions, and collective rights – read: capitalise those whom you respect, and don't capitalise those whom you don't respect – why not rely on the well-known rules of English grammar and spelling as evidenced in respectable dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster, Collins, or Cambridge English Dictionary? — kashmīrī ^TALK 07:02, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

  It is not that Indigenous peoples is emotionally triggering. Most of the people promoting lower case here are grammar and capitalization nerds. I am a grammar and capitalization nerd. I also strongly support the causes of indigenous peoples and recognize their shared experience, but I do not support them by capitalizing indigenous. To me it feels more like when a company tries to say they care about their clientele by capitalizing Customer. SchreiberBike | ⌨  12:34, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

  We are talking about one change to one article. Style guides across the globe (that I and others have already linked are clear on the subject). I'm deeply professionally invested in proper English grammar. Outshouting and insulting the Indigenous people on this thread and drowning us in endless comments are not effective tactics. Yuchitown (talk) 14:47, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

  It boggles my mind that we are discussing capitalization on one part of this page and what constitutes indigenous genocide on another. Laugh, cry, whatever; we go on and do what Wikipedia does. "Outshouting and insulting" is at almost the same level on both topics, and that tells me something about humanity. Capitalization is insignificant in the big picture, but it's what I and some others work on in Wikipedia. If I thought that breaking a grammar rule would change genocide, I'd be all for it.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  14:56, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

  I've pointed so many times that it is the correct grammar now. Yet another style guide to all to the pile. [28] English grammar has been anything but consistent or logical. I know it doesn't change genocide. Kindly don't project assumptions on me or other editors. Yuchitown (talk) 17:03, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

  Another niche "style guide" that capitalises almost anything, including "Traditional Stories", "Oral Traditions", "Medicine Man", "Land Claim", etc. By the way, it also prohibits such terms as "homeless" or "legend". I can't see why it should be applied to Wikipedia. — kashmīrī ^TALK 18:06, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

  Actually the only outright "insulting" I've see has come from Yuchitown's last comment, immediately above, while there is more or less an equal amount of talk coming from both sides of this issue.
  Re:Capitalization. Wikipedia has always followed the rules of grammar. We don't make exceptions for any one group of people. The adjective used in this term is a general reference to all indigenous peoples, and as such is denoted in lower case lettering, as we would do with "democratic governments", v the "Democratic Party of the US". We don't need to cite who and who doesn't capitalize. Wikipedia is a neutral forum. We do not favor and make exceptions for any religion, race or ethnicity. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 17:00, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

  Indigenous peoples are neither a race nor an ethnicity. Yuchitown (talk) 17:07, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

  You're trying to avoid the basic point. Did I not also say, in play view of your reply, "We don't make exceptions for any one group of people". That you have to resort to this sort of tact only exemplifies the lack of validity in your argument. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 17:22, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

 Comment: The Oxford Learner's Dictionaries, published by the University of Oxford, clarifies the difference between capitalised and non-capitalised term indigenous – see https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/indigenous. — kashmīrī ^TALK 07:26, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't see where it clarifies or even mentions capitalization, but it does use "indigenous peoples" with lowercase a couple of times. Dicklyon (talk) 05:44, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

It uses capitalises the term only where it's used as a demonym, i.e., for predefined nations in Canada and Australia. It's not capitalised in generic usage. — kashmīrī ^TALK 09:19, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose per Yuchitown PersusjCP (talk) 18:54, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
• Support. Opposing votes have not been compelling. The term 'indigenous' is used here as a general categorization rather than as a way to describe any particular native group (for which capitalization would be appropriate). Hogo-2020 (talk) 07:36, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  WP has many articles with the capitalized I, Population history of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Lists of Indigenous peoples of Russia, Climate change and Indigenous peoples, List of Indigenous peoples of Brazil, etcetera, is this argument going to be fought article by article? Perhaps it needs a centralized discussion rather than just a single RM here. Selfstudier (talk) 09:03, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, that seems to be the trend at WP. You'll note, however, that in every instance the term "indigenous" is used as an adjective, the capitalization of which abandons the basic rules of grammar that the rest of the educated world abides by. i.e.Favoritism. Also, WP tiles that contain this term as the first word are always capitalized, as are any and all WP titles, regardless if the word is a noun, adjective, etc So that swings the door wide open for the capitalization of "Nonindigenous people", "Colonial Settlers", "American Settlers", "American Immigrants", "Religious people", etc, when such phrases are used anywhere in a sentence. As for a wide ranging MOVE discussion, you of course realize that would be a recipe for never ending debate. After all, look how long this debate, over just one article, has lasted. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:46, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  Bad rationale. Most of those articles have been moved to the capitalised spelling recently and without the required discussion. I've restored the stable versions in most of them. — kashmīrī ^TALK 21:35, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, as I've maintained all along, if we show favoritism for one general group we could do so among who knows how many others. Without combing through multiple edit histories among the articles in question, can you tell us if the MOVES were effected by the same one, or few, editors? -- Gwillhickers (talk) 00:27, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

  It was mostly the same editor (I did comb through edit histories) and I believe they were all good-faith moves. The actual problem is with the guideline, not with the mover. — kashmīrī ^TALK 16:11, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

• Support common adjective rather than an ethnic reference. - Altenmann >talk 21:52, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
• Support per nom. Absolutely agree. Not a proper name when used generically. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:34, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose anyone in this filed of study use modern style guides as outlined by Netherzone (talk · contribs)....simply what academia uses now to the confusion of oldtimers like me..

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Moxy (talk • contribs)

Keeping lengthy discussions separate from voting: Moved this discussion to Extended discussion

• Support – 5225_C (talk • contributions) 02:21, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
• Strong support. So many oppose !votes are based on MOS:RACECAPS, which explicitly does not support capitalizing "indigenous" in this case. There are no other upper-case terms of this sort in this title for "indigenous" to be in the company of. Oppose !voters also cite WP:INDIGENOUS, which also does not support capitalizing "indigenous" here. As already mentioned several times, it only says "indigenous" is capitalized when referring to individuals and their citizenship, such as "Joe is an Indigenous person", but lowercase "indigenous groups in China". The MOS does, however, support the distinction made between common nouns and specific cases. An example is at MOS:PEOPLETITLES. Any argument that claims the Wikipedia MOS supports Indigenous over indigenous in this case is a misreading.

Wikipedia is not a news organization and thus should not (necessarily) follow the MOSes of news outlets, and especially not advocacy groups, which for the purposes of this discussion I consider the UN to be one of. Wikipedia should, however, follow proper grammar, as explained countless times by SMcCandlish and Kashmiri.

Finally, if this discussion is closed as No Consensus, this page should be moved back to the lowercase title. Reading comments below, I learned that this began with a BOLD move logged here to the capitalized title, so in my view a NC outcome should revert to the status quo. (FWIW, I don't think an NC close would be appropriate based on the relative strengths of the arguments presented.) Toadspike [Talk] 02:59, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Agree with Toadspike — If there is a no consensus to use lower case that means there isn't, and wasn't, any consensus to capitalize in the first place, and the article should return to the previous long standing version. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 17:00, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose per points made by Ivanvector, Yuchitown and others. It's pretty clear that MOS:RACECAPS and WP:INDIGENOUS apply here. This isn't about a generalised indigenous group or category, but about specific individuals in this ethnic category who have been the victims of genocide. I'm not saying this is the onluy way to do this, but we should follow sitewide practice and if editors don't like the guidelines, the way to rectify that is to gain consensus to amend said guidelines, not attempt to overrule them as a local consensus, like we see here.  — Amakuru (talk) 07:34, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Please review that guidline. it says: WP:INDIGENOUS -- "Native American", "Indian", and "Indigenous" are all capitalized when referring to individuals and their citizenship." This article isn't about any one specific individual, group, or race, and hence its title uses the general adjective regarding all indigenous peoples. Since you brought up "genocide", please remember that many Indian nations and tribes were wiped out by other indigenous people. This is esp true in Africa, South America and North America. This advent is not even mentioned in this article, and as such, presents a glaring NPOV issue that will have to be dealt with sooner or later.. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 17:00, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

• There has been far more discussion in this one move request than there ever was in regards to WP:INDIGENOUS, which was added by one editor and slightly modified by another with only one talk discussion (with only one participant) talking about the rough idea. Allowing a policy page that has been edited without seeking wider consensus that I feel most editors here hadn't heard of before this discussion goes against the idea of consensus and that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. Traumnovelle (talk) 09:10, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

• Support: per normal sentence case capitalization, and the pertinent observations that WP:INDIGENOUS is about the use of the term for individuals and some north American groups, not for the general use of the term, which is a common adjective. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:44, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

• Important note: I have removed the wording from WP:INDIGENOUS that says that "Indigenous" should be capitalized. It appears that the line was added by a single user in 2022 as a WP:BOLD action. Clearly it is controversial as evidenced here, so it cannot remain in an official guideline without the backing of community consensus. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:47, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

King of Hearts, thank you for that edit. It seems that the bias behind tthe desire to capitalzation has resulted with the same sort of entry 'boldly' made to this article. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 21:17, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

• This is also only a local consensus, it seems there is scope here for a much wider discussion, I think I will look into that. Selfstudier (talk) 18:55, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

"only"?   Actually, the idea of "only a local consensus" is rather misleading. Though the discussion on whether to capitalize is only occurring here, at present, it has involved dozens of concerned editors, and reflects a phenomina that is certainly much larger than some individuals, apparently, would have us believe. This is a very broad and general article on indigenous peoples as it concerns the idea of genocide, so its scope is already "much wider". Of course, one is always free to initiate similar discussions on other indigenous related artilces, but it will overall attract the same editors that are here with us now. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 21:17, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose, after learning that uppercased 'Indigenous' is used as an example in Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters, where uppercasing has been stable since 2022. Also per the guidence of WP:INDIGENOUS. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:50, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  Apples and oranges. The example is referring to how to write the ethnicities in a US census/demographics, where it is used as an ethno-racial group. It only applies to indigenous American groups and not indigenous people worldwide. Traumnovelle (talk) 04:27, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  (Stable since 2022, perhaps, but the above "Important note" by King of Hearts explains its recent removal. This is a note for others like me who clicked on the link and were surprised to see that it does not, in fact, capitalize "indigenous".) Toadspike [Talk] 06:50, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

• Comment The change in capitalisation above seem to come from mostly American style guides and publications, and perhaps Canadian and Australian, which might reflect the language changing, or it might be increasing systematic bias towards those regions in what should be a global article. The Amnesty site cited above is interesting, it capitalises Indigenous in most instances, but when it has "Indigenous peoples" like in the title here, it capitalises both Indigenous and Peoples. For the non-plural, it still single-cases people. Doing a few searches for other countries, usage seems very mixed; some papers and some American publications seem to have adopted capital I, including in their coverage of foreign situations, some have not. I am not sure there I can convince myself the change is wide enough and consistent enough for the original move to capitalise the article title as was done last year. CMD (talk) 05:05, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
• Support (lowercase). There is no site-wide policy that has consensus here; this is the discussion that will determine that policy. Indigenous is capitalized in some variants of English when it refers to certain groups of people. In many other usages (including in referring to some groups listed on this page), it is not capitalized. The argument that it is always capitalized when referring to people seems to be a current politico-grammatical trend, but it is not reflected by common use. The normal English rule (that the word "indigenous" is not derived from a proper noun, and thus not capitalized) should apply, per nom. Walsh90210 (talk) 22:09, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Stable version

The above move discussion is a direct result of the undiscussed move performed by Bohemian Baltimore on 7 August 2023 (Special:Diff/1169217737). Prior to that move, the article was stable at the lowercase title for 18 13 years. In case of no consensus to move, the article should stay at its stable title. — kashmīrī ^TALK 07:07, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Oh, didn't even notice that. Yeah, this article actually could have been properly moved back to the lower-case title speedily via WP:RMTR, with those wanting the capitalization having the burden of proof that it's justified by overwhelming prevalance of the capitalization in the source material (which it provably is not).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:10, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Yep. Perhaps back then, 14 years ago, nobody considered weird capitalisation an appropriate response to white guilt ;) Feel free to request RMTR. — kashmīrī ^TALK 17:05, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. before the ultimate protection level was imposed the undiscussed move should have been returned to the long standing version.
Courtesy ping going to @PhilKnight:. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 17:20, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Although he seems to have protected m:The Wrong Version, we may need to wait for the RM conclusion. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 20:30, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

The move didn't require a discussion and wasn't contested so has at least silent consensus. OK, one can make the argument that WP:CONLEVEL is low but that doesn't mean that the current previously unchallenged title is "wrong" or has no consensus. Selfstudier (talk) 21:22, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Actually it was contested (on 25 May 2024 by SMcCandlish, as noted above). —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 21:41, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

"Silent consensus". is a more appropriate reference to the long standing and stable version. Having said that, it's doubtful either way that this is going to factor into matters in this present situation. It's also doubtful many of the editors who have contributed to this article over the years even know about our current debate. However, sending pings to the lot of them, going back a good number of years, could be considered inappropriate canvassing, so the task is on our shoulders and whom ever may come along of late. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 22:09, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

"Feel free to request RMTR." Well, it's too late now (for this article), with a full RM going. The discussion above needs to play out fully and have a proper close. I think someone did RMTR a bunch of the other articles that were recently moved without discussion to capital-I forms mostly by a single editor.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:40, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Extended discussion

There is nothing weird about the abuses Indigenous people have suffered. No has anyone said it has anything to do with white guilt except you. And your trying to categorize it that way can be seen as casting aspersions for the simple fact you don't like the opposition view point. You haven't presented one shred of evidence to support the idea that being an Indigenous person is equivalent to being religious or a vegetarian which is preposterous on so many levels and insulting to Indigenous people everywhere. I guess we should lowercase "Black" in Black people because "Black" is an adjective to describe a whole race of people. Gwillhickers knew exactly what they were doing when they used value laden words like "only" and "some" to describe the positions of those in opposition to their view, then used "firmly" and "neutral" and "proper" in reducing Indigenous to being the same as a term used to describe someones eating preferences. Selfstudier was right to call that out. --ARoseWolf 17:35, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

You seem to be entertaining your own notions, and are now trying to distort points I've made.. No one said anything about "white guilt", or any other such idea, or about anything being "weird", thank you.  As for capitalization, it was stated, in an attempt to justify capitalization, that such be employed because it addressed "specific groups of people". Okay, are not non-indigenous peoples and religious peoples specific groups of people? Obviously we are talking about different groups, so your demand for "evidence" to show that indigenous peoples are equivalent to religious peoples is simply an incompetent response. We are talking about "specific groups of people" -- it's understood that they involve different groups. The question remains, do we capitalize them all, or do we yield to the biased attempt to show special considerations for only specific groups. It would seem that you, otoh, are the one trying to cast aspersions simply because you can't answer the question consistently, and honestly. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:10, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

@ARoseWolf Can you please don't derail the discussion on stable version? Also, I'm kinda not interested in your nonsense interpretations of "my" words that I never uttered or wrote. — kashmīrī ^TALK 18:08, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

And my words also. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:10, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Did you not use the words I said you did in the manner I wrote? --ARoseWolf 18:21, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps you would like to strike those value laden words to remain objective in your summarization by simply listing the viewpoints and not assigning them your own weight? --ARoseWolf 18:23, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

I will definitely apologize if you did not state the position of the opponents of your view point "weird" and if you did not in fact mention "white guilt". --ARoseWolf 18:27, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Blur.. My words are written in plain English. Your take on them is quite a different matter. Again, nothing was said about "white guilt", or anything being "weird". These are your notions.-- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:29, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

"nobody considered weird capitalisation an appropriate response to white guilt" I guess I should not believe my lying eyes. --ARoseWolf 18:30, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

You addressed me with this matter. Someone else made that statement. You seem to be reading your own notions into matters. . This is getting rather tacky and sophomoric and is clogging up the discussion. Your thoughts on neutrality and favoritism for "specific groups of people"? -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:40, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

We capitalize specific race, ethnic, cultural and national groups all the time. American, British, Canadian. How is that different than Indigenous people of the United States, Indigenous people of Canada, Indigenous Australian, or plainly Indigenous people. When an article on the Indigenous people of the United States is specifically about an inherently important to the identity of those people (i.e. Native American, American Indians, Indigenous people) it should be capitalized. In the case of this article, saying Indigenous people signifies they are specific identity group to the location in question and it is a proper noun describing this specific group. I am not advocating that there is never an instance where it should not be capitalized but this is a very narrow field of identification, generally tied to citizenship within a sovereign tribal nation. --ARoseWolf 18:56, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

You know how different? We capitalise proper nouns. If indigenous is a part of proper noun, or a common noun, then it gets capitalised. If it's used as a generic term, it's not. Above, I've posted a link[29] to Oxford Dictionary, you should study it before posting insinuations. — kashmīrī ^TALK 19:02, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes you did and I did study it closely. "In Canada, the term Indigenous can be used to describe a member of any of the original peoples living in what is now Canada, including the First Nations, Inuit and Metis people. In Australia, Indigenous can be used to describe Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders: She was Canada's first Indigenous governor general. • Indigenous Australians comprise hundreds of groups that have their own distinct set of languages and traditions." Notice the "(also Indigenous)" at the top and the capitalized "Indigenous" when describing the specific groups mentioned in those locations. Notice it also says a synonym is "native" I don't see anyone saying that native is always capitalized and I don't see anyone saying "Native" in "Native American" should be lowered. This is an equivalence. --ARoseWolf 19:11, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Good. Did you notice that this article is NOT about the Canadian Indigenous or the Australian Indigenous – instead, it is about various indigenous peoples around the world?

Now anaylse the other examples in that same dictionary: the indigenous peoples/languages of an area; Guatemala has one of the highest percentages of indigenous peoples of any country in the Americas; Antarctica has no indigenous human population.. — kashmīrī ^TALK 19:24, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Genocide of Indigenous peoples#Canada is about Canadian Indigenous. Genocide of Indigenous peoples#Indigenous peoples of Oceania subsection on Australia is about Indigenous Australians. Likewise each section is about the Indigenous people of that region, area or within a specific country. Rolling it up in the title does not negate the proper noun or change it from being about the Indigenous people in all and each of those sections. --ARoseWolf 19:32, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Don't tell me you are unable to tell an article title from a section title, or article topic from section topic! — kashmīrī ^TALK 19:37, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Genocide of Indigenous people where "Indigenous people" can be substituted with Indigenous Canadian, Indigenous Australian, Indigenous American, Indigenous governor, Indigenous chief, Indigenous woman, Indigenous man or any number of examples even the Oxford Dictionary agrees with. I also said I am not advocating for the word "indigenous" to always be capitalized, also noted in my !vote rationale, and probably wouldn't have said anything if Gwillhickers had not tried to summarize the discussion above in the way they did and you didn't call the oppositions positions weird. I try not to denigrate the position of others, whether I agree or not, as they may have very different experiences which caused them to come to the conclusion they do. The fact is we do have sources that do and do not capitalize Indigenous to varying degrees. And I'm sure there is merit to the case it is being over capitalized. But to be so disrespectful to people, some of which are fellow editors, by comparing their very real identity to generic terms as have been presented and then dismissing and being nasty to anyone who opposes your position is a bit much. I'll let you have the last word if you desire it or we can just let it play out without calling anyone's very personal experiences weird or using value laden words in what is supposed to be a neutral summary. --ARoseWolf 20:17, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

You are trolling, aren't you? Next you'll capitalise human because it "can be substituted" with Andy, Tom, Margaret, Indira, Mohammad and "any number of examples" and because a lowercase human offends the "very real identity" of so many people, right?

Sorry, EOT from my end. — kashmīrī ^TALK 00:40, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

ARoseWolf — Re this rather presumptive remark: "But to be so disrespectful to people, some of which are fellow editors, by comparing their very real identity to generic terms as have been presented and then dismissing and being nasty to anyone who opposes your position is a bit much."
You speak of being disrespectful, but in the same breath accuse some editors of being "insulting", "nasty", etc. Most people rest their identity on national origin and/or religion, not an adjective like "indigenous", or "religious", in a simple generic sense.  e.g."Irish Catholic" not "Religious Irish", or "Apache Nation", not "Indigenous Nation". Again if we capitalize indigenous then we must also capitalize other similar and general adjectives, such as non-indigenous, religious, etc., if for anything else, to avoid showing favoritism, POV and neutrality issues. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:33, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, it was me, and yes I stand by this assessment, given the comments above that capitalisation is to acknowledge or demonstrate respect. Of course all people deserve respect, and using capitalisation against the language rules to play with respect/disrespect is a tad dumb[30][31]. Fortunately, it's an encyclopaedia here, not pleasantries or petty politics. — kashmīrī ^TALK 18:59, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

In regards to whom I addressed, this is the importance of not refactoring or moving comments. I am however glad you only added a title in the end because it left the all-important structure of the comment. If you look at the indentions I was specifically answering @kashmiri and only addressed you when I used your name to separate the two. --ARoseWolf 19:04, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

re: This claim -- We capitalize specific races, ethnic, cultural and national groups all the time. American, British, Canadian. How is that different than Indigenous people of the United States,
This analogy is completely inaccurate. Fist. the title of this article isn't limited to the United States. Also, terms like "American", "British", etc refer to specific countries. "White", "Black", "Hispanic", etc, refer to specific races. The idea of "indigenous peoples" involves people of all races and all cultures around the world and is a generic and general term, just as "non-indigenous peoples" and "religious peoples" are. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 19:18, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

And the discussion above already covers this in great detail. To summarize again: for specific ethno-cultural groups that have adopted one of these terms as (or as part of) a proper-name appellation, and which is found capitalized for that specific group in nearly all modern RS, then it will be capitalized on Wikipedia when refering to that group specifically (thus Aboriginal Australians, Native Americans, First Nations of Canada, etc., and increasing evidence of Indigenous being adopted by and used for specifically both Native Americans/First Nations more broadly (in the pan-Americas sense), and Aboriginal Australians and Torrest Strait Islanders more broadly). That is not akin to a generic, global sense of such words in phrases like "genocide of indigenous peoples" and "the effects of colonial policies on native populations on five continents". If anyone still somehow isn't grasping this: the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Arctic Ocean, the North Sea, the Irish Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Gulf of Tonkin are all proper names, but collectively and generically these are oceans, seas, and gulfs, not Oceans, Seas, and Gulfs.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:55, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

"I'll let you have the last word if you desire" generally means I'm done discussing so would prefer not to be tagged back to this discussion but gladly yielded to you having the last word. I'll thank you to respect that going forward. But I will say that some people do use Indigenous in the place of terms like Native American or American Indian to describe themselves in much the same way. There is not one Native American anything. Native American's are many different tribal nations. Yet there is a common link. This is no different with Indigenous peoples existence and the way they choose to identify culturally. There has been some very disrespectful comparisons in this discussion that I feel are dismissive of Indigenous people's existence so I care to not discuss it further. --ARoseWolf 18:54, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

And I'm a Human, a Man, and also a Father and Grandfather, apart from being Native in my country and Indigenous there. I'm also an Artist, Writer and more recently a Wikipedian. See all my identities? Don't dare to use lowercase for any of them, or I'll get offended to my core! — kashmīrī ^TALK 19:01, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Just the kind of writing we spend hundreds of editor hours each year cleaning up. Tony (talk) 04:15, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

continued...

(Discusion in voting section moved here)

Moxy, our current discussion was getting rather lengthy, so it was moved here so as not to obscure voting. Feel free to revert back if you wish. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 22:09, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

We already have a reference to another dictionary, Cambridge English Dictionary, as well as Collins,. that says this adjective is spelled with lower case. And the AP news agency, or any 'news' forum, is hardly a reliable source for settling this issue. Regardless, at WP we must observe neutrality issues, and not show favoritism for one group over others. Spelling this adjective using the rules of proper grammar, as we would for other adjectives such as non-indigenous and religious peoples, is neutral for all concerned, regardless of those who want to see special considerations afforded to this particular adjective. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 17:02, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

What I see here..... 2 sources that seem to be very dated and some Google searches that are meaningless in a debate and a whole bunch of personal opinion....versus 8 that explain why the change has been done including academic style guides. Moxy🍁 19:45, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Actually, your assertion, "Seem to be dated" and "google searches that are meaningless" is your personal opinion. Yes, we've seen the reasons why some capitalize, with your apparent assumption that they are representative of all such sources,.
Consulting two different year editions of The Chicago manual of style, which you refer to above:

• The Chicago manual of style, 2010, p. 799
• The Chicago manual of style, 2017, p. 906
  Both editions only mention "indigenous" one time, and use lower case.
  

"US courts disregard the existence of indigenous languages and “reluctantly” make allowance only for Spanish in translation services".
We could go on and on comparing sources, but, once again, for the sake of neutrality, WP should observe the basic rules of grammar and use the term as an adjective without the attempt to turn it into a proper noun. . Do you also feel we should also capitalize "non-indigenous peoples" and "religious peoples" whenever they are used? Or are we going to extend this consideration to the adjective "indigenous" only and forget about neutrality issues? -- Gwillhickers (talk) 20:41, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Odd what i see as a Canadian when searching the Chicago manual style gets this quote= "We would capitalize “Indigenous” in both contexts: that of Indigenous people and groups, on the one hand, and Indigenous culture and society, on the other. Lowercase “indigenous” would be reserved for contexts in which the term does not apply to Indigenous people in any sense—for example, indigenous plant and animal species. A parallel distinction arises for the word “black,” which many writers now capitalize in references to ethnicity and culture (a usage that CMOS supports) but not, for example, when it is simply a color". Anyways everything after 2020 when it comes to style guides and multiple universities seem to say the same thing. It all changed as the sources above explain. It also explains what other words we should capitalize now....so no guesswork need it on our part. Moxy🍁 21:06, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Universities have always been under a lot of pressure from special interest groups, as we've just witnessed with all the riots over the Israel-Hamas war, so we need more than a reference to current trends that exist in some universities. So now we have two takes on capitalization from Chicago manual style , all with links. Once again, we could go on comparing sources, but for the sake of neutrality we should observe the basic rules of grammar and treat the term in question for what it is, an adjective. I've asked repeatedly, yet no one seems to square off with the question: Do we also capitalize "non-indigenous" and "religious" in reference to people in every instance, as you feel we should with "indigenous"?  e.g. The Religious Peoples of the United Kingdom  The Non-indigenous Peoples of the USA. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 21:50, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't know about your hypothetical what sources do we have for this? Moxy🍁 23:24, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

• You require sources to support the idea that college campuses have always been at the center of numerous protests, since before the Viet Nam era, during the Iraq war, and just lately, most often instigated by college professors and other members of the faculty? That too often news agencies are on the same page, only they're more subtle about it, so they think? Chicago manual of style is the product of Chicago University, and unsurprisingly, has sucumbed to selective social pressures to appease their critics, activist types and others who see colonialism in a very narrow scope. Regardless, it seems your unresponsive reply, such that it is, is an attempt to blow off the neutrality issue, as we're not hearing one peep over whether the term "non-indigenous peoples" or "religious peoples" should also be capitalized. This article is already begging for a NPOV tag, with no mention of genocide committed by indigenous people, very often against each other. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:01, 6 June 2024 (UTC).

• Evidently the idea of indigenous wasn't even on the radar screen with the Chicago manual of style until lately.
• 1952 edition -- no mention of indigenous]
• 1982 edition -- no mention of indigenous
• 1993 edition -- no mention of indigenous
• 2010 edition -- one mention of indigenous in lower case
• 2017 edition -- one mention of indigenous in lower case

--------------------------------- Other manuals ----------------------------------------

• A manual for writers of research papers, theses, and dissertations, 2007 -- no mention of indigenous
• Writing with sources : a guide for students, 2017 -- no mention of indigenous
• Form and style : research papers, reports, theses, 2013 -- no mention of indigenous -- Gwillhickers (talk) 21:34, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

  100% correct " indigenous wasn't even on the radar screen with the Chicago manual of style until lately" ...but it is now. As for more of your "hypotheticals" we should follow sources..not your or my guesswork or odd bias toward higher education institutions. Moxy🍁 14:29, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

The reasons for those "old biases" have always made themselves glaringly evident, esp lately. That you're asking for sources that confirm the 'sun rises in the east' only tells us you're simply ignoring another inconvenient truth. In any case, we're going to require something more than a college manual on style, esp when we must also consider other dictionaries and such that have been presented here. After that, we should just stick to the basic rules of grammar, not someone's take on "style", for the sake of objectivity and neutrality, as mentioned several times now...also ignored. Or are you really comfortable with the idea of "The Non-indigenous Peoples of the USA" -- "The Religious Peoples of the world"? That this idea is not even acknowledged sort of speaks volumes. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:56, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

It's very simple we should just be following the sources...... thus far we only have a few sources that side with your point of view in an odd roundabout way..... the vast majority of the other sources see that these are people thus it should be capitalized. Your main point is what the Chicago manual styles said from years ago dismissing the fact that it has addressed this specifically. I'm not ignoring your question the question is just pointless and irrelevant to our conversation hypotheticals have no place here. Moxy🍁 17:59, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

As mentioned before, we can go on comparing sources, some of which change, like college manuals, but the basic rules of grammar as outlined in non advocacy texts remain constant. As for your take on "hypotheticals", The Non-Indigenous Peoples of the USA refers to people just as much as indigenous peoples does. Your continued attempt to skirt that idea only confirms the bias and favoritism some editors wish to afford the idea of Indigenous, only, and as such, will invoke serious NPOV issues. That and the fact that this article has nothing to say about the genocide committed by indigenous people, also a glaring NPOV issue. Perhaps the title of this article, Genocide of Indigenous peoples, which more than suggests that this was something that was only attempted toward indigenous peoples, should instead read, Genocide involving indigenous peoples, a more inclusive and honest title. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 19:37, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

So to be clear here.... we should reject the majority of sources because it doesn't fit your knowledge of grammar.. Those that work on these articles are fully aware of the style guide that we have following for year.... and that equate to thousands of articles. I understand progression is hard but as you get older you'll come across this more often. Moxy🍁 03:50, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

You keep repeating "majority of sources" like a magic spell. Can you offer supporting evidence in the form of statistics, e.g., using Google Scholar or Jstor? Common sense tells me that since capitalisation is a very recent phenomenon and limited to the Canadian and Australian context, such spelling would constitute a minority of sources, especially those that discuss genocides. — kashmīrī ^TALK 11:02, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

You are correct that it is a modern trend but it is not limited to the Canadian and Australian context. Because it is a relatively recent trend, then the overall stats will automatically favor the older version, it's not very scientific but you can get an idea of the trend in this ngram Selfstudier (talk) 11:24, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Agree with Kashmiri. Further, we can't make a list of what sources have succumbed to various trends and those sources which have maintained objectivity. Further, those sources that use capitalization don't necessarily maintain why everyone must do so also. Please make that distinction. Most of the trends reflect a bias. That doesn't mean we can wave issues of neutrality and abandon objectivity here at WP where all editors are expected to abide by the same rules. Speaking of sources, we should consider those that possess the most weight, not merely their numbers. It might interest editors that the UN doesn't capitalize as some absolute rule.

UN urges protection of indigenous peoples’ rights during migration
UN: About indigenous peoples and human rights   OHCHR and indigenous peoples
UN: Indigenous Peoples
UN: OHCHR and indigenous peoples

In this last example, while the UN capitalizes at the beginning of sentences and title, they use lower case throughout the article.
Re: One of the Reliable Sources used in this article, a UN source,

UNHCR: The UN Refugee Agency

uses lower case throughout.
We were told that the article here abides by the UN guidelines used to determine "genocide" Okay, if that's the case we must give serious consideration to the way the UN frequently treats the adjective in question. We can't abide by their guidelines and then turn around and simply ignore the way they often spell this adjective. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:48, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

@Gwillhickers Apples and rocks. They aren't the same. Doug Weller talk 15:35, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that it's okay to accept some things from the UN, like their guidelines that establishes "genocide", but we are free to ignore those items which don't suit a particular bias? -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:17, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

The UN Editorial Manual of Style [32] states that "Indigenous should be capitalized when referring to cultures, communities, lands, languages, etc., of Indigenous Peoples, e.g.: Indigenous culture in Ecuador, Indigenous languages are dying out. If referring to flora or fauna, lower case should be used." To paraphrase Doug Weller, People and rocks, they are not the same. I can't believe that even needs to be said in the 21st century. Netherzone (talk) 20:31, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. To borrow Netherzone's words, When Indigenous is used to describe human beings, communities, individuals (rather than things like plants or rocks) it should be capitalized. I'll add that I'm well aware that Wikipedia is not strictly beholden to other organizations style guides; this does not, however, mean we have nothing to learn from these style guides. Capitalizing the word "Indigenous" when it refers to humans and cultures prevailing in academic styles like APA and CMOS and the journalistic style of the Associated Press is not something to simply ignore. And the proof that SMcCandlish links is not persuasive. When I click on the linked GoogleScholar search, the first few pages are nearly all hits for uses that capitalize the word "Indigenous" in the phrase "Indigenous peoples", proving rather the opposite of what SMcCandlish claims. And the Ngram books search, while temporally bounded, is not able to distinguish publications to make clear what are hits from current academic books, making it unpersuasive for me. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 05:24, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

— This idea has been addressed before, several times. Since we are referring to human beings, a term unto itself that's not even capitalized, then we must capitalize "Colonial American", "Non-indigenous Peoples" and "Religious Peoples", for openers, anywhere these items appear in a sentence. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:07, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

— Yes, the Ngram search yields more examples of non capitalized usage. [Add : Any text with the term "indigenous" in its title is most likely not going to be a novel, mystery or other such work, but an educational or documentary work. To dismiss the Ngram so readily is actually what is "unpersuasive" .] While you seem to embrace some google search results, many of which are promotional, you are ignoring the overall Google results. One of the main pillars of WP is neutrality and objectivity. We don't give in to favoritism and bias simply because this, seemingly, appears to be a trend. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:33, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Any text with the term "indigenous" in its title: Er, if a non-article word appears in a book's title, it'll be capitalized whether or not the word normally is capitalized. Doesn't an Ngram measure appearance anywhere in the body text of a work?

most likely not going to be a novel, mystery or other such work, but an educational or documentary work: But will it be an academic work? Travel literature, memoirs, pop history, etc. also use the phrase. I'm inclined to favor the capitalization used in academic sources such as journals like International Journal of Indigenous Peoples (published by Sage Publications), Design and Culture (published by Taylor & Francis), Annual Review of Psychology (published by Annual Reviews, and Canadian Journal of Urban Research (published by the University of Winnipeg); over the non-capitalization used in non-academic sources that also contribute to hits in Google Ngram searches, like this self-published travel memoir, or this pocket tourism guide, or this missionary memoir, or this self-published book about mysticism. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 21:39, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

@Hydrangeans, This was also my understanding, that Google Ngram scrapes books everything on the internet for the terms. This is why it is not recommended for use in AfDs, that it is not reliable nor specific enough as a tool. It is simply an AI-assisted device, but the "statistics" are not necessarily reliable. What is evident in the N-grams, tho, is that there seems to be a "hockey puck" curve in the frequency capitalized of Indigenous vs. lowercase indigenous. Ngrams do not seem like a very precise tool for an encyclopedia, altho I used to think they were. I very much agree with your analysis of examples above, that high quality sources such as academic journals rather than blogs or self-published books are more appropriate for WP, and use capitalization. This and the fact that many style guides, such as Chicago, AP, NYT, and even the UN favors capitalization. (As well as the Indigenous press.) Netherzone (talk) 22:23, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Google Ngrams (the full name of which is Google Books Ngram Viewer) uses a database of published books, not "everything on the internet". —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 19:01, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

I looked for any guidelines for endless arguments, but I'm not seeing them. No one is changing their minds. There will be no consensus. Can that happen? Yuchitown (talk) 14:48, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Sure, no consensus doesn't mean no consensus ever, it just kicks the can down the road to the next discussion. Selfstudier (talk) 14:54, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

The "next discussion" will likely involve the same editors overall, so as long as new issues present themselves here, e.g.Ngram being so readily dismissed by one or some editors, it's only appropriate that those issues be addressed. Yes, you are correct, no one is going to change their minds apparently, and some of the same points of contention have been repeated, but the matter should still be finalized here, as it involves dozens of editors on a very broad topic. Hopefully everyone here wasn't just wasting their time.
If it was clear that those who want to capitalize "Indigenous Peoples" had the same regard for terms like "Colonial Americans", "Non-indigenous Peoples", etc, I could acquiesce and go along with capitalization, but that seems to have been avoided by those who want to capitalize, and subsequently still leaves us with a serious neutrality issue and a double standard. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:40, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I think you have an argument with the English language, not with Wikipedia. Yuchitown (talk) 17:19, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Smug remarks isn't accomplishing anything. I've made it rather clear with whom that particular argument was intended for...esp with those who want to reinvent English grammar based on bias. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 17:42, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Hum, bias. Selfstudier (talk) 17:45, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm not being smug; I'm being serious. I and others have provided innumerable style guides arguing for Indigenous being capitalized. If you want to make arguments for capitalizing other terms, do so in the appropriate places and provide the relevant citations. This discussion is for a move of one article title; it's not a referendum for English capitalization rules. Yuchitown (talk) 17:47, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Many sources demonstrating the use and non use of capitalization, including the UN's usage and non usage, have been presented. The repeated avoidance of the bias issue only exemplifies it. There is obviously no consensus on the matter, regardless of any new trends that have emerged in some of academia. If there is no consensus to use lower case, then there is no consensus for capitalization, and this article should return to the long standing version before it was changed with no discussion. You can always initiate a MOVE discussion for capitalization and see where that takes you. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:15, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

No, that would be a completely different conversation. Yuchitown (talk) 19:08, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Nonsense. It would be the same discussion over whether to capitalize. In any case, the move was made without consensus and no discussion, and now in the face of 19 support votes and 12 oppose votes, so please don't stand there and pretend that it's all okay -- Gwillhickers (talk) 19:58, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

@Gwillhickers: I remember when a good solid Ngrams trend was the end of a discussion. Happier times. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:09, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the majority of the sources don't capitalize.The sources in question are not novels, humor stories, mysteries, and unless someone can dig up a freak exception, there are no such publications to be found. Any book, article or journal with "indigenous" in its title is going to be educational or documentary in nature. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 19:58, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I have been told in the past that Google Ngrams are not a reliable source for Wikipedia. WP does not follow what Google scrapes from various sources which cannot be determined if they are reliable or not. IMO, it certainly should not be used for guidelines and policies. Netherzone (talk) 20:02, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't know what you've been told, but I suggest you review this:
Wikipedia:Requested moves/Controversial -- "Unlike other request processes on Wikipedia, such as Requests for comment, nominations need not be neutral. Make your point as best you can; use evidence (such as Google Ngrams and pageview statistics)" -- Gwillhickers (talk) 20:13, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Ngrams for publications in several major languages that use lowercase for the adjective in question are markedly greater than those that don't
French
German
Spanish
Italian — In this last example, works that use capitalization doesn't even register. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 21:03, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I believe that suggestion re WP:RM/C was written in 2014, ten years ago. Times have changed. What on Earth does Googling n-grams for an English term in foreign languages prove? Precisely nothing. Since you seem to "like" Ngrams, if you search French in the French language, [[33]] they are almost identical in usage. For German in German, the lower case does not even exist.[34], nothing at all in Spanish[35], and Italian is meaningless.[36]. Your Ngram proof theory is highly inconsistent, and should probably no longer be used, esp. since one cannot even search past 2019. Times have changed. Netherzone (talk) 00:11, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

You make a sweeping claim that the Ngram is "meaningless" and then carry on, erroneously, about it in length. First off, lower case indeed exists on the German Ngram. Several main languages we offered simply to show that capitalization occurs much less among these major language and is common place around much of the world. As for the Italian Ngram as also "meaningless", this is just another empty claim. Yes, the chart goes up to 2019. You can assume that capitalization has made these remarkable boom in the last few years, but consider that nearly all the reliable sources used in this article were published before 2019, with many published in the 20th century. Wikipedia:Requested moves/Controversial specifically cites Ngrams as evidence. This attempt to write off all these sources by claiming the Ngram only goes up to 2019 is intellectually delinquent and the only thing that's really meaningless here. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 16:40, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

I've already posted that capitalized Indigenous has had a remarkable boom in recent years, Google Scholar since 2020. Re: "simply intellectually delinquent," please stop insulting other editors. Yuchitown (talk) 16:44, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

FYI, @Gwillhickers I'm not an intellectual delinquent, LOL. You have accused others of bias, POV and favoritism again and again, wrongfully accused others of “smugness”, claimed that editors you disagree with are not being honest, are “ignoring the truth”, called others “tacky and sophomoric”, and are now implying that I am an intellectual delinquent.

This is not civil, nor is it helping the discussion. Please Stop.

You don’t have to put-down others to make a point using intimidation until they are so worn out that they drop out of the conversation in frustration. Could you please try to rein in your emotions, and stop casting aspersions? Netherzone (talk) 17:54, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Netherzone — Bias, POV and favoritism on WP are realities that can't be ignored, and if one feels that is the case we say so, without being vulgar or threatening. As I indicated below, I apologize for the guff remark. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 17:59, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

continued2...

Apologize for the terse remark to Netherzone, but the attempt to write off all the sources simply because the Ngram goes up to 2019 simply was sort of the limit. In any case, there may have been a recent increase in capitalization, esp among advocacy sources, but we simply can't write off the bulk of the sources based on one google listing, such that it is in terms of conclusiveness, while we ignore Ngrams, cited by WP policy as used for evidence. Again, we must abide by the rules of neutrality and the basic rules of grammar that are required by WP editors. It seems some have lost site of that paramount consideration -- Gwillhickers (talk) 17:48, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

I have replied to you above, @Gwillhickers; I hope that you will read it. Apparently there was an edit conflict while this new section was being formed. Netherzone (talk) 17:59, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

No worries. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:00, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Moving forward, please try to make your points by focusing on content, rather than the contributors - your fellow editors - making their good-faith points. I think this will improve the quality of the discussion, and perhaps even help it move towards consensus. Thanks in advance. Netherzone (talk) 18:07, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Between all the sources everyone has presented, there is clearly no significant majority consensus either way, so again it's best we simply observe neutrality and the basic rules of grammar. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:15, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Wow "observe neutrality" really ? Should follow English academic style guides that explain why....lets recap the gudlines vs Google searches and what othe languages do. Because as seen by your examples of the Chicago manual style and United Nation both places have a style guides dispite randon article searches. Is there a source that says dont?

• "The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th Edition". The Chicago Manual of Style Online. Jun 22, 2020. We would capitalize "Indigenous" in both contexts: that of Indigenous people and groups, on the one hand, and Indigenous culture and society, on the other. Lowercase "indigenous" would be reserved for contexts in which the term does not apply to Indigenous people in any sense—for example, indigenous plant and animal species. A parallel distinction arises for the word "black," which many writers now capitalize in references to ethnicity and culture
• "Department for General Assembly and Conference Management". Capitalization in English. Sep 11, 1992. Indigenous should be capitalized when referring to cultures, communities, lands, languages, etc., of Indigenous Peoples, e.g.: Indigenous culture in Ecuador, Indigenous languages are dying out. If referring to flora or fauna, lower case should be used
• "AP Stylebook updates race-related terms". ACES: The Society for Editing. Feb 2, 2021. AP's style is now to capitalize Black in a racial, ethnic, or cultural sense, conveying an essential and shared sense of history, identity, and community among people who identify as Black, including those in the African diaspora and within Africa. The lowercase black is a color, not a person. We also now capitalize Indigenous in reference to original inhabitants of a place. These changes align with long-standing capitalization of other racial and ethnic identifiers such as Latino, Asian American, and Native American.
• "Ethnicity and Race". Miami University. American Indians, Indigenous, Native Americans. Always capitalize these terms when referring to the original inhabitants of the U.S. Use Indigenous when referring to the original inhabitants of any place.
• "Capitalization and formatting of Indigenous terms". Province of British Columbia. Aug 27, 2021. Capitalizing Indigenous terms is a sign of respect for the identities, governments, institutions and collective rights that have been historically considered illegitimate. We recognize that part of reconciliation is the recognition and respect of these terms.
• Weeber, Christine (May 19, 2020). "Why Capitalize "Indigenous"?". SAPIENS. So, why capitalize "Indigenous"? It articulates and identifies a group of political and historical communities, compared to the lower case "i," which can refer to anyone. For example, being born in Ludington, I'm "indigenous" to Michigan, but I'm not an "Indigenous person" from Michigan.
• Dulude, Gary (May 12, 2020). "Editorial style update: Capitalizing Indigenous". Oregon State University. We have made the editorial style decision to capitalize the word Indigenous when referring to Indigenous people. This is consistent with other racial and ethnic identities, including African American, Asian American, Pacific Islander, Latina/Latino/Latinx, Hispanic and Native American.
• Kanigel, R. (2019). The Diversity Style Guide. San Francisco State University. p. 353. ISBN 978-1-119-05515-0. Indigenous Capitalize in reference to a distinct, historical and pre‐colonial culture, society or people.

Moxy🍁 05:00, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

@Moxy Good work there Moxy. That really should settle it IMHO. Doug Weller talk 08:27, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Actually this is a rehasing of ideas that have already been addressed by multiple editors. Once again, many of the sources here are advocacy in nature. e.g."Capitalizing Indigenous terms is a sign of respect". This more than suggests that using lower case is a sign of disrespect. That is a flagrant assumption. Many of these sources are in reference to specific groups/cultures. e.g. " This is consistent with other racial and ethnic identities, including African American, Asian American,. . ." These are all specific examples of people. Once again you're assuming all the sources with "indigenous" in their titles as reflected by Ngrams are of little to no consequence. "Style guides" can vary. For example, Merriam-Webster maintains the use of lower case. Again, by simply observing the long standing and basic rules of grammar for generalized adjectives, regardless of biased and trendy examples, we maintain neutrality. Again, to continue the trend you're suggesting means we should also capitalize, "Colonial Peoples", "Non-indigenous peoples", "Religious Peoples", etc, etc., all non-specific examples. I can understand the predictable response..'Take that idea somewhere else', because to go on record in this discussion to not capitalize these items would undermine, further, the entire premise being passed off here for capitalization. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 17:16, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

More WP:BLUDGEONING Selfstudier (talk) 17:36, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict)
An important point has been repeatedly avoided regarding the consistent use of capitalization for terms like "Colonial Peoples" etc. Many editors have also repeated the same points, including the passage I was just addressing. Much of this could have been avoided if at least some editors acknowledged whether or not to capitalize "Colonial Peoples", which is one of the main points of contention throughout this article. Okay, I'll cease. We'll see where this goes and if there is consistency in principle regarding what should be capitalized. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:07, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

To address the dictionaries, which aren't style guides, the many, many style guides we've all linked here agree that Indigenous is capitalized when referring to people but not when referring to other subjects, such as plants. Yuchitown (talk) 17:55, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

The argument (repeated endless times) "if we do this then this will happen" is a logical fallacy. (If we capitalize Indigenous then we have to capitalize colonial or religious or xyz) holds no merit. Netherzone (talk) 18:29, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Difficult to bow out when an important point is being misrepresented. All the reasoning used for the capitalization of "Indigenous peoples" applies to "Colonial peoples" as both are two broad but distinct groups of human beings. As said, I could acquiesce on capitalization if this apparent bias, but obvious double standard, wasn't a factor. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:58, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Ok so no sources say don't capitalize the term when referring to people. Just some POV that the evolution of the English language as stated by style guides shouldn't apply to Wikipedia. Moxy🍁 19:51, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

I went and googled "indigenous to Michigan" (which incidentally no one simply from or born in Michigan would refer to themselves as), and the first thing that popped up was a US government park service site discussing indigenous peoples in details with capitalised names for specific indigenous groups, and capitalising "American Indian", but only using "indigenous" formulaically in lower case. Practical example. Iskandar323 (talk) 03:37, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

The academic recommendation "MSU Editorial Style Guide". Michigan State University. 1989-08-07. Retrieved 2024-06-16. Moxy🍁 11:31, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Hahaha. Touché. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:12, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

The examples from Moxy are useful, but for the opposite conclusion. Several of the examples pointedly note that they capitalise when referring to specific or distinct people of culture, as opposed to all relevant peoples or cultures in general. The title here is generalist, not specific in nature. It is not about "Indigenous people of North America", or "Indigenous people of Ecuador", but ALL indigenous peoples dealt with collectively as an adjectival category, not identifiably as a coherent or cohesive indigenous group. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:24, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Like Americans, oops, americans. Selfstudier (talk) 18:30, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Yuchitown, the Merrian-Webster's dictionary, though it doesn't have the term "style guide", or some such idea, in its title, still offers multiple examples of how the term is employed in terms of grammatical style. We can't dismiss it merely because it's a dictionary, which, btw, is what many writers have always referred to. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 19:34, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Merriam. Yuchitown (talk) 23:12, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Merriam-Webster's dictionary states that lower case indigenous is used for "produced, growing, living, or occurring natively or naturally in a particular region or environment" - in other words for plants and rocks, and that upper case Indigenous (or less commonly lower case indigenous) is used "of or relating to the earliest known inhabitants of a place and especially of a place that was colonized by a now-dominant group".[37] Netherzone (talk) 23:27, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Merrian-Webster gives the following examples, all in lower case:

"The subject of indigenous peoples is near and dear to her heart."
"The indigenous people of the region had been at it for countless centuries."
"It's named for the indigenous Caddo people, who settled in the area in the early 1800s.
"Take a tour to learn about the indigenous people who first occupied the area."
"The Australia team posed with a flag of Australia's indigenous people."
"And more than a few indigenous scholars and activists have been asking just that."

Not sure where you're looking, but taking the quote you provided : "...produced, growing, living, or occurring natively or naturally in a particular region or environment" . You're assuming the items in bold do not include people. Your quotes says nothing that would indicate that this adjective should only include "rocks and plants" and other such non human nouns. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 00:48, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Did you click on the link I provided? Netherzone (talk) 03:57, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

May 2024

@Ivanvector and Dylanvt: I just wanted to let you know that the same editors have been removing the perfectly sourced and neutral section for no reason whatsoever (the cited ONUS is obviously BS). M.Bitton (talk) 19:19, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

@האופה: WP:ONUS is neither an explanation nor a valid reason for you to edit war over the content that you want to keep out of the article. Feel free to provide one (if it exists). M.Bitton (talk) 19:24, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm ignoring them, no edit warring. I started an RFC instead a few sections up; you and they are free to comment. (@ABHammad, O.maximov, and האופה: courtesy ping) Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:29, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

• I have fully protected the page, because the edit war is speeding up. Hopefully by then consensus will be reached. PhilKnight (talk) 19:56, 27 May 2024 (UTC)