Talk:Paris/archive 02

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Contents

Work in Progress

Can we discuss the tweaks and qualms of each section under its own heading below? I hope this can sort discussion out nicely. Virgin territory, new tweaks, new title...

The tourism debate (concerning little on the Paris page) has been archived.

Introduction

Introduction and perhaps this whole page : Could we perhaps avoid specifically mentioning other countries and regions in making statsitical comparisons? This offends some and has been the instigator of constant "revert wars" even on this page. "20th largest" or something like that should do if the need be. In fact it would be nice to avoid all "greater than" language at all, unless it is indeed an uncontested and widely-known fact. Paris is indeed the world's most visited city. "Most romantic" is something else entirely...

I wondered if that would be controversial. I don't know why Paris is called "the most romantic city in the world". But here is a quick fact. Google results for ["most romantic city in the world"]: 45 000. Google results for ["most romantic city in the world" -paris]: <2000. ["most romantic city in the world" -venice]: <40800. In other words, 92% of web pages that say "most romantic city in the world" refer to Paris in some form, whereas less than 2% refer to Venice, for example. Whether it is the most romantic city is debatable. However it is undeniable (and verifiable!) that it is "dubbed"/"referred to"/"called" "the most romantic city in the world". Notice I put it in a paragraph on names for Paris as well - it's not a fact, it's an appellation. Whew. Stevage 12:44, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, best be dainty. Sometimes even proven "bigger or better" statements draw fire : ) ThePromenader 15:45, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

That aside I cleaned up and separated the "metropolitan area" population info and the GDP - they don't use the same statistical region so should not be confused, and I hope my version makes the concept of both more accessible to the uninitiated. ThePromenader 11:50, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I understand the "romantic" phrase as a widely-used reference, Stevage, but I do think it more than tiptoes into a "touristy" POV on Paris. Just thought I'd point that out. (added: what I mean is that it's a language that sells, not tells : )
PS: and "google frequency" should not be cited as a source! Point taken though.
ThePromenader 18:33, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Okay for the "romantic" but no need for the reference as it is - I don't think Google listings qualify as such : ) ur gay i hate you. Again, the question is not "Is Paris romantic?". The question is "Do people say that Paris is romantic?". Stevage 12:52, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Hey, it's okay and it's good that you asked. As you may have noticed a "cite your sources" drive has only recently begun here and things are still pretty ambiguous (and complicated!). I took the reference off because I thought it simply wasn't needed - everyone agrees I'm sure that Paris is romantic and I thought you had put the reference there for my attention only. The rest was a question of... okay, sure, taste : P ThePromenader 19:15, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

General

The "replacement page" is much, much too wordy. There is so much that could be said on Paris that it needs to be concise to the point of terseness. For example the "Paris and its GDP" seems to be a whole paragraph devoted to ways of defining the borders of Paris! Similarly in economy, the style is wrong. "We must look larger than to the city itself to speak of Paris' economy. If it can be considered that it is anything produced by the city, for the city, or depending on the city, its place on a map would spread well into the suburbs, and always has" This may be appropriate for a text book or original research, but it's wrong for Wikipedia. The equivalent here would be the short phrase "Paris and its surrounding suburbs" or even just "Greater Paris" or "Ile-de-France". There is just no justification for such wordiness, and precise definition of terms here. (Stevage)

When you look at New York City you can see what is missing here. That page gives you a real feel for New York, the culture, the vibe, the changes, the good and the bad etc. Why should the Paris page be reduced to mere stats and dry numbers. Why is Paris seen by Americans as such a "romantic" destination? Why do people talk about the "magic" of Paris? It may not be logical, but it bears some discussion...(Stevage)

Whew, you write almost as much as I do : ) - best sign your name though please, Stevage, it took a second to find who "you" were.
Sorry, bad habit of mine. Stevage 17:25, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Never mind "my" page, it is a result of built-up... whatever. All that basically counts on there are the titles. The order of things, the skeleton.
I see you completetly on the New York page. Another example is the Hong Kong page that Olivier cited earlier. Many details on my page and this one are a written result of a "POV standoff" and must go. It was mostly on a "how big is Paris" theme, a very difficult question to sort out in light of recent statistics that reflect Paris' reach of influence into its suburbs more than the actual physical spread of the city itself. I think it's summed up quite nicely now in the intro's last passages, but it took a few weeks to work through. ThePromenader 16:07, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Paris vs Province

ThePromenader, I notice you removed my reference to the dominating position that Paris exerts over the rest over France. I don't mind you tweaking/improving etc, but is there a particular reason for removing the information entirely? It's one of the major reasons that Paris is Paris - because so much of France is centralised within it. Compared to other countries, to have 1/6th of the population of the country in the capital city is huge. The national French news on TF1 (as you are obviously aware) is very Paris-centric, and all the major art galleries etc are based in Paris. Some mention of this fact seems to be appropriate, to differentiate it from capitals like Canberra in Australia (a tiny town of civil servants), Washington DC (a decent sized town with political influence but little business), Berlin (the largest city, but less than twice as big as the second) etc.

I don't think we should be hamstrung by the fact that it's difficult to express some notions in terms of hard fact. If something's true, and lots of people have said that it's true, it can be included. It doesn't need to come down to hard facts and figures. Stevage 13:14, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have posted my doubts before removing that. It again has to do with the "greater than" tone - I do understand what you meant, and the government has been actively enforcing since decades a "decentralisation" program (to a point that the île-de-France région is actuallly losing industry), but perhaps could you have stated it in a less "dominant" way? My removing that right away was a gut reaction to earlier events so again sorry for that. And yes, I do totally agree that "Paris is particular" and this was one of my main misgivings with this article - its being lumped together as one with its suburbs. ThePromenader 16:28, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Image tweak and layout change

I have changed the rather ugly image of the Eiffel Tower to a Featured Image version. Also to try and get the layout to sit better I have put this image on the left, in the third paragraph and moved the infobox up to level with the top of the article. Anyone have any comments on this? Stevage 00:01, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Nice to see things a-moving : ) I do think things look a bit tight up there though. But perhaps this is because of the adjascent long boxes (City template and TOC). Did you see my message answer to yours? I've set up a place to "try things out" here - but as you like.
if you don't mid Stevage, I put the photo over to the right again - the long table of contents coincide badly with the infobox, "squeezing" the text and forcing everything down below both. At least this way the text can "wrap up" to a higher spot. We definitely should look for something nicer though.ThePromenader 11:50, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't mind. I would like if possible to avoid huge spaces of text in the text because of the (excessively long) infobox or table of contents. Stevage 12:39, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


Paris districts

I have come across a strange article, Paris districts. It has a lot of information on a few districts - notably the two Seine islands and the left/right banks. Until I transferred some information to the islands, it actually had more information on all of these topics than the individual articles! I suggest we rip up the whole page, transfer it to Left Bank etc, then turn the page itself into a brief overview. The only trouble is that Left Bank currently services Barcelona too, so will need some sort of disambiguation page. I have left word there and at Right Bank suggesting we split them up. Incidentally, the right bank page has some weird random facts and links on it...any takers for cleaning up? Stevage 22:32, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

LOL - that page is a creation of mine from some time ago that I completely forgot about! I see that Olivier has since modified it so best not "rip it up" right away - others have connected to it since as well which is even more surprising. It has nothing to do with this article anyways, so why discuss it here? Just asking. ThePromenader 23:18, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, I know people read this talk page :) By "rip it up", I meant, transfer its contents to other pages. I didn't mean throwing anything out....Stevage 23:53, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Yikes. What I meant was is that I started it because I thought it fulfilled a purpose - Paris does indeed have districts known to all and frequently referenced but not indicated on any administrative map - but if you want to do anything that constitutes a clarification or improvement go ahead. ThePromenader 02:40, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Transport

I think it's potentially misleading to say: "Because of its financial, business, political, and tourism activities, Paris today is one of the world's major transportation hubs." Both the road and rail networks are specifically designed to route international travellers away from Paris. If there is a rail hub, nowadays it is Lille. For air travel, Amsterdam is challenging Heathrow's dominance as the European hub. The only area where Paris could claim to be a major European hub is air cargo. But Frankfurt alone handles more than the combined cargo of all Paris airports. I'd be inclined to drop this sentence unless someone can clarify what it's intended to convey. Adrian Robson 09:16, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

A glass is half empty or half full. Lille is not a major air hub. Frankfurt is not a major rail hub. London is of course not a major rail or road hub. Paris may be 2nd in all of these categories. I wonder where your information about air traffic come. According to the lists linked at the end of World's busiest airport, Paris is 2nd in Europe behind London (passengers) or Frankfurt (cargo), and Schiphol is 3rd. And these numbers do not include Orly and other Parisian airports. I also wonder how Lille can be a better hub than Paris because it only gives access to North-Western Europe (and most of the people probably take direct trains without stopping in Lille). Gare du Nord claims to be the 3rd train station in the world (but, unfortunately, the article gives no source).
Furthermore, Amsterdam and Lille may be important hubs, but most passengers don't stop there and go somewhere else. These cities cannot be compared to Paris as transportation destinations. Maybe that word needs to be clarified. Thbz 21:12, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Hmmmm - agreed that the word "hub" is not the best adapted for that phrase - not because Paris' isn't one, but because the word "hub" isn't connected with Paris' tourism, business...etc activities: it means that Paris a simple transfer point. Destination it is. ThePromenader 01:19, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Thbz, you've hit the nail on the head - that's what I found troubling about the sentence. Paris is not an international hub (you're right Promenader and you beat me to saying it) it's a destination. What I was trying to get at was that most people wouldn't choose to travel from Hamburg to New York via Paris, whereas I believe that Schiphol actively promotes transit flights from, say, minor UK airports to connect to international flights. This is what a hub means in the U.S. sense (eg Chicago, Atlanta). The concept of hub hasn't really existed in Europe except for cargo until quite recently. By contrast, Paris is definitely (and most inconveniently!) a domestic hub. If you want to travel by train from Brittany to Provence, you have to go via Paris. But the fact that you have to travel for 45 minutes from one main station to another within Paris to change trains underlines that Paris is not a hub in the U.S. airline sense but a destination. The system is designed for people to go to Paris and stay there, not change trains and go on somewhere else. Adrian Robson 12:58, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Interesting points. Yes, Paris is an international air destination, and a domestic rail hub. Particularly on TGV - I'm not sure there are any TGV lines which don't lead to Paris? Adrian's points would be well made in the article. Also I should point out I deleted any references to buses a while ago, these should be reinstated by someone :) Stevage 00:40, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

The source mentioned by user Thb above is wrong (lists linked at the end of World's busiest airport). These lists used preliminary results. I am correcting them now using final 2004 Airport Council International figures. Charles de Gaulle Airport is number 2 in Europe behind Heathrow in terms of passenger trafic, but number one both in terms of total cargo and total plane movements. Adding all Paris airports together, all Frankfurt airports together, and all London airports togeter, Paris airports are number two in terms of passenger traffic behind the London airports, but still number one in Europe in terms of cargo. In term of plane movements I don't know. Hardouin 15:19, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

This all helps towards clarifying the wording of the section I originally mentioned. As with rail, it would be interesting to see if it's also the case that there is a lot of domestic air cargo and mail. I had the feeling that on international freight Frankfurt used to be ahead of Paris, which was what I was trying to point to. The ACI [1] puts Frankfurt at number six globally but it rather looks as though ADP doesn't provide figures for Paris. I think France is geographically bigger than Germany so it seems likely that it has more domestic cargo. In any case, perhaps as you've pointed out Hardouin, this is more significant for the busiest airports article.Adrian Robson 22:28, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
The ACI figures you pointed to are just PRELIMINARY results for 2005. Usually Charles de Gaulle Airport does not provide preliminary results, so you can't make comparisons. You'll have to wait until July 2006 to get FINAL results for 2005. Also remember that freight in Paris arrives not just at Charles de Gaulle Airport, but also at Orly Airport, whereas in Frankfurt there is just one airport. Hardouin 01:16, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

About the hub thing, I think what was meant was air transportation. Don't forget that Charles de Gaulle Airport ambition is to become the largest air hub in Europe, and if I am not mistaken it is already the largest hub of continental Europe, ahead of Amsterdam and Frankfurt. Behind this ambition lies the merger of Air France-KLM. For an illustration of this, check the list of victims of the May 2004 collapse at CDG Airport ([2]): there were two Chinese guys on their way from Beijing to Mexico City, one American-Lebanese doctor on her way back from Beiruth to NYC, and one Ukrainian girl on her way from Kiev to Miami. I think that sums up nicely the hub concept. Hardouin 01:16, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Reverting Today's Reverts

To begin with, I cannot accurately describe the feeling one gets to see days of a group effort at improvement completely reversed on the pretext of two trifling errors. Even these were not errors per se and easily remediable: move or remove the Oppodium; precede "englobed Paris and its closest departments" with "roughly". If this was not enough, to then label a revert "Correcting errors (grammatical and factual), trying to improve style" but in reality reverting almost the text to a de facto precedent version (of one's own writing)... and the same over two sections... I don't know what to think. I don't know what to call this. It was certainly not done with the general aim of improving the article, nor in the name of making information clear and accessible for other users. Looking over today's "work" has been extremely revealing is all I can say.

I am going to revert to the last version by Stevage and pretend this never happened. I will all the same fix the "controvertial bits" as if a comment about them really was left on the talk page, and the improvements can go forward from there. Thanks to all who are contributing, and please let's continue undaunted. We're headed in the right direction.

ThePromenader 18:59, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Either you are totally paranoid, either you do it on purpose. I did not revert the text to a "de facto" precedent version. Checking the history of the page will easily show that. I corrected errors (such as for the prefecture of Paris, or such as calling Clovis a German, as if the concept of a German Nation already existed in 500 AD!), and these are not "triffling" errors. It's funny how all the errors that you make are always "triffling", but whenever someone else dares to edit your work it is always very "serious" and we should almost ask for your authorization before. You basically accuse me of article appropriation, but look at your attitude, you seem to be the one thinking the article is yours. The history section is a good example of this: first you rewrote the section entirely (Revision as of 14:15, 14 December 2005), deleting everything that user Stevage had left after trimming the section. Then instead of "reverting" your edit, I only corrected the obvious errors (such as replaced "oppodium" with "oppidum"), and I also re-added the trimmed paragraphs from user Stevage that you had deleted. Even Stevage complained about your entire rewriting of the history section (read here). The history section as it stands now is of course too long (due to your lengthy explanations of Paris expansion in medieval times), and should be trimmed further, but should not be reverted to your exact original prose with disregard for the work of several Wikipedians over many months, as you have just done. As for the administration section, either we talk about the prefectures and we then need to be detailed to avoid misleading people, either we remove them altogether from the section. The administration section did not mention the prefectures originally, and it is user ThePromenader who added them a few days ago. Personally I think the section could be as well without mentioning the complicated prefecture system. Hardouin 22:51, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Good Lord. Of course you have appropriated this page; you yourself are the author of over two thirds of the very mess we're trying to fix. Now you "own" even more since you added a huge (and unneeded) swath of text to the Administration section that you have appropriated and protected in exactly the same way as all else you wrote. Now we have yet another section to dance around. Yes the history section did need a total rewrite; what was left over from the trimming was historically very cut and paste and consecrated much of its texts to events which only indirectly concerned the city of Paris - of course only someone knowledgable about this city's history would see that.
I really don't have time for this foolishness. This page is being held hostage against the threat of revert should any major changes take place, and we have not even begun to wade into the worst of the text yet (the area and demography sections namely). It sounds drastic but through all the waffling and weak arguments it come down to that, and I've had months enough here to see it. The only solution against total a total revert is "compromise" which basically comes down to moving or at most cutting down a body of text but leaving it in the form it was written by its authour. The only pre-edit dialogue Hardouin has ever engaged in comes down to a "leave it alone" message, and his post-edit dialogues (usually accompanied by reverts) are most often limited to telling people how "wrong" they are or why they "shouldn't have" made changes. Ceci n'est pas une critique mais un constat. And this isn't the only page.
Anything anyone submits here is open to editing, and the entire Wiki concept is based on the (somewhat hopeful IMHO) theory that all articles will improve with time: Someone will add a fact, another will add another and so on until someone will rearrange the facts into a more coherent form and later perhaps yet another will split up the page between several when it grows too long or contains information too specific. The only thing that will stand to time is the info itself, how it is presented, and where it can be found. Hardouin's behaviour is corrupting to this process because he introduces a central "who did what" theme that for him takes priority over all else.
The question anyone should ask themselves before submitting anything is "is it an improvement"? One knowledgable in a subject may want to add fact but lacks writings skills, but if the fact is helpful the answer would be yes because someone having writing skills can make corrections later. Should someone with writing skills want to make a change to the readablility of factual text the answer would still be yes as, should any errors be made, someone knowledgable will come along later to correct them. The only motivation any changes should have is making more information more accessible, and the info forwarded should be supportable by a strong argument. Yet this is in no way a mirror of what has been going on in this page for over a year now.
I don't need to do anything here. If I was to be accused of wanting "a page of my own" I have already contributed several, and one of them is much more important than this one will ever be. Anyhow nothing I should contibute will be an altar to anything "I know" - I give what I can how I can, and it is for the others to do with that what they can do best and if they can do better than I first did than so be it - I will gladly recognize this. On the other hand, to see a work stagnate in a muddled state of utter mediocrity for over a year because of reasons having nothing to do with "information for all", I find this difficult to swallow. My perseverence has been the launching pad for (and even ressurection of) several publications, yet with a single web page and its single guardian I seem to have met my match. Now, if you please, I'm late. ThePromenader 09:30, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
To be honest, I find it very difficult to work out who changed what to what when by looking through the diffs. Somehow we ended up treading on each others' toes. I would ask again that before anyone reverts anything other than vandalism, they should either warn the user, or at least leave a polite note on this talk page explaining why they're doing it. Similarly, before rewriting a whole section, to outline what they're doing and why. I understand that ThePromenader had a whole "work in progress" version of the article on his talk page...unfortunately that's not very useful as you never know when it's going to get copied, or exactly what state it's in. The end result is here we have a very wordy history section, and I'm in doubt as to exactly what its merits are over the previous version. "It needed to be remoulded" doesn't really satisfy me on that score. Sometimes old, cludgy sections do need to be rewritten from scratch...but I'm not sure that was the case here. Stevage 23:51, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I totally agree. The history section didn't need to be totally rewritten from scratch. Same goes for the introduction. Hardouin 00:07, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
I understand why you would agree. Yet if someone reads something and thinks of a way that it could be said in a clearer way, he is more than welcome to make that change if it is indeed an improvement. I don't know why you bring up the introduction again - it contains 90% the information it had before, as did the history section - where's the problem if it reads in a more organised way? ThePromenader 17:12, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I think my objection is that we had a copy-edited, trimmed, fairly concise history of Paris. It gets replaced with something completely different that is neither copy-edited, trimmed or concise. So I think in order for such repetition of work to be justified, a more precisely stated reason than "thinking of a way that it could be said more clearly". It may be clearer to you, but so far I'm not seeing it. Stevage 23:13, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
My choice of words is not always the best. Let's try this visually. You take one logical group of events (raising open right hand, fingers together), you take a later logical suite of events (raising open left hand, fingers together) and you place them one after another (placing hands horizontally one in front of the other) to make a discernable chain of events that's easier to read and remember. Historically and consecutively speaking, the text as it was read like this (lacing fingers of both hands together). I de-laced the events, but I'm not very good as concision. So the text became bloated again. For sure I should have done that before you did your edits so again apologies for that. ThePromenader 00:10, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

History

This one's a real head-scratcher as the History of Paris page is already quite complete. Most of what's here has to go, but to where? ThePromenader 17:24, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

To the bit bucket. The result should be a shortish paragraph that summarises the most important events. For Paris they might include its founding, when it became the capital, the storming of the Bastille, possibly 1968, and bombing during WWII. Since I know nothing about history, these few events that I have at least heard of might be good candidates to keep :) Stevage 17:28, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Also, see the 'history' section of Melbourne, compared to the History of Melbourne page for a guide.Stevage 17:29, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I know a lot about this city's history but I wouldn't even mention many (if any) political events - more a demographical growth record with reasons that the "boom began" - Roman occupation (garrison town), short description of time spent as a (largely symbolic) Merovingian territorial capital (and feudal county capital), then the first Capetian reign "boom" (begun by making their county fief capital capital of all France) that continued through to the "second boom" brought by travel technology and the Universal Exposition era... Hmmm, once sentence. Maybe I could just cut n' paste that. : ) ThePromenader 18:01, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Son of History

I have reduced the side of this section by roughly half, but think it could stand to be trimmed still further. There is already a very complete article History of Paris, so all we really need here is a quick summary to the user to explain where Paris came from. This is a preliminary cut and could stand further tweaking - please feel free! I welcome your comments. Stevage 01:30, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I suppose I could see to this. The more political events should go as many of them are in fact the History of France and not the actual history of the City itself. I'm going to "keep it demographic" meaning to its periods and areas of growth and the reasons why things happened that way. I've other things to do first but when it shows I'd be much obliged if you could check up on it, Stevage. Cheers!

ADDED: Actually I don't think it merits a rewrite, just to be "lightened" of a few indirect political events. I may clarify the "early growth" part a bit though. ThePromenader 08:59, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good. I tried to remove all non-Paris specific details. It's probably worth keeping the moment when Paris became the capital, although from memory it lost and regained the title to Tours at a certain point, didn't it? But yeah, come to think of it, stuff about Paris mayors being treated as kings is less than critical. Stevage 10:46, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
There is no precise moment when Paris became the capital, and it would be wrong to give a date. Remember that the concept of capital as we know it today is modern. In old days, the kings moved from castle to castle, and from royal estate to royal estate. There was no capital in the modern sense. The only thing that we can say is that Paris became the seat of the royal administration in the 12th century (no precise year), alhtough the royal administration left Paris in the early 15th century (English occupation, Joan of Arc), and left again for Versailles between 1682-1715, 1722-1789, and again 1871-1879. Hardouin 12:07, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
No, you will not find a date in any textbook but it is generally accepted that Paris became "a" Capital of France with the Capetian dynasty (with their other court and castle in Orléans), and definitely became capital through political reorganisation and edict by Louis VI. In reality mentioning all this is not really neccessary as it but indirectly concerns the growth of the city itself; it is quite enough to say "Paris' rise into its role as a Capital began with the Capetian dynasty." (added - But you are right to point out this controvertial item and your advice is duly taken) ThePromenader 17:46, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I've been pottering away at the history section over morning coffee for almost a week now. I re-molded a lot of it around a "city growth" theme that basically explains how the city got to have the shape it has today. I left out everything politico-war involvement because quite frankly such events only affected in-in-directly (if not at all) the form the city has today, and anyhow the history that happened in Paris is quite nicely outlined in detail in the history of Paris page. Thus a reader can skim through to the later more "today" parts without being bogged down in detail. The present text only mentions in passing Paris' most major renovations still visible today, those of Haussmann, so I added that (yet in passing at just a slightly slower pace) in there too. It's still too long (about the same as it is now) but let me know what you think - you can find it on a sub-page here. ThePromenader 17:24, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
It seems that sub-pages are findable so I guess I screwed up by making one. (see also "transportation" below). I spent lunchtime going over the edits, info and links (narrowly avoiding linking one of the City's Counts to a Star Trek character : ) so all works well for now. I tried to stay as concise as possible but I'm sure there are still bits that can be cut or "de-worded". In all I re-arranged everthing into a "how the city became to be the city it is" theme understandable even to those with little knowledge of Paris or History. Hope it works for you all. ThePromenader 14:23, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Transportation

I also threw together a newly-subdivided transportation section from former edits - still needs work and some "porting" from this and other articles. Have a go at it here. ThePromenader 21:28, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

LOL! Last night somebody found the above and moved it to a page of its own and started correcting it. I'm inclined to leave it as it is... in any case it was much too elaborate for here I think. I was hoping that we'd get some "page structure" discussion in before deciding that, but what the hey. Perhaps we can organise the Paris page transportation into a simple "road, train and air" or something like that. ThePromenader 10:44, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
If you didn't want it to be "official", you should have put it in your personal namespace, i.e. with the following name: User:ThePromenader/Paris Transportation. Thbz 12:04, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Thank you Thbz - I did exactly this before but got the feeling that I was "hogging" edit propositions I wanted to be open to all. Lesson learned : p ThePromenader 14:29, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Infobox at top of page

I wouldn't want to revert the change made without discussion. I think personally it looks better having the Eiffel Tower up the top, from an aesthetics point of view - the Eiffel Tower *is* Paris after all. And the Paris flag is just ugly, really. And I sort of think the infobox is less relevant for massive cities, where the info you're looking for is less likely to be "what department is Paris in" type stuff. But what do you all think? Stevage 02:52, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Go ahead and revert it, he even said we could in his comment : ) Left it all the same to "try it out for a while" but the picuture is definitely much better up there where it was. I can see what ian13 meant though: many other "City" pages have the infobox up there in this way. Best that it be as it was for now, then we can find a "nicer" solution when the page restructuring is done. ThePromenader 07:23, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
I put the picture back up again - we'll find a better solution later. Thanks for the essay though ian13 ; ) ThePromenader 07:14, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


Fashion

Is Paris still a major player in world fashion? What can we say about it in the cultural section? Stevage 00:40, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Hey, you're giving us a lot of work : )
Fashion is a strange little oddbit because it should be part of "culture" but is today something more towards... an international trade show. Should be mentioned, but where? Good point. ThePromenader 10:20, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


Administration

Would it be possible to make the recent editions less wordy? Concise as possible. Comparisons are out (unless it be in a hit-list) for the simple reason that very few readers know anything about the city Paris was being compared to; unknown compared to unknown = non sequitur. It would also be very nice to have an "île-de-France" photo instead of the "petite couronne" image in place now as a compliment to the arrondissement map - it will be confusing to someone not already familiar with the Paris region. Only references to administrative regions should be used here. In fact, in this article, I question the importance of explaining in such detail, in the Paris page, the administration of the île-de-France region: this subject has a page of its own. ThePromenader 10:15, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I also suggest we limit this section's info to "jurisdiction" instead of bleeding into "what's decided for where" - the latter can be much better explained in an article of its own, but as it is (and written) it is a bit too elaborate for this article destined for a general-interest user. I will try to simplify but more must be done I'm sure. ThePromenader 22:02, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree with reducing wordiness, and chop whenever possible. ThePromenader, I'm not sure I like your recent rewrite of this section - it seems to have changed from being a "this is the state of Paris administration now" to being "here is the sequence of events over the last two centuries". In an encyclopaedia, generally the focus should be, where are we now. How is Paris divided up, how does it govern? For particularly strange situations, history is interesting, but generally anything beyond ", a relic of the 18th century commune system, " is probably un-necessary. Or could be moved to History of Paris. I'll have a closer look tomorrow, but at first glance, I'm not sure that this has improved this section...or maybe you could give us an idea of your thinking here, what the goal is? Stevage 01:36, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I to tell you the truth I don't like it much either. Hardouin's edit was correct in its information but, interlaced with Paris' other jurisdictional explanations, it was difficult to understand to the layman. My edit contains the same information "explained" chronologically, and yes it smacks more of history than Politics. All the same I managed through doing this to cut the Administration section down (namely by eliminating repetition) - I will try to "de-crypt" the present version, but I would much appreciate it if you could de-word it after. Needed for most all I write it seems : ) ThePromenader 08:18, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Done. Cut it down to a few sentences. I was getting bogged down in the details but a night's rest was enough to see through it all to the roots. I wish we could set up some sort of common work space where whe all could work on edits before publishing them. ThePromenader 09:32, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
The Île-de-France région (the department of Paris, its "petite couronne" and "grande couronne"
Enlarge
The Île-de-France région (the department of Paris, its "petite couronne" and "grande couronne"
Okay, done again. I made a nice little plan (right), but in the section as it is there is no room for it. Stevage, since it is you who added the photos there, can you find a place for this if it's worthy? I don't want to touch your very recent modifications without asking first. ThePromenader 21:15, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Brilliant image. I've incorporated it now and think it works extremely well. There are now three maps, corresponding to the three levels of the section - commune, department, region. I'm really happy with the way that looks now and the structure we have. Don't be too afraid of "touching" things, just go easy on the wholesale rewriting of sections, yeah? :) Stevage 00:00, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

The map is indeed great, but there is one problem that I have already explained to ThePromenader: the so-called "areas of high-density inhabitation" seem haphzard, many built-up areas have been forgotten. To draw the limit of the built-up areas, we should use the official unité urbaine of Paris that was established by INSEE in 1999, and not make up our own limits, which is original research. Here below I put two maps showing the unité urbaine of Paris. I couldn't find better quality maps, so please let me know if you find some better ones. On these maps, the built-up area (unité urbaine) of Paris and suburbs is in red, whereas the rest of the metropolitan area (aire urbaine) is in blue. The "areas of high-density inhabitation" on ThePromenader's map should be a reproduction of the red areas in the maps below. I already tried to explain this to ThePromenader a few weeks ago, but my suggestions were flatly rejected. Hardouin 01:06, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I will "correct" the plan today, but this is an exercise rather futile for the simple reason that this is a map 250px wide. This little factoid makes the above "accuracy" arguments seem quite silly - I think the real intent there is to have the "spots" removed altogether. No need to insinuate that I am "making up" data either. GDP be damned, roughly half the Île-de-France region is farmland. I don't see why we should hide this. ThePromenader 12:43, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Roughly 70% of the United States is farmland. That doesn't make the United States a rural country! Hardouin 14:00, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
What exactly are you trying to say? Do you really think that comparison can apply here - what are you trying to insinuate by this vague argument? All I would like you to do is allow us to show Paris for what it is. I severely question your motives for wanting to modify that plan; your explanations to Stevage were overly-elaborate and unsound. I don't appreciate your accusations of POV and "intent to mislead" either. This is all indeed very "bad faith" and I would really like to know what your real intentions are. ThePromenader 21:35, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Thank you Stevage. Hardouin, the image contains no precise information of any title outside of the departemental limits. I did not "flatly refuse" anything, I just wouldn't blindly follow "work orders" without knowing exactly what I was to represent. I'm sorry I didn't modify it to your liking, but if you would like me to, you could ask me - for example. That way you won't have to explain to other people how to do it. ThePromenader 18:39, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
To be honest I didn't see the built up bits. If they're original research, why not just remove them? They're not really crucial to an administration section, which is basically just about borders and names. Perhaps one of the other maps you (Hardouin) put would be relevant to the demographics section? Stevage 01:47, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Image:AUParis1.jpgImage:AUParis2.jpg

Actually the administration section looks quite good although long - it's all about setting a level of "how deep we get into it." The "petite couronne" photo is a bit confusing at first glance as its place in the text (and reality) is minimal. Forget the accusation of "original research" (vague as it is) - those "built-up areas" are purely representative and taken from a 2003 rail map. Let's not split hairs. ThePromenader 11:53, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Funny that you consider it long, I was going to suggest that logically it needs another paragraph: Paris as the capital of France. I love the elegance of it: Paris as a commune, Paris as department, Paris as a prefecture, Paris as a national capital, slowly broadening the scope. I don't know what would need to be said in this last section other than that the parliament is there, the Elysee palace etc. But since I don't think those two facts are mentioned, that's probably an indication it deserves to be there? Stevage 23:16, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes I shouldn't fall into the trap of "it was better before". That suite is pleasing though, isn't it? I wish we could apply that "small to big" (or "start to end") order of explanation to other parts of the page, it would make things much easier to understand for everyone. ThePromenader 00:19, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Rewrite of history section

Hi ThePromenader, can you let us in on what you're trying to achieve with rewriting the history section? I had put a bit of work into trimming down the previous version to the bare essentials, and it looks like I may have to do it again...so I'd just like to know what the substantial improvements are here. I notice wordiness is back:

  • The Seine river wes a formidable barrier to the region’s first travellers, and the easiest means of crossing it was where it was at its narrowest: to each side of its largest island. This crossing eventually became a beaten path, and later river traffic would make the Parisian basin into a much-travelled crossroads. The island was settled from around 250 BC with the “oppodium” of the Celtic “Parisii”; these people, known as boatmen and traders, used their island location to control commerce all along the river even from their settlements' early years."

Is it not sufficient to write: "Paris was first settled by the Celtic Parisii people, on the Ile de la cité, which was a convenient crossing point."? Let's keep it tight, yeah?Stevage 01:41, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Stevage, it is exactly because of the "trimming down" that I rewrote the section: Historically speaking it was very cut-and-paste! Sorry for all your work. I had put it to a sub-page to this one to rewrite a coherent join between everything (didn't you see it? See above), but the page, visible to all I guess, got nominated for "speedy elimination". I put it here as it was, and it has yet to be "de-greased". You are completely right in what you say, and by all means do what you will with it. Sorry that you have the same job twice, but with this new context I hope it will be really tight but in retaining some historical sense. : ) ThePromenader 08:05, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Hmm. The history section is exactly where it was a month ago - far too long and wordy. Could we please set a definitive size limit, and just stick to it? There is a whole History of Paris article for little details like whether archeologists dispute the exact locations of the beginnings of Paris etc. This is just a quick summary. It's frustrating to trim it down to almost the right size (say, 4 paragraphs), only to see it balloon back out due to supposed "inaccuracies". Stevage 15:28, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Normally I don't have time for this. The latest change, on the pretense of an "innaccuracy" (that no doubt would have been chopped as a needless detail anyway), in much the same spirit as for the administration section, is a total revert that ignores the purpose of even having rewritten the section. I will deal with this later today. ThePromenader 15:38, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Suburban Areas of Interest

I have killed this section. It's just a poor way to group this material. If the info is relevant to Paris, it should appear in relevant sections, otherwise it should not be there at all. Grouping everything that's outside the borders of Paris is not very helpful to the reader. Stevage 00:19, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Business district
    • La Défense - major office, cinema and shopping complex, west of Paris.
    • Grande Arche de la Défense - built in line with the Louvre, place de la Concorde and Arc de Triomphe.
  • Civil Constructions
    • Arcueil Aqueduct - built in the 17th century and raised in 1874, it channels water from sources 156km to the south of Paris to the Montsouris reservoirs.


Then insert it in the relevant sections, but do not delete it altogether please. Hardouin 01:44, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I primarily it moved here to avoid other people contributing to it, as has happened previously. Let's see, LA Defense and Grande Arche are already referred to. We don't have much on churches, but should create a section and move those there, with a note that they're in the suburbs. How close is the Arceuil Aqueduct to Paris? Is it important? Parc Asterix and Disneyland could rate a brief mention under tourism, but they're already in the top 10 list anyway. Stevage 02:57, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
How about getting back to working on the overall structure the page should have? This way we would have a designated place to move things should we feel the need to move them. Perhaps we could start a new talk page for that. ThePromenader 11:00, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

The Arcueil Aqueduct is in the Petite couronne, about 2 miles from the boundary of the city of Paris. Hardouin 13:20, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

History section

Let's work on this again, and ignore the history section's history. Reading it now, I see there is a major focus on population expansion and walls. Unfortunately, stating every time that the city grew a bit, or that the walls were moved/rebuilt becomes very wordy and not particularly relevant. Could we not simply say "over 800 years, the continous growth of the population led to new sets of walls being built no less than six times" or whatever? We need to get this section down. Stevage 00:42, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

ThePromenader added the wall thing. You may want to discuss this with him. About the walls, if I'm counting well, there were seven walls (1- Lower Roman Empire around the Île de la Cité, 2- 11th century around right bank only, 3- Philip Augustus around both banks, 4- Charles V around right bank only, 5- Louis XIII around a small part of the right bank only, 6- 1784 around both banks, for tax purposes, and 7- 1840s around both banks). There was also a 8th line of defense, built in the petite couronne in the middle of the 19th century, beyond the city limits, but this was not strictly speaking a wall, but a series of forts built above hills surrounding Paris on all sides (such as Mont Valérien, fort d'Issy, etc.). Hardouin 01:39, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
By the way, in the debate about creating a Greater Paris, architect Roland Castro is proposing to annex the petite couronne to the city of Paris and to set the new limits of the city on the line of the forts surrounding Paris. As you can see, the wall mentality is still alive in France. Lol. Hardouin 01:42, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
That's the thing with Paris' history - there's over 2000 years of it. I've done my best to "keep it demographic" and avoid centering attention on events that do not concern the growth of Paris - the history in Paris is not necessarily the history of Paris. It's true what I see today is a long dry read (and I also see that a few non sequiturs have magically reappeared) but it can stand much further cutting for sure. I can look to it later today.ThePromenader 10:00, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Why do we want to "keep it demographic"? Any significant events that took place in Paris are relevant. The view "how did Paris expand and grow to become the shape it is now" is a fairly narrow one. Events such as wars, treaties being signed, immigration, significant laws etc are all relevant to a "History of Paris". Really, this section should not be so complicated - it should amount to simply taking the most significant highlights from the History of Paris article. Stevage 13:59, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
What I meant by "keep it demographic" was "keep it to the events that made the city what it is today" and leave the rest for the more detailed History of Paris page. As far as I'm concerned all the "significant highlights" are already in the article plus a few "extras". I see what you're getting at, but we're talking about a complete change of tone. I'll have a look again at the "old" version to see what you liked there. ThePromenader 19:46, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
I see now that some parts of the history article are not only overly long, they are just plain silly. We do not speak in an article of "historians rejecting POV's of other historians" just to spite the effaced writ of other contributors. Can we get around to making some improvements please? ThePromenader 20:24, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Excuse me, now that I look I see that almost every change I made last night has been reverted. With no explanation. Once again. I was just getting calmed down... ThePromenader 10:43, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
I do like that you've split it up between sub-headings. Perhaps that would be a good base on which to "brief things up" a bit. Later today. ThePromenader 08:10, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Actually I won't be doing anything here today - It would be best that I be busy elsewhere to better get a grip again. Cheers. ThePromenader 20:48, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
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