Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Germany/Archive 20

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Readability

I am posting this as (it seems to me) a number of articles under the purview of this project are bordering on the unreadable. I recently read this, for example, and there are others I have encountered, and it feels like they are written in denglish. I assume the editors for this project will have German as their first or second language and maybe these pages will seem unremarkable, but from the point of view of someone with English as their first (and I expect more so for someone who has English as a second and something other than German as a first) these pages are hard going. We have Mark Twain's observation on how little the language has to be altered to become opaque; and pages like this one, or this, also make the point. If the reader has to mentally change gear every sentence or so to work out what is being said they will rapidly lose interest. I don't know if there is some purpose in insisting on using German terms when English ones exist for the same thing, but the present situation really only suits German -speakers who wish to read about German subjects on the English WP. If we want other people to actually read and learn stuff about German subjects these pages need to be more user-friendly. My two pennies worth... Moonraker12 (talk) 11:41, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

My 2 pennies: if I translate an article from German (as the example), I find the German terms, and often am not sure about the proper English equivalents, therefore better keep the German ones, - help and collaboration is always welcome. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:25, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

This is a common problem of translations done by people who are not native speakers of the language they are writing in. (Google Translate is such an example; most of our translators here at Wikipedia are significantly better). If you have successfully managed to understand a poorly translated page, please help everyone else by copyediting it so it becomes more readable to native English speakers. If there is a sentence somewhere that makes particularly little sense, please point it out on the article talk page or to the person who wrote the hard-to-understand bit. It is difficult to me as a German native speaker to see what you may find problematic, just like I find your other example Galois theory to be quite easy to read (but I teach mathematics at a major university), while m:Help:Parameter default just requires a bit of concentration to follow. So please tell us what exactly is difficult and perhaps we can fix it together. —Kusma (t·c) 14:01, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Gerda and Kusma. Translation is also an art not a science, so there is a range of views on whether and how to translate, especially, proper names. If I'm not sure of the translation I will give it my best shot so it makes sense in English but give the original German in brackets. If, later, I discover the correct translation, it's easy to go back and re-edit. I also try and search the sources to get the most common English version. E.g. The article on the Pfälzerwald is called the Palatinate Forest, because that is its more common English name even though Palatine Forest is a more accurate translation. But we do not always have consistency: for example, the consensus was to translate the word "station" in railway station names, but not the word "central station" so we have München Hauptbahnhof which doesn't even use the English word for the city of Munich!

My suggestion with this article is to use English names with the German in brackets. I'll have a go if others are happy, but I don't want a war over it! --Bermicourt (talk) 14:10, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

General problem: Hochschule has no true equivalent. Some institutes call themselves University (Folkwang University), then use English of course, others don't , then I hesitate. - The HFBK names itself in German on their website, and the logo which is the abbreviation makes no sense in combination with an (invented) English name. Just one example. I want praise for saying Bayreuth Festival, although we loose the playful aspect of festive games in translating Festspiele ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:19, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

This is often the problem with translation; in the end it depends how important understandability is vs. accuracy. In some specialist topics e.g. geography we use a lot of foreign words from e.g. French (crevasse), Spanish (mesa) and German (karst, graben, inselberg). But those terms will be found in an English text book, unlike most of the German names in the article. So I've added an English translation for those names that don't already have one and italicised the German in line with the WP:MOS. I haven't changed the basic format though, so it still reads bilingually. This is where the blind use of WP:COMMONNAME falls down. --Bermicourt (talk) 16:04, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

<od>My thanks (one and all) for your replies: And thank you that help and collaboration is welcome in this matter; it sometimes feels that correcting people's English is seen as interference.

Bermicourt: I would agree, giving a term in English, followed by German (bracketted and in italics), would best reflect English usage, and would aid readability. (I was unclear about your point on Palatine/Palatinate; I've commented there rather than go off at a tangent here). And I can't see what's wrong with "Central Station" either.

Gerda: Your point that words like hochschule are better written in German, as they have "no true equivalent", I'm more skeptical about. Hochschule is (I believe) merely a catch-all term for institutes offering further and higher education; the English language equivalents would be university, college, polytechnic, or simply school, depending on the particular body being described. The HFBK, for instance, is an art school, so would be called an art college, or school of fine arts, or somesuch (like these). To say we must use hochschule because it literally translates as "high school" (which is something else again) is a little thin; the word handschuh translates literally as "hand-shoe", but we would not (or I hope we would not) be insisting on using handschuh instead of "glove" because of that. There aren't that many words that are so unique that an adequate translation cannot be found, I feel. Moonraker12 (talk) 22:13, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I am afraid that you may be wrong if you think that Hochschule can mean (about any) further or higher education. A Hochschule is close to university level, but "university" would be wrong, while college is no exact equivalent. (I went to one, see my user's infobox. It's called university now, but wasn't for the longest time of it's history.) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:30, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

It's often the case that a German word may have several possible English translations and sometimes you need to know more about the subject to get the right one. A simple example is Berg which can mean mountain or hill. Only if you know the height can you begin to work out which is more appropriate. (I take 2000 feet as the minimum for a mountain). The same with Stadt which can be town or city. (Again I use city if it's a Großstadt and town if it's not). Often there is no exact translation, so we should look for the "nearest equivalent". This answers the question "How would we say it in English?" In the case of Hochschule, we need to know more about the institution to work out the nearest equivalent, but always putting the German in brackets in the lede. But there are times where even I'm totally unsure if a translation is helpful and I will leave it in German. Of course, we should look at the English sources, but often they are just as confused or sometimes there aren't any sources if the topic is obscure. Bermicourt (talk) 08:10, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

In the case of "Hochschule" a change in usage over time comes into play, too. And it affects both languages, although not at the same point in time: In Germany most of the "Hochschulen" are either "Universität" or "Fachhochschule" now. Most "Pädagogische Hochschulen" have been consolidated into a neighboring "Universität" or served as the nucleus for a new one. However, not all of them. As far as I know many Polytechnics in the U.K. have become Universities, and in the U.S. quite a lot of the Colleges are Universities now. I realize that in former times "college" covered the undergraduate population only, even at a state university. However, I am not too sure what the situation is now. If the above simply adds more confusion, just forget it. All that I wanted was to add another glimpse of the problem. Khnassmacher (talk) 10:14, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

@Gerda. "College" has elastic usage. Here are four: 1 - my sixth form school was called a college. 2 - I now go to a college but my degree will be accredited and awarded by a university elsewhere in the country. 3 - at my first university I was in a college that was part of the university and really a "house" and a hall of residence. And 4 - there are also independent colleges such as technical colleges and colleges of arts that award qualifications other than a degree.

@Khnassmacher - you're right about polytechnics - they have all become unis and award degrees.

I guess the choice is: translate it to English and risk losing some of the original sense (and possibly clumsiness) or leave it in German and risk total incomprehensibility. The right choice depends on the topic. German speakers understandably tend to dislike us translating their proper names; I tend to favour translation into the nearest "equivalent", not necessarily a literal translation. So I translate Elbetalbrücke as "Elbe Viaduct" not "Elbe Valley Bridge" as the latter is not a common construction in English. HTH. --Bermicourt (talk) 16:37, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Updated copyedit list

For anyone interested I have updated the list of somehow Germany-related articles in need of copy editing, in the project page's sidebar. Included are all articles in Category:All articles needing copy edit, which are also categorized within Category:Germany (or one of its subcategories down to 3 levels) via a Catscan 2 list. GermanJoe (talk) 15:08, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Open article assessments

As some may have noticed, I tried to clean up a few of the smaller assessment categories. With decreasing editor numbers assessment probably isn't that vital anymore, but I believe that at least the more developed articles should be assessed. It would be great if the project could assess all articles which:

• are developed beyond "Start" class level (currently 155)
• have a defined importance, but no quality assessment yet (currently 152)
• have been requested for assessment at Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany/Assessment (only a few currently, but some of them quite old and still unanswered).

Certainly not the most glamorous task, but it could be done very quickly, when editors assess a few articles from time to time in a spare minute. GermanJoe (talk) 13:23, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

How should german Ministerpräsidenten be called on en.wiki?

Minister-president?, (state) Governor?, premier?, prime minister? - right now en.wiki is not consistant about that 149.172.99.168 (talk) 13:36, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

I think Minister-President is the most common (and should be linked from every office holder). We should probably make a note about this at the conventions page, and maybe try to fix the worst inconsistencies. —Kusma (t·c) 15:37, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

I think when I last tested the sources it was even-stevens between minister president and prime minister. But the latter is potentially misleading. Also the sources vary between the hyphenated "minister-president" and the unhyphenated "minister president". I'd personally go for "minister president" as we don't usually hyphenate compound word/phrases in English - even though it is a feature of the new Rechtschreibung; it's noticeable that many of the sources using the hyphen are by German authors familiar with Rechtschreibung. --Bermicourt (talk) 19:18, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Why not take a lesson from another federal system? In Canada the Prime Minister is the head of the feral government and a Piemier is the head of any provincial (equivalent to state, Land) government. Unfortunately I don't know much about Australia or Indoa which would be the other English-speaking federations. Khnassmacher (talk) 11:03, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

That's interesting, but other countries use different systems and how do we choose which one? That's why we base our approach on the English sources which we have done. --Bermicourt (talk) 13:23, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

That's exactly why I picked Canada, Australia and India! They are all federal and parliamentary systems. The federal is like the U.S., but the parliamentary is like Westminster and Germany. I hope this clarifies my suggestion. Khnassmacher (talk) 14:01, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

well, it seems like minister-president is the most commonly used term on english wikipedia 149.172.99.168 (talk) 13:34, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

of cause that does not have to mean that that has to be the way to go 13:41, 9 January 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.172.99.168 (talk)

Why should being the "most commonly used term" be an indicator of best quality translation? It might just be a Germanism that has not been improved hitherto because nobody was sure which point of reference could be useful to native speakers. The analysis of political systems is a familiar subject of Political Science and that area of the humanities can provide a term that is more adequate to be used in translations because native speakers of the English language use such terms if they have a non-U.S. background. I can imagine that people from the U.S. feel lost in this matter because they are used to a system of "presidentialism" (institutional division between executive and legislative powers. For them (as mentioned above) the term "governor" would pop up when the head of a state government has to be identified. However, that term can definitely not be used to discuss Germany's system of parliamentary government (the executive of the federation as well as all individual Länder depends on the support of a majority in parliament.

If we aim to improve Wikipedia in a piecemeal manner people from Canada, Australia and India should join in and assist in finding a term that is equally correct, adequate and not misleading. As has been discussed in an earlier section of this talk page a good translation confers meaning by using terms that are familiar to native speakers, not just translate separate elements of the composite nouns that my mother tongue (which is German) loves so much and uses so frequently. Khnassmacher (talk) 17:07, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

If you want to change Wikipedia WP:COMMONNAME policy, you need to challenge it in the right forum. This isn't it. We are supposed to follow the sources. --Bermicourt (talk) 18:53, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

To be quite frank and honest: I am offering my best knowledge, but I am not interested in changing any wiki-rules or playing wiki-games. Thus I will leave such items to anybody who is. Khnassmacher (talk) 17:11, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Any form of Minister President is awkward English. Please use Premier, State Premier or the like. --109.43.2.186 (talk) 19:52, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your opinion but, whoever you are, I don't think you count as an authoritative source... and there's only one of you. --Bermicourt (talk) 10:01, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

• I would generally support consistent use of "minister president" for the reasons given by Bermicourt – and on the basis of the principles I list below. I don't think "premier" is used often enough for holders of this (German) office (possibly excluding journalese); "prime minister" is misleading (though it may be promoted by some office holders). I think the unhyphenated "minister president" is the correct spelling, but as second choice I could live with the hyphenated spelling (since it may be currently used fairly consistently and is official diplomatic usage). Except where used as the title of a known person, "minister president" should not be capitalized, e.g. we should have "List of German ministers president by longevity"; so a number of pages need renaming. Diplomatic usage for the title (as defined by the German Foregn Office) is "Minister-Präsident". From a "translation theory" perspective, I would here prefer a calque or official translation to a "cultural translation" that reflects usage related to offices of other countries). --Boson (talk) 12:25, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

General principles

Particularly relevant naming criteria are:

• common English name – as used in reliable (non-journalistic) sources
• consistency across articles (different English names would imply different German names and different types of office)
• precision and avoidance of confusion (the reader should not be confused as to the status of the office holder)
• some attention should be paid to official diplomatic usage.
• we should be careful to avoid any political POV (office holders may prefer a title that sounds grander).

--Boson (talk) 12:25, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Potential alternatives

The contenders are:

• minister president or
• the alternative spelling "minister-president"
• prime minister
• premier

Capitalization may need to be changed (especially for the list articles, which use the term as a compound common noun rather than as part of a proper name). --Boson (talk) 12:25, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Procedure

• Consistency is important – and most appropriately addressed first at this venue.
• We should (here) draft a text for an appropriate convention to be included at Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany/Conventions.
• This may be controversial, so we should not take the convention live or take any actions at the articles themselves for about thirty days, in order to give other editors time to make objections. We should, however, be careful to avoid the appearance of canvassing; so it is may not be appropriate to alert individual editors with a known point of view.
• When we have reached a consensus on a draft convention, we should propose multiple page moves at one of the affected articles (possibly Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, but depending on the outcome of the discussion).

--Boson (talk) 12:25, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Potentially affected articles

Prime Minister of Lower Saxony Conference of Ministers-President)

• List of German Ministers-President by longevity)
• List of longest-governing German Ministers-President)
• List of Ministers-President of Bavaria
• List of Ministers-President of Brandenburg
• List of Ministers-President of Hesse
• List of Ministers-President of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
• List of Ministers-President of North Rhine-Westphalia
• List of Ministers-President of Rhineland-Palatinate
• List of Ministers-President of the Saarland
• List of Ministers-President of Saxony
• List of Ministers-President of Saxony-Anhalt
• List of Ministers-President of Schleswig-Holstein
• List of Ministers-President of Thuringia

--Boson (talk) 12:25, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Potentially affected categories

• Category:Ministers-President of Lower Saxony
• Category:Ministers-President of Schleswig-Holstein
• Category:Ministers-President of North Rhine-Westphalia
• Category:Ministers-President of Hesse
• Category:Ministers-President of Saxony
• Category:Ministers-President of Brandenburg
• Category:Ministers-President of Saxony-Anhalt
• Category:Ministers-President of Saarland
• Category:Ministers-President of Rhineland Palatinate
• Category:Ministers-President of Bavaria
• Category:Ministers-President of Thuringia
• Category:Ministers-President of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
• Category:Ministers-President of Baden-Württemberg

--Boson (talk) 12:25, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Non-affected pages

• Governing Mayor of Berlin)
• List of mayors of Hamburg)

• Category:Mayors of Hamburg
• Category:Mayors of Bremen
• Category:Mayors of Berlin

The article on Minister-President)should be dealt with separately. --Boson (talk) 12:25, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Deutsche Schule Jerusalem

I wanted to learn more about German schools in Israel... and I found "Deutschen Schule Jerusalem" http://www.dsjonline.net/. I can't figure out:

• Does this school have a senior high school program/Arbitur program?
• What is the visiting address?

WhisperToMe (talk) 20:55, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't know, but know that it should be "Deutsche Schule", yes "an der Deutschen Schule", - sorry, difficult language, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:01, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Looking: they offer the "Internationales Abitur", I guess they mean something International Baccalaureate, - no address found, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:08, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Does this mean they have senior high school? Then this means notability is presumed and I can start a stub on it. Which page says it has Abitur? WhisperToMe (talk) 00:50, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Hold the horses :). The site, you linked, mentions a "start-up phase" and that it "plans to offer" Internationales Abitur (in the German text on the right side). Judging only from this text, it seems like they haven't started regular operation. I also tried to locate this "Deutsche Schule" in the online listing of "Deutsche Auslandsschulen", but couldn't find it. A listing of all "Deutsche Auslandsschulen" is at [1] (as of 01/2015). As your linked website uses the official German ZfA logo (upper right corner), I am assuming that the school is not established yet. (Note: there is a school in East Jerusalem listed, but with a completely different name and web address). GermanJoe (talk) 01:09, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for catching me there :) - Hehe... I did find the East Jerusalem school and started a stub on that. Yes, that one is completely different. I guess I'll wait until the school seems to have been established. I am surprised that there is not yet a German international school in Israel. WhisperToMe (talk) 03:45, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

@Gerda. deutsche Sprache, schwere Sprache! ;) --Bermicourt (talk) 09:19, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

March 2015 Art+Feminism event in Berlin

Hi Germany Wikipedians! I am reaching out to see if anyone would be interested in helping out with editing training for a Wikipedia:Meetup/ArtAndFeminism edit-a-thon being organized in Berlin. We would appreciate any assistance in securing at least one experienced Wikipedian in the area, and I'd be happy to put you in touch with the organizers if you are able to help out. If interested, please reply on wiki or by e-mail at thepwnco.wiki@gmail.com. Cheers! -Thepwnco (talk) 22:38, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Draft:JUMO Process Control, Inc.

Dear Germany experts: This draft article will soon be deleted as stale unless someone decides to edit it. It appears to be about a fairly large company, and I see a lot of news reports online, but they are not in English, so I can't tell which ones are independent. I am willing to rewrite for neutral point of view if someone here can help select some appropriate sources.—Anne Delong (talk) 15:14, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Draft:Christian Hohmann

Dear Germany experts: This old AfC submission is about a gallery owner in Germany. It has a lot of references, but they are not linked on line. In order to know if this is a notable subject, it's important to find out if these references are advertisements for his gallery, or are articles in German newspapers and magazines. Any help in identifying these would be appreciated. —Anne Delong (talk) 15:34, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

@Anne Delong: Unfortunately I can't access those old magazines and newspapers, and only found 1 or 2 articles online, nevertheless a few thoughts: Most of the sources appear to be reliable news articles. But the problem is something else in my opinion: The vast majority of source titles focus on the exhibited artist, not on the gallery owner. Does a gallery owner "inherit" notability from exhibited works and artists? Checking WP:Notability I didn't find a definitive answer, but such a claim seems to go against Wikipedia's usual understanding of "notable". Notability is not "meeting notable people" or offering basic event organization for them. Unless the owner himself or his own work is subject of extensive media coverage, f.e. for a special style of exhibitions or for great success (or scandals), he is not notable. A quick google search shows no significant coverage, aside from a few simple event announcements and self-published promo articles. Consequently the whole main section of the Hohmann article reads like an event calendar with zero specific information about the article topic. The remaining sections contain only basic bio information, but no notable events or details either. In short: suggest to delete this one due to a questionable claim of notability - or simply as abandoned. GermanJoe (talk) 16:37, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, GermanJoe. I agree that the gallery owner wouldn't inherit notability from the artists directly, and that there would have to be coverage of the owner specifically in reliable sources. Unfortunately, since I edited the page recently it can no longer be considered abandoned. I will leave it alone and let it fade away.—Anne Delong (talk) 17:01, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

gauleiter and Oberpräsident? Reichs Ministry or Reich Ministry?

Which is better:

gauleiter and Oberpräsident

Gauleiter and Oberpräsident

Gauleiter and High President (Oberpräsident)

Xx234 (talk) 09:48, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

A quick look at the book sources suggests: Gauleiter and Oberpräsident. And "Reich Ministry" not "Reichs Ministry". The "s" is a linking letter used to make the German compound noun flow better (can anyone remember the grammatical term for them?). HTH. --Bermicourt (talk) 13:39, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

The German term is Fugenlaut. Rgds ✦ _hugarheimur 21:21, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Apparently also called Fugenelemente. The nearest English term appears to be epenthesis, but that seems to refer to an extra sound inserted in the middle of a work in speech, not in the written word. --Bermicourt (talk) 09:22, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

AfD Discussion

There is currently a discussion that may be of interest to members of this project. That discussion can be found at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Wilson (British Free Corps). -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:40, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

CfD nomination of Category:Privatization in Germany

Category:Privatization in Germany has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. You are encouraged to join the discussion on the Categories for discussion page. GermanJoe (talk) 01:29, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

• I think, this CfD will not get alerted without a project banner - doing a "manual" alert here. GermanJoe (talk) 01:29, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

German Americans during World War II

This page does not make any reference to the arrest, internment, deportation, repatriation, expatriation and exchange of German Americans during World War II. (moved from header)

There are two known websites that report on the subject headline, these are http://www.foitimes.com and http://www.gaic.info ```` — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.201.177.107 (talk) 10:49, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

(I have trimmed the header a bit and moved its content to regular text for readability). Thanks for pointing out those websites. Wikipedia already has an article at Internment of German Americans, if you are interested in editing within this topic. Any additional information, based on neutral reliable sources, is welcome. GermanJoe (talk) 11:09, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Draft:Marco Wanderwitz

Dear Germany experts: The above old AfC draft is about a member of parliament. It's about to be deleted as a stale draft unless someone edits it soon. There appear to be quite a few references in the article about this person in the German Wikipedia, bui I can't read German, so I can't place the citations or tell if the references are any good. Can someone add at least some minimum citations so that the article can be moved to mainspace? Or am I wrong to think that it's worth keeping? —Anne Delong (talk) 19:25, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Added a few references and tweaks. German language only, but hope it helps :) (I realize, ref #1 is self-published, but it's uncontroversial personal info). GermanJoe (talk) 11:56, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks; it's in mainspace now.—Anne Delong (talk) 14:16, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Assessment statistic in sidebar - display broken?

Just checking, if it's a new common problem or only a local issue on my side (XP, FF 36): Is the statistic table in the sidebar displaying too large for anyone else too? It displays too large and extends beyond the right box border. This layout change ("because it looks cleaner" /sigh) may be the cause, but I want to verify the problem before raising a stink. GermanJoe (talk) 03:39, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Looks like the mentioned change is really the cause. Oh well, hopefully the change will be reverted. I don't feel knowledgeable enough to fix the sidebar design itself, but an easy improvement would be to give it slightly more room; most transcluding pages have space in that area, so it should be possible to make the sidebar slightly wider without breaking too many affected sub-pages (the table transcludes to 11 pages). Thoughts? GermanJoe (talk) 04:59, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Districts of Germany

Tinkering with this complex article and German administrative madness :). I am trying to update and cover all various district types as clearly as possible, without going into too much painful detail (at least in a first phase). Any help or suggestions for additional improvements would be greatly appreciated. These [2] have been the changes so far. GermanJoe (talk) 05:28, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi GJ. I'll take a look when I'm less tired, but at a quick glance your changes look good. This whole area is confusing not least because of the plethora of German terms, different systems in different states and the propensity of translators to render so many terms as the rather bland and unspecific "district" (including Kreis, Landkreis, Stadtkreis, Stadt in its territorial sense, Distrikt, Bezirk, Gau and Regierungsbezirk for a start). Then there's Gemeinde, Ortsteil, Stadtteil and Gemarkung, etc, etc. I have been collecting data on this with the intention of eventually proposing how we handle them, but it's a minefield. Gruß. --Bermicourt (talk) 22:19, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I just noticed a related problem at city-state (see talk), where the whole section "non-sovereign city-states" was deleted. I have reverted this deletion for now, but it shows how problematic the coverage of such terms has become - the removal would probably be a good idea, after the dependent articles, that link to "city-state", have been cleaned up. GermanJoe (talk) 08:33, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Hildebrand Gurlitt

I had to remove "Purchase and hiding of art works" from this article as copy/paste from the source article (ref #18). If any English-speaker is interested and knows a bit about that incident, it would be great to paraphrase 3-4 sentences of the source's main information for this section - or I'll try a draft in "German-English" later ;). GermanJoe (talk) 12:38, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Quality (or Class) assessment of Maria Radner

Hello WikiProject Germany. I am not quite sure if this is the place to request article assessment. I am asking a member of they could give assessment to Maria Radner, a female opera singer who recently died in the Germanwings Flight 9525 plane crash. On her talk page, I assessed the article as "C-class" for WikiProject Germany, but the talk page says "This article has not yet been checked against the criteria for B-Class status", and I was wondering if somebody with WikiProject Germany could see if her article (Maria Radner) qualified for "B-class".

Thank you very much Germany Wikipedia~! CookieMonster755 (talk) 18:52, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Local elections - Kommunalwahlen

A new section in Elections_in_Germany#Local_elections tries to summarize some information about German Kommunalwahlen, in case anyone wants to improve it or needs the link for a town article. Not sure, if local elections have been covered elsewhere (didn't find it), but it fits in the general overview of elections as well. GermanJoe (talk) 13:50, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Interesting stuff. With apologies for addressing the question you did not ask, the biggest gap on that page, for me, concerns Elections in the DDR. Elsewhere there are a couple of whistle stop summary of the rules - eg at the start of East German general election, 1950, and for regional elections before 1952 some nice summaries of results (albeit only in German wiki) such as this one: Landtagswahlen in der DDR 1950. But a nice summary of how the system worked at Elections_in_Germany would fill a sad hole .... if anyone with access to suitable sources can generate the necessary combination of inspiration and energy. Regards Charles01 (talk) 15:01, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Deutsche Schule Lagos?

I did research into the Deutsche Schule Abuja and found that it was the Deutsche Schulen Abuja-Lagos. Apparently the Deutsche Schule Lagos (DSL) closed. When did it close? Are there any news stories about this?

• This page shows an old photograph and mentions a possible website: http://www.dasan.de/ds_lagos/
• A personal website (I think) reads "GOOD BYE Deutsche Schule Lagos " so I suspect it closed

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 23:49, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

The personal page is from a person who left the school after working there for three years. She is replace by a person called "Carmen".

DSN wrotes:

Die deutschen Schulen Nigeria (DSN) sind Privatschulen der Firma Julius Berger Nigeria PLC in Abuja und Lagos
— own description from December 2013

Simple translation: "The Deutsche Schulen Nigeria (DSN) are private schools in Abuja and Lagos operated by Julius Berger Nigeria PLC"

("Julius Berger Nigeria PLC" is connected to "Bilfinger Berger Nigeria GmbH". (Bilfinger Berger))

There are 17 teachers and 5 kindergarten teachers.

"Lagos" is not mentioned on their Website. The name of the vice school director is "Carmen Klaus" (maybe the person mentioned on that personal website).

-- Reise Reise (talk) 13:35, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you! I am aware earlier copies of the DSN Abuja website also mention Lagos. For example: http://web.archive.org/web/20110209063648/http://ds-nigeria.com/ - I would like to find a notice on the official site that the school closed or moved. Also I would like it if I found a visiting/street address and/or map/directions to the Abuja school. Thanks! WhisperToMe (talk) 18:24, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

@WhisperToMe:

Nachdem bereits 2009 die Schule den Deutschen Schulen Nigeria in Abuja angliederte wurde, so schlossen 2013 entgültig die Pforten in Lagos - aufgrund mangelnder Schülerzahlen und des seit längerem ungünstigen und nicht mehr sicheren Standortes.
— DSL Deutsche Schule Lagos, Nigeria

Summary: The Lagos school was annexed to the Abuja school in 2009. The Lagos school was closed (due to lack of pupils and the unfavorable and unsafe location) in 2013.

The Abuja school is located somewhere inside the Julius Berger Life Camp.

-- Reise Reise (talk) 08:15, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the info! WhisperToMe (talk) 01:44, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Template:German Reich

I could use some opinions and/or assistance on this template, as the deletion of "Fourth Reich" was reverted again. The inclusion of such a fringe-theory (and that is putting it politely) and the mixing of real and purely fictional concepts to push a certain PoV is clearly against WP:NPOV and WP:OR. The addition of "hypothetical" does not fix that fundamental flaw - this approach is similar to putting unicorns in a horse-related template and adding (mythical) as qualifier. Enough rambling of my opinion - any other comments please? GermanJoe (talk) 15:43, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

"Fourth Reich" is a concept which means different things to different people and should not be confused with the actual historical "Reichs", so it doesn't sit easily within this template. However, I think there should be some sort of link between those historical articles and the "Fourth Reich" article, so a legitimate question is what is the best way to do that? Disambiguation page? "See also" section links? --Bermicourt (talk) 15:17, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree, that links to related topics should be preserved or added. As a suggestion: the term Fourth Reich would better fit into Template:Nazism in "Related topics". That would automatically add a link from Nazi Germany, Neo-Nazism and Greater Germanic Reich. Other articles already contain links to the "real" Reichs (Template:German Reich is almost redundant to Template:Empires), the fringe-theory of a Fourth Reich is not related to those historical topics and should be avoided. In cases, where an article is really related to "Fourth Reich" in some meaningful way, mentioning and linking this term in the main text would be preferable to show the term in clear context. Looking at WP:NAVBOX the current template mixes fact and fiction, and fails #1 (no coherent subject) and #3 (no reasonable relations between all affected articles) of a "good" template. GermanJoe (talk) 16:26, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Altomünster

I've started to translate more of the German version of this page to English. Unfinished, but more there now than before. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lkingscott (talk • contribs) 17:25, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Legal corruption in Germany

Can someone look at U rob me's edits on Corruption as well as the discussion on their and the article's talk page? I don't know if it's a language issue but "Resounding efficiency in fostering corruption of private corporations against other countries was achieved in Germany after the EC southern expansion. Along with the establishment of the European Single Market, 1993 the legalization of foreign corruption..." reads very strangely. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 01:53, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roller_Derby_Germany

Hello. Unfortunately, the linked article in the headline has completely the wrong description and content. Roller Derby Germany (Roller Derby Deutschland - short RDD) is not the national team of Roller Derby, it is the "governing body" of Roller Derby in Germany - the German association of Roller Derby and a part of the DRIV (Deutscher Rollsport und Inlineverband). Maybe sth got misunderstood by translation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.201.188.21 (talk) 09:41, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Translation of Rheinkreis

The translation of "Rheinkreis" is "Rhine district", not "Circle of Rhine". "Circle of Rhine" is meaningless. People capable of translating "Rheinkreis" with "Circle of Rhine" should not be working on translating German articles into English for Wikipedia. In geographical contexts the English word for "Kreis" is "district". Cf. Langenscheidt Muret-Sanders dictionary. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.211.95.227 (talk) 13 April 2015

It is not quite that simple with historical terms. In historical contexts, the English word "circle" (Latin circulus) is used for an administrative unit of certain countries. You will also find this meaning in English dictionaries. --Boson (talk) 22:42, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

The usage is OK (sourced by 2 contemporary historical references in the article). But a brief explanatory footnote or a link to a detailing sub-article about the term would probably be useful for casual readers. GermanJoe (talk) 23:04, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp FAR

I have nominated Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:09, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Max Sievers

There is an allegation of bias against this entry (which seems to be a selective translation of the German wiki-entry). The allegation has sat there since 2011 and seems to have frozen the entry in aspic because no one wants to bother with building it into something more substantial until the allegation has been addressed and sorted.

Can someone smarter than I am please take a look at the entry, figure out what the allegation of bias is all about, and then (yes, this is the other difficult bit) find a source to add a couple of lines in the text that give the alternative perspective.

There are several online sources identified in the German language equivalent entry, which is good, but the ones I click on all seem to go to webpages that no longer exist which is bad. It's enough to make you want to read a book.

Thanks for any one with time and inclination to follow up on this. Regards Charles01 (talk) 20:00, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Germany MILHIST articles - assessment

Hello, assessing a lot of Germany-related articles lately I was wondering, if WP:GER and WP:MILHIST couldn't help each other with that task. Both projects have a significant overlap in their scope and project members in one project could simply copy most of their assessment info to the second project banner as well. Of course the assessment criteria have some minor differences (most notably in C-Class assessment), but by and large the assessments are similar enough to allow a cooperation and reduce redundant, duplicate work. Our current guidelines allow for all interested Wikipedians to do WP:Germany assessments anyway. What do other project members think about this idea? (a parallel request for feedback is currently discussed here at MILHIST too.) GermanJoe (talk) 15:56, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

If people are interested in both areas and want to do assessments from both sets of perspectives, I don't see what there is to stop them doing it already. What exactly is it that you want to change?

Another thought arising: I'm acutely aware that a large slice of the history that the kids (and general media users) in the UK and US get taught already covers World War II in relation to Germany - I'm tempted to say disproportionately. At school level, lots of kids in England study only the Hitler years in Germany (1933-1945 but chiefly 1939-1945) and what happened under Henry VIII in England (1509-1547, but chiefly he 1530s). To be sure, they're both very important periods and subjects. But studied superficially and out of the context of all the things that happened outside the little capsules of dates, events and interpretations being studied, the aforementioned kids get a pretty strange view of history. By somehow conflating "military history" and "German history" in a more structured way in wikipedia, I guess there is a risk of exacerbating those distortions. Still, it's an idea worthy of consideration. Or? Success Charles01 (talk) 16:43, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

To your first point. You are correct, in practice nothing big would really change. But it seems like many editors may not be aware of the possibility of doing other project's assessments, so it wouldn't hurt to make that idea more popular. It would also be worthwhile to clarify the difference in C-class assessment and to check, if anyone is against that handling in general (as many possibly don't even know of this option).

To your second point, I completely agree. Military history is an essential topic of course, but non-military topics could often use more coverage to provide a full historical picture. My suggestion is not about conflating the projects' scopes, it is only for articles, which are currently tagged as both Germany- and MILHIST-related anyway. GermanJoe (talk) 17:13, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Christian Lerch

Dear Germany experts: Here's a draft which has references in German. I suspect that many of them are press releases or closely connected, but I can't tell. Is this a notable subject? —Anne Delong (talk) 02:00, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

The references in the draft look poor but the subject is clearly notable as actor and screenwriter. Agathoclea (talk) 14:55, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Quick question regarding "Hillary Clinton" in Germany

At Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton/April 2015 move request, a German editor supporting the move proposed that Hillary Clinton is generally known as "Hillary Clinton" by people in Germany, not as "Hillary Rodham Clinton". Another editor questioned that on the basis that the German Wikipedia article is at de:Hillary Rodham Clinton, having been moved there one week ago after a surprisingly short discussion for such an important topic. Since most other major languages use "Hillary Clinton" or the alphabetic equivalent (e.g. af:Hillary Clinton, da:Hillary Clinton, fr:Hillary Clinton, it:Hillary Clinton, no:Hillary Clinton, ru:Клинтон, Хиллари, sv:Hillary Clinton), I was wondering whether this is reflective of the name the person is usually known as (i.e. the WP:COMMONNAME) in German? Cheers! bd2412 T 15:03, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

List of German archives

The German WP page [3] is much longer than the en:WP one at List of archives in Germany.

Translation/transfer over anyone? ([4] can be used if required.) Jackiespeel (talk) 16:17, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Georg Forster FAR

I have nominated Georg Forster for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:00, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Holy Roman Empire versus Germany

See this discussion on how to use the category structure for Category:Centuries in Germany versus Category:Centuries in the Holy Roman Empire in the best way. Please share your thoughts. Marcocapelle (talk) 09:13, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Article "Germany"

The article Germany is being updated. Just some general fixes to standardize text, update numbers, names, etc. The article is protected, so if you're interested in helping out.... There is a list of tasks on the talk page, but this list is not inclusive of all the tasks needed. One of the items in need is a review of the population figures. Do these automatically update if the template is updated (despite all my years on projects, I'm woefully ignorant). auntieruth (talk) 14:50, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

"Varieties of German"

The usage and primary topic of Varieties of German is under discussion, see talk:German dialects -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 05:07, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Ingeborg Rapoport, a German neonatologist, Holocaust survivor, and the oldest person to receive a PhD in 2015.

Hello. I have created an article about Ingeborg Rapoport, a German neonatologist, Holocaust survivor, and the oldest person to receive a PhD in 2015. I was wondering if someone at this WikiProject would like to create a page about her thesis supervisor, Rudolf Degkwitz. The German Wikipedia has an article about him, and also about his son. However, not everything is referenced, and I think it's important to add in-line references everywhere on the English Wikipedia at least. I don't speak German, and I am hoping some of you do and are interested. I could simply copy and paste the automatic translations, but I think it requires a bit more work (including finding more references, ideally a picture). I was also wondering if there was a page about the dean at the University of Hamburg who was a fanatical Nazi supporter? Was he tried at Nuremberg? Thank you.Zigzig20s (talk) 12:09, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Draft:Vincent Klink

All the references are in German, looks like they're probably notable, but I cannot tell for sure. Please could someone advise me? Joseph2302 (talk) 10:11, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

And this one too, please: Draft:Patrick Bebelaar. Joseph2302 (talk) 10:14, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

First mosque?

Please see discussion at Talk:Islam in Germany#First mosque? Thanks, BDD (talk) 20:52, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Needed articles

During my visit to Berlin, I've identified a few missing articles about local sites, memorials, art, etc. I hope to create some of these articles myself but of course would welcome help from project members. There may be articles at German Wikipedia, but it would help if Wikipedia had English-language equivalents for the following:

• Altgermanische Wisentjagd, a sculpture in Tiergarten (Commons)
• Amazone zu Pferde (Commons)
• Arc de 124,5° (Commons)
• Beethoven-Haydn-Mozart Memorial (Commons)
• Bison, a sculpture in Tiergarten (Commons)
• Churfürstliche Fuchsjagd, a sculpture in Tiergarten (Commons)
• Der Rufer (Commons)
• Die Humpty-Dumpty-Maschine
• Eberjagd um 1500 (Commons)
• Equestrian statue of Friedrich Wilhelm I (Commons)
• Equestrian statue of Frederick William IV
• Goethe Memorial (Commons)
• Görlitzer Park
• Hasenhatz der Rokokozeit (Commons)
• Herkules und der erymantische Eber (Commons)
• International Stele Always Remember
• Lebensalter (Commons)
• Löwe
• Lützowplatz (Commons)
• Pony und Knappe (Commons)
• Richard Wagner Monument
• Rudolf Virchow Monument (Commons)
• Statue of Albrecht von Roon (Commons)
• Statue of Alexander von Humboldt (Begas) (Commons)
• Statue of Alexander von Humboldt (Bläser) (Commons)
• Statue of Frederick the Great (Commons)
• Statue of Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (Commons)
• Statue of Hermann von Helmholtz (Commons)
• Statue of Max Planck (Commons)
• Statue of Theodor Mommsen (Commons)
• Statue of Wilhelm von Humboldt (Commons)
• The Boxers (Commons)
• Volksgesang, sculpture in Tiergarten (image)

Some articles may also benefit from English translations? Again, all assistance is welcome. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 07:43, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Typo in Commons category fixed - that pig is called "Eber" in German :). GermanJoe (talk) 10:02, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for correcting! I am going to try to tackle these slowly but surely. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 04:01, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Kingdom of Germany: proposal to split article

See this proposal. Marcocapelle (talk) 08:15, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Requested moves

Three requested move discussions which concern this project have been started. They can be found at:

• Talk:SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt#Requested move 2 June 2015
• Talk:Schutzstaffel#Requested move 5 June 2015
• Talk:Sturmabteilung#Requested move 5 June 2015

BMK (talk) 17:11, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Translation of German article Enfants Terribles

Hello, I would be grateful, when somebody can chek/correct the English translation here of the German article (German original version: here) (the pictures "Datei…" you can see in the German version). Perhaps you can see something you don´t understand, because my Englsh is not the best, please ask then and I can try to write this part better. If you can speak German, than I can understand your tips better. You can also correct the version in my sandbox here. Best regards --Justus Tler (talk) 17:16, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Here are my comments, for what they're worth:

• "(short: Nana Bastrup)" - maybe "(known as Nana Bastrup)"
• A few people corrected some of "my" articles to use "b." instead of "*" for birth, and likewise "d." instead of a dagger for death, but that last doesn't apply here.
• "an homage" instead of "a homage".
• "In the year 2014 they moved in artists residence in Meinersen as scholarship holder of Bösenberg Stiftung" -> "In 2014 they moved into the artists' residence in Meinersen as holders of Bösenberg Stiftung scholarship"
• "earlier Dada movement"
• "Die „Laufbilder“ zeigen Ausstellungssituationen, die sie erschafft haben und Ausstellungsstationen, die sie durchlaufen haben." not sure exactly what the German is trying to say, so I can't comment on yor translation

You do good work! Your English is better than my German, for sure. Peter Flass (talk) 01:32, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

I made a few minor tweaks: curly quotations are discouraged, redundant "the year", some formatting improvements, and a bit of phrasing. You don't have to "quote" the duo's name everywhere. In most usages it's just a proper noun (unless the quotation marks are part of the official name of course). The article may still have some German-English phrases (I often have the same problem myself, using German syntax in English ;)) - but it's a really good start. One last point: ref #5 needs a proper link title. If the page has no "official" title, try a descriptive one in your own words. GermanJoe (talk) 13:39, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Thousands of German cityscape and other images may be deleted from Commons

Please see discussion at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)#Two_weeks_to_save_freedom_of_panorama_in_Europe. I think it is an item of major interest to the editors interested in this WikiProject. The (very underestimated) counts for how many images may be affected have been posted to commons:Commons_talk:Freedom_of_Panorama_2015#numbers. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:07, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Wappen

I have translated a couple of locality articles from German, but omitted the "Wappen" section. I know that Heraldry has it's own specialized vocabulary in English. My opinion is that the German should be translated to the appropriate English, and I don't have the knowledge to do it. It would be nice if someone fluent in the English terminology could translate these. Peter Flass (talk) 01:13, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Peter, I sympathise. I have had a go at a couple of these, but the language is highly specialised and easy to get wrong. I wonder if there's a heraldry group on Wikipedia? --Bermicourt (talk) 07:27, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

We have Wikipedia:WikiProject Heraldry and vexillology, which still seems to be active. GermanJoe (talk) 13:01, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

I just took a look at Birkenhördt which I think may be one of the entries you had in mind. Some of the language - the description of colours and positions - didn't look too specialist. I respectfully submit that a principal purpose of wikipedia is to share knowledge, and that even the most admirable of the jargonistas are at their most wiki-helpful when they are smart enough to let the rest of us know what they are talking/writing about. Some of the heraldry stuff does indeed use superior / obscure language which presupposes a certain level of specialist knowledge, but other things being equal we should surely avoid jargon where we can substitute words that most readers will understand. Clearly, where a line of German is incomprehensible to the translator, the best thing to be done is to leave it out. That applies to more than just the "Wappen" section. But that's not, on its own, a reason to ignore the entire section. The risk from excessive subservience to specialist jargon is a particular issue with English language wikipedia, because a lot of people who consult wikipedia in English will have English only as a second or third language. We should not discourage people who know the euphonious heraldry words from glorifying in their specialized vocabulary, but where it is nevertheless possible to translate the German using words that most readers in English will understand .... well, that feels like a good place to start. Regards Charles01 (talk) 13:36, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

The German is relatively easy to translate into everyday English, but in my experience the result is likely to be poor, inconsistent between articles or just inaccurate. In some cases, there is no ordinary word for a heraldic device or charge. They are what they are. Heraldry, like other disciplines, has its own precise terminology and method for describing coats of arms and we should use it for accuracy and education. Words like bordure, saltire or martlet can always be linked so those who aren't familiar with them can enlighten themselves. A description in plain English can always be added if necessary. The argument is not unlike that for plants where Latin names offer precision and English names offer confusion and scope for error or simply don't exist. --Bermicourt (talk) 14:13, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

I suppose the blazon would read something like:

"Party per bend sinister; (in the dexter) sable a lion passant sinister Or, crowned, armed and langued gules; and (in the sinister) Or a three-leaved birch branch vert."

--Boson (talk) 23:12, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

or "lion passant bendwise sinister" or some variation. It's certainly beyond me. Peter Flass (talk) 00:48, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

or perhaps "lion passant bendwise contourny". I think it is clear, though, that it is difficult to describe the coat of arms concisely in "normal" English that is not standardized for use in heraldry. For instance, there is the problem as to the perspective implied by right and left, and whether to use the colours actually used in the normal depiction of the coat of arms (e.g. white and yellow) or a "translation" of the "tinctures" that refer to the notional coat of arms represented by the description (e.g. silver and gold; I've no idea how to sensibly translate vair into normal English). --Boson (talk) 12:21, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

To use a field I'm familiar with, it seems it's like someone who doesn't know much about computers translating a German computer article. It's possible to translate it to some kind of normal english, but if he doesn't know the english computer terminology it's likely to be wrong. I'm assuming German heraldry is just as stylized as english, but with different terminology.

Some articles just mention both "definitions", one in clear English describing the CoA with everyday words and another one with the "formal" blazon. I actually like that approach, as it addresses both groups of readers: the casual layman and readers interested in heraldic details. The phrasing just needs to clearly distinguish both descriptions. GermanJoe (talk) 14:45, 24 June 2015 (terminology.

Any examples? Peter Flass (talk) 15:27, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately I don't remember (more than 3 months ago ...). But it was simply something like "The Coat of Arms of XYZ shows <description in everyday English>. The blazon is <blazon description>." Of course that approach only works, if the CoA depicts something relatively easy to describe (flowers, animals, common items). It will most likely not work with complex CoAs or with CoAs that depict uncommon heraldic symbols. GermanJoe (talk) 15:41, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Hellmuth Marx

Is the article concerning Hellmuth_Marx (AUSTRIAN sculptor) really within the scope of WikiProject GERMANY ?Hommageur 21:14, 24 June 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hommageur (talk • contribs)

Changed to WPAustria, thanks for pointing this out (probably just a misunderstanding). GermanJoe (talk) 21:59, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Pullach

Hi, I've left a message on the German page too. I hope you don't mind but I thought I might be able to help with translating into English. I've only just started (Saturday at the workshop at Wikimania). I'll pop back to review the page as I haven't translated everything and I'm not entirely happy with it yet. However, I need some help. I think there needs to be more references and I'm not well placed to find these e.g. references to the dates given. Also a few photos would be great, especially as it's difficult to understand the concept of a high bank, if you can't see what is meant. Thanks.

Wiki Loves Pride!

You are invited to participate in Wiki Loves Pride!

• What? Wiki Loves Pride, a campaign to document and photograph LGBT culture and history, including pride events
• When? June 2015
• How can you help?

  1.) Create or improve LGBT-related articles and showcase the results of your work here

  2.) Upload photographs or other media related to LGBT culture and history, including pride events, and add images to relevant Wikipedia articles; feel free to create a subpage with a gallery of your images (see examples from last year)

  3.) Contribute to an LGBT-related task force at another Wikimedia project (Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, Wikivoyage, etc.)

Or, view or update the current list of Tasks. This campaign is supported by the Wikimedia LGBT+ User Group, an officially recognized affiliate of the Wikimedia Foundation. Visit the group's page at Meta-Wiki for more information, or follow Wikimedia LGBT+ on Facebook. Remember, Wiki Loves Pride is about creating and improving LGBT-related content at Wikimedia projects, and content should have a neutral point of view. One does not need to identify as LGBT or any other gender or sexual minority to participate. This campaign is about adding accurate, reliable information to Wikipedia, plain and simple, and all are welcome!

If you have any questions, please leave a message on the campaign's main talk page.

Thanks, and happy editing!

User:Another Believer and User:OR drohowa

Swalm river

Input at Talk:Swalm (Maas)#Requested move 25 July 2015, now twice relisted, would be appreciated. TIA. Andrewa (talk) 17:47, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

The consensus was to move this to Schwalm (Meuse). --Bermicourt (talk) 18:04, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Category:Uncategorised Germany articles up for merge at CfD

I am not really sure, if this category, together with its sister Category:Uncategorised German articles are even used anymore, but it would be great, if more experienced project members could comment on the eventual usefulness and background of those categories at the CfD proposal for a merge with the top country category. GermanJoe (talk) 20:14, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Copyright Violation Detection - EranBot Project

A new copy-paste detection bot is now in general use on English Wikipedia. Come check it out at the EranBot reporting page. This bot utilizes the Turnitin software (ithenticate), unlike User:CorenSearchBot that relies on a web search API from Yahoo. It checks individual edits rather than just new articles. Please take 15 seconds to visit the EranBot reporting page and check a few of the flagged concerns. Comments welcome regarding potential improvements. These likely copyright violations can be searched by WikiProject categories. Use "control-f" to jump to your area of interest.--Lucas559 (talk) 22:45, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Eyes needed

• Talk:German declaration of war against the United States (1941)#STRONGLY disagree with point that declaration not in Germany's self interest and
• Talk:German declaration of war against the United States (1941)#Hitler had no choice.
• The article itself could use some attention as well. BMK (talk) 16:41, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Anker Steinbaukasten

The German language Wikipedia needs articles on 1) F. Ad. Richter & Cie. 2) Friederich Adolf Richter

And

The product lines of the company were sold between 1911 and 1914, so minor changes should be made in other articles. Ankerstein (talk) 17:59, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Talk:Walther von Reichenau

Added a header for this new section (unfortunately I know only little about this topic myself). GermanJoe (talk) 14:59, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Could someone take a look at my added material to Walther von Reichenau, which appears under To Follow Nazi Support section? This relates to his participation in German Resistance activities and is a significant shift in the presentation of the rest of his biography.

I'm really green at Wikipedia editing and very confused about navigating in this system. I got some advice in the Teahouse but discovered it had been deleted a few hours later.

Thanks for any assistance!

Radixetramus (talk) 14:52, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

RFC at Talk:Greek government-debt crisis

I started an RFC discussion at Talk:Greek government-debt crisis#"Criticism of Germany's role" subsection. --George Ho (talk) 16:07, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Photo request - German windmills

There's a new website listing German windmills. It contains little info about the mills apart from the location and photographs. Helpfully, a full address is given for each mill. I will be adding entries to the relevant lists of windmills in due course.

Editors in Germany, particulary the states of Bremen, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein can assist by taking photographs of these mills and uploading them to Commons. Assistance in expanding the lists on de-Wiki and tr-Wiki would also be appreciated. Mjroots (talk) 07:53, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

The website also lists watermills and horse mills. Images of these would also be a useful addition to Commons. Mjroots (talk) 08:38, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Request Edit: Siemens Healthcare

Hi all, we've seen that there are some obsolete information about Siemens Healthcare in the Wikipedia article. Could you please update the article? Or are we allowed to update it? All necessary information could be found here: http://www.siemens.com/about/en/businesses/healthcare.htm Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.138.39.61 (talk) 08:30, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Central Registry of State Judicial Administrations

I have removed the invalid (imo) PROD tag from this article, as the topic is clearly notable. If anyone is interested in such political topics, a few references (English or from de-Wiki) and a bit of cleanup would be great. GermanJoe (talk) 16:38, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

German Cross-language Editing and Learning Exchange

So far I have been the only person to sign up for the German Cross-language Editing and Learning Exchange project. If anyone else is learning German and interested in practicing, please consider joining the project. If anyone is already fluent in German, I would appreciate it if they could proofread my proposed message on the project's talk page. Thanks! --Hampton11235 (talk) 03:32, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Please change the title of the page 'Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law' to 'Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition'

{{subst:Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law|Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition|reason= The name of the institute has been changed recently. This can be verified from the homepage of the institute- wwww.ip.mpg.de}}

This has been taken care of. —Kusma (t·c) 08:57, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Make English versions of critical articles related to Germany to help Syrian refugees?

At de:Benutzer_Diskussion:Superbass#Ideas_for_serving_Syrian_refugees_in_Germany I was discussing possible Wikipedia articles that can help Syrian refugees living in Germany. He suggested that Arabic versions of the following can be made:

de:Asylrecht (Germany, Switzerland, Austria), de:Asylbewerberleistungsgesetz, de:Aufenthaltstitel, de:Aufenthaltsgesetz or de:Duldung (Aufenthaltsrecht).

I suggested that it may be good to have English versions made first. Fewer Arabic speakers speak German, so we could have English articles made and then an Arabic speaker who knows English can translate that into German. Then English would be the "intermediate languge" between German and Arabic. (I also contacted User:Tarawneh who knows Jordanians who studied in Germany, and maybe one of them can directly translate material from German to Arabic) WhisperToMe (talk) 07:49, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Princess Johanna of Hesse and by Rhine

Should this article be given a new name? I'm asking for help because I don't think that Johanna had either the title of Princess or the style Her Grand Ducal Highness as there was no Grand Duchy of Hesse and her lifetime was during the notoriously anti-Kaiserreich Hitler regime. Paul Benjamin Austin (talk) 13:11, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Translation

If anyone reading this finds translation interesting/educational/therapeutic (or some combination thereof), and if you periodically get bored with your own "to do" list, there's a list here that gets updated each month.

Of course, you could also join the project in question and enter your own proposed candidates for translation, but as far as I can figure out that's not mandatory. Happily, Wikipedia doesn't really "do" mandatory, I think (though one or two of the rules and guidelines sometimes come close), and if ....

Thanks for thinking about it (translation). If you did. Regards Charles01 (talk) 07:49, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Flick Affair article

I will be working on the Flick article as part of a Wikipedia class assignment in college. I am open for criticism and new ideas if anybody is interested. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikinils24 (talk • contribs) 18:26, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Template talk:German Federal States

I have started a post about the current layout of Template:German Federal States after a recent major re-design - not for an immediate revert, but to discuss the Pros and Cons of the new and the old version. Personally I like the old version better, but that's not a persuasive argument on its own :). Please join in and add your opinion. GermanJoe (talk) 22:09, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

The discussion to select between 2 different map layouts has been revived. I am involved, so this is simply meant as neutral notification for more feedback from interested editors. Technical assistance from map editors would also be greatly appreciated. GermanJoe (talk) 16:50, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

AfC submission

See Draft:The Gruener Strom Label e.V. Association. Thank you, FoCuS contribs; talk to me! 22:47, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

History of Baden-Württemberg

In response to a request for a copy-edit of History of Baden-Württemberg at Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests, yesterday I completed a copy-edit of the article. Since I don't know the history, I limited my edits to improving sentence structure and correcting minor errors in spelling, capitalization, punctuation, spacing, etc. I think the article is slightly better now, but it could probably benefit from a review by someone who really knows the history. In particular, I think the section History of Baden-Württemberg#Further Austria and the Palatinate needs attention. I think the order of sentences could be improved to get the events closer to chronological order, and some duplication could be removed. Also, I'm not sure all the boldface is needed. Corinne (talk) 23:59, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

German Peasants' War

I've been reading the article German Peasants' War, and I've come across a few things that need attention.

1) At the end of the third paragraph in German Peasants' War#Lesser nobility is the following sentence:

• At odds with all other estaments in Germany, the lesser nobility was the least disposed to change.

I don't think "estaments" is an English word. I thought perhaps it should be "estimates", but that doesn't make much sense, either. It is making a distinction between the lesser nobility and all other classes, or groups, in Germany at the time. Perhaps "estates", or "classes", "groups", "sectors of society"?

• I have never heard the word "estament" and when I google it I don't get an appropriate meaning. I've substituted "classes" which maybe picks up on the analysis behind the phrase. Any plausible sense is preferable to nonsense. BUT it should be a very simple matter for someone to look at the book cited and see what the fellow to whom the sentiment is attributed actually wrote. I don't have the book, however. Anyone?....(and please) Charles01 (talk) 07:15, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

2) At the end of the first paragraph in German Peasants' War#Clergy is the following sentence:

• However, Renaissance humanism was still strongly connected with the Church (and some popes) and churches, its proponents had gone to Church schools.

As you can see, there is something wrong with this sentence, but since I don't know the history, I'm not sure how to fix it.

• In the sixteenth century almost all education came from the church. By the time of Engels, Enlightenment thinking had challenged the church's monopoly on education/knowledge and the power hungry state was increasingly making a grab for the education of the people, thereby diminishing the influence of religion. In our own age humanism is frequently seen as a secular thing in the opposite corner to the church. I don't think that applied in the sixteenth century. I think that is what the line is hinting at. Presumably, too, there were renaissance popes who would have defined themselves as humanists, but I don't have a source to answer the question "which pope(s)?", in the absence of which, I don't think the reference to "some popes" is helpful here. I've had a first stab at trying to clarify the line, but feel free to improve on wot I wrote.Charles01 (talk) 07:34, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

3) Also, I'm just a little puzzled by something else. At the beginning of the section German Peasants' War#Clergy, it says:

• The clergy in 1525 were the intellectuals of their time.

Now, it is true that in the third sentence it says, "the clergy was beginning to lose its overwhelming intellectual authority", but it doesn't say the clergy were dropping to the bottom of the intellectual heap. Then we read, in the second sentence of the next paragraph, "Clerical ignorance" was "rampant". There's no indication of the passage of a great amount of time, so how did the clergy go from being "the intellectuals of their time" to being a group among whom "ignorance" was "rampant"? Corinne (talk) 23:48, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

• You are greatly to be envied if you have never come across groups of intellectuals characterised by rampant ignorance. But the slightly more serious point is that most wiki entries are written by more than one person, and if you are looking for total consistency in any wiki entry .... you're an optimist. If you want to get hold of relevant sources and make the argument run a bit more seamlessly here, however, I agree that there is scope for that. Not necessarily a quick job though... Success Charles01 (talk) 07:34, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Comprehending this sentence about German international schools

From: Ngene, Bunye. Die Stellung der deutschen Sprache in Afrika: Der Einfluss der deutschen und nigerianischen Sprachpolitik auf die deutsche Sprache in Nigeria. Diplomica Verlag, 2013. ISBN 3842869126, 9783842869127. p. 41.

• "Dies liegt an der Konzeption der deutschsprachigen Schulen mit deutschem Schulziel, die sich als sogenannte Expertenschule größtenteils an deutsche Staatsangehörige und deutsche Muttersprachler wenden und nur in begrenztem Maße auch Kinder anderer Muttersprachen aufnehmen (Z.B. die deutsche Schule in Nigeria). Auch die Deutsche Schule Hermannsburg/Südafrika gehört als einzige geförderte landessprachige Schule mit verstärktem Deutschunterricht (L) in Afrika zu den kleineren deutschen Auslandsschulen."

I put this through Google Translate... but it's still a little unclear. Is it saying that most German schools in Africa are only designed for native German speakers and that few children with other native languages enroll; only the Hermannsburg school has intensive English instruction?

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 11:14, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Also Böhm, Michael Anton. Deutsch in Afrika: die Stellung der deutschen Sprache in Afrika vor dem Hintergrund der bildungs- und sprachpolitischen Gegebenheiten sowie der deutschen auswärtigen Kulturpolitik (Volume 52 of Duisburg papers on research in language and culture). Lang, January 1, 2003. ISBN 3631515669, 9783631515662. p. 93. says:

• "Auch die Deutsche Schule Hermannsburg/Südafrika gehört als einzige geforderte landessprachige Schule mit verstärktem Deutschunterricht (V) in Afrika zu den kleineren deutschen Auslandsschulen. Die großen zweisprachigen Schulen mit[...]" ( from the search page)

WhisperToMe (talk) 11:21, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

• Let me translate this for you (I also fixed some copy and paste errors). "The reason for this [smaller size of German-language schools compared to bilingual schools] is the school concept of the German-language schools with German educational goals. As so-called expert schools these are mostly targeted at German nationals and native German speakers and only admit a limited amount of children who are native speakers of a different language (the German school in Nigeria is such an example). The only subsidised local language school with enhanced German language instruction, the German school in Hermannsburg/South Africa, is among the smaller German overseas schools."
• So your understanding is pretty much correct. I am not sure that the Hermannsburg school has English as its main language, but it says the main language of instruction is the Landessprache i.e. the language of the country, which could mean various things in a South African context I guess. Hope that helps, —Kusma (t·c) 12:37, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, Kusma! I added text to Deutsche Schule Abuja and Deutsche Schule Hermannsburg citing that document. WhisperToMe (talk) 13:23, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

http://www.hmbschool.co.za/quickfactsf.htm says that Hermannsburg uses English as its medium of instruction WhisperToMe (talk) 13:27, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Notability of Team Hollandse Frietjes – non-professional cycling

Any reason this should not be prodded/AfD? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:50, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

AfC submission 16/11/15

See Draft:Studienrat. Thanks, FoCuS contribs; talk to me! 17:27, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Walter Model

I have nominated Walter Model for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. DrKay (talk) 21:28, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

New state portals

Thanks to Niet-0-leuk and Bermicourt, Portal:Baden-Württemberg and Portal:Saarland are now available. Please check them out for possible additional article links and other tweaks. Now only Portal:Brandenburg and Portal:Bremen are missing for a full set of states portals. GermanJoe (talk) 21:38, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Talk:Greco-Italian_War#RfC_v2

G'day all, there is a RfC about the scope of the Greco-Italian War article that you may wish to contribute to. Thanks, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 22:41, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Are there two Theodor Wolffs?

Is this Theodor Wolff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Wolff - the same one who authored the Race with the Tortoise in 1929? (http://www.worldcat.org/title/wettlauf-mit-der-schildkrote-geloste-und-ungeloste-probleme/oclc/250470227) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.28.191.8 (talk) 19:02, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

No there are at least 3 - see German Wikipedia - none of whom seem to have authored this book. Must be a fairly common name. --Bermicourt (talk) 19:16, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Jacobs University Bremen

I came across this today in the course of following a promotional account--the article is rife with promotional content, and at least a little copyright violation. I'm sometimes hesitant to cut massive amounts of unsourced content, but think this needs a major shearing. Additional thoughts will be greatly appreciated. 2601:188:0:ABE6:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 17:48, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

AfC submission

See Draft:Oberweißbacher Bergbahn. Best, FoCuS contribs; talk to me! 12:15, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Titanic (1943 film)

This article, about the flop propaganda "blockbuster" commissioned by Nazi Germany's Josef Goebbels, has just been through a pretty nasty patch of edit warring, which included personal attacks and the use of sock IPs. The editor responsible has been blocked fo 2 weeks, but it might be a good idea if folks were to add it to their watchlists to make sure things don't start up again when the block is over. BMK (talk) 23:20, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

March (territorial entity)

I just saw this edit to March (territorial entity). [5] Can someone address the question? Corinne (talk) 00:04, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Proposed disambiguation of Southern Alps (New Zealand) and Southern Alps (Europe)

Currently Southern Alps is an article about a mountain range in New Zealand and Southern Alps (Europe) is about the range in the south of the Alps. So there is a move request to move the former to Southern Alps (New Zealand) and make Southern Alps the disambiguation page, on the basis that the Southern Alps of Europe are at least as notable as the Southern Alps of New Zealand. See Talk:Southern Alps#Requested move 30 November 2015. Bermicourt (talk) 12:05, 1 December 2015 (UTC)