User talk:BJACurry

March 2021
Hello, and thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. I noticed that you recently added commentary to an article, English people. While Wikipedia welcomes editors' opinions on an article and how it could be changed, these comments are more appropriate for the article's accompanying talk page. If you post your comments there, other editors working on the same article will notice and respond to them, and your comments will not disrupt the flow of the article. However, keep in mind that even on the talk page of an article, you should limit your discussion to improving the article. Article talk pages are not the place to discuss opinions of the subject of articles, nor are such pages a forum.   ''Kind regards. —Twotwofourtysix(My talk page and contributions)'' 11:49, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I understand well the position you take here and am happy for my original text to be removed. I have now edited the page to make it clearer that being 'English' and 'Englishness' are highly complex matters that are easily misconstrued as existing entities. The predicate 'English' or Englishness is an abstract entity and can scarcely be said to exist in the way that concrete entities do. The point that predicates are abstract entities is simply a matter of fact. The definition that opens this page needs balanced and sensitive handling; I believe I have provided that. I note that I have preserved key references and points of information and focused only upon removing those statements that suggest that abstract entities are concrete entities. Please engage in discussion rather than simply reverting this page.

Your recent editing history at English people shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war; that means that you are repeatedly changing content back to how you think it should be, when you have seen that other editors disagree. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you are reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. The best practice at this stage is to discuss, not edit-war. See the bold, revert, discuss cycle for how this is done. If discussions reach an impasse, you can then post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.

Being involved in an edit war can result in you being blocked from editing&mdash;especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring&mdash;even if you do not violate the three-revert rule&mdash;should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly.''You've now had several people revert you, it's time to use the talk page. You seem confused. There are no English citizens, for a start. There is an English nation just as there is a Scottish nation. A nation can have multiple ethnic groups that all identify as English, just as America does.'' Doug Weller  talk 19:13, 31 March 2021 (UTC)


 * And please do not reply here. Use the article talk page. Doug Weller  talk 19:14, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Edit warring
Please familiarise yourself with Edit warring. Mutt Lunker (talk) 16:32, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your explanations. I understand the point about consistency and the desire to treat accounts of ethnic identities in a balanced way. However, I would ask you rethink your pages on ethnicities, and the page on 'English People' in particular. They are easily misconstrued as asserting the existence of racial essences. I was alerted to this when a Twitter follower responded to David Lammy's widely-publicised debate with a caller on LBC. The Twitter follower made the racist claim (in support of the caller on Lammy's show) that it is impossible to be both English and African Caribbean and cited your page 'English People' as evidence. Reading your page it is easy to see how a reader might be misled into conceiving of ethnic groups as concrete entities rather that highly-complex abstract entities that rarely (if ever) apply in a matter-of-fact way. For example to say that 'The English people are x' gives the impression that a group of people can be clearly identified in the same way that, say, the 'current members of the House of Commons' can be identified, but this is absolutely not the case. I ask that you look to overhaul these pages with a mind to avoiding, as far as is possible, such fallacious and damaging conclusions being drawn in the future.

The question of ethnic grouping vs country of residence
THIS IS A VERSION OF A MESSAGE ON THE 'ENGLISH PEOPLE' TALK PAGE.

Firstly, I'd like to apologise to those editors who may feel frustrated that I have been slow in using these talk pages when editing the 'English People' page. In my defence, I have attempted significantly and/or relevantly different edits of this page and the last two were very minor (in terms of the number of words edited) indeed. But I should have followed the procedures more quickly – apologies. I hope editors understand that I am trying to solve a genuine problem here. This ethnic group page does not make it clear that the adjective 'English' is defined by the OED as:

'Of or belonging to England (or Britain) or its inhabitants.'

Significantly, the OED adds:

'In early use sometimes spec[ifically]. designating inhabitants of England of Anglo-Saxon descent, in contradistinction to those of Celtic, Scandinavian, or Norman descent.'

The Wikipedia page does not make it clear that it concerns only (something approaching) this 'early use'. This is very important because there are people with a poor understanding of these matters who are liable to read this page as indicating that it is not possible to be both English and a person of colour. This was recently highlighted by a much publicised conversation on LBC with David Lammy MP, in which a caller insisted that it was not possible to be both English and African Caribbean. The Wikipedia page was cited as evidence in support of her claim early in the subsequent Twitter storm.

Having looked at the work of the wikiproject 'Ethnic Groups', I see that they provide a succinct means of addressing this issue with one of the statements in their template:

This article covers the  as an ethnic group, not  meaning citizens of 

In my last edit I used a version of this but had to replace citizens with inhabitants because citizens of England are, more strictly, citizens of Britain (thanks to Doug Weller for pointing this out). To make minimal impact on the flow of the article it made sense to put this in the template at the top adapting the statement already there, which is based on another of the options in the wikiproject template.

This gave the statement: This article is about English as an ethnic group, not English people meaning inhabitants of England.

The use of the term inhabitants is taken over from the OED. If an entity can be defined as English because it is owned by an inhabitant it follows that an inhabitant of England can themselves be defined as English.

Please can editors offer support for such a statement or suggest a way of clarifying this discrepancy with the OED. I realise that the OED is a dictionary and not an encyclopaedia, but I hope that the need for consistency between the two authorities is self evident. I know this is not anyone's intention, but I think the page, as it stands, esp. its opening paragraphs, is encouraging some very damaging ideas about who does and doesn't 'belong' to England and this very small qualification, in line with recommendations from the wikiproject, would make a significant and positive difference to people's lives. BJACurry (talk) 07:55, 1 April 2021 (UTC)


 * In one of your posts you wrote "My view is this: All inhabitants of England are descended from migrants (this is a fact)." Yes and no. There was no one on the land now known as the British Isles at the end of the last Ice Age. But hunter gatheres wandered in following the game. Your statement seems the type that Europeans have been using to justify their ancestors taking land from the native inhabitants who occupied it before modern European exploration ("your ancestors were also immigrants ..."). Did you read about the direct descendants of Cheddar Man who still live in the area. Now of course those descendants will have many generations of intermarrige with more recent immigrants, but a direct decent over 9k years and still living in the same area is at least 16 times longer than any perminant European settlements in the Americas, probably means by that any normal definition such a family are not decended from immigrants — PBS (talk) 23:45, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Just for the record, it is my view that the fact that all humans (including Cheddar Man) have ancestry that goes back to Africa in no way legitimises colonialist behaviours in North America. I think the following study is useful here https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205020280010501BJACurry (talk) 08:41, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes of course as supported by several different scientific diciplines, all modern humans have ansestry that goes back to Africa, but I do not aggree with your implied assertion, that the first person who stepped out of Africa into Asia, became an immigrant at that moment. I think that immigration has a concept of moving from one populated area into another one with the intention of changing one's permanant residency if not domicilty (which is why Lenin was a refugee in Switzerland and not a immigrant). In modern times as all territory on the six continents is clamied either by one or more soverign states, or is administered under the auspices of the UN, immigrant normally means moving from one state's jurisdiction into another one. For example it is obvious that a Parisian who moves to London is an immigrant, what is less clear is whether a Glaswegian is, but most Scottish and English people would probably say (s)he was. There is an old Scottish joke that that states "every time a Scot moves south of the border the average IQ in both countries goes up".
 * As I am not going to pay 29 quid to read "The Linguistics of Color Blind Racism: How to Talk Nasty about Blacks without Sounding 'Racist'" perhapse you would care to explain how that paper relates to whether desendents of Chedder man, who still live in the area, are immigrants or not.
 * Do you think that members of North American first nations are immigrants to the soverign states that now claim soverignty over their ancestrial territories? For that matter were those people in the colonies prior to the creation of the United States immigrants to the United States or immigrants to the colonies that preceded the new state? If the latter, then surly their decendents are in part not immigrants to the United States (a pedants distinction, but it may help us come to an agreement on what defines an immigrant). -- PBS (talk) 19:40, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

April 2021
Your recent edits to User:Meerta could give Wikipedia contributors the impression that you may consider legal or other "off-wiki" action against them, or against Wikipedia itself. Please note that making such threats on Wikipedia is strictly prohibited under Wikipedia's policies on legal threats and civility. Users who make such threats may be blocked. If you have a dispute with the content of any page on Wikipedia, please follow the proper channels for dispute resolution. Please be sure to comment on content, not contributors, and where possible make specific suggestions for changes supported by reliable independent sources and focusing especially on verifiable errors of fact. Thank you. Cabayi (talk) 17:06, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Mention of "legal channels"
There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Mention of "legal channels". Thank you. PBS (talk) 14:34, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

October 2021
 You have been blocked from editing for a period of 24 hours for edit warring, as you did at English people. Once the block has expired, you are welcome to make useful contributions. During a dispute, you should first try to discuss controversial changes and seek consensus. If that proves unsuccessful, you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection. If you think there are good reasons for being unblocked, please read the guide to appealing blocks, then add the following text below the block notice on your talk page:. Cabayi (talk) 15:33, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
 * You've been cautioned about edit warring previously and informed of the expectation that you should adhere to the bold-revert-discuss process. Returning to your 7 month-old edit war is not acceptable. Cabayi (talk) 15:36, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

October 2021
Hello. This is a message to let you know that one or more of your recent contributions did not appear to be constructive and have been reverted. Please take some time to familiarise yourself with our policies and guidelines. You can find information about these at our welcome page which also provides further information about contributing constructively to this encyclopedia. If you only meant to make test edits, please use your sandbox for that. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you may leave a message on my talk page. Thank you. JJNito197 (talk) 14:48, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Regarding this edit summary, my point was that the populations of England and Wales are different, so it's not ceteris paribus. Also, statistics for England alone are available if you look. Cordless Larry (talk) 15:21, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
 * It was my rv. JJNito197 (talk) 15:43, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry if it wasn't clear, but my comment above was meant to be addressed to BJACurry, . I agree with your revert. Cordless Larry (talk) 15:53, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
 * My apologies. Your edit on the page clarifies the issue concisely, thanks. JJNito197 (talk) 15:56, 29 October 2021 (UTC)