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Manual of Style

This page falls within the scope of the Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style, a collaborative effort focused on enhancing clarity, consistency, and cohesiveness across the Manual of Style (MoS) guidelines by addressing inconsistencies, refining language, and integrating guidance effectively.Manual of StyleWikipedia:WikiProject Manual of StyleTemplate:WikiProject Manual of StyleManual of Style This page falls under the contentious topics procedure and is given additional attention, as it closely associated to the English Misplaced Pages Manual of Style, and the article titles policy. Both areas are subjects of debate. Contributors are urged to review the awareness criteria carefully and exercise caution when editing. For information on Misplaced Pages's approach to the establishment of new policies and guidelines, refer to WP:PROPOSAL. Additionally, guidance on how to contribute to the development and revision of Misplaced Pages policies of Misplaced Pages's policy and guideline documents is available, offering valuable insights and recommendations.

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Alphabetization for Arabic surnames

Hello everyone. A discussion has been started on the Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Arabic#Alphabetization page regarding how Arabic surnames should be sorted, as there has been a difference in manuals proposed on this page and the above mentioned page. Please do participate in the discussion there so that both the manuals have same rules of how the names should be indexed. Anbans 586 (talk) 15:01, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Are groups people?

Just a quick check: does WP:SEPARATE mean that, say, a musical group (a band) should not be placed in people categories? — HTGS (talk) 06:23, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Ah, you are asking about musical groups, not ethnic groups as I expected from the heading. At the national level, most countries will have sufficient content to categorise musical (and ethnic) groups separately from people. However, in both cases I would allow some flexibility at the local level. Large cities may have plenty of scope for a useful category e.g. Musical groups from Manchester, but for a smaller place I would allow a group to be categorised in "People from".

Misplaced Pages:Categorization_of_people#Definitions_and_scope says it's about persons or groups of persons. As I understand it, the point of WP:SEPARATE is not to restrict categories to individual biographies, but to always separate them from articles about e.g. buildings or events in a location. – Fayenatic London 09:18, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Haha, sorry, I was trying to think in the general, while also asking the specific. To give an example: my presumption is that Daft Punk should not be in Category:People from Paris, primarily because Daft Punk is not a person, so we don’t want to “pollute” categories that way. Maybe things change when the individual members have individual articles, but I don’t like that idea on principle. Groups of homogenous members (all members of Daft Punk are Parisians) should make more sense to categorise in the people categories than non-homogenous groups, but even that feels wrong.

I guess in a way I’m starting to answer my own question. — HTGS (talk) 09:49, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Ordering Dutch surnames with affix van

My point is relevant for the section Ordering names in a category. Sort by surname. Dutch surnames beginning with van are ubiquitous in Dutch. For that reason Dutch directories and library catalogs (and other practitioners of Collation) do not order these names by the first letter of the name ("V" in other words), but by the first letter of the noun in the name. Example: "J.P. van der Voort" is ordered as "Voort, J.P. van der". This would also be a useful guideline for use in DEFAULTSORT in my view. I have always used it in my own Misplaced Pages articles. Other Wikipedians not so much apparently, judging by the fact that in many lists of subjects the "V" category is overpopulated with this type of surname; whereas a Dutchman would look under the first letter of the noun in the name (defeating the objective of sorting on surname). I therefore would suggest an edit of the Sort by surname subsection to this effect. But I do not know if I, a humble Wikipedian, would be authorized to do such a thing. I would gladly leave it to somebody more experienced in this field. As an afterthought, I think this principle (ordering on the first letter of the noun in the Dutch surname) should apply to all types of affixes in Dutch surnames, not only the affix van (though these are less ubiquitous). Other such affixes are the definite articles de (variously inflected) and het (commonly shortened to 't) Examples De Witt and 'tHooft The rule could therefore be: if a Dutch surname is a noun phrase consisting of one or more affixes, followed by a noun. lexicographic ordering should be done on the first letter of the noun.Ereunetes (talk) 22:39, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

I found this "rule" in the article:"Generally, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish names do not include lowercase particles in sorting, but do include uppercase particles." This pertains partly to the point I was trying to make. I suppose that the editor means the same thing with "particles" as what I referred to as (family-name) affixes (which I think is a better term) pertaining to the Dutch names that contain them. The "rule" appears to exclude all lowercase affixes, which I also advocate, though in different terms. However, Dutch surnames may also use capitalized affixes, namely if they appear at the very beginning of the surname. And this is very well possible, as in the case of the Van affix, about which I started my intervention, before I expanded it to all capitalized affixes. The problem would not occur, if all affixes in Dutch surnames were uncapitalized, but a major rule of capitalization of Dutch surnames (which is supported in the apposite paragraph 11.18 Capitalization—English versus other languages, of the Chicago Manual of Style) is that a stand-alone occurrence of a Dutch surname always starts with a capital. (Possibly confusingly, if the surname is preceded by the initials, or the Christian name(s) of the person in question, the surname starts with a lowercase letter). This rule is routinely broken in Misplaced Pages articles. For instance, in Antonie van Leeuwenhoek one finds "Raised in Delft, Dutch Republic, van Leeuwenhoek worked as a draper" already in the Lede. Here a stand-alone instance of the surname within a sentence is incorrectly started with a lowercase letter. A little before this instance "Van Leeuwenhoek" is correctly used, but that is because the sentence starts with this. However that may be (it is a matter for another page in this MOS) it follows that capitalized affixes routinely occur in correctly capitalized Dutch surnames, and so can become "included" in sorting, as indicated by the latter part of the "rule" quoted above. And this should be avoided for the reasons I mentioned.--Ereunetes (talk) 22:35, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

about 20th/21st-century categories

Please note that my English may not be very good since I am not good at English and I am using DeepL Translator to write here.

When we use the "20th/21st-century singers" category, for example, there are users who use both "20th/21st-century Japanese male/women singers" and "20th/21st-century Japanese singers" categories. However, I do not understand why they use "20th/21st-century Japanese singers" even though they use "20th/21st-century Japanese male/women singers". Since there are "20th/21st-century Japanese male/women singers" referring to gender, the category "20th/21st-century Japanese singers" should be unnecessary. Do we need to use both categories? I have reverted the articles many times. If someone is using "20th/21st-century Japanese male/women singers" and even using "20th/21st-century Japanese singers" even though it is unnecessary, I think you should remove the latter. What do you think?

For example, I revert as shown on this, this and this, etc.

A user named Ser Amantio di Nicolao has been adding unnecessary categories over and over again. --Hatto (talk) 12:16, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

@Hatto Misplaced Pages has a concept called "non-diffusing subcategories". As explained in the box you can see at Category:20th-century Japanese male singers, this means that in some cases - often "male" and "female" categories - the usual rule of not including an article in a "parent" category such as Category:20th-century Japanese singers does not apply, so Tomoyasu Hotei is correctly listed in both those categories. If your changes are repeatedly reverted by an experienced editor, it is useful to ask them for an explanation rather than continuing to revert. PamD 12:41, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

@PamD:I made changes here on Mick Jagger and here on Brian May, does that mean I didn't have to revert the articles? --Hatto (talk) 12:54, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Citizenship versus language versus nationality

{{Infobox writer}} has developed separate fields for citizenship, language, and nationality. See MOS:INFONAT. This needs clarification for categories.

In a recent discussion, Place Clichy notes:

Actually I believe that Misplaced Pages classifies by nationality, but actually means citizenship. In the context of Eastern Europe, I believe that they use the wor nationality in the meaning of ethnicity. In countries like Russia or Yugoslavia, people have (had) a nationality field on their IDs that in fact mentioned the ethnic group they were part of (such as Tatar, Bosnian Muslim etc.), next to the citizenship. I believe this is the way it should be understood in the context of this article.

Over time, primary categorization By nationality and occupation has come to be used as By country and occupation. Frequently performers and sportspersons are primarily categorized by the location of their events or team, then cross-categorized by their citizenship, ethnicity, language, and/or nationality. This is causing a massive number of unmanagable triple, quadruple, and quintuple intersection categories.

Likewise, ethnicity has frequently been merged with or inferred by language. This has been problematic with ancient peoples, where those (philosophers, scholars, writers) using Greek-language are categorized as Greek, even though they are far from Greece, never set foot in Greece, and have no Greek heritage.

Moreover, there are frequent problems with ethnicities that are not associated with extant countries. Roma/Romani is a current discussion.

@Santasa99, Marcocapelle, and Furius: I'm raising these related issues here for broader discussion.
William Allen Simpson (talk) 04:04, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

• Examples:
  1. An Egyption writer after invasion by Macedonia is still Egyption (not Greek), even though the language may change to Greek.
  2. An Egyption writer after invasion by Roman Empire is still Egyption.
  3. An Egyption writer after invasion by Ottoman Empire is still Egyption.
  4. An Egyption writer after invasion by Arabs is still Egyption (not Arab), even though the language may change to Arabic.
  5. A Ukrainian writer after invasion by Russian Empire is still Ukrainian.
  6. A Ukrainian writer after invasion by Soviet Union is still Ukrainian.
• How do we best describe these for categorization clarity?
  William Allen Simpson (talk) 04:35, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Excessive cross-categorization has been a problem for a long time. See the discussion at Talk:Lhasa de Sela#Categories, mostly from 2006. I will still argue that categories should only be based on what reliable sources say, and that includes cross-categories. Donald Albury 14:57, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

• William Allen Simpson: Do you have specific examples of this "unmanagable" issue? Dahn (talk) 17:55, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
  • @William Allen Simpson: Well? Dahn (talk) 07:28, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

RfC about WP:COPHERITAGE

Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following list: Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

I propose amending the following phrase from the guideline: “historical persons may be identified by notable association with a single heritage” to “historical persons may be identified by notable association with at least one heritage”. I have two reasons for this:

• Nobody follows it anyway. Look at FAs like Harriet Tubman, John Gielgud, Andrew Jackson. Look at Elvis Presley! Look at George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, Woodrow Wilson. Look at Robert Menzies or Pierre Trudeau.
• It’s absurd. Plenty of deceased people had multiple identities, recorded by biographies and even spoken of by themselves. It’s completely arbitrary for us to choose just one. We should reflect the complexity of people’s identities, grounded in reliable sources, not randomly restrict it. — Biruitorul 17:44, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

• I support and second Biruitorul in this, after being confronted with a user's claim that people who have had a combination of Bulgarian ethnicity, Gagauz ethnicity, and Romanian citizenship should be randomly removed from some of them "because COPHERITAGE only allows one category". This wording seems to be the most hamfisted way of getting people to only use categories that are backed by reliable sources -- "you can only have one". And who decides which one, without endless controversy? We're not told. Dahn (talk) 17:58, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
• Also, I can't help but imagine the moment when one of our biographical subjects kicks the proverbial bucket, and a specialized teams of wikipedia undertakers proceeds to silently remove all but one of the ethnic categories, per the orthodox reading of that inept portion of the guideline. Dahn (talk) 18:06, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

• For example, will Barack Obama’s permitted heritage be English, French, German, Irish, Kenyan, Luo, Scottish, Welsh or Swiss? And why? — Biruitorul 18:10, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

• Support. While I'd have initially imagined this was only a case of a Western-centric convention as ethnicity is less important in the West, apparently this is not even the case per examples given above. I cannot think of a practical use of this rule or of the justification that could've originated it. Cases must be approached individually in complicated matters such as identity or ethnicity; this convention incites the opposite. Super Ψ Dro 18:15, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
• Support Things should be done on a case by case basis. I dream of horses 18:43, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

• Support We shouldn't deny/suppress somebodies identity. ShaveKongo (talk) 21:34, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
• Comment the current language is problematic, but I'm not sure this is the correct solution. In situations where a country is notably divided among ethnic groups, the current language allows specifying that ethnicity (Flemish v. Walloon in Belgium, White v. Black in the 19th century American south, anyone in the Austro-Hungarian empire, etc.) Outside of that situation, I don't think we need any "ethnic heritage" categories. For Woodrow Wilson, we don't need categories for "English", "Scotch-Irish", and "Scottish" descent - the policy should support removing all of them. Walt Yoder (talk) 19:39, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

@Walt Yoder: How would one decide which ones are more important than the others, without creating a POV mess? Dahn (talk) 04:46, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't know. Walt Yoder (talk) 23:37, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Disagree, they should all be kept. I value ethnicity categories, and I'm sure there's plenty of others that do too.--Ortizesp (talk) 06:48, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

• Support per nom, seems like a silly policy.--Ortizesp (talk) 06:48, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
• (Summoned by bot) I am somewhat confused about what exactly is under consideration here; the phrase is confusingly ambiguous, which I suppose is reason enough to remove it. However, given how it is juxtaposed with the requirement that living persons identify with a particular heritage, I think it was meant to say that we may identify historical persons with a heritage they may not have necessarily recognized if the historiography prominently does so (e.g., we could include Copernicus in Category:Polish people of German descent). I agree that the restriction to one is weird. —Compassionate727  15:54, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
  • That’s certainly an issue, yes. The other is that, on a strict reading, the deceased may only be identified with one heritage category. So for example Regis Philbin, who proudly identified as being of both Irish and Italian heritage, is (per the current guideline) only allowed in one of those categories. Which is, of course, absurd. — Biruitorul 18:14, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

• Support. It's weird that someone like Regis Philbin (pointed out by Biruitorul's comment above) was able to be recognized as ethnically Irish and Italian while he was alive, but according to this rule, can't now that he's dead... or at least, that a "historical" person in the same position as Philbin could only have one heritage category at a time. I am chuckling at imagining a Pheasant Island solution, cycling through all of the relevant categories, so he gets to be in the Irish-heritage category half the year, and the Italian-heritage one the other half... but it would be better to include all appropriate categories at the same time. -sche (talk) 02:54, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

• Comment There is a good reason to restrict the number of ethnic categories for people, living or dead. We want to avoid cases such as this, from many years ago, when editors were synthesizing all kinds of wierd ethnic categories. I maintain that we should use only ethnic categories that are supported by independant reliable sources. - Donald Albury 10:20, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
  • @Donald Albury: The cases you mention (how frequent are they?) are simply not relevant. For instance, we do not have a category for "Jewish Mexicans", which would have made it tempting to include all people in Canada who are of combined Mexican and Jewish descent; what we have now is Category:Mexican people of Jewish descent and (within it) Category:Mexican Jews, which are pretty clearly reserved for people who hold Mexican nationality and are Jews. So no, there is absolutely no "good reason to restrict the number of ethnic categories": that is simply the absurd approach to a very simple problem. Please also note that this is indeed a discussion about the use of multiple ethnic categories as validated by reliable sources, and the cases in which those reliable sources validate multiple ethnic categories (the claim that they should be "independent" is a bit weird, mind you: who better than Regis Philbin to talk about Philbin's own ethnic background?). For that situation, the current guideline, with its ridiculous approach, suggests that we should feel validated to strip all but one ethnic category. Dahn (talk) 10:31, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

    The point is that editors will synthesize an ethnic category by arbitarily combining two elements in the background of the subject of an article. We should not allow that, but insist, as Misplaced Pages:Verifiability requires, that membership in ethnic categories be supported by reliable sources. I see no point in setting a number on ethnic categories, as long as they are verifiable from reliable sources. Donald Albury 12:13, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

    • @Donald Albury: Again, you do understand that this refers to ethnicities as mentioned in reliable sources, that just happen to be more than one. Dahn (talk) 15:23, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

• • More to the point: can anyone here underscore what exactly is the problem with having, say, 15 ethnic categories for people who have/have had 15 ethnic identities, with each one of those identities validated by one or several legitimate sources? There are indeed such cases (not many), and I for one don't see who is harmed by the categories just being there. We are not talking about frivolous claims (such as Nikola Tesla being called a Romanian in unquotable sources, or Obama being "denounced" as an Indonesian in even more unquotable ones) -- so dwelling on those irrelevant claims to support this irrelevant portion of the guideline is not really helping. Dahn (talk) 10:34, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

    Fifteen ethnic identifies? It doesn't work that way. I had a Swedish great-grandmother. That does not make me Swedish. I had a Scottish great-grandfather. That does not make me Scottish. That may have made my grandfather Scots-Swedish, but not me. It is one thing to list elements of a person's heritage. It is something else to identify them as a member of an ethnic group. Again, I hold that categorizing someone as a member of an ethnic group requires at least one reliable source saying they are part of that ethnic group. Donald Albury 12:24, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

• • • @Donald Albury: A public person, worthy of an article, whose ethnic heritage is mentioned in reliable third-party sources and/or by her/himself, can have 15 ethnic identities at the same time, and these can be mentioned -- if they're worthy enough of being mentioned by the sources and/or by her/himself, they're surely worthy enough of mention on wikipedia. Why is this even a controversial point? Also, the "descent" terminology is good enough to cover both full ethnic identification and descent of a murkier kind, and has been long used in this manner without any particular controversy -- if you dispute that, please enlighten us as to what objective standard we can use to define it otherwise. Plainly: where does X descent stop and X ethnicity begin. Now, mind you, when you do answer: as per my original point, 15 identities is an extreme example, I would suppose the average is at two or three. But the point is that even in extreme examples, the full categorizing works, whereas the arbitrary restrictions will still be stupid. Dahn (talk) 15:18, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

• • Echoing Dahn’s comments, Donald Albury, I would encourage us to continue focusing on the main point, which is that the deceased do have multiple heritages, that it’s arbitrary and bizarre to restrict to a single one, and that we don’t do it anyway. Take, for another example, Dorothy Parker. German-Jewish father, Scottish mother, amply attested by multiple independent sources. (Not cited in the article, but they do exist.) Why be forced to pick one? The article as it stands does not do that, it includes both her father’s and her mother’s identities, but why should we arbitrarily exclude one of these? It makes no sense. — Biruitorul 11:47, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

• • How far back can we go then? 10 generations? 50? Doug Weller talk 16:30, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
    • @Doug Weller: Do sources ever go that far? If the answer is "no, not really", then why is this even a question? Dahn (talk) 16:36, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

      Genealogies, biographies, histories, etc. Doug Weller talk 17:13, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

      • @Doug Weller: The usage of (1) genealogies per se (as in, works that take the effort to connect any two individuals through their ancestors, is actually already restricted under WP:DIRECTORY; such generic genealogies would simply not be allowed as sources. Any heritage that is significant enough to be mentioned in (2) biographies and histories is actually relevant for both mention and categorization, precisely because it was mentioned in such sources (see also WP:PAPER). Of course, a restriction is evident when the source emits a hypothesis (such as in arguing that Mihai Eminescu may have been Bulgarian or Armenian -- with this precise wording); in that case, we would not include a hypothesis as a category, since that would imply being more sure than the source is. The same goes for reliable sources that explicitly contradict each other ("X says that Y's ancestors were Scottish, but I argue they were in fact Irish"). There is in fact no controversy to be had here. LE: Also note when the subject of an entry makes a self-aggrandizing or inept claim that is then debunked by scholarship -- we do not have Constantin Sion as a Tatar, an we do not have Rachel Dolezal as an actual African-American. Dahn (talk) 17:21, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

        @Dahn Even so, are you saying even 50 generations back is relevant to ethnic identity and categories? Doug Weller talk 17:29, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

        @Doug Weller: I am categorically saying the exact opposite of that: namely, that 50 generations back is not something which quotable sources will ever detail; in all cases, RSes will simply not cover that far back, though they may go 4 generations back or so (most likely 2). Because, again: plain genealogical sources will not be usable, under the long-existing WP:DIRECTORY. So the very hypothesis that we should and will allow 50 generations back is entirely unrealistic. Dahn (talk) 17:36, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

        In fact, historical personages are even less likely to pose us with that "problem", since genealogies for most of the are quite hypothetical, an will be presented as such in historical RSes. There is for instance no need to list Ioan Caragea as a Pecheneg, since that is only a hypothetical genealogy; and no need to identify this guy with any non-Greek ethnicity that may have seeped into the Kantakuzene bloodline, since virtually no one actually believes that he was an actual Kantakuzene. Dahn (talk) 17:43, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

        So we will never find reliable sources for more than 4 generations back? Doug Weller talk 19:04, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

        @Doug Weller: Again: you may find sources, and they may even be reliable in their field, but they would not be usable, since the type of info they contain will not be included in our article, and will therefore not be the basis for its categories. As you glance at WP:DIRECTORY, you will note: "4. Genealogical entries. Family histories should be presented only where appropriate to support the reader's understanding of a notable topic." This means that most purely genealogical sources will be excluded from our coverage, leaving us with historical and biographical sources that mention only the very basic facts of the subject's genealogy. Dahn (talk) 19:10, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

        The problem that arises here is, of course, that "the very basic facts" as defined by the relevant historical/biographical sources (not by us) will in fact stretch more than one generation back, and may uncover more than one ethnicity. As a very random example, Mark Twain's biographical sources mention his Cornish and Scots-Irish descent, without expressing any interests in his ancestors at King's Arthur Court. The current guideline would prevent us from using as categories facts that are actually covered by Twain's biographers; stripping this section of the guideline will not provide us with a license to research Twain's 12th-century ancestors, since his biographers do not. Dahn (talk) 19:18, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

        See also African heritage of presidents of the United States: aside from Obama, we don’t categorize US Presidents as having African ancestry, rumors notwithstanding. — Biruitorul 19:26, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

        Doug Weller is perhaps aiming at achieving a limit of generations we can look back to to establish a standard. I do not believe we should establish a static rule, individual analysis of each case is always better. As Dahn states, we should stick to what reliable sources say. This is the easiest and most intuitive solution. Also, 50 generations is not a number we can work with as an example. 52 generations was 1,300 years ago. It would be easier to list all the ethnicities today that we could say existed back in 700 AD than those that did not. Reliable sources won't go to a time period so ridiculously far back. Super Ψ Dro 22:37, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

        @Super DromaeosaurusSorry, that was hyperbole. It's just that I don't think that more than 4 should be avoided. But 10 might be reasonable in a few cases. Doug Weller talk 07:35, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

        • @Doug Weller: Any biography of Mark Twain will likely stop way short of 10; a genealogical study of his family could in theory go back to the medieval era, but it would be unusable as a source. The issue is actually neatly folded for us, just that it's under a different policy, making the care exercised by this guideline we're discussing very very redundant. Moreover: Never in my contributions here have a stumbled upon any biography of a historical figure that would go back even 7 generations. Dahn (talk) 07:42, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

          6 is 64 ancestors. Extremely unlikely you'd get them all of different ethnicity. But would you accept however many different ethnicities there were? Doug Weller talk 07:52, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

          @Doug Weller: Assuming X's 64 ancestors each have a different ethnicity, with a total of 64 separate ethnicities, and all these facts are brought up in a biography of X, yes, we would have 64 categories; the situation is so extremely unlikely that it would probably be in itself a claim to notoriety by X, and we would have categories precisely to reflect that astoundingly exotic fact. Why not? Dahn (talk) 08:00, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

          Why not indeed? Doug Weller talk 08:05, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

          @Doug Weller: Please note that the mention of n ethnicities in a standard, individual, biographical source, which we can use (rather than an extensive study of family genealogy, which we generally can't use in a bio article) is pretty much an argument and rule of thumb about the notability of those ethnicities as they relate to the individual, and, I argue, such notability is/should be enough to also warrant inclusiuon in categories (per what we already do, de facto). Do you accept that argument? Dahn (talk) 08:04, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

          yes. Doug Weller talk 08:35, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

          By the way, Harry Belafonte, who died yesterday, is in 5 heritage categories. Technically, the guideline requires us to remove 4 of these. Which do we eliminate, and why? — Biruitorul 11:09, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

• Disagree with most of the above posts. Categorization by ethnic is only allowed if it's a defining characteristic. For most people, the right number of ethnic categories is zero. I could see a case where two defining ethnicities but I expect it to be extremely rare. (t · c) buidhe 08:31, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

• So it cannot be questioned whether it is allowed because it is not allowed. Sounds like circular reasoning. Also: how does one define a defining characteristic, without resorting to a popular vote or an editorial decision by, well, you? And how is something detailed in reliable sources (again: that is the situation being discussed here) not the same as a defining characteristic? would sources even mention the detail if it weren't a defining characteristic? Dahn (talk) 08:38, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

  See Misplaced Pages:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality. Doug Weller talk 09:29, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

• Seems to validate the precise criterion of it having been mentioned in RSes, and doesn't place any limit on the number -- the very notion that you could limit it in this way seems to have come out of nowehere other than a small conclave's attempt to limit categorization (without even realizing, or caring about, the entailed paradoxes). Dahn (talk) 10:15, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

"Mentioning" and "mentioning in detail" are two different things. Discussing something in detail indicates notability, the other does not. FOARP (talk) 10:44, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose removing "notable association" - So every single article about a person gets race-categorised even if no source considers their race notable? No. This is a totally US-POV proposal, that falls apart when we try to apply it outside the US where people are super-focused on "heritage" since it is simply not a thing that most people talk about or consider outside the US. I'm iffy about race by itself being used but, if we're going to have it, it has to be a defining/notable characteristic. No opposition to multiple race-characterisations since we know that people are capable of considering themselves and others as "definitively" more than one race, but it still needs to be a defining characteristic. Looking above it's almost like people want to apply a "one drop rule" that goes back potentially hundreds of years, which in a UK context would produce ludicrous outcomes like Boris Johnson being categorised as Turkish. FOARP (talk) 09:55, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

@FOARP: Please understand that this is about sources actually mentioning a person's multiple ethnic heritage, and cases where the current (inept) guideline imposes on us to choose just one; it is also not about race, but about ethnicity (including multiple ethnicity within the same race). The current guideline prevents us from categorizing someone from Bulgaria who has an Italian parent and a Lebanese parent as both Bulgarian Italian and Bulgarian Lebanese, and makes us pick one of the two, even where the individual made it clear that s/he identifies as both. As for the claim that this will/would result in adding countless categories: (a) no, it would not, since the sources do not go that deep, as a rule; (b) please make at least a basic effort to support this claim by mentioning at least one example where this would have been the case. Dahn (talk) 10:03, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

As for your Johnson example: there is absolutely no reason why he would not be included in the aptly named Category:British people of Turkish descent, with multiple sources, and himself, mentioning his Turkish descent -- which covers people of Turkish ethnicity but not only. Why is this so ghastly and incomprehensible? (Incidentally, there is absolutely no US-centric view here: the proponent and I, who seconded the proposal, are Romanian. The issue we came across, as already mentioned, has to do with the absurd claim that we cannot list people from Romania with multiple ethnic identities and documented descent in more than one such category.) Dahn (talk) 10:06, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Nevertheless, there’s a fair point embedded in FOARP’s remark: how about changing “notable association with a single heritage” to “notable association with at least one heritage”? — Biruitorul 10:07, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Fair point. Dahn (talk) 10:12, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Biruitorul - I would support with that amendment. The association must be a notable one, not simply something mentioned in passing or a distant association discovered by some genealogist. FOARP (talk) 10:28, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

@FOARP: Please see above. We are actually barred from using bare genealogies as references, so that much of your concern is addressed by simply enforcing that rule. The problem with your Johnson example is that his Turkish descent is indeed mentioned by multiple sources, and by himself, and not just in passing. Dahn (talk) 10:35, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

But your proposal is to remove not just the "single" requirement but also the "notable association" requirement from the guideline. Go ahead and amend the proposal along the lines proposed and I'm fine to support. The bar to bare genealogies is included in this rule. FOARP (talk) 10:39, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Proposal amended. — Biruitorul 10:53, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

I literally wrote in my !vote that I have no objection to multiple race-categorisations so long as they are all notable. What I object to is removing the notability requirement. As to my objection to applying a "one drop rule", this is because it will lead to very large numbers of categorisations being added, in the example of Boris Johnson, since the relation is so tenuous (several generations removed), this will open the door to a very large number of categorisations being added, even for groups that the person in question was actually unfriendly towards and didn't identify with (in the case of BoJo, he literally led a referendum campaign where Turkish immigrants were used as a scare-story).

Categories are increasingly being used to say things about the subject that no-one would put in the article, and this surely cannot be proper. FOARP (talk) 10:16, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

An easy distinction between what is trivial and what can be used for descent categorization is actually done by the sources themselves: if mentioned in an average biography, it is noteworthy. Dahn (talk) 10:37, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Simply mentioning it in passing in a biography, possibly in a very long list, is not enough. FOARP (talk) 10:40, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

@FOARP: Why not? And what would be enough? Incidentally: no, biographies do not include very long lists (I've explained why above); care to produce a counterexample, where they have? Dahn (talk) 11:09, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

• Flip to Support as amended - No objection to multiple heritages being mentioned where notable. Makes sense for people of multiple notable heritages. Notability necessary to control over-categorisation. FOARP (talk) 11:21, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
• Procedural Oppose WP:FORUMSHOPPING. This has been recently discussed at WP:CFD, where the nominator's views have not prevailed. Heritage (and descent) has been routinely discussed dozens of times in the past few years, and hundreds of times since 2003. This is not the appropriate forum to overturn these decisions.
  • Also, Oppose — WP:COP-HERITAGE descent must be both WP:NOTABLE and WP:CATDEFINING.
  • The heritage of grandparents is never defining and rarely notable. Each person has at most two heritage categories, one for each parent. Thus far, there are no given examples where WP:NONDEFINING reliable, secondary sources commonly and consistently define, in prose, the subject as having two different heritages.
    1. Boris Johnson should not be categorized under American descent. He was born a American citizen of American and British parents. He was a dual citizen. He traveled to his own homeland in the UK. Heritage categories (such as descent or diaspora) should not also contain any individual migrant, emigrant, nor immigrant; we never categorize any citizens as "American people of American descent" or "British people of British descent", as that would apply to every citizen (neither notable nor defining).
    2. Boris Johnson should not be categorized under Turkish descent. No matter that he has personally acknowledged a distant Turkish relative (great-great grandparent). There are no reliable sources that commonly and consistently describe him as a prime minister of Turkish descent.
  • WP:OCEGRS people should only be categorized by ethnicity or religion if this has significant bearing on their career.

William Allen Simpson (talk) 06:13, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

• • Other than repeating us the same guideline we are questioning here, would you like to explain why ethnic background mentioned by the sources is not enough to support categorization (in other words: why we would endorse your POV over sources), and also why wikipedia editors should be exercizing an editorial decision in choosing only one of multiple ethnicities for categorizing bios? To the point, that is. Dahn (talk) 06:18, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
  • I'm also not sure where the appropriate forum for discussing this would be, if not here. Especially since William Allen Simpson has proceeded to mass-nominate intersectional categories at CfD, and simultaneously delete descent categories from random articles, without anyone being able to dedicate that same energy to this single purpose. Centralizing the discussion makes sense, even though I can see why he doesn't really appreciate this. Dahn (talk) 06:24, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

@Fad Ariff, Jc37, Joseph2302, LaundryPizza03, Laurel Lodged, Marcocapelle, Nederlandse Leeuw, Peterkingiron, Place Clichy, and Sionk: WP:FORUMSHOPPING to overturn recent discussion. This would change to "at least one" (from zero or one), a major shift for descent and diaspora categories contrary to 18 years of documented guidelines. Most biographies should have zero descent categories, as nationality and occupation are sufficient. Some may have one, but there has never been a documented need for two or more, and certainly never "at least one". It could explode the number of such categories.
William Allen Simpson (talk) 07:21, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

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