Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Prussia

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To-do list for Wikipedia:WikiProject Prussia: edit  · history  · watch  · refresh
  • Wherever links to Prussia are given in other articles, change the link to the relevant incarnation of Prussia (eg. Kingdom of Prussia) where appropriate
  • Properly list all entries that this Project supports - including articles that do not yet exist - and place these on a separate "Complete to-do" or "Status" page:
    • Geographical
    • Biographical
    • Historical
  • Get flags and coats of arms from other-language wikis
    • ...and then place these images in the right areas within the Atlas and Heraldry portals.
  • Co-ordinate banners with other WikiProjects.
    • ...and then place these banners in the above-listed articles.
    • Create a page similar to Template:Australia opentask for use in these templates?
  • Restructure (reduce?) the Prussia page, so that it better links with Prussia articles.
  • Review the Province/Regierungsbezirk/Kreise/Standesamter sub-project pages - they are still just salvaged copies of the now-extinct projects and need to be better co-ordinated.

Contents

[edit] Restarting the Project

After the great work that Bwood did on this project in 2004, I'm working on resuming things here as part of the initiative to restart the Former Countries Wikiproject.

Instead of concentrating on just the Kingdom of Prussia, I would like to expand it to cover the whole history of Prussia up until its end after WW2. At the moment, I am working on the provinces of the Kingdom of Prussia (1815-1918) as well as those of the Free State of Prussia (1919-1945).

There are multiple sub-projects from here - Provinces, Regierungsbezirke, Kreise and Standesämter - and they are all currently earmarked for deletion. While going to this level of detail is a very good idea, it is a little too much for just one person - this isn't the only thing I'm working on at the moment. So for the moment, I think I'll just let these subprojects go and reincorporate them into this project, then remake them when I am ready to continue.

Of course, if anyone else wants to join up (or if you're still out there, Bwood) and start at these deeper levels of detail, be my guest. -- 52 Pickup 09:39, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question Regarding Banners

It seems to me that many of the articles relating to this project will also relate to the Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany project as well, specifically including the geogrpahical articles on cities, etc. Would you be willing to perhaps adapt the Wikipedia:WikiProject Geography banner, with "drop-down" banner lines below indicating, for instance, "This page is supported by ((Project))." Talk:Brisbane gives an idea of what the final product looks like. I was thinking it might save a bit of space on the talk page if we took a "joint" banner, as it were. Maybe a similar arrangement could be worked out with Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography as well. There, we will probably have several people who fall under the scope of both projects. Also, ultimately, we could add in a future GDR project, or any other subproject, without monopolizing the talk page space. Please inform me whether you would find such a cooperative banner acceptable or not, so that I can approach the relevant projects about perhaps setting such a banner up. Thank you. Badbilltucker 14:13, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

That is a very interesting idea. The Military History project has a similar box (Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Project banner), but they link only to their own task forces. The only problem that I can see is that the "to do" lists shown in the template would always be that of the Geography project and not of the supporting project(s). There isn't a "to do" page for Prussia at the moment, but it is in the works. If it would be possible to include the "to do" boxes for both the Geography project and its supporter projects, that would be even better.
A similar box for the Biography project is also a good idea. A similar modification to {{WikiProject Heraldry and vexillology}} would also be a possible - this one also has the option to add requests for images (for example, Talk:Province of Jülich-Cleves-Berg).
At present, the Prussia project is also a testing ground for its parent projects: Former countries, Subdivisions of former countries and Former subdivisions of countries (still under development). I don't imagine that we will make any other subprojects for a long time, so any modifications to these banners should also have a place for these parent projects (with the biography banner linking to only the first of these 3 projects). - 52 Pickup 08:49, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Something I forgot: is the Geography project the right one to go for? There is also Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries, which is perhaps more suitable. - 52 Pickup 09:47, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
After a bit more thought, I am not sure if this is the right way to go. For your proposed changes to work, it would require a massive rethink of how banners are built. This is because you could not really stop at having the Geography or Countries banner containing the links for Germany and Prussia, but for every other country project. Now that I've thought about it, there is no simple way to put into action what you suggest.
At the moment, this is what I think: if a certain page falls under the juristiction of two different projects that are not related by direct decendance (eg. Germany and Biography), then having two different banners is fine by me, because the two groups have a different focus regarding that one article. And again, creating one banner that covers both would be a lot of work if it is to function for every group. For projects that are related by direct descendance (eg. Australia and Brisbane) then your proposed idea is plausable, but it is a little more tricky because the focus of the two groups is the same but the scope is different, and that introduces heirarchy-related problems.
For example, if anyone were to start a Queensland project, what would then be the parent banner for Brisbane-related articles? Brisbane or Queensland or Australia or Geography/Countries? This may sound like a silly example, but it illustrates that you have to be careful in over-categorising things in one go.
Maybe you should discuss the matter with the people over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Templates. True, some pages look too full because of so many banners, so maybe banners need to be redesigned. To something like userboxes perhaps? - 52 Pickup 13:06, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Talk:Scotland has a novel way of dealing with all those silly banners. I do not claim to understand it, but it resembles userboxes, all down the right side of the page. 52 Pickup reminded me of it. Maybe something like this could be implemented here, and elsewhere.

For just about any banner, if you add the parameter "small=yes", you get these userbox-like banners. - 52 Pickup 10:30, 12 January 2007 (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 17:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Series layout

I think it would be good to plan here how the history articles directly connected with this project should be arranged. Previous discussions that I am aware of are here and here. I like the idea of reducing "Prussia" to a concise summary and disambiguation page (similar to Britannica's), while "History of Prussia" would be the more comprehensive page (similar to what is currently at Prussia).

I'm not sure what would be the best title for a "History of..." template series (similar to Template:History of Germany): "History of Prussia", "History of Brandenburg", "History of Brandenburg-Prussia", etc.

Suggested articles for a "History of..." series focused on the Hohenzollern state

Olessi 01:24, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Good start. A "History of..." series for this is tricky since it is branched, but such series have been done before quite well in the past (eg. the very detailed Template:History of the Low Countries). A series title like "History of Brandenburg and Prussia" might be needed. This way, inclusion of modern Brandenburg may be possible at the end.
To tell the full story, I think the series should go as far back as possible (similar to the History of Germany series). Expanding on your list of articles to include non-Hohenzollern involvement:
It might look a little complicated, but I think it needs to be that way, in order to avoid confusion and to tell a clear and complete story.
Do you think that it might be worth building a draft version of what the new Prussia page could look like? - 52 Pickup 11:09, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I like the layout and ambition of your ideas. Would it be possible to have the Brandenburg branch end with Elector of Brandenburg and have branches 1 and 2 then converge with branch 3, the "Brandenburg-Prussia" state? A fourth section could be for post-1918. I have no background of complicated template-making on the lines of what you suggest, so I do not know if my ideas would be possible or not. Olessi 16:53, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

That's exactly what I had in mind. I have put up a draft template here. There are two versions - one with and one without the Elector of Brandenburg entry. This is a tricky one to include since it runs parallel to a number of entries - and it needs to be kept parallel so that the dates run neatly. The colour scheme is by no means final (largely taken from Template:History of China), so feel free to change it. - 52 Pickup 08:37, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Looks like a good start. I'm not sure which version is better; without EoB looks better, but it is a relevant article to include. Do you know if there is a tutorial or information page for creating tables like this? Also, I have begun translating de:Mark Brandenburg at User:Olessi/Mark Brandenburg. Feel free to fix any translation errors I have made. Olessi 17:22, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

So far, I haven't been able to help much with the translation, but I did try putting up a suitable infobox. Something that I forgot was that the Margrave of Brandenburg was a title held up until Kaiser Wilhelm II. This could make things a bit more confusing, but I guess that so long as this is clearly discussed in the text, there shouldn't be a problem. I don't know of any tutorials, these are just tables so you just play around with the rowspan or columnspan features to get the look you want. Help:Table has a few things about it, but not much. - 52 Pickup 13:19, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 19:57, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article merge

I completed my translation of de:Mark Brandenburg at User:Olessi/Mark Brandenburg. In the meantime, User:Der Eberswalder moved Elector of Brandenburg to Electoral Brandenburg and updated the information. How should we best combine the information? One option would be to cannibalize the article in my userspace into Slavic Brandenburg (as discussed above) and create a Margravate of Brandenburg article (which Electoral Brandenburg would be merged into). The Geography section could be pasted to a talk page instead of going into the namespace. Elector of Brandenburg could be recreated to discuss the duties of the prince-elector. These would fit in with the suggested template. Any thoughts? Olessi 23:11, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Nice work. The creation of a separate Margraviate article makes sense and would then form a clear distinction between the political and geographical aspects of the Mark article. I'm unsure about having the Margraviate article separate to the Elector one. Is there enough information to justify separate articles? I don't know. And from our earlier discussions about template layout, a separate article causes a bit of a headache. - 52 Pickup 12:03, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Margravate versus Margraviate

I have renamed the redirect for Margraviate of Brandenburg to Margravate of Brandenburg. Note that margravate is the correct spelling for this word in English. I have gone through Wikipedia to correct all links to the Margraviate of Brandenburg so that they now point to Margravate of Brandenburg. By the way, I agree that this redirect deserves to become an article on the history of this state, though it would be good to watch out for overlap with the Mark Brandenburg article. Obviously, "Electorate of Brandenburg" would need to remain at least as a redirect (with the redirect now pointing the other way), since so many articles link to that term. Marco polo 15:21, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


My proposal is to make Margravate of Brandenburg the sole article, while Mark Brandenburg and Electoral Brandenburg would only be redirects, so there wouldn't be any overlap at all. "Margraviate" is an accepted English spelling, although I have no preference for one or the other.

Do we want the article at Margravate of Brandenburg or Electorate of Brandenburg? I prefer having the article at "Margravate of Brandenburg" since the principality was always a margravate, but not always an electorate. Having the article at "Margravate" would allow the inclusion of most of the Ascanian information, while "Electorate" would not (presumably it would be at "Slavic Brandenburg" instead). Here is how the other elector-states are currently titled:

I don't think there is enough info to warrant separate Mark / Elector articles; we could simply make a subsection detailing the elector's duties and honors or include it at Prince-elector. I found Old Prussia yesterday and tagged it for merger with Prussia (region); do we want to include a cleaned-up article about the region within the template as well? Olessi 17:32, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

The idea to have Margravate of Brandenburg as main article and Margraviate, Electoral, and Mark Brandenburg as redirects sounds reasonable. --Der Eberswalder 00:05, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I completed the article merges/redirects. Have a look at Margravate of Brandenburg! Since "Slavic Brandenburg" is a phrase that I cannot find any sources for (and therefore original research), I renamed that link within the template to Northern March. Since the margravate lasted until the dissolution of the HRE in 1806, I added 1806 to the template as well. Olessi 06:32, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Excellent. The article now looks very complete. The entries for the other electors needs a lot of work - which I would like to organise via Wikipedia:WikiProject Former countries/HRE task force, but there aren't that many people involved with this, and those of us who are are too busy with other things. The history templates look good with your changes. We still need to fix the colours used before putting it up.- 52 Pickup 14:26, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge of Old Prussia and Origins of Prussia

Yes, I support that the Old Prussia article should be incorporated into the Prussia (region) article. The content of the Old Prussia article refers to the time before with what the Prussia (region) article begins. It seems like a simple copy and paste and redirect. If there is opposition feel free to change it back. --Der Eberswalder 00:05, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Or maybe OP and P(r) should not be merged. It seems better to me to let Prussia (region) as it is and move Origins of Prussia into Old Prussia. Any thoughts? --Der Eberswalder 00:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I could see Origins of Prussia being merged into Old Prussia, while Prussia (region) would be a survey article summarizing the history of the geographic region (including a summary of Old Prussia). Olessi 05:39, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Agree. - 52 Pickup 14:27, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Former districts

I originally posted this here but received no response.

The current naming system for Kreise is to disambiguate where necessary with Name (district). Is there any reason not to use this style for the former districts east of the O-N Line? Regarding Landkreis Trebnitz, for example, we would use Trebnitz (district) instead of Landkreis Trebnitz. "Trebnitz" could then be turned into a disambiguation page listing the former district and Trzebnica.

Any thoughts? Olessi 19:13, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Sounds perfectly reasonable. Give it a go. - 52 Pickup 14:28, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template

I fiddled around with the colors at Wikipedia:WikiProject Prussia/Template:History of Prussia; my edited version is in the middle. Some ideas to consider are adding more rows to "Margraviate of Brandenburg" (since it lasted until 1806) and adding a section(s) for Berlin / History of Berlin, since the city played a major role in the history of B-P. Possibly divide the section after "Free State of Prussia" into "Brandenburg" and "Berlin"? Olessi 17:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I tried to use softer palettes recommended at Wikipedia talk:Colours. Olessi 17:53, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Any objections to the creation of Template:History of Prussia using the middle version of Wikipedia:WikiProject Prussia/Template:History of Prussia? Since the series includes the history of Brandenburg as well, I would prefer Template:History of Brandenburg and Prussia or Template:History of Brandenburg-Prussia, actually. Olessi 23:09, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Go for it. You're right, Template:History of Brandenburg and Prussia would be a better name. - 52 Pickup 08:17, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
I included the template in each article except for Brandenburg-Prussia, since there wasn't enough room there. Olessi 17:18, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Including articles about modern cities in Prussia WikiProject

Recently a number of articles about modern cities have been tagged as included WikiProject Prussia by User:R9tgokunks. I think this is not a good idea, for at least two reasons:

  • Prussia's territory included a large chunk of Europe. I think it would be totally unreasonable to include every single locality on that territory within the scope of Prussia Wikiproject, even places that belonged to Prussia for only a few years. It would require including tens of thousands of articles about various places in Germany, Poland, Russia, Lithuania and Denmark. What would be the practical use of that? So, for the sake of consistency, none should be included.
  • It is not good practice to include articles about a modern city in a project that deals with a defunct state. Most of those articles devote themselves to describing the modern situation of that city, which has little to do with Prussia. On the other hand, it might be reasonable to include city history articles (say History of Berlin) within the scope of WikiProject Prussia.

Balcer 15:56, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

You are absolutely right. This banner should be used sparingly, and only on articles that are specifically related to Prussia. - 52 Pickup 17:05, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree with your point, but then now, shouldnt we add major cities like Königsberg, Berlin, Danzig, Stettin, Kattowitz, and Poznan?-- Hrödberäht 15:04, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia articles about large modern cities have usually only a small fraction of their text devoted to the city's history, so I think it does not make any sense to include them in any of our "historical" projects. An article about the history of a large city might qualify, though even there it might be debatable if a city was a part of a historical entity for only a relatively short time. I can already see arguments that including History of Gdańsk in the Prussia project would not be justified, as the only significant continuous period in which the city was a part of independent Prussia was from 1815 to 1871, i.e. about 5% of its history. Balcer 15:32, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I think if significant historical events happened during that period—i.e. a non-negligible portion of the historical text is discussing its history as part of Prussia—then it makes sense. We're usually pretty liberal about overlapping wikiproject "membership" in that way; for example, a large number of Greek cities include WikiProject Turkey, and a large number of Turkish cities include WikiProject Greece, and this is generally not controversial (some of the edits are controversial, but the wikiproject banners on the talk pages aren't). --Delirium 20:02, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
If the city has a long description of its history in its article, then it should anyway be moved to a separate "History of (city)" article, and I see no problem with tagging that article as part of the Prussia project, if necessary. However, if we follow your proposal to include articles about modern cities in the project, we will have endless arguments about defining what a "non-negligible portion of historical text" amounts to. Anyway, Prussia disappeared off the European stage as an indpendent entity in 1871, so tagging articles about modern Polish, German, or Danish cities as included in that project strikes me as a little bit bizarre.
Let's remember that this whole discussion started when one user started to aggressively insert this tag into discussion pages of many Polish cities only because they once belonged to Prussia (regardless of the content of the article, and even for cities which were part of Prussia for about a decade). We should certainly define criteria to avoid a repetition of that unfortunate experience. Wikipedia should not be a place where a few determined users work to recreate defunct states (even if only in virtual reality). The borders of Europe have moved around quite a lot in the past century, and many Wikipedia users would feel uncomfortable if an article about their modern city is tagged with the flag of its former masters. For one broader example, imagine if every city in India got tagged as belonging to some "British Empire"-type project. 'Nuff said. Balcer 20:29, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, I pointed out that in Greece/Turkey we already do have a situation of a modern city being tagged with the flag of its former master, and nobody seems to much object. Thessaloniki is part of WikiProject Turkey since it was once part of the Ottoman Empire, while Istanbul is part of WikiProject Greece, since it was once part of the Byzantine Empire, to pick just two examples. I do agree that this should only be the case for cities with significant history from the relevant Wikiproject, and that "History of [x]" articles are generally better targets; it would be weird to tag historically unimportant (or recently founded) Greek or Turkish cities with the other Wikiproject's tag. But I don't see why including History of Gdańsk in the history of Prussia is more objectionable than including Thessaloniki in the history of Turkey. I'd say the same for a British Empire Wikiproject—remember, Wikiprojects are fields of study, not "claims". Thessaloniki is studied by historians of the Ottoman Empire, so makes sense in that Wikiproject; similarly anything that is studied by specialists in Prussia or specialists in British colonial history would make sense in relevant Wikiprojects. Heck, I'd extend it to even more defunct states, like Sumeria. --Delirium 20:42, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is vast and one can always find isolated counterexamples to any general trend, but this does not change the fact that tagging articles about modern cities with projects related to their former political masters is extremely uncommon. For another illustration, check to see how many cities in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are included in Wikipedia:WikiProject Russia. As for the Thessaloniki example, could it simply be that History of Thessaloniki has not yet been created? (and it really should be since that article is already beyond the size recommended by Wikipedia guidelines). Why don't we simply agree that only "History of [x]" articles can be included in the Prussia project when it comes to modern cities and towns. That would be a neat, non-controversial solution which I would fully support. Balcer 20:54, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
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