Dutch Descendants of USA or United States?

Question

This category has several duplicates. 

I am asking the Dutch Roots project to please decide on whether to use "USA" or "United States" in the sticker, since these duplicates need to be combined. Please inform your project as to the correct one as well. So, which one do you prefer? 

Answer 1

Persons with Dutch ancestry not born in the Netherlands are out of scope for the Dutch Roots project, so you are addressing the wrong audience.

I cannot find any reference to the use of "Descendant" categories in the project pages.

In general I would say there should be a WT-wide standard defined: "USA" or "United States of America" (and certainly not just "United States"). Letting projects choose can lead to project A having "X Dependants of USA" and project B choosing "Y Dependants of United States of America".

BTW: no idea what sticker you are referring to, or its relation to the Dutch Roots Project

Comments

Hi Jan,

Actually, "United States" is also accepted, and what I put on my profiles.

"USA" should be avoided, as it is an acronym, and not the full spelling of the proper name.

In my opinion, "United States of America" is a bit overkill. Is Hawaii part of North America or America? But it's one of the 50 states. Plus we have territories that are arguably not part of the American continent. It's stuff like that that makes me drop the "of America" part. But I may be in the minority on this, and I'm ok with that. Again, it is only my opinion. Others may vary.

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Hi Eric,

I think to avoid confusion with other historical "United States", like commented in this G2G-thread, the full name would be more appropriate. See also this other thread.

My personal preference is "USA", short and unambiguous. And make it standard in applicable category names.

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Hi Jan,

Here is the sticker page with all the information:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Template:Dutch_Roots_Sticker

It is the regular "Dutch Roots" sticker. It can be configured for use on non-Dutch born descendants, but it is still a Dutch Roots sticker. If the Dutch Roots project does not accept responsibilty for this, then who? When I look at the page it seems Natalie's error is understandable.

The parameters to use on descendants are explained. And yes, in practice it does assign a category, which is calculated from the parameters "provincie" for Dutch-born, and "natie" for descendants. What is missing is rules about what to put in the "natie" parameter.

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Thank you, Isabelle!

That is, indeed, the sticker that causes constant red-linked categories, especially the "provincie=" parameter.

Perhaps a list of the acceptable province names should be posted for sticker users: Zeeland, Zuid-Holland, Utrecht, Overijssel, Noord-Holland, Noord-Brabant, Limburg, Groningen, Gelderland, Friesland, and Flevoland (and perhaps the English translation, but I'm not certain_.

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@Isabelle

• Sticker mystery could have easily been avoided by naming it.
• It is unfair to ask the Dutch Roots project to take responsibility for the choice of naming a location. That should be done on a WT-wide basis, so far beyond a single project's responsibility.
• It is absurd to ask for rules on "natie": could be any current or historical countryname.

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It isn't rules for the project itself, Jan, but there are "rules" for using the sticker and the sticker is a Dutch Roots sticker.  If your project doesn't want the sticker any longer, it should feel free to ask for its deletion. I would be interested to know what the leader would think about it! 

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Template:Dutch_Roots_Sticker

One of the parent categories is the project, and the sticker is mentioned on the project page. 

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It is absurd to ask for rules on "natie": could be any current or historical countryname.

Then if "anything" could go in "natie", then it should NEVER be used as a basis for a category. Who wanted the sticker to work this way?

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@Natalie,

The topic was naming "Descendant of USA or United States", not "constant red-linked categories, especially the "provincie=" parameter."

But anyway, I have given my opinion on location categories before, and was warned by Isabelle with the ominous wording: "Can we please, pretty please stop discussing location categories here? Jan, we know your agenda about them very well. You have posted about it multiple places, and it's quite off-topic here." Mysterious anonymous "we", big brother?

So I don't care about categories anymore be they (invisibly) red linked or not. Maybe somebody else in the Dutch Roots project cares enough to address yoir problem.

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@Isabelle

Not me. You (plural) know my "agenda", don't you?

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Are you referring to the Dutch Descendants or the Dutch Roots Project box or stickers Natalie, when you say the province parameter often is causing red linked categories ?

For the Dutch Roots ones it is explained people have to add the connection lines for provinces like Zuid-Holland, Noord-Holland and Noord-Brabant and to prevent confusion or more red linked ones .. only in Dutch. I think that maybe one of the problems is that the categories are no longer visible at the top and only at the bottom, so now if someone made a mistake filling in the province it's missed easier because they don't look at the bottom to check the categories... while in the past with the  categories at the top, the red categories worked like a red flag and these kind of mistakes were corrected directly /much quicker..

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It seems like the commonly used parts of the sticker (jaar, provincie, needs) make sense and have structure from the group. However, the natie and provincie combination no longer make sense to create a category from the sticker. (See also Jan's comment above.)

* I don't think these are heavily used (see also my comment down below).

* Categorization has become much more structured since the sticker was introduced.

* Adding categories is very easy with the category picker.

* People can put in anything without regard to existing practices.

* Category typos are much harder to see at the bottom of the screen.

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Thanks for the input and help W, Jan, R.J and everyone, it's very much appreciated and yes things nowadays are much easier, so I agree that the provincie parameter, if no one objects, probably can be removed without problems from the Dutch Descendants Projectbox/Sticker, if people not born in the Netherlands, want to categorize profiles by state/province, I'm sure there's a category for every state of the United States already..so if Dutch Descendants/ Project members, using or wanting to use the sticker, are categorized by Country of Birth and if they still can add needs with the sticker that probably will be fine.

Answer 2

To follow the pattern, shouldn't it be

United States, Dutch Descendants

with subcategories

Alabama, Dutch Descendants

Maryland, Dutch Descendants

etc etc

Comments

Or perhaps

United States, Dutch Americans

etc, which seems to be the more common term.

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Perhaps, but then the template for the sticker would need to be rewritten.

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Only one line.

|category=Dutch Descendants {{#if:{{{provincie|}}}|of {{{provincie|}}}, {{{natie|}}}|{{#if:{{{natie|}}}|of {{{natie|}}}|}}}}

becomes

|category={{#if:{{{provincie|}}}|{{{provincie}}}, }}{{#if:{{{natie|}}}|{{{natie}}}, }}Dutch Descendants

You don't need provincie as well as natie, except that people might have used it.

Answer 3

These categories are not made by the Dutch Roots Project like Jan mentioned.

I take a look and noticed that these categories made by you Natalie, using USA and some by Isabelle Rasinot using United States. I don't check them all maybe there are more persons.

The way in which the sticker is filled in depends on those who have designed the categories.  So this is in fact a discussion between these people.

Comments

It's the sticker that calculates a category depending on the parameters. Categorists like Nat and myself can do nothing about the name the category will have, it depends solely on the value of "natie". If the user enters "USA" in "natie" then the category will be "Dutch Descendants of USA" and if they enter "United States" it will be "Dutch Descendants of United States". Worse, if they enter something like "Masachusset" it will create a "Dutch Descendants of Masachusset" which is misspelled, and if that is entered in a sticker on a private profile there is absolutely nothing  the categorization project can do about it. In that hypothetical case the "Dutch Descendants of Masachusset" category is there to stay. No one can remove it, even though it's incorrect.

It may look like I or Nat created categories, because if the category calculated by the sticker is red, then the categorization maintenance team have to do something about it. I know I tried to "rename" the red categories so they would not be duplicates, once or twice, but it never worked, because EditBot could not access the contents of the sticker. So the categories are just there.

If really the way this sticker is working has nothing to do with the Dutch Roots project, then I vote to change it so it does not put profiles in any category at all.

Disclaimer: I did not make the sticker and am not responsible for the way it works. I just tried to understand how.

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Ah, the sticker generated a category. If that's happen the user has not fill in the form to create a category? I understand and you members of the categorisation project are confronted with red links and make a category page. 

I'm not sure but I think Bea our Dutch Roots leader designed this sticker. She managed the Dutch Roots pages and if she agree, we can make a note what the desired country name is to use in the sticker. This does not only apply to the USA but also to people from other countries who want to use this sticker. I think the Wikitree Help Page Location Fields can be used as a guide.

As far as the country name for the United States is concerned I think USA is an abbreviation that is known worldwide and can be used… or United States of America to avoid confusion with any other historical names with United States in it. 

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If there are categories for states, then the United States/USA category is a higher-level category and shouldn't have people in it at all, just subcategories.  So it shouldn't be used in template calls, it should only appear as a parent on the subcategory pages.

But a person in Paris, Texas might be a member of

Paris, Texas, Dutch Descendants

Paris, Texas, School Principals

Paris, Texas, Poker Players

all of which will be subcategories of

Paris, Texas

which already exists.

And if there's a sticker for each, they should all be written so that the user passes "|location=Paris, Texas", the name of the location category.  Otherwise it gets crazy.

Answer 4

Since there was no agreement on who owned the template, I have gone ahead and modified the template to provide error checking (i.e., check for the presence of "USA" and automatically convert that "United States").

This change has been published on both Template:Dutch Roots and Template:Dutch Roots Sticker.

Comments

Is this sticker only for the USA? What happens if I fill in België or Belgium or la Belgique. Is there consensus witch name had to be used for this country. Or are there three parallel categoriestuctures and is each of these names accepted?

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Logically you'd have a French version of the template, with a French name and a French display message.  And you'd pass the country name in French and generate a category name in French.  And so on.

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Is this sticker only for the USA? What happens if I fill in België or Belgium or la Belgique.

Hi Joop,

The sticker does not have any default values, so is not restricted to the United States in usage, and it will accept any text that is input for the |natie= and |provincie= parameters. So for instance, the sticker would take the following inputs:

{{Dutch Roots Sticker
|natie=Category
|provincie=Test
}}

and would link to a category named [[Category:Dutch Descendants of Test, Category]].

Is there consensus witch name had to be used for this country. Or are there three parallel categoriestuctures and is each of these names accepted?

So in regards to Belgium, the parameters should be filled out according to the accepted categorization methods for that country (i.e., Belgium, Belgien, Belgique, or België).

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Steve - is there a place where we can see more about  "according to the accepted categorization methods for that country". If a page exists detailing this, it seems like that would be a great link for Bea to add to the Dutch Roots sticker page (to clarify what form of country name should be used). Your wording could be used, but I don;t know what that actually would mean in practice for any country so it would be useful to have information like this available.

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Hi and thanks everyone,

The now Dutch Descendant Sticker, was created because WikiTree/Dutch Roots project members in 2015, when we started the project, asked for one, so they also could add one to their own profile or to profiles of their deeper ancestors that also were Dutch descendants.

Those days all projects had a project box and the project boxes could be used on all profiles (so with or without project account added as co-manager). So members added them to their own profiles as well and that's why they also are used by living WikiTree/project members.(now stickers)
 

Is there consensus witch name had to be used for this country. Or are there three parallel categoriestuctures and is each of these names accepted?

Most members using the Dutch descendant template would only use and fill in their country of birth at the natie= parameter, so only create the:

Category: Dutch Descendant of (Country of Birth in English)  

or they would ask if someone else could create the category if they didn't know how it worked.

We didn't want to create too many or all kinds of categories that perhaps never or hardly would be used, so for the Dutch Descendant template/sticker only a few and just the English versions of the categories were created, not all parallel ones.. 
 

And the province= (State, Province or whatever depending on the country of Birth) wasn't used much, but there are a few for Canada and perhaps a few others as well, but if it's correct they also all are in English.. (Germany, South Africa, so just like the ones from the (now) United States)

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Of course the categories can be applied without the sticker.  The sticker is only bling, and some PMs are allergic to bling.

Usually the member creates a red category and the Categorization Project decides whether to create the page.  They create the page if it conforms to a policy.  The topical project may have input into what kinds of categories are needed, but the Categorization Project decides the structure of the category names.

The usual decision is that US States stand alone without the need to add a country.  We have Texas, This and Texas, That, not Texas, USA, This or Texas, United States, That.

So as an ordinary user, I'd expect to just put natie=Texas in the template call.  I wouldn't expect to have to go looking to see if this particular group of categories is different from all the others for no particular reason.  This isn't an issue where projects should be going their own ways.

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Yes if PM's don't like stickers they can add just the categories for each and everything, and nowadays adding categories is much easier because as Jan mentions, we have the category picker.

In 2015 we didn't have DB suggestions/WT+, or categorie pickers, so before all these improvements, project boxes/ stickers just where (and for a lot of members they still are) the easiest way to categorize profiles, members didn't have to learn or memorize a whole bunch of categories or how to add them, and by using the project boxes or stickers, new red or wrong categories were minimized, because the only thing members had to do was copy and paste a project box or sticker, fill in the parameters correctly and profiles all were categorized. 

This also is why we chose to just have a few 'needs' for our project, members only have to remember/learn and add a few short words (Birth, More Records, Biography, PPP, LNAB, Profiles Created) and profiles are categorized. 

In the Dutch Descendant template/sticker. 

The natie= Country of Birth, and for members from the United States/USA for the Country of Birth they would fill in United States (or USA) as Country of Birth: 

Result: [[Category:Dutch Descendants of United States]]

And if members wanted to categorize them further, the state could be filled in at provincie= State of Birth and the result would be the category:

Category: Dutch Descendants of Virginia, United States 

As said it was started as project box/ sticker for WikiTree / Dutch Roots (Netherlands) project members not born in the Netherlands, but with Dutch Roots/ancestors and it also can be used to add 'needs', so if Dutch Descendants still were looking for sources or his or her deeper ancestors, they also can use the sticker to add needs if they like the 'bling'. 

But if no one objects and also to prevent a whole bunch of categories we don't really need and that are not used a lot, I think it's fine to just keep the natie parameter and remove the provincie parameter from the Dutch Descendants sticker as W proposed. If members want to categorize by location and more specific, I'm sure they also can add one of the location categories. So if they want to categorize profiles by state I'm sure there is one for every state already?

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Dear Steven and Natalie.

Since there was no agreement on who owned the template, I have gone ahead and modified the template to provide error checking (i.e., check for the presence of "USA" and automatically convert that "United States"). This change has been published on both Template:Dutch Roots and Template:Dutch Roots Sticker. 

We all understand that duplicate or wrong categories have to be deleted and prevented if possible. And we also fully understand how frustrating the constantly new red or wrong categories can be and what a lot of time and work it is to keep things correct if it comes to categories or other things if you're working on a project. So we all really appreciate all the hard work you do and we really appreciated this question was started. 

But what went wrong and what's worrying and (understandably) upsetting members, is that this G2G question was started just four days ago, and within just two days, without waiting for a bit more response, you just went ahead and the question was closed again. 

So I think you both will understand that for us it feels like this G2G in fact was a a bit of a 'none question', so a question that just as well could not have been asked, because now it's turned into something like an announcement, and members are upset about it.

With members from all over the world and with so many different time frames, G2G's like this probably will at least take a week or so, because this will give all members that might be interested at least some time and a chance to respond, so not just one or to days.

If you would have waited a bit, so with a bit more patience, I'm sure our members would not have given you a hard time on this and the result probably would have been the same, so in the end we all probably would have said just go ahead Steve/Natalie .. but without anyone being upset..so I hope that in future we can prevent things like this or misunderstandings, by just giving things a bit more time..

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I had no misunderstanding at all. I asked a simple question and was told by a DR project member right away that "Persons with Dutch ancestry not born in the Netherlands are out of scope for the Dutch Roots project, so you are addressing the wrong audience."   

I just wanted to fix an error that I found in the structure, then we are accused to hijacking the template?  I closed the post because it was going nowhere and getting more and more out of hand. 

Honestly, all I wanted to know was a preference, and finally decided, after seeing differing answers, that the best way to go was to use "United States" since that is the name of the main category "Dutch Descendants of the United States."

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Natalie,

A lot of misunderstanding and mutual frustration and irritation would have been avoided by asking the question with the complete info that you already had, as became clear later in the discussion: you already knew the template name and knew your preference based on the number of "United States" categories.

I was at a loss as to what sticker you were referring to. As W. already mentioned: the "Descendants" side of the template is hardly used and not at all by me, so no bells were ringing at all.

So in my opinion the question could have simply been phrased as:

We have a problem of duplicate categories "USA" and "United States"generated by user input in the "natie" parameter of the Dutch Roots template. Would you mind if the template were changed so that input "USA" in the "natie" parameter will be automatically changed to "United States"?

I am sure the speedy response would have been: by all means, go ahead!

Answer 5

It sounds like more guidance is needed on https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Template:Dutch_Roots_Sticker so that when the sticker template creates categories, they are at a minimum are consistently used and probably so they mesh with the structures of the categorization project. For the parameters relating to people born in The Netherlands, the project has sufficiently clear information. However, for descendants who were born elsewhere, the instructions are quite open regarding form of name (the specific current issue) and language of name (Germany? Deutschland?). Based on the occurrence of "Dutch Descendants of Noord-Holland, United States" it should probably also make it clear the provincie is of the country of birth, not the region of The Netherlands that this individual's family came from.

The page (linked above) says this:

For Dutch Descendants (Not born in the Netherlands or overseas territories)
Voor Nederlandse afstammelingen (Niet geboren in Nederland of Nederlandse kolonies of gebieden) :

1. Specify the country of the individual's birth using parameter natie- this will add them to the category "Dutch Descendants of Country of Birth".

2. The parameter provincie can be provided to specify the State or Province to further sub-categorize.

1. Specificeer het land van geboorte van de persoon door gebruik van de parameter natie- dit zal hen toevoegen aan de categorie Dutch Descendants of Land van Geboorte.

2. De parameter provincie kan toegevoegd worden om de Staat of Provincie te specificeren voor extra sub- categorisatie.

Speaking as a project member, I have never used the sticker for anyone who was not born in The Netherlands so have no opinion on what is preferred. I had barely even noticed these parameters before this.

Comments

Actually, if you're using natie=, you can just put natie=Blah, Blah, Blah, so the provincie= parameter doesn't add any functionality in this case.

But some people have used it now, so it can't be dropped without going into profiles and rewriting calls.

Essentially though, what you pass in, one way or the other, is just the name of the category intended, as per the policy of whoever, with the "Dutch Descendants of " part removed.

What seems to be missing is the policy.  But the template has very little to do with it.

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I think the "policy" is part of the instructions that I linked to above. I think the instructions simply need a bit of clarification. 

{{Dutch Roots Sticker|natie=United States|provincie=California}} appears to create the category Dutch Descendants of California, United States   

This use is exactly how it is explained. I think adding something like

1. Specify the country of the individual's birth using parameter natie- this will add them to the category "Dutch Descendants of Country of Birth". Use the full name of the country, in the language of the country. In the case of the United States of America, use United States (not USA)

2. The parameter provincie can be provided to specify the State or Province of the country of birth to further sub-categorize.

Another option for the Dutch Roots group/leadership to discuss would be to discontinue creating a category from this section of the sticker template. I think it has been used 185 times across more than 28 categories, if I am interpreting WikitTree+ correctly, so quite a small number of profiles (many of which are not open).

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W,
Thank you for repeating the instructions here!

I certainly agree with you on discontinuing the attaching of "Dutch Descendants" categories. The fact that in practice it will be impossible to define all valid values for parameters "natie" and "provincie" should be sufficient rationale. Much better would be to have members use the category picker on the profile edit page, guaranteeing only valid, existing categories can be attached.

Answer 6

There is a New Netherland Settlers that has a descendant sup project and may be where this person would better fit that Dutch Roots

Go to Find tab, scroll down to projects

scroll down to New Netherland Settlers and go to the project page

Comments

Thank you Navarro, and yes for some this might be something they can use as well or a project where profiles could fall under, but the Dutch Descendants template/sticker mostly was/is used by WikiTree / Dutch Roots Project members that were not born in the Netherlands...so they added it to their own profiles or profiles of relatives/ family members and perhaps some deeper ancestors, and these not always are descendants of New Netherland Settlers with Dutch ancestry..

If I remember correct the New Netherland Descendant project was started for profiles that didn't fit the scope/criteria of the New Netherland Settlers, and it originally was meant for New Netherland profiles from 1674-1776, profiles that also all still needed a lot of help/sources. duplicates merged etc., but that otherwise could not be managed by the project and/or PPP't. For the project managed ones there's the New Netherland Descendant project box.

But you are correct that there is a sticker as well and that's added to ones from after 1776 also, but I'm not sure if it's meant for modern or still living people as well. (we would have to ask Ellen if that's ok first eeh )

But for profiles with Dutch Ancestry born in New Netherland from 1674-1776 they all indeed could fall under the New Netherland Descendant project or have the sticker..

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Thanks Bea, went to look, and found it

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:New_Netherland_Descendants_1674-1776

just the 1674 - 1776 people coming down from our New Netherland families - some may fall into both categories