Wikipedia talk:German-speaking Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Archive 1
| Archive 2 →


Contents

First post!

Very nice that we have a noticeboard now, thanks a lot to Calgacus! Kusma (討論) 03:00, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Connection to missing WikiProject Germany

I was thinking about creating a WikiProject Germany already. I am not sure how much the tasks of this and a WikiProject should overlap. Any comments on that? In any case, there is a lot to do and we can just start it here and move tasks to the WikiProject later, among others:

I guess there are also numerous other personal projects that could do with some collaboration (For example, I would like some help in improving the articles on Cabinet ministers and ministries of Germany, see my user page). Kusma (討論) 03:14, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Hey, glad to be of service. It's most important to gather the community first, so if that means postponing the WikiProject, then that's for the best. If you reckon both can be done at once more efficiently, then all the better. Anyways, this is all yours; I'm not German, and not really aware of how the community is operating, so anything you want to do, you are free to do as far as I'm concerned. I just wanted to set the thing up. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) Image:UW Logo-secondary.gif 03:21, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

No war please

While having a board here is a great idea, it should not be used to "gather an army" in a "revert war". I have toned down the terminology to "content dispute". Please help by trying to find consensus in these disputes. Kusma (討論) 05:02, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Definitely agree, that I why I regard the operations of Wikipedia talk:Polish Wikipedians' notice board and such places as highly unfortunate. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) Image:UW Logo-secondary.gif 13:35, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Most of the discussion there is helpful and not conflict-related, and so should ours. Kusma (討論) 14:53, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Please tell me you're not serious? Go look at the three articles labelled "vandalism or in need of attention", ... all three are there solely because user Molobo seeks back up on revert wars. There are several entries whose sole purpose is to reinforce revert wars going on pushing POVs. It is getting better, but the statement "the discussion there is helpful and not conflict-related" is nonsense. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) Image:UW Logo-secondary.gif 00:52, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Might it also be helpful to list here why listed article are considered disputed? Olessi 22:58, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Good point. I made a note regarding that in the template. I am also removing the Polish-German disputes for now because it seems these pages are more in need of non-German, non-Polish editors that could help mediate. I especially think starting this board by participating in fights about Gdansk and Frombork will give us a bad name. And anyway, the page on which I am currently in conflict, Georg Forster, doesn't have a Germany-related, but a "perception of anti-Polish statements"-related problem. Kusma (討論) 00:46, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand the logic. These articles have content disputes and are in need of attention; the content dispute/revert war section is to address that. The idea that has anything to do with "war" is purely your invention. Articles concerning Germany, German history and Germans obviously benefit from attention of German wikipedians. I don't understand what all the fuss is about. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) Image:UW Logo-secondary.gif 00:52, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
I fear that listing all these pages that have age-old edit wars would start this off as a forum for German POV pushing, which is not needed. I won't object listing one conflict with a decent description, though. I will try to get more people here (should be our first priority) and list more interesting tasks to balance this. Kusma (討論) 01:07, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
This depends on the amount of faith you have in the potential German users. You maybe have a point that the revert war section being one of the first added in detail sends a bad message, but this merely reflects the scope of my knowledge; I'm aware of these content disputes, but not the lists of requested articles, etc. Removing these makes no sense, the lack of balance has to be restored positively by adding information in other areas, not negatively by deleting useful information. I'd also urge you not to interpret efforts to boost opposition to POV pushing - esp. on the part of certain 2 notorious users - as itself POV pushing, as it's merely a help to wikipedia's neutrality. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) Image:UW Logo-secondary.gif 03:07, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
I am perfectly aware of the POV pushing issues and think we should use this board to make sure editors are not left alone in frustrating content disputes with POV pushers. However, I think now that this board is so new, sending the right message is more important, as is getting people to join. (I am the only German who posts here, as far as I know). Could you just add one conflict in which you are personally involved and describe why the problem needs attention of German editors? I think that would be better than a list of all the Polish-German edit wars. Kusma (討論) 03:34, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
The first sentence here I'm entirely in agreement with, and sums up my concerns. I'm not sure you need to worry about sending messages too much, the community already here is clearly quite sane and level-headed. I'm not really involved in any of these conflicts, except as a result of monitoring the behaviour of the two notorious POV pushers. In relation to these two users, their activity has calmed down a little since receiving blocks and block warnings two days ago, so the urgency has gone somewhat. However, I maybe will make use of it in future need. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) Image:UW Logo-secondary.gif 04:08, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Great! I guess I was too pessimistic. I think this is moving in a good direction now, and thank you again for starting this. Kusma (討論) 04:31, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree. Reverts by either POV are are not intended. What should be encouraged is a wider range of contributors who can help resolve disputes through compromise, not reversion. Olessi 01:14, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Exactly. I refer to the Copernicus article. Frankly , I don't give a crap whether or not he should be listed as Polish or German, but the revert war there was doing my head in. I called in a mediator to solve the problem, and it seems to be working. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) Image:UW Logo-secondary.gif 04:08, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Indeed its most unfortunate many German contributors feel emotional about mentioning genocide comitted by German state in the past as seen for example here[1] and oppose such additions solely on their national feelings. I hope the noticeboard will attract also contributors from Germany wishing to contribute towards documenting past genocide inflicted on others by German state and people. Hopefully coming from Germany those contributors will have extensive and more detailed information on massive war crimes comitted by Wehrmacht units which are present on Wiki, then I can hope to posses. Good night to you all. --Molobo 01:22, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Germany or German-speaking?

Should this noticeboard primarily concern articles relating to Germany (as suggested by the flag icon) or German-speaking countries (which I would prefer). If the latter, I support the inclusion of additional flags, such as Austria and Switzerland, as well as possibly Belgium and Luxembourg. Olessi 03:25, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I thought about that already. I think that could be a good idea, although we'd have to rename the noticeboard to "German-speaking Wikipedian's noticeboard" or something like that. I will invite Nightstallion to comment on this. Kusma (討論) 03:38, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Possibly "German-related", similar to Wikipedia:China-related topics notice board and Wikipedia:Africa-related regional notice board? Olessi 03:52, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Just came back to let you know I made my first contributions (suggested expansions and adding the missing encyclopedic articles/de page). Saw this conversation. I also think German-speaking would be really good as it is a multi-national language. --Mmounties 04:04, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Great, thank you! What you do is much better than my useless voicing of concerns ;-) Kusma (討論) 04:08, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I guess it's probably not acceptable to use the word "German" in the pre-1945 meaning of the word, so the board would have to be moved. Oh yeah, dare ye not forgetteth Liechtenstein; I'm not sure one wishes to clutter the top with flags; Germany and Austria sure, as the core German states, Swizerland sure, Luxembourg maybe; Belgium, well, why not Denmark, Kazakhstan, Russia, France, Italy, etc? Also, you don't want to create future problems of doubling up, where common regions with a huge core zone effectively carry out the same function (e.g. Uk and England portals), which will be a problem if this gets moved to German-speaking notice board and someone later recreates a new noticeboard for the Bundesrepublik. On the other hand, it's not as if the arbitrary modern divisions between "Germany" and Austria will have much significance on many of the wikipedia articles, esp. historical stuff, and the Austria, Swizerland and Liechtenstein NBs may not have much viability on their own on En-wiki. So the argument for renaming/reconceptualizing is pretty good. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) Image:UW Logo-secondary.gif 04:36, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

To address purely regional concerns, we can always create spin-off WikiProjects when the volume of stuff that needs to be dealt with here becomes too large. I think we should move and remove the flag. Other logo ideas, anyone? Kusma (討論) 04:41, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
If we have flags, maybe group them and only include those where German is the/an official language, i.e., Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. I don't believe any of the other countries, though they have German enclaves, list it as their official language. Perhaps make a logo that combines those four flags. --Mmounties 05:20, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
We need Belgium, too. ;) And yes, I'm in favour of the move, of course. —Nightstallion (?) 05:27, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

So we'll move to Wikipedia:German-speaking Wikipedians' notice board and use "German-speaking" as the link title in the RWNB sidebar? Kusma (討論) 22:11, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, move as far as I'm concerned. Angr/talk 22:15, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Ditto. --Mmounties 23:38, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, please. —Nightstallion (?) 10:41, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
There needn`t to be two portals like BRD and German - speaking. In my opinion German - Speaking is enough because the German (-speaking) Wikipedia is also spread over many countries.Alopex

Okay, I have moved the page and made the terminology more inclusive. Angr added the flags of all countries where German is an official language. Let's get started with the real work! Kusma (討論) 14:58, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes I believe German-speaking is the correct form. Btw, where is Belgium? Considering German is an official language there as well...? Gryffindor 15:52, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
From my (german) point of view, Belgium doesn`t consider to the german-speaking area.Alopex
Neither would be South-America or Pembrokeshire in Wales but both have strong German links.

AFAIR Belgum has some German speaking areas. Agathoclea 17:34, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

And German is official language there, see German language, Belgium, or German-speaking Community of Belgium. I have added the flag so the criterion now indeed is "countries where German is an official language on a national level". Sorry for the oversight, Kusma (討論) 00:30, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Portal:Germany

I just unilaterally put some new stuff on that page so it appears more alive (I chose Cologne and the Reichstag for no particular reason). Feel free to comment and to suggest new "selected articles". It would be also good if somebody who is good at wiki web layout could do something about the ugly black frames. Thank you, Kusma (討論) 04:49, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Hey, this is great! Now I'm going to be on the lookout for German "Did you know"s. Got one good candiate already. :) Who is leading up the Portal? How should we go about putting stuff on there? --Mmounties 05:28, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Be Bold! Just put your DYK here so the ugly red link disappears. As far as I can tell, I am the only one who has really edited it for the last six months. I would suggest we discuss the portal's contents here and move the discussion to Portal talk:Germany once this little board here gathers some more momentum. Kusma (討論) 05:57, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Alright. Here I go! Just remember, you asked for it!  :) --Mmounties 06:46, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! By the rules of WP:DYK, it should perhaps be made clearer where this is from. I bolded Bruchsal to show that. I will add something from my own articles tomorrow. Kusma (討論) 07:21, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Great! And, thanks. --Mmounties 07:41, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Oehringen → Öhringen

I agree. That should be moved. It also should be completely translated. The German article is very nice and informative. The English is a stub really and full of typos. I'd put it on my personal list but the list is already over 100 articles long. (sigh). --Mmounties 05:16, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I moved it. All these EB1911 articles are horrible, and I have asked the person who submitted them to stop doing this. Kusma (討論) 06:01, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Oh no come on, I think the EB1911 are a good starter and I think those users do alot of good work. We just have to update and reformat them admittedly (as in using Umlaut, etc.), but I think those contributions should continue... Gryffindor 15:56, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
I had been somewhat angry after finding several EB articles about villages that claimed to be in the wrong country. I think EB contributions are usually a good thing (especially for biographies), but articles about towns in Poland where EB still lists them as German, has only their German name and the railroad connections to Germany from 1911 don't really help that much. And after I asked the editor to do a little extra research, the quality of the EB articles submitted has increased greatly, and they now usually include at least the modern name and list the right country. Kusma (討論) 16:08, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Dukes of Saxony

Rulers of Saxony says that from 1539-1541, Henry IV, Duke of Saxony was duke of Saxony. However that seems to be de:Heinrich V. (Sachsen) as the ruler between George, Duke of Saxony and Maurice, Elector of Saxony. Can somebody who knows more about the rulers of Saxony check and correct this? Thank you, Kusma (討論) 04:18, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I do not know why the German WP has the individual in question listed as the fifth Heinrich. There are multiples Heinrichs listed at de:Liste der sächsischen Herrscher, but the numbering of emperors certainly doesn't match with the numbering of Saxon rulers. de:Liste der Markgrafen von Meißen lists de:Heinrich I. von Eilenburg, de:Heinrich II. von Eilenburg, and de:Heinrich III. (Meißen) as margraves of Meißen.
Looking at de:Liste der Herrscher namens Heinrich, there are no strictly Saxon rulers listed as Heinrich IV (de:Heinrich IV. (HRR) and de:Heinrich V. (HRR) were both emperors). It is possible that de:Heinrich von Sachsen is included informally as "Heinrich IV".
[2], [3], [4], [5], and Jiří Louda's Lines of Succession do not give an ordinal to "Henry the Pious" / "Heinrich der Fromme". I'm not sure who the German WP is counting as de:Heinrich IV. (Sachsen). Olessi 23:34, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Flags

I'd like to find out what the preference is on the flags. I thought they'd better be oriented horizontally so to not create too much real estate on the screen right at the top that's just blank space. Angr thinks that they look better vertically and reversed. I'm not married to horizontally but think we need to find a way so they don't push the meat of the page down below were users can see it. If we can orient them vertically and start the rest of the page to the right or left of them, that would be fine, I think. Otherwise we should remove them IMHO. What does everyone think on this? --Mmounties 18:30, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

One more thing, if they are not currently the same size we should either resize them or center vertically within the field. --Mmounties 18:35, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
You could try removing the table of contents by adding __NOTOC__ at the top of the page. Try it and see how it looks. Olessi 19:02, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Good suggestion. I just tried it and we may want to do that. But it doesn't solve the problem of the blank space up top. Do you have any idea of how we could move the Noticeboard field next to the flags? That would probably do it. --Mmounties 19:10, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
That is an IE vs Firefox issue. The current layout works in Mozilla or firefox (don't have IE here right now), while the one you sughgested earlier broke for me in Firefox but looked fine in IE. I don't know how to fix that in a clean and all-round-compatible way, unfortunately. The TOC should probably go away in any case, because it just duplicates the todo list's TOC. Kusma (討論) 19:15, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, I figured out how to get the flags to the left of the To do box, but if we take the TOC away then the underlines for the section headers run through the bottom of the flag box. So if we keep the flags vertical we probably can't take the TOC away because the flags are longer (vertically) than the To Do's box, otherwise it would look really messy. --Mmounties 19:28, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm using Mozilla at work and Firefox at home, and Mmounties's horizontal attempt looked really bad on both of those, as it pushed the Pending Tasks box off the screen to the right. Vertically I have no empty space at all; it looks really nice this way. When I look in IE, of course Mmounties's version is much better. But of course we should aim for something that looks good in all browsers. At the moment, the flags are sized to look good vertically, because (except for Switzerland) they're all equally wide (67px). If aligned horizontally, they need to be rescaled to be equally tall (including Switzerland). Angr/talk 20:29, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
I asked User:Calgacus to see where we can get help with our issue, and he posted his suggestion. It definitely looks ok on IE. We can, of course revert if we don't like it. I changed it just slightly to display 4 columns of To Do's again (he had changed it to 3). --Mmounties 21:55, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
With four columns of To Do's, the leftmost column overlaps with the Austrian flag on my IE, but not on my Firefox. With the flags inside the box, I'm thinking horizontal alignment would look better, but I can't figure out how to get the box of flags nicely centered over the text. Angr/talk 21:59, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
I made the flag column a little smaller as a percentage of the total width. That could be adjusted. How much is the left column running into the flags? I'll find out about how to center, just in case. --Mmounties 22:40, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Now it looks fine on both Firefox and IE for me. Guess you fixed it; thanks! Angr/talk 08:11, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

New article announcements page

As suggested by Piotrus, a page listing newly created articles would be very useful. Examples are Portal:Poland/New article announcements and Portal:Romania/New article announcements. To that end, I have created Portal:Germany/New article announcements (possibly change name so it's not only Germany?). Please add new articles there! Olessi 23:10, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Great, thanks! If this belongs to the Portal, it should perhaps be Germany-only (in a wide sense: anything post-1945 should be BRD, older stuff should be fine). We could select those that pass some minimus standards and put links to them in a "New articles" box on the Portal page to make them more visible, and to make us all compete for articles good enough to be there :-) Kusma (討論) 04:13, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Anything post-1945 should be BRD? DDR too, surely? Angr/talk 08:06, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
I have no objections to the moving/creation of a page which would cover all German language-related articles (Germany, Austria etc., plus ethnic German-populated regions- Baltikum, Donauschwaben, Siebenbürger Sachsen etc.). Olessi 09:15, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Other portals are for specific countries, not populations speaking the same language. The German-speaking Wikipedians' notice board is parallel to Wikipedia:Portuguese-speaking Wikipedians' notice board, which is for Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, East Timor, etc., but Portal:Brazil is just for Brazil. Notice boards and Portals are very different things: the notice board is for active Wikipedians to keep them abreast of things going on in their area of interest at Wikipedia. Portals are like mini-Main Pages serving as an introduction to a specific topic, in this case Germany; they're geared towards readers who aren't necessarily Wikipedians. Angr/talk 10:12, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification. I sometimes create stub articles for Transylvanian Saxon topics; while I already list them at Portal:Romania/New article announcements, there is not a corresponding "German culture" page for me to list such articles. If there are no objections, I would like to be able to list articles like Nösnerland at Portal:Germany/New article announcements, even though the territory was never within Germany. Olessi 10:25, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Redundancy in Polish/German border articles

It's great to see a German notice board. Now I can direct your attention to things like Redundancy in Polish/German border articles.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:16, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

New articles

Hello. My English is not the best so maybe someone could check my new article about the Act of Tilsit. Thank you. Kaiser 747 10:49, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Nice article! I gave it a copyedit.--Johnnyw 11:57, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
I could not find the German original. What is the link? Agathoclea 16:58, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Was it even translated, or did you write it directly in English? Or did you translate it out of Lithuanian? Angr/talk 17:11, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't speak Lithuanian language (I know a few words but not enough to translate anything). I wrote the article directly in English. Kaiser 747 09:55, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Then you should be able to add some English or German sources to the references :-) Agathoclea 10:18, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't have these books right now anymore (they weren't my own and I've read them a year ago or so), but if I'll get them again I will add them to the article. Kaiser 747 09:39, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Dateformating

What about the date it was signed? 1918-11-30 looks kind of odd to me? Lucien the Librarian 18:07, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

You can change the display using your date preferences: in the upper right-hand corner, there should be a "my preferences". Click that, then "Date and time" and choose your preferred format. Kusma (討論) 19:17, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
I think he means the signing of Act, not the signing of a usercomment. Agathoclea 19:26, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
I think exactly that. The article says the act was signed [[1918-11-30]], which is expanded to "November 30, 1918" or "30 November 1918" or "1918 November 30" or "1918-11-30" depending on your date preferences. Kusma (討論) 19:37, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
cool - I take it a lot of people writing dates don't know that either? Agathoclea 20:39, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Most people that have date preferences set never even realize how these work, because they also automagically transform [[30 November]] [[1918]] into "1918-11-30" if you tell them to. Currently, the feature works only with linked dates, but debate to change this so unlinked dates can obey preferences has started, see Wikipedia:Date debate. Kusma (討論) 20:45, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Does it work with dates prior to 1900? Agathoclea 20:05, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
1830-05-12 * 12 May 1830 -- seems like it does. Kusma (討論) 17:04, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
What is wrong with: "Until 1482-12-2 they were totally seperate communities after which they combined to one city. There was a settlement of the Teutonic Order here, and for some years previous to 1848 the town was the capital of the small principality of Reuss-Schleiz. In the vicinity a battle was fought, between the French and the Prussians on the 1806-10-9."? Agathoclea 18:57, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
It should be 1482-12-02 ([[1482-12-02]]), so always use two digits for month and day. Kusma (討論) 19:07, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Merge Ohligs into Solingen

I agree. I also think Solingen would deserve a full translation of the German article (FA or near FA quality). --Mmounties 18:45, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Schleiz

Schleiz copied from de:Schleiz and merged with EB1911 article. Some untranslated parts are still in comments - for later translation.

Please check for obvious errors and mistranslations.

Agathoclea 19:48, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know whether you want to follow this but I've done several of those city pages now and have been keeping with a consistent look and similar format to the one used in the German articles (see Heilbronn, for instance). I keep the blanks/samples under Tools on my user page. And I have the English table for COA and map all ready to go if you want it. You can copy it from the Heilbronn page and just replace the data. Or let me know, if you would like me to help you with it. --Mmounties 20:13, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
I was searching your userpage before I started doing this as I had something in the back of my mind. I'll give it a bash and let you know how I get on. Agathoclea 20:17, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Done now - Images still missing Agathoclea 20:42, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Copyright tag for "Wappen"

I could not find a copyright tag for the "Wappen" [Image:Schleiz_wappen.gif] so I copied the text of the German entry. But I think we would need something like that here if we want to do more like that. Agathoclea 22:18, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I think {{PD-Coa-Germany}} should do. Kusma (討論) 23:20, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but it only does the trick for "German" coa, right? what about the Swiss and the Austrians? Gryffindor 12:08, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
I have no idea. From what I see on commons, they are also assumed to be PD (although some versions claim to be GFDL), with possible usage restrictions that I don't know in detail. Of course all the images here that indeed are correctly tagged as {{PD-Coa-Germany}} should be on commons, and tagged as commons:Template:PD-Coa-Germany there. For Austrian/Swiss/etc. coats of arms, there seems to be nothing more specific than commons:Template:PD-Coa. But judging from your extensive and great contributions to coats of arms on commons, you probably know much more about that than me :-) Kusma (討論) 17:52, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
The status of Austrian coats of arms is unclear. A user from Austria asked about this some time ago in the German wikipedia, and no satisfactory answer was found. So, until further research, one will have to assume they might be copyrighted by someone - unless, of course, the actual image you are using is either so old that any copyrights have expired, or it is of such a simple design that no copyright can be claimed because of lack of originality (in German: mangelnde Schöpfungshöhe). This would apply e.g. to the coats of arms of Ulm (if it were an Austrian coat of arms; since it's German, it is already PD by law). You might of course draw your own version, if you have the skill.

Swiss coats of arms also are assumed to be copyrighted. Still, you will find a lot of them on commons because Swiss users on the German and French wikipedia either created them themselves or were successful in getting the permission to use them.

Several users in the German wikipedia are actively transferring German coats of arms to commons. I would appreciate if you could upload any coats of arms you need to commons as well instead of here, that way other Wikimedia projects will profit too. If you upload to commons, please do not only add the appropriate license tag (PD-Coa-Germany), but also add an appropriate category below commons:Category:Coats of arms of German municipalities (assuming you are uploading the coat of arms of a municipality/town/city). There are subcategories for the Länder right now, but eventually further categories even below that will have to be created because of the sheer number of images in some Länder categories.

A word on graphics formats: the preferred format for coats of arms is PNG, so preferrably you should convert any JPG or GIF images to PNG before uploading them to commons. It's not that hard, use any decent image editor, load the image, and save with a different format and extension. If you know how to do it, SVG images would be even better than PNG, but they can't be created by a simple format conversion.

There is no really stringent rule what file name should be used for those images. Most use Wappen_Nameoftown.png, so I suggest that should be used; but you will find other naming schemes as well.

Regards --Rosenzweig 19:18, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Copernicus Vote

See top of the talk page at Talk:Nicolaus Copernicus. What would people prefer, Polish of German origin, nothing at all, or anything else as suggested there?

Comments:

  • The subject is a rather tough nut to crack. We could leave his nationality out, but since the issue is such a strenous one, we could apply modern analysis and call it what it is, ending the historical dispute, even if it goes against the Zeitgeist of the era- that is Polish (nat.) of German (heritage) origin. Any thoughts? Ksenon 03:13, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Thoughts? Suggestion: Why not continue using historical titles used for Nicolaus Copernicus for centuries [6]? MG 3/1/2005

template Navigationsleiste Städte und Gemeinden im Landkreis Hof

Just copied the template from German wiki Template:Navigationsleiste Städte und Gemeinden im Landkreis Hof. Can the title stay German, or does that need translating?

Still not 100% sure about the excact translation of various Gebietskörperschaften, so a proofread is always appreciated.

Agathoclea 10:23, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Nice template for Hof. Did you make that? Where do we keep them if you didn't? And where do we keep them if you did? I'll want to add that to my articles! I'd call it Template:Cities and towns in the district (or county) of Hof. Nice job. --Mmounties 16:57, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
I missed that reply when you wrote it - I saw some of the templates you have done since and I think renaming the template will be in order once we decided on district or county. Agathoclea 22:31, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree. You may also want to check the changes Rosenzweig made to my templates if you haven't seen them. He's changed it to the corresponding English code. --Mmounties (Talk) 22:57, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Yep - that fixed the coat of arms nicely.Agathoclea 23:06, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd suggest renaming it so non-German speakers like me would have an idea what is it about.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:34, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

It will be translated once we agree on a translation for Landkreis - see below Agathoclea 08:51, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Done: Cities_and_municipalities_in_the_district_Hof Agathoclea 09:56, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Please check this

Please check this quote allegedly said by Churchill: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kaliningrad_Oblast&diff=26377985&oldid=26375207 , if it is real. One user, who does quite nationalist statements and reverts (and calling NPOV to be nationalism and russophobia), keeps adding it to Kaliningrad Oblast article. The only refferance I was able to found is in Russian and the one he gave; if it would be a real quote it would probably be available on more places online; as well, Churchill, unlike Roosevelt, seemed to be less supportive for partitioning of East Prussia... Knyaz 09:43, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't find an English-language reference for that quote. Here is a Churchill speech that is similar, and contains an acknoweldgment that East Prussia would be partitioned. The general tone seems to be Churchill explaining why he would give so much territory to the USSR instead of to Poland: http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1945/450227a.html. Kusma (討論) 14:31, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
This seems to be the relevant quote from that link: (Olessi 16:18, 24 February 2006 (UTC))

I have now dealt with the frontiers of Poland. I must say I think it is a case which I can outline with great confidence to the House. An impartial line traced long ago by a British commission in which Britain took a leading part; the moderation with which the Russians have strictly confined themselves to that line; the enormous sacrifices they have made and the sufferings they have undergone; the contributions they have made to our present victory; the great interest, the vital interest, which Poland has in having complete agreement with her powerful neighbour to the east-when you consider all those matters and the way they have been put forward, the temperate, patient manner in which they have been put forward and discussed, I say that I have rarely seen a case in this House which I could commend with more confidence to the good sense of Members of all sides.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../g/e/r/Wikipedia_talk%7EGerman-speaking_Wikipedians%27_notice_board_Archive_1_2e48.html"