Talk:Light skin

RfC about citing additional new published sources I have found about the light skin percentages in average East Asians, merging some citations and other minor changes in words . Clearing some things up. Few questions too (made a fresh new talk page specifically for "request for comment")

Good day, I am new to wikipedia (4 days old right now) which means that I am not 100% familiar with coding citations and not sure which kind of sources to use for citations. I believe this topic about "light skin" is related to science specifically biology or anatomy not sure. I recommend reading the full page talk page here:

I wanted to add a new topic and i prefer to discuss this with a different contributor (i recommend a contributor who knows a lot about topics related to human body especially skin pigmentation types or skin tones or skin undertones) because there is a user named Biosaurt who refuses me to edit that small part of the article, he wants his edits to stay and all I just wanted to do is to improve some teeny tiny parts of the article. I reason I ask for Rfc is because the talk page isn't active and I dont want to engage in dispute or edit-warring risks, instead I would like this to be finally resolved. I need assurance about this from any fellow contributor who knows a lot about my topic. And I am always keen on improving the article, I really hope this discussion would be in a neutral point of view, constructive, and non-biased.

1. 1: Are these published sources i have found valid?

1) Skin phototype of average korean: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5597652/#:~:text=Among%20Koreans%2C%20according%20to%20the,mechanical%20trauma%20or%20laser%20treatment

2) another published study about the skin type of average korean: https://www.koreamed.org/SearchBasic.php?RID=2303247

3) average skin type of japanese, https://www.biteki.com/skin-care/trouble/299606. The source is in japanese language not english, i will provide the translated text here:

4) another different study of skin type found in average chinese: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16869866/

is citation merging the 2 published studies i have found about average skin phototype in koreans possible as well? Help:Citation_merging

1. 2: Now there is a portion on article that says "Light skin is most commonly found amongst the native populations of Europe, East Asia,"

is it preferred to write it as "parts of East Asia" or leave it as "East Asia" only? because according to the 2 published studies Biosaurt founded as well as the published sources I have founded above, majority of them commonly fall somewhere near the moderate skin phototype (which is type III, some are IV) based on both Biosaurt's sources and the sources I have found as well.

2 out of 3 SOURCES Biosaurt published which is correct, he only cited 2 sources about Chinese, 1 about Korean, none for Japanese. That's why I wanted to cite sources as long as there are texts about skin pigmentation.

Rainbluetiful (talk) 16:10, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Personally, I like when the article speaks about genes, evolution, etc. and do not like the part where the methodology is subjective questionnaires, even if they are used in a scientific manner. Again, I am not expert on the subject. It's just my first impression. Dominic Mayers (talk) 16:36, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Oh I see, I couldn't find articles about frequencies of skin pigmentation that doesnt have surveys or methodologies.

I also removed the other replies by accident :( too. Wondering how do i revert them back. Rainbluetiful (talk) 16:42, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Methodologies and subjective questionnaires are two different things. Dominic Mayers (talk) 17:20, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

@Rainbluetiful: Judging by the history of this page, you kept on changing your mind about what you wanted to ask, and whilst editing and re-editing your initial post, you did on occasion remove a number of things that should have been left alone. It's also been creating havoc with the RfC listings and notifications. I am having great difficulty working out what you are trying to ask here, and your RfC statement is far from being brief. You have written I am new to wikipedia (4 days old right now) which I feel is far too little experience to raise a full-blown thirty-day formal RfC, no matter what the actual problem is.

I am removing the {{rfc}} tag. If you want to discuss potential improvements to the article content, do so here; if you want help about editing Wikipedia, try either WP:TEAHOUSE or WP:HD. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:23, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

I can't talk in this articles talk page because it's not active unfortantely and i also have a dispute. thats one of the reasons why I use the RfC. Iwill be brief about my questions here and I will ask the main questions here:

FIRST QUESTION: I just wanted to make minor changes about the article. Basically I wanted to add additional sources I have found (I wanted to know if these 4 additional sources I have found are valid to use for this article) and help about merging some of them. Or citation merging.

SECOND QUESTION: i also wanted to ask if it's better to say "parts of East Asia" due to being more specific or just leave it as "East Asia". That's all.

Because the reason why I added an RfC is because i just want to solve the dispute with Biosaurt :( Seems the only place to ask this is without worsening the dispute is the RfC, and if I edit the article again Biosaurt would keep reverting it. i am sorry for changing some stuff. And i would recommend talking to another contributor who knows very well about these kinds of subjects too (especially science biology about human body) Is it allowed to create a separate RfC page again about this? Or add another RfC But this time I am going to make it more brief and only ask the main question, i am also not going to modify my edits again.

Rainbluetiful (talk) 00:04, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

The talk page on this article isn't active unfortunately. And I found the RfC after reading something about "dispute resolution". Rainbluetiful (talk) 00:06, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't think WP:TEAHOUSE or WP:HD. Is the right place to talk about this since i am having a dispute with Biosaurt and can these places be used for resolving a dispute?.

And do you know place on Wikipedia where you can find contributors who know about a specific subject (for me i want someone who knows about science specifically biology or human body)?Rainbluetiful (talk) 00:10, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

I contest the neutrality of the following sentence (and most likely of other sentences) in the article: "Light skin is most commonly found amongst the native populations of Europe, East Asia, West Asia, Central Asia, and Siberia as measured through skin reflectance." A point that is often made in sources is the correlation in native population between light skin and the distance from the equator. Rarely, the continents are mentioned. But, in addition, given the importance of migration, that correlation, even if it is true, does not reflect at all the distribution of light skin in the world. Dominic Mayers (talk) 16:06, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Any article entitled 'light skin' is going to have such problems. It appears to be an attempt to concoct some sort of scientific classification from sources that don't support it. Wikipedia should have one article, and only one article, on variations in human skin colour. One that doesn't perpetuate arbitrary pseudoscientific racist categorisations. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:17, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Actually there are other 2 other seperate articles about skin tone such as "olive skin" and "dark skin" too. There is also a wikipedia article talking about all the skin tones: Human_skin_color Rainbluetiful (talk) 17:42, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

I am well aware that there are multiple articles on the same topic. This is contrary to Wikipedia policy. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:15, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

This small portion of that article is probably talking about where light skin is most commonly found among natives of the population or locals excluding immigrants. But according to the published sources I have seen and found, native East Asians commonly (as in the majority) have a skin type that isn't exactly light but more light-moderate or moderate.

If this is a reply about the former RfC I did: I guess it's more preferred to leave it as just East Asia instead of saying "parts of East Asia"? Not sure.

Also according to the wikipedia contributor North8000, .

• "Regarding changing "East Asia" to "parts of East Asia" in "Light skin is most commonly found amongst the native populations of Europe, East Asia"", "commonly found" can have a few different meanings, but IMO the most common of them would be places where it is a very common type. IMO, in this context, "East Asia" is a far reaching statement that it is a very common type in all of east Asia. If there is any significant question regarding this, IMO substituting something else like "parts of East Asia" is just dialing back a bit what is a more controversial farther reaching"

if it really is, then thanks for the tip :)

About the 4 additional published sources I have found for other east asian countries, i am not sure if they are a valid source for this article, and I suggest merging some citations too if it's possible, and I don't know if it's allowed to create another RfC about this. Rainbluetiful (talk) 17:35, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

We are not ready for a RfC at this time. There seems to have an agreement that some Wikipedia rules are violated, but we have not expressed clearly enough how they are violated. I feel "parts of East asia" vs "East asia" is going too much into details at this stage. Why an emphasis on Asia right at the start is a more fundamental question. A related issue is the way the concept of native population is used. The existence of many articles on skin color is also a fundamental issue, but here we must be more specific about the issue, because a WP:content fork is not a violation of any rule in itself. We must show that there is a WP:POV fork. Dominic Mayers (talk) 18:32, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Replying to: "Why an emphasis on Asia right at the start is a more fundamental question."

The word "most commonly found" makes me think about that emphasis because according to published sources both found and provided, the most commonly found skin of East Asians seems to be close to a moderately pigmented skin type, and is seen some certain parts of East Asia such as some peoppe in Western China, some people in Northeast Asia - hence why i am asking if it's preferred to add "part of East Asia" or just leave it as "East Asia" as long as it's understandable.

i might leave this part for now. i don't want to turn this to a big problem. It's fine if there are disagreements about that suggestion.

Probably (not sure) why there are separate articles about skin color such as "light skin" or "dark skin" "olive skin" is because they most probably wanted to show more additional/extra information or sections about these 3 skin tones such as the history on how these skin tones spread, biochemistry, the genes for these skin types, their reaction to sunlight, advantages and disadvantages in some environments, geographical location on where they can be found, some other information. If combined in one article then it would probably be a summary about them along with not having much information about them. I am not sure with my answer. As far as I know, most readers or contributors I have observed don't see that as an issue as long as the information there has sources about this and that it isn't vandalized.

Rainbluetiful (talk) 00:23, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

You misunderstood my point. I am not concerned about "Asia" vs "part of Asia", but about "Asia" (or "part of Asia"), versus Australia, North America, etc. Asia is mentioned 4 times: East-Asia, West-Asia, central-Asia and Siberia (essentially North-Asia). Dominic Mayers (talk) 01:38, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Oh I think i see what you mean now, sorry for that, I find that observation interesting. I am not sure why is Asia mention 4x but i think they are probably separated because Asia is a really big and vast continent, and that light skin commonly occurs in certain parts of West Asia, North Asia/Siberia, East Asia and Central Asia. I also found out that at the same time many West and Central Asians have a moderate pigmentation.

Light skin pigmentation isn't commonly found in native populations of both Southeast and South Asia - hence why they aren't mentioned, instead either moderate, moderate-to-dark or darker skin seems is commonly found in these native groups.

I don't know if it's preferred to reduce the usage/emphasis of the word "Asia" and not sure if re-modifying it is preferred, here are some suggestions reducing it. I would like to ask other active contributors of this article such as maybe Darwgon0801 about these 4 options/suggestions as well, or maybe just leave it the way as it is:

1) "Most commonly found amongst the native populations of Europe and certain locations of Asia (or the Asian continent) such as parts of West, East, Central Asia, and Siberia as measured through skin reflectance."

2) "Most commonly found amongst the native populations of Europe and parts of Asia (or the Asian continent) such as West, East, Central, and North Asia as measured through skin reflectance."

3) "Most commonly found amongst the native populations of Europe and certain regions (or maybe parts/locations) of West, East, Central and North Asia as measured through skin reflectance"

4) ""Most commonly found amongst the native populations of Europe and the regions of West, East, Central and North Asia as measured through skin reflectance"

- i think either options 2 and 4 are better suggestions imo since it's shorter, not sure.

I am always keen on rechecking stuff for improvements. Again thanks for observing the emphasis or the overusage on the word "Asia".

not sure about the ordering of west, central, north and east asia.

Rainbluetiful (talk) 01:46, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

OK, we got your position, which is that there are good reasons, as far a you are concerned, to focus on the details of Asia while Australia, North America, Latine America, Africa, the European part of Russia, etc. are not mentioned at all. This is related to the misuse of the concept of native population, which ignores the important role of migration, for example, in Australia. Dominic Mayers (talk) 13:24, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

I think they are referring to the native local populations (excluding immigrants) when talking about geographic distribution of skin tones.

I think some continents such as North America, Australia, Africa aren't mentioned is because darker skin pigmentation is more common in these native groups. For North and Latin america they are referring to the indigenous peoples i think. Rainbluetiful (talk) 13:44, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

This is a misuse of the notion of native population. Sources mention a correlation in native populations between light skin and the distance to the equator. Even if that correlation is valid, a focus on native populations is already a violation of NPOV, because the majority of people in many countries are not native. Moreover, it would not be sufficient to explain the current lack of NPOV toward Asia. Besides, I have not found a single source that list the main regions in the world with light skin. I would dispute the pertinence of such a list, even if it was not biased. Dominic Mayers (talk) 14:02, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

I have found few sources where the location of the light skin genes (not the pigmentation but genes or alleles related to it) can be found, but this isn't correlated with the geographic location:

1) https://www.search.com.vn/wiki/en/Human_skin_color#SLC24A5 and https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ala111Thr_allele_frequency_distribution0.png (it can also be found in west asia and some east asians it seems, some african and south asian populations too)

• "The SLC24A5 gene's derived Ala111Thr allele (rs1426654) has been shown to be a major factor in light skin pigmentation and is common in Western Eurasia" (from https://www.search.com.vn/wiki/en/Human_skin_color#SLC24A5)

2) SLC24A5 distributions, the gene responsible for light skin (east asians have a different gene for light skin): https://www.popsci.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/18/IZCEC2XC7ZUKM4NAOK22DJAKCQ.jpg?strip=all&quality=95

3) it's also measured using skin reflectance: https://www.waveformlighting.com/film-photography/why-cri-r9-is-so-important-for-skin-tones-a-spectral-analysis, https://www.search.com.vn/wiki/en/Skin_reflectance, https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Skin-reflectance-curves-for-individuals-of-European-East-Asian-South-Asian-and-African_fig8_5800680, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220809441_Spectral_Estimation_of_Skin_Color_with_Foundation_Makeup

4) i have heard somewhere that light skin is more prevalent in regions with less sunlight because light skin can easily get vitamin D absorption from sunlight. Rainbluetiful (talk) 14:18, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

The first sources you give are from Wikipedia. Wikipedia cannot use itself as a source. Moreover, you again enter into details and avoid the main concern regarding NPOV. A key point is that the question "where light skin is found in the world?" and the question "what types of people must be distinguished in the study of light skin?" are two different questions. I did not find much interest toward the first question in sources. Yet, the lede suggests an answer to that question. The second question has no unique answer, some sources say that race is not the answer, and I don't think it should be answered in the lede. Dominic Mayers (talk) 14:44, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Look See Dark skin and Olive skin

Why Global distribution allowed to Mention on these *SKIN* articles, but not Light page? Please Discuss These new changes. I no fight, but want fair Assessments and Standards on all. Thanks. 41.222.177.236 (talk) 14:23, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi, there is a talk page topic called "Non neutral point of view" about it here and you can take a look. You can reply if you want questions and ping Dominic Mayers. We discussed this on the other talk page topic and the reason is that there are not much published sources about the geographical distribution of light skin in native populations to be found.

For the other skin tones such as olive and dark skin sources about the geographic distribution can br found. Maybe thats why. Rainbluetiful (talk) 09:35, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Originally, the lede only mentioned Europe and East Asia as areas with light-skinned people, as the native populations of these areas are firmly established as having light skin by a myriad of scientific articles. In recent months more and more people have been adding their own specific area that they care about the most to the lede, such as West, Central, and North Asia. This has lead to some people attempting to remove or minimize the regions that they have a personal bias against. In one case, a person created a Wikipedia account (Rainbluetiful) specifically to remove or minimize one of the geographic areas with the largest body of quality sources (East Asia). If the lede is kept the way it used to be, it is likely that users motivated by a racial bias will continue to degrade the quality of this article.

The way that Dominic Mayers has written the lede is factually correct and neutral. It does not try to minimize or emphasize any particular area. Rainbluetiful has a particular insistence that East Asia be minimized while "West Asia", "Central Asia", "North Asia", and "Europe" remain the same, despite the fact that there is a huge body of research establishing that native populations of East Asia commonly have light skin, and light skin in West/Central Asia is not very common and does not have many sources to establish it. This is a clear cut violation of WP:NPOV and should not be allowed in this article.

In this article there are already images of various light-skinned people from around the world, which do a good job of showing a range of skin-tones which are considered "light" as measured by skin reflectance. Moving forward, it should be fine to allow those images to stay while keeping the verbal contents of the article free from racial bias. Biosaurt (talk) 17:49, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Yep, I felt that the images where expressing a point of view and points of view cannot be affirmed by Wikipedia. Wikipedia must report what sources say in a neutral manner by providing the context, etc. Wikipedia must appear as just presenting what sources say without taking position itself. But, I decided to close my eyes and to not make a big deal about this, perhaps because I feel the point is valid and there must be sources making that point. Eventually, it will be good to find the sources that make the point illustrated by these images and have the article presents this point in a neutral manner (and other points of view if appropriate), not in its own voice (i.e. not directly with its images in this case). Dominic Mayers (talk) 18:07, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree about that as well too. This prevents users from remodifying the locations. Rainbluetiful (talk) 09:26, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

And we already discussed about this before it got changed. And no i am not racially biased, after discussing about the changes in the talk page for 4-5 days, I begin to know that many people parts of the world have light skin including East Asia. I also found out that West Asians can also have non-light skin too (many West Asians have light skin genes too from the sources I have found then again time many have non-light skin after checking more sources), And as you can see I havent re-edited the article and I leave it the way as it is. Pardon me for that small change from 25 may.Rainbluetiful (talk) 09:27, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Maybe best to leave it out. Probably too hard to resolve given how complex and vague the terms are, and probably not useful to try to describe the current geographic distribution. It might be more useful and more doable to describe native or historical distribution. North8000 (talk) 20:23, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

I saw in the images (especially the one with dresses in pink) an intention to exhibit that some Asiatic women have lighter skin than some people might assume. If I was mistaken and the point of the image is only to represent people with light skin (and why not some Asiatic women), then please ignore what I wrote, especially if it is not a point that sources discuss. The general valid point is that images must represent what is stated neutrally in the article or in the caption. They should not be used to make a point that is not attributable to sources. Dominic Mayers (talk) 22:58, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Given that the majority of scientific articles on this subject are studying either European or East Asian populations, it makes sense for there to be representative examples of both of those populations. Those images are essentially illustrating the spectrophotometric data that can be found in numerous studies done on skin color, some of which are cited in the article. Since the point the images are making are thoroughly substantiated in the sources, I think it makes the most sense to leave them in the article. Biosaurt (talk) 23:38, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, I do not know why you say those images are essentially illustrating the spectrophotometric data. I see no evidence that they were made in that context. Given the difficulty to find open source images, I can understand that we pick images that are not specifically connected to any scientific research, which means they might have been photoshopped, etc. and have no real scientific value. Again, I feel we can be flexible here. Dominic Mayers (talk) 01:14, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

You're right in that none of the images in the article came from a peer reviewed paper, but I meant more that the images that are currently in the article illustrate what would commonly be considered "light skin". There are a range of skin colors that are considered "light", and there might be some ambiguity depending on the cultural context of the observer as to what is considered "light skin". With the images that are currently in the article, the reader is given several concrete examples of what "light skin" looks like. Ideally, we would use images that come directly from a scientific journal, but as you state, those kinds of images are scarce and many Wikipedia articles, such as this one, have to resort to using open source images. Biosaurt (talk) 01:30, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree with your stance but in the 2 skin tone articles dark skin and olive skin geographical locations are mentioned too. What do you think? Rainbluetiful (talk) 09:49, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Some folks are describing rules for images in wikipedia that do not exist. This is more of decision by normal editor decisionmaking processes. North8000 (talk) 16:40, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

We should strive to respect the general principles of neutral point of view and no original research with our choices of images. For example, having a clear intent to present an image as if it had a scientific value, when it is not the case, is doing a kind of original research, because the scientific value of the image is our own personal claim. Even if no one can enforce the rules except the editors themselves and, in that sense, it is a decision of the editors, it does not mean we should not strive to respect the rules. But, yes, as explained by North8000, it is a normal decision of the editors and we all assume that the best decision has been taken. Dominic Mayers (talk) 00:48, 5 June 2024 (UTC)