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.

Source citing speakers

in chapter geographical distribution one of the 2 sources is citing German Speakers in other Countries, not Germans. Oliklixer (talk) 06:06, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

"Germans" can have different (though connected) meanings. One of them is "native speakers of the German language". Rsk6400 (talk) 16:09, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Words with multiple meanings are common, and it is clear that we should handle different notable meanings in different Wikipedia articles. Also, neither we nor anybody making summary tables or graphical representations should mix numbers involving "apples and pears". This article is furthermore clearly not really about "German speakers", even if they should be mentioned, in some historical contexts. The meaning is unusual, except when talking about historical and "heritage" topics. I think it is never used in careful speech when referring to 21st century people? Non-notable meanings do not all necessarily need to be discussed in Wikipedia, because this is not a dictionary trying to list all the meanings of all words.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:14, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

To be clear I think the deletion of that source was justified and logical. I think article needs to get more logical about these types of issues.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:16, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Andrew Lancaster, @Oliklixer deleted only two references without deleting the referenced text. That's why I reverted them. Rsk6400 (talk) 04:59, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Moser is still cited in the next sentence, so it is not really deleted. For the reason mentioned above the other source, which is not needed, is not really supporting the wording we have.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 05:04, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

My apologies, I didn't look closely enough. Thanks to both of you, especially Andrew Lancaster for looking closely at the thing. Rsk6400 (talk) 15:03, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster Hey Guys, sorry needed some time. You're right that the edit wasn't complete, i made the edit on Mobile and had some problems to edit it there.

I've made the edit because if you look at the quote after reading the text it implies that the german-speaking population of Switzerland (and Austria) is Germans. I'm Swiss so I had some problems with that lol. There is actually a big chunk of Germans (German Nationals) in Switzerland so i think we can revert that just without the source citing german speakers, instead one that cites their nationality. Sorry for the missunderstandings --Oliklixer (talk) 09:59, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

I just tried to adapt the section to the one source that is left but also to what was said above. Feel free to improve. Rsk6400 (talk) 15:16, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Hidden text

@Rsk6400: Greetings! Regarding Special:diff/1354086529... the hidden text "Do not add an infobox without consensus." appears to violate the guideline WP:BADHIDDENTEXT, which says hidden text should not be used for "Telling others not to perform certain edits to a page, unless there is an existing guideline or policy against that edit." I know of no guideline which requires pre-approval to add infoboxes; MOS:INFOBOXUSE says they are neither required nor prohibited. -- Beland (talk) 06:05, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

There were a lot of discussions on this talk page about removing / adding of an info box. So we'd indeed need a consensus to overturn the result of those discussions. Rsk6400 (talk) 06:25, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

WP:BADHIDDENTEXT says about that: "When it is only a local consensus that a certain edit should not be performed, the hidden text should be worded more softly to suggest to the editor to consult the talk page (or archive page if appropriate) for the current consensus prior to making the edit. Since consensus can change, it is inappropriate to use hidden text to try to prohibit making a certain edit merely because it would conflict with an existing local consensus."

I did a quick search of the archives for this talk page, but I don't see a discussion that comes to a consensus that there should not be an infobox. Can you point to one? If so, it can be linked to with softer wording; if not, it appears the hidden text would need to be removed. -- Beland (talk) 06:47, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

Beland the hidden text says "without consensus", so it is a pretty light warning based on how we always work, not a prohibition. We are always supposed to seek consensus, and in this case infoboxes have been deleted and disputed here many times and the current situation is that there is none. So this is just a good common sense warning. It is only fair that editors who might want to add an infobox can try to make sure they consider the concerns which have come up in the past. Are you proposing to add an infobox? Why not just post it here?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:56, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

I am not proposing an infobox, just cleaning up HTML comments. If there has not been a discussion that decided to remove an infobox, then consensus has been determined by editing, and it can be changed simply by adding an infobox that doesn't get reverted. There is no guideline that supports a requirement to get pre-approval, which is how I interpret this hidden text. I have added, "Before adding an infobox please see (link to talk page discussion)" in similarly situated articles, which has softer wording compatible with WP:BADHIDDENTEXT. Is there a particular discussion in the archives that documents "the concerns which have come up in the past"? -- Beland (talk) 12:45, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

Beland I think this is the most recent discussion to go into any detail: . To be clear I did not add the template, but I think the concerns which have come up fairly regularly about editors adding the Infobox ethnic group, which focuses a lot on the diaspora of people who can be called German in various different ways, including not only citizenship or birth but also language, claims of ancestry, etc. Various different types of data are mixed and no one can explain or correct this. It is also not discussed in the main article. I think the data represents a bundle of materials that has been stuck together in various places on the internet and copy-pasted over time. Defenders of these copy pastes are unable/unwilling to discuss or fix obvious problems such as these:

• Language is often used as a basis, so Austrians and Swiss are treated as "German". This is obviously unacceptable, except in history-related contexts, but the infobox and data proposals are clearly represented as being about 21st century "Germans".
• Perceived ancestry/heritage statistics are apparently used in other cases like the US, which results in the US becoming it the main place where "Germans" live.
• Sources such as online population data (Pew, UN) are sometimes cited, but when checked for verification they are clearly being modified, for example to reduce the German population living in Turkey, and increase it in other places.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:25, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

  I added "The addition of an infobox has been previously discussed - see talk page archives". -- Beland (talk) 09:04, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

Beland because this is short and links to the archive, you could link to this thread?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:26, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

Linked! -- Beland (talk) 10:10, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

Why is this Wikipedia article on an ethnic group so unusually bad?

This is probably the worst Wikipedia article about an ethnic group that I’ve ever seen, and it almost serves no purpose at all. It stands out compared to nearly every other Wikipedia article about ethnic groups, including articles about Germans in languages other than English and German. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ~2026-30173-97 (talk) 16:31, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

Could you be more specific about what you see as wrong with the article, so that others can understand what might need to be done to improve it? Cordless Larry (talk) 09:15, 20 May 2026 (UTC)

There is no world map with german diaspora for starters, and no section about German DNA. ~2026-38119-35 (talk) 09:07, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

And where are the sources saying that Germans are an ethnic group with a specific DNA ? Rsk6400 (talk) 09:53, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

I think this would then mainly be relevant to an article more focussed on history. However, I don't think much has been published yet, which is true of many countries. More importantly I agree that (despite having added a lot of history information to it) this article is must mainly be about a modern people who live in a modern country. Germany (and other European countries) are not stuffed specimens in a museum. We can think about how trying to define how DNA defines modern Americans or Canadians would be pretty weird.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:42, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

Concerning diaspora maps the only one's which have been proposed so far have been unacceptable for various really clear reasons. For example, they are based on language only (which means they include Switzerland and Austria), or the data is manipulated to achieve certain desired results in countries interesting to the editors such as the USA. So far we have a strange situation where the editors who want such a map don't seem to want an accurate one.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:36, 5 July 2026 (UTC)