Wikipedia talk:German-speaking Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 4

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Requested articles

Adam Mathias requested several articles using the full form found at Wikipedia:German-English translation requests. I've shortened them to one line each. Requesting Germans in Latin America, he wrote: "A lot could be done here, from escaped Nazis, to the list of famous Latin Americans of German origin (Stroessner, Kirchner, etc.), the alpine villages in the middle of the Brazilian and Venezuelan jungles, to the numerous Mennonite, Danube Swabian, and Volga German communities in the Pampas/Chaco/Entre Rios/Parana." Angr/talk 21:49, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I've added an article about Erwin Pröll today. I think it can be deleted from the "requested article" list. --DocBrown 22:27, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Done the same for Herbert Sausgruber. I dont know much about austrian politic so I limited it to a translation of the german article. Ive done the same with Prölls Article and noted it on the discussion page. --DocBrown 10:06, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

And again me: Translated Franz Voves . This time I strongly recommend that someone with better english would correct the article, because I think my word order in this article is particularly bad. --DocBrown 10:39, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

East German revolution

I was suprised to find there is not even a stub on such an important subject (used in 130 books, 200 academic articles and 700 web pages).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 20:10, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Great suggestion! For a start, we could just translate de:Wende (DDR). We have a stub at Peaceful revolution already, which might be the better title, so East German revolution should just be the redirect. There is also not enough coverage at German reunification. We do have Monday demonstrations in GDR already, but we need a lot more also there. Specifically, the 1989-10-09 Monday demonstration would merit an article of its own. Kusma (討論) 20:35, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Second that. I came across it the fact that we don't have an English site for Die Wende. I tentatively linked my article to the as of yet non-existing "Turnaround (GDR)". --Mmounties (Talk) 13:29, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

German reunification exists and could be expanded. Turnaround is a bit to contrived as an expression. Agathoclea 14:08, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, we can always fix that.  :) (Was just my first stab at it).. --Mmounties (Talk) 22:07, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

If anything "Wende" is one of the expressions that are used in English to my knowledge without being translated. Agathoclea 23:25, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

True, true, come to think of it... Now that you say it I remember having heard that word in English. --Mmounties (Talk) 00:31, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

East German Revolution? compare it to what happened in Romania, or later Russia or Georgia it was hardly a revolution but a peaceful change in the system. more like a restoration one could argue... Gryffindor 00:46, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

That is why I would prefer the title Peaceful revolution (that article is currently just a stub) to East German revolution. Wende currently redirects to German reunification. The coverage should be considerbly expanded, and I think a lot of the early history, definitely everything before 1989-11-09 and possibly everything until the Volkskammer elections of 1990-03-18 should be covered in Peaceful revolution, with Wende redirecting there. Kusma (討論) 01:13, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I just did a google check on that term - it is not an obvious term related to the events in Germany. Wende would be better with a category of Peacefull revolutions. Agathoclea 08:52, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Even worse, you would need to list the Iran revolution of the late 70s as that was called "peaceful revolution' by its makers. Add Quebec, Uruquay and a few others. Agathoclea 09:12, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

My experience on Wikipedia has been, if proper translations are simply not possible since it clouds the issue (happens alot with German terms), then it's probably better to use the original name, such as Wende. The article can always be renamed and moved by consensus later, but better to get started first. Gryffindor 13:14, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

However - and sorry to put a spanner in the works - as a native English speaker with an interest in German matters, I have never heard "Wende" used independently in an English context, and most English speakers would simply not understand it. We would however understand "Peaceful Revolution" (if necessary for distinction from other peaceful revolutions, "Peaceful Revolution (East Germany)" for context) and mentally connect it to the "Velvet Revolution", "Orange Revolution", "Musical Revolution" and the rest.Staffelde 13:58, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[1] :-) Agathoclea 16:16, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Agathoclea, but I don't think a piece for the use of a university German department really counts! As I say, in a general English-speaking context with no particular German bias, very few people would know what it meant. Better surely to keep "Wende" as a redirect to a more obvious article title. Staffelde 17:35, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

But then it is not a single university using it in that way - it seems common usage in British accademics. Incidentally I did a number of google searches and living in the UK google give me the option to view UK-only pages. The searchterms I used where "wende" on its own and then together with "1989". An US user might want to comment on how google throws out US only sites, if it does it that way. Agathoclea 18:31, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Here are Google Scholar. and Google Books results for "Wende + 1989 + Germany". Olessi 20:41, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I as an American never heard the term Wende until I moved to Germany in 1997. And anyway, if what we're looking for is an article about the 1989 protests in East Germany and escapes via Hungary and Austria, I'm not sure Wende is the right word anyway. My impression is that Wende refers mostly to the surreal period between November 9, 1989, and October 3, 1990; at least when someone says vor der Wende I interpret that as meaning before Nov. 9, '89, while nach der Wende to me means after Oct. 3, '90. Angr/talk 22:34, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I second that; as a native Germand and English speaker I agree that "Wende" is not used in regular American English, except occasionally in scholarly texts, but even then the term is almost always footnoted, referenced, or somehow circumscribed to give the reader a sense of its meaning and cultural connotations.

The term itself is actually very difficult to translate: it not only describes the time period that User talk:Angr mentioned above, it also encompasses a cultural revolution that took place in the minds of Germany's citizens, as well as the character of the nation itself. The difficulty of translating the cultural connotations of the term is comparable to the difficulty in translating terms such as "9/11". It so happens that this term is actually calqued into German sometimes and is commonly understood among German speakers. Other terms, such as Abolitionism are also difficult to translate into a forgeign language, so German simply uses de:Abolitionismus, however, I can imagine that it would be more difficult to translate the exact meaning of this term into a non-romance language, such as, for instance Farsi. I will do some more research into the Wende issue and see if we can come up with a consensus for a title. German reunification means Deutsche Wiedervereinigung. The German word "Wende" has a meaning of its own, so the title of the related German article is de:Wende (DDR). The translation Peaceful revolution, while somewhat close is too broad, and, if narrowed by adding (East Germany), is adulterated and loses its meaning altogether. Please add your suggestions for translations below, or discuss on my talk page. (Patrick 03:28, 2 June 2006 (UTC))

--list your suggestions here --

*East German Revolution Anorak2 00:20, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

*The Re-turn

*The Return

(the "Wende" (turn) back to a unified Germany -- (Patrick 05:40, 4 June 2006 (UTC)))

@Angr: Disagree slightly. "Wende" in German refers to the events that lead to the fall of the GDR regime. In the narrower sense it starts at the demonstrations of Oct 7 1989 and ends at the first free elections in East Germany, March 18 1990, when all the major goals had been achieved. The fall of the Berlin wall is certainly not the beginning, but already one of its first results. In a broader sense, the refugee waves of summer 1989 are included, as well as the immediate aftermath, which is of course reunification, Oct 3 1990.

Incidentally the term "Wende" was coined by Egon Krenz in hist first television speech after Honecker was ousted. There's speculation if he coined it for the government takeover by Helmut Kohl in West Germany in 1982, which was also named "Wende" at the time. Anorak2 00:19, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I expanded (and improved) German reunification, in the article "Wende" is translated as "The Change". I disagree with this translation, because "Wende" is a much more dramatic event than a mere change, which would usually translate to "Der Wechsel". We should vote on how the term should be translated / transliterated in the German reunification article (if at all). (Patrick 05:40, 4 June 2006 (UTC))

I don't think any of "Re-turn", "Return" or "Change" is an adequate translation of Wende. I think the best thing is to use the German term and have an article called Wende. There, we can explain in a little detail what the literal meaning of Wende is; as far as I know, the most literal translations are "turnabout/turnaround", "about-face" or "U-turn". Angr (talk) 11:48, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

In everyday language, the most common use of the term translates simply to "turn", usually used as a verb; however, it may also be used as a gerund without necessarily referring to the reunification events in question (see examples). (Patrick 11:03, 5 June 2006 (UTC))

Examples:

• sich abwenden - to turn aside, to deviate from sth.
• sich an jmd. wenden - turn turn to so. (e.g. for advice), to address someone
• verwenden - to use (sth. to turn sth. into sth. else)
• sich in eine Richtung wenden - to turn into a certain direction (e.g. turn right at the intersection)

It's difficult for me to believe that the German term would be used in the English language, especially by someone who is looking for information about this subject, as other native English speakers confirmed. In the United States, especially, this term would be very obscure and would neither be cited (properly) nor would it be accessible to the appropriate audience, since no one uses this term. Of course, I would support redirecting the English "Wende" to the actual article, but I don't think that this would be the most appropriate title. Since there obviously seems to be no commonly accepted translation, we must be creative. -- (Patrick 11:01, 5 June 2006 (UTC))

We are looking at a specific use of the term that gets used in its German form by English-speaking accademics to describe a specific event in German history and not a three-point-turn in a 30-mile-an-hour-zone. Agathoclea 11:08, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd support East German peaceful revolution for these reasons:

• The German article de:Wende (DDR) defines the word as (my rough translation and italics) the peaceful revolution in the GDR, the time of the change from being a socialist state to being a democracy, between autumn 1989 and spring 1990.
• "Convention: Name your pages in English and place the native transliteration on the first line of the article unless the native form is more commonly used in English than the English form." Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Use_English_words - the word "Wende" is used in English, but needs explanation (e.g. here), and I would not say it is used more commonly than any of the English ways of expressing the idea.
  • On the BBC news site, Wende is used once, with an explanation [2]
  • On the Guardian newspaper site it is used twice, with an explanation. [3] [4]
  • (no uses on Times Online site)
  • (no uses on Washington Post site)
  • One example, with explanation, on LA Times site [5]

In all these examples, the word "Wende" is brought up as "the German word for" the event, which is the fall of the Berlin wall, or German reunification, according to the articles. So even where it is mentioned in English, it is not always understood. Peaceful revolution, on the other hand, is quite clear.

• Some examples of "peaceful revolution" used in this way:
  • "the peaceful revolution of 1989" (Guardian newspaper)
  • "the east's peaceful revolution of 1989-90" germany-info
  • "... West German government built on the peaceful revolution with an unprecedented transfer of wealth. " (Washington Post)
  • "the "Peaceful Revolution" of 1989." (Fodor's)
  • Printed books using this phrase include "Politics and Popular Opinion in East Germany 1945-1968" by Mark Allinson, "Intellectuals, Socialism, and Dissent: The East German Opposition and Its Legacy" by John Torpey, "The New Germany in the East: Policy Agendas and Social Developments Since Unification", published by Chris Flockton, Eva Kolinsky, Rosalind M. O. Pritchard
  • According to this book the SPD and Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) talked of the "peaceful revolution".

Saint|swithin 12:29, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Alright, I'm going to be creative and suggest a couple of new terms: (Peaceful revolution is easily understood by an English speaker, but it does not capture the full meaning of the word "Wende"; I think there is too much translation loss.)

• Period of peaceful revolution (Germany)
• Transition period (Germany)
• Germany's period of transition
• Revolutionary turning point (Germany)

These are obviously a little far-fetched and as far as I know are not cited anywhere, but at least an English-speaking reader will understand and interpret these correctly the first time, without having to look up any further historical data; I tried to find something self-explanatory, because "Wende" is self-explanatory, even without deeper knowledge of German history. (Patrick 20:42, 13 June 2006 (UTC))

Sentence make head a splodieren

From de:Jugendweihe, which I'm translating: "Im Februar 1950 hatte das Zentralkomitee der SED die Mitwirkung der Partei, der Gewerkschaften und der FDJ an Jugendweihen im Sinne der früheren Freidenkerverbände abgelehnt".

"In February 1950 the Central Committee of the SUD (Socialist Unity Party) had the co-operation of the party, that refused..." and then I'm stuck. "The trade unions and Free German Youth", "youth consecrations", "in the sense of the earlier freethinking associations"... the words are all there but I have no idea how they fit together. Can anyone help?

Also, does "freireligiös" roughly correspond with "secular humanist"? I was expecting an interwiki at de:Freireligiöse Bewegung that would have made this clear, but there isn't one. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 13:00, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

You got the meaning backwards. It should be:

In February 1950, the central committee of the SED had refused the participation of the party, the unions and the FDJ at Jugenweihen that were done in the way of earlier freethought associations.

I'm not sure about "freireligiös", I know too little about the way this fits together with English usage. Kusma (討論) 13:14, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Ugh, damn commas. I'd already got the meaning backwards a different way when I was trying to think along the lines of "The SED refused the participation of the party, that had done something to the trade unions and FDJ" (obviously there was a verb missing at 'something', so I tried the alternative and equally wrong way above). Thanks for that. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 13:20, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I'd say that "freireligiös" is similar to Unitarianism. The article de:Unitarismus#Unitarier in Deutschland has something on connections between the various groups. --Rosenzweig 19:26, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I think you have two different problems, first of parsing the sentence, and second with some word meanings. I can help with the first one anyway. Here's the basic sentence structure:

In Feb. 1950, (the Central Comitte of the SED) had refused the cooperation of (the party, the trade unions and the FDJ) in (Jugendweihe as interpreted by the old free thought associations).

As to the meaning of Freidenker: This is not a religious movenent. Freidenker are non-religions (atheist, or agnostic if you will). Jugendweihe was originally an initiation ritual of these movements intended to replace Christian Confirmation rites. The communists in the GDR sort of usurped these rites and gave it a communist (or pro-GDR) meaning. Anorak2 22:10, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Verwaltungsgemeinschaft

I'm currently trying to translate this term, and the only equivalent I've come across so far is "administrative collectivity". This sounds strange to my ears, like it's not quite English. Does anyone know a better translation? Thanks. --Inge-Lyubov 12:55, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I think de:Verwaltungsgemeinschaft is basically just one of many state-level variations of de:Gemeindeverband, which our translation guide translates as "municipal association". But since there are so many variations of this concept (Samtgemeinde, Verbandgemeinde etc.), you might also keep the original German name. I don't think an exact translation of the fine variations in municipality law between German states is easily possible or even very useful. Kusma (討論) 15:10, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Muret-Sanders doesn't have a translation for this, just a gloss: mehrerer Gemeinden etc: collection of small communities that comprise local administrative units. If you use a translation, you'll still have to explain what it is in more detail at one point, or start a Verwaltungsgemeinschaft article where people can find out more. The trouble with not translating is that people with little German will find it hard to read the article when such a long, hard-to-pronounce word keeps popping up. I'd go for a longer explanation where it first occurs, then later something like "joint administration association". "Collectivity" doesn't seem quite the right word to me either.

"col·lec·tiv·i·ty

1. The quality or condition of being collective.

2. The people considered as a body or whole. "

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language

...

"1 : the quality or state of being collective

2 : a collective whole; especially : the people as a body " Merriam-Webster

Saint|swithin 09:57, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I would just simplify (reduce) the term to something more simple that can be reproduced in English. Make it easy on yourself. My suggestions: "administrative community", "communal administration", or "civic administration". (Patrick 15:27, 18 May 2006 (UTC))

Georg Forster

Any comments on whether this is good enough to be a Featured article? It is an expanded translation of the German featured article that hasn't been proofread very much by native speakers, so it might be quite bad. Any comment would be appreciated. Kusma (討論) 03:53, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I read it, made some minor edits. It's looking really, really good. Let me know if you agree with the edits or if you reverted something. I'll nominate it (since I didn't contribute much to it, that'll likely look better than a self-nom). Some other minor things: (1) is there a way to make the references look more uniform with the arrow up (I believe that's the current standard)? (2) I tried to display both FA stars on the interwikis but couldn't get it to work for me. I posted for help on the Village Pump. --Mmounties (Talk) 05:17, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I did nothing else than you did about the stars and it suddenly worked... weird. I will convert the references to the currently favored m:Cite.php method in the next couple of days - once that is done, a nomination will be much appreciated :-) Kusma (討論) 01:44, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I have converted the references, but don't have enough FAC experience to say if there's enough of them and if they are specific enough. Kusma (討論) 17:11, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your patience. I've been a lot busier after the move than I thought I'd be.... haven't had much time to check in... but if I did it right Georg Forster is now an FAC. I'll try to be sure to chime in every night and move it along until it's officially a FA.  :) --Mmounties (Talk) 06:29, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

The article is now Featured. There are still a few missing citations (I have asked for help at dewiki), and a couple of red links that could be filled if somebody feels like translating (see the talk page). Kusma (討論) 00:27, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Template for translations

Hi everyone, I've just altered the {{German}} template so it can link to German original articles with a different name. If, for example, someone translated de:Scherenschleifer as Knife grinder today, they could put {{German|Scherenschleifer|8 May 2006}} at the bottom and it would render as:

This article incorporates information from the revision as of 8 May 2006 of the equivalent article on the German Wikipedia.

Angr (talk • contribs) 08:00, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

This looks better than {{de}}, we should try to advertise this. Kusma (討論) 17:15, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Exclusive Mandate

I translated de:Alleinvertretungsanspruch to Exclusive Mandate --> please review and leave feedback on my talk page or on the article's talk page. Also, I would appreciate feedback in regards to the English title; I couldn't think of anything more fitting and it seems as though native English speakers actually understand what is meant without having read the article, but nonetheless I think there is room for improvement. Your input is much appreciated, thanks. Alternate title is Exclusive Authority Claim, but I think that's a bit wordy. (Patrick 15:39, 18 May 2006 (UTC))

Luxembourgish

I've just had a go at incorporating the information from the Lëtzebuergesch article on Luxembourgish in to the en: article. My Luxembourgish isn't great, so I'd be very grateful if somebody could take a look - anyone here speak Lëtzebuergesch or a close enough German dialect from Bitburg/Trier? Aquilina 12:21, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Germany portal: selected article for June

Please comment on my suggestion of article and picture for June at Portal talk:Germany. If you want to suggest something else, our list of Featured articles and pictures to choose from is at Portal:Germany/Selected articles and pictures. Kusma (討論) 17:55, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject German Democratic Republic?

The posts above with translation questions regarding the Jugendweihe, some Stasi-related stuff, the Wende of 1989 etc. made me think we should perhaps found a dedicated WikiProject to organize articles about the German Democratic Republic and everything related to it. The project should be a central repository for translation questions of GDR terminology, create articles about all notable GDR politicians (we don't have an article about Günter Mittag, for example). If there are enough interested people, we could start an improvement drive and finally get Berlin Wall featured. If anybody is interested, I could try to outline a structure and advertise it more widely at Wikipedia:WikiProject/List of proposed projects. Any kind of comment is welcome. Kusma (討論) 18:42, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Are there enaugh active people here? Agathoclea 20:18, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Considering we don't even have Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany up and running, I really don't see the need for a separate DDR project. All the tasks you mentioned can be part of a more general WikiProject. Angr (talk) 21:01, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

The thing is, I think the scope of "Germany" is a bit large for a WikiProject. I think WikiProjects should be a bit more focused. I can't think of a way to organize a WikiProject for the geography of Germany and the history of Germany and all biographies of Germans and all German culture all at once. (That is why I didn't touch the Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany pages: I don't know how to start a WikiProject Germany overseeing thousands and thousands of pages). Kusma (討論) 00:04, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

About enough acive people: If there are two or three people here that are interested, I would draft a proposal and try to find five or six on the general proposal page. That should do for a start, and talk page templates could be used to advertise the project. Kusma (討論) 00:04, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I think it's common to have very broad WikiProjects that serve as the parents of more specific WikiProjects. If there were other Germany-related topics with WikiProjects, they could all be daughters of WikiProject Germany. I'd be interested in a WikiProject Berlin, for example. Angr (talk) 11:53, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I think working on and in the daughter WikiProjects is more fun. Berlin is a good topic; as I will move to Berlin this summer, I will also help with that. Note that many possible broad WikiProjects do not exist, most obviously Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia and Wikipedia:WikiProject United States, presumably because nobody knows how to organize such a vast area of the Wiki. Kusma (討論) 17:40, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm in on the German Democratic Republic WikiProject. I have a couple of articles lined up to get things started, mostly translations, some may require some editing and I have a list of to-do articles on my user page. I'll be in Berlin in July for vacation, man I can't wait...(Patrick 20:55, 13 June 2006 (UTC))

Bishopric articles

Should the articles Archbishopric of Trier and Archbishopric of Mainz be at Bishopric of Trier (or Diocese of Trier) and Bishopric of Mainz (or Diocese of Mainz), as those are the current designations? Olessi 18:14, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Mainz is currently split between the old archbishopic (the old state of the HRE) at Archbishopric of Mainz and a list of modern bishops since the Säkularisierung at Bishop of Mainz, clearly separating the old and the new church hierarchies in Germany. If we merge these, we should probably do that as Diocese of Mainz, but I would prefer to expand Archbishopric of Mainz into an article about the electoral state and move all modern stuff to Diocese of Mainz / Bishop of Mainz. Kusma (討論) 18:50, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

That sounds good. Another naming issue is at Talk:Prince-bishopric and archdiocese of Breslau. Olessi 19:57, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I hope I get around to translating Kurmainz sometime, then we can have the discussion on how to distribute the content again. Kusma (討論) 22:07, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Albrecht Alcibiades

I found Albert the Warlike today, which obviously is not the best title for this individual. The German wiki has him at de:Albrecht Alcibiades (Brandenburg-Kulmbach). Historian Hajo Holborn refers to him as Albert Alcibiades, Margrave of Kulmbach-Bayreuth. Other alternatives are Albrecht Alcibiades, Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach and Albert Alcibiades, Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach. Any thoughts? Olessi 22:55, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

How about simply Albert Alcibiades? Angr (talk) 07:14, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

KISS principle sounds good. Olessi 21:15, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I moved the article to Albert Alcibiades. However, Naming Conventions really should be followed (no nicknames in article name and his title should be listed), which suggests to me the article should be at Albert, Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach (the title of the principality until 1604, based on de:Fürstentum Bayreuth) or Albert, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth (the title after 1604). It also looks like Margrave of Bayreuth should be moved to Principality of Bayreuth, Principality of Brandenburg-Bayreuth, or simply Brandenburg-Bayreuth. Any experts on the naming rules out there? Olessi 04:00, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Hans Tuppy

The article Hans Tuppy has been submitted for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hans Tuppy. The subject certainly sounds to me as being notable enough for a Wikipedia article. Unfortunately, the article as it currently exists has been barely translated from de:Hans Tuppy and should probably be improved to address the concerns raised by the AfD. If someone could take a look at the article and improve it, I think that would be helpful. --Metropolitan90 05:11, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

AfD:Names of European cities in different languages

Some users may have contributed in the past to Names of European cities in different languages and its successor pages. There are proposals to delete these articles and the discussions at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Names of European cities in different languages, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Names of Asian cities in different languages, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Names of African cities in different languages might be of interest. AjaxSmack 19:41, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Category sorting of German towns with an umlaut.

Stemonitis (talk · contribs) is currently undertaking the task to change the category sorting of towns with an umlaut by replacing the umlaut with its baseletter (ä=a). This is a good thing in a way, as it seems the software can't properly sort umlauts. My problem with it is that it really should be the transliteration (ä=ae) for proper sorting, but the user insists on the baseletter. My question is whether this subject has been discussed before, and what the consensus was. Or in fact, if a consensus has to be established. Agathoclea 08:14, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

In German publications you find both conventions (ä=a and ä=ae). Dictionaries usually if not always use ä=a, while the telephone book uses ä=ae. IMO an encyclopedia is more like a dictionary than like a telephone book, so ä=a is the way to go. Does anyone know which convention paper encyclopedias like Brockhaus use? User:Angr 08:24, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I've just checked the 1996 edition, and it sorts things "my" way: Jager, Jäger, Jagger. --Stemonitis 09:36, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

No, it doesn't sort things your way. If it sorted things your way, it would be: Jäger, Jager, Jagger, or to make it more obvious: Jaeger, Jager, Jagger.--Carabinieri^T_T^a_a^l_l^k_k 20:21, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

It does in fact sort things Stemonitis's way, not Agathoclea's way. Please note the first comment and the third comment above are not by the same person! User:Angr 20:48, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Ooops... That was exactly my mistake.--Carabinieri^T_T^a_a^l_l^k_k 21:09, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

The next question should be - should the software be made to sort it - rather us doing the dorting for the software. I know that mysql allows for sorting foreign chars. Agathoclea 14:06, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

There would still be work for us to do, because someone would have to determine what language each article was titled in, and so what system should be used. "Ä" sorts as "A" (occasionally "Ae") in German, but separately, after Z, in Swedish, for instance. So no, I don't think an automated system will be able to help much. --Stemonitis 14:12, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Again I don't know the software used by wikimedia, but mysql has local-language support. I could envision setting my "language" to German and getting it sorted the German way or to Swedish and see it the Swedish way. In a way like the datepreferences but based on your language option. I'll pester at the village pump when I am back from Germany and see if any technical info is forthcoming. (From early computing days I always believed that the computer has to do the job for us - not we for him). -- Agathoclea 16:25, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

My point is that the software would somehow have to work out (or be told) what language options apply to each article. It would need to know which were German names and which were Swedish. It might be able to guess, but I'm sure there would be mistakes. It's more reliable, although admittedly more effort, just to do it by hand. It's not enough for me to say in my settings that I want to sort the German way, but rather there needs to be a flag for each article. I can imagine a 'bot could be developed to assist, so that the user merely needs to approve every article for German-style sorting or not, and similarly for Swedish, etc., but site-wide automation seems unlikely. --Stemonitis 07:31, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Kingdom of Prussia

Eventually I plan to expand the political history of Brandenburg-Prussia. Currently Prussia contains the bulk of the information on the topic, while Kingdom of Prussia is significantly less informative. Right now it seems to me that the information at KoP would be better at Prussia, although I could see there being a Series for "History of Brandenburg-Prussia" eventually if enough information is added. Feedback here or at Talk:Kingdom of Prussia would be helpful. Olessi 20:16, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

The current article on Prussia is highly biased btw, with no information on national relations within the country and idolised view of that infamous state.

--Molobo 22:01, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

It would be indeed by informative to have such aspects of the country described as well. As has been mentioned before, it is important to document such things in an impartial manner and to avoid generalizing. Olessi 23:03, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I think the information should be split according to historical periods, and the main article rewritten in summary style. The Free State of Prussia in the Weimar Republic could easily have its own article. Kusma (討論) 22:06, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Off the top of my head, possible articles for inclusion would be "March (or Mark) of Brandenburg", "Ducal Prussia", "Brandenburg-Prussia" (1618-1701), "Kingdom of Prussia", "Prussian Free State". I think "History of Brandenburg-Prussia" would be a better title for a potential series than "History of Prussia". Olessi 23:03, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Brandenburg-Prussia would be however strange since for a long time Prussia wasn't connected to Brandenburg. So I would stick with History of Prussia as more neutral and accurate term. --Molobo 23:15, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

As the state we are talking about was first called Brandenburg, later Prussia, it seems to be a good title, better than History of Prussia. The page Prussia of course has to link to the history of the Polish fiefs named Prussia and the Old Prussian people. Kusma (討論) 02:00, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

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Brandenburg-Prussia was the official title of the region owned and governed by the Hohenzollern Imperial Kurfürsten of Brandenburg, who were at the same time Dukes Herzöge of Prussia. Later on they called their State Prussia or Kingdom of Prussia only. Conan 29 June 2006

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Help needed at Portal:Germany

The Germany portal could use help. Most needed are:

• somebody who helps to keep Portal:Germany/Germany news up to date
• somebody who helps patrol Special:Newpages, announce newly created articles at Portal:Germany/New article announcements, invite article creators to contribute to the portal and make sure Portal:Germany/New articles stays in sync with Portal:Germany/New article announcements
• somebody who scans newly created articles for possible DYK entries for Portal:Germany/Did you know and for the main page DYK suggestions at Template talk:Did you know
• comments on next month's selected article and picture (a new suggestion is at Portal talk:Germany
• some help with Portal:Germany/Anniversaries, currently 1/3 done, but only 11 days before we'll get a red link on the portal page
• any kinds of suggestions for improvement at the Portal talk page.

Mmounties did a good job with the DYKs and commenting on the selected article, but seems to be on Wikibreak now, so more help is needed. Any volunteers? Kusma (討論) 01:24, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

The main reason I am asking this is that I'll be mostly inactive for the next three weeks, and won't be able to monitor Special:Newpages and keep Portal:Germany/New articles and Portal:Germany/New article announcements synchronized. I hope I'll be able to avoid the Anniversaries reaching a red link, but can't promise anything. Kusma (討論) 21:13, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Jagello

Your history also had its share with Jagello and his dynasty. The naming discussion has a new approval poll, to discuss the matter of how to name the article currently at Władysław II Jagiełło. Interested editors are invited to participate, at Talk:Władysław II Jagiełło. Shilkanni 20:30, 25 June 2006 (UTC)