Talk:American/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Untitled

Discussion on the use of the word American can now be found at Talk:Use of the word American. This page is now a disambig page.

Redirect discussion

A discussion regarding the proposal of redirecting American to United States is undergoing at WP:Dab's with links, starting 20th August 2005. --Commander Keane 10:38, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

Format change discussion

Acjelen and Commander Keane have been discussing the format of this disambiguation page. Acjelen's prefered format is [1], while Commander Keane's preffered foramt is [2]. Any thoughts? --Commander Keane 05:18, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

I prefer the first option (Acjelen's) for two main reasons. Some of the links set out in the second vers as legamate disambiguations, while intresting, are not anything someone would accidently link here. As such they should be set apart like they are in the first example. Secondly I think it provides better context for the reader to determine which article they actualy are supposte to have arrived at. Dalf | Talk 18:24, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Moved page

I'm being bold and making American go to United States, where almost every link surely intends to go. Objections? (as American_(disambiguation) is full, I couldn't move this page there.) Matt Yeager 05:48, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes Matt, I do object. -Acjelen 13:10, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

So the disambiguation project had no trouble clearing out 5000 links, but now things are under control, you had to redirect unilaterally. By the way, Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages doesn’t really apply to [administrative actions http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=&user=Commander+Keane&page=]. Susvolans ⇔ 16:03, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Rename proposal

Please use the talk page before making an radical moves of the American article. -Acjelen 13:11, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Fine. I plan on moving American back to American (disambiguation) or some equivalent site, and placing a redirect here (to United States). United States has a little notifier placed on top already, so the very few who make it to this page meaning Americas or, I dunno, American cheese can make it to the disamb page with just one extra click, and the vast majority (just check out the pages that link here!) can get taken directly to the desired page (United States). Objections? Matt Yeager 20:02, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Matt, I object. This article should remain as the diambiguation page and American (disambiguation) should remain a redirect. The reason is that otherwise Wikipedia users will change this page back and and forth to redirect to either United States or Americas. It is much better to prevent both sides from doing this by using this page as the disambiguation page. As the debate over what is American is unresolvable, it is better to make it moot with the handy tools available to us on Wikipedia. -Acjelen 22:06, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Umm, as a matter of fact, Acjelen, we do have a way of protecting pages like that so that they're uneditable. So that reason doesn't stand, as far as I can see. Matt Yeager 02:20, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Can pages, especially redirects, be protected permanently? If so, I'd be in favor of having the disambiguation page at American (disambiguation) (and America at America (disambiguation), but I'd also want American to be a redirect to American (disambiguation) and not United States. -Acjelen 02:39, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, pages can be protected permanently (Main Page, anyone?). I think that whatever the consensus we reach is, we should have American be a redirect to somewhere, and protect American. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Matt Yeager (talk • contribs) 07:01, 17 November 2005

And in the meantime, could you please move this page to American (disambiguation) and put a redirect from here to American (disambiguation)? Matt Yeager 20:26, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Um, no, for the reasons given in my answer above. -Acjelen 22:06, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

What are your reasons for reverting the move Acjelen, and please don't refer me to some previous discussion, I'd like your ideas?--Commander Keane 00:23, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Well first of all, it was done without any discussion before hand. And secondly, I think the page should remain at American to quickly and directly inform people of its various uses and direct them to the appropriate article in Wikipedia. The debate over what is American is unresolvable. As editors of an encyclopedia, it is not our job to "end" the debate. Moreover, having the page at American instead of American (disambiguation) reduces edit wars over where American redirects to. I also want to address the issue of how many pages link to American but should link to United States. Generally the titles of WP articles are in the singular and the noun form. Thus Austrian is a redirect to Austria, Erotic to Eroticism, and Monkeys to Monkey. Ideally no articles should have a link to Austrian, but instead use the pipe character (i.e. Austrian) and other happy wikiness like Austrian. All those pages linking to American should be changed so that they link directly to United States. A similar problem occurs with the Prince of Wales. Since many people mistakenly refer to him as "Prince Charles" (and little wonder since the press does it constantly), there are many Prince Charles wikilinks. Redirects and see references help to send people to the right article, but all those "Prince Charles" occurrences are in error. It should be a regular habit to remove them. I would rather Prince Charles was the disambiguation page so that when editors came upon the list of preferred terms, they would realize that they needed to use Charles, Prince of Wales, Charles Edward Stuart, etc. I have not made an effort to switch Prince Charles and Prince Charles (disambiguation), but since American is already that way, it makes sense to keep it so. -Acjelen 02:35, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I can understand your point of view, but the thing is that every day editors continue to link to American but meaning United States. I accept that this will remain a dab for the forseeable future. Just out of curiosity then, who (exactly) uses "American" in any other way than meaning United States? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Commander Keane (talk • contribs) 03:56, 17 November 2005

Well, besides the branding issues of American Airlines and American Motors, we have the fact that, apparently, everyone in Latin American considers him- or herself an American. Please see Use of the word American for more information on the debate. -Acjelen 05:17, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Alright. First, sorry about not discussing the move beforehand. My bad. Second... unlike Prince Charles, which actually is NOT the proper way to refer to the current Prince of Wales (right?), American actually IS the correct way to refer to someone or something from the United States.

And about the Latin American thing--well, all I know on that is that Canadians never refer to themselves as Americans. Presumably Latin Americans wouldn't either. Matt Yeager 07:01, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

(resetting tabs) Latin Americans do exactly that all the time. Sing along with me #1 Sing along with me #2 (in Spanish, I'll translate if you're interested) Ejrrjs | [[User talk:Ejrrjs|What?]] 00:39, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Exactly...in Spanish. This isn't the Spanish-language wikipedia, and this isn't the page for "americano." How often do Latin Americans refer to themselves by the English word "American," except perhaps to make a political statement? Twin Bird 19:04, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Someone above asked who uses "American" to mean anything but someone from the USA? I do. I use it to mean someone from the Americas. Like I use African to mean someone from Africa. And BTW, I live in Canada. Thanks, Hu Gadarn 05:37, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

American refers to the ones who belong to America. America is the name of a continent and the colloquial short for the country United States of America (USA). Please note that the CIA World Factbook https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html#Govt does NOT include 'America' as a short name for the USA. It results awkward (if not offensive) for Latin-Americans who have a strong feeling of community toward the continent (Simón Bolívar's dream) to assign this word excursively to the inhabitants of the USA. Citizens of any country on the American continent are as Americans as a USA citizen in the same way that Europeans are all the citizens of any countries in the European continent and not only the ones that belong to the European Union or to a particular country. The fact that USA have the biggest economical and military power makes some think that they can ignore the fact that America is the name of a continent and not of a country placed in this continent. The problem get worse by the fact that USA is also not a proper name, given that Mexico is called 'United Mexican States' and the USA is not the only United States of America. Better would be to give a proper name to the country . Godot 21:32, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

That's very nice, but what is an issue here is common usage in the English language, not Spanish or any other language, and not the fact that some Latin Americans might have their feelings hurt by the usage of a word.--RWR8189 22:15, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

First, I don't know if I'm in a minority here, but I find any idea of "continental belonging" offensive. If the people of the rest of the western hemisphere wish to see themselves as one, then I'm glad that the United States of America bucks that trend. I'm not going to apologize for my independent and sovereign country. Second, that some don't recognize the two continents of North America and South America is fine, but the society I live in does; and I don't think we should be treated like we failed third-grade geography. -Acjelen 22:58, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the self-centered use of the language have made common the improper demonym. The use is in your favor. On the other hand, the somehow official facts provided by CIA World Factbook, is that the country it is NOT named America, and in consequence to call their inhabitants Americans in an exclusive way, creates a conflict. There are 885 million people that deserves the right to use the proper gentilic, and some wants to restrict it to less than 300 million. BTW, there are seven different models to enumerate the continents, only three of them makes distinction between North America and South America. Sorry if bothers you to share land with sudacas. It may help if you suggest either another demonym for inhabitants of The Americas or another for USA, but one that does NOT conflict with the other. Godot 04:25, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

How about "human being" or "earthling"? There's no word for inhabitants of the Africa-Europe-Asia landmass, why does there need to be one for the Americas? -Acjelen 14:38, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

You might prefer it if the language had two different words for someone from the Americas and someone from the United States, but it is not Wikipedia's job to dictate how words are used. I think you should apply Wikipedia's assume good faith policy to regular life and realize people from the United States don't mean to offend anyone when they use "American" to mean someone from their country, it's just an unfortunate trick of the language. I also think everyone should keep in mind that this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the article, not for airing grievances or expressing personal opinions.--Cúchullain ^t/c 07:33, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I apologise for including personal opinions. My main interest reach a consensus of the correct gentilic and help Wikipedia to have the most accurate and complete definitions. Base on the later, I do think that is the job of any Encyclopedia to acknowledge the common use but also to state the correctness of the use. Does it follows the grammatical rules? is it used officially? Is the definition recognized by everybody? If a consensus is reached I would like to include a statement saying that to call American excursively to a US citizen is in principle a mistake that have been validated only by proper context. Why? because from the rules of gentilic American means from America and nor from United States of America, because USA official documents for foreign issues uses US citizen and not American, because the meaning is not recognized by everybody and so on. This IS a business of a Wikipedia editor. I AM assuming good faith, I don't think that the intension is to harm, I just think there are things that have been ignored, in good faith.

Any statement on this page about the incorrectness of a U.S.-exclusive use of American needs to be accompanied by another statement that some do not recognize another place called merely and soley "America" that would cause confusion over the label. -Acjelen 19:46, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I was not aware of a single educated person that did not recognize the name 'America' as a continent at least in one of the possible meanings. Let's cite the sources. With 'America' as the continent with first meaning I found: Webster's ,Merriam-Webster, American Heritage,Columbia University Press,Ultralingua.com,rhymezone.com,bartleby.com. I did NOT found a single one that ignored the name America as a continent. If you want a justification aside of the historical may be interesting to read: http://www.1911encyclopedia.org . I insist in the comment that you deleted, English is not a monopoly of the USA, and I look forward to find information about the meaning of the word for the people from Anglo-America other than USA, as Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago.Godot 21:17, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

By that logic, we need to look at English speakers as a whole. According to our page on the English language, there are about 400-450 million speakers of English as a first language. The US has a population of almost 300 million, of whom most speak English. That's well more than half of all English speakers, so the argumentum ad populum works against your case there. And for the record, I'm pretty sure the US definition is the primary one in Ireland and the UK. I also think it is the primary definition for the majority of Canadians. I'd bet this is also the case in other parts of the New World where English is the primary tongue, not to mention the rest of the Anglosphere (New Zealand, Liberia, Vanuatu, etc.)--Cúchullain ^t/c 21:29, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, my point is that the improper use of the word American is biased in one side from the self-centered perspective of the US citizens, that comes probably from the fact the US is a pretty big country in population, economy and military power. That is why I am interested in the perspective of other non US Anglo-Americans. I acknowledge that there is other side on the problem, and is that there is no proper gentilic for descriptive names as 'United States of America', or 'United Arab Emirates' and so on. All would be easier if the US defined an alternative name for the country like Mexico, United Kingdom, etc. Indeed it was attempted which shows that it is needed.Godot 23:52, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

"Proper?" Well who is to say what is proper? But, Dude, while you replaced what i'd posted. it seems that you did not read it. The term "American" was used in 1835 by a Frenchman to describe the folks living in the USA. This was long efore they were rich and powerful and famous. Pick your fights with more care - is my opinion. Carptrash 02:33, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

The very article you linked says that the demonym is "American." It says the short form is "United States," but that's not what we're talking about. Twin Bird 22:25, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

That is actually a very recent change on the page; probably a result of this discussion and recent neo-conservative policy. Deepstratagem 04:16, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, I strongly doubt that, but I can't prove it false. That said, I challenge you to find a single English-language Canadian, British, Irish, Australian, or New Zealand publication or style guide, primarily by and intended for native speakers, that by habit uses "American," without qualifier, to mean "of the Americas," and not to mean "of the United States." Twin Bird 07:41, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm mistaken about the change... There was no change, I thought we were talking about the country's short name. As far as publications that use American by habit: Encarta - Spanish Empire, Linguistics Journal Article, the Monroe Doctrine; National Geographic uses both as does Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers; The Organization of American States predominantly uses American to mean "of the 'Americas'"; Legal international contracts like NAFTA avoid using American even once to mean "of the United States"; Most dictionaries and encyclopedias (even "American" language guides) acknowledge that American refers to the Americas. Deepstratagem 13:21, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

First, I'm an idiot: by "publication," I meant an indefinite serial, since anything else could avoid ambiguity by clear context. It sounds like I'm backpedalling, but I really did intend that - if I hadn't, I wouldn't have said "or style guide," since that is a kind of publication. Secondly, every last one of those, with the exception of NAFTA, is either from somewhere where English is not the common tongue, or from the one Anglophone country I purposefully excluded, the United States themselves. Make no mistake, we do use the word (you yourself have demonstrated that), but some publications will use awkward phrasings to avoid accusations of patriotic or even racist bias, especially by our large percentage of native or habitual speakers of Spanish who have learned English. NAFTA does use "American" as a demonym (usually in the phrase "American or Mexican"); though due to the structure of the document, I can't point to it, I count three uses, which a text search should give you. Third, although I said nothing on this, many of them are quite old; by similar justifications, you could argue that "Dutch" should mean "of Benelux." A neologism is so only for a finite period. Finally, addressing your repeated claim to dictionaries, I have never seen a dictionary of the English language that acknowledges one definition and not the other, and I don't think you can find one. Twin Bird 05:57, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

In that case, I have to agree with you. I didn't even notice you excluded the United States as a source for the publications. I'm not sure what the motivation for using American in reference to the Americas (in the United States) is; it might be to be politically correct (or just to be correct). American in reference to the United States sounds colloquial and unnofficial; this might also be a motivation.

I don't think I'm going to find Australian or Irish publications using American to mean "of the Americas" by habit. First, the majority of available scholarly papers on the internet comes from the United States. Second, the United States has a greater influence on the English dialects of Anglophone countries than do Mexico or Columbia. Third, U.S. Americans introduce themselves as Americans everywhere they go, while Mexicans or Canadians don't (for obvious reasons, such as why Irish people don't introduce themselves as U.K.-ean) despite technically being so, thus it might be hard to know there is a long standing dispute on the matter for an Australian or Irish person. Fourth, I don't have access to many Australian or English journals, though it is very likely that Biology or History journals and textbooks routinely refer to objects associated with the Americas as American.

Nevertheless, people use American to refer to the United States of America because it doesn't have a proper name. United States of America is a description and if we pay attention to the prepositions it's clear which term is normatively correct. Deepstratagem 11:38, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

UK, Canada, Ireland, and the primary use of "American" is the US definition.

(response to Matt Yeager - tabs were reset by Ejrrjs) Actually, American doesn't just refer to U.S. Citizens more frequently. Take Latin American or South American for example. By the way U.S. Citizens rarely call the U.S., United States of America. Does that mean there isn't a place called United States of America? Deepstratagem 04:16, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, this article is about the word "American" not "Latin American" you can find that article at Latin_American. The word "American" without a qualifier is most commonly used to describe a US person in the English language, that cannot be in serious dispute.--RWR8189 05:41, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Latin American is two words. The word American with a qualifier is usually used in correspondance with all of America (New World). So, yes it can be in "serious dispute". Deepstratagem 06:01, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Most articles have more than one word in their title. The use of the word "American" without a word like "Latin" or "South" used as a qualifier before the word almost always refers to a US person in the English language. When someone speaks about an "American writer" or the "American president" an English speaker doesn't stop and wonder which "American" country that president or writer is from. When an English speaker identifies himself as an "American", an overwhelming majority of people will associate that with meaning that he is from the United States. This is just common sense.--RWR8189 06:30, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

And when people say they are Latin American, an overwhelming majority of people will associate that with meaning that this person is not from the United States. This is just common sense. Deepstratagem 07:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

That's neither here nor there. "Latin American" is also used to mean someone who is a US citizen and is of Latino background. The bottom line is, like it or not, the primary, unqualified meaning of "American" in the English language is "of or related to the United States". This is just a fact, and we need to reflect it here.--Cúchullain ^t/c 07:39, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

My previous reply is just a mirror of RWR8189's. Of course it is neither here nor there. That's the point. And your reply to me is just a variation of RWR8189's, so it also is neither here nor there. Deepstratagem 08:19, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

If you concede the obvious that the use of the word "American" unqualified usually refers to a US person in the English language, I don't see what this discussion is about.--RWR8189 08:49, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Likewise if you concede American qualified often refers to the continent/s of the New World. Something which you have not succesfully refuted. Deepstratagem 09:14, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

That is something I have never disputed, but this article is not about "South Americans" or "Latin Americans" it is about the word "American" unqualified, which to most English indicates a person is from the United States. To use that word to refer to the New World is more ambiguous and less specific.

I would also say that if this is to remain a disambiguation page, per Manual of Style (disambiguation pages), "A person or attribute of the United States of America" should appear first on the list. Seeing as this has been established as the most common use of the word in the English language.

The Manual of Style says that frequency or chronology can be used to determine which entry goes first. (1) We haven't established which meaning is more common. (2) Chronologically speaking America (New World) would go first. (3) You are making Wikipedia worse by changing the order to favor a popular misnomer in place of a more correct definition. See Microsoft Encarta - America Deepstratagem 10:01, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be dishonest to claim "U.S. national" isn't the most common use of the term in the English language. "Popular misnomer"? "More correct definition?" It's not Wikipedia's job to decide whose use of a word is "correct". Both uses are correct. One is more common. That one should go first. End of story.--Cúchullain ^t/c 12:05, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Since American (U.S.) is derived from America (U.S.) which is derived from America (New World), the continental definition is more correct. Since there is no adequate way to measure which use is more common, taking qualifiers into account, the best way to go about it is chronological or an "etymological" order. Besides American is based on collapsed name when it refers to the U.S. and it is based on itself when it refers to the continent. No matter how you slice it you are doing a disservice to the world (and U.S. Americans) by favoring a misnomer. Deepstratagem 13:40, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I deleted the following post by Carptrash by mistake, so I am putting it back. Godot 23:58, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't help but notice that de Tocqueville's Democracy in America was published [1830s - look it up if you need a more exact date] in French at that time as De la démocratie en Amérique suggesting that the term was used long before the United States was what it is today. The term was not dictated from a position of power but was just what the place and people were called. 175 years ago. And mostly still is today. I was amazed to see a Canadian [somewhere around here] wanting [or something] to be called an American. I saw a TV show on CBC where a film crew went all around Canada trying to find out what Canadians had in common and it all came down to ONE thing. {i quote} "We are NOT Americans". Carptrash 20:57, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

This is the "correctness" argument again. It isn't Wikipedia's place to decide which is correct. Both Wikipedia and the English language work by consensus. If I said "Jenny is an American" to virtually any US national, they would assume I meant US American. The same goes for saying this to most of the rest of the English speaking world. If you want some official examples of "American being used this way", here's some: American Samoa is the recognized name for this territory. African American is an ethnic group in the United States, according to all US census reports. It refers specifically to U.S. Americans who are of African descent. For an international use, there is Americo-Liberians. They are an ethnic group in Liberia composed of descendants of US American slaves. I reiterate that while both uses of the word "American" are perfectly valid, it is dishonest to suggest that without a qualifier, US American isn't the primary use for the majority of English speakers.--Cúchullain ^t/c 21:41, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

It's not a correctness argument, presumably, you asked me to clarify, so I did. It still stands that there is no adequate way to measure which use is more common, but we can know which came into use first. Deepstratagem 23:15, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

America and American

_ _ The creator (212....) of this section initially saved it as "Nationalism", then modified the title to "America and American" within the same minute.
_ _ In cleaning up this previously chaotic section, i have modified formatting (not including paragraphing), but neither wording nor order within contributions, to clarify as well as can be inferred, for each contrib, which previous contrib it was intended (or primarily intended) to comment upon. --Jerzy•t 19:55, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

_ _ I know in the USA "American" is quite common for everything from the USA. But for all others, American refers to somebody or something originating from a continent, not one country of this continent, even not the most populous one.
_ _ See also the disussion under Demonym, "Cultural Problems": Quote - The demonym for citizens of the United States of America suffers a similar problem, because "American" may ambiguously refer to both the USA and North and South America. United Statian is awkward in English, but it exists in Spanish (estadounidense), French (étatsunien(ne)), Portuguese (estado-unidense or estadunidense), Italian (statunitense), and also in Interlingua (statounitese). US American (for the noun) and US-American (when used as a compound modifier preceding a noun) is another option, and is a common demonym in German (US-Amerikaner), though almost unheard of in English. Latin Americans (who are the most affected by this use of American) also have yanqui (Yankee) and the euphemism norteamericano/norte-americano (North American, which includes the USA, Mexico, Canada, and several other countries). Frank Lloyd Wright proposed Usonian (which was taken over into Esperanto: country Usono, demonym Usonano, adjective usona). In the spirit of Sydneysider, Statesider is also a possibility. See main article: Use of the word American.

The 2007 Miss Teen USA contestant Caitlin Upton, who gained international notoriety for her otherwise nonsensical response to a question posed during the pageant, referred to the people of the United States as "U.S. Americans." - End of Quote

_ _ The citizens of the USA are indeed using "American" for things or people coming from the USA and tend to believe that the whole world - except a few nuts - does the same. However, as is correctly stated in Demonym, in many languages other than English reference is made to the USA in some way, and not just to America, which is used for the continent only. That would also apply when these non-native English speakers use English. This sounds rather like the US-Americans usurping the expression "American" on their behalf and for their convenience and just purporting that everybody else does the same.
_ _ The US-Americans are free in how they call themselves at home. An international encyclopedia, however, should not be sloppy in such a matter or follow a national particularity, but try to find an internationally acceptable consensus. And this has certainly to take into consideration that for about 6 Billion people "American" refers to the continent and only 300 Million US-Americans use it exclusively for themselves. Especially all North, Central and South Americans, even if not from the USA, must feel concerned by everything "American". Internationally we should thus remain precise and explicitly specify the origin as being the USA. I am open for any suggestion, but US-Americans looks nice to me.
_ _ I am Austrian for the records.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.183.64.42 (talk) 20:15, 3 February 2008

• Stupid. Colombians are from Colombia, Mexicans from Mexico, Venezualan from Venezuala and Americans from America. This argument is agenda pushing.
  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.187.250.74 (talk) 04:35, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
  • yes americans are from america. but america is a supercontinental landmass, comprising a number of countries. i'm canadian, which makes me american too. latin americans are americans as well. i am familiar with the usage of "american", and also the ambiguities. i'm sorry, but only US americans think the term is unambiguous. it is not inherently clear, or automatically understood by english-speakers outside the USA, especially if english is not their first language. if you refer to non-us english language news services, the convention seems to be: specify country on first usage, after that the term is acceptable. even "the american president" is often rendered as "the US president" in non-US news services, again to avoid confusion with all the other american presidents.
    it's not about being anti-US, it's about using clear, accurate english. the artcle page itself lists american as meaning the whole of the americas first, & the USA second
    --Lx 121 (talk) 09:27, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

    The following contrib was place immediately following Lx's of 09:27, 21 February 2009, at a time when Lx's was the final contrib in the section, but unindented -- surely either out of inattention, or to imply that it was a comment on the sub-topic the section is named for, but not on any specific contribution that had been earlier added. It is possible i have not correctly represented the contributor's intention in cleaning up this section. --Jerzy•t 19:55, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
    

    • Who can seriously claim (with a straight face) that English speaking people are confused when one uses the word "Americans" to describe people from, or citizens of the United States? This is the English version of an encyclopedia is it not? The BBC refers to citizens of the United States are Americans. The CBC refers to citizens of the United States as Americans. Furthermore, in other languages they also use the term American. For example in Germany they refer to Americans as "Amerikaners" (even ami for short!) and also use the word amerikanischen to describe something relating to that of the United States. So where is the ambiguity and confusion? Also why are there pages on Wikipedia for German-Americans, Irish-Americans, African-Americans ect..? If the term American is so ambiguous and confusing than why is it being tacked on the end of another descriptive word used to define an American citizens origin ? Shouldn't the rule be applied across the board in a consistent logical manner? There really is no good reason not to use the word American to describe citizens of the United States and it creates far more confusion than is seeks to eliminate.
      --Skeeter08865 (talk) 03:27, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
• Actually, in the English-speaking world, "American" usually refers specifically to the United States. This is true not only among people from the US, but from other native English speakers around the globe. Canadians live in North America, but you'll be hard pressed to find an Anglo-Canadian who calls himself "American." If someone from the US were to travel to the UK, for example, and say "I'm an American," the Britons wouldn't ask him "are you from Peru?" So, whatever "looks nice to" you in your German Wikipedia is fine with me, but in the English LANGUAGE Wikipedia, I think we should stick with the common ENGLISH LANGUAGE definition. Again, it's not only "US-Americans" who use the term American in this fashion, but native English speakers from around the globe. I believe most of this has been mentioned on this page.
  --98.221.133.96 (talk) 20:01, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

In order of usage

Having American being a citizen or relating to the United States was put first, and changed from second. Yes, many Latin Americans could take umbrage at that, but in usage the term American more commonly is for the United States than it is for Latin America, and definitely Canada. American is not a Spanish word, either. Especially as a noun, the default definition of "an American" would be a citizen or resident of the United States of America. The pan-American crowd has a stronger case with American as an adjective and America as being an ARCHAIC term for the Americas, and a term which is becoming more and more obsolete in current usage. But the noun "American," without a modifier (adjective) is primarily used for.... an American. It is not the same as Asian, European, or African, where the country of origin is ambiguous. Chiss Boy 11:17, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• Do you have a reliable source for this? The reason we argue (and argue, and argue) is because we have no such source - WilyD 18:11, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Objection seconded! These are not reasonable arguments, I think we should listed Americas first, USA second. Tyciol (talk) 08:29, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Requested moves

American → American (disambiguation) (and make American redirect to United States); The principle usage of the word is "of the United States of America"; virtually all links to American refer to that usage; a header is already in place on United States in case someone wanted a different meaning of US, USA, or U.S.A, so adding American to that makes sense. Matt Yeager 02:18, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

• Oppose Unlike the other examples, which are alternative names for the country, “American” is not something that anyone looking for the United States article is likely to type in the search box, which is the primary use for redirects. Furthermore, linking nationalities directly is a mistake made by unfamiliar users, and reporting this on Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links alerts editors to any other problems with the articles. Susvolans ⇔ 12:39, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

  Comment. We are well aware of the American situation at Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links. It required about 5000 links to be fixed from the last dump, with about 0.5% not needing to be directed to United States.--Commander Keane 14:31, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

• Support, naturally, for reasons stated in the nomination. Matt Yeager 23:58, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose, "American" is not principly used to mean of the US rather than of the Americas, and even if it were so, the inaccuracy shouldn't necessarily be propagated. James F. (talk) 22:57, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose, I have stated my oppostion to this move and especially to making American a redirect to United States on several occasions. -Acjelen 23:26, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose Give people the opportunity to learn something. Ejrrjs | [[User talk:Ejrrjs|What?]] 00:31, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. See Use of the word American. This should redirect to Americas or America (continent) or People of the Americas. Deepstratagem 04:20, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I've removed this request from Wikipedia:Requested moves per this discussion. If the consensus should change, feel free to relist. —Cleared as filed. 01:26, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Immigrants as Americans

Hi, Acjelen. It seems to me that the "pioneers" of the U.S. weren't "immigrants" to America, they were the founders. People who were in the country when the United States was formed automatically became citizens. I think leaving "immigrants" as part of the definition is confusing, since most people wouldn't consider a legal immigrant an "American" until they became a citizen, including the immigrant. —Cleared as filed. 14:41, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

By pioneer, I meant the people who settled the middle of the country, not the colonists. Many 19th century immigrants never became naturalized, but were clearly Americans. Also, do you think Alexander Hamilton wasn't an American until the ratification of the constitution? It is fine if you do, but it clearly demonstrates the word's ambiguity. -Acjelen 19:33, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Most of the people who settled the middle of the country came from the edges, didn't they? Alexander Hamilton wasn't an American until the Declaration of Independence; before that, he was a British colonist like everyone else. Why do you say that immigrants who never became naturalized were "clearly" Americans? I think just the opposite. A lot of people become citizens so that they can "become" Americans. —Cleared as filed. 19:40, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Many people who settled the middle of the United States came from countries in Europe. In what manner did the Declaration of Independence make Alexander Hamilton an American (by which I mean a citizen of the United States)? -Acjelen 04:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Also, additionally, here is the definition from M-W.com:

1. : an American Indian of No. America or So. America
2. : a native or inhabitant of No. America or So. America
3. : a citizen of the U.S.
4. : AMERICAN ENGLISH

We already cover 1, 2, and 4 elsewhere. Number 3 doesn't say anything about immigrants. Not that the dictionary defines what we include where, but I just submit that in addition to what I already said about it being confusing as well. —Cleared as filed. 14:51, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to translate this page to Spanish

I'm very surprised to see that the term Americano doesn't exist in the Spanish wikipedia and would very much add the definition and translate this discussion about the ambiguity of the use of American which has been translated to the Spanish Americano. I'm new here and don't know how to go about this. Can anyone help? I'll be happy to come back and check for answers here but you could also send email to (email removed)

68.163.183.159 19:05, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I removed your email (I don't want a Wikipedia enthusiast to get spam), and anyway, we always answer on talk pages. If you want to contribute to the Spanish Wikipedia, es:Portada, it would be best to head over there and ask about content (eg Americano). Remember, Wikipedia is not a dictionary, which might be why they don't have an article "Americano". I've noticed they do have es:América (desambiguación) and es:América. If you have any more questions ask again, I don't think I understood your question completely.--Commander Keane 19:22, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

WHAT IS AN AMERCAN??

I just cut this out

"This is actually a wrong use of the term." of the following sentence. A person or attribute of the United States of America. This is actually a wrong use of the term. Really, I though we'd gotten past this. Carptrash 16:06, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Sure; the Brazilians or the Canadians would be quite surprised to be told that they are not American ! Perhaps it would be more politically correct ro refer to the unitedstatians as unitedstatians (well, OK, the Brazil is made of united states too ;-) ). Froggy75012 09:55, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Canadians are not Americans. A few hardcore anti-monarchists might wish that we were, but we're not. Please don't post such offensive nonsense here again. 15:41, 11 November 2007 (UTC) WilyD 15:43, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean they are Asian ? African ? Oceanian ? ... I added it back, in a different formulation. Kings themselves have to kneel in front of semantics; everybody does, except Humpty-Dumpty and leaders of totalitarian countries, of courseFroggy75012 18:16, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

We're North American, obviously. It'll keep being removed on the triple-cause that a) it's unsourced, b)its inappropriate for a disambiguation page, and b) it's wrong. American means "of or relating to the United States" in the Queen's own English. Disambiguation pages just have the minimum amount of information needed to direct people to where they're going. Unsourced soapboxing is not welcome. Cheers, WilyD 18:33, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

order of elements

Originally, I grouped the various items on this dab page by part of speech (e.g. nouns, adjectives, etc.). Later this was altered to the present grouping. The link to 4-4-0 is at the top because it was orginally with the noun group, along with people of the United States and people of the Americas. At present this first section contains uses of American that can stand alone: ("What's that?" "It's an American."). The second section are items where American serves as the adjective or as a portion of a name but frequently appears alone. Native Americans were originally mentioned because of the archaic term "American race" to refer to them. Without mention of American race, they don't really need to be here. I doubt if anyone will search for "American" to find information on American Indians.

Please see the manual of style of disambiguation page (here). Generally there is only one blue link per line to the appropriate article, unpiped and avoiding redirects. -Acjelen 17:39, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I just took a glance at the MOS page you cited. It says Always place the most-common meaning(s) at the top.. That is pretty much what I did. I don't see how your version relates to the style guide. --Wing Nut 18:54, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Because "American" generally means (1) a person or attribute of the United States; (2) a person or attribute of the Americas; or (3) a particular sort of engine. While which meaning should be first is debated, the choice for third place is obvious. Many people also use "American" when they mean their airline, their credit card company, their cheese preference, or their dialect of English; so we've included these, but separated from the first three. The page contains more links when the correct title on Wikipedia isn't obvious, such as American Recordings, in an attempt to be helpful. I admit that more has been spoken of and written about Native Americans than the 4-4-0 steam engine; and that the former has had a greater impact on the history of mankind than the former, but very seldomly do people use American by itself to refer to Amerindians. Disambiguation pages are not thesaurus's. They are places where Wikipedia asks her users, "When you typed in 'foo', did you mean X, Y, or Z?" -Acjelen 21:00, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm so overcome by the courtesy of your reply that I conceded defeat. :-) --Wing Nut 21:02, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate that. -Acjelen 21:10, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Inter-American + Inter-America

I've noticed the World/Goverment has chosen to use the term Inter-American as the term expressing, a person or attribute of the Americas, and Inter-America for the lands and regions of the Western Hemisphere.

Continentally Speaking any inhabitant of America is considered an "Inter-American" and not "American" anymore. If you Google or Yahoo the term Inter-American or Inter-America you will find several millions of hits on this Neologism which we should add but I am under the impression Wikipedia is not currently accepting Neologism in the request for articles for creation but we should add them none the less. Intuitionz 18:18, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Since Americas will remain the title of any Wikipedia article on the lands of the western hemisphere, you best bet is to create a redirect link for Inter-America and sent it there. -Acjelen 19:09, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, however we are talking about a totally different entity that should not be a re-driect, let me give you some examples..

The Draft resolution for: Implementation of the Inter-American Program Human Rights and Support for the work of the Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism.

The Draft resolution for: Development of an inter-American strategy to combat threats to Security.

The Draft resolution for: Inter-American Convention on Transparency in Conventional Weapons of Acquisitions.

or..

The Inter-American cooperation to meet a global threat such (Presented by the Delegates of Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Haití, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, United States, Antigua and Barbuda, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Suriname, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines). Intuitionz 03:07, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh. Those titles are just using the English prefix "inter". There isn't an entity being described: in all three cases it is an adjective modifying something else. -Acjelen 04:13, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Inter-American - inter- (prefix "within, between, mutual, reciprocal") Americ- ("America") -an (adjectival suffix). Inter-American just means "related to within/between the land of America." It doesn't make sense to call a person an Inter-American (unless they are cyclically migratory birds or something like that). Try googling "Inter-American person"; or "Inter-American people" it will return 0 entries until this page is cached. Deepstratagem 04:26, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I Yahoo'd the first article I found and it speaks of Inter-Americans visiting to Tailand from Inter-America, I do not understand why you cannot find an entity concerning Inter-Americans of Inter-America. Just check out http://www.interamerica.org/users/index.php?type=news&id=62&language=en which is the first entry on yahoo. There are more as well explaining this new Neologism so don't tell me it doesn't exsist. Intuitionz 20:58, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Inter-Americans refers to Inter-American Divisionists of the Seventh Adventist Church; The article you cited is written by the IAD, so they can shorten "members of the Inter-American Division of the Seventh Adventist Church" to Inter-Americans, and the intended audience will understand. Deepstratagem 21:42, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

not building the web here

Deep and Acj: Guys, how is someone meant to find American way (for example) if they can't get a pointer by simply typing in "American"? The previous "used as an adjective" and "other uses" version is able to get more users to more articles than what we have now. Mediatetheconflict 18:52, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Someone looking for American way wouldn't just type in American, they'd type the whole thing. Disambig pages are for listing pages that might be ambiguous, they're not dictionary definitions or lists of every article that begin with the title word.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:31, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if disambiguation pages should necessarily be used in the "*PAGENAME something" manner that you desire. English, a disambiguation page, does not include links to White tea a.k.a. English tea, Homosexuality a.k.a. the English disease, or non-Amish U.S. residents. British, claiming to be a disambiguation page, doesn't include any "used as an adjective" links. If this page linked to all artice's beginning with American it would become unwieldy. Looking at French, though, I may have found a solution for you. -Acjelen 19:46, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

• It would be a digression to point out, Cúchullain, that your first comment is invalid (how do you find something you don't know the name of?), and that the proposal wasn't about including all relevantly-prefixed articles; and to Acjelen, that there must be a cultural thing here because English tea plainly refers to English breakfast tea; but what's more important is that the "list of" article you've included is a good solution. I appreciate the constructive and useful response, and the effort you obviously put into finding it.
  So would it be ok to create and redirect American cultural hegemony to American way??
  Mediatetheconflict 09:25, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I once knew a Polish-Canadian woman who said that in Russia, white tea is called Polish tea, but in Poland it is called German tea. She further went on to say that the Germans call white tea French tea and the French call it English tea. The English, of course, call white tea tea -65.66.103.43 21:56, 7 November 2006 (UTC) -Oops, must have timed out. -Acjelen 21:58, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

My first comment was not invalid. Disambiguation pages are not for listing various articles that happen to be related to title in some way, or merely begin with them. They are not lists or search indices. They are for disambiguating ambiguous terms. If someone didn't know the name of "American way", they shouldn't expect to find it here. The same goes for English tea at English, whatever it's called. As for American cultural hegemony, I don't think that's a very plausible search term for American way, but you should probably bring it up over there.--Cúchullain ^t/c 22:10, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Dioses estadounidense?

Yesterday the library where I work received the copy of Neil Gaiman's American Gods. Our previous copy never returned from its last check-out. Oddly, the book that arrived was the Spanish translation by Robert Falcó and published by es:Norma EditorialNorma Editorial out of Barcelona. We had ordered it by accident in part because of the title. One would safely assume that a book about Old World pagan dieties in the United States for the Spanish-reading public wouldn't be titled "American Gods". I mention the incident here as a real-world example of the ambiguous status of American in its two senses. -Acjelen 18:47, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

The origin of the confusion

I believe a definition must primarily be centered in the essence of the object in question, that is, in the quality that best defines the being of that object. The essence only emerges after the (abstract) suppression of all the accessory-non-essential elements. In that sense, even tough many USA citizens could take umbrage of my approximation (which is actually not mine), "American" is not primarily liked to USA, instead, is essentially linked to America, the continent. USA, as any other American country, is only an accessory element of the America's essence. Given that the frequency in the use of any word will never change the underlying object's essence, the most frequent meaning necessarily deserves only a secondary position in the list. Finally, the origin of the confusion historically relies in the fact that USA lacks a specific-given name. I didn't find, in Wikipedia or any other easily accessible source, an explanation about why that country have no a proper name, so it's a pendent topic to discuss.--75.9.62.221 04:20, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Or maybe the origin of the confusion lies in whether any such continent as America exists. -Acjelen 01:09, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if the continent America exists, it's North and South Ameica. It still has the words America in it and it is very incorrect to use that term to describe U.S. Citizens. Just because U.S. citizens chose a gay name for a country, doesnt mean it has the right to hold a title to themselves that anyone born in the Americas can have. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Daniel4sw (talk • contribs) 20:53, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

solution

I think the controversy could be solved if my proposal is implanted: given that in US are distinguished several categories of "americans": "african-americans", "italian-americans", "native-americans", etc, etc, and given that "american" seems to be deserved for the white people (non-latin, of course) born in USA. To be fully democratic, we should start calling "US-americans" to the people born in US (no matter the race) and "Latin-americans" to the rest. The only problem I see in my solution is the classification of Canadian, Haitian, etc. which are no US born and neither Latins. But we can ignore them, they are too few. Alternatively, we could simplify the classification just calling "American" to any person (or animal, or plant) born in any american territory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by VACM (talk • contribs) 02:32, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

• If nothing else, this is still a novel proposal unacceptable to Wikipedia, see WP:NOR. African Americans, Italian Americans, Native Americans are all "Americans" whereas Canadians, Haitians and so on are not "Americans". I don't think white Americans are really thought of as any more American than black Americans. WilyD 17:43, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
• That would mean also that a German is not a European ? If yes, explain. If no, please clarify your position. I do not expect cartesianism and rationality to be the rule in the United States, but at least trying would be appreciated for the sake of reason. 89.159.229.197 (talk) 12:48, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is directed at me, but I'll say: No, I'm not a rationalist or a Cartesian. I'm a member of a philosophical school that really traces its origins to Galileo, Copernicus and a few others. Germans are Europeans, I don't think anyone seriously disputes this. The comparable statements are "Canadians are North Americans" or "Haitians are North Americans" or "Costa Ricans are North Americans" ... relating the country to the continent. WilyD 14:42, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

What about Germans are Eurasian? Mexicans are Americans and North American just like Germans are Europeans and Eurasian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.203.94.31 (talk) 20:28, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure the "Germans are Eurasians" analogy works either. The term Eurasian most often refers to someone who is half white and half Asian, not someone who is from the supercontinent of Eurasia. Much of the English-speaking world considers that North and South America are 2 different continents anyway, so that's another reason for WilyD's comment about Canadians being North American and not American. I highly doubt you'll find Canadians who want to be referred to as Americans. Mexicans do not speak English as a native language, so they would refer to themselves as mexicanos first and americanos as a broader adjective and would refer to Americans (from the U.S.) as estadounidenses. This is just a linguistic difference; there are always different nuances in cognates across languages. Kman543210 (talk) 01:45, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposed solution

OK, after browsing the discussion I had another one with raven912 on Zhurnal.lib.ru (in Russian, here and here, regarding my essay there). I'll try to raise the question again, the goal is moving the article back to "Americans" assuming all related issues, particularly the content and the nationality in the infobox linked to "Americans", not the "United States", etc.

IMO roughly the same post-modernist bias touched Britannica 2002 and MS Encarta 2003. Russian Cyril and Methodius Great Encyclopedia 2008 (DVD) has the article "Americans" but with similar hypercritical definition. Meanwhile "Americans" is a self-imposed demonym, like Brazilians, Chileans etc. Both the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation parallel with the Constitution contain "the United States of America", naturally establishing the demonym Americans. Similarly, "The Star-Spangled Banner" contains "Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation" as well as the Pledge "one nation under God indivisible" whereas the United States is the only country which has the word "America" in its official name. Also there is both War of American Independence and American Revolution, not something like Unitedstatesian. As such, the first independent country in Western Hemisphere has the full right to retain the demonym. Which remains in words African-Americans, Irish-Americans, etc. while John Kennedy or Elvis are rather Americans, not people from the US or something. Even the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, having the article "Americans" recognized them as a nation, though with ethnic consolidation processes not finished completely. The article's author is Maya Berzina, a noted ethnographer, historian by scientific degree, geographer and cartographer (member of former Soviet Geographic Society). Not to mention lots of worthy works which use the term Americans as posterity of arrived inhabitants and/or US citizens, the same did notably Daniel Webster and nearly all of the Presidents on Mount Rushmore. Jefferson, an anti-federalist even used the word "Americanized" in 1802 for the then-ongoing processes. Btw, one of the first usages of the word Americans is of 1765, by Christopher Gadsden. Steinbeck for example said "For all our enormous geographic range, for all of our sectionalism... we are a nation, a new breed. Americans are much more American than they are Northerners, Southerners, Westerners, or Easterners". Similarly, E pluribus unum.

Now there is Hall of Fame for Great Americans in particular, and FamousAmericans.net. That's why an apple is to be named apple, not banana and the current redirect shouldn't point to dab. Ultimately I assume and support the following:

• moving People of the United States of America to Americans;
• making "American" redirect to the United States, not to dab with the notifier "American redirects here, for other uses see Latin American, North American etc."

--Brand спойт 20:39, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Move request

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

A move request has been initiated at Talk:People of the United States of America concerning the redirect to this page, Americans. 76.66.201.13 (talk) 06:30, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

The discussion was closed as no move 76.66.195.63 (talk) 03:45, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article on the American People?

Why is there no Article on Americans. Every other countyr, even melting pots, have an article on this. Demographics of US is not what i would consider this. 72.144.73.90 (talk) 14:52, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

There is such an article, see People of the United States of America 76.66.195.63 (talk) 03:39, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

References

An editor said in an edit note that refs are not needed for a dab page. I agree they are not normally needed, but then the content of dab pages are not normally as controversial as this one. Even on this page I believe refs aren't needed for most of the entries. But for those that are controversial, we should have them. Readin (talk) 06:51, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

The definitions are not actually controversial; they appear in any dictionary you check. Dab pages are merely for redirecting a reader to other articles, the sourcing goes there.--Cúchullain ^t/c 23:54, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

If the definitions are not controversial, then why does the page keep getting changed and why is this talk page so long? The purpose for the references is to provide a basis for keeping the page stable, so that anyone who wants to change it can see that there is a reliably sourced reason for the page being the way it is, and to provide reminders to anyone who wishes to discuss the changes. Readin (talk) 00:36, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Saying that the sourcing goes on the linked pages is not an adequate answer here, because the sources being cited are sources that reference the use of "American" as a description of the particular topic. Given the continuing dispute over what should be listed on this page (most of which, however, borders on the ridiculous), I think there is a reasonable case to break the rules here. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 00:38, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I checked out the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) page to see what it said. I couldn't find anything saying we shouldn't have reliable sources, references, or citations. I did find this, which would seem to back up R'n'B's comment: Application of these guidelines will generally produce useful disambiguation pages which are consistent with each other and therefore easily usable by most readers. Usefulness to the reader is their principal goal. However, for every style recommendation above, there may be pages in which a good reason exists to use another way; so ignore these guidelines if doing so will be more helpful to readers than following them. Readin (talk) 00:43, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

The purpose of a disambiguation page is to redirect users to all the articles which have the same name. It is not their purpose to serve as a dictionary or to make any statements which would require there to be a citation. Obviously any change should be made with the reader's interest in mind, but I do not agree that linking to a dictionary is really in their best interest. This is a major change from the standard format, and per CONSENSUS it is the job of those who want the change to demonstrate that consensus is behind them, and that hasn't been done here yet.--Cúchullain ^t/c 03:31, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

CHALLENGE: Use of "as per CONSENSUS" in this context is out of order. (See farther below) Proofreader77 (talk) 13:26, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Breaking up a disambiguation page with section lines (vs not doing that)

NOTE:

1. I'm making this a subtopic of the above, because the change I inserted was undone during the same edit as removal of the references. (dif)
2. Flexibility of guidelines regarding Disambiguation pages is the broader issue.
3. When the edit referenced in (1) was undone (dif), that undoing restored what I done. :)

As I mentioned in my edit summary replacing "==" with "===="—a disambiguation page is not an article. Grouping the items is useful, but there are other ways to do that. If using "====" offends, then perhaps not use any topic codes—rather, simply use bold group titles. Proofreader77 (talk) 01:27, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree that de-emphasizing the separations between the item groups is a good idea. It looks much better with your change. Readin (talk) 02:45, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Ideally disambig pages should only include articles that share the same name and are therefore ambiguously titles. This page should probably be trimmed down before any formatting decisions are made.--Cúchullain ^t/c 03:33, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

SO: (response to Cuchullain)

1. Shall we take ideally to mean that it is your understanding that all disambiguation pages should be brought into conformance with the guideline as you have described?
2. Or, that each shall be subject to the same action you have taken here. TO WIT: Demanding those editors who have invested time in the page successfully argue for each deviation from the ideal?
3. What reasons shall be sufficient to be persuasive against the ideal (when the ideal is preferred by the arbiter of consensus)?

AND NOTE:

• A post-hoc rationalization based on a possible future state is not an argument for reverting a formatting change now because someone may choose to classify it as "controversial" because it is a deviation from some (so far unspecified) standard regarding topic divisions on a disambiguation page subject to variation but we're going to erase most of this anyway because it variates from policy subject to variation but only if approved by someone seeking the concensus on non-variation ... so leave what was reverted to as it is until that's worked out in concensus. :)

I.E., No. Proofreader77 (talk) 13:23, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

"Consensus" and disambiguation pages

ITEMS:

• (edit summary): "rv to consensus version ..."dif
• "Ideally ... should"
• "should probably be"

If the honorable administrator Cúchullain is to be the arbiter of what "consensus" means in the context of the explicitly flexible policy guidelines for disambiguation pages, the issues appears to be settled.

I.E., No "consensus" that is not congruent with Cúchullain's interpretation of the ideal disambiguation page, as defined by the policy guidelines shall be deemed the consensus.

I.E., The exceptions to the policy guidelines which the policy guidelines allow for, can only be made here with the "concensus" of the arbiter of concensus who does not agree with deviation from the ideal disambiguation page.

I.E., We are wasting our time. There is no "concensus" other than Cúchullain's. (i.e., no variation allowed)

In light of the above, the use of as per WP:CONCENSUS in this context is out of order. Proofreader77 (talk) 13:40, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

The "onus" (i.e, why all this response?)

"(rv to consensus version. The onus is on users wanting the controversial changes to demonstrate consensus, and that hasn't been done.)" dif

No, dear Cúchullain, the onus is on the other foot. Given the context (including the variations) of disambiguation pages, your demand for making a case for every variation to your satisfaction is an undue burden which you have placed on the editors of this page.

• "controversial"
• WP:CONCENSUS

We are not anywhere near the level of "controversial." We're in the realm of trivial randomness.

BOTTOM LINE: Cúchullain's reversion and demands while wielding the sword of "as per WP:CONCENSUS" are out of order. So says the consensus of all reasonable men and women everywhere. :) Proofreader77 (talk) 13:54, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Blanket Reversions

Let me start out by saying "You're welcome."
I mean, for my responding to the two block-worthily reckless reversions (of two independent editors' assertion of the same text) without posting my blistering reply anywhere but on my hard drive. Discarding the technical corrections mandated under the multiple-years-standing consensus about what a Dab is and how it has to work, is the height of arrogance; those editors were obligated to sort out the controversy-relevant material, leave the rest in place, and discuss how to accommodate the problems the controversy presents into the Dab framework, rather than pontificate about having your consensus d'jour delayed. That is, discuss with your colleagues who have the technical background to avoid howlers like

I couldn't find anything saying we shouldn't have reliable sources, references, or citations.

Let's see, let me dredge thru the morass of WP:MoSDab, and see what i can find -- oh, there it is, in the 3rd sentence of the 5-sentence lead section; now, tell us what part you didn't understand in

The pages should contain only disambiguation content....

Yeah, the part that should have kept you from resorting to that ultimate get-out-of-jail-without-any-mental-effort card of the guideline's nod to WP:IAR.
The undeserved respect i will show for your consensus is this: i will do the work you were obligated to do instead of your blanket reversions, of melding your version with mine, with the understanding that i'll have made my best possible effort at accommodating the concerns that have to do with the controversy, and the expectation that if i've screwed up your efforts at compromise, we'll all discuss how to make everyone happy.
--Jerzy•t 15:59, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

• I see another editor has posted on this talk page while i worked, and i'll be careful to respect any efforts they have already made in the same direction, without immediately trying to harmonize explicitly on the talk page; the Dab-page text is more important than what is said here in talk.
  --Jerzy•t 15:59, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
  

oh, there it is, in the 3rd sentence of the 5-sentence lead section. The 3rd sentence says: "This style guideline is intended to make the process more efficient, by giving disambiguation pages a consistent look and by avoiding distracting information, such as extraneous links (internal or external)." Reliable sources are hardly "extraneous". In fact they are core to Wikipedia's philosophy. To quote Wikipedia:Verifiability, "Wikipedia:Verifiability is one of Wikipedia's core content policies. The others are Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view." So of three cores of Wikipedia, reliable sources are definitely key to two of them, Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research. They are not "extraneous. They are core. Readin (talk) 16:24, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Readin, you are taking that out of context. The key point you omit is that disambiguation pages are not article content. They are just a navigational aid; in this case, to help a reader who searches for "American" get to a Wikipedia article about one of the several topics that might be called by that name. I'm not questioning the guideline that says that external links are ordinarily a distraction from that goal. I've said that this case might be the rare exception to the rule, not that there is anything wrong with the general rule. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 17:15, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

An editor brought up "WP:MoSDab & WP:Dab" in their comments when reverting the references. So I took a look. I did not find what the editor said was there. When someone says the manual of style or the guidelines say something, the burden is really on them to point it out.

I agree that disambiguation pages are not content articles. However they are part of Wikipedia. So far, no one has been able to show that the core philosophies that apply to Wikipedia as a whole should not apply to the dab pages.

I'm not normally one to be a stickler on the policies, guidelines, etc. But when someone starts throwing them around as a source of authority, they need to be able to prove that the policies and guidelines say what they claim they say. Otherwise, don't mention them. Appeal to reason rather than to authority. Readin (talk) 17:44, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

• I think i addressed (further down the page, one level less indented, and at 18:03 that day) most of that in what i said to Rdin's previous (16:24) remarks. As to the "authority" part, i'll respond in appropriate length to that, as soon after drafting it as i can get another word in edgewise.
  --Jerzy•t 18:15, 27 February &08:48, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
  
• I've given this more time and thot than i implied!
  When i say "an editor" or "a colleague", i'm usually reflecting the collegialist (excuse what may be a coinage) value that the subject matter, rather than the discussants, is what a discussion is about. Sometimes i say that, despite knowing who i'm speaking of, but when i referred to the presumable lack of attention to Dab-page standards, i was acting on the usual presumption that it didn't matter, and hadn't bothered to look up who had implied that there was nothing more relevant in them than IAR. I've now looked back, and see that all of this comes from Readin, and therefore the standard of relevance they applied was not that of

what some reasonable discussants would consider important to the discussion

but apparently

what they judged to be evidence necessary for arriving at the correct conclusion

-- a standard which of course is indistinguishable (pending further advances in fMRI technology) from

making up your own mind, and, to avoid impeding the what you've ID'd as the correct conclusion, refusing to assist the knaves and fools who are open to something else in finding what they would (mistakenly) consider relevant.

I say all that now bcz it now seems clear to me that Readin's role in the refs-on-Dab-"American" part of the discussion included a breakdown of collaborative editing, and bcz i've come to the conclusion that that context makes it important not be distracted by this monologue on the vaguely evoked term "authority". I can't tell what that's about, but possibilities include:

-- a personal attack on me, for being, here on one of the great populist projects of our time,

around longer than them, or

officially found harmless, or

more experienced in making Dabs do what they exist to do

-- a misunderstanding of what appeal to authority means

-- an opinion that IAR is all we need, and that the policies and guidelines are a costly waste of energy

Only the last of these is worthy of discussion, which will be found at #On Ignoring Rules.
--Jerzy•t 08:48, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

• I'm gratified at R'n'B measured response, and look forward to their response to my response (currently immediately below) to Readin.
  --Jerzy•t 18:03, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
  

• Readin is right that the content of Dab pages must be based on verifiable sources, but there is in general not need form them to be cited on the Dab page to accomplish that, and i have never seen a case where citing them visibly on the Dab page and i cannot see why the accompanying Dab pg might be an exception. It's hard for me to imagine when putting the refs in the articles lk'd by the respective entries would not suffice, with class of possible exceptions: If it is believed that refs (such as the dictdefs that i understand to have been involved as refs on the accompanying Dab) are needed to deter a few editors from changing the corresponding entries, that can be solved without burdening the visible Dab page: put a big wiki-comment, in the spirit of the ones i currently have in place, unmissable by anyone about to edit the corresponding entry, give the URL and the text of the dictdef. No burden on non-editors.
  --Jerzy•t 18:03, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
  

• Jerzy, thanks for your effort to clean up the article. One relatively minor complaint -- an "American" is not necessarily a "person associated with..."; it may be also be some other attribute of the place, particularly when used as an adjective. (And yes, I know that links are supposed to be nouns, not adjectives, but you can still put brackets around an adjective, and in the absence of a disambiguation page the adjective is supposed to redirect to the noun form.) "An [[American]] farm," for instance, is clearly not a person. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 18:54, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Style issues

Can we please all stop arguing about who did what to whom, and instead actually discuss the merits of which style should be used on this page, so we can try to move towards a consensus? As I see it, the point of disagreement is this: although the style guide normally rules out the use of footnotes and external links on a disambiguation page like this one, some editors have suggested that an exception should be made on this page because there seems to be continuing dispute (as evidenced by many earlier postings on this talk page) over whether particular topics are, or are not, properly referred to by the term "American." The idea was that citing dictionaries or other sources that do use the word "American" to refer to a topic should foreclose future controversy over whether to include that topic on this page. Please indicate below whether you support or oppose the use of references for that purpose on this disambig page, and your reasons. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 16:15, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Support

1. So far no one has been able to show that the style guide rules out the use of references on a dab page. Readin (talk) 16:28, 27 February 2009 (UTC) There has been a lot of discussion and edit warring about the use of "American" for citizens of America vs inhabitants of the Americas. Requiring citations and having citations should go a long way toward settling those issues. In particular, if we can find references that describe both uses we might also find that the references say which is more common. Readin (talk) 17:47, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
2. Weak support. If the selection of topics on the dab page is going to be a continuing source of controversy, then I'm willing to bend the rules and allow footnotes. But I do so "weakly" because, to be honest, most of the "controversy" has just been immature ranting, mostly by IPs, who want something changed because they don't like it, not because they have anything useful to say about whether the word "American" is or is not used to describe that subject matter. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 17:10, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Oppose

1. I don't think there's any need to include the citations. Yes, there has been a lot of noise over what is included and people have long attempted to remove definitions they don't like. Nevertheless, the links aren't anything you won't find in any standard dictionary. As R'n'B pointed out, if you read this talk page, most editors who spar over the definitions aren't doing it because they are uncited, or because they doubt that our definitions don't have the backing of a reliable source, they do it because they don't like what's in the dictionary. They are uncomfortable with "American" having other uses beyond their preferred one, and no amount of citation is going to prevent that. As such I don't think there's any reason to forgo the typical disambig format with citations that clutter up the page and aren't even in place for every link. On top of that, linking to a dictionary gives the impression that this page is a dictionary definition of what the word "American" means, which it is not - it is merely for redirecting readers to other pages where they can find the information they are looking for.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:23, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Other comments

1. Waiting to hear how my refs-hidden-in-cmts scheme is received.
   --Jerzy•t 18:07, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
   
   • Numbering this section's points suggests a slot where each discussant's cmts go as they are called for, and deprecates per-topic threads; i infer that is intentional, and the threaded discussions belong outside of the "Style issues" section. Have i got that right?
     --Jerzy•t 03:02, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
     
   • Time having passed, i think without controversy over most of what the wiki-cmts in the accompanying article were designed to help with problems in, i am about to copy the content and context of the cmts onto a new section on this talk page. Two edit-conflicts in one evening is one too many, so i will tag the article as in use. I will treat as friendly any reversion of my article edits (presumably two in number) back to the now-current revision, by any colleague who thinks this action is premature.
     --Jerzy•t 02:49, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
     
   • Support or opposition without persuasive arguments is not what WP straw polls are intended to elicit, so i have been deferring compilation of an adequately annotated consolidated argument as these other pressing matters pop up.
     --Jerzy•t 08:25, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
     
2. It is very difficult to read the hidden comments in the main article. They are of such volume and nature that they really belong on the talk page rather than as comments in the article page. That said, the suggestion of using hidden comments has merit. I've seen such comments in articles for the purpose of deterring over-editing. I don't know how much impact it has on other editors, but there's no reason we can give it a try here to see how successful it is. But I think the comments need to be greatly condensed. Rather than a paragraph, a one line note, with a big label "NOTE" or "WARNING" followed by a brief authoritative statement of why it shouldn't be changed and a link to the discussion page would be better I think. Something like < !--NOTE Verified by http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/american See talk page before making changes. -- >. Readin (talk) 19:23, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

On Ignoring Rules

I quote in part and with added emphasis from WP:MoSDab#Break rules:

... there may be pages in which a good reason exists to use another way; so ignore these guidelines if doing so will be more helpful to readers than following them.

Please also note the potentially misleading link, on the word "ignore", to the title Ignore all rules; i hope i can be forgiven for [wink] burdening this page with its entire prose content, which (please note) does not include the phrase that is its title:

If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it.

That's it, one line. Rather than these putting the onus of providing detailed justification for following guidelines on those who urge we do so, if there is any onus it is on those urging otherwise, to show (not with a proof by blatant assertion) that a guideline must be ignored to achieve a worthwhile objective.
And while AGF does not prevent them, following an assertion to the effect of "It's in the guidelines", from limiting their next contrib to that dialogue to asking "Oh, where?", it does mean at the least that they need, before carrying on anyway according to their own lights,

to make a good faith effort to show (to do what a lawyer would call "making a prima facie showing") that the most plausible bases for such a conclusion are fallacious,

in doing so -- not to put too fine a point on it -- to bear responsibility if they ignore (e.g., just bcz they do not themselves consider them relevant) things that they know or should know that reasonable others will consider relevant, and

generally to wait for a response.

That may be asking for a lot of insight, imagination, and discipline, but those who can't manage it may well be mistaken in seriously editing WP.
--Jerzy•t 08:51 &22:11, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Well put, Jerzy.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:34, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure we need to be so strict. Sure, there are very strong rules and guidelines for providing reliable sources for everything and everything in Wikipedia. In this case I'm not going to demand that someone show that the "guideline must be ignored to achieve a worthwhile objective". If what you're saying is we can't remove the citations and till we have proven that removing them is the only way to achieve a worthwhile objective, I'm not on board with you. As I said before, I'm not fond of being a stickler on the policies and guidelines. If we can reach a reasonable conclusion that make a better product without following every detail of the rules, that is fine with me. But if you're insisting that every rule be followed we go by the book, then go ahead and put the references back in. As for myself, I'm willing to give the hidden text approach a chance to work if doing so will help us reach agreement.
Readin (talk) 22:22 & :23, 1 March 2009 (UTC) Marked up to reflect actual edits shown in the talk-page history --Jerzy•t 02:30, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

It was pointed out above that disambiguation pages are not article pages. They include only disambiguation content, as Jerzy mentioned above, and as has been reiterated. In this case including the cites is against the norm (I'm sure you've noticed that all clean dab pages have no citations) and it would be on the users who want them added to demonstrate that they should be included.--Cúchullain ^t/c 00:06, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

If you want to use policy issue to force a bahavior from an editor, then you've got to make sure the policy is on your side. There are clear policies about reliable sources. There seems to be a common practice of not including sources in dab pages, but no policy to that effect. If you want to enforce it as a policy, then either show that it is an existing policy or take steps to make it a policy. Simply showing that it is a common practice is insufficient. When somone points another editor to a policy page, as was done earlier when someone referred me to WP:MoSDab, it is important that the policy say what he claims it says. It that case it did not. For someone to throw non-existent policy at me and then for Jerzy to get angry at me for pointing out that I can't find the supposed policy is not a civil way of handling things. Why shouldn't I go looking for the policy to be sure that I agree with the interpretation, or to see if there were any overlooked clauses? Reasonable people can and often do disagree over interpretations.

Again, I'm really not that interested in arguing policy. I would much rather discuss the best way of handling a problem. But if someone tries to throw a book at me, he should not be offended if it is thrown back at him. Before we keep going, can we first try to agree on whether we want to have a book fight or whether we would rather have a civil discussion? I would note that although showing something is common practice carries no weight in a policy discussion, it does have value in a civil discussion. Readin (talk) 02:17 & :24, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

• I didn't notice anyone asking for any behavior from you -- no editor is ever precluding from doing nothing for as long as they choose to do nothing. But consider yourself now warned that until further notice you can be blocked from editing, for disruptive editing, if you insert refs on any Dab page.
  Your colleagues are under no obligation to accept your unilateral judgment that the obvious interpretation of "only Dab'n content" does not extend to refs, and so far i have noticed no one explicitly agreeing, and the only hint of support for your view being "Weak support" for "bending the rules".
  I also counsel you against claiming you can read your colleagues' minds.

1. You can't,
2. IMO claiming you can is in itself a form of PA, and
3. introducing your fantasies about colleagues' internal states states as part of an argument about editing is a clear violation of NPA.

--Jerzy•t 08:17, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

• (I thot for a moment that the sentence that i bolded in the 2:24 expansion of the 2:17 contrib was a perfect object lesson on the need for clearly declaring one's modification of their own signed and time-stamped comments. That is, i might have missed commenting on the late addition bcz i had read the contrib before the expansion. Much more likely there was just too much going on, plus the tendency to avoid thinking about sentences where you can't imagine why anyone would have put their two clauses together in their context.) One clause of the bolded last sentence requires comment: It is a fundamental and serious mistake to say that

... showing something is common practice carries no weight in a policy discussion ...

bcz communities in fact create nearly all their standards by observation of what their members do without exciting comment. (In even international law, there is a principle that a prohibition can be inferred from nations' historical forbearances from acting.) In WP practice, this can be seen in the rule CREEP (which is not about having skin-crawling sensations in someone's presence, but rather about stemming slow but potentially inexorable growth of written rules that could be obviated by relying on common sense and common practice): we make a point of not writing down a rule for everything we know we want not to do.
--Jerzy•t 20:16, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

• (As can be seen on my own "correction and extension" of my own remarks 11 minutes earlier than Readin's, i am a stickler also about keeping the sig-&-time-stamp info accurate, if only because removing or altering a saved contrib creates the prospect -- even if in such a window of opportunity whose length is two minutes or less -- of those who read it falling prey to gaslighting effects, unless they are lucky or paranoid enuf to consult the onerous edit history. I use a style that has been carefully thot thru and extensively tested in practice, and which i would hope is pretty much as intuitive for others as i find it. Someone may object to my applying it on others' contribs which are effectively "forgeries" about their own participation; if such objections arise, we could apply a much less intuitive and more space-hogging means of providing the same info.
  It's too bad that Readin was dissatisfied with their own earlier wording "every rule be followed" (even tho no one has advocated doing so without qualification). "By the book" is too protean a phrase: it can mean either "contrary to common sense", or "carefully, as common sense requires"; using it seems to me to add only murk to the discussion. "Follow every rule unless..." is indeed the requirement, and the common-sense practice, of WP. I urge Readin to become a colleague by embracing it; if they are having trouble coming to terms with it, trying to tinker with the nuances is a recipe for future problems.
  (Saved attempted after dodging EdConf with 02:17 contrib above, and saved in an override in second EdConf. This revision repairs the override.)
  --Jerzy•t 02:30 & 02:38, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
  

Let's focus on article dab page content, please. Readin (talk) 14:19, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

• I wish the process needed attention no more urgently than the content has, so that i'd been more in a position to focus on it.
  --Jerzy•t 20:16, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
  

In any case, I just checked your hidden comments on the dab page. If they work, then we can live without the references anyway, and you've them to make them more legible. We should be good for now. Readin (talk) 14:40, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

If I decide to change my comments quickly, that is my business. Had the comments stayed up for a couple hours, you might have reason to bring them back. But the deletions were made within minutes of the original posting, typical editing. And as a courtesy to you, I even modified the time of posting in response to an earlier complaints on this page. However if someone insists on modifying the comments I have left, I will take it up one one of the admin action boards. I can tolerate a lot of incivility, but not that. Readin (talk) 20:35, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Re removals of USA/American-irrelevant entries

I added a number of comments hidden from non-editors, in suppressing entries by way of Dab-Cleanup of the accompanying Dab page; feel free to ask me why if you don't care to search out the previous discussion in other sections of this talk page. I'm now displaying the removed entries here, each with my description of why i suppressed it or its group of similar ones. Right near the top of the Dab pg, i said

<!--
In view of a fasseria about competing recent changes, User:Jerzy has inserted voluminous wiki-comments. He suggests
1. Removing each that requires response to a subsection of talk:American#Blanket Reversions (or some new section) (as non-commented text), replacing it here with a compact comment that that's been done.
2. Jerzy (if no one else does it) eventually taking responsibilty to get all this crap out of the article, and compile it, similarly, on the talk page.
-->(Below, i will -- in contrast with this signed unit of my contrib -- omit the cmt-creating markup that was on the Dab page.)
--Jerzy•t 07:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Lead group in lead section

• American, person associated with the United States

  I produced that by removing from what i found:

  1. "A person, inhabitant, or attribute of the"

     [and explained:] WP:NAD, so we generally don't articles on adjective forms, and the "attribute of US" sense pretty much would have to have a different title -- even American (adjective), is suppose, tho it would invite merger into American (word) (both bcz of title competition and close alliance of the topics) rather than renaming American (word) to American (noun). If an article on the adjectivial sense exists, separate from US, we *should* have a *separate* entry for it.
     BTW, there are non-citizen members of the US Armed Forces, in many cases no longer living in US, who are probably rightly included by "associated".

     It note that a disagreement has been voiced over that portion of that one entry.

  2. "[[United States|United States of America]]"

     [explaining:] The piping is not permitted, nor can i see why it's desirable; the purpose is to assist choosing the page to go to with the least clutter, and if there is anyone likely to be less confused by that than by US alone, United States of America would do it. [It would go to the same article, that is, bcz the long one is a Rdr to the short one.] (Yes, i am aware of the United States of Mexico; no one calls it "United States" in any language by [uh, i meant "but"] Spanish. [Actually, i think in at least Mexico, "Estados Unidas" (i may have omitted diacritics) is used to mean USA, except in the phrase, probably used only on formal occasions, "Estados Unidas de Mexico"[).]

^{--Jerzy•t 07:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)}

• American, person associated with the Americas

  [explaining:] similar removal [meaning a removal & replacement paralleling my conversion to the "person associated with" language in the preceding Dab entry]

^{--Jerzy•t 07:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)}

• American, person associated with the indigenous peoples of the Americas

  [explaining:] similar removal [as with the preceding two Dab entries]; note this covers those adopted into tribes even when their ancestry is European, etc.

^{--Jerzy•t 07:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)}

• American English dialect

  [explaining that i] removed: ["]a dialect of the English language[", per my rhetorical question:] Why could this be other than pointless clutter?

^{--Jerzy•t 07:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)}

"Organizations" group

• American Broadcasting Company

  [explaining:] The article makes it crystal clear that its always called ABC for short, and never "American"

^{--Jerzy•t 07:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)}

• A group of 6 entries:

  [explaining:] Obviously no one knows which you mean if you say just "American" in the context of recording, unless 5 of these are here by mistake[:]

  * American Gramaphone

  * American Music Records

  * American Record Company

  * American Record Corporation

  * American Recording Productions

  * American Recordings

^{--Jerzy•t 07:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)}

Former "People" group

• American McGee (born December 13, 1972) , a game designer

  [explaining:] No sign that anyone expects to be understood when they refer to him by given name only! [I also removed the no longer plausibly needed group heading.]

^{--Jerzy•t 07:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)}

"Other" group

• American, [[Geographic Beanie Babies#American|doll design in Beanie Babies series]]

  [Not a removal but i still explained:] Bcz it's a section ref [i.e., a lk to a section within an article rather than the head of the article], this is a special case that's hard to spot in WP:MoSDab.
  This is User:Jerzy's favored style for them, but other experienced Dab-cleaners differ, and i have no problem deferring to them when they do so on this Dab page.

^{--Jerzy•t 07:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)}

"See also" section

• List of all pages beginning with "American"

  [explaining:] Dabs are distinctly *not* lists of, in this case, every article starting "American ..."

Look thru the list yourself, and if you find something you think has been missed, it can be considered on its individual merits. ^{--Jerzy•t 07:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)}

• A group of 2 entries:

  The following both sure look like things *related* to "American". [My subtext was "but if that's their only claim to be on the page, they've got to be suppressed. When i was almost ready to save the page, i said to myself "Well, the contents will show whether this is something else; there's no reason to rely on simply unlikelihood."]

  Reconsideration:

  * Americas (terminology) A really valuable article, which i felt obliged to check, thinking there might be a section with the spin that there's stuff worth saying about the broader senses of "American" than the (arguable primary) topic of the US-related sense, but not at present. Write such a section, and if it isn't deletable crap, i'll probably support the section's inclusion here. (See my section lk in "Other" heading for the Beanie Baby, re one style of such an entry.)
  Oops, i failed to recall we already have an article American (word), which i suppose might get merged into Americas (terminology) (just based on the title, i can imagine supporting such a merge, but not necessarily) otherwise, it seems unlikely we'll have such a section.

  * Names for Americans Another valuable article, and another i eventually felt the need to comb for suitable sections. Probably a point should be made by someone of being sure that various articles re US lk to it, but i can't get my head around any arguments that anyone would expect "American" (or "American (<something>)") to be its title, so far.

^{--Jerzy•t 07:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)}

• ig:Ndi America [Interlanguage lk, displayed only in the "Languages" box in the (lefthand) WP sidebar]

  [explaining:] Jerzy has checked each of the inter-lang lks to be sure they lead to something that is plausibly a Dab page. The Igbo one (ig:Ndi America) is a deleted article, so the lk is removed. The identities of the remainder as Dabs was, well, pretty unambiguous, mostly due to wide use of Dab icons which were, IIRC, first introduced on the German WP. Ich danke euch, Kollegen! [That's German, for "I thank you-all, colleagues"; yeah, i'm a terrible smartass.]

^{--Jerzy•t 07:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)}

re: the use of <small> notes (sparingly, for the reader's benefit, in appropriate cases)

(will return to address this issue here later today) Proofreader77 (talk) 17:06, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

COMPARE:

American may refer to:

• In casual usage, American English (e.g. "I speak American.")

American may refer to:

• American English (Note: casual usage, e.g. "I speak American.")

(...)
--Proofreader77 (talk) 20:39, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

• I had made a "slightly less urgent"-tagged mental note to comment on this, on seeing this mechanism on the Dab page, and i applaud Pr'r'r's awareness that it's outside the bounds of normal Dab usage.
  IMO, the reason we don't see this elsewhere is that it is a result of the impulse to say more than is useful for Dab'n: There's no need to give excuses, on the Dab page, to finicky users about why the entries are there. If you think there's such a need at all, we can create a "Notes to curious readers" section, even with multiple sub-sections, and label it as a collection of consensus explanations that we've reached in true talk sections below. Or we could put in the lead section (i.e., above all the section headings), probably inside one of those user expandable boxes, so that the potentially long text in it doesn't obscure access to the acual-discussion portion of the talk page.
  --Jerzy•t 21:10, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
  

re: "outside the bounds of normal Dab usage"

I highlight Jerzy's phrase for later examination.

For now other ways have been found to handle the matter—not necessarily better ones.
(And perhaps more subject to unnecessary contention. We shall see. :)

NOTE:

1. Use of the word American for American English (rightly) strikes many people as "wrong."
2. It is useful (and good design) to give a cue to those who feel that way, that their issue has been appreciated by the editors of the page.
3. That issue will NOT be addressed with embedded comments and boxed-up explanations. Those will not be read by the person who sees the page and feels an impulse to edit.
4. Let it be noted that filling the page with hidden comments far in excess of its content is contrary to reason if not explicit policy. And probably that, too.
5. To be continued (perhaps:) Proofreader77 (talk) 23:45, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

disambiguation, dictionaries, and lists of partial matches

Noting for later discussion: Most disambiguation pages are not just disambiguation pages. Proofreader77 (talk) 18:05, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Notes/items

• re: R'n'B's edit summary dif

“ (let's not be overly technical; this is not a dictionary definition, but an aid to help readers find appropriate articles) ”

RESPONSE: Consider the top entries on the page. Clearly not disambiguation. They are a dictionary of sorts, with the definition ellaboration being a link to an article (sort of:) with the constraint that the item contains a link to an exiting article. Proofreader77 (talk) 18:09, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

"Clearly not disambiguation"? I'm sorry, but I do not understand that statement at all. They are plainly disambiguation. "Hey, you, show me the article about Americans." "Which type of Americans do you mean, sir/madam?" --R'n'B (call me Russ) 20:53, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

(temp note) Let me get back to this in a moment. But glad you highlighted American[s] Proofreader77 (talk) 21:18, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I propose that accuracy and eloquence be applicable standards to such "dictionary type" links to articles. (more below) Proofreader77 (talk) 20:13, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

• Accuracy and eloquence of top dictionary-type entries:

“ American may refer to ... Something relating to the indigenous peoples of the Americas ”

COMMENT: Hmmm. In what context? Proofreader77 (talk) 20:00, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

• "When Columbus arrived, the Americans were quite surprised." (?)
• "Custer was greatly outnumbered by the Americans at Little Big Horn." (?)
• "Meanwhile in the southern hemisphere, the Americans were ultimately unhappy with their new friends from Spain." (?)

(...)Proofreader77 (talk) 20:05, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

• American English and the dictionary reference "contention." NOTE: In the role of recent-changes patroller I believe I have reverted the adding of "American English" to this page (perhaps more than once) BECAUSE referring to "American English" as "American" is a casual (informal, sometimes jocular, slang, etc usage). HOWEVER ... yes, there in "the dictionary" (somewhere) is a listing for that definition ... AND ... having had it pointed out to me, has dissuaded me from reverting the addition of American English to this disambiguation page. Just just noting that. Proofreader77 (talk) 20:29, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

If I might make a suggestion, we should be less worried about whether our readers are using words correctly or not, and simply point them to the article most likely to be useful to them without criticizing them for arriving at the disambiguation page. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 20:51, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

The reason for caring is because of the increasingly-popular phrase According to Wikipedia – which, I posit, places a bit of burden on editors to distinguish uses which are not encyclopedically mainstream :) (can't spell that) Proofreader77 (talk) 21:22, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

• re: American University QUOTE (a forum comment on a colleges info site, but worth noting): "The school is a nice size, but sadly people have never heard of the school. When you say 'I go to American,' they say, 'That's nice, which school in America?' [3] Proofreader77 (talk) 19:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Redirect note: "Americans" redirects here

Lightly reformatted to avoid confusion between bullets on quoted Dab entries and bullets starting new talk contribs. --Jerzy•t 05:19, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

That s is a slightly bigger deal than it seems. :)

* Americans ... are specifically people.

* Nashville Americans ... is a ball team. NOTE: That redirect is why its on this page.

* American is a (complex) modifer ... See American (word)

(since we're being picky these days:)
Proofreader77 (talk) 21:06, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

• It may be on Dab (rather than MoSDab) where it's said explicitly, but it's well established that it's usually pointless (and i think "annoying" or "clutter" may be implicit) to take note on the Dab page of including inflections of the same "base-title" (e.g. plurals), variant casings, presence or absence of space or hyphen in a compound, and the like. (Except, i guess, in the sense that least occasionally -- my impression is where at least one of the pages is so big as to make combining them unreasonable -- there may be separate pages, mutually lk'd via their "See also" sections, and these may be divided according to such a distinction.) The terminal s is certainly below the bar that you'd have to clear to justify mention.
  There's also no reason for a HatNote (if that's what's being suggested by the echo of {{redirect}}), ever on a Dab page, nor anywhere where the Rdr'd title's topic(s) is/are fully covered in the article that is the target of the Rdr.
  --Jerzy•t 05:19, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
  

American/Americans is somewhat more "complicated" than most plurals. :)

• In any case, since a user who typed "Americans" arrives here, there should be some acknowledgment they have arrived where they were seeking—e.g., visibly clarifying with something like "American(s) may refer to."
• And because of the redirection of Americans here, the pre-cleaning links to People of the United States of America and Demographics, are clearly warranted. Proofreader77 (talk) 16:52, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The most likely intent of a search for "Americans"

(Again, because of the redirect of Americans here,)

• The most likely intent of searchers for "Americans" is the people of the United States. That justifies links handling that case being in the top section.
• NOTE: The searchers above should not have to scan the whole page, find the link to another disambiguation page for American people.
• SPECIFICALLY ASSERTING: If strictly following the guidelines for disambiguation pages causes the reader to jump through hoops, then ... that is where the reasonable application of the guideline about guideline flexability comes into play — and should not be rationalized away. (in a rhyming mood:) Proofreader77 (talk) 17:56, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

European Americans, African Americans, Latino Americans, Mexican Americans, German Americans but no Americans?

If the word American does not mean citizen of the United States when it stands alone, than how can it magically re-gain a definition when you place it behind African, European or Latino? If just "American" is too ambiguous and overbroad to mean a citizen of the United States then shouldn't the same rule be applied to the terms African Americans, European Americans, and Latino Americans? This rule is not being applied consistently and is unfair. Americans needs to be linked, or redirected to People of the United States.Skeeter08865 (talk) 22:24, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

NOTE:

1. I have put the word "citizen" in the first item.
2. One complication here is, of course, that American can be a noun or an adjective and we're clumping the two together ... which happens on a Disambiguation page BECAUSE it isn't a dictionary, but often looks like one.
3. Another complication is that Americans redirects here. (Americans perhaps should redirect to People of the United States (noting we must deal with the team Nashville Americans). But have to think about that more.

SO: The reason this page may not be satisfactory with respect to your concerns has to do with the above complications of language.... and the guidelines for disambiguation pages. The issues of fairness you raise are important. Let's see if some adjustment regarding American/Americans might be worked out. (Things are still in flux. Please have patience.) Thanks. Proofreader77 (talk) 00:13, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

1) I agree American can be a noun or adjective but so can German Irish or French. However there are still pages for German American, Irish American and English American. These pages should be changed to “People of the United States with Irish Heritage/lineage/culture? Now if that is not going to happen why isn’t “People of the United States” just titled “Americans”?

2) With regards to the “fairness” issue – when do you think this little problem will be resolved and where should I go to voice my opinion on what is “fair and accurate?” I do realize that many of these hard core editors may not get out much, and have limited interactions with other living breathing human beings who speak . So at least I can imagine why there would be some confusion concerning an English word as simple, straight forward and plain-meaning as “peanut butter.” Skeeter08865 (talk) 03:44, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

• Skeeter, if you feel there is a corresponding problem on some article page, take to that article's talk page. This is a Dab page, and what it lists is determined solely by whether a substantial number of users use the word in that sense, and i suggest you go study WP:Dab and WP:MoSDab if you don't understand why Dab pages are completely different from articles. If you continue concerned about this pg, you're free to discuss it on your blog.
  --Jerzy•t 18:07, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
  

German and Germans

In your item #1 you mention "German Irish or French." German is the closest to the same issue as we have here: American/Americans - German/Germans, so let's start from that parallel.

• American and Americans bring you to this disambiguation page. And—with due respect to the disambiguation-rule-focused perspectives of the two honorable administrators in attendance (somewhere:)—that causes some "awkwardness" at the top of the page.

NOTE:

• German takes you to a German disambiguation page.
• Germans takes you to an article about Germans.

HOWEVER KEEP IN MIND

• America is a popular name for the United States of America ...
• Americas is a hemisphere.
• Germany is the name of country.
• Germanies is not a hemisphere.

AND (lol)

• America has enough nuclear weapons to blow up the world, and Germany doesn't.
• Custer probably didn't think he was fighting the Americans at Little Big Horn, but his judgment is questionable.
• The Incas are very unlikely to be referred to as Americans, but they could be.
• yada yada yada

I'm not trying to confuse the issue. :) Just highlighting why "American" is a more complex problem.

NOW, LET'S PAUSE ... have a cup of tea, and chat a bit about the rules against commenting on editors rather than the edits/comments of editors. For example, in my reference to the administrators above, I have alluded to what I observe (their focus on the guidelines and resistance to deviations), but make no comment about the editors themselves—i.e., I don't make any judgement of their persons/personalities etc. NOTE: If I believe their actions are out of line in carrying out a Wikipedia function (administrator or dab-cleaner), I can freely comment (with civil tact) on that. But I cannot call them names, make reference to their mommas, or suggest various medications, etc. I.E., don't do that.

As for your #2, (first, see tea break above), then, let me assure you that the somewhat mysterious (often frustrating) process(es) of Wikipedia are designed to be a fair and rational process. If sometimes the experienced editors tend to rely too heavily on their encyclopedic knowledge of procedures in making their cases, let me also say I have seen "amazing grace" in the solution of hard problems of interaction and collaboration between individuals.

Who do you go to to complain? Here is the right place to start. NOTE: I am not an administrator. (Now let me stop jabbering, and review "everything.") Proofreader77 (talk) 08:30, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

• 1) What about my question concerning articles that describe groups of people carrying a two word label where the second word is "American"? If having a page titled "The American People" is prohibited than how can we have articles for everything from Armenian Americans to Peruvian Americans to Nigerian Americans? Shouldn't the rule be consistently applied if it is that important?

• America is a crock pot. (Or something like that.) See People of the United States of America. An African American is a person of African decent who stews in the crock pot of the United States of America. A German American is someone of German decent who is a citizen of etc etc. Language is an arbitrary constuct. What do you want, rationality? Wrong planet. Wrong species. Go to Vulcan. (Live long and prosper, Kimosabe.) lol Proofreader77 (talk) 02:14, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Ok so along your line of reasoning Americans are all crock pot contents/food? OK I can work with this. Shouldn't a carrot in the crock be referred to as a stewed carrot? Makes sense. Before it is thrown in the stew it is just a carrot. Also makes complete sense. Are we in agreement so far? Good. Then what do you we the contents together in the crock pot? Carrots, Potatoes, Onions, Beef ect? Vegetables that are cooked? No, you call it a stew.Skeeter08865 (talk) 18:23, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

• 2) Yes it’s frustrating but I see no good reason why there can’t be an article titled “The American People.” Quality is being sacrificed for fanatically focusing on technical details. This really doesn’t seem to be as confusing an issue like "Who is a Macedonian"? Or, "Is an Arab Citizen of Israel a Palestinian or an Israeli"…you get my point. Common sense and what the plain meaning of the word means to those who use it should prevail.

• Take a look at the article I mentioned in #1. Is there a different kind of article you want than that? (Also see the Demographics one.) Proofreader77 (talk) 02:14, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

• 3) I have never heard of the Western Hemisphere called the "American Hemisphere". When I click on the Wikipedia link it takes me to the article for the Western Hemisphere. Therefore, if you type in American people shouldn't it take you to the article "People of the U.S.?"

• "Western" is so confusing. :) Includes ancient Greece, the EU, and uh, the Lone Ranger. :) The western hemisphere is composed of Americas: North, South, and Middle ... which when added together sum to a hemisphere -- which can be called the hemisphere comprised of Americas, or, informally, the American hemisphere ... which so-called America could blow up at any time. :)
  • • • You said: which so-called America could blow up at any time. Never once did I suggest that the Country of the United States of America should be referred to as "America." See we can make compromises all the time. It's a shame others refuse to meet us half way. Also, Wow you sure love to mention things being blown up nuked, and cowboys. I sure hope nobody gave you any plutonium or depleted uranium (another joke). Skeeter08865 (talk) 18:23, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

MY POINT: See American (word). This is why this page can tend toward "contentious."

ANOTHER POINT: That is why this page is a particularly "interesting" one to join in the collaborative process of "consensus" (which I am petitioning Jimbo Wales to remove every reference of from Wikipedia to prevent its misuse ... :). Proofreader77 (talk) 02:14, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

• • • • • A QUESTION (actually 2) INTENDED TO REBUT YOUR HEMISPHERE POINT: If Western hemisphere is so confusing, and American Hemisphere is not, then why does American Hemisphere get re-directed to Western Hemisphere? Shouldn't a less confusing title be used for the article? Skeeter08865 (talk) 03:23, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

• 4) Incas being referred to as Americans is as likely a German being referred to as a "Eurasian." It will never happen so the issue is moot. Skeeter08865 (talk) 01:04, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

• Yes, I agree, but softly softly catchee monkey. :) (many issues, one at a time.) Proofreader77 (talk) 02:14, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

• • P.S. My comment about certain people not getting a lot of face time with other human beings was a joke.

• Sometimes humor is overlooked unless you put a great big :) in. Proofreader77 (talk) 02:14, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
  • For some reason I don't like smiley faces. But what I can do is add an LOL or "just kidding" or JK for short. Is that acceptable to the wikipolice? {insert lol here} Skeeter08865 (talk) 03:47, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

• • • • P.P.S. How do you know that Germany has no nuclear weapons, maybe they are just really good at hiding them! You need to get Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei to grant you some access over there.

• • • • • Former President Bush assured me that all the nukes in Germany had been sold to Saddam. :)Proofreader77 (talk) 02:14, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
          • Where are you from anyhow? Just curious because I am conducting a survey on this topic. Skeeter08865 (talk) 16:55, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

BOTTOM LINE (for the moment) Take a look at the top of this article page (American(s) may refer to"), and, if it hasn't changed again, see if that is any more satisfying than before. Proofreader77 (talk) 02:14, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

• Is it more satifying than before? Maybe a little. But complete satisfaction would be typing in "The American People" and then being directly linked to "People of the United States." IMO the article "People of the United States" is complete garbage, so that needs to be fixed too. I remember in the past I'd type in American People and it was linked to a well written article. So when I checked back, and saw it was removed, my blood started to boil. But that is a different story. Skeeter08865 (talk) 16:55, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree with Skeeter08865 that the People of the United States of America is no substitute for an article on Americans. The People of the United States of America takes the approach of dividing up the American people into subgroups and then addressing each separately, without ever addressing the whole. While it is true that Americans have ancestors from many parts of the world, it is also true that the Germans have ancestors from various places. Europe faced many migrations and colonizations. The original English are believed to have been almost completely wiped out by invaders.

Most Americans have mixed ancestry. While there is some benefit to identifying and describing subgroups, those group boundaries are not well-defined and there are commonalities that cross those boundary lines. There should be an article that talks about Americans as a group, rather than just talking about them as a collection of groups.

The debate is sometimes described as between a "melting pot" model and a "solad bowl" model. The current article is totally salad bowl. There needs to be some balance.

Of course, this probably isn't the place to talk about it. It needs to be discussed on the People of the United States of America article, or a new article needs to be created (but that might be considered viewpoint forking). Readin (talk) 18:06, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Also I noticed that there is no article for the Mexican People or Mexicans,but there is an article for Spanish People. Just like there is no real article for Americans or The American People, but there is an article for English People. Looks like the rule is the colonizers deserve an article, but the people who inhabit the former colonies do not? Skeeter08865 (talk) 18:56, 5 March 2009 (UTC)