Template talk:Indigenous rights footer/Archive 1

Archive 1

Issues

This seems like a rather arbitrary collection of individuals and organizations. The NARF, NCAI, NIYC, or historically the SAI aren't listed but Claude Levi-Strauss, Russell Means, and Ward Churchill are?! You might considering do a lot more research (and verifying it - perhaps on the talk page) before posting this on individual's pages. You can talk to anyone involved in any one in any of the three Cherokee tribes' government – even talk to Wilma Mankiller herself – to hear their views about Ward Churchill. Talk to Oglala Lakota people that live at Pine Ridge to gain more perspective about Russell Means - especially after his failed attempt to undermine Navajo Nation sovereignty in his court case. I would put forth that there are way too many people that merit inclusion in a list of Native American rights activists to fit on a template, but people like Walter Echo-hawk, Gertrude Bonnin, Suzan Shown Harjo, Mary Dann and Carrie Dann, Vine Deloria, Jr., LaDonna Harris, Oren Lyons, Rigoberta Menchú, Carlos Montezuma, Leonard Peltier, John Trudell, Clyde Warrior, Charmaine White Face, or Richard Ray Whitman deserve mention more than many people currently on this template. If you want to include non-Natives in your list, include Senator Daniel Inouye. If this template representing global indigenous peoples, then why aren't more Native African activists and groups listed? -Uyvsdi (talk) 18:45, 7 February 2010 (UTC)Uyvsdi

A global indigenous rights template would be far too large to be of use, but here's an example of a Native American rights template focussed on US Native American rights in law: Template:Native American rights. Perhaps templates for African Indigenous rights, Amazonian indigenous rights, Australian Aboriginal rights, etc. might be doable, verifiable, and meaningful. -Uyvsdi (talk) 19:23, 7 February 2010 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Any template on social issues carries problems of objectivity and selectiveness. That doesn't mean that they are not useful and desirable to justify their creation. I think you are making a mistake regarding the type of column we could include on this template. The idea here is not to have individuals who represent indigenous rights, but those who are more notable or visible. That is the name of the column. I think it would be a serious mistake to attempt to achieve anything more than that. This is very standard work in an encyclopedia. Of course there is no definitive criterion for who gets in our out. Everybody understands that. But the template has an edit button and should be in motion as people get around to working on it. I think that most people could work with Ward Churchill being on a template about indigenous rights. Personally, there are people and organizations that I don't agree at all but regarding which I had to rely on statistics for inclusion. Some of them clearly don't work out with one another. I understand perfectly well that Churchill is a controversial person, but I also understand that he is commonly associated with issues related to the indigenous movement. If you think I did a mistake, please correct it or try working with other people who may be interested in the subject. Ultimately, the column itself can be deleted simply by following the edit button, but as the rest of the template and anything else in wikipedia, I suppose it is a matter of constantly finding consensus. Maziotis (talk) 19:48, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

PS: I do know some of the names of the native american activists that you mentioned. Some of them, I even considered inclusion when I was making the template. But I still believe that Ward Churchill and Russell Means are more notable then them. Maziotis (talk) 19:53, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Russell Means and Ward Churchill are famous but have they tangibly contributed to the actual rights of indigenous peoples? People, through direct action and court cases (such as the Sohappy family), have actually won rights for other peoples. Others (LaDuke and Harjo) have won land back for tribes. Peltier's non-profit foundation has directly affected Native peoples lives in a tangible way. I would advise a lot more reading on the subject. But what is the actual scope of this template? It does not reflect world indigenous rights. There's already a far superior US indigenous rights template, so outlining a precise scope would enable other editors to be able to improve this. -Uyvsdi (talk) 20:18, 7 February 2010 (UTC)Uyvsdi

I can't take the challenge to discuss who "has done more for indigenous rights" seriously. There are too many different political worldviews to take into account on what the ends might be to consider any concrete measurements, such as how many court trials were won. Like I said beofre, I think that "famous" (if you wish to call it that) is the way to go.

As with any major social movement, there must be literally thousands of important people that are associated with the cause. But if our consensus finds room for 20 individuals to be mentioned, there must be 20 individuals who are a little more visible than others. There shouldn't be any more trouble with this template than there is with a template such as "template:animal rights". I don't see how a "global indigenous rights template" creates any new challenge on this ground. Maziotis (talk) 20:33, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

The struggles for indigenous rights do not represent a single, unified social movement; rather, there are centuries of diverse movements throughout the world. The animal rights template is far more thorough than this one but the range of issues that indigenous peoples face is greater and more complex than those found in animal rights (not to in any way, shape, or form denigrate the gravity of animal rights, but animal rights don't cover rights of land ownership, mineral/other resources, self-governance, language, religion, self-definition/identity, intellectual property, etc.). The fact that no person or organization from Asia is mentioned here is a clue that global scope is far too challenging for one template. There are thousands of indigenous ethnic groups and hundreds of millions of indigenous people across the globe. A sampling of 20 activists is not going to cut it, especially when 40% of those listed are non-indigenous people. The Template:Native American rights works because it has a focus: Native Americans in the US and legal cases and federal legislation that affect the rights of those Native Americans. A template of Native Hawaiian Rights, for instance, would actually be useful, because it has a defined scope. If you can define what you would like to cover, other editors could contribute and assist you. -Uyvsdi (talk) 01:56, 8 February 2010 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Again, I believe it is a mistake to try to represent the indigenous rights movement on any level. A reason why you might think that "indigenous rights" is more complex than "animal rights" is that you are simply not involved in the latter. All those elements that shape the concept of indigenous rights should be explained in the main article, Indigenous rights. And all the Native American activists and organizations should be found on the template, in the respective categories of the column named "categories". Some of the elements on indigenous rights I have already explored through the work on the article about Survival International. It's not that this organization deserves to speak for them, but simply it was the one who had both sources and the attention of a user. Everything is incomplete and unfair until someone comes and makes it a little better. If a subject is too complex to write an article about, that is no reason to not write an article at all. You simply write sub-artciles and connect them in an organized fashion. That is what we are trying to do with an article named "indigenous rights", and making a template that connects the more visible points. The template is about the expression and concept of "indigenous rights" in general.

If you are going to raise the challenge on objectively representing a social movement, than we will be having a discussion that will surely takes us well beyond this particular template. The problem is that we are writting an encyclopedia that can only reflect material that is recognized within a certain culture, with certain standards. So, we have a limited view right there by its own design. We have to assume that we will accept to deal with mostly western, industrial views, or how the western world perceives social reality. I cannot expect you to work in representing other worldviews when we are stricly dealing with what has been published. That is something that we are all willing to work with when we come here. A template, if there is one, it should not attempt to represent any part of the movement at all.

About me verifying on the talk page before posting the template on individual's pages, I have to say that you are not in tune with wikipedia policy on that matter. I don't have to ask permission to anyone to try to improve an article. If I find an article on an individual who is directly related to indigenous rights, then it is only natural that I put an "indigenous rights" template on the page. If there is something wrong with the template itself, then we have to work on the template or delete it. So far, I haven't have anyone speaking against the creation/inclusion of this template on any of the several pages I have worked. Apparently I received an award because of this work from "wikiproject Indigenous peoples of North America", so I am kind of confuse about this, consensus wise. Maziotis (talk) 11:53, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

You received a barnstar from the same individual (who is highly productive and whom I respect) that I did, so relax. Actually, I am involved and informed about the animal rights movement and the anarchist movement. The nature of wikipedia is that information needs to be citable and verified by secondary sources or it gets removed. Nothing about this or the other related template are backed up by any secondary sources. I've check out the even broader Template:Human rights, which is unbelievably lengthy and many editors have questioned it. Template:Particular human rights is more contained and only listed rights, no organizations. Neither lists individuals. If you truly want to take on such a broad-ranging template, following the [UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples] would be one approach; however, many of these listed rights do not yet have corresponding wikipedia articles. As it stands, this template is too incomplete and inadequate to cover the subject on hand for posting on articles, and I will accept your invitation to start editing it. -Uyvsdi (talk) 17:55, 8 February 2010 (UTC)Uyvsdi

So, I am new to this discussion, but a possible solution would be to have create List of indigenous rights organizations (or some such title), and then have the footer (which currently is massive, and thus hard to use effectively) link just to that page instead of trying to list them all out, or picking and choosing which are "more notable" or "more important". - IanCheesman (talk) 02:18, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

First of all, let me felicitate you for adding a "Rights" column to the template. This definitely helps make its purpose more useful and complete. Exclusively for issues of good navigation, I believe that perhaps it would be better to move the column down and keep at the top the ones that, due to the nature of the subject, can have the template on every article. I am afraid that some of those rights, even though they are most definitely related to indigenous rights, don't belong to them. It would be a problem for issues of organization to make that link. Anyway, this is just a suggestion.

Right now the template, specially the right-side box, looks unnecessarily massive. I think we could do something in terms of organizing the information that is already there and save a lot of space. Making directs with acronyms is common use and can make everything much better.

Another problem that needs to be addressed goes back to our previous discussion over content. Right now, half of the organizations included are Native Americans, particularly from the USA. If you put aside organizations that are more global and represent both Americans and others, the list is almost exclusively Native American. If this is your idea of a "notable organizations" section, perhaps we should delete this column as well on the grounds of not being possible to find a non-biased consensus on which kind of organizations might merit notability on the field. I hope we can come to some consensus. I suggest that by notable organizations, we include those more visible in shaping the "indigenous rights" in the world.

It seems to me that you are insisting in the criterion of "representing" indigenous movement. I believe it is unfair, and in this version of your template we can see that injustice more clear. Why would those indigenous movements who exist in countries where they are best organized politically, and can achieve more results paper-wise (court wins, etc...), be more represented in the template? This makes me wonder about the "individuals" section being arbitrary and selective. I think that having "Benny Wenda" on the template would be at least much better for the sake of brevity than the organization that is now roughly representing the same cause. The results are closely the same. We are discussing a cause that is relatively notable to be in this template. If we can agree on that, then perhaps it is not impossible to have this column.

Having a "Native American section" seems far worst to me than having a 40% western one, as you pointed it out concerning the "individuals" section. Indigenous rights is by definition about how the colonized face the colonizers. Like it or not, it is about (if anything else) how the western world recongnizes its coloniolism and the people on the other side. Why wouldn't 40% of the notable people shaping this concept be western themselves? Let's be clear that we are not dealing here with a "indigenous worldview" template or anything of the sort. Anyway, I think it is best to let this past column go. I hope we can find a common ground for the "Organizations" column.

I am going ahead and do some changes to your version and see where we can work from there. I really hope that we can find some consensus soon. It seems that we are making progress. I think the template is better now than before.

PS: I am very much relaxed. When I said that I was confused over the consensus on this issue, I said it because I was genuinely confused over the consensus on this issue. I didn't mean to brag. I was really making a reference to the mixed feedback that I was receiving about what to do with the template. You received the award on a different subject, so it was rather pointless for you to point out to me that you too are an award-winning wikipedian.Maziotis (talk) 22:50, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

IanCheesman, your idea is not mutually exclusive with having a "most notable" organizations column. On the other hand, we do already have a link to [Category:Indigenous rights organizations] in the column named "categories". In the end, we may be left with only this link. Maziotis (talk) 00:43, 13 February 2010 (UTC)