Talk:Geography of Albania
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The section about borders needs some clarification. It requires too much knowledge of geography. And, it is not clear what is meant by political balance, why natural borders were essential and why the border occurs west of the mountains.
It seems to me that this section is a hidden reply to the allegation that the borders of Albania were assigned unjustly in the fear of a too powerful Albania. True, talk about political balance may mean that fear, and also borders west of the mountains might mean the same.
I think the topic of Greater Albania should explicitly be discussed in the article, at least mentioned. Andres 16:55, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)
The small-size new map is not readable. The simple map was much clearer. I think we still need it. As to the bigger version, it is not shown big enough either, at least by my browser. Besides, the readable map should be in the body of the article, so it would be more usable. Andres 16:41, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)
- The large one is 1019x1274 pixels (the small one is 300x375 pixels) and it should be readable, make sure your browser isn't resizing it. The old one didn't show much besides some city names (which the larger version has) so I thought I wouldn't make the page longer to load by having two maps. We can put it back in if you think it's still needed. Dori 16:49, Oct 22, 2003 (UTC)
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- You are right, my browser resizes the large map. Anyway, I think that the old map is still needed. Andres 18:47, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)
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- OK, I restored it. Dori 21:57, Oct 22, 2003 (UTC)
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I found an image of Albania from space (NASA's Earth Observatory), don't know if they should be included in the article Dori 05:25, Nov 21, 2003 (UTC)
- I think the more pictures the better. Andres 09:41, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
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- added it Dori 15:03, Nov 21, 2003 (UTC)
Why the names of the rivers are definite whereas the names of cities are indefinite?
- I started using indefinite for the rivers too, but for some of them it just didn't sound right so I changed them. This is because in Albanian you would not use the word river, i.e. you would just say Vjosa (except for something like the Lumi i Tiranës where you have to distinguish from the city). For most cities, I think indefinite sounded better and it was also more widely used according to some google tests that I did (except Tirana which is used in that form internationally). Dori 14:58, Nov 22, 2003 (UTC)
What about "Shkoder Lake" as it stands in this article? Should it be "Shkodër Lake" or "Shkodra Lake"?
- I think it should be either Shkodër Lake (because in Albanian it would be Liqeni i Shkodrës) or Skadar Lake as it is called by some other countries (since part of it is also in Montenegro). Or both of these forms could be used to distinguish whether we're talking about the Albanian side or the Montenegro site (the same debate would apply to the Ohër and Prespa Lakes). Dori 14:58, Nov 22, 2003 (UTC)
I am not sure that "White" and "Black" should not be in English. Andres 09:30, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)
- I thought about this too, but again it sounded weird and people might expect the Albanian names when they search and not realize that part of the name could be translated. When/if an article is written about any such river, both forms and the english translated form would be included, and redirects will be made appropriately. Dori 14:58, Nov 22, 2003 (UTC)
The introduction compares the size of Albania to that of the state of Maryland. To me, as a non-US citizen, that means nothing whatsoever. I'm guessing it might have come from the CIA factbook, but should we really include such non-NPOV comparisons? Or should we add other comparisons from well-known places across the world? Eg, "similar in size to the US state of Maryland, the European... and the Asian..."? --Sam
