Talk:John Hopkins (motorcyclist)

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Anglo-American[edit]

I see the "Anglo-American" has been edited to remove the link to England. Perhaps if his great-great-great Grandmother had been on holiday to Ireland you would be happy to call him "Irish-American".... But seriously, both his parents are English, he carries a Union Flag detail on his bike, and speaks regularly of his proud English heritage. He is as Anglo-American as it is possible to be. 86.17.246.75 11:18, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I vote on keeping the title Anglo-American (even though he's from my hometown in California). He's British bred, but due to where he was born his passport is American. Unfortunate, no? --Nutschig 19:51, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That leaves you with tens of thousands of other articles to edit. If both your parents are born somewhere, you have a pretty big claim to identifying with that country. --MartinUK 11:27, 11 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
He has a union jack along with the stars and bars tattooed on his back, so he obviously has I'd say more than a small amount of connection with the UK. His bio on his official website mentions it explicitly in the first paragraph. http://www.johnhopkins21.com/-/bio
He is obviously American though - born, raised, and accented last I heard him. It is worth mentioning the strong connection with the UK in article in my view, it is important to him. And goodness knows the Brits need a rider to cheer for =) Ryoutou 21:11, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Acton" Disambiguation[edit]

This page was identified as including a disambiguation error based on the term "Acton".

In order to resolve this problem I have removed the wikilink from the term as I am unable to determine, from the context, which of the many alternatives the term is referring to. If you wish to restore the link please ensure that the term and the link are fully resolved. Perry Middlemiss (talk) 22:04, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Birth place, nationality, Original Research and lede citation[edit]

I have tagged the lede as {{not in citation}}, as there is nothing contained in the Daily Mail article which supports that Hopkins is American - the only section applicable states:

Britain is a second home for Hopkins. His parents are from Acton and his three sisters were born here. Growing up in California he was raised on British food and the sunshine did not stop his mum Linda from cooking Sunday roasts.

My vague recollection/understanding from hearing UK TV commentators is that Hopkins was born in England and emigrated to US with his parents aged six months. I do not think this is my imagination, but I may be confusing this with another rider, so I will not speculate at this stage on his actual birth or naturalised nationality.

I can't get any further back in the article history than this version dated 24 August 2005 which contains all original research from a currently-inactive IP address, stating: "He was born on May 22, 1983 in Ramona, California to English parents".

This sentence was later split in the article lede, and the citation (dated 8 October 2011) was added to the second part on 21 March 2014. The editor who added the reference was active in late October/early November 2015 and has been invited to comment.

I can see from much earlier concerns above this was generally commented on previously. If I'm right, this is another example of Wikipedia re-writing history; if I'm wrong, then it's still a mis-applied citation. Hopkins' birth details need verification, not original research from 2005 (remember American websites [23] probably used Wikipedia as a source). Both of Hopkins' website URLs are dead so I have deleted these. Anyone is invited to comment. Thanks.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 21:14, 12 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]


I have now found a 2007 citation where Hopkins was questioned about "being British", but considered himself as an American. His replies were unhelpful:

Q. A lot of people don't understand your being British. As I understand it, your entire family moved over here from England, and you were raised here as a British family in America. People have some questions as to why you're referred to as Anglo-American. Are you basically a British person living in America, or how would you term it?
A. People term it how they want.

Q. Are you an American?
A My passport says so. And I'm proud to hold it, that's for sure. When I have a family and kids, they're going to be raised here in America, as well. I'm American. I live in England, obviously, during the season. The family ways - just certain things, the way you're brought up with a British family, like the food and dinners and stuff like that. It's good. But I would say I'm a full-blown American. I have the accent. I live here. And I'll raise my kids here.

We can assume Good Faith in that the source is correct - on that basis, I have revised the lede text to quote the source, removed the two references to being born in Ramona, California, and left simply "he was born to parents from Acton" as that is all the source supports. On the initial assumption it's Acton, London, the UK online free birth records confirm only one 1983 John Hopkins birth in London, shown as Andrew John Hopkins, but the dates don't tally, shown as October to December, compared to the unsourced May 22 in the prose.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 18:09, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

@Rocknrollmancer: there seems to be an entry in the California Birth Index (here or on equivalent websites) matching the MotoGP.com website (here).–Gpmat (talk) 09:40, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
OK, thanks, I will look at it again, although Ms. Gillet, the mother in the 1983 California birth record does not accord with a Linda Hopkins (the other kids appear to use the surname Hopkins). I will also revise the lede as it clearly - in hindsight - does not accord with the source, which is itself a bit vague, and does not accord with another source [24] which also states Hopkins' late father was a TT winner, although there is no record of his name on IoM tt.com (Roy or Royston Hopkins).--11:58, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

External links modified[edit]

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