Talk:Q7840353

State/country?

This item is completely not-understandable outside North America. If they are states, why then we see here

⟨ subject ⟩ country (P17) ⟨ United States of America (Q30)    ⟩

? --Infovarius (talk) 13:20, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Need for appropriate reference citation

Federal recognition of Native American Tribes in the United States is an important but sometimes challenging topic. It is an important classifier to be used in declaring an instance of claim for Wikidata items representing Tribes. The primary source of origin on this designation comes from the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs in the form of Notices published in the Federal Register. In attempting to make sense of existing Wikidata items and Wikipedia articles representing Tribes, I have clarified a couple of previous items for the key Federal Register notice (1979 and 2018) and added a new item for the latest notice in 2022.

Ideally, for all Wikidata items representing U.S. Federally recognized Tribes, we should see this item used for instance of classification with at least one "stated in" reference pointing to one of the items representing the appropriate Federal Register notice where the Tribe was listed. Many items representing Tribes may list multiple references to the different FR notices through time where they have been listed. This is important for a wide variety of reasons including cases where the U.S. Federal Government as "de-listed" a Tribe only to reinstate the Tribal status with the Federal Government at a later time. Skybristol (talk) 15:58, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Schema Considerations

As I'm working through how current items representing U.S. federally recognized Tribes are organized along with identifying new items that need to be added, I'm exploring what a thorough representation of Tribes should look like in Wikidata. My primary motivation here is part of research and development work I am doing on how Native American Sovereign Nations can be better represented as political entities with specific government-to-government relationships with the United States and with other State, County, and Local governments within their territories. The current representation of Tribes as sovereign entities with established governments is not at all consistent in Wikidata (or Wikipedia) today in terms of basic classification using instance of statements and other characteristics. I'm working through items systematically, starting with this category of U.S. government recognition to develop a more thorough concept for their basic schema with the goal of better recognition of these entities as political in nature vs. ethnic or racial entities. The ethnic dimension of Tribes and their history is also important and needs attention. We also need to address the issue of Tribes still seeking Federal recognition that may be currently recognized by a U.S. State and even the U.S. Census in some circumstances.

From the standpoint of Tribes as political entities, I am looking at the following specific dynamics:

• Use this classification item (Q7840353) deliberately only for those Wikidata items that represent the Tribe as an entity that can be referenced to one or more items representing Federal Register Notices where the BIA has posted listings over time
• Include an official web site wherever possible (some can be found from the BIA's source of Tribal Leaders but need verification) as this represents the best source of how the Tribe presents themselves to the world, describes their governance structure, and shares important foundational documents such as their constitution(s) or other forming documents
• Include one or more foundational text (P457) claims linking to items representing the Tribe's constitution or other formational documents (under the Indian Reorganization Act) and specific Treaties through which the government-to-government relationships with the United States are defined; these often require new items to be created representing those documents and providing links to text or Wikisource items to be created to make older documents accessible
• When a specific reservation exists as a geographic entity, distinguish this from the Tribe as a political entity, linking the item representing the political entity to the item representing the reservation as a P131 claim. (I'm not currently adding new items representing Native American Tribal Reservation lands as this needs its own study and careful consideration.)
• Include a headquarters location (P159) claim indicating the city/state where the Tribal Government headquarters is located.
• Dates are important for this schema, but I have not yet determined the best course. Some Tribal entities in Wikidata include an inception date but few have adequate references. An important date in the context I am pursuing here (better representation of Tribes as sovereign entities with functioning governments) are the dates associated with the most current constitution which established self-government by the Tribe under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. For now, I will try to establish this as a date associated with that document and its claim associated with the Tribe.
• Government leadership and organization are also important concepts to capture. The BIA Tribal Leaders dataset includes this information, though it is out of date in some cases. Some Wikipedia articles for Tribes have fairly good information while others are lacking this element. Some Wikidata Web sites operated by the Tribes are usually the best source with accurate and fully contextual information. Some properties I am thinking about include office held by head of government, executive body, legislative body, and highest judicial authority. Some Tribes have formed this type of representative democratic form of government while others have taken different approaches or various types of hybrid. There are specific precedents set such as the item representing the executive head of the Cherokee Nation, but I need to work out how this has been addressed throughout Wikidata currently.
• Many Tribes also have significant government-to-government relationships with other governmental jurisdictions (e.g., U.S. States, Counties, localities) both within and sometimes beyond reservation boundaries. These could potentially be documented as diplomatic relation claims. They are often administered by a Secretary of State within Tribal Government or similar position. What I want to work out is the appropriate way to reference and qualify these claims to some appropriate source. A specific test case I am examining is the set of agreements on traffic violations and other law enforcement matters developed by the Cherokee Nation with specific localities throughout the CN Reservation. These require a Wikidata representation for the Cherokee Nation Code and Legislative Acts for proper sourcing of the claims.

Skybristol (talk) 17:58, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Indigenous Data Sovereignty

It is important for Tribes to exercise ownership (sovereignty) over the records related to themselves as political entities, governments, and people in the "Global Knowledge Commons" (Wikipedia, Wikidata, etc.). What I am exploring currently are some basic principles related to one aspect of Native American Tribes in the United States. Because of how the records in Wikidata have been introduced as various contributors have had need, they are not consistent and there are some definite categorical mistakes that need to be addressed. For instance, there are places where a Tribe as a political entity and its sovereign government was introduced first as the Reservation lands established under Treaty or other action with the U.S. Government. There are even cases where a record for a Tribe seems to have been initially introduced by way of a Commons record for a casino business operated by the Tribe. These issues all need to be corrected, preferably by someone who is a member of and representative for the Tribe. I am only a citizen of one Tribe (Cherokee Nation) and am mainly concerned in my work here in exploring and documenting a few design principles that I feel qualified to pursue. I am deliberately not correcting some of the issues that I find, instead seeking to establish a baseline classification structure that can be exploited in subsequent queries to expose where issues need to be addressed by more qualified contributors. Skybristol (talk) 18:55, 25 August 2023 (UTC)