Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Germany/Archive 7

message: Hello.
Since this project is one of the parents of the German military history task force, does it's template also need to be listed on all German military related articles?  It seems a bit redundant to me. Oberiko 19:15, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is that the assessments are done separately for both projects. So unless there is a template that does combine the both. But a lot of articles are covered by a large numbers of projects. No harm in that - in fact it means more eyes watching the article in question. Agathoclea 21:09, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: This project on military history articles?

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

message: I have a suggestion of a section in German history i think is neglected; they are very little information of the German witch trials in the 16th and 17th century. I think it would be very interesting to read about this, and i've noticed that this area is very well covered in your own, German Wikipedia, but i cant read German. If anyone on this project is interested of this subject and knows more, i think it is a subject which deserves to be more represented here!--85.226.235.174 14:37, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Were there any specific trials you were thinking of, or just the general German trends, like those in :de:Hexenverfolgung?  — Laura Scudder ☎ 15:38, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion in history 

message: A series of articles have recently been started covering the coats of arms of the 16 states. These articles are very bare (eg. Coat of arms of Bavaria) and could do with some work. Some of the corresponding articles on the German wiki are of a rather high standard (e.g. :de:Bremer Wappen).
For anyone wishing to create such articles for towns, please name them in the standard way: "Coat of arms of (name)". The German Location infobox now looks for such articles and automatically creates a link under the CoA image (eg. see Munich). 
If one particular article could possibly be used to describe multiple coats of arms, then create a redirect with the standard name pointing to this article. For example, Coat of arms of Mainz redirects to Wheel of Mainz (which could be used for many other locations) - creating this redirect then causes the creation of a link under the CoA image in the Mainz article. - 52 Pickup 18:21, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coat of arms articles 

message: Zell, Upper Franconia has just officially been renamed from Zell to Zell im Fichtelgebirge. Now I know we don't follow the all the official namings but should we do with this one? Agathoclea 19:57, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have no problem with moving it to the new name. If there is an official disambiguation, it's probably better to use that instead of our "invented" one. Markussep Talk 22:07, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Naming issue 

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

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

message: George I of Great Britain has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Epbr123 21:10, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: To put this into context: George I was the first Hanoverian King of Great Britain which gives the German connection. Agathoclea 21:59, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: FAR

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

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

message: I translated the French FA !!
You may want to :
# Proofread it !
# re-evaluate its quality, and make some suggestions to improve it !
thanks !
NicDumZ ~ 08:34, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Battle of Bir Hakeim]] 

message: I've expanded the article on German actor "Ulrich Mühe" from a stub, and recently added the pronunciation of his name according to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and the Pronunciation respelling key. However, I need a German speaker who is familiar with the IPA to confirm if it is correct. Please help if you can. Also, you may want to check the English translations of German film and TV series titles, as well as review the article and revise its rating in the  tag. It's currently rated Start Class. Thanks. Cheers, Jacklee 16:09, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: [ r ] is an okay version of r in some dialects, but the standard German is [ ʁ ].  Also, the non-IPA respelling doesn't match your IPA, although I don't know a reliable English respelling for [ç].  — Laura Scudder ☎ 16:46, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ulrich Mühe: Pronunciation of name 

message: I've recently updated the article with the English translations of German audio-book titles that Ulrich Mühe was the narrator of, and would appreciate it if a German speaker would confirm if the translations are accurate (some of them look a bit weird to me!). Thanks. Cheers, Jacklee 12:35, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have edited two of them to what seems more correct to me (now an English speaker needs to check them again, as I might have made them sound weirder ;-). You should check whether translations of any of these works into English exist, though, and make sure to use those titles instead of our self-translated versions if possible. Hope that helps, Kusma (talk) 12:40, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ulrich Mühe: English translation of German book titles 

message: can someone assess the sources presented at RauteMusik.FM (they are in German). --Fredrick day 22:12, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sources can be used to supply details, but not to establish notability (own website and pressrelease respectivly) Agathoclea 07:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The presscoverage mentioned on the talkpage is about the industry and changes in regulation and only quotes RauteMusik as an example. Time for AfD I think. Agathoclea 07:36, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rautemusik 

message: I think articles dealing with claims and comments about versions of the Waffengesetz, especially the 1938 version,  need some attention:
* Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership
* Gun Control Act of 1968
The history of the law itself is now at German Weapons Law, moved there from National Weapons Law.-- Matthead discuß!     O       15:09, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Gun control, Hitler's last legacy" 

message: Does anybody know what the correct copyright status is of the various Notgeld notes issued following WWI? The images on the German Wikipedia seem to be tagged with generic PD tags but I'd like to know for sure, e.g. if they qualify as Amtliches Werk? In most cases these notes are signed by the local Gemeindevorsteher.
I have a couple of notes in my collection relating from the Schleswig Plebiscites and they would make nice illustrations on this article, but I don't wish to violate German law. Thanks in advance. Valentinian T / C 09:30, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: At a minimum  could be applied together with a variation of  . As for the actual status of the specific notes I have not got a clue. It might be prudent to ask at commons where more of the experts are watching. Agathoclea 17:20, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Money-EU banknote won't do as these images have nothing to do with the ECB. Thanks for the tip about the other template, I hadn't noticed it. I'll make a post on Commons. Valentinian T / C 22:54, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I should have read your reply twice. If I understand you correctly,  you mean that a legal notice should be added something like the text on Money-EU. Agree completely. Valentinian T / C 23:39, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyright status of Notgeld issued following World War I 

message: 20-Aug-2007: I've noticed, this weekend, the Table-of-Contents (TOC) "[hide]" option has been fixed to allow shrinking/hiding the TOC detail lines.  This change will require reformatting thousands of articles to auto-reformat image/text placement, but we knew this day would come, and so it has.  I have begun editing articles, with explanation "Allow HIDDEN Table of Contents.." noting, for each article, the changes to allow Hide/Show TOC.  An easy fix is to stack the earlier right-side images/tables (as a series of "Image:" and table definitions) near the top of the article, depending on top paragraphs to provide filler text.  The text-clipping glitch has NOT been fixed [yet] for small-then-large image stacking; consequently, make stacked-images similar size or put narrow images after wider. Images much later in the article should auto-reformat fine, as is, without moving them.  -Wikid77 09:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Noted: Eclipsing of text (when wider images are stacked after narrow) has NOT been fixed: stack images in wider-then-narrow order. -Wikid77 09:57, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Hiding TOC

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

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

message: Would anyone be willing to work with me on getting this article up to featured article status?? Having seen an episode of the British documentary Police, Camera, Action! about this region, I thought this was as good a reason as any to start trying to get the article up to this status.
Also, I am starting an article on the Landespolizei Schleswig-Holstein, if anyone can expand this for me that would be very helpful and I would appreciate that.
I'm worried this project might be becoming inactive, so I'm trying to get it started up again. Thanks, --SunStar Net talk 10:29, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Schleswig-Holstein]] 

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

message: Please see Wikipedia talk:German-speaking Wikipedians' notice board#Categories. Olessi 17:58, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: is continuing his removal of :Category:German natives of East Prussia, from about two dozen bios today. -- Matthead discuß!     O       20:33, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categories 

message: This article is a translation of 
Bernhard Hoop 03:42, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article on [[Martin Hoop]] 

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

message: Binck was a 16th century German illustrator and painter that worked in both Germany, Denmark and Sweden. He painted Gustav Vasa of Sweden and created illustrations for the first Danish bible (:image:Christian den Tredjes våben - Binck 1550.png) Does anybody know how his first name is normally spelled in Germany? Scandinavian sources use both "Jacob" and "Jakob". Valentinian T / C 22:01, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The name can generally spelled both ways in German. I've found both ways of spelling it Binck's name in German on the internet, though "Jakob" seems to be just a bit more common. I also found a few German websites that used "Bink" instead of "Binck". I hope that helps you.--Carabinieri 02:07, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, it did indeed. His signature on the image I linked to above is IcB but since the rest of the text is written in Latin, "Ic" is probably just an abbreviation for IACOBVS. I think I'll place my bets on "Jakob Binck". Valentinian T / C 06:39, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jakob / Jacob Binck 

message: User:Rex Germanus has moved the article to Potsdam Square citing it is the more commonly used name in English. I kinda doubt it (google-testing is highly inaccurate, but 993 hits for "Potsdam Square" vs. 2 million hits for "Potsdamer Platz" are a big difference), but has Rex has a certain temper when IP users doubt his edits I'd like to have a source that "Potsdam Square" is the predominantly used name for the place, or lacking that, support from established users to revert the move. 84.145.229.26 11:54, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, in German they do, but the question is how is the place primarily referenced in English? Is it "Potsdamer Platz" or "Potsdam Square". I don't want to revert Rex here, since he has quite a temper if a IP editor (even worse, a German one) dares to revert him... I recall that Wurst/Würst/Würstchen fiasco. 84.145.229.26 15:44, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

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

text: The name of a place as well known as this should be in its original form. That is what most people will be inputing in the search field to find information about it. You can then have in the text the English translation. (Note Trafalgar Square is not call Kap Trafalger Platz in German Wikopedia!) Also if you go through the Fodor web site or go through Lonelyplant site it is always called Potsdamer Platz. Traveler100 18:21, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Tell that to User:Rex Germanus. He seems to be on a crusade to expurge all "German" from the Wikipedia (besides his usual anti-German bias). Did you know he tried to rename a lot of Names of Persons like "Werner von Orseln" to "Werner of Orseln" or "Günther von Wüllersleben" to "Günther of Wüllersleben". He seems far less eager to move names in Dutch to their english equivalent... He's openly admitting his bias, but indulging it at the same time. I'm honestly considering a RfC now. 84.145.246.227 14:59, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Potsdamer Platz moved to [[Potsdam Square]] 

message: According to the Anne Frank article she was German until she became stateless in 1941.--Boson 06:16, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I reverted the edit, which also introduced some non-FAs into our FA list (is that list up to date?) Kusma (talk) 06:37, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of Anne Frank from project page on grounds of being Dutch 

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

message: Hello.  Just wanted to give you a heads-up that as part of an article assessment drive for WikiProject Ships, I recently tagged the Kriegsmarine/Reichsmarine/Bundesmarine ship disambiguation pages with the  project banner as well as our normal  and  banners.  While I do not generally assess articles for projects of which I am not a member, the instructions at WikiProject Germany/Assessment were very clear and concise, so I went ahead and marked each of the dab pages as having a class of Disambig and an importance of NA.  Please let me know if you have any questions, issues, or if I screwed it up.  Thanks, Kralizec! (talk) 03:38, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Any help appreciated. Agathoclea 11:28, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Project tagging and assessment  

message: There is "D’alemannisch Wikipedia" at "http://als.wikipedia.org/", but as a result of Wikipedia:User_categories_for_discussion/Archive/August_2007#Category:User_als_and_subcats and , many users of  are now lost without any category, neither :Category:User als-N, :Category:User als, :Category:User swg nor :Category:User gsw. I seems the discussion will now continue at WT:UCFD. See also  and . -- Matthead discuß!     O       14:49, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Why does the alemannic Wikipedia use "als"? Is that a superseded ISO code? If there is confusion with the ISO categories, you could try to put a disambiguation notice on the category page and invent something new (like "de-als") or just ask all Wikipedians who use the userbox to sort themselves into either swg or gsw. Kusma (talk) 08:55, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Alemannic Wikipedia was started in 2003 as Alsatian Wikipedia, and soon expanded to cover all of the Alemannic German (Alemannische Sprache). Thus, it predates by far the ISO 639-3 pick of als for Tosk Albanian which was published in February 2007. IMHO, those Ethnologue codes taken over by ISO are in many cases totally arbitrary, and need to be rectified with involvement of the affected native speakers, especially when a language is concerned that has millions of native speakers in the heart of Europe, in several countries, yet an ISO code like gsw for "Schwyzerdütsch, A language of Switzerland". Basically, that's an incompetent insult to all those outside Switzerland. Better codes for Alemannic in general, like ale, have been picked for the 490 speakers of Unangam Tunuu. ISO needs to fix this mess and put the newer 639-series standards on hold, rather than blindly rely on Ethnologue/SIL International, "a Christian linguistic service organization which studies lesser-known languages primarily to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language." What a joke, do we live in 19th century, or what? IMHO, even Wikipedia is more qualified than this bunch of amateur cunning linguists in a self-appointed missionary position. -- Matthead discuß!     O       03:28, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Using "als" for Alemannic or Albanian?  

message: ref: Roßla-Südharz and Verwaltungsgemeinschaft, here via Stolberg, Saxony-Anhalt
;Some 'concept focused' edits needed
German transliterated names like Saxony-Anhalt are bad enough to cope with (to readers used to English phraseology) with out unnecessarily borrowing loan words and creating article titles with unusual unicode font containing words. Being the English wiki, such should be redirects if used ever. 
;elaboration
It would be good if the project participants were chary of using glyphs such as 'ß' unless absolutely necessary in a name. Certainly, a less visually jarring (is this monitor acting up! One thinks for a moment!) rendition such as "Robla-Südharz" should be found. I believe that is still policy per WP:MOS, as well! (Not knowing the meaning or lingual impact of the character 'ß', I've resisted (A "desperate" fight, that! <g>) moving Roßla-Südharz boldly for now, but suggest modern Europe terms like  Verwaltungsgemeinschaft ("Collective Municipality", I infer) and such weird spellings be avoided. 
On the other hand, Collective Municipality is a perfectly good article title and has enough scope that it should be given a clear English explanation, which is to say, an article. Perhaps that hypothetical article would clarify such nebulous references (to non-Europeans) such as Amt (country subdivision) by making the distinctions more plain. "Country subdivision" itself, like "subnational entity" is a new level of meaning to most (American, at least) people, and German related article phrasings need be chary of the social blind-spot.
I've done 'clarification edits' on quite a few German topic articles for such clarity, and will be glad to look over such and vett it should anyone care to have me review it. By the same reasoning, it would be good if a few of you were willing to vett some of the changes I make, as cross check needs back to de:wikipedia are something I can't do myself and I do visit a lot of German based articles updating links in 1632 series. Any volunteers out there? (That second link worries me!) Best regards // FrankB 17:43, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please do not suggest deliberate misspellings for names containing an ß, which is not an "unusual Unicode character" (it is present in most fonts nowadays). For the translation of German country subdivisions, we usually use the EU recommended terms (see Wikipedia:German-English translation requests/Translation guide), but perhaps we need to further standardize some of our articles. In cases of doubt, using the precise German terminology with a link leading to an explanation will be better than a hand-made translation that may lead to more confusion. Kusma (talk) 08:52, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ahem -- the point is 'a font (glyph) is NOT part of ENGLISH, and this be en.wikipedia, NOT de.wikipedia. There is almost certainly some standard transliteration (translation plus representation--a mapping of equivalence in meaning) for whatever that alphabetical character is called to some English alphabetical equivalent—most likely, several letters combined, I would guess. After all, German was translated to English for centuries before the advent of the type-writer, much less the Personal Computer, and type-writers had glyphs specific to the language being represented for the most part. In coding theory, a glyph is a coded mapping to a visual form, but the form in question is alien to English. Please refer to WP:NAME, especially the section an links in WP:NAME#Special_characters and WP:NAME#Use_English_words. German alphabet is not generally acceptable in a wikipedia article name (even such multilanguage glyphs as "à, ë, è, ê, ï, î, ō, or ǖ/ű" are intolerable in an article title unless they also are mapped to a English alphabet equivalent by the wiki software [those would usually be such vowel forms sorted and acted upon as the plain vanilla characters: "a, e, i, o, and u" in general, where all the little dots and angled thingys and squiggles and so forth are ignored by the search engine, not an very alien letter which is probably a non-vowel!) not least because it immediately violates the WP:NAME premise (read the introduction above the Table of Contents carefully!) in naming things convenient to the READERS, WHO MAY BE TRYING TO SEARCH SOMETHING. How do they type those? They, have no handy Css character overlays to type in such a unicode character, are probably totally ignorant of the existance of unicode at all, and have a keyboard not coded to generate one... so names need be formated using the standard 26 letters of the English alphabet. Period, dot, end. That's been policy all along, and if this project is violating such, then you need to police yourselves. Chinese and Indian and Arabic editors don't name articles in their glyphs, and neither should you    here in the Germany project. If you can't find the proper transliterated form and spelling, ask someone smart enough to do so. Find out the most common transliterated spelling, and redirect your glyph-things to that, if you can't avoid them entirely (which would be the most proper thing outside a line in an article using ). Sorry, but that's the way it's got to be... the customer-reader can't follow that glyph dance you're leading. That's nearly as stupid as game designers designing video graphics for the latest greatest video chip sets—and cutting their own market to a very few enthusiasts. Good products address the Mass Market, not the niche, and voluntary or not, this is a product. This version of the encyclopedia is not in a niche, but at the forefront for billions world-wide. It's practices need reflect that broad base of users. Not confuse them! I trust I haven't come down too hard on this, but in this case, since it maps funny, looks alien, and doesn't work... try going to "Robla-Südharz" yourself, and get this Ahem! That's an easy test guys! If it can't be reached using the standard 26 letters, it shouldn't be used. Try instead "Besancon" which also uses an alien consonant character... but has been cured by a proper redirect. The difference is simple: Answer the question "is 'ß' close enough to spell as 'B' or 'b'?", then do so, as the word fails the more easily recognizable test of this. Note that there is NO PROBLEM using  above the article title -- which puts the German familiar form right out there on top where German readers will see it, leaving the English version for the article title. Try that, you may like it! <g> I will grant you it will be a good thing for German keyboard coded readers to have both. But there is a vast difference between glyph friendly and proper English representation, as I hope this gets across. This is what that looks like:  ...above the title line, of course. Believe it or not, but I'm usually the last one here to cite a guideline or rule, and I've dealt with a fair amount of language issues on the commons and on Meta over the years. Hell, I'm usually THE ONE catching the heat (hell! <g>) for a loose interpretations. Just see this for proof!. Be well, but use English spelt  (er... spelled) titles! (See, we can't even get the same spelling on things with the same meaning half the time in English! and you want to introduce German glyphs as well! Oh, my poor feeble mind quakes at the concept! Arrrrrgggggghhhh!!! <g>) I can still use a volunteer, for occasional fact checking, especially one good with (and preferably one with an personal interest in) the Geography and history of Germany/Central Europe. Best regards // FrankB 17:25, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

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

message: I am pleased to announce that as of today, every city, town and municipality in Germany has an article in English Wikipedia! A big thank you to all contributors! 
In the next phase of the subproject cities, we will improve the articles by adding infoboxes. Everyone is invited to help. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany/Cities for instructions. Markussep Talk 18:51, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is pleasant that there are so many articles about German localities. Unfortunately most of them are stubs and include errors. For example most localities, that are "Gemeinden" (municipalities) in Germany are described as "towns" in the English wiki. Of Course a "Gemeinde" could also be a "Stadt" (town, city), but mostly a location that is called Gemeinde is a "Dorf" (village) in Germany. 
Classification
* Weiler (hamlet) - location smaller than a village but larger than a grange. A Weiler is not independent. It belongs to a municipality (village, town, city) or to a district of the municipality. A Weiler has usually no church, tavern, or else.  
* Dorf (village) - a Dorf can be an independent municipality or a district (suburb) of a town or city. It is a locality that has not the status of a Stadt. It is larger than a Weiler, has got a church, a tavern, small stores, even supermarkets, a town hall or an administravive office (if it is a district). The population of a Dorf can vary from a few hundres to several thousands of people. 
* Stadt (town, city) - a Stadt is a municipality that has a special status. Most of the Städte (pl.) got their title in the middle age, several hundred years ago. The status assured privilegs like the market right (ever), the right of own administration, the right to build a (town/city) wall, sometimes the right to mint and issue coins, etc. 
The status Stadt was awarded by the souvereign in middle age. Today it is a decision of the Ministries of State. 
In 1974 for instance the Ministry of State of Baden-Württemberg has awarded the status Stadt to the municipality of Mössingen. Before Mössingen got the status of a Stadt, it was a Landgemeinde (= rural municipality = village with a municipal council). Today Mössingen is a Stadtgemeinde (= urban municipality = municipality with the status of a Stadt) with a town council. In the state of Baden-Württemberg a municipality must have minimum a population of 4500 to apply for the status Stadt. But the minimum of population is not the only condition to get the status. So a municipality with a population more than 4500 does not automatically become a Stadt in Baden-Württemberg.
However, there are municipalities with a population less than 4500 people that got the status of a Stadt. Those municipalities have got the status in middle age, because of that the Ministry of State does not withdraw their status (historical Stadtrecht). Those towns are often located in rural areas, where there was no increase of population during the age of industrialization.        
In Germany there is no distinction between a town or a city, both are called Stadt. However, Städte with a population  ex 100,000 are regarded as cities. I think the British distinction of town and city is plausible, but the distinction in the U.S. is confusing (different from state to state). For instance the City of Maza in North Dakota has only 5 residents. In my opinion this is ridiculous. 
In Germany there is another classification of Stadt. There are types, that mark no special status: 
* Landstadt (rural town) - Stadt with less than 5000 residents, (often historical Stadtrecht)
* Kleinstadt (small town) - Stadt with at least 5,000 but less than 20,000 residents
* Mittelstadt (middle town) - Stadt with at least 20,000 but less than 100,000 residents
* Großstadt (large town, city) - Stadt with at least 100,000 residents
* Millionenstadt (million city) - Stadt with at least one million residents
--MaiusGermanicus (talk) 17:27, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think most involved are aware of the town problem, which is historical in the way these articles have developed. I have tried to fix it for Bavaria some time ago, but ran out of time. I might start again on the other states. Agathoclea (talk) 17:58, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Cities subproject

message: Currently the German Wikipedia has a handful of editors who have decided that they want to get rid of interwikilink to articles on other wikipedias that they consider substandard. After their vandalism ran into opposition by the larger community they resorted to hiding interwikilink using sockpuppets. When that failed they started making WP:POINT edits like this (That editor in question was actually recently blocked for his vandalism on dewiki). I will need some help in tracking down further attempts like this - The above user has made the same edits also as IP. If you come across any more please let me have the diffs - thanks. Agathoclea 07:54, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the heads-up. Olessi 21:33, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interwikiproblems 

message: Shouldn't :Category:Regierungsbezirk and :Category:Former Regierungsbezirk be retitled, as categories should be in plural form? ie :Category:Regierungsbezirke or, if translated, :Category:Government regions of Germany. Olessi 22:15, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The parent category is plural so I think it would be consistent to make it plural as well. Why not stick it on CfD and let the experts decide which version to use (sideeffect: a bot will do the legwork of making all the alterations) Agathoclea 23:31, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I opened up a CFD discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 November 1#Category:Regierungsbezirk. Olessi 21:08, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Regierungsbezirke''