Wikidata:Edit groups/QSv2T/1603028249716

Edit group QSv2T/1603028249716

Summary	no source given, see also WD:BLP	Author	Pyfisch
Number of edits	990 (more statistics)	Example edit	Q13053753

Discussion

ethnic group (P172) should only be added with "a VERY high standard of proof". However thousands of items about living people have this controversial and likely to be challenged property without any source at all. With this small batch I hope to start a discussion on how the Wikidata community plans to proceed with these claims.

Feel free to restore any ethnic group (P172) claims I removed, but keep in mind that "the burden of evidence rests with the editor who adds or restores material", and therefore sources must be provided that either "1) the subject claims it themself or 2) it is widely agreed on by scholars". --Pyfisch (talk) 14:59, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Did you discussed this with the community before removing so many claims? @Pyfisch:--Trade (talk) 17:11, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

@Trade: The community consensus is that controversial claims about living people may be subject to removal, if they don't have suitable references. I found these claims to be controversial and unverifyable so I removed them. --Pyfisch (talk) 18:26, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

That's a no it seems. --Trade (talk) 18:29, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Date_of_birth and place_of_birth also require a reference, but we do not delete them. The best strategy would be to find a reference. Someone was doing the same thing, deletion, for religion about a year ago, to great detriment. The idea was to rigorously apply the rules from English Wikipedia to Wikidata. They also claimed that WD:BLP demanded that religion be deleted, but anyone can edit WD:BLP without generating consensus first. My personal opinion is that if you find contradictory information, you should then edit the entry and add in the appropriate reference. Ultimately we should be able to write a bot to scour news articles for reference to one's religion/ethnicity and use that to add in a reference. --RAN (talk) 01:09, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Of course you could technically edit WD:BLP without seeking consensus, this is a wiki after all. But I checked that it was not substantially modified since the RFC passed. This RFC lists ethnic group (P172), religion or worldview (P140) and some more properties as claims that should not be added without sources, because wrong values can be hurtful (which also was not modified). By your reasoning anyone can add any ethnicity to any person item, and it could only be removed if the person made a contradictory statement. Ethnicity happens to be a poorly defined concept and while you may be able to reject some statements by using common-sense this you can't contradict most claims. For most people you just can't find any sources where they state it and you shouldn't assume that any label a Wikidata editor decides on would fit their own description of themselves. --Pyfisch (talk) 08:26, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

In your view, when users are adding unreferenced and biased information about living people, i should add a reference to it, although this has not academic purpose ?Jumtist (talk) 12:33, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

1. You said: I found these claims to be controversial and unverifyable so I removed them. Please, provide a list of actions you have done before statement removal, at least for example edit.
2. WD:BLP#Statements likely to be challenged allows statements which are "widely agreed on by scholars". What kind of filtration did you perform to follow this rule (e. g. for example edit)? --Lockal (talk) 08:54, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

1. Beforehand I checked that the statement doesn't have sources. Regarding the Armenians (Q79797) claims I checked that they were imported from hywiki which doesn't appear to distinguish between Armenian citizenship and ethnicity. Considering the demographics of Armenia it is likely a good guess to say the belong to Armenian ethnic group. For some persons I tried unsuccessfully to verify the claim of Armenian ethnic group, which may be due to the language barrier.
2. There doesn't seem to be an branch of academics that assigns ethnic groups to modern people. (Usually people are described either by country of citizenship or the language they use.) An exception to this rule may be African Americans where there is a distinct field of study concerned with this group. This is why I didn't remove those claims. --Pyfisch (talk) 10:27, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

According to the current guide lines, if someone's parents both came from Germany and immigrated to the United States i won't be allowed to list it unless i can find a source where either the subject or a scholar specifically mentions their etnicity. This is pretty ridicolous. Even English Wikipedia aren't that overly specific --Trade (talk) 09:35, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

There isn't any commonly agreed upon definition of "German ethnic group" in Germany. The constitution only deals with the issue of citizenship and neither Federal Statistical Office (Q764739) nor other state agencies collect statistics on this matter. While the term migration background (Q18629204) is used, it is usually based on citizenship (of the parents) or place of birth. Meanwhile there are 4 recognized national minorities and people migrated across Europe for centuries. Considering all this how is it possible to assign an ethnic group to this person just based on the fact that the parents came from Germany? (On a related note, which value would you choose? German Americans (Q141817), and the value changes if the person moves away from America?) --Pyfisch (talk) 10:27, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Why do you want to set ethnic group (P172) in the first place? We can already record country of citizenship (P27) and native language (P103) if known. --Pyfisch (talk) 10:31, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

My parents are both German and I'd be quite upset if anyone labelled me "ethnic german". That's because I don't believe in even the existence of any such category that tries to divide me from, say, French or Dutch people.

If you know their parents are German, you are free to add items for them and record as much. The same goes for language, place of birth, etc. There is no reason to go beyond the facts and invent new neat little boxes to shove people into against their wishes. --Matthias Winkelmann (talk) 05:17, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

• As this is a property where a reference is explicitly required for quite some time, I think it's a good idea to do some cleanup. I'm aware that some (I think it was Trade) add "reference required" constraints to many properties (for whatever reasons, as mere suggestions or not), I don't think this is one of them. Please bear in mind that ultimately all statements in Wikidata should have references, but the degree of urgency of adding that varies. --- Jura 10:33, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

The Citation Neeeded constraint was added in June 2018. The exhortation that "consensus is that a VERY high standard of proof is needed for this field to be used." in the description is far older: it was added in March 2013, less than a week after the property was created. It's annoying enough that people can claim to know the eye color of a presidential candidate's brother but leave everyone guessing how they might know this, and essentially require any challengers of their clairvoyance to proof a negative. But for properties that are as controversial as this, and with seven years of warning, it would take an astonishing amount of chuzpa to complain about one's unsourced statements to be deleted (instead of slinking away hoping not to be recognized). The property couldn't be any clearer that the burden of proof lies with claimant, not the one wishing to improve the datas' reliability. Delete away! --Matthias Winkelmann (talk) 05:08, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

slinking away hoping not to be recognized?? @Matthias Winkelmann:--Trade (talk) 14:28, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Wikidata shall not allow unauthentified users to publically list "ethnicity" of living individuals, this is potentially harmful for everyone tagged with this property. Delete the property. Jumtist (talk) 12:47, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't agree that Ethnic group is sensitive topic, maybe in some countries in the West, but in the rest of the world it's normal to talk about it. Germartin1 (talk) 21:24, 20 December 2021 (UTC)