Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Germany/Archive 4

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
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Archive 4
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Contents

What is worthy of an entry?

I know that every little village and glen in the U.S. or Britain should rate an entry in the Wik/En, but what about German villages? Is there some (subjective oOR objective cut -off line? Or do we include any village, or any village that gets into Wik/de?) Kdammers 00:41, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

We include every village in the world that can be verified. Excluding small villages just because they are not in the U.S. would be systemic bias. Several thousands of independent municipalities in Germany still lack even stubs; we should probably start a concerted effort (a towns and municipalities task force?) to extend our coverage. To get a feeling for the amount of missing articles, see e.g. User:Kusma/Bavaria (a list copied from dewiki's complete list of municipalities; some of the redlinks are a product of different naming conventions, though).—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kusma (talk • contribs).
Would it be worth moving that list (after updating it to new boundaries) into article space? Agathoclea 00:12, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
We'd have to check whether the redlinks exist under different names and translate everything first. We shouldn't start with my current list, but from a fresh copy of the corresponding dewiki lists (I have played around with the list a bit an deleted a couple of bluelinks, as I was only using it to see if I can get any interesting article requests from it). Kusma (討論) 07:07, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't trust Wik/de for completeness: They completely delete lots of things if articles are shorter than some editors like (contrary to Wik/de's stated standards). But now we know what we want, assuming Kusma is representative. Kdammers 09:19, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
The German Wikipedia claims to be complete (or at least have been complete) regarding the independent municipalities, see e.g. here. The Wikipedia:WikiProjekt Kommunen und Landkreise in Deutschland is apparently busy expanding all of these articles beyond stub size. Kusma (討論) 09:53, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Don't believe them. For example, try looking for Bremke. Kdammers 01:00, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
That doesn't seem to be an independent municipality. I think they (and we) should also have articles on formerly independent villages. Kusma (討論) 11:11, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't know what "independent municipality" means. But for a normal person, Bremke is a separate village, physically well separated from Rnhsn and Bischhausen, which are a few clicks away and not visible. 00:33, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
A village is a part of a muicipality even though there may be a few k's inbetween the village and the main town of the municipality. Agathoclea 08:01, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Some thoughts on assessment

As some of you may have noticed, I've been wading through lots and lots of unassessed Germany articles recently and brought the count down a little (and will try to get it to nil before I'm on leave from the 28th to the 04th). As I've been doing the importance ratings together with the article category rating (why do the same work twice anyways?) some users have approached me with questions about the importance ratings I've been assigning to articles.

I've participated in Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains for quite a while, and there's a nice assessment table there that could be some food for thought for the people of this project.

Sorry for not replying sooner, but as you'll surely know, Christmas eve sucks up one's free time.

Here's how WP:TRAINS does it

Label Criteria Reader's experience Editor's experience Example
Top The article is one of the core topics of rail transport. Generally, this is limited to those articles that are listed on {{Train topics}} A reader who is not involved in rail transport will have high familiarity with the subject matter and should be able to relate to the topic easily. Articles in this importance range are written in mostly generic terms, leaving technical terms and descriptions for more specialized pages. Train
High The article covers a topic that is vital to understanding the history or technology of rail transport. Most readers will at least be familiar with the topic being discussed. These articles describe the basics beyond the core topics about how trains work and the more significant historical events in rail transport history worldwide. Articles about the most basic topics in rail transport like rolling stock types, the largest railroad companies and the most historically and culturally significant topics are included in this level. Some technical terms can be used within articles in this range, but where they are used, they should be explained or at least link to articles that discuss the terms in more detail. First Transcontinental Railroad
Mid The article covers a topic that has a strong but not vital role in the history or technology of rail transport. Many readers will be familiar with the topic being discussed, but a larger majority of readers may have only cursory knowledge of the overall subject. Articles at this level will cover subjects that are well known but not necessarily vital to understand rail transport, such as main stations in secondary travel markets, former Class I railroads and more specialized types of equipment. Due to the topics covered at this level, Mid-importance articles will generally have more technical terms used in the article text. Most railroad company executives will be rated in this level. Southern Pacific 4449
Low The article is not required knowledge for a broad understanding of rail transport technology or history. Few readers outside the rail transport industry or that are not within the local area of the article's topic may be familiar with the subject matter. It is likely that the reader does not know anything at all about the subject before reading the article. Articles at this range of importance will often delve into the minutiae of rail transport, using technical terms (and defining them) as needed. Topics included at this level include most subway and local railway stations, short line railroad companies and limited or one-off productions of equipment or facilities that otherwise had no significant impact on the rail industry. Jordanhill railway station

..and here's my thoughts about how WikiProject Germany can benefit from that

Obviously, the table scales rather nicely to other projects if you replace "rail transport" with whatever the focus of the project may be, in this case German cities, towns and villages, Germany-related people and German infrastructure. I think it's a good way to get started with, and I must say the priority assessment works quite well within the Trains WikiProject.

One of the questions I was asked on my talk page was "Why do you assess Low-Priority to smaller towns?". Well, if you have just read the table above, try replacing "rail transport" with "Germany" and you'll get The article is not required knowledge for a broad understanding of Germany history.. I honestly don't think that a 3,000-inhabitant hamlet somewhere in the woods of say, Mecklenburg Western Pomerania, is playing a role that vital for Germany _as a whole_ that it deserves a Mid-rating. Same with a football player who's been a Bundesliga player in the 1974/1975 season or a side street somewhere in Berlin. Of course, that's not a fixed rating... if you're talking Obersalzberg, Mario Basler and Alexanderplatz, these obviously deserve a Mid- or even a High- rating. Personally, my threshold is that any city over 500,000 gets a Top rating (as somebody not familiar with Germany is likely to have at least some knowledge about, say, Berlin or Hamburg), the 100,000s and the important smaller cities get a Mid, and anything below 30,000, unless it is notable in some other form, gets a Low. As always, though, editor's ratings are just that and should be taken with a grain of salt, and they're absolutely non-binding to others. Or as WP:T puts it: These are only suggestions, and nobody'll rip your head off for over- or underrating.

Another point is that due to the focus of the project, which is obviously a bit broader than the Trains project, we'll end up with a lot of articles in the High and the Top section than other, more shallowly focused projects, but that isn't neccessarily that bad. I think there's 175 articles in Top now, with a few out in the yet-uncovered article space that could end up there, but I think as long as they're kept to two category pages at most (i.e. 400 articles) it should work out right. Given the scope of the project, Mid and Low will end up huge anyways, and I expect High to end up somewhere between 800 to 1000 topics, depending on how many uncategorised Germany-related articles can be unearthed.

Anyhow, that's my thoughts on the subject for now. Comments, ideas anyone? --doco (☏) 18:50, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Well it was me that asked came to your talkpage. My reasoning was that "cities" deserve a mid not just any hamlet, I am currently still tagging the rest of the cities. Some time ago we agreed here to have the cutoff between Mid and High at 100k plus outstanding cities. We have to remember that there will be plenty of sub-town articles (streets/stations/churches ect) to have a few 1000 lows just on that. Agathoclea 13:14, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I am happy with the present arrangement which I would understand as follows:
  • Top: large and internationally famous cities such as Berlin, Frankfurt and Hamburg.
  • High: other towns with a population of over 100,000
  • Mid: most other towns of any real significance (default)
  • Low: most suburbs, dormitory towns, villages and other settlements of purely local significance.
I would understand the above as defaults that would be changed if a place is particularly notable. For instance Oberammergau, with a population of about 5000 might be more like a village but I have rated it as "Mid" because of its international fame due to the Oberammergau Passion Play; on the other hand, I would be happy to see Meckelfeld (with a population of about 9,600) rated as "Low". I can also imagine rating "Bayreuth" as "High" because of its musical significance. I would also tend to upgrade resorts that non-Germans might be interested in. Heiligendamm, as part of Bad Doberan, which itself only has a population of about 11,000 would probably only rate a "Low", but I would upgrade it to "Mid" because it is the venue of the 2007 G8 summit, meaning that a lot of English speakers might want to look it up. If I've never heard of a place and German Wikipedia only has a stub and Googling doesn't turn up anything of note, I would also tend toward "Low" rather than "Mid".
--Boson 15:55, 27 December 2006 (UTC)::

Train Table Translated into German Table

I think this is a very UNDERSTANDABLE table that is easily applicable, mutatis mutandis, to many areas. It might seem pedantic, but here I have replaced the rail words. I am also happy with the community rating system as given by Boson and have incorporated it. If any-one sees errors here, please incorporate the corrections. I'd also like to see a few more examples in each category. In addition, the scope (breadth, not depth) should be expanded, contracted or corrected. That way, we'll have an easy reference sheet that reflects our policy.

Label Criteria Reader's experience Editor's experience Example
Top The article is one of the core topics concerning Germany. Generally, this is limited to those articles that are listed on {{German topics}} A reader who does not have a personal or professional connection with Germany will none-the-less have high familiarity with the subject matter and should be able to relate to the topic easily. Communities: large and internationally famous cities such as Berlin, Frankfurt and Hamburg as well as smaller communities of international fame such as Heidelberg. Articles in this importance range are written in mostly generic terms, leaving technical terms and descriptions for more specialized pages. Germany
High The article covers a topic that is vital to understanding the history, social, cultural, religious, or economic aspects of Germany. Most readers will at least be familiar with the topic being discussed. These articles describe the basics beyond the core topics about Germany and the more significant historical events in and concerning Germany. Articles about the most basic topics concerning Germany, its history and geography, like mountain ranges, rivers, states, and the most historically and culturally significant topics are included in this level. Some technical terms can be used within articles in this range, but where they are used, they should be explained or at least link to articles that discuss the terms in more detail. Communities: Towns with a population of over 100,000 not qualifying for a higher rating. Goethe (or should this be top?), the Nuremburg Trials
Mid The article covers a topic that has a strong but not vital role in the history, social, cultural, religious, or economic aspects of Germany. Many readers will be familiar with the topic being discussed, but a larger majority of readers may have only cursory knowledge of the overall subject. Articles at this level will cover subjects that are well known but not necessarily vital to understand Germany, such as the Oberammergau Passion Play. Due to the topics covered at this level, Mid-importance articles will generally have more technical terms used in the article text. ... Communities: most towns of any real significance that do not qualify at a higher level (default). [[ ]], Oberammergau, Heiligendamm, Oberammergau Passion Play
Low The article is not required knowledge for a broad understanding of Germany or German history. Few readers not specifically concerned with Germany or German affairs or who are not within the local area of the article's topic may be familiar with the subject matter. It is likely that the reader does not know anything at all about the subject before reading the article. Articles at this range of importance will often delve into the minutiae of Germany, using technical or local terms (and defining or explaining them) as needed. Topics included at this level include most subway and local railway stations, short line railroad companies, small rivers, almost all individual mountains and other items that otherwise have no significant impact on Germany as a whole or its reputation. Communities: most suburbs, dormitory towns, villages and other settlements of purely local significance. Leine Canal, Bremke

I don't think Germany should be the example for top importance. This leaves a lot of ambiguity on where exactly to draw the border between top and high. john k 23:53, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe Germany should be listed as core-importance? The Germany article is a special case. - 52 Pickup 08:38, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Germany location infobox

In a project-related affair, recent tagging resulted in lots of articles with the mapneeded= parameter. Instead of messing with literally thousands of map images, there now is a very nifty template over at de:Vorlage:Infobox Ort in Deutschland that just shows a red dot on a Germany map using the lat/long parameters instead of using individual images for each place. I've copied the code to User:Doco/sandbox/Infobox_Ort_in_Deutschland and meddled with it a bit, but before doing the whole work and porting it _all_ to the English Wikipedia so that a simple infobox cut-and-paste action could be done (as the Dutch have done recently), I'd just like to ask whether someone has done that before. There was no interwiki link on the German template page, but then again interwiki linkage on templates usually is _really_ sloppy on both en: and de:. --doco (☏) 18:58, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I have looked at the issue a few days ago as I run into suchlike articles. The interwiki situation is a little more complex as the User who basically runs the project on the de-wiki side is totally opposed to interwikilinks on templates and has persistantly reverted them as "troll-edits". Apart from that lapse in behaviour is very knowledgable though and might be asked to help but preferably by someone not myself. The template on our side is Template:Infobox Town DE. Agathoclea 00:14, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
That is the old infobox setup though, which requires individual map images to be put in place for each individual town, i.e. town XY uses Position Town XY.png, Z uses Position Town Z.png et cetera. The new one simply places a red dot image as an overlay over Image:Karte Deutschland.png, thus elimiating the need for thousands of individual map images to be kept and maintained. If the new Germany infobox hasn't been ported over from de: yet, I might just as well finish the translation tonight and put it into the main template space so that articles can be _slowly_ migrated to the new box. (No need to rush!) --doco (☏) 14:10, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Let us know when it is ready. And please remember to delete the left over images on en-wiki that become redundant. Agathoclea 14:36, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Hurray. I have been working on towns recently and I used to be able to use the maps from the German site. Some of them were set up on WikiCommons. But having the code to place the dot is much nicer!
Why isn't the info box template listed on the project page. I was looking for one earlier and could not find an "official" template. So I just copied what I had.
The template {{Infobox Australian Place}} also uses this "red dot on a blank map" routine, and it works rather well. If you are planning to revamp Infobox Town DE, I would like to propose a number of new features for inclusion. - 52 Pickup 12:45, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Bring them on. Agathoclea 13:15, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure where is the right place to discuss this, so I'll just start here. Feel free to move this to a more appropriate place if you like. Some of the things I had in mind are already in place in de:Vorlage:Infobox Ort in Deutschland:
  • The automatic calculation of population density if population and area are entered without commas or extra text. Unfortunately, this will take time to put things in place for all locations, because if any exrta items are included with the numbers, an error message appears. But well worth it
  • The assignment of the entry to the category "Ort in (state)"
But there are a few other things that could be added:
  • Following WP:STYLE, imperial units should probably also be displayed for area and pop. density. If the metric area values are added without commas or extra text, the imperial measurements can be automatically calculated, so no extra fields are needed. The same can be said for elevation, but since that is normally given as a range, automatic calculations is not possible.
  • Infobox Town DE had the option to include a photo of the city, but this option never appeared to be used anywhere. This is a shame, since a photo can be very helpful here. This new infobox doesn't have this option at all. I think the option should still be there. For instance, {{Infobox City}} has the option to include a photo and it can work rather well (eg. New York City)
  • A new field to supply the year in which the town was founded. This can also be used to automatically assign the article to "xxxx etsablishments".
  • Some minor modifications to layout, font size, etc. There's no reason why the English version should look identical to the German one.
That's all I can think of at the moment. A while ago, I was experimenting with the modification of this infobox, seeing how its appearance could be improved. This page applies all the different infoboxes to Cologne (with categories disabled) for comparison. - 52 Pickup 21:46, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I would like the fourth if it had the header of the third. Agathoclea 22:28, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I find the bottom left one easiest to scan. The founding date seems controversial to me. What do you choose as the founding date? First documented mention of the town? I also wonder at the range of elevations. I assume that most cities choose a particular point to measure the elevation of their cities. What does the reader gain by being given a range?imars 22:38, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
The fourth one is still in a very early phase, and is still heavilly based on Infobox City, which was my starting point. It is true that in its current form it might not be as easy to read as the third one since I have not had the time to properly rearrange the fields into a sensible order. But there is one important advantage that I see in the 4th one over the 3rd: the 4th one is more compact. I'm now working on redoing my test template as well as translating Infobox Ort in Deutschland and incorporating its features.
By using the heading from the 3rd, do you mean you prefer a coloured heading, to not say "NRW, Germany", or both? For founding date, I would only suggest that a date be given if it is actually known (i.e. not just the first documented mention). If no value is given, the field would remain hidden. A single value for elevation would make a lot more sense but, for some reason, almost all the German entries use a range. - 52 Pickup 09:50, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Alright, my new version is up at User:52 Pickup/Drafts/Infobox German Location and a Cologne example is also up. - 52 Pickup 12:52, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Looks nice so far, but as a feature request to facilitate copying info from de:, can we leave the variable names unchanged? I've put up both the original incomplete translation and your recent fork on User:Doco/sandbox/test2 and as you can see the lower box doesn't show that much info when copying verbatim from the German article... and franky, variable _names_ are an internal thing anyways and need not be translated, especially if you're talking thousands of article templates that would need to be adapted. :)

Anyhow, good work so far. I'm off for the New Year's vacation and will be back by the 4th.--doco (☏) 13:40, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

No problem, the variable names have been switched back to German. The next things that I will work on are the better ordering of fields (subheadings may be useful here) and autocategorisation. - 52 Pickup 17:48, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Some more translation has been done, so now most information should be automatically translated if copied over from the German Wiki. Some more examples are at User:52 Pickup/Drafts/Test locations, which I'm using to find any sticking points: and there's still a few. - 52 Pickup 13:48, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I have decided to be bold and let the new infobox go live - it is at Template:Infobox German Location. It contains all of the fields used by de:Vorlage:Infobox Ort in Deutschland (using the German field names, as requested) plus a number of extra fields (the ones with English names). It is also possible to enter German values for some fields and the English translation will be displayed - making it easier to transfer infobox data from the German wiki. Please give it a try and report any problems on the template's talk page. - 52 Pickup 22:26, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Good work! I did a 1to1 conversion of Geroldsgrün just now and it only needed only one change in the actual text. Only worry is if non-German speaking editors want to edit they will have a slight problem. I suggest (if you have not done so already) to double up the switches. Then later a bot can go over and translate all the ones in the articles at some regular intervals. Agathoclea 23:21, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
That's a good idea. I haven't done that yet. At the moment, there are still a few teething problems to take care of, but once they are sorted out, that can be done. - 52 Pickup 13:42, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I just discovered the new infobox, and I see some nice new features compared to "Infobox Town DE", which I initiated. The automatic dot on map is very good, I saw it on de:, but didn't know how to copy it to en:. Population density calculation is nice, and the new grouping (Administration, Statistics etc) looks good. Is that also an automatic conversion from meters to feet? Nice! Some points of criticism:
My compliments. Markussep 19:56, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Glad to hear that you approve! I hope you don't think that I was just trying to usurp your work. I have tried to incorporate the features of "Infobox Town DE" that did not exist in de:Vorlage:Infobox Ort in Deutschland, plus a couple from {{Infobox City}}, and a few other things. Addressing your points:
  • Chaning the colour is no problem. I just picked that rather arbitrarily. Feel free to experiment with the colour scheme to something better.
  • Yes, the metric/imperial conversion is automatic. In order for it to work, the numbers must be without any commas, spacing, links, or otherwise. This is why the population date and source URL need to be separate fields (pop. references are not used in the german version, a nice feature from Infobox Town DE).
  • Perhaps the foundation date can go if it will not be possible to clearly use it for enough entries. This came from my work on {{Infobox Australian Place}}, where the dates for all places are pretty easy (i.e. 1788 at the earliest). No problem.
  • The UN/LOCODE info should probably be hidden. The German wiki template contains this information (and some other codes) but does not display them, considering them to be Metadata. I guess we can do the same.
  • The number of borroughs info is there because it is a field of the German one - even though it is rather unspectacular information.
I would appreciate any more thoughts that you have on this template, and invite you to take part in its further development. - 52 Pickup 21:50, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Am I remembering right, that Markus had the dual-language switches in his template? Agathoclea 22:15, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
If by Markus you mean me, no I didn't use dual-language switches. I'm afraid the template code has become a lot more "esoteric" since I started it, so I don't really know how to edit it without destroying it. But I'll try, and if I don't succeed I'll ask you to do it, at Template talk:Infobox German Location. Markussep 09:15, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
There are a number of ways to have dual-language fields, but I'm not sure what is the best way is. For that, I'll have to ask some others. But this should probably wait until the whole thing is set up and the bugs are ironed out - 52 Pickup 19:34, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 21:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Details about Michael Freund (writer) and Johannes Lepsius

I think the english WP refers to Michael Freund only as a nazi party writer - as far as I see, he was later an established historian in Kiel and Bonn (the Univ. of Bonn is/was very influential in Germany) (if it is the same person). Your article about Johannes Lepsius is a bit to small (one sentence) - his heritage is archived today at the university Halle/Wittenberg, a Lepsius-House in Potsdam is opening in the next years. Plehn 19:21, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Help needed with German names

A helping hand would be appreciated, dealing with User:R9tgokunks with the agenda of bolding German names in the leads of articles about previously German towns in various countries, e.g. Lviv, Mulhouse, Strasbourg, Gdańsk, Olsztyn, Ostrava but also many others, smaller places. R9tgokunks has been repeatedly reverted by various editors but he only seems to change his focus from one country to another and goes on with edits like the ones above.

It might be useful if German editors tried to persuade him to stop this activity, before it develops into a larger scale "international" edit war. Thanks for any help. --Lysytalk 23:33, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Is this not covered by the Manual of Style guideline regarding synonyms of article titles?
Use boldface for the first (and only the first) appearance of the article title and any synonyms of the article title (including acronyms). Use three apostrophes to produce the boldface – '''article title''' produces article title.
This example illustrates the use of boldface in an article on Río de la Plata:
The Río de la Plata (from Spanish: “River of Silver”), also known by the English name River Plate, as in the Battle of the River Plate, or sometimes (La) Plata River.
--Boson 00:48, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. Another example would be "Kraków; variant English spelling Cracow" or "Kiev, also Kyiv". But the German names are not English language synonyms of towns currently in France, Poland, Czech Republic or Ukraine. --Lysytalk 07:26, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I take your point. Perhaps it would be a good idea to state explicitly in Wikipedia:Style#Article_titles that only English language synonyms are meant and give explicit advice on the treatment of foreign names. It might be appropriate to state explicitly how to treat names that are used in the country itself (e.g. Braunschweig, Köln, Hannover) or were previously official names in the country itself. This could include typography, placement, redirects, content (e.g. historical context), etc. --Boson 11:21, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
The relevant guideline is probably WP:NC(GN), which tells us to bold only names used frequently in English. We definitely should not bold "Lemberg", but might consider bolding "Königsberg". Kusma (討論) 11:43, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, this is my understanding as well (you might have noticed that I've started the WP:NCGN effort over a year ago to get rid of all this naming headache). The problem is that "used frequently in English" may be vague, and the user now claims that German names like "Bartenstein", "Angerburg", "Egisheim" or "Kattenhofen" fall into this category, which in my opinion is an attempt to game the guideline. I am Polish, and R9tgokunks focused his effort on French and Polish towns now, so I may be not quite neutral here. Therefore I asked if this might be handled by some German editors in a friendly manner instead ? --Lysytalk 13:26, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
There are three possibilities of dual names in the german/slawic sprachraum:
  • The german name is a transformed term of Slawic origin, for example:
    • Krakau - Kraków
    • Ostrau - Ostrava
    • Even some east german names of cities are of Slawic origin for example Berlin, Dresden and Berlin-Pankow (note the affinity to Kraków). In that phase the Ostsiedlung of german settlers must have been tolerant to the slawic peoples, the slawic settlements and the names of that locations.
  • In other case new German names have been established. In the western regions only new settlements where named with German terms. Some examples of new German terms for slawic settlements:
    • Reichenberg - Liberec
    • Königsberg - Kaliningrad (which has been probably founded as Kenigsberg)
    • Many mining locations in the Ore Mountains like Freiberg
  • The last case are german transformation that make believe their origin is german
"Which name influences the English language?" and "Which historical origin influences the common usage today?" are maybe questions without general answer. Why note take the names of location that are in use by its inhabitants itself like Ústí nad Labem? Even I for my self live in Dresden not in Drážďany. In German language polish or czech names are in common use due to using old german terms for small towns and villages might stamp the user as revisionist. Exceptions are cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants: Only a few germans know where "ˈvrɔtswaf" is located (It's a pity, I think). Geo-Loge 14:42, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Again, I can only agree. It is 100% natural that German names are used in German language, especially for the larger/better known towns like Breslau/Stettin/Warschau/Krakau etc. Similarly Poles are using Monachium for München or Akwizgran for Aachen, but it does not mean that Akwizgran is an English name for Aachen or similarly Posen is not an English name for Poznań. We do use boldface for German name "Aachen" (which is the title of the article) but not for Dutch name "Aken" (which is just a foreign name) and similarly do use boldface for Czech name "Ostrava" but not for its German name "Ostrau" (which in this context is a foreign/historic name). I'm not sure if I'm being understood... --Lysytalk 15:36, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Except Warsaw every english names of polish cities are correct. In this cases I would bold anything more. In case where English names and the names in language of the city's country differ, I would bold both. Geo-Loge 18:03, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Categorisation of locations

As discussed above, I was planning to make possible the auto-categorisation of location entries possible via the use of Template:Infobox German Location, but I have run into a problem regarding the allocation of locations to categories. At the moment, there are three main categories (for each state): Cities/Towns/Villages in (state), where the categorisation has been done manually for each entry. There is also a "municipalities of.." category, which appears to be very underused. The rationale behind some allocations makes no sense. For example, Wiesbaden-Biebrich is classified as a town, when it is a suburb of Wiesbaden, so this is clearly wrong. This system must be fixed.

Once the new infobox is fully enabled (i.e. including full auto-categorisation), I would like to suggest that these manual category allocations be removed. But first, we need to be clear on what should be classed as what.

To avoid unnecessary repetition here is the relevant discussion thread on the template talk page. Please contribute to the discussion so a clear set of guidelines can be reached that we can automate for all future entries.

Until this issue is resolved, please do not commence wide-spread use of the new infobox. By all means, you can use it, but no bot activity, please. And, of course, please report any problems or suggestions to the template talk page. - 52 Pickup 13:24, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Ravensburg

Anyone willing to help stub/expand the cities/towns in the Ravensburg district? --Science4sail 02:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Science and technology in Germany

In the hope of helping out TSO1D (talk · contribs) in his neverending quest for FA status of Germany, I have created Science and technology in Germany which, for now, is a pretty lame two paragraphs long, copied out of the main article. Any help in expanding the article to something decent that could be linked to from the main article would be greatly appreciated. Pascal.Tesson 22:42, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

6 paragraphs now. But still lame... Pascal.Tesson 23:33, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
I tried to improve the section of institutions and foundations. The division of work between MPG and FHG is something very special in Germany. It is better to state this division to make understandable that there is no or just weak competition between the large organisations in general. Geo-Loge 10:03, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks and thanks also to Kusma for rating it as top-importance. I've also added it to the category of Germany-related articles in need of attention. At least, the page is now decent enough to look like something worth expanding. Pascal.Tesson 04:01, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

template de

I just updated {{de}} to include an article name of the source article. I am still stuck though in piping the link to avoid the :de: showing, as the pipe breaks the if-statemant. Agathoclea 12:49, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

The trick is {{!}}. However, I think the template should be merged with {{German}}. Kusma (討論) 12:53, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. That sounds like an idea, but will need some work in trying to find out the dates of the translation source. Agathoclea 13:00, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps we could use a second optional paremeter? Kusma (討論) 13:01, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
{{German}} has only compulsary params whereas {{de}} up until totay did not even give the article link. So all the uses of {{de}} will be on a minnimum of information if we merge. Instead of a date I suggest a diff-link as I think that will make it more transparent. That is, if we start messing with things. Agathoclea 13:10, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I am not familiar with the new way of requesting and providing translations, but does this need to be coordinated with Template:Translation/Instructions? It refers to a template invocation like {{Translation/Ref|fr|Liberté|oldid=12133757}} yielding:

  • This article was initially translated from the Wikipedia article Liberté, specifically from this version.

(Sorry, could not indent properly)--Boson 22:28, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Fanny Eleonore Baur and a league of Beer Hall Putsch related individuals

An editor recenly created an article for a large number of minor Nazi's. While I took a closer look at his contributions the question of notability crossed my mind, but I dismissed it due to the historic context. Now Fanny Eleonore Baur is proded for non-notability and while the article is rather thin on information I'd rather keep it than delete due to the number of her co-workers that do have an article, but would like other editors input first. Agathoclea 20:06, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Well I think prod is definately the wrong way to go. The article warrants at least an afd-process.--Carabinieri 21:08, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
WP:V may, however, also be an issue - I did not find any non-Wikipedia related info about her using google.--Carabinieri 21:13, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I have speedily deleted the article as a repost, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Elfriede Motzkuhn. Kusma (討論) 21:19, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Then Dachau concentration camp is in nead of some serious cleaning, as 16 names get mentioned there. Agathoclea 21:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
On a sidenote, it looks like the one who started the article removed her from the list of supporters of the Beer Hall Putsch. Agathoclea 21:29, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Lüneburg

Lüneburg has been moved twice in the last 24 hours and is now at Lunenburg in Germany. There would be a score of double redirects that would need cleaning up. Names_of_European_cities_in_different_languages:_I-L gives Lunenburg as Dutch and as a variant in English. I actually could find more sources in English spelling it Luneburg (which is now a tripple redirect). Moving it back would require admin action, which I am not prepared to do uni-laterally. Input? Agathoclea 11:27, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I've moved it back. "Luneburg" is probably a typo or a {{R from title without diacritics}} like "Munchen". If we use "Lunenburg", it should be "Lunenburg, Germany" per the WP:NC. I have asked the mover to file a WP:RM to that title if he believes it should be used. Kusma (討論) 11:43, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
But with EB] giving Lüneburg it is unlikely he will succed. Agathoclea 12:00, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
It should definitely be Lüneburg. This is how it's almost always called in English. Weird that it's a German who is so insistent on moving it. john k 19:18, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Assessments

I have just been playing with the template. From now on you can set importance=NA and it will actually remove it from the unassesed category. Also class=Disambig will work now. Agathoclea 00:32, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Very good! By the way, all articles that were in the quality assessment queue have been assessed now (which was one hell of a queue, close to 1800 articles). It'd be nice if some users could check back in Category:Unassessed Germany articles regularly to prevent another backlog of articles from piling up. --doco (☏) 01:08, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Well done - sad news is that there are still a few thousand articles to be taged and then there are the about 4000 stubs that need an importance assessment. And then I remember Bill thinking we we will manage to check on a quarterly basis if the assesments are still correct. Agathoclea 01:17, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Excellent work! Unfortunately there are still several thousand articles that haven't been tagged with the project template yet... Kusma (討論) 07:29, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Hann. Münden

Hannoversch Münden is up at WP:RM and has been proposed for a move to Hann. Münden. The discussion page for the move can be found here. Thoughts and comments would be appreciated. :) --doco (☏) 20:34, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

David Prinosil

I have a question about German tennis player David Prinosil. He was born in Olomouc, Czechoslovakia, but he represented Germany. Does anyone know when he moved from Czechoslovakia to Germany? (This regarding List of nationality transfers in sport‎#Tennis.) AecisBravado 22:24, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

  • According to this fan site he emigrated with his parents at the age of 14, but that site does not appear to pass WP:RS.--Carabinieri 22:29, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

University of Tübingen

I have had some of my students add sections and generally work on the article on Tübingen University. I don't know if this talk section is the right place to do place this request, but I'd appreciate any constructive comments on the changes to the article. Clearly, there is a lot of room for improvement but I think my students' work is a good start. David WC2 18:11, 22 January 2007 (UTC)David_WC2

Frankfurt project

User:Magadan is busy reviving the Wikipedia:WikiProject Frankfurt. If you are interested in Frankfurt-related topics, hop over and see how you can help! Kusma (討論) 20:40, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Germany/Assessment#Requesting_an_assessment

There are some requests for re-evaluation there that need to be processed. Kusma (討論) 20:51, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Template

Hello, I'm searching for a template German city (like that example in de:wp). I only found this one matching German districts. Can anybody help? -- Netnet @ 20:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm I thought you already have been using the template advertised here? Agathoclea 21:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
You mean Template:Infobox German Location? That is the box only but what about the structure (sections) of the article? -- Netnet @ 22:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I don't really believe in article structure templates. They can serve as a list reminding you what kinds of sections you might want to include, but I think we can write better articles if we don't rigidly try to follow the same structure everywhere regardless of individual differences. Kusma (討論) 09:19, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, that's a pity. Thanks for your answers. -- Netnet @ 20:04, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

8000

We hit the 8000 mark of tagged articles. Agathoclea 12:51, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

There's more. For example, somebody with AWB or a bot should tag all untagged articles in Category:German military history task force articles. Kusma (討論) 15:09, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
OK, I'm tagging them. If there will be more cases like this, it may be worth applying for a bot account. -Steve Sanbeg 16:55, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Assessment scale

I think the assessment scale used by WikiProject Military history is a lot more useful than ours. It is here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment. In particular, it has a checklist for B-class status that we could use to give more feedback on the /Comments subpages for what needs to be done to improve a Start-Class article to B-class. Currently, the difference is not very well-defined, and most articles have been rated without giving any useful feedback to the authors about what should be improved. Kusma (討論) 14:56, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

We came up with the scale precisely because the B-Class level was becoming too vague, and people weren't sure of where exactly the Start/B line was meant to fall; please feel free to borrow from it as you see fit. :-) Kirill Lokshin 16:36, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

President of Germany

This article currently covers both the Weimar and the FRG presidency (although there is a subarticle Reichspräsident). The article probably needs to be restructured a bit. Perhaps it might even be best to move this (after a WP:RM) to Federal President of Germany or similar and to put a disambiguation page at president of Germany. Comments appreciated at the talk page. Kusma (討論) 16:30, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The Weimar Republic and the Federal Republic had two different constitutions, which each outlined what the President does, how he is elected, etc differently.--Carabinieri 13:25, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Privateer

I was surprised to see privateer being bot-tagged as within the scope of this project, bearing in mind that German states had very few privateers... anyone know why? The Land 19:49, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Probably it belongs to the German military history task force. Once we have finished tagging all articles belonging to that task force (which is done by a bot or semiautomatically at the moment), we should check our list and prune it down again if we have anything that doesn't really fit. Privateer probably should be removed. Kusma (討論) 20:28, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Bundesland Infobox

All of the 16 states (except Hamburg) have manual infoboxes of varying uniformity, so I've decided to try fix it. This new template isn't ready yet, but I would be interested in any comments you may have. Some samples are shown here. For some reason, the maps do not show up for some states, no idea why. - 52 Pickup 18:00, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

That's weird, it looks like there are some bad thumbnails. I tweaked the width you're using to see what would happen. That seems to have brought back all the missing maps, but lost some that worked before. I don't know of a better way offhand to force them to rethumbnail. -Steve Sanbeg 19:24, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
You were on the right track. After tweaking all the widths N number of times, it seems to work now. The template {{Infobox German Bundesland}} is now up and running, and all 16 state pages now use the new design. If anyone sees any problems with it, please let me know. - 52 Pickup 19:03, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Climate: Jutland belongs to Denmark

Under the Headline "Geography and climate" the following is said: "This warmer water affects the areas bordering the North Sea including the peninsula of Jutland in north Germany (...)".

As far as I know the fact is correct, but I think the wording is a bit misleading implicating that the Jutland peninsula belongs to Germany. Which it actually does not, it belongs to the country of Denmark.

HubT 10:48, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

It actually belongs to both, at least according to the article Jutland. Are you talking about the article Germany? If yes, you should probably raise this issue at Talk:Germany and try to find a better wording for this issue that does not seem to claim German ownership over the entirety of Jutland. Kusma (討論) 10:56, 31 January 2007 (UTC)