Talk:Delft

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[edit] Almost Famous?

As a delftnaar i was very proud to see that, under the heading "famous people", our lovely city had spawned yet another world-famous band in Calibern. I had never heard of them, but surely that was my shortcoming. A quick look at their wikipedia page and the bands homepage however leaves me with the impression that they are an unsigned coverband. Hardly "famous people" material. An enquiry with some of my musically inclined local friends that are more in touch with the local metal scene also produced shrugs.

I have taken the liberty to remove the link until they are "famous" in the traditional sense of the word. As a university city, Delft sports dozens in not hundreds of bands at the same stage in their career as Calibern, and it does not seem right to include them without mentioning the others.

--Ranieri 15:24, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statue

Statue
Statue

I can't remember who this status is of, from when I was in Delft. So someone will have to fill in that blank for me! Dom0803 00:24, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

My boss tells me it's Hugo Grotius, and that the statue stands in front of the Nieuwe Kerk, the newer of the old churches :-) RossPatterson 18:10, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Smashing! Assuming you are Dutch, your country is fantastic, and Delft has a very special place in my heart. ;) --Dom0803 18:43, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Nope, I'm a Merican, but the company we work for is based in Delft. And yup, it's a cool place. RossPatterson 00:38, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Ah, very well then. Have a pint in 'De Smoezer' in the Beestenmarkt for me, next time you're there. It was my local for a week. :P --Dom0803 02:32, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External links removed

This article contains some irrelevant and/or questionable external links. Cleaning up:

[edit] Vermeer did not do canals

I edited (removed) typical Dutch centre (with canals), as painted by Vermeer from the introduction (twice). Vermeer did not paint 'typical Delft canals in the centre'. The only canal he painted, View on Delft, is (nowadays) called "De Kolk", seen from south. This is a canal, but:

  • it is not in the centre
  • it is not 'typical'
  • it is not a 'gracht' (canal), but a 'kanaal' (canal), i.e. more like a highway then a road before your door.

Vermeer did mostly interiors, and another famous exterior (the Little Street) does not show a canal. -DePiep 11:35, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I know, I know. After editing, I wasn't even sure the Kolk qualifies as a canal, in form or origin. Anyway, the present introduction reads well. My only remaining point is a legalistic one: Particularly in the case of Vermeer, when discussing the coverage of certain themes or not, it would always be safe(r) to refer to the painter's known paintings. Cheers. Iterator12n Talk 15:03, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, we only know the known ones (they're all in his article, by the way). An extra reason to change the introduction away from 'as painted by': too factual ;-) -DePiep 17:16, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Location

".....located halfway between Rotterdam and The Hague."

This is not correct. Delft is situated much closer to the last mentioned town than to the first mentioned. As a matter of fact since the rather recent expansion of the last mentioned, both towns are partly neighbours, while before there was another place in between all over. In fact it's not unthinkable, that within decennia Delft will be part of The Hague. Natubico 02:00, 22 September 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Notable people

The link between Delft and the listed people does not rise above the trivial. Wikipedia is about notable subjects - not about trivial links. (Wikipedia:Handling trivia: “trivia is information that is not important to the subject it is being presented in relation to.” Note the words ‘’in relation to.’’) Removed the section. -- Unbeatablevalue 03:07, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

So a two time worldchampion and one time olympic goldmedal winner in skating, a tennisplayer who repeatedley reached the semi-finale of a grand-slam tournament, a popgroup who had a hit that was number five in the American billboard and a competitor in the final of a match for the worldchampionship in chess are that unimportant and irrelevant to their native town, that they shouldn't even be mentioned as trivia, integrated in the text, as is proposed in the essay about this subject? "Now my wooden shoe breaks", as they say here, to express big astonishment. Natubico 01:41, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Don't get me wrong, these are very notable people. However, it's also a fact that there is no evidence of a notable relationship between Delft and these people, other than that they happen to be born in Delft or happen to live (or have lived) in Delft, same as thousands of other people that were born there or live there. To put it differently, there is no link between the cause of Stien Kaiser's notability (her speed skating or she getting gold medals) and Delft. Nobody will look at Delft differently after learning that Stien Kaiser was born there. An example of the opposite is Delft and Vermeer. Vermeer painted a view of Delft, and Delft had a top-quality St Lucas guild of which Vermeer was a member. Now, if Delft were to put up a statue of Stien in the main square, then one could argue that this creates a special relationship between her and the town. Unbeatablevalue 05:10, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Stien Kaiser was an agent of the Delft municipal policecorps; would that maybe render the missing link? The lead singer of Tea Set has been a member of the Delft municipal council for years, the chestplayer, what's his name again, was a member of the Delft chest club and more or less learned playing there, the tennisplayer presumably played competition for the local tennisclub. Would that make a difference? Natubico 04:23, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm afraid not. Stien made her name as a speed skater, not as a police officer of Delft. But now assume that the town of Delft starts a credible campaign to become "the speed skating capital of the world" - emphasis on "credible"! Also assume that the campaign gets national and international response (for example, because Delft, hypothetically, indeed has a whole bunch of speed skaters at world level), without the mayor being laughed out of office. In that (hypothetical) case, the link between Delft and Stien becomes notable. Until then, we should leave Delft to itself. Unbeatablevalue 04:55, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
The Beatles are mentioned as famous Liverpoolers. Still they didn't even make one (famous) song about that town. As a matter of fact, they became famous in Hamburg. But they may have a statue in Liverpool. Besides they're one of the many popgroups, that became typical for this town. But now this: [[1]]. Here there are mentioned some 180 other notable Liverpoolers. They don't all have a statue there; nor is the activity that made them notable, worldwide recognized as tyipically for the town of Liverpool. So in your vision they should nearly all be removed. You do it yourself, or do you prefer somebody else to do it? Natubico 02:39, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
Somebody's got to do it! Thankless job. :-) Unbeatablevalue 03:34, 6 October 2007 (UTC)