Talk:United States

United States, U.S.

At the very least, the short forms "United States" and "U.S." (two periods standard in American English) should be restored to the first sentence of the lede (not part of an editorial footnote), as they become the country's default names until the end of the article. Incorporating them into a blind EFN violates standard usage in reference works, in which alternative names and initialisms in the text are called out, once, for the reader. To do otherwise is bad form in an encyclopedia. The other names (USA, U.S.A., America) are commonly used the world over, and I think they should appear outside an EFN as well, but they're a minor concern. Mason.Jones (talk) 16:33, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

I just boldly restored specifically the "United States" into the lede, though I'm fine with the other names staying in the footnote. TheWikiToby (talk) 17:33, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Good. The short form "United States" is an exception. I can live with the other terms in a footnote, too. Maybe all that boldface type was a bit unsightly. Mason.Jones (talk) 17:49, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Good call.....this is what are featured in good articles do. Moxy🍁 18:39, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

I see this has been reverted without any effort to join the two chats.... let's see if they do so now. Blind reverts are always a problem I guess we have to deal with. Weird thing is removing the source that explains things.Moxy🍁 19:50, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

It's unavoidable for an article this big. Many users will be confused by the immediately visible changes in the first sentence. We have to keep referring to the talk page to show them our motivation behind it. The problem will only gradually solve itself over time when most users got used to it. Maxeto0910 (talk) 19:58, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Most people understand that U.S. and US are equivalent in this context. This can reduce the unsightliness. Senorangel (talk) 02:51, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I suggest the lead should be "The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States (US) or America, is..." since "United States" and "America" are two much used short form names for the country and are commonly used by politicians, businesses, media, athletes, musicians, and everyday people. The initials "USA" and "US" should also be in the lead since the country is commonly referred to as such (especially in sports and media) and other articles about countries or political organizations also include their initials in the lead such as the European Union or Saudi Arabia. The initials with periods ("U.S.A." and "U.S.") do not have to be included in the lead and can be explained as another form of writing the country's initials in the etymology section or in a note. Colloquial forms such as "the States", "Merica", "U.S. of A.", etc, do not belong in the lead since they're very informal and not used widely. Dash9Z (talk) 21:31, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

This is the wording we had before—and it would be later disputed or reverted. Some editors also felt encouraged to tack on other alternative names like "the States" (which has no business near any encyclopedia). The standard American spelling "U.S.", with periods, is used throughout the article and must be cited that way on first mention. In general, your suggestion opens up the floodgates for busy "improvements" in the lede sentence. For that reason, I think the simpler version is best. Mason.Jones (talk) 23:00, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

"(U.S./US)" looks weird in the article. It should say (U.S. or US). Things were fine before HumansRightsIsCool (talk) 00:41, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

"Or" it is. However, this all may change back to previous format (United States, officially the United States of America...), as that one has its supporters. Mason.Jones (talk) 01:50, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes. I absolutely prefer the previous format. It's shorter, more concise, and makes the first paragraph of the lead look less bloated, while at the same time gives readers some context in the explanatory note, which also contains a source, and even loses one sentence about colloquial names. It's also pretty much the style how many good and featured country articles have it. The United States is just known by many names around the world, and, depending on the region, it could be argued to include a plethora of them, which is why we have to compromise here, and I think the previous format was quite neutral in this regard. Perhaps, we could restore the previous version with the note and give some initials (though this, as Mason.Jones wrote, would be subject to many changes and frequent discussions about which to include; including all four would make the first paragraph of the lead very bloated again), but personally, I absolutely prefer the simplest and most concise form: "The United States, officially the United States of America[note explaining abbreviations, colloquial names, and so on]". Maxeto0910 (talk) 05:03, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

@Maxeto0910 -- I prefer your version, just adding the initialism "U.S." (used throughout this article, so it should be introduced to the reader). Thus: "The United States (U.S.), officially the United States of America, is a country..." As you say, other alt names and abbreviations are pretty subjective; they can be addressed in the EFN and/or hashed out under "Etymology." Mason.Jones (talk) 17:15, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

I am still of the opinion that the version with the explanatory note would be the most neutral and concise way of putting it. Perhaps it should be restored when there are no convincing counterarguments? Maxeto0910 (talk) 16:41, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Arbitrary break concerning "the States"

Above, Mason.Jones wrote alternative names like "the States" (which has no business near any encyclopedia). This claim is contradicted by evidence from corpora and dictionaries, which indicate that it is common in both speech (see Longman definition) and in writing (see corpora that follow).

• the comparison ngram between "back to America/the US/the USA/the States" shows a clear preference for "back to the States" in 2022 in the American English corpus

• 43% more common than "back to America"
• twice as common as "back to the US"
• 14.6 times more common than "back to the USA"
• "back to the States" has been the most frequent form in this phrase since 1941.

• In the British English corpus the 2022 results are a bit less pronounced: "back to the States" is:

• 15% more common than "to America"
• 90% more common than "to the US"
• 6.2 times more common than "to the USA"
• "back to the States" has only been the most frequent form in British English since 2009.

pedantic note: case is discriminating, i.e "the States" ≠ "the states" ... cf. [1]

Similarly, Longman, Cambridge, Merriam-Webster, and Collins all have a separate entry for "the States" (with Longman helpfully explaining that it is a spoken form most commonly used when speaking of the US from abroad), while Oxford explains that The United States of America is usually shortened to the U.S.A., the U.S., the States, or simply America. As such, I would encourage everyone expressing opinions to stick to data and RS. A brief mention of "the States" is justified by RS.-- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 18:34, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

By "nowhere near any encyclopedia," I was half joking. I simply meant that "The States" has no place in the introduction to this article (which a few overeager editors are pushing). "The States" is an informal, conversational term, and most often the spoken lingo of British people and American expatriates. It doesn't rise to the level of "USA" and "America"—both widely used in writing and in broadcasting throughout major English-speaking media. The style book of the Economist even gives "America" as the default name to be used in all its text articles about the U.S. "USA" is used throughout the German-speaking media. "US" is used in headline and interior articles of the UK press. "The States", on the other hand, is a slang term of chatting tourists, travel articles, YouTube features about "Taylor Swift's return to the States", etc. It can certainly be discussed under "Etymology" as a conversational term, but it should not appear in the lede along with "U.S.", "USA", or "America." Just like "Murica", it's not in that category. Mason.Jones (talk) 19:37, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Fully concur with User:Mason.Jones. I couldn't have said it better. As I pointed out above, "the States" is in the wrong sociolinguistic register. Most people understand by the time they're around 15 or 16 years old that "the States" is slang and "the United States" is formal. (I already knew that by the time I was 12, but I was gifted and went to CTY.) This encyclopedia is written in formal written English. Wikipedia is not a blog where casual slang and anything else goes. See WP:NOT.

I just poked around Google Books and saw what is going on. "The States" is much more common in British use than in American use, but when you read it in context, it is still clearly an informal slang term. And to be clear, I am very familiar with British English. California is home to many British expat intellectuals who fled the UK's decaying educational system for greener pastures, which is why as a high school senior, I read Chaucer with a graduate of Cambridge. --Coolcaesar (talk) 20:12, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

In the spirit of sticking to reliable sources rather than advancing an undocumented opinion, I'll just note that banks and tax accountants frequently use the term on their websites as does the Department of Homeland Security ("Study in the States"), and that an acting Secretary of State recently used the term when addressing the National Governors Association. So to call the term "slang" on a par with "Murica" (not found in Oxford, Merriam-Webster, Cambridge, Longman, etc.) is misguided. (The correct linguistic term would be "colloquial", "familiar", or indeed "conversational".) While mentioning "the States" in the etymology section does seem like putting the cart before the horse, if that should be the final consensus, that's fine with me. (done)  :) -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 05:46, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Again seeing clutter in the first sentence Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries#First sentence... Best use a note Moxy🍁 03:43, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Use of the word "its" vs the word "the" for referring to Washington DC

@Maxeto0910 as I stated in my edit, I do not want to start an edit war, so I have taken this to the talk page. The use of the word "the" is more correct, as it implies that Washington DC is a specific location. RedactedHumanoid (talk) 17:41, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Why would using "its" not imply that it's a specific location as well? Maxeto0910 (talk) 17:43, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

The word "its" is generally used to show possession and/or ownership, and while the USA technically does own Washington DC, in this case, we're not trying to imply that the USA has possession of Washington DC. Instead, we're simply trying to imply that it is a specific place. RedactedHumanoid (talk) 17:47, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

So you think using "its" shifts the focus too much to the fact that Washington, D.C. belongs to the U.S. instead of making clear that it's a "specific place"? I think the term "federal capital district" makes that pretty clear already. Maxeto0910 (talk) 17:55, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Well, if DC didn't belong to the US, would we be mentioning it in the article? No, we probably wouldn't. RedactedHumanoid (talk) 18:21, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

If you want to state that it's just as obvious that Washington, D.C. belongs to the U.S. as it is that it's a specific place, then you're right. However, at this level, it's a purely stylistic question, and "its" reads softer and is consistent with the rest of the lead. Maxeto0910 (talk) 18:23, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

That is a good point. Also, @Remsense has intervened and has stated in the revision history that "its" should be used instead of "the". Lets put this conversation to rest now. RedactedHumanoid (talk) 18:29, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

THE Should be used! Tulurm (talk) 12:11, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

@Tulurm,see WP:C UnsungHistory (Wrong Edit!) 00:47, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

That comment was not uncivil, please don't ping a user days after you already made the same message on their talkpage. CMD (talk) 02:50, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Er...pretty sure that this conversation was ended a while ago, why are we restarting it? RedactedHumanoid (talk) 02:59, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

No mention of "ethnic cleansing" or "genocide"

I was disappointed but unsurprised to learn that the lead for this page makes no mentions of the ethnic cleansings and genocide(s) of indigenous peoples that are the cornerstone of America's existence as a nation as we know it, but I was actually surprised, thought perhaps I should not have been, that a Ctrl+F for "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" yield no results. While scholars certainly debate the specifics of which events in American history amount to genocide or ethnic cleansing, there is a general consensus that at least some "interactions" between the USA and native peoples constitutes genocide or ethnic cleansing. Not mentioning them here is reprehensible. I will be refactoring the article to change that fact, relying on the reliable sources of course, but am posting my intention here first in case it provea controversial. I am also of the view that the lead should mention these facts, and not doing so is akin to if the Germany page failed to mention the Holocaust. Brusquedandelion (talk) 05:06, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

We've been here before, Brusquedandelion: ideological editors who wish to explain the entire American experience as founded on genocide and nurtured by slavery and exploitation. Moral equivalency: 20th-century monsters like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and worse. Efforts then, and now, to make this article's lede into an ideological whip with a certain political point of view will face stiff opposition. Mason.Jones (talk) 16:36, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

@Brusquedandelion: your all over the place with this Wikipedia:Lead fixation..could you read over WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS and Wikipedia:Advocacy. Moxy🍁 16:42, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

@Moxy If by "all over the place" you mean literally two country's articles, yes, I am "all over the place". Anyways, a series of comments at a recent RFC at Turkey brought it to my attention that there is a large number of disparities in how different country articles describe major atrocities in their history, whether they mention them in the lead, and the amount of ink they spill on discussing them, both in the body and lead. In general, my Wikipedia editing happens in "campaigns" or "projects" where I will try to edit a number of articles that are closely related in some way, or introduce the same sorts of changes across a broad number of articles; I can see how a certain bad faith interpretation of this could be that I am engaging in "advocacy". I am trying to correct these inconsistencies in the aim of making Wikipedia a better encyclopedia; the only "great wrong" I am trying to right is Wikipedia not being the best encyclopedia it could be. Brusquedandelion (talk) 00:24, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

@Mason.Jones I am not trying to make any sort of moral equivalences to other nations or individuals, nor did I make any claims about the "entire American experience". I would appreciate if you could read what I actually wrote rather than lumping me in with other people you may have engaged with before. Brusquedandelion (talk) 00:15, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

What makes you think that denial/minimization/normalization of genocide and ethnic cleansing is somehow less ideological? Brusquedandelion is correct. إيان (talk) 20:17, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Odd. There was a fellow who kept deleting any mention of the California genocide despite talk page consensus to include it. I see they struck again back in June and nobody noticed... -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 01:03, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for restoring this. Brusquedandelion (talk) 02:02, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles are supposed to provide the same weight to different aspects of a topic that appear in reliable sources. Whether or not coverage in reliable sources is fair is irrelevant. It would be helpful to show the extent of coverage of U.S. treatment of aboriginal people in similar articles. The lead for the Encyclopedia Britannica article for example does not mention this although it mentions the people.[2] Of course it's only one of many articles we could look at. TFD (talk) 02:24, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

So they removed it back in June and no one noticed? That is crazy. This article has one of the highest page views in entire English Wikipedia. There seems to be 161 page watchers active in the past 30 days. Bogazicili (talk) 12:03, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Encyclopedia Britannica is just one (tertiary) source, and anywaya the consensus in previous discussions was to mention the Trail of Tears and California genocides by name in the body. Brusquedandelion (talk) 03:34, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Major encyclopedias don't reference a country's colonial, racial, or imperialistic "atrocities" from a distant past and make them a key feature of that country's existence—not in introductory paragraphs. That's also true in Wikipedia, where 19th-century colonies and indigenous peoples (but no atrocities, as well documented and reprehensible as they are) are mentioned in the ledes of United Kingdom, France, Brazil, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The exception is when political violence or racial genocide was systematically utilized by the state in modern times (e.g., Germany and Japan during the 1940s). I'd hope that editors might see the difference, but I know otherwise. In this article's lede, some Wikipedians have sought to "right all wrongs", and in the service of an anti-American agenda. Mason.Jones (talk) 04:20, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Major encyclopedias don't reference a country's colonial, racial, or imperialistic "atrocities" from a distant past and make them a key feature of that country's existence—not in introductory paragraphs.

Fortunately, I am not suggesting we do that. You should again try understanding my actual position before critiquing it. Brusquedandelion (talk) 01:02, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

@Brusquedandelion: No, I have read your original post correctly, and you specifically write that (quote) "the lead for this page makes no mentions of the ethnic cleansings and genocide(s) of indigenous peoples." Nor should the lede do so, for the reasons I stated above. Such mentions belong in the body under "History," and after debate, but not in the introduction as an editor's essential "understanding" of the country. Mason.Jones (talk) 20:33, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Why did you quote my comments about the lead, but not about the body? Do you understand I am not just critiquing the lead? Can I take your refusal to engage with my comments about the body as a sign of your tacit agreement that the body should say more about the genocides/ethnic cleansings of Native Americans? Brusquedandelion (talk) 01:04, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I just said I have no problem mentioning that history in the body of the article. (I'm actually the one who edited the original passages re the Trail of Tears and the California Genocide just now restored by another editor.) I will still oppose any polemical edits that seek to harp on "U.S. atrocities" of a bygone era or, worse, incorporate them into the lede—not unless we intend to do the same for the brutal 19th-century treatment of the indigenous now absent from the ledes of United Kingdom, France, Brazil, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Mason.Jones (talk) 02:04, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes I know that "Encyclopedia Britannica is just one (tertiary) source," which is why I wrote, "the Encyclopedia Britannica article for example."

Wikipedia:TERTIARY says, "Policy: Reliable tertiary sources can help provide broad summaries of topics." If this aspect of the topic is significant enough to be in the lead, then you should find a tertiary source that mentions it prominently. Since you said that the Encylopedia is just one tertiary source, I assume you have found others. TFD (talk) 17:07, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

I would look for quality non-US, non-Western tertiary sources. WP:Neutral point of view demands that we consider those sources as well. إيان (talk) 20:19, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

From the Heibonsha World Encyclopedia entry on the United States:

　アメリカ・インディアン，黒人，スペイン系・メキシコ系アメリカ人は，〈移民の国〉アメリカにとっては例外的集団である。アメリカ・インディアンは白人植民者到来以前の先住民である。しかしヨーロッパ諸国の植民勢力進出によって大きな犠牲を強いられた。合衆国時代に入ってからはますます領土を蚕食され，ついには保留地に閉じ込められてしまった。さらに政府の文明化政策により，インディアン諸部族の固有文化は大きな打撃を受けた。黒人は自らの意志に反してアフリカから連れてこられた奴隷を祖先としている。奴隷解放後も，差別制度により二級市民としての生活を余儀なくされてきた。第3にスペイン系・メキシコ系アメリカ人の場合，その祖先はアングロ・サクソン系住民到来以前に合衆国南西部に住んでいた。南西部はスペイン人，ついでメキシコ人が領有した所であった。さらに1910年以降，南西部の経済発展は新たにメキシコから多くの労働者をひきつけ，1910年に始まったメキシコ革命はその移住者の流れに拍車をかけた。安全とよりよい生活を求めて多数の貧しい農民と都市居住者が国境を越えてきたのである。カリブ海のプエルト・リコからの移住者もスペイン系アメリカ人に加えられる。プエルト・リコの貧しい生活から逃れるためにやってきた人たちで，ニューヨーク市にその大半が居住している。これらのスペイン系アメリカ人は近年〈ヒスパニック〉あるいは〈ラティノ〉と呼ばれ，2000年に全米人口の12.6%を占め黒人人口を上回った。

American Indians , blacks, Spanish and Mexican Americans are exceptional groups in the United States, a country of immigrants. American Indians are the indigenous peoples before the arrival of white colonists. However, they suffered great sacrifices due to the advance of European colonial powers. Since the United States era, their territory has been increasingly eroded, and they have finally been confined to reservations. Furthermore, the government's civilization policy has dealt a heavy blow to the unique culture of Indian tribes. Blacks' ancestors are slaves who were brought from Africa against their will. Even after the slaves were emancipated, they have been forced to live as second-class citizens due to a discriminatory system. Thirdly, in the case of Spanish and Mexican Americans, their ancestors lived in the southwestern United States before the arrival of Anglo-Saxon inhabitants. The southwest was owned by the Spanish and then the Mexicans. Furthermore, after 1910, the economic development of the southwest attracted many new workers from Mexico, and the Mexican Revolution that began in 1910 spurred this flow of immigrants. Many poor farmers and city dwellers crossed the border in search of safety and a better life. Immigrants from Puerto Rico in the Caribbean are also included in the Hispanic Americans. They came to New York City to escape the poor life in Puerto Rico, and most of them live in New York City. These Hispanic Americans are now called Hispanics or Latinos, and in 2000 they made up 12.6% of the US population, surpassing the black population. (Google Translate) إيان (talk) 20:40, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Gaung Tebono, why did you delete the above citation? إيان (talk) 21:30, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Of course we can consider these sources in determining due weight, but we cannot use them exclusively to do so.

Your text btw does not show what weight these observations are given in the article. Is that how the article opens or where exactly is it placed and how long is the article? TFD (talk) 02:19, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Obviously it's not to be used exclusively. Also, this conversation isn't only about coverage in the introduction.

The above text is one of four paragraphs in the section on 住民 'people, residents' on page 5 of 20 of the entry on the US. إيان (talk) 02:45, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

The American Revolution and the American Civil War could also be described as "from a bygone era", and yet they are mentioned in the lede. What makes the genocide of indigenous Americans any different? Also, claiming that we have to do the same for other Western countries is just WP:OTHERSTUFF. 296cherry (talk) 18:11, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree with you, the genocide and forced assimilation of indigenous peoples is and has been a major cornerstone for the existence of the United States. It's also quite alarming that zero mention of indigienous displacement exists in the lead, yet there is apparently plenty of space for puffery and praise (how a statement as propagandistic as "...with a political culture promoting liberty, equality, individualism, personal autonomy, and limited government" got in the lead astounds me).

Also, I find it disturbing that some editors keep characterizing atrocities against Native Americans as from "a distant past" and "a bygone era". There is no need to sugarcoat the history of the United States or downplay the role genocide had in the building of the state. And mentioning that history is certainly not "harping" on U.S. atrocities. 296cherry (talk) 18:08, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

"political culture promoting liberty, equality" Is this sourced on a text covering fantasy and alternate history? We have an entire article covering the racial inequality in the United States which is the country's main claim to fame. We also cover the Racial pay gap in the United States, Housing segregation in the United States, Educational inequality in the United States, and Environmental racism in the United States. In the Global Social Mobility Index, the United States ranked 27th. Social mobility in the country is less likely than in countries with less rigid social stratification systems, such as Lithuania (26th), South Korea (25th), and the United Kingdom (21st). Since when has the political culture even cared about the social problems associated with this ever-present inequality? Dimadick (talk) 00:39, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

The phrase "political culture promoting liberty, equality..." should be replaced with a simple statement like "maintains a system of representative liberal democracy" or something like that. 296cherry (talk) 21:56, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

@296cherry: I don't like to intervene in a discussion that has very negative words like "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" as its title, but I would like to respond to your comment, since you aren't the OP; I completely agree, the current phrase is a bit too much for the lead. JacktheBrown (talk) 22:50, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Lead

Why do the leads of the Italy and Germany articles refer to Fascism and Nazism respectively, while the lead of this article doesn't mention the killing of Native Americans? Further information, although I disagree with the use of the terms "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing", in this thread: Talk:United States#No mention of "ethnic cleansing" or "genocide".
I would like a peaceful discussion. JacktheBrown (talk) 02:40, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Keep it very simple with the most appropriate link?

Following its victory in the 1775–1783 Revolutionary War, the country continued to expand across North America resulting in the dispossession of Native populations.

Moxy🍁 02:50, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

@Moxy: can I add or should I wait? JacktheBrown (talk) 02:55, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Because of the link I'm using ...maybe best to wait.... or perhaps best to be bold and see what others think...not sure. Some may argue that different link like American frontier wars or westward expansion is softer to use. Moxy🍁 03:00, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

@Moxy: thank you. I prefer to wait at least a day. JacktheBrown (talk) 03:05, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

See below. If it should link to anything, it should link to the American Indian Wars page, rather than the heavily contentious claims that the entire process was genocide. It's POV-pushing otherwise. OrangeSharp (talk) 03:14, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

This was a concern I had.... as many elderly American scholars deny Indigenous genocide in the Americas, despite agreement from international scholars that it occurred (Clarke et al). This is changing as the next generation of American scholars have begun to focus on government policies and lack of action rather than individual accomplishments. Moxy🍁 03:27, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm very skeptical genocide should be in wikivoice in any article.

Jeffrey Ostler in the citation below says it's a minority opinion in 2023 or has otherwise not been greatly examined.

Many young & international scholars deny it as well. The political scientist Eric Kaufmann rejects the description. I also found textbooks from Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, and New Zealand that state that genocide is either a poor descriptor or not an accurate description of a majority of interactions. (With exceptions.) Settler-colonialism itself is left-leaning, favors both conflict theory and critical theory, and isn't accepted among all scholars. Conservative, liberal, and even many Marxist scholars reject its principles, although for very different reasons. Most Native Americans in the United States are also far less radical in their critiques than many white scholars. (Note that I strongly dislike Trump. But I can tell that the harshly critical articles over the past week to the article are due to his victory.)

This isn't even mentioning the lack of consensus on what genocide even means. Many historians and genocide scholars only consider a few events as genocide and don't consider cultural destruction as such. Why are we privileging the view of one group of scholars over another?

This article is far harsher on the United States than the other "settler colonies" (Australia, Canada, New Zealand) and its chief sponsor. (United Kingdom). In fact, when comparing the "positive" and "negative" phrasing between this page and other articles, it shockingly now ranks far higher than the pages on 1.) Germany, which committed the Holocaust 2.) The Soviet Union, whose ethnic cleansing of Germans killed anywhere between 500,000-2,500,000 million people: 10x-50x the deaths of the wars and ethnic cleansings that that the United States committed on native Americans 3.) Japan, whose war crimes in East Asia during the age of the Japanese Empire led to 10,000,000+ deaths.

A lot of this is WP: RIGHTGREATWRONGS mixed with critical theory/conflict theory that is popular among certain sections of academia but predominantly rejected by others within the academy and elsewhere. "Dispossessed" is also emotive-wording and also a problem. Now, maybe this is a "what about other things" case and we shouldn't compare between articles, but it's clear that they're being treated differently, and it's written from a perspective that intended to influence reader's viewpoints about the country. I'm requesting you revert the link, because I don't believe that it improves the article and promotes a particular point of view over another that isn't agreed upon in scholarship.

This isn't even addressing the recently added claim that January 6th in the United States was a "coup" (it's disputed and complicated), the highly disproportionate emphasis on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and claims that the United States only developed through "exploiting" the talents of "immigrant labor" and implications of slavery helping its development.

These are quite extraordinary claims and by no means agreed upon. They can be asserted and discussed in related articles in relation to their proportional support in scholarship. They shouldn't be given uncritically in an article that attempts to summarize the totality of American historiography. OrangeSharp (talk) 03:59, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

What is most surprising about this POV-pushing (that's exactly what it is) is that the original colonial powers England, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands were just as brutal toward (respectively) the Indians and Kenyans, Maghrebin and sub-Saharan Africans, the Congolese, Namibians, Abyssinians, and Spice Islanders as the Americans were. Post-colonial Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Peru were as brutal (sometimes more brutal) toward their indigenous populations as the Americans. That some editors, quoting from a few academic cultural-studies sources, insist that this article catalogue major U.S. atrocities and, as you mention, make them a key part of American historiography -- while the other country articles refuse to address their own past atrocities -- is very striking. Mason.Jones (talk) 19:45, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

@Mason.Jones: what does Italy have to do with it? Why are you trying, unfairly, to involve other countries (besides the U.S.)? It's as if I were trying to justify the crimes committed by Fascist Italy by writing that other countries also participated negatively in the Second World War; it would be very silly. JacktheBrown (talk) 23:00, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Orange Sharp was a sockpuppet of User:KlayCax Kowal2701 (talk) 14:04, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

The apt comparison is between Americans' treatment of its indigenous and Italy's colonial treatment of indigenous Africans—not Mussolini and the Italian Fascist state of the 1920s. There's no mention whatsoever of Italy's brutal 19th-century treatment of black Africans in the lead of the "Italy" article. Below the lead, under "History: Liberal Period", there's one weak, understated sentence: "In the last two decades of the 19th century, Italy developed into a colonial power by subjugating Eritrea, Somalia, Tripolitania, and Cyrenaica in Africa." No details about what that "subjugation"" entailed, such as [[3] and [4]. I agree that the "United States" article shouldn't whitewash U.S. history re Native Americans, but European country articles are doing exactly that with the peoples they oppressed: no mentions in lead, a rather euphemistic mention under "History". And when other Wiki articles do exist, there are no links to them in the country article. Mason.Jones (talk) 23:32, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Think it's a matter that many societies have not recognized the atrocities yet. I think a bigger problem is the line in the lead "while the country's political culture promotes liberty, equality, individualism, personal autonomy, and limited government." Liberty and equality are no longer a trait of the United States..... because of individualism and personal autonomy. All these things do not belong together as their contradicting to the facts of reality. Moxy🍁 23:44, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

@Moxy: +1. JacktheBrown (talk) 11:50, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Mox, it's one thing to criticize the "contradictions" there, but quite another to actually start an RfC about it. Go for it. Mason.Jones (talk) 23:52, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

The question should be does the new info added to the lead reflect what is said in the article or the sources that are provided. WP:Lead fixation is a problem when random statements are added that don't reflect what is in the article itself. Moxy🍁 23:58, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

"Etazini" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Etazini has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 November 12 § Etazini until a consensus is reached. cogsan _{(nag me) (stalk me)} 20:37, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Biased, contentious claims being written as uncontroversial assertions

Felt the need to make a Wikipedia account over this.

Around the time of the 2024 presidential election (unsurprisingly), a group of editors have added heavily negative, wildly contentious, and hyperbolic claims into the article, despite the assertions being minority viewpoints in the academic fields.

January 6 United States Capitol attack claim

• A claim that the January 6 United States Capitol attack is universally regarded as a coup is false.

Ryan McMaken states:

Well, my view is that it is a riot in the sense that it’s difficult to attribute any particular goal to the people who were actually involved at the Capitol. I mean, certainly last I checked, 11 people were charged with seditious conspiracy. So that would imply that at least some people involved had some particular goal in mind. But I just don’t think there was enough critical support from inside the regime to support the idea that it was actually a coup.

Matthew Cleary states:

Certainly, riot is an easy way to describe it. Insurrection is better, and I think insurrection would be my preferred term for it. And I agree with Ryan that “coup” is a little too strong, and there are some important differences between what happened on January 6th, on the one hand, and your typical Latin American coup on the other hand. The most important being the lack of participation of any military or police forces of the state. In fact, Trump the man, the person, could not or did not count on the support of any institutional actors, so far as I know. Not the Supreme Court, not the Congress as a whole, although certainly he has some supporters in Congress, not other important institutions of the state.

Many other scholars dispute the notion that it's a coup but I'm not adding their thoughts for the sake of saving time.

Genocide claim

• A claim that there is a consensus that the American government's relationship with Native Americans was genocidal. (Which is a minority view, as stated by Jeffrey Ostler, a historian who believes that much of it should be classified as a genocide.)

Since 1992, the argument for a total, relentless, and pervasive genocide in the Americas has become accepted in some areas of Indigenous studies and genocide studies. For the most part, however, this argument has had little impact on mainstream scholarship in U.S. history or American Indian history. Scholars are more inclined than they once were to gesture to particular actions, events, impulses, and effects as genocidal, but genocide has not become a key concept in scholarship in these fields.

He also states that most specialists in the subject have preferred using the term "atrocities" or "ethnic cleansing":

have not argued that the policy was genocidal... Interestingly, however, most recent scholarship on Indian removal, while supporting the view that the policy was vicious and inhuman, has not addressed the question of genocide.

Historians, genocide scholars, and political scientists that reject the term include Peter Cozzens in The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West, Gary Clayton Anderson in Ethnic Cleansing and the Indian: The Crime That Should Haunt America, and Robert M. Utley in Anticipating Total War: The German and American Experiences, 1871–1914. It certainly is a view that has been expressed among scholars. It is not to the extent where it should be stated in wikivoice.

The word genocide itself is heavily controversial and there's not even a consensus on what the word means. (1, 2, 3, 4.)

Portrayal of the United States in World War II

Coverage of World War II has finally been modified to seem negative, which seems jarring when you read articles that exist for the Soviet Union, Russia, Japan, Italy, and the United Kingdom during the same period. The American article nearly exclusively negative descriptions of America during it, focusing on the two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Trinity Test. We don't see Franklin D. Roosevelt or meetings with Allied leaders. We see a nuclear test clip that's intended to shock the reader.

The claim that the nuclear bombings ended the war is in of itself controversial. So why are we showing a picture of it?

If I had to take a hunch, however, I'm betting its recent addition was to influence the reader's perception of the country.

Other problems

Other language in the history section has been changed to be emotional, and opinionated, making claims such as:

An explosion of technological advancement accompanied by the exploitation of cheap immigrant labor

@Maxeto0910:, @Mason.Jones:, @TFD:, @Moxy:, @JacktheBrown:. It comes across as a group of editors wanting to list grievances for every real and imagined wrong that the United States has committed in its history. (In the light of he who shall not be named winning the election.) As I haven't been active on Wikipedia in years, I don't have permission to edit, but I'm requesting that these changes are reverted or removed for now. These changes are not neutral. OrangeSharp (talk) 02:16, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Mass wall of text..... see if I can get to it on the weekend perhaps. That said not seeing any recommended changes so don't see this going anywhere. Seeing multiple accounts.Moxy🍁 03:29, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

The recommended change is that I think that the claims should be removed from the article and discussed in their related pages. There's no agreement among scholars that Jan 6th was a coup, that the entire process of American-Native relations was genocidal, or the hysterical emphasis on claiming the countries growth was the development of slave labor/exploiting the labor of immigrants. You will not find similar wording on Japan's, Australia's, Canada's, Saudi Arabia's, Iran's, France's, or the United Kingdom's pages. I haven't used Wikipedia in years but there's nothing wrong with me coming back +writing on a talk page about it because the bias is so absurdly egregious.

It's a comment, not an edit, so hard to call it an issue as long as I'm not using misrepresenting myself or even editing the article.

I have just provided 25+ sources to show that all of these claims are disputed within scholarship. Mason.Jones and TFD have both made similar comments to me. Others further back in the page's archives. OrangeSharp (talk) 04:07, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

I can confirm most of these additions from the editors have... no relation to Trump's victory in the recent election. Some of these happened literally months before October even hit.

January 6 United States Capitol attack claim

A claim that the January 6 United States Capitol attack is universally regarded as a coup is false

You can hit up with the authors of the 12 sources we've cited to that claim (citations look similar to this [5]). It's not like Wikipedia pulls information out of the void (WP:V).

Genocide claim
I don't know much about America's history with Native Americans, nor am I really that interested, so no comment from me. Just keep in mind that WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE say that Wikipedia's content has to be proportional to how mainstream media describes something. Us editors have no authority to dictate what is correct (WP:RELIABLE, WP:ORIGINALRESEARCH).

Portrayal of the United States in World War II
It'd be great if you could give some specific requests for changes here. Are you saying we should tone down mentions of the nukes? The first nukes ever used in war and one of the most well known elements of World War 2 and the Cold War? How does mentioning nuclear weapons negatively affect the image of the US?

We see a nuclear test clip that's intended to shock the reader.

How. It's just footage of a nuke (incredibly well known footage actually!).

If I had to take a hunch, however, I'm betting its recent addition was to influence the reader's perception of the country.

WP:ASSUMEGOODFAITH, WP:ASPERSIONS TheWikiToby (talk) 04:02, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Jan 6th: Yes, some scholars do make that claim, but others disagree. Why should the former's views take precedence? It's a citation overload intended to make the position look undisputed and uncontroversial. That's far from the case.

Genocide: Jeffrey Ostler, who believes it was, states that his opinion is a minority within American academia and genocide scholarship.

Portrayal of the United States in World War II: The image could be replaced with Franklin D. Roosevelt meeting with other Allied leaders, American troops fighting against Japanese or German soldiers, similar to the United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia articles. Nuclear weapons were an important invention during the war but scholars don't agree if the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended it. I'm okay with mentioning it in that particular section of the article. I'm not comfortable with the page making it the main focus. OrangeSharp (talk) 04:17, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree that some of the standard photos have been replaced by more ideology-driven replacements. Some anonymous editors tend to sweep through and replace photos and illustrations. New photo entries are easy to miss in a large article like this. It's up to all of us to vet them, but it takes more astute vigilance than with general text. Re Trump's "self-coup", four editors decided that Jan. 6 was a self-coup by the president, based on a few media sources they found. I think there's a difference between a president who plans and organizes a coup and one who encourages a ragtag group of would-be insurrectionists. But the four editors' politics and ideology prevailed. I've seen this happen with other WP country articles; "United States" is no exception. Mason.Jones (talk) 17:19, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

@OrangeSharp: for your information, I've always maintained that the use of the term "genocide" in a discussion is unacceptable (see Talk:United States#Lead and [6]), but you still wanted to put me in the middle. I'm not blaming you, but you could have avoided it. JacktheBrown (talk) 19:40, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

With respect to genocide, this is what Ostler says, Surviving Genocide p. 383-384 (bolding mine)

Since 1992, the argument for a total, relentless, and pervasive genocide in the Americas has become accepted in some areas of Indigenous studies and genocide studies. For the most part, however, this argument has had little impact on mainstream scholarship in U.S. history or American Indian history. Scholars are more inclined than they once were to gesture to particular actions, events, impulses, and effects as genocidal, but genocide has not become a key concept in scholarship in these fields. In part, this is because academic specialists in colonial American and U.S. history are generally inclined against sweeping indictments. The excessive polemics, simplifications, and empirical overreaches in much of the Quincentennial writing made it easy for skeptics to ignore or brush aside. The relative absence of genocide in much of the scholarship in American Indian history can also be explained by the priority given to other agendas, especially the often articulated importance of recovering the agency of Native people against an earlier historiography that supposedly portrayed them simply as victims. Indeed, some Native scholars have cautioned that writing Indigenous histories as genocide risks reinforcing pernicious stereotypes of Indians as vanishing and degraded.

Similarly, this article doesn't say US committed genocides against native Americans all the time, but gives specific events such as California genocide. Bogazicili (talk) 20:26, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Two-Party System

Given how two parties, the Republican and Democratic party, dominate American politics, should the US be described as a "Federal two-party dominant presidential republic"? Cnscrptr (talk) 21:14, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

No, because that's a term you invented out of thin air. Remsense ‥ 论 21:15, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Great apologies for not being perfect in the intricate language of semantics!!! Two-Party system is the correct term, especially relating to the Republicans and Democrats' political dominance, albeit I don't know if the US should be described that way. Cnscrptr (talk) 23:49, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Apologies for the venom, but the issue is fundamentally deeper, in that we reflect how sources tend to characterize entities. "One-party state" is a common term, while "two-party state", "duopoly" inter alia are not. Remsense ‥ 论 00:04, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Alright then, we will not move on with this motion. Glad we settled the matter. Cnscrptr (talk) 00:06, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 18 November 2024

change “Mark Twain, who William Faulkner called ‘the father of American literature’” to “Mark Twain, whom William Faulkner called ‘the father of American literature’” 167.206.19.12 (talk) 23:36, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Done Cnscrptr (talk) 23:55, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

A subsection on "Human rights"

Currently, the article only very briefly mentions human rights, and the mention is simply to say that the United States has a high ranking on V-Dem. The wikilink in the introduction links to Human rights in the United States, which very clearly details a lot of facts about the United States that are simply not mentioned here. As noted in the "Human rights in the United States" article, the United States has been criticized by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other organizations for its use of the death penalty, police brutality, racial discrimination, and mass incarceration. And that's just on the domestic front. I'm not going to rehash what's listed in the "Human rights in the United States" article, but that article clearly shows that there is more to discuss regarding human rights in the United States than to just have 1 sentence proclaiming that some think tank gives the US a high ranking in human rights. Plenty of other country articles have a subsection on human rights (see Japan, Mexico, Brazil, and Spain. In addition, Czech Republic has a subsection on human rights while being given a higher ranking than the US by V-Dem). There's no reason for this country to not also have a human rights section, especially given how notable human rights violations in/by the United States are in reliable sources. This article is giving too much weight to V-Dem and not enough weight to international human rights organizations. JasonMacker (talk) 02:39, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

In my view human rights should be integrated into law section.Moxy🍁 02:45, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

@Moxy: what do we do? Do we delete the sentence or create a subsection that includes the score given by Amnesty International? Among other things, some U.S. states still have the death penalty, so it's very strange, as well as wrong and not honest, to refer to one of the highest human rights scores without even mentioning any criticism. JacktheBrown (talk) 16:21, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Wont fly here Americans think they do well with human rights as they were once leaders in the field because of the legal framework - the fact that all 37 developed economies in the world and another dozen or so non-developed economies have better human rights records now shows how far behind USA is today.. For example, the Freedom in the World index lists the United States 53rd in the world.....read more at Dakwar, Jamil; Elessawy, Marwa (November 15, 2023). "The U.S. Touts Itself as a Global Leader in Human Rights. A New U.N. Report Says Otherwise". American Civil Liberties Union. Moxy🍁 17:15, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

I am not a fan of including rankings in the lead (consensus is against me this is not an attempt to reopen that), but one thing they should do is by default integrating all the criticism. Higher and lower rankings presumably depend on the relative positive and negative aspects. CMD (talk) 02:29, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

The article should mention where the U.S. is an outlier among other Western democracies, in capital punishment, abortion, incarceration rates, poverty, income inequality, universal health care, higher education costs, longevity, drug addiction, covid vaccinations and deaths, ideological diversity, etc. However, there are so many ways the U.S. differs, it cannot all be in the lead. TFD (talk) 02:46, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

I believe the article does touch on this.... perhaps not extensively.... But does so in the appropriate sections. The main concern is the lead that doesn't seem to match the prose in the article. Overall the country is a net positive for these types of things.... but has domestic concerns that the world looks at for example of what not to do..... or simply that is not as progressive as they used to be. Moxy🍁 03:02, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Constitution

The Constitution came into legal effect on March 4th 1789 why is the ratification date used instead while all the other dates are when the documents came into effect. An example is the Article of Confederation which was ratified on February 2nd 1781 but came into effect on March 1st so we should change the date of the Constitution on the introduction part of the page to March 4th 1789 193.235.94.164 (talk) 09:53, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Please see this source UnsungHistory (Wrong Edit!) 22:41, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

The new governement which the Constitution formed became operational on the first Monday of March, 1789 so legally the Constitution superseded the Article of Confederation on March 4th of 1789 as that's when the government outlined by the Constitution went into effect abolishing the previous governemnt outlined by the Article of Confederation Lil Zadeh (talk) 11:35, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Well on my source it says March 9,please provide a source for March 4,WP:V UnsungHistory (Wrong Edit!) 15:44, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

The official "in effect" date is March 4, 1789, per Constitution of the United States. We always go by the parent article, so those who wish to dispute its content should bring their reasons to that article's Talk page. Its infobox clearly cites March 4, and under History: Ratification by the states, it explains this date as "officially starting the new government, the first Wednesday of March (March 4), when the first Congress would convene in New York City". As for the bigger question—ratification versus "in effect"—a decision was made years ago to observe the ratification date. A discussion took place, but I can't find the archive. Mason.Jones (talk) 17:36, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Consensus

Since, this month, there have been brief discussions (here and here) about whether or not to keep the phrase "...while the country's political culture promotes liberty, equality, individualism, personal autonomy, and limited government.", it's right to find a consensus. JacktheBrown (talk) 14:49, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

The statement is easily sourced all over ....Just need to rephrase and put in a time context ... "Founded on the principles of liberty, equality, individualism, personal autonomy, and limited government, American values are based on the democratic political tradition, which draws its inspiration from the European Enlightenment movement .Moxy🍁 19:28, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

@Moxy: here you wrote, "Liberty and equality are no longer a trait of the United States..... because of individualism and personal autonomy. All these things do not belong together as their contradicting to the facts of reality." JacktheBrown (talk) 20:10, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I think qualifying it as a past event puts it in context..... civil liberties were thing that they thought apply to all men who were white. Must remember even in the the first democracy it was only white males of stature that were considered humans. Moxy🍁 22:21, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I think that probably deserves a note, as the history of slavery contradicts notions of equality, liberty, and personal autonomy (especially at the time of foundation). Kowal2701 (talk) 11:20, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Why do we need the first part of the sentence at all? "American values are based on the democratic political tradition, which draws its inspiration from the European Enlightenment movement" seems like it does the job well without needless puffery. The first part of the sentence would be fine to be expanded on in the body, but it seems unnecessary for the lead. 296cherry (talk) 23:41, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

USA

it says that the USA is the third-largest land area. Isn't China bigger than the USA?

Sources:[7] MagmaAdmiral (talk) 17:05, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

See #Third largest country by land area Moxy🍁 17:10, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 28 November 2024

Add section on slavery. Transic232 (talk) 11:33, 28 November 2024 (UTC) — Transic232 (talk · contribs) is a confirmed sock puppet of Lam312321321 (talk · contribs).

 Not done: See United States § European settlement and conflict (1607–1765) and United States § Westward expansion and Civil War (1800–1865) Alternatively, there are many options to read other than an encyclopedia article written as the broadest summary possible. I just finished reading This Vast Southern Empire (2016) by Matthew Carp, and I highly recommend it.Remsense ‥ 论 11:39, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

References

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 2 December 2024

to change the president name from joe biden to Donald trump as he won the election Npoleanthe (talk) 11:40, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Not done for now: Remsense ‥ 论 11:43, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

They will add it when he is officially in office. 73.25.171.181 (talk) 07:27, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 6 December 2024

On the place where it says who's president, it says Joe Biden, not Donald Trump. Ruh Ro Raggy (talk) 14:48, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: that is correct until inauguration. LizardJr8 (talk) 15:24, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Not mention of slavery , inequality in lead ?

I was reading about other country lead it had all the bad thing about that country in the lead but in usa case it only positive thing . Why ? 103.165.29.134 (talk) 19:56, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

The abolishment of slavery is mentioned. There has been some discussion about adding something about inequality but it hasn’t come to anything.

We follow WP:Reliable sources and if they are mostly negative or positive we represent that. Which country articles did you feel are too negative? Kowal2701 (talk) 21:07, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

I have not experience in wikipedia edit but i can provide you trusted ,reliable , well decumented , peer reviewed amd factual source that slavry is one biggest thing about usa as a country .

Lead only contain info about Abolishment and thats it . 103.165.29.134 (talk) 06:23, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Because it is abolished already. (CC) Tbhotch^™ 07:10, 10 December 2024 (UTC)