Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Non-exclusive ethnic group

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. MBisanz ^talk 03:04, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Non-exclusive ethnic group

NOR violation - the title is a neologism

I have done a considerable amount of research on ethnicity and ethnic groups and have not come across this term. Perhaps predictably, when googling the first four or five entries are for Wikipedia and wikipedia derived articles; it gets only 42f hits. My main concern is that this apparent neologism distorts mainstream social science which agrees that although ethnic groups are usually popularly conceived of as being exclusive, virtually all ethnic boundaries are at times porous. The point is, that the complex relationship and often gulf between peoples beliefs about ethnic groups and the actual history and social dynamics of ethnic groups is a topic which ought to be covered in more depth in the article on Ethnic groups, so as to explain why for social scientists the distinction between "exclusive ethnic groups" and "non-exclusive ethnic groups" is a false distinction and not used by social scientists.

I believe that this article is virtually all original research; the talk page indicates that it was written to express the views of editors. It has had a request for citations template for over one year and no citations have been added in that time. Now it is time to delete it. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:52, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ethnic groups-related deletion discussions. —Slrubenstein | Talk 15:52, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
delete - Slrubenstein | Talk 15:58, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
delete, although an entry on "state-nation" may be worth considering. --dab (𒁳) 16:20, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
delete Alun (talk) 16:34, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
delete: The single source provided - which, incidentally, cites a non-existent journal with the incorrect pages; the Linz and Stepan article appeared in the Journal of Democracy, - makes no mention of this term. Kafka Liz (talk) 16:43, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

clarification: I had some initial difficulty finding the source because there is no Journal of Peace. The article itself exists, but was published in the Journal of Democracy, 14-33, not 14-23. The term "Non-exclusive ethnic group" does not occur in this article, nor in any article contained in JSTOR or EBSCO host. Kafka Liz (talk) 21:43, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per WP:NEO and the lack of reliable sources which make it not notable. Hairy Perry 17:31, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:NOR/WP:NEO. Stifle (talk) 17:07, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Protologism. — neuro^(talk) 17:14, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Looks like another holdover from Wikipedia's early days. Even when the recently-removed introduction is added back in ("A non-exclusive ethnic group is an ethnic group with a means for people from other ethnic groups to obtain ethnic status within it. Possibly the first such group documented in history was that of the Habiru. Others have included the Jews and the Cossacks but in modern times sovereign countries, like the United States, may also be proposed as attempts to establish a new ethnic identity") the article is still not worthwhile. Mandsford (talk) 17:20, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete No valid sources BritishWatcher (talk) 17:37, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This is exactly how AfDs should not be done. Look at what has happened:

Most of the opinions written above were written AFTER this edit, so that the people who opined couldn't really see what the article said. So (1) Nominate for deletion; then (2) Delete most of the article's content to make it look ridiculous; then (3) Let people opine on it.
How many people who opined above clicked on "What links here"? Could it be that the main reason for the existence of this article is the link from Judaism? That might tell you where to look for sources that should be cited here.

Michael Hardy (talk) 18:11, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. As User:Mandsford has pointed out above, the article is not worthwhile even if the section recently deleted by User:Dbachmann is restored. Let us assume that the editors who have voted to delete did sufficient research. Aramgar (talk) 18:19, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

objection -- this is exactly how AfDs should be done. Unreferenced material was removed, leaving it obvious that the article isn't talking about anything the title suggests. Hence delete. If people bring up references for the term at some point in the future, the article can always be recreated. --dab (𒁳) 18:53, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I filed for the AfD before DAB removed the material in question. Obviously I believe strongly that even with the material since deleted, the article is a very strong candidate for deletion. People are free to look at the edit history and see what material exactly DAB deleted today. My point: that material was in the article for a long time, with a call for citations for the past year, and no citations were ever or have yet to be provided. I do not believe appropriate reliable sources exist for the material DAB deleted. whether that material was kept in or removed from the article, the article itself should still be deleted. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:58, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, this is not how AfDs should be done. Unreferenced material that is needed for the nature of the article to be understood should be left intact to see whether references for it can be found. The fact that it's a bad article (if it is) is NOT grounds for deletion. That it's bad topic, unworthy of an article, is grounds for deletion. If it's a bad article on a good topic, the remedy is to rewrite the article, not to delete it. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:12, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I've put "citation needed" tags in the appropriate places. The assertions should not be deleted while the article is listed here. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:14, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Where have I said that the reason this article should be deleted is it is a bad article? Why do you misrepresent my reasoning? Did you even read my explanation for nominating it for deletion? The topic is non-existent in reliable sources, the idea the article represents if original research - how is this not appropriate grounds for nominating deletion? Slrubenstein | Talk 19:19, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Michael Hardy should do a little bit of research before suggestion that my nomination to delete has anything to do with the Judaism article. "Non-exclusive ethnic group" does not appear in the visible text of the article, nor in the "see also" section. Moreover, the link was added only today (November 21, 2008)[1]. The article nominated for deletion was created April 18, 2004 - more than four years ago!! Your suggestion "that the main reason for the existence of this article is the link from Judaism" is simply false. I explained my main reason for deleting the article and your implication that it has anything to do with the Judaism article shows a massive failure to assume good faith on my part. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:17, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong It was NOT added only today. I saw it there several years ago. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:32, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

...I never said the reason for the AfD had anything to do with the Judaism article. I said the Judaism article may have been the occasion for the existence of the article now under discussion in the first place. This story to the effect that the link was added only today is nonsense. I first became aware of the non-exclusive ethnic group article several years ago by following the link from the Judaism article. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:34, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On the Judaism talk page, you state that you consider this a suspicious nomination for deletion; in your own comments, you suggest I have made an argument for deletion that I never made - both of these show a massive lack of good faith on your part. As to the Judaism link, it was not there yesterday, it was not there a year ago, it was not there two years ago. Perhaps once you really did see the link there, but it has not been there for a long time, a long enough that the claim that it was added today - and yes, I provided an edit diff. - is not "nonsense" and should not be dismissed so bruskly. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:44, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to be suspicious of AfD nominations because people tend to think, mistakenly, that the fact that an article is written badly is grounds for deletion (and sometimes they treat the fact that they don't understand the article as grounds for deletion, although that doesn't apply in this case). A lack of sources for certain claims in this article is a case of being written badly. That is what I meant when I said I was suspicious of the nomination.

And a correction: It was in June 2004 that I found a link to this article in the article titled Jew, not the one titled Judaism. So that's not a brand-new link.

I think I first heard of this concept in a book by Robert Heinlein written in the 1950s. Heinlein cannot be considered an authoritative source; he probably found the idea in writings of anthropologists. But that means the idea was around long before someone wrote this article. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:28, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: thank you for the clarification on Jew/Judaism. Nevertheless, I have not read any significant scholar on Jewish history or sociology identify them as a "non-exclusive ethnic group," nor have I read any sociologist or anthropologist writing on ethnicity use the term. Social scientists generally do not classify ethnic groups as exclusive vs. non-exclusive but instead analyze why and how virtually all ethnic boundaries are porous, shift, or are redefined at certain times. This article just does not reflect any scholarship or scholarly concept I know of. By the way, Heinlein was one of a very small number of authors who really "got" anthropology ... but in this case, he either made up the term or was quoting a scholar whose work today is simply too obscure to merit an article. I am not sure if I have ever nominated an article for deletion before, it is not something I do lightly. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:36, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Completely OR and OS;the one source doesn't even mention the word.--Woland (talk) 19:29, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Rather worthless from an encyclopedic standpoint. Get rid of it. Best, A Sniper (talk) 19:59, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There's a subject here, but this really isn't it. For starters, sociologist Michael Banton's first characteristic of racial and ethnic groups, that of boundaries, is that ethnic groups are defined as being the results of inclusive processes. (A group resulting from exclusive processes is a racial group, by Banton's definition. — Peter M. E. Figueroa (1991). Education and the Social Construction of "race". Routelege. p. 11. ISBN 0415009146.) So at least one sociologist by definition asserts that there's no such thing as an exclusive ethnic group, implying that there's nothing to distinguish a non-exclusive ethnic group from a plain ethnic group.
The problem is that this article is collateral damage from the perennially bubbling war about Judaism on Wikipedia, created by one of its participants and propagated to other articles (where it was strongly disputed), rather than a real discussion of ethnic groupings as they are understood by scholars in the field. This really is original research, inasmuch as it is a novel explanation of a subject that really isn't what actual sources on the subject say, or even how they present their discussions of the subject.
This isn't an article in accordance with our policies now, and I don't see any way to refactor it to match actual scholarship when we already have an article on ethnic groups that can be improved by discussion of Barton's definitions, where such discussion belongs. About the best this could be is a redirect, but given that I, like so many editors above, cannot find sources treating this as an actual subject, and only one source even using these words as a phrase, such a redirect doesn't seem worthwhile. Delete. Uncle G (talk) 20:51, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete During my social studies I have never run across a definition of ethnicity that allowed completely exclusive ethnic groupings. This is to my knowledge a non-distinction in social sciences and untill some much better references are included to say the opposite the article should be deleted.·Maunus·ƛ· 10:42, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I think the reason this article has excited such a negative reaction is that it questions the validity of 'ethnicity' as a means of scientifically classifying human beings. I would be reluctant to have it deleted for this reason alone. RashersTierney (talk) 15:43, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is there anything in my explanation for my nomination to support your claim? Do you have any evidence that this is the reason? Your explanation makes no sense to me and while I am sure you were acting in good faith I am inclined simply to ignore your point, unless you can provide some support. I do not even know what you mean by suggesting that the article rejects any scientific view of ethnicity ... I do not see that at all as a factor, in the article itself, let alone in the nomination for deletion. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:21, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

'Ethnicity', as with any system of classification, is predicated on exclusivity at some level. The notion that you can have classification otherwise is nonsense. But the title of this article challenges a frequently unquestioned paradigm that may or may not have any scientific merit, whether biologically or socially constructed (it usually attempts to have a leg in both camps). In my opinion the article should not be so hastily scrubbed. My comment was not directed at any particular editor. RashersTierney (talk) 16:47, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate your responding and explaining your view. Thank you. In response I would say that most social scientists agree that social classifications, unlike mathematical or logical ones, are not necessarily predicated on exclusivity at some level, this comes out clearly in the work of Fried (1975) and debates between Evans Pritchard and Fortas following Evans Pritchard 1940. I am afraid that you cannot use a reliable source on logic or mathematics to make a claim about an object of sociological study, just like one cannot assume that what experts agree about rocks applies to logic. You need reliable sources by scholars for whom ethnicity is their object of study/field of expertise. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:13, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is no shortage of theorists (Stuart Hall for one), who recognise that 'ethnicity' has no more validity than 'race' as a basis for human classification. The term has recently gained ground as an alternative word where 'race' would formerly have been used. The latter term has unambiguous associations with Nazism and other since-discredited expressions of scientific racism but the value of such classification by alternative wording is no less dubious. RashersTierney (talk) 18:58, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And Stuart Hall definitely views ethnic boundaries as fluid and porous and not organized in terms of rigid degrees of exclusion, he definitely supports my point: social scientists do not use this term, "non-exclusive ethnic group" because none of them think that ethnic groups are ever really exclusive, although sometimes there are folk beliefs that their group may be exclusive, social scientists do not. Ethnicity, for Stuart Hall, is not predicated on ethnicity. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:45, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think we're talking at cross-purposes but thank you for engaging. RashersTierney (talk) 19:57, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I regret the cross-purposes, I must not understand your main point. But you are welcome, and i appreciate your engaging too - I think others will understand your reluctance better. For what it is worth, I think that to the extent that these are issues that scholars are debating (for example, the racist implications of exclusive classifications, Walter Benn-Michaels arguments about culture replacing race, and anything else you thought could be of value in this article), I do believe Wikipedia articles should engage them. If you feel that there are issues that might be overlooked through the deletion of this article, I would ask you, sincerely, to look at the article on Ethnic groups and see how such issues can and should be engaged in that article. I may have missed your point here, but it sounds to me like you have something valuable to contribute to that article. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:11, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The value of this article, as I see it, is only in its potential to challenge the reification of 'ethnicity'. I agree, as currently constituted, it doesn't do so very well. I'm not sure it is even redeemable as an article, but hoped a discussion as to whether it should be deleted might bring out some new ideas. It hasn't been defended very well and I'm not sure I've anything more to add regarding its retention or otherwise.RashersTierney (talk) 21:24, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are probably right. But this discussion reveals that you are a good person to see if the reification fallacy is effectively treated in the Ethnic groups article and, if not, for you to make such edits as you consider necessary and sufficient. I am taking your larger point to be that Wikipedians should not shy away from this, and I am suggesting a place exists where it can and should be engaged ... and hoping you will look at that article and see how you might find ways for that article to accomplish what I agree is important. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:14, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Neologism - probably created for propagandistic or invidious reasons. Feketekave (talk) 17:59, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.