Talk:Ethnic groups in Europe

The article seems...

The article seems entirely geared towards telling a story about non-native Europeans calling themselves Europeans than actually describing what a European is. I will be re-writing some of it. Snowbound 19:04, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I could only write from a NZ European perspective. I welcome some European proper content. I was suprised the article hadn't even been created yet!!A.J.Chesswas 05:24, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I have reinstated my added parts. You have no right to remove large chunks of detail that I have added without first discussing your reasons. Snowbound

I didn't remove large chunks of what you wrote Snowbound.

1. I merely removed "primarily" from the first sentence, because by using it you discount and demean European identity outside of Europe.
2. I also removed "strong sense of identification" because esp. in New Zealand we consider each other "European" whether we "strongly identify" with Europe or not.
3. I restored paragraphs 2 and 3 to read as one paragraph. I believe it flows better this way. I note you didn't discuss the matter here before splitting it into two, or before adding what you did add to this article.
4. I renamed this section "European Colonies" rather than "Culture and Identity". "Culture and Identity" is a broad heading which could apply to Europeans anywhere. But what is certainly distinctive about this paragraph is that it concerns European colonies.
5. I relocated the "European Union" paragraph to follow the "Distribution" paragraph. I did this because the intro and "European colonies" refer to the demographic distribution of Europeans, and this paragraph rounds that discussion off nicely, being demographic in content as well. The "The European Union" paragraph, on the other hand, is a discussion about contemporary politics. Thus if our formatting seeks to group similar subjects together, and to flow chronologically, then the format I provided makes the most sense.

I would prefer to see the article revert to my last changes, but I am willing to discuss the merits or otherwise of your preferred format in the meantime.A.J.Chesswas 02:51, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Are you willing to discuss why your version is preferable Snowbound? If not I vote that I reintroduce mine.A.J.Chesswas 10:49, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

The European people?

European people redirects to a page on the demographics of Europe. There are articles on white people, Caucasians, and several related ones like European American. It seems to me however that there is not a single article dealing with "Europeans" as a group. All of the existing articles encompass very inclusive concepts and given the emergence of the "European identity" do other editors here feel perhaps Europeans should be treated as a general ethnic group like Asian people or African people? What do you think? JRWalko 03:18, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree! The Ogre 11:29, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree also. European is an adjective and can mean anything European, not just a person from Europe. European people is a better a title for the article which is chiefly about people. A word of warning though... its hard to call Europeans a single ethnic group given the mix of ethnicities within it. E.g. it now encompasses British Asians and West Indians, Spaniards and French of mixed European/African descent, Swedes with connections to the middle east etc.. A single "European Identity" is something that is only slowly emerging as a result of political forces that are still in train and nowhere near ingrained in all the peoples or in all regions. --Tom 14:58, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

How should we approach it then? Should we focus on people from Europe and their diaspora around the world or just on Europeans who currently live on the continent? I don't mean to exclude people but given the migration situation in Europe I think simply living in Europe does not make someone European just as working in the US does not necessarily make someone American. I think we should have a thorough discussion on the scope and direction of this article before we do any major revisions.JRWalko 01:15, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

How about this? We can turn this page into a disambiguation article and move most of the contents to the new European peoples article?

At the beginning of European peoples article, we can add this:

This article deals with Europeans as an ethnic group(s). For information about residents or nationals of Europe, see Demography of Europe. For information on other uses please see the disambiguation article European(this one) KarenAER 12:12, 17 August 2007 (UTC)