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.

Why is this article so poorly made?
Comparing to other ethnicity pages, there is too little infographics in the leading section, too much emphasis on the holocaust, not talking about the communities around the world and no significant personalities.-Alexceltare2 (talk) 10:18, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

or maybe something like this:"The Germans are a West Germanic ethnic group native to Germany, Austria, Alsace and parts of Switzerland, Belgium, and comprise a large portion of the population of United States, Brazil and Canada..." PadFoot2008 07:59, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @Alexceltare2, I agree with you. Additionally, unlike other similar articles like Russians, Ukrainians, English people, French people, Finnish people, Greeks, Polish people, etc., this article defines Germans as people living in Germany instead of the more common definition of the ethnic group comprising descendents of people who spoke German. This lead of this article, similar to other articles, should be rewritten as such, or in an even better way:
 * "The Germans are an ethnic group and a nation native to Germany, Austria, Alsace and parts of Switzerland, Belgium..."


 * In the real world German speakers in Austria, and so on simply don't call themselves Germans, and to call them German can be offensive. Who are we on WP to decide that they "should" be called Germans? As usual on WP if you can find good sources which say otherwise then that can be discussed. IMHO though, there is an ongoing problem on Wikipedia, and on the internet generally, of dreamers making up imaginary worlds where languages, nationalities and so on are all lined-up, and people are fitted into neat boxes. The real world is complicated, and there is no reason to make all articles about these topics fit the same patterns. A lot of WP articles about ethnicity are problematic in various ways.
 * Coming back to this specific article, there is a separate article about the "German diaspora" for discussions about people who might be considered German in a sense but are not German citizens. In the case of the term "Germans", it's modern usage is clearly centred now around citizenship and this article should be allowed to focus on that. On that basis I believe the first infobox should be removed. I don't think the discussion of the Holocaust is very big. I don't personally see a big problem with adding material about notable Germans although we should avoid too much trivia.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:51, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Do you have any sources supporting your suggestion ? Rsk6400 (talk) 10:06, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Should simply restore the version from a decade ago that actually comes with a source and is inclusive of all the world wide view. '''Germans (Deutsche) are the people who are identified with the modern country of Germany and historically Germanic Central Europe. This connection may be ethnic, residential, legal, historical or cultural. ''' Moxy 🍁 21:03, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Moxy. My two cents. The first part seems similar to what we have now but the second part is a can of worms? Germanic central Europe could include Attila and his allies. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:02, 22 June 2024 (UTC)


 * The link that is not seen here in the lead explains much more about the concept and actually links scholarly publications over grade school dictionary terms.... Germanic peoples. Moxy 🍁 22:52, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with the first part, but "historically" would include all the time from the Gothic cathedrals to the French Revolution (or even WWII), and the term "Germanic peoples" makes no sense in those times. BTW: "people who are identified with ... Germany" raises the question whether we need this article or should merge with Germany - but I don't want to open another "can of worms". Rsk6400 (talk) 06:08, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Well in a sense the modern type of link between citizenship and nation state means this article is already closely bound to the topic of the Germany article. I see no problem with that. It seems a group of challenges arise from the fact that we don't normally insist that there were no Germans before modern Germany, and so we've been trying to leave some space for that. The history of every modern people presents different challenges in this respect. It seems the old version Moxy mentions had a similar approach but the solution for the historical aspect of equating Germanic and German (even limited to history) goes much further than I think most scholars or normal dictionaries would, although such expansive use of the term German was once popular. Don't mention the war, as Basil Fawlty says, but stretching these supposed Germans all over central Europe also seems to go very far from normal usage. Unless we pretend language was what defined everything, which it doesn't, then this could include the predecessors of Czechs, Poles, Hungarians etc. In previous discussion we found good justifications and sourcing for saying that "Germans" begin with the Ottonian kingdom. In a rough way the concept of a German has always been connected to particular states although obviously this was far less neat in the past. The Austrians are a good test case. Any definition we use should handle them. I think calling them Germans becomes increasingly awkward and infrequent in normal usage after the Middle Ages. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:00, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Not after the Middle Ages, but after 1866 (Dissolution of the German Confederation), especially after 1945 (Austrians wanting to and having to distance themselves from Nazi Germany). Rsk6400 (talk) 10:52, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * can we agree that the article is very poorly done compared to other ethnic groups. I want to add at least what was here for ever; the world wide numbers. can we agree on that. BauhausFan89 (talk) 04:41, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * No. This article is based on reliable sources. My personal opinion is that many articles on peoples or nations are more based on nationalist feelings than on RS. Rsk6400 (talk) 06:00, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree. This article has moved a bit towards a more encyclopaedic style. Many ethnic topics in Wikipedia are disastrous, and mix-up many related topics as if they were the same (language, ethnicity, nationality, culture etc). Keep in mind that there are other articles about German diasporas and so on. We should not re-mix all German-related topics into emulsions.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:23, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Genetics section
in general there is a fair bit of caution about the tendency to add genetics sections. Probably they are to some extent unavoidable, if there are relevant studies. However, looking at the one you have added here, I note that the sources being cited concern German speakers and Germanic speakers, and therefore not "Germans". To be honest I am not sure anyone has done a good study of German genetic diversity, either internally or in contrast to neighbouring countries such as Denmark, France etc? That would be the kind of source we would need though? Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:30, 2 July 2024 (UTC)


 * According to WP:PSTS, the article should be based on secondary sources, while studies are primary sources. AngelusVastator3456, you also confused "German" and "Germanic" in your addition to Anti-German sentiment. Rsk6400 (talk) 12:51, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The first paper seems to conflate German speakers with ethnic Germans living in Germany though. AngelusVastator3456 (talk) 08:06, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
 * AngelusVastator3456 I presume that is a reply to my post, rather than that of Rsk6400. If I understand you correctly, when you look into the details of the paper you can make some conclusions about Germans as such (not just German speakers). However this might raise the concern of Rsk6400. If we on WP are the ones interpreting the data to make relevant conclusions then we are risking WP:OR or WP:SYNTH. Whatever we do with genetics articles, it needs to avoid those problems. My impression of the literature is that there has not yet been much study of Germany's population as such, like has been attempted in Britain relatively recently, only specific questions such as whether Germans are genetically distinct from Poles or Wends. Sometimes it is uncontroversial to report isolated interesting facts, but of course in many such cases involving population genetics such reports can imply things to our readers, which go beyond what the publications justify. People have a look at this case with those concerns in mind.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:49, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Map and number of diaspora wiki standard
the map and the numbers added are wiki standard. if some wants another set up for the page, they have to change the wiki standard and rules. if all pages look like that you can do it to the Germans page too. ;) BauhausFan89 (talk) 05:28, 12 July 2024 (UTC)


 * That's not how WP works. We have guidelines and RfCs, but in the absence of those, we have local consensus. We had some discussions about this on this talk page. Rsk6400 (talk) 05:45, 12 July 2024 (UTC)


 * I agree. The onus is upon people adding new material to convince other editors that it is suitable.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:19, 18 July 2024 (UTC)