Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Germany/Archive 4

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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)

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. --Lysy^talk 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. --Lysy^talk 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 ? --Lysy^talk 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... --Lysy^talk 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)

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)

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

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)

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 incorporates information from this version of the equivalent article on the French Wikipedia.

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

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 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)

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)

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)

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.) Aecis^Bravado 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)

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

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)

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

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)