Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2018 October 9

Rifts Collectible Card Game (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

I am only requesting undeletion of the first edit, which was a redirect to Rifts (role-playing game). The subsequent article was created four year later, and was the subject of the deletion request. The closing admin failed to review the article's history (as did everyone who commented on that AfD) to note the distinction, and there was no mention why the original redirect should cease to exist. The closing admin is no longer active on Wikipedia (and requested his/her account be blocked), so discussion with the closing admin is moot here. Also note that the deleted material was re-created at Rifts (role-playing game) shortly after Rifts Collectible Card Game was deleted. That probably merits a review too. Mindmatrix 21:31, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Category:People of Huguenot descent (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

On the morning of 9 October 2018, I discovered that my Category Page of Russian people of Huguenots Descent had been deleted on 6 October by CydeBot. Apparently, from 27th of September of this year, there was a discussion initiated by Good Ole Factory to do so. Five experts chimed in and encouraged the deletion along with many other pages created by myself and others.

Here’s the funny thing: Over the last year or so Wikipedia has sent me messages inviting me to ArbCom 2017 or invitation to the Tea House. What I didn’t see was a simple, professionally courteous Wikipedia email notifying me that my page, along those created by other contributors, was about to be deleted. Given this bit of evidence I’ll confidently assert that no other creator or contributor was notified. This is an unimaginable bit of self-centered and myopic laziness on the editor’s part. That is unless the true goal was to limit discussion and the free exchange of ideas.

Tracing the discussion page (that again I was unaware and definitely not invited to) I find out that “Good Ole Boy” has taken it upon himself to delete _every_ Huguenot Category page, from North America to Europe and beyond. A grand total of five contributors now decide the fate of Categories that multiple contributors, over the years, spent endless man-hours finding and connecting.

What passes for a rationale is exemplified by the following five “experts”:

Good Ole Factory, (who proudly talks about his Museum of Stuffed Insults on his page) expertly stating that this is not a “defining” ethnicity.

BearCat’s assertion that his partial Huguenot ancestry has no effects on him. A scientific survey of _one_ (plus or minus 2% I guess).

Macrocappele- Not defining for a 20 or 21st century People.” (According to whom?)

Peterkingiron (expert on Windmills and Iron) would “not expect Huguenot ancestry to be significant in the biography of a person active even in the late 18th century; certainly not more recently.”

What a wonderful example of Group Think. Of course that’s what happens when, by accident or design, you avoid contacting anyone who might have a dissenting opinion. An easy counter argument to this collective mindset that this ancestry has no effect would be the numerous scholarly volumes that suggest otherwise. If actually verifying research or opinions in that way was too hard, they could just Google all the various heritage and lineage organizations that exist, many with a Wikipedia page. If they actually bothered to read Wikipedia articles before deleting them (via Bot) they might notice a handful of these organizations are listed in the Wikipedia article on Huguenots. An article that states that many refugee descendants still have a sense of identity.

The handful of experts, all patting each other on the back, make other logical fallacies. One is equating the percentage of ethnicity being a determining factor, remarking on declining percentages of Huguenot ancestry. Are we talking historical reference here’s or a JK Rowling novel about someone being “half-Muggle”? Was there some kind of bigoted, racial purity guideline for a Category page? There are also examples of persons reflecting on their heritage all the way into the 20th Century and it still has effects to the present day. What kind of “Either/Or” logical fallacy states you can only be one or another ancestry? Many (arguably, most) Huguenot descendants, myself included, are descended from many different ethnicities and nationalities. Actually, the once-available Huguenot categories emphasize that point, a point apparently too simple for that collective gentlemen to grasp.

Unlike these fine gentlemen, all I can claim is that I wrote a Master’s Thesis on the Huguenots. In doing so I was ably assisted by the National Huguenot Society, to whom I also presented a paper on the Huguenots in the Russian Military. While I firmly agree that Wikipedia should never be used as a source of original research I think it provides an outstanding tool for a researcher (or just the thoughtfully curious) in finding leads and connections to primary and secondary research. It definitely helped me, and also helped many others judging from the multiple other contributors that we could all _once_ easily see.

So is Wikipedia the encyclopedia anyone can edit (providing of course, that they follow its community standards) or should it be more accurately described as “The online encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to, but that a few snobbish elite really control, free of any honest attempts at public discourse or actually seeking conflicting views.”? All decided in TEN DAYS OR LESS. Right now, given the high-handed disservice just done to myself and other faithful contributors, who just had their work destroyed, with nary an attempt made at their input, I’ll vote resoundingly for the later. This confirmed by the sheer arrogance of their respective pages (Tell me, does “good faith” involve someone threatening to go all “SkyNet” on people?)

There is an even greater irony. If, for the foreseeable future, someone actually does an online search for “British” or “Dutch” or even “Russian” and adds the word “Huguenot” one of the first hits that will still come up is the Wikipedia Category page. Pages that don’t exist anymore due to a small handful of individuals taking action without any effort to hear a dissenting opinion. Not your best moment, Wikipedia. Not at all — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gruntldr (talk • contribs) 01:23, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• I found a few articles that used to be in one of these categories on here though there must be many more. Marcocapelle (talk) 06:06, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Richard Walther Darré: the article does not explain anything about how his Huguenot descent may be defining

John Blossett: the article does not explain anything about how his Huguenot descent may be defining

Ben Viljoen: the article does not even mention his Huguenot descent

William Vassal: it is clear from the article that being a Huguenot was defining for his father and grandfather, but less clear how this descent is defining for himself

Johannes de Peyster Sr.: the article does not explain anything about how his Huguenot descent may be defining

Daniel Perrin: he was a Huguenot and still in Category:Huguenots

Do I need to carry on? Note that this is not a random sample because these are mostly people from older centuries. Many biographies in the deleted Huguenot descent categories were about modern people for whom their Huguenot descent is even a lot further away. Marcocapelle (talk) 06:27, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse- The nomination was listed at CfD, the central venue for discussing categories. It's not as though people were kept away from the discussion deliberately. And the consensus there was clearly to delete. I don't see anything wrong with how things were done. Hyperbolic and insulting statements like "unimaginable bit of self-centered and myopic laziness" and "high-handed disservice" don't help your cause at all. Reyk _YO! 07:37, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse. Notifying a category creator is recommended but not mandatory; however, more to the point, there was sufficient consensus that having done so would not have changed things. Stifle (talk) 09:18, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak endorse (but relist) Endorse. Clearly, the CfD was closed properly given the material that was there. Even if the nom had known about it and participated, it seems likely that the result would be the same. And, obviously, the nominating statement was, ahem, excessive. But, the nom does have a point. There should be some automated way that people who are interested in these things get notified. If you use Twinkle to nominate something, the creator gets notified automatically (assuming you don't uncheck the box). But, not everybody uses Twinkle. My guess is that if you don't use Twinkle (or some other scripted tool), the manual notification mostly never happens. It would be good if the notification was baked into the software so it always happened. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:58, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Per Hobit and DGG's comments below, I would not be opposed to a relist. I'm still endorsing the close, because I don't think the closer did anything wrong, but the lack of notification does argue for a relist. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:45, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Echoing Sandstein's sentiment posted yesterday, for the good of the project, this thread needs to end. I no longer support a relist, since anything which could possibly be said after relisting has already been said here. It's time to move on. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:39, 27 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse - do not relist - watching pages one has created is a good idea. Oculi (talk) 17:16, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh come on. It's way too easy to miss a watch page update, especially for a prolific editor. Hobit (talk) 18:04, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Watching article alerts such as Wikipedia:WikiProject France/Article alerts is also a good idea. Oculi (talk) 20:26, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • Sure, but I still claim that my quote (below) is applicable here. A notification that should have happened didn't happen. It's not required, but it certainly should be considered and it's not unreasonable that absent the notice one might miss the discussion. Hobit (talk) 23:31, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• @Hobit, DGG, and RoySmith: I sympathise with the concerns about lack of notification, but I do wish the concerns about lack of notifications were expressed in a less accusatory tone than crept into some (tho not all) of the comments here

The problem is technical: there isn't an automated way of notifying creators in the case of multiple CFD nominations. WP:Twinkle does it for single nominations, but group nominations such as this are built manually, and there's no bot to do the notifications. In cases such as this, notifications massively increase the burden on nominators.

For example, the nomination under discussion here involved 30 different categories. Even using boilerplate text, a manual exercise of checking the history of each category and notifying the creator could easily take 1 minute each, which means 30 minutes for the lot. I recently did a group nom of 90 music organisation categories, and didn't notify any creators because I'm not willing to devote 90 minutes to the task.

So a requirement to manually notify is simply too big a clerical burden to impose on nominators. If that requirement was imposed, then much of the maintenance work at CFD and CFDS would simply stop. En.wp would not be improved by retaining 7 different formats for the same type of category, which is what would happen to those 90 music categories if manual notification was mandatory (I was happy to spend ten minutes on that nom, but not an extra 90 minutes). Nor would it being improved by massively raising the bar to proposing deletion of a type of category which may be superfluous or even disruptive.

What we need is some system of automatic notification, so that editors can devote their energies to the substantive discussion rather than to clerical work. AFD seems to have some bots which do the work, and it would be great to have something similar for CFD. WP:Article alerts helps too, and altho WPbanner tagging is haphazard, it is a step which projects can take proactively to enhance notifications. And as I noted below, I'd love to see articles displaying a CFD notification beside any category on that article which has a CFD tag. (We already do this for templates, and although the technology is simpler there, the resulting display is similar to what I envisage here).

Any or all of these steps would help everyone. But it's not fair to criticise individual nominators for the holes in en.wp's notifications software. We need systemic solutions here, not the shaming of alleged culprits. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:56, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Moreover the nominator Bearcat (whose nominations are scrupulously presented) did notify the creator of the top category (Mayumashu). Oculi (talk) 10:49, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• relist This is a lot of work to delete without letting the creator, who spent hours doing this, chime in. It costs us little to reopen the discussion. And we really are supposed notify the creator. Yes, it was a correct closure. Yes, notification isn't required. So "rules as written" everything is fine. But yes, this person chiming in might well have changed the whole discussion. As might the others who should have been notified. We need to keep editors. "All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaints and its far too late to start making a fuss about it now." Does that sound about right? Hobit (talk) 18:04, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • With a nod toward BHG, I really should have said endorse and relist as the close at the time was clearly correct. Hobit (talk) 23:28, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Relist I agree with Hobit. The only good reason notification is not mandatory is that here are cases where one would deliberately and appropriately not want to do so, and it is difficult to define them exactly. We don't notify trolls, we don't notify blocked editors, we usually don't notify spammers--I'm sure there are other cases. But all good faith editors deserve a chance to defend their work, and it is even more true when it is a group of pages. This is especially true for the XfDs other than AfD, because they are much less watched. Participation in RfD is s rather specialized thing--most editors, even highly active ones, never go there.

We can not assume that his presence there would have made little difference: his arguments might have been convincing. Nor is it correct that the result was inevitable. There was a good faith keep, and one of the delete !votes proposed an alternative.

The statement that "there had a week's chance" is wildly unrealistic--the editors who come here every week are a minority, and saying something like like has always impressed be as being a little unfair to them. And in a relatively unwatched section, it can seem like trying to get a desired result by hoping those who might dissent will not notice. DGG ( talk ) 19:02, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse but relist. The close was fine, but more input would be helpful in ensuring that any outcome is based on a wider consensus. It seems that the DRV nom has some expertise to bring to the discussion, so a re-run would be better informed.

However, I do hope that in any new discussion the nom will drop the verbosity and the prolific assumptions of bad faith. Personalising and souring the debate won't help anyone.

And I'm afraid that low attendance at CFD is a norm. It's obviously undesirable, but even article alerts and WikiProject notifications don't usually boost turnout much, and the 4 responses to this nom is probably above average. So please don't shoot the closer ... and @DGG, please leave off the nominator. The categories were properly tagged, and the discussion was listed in the correct venue for 9 days (not just the minimum 7). I see no ground sto suggest that the nominator had any desire to act stealthily. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:33, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If I had meant it to refer to this particular discussion I would have said so explicitly. But people here was already discussing the general issue of notifications, and it is something which does happen sometimes. (if it weren't for BEANS, I could describe some of the exact strategies that often work) It's one of the reasons I think the non-AfD discussions should be combined into one process, in the hope of getting a wider audience. DGG ( talk ) 22:54, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ag, @DGG, I am sure I could also devise and describe such strategies just by inverting some of the steps I use to give discussions high prominence. But I don't see any reason to suggest such gaming here, so if you want to speculate like that it's best to start with a disclaimer.

I don't see how combining some or all of MFD/TFD/CFD/RFD would alter the main problem, viz that few editors are interested in non-article deletion discussions. Combining them would simply mean that those editors who do follow these discussions would have have to wade through a lot more to find what they want. That may well to less participation, not more.

The real gamechanger for CFD participation would be if the mediawiki software (or may some add-on widget) put a CFD indicator on articles beside any category with a live CFD tag. I'd love that; how could we get it? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:02, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment (closer). The nomination suggests that I expressed an opinion in the discussion that the categories were not "defining". I did not. I closed the discussion based on the opinions expressed by other users. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 02:54, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse. The statement at the top of this discussion doesn't afaics provide any reason to think the CFD close was incorrect.

(Copying from a comment above that matches my thoughts exactly) Clearly, the CfD was closed properly given the material that was there. Even if the nom had known about it and participated, it seems likely that the result would be the same. And, obviously, the nominating statement was, ahem, excessive.

This appears to be a classic case of an editor (very) interested in a particular characteristic viewing that characteristic as having special significance and hence thinking it's appropriate to categorize by it regardless of it being (for an encyclopedia) non-defining (Wp categorization is categorization - not WikiData). DexDor ^(talk) 06:58, 11 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Relist This was a sudden deletion of a lot of work by a whole lot of people. Eddaido (talk) 08:28, 11 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse and relist Nothing wrong with the close itself, but I support reopening the discussion for another week so the nominator of this deletion review can participate in the discussion. Not sure if the result will be any different, though. SportingFlyer talk 09:58, 11 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @SportingFlyer: I think the chances of a difft outcome depends largely on whether @Gruntldr has anything to offer other than outraged ad hominems and I'm-an-expert. I'm willing to give them the chance, but I'm not holding my breath. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:59, 11 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I realize that continuing to put time and effort into Wikipedia pretty much equates to “throwing good money after bad’” but a few thoughts on the opinions here but a few parting thoughts:

1. No matter how much you pretty it up, the review time for discussion of a proposed deletion is unprofessional and downright unethical. Comments like Hobit’s seem applicable…if you don’t have a job, or maybe stay on the internet 24/7 in your Mom’s basement. So the implication is that if you ever create anything on Wikipedia you better watch it like a hawk for years on end, and heaven help you if you aren’t able to get on the internet for a week or so (not hypothetical, as currently I often work in austere locations in different parts of Central Asia). Heck, even old-school public notices in a newspaper gave everyone a month.

2. I really want to find how Macrocappele’s worship at the altar of “defining” became the litmus test for justifying a category. I would helpfully suggest he do some research into the concept of the aggregate, instead of cherry-picking his results. I could just as easily find counter examples (easier for me, since I wrote a paper on it). That would be just a statistically relevant...or irrelevant. For extra credit please try Measures of Performance versus Measures of Effectiveness. And yes, they were effects even into the 20th Century.

3. Despite BrownHairedGirl’s misuse of ad hominem it was an attack on the position, as the unprofessional biases expressed by the Gang of Five were a significant factor in my dispute. And still are. “I don’t like it, so get rid of it” and “Sounds great, Bob!” are not actual debates. I also highly doubt I’m the only upset individual, except no one knows for sure until the other creators and contributors find out how their contributions were deleted by some a self-appointed committee unwilling to notify them (“But the Bot doesn’t have time!” is an excuse?)

4. I have notified about five thousand descendants of this non-defined group, who (silly enough) all keep in touch via web pages and heritage and lineage organizations, about what a small, self-contained elite of Wikipedia editors have done. The nicest words that came out may have been “anti-religious bigotry.” The most astute observation came from a PhD in history. She pointed out that Wikipedia has thousands of articles, including categories, about _fictional_ personages, yet felt it was appropriate to speedily remove pages involving, numerous actual people.

In conclusion, before I waste any more time on this, I will stand by and further emphasize my previous assertion that Wikipedia is NOT something that anyone can edit. In fact, Wikipedia is actually controlled by a small minority or users/admins who really ignore any other opinions, except in lip service. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gruntldr (talk • contribs) 15:55, 12 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Reply @Gruntldr:

1. The 7-day period for deletion discussions applies across all of Wikipedia, and has been stable for a decade. It is a compromise between the need to give editors time to find a discussion, and the need to make some progress on discusions rather than leaving thousands of them open. If opinions are fairly closely balanced, discussions can be relisted for another 7 days. Some may be relisted several times. And nothing is final; discusions are frequentky re-opened. So relax; everything here is reversible, if there is a consensus to do so.
2. Wikipedia:Categorization says The central goal of the category system is to provide navigational links to Wikipedia pages in a hierarchy of categories which readers, knowing essential—defining—characteristics of a topic, can browse and quickly find sets of pages on topics that are defined by those characteristics.. More detail is offered at WP:DEFINING.
   Assessing definingness is obviously a matter of editorial judgement, which is why we have a discussion ... but that is the principle at play.
3. You may not agree with how other editors assess the concept of definingness, or you may even wish they had put more time into the assessments, but that does not excuse your choice to make personal attacks on them. If you believe you have better assessments, let's hear them; your reasoning will be assessed on its merits, not on how angrily you denigrate others.
   And no, there is no self-appointed committee: there is a page where a discusison may be joined by any one of the tens of thousands of wikipeda editors. It's an open meeting, not a cabal. And yes, time is always relevant. Every other editor is like you: a volunteer giving their time. So there is always a balance to be struck with notifications, and that balance depends partly on whether there is technology to assist. (More technology allows more notifications)
4. Categories are not content. They are a way of navigating between content; no content was deleted here. This is like roadsigns, where highways agencies draw a balance between too few signs to help travellers find their way, and so many that they are overwhelmed and bewildered. That's why categories are limited to the WP:DEFINING characteristics. The same principles apply whether the topic is people, businesses, geography, sport, culture, science or fiction; we still need to assess defingness.
   Your choice to realy a characterisation of this as "religious bigotry" is completely unsupported by the contnet of the deletion discusion; it's yet another ad hominem attack, which does your cause no favours.

There is no cabal, and no conspiracy. At worst an oversight; at best a clash of expectations. Nobody set out to ignore your opinion. On the contrary, most of the editors who commented here have been keen to give you the chance to make a substantive case, despite your hostile tone. (En.wp has a policy assume good faith. Please follow it.)

There's now a good chance that the deletion discussion will be reopened. If and when it does, the discssion will be closed on the basis of support for arguments which are founded on Wikipedia's policy and guidelines. The issue is not whether you think other editors are nasty or stupid. The issue is not whether some people in a club find that their shared attribute is important. The issue is Wikipedi'a Categorisation policy. If you actually want to make use of the opportunity offered by a reopened dscussion, then stick to that policy.

One policy which I really hope you bear in mind is WP:OWNERSHIP. Please do read that, because it is very important. Wikipedia is a collaborative environment in which many edits are undone and many pages deleted. The decisions are made by WP:CONSENSUS, and if you want to change the consensus then you need to work with other editors, not treat them as enemies.

I still think that the discussion should be reopened, to give the opportunity to make a policy-based case against deletion. From your conduct so far, it seems to me to be much more likely that you will instead waste everyone's time with anger rather than reasoning. But I do hope you will prove me wrong. Good luck. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:51, 13 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse with no prejudice against relisting. The nom is understandably upset, so perhaps a little time to WP:COOL and calm down may yield a more fruitful discussion.Alpha3031 (t • c) 09:45, 13 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse but extend a little latitude since it's not fundamentally problematic. I don't but and never have the idea that the originator should be notified. It's against the very nature of WP:OWN, against the nature of articles being edit by potentially many editors the initial creator perhaps having contributed little or nothing to the current state, many stubs written by bots who really aren't going to respond to an xFD etc. etc. unless we go to a subjective standard of "significant" contributors or every contributor (which would include the millions of bot edits, vandalism reverts etc.) then as a reason not to honour an xFD result it's pretty weak. --81.108.53.238 (talk) 22:43, 13 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Excuse this butting ahead of the other responses which come chronologically first, I'm surprised this DRV is still open but as it is, looking through the nominators response where he doesn't seem to want to understand or work with other wikipedia editors I've struck out my view we should offer some degree of compromise on this. --81.108.53.238 (talk) 10:14, 27 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Should be for certain--our policies say so. And not purely for reasons of WP:OWN. Also because the creator, assuming good faith, had a reason to believe the topic was appropriate for Wikipedia. We should ask them. Also for reasons of editor retention--nuking things behind someone's back isn't a good way to keep them here. <ec> Hobit (talk) 17:05, 14 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • This isn't about deletion of a topic (i.e. an article); the CFD was about how articles are categorized. DexDor ^(talk) 20:06, 14 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'd call that a topic but either way it is removing something someone spent a lot of time on and believed was appropriate for Wikipedia. I don't see the harm in giving them the oppertunity to explain themselves. Hobit (talk) 21:31, 14 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
        • @Hobit: The harm lies in the disproportionate amount of time required for manual notification of multi-category CFDs, which imposes an excessive and disproportionate burden on editors doing category maintenance. An automatic notification system would be great; but a requirement for manual notification would make much category maintenance stop. And no, our policies do not require it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:51, 15 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
          • Certainly true it takes time and isn't required. But in this case someone is asking for us to reopen the discussion because they missed due to the lack of notification. Seems reasonable. The lack of a tool may justify not taking the time to do the recommended notification. But it seems only fair to give that person a chance to comment later when the only reason they weren't notified was a lack of a tool. Hobit (talk) 05:16, 15 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
            • Glad we agree it's not required. And we already agree on the rest: give the editor a chance to make their case. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:41, 15 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• I would like to ask User:Gruntldr directly: assuming the discussion gets relisted, are you intending to defend that Huguenot descent is a defining characteristic? Because if you aren't, relisting has no purpose. Marcocapelle (talk) 17:02, 14 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I too would like to know. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:45, 15 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I really need to shut down my Wikipedia account, as I realize it’s a waste of time, and stop receiving email notifications that the judge, jury, and executioner committee all of the sudden wants to discuss/lecture. So, with a promise to myself that this is the last drink at the bar before I cut myself off, here a few effects that lasted into the 20th Century, if not beyond. Note, I’ve also added some citations and links for convenience, though the sum of this would definitely qualify as “original research” (as it was available from a thesis paper and a couple other graduate papers that I wrote) and not something I’d stick in a Wikipedia article. Also, no matter how much Marcocappelle wants to make “defining” the sole litmus check of a category, it’s an asinine, single-prism metric. As stated before, a much better metric is effects, effects that extend beyond just people but into the diplomatic, information, military and economic instruments of power. These effects could result in an Irish linen industry or a South African wine industry, or even a bunch of German-speaking generals with French names proclaiming the German Empire in the former palace of their Bourbon oppressors. You could use the people to trace the effects… that is until all the categories were deleted.

18th CENTURY: Butler’s otherwise excellent The Huguenots in America: A Refugee People in a New World Society asserts that “Everywhere They Fled. Everywhere They Vanished.” However Back in North America Jon Butler uses a broad brushstroke to cover many, diverse types of settlements, with multiethnic cities like Boston, Charleston, and New York averaged alongside Francophone enclaves like New Rochelle, New Pfalz, and even New Bordeaux, the last of which was settled in 1764. Any rates of assimilation among different types of communities, to say nothing of different families and individuals within these various communities, are unlikely to average the same result. Butler avoids this dilemma by restricting his data pool to a roughly three-decade period of the Second Refuge: 1680 to 1710. Earlier Walloon and Huguenot settlements in North America serve only to set the stage for the following, larger flood of refugees. Later French Protestant settlements like Purrysburg and New Bordeaux are also discarded because “none of the settlements grew out of the original Huguenot emigration.” While this restricted model makes the subject matter more manageable, it also negates broader temporal and spatial connections, the family and social bonds that existed between Francophone Protestants across both Europe and the Atlantic, and across generations.

Throughout his research Butler repeatedly references increasing Huguenot marriages to non-Huguenots, exogamy, as evidence of dissolving cohesiveness and lack of identity among the refugees. While use or knowledge of the French language often serves as a prima facie indicator of ethnic identity among refugee descendants, marriage is more like church attendance in that the Huguenots often kept a foot in both doors. Butler’s use of ethnic purity as an indicator of ethnic identity is arguably a more emotional than scientific argument, something that seems more suited to characters in a J. K. Rowling novel describing the merits of someone who is “half-Muggle” than any objective measurement of ethnic identity. Both John Jay and Henry Laurens took non-Huguenot wives, Sarah Van Brugh Livingston and Eleanor Ball respectively, yet both men’s own writings proclaim them the most “Huguenot” of the Founding Fathers. In short, when it comes to a sense of Huguenot identity in the 1700s, loyalty trumps purity. Sorry if this is contrary to Marcocapelle’s (apparently) heartfelt requirement of “defining.”

Other researchers, including Brenda Fay Roth, Amy Friedlander, Bertrand Van Reymbuke, and Paula Carlo have presented evidence that support different conclusions than Butler’s, a minority opinion asserting a longer, continual sense of Huguenot identity, at least in certain enclaves in South Carolina and New York. Van Reymbuke’s, From Babylon to New Eden, referencing both Butler’s work and Amy Friedlander’s dissertation “Carolina Huguenots: A Study of Cultural Pluralism in the Carolina Lowcountry,” argues that in South Carolina “the Huguenot experience resembles a process of integration, or even . . . of acculturation and ‘Creolization’ rather than simply assimilation.” He further concludes: “The site of Charlesfort; the towns of Port Royal and Ravenal; Ribault Road in Beaufort; Horry County; Prioleau, Gendron, and Legare Street in Charleston, Gervais Street in Columbia, the Maginault House; the Charleston Huguenot Church; Hanover House in Clemson, the Middleburg and Hampton Plantations, Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion; the saying ‘rich as a Huguenot;’ and the dessert known as the Huguenot torte are some of the many indelible marks the Huguenot refugees have left on the history, toponymy, architectural scene, and cultural landscape of the Lowcountry and state of South Carolina.” SOURCE: Bertrand Van Ruymbeke, New Babylon to Eden: The Huguenots and their Migration to Colonial South Carolina (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2006), xviii.

“Indelible” is a far cry from “vanished.” They are also “marks” that did not disappear post 1750, only to magically reappear in the early 21st Century.

In her excellent Huguenot Refugees in Colonial New York, Becoming American in the Hudson Valley, Paula Wheeler Carlo, also asserts that the Huguenot settlements at New Pfalz and New Rochelle were “homogenous, autonomous” communities and that: “like Huguenot settlements in Germany, New Rochelle maintained a significant degree of ethnic homogeneity until at least the time of the American Revolution. While not as pronounced, some degree of ethnic homogeneity was preserved among the descendants of the founders of New Pfalz as well.” Later in her research, Carlo further discusses the allegiances of New Pfalz and New Rochelle during the American Revolution. She highlights a distinction between the New Pfalz’s leaning towards the Patriot cause and the more mixed allegiances of New Rochelle, concluding that, from both settlements founding until the American Revolution, the Huguenots “did not vanish as quickly or completely as had been argued previously.” SOURCE: Paula Wheeler Carlo, Huguenot Refugees in Colonial New York: Becoming American (Portland: Sussex Academic Press, 2006), 2-3.

In her essay “Family Bonds Across the Refuge” Carolyn Lougee Chappell describes how the scattered cousins of the Champagné family maintained relationships across the refuge from Rochelle to the point of Baron de Saint-Surin in Celle naming his cousin, an Anglican Dean residing in Ireland, in his will in 1776. The evidence is that at least some sense of Huguenot identity existed into the late 1700s in Europe. SOURCE: “Family Bonds Across the Refuge,” in Memory and Identity, The Huguenots in France and the Atlantic Diaspora, ed. Randy J. Sparks and Bertrand Van Ruymbeke (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003), 172-173.

"Defining" did not matter for George Washington, even as a descendent of Nicolas Martiau, as he cared little about his ancestry. He did leverage the Huguenot Diaspora’s effects, particularly in the French language skills of John (Jack) Laurens and Alexander Hamilton (son of Rachel Faucett), who both used their native-level French language skills as his aides. As did Gouverneur Morris and John Jay (both alumni of Rev. Stroupe’s New Pfalz academy), Paul Fooks (translator to the Continental Congress), or even the “Widow Who Saved the American Revolution” Mary Valleau Bancroft, who used her charms (and French language) to delay Hessian Colonel Carol von Donop before Washington crossed the Delaware. SOURCES: Really too many to list, but a good start is the excellent website of the National Archives. Particularly telling is the primary source material by Founding Fathers like Laurens, Alexander Hamilton, and (especially) John Jay about their French Protestant ancestry.

“When I consider the Circumstances under which our Ancestors settled in America, & recollect what I have heard of the Friendship that which subsisted between them, I find myself heartily disposed to serve this young gentleman, and act a Part towards him which I am sure would be exceedingly agreeable to my Parents, who always expressed the most friendly Sentiments of the Families from which his Father descended.” — John Jay, 11 June 1783 letter to Elias Boudinot referring to John Marsden Pintard’s appointment as Counsel to Portugal, all three families being the descendants of Huguenot refugees. SOURCE: The Selected Papers of John Jay, Volume 3, 1782-1784.

19th CENTURY: In Europe, especially in parts of modern day Germany, the Huguenots maintained a sense of identity, to include the use of the French language that survived past the Napoleonic Wars. In America the Huguenots became part of the national myth. Paul McGraw in his essay “The Memory of the Huguenots in North America; Protestant History and Polemic” accepts the majority opinion that the Huguenots “essentially disappeared by the middle of the seventeenth century,” but not before noting that their “presence in the literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries” is something “nearly as important as their physical presence.” George Michael Smith also asserts in his research that the Huguenots existed in a greater American cultural memory throughout the 19th Century. This cultural memory was widespread enough in the 1800s, that multiple writers felt safe in their assumption that they could use the Huguenots as evidence to support their anti-Catholic or pro-American viewpoints, and rely on the easy comprehension, and even sympathy, of their readership with subject. SOURCES: Paul McGraw, “The History of the Huguenots in North America: Protestant History and Polemic,” in The Huguenots: History and Memory in Transnational Context, Essays in Honour and Memory of Walter C. Utt, ed. David J. B. Trim (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 286. AND George Michael Smith, “Huguenot Memory and Identity in 19th Century America” (Master’s Thesis, The National Huguenot Society, San Antonio, TX, 2015), vi.

John Adams was aware of John Jay’s Huguenot refugee ethnicity when he deplored the New Yorker’s strong prejudices against the French, prejudices congruent with Jay’s accompanying anti-Catholicism, asserting during the negotiations for the Treaty of Paris that “he (Jay) didn’t like any Frenchman.” In 1806 the exiled Dutch radical, François Adriaan Van der Kemp, would feel comfortable enough with Adam’s knowledge of the Huguenots, to discuss the very origin of the word Huguenot with him. Years later, in his 1821 letter to Alden Bradford, Adams is confident enough to identify the Huguenot ancestry of Massachusetts Governor James Bowdoin and the marriage of Samuel Dexter to another Huguenot, reflecting how: “Josiah Quincy I think was absent in England—The only plausible conjecture that occures to me is, that it was composed by Governor Bodwin, And Samuel Dexter; Father of the late great orator—For Bodwin was the Son of a Huguenot, and Dexter I think married a Huguenot—The luminous history of the Edict of Nantze (sic) and its revocation, indicates a French Protestant Origin. SOURCE: Founders Online, “From John Adams to Alden Bradford, 26 October 1821,” Founders Online, The National Archives, accessed 13 September 2015, http://founders. archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-7563.

In 1801 the dying merchant Captain John Batten expressed a different, but no less heartfelt, emotion about his ancestry, as recorded in the diary of Salem, Massachusetts pastor William Bentley. When Bentley mistakenly introduces him as a Catholic, Batten “tho’ confined to his bed, with the true spirit of a Huguenot, he rose on his arm, pointed out the place of his nativity, celebrated in the controversy, & expressed that he held his native place and its zeal to the highest honour.” Clearly these non-Huguenots are not observing an ethnic group that has seen its identity vanish. SOURCE: William Bentley, The Diary of William Bentley, D.D., Pastor of the East Church of Salem, Massachusetts, Volume 2, January 1793 - December 1802 (Salem, MA: The Essex Institute, 1907), 405-406.

French occupations of the Napoleonic Wars, and the resulting rise in nationalism, were to bring on a noticeable change in the attitude towards France in the various Huguenot communities from Hesse-Cassel to Berlin. German Huguenots, both in and out of uniform, increasingly began seeing themselves as connected to the local German populations and the idea of unified German state, albeit under Prussian leadership. The Franco-Prussian War of 1871 would see the officers of both the Prussian General Staff and various major commands, men with names like von François, du Vernois, and Bronsort, shocking both the French forces of Napoleon III and the entire world in a series of rapid campaigns culminating in a successful drive towards Paris. Their presence in the proclamation of the German Empire, this at the Palace of Versailles, royal residence of their former oppressors the House of Bourbon, can rightfully claim the title of “Huguenots’ Revenge.”

You know, you USED to be able to see all those German-Huguenot connections on Wikipedia.

20th CENTURY: An apt place to start the 1900s would be descendant John “Black Jack” Pershing’s willingness to serve as the guest speaker at the dedication of the monument to Washington’s ancestor, Nicolas Martiau (apparently he didn’t get the defining memo). At the bottom of his Wikpidea page you can still see that he is part of the Category:American people of German descent OR Category:American people of English descent OR EVEN Category:Burials at Arlington National Cemetery. Did any of these categories "define" Pershing? Arguably not, but it may be on interest to someone to know this, maybe even "empower and engage people around the world" at least as much as the still existent Category:Pornographic film actors by ethnicity.

More apt would be the World War Two actions of Henri Salmide, born Heinz Stahlschmidt, a demolitions expert in the German Navy who refused to obey orders to blow up the port of Bordeaux, France in order to greatly disrupt the liberating Allied forces. In a 1997 interview Salmide justified his actions by pointing out: “My family were Huguenots, and I acted according to my Christian conscience.” SOURCE: James Mackenzie, “Renegade German War Hero who Saved French Port Dies,” Reuters, 25 February 2010, accessed 11 January 2016, http://www.reuters.com/ article/us-france-bordeaux-hero-idUSTRE61O2SQ20100225.

And in what can arguably be called the Huguenots’ finest hour, the inhabitants of the French Protestant village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, remembering their own history of religious persecution, hid hundreds of Jews from Vichy and Nazi authorities. These actions earned them the status of “Righteous Among Nations” from the Yad Vashem, the Center for Holocaust Studies and Remembrance for the State of Israel. SOURCE: The World Holocaust Remembrance Center, “The Righteous Among the Nations,” Yad Vashem, accessed 27 January 2016, http://www.yadvashem.org/ yv/en/righteous/related_sites.asp.

In 20th and 21st Century France the Huguenots gained a reputation as defenders of civil liberties and later provided political leadership in the same country that once spurned them, including a handful of Prime Ministers in the Fifth Republic. They also came to dominate many industries, from banking to various types of manufactures, including names like Hottinger, Hermès, and Peugeot. This coupling of political and economic power would lead to a once-powerless minority referred to as the “HSP,” or Haute Société Protestante. SOURCE: The Economist, “France's Protestants: Prim but Paunchy,” 16 April 1998, accessed 11 January 2016, http://www.economist.com/node/160426.

21st CENTURY: Glozier’s 2007 monumental collection, edited with David Onnedick, Wars, Religion and Service: 1685-1713, begins with a foreword from General Sir Peter de la Billière, veteran of both the Falklands War and the first Persian Gulf War remarking on how, “to this day many people of distinction in professions and trades are descended from Huguenot ancestors; as with my family they take great pride in their lineage.” Apparently, some Huguenot military traditions did linger….for a couple hundred years or so.

SOURCE: Peter de la Billière, Wars, Religion, and Service: Huguenot Soldiering 1685-1713, ed. Michael Glozier and David Onnedick (London: Ashgate Publishing, 2007), xiii.

You USE to be able to see de la Billière’s Huguenot connections on Wikipedia. Used to. Or hundreds of others. And Wikipedia also lists some (not remotely all) of the Huguenot heritage and lineage organizations, in North America, Europe, and beyond, who uphold their traditions and celebrate their refugee heritage, no matter how intermingled with other nations and ethnicities they are. In fact, that’s the POINT of celebration. And to reiterate a comment from above, that connection did not magically reappear in the early 21st Century. Though from the members I’ve talked to about this, hundreds of Huguenot descendants are now (somewhat magically) unhappy with Wikipedia.

"Do I need to carry on?"

Of course, this could have been brought up from the start, if there wasn’t a hypocritical “discussion period” for review that is so short that any reputable institution of learning would laugh at it. Or that no attempt was made to contact any of the actual contributors. I haven’t seen a single argument justifying that ineptness beyond either “this is the way we’ve always done it” or “it’s too much effort to do otherwise.” So, yet again, my overall assessment of Wikipedia stands. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gruntldr (talk • contribs) 12:17, 15 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Oh dear. Wall of text, in which Gruntldr says “defining” the sole litmus check of a category, it’s an asinine, single-prism metric and concludes by denouncing en.wp in its entirety. So it is v clear that this editor has zero interest in the consensus-building discussion. Gruntldr's contributions consist almost entirely of categorisation, but their posts here repeatedly reject any desire to build categories within the consensus-building framework which is the basis of all editing on en.wp. (Their edits include zero WP-space edits prior to DRV, and only one talk-page edit[1], back in 2014)

So much for all the efforts by so many editors here to hold the door open, and the goodwill expressed by editors who acknowledge that Gruntldr is understandably aggrieved. The person for whom we were holding it open has spat in our faces. This 600-edit user clearly has scholarly qualifications, but zero interest in working collaboratively and a clear preference for grudge-fests.

Nonetheless, in the midst of that rant there are some nuggets which would be helpful in a reopened discussion, so I will retain my !vote to relist. They also support the view which I have been intending to express at a re-opened CFD, viz that Huguenot ancestry was frequently a highly-defining characteristic in the 18th century, but much more rarely beyond that. So I still intend to support a "keep but purge" in that discussion. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:24, 15 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I still stand by my statement that if an 18th-century person can honestly be shown to be genuinely defined by Huguenot ancestry, then by definition they belong in Category:Huguenots itself rather than needing a separate "ancestry" tree that's so vulnerable to getting misused. Bearcat (talk) 17:27, 16 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Bearcat: Sounds like that establishes one important point for reasoned debate at a relisted CFD. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:12, 17 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Admin comment: I've undone my "endorse" closure of this DRV after BrownHairedGirl pointed out to me that a case can also be made that this DRV has arrived at a consensus to also relist the discussion. That consensus isn't all that clear to me, but I'll leave this to another admin to determine, particularly because I don't have enough experience with CfDs to properly relist one. Sandstein 10:48, 17 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• @Gruntldr: Thanks for so much background information. Why don't you turn this into an article, something like Historiography of Huguenot descendants? That would be a so much better contribution to Wikipedia than the creation of those categories. Marcocapelle (talk) 19:35, 17 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I want to say that I think that would be pretty cool if Gruntldr is up for it. Hobit (talk) 01:00, 18 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • That article would of course be a welcome addition. However, the decision on categories is a separate issue. The article would not preclude the existence of categories, nor would it trigger their creation. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:56, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse. Consensus was clear, and the closure reflected that consensus. It appears that this information is best laid out in article form, not through categorization. ℯxplicit 06:06, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse: Since nobody wants to close this, I can perhaps help by making consensus clearer. There is no real argument that the closure as such was wrong, and I oppose a relist because we do not need more walls of text like the ones above. People who want to contribute to a collaborative project need to learn to be concise or they need to leave. Sandstein 06:08, 26 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]