Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geography of Poland/Archive2

Vote on Województwa / Voivodeship / Province

I believe votes for "voivodeship" and "voivodship" should be counted together for the purpose of comparing them to other options since it's natural that if one prefers one of them, the other one would be his second choice, as opposed to other proposals. Ausir 17:32, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Since no one is commenting on it anymore, I think we can start the vote. Ausir 12:59, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The term "województwo"

Województwo

The original Polish name.

Voivodship

The version currently used in Wikipedia.

1. Also the official translation of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland at the website of Sejm (Polish Parliament) has voivodship, not voivodeship - see [1] "Article 152: The voivod shall be the representative of the Council of Ministers in a voivodship." NoychoH 01:12, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Voivodeship

This spelling is prevalent in most Polish official websites and is recommended by TEPIS (see above). It's also present in the 2nd edition of Oxford English Dictionary.

1. Ausir 12:59, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
2. D T G 17:34, 6 March 2006 (UTC) most convincing arguments
3. tsca ✉ 18:44, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
4. Sonitus 02:51, 7 March 2006 (UTC) This is spelling is to be preferred over voivodship, as it's attested in the OED
5. Halibutt 09:07, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
6. Appleseed (Talk) 16:10, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
7. Dobromila 09:50, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
8. --MonteChristof 10:00, 22 April 2006 (UTC) (But what with Provinces_of_Poland - that names Voivodships of Poland ? --MonteChristof 10:12, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
9. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 17:40, 10 June 2006 (UTC) I thought that the vote was closed, but if it is not, let me vote too :)
10. Brisvegas 10:04, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
11. --Wanted ♂ 21:15, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
12. MiliczThis vote with so many options is confusing as all heck, but it should be Voivodeship 16:34, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
13. I am willing to switch my vote to "Voivodeship", as a good faith measure to prove consensus. --Elonka 22:58, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
14. I'm not totally won over by this, as I think "voivodship" is a little more common, but I will support the current consensus.  ProhibitOnions  ^(T) 10:25, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
15. I'm dead against 'Voivodeship' How does a non-Pole pronounce it? VoyVOADship? Voyvod eh ship?

Google gives 487,000 results for Voivodship, 196,000 results for Voivodeship. Voivodship is clearer, shorter and, in my opinion, the better of the two. I still don't know how to pronounce 'Voivodeship'. "Voy-VOD-ship", is I guess, the correct English pronunciation. There's less room for ambiguity with Voivodship. So while there's a consensus on 'voivodeship', I would like to signal my displeasure with it - and I in my professional work will continue using "voivodship" - and correcting any usage or users of the longer, more ambiguous and less-often used version.--FlyingOko 09:00, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

1. • I am against the consensus on 'voivodeship'. The official translation of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland at the website of Sejm (Polish Parliament) has voivodship, not voivodeship - see [2] "Article 152: The voivod shall be the representative of the Council of Ministers in a voivodship." NoychoH 01:12, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Although the headword entry is "voivodeship", the OED contains one citation (from 1792) for "woiwodship", one (from 1793) for "voivodship", one (from 1837) for "woywodship", and two (both from Encyclopaedia Britannica 1886) for "voivodeship". The choice of the variant with "e" as the headword is presumably determined primarily by the fact that the OED also uses "voivode" with an "e" (although it is not defined except as one of many alternate spellings of "vaivode"). Incidentally, yet another variant is "waywodeship", which the OED defines as "the province or district ruled by a waywode". There are citations from 1684, 1704, and 1908 (this last is more recent than any of the citations for "voivodeship"). So actually, there would be a case for using "waywodeship" as the English term. It's so obviously anglicized that its pronunciation (with English "w" sound, not "v"; and with long "o") is more obvious. -86.140.131.100 19:10, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Province (see also Logologist's commentary below)

The term recommended by major dictionaries.

1. Support. logologist|Talk 16:31, 6 March 2006 (UTC). The most universally used term, for the second level of governance, in all countries. Immediately recognizable and spellable. "Province" will go well with the already adopted "County" and "Commune."
   1. KonradWallenrod 08:47, 7 March 2006 (UTC) (Known sockpuppet of User:Logologist [3]. --Elonka 18:40, 16 July 2006 (UTC))
2. Support--SylwiaS | talk 15:19, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
   1. Anatopism 15:38, 7 March 2006 (UTC) (Known sockpuppet of User:Logologist [4]. --Elonka 18:40, 16 July 2006 (UTC))
3. beside Russia (very complicated case) and Ukraine all country subdivision articles use a pure english term if it is needed in the title. Compare: Wikipedia:WikiProject Country subdivisions/Naming. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 11:39, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
4. Support. -- Domino theory 11:49, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
   1. Support -- This is also the term used at the CIA Factbook. [5] --Elonka 23:50, 9 June 2006 (UTC) (Switching vote to Voivodeship --Elonka 22:58, 16 July 2006 (UTC))
   2. Support. Mattergy 07:21, 10 June 2006 (UTC) (Known sockpuppet of User:Logologist [6]. --Elonka 18:40, 16 July 2006 (UTC))
5. Support per Elonka, the only actual data. Septentrionalis 15:10, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Why this is a bad idea? See prowincja.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 17:49, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

That says it's not Polish usage; which should be decisive on the Polish wikipedia. Septentrionalis 15:10, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Region

Used by some official websites.

Palatinate

Proposed before.

1. This is soooooo evil :-D (no, that's not a serious vote) Taw 13:21, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Anything that clearly means "województwo"

"województwo", "voivodeship" and "voivodship" are all fine, everybody knows what do they refer to. On the other hand "region" or "province" could as well mean something completely different. And analogously, "county/powiat/poviat" and "gmina/commune" are ok, but "district/municipality" are not.

1. (A serious vote) Taw 13:21, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
2. Seems a fair choice Halibutt 09:08, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Commentary on Voivodeship / Province vote

Województwo, wojewoda

The commonest English name for a national second-level administrative unit, corresponding among others to the Polish "województwo," is "province."

The Polish version of this word ("prowincja") was used somewhat differently in the pre-Partition Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, as a term designating each of the Commonwealth's three major constituent parts: Wielkopolska ("Greater Poland"), Małopolska ("Lesser Poland"), and Lithuania. Since Poland's resumption of independence at the end of World War I, however, "prowincja" has not been applied to any Polish political entity. Hence the English word "province" may be used, with no risk of confusion, for Poland's post-World War I województwa (the plural of "województwo").

Discussions of the pre-Partition Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth will apply the word "province" to Wielkopolska, Małopolska and Lithuania, and will use the Polish word "województwo" (preferably, in English-language texts, not the "Polish"-English hybrid word, "voivodship") to designate what today may in English be termed a "province."

During the Partitions period, "province" referred to certain "provinces" governed by the partitioning powers.

There is, in any case, no compelling reason to avoid using the English word "province" to designate Poland's present-day województwa.

A województwo ("province") is governed by a wojewoda, which may be rendered in English as "governor."

logologist|Talk 06:19, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Vote on English/Latinized or Polish names

I think the first vote on this issue should be more general (as in, Polish names vs. Latin/English names) and after the general vote a more specific one should be held (like Dolnośląskie vs. Dolny Śląsk or Lower Silesian vs. Lower Silesia). Ausir 17:32, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Not all the names can be sensibly turned into English, say "Piotrkowskie voivodship". --_Lysy^talk 01:26, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Of course, for words with no English or Latin equivalent, Polish names will still be used in the first variant, for example "Łódź Voivodship". Ausir 15:10, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I am shocked by the consensus you made here. You invented so weird names like "Podlachia Voivodeship", "Kuiavia-Pomerania" (what is this?), "Lubusz" (???), I am surprised that your creativity stopped one step before "Boat Voivodeship" or "Holy Cross Voivodeship". Why can't the Wikipedia be like the rest of the world - just look at official websites of those voivodeships or Eurostat databases! In many official documents of EU, Polish Voivodeships are simply named "Lubelskie", "Mazowieckie", "Kujawsko-Pomorskie" and so on. I wonder if anybody would ever think about looking for facts about North-Eastern Poland under the ancient term "Podlachia", the same with e.g. "Lubusz". I can bet that the avarege person living in Zielona Góra or Gorzów doesn't even know what the term "Lubusz" means (and especially that this is a small town in Brandenburg, Germany), so do not tourists searching Wikipedia for interesting places near Zielona Góra. Why do you want to complicate obvious things??? And please read first the official Toponymic Guidelines --XpertPL 21:58, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

English/Latinized

E.g. Voivodeship of Lower Silesia or Mazovia Province. Conforms with the Use English policy (as the regions the voivodeships are named for have established English names).

1. Ausir 12:59, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
2. tsca ✉ 18:42, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
3. Sonitus 02:52, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
4. Halibutt 09:08, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
5. Derbeth ^talk 23:15, 31 March 2006 (UTC) Poles don't write "Dolny Śląsk Vovoidship"
6. Domino theory 11:49, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
7. AjaxSmack 07:31, 10 May 2006 (UTC) - Why are English toponyms considered "Latinized" because the English happens to correspond to the Latin? (Should we have to start calling Albania Shqipëria? Bavaria Bayern? Styria Steiermark?) Use English for English Wikipedia and put the native form in the first line in bold.
8. Shaqspeare 07:35, 31 May 2006 (UTC) (as used by Polish authorities in English texts)
9. Elonka 11:06, 13 June 2006 (UTC) If there's a published English name for an area, then that's the one that should be used on Wikipedia. If it's never referred to by the English name though, then there's no need to do an Original Research translation -- keep the Polish name.
10. No reason to violate policy here. Per Elonka: If English uses the Polish name, we should follow. (Logologist is right in that the result should really be Lower Silesia province.) Septentrionalis 15:05, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
11. --Wanted ♂ 21:15, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
12. These regions all have long-standing English names (e.g., "Lower Silesia"), though Polish diacritics should be retained where the name is untranslated, as in Łódź. I assume adjectival forms are preferred (Lower Silesian Voivodeship rather than Lower Silesia Voivodeship).  ProhibitOnions  ^(T) 10:30, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Polish

E.g. Province of Dolny Śląsk or Dolnośląskie Voivodship

1. Support. logologist|Talk 16:31, 6 March 2006 (UTC) "Dolny Śląsk Province." (In English usage, names of geographic entities, e.g. "New York State," are generally kept in the noun form.)
2. D T G 17:45, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
   1. KonradWallenrod 08:47, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
3. Support per Logologist--SylwiaS | talk 15:22, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
   1. Anatopism 15:38, 7 March 2006 (UTC). Per Logologist.
4. 194.116.193.55 16:11, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
5. Weak support, as using Polish names (whether Dolny Śląsk or Dolnośląskie) for administrative units helps to avoid any confusion with historical regions. Olessi 23:45, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
   1. Support. Mattergy 07:21, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Vote on format: X of Y or Y X

X of Y

E.g. Voivodeship of Lower Silesia or Province of Dolny Śląsk

Y X

E.g. Dolnośląskie Voivodship or Lower Silesian Province

1. Ausir 12:59, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
2. Support. logologist|Talk 16:31, 6 March 2006 (UTC) "Dolny Śląsk Province."
3. D T G 17:46, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
4. tsca ✉ 18:43, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
5. Sonitus 02:52, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
6. KonradWallenrod 08:47, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
7. Support per Logologist--SylwiaS | talk 15:23, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
8. Anatopism 15:38, 7 March 2006 (UTC). Per Logologist.
9. Halibutt 09:09, 8 March 2006 (UTC) Lower Silesian Voivodeship
10. 194.116.193.55 16:13, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
11. Olessi 23:45, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
12. AjaxSmack 07:31, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
13. Support. Mattergy 07:21, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
14. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 17:42, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
15. --Wanted ♂ 21:15, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
16. Me too.  ProhibitOnions  ^(T) 10:31, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Current guidelines

The following references to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places) are wrong, since the refernce stuff was unilateral inserted by User:William Allen Simpson. It was copied from a proposal of his own, made at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (subnational entities), a guideline that is still in discussion. [7] Tobias Conradi (Talk) 13:53, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

... require "voivodship", "county", and "commune".

There seem to be a lot of debates and polls. Guidelines were proposed last year, and incorporated after an extensive RfC comment process. The current Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places) states: "use the official English name for the place and its type."

Since there are official published English names, it doesn't matter whether that differs from past translation practice, or old English traditions. Use redirects (automatically generated during the move) with {{R from alternate name}} for the older titles.

Looking at the excellent resource linked above, the "Powiat" comes before the name. The current Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places)#Term of ShortName states:

When the place has an official English form that includes a "Term of", or the native language usually has a prefix descriptor, then that form of the term should be used in articles.

• Examples: District of Columbia, Province of Rome

A redirect page should be added to catch and repair references in suffix form.

Finally, the second word is lowercase. The current Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places)#ShortName term states:

When the place has an official English form that includes a lowercase "term", or the native language usually appends a descriptor that is lowercase, then that form of the term should be used in articles.

• Example: Comayagua department, Kagoshima prefecture

A redirect page should be added to catch catch and repair references in the capitalized form.

Working example, the official form "Voivodship zachodniopomorskie", with redirects from:

• Zachodniopomorskie voivodship{{R from alternate name}}
• Zachodniopomorskie Voivodship{{R from alternate name}}{{R from other capitalisation}}
• West Pomeranian voivodship{{R from alternate name}}
• West Pomeranian Voivodship{{R from alternate name}}{{R from other capitalisation}}

In addition, it might be useful (but not required) to add:

• Zachodniopomorskie province{{R from alternate name}}
• Zachodniopomorskie Province{{R from alternate name}}{{R from other capitalisation}}
• West Pomeranian province{{R from alternate name}}
• West Pomeranian Province{{R from alternate name}}{{R from other capitalisation}}

Working example, the official form "County bolesławiecki", with redirects from:

• Bolesławiecki county{{R from alternate name}}
• Bolesławiecki County{{R from alternate name}}{{R from other capitalisation}}
• Boleslawiec county{{R from alternate name}}{{R from title without diacritics}}
• Boleslawiec County{{R from alternate name}}{{R from other capitalisation}}{{R from title without diacritics}}

Easy enough, although a fair bit of work to fix!

--William Allen Simpson 23:39, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I fully grasp the foregoing.

I would see the Polish counties and provinces rendered on this pattern:

• Bolesławiec County;
• Dolny Śląsk Province.

I use "county" and "province" because they are the most widely used English terms. I see no need to introduce English-speakers to dozens of national equivalents such as the Polish "powiat" and "województwo" (much less the ugly hybrid-word "voivod(e)ship").

I use "Bolesławiec" and "Dolny Śląsk" in their citation noun forms, rather than in the adjectival forms, "Bolesławiecki" and "Dolnośląskie."

logologist|Talk 05:44, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll note that even in your own examples, you piped (obscured):

• Boleslawiec County;
• Dolny Śląsk Voivodship.

I'm sorry that you don't see the need. Once upon a time, the US Library of Congress agreed with you. But for the past several decades, the library sciences have been changing all the old "translations" and "transliterations" to re-catalog under the actual names.

This English language encyclopedia has made the choice to use diacritical versions of the actual names for its page titles, even though English has no discritical marks. Those are the current guidelines.

Province is not the official name. It is an alternate name, and we have nice redirect templates just for that eventuality.

Had the official form not been adjectival, the leading terms would be "Voivodship of X", "County of X", "Commune of X".

Whether (or not) "voivodship" is "hybrid" or "ugly", should the official English name change to "mabifargtiddlywop" tomorrow, then en.wikipedia will move the articles to that page title, with redirects from the older name. Redirects are cheap.

Wikipedia:No original research is policy.

--William Allen Simpson 13:53, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm all for diacritics.

If Wikipedia wants to call "województwo" by the authentic Polish "województwo," this may not be optimal but I may not fight it. But I do object to "voi(e)vod(e)ship."

Interesting, about the Library of Congress. What's the relation between the Library of Congress and Wikipedia?

logologist|Talk 01:39, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

The Library of Congress does not set the standards for naming. Don't forget that American English isn't the only variety of English in existence. Ausir 16:38, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the British Library has equal authority. Does it differ? Septentrionalis 14:50, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Logologist, please take your objections to voivodship to official channels of the government of Poland. They are not appropriate here. This is an encyclopedia.

--William Allen Simpson 04:28, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Putting my time where my talk is, I just finished the 16 current voivodships. Goodness gracious, there are an awful lot of redirects, showing a long-term problem about naming agreement. Some nasty cut and paste moves, too! Hopefully, this will lay some things to rest.

--William Allen Simpson 02:21, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't think your changes will stand. The lack of a capital letter at the start of the voivodship adjective is especially awkward. This is a practice in Polish, but not in English. What is your source for this supposedly being the official form of the name? Why do you think we must follow the official name in this case? That is not necessarily universal in Wikipedia. Check Kiev for example, which has the official name Kyiv. In general, no government of any country can impose the form of the geographical name which must be used on Wikipedia. Balcer 02:36, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

The relevant guidelines are included above. Wikipedia is/has converted to naming articles with diacritial marks, and following international naming conventions. And let's turn that comment on its head. In general, no Wikipedian of any country can impose the form of the geographic name on the rest of the world.

Redirects are cheap.

Wikipedia:No original research is policy.

--William Allen Simpson 01:20, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

How are these changes "official"? The 2nd chart above (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geography of Poland#Analysis) provides an assortment of versions none of which match these changes. Even if they did, since when is Wikipedia bound by government edict? Keep English Wikipedia titles in English. Following foreign language capitalization rules is especially egregious.

AjaxSmack 07:23, 10 May 2006 (UTC) -- oh, sorry it's 07:23, 10 Magtymguly 2006 (UTC) since the months were "officially" renamed.

Chart? Who cares about the speculative charts? The hubris of some of the folks around Wikipedia is truly amazing! The official English language form has already been decided by the government of Poland, one of those that's been so clearly delineated. Following foreign language capitalization rules is the current guideline. And adjectives are rarely capitalized in English in any situation.

Redirects are cheap.

Wikipedia:No original research is policy.

--William Allen Simpson 01:20, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Which is why whe changed your original research back to the previous version. You talk of an "official government version" but cite only a map in Polish on a single Polish website that (unsurprisingly) uses the Polish names, and a single, unattributed, PDF document, translated into English, that also uses the Polish names in a table. Neither of these suggests that these are now preferred in English, and nothing at all suggests that the Polish name should be appended in lowercase to "Voivodship."  ProhibitOnions  ^(T) 11:48, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

1. Research? I didn't write the document. It's not original research to follow international standards and conventions. It is original research to make up your own, as you seem to be doing.
2. What map? I cite no link to a map. Perhaps you are referring to the actual Polish citizen that links to the map above at #Official English names used in Polish Government?
3. Unattributed? The "Administrative Division of Poland 2006" is an official document on a Polish government site. In English, the government site is referenced by everything from the Polish "Ministry of Transport and Construction", to "Addresses, phone numbers and WWW pages of Ministeries", to external non-Polish sites such as the "Ordnance Survey" (the national mapping agency of Great Britain), and "Intellectual Property Law". In Polish, the government site is referenced by many national and regional sites.
4. Translation? Then it's a very good translation using standard terms of art!

At some point, someday, maybe Wikipedia will become something reputable and scholarly. It certainly isn't now. Your mass revert is a waste of everybody's time, and contrary to Wikipedia Policy and Guidelines.

--William Allen Simpson 01:15, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Yout titles were different from those on the .pdf you site (That page uses "Województwo," not "Voivodship") and qualified as "original research" as much as any. But more importantly, why is English Wikipedia bound by decisions of Polish government(s)? The official name of Hong Kong is the 香港特別行政區 but its existence doesn’t require English Wikipedia to adopt this as the article title when there is an available English form. And finally, such a controversial move begs a vote instead of a preemptive move. AjaxSmack 03:13, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes. We should not follow the usage of the government of Poland, which may change without notice. We should follow English usage, as is policy. Septentrionalis 14:50, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Correct, though it should be reiterated that the the claims of the user above that his preferred forms were some how "official" "standards" "published by the government of Poland" did not stand up to scrutiny.  ProhibitOnions  ^(T) 10:38, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

{{Poland-geo-stub}} split

The {{Poland-geo-stub}} is listed on Stub Sorting's To Do list as among the largest groupings of stubs, which makes it a candidate for splitting. Any suggestions on what divisions it should take? Aelfthrytha 01:21, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Geography_of_Poland/Archive1#More_stub_templates. I think there are no objections to split the category through voivodship stubs, the only thing we are lacking is somebody to make the final move and create the stubs.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 17:32, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

No, there don't seem to have been any objections (I also referenced the archives of WP:Stub Sorting Proposals, which said no objections provided each voivodship reached the general limit of 65 stubs). Based on the fact that there are 1,046 stubs in the category and 16 voivodeships, the average for each should be 65 (naturally, it might not work out this way). Another possibility for splitting would be into the six regions which voivodships are grouped. If individual voivodships grew enough to be split off from this, they could be later. Aelfthrytha 05:24, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

? "Województwa Polski" D_T_G (PL) 10:13, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

The last page may or may not be useful, but I don't speak Polish. Could you please clarify what you meant?Aelfthrytha 05:05, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

On Polish wikipedia Polish location stubs are grouped by voivodships, so there are 16 of them. The translation of stub comment is: "This is a stub article connected with Voivodship Fill_in_blank". Of course we would have to name these slightly differently, as these go by Polish names of the voivodships. But grouping along these lines seems like a good idea. We can even use their small icons to accompany the stub tag. Balcer 03:40, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like this has the nod both here, and over at WP:WSS/P. Are we going with the (t)rusty formula of X-geo-stub/X Voidodship geography stubs, where X Voidodship=current name of each article? (I ask as these seem to have been something of a moving target in recent times.) Volunteers to do the actual sorting much appreciated, as existing categorisation seems to be minimal, and I'm not exactly up on Polish geography myself. Alai 23:30, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

That's a good question. Let's go with current names and worry about the details later.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 23:43, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Please note that this stub category was split on Polish Wikipedia. See pl:Kategoria:Zalążki artykułów - geografia Polski.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 22:27, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

How about a category for former German (or other) places? Not very popular among Poles probably, but might be helpful for non-Polish editors. --Matthead 21:06, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

In what way would it be helpful for non-Polish editors ? --Lysy^talk 21:30, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

E.g. for finding the modern-day name of a given former German town. In case of Kaliningrad oblast, even knowing old non-german names does not help, as some completely new names were applied after 1945. This also had happened in a few cases in Poland. --Matthead 19:48, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

If helping other editors find former German names of present day cities is really your concern here, the ideal way to do this would be to create an article along the lines of List of former German names for cities in Poland or something equivalent. You can start by just using such lists from: pl:Niemieckie nazwy polskich miejscowości and de:Liste deutscher Bezeichnungen polnischer Orte. This would be much more useful than creating a new category. Balcer 20:05, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't that be rather a subcategory of {{Germany-geo-stub}} and {{Germany-hist-stub}}? I'd think it would also include some territories disputed with France, and possibly Denmark, Slovakia and other countries?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 22:04, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Applying Germany-geo-stub with its black-red-gold to towns presently in Poland (or elsewhere) would trigger interesting responses, I think, even if a subcategory for Historical Eastern Germany is introduced. If there's an article on Recovered Territories, why no category for the towns, subdivisions etc.?--Matthead 19:48, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

It is a very bad idea. Many territories have changed ownership even in the past 100 years. Try to imagine what kind of a nasty can of worms you would be opening by creating that kind of categories. For example, all the cities in India, Canada and Australia would fall under "Historical British Territories". Try to suggest this on the talk page of Sydney, Ottawa or New Delhi and see what kind of a reaction you would get. Believe me, not only Poles would have interesting responses. Balcer 19:56, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Ziemia

Note that I've translated the article on ziemia (where the current naming convention is to translate it as land so ziemia sanocka becomes the Sanok Land. I have also copied some content to create the Administrative division of Poland which drastically needs attention and copyedit.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 23:43, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I've been using the version of Land of XXX for quite some time now. //Halibutt 18:57, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I have no preference, but can we list them all at 'ziemia' article? Or do we need a category for them?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 22:05, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Voivodeship / Province debate

I have reworded some of the WikiProject page, to indicate that there is not yet consensus on how these particular administrative divisions should be named. I also recommend that some cleanup be done on this discussion page, as at the moment it is *very* confusing and complicated. It looks to me like certain naming issues do have consensus, such as about counties, so I recommend that we declare those closed, and move them off to an archive page. Let's keep this discussion page only for active discussions and polls, and then it may be easier to get more people in here to help break the deadlock. --Elonka 17:51, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

(Update) I went ahead and did some archiving. If I removed information that anyone feels is necessary to the current discussions, please feel free to check /Archive1 and repost it, or you can always provide a link to the archive page. I also did some rewording of the remaining section headers, to clarify which votes were still active. --Elonka 11:02, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for archiving, seems like few others bother with it. Wikignome work is always appreciated.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 22:06, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Poland-geo-stubs are here

If you want something done... :> Here you go:

• {{Poland-struct-stub}}/Category:Polish buildings and structures stubs

For voivodeships I used the names those articles currently have. Although the current mix of Polish and English names is annoying at best, I don't particulary care if the stub is renamed, but please try to use the same name as that of the main voivodship article and get consensus on talk.

• (Refactored): See Category:Poland geography stubs for the latest list

Some of those are same as city stubs. I suggest we either rename them later with a bot, or simply use something like Łódż-city-stub if we decide we need city stubs (note Warsaw already has one).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 18:00, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Now please help depopulate the giant Category:Poland geography stubs :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 17:53, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

New Voivodship categories

Piotrus, thanks for the work, but I'm not sure that adding all these Voivodship categories is wise, since there is absolutely no consensus that "Voivodship" is the proper term. If anything, according to the above poll, it should be Voivodeship. --Elonka 16:44, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

After months of waiting for any conclusion, I got tired of no progress and created the templates and categories based on the current, relatively stable, article names. I will not oppose if anybody wants to move them or rename them, but in the end, naming is not that important, and we needed those stubs and categories for months, whatever their name is.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 20:07, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't regard the article names as "stable", I would regard them as on-hold while consensus is being built. I think it's to the participants' credit here that they're not engaging in move wars about the articles. Please don't jump the gun and make major changes to Wikipedia without consensus, especially when you're forcing through category names that have no backing except your own. I have seen no indicator, anywhere, that "Voivodship" is a preferred consensus term. --Elonka 18:31, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Where is this concensus being built? Could you point me to the Wikipedia page where active and productive discussion of this subject is taking place? In the meantime, the quality of articles about the administrative subdivisions of Poland is atrocious for such a large country in the middle of Europe. If everyone is waiting until "concensus" about names is built before getting to work on improving articles about Polish voivodships, counties or communes, then that is truly unfortunate. I would prefer to have more people work on improving the articles immediately (and creating decent stub categories is an important part of that), and change the names later if concensus is clear. This is perfectly in accordance with the spirit of Wikipedia, which is always a work in progress. Balcer 18:43, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Just to be clear, my issue wasn't so much with stubs or article names, which are easy to fix. Category names, however, become a nightmare to change, as they cannot be easily "moved" in MediaWiki. They have to be entirely deleted, meaning that first everything that's in them, including every article and subcategory, has to be manually edited to move it over to a different category name. It's tedious when it's a single category, and it becomes a nightmare when it's multiple populated categories, and they include interwiki links to other language wikis. That's why I wanted to make sure that there was consensus for category names, before creating them en masse. --Elonka 20:20, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

It is not much of a nightmare at all, as for such a simple but highly repetitive task one can easily employ a bot. We will need one to carry out the Voivodship->Voivodeship changeover, as there must be thousands of articles that use the previous form. Balcer 21:00, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Go for it.  :) --Elonka 23:00, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I will be without regular Internet access for most of this week (because of travel, vacation etc.), but when I get back, I will get the ball rolling on this. There are also bot experts on Polish Wikipedia, who might help here. I will contact them. Balcer 05:25, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Stubs were needed. Names are not that important. And while I do not mind you moving the articles, I caution you about moves which can be seen as "jumping the gun and make major changes to Wikipedia without consensus" - you should learn from my experience ;p And let me note that the creation of stubs was a decision supported by consensus.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 15:24, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Any place that you don't think there was consensus, feel free to suggest a different move on the appropriate article's talk page, and advertise it here. As for the stubs, the best way to move forward is to probably make English-name stubs, and then redirect the Polish-name stubs to the English versions. It can't hurt to have both names there, and indeed, I often find it annoying when I'm attempting to "stub" an article, and keep getting red links because I can't figure out which version is supposed to be used. So having both Polish and English named stubs is probably a good idea. For categories though, let's definitely stick with English names, and the spelling of "Voivodeship." --Elonka 17:16, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Consensus

I went ahead and removed the sockpuppet votes of Mattergy, KonradWallenod and Anatopism from the above polls [8]. As such, it would appear that we now have consensus on all of the debated issues:

The question of Province / Voivodship / Voivodeship

• The preferred term is Voivodeship

The question of whether to use English/Latinized or Polish names

• The consensus is to use English / Latinized names

The format of X of Y or Y X (Voivodeship of Lower Silesia, or Lower Silesian Voivodeship)

• The consensus is: Y X (Lower Silesian Voivodeship)

Yay!  :) I may not personally agree on all the choices, but I'm glad we finally have consensus.  :) --Elonka 18:48, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I am glad this is settled then. Now we can edit the useful categories that Piotrus created so that they use the concensus form. All is well that ends well. Balcer 19:00, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Just one request from me: please, no 'Holy Cross'. Pretty please? Or if we go with 'Holy Cross', then we should have 'Boat' too :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 03:51, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Podlasie / Podlachia / Polesia

So, according to our consensus, it is agreed that an English/Latinized name should be used, but there is disagreement on one page as to just what exactly the English name is: "Podlachian Voivodeship", "Polesian Voivodeship", "Podlasie Voivodeship", etc. Any editors who have an opinion, are invited to participate in the renaming discussion which is currently at Talk:Podlachian Voivodeship. --Elonka 17:58, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

• • I don't understand why Polesia is discussed in this context, as Polesia (Polish: Polesie) and Podlachia (Polish: Podlasie) are two quite distinct regions, although geographically close. Podlasie lies entirely in Poland, Polesie lies on the border between Ukraine and Belarus. NoychoH 22:52, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Poll on renaming Voivodship categories

An official request on renaming all the "Voivodship" categories to "Voivodeship" has been submitted, at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 July 16#Category:Voivodships of Poland to Category:Voivodeships of Poland. There appears to be some controversy. Anyone with an opinion on the matter is invited to participate. --Elonka 23:30, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

(nudge) To date, there are exactly two votes on this issue at the CFR page: One support, and one oppose, with a repeat of the arguments above. I would like to see more people participate, if possible. Whether you support it, or oppose it, I don't really care at this point -- I'd just like to verify what the community's opinion is. I *thought* we had consensus on this page for the word "Voivodeship", but if the consensus does not carry through to other renaming polls on Wikipedia, meaning that only one opposer and one supporter bother to even participate, it doesn't do much good. So please, can people pop in to the Category renaming poll, and offer an opinion? Thanks. --Elonka 15:33, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

(Update) The renaming has been approved, and all "Voivodship" categories have now been renamed to "Voivodeship" categories. :) --Elonka 22:40, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Poland-geo-stub sub-types

I note approvingly that Category:Poland geography stubs are no longer oversized, which is obviously a good thing, well done and many thanks. However, several of the new stub sub-categories (or is that sub-stub-categories?) are very undersized (see WP:STUB for size guidelines), while the parent category still contains significant numbers. Could someone have a look at finishing re-sorting these, so their true "viability" can be more accurately assessed (preferrably without all the hoo-hah of dragging them off to SFD to be upmerged prematurely) -- thanks again. Alai 19:02, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Chrzanów

Could someone check the Chrzanów article—specifically the paragraph that I marked with the citation needed tag. It is probably vandalism, but I thought that it would be better to have some experts on Poland look at the article first. ^BlankVerse 13:05, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 17:17, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 20:56, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Infobox City Poland - redesign

A request was recently made at Wikipedia:WikiProject Infoboxes for a redesign of {{Infobox City Poland}}. Discussions are still very early, but any input would be appreciated. The discussion page is here. - 52 Pickup 15:54, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Update: It was decided that the best thing to do would be to use {{Infobox City}}. As an example, see Warsaw. If you want to resume this discussion, please go here. Thanks - 52 Pickup 22:19, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Gmina naming

There is a discussion regarding generation of Gmina articles and their naming at Category Talk:Gminas of Poland, that may be of interest to those watching this page. Deuar 17:28, 13 September 2007 (UTC)