Lewishamsmith

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UK nationalities

I noticed, and reverted, one of your recent edits trying to add or alter nationalities of people with connections to the United Kingdom. There is an interesting essay at WP:UKNATIONALS that you should read before making any further edits like these. As a minimum, such changes need to be agreed in article talk first. John (talk) 17:18, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Nationality is not a matter primarily decided by Wikipedia contributors. The British government regulates the field of nationality. And British nationality is the only legally and internationally recognized form of nationality in the United Kingdom. British citizenship is the most explicit form of nationality, as Hong Kongers who hold a BNO, for example, are also British nationals, but it is quite understandable that their nationality is indicated as Hong Konger (person from Hong Kong) on Wikipdia pages. Lewishamsmith (talk) 18:53, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

I did not refute the fact that the person in question was Welsh, because that is a self-explanatory statement. I merely changed the information in the infobox and not in the text of the article. Normally, the information in the infobox is quite formal and "official", and usually contains raw data about the person. I also explained what I did when I published the changes I have made. Lewishamsmith (talk) 18:54, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles are provided to people with different backgrounds, and certain standards should be maintained. Some people reading an improperly written article might get a completely wrong idea about the topic. Personally, I have never seen a person referred to as Bavarian, Corsican, or Catalan in the infobox in the Nationality field. Usually this information is found in the text of the article. Lewishamsmith (talk) 19:00, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

I know all that. Your edits are likely to be reverted unless you agree them first in the article talk, where these matters will often have been discussed at length and related to sources, which is what we go by on Wikipedia. Please read that essay as it may help you. Like the articles themselves, essays are the work of many contributors over a long time. They are worth acquainting yourself with before you get into areas which have been thoroughly discussed in the past. All of your 26 edits to articles have been about nationality, and you have made 4 to discussions, plus your 2 above. If you are interested in this area, you will need to realise that just going round making these unilateral changes and explaining what you are doing in an edit summary, won't cut it. To effect a change, you would need to go to talk, for example Talk:Adam Smith, explain why you think he was British rather than Scottish, and try to convince others that you are right. They are more likely to be swayed by good sources than by the sort of legalistic explanation you have given above. John (talk) 19:05, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

It is literally in the name, a Scottish person is by law and convention a British national. I have been clear in pointing out that in the text of articles words like Scottish or Welsh are perfectly understandable, but to put it in a formal way is just completely wrong and driven by regionalist sentiments, as the infobox is more like a Wikipedia ID card. I have not changed any part of the articles where a person was mentioned as Scottish, English or Welsh. Such changes require approval, but saying that an English person is a British national is just common sense.

Most of these talk pages are just a bunch of people who are not applying any logic and putting their opinions above facts.

I am someone who is interested in the history and culture of the UK, and it saddens me how uncivilized such discussions have become, even compared to much more multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multilingual countries with many times the UK population.

I think Wikipedia's reputation is simply beyond repair because regionalism, ultra-nationalism and identity politics are the modus operandi of those who engage with the platform's content. Contributors don't even dare to delete Nazi propaganda on the site, but have so much time to complain about someone saying that an English person's nationality is British. Lewishamsmith (talk) 19:52, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

We are all volunteers here and may spend our time where and how we like, unless we are editing under restrictions. At this point I think all your infobox edits have been reverted, which means that not only your time has been wasted, but also the time of volunteers who have had to read and revert your well-meaning additions. I noticed what you were doing, and wanted to help you understand why what you were doing is a waste of time, and also wastes the time of others. Perhaps you are not open to understanding that Wikipedia runs on consensus. So be it. Where is the Nazi propaganda that needs deleted? John (talk) 19:58, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

I also contributed my personal time to make these edits, which I believe are valuable to non-British readers interested in British subjects such as British scientists and artists, regardless of where they were born in the UK. I also believe that most of Wikipedia's content has not been edited/added according to some sort of consensus. Some articles are dozens of pages long and have not been thoroughly discussed at all. I understand that some people find it worthwhile to argue about Regional agendas. I have provided more clarity in some articles, so I don't think I was the cause of the waste of time.

And yes, you can look at most WWII pages (battles, people, politics, etc.) and the neo-Nazi propaganda is obvious. You can also find all kinds of propaganda on Wikipedia pages, and most notably, pro-Chinese-government propaganda has been on the rise in recent years. I've been reading Wikipedia in four languages since I was a child, and when I was in high school, I even created new topics and articles to expand the platform's reach into other languages, but I think it's time to leave the site once and for all. As you said, it's a complete waste of time and effort to care about unbiased information and knowledge in the digital age.

And I think that those who donate money to keep the site up and running should be better informed about how these articles are really being written and how the loudest voice is always right.

I really understand now why every university professor has to warn their students not to believe anything on Wikipedia. When I was a student, I never used the site to do any research, but I still had some faith in the intentions of the contributors, until now. I always read Wikipedia to get an overview of a topic before delving into it, but I wonder how many people just believe the nonsense that is crammed into the articles under the guise of consensus. Lewishamsmith (talk) 20:43, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

When I started here in January 2006, I too had some strong views about aspects of nationality, ethnicity, and nationalism, and how Wikipedia handled them. My views may not even have been very different from your own, in that I thought, and still think, people overvalue nationality and ethnicity, and that we should emphasise the commonality of all humans, and recognise them for what they were or are, and not primarily for where they were born, something none of us choose or have any say in. Since then, I have watched or participated in literally hundreds of discussions about these matters. The experience of listening to and discussing with people who sincerely hold different values from mine has been one that has helped shape my own thinking on this area. You have to accept that whatever you or I feel about them, these are nuanced and highly charged areas for some people. You gave the example of Hong Kongers; some (few) will have become proud British people since then, and deserve to be referred to as such if that is how they view themselves and how sources describe them. Some will still think of themselves and be considered by others as Hong Kongers. And some may have relocated and become residents or citizens of other countries, and should be described as such.

Another example of complex nationality is Albert Einstein; the discussion of exactly how we depict his nationalities (he was even stateless for a while), occupied many dozens of volunteer hours, and now we have a version that most of us think fairly reflects what sources say about it.

We have to respect the sources, respect the complexity, and respect the views of the others who, like you and me, give up their time to improve this project. You are much mistaken if you think that Wikipedia's concept of consensus equates to the loudest voice is always right. It's more like the wisdom of the crowd, however frustrating that is when it goes against you. Ask a politician! The project is full of imperfection, inaccuracy and bias, but I think what most impressed me when I first got involved sixteen years ago, was how relatively well fairly difficult topics like abortion and Israel were handled (I haven't necessarily checked those articles recently though). The wisdom of crowds can be good at that sort of thing.

There are probably areas where you can contribute, if you are interested in writing, finding and summarising sources (and knowing what a good source looks like), copyediting, critiquing... whatever. There are even areas where you can have a meta-discussion about how we deal with nationality on Wikipedia. I just don't want you to waste your time making piecemeal changes to infobox nationalities on the basis of your own ideas, when almost every one of those will have been discussed multiple times by multiple people over decades and agreed the way they are. You changed the nationality of George Bernard Shaw, which is a featured article, Wikipedia's highest level of peer review! Shaw's nationality has been discussed over there at least since Bush and Blair were in charge. Dozens of times. Then the article has been critiqued, torn apart, discussed to death and a best possible version agreed on. The subject of his nationality will have come up multiple times. The chances of a flyby change sticking are therefore so low that it isn't worth doing. Look in the talk pages for prior discussions (including archives), or start one yourself. Or I can show you where you can discuss in more general terms how we change how we deal with nationality. Or both.

If you want me to look at any specific examples of articles where you think the neo-Nazi propaganda is obvious, you'll have to link to specific articles and say specifically what you think is wrong, and why. Feel free to do so. John (talk) 22:35, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

It's honestly not even my opinion, but the opinion of Wikipedia itself, every embassy and every state in the world.

"Nationality is a legal identification of a person in international law, establishing the person as a subject, a national, of a sovereign state. It affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the state against other states."

Even the Cambridge Dictionary agrees with that definition: "the official right to belong to a particular country" and the example they give is "She has British nationality".

The problem is that readers outside the UK are misled into thinking that a Scottish or English person has a different nationality in the international sense, which is completely wrong. One should use terms like regional identity, cultural identity, etc. to refer to concepts like the one mentioned.

This was the commonly known and used definition of nationality. In some places in the U.S., the term may be used in reference to ethnicity or ethnic origin, but more in a colloquial or very limited local sense.

But many in the UK have a problem with arrogance and see the English, Scottish and Welsh identities as nationalities on a par with the French, Belgian or Japanese ones. There are regions in Spain where people live in autonomous regions, speak completely different languages on a daily basis and have a different identity, but you will never see their regional identity listed as a nationality in an infobox. What makes the British more special than Uighurs, Cantonese, Hakka, Corsicans, Kabyles, etc.?

When an infobox refers to Hong Konger as a nationality, it is because Hong Kongers have a de facto nationality separate from that of China. The "one country, two systems" arrangement has resulted in Hong Kongers being treated as a separate nationality in international contexts. They fill out visa and immigration forms with Hong Kong as their nationality, and it is accepted that way in most countries. They have different travel documents, speak a different language, have a different identity, most of them have a refugee background because they (or their parents/grandparents) fled Communist China in the past, and they do not have the same rights to remain in China compared to mainland Chinese.

, andBut even with all of that, you'd see people in infoboxes being referred to sometimes as Chinese(Hong Kong) in the nationality field.

People like Bernard Shaw fall into a very different category, he is both Irish and British because the separation of the two political entities made it easy to be considered both at the same time if you have both nationalities, and Shaw was in fact a British national as well, and if he was in any way ashamed of that, he would have revoked his British nationality and moved to Ireland. Of course, many sources refer to him as Irish only, but most of them are Irish publications or people who thrive on identity politics, such as separatist politicians and populist journalists.

Crowds have never been that wise. Mostly, they are guided by emotions and self-interest. And a platform like Wikipedia, however noble, will be overtaken by other platforms that will put impartiality at the forefront of encyclopedic editing. The purpose of an encyclopedia is not to score political points or to satisfy people's ego. Truth, supported by evidence, should be paramount.

(I understand that regarding some internationally unsettled issues "the wisdom of crowds" might be useful, but once a matter is settled, it should be dealt with according to international and academic consensus, depending on its nature).

I am sure you are making every effort to make Wikipedia a place where people can find high quality content that enriches them, but in my opinion the platform is systematically ruined, and I have seen what people write when they discuss articles, it is a tyranny of irrational reasoning.

And as I said, Wikipedia is packed with propaganda. I don't dare change anything because it won't make any difference, as it will be undone immediately. Newspaper articles have been talking about things like this all along. It's not news to anyone, and if you search for Wikipedia propaganda in the news, you'll find tons of articles, depending on what kind of propaganda you're after. I usually find outrageous things in the German Wikipedia and obvious fabrications in the Arabic Wikipedia. English-language articles are not the most vandalized, but they are still more vital because they have a wider reach. And I'm sure you understand how regimes like China's are able to mobilize large crowds capable of literally trashing Wikipedia's legacy. But people are still arguing about who is Scottish and who is English, that's more important than protecting the single most widely accessible free encyclopedia in history.

I hope you understand my frustration, and I am sorry for wasting your time. Lewishamsmith (talk) 11:54, 27 October 2022 (UTC)