Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America/Archive 1

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On the list of categories, would it be better if we were to alphabetize them as we go along? --Aaron Walden 19:15, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Great idea Aaron - be bold and rearrange them ;) I would only recommend to leave the project cat on top, as it will surely be our main working reference. Great work on the userbox, btw! Phædriel ♥ ^{tell me} - 20:55, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

We need to think about reorganizing and pruning the categories. I'm finding a lot of categories to add to the list. Most the categories have sub-categories, which have sub-sub-categories. I've found sixteen categories to add to the list tonight, and I'm still only reached the (now) 12th on the list. -- Dalbury^(Talk) 03:59, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, no kidding. There's a lot of them. Wouldn't it work to just list the top categories, since the sub-categories are listed within each, anyway? --Aaron Walden 04:36, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunatley no because the category structure is not a strict tree, i.e. not all sub cats are under the same cat, some aren't even under the right cat or may be under something totally unrelated. Like until I edited it tonight, Category:indigenous peoples of Mexico wasn't a sub cat of Category:Indigenous peoples of North America. The cat system is too messy to trust it that way. It would be easier if it were better organized, but it isn't. Maybe we need a separate Wikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America/Working categories or something if the list gets giant.

Yes, Dalbury, you're right - the pile-on of categories is far greater than I expected. Imho, it's best to list subcats as well, since we wish a global overview of the location of all existing resources both for searching and (re)location purposes. However, now that the number of them that we've identified is making the list too large to be included at the project's main page, I suggest that we move it to a subpage. I also think that maybe we should split it a little more, following the same criteria that you've currently used, i.e. maybe a Culture subsection is in order - please, go ahead and follow your own ideas. You're doing a great job searching for cats and posting them here, guys - congrats! Phædriel ♥ ^{tell me} - 04:46, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and moved the cats to the subpage Wikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America/Working categories. Seemed like a logical thing to do. pschemp | talk 05:00, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

And I suppose another reason each must be listed is that future editors could come along and remove their sub-category status, rendering it an insufficient list. --Aaron Walden 06:30, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Some of the categories are very sparsely populated. Hopefully, new articles will help populate those categories, but we may want to consolidate some of them. -- Dalbury^(Talk) 11:45, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

My suspicion is that they are sparsley populated due to nobody knowing article should go there rather than there are no articles to go there. I've been working in related category schemes (all the archaeology cats for examples) and have seen this to be the case usually. Let's hold off on merging until all the available data is collected. I'm making it my project to deal with the cats and their populations and classifications. pschemp | talk 07:48, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

There are some candidates for merging on other grounds: Category:Native Americans' rights activists and Category:Native American activists, and Category:Lakota mythology, Category:Lakota deities, Category:Lakota goddesses and Category:Lakota gods. -- Dalbury^(Talk) 11:30, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Scope

Can we include Indians of Mexico too? They have no category and most of their articles are stubs (except Aztec). Needs a lot of work. I have some books on Mexican Indians in Spanish, so if the language is a barrier, maybe you could send those projects my way?--Rockero420 21:49, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

As long as we have users with expertise in the subject, like you seem to do, Rockero, I think the idea is great. Please, feel free to add the proper template to each article's Talk Page in order to identify them. As the project has just begun, the first step is to identify all artciles under its scope, and list them at the project page as soon as we have categorized them. I'll remake the templates in order to include Indigenous peoples of Mexico asap. Thank you for your cooperation, and welcome! Phædriel ♥ ^{tell me} - 21:57, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

scope 2: prehistory?

hi.

question: how about including prehistory? (unless your meaning of "historic" includes prehistory as well). i note that the coverage of American archaeology is a rather weak point of Wikipedia.

peace – ishwar  (speak) 00:09, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, dear Ish - in fact, now that we're going through the categorizing stages (an absolute must imho, in order to identify as many related articles as possible), I've already tagged a few artciles that fall into that period of time. Please, go ahead and include any others you see fit. Cheers! Phædriel ♥ ^{tell me} - 00:45, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Inuit/Eskimo

The Inuit and other Eskimo-Aleut speaking peoples should also be included. What do you think? Also, it might be useful to invite the numerous people who have contributed to aboriginal-related articles. Luigizanasi 00:35, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Definetely, Luigi - in fact, I just went into a categorizing spree and tagged as many articles related to that group as I could. Again, I encourage you to seek any others you deem appropriate and tag them at their Talk Pages as well with the {{NorthAmNative}} template. I also created an invitation template to let as many interested users as possible know of the existence of this project; you can add it at their Talk Pages with {{NANWP}}. Welcome aboard, and happy editing! Phædriel ♥ ^{tell me} - 00:45, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Then the Wikiproject notification template should change to include them explicitly. They do not consider themselves First Nations, and would be insulted by the term. I would like to suggest the wording "Native American, First Nations, Inuit and Alaska Native". I would do it, but I fear I will probably screw it up. Luigizanasi 07:51, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Good, point, Luigi - I'm on it! Phædriel ♥ ^{tell me} - 20:55, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Redlinked articles

There are a number of redlinked articles at List_of_U.S._military_history_events#American Indian conflicts, wars, battles, expeditions and campaigns - it may be advisable to change the section title as well. Please note Native Americans in the United States instead of Indigenous peoples of North America as well - not sure if you want to move that. Another set of redlinks is at List_of_Native_American_Tribal_Entities - and I am sure you have more than enough to do without me mentioning redlinks so I will stop now. KillerChihuahua^?!? 17:23, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about the belated reply, KC - but please, don't shut up! On the contrary, your suggestions are most welcome. I had already noticed the many red links on the Indian Wars part of the list of US military events, since in fact it was my first interest in Wikipedia and my main one for some time. The difficulty to find information about several conflicts made me advance very slowly, but I managed to write a little about some of them, like Winnebago War and Peoria War. I find the subject fascinating (I actually joined the Wikiproject Military history to expand related articles), and I agree with you: at some point in the near future, thse topics should be included within the scope of this project. I recommend that we go a little slow at the beginning, since the task is already rather big and adding even more subjects may be daunting, but you're absolutely right - this can be (and hopefully will be) a very interesting area for future development. Cheers! Phædriel ♥ ^{tell me} - 23:36, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Sitting Bull

I would love to help out this project. I think one of the articles that needs immediate attention is Sitting Bull. Just reading through it, the tone is wrong, it is not comprehensive, and needs major clean-up. It sounds like a 13-year old wrote it. I will help out when I get a chance, but I'm currently busy working on two other article. Gflores ^Talk 18:38, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Lot's of Indigenous information out here - All jumbled around!

Maybe we can come to a consensus to consolidate as much Indigenous information onto one page as possible, since everyone is Indigenous to somewhere? My current count for disambiguation pages is at least 20 (I stopped trying to count them). Anyone have any ideas on how to do this efficiently? -- 24.11.91.3 07:16, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Some Examples:

• Indigenous American
• Indigenous peoples
• Indigenous peoples in the United States
• Native Americans in the United States
• Native American name controversy

See the talk pages on those articles. There was substantial discussion back in September 2005 about the jumble of stuff in Native American, Indigenous people of the Americas, etc. The consensus reached was that three separate articles were needed and stuff was moved to the appropriate articles: Native Americans in the United States for the strictly US-related material, Indigenous peoples of the Americas for an overview, and Native American name controversy for the material related to collective names. Luigizanasi 16:17, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Reservations

I notice your list of articles has no category for reservations/reserves. We have a number of these articles (List of Native American reserves in Canada, List of Indian reservations in the United States will help find them.) I also noticed that while we have a list of U.S. federally recognized tribes and a list of U.S. state recognized tribes, I couldn't find a list of U.S. unrecognized tribes. I only know 3 or 4 which is hardly enough to justify starting a list but there should be a large number in Virginia, New England and California. Rmhermen 21:32, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Capitalization of terms

Hi all - Currently the term "Indigenous" is capitalized the majority of the time when used on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America article. However, over at Indigenous peoples, it is capitalized the minority of times it is used. It would be quite helpful to establish a naming convention for use on Wikipedia regarding whether or not the ethnic group term "Indigenous" and its synonym "Aboriginal" should be capitalized all the time, none of the time, or perhaps some of the time and in which general cases. Aboriginal peoples in Canada#Capitalization may be helpful to a discussion. Kurieeto 23:14, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

This is a valid point, Kuri - I simply used the capitalization every time we mention the project's name more as a title than a naming convention for indigenous peoples themselves. My humble opinion is, that it should not be capitalized if we actually mean indigenous peoples, and only use the capitalization when mentioning the project's full name. Again, your input is more than welcome. Phædriel ♥ ^{tell me} - 23:17, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Arguments in favour of capitalization include that "Indigenous" should be capitalized like other ethnic terms, such as Arabic, Asian, or German. Also, the policy of the Government of Canada is that "Indigenous means 'native to the area.' In this sense, Aboriginal people are indeed indigenous to North America. As a proper name for a people, the term is capitalized to form 'Indigenous peoples.'" ^[1]. Just so I'm clear on your rationale, what are your arguments in favour of not capitalizing the term? Kurieeto 12:56, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the most appropriate place for a discussion about the capitalization/non-capitalization of "indigenous peoples" would be Talk:Indigenous peoples, so I've begun a new discussion about the matter there. Kurieeto 13:36, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Lists

Not sure were it would fit on the project page, these lists are fertile ground for finding red-links.

• List of Indian reservations in the United States
• List of Native American Tribal Entities
• List of Alaska Native Tribal Entities
• List of State Recognized American Indian Tribal Entities
• List of U.S. Indian Tribal Government Web sites - not redlinks but very incomplete
• List of Aboriginal communities in Canada - on list of most red-linked Wikipedia articles
• List of place names in Canada of Aboriginal origin
• Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas - listed for possible merge
• List of Native American tribes - listed for possible merge
• Indigenous languages of the Americas
• Classification schemes for indigenous languages of the Americas - not wikified
• List of First Nations peoples

I couldn't find any list of Archeological cultures/complexes. (List of pre-Columbian civilizations is related but very incomplete and Cultural periods of Peru could be a format guide.) Rmhermen 15:36, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

• I started List of archaeological cultures in North America. Rmhermen 18:00, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

• List of First Nations has ample red links as well. Kurieeto 16:10, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

These lists can certainly provide rich reference to artciles that we need to work on. Perhaps it would be a good idea to broaden our Categories sections to "Working lists and categories", and add them to the proper subpage. What do you think? Phædriel ♥ ^{tell me} - 23:15, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

List of Indigenous people of the Americas is mostly blue-links but not very comprehensive (although it covers a slightly larger group than the topic of this project, it is sectioned by modern nations.) Rmhermen 16:25, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Two projects

Here's a possible goal for the project: make sure Wikipedia has an article for each entry listed in the Encyclopedia of North American Indians, a good online resource, written by scholars. Like the Dictionary of Candian Biography project, a systematic approach could be adopted, making sure each Wikipedia article has an external link to the online source.

Speaking of the Canadian Biography project, there are a lot of "red links" to native names there, so that's another place where project members here could do some good work, starting new Wikipedia entries for as-yet overlooked biographies.

As always, when I say "somebody" ought to do something, I mean "somebody other than me." --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 03:17, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

hi. i think is ok.

however, i suggest also that the Handbook of North American Indians published (and still being published) by the Smithsonian Institution is an excellent source to guide what is missing here by simply taking note of the table of contents in each volume. It is more comprehensive than the website mentioned above. Some volumes are out-of-date by now, but still this is the single best reference in the English language on general North American info. peace – ishwar  (speak) 09:55, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

oh yes, i didnt mention before, but the reference i provided of Landar's (1973) "checklist" is something like Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas except that it is bigger (at 188 pages) with synonymy cross-indexing (we know all the alternate historical names of peoples & languages can drive newcomers to Indian scholarship crazy). this may be useful to see what is missing – ishwar  (speak) 10:03, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Another online source people should keep in mind are the famous McKenney-Hall portraits. (Between 1821 and 1842, many American Indian leaders who came to sign treaties in Washington D.C. had their portraits painted, mostly by Charles Bird King.) These portraits were published as lithographs in the 19th century, and are all over the Internet, like here. Someone might want to make a list of these portraits, to make sure Wikipedia has them all and their corresponding articles. --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 05:03, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Flags of Indigenous Peoples

I feel that the article Flags of indigenous peoples should be addressed in this project, however, it is proposed for merger with Flags of non-sovereign nations (which proposal I am not in favor of). At present Flags of non-sovereign nations has flags of more indigenous nations of North America listed than does Flags of indigenous peoples. --Aaron Walden 09:43, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I am inclined to oppose that merge too. Thanks for bringing it to our attention, Aaron - I'd like to see Flags of indigenous peoples under our scope as well. On a side note, I'll have rough time logging in this week, but I'll try to asses and add as many articles to our lists as possible, and maybe create a new sublist or two as well. Hopefully, we'll have as many of the ancillary articles as our lists properly assessed soon, so we can get to work on the most important part of the project: expanding and improving them. Cheers, Phædriel ♥ ^{tell me} - 01:32, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Article classification tables

Well I STARTED out to add the BIA as a relevant article, but I can never remember the color codes for the article types!!! So I added a column to the article types table with the hex code values. In doing so I decided that it would make sense to resectionalise (adding Grading scheme) so I could edit just that section and not all of the other tables at the same time (they get a lot of edit traffic), and that maybe a sample table would be good, explaining the columns of the article tables. Maybe redundant as they are mostly self explanatory but maybe it will be of use. Comments welcomed if you didn't like what I did. ++Lar: t/c 15:59, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Template:User WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America 2

I created this ^^ messagebox template for those of us who use messageboxes to show project affiliations. It's bog standard, I just copied the {{WikiProject Bridges}} template, so it doesn't have the nifty image at left (that could be fixed I guess?)that the userbox does. Hopefully some will find it of use. ++Lar: t/c 21:31, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Nations, tribes and groups

How long do we want this list to be for now? I have several articles on tribes I could add, but they are all extinct tribes, and extinct and minor tribes would make for a long list. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)^(Talk) 00:02, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

A very valid point, Dalbury. My own opinion is that only recognized tribes, or maybe only those with a somewhat higher degree of historical importance should be included at the list at the Project page; not that I wouldn't like to see every tribe that ever existed there, but simply because, as you say, it would be incredibly long. While we're at this, I may also ask your opinion about including subtribes which have an article about themselves, most notably the subgroups of the Apache (Mescalero, Jicarilla, Chiricahua, etc.) Should we also add them, or consider them already present by listing the main article only? Your input will be very appreciated. Phædriel ♥ ^{tell me} - 00:13, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Length by itself is not a major criterion. If it gets too long, portions can be moved into subpages, e.g., extinct tribes. However, I've seen instances where lists are so long that their meaning and content is largely lost. Walter Siegmund (talk) 00:32, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

In my case, it's also a matter of minor articles about minor tribes, for which solid information is quite sparse. I'll leave my group of minor articles about little-known, extinct tribes off the list for now. Some are still just stubs, and all of them can be expanded. I hope to work on them again, when I have the time. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)^(Talk) 01:47, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't have much advice on how to handle sub-tribes. I suspect a case-by-case analysis will be required. As I understand it, what is a tribe and what is a sub-tribe or other division of a tribe is often an artificial construct, imposed by we white men to allow the BIA bureaucrats to think they had a handle on the "Indian problem". The extant tribes have now developed their own definitions of who they are, but I'm not sure that helps us in describing pre-Twentieth century tribes. I've only worked on articles on pre-Seminole tribes in southern Florida, and my research doesn't give me much confidence in the delineation of the "tribes" described in the literature. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)^(Talk) 01:47, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

re Apache Tribe: there never was an Apache tribe. They were often enemies and not sub-tribes of common political social grouping. Apache is simply a convenient linguistic/cultural grouping. This is just a note and not an argument for listing them separately on the Project page.

suggestion: Why not have separate pages based on culture area? These wouldnt need to be shown on the main Project page. Perhaps this will prevent marginalization of less important groups (degree of importance is, of course, a bias of the history writer). Since this Project covers a very large and diverse continent, I think that we should expect incredibly long lists. I guess wouldnt want to be left out because I wasnt important. Question 2: what needs to be on the main page anyway?

- 22:16, 2006 February 20 User:ish ishwar

I have come to agree that it would be best to deal with the major groupings in the initial stage, as it would be overwhelming otherwise, and well-contructed articles will have links to the sub-groupings, anyway. However, the point regarding the Apache is well-noted. This might well compare to the Iriquoian tribes. They are historically separate tribes and should be treated as such. --Aaron Walden 19:50, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Somewhere else I've commented that the subgroupings in Canada would be immensely long in their own right; as individual villages/clans are independent nations in their own self-description; and in some cases the divisions do not correspond to language-cultural links/affinities; comments below adapted or concerning existing Wiki pages:

Kwakiutl vs Kwagyuilh vs Kwakwaka'wakw - all currently lumped under Kwakiutl, which is the usual name for the Kwak'wala-speaking peoples of northern Vancouver Island, Queen Charlotte Strait and the Johnstone Strait in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Kwakiutl peoples include:

• Kwakwaka'wakw - (Queen Charlotte Strait)
• Kwagyuilh - Northern Kwakiutl (Fort Rupert)
• Laich-kwil-tach - aka Legwiltok, Yucultas or Euclataws, aka Southern Kwakiutl (Campbell River/Quadra Island). Just to confuse matters further, the Southern Kwakiutl are divided between the Weiwaikai and Weywakum

Kwakiutl is also erroneously used to describe Oweekyala speakers just north of the Kwak'wala speaking region; "Northern Kwakiutl" (in its historic context, not in reference to Fort Rupert) are Haisla, Oweekeeno and others in the central [[British Columbia Coast]. Kwakwaka'wakw literally means "speakers of Kwak'wala" and while this is the name of a political/regional organization the various constituent communities are self-governing; the Kwagyuilh and Laich-kwil-tach are historic kin and also ancient rivals of the other Kwak'wala speakers, but these two outer groups share no direct political affiliation as do the Kwakawka'wakw communities with each other. The Laich-kwil-tach situation is further complicated by their having absorbed the Island Comox (A Salishan group) within the Weywakum (the Laich-kwil-tach were invaders to the northern Georgia Strait about 200 years ago, migrating out of the Johnstone Strait area.Skookum1 05:44, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

• Gitksan-Wet'su-we'ten Confederacy: this political grouping predates the advent of the Colony of British Columbia and their political inheritance/legacy was central to the Delgamuukw vs the Queen legal case. The Confederacy bridges the Tsimshian-speaking Gitksan with the Carrier/Athapaskan-speaking Wet'su-we'ten; there is currently no separate Gitksan article (from the Tsimshian article, that is); not sure about the Carrier/Wet'su-we'ten.
• the St'at'imcets speaking communities are now three separate political units, with the largest further divided between Upper and Lower St'at'imc; the latter is usually known as Lil'wat. Of the Upper St'at'imc each band (of six) is self-described as a nation, and the northernmost at Pavilion, Tskwaylaxw First Nation, is also a member of the Bonaparte grouping of the Shuswap Nation (Secwepemc). The smaller St'at'imcets-culture political units are the In-SHUCK-ch Nation (a breakaway of the Lower Lillooet) and the N'quatqua First Nation (also sp. Nequatque), originally a breakaway from the Upper St'at'imc into the In-SHUCK-ch Nation but since incorporated into its own entity. The Douglas (Xa'xtsa) Band of the In-SHUCK-ch are also members of the Sto:lo regional council (itself also composed of several subnations, and excluding the Chehalis First Nation which lies in between Douglas and the Sto:lo "mainstream" of the rest of the Fraser Valley).
• the Nicola national grouping is an amalgam of the Nlaka'pamux-related Sce'emx and the Upper Similkameen (Syilx) branch of the Okanagan people; and at some time in the past absorbed the now-exting Stuwix people, also known as the Nicola Athapaskans, who migrated into the area from the north two or three hundred years ago.

And that's just for starters, of the ones I'm familiar with the multiple-cultures/organizations of; don't know enough about the Shuswap, Nootka and Central Coast to comment but the situation is similar; the Nuu-chah-nulth organization excludes other Aht speakers, notably the Ditidaht (Nitinat); all are culturally linked also to the Makah.Skookum1 07:35, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Native Americans in the United States

Just thought I would bring this up here: Native Americans in the United States failed its first FAC nomination, largely due to issues of referencing and POV. Most of the issues have been worked on, but as one of the larger articles that is included under this Wikiproject, I think that this article deserves a bit more work. I have nominated this article at the United States Collaboration of the Week- please vote or comment. AndyZ 22:56, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Ward Churchill

I'm not part of this project, and I'm not qualified to make a decision on this (and don't have any stake in making one either). The Ward Churchill article has the {{NorthAmNative}} tag on the talk page. However, Churchill's North American native ancestry appears to be a false claim by Churchill. So I was wondering if the Churchill article should really be part of this project? – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 18:43, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Even if he weren't of Native American ancestry, his scholarly contributions to the field of Native American studies would merit his inclusion in the project, which is comprehensive of all topics and individuals relating American Indians.--Rockero420 19:20, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Strongly agree with Rockero420. See Talk:Ward Churchill for more on this. Basically, I think Doug Bell isn't particularly interested in NA issues, but just wants to snipe at Churchill. Obviously, whatever his ancestry, Churchill wrote lots of books and articles that touch on NA issues. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:57, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not terribly interested in the motivations, whether it was just to "snipe at Churchill" or whatever, however, not only his contributions to the field of Native American studies put him within the scope of this project, so does the controversy regarding his alleged tribal membership, in my opinion. --Aaron Walden 20:56, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I already stated that I wasn't particularly interested/knowledgable in NA issues and I wasn't "sniping at Churchill". I was merely raising an issue without any prejudice as to how to handle it. Lulu, you don't have to always disparage my comments. It's actually better to assume good faith, as I try to do with you. – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 21:07, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Jeffrey Vernon Merkey a Native American peoples project subject?

User:Waya sahoni has recently started to add the {{NorthAmNative}} tag to the talk page of the Jeffrey Vernon Merkey article (a biography of an infamous net personality and Cherokee). However, various editors feel that the tag is inappropriate for that article. I, for example, feel that the tag lends undue weight to the Cherokee background of Mr. Merkey, and understand this project to be about Native American culture, not it's individual members. Moreover, editors of the article believe that User:Waya sahoni is in fact Jeff Merkey himself, and is as such biased as to the importance of the tag. Whatever the reasons, User:Waya sahoni insists on re-adding the tag whenever an editor removes it from the page, and I find myself in conflict with his edits.

To resolve this conflict peaceably, I have created a [[Talk:Jeffrey Vernon Merkey#{{NorthAmNative}} tag appropriate?|straw poll]] on the subject. I would really appreciate to get some input from editors working on this project as well, as you would be better judges of the appropriateness of the tag. I am looking for feedback on wether the Jeffrey Vernon Merkey article should be considered part of the Native American Peoples project or not. Thanks! --MJ^(☎|@|C) 18:13, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

MJ, I have said before I am not Jeff. Please stop violating WP:NPA. To the project, MJ is an SCOX message board member and POV pusher in that article. The RFC concluded and the POV materials are being removed to the article can at least achieve a B-Class status. Waya sahoni 08:10, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi MJ: I'll go vote in the straw poll too. Basically, I believe that the Native American tag belongs on Merkey's talk page. I would not doubt that he has created additional sockpuppet accounts, as we have seen before. But that's an unrelated issue: Mr. Merkey is indeed a tribal member, and has even been active in tribal politics. He may be notable primarily for other things, but that is equally true of many Native Americans who would be appropriately identified as Indian within their page. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 18:53, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

The straw poll outcome is that the tag is retained as it turns out to be a valid tag to place on biography articles. --MJ^(☎|@|C) 07:27, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

And MJ and his buddies from SCOX have been vandalizing our tags in that article. Waya sahoni 08:10, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

What exactly is your fixation with "SCOX"? Would you please explain exactly what this "SCOX" is?

Could it be that you, as Jeff Merkey, was banned from Yahoo! message boards generally after your relentless attacks, your homophobic insults, and your threats of litigation against any and all who had the nerve to expose or contradict your nonsense?

Please describe exactly what experience have you had with Y! SCOX that leads you to speak of it in such derogatory and pejorative terms, implying that somewhere, somehow, there is some deep, dark conspiracy happening at this mystical "SCOX" and that its target is you, you you... -- talks_to_birds 10:19, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Question about jumping in.

I have been a passive user of Wikipedia for a few years now, but havent ever really jumped into a project yet. I fell into this discussion page researching the Dawes Act, and would love to get involved. Growing up in the american midwest (Oklahoma) and being a successful debator (on the subject of native peoples) in high school and college, i have a somewhat extensive library of secondary research on philosophical and (less so) hystorical issues relating to natives. In the hopes of contributing informative, useful, and in compliance with Wikipedia's NPOV, I was wondering if I should just back up and pick an unassigned subject, or get with a specific person to find out what needs to be done in what order. cheers. micheal. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cecilgol (talk • contribs) 14:57, 7 March 2006.

Hi Michael, and welcome to Wikipedia! It's a Wiki, just jump in. Pick a topic that needs more references, or one that's empty, or one that strikes your fancy, and start editing. Source your work by providing cites if you possibly can, to reduce controversy. But... No need to check with other people about what to do. Hope that helps. PS: don't forget to sign your posts with ~~~~ so we know who you are... ++Lar: t/c 20:47, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

For instance, you could start at the Dawes Act article which needs work. Any number of tribes and reservations have no article at all - it's easy to get a short article going. Good luck. Rmhermen 22:22, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, welcome to the project. --Aaron Walden 12:20, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

A Month's Worth of Progress

It appears to me that we have just completed the first month of this project. I wanted to say thanks to everyone who's jumped in and brought things so far, and thanks to Phædriel for getting it rolling and lending structure. Not only has the project already come a long way in organizing things, but a lot of work has been done on the articles themselves as a result of the attention in this project. Keep up the good work. --Aaron Walden 13:48, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Assessment

It may be too late to bring this up, but might I suggest we not assess our own articles? Every editor feels like they do a fantastic job on their own articles, or else they wouldn't write them. It just seems like other people might make fairer evaluations than the writer him- or her-self.--Rockero 18:29, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I've done the initial assessment on my articles as I add them to the list, as a rough indicator of the status of the article, but I have also asked that others do the real assessment. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 22:54, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

As long as we're on the subject, it needs to be pointed out that the Featured Article assessment is reserved for those articles which have been nominated and named as official Wikipedia Featured Articles. --Aaron Walden 00:18, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Concur. I was terribly confused to see so many articles with the FA status, while I can only find one on the list of featured articles. Perhaps this could be rectified? --KSevcik 14:12, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

All of these non-featured "featured" articles were assesed by Waya sahoni. I have remove such rankings of his before. Perhaps someone should discuss it with him. One of those he listed this way is currrently blanked as a possible copyright violation. Rmhermen 16:44, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree this is very problematic. Authors should not review their own work. Also, our criteria for coloring an article green in the table is clearly set out as: "Reserved exclusively for articles that have received "Featured article" status, and meet the current criteria for featured articles." Several of the ones we are calling Featured Articles have never ever been Featured Article Candidates, much less approved as Featured Articles. Listing them as FA's is seriously harmful to the reputation of this project. Johntex\^talk 20:33, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I have removed the erroneous FA's and left a message for Waya sahoni explaining my actions. That still leaves us with the the need to create a good process to ensure writers are not reviewing their own work. Johntex\^talk 21:00, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Hello, I have taken out some of your article rankings at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Indigenous_peoples_of_North_America. The criteria state that "green" and FA are used for articles that have actually passed the Featured Article process. It is not for articles we think should pass, or that may pass some day. There is only one FA in the project: Mandan. I took out all the others. Also, please note that there is discussion ongoing on the talk page about whether we should review articles where we are the main contributor. We look forward to your thoughts. Johntex\^talk 20:58, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi John, thanks for the kind message regarding this issue. I would suggest you update the main page which describes the ranking process as it specifically instructs editors to evaluate any article and tag them. This would certainly help clear up such issues. My well meaning by obviously mistaken actions were based upon these instructions. Something to consider. Waya sahoni 00:24, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Waya sahoni, just to clarify - I don't think you were wrong to review articles you worked on, because at this time, our project does not say that is bad. I am proposing that we should adopt some sort of limitation on self-review for the future. Clearly, you can't be faulted for going against something that is still under discussion! I only object to the FA tagging because I think our criteria on that is spelled out currently. Best, Johntex\^talk 16:28, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I assessed a few of mine if they were just stubs. --Aaron Walden 00:46, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, I cannot see anyone objecting to the assessment of articles to stub status by the authors. :-) Waya sahoni

Personal attacks

Unfortunately, User:Waya sahoni has reverted my assessments of some articles he has been principle author on. In doing so, he both dramatically overrates the articles (he had formerly claimed them all as Featured Articles, in plain disagreement with the fact of FA approval). Moreover, his edits replaced the article assessments with plain-old personal attacks on me (because of some odd grudges about me trying to clean up some articles he's edited in). If editors in this project could keep an eye on such WP:PA reversions, it would be appreciated.

I didn't alter any grading of the article. I just replaced the credits removed by the non-Author of the content attempting to take credit for my work. Waya sahoni 08:07, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, you did increase the grade of articles you are principle author on. But that's not the point, really. See this talk page please: clear consensus is that evaluations should be written by someone other than the main author of the articles evaluated. The appropriate evaluator of Joe Byrd (Cherokee Chief) is anyone other than you! Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 08:20, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Lulu, I give up. Your edit summaries are inaccurate, and you know nothing about the subject matter. The best course is to ignore you since you stop editing when the golden goose stops laying eggs for you. Then you just sit idle. I think I'll sit idle around you until you latch onto someone else to follow around the site and glom onto articles they are working on. Your editing style is too disruptive for me to deal with. You are like a bull in a china shop. I am certain we will have some terse and bare articles with you "helping" by tagging everything for deletion, copyvio, bogus tags for one upmanship and control, CoNtRoL, CONTROL CCOONNTTRROOLL.... Oh, where did Waya go? Then the articles get abadonned when you get bored and your subject moves on. Waya sahoni 08:35, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

This is classic. Nobody but Waya can edit articles started by Waya?! Everyone is out to get waya? If he can't have everything exactly his way, he's going to take his ball and go home? What part of 'your articles may be mercilessly edited' didn't you understand? Vigilant 00:18, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Notice, FWIW, that the above note was first posted by the Provo Utah IP address 67.166.115.135, which has been used by Jeff Merkey, and blocked as such, then quickly changed to contain the Waya sahoni signature. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 08:50, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Gadugi has never used this address based on CheckUser. Don't be fooled by the bogus tag placed there by the SCOX stalkers and meat puppets. Check the edit summary. Also input the address to CheckUser, it's never been used by Gadugi. Lulu, Link to CheckUser please? Waya sahoni 09:07, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm... I suppose you're not familiar with WP adminstravia; I only am more-or-less by accident. Only a limited subset of administrators have access to the CheckUser, and a special request must be made to them to use it when there are issues of sockpuppets and block evasions. So your claim to know what CheckUser returns is plainly false... unless you may have certain other ways of knowing what IP addresses Jeff Merkey uses (but haven't kept a very accurate track over time, it appears). It might be time to dig up an admin with CheckUser privileges though.

Here's a thought: given your insistence, against the preponderance of evidence, that you are "not Jeff Merkey", maybe you could say what your name is. And try to come up with one who actually graduated from SMU law school (as you've alleged, giving a graduation year), and who has a doctorate in something else (also suggesting a school and a year). And someone who is Cherokee and lives in Texas. If all those things are actually true of you providing such details should flow right off the top of your head... on the other hand, if there is a certain prevarication involved, I think you'll have difficulty finding a name that meets all the claims (especially one who wouldn't vehemently disclaim being you). I'm not 1/10th the sleuth of many of the editors on WP; but I'm sure a number of them would be happy to check the existence of a name meeting all these alleged biographical events. Good luck with that :-). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 09:38, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for Checkuser shows no such link between my IP and Jeff. Stop making personal attacks. Thanks. Waya sahoni 16:53, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, I have myself made minor edits to Jeff Merkey, United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, and Joe Byrd (Cherokee Chief) which I annotated. I will certainly defer to the article evaluation of any other editor who has not edited it, if you feel my comments are not balanced or accurate. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 04:22, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

This editor is involved in an ARBCOM and has been defacing and disrupting project articles I work on. He is not knowledgable of the subject. He has been acussed of stalking merely to revert another editors work. He needs to post his allegations on the WP:RFAR page and not here. Waya sahoni 06:27, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Just for background, the so-called RfAr is at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Waya sahoni and WP:RS vs. SCOX and Linux Community Editors. It's just a silly abusre of WP adminstrative procedures that isn't going to go anywhere. Editors here who'd like to opine are welcome to.

But also, the annotations Waya sahoni keeps inserting personal attacks into are:

• Joe Byrd (Cherokee Chief), which is primarily written by Waya sahoni;
• Jeff Merkey whom most WP editors involved believe to be the same person as Waya sahoni (Waya sahoni denies it, though they share an email address, IP address, business, writing style, and Waya sahoni describes himself as a "blood relative" of Merkey).

• FALSE and WP:NPA. Stop junking up our project page. I'm certain the ARBCOM would like to hear all about it. Post this stuff there -> WP:RFAR. Thanks. Waya sahoni 07:58, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

In neither case should Waya sahoni be writing the annotations and making the evaluation. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 07:16, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this is productive or appropriate. This is the talk page for the Wikiproject. This hostile tone does not help. Perhaps all three of you (Lulu, Waya, and the suddenly involved Vigilant) can avoid the articles you disagree on for a few days and expand coverage of some of the articles that need it. An awful lot of Indigenous Issues are still uncovered in Wikipedia. TriNotch 01:54, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Do y'all need a hug?

--Aaron Walden 13:24, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

{{NorthAm-native-stub}} Image

Hello fellow Wikipedians. Over at Template talk:NorthAm-native-stub, Harmil has raised a concern about whether our existing image for the stub notice, looks good at the size we are using for the stub notice. I share this concern. Therefore, I am proposing a new image for the stub notice. Please join in the discussion if you like. Thanks, Johntex\^talk 20:10, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

What if we swapped it with the Sitting Bull image in the Project box? Then both images could still be in use, and it would be easier to see. --Aaron Walden 20:32, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi Aaron, I put your suggestion on the Template talk:NorthAm-native-stub page, and I also posted a sample there of what that would look like. Johntex\^talk 21:11, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I vote for sitting bull too and its good, but has anyone tried Chief Joseph yet? If Aaron wants Sitting Bull, ni-go-di-s-ge-s-di (That's just the way it is). Waya sahoni 03:09, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

• OK, I swapped the two images. Sitting Bull is now on the stub, and the Edward Curtis picture is now on the article notice. Please let me know how this works for everyone. Thanks, Johntex\^talk 01:30, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I substituted an optimized version of the Curtis pic at Template:NorthAmNative. Just a bit of gamma correction, color saturation reduction, brightness/contrast tweaking, then an optimized scaling. It was way too orange in the existing version, IMO, rather than sepia. I tried the 150px that it had been sized at; after looking, I thought 125px is actually plenty for that template. I'm deferring to Johtex' judgement on which images to use where, but I figure I can make the chosen images look better with a slight bit of graphic manipulation. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 01:50, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Lulu - I think the two images look much better this way because the Sitting Bull image is so distinctive even at small size. It seemed like there were no objections to this swap idea, so I went for it. We can always go back (or go to a third option) if we want to later. I like your modifications also, thanks for taking the time to improve the images. Johntex\^talk 02:57, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

A Call to all Native Americans on Wikipedia

Our brother, User:Waya sahoni has had his userpage blocked and his talkpage protected from being edited. I realize there have been some disputes, but is all of this really necessary? We should stand beside our brother. --Bookofsecrets 05:05, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

How hilarious... after his block he "revoked all rights" to the copyvio images he had recently uploaded, and that he had strenously defended as being in the public domain when their permissions were questioned. I definitely encourage everyone to take a look at User talk:Waya sahoni for an amusing read. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 06:08, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Also, this off site project of his is in violation of the GFDL agreement becuase they have taken content from Wikipedia without proper attribution, and by attempting to relicense it under soemthing other than the GFDL. This is a serious offense. Johntex\^talk 20:41, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Waya sahoni shows too much anger to be allowed to return so soon. I believe we will see him here with a new username sooner or later, anyway. I do hope that next time he shows more restraint. Wadoli Itse 14:13, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

This is an inappropriate username. "Wa-do-li" translates as "penis" (search on wa-do-li with google) and "it-se" means "new". No Cherokee would pronouce or combine these words in this manner. This username is inappropriate and offensive to any Cherokee Speaker. The way these words is Combined is also wrong. It word have been spoken Wa-do-li It-se a-gi-ha (I have this). signed Cherokee Speaker. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.186.225.152 (talk • contribs)

Google results

Cherokee, Cherokee Ancestry, Cherokee Language, Native American ...

... pecan so-hi--a-ni-nv-hi-da. pen ga-ne-he--gv-di-di-go-wi-lo-di. pencil

di-go-we-lo-di. penis wa'-do-li. penis wa'-do. people a-ni-yo-ne-ga. people a-ni- ...

drstandley.com/nativeamerican_ppp.shtml - 51k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.186.225.152 (talk • contribs)

My user name is not Cherokee. However, in case it really offends the Cherokee people, or any other nation of planet Earth, I have already offered (on my Talk page) to change it. I cannot do that myself, though. (I understand that a help from an administrator is needed). Before that, I would like to hear a second opinion, but not by another socket puppet of Gadugi. Wadoli Itse 10:03, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

From Cherokee language:

I want a turkey..... gv na a wa do li

From Indian town names:

"It-se-yi" or "New Green Place"

I see no obscenities. --MJ^(☎|@|C) 15:10, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

There is only one page that google returns that has both the offensive word and the phrase wa do li on the same page (the other hit is a parked link page linking to the first). All other uses of wa do li are referring to the I want a turkey phrase, and I also saw wa do as meaning thank you and v-wa-do-li as store house or provision house. I am certainly no expert on the language, but I find little evidence to support the rather strong allegation. Unfortunately, the accuser has a long history of unsubstantiated allegations making me take this one with a big grain of salt. --MJ^(☎|@|C) 15:22, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I see a legitimate reason why "this user" could be mistaken. According to this Cherokee dictionary the word he means is "wa'-do". Wadoli Itse 15:45, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

The Wa'-do indicates a glottal stop (') -- two words, and is pronounced different than wa-do (which is one word and not two). I have been speaking Cherokee for about 39 years, so I think I am familiar with the language. Adding the verb stem modifiers doesn't change the words this person selected. -yi means "the place of". It-se-yi simply means "New Place of" not "New green place". The word wadoli is considered exceptionally vulgar (as most profane words in Cherokee) and also is used in phrases which imply mast__bation. These non Cherokee who look up words online and try to use them is comical. The account uses an inappropriate name that translates as "New Penis".—Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.186.225.152 (talk • contribs)

While this Cherokee word list shows that "wa-do" (no apostrophe) means "thank you". I have no aposthophe in my user name. I do hope this end this matter.Wadoli Itse 15:56, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

And Wadoli means what I said it does.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.186.225.152 (talk • contribs)

Stop being silly. You admitted yourself that "wa-" and "wa'-" are different sounds in Cherokee. I have the first one in my name. Do you see obscenities everywhere you look? Wadoli Itse 16:06, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I would like to suggest that this entire thread be refactored to someone's talk page or somewhere other than this project page. It just doesn't seem appropriate for a project of this importance and seriousness to see threads disputing the meaning of some sylables in a userid. I would humbly ask that you all either stop, or take it somewhere else. (there are places on WP to raise the issue of inappropriate usernames) ++Lar: t/c 17:28, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest finishing the subject. This user does not hide he's the blocked Waya sahoni (talk · contribs). He was aware of myself and my username since 01:32, 17 March 2006 when Vryl (talk · contribs) asked him if I am him. My name did not seem obscene to him at the time. It took him over three days until 04:43, 20 March 2006 to get shocked. What happened in between? He got blocked. I wrote a comment saying that he should not be unblocked, yet (see above). And now my name is utterly obscene. Therefore, I am sure he is not acting in good faith. Wadoli Itse 17:35, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

That's as may be, and I'm not saying it is not worth following up on this. Just not here. Too far out of scope for this project. IMHO. Hence my suggestion that the right place be found and this conversation moved there. Again IMHO. ++Lar: t/c 18:02, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

SERIOUS ATTENTION NEEDED: The call to all Indigenous editors of the Wikipedia Indigenous project needs some refinement. The call for editors should include a watchgroup that makes notes and attempts to identify editors that have come into this project that are "wolves in sheeps clothing". Meaning that the real reason that certain editors have come onto this project is to insert anti-Indian rhetoric. In fact, on editor that is a member of this Indigenous project is a leader of an anti-Indian hate group. His username is Dtwarren, check him out. He is proud of his drive for the eradication of the Seneca Nation, and is more than willing to use and spread past racist court and federal policy precedent to acheive this end. I am Seneca, and hopefully like you, do not want to be "Wikipediafied" out of existence by anyone. I am asking for you help, please take a few minutes and look up this editor and decided for yourself. I am sure that this individual is not the only one out here, but currently his actions are the most egregious. Nya'weh. Scuggy 17:36, 16 February 2007 (UTC)