Talk:Black Lives Matter

Hi because we are on meta we might want to involve more than anglophone projects on this ː Ennegreciendo Wikipedia in Spanish and Noircir wikipedia on the francophone wikipedia.@Galahmm, LurKin, and AfricanadeCuba: Nattes à chat (talk) 17:07, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Absolutely! This is just a starting point - we should add as much as possible! I will move to mainspace soon - just getting some more input from folks first. --Varnent (talk)^(COI) 20:29, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Over the last week I've been working on the Category of "African-American history of Oregon" by finding and adding articles to that category. I'm wondering if there is a way to call attention to the need for people to work on adding articles to Categories, so that people can find the article? For example, people in the US could be working on the Categories for their states as a small way to make information findable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:African-American_history_by_state[[1]] Bridges2Information (talk) 00:07, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Scientific racism

Systemic promotion of scientific racism task T256115

After raising the systemic multi-language problem across Wikipedias of articles like it:Mongoloide or et:Põhjala_teooria (Nordic theory) which presents the these race classifications as if they are current science, the response has been to take the issue on-wiki, with discussion on the email list stated to be impossible.

As the issue is not one for the main English Wikipedia, as the outdated racial terms are coached there as clearly not current and offensive in modern usage, I am unsure where to post the issue, or to start a list of articles in different languages that need to be corrected or have clear notices about their misleading content.

Any suggestions?

Thanks --Fæ (talk) 07:41, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I may be overlooking something, but is this a systemic problem that requires an interlanguage approach, or would this be more something that should be discussed locally? Have you brought up concerns at a local level? If so, what were the kind of responses? Effeietsanders (talk) 02:05, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Mongoloid exists in 51 different language projects. The response of "take it up on each wiki yourself" is not a practical response. Some past local discussions have raised the alarm, but the task of mass changing so many sister projects resulted in no action at all, ref Simple:User_talk:Hiàn#Fringe_theory_at_Mongoloid_and_in_other_Wikis, Simple:Talk:Mongoloid (race). As far as I am aware, despite these discussions occurring in various places for at least the past 12 months, there has been no multi-project initiative to do anything about this systemic problem, nor even any steps taken to stop this type of misuse of Wikipedias for negative educational campaigning getting worse.

As an example the map produced this year, File:Mongoloid (East Asian-related) ancestry per total population.png that promotes a Mongoloid race using genetics, has been used in six different (non European) languages. It actively promotes scientific racism, using false genetic arguments based on a slightly random selection of old academic papers. It is part of a long running campaign of (proven) sockpuppetry that promotes Mongoloid, Negroid, etc. as part of what seems to deliberately promote ideas of eugenics and racial superiority. There is no easy way of getting rid of these, as they are "in use" so cannot be deleted from Commons, theoretically even with a proper deletion discussion.

Picking one example from the global usage list, tt:Монголоид раса (Mongoloid race; in the Tatar language) it relies on outdated sources and uses Wikipedia to present "Mongoloid race" as a current scientific fact. Further it misuses File:Inuit_women_1907.jpg which is a historic photograph of an "Eskimo woman" but was never published in any historical publication to illustrate a Mongoloid race, so this is misuse of Commons photographs of people to promote scientific racism without any possible claim that it is illustrating historic usage.

So, yes it's a systemic problem and no it's not possible to "discuss it locally" on what may be hundreds of Wikimedia projects and an additional problem of demonstrated lobbying eugenicists/supremacists with multiple recently created pseudo-scientific maps and global misuse of Commons hosted photographs, both historical and modern, to make it appear factual that people with different skin colour and appearance are part of Negroid race, Nordic race, Aboriginal races, Caucasoid race, Japanese race, American race or whatever other racial expression anyone can dig out of outdated publications that promote the idea that humans can be classified into different races or defined genetic races.

By the way, as the journal of "Human Biology" was a source of a 2013 article that used Mongoloid as a way of describing a racial profile using genetics, and was quoted as justification to continue using the word in modern illustrations and Wikipedia articles, I contacted the journal and they responded (within hours) with confirmation that they (the AAAG) cosigned a joint position statement against scientific racism. Their publisher, Wayne State University Press, has also responded stating "Thank you so much for bringing our attention to this important concern. With @AAPAorg & @GeneticsSociety statements in mind, we'll be working w/Human Biology’s editorial team on finding the most effective way to address content that uses outdated racial terminology & concepts." --Fæ (talk) 10:35, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for spelling this out, and gathering all these examples. I imagine this is not a 'fun task' for you. I believe you that this is a frequent problem. What I'm struggling with, is what would be the most appropriate way to address it at the root. I imagine that if articles like this exist, then there are likely dozens of references in other articles to the same. There is no way that a non-speaker would be able to detect and fix those, even if you'd want to. Hence, I'm wondering if it is actually helpful to create a meta policy that will then be reluctantly implemented (at best), or to actually engage in a conversation and convince them to address it locally. I do agree this would be hard and time consuming.

I would suggest two things, as you're asking for suggestions: First, I would suggest to write a brief 'best practices' document on this topic. Make it easy to digest, beginner-level, in simple English. Don't use complex terminology. I would recommend to let it proof read by someone you typically disagree with on this range of topics, but who is constructive. (You may already have done this, I don't know) Second, I would suggest to take that document for a test drive in one or two languages with a somewhat significant community. Say, Korean or Hindi. If they can't use it, other languages won't be able to deal with it either. If it's a success, maybe you could get a small grant to get it translated into relevant languages. Just some thoughts - but I recognize that I'm usually more of an optimist than most on what collaboration and conversation can achieve. Effeietsanders (talk) 18:14, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I am not an expert, and do not pretend to be, I have little clear understanding of what the best practices might be or what external guidelines already exist and should be applied here. This needs significant knowledge to do properly.

In raising this, any actions have to be more than what I might personally and individually do. Writing these lists is already far more time looking down this rabbit hole and the associated sockpuppetry in the darkest parts of Wikipedia than I am comfortable with. It paints a target on my back and I have enough problems with trolls and death threats when this is not my job.

This needs paid time for someone prepared to research and analyse where all the hot spots for articles which promote eugenics and scientific racism are, make proposals, gain community consensus on cross-wiki policies and even be supported in some technical digging into the cross-wiki sockpuppetry that seems fairly sophisticated to draw some conclusions about how to make smaller language projects more defensive. It's a pity that at the very first step, the WMF are avoiding any of their operational responsibility for hosting scientific racism and eugenics, nor even make a specific WMF board resolution as we see academic publishers are doing, even when the Wikipedia articles are listed and it's explained to the CEO how bad this dangerous and racist misinformation is. --Fæ (talk) 18:34, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

After Fae's post I started adding Commons images that used some of the words below to the category Scientific Racism. I would hope that no articles ever use an image called "Negroid distribution and average ancestry", for example. Gamaliel (talk) 14:24, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I may have a go at creating a report of global usage for images in the category and subcats, as I have done similar reports in Pywikibot, though there's a WMF server problem right now making it impossible to use the API to list category content.

The 'hope' seem in vain, just testing the second image picked out a random, File:Negroid mannequin 黒人を模したマネキン人形 P6120826.JPG which clearly is gratuitous use of "negroid" for a modern photograph, its usage is on one article (A) ja:マネキン人形 (mannequin) which at first seems innocuous, but the caption on the image then links to (B) ja:黒人 (black or black people) which defines black people using ja:ネグロイド (Negroid). Article A also happens to use "Australoid", another term considered racist. Though article A mentions these are not valid concepts for biological classification, the lead text presents these terms as if they are normal to use culturally and socially.

While looking at B (black) it gratuitously uses as its lead image File:Stoddard race map 1920.jpg, a well known historic map that was used to promote eugenics. Again this highlights the problem that there are no policies for standard warnings about reuse of historic eugenics or scientific racism materials.

So, just one example highlights a network of interdependent Japanese Wikipedia articles demonstrating that this is not a quick or automatic fix, many Wikipedias probably have a systemic problem with promoting scientific racism, and it's virtually impossible for someone not skilled in the specific language of each Wikipedia (in this case Japanese) to either reliably repair the problem, or negotiate a change in editorial policy.

P.S. also worth adding to the watchlist is the recently created Category:Scientific racism deletion requests. --Fæ (talk) 18:16, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Did you confirm with a native speaker that you interpreted the wordings correctly? For one, machine translations are not infallible - but there may be underlying nuances at play that we're not aware of. (which only confirms that to actually do anything, you need native speakers) Effeietsanders (talk) 03:50, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Response to a Google search of "races of humans" in English, demonstrating how Wikipedia and Google automation are actively promoting scientific racism.

There's no ambiguity or misunderstanding about:

1. A definition of modern black people using an article about the historic idea of a Negroid race.
2. The nature of an article that uses a famous race map created in the 1920s by a eugenicist in its lead.

Stated previously that well meaning people with no skill with the local language cannot be expected to be the ones to fix this. But anyone can raise a complaint, or add to a target list. However if warning notices were added to these articles as, say, WMF Office action, this might stimulate (force) local "style guides" and policies to address scientific racism and there be less of a risk that readers will mistake these articles for modern science or modern genetics.

Right now Alexa and Google search services rely on their local Wikipedia language variations for definitions and they only extract the first part (often just the first sentence) of lead texts. So let's not underestimate the critical role that Wikipedia in all languages has on the public understanding of scientific racism.

Examples today (I have an echo device on my desk):

Using Echo:

Q: "Define 'Negroid race'"

A: "Negroid race is usually defined as a dark skinned race."

For the Google search response, see screenshot above. Shockingly Google and Wikimedia websites are working together to promote Coon's supremacist theories of race with no context that they are historic and racist. The fact that Wikipedia has no initial warning about these being debunked race myths, is systemic promotion of racism embedded in the way the MediaWiki software works and the way the texts are provided to commercial search engines by the Wikimedia Foundation. These are design choices, not mistakes.

And yes, in these examples of public usage and how most "readers" access content, there is no language misunderstanding, because they are English. --Fæ (talk) 08:52, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Exemplar lists

Negroid

Pages found using 'Negroid' to describe a race of people without any explanation that this is only historical usage. Some translations of the start of the lead are included as illustration, but automatic translation may be unreliable.

1. hi:नीग्रोइड्स translation:"Negroids species are a human species. Many scholars give this species the status of the first species in the world. Its inhabited areas are ..."
2. id:Ras Negroid Though the article includes a statement that Negroid race is not a current theory, it goes on to describe phenotypes using the memes of black skin and curly hair as if they are scientific.
3. ig:Ndi ojié
4. ja:ネグロイド The article has a statement in the lead saying this is a historic concept, but in the text it continues to promote modern scientific racism by defining "Mongoloid" and "Australoid" and "Aryans" as being genetic terminology.
5. ko:니그로 인종 translation:"The Negro race (Negroid) is a race classification mainly referring to dark-skinned people living in Africa..."
6. ru:Негроидная_раса translation: "The Negroid race (also the equatorial race , the West Equatorial race) is one of the largest races of mankind , traditionally distinguished along with the Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Australoid races"
7. ast:Negroide
8. ga:Daoine gorma
9. be:Негроідная раса translation:"The Great Negroid Race is one of the four great human races ... As a result of the slave trade and migration process is widely represented in America, some countries in South Asia and the Middle East. Nowadays they live in all parts of the world. Represent at least 8% of the human population" (uses File:Family portrait.jpg to illustrate negro race, itself alarming)
10. tt:Негроид раса

(arbitrary pause at 10 examples) --Fæ (talk) 10:23, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

11. it:Negroide "It is one of the ... three [main categories] recognized by current anthropology." --Rsk6400 (talk) 14:28, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Nordic race

Pages found using 'Nordic race' that make no clear statement that this is not a current scientific classification.

1. fa:نژاد_نوردیک
2. ar:عرق_الشمال Lead text closes with statement that the term is still in use among scientists.
3. id:Ras_Nordik and id:Ras Alpen
4. pt:Raça_nórdica
5. zh:北歐人種 Has a section on 'Genetics' with multiple maps which promulgate the belief that 'Nordic race' is defined by modern genetic research.

--Fæ (talk) 11:09, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Mongoloid race

Pages found using 'Mongoloid race' that make no clear statement that this is not a current scientific classification.

1. ar:عرق_مغولي
2. id:Ras Mogoloid
3. ja:新モンゴロイド 'New Mongoloid', the article promotes the myth of a new Mongoloid human race defined by modern genetics, using a photograph of a Nenet child as illustration.
4. lv:Mongoloīdā rase
5. ru:Монголоидная раса, includes multiple claims about other "races"
6. sah:Монголоид арааса
7. ta:மங்கோலிய இனம்
8. uk:Монголоїдна раса
9. zh:蒙古人種, actively promotes the idea that modern genetic studies (2019) prove and support a Mongolian race. In the lead it even quotes as scientific fact that the Mongoloid race is more intelligent than East Asians, Europeans and Africans. Clearly, the Chinese Wikipedia has an especially bad problem with eugenics and racial superiority "lobbying".

Arbitrary pause --Fæ (talk) 14:29, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

American race

Pages found using 'American race' that make no clear statement that this is not a current scientific classification.

1. ru:Американоидная раса compares to "Mongoloids" as a race.
2. kk:Америка_нәсілі
3. lv:Amerikanidai also promotes a "Paleo-American minor race".
4. hi:इंडियन_(अमेरिका_के_आदिवासी) describes as a branch of Mongoloid race.
5. ml:റെഡ്‌ ഇന്ത്യൻ ജനത "primitive races of the North American continent"
6. vi:Thổ dân châu Mỹ defined as part of vi:Đại_chủng_Á (Mongoloid race)

Arbitrary pause at 6, there are over 100 languages that have articles on American race, so it would be significant volunteer time to examine through them. --Fæ (talk) 13:10, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Other topics targetted

1. ja:カザフ#遺伝的系譜 (version of Kazakhs) translation: "Kazakh is a mixture of Caucasian blood based on Mongoloid. From the gene research [...]"

--Fæ (talk) 11:28, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Images promoting modern scientific racism

• 
  User created "genetic" map deliberately promoting the incorrect use of Caucasoid, Negroid, Amerindoid, Mongoloid, Australoid by Ephert (talk · contribs) and inserted into multiple irrelevant articles
• Chart from 2019 research paper with Mongoloid and Australoid added by uploader to promote scientific racism, by banned account
  Chart from 2019 research paper with Mongoloid and Australoid added by uploader to promote scientific racism, by banned account
• Deletion request, image created by Ephert (talk · contribs)
  Deletion request, image created by Ephert (talk · contribs)
• 
  This image is used e.g. in es:Historia del concepto de raza to promote scientific racism. Does anybody know if it is really based on a work by Cavalli-Sforza or if it is a fake ?

Updates File:Mongoloid Australoid Negrito Asia Distribution of Asian peoples Sinodont Sundadont.GIF has been deleted. --Fæ (talk) 10:34, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

With regard to File:Populations.png, the paper is available at https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/85/16/6002.full.pdf. It is half of Figure 1 (p.6003 of the journal). It is a misrepresentation of the original paper because it misses out the hierarchy of the 'genetic tree' and instead uses colours with a key, like there was no hierarchy. For example this means that the uploader has chosen to define "caucasoid" with a list of geographic regions that they made up and cover about 25% of the named locations when the original covers about 50%. It is therefore original research and should be removed by local policies as misrepresenting the 1988 paper (e.g. es:Wikipedia:Wikipedia no es una fuente primaria). Naturally, as the paper is now over 30 years old, it is also likely to have been significantly superseded by newer and better science. --Fæ (talk) 18:30, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Again in File:Menschlicher Populationsstammbaum.png this is original research even based on the self description of the diagram. The choice of colouring and mapping to regions is the uploader's original work, it is their fantasy to define Kaukasier (another term for "white people") by their selection of countries/regions. It should not be used in any Wikipedia article as it is unlikely to represent the published work. As before this work is old, published before "scientific racism" was recognized by academics as especially stupid. Fortunately the named creator @Fährtenleser: is active today, so they should be able to explain exactly how the diagram was created and justify why this user creation should be hosted on Commons for its "educational value". Note that it's not clear to me that this counts as scientific racism, however the terms used are easy to read as scientific racism and clearly it is being used in articles about the historic concept of human races.

A general point to spin off this, is that there is really no logical reason for volunteers to be creating their own original works to "illustrate" historical concepts of human races like "Negroid". There is a wealth of literature, diagrams and photographs published at the time which are now public domain. In articles about the historic concept, the original material is easily sufficient to illustrate the topic ten times over. --Fæ (talk) 08:41, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

With regard to Neighbor-joining Tree-2, falsely promoting scientific racism by using Negroid, Mongoloid and Australoid.png, the case has been flagged at c:Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard#Renaming_a_file_to_make_it_more_obvious_to_reusers_that_an_image_promotes_scientific_racism. The same uploader (Ephert) was responsible for misusing historic sources, misrepresenting the historic usage of "Negroid", ref c:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Nilotic Negroid Lango chief of Unyoro Kingdom.png. --Fæ (talk) 14:57, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

The graphic File:Menschlicher Populationsstammbaum.png is clearly well-lit and is only used in connection with the population research of Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza. The colour scheme is indeed mine. However, it is only meant to illustrate the genetic change over the millennia and the kinship. This has nothing to do with race theories! On the contrary, I use the illustration to question the concept of race in the Wiki articles. --Fährtenleser (talk) 14:36, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Let's assert that the words you have added to this diagram, like Nordmongolen or Kaukasier are yours, and the translation seems problematic, and that the colouring is itself problematic as it appears to state more about the genetic similarities of ethnic groups than the theories in Cavalli-Sforza justify. If either of these things are true, then it should be fixed, and if they are not true, then maybe you should give clearer references so it can be verified. As there are two books and a dead website being referenced, it seems impossible to independently verify whether the diagram is volunteer created original research, and therefore should not be used in any Wikipedia articles, or is a correct and accurate representation of an existing publication.

Thanks for responding to the ping.

@Fährtenleser: A possible fix would be to blank words not used by Cavalli-Sforza in their published charts, or for which the translation is opaque, change to words that are less problematic scientifically in German so they do not read as race words.

Is this as simple as blanking Nordmongolen, Sudmongolen and Kaukasier and overwriting on Commons, or could you suggest alternates? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 07:44, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Of course it is easy to change the terms, but I´m sure these are the terms from the German translation of the book. When I created the graphics, I was surprised that Cavalli-Sforza distanced himself from the theories of race, but still used some race terms. I am sure they are not mine! Unfortunately, I can only find two copies of the book in my files, where at least the term "Caucasian" can be seen. I cannot find the original book at the moment. If necessary, I would get it as proof. By the way, "Northern Mongolians" for example is not a racial name, it´s an ethnic name. Otherwise it would be called "Northern Mongolid". I would also like to emphasize again that the colouring is added, but certainly does not falsify or interpret any statements of Cavalli-Sforza. It merely makes clearer the changes in the differentiated populations over time and the degree of their kinship. Finally, the graphic refers to arbitrary populations as Cavalli-Sforza has chosen them and nowhere to alleged "races". --Fährtenleser (talk) 09:02, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Proposal: I remove the headings at the branches. --Fährtenleser (talk) 09:08, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

So, now I can say it exactly because I found the book (Luigi Cavalli-Sforza: Gene, Völker und Sprachen – Die biologischen Grundlagen unserer Zivilisation. Aus dem Italienischen von Günter Memmert (Originalausgabe 1996), dtv, München 2001, ISBN 3-423-33061-9.) The graphic on page 161 also only shows the names of the recent populations. The copy from which I had the collective names was obviously from another book that referred to Cavalli-Sforza. Nevertheless, C.-S. (e.g. on page 165) uses the racial terms "Caucasoid" and "Mongolid" in the text itself, which were then written to the graphic in the other book. ... As I said, I would simply remove the collective terms. Agreed? --Fährtenleser (talk) 09:23, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for doing the checking. Removing the collective terms sounds like it would make the chart more 'neutral' and an overwrite on Commons means we have the benefit of not needing separate discussions in the different Wikipedias where it's used. --Fæ (talk) 09:38, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I'll do that now. --Fährtenleser (talk) 10:01, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your work! --Fæ (talk) 10:31, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

WMF position on Scientific Racism

Though the WMF has made no official statement, Katherine Maher (WMF CEO) was alerted to this issue and has stated:

Hi Fae, as you know, the community sets and enforces editorial policies. I support the community revising its policies to eliminate racist, misogynist, transphobic, and other forms of discriminatory content. (ref)

Whether the WMF might support a project with funding to address multi language scientific racism is something to test out.

However this response appears to eliminate opportunity of the support of WMF employees or contractors to take any direct action against scientific racism or, say, make it a WMF Officie action to mark with warnings Wikipedia articles which promote eugenics, historic tropes which promote race theories or similar. --Fæ (talk) 17:52, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Related discussions

• c:Commons:Categories for discussion/2020/08/Category:Human Y-DNA haplogroups in Poland 09:52, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

  I must respectfully disagree with the claim that studying Y-DNA or mtDNA haplogroups only has the purpose of promoting racism. Molecular anthropology and archaeogenetics are very distinct fields from the kind of archaic, normatively-laden "Mongoloid/Negroid" theories you were rightly criticizing above. These fields are highly empirical and, unlike the theories mentioned above, do not ascribe any kind of hierarchical ranking of value/superiority/"goodness" to different groups. Furthermore, results from these fields are routinely published in top-tier journals like Nature and Science, so they are certainly considered respectable within the scientific community. (On the other hand, if you tried to publish an article talking about "races" as though they were some kind of natural grouping, you'd be laughed out of any decent journal, because it's widely accepted that these historical categorizations are socially constructed and don't carve nature at the joints.)

  I don't think that studying historical patterns of human migration is nearly the same thing as advocating racism. Haplogroups can be used to trace human migration out of Africa, to examine the historical interactions between different populations, and to corroborate anthropological theories about past civilizations. As for the point about national borders being irrelevant to population genetics, that is absolutely true, but if you are studying the genetic diversity within a specific region, it makes sense to have images for data collected in that region, and often country boundaries are a natural place to draw the line. I'm fine with getting rid of the country-level categories, but I would urge you to not hastily delete the images themselves. Cheers, PiRSquared17 (talk) 10:20, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

  Here are some verifiable neutral facts that may illuminate the context:

1. Nobody has made an assertion close to "studying Y-DNA or mtDNA haplogroups only has the purpose of promoting racism"
2. The related category discussion linked here, does not include any action to delete the maps that category contains, which are maps of Europe and maps of the World, not maps of Poland.
3. The category contains sub-categories like c:Category:Janusz III of Masovia, signalling that it is acceptable on Commons to classify individual famous people by assertions of their genetic code based on what country they were born in.
4. Maps like these have been used to promote scientific racism, and have been used on Wikipedia in various languages to give weight to historical theories about race by misusing the mapping of the sampled prevalence of human genetic markers against geolocation where they were taken. Some of those maps have been deleted as they were fundamentally anti-science and not based on any verifiable published and peer reviewed research or the associated published data sets.

Your disagreement appears unrelated to the linked page. What you should be able to agree on is that these facts about the use of Wikimedia Commons are true, and that the misuse of Commons categories by associating human genetic markers against countries, is can and probably will result in the promotion of scientific racism or be misused to support eugenic theories that nations of people can be tested for 'purity' through genetic tests (which may not relate to historic terms like Nordicism). This misuse is completely unrelated to the content and intention of valid modern genetic science publications.

Lastly, if you wish to spend time on this issue, please look in detail at files in this exact "Poland" category like File:Distribution Haplogroup R1a Y-DNA.svg (in very wide global project use, so taken as "fact"), which have been manipulated, overwritten by apparent single-purpose sock accounts, and are not related to any verifiable scientific publication but are effectively user-created fantasies and therefore anti-science and potentially dangerous misrepresentation of the science of genetic research. To tackle the real problem of scientific racism across our Wikipedia projects in all languages, and be able to assure that genetic science is correctly represented, it is critical that these types of bad unverifiable content are removed. --Fæ (talk) 12:37, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Addendum after taking a deeper look at the example map mentioned as being in this category, c:Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by QLao has now been created. You may find it interesting to understand what the challenges are here. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 13:04, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Agree with Fæ. None of the three maps in the category has any educational value. I just removed some of the maps from the English WP. I fear the problem with this type of maps is even greater on the smaller, often underwatched Wikis. --Rsk6400 (talk) 15:00, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

FYI, just confirmed the related SPI case for en.wp, hence adding sock accounts to c:Category:Sockpuppets of WorldCreaterFighter. Sadly this is a very, very long running campaign disrupting multiple projects on "race" and genetics that must be presumed to be continuing. The above content is related to old sock accounts, and in every case should be deleted. --Fæ (talk) 16:30, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

@Fæ: I guess I misinterpreted the purpose of the deletion request as being about the files rather than the category, sorry for the confusion. I agree that including specific people in the haplogroup category is suspicious, and none of the files are really Poland-specific anyway. (Contrast this with File:MtDNA and Y-chromosome haplogroup frequencies in Italy.png, which actually is reliably sourced and specific to one country, Italy.) So I guess I don't really disagree with what you were arguing, I just misunderstood.

Does Commons have a policy against original research/synthesis? For File:Percentage of major Y-DNA haplogroups in Europe.png, the author cites their sources and claims that the map is their own work (based on File:Europastumm2.svg), but I guess it would violate WP:SYNTH if Commons has an equivalent policy. PiRSquared17 (talk) 16:45, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

commons:Commons:Project_scope/Neutral_point_of_view says files uploaded here do not necessarily need to comply with the Neutral point of view and No original research requirements imposed by many of the Wikipedia sites - That can lead to very frustrating experiences in such cases. --Rsk6400 (talk) 18:21, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

• There is no specific OR requirement, however files must be realistically useful for an educational purpose and be correctly copyright released and verifiably so. Consequently stuff that is effectively a "user created fiction", like many "racial" maps are going to be, can be deleted.

A much bigger problem is when those "fictional" works are in use on Wikipedias, when the policy on Commons is to keep on hosting the file unless it is removed from every project where it is in use. In these cases of coordinated cross-project sockpuppetry, the puppetmaster knows exactly how to use minor Wikipedias to keep their weird eugenics type maps in use, making it incredibly hard to get them removed, even after the uploaders are found to be sock accounts, and even after those accounts might be globally banned.

Hence these examples show exactly how Wikimedia projects can be manipulated, especially by state actors who may be attempting to lobby public opinion by promoting genetic inferiority or superiority theories about nationality or racial purity.

Look, as I write this I know it reads as slightly paranoid and fantastic, however this is not conspiracy theory, you need only to read the sock puppetry investigations and examine the cases to realise this is actually happening, has been going on for over a decade, and is actively happening right now. --Fæ (talk) 20:05, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

The proof that Fæ's comment is neither "paranoid" nor "fantastic" can be found at commons:Commons:Deletion_requests/Files_uploaded_by_VivekAdivasi and - even more instructive - commons:Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Average_East-Eurasian_ancestry_(Mongoloid).png. --Rsk6400 (talk) 05:26, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Sorry to say, but "especially by state actors who may be attempting to lobby public opinion" sounds more like a strange joke. Are you really serious? No offense, but you seem to be too obsessed with this one. Also the sockpuppet case summary of "Worldcreaterfighter" sound really fringe and more like comedy. Maybe I am missing something? But is this case real? Looking at the descriptions of "Worldcreaterfighter" on the summary page contradicts several things from alleged "manipulated" maps. Possibly I don't understand the summary correct, but it says strong "anti Turkish" and "anti Altaic" whatever that means, and on the same time promoting pan-Asianism and pan-Turkism? And the alleged Vietnamese-Russian government involvement is even more chaotic. Who and how people get such ideas from? It is my opinion, but maybe you should calm down. I highly doubt that this is a secret state manipulated conspiracy. Honestly, while I don't care, but the BLM page should be used for more important and especially for more Black peoples's relevant things and topics. Additionally it is giving a strange light on you and the seemingly new user Rsk. You started deleting requests of several "manipulated maps" while rsk is globaly deleting alleged maps simultaneously. But it is not my business. Stay safe. 45.135.229.132 22:01, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Well, your IP is apparently from a "Network sharing device or proxy server". No offense, but this makes me more suspicious, not less. Anyway, I do agree that this discussion is pretty tangential to BLM; sorry if I'm responsible for the digression. PiRSquared17 (talk) 22:18, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

No, the "tangential" meme looks like kite flying. The modern promotion of scientific racism uses fake arguments about genetics to push Coon's race theories as if they are relevant to the modern world. This misleads people in to thinking that there is a scientific genetic test to show whether people are true "Caucasian" or "Black" or "Mongoloid" or even "White Polish".

These are precisely the materials being promoted across Wikipedias using maps and pseudo-scientific charts that mix genetic theories and language theories.

Recognizing that "othering" black people is systemic, is at the centre of the BLM movement. --Fæ (talk) 03:27, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Do you think that the IP is the long-term abuser? PiRSquared17 (talk) 04:17, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

No. --Fæ (talk) 08:28, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Something like a WikiProject Anti-Racism ?

@Fæ: Can't we start something like a WikiProject Anti-Racism here at meta (following the model of WikiProjects of the English WP) ? Invite people from local wikis, provide a place to share concerns regarding racist articles, share helpful sources like the AAPA statement, give help on how to recognize racism and how to react to problems like those you described above. If we get enough participants who can communicate in more than one language, the problem of having to deal with 50 articles on "Negroid" on 50 wikis would look at bit less hopeless. I'd like to volunteer to do some anti-racism editing on the Spanish wiki and to alert the local editors at those smaller wikis where most editors know Spanish. If we find people who know Chinese, Hungarian, and so on, we might not be able to solve the problem for 100 % of the wikis, but maybe 90 % of the wikis representing 99 % of WP readers. And possibly, we will need a lot of patience and perseverance. --Rsk6400 (talk) 14:53, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Having a wikiproject (of some title or other) as a place to centralize discussion of all these related issues, and maintain a central list of 'problem' articles, plus hopefully start to develop a central policy to handle frequent issues of outdated sources, correct use of historic images, etc. would be great.

Not sure that "anti-racism" is the best title, but it's meaning would be widely understood in most languages, which is a key benefit.

I have never set up a meta wikiproject, maybe someone who has could advise whether this is likely to work out or could be a dead-end compared to other ways of promoting an initiative? --Fæ (talk) 15:49, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Title, essay, deletion

There are several instances that people put maintenance templates on top of the page. First for deletion (overwhelming support for keeping the page), then a suggestion to change its title to be more inclusive of other groups, and then a statement that it is an 'essay' suggesting that you could agree/disagree with the contents.

All these are probably done in the best of faith, but please look at the contents of the page: it is just an overview of where to find resources relevant to Black Lives Matter. There is barely any opinion there, let alone anything you probably would actually disagree with. The target audience seems to be 'young' community members (as in, no oldtimers) or even people from outside the community. They will likely take such a template as a statement against 'Black Lives Matter', which would be much more of a subjectivism than anything that could be on the page right now. If there is something controversial on the page, lets focus on that, and see if we can make it more objective. But let's not put these templates on top. We have a talkpage and there are plenty of people watching. Effeietsanders (talk) 02:01, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Title

I appreciate that Jusjih has removed the 'move' template - and as mentioned on Meta:Proposed page moves, I think this is a better place to see if there is actually a problem with the name. If you have a problem with the current page title, please mention it underneath, and make a suggestion how it would improve. Please give some arguments. Effeietsanders (talk) 02:03, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Relations between this page and Blacklist should be specificed

Or otherwise there would be more and more requests to remove links from any type of later ones just based on BLM reasons. Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 22:29, 29 July 2022 (UTC)