Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Human Genetic History

Founding discussion

Archived at Wikipedia:WikiProject Human Genetic History/Proposal. Please do not edit that page but feel free to continue discussion here of any of the points that came up. Jheald (talk) 16:15, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Project banner

I've created a first cut at a project banner template:

• Template:WikiProject_Human_Genetic_History

Thoughts and discussion about tweaks/changes probably best carried on here, until we're all reasonably happy. Jheald (talk) 20:17, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Articles tagged

I've tagged most of the articles in Category:Genetic genealogy and sub-cats with the project template (excluding Category:Genealogy software and Category:Human MHC haplogroups.

See Category:WikiProject Human Genetic History pages. Note that clicking on Related changes there can be used to get a list of all recent edits to any of the associated talk pages. -- Jheald (talk) 23:30, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi all. Great work in starting things off! I just wanted to ask for feedback about the scope of tagging. For example, in articles that have a section discussing DNA ancestry (one of which I edit frequently is Palestinian people), do people think it is appropriate to add a tag for the project? In other words, should any article that mentions genetic history be added to the project, or only those devoted to the subject itself. Thanks. Tiamut^talk 19:33, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Side issue re that Palestinian people article. If I remember rightly, most of the studies currently cited only looked at 6 markers. But that's not enough to reliably separate the different subgroups identified eg by the Haplogroup J project. Some very different lineages can appear very similar, at only 6 markers; while some much more closely related lineages can appear much more distant.

Are the conclusions from studies like Nebel's still safe, when we consider more detailed haplogroups defined with more STR markers? Or should they be carry a heavy health warning? Jheald (talk) 20:31, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, go ahead and tag them; that's what importance assessments are for. ;-) – Swid ^{(talk · edits)} 20:05, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Even if we end up claiming the entire territory of Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic Groups? I can see both sides here. It would be nice to be able to generate two separate listings really -- articles where we would see this as the primary, most associated project; and articles where we do have an association, but a lesser one. "Importance" (FWIW, I prefer "Priority") doesn't quite do that: some "low priority" articles, will definitely primarily associate here. Other articles, eg some for which Molecular Biology is probably the primary association (eg "Allele") nevertheless are still far from low priority for us.

I just fear that tagging all sorts of articles for us, will make it harder to spot eg high-traffic articles for which we would see ourselves as being in the first line of responsibility. Jheald (talk) 20:31, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah. I see your proposal in more detail below, in the "WP 1.0 Assessments" thread. Still not 100% convinced though. Jheald (talk) 20:40, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

In your case, it sounds like the bot-assisted sorting of tagged articles would be very helpful; just ignore anything that winds up in the "Low-Priority" or "Unassessed" categories. :-P On a serious note, while the overall potential overlap with WP:ETHNIC is quite large, for the short- to intermediate-term future, most ethnic groups won't have any published genetic data available. Also, tagging ethnic group articles where there is data available helps remind people in other projects that we're another available resource. – Swid ^{(talk · edits)} 20:58, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm just bothered it might really clutter up the recent changes and recent changes to talk pages lists. Jheald (talk) 23:00, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 1.0 assessments

Now that we're live, I want to get things started. Shall we start doing some article assessments and set up organization by the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Using the bot? Once we do that, we can start using the Igor tool that I've been developing to manage things pretty easily. – ClockworkSoul 16:08, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds a good idea. The talk page template would need to be updated - I only created a very basic one; code would need to be copied from more advanced ones, to add a field to display the assessments.

I'm never quite sure with the "importance" field - is that supposed to be "importance" (priority) for Wikipedia Version 1.0; or importance/priority to this WikiProject ? Jheald (talk) 15:25, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

From what I've gathered, "importance" started as an assessment for the former, but is now most commonly seen as an assessment for the latter. Since the guidelines mention having a consensus on an importance scale before going out and tagging things, here's a quick-and-dirty attempt at an assessment scale for this project:

• Top - Human genetic history is the main topic of the article and provides wide-ranging information (examples: recent single origin hypothesis, main mtDNA and Y-DNA pages)
• High - Human genetic history is the main topic of the article (examples: individual haplogroup pages)
• Mid - Human genetic history is not the main topic of the article, but is important to its understanding (examples: general articles on SNPs, STRs, RecLOH)
• Low - Human genetic history is not the main topic of the article, and does not play a major role in its understanding (examples: ethnic group pages)

– Swid ^{(talk · edits)} 20:21, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Are all haplogroups really high importance? Even the really rare ones? Are they really of higher priority than some others of the more trafficked articles? I'm not convinced -- at least not 100%. Jheald (talk) 20:37, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Ideally, yes. If nothing else, I'm very uneasy having this project state from the outset that "all haplogroups are important, but some are more important than others". I know that a wide gap exists among haplogroups in terms of the amount of published information available, but just because a group is rare or hasn't attracted much research interest, that shouldn't mean that it isn't important to us. I see nothing wrong with having articles tagged as high-priority and as stub- or start-class. – Swid ^{(talk · edits)} 21:13, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. I still can't see Lewis surname DNA project or 100% English or even Jefferson DNA data coming in ahead of Genetic drift or Haplotype. And what about articles like Origins of the Kurds, Ukrainian LGM refuge or Sub-Saharan DNA admixture in Europe? Is STR lower priority than List of DYS markers? But maybe the only way to go is to try it and see... Jheald (talk) 21:40, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

It appears I've failed to take my initial description to its logical conclusion. Genetic history being the sole topic of an article has to go hand in hand with usefulness/interest to a general audience; I'm sorry I didn't make that assumption explicit. In addition, by "individual haplogroup pages" in the original priority description, I meant articles named "Haplogroup <letter> ([Y-][mt]DNA)". – Swid ^{(talk · edits)} 21:51, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I like it. It's a good start and we can add different layers of understanding to the ranking system as the need arises. Tiamut^talk 00:45, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Article hits for February 2008

I've put up a list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Human Genetic History/articles of articles currently tagged for the project, ranked by hits for Feb 2008 from Henrik's site, [1].

It gives us some idea of what readers are interested in - or, perhaps more accurately, what they're most easily led to at the moment; so articles we should make sure are of a reasonable calibre.

The Related changes link from there can be used to bring up a list of all recent edits to the project's articles. As noted above, a similar list of all recent edits for the corresponding talk pages can also be pulled up, here. Jheald (talk) 15:34, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Automated PMID to WP templated citation converter

Here. A useful resource for automatically generating WP templated citations, and for improving the production quality of existing cites. Jheald (talk) 23:17, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Genetics of the Ancient World

Might be worth keeping an eye on this apparently new article. The creator has run into some accusations of article POV and POV-forking in the past. Jheald (talk) 12:22, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Updating Y-DNA articles

There's going to be a lot of work to do in once the article below (press release) becomes publicly available:

Karafet, T.M., Mendez, F.L., Meilerman, M.B., Underhill, P.A., Zegura, S.L., and Hammer, M.F. New binary polymorphisms reshape and increase resolution of the human Y-chromosomal haplogroup tree. Genome Research. doi:10.1101/gr.7172008.

– Swid ^{(talk · edits)} 23:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Need help with protected template

A have noticed that Template:Infobox Ethnic group has no genetics information tab. Probably it would be a good idea to add such tab, so the participants of our project(and others if interesting) can provide the information about frequency of haplos(and other notable genetic info) for each ethnic group. Sasha l (talk) 23:50, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Some suggestions/comments

I've just noticed this project now from the imbalanced article cline (population genetics). The first thing I notice is that the title should be Human genetic history (we don't capitalize unless needed here). Secondly, the project is not nested in WikiProject Biology where it should be, which makes navigation difficult. Surely it's obvious that this isn't just a science project but specifically a biology project. But more importantly I think a project on genetics in general is much needed. Projects like medical genetics and this one could then be subprojects or task forces.

I've moved the category for this project into WP BIOL, though it would have been nice to hear of this there earlier. I'll mention it now. Richard001 (talk) 10:30, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

There is a proposal at the WikiProject Council for an all-encompassing Genetics WikiProject. It has been suggested that this project and WP:MEDGEN can be incorporated either as descendant WikiProjects or task forces. Feel free to leave comments there. Cheers. – Liveste (talk • edits) 01:24, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

New Article Collaboration?

Hello, all. I started a new article Genetics of the Ancient World which was intended to be an intro discussion on archaeogenetics followed by an annotated bibliography of relevant articles, but another editor said this format is unacceptable on Wikipedia...so it has now been changed. Is there anyone else out there who might think it worthwhile to start an annotated bibliography of genetics articles? A list of relevant genetics articles with a short summary is highly useful for those of us who are or plan to be involved in research in genetics. Thanks for your thoughts. regards Hkp-avniel (talk) 11:44, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I think your article is problematic. To begin with, archaeogenetics is a stub. Why not begin with expanding that instead of creating a new article under the artificial title of "Ancient World"? The ToC and scope of your article seems ... heterogenous, and raises concerns of WP:SYN. The article necessarily turns out to be in summary style, and it is difficult to see how a collection of summaries on various regions will be useful. Also, many of your {{main}} articles tellingly are in turn problematic (classical rambling {{essay-like}} "ethnic" writeups like Origin of the Nilotic peoples). dab (𒁳) 17:06, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to move Haplogroup E1b1b (Y-DNA) to Haplogroup E-M215 (Y-DNA)

The new tree-form names in Haplogroup E are particularly unfamiliar, unwieldy, hard to remember accurately, and likely to become subject to ongoing change.

I therefore propose that we switch the article title for what was Haplogroup E3b to the YCC's SNP-form nomenclature, ie E-M215; and use the SNP-form name as the primary name for discussing sub-haplogroups of it, ie E-M35 rather than E1b1b1, and E-M78 rather than E1b1b1a. (Although always with an explanatory mention of each subgroup's current tree-form name, and where appropriate past tree-form names, when first introduced).

I'm aware this marks a new departure from our current article-naming convention, but I think (at least in Haplogroup E; and possibly also for other groups where the top-level haplogroup is deeply branched, and our article is about a subgroup quite far down that structure) that this is the right way to go.

Discussion at Talk:Haplogroup_E1b1b_(Y-DNA)#Requested move. Jheald (talk) 11:54, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Molecular anthropology Page

I have added a history section to the page, since I have written a history article on another forum. It was on the list of articles in the project but the level of interest was low. The article has a poor lead, which I did not change, and it needs new sections added for specific subprojects such as mtDNA and Y-chromosome.PB666 ^yap

Controversy about terminology on E1b1b article: opinions please

Could I ask anyone interested in phylogeny who might be able to give some neutral opinions to have a look at the current problems on the E1b1b article? The problem started last week when I starting editing, mainly because of the new article by Henn et. al.(2008) Y-chromosomal evidence of a pastoralist migration through Tanzania to southern Africa. See comment on Dienekes blog and public release. A third person, or even better "third persons" would probably help a lot by just commenting on some of the debating points, for example:

I referred to the newly discovered sub-clade of E1b1b in the cited article as "E-M293" using the standard nomenclature for naming by mutation. The reverting editor says this is incorrect because the cited article itself called it E3b1f-M293, which he has inserted. He claims that I am therefore inserting un-verifiable and un-sourced material into the article, or at best I am making an original synthesis by putting something in which requires looking at more than one source. This even though I've pointed out to him that...

(a) the wikipedia article as it stands already uses the more up-to-date E1b1b1 to "translate" E3b1 (which BTW the cited article does also call E-M35 in one place) and that mixing E3b1... into a list of clades starting E1b1b1... is actually just wrong

(b) the f name at the end, the proposed sub-clade name, was recently already taken up by another SNP, P72, in Karafet.

The reverting editor also claims that the E-M293 style of nomenclature itself is rare and auxiliary, and should either be removed from the article (his preference) or only mentioned in an auxiliary way, as for example old names like E3b are mentioned.

Anyway, if others think I am wrong, then fine, but the current editing situation is unhealthy because it is largely one person editing and another reverting. Perspective is needed one way or another. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:04, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Y haplogroup nomenclature discussion

This is partially combining the discussions here and here and generalizing it for all Y-DNA haplogroups.

Since the adoption of the Y Chromosome Consortium nomenclature in 2002, there have been two accepted methods to refer to a particular Y-DNA haplogroup. Here's the relevant text from the article:

We propose here two complementary nomenclatures. The first is hierarchical and uses selected aspects of set theory to enable clades at all levels to be named unambiguously. The capital letters (A-R) used to identify the major clades constitute the front symbols of all subsequent subclades...Subclades nested within each major haplogroup defined by a capital letter are named using an alternating alphanumeric system...Nested clades within each of these haplogroups are named in a similar way, except that lower-case letters are used instead of numerals. Again, paragroups are labeled with an * symbol, and the remaining haplogroups are labeled with an "a," "b," "c," etc. This naming system continues to alternate between numerals and lower-case letters until the most terminal branches are labeled (tip haplogroups). Therefore, the name of each haplogroup contains the information needed to find its location on the tree. Alternatively, haplogroups can be named by the "mutations" that define lineages rather than by the "lineages" themselves. Thus, we propose a second nomenclature that retains the major haplogroup information (i.e., 19 capital letters) followed by the name of the terminal mutation that defines a given haplogroup. We distinguish haplogroup names identified "by mutation" from those identified "by lineage" by including a dash between the capital letter and the mutation name. For example, haplogroup H1a would be called H-M36...Note that the mutation-based nomenclature has the important property of being more robust to changes in topology.

Currently, Wikipedia Y-DNA articles use the first method for article titles and the a mix of both in the text. Hopefully we can generate a consensus as to which method we will use from here on out. In closing, I would like to remind everyone that the hierarchical haplogroup nomenclature, like the field itself, has been changing very rapidly; to illustrate this, take a look at Y haplogroup trees from 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, early 2008, and mid 2008. – Swid ^{(talk · edits)} 14:20, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

This subject certainly needs discussion and review every few months. FWIW the E1b1b article is perhaps a good place to see a debate in action about it. There is not only the current awkward discussion, but also an earlier one after Karafet etc was absorbed by the community: same people involved. [2]

Furthermore, during this current stand off, I put quite a case together, only to have it archived a few hours later! [3]

--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:27, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

[Nenaderthal]]

Is this Wikiproject good endpoint to anchor a talk about Neanderthal article recent fate ? In not please advise me, what to do. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vdr826 (talk • contribs) 07:33, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

template "Y DNA"

The above mentioned template needs updating: IJ and K are now sub-clades of a new clade IJK. I do not have the necessary skills to change this template, sorry!:)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:31, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Who are the "Giljak," "Shiba," and "Golde"?

I found the "Giljak" group in here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/LA2-NSRW-1-0149.jpg Who are they? Giljak is empty. Where should this redirect to? As for "Shiba" and "Golde" - does Shiba refer to a Japanese clan or is this another ethnic group? What about the Golde? WhisperToMe (talk) 09:10, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Are the "famous members" sections trivia?

Project members should perhaps consider a discussion about the famous members section [4].--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:06, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

This subject has been discussed at length at Talk:Haplogroup E1b1b (Y-DNA). Wider input is needed, and a standard needs to be agreed upon so that the format is consistent for all haplogroup articles. Could we please continue the discussion here. The project guidelines currently recommend that such a section should be included but the format is not specified. One editor has however expressed concerns that such sections are non-encylopaedic and should not be included at all. In the Haplogroup G (Y-DNA) article the haplotype of the famous member has been included. This format has also been followed on List of haplogroups of historical and famous figures. Referencing seems to be a particular problem on the haplogroup E1b1b article and on the list as in many cases no published references exist to support the claims, and external links are provided to Y-search results and surname projects. What do project members think? Dahliarose (talk) 17:11, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Here is a list of my concerns.

• It may be of some notability that a famous person belongs to a specific Y chromosome haplogroup, that is a matter for that person's biographical article. I don't think it is notable for the haplogroup article that someone belongs to the haplogroup. The biography of any famous person belonging to the haplogroup is not, in my opinion, a notable or interesting thing about the haplogroup. After all, all haplogroups will contain famous people, and many famous people don't know their haplogroup, and those people would be famous whatever their Y haplogroup.
• The argument has been made that this is about genealogy and especially Y chromosome and family-name projects. I don't see the connection. Genealogy is not the study of famous people, it is the study of families. If the article wants to discuss how a specific haplogroup is used in genealogical research, then I think that would be relevant. The drawback is that I don't think knowing one's membership of a haplogroup is particularly useful when it comes to genealogical research, most haplogroups are far too old, and have far too much geographical spread to be useful in determining family relatedness. For example in this case the haplogroup E1b1b is believed to have arisen approximately 26,000ybp, but family names only started to become popular in Europe in about the fourteenth century. That means that for most of the time the haplogroup has been in existence it has had no relationship to any surname. It also means that the same surname can be shared over different haplogroups, and that the same haplogroup can be spread over many surnames. So knowing one's haplogroup does not necessarily mean one shares a recent family history with someone else who has the same surname and belongs to the same haplogroup. To infer recent familial relatedness we don't use haplogroups, we use Y-STR haplotypes and calculate the genetic distance between the haplotype of the individuals in question.[5]
• There is a very big concern with verifiability. Most of the claims about famous people belonging to a specific haplogroup appear to be posted onto family-name projects without any verifiable way of assertaining their validity. Often it seems to be speculation. There is absolutely no way we can assume these sources are reliable. Personally I think we should treat them as blogs, and we don't cite blogs. The people who write in these projects are not experts, and they have not published their research in peer reviewed journals or through academic or reliable publishing houses. These are the normal requirements in science for a source to be considered reliable. There's a good reason for this, peer reviewed journals, publishing houses and other reliable sources usually do very thorough fact checking before they publish, and they still sometimes get things wrong. When did Wikipedia start to accept the online opinions of the general public as reliable. I think our verifiability policy is important, and I don't think we can pick and choose when to ignore it. Claims that historical figures were members of this haplogroup need to be made in reliable sources. Indeed just because a group of people believe themselves to be the descendants of an individual, and they all belong to the same haplogroup, it does not follow that the individual in question also belonged to that haplogroup. Who's to say that they are correct? Possibly it is a family myth that the family name is derived from a famous person. There's no way of knowint. Possibly that man wasn't the biological father of his wife's children, that is always a possibility. These are concerns that are real. If someone publishes a reliable source that makes these claims, then we can of course cite it. But if we are relying on online speculation then I think we need to be far more careful.

In conclusion my problems are basically twofold: What's the relevance of biographies of famous people to the article? and, can we consider family-name projects reliable sources. Alun (talk) 07:03, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree that there are valid verifiabilty concerns. I did make the famous people section on E1b1b which is the one unders discussion, but I had actually been hoping that it would prompt people involved in some of the genealogical research to help me get better sourcing, even if it involved publishing something somewhere, or at least making the basis of claims more clear on a website. I made it after all other parts of the article looked good and I noticed that this was a standard suggested section for any Y haplogroup article, as per this Wikiproject, and at about the same time people were telling me about many interesting examples. I do not agree with Alun's second point, which is apparently intended to describe my position, but I also do not think it is all that relevant. The dilemma is that there is work being done out there which is in a form that is hard to cite well.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:07, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Concerning that second point I'll comment because others might be interested:

• The argument has been made that this is about genealogy and especially Y chromosome and family-name projects. It is is not clear what "this" is in the above comment. The point is/was that Y haplogroup articles are involved in "genetic genealogy" and "genetic genealogy" is increasingly important in population genetics, including in terms of output of published articles. I mentioned that disqualifying a person's work because they try to link it to genealogy using the argument that Wikipedia is not about genealogy is unfair. I think this is a dead issue. For several years there has been no published article about I haplotypes which is as up-to-date as Ken Nordtvedt's website.
• The comment that surname research on the internet is like a blog is problematic. Alun also admits he cites ISOGG's website. What is the difference in essence between ISOGG and a large project?
• Genetic genealogists are not always silly. As a surname project admin I am personally always careful to make sure distant relatives have been tested before making any suggestions. Then I word in terms of the common ancestor being the person whose DNA profile had been reconstructed. Of course many accepted published sources do no such thing when it suggested it had discovered the DNA profile of Niall of the Nine Hostages. So this can not be a reason for banning information from genealogists.
• To me it is obvious that famous people claims are a major part of what both geneticists and genealogists claim in published sources. Call it genealogy if you want, but it can not be the reason for keeping famous people sections out of Wikipedia.

In summary, verifiability is the problem, not genealogists. We should stick to the main issues.

1. Is the E1b1b famous section not good enough? (I don't really have a very strong position on it. I tend to think it is, but if not....)

2. If there is good work out there which is hard to cite, what are the possible solutions?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:07, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Another point I should possibly address. I am not sure if I have Alun right on this, but he seems to imply that there is a difference in kind between male lines defined by very old UEPs like M-35, and STR signatures and more recent branching. I think this is not correct. The E1b1b article discusses sub-clades also, with the defined ones getting more and more recent with no limit likely in this trend, and any look at the source articles will show that STR branches, showing much more recent "genealogy" is very relevant to the subject. The science relevant here involves looking at more than just UEPs. Having discovered M35 in a few people would have taught us nothing. And there is no black-white difference between old and recent relevant here.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:18, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the famous members are quite useful. I think they help add an immediate human interest to the page, which is good. And I think it's the kind of information that readers looking up a particular page find interesting and valuable. Therefore my inclination would be to keep this information, if it seems credible. Jheald (talk) 09:40, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

So could you therefore explain how we get good verifiability then? This is not an RfC, we don't include the opinions of unreliable sources in Wikipedia, as far as I know. When information is not reliable, then it's not reliable. So the question is really how we determine the reliability of the information. It would also help if you gave a reason why you think biographical information about obscure individuals is pertinent to the article, rather than why you think it's of "human interest", after all no one is saying that we should not include these articles in Wikipedia, and no one is s aying that we should not include even links to the articles. I'm just saying that the actual biographical information is irrelevant to the article. Alun (talk) 21:28, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Alun, a side remark for sure, but it seems a little overblown to equate "famous" with "obscure". It is clear that you are not personally interested in these sections, but to try to keep presenting this as an argument about relevance seems to be a waste of time, because it is POV. This has to be a discussion about verifiability as far as I can see? And I think no one is disagreeing that there is a bit of a problem concerning how to treat the online sources which are so favoured by genetic genealogists. (However saying they are simply blogs again just distracts from the more realistic concerns you have, because it is clearly a debateable generalization.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:06, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

I feel that a short list of people who are proven to belong to a particular haplogroup is useful in a haplogroup article. The story of human migration has been deduced by the spread of present-day populations, so such a list will provide a point of interest and comparison. In my view the list should follow the same format as that used for lists of people from towns, notable school alumni, etc. In other words the list should contain nothing more than a name, a brief description and a reference (eg, Joe Bloggs, poet and author, reference). If a suitable reference cannot be found to prove that the person belongs to a specific haplogroup then the name should not be in the list. Derived haplogroups are possibly more problematic, but as long as the claim has been made in a reliable source then I see no reason why such a person cannot be included. Some such claims (eg, Genghis Khan, where the famous person is a possible explanation for an observed pattern of closely matching haplotypes) might be best included as a short paragraph within the body of the article. Surname projects websites, pedigrees submitted to SMGF and Y-search entries are primary sources and should not be used as references. No one doubts the hard work put in by surname project admins, but such projects constitute original research. The conclusions drawn from these projects need to be subjected to the peer review process to be validated. Not all project admins will necessarily draw the right conclusions from their DNA results and pedigrees and it is not for us to make judgements about the quality or otherwise of their work. Surname project admins must therefore publish their results in a reliable source. They could for example submit articles to JOGG or to a local family history society publication. In addition, external links to surname project websites and Y-search entries should not be used in the body of the text as I believe this is in violation of WP:EL. Dahliarose (talk) 23:00, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd add that people included in such lists should at least be famous enough to have their own Wikipedia entry?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:49, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

But I'd also like to question the above approach at least a bit, because it is still mainly based on quite debatable generalizations that could be interpreted as heading towards some fairly controversial conclusions...

• Firstly, can you please make it clear what this means in practice? I take it means removing all the pictures etc? But how is making an article less colorful somehow more correct? If the problem is verifiability, then this will not be solved this way.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:49, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
• Stating that an off-wikipedia resource can not be used because it is original research is twisting the rules. Original research is not allowed to be published for the first time on Wikipedia, and obvious get-arounds like self-published webpages are also against the rules. However when it comes to other resources, there should not be arbitrary rules brought in to forbid their use?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:49, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
• I think whatever the approach is to genealogical sources on Wikipedia, the approach needs to take account of how genealogical information works. In general good pedigree information is a very verifiable piece of information because it refers to information that anybody can check fairly easily. It is not the same as someone who publishes data on a webpage, for example claiming certain lab results, which no one can check. Of course any genealogical source, like any source at all, might contain mistakes, but again, the same could be said for any source at all. The point is whether it can be easily cross checked, surely?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:49, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
• SMGF employs people to check pedigrees. They might not always get it right, but the same thing can be said about other references used in Wikipedia. I don't see how they are any different from any other research organization that might be used for Wikipedia.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:49, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
• The E1b1b article's references include two published works and these are clearly also part of what is being questioned. Once again, this looks a bit like arbitrary rules are being brought in against genealogical resources which are not consistent with Wikipedia norms.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:49, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
• Surname projects are not only doing "hard work". Let's confront this subject. They are also organizations which people are to a certain extent interested in, in their own right. If the Clan Donald's DNA project says that they have Somerled's DNA signature, wouldn't it be quite questionable to say that this is just a bit of self published original research? Does the public really want to be protected from such a claim? If necessary, the Wikipedia article should use the reporter's style: "The Clan Donald DNA project has claimed...". None of the problems we have with verifiability come from "self-published" original research as it is defined in Wiki-jargon. It is in fact the opposite: they are not interested enough yet in Wikipedia.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:03, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Just finished reading the discussion above, and I have to disagree with the contention that the so-called "famous members" sections of the various haplogroup pages are trivia. Taking the E1b1b article that started this whole argument as an example, mentioning a few real-life examples of well-known people that readers can recognize who actually carry the clade seems to me to be very relevant to the article. The latter seems to be a subject of considerable interest to the reading public, with many articles written on the topic both here on Wikipedia (e.g. 1, 2, 3) and in the popular press (1 2, 3), as well as some genetic studies published in peer-reviewed journals (1, 2). If there's a concern about the relevance of mentioning that so and so was the inventor of such and such, that information was only included in the text to make it easier for readers to identify the famous E1b1b member in question. Sort of like the "President" descriptor in this study on Thomas Jefferson and the former haplogroup K2. The same goes for the photographs. It's one thing to state that John C. Calhoun was an E1b1b carrier; it's quite another to assert as much, identify him as a Vice President of the United States, and show a photograph of him for good measure. I think most persons would agree that the latter process is a lot more informative than a simple listing of names or worse, no mention of famous clade members at all. Causteau (talk) 10:24, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

We seem to be approaching a consensus view that famous people should be listed in haplogroup articles. It is now a question of deciding the format. We can only work within the existing framework of Wikipedia guidelines. These have been agreed over a number of years by the community and are unlikely to be changed. If anything the criteria, especially for sources, are more rigorous than they were in the past. If the projects articles are to become good articles and featured articles then these guidelines will have to be followed. The points Andrew raises are covered in Wikipedia:Reliable Sources in which it is stated that "Articles should rely on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. This means that we only publish the opinions of reliable authors, and not the opinions of Wikipedians who have read and interpreted primary source material for themselves." There is no bias against genealogical sources on Wikipedia. They just have to meet the same requirements as those used for other subjects. In other words, the data simply has to be published by a third-party source and not be self-published (eg, in a blog or an Ancestry pedigree or on the researcher's own website). Clan McDonald's claim to have the Somerled signature is self-published research so we shouldn't be quoting from it. If they publish it in a reliable source then we can quote from it. The Jefferson paper quoted above is a good example of a reliable source. SMGF is debatable as a source, but I would guess if they had the haplotype of a famous person then they would make it known in a press release or published paper which could then be used as a source. I don't see any reason why pictures of famous people with a particular haplogroup cannot be used in a haplogroup article so long as the claim is covered in the article and is supported by a reliable source. It should not however be necessary to provide biographical details within a haplogroup article. These details belong in the article on the person. The famous people do not necessarily have to have a pre-existing Wikipedia article, but they should be notable enough to warrant a Wikipedia article. There is a systemic bias on Wikipedia and many notable people in countries such as India and China for instance do not yet have Wikipedia articles. Dahliarose (talk) 13:29, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I believe that it is clear that the above discussion is getting confusing because for some time it has been about two subjects: sources, and famous people sections per se. I propose that this section continues to be about famous people sections: format, etc. I'll create a new section for the sourcing question, which is quite general and not just about famous people sections.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:39, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Sources in this field and how to use them appropriately

The following discussion continues from here.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:39, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I do not see how the Clan Donald and SMGF come under the definition of self-published sources, but even if they do see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Using_self-published_and_questionable_sources_as_sources_on_themselves --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:00, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

The Clan Donald website on FTDNA is a primary source. The project results and the admin's interpretation of those results are original research. This research has to be validated in a third-party publication, and preferably in a peer-reviewed publication. If this process is not followed anyone with any theory, however outrageous, could simply publish it on their own website, then write a Wikipedia article claiming their theory as fact and quoting their own website as a reference. The pedigrees published on SMGF are also primary source material, like pedigrees published on Ancestry and the IGI, and censuses. In addition, the names of living people are not revealed in SMGF pedigrees so I cannot see how they can be used to prove that a famous person has a particular haplotype. You might be able to deduce the name of the person from the pedigree but that would require original research. This is the problem with the William Harvey section in the Haplogroup E1b1b (Y-DNA) article. The section is original research because the claim is not made in a reliable source. If the Harvey surname project admin could perhaps write up the research, describing how the haplotype has been proved, and publish it in say the Kent Family History Society Journal [6], then it will have been subjected to the requisite third-party process. The journal is what is known as a secondary source. The self-published sources section you quoted only applies to non-controversial facts. You need to read Wikipedia:No original research. Note in particular the following statement: "Wikipedia articles should rely mainly on published reliable secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors." Dahliarose (talk) 23:39, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Several things seem wrong with the above explanation, when we compare to the Wikipedia policies being referred to, and the reality of the sources under discussion, and the practical, common sense questions we should be concerned with here:

1. The policies are being taken further they they normally are, without this being justified by any specific argument relevant to the case. It is being claimed that research "has to" be validated by a third party to be allowed in Wikipedia, which is clearly not coming from Wikipedia rules. To quote from WP:SOURCES: "The appropriateness of any source always depends on the context."

2. No argument is being given for the debatable assumption that Surname projects are "primary" sources rather than "secondary" sources. Please refer to WP:PSTS and WP:SOURCES and consider what is written there. While it is clear that surname projects don't normally have formal peer review (like many sources used in Wikipedia), these are respected organizations, well known in their areas, cited in published literature (for example ISOGG), who are collecting and analyzing data, one step removed, in a neutral and non-controversial way. If they were distorting the data it would be spotted by the labs and participants working with them, and in any case there is no real reason to do that. They do not run the DNA tests themselves, though they do often do cross checks, and they are reviewing their participant pedigrees, not making them. So they are secondary sources.

3. There is even an insinuation above that Surname projects are controversial (i.e. not "non-controversial"), and might even come under the category of researchers trying to get their results into Wikipedia. Again, this is not being argued, just slipped in as if a known fact. Clearly, if that were the case then we would not have a problem getting them to publish on JOGG for our Wikipedian convenience! Please, let's not loose perspective. If these projects are controversial, then please explain why. To quote from WP:PSTS "Appropriate sourcing can be a complicated issue, and these are general rules. Deciding whether primary, secondary or tertiary sources are more suitable on any given occasion is a matter of common sense and good editorial judgment, and should be discussed on article talk pages."

4. The public does not only not need to be protected from these organizations. People interested in the subjects they study actually want to know what these organizations are doing and saying. They are interesting in themselves, and sometimes mentioned by name as entities in Wikipedia articles. They are not fringe organizations or trivia collectors or vested interests trying to get onto Wikipedia etc. So at the very least their conclusions should be allowed to be mentioned in a format that explains itself. (Example: "the Clan Donald DNA Project states that..."). If not, why not? (I am not saying that all their conclusions are interesting enough to the general public to be worth putting on Wikipedia, but in this case we are talking about "famous" people.)

Reality check and another example. Looking at this Wikiproject's suggestions, perhaps the E1b1b article should also have some STR modals for some of the main sub-clades. Where I can get these? Only one place: the E-M35 phylogeny project. No one else has published any. If they have identified a clear modal from their review of thousands of test results for say E-V22, then what is controversial about that? Their sources are clear. No one says they are controversial. They are removed at least one step from the testing and from the individuals who are tested. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 04:24, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

You need to understand the peer review process. It might be imperfect but it is the only system we have. We can only work within existing guidelines. These apply to surname projects, haplogroup projects as well as to all the respected researchers in the field of genetic genealogy. Spencer Wells and Dr Michael Hammer don't set up their own websites to publish their results they submit them to a journal. Their papers are scrutinised by referees before publication and if accepted, subject to referees' comments, then they will appear in print. Surname projects are run by volunteers. Some might be scientists, some might be genealogists, some might be geneticists. You seem to be suggesting that surname project admins should be regarded in a class of their own and shouldn't have to undergo the same peer review process which respected scientists follow. It is even more important for surname projects to have their work scrutinised by a third party. The interpretation of results and statistics is a minefield. There are all sorts of questions which need to be considered such as sample bias (a particular problem with most projects because of the hugely disproportionate number of American participants), number of markers used, sub-grouping of matches, submitted pedigrees, etc. If the E-M35 phylogeny project has information on modals for the E1b1b article then it has to be published just in the same way that Spencer Wells et al publish their data. It would then be up to the referees to look at the work and check that no false conclusions have been drawn. Dahliarose (talk) 13:19, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

It might be a good idea to break up discussion into different types of source relevant to this field. I am trying to follow Wikipedia policies according to both their spirit and wording...

The appropriateness of any source always depends on the context. Where there is disagreement between sources, their views should be clearly attributed in the text.

— WP:SOURCES

Appropriate sourcing can be a complicated issue, and these are general rules. Deciding whether primary, secondary or tertiary sources are more suitable on any given occasion is a matter of common sense and good editorial judgment, and should be discussed on article talk pages.

— WP:PSTS

Therefore two sub-sections follow...--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:04, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

By the way, it is my proposal that despite what has happened since creating the sub-sections below, this introductory section should be used for all discussion about whether there is any point at all in discussing the details of how to judge genealogical and surname project sources on a case by case basis. The sections below were intended for constructive discussion on that - case by case if necessary. For people who believe that basic Wikipedia policies are being broken by any level of use of such sources, people in other words who disagree with the approach entirely on principle, there is not point cluttering up those sections, which had another intention.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:48, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Traditional Genealogy (pedigrees etc): sourcing issues

It occurs to me that not everyone will be aware of the special situation in genealogy sourcing. I'd like to mention some ways in which genealogical sources available do not fit easily into Wikipedia "primary, secondary, tertiary" categories, or that to the extent they do, it might be misleading....

1. Peer review in normal genealogy (I am not including genetic genealogy or medieval genealogy for example) is rare, and when it exists it is not usually a simple guideline to quality. And when the quality of peer review is really good, then it can be extremely time consuming, which means it is not something we can in practice expect everyone to do just for the benefit of Wikipedia. Wikipedia has to work with the reality of each field, and not expect reality to adapt to Wikipedia. The reality is that genealogy, a bit like Wikipedia itself, is blessed and cursed with the enormous numbers of people working on it, and their enthusiasm. This includes some of the people who do peer reviews and publish books.

2. On the other hand, genealogies are not like the standard eye witness accounts which define "primary sources" in Wikipedia WP:PSTS. They are largely collections made up of record extractions from public archives. For this reasons, genealogies would normally be divided by genealogists themselves not based upon peer review, but according to whether they are set out in a way which is easy to cross check. For this reason, peer review adds very little to most genealogical work, and is a debatable investment to make in terms of time, money and energy. (Peer review in normal genealogy tends to be used for prestige more than anything.)

3. Generally speaking whenever people discuss sourcing looking up a source in public archives is not considered to make a person a primary source. For example if I cite a peer reviewed article or a government document in a Wikipedia article no one will argue that I have become a self-published primary source. That would require deleting pretty much all of Wikipedia, and is opposed to common sense. However, this is all that good genealogies do: cite publicly available information which other people can already cross check.

4. Because of the nature of genealogies, described above, good genealogies are easy to identify using common sense and Google and that is therefore the way Wikipedians should work also, whenever they need to check any amateur collection of public records.

If there are errors in the above, let's discuss them.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:04, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

You seem to be trying to make special cases for different subsets of information. The same principles apply for genealogy as for any other field. Wikipedia relies on published reliable sources. There is probably more judgement involved in deciding whether a genealogical publication is reliable or not, and in fact the standards for publication are much lower than those used in scientific publications. Wikipedia does not expect editors to do the peer review. It simply expects people to use reliable published sources which have been subjected to some sort of third party review. For genealogical sources this could be Burke's Peerage, Burke's Landed Gentry, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and other biographical encyclopaedias, articles published in family history society publications, articles published in local history society journals, articles published by the Society of Genealogists, etc, etc. Dahliarose (talk) 11:51, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

There is no necessary conflict between the first sentence and second sentence above, and the fact that you see to think that there is perhaps shows the nature of our hopefully temporary disagreement. The same principles always apply, but, as Wikipedia policies themselves make clear, different fields and situations require different interpretations about what the relevant reliable publications are, and how they should be used. Perhaps your disagreement with what I have written comes down to saying that it is simply obvious to everyone which publications are reliable in genealogy. I'm saying that in genealogy your simplified application of Wikipedia principles is misleading, for the specific reasons I have explained.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:43, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Taking one of your examples. As a genealogist I do not consider Burkes to be anything other than primary information which needs to be checked. It has prestige but I don't think it deserves a higher level of respect than some internet resources. A key problem is that it never explains its sources. If I find a genealogy on the internet which explains its sources, then I have something that is exposed to neutral checking. Where peer review processes do not exist, then showing all potential sources of bias etc is the next best thing. Good genealogies are secondary sources, analyzing and collecting raw data, not sources of raw data, even if not subject to formal peer review. On the other hand, whatever is in Burkes is notable, and when a family I am writing about is in Burkes I tend to mention that, though in neutral language. What the Clan Donald says about itself is also notable, for anyone interested in the Clan Donald.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Genealogical research is what is known in Wikipedia parlance as original research. Genealogist use primary sources such as birth, marriage and death certificates, censuses, parish registers, wills, tax records, etc. to compile their pedigrees. Many of the genealogies published on the internet will be meticulously researched and more accurate and detailed than anything which appears in a published book, but because it is original research it cannot be used on Wikipedia unless the research is published in a reliable third-party source. Genealogical publications do not tend to have the same level of peer-review as scientific journals, so it is in fact quite easy to publish something in a genealogical publication such as a family history journal which would probably qualify as a reliable source (in other words it has been approved for publication by a third party). Burke's also counts as a reliable third-party source. The pedigrees have been published by a third-party (ie, not self-published by the individual families in question). The families submit their pedigrees and they are checked by neutral editors before publication. A good genealogist should always go back and check primary sources, as even the best published sources can be wrong, and no doubt there are many errors in Burke's. If the Clan Donald research is indeed notable, then it will eventually be published in reliable sources. In any case Wikipedia is not concerned with detailed genealogies, apart from those for a few notable families. Published genealogical sources might perhaps be used as a source for biographical information about a notable person. Otherwise there are a number of genealogy Wikis where such information can be published instead. If you are concerned about the reliability or otherwise of a particular source you might like to raise the issue at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Dahliarose (talk) 11:44, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Mentioning original research from outside Wikipedia, on Wikipedia, is clearly not a problem except for the question of how reliable the source is. WP:OR is about not putting original research for the first time on Wikipedia. Notability plays quite a different role in this discussion. Notability, in Wikipedia policies, is potentially a justification for mentioning the claims of a primary source. If a notable person or organization claims something on their website, we do not need to wait for a third party to publish it before citing this claim, at least as a claim by notable person or organization "x".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:29, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

If a third party discusses someone's original research in a reliable source then that source can be quoted in a Wikipedia article. What we shouldn't be doing is quoting direct from the original research. It makes no difference whether or not the person or organisation is notable or not. If they are the primary source then you can only quote non-controversial facts. This is the only way of maintaining neutrality and avoiding bias. In any case notable scientists do not publish their work on their own websites. They submit their research to peer-reviewed publications. Brian Sykes for instance didn't publish his surname work on the Oxford Ancestors website, but published it in a journal.[7]Dahliarose (talk) 22:24, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

1. Please justify the following remark, which seems directly opposed to both written Wikipedia policies, as well as normal Wikipedia practice: "It makes no difference whether or not the person or organisation is notable or not." Contrast with the Wikipedia policy on Notability.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:34, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

2. You mention that "you can only quote non-controversial facts". I went further gave the full set of criteria concerning questionable sources, which you've ignored repeatedly. But anyway, please now state what the controversy is which you are talking about which means that we need to treat the sources under discussion with special strictness. Is this a matter of current affairs or living people?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:34, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

3. Are you sure that you want to stick to the following statement: "notable scientists do not publish their work on their own websites"? Surely it is obvious that this is not always true, and this is precisely why Wikipedia rules allow for some types of cases. Once again I'll remind you that I cited quite a bit of the rules, and you've ignored that.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:34, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

You don't seem to have read the basic Wikipedia policies or if you have you have misunderstood. I suggest if you don't like my answers then you go and ask for clarification on the policy pages because I don't have the time to keep repeating the same arguments over and over again. All the above points are covered in Wikipedia:No original research which states quite specifically "Wikipedia does not publish original research or original thought. This includes unpublished facts, arguments, speculation, and ideas; and any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position." If someone does any original research, whether they are Spencer Wells or the Clan McDonald, it can't be used on Wikipedia unless it's been published in a secondary source. Dahliarose (talk) 16:23, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Research webpages run by volunteers without peer review (surname projects, Clan projects, ISOGG, haplogroup projects etc)

• I want to start the ball rolling by pointing out that no one in discussion so far has made a clear accusation that projects in this category are involved in known controversies, are fringe organizations, are organizations publishing their ideas just to get on Wikipedia, are testing companies, are individuals, or in any other way come into a category which would get them clearly seen as bad sources due to Wikipedia policy. Neither is it true that Wikipedia has a policy that all sources must be peer-reviewed. Concerning the examples which have been discussed so far, there has also been no concrete claim that the information is wrong or even doubtful. So the question is not a simple one where we can just refer to a set of instructions in the Wikipedia policies. It is a question which should not be handled in a dismissive way.

• Secondly, I want to point out that while everyone can probably agree that it would be nice for Wikipedians if every volunteer project working in this field published every interesting conclusion they came to in a journal like JOGG, this is not the case, simply because these are not organizations which exist for the sake of such publication. This is part of why they are so effective, often moving ahead of the "professional" field in terms of discovery and analysis of information about haplogroups. So this point is moot, except to the extent that we can personally get admins to publish, which will be only in some cases. Once again, Wikipedia can not and does not expect reality to adapt to Wikipedia. It expects Wikipedians to have knowledge of the sourcing issues in areas they edit about, and to work in an appropriate common sense way, based on the issues in each field.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:04, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

• Thirdly I should repeat what I wrote above in what is now the introduction: that a source is not peer-reviewed does not make it a "primary source" in Wikipedia parlance. The projects we are discussing are clearly "secondary sources" even if they are not peer reviewed. They are respected and uncontroversial organizations which receive the facts they analyze from participants, labs, and other correspondents occasionally including published authors etc.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:40, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

To quote the relevant policy...

Primary sources are sources very close to an event. For example, an account of a traffic accident written by a witness is a primary source of information about the accident. Other examples include archeological artifacts; photographs; historical documents such as diaries, census results, video or transcripts of surveillance, public hearings, trials, or interviews; tabulated results of surveys or questionnaires; written or recorded notes of laboratory and field experiments or observations; and artistic and fictional works such as poems, scripts, screenplays, novels, motion pictures, videos, and television programs. The key point about a primary source is that it offers an insider's guide to an event, a period of history, a work of art, a political decision, and so on.

— WP:PSTS

...compare to secondary sources...

Secondary sources are at least one step removed from an event. They rely for their facts and opinions on primary sources, often to make analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims.

— WP:PSTS

-- Even if we say that these projects are really questionable sources to people who understand how they work, here are the guidelines about questionable sources from WP:QS...

Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, especially in articles about themselves, without the requirement that they be published experts in the field, so long as:

  1. the material used is relevant to the notability of the subject of the article;
  2. it is not unduly self-serving;
  3. it does not involve claims about third parties;
  4. it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject;
  5. there is no reason to doubt its authenticity;
  6. the article is not based primarily on such sources;

I would say that all these criteria are met. The most important one in most cases for famous people articles would be notability. This in a sense trumps all concerns, because the public is interested in Surname projects, and does want to know what they say, even if controversial. So when they are saying something interesting then we can and should quote them.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:39, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Primary sources can be reliable in some situations, but not in others. Whenever they are referenced, they must be used with caution in order to avoid original research. Primary sources are considered reliable for basic statements of fact as to what is contained within the primary source itself (for example, a work of fiction is considered a reliable source for a summary of the plot of that work of fiction).

— WP:RS

I think I've answered all these points in my comments above. Dahliarose (talk) 13:19, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you have addressed any of the substance of what I have posted, which was of course largely an exercise in stating Wikipedia policies. I think your argument comes down to saying that all sources on Wikipedia need to be peer-reviewed secondary sources (although I note that your understanding of genealogical publications such as Burkes seems a little naive), which is simply not true. If it was true then most of Wikipedia would need to be deleted. Trying to say that I am asking for special treatment for some of the most important sources in this field is missing the point entirely as shown by the fact that you are posting this in response to citations of Wikipedia policy. I am only suggesting that we should indeed use normal Wikipedia approaches, and not create special rules biased against some sources. If I am misunderstanding you, then please distinguish your position from this description. Can you also please ensure that you sign all your comments?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:36, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm only trying to explain my understanding of the Wikipedia policies as they apply to the field of genetic genealogy. I think again I've answered the questions you raised in my comment above. I'm not trying to create any special rules or create biases against specific sources. So long as the sources are not original research and have been subjected to some degree of third-party checking then they can be used. I'm sorry if I haven't signed all my comments. It's confusing when there are so many discussions going on at the same time. Dahliarose (talk) 11:50, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

The reason the discussion has gotten expansive is because I've gone to some lengths to dig up all the policies and some of your implied examples, and explain my precise questions about your position. You have not reacted to any of that at all. This happens increasingly on Wikipedia: people make vague accusations that others are breaking rules, and then write negatively about the long reactions when people actually take it seriously. To repeat: third party checking is not a requirement for Wikipedia, only a preference, and secondly your ideas about how genealogical sources work is at least debatable. Burkes never shows its sources, and is not reliable. A genealogist who clearly explains his sources is a secondary source that can be easily cross checked. Surname projects are notable and respected organizations whose data and analyzes can be mentioned on Wikipedia either way.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:43, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

It's difficult to know where to start with these lengthy comments. I think you've misunderstood and misinterpreted what is being said, and haven't yet understood what constitutes original research. No one is suggesting that surname projects and the like are deliberately setting out to mislead people, but the results from all these projects are original research. Surname projects are run by volunteers, many of whom are not scientists or even genealogists. Some admins might well be notable people in their own right, but most won't be. Nevertheless, regardless of their status, their work still has to be subjected to the same procedures which are followed by the scientific community. No scientific research has any credibility unless it undergoes this third-party checking process. Spencer Wells, Michael Hammer, Brian Sykes and all the other respected scientists have to follow this procedure. You seem to be suggesting that for some reason surname projects should for some reason be exempted from this process. The standards have to be highter for scientific articles on Wikipedia because the subject is much more complex than writing an article about say a pop star or film star, where you are dealing with facts rather than the analysis of complex data. Getting surname project admins to publish their results is a separate problem. They don't necessarily have to publish their results in the same journals used by the scientific community, but they have to publish them somewhere other than on their own website. You can quote from a surname project if the results are non-controversial and do not constitute original research. You could therefore state in a Wikipedia article that all the members of the Bloggs surname project tested to date belong to haplogroup G. However if the surname project makes the claim that President Bloggs who died in 1760 belongs to haplogroup G, then that claim should not be used unless it has been published by a third-party because it is original research. Surname projects are not in themselves notable. They become notable if third parties take notice of them and quote from their research. Genealogists are doing original research so they are primary sources. If their work is published in a third-party publication then it becomes a secondary source. Whether or not the publication chooses to publish their sources is irrelevant. Burke's is a respected organisation and pedigrees are checked by a professional genealogist. The pedigrees are constantly being updated. I think you must have only seen the old editions which are notoriously inaccurate. Dahliarose (talk) 23:12, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Dear Dahliarose, I think you are not reading what you are replying to. Basically: you need to be willing to at least consider that not everything I say is wrong, or else discussion is a waste of time. We are now in a circle of repeating ourselves. Your protestations concerning how difficult it is to handle "lengthy comments" rings very hollow because this has certainly been avoidable. You also could have continued replying in the general section if you had felt, as you clearly do, that there is no point discussing the details of the types of sources which might be relevant to this field. If you don't mind, in order to break the circle, I'd like to ask quite direct questions in order to try to get things more clear. Sorry if this comes across as a bit combatative. That is not the intention...

1. "all these projects are original research". There is no Wikipedia policy which says that Original Research first published outside Wikipedia can never be used. Are you saying that there is one?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes. It is all covered in Wikipedia:No original research.

2. "volunteers, many of whom are not scientists or even genealogists". How is this relevant?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

You seemed to be suggesting that notable people had some sort of inherent right to have their work quoted even if it hadn't been published. Dahliarose (talk) 16:52, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

3. "Some admins might well be notable people in their own right, but most won't be". Again, what is the relevance? Surname projects regularly get reported in the press. So the projects are notable themselves, at least sometimes. Am I wrong? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

If they are quoted in the press we use the press article as the source. Dahliarose (talk) 16:52, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

4. Are you perhaps equating "notable" in Wikipedia rules with "well qualified" or "published"? Surely that is wrong?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand the point you are making. Dahliarose (talk) 16:52, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

5. "has to be subjected to" and "have to follow this procedure". You do not make it clear what rules are responsible for the "has to be" and "have to" but you do then extend this to surname projects, saying "You seem to be suggesting that for some reason surname projects should for some reason be exempted from this process". Are you suggesting that Wikipedia demands that nothing about any scientific subject can be put in Wikipedia if it came from a webpage? And is all science the same in this respect? A list of haplotypes is the same as a complex analyses? Where do you draw the line?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

This is again covered on Wikipedia:No original research. You would have to ask the question there if you don't agree with my answers. Dahliarose (talk) 16:52, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

6. "No scientific research has any credibility unless it undergoes this third-party checking process." You might think so personally, but this is not what everyone thinks, and there are Wikipedia rules which allow people to use information that has not been peer-reviewed, under certain circumstances. Do you truly disagree?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Not everything has to be peer-reviewed, but it has to be covered in secondary sources. Dahliarose (talk) 16:52, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

7. You consistently imply that Wikipedia only allows peer-reviewed secondary sources. I've asked you to confirm or deny if this is really believe this. Can you please confirm or deny if this is what you think?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

As above, everyting has to be covered in secondary sources and not in self-published sources. Dahliarose (talk) 16:52, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

8. "standards have to be highter for scientific articles". You say that this is because of "complex" subject matter whereas we have been talking about family trees and modal haplotypes as examples. I don't agree that this is "scientific" in the sense of being "complex" and needing special higher standards, and I don't think you have a right to to decide this yourself based on your POV.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Modal haplotypes are in themselves controversial. It all depends on your sampling and whether or not it is biased. I don't think either of us can judge whether or not a surname project has understood their results properly, which is precisely why publication is required. If a reliable secondary source is happy to publish the work or quote from it then we can use that secondary source as the basis of an article. Dahliarose (talk) 16:52, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

9. "You could therefore state in a Wikipedia article that all the members of the Bloggs surname project tested to date belong to haplogroup G. However if the surname project makes the claim that President Bloggs who died in 1760 belongs to haplogroup G, then that claim should not be used unless it has been published by a third-party because it is original research." Where do you draw the line, and why is it that you get to draw it? (I believe the Wikipedians need to discuss this as a community and agree, which is why I started the new sections about different sources. You've not accepted that. You obviously think there is a black and white principle at stake?) For example, what if the claim was simply "according to the Bloggs surname project, families linked by pedigree to President Bloggs who died in 1760 all belong to the same haplogroup G lineage"? Please explain if that changes anything. For example, does the fact that this is about a President not make it notable?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not drawing the line. The criteria are quite clear. If such claims aren't published in a secondary source then they are original research. If you quote direct from the Bloggs surname project you are quoting unverified original research. It makes no difference whether the claim relates to a president or to a tramp - the reliable secondary sources have to exist. Surname project websites are self-published original research. It's probably even more important if someone is making a claim about someone notable, especially a living person. Dahliarose (talk) 16:52, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

10. "Surname projects are not in themselves notable. They become notable if third parties take notice of them and quote from their research." They are often mentioned in the general press (including famous newspapers or whatever source you prefer) and are widely discussed in specialist literature also. Don't you agree?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

If they are mentioned in newspapers or other sources then we can quote from those sources. Dahliarose (talk) 16:52, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

11. "Genealogists are doing original research so they are primary sources." I think you are misunderstanding Wikipedia jargon here. Original research makes a source necessarily not a primary source. It is one or the other: either they are primary, in which case there are policies about how to use them as sources sometimes, or else they are original research, but not original research being done on Wikipedia, in which case the question is about their reliability. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand what you are saying. Dahliarose (talk) 16:52, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

12. The basic rule is that "Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." WP:SOURCES That is what you should be addressing. You should be accusing (or not) the sources being discussed of controversies or biases or inaccuracies or conflicts of interest etc etc. Instead my impression is that you have no such concerns at all and you see this all as a point of principle?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

If reliable secondary sources exist for surname projects then we can use them. The problem is in most cases (eg, for the vast majority of surname projects) that the reliable secondary sources are non-existent. 16:52, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

13. "If their work is published in a third-party publication then it becomes a secondary source." This is also a misunderstanding of Wikipedia's usage of those terms I believe. "Secondary sources are at least one step removed from an event. They rely for their facts and opinions on primary sources, often to make analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims." WP:PSTS Nothing about being published by a third party. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

The surname project is the primary source and the original research. You need someone who is independent of the surname project to comment on it to make it one step removed from the event. Dahliarose (talk) 16:52, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

14. "Third party", at least where I can see it in the relevant Wikipedia policies and guidelines, for example the one I quote above, means publication apart from an editors own self publication on the one hand, or publication in Wikipedia itself on the other. Do you agree?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes I agree. That is precisely why we cannot use self-published research published on the Clan Donald website. Dahliarose (talk) 16:52, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

15. "Burke's is a respected organisation and pedigrees are checked by a professional genealogist. The pedigrees are constantly being updated." OK, then please contrast this with other sources. Are you saying that the Clan Donald's surname project is not respected and not updated and not "professional" enough? Make your accusation clear and then please link it to Wikipedia policies and not your own POV.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not accusing the Clan Donald project of anything. It is not up to me to make judgements about other people's projects. All I'm saying is that their project is original research. It is up to other people writing in secondary sources to make the necessary judgements about the quality of the research. Dahliarose (talk) 16:52, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

16. "I think you must have only seen the old editions which are notoriously inaccurate." So people should only cite the latest edition of Burkes? You never mentioned this rule before. Where does it come from? It seems like your own. In any case this is not the only way people cite Burkes, as you must surely know? And do Burkes truly go through material from old editions and excise doubtful pedigrees? I do not think so?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia editors have to judge which sources are reliable. If anyone used an old out-of-date edition of Burke's then I suspect that would be classified as an unreliable source. Burke's is probably a misleading example in any case because Wikipedia is not dealing with the minutiae of genealogies. Any notable person mentioned in Burke's would also have their dates quoted in numerous other publications as well. Dahliarose (talk) 16:52, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Are contour maps WP:OR or WP:SYN?

Contour maps showing haplogroup frequencies and variances are increasingly common and popular, although perhaps a little problematic. So HGH Wikiproject watchers should perhaps look at the interesting discussion going on at Alun's talkpage. I understand his claim to be that only reformatted exact copies of contour maps from published articles should be allowable on Wikipedia.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:39, 26 December 2008 (UTC)