Former good article nomineeConfederate States of America was a good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
March 13, 2007Good article nomineeNot listed
On this day...Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on December 20, 2009, December 20, 2010, December 20, 2012, December 20, 2013, December 20, 2014, December 20, 2015, December 20, 2016, December 20, 2017, December 20, 2018, December 20, 2019, and December 20, 2020.

Recognition of a Foreign Power for the CSA

https://catholicism.org/catholicism-south.html The relationship between the Vatican and the CSA is actually pretty interesting. Obviously no foreign powers ever got directly involved, but there was communication between the Vatican and the CSA government during the war. The Vatican was the only foreign government ever to address Jefferson Davis as holding an official title of President of the CSA. After the war, Pius IX, the Pope at the time, sent a letter and some gifts to President Davis while he was imprisoned. I cannot make edits now due to my account, but for someone who can edit, this is some useful info on the Catholic Church's stance on the CSA and the Catholic Church recognizing the CSA. Kaiser Jaguar (talk) 17:15, 14 October 2021 (UTC)Kaiser Jaguar[reply]

Ha...that's actually kind of fitting, in a way XD. At that time, like the CSA, the Vatican's days as a government were numbered (see Papal states). The sovereign status of Vatican City was restored (minus military power) in the 1920s...by Mussolini, of all people. Firejuggler86 (talk) 22:36, 27 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Excessive length and detail

Yes, the article is too long and should be condensed. In a very cursory view I noticed much inappropriate detail; my recommendation would be to move it to separate articles. Specifically, a discussion of the current value of Confederate paper and metal money is simply a distraction. The issuance of many different paper bills can be summarized in one or two sentences. There should be a short article on Confederate money instead. I noticed other cases of great detail that should be only briefly mentioned in this article. Zaslav (talk) 18:11, 18 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Agree on the money essay for 'MOVE' its narrative information and citations to preserve the good collaborative research and contributions by previous editors to the 'information source' goals of the Wikipedia Foundation.
Here we find some article development or topic extension is in response to previous edit wars, some now years past, and much of the narrative could stand a review and trim and transfer, to improve 'accessibility' to the information 'for the general reader'. Agreed. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:35, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Missouri and Kentucky did not secede

Please correct this. It’s truly shocking this is in your article. 2600:1008:B044:BADB:95F9:FF8:61EB:D1B0 (talk) 18:43, 25 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What's actually shocking is that you didn't bother to read the article. Carlstak (talk) 00:13, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wording about enslaved people

Recent edits here and here changed the wording in the lead section from "African chattel slaves" to "enslaved Africans" and then back again. In my opinion the lead should say "enslaved Africans", and the rest of the article should use terminology like "enslaved people" instead of "slaves". WP:STICKTOTHESOURCES means that the events described in the article -- and their causes and effects, and so on -- should follow the cited sources. It does not mean that the article should use the same terminology that the sources do. Many of the sources for these events use wording that is now considered outdated or antiquated, or in some cases disrespectful. "Negro" is one example that comes to mind. The article should use modern terminology, and reflect modern perspectives. Other editors are encouraged to post their opinions about this. (Pinging Stephenamills and Mathglot.) — Mudwater (Talk) 15:29, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The change in the wording does not represent the wording in the source given, nor does it represent the overwhelming majority of sources about this topic, which use the word "slaves", as do the overwhelming majority of black people researching or talking about their ancestry. In this query, there is overwhelming preference for the term slaves over enslaved Africans (and so little data available for the latter that it doesn't meet the minimum threshold required for appearing on the graph.) The original change to add the term enslaved Africans was a good faith attempt to introduce new wording, but after it was reverted, it should not have been reinserted again, per WP:BRD but instead discussed here first. It is not up to Wikipedia editors to insert what may well be more enlightened terms over what the sources actually say; we have no choice, and *must* follow the majority of reliable sources here. The WP:BURDEN is on those who wish to change long-standing consensus at this article to make their case for the new wording, and this has not been done; on the contrary, the data shows that the sources are overwhelmingly opposed. Accordingly, I have reverted this to the status quo ante, per WP:BRD. Please discuss and achieve consensus for this change, and do not edit war while the discussion is going on. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 19:09, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Again, we should use the sources to substantiate the facts presented in the article, but we need not use the same wording as the sources, which may in some cases be outdated or derogatory. Nor are we obliged to use the wording used by a majority of black people researching their ancestry. Instead we should use whatever wording a consensus, or at least a substantial majority, of editors find most appropriate. So, what do other editors think about this? And also, have there been any discussions elsewhere on Wikipedia about the use of the terms "slaves" and "enslaved people"? — Mudwater (Talk) 19:36, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Imho, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how Wikipedia works. You said,

Instead we should use whatever wording a consensus, or at least a substantial majority, of editors find most appropriate.

That is false. If wording in articles were up to whatever editors felt was most appropriate, then we would have no need of policies such as WP:Verifiability, WP:NPOV, or WP:DUEWEIGHT. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and we do not stand at the bleeding edge of change, we are a lagging indicator, and we follow what the majority of the sources say.
There are often trends in historiography and in social change moving towards a more just representation of history accompanied by more sensitive use of wording, and that's all to the good. If you are a university or grad student in one of those fields, you are to be applauded for considering the latest trends, and trying to stay on top of them. If you are an author or professor publishing in the field, more power to you if you are able to move the needle away from outdated, possibly prejudicial phrasing towards a more general use and acceptance of more modern terminology. That's all great, and I look forward to seeing those changes as much as you do. But Wikipedia is not part of that process of moving the needle; we are a lagging indicator, never at the forefront of change, and always following it. Efforts to move the needle by changing wording at Wikipedia articles to conform to a more just vision, ahead of what the sources actually say are contrary to policy and the purpose of Wikipedia as an online encyclopedia.
If you need a refresher, please reread WP:V, WP:NPOV, and WP:DUE; the wording in this article is not going to get out in front of what the sources actually say, which currently stand at least 100–1 against your proposed wording change. The onus is on you to show that the sources support your desired wording change, and simply polling users what their favorite words are, is not going to change that, I'm afraid. Thanks Mathglot (talk) 20:00, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Some more data for you (limited to the last 20 years); your preferred phrase is nowhere to be seen. WP:BURDEN. WP:DUE. Mathglot (talk) 20:03, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the thoughtful response. You've brought up some valid points. However, I still think that on Wikipedia the use of verifiable sources applies to the facts of the article, and not necessarily the terminology used. And I would still be interested in knowing if this particular subject -- "slaves" vs. "enslaved people" -- has been discussed elsewhere on Wikipedia. That said, I will go along with whatever wording most editors think is best for this particular article. — Mudwater (Talk) 20:52, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Both terms are widely used in Wikipedia articles, with about 2 1/2 times as many using the term African slaves as enslaved Africans, however this is completely irrelevant and not an argument in favor of the former, since Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Only mentioning it because you asked. Mathglot (talk) 22:23, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Carlstak, while this discussion is still going on, can you please revert your your change to the WP:LEAD which reinserted the term "enslaved Africans" in the lead, and join this discussion? Simply removing sources that were there before and replacing them with other sources that support your preferred choice of wording is not how we achieve consensus, especially not in the WP:LEAD. There's no question that you can find many dozens of reliable sources that support your choice of wording if you search for them; the question is, what do the majority of sources say? For starters, check out the links provided above; the data seem to point strongly to a majority preference for the previous wording. Any changes to it should be achieved by consensus and supported by the facts. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 19:54, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, my fingers can't do the deed. The wording "Enslaved Africans" is in common usage in up-to-date academic writing, and in older scholarly literature, at least from the '90s. The NPS article previously cited is rudimentary, and not even an academic source. My sources are better.
It seems odd to me that you are raising cane over a benign change in phrasing that respects black personhood and the humanity of those persons who were enslaved, rather than dehumanizing them with the word "slave", as if there were no other aspects of their being. Is this the hill you want to take a stand on?
Your links are arbitrarily worded search queries on Google.com with *your* "preferred" parameters yielding the results you want. You say, "[the] preferred phrase is nowhere to be seen". Not surprising.
I found these scholarly sources right off the bat on Google Scholar:
"enslaved Africans" "Louisiana"
"enslaved Africans" "Alabama"
"enslaved Africans" "Georgia"
And by the way, WP:BRD is not a WP policy, or even a guideline. As the page says, it's "an optional method of seeking consensus". Carlstak (talk) 21:02, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Carlstak: To your points:

Sorry, my fingers can't do the deed. ... And by the way, WP:BRD is not a WP policy, or even a guideline.

Quite right. There are many ways of achieving consensus, but would you agree that editors who simply revert in order to insert their preferred wording is not the way? I'm not sure how to take your comment about "your fingers not doing the deed"; does that mean your mind is made up? Or, what does it mean?

It seems odd to me that you are raising cane over a benign change in phrasing that respects black personhood and the humanity of those persons who were enslaved...

First, "raising cane"? Okay, you get a "lol" for that...
Second: you say it's a "benign change in phrasing" which of course puts the best possible spin on it, and "respecting black personhood and humanity" sounds even better. Who could possibly be in favor of disrespecting black personhood and in favor of inhumanity, right? If you want to make a specific allegation about this, my talk page is here, but like it or not, Wikipedia is not at the bleeding edge of social change and we have no choice but to follow what the reliable sources say. When the majority of them change over to the new wording, then so will we; but not before.

Is this the hill you want to take a stand on?

The hill I want to take a stand on, is WP:NPOV and WP:DUEWEIGHT, which is policy, and that's the hill that you are currently ignoring in order to unilaterally reinsert wording into the article that is contrary to the preponderance of reliable sources. As soon as you show that the majority of sources support "enslaved Africans" I will immediately back off my original position, turn 180 degrees, and argue very strongly in favor of a change to your preferred wording of enslaved Africans. That's because I have no a priori opinion of what the best wording is or should be, and because I support WP:NPOV and WP:DUEWEIGHT. May I ask what kind of evidence would cause you to change your mind and strongly support the original wording in the article?
This statement of yours was truly a "day is night, up is down" kind of comment, getting everything exactly backwards:

Your links are arbitrarily worded search queries on Google.com with *your* "preferred" parameters yielding the results you want.

I'm very familiar with information retrieval, including google API keywords and search internals, and I took care to ensure that the queries I constructed were as carefully worded as possible in order to avoid bias in any direction as much as feasible, so that the results could easily be evaluated by impartial observers. I linked two such queries above, one Ngrams query, and one Google books query:
carefully worded to avoid the bias that would favor the word "slaves" used in sources about slavery outside of the United States, or going back to slaveholding in antiquity or over the last 2000 years. Including the names of U.S. states in the South ensures that the results have far fewer false positives, and elicit books containing the terms that are about the time and place covered by the article. The result was overwhelmingly against the new wording.
and was limited to books published in the last 20 years, to avoid the bias that the term "enslaved Africans" was not used as much before that period. If you look at the first page of book results, none of them use the term "enslaved Africans". I paged through the next pages of results until the tenth result page and I did not find any occurrences of "enslaved Africans" in the first one hundred results. Perhaps there is an unseen bias in the query that I am missing; please improve the query if you can and let me know how it comes out.
Both of those queries show a very strong preference against your preferred wording. Your comment that I chose the queries with my "preferred parameters" is absurd on the face of it. On the other hand, let's look at your Google scholar queries: you used queries with the wording, "enslaved Africans" "Louisiana", or "enslaved Africans" "Alabama", or "enslaved Africans" "Georgia". There's no surprise that you found results with the words "enslaved Africans" in them, as Google will only return documents that contain that term for that query, and omit any that don't have it. Every one of those is clearly a cherry-picked query, designed to obtain the conclusion you wish to prove; that's the very definition of bias.
I did not construct the queries to prove a point by WP:CHERRYPICKING the query to produce a predetermined result, but that is exactly what you did, however. If you prefer Google scholar rather than books or ngrams, then let's try to construct a query that is NOT cherry-picked, but which contains any of the possible terms, and see what turns up with no prejudging how it might come out:
Search google Scholar for: ("Georgia" OR "Alabama" OR "Louisiana") AND ("enslaved Africans" OR "African slaves" OR "slaves")
and see what that shows. The term "enslaved Africans" does not turn up on page one of the results, or the next three pages, but it does turn up as result #49 on page four of the results.
It seems to me that all of the unbiased evidence shows a 50–1 or 100–1 preference for the original wording, and you haven't offered a shred of evidence to the contrary. I'd ask you first to please self-revert, or if your fingers really can't do it, at least not reinsert the material again if I or someone else reverts it (I'll wait a couple of days for someone else to get there first), and provide evidence supporting your preferred wording choice. As I mentioned above, the minute it's clear that your choice is supported by the majority of reliable sources, I will immediately change my opinion and support your view instead, but currently the evidence seems to be running very strongly against it. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 22:33, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
tl;dr. Not concise, muddies the waters. You seem to be responding emotionally; as they say in Jamaica, it might be helpful to "cool out" a bit. Carlstak (talk) 01:49, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Mudwater and Mathglot, this is Stephenamills who initially made the edit. Thank you for creating this discussion and inviting me to it.

I’m not resolutely certain on how Wikipedia policies apply here (WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS or WP:STICKTOSOURCE are the main ones mentioned here). I’m not sure if my uncertainty is caused by my lack of depth with the policies relative to more experienced editors, or rather due to our potentially divergent interpretations of those policies. If the policies mandate a certain outcome here, I would never wish to violate them and I would never have made this edit. But I believe that the reason we are having this discussion is because there isn’t yet consensus on how the policies apply to this specific instance (or which policies). I tried to find past wording discussions like this before I did the edit, but I was not able to find any, though I am not anywhere near as skilled as Mathglot at narrowing searches.

While the number of occurences of a term is both a thoughtful point and, also, something I wasn’t aware of and hadn’t considered when making the edit, my main uncertainty here is still whether those policies are actually applicable here. My interpretation which may be wrong, is that they are not describing this instance and are more similarly along the lines of what Mudwater mentions – the above policy of “sticking to the source” is to match the events, causes, and core semantic meaning of the cited reliable sources; not to prescribe the exact same terminology from those sources, which as Mudwater mentioned, could be outdated, antiquated, or even disrespectful and offensive to the community described (crucially – none of which would show up or be represented in an number of occurences/ngram search).

Mudwater uses the word “Negro” as a good example, and I wish to add my own: “Mulatto”. In the Russian Wikipedia article on Barack Obama, at the top (second paragraph in the lead), he is described, as a "Mulatto". (“Obama is a mulatto, but unlike most black Americans, not a descendant of slaves”, in Russian, “Обама — мулат, но, в отличие от большинства чёрных американцев, не потомок рабов”). That is extremely offensive and clearly must only have happened due to Russian Wikipedia likely having 0% African-American representation among its editors. My guess is that, in addition to there being 0% African-American representation in that offensive article with the word "Mulatto" at the top, probably, the sources used to support that usage are primarily Russian sources which themselves use that term both today and in the past, though I don't know how to do an ngram search on Russian texts to validate that guess.

English Wikipedia is not much better – about 0.5% of Wikipedia editors in the United States are African-American, despite the fact that we are 13% of its population. My primary point is that the decision on the terms to describe a given community or here, what has been done to that community, should be decided by members of that community and not exclusively by the frequency of past written occurrences, particularly when those written occurrences likely themselves had as much representation of the described community as Russian Wikipedia. Because otherwise, if we ignore this point, we might potentially, as editors, make a decision to support using the word “mulatto” or “negro” or another word offensive to a community simply due to its past frequency of written usage. Though you do make a strong case, Mathglot, I believe that Mudwater's point is also essentially saying that there can be additional factors to consider.

Adding additional uncertainty, I’m not sure what the viewpoint is of, e.g. prominent members of the African-American community regarding the terminology used to describe enslavement. When making the above edit, I made the decision to be bold based primarily on the recent Washington Post article on enslavement, which I realize is only a single source, but there are also non-sources such as the Featured Article on Jefferson Davis that I also based my decision on, since it is recognized by the Wikipedia community as thus being among the absolute best articles that Wikipedia has to offer. Notably, it uses the phrase “enslaved people” in the second paragraph, which is most likely even better than using “enslaved Africans”.

Some summary questions: 1) To what degree does past frequency of a term encourage or require its usage (or do the above mentioned policies mandate a use based on this)? 2) Concerning the terminology of enslavement/slavery, are there any phrases or terms that e.g. the African-American community has generally determined to be outdated/antiquated or disrespectful?

Summarizing, I still hold my same viewpoint that the wording should absolutely be either “enslaved Africans” or “enslaved people”, at the very least in the lead paragraphs; never “slaves” in the lead, following a recent high-profile Washington Post article, as well another Featured Article on Wikipedia. However, there does not yet appear to currently be a Wikipedia consensus regarding this wording. I see usage of the term “slave” as being extremely dehumanizing passive-voice language which removes the act of enslavement and subjugation in its language, instead describing enslavement/slavery not as a vile action being done to a person but rather an attribute of the person, an attribute of the victim. Stephenamills (talk) 21:22, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Stephenamills: thanks for your comment; you've put your finger on the relevant policies. I just finished a long reply (and got a confusing edit conflict in the bargain), and so I am a bit talked out right now; but your comment deserves serious thought and a reply, which I hope to get back to before too long. In the meantime, thanks again, Mathglot (talk) 22:35, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Brief follow-up since you asked a specific question:

To what degree does past frequency of a term encourage or require its usage (or do the above mentioned policies mandate a use based on this)

Wikipedia prefers more recent reliable sources to older ones; I'll get you the link later. Mathglot (talk) 22:44, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Stephenamills, Here's the link I promised: WP:RSAGE. As to your other points, it looks like this discussion has been mostly upstaged by the Rfc below, but I'll try to hit the main points. I think you are struggling with and trying to balance in good faith the right policies and guidelines, so your thoughts and inquiries are well-founded, imho. Everyone has their own interpretation, and you may come up with a different result than I do, or than some other editor does, which is fine.
With respect to "outdated" or "antiquated", see WP:RSAGE. As to "disrespectful" or "offensive", I'm not aware of specific guidelines or policies that would trump the most common term in reliable sources, but there are pages in the Manual of Style that warn against using unnecessarily contentious terms that are chosen by editors and *not* in the sources; see for example WP:MoS/Words to watch, and you could also check out WP:Offensive material. The single example I am aware of where material that is the most common term used in reliable sources should *not* be used in an article, is covered by MOS:GENDERID, and is part of the WP:Manual of Style/Biography page. I think the crux of the issue you are struggling with, is if terms like African slaves are, or should be, handled in the same way as gender identity is; that is, should we avoid certain terms even if they are the most common ones in the sources in favor of what people labeled with such terms believe about them. I think this is a worthwhile discussion to be had, and you could raise it, if you want; I'm not exactly sure of the right venue for it. As the Rfc below looks like it's headed for your desired result, that discussion may be moot, at least for the time being, but it's something you might consider taking on in the future.
As far as Negro, Mulatto and so on, that's a bit of a red herring; after all, those terms have largely disappeared from academic publishing over the last 50 years, whereas terms like slaves are still very much current in academia, and are even used, for example, on African American genealogical and ancestry forums. A more analogous question to African slaves vs. enslaved Africans, might be Sexual reassignment surgery vs. gender affirmation surgery; Wikipedia uses Sexual reassignment surgery, because that's what the sources do, but there are a bunch of synonyms at the article including some that are trending up, including GCS, GAS, and others, but as Wikipedia is conservative in following the most common usage, and avoiding the bleeding edge until it has taken over as the majority viewpoint.
Regarding the 0.5% figure you quoted, the essay Wikipedia:Systemic bias could and perhaps ought to say more about this (and you can edit that page, so why not? You could link the Signpost article.) As far as Russian Wikipedia, first: see WP:WINARS, so you can pretty much ignore what they say. Secondly, unless your Russian is a lot better than my elementary level, I'd be careful about making judgments about the level of offensiveness about a cognate term like "мулат" (or "негр") in Russian when the English term is offensive and the Russian cognate word may not be. (Conversely, afaik, one shouldn't go round saying "чёрный" to refer to a black person, even though "Black" carries no pejorative flavor in current American English.) Or to use an example from Colombian Spanish which I'm more comfortable with than Russian, one of my fave Cumbia songs goes, "Me gusta bailar tambo cuando estoy con mi negra" and trust me, it's an endearment not a pejorative. This change of register as one goes from a cognate in one language to another one is common. Which isn't to say Russians aren't prejudiced wrt to black people, but I don't believe "мулат" is part of that; it's just a word, afaik. (I'll ping Ymblanter here to verify my sense of the Russian words mentioned in this paragraph.)
Wrt to the views of prominent African Americans, I wouldn't venture to say. But I fairly regularly watch Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and they don't hesitate to talk about "slavery", or use the word slave on the show, when they discover that so-and-so's great-great-great-grandmother was "born a slave in Georgia", or wherever. I'd need to find transcripts of the show to verify that, but that is my recollection. This is as much as I have time for, but I hope this helps. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 08:03, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
(A disclaimer: I have only read the response I am replying to, not the whole discussion). Indeed, in Russian негр is normally used to describe any Black person; чёрный (black) is less common but might be also used for this, is which case it is not offensive (негр is not offensive either). Мулат (mulatto) is pretty much used to describe anyone who is not white, not Asian, and not black, for example any Latino person might be мулат; this is not offensive either. There are offensive words to describe Black people, but as historically there were virtually no Blacks in Russia/Soviet Union they are not really widespread.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:07, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Ymblanter (Stephen here) I acknowledge you read the immediate comment above and not the full discussion, but I linked to the Russian Wikipedia article on Barack Obama. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you as I’m not an expert on the Russian language, but I do speak Russian imperfectly and spent three months in many of its regions. I raised my eyebrow in some confusion when you said “mulatto” (“мулат”) is used to describe anyone who is “not black”, because it’s being used precisely in the second lead paragraph of the Barack Obama article in Russian Wikipedia to do just that. I linked to the page above, where it says (“Обама — мулат, но, в отличие от большинства чёрных американцев, не потомок рабов” – “Obama is a mulatto, but unlike most Black Americans, not a descendant of slaves”). Anyway, I didn’t want to derail as the semantics or common usage of the Russian language weren’t really the central purpose of what I wrote above, it was just one paragraph of an example of how an encyclopedia community whose editorship is systemically white Russians using systemically white sources would use offensive terms with a deeply discriminatory history so casually when describing another community. And yes it is an offensive term – none of my friends in Russia or the United States have ever referred to me as a mulatto and that would be extremely rude, it doesn’t matter what language it is in. I met one ex-friend in Los Angeles several months ago who used that term to refer to me – definitely not friends with him anymore and can find YouTube videos of him stating how “slavery is a choice”, as he was happy to show me. That’s about the extent of the one person I’ve met using that term to refer to me as attractive and it wasn’t taken as positive and never will be. It’s a slur. There are obviously respectful ways to draw attention to someone’s ethnicity without using disparaging terms with a deep global history of caste discrimination and enslavement. In Russia if someone wanted to draw attention to my ethnicity, they simply told me I look like Alexander Pushkin, which is very respectful, or in Russian there’s also African-American (афроамериканец) or also, as you mentioned, Black (Чёрный). So I’m not necessarily trying to say that you’re categorically wrong about usage, as I’m not an expert on the Russian language to say that, but the above Russian Wikipedia article, if we are to pretend that it is a valid source on usage, contradicts your statement that “мулат” is used to describe someone who is “not black”. And yes the word is offensive. In Russian. Stephenamills (talk) 05:44, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I am sorry but as a native speaker of the language I do not find the word мулат offensive, and, to be honest, I do not see as it could be offensive in any context. Referring to Barack Obama as мулат would not be my choice, but in Russian it is just a simple statement that he has a black father and a white mother, nothing beyond that. You are free to disregard my opinion of course and continue using your friends as a reference frame.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:36, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Stephenamills: the translation you quoted is inaccurate; it should read something more akin to this: "Obama is of mixed race, but unlike most Black Americans, is not a descendant of slaves." This is a typical kind of false friends error in translation that occurs in many language pairs all the time. (A classic Spanish–English one is El está constipado. Hint: doesn't mean what you think at first glance.) The Russian article is fully in line with Ymblanter's statement about the meaning of "мулат" (although it's not a reliable source, it happens to be accurate in this case). If you won't take one native Russian speaker's word for it that it's not offensive in Russian, I'm not sure pinging another three or five native speakers would change your mind, so maybe we'll just have to agree to disagree about this point. Either way, it's mostly a tangent that doesn't really affect the main point of the discussion, and I hope we are in agreement about that. Mathglot (talk) 09:23, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be helpful to get some input about this from more editors, so I'm going to start a Request for Comment. — Mudwater (Talk) 01:27, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Request for comment: "slaves" vs. "enslaved people"

Should the article use the terms "slaves" / "African slaves", or should it use the terms "enslaved people" / "enslaved Africans"? — Mudwater (Talk) 01:30, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

Discussion

Let's look at some data. In a topic with a huge amount of scholarship available, such as the American Confederacy and the Civil War, it's trivial to come up with sources to support any point of view, including views held by only a tiny fraction. In order to present a neutral point of view in the article, we must avoid cherry-picking sources and instead try to determine what the majority view is, if there is one, and all significant minority views, and represent them in due proportion to their appearance in reliable sources. One way to do this, is by search queries of reliable sources that avoid bias in favor of one result or another.

Here are three such searches, in Google Ngrams, Books, and Scholar; all show that the terms slaves or African slaves are used much more often in reliable sources than the term "enslaved Africans" or "enslaved people":

Even a cherry-picked search in Books for "enslaved Africans" OR "enslaved people" does not do very well and fails to return many results.

These searches show that expressions like enslaved Africans or enslaved people are only found in a tiny fraction of reliable sources compared to more commonly used terms. Mathglot (talk) 03:45, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You can substantially simplify your queries; look for ("enslaved" OR "slaves"). If it's picking up "slaves", it will automatically pick up "African slaves". In Google Scholar during the last decade, the snippets show me 23/50 uses of "enslaved" (not counting one in which it was used as a verb), including "enslaved women and men", "enslaved and free people of color", " enslaved women and girls", and "enslaved persons" – all of which are missed when you search only for ("enslaved Africans" OR "African slaves" OR "slaves"). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:52, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You're right about the reduplication of slaves and African slaves; that's unnecessary. (I retried those searches without the quoted bigram and you won't be surprised to learn that the simpler query gives the same results.) The more complex queries were designed to keep the results grounded in time and place and avoid bias in favor of slaves, which is used for historical topics from Antiquity to the present, whereas enslaved is less so. (And even if not, could swamp the data away from the period and place we're interested in.) You're right about it missing the cases you mentioned, but the query would have to be tweaked a bit to see which proportion of those actually refer to the Confederacy. Using your query (restricted to 2012-2022): I get: 1. (o/t: English slaves), 2. both terms, 3. (o/t: Ancient Greece), 4. slaves, 5. (o/t: Rome), 6. slaves, 7. enslaved, 8. (o/t: ancient civilizations), 9. both terms, 10. (o/t: antiquity). It's not easy to design a query that tells the right story from the data in a truly unbiased way, and it's possible my original queries were biased, and by fiddling with the queries to eliminate your o/t results you'll come up with something that paints a better picture. If it holds up after tweaking, it might lean more to supporting your "use all the words" vote. Mathglot (talk) 05:33, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Some comments in the #Survey section make an appeal on non policy-based humanistic grounds to support their vote, including that some terms, in their opinion, are "disrespectful" or "dehumanizing". Let's see if that holds up, by looking at what Black genealogy and ancestry sites use:

This shows that while some are basing votes on opinion, these opinions are apparently not shared by some of the major Black genealogy and ancestry sites. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 04:29, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've taken the liberty of changing the words "Black genealogy and ancestry sties" to "Black genealogy and ancestry sites". I can't leave that sitting there. Carlstak (talk) 01:36, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Ironic, to say the least. Carlstak (talk) 01:46, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
On that Freudian note, and speaking of data, it's surprising that the guy who's supposed to be all about data and the only one here who's mentioned "trends", didn't mention Google Trends. Not that this data will change anything, and it shouldn't, but I found it interesting to compare the results for "enslaved Africans" with those for "African slaves". I find it especially interesting that South Carolina is at the top of results for the "Interest by subregion" data subset covering the last 12 months in the US. That's neither here nor there, but while it's true that scientific researchers use Google trends in assessing various aspects of human behavior, even Google's own engineers don't use Google search for statistical analysis. Carlstak (talk) 02:29, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Google Trends measures data created by Google users searching for things. It is not a reliable source as anybody can search for anything; in that sense, it's analogous to how Wikipedia is not a reliable source because anybody can add anything to a Wikipedia article. Trends is utterly useless for trying to determine what the majority view of reliable sources is, as the content of reliable sources plays no part in the output of Google Trends. It's useful for determining what Google users are searching for, but cannot be used to support (or oppose) any assertion at Wikipedia (other than assertions about what users search for on Google). Mathglot (talk) 03:50, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody said it could, and nobody said it was a reliable source. I even said, "That's neither here nor there." I was expressing surprise that you didn't mention Google Trends, because it is of interest to data-driven people. I must say, you are investing an extraordinary amount of energy in this campaign of yours, almost to the point of bludgeoning the page. You don't seem to be reading very closely. Carlstak (talk) 04:29, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Carlstak, please keep it civil. The words you chose here are inappropriate, and regarding your later comment I would note that Mathglot is not bludgeoning the discussion; they have replied to only a single comment in opposition to their position, and it was to request that editor provide evidence for their position. BilledMammal (talk) 06:09, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't say he was "bludgeoning the discussion", I said, "*almost* to the point of bludgeoning the page", not quite the same, and it was days ago—I'm working on other articles now. Perhaps some of us get frustrated with extraordinarily long, massive walls of text on this page (not just from one editor) that make the general conversation hard to follow. Carlstak (talk) 07:01, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
And I didn't say that you said he was; I said that he wasn't. And my main issue was regarding the incivility in the comment I replied to, not the bludgeoning. BilledMammal (talk) 07:11, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
And that's your point of sail.;-) Carlstak (talk) 16:51, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Whether to close the Rfc and reopen at a broader venue

Questions or suggestions were raised in the #Survey section about possibly moving the venue of this Rfc to a broader one such as MOS. This first occurred, I believe, in Nosebagbear's !Vote (here: "Keep status quo, defer future discussion to MOS", ), and was subsequently echoed by Doug Weller. Springee then asked about transferring the discussion to a more general location.

Let's use this section to discuss this. We're less than 48 hours into the Rfc, and if it's moved, sooner is probably better than later. I don't believe that WP:Requests for comment has specific recommendations about how to move an ongoing discussion, but WP:RFCCLOSE (bullet #2) does say that "RfC participants can agree to end it at any time" and there's nothing to stop us from doing that, and then opening another per RFCOPEN. Also, per bullet #1, Mudwater could withdraw it if he chose to, (but if you do, my advice would be to wait a bit for some feedback here, first, to get a sense of how that would be received). Mathglot (talk) 21:50, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion at MOS would make more sense if we need to write down a rule about how all articles should be handled (not just US history), and it would likely be a more productive discussion if there have been several discussions at individual articles first. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:42, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This change doesn't just impact US history, it impacts the entire span of world history (where slavery was practiced for thousands of years.) Unless somehow the argument is slavery in the US itself was somehow unique (and that's still disregarding the entire African slave trade outside of the US) it makes sense to invite wider participation because it makes no sense to decide this on an article-by-article basis. It's a project-wide MoS issue. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 01:55, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I !voted for "enslaved" above, but the evidence others have collected shows that "enslaved" is not now the majority. My main source is what I have heard in recent podcasts, but what I've heard does not appear to reflect use in general and I can live with that. I don't think it's worth raising the question again at a broader venue now, but I suspect usage will continue to change, and it may be worth reproposing in a couple of years. Thank you, SchreiberBike | ⌨  02:38, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Question: I voted "enslaved" as well and I agree the majority shall rule. My question is, is there any reason not to include "enslaved people" as a synonym at various points, given that a significant number of sources use the term? What we are debating is a matter of "usage", which we know evolves naturally but would be less likely to change on its own if a widely consulted "reference" such as Wikipedia intentionally avoids the term entirely. Lots of questions therein, I guess, but they should be considered. Allreet (talk) 17:40, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't read the results of the survey above to say that "enslaved" is to be discouraged, but that for now "slave" should not be discouraged. The words have slight but significant differences in meaning and good writing means using the word that fits best in each case. SchreiberBike | ⌨  18:15, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with @SchreiberBike. Well said. - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 02:06, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
My feeling is we should generally follow the sources and what results in straight forward text. So editors shouldn't go around changing long standing text from one to the other. However, as was suggested earlier, introducing the subject with something like "The agricultural economy of the CSA was based on the use of enslaved African labor" vs "... on the use of African slave labor" is fine. It's when the linguistic change is stark. For example, changing something like, "A 20 acre field was worked by up to 15 slaves" to something like "... was worked by up to 15 enslaved people." or as a new addition ("15 people worked this mill", "15 enslaved people worked this mill" if the source doesn't use the term). I think it is, in effect, saying we shouldn't treat either as preferable and when in dispute follow the sources. Springee (talk) 19:46, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I made just one post somewhere above, and this is the second and final. I have not read any other comments. MOS Talk is characterized by an overall tendency to preserve tradition in both wording and values, often cantankerously so, in some instances bordering on sadistically so. So there is absolutely no point in passing the buck to them. It will go nowhere there, just produce bad blood. It is best to decide it here whichever way it goes. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:06, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There may be such a tendency at MOS (I have no knowledge of it, pro or con), but it is not at all the case that MOS will not change based on an Rfc. If the consensus here is to move or re-raise the questions at MOS, the history there shows that a cogent argument that gains support will result in significant changes, such as this one, for example, which was remarkable for resulting in instituting a carve-out of a possibly conflicting guideline. Would it be difficult to achieve a change at MOS regarding the topic of this Rfc equivalent to that one? Yes, very difficult, imho. Completely hopeless to try? That's up to volunteer editors, who need to gauge how best to prioritize their time, but the history shows that it is not impossible. Mathglot (talk) 21:29, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d Search results: your results may vary slightly, depending on your device, your search history, and current location, but the overall pattern of the results will not change.

References

  1. ^ "AP Stylebook updates race-related terms". ACES: The Society for Editing. Retrieved 2022-02-14.
  2. ^ "Language of Slavery - Underground Railroad (U.S. National Park Service)". www.nps.gov. Retrieved 2022-02-14.
  3. ^ Inclusive Language Guidelines (PDF). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association. 2021. p. 6.
  4. ^ Zorn, Eric. "Column: Language matters: The shift from 'slave' to 'enslaved person' may be difficult, but it's important". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 2022-02-14.
  5. ^ "Writing about "Slavery"? This Might Help" (community-sourced teaching aide). Retrieved 2022-02-14.
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