Talk:Germany/Archive 4

message: The term "Imperial Germany" is generally used specifically to refer to the Second Reich between 1871 and 1918. It is not used to refer to the Holy Roman Empire, and certainly not to refer to the period between 1806 and 1871. I would suggest Splitting off the pre-1871 material into a "History before Unification" section, or something like that. john k 22:38, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Imperial Germany" 

message: I've noticed that the history section was partly changed back to its former (pre-blocking) version, especially the first two parts. As I said before, the length does not concern me, but i would have some comments, on which I would like to know your opinion.	 
First of all, the removal of the picture of the HRE and replacement by a picture on WWI ship seems to be a very bad choice. The HRE was a very important player in Europe during the Middle Ages and was the centre of Reformation. This would call for a picture (maybe another one than the previous one, i don't mind). The WWI picture, however, is completely misleading, since ships had actually NO influence whatsoever on the evolution on the war. I would propose to delete it, and, if necessary, replace it with a more relevant one.	 
Also, there is a very grave ambiguity in the first part:	 
 During these almost thousand years, the Germans expanded their influence successfully with the help of the organization of the Catholic Church, Northern Crusades and the Hanseatic League.	 
This is wrong: the influence of the HRE was MINIMAL after the Middle Ages. Its highest level of influence was achieved around the time of the Ottonic dynasty. It disappeared after the loss of the Italian provinces, and also because of the fights with the Pope. Also, the Emperor gradually lost power, and the title became mostly symbolic after the Thirty Years War. 	 
The subsequent parts are really bad. Some totally unnecessary facts are stated (e.g. that the nazis dissolved the Länder...as if anyone would cae about that) and missed other important ones (i.e. the part on Czechoslovakia is completely wrong; it misses that Slovakia was established as a puppet state). 	 
		 
I would therefore recommend to revert all those sections back. If people think that some important things are missing, they should add them to it afterwards. Luis rib 18:47, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've restored the section, per your recommendation. Please do not mass revert without providing reasons. --Jiang 00:59, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: Heimdal, as explained by myself and others, please do not mass revert others' edits without explaining what is exactly the problem with the current text. Consensus is to have the article shortened. If you cannot respect consensus, then I suggest you leave as you promised. If you want to keep mass reverting edits, then this article will have to be protected again. --Jiang 11:15, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: History section

message: In my opinion at least Willy Brandt and the students demonstrations against Nazi past, which led to the new Germany and its pacifistic and green movements that dominate Germany's politics today, should be mentioned. Otherwise there is a 30 years history gap. Stern 11:32, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If you care to compare pre-1960 and post-1968-Germany, you'll notice quite a difference, and, for starters, the green party is participating in government 02:46, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

text: I'm not aware of the CDU/CSU being the largest parties of Germany, and right now they form the opposition... 02:46, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  History gap (1960-1990) 

message: I'd like to establish a consensus as to a 'baseline' version for further edits, and cease this unproductive revert-warring. Please feel free to vote for either with qualifications, or to propose further options (compromise or otherwise). Alai 20:19, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Straw poll 

message: #I vote for this version. Luis rib 20:21, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Jiang version[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Germany&oldid=11022886]

message: * Saintswithin 09:59, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Neither

message: *You treat this as if it were a NPOV-dispute or a content-dispute. Although there can be found a certain bias both here andmay or may not be a NPOV dispute; it's certainly not a factual accuracy dispute. If it's not a content dispute, then what is it? Are you suggesting that this isn't an appropriate matter to form a consensus on? I don't disagree with your framing questions here, but I don't see how they help us establish whether there's a consensus (or what that consensus is), given the lack of willingness of certain parties to engage in useful dialogue on them (or anything else). Alai 23:35, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments

message: The page history seems to be a bit screwy -- I did a revert, then a minor change, only the latter seems to be showing up in the history. Server's so slow as to made this next to impossible to "diff" to check. At any rate, not trying to be misleading.	 
		 
About three days ago, Heimdal left me this message:	 
:Therefore, in order not to disrupt the editing process, I've decided to revert the page to the older version only once a day	 
		 
Which is a pretty modest "concession" in the first place -- the only person in favour of "the older version" seems to be Heimdal himself, and several fly-by-night anon IP addresses that pop up, make a few edits on German-related matters, then disappear again. But he's not even sticking to it. This is becoming very disruptive; no-one is going to try to make any substantiative improvements to a page that gets systematically reverted many times a day. I can think of few other options but to move to the next step of dispute resolution, which would seem to be an RfC. But if anyone has any better ideas on how to proceed I'd be much obliged. Alai 18:10, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  More reverts 

message: Page protection is pointless in the absence of substantive ongoing debate. I also note that at least one user among those whose edit warring seems to have provoked the protection of this page hasn't even made an edit on the talk page since March 9th, a good week before it was protected.	 
		 
Unprotecting. Y'all be good now. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:36, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The article seems protected again. gidonb 10:09, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Why is the article still protected. Is there any debate going on indeed ? Lysy 11:19, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Unprotecting

message: Currently the term "Federal Assembly" is used within the article with two different meanings. Perhaps the translation could be changed to "Federal Electoral College" or something similar for the body which elects the President. It may be inaccurate, but some distinction must be made to differentiate the two bodies. Feldmarschall 13:27, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The second example should actually read "He is elected every five years by the Federal Convention (Bundesversammlung)". Anyone feel free to change it when the article happens to be unprotected! Saintswithin 14:53, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Federal Assembly 

message: Could someone please keep an eye out for IP 83.109.xxx.xx - he/she doesn't seem to understand that we don't use terms like "Middle Germany", "Federal Republic of Germany" and "German Democratic Republic" in English - i have just had to revert West Germany again because of it. PMA 22:19, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Help Needed

message: I am a little surprised that the Weimar hyperinflation is  not listed in the history of Germany, a land of culture (Goethe Bach Beethoven Brahms , etc.) with over 1000 years of civilization. To demonstrate that it is an essential point, I include it in the following sketch of history: 
#A central part of Holy Roman Empire 
#a new polity 19th century
#political treaties leading to entanglements, leading to
#World War I and the destruction of the political system of the land
#punitive economic terms laid down by Treaty of Versailles 1919
#hyperinflation during Weimar republic, which was then doomed by
#destruction of savings of a thrifty populace
#social unrest, leading to takeover by a leader who was a genius at voicing the feelings of the populace
#World War II essentially the same war as WWI, but from another set of leadership.
#defeat, but with reconstruction (the obverse of Versailles)
#Economic miracle: steady gains due to thrift and steadiness of populace, which had to include guest workers to maintain productivity. Vigilance of the government about inflation.
#Post-industrialization (falling population etc., but popular resentment of the guest workers, etc.)
#Further integration into a stronger successor to the Holy Roman Empire, with projections of another long period of essentially positive civilization, but as a member of a global community with more migration etc.
I list these in a chain as a cautionary tale. The same sorts of events could happen in the land of the free and the home of the brave. It would be completely unfair to lay the blame for hyperinflation at the feet of Woodrow Wilson, but the popular demand for punitive terms certainly backfired. Ancheta Wis 05:57, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Very valid point.  Added minimally, please edit to taste...  Alai 07:50, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  sketch 

message: So the new strategy is if he can't disproportionately lengthen the history section, he'll selectively shorten it? What possible reason is there for completely deleting the paragraph on WW1 (which coincidentally or otherwise, I'd just reworked)? Alai 05:03, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  More Heimdalisms 

message: Bismarck and his wars that are the grounds for the Empire. He also settled peace for Europe till th end of his government. He was probably the most important politician at that time. His humilation of France is regarded by historians as a reason for the first World War. He prevented imperialism in Germany till the end of his reign. Not mentioning him and his wars is unacceptable.NightBeAsT 22:25, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: User:Heimdal had added a section on Bismarck, but this was recently removed by User:Luis rib as part of the ongoing revert war which has made editing  this page a complete waste of time. Go ahead and add Bismarck if you like, Nightbeast, but don't expect him to stay there! Saintswithin 06:28, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Bah, I'm giving up on this page. Heimdal's appropriation of this page's content seems to have been tacitly accepted by editors. Too bad. I'll check on it periodically to see how much the damage is growing. Luis rib 17:34, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bismarck?! 

message: At the risk of it being too little, too late, I’ll give my opinion. The History section could stand to be shortened to a third of its current size, at a minimum! For it to remain this bloated on the main country page detracts from the proper History of Germany page and exhausts readers coming to the country page for a broad overview of the German state. I’d really like to see discussion started up again. --Infamouskitty 06:17, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Infamouskitty. The current history section should be merged with History of Germany and the history section here should be brought back to about one third of its present size. I do not have much interest in improving the article much myself, because of Heimdal's impossible behavior, but will help and endorse any process outside the page. gidonb 11:55, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Merge it with History of Germany? Unfortunately, Heimdal has also managed to increase that page to impossible lengths. Luis rib 20:51, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: I'm a newb here, especially when it comes to dispute resolution. What has to occur for this process to move forward? This was posted on the RfC page a while ago, but now what? Infamouskitty 00:25, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The article was, but that's simply to get comment on the article content, not on "user behaviour". The main reference is Wikipedia:Resolving disputes; in this case I'd imagine the next step would be Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Comment about individual users, or perhaps Wikipedia:Requests for mediation. I'm not sure which would be the more useful at this point. Alai 00:42, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

text: Do -it is necessary - Wikipedia:Requests for comment --ClemMcGann 01:04, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

text: Well, in germany this word is not very common and probably only used simmilar to the word nationalism. I found it not in this dictionary http://dict.leo.org/ --Ot 06:26, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Very difficult topic. "Nationaldenken" is very uncommon indeed. There only few words in German starting with National that are not associated more or less with Nationalism. de:Nationalgefühl (national feeling) = de:Nationalbewusstsein (national consciousness (and pride)) refers to historical affords to build one German state =>Romantic nationalism. de:Patriotismus is used sometimes. --Abe Lincoln 07:58, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  So, is Luis rib right? Has everyone abandoned this page? 

message: A little offtopic but...	 
		 
Someone above mentioned Nationaldenken however there are very few English references on the meaning of it and the googleable german resources were mostly forums and slang. I get a little bit from the context but not enough to derive a formal meaning. Primarily its google is associated with Hitler, and indeed Hitler used the term but it seems to have several different subtleties and I think the direct literal english translation "national thinking" is flawed (perhaps "Nationalist thinking" or for most uses "National Socialist Thinking" (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22national+thinking%22+german&btnG=Search) Anyone interested in giving a hand with this as an article?	 
:Well, in germany this word is not very common and probably only used simmilar to the word nationalism. I found it not in this dictionary http://dict.leo.org/ --Ot 06:26, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Very difficult topic. "Nationaldenken" is very uncommon indeed. There only few words in German starting with National that are not associated more or less with Nationalism. de:Nationalgefühl (national feeling) = de:Nationalbewusstsein (national consciousness (and pride)) refers to historical affords to build one German state =>Romantic nationalism. de:Patriotismus is used sometimes. --Abe Lincoln 07:58, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Nationaldenken

message: A technical problem: Why is the interwikilink os:Герман not recognized as an interwikilink? This problem also occurs in the German wikipedia. It should lead here. --Abe Lincoln 12:50, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  interwikilink os 

message: I think Nietzsche deserves to be emphasized more in this article. --Orz
Nietzsche's work is in itself worthy of an article. It doesn't belong in this article save for a short mention and link. --Jamyskis 11:06, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nietzsche 

message: I think the article focuses to much on the atrocities of the Third Reich. It would be better focused on how the Third Reich contributed to Germanys culture today, the Autobahn for example.
The Autobahns are older than the Third Reich. Lars T. 22:57, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Third Reich