Talk:Monarchies in the European Union

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article is part of WikiProject European Union, an attempt to co-ordinate articles relating to the European Union on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
GA	This article has been rated as GA-Class on the quality scale.
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale.

The following users are active in maintaining and improving this article. If you have questions regarding verification and sources, they may be able to help: Nightstallion (talk • contribs • email)

Monarchies in the European Union has been listed as a good article under the good-article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a review.

Monarchies in the European Union has had a peer review by Wikipedia editors which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

This article has been selected for Version 0.5 and the next release version of Wikipedia. This Socsci article has been rated GA-Class on the assessment scale.

An entry from Monarchies in the European Union appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 4 July 2006.

Contents 1 Dramatic expansion of the European Union? 2 Rescope to "in Europe" 3 Roman numerals 4 GA on hold 5 Registration of voters in Denmark

[edit] Dramatic expansion of the European Union?

I hadn't realized that Liechtenstein or Norway, let alone Australia, Jamaica, etc., were in the European Union. Have I missed something? -- Hoary 09:46, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

The table at the bottom is meant to compare all European monarchies, while the Commonwealth Realms are mentioned because they are in a personal union with the United Kingdom... I *have* been thinking about expanding it into Monarchies in Europe instead. What do you think? —Nightstallion (?) 09:58, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

First, I don't know what you mean by a "personal union" with the UK.

Secondly, I don't know whether this should be about the EU or about [geographical] Europe or about something else; I really have no opinion. Actually I can't see the point of the article -- why it's more needed than Bicameral legislatures in the European Union or Two-party oligopolies in Europe or indeed Monarchies on the Pacific rim. I don't mean to say that there is no point, merely that none is really apparent to me. Perhaps this is what most needs attention, or perhaps I'm just a very poor reader.

(Mmm, Monarchies on the Pacific rim would be interesting: you'd have Japan, North Korea, etc. in red; and the US would be pink, thanks to its attempts to wring dynasties out of Adamses, Kennedys and Bushes.) -- Hoary 10:31, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

By "personal union with the UK" I mean exactly that; the head of state of all sixteen Commonwealth Realms, which include the United Kingdom in Europe, is Elizabeth II, which means that they are technically in personal union.

I believe it's needed because monarchies in Europe have many things in common, and information about them is best presented in an article specifically about them; apart from that, there are a number of articles whose existence is far more questionable than this one's. ;) —Nightstallion (?) 11:08, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm certainly not questioning the last part.

Well, Canada, Jamaica, Britain, etc. certainly share the same monarch, but I can't see what significance that has for the EU.

Aside from monarches, what do the EU nations that have monarchs have in common that they don't also have in common with the EU nations that don't have monarchs? [You get a bonus five points just for parsing that.] Let's suppose that there were an EU constitution that mandated a meritocracy. Whatever else they are or aren't, inherited monarchies aren't meritocratic. It could then be interesting to compare the rationales the monarchies proffered for square monarchy with meritocracy.

I don't know much about monarchies, but I get the impression that the British and Monagesque monarchies share a strong element of soap-opera. Anything else? -- Hoary 14:36, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Mh, well, I believe it's significant insofar as the Queen still has a large ceremonial role in those countries (more so in Australia and Canada than elsewhere), and for the fact that it makes succession order changes more difficult. ;) Apart from that... Heck, I don't know, I'm very open to suggestions as to how to improve it... —Nightstallion (?) 15:00, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I wish I could help; but sorry, I'm blank. I wonder if any republican group might have some essay about how monarchy is incompatible with (modern) Europeanness. That might bring new ideas. -- Hoary 21:22, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rescope to "in Europe"

It seems a little arbitrary to restrict it to "in the European Union". If that is a valid topic, so, obviously, is "Monarchies in Europe", and the latter would would make the former redundant. That already seems to be the way some of the content of this page is heading. While the personal union of Commonwealth Realms (and the status of the federal Kingdom of the Netherlands) is interesting, I'm not sure it is so relevant here as to merit detailed discussion. Noting the status of the British and Dutch monarchs, and briefly mentioning republicanism in their extra-European countries, would probably keep this article focussed. TheGrappler 01:13, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I've also decided that "the latter would would make the former redundant" is my favourite personal Wikipedia typo so far. TheGrappler 01:14, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I've been thinking about expanding it to "in Europe" and will likely do that in the future; and I agree as regards your redundant superfluous would. ;) I still think, however, that republicanism in the Realms is strongly connected to the Queen's status as (informally) primarily the Queen of the UK, and as such of note in this article, wouldn't you agree? —Nightstallion (?) 05:59, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

 ;) And if read merely as an individual sentence, "The latter would would make the former redundant" is actually wrong, for without the former would the sentence would make no sense...

As for the rescope, yes, I think republicanism in the realms (and throughout the rest of the federacy of the Netherlands) is relevant, it's just a question of degree of relevance. So perhaps cut it down a little and provide relevant links. It's generally not a great idea to include too much information on topics covered better elsewhere, especially if this isn't an "obvious" article to update when those topics change, because it is more likely to go unupdated. I think these topics are relevant to the point of giving a briefly summary and relevant links rather than writing in any kind of depth. "Republicanism in the Commonwealth Realms" may be a better place to write a fuller summary article. TheGrappler 15:54, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, as long as I'm here, I'll certainly keep it updated. ;) —Nightstallion (?) 06:25, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Roman numerals

Hi Nightstallion,

Excellent article!

One problem. The single-character Roman numerals show up as garbage on both my Mac and my Linux machines (using Firefox browser) -- at first I thought it was a weird mistake in the picture caption (which I hastily corrected), until I saw the edit history and noticed the mistake throughout the article.

I don't have a Windows machine running Internet Explorer or whatever I need to see them properly, so I'll have to take your word for it that they look better, when they render. But wouldn't you agree that maximum intelligibility should trump aesthetics in this case? That is, as long as a significant fraction of users (those using the popular browser Firefox and/or non-Windows machines, if my experience is representative) are not going to be able to read the page, we probably should stick to the more conventional I's and V's (and X's).

There's another issue here too, in my opinion -- a philosophical one. The single-character Roman numeral character set is, of course, incomplete; it obviously doesn't provide for every possible ordinal number. When you have to refer to so-and-so the XVIth, you have to use the conventional characters, right? Given that this is so, isn't it best just to use a consistent standard throughout the article? Kiscica 23:46, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Mh. While it *does* work for me in Firefox on WinXP, MacOS X and NetBSD, fair enough, you've got a point, I'll change it. (They *do* look better, though. ;)) —Nightstallion (?) 06:14, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

They may look better in a given font. In my experience -- and I see them a lot -- they much more often look worse.

Incidentally, I'd always thought they were specific to Japan, where a large percentage of people seriously believe that the roman-letter representation of number eight, for example, is a single character. -- Hoary 07:09, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA on hold

Good article, but a few things:

No bold title in first paragraph reworked lead to satisfy this criterion

No "See also", maybe monarchies of other areas, other government forms in EU, past monarchies, famous monarchs, etc...

Well, I've put a link to the parent article from which I branched this of, but other than that, most are referred to in the text... Could you give me, or better yet, add to the article some examples of what you were thinking of?

I only see one ref in the table, is this stuff referenced somewhere I didn't see? rectified by citing CIA sources

Foot notes in the table make it look alittle long, maybe try not to seperate continents of UK commonwealth. done

Maybe a summary or see also of past monarchies of countries now in the EU.

I initially tried to do this, but it got out of hand and became very arbitrary in what to count as the first monarchy established on the territory of a state, how much to put into it about former monarchies, especially for countries with such a complicated history as Austria and Poland... I'd like to do it, but it's *too* much work, I'm afraid... Unless you have a better idea?

And a short summary of what a monarchy is. in the new lead

I'm putting this on hold for 7 days. I think you should be able to fix it up by then.  :) Joe I 03:35, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, by the way the article is 74kb by yahoo. Joe I 03:38, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Don't know whether I can do it in just a week (slightly stressed currently), but I'll try, see comments above. What do you mean by "by yahoo", BTW? Didn't really get that last bit... —Nightstallion (?) 05:53, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Just meant it qualified as a long article(over 20kb). My searching by wikipedia isn't working, by searching for Monarchies in the European Union, I get Monarchy #1 hit and this page no where to be seen. Joe I 06:59, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

• It seems you've managed to address all my concerns. Didn't think you would so quickly. GA granted. Good Job.  :) Joe I 08:09, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

  Thanks a lot! I still want to expand it at some point, thanks for your suggestions for improvement! :) —Nightstallion (?) 09:56, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Registration of voters in Denmark

I've removed the link to "voter registration" regarding the Danish material, since this article deals with a voluntary registration on the initiative of individual citizens.

In Denmark, the procedure is somewhat different and goes like this: The actual voter takes no part in the registration process. Denmark's entire population is registred by computer, since each citizen is awarded a social-security number (in Danish: CPR nummer) shortly after birth (newborns are given a temporary number by the nurse who also reports the birth of the new child). Election campaigns generally take 21 days since § 56 of the Law regarding Elections [1] specifies that it is possible to vote by mail three weeks before the election day (if e.g. the voter will be abroad on the election day.) During this period, a computer at the Ministry of Taxation will print a personal valgkort (lit: "election card") for each citizen aged 18 or above on the election day. These cards are dispatched by mail and received by the voters around 4-7 days before the election takes place. The card informs about the topic of the election as well as the location of the local polling station, including the number printed on the table the person has to report to. When arriving there, the voter will find this table manned by (normally) four people, each representing a different political party. Two of them will verify that the person's valgkort has not yet been marked as used on the official list and will exchange it for a ballot paper. If the topic of the vote is a referendum on a change to the constitution, the proposal not only requires a majority, but also that least 40 % of all potential voters to vote in favour of the change (article § 88 in the Constitution).[2] Before 1953, this number was 45 %. --Valentinian ^(talk) 14:50, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

To me, the concept of registered voters applies in every country, as they either have to registry on their own (USA) or are registered by the state, but still should check whether they're correctly registered (as in Austria, and apparently Denmark); I've got no problem with your change, though. :) —Nightstallion (?) 06:13, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

BTW, I assume that I can count on you to keep us posted on when the next parliament passes the law, if it somehow happens to slip by the news? ;) —Nightstallion (?) 06:15, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, unless Fogh surprises everybody and calls an early election, it will probably happen around 2009. I'll try to remember. :) Valentinian ^(talk) 08:28, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I s'pose he'll do it just like last time: Wait until it's less than a year before the scheduled time, then call the election when his ratings are good... Ah, the joys of incumbent-selected election dates... ;) —Nightstallion (?) 05:57, 28 July 2006 (UTC)