User talk:Hawkthorne

December 2016
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Please use the edit summary to explain your reasoning for the edit, or a summary of what the edit changes. You can give yourself a reminder to add an edit summary by setting. ''Please discuss, before making potentially controversial changes to multiple articles and do not mark changes affecting nationality of this nature as minor. '' Boson (talk) 22:11, 28 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your advice, Boson. I'm just getting started, there's a lot to learn! :) Hawkthorne (talk) 15:42, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Very true! has given you some useful links. I will (shortly) add a section with some more specific advice on the sort of edits you have been making. --Boson (talk) 17:23, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Welcome!
Hello, Hawkthorne, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions, especially your edits to List of members of the European Parliament, 1984–89. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:
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Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! HaeB (talk) 22:12, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Citizenship of EU politicians
For editing biographies, you will find useful information at the guideline Manual of Style/Biographies. Of particular interest for the sort of change you have been making is Manual of Style/Biographies. For modern-day politicians, the first paragraph normally includes their country of nationality/citizenship. This can be sensitive, because it also involves questions of identity (e.g. Scottish vs British). Many will understand "European" to indicate citizenship of an unspecified country in Europe (rather than referring to work in an EU institution). And a German politician remains German when they become an EU official or parliamentarian. If you wish to make changes that may be controversial, you can discuss them first on the article talk page in order to establish consensus. If you wish to make changes affecting multiple articles, a more central location is appropriate. For advice or suggestions concerning the European Union European Union articles, you could go to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject European Union. If you think the guideline itself needs clarification, you could go to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies. --Boson (talk) 17:33, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

PS: Another place for advice and assistance is, of course, the Teahouse. --Boson (talk) 17:56, 29 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Note: The same user was mass-changing the articles before from User talk:83.70.53.83. --hydrox (talk) 19:05, 15 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I have now cleaned up after all the mess you did, the second time. Please give it some thought before starting mass-changing these articles again. The community will need to agree to your plan, and currently the consensus is clearly that European-level politicians are introduced by their home nationality. Try to think about it like this: Would you consider it appropriate to introduce a Chinese person as "Asian"? I would think that very vague and possibly offensive. --hydrox (talk) 19:33, 15 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Hi, hydrox, I am not that other user you've mentioned. I would like to know where to participate in that discussion from which so clear a consensus was concluded that you feel free to ideologically revert other users' editions without previous notice and discussion (as you seem to expect from anyone else).
 * And being European what I would consider offensive is that someone would consider offensive being called "European". Had you looked carefully, you'd have seen I only edited people that were relevantly European and hardly polemic (the highest positions on the EU, EU founders, some other pro-European MEPs) of whose state citizenship is more anechdotical than relevant. I didn't, e.g., edit anti-European MEPs like Farage or Le Pen to call them "European".
 * I take your advice, however, as it was not my intention to be disruptive (as you seem to accuse me), and I would like to contribute to that discussion you mentioned. Hawkthorne (talk) 11:13, 28 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Hawkthorne, sorry if I came across aggressive, and sorry for insinuating that you were the same person as the other user, if this is not really the case. The timing and almost identical mass-editing action just seemed to suggest otherwise, and I got a bit annoyed about mass-undoing a similar set of changes again.
 * I did not mean that a high-level EU dignitary would necessarily feel offended by being described as "European", especially if the subscribe to the pan-European identity ideal. I was only referring to how e.g. in the US describing someone as "Asian" as opposed to their home nationality (say, "Chinese") can be offensive in certain contexts. But see my points below for why this still does not necessarily make it a good idea to apply "European" to a person's Wikipedia article, even is they are not personally offended by it.
 * As for if there is any specific discussion on this topic, no there is probably not. What I mean with consensus here is that the articles about many of these politicians are probably about as old as Wikipedia itself, and they pretty much consistently introduce the person with their primary citizenship – and the status quo itself is a pretty good indication of a consensus, don't you agree?
 * A discussion could of course be opened (as a request for comments type procedure) for example under the WikiProject European Union umbrella for changing the way e.g. notable European Union politicians are introduced (so that the opening sentence would describe them as "Syldavian and European" / "European and Syldavian" / "European"). However, I could foresee strong objections to such change from multiple important existing foundations, some of which are not necessarily obvious:
 * 1) Stylistic concern: Wikipedia has a manual of style regarding how articles should be written to maximise their encyclopedic usability to readers. There is a whole section about how to begin articles. The guidelines suggest that the opening sentence should be concise yet avoid redundancy. If Syldavia is a European country, it is clearly redundant to mention the person being both Syldavian and European in the opening, and less concise as well. (Admittedly, this only concerns the varieties "Syldavian and European" and its reverse, and you were removing the home nationality from the article openings altogether and replacing it with "European".)
 * 2) Ambiguity: What is being "European" anyway? The "continent's" geographical borders are not unambiguously defined to start with, and it means a bit different things to different people. Is a Georgian person European? A Turk? A Cypriot MEP? An Israeli? Someone born in the French Guiana? Are we only limiting "European" to EU citizens? Just EU dignitaries? Is it even possible for our readers to intuitively understand any one definition of "European"? On the other hand, the identity and especially geographical extent of a sovereign state often takes a much clearer form.
 * 3) Neutrality: This is the less obvious one, but I feel most strongly about this. Wikipedia's core tenet, way above any stylistic nitpicks, is to be neutral. We describe facts and viewpoints, but don't take points of view ourselves. Among others, Wikipedia is not pro-EU, pro-integration etc., and for a good reason. Your comment above seems to confirm my fear that the motive behind the change was to describe only long-serving EU-level politicians as "European", as if to somehow suggest their long service in the EU would have transformed their national home identity to a pan-European one. You specifically said you wouldn't apply this categorisation to Nigel Farage, a popular and well-known euroskeptic and opponent of European integration. But then why employ such language to start with? We have no crystal balls, and for all we know EU might collapse tomorrow and then all these EU politicians would be out of job, and Wikipedia would appear absolutely ridiculous clinging to such pan-European ideals. The whole idea of pan-European identity is contentious political topic, where a neutral party, like an encyclopedia, should not take sides. One way to definitely take a side here is to use language and terms that would suggest the editors of the encyclopedia support the pan-European identity movement. (Just for the record: I am personally not an euroskeptic or particularly opposed to integration or pan-European identity, but just defending Wikipedia itself from introducing biased language to the articles.)
 * These are my main oppositions to this change, and the reason I don't think such proposition would fly too well. Of course, it's just my viewpoint and you are free to disagree. If I did not manage to sway your conviction, you are welcome to open a wider discussion to seek opinions of more editors as well, and I am ready to assist you in this. But I would still urge you to refrain from mass-changing these articles before such discussion reaches a conclusion. --hydrox (talk) 18:15, 29 January 2017 (UTC)