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Request Polls

I'm preferring to take the approach of a Scantron test sheet or the U.S. Census Bureau. I'm looking at this more from a racial standpoint than an ethnic one; I'd rather there be a condensed amount of options than there be so many.

Well, the big problem is here that we Americans tend to see race as a lot simpler than it is - the checkboxes on the questionnaires only ever use broad, meaningless categories.

If you really wanted anything useful, the list gets big fast. Off the top of my head:

Germanic(Anglo, French, Scandanavian, etc)
Slavic(Russian, Polish, Serbian, etc)
Gaelic
Semitic(Arabian, Jewish, etc)
Iranian
Turkish
East Asian
Polynesian/Pacific Islander
Indian
Black African
North African
American Indian
Hispanic
Australian Aboriginal

And that list is still woefully incomplete.

If you really wanted anything useful, the list gets big fast.

At best you're asking for a skintone poll; more likely you'd just end up with pure noise.

You have to draw the line somewhere with such a list because of how large it would be. There should be as little of a problem with someone from China choosing Asian with someone from Saudi Arabia choosing Asian. I see no issue because both are from the Asian continent.

There's a fine line between race and ethnicity, a very fine line, which we Americans, reiterating what you'd said Polycell, tend to cross over inadvertently. Most of those you'd mentioned on that list are ethnicities.

There's the problem, apparently. It's not intended to be useful. It'd be more out of interest than anything. It's not intended to be provocative, it's not supposed to cause a stir, Hell, it isn't even intended to start a conversation! (When I said I was coming from the angle of a Scantron sheet, I meant it; neutrality here above all else.) However, people will say what they want to. We should be able to have a peaceful dialogue about this if we want to. In the end, yes, they are just "skin tones", right?

Tenbyakugon wrote:

You have to draw the line somewhere with such a list because of how large it would be. There should be as little of a problem with someone from China choosing Asian with someone from Saudi Arabia choosing Asian. I see no issue because both are from the Asian continent.

Then the "Asian" answer might as well not exist and be folded into "other". It's a big continent(plus the subcontinent) and the various races are worlds apart.

Quote:

There's a fine line between race and ethnicity, a very fine line, which we Americans, reiterating what you'd said Polycell, tend to cross over inadvertently. Most of those you'd mentioned on that list are ethnicities.

The technical fact that race is a subcomponent of ethnicity aside, most of those are not mere cultural groups. "Germanic" and "Slavic" are racial groups, as are "American Indian" and "Black African"(easily the two broadest groups on my list). I did name a few specific races, but honestly I don't know what group the Turks fall into besides "not Semitic", I don't know of any other actual Aryan races but the Iranians and the Aborigines are hardly African. "Black" and "white" are not races.

Quote:

There's the problem, apparently. It's not intended to be useful. It'd be more out of interest than anything. It's not intended to be provocative, it's not supposed to cause a stir, Hell, it isn't even intended to start a conversation! (When I said I was coming from the angle of a Scantron sheet, I meant it; neutrality here above all else.) However, people will say what they want to. We should be able to have a peaceful dialogue about this if we want to. In the end, yes, they are just "skin tones", right?

My wording is hardly relevant to my point - your ultrabroad categories fail to produce anything but meaningless noise. Would a poll about ANN users' racial backgrounds be interesting? Yes. Would a "which continent did your ancestors come from" poll be interesting? Almost certainly not.