Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Finnish provinces
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I could supply the coats of arms for the current provinces in a style similar to the ones used for the historical provinces. Though it might have to wait a few days until after the easter hollidays. -- Mic 08:39 Apr 17, 2003 (UTC)
- Yes, that would be great! Where did you get them? Most of the Finnish government sites that have the coat of arms (and maps etc.) either don't give permission to use them or just don't respond to email. (The ministry of the interior has some nice maps [1])
- I might do a map of the Finnish provinces and regions if I get bored during easter. :)
- And thanks for joining the project! -- Jniemenmaa 08:53 Apr 17, 2003 (UTC)
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- Anytime. I didn't see your reply until today but you might have noticed the maps for the historical provinces that I uploaded during easter. -- Mic 13:47 Apr 23, 2003 (UTC)
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- Yes, they look great! -- Jniemenmaa
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I just recieved a email from the Finnish ministry of the interior in response to the Wikipedia:Boilerplate request for permission. Basically it said that we can use the maps on their site. We can also use the coat of arms, but they must remain in their official sizes and colours. Here are some links:
I'll upload the images when I have more time. -- Jniemenmaa 11:18 Apr 23, 2003 (UTC)
- What defines the coat of arms in heraldry is the blazon, a written description of the arms. Any graphical representation of a coat of arms is merely an artistic interpretation which might be liked, disliked, used or not used. There is hence no official version of a coat of arms as such even if one version might be commonly used. I consider taste to be an important factor in choosing which a version to use, though it might be an idea to maintain similarity between the coats of arms for the historical and modern provinces, in size and shape of the shield. -- Mic 13:47 Apr 23, 2003 (UTC)
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- Oh, I don't really care about the heraldry. I am happy as long as the images look good. The one I linked to above just looks "better" to me, but it doesn't really matter. If you have the coat of arms of the other finnish provinces and want to upload them, please do.
- Hmm, about the maps. I did a bit of a "test map" for the province of Lapland. I am thinking about changing the colors (For instance, how does it look to a color blind person?). There doesn't seem to be any guidlines on how to draw maps for the wikipedia. (Probably means that I should write them.. damn). But anyway, we should coordinate this somehow. I've done maps for the Finnish provinces and will probably do maps for the regions (landskap). -- Jniemenmaa 08:57 Apr 24, 2003 (UTC)
[edit] Municipalities
It seems unnecessary to have articles that list the municipalities both for the provinces and for the regions, and I'd like to solve this by making a change to the structure. The article [[Municipalities of Eastern Finland]] would be transformed into the article [[Regions of Eastern Finland]], which would contain information on both regions and municipalities. It would also mean removing the separate municipality headline in the template and move them to the regional articles. -- Mic 23:33, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Naming of Regions and Provinces
The discussion regarding a new possible location for [[Karelia]] at Talk:Karelia has highlited the need for a review of the naming of the articles in the Regions of Finland series. As there isn't a formal project for the regions and the issue also concerns the provinces I think this is an appropriate place to address this.
An issue which arose out of the discussion at Karelia concerns whether the articles whether the regions ought to use "name labels" or "designations". An example would be North Karelia, which is a name label for the "Region of North Karelia". The use here differs from Northern Ostrobothnia which appears instead to be a designation for that region. I think there are good reasons why naming probably ought to follow the same principles for the entire series. The same argument also goes for the provinces, where Western Finland possibly would work better as West Finland. Regarding the provinces the names of the Suuralueet/Storområden is also a factor to consider.
While these are the primary questions to deal with I also feel that there are some other questions that could benefit from being dealt with in parallell to this. One of them concerns clarity and uniformity in naming, and partially coincides with the question above. In my opinion Oulu (province) is a somewhat misleading name of an article. In Finnish or Swedish, the name of the province is nor merely Oulu or Uleåborg, but rather Oulun lääni or Uleåborgs län. This should also apply here by stating the fact that the province actually has a different name than the city. Looking to the translation used at official websites the province is refered to as the Province of Oulu, and to me this is much better than the current location.
However, relating to this is the question of uniformity in the naming of provinces. This issue also relates to the region series. Thus, should Western Finland become the Province of Western Finland and should Uusimaa (region) become the Region of Uusimaa? While this would be a step in the right direction I'm not totally convinced that it would be optimal. The former might be a preferred translation, but in some sense I feel that West Finland Province and Uusimaa Region are better names.
Finally there is the question of Lapland, Finland. It was formerly Lapland (province), but was renamed as a consequence of merging with the region article. The merger was a good idea and the naming still works, but some concerns was raised over the chosen form and this could be addressed in concert with the other questions. -- Mic 13:52, May 16, 2004 (UTC)
- You raise a lot of questions, lets see...
- The english names of the regions are tough, the regional councils seem to use whatever name they want, so we get "Nothern Ostrobothnia" and "South Ostrobothnia" at the same time. It is just silly, and confusing. A recommendation by the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland ([2]) says that the Finnish names should be used, unless there is a established name allready. Examples given are, Karelia, Ostrobothnia and Lapland. Unfortunately the recommendation doesn't say anything about this north/northern thing.
- I think we should use the official names, even if they seem wrong.
- I do agree that we could (and maybe should) move Oulu (province), to Province of Oulu. If we do that the rest of the Provinces should be moved too. (A recommendation exists for the provinces as well: [3])
- (Side-note: the "Northern Ostrobothnia" regional council seems to use the name "Council of Oulu Region" [4])
- -- Jniemenmaa 08:25, 17 May 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Project directory
Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 17:01, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
