Talk:Germans

New World Map Image, New Zealand

Hi, i think we need a new world map image since there are actually more than 10,000 people of German descent in New Zealand- the real figure according to the New Zealand government is some 200,000.

Language and diaspora

@BauhausFan89: I already warned you against edit warring on your user's page. We have some rules for solving disputes and avoiding edit wars. Please take a look at WP:BRD, WP:ONUS, and WP:NOCONSENSUS. German language is an important part of German culture, but not the only part. So to add too much about German language here would be IMHO undue. German diaspora has its own article, so I also feel the map is undue here. The number of 70 Mill. is unsourced and seems wrong, since there are already more than 70 Mill. Germans in Germany alone. Rsk6400 (talk) 10:31, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

the German language was THE connecting factor int days before the beginn of a proper German state. so it can easily have more information. and thank you for bringing up the map. IN EVERY wiki article about a nationality there is a world map with the numbers of the home country and the diaspora at the beginning. this article doesnt have that for reasons no one can explain to me. so I will add it in if no one can make an Wiki rule argument against it. simple as that. and I mean in the upper right besides the intro. that is standard in EVERY wiki article. so why not here? BauhausFan89 (talk) 07:11, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

BauhausFan89 (talk · contribs) see WP:OTHERSTUFF. I do think the article should be expanded in some directions but we will need to go beyond talking about stuff like unsourced infoboxes and diaspora maps. Please try to understand the concerns being expressed or else the same edits just keep being repeated. Many articles about nationalities are terrible, so referring to them is really useless. Similarly I also think that just pasting in unsourced material about German topics in general, without adapting them to be suitable for this article, or finding good sources, is not going to lead to a stable consensus. Language and regional variations are for example indeed potentially relevant, but just listing out the dialects, and not adding any new sources, does not seem to add anything. Easier to just place links to our language and dialect articles. We need to find sources which put these things in the perspective of the topic "Germans", including the regional cultures of Germany.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:13, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Andrew Lancaster, I agree with you. I think the article could be expanded, too, and I'd like to do it myself if I had more time (problem of all of us, I think). Rsk6400 (talk) 06:54, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

so we can agree on me expanding the German language section, so the map fits better? and can we agree that the Germans and the German diaspora should be fully represented in this article, because it is about Germans and therefore their diaspora too. I would like to add the world map. I think we should follow wiki norm, but it can be inserted in the diaspora section too. BauhausFan89 (talk) 11:45, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

I think you definitely have to stop adding unsourced materials on the basis that it would make this article look more like other articles. Whatever you add has to be sourced and relevant to the topic of this article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:24, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

the diaspora and world map are sourced and standard on the wiki pages regarding french people, italian, ect. so it should be here too. I dont want to add the old counting of all the German diaspora group. just the map and the links to the groups in 3, 4 lines. BauhausFan89 (talk) 22:57, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

The map is just a different way of displaying numbers. If the map is based on the same misleading mixture of different kinds of numbers, using different definitions, and different qualities of source, then it has the same problem as a table. Please don't just keep repeating the same "other articles" argument because it just goes in circles. You've got to do the homework. Whatever proposals you make it should be consistent with concerns raised in the past. In other country articles there are by the way typically far less people around the world who sometimes describe themselves or their family using the name of a country they have never been to. In the case of Germans the various ways in which families sometimes think of themselves as German can be very confused (not everyone has ever really looked into their family tree and understood it) and such people will only use such terms in certain contexts anyway. What would probably be much easier to source, and far more relevant and meaningful for this article, would be a listing of citizens living overseas. This is what many country articles have, and I think it is quite different from the types of maps you've been pushing here. Can you find a good source for citizen numbers?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 05:31, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

what is more important? your opinion or the wiki standard? German diaspora is German, so it makes sense to include it with many still keeping their German traditions alive. this article is so far inferior to the once about French people, Italian or English. what would you say, if I add German nobel prize winners like in the Italian one? seems like a double standard. I just want the wiki normal world map, 2 numbers under it and the links to the major German diaspora groups overseas. given their numbers that is due weight. BauhausFan89 (talk) 19:59, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

If you want to include unsourced material then you are not working according to the wiki standard are you? Also this article is not about all things German.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:51, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

just because you say Im inserting unsourced information doesnt make it true. and this article is about Germans, like those leaving Germany and starting a diaspora. see other ethnic articles. so is it ok if I inserted a world map with sourced numbers? BauhausFan89 (talk) 21:54, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

No. Please try to gain consensus first. For how to gain consensus, there are some good ideas at WP:TPG. Rsk6400 (talk) 07:40, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree. As you know such ideas have been discussed many times here already, and there is already another article for this different topic at German diaspora. I think it would be problematic to insert such materials into this article, but if you have a concrete proposal then what is it? Which source would you use, and which clear and consistent definition will be used? How would you present it in a way that the definitions being used are transparent, meaningful, and don't take too much space? If you have a way of doing this then why not fix the diaspora article first? This is clearly a case where past proposals have not convinced other editors, and the present diaspora article clearly looks like a mass of raw materials rather than a really good article at the moment. Personally I also think it is problematic to spend too much space in this article on a diaspora map if we don't first have information showing how many German citizens live in each country - in order to make the distinction between this and the much fuzzier diaspora very clear for readers and editors.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:55, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

diaspora is not fuzzy at all. you have German heritage. heritage of the people this article is about. I want to inserted the world map and if you guys are fine with links to the diaspora groups under it I dont even need a number under the world map. that would clear the issue of fuzzy numbers. we can piut the world map in the paragraph about the diaspora. then there is a clear distinction between the wider article and one part of it which is about people with Germans in their heritage history. BauhausFan89 (talk) 13:50, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

European diasporas are extremely fuzzy. Numbers normally have to be based on self perception, and people answer such questions in different ways depending on the question and context and the perceived status of certain answers. Families in places like the US and Australia (like mine) often have very wrong ideas about where their ancestors came from, but of course they normally came from many different countries, of which only a few are remembered. What would be much more relevant to this article would be actual emigration statistics, or statistics about Germans living in other countries. But in any case if you have a concrete proposal then explain what source your numbers would come from, and explain what definition and methodology was used. It is up to you to make a convincing proposal. Just repeating what you want is not convincing.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:50, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Definition

According to https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/German in 1 c it states: "one whose native language is German and who is a native of a country other than Germany" So I wrote in the article "and surrounding states" and added a language area map from before the First World War. Is that reasonable enough? Der Eberswalder (talk) 13:24, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

First, this definition is clearly not the same as the wording from the dictionary you are citing. It says nothing about neighbouring countries. Second, note the "1 c", and not the only meaning. Many words have several meanings, and of course when this is the case we don't normally try to combine all the different meanings in one Wikipedia article. Third, and perhaps most important in practice, your tweak to 1 c about the neighbouring countries is extremely problematic in this case, obviously, because it would mean Austrians and German speakers from France, Belgium, Luxembourg or Switzerland are "Germans". Clearly no-one uses the term German that way, and it would be quite an unsensitive and controversial way of writing. (There is a bit of history involved!) I find it hard to imagine why people keep pushing this idea on Wikipedia that any European who speaks German must be a German. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:36, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

"Medieval history" section needs an edit

First paragraph, last two lines. "By the early 9th century AD, large parts of Europe were united under the rule of the Frankish leader Charlemagne, who expanded the Frankish empire in several directions including east of the Rhine, consolidating power over the Saxons and Frisians, and establishing the Carolingian Empire. Charlemagne was crowned emperor by Pope Leo I in 800."

Pope Leo I died in 461 CE, and did not crown Charlemagne. It should be Pope Leo III. HumanEater44 (talk) 14:24, 1 March 2025 (UTC)