Talk:Nonperson

Redirect?

dictionary.com meriam webster uses nonperson spelling. --Calm 21:29, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Agree The dictionary spelling would be a preferable title. I checked the "what links here" for both titles and more articles linked to nonperson than to non-person. I've gone ahead and moved the article. I have also manually changed the links in other articles to the new destination so no link-driven redirects should occur now. Tobycat 05:37, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

POV cleanup

This is a good encyclopedic topic and the original contributions provides a decent framework for building a good article. It is a little concerning that none of the material is backed up by sources and some of the language used reflects a POV.

Some examples from the version as of 5 June 2005:

• "Though rare, there are examples of "non-persons" even in the so-called "western" industrialized countries." In this case, "so-called" reflects POV.
• "Such can be the case of a state versus homeless or marginal people or it can be extended and applied versus an entire nation or ethnic group, as it often happens in wars or other conflicts. This was the case for example of the Nazi state versus the Jews or of most societies versus the Gypsies...". Here the text is equating the treatment of homeless people, prostitutes, ethnic groups, and European Jews in World War II.

There's also a fair amount of broad generalization to narrow down and cite. Tobycat 04:00, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In order to reduce the POV nature, I edited that section title (was The case of the "civilized" world and is now The case of industrialized countries) and pulled out so-called "western" since removing those words does not change the meaning of the sentence, but removes POV. --Habap 20:26, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Copy Editing

I also removed the copy edit flag because the spelling, grammar and punctuation all seems correct. It might be able to use reorganization or removal of POV, but I think it's fine copy. --Habap 20:26, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Deleted POV warning

I've deleted the POV warning because it all seemed pretty NPOV to me. If anyone disagrees please feel free to add it back in.

--81.129.111.90 19:33, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Nineteen Eighty-Four Reference

I've addeed a reference to Orwell under the "erased from existence" category. There's striking similarity between "non-person" and his word "unperson". Kazhivlad 22:51, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Any sources?

This is interesting article, but it does not cite anything, whereas some statements are questionable. Can anyone provide some sources, please?Biophys 20:59, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Split article?

This article deals with two different subjects:

• People who are dehumanized and denied rights ("a person or a member of a group who lacks, loses, or is forcibly denied social or legal status, especially basic human rights")
• People who are disappeared (e.g. Covert abduction by government), and/or denied to have ever existed.

The article is a mess because it jumps between talking about these two things. It should be split. There are probably already existing articles for the topics it discusses anyway. —Pengo 03:02, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Demonization

That paragraph on demonization lends itself to POV, to say the least. "An example of this is the demonization of the Serbs during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, which led to the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999." is an impressively controversial statement, and other statements regarding Palestinians in Israeli-occupied territories have been added and removed in the past. 18.95.7.168 (talk) 01:16, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

non sequitur

>making them appear to be sub-human (not humans), and thus indirectly rationalizing any excess or abuse committed against them
How exactly does the second part of the sentence follow from the first, even indirectly? What is the justification that non-humans (animals, plants, spirits, gods, demons, angels, and so on) deserve abuse? This is not rational.
Nonki72 (talk) 17:46, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

So, would you like to remove it or rephrase it? If rephrasing is your choice, what would you suggest? What would be ideal is if you could find a citation that covers the idea and draft some prose based on it. What is there now is lacking any citation and so just the thoughts of some random Wikipedia editor. Per WP:OR and WP:UNSOURCED we can just remove it and any statement lacking citation in the article. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 02:41, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Original research, accuracy concerns

I have noticed that the "Ways to become" section is completely unreferenced, likely constitutes original research, and consists mostly of implausible occurences. Should I remove it? –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 07:25, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes, LaundryPizza03, please remove. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:45, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Legal Status

>implicitly a normative statement; by doing so, it is implied simultaneously that the person referred to is entitled to the rights that any person should have.
the word imply is used here twice literally (implicitly; implied), and it is being implied that there is cause for this. what is actually being implied is that people should not have rights. here the hidden assumption is that people don't have rights. when a nonperson is declared, rights are given to the compliment set - in other words restriction is put in place on that person (who is not a person), and the others have gained nothing. the point is that rights are simply limitations put on certain people, obfuscated by a simple logical negation.
btw is there a blame command in wikipedia like in git? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nonki72 (talk • contribs) 18:57, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

So how would you change it? And can you provide a WP:RS to support it?

As for the git blame function, I take it can you wish to find out who added this statement. There is a "View history" tab at the top of the article, but you would have to hunt through it to find who made the change. I do not know if anyone have made any way of searching the history. Usually one just changes what one does not like and if the person or persons paying attention to the article notice, they will make themselves known then. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 02:53, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I would write that, as a first draft, the following: By nature, people don't have any rights. It is freedom and there are no assurances or guarantees. When order is instituted, it may be effected by limiting freedoms to designated peoples. The amount and quality of freedoms enjoyed are called rights. When there is no clear hierarchy (as in a fiefdom) or other defined power structure (such as religion), there is no one real or imaginary who is guaranteeing those rights. Since there is no person - only a seat, a flag, or some other symbol/office - the people do not accept. They strive for more rights for their own and promise each other rights in order to gain rights for themselves, as many rulers have done. Rather than wars between kingdoms, constant infighting is the status quo. This sort of society is designed for upward mobility. However, there is very little true freedom due to the complexity of the constantly changing and mostly hidden power structure. It is hidden because, when an influential person is well known they may be seen as a conquest. Even if it is by a small group, the well-known partial ruler's freedom becomes limited. A nonperson could be one who seeks complete secrecy in order to conceal their power so as to reduce their vulnerable surface area, or someone who is being persecuted for refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the power structure.

Reliable Source: the constitution

This writing style obviates the need to leave or counter what is currently written on the page regarding implied truths. I have left out the additive nature of rights, where the active assumption is that while men are equal, they are equally and completely without freedom unless given it by another in the form of rights. It is truly the opposite: all men are born with all freedoms whether or not they have rights. How can one man without freedom (by his own assertion) have any power to bestow it upon another? Rights are nothing but a mechanism to restrict the other's freedom while maintaining the visage of respectability - that the nature of law (even up to the original, the law of Moses). The supposed solution to this conundrum is to obtain the freedom from God. But alas, how can a man without any freedom obtain it from a deity with complete freedom, even to such a degree that he is allowed to dole it out as he sees fit? This is nothing but a threat to restrict God's freedom. And so, this topic is worthy of a treatise in itself and was omitted. Instead it is written by construction, based on the sole assumption that "all men are created equal". Also supporting the assertion that people do not have rights by nature is the fact that Native American society operated without rights before colonization. It may be so that since the indigenous people did not acknowledge the concept of rights, they were considered nonpersons. This would imply that the natives hold no right to the land which was then dubbed 'America'. Perhaps more references could be added at each critical point.

Archaic Indians apparently did not make class or status distinctions between themselves for political or social purposes. They also did not centralize political power into the hands of dominant leaders.

native-american-government-first-origins based on Alice Kehoe, North American Indians: A Comprehensive Account (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1981)

Nonki72 (talk) 00:18, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Do you understand Wikipedia's policy regarding original research? See WP:OR. Also this article is about basically a sociological concept concerning discrimination. We need to stick to concepts as presented in mainstream scholarly sources. Can you present any of those? I do understand the section in question has no citations. Really if you do not like it, we could just remove it. Really the article is just a WP:UNSOURCED definition in the lead, the section in question and then some examples. We could just nominate the article for deletion. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 05:11, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Large part deleted as likely OR

I recently removed two sub-sections of the Examples section and one additional paragraph as unreferenced and presumptive original research, including editorializing and presumptuous language; I had already removed another section in December 2018, as noted above. Do not re-add any of the content without reliable references; I'd suggest starting with finding an RS which explicity designates the Erased of post-Soviet Slovenia as nonpersons. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 03:12, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

Eh, I'll contact WP:ORN. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 03:20, 11 July 2021 (UTC)