Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Germany/Archive 7

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany. 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.

Archive 1

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Archive 5

This project on military history articles?

Hello.

Since this project is one of the parents of the German military history task force, does it's template also need to be listed on all German military related articles? It seems a bit redundant to me. Oberiko 19:15, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that the assessments are done separately for both projects. So unless there is a template that does combine the both. But a lot of articles are covered by a large numbers of projects. No harm in that - in fact it means more eyes watching the article in question. Agathoclea 21:09, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Politicians' templates / navboxes

Is there any particular style and location for the navboxes used in articles on German Politicians?

Many seemed to be categorised under [[Category:German politicians|µ]] and this is where I have put the templates I have created. Others under [[Category:German navigational boxes]].

I have used the Navbox generic with the only one image, the coat of arms, which allows for ease of editing/updating, although this is not the only style which allows this.

Some politicians have many navboxes so a consistent look is needed. Edmund Stoiber has 6 boxes for example.

I also suggest that all templates which relate to offices (Minsters President, Federal Ministers etc) are categorised as [[Category:German politicians|µ]] and in [[Category:German navigational boxes]], the latter category may also allow use of a subcategory for each Land. bärliner^chat 10:15, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I think templates should not be classified as politicians. Category:German navigational boxes is a far more natural category. Kusma (talk) 10:24, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Kusma is right. With using these two categories, includeonly and noinclude tags are needed to make sure that the right thin is placed in the right category. I've been currently working on a uniform style for the various political navboxes- e.g. {{NRW-PMs}} and {{SaxonyPMs}}. Subcategories for templates based on Bundesland is not necessary - there aren't too many of these templates to require subcategorisation.

However, there are some issues with the politicians category. If these templates categorise any articles that use it into "German politicians", it will file it under the person's first name, filing it under the surname would be better but that can only be done manually. Another thing is that some politician entries are categorised according to their political party, and "German politicians by party" is a subcategory of "German politicians" - so if the navbars are used in the current format, the person will be listed under both categories, which is something that should be avoided. For extra complexity, there is also a subcategory just for "Bavarian politicians". This is all a bit complicated, and so some cleaning up if the categories might be needed in order for everything to be filed correctly. - 52 Pickup 11:17, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Looking into the matter a bit further, there actually are quite a few templates for each state - I forgot about all of the geographical ones for each Kreis. Another thing I noticed was that there are also subcategories for the PMs of Hesse and Bavaria, just as there are subcategories for the Chancellors and Presidents. Maybe such categories would be good for all states. I'll clean up the categories a bit and then see how all of the templates can relate to them. - 52 Pickup 17:08, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Infobox German Location and geographical co-ordinates

In {{Infobox German Location}} I have just set the geographical co-ordinates to display both within the infobox and on the title bar. This would have been done ages ago, but the coord template was having problems. Only when co-ordinates are in the title bar will they be picked up by other programs such as Google Earth. It doesn't work if the co-ordinates are placed within the article. Not sure how long until the Wikipedia layer on Google Earth refreshes itself, but soon all entries using this infobox will be displayed on Google Earth.

There is one problem. Various articles have manually added a separate co-ordinates template. This causes an ugly overlap at the title bar. So could you please delete these extra templates as you find them. There is no point having this separate template since the infobox requires the co-ordinates anyway. Thanks. - 52 Pickup 18:53, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

With a mixture of bots and AWB, this problem is slowly coming under control. But for anyone who adds the infobox to articles, please make sure you do the following:

Remove any {{coord}} templates (or any variants thereof) from the page. The infobox already contains this feature, and duplication can be messy. Example
Remove any "Category: (Cities/Towns/etc.) in (state)" listings from the article. The infobox now automatically places the article in the right category (see next point).
Make sure that the "Art" category is filled with the correct the type of location (Town, Municipality, etc.). If this field is left blank, the default is "Municipality" (Gemeinde). For towns and cities, say "Art=Town/City/Stadt" (any of these will work). The article will be categorised as a "City" if the population is over 100,000 and as a "Town" if the population is below 100,000

Thanks. - 52 Pickup 10:26, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Currently when adding the coordinates in the infobox itself, I get an error that I am trying to add blacklisted link. See Stelle for example. I have commented out the coordinates to be able to add the infobox there. Obviously I need help with this.Extrala 18:44, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it was a temporary problem, I just tested Stelle with the coordinates, and it looked OK. Markussep ^Talk 20:00, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Full ACK, maybe somebody tampered with the link blacklist. Now it's working like a charm.Extrala 21:52, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Franks FAR

Franks has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.--Peter Andersen 20:11, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion in history

I have a suggestion of a section in German history i think is neglected; they are very little information of the German witch trials in the 16th and 17th century. I think it would be very interesting to read about this, and i've noticed that this area is very well covered in your own, German Wikipedia, but i cant read German. If anyone on this project is interested of this subject and knows more, i think it is a subject which deserves to be more represented here!--85.226.235.174 14:37, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Were there any specific trials you were thinking of, or just the general German trends, like those in de:Hexenverfolgung? — Laura Scudder ☎ 15:38, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, i don't really know enough to have any specific in mind, but they are some particular trials i've heard about, such as the trial of Trier in 1587-93, the trial of Fulda in 1603-05, and the one of Wurzburg in 1627, wich i understand to be very large trials, espesially the one in Trier, who where perhaps the largest in Germany and perhaps even Europe. I think it would be valuable information to know more of those. Except for articles of the great trials, one could also consider to complement with articles of individual alleged witches, such as the most representative of those who where convicted, or the most famous ones. --85.226.235.174 18:08, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

More information for German Empire, especially for Gerson Bleichröder's influence

I've just been reading a very interesting book about the important influence of the Jewish German banker Gerson von Bleichröder on Otto von Bismarck's administration of the German Empire. Bleichroder helped Bismarck finance Prussia's war against Austria in the 1860s when the German parliament did not support a war on their German neighbour, Bleichroder had a personal friendship with Bismarck despite Bismarck's earlier inhibitions and stereotypes of the Jewish community. Bleichroder also was key in negotiating with the French government in the Franco-Prussian war as well as funding militants in Austria and France to weaken them. In the this book, it describes how Bleichroder's backroom dealings and strong background presence in German political affairs was what fueled anti-Semitic suspicions and the paranoid stereotypical view by anti-Semites of Jews pulling the strings of Germany. Due to the anti-Semitism at the time in Germany, the German government almost left blank, Bleichroder's role, was an unknown figure with most of the credit of Germany's economic success and progress going to Bismarck. The book is called Gold and Iron by Fritz Stern, which I am using to find more information about Bleichroder, but I hope that others can find multiple sources. User:R-41

Coat of arms articles

A series of articles have recently been started covering the coats of arms of the 16 states. These articles are very bare (eg. Coat of arms of Bavaria) and could do with some work. Some of the corresponding articles on the German wiki are of a rather high standard (e.g. de:Bremer Wappen).

For anyone wishing to create such articles for towns, please name them in the standard way: "Coat of arms of (name)". The German Location infobox now looks for such articles and automatically creates a link under the CoA image (eg. see Munich).

If one particular article could possibly be used to describe multiple coats of arms, then create a redirect with the standard name pointing to this article. For example, Coat of arms of Mainz redirects to Wheel of Mainz (which could be used for many other locations) - creating this redirect then causes the creation of a link under the CoA image in the Mainz article. - 52 Pickup 18:21, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Naming issue

Zell, Upper Franconia has just officially been renamed from Zell to Zell im Fichtelgebirge. Now I know we don't follow the all the official namings but should we do with this one? Agathoclea 19:57, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I have no problem with moving it to the new name. If there is an official disambiguation, it's probably better to use that instead of our "invented" one. Markussep ^Talk 22:07, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

North Sea collaboration

Article Creation and Improvement Drive

Though this project is inactive, you can help with :
Eleidy Aparicio (random unreferenced BLP of the day for 18 Apr 2025 - provided by User:AnomieBOT/RandomPage via WP:RANDUNREF).

North Sea is the current Article Creation and Improvement Drive collaboration. WikiProject Germany members may find that a relevant focus. I have refrained from rating the article pending the result of the collaboration. Perhaps a regular member of this project could find a place for the collaboration banner on the project page itself? __meco 22:25, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Most Important Germans in Germany need to Know

This project needs to be brought to http://de.wikipedia.org The German Wikipedia so that Germans With Foreign Language skills can help the Wikipedia Sites With which There Second languge skills are based Germans Know Germany best --Antiedman 15:00, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

FAR

George I of Great Britain has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Epbr123 21:10, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

To put this into context: George I was the first Hanoverian King of Great Britain which gives the German connection. Agathoclea 21:59, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Nuclear plants

Just so you know, I've been coppying the infoboxes and putting in stubs for German nuclear plants, and they could all use a lot of review. I've also tried to organize the media on the commons a bit better. See Template:DENPPlants for naviation. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Dietrich_Man

If someone could find a German source for this early Bishop could you add it to the article? It's up for deletion here [[1]] Nick mallory 13:57, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Battle of Bir Hakeim

I translated the French FA !! You may want to :

Proofread it !
re-evaluate its quality, and make some suggestions to improve it !

thanks !

NicDumZ ~ 08:34, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Ulrich Mühe: Pronunciation of name

I've expanded the article on German actor "Ulrich Mühe" from a stub, and recently added the pronunciation of his name according to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and the Pronunciation respelling key. However, I need a German speaker who is familiar with the IPA to confirm if it is correct. Please help if you can. Also, you may want to check the English translations of German film and TV series titles, as well as review the article and revise its rating in the {{WikiProject Germany}} tag. It's currently rated Start Class. Thanks. Cheers, Jacklee 16:09, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[ r ] is an okay version of r in some dialects, but the standard German is [ ʁ ]. Also, the non-IPA respelling doesn't match your IPA, although I don't know a reliable English respelling for [ç]. — Laura Scudder ☎ 16:46, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Laura, thanks for the advice. Yes, I don't think there is an adequate way to respell [ç] using just the English alphabet, so I'll add a footnote to say that the respelling is only a rough approximation. Thanks also to the other editors who have made improvements to the article, such as by correcting the English translations of some of the film and TV series titles in German (I've taken basic German lessons but am still far from being able to use German fluently, and so relied on my German-English dictionary and http://dictionary.reference.com/translator). Further improvements to the article are most welcome. Cheers, Jacklee 23:18, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Ulrich Mühe: English translation of German book titles

I've recently updated the article with the English translations of German audio-book titles that Ulrich Mühe was the narrator of, and would appreciate it if a German speaker would confirm if the translations are accurate (some of them look a bit weird to me!). Thanks. Cheers, Jacklee 12:35, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I have edited two of them to what seems more correct to me (now an English speaker needs to check them again, as I might have made them sound weirder ;-). You should check whether translations of any of these works into English exist, though, and make sure to use those titles instead of our self-translated versions if possible. Hope that helps, Kusma (talk) 12:40, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Rautemusik

can someone assess the sources presented at RauteMusik.FM (they are in German). --Fredrick day 22:12, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Sources can be used to supply details, but not to establish notability (own website and pressrelease respectivly) Agathoclea 07:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

The presscoverage mentioned on the talkpage is about the industry and changes in regulation and only quotes RauteMusik as an example. Time for AfD I think. Agathoclea 07:36, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

West Germany, East Germany and Germany were/are how many seperate states/nations?

Its seems that too many Wikipedia editors believe that the answer was or is 3.

As e.g. shown on talk:West Germany national football team and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/West Germany national football team, or by the repeated use of phrases like In 1990, East Germany and West Germany unified into Germany, people insist that pre-1990 West Germany was very different from post-1990 Germany, and that an East/West merger of equals created something new. It seems that the continuity of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to present, with changes of the number of states in 1952, 1957 and 1990, is either unknown to many, or is deliberately denied for reasons one can only speculate about. Attempts to belittle German successes according to divide and conquer are hard to overlook in some cases.

Regarding football, people tried to point out that it was the now-defunct West Germany national football team that won three World Cups, not the Germany national football team, which has won only an European Championship in 1996. This problem was at least solved, but similar views are still promoted elsewhere on Wikipedia.

In Olympics, the results of German athletes are split fivefold under the codes GER, FRG, GDR, EUA, and SAA, with four teams appearing in the Winter Olympics medal count and Summer Olympics medal count (which are highly unofficial all-time counts not tallied by the IOC, thus OR). One can argue that the GDR team was something different from 1968 to 1988, but FRG, EUA and GER surely represent only one Germany, and not something else. Currently, there are

Many athletes were part of two of these teams, some possibly of three.

Regarding German nationality, was there one, two, or more between 1949 and 1990? Or before 1871, none at all? Did the first German travel into space in 1978, 1983 or 1992? Or was no German in space before 1990, only persons from East Germany and West Germany, as Timeline of astronauts by nationality suggests? -- Matthead ^discuß! O 01:47, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I've proposed mergers of the articles covering West Germany and the United German team to Germany, as well as mergers of the three alltime medal counts into one article. -- Matthead ^discuß! O 18:25, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I do agree with labeling athletes or astronauts under the country label that they competed. Nevertheless West Germany is just an informal name of the Federal Republic of Germany which now informally gets called Germany - so there should be no separate articles unless the volume of data is that much that parts of the main article can be extracted. As far as the question of when the first German was in space there are a number of things to consider. West Germany always considered itself as "Germany" and responsible for people living in East Germany - while East Germany had the view of both being separate entities. The key to get a balanced article would be to get a) current sources discussing the subject and b) at least footnoting the issues. Agathoclea 07:47, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it is quite silly to claim that the post-reunification FRG team and the "United Team of Germany" are separate nations, while post-reunification FRG is the same team as Nazi Germany. However, listing the astronauts twice with footnotes is fine. (Funny how perception of nationality works: When I was a kid, my hero was Ulf Merbold, the first German in space. Sigmund Jaehn was just a guy from some foreign country called DDR). Kusma (talk) 08:02, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Taking another look at the timeline - The only thing that needs changing is the footnote to the Westgerman entry. Nationality in all cases was noted as of time of flight

Well, change it. Sigmund Jähn, during live coverage of his flight, apparently said "als erster Deutscher", not "als erster DDR-Bürger". As both Jähn and Merbold are listed, this implies that they had (or have?) a different nationality. Its time folks from Taiwan, Hongkong and both Korean states get shot to space, to make Timeline of astronauts by nationality a little bit more interesting. I could agree that Jähn and Merbold represented different states and likely had a different set of citizenships (even though both were born in Thüringen during Nazi Germany rule, Merbold has "rübergemacht" in 1960 and was hardly regraded as a GDR citizen there). Jähn may have been in space, but was he allowed to travel to the West? He surely could have promoted the GDR there - or were they afraid he might stay there, like many other? The nationality of both was and is German. For example, pre-1871 Germans are listed on Wikipedia and elsewhere as Germans, not as Prussians, Holy Roman Emperians, Mecklenburg-Strelitzians, Schwarzburg-Sondershausenians, Salm-Reifferscheid-Dyckians or whatever. How come a certain German state, which is as defunct as these examples, is treated differently? Thinking about that, the list should be moved to Timeline of first space traveler by state. Hell, according to Wikipedia there are no space travelers yet, but several kind of -nauts.-- Matthead ^discuß! O 18:25, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Possibly silly question, but: The statement as "first German" in space, isn't that because both East and West considered only their own state to be Germany and the other as some foreign power? Kusma's statement above shows that this was the case in the west, so wasn't it the same in the east? If so, then this "first German" statement might not hold as much significance as you think. Sure, their nationality now is German, but saying that one represented E.Germany and the other the W.Germany at the time is perfectly correct. Work on the footnote if you wish, but the table entries should be left as they are, with the historically correct names. You wouldn't want to change Gagarin from Soviet to Russian, would you? - 52 Pickup 18:54, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

By WP:BOLD, I've moved the article name to Timeline of first space traveler by state, and fixed the intro accordingly. That hopefully clarifies the issue, also regarding Sovietunion/Russia etc. Regarding the perception of West Germans kids in the 1970s, I agree that those East Germans which appeared on TV, mainly old politicians kissing each other and robot-like medal winners who hardly smiled, were looked at as if they were some zombies, neither dead nor alive, or in this case, neither foreigners with a proper identity of their own, nor proper Germans. Surely they were much more strangers than Austrians, Swiss or South Tyrolians, but that was purely a result of GDR policy and travel restrictions. During a football game in 1974, the incomprehensible answer to "who are the guys in blue we're playing against?" was "Das sind auch Deutsche". Kids reading books of 19th century writer Karl May were puzzled that he described people from Magdeburg etc. as Landsleute. It was the GDR which had problems with the name "Deutschland", the newspaper Neues Deutschland seemingly the only instance where they did not remove this term, probably as the "new" sufficiently distanced it from any "old". I wonder why they did not just call their state Karl-Marx-Land, similar to Chemnitz. If the people there would have supported a reformed and sovereign GDR in 1990 and later, I could maybe accept the pre-1990 GDR as a proper state. They chose to call "Wir sind ein Volk", displayed DDR on their cars, and cut out the socialist symbol from the flag. In hindsight, the GDR was hardly more than a KGB/Stasi prison camp which should not be regarded as on an equal footing with the proper Germany, the FRG. Is the current North Korean state as legitimate as South Korea? The commies in the GDR had four decades to conduct a political experiment on humans which were not asked. Their failure became obvious in 1953, in 1961, and finally in 1989, leaving ostalgia, the Soli and a call for more Kitas behind. But then, some people miss the Kaiserreich or certain thousands years, too. Saar (League of Nations) and Saar protectorate were similar experiments. -- Matthead ^discuß! O 20:47, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I have returned the list to its stated purpose and name. It has been discussed before that the name is ambiguous; however the place for that discussion is on that pages talk page not here. The use of "nationality" to indicate country or citizenship is common and state is just as ambiguous. In fact the nationality article that Matthead links to above lists his interpretation as an alternate usage near the bottom of the page. Space traveller was never intended as it opens another whole can of worms. Rmhermen 18:46, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the Olympic examples posed here are misleading. Teams at the Olympic Games represent unique National Olympic Committees, and that is how the results are tabulated. There is no question that there were two NOCs operating during the "East/West years", and from 1968-1988 they sent fully independent teams. The United Team of Germany was a unique circumstance, where the two NOCs cooperated to send a single team to the 1956-1964 Games. Presumably, that's why the IOC has decided to retroactively use a different trigramme code (EUA) for the results of that team. Even though the team represented the same geographic region as today's "GER", there were two NOCs involved instead of today's single NOC. Perhaps if the Korean Olympic Committee and the Olympic Committee of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea decide to send a unified Korean team at a future Games (instead of just marching together at the Opening Ceremonies, as they have recently done), then the IOC will use a different code than "KOR" (which now just represents South Korea), but that's my speculation. Now, I'm not sure why the IOC decided to use FRG for West Germany from 1968-1988 instead of GER, since there is continuity of the same NOC (German Olympic Sports Confederation ), but they did.

As for the set of seven "summary level" articles you mentioned above, there has been discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Olympics about what to do with them (in general, for all nations), and I suggest that the discussion continue there. In Germany's case, there are 50 distinct per-NOC, per-Games articles in Category:Germany at the Olympics, and I would not object to seeing them all summarized into a single Germany at the Olympics article instead of the current set of seven. But I would object to any changes to those 50 "... at the year Olympics" articles, since they precisely represent the specific teams that competed at each Games.

Hope this helps, Andrwsc 20:45, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

See answer at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Olympics#From_WikiProject_Germany. -- Matthead ^discuß! O 00:36, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

More confusion: There is History of Germany since 1945 which a large section History_of_Germany_since_1945#West_Germany, as well as the POV fork separate article West Germany ("common name used in English") which should be at Federal Republic of Germany (1949-1990), and merged/linked with the history article. I had already moved it, but it was moved back. See Talk:West Germany. -- Matthead ^discuß! O 23:12, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

"Gun control, Hitler's last legacy"

I think articles dealing with claims and comments about versions of the Waffengesetz, especially the 1938 version, need some attention:

The history of the law itself is now at German Weapons Law, moved there from National Weapons Law.-- Matthead ^discuß! O 15:09, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Copyright status of Notgeld issued following World War I

Does anybody know what the correct copyright status is of the various Notgeld notes issued following WWI? The images on the German Wikipedia seem to be tagged with generic PD tags but I'd like to know for sure, e.g. if they qualify as Amtliches Werk? In most cases these notes are signed by the local Gemeindevorsteher.

I have a couple of notes in my collection relating from the Schleswig Plebiscites and they would make nice illustrations on this article, but I don't wish to violate German law. Thanks in advance. Valentinian ^{T / C} 09:30, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

At a minimum {{PD-banknote}} could be applied together with a variation of {{Money-EU banknote}} . As for the actual status of the specific notes I have not got a clue. It might be prudent to ask at commons where more of the experts are watching. Agathoclea 17:20, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Money-EU banknote won't do as these images have nothing to do with the ECB. Thanks for the tip about the other template, I hadn't noticed it. I'll make a post on Commons. Valentinian ^{T / C} 22:54, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I should have read your reply twice. If I understand you correctly, you mean that a legal notice should be added something like the text on Money-EU. Agree completely. Valentinian ^{T / C} 23:39, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Hiding TOC

20-Aug-2007: I've noticed, this weekend, the Table-of-Contents (TOC) "[hide]" option has been fixed to allow shrinking/hiding the TOC detail lines. This change will require reformatting thousands of articles to auto-reformat image/text placement, but we knew this day would come, and so it has. I have begun editing articles, with explanation "Allow HIDDEN Table of Contents.." noting, for each article, the changes to allow Hide/Show TOC. An easy fix is to stack the earlier right-side images/tables (as a series of "Image:" and table definitions) near the top of the article, depending on top paragraphs to provide filler text. The text-clipping glitch has NOT been fixed [yet] for small-then-large image stacking; consequently, make stacked-images similar size or put narrow images after wider. Images much later in the article should auto-reformat fine, as is, without moving them. -Wikid77 09:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Noted: Eclipsing of text (when wider images are stacked after narrow) has NOT been fixed: stack images in wider-then-narrow order. -Wikid77 09:57, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Weimar Republic Good Article review

One of this project's good articles, Weimar Republic, has been nominated for review of it's GA status. Anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Drewcifer3000 19:49, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany/Assessment

Hi, some of the articles listed for a reassessment on the page weren't checked since June. It would be nice if some of you check those listed articles before we got a list from A like Aachen to Z like Zeppelin. --Gabriel-Royce 21:07, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Schleswig-Holstein

Would anyone be willing to work with me on getting this article up to featured article status?? Having seen an episode of the British documentary Police, Camera, Action! about this region, I thought this was as good a reason as any to start trying to get the article up to this status.

Also, I am starting an article on the Landespolizei Schleswig-Holstein, if anyone can expand this for me that would be very helpful and I would appreciate that.

I'm worried this project might be becoming inactive, so I'm trying to get it started up again. Thanks, --SunStar Net ^talk 10:29, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup

I think the growing number of articles with some kind of cleanup template on them is one of the biggest problems facing Wikipedia. Currently, there is a backlog to October 2005, so it takes almost two years to clean an article up. Over 26,000 articles or 1,3% of all articles are tagged for cleanup and as far as I'm aware this backlog is growing. And these figures only include those articles tagged with the basic cleanup template. If the same percentage applies to Germany-related articles, then there are over 200 articles within our scope that need cleanup, but I suppose there are a lot more, since there are also articles tagged with the copyedit template or one of the other 120 or so cleanup templates. The only solution I see to this is the WikiProjects cleaning up the articles in their scope. The Germany project has a Category:Germany articles needing attention, which could be used for articles needing cleanup. Or we could create one or several categories, specifically for the various kind of "cleanups" that need to be done. What I think would be important is to add all Germany-related articles to one category and then getting to work. Maybe someone can get a bot to check every article with the Germany-banner, if it has any of the templates in Category:Cleanup templates, and then add the articles to a certain category.--Carabinieri 12:02, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Article on Martin Hoop

This article is a translation of [2] Bernhard Hoop 03:42, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Free Association of German Trade Unions

I've been putting a lot of work in to the article about the Free Association of German Trade Unions recently. I would like to nominate it to become a good article in the next few days, but I am worried that my slight sympathy for the organization might've influenced my writing. So I was wondering if someone could check on this and on whether it meets GA criteria in general.--Carabinieri 04:45, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Jakob / Jacob Binck

Binck was a 16th century German illustrator and painter that worked in both Germany, Denmark and Sweden. He painted Gustav Vasa of Sweden and created illustrations for the first Danish bible (image:Christian den Tredjes våben - Binck 1550.png) Does anybody know how his first name is normally spelled in Germany? Scandinavian sources use both "Jacob" and "Jakob". Valentinian ^{T / C} 22:01, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

The name can generally spelled both ways in German. I've found both ways of spelling it Binck's name in German on the internet, though "Jakob" seems to be just a bit more common. I also found a few German websites that used "Bink" instead of "Binck". I hope that helps you.--Carabinieri 02:07, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, it did indeed. His signature on the image I linked to above is IcB but since the rest of the text is written in Latin, "Ic" is probably just an abbreviation for IACOBVS. I think I'll place my bets on "Jakob Binck". Valentinian ^{T / C} 06:39, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Potsdamer Platz moved to Potsdam Square

User:Rex Germanus has moved the article to Potsdam Square citing it is the more commonly used name in English. I kinda doubt it (google-testing is highly inaccurate, but 993 hits for "Potsdam Square" vs. 2 million hits for "Potsdamer Platz" are a big difference), but has Rex has a certain temper when IP users doubt his edits I'd like to have a source that "Potsdam Square" is the predominantly used name for the place, or lacking that, support from established users to revert the move. 84.145.229.26 11:54, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Most squares in Germany use platz as far as I know. Kingjeff 15:30, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, in German they do, but the question is how is the place primarily referenced in English? Is it "Potsdamer Platz" or "Potsdam Square". I don't want to revert Rex here, since he has quite a temper if a IP editor (even worse, a German one) dares to revert him... I recall that Wurst/Würst/Würstchen fiasco. 84.145.229.26 15:44, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it's the same in English. For some reason, using German words is a touchy subject for User:Rex Germanus. Kingjeff 15:59, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

"Potsdamer Platz" is used more frequently in English (see Talk:Potsdamer Platz). Olessi 16:04, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

The name of a place as well known as this should be in its original form. That is what most people will be inputing in the search field to find information about it. You can then have in the text the English translation. (Note Trafalgar Square is not call Kap Trafalger Platz in German Wikopedia!) Also if you go through the Fodor web site or go through Lonelyplant site it is always called Potsdamer Platz. Traveler100 18:21, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Tell that to User:Rex Germanus. He seems to be on a crusade to expurge all "German" from the Wikipedia (besides his usual anti-German bias). Did you know he tried to rename a lot of Names of Persons like "Werner von Orseln" to "Werner of Orseln" or "Günther von Wüllersleben" to "Günther of Wüllersleben". He seems far less eager to move names in Dutch to their english equivalent... He's openly admitting his bias, but indulging it at the same time. I'm honestly considering a RfC now. 84.145.246.227 14:59, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Just for the record, after a recent block had been lifted with the sole purpose of defending himself on the (now closed) Community sanction noticeboard, the person in question made edits elsewhere and managed to get himself again on ANI and RfAr. A siteban is now proposed by the admin that has blocked him for a month. -- Matthead ^discuß! O 03:59, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Removal of Anne Frank from project page on grounds of being Dutch

According to the Anne Frank article she was German until she became stateless in 1941.--Boson 06:16, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I reverted the edit, which also introduced some non-FAs into our FA list (is that list up to date?) Kusma (talk) 06:37, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Beneš decrees

There is a Request for Comment going on how to include the Beneš decrees in the article about Slovakia. Please add your comments if interested at Talk:Slovakia. Squash Racket 17:59, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Project tagging and assessment

Hello. Just wanted to give you a heads-up that as part of an article assessment drive for WikiProject Ships, I recently tagged the Kriegsmarine/Reichsmarine/Bundesmarine ship disambiguation pages with the {{WikiProject Germany}} project banner as well as our normal {{WikiProject Ships}} and {{WPMILHIST}} banners. While I do not generally assess articles for projects of which I am not a member, the instructions at WikiProject Germany/Assessment were very clear and concise, so I went ahead and marked each of the dab pages as having a class of Disambig and an importance of NA. Please let me know if you have any questions, issues, or if I screwed it up. Thanks, Kralizec! (talk) 03:38, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Any help appreciated. Agathoclea 11:28, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Using "als" for Alemannic or Albanian?

There is "D’alemannisch Wikipedia" at "http://als.wikipedia.org/", but as a result of Wikipedia:User_categories_for_discussion/Archive/August_2007#Category:User_als_and_subcats and [3], many users of {{user als}} are now lost without any category, neither Category:User als-N, Category:User als, Category:User swg nor Category:User gsw. I seems the discussion will now continue at WT:UCFD. See also {{user gsw}} and {{user swg}}. -- Matthead ^discuß! O 14:49, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Why does the alemannic Wikipedia use "als"? Is that a superseded ISO code? If there is confusion with the ISO categories, you could try to put a disambiguation notice on the category page and invent something new (like "de-als") or just ask all Wikipedians who use the userbox to sort themselves into either swg or gsw. Kusma (talk) 08:55, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

The Alemannic Wikipedia was started in 2003 as Alsatian Wikipedia, and soon expanded to cover all of the Alemannic German (Alemannische Sprache). Thus, it predates by far the ISO 639-3 pick of als for Tosk Albanian which was published in February 2007. IMHO, those Ethnologue codes taken over by ISO are in many cases totally arbitrary, and need to be rectified with involvement of the affected native speakers, especially when a language is concerned that has millions of native speakers in the heart of Europe, in several countries, yet an ISO code like gsw for "Schwyzerdütsch, A language of Switzerland". Basically, that's an incompetent insult to all those outside Switzerland. Better codes for Alemannic in general, like ale, have been picked for the 490 speakers of Unangam Tunuu. ISO needs to fix this mess and put the newer 639-series standards on hold, rather than blindly rely on Ethnologue/SIL International, "a Christian linguistic service organization which studies lesser-known languages primarily to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language." What a joke, do we live in 19th century, or what? IMHO, even Wikipedia is more qualified than this bunch of amateur cunning linguists in a self-appointed missionary position. -- Matthead ^discuß! O 03:28, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Robla-Südharz

ref: Roßla-Südharz and Verwaltungsgemeinschaft, here via Stolberg, Saxony-Anhalt

Some 'concept focused' edits needed

German transliterated names like Saxony-Anhalt are bad enough to cope with (to readers used to English phraseology) with out unnecessarily borrowing loan words and creating article titles with unusual unicode font containing words. Being the English wiki, such should be redirects if used ever.

elaboration

It would be good if the project participants were chary of using glyphs such as 'ß' unless absolutely necessary in a name. Certainly, a less visually jarring (is this monitor acting up! One thinks for a moment!) rendition such as "Robla-Südharz" should be found. I believe that is still policy per WP:MOS, as well! (Not knowing the meaning or lingual impact of the character 'ß', I've resisted (A "desperate" fight, that! <g>) moving Roßla-Südharz boldly for now, but suggest modern Europe terms like Verwaltungsgemeinschaft ("Collective Municipality", I infer) and such weird spellings be avoided.

On the other hand, Collective Municipality is a perfectly good article title and has enough scope that it should be given a clear English explanation, which is to say, an article. Perhaps that hypothetical article would clarify such nebulous references (to non-Europeans) such as Amt (country subdivision) by making the distinctions more plain. "Country subdivision" itself, like "subnational entity" is a new level of meaning to most (American, at least) people, and German related article phrasings need be chary of the social blind-spot.

I've done 'clarification edits' on quite a few German topic articles for such clarity, and will be glad to look over such and vett it should anyone care to have me review it. By the same reasoning, it would be good if a few of you were willing to vett some of the changes I make, as cross check needs back to de:wikipedia are something I can't do myself and I do visit a lot of German based articles updating links in 1632 series. Any volunteers out there? (That second link worries me!) Best regards // FrankB 17:43, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Please do not suggest deliberate misspellings for names containing an ß, which is not an "unusual Unicode character" (it is present in most fonts nowadays). For the translation of German country subdivisions, we usually use the EU recommended terms (see Wikipedia:German-English translation requests/Translation guide), but perhaps we need to further standardize some of our articles. In cases of doubt, using the precise German terminology with a link leading to an explanation will be better than a hand-made translation that may lead to more confusion. Kusma (talk) 08:52, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Ahem -- the point is 'a font (glyph) is NOT part of ENGLISH, and this be en.wikipedia, NOT de.wikipedia. There is almost certainly some standard transliteration (translation plus representation--a mapping of equivalence in meaning) for whatever that alphabetical character is called to some English alphabetical equivalent—most likely, several letters combined, I would guess. After all, German was translated to English for centuries before the advent of the type-writer, much less the Personal Computer, and type-writers had glyphs specific to the language being represented for the most part. In coding theory, a glyph is a coded mapping to a visual form, but the form in question is alien to English.

Please refer to WP:NAME, especially the section an links in WP:NAME#Special_characters and WP:NAME#Use_English_words. German alphabet is not generally acceptable in a wikipedia article name (even such multilanguage glyphs as "à, ë, è, ê, ï, î, ō, or ǖ/ű" are intolerable in an article title unless they also are mapped to a English alphabet equivalent by the wiki software [those would usually be such vowel forms sorted and acted upon as the plain vanilla characters: "a, e, i, o, and u" in general, where all the little dots and angled thingys and squiggles and so forth are ignored by the search engine, not an very alien letter which is probably a non-vowel!) not least because it immediately violates the WP:NAME premise (read the introduction above the Table of Contents carefully!) in naming things convenient to the READERS, WHO MAY BE TRYING TO SEARCH SOMETHING.

How do they type those? They, have no handy Css character overlays to type in such a unicode character, are probably totally ignorant of the existance of unicode at all, and have a keyboard not coded to generate one... so names need be formated using the standard 26 letters of the English alphabet. Period, dot, end.

That's been policy all along, and if this project is violating such, then you need to police yourselves. Chinese and Indian and Arabic editors don't name articles in their glyphs, and neither should you here in the Germany project. If you can't find the proper transliterated form and spelling, ask someone smart enough to do so. Find out the most common transliterated spelling, and redirect your glyph-things to that, if you can't avoid them entirely (which would be the most proper thing outside a line in an article using {{lang-de}}). Sorry, but that's the way it's got to be... the customer-reader can't follow that glyph dance you're leading. That's nearly as stupid as game designers designing video graphics for the latest greatest video chip sets—and cutting their own market to a very few enthusiasts. Good products address the Mass Market, not the niche, and voluntary or not, this is a product. This version of the encyclopedia is not in a niche, but at the forefront for billions world-wide. It's practices need reflect that broad base of users. Not confuse them!

I trust I haven't come down too hard on this, but in this case, since it maps funny, looks alien, and doesn't work... try going to "Robla-Südharz" yourself, and get this Ahem! That's an easy test guys! If it can't be reached using the standard 26 letters, it shouldn't be used. Try instead "Besancon" which also uses an alien consonant character... but has been cured by a proper redirect. The difference is simple: Answer the question "is 'ß' close enough to spell as 'B' or 'b'?", then do so, as the word fails the more easily recognizable test of this. Note that there is NO PROBLEM using {{redirectstohere|Roßla-Südharz}} above the article title -- which puts the German familiar form right out there on top where German readers will see it, leaving the English version for the article title. Try that, you may like it! <g> I will grant you it will be a good thing for German keyboard coded readers to have both. But there is a vast difference between glyph friendly and proper English representation, as I hope this gets across.

This is what that looks like:

Roßla-Südharz redirects here.

...above the title line, of course.

Believe it or not, but I'm usually the last one here to cite a guideline or rule, and I've dealt with a fair amount of language issues on the commons and on Meta over the years. Hell, I'm usually THE ONE catching the heat (hell! <g>) for a loose interpretations. Just see this for proof!. Be well, but use English spelt (er... spelled) titles! (See, we can't even get the same spelling on things with the same meaning half the time in English! and you want to introduce German glyphs as well! Oh, my poor feeble mind quakes at the concept! Arrrrrgggggghhhh!!! <g>) I can still use a volunteer, for occasional fact checking, especially one good with (and preferably one with an personal interest in) the Geography and history of Germany/Central Europe. Best regards // FrankB 17:25, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

We are not really talking about glyphs here but about characters. The characters ßäöüÄÖÜ are all Latin characters and members of the Latin-1 character set. The Manual of Style does not, as I read it, prohibit their use. See, for instance, in the article you mentioned: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)#Disputed issues:

There is disagreement over what article title to use when a native name uses the Latin alphabet with diacritics (or "accent marks") but general English usage omits the diacritics. A survey that ran from April 2005 to October 2005 ended with a result of 62–46 (57.4%–42.6%) in favor of diacritics, which was a majority but was not considered to be a consensus. There is disagreement as to whether German, Icelandic and Faroese names need transliteration for the characters ß, þ and ð.

Disagreement does not mean consensus, and the majority was, apparently, in favour of diacritics. --Boson 22:13, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

You have only to use ss for ß and add an e to all the other Umlets if your computer doesn't have them or you are unable to find them.The meaning is exactly the same.For instance we live in Füssen,but in computer language,in a URL for instance,its spelt Fuessen.It seems silly to have an argument on such a small point when so much needs doing to improve the articles already in this section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rosenthalenglish (talk • contribs) 10:44, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:Name is about how the name gets spelled in English works. I know that our local newspaper (Western Telegraph) is very capable of writing diacritics when our resident German builder goes bust. They even managed to spell my name right. Which proves the point that English sources use Latin-1 unless certain names are predominantly spelled differently in English ie Munich. Agathoclea 12:32, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

If we do use any transliteration for the ß, we use what older scholarly works use, which is "ss". Using a B or a β instead the ß is extremely unprofessional; the only place where this was done in the real world is in poorly translated computer manuals from the 1980s. If you think that redirects with B substituted for the ß should exist, you can go and create them. But the article titles should be correct as in German or follow mainstream English use (the last case where we debated this was Meißen; as far as I can recall it was moved to Meissen as there is a lot of literature about this city as seat of a German bishop, and most of the older literature uses this spelling). Mainstream English use is moving towards use of diacritics and the ß though; part of a general worldwide trend to use native names instead of translated names. Hours of discussion have been spent on the topic here already, and there is a solid no consensus on what to do, so we usually follow the idea of WP:ENGVAR and keep the spelling of a page's main author. Kusma (talk) 06:26, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Cities subproject

I am pleased to announce that as of today, every city, town and municipality in Germany has an article in English Wikipedia! A big thank you to all contributors!

In the next phase of the subproject cities, we will improve the articles by adding infoboxes. Everyone is invited to help. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany/Cities for instructions. Markussep ^Talk 18:51, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Bravo - good job. STTW (talk) 19:39, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

--

It is pleasant that there are so many articles about German localities. Unfortunately most of them are stubs and include errors. For example most localities, that are "Gemeinden" (municipalities) in Germany are described as "towns" in the English wiki. Of Course a "Gemeinde" could also be a "Stadt" (town, city), but mostly a location that is called Gemeinde is a "Dorf" (village) in Germany.

Classification

Weiler (hamlet) - location smaller than a village but larger than a grange. A Weiler is not independent. It belongs to a municipality (village, town, city) or to a district of the municipality. A Weiler has usually no church, tavern, or else.

Dorf (village) - a Dorf can be an independent municipality or a district (suburb) of a town or city. It is a locality that has not the status of a Stadt. It is larger than a Weiler, has got a church, a tavern, small stores, even supermarkets, a town hall or an administravive office (if it is a district). The population of a Dorf can vary from a few hundres to several thousands of people.

Stadt (town, city) - a Stadt is a municipality that has a special status. Most of the Städte (pl.) got their title in the middle age, several hundred years ago. The status assured privilegs like the market right (ever), the right of own administration, the right to build a (town/city) wall, sometimes the right to mint and issue coins, etc.

The status Stadt was awarded by the souvereign in middle age. Today it is a decision of the Ministries of State.

In 1974 for instance the Ministry of State of Baden-Württemberg has awarded the status Stadt to the municipality of Mössingen. Before Mössingen got the status of a Stadt, it was a Landgemeinde (= rural municipality = village with a municipal council). Today Mössingen is a Stadtgemeinde (= urban municipality = municipality with the status of a Stadt) with a town council. In the state of Baden-Württemberg a municipality must have minimum a population of 4500 to apply for the status Stadt. But the minimum of population is not the only condition to get the status. So a municipality with a population more than 4500 does not automatically become a Stadt in Baden-Württemberg.

However, there are municipalities with a population less than 4500 people that got the status of a Stadt. Those municipalities have got the status in middle age, because of that the Ministry of State does not withdraw their status (historical Stadtrecht). Those towns are often located in rural areas, where there was no increase of population during the age of industrialization.

In Germany there is no distinction between a town or a city, both are called Stadt. However, Städte with a population ex 100,000 are regarded as cities. I think the British distinction of town and city is plausible, but the distinction in the U.S. is confusing (different from state to state). For instance the City of Maza in North Dakota has only 5 residents. In my opinion this is ridiculous.

In Germany there is another classification of Stadt. There are types, that mark no special status:

Landstadt (rural town) - Stadt with less than 5000 residents, (often historical Stadtrecht)
Kleinstadt (small town) - Stadt with at least 5,000 but less than 20,000 residents
Mittelstadt (middle town) - Stadt with at least 20,000 but less than 100,000 residents
Großstadt (large town, city) - Stadt with at least 100,000 residents
Millionenstadt (million city) - Stadt with at least one million residents

--MaiusGermanicus (talk) 17:27, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I think most involved are aware of the town problem, which is historical in the way these articles have developed. I have tried to fix it for Bavaria some time ago, but ran out of time. I might start again on the other states. Agathoclea (talk) 17:58, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Interwikiproblems

Currently the German Wikipedia has a handful of editors who have decided that they want to get rid of interwikilink to articles on other wikipedias that they consider substandard. After their vandalism ran into opposition by the larger community they resorted to hiding interwikilink using sockpuppets. When that failed they started making WP:POINT edits like this (That editor in question was actually recently blocked for his vandalism on dewiki). I will need some help in tracking down further attempts like this - The above user has made the same edits also as IP. If you come across any more please let me have the diffs - thanks. Agathoclea 07:54, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. Olessi 21:33, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Regierungsbezirke

Shouldn't Category:Regierungsbezirk and Category:Former Regierungsbezirk be retitled, as categories should be in plural form? ie Category:Regierungsbezirke or, if translated, Category:Government regions of Germany. Olessi 22:15, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

The parent category is plural so I think it would be consistent to make it plural as well. Why not stick it on CfD and let the experts decide which version to use (sideeffect: a bot will do the legwork of making all the alterations) Agathoclea 23:31, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I opened up a CFD discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 November 1#Category:Regierungsbezirk. Olessi 21:08, 1 November 2007 (UTC)