Talk:People of the United States of America

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus to support move. JPG-GR (talk) 18:03, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

See previous discussion in Talk:American#Proposed solution. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 12:29, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I've left a possible solution here, interested may reply. --Brand спойт 11:35, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

The request on Wikipedia:Requested moves is this:

• American to American (disambiguation)
• People of the United States of America to American

--Una Smith (talk) 16:52, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I stand for requested move ("People..." to "Americans"), leaving the "American" dab as it is or to someone's further decision. --Brand спойт 13:38, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose, suggest American (United States) instead... though We the People of the United States suggests the current title is proper. 76.66.201.13 (talk) 06:27, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Saying "Germans" we usually don't consider the ancient German tribes, but nation. "We, the People" is not a judicially established name, Marbury v. Madison showed that it only attests the origin of the federal sovereignty from the people. Per WP:NCON, even if there is no common English equivalent, the name that the entity has adopted to describe itself should be used. And we now it's simply "Americans". --Brand спойт 13:28, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

We don't give priority to what a court judges is the correct name to use, see various examples spread across Wikipedia. Besides, that still doesn't discount American (United States). 76.66.193.170 (talk) 04:06, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

OK, if someone dislikes Supreme Court, then at least the US passport and the Oath of citizenship, in addition to what I've wrote (the Declaration, Articles, Constitution, Pledge) - all contain "...of America". In other words: people of Americas are Americans because they live in Americas. But people of the US are Americans also because they live in the United States of America. 1:2, that's why I suggest priority. --Brand спойт 12:04, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

French is a dab page, Italian is a dab page, Russian is a dab page, Mexican is a redirect to the country article and not a people article, Japanese is a dab page, and if you want to look a something that is very very similar to American, Canadian is a dab page, hell Australian is a dab page. 76.66.195.63 (talk) 03:20, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose, if this were us.wikipedia.org I'd be all for it, but this site can't be that ethnocentric. American can properly be used to refer to anyone from one of two continents, and it's not their fault that the USA has such a cumbersome name as it doesn't adjectivize well otherwise. I call myself an American, but I don't encounter folks from the rest of this hemisphere so it's not at all confusing. For this Wikisite it would be highly confusing.--otherlleft (talk) 23:08, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

For that reasons the word "American" could be cumbersome, but "Americans" isn't. Current situation with the word "American" could be as it is, nonetheless I suggest the requested move. --Brand спойт 11:37, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

For many of the same reason American is cumbersome, so is Americans. 76.66.193.170 (talk) 04:05, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

If I want to refer to the population of Americas, I wouldn't apply the word "Americans" (the way I deal with Europe [Europeans], Asia [Asians] or Africa [Africans]), but rather "people of Americas", "inhabitants of Americas" or resort to "the New World" instead, due to trivial misunderstanding. Likewise, African-American or Italian-American doesn't mean that he or she shares both African/Italian and the New World heritage which may be non-US. Not to mention various organizations that begin with "Americans for...". Having moved the article to Americans we may add a tag like "Americans redirects here, for other uses see Latin Americans etc". --Brand спойт 10:07, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose, Brandmeister aka Brand is correct, this is old hat. See such neologisms as "US Americans" in Wiktionary. Why make what is already difficult harder? --Bejnar (talk) 10:32, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Brand is correct because you know me. But poor kid having read our dab meets Nicaraguan girl and reports he encountered a nice American girl - that's just what we don't ultimately want. Title "People of the United States of America" may actually imply that there is no related demonym or that there is no nation in the US at all, whereas both are nonsense. All in all if someone dislikes "Americans" because of finical ambiguity, then he may ask to change the country's name to something like the United States of Columbia. --Brand спойт 15:30, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Re:United States of Columbia It has been tried already. See the article "United States of Columbia" 26 November 1861, in The New York Times, but I suspect that I am missing much of your irony. I've always preferred "finicky" to "finical". I also liked TOS Star Trek episode 54, "The Omega Glory", about e pleb nistra. But like your comment, none of that is really about the requested change. The Wikipedia is not prescriptive. Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook or textbook --Bejnar (talk) 20:49, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

The thing isn't about the prescriptiveness neither because I want it to be so. It's all about WP:COMMONNAME and WP:PRIME. The fact the USC wasn't set in affirms the whole stuff. "People of the United States of America" is a neologism just as already mentioned "US Americans" (and you wouldn't find such entries in an overwhelming majority of references) while "Americans" is historically, culturally and etc. settled word. And among other the word Americans doesn't neglect and cancel such heritage as American History Museum, American Beauty rose or American English the way "people of the United States of America" does. The ambiguity is "finicky" also because there is Americans as a nation and Americans in terms of the continents and that's not me who mixes all up. --Brand спойт 12:18, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose - American is a disambiguation page and this proposal is a title grab. --Una Smith (talk) 18:08, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I've already showed why the requested move isn't a title grab. --Brand спойт 09:13, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Your argument does not persuade me. --Una Smith (talk) 16:52, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

• Comment - it appears that there is consensus for not moving the page as requested. Although this is listed for November 25 on Wikipedia:Requested_moves, the move request template and earliest discussion on this page are from November 17. Generally these discussions lat about five days, so it's actually quite clear that consensus is against this move, the the discussion should be closed. I am removing the request template.--otherlleft^{No, really, other way . . .} 04:06, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

As per WP:PNSD we know that these are sometimes wrongly assumed to be majority votes. Moving in particular is not decided based on headcount, but on the strength of the arguments presented. I see rather a signing of the one-word opinion and not looking back. --Brand спойт 10:38, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

One editor can certainly sway consensus by strength of his or her arguments, of that there is no doubt. Feel free to ask someone else for an opinion on this, but I think in this case had the argument to move been strong enough it would have convinced others to reconsider.--otherlleft^{No, really, other way . . .} 12:06, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

It's still listed at WP:RM, so I've put the tag back at the top. (I don't see a major hurry to close this anyway. It's not a candidate for WP:SNOW, is it?) Sam⁵ (talk) 19:43, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• Support. This is a self-identifying demonym and it is English usage; either would suffice. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:52, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Moved from WP:RM:

I.e. make "People..." point to American (disambiguation)? --Brand спойт 16:45, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

One problem with moving People of the United States of America to American is that Native Americans in the United States (who consider themselves to be the first Americans) do not necessarily consider themselves to be people of the United States of America. Similarly, Canadians and Mexicans sometimes refer to themselves as Americans, specifically North Americans. --Una Smith (talk) 21:00, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

They are Native Americans in particular, but not Americans - they constitute not nation, but separate tribes which of course knew no such word as "America". As such they are indigenous people of the United States, Native Americans etc. but not Americans per se. Canadians and Mexicans refer to themselves as Americans in terms of the continent, but Americans are a nation. A much bigger encyclopedic stuff could be done on the second term rather than on the first, that's one of the reasons. So no problem here IMO. PS: Thread by Anthony Appleyard. --Brand спойт 13:33, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Removing legal hatnote (article has been deleted)

FYI: I have removed the following (red-link) hatnote.

This is for the People or nationals of the United States as ethnic groups, For the formal name used to describe the plaintiff in federal criminal trials See The People of the United States

-- Proofreader77 (talk) 16:48, 16 April 2009 (UTC)