Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Germany/Archive 3

message: In another shameless move to promote my To do-template, I have included it in Template:WikiProject Germany. Please help to keep the contents of the Todo template (which is located at Portal:Germany/Things you can do) up to date and suggest improvements to the Project template here. Kusma (討論) 12:57, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  To do list on template 

message: Can anybody write a better blurb describing this project there? Kusma (討論) 14:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Overview of Germany project pages]] 

message: Hi all. At the moment, I have not yet joined this project since I have probably joined too many already and the Former Countries and Prussia projects are taking up a lot of my time (always keen for new members of course...). Thanks to those who have been tagging the appropriate entries with the  banner when placing the  banner - I have started to recpirocate where possible. I have a request for anyone working on historical entries: please try to avoid merging historical articles. A major goal of the Former countries project is to link different entities over time (primarily through our infobox). Many entries at the moment discuss multiple entities that may have had the same name. While this is rather intuitive to do, this setup can cause confusion or make it difficult for writers to expand articles.
For example Baden currently discusses the Margraviate, Grand Duchy and Republic of Baden: this could easily be broken up into 3 articles, and should be broken up into at least two (a non-sovereign republic is a very different type of state comapared to the monarchies of Margraviate and Duchy). The broken-up articles are of course smaller, but it is then a lot easier to explain each period in more detail. A more extreme example is that of Prussia, whose entry is now so big that there is no room for expansion within the current framework. A number of pages have been written covering the different forms that Prussia had over time (all in various levels of completeness) and now we're working on breaking down the Prussia page and cleaning up the interaction and content of all Prussian pages to accomodate this high level of content.
So in order to make our work a bit easier, avoid merging wherever possible. If anyone has any comments or suggestions about the organisation of entries on former German states, please let me know, either directly or through the Former countries talk page. Thanks. - 52 Pickup 15:19, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Former German states 

message: How many Germany-related articles are unsourced? I was just on someone's user page and there are 36332 unsourced articles in Wikipedia. And those are just the ones that have been tagged. I think it might be good to have an article referencing drive on WP Germany. Kingjeff 01:17, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I maintain an unreferenced section in the  template. What do article reference drives usually do and how do they work at other WikiProjects and what kind of experiences do they have with them? Kusma (討論) 20:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I personally wouldn't know the answer. It's just that if a referencing drive happens a few people could easily take care of any Germany-related articles. Kingjeff 21:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For a drive of any sort we need more bodies that can bring the time and expertise to do so. As we continue tagging we will bring those extra people in. People will need motivation. If our goals are outside their core-motivation (i.e. their current specific field of interest) we need a particular good reason to get them involved. Getting top-importance articles beyond stub for example would be a project where a need can be demonstrated and is widly accepted and it is an overseeable project. Agathoclea 08:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

text: There is an unref=yes switch already, which adds articles to :Category:Unreferenced Germany articles (and puts an unreferenced warning in the banner). Kusma (討論) 11:43, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

text: One source for an irrelevant part of the article should not make the "unsourced" go away. I'd say we use it if key statements are not sufficiently referenced (that's how I read the formulation in the category page and on the template), but I'm not the boss around here ;-) Kusma (討論) 12:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Unreferenced Germany articles

message: I have just rougely deleted these subpages, so now they are red links again so everybody sees that we do not have a peer review section, a collaboration section or a portal upkeep section. Portal upkeep is currently done by me with some help from others, I might write up how I think it works some day but I don't think anybody else should create that page. A collaboration thingy is probably a good idea, but maybe we should get more members and get serious about that assessment tagging (I think we still have to tag several thousand articles, perhaps several ten thousands). What is the peer review section supposed to be like? As nobody from here even contributed to the peer review of our top 1 priority article at Wikipedia:Peer review/Germany/archive1 although I advertised it here and on the Todo template, I don't think we should be running our own peer review system at the moment. Maybe we should just transclude the usual Wikipedia peer reviews on a page of our own, similar to the Deletion sorting page. The :Category:Requests for Germany peer review, populated by the peer-review=yes switch of  (currently undocumented), is empty, and I don't see a compelling reason yet why we even need it. Does anybody else have better ideas? (I hope yes :-)) Kusma (討論) 20:25, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peer reviews, Collaboration & Portal upkeep subpages 

message: I am not certain what the process for this is, but is there any way the Germany article could be re-evaluated. I believe the recent improvements to its text warrant a higher grade than "B". TSO1D 00:28, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Usually "B" is the highest grade we give out for articles that have not gone through the Good articles process. Kusma (討論) 07:35, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, ok, thank you for explaining the process. TSO1D 14:48, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Correcting myself, apparently we can give out "A"-class for non-GAs if there is sufficient reason. I'll A-class Germany now, it is at FAC now and most major objections seem to have been resolved. Kusma (討論) 08:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Germany article 

message: I suppose most here will be aware of this but just in case: the article Germany has been nominated for featured article status. TSO1D is doing a big job of fixing lots of small things that reviewers are pointing out. Help from other competent editors would be most welcome. Pascal.Tesson 18:12, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed. Please comment at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Germany or just fix what needs fixing in the article! Kusma (討論) 15:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: More things need to be fixed. Please read the FAC and help condensing the history section! Kusma (討論) 15:49, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Germany article is up for FA status

message: A new user tried to contact Jimbo Wales on . Could someone who can speak German please translate the message left on that page? That would be a great help!--Ed ¿Cómo estás? 01:27, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is apparently Jimbo's German lesson, part 1. I don't think we should spoil his fun of figuring out the translation by himself. Kusma (討論) 11:05, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  German to English translation needed 

message: Would anybody be interested if I made an article on German technology during WWII?
Like German technology during WII or German military technology during WWII variations.
I'm really interested and also knowledgeable about german military technology so I'm planning to make one about it. Just wondering if anybody would be interested, thanks. Good friend100 00:10, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know anything about that topic. But the Germany task force of the WikiProject Military History might be interested.--Carabinieri 02:59, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, I'll refer to the task force, thanks. Good friend100 15:19, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  German technology in WWII 

message: There is a discussion at Talk:Freiburg about moving the article to Freiburg im Breisgau. I think it's a bad idea, what about you?--Carabinieri 03:01, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it would be better to keep this discussion at Talk:Freiburg, so that everyone will be able to read all comments related to it at one place. My comment here was only supposed to get people to take a look at the talk page.--Carabinieri 03:21, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Freiburg/Freiburg im Breisgau 

message: All articles in this category are named without the prefix Samtgemeinde, but why? Some of these titles are names of cities (Grasleben) or regions (Oberharz/Harz) too. I'd like to correct this discrepancy. Any comments? -- Netnet @ 22:59, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not using the prefix Samtgemeinde is correct by our naming conventions (the name of the Samtgemeinde is "Grasleben", not "Samtgemeinde Grasleben", just like we say "Bonn", not "Bundesstadt Bonn" and "Rheinland-Pfalz", not "Land Rheinland-Pfalz". If there is both a village and a Samtgemeinde with the same name, we should choose either Grasleben and Grasleben (village) or Grasleben (Samtgemeinde) and Grasleben per the disambiguation guidelines. Kusma (討論) 06:25, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: All right, I'll change it like Grasleben (including ) and Grasleben (Samtgemeinde) because the village is quite often more important. -- Netnet @ 08:13, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There are actually quite a few where village and Samtgemeinde are in the same article. Add to the problem, that there have been recently quite a few changes in boundaries, especially in merging some of these Samtgemeinden. Agathoclea 00:09, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[:Category:Samtgemeinden in Lower Saxony]] 

message: Some links to Germany-related disambiguation pages need to be fixed. Unfortunately I can't put the request on the Todo template as Special:Whatlinkshere doesn't have a namespace filter and would be unusable for the disambigation. Pages that need help are CDU, Bremen, German, Bavarian. Kusma (討論) 07:52, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disambiguation work 

message: Hi, folks. I asked this question at the Africa-related regional notice board, but so far I've gotten no response. So, maybe you can give me some ideas. I was trying to clean up :Category:Cameroonian people a few days ago, and I came across some problem individuals. How should people like Hans Dominik (a German military leader who served in colonial Cameroon) and Jesko von Puttkamer (nine-time governor of German Cameroon) be categorized? They obviously qualify for various Germany-related categories, but where should they go on the Cameroon section of the category tree? Right now, they're just hanging out at :Category:Cameroonian people. Have any of you encountered similar situations with regard to former German colonies? However these individuals end up being categorized, I'd like it to be consistent with what had been done before (as long as they somehow remain on the Cameroon side of the categorization tree). Thanks, — BrianSmithson 22:44, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Would a :Category:German colonial people similar to :Category:American colonial people help solve your problem? Kusma (討論) 23:38, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting. The overarching category would be :Category:Cameroonian colonial people, correct? Would this include Africans like Charles Atangana or just the Germans, French, and British who lived in colonial Cameroon? Thanks for the suggestion. -- BrianSmithson 00:24, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, on second reading, I was a bit confused. The :Category:American colonial people seems to be for British citizens who lived in the American colonies, so :Category:German colonial people wouldn't quite be analogous. That's why I proposed :Category:Cameroonian colonial people as the parellel. The category could be further broken down into :Category:Cameroonian colonial people from Germany, from Great Britain, and from France (to cover the three colonial powers from the country's past). I'd suggest it be reserved only for colonials born outside Africa, so Charles Atangana would remain on the main :Category:Cameroonian people categorization scheme. Does this sound workable to the people of this project? -- BrianSmithson 01:39, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: When is someone no longer a colonial? Are the children of European's born in Africa colonial or not? It probably depends on your perspective. The second or third generation may or may not feel more affinity to the country of their birth than their ethnic heritage. The indigenous people would probably always see the children of colonials as foreign, even after decades. People from the home country might no longer see the children of colonials as full blooded citizens of their own country. BrianSmithson's suggestion does sound workable, but we need to keep in mind that the decision is probably somewhat arbitrary and other people might use another yardstick.imars 06:00, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a good point, but I can't think of any notable children born to colonist parents in Cameroon to test it against. I've been thinking about this further, and I think the names :Category:German colonial people in Cameroon, :Category:French colonial people in Cameroon, and :Category:British colonial people in Cameroon make more sense than :Category:Cameroonian colonial people from Foo, despite the American precedent. Any other thoughts from folks before I run this by the French noticeboard and African noticeboard people? — BrianSmithson 09:05, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Germans in the colonies

message: I think this is a very UNDERSTANDABLE table that is easily applicable, mutatis mutandis, to many areas.  It might seem pedantic, but here I have replaced the rail words.    I am also happy with the community rating system as given by Boson and have incorporated it.  If any-one sees errors here, please incorporate the corrections.  I'd also like to see a few more examples in each category.  In addition, the scope (breadth, not depth) should be expanded, contracted or corrected.   That way, we'll have an easy reference sheet that reflects our policy.
Label	Criteria                                                                                                                                    	Reader's experience                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 	Editor's experience                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               	Example
     	The article is one of the core topics concerning Germany.  Generally, this is limited to those articles that are listed on                  	A reader who does not have a personal or professional connection with Germany will none-the-less have high familiarity with the subject matter and should be able to relate to the topic easily. Communities: large and internationally famous cities such as Berlin, Frankfurt and Hamburg as well as smaller communities of international fame such as Heidelberg.	Articles in this importance range are written in mostly generic terms, leaving technical terms and descriptions for more specialized pages.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       	Germany
     	The article covers a topic that is vital to understanding the history, social, cultural, religious, or economic aspects of Germany.         	Most readers will at least be familiar with the topic being discussed.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              	These articles describe the basics beyond the core topics about Germany and the more significant historical events in and concerning Germany.  Articles about the most basic topics concerning Germany, its history and geography, like mountain ranges, rivers, states, and the most historically and culturally significant topics are included in this level.  Some technical terms can be used within articles in this range, but where they are used, they should be explained or at least link to articles that discuss the terms in more detail.  Communities:  Towns with a population of over 100,000 not qualifying for a higher rating.	Goethe (or should this be top?), the Nuremburg Trials
     	The article covers a topic that has a strong but not vital role in the history, social, cultural, religious, or economic aspects of Germany.	Many readers will be familiar with the topic being discussed, but a larger majority of readers may have only cursory knowledge of the overall subject.                                                                                                                                                                                                              	Articles at this level will cover subjects that are well known but not necessarily vital to understand Germany, such as the Oberammergau Passion Play.  Due to the topics covered at this level, Mid-importance articles will generally have more technical terms used in the article text.  ...  Communities: most towns of any real significance that do not qualify at a higher level (default).                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               	, Oberammergau, Heiligendamm, Oberammergau Passion Play
     	The article is not required knowledge for a broad understanding of Germany or German history.                                               	Few readers not specifically concerned with Germany or German affairs or who are not within the local area of the article's topic may be familiar with the subject matter.  It is likely that the reader does not know anything at all about the subject before reading the article.                                                                                	Articles at this range of importance will often delve into the minutiae of Germany, using technical or local terms (and defining or explaining them) as needed.  Topics included at this level include most subway and local railway stations, short line railroad companies, small rivers, almost all individual mountains and other items that otherwise have no significant impact on Germany as a whole or its reputation.  Communities:  most suburbs, dormitory towns, villages and other settlements of purely local significance.                                                                                                         	Leine Canal, Bremke
I don't think Germany should be the example for top importance.  This leaves a lot of ambiguity on where exactly to draw the border between top and high. john k 23:53, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe Germany should be listed as core-importance? The Germany article is a special case. - 52 Pickup 08:38, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Train Table Translated into German Table

message: Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention.  Badbilltucker 21:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia Day Awards