User talk:Boson/Archive 1

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Archive 1
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Welcome!

Hello, Boson, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  --Allan McInnes (talk) 16:14, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome. It still feels a bit like learning to ride a bicycle. (:-)Boson 20:17, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Contents

WikiProject Munich

I see you like translating pages. Would you like to help out at WikiProject Munich's traslation page? Kingjeff 13:35, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think I'll have a lot of time in the near future, but I'll have a go. Since I'm not really into football etc., I'll try the Dachau article.

--Boson 20:59, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for signing up and doing a translation. I know you probably won't have much time so don't worry about it and you can work at your own pace. Kingjeff 23:50, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Welcome to WikiProject Germany

Welcome, Boson, to the WikiProject Germany! Please direct any questions about the project to its talk page. If you create new articles on Germany-related topics, please list them at our announcement page and tag their talk page with our project template {{WikiProject Germany}}. A few features that you might find helpful:

  • The project's Navigation box points to most of the pages in the project that might be of use to you.
  • Most of the important discussions related to the project take place on the project's main talk page; you may find it useful to watchlist it.
  • We've developed a number of guidelines for names, titles, and other things to standardize our articles and make interlinking easier that you may find useful.

Here are some tasks you can do:

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me or any of the more experienced members of the project, and we'll be very happy to help you. Again, welcome, and thank you for joining this project! Kusma (討論) 16:25, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Template:Mayors of Munich

Template:Mayors of Munich is now moved - thank you. Templates can be moved just like articles. You'll need to be carefull to check all usages though. Agathoclea 20:45, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Do you think we need the article, Mayor of Munich? Kingjeff 20:52, 26 November 2006 (UTC)


Helping out with the Unassessed Wikipedia Biographies

Seeing that you are an active member of the WikiBiography Project, I was wondering if you would help lend a hand in helping us clear out the amount of unassessed articles tagged with {{WPBiography}}. Many of them are of stub and start class, but a few are of B or A caliber. Getting a simple assessment rating can help us start moving many of these biographies to a higher quality article. Thank you! --Ozgod 20:15, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikiproject Biography March 2007 Newsletter

The March 2007 issue of the Biography WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. Mocko13 22:36, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Historical Eastern Germany

Perhaps you'd be interested in this:Talk:Historical_Eastern_Germany#Requested_move. -- Hrödberäht (gespräch) 05:09, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Goebbels

Thanks for clearing up the matter of Goebbels' title, however, are you sure what he gained his doctorate in? As you have put it down as philosophy whereas Peter believed it to be on literature. There was alot of debate over this in the previous incarnations of the article aswell and was wondering if you have a reference for his Ph.D. Gavin Scott 20:00, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid I didn't follow the previous debate, or I would have checked my sources more carefully. I mainly changed it to get rid of the "earned a doctoral thesis", which I thought sounded odd. I definitely read that he got a doctorate of philosophy, but I will check to see if I can cite a reliable source. I'm not sure I can do that tonight. I'm not sure what sort of doctorate you normally get from Heidelberg for literary subjects. I would still be a little cautious about calling it a "PhD", which you don't really hear in Germany. --Boson 20:28, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I have now found a press release from Heidelberg University (http://www.uni-heidelberg.de/presse/news06/2610romant.html "Dass Josef Goebbels 1919 in Heidelberg aufgrund einer Arbeit über ein romantisches Thema (Wilhelm von Schütz) zum Dr. phil. promoviert wurde, dürfte durchaus von symptomatischer Bedeutung sein.") referring to him getting a "Dr. phil.". This is IMO a Doctor of Philosophy, but I'll try to find confirmation of the meaning of the abbreviation). --Boson 20:51, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Yup, Duden "Wörterbuch der Abkürzungen" (dictionary of abbreviations) confirms that "Dr. phil" stands for "Doctor philosophiae" (Similar to DPhil in English). So, though he had studied German Literature and Philosophy, he gained his doctorate in literature, but what he got was a Dr. of Philosophy. It would be normal at German universities to get a "Dr. phil" for many Humanities subjects and a "Dr. rer. nat." for many science subjects, but I think it very much depends on the university.--Boson 23:25, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Further your comments on my talk page and here, I still feel that the honorific is correct, or at least would have been thought so in Nazi Germany. But it's no big deal, and if you feel that it looks wrong, ok, take it out. It was only my opinion, and I can be wrong at least as often as the next man.--Anthony.bradbury 14:07, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Sure, no problem.--Anthony.bradbury 14:01, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

WP Munich

WikiProject Munich has over 20 members now which should make for a good WikiProject. To help organize the project, please put down some ideas at the talk page. Kingjeff 02:26, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

WP Munich membership

I'm giving WP Munich members a choice of being active members, semi-active members or inactive members. Please sign up for the correct one. Kingjeff 23:52, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Kissinger

Funny how that nomination was sitting there for a month before we both reviewed it at the exact same time. On the plus side, where mine was more minutia-based, you provided a solid overview, so it wasn't a waste of time for either of us—or that's how I'll rationalize it. Anyway, I thought I'd mention that there was a new quick fail criteria added the other day, for which Kissinger qualifies. I'm going to give it a couple more days on the seemingly off chance some work is done but I'll defer to you if you'd prefer another course. Doctor Sunshine talk 19:47, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is. I'd been meaning to get around to it for a while, but I should have looked first and I'd have seen that you'd flagged it as in progress. But, as you say, the two reviews did complement each other to a certain extent. I'm happy with your decision. --Boson 20:37, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Excellent. Done deal. Doctor Sunshine talk 23:28, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

The WikiProject Biography Newsletter: Issue II - April 2007

The April 2007 issue of the WikiProject Biography newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you BetacommandBot 18:22, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Religion in EU

Ya, prolly the entire section should concern itself exclusively with official positions the EU takes on the subject of religion and the free (or limited) practice thereof. What I did was to take what was there that made it sound like Jewish history in Europe has been rosy, which is far from the truth. As for "several genocide attempts", I was trying to work with text that was already flawed and in my Sudafed-induced stupor, it was quite a struggle... As for the citation request, the aftermath of the 2nd Jewish-Roman war clearly fills the definition of attempted genocide, and that's ignoring the chequered Jewish-Roman history prior thereto; later, the expulsion from Spain and forced conversions or death in Portugal both within the same decade were also genocidal; during the Crusades when 1/3 of Europe's Jews were slaughtered by marauding Crusaders (or by their countrymen who didn't actually go on the Crusades), especially under the rationale "why are we going to the Holy Land to kill the Infidels when we've got our own Infidels right here among us?", also constitutes attempted genocide. Even without the Holocaust, the charge of "attempted genocide" stands pretty well on its own merit. Tomertalk 22:55, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good...I've invited input from members of WP:JEW, here. Cheers, Tomertalk 23:12, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
I like this much better. Good work. Image:Teeth.png Tomertalk 03:03, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

May 2007 edition of the WikiProject Germany newsletter

The Germany WikiProject Newsletter
Issue I - May 2007
From the editor

This is the first issue of WikiProject Germany's newsletter. The newsletter is intended to help all members of the project to keep up with new developments and coordinate new collaborative efforts.
Other areas where you can help
  • Assessment requests: Some open Requests for assessment need to be answered. To see new assessment requests as they come in, you can watchlist the assessment page.
  • More task forces and subprojects: As this WikiProject covers a very large topic area, it is helpful to add more task forces that focus on specific aspects of Germany. Currently, we have a Mainz task force, a Munich subproject and some joint task forces with other WikiProjects. Any project member is invited to start a new task force. Suggestions for possible topics:
    • Transportation in Germany
    • German politics (the political system of Germany and the biographies of its politicians)
    • German Democratic Republic

Be creative! If you have an idea, just suggest it on the project talk page (don't forget to watchlist it).

  • Categorization: Uncategorized Germany stubs need to be categorized
Project news
  • Criteria for B-Class status: The assessment criteria for B-Class have been changed. {{WikiProject Germany}} template now has 5 switches, B-Class-1 through B-Class-5 that correspond to 5 easily checked criteria that an article should meet to be assessed as B-Class. The advantage of this system is that now there is a clear boundary between Start-Class and B-Class articles. Authors of articles that were assessed as Start-Class now get more direct feedback what they should improve to attain a B-Class rating.

All of our B-Class, Start-Class and Stub-Class articles now need to be checked whether they meet any of the B-Class criteria. This is a major effort, and we need your help! If you want to help, but don't know how, please post at the project talkpage.

  • Cities and municipalities task force

A task force dedicated to creating and improving articles on all German cities and municipalities has been started and is looking for help.

This newsletter was delivered by Kusma using AWB to all members of WikiProject Germany. If you do not want to receive this newsletter in the future, please leave a note at the talk page of the Outreach department so we can come up with a better spamlist solution. Thank you, Kusma 11:47, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Lindenholzhausen

Hi Boson. Many thanks for the review, the comments and the upgrade. More to follow. --Feetonthedesk 20:53, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Deforestation in Germany

Look, to quote Balabkins straight off: A lack of timber imports and the Allied exports of German timber were the two principal reasons for the shortage of pit props. Timber exports from the U.S.-occupied zone were particularly heavy. American military government sources admitted that such timber exports were necessary for the "ultimate destruction of the war potential of the German forests". Clear felling was widely practiced, and an extensive deforestation resulted which could "be replaced only by long forestry development over perhaps a century."

So, two issues, 1. Balabkins uses the word "admitted", which is why I felt it is OK to use it in Wikipedia. Since the author felt it was the correct word it is rather to make the text less NPOV by changing the word to a more bland one. 2. The years that this policy took place. The sources does not say when it started, nor when it ended. Almost certainly it was started already in 1945, along with everything else that the U.S. did. When it ended? Maybe it ended in 1947, more likely in 1948, but maybe not until even later. We cant tell from the source, thus it is false to provide specific years in the article based on when the books used to source two quotes were published.--Stor stark7 Talk 22:58, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

The sources cited by Balabkins refer to specific years. "During the occupation" implies a much longer period.
Balabkins does not necessarily have to demonstrate a neutral point of view. In addition, since the Americans had specific orders to destroy the war potential it seems inappropriate to suggest that they were "admitting" something, whatever Balabkins' view of the matter. Indeed, since others state that the Americans in control in Germany were doing everything they could to ignore their orders, one could equally argue for "claim".
The report of the Military Governor states clearly: "As a basis for developing a future program looking toward control and ultimate destruction of the war potential of German forests a complete inventory of forest resources in the U:S. Zone is being made." This is IMO not consistent with "admit". Quite the contrary. --Boson 23:32, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't see what you mean that they refer to specific years.
1. We have the U.S. policy of clear-felling, unknown in temporal duration.
2. "Admits": We have the source quoted by Balabkins and also by you here above which Balabkins uses when he interprets the purpose of the clear-felling. That is the purpose of relying on scholarly secondary sources, they are deemed competent to come up with interpretations and conclusions, based on available primary sources, that can be used in Wikipedia. Wikipedians are not permitted to do the same, when they do it's called original research and thats a no-no.
3. If you know that there are scholarly sources that dispute Balabkins conclusions, then the way to go is to include Balabkins name together with his conclusions. E.g. According to Nicholas Balabkins U.S. forestry policy in Germany was bla bla bla, but according to XXX U.S. forestry policy in Germany was bla bla bla.
4. The sources cited by Balabkins refer to specific years. "During the occupation" implies a much longer period., you are right and you are wrong. I've removed the sentence "during the occupation", since we don't know exactly when deforestation was taking place. The quotes given by Balabkins were published in 1946, 1948, and the additional supporting source in 1948. Their dates of publication do not necessarily have any connection to when policy was carried out, and they only are used by Balabkins for two purposes, back-up his conclusions regarding a) the reason for the policy, and b) the consequences of it. The source published in 1946 refers to the year that had passed since Potsdam e.g. since August 1945. Presumably logging was begun already in 1945, even though the book was not published until 1946 but we can't know that from that source, we cant even know whether logging didn't start years later than 1946. The source published in 1948, about the consequences of U.S. logging, does it say that logging stopped in 1948? From Balabkins quote we cant judge that, only that by 1948 the consequences of the U.S. logging had become obvious. For all we know it could still be going on. --Stor stark7 Talk 00:26, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
My main concern was that "during the occupation" strongly implied a longer period, probably lasting to 1955. The implications may have been different in the context of Balabkin's work. I think your solution of removing the reference to the duration is best.
As regards "admits", it includes the meaning of "states" but adds an implication that there was something underhand about it, that it was conceded only subsequently, when confronted. Since it is obviously a point of view that implies motives rather than a simple interpretation of events, it is not appropriate to use the word, even if Balabkins does. Using "admits" in Wikipedia is POV, even if it means only that Wikipedia is adopting Balabkins' POV. Reference to the sources cited by Balabkins underlines the fact that Balabkins, rather than stating a fact, is implying a POV (incidentally one that is clearly at odds with the sources he cites to support his view, which addresses the reliability of Balabkins as an authority). --Boson 09:58, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Please explain how you in your research came to the conclusion that Balabkins conclusions are at odds with the sources he quotes. And also how you feel you can make judgments on his authority. From the correspondence I've had with history scholars on the subject (admittedly only one e-mail that mentions Balabkins) the Balabkins book in question is treated as one of the most pre-eminent works, possibly the best, on the topic of occupied Germany.--Stor stark7 Talk 20:21, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
It is not his factual conclusions that I am objecting to but the use of the word "admitted" (other than in an attributed verbatim quote). Assuming you quoted Babkins properly in context, it's not my research, but Babkins' own research that makes the use of the word "admitted" inadmissible. The document he cites as evidence for his facts states something quite clearly and explicitly. It is also quite clear from the rest of the Wikipedia article that what is stated in the report is in line with the explicit orders to the military government. Babkins does not appear to dispute these facts. If he does, please tell me where. In these circumstances, the use of the loaded word "admitted" is not appropriate. It is not something that can be effectively disputed because it is not a matter of facts but of insinuating language. That is why the word has no place in Wikipedia (unless you want to use a word like "state" in the Wikipedia text and quote Babkins verbatim in a footnote.--Boson 21:02, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Biography Summer 2007 Assessment Drive

WikiProject Biography Summer 2007 Assessment Drive!

WikiProject Biography is holding a three month long assessment drive!
The goal of this drive is to eliminate the backlog of unassessed articles. The drive is running from June 1, 2007 – September 1, 2007.

Awards to be won range from delicacies such as the WikiCookie to the great Golden Wiki Award.
There are over 110,000 articles to assess so please visit the drive's page and help out!

This drive was conceived of and organized by Psychless with the help of Ozgod. Regards, Psychless Type words!.

List of member fraternities of the Cartellverband

Hello, I am Thw1309. You rated the article List of member fraternities of the Cartellverband as start class and added comments in behalf of the five criteria, showing that the article failed the criteria one and four. I want to thank you for doing so, because this enabled me to improve the article. At least I hope so ;-). I removed your rating to gain a rating on the now changed article. You rated the article start again. This time you did not leave any explainations. All the criteria you proved showed a "criteria met". Please could you tell me the reasons of your rating? --Thw1309 19:12, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah, sorry about that. I didn't check the history, so I didn't realize that you had deliberately removed the class etc. I thought I had assessed it, and when I found it in the list of unassessed articles I thought I must have inadvertently forgotten to enter the rating. The second time around, I was not able to immediately confirm the information given on the basis of the Web site given, so I made a note to myself to have a closer look later but did not rate the criterion as failed. As regards criterion 4 (grammar), I thought there were a couple of minor mistakes in the English (e.g. "it's" instead of "its" and plural "informations") , though I wasn't sure they justified a fail on grammar -- but I wasn't happy entering "yes", so I left that open too. I would suggest the following changes:
"Each fraternity is listed under its umbrella organization and is identified by a token consisting of the first letter of the umbrella organization and the membership number, based on the date of entry into the Cartellverband."
"Information on the fraternities of the Cartellverband are taken from the Cartellverband's official list" (with footnotes citing the publication details (I like the Citebook template, but that is a matter of taste) and the Web sites also in footnotes). I would not abbreviate Cartellverband to "CV" because "CV" is very common in English for "Lebenslauf". --Boson 21:03, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I followed your first advice. Thanks for helping. I could not put your second acvice into practice, although you are absolutely riht about this. I already tried to do so, when I reacted on your first rating, but the table "did not like it" ;-). Whatever I do, the table will appear at the end of the article. Now, half of the text of the article is written under the table but is shown above it. I am used to show the references under the text at the end of the page. It looks quite stupid above the text. Therefore I decided to solve the problem the way you can see now. It seemed to be the smaller evil. --Thw1309 21:37, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I changed your rating of the article from B to start because I think there is to much empty space within the list. To recieve a B rating, the article should be more completed. I asked for your reasons only to be able to improve the article. I have to tell you, that I was very impressed by your way of rating and very thankfull about your help. Therefore I do the following. --Thw1309 07:58, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Award

The Special Barnstar
I award you this Special Banstar for your great work rating and helping improve articles as shown on List of member fraternities of the Cartellverband. Thw1309 07:58, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to WikiProject European Union!

Hello, Boson/Archive 1, and welcome to WikiProject European Union! Thank you for your generous offer to help contribute. I'm sure your input will be much appreciated. I hope you enjoy contributing here and being a European Union Project Wikipedian! If you have any questions, feel free to discuss anything on the project talk page, or to leave a message on my own talk page. Please remember to sign all your comments, and be bold with your edits. Again, welcome, and happy editing!

--Thw1309 16:57, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Project European Union

Hello Boson/Archive 1, I try to create a new project page for the project. You can see it at here Because this should be the project page for all it´s members, please tell me, what you think about it. Please leave your comments on the talkpage of the project.--Thw1309 12:00, 24 June 2007 (UTC)


Battle of Târgul Frumos‎

Do you really think it's just a Start article? --Thus Spake Anittas 14:17, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

As you can see from the individual assessments, I thought the article was B-class on structure, grammar and additional material. I failed the References classification because I think a few citations with page references are needed for the major points. I expect you could easily provide those. I didn't assess content; that is probably best left to someone with greater knowledge and/or better access to books on the subject. Personally, I would have liked a couple more sentences providing the wider context. --Boson 15:59, 8 July 2007 (UTC)