Talk:List of people from the United States/naming

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See also: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (US vs American)

There was a long discussion regarding what the appropriate name of this list should be. There was even a vote, and a rather long discussion on what kind of vote there should be - this discussion was stored at wikipedia talk:vote.

See also: Talk:list of people by nationality

After a while the controversy died down. About a month later the page was boldly moved to the most popular choice: List of people from the United States. Martin made the following declaration just before it was moved (I can't remember who actually moved it - I think it was mav). Nobody cared sufficiently this time to restart an edit war.

Contents

[edit] Draft Resolution of the Wikipedia Security Council, 12 March 2003

Noting that List of United States people, the current location of this list, is the least popular option,

Concerned that there are currently a large number of duplicate lists, including at List of famous United States people, List of Americans, List of United States people,

Aware that this topic raises passionate opinions leading to a potential breach of peace possibly leading to edit war,

Recalling earlier resolutions by Jimmy Wales that we should all get along and chill out and spread an aura of peace and co-operation,

Considering all the pros and cons listed in the summary below,

The people of wikipedia resolve:

  1. to make available a list of people from the United States of America at List of people from the United States, as that option has most support
  2. to redirect all other proposed names to the above list - in particular, to redirect List of Americans to the above list rather than making it a list of people from the continents of North and South America.
  3. To link other wikipedia articles with whatever link text as is deemed appropriate. In particular:
  4. to become ceased of the matter

[edit] Summary of options

The following summary was compiled collaboratively and is a reasonably accurate restatement of the various opinions and arguments.

[edit] List of Americans

[edit] Pro

  1. fits in with terminology in other wikipedia articles
  2. commonly used term analogous to Chilean, Mexican, etc.
  3. no other term similar to Chilean, etc is available for the US citizens.
  4. is the most common meaning of the term among english speakers worldwide.
  5. List of Americans wouldn't otherwise be used for a more useful purpose.
  6.  ?Anyone disagree that American = US citizen is the most common meaning?

[edit] Con

  1. ambiguous term. can be confused with Americans meaning a person from either the North or South American continents.
  2. people from other nations in the Americas also consider themselves to be "Americans".
  3. Not global perspective. Indicates provincial attitude the America = United States.

[edit] List of people from the United States

[edit] Pro

  1. unambiguous term; clear and easy for anyone to understand.
  2. avoids confusing implication that America = United States only.

[edit] Con

  1. Awkward use in article
  2. placing goal of avoiding ambiguity over prose of article and common usage of term.
  3. By denying use in article, implies use of American not allowed for the US.

[edit] List of Americans (USA)

[edit] Pro

  1. unambiguous term; clear and easy for anyone to understand.
  2. avoids confusing implication that America = United States only.
  3. fits in with terminology in other wikipedia articles (when using the pipe trick)
  4. commonly used term analogous to Chilean, Mexican, etc. (when using the pipe trick)
  5. no other term similar to Chilean, etc is available for the US citizens. (when using the pipe trick)

[edit] Con

  1. Using parentheses as a mechanism to disambiguate should be discouraged and is ugly. An alternative should be used.
  2. Use of parentheses for the most common meaning of American is ?not acceptable? (Zoe?).
  3. hard to use. Use of the pipe trick requires advance wiki editing knowledge

[edit] [[List of people from the United States|List of Americans]]

This choice was meant to be a compromise between those that insisted upon the title of the article being List of people from the United States and those that insisted that the United States article itself read better using the term List of Americans.

The actual page would be List of people from the United States. The wording used in the link from the United States article would be List of Americans. Hence the use of the wiki syntax [[ <page-name> | <link-name> ]]

[edit] Vote/Poll/...

Wikipedia is not a democracy... but there was some attempt to summarise the various opinions. To confuse matters, there were actually two votes being taken simultaneously with two different systems. I've picked the simpler one to store here, and snipped some of the suggestions that had little or no support.

  • List of people from the United States: mav, TUF-KAT, Infrogmation, Martin, Ortolan88, Danny, AstroNomer, Susan Mason (4th choice), Eloquence,DamianFinol
  • List of Americans: sfmontyo(1st choice), Martin, 128.193.88.195, Zoe (only acceptable choice), Tannin, Rmhermen, Someone else
  • List of Americans(US) or List of Americans(USA): sfmontyo(2nd choice), Susan Mason (3rd choice), Infrogmation, Martin, Mkweise
  • List of US nationals: Susan Mason (1st choice) Tannin (2nd choice), Infrogmation
  • List of US citizens: Infrogmation, Susan Mason (2nd choice), Stewacide

[edit] Commentary

These issues raise strong passions on both sides of the debate.


[edit] Edit wars

Initially there was a flurry of edit wars and reverts and moved over the names of these articles, and this happened before discussion, let alone consensus. This was generally deemed to be a very bad thing. In particular, one of the main participants was an anonymous user (128.193.88.55), going against Wikipedia guidelines on accountability.

[edit] African-Americans and Italian-Americans

There didn't seem to be any objection to the current names of these lists, though the subject was raised.

[edit] Is America one continent, or two?

An interesting digression occurred - I've reproduced it here largely unedited - except to snip out naming convention stuff (which is covered above)

Timeout. There is no continent called "America." You either have North America or South America. --mav
I'm sorry, but even in that there is no agreement. I just heard of NA and SA as different continents here in wikipedia, and then knew that that is how is usually taught in the US (then you have the school children believing than Columbus discovered US because he "discovered America", but that's another matter). Apparently this is matter of definition, and not all agree in the one from continent. An awknowledgement of this I found in http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopage/contnet.htm where they say "In some parts of the world students are taught that there are only six continents, as they combine North America and South America into one continent called Americas. Other experts use only six continents by combining Europe and Asia into a continent called Eurasia." Historically it is one continent, I do not know when in some countries they decided it was two different ones, and in others not. User:AstroNomer
Timeout from the timeout. There is a single continent called America in the Spanish language. El Pequeño Larousse Ilustrado, published in Colombia, defines America as "one of the five continents of the world", the "most elongated". "It is formed of two broad triangular masses ...". Likewise, the Clave Diccionario, published in Madrid, but the standard desk dictionary for Western Hemisphere Spanish, defines Americano as "From America (one of the five continents), or related to it: 'Colombia and Canada are American nations'." My translations. Ortolan88
Interesting, I would not have expected that geography depended so much on language, but several google searches confirm it. In spanish speaking countries there is one continent called america, in english speaking countries, two. I think this could be matter for an article in itself. Was it colonial politics that led to the British Empite to talk about two continents where the Spaniards saw only one? or some scientific agreement that was not widely accepted?User:AstroNomer

It may be right in a historic sense amoung Spanish speakers but it isn't right in any other way. . North America and South America are on different tectonic plates! Geologically and geographically it is very wrong to say that North and South America are the same continent. That doesn't mean that pieces of land on other plates can't also form a part of another continent in a geographic sense (thinking of Southern California). See [1] Just because they have been connected by an Isthmus for the last several million years does not make them the same continent. --mav

Sorry, but if you consider plate tectonics India is a different continent that Asia. And plates don't always match continents, as your example shows, so I don't think that that is the main element of the definition. And what about Europe? Continents are just humans constructs just by considering that example. So the British are "right" and the Spaniards where "wrong"?. I'm not sure that can be said with such certainty. Why are you so sure they can't be a continent? Mav, you have a minor in geology, that I don't have, what do you know that I don't to be so sure that Europe is a continent, and North and South America are different continents, except common use? Anyway, this is an english language encyclopedia, so I will accept that here NA and SA are two continents, but I still see in as convention, not science. --User:AstroNomer
Plate tectonics is one of the factors and geography is the other. Several factors can be used to argue whether or not something is a continent: Continental divides are barriers like linear mountain chains raising from lower terrain and spanning almost all of a land mass (the Ural Mountains were once thought to do this, so for historical reasons Europe is still often considered to be its own continent). Yet another is separation of continental crust by oceanic crust (Great Briton and Borneo are separated from larger neighboring landmasses by submerged continental crust. Thus Great Briton is part of the Continent of Europe and Borneo is part of Asia - or if you think the Ural Mountains are a weak excuse for a continental divide, then they are both part of Eurasia). Finally another geographic barrier is created when large land masses are connected to each other only by a small piece of land (like Panama).
North and South America have two strikes which exclude them from being considered one continent - they are each on separate tectonic plates and they are only connected by a small land mass (and the Isthmus of Panama has only existed for the last several million years - which is geologically recent). India is very commonly called a sub-continent for the very reason you mention, but since there is no linear continental divide or any other district geographic barriers (esp on the Pakistan side), it is still geographically considered to be part of Asia. So geography and geology are both important things to consider (I'm working on an AS in geography right now). This thread should be moved. --mav
Since the subject of this whole discussion is what is an "American", I do not think that the understanding of the hundreds of millions of Spanish speakers about where they live should be summarily rejected in an international encyclopedia. This is not some idiosyncratic political opinion. It is the way they look at the world and tells us a lot about why they might not accept, or even understand, the idea that only people from the United States are Americans. Their convention says one continent, ours says two. It would make an interesting article. I wish I knew more about it, but I am quoting well-known standard Spanish-language reference books (much more respectable than the CIA handbook). Ortolan88
I'm beginning to think that the above thread is a misunderstanding; There may not be a direct translation between our usage of "continent" and the Spanish usage. English speakers have a general descriptive term (large landmass - which North and South America do certainely form) and a specific one (continent - which North and South America do not together form). The Spanish term may err more on the general side. --mav
It's not English-speaking countries using two. I'm a native English English speaker and I consider America to be a single continent, one of five, with North and South sub-continents, unless I'm thinking of plate tectonics, in which case it has more than two sub-components. It seems more like a US v. rest of the world difference. Jamesday
All I have been trying to do with my contributions here is to point out that beyond all political axe grinding there are some genuine problems with the generic use of "American" to mean "US Citizen" and that the article title should reflect an effort to deal with those problems. I can't detect any difference from our usage in the Spanish definitions of continent in my sources. It strikes me as mighty odd that they don't separate North and South America, but there it is. (BTW, you say that there is no continental divide separating India from Asia, but what about the Plateau of Tibet, the most extensive and tallest collection of mountains on the planet?) Ortolan88

Let me add the voice of Portuguese speakers to the claims of the spanish language. It seems to me that english-speaking nations teach in high school or so that "America" is the name of their country, while the continents are N.A. and S.A. Apart from being culturally offensive to other americans (others that were born on the continent of America), this view is illogical. It leads to believe that the "whole" (America the nation) is a part of the continent of North America.... how can the whole be a part? Furthermore, a lot more people in the globe refer to Americans as people born in the continent of america (akin to japanese being asians, or egyptians being africans) than as US citizens. Even more, the claim that America is actually two continents brings further upsettings to the matter. The continent of America is divided in three(and not two) subcontinents, which are South, Central and North America. The matter of being in different teutonic plates would open a door that would make America actually be 5 or 6 different continents, which is obvioulsy not the case. Even so, the world had once a single continental mass, millions of years ago. The teutonic plates were already in place, but the continent of Pangea is taught as one, not as "several grouped toghether", so it makes no sense trying to separate America on these terms. And I fail to see why "a small piece of land like Panama" becomes an argument to prove the Americas are different. Following this logic, California will be another continent when the strap of land connecting it to the mainland gets thinner? Also, I find that claiming that "the spanish term may err(..)" is a very self-centered argument, implying that the english is right and the spanish is wrong.LtDoc 23:20, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] More Lists! on a state basis!

Why not handle it at the state level ? List of Texans, List of New Yorkers, List of Californians, etc. Those sound good and are pretty specific. It's also the approach we've taken for the UK where we've broken it down to List of Scots, List of English people, List of Irish people, etc. -- Derek Ross 04:16 Feb 27, 2003 (UTC)

But people in the US - esp famous ones - move around too much. A person may be born in one state, get their BA in another, PhD in yet another and end up in a series of different cities as they move with their job or change jobs. State borders don't mean that much in the US. --dan
Same goes for the UK. Born in Belfast, PhD in London. Works in Aberdeen, Cardiff and Birmingham. So what's your point? It seems to me that if Sean Connery can spend the last x years working in California and still be Scottish because he was born there, the same sort of thing goes for a Rhode Islander working around the Deep South. -- Derek Ross 04:40 Feb 27, 2003 (UTC)

Well we'd still want a national list, a famous Wisconsonian might be good for a list on Wisconsin, but wouldnt make the cut for a person of national import. Susan Mason

Sure, but by the same reasoning a national list would be bad for a famous Wisconsonian who wouldn't make the cut for a person of national import. Why not give Wisconsin a break. -- Derek Ross 04:22 Feb 27, 2003 (UTC)

I agree, lets create both a Wisconsin and a national list. Wisconsin lists would have Wisconsin governors, but a national list probably wouldnt have all of them. Susan Mason

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