Talk:Ancient Egyptian race controversy

This article was nominated for deletion on 2006/12/10. The result of the discussion was keep.

Citation for 'meme'!

Well, you know our standards. Lefkowitz speaks of "myths" or "mythology" (Black Athena revisted, p. 21), Shavit speaks of "universal history." (History in Black, p. vii) Do you want to search a reference for 'meme', and how much time would you need?Zara1709 (talk) 16:01, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

"Myth" is, I suppose, applicable, although I cannot see how this differs from "meme". Perhaps "cultural myth"? "Universal history" is clearly a description of Afrocentrism as a whole and makes no sense applied to this article. Moreschi (talk) 14:14, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

If you read wikt:meme, a "meme" described as a "self-propagating unit of cultural evolution having a resemblance to the gene (the unit of genetics)". I did not choose this term because it is occasionally used in a derogatory sense on the internet. I picked it carefully because the dictionary definition exactly describes the subject of the article (in the sense that the ROAE business has, in true meme-style, re-appeared in every generation of Afrocentrism, from Garvey to James to Diop to Bernal). I guess it's something of an original definition, but to criticize me for that is frankly an over-harsh interpretation of WP:NOR. But as, I say, I'm open to other suggestions. Moreschi (talk) 14:20, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

You don't have a bad argument there: What some people have described as 'myth' might also be described as 'meme'. I would disagree, since 'meme' is more of a structuralist term and 'myth' more a functional one - but we don't need to discuss this here, anyway. As far as I am aware of it, Wikipedia:No original research is rather strict: "[Original research] Synthesis occurs when an editor puts together multiple sources to reach a novel conclusion that is not in any of the sources. Even if published by reliable sources, material must not be connected together in such a way that it constitutes original research. If the sources cited do not explicitly reach the same conclusion, or if the sources cited are not directly related to the article subject, then the editor is engaged in original research."

I recently came into a controversy about this at the Discrimination against atheists article. There are several studies that show that there is widespread disapproval of atheists in the U.S. The material about this was deleted from the discrimination against atheists article as original research, since the sources apparently didn't explicitly speak of discrimination. Surely one could ask whether this kind of disapproval doesn't automatically fall under the concept of discrimination; You might want to read Dbachmann's comment on Talk:Discrimination against atheists. But I actually think the concerns about OR are justified in this case, I only objected to the way in which the situation was handled. To avoid the whole question whether this would constitute discrimination against atheist I merged the material into Freedom of religion in the United States, where so far no one has objected. If you want, we can discuss whether wp:NOR is to strict, but we would have to do that at Wikipedia talk:No original research. With the policy as it stands, you need a citation that explicitly says that radical Afrocentric historiography (as I would term it, according to the literature I've read) can be described as a "meme". I am not going to simply remove this (as other editors have done at the discrimination against atheists article, but the citation-tag needs to stay in there. (Unless, of course, you find a source.) I've thought a little about an alternate lead for this article, but I first need to save the material from Discrimination against atheists article before I make substantial edits here. Zara1709 (talk) 16:42, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, I guess you could describe Afrocentrist historiography as a meme - probably valid but rather sweeping and certainly that would need citation - but all this article covers is a meme within radical Afrocentrist historiography, something much more limited. I'm still struggling to see how the "meme" label is OR. Lefkowitz and others have, in their scholarship, drawn a clear narrative of how the ROAE myth/meme began in Afrocentrism and survives until the present day. Sure, they may not have used the word meme, but the process of a self-perpetuating cultural unit of (mis)information surviving and growing that they describe is exactly what wikt:meme is talking about. This is not WP:SYNTH or WP:OR: it may be WP:USING-A-NEW-WORD-FOR-SOMETHING, and I suppose that isn't ideal, but frankly "myth" has far more chance of being viewed as pejorative than "meme" does. Moreschi (talk) 19:07, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I really don't see any problem with using meme here and I don't see the need for a citation. It is, in fact, a meme by definition. There is no more need for a citation than there would be for the word idea. That is, we don't need references for using common English (even if meme is a relatively new word).--Woland (talk) 21:21, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

The Citation Needed tag has to stay. Wikipedia:No original research is definite and it is policy. Read the 'plagiarism' example provided there; Of course, you and I (and many other editors, I suppose) would easily be capable of applying most definitions, regardless of whether it is the definition of plagiarism from the Harvard manual of style or the definition of meme. But with wp:NOR as it stands, we need a source that explicitly states that the topic of this article can be considered a meme.

And this is a serious issue, I still have to reply to the elaborate statement of User:Deeceevoice at Talk:Tutankhamun. She (he?) has argued that Tutankhamun is black with quite some effort, but I haven't had the time to check out the sources, yet. (Because I waste to much time with stupid discussions.) If she (he?) would add only one unreferenced sentence to the article about this, and wouldn't then at least accept a citation needed tag, there we would go with another edit war. As long as we don't even agree on the application of policy, there isn't any hope that we will be able to have an acceptable article on the topic at Wikipedia. Zara1709 (talk) 13:13, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Deeceevoice is a she, and she's been banging on about this for years. There's no arguing with her. She uses models of "race" that belong in the 1920s, and she still has only the haziest of knowledge about Egyptian history (witness the comments about pyramids) despite years of obsession with this. On this topic, "meme" is a word. There is nothing in the OR policy which states that we have to cite individual words. There are guidelines on words to avoid (like calling a modern religious movement a "cult") and use of one word over another (eg "X notes Y" versus "X claims Y" etc) where there is dispute. Even if there a were a citation to someone using the word "meme", we could also find other people saying "idea" or "theory" or "fantasy", so a citation would not help, just escalate matters. p.s over on Berber people a statue of Rameses II has been placed among the images of famous Berbers on the basis of one French study that apparently says that he belonged racially to Berber populations, due to his light pigmentation. This silliness cuts both ways.Paul B (talk) 15:02, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I think your reply illustrates my point. Articles on Wikipedia should be based on the most reputable academic sources available, and not on the personal views of editors. Editors could try to argue that their personal view is obvious, but most likely not everyone will agree with that and this would result in endless discussions, not leading to a better article. I mean, take a look at the history of this talk page. I acknowledge the concerns of other editors about original research, but then my concerns should be acknowledged, too. And unlike other editors I don't simply remove the material that I think violates policy. Now you appear to be saying that 'meme' is not an academic concept, but a common term that everybody is understand. Well, probably it is, but then, so is 'science'. Can you imagine the controversy if someone would add to the article that Radical Afrocentric historiography was a science? According to the best academic sources, that have a certain understanding of 'science', it is not. Personal understandings of such words can't be relevant. On the other hand, the most reputable academic sources describe Radical Afrocentric historiography as myth or as universal history, and they explain, what they mean by that.

I totally agree that the whole issue is silly. But precisely because it is such a silly issue, we would need a good article on it. The topic isn't any more silly than Nazi occultism, so it should be possible to have a halfway decent article on it.Zara1709 (talk) 15:20, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

The issue is that you are using the citation tag inappropriately. If you think "meme" has pejorative connotations (which in some contexts it does), then suggest another more neutral word or phrase, but this is not a citation issue. As soon as you start citing individual words you get madness ("it is a meme or idea or claim") etc Paul B (talk) 15:29, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

• And this is not an article on radical Afrocentric historiography. Your point? Moreschi (talk) 15:23, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

My point? You should really ask yourself what your point is. Obviously we don't want an article about fringed theories about the Race of ancient Egyptians in general, because then we would also have to include the Nordicist view etc. I can accept that; But then, if you have read the literature, you know that (Radical) Afrocentrism does not only discuss Egypt, but also Greece. How are you going to warrant an article specifically about radical Afrocentric historiography concerning ancient Egypt, when the topic is entangled with discussions about Greece anyway. And don't tell me that we wouldn't need an article concerning radical Afrocentric historiography, because we already have an article on Afrocentrism. If you have read the introduction of Shavit's History in Black, you should know that there is a difference between radical (or 'wild', or 'extreme') Afrocentrism and the Afrocentric movement as a whole. Not all (and probably only <50%) of Afrocentrists really believe this pseudo-historic nonsense. Zara1709 (talk) 15:39, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Argh. You are not getting the scope of this article. It is not an article on radical Afrocentrist historiography (another valid article that should be written). It is not an article on Afrocentrism as it pertains to Egypt and Greece (another valid article that should be written). It is not an article on Afrocentrism as it pertains to Egypt. It is an article specifically on Afrocentrist claims surrounding the race of the ancient Egyptians. Clear? Moreschi (talk) 15:48, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

There are different meanings to the word "Afrocentrism". Initially it mean centring ones values on Africa, and was not primarily about history as such. In fact the Africans-founded-great-empires version of history long predates the term. There is also a growth of black studies which looks at models of ethnicity, and which is paralled by the growth of other ethnicty based and post-colonial models of history, but does not necessarily label itself "Afrocentrist". Part of the problem here is one of definition, and of the relationship between pop versions of ideas and academic developments. Paul B (talk) 15:46, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

<undent> The only cite I can find that mentions both afrocentrism and meme from a quick google search is here. Zara, you're still not getting the point though. If I substituted the word meme with the word idea, would we be having this conversation? No, of course not. It is by definition an idea, its also by definition a meme. This has nothing to do with OR or NPOV policy. --Woland (talk) 16:41, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

One-sided View

This article as it stands seems to give only the Afrocentric views on the subject, and does not include any evidence to the contrary. Surely this creates a risk that a reader might be lead to believe that this minority viewpoint stands unchallenged? There is a notice on the edit page that this article should not include evidence for and against the POV, but that notice is not visible to readers, so an unbalanced point of view is created. As a result of this limitation, sections are being inserted into "factual" articles on related subjects, reporting on this race controversy in an unbalanced manner which is diluting the accuracy of those articles. Can this limitation be removed, and the evidence for and against the controversy be included, so as to give readers a rounded perspective? Wdford (talk) 18:06, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

No. The (pseudo)debate is notable for the fuss kicked up, so we have an article on that. You have clearly misread the article, which states that Afrocentric views on the subject are regarded as fringe by the scholarly community. But the debate itself does not need rehashing on Wikipedia. We tried that for years and it failed miserably. Moreschi (talk) 14:16, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Related article Tutankhamun

See the talk page discussion regarding the "race"/ethnicity of Tut -- if you're interested. deeceevoice (talk) 18:19, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Discussion in progress over there. Moreschi (talk) 15:33, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Does this article overstate the debate?

I'm just concerned a bit about the tone of the article, it seems to give the impression that there is currently some great ongoing dispute in historical circles over this issue when I'm not sure there is any evidence for that. From what I know, the majority of those who promote this theory are Melanin theorists, people who dabble in pseudoscience and pseudo-history and such. I've yet to see a serious academic declare that the Egyptians were black based on a scientific basis. Not that I've really actually looked.

I know this is pretty vague, its just my impressions and thoughts. --Pstanton (talk) 00:00, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that is basically the point of the article; that it is a minority opinion that is not accepted within mainstream circles. You should have seen it when it was called Race of the Ancient Egyptians. Since then its gone through a major rewrite and is far better. It would be welcome if you could be more specific, we could always use some fresh eyes. --Woland (talk) 01:46, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't necessarily agree that the article is better. Looking through the archives, there was a lot more information in previous versions, though the information contained was controversial. I think many of the administrators were sick and tired of the controversy and they decided the best way avoid controversy was to trim the article down and place it on probation. The threat of punitive sanctions has basically stymied any debate on the issue. Wapondaponda (talk) 05:48, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

There was certainly more POV material and original research in the last article. And it certainly gave the impression that there was some huge controversy within Egyptology about the "race" of the Ancient Egyptians (which there isn't). So, yeah, it was a dreadful article. If you would read through the archives you'll see that administrators had nothing to do with this. The stripping of unsourced material and the rewrite to reflect the majority scholarly view was based on the consensus of editors. --Woland (talk) 13:50, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

While I don't disagree that previous articles contained pov and OR material, the current version isn't about the ancient egyptians, it is more of a discussion of Afrocentrism. The article is poorly referenced, only two websites. Books are good references, but reliable websites are definitely preferable because one can easily verify the material.

As an example, that this debate is not restricted to Afrocentrism, Charles Darwin, who was not an Afrocentrist, was just as intrigued about the race of the Ancient Egyptians. In the Descent of Man he writes:

"Thus Messrs. Nott and Gliddon ('Types of Mankind,' p. 148), state that Rameses II., or the Great, has features superbly European; whereas Knox, another firm believer in the specific distinctness of the races of man ('Races of Man,' 1850, p. 201), speaking of young Memnon (the same as Rameses II., as I am informed by Mr. Birch), insists in the strongest manner that he is identical in character with the Jews of Antwerp. Again, when I looked at the statue of Amunoph III., I agreed with two officers of the establishment, both competent judges, that he had a strongly-marked negro type of features; "[1]'Wapondaponda (talk) 15:55, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

And no, you are wrong. Books are nearly always better references than free-view websites because they usually get reviewed in some form or other. It's not too much to expect you to go to your local website to verify my references. I have no problem using academic refs from pay-sites such as JSTOR but random internet crap is staying well out of this page. Moreschi (talk) 20:05, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oh, come on. Yes, it may occasionally have cropped in 19th-century scientific racism, but the majority of 19th-century discussion concerned the origin of the Egyptians, not their race. It is Afrocentrism that has brought this issue to mainstream attention, Afrocentrism that has popularised the debate, Afrocentrism that has dominated the discussion for the last 90 years or so. Clearly this article is going to be about the Afrocentric debate: without Afrocentrism, this article wouldn't exist. Moreschi (talk) 20:03, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

  "occasionally cropped up". That is your personal opinion. Josiah C. Nott and George Gliddon wrote about the subject in their 1855 book Types of Mankind. I don't think one would want to dismiss Charles Darwin as a fringe theorist. By this evidence, it is a fact the subject has existed outside of Afrocentrism.Wapondaponda (talk) 20:23, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

  Yes, it has, but you have nothing to show that the subject has any notability outside of Afrocentrism. No one writes books saying "Darwin talked about this": whole articles and books are written discussing the Afrocentric meme by highly reputable scholars (Frank Snowden, Lefkowitz, etc). And of course we can dismiss Darwin here. Although an enlightened man for his time, there's no reason to think he had any greater understanding of the issue than anyone else at the time. I suppose we can add a sentence to the "in academia" section to the effect that "the question occasionally arose in 19th-century scientific discussion" (although was it really an issue in the Egyptology of that time?), but clearly the main focus of this article must be Afrocentrism. Moreschi (talk) 20:26, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

  Wow, this thread has taken off... Anyways, I think we can all agree that books and scholarly peer-reviewed material trump those free-view personal websites that some people always consider reliable. Thats my opinion anyhow. --Pstanton (talk) 20:30, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

  By wikipedia standards, such books present adequate notability. For the purposes of history, it does not matter whether Darwin was more or less enlightened than anyone else of his time, the fact that he is notable, arguably one of the most notable scientists in history, and that he is on record discussion the issue, is relevant to the history of the subject. The fact the scientists who had no racial axe to grind, were interested, needs some representation in the article. Wapondaponda (talk) 20:37, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

  Not really. We do not include Darwin's views on female suffrage, although they are doubtless on record somewhere, because they aren't relevant. Darwin's relevance to Wikipedia is tied to evolution, not everything on which he ever expressed an opinion. As I said, a brief sentence noting that 19th-century scientists asked questions concerning the ROAE issue is fine. But this is not why the issue is notable and is not why we have an article. Afrocentrism is. Moreschi (talk) 20:42, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I find it astounding that there are people here who are trying to advance the notion that the only people concerned about the identity of the ancient Egyptians are Afrocentrists. The fact of the matter is that Whites have appropriated dynastic Egypt for centuries. One need only look at their whitewashed images of Egyptian artifacts, their portrayals of Egypt in cinema where the only people of color appear as slaves, while Egyptian royalty is just flat-out White. And anyone who grew up in the 1950s and earlier remembers the lie that Black people never produced a civilization of any note, never had a written language, had no culture, that we didn't have the intelligence to do so. And then there's Zahi Hawass making a false/misleading announcement that the reconstruction teams identified Tutankhamun as "Caucasoid." This kind of crap is the status quo that has been challenged. And unable to sustain their lies any longer, now that the image of a White, or Semitic, or certainly non-Black dynastic Egypt has been firmly planted in the minds of the general public as pervading, unconscious assumptions, these people act as though those who now challenge that disinformation, who seek to refute those racist lies not only have fabricated their evidence, but that they've even fabricated the existence of the very paradigm (the Eurocentric myth of a White or Semitic Egypt) their scholarship seeks to overturn as well! The debate has been raised in the face of long-standing lies and abysmal ignorance on the subject fostered by racism, both calculated and unconscious/reflexive, ignorance, blind presumption and pop culture schlock. Zahi Hawass and his propaganda pushing, and the widespread attention his Tut announcement received, are perfect examples of this sort of twisted, passive-aggressive approach to this subject. When the head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities makes a statement with very clear and obvious implications regarding the "racial" identity of dynastic Egypt, after the unveiling of an outrageously whitewashed image of an Egyptian monarch, people pretend not to notice. But when he's called on it, and people object, the "mainstream" responds with, "Why, what's all the fuss?"

Such intellectual dishonesty is, frankly, pretty galling. And where such a response is the result of naivete or ignorance, it -- still -- is equally galling.

Ditto for the argument around this website that "racial" phenotypical models in forensic anthropology are no longer relevant or in use, except, possibly in the backward and race-obsessed U.S. -- which is simply not borne out by the facts. deeceevoice (talk) 09:00, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

npov

"radical afrocentric historiography" is far from neutral. Wapondaponda (talk) 04:44, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed.--Woland (talk) 04:48, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

(sigh) Of course, this was not going to be undisputed. I should have warranted the phrase radical Afrocentric historiography previously, but considering my workload the last days, this was simply not possible.

The usage of the term radical Afrocentric historiography is based on Yaacov Shavit's book History in Black. I think the book is quoted around here already somewhere. This is what he says in his preface:

"Thus, if historical myths and legends, or an invented history, play such a major role in the founding of every national reconstruction, the question that should concern us here is the nature of the distinct 'style' in which black Americans imagine their past. The answer to this question is that radical Afrocentrism, the subject of this study, which plays a central role in shaping the modern historical world-view of a large section of the African-American (or Afro-American) community, is far more than an effort to follow the line taken by many ethnic groups and nations in modern rewriting, inventing or developing collective identity and national history. Rather, it is a large-scale historical project to rewrite the history of the whole of humankind from an Anthropometric point of view. The result is a new reconstruction of world history: it is a universal history." (Emphasis added)

So, if you'd asked Shavit to write an article on the topic, how would he term it? My justified guess would be radical Afrocentric universal history. Of course, you can't put such a phrase on the cover of a book. History in black is shorter and draws more attention. The only thing I did was to replace "universal history" with "historiography", simply because the concept of universal history is already part of Shavit's analysis of the radical Afrocentric theories, and if the title of article would be based to such an extend on a single historian, that would be some sort of undue weight.

You might be wondering what the prefix radical has to do there. In the version of the article I am working on, this would be included as follows: Yaacov Shavit, in his study History in Black takes up the distintion Wilson Jeremiah Moses has made between "African-American intellectual life" and "wild Afrocentrism." He emphasizes that serious African-American scholars, too, "felt compelled to criticize the popular, or wild works." To avoid misunderstandings that might arise from his book, Shavit decidedly explains that it does not deal with African American studies, Black Studies or Afrocentrism in general, but only with "some Afrocentric literature".

That should do to justify the phrase radical Afrocentric historiography. There might be other literature that would suggest a different name for the whole topic, but I haven't read it. On the other hand, History in Black is one of the best and most reputable authoritative sources available, and if you only read the preface, you will see that to speak of radical Afrocentric historiography is warranted. You can't expect me to summarize this preface here completely. If you don't trust me to have understood it correctly, you'll have to get the book from the library yourself. If you would prefer to use a different name, based on another reputable source, of course we can discuss this here. Zara1709 (talk) 18:34, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Reading the Wikipedia articles on Universal history and Historiography I realized, that it is probably the historiography- part of the phrase that is hard to justify. Well, we can also term it radical Afrocentric historical views or probably something similar radical Afrocentric mythology on the other hand, would already be too critical, I think, to be NPOV. Zara1709 (talk) 18:50, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

The problem I have is with carrying the epithet "radical" in the introduction as if that was the mainstream thought. You've done a good job demonstrating that at least one expert possibly considers it that way; it's a long way to saying this is the mainstream thought on the subject. I don't have a problem with "Afrocentric historiography", just the "radical" part which to my mind is dubiously presented as the mainstream opinion. Nothing is less certain.--Ramdrake (talk) 19:31, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I have readded the npov tag, because the article as whole is about afrocentrism. From the comments made in the above section, even Charles Darwin was interested in the race of the Ancient egyptians. And he had nothing to do with Afrocentrism. From the very first sentence in the lead, Afrocentrism is introduced. In short the article is about Afrocentrism, and not about the Egyptians. Wapondaponda (talk) 19:35, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I concur with Ramdrake that it's far more neutral sounding without "radical". Also, it's always interesting when someone says "there is no controversy" about what has obviously been a controversy - it makes me wonder if everyone who dissents was driven off, in order to achieve "consensus", which shouldn't be the way it is ideally achieved. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 19:40, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

• "Radical" is OK, I guess, but essentially tautologous, as Afrocentric historiography is nearly always radical by definition (Black Athena may not look it, but any classicist will tell you it is). At any rate, the lede works fine without radical, and since this is admittedly tautologous, we can safely do without it. Moreschi (talk) 20:00, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
  • BTW, I have no problem with the "historiography" part. Much of this pseudo-debate is caused by Afrocentric fuss about how history is written; they claim that modern writing of history has written the supposed blackness of the ancient Egyptians out of the historical record. It's not just a question of history for them but mainly one of historiography. That, I think, is justifiable. Moreschi (talk) 20:11, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

• Regardless of whether they're actually important, can we please unlink all those red terms until the article they link to is actually written? I'm totally indifferent to the relative notability of radical Afrocentric historiography, but having it wiki-linked to a article which doesn't exist is just pointless. I myself don't have a problem with the term "radical Afrocentric historiography", but I DO that its being wiki linked is uncalled for right now. I tried to edit it, but my edit was promptly reverted with a rather cranky edit summary. --Pstanton (talk) 20:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Now this I really do take issue with. The article on Afrocentric historiography is potentially a very valid one. How is anyone ever expected to know that we need such an article except via redlinks. Redlinks are enormously valuable; they provide the most obvious way for a newbie to see that we have a gap in our coverage and to begin experimenting and filling in the gaps. Sure, they may not look pretty. Wikipedia as whole doesn't either. In short, Afrocentric historiography is 99 percent bollocks, but it is notable bollocks and can have an article as such. Moreschi (talk) 20:45, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

excellent suggestion! please can somebody with the appropriate wiki authority set up the article on Afrocentric historiography, with the recommended templates etc, so that those who have something to contribute on this topic can make a start?? Much obliged Wdford (talk) 13:16, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

You hardly need "appropriate wiki authority" to start a new article, and I need to get some references together again, but I suppose...Moreschi (talk) 13:27, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Non-afrocentric racial egyptology

Below is a bibliography of works from non-afrocentric scholars that deal with the subject of the race of the Ancient Egyptians

• Anthon, Charles. "Complexion and Physical Structure of the Egyptians". A classical dictionary,. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Text "isbn" ignored (help)
• Samuel George Morton Crania Ægyptiaca
• Rawlinson, George. "The People of Egypt". Ancient Egypt. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
• Morton. "Egyptian Ethnography". {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
• Kenrick, John. "Population and Language". Ancient Egypt Under the Pharaohs. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
• MacIver. "chapter 9". The Ancient Races of the Thebaid. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
• Nott. "Negro Types". Types of Mankind. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)

All these authors were not Afrocentrists, yet they were interested in the race of the egyptians. So this subject exists outside of Afrocentrism, and the article should reflect this. Wapondaponda (talk) 23:59, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

There seems to be some confusion here. Lots of 19th-20th century authors were interested in the race of Egyptians (and of many other ancient cultures) because that was the great age of "race theory". I could give you the name of other authors - like James Fergusson for example - who wrote about it at this time. All these people wanted to construct racial typologies and map them onto the history of civilisations. But the point is that this was an obsession of that particular era. Modern authors don't tend to work with these categories. It's not that they aren't interested in the issue of ancient migrations, cross-cultural influences etc, it's that they aren't typically defined in terms of whether populations were "Negroid and "Hamitic" intermingled with "Caucasoid" elements etc etc. What's more at issue is how Egyptians themselves strove to model racial/ethnic differences in their art and ideology, and how we can map cultural and genetic flows of influence. Paul B (talk) 09:50, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

This is ancient non-notable material. It is not discussed in reliable tertiary and modern secondary sources that discuss the subject. It can have a sentence here and a lengthier exposition at Historical definitions of race and appropriate summary articles of that page. The Afrocentric furore is the reason why we have an article here. Fact. Moreschi (talk) 13:32, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Why not just say WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Wapondaponda (talk) 16:59, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Yup, that's me. WP:SYNTH, on the other hand, is you. Moreschi (talk) 17:13, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how selecting quotes from 18th century scholars is synthesis. You are probably not the type to make compromises and have a bias, even encouraging other editors to create articles bashing afrocentrism. I don't care too much for afrocentrism myself, thats why the article is sour read, because it is filled with a discussion of Afrocentrism. Why not include information from people unrelated to afrocentrism. These are people with no axe to grind on the subject, and the meet all the requirements of WP:NOTE, WP:VERIFY and WP:RS. Isn't this the spirit on which wikipedia articles are supposed to be built. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:25, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

No, they do not. These people have no validity as scholars commenting on the topic, and you have not shown that they are notable to the topic as valid objects of discussion. Moreschi (talk) 17:28, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you have read any of the articles on the scholars. Samuel George Morton was an "enlightened" scholar of his time who has been referenced by modern scholars such as Stephen Jay Gould.Wapondaponda (talk) 17:40, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but pretty much anything any 19th-century scholar says on the subject of race is nearly always wrong and certainly always irrelevant for the purpose of modern scholarship. Certainly Morton is, reading his article. Not his fault, that's just how things were at the time. Moreschi (talk) 17:47, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, he referenced him in The Mismeasure of Man. Hint is in the title. Nevertheless, we aren't making judgements about the distinction of these scholars in their day, just that they can't nopw be quoted as authorities. Paul B (talk) 17:49, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

If that were the case, we might as well dispense with history, and only stuff from 2009 is relevant. What you are implying is an arbitrary set of standards that conforms only to your liking. If Morton was not notable, why does he have an article on wikipedia. Why don't you guys just admit, that you would like an afrocentric bashing article, and nothing else, even if it meets all wikipedia requirements. Just be honest about it. Morton, indeed is known for his relationship with scientific racism, that's besides the point, nobody is implying he is right or wrong, just what was observed by him and is in the historical record. This topic of the race of the egyptians did not spring up spontaneously in the 20th century by afrocentrists. It clearly has its roots in 18th and 19th century egyptology. Yet both Moreschi and Paul what to pretend that that is not the case. Wapondaponda (talk) 20:16, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but that's preposterous. By all means ask for non-involved opinions on the Reliable Sources noticeboard, but I assure you that no-one will argue that authors writing over a century ago are reliable sources on archaeology or racial difference. This is not an arbitrary standard. It's Wikipedia policy and it's also common sense. Neither of us have denied that the roots of the debate lie in 19th century anthropology. You are getting completely confused between notability and reliability. Lots of people who proposed theories that turned out be mistaken are notable. Paul B (talk) 20:34, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

That is not true, Charles Darwin's studies over 150 years ago are still being used. Though he got some things wrong, many of his observation were in fact correct. His studies are still the foundation for natural selection and sexual selection. Even some of his views on race are still accepted. So we cannot automatically discount any study just because its from the 19th century. Neither do we imply that they were right, that is why there is subsection clearly stating 19th century, so that information is placed in the appropriate context.Wapondaponda (talk) 20:44, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually Charles Darwin's studies are not being used in the way you mean. The Origin of Species would not be a reliable source for information about the actual evolution of plants and animals. No article could quote it for that purpose because its outdated. It would be a primary source for information about the history and early development of theories of natural selection. Darwin got many things right and many things wrong. It is obsolete as a source for information on science. It could go in a discussion of the history of the topic. What would be wrong would be to quote Darwin as support or criticism of opinions expressed by modern evolutiobnary scientists or geneticists. Paul B (talk) 12:33, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

If you want to create an article on historical theories of race in Egypt then go ahead. You have to be clear that you were dealing with specific debates at particular times, how the debates evolved over time, what the dominant racial typologes of the periods in question were, and what exactly was known about ancient Egypt in the relevant period. If you wanted to comment on how these theories fitted with modern understanding of the topic you'd have to know how current research corresponded with or contradicted what was known or assumed by writers at the time. And you'd have to do all that without violating WP:SYN. Paul B (talk) 17:32, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Paul for the advice, I just might do that. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:40, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

In truth, Paul, you are not in disagreement with me. Here is a summary of my observations. I would like to know if any of these observations is wrong.

• The race of the ancient egytpians has been a topic of interest since at least the 18th century.[2]
• In the 19th century, the topic was addressed by some of the notable scholars of the time, ie Charles Darwin, Samuel George Morton,Josiah C. Nott, George Rawlinson etc.
• Afrocentrism kicked off in the early 20th century.
• There was notable interest in the race of the ancient egyptians before the full emergence of Afrocentrism.
• Initial interest in the Race of the Ancient Egyptians was independent of Afrocentrism ie Charles Darwin, Samuel George Morton,Josiah C. Nott, George Rawlinson were not motivated or influenced by Afrocentrism.

Wapondaponda (talk) 16:58, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes that's probably pretty accurate. However, when "Afrocentrism" kicked off depends on how you define it. The term dates from the 1970s, but debates about the races of various ancient civilisations were certainly linked to authors, like Dubois, who wanted to emphasise black achievement. That's noticable from the 1910s onwards when you first start to get "black Egyptian" and other similar arguments linked to racial pride and civil rights debates. Paul B (talk) 17:40, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Would it then be fair to say that there has been interest in the race of the egyptians outside of Afrocentrism. The first sentence in the lead refers to Afrocentrism twice. This appears not to be balanced. It would be great if the article reflected a variety of views. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:53, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

"Notable interest"? You have not shown this. Moreschi (talk) 20:47, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Not a problem, if you have the time, this is an excerpt from a discussion of Josiah C. Nott's Types of Mankind

"No single publication was more infamous or influential in the history of nineteenth-century American Egyptomania than Josiah Clark Nott and George Robins Gliddon's 1854 Types of Mankind. Over 800 pages long, carefully compiled and lavishly illustrated, packed with data and provocative conclusions, Nott and Gliddon's Types of Mankind was an instant classic, a best-selling scientific textbook that went through over a dozen printings and which stayed in print until the turn of the century.""General Remarks on Types of Mankind". Wapondaponda (talk) 21:08, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Notable then. Notable now? Is there any evidence that any of these 19th-century scientists have any notability independent of how their cranky commentary fed into Afrocentrism (as Mr NightWatchmen helpfully points out below: his spelling is rather wonky but his point is pretty valid). Does anyone read these texts now? Or take them seriously? Or view them as a serious contribution to scholarship? Or write books on them? Or mention them in scholarly articles on the ROAE debate? Sure, this stuff may well be useful at Historical definitions of race. I fail to see how it helps here. Moreschi (talk) 21:23, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

No need to split hairs. Yes they are notable by all standards that are employed wikipedia. I think I have demonstrated that. The only thing I have not done is persuade Moreschi. Many of these authors and their works are still being referenced today. Many of these scholars, such as Notts, were deeply embedded with the scientific racism of the day. Any relationship with afrocentrism is not quite as simple.

I think I have provided enough evidence, that any person with a reasonable disposition should be able to agree, that the sources are reliable, verifiable, notable and provide more context into the origins of this controversy than is currently the case. If you take the time to do your own independent research, you will find that to be the case. To sum it up, there is enough evidence to demonstrate that the topic of the race of the egyptians has existed independent of Afrocentrism. In order to meet guidelines on neutrality, the article should reflect this .Wapondaponda (talk) 22:16, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

The article already does. One sentence, which I have added, is WP:DUE. You have not shown that your hoary old sources have any notability as far as modern scholarship is concerned. The crux is, per WP:N, is your material discussed by WP:RS (and please don't pretend that this old 19th-century nonsense is itself WP:RS). I'm still waiting for you to satisfy the basic requirement of WP:N. Moreschi (talk) 22:20, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

One sentence, which you decided by yourself. I guess only your opinion's count, and everyone else's doesn't. I always thought wikipedia was a corroborative effort, Hmmm, WP:OWN?. I am not proposing deleting any material, though i don't agree with a lot that is written, I am proposing adding information from 18th and 19th century scholars. Almost every major article has a history subsection that describes the development of the concept described in the article.Wapondaponda (talk) 22:34, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes. But, the meme here truly begins with Afrocentrism and Garvey and you've not shown that anything before that is notable. Everything currently there satisfies WP:N as the subject of discussion in reliable secondary sources. Your material satisfied nothing but WP:SYNTH. Absent discussion in reliable secondary/tertiary sources your material is {{offtopic}} and belongs at Historical definitions of race. Moreschi (talk) 22:45, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

If you are addressing the afrocentric meme, yes, it begins with Garvey. There are some of us who are not interested in one particular meme, but the whole subject. Take a look at this book. The Ancient Races of the Thebaid . It addresses the subject directly in detail, and no original research is required to extract content. It is wrong to stifle information from non-afrocentric scholarship. Wapondaponda (talk) 23:07, 29 January 2009 (UTC) You guy are right on about alot but it seems that many of the first afrocentrist were acutaly some of the first european vistors to Egypt such as people like Constantin-François Chassebœuf who carelesly atributed The ancient Egyptian civilization on little to no evidence than the fact that egypt was in africa and some monuments had so called negro appearences so thats why some of the early white people to study egypt are the biggest poster children for modern day afrocentrism which started to take hold in the late 60's--NightWatchmen (talk) 18:13, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Article history

The history of the article goes back to mid 2008, but the talk page discussions extend to 2005. Wouldn't it be appropriate to merge the histories of previous articles. Its as though there is an attempt to hide stuff. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:25, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

No. The previous history is clearly available behind the redirect at Race of ancient Egyptians - and probably behind a bunch of other redirects from old titles, too. Moreschi (talk) 17:27, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Afrocentric historiography

Hi everyone. The article on afrocentric historiography now exists. It is intended to debate the evidence for and against, as "history of the debate" sites already exist. The first draft is very basic - please everyone assist to build it up.Wdford (talk) 10:52, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

What a miserable piece of....

I've placed a "balance" tag at the top of this. The article is only marginally informative and incredibly skewed. What a piece of junk. deeceevoice (talk) 17:36, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, some editors are WP:OWN the article. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:39, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Now seems like the necessary time to point out the template at the top of the page: "The Arbitration Committee has placed this article on probation. Editors making disruptive edits may be banned by an administrator from this and related articles, or other reasonably related pages." Deeceevoice, please avoid seeming to disparage others' work. Use the edit summary to briefly describe your edit. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:01, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Deeceevoice is right. Some editors are actually taking advantage of the fact that the article is on probation to skew the article. They know that dissent, even if justified, is probably not welcome. Wapondaponda (talk) 18:25, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I really have no idea what the deal is with people not assuming good faith with this article. Calling the article "a piece of junk" does nothing to further the dialog about what should or shouldn't be in this article or how it should proceed. Is the article skewed? Yes. It is skewed towards main-stream scholarship and the specific controversy that deals with Afrocentrism; this is when such policies as WP:Fringe and WP:Undue come into play. If you feel shut-out on the talk page then it is fairly easy to set up a WP:RfC. Which I did a few months back with little to no response. Its just an article people. Lets work together.--Woland (talk) 19:20, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oh, for heaven's sake. Of course this article is skewed. It is skewed entirely in accordance with WP:DUE and WP:FRINGE, which, put briefly, states that notable theories regarded by fringe by mainstream scholarship get written about as notable fringe theories. That is, we describe them, their notability, their history, and their standing in relation to academic opinion. We do not advocate them or go into huge detail as to why they thought of as fringe; we just state their relationship to mainstream scholarship. Afrocentric ideas surrounding the ROAE issue are, well, fringe, and also notable. The result is this article. Wikipedia is built on reliable sources. Not Martin Bernal, Diop, or Deeceevoice's enormous collection of WP:SYNTH at Talk:Tutankhamun. Sources. Reliable ones. Moreschi (talk) 21:35, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Those who are contributors to this article would do well to read the information contained at Talk: Tutankhamun and your abysmally inadequate attempt at rebuttal, Moreschi, and to take both into account here. ;) I've restored the balance tag. It's a reasonable addition, because -- clearly -- I'm not the only contributor here who feels the article is skewed. deeceevoice (talk) 03:06, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

There is no arguing with you. Sure, at that talk page I could have listed tens of references supporting each and every one of my claims, and rebutting yours, but they would have been dismissed as racist, and since nearly all of them are cited in this article anyway, what's the point? Moreschi (talk) 20:52, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh, please, Moreschi. That's about the weakest excuse for not offering a rebuttal I've ever heard. Any moron could have written it. The only conclusion left to draw is that you can't effectively rebut the points I've presented. Indeed, what you've written there thus far doesn't begin to hold up under scrutiny and is, in fact, in some cases contradictory and just plain inaccurate. If that's the best you can do, then I understand perfectly your failure to respond. ;) deeceevoice (talk) 17:02, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I am also getting frustrated by the censorship. I have been calling for the FRINGE stuff to be debated somewhere - not in the mainstream articles, obviously, but in a dedicated FRINGE article with proper caveats - as the information itself is valid. Obviously we need to use proper evidence not unsupported opinions, but there is a lot of referenced evidence available. An article like Race of the Ancient Egyptians seems the perfect place to record the evidence, but it is continually censored out. We need an article that allows the evidence to be presented - what do we need to call it please? Wdford (talk) 07:25, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Fair point. Actually, I suggest not one article, but lots of little ones. See below. Moreschi (talk) 20:52, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I understand the concerns for balance, I certainly agree that the other side's views and evidence could be expanded on with proper disclaimers. Because in the end Moreschi is right that this theory is fringe and not accepted as fact in mainstream academia. At the same time, I don't think this article is "junk" by any means. It mentions an ongoing debate, is somewhat slanted to one side, but then again, a majority of research and evidence is on one side. I think it would be fine to expand on the evidence and arguements used by people like Diop as long as it is noted that their views are not shared by accepted research or authorities in the field of Egyptology... And lastly, I think I need to mention Wikipedia:Etiquette. It is Wikipedia POLICY to Assume good faith --Pstanton (talk) 07:50, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Well and good, except that when we try to expand on the evidence and arguments it gets deleted on some or other technicality to do with "scope". Wdford (talk) 08:20, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think trying to keep the article within the scope that was reached by consensus has anything to do with censorship or technicalities. Again, please assume good faith. The fact is that it is largely an issue of scope. The consensus was established some time ago. Obviously consensus can change, however it is difficult to get along with editors who are continually shouting accusations of censorship. The article as it was before had serious issues. Personally, my only concern is letting it go that way again, that is into a bloated piece of original research and novel synthesis. Perhaps an article called Black Egypt, that is, undue the redirect and create a separate article (or a similar term that is actually used by Afrocentrists, I have no idea what that term would be)would be more appropriate for this material with a summary section appearing within this article.--Woland (talk) 15:22, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm... well that isn't the way things should be going. Perhaps you could start an entirely new section like "Arguments/Evidence for a Black Egypt"? That way the edits wouldn't be reverted as vandalism at least... I think the issue is that the arguments in support of the black egypt theory need to be presented without implying that it mainstream scholarship. Maybe someone could right up a sample section of arguments in support on a subpage of their user page and we could come to a consensus here on its viability. Although one problem with writing this would be that there really aren't very many reliable sources in support of this theory... I'm thinking that most sources that support the black egypt theory usually look something like this. http://www.freemaninstitute.com/RTGhistory.htm

In conclusion I think we're simply going to have to come to a consensus on how to edit the article HERE first, or we're just going to end up in a revert war. --Pstanton (talk) 08:30, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

There has been too much heat here already, and I foresee a drawn-out semantic debate about "what does historiography actually mean?" Your suggestion was good - please see Arguments/Evidence for a "Black Ancient Egypt"? as a first draft. I would value all constructive feedback. Meanwhile, let's propose this miserable stumbling corpse of an article for speedy deletion on the basis that it has been censored to the point of not saying anything at all. Wdford (talk) 11:00, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Now that's just silly. Try anything of the sort and you will likely get banned from this article, which would be a waste. See my post below for how to accommodate all this. Moreschi (talk) 20:52, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Moreschi, you need to chill and stop threatening people. Anyone who thinks an article should be scrapped is perfectly within their rights to nominate it for deletion. I actually agree with Wdford that this is a pretty miserable article that says very little useful or interesting about the subject it's supposed to treat. deeceevoice (talk) 08:31, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

(Radical) Afrocentric historiography

Since Afrocentric historiography is currently proposed for deletion, we better discuss this here. This is what Moreschi wrote, among other, at Talk:Afrocentric historiography:

Ok, here we go. This a valid topic but we need to get the scope sorted. "Historiography" refers to studies of the writing of history. Studying the writing of history is something Afrocentrists do rather a lot, essentially pointing out how, allegedly, traditional Western scholarship has marginalised the contribution of Africans due to racism, intentional or otherwise. Clear? There's a whole BIG essay about this in Black Athena Revisited, near the back, which talks about the Afrocentrist take on past historians. Obviously if it's in BAR then Bernal must talk about the issue in Black Athena itself, and I assume other Afrocentrists (Diop etc) did as well. That is the correct scope of this article, and while references exist to write it properly, you will not get them simply by forking the current Ancient Egyptian race controversy article. Moreschi (talk) 20:55, 29 January 2009 (UTC) And before anyone asks, the the other major hole in our coverage of Afrocentrism is Afrocentrism and Ancient Greece (or some similar title), and yes, that is an equally valid article that needs to be written separately from this one. The sources exist for all of this. Get a copy of Black Athena Revisited and then get hold of the scholarly works that that references. Kindly do not plunge in medias res without having done the proper basic research. Moreschi (talk) 21:00, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm quoting this here, because apparently there is a misunderstanding about the definition of 'historiography'. Our Wikipedia article on historiography says that it is "the study of the way history has been and is written"; I already mentioned that this somehow irritates me, because coming from the German language is associate with Historiographie or de:Geschichtsschreibung simply the writing of history (and not the study of the writing of history). The lead sentences of the German WP article are much more concise than those of the English one. Roughly translated: "Historiographie (Geschichtsschreibung) refers to the depiction (Darstellung) of historic events. The modern writing of history with scientific pretension (Anspruch) is part of scientific history." In German any account of historic events (no matter how unscientific, could be described as Historiographie. The English article is much less clear. Apparently there are 3 possible meanings of historiography. Since I don't know which specialized encyclopaedia to look at, I simply conducted an Internet search. These definitions are from answers.com:

1. The principles, theories, or methodology of scholarly historical research and presentation.
2. The writing of history based on a critical analysis, evaluation, and selection of authentic source materials and composition of these materials into a narrative subject to scholarly methods of criticism.
3. A body of historical literature.

I only indented to use 'historiography' in the last sense. I would like to have an article on the body of (radical) Afrocentric historical literature. However, since I've learned from previous discussions here, I am not going to create that article before we have at least a rough consensus what its name and scope should be. But obviously we need an article on the whole body of (radical) Afrocentric historical literature. (I can explain that 'radical' later.) To have one article specifically about ancient Egypt is misleading, because it gives readers the impression that we would discuss (Radical) Afrocentric historiography as a scientific theory, which is not the case. (See the "Does this article overstate the debate?" section above.) This doesn't mean that there isn't a warrant for an article like 'Afrocentric views about ancient Egypt' or similar - I think such an article would actually be useful to accommodate the material on the various controversies surrounding Tutankhamun, Cleopatra VII and Great Sphinx of Giza. This is what made Wdford join the debate in the first place. We have quite some material on the controversies about the race of the Great Sphinx of Giza etc. , but it probably is undue weight to add this to the respective articles. I personally don't care, but since Wdford thinks that this is undue weight it would be better if simply had a specialised article for it, which would be this one.

However, if we ever want to have a halfway decent article on the issue, we need to have one about the body of (radical) Afrocentric historical literature in general, regardless of whether we want to call that article (radical) Afrocentric historiography (my suggestion) or something else. To have one article about Afrocentric views concerning ancient Egypt and one concerning ancient Greece is, honestly, idiotic. The argument that ancient Greece received a highly substantial (racial, not only cultural) influx from ancient Egypt is probably the cornerstone of the views expressed in books like Black Athena. (You know that its initial name should have been African Athena.) Probably we can warrant a specific article about Afrocentric views about ancient Egypt, but we certainly need one about the Afrocentric writing-of-history in general. We would only need to discuss whether the name Afrocentric historiography is appropriate. (And I can always justify the 'radical'-prefix then, later.) Zara1709 (talk) 16:44, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

This is not how I define historiography - and not, I believe, how the majority of Anglo-Saxon scholarship does either, although I agree it's a very vague word - but yes, you have many fair points here. See below for my response. Moreschi (talk) 20:35, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Unilateral action

Moreschi is making unilateral decisions by himself, when a consensus is emerging on the talk pages regarding a variety of issues. Firstly Paul and others have agreed, that race of the ancient egyptians topic exists outside of Afrocentrism. Secondly that if the article has in its title, the term controversy, it only makes sense to have different viewpoints. If it only has one viewpoint, then it is not a controversy. Wapondaponda (talk) 20:29, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

This is now degenerating into trolling. I have explained very clearly why your WP:SYNTH is unacceptable without supporting references from modern secondary/tertiary sources. Could you please just read some basic policy? You are trying to make it sound as though the centuries old-ramblings of the first Egyptological amateurs are a) in any way notable and b) should be taken seriously. The first is probably provable, you just haven't bothered to do so. The latter is unacceptable. Moreschi (talk) 20:33, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Please read WP:SYNTH, a few quotes:

"Synthesis occurs when an editor puts together multiple sources to reach a novel conclusion that is not in any of the sources." There is no conclusion from that is indicated in the 18th century material. In fact almost all the scholars seem ambivalent on the issue. Scholars such as Morton, Nott and Gliddon believed the egyptians were not Negroes.

The second quote from WP:SYNTH,

"Summarizing source material without changing its meaning is not synthesis; it is good editing."

You admit that you want to use his own made up definitions to create articles, that sounds more like WP:SYNTH to me. Wapondaponda (talk) 21:02, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

No, I do not. I am suggesting that as a reason for why lots of little articles might just be more coherent than one big article. There's a world of difference. Now onto your point. These people are not "scholars": certainly not scholars we can use as references for this subject. Most of them are not even early Egyptologists. They are a bunch of random names you have culled together without any grounding in modern sources to display notability or relevance. If that's not synthesis I don't know what is. Moreschi (talk) 21:07, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

We are not comparing their studies to modern studies, no, its historical context. There is a subsection entitled "origins". What is the point of having an origins subsection, if there is no history. Its pretty much standard on any article of detail to have historical information, some examples

• Race_(classification_of_human_beings)#History
• Evolution#History_of_evolutionary_thought, "Evolutionary ideas such as common descent and the transmutation of species have existed since at least the 6th century BC"

Wapondaponda (talk) 21:20, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, obviously. That I concede. However, the problem is that your stuff is at most tangentially relevant to the subject of this article, the Afrocentric meme, although there is some relevance as Afrocentrists clearly later resurrected some of this 19th-century crankiness. But what you have written is just way too much for an article this size. WP:UNDUE again. Cut it down it down to a couple of sentences, post that here on the talk page, and we can get something reasonable. And try to pick the authors most relevant to Afrocentrism, Egyptology, or indeed anything faintly notable to the topic at hand. Moreschi (talk) 21:24, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Your deep interest in "Afrocentrism memes" should not hold the entire article at ransom. There is a lot of information that does not have any direct connection with Afrocentrism. These sources, directly deal with the issue of the race of the ancient egyptians. Take this book for example:

Thomson, Arthur (1905). The Ancient Races of the Thebaid. Clarendon Press. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

I don't see how one can get any more direct. Wapondaponda (talk) 21:35, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

That, from 1905, is nothing more than a classic example of pseudoscientific racial classifications floating around at the time. We have a full article on this at Historical definitions of race. It has nothing to do with the NOTABILITY of the controversy. Or, if it does, you have not shown it by producing references to this material in modern reliable scholarship - the sort of stuff with which we actually write Wikipedia articles per WP:N.

Look. Clearly there is semi-relevant material here that is mostly unrelated to Afrocentrism (or has a tangential connection). But the notability of this material is essentially non-existent, most particularly since it was not produced by actual Egyptologists. We can have a couple of sentences on it, a short paragraph, as a pre-cursor to the actually notable material. Just cut down a bit what you wrote originally and it will all be fine. Moreschi (talk) 22:04, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Evolution#History_of_evolutionary_thought, "Evolutionary ideas such as common descent and the transmutation of species have existed since at least the 6th century BC". The article includes information from 6th century BC scholars, though nobody is going to reference studies from the 6th century. It is part of historical development of knowledge. The same goes for the article on the article on Race. As for Egyptologists, George Gliddon was an Egyptologist, and spent much of his life in Egypt[3]. He provided several Egyptian Crania to Samuel George Morton, who analysed them in his book Crania Aegyptiaca; or, Observations on Egyptian ethnography, derived from anatomy, history, and the monuments.. In the Descent of Man, Darwin has at least one chapter devoted entirely to the races of man. In it he references the studies of Egyptologist, Gliddon, and compares them to his own studies of race. David Randall-MacIver was also an Archeologist and an Egyptologist. He was appointed egyptology curator of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Wapondaponda (talk) 22:44, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

A series of memes

(To Wdford, Zara, and others)

What I suggest is this. Afrocentrism, by and large, consists of a series of memes. This is nobody's definition, other than my own, but I believe it will clarify how to write articles on this knotty issue.

Think of a series of memes. "The ancient Egyptians were black" is meme 1. "Cleopatra was black" is meme 1.5. "Tutankhamun was black" is "meme 1.5.1. "The Greeks stole all their cultural innovations from the Greeks" is meme 2. "The Greeks stole Greek philosophy from the Book of the Dead is meme 2.5. And so on.

Given sufficient notability for each of these memes (which there is, by and large), write a separate article for each and to link to it from here and/or Afrocentrism. We can go with titles such as Afrocentrism and Cleopatra, Afrocentrism and Tutankhamun, Afrocentrism and Ancient Greece, or Afrocentrism and Ancient Greece and Egypt, etc. The first two would be valid summary style sub-articles of this one. The latter a sub-article of Afrocentrism. Moreschi (talk) 20:31, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

"This is nobody's definition, other than my own,", that sounds like original research. Wapondaponda (talk) 20:34, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, just an original definition, but whatever. All I am suggesting is that this definition helps clarify why lots of little articles on this topic will work better than a couple big ones. For years the "one big article" approach was tried, and it failed horribly. We just got a confused mess. Spin things out in accordance with WP:SS and we might actually get some coherent and complete coverage. Moreschi (talk) 20:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

• It is worth pointing out that we do not HAVE to have vast articles spelling out the pseudoscientific arguments of Diop and kind. Obviously they need to be explained but not elaborated upon, and always in their context as pseudoscience. See Dbachmann's post here. Moreschi (talk) 21:29, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I accept your concept of the related memes, and we can obviously have separate cross-referenced articles on each section of the debate if we really absolutely positively have to, but why? I still don't see why it would not be more sensible and coherent to combine them all into a single article, as they are clearly related and overlapping? You mention a previous confused mess, but I wasn't involved in that, and I believe there are enough intelligent people in the world to do it properly - perhaps you could help us to keep it unconfused (without simply deleting half the material, that is). I fully agree with you that many Afrocentric claims are based on pseudoscience, but there is some real science behind parts of it too, and the best way to expose the pseudo-ness (if indeed there is any) is to air the evidence, not to squash it. Who knows - perhaps some of the alternative evidence is quite persuasive after all? Wdford (talk) 23:51, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Wdford mostly. I don't consider there to be really any basis for this theory however, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be mentioned. I think the arguments and evidence for a black Egypt, however flawed and refuted by academia at large, are valid points that need to be mentioned along with the reasons and evidence that they have been dismissed by experts. --Pstanton (talk) 00:01, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree, with both Pstanton and Wdford. An encyclopedia should be source of information, let the readers judge the information by themselves. As long as the information contained meets the standards WP:RS and WP:N, ee should not censor information whether it is for or against our personal opinions. Of course we are limited by page size, so we have to focus on the most critical aspects. Wapondaponda (talk) 00:27, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Has Moreshi ever watched Basil Davidson-Nile Valley Civilizations (Origin)? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTr6JnKN3qo and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FciCAXYWx3s&feature=related.--Lusala lu ne Nkuka Luka (talk) 09:04, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Wdford. Moreschi's approach reads like Cliffs Notes. The truncated, expurgated version he seems to favor is only marginally informative and, because it is merely (and barely) the armature of a decent article, gives much of the countervailing information extremely short shrift. Not only that, it is abysmally boring. This is an encyclopedia, people. Let's try to write something -- yes, factual -- but informative and reasonably comprehensive/inclusive as well. deeceevoice (talk) 15:52, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Merge

Based on discussions at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arguments/Evidence for a "Black Ancient Egypt"?, the community seems supportive of merging content into this article. I propose merging the current article with the version dated 17th August, that was before Moreschi redirected Race of the Ancient Egyptians and created this article. In fact, looking through the Talk page archives, I don't seem to find any discussion on moving the article from Race of the Ancient Egyptians to Ancient Egyptian race controversy. At prima facie, it seems to have been a unilateral decision by Moreschi. We can use this version, and just strip out any original research or unverifiable claims. Wapondaponda (talk) 16:35, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Please read through the archives more carefully. This was not a unilateral decision. There was a long drawn-out discussion and consensus was reached. I have no idea why you would want to return to article full of original research. --Woland (talk) 16:49, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Could you provide the link, because I could not find any discussion of a merger. Wapondaponda (talk) 16:53, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Start here. --Woland (talk) 20:26, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I read through, doesn't seem to have been consensus. Big dynamo was evidently in strong opposition, after he was banned, all dissent was squashed. I think that was a very discouraging move for editors who had worked on the article. I think they felt threatened. No wonder Moreschi is so confident, the problem is he has managed to create some major original research by introducing the neologism "Afrocentric meme". This so called "afrocentric meme" as I have demonstrated, is just one component of the controversy. There is genuine scientific inquiry into the origin of egyptians, which includes egyptian ethnography. There are modern scholars who study this who are not Afrocentrists. Take for example Dr Sonia Zakrzewski, evidently she is not an Afrocentrist, yet references from the article Population Continuity or Population Change: Formation of the Ancient Egyptian State, were deleted from the old article. We need to restore this information. Several independent editors have expressed their disapprovalWapondaponda (talk) 21:19, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Big dynamo was a troll who refused to adhere to policy. Personally, I couldn't understand most of what he was talking about, ever. No one felt threatened. There was no censorship. There were at least seven people in agreement with the move and rewrite. I'd call that a consensus. As mentioned in the archive there was discussion about adding information to the Origin of the Nilotic peoples article. Perhaps that would be better suited to the kind of information you're looking to add. There could also be (as I mentioned above in a separate thread) an article called Black Egypt (or something). Both redirect to this article now of course but that could easily change. There should definitly be an article from the biological anthropology stand point and something about archaeogenetics.

The fact is that this article has a specific scope. People seem to be ignoring that in these discussions. Sure, the scope can change. But why? I see no reason to take something that is specifically about a controversy and add a bunch of other stuff to it. The article before was huge, unweildy, and almost entirely original research and novel synthesis. There was also a lot of conflating between race and population genetics, which just irks me. This is largely why I am against adding a bunch of the same material back in. --Woland (talk) 21:48, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the old article was huge, and may have had some unnecessary information. The decision that Moreschi et al made was to arbitrarily select the "afrocentrism meme" and delete the rest of the content, regardless of its relevance. That is why folks posting to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arguments/Evidence for a "Black Ancient Egypt"? are saying that the particular article is better referenced than this one. In fact almost all the references in this article are connected to just one book, Black Athena. Snowden, bard, lefkowtiz and Muhly are all connected to Black Athena and they make up more than 55% of the footnotes and 75% of the references. The article should be named Black Athena, as it has a very narrow scope. Wapondaponda (talk) 22:08, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

We didn't arbitrarily select anything. We looked at what main-stream scholarship said about the Ancient Egyptians. We looked at what main-stream scholarship says about race. We then decided to remove the original research and focus on the controversy. This controversy does not exist within main-stream Egyptology it exists within Afrocentrism.

I have no idea where all of this hostility, incivility and assumption of bad faith is coming from. The many accusations being leveled against people are absurd and rude.

I have no real problem with merging some of the stuff in that article with this article as it is now, but I think merging it with an older version is a huge mistake.--Woland (talk) 22:33, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Wapondaponda. Moreschi and Woland kept threatening people like Big-dynamo. I tried to add my voice in support of Big-dynamo. I got threatened too. I left the discussion for not being banned! I think we have to go back to the old article and see from there what can be improved. The old article was far better than his one patronised mainly by Moreschi and Woland.--Lusala lu ne Nkuka Luka (talk) 22:30, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that everyone, regardless of their opinions about the subject should assumption of bad faith. Woland, with regard to your assertion that you looked at main-stream scholarship, how come almost all the references in this article are related to Black Athena/Black Athena revisited. Is such a narrow range of sources enough to constitute "mainstream scholarship". As Lusala has said, there didn't seem to be an overwhelming consensus when the article was moved. Wapondaponda (talk) 22:54, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I skimmed the August 7 incarnation of "Race of ancient Egyptians," and I find it vastly superior to this article in its current form. It's certainly more informative and more encyclopedic in scope than this tragically truncated specimen.

IMO, what constitutes "mainstream" scholarship is up for debate. "Mainstream" is far too often twisted/conflated to mean "majority," and -- even if one somehow accurately were able to assess the extent to which a certain school of thought might prevail over another -- the two terms certainly are not parallel. The Discovery Channel, with its documentaries on Egypt, that have featured a Black Tutankhamun and a Black Nefertiti, that have featured enactments of scenes of Black Egyptians wearing humongous afro wigs ("enveloping wigs" in the parlance of Egyptologists), is certainly no less "mainstream" than those who hold such representations as "Afrocentric myth." And, yes, Basil Davidson is a highly respected scholar on ancient African civilizations -- and exceedingly mainstream as well. No one, to my knowledge, has characterized his writings as "fringe." And I don't believe the term "Afrocentrist" has been applied to him, either -- though he most assuredly is. Ditto for Petrie, Herodotus, et al. Yet, somehow, the scholarly contributions of such individuals are either dismissed or ignored when discussing Afrocentric scholarship because it doesn't conveniently fit the distorted image of lunatic-fringe, African-American wannabe "scholars" hunched over their respective manuscripts, trying to salve the wounds of slavery and self-loathing by cooking the historical facts in favor of Black achievement and Black hegemony.

Finally, Moreschi's "Afrocentric meme" terminology -- certainly, a neologism (who among us had ever heard or read it before seeing it here?) -- to my ear, at least, sounds as though he's putting what is rigorous scholarship on the level of rumor or cyber myth: say it often enough, and it becomes "truth" -- certainly an outrageously inaccurate, unfair mischaracterization, and exceedingly POV. deeceevoice (talk) 23:34, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

• If I can insert my own opinion into this thread, which isn't going anywhere, for what its worth I think Moreschi's use of the term "meme" is valid in the context of this article, I think Deeceevoice is wrong when on the issue of mainstream scholarship being debatable. I believe that mainstream scholarship is almost universally accepted as research that has been published in a peer-reviewed academic journal without being refuted. That being said, we need to show and provide sources for arguments in favor of a black egypt, but I seriously doubt we will find what I'd term as "mainstream scholarship" to use as sources.

And to back up my definition of "Mainstream" when used as an adjective for scholarship is http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mainstream

And furthermore, I'd like to point out that Woland has been incredibly civil despite being repeatedly accused of making threats and acting in bad faith. --Pstanton (talk) 02:20, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

The source you cite says nothing about peer review or academic journals; it speaks to what is "widely accepted." Regarding "mainstream," my metric is what is accepted/respected as rigorous scholarship by established prestigious, "mainstream" institutions and other respected scholars in the field, rather than what the average idiot on the street believes, or even what the majority academic community accepts as fact. If one defines "mainstream" by that metric then we're all going straight to hell. The average Joe on the street hasn't a clue that Basil Davidson has concluded that dynastic Egyptian civilization was at its core a Black civilization. Yet, the ignorance and obtuseness of the many doesn't nullify a lifetime of respected and honored research. If the research itself is respected and recognized as having been conducted using established, accepted methods of inquiry and analysis, even if the conclusions reached are novel and not prevailing ones, then that should be sufficient for inclusion, because the study of history is a continuum. When Ivan van Sertima published They Came Before Columbus and posited the pre-Columbian presence of Africans in the New World, many mainstream historians yucked it up. Twenty-five years after, however, mainstream archaeologists acknowledged the presence of Negroid/Australoid peoples in the Americas approximately 7,000 years before the arrival of Asiatic peoples in the New World. deeceevoice (talk) 02:48, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

The problem is the term "afrocentrism meme", as far as the sources that I have encountered, is not used. There has been a concerted effort to exclude any information that is not directly connected to Moreschi's "Afrocentrism meme". I don't see why the article should be held at ransom to it. A person who wants to learn about the physical appearance of the Egyptians is instead given a lecture on how people in the African diaspora were oppressed. Ancient Egypt has many mysteries that have intrigued humanity. The focus of the article should be on the science, egyptology and history concerning these mysteries, rather than tangentially trying to psychoanalyze certain populations. From what I have seen, Woland and Pstanton have their opinions, but have remained open minded about creating an informative article. Wapondaponda (talk) 02:42, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Resolve Probation

It seems to me that this discussion is deadlocked. Some of us want to include information which explains what the "Controversy" is actually about, while others of us want to limit the scope to just the history of the debate without explaining the debate itself. This has been dragging on for a while without any sign of a consensus emerging. Perhaps we should accommodate both parties by renaming this article as History of the Ancient Egyptian Race Controversy. That way the scope and content of the article will finally match the name, and the actual "Controversy" can be explained elsewhere, with an appropriate link to this sub-section. Comments please? Wdford (talk) 13:49, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't really think that renaming it that would solve the issues but an expanded history section is certainly warranted, some of which can be taken from the Afrocentrism article. Much of the information that people want to add to this seems to exists in other articles and could be added using WP:Summary. --Woland (talk) 15:30, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

What's your big plan, Moreschi?

Ok, I notice that Moreschi and Woland have objected to merge the material on the various controversies (Tutankhamun, Cleopatra VII, Great Sphinx of Giza and 'Kemet') here, but I fail to make out their arguments. It was, I think, to some extend justified to replace the version from August 2008 with a new one, but this doesn't excuse leaving the intended scope of this article undefined. If it's supposed to be about Afrocentric view about ancient Egypt, then the material on the controversies has to be included. What arguments do Afrocentrists use to illustrate that Tutankhamun was black, e.t.c.? How has academic criticism of Afrocentrism evaluated these arguments? and so on... If this article is not supposed to be about Afrocentric view about ancient Egypt... - what is this article supposed to be about, Moreschi? I personally would prefer to have an article radical Afrocentric historiography or similar that gives an overview about the development of Afrocentric universal history (Shavit) in general, without going into the details of such controversies as that about the Great Sphinx of Giza. But you have already indicated, Moreschi, that you would still want to keep this article. I can agree to that, but then, why do you object the merge. Either you must have a grand scheme for this article that is as yet beyond my comprehension or you are simply being stubborn? We really need a clarification of this. Zara1709 (talk) 14:44, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I have no problem with some material like that being added (maybe using WP:Summary style), I do think that we should keep things like WP:OR and WP:SYNTH in mind when doing so however.I think that this was the intended scope of the article but there has been disagreement largely over providing evidence for one side or another. Obviously the arguments used by both sides are relevant when they are from secondary and tertiary source material but I feel that this could easily degenerate into something that lists eveidence then counter-evidence then counter-counter evidence ad infinitum...which is what the previous version looked like. It is always difficult to walk the line (when we are describing a controversy) between simple description using sources and arguing for one side or another., but this is what we should strive for. If that makes sense.--Woland (talk) 15:08, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

So, if Moreschi gives his 'ok', too, then we can merge the content from Arguments/Evidence for a "Black Ancient Egypt"? here? Hopefully we can all keep ourselves from jumping at each others throat for long enough, so that we actually work on the article. (edit conflict) WP:Summary applies, but only the other way round. In the articles Tutankhamun, Cleopatra VII, and Great Sphinx of Giza we should give an about 3-5 sentences summary of the debate stirred up by Afrocentrism, and here we would attempt to give an account of the whole debate. The importance of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH is self-evident. Zara1709 (talk) 15:39, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Why is Moreschi emerging as the informal leader of this article, It would be nice if consensus included Moreschi. But that does not have to be the case. There is no shortage of capable editors on wikipedia. At the moment, he is the only one who is not for restricting any progress. Wapondaponda (talk) 15:49, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I've returned to this issue only recently, and I came here today to ask the same question as Wapondaponda. What gives? Why are people kowtowing to Moreschi? He's just another editor who happens to be an administrator. Yes, he keeps threatening people, but so what? Moreschi got someone to ban me -- for nothing -- and the ban was immediately overturned because it was utterly groundless. Threatening "Afrocentric" contributors who concentrate on Black subject matter with subject matter bans is simply a means of trying to censor and intimidate people. Don't let it happen. As long as you're editing in good faith, trying to collaborate and contributing as you see fit to the development of a quality article, then everything should be copasetic. And if you do get banned for being righteous, then, again, so what? What's the point of being here if all you do is shuffle? This ain't no gottdamned plantation.

There's no need to start a separate article. Let there be one article, appropriately named. And if you get taken to the woodshed (AN/I) simply for working in good faith to make a better article, then I happen to believe there are those who will see that, who will back you up. Keep it civil. Keep it collegial. Keep it factual. But for God's sake, stop tip-toeing the f*** around Moreschi, and grow some, people!

My impression. My two cents.deeceevoice (talk) 16:22, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Appropriate name, Race of the Ancient Egyptians

Eventually, the article will return to its rightful name, "Race of the Ancient Egyptians". It is direct and succinct, with no fluff. The controversy should be a subsection of Race of the Ancient Egyptians. The reason is, their are certain things that are not controversial, I will name a few

• Egypt is located between subsaharan Africa and the Middle East. The Egyptians had frequent contact and often intermarried with middle easterners and Sub-Saharans.
• Egyptians spoke an Afro-Asiatic language, that is now all but extinct. Afro-Asiatic languages are indigenous to both blacks and middle easterners.
• The Egyptians depicted themselves in a variety of colors, but predominantly they depicted themselves as reddish brown.
• At present, the available evidence shows that the formation of the Egyptian State was an indigenous process ie, there is no evidence of an invasion of peoples from outside Africa.

Wapondaponda (talk) 15:43, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I can't see what any of those things have to do with race...I also can think of no good to reason as to why we would have any article called Race of people X (e.g. The Race of Americans, The Race of the Ancient Greeks etc), especially when that civilization doesn't exist anymore. Describing past populations in terms of modern racial categories is inherently anachronistic. On the other hand I think an article about the Archaeogenetics of Ancient Egypt or Physical Anthropology of Ancient Egypt or something like that, would be appropriate. --Woland (talk) 16:19, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

On one hand, I agree that race as a social construct, is difficult to apply to ancient populations. But it is not enough either to think of the ancient egyptians as just abstract people with no racial affinity to any modern day populations. The notion that the ancient egyptians were just egyptians seems to me to be running away from the problem. The ancient Egyptians either descended from a Middle Eastern population or a Sub-Saharan population or both.Wapondaponda (talk) 16:48, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Right, but I still don't understand the need to have an article that focuses on the race of a particular civilization (see examples above). Is there something special about the Ancient Egyptians that warrants this? Maybe, but I don't know. --Woland (talk) 18:50, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

"Archaeogenetics" is too narrow a topic - much of the supporting evidence is not DNA related. This would certainly be one topic within the desired scope of the article, but on its own it does not cover all that is required. Wdford (talk) 16:35, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

"Race" is no longer politically correct; it's generally viewed as a discredited term -- for a number of reasons. And I agree with Wdford that "archeogenetics" is far too narrow an approach. Something more akin to "Identity of the ancient Egyptians," or "Ethnicity of the ancient Egyptians," or something like that probably would be more suitable. deeceevoice (talk) 16:44, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I see the same problem with those titles as I see with the other. See above(Ethnically, they were Egyptian of course). There has obviously been a lot of physical anthropology done on the Ancient Egyptians and it may warrant its own article but I don't think that this article should be the main venue for that and I don't think that it needs to have race or ethnicity or identity. I can't find any other articles that deal with the issue by doing this and I see no reason to do it with this article. Call it whatever you will, Archaeogenetics of Ancient Egypt was simply meant to illustrate a possibility. --Woland (talk) 17:16, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I'll put in my twopence too: I've been watching the talk page silently for awhile now, and it seems the dispute revolves around two main points. First, it would seem that pretty much everybody agrees that the position of a Black (unqualified) Egypt is held by a minority of specialists. The first point of dispute seems to be how to qualify this minority: is it a standard, respected minority opinion, or is it the fringy-type minority opinion. The answer to this question, of course, dictates WP:WEIGHT. I've seen a number of references presented that seemed to suggest the former; however as for refutation of the strength of these arguments, the refuting arguments presented seemed to spring mostly from personal opinion as opposed to cited academic opinion (although some of these were presented too). The second bone of contention seems to revolve around whether the dispute (or controversy, or debate - name it what you will) is a modern one or one that is mostly historical and has since died down or been resolved. The sources presented so far seem to indicate that the dispute is in good part historical (many sources cited date back a century or more), with a rather recent revival (a half century or less) which seems to have been born in good part but convinvingly not totally in Afrocentric circles. I don't see a clear-cut picture showing the subect being a totally Afrocentric one: I see a historical question, mostly non-Afrocentric (by modern standards) and a more recent debate, this one arguably mostly Afrocentric.

I don't mean to argue in favour of one position or another. I just wanted to give you the impression of a mostly uninvolved editor (at least, I've been mostly uninvolved for the better part of a year - I used to be more involved). If my insights may be useful to some of you, build on them. I you feel they aren't useful, just ignore them; I certainly won't be offended. :) --Ramdrake (talk) 17:04, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

The title of the article could begin with the word Theories... as suggested somewhere.--Lusala lu ne Nkuka Luka (talk) 17:43, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Strict oppose. If this article is renamed into anything, that would be Afrocentric views concerning ancient Egypt. deeceevoice , you mentioned the Nordicists in your elaborate reply at Talk:Tutankhamun. What I would have written in my reply was, that it was them who made me become involved in this topic in the first place. If you want to have an article about the Race of ancient Egyptians, and the fringe theories about them, then you would also have to include the Nordicists, which I did. And then, in the previous discussion, consensus built in the direction that we did not want to include the material on the Nordicists and that this article should only be about the Afrocentric views concerning ancient Egypt (the 19th century views are also described as Afrocentric universal history by Shavit, b.t.w. ) Actually, by now I think that this is a great idea. And if you rather want to have an Archaeogenetics of Ancient Egypt, well we already have that one. Check the article Archaeogenetics of the Near East, where I created a section on ancient Egypt with the pre-August 2008 material from this article. Zara1709 (talk) 01:15, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Some Changes

Okay. I changed the lead. I didn't like it. Hated it. And judging from some of the commentary on this page, so did others. I hope this is better. If not, I don't own it. Change it -- just, please, not back to the way it was! First of all stuff I changed itself was incredibly POV. And blatantly inaccurate. The roots of the debate don't lie in the establishment of Afrocentrism as a programmatic/ideological reaction to opression and White supremacy. The debate started way before then. Herodotus' account of the ancient Egyptians as black and woolly-haired contrasts with what certain historians and others over the ages up to the present day (like Zahi Hawass) have been telling us. There's a disconnect there somewhere. It also contrasts with all the pop-culture schlock people around the world have been bombarded with in terms of highly Europeanized reproductions/facsimiles of Egyptian in art and artifact, and in print and mass media.

I'm sick of people pretending Afrocentrists are crackpot revisionists and the first and only ones to posit Black African beginnings to dynastic Egypt and to maintain that it was, and remained, essnetially a Black African civilization from its inception to its demise. The article as it was written, continued that misapprehension. The subhead referring to the ancient historical record hopefully will include varying accounts as to what the ancient Egyptians looked like and how they regarded themselves. Because the way it was written, it seemed as though Afrocentrists invented Black Egypt out of whole cloth -- when such is most certainly not the case. deeceevoice (talk) 17:33, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Whether the Ancient Egyptians were as black or as brown in skin color as other Africans may remain an issue of emotive dispute; probably, they were both. Their own artistic conventions painted them as pink, but pictures on their tombs show they often married queens shown as entirely black, being from the south (from what a later world knew as Nubia): while the Greek writers reported that they were much like all the other Africans whom the Greeks knew.::

I believe the above quote is trying to present evidence about their race rather than highlighting the race controversey it's self --Wikiscribe (talk) 17:45, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't know, seems relevant to me.--Woland (talk) 17:46, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

The text I've written is a toning down of the text of the, IMO, POV verbiage that existed before. And if Davidson's quote is evidentiary, then it is certainly no more so than the "neither black nor white" language -- that, frankly, is neither terribly helpful nor very instructive. Does that mean they might be Chinese, then? Maybe blue? At least Davidson's, IMO, exceedingly measured quote addresses the issue and gives a more instructive perception. deeceevoice (talk) 17:51, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Deecee the difference between the statement you added by Davidson and the sentence your refering to by Bard is the difinative notion Egyptian art and that it was realistic that will need a rebuttle which means this article is going back to the way it was prior rebuttle after rebuttle in other words trying to present evidence of there actual race because as you know there are many scholars and sources for their art being highly symbolic from pitch black statues to the lilly white alablaster statues. But back to statement by Bard which is making a note of a now very open debate about the notion of either they had to be among the black races or the white races in other words imposing a very United States of America social Construct /Aryan Model view on Race and forceing it upon the Ancient Egyptians which has been already chronicled also by the late Frank Yurco which fits into what the current state of what the article is suppose to be about the arguement not provideing evidence which is what the Davidison quote is doing, also your statement "Does that mean they were Chinese or Blue" crystalizes her and Frank Yurco arguement, also when do we start the DNA section because i know thats next.--Wikiscribe (talk) 18:55, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Way Forward

People, there is a strong sentiment that more information is better, provided it is quality stuff and not dribbling supposition and wishful thinking. With such a lack of consensus, I feel the only way to resolve the impasse is for those who are interested to build the expanded site, and then everyone pitch in to improve the quality until we are AOK. There are a lot of sites out there that touch on these issues, and all of them could be reduced and streamlined by a three-line referral to this site once this site exists. The voting so far at the Arguments/Evidence for a "Black Ancient Egypt"? deletion debate is 5 to delete and 9 to retain in some improved form, with many suggesting that that site be merged in here.

I suggest the following template:

Lead;

The mainstream view - to ensure no reader is confused;

A range of sections covering the various disputed topics, using only "scientific evidence" and not just "unsupported personal observations".

A "history of the debate" section.

A final section, listing a selection of the "unsupported personal observations", but clearly noting that these are in fact "unsupported observations".

There is a fortune of material in other articles that could and probably should be centralised here. It will be quick to import it, but it will take a while to clean it up and remove OR and duplications, so a degree of tolerance will be required.

Is there anything approaching a consensus to move forward, and what needs to be done to lift the probation and get on with the job? Wdford (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 20:05, 2 February 2009 (UTC).

This late proposition looks interesting to me.--Lusala lu ne Nkuka Luka (talk) 21:30, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Commercial sites

Due to the controversial nature of the article, and accusations of original research, we should avoid referencing commercial websites. We should strive to maintain a high standard of references, otherwise, disputes will quickly deteriorate. These are two examples.

• http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/gate/gate20.htm
• http://www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk/bookgates5.html

Zara's edits on Cleopatra

• http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1077/is_4_57/ai_82479151
• http://goliath.ecnext.com/premium/0199/0199-1352591.html
• http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=SL&p_theme=sl&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EB04E771E692744&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM
• http://www.asante.net/scholarly/raceinantiquity.html

Wapondaponda (talk) 23:01, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I concur. --Pstanton (talk) 01:12, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

In general commercial websites do not meet the standard of WP:RS Wapondaponda (talk) 05:11, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Major revert

I notice all of Wdford's recent edits have been reverted unilaterally. Considering the consensus here, and on the AfD discussion, which was to merge. I believe this was done in error, and this article will NEVER improve if we can't make any progress. The whole reason the spin off article Arguments/Evidence for a "Black Ancient Egypt" was begun anyways was because of unilateral reverts of this page. --Pstanton

And I have no idea whats wrong with the formatting of my comment and whats up with this box around my words, can someone please fix that? --Pstanton (talk) 01:18, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I am going to restore most of Wdforts edits. We had a rough consensus that material on Tutankhamun, Cleopatra VII, Great Sphinx of Giza and 'Kemet' should be included here, but anything else wasn't actually discussed.As long as there isn't a consensus on that, it shouldn't be included. Zara1709 (talk) 01:19, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I see you've unilaterally restored the old, awful lead to the article. And what's your rationale for doing this, given my stated rationale for changing it and Wdford's reasoned revision of it? And when are you going to lift the "in use" tag? It seems a rather presumptuous -- and, frankly, obnoxious -- thing to do. deeceevoice (talk) 01:37, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflic)I didn't restore it unilaterally, you have changed it unilaterally. I actually explained some of my objections above. You are of course free to consider the current lead 'awful', but if you want to change it, you need a consensus of the majority of editors. I, certainly, am not going to agree to it. Zara1709 (talk) 01:48, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't see a comment under the "Some changes" subhead that addresses the language I inserted in the lead in lieu of the old, dreadful one you restored. I'd appreciate the courtesy of a response to my rationale. Particularly since we weren't treated to a rationale for the earlier language, I made it a point to post my rationale for the change I submitted above, but I don't see any comment from you specifically addressing the language you restored and why. So, why did you restore the old, old language -- while purporting to restore Wdford's version -- without addressing the revert? From where I sit, it looks like a bait and switch. And beyond the lead, I thought the structure of the other language showed some promise over what exists now, given your changes. deeceevoice (talk) 02:01, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Personally I think considering the nature of this article, a "under construction" tag would be more appropriate. --Pstanton (talk) 01:44, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

What material to include?

Ok, the easy part first, before we come to the question of the lead and scope of the article. What we had discussed here is that we should include material on Tutankhamun, Cleopatra VII, the Great Sphinx of Giza and Kemet. I was under the impression that it was especially Wdford's concern to have a specialised article to include the material on the Great Sphinx of Giza, in accordance with wp:NPOV, since that material would give undue weight to the question of race in the article Great Sphinx of Giza. Anything else wasn't discussed, and most importantly, Woland ONLY agreed to this. In case anyone hasn't noticed this yet: There is a notice on top of this discussion page that says: "Please discuss substantial changes here before making them." Adding completely new material is, of course, a substantial edit, so it was necessary to revert in full. (Changing the lead or scope of the article is a substantial edit, too, and therefore it was necessary to revert it accordingly.) If we want to have any improvement of this article, we have to stick to the rules. It would not even be necessary that I specify my objections here, but I'll do it anyway while I look through the material (and I don't think that I would need to remove the inuse notice before I am done with that.) Zara1709 (talk) 02:22, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I would include

1.) Evidence and arguments for a historically black egypt 2.) Evidence against a historically black egypt 3.) the notable proponents of each side 4.) the general view of the "black egypt" theory in: Academia, the general public, the modern Egyptians (i.e. the Egyptian Government), and popular culture.

--Pstanton (talk) 02:37, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Also! I notice a "Journal of African Civilizations" is mentioned in the article. I found its official website. http://www.journalofafricancivilizations.com/

It doesn't seem to be anything like a normal peer-reviewed academic journal. Its not an actual Journal, its a store selling books and audio lectures of dubious provenance. A quick examination of their store shows their material is mainly based off the ridiculous theory that the Africans colonized the Americas, Europe. I even saw one claiming that the ancient Africans were in Asia... I think the "Journal of African Civilizations" needs to be discounted as an academic source, or at least needs to be taken with a grain of salt. --Pstanton (talk) 02:44, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

• As far as I see it, there was substantial material on four to five potential subtopics added:

1. Material on "the ancient historical record" or "The Classical Observers"
2. Material on the "19th Century Observers"
3. Material on the "the Ancient Evidence", namely 3a) "the Ancient Egyptian texts" and 3b) "Ancient Tomb Paintings"
4. Material on "The Language Element"

My objection to this addition of material is based on several reasons. 1) There is the material from the pre-August 2008 version of this article on these subtopics that could be restored if we would want to include it again. I have, as with the material on Tutankhamun, reworded that partly already. 2) There was some sort of consensus to limit this article on the Afrocentric views on ancient Egypt and the controversy surrounding them. There may be several editors who object to this and rather have a factual article on the Race of the Ancient Egyptians, but before we change the scope of this article again, we need to have a throughout discussion about it or we will just wander around in circles. If the article is indented to be about controversy surrounding the Afrocentric views about ancient Egypt, then material on the "the ancient historical record", the "the Ancient Egyptian texts" and "Ancient Tomb Paintings" and "The Language Element" is only interesting insofar it has been used in the discussion of the Afrocentric views. The material in the form in which it was added did not show that. 3) The material on the "19th Century Observers" could be added, then, though, since these are, at least by Shavit, also subsumed under Afrocentrism, but we would need to hear a few more editors on that, first. I could write some more on this, but the question of the lead and the scope of the article are more important than that, a.t.m.Zara1709 (talk) 02:51, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Lead and scope of the article

Ok, deeceevoice, I took a look at your comments in the section you called "some changes" (what an understatement). Wasn't there a guideline somewhere "Arguments to avoid"? To write "I didn't like it. Hated it."certainly doesn't help to advance the discussion. What helps a little are your other statements about you feelings. You have written. "I'm sick of people pretending Afrocentrists are crackpot revisionists," - Well, I, too think, as opposed to Dbachmann and Moreschi, that it is unjustified to pretend that ALL Afrocentrists are crackpot pseudo-historians. However, there are some Afrocentrists who are crackpots, if I may use your terminology, and those aren't helping to advance the Afrocentrist cause. The critique of Lefkowitz apparently fails to recognize the differences within Afrocentrism, and so does Moreschi. But, I already was well under way with getting Moreschi into a discussion that would help him realize his misconception, since Shavit, whom I have repeatedly quoted, is aware of the differences within Afrocentrism, which is why he speaks of Radical Afrocentric universal history, and not purely of Afrocentrism. But since we now need to have a discussion about the scope and the lead of this article, I don't think that I will be able to continue the discussion with Moreschi soon.

And in the discussion about the lead and the scope of this article, I have to largely take the side of Moreschi. The old, pre-August 2008 version of this article was unacceptable because WP:SYNTH prohibits to take material from various sources and use it to advance a position not given by these sources. "The centuries old-ramblings of the first Egyptological amateurs" are not really notable in an article about the current controversy surrounding the Afrocentric views about ancient Egypt and certainly can't be used to justify an article title like 'Race of ancient Egyptians'. We don't need an article that attempts to list "contradictory reports and perceptions [about the identity of the ancient Egyptians] accumulated since Classical times." Who cares about all the "Evidence and assumptions [that] have been contributed by people of all walks of life, from tourists to traders to scholars"? What we need is an article that gives an overview about the development of radical Afrocentric historiography since the 19th century. What we apparently also need is an article that accommodates the material on the various controversies about ancient Egypt that have arisen due to Afrocentric historiography. The accounts of other people are only relevant in this article insofar they have been referred to in the controversy. Such an article can have a clear structure and a concise lead. If you want to have an article not only about the Afrocentric views and the controversy surrounding them, but about the Ancient Egyptian race controversy in general, or the Race of ancient Egpytians, all you can actually say in the lead is that some people have considered the ancient Egyptians as 'black' and others as 'white'. Would you seriously want me to restore the material on the Nordicists?

I am not even half done with criticizing, but if I want to remove the 'inuse' soon, I need to get back to the article. And if, after I have removed the inuse, there are large reverts and an edit war, I'll ask this article to be fully protected so that we can resolve the discussion first. Then no one will be able to edit the article, though. Zara1709 (talk) 04:08, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Zara, your reverts are unilateral, you have not sought the support of the community on your actions. Wapondaponda (talk) 05:04, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Neither did you seek the support of the community on your actions. Again, read the notice on top of this article: Please discuss substantial changes here before making them. I've made the substantial changes that roughly were agreed on and some insubstantial additions (with citations), anything else does need to be discussed first. I am not saying that some of the intermediate additions that I have removed mustn't be restored, but we need to discuss that first. Otherwise I don't think that we will be able to ever improve this article.Zara1709 (talk) 05:20, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Wapondaponda, many of the edits that Zara undid were also in good part unilateral (although I totally see your point). It might be better to wait until (s)he's done editing and then address whatever was reverted and not restored that you and the other editors feel should be in the article.--Ramdrake (talk) 05:13, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Also a suggestion to the editors: it might be useful to consider giving the scope of what is called "Afrocentric" at least as far as this article is concerned. From Zara's explanation of the concept, it looks to be much broader than I had imagined as a total layman on the subject, which prompted some of the misapprehensions I had on the current formulation of the lead.--Ramdrake (talk) 05:17, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

The emerging consensus on this talk page and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arguments/Evidence for a "Black Ancient Egypt"? is there is no need to have limited scope on the article. Editors should not arbitrarily assign the scope of any article, the scope of an article should be mirror its scope in Academia. Editors cannot for example, decide to limit the scope of an article on Mathematics to Algebra and not Calculus. If they did so, they would be engaging in original research. The same goes for this topic. Scope can only be limited for the purpose organizing an article ie WP:SS but this is not the case with this article. Otherwise as long as information meets WP:RS, WP:NOTE, [WP:VERIFY]], then it is fair game. Secondly as previously mentioned, because of the controversial nature of the article, we should maintain a high standard of references. Commercial sites are generally not recommended, as they often violate policies such as WP:SPS and WP:QS. Zara1709 has introduced the following references from commercial sites.

• http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1077/is_4_57/ai_82479151
• http://goliath.ecnext.com/premium/0199/0199-1352591.html
• http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=SL&p_theme=sl&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EB04E771E692744&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM
• http://www.asante.net/scholarly/raceinantiquity.html

I therefore suggest reverting his edits to this version before Zara1709 instituted his/her unilateral reverts.Wapondaponda (talk) 09:20, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Zara, I've skimmed your response, and much of it is utterly off-point. In changing the lead, you completely reverted to a version that pretends that the controversy began with Afrocentrism as a school of thought -- which it did not. That is unacceptable. I'm not defending Wdford's specific revision of the lead (frankly, I think it's inferior to the language I contributed -- but that's just my opinion, though I'm not wedded to the inclusion of the Davidson quote appearing there; I'm fine with its addition later on). What I am defending, however, is the information it presents (it is essentially what I intended), and I am defending the fundamental plan of attack that it suggests in the restructuring of the article. Your actions so far with regard to the article are entirely inappropriate and insulting to those of us who have been trying to work in a collaborative fashion. Essentially shutting down the article for editing, then making such sweeping changes without discussion, or even bothering to address and explain your rationale(s) in the talk page space is unacceptable, disruptive and counterproductive. And threatening to shut down the article completely for editing if you don't get your way is precisely the kind of nonsense we've been getting from Moreschi. It doesn't work, it's not going to shut us up, so cut it out.

If one of us had pulled the stunt with this article that you just did, we'd find ourselves at AN/I in a flash. What you've done is essentially duplicate the dictatorial, threatening approach that Moreschi adopted in the framing of this article and in relating to the other editors here, after he seems to have exited the scene (temporarily, at least) -- and, speaking frankly, it looks to me a helluvah lot like the classic good cop, bad cop gambit, like the two of you are tryin' to play us. If I'm wrong, then my apologies, but you certainly couldn't prove it with this kind of conduct.

And don't even try to compare what I did with the lead with what you've done. It simply doesn't wash.

Finally, given what Zara's done with the article -- disregarding anything else and simply looking at Wapondaponda's list of "sources" above -- I think reverting to the imperfect, but far more acceptable, version by Wdford would be a good point of departure at this point. I think a block revert is in order. And if Zara would like to defend and discuss her suggested changes to the article in the article talk space, then perhaps we can decide what is acceptable, what is not, and what might be acceptable with some alteration. deeceevoice (talk) 10:38, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Don't you think that, if you want a full revert, you could have found a better argument? Some of the weblinks are only from the pre August 2008 version of this article; "http://www.asante.net/scholarly/raceinantiquity.html" is a link to the private homepage of an African-American (!) scholar. It would be nice if we could replace some of those links (others are fine), but it is not urgent. What we need to discuss here above anything else is what kind of article we want. I roughly know what I want. An article radical Afrocentric historiography (if I find the time to write it) and this article to include some content about controversies that would be an undue weight in other articles. But what do you want? Do you really want an article that includes every "evidence and assumption that has been contributed by people of all walks of life, from tourists to traders to scholars"? Don't you think it would be better to have an article that only includes the material insofar it is relevant for the debate about the Afrocentric views about ancient Egypt? How are you going to find a criteria of what to include and of how much weight to give each point, if you want to include all "reports and perceptions accumulated since Classical times"?

I justifiedly think this article will be of more use to the reader if it explains for each element of evidence or argument, how it has been used by Afrocentrism (or the critique thereof) in the debates surrounding ancient Egypt. This doesn't mean that we mustn't include that e.g. "Herodotus described the Egyptians as having black skins and woolly hair." On the contrary. We need to include how the account of Herodotus has been used within Afrocentrism, which however, is quite different from simply saying how he described the ancient Egyptians. It is actually not that difficult to find out how Herodotus' account has been used within Afrocentrism. There are good tertiary sources on the topic. All you need to do is look up "Herodotus" in the index of History in Black. But with the strong concerns of Woland and Moreschi about original research and original synthesis, I don't think that the material on Herodotus that was added was acceptable. I think that some material on "the Classical Observers" should be added, but with the article, controversial as it is, we certainly can't discuss 4-5 subtopics AND a change of the lead and scope of the article at the same time. Reverting was the only option, if we want to keep all sides in the discussion. And I neither want Moreschi to block the expansion of this article completely nor deeceevoice to push the topic of the article back to "Race of ancient Egyptians", a concept which, I think, we have already left behind. I certainly object to the later, and since I suppose that Moreschi and Woland would too, as long as they are taking part in the discussion here, I don't think that I could be outvoted.

(edit conflict) Yes, deeceevoice, I pulled quite some stunt here. It has cost me my whole Tuesday morning, and I hope that Wikipedia was worth it. And if you really think what you have written, deeceevoice, why don't you notify Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents? I certainly am not scared if this and someone ought to learn from it. Zara1709 (talk) 11:26, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Honestly, Zara, I don't know what I want. It may surprise you, but I haven't come here with a plan on how I want the article to go. But I know when something is right and when something is wrong. I don't mind letting other people take the lead and contribute an idea and then commenting and seeing where it takes us. Contrary to the authoritarian, unilateral approach you and Moreschi have taken here, my approach tends to be organic and collaborative. That doesn't mean I'm against people taking the initiative and contributing something to see if it sticks -- which is what I did in taking a stab at rewriting the lead after reading a lot of grumbling in the talk page space. But, again, what I did and what you did are not even remotely equivalent.

And are you serious? You can't be that tone-deaf. Your use of sources is the least of my objections. I clearly didn't say that was my only issue with your sweeping changes. Certainly, the problem with the lead and where it takes the article is the major one.

Clearly, Zara, since you want an article on "radical Afrocentrism," then you need to go write it -- because this isn't the place for it. And therein lies the problem. The article begins with a comment on Afrocentrism -- when this isn't that article. The restored lead totally twists/mischaracterizes the controversy at the outset -- as I've been saying since I returned to this piece -- when the controversy has far older and deeper roots than Afrocentrism. It's flat-out inaccurate.

"...I neither want Moreschi to block the expansion of this article completely nor deeceevoice to push the topic of the article back to "Race of ancient Egyptians", a concept which, I think, we have already left behind."

WTF? I suggest you go back and reread the title of this article. Yeah, we get it. Your stated agenda is an article about "radical Afrocentrism." Fine. But don't skew/screw this article in the service of that end. Since you're so hell-bent on it, it might benefit the project if you would go away and write that other article and leave those of us who want to write an article about the controversy surrounding the ethnicity/"race" of dynastic Egypt to do so.

And no. I'm not going to the AN/I behind your nonsense. As far as I'm concerned, such measures are only to be used as a last resort, and I don't think it's necessary at this point. Besides, I never much cared for cops -- especially ones who play utterly transparent games and think they can fool people. ;) I don't believe in running to the AN/I whenever there's a problem. After all, we're all adults here. Just go away, or stay and behave yourself, and all will be well. ;) deeceevoice (talk) 11:56, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I can guess what plan you have for this article from what you have written here. But, if you want my opinion, that plan is stupid and I am actually trying to get you to reconsider it. But so far, you appear unable to actually discuss your intentions; The polemical tactics, which I also used against Moreschi, are not ends in themselves. After the three month debate about whether Adolf Hitler was nominally Catholic I simply have come to the conclusion that it doesn't make much sense to start out polite if the discussion gradually turns into polemics anyway. I wouldn't be here arguing if I hadn't reassured myself that I have a point. You are saying "the controversy has far older and deeper roots than Afrocentrism", and, in the lead of the version you proposed, that "the current debate over the ethnic identity of dynastic Egypt has its roots in contradictory reports and perceptions accumulated since Classical times." YOu couldn't be more wrong. The debate, that you and almost everyone else care so particularly about, emerged from the situation of African people in the United States and in Europe (mostly France). If you give me a few hours, I can explain this with some quotes from Shavit, whose scientific credibility has not been doubted so far. It might be that other contemporary historians writing about Afrocentrism assess the issue differently, but in any case WE NEED TO DISCUSS THIS FIRST (as probably not all adults, but at leasts academics would do it.) YOU don't appear to be up to this discussion, why else would ask me to "Just go away". Zara1709 (talk) 12:23, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

That's amusing. If you can guess my "plan," then you must be a psychic -- and a better one than I. ;) And Let's leave Hitler out of this discussion -- shall we? You keep mentioning him.

Actually, I didn't write that language you quote. What I wrote, and what I've already said I favor, was:

"The current debate over the ethnic identity of dynastic Egypt has its roots in contradictory perceptions and physical portrayals of Egypt in the ancient historical record and in academia, among travelers, historians, archaeologists and other scholars of ancient and contemporary times, and in modern popular culture. The disparate ways in which the ancient Egyptians depicted themselves in art and artifact, in symbolic representations and realistically, have served to fuel the debate."

And don't twist my words. It's clear that I said you should stay and behave yourself and help write an article on the clearly designated subject matter -- or go away and write the article you've said you want to write on "radical Afrocentrism." Just don't keep trying to do it here. Again, this is not the place. deeceevoice (talk) 12:40, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Radical Afrocentric Historiography

Radical Afrocentric Historiography has now been created, based heavily on the work of Shavit. Let's use this energy constructively, please? :) Wdford (talk) 13:16, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh great, Wdford, couldn't you have done something useful, like actually merging the content on the Great Sphinx of Giza here? I kept it quite that I was rewriting the material from the pre August 2008 version of this article under the name Race in ancient history for a very good reason. If the editors who otherwise watch THIS page noticed the article and are as 'bold' with substantial changes there as they are here, then I will never be able to write a halfway decent article.

In a related note. I will stop talking to deeceevoice. She thinks that she can tell me to "behave myself", what would only be appropriate in a mother/child or teacher/pupil relation. I don't know whether she is a mother and/or a primary school teacher in real life, but I personally have the intention of writing an encyclopaedia article based on academic sources, and although polemics are sometimes necessary, this is quite different from a kindergarden. Zara1709 (talk) 13:37, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

And on a further notice: Don't expect much from me on this issue for the remainder of today and tomorrow. I don't mind spending 8 hours in one morning on a single issue, but there are other things I have to do. It would be nice if you could keep yourself from carrying out substantial revisions, though, until I had a chance to comment on them. Zara1709 (talk) 13:44, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

"It would be nice if you could keep yourself from carrying out substantial revisions, though, until I had a chance to comment on them." You're kidding -- right? deeceevoice (talk) 13:46, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

No, I am not kidding. "This is a controversial topic that may be under dispute. Please discuss substantial changes here before making them. "Editors making disruptive edits may be banned by an administrator from this and related articles, or other reasonably related pages." Restoring a disputed revision with a full revert is disruptive. To quote Moreschi: "Can someone please bite the bullet and ban this troll?" [4]Zara1709 (talk) 14:01, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

There's a difference, Zara, between a willingness to discuss substantial changes before making them -- an instruction you would have done well to head before disrupting the article and precipitating a lockdown of the article by shutting down the article for your own purposes and defying that very instruction -- and holding off editing the article for a single editor (you) while that editor goes off to work on another article. And stop the name-calling. Your "contributions" thus have been disruptive and wholly counter to the spirit and process of collaboration here.

Furthermore, you will notice that there has been substantial dissatisfaction voiced herein, by various editors, about your edit-warred version of the lead paragraph, which launches into Afrocentrism immediately -- when that is not the scope of this article. It is inappropriate and reflects your stated desire to write an article on "Radical Afrocentrist History." As I've said before, go ahead. Write your article. But that article is not this one. Your edit-warred lead needs to go. deeceevoice (talk) 09:13, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

suggesting deep revert

I see we're in another round of Afrocentric pov-pushing, indistinguishable from its twisty little precedents, all alike. Here is the sane version of 26 August 2008, for future reference. I fail to see that re-addition of all the Tutankhamun/Cleopatra stuff is at all encyclopedic or helpful. As much as I love articles on cranky topics, we need to remember that Wikipedia is WP:NOT a random collection of information pulled off the web. --dab (𒁳) 13:08, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I wished you had done this before you suggested a deep revert, but you can still do this now. Take a look at the article Great Sphinx of Giza, its edit history and talk page and tell me whether the section on the racial characteristics can be considered undue weight there. Probably not with the way Wdford has attempted to rewrite it; but the view that the Sphinx was black is a significant minority view and needs to be discussed somewhere. In the version as I had written it there wasn't a singe web page quote, only books. Zara1709 (talk) 13:51, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Radical Afrocentric Historiography has now been created, so hopefully the "Afrocentric pov-pushing" will relocate there where it can add real value. The "Tutankhamun/Cleopatra stuff" is helpful to those who have heard of these "cranky" topics and are seeking actual scientific evidence to either confirm or rebut what they have heard. Please assist us to build and professionalise these sites. Wdford (talk) 13:21, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Cool. Now, then, it seems to me the lead can go back to something less restrictive and more appropriate than that which now exists.  :) deeceevoice (talk) 13:44, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi everyone. Although there was substantial agreement to merge Arguments/Evidence for a "Black Ancient Egypt"? into the article Ancient Egyptian race controversy, it seems some people want a paragraph by paragraph referendum on such changes. As this approach is going to be tedious and time-consuming, I propose that we meanwhile build the new Ancient Egyptian race controversy article on the Arguments/Evidence for a "Black Ancient Egypt"? site, move it to a new name and then polish and build consensus there before merging the fully built and agreed article into Ancient Egyptian race controversy.

On this basis I have rebuilt the Arguments/Evidence for a "Black Ancient Egypt"? site. There is lots more to do. Comments and contributions please.

As the current name Arguments/Evidence for a "Black Ancient Egypt"? is offending some people, would it be acceptable to move this entire process to a new site, called “Theories on the Race of the Ancient Egyptians”, or something similar, while we build agreement on the content and layout?

Wdford (talk) 14:01, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

That's great for those who want to concentrate on that side of the debate -- and I'm one -- but there also need to be people here, keeping an eye out and working constructively to frame the article in such a way that that information, once polished, redacted and properly sourced, can be effectively included in this piece to produce one, coherent article. (In case you hadn't noticed, there's been another hand-off -- from Moreschi, to Zara, and now to Dbachmann.) Thanks for being bold and taking the initiative. :) deeceevoice (talk) 14:19, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes indeed, but I am starting to think that perhaps we should build the completed article at the other site, then create a new name that everyone is happy with, then blank this article and substitute it entirely??? Wdford (talk) 14:35, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Wdford, I would ask you to forgo creating random articles at random titles until you acquire a basic knowledge of WP:MOS. --dab (𒁳) 14:26, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, --dab, I am working my way through the manual. This was an emergency. YIIA Wdford (talk) 14:35, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

well, the proper place to discuss Afrocentric historiography, including "Radical" variants, is at Afrocentrism. The current attempts at making this stuff appear more legit just by waving your hands intensely will not work, as it never does on Wikipedia. If you want to apply such twists and spins to the story, you are much better off writing your own blog where your contributions won't be redacted or scrutinized. --dab (𒁳) 14:44, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I fuly agree that "this stuff" should all be centralised at Afrocentrism, and hopefully it will be eventually. Meanwhile, its currently all over the place, and is damaging a range of "factual" articles. Somebody with the appropriate knowledge needs to fix Afrocentrism and consolidate the topic, but I'm not that guy. All I'm trying to do is resolve the current dispute so that important issues can be addressed without tripping over each other. Please assume good faith, and help where you can. Wdford (talk) 14:55, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Removed temporarily

I'm trying to work within the framework that seemed to be developing before the unilateral edits of yesterday evening, but in doing so I find I've had to remove some potentially useful information under the subhead "Modern-day Afrocentrist scholarship." I'm stating this right up front so that there can be no misapprehension that it is my intent to completely excise it from the article. The deleted text follows.

Further information: Afrocentric historiography

The roots of Afrocentrism lay in the repression of blacks throughout the Western world in the 19th century, most particularly in the United States. At the turn of the century, however, came a rise in black racial consciousness as a tool to overcome oppression. Part of this reaction involved a focus on black history, and counteracting what was perceived as white, eurocentric history in favour of a historical narrative of Europe (and what was viewed as its founding culture, ancient Greece) that gave blacks a more prominent role. To a certain extent Afrocentrism also arose as a backlash against scientific racism (broadly speaking, a 19th-century phenomenon) which tended to attribute any advanced civilization to the immigration of Indo-Europeans.

Specifically, this attempted rewriting of the historical narrative of Europe developed into two main forms: the claim that European civilization was founded not by the Greeks, but by the Egyptians, whose culture and learning the Greeks allegedly stole, and that the Egyptians themselves were not only African but also black. Often, Afrocentrists link the two claims, as the following quote (by Marcus Garvey) displays:

“ Every student of history, of impartial mind, knows that the Negro once ruled the world, when white men were savages and barbarians living in caves; that thousands of Negro professors at that time taught in the universities in Alexandria, then the seat of learning; that ancient Egypt gave the world civilization and that Greece and Rome have robbed Egypt of her arts and letters, and taken all the credit to themselves. ”

Both themes were to survive Garvey and to continue throughout the 20th century and up to the present day, provoking debate both in academia and in more public spheres, such as mainstream media and the internet.

Just sticking it elsewhere is problematic because the text that currently exists examines Diop and others who are considered Afrocentrist. So, this needs to be redacted and incorporated. I'd do it, but I've got some errands to run. Will be back later today, though. Hope I haven't made a mess. deeceevoice (talk) 14:11, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Edit-warring/arbitrary block reverting by Zara

Let's here some comments here on the two versions, so we can proceed. deeceevoice (talk) 14:23, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Your section titles like "The Ancient Evidence" not only shows that you continue to cheerfully ignore basic WP:MOS, they are also misguided in other respects. "Ancient evidence" for what? An "Ancient Egyptian race controversy"? What you mean to discuss is "evidence adduced by Afrocentric historiographers". That this alleged evidence should concern Ancient Egypt is hardly remarkable, since the entire discussion surrounds Ancient Egypt, not the current-day Arab Republic of Egypt. Seeing that your contributions fail to meet any standards even at such a basic level, I don't think further discussion is necessary. --dab (𒁳) 14:40, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, it was "Ancient Evidence on the subject of the race of the Ancient Egyptians". The "evidence adduced by Afrocentric historiographers" is a separate section. This article has been crippled by a series of mass reverts, and a lot of repair is needed. Wdford (talk) 14:45, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Wrong, Bachmann. Don't presume to tell me what I "mean to discuss." You clearly haven't a clue. The information contained under the heading is about the infamous mural, which provides some "evidence" with regard to how the ancient Egyptians regarded themselves relative to their neighbors. How that "evidence" is interpreted is another matter altogether. And your comment about style is petty/ridiculous and simply juvenile. I'm perfectly familiar with wiki style with regard to headers, but that's the least of my concerns with this article at the moment. There's plenty of time for such nitpicking. Seeing that your contribution here fails to meet any objective standard: i.e., it fails to address the matter at hand in any substantive fashion, but is merely a (characteristic, even comically signature) b*tchy, supercilious, little snipe hardly worthy of notice, no further discussion of your particular input here is necessary. deeceevoice (talk) 14:59, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Wdford, that doesn't give in indication of where you stand on the lead paragraph. I'm trying to frame this article in a way that addresses the entire range of perceptions of the ancient Egyptians, from self-portrayals/concepts to ancient observers, to academia, to even pop culture portrayals and how they've served to shape the current debate/confusion over the matter -- rather than simply starting out with Afrocentrism, which ignores centuries of portrayals and images up until that point. What say you? I'd like to know what you think. deeceevoice (talk) 14:59, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I fully agree with what you're trying to achieve - I would personally much like to extend the scope beyond just Afrocentrism. However I was concerned that the specific language you used was a bit too intellectual for many readers - a lot of us don't speak English as a first language. I know this is an encyclopedia, but it is a valuable global resource, so please bear with the other 82% of us! :) Also, I would prefer to keep the lead short and sweet, with the detail further down in the article. Secondly, a lot of this material is of the "unsubstantiated opinion" variety that attracts WP:OR and so forth, so I wanted to create a section for "opinions" to differentiate clearly what is "science" and what is "personal opinion". I thought this might help, considering some of the pro-delete comments at the other site. BTW, now that this site has been blocked again, would it not add value for you to work on the other site rather in the meanwhile - then the effort will be useful when we copy it across? Wdford (talk) 15:11, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I intend to contribute there, but, Wdford, you still haven't clearly answered the question. Which lead, which approach to developing this article are you more in favor of? Focusing on Afrocentrism and ignoring all other contributing factors to the controversy at the outset, or framing the controversy in a more inclusive, comprehensive and encyclopedic manner? If we do not keep this article on track, there won't be anywhere fit to come back and interject whatever language we come up with elsewhere; it'll be twisted beyond all recognition -- or end up so expurgated/truncated, we might as well revert back to Moreschi's personal draft. deeceevoice (talk) 15:19, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I say frame the lead as inclusively as possible, but use language that is a bit more user-friendly please. Wdford (talk)

So, you don't have a problem with the content of what I wrote, then? And you prefer that approach to framing the article over the present one? (Sorry, but we need to be clear if we are to proceed. Thanks.) deeceevoice (talk) 15:36, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I prefer your approach. Please consider the current version of the lead at Arguments/Evidence for a "Black Ancient Egypt"?. Wdford (talk) 15:49, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Page protected

I've protected the page so people can come to a consensus on how to proceed. Please do not create any new articles in this area until there is agreement. Tom Harrison ^Talk 14:51, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Your protection is totally premature. Zara escalated the conflict, but neither party involved (neither she nor I) violated 3RR, and I clearly opted not to respond to her edit warring with a revert and, instead, took the matter to the discussion page. There was, and is, no need to protect the page at this point. For chrissake, at least give participating editors the opportunity to discuss, debate and come to some kind of consensus without stepping in unnecessarily to abort the editing process! Heated disagreement on a topic like this is to be expected. We haven't begun to reach the point where such precipitous intervention is called for. deeceevoice (talk) 15:06, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I think the protection, under the remedy at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience, is appropriate. You can all discuss, debate, and work out a consensus on the talk page. As you say, heated disagreement is to expected. I hope everyone will help keep the heat down by avoiding inflammatory language. Tom Harrison ^Talk 15:21, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

What we need here is room to disagree without an admin hovering over us like a mother hen. If and when we reach an impasse and edit warring begins, then, it seems to me, protection is called for -- but, it seems to me, not until. Such a measure is an extreme one and should be used only when things have gotten out of hand. You've clearly jumped the gun. deeceevoice (talk) 15:35, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Please keep the discussion focused on the issues, not personalities. As to protection, that seems to me the lighter weight option. We can move to topic bans for individuals if that becomes necessary. Tom Harrison ^Talk 15:41, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

"Lighter weight option" as opposed to what? The better/best option would have been to leave it be and let us continue to try to work things out, and then proceed with building a better article. So far, no 3RR's, no impasse. Page protection was/is completely unwarranted. Period. I'm done. deeceevoice (talk) 15:46, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

""Lighter weight option" as opposed to what?" Wide topic bans for anyone who acts like an obnoxious jerk. Tom Harrison ^Talk 12:21, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, yeah. Like some of the folks I've been referring to. Gotcha.  ;) Except that subject matter bans are not intended to deal with wiki etiquette issues. "Obnoxious jerks" generally are dealt with by other means. Subject matter bans are intended to deal with the issue of POV pushing with regard to particular subject matter. I should think -- and would hope -- that an administrator would understand that important difference. Unfortunately, it seems, that difference has eluded your comprehension. deeceevoice (talk) 02:05, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Though Tom harrison has not expressed an opinion, I don't think his association of the article to pseudoscience is reassuring. There is plenty of information that is well established and accepted science.Wapondaponda (talk) 16:04, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree -- and have said as much on Harrison's talk page, as has User: Ramdrake. Clearly, the information presented was/is not "pseudoscience." His seems just another commonly uncritical, knee-jerk reaction to "Afrocentrism" and the nature of the subject matter. What, Wapondaponda, is your opinion on the lead paragraph and the direction the article should take? (Please register your comments above. Thanks.) deeceevoice (talk) 16:26, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Deeceevoice, FWIW I think it may be useful to get consensus on what is or isn't "Afrocentrism". From reading your exchanges with for example Zara, I get the feeling that you have different definitions of the subject, and that Zara's definition may be much broader than yours. I'm certainly not going to arguen who's right or wrong (wouldn't know where to start), but hammering out a consensus on what it is and what it isn't may be a good place to start.--Ramdrake (talk) 16:35, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, my position echoes my recommendations. If one construes Afrocentrism narrowly in its most pejorative sense, then yes it is important to divorce those viewpoints/observations made on the Ancient Egyptians by those not associated to the movement. If one construes Aroncetrism as a scholarly discipline studying anything having to do with Africa, then the distinction becomes moot. However, I would strongly suggest this article make it clear which conception of Afrocentrism is used, and then the lead can be adjusted accordingly. But it is clear to me that there is some valid science behind the interrogation as to the physical traits of the Ancient Egyptians. Personnally, I believe that mention of Afrocentrism belongs in the lead, as the racial characteristics of Ancient Egyptians is definitely an important theme within the subject; however, I don't think that the afirmation that the whole interrogation is contained within the subject of Afrocentrism is correct, based on my understanding of how Afrocentrism is commonly construed.--Ramdrake (talk) 16:59, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Not useful. Zara has already stated her intention not to converse with me. Further, I understand full well what she means by the term. Finally, she's already stated her intention to remove herself from this article for a time -- after getting her version of the article locked into place (if not directly, then by her proxy Dbachmann), so what she has to say really doesn't concern me at the moment. I'm concentrating on those who wish to contribute actively to this article. What's your position on the lead and the approach to framing the article, Ramdrake? Do you have one? (Please respond above.) So far, you've only addressed the current version. I don't think Afrocentrism belongs in the lead at all. Do you have any questions in that regard? deeceevoice (talk) 16:44, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

i agree with the indefinite page protect, it seems many editors have not learned any lessons that this is not a article to try and present proof of the race of the ancient egyptians rather it's about the controversey itself and i beleive the admin was well with in his right to protect the article to nip it in the bud now rather than allowing full fledge edit wars which were simmering already and this article in particular has a history of emotionaly driven content disputes and edit wars trust me i know about edit wars--Wikiscribe (talk) 18:11, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I presume then, since you agree that this "is not a article to try and present proof of the race of the ancient egyptians", that you now accept the need for the other article at Arguments/Evidence for a "Black Ancient Egypt"? which you previously labelled as a content fork? Wdford (talk) 18:33, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

What would the community think about conducting some straw polls on the scope and content of the articles, so that we have a better idea of what the consensus is. Wapondaponda (talk) 19:10, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Although a majority of respondents agreed that the "evidence" should be merged in here, it seems there are still some hold-outs who insist the scope should be limited to the history of the controversy alone. Others want it to deal with the detail but only from an Afrocentric viewpoint. I would like to propose that this article be renamed "History of the Ancient Egyptian Race Controversy", so that another article can be built which deals with the issues that some are unwilling to allow be dealt with here. Are there any objections? Wdford (talk) 19:39, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I would also like to suggest that, better than a simple straw poll, we conduct a full content RfC. This could generate even more views and allow for a better determination of consensus. Even though there may have been a previous consensus to make this article solely about the history of the controversy, I believe that the is now ample evidence that consensus can change. The only proper way to find out is to hold an RfC.--Ramdrake (talk) 20:19, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

wow. Any article deeceevoice touches will turn into a hostile quagmire. We have had the privilege of witnessing this for about three years now. It is beyond me why admins still try to resolve this by protecting articles instead of simply banning the disruptive user. There is literally nothing here that hasn't been rehashed and rehashed yet again over the past years. deeceevoice simply is part of the problem here, and clearly not part of any solution. I would request that this should be handled by admins aware of the previous history of this particular user because otherwise this will just go in circles indefinitely. --dab (𒁳) 10:00, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

If there's another admin willing, he's welcome and I'll step aside. Or, there's always dispute resolution. Until then, keep the discussion focused on the subject, not on other editors. Tom Harrison ^Talk 12:19, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, the personal stuff is just not helpful. Wapondaponda (talk) 16:05, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm another admin, and I'm willing. However, I'm not seeing anything (in an admittedlly brief intial scan) to indicate that Tom harrison should not continue to assist in this article's development. - brenneman 02:57, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

RFC

Template:RFChist At present the content of the article is restricted to a discussion of the relationship between Afrocentrism and the race of the Ancient Egyptians. However, there has been throughout history, adequate interest in this topic outside Afrocentrism. Suggestions have been made to broaden the scope of the article, to include all notable contributions that have been made to the subject, regardless of whether or not they are associated with Afrocentrism. talk 22:17, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

• comment - Someone unfamiliar with the article might find an example helpful. Tom Harrison ^Talk 23:31, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, duh. That is the problem with the lead paragraph that was under discussion when you locked down the article. There seems to be a consensus that the lead, as edit-warred by Zara, is inappropriate, given the title of the article. deeceevoice (talk) 09:07, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Example

For example The very first sentence in the lead reads the following

“ Controversy surrounding the race of ancient Egyptians is an integral topic in Afrocentric historiography, and an important issue for Afrocentrism since the early years of the 20th century. ”

Yet the following references show that several 19th century scholars tackled the issue long before the blossoming of Afrocentrism. Afrocentrism as a movement mainly began in the 20th Century. In fact the term "Afrocentrism" was first used in 1961. These references have been reverted out of the current version because of scope. The following have no known connection to Afrocentrism, in fact some are associated with scientific racism.

• Anthon, Charles (1851). "Complexion and Physical Structure of the Egyptians". A classical dictionary,. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
• Rawlinson, George (1886). "The People of Egypt". Ancient Egypt. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
• Morton (1844). "Egyptian Ethnography". {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
• Kenrick, John (1850). "Population and Language". Ancient Egypt Under the Pharaohs. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
• MacIver (1905). "chapter 9". The Ancient Races of the Thebaid. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
• Nott (1855). "Negro Types". Types of Mankind. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
• Darwin, Charles (1871). "On the Races of Man". The Descent of Man. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)

Wapondaponda (talk) 00:20, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

As a newcomer to the page, the present title of the article implies to me that its about general controversies regarding the race of Ancient Egyptians. If that controversy pre-dates the 20th century, and there are verifiable sources to that effect, I don't see why that can't be included. On the other hand, if there's strong feeling about the scope of the article being narrower than that, then it could be forked (although I'm not sure that the article is really large enough to justify that). If so, though, what should the other article be called... Ancient Egyptian race controversies that pre-date the Afrocentrist movement of the twentieth century seems to be over-doing it somewhat. Equally, this article could be changed to Ancient Egyptian race controversies and Afrocentrism, if that's its specific scope. But I can't see any reason not to discuss 19th century theories anywhere on Wikipedia, and not to link to it from here, if this isn't the place. Anaxial (talk) 08:25, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Precisely! That's been my objection all along with the current lead as edit-warred by Zara. Please see "Some Changes" above and weigh in there. Zara was hell-bent on doing an article on "Radical Afrocentrist Historiography," and she contorted the lead to fit that end. Now that that article has been established (under a somewhat different title), and she's gone off to write that article, the should be no difficulty in changing the title -- if we can get the majority of the participating editors here onboard. See the version of the lead edit-warred out by Zara here.[5] Thanks. deeceevoice (talk) 09:05, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

In a sensible world it would not be very difficult to write an NPOV article that included the debates of 19th-20th century race theorists along with modern Afrocentrists and recent studies. I think we have managed to do that to reasonable effect on the Nordic race article, for example. The problem here is that all such attempts have rapidly degenerated into fights between editors who want to drag out any any every referencce to skin shades, curliness of hair, nose shape and what have you in any source that can be found ("Joe Schmo said in a letter in 1798 that his Egyptian servant was 'dusky faced' and looked like a statue of a pharaoh he saw in Memphis" etc etc). All attempts to place such statements in context are drowned by special pleading. The problem is that there is no agreed definition of "black" or "non black" and no agreement about what is and isn't "Afrocentrism". Paul B (talk) 11:30, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

And that is precisely why the article shouldn't be frame the subject matter at the outset as an Afrocentric issue -- which is what Zara's edit-warred version has done. This article should be about explaining how the debate arose in the first place, what gave rise to such disparate perceptions about dynastic Egypt, who/what the notable players/schools of thought are and -- briefly -- what they believe to be true. Period. As it stands now, the article paints the thoroughly false picture that the debate began with Afrocentrism -- which we all know not to be the case. deeceevoice (talk) 15:41, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Is there any difference between "Joe Schmo said in a letter in 1798 that his Egyptian servant was 'dusky faced'" and "Marcus Garvey said the Negro once...." and "H.F.K. Günther in 1927 wrote that Augustus Caesar displayed Nordic...". Isn't that history. Wapondaponda (talk) 16:22, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

But such statements should not be used out of context. If we're going to discuss the matter thoroughly, whatever its historical scope may be, simply quoting numerous individual mentions like that would not be very helpful. Furthermore, a letter would be a primary source, the use of which is discouraged. What you need are good secondary sources forming some sort of synthesis of how the controversy has evolved (since performing the synthesis ourselves would be original research, and not appropriate, either). Anaxial (talk) 17:12, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

This is one such secondary source that covers many of the aforementioned protagonists. Egypt Land: Race and Nineteenth-Century American Egyptomania (New Americanists Amazon reviews. Wapondaponda (talk) 05:24, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I fought for weeks against Moreschi and Woland trying to make broardened the scope of this article, to show, even quoting Jean-François Champollion the father of Egyptology, that Afrocentrism did not start the problematic of the race of the ancient Egyptians, rather that it is linked to the birth of Egyptology. Champollion spoke about it, Adolf Erman and Herman Ranke spoke about it, to quote just a few. For example, Champollion said that the Egyptians are indigenous africans; they did not resemble the Copts who are a mix of many races who came to dominate Egypt, but they look like the Kennous and Barabras, the actual inhabitants of Nubia (Lettres écrites d'Egypte et de Nubie en 1824 et 1829 (Elibron Classics for the new edition), 1833, p. 429-430). While Erman and Ranke affirm that the Egyptians are a mix of Asians and Africans, they admit that they do not look like the Semites and Libyans, but like their southern neighbours, the Nubians (La civilisation égyptienne, 1948 for the German edition and 1952 for the French edition, p. 46).--Lusala lu ne Nkuka Luka (talk) 17:24, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

So, does this mean that you would support a lead with broader language, that doesn't refer to Afrocentrism at the outset and opens the article up in its approach to the subject matter -- such as the one that existed before Zara's edit-warred version? deeceevoice (talk) 19:44, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

"While Erman and Ranke affirm that the Egyptians are a mix of Asians and Africans, they admit that they do not look like the Semites and Libyans". Who cares what someone writing 100-200 years ago said? Do you realise how absurd this is? It's the equivalent of quoting Lavater on human physiognomy. Paul B (talk) 22:34, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Not necessarily, in this article Evolution#History_of_evolutionary_thought, there are several writers from 200 years ago. Today some of their ideas are ridiculed, but nonetheless they are still noted for having a whack at it. Take Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for example. What is important is that several scholars who were not afrocentrists were studying the issue. This directly relates as to how and why some editors arbitrarily decided that the scope of this article should be limited to Afrocentrism, when clearly there is an abundance of interest outside of Afrocentrism.Wapondaponda (talk) 23:32, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

You miss the point. Lusala lu ne Nkuka Luka does not want to quote these writers as historical figures in the context of their time . He wants to use them as direct evidence - to pluck some obsolete statement out of the past and use it to support the claim that Egyptians looked like Nubians ("they admit..."). That's exactly what must be avoided. Paul B (talk) 08:12, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Of cause, Deeceevoice, I support a lead with a broader language! We have to report what was said about the race of the ancient Egyptians, no matter if it was said 100 years ago or not. After all, Jean-François Champollion is still the father of Egyptology! What are you afraid of Paul? This article must have a historical perspective, because its theme is rooted in history, even, to say the truth, long before the birth of Egyptology. Often, Champollion quotes ancient writers, (cf. Précis du système hiéroglyphique des anciens Egyptiens, Elibron Classics for the new edition, 1828, pp. 457-461) and links the question of the race of the Egyptians to the one of their origins. According to him, Egyptians are from Ethiopia (Soudan).--Lusala lu ne Nkuka Luka (talk) 23:34, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

A broader perspective, yes, but I agree with Paul that the comments must be used in their historical context. What you can't do is use them as evidence for the fringe theory, just for the historical pedigree of the fringe theory. I'm fine with this article taking a broader historical scope (which was the original question in the RfC) but it must retain NPOV, and not give undue weight to fringe theories. Anaxial (talk) 09:25, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Fringe theories noticeboard

Editors here deserve to know that there is once again a discussion going on concerning the editing of this article on the Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Afrocentric_historiography. --Blockinblox (talk) 23:07, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Authority of egyptologists

An Egyptologist is typically an archaeologist, historian, art historian or linguist. This means that many egyptologists may not have the necessary training in physical anthropology or population genetics. These disciplines are probably the most direct when it comes to issues of race. A linguist may offer an opinion on how the Egyptians spoke about race, based on translations of ancient texts, but that is about as far as a linguist can go. An archeologist may be specialized in material remains rather than human remains, as it is a broad discipline. Consequently, I think we must exercise caution, when we make assertions such as "mainstream egyptologists say this" or mainstream egyptologists think that. The real experts on this topic may not even be egyptologists. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:03, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree.--Lusala lu ne Nkuka Luka (talk) 17:26, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

So what? Egyptologists don't address the issue in the way Afrocentrists do becaue its not relevant to Egyptology what hair shape or skin pigment a given Egyptian had, and more than it matters to an expert on Renaisance art whether Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo had the same colour hair or not. This only matters is you think this represents an ethnic conflict of some sort. If you don't, it's as silly as arguments about relative the nose-shape and hair curliness of people in any profession anywhere Paul B (talk) 22:28, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I've not been following this exchange, but your response, Paul, leaped out at me. Oh, yes, they most certainly do! Witness the reconstruction of the Tut skull presided over by Zahi Hawass, with the result being a fair-skinned model with hazel eyes -- and Hawass announced that Tut was "Caucasoid." If the head of Cairo's Supreme Council of Antiquities doesn't qualify as an "Egyptologist," then no one does. And you bet it represents a conflict. Hawass is one of the foremost pushers of the current fiction. deeceevoice (talk) 02:03, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I think Paul's views on hair curliness, nose-shape are somewhat naive. As silly as they may sound, it is those traits that seem to define race. I don't see how one can talk about race without some mention of these traits. Wapondaponda (talk) 03:53, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Caucasoid is a phenotype category based on head-shape. There are black-skinned people who are Caucasoid. The point I was making is that it is not relevant to modern Egyptology whether a given Egyptian had light or dark skin or straight or curly hair. In the heyday of "race theory" that was an issue because that's how racial typologies were modelled. So your writers of the 1850-1950 period (roughly) do debate such matters. But even then, they typically recognised that offspring from a royal bride from the south might produce a darker skinned heir while another child from a dynastic marriage with a northern kingdom might mean a lighter skinned one. It's pretty much arbitary at that social level. At the "grassroots" genetics has replaced that way of modelling race. Tickboxing markers of face shape is largely irrelevant because it tells us almost nothing of value any more. Paul B (talk) 11:10, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Wrong, again, PB. "Markers of face shape" can tell us almost everything when it comes to: 1) placing a human specimen -- and particularly an ancient one -- in the context of its geographic locus of origin; 2) actual physical appearance of the once-living human being; 3) relatedness to other human populations, living and dead -- i.e., whether the person was a blood relative of, perhaps, other human specimens found nearby (via similarities in cranial form), and whether the individual was descended of peoples commonly referred to as "Negro," "Caucasian", "Asian." Human crania, when examined in light of long-established and still commonly used (contrary to the kind of twisted, politically correct, "post-racial" urban myth currently circulating on Wikipedia today) faciocranial phenotypical models can tell us much that is of value. Certainly, Susan Anton's dead-on identification of the Tut skull as originating from Africa and then, more specifically, North Africa is a spin-shattering example of this. And such comparisons also can provide reasonable clues as to skin and eye color -- again, as with the Tut specimen, evidence that was overlooked/ignored by the French reconstruction team, the head of which was a criminal forensic specialist with absolutely no training in forensic archaeology and virtually no familiarity with, or training in, the indigenous peoples of the region. deeceevoice (talk) 11:24, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Susan Anton identified a North African as North African. I fail to see how this is relevant beyond the fact that it clearly suggests that North Africans then looked pretty much like north Africans now. The point I was making was that this kind of thing tells us nothing of value, which is why Egyptologists don't care about it. Genetics is valuable to trace population histories in the way that can actually tell us things that are useful about history. The mapping the relative nose shapes of particular individuals is of little use to Egyptology in the same way that the nose shape of Michelangelo is useless to art history (and it wasn't a pretty shape, since it was broken when he got beat up by a rival artist). In the past these markers were used to map population histories. That's why writers in the 19th-20th century were interested in them. Since modern genetics indicate that these features are poor evidence of population histories they are not used in the way they once were. Paul B (talk) 12:04, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm assuming that by your use of the term "North African," you're referring to the Arabized peoples of the region -- because that's what the common misperception is -- as opposed to the indigenous Blacks of Northeast Africa. Sorry, but your assumption betrays an ignorance that is so deep, so abysmal, I hardly know where to begin. Perhaps, you should go to Talk: Tutankhamun and read my entry there -- and be sure to follow the links and examine the images. It explains, in part, how Anton reached her conclusions about Tut. (It's interesting how you keep refactoring your comments under the guise of further explanation.) And, again, Egyptologists do care. Again, a perfect example is Zahi Hawass, who has spent a good deal of his entire career attempting to Arabize dynastic Egypt. deeceevoice (talk) 12:10, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

No, you can't have the argument both ways. If an anonymous skull is identified as north African, that means that the identification is based on similarity to the modern population. You can't persist with your fantasy that everyone in Africa was black until some "Arabization" event occurred. here is no point in reding your screed of OR on the Tut page, and your usual resort to crass bullying and abuse when you have not got an argument will not work with me. I have not refactored anything. I said the same thing in the first post. You just didn't understand it. I am also, btw, perfectly well aware of what Anton wrote, which you have scattered over blogs across the internet and repeatedly twisted to suit your ideology. Paul B (talk) 12:52, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Don't be silly, PB. If you'll take a moment and read what I wrote, Anton herself said she concluded immediately that the skull was "clearly African." The only thing that gave her pause was the narrow nasal index. (Clearly, she was using the established metrics I've referred to above to establish origin. First, she concluded that the skull was "clearly African" -- not Asian, not European, but African. (Read "Black.") The only aberrant metric resulting from her examination was the nose. Why? Because equatorial Blacks do not commonly have narrow nasal indices -- only some in North Africa commonly do. So, she determined it was "North African" -- not Semitic, not Asiatic, not European, not "Caucasian"/Caucasoid, but "North African." And there is no question that Egypt has been Arabized over the centuries. One need only look to the displacement of indigenous languages and religions as clear evidence of that -- and northern Sudan and the Tuaregs as well. What is fiction to you is clear, historical fact in most quarters. deeceevoice (talk) 14:02, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

AfD results

I have closed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arguments/Evidence for a "Black Ancient Egypt"? as delete, with extensive commentary. The gist is: work it out here. - brenneman 00:56, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Other business

In looking over the talk above, it's very long and to some degree repetative, and appears to be making very little headway. Unless there are strenous objections, archiving will occur soon to provide some clearer air. I'd ask that all talk page participants attempt, to some degree, to err on the side of brevity moving forward. That is to say, WP:REFACTORing may occur without warning, even of signed comments if required. I'd further ask that as much as possible discussion here be strictly limited to this article and proposed changes to it.

The most pressing issue is that the article currently does not conform to the guideline at WP:LEAD. This has been identified clearly in the Request for comment section above. I'd like to see some concrete proposed lead paragraphs presented here, starting with discussion on that from the recently deleted pseudo-draft.

brenneman 03:13, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

From history of deleted article (admin only)

The current debate over the ethnic identity of dynastic Egypt has its roots in contradictory reports and perceptions accumulated since Classical times. The scarcity of "hard" evidence has served to fuel the debate. The scholarly consensus outside the field of Egyptology is that the concept of "pure race" is incoherent; and that applying modern notions of race to ancient Egypt is anachronistic..

Comments/suggestions on the above

1. There are GFDL complications on a delete/merge, but it's not actually a violation of the GNU Free Documentation License. - brenneman 03:13, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
2. The lead above, could do with some refining, but it is acceptable to me. To start with, the statement is neutral and covers a much broader scope. I also think it would encourage a reader to continue reading the article. The suggested lead does not have the shock value of the current lead, that needlessly has two links to the same Afrocentrism article.Wapondaponda (talk) 05:17, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
3. It looks also fine to me, as it gives a historical broad view.--Lusala lu ne Nkuka Luka (talk) 09:18, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
4. I would be happy with this lead, as hopefully it will open the debate beyond the restrictions currently imposed on this article. Wdford (talk) 09:31, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
5. A definite improvement over existing language, as I stated at the deletion page, but please see my suggestion and comments below. Thanks. deeceevoice (talk) 11:09, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Alternative lead paragraph

It's good to see we're back on track -- after an entire day and-a-half wasted because of a totally precipitous and unwarranted lockdown of the article. This is precisely where I was going with my constant questioning/badgering above. The present lead is terrible. After doing an informal poll (above) yesterday, I returned this a.m. to do a formal head count.;) So, thanks, guys, for going ahead and doing it for me. Judging from the responses I recieved (and from commentary independent of my direct questioning as well), there seemed to be fairly widespread dissatisfaction with the current lead and a desire for a more general, inclusive approach to the subject matter at hand.

I'd like to offer the language I wrote originally for consideration. I'm not wedded to it; I don't have any pretentions to ownership, but I think it is preferable in some respects. Perhaps an amalgam of both might be preferable, as the above is an amalgam of my original language and other contributions. Certainly the far more accurate, broader, more inclusive approach is one that I have favored from the outset.

The current debate over the ethnic identity of dynastic Egypt has its roots in contradictory perceptions and physical portrayals of Egypt in the ancient historical record and in academia, among travelers, historians, archaeologists and other scholars of ancient and contemporary times, and in modern popular culture. The disparate ways in which the ancient Egyptians depicted themselves in art and artifact, in symbolic representations and realistically, have served to fuel the debate.

A comment on the other language suggested above: actually, I think there is plenty of hard evidence, just no proof, and that which exists is sometimes contradictory and certainly inconclusive. Perhaps that is what should be said instead. Either way, the suggestions here are far superior to what currently exists. deeceevoice (talk) 10:51, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I propose the following as a compromise lead paragraph:

The on-going debate over the ethnic identity of dynastic Egypt has its roots in contradictory perceptions and physical portrayals of ancient Egyptians in the historical record, in academia and in popular culture since ancient times. In the 20th century a number of alternative theories arose to challenge the conventional wisdom, including but not limited to the Afrocentrism movement. The scarcity of "conclusive" evidence, and the disparate ways in which the ancient Egyptians depicted themselves in art and artifact, have served to fuel the debate.

Comments? Wdford (talk) 12:42, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

"In the 20th century a number of alternative theories arose to challenge the conventional wisdom including but not limited to the Afrocentrism movement". This implies that there was a conventional wisdom that was challenged, which is highly dubious, and that some sort of similar challenge was occuring outside of Afrocentrism, which is confusing and probably misleading. Paul B (talk) 12:47, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

There is always a "conventional wisdom" - on wikipedia it is usually called the "academic consensus" or the "mainstream", or similar. I am happy to substitute any suitable term. And yes, there is a similar challenge occurring outside of Afrocentrism - if that were not the case then this debate could be confined to a sub-section within the Afrocentrism article. Wdford (talk) 12:59, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

No, theories of ethnicity and race have evolved dramatically, and DNA has put a whole new complexion on such studies. So you can't just assert that there was a "conventional widom" without any good reason to make such a claim. Nor can you claim a "similar challenge" without reason. Paul B (talk) 13:02, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Wdford that there was a common wisdom which considered the Egyptians as Blacks. This wisdom was chalenged during the time of the slave trade and the colonisation which followed. Now new studies tend to go back to that ancient wisdom. That is the case in study about the HLA genes in Macedonians and the sub-Saharan origin of the Greeks where it is said that Egypt-Ethiopia had populated Greece, thus the sub-Saharian origin of the Greeks.--Lusala lu ne Nkuka Luka (talk) 13:21, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I tend to support the lead suggested by Deeceevoice. It has more elements than the first one and the one by Wdford.--Lusala lu ne Nkuka Luka (talk) 13:26, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

The "conventional wisdom" (call it what you will) is that the ancient Egyptians were exactly like the modern Egyptians - i.e. not European, not Semite and not "Negro" either. The articles are full of such positions, as I'm sure you are aware. The people who are now bringing DNA analysis to the party would be part of the Afrocentric challenge if they are Afrocentrists, but if they are not themselves Afrocentrists then they would be among those who are making a "similar challenge". Where are we missing each other?

BTW - what wording would you prefer for the lead paragraph?

Wdford (talk) 13:35, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

The full article about the sub-Saharan origin of the Greeks is found here http://my.opera.com/ancientmacedonia/blog/who-are-greekshla-genes-in-macedonians. I prefer the wording suggested by Deeceevoice.--62.101.92.14 (talk) 13:40, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Well Lusala seem to think he agrees with you that there was a "conventional widom" that they were black, but you say that the conventional wisdom is that they were...not! Your version creates false dichotomy between conventional and alternative, where alternative is aligned with Afrocentrism, even if it isn't identical to it. Also DNA has been used to confirm the "wisdom", conventional or not, that they were pretty much the same as modern Egyptians. I'd prefer a lead that simply stated that this is an issue within Afrocentrism and that it draws on earlier debates of race theorists and descriptions of Egyptians from ancient history. p.s. Arnaiz-Villena' article is not generally accepted, and is irrelevant here. Paul B (talk) 13:48, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

So, now we're going back to mentioning Afrocentrism in the lead? Why? Let's just start with a general statement everyone can agree on, and let the article sort itself out from there. First, though, let's get rid of the perfectly ghastly language that exists now. Jeezus H. Christ! deeceevoice (talk) 14:06, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

If this issue is to be defined narrowly in the lead, then the Thought-Police will start reverting contributions again on the basis that they fall outside the scope of the article. If we are to accept a lead that merely says "This is an issue within Afrocentrism" then the whole article need not exist, and we can simply build it as a section within the existing Afrocentrism article. The lead needs to allow for a discussion on the controversy over and above that which is part of the Afrocentric debate. Any wording that achieves this broader scope will be fine with me. Otherwise, we need to change the title to indicate a limitation on scope, do we not? Wdford (talk) 14:13, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, duh. We're just going around in circles. First, let's agree not to mention freakin' Afrocentrism in the lead. How 'bout that? And let's not talk about "conventional wisdom," because most people back then hadn't a freakin' clue about Egypt. There's plenty of time to elaborate on what was recorded and written during various times. Let's just KISS and stick to a bare-bones lead paragraph, so we can open up the article and make that disgusting text just disappear and start to frame the article in a proper manner. I don't like your version, because it refers to popular culture in ancient times -- when there really was no "popular culture" as we know it today back then, no media as we know it today. Unless there's some specific criticism of the language I've offered, let's just go with it (or something very similar in scope).

Furthermore, there were Europeans making whitewashed images of Egyptian art and artifacts before the 20th century, which further muddied the waters. So, jumping to 20th century opinion/thought that 'challenged conventional wisdom' doesn't begin to capture the issue. It once again truncates the discussion and screwss the logical development of the piece -- in much the same way sticking Afrocentrism in the lead in this current version does.

And your concern (expressed earlier) about speakers of English as a second language just doesn't fly -- since this is an English-language project. While I can understand reading and writing in a second language may at times prove challenging (it takes me considerable effort to do so in Spanish), I don't favor dumbed-down/simplified language to accommodate ESL contributors -- and I don't think, as a whole, that should be a consideration when crafting submissions. And, no. The "thought police" are all too anxious to paint this as some crackpot Afrocentrist issue; they can't wait to do so -- which is why the lead was written/restored the way it was by others -- notably, the individual whose stated intent was to craft an article on "Radical Afrocentrist historiography." If we're writing about the controversy, then one of the most obvious things to do is discuss Afrocentrism. The problem is framing the article in that context at the outset -- which gives rise to the notion that Afrocentrism is where the debate all started -- which we know is bogus.

That's why, IMHO, we need to keep Afrocentrism out of the lead. (We don't mention Nordicists, either.) What about that don't you get? (Sorry, but if I'm sounding impatient, it's because I am. Let's just do a simple lead, that can't be disputed and move on from there. No one has suggested that we try to write the article without mentioning Afrocentrism. That would be absurd/pointless. deeceevoice (talk) 14:58, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

That's OK!--Lusala lu ne Nkuka Luka (talk) 15:12, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

You are nowhere near as frustrated as me, I assure you.

WP:LEAD says specifically that “The lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article. It is even more important here than for the rest of the article that the text be accessible.” That’s all I ask – you don’t need to dumb it down, just use accessible language please.

I am very much in favour of a most simple lead, but it still needs to explain why the article exists and provide a summary of what will follow. It should also link to the title. SO, for simple starters, how about this:

The on-going controversy over the ethnic identity of dynastic Egypt continues to be debated in academia, in politics and in popular culture. However it has its roots in the contradictory perceptions and physical portrayals of ancient Egyptians in the historical record since ancient times. The scarcity of "conclusive" evidence, and the disparate ways in which the ancient Egyptians depicted themselves in their surviving art and artifacts, have served to fuel the debate.

Wdford (talk) 15:27, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

"The lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article...." The lead as I've written it does that. And the text is accessible -- to speakers and readers of English. (Again, let me remind you this is an English-language project.) No one who reads and writes English sufficiently proficiently above a certain grade level should have a problem with the language as I've written it.

Further, the first sentence in your version is redundant, and there's no need for "however" anything, or the need to put "conclusive" in quotes. All you're doing is -- forgive me; I do understand your difficulty with English, and also the fact that, even so, you're quite impressively proficient -- is somewhat clumsily repeating what I've already written. Let's just go with it and move forward. Further refinements/improvements can/may be made later, but so far you haven't produced anything better. deeceevoice (talk) 15:32, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Wait a minute. I spoke/wrote too quickly. The second sentence could stand -- without, of course, "conclusive" in quotes. That's good.  :) deeceevoice (talk) 15:34, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Its a good enough start - let's go with this. Wdford (talk) 15:42, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Great. It's not far from where I left it yesterday -- is it? God. I certainly hope the rest of the article goes a lot more smoothly than this has! Please vote below, so there can be no misconstruing the result. (Note the other use of your language, Wdford. ;) ) Thanks. deeceevoice (talk) 15:45, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Another iteration of the lead - votes, comments, please

So, now we're looking at:

"The ongoing current debate controversy over the ethnic identity of dynastic Egypt has its roots in contradictory perceptions and physical portrayals of Egypt in the historical record and in academia, among travelers, historians, archaeologists and other scholars of ancient and contemporary times, and in modern popular culture. The scarcity of conclusive evidence, and the disparate ways in which the ancient Egyptians depicted themselves in their surviving art and artifacts, have served to fuel the debate."

Collaboration is good.  ;)

So, who's cool with that? deeceevoice (talk) 15:38, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

1. Yes. I'm in. deeceevoice (talk) 15:41, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
2. Yes. I'm in. Wdford (talk) 15:53, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
3. Yes. Me too. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:14, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
4. Yes. It is good.--Lusala lu ne Nkuka Luka (talk) 18:12, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
5. Comment I am, I hope, a disinterested third party, not having read this article until the RfC a few days ago. I have no particular problem with the proposed paragraph above, but it's unclear to me whether this replaces just the current (single sentence) first paragraph, or all of the lead. I think that the existing second paragraph (beginning "Today, the debate largely takes place...") is also important, and should be retained in some form - although a citation for the first sentence (already marked with a "Fact" tag) is clearly desirable. Anaxial (talk) 19:09, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
6. Yes to deeceevoice's version also. Sorry to see the politix of trying to make a dissent voice disappear. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 19:33, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
7. No. (Which I am going to warrant later.) Zara1709 (talk) 19:38, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
8. Neutral Somehow, I'm not comfortable that this subject is presented as if both propositions have an equal weight of adherents. We do know that the hypothesis of a "Black" Egypt is in the minority in the real world, and we are bound by Wiki rules to report this as is. Right now, the intro looks good, except that the positions aren't properly weighted, which is a total no-no. We need to work on this some more.--Ramdrake (talk) 21:59, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
9. No as decribe below i agree with zara

How about this:

"The question of the racial identity of dynastic Egypt has its roots in the conflicting perceptions and physical portrayals of Egyptians in the historical record and in academia, among travelers, historians, archaeologists and other scholars of ancient and contemporary times, and has been revived in modern popular culture. The absence of conclusive evidence, and the disparate ways in which the ancient Egyptians depicted themselves in their surviving art and artifacts, have served to fuel the debate. While many experts agree that the population of Ancient Egypt was probably quite heterogenous, several hypotheses exist as to the physical appearance of the Ancient Egyptians."

It still needs work, but I respectfully submit that this presentation is a bit more neutral.--Ramdrake (talk) 22:09, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Third iteration of the lead para - votes, comments, please

So, now we're looking at:

“The controversy around the racial identity of dynastic Egypt has its roots in the conflicting perceptions and physical portrayals of Egyptians since ancient times, both in academia and elsewhere. The absence of conclusive evidence, and the disparate ways in which the ancient Egyptians depicted themselves in their surviving art and artifacts, have served to fuel the debate. While many modern experts agree that the population of Ancient Egypt was probably quite heterogeneous and/or that applying modern notions of race classification to Ancient Egypt is anachronistic, other hypotheses have also been proposed.”

Obviously we need to limit the material to referenced secondary sources and comply with all policies.

So, who's cool with that? Wdford (talk) 23:48, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

1. I'm in. Wdford (talk) 23:48, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
2. Now, I'm in too. :) Ramdrake (talk) 00:00, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
3. comment. I am supportive, but I think "and/or" is not best practice and need some refining. Wapondaponda (talk) 00:10, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

And/or isn't necessary. AFAIK many experts agree on both and they're not mutually exclusive.--Ramdrake (talk) 00:18, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

1. No at this point i don't know where this article is going is it suppose to try and prove what race tha ancient egyptians are or what there has been zip clarification on the direction of this article.

How is there "consensus" in a "controversy"?

Someone shoot me if this question has already been asked, but: is it fair in the lede sentence to speak of a "consensus" among scholars in a situation if there really is none? I quote WP:NPOV: "It should also not be asserted that the most popular view, or some sort of intermediate view among the different views, is the correct one to the extent that other views are mentioned only pejoratively. Readers should be allowed to form their own opinions." The part I bolded suggests that we shouldn't force a spectrum of widely dissonant views to artificially agree in some way that they do not. In other words, if it's a "controversy", shouldn't we describe it as such and say there is "no" consensus, instead of pretending there is one, but only among those who agree in some respects? 70.105.28.106 (talk) 16:23, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

There can be consensus -- general agreement -- among some parties and still controversy outside that group who have reached consensus. In that regard, the language may be confusing/contradictory to some. But we're not working with that language right now. Many of us find the lead as it currently stands objectionable, but for other reasons. See the discussion immediately above for more information. Welcome to the discussion. :) Please feel free to continue to contribute; however, it would be helpful if you would sign your comments. If you do not yet have a user name, that's remedied easily enough. Thanks for your input. deeceevoice (talk) 16:33, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Excellent - that's exactly what we're trying to achieve - to provide all the available evidence from which "Readers should be allowed to form their own opinions." We do not propose to create the impression in the lead that there is a consensus on this issue - quite the opposite. Please review the latest proposal above, and contribute your vote/suggestions. Wdford (talk) 16:43, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Concern

I am concerned that while we are trying to work on a consensus regarding the scope of the article, certain editors, who were "edit warring" are not participating in helping to achieve a consensus. I have a suspicion that if and when the protection is lifted, they will reappear and resume "edit warring" in order to have the article reprotected. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:26, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if that is a reference to me but I'm done with this article. It looks like there is progress being made but I just can't deal with certain people so I'm stepping out of this one. Ciao. --Woland (talk) 17:35, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't recall see you edit war. But it would still be great if you voiced your opinion. The more opinions the better, so I hope you step back in. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:44, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Silence is consent. We are doing this by the book, so if they don't participate (meaningfully, that is) then they can't complain later, the consensus will have shifted and any reverts will be out of order. Thusfar the vote is unanimous. Wdford (talk) 17:42, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Some of these guys are pretty smart at gaming the system. They know that just a little disruption is enough to get the article protected. This is exactly what happened last week, we had a rough consensus to broaden scope, all of sudden, a few editors who had not participated appeared and started edit warring, and the rest is history. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:50, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

First the good cop, bad cop ploy and then -- yes, Wapondaponda, the lockdown. And, of course, the choreographed hand-offs to a series of like-minded admins with the same, IMO, coercive, autocratic mind-set and modus operandi. Well, I've just dropped by several user pages, asking for their input. (Barlow and Woland's, too.) I didn't bother with dBachmann, because, IMHO, he's simply too disruptive/nasty. Ditto for Zara -- name calling and such. Besides, she's already said she has nothing to say to me, and she's off writing on "radical Afrocentric historiography." In the wrong place; but, hey, that's another story, another battle. ;) Besides, word has a way of getting around, and if they have anything to say, I'm sure they'll have at it. So, hey, we'll give things a day or so and see what develops. Thanks again, guys. :) deeceevoice (talk) 18:39, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

General sanctions ban

User:Deeceevoice is banned from the article and talk pages of all articles related to the race of ancient people/peoples until 5 May 2009. This includes, but is not limited to, this article. Tom Harrison ^Talk 19:14, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Tom, I find this ban very strange. Why did you rush to ban Deeceevoice? And who next?--Lusala lu ne Nkuka Luka (talk) 22:25, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Hardly a rush; hopefully no further bans will be needed. Tom Harrison ^Talk 22:32, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Respectfully, I do agree it looks like a rush: no warning related to this specific incident and the ban is rather long, especially for a warning-less ban... Just my twopence.--Ramdrake (talk) 23:07, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Now at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Topic_Ban_of_User:Deeceevoice. - brenneman 00:24, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Are we suppose to chime in on her ban if we agree or not Brennemen or is that just for admins--Wikiscribe (talk) 02:43, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Despite the page's name, anyone is welcome to add thoughtful commentary, hopefully based upon measured examination of relevent guidelines and policies. I'll leave the decision on how frequently admins actually do do that as an excercise for the reader.

At this stage, before even beginning to talk about the validity of the ban I'd like to establish the tenacity of it. That's a complex policy-based argument, and in the end must satisfy the guys with the ultimate ban-hammer: Arbcom. For this reason, I'd suggest that it be left to those who've been around for ages. (Please don't read this as any sort of approval for a two-tiered set of editors, just a commentary on how things work.)

brenneman 03:26, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I will no longer be monitoring pages in this area. Thanks to everyone who has contributed, Tom Harrison ^Talk 16:58, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information

• wp:not#ikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information

Although the examples listed in that guideline don't fit this case particularly well, I think that the underlying issue applies here. We want an encyclopaedia article, we don't want a list of all the people who have ever commented on the question what 'race' the ancient Egyptians were. I think I have mentioned that before. If you have a lead:

"The ongoing current debate controversy over the ethnic identity of dynastic Egypt has its roots in contradictory perceptions and physical portrayals of Egypt in the historical record and in academia, among travelers, historians, archaeologists and other scholars of ancient and contemporary times, and in modern popular culture. The scarcity of conclusive evidence, and the disparate ways in which the ancient Egyptians depicted themselves in their surviving art and artifacts, have served to fuel the debate."

, how are you going to decide how much weight each one of these "travelers, historians, archaeologists and other scholars" deserves? Especially, considering that mainstream academic though has left the concept of 'race' behind. What there is to say from the mainstream academic perspective is said in Archaeogenetics of the Near East in the Egypt section. And honestly, if you think that this "Egyptocentric fanatism" (Wilson J. Moses) "has its roots in contradictory perceptions and physical portrayals of Egypt in the historical record", well, then you have never read a book by a scholar of contemporary history on Afrocentrism. Zara1709 (talk) 20:02, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Zara you are right on that note ,the article as you might know previously was called "Race of the Ancient Egyptians" which turned out to be just that an idiscriminate collection of information and now the usual suspects are back to try and re-create that article to try and prove ancient egyptians were black africans or not--Wikiscribe (talk) 20:24, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

the following apply to WP:INDISCRIMINATE.

1. Frequently Asked Questions.
2. Plot summaries.
3. Lyrics databases.
4. Statistics.
5. News reports.

None of the sources proposed fall into this criteria. Wapondaponda (talk) 20:37, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Quoting myself: "Although the examples listed in that guideline don't fit this case particularly well, I think that the underlying issue applies here." Do you want to disagree with this argument? Zara1709 (talk) 20:42, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you, that we cannot list each and every person who has ever commented on the race of the ancient egyptians. But as long as we acknowledge that several non-afrocentrists have commented on the subject, then we have enough justification to broaden the scope. We can select some of the most notable commentaries on the suject, or we can summarize the different views that were prevalent in history. My concern is that some might decide to use WP:INDISCRIMINATE as a means to censor useful and relevant information. One of the best ways to avoid accusations of original research, is simply to use direct quotes. Since many claim that the article contains original research, direct quotes can help. Wapondaponda (talk) 20:51, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Censor useful and relevant information to what end? Tom Harrison ^Talk 20:54, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

It is standard practice for articles to devote a section to the history and development of ideas that relate to the article. See Race_(classification_of_human_beings)#History, Nordic_race#Attitudes_before_1900 for example. As I have mentioned earlier, I don't see any reason why this article should be an exception.Wapondaponda (talk) 21:05, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, but again, censor useful and relevant information to what end? Tom Harrison ^Talk 21:13, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't quite understand, could you clarify. Wapondaponda (talk) 21:21, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Above you wrote, "My concern is that some might decide to use WP:INDISCRIMINATE as a means to censor useful and relevant information." My question to you is, what would be the purpose of that censorsing? Tom Harrison ^Talk 21:41, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, POV-pushing, perhaps?--Ramdrake (talk) 21:54, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

My impression, though I could be wrong as I cannot read minds, is probably there is intent to ridicule Afrocentrism. The limited scope of Afrocentrism, means that only some of the most outrageous and exaggerated claims are represented in the article, Garvey, Diop etc. Anyone reading the article would get the impression that the topic race of the ancient egyptians is complete fringe nonsense. But many people with no connection to Afrocentrism, have sometimes made observations similar to the observations made by Afrocentrists. For example Charles Darwin, thought a particular Egyptian was black. The fear of the pro-fringe camp, is that if we include these references, we might be giving credibility to some Afrocentric claims, and they don't want that. My position, is that if it is true, relevant and important it should be included, regardless of which side of the fence it is on. Wapondaponda (talk) 22:05, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the candid and helpful answer. Tom Harrison ^Talk 22:30, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Update

From the above polls, there are currently at least 8 editors who support modifying the lead. Two are against, Zara based on WP:INDISCRIMINATE, and one other editor for reasons that are unclear. In my opinion that seems like a rough consensus, I'll wait to see what others have to say. The next issue is obviously to broaden the scope of the article to include the history of the controversy, beginning with info from the 18th and 19th Century. This should really be straight forward, in most other articles its standard practice to have historical development of ideas. But because of the politics of this article, consensus needs to be achieved. Ideas on how we can set up proposals for votes or comments are welcome. Wapondaponda (talk) 06:13, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I am happy to add the history component as suggested. However I would suggest we first clearly establish the scope of the article, as this is the ground on which Moreschi and Dab were basing all their reverts initially. Others have also commented on the lack of clarity.

Our consensus thusfar about the new lead has been aimed at opening up the scope, but Zara has correctly raised the concern that we can't have WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Deeceevoice was largely concerned about limiting the scope as well. Although Afrocentrism will obviously be part of the debate, we can't limit the entire article to Afrocentrism only, partly because there is more info that is relevant and partly because we could otherwise merely frame this as a sub-section of the existing Afrocentrism article (or attract the attention of the Fork Police.)

I suggest that the scope be defined as:

A review of all the evidence from whatever time period that has bearing on establishing the race of the Ancient Egyptians, including but not limited to Afrocentrism, with a small section briefly listing some of the commentators both for and against who do not have actual evidence to back up their opinions, but limiting this so as to avoid WP:INDISCRIMINATE and WP:UNDUE.

Once we have clear consensus on the scope then the reverters will have no further basis for involvement, and the block can be lifted.

Comments and suggestions?

Wdford (talk) 08:13, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Scope (before lead)

Well, I would suspect that several editors haven't commented on the discussion because it was built up the wrong way. I mean, look at the comment of Wdford: "If this issue is to be defined narrowly in the lead, then the Thought-Police will start reverting contributions again on the basis that they fall outside the scope of the article." No, actually I did not revert because some material fell outside the scope of the article as defined by the lead, but I reverted because the added material and the new lead changed the scope of the article. Before we discuss how to word the lead paragraph, we obviously have to discuss what we want the article to be about. If you discuss the lead before the scope, you are actually trying to avoid the discussion about the scope, with is illustrated by a comment from deeceevoice: "So, now we're going back to mentioning Afrocentrism in the lead? Why? Let's just start with a general statement everyone can agree on, and let the article sort itself out from there." I have to admit, to say that there are "contradictory perceptions and physical portrayals of Egypt in the ancient historical record and in academia, among travelers, historians, archaeologists and other scholars of ancient and contemporary times, and in modern popular culture" is not factually false. But for several reasons, one of which I have mentioned above, I can't accept an article that is an indiscriminate list of everything that has been said on the 'race' of the ancient Egyptians. And I think neither could Dbachmann, Moreschi, Wikiscribe and Woland, although it would be helpful if more of them had plainly stated this on this talk page for the record.

So, before we actually discuss how the lead should be worded, we need to discuss what the scope of the article should be. In that order - the other way around we certainly will not achieve an encompassing consensus. And if you look at the archives of this discussion page, you will indeed see, as Wikiscribe has commented, that the previous version "was called "Race of the Ancient Egyptians" which turned out to be just that an indiscriminate collection of information." And we are on a good way to get such an article again: If you are aware of the previous controversy between me and Wdford about Great Sphinx of Giza, where Wdford intended to limit the weight given to the Afrocentric view, it might be a surprise to see him here in the Afrocentric-team, as some people might want to describe it. But if you look at the edit history before the article was fully protected, you will see an edit like this one. [6]. He actually added the statement by Zahi Hawass in the lead section. I would suppose, if we let those editors have their way, after some time they would start to disagree how much weight each statement should be given, and, since they did not previously agree on a meaningful concept for the article, they would be unable to sort this out. Which is why we need to discuss the concept first. And I don't think that we can lift the full protection before the concepts and the scope of the article have been worked out, or at least formulated. The whole debate only really set off, after I pointed out that I failed to see Moreshi's plan for this article. Zara1709 (talk) 08:24, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Zara is quite right. To state upfront that the controversy has its root in contradictory descriptions of Egyptians is to get the whole thing topsy turvy. The controversy is determined by the imperatives of modern race politics, primarily in America. We could construct articles on French people race controversy and Irish people race controversy if we wanted to by simply accumulating material from history which described the appearence of the French or the Irish in contradictory ways, but the reality is that there is no "controversy" to write about. But there is plenty of material to do it ("In the late 19th century it was argued that 'physiognomic similarities' to Mongolians indicated that the Bretons descended from an ancient Asian race.") The phrase in question gives the false impression that there as been an ongoing controversy for centuries. There was a period of "race science" when theories - often very odd to modern ears, like the "Mongolian" Bretons - proliferated. You can find claims that early "Negroid" tribes were still to be found in Scotland in the 17th century (see David MacRitchie) and numerous other notions at this time. But there is no Wikipedia article on "Scottish race controversy", any more than there is on the Irish or French, because these are not issues that are linked to modern ideologies and cultural politics. This is an issue in modern cultural politics, which draws on long obsolete debates and variable phrases about skin tonality used by writers from the ancient past. Paul B (talk) 11:02, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Aaron, we should be a little bit more succinct and direct to avoid repetition. Does one believe there is adequate material outside of Afrocentrism and is it relevant to the article. Wapondaponda (talk) 14:59, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Unprotection

It is tempting to go ahead and implement changes right away since the page is unprotected, but I will desist and would recommend others do the same, otherwise the page will be protected again. I suggest we continue to build a consensus. However we can change the lead, as current consensus is 8 vs 2 in favor of change. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:33, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

We certainly could, but it might be a good idea to actually wait until we come to a consensus as to the scope of the article so we can address any further changes which could be warranted given a new scope.--Ramdrake (talk) 17:36, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

That is why i asked an admin already to protect the page as per there is no consensus what should be the scope of the article let alone the lead has zara had mentioned--Wikiscribe (talk) 17:40, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I think on the lead there is a rough consensus. I know you disagree, but eight other people are in agreement. At the moment that is the only change, that is warranted. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:44, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

How can you have a lead as per there is no consensus to the scope of the article which has been brought up by zara and which paul b agreed as well as i do--Wikiscribe (talk) 17:48, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Basically, I think Zara and Paul are not philosophically opposed to a broader scope, Zara seems to be concerned about WP:INDISCRIMINATE, though she admits it may not apply to some of the sources in question. Paul is concerned about something, but I don't quite know what it is. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:52, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I've said, I think, that WP:INDISCRIMINATE is one of the main reasons I oppose the version of the lead you propose, but it is not the only one. We need some more time to discuss this. Zara1709 (talk) 18:35, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Trying to figure this out

Just read through the long discussion about the lead (or really, just the end of it). Am I correct in concluding that the controversy over the lead centres around whether or not Afrocentrism should be mentioned in it? Guettarda (talk) 18:27, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

The overall debate, is whether the controversy is limited to afrocentrism, or whether it has existed outside afrocentrism. Historically, the debate predates the Afrocentrism movement. Wapondaponda (talk) 18:29, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

If the debate predates Afrocentrism, then isn't the Origins section (intentionally or unintentionally) misleading? Guettarda (talk) 18:36, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Exactly, there is a section detailing the historical debate from the 18th and 19th century that has been deleted, that we are arguing to have restored. Wapondaponda (talk) 18:38, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

It's not just the question whether Afrocentrism should be linked or not, but that is probably the main one. Now, PLEASE, could we leave the article as it is, until we have a broader consensus and exchanged the viewpoints? Because I don't count 8 to 2. Zara1709 (talk) 18:33, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I think it is very obvious now who the disruptive editors are. We had a straw poll, and the majority were in favor of modifying the lead. Paul did not participate in the poll. Zara is clearly reverting against the rough consensus without justification. Wapondaponda (talk) 18:36, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Just dropping by and read your note, Wapondaponda. If that is so, then I think at the very least some fact and balance tags are certainly in order. I'm happy to oblige. If there is clear consensus, or certainly general agreement among a majority of the involved editors about how to proceed, and if Zara continues to revert against such common understanding, then we certainly can, based on her performance thus far, discuss possible remedies up to and including a subject matter ban. deeceevoice (talk) 18:45, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

If you really do think so, well, then take it to whatever noticeboard you see fit. But, I will insist, as long as that issue will be running, this article should be fully protected. To me, only one thing is obvious: I was the only editor who actually took a look at the old material from before August 2008 and started to rewrite it. I was the only editor who actually managed to confront Moreschi about the 'meme' thing. If, after that, you want to imply I am disruptive editor, then 1) either Wikipedia is not worth my time or 2) we need to push this through the hard way. Zara1709 (talk) 18:46, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

On the topic of page protection, page protection is not used to deal with content disputes, it's used because of the actions of editors. Revert-warring and the like. And, while I'm not sure what you mean by "push this through the hard way", that sort of combative language is precisely the sort of thing that we want to avoid here. Guettarda (talk) 19:03, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Zara, the simple facts are that you: 1) block reverted and made sweeping content changes tht were clearly against consensus, 2) shut down the article in order to do so, and 3) called (ineffectually) for my head on a stake[7]-- ironic, given that your offenses here have been, by any metric, by far the most egregious. So, it shouldn't surprise you one whit that you aren't getting commended for your work. Finally, no one is "imply[ing]" anything; we're flat-out calling you disruptive. deeceevoice (talk) 19:17, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Um, ugh. That version isn't really appropriate. Whether it mentions Afrocentrism or not, "the ancient Egyptians were neither "black" nor "white" (as such terms are usually applied today)." doesn't belong in the lead. "Usually applied today"? By whom? Where? There's a "usual" definition of "black" and "white"? Perhaps a culturally specific "usual", but then wouldn't you have to specify which culture? And, um, more importantly, the lead shouldn't contradict the article, which does not appear to say "they were neither black nor white"... Isn't the point of this article that there's a controversy? Guettarda (talk) 18:41, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, precisely, Guettarda (points which I and others already have raised). This article is going around in circles. deeceevoice (talk) 18:48, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

There are some straw polls here with various proposals on possible leads. Wapondaponda (talk) 18:51, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I saw them. I suppose that my point is that, while it's acceptable to disagree as to whether to include Afrocentrism in the lead, at the very least the lead should broadly agree with the article, and should use language that's precise enough that it should be meaningful. Guettarda (talk) 19:06, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Can someone explain to me why it is not sufficient to state that many scholars (with references) believe that it would be anachronistic to apply current racial categories (and perhaps even the concept of race as such) to ancient Egypt? I agree with Guettarda that neither black nor white is, one way or the other, meaningless. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:41, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

A fourth submission for a lead

Here is what I could come up with. Please feel free to rewrite or tear to pieces as appropriate.

"There have been conflicting perceptions and physical portrayals of Egyptians since ancient times, and the ways in which the ancient Egyptians have depicted themselves in their surviving art and artifacts have been found to be quite disparate, changing throughout their entire history. Today, many modern experts agree that the population of Ancient Egypt was probably quite heterogeneous, others agree that applying modern notions of race classification to Ancient Egypt is anachronistic while a growing consensus dismisses racial classification as a social rather than a biological construct. Nevertheless reconstructions of the physical aspect of Ancient Egyptians continue to stir some controversy, in the absence of conclusive evidence."

Thanks.--Ramdrake (talk) 18:50, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

First impression is that it is very, very, very wordy and needs some work. Will return to it when I have a moment. (Deadlines through tonight.) Thanks, though, for your contribution and your ongoing efforts, Ramdrake. Peace.  :) deeceevoice (talk) 19:27, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

That's fine. I'm certainly not married to the text. I was just trying to address some of Zara's objections. If it can be reworded more succinstly all the better. My first language is French, so that may be why I tend to write things more wordily. The sentences are definitely run-on, that's for sure. :) --Ramdrake (talk) 19:44, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Zara, Wikiscribe etc

The general consensus is the article in its current state is inadequate. Several editors, Deeceevoice, Luka, Wdford, Ramdrake and myself have all made suggestions at improving the article. Yet Zara and Wikiscribe have ZERO suggestions. They are in universal opposition to any suggestion, and make no suggestions themselves. I invite them to make proposals on improvement instead of criticizing everyone else's proposals. Lets make suggestions, vote and move on. Otherwise we will continue moving in circles. Wapondaponda (talk) 19:19, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Wapondaponda, general consensus is sufficient to move ahead with editing the article. Unanimity is virtually impossible on any article, and particularly one of this nature. I don't know about Wikiscribe, but certainly Zara's had ample opportunity to do something other than edit war, threaten/bully and obstruct, and she's chosen not to budge. You can be bullied only if you allow it. If we have general consensus, then let's move ahead with editing the article in accordance with that consensus. And if certain other members continue to disrupt/hamper the constructive development of the article, then they can, and should, be dealt with. deeceevoice (talk) 19:24, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

This is not your average not-many-people-know-about biography or that like article. It shouldn't be to much to ask that you allow a few days, or even a few hours, for everyone who has this article on his watchlist to comment or, in my case, to prepare a more elaborate comment. It certainly is the only way to avoid an edit war. Now I don't mind a full protection of this article due to another edit war - actually I think it would help since we do have a lot of argument to catch up on. Zara1709 (talk) 19:49, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Zara, I think you have had ample time to make any suggestions, this discussion has been taking place for a while now. From the time you managed to get the article protected. Deeceevoice, there is a rough consensus to move forward, but as you know, the wikipedia elite are biased against those who would like a broader approach. Our suggestions are factual and relevant. But somehow the burden is on us to prove a consensus beyond all reasonable doubt. The other editors like Zara don't have that burden as there are many administrators who are sympathetic to their perspective.Wapondaponda (talk) 20:19, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Zara, I don't agree with you that the problematic of the race of the Egyptians began with Afrocentrists. Actually, there are conflicting reports among the ancient writers even if most of them from Herodotus to Aristotle say that there were Blacks. There is at least one who was quoted in an old version of the article, Lucius? (I don't remember well) who said that they look "like us" (meaning for him Europeans). During the time of the slave trade, Volney reminded Europeans that the Egyptians to whom Europe borrowed elements of civilizations are Blacks. Jean-François Champollion, as far as I know, did not affirm clearly that Egyptians are Blacks, but he said that they did not look like the Copts who are a mix of people who came to dominate Egypt later in history, instead like the Kennous and the Barabras of Nubia. According to him, Egyptians are from either Abyssinie (Ethiopia) or Sennar (in Soudan). The other Champollion known as Champollion-Figeac, spoke agaisnt Volney saying that black skin and wooly air are not sufficient elements to caracterize a Black. We are here at the beginning of Egyptology. This has nothing to do with Afrocentrism. Besides, by today standard, ancient Egyptians are Blacks, because there were dark. To say brown doesn't help. Many Blacks of today in central and southern Africa are brown. Nobody says that there are neither Whites nor Blacks. No-race is not a race. The actual lead is unbalanced, because it quotes from the same book. It doesn't even quote Afrocentrists while it makes the race of the Egyptians an issue whithin Afrocentrism!--Lusala lu ne Nkuka Luka (talk) 20:49, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Consensus on the Scope

I would agree with Zara that we need to first clearly establish the scope of the article, as this is the ground on which Moreschi and Dab were basing all their reverts initially - judging from their comments on the Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard, I don't think they have gone away. Others have also commented on the lack of clarity of direction.

Our consensus thusfar is that the scope must extend beyond just the "history of the debate" as per Moreschi, and it must go beyond just Afrocentrism too. At the same time it must obviously avoid WP:INDISCRIMINATE and WP:UNDUE and WP:OR etc etc.

I suggest that the scope be provisionally defined as: A review of all the objective evidence that has bearing on establishing the race of the Ancient Egyptians, excluding personal opinions that are not substantiated by objective evidence, in a way which presents the reader with the evidence but leaves them to decide for themselves.

That should protect against WP:NPOV as well as WP:INDISCRIMINATE. If we specifically include ALL the EVIDENCE available that should also protect against WP:UNDUE.

I would ask also editors who disagree with the consensus material to please comply with WP:Revert, and to express their opinions by improving the material offered rather than just blindly reverting. The article is still under probation, and blind reverting for no reason other than personal unhappiness surely constitutes disruptive editing. Not-so-subtle threats of edit wars and consequent shut-downs could also surely be considered disruptive? "Discuss substantial changes" is not the same as "get unanimous approval from people who are busy with other things." We can't expect the whole world to make do with a damaged article while one or two interested editors sort out other business first - if they have improvements to offer they can always add them later when they do have the time.

Comments and suggestions? Wdford (talk) 20:45, 6 February 2009 (UTC)