Talk:Māori people/Archive 3

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Archive 3: from January 2010

Social Problems

Why are there so many social problems? They get a lot of help from the state or not? Can anyone tell me the reasons why there are so many suicides, criminals and high unemployment-rates? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.43.20.58 (talk) 10:44, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

There's been a number of articles that indicate it may be genetic. There is a gene that is present in 30% of the world population in general that is present in a large majority of those in prison, and in 60% of Maori. This gene is associated with risk taking, addiction, and violence. I was going to add it to the article but I have trouble with properly formatting citations. There is an abstract at http://www.ichg2006.com/abstract/843.htm and a lot of other articles about this. It's been attacked for it's ethical implications but there's nothing wrong with the data or methodology. 12.40.5.69 (talk) 17:00, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Our article on the subject is at Monoamine oxidase A (you may find it easier to remember the redirect Warrior gene). See section 3 of the article.-gadfium 19:21, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism

Someone put a lot of obvious word replacements in the article. Someone please put it back to the previous version. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.176.103.188 (talk) 10:50, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. It's been fixed. See Help:Reverting for how you can fix such vandalism yourself.-gadfium 18:12, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Now someone added something about "finding whales" and destroyed the original formatting of the article. Daniel Leal Werneck (talk) 16:07, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

also fixed now. Kahuroa (talk) 19:22, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Montage

I'm keen to exchange the infobox picture for a montage, similiar to Native Americans in the United States. Here is a sample/draft, I'd welcome comment on the idea and to the selection of pictures. XLerate (talk) 03:43, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

• Support. The current image is superb, but not as representative as your montage. Moriori (talk) 03:50, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

It's good, but I'd like to see a modern Maori woman included. --Avenue (talk) 05:01, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Nice idea... and I agree with Avenue, tho I realise pix are few and far between. Kahuroa (talk) 05:05, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, I've added a 4th row and two women. I'd previously looked for a free image of Kiri Te Kanawa as she's known internationally but with no joy. XLerate (talk) 07:14, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

If you'd like more internationally famous people, we have a nice photo of Keisha Castle-Hughes, although it would need cropping (as do Anika Moa and Michael Campbell's photos). The photos of Turia and Mateparae, while not bad, are verging on being too side-on IMO. Are four rows too many?--Avenue (talk) 14:37, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Stephen Kearney has a nice pic. Kahuroa (talk) 20:38, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I think Kearney and Castle-Hughes are both good suggestions, they've both been added. There's also a good photo of Tuku Morgan, but perhaps there are enough politicians. I'd looked for a photo of Whina Cooper, but a fair-use one is discouraged per Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Collages_and_montages. The African American and American Jews articles also have montages, like Native Americans all have four rows, and show faces from a variety of angles. Peters was cropped yesterday, I plan to upload additional cropped versions of the others when the selection is finalised. XLerate (talk) 02:30, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Took the liberty of adding an untilted and closer cropped version of Kearney. He has a strange lean in the other pic. BTW I did like how the three-row version had the three eras: Traditional dress/later 19th Century-early 20th/present day. That was nice. But not a must. Kahuroa (talk) 03:25, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I've restored the three-row version, I changed the first 19thC photo to Peter Buck because there is an article on him, and selected Castle-Hughes, Peters and Kearney for the 20thC/present - covering entertainment, politics, sport, and both genders. XLerate (talk) 04:45, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Nice :) I might darken or gradientise the background behind Kearney a tad so it harmonises a bit more with the others. Tomorrow if I get time. done. Kahuroa (talk) 07:08, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Excellent! It's now live, thanks all for the input, and nice work on Kearney's photo. XLerate (talk) 07:36, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Sweet. Kahuroa (talk) 08:04, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Macron usage

(Note: This comment was added in May 2010 by TheFarg to an old discussion with the heading Macron usage that started in 2002 and had had no entries since 2005. See the archive pages if you want the context) Kahuroa (talk)

Children in New Zealand are taught Maori in school. No usage of macrons is taught as New Zealand English does not contain macrons. There is currently a push for macrons to be included but so far we have not changed the standard usage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TheFarg (talk • contribs) 22:55, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Maybe we need to amend your first sentence to read "Children in New Zealand are taught Maori in some schools and Māori in others, the former being an Anglicised version of the latter (hence no macrons)." Moriori (talk) 01:46, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Fleshing this out... why is "Maori" spelt "Māori" on English Wikipedia pages? "Maori" is the correct/accepted English spelling - never mind the fact that English does not have an "ā", etc, as noted above - whereas "Māori" is the correct Maori spelling (and so should only be seen on mi.wikipedia, bar quotations). Or is someone going to replace all instances of "Quebec" on en.wikipedia pages with "Québec"? Or perhaps "German" with "Deutsch"? en.wikipedia is written in English, not Maori, regardless of whether or not it's discussing Maori subjects. Qangaroo (talk) 11:46, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

It definitely seems to be a non-Wikipedia standard use of language...of course, I'm sure this was all settled by Maori partisans in some tedious edit war five years ago. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.65.162.183 (talk) 22:44, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

In New Zealand official usage of (Hansard, acts of Parliament, etc), the word is spelt Māori, even in English contexts. This is in accordance with the guidelines laid out by the Māori Language Commission under the Māori Language Act 1987, which also covers the form that is meant to be taught in schools. Previously the official name was changed from Native to Maori in 1947. Stuartyeates (talk) 08:52, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Performing arts and sports

I'm almost tempted to blank this mess of a section. Well meaning but so badly written that it's almost devoid of meaning. And where do you start to fix it. Kahuroa (talk) 09:05, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I'd say replace the current information with a few sentences on some of the more well-known traditional arts (e.g., haka, poi, waiata, kapa haka). While the resulting section might resemble a tourism pamphlet, the information is still standard fare for an encyclopedia. Short of a major article overhaul, it should suffice. – Liveste (talk • edits) 05:27, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

I've rewritten this from Te Ara sources. It might need a tweak and some link checking. The next section that I think is badly written is Contemporary Māori culture. Added to the fix list. Kahuroa (talk) 02:30, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Old news?

Is it time to retire the sections on Maori Mix cigarettes and Gaultier's use of moko? 2005 and 2007 respectively? Kahuroa (talk) 11:37, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd say so. Personally, I'd probably go a step further: I'd move the other two subsections to their respective main articles, work in a couple of extra sentences in other parts of this article, and get rid of the section entirely – it seems a bit too specific for the main Māori article IMO. But either way is fine. – Liveste (talk • edits) 00:53, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree - the section feels out of place. I'll follow your suggestions after a day or two to give others a chance for a say. I've made a small start to cleaning up the Performing arts and sports section, as we mentioned above. Kahuroa (talk) 03:23, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Structural Recommendations

Hi everyone! I haven't contributed to this article before, but I will profess an admiration and respect for the Māori people and Māori culture. I have been a major contributor to articles related to Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast (Canada region). My proudest work is the article on my own tribe. After looking at other articles on ethnic groups on Wikipdia, I came across this article looking for inspiration on how to improve the articles I work on. With that, I would like to make a few recommendations to this article to make it more succinct and clear, to provide the information in a easy and useful manner. I wanted to propose this first to any editors who contribute to this article frequently. I can do all the work to re-arrange things, but let me know what you think.

The new structure I am proposing can be viewed here. Please leave comments on this talk page to share. Thank you. OldManRivers (talk) 10:12, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Tēnā koe e hoa. Thanks for raising this, because structure is such a fundamental part of making an article work for the reader. I think your proposal seems logical and improves the clarity of structure nicely. The section titles: you have shortened some, which is good, but dates have been removed from them. Do we need them? Kahuroa (talk) 11:13, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't look like anyone is going to mind so I am actioning your suggestions. Kahuroa (talk) 22:24, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Nice work – a great improvement. I also noticed that this article has never really had substantial information about Māori society or social organisations: there's no real explanation of what iwi and hapū are, no mention of the word marae anywhere in the article, and nothing on organisations such as rūnanga and hauora (and soon Whānau Ora). A Māori navbox is probably long overdue as well. If there are no objections, I'll draft these up today and start adding them tomorrow. Cheers. – Liveste (talk • edits) 01:06, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good, it would be neat if we could advance the article towards GA (shock horror) Kahuroa (talk) 04:38, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Subtle, aren't we :) ... nevertheless, a GA drive seems to have started in earnest. I've added a navbox, which probably needs expansion, and I've started writing the "Society" section off-wiki. Next on the list, the entirely irrelevant information in the "Contemporary culture" section. – Liveste (talk • edits) 02:51, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Who me?? Nice work on the navbox. And I agree the "Contemporary culture" section is pretty awful. Very outdated source for one thing, and a dance teacher or something to boot, lol. Kahuroa (talk) 04:09, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Looks very good. I always got the impression that the asrticle. Maori had just grown as people added imporatant its which did not fit into specific articles. Go for it.

ping (talk)

I think so too ping, it just kind of 'growed' really. Kahuroa (talk) 08:00, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliments. I also noticed that a Society section is missing describing the social organization of Maori people. I would contribute to the article in more ways, but I know so very little of Maori people, culture, and society. I could help proofread and copyedit though! OldManRivers (talk) 18:30, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

A Geography section would be good, including a map with all the different iwi in New Zealand. This article could be an example of what it could be. OldManRivers (talk) 18:34, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

We have such a map at File:IwiMap.png, currently in List of Māori iwi.-gadfium 20:36, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

That map doesn't give a source though does it? Which we'd need if we want to go to GA. And it contains a lot of detail which requires the reader to look at it fullsize. I'd probably rather leave it on the list, just quietly. I wonder if a division by waka origin might be more user-friendly - I could look at making one if I can get a decent source. A section on pre-contact/oral tradition, incl oratory/poetry/songs/music (which was very rich and of great quality) would also be valuable I think, and give some contrast and balance. And I'd love to bring out some of the cultural practices and technologies carried over intact from Polynesia Kahuroa (talk) 23:36, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Further to the map idea, the best source might be this - that page for a waka map. Clicking into the areas brings you to the level of iwi. And that could be used to confirm and source the IwiMap we already have, and edit it to make it agree where it doesn't. But I wonder how accurate something like that can be when the iwi areas often overlap: if you mouse over the links on the Te Tau Ihu page you'll get an idea of the problem Kahuroa (talk) 05:23, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Six months later, and I've finally managed to get a Society section going. My solution to the "Contemporary culture" section – which made it look as if our modern culture were made up entirely of teenagers – was to simply remove it. The article as a whole still needs a lot of work to get it to GA (let alone FA) standard. Thoughts on how we can do this (and on the current changes) are welcome. Cheers. – Liveste (talk • edits) 04:00, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Archiving this talk page

As this page is getting a bit long and has discussions going back to 2002, anyone mind if I set up automatic archiving via a bot? For archive page 1 I'd use the earliest year or two from the page history, etc etc, then set the bot up with a default config and have auto generated links to the archive pages.Kahuroa (talk) 10:07, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

No one minded, so I've set up the archiving and saved old entries into archives. Links to them are at the top of the page. Kahuroa (talk) 00:40, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Māori Related Extinctions

Discussion moved here from user talk space.

(Reverted formatting: not a bad idea, but there's no need to highlight this particular historical aspect over many others, e.g. Moriori, in the main article)

The changes I made do not highlight this aspect over any others. It is simply a subsection describing events of the Archaic period. It should be included to help for quick access to this information.

The reason I included it is because I was reading about the Mao and Haast Eagle, and found that the Māori caused their extinction. After reading the Māori page, I found it hard to find the information concerning the events that led to the extinction of these species.

Since wiki is an encyclopedia that is designed to provide easy access to unbiased information, I will repost my changes in a few days. You may debate this decision with me here on your talk page.

There is no priority or highlighting of the Mao extinction, the information is simply more clear and accessible in the article with the included subsection.

Since my included piece is a subsection of the Archaic period, less emphasis is placed on the Māori Related Extinctions than on the Archaic period, therefore the argument that "highlight this particular historical aspect over many others" is invalid. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.202.24.78 (talk) 01:15, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I think the article is too general for such fine division into subheadings. I note that the articles Paleo-Indians and Indigenous Australians do not contain subheadings dealing with the extinction of megafauna in those areas. The latter article contains much less history than Māori does because the history has a separate article, History of Indigenous Australians, which also contains no subsection such as you suggest. You must drill down further to Prehistory of Australia to find the section "Advent of fire farming and megafauna extinctions". I suggest that a similar section would be appropriate in Prehistory of New Zealand, but we have no such article as yet.-gadfium 05:30, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I've moved the conversation to the article talk page per Gadfium's suggestion. My explanation in the edit summary for removing the section heading was probably too brief and a bit unclear. In retrospect I probably should have explained my edit on the article talk page, although Gadfium has now pretty much done it for me.

We need to be selective as to which information appears in the table of contents. For the main Māori article, the History section has subsections based on historical periods: adding more headings within each subsection would swamp the TOC, while adding one or two would make the TOC and the article at large appear unbalanced. We generally include more detailed subheadings in separate, specific articles, although modern history gets a more detailed treatment here. Both a Māori history and a Prehistory of New Zealand article would be suitable – once we actually get around to writing them (although I hate to see pre-European history referred to as "prehistory").

Alternatively, I was thinking about OldManRiver's earlier suggestion of a Geography section, and was considering adding a "Geography and the environment" section to this article, either within the existing Culture section or on its own. This would include information about Māori and fauna, as well as the land uses (historic and current) and cultural significance (e.g., Ko Taranaki te maunga ...). This section would be included in the TOC. Thoughts? – Liveste (talk • edits) 09:38, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Has the anonymous contributor thought about adding an extinctions section to Pākehā and or New Zealand European? If not, why not, since the list would be much longer? Why here and not there too? The extinctions are already mentioned here. Does the article on the English people prominently highlight the extinctions they caused hundreds of years ago - wolf, bear etc? If not, why not? Kahuroa (talk) 10:00, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I used the term prehistory as it was used in Prehistory of Australia - the time from initial human habitation and before written history. I mean no disrespect in the use of the term and would be happy to consider an alternative. However, an article on Māori history would be less appropriate, since it would have a much broader scope and therefore not cover the period before European contact in as much detail as the article I envisage. Perhaps this could be avoided by writing the still more detailed articles Initial settlement of New Zealand, Archaic period in New Zealand, Classic period in New Zealand, and Early European contact with New Zealand. All these titles are of course subject to discussion, and the last article would also deal with the theories of Gavin Menzies, so European is not the ideal word.-gadfium 19:56, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't call your use of "prehistory" in this case disrespectful by any means. And yes, hopefully we can find an alternative name to it. I'm not sure what you meant regarding a Māori history article. I'm guessing you meant that the subheading would still be too specific for a Māori history article, in which case I'm not too worried about it one way or the other. Just in case though, I wasn't proposing the article as an alternative to "Prehistory in New Zealand", but rather a completely different article covering all of Māori history from Polynesian migration to the present day, similar to History of Indigenous Australians (which could use a more detailed structure IMO – why it has everything under a heading of Origins is beyond me). Let me know if you meant something else entirely. The split articles seem interesting enough as well. Cheers. – Liveste (talk • edits) 00:10, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

"I think the article is too general for such fine division into subheadings." - The same priority is given to Maori related extinctions as to Kapa Haka, Modern challenges, Treaty of Waitangi settlements, and rising middle class. The extinction of the largest eagle ever to live on the planet, in addition to the extinction of the Mao, is definitely as important an event as the aforementioned subsections.

"I note that the articles Paleo-Indians and Indigenous Australians do not contain subheadings dealing with the extinction of megafauna in those areas." Megafauna are not extinct. Some particular species of megafauna may now be extinct, and if the extinction of any species was a result of a people's activity, that should be noted on that people's wiki page. If there is evidence that the Paleo-Indians and Indigenous Australians used fire-farming and that this was the cause of the extinction of 60 species, there should definitely be a subsection on their wiki pages that addressees it.

In summary, in response to gadfium, the fact that other wiki pages have incomplete information on vague subject matter is not a valid argument. The point is to have completeness on all pages, because other pages are incomplete does not mean that information should be suppressed. It is a clear fact that the Mao and Haast eagle became extinct because of Māori hunting and deforestation. This fact should be easily accessible on the wiki page. Any extinction that is a result of a people, should have that extinction listed in a subsection on their wiki page. It is useful, important, and relevant information and should be easily accessible.

Responses to other comments will be made soon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.49.93.182 (talk) 23:57, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. Yes, these extinctions need to be covered somewhere, including the role humans played, but there are many more important things to cover in this article on the Māori people overall. The extinctions would probably fit better within an article on something like the Archaic period in New Zealand. --Avenue (talk) 02:17, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

The appropriate place to cover the extinction of the moa is at Moa. Wikipedia also normally requires a more authoritative source for such a comment than "It is a clear fact that...". Daveosaurus (talk) 05:39, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Avenue and Daveosaurus. There are articles on the eagle and the moa - no one is suppressing any information. This article isn't covering anything up, and it's a very subjective opinion that says we should highlight the extinctions even more. And it's unbalanced if articles like this are expected to be little more than lists of errors and failings while those on non-minority peoples are not. Kahuroa (talk) 06:30, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

"I disagree" - Avenue - You do not state which part of the argument you disagree with. You do not address the argument that the same priority is given to Māori related extinctions as to Kapa Haka, Modern challenges, Treaty of Waitangi settlements, and rising middle class. The extinction of the largest eagle ever to live on the planet, in addition to the extinction of the Mao, is definitely as important an event as the aforementioned subsections.

- Daveosaurus - There is no dispute over the fact that the Māori people caused the extinction of the Mao and Haast's Eagle. If you would like to dispute this, please make another section. The extinction is covered in the Mao page, but since the Māori caused the Mao to go extinct, the extinction should also be listed on the Māori page, otherwise, the page is incomplete.

"I agree" - Kahuroa - You all agree with each other, but do not address the logical argument that this article should be complete with as much information as possible on the Māori people. This information should be easily accessible. I repeat: the fact that other wiki pages are incomplete is not a valid argument.

Please elaborate on the statement that the article will be 'unbalanced' with the addition. I repeat the argument, for the third time: the same priority is given to Māori related extinctions as to Kapa Haka, Modern challenges, Treaty of Waitangi settlements, and rising middle class. The extinction of the largest eagle ever to live on the planet, in addition to the extinction of the Mao, is definitely as important an event as the aforementioned subsections.

This has nothing to do with highlighting errors of minority groups. It has to do with providing information about a subject; in this case, the information has to do with the Māori causing the Mao to go extinct. There should be a subsection dedicated to this because it is at least as relevant to the Māori as Kapa Haka, Modern challenges, Treaty of Waitangi settlements, and the rising middle class. Without the section, the page is bias. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.216.229.162 (talk) 04:39, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

While we do aim to make articles accessible, this does not extend to having individual subsections on every single important piece of information – particularly in a general article such as this one, which should not include "as much information as possible". Like I've said previously, we need to be selective as to which information gets its own subsection here, and which should be further elaborated in more specific articles.

The information on Māori-related extinctions deserves a mention here IMO. But I certainly don't agree that it is as important as, say, kapa haka, modern challenges or Treaty of Waitangi settlements, in relation to Māoridom as a whole. Personally, I would rank other topics as being more deserving of having their own subsections here – marae, iwi, hapū, waka, whakapapa, Moriori, haka, whakairo, race relations, socioeconomic development, just to name a few. We can't appease every reader, nor can we make all of this information accessible in the table of contents.

Hence the need to be selective, and for consensus where editors do not agree, which atm opposes including a separate subsection for Māori-related extinctions in this article. A subsection may be more appropriate in a more specific article. I still think that a "Geography and the environment" section here would be a suitable alternative. Information on Māori-related extinctions could be included there, and I think that enough readers would think to look in that section to find it. Cheers again. – Liveste (talk • edits) 07:14, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Carving on Marae in classic period

It is a commonly believed misconception that Marae were elaboratly carved in the Classic period.All the carving examples that have survived -and there are not many show ,that the carving was very simple in pattern and style.Most buildings were plain as far as it is possible to tell.It was not until contact with Europeans and the purchase of steel tools that a revolution took place .It was simply not possible to produce huge ammounts of fine carving with stone tools.Also the introduction of the potato and pigs in particular from say 1800 meant a huge boost to the available food supply-freeing up people to do specialist jobs like carving.All the wonderful fully carved houses that we see in museums such as Auckland were all done with steel tools well after contact.The photographic record from the 1860's onwards shows that the vast majority of buildings were undecorated.Many of the marae in this later period were carved by a few itinerant master carvers who all developed distinctive iwi styles.Claudia Jan 2011

The conclusions you draw from your original research are noted, but I disagree. But I do agree that marae were not carved - that would be impossible since marae are not buildings, but places that are surrounded by buildings. So that was one misconception in the article that your edit pointed out to me and which I have now corrected. Auckland Museum has plenty of elaborate carvings done with traditional tools by the way. The "itinerant carvers" did not develop iwi styles but continued them. Kahuroa (talk) 11:10, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I guess a lot depends on your definition of elaborate.To me there is a really clear cut distiction between the simple patterns and small size of carving done with stone tools and those done with steel tools.A few years back I attended a course of instruction by a master carver working on a new Wharenui nearby.He was quite clear that the modern style could not be rendered with stone tools.His work was incredibly detailed as well as very large.He was supervising a team of apprentices.As well as a chain saw each person had a set of about 12 top grade German chisels.Jan 2011 Claudia

This is what I would call elaborate, 18th century. According to the Auckland Museum (p6): It is interesting to note that greenstone and metal tools both produce similar cuts making it difficult to differentiate exactly what tools were used on particular whakairo. Your "modern master carver" was obviously not knowledgeable about the use of the old tools, which is hardly surprising. Kahuroa (talk) 04:32, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure this discussion is actually going anywhere unless solid peer-review references are found. I'd start looking for them in the JPS: http://www.jps.auckland.ac.nz/ Stuartyeates (talk) 05:30, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the pic K.I agree that the carving looks fairly complex but on close examination you can make out that the angles are fairly blunt or rounded which seems typical of stone carving.Dont forget also that Maori had contact with Europeans in the 18th century.Note in the example there is a lot of repetition of fairly simple patterns.I cant comment too much about the master carver other than to say he was about 38ish and had a degree in architecture-you might know him? Also to get back to the article show me the pics of all the finely carved buildings from the 16th and 17th century.Claudia jan 2011

Correct dates for the archaic and classic periods-please!

The current dates for these well known periods are all wrong and not consistent with other accurate info in the article.It is my humble opinion that the archaic period is now established as starting in 1280,give or take the odd year,( I believe this date has been established from at least 6 independent bits of evidence now)and the Classic period starting about 1450ish give or take perhaps 30 years.Statements about 1100 etc may have been acceptable 10 years ago but look out of date now.The reference is to Te Papa who should know better .Claudia jan 2011 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.237.37.160 (talk) 22:14, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I suspect that you're correct, but we need good refs to override what we have (Te Papa). Probably not hard for the "earliest settlement" end, but I suspect it'll be harder to get for "Te Tipunga" and Classic. If you know of any good sources, by all means drop a note here and I'll chase them up. Snori (talk) 23:10, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

These two period names are used in the 1966 Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Lots of archaeological discoveries since then. I wonder whether they are still reflect current academic thinking. Kahuroa (talk) 10:02, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

1966 is about half a century ago and the dark ages in terms of archeology ie pre DNA,pre ground radar,pre Geophysics,pre pollen analysis,pre reliable carbon dating,pre core sampling.Claudia Jan 2011 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.237.32.26 (talk) 21:45, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Michael King in The Penguin History of New Zealand (2003) refers to the transitional period of the 14th and 15th centuries, and the classic or tribal Maori society emerging by the 16th century. Atholl Anderson in Chapter 3 of The New Oxford History of New Zealand (2009) identifies a transitional phase of AD 1300 - 1600, and a traditional phase 1500 - 1770. Bruce McFadgen in Hostile Shores (2007) sees a significant shift in settlement patterns around the 15th century. There's obviously some overlap between the periods. I can give page numbers for King and Anderson if that would help. Claudia probably knows her way around McFadgen better than I do - I've only briefly skimmed it.

Proposal to ban images from ethnic group infoboxes

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ethnic_groups#Infobox_Images_for_Ethnic_Groups. Avenue (talk) 03:28, 28 January 2011 (UTC) (Using {{pls}}) --Avenue (talk) 03:28, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Pomare's 131 Europeans etc

NZ history on line says the previous reference was misquoted and is no longer accurate in 2011.They say Angela Ballara's Pomare 11 is the best and most reliable source now.New figure is 131 and they were Europeans not Pakeha Maoria ccording to Ballara.Claudia Jan 2011 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.237.32.26 (talk) 02:51, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing it. --Avenue (talk) 03:40, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Move per proposal, largely because of the new guideline developed at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (languages) during the course of (and as an indirect result of) this discussion. Orlady (talk) 15:37, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

---

Māori → Māori people — Per User:Kwamikagami, who started a move discussion but did not place the WP:RM template at the top of the discussion. R'n'B (call me Russ) 12:30, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

• Māori (disambiguation) → Māori

I moved to Māori people per MOS, only to be reverted with the objection that many links (which I'd started fixing) became ambiguous. However, many of the links to Māori or Maori should instead be to Maori language, Maori culture, or even Cook Islanders. It's better to link to a dab page than to the wrong article. (There are also cases where the link isambiguous and should be to the dab page, or where the lexical and semantic connections may disagree, as in "the Maori use the word X for Y", where "Maori" means the people but the reader following the link would more likely want the language, since that's really the topic of the link.) With the article moved, the links to the dab page will be gradually fixed, but without it being moved, the incorrect links will not be fixed. Best to keep the article at its MOS title.

(Also, when I fixed links after the revert, I got complaints that I was creating redirects. Combined with the other objection, that would mean that it is impossible to move any article with many links.) — kwami (talk) 00:58, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

• Support This is standard for articles on ethnic groups and the problem of articles blindly linking to Maori will only be fixed by disambiguation and hard work. My thanks for Kwami's efforts.μηδείς (talk) 01:04, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the move should have been proposed for discussion first. Also, many of the changes to links occurred after the move was reverted. This was inappropriate.-gadfium 06:04, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I didn't see the revert because I was fixing redirects. And this brings us back to not moving the page because it creates redirects, but not fixing the redirects because the page hasn't been moved: in other words, never move anything. — kwami (talk) 08:52, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually it was pointed out to you that you were creating [[Māori people|Māori]] links when there was no Māori people article (thus creating a redirect to a page which itself is a redirect page. How my pointing that out means "never move anything" is a mystery. Moriori (talk) 09:11, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

And it was moved back because the move left redirects. The redirects can be changed either before or after the move. If neither option is acceptable (you objecting to one and the move reverter objecting to the other), then moves are impossible. — kwami (talk) 10:17, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

You are being disingenuous by saying the objections to your move mean that no pages with widespread links can ever be moved. Certainly, long-standing pages with many incoming links should be discussed before being moved. If there is a consensus to move, then a temporary situation with redirects is not important.-gadfium 19:45, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Please read WP:BOLD. Many major moves prove uncontroversial. Moving minor & recent articles may end up being controversial. Given the huge mess of articles on WP, including hundreds like this one, it isn't practical to routinely get permission before such edits. Thus the BOLD guideline. — kwami (talk) 07:53, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it certainly should have been raised for discussion here first. Also the description of events at the top seems misleading. The reason given for the initial move was "vs language", with no mention of the MOS. The reasons given for reverting it were "unexplained, undiscussed move; disruptive of thousands of existing internal links". That is, the first reasons given were the lack of explanation and discussion about the move. The amount of disruption seemed to be a secondary point. --Avenue (talk) 07:31, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

It was per the MOS for ethnicity vs. language. (There is no need for 'people' where there is no such ambiguity.) Evidently I over-abbreviated the edit summary. — kwami (talk) 08:43, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

(Sorry, not the MOS, but naming conventions. — kwami (talk) 09:02, 30 January 2011 (UTC))

That naming convention (for languages) does not explicitly say that articles on "xxx people" must be given a title of that form. It does say that language articles must be called "xxx language", where there is any ambiguity. An example of a language/people suffix pair is given, saying this is preferred when borrowed native forms for the language and people involve different prefixes (e..g. Batswana/Setswana), but that is not the case here. --Avenue (talk) 13:50, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

It astounds me that any editor who's been around for more than a few hundred edits would think of moving such a high profile page like this one without first starting a formal move request as is now under way. Schwede66 21:57, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 1

• Support. Problematic to consider either the people or the language to be the primary topic of the name. Moving this page also creates the opportunity to fix the many links that may erroneously go here. I agree with Kwami that linking to a dab is better than linking to the wrong page. Since there are so many links we cannot demand that all these be corrected immediately, so here we should show a little patience. --JorisvS (talk) 11:57, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. In my opinion, "Māori people" is the primary topic. (Incidentally, I see nothing wrong with changing existing links to Māori people while this discussion is pending, as that makes the whole situation easier if the move is approved, and doesn't hurt anything if it is not.) That is, as stated in WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, this topic "is highly likely—much more likely than any other, and more likely than all the others combined—to be the subject being sought when a reader enters that ambiguous term ["Māori"] in the Search box." Although that term does have multiple meanings, using it to refer to the people is far more common in English than any other usage. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 12:30, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Could you please elucidate why you think the people is the primary? From just what's said at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC that's pretty contestable. --JorisvS (talk) 13:58, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

• Support as nominator. Which is primary depends on the context. It's also common for articles to say things like "the Māori word for X is Y", which is a problem whenever a name is used for both a people and their language, and one reason why we generally make the bare name a dab. — kwami (talk) 13:45, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. A Google search for "Māori" gives results for both meanings, but the majority of non-adjectival uses seem to be about the people, not the language. This agrees with my intuition. For any meaning of a term, you can find a restricted context where that meaning is the primary topic, so saying "it depends on the context" misses the point. Also, Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand has an article about the people simply titled "Māori". This is further support for the people being the primary topic. --Avenue (talk) 14:18, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
• Support If for no other reason than to disambiguate with Māori language. A search for Māori could easily refer to either. I Oppose the move of Māori (disambiguation) to Māori. Given that searches for Māori are most likely to refer only one of two things, the language and the people. I'd redirect Māori to Māori people and hatnote both Māori language and Māori (disambiguation) there.--Labattblueboy (talk) 15:59, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Please see

• English
• Welsh
• French
• German
• Polish
• Russian
• Chinese
• Japanese
• Navajo

Not one of these leads to the article on the ethnic group with a hatnote to a disambiguation page. Perhaps Kwami should have been more solicitous of the feelings of others when doing the move, but the move itself is according to accepted practice.μηδείς (talk) 17:23, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

For most of those, the language would be the primary topic, not the people, so they are not good examples. Try Apache or Ya̧nomamö for something closer to the situation here. --Avenue (talk) 17:41, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Really, when people say "Chinese" or "Navajo", they don't mean the people? I bet if you counted tokens of "Japanese" in a newspaper, the clear majority would refer to the people too. — kwami (talk) 22:27, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I did say most, not all. And if you were counting the number of times "Japanese" was used as a noun, not an adjective, I suspect the language would have the majority. My point about Apache and Ya̧nomamö still stands. --Avenue (talk) 11:53, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

And his point was that your statement isn't really true. Your two examples are apples/oranges because Apache language is a redirect to Southern Athabaskan languages and there is no Ya̧nomamö language article (the closest one is Yanomaman languages). I think someone else pointed out Guarini, though. I don't know if there are many other examples. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 14:14, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Oppose, the people are the primary meaning as shown above. In New Zealand, where Māori words are fairly common, there are some mentions which refer to the language, but in other countries the language would be even less likely to be the intended meaning.-gadfium 19:45, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Oppose The people rather than the language is the main use of the word Māori. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 20:29, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Support - This discussion of whether the people or the language is the "main" use of the word is sort of a red herring. Both are common enough that our conventions on article naming apply. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 20:50, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

The repeated mere assertion that "the people is the main meaning of Māori" is begging the question at hand. Merely repeating that personal opinion demonstrates nothing. General practice, however, is clear.

As for my examples above, they were off the top of my head to show without especially looking for exceptions that disambiguation pages are the norm. Indeed, just looking for major indigenous/minority ethnonyms off the top of my head and without selectively searching I come up with

• Quechua
• Zulu
• Hawaiian
• Coptic
• Rusyn,
• Chuvash
• Guarani

all of which except the last, lead to disambiguation pages. Please don't tell me that people looking for Zulu, as opposed to Maori, are looking for the language over the people.

The empirical question here may be open - we have only opinions offered. The policy question is not. And the links which Kwami has generously offered to fix in order to point where they should will go unfixed so long as this move is opposed.μηδείς (talk) 20:54, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Maori is different from some of these, in that "Maori" is its own plural (at least in modern formal NZ English). We have articles on Samoans (not Samoan people) and the Samoan language, which is analogous to the Maori status quo. Wikipedia is clearly not consistent in this area, so I don't think arguing from examples gets us very far. --Avenue (talk) 12:04, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Oppose I note that all the editors who are active within the domain of Wikipedia New Zealand and who have commented have so far opposed the move, and I'm no exception. Schwede66 22:05, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Do you mention such users because you think they should have priority? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 22:38, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your query, which highlights that I should have been more specific. I mention such users because I would assume that they have the best understanding of what people actually mean when they say Māori, because they are living in New Zealand. Schwede66 22:43, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

But they don't have a better understanding. Why would living in New Zealand give authority on English-language usage like that? I think the points of authority here are our naming conventions and precedence established by similar people/language phenomena elsewhere at Wikipedia. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 23:13, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

You are talking about WP policy, and with respect to this, all WP editors are of course equal. I'm talking about the knowledge what people mean when they use the term Māori. In the latter respect, us Kiwis would be more qualified to answer that. Schwede66 01:32, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I understand where you're coming from and, indeed, Kiwis are more qualified to answer a number of questions regarding Maori culture. But whether or not English speakers (which includes those outside of New Zealand) mean the people more often than they do the language when they say "Maori" is not one of them. Perhaps we should just agree to disagree on this one. It's a matter that doesn't have much bearing on the outcome of this discussion. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 01:58, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok, let's agree to disagree on this point. Schwede66 03:21, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Alternative: increasingly, the language is called te reo Māori (literally the language normal / Māori language) in official contexts (Hansard, government departments) and unofficial contexts. Certainly, this is widely accepted in New Zealand English. Stuartyeates (talk) 22:03, 30 January 2011 (UTC) Suggestion withdrawn as per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) Stuartyeates (talk) 23:35, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

The following list of ethnonyms A-Z are off the top of my head, although I couldn't think of an ethnonym beginning with "o" without looking. Every single one leads to a disambiguation page.

• asturian
• basque
• catalan
• dutch
• estonian
• finnish
• georgian
• hungarian
• italian
• javanese
• kazakh
• leonese
• mandinka
• norwegian
• portuguese
• quechua
• ruthenian
• sinhalese
• telugu
• ukrainian
• vietnamese
• wolof
• xhosa
• yoruba
• zuni

μηδείς (talk) 23:54, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Since what we decide here may effect changes to a general Wikipedia policy, I've started a discussion at WP:Naming conventions regarding when we say "people" when we have an empty modifier, and when we have a plural noun. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 00:21, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I notice that all of μηδείς's examples use only plain latin characters. Is the proposal to also rename Māori to Maori? or is this example somehow different? Stuartyeates (talk) 01:03, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Moving to 'Maoris' rather than 'Maori people' is an independent question, one which I do not have an opinion on, as is whether we should use the diacritic. There has been contentious debate on the use of diacritics for a long time, and I see no reason to start it here. — kwami (talk) 02:37, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Maybe you don't mean to start the debate here, but it's connected, because once this move has established the principle of uniformity over reflection of practice in the real world, the removal of diacritics is the logical consequence. Stuartyeates (talk) 03:12, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

'Maoris' vs 'Maori people' has another subtlety to it that editors outside of New Zealand would likely not be aware of, in that the Maori language does not have a plural s, and that has found its way into and is accepted practice in New Zealand English. Schwede66 03:18, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Oppose, this is the primary topic - for 2010, the page views were ~938k for this page, vs ~216k for Maori language. I feel the proposal is decidedly counterproductive - either way readers looking for the language get the hatnote or the dab, but those looking for the people article, the substantial majority of hundreds of thousands of page views, woundn't go directly to the topic but to the dab. This page is in the top 0.4% for article traffic and has had this title for nearly a decade, it is best to discuss such moves first. To misdirect most readers to a disambiguation page, on the basis of "I want to repair a handful of links to Maori language", is a bad idea. You can fix those links without the convenience of a dab page I think. XLerate (talk) 01:07, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Of the ~938k, how much of that was people wanting information on the language? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 01:13, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Under 216k, I'd estimate less than a third. So in favour of the language article, gives 866 v 216. XLerate (talk) 02:03, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

And where did you get that estimate from? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]}

938-216=722. 216/722 = 0.299, less than a third. XLerate (talk) 02:21, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't get your logic. How does subtracting the number of hits for Maori language from those for Maori indicate or imply how many people go to the latter intending to go to the former? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 02:40, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I think Xlerate was too generous. Asumming that essentially all the people who arrived at Māori looking for the language clicked through on the dabnote link to Māori language. So because Māori language had only ~216k hits, this means that less than a quarter of the ~938k Māori hits were for the language. --Avenue (talk) 12:17, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

My point in the above interrogation was to get Xlerate to see that there is no way to know from these numbers. Obviously, a portion of people going to Maori mean to look up information on the language, but we don't know if it's half or a quarter or a third or one. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 14:14, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Mt point was that based on a reasonable assumption, the proportion is less than a quarter. To maintain that the proportion is as high as a half, you have to assume both that very few people go directly to Māori language, and that most people who arrived at Māori looking for information on the language failed to click through to Māori language article, despite the prominent dabnote.

In case it isn't clear, my argument also implies that for the proportion to even be close to a quarter, we have to assume that most people who reached the Māori language article did so via the Māori article. I believe that's quite unlikely, and that a more reasonable guesstimate of the proportion would probably be less than 10%. We can't know the specific figure, but my point is that a reasonable range would be something like 5%-20%, and that there is no reasonable basis for proportions as high as a half or even a third. --Avenue (talk) 22:05, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm starting to see what you're saying. The number of people hitting Maori wanting information on the language would have to be 216k (about a quarter) or less since moving on to Maori language is the reasonable next step. 5-20% is still a wide range, though. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 22:18, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I make it from you've said ("... that the proportion is as high as a half ..."), Avenue, that you would consider the primary topic out of two the one receiving a majority of hits, even when the ratio is something like 55%-45%? Correct? Also, note that there may be a good number of links linking here when these should point to one of the other topics, as noted already above, which would skew your data in favor of 'looking for the people'. --JorisvS (talk) 22:37, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

No, my "as high as a half" comment was simply in response to Ƶ§œš¹'s post at 14:14, 31 January 2011 (UTC) above, where they say the proportion could be a "half or a quarter or a third or one". My understanding of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is that a primary topic would have a clear and substantial preponderance of usage. There is no guidance there about how this would relate to hits, but if there are just two options I'd say a 75%/25% ratio would be getting close. --Avenue (talk) 23:22, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

So, what we know is that hundreds of thousands of people have followed the link Maori language, and hundreds of thousands have also followed Maori, a certain undeterminable proportion of which followed it looking for Maori language.

This is all well and good, but we still have the problem of misdirected links and the problem of standard practice, which is to use a disambiguation page for ethnonyms which are the name of both a people and a language. I can certainly understand the point of view of people who edit this page thinking that the issue it deals with is the most important sense. But naming conventions are bigger issues than specific articles. No harm whatsoever will be done to the article by naming it specifically for what it deals with, the Maori people.μηδείς (talk) 02:41, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 2

• Support both moving Māori to Māori people and Māori (disambiguation) to Māori. (There's enough other debate directly above that I though the proposal bears repeating.) This appears to be the common practice with terms that are ambiguously ethnonyms and logonyms. Piped links to Māori people and Māori language can then be added (as Kwami was apparently in the midst of doing before) and genuinely ambiguous references can go to the DAB, alerting editors of those pages of the ambiguity. Although Māori people might be the primary topic, I'm not sure that this is "much more likely than any other", and I believe that like redirects, pipes are cheap. Cnilep (talk) 03:03, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose move. This article is written in NZ English (it might be an idea to add one of those notes explaining this). In NZ English the normal way of referring to the Māori people is "Māori" and the normal way of referring to the Māori language is "the Māori language", "te reo Māori" or simply as "te reo". Daveosaurus (talk) 04:46, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Daveosaurus (italics added): "...the normal way of referring to the Māori people is..."

Thanks for the laugh. μηδείς (talk) 05:33, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

You are welcome. Once you have finished laughing, you may wish to reflect on the possibility that I was discussing a certain phrase without trying to unilaterally shift a major Wikipedia article to that phrase when such a shift was neither discussed nor warranted. Daveosaurus (talk) 06:08, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I will take yours and your faction's comments seriously when you appeal to policy rather than some magical intuition possessed by Kiwis, who, given that they don't speak English, should perhaps start their own nz.wikipedia.org and leave this one to us mere Anglophones. Besides being nothing more than opinion asserted as fact, the claim that one says "Maori language" when one means the language and "Maori" otherwise is simply risible. I suppose New Zealanders would never utter the sentence "I don't speak Maori" but only "I don't speak Maori language"? User:Medeis

I thought I'd sign your last contribution for you. I suggest you chill a little (you seem very angry), and then have a read of WP:NICE. Schwede66 06:47, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

No, I don't mind you signing my comment, but WP:NICE is not the policy I am expecting you to refer to to support your position. And given the rather nasty smear against Kwami below I suggest you redirect your friendly advice to someone who needs it.μηδείς (talk) 06:58, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Kwamikagami (talk · contribs) has altered Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people) to support their position on this move. I think this is inappropriate; any change should have been suggested on the talk page and linked to this discussion.-gadfium 06:00, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

You had better provide the difs if you are going to make such an accusation. Kwami's edits to those pages have nothing to do with this controversy and you need to withdraw the accusation and owe him an apology.μηδείς (talk) 06:47, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

We'll start with https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ANaming_conventions_%28people%29&action=historysubmit&diff=410934427&oldid=406454043 Stuartyeates (talk) 07:03, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

This edit [1] says that the common English name should be used rather than the indigenous name, such as Zulu language rather than isiZulu, which is the native term for Zulu language, and amaZulu, which is the native term for Zulu people. He did not add any rule saying that articles about "people X" must be named X people which is what is at question here. Please point to an edit where Kwami has done what you accuse him of. μηδείς (talk) 22:56, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

That naming convention has long been stable, but was only listed in the language section, because AFAIK we have no section for ethnicities. Well before this, I'd thought about copying it somewhere specifically for peoples, but didn't know where. When this came up, I figured the biography conventions would probably be where people would look for s.t. like that, so I copied it there, but the conventions themselves I didn't change, except to add a blurb on the use of the word "tribe" based on what several of us have been doing, and which I noted on the talk page should be reviewed by other editors. That has nothing to do with this article, however. — kwami (talk) 07:14, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

As discussed at User_talk:Kwamikagami#You_are_creating_redirects, Kwamikagami (talk · contribs) also continued their insertion of piped links after they were apparently aware that the move had been reversed, on the basis that that was where the pages should have been. Stuartyeates (talk) 06:09, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

If you keep repeating that, it might became relevant. Use all caps, so we know it's important. — kwami (talk) 07:14, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I've notified Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New Zealand and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New Zealand/Māori task force of this discussion. Schwede66 06:32, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

• Support I believe that neither the people nor the language is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. The most similar situation I can think of is Zulu. Adabow (talk · contribs) 07:17, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

• Comment I'm puzzled by the rude behaviour of many of the posters here. Requests like this depend on the quality of the arguments, the guidelines, etc, not on who can be nastier. This whole thing, if we're to go by the original edit summary, started because (1) I was not clear in my edit summary and (2) because of an objection to moving pages linked to from numerous other pages. From that we've jumped to insults and making accusations of bad faith. It all seems rather surreal.

So far the only valid arguments would appear to be the convention of specifying 'people' and 'language' when both are based on the same name vs. XLerate's estimates of % page use for PrimaryTopic. For a good reviewer, such arguments are all that matter: the rest can be ignored. — kwami (talk) 07:48, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Note that Kwamikagami has threatened to block me, apparently because I disagreed with them. And yet, Kwamiokagami says that other posters here are being rude.-gadfium 08:10, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay, now you sound like you're lying. I didn't threaten to block you (I wouldn't because I'm involved); I warned you that defacing pages and then edit warring over it will likely get you blocked. (You've been here 7 years and you don't know what a talk page is for? Really?) I don't believe that you honestly think that disagreeing with someone and disrupting the encyclopedia are the same thing, but you might want to read up on the introductory links we post on newbies' talk pages if you do. And yes, several of the people here have been rude. As I just said on my talk page, I'm taking this article off my watch list. It's not worth the nonsense. — kwami (talk) 08:24, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

You believe I can be blocked for pointing out that your edit to a Wikipedia namespace page is contested, but you don't believe that's a threat from you, and I sound like I'm lying. Please stop. I can't take any more.-gadfium 08:32, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Comment: I've noticed that the bulk of members of WikiProject:New Zealand who have weighed in on this issue, including myself, seem to adamant that the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC here is the people and the language is secondary, but that this view is not shared by international editors (and our attempts to communicate it appear to be failing). Assuming good faith on both sides, I believe the root of the problem lies in the relationship between the people and the language. Māori culture places get store in oratory: the spoken living spoken language. Written language (which only arrived with Europeans) is seen as a pale imitation, perhaps because historically it wasn't phonetic (i.e. it was commonly ambiguous) and because of some dubious historical translation practises (such as taking English shorthand records of Māori language meetings, translating them back to Māori and presenting them as the original Māori). This focus on spoken language means you can't have the language without the people, the language without speakers isn't the language. Thus the people must be primary. Or that's my interpretation. Stuartyeates (talk) 08:42, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

How is that different from, say, French? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 14:14, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose move this is the primary topic. Kahuroa (talk) 08:52, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
• Support move. *** people and *** language are clear and unambiguous. I'm so used to this convention that on occasion I have linked to Māori people and had to self-revert. dramatic (talk) 09:01, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

• Support move In New Zealand the Maori people are the primary topic, but this is an international encylopedia. I feel we should stick with convention as this will make it easier for the majority of users and will cause no great harm to this page apart from some time spent fixing a few links. AIRcorn (talk) 10:44, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose move. Will reconsider when Australian people does not redirect to Australians. Moriori (talk) 22:00, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

That would be because there is no Australian language., but there is a Māori language. Adabow (talk · contribs) 22:39, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Excuse me, I did not mention language, but people. I oppose any suggestion that as a consequence would move Maori to Maori people. Did you not check the Australians article? It is a redirect from Australian people. Do you suggest we change that?Moriori (talk) 23:08, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

No, because "Australian(s)" is not ambiguous. "Māori" is, as it can refer to the people or the language. Adabow (talk · contribs) 23:11, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Samoan people and Samoans would be a better example, or German people and Germans. (It's interesting to note that the German people redirect was created in response to an undiscussed move of Germans.[2]) On the other hand, Italians redirects to Italian people, and Hungarians redirects to Hungarian people. There is no consistent Wikipedia convention for this.

The term "Māori" is different from all of these examples, because it is the accepted plural form for Māori (people), not "Māoris". --Avenue (talk) 22:58, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

"Australian" is not an ethnicity. My ethnicity is pākehā (Ngati Skippy). dramatic (talk) 23:11, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Totally irrelevant. The articles are Samoans Germans and Australians. None of these articles with ess plurals is at any risk of being confused with the article on the corresponding language.

And standard practice is confirmed by checking any random list of languages, as has been shown above. μηδείς (talk) 23:13, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Samoans is just another article which is not following the convention and which needs to be moved. Germans looks to be quite a mess. Really, the only way to oppose this move is to achieve a wide-ranging consensus to change the convention and move English people to English and so on. dramatic (talk) 23:21, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

No, there is no convention. (Kwamikagami‎'s after-the-fact changes to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people) don't count.) Try Ukranians, Romanians, Estonians, and so on. You should really gain wide-ranging consensus for a convention, and document it somewhere, before you claim it applies here. --Avenue (talk) 23:32, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

If not a documented practice then a common usage as ably demonstrated above, that ethnicity/language names point to a disambiguation page. Your examples are all articles about people from a country (you forgot New Zealanders), not ethnicities. Countries are artificial constructs which often cut across ethnicities. Māori may mean the people, the language and also has significant usage as an adjective - pretty much the same as all the other examples given. I don't see any difference between Māori people/Māori and English people/English. dramatic (talk) 22:27, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Here's an important difference. We can say "settlers were dependent on Maori for many things" and "many Maori themselves questioned its relevance" (to take two examples from this page by NZ's Ministry for Culture and Heritage). These become grammatically incorrect if we change "Maori" to "English". --Avenue (talk) 00:42, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Please cease the false accusations against User:Kwamikagami. His edit said only that English, rather than indigenous terms should be used. Nowhere did he make an edit mandating the use of X people per se. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Medeis (talk • contribs)

It seems I read too much into that change - my apologies. --Avenue (talk) 00:48, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

• Support move. Only a handful of other ethnic groups have identical ethnonymic (plural) and logonymic (singular) nouns in English. Zulu, Navajo, Yoruba and Lakota are all dab pages on Wikipedia with no single primary topic (feel free to provide counterexamples ... I wasn't able to find any). Personally, given that an ethnic language is a cultural product of an ethnic group, then surely the people must be intrinsically recognisable as the primary topic. But I'm not sure that Wikipedia conventions, formal or informal, agree with this reasoning. Neither Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people) nor Wikipedia:Naming conventions (languages) is directly applicable here. However, since (AFAIK) other ethnic groups with comparable names are disambiguated, I don't see that "Māori" should be any different. If nothing else, having the articles at "Māori people" and "Māori language" with "Māori" being a dab page couldn't be too harmful (links notwithstanding, which can be fixed), and would at least be unambiguous. Cheers. – Liveste (talk • edits) 00:23, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose Per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC (and WP:TWODABS, assuming this is to be yet another X people vs. X language disambig). If a strong majority of sources and "what links here" links are for the people - which I believe to be true - the people are primary, and the language can be handled with a hatnote. Also, I'd like to point out, if the choice is made to place a disambig here, you're supposed to WP:FIXDABLINKS before the move, to avoid disruption. I've just fixed 500+ links to Telugu and would appreciate it if those who are so keen on creating disambigs could also clean up after themselves. --JaGa^talk 08:00, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Minor clarification: According to the move's nominator, "many of the links to Māori or Maori should instead be to Maori language, Maori culture, or even Cook Islanders." — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 12:54, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

• Support per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC (namely, there is none in this case) and longstanding Wikipedia practice on names that apply to both peoples and languages, cf. all of Medeis's links above. —Angr (talk) 22:08, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

It might interest people to contribute to the proposal I've made at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (languages)#Clarification. This discussion shows that there must be some modification of our naming conventions for clarity's sake. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 01:05, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.