Talk:Christopher Hitchens

Nationality

There seems to be a slow but long-running dispute over whether Hitchens was just "British" or "British American" - having looked at it the article has varied over the years between the two. There do seem to be quite a lot of reliable sources referring to him as British American or discussing his American identity, which seemed important to him. For example Brittania describes him as British American. A section from his memoir discussing becoming an American. Another section where he describes America as "home". Los Angeles Times article describing him as British American. Economic Times of India article using "British American". The Times of London says "America's best known British-born polemicist" while the Pluralism Project at Harvard University also uses British American as does the New York Review of Books, ABC Australia and the the Indian newspaper Mint. Interesting article by a friend discussing how "What surprised me about this phase was the deep significance becoming an American citizen held for him." Arguably his own self-identification is the most compelling part. Pinging recent editors on this @MapReader:, @Anastrophe:, @Gaseric: and @Asperthrow: AusLondonder (talk) 14:10, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for starting a discussion on this; much better than the editor recently trying to edit-war a significant change to a long-standing descriptor, and accusing me of “disruptive editing” for simply applying BRD in the absence of any discussion. Note also that Britannica is a deprecated source, per WP:RS, and that lead sentence descriptors in WP always follow the RS.

Hitchens’s acquisition of US citizenship aged 58, four years before he died, is covered prominently both in the lead section of the article, and in the infobox. The question is whether it changes the long-standing description of him being a “British journalist, author and educator”, sufficient to merit a change to his descriptor noting the provisions of CONTEXTBIO?

Very clearly, Hitchens achieved his notability and notoriety as a British citizen (subject), originally resident in the UK, and subsequently as a UK expat in the US.

In his obituary in the New York Times, he was described as a “British Trotskyite”. Euronews greeted his death with the headline “British writer CH dies aged 62”. The Boston Review says that Hitchens was a “British author and journalist”. The Daily Telegraph described him as “an English man of letters”. The BBC reported the death of a “controversial British author and journalist”. Time magazine listed him under the headline of “top ten British invasions”. DailyMotion reported his death as “British writer”. Around the world, English-language UAE publication The National reported his death as “renowned British writer”, the Sydney Herald as “British writer, journalist, intellectual and atheist”, and so on. There are many more that use the moniker “British-born”, and some that use hybrids of British or English coupled with American. MapReader (talk) 15:01, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

It's not long-standing to have only British. The original creation had British-born American and for most of last year was English-American. Indeed it appears it was you who changed it to British and then failed to follow BRD after dispute by @ExRat:. Up until you changed it in mid 2023 it had been at British/English/Anglo American for the majority of 2022 and 2021. You criticise Britannica as a source (note per WP:BRITANNICA it is not listed as deprecated) but then cite Dailymotion, effectively a French YouTube. Also you have failed to provide links to any of the sources you have provided. AusLondonder (talk) 15:26, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

As AusLondonder well points out, MapReader did not follow BRD. "Bold" - yep, MapReader boldly erased Hitchens' status as a dual-citizen of the UK and US, having lived the second half of his life in America and proud to have done so (while simultaneously offering scorched-earth criticism of US politics and policy - as he did for UK politics and policy). "Revert" - yep, I and others have reverted MapReader's attempts to do so without engaging in the discussion portion of BRD. Please reread WP:BRD#Discuss. Yep, Mapreader's edits _are_ disruptive, since they were not "simply following BRD". The article has referred to Hitch as either "English-American", "British-American", or - using Hitch's own preferred characterization, "Anglo-American" - for far longer than it has lacked that characterization due to Mapreader's efforts. What I fail to see is what is wrong with identifying him correctly as both. It certainly has nothing to do with the preponderance of sources, as evidenced above. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 20:01, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

@MapReader:, do you have anything more to add to the discussion, and more importantly, will you revert if I add back 'British-American'? cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 23:03, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

CONTEXTBIO and the reliable sources are the key, and it isn’t clear that the case for a hyphenated description is made, given that either “British” or “British-born” appear to be the most common descriptions used in reliable sources, that he achieved his notoriety while in the UK, retained his British citizenship for a lifetime and only acquired an (additional) passport from the US a few years before his death? MapReader (talk) 06:54, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Editor AusLondoner provided numerous reliable sources and linked to them that suggest that you are wrong. You have yet to actually supply any sources. We don't need a source-count-war here. Mr. Hitchens was quite clear that the United States was his 'adopted homeland'. He also obviously did not reject his British roots, and retained citizenship there. He spent the latter half of his life in the United States, his adopted homeland. His shift in posture towards America was striking and significant - both from an objective POV and his own statements. He was a British-American. The examples in WP:CONTEXTBIO only further support the characterization.

Another editor appears to have independently returned it to its former and longstanding characterization of British-American. I'd suggest we agree that this is an accurate and uncontroversial characterization, and move on to more important matters. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 07:28, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

And now I see that you took it upon yourself to revert the other editor. This is ridiculous. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 07:31, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Proposed compromise: Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British and American author, journalist and educator. This conforms to the similar examples presented at WP:CONTEXTBIO for Arnold Schwarzenegger and Peter Lorre, who also established themselves in their birth country and then established themselves in America. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 07:42, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

The revert wasn't "ridiculous" - I do wish you would stop throwing around these gratuitous accusations, which aren't in the spirit of co-operative editing. A revert during an ongoing discussion of an edit by someone who hasn't contributed and most probably was unaware of it being a live talk page issue is pefectly reasonable.

As well as the question of balance of sources - which I suggest is as I describe - there is also the matter of the wide variety of hybrid monikers that have been used in this article over the years. I'm inclined to agree that the "and" formulation is better than the hyphenated one, particularly for someone who only acquired US citizenship long after he became notable, and not that long before he died. MapReader (talk) 08:52, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

If I put in place this compromise, is the edit going to be reverted? cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 20:33, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

For an RFC, we’d normally wait a month for comments; I haven’t launched the discussion as a formal RfC but it would be reasonable to wait a while for any further comments. MapReader (talk) 06:04, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

I've never read any RFC that suggested it should last a specific interval, let alone a month; they last however long it takes to derive a consensus. And since this isn't an RFC, and you didn't launch the discussion (a curious claim, but consistent), perhaps best if I ping all the editors you've reverted on this matter since August 2023. A fair portion of them are single-edit addresses, so no response is likely. Nevertheless, once consensus is found, we make the change. We aren't bound by arbitrary rules not in place.

• @Pandagod2025:
• (anastrophe)
• @Gaseric:
• @Mmstex:
• @Parkaoblongata:
• @Asperthrow: (twice)
• @08mai:
• @2600:8800:2C09:3200:74DD:447B:8A52:543E:
• @2607:FB91:30C:D02B:1C8E:DE20:8E7C:A92F:
• @ExRat:

cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 18:08, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Your selective pinging appears to be canvassing, since you have selected editors with a particular view, which is very specifically deprecated. Perhaps a proper RfC is the right way to deal with this? MapReader (talk) 18:43, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Unvarnished nonsense. Did you not read what I wrote? I pinged, precisely and only, those editors that you reverted. I thought that was patently clear, as that's what I wrote. I pinged no other editors. I didn't ping AusLondonder, the editor who specifically did start this discussion - not you - after your failure to discuss, retroactively claiming you were merely following BRD. I didn't ping him because he didn't tender an edit that you reverted.

But please, do ping editors other than you who have removed the attribution that he was also an American from the opening sentence of the article. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 19:36, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

@Anastrophe to be fair, if you were going to ping, you ought to have pinged ALL editors who had edited over the disputed wording who weren't already involved in the conversation regardless of whether they had been reverted by MapReader. Anything less leaves you in not wholly defensible position. TarnishedPath^talk 11:51, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

At the time I pinged, I had not gone through the entire edit history of the article. Most edits lacked summaries, so I went by the repeated recurrence of MapReader's edits in the first page of history. As I learned later, it had not been changed in 571 days before MapReader changed it to 'British' only.

Yes, in retrospect, I should have spent the two days it took to go through the history and ping them all. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 17:18, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

RfC on nationality descriptor in the opening sentence

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

I'm closing this per WP:SNOW. There is a strong consensus that "British and American" should be the nationality descriptor for Hitchens in the lede. The votes for "British and American" sufficiently demonstrated a policy position found in MOS:NATIONALITY. TarnishedPath^talk 02:30, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

---

Should the nationality descriptor for Hitchens in the first sentence of the lead be: A) "British", B) "British-born", C) "British and American", D) "British-American", E) "English-American", or F) omitted, with the rest of the lead describing his origins and citizenship? MapReader (talk) 07:56, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Survey

• British-American British and American. Per MOS:NATIONALITY "The opening paragraph should usually provide context for that which made the person notable. In most modern-day cases, this will be the country, region, or territory where the person is currently a national or permanent resident; or, if the person is notable mainly for past events, where the person was such when they became notable". It is clear that the place where Hitchens was a permanent resident when he passed was the United States, however his notability is sufficiently established by events prior to him becoming a US permanent resident. As such I think we need to acknowledge both. Notably Hitchens was a dual citizen of both Britain and the US. TarnishedPath^talk 08:27, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
• British and American. Per WP:CONTEXTBIO, "In cases of public or relevant dual citizenship, or a career that spans a subject's emigration, the use of the word and reduces ambiguity.". cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 18:05, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
• British and American Straight forward case per MOS:NATIONALITY. As noted by the two votes above. Nemov (talk) 02:08, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
• British and American per WP:CONTEXTBIO and MOS:NATIONALITY. British national. Acquire US citizenship in 2007. Hitchens himself frequently defined himself as an American afterward. ExRat (talk) 02:46, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
• We are directed to determine the descriptor based on that used by Reliable Sources, informed by policy. His citizenships - British from birth to death and American for the last four years - are already properly and thorougly spelled out in the article. Many of Hitchens's published obituaries in RS do appear to refer to him as British, or sometimes as British-born; obituaries are particularly pertinent because they are retrospectives of his entire life, where he is the subject (not merely referred to in passing), and because in publications there is usually just one obituary, so we're not picking and choosing from a whole stack of articles. Reviewing obituaries (a few cases, news items around the time of his death) from the USA finds: San Diego Union-Tribune ("British author"),[1]. Washington Post ("English writer"),[2] Huffington Post ("British deaths..."),[3] New York Times ("British Trotskyist"),[4], Seattle Times ("British author"),[5]. The New Yorker has him as "British-born".[6] There are many similar examples from English-language publications around the world, such as Australian ABC ("British writer"),[7] and Sydney Morning Herald ("British writer"),[8] Expatica ("British writer"),[9], The National ("British writer"),[10] Canadian CBC has him as "British-born",[11] as does DAWN from Pakistan,[12] and Zee News from India.[13]. The Irish Times uses "British-born"[14] and the Belfast Telegraph "British author".[15] Al Jazeera's obituary uses "British author".[16]. As do many national British media sources, as you might expect. The Los Angeles Times used "British-American".[17]; the problem with the hybird descriptor is that it is commonly used to imply familial descent rather than active citizenship (as in African-American or Italian-American) and, as others have said, CONTEXTBIO does point toward using the "and" formulation where there is multiple notability. I agree that this appears preferable according to consensus policy to using a hybird descriptor; the issues with it are that it doesn't reflect any significant RS that I can find, and in Hitchens's case he did achieve notability in the UK and for the majority of his notable career in the US worked as a British expat. MapReader (talk) 09:05, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
• British and American, maybe with a note if needed that he only gained American citizenship later in life.--Ortizesp (talk) 12:42, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
• British and American Per MOS:NATIONALITY, which cites the example of Arnold Schwarzenegger who is described as "Austrian and American". As I wrote above: "There do seem to be quite a lot of reliable sources referring to him as British American or discussing his American identity, which seemed important to him. For example Brittania describes him as British American. A section from his memoir discussing becoming an American. Another section where he describes America as "home". Los Angeles Times article describing him as British American. Economic Times of India article using "British American". The Times of London says "America's best known British-born polemicist" while the Pluralism Project at Harvard University also uses British American as does the New York Review of Books, ABC Australia and the the Indian newspaper Mint. Interesting article by a friend discussing how "What surprised me about this phase was the deep significance becoming an American citizen held for him." Arguably his own self-identification is the most compelling part." AusLondonder (talk) 22:09, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
• British and American. (summoned by feedback request service). The policy-and-guideline-based rationale cited repeatedly in the votes above seems sound. The rest of the first paragraph clarifies the situation adequately. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 15:48, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

This matter was previously litigated in the Archives -

• Archive 4, from 2008-2009, discusses the matter to some length but without clear resolve...there are some other discussions in older archives, but they devolved into wholey unrelated matters quickly.

Out of an over-abundance of free time, following is a comprehensive/near-exhaustive review of the edit history of the article, which yields the following results pertaining specifically and only to the opening sentence of the lede. I viewed several thousand revisions out of the 8900+ that exist. I skipped over 'summary' instances that were for edits within a subsection, thus there would be no edits to the lede. I may have missed a trivial number of edits associated specifically with this. I was generous in terms of sub-one-day appearances, simply giving them the full day. There may be more errors, but I don't think they would exceed 'minor'.

Others are welcome to check my work, but be prepared to spend a couple of days going crosseyed reviewing the edit history. If one wishes to check my math on the data presented, it wouldn't hurt. Expect most values to often be 'off-by-one' in either direction; I wasn't doing rocket surgery here. I'm aware that there are tools available to 'search' the edit history; too often they returned mixed results which left them unreliable.

Click at right to show/hide the "raw" data

Not included in tallying: Changes to underlying wikilinks, e.g. changing [[England|British]] to [[United Kingdom|British]], vandal/troll edits that were immediately reverted, and elision elipses (it would be silly to include the entire first sentence of the lede for each). Note: Where there were multiple rapid-fire add/reverts on a single day, only listing the final result (in most cases) Note: Many policies, guidelines, etc. had not yet been codified in the early years of Wikipedia, for example, presentations relevant to this discussion (WP:CONTEXTBIO) weren't carefully laid out before November 2022. Note: In the tallies of duration, 'british/english only' or where only the birthplace are included are abbreviated to 'B:', 'dual citizenship/nationality' to 'Dual:', 'no nationality' to 'None:' 18 May 2003 Article Created with "a British-born American" Dual: 416 days 07 Jul 2004 "English" 13 Nov 2004 "British" 18 Nov 2004 "English" 26 Nov 2004 "(born April 13, 1949, England)" 23 Sep 2005 "British" B: 568 days 26 Jan 2006 (nationality/ies removed) None: 62 days 29 Mar 2006 "(born April 13, 1949 in Portsmouth, England)" B: 69 days 06 Jun 2006 (nationality/ies removed) None: 60 days 05 Aug 2006 "(born in Portsmouth, April 13, 1949)" 30 Aug 2006 "(born in Portsmouth, England April 13, 1949)" B: 268 days (Hitchens takes oath of American citizenship 13 Apr 2007) 30 Apr 2007 "British born American" 05 May 2007 "British-born American" 15 May 2007 "Anglo-American" 12 Jun 2007 "British-American" 16 Jul 2007 "Anglo-American" 17 Jul 2007 "British-American" 12 Jun 2008 "English-American" 23 Jun 2008 "English-American" 17 Jul 2008 "English-born American" Dual: 444 days 06 Oct 2008 "English" B: 1 day 07 Oct 2008 "English-born American" 07 Oct 2008 "English author, journalist, literary critic and American citizen." 10 Oct 2008 "British author, journalist, literary critic and American citizen." 18 Dec 2008 "British-born American" 22 Dec 2008 "British-born British and American" 26 Mar 2009 "British-born, American" 07 Apr 2009 "English-born, American" Dual: 274 days 07 Apr 2009 "English" None: 1 day 08 Apr 2009 "English-American" Dual: 1 day 08 Apr 2009 "English" B: 6 days 14 Apr 2009 "English American" Dual: 1 day 14 Apr 2009 "English" B: 2 days 15 Apr 2009 "English American" Dual: 1 day 20 Apr 2009 (nationality/ies removed) None: 5 days 25 Jun 2009 "British-American" 29 Jun 2009 "British-born American" 08 Jul 2009 "British-American" 20 Jul 2009 "British born American" 21 Jul 2009 "British-born American" 22 Jul 2009 "British-American" Dual: 27 days 22 Jul 2009 (nationality/ies removed) None: 4 days 26 Jul 2009 "British-born American" Dual: 2 days 28 Jul 2009 (nationality/ies removed) None: 25 days 22 Aug 2009 "British-born American" Dual: 1 day 22 Aug 2009 (nationality/ies removed) None: 36 days 27 Sep 2009 "English-American" 05 Oct 2009 "English born American" 05 Oct 2009 "English-American" 05 Oct 2009 "English-born American" 05 Oct 2009 "English-American" 21 Oct 2009 "British-American" 22 Oct 2009 "English-American" 26 Jun 2010 "British-American" 26 Jun 2010 "English-American" Dual: 297 days 21 Jul 2010 (nationality/ies removed) None: 1 day 21 Jul 2010 "English-American" 08 Aug 2010 "British-American" 12 Aug 2010 "Anglo-American" 21 Aug 2010 "English-American" Dual: 36 days 26 Aug 2010 "English-born" B: 25 days 20 Sep 2010 "English-American" 26 Sep 2010 "English American" 28 Sep 2010 "English-American" 29 Sep 2010 "British-American" 29 Sep 2010 "English-American" 07 Oct 2010 "British-American" 08 Oct 2010 "English-American" 09 Dec 2010 "English author and journalist who became an American citizen" 09 Dec 2010 "English-American" 10 Dec 2010 "English-born American-based" 10 Dec 2010 "English-American" Dual: 83 days 12 Dec 2010 "English" B: 4 days 16 Dec 2010 "English-American" 01 Jan 2011 "British-American" 02 Jan 2011 "English-American" 01 Feb 2011 "British-American" 01 Feb 2011 "English-American" 10 Feb 2011 "British-American" 10 Feb 2011 "English-American" 16 Feb 2011 "British-American" 16 Feb 2011 "English-American" 17 Feb 2011 "British-American" 17 Feb 2011 "English-American" 18 Feb 2011 "British-American" 18 Feb 2011 "English-American" 11 Mar 2011 "British-American" 12 Mar 2011 "Anglo-American" 04 Apr 2011 "English-American" 14 Aug 2011 "British-American" 14 Aug 2011 "English-American" 26 Sep 2011 "British-American" 26 Sep 2011 "English-American" 20 Nov 2011 "Anglo-American" 16 Dec 2011 "was an Anglo-American" (Hitchens dies) Dual: 365 days 16 Dec 2011 "English" (see totals below of the battle corresponding with his death, not included in tally) 16 Dec 2011 "British" 16 Dec 2011 "English" 16 Dec 2011 "English-born American" 16 Dec 2011 "English" 16 Dec 2011 "English-born American" 16 Dec 2011 "English" 17 Dec 2011 "English American" 17 Dec 2011 "English" 17 Dec 2011 "English American" 17 Dec 2011 "British-American" 19 Dec 2011 "British" 19 Dec 2011 "British-American" 20 Dec 2011 "British American" over four days, 7 B, 7 dual 10 Jan 2012 "English American" Dual: 33 days 12 Feb 2012 "English" B: 1 day 12 Feb 2012 "English American" Dual: 24 days 07 Mar 2012 "English" B: 1 day 07 Mar 2012 "English American" Dual: 17 days 24 Mar 2012 "English" B: 1 day 24 Mar 2012 "English American" Dual: 125 days 26 Jul 2012 "English" B: 1 day 27 Jul 2012 "English American" Dual: 3 days 30 Jul 2012 "English" B: 1 day 30 Jul 2012 "English American" Dual: 15 days 14 Aug 2012 "English" B: 3 days 17 Aug 2012 "English American" Dual: 13 days 30 Aug 2012 "English" B: 1 day 31 Aug 2012 "English American" 7 Sep 2012 "British American" Dual: 17 days 15 Sep 2012 "British" B: 1 day 15 Sep 2012 "British American" 07 Dec 2012 "British-American" 02 Jan 2013 "British and American" Dual: 128 20 Jan 2013 "British" B: 24 days 12 Feb 2013 "British-American" Dual: 43 days 26 Mar 2013 "British" B: 1 day 26 Mar 2013 "British-American" 14 Jan 2014 "Anglo-American" 14 Jan 2014 "British-American" Dual: 505 days 12 Aug 2014 "English" B: 8 days 20 Aug 2014 "English-American" 23 Aug 2014 "British-American" Dual: 11 days 30 Aug 2014 "English" B: 1 day 30 Aug 2014 "British-American" 24 Oct 2014 "British American" Dual: 111 days 18 Dec 2014 "British" B: 1 day 19 Dec 2014 "British American" 20 Jan 2015 "United Kingdom/United States" 20 Jan 2015 "British/American" 02 Feb 2015 "British-American" Dual: 52 days 08 Feb 2015 "English" B: 1 day 08 Feb 2015 "British-American" Dual: 1 day 09 Feb 2015 "English" B: 1 day 10 Feb 2015 "British-American" Dual: 20 days 02 Mar 2015 "English" B: 1 day 02 Mar 2015 "British-American" Dual: 1 day 03 Mar 2015 "English" B: 19 days 22 Mar 2015 "Anglo-American" 20 Jun 2015 "English and later American" Dual: 90 days 20 Jun 2015 "English" B: 85 days 13 Sep 2015 "British-American" 16 Sep 2015 "English-American" 16 Sep 2015 "British-American" Dual: 16 days 29 Sep 2015 "British" 29 Nov 2015 "English" 02 Dec 2015 "British" 14 Dec 2015 "English" B: 132 days 08 Feb 2016 "English American" 01 Mar 2016 "Anglo-American" Dual: 26 days 05 Mar 2016 (nationality/ies removed) None: 59 days 03 May 2016 "English" B: 33 days 05 Jun 2016 "British-American" Dual: 1 day 05 Jun 2016 "British" B: 4 days 09 Jun 2016 "English American" 03 Jul 2016 "Anglo-American" 13 Jul 2016 "English-American" 16 Jul 2016 "Anglo-American" Dual: 46 days 25 Jul 2016 "English" B: 3 days 27 Jul 2016 "English-American" 06 Aug 2016 "Anglo-American" 31 Dec 2016 "British-American" 08 Jan 2017 "Anglo-American" Dual: 234 days 16 Mar 2017 "British" B: 1 day 17 Mar 2017 "Anglo-American" Dual: 10 days 27 May 2017 "English" B: 1 day 27 May 2017 "Anglo-American" Dual: 1 day 27 May 2017 "English" B: 24 days 20 Jun 2017 "Anglo-American" 28 Oct 2017 "British-American" 28 Oct 2017 "Anglo-American" Dual: 155 days 29 Oct 2017 "British" B: 1 day 30 Oct 2017 "Anglo-American" Dual: 84 days 21 Jan 2018 "English" B: 1 day 21 Jan 2018 "Anglo-American" Dual: 3 days 24 Jan 2018 "British" B: 5 days 29 Jan 2018 "English born American" 31 Jan 2018 "Anglo-American" 04 Mar 2018 "English American" 10 Mar 2018 "Anglo-American" Dual: 272 days 28 Oct 2018 "English" B: 1 day 28 Oct 2018 "Anglo-American" 08 Nov 2018 "British and later American" 11 Nov 2018 "Anglo-American" 13 Nov 2018 "British and later American" 14 Nov 2018 "Anglo-American" 14 Nov 2018 "British and later American" 14 Nov 2018 "British-American" 16 Nov 2018 "Anglo-American" 16 Nov 2018 "British and later also American" 20 Nov 2018 "Anglo-American" 20 Nov 2018 "British and later also American" 28 Nov 2018 "British author who also wrote in America" 30 Nov 2018 "Anglo-American" Dual: 57 days 24 Dec 2018 "British" B: 12 days 05 Jan 2019 "Anglo-American" 05 Jan 2019 "English-American" Dual: 1 day 05 Jan 2019 "British" B: 22 days 27 Jan 2019 "British-American" Dual: 76 days 13 Apr 2019 "British" B: 39 days 22 May 2019 "Anglo-American" 28 May 2019 "English-American" Dual: 402 days 27 Jun 2020 "English" B: 1 day 27 Jun 2020 "English-American" Dual: 455 days 24 Sep 2020 "English" B: 21 days 15 Oct 2020 "English-American" Dual: 18 days 02 Nov 2020 "English" B: 14 days 16 Nov 2020 "English-American" Dual: 1 day 16 Nov 2020 "English" B: 156 days 21 Apr 2021 "English-American" 05 Sep 2021 "Anglo-American" 24 Oct 2021 "British-American" Dual: 281 days 27 Jan 2022 "British" B: 1 day 27 Jan 2022 "British-American" 23 Nov 2022 "American-British" 21 Dec 2022 "British-American" 20 Mar 2023 "British American" 19 Apr 2023 "British-American" 17 Jun 2023 "English-American" Dual: 571 days 21 Aug 2023 "British" <--changed to by MapReader B: 1 day 21 Aug 2023 "English-American" Dual: 1 day 22 Aug 2023 "British" <--reverted to by MapReader B: 136 days 05 Jan 2024 "British-American" Dual: 1 day 05 Jan 2024 "British" <--reverted to by MapReader B: 20 days 25 Jan 2024 "British-American" Dual: 1 day 26 Jan 2024 "British" <--reverted to by MapReader B: 13 days 08 Feb 2024 "British-American" Dual: 1 day 08 Feb 2024 "British" <--reverted to by MapReader B: 13 days 21 Feb 2024 "British-American" Dual: 1 day 21 Feb 2024 "British" <--reverted to by MapReader B: 25 days 17 Mar 2024 "British-American" Dual: 1 day 17 Mar 2024 "British" <--reverted to by MapReader B: 5 days 22 Mar 2024 "British-American" Dual: 1 day 22 Mar 2024 "British" <--reverted to by MapReader B: 3 days 25 Mar 2024 "British-American" Dual: 1 day 25 Mar 2024 "British" <--reverted to by MapReader B: 1 day 26 Mar 2024 "British-American" Dual: 1 day 26 Mar 2024 "British" <--reverted to by MapReader B: 2 days (editor AusLondonder starts discussion on talk) 28 Mar 2024 "British-American" Dual: 1 day 28 Mar 2024 "British" <--reverted to by MapReader B: 4 days (ongoing)

Statistics:

• 7624 days total duration since article created, 20.89 years to 1 Apr
• 5871 days as dual British-American citizenship/nationality, 16.08 years to 1 Apr
• 1790 days as British/English (and variants) only, 4.9 years to 1 Apr
•   253 days without nationality acknowledged at all, 0.69 years to 1 Apr

In a narrower perspective, the article acknowledged dual citizenship/nationality in all but one of the 852 days (2.33 years) prior to editor MapReader first removing dual citizenship/nationality in favor of British-only on 21 Aug 2023. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 00:10, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

The above is almost entirely irrelevant, and sadly a further example of an unnecessarily confrontational approach to editing, which goes against the spirit and policy of this site. Since when was it acceptable to directly criticize another editor without any link or ping? The criterion for deciding how someone is described in their WP:BIO article is simply how they are so described in the reliable secondary sources, informed by WP's policies. Counting the days during which various formulations were used is of no consequence, other than illustrating that the outcome in this case isn't clear cut and has been controversial long before I got involved with editing this page. MapReader (talk) 08:19, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

(I apologize in advance; I am and always have been verbose to a fault. I accept myself for who I am)

"Since when was it acceptable to directly criticize another editor without any link or ping?" Firstly, where is this "criticism" in the data I presented? I have criticised MapReader's edits previously, but did not do so in the 'data dump' I provided; I analysed the history of the article's edits relevant to this matter, no more, no less. Secondly, there's no requirement or even tradition that I'm aware of, of pinging another editor when adding the initial entry to a discussion section of an RfC that they created. Editors are expected to monitor activities they are participating in; it's not a wild idea.

The "British and American" formulation is fully compliant with WP:CONTEXTBIO, indeed it is the ideal construct - WP:Manual_of_Style/Biography#Nationality_examples: "In cases of public or relevant dual citizenship, or a career that spans a subject's emigration, the use of the word and reduces ambiguity." That describes Hitchens exactly. Hitchens established himself in the United States halfway through his abbreviated life. He added significantly to his notability after he reestablished himself in America - he wrote all of his published books after he moved to America - that is "a career that spans a subject's emigration". When he became a citizen he took the oath on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington D.C. - if that doesn't put a fine point on his affection for and commitment to America, I don't know what does. He retained his British citizenship, as he was not forsaking the land of his birth in doing so. Thus, he was "British and American". Instead, MapReader dismisses all of this, characterizing it as ""[...] only acquired an (additional) passport from the US a few years before his death." - a Passport does not confer citizenship, and he did not know his life would be abruptly shortened after becoming a citizen; suggesting that its temporal proximity to his death means something isn't a compelling argument.

As to MapReader's commentary in the survey section (most of which belongs in this discussion section instead), "the problem with the hybird(sic) descriptor is that it is commonly used to imply familial descent rather than active citizenship (as in African-American or Italian-American)" - MapReader brings up a problem that at this juncture is not relevant, as there are no 'votes' for that construct, and we have the clearcut examples from contextbio for the "and" construct compromise. As well, "the issues with it are that it doesn't reflect any significant RS that I can find [...]"... I must ask, as it's becoming somewhat of concern - does your browser not display AusLondonder's opening comment when they started the BRD discussion on your behalf, under "Nationality"? Because if it is displayed, then it appears we have a problem of "I didn't hear that". AusLondonder provided notable reliable sources supporting the dual-citizenship/nationality characterisation. Not once have you acknowledged existence of those reliable sources, which is why I'm curious if you've even seen them. I'm delighted to acknowledge that there are reliable sources that referred to him as do the ones MapReader (finally) presented; one should also acknowledge the reliable sources that refer to him as having dual citizenship/nationality, rather than implying that they don't exist. I see nowhere in WP:CONTEXTBIO that it suggests that obituaries are the sine qua non of sourcing for biography articles.

Typically (one hopes) when an editor makes a bold edit, changing longstanding information, and a reversion cycle begins, they open a Bold-Revert-Discussion. No discussion obtained until AusLondonDer did so.

• Ten reversions without starting a discussion
• Once discussion was started by an uninvolved editor, MapReader claims that he was "[...] simply applying BRD [...]", then
• later expresses, as it were, that he started the discussion - "I haven’t launched the discussion as a formal RfC [...]"

Not a good look.

As an aside, since MapReader says his edits were BRD, the article should be returned to the state it was in before he changed it and began reverting others, per WP:BRD. However, I'm not going to force the matter.

MapReader earlier suggested that a month should transpire before a consensus could be contemplated. In my experience, RfC's can take hours, a day, several days, weeks; rarely, when an editor wikilawyers an RfC, does one last much more than that; I pray that does not happen here. A consensus/compromise may not satisfy all editors, but that's what compromise is. I hope there will be more 'votes', regardless of what they may be.

Since a not-so-veiled implication was tendered that I was 'canvassing' when pinging editors MapReader had reverted (and bristling at the implication, I think fairly so, having never been accused of same in my eighteen years here), I feel compelled to likewise caution MapReader from canvassing, since the matter was brought up. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 22:20, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Pinging only editors who made a specific change to an article is an attempt to canvass, since it flags the discussion to people of one view only, and is self-evidently a significant breach of WP protocol. I don’t think it appropriate to get drawn into the rest of this over-long post, much of which offers nothing to help with the decision in hand and risks losing sight entirely of what we should all be trying to achieve in improving the encyclopedia. MapReader (talk) 05:17, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Since there was no intent to canvass on my part, we're left to rely upon your opinion of my behavior; that doesn't go very far. Seeing as only a single one of the nine editors I pinged (please review WP:CANVASSING - it doesn't mention pinging) responded, I think that either the implication of intent is weak, or my execution sucks; probably both. If you believe that it was "self-evidently a significant breach of WP protocol", by all means report me to the appropriate administrative noticeboard.

At this juncture, since I haven't done any canvassing, and I assume that you haven't done any canvassing either, I would suggest broadening the scope of the RfC to get more eyeballs on it. Too often, a small sample-size is used as a lever to block committing to a consensus. There's five in favor of British and American, and one in favor of British; the 'votes' have it at this time, but the sample size is too small to whack-a-mole with it. Perhaps WP:Requests for comment/Politics, government, and law, and/or WP:Requests for comment/Society, sports, and culture, as they are tangentially related to the subject of the article. I'd add WP:Requests for comment/Religion and philosophy too, but Hitch would probably roll in his grave at that inclusion. I suppose I could go back through all of the back-and-forth edits and notify both parties of those going back twenty years. However, I've done enough legwork on this matter already. Perhaps MapReader can give it a go. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 05:12, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree there is nothing saying that this must go for a month. However, I think it would be prudent to at least let 2 or 3 more votes come through and if those were the same as the majority then it could be called a WP:SNOW. If they were different from the majority then I'd be inclined to say the RfC should go longer. TarnishedPath^talk 11:59, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

In regards to the discourse about canvassing, I would just like to state that although I was pinged, and did weigh in on the survey, this article was already on my watch list. So, I was already aware of the conversation happening on the talk page and was actually going to weigh in on the subject regardless of being pinged or not. I also don't feel as though any canvassing was taking place, as only people who made changes to nationality and would therefore be interested in this particular discussion were pinged. But, by all means, please open this discussion up to a wider reach. ExRat (talk) 06:06, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Regarding canvassing, this is covered by WP:INAPPNOTE. The editor selected and pinged only people who had reverted a particular change, and were therefore people of a shared opinion - which is specifically deprecated under the heading of ‘vote-stacking’. When challenged, their response was to invite me to do the same, and ping another biased list of editors (“please, do ping editors other than you who have removed the attribution that he was also an American”) , presumably to achieve some sort of balance. That isn’t how things work in this place; you know it, and I bet they know it as well. MapReader (talk) 12:44, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Please do not presume that I am being dishonest in my interpretation of anastrophe's pinging. I haven't thoroughly looked through the article's edit history, but a perusal of it indicates that maybe they felt that editors who might have an interest in the topic are editors that have added a nationality to the lede; and it just so happens that the overwhelming majority of them who have added a nationality to the lede are editors you have reverted. There seem to be exceptionally few people who have added simply "British" to the lede, or reverted the "British-American" label. If you look at the edit history, there really seems to only be one recent editor who seems very passionate about the "British" descriptor. There seems to be far more editors who were adding "British-American", or weren't at all bothered by the label (which has been in place for years) enough to change it to simply "British". The survey above seems to reinforce this as well. It's great to be bold, but sometimes people can get tunnel vision. ExRat (talk) 14:55, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but you can see from the data above, assuming it’s accurate, that the article has carried a British (or English)-only descriptor for nearly five years of its history, yet I hadn’t edited the article myself until six months ago. So clearly there are editors with that view somewhere back in the edit history; the point about canvassing is that the editor was deliberately selecting people who shared one particular view. MapReader (talk) 17:35, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

It is characterized on the canvassing page as "vote-stacking", but there are two major problems. Firstly, there was no 'vote', formal or informal, at play. Auslondonder, an uninvolved editor, took the initiative to start a discussion, followed by MapReader immediately accusing me of edit-warring (after my single revert) and claiming that he was merely following WP:BRD; I responded and pinged the nine editors MapReader had reverted (presented in a column, to accentuate the serial nature of them), five of which had contributed only a single edit to WP, so it was obvious that they wouldn't respond to a ping (two of them were anon IP's who don't receive pings anyway) - my point, as it were and flawed as it was, was that MapReader had reverted nine editors in a row - clearly not BRD; I should have just listed them without the ping. The second issue is of intent; WP:INAPPNOTE states among other things "[...] in the expectation that notifying the group of any discussion related to that viewpoint will result in a numerical advantage [...]". If my endless bloviations here don't demonstrate that I can argue my own case for British and American without assistance from others, I don't know what would. Furthermore, since only one of the pinged editors has contributed to the discussion, well, as I characterized it before, apparently I suck at canvassing if that's what I was endeavoring to do. I was not.

Now, perhaps we can stick a fork in the canvassing accusations, and I'll stop highlighting the bad-faith revisionist claims that editor MapReader was merely following BRD, which offers nothing to help with the decision in hand and risks losing sight entirely of what we should all be trying to achieve in improving the encyclopedia. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 18:04, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

In an article that had been stable for months, it is reasonable to revert and expect some discussion. It is not reasonable to ping editors by selecting them on the basis of their particular previous edits; it’s as simple as that. Everyone reading this knows that; let’s recognise that the editor made a serious mistake, and has hopefully learned from it, and move on. MapReader (talk) 18:33, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

"[...] it is reasonable to revert and expect some discussion." and the historical revisionism continues. The formula of BRD is

Bold - make a change to content that had been stable for more than two years.

Revert - be reverted by another editor who returns it to the stable version.

Discuss - you start a discussion to find consensus.

The formula is not

Bold

Revert

Revert

Revert

Revert

Revert

Revert

Revert

Revert

Revert

Discuss - an uninvolved editor starts a discussion. (Furthermore, in BRD, the content is supposed to be left at the previous stable version before MapReader's edit, which it is not)

Your final sentence once again shows overt bad faith; I explained my actions which had no intent other than to show your serial reversions away from the stable version. "Everyone reading this knows that; [...]" - now you are speaking for other editors? Perhaps there's also an ownership issue at play here as well.

If consensus is found - lets give it until April 15 as an informal 'deadline' shall we? - does not favor your preferred version, will you accept it? If the final vote does prefer your version, I won't be happy, but consensus is consensus, and I won't wikilawyer it and try to extend the deadline out indefinitely. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 19:02, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

[edit: I acknowledged that the pinging was a mistake; MapReader's failure to acknowledge that and continue ascribing intent is problematic to his argument, to say the least.] cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 19:06, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

• Comment Just a note about BRD. MapReader's edit were not in accordance with BRD. When their changes were objected to they effectively began a slow-running edit war with multiple editors rather than seeking consensus at talk. AusLondonder (talk) 22:13, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Categorization

@MapReader: I don't understand why the solution is to remove him from the relevant category (American writers about atheism) instead of including him in both categories (writers about atheism). Categories are to help navigation between pages, so removing him from a more specific category defeats the purpose. And for the record, he's in american categories and british categories, so why is this one special? Mason (talk) 18:40, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Being in multiple categories is fine, but that isn’t the change the editor is trying to force in. The editor making a change should respect the RfC and choose categories that cover all bases, if indeed there is an argument for changing the current and long-standing wider categorisation in the first place. MapReader (talk) 18:45, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

As it stands right now, there are fifteen "American-" categories and twenty-eight "British-" categories. It seems to me the appropriate thing, particularly with notability under both descriptors, would be to move all of them 'up' to the overall categories and eliminate the use of all of the country-specific subcategories, except where notability is bog-obviously easy to confine him to one or the other. Frankly, a lot of the existing categories are just silly identitarian nonsense, which Hitch was very much against (though that doesn't drive any decision on the matter). cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 19:36, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand how having them in both categories upends the RfC (which I assume is about the nationality descriptor). My interpretation from skimming the RfC is that the decision was for him to be both. Anyway, I made a British category, hoping that would solve the problem by covering both bases.

The point of categories is to help editors find similar pages, so to me it makes sense to have Hitchens in both as the RfC settled on both nationalities as defining. Otherwise, he ends up isolated from both nationalities, making him uniquely harder to find. I personally don't care whether Hitchens is American or British (or both). Mason (talk) 03:34, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Anyway, I've now added him to both. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Christopher_Hitchens&oldid=1220658889 My intend wasn't to impose that he was solely american. There just hadn't been a British category yet. I've made one, which hopefully solves the problem. I'm not going to watch the page, so you'll have to ping me if there's more that must be said. Mason (talk) 03:38, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

@CAVincent Per this discussion Hitchens belongs in both a British and American category. No British category exists, so I left him in the parent intentionally. There's no need to make uncharitable statements when you revert.Mason (talk) 04:25, 24 June 2024 (UTC)