Talk:German

19th century dances

Question for you, please. I find references to dances at the turn of the 19th century into the 20th, referring to them as "germans." Can you elaborate on that, at all?

According to American Heritage dictionary: "Short for German cotillion".

Why is this a disambig page?

I am a crazy guy, but how can adjectives be encyclopedic? There is only one thing called German, and that's the language. German can also mean a person from Germany, but that entry would consist of a definition. Yes, the word German is also an adjective, but there are no entries on adjectives, just on things.

I propose moving German language here, putting the current contents of the disambig page to something like "German topics," and adding a link to that at the top of the German language article. Any thoughts? Wnissen 14:37, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

• I agree. There are literally hundreds of articles on Wikipedia (and more being created every day) that refer to "Johann Schmidt, a [[German]] chemist" or "the [[German]] Army" or "[[German]] immigrants in Texas" and so on. We need a disambig page for the benefit of users who click on those links. See also French, Spanish, Italian, etc., all of which are disambig pages. --Russ Blau (talk) 18:32, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

Russ, we need correct links for that, not dab pages. The reason we have dab pages is because "German" can refer to both language and the ethnic group and because there's no point in deciding that no one will ever search for "German" when actually looking for "Germans". That's why we use the disambiguator titles "German language" and "German people". Vague linking is just as much a problem as vague searches.

Peter ^Isotalo 19:11, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Worse German and "greater" Germanic are often confused in early medieval articles. Even when talking about dialects in Germany, the nomenclature is confusing ("German" being Hoch Deutsch, and many German dialects (Platt-Deutsch) not being part of that). I actually arrived here from pages about Charlemagne and Rhenish dialects

Help

I would need help with expanding 2006 German troops controversy. Thanks. --Striver 21:12, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Relevance of Nazism in this article

I would strongly suggest that featuring Nazism as a possible meaning of "German" is a bad piece of POV. 84.0.216.199 12:02, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

RfC: Pruning down

I've repeatedly proposed a pruning down of this page to only the most relevant entries, which was several times reverted by User:R9tgokunks ([1]). Let me explain once more:

As per WP:DAB and WP:MOSDAB, only pages with titles whose names could seriously be confused with each other should be linked to from disambiguation pages. The test is: if a person enters "German" in the searchbox, or if an editor decides to link to "German" from another article, is there a chance that they really expect to land at article "X"?

Cases:

• the variants of the German language: not relevant. If you want to go to the Austrian German article, you'll type "Austrian German". If you type "German", you want German language as a whole.
• Same for the various national and sub-national groups: Saxons, Bavarians, etc. These are hyponyms of "German", not synonyms. If you want "Saxon", you'll type "Saxon".
• Germanic culture - is plain wrong here
• German nationality law, Demographics of Germany - these are pages that can be linked to from the main article German people or Germany etc. They contain some explanation of what "German" means in different contexts, but they are not what a person expects to find when typing "German" in the searchbox.
• Germany - linked to twice, redundantly
• Placenames:
  • Germantown is not called "German". It only has "German" as part of its name. Not confusable.
  • German Language Village Waldse (camp) - totally irrelevant, misspelled, article doesn't exist; probably a spam addition.
• Terminology explanation ("Archaic and incorrect usage synonymously with Germanic or Germanic peoples in English translations of ancient Latin text, as English either lacked an appropriate translation or has a very confusing homonym"): POV ("incorrect"), not precise enough (confusion doesn't hold only in translations from Latin), too long, textually incomplete without the table that R9tgokunks removed in his latest edit ([2]); plus it contains further wiki links unrelated to the disambiguation. Dab pages should not have any non-dab links. This can be handled much more briefly.
• "See also" section: swamped with loosely associated links that are in no way confusable. In most cases, readers will understand how these are supposedly related to "German" only after they've read the articles (Nemec, Deitsch, Gothic, etc.). Therefore, nothing that helps readers navigate from here.

Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:30, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your assessment. In its current state, it's hardly a disambiguation page anymore. The entire "See also" section is contradictory to WP:MOSDAB guidelines for that section. Andrwsc 06:47, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Terse is better. when it comes to DAB pages. Prefer version 119252972 timestamped 12:31 UTC, 31 March 2007 to 119200456 timestamped 04:03 UTC, 31 March 2007. The editor of the earlier version seems inclined to think of a DAB as a place to deposit a link to all things German, no matter how faint the association may be. In contrast, a DAB is specifically for documenting the multiple articles associated with a particular letter pattern that a user is likely to type into a search box, and to furnish links to every article which may directly associate with the letter pattern. If other editors agree with my interpretation of the disambiguation page guideline, then they may share my questioning of the first bullet point on the page: The Federal Republic of Germany. That is for the Germany disambiguation page, intended for that letter pattern. I think all the links in the entire See also section ought to be redistributed to the various articles, mainly to further the aim of terseness. A disambiguation page is a necessary inconvenience arising from the sad fact that particular letter pattern may associate with more than one article, so editors are compelled to ask users to pick one among various likely links, when users would rather go directly to a target. That's why a DAB must be short to fit on a screen that may have as low a resolution as 640x480 — old computers are still in use — and unconfusing. It should simply offer users a simple choice of alternate destinations. Any more than that is overkill. Take care. — Gosgood 15:47, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree completely with simplifying this disambiguation page (not article). Olessi 17:43, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

This page continues to be a mess. It is a disambiguation page, people! It is supposed to help people who type "German" in the search box. It is not supposed to define terms, include synonyms or related terms, include definitions or embellishment of terms, include references and footnotes, etc. Please read MOS:DAB for guidelines. Andrwsc 20:52, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Further: take a look at Italian and French, similar kinds of disambiguation pages. That's what this one should look like too. Andrwsc 21:08, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

"Tysk" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Tysk. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 August 3#Tysk until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Soumya-8974 ^talk _contribs ^subpages 08:53, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Citizens

@Bkonrad: What do you mean by your reason "Maybe, but it's not a valid entry"? The term "Germans" refers to ethnic Germans and the citizens of Germany. What is your problem with the addition of "citizens of Germany" in the "Common uses" section?--LeftiePete (talk) 23:32, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

• Entries on a disambiguation page need to follow disambiguation guidelines which require a navigable blue link that supports the usage. older ≠ wiser 23:36, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

The German nationality law should be sufficient.--LeftiePete (talk) 00:00, 15 November 2020 (UTC)