Category talk:Anasazi

Latest comment: 17 years ago by Huebi

According to the Wikipedia article for Anasazi, the term is perjorative, and not even a word from any tribe of the present day Anasazi. It is a Navajo term and literally means enemy, and today is taken as an insult by members of tribes whose ancestors were Anasazi. Conforming to our NPOV policy, "Anasazi" as a insult is an unacceptable title of a Commons category, just as are any other terms intended to be hurtful. Ignorance of the nature of the insult is no excuse.


The venue for debating the subject ought to be the wiki used by the country where such terms originate. This one originated in lands now occupied by the United states and most speakers of these native languages are bilingual only to english. For these reasons, the authority on the proper term to choose is the english wikipedia. Further talk and discussion may be found on the talk page page referenced above, now renamed to "Ancient Pueblo Peoples". I was not a party to the discussion but respect the collective decision reached there. -Mak 16:10, 6 August 2006 (UTC)Reply

If I call somebody a Neanderthal man, I assume he will not take it as a compliment. In spite of this, we 'll keep the Category:Homo neanderthalensis.
So, I consider the pejorative term argument as a very poor argument. Anasazi is above all an imprecise term : this is a good reason to avoid it. However, “ancient pueblo people” is even more imprecise, so it's not an appropriate candidate for the replacement.
I suggest the scheme :
Category:Pueblos -> Category:Culture of Pueblos -> Category:ancient culture of Pueblos -> Category:ancient culture of Pueblos by location
--Juiced lemon 11:50, 8 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
I add this link : http://www.co.blm.gov/ahc/anasazi.htm#Who. --Juiced lemon 14:04, 8 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Anasazi is the term a lot of tribes are naming their ancients, so this term is precise. You can find this term in many books about anvient indian tribes, the big ones are Anasazi and the other ones are Fremont People. I talked to navajo peolple and the themselves are calling their ancient anasazi. There is nothing NPOV in this term and i'm wondering that people who have no clue about this are taking decisions here. I do not care what some guys (in america) are taking in decisoon, this has no effect to commons. I have the opinion that commons is some kind of private institue and those who have bots and admins status are prssuring their opinion without having knowledge about. Is this going same way war against irak was going? Some idiots are taking wrong decision and thew whole world has to obey and to follow? For me it seems so, that some guys in the us are still thinking they are king and world police, not only in politics, but in commons too. There is no reason to avoid anasazi, it describes an ancient tribe, its their name given by themselves and used by indian tribes today. The decision taken in en:WP is ridiculous and worthless for the rest of the world, if they dont want to use it, they should do that in their WP. Whats next? Is someone entering de:WP and will delete everything about the ansaszi in de:WP? First: read about what your are talking about, then you have to understand what you read. --Huebi 05:24, 9 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
The term “Anasazi” comes from Navajo language. I think that this term was not originally pejorative. The issue is that Anasazis are not Navajo ancestors, but Pueblos ancestors. The Navajo language is particularly distinct from other native american languages. Therefore, when you say “Anasazi is the term a lot of tribes are naming their ancients”, I can't believe you.
The purpose of Wikimedia Commons is to provide media files to other wikis, no more. We don't need an Anasazi category to do that. --Juiced lemon 14:28, 9 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
If you dont believe me, just go there and ask them. I cant beleive that here a decision is taken from people who never spoke to navajo, who never syed there. Only because some idiots in the usa or elsewhere stat that ansazi is a whatever term, that has no menaing to the rest of the world. usa is not the police of the world nor the police of commons. --Huebi 13:37, 18 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Datapoint on myself- I am not an admin on commons, nor have any interest in becoming one.
Someone could come in and present us a clear, convincing and documented case that Anasazi is the correct term to use. In my opinion, we shouldn't try and decide these issues on commons. We should decide the authority upon which we choose names, and authority which allows such issues to be debated. I don't care if this means such issues are determined on the French Wikipedia- just so that the rules for going to one wiki or another for a name are clear to all parties involved. If they are unhappy with the name chosen, they can take their cases to the wiki that is the authority and argue it there. If they get the article name changed, Commons will undertake a category move.
So in my opinion the details of this debate are in the wrong venue. If people want to make these points, they should study the debate on w:Ancient Pueblo Peoples and make their comments and arguments about whether the term is or is not pejorative etc. there. If it is not pejorative, it will come as some surprise to the writers of the other wikis. EG. The french wiki states "... jugé trop péjoratif pour désigner ses propres ancêtres.", or the spanish... "Los indios hopi utilizan más bien la palabra "Hisatsinom" ya que consideran la palabra anasazi como despectiva." It's pejorative alright.
The neanderthal w:reductio ad absurdum argument. Let's substitute a pejorative name for people who currently exist and see if the same principle applies. "If I call somebody a [Kike], I assume he will not take it as a compliment. In spite of this, we 'll keep the Category:Homo Kike-is." I know of no cases of botanical names that anyone considers pejorative. There are no members of the set "neanderthal man" to be offended. -Mak 04:45, 10 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
Since the National Park Service uses "Ancestral Puebloan people" or "Ancestral Pueblo people", I think that the similar "Ancient pueblo people" should prevail. [1][2] One of these sites (Navajo NM) is on the Navajo Reservation, by the way. --Wsiegmund 20:38, 19 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
This is the first I have heard that anyone considers the term Anasazi to be pejorative...maybe the Navaho translation is, but not sure how the Hopi and other Native American groupd feel about it. I always thought Anasazi was the correct term, but since they were people that lived in the southwestern U.S. and the en.wiki article Anasazi redirects to Ancient Pueblo Peoples, then this wiki commons image gallery should also redirect to Category:Ancient Pueblo Peoples.--MONGO 04:56, 21 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
What an argumentation. Cause Bush said, Irak has nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, the wohle world has to follow. Because some nasty guy in en:wp decided that anasazi is a prejorative term, whole commns is changing the categoeies. Waht will happen next? What if th arabian Wp decides that they areoffended by jewish people and the would like to chage the category to eliminate all those cats belonging to isreal or if china wants to elimainate all cats belonging to nepal? Some guys in the USA are crying und deciding some thing and a lot of idiots havi nothing to do but to follow them obeying like little dogs. I dont wanna waste my time with idiots any more, do want you want, rename your cats and be happy that you have something to do folloing unprooved statements with admin rights and bots and dont care about the truth. i will leave this fucking project and dont spend any more time, cuase its unsure what will happen next and which decision made in en:wp will make all the work non valuable. farewell and thanks for the fish. --Huebi 05:24, 21 August 2006 (UTC)Reply

I think you said that before when several folks objected to your insistence that categories be eliminated from these same pages. Now categories are ok, only they can only be named the way you like them.

Here's what you said last March: "You can do what you want. I will not spend any more time in any wikipedia. --Huebi 17:35, 29 March 2006 (UTC)" [3]

Until next we meet, -Mak 08:31, 21 August 2006 (UTC)Reply

I hope this will never happen again, nor here, nor elsewhere. Even after a scond try i'm convinced that spending work here or elsewhere is just wasting time. Again and again fools, idiots and apple-polishers are popping up. You must be totally bored to dig in old discussion or recatogirizing things where you dont have a glue and just give arguments like a parrot from hat you read in en:WP. So do what you want to do, i dont care. --Huebi 08:40, 21 August 2006 (UTC)Reply

Map edit

The other day when I glanced here, there was a map (in Spanish) with areas designated for the Anasazi, Hohokam and Mogollon cultures. Don't see it now. Can someone point me to it? Thanks. 207.200.116.5 20:21, 9 August 2006 (UTC) from Wikipedia.Reply

As there is a dispute about the category name (see above), the contents of the category are unfortunately split over two places. Check Category:Ancient pueblo people as well, but I think you mean Image:Anasazi.svg (that one is in French though)? If you'd like me to translate it into some other language drop me a line on my talk page specifying what needs to be translated to what. NielsF 20:35, 9 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
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