Brigadier General James Monroe Williams

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not Moved: No clear consensus to move to new title Mike Cline (talk) 19:07, 31 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Asian people → Asians – The Ngram viewer for google linked here shows a significant higher usage of "Asians" compared to "Asian people". Thus, I find this move reasonable. Any objections? Cheers, Wikiexplorationandhelping (talk) 03:27, 13 December 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 18:34, 20 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. Absolutely not. Even ignoring the dubious Ngram argument, it is offensive. This article is about people, who deserve to be described as such. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:13, 13 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Hmm, what about Arabs? That doesn't become "Arab people". Wikiexplorationandhelping (talk) 04:23, 13 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  WP:OTHERSTUFF. And not comparable anyway, since 'Arab' is an ethnicity, whereas 'Asian' isn't. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:30, 13 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Actually I'm thinking Arab people, currently a redirect, might be better? Valereee (talk) 17:27, 13 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Possibly, though it needs to be discussed at Talk:Arabs, not here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:17, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support per Ngrams findings, not even a close contest. Many ethnic groups based on a geographic origin seem to have a title of this form, e.g. Germans, and in particular this is true for most articles specifically about Asians or subgroups of Asians, e.g. Genetic history of East Asians. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 18:08, 17 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Again, 'Asian' is not an ethnic group. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:10, 17 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Also not a nationality. Valereee (talk) 18:19, 17 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  And note that we have an article entitled East Asian people. Not 'East Asians'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:06, 18 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Note that the OP here also initiated effectively identical Move requests at Talk:White people and Talk: black people. Both have been closed as withdrawn. HiLo48 (talk) 02:59, 18 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, because it's the more common name and more concise. Unlike "whites" and "blacks", which could also refer to colours, removing "people" does not make it more ambiguous. (There could still be some ambiguity with regard to whether "Asians" or "Asian people" are people who are Asian by descent or by residence/nationality, but this doesn't change with the addition or removal of "people".) I don't see how it could possibly be offensive to call Asians, well, Asians. Just because something is about people doesn't mean it needs to contain "people"; it's fairly obvious that Asians are people, and any suggestion to the contrary would, at least to me, seem misguided at best. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 07:27, 18 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose as it changes the topic of the article. "Asian people" does not restrict where those people may live so would include Asian Amercians, etc. "Asians" implies those that reside in Asia and not to people outside of that area, which is not the same topic. --Masem (t) 17:35, 18 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Hm; that's an interesting argument. Personally, I find both ambiguous as to whether they refer to people who are Asian by descent or by residence. The page itself seems to be primarily about what "Asian" means in different places ("Asian" as a racial identifier), as opposed to Ethnic groups in Asia; I don't know of any way to express that concisely. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 00:36, 19 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Can you point to any reliable source making that distinction? It's certainly not one I have ever come across. And surely no one would suggest that an Arab ceases to be an Arab once they emigrate from Arabia or the Arab world. Graham (talk) 08:41, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support clearer, concise, and agree with Tol. --SHB2000 (talk) 23:07, 18 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. 'Asians' has a whiff of the dehumanising as 'other' to it. There's also a subtle implication that 'they're all the same'. 'Asian people' doesn't have these problems. But, looking at the article, it isn't about people; it's about a label/category. Perhaps if the opening made the topic clearer, the title would matter less. EddieHugh (talk) 18:23, 19 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. It is more WP:CONSISTENT and inclusive with regards to Asian Canadians, Asian Latin Americans, Asian Americans, Asian Australians, and the like. Shwcz (talk) 03:34, 20 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Isn't 'Asian people' more consistent with those? They're all 'Asian [plural]', in contrast with 'Asians'. EddieHugh (talk) 18:41, 20 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I think the comparison being made is that they are not titled "Asian Canadian people" and such. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 19:05, 20 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Relisting comment: Supporters are citing common name, opposers complain of racism if we cease to use person-first terminology. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 18:34, 20 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Neither the current nor the proposed title use people-first language. People-first language would be if we used a title like "People who are Asian". Graham (talk) 08:41, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose per convention (White people or black people, and exceptions like Arabs should probably also be changed to match.--Ortizesp (talk) 22:39, 20 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per our five WP:CRITERIA:
  • Recognizability: Both titles are equally recognizable.
  • Naturalness (as well as WP:COMMONNAME): The ngram presented by the nominator shows that the term Asians is used somewhere upwards of 25 times as often as Asian people.
  • Precision: Both titles are equally precise.
  • Concision: "Asians" is more concise.
  • Consistency: "Asians" is consistent with the vast majority of articles about ethnicity.
  Additionally, it is worth noting that many Asian people would take great offence at the idea being put forward by some here that the term Asians is somehow derogatory. Graham (talk) 08:41, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:CONCISE. Rreagan007 (talk) 17:15, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. "Asians" has racial connotations in Anglosphere. Keep this article general. Walrasiad (talk) 19:18, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  As far as I can tell, the article is specifically about the meanings of the racial descriptor "Asian", not an overview of ethnic groups in Asia. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 20:07, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  'Asian' is not a 'racial descriptor'. And even if it were, Wikipedia has no business imposing outdated ideas of 'race' in articles on people. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:35, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Here in Australia, and I believe in the USA too, "Asian" simply had the geographic meaning of something (or someone) from the continent of Asia up until the 1970s. At that time a nicer descriptor had to be found after the Vietnam War for people who looked like they came from China or Vietnam or places around those areas. Sensible people realised that continuing to use the wartime propaganda based descriptors of "Slopes", or "Gooks", etc, just wasn't nice. So "Asian" was adopted to mean such people. Therefore it IS a racial descriptor, in the American sense. The word has multiple meanings, and trying to pin it down here is probably an impossible task. HiLo48 (talk) 22:29, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  It is a word that is used to categorise and describe someone's race; I don't see how it could not be a racial descriptor. And regardless of whether racial groupings have any merit, they are still notable, and Wikipedia should still cover them. Having an article on a topic is not an endorsement of the topic. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 00:07, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  It obviously CAN be used in a way that's not a racial descriptor. It can mean someone or something from the continent of Asia. HiLo48 (talk) 01:21, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  My apologies; I wasn't specific enough — I meant that I didn't see how it could be unable to be used as a racial descriptor, not that I didn't see how it could be used as something other than a racial descriptor. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 02:33, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  The problem is that 'Asian' isn't even a 'racial categorisation'. It is used that way sometimes - to describe widely-differing groups of people, in entirely different contexts. Giving the article the title 'Asians' sure looks like an endorsement to me. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:14, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Who decrees what labels of people are racial categorisations? HiLo48 (talk) 01:25, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I would think that significant coverage in reliable sources of the term being used as such would be a good indication that it is. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 02:37, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Oh. The title and lede made me imagine it was something different. If this article is about the racial descriptor, than that should definitely be indicated in the title, e.g. "Asians (racial term)", or "Asians (racial descriptor)" or "Asians (ethnic descriptor)". The article title is completely misleading otherwise. I'd fully expect this to be a breakdown of population and ethnic groups in Asia. Walrasiad (talk) 00:21, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm rather coming around to the same conclusion. This article seems not to be about Asian people at all. It is about the misuse of the term by people who aren't Asian. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:23, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Just wondering what YOU meant by your final word there? ;-) Serious question. HiLo48 (talk) 01:26, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Well, there's the problem - 'Asian' can mean several different things. Mostly Eastern-not-European, per the geographer's social construct. Which is of course arbitrary, but at least mostly agreed. There are countries that are in 'Asia' by common agreement, which would, one might think, make their inhabitants 'Asian'. Not necessarily what people tend to mean though. Which makes me wonder - what percentage of the population of Asian countries consider 'being Asian' as a meaningful part of their identity? Do the inhabitants of Uzbekistan see themselves as sharing something with Sri Lankans and Koreans that they don't share with Finns or Egyptians? Ultimately, I think that 'Asian' may be largely an exonym, and a hopelessly vague one at that. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:09, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I agree with "hopelessly vague". HiLo48 (talk) 02:14, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm also coming to agree with that. The article, as it currently is, is not actually about ethnic groups in Asia (which is its own article); it's about how the term "Asian" is and has been used. I would support moving it to a title like those you suggested — preferably using "racial", not "ethnic", because "Asian" isn't an ethnicity. I would personally suggest Asian (racial classification). Tol (talk | contribs) @ 02:41, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  No. I come from a country where people are not given official racial or ethnic labels. It's delightful, it works, and makes it much harder for the racists to do their thing. We also have our article on Race telling us "there is a broad scientific agreement that essentialist and typological conceptions of race are untenable". Wikipedia should be avoiding creating any more articles about unscientific bigotry. HiLo48 (talk) 04:03, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I strongly disagree. I believe that, following our notability guideline, Wikipedia should absolutely have articles on topics that are notable, regardless of whether or not they are "unscientific bigotry". If they are indeed unscientific and bigoted, we should neutrally and factually describe them as such and explain why they are wrong, not ignore them altogether. For example, see the articles on Scientific racism, Racial policy of Nazi Germany, and Anti-miscegenation laws, among (quite unfortunately) many others. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 05:01, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Which sources are you going to cite on 'Asian' being a 'racial classification'? AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:37, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't really about racial classification, this is about a colloquial term used by certain people (primarily Anglosphere whites) as a descriptor of a race (or rather, a phenotype). Whom it pertains to varies by locality. I am not sure it is enough for an encyclopedic article. It seems more suitable as an entry for a dictionary of slang and colloquialisms. Walrasiad (talk) 16:18, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yup. The article seems to be trying (rather unsuccessfully) to document that way 'Asian' has been used as a descriptor for people, in many varied contexts. It isn't about people, it is about a word, and its differing usages. It appears to cite no sources discussing this in any depth. Arguably it is WP:OR. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:46, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'd point to pretty much every example in the article for sources on how it's used as a racial classification. I would also agree that the article is essentially a collection of examples on the usage of the word "Asian". If sources can be found that specifically cover the variance in usage of the term "Asian", then this could likely be rewritten using them (and hopefully moved to clarify that this page is about usage of the term). Otherwise, perhaps redirecting this to Ethnic groups in Asia would be appropriate? Tol (talk | contribs) @ 22:17, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is a useful discussion. It made me look up 'Africans', 'Europeans', 'African people', 'European people' and some other similar titles. 'African people' redirects to 'Demographics of Africa'; 'European people' is a disambiguation page; 'Africans' redirects to 'African', which is a disambiguation page that suggests 'Ethnic groups of Africa', 'Demographics of Africa' and 'African diaspora' for articles on people; 'Europeans' redirects to 'Ethnic groups in Europe'; 'North Americans' redirects to 'North America'; 'North American people' redirects to 'Indigenous peoples of the Americas'. Based on this, I struggle to see why we have an article on Asians/Asian people that isn't even about people. EddieHugh (talk) 19:42, 23 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@AndyTheGrump, maybe AfD as WP:WHATWIKIPEDIAISNOT? Valereee (talk) 20:10, 23 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Given the way AfD's generally go, I very much doubt that would be productive. It would be overrun with people arguing that 'Asians' are obviously notable. Which they are, in the sense that you can no doubt find mountains of sources referring to people as such. It is extremely difficult to persuade people that articles are supposed to be about clearly-defined subjects, rather than words or phrases used in all sorts of contexts to mean all sorts of different things. I know, because I've tried and failed in the past. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:48, 23 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well, hopefully the closer will at minimum take a look at what Masem said above: this move doesn't take into account what the article is actually about, and apparently neither the proposer nor the support voters seem to have read the actual article to realize that. Valereee (talk) 22:03, 23 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@EddieHugh Maybe the point of comparison isn't "Europeans" or "Africans", but rather "White people" and "Black people", which are doubtless racial/ethnic descriptors. In which case, I would reiterate my proposal to move this to "Asians (racial descriptor)" or "Asians (racial term)" or "Asians (ethnic descriptor)", and adjust the lede accordingly. Walrasiad (talk) 22:25, 23 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

PS - the same user who proposed the move "Asian people" to "Asians" seems to have simultaneously proposed to move "White people" to "Whites" and Black people" to "Blacks". Clearly there is race on the mind in these three moves. Walrasiad (talk) 22:31, 23 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Which sources are you proposing to cite discussing 'Asians' as a 'racial term' etc? AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:40, 23 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oh I don't have any. And don't care enough to look for them. I'd personally AfD this page, since I don't think it is an encyclopedic topic. But given there is little chance of that, I am just proposing alternative titles that are less misleading than the current one as to its content. It evidently seems to have already fooled many !voters here (including myself!). Walrasiad (talk) 22:51, 23 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose "Asians" - Too informal, to the point of being offensive to some, and I agree that it puts the title out of sync with other races (white people, black people, for example), which as far as inconsistencies go, is a rather dangerous precedent to set, as it appears to single out a single group. (Just want to note that even if the article isn't about ethnic groups, but the descriptor itself, I still doubt the majority of our readers will immediately understand that). ASUKITE 19:26, 28 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. The topic of this article is not an ethnicity or single homogeneous group, and as noted above the term "Asians" has wildly differing and sometimes offensive connotations. As an aside, I'm not even sure this page is particularly useful, it's very short and, as noted, doens't really refer to an actual people. Could really just redirect to Asia#Demographics or similar.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:57, 31 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]