Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-08-08 Black people

Mediation Case: Black people

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Request Information

Request made by: Ezeu 06:24, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Where is the issue taking place?

At Talk:Black people and Black people

Who's involved?

Myself, User:Editingoprah, User:Paul Barlow, User:Shiftaling, User:Jcvamp, User:Jmabel User:George m User:Yom and User:Dark Tichondrias. Also involved are User:Whatdoyou and User:Kobrakid, and User:Zaphnathpaaneah who admitted to have been actively recruiting meat puppets to argue with EditingOprah.

What's going on?

This is a dispute about whether only people of African origin can be called black, or if other "black" people, eg. Melanesians, Negritos, Australoids and other non-African black people can be included. The conflict can be summarized with these two points:

1. User:Editingoprah says that the cenus of contries (i.e. the U.S. and U.K.) limit the definition of black person to those of African ancestry. Further dictionary.com defines a "black person" as someone with African ancestry[[1]] and so does the field of biomedicineand and so does the Free Dictionary Online[[2]]. . EditingOprah feels that those who wish to define Black in ways that ignore African ancestry represent a less established view that should not be allowed to dominate the article because this violates wikipedia's undue weight rules.
2. others say that there is no definition of "black". "Black" can either be an ascription based on subjective criteria, or it can be adopted as an identity by certain groups. Not only African people are black, as other peoples are reffered to, and self-identify as black. While Editingoprah understands all this, Editingoprah feels that an encyclopedia should focus on more official definitions of Black (i.e. census, dictionary, biomedical) and undue weight should not be given to definitions of Black that are less formal or precise or mainstream. Further, Editingoprah argues that since the article is about Black as a racial or ethnioc category, it's important to try to limit its use to those with African ancestry, since DNA studies show that Australian aboriginals and South Asians are wildly unrelated to Africans, and thus all should not be lumped into one race since race is defined by common ancestry. Editingoprah also feels that just because some people may lump all darkish people together, does not mean all darkish people belong in article about Blacks arguing that some people call dinosaurs and crocodiles lizards, but this doesn't justify putting dinosaurs and crocodiles in a lizard article.

Asking User:Editingoprah ro respect consensus has been to no avail because Editingoprah feels that wikipedia no undue weight rule is not negotiable since wikipedia is not a democracy. Futher Editingoprah feels the article mainly attracts people of a certain view and many are recruited. The article is currently locked, because as soon as it is unlocked, edit wars begin.

What would you like to change about that?

User:Editingoprah should understand that consensus is overwhelmingly against him. He holds a strong opinion on the matter, and seems unwilling to accept consensus.

Would you prefer we work discreetly? If so, how can we reach you?

n/a

Compromise offers

This section is for listing and discussing compromise offers.

Discussion

While using the talk page of the article in question to solve a dispute is encouraged to involve a larger audience, feel free to discuss the case below if that is not possible. Other mediators are also encouraged to join in on the discussion as Wikipedia is based on consensus.