Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Germany

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted.

[edit] Germany

I believe that the article is of sufficient quality to deserve FA status. It is well-sourced and very informative in addition to being well-organized. TSO1D 04:23, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Weak Oppose As the initial nominator, I believe an explanation of the removal of my support might be warranted. The problem is that when I first nominated the article, I did not fully understand the requirements for a featured article. Although I believe that the article is much better in current state than it has been in the past, it appears that it still does not meet the expected level of excellence. I thank all the fellow editors who have helped to drastically transform this article for the better over the course of the last weeks. I also thank the critics whose opinions were extremely valuable in identifying certain weaknesses of the article, enabling the implementation of improvements. I sincerely hope that the other editors will be able to raise the article to FA status eventually (even if it fails this time around). but unfortunately I do not believe that the article is ready yet. TSO1D 03:14, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Comment I suppose that if the nominator objects to the nomination, this should just be withdrawn. It's great to see TSO1D thanking his fellow editors but I think TSO1D also deserves to be thanked for calmly addressing the various issues that have come up in this process and for helping improve the article tremendously. Whatever happens next, the quality of the article has increased dramatically in the past month. It may still be sub-FA quality but it sure is something Wikipedia can be proud of. Pascal.Tesson 04:42, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Sorry about that, there is really no point in doing that. I still believe that this FAC will probably fail this time, however there's no reason I should try to close it faster. There is no better channel for suggestions than the continuing advice that flows into this page and helps propel the article's improvement. I was just a bit frustrated and tired yesterday, and acted impulsively. I'll do my best to address all new concerns, regardless of the future of the FAC process. So again, sorry, and it won't happen again. TSO1D 22:25, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Minor objections: Overall prose is very good, but I have several comments:
  1. The lead section does not summarize the article. In particular,
    • This sentence from the lead: Historically consisting of several sovereign states with their own history, distinct German tribe dialects, culture and religious beliefs, Germany was unified as a nation state amidst the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 is confusing, too many things to describes in one sentence.
    • Also this sentence: It is the European Union's most populous and most economically powerful member state uses WP:PEACOCK words, uncited and I cannot find it anywhere in the main article.
    • I mistakenly placed the source for population a little to the right. As for economic prowess, Germany has the third highest nominal GDP per capita and the highest in Europe. Perpahs it could say "one of the most powerful countries", would that be better? TSO1D 20:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
    • GDP per capita doesn't translate into a powerful country neccesarily, in that case we should all bow to luxemborg. Those words should probably be removed anyway, they smell of PoV. 212.10.217.122 17:33, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
    Oh, I meant GDP, not per cap. TSO1D 22:24, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  2. Please replace the source of this sentence: There are 2.3 million guest workers of Turkish origin in Germany, making them the largest group of foreign workers. The accurate source should be from the official statistic reports, rather than a letter article in New York Times. The sentence itself is an orphan paragraph.
    May I help? In this source [1], exactly here: [2] the Federal Statistical Office of Germany is quoted: "Nach den am 20. Juli 2005 durch das Statistische Bundesamt bekannt gegebenen Einbürgerungszahlen für das Jahr 2004 hat sich die Zahl der Türkinnen und Türken in der Bundesrepublik mit deutschem Pass auf insgesamt 840.000 erhöht. Damit ist fast jeder dritte der 2,6 Mio. türkischstämmigen Menschen zwischen Alpen und Nordsee eingebürgert." In 2004 there were 2.6 Million people of Turkish origin in Germany, 840.000 of them had the German Citizenship. -- Cornelia -etc. 01:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  3. Why does the Demographics section only describe about foreign workers and asylum seekers? Where is the demographics information of the Germans themselves?
    • I believe that the problem is that the information about the native population is scattered across other parts of the article, for instance Relgion and Social Issues. TSO1D 04:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  4. This sentence: The third largest religious identity in Germany, after the two Christian groups, is that of non-religious people... is quite strange. Does the non-religious people is officially one religious identity?
    • Well in the poll they had religion: Protestant, Catholic, and then non-relgious/atheist. That's why it was presented in this way, but I see your point. TSO1D 20:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  5. This sentence: Germany has been and continues to be the home of some of the most important researchers of various scientific fields is uncited; thus looks opinion to me. The Science and Technology section still has orphaned paragraphs. The last paragraph of the section is awkward to specifically write in detail about psychology. The flow is abrupt and the last paragraph does not belong to the whole section.
    • The first sentence is common knowledge in my view and too vague to need to be sourced. I mean there have been numerous German scientists as demonstrated by the subsequent information. Well I put in a source just in case. TSO1D 03:52, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  6. This sentences: Unsubsidised long-range service operators can compete freely all over the country, at least in theory. Actually, Deutsche Bahn holds a de facto monopoly on long-range services. It is not a fact, but rather speculation. Not an encyclopaedic statement.
    • I agree, I will try to modify it. TSO1D 03:52, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  7. Please standardize numbers. Use comma for thousands and use non-breaking space between the number and its metric.
  8. Please standardize reference items. Some of them are not informative enough.
    I changed two refs; do you believe there are other ones that need to be fixed? TSO1D 15:37, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  9. Trim the See Also list. Articles that have been wikilinked in the body do not need to be listed again in the See Also section.
    I removed two entries that appeared in other parts of the text. TSO1D 15:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
The above was reviewed based on [3] — Indon (reply) — 15:37, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment. Is it still rated as B-Class? May be backlogged. --Brand спойт 18:23, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
The B classification is from a much older version of the article. TSO1D 20:40, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Many of the sources are from print sources that are found in online databases. For example, most newspaper links are the digital format of formerly printed articles and all the material from encyclopedias comes from sources that are available in print format. The same goes for the CIA and Library of Congress Reports. I mean I can cite the paper version but I thought it would be useful to have a link to the text that has been made available online. TSO1D 20:39, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
By print sources I meant books, besides encyclopedias (WP:RS: "Secondary sources should be given priority over tertiary ones.") Punctured Bicycle 21:01, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
But compare this article to the FA Belgium that only has about five print sources that are not linked to a specific part of the text. I think overall the German article is much better sourced. It wouldn't really be a problem to find some books about Germany on Amazon and list them here, but since they weren't used for conducting research that wouldn't truly be useful in my view. Furthermore, I believe that all important information that is not common knowledge has been supported by a credible source even if that source is available in digital format online. TSO1D 13:39, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
What sources did you use when conducting research, anyways? Huge sections of text give no indication of where the information came from (in the form of inline citations). 10 citations—comprising magazine, news, and encyclopedia articles—is not adequate for 2000 years of history, for example. Other FAs, which may end up on FARC at any time, aren't an excuse—why not strive to be better than them? Punctured Bicycle 03:03, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
It wasn't I that wrote the article, I just tried to reformat much of the text and provide as many sources as I could find for the content. As a model for my edits, I used the Belgium and Canada articles as they had already received FA status and I believed that they had already come under close scrutiny so they must have reflected adequate Wikipedia standards. Online sources where the only ones I had to my disposal and I selected the most credible ones to support the information of the article. I cannot deny that it would be better to have more sources, that is always the case, however I believe that in its current form possesses a quality of a sufficient degree to warrant the promotion of the article to FA status. Others of course disagree and constructive criticism has been put forward by many. I have tried to do my best to fulfill these requests, however under the circumstances I do not see how I can do more than change the language and add some more sources of the same type I previously included. TSO1D 03:46, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Oppose still This article is not properly researched/referenced. The nominator added tons of print references shortly after saying "online sources where the only ones I had to my disposal" and "it wouldn't really be a problem to find some books about Germany on Amazon and list them here, but since they weren't used for conducting research ..." This suggests to me that the sources listed are being used more for show than actual referencing. As far as I can see, the article did not change significantly to reflect the new sources. For example, where are the inline citations that indicate the page numbers that were used to support specific statements? (See Crawford expedition for an example of this.) Even if we assume the sources listed were used to conduct research, the corresponding inline citations required for verification purposes are missing. Punctured Bicycle 14:01, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
If you are accusing me of adding the references for show you are greatly mistaken. I admit that I didn't use the sources listed to conduct research, but I didn't write the history section either. Rather it was summarized by other users from other fuller articles on various historical periods. I took the sources from those articles and added them to the main article with the summary. TSO1D 21:04, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Comment: Please read again WP:MOS carefully, especially about WP:CITE. All books/articles/publications that are not used in the article can be listed in Further readings section. Items in the References section are used directly in the article and they have to be supported by inline citations. By listing all available books about Germany from website of a bookstore in the References section is not appropriate. — Indon (reply) — 09:37, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Please read my above comment, I did not get the sources from Amazon, but from the main History of Germany article and its subarticles such as German Empire. That's were the text came from and I assumed that the references listed there were used for conducting research so I added them to this article as well. But I agree with you, as long as those sources are not directly cited the list should be dropped. TSO1D 12:45, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
I think we could lose the References section totally. Nobody remembers which book was used to prove which assertion, and I think nobody can be bothered to find out (Germany is one of the most-edited articles, with thousands of edits). Better drop this section and inline reference everything from history books or similar (which is very easy, since all the statements are undisputed). Kusma (討論) 09:42, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I agree the reference list can be removed. TSO1D 23:08, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Some paragraphs are totally uncited. They need citations. LuciferMorgan 21:54, 8 December 2006

(UTC)

I believe that the parts of the text that do not include citations include content that can be considered common knowledge thus not requiring the support of sources. Most of these parts are in the history, law, and government sections that are not cited in other featured articles such as Belgium or Canada for the same reason that I have mentioned. TSO1D 13:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
    • I am currently changing the references to other encyclopedias (which I think should not be used in a FA) to book references. Kusma (討論) 09:56, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Object. Not written to the required "professional" standard.Excellent job done by the League of Copyeditors; I'd still like just a brief description of how the DDR was different from that of the Federal Republic. It does mention Soviet Bloc, but nothing about life and the economy of the DDR. Take the lead:
    • "It is bordered to the north by"—Unidiomatic. "A portion of the alps"—same.
I am sorry, but how "it is bordered to the north by" undiomatic? That is one of the most common ways of presenting this information in the English language. For instance see Britannica that uses the same structure: http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9370838/Macedonia. TSO1D
    • "Germany is a democratic parliamentary federal republic, made up of 16 states (Bundesländer), which in certain spheres act independently of the federation." I'd remove the last clause, because it says nothing useful unless accompanied by more detail than is appropriate in a lead. Remove ",made up", which is redundant. Saves the repetition in the subsequent sentence ("consisting of").
    • "Historically consisting of several sovereign states with their own history"—Ungainly repetition.
I agree and will remove it. Actually I see that someone already beat me to it. Is it ok now? TSO1D 04:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
    • "distinct German tribe dialects"—clumsy.
Agree again. TSO1D 04:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
    • "Germany has the third largest economy in the world and is the largest exporter of goods on the globe"—"In the world ... on the globe"? The second is unidiomatic, and both together in a sentence are repetitive.
Again, I don't agree that it's undiomatic, though perhaps a bit awkward, I will try to change it. TSO1D 04:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

This needs serious copy-editing throughout. Tony 01:25, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Oppose. The writing is awkward in many places, and the text introduces new terms with only a passing mention (i.e. in the restoration and revolution section). I cannot support at this time. --Danaman5 03:41, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
The article went through many changes and was copyedited many times. Most of the concerns seem to be addressed. How does the article look now?Baristarim 05:55, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, I'm a little late getting back to this. Changed to Weak Support per improvements made.--Danaman5 23:01, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak support there are a lot of small issues that could easily and should be fixed, mostly concerning references (some sections are a little light on references + see comments above) and prose (not bad by any means but perhaps not brilliant). Still, the overall quality is impressive. Pascal.Tesson 21:20, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • TSO1D—No point in adding your "support" if you're the nominator .... ahem. Not a numbers game here. I agree about "bordered", having looked it up. I still think it's a little ugly, and would rephrase it myself, but you're right, it is correct as is. ON the globe is not idiomatic, unless it's an insect sitting ON the globe in the kids' bedroom. Tony 05:36, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I agree (about the vote). Although I see that "on the globe" has already been changed and I agree that it sounds a bit awkward I still say that it's not unidiomatic. For instance look at the phrase "country on the globe" on Google. As you can see some more reputable sources also use it in the same context it appeared in the article. I know this doesn't really matter now that the text has been altered anyway, but I just wanted to defend the idiom :). TSO1D 05:43, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comments a couple of specific things/sentences that should be fixed:
  • "irregular" government employment such as "one euro" jobs, What's a one euro job? or an irregular employee?
Irregular refers to the fact that the employment is not stable but meant for short periods of time as explained by the examples given. I gave a brief definition of "one-euro" jobs in parentheses. TSO1D 15:29, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Despite the tense situation in eastern Germany, total government employment in Germany remains lower than in other states such as the United Kingdom or Canada. Not sure what that means. What is the comparison to Canada and the UK supposed to prove?
  • Get your hands on a better university picture than that of Würzburg. It's not a well-known university across the world.
    What about Heidelberg? It's the oldest University in today's Germany and I think it is well-known, isn't it? Perhaps the picture of the aula there may be okay? -- Cornelia -etc. 02:51, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • The picture of Angela Merkel next to the social issues section should probably have a social issues caption.
Ok, I changed the caption. TSO1D 15:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • For centuries, women's role in German society was summed up by the three words: Kinder (children), Küche (kitchen), and Kirche (church). Throughout the twentieth century, women have gradually won victories in their quest for equal rights, although women are noticeably absent in the top tiers of German business, holding only hold 9.2% of jobs in Germany's upper and middle management positions. While I'm not denying that women's social position in Germany is an important issue, this group of sentences makes it sound like a German-specific issue which, for all I know, it is not. Do French women hold 25% of top tier business positions? I don't think so.
I don't believe the article is suggesting that this is a German peculiarity, it just lists the "ongoing quest for gender equality" in Germany. This isn't one of my favorite sections, but it's still factually correct and I didn't want to remove it altogether nor did I know how else to change it. TSO1D 15:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • many historical figures, though not citizens of Germany in the modern sense, were influential in the German cultural sphere, including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Kafka and Stefan Zweig. Don't get me wrong, I like Stefan Zweig but he's not really in the same league as Mozart and Kafka. If you want to have three examples (which is always nice) how about Sigmund Freud instead?
Good idea, I actually though about doing that and will do it now. TSO1D 15:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm no expert but one sentence for German philosophers seems like an understatement. German idealism is of major importance in the history of philosophy. Why not link to German philosophy? (even if that's a low-quality article)
  • For some reason, the culture section suddenly switches to a surname-only format for name-dropping.
  • Cleanup the selection of names. Kraftwerk is influential, Blind Guardian not so much. Only names that have a significant (and third-party established) impact should be in there.

Pascal.Tesson 07:01, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Comment I've just added half a dozen citation requests. These should all be easy to find by looking up the references of the various sub-articles. Note that I'm not peppering the article with citation requests to prove a point but just to highlight the work that remains to be done. Pascal.Tesson 16:53, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment I just took a look at the Germany article in German and found a few interesting things. First, it's incredibly long (which isn't a good thing I know) but it sort of shows what content is missing from the english article. It has a really long series of sections on architecture (we have a one line sentence I just added), a section on cinema (for some reason we don't), sections on sport, fauna, flora, etc (we don't but not sure we want one). Also I realized that for some reason Willy Brandt and Helmut Kohl are not mentioned anywhere in the English article which does not seem right... Pascal.Tesson 04:39, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
    • As Adenauer isn't mentioned, either, it seems not so bad not to mention these two. I don't think the history section should be longer than it is, so if you suggest something important is missing, do you have an idea what to remove or shorten instead? Kusma (討論) 14:03, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Well let's put it this way: should we have room for Adenauer if we have room for Dieter Bohlen? Although I have developed it quite a bit, the section on culture could be refactored and dramatically shortened so that it relies on other existing articles (some of which are quite good). The impact of Adenauer, Brandt, Kohl and even Schröder not only on Germany but on Europe as we know it today is too important for us to ignore them here. Pascal.Tesson 16:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
I have added Adenauer and Brandt to the post-45 history section. I couldn't find a good way to describe Kohl's role there yet. Kusma (討論) 16:26, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
On a related note: I think the section on German culture is slowly reaching higher quality than the article Culture of Germany and so it does not make much sense to link to it unless we move some of that content. I would favor rewriting the Culture of Germany article by merging the Germany content in there. Then we could rewrite a much more succinct section and add a note in the source that this section should not be expanded too much. We could limit ourselves to a general discussion on the Culture of Germany versus German culture and mention fields in which Germany has been particularly influential. Pascal.Tesson 17:48, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Support, the article ahs improved amazingly from a month ago. The "administrative divisions" section could still be improved, though, by adding a one-or two-sentence statment that notes how much freedom the divisions have to make their own decisions. That would make it look less like a table without comment. Kusma (討論) 09:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Mild support (upgrading from weak) the page has gone through considerable improvement. I think the next thing to do is to shorten dramatically the culture section: I've copied the (excellent) content of that section to Culture of Germany and I think we should have a simple summary style paragraphs or two. The rest of the expansion should go in the Culture main article. On another note, I'm going on a wikibreak so good luck to all, TSO1D in particular who has done a lot of very good work on this article. Pascal.Tesson 05:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Support — Indon (reply) — 18:28, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Further to my objection:
    • Why are en dashes and hyphens inconsistently used in titles?
      • Can you please explain what you mean. TSO1D 22:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
    • The history section is way too long: it's out of proportion with the rest of the article, and I'm afraid to say, is pretty boring in places. Why is Martin Luther brushed off in two sentences, whil paragraph after paragraph are given over to grey details from the first millenium? Luther was of critical importance. Same for the Thirty Years War.
      • I'm sorry if you find certain areas of the history section boring, however I believe that the text needs to be this long to even give an overview of German history and personally I am generally satisfied with the distribution of information (except for the last section).
        • Ok, again reduced the length of the history section to a section that I believe is now appropriate. TSO1D 15:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
    • The placement of images often forces the text into very narrow columns. For example, Hitler and the subdivisions crowd the whole space.
      • I tried to remove some of the images (I tried to make it so that any line of text was only bounded by one image), however I believe that further reductions would only have a negative effect by removing valuable visual aids. TSO1D 00:22, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Pretty superficial account of modern history, even if it's in summary style. Getting very blue, too. Why the repeated links? I'd ration them. Why not reduce the early stuff and deal properly with the important stuff. DDR knocked off in a few shallow sentences.
      • Ok, I will try to see if this section can be expanded. However I do not intend to remove text from other sections to make room for it. TSO1D 00:22, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
        • I added a little more to the modern history section, however if we continue to expand that section, it will be out of proportion with the rest of the text. TSO1D 15:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
    • "The climate is influenced to some extent by the Gulf Stream, which promotes an unusually mild climate in areas adjacent to it." Remove "to some extent". "Adjacent" is odd here.
      • I changed the sentence according to your suggestions. TSO1D 22:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
    • "areas bordering on the North Sea"—Spot the redundant word.
        • Removed "on". TSO1D 22:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
    • "along the Rhein which flows into the North Sea"—Comma before "which" almost mandatory. Too few commas throughout, IMV.
      • Added that comma, if you see other omissions please indicate where they are or rectify them yourself. TSO1D 22:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
    • "rain falls all year round"—So it does over the planet, but we're interested in the patterns. Is it totally uniform?
      • Levels are relatively uniform though the greatest variation occurs during the summer maximum. I changed the text to reflect this. TSO1D 22:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
    • "Winters there are relatively mild and summers tend to be comparatively cool"—"mild" and "cool" are already relative/comparitive.
      • I agree, I took the adverbs out. TSO1D 22:47, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
    • "for prolonged periods of time"—spot the two redundant words.
      • Removed "of time". TSO1D 22:47, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Are you sure the one trillion dollar estimate of exports is correct? Thought it was 1200 million. And does this exclude services and returns on investments, as implied?
      • Thanks for pointing that out. Total exports did in fact add up to 1 tril, however merchandise exports were 912 billion. By the way, the source is here. TSO1D 23:13, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Definitely not good enough.

    • Overcompartmentalisation, esp. in "Culture". Can the subtitles be removed?
      • The problem is that the entire section needs to be summarized, removing the subtitles wouldn't be sufficient. However, you are right, the section is too lengthy as it is. TSO1D 22:58, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Oh, I just love the last sentence tacked onto what deals with amazing grandeur:
In the field of music, Germany claims some of the most renowned classic composers of the world including Bach and the Bonn-born Beethoven, who marked the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western classical music. Other composers of international fame include Handel, Telemann, Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Brahms, Schumann, Wagner, Strauss, Orff, and Pachelbel. The film score composer Hans Zimmer is from Germany as well.
Ok, I reduced the size of the culture section and removed all subtitles. Perhaps more could be taken out, however I believe that the amount of space dedicated to the section is proportional to its importance to the topic. TSO1D 00:17, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Bonn-born Beethoven ...

Sorry, that's my awkward translation from German. I completely removed it now. TSO1D 22:50, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

of the world

Ok I said "some of the world's most renowned...", it was at least repetitive. TSO1D 22:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC) TSO1D 22:50, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Did Bach also mark the transition? That's what it says.

Ok, I put Beethoven first so that the statement would be restricted to him. TSO1D 22:50, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Really folks, this does not compare to the other nation FAs. Tony 14:08, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Ok Tony, I think I have addressed all of your concerns, at least partially. TSO1D 15:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree with Tony that this does not compare to other nation FAs. It is better. Support. ---Pedro 00:04, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Object This article's structure is definitely not correct. Please see Canada, Australia and India, some of the best country articles out there. Demographics and society sections need to be combined. The article is not very easy to read. However, the references and the depth of the subject matter is good, so will support if the structural issues are dealt with. As for other country FAs: there are some that will be getting a delisting soon like People's Republic of China - apparently it passed FA in 2004 with the standards of the day, but currently it is nothing but a mess. So please restructure the article. Plus some of the information in the article needs to bet seriously cut, and some other stuff expanded: History section is way too long. Most of that stuff should go to sub-articles. There is no need to mention the wind-power capacity of Germany in this article, that also needs to go to relevant sub-articles. There are seealsos in the middle of sections etc. Better take this article to peer review first I think. However, if the regular editors can work on it, then it should be fine. Cheers! Baristarim 09:03, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the suggestions. I tried to use the framework of the Canadian article, however there are several significant obstacles. What the Canadian or Indian articles call demographics is supplemented here by a society section with three other subsections that sometimes overlap with that subject, but at other times would be impossible to integrate there. I am talking about religion (which should easily be merged with dem), social issues (which might be merged in part), and education (which I really don't see a way of merging). I guess I will deal with the society section by merging what's possible with demographics and making education a new section. The history section presents another important obstacle. I see that many users have expressed complaints about its length, however I never fully realized the magnitude of the reductions that should take place. I have tried to trim the section over time, however it is still much too long. I guess I will have to remove all subtitles and slowly reduce it. Do you believe that other sections such as transport, which do not appear on other FA national articles. They seem too informative to remove. By the way, there was a peer review for the article, but it attracted only limited attention. TSO1D 14:54, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Comment and minor objections The structure looks better. I know that writing country articles can be hard :) Well, I think that there are some improvements that can be made, not neccessarily because the article is bad, but simply because it will make the article better.. However some of them are pretty important: The culture and science and technology sections might be better combined. The thing is, there are too many names listed that it is somewhat confusing. More analytical sentences about the German culture and its place in the global context might be better than simply listing names. I know that some of those people have been very important in global culture, but a greater focus on Germany would be better, since the article is about the country. Also culture sections should include something about the sports in the country as well. What kind of sports are popular (I know that it is football, but for the uninformed reader :)), olympics etc? It shouldn't be simply a list of the country's achievements either (i ran into this problem in France :)), it should be about how the sports relate to the country and the people as a whole. I don't know, is there a traditional German sport for example? No need to mention it if there isn't one, but might be interesting if there actually is/has been one. I also think that the social issues should be combined with other sections, with the paragraphs combined into their relevant sections. As I said, the only problem I can see is the overlisting done in some places. As for the transport section.. There was a similar thing in France.. Someone is insisting that the transport section should be included at all costs :) However, I think that it would be more appropriate in a sub-article. I just cannot see the transport being as important then a country's culture or politics or etc. The things is, transport sections generally seem to make the articles something like a travel guide. In fact, what you might need is a "Topics in X" template to put in the see also section, that way you can list all topics about Germany easily and give the reader the opportunity to select what want to know about Germany directly in that list. I will try to drop by later. Baristarim 19:20, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
About the culture and science sections, I agree with you that too much of the text is composed of a list of names. I tried to reduce this (it was even worse in the past), however it's very hard to decide what names to remove (Mozart, Einstein, Mann?). You are right, however, more comprehensive sentences should replace much of the current format. As for including sports and other elements in the culture section, I hadn't even thought of that. When I thought of culture, I immediately assumed it was high culture. However, the other elements you mentioned are also very important and should be included in that section. As for transport, I am not that big a fan of the section personally, I even tried removing it in the past. I tend to agree with you that it might be better just to link to the subsection. TSO1D 20:09, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
By the way, the topics in... template is much better, thanks for pointing that out. TSO1D 21:47, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
lool. I know, when I first came to Wikipedia it kinda surprised me to see sports in the culture section, however it made sense after a while. The "topics in .." template will really help out the article, you will see. Not only will it look nicer, but all the see alsos will take less space while grouping everything related to Germany in a very concise section easily accessible to the reader. Just use one of the layouts of the other topics templates and replace the wikilinks with relevant Germany articles. For the moment I don't have a lot of time but I will check in soon. Cheers! Baristarim 02:20, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Oh, I've already used that template since you first made the suggestion and it looks great. TSO1D 03:02, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I have added a sports section. Do you think that's sufficient in that area? TSO1D 16:03, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Sports section looks just fine :) Baristarim 05:48, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Support My above concerns were addressed and the article looks really good now. I am sorry about not being able to get back to this earlier, I have been busy both in Wiki and real life because of the holidays et al. A great congratulations to editors who have spent a lot of time trying to address the concerns in the FAC, and the article seriously looks really good at the moment and it fits FA criteria. The "topics in X" template also simplified a lot of things and really made the article informative for readers who want to know more about the country. Good job for the whole effort! Baristarim 05:48, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Further comment. I was going to weaken on my objection, but there are problems wherever I look. You must find this frustrating, I'm sure, but a FA should read smoothly and be crystal clear. There are problems in both the rendering of facts and in readability. I've cast my eyes about and found these issues at random in a few small windows of text.
    • "the Chancellor is the head of ... a pluriform multi-party system"—Are you sure? The distinction between being head of the government and of this might be lost on most readers. It is on me.
    • Awkward word order: "in the face of a growing migration of East Germans to West Germany via Hungary and mass demonstrations"—just move "mass demonstrations to after "face of", and follow it by "and".
    • "The country eventually came to enjoy prolonged economic growth beginning in the early 1950s (Wirtschaftswunder)"—what on earth is "eventually" doing here? Replace "beginning in" with just "from". Insert "known as the" before the German term.
    • "The recovery occurred largely because of the previously forbidden currency reform of June 1948 and from 1949 on partly by U.S. assistance through Marshall Plan loans." This is cumbersome: more commas throughout the text would make for easier reading and more accurate expression—here, one is needed after "1948", isn't it? "On" should be "onwards". "By" should be "through".
    • "The sectors controlled by France, the United Kingdom, and the United States were merged to form the Federal Republic of Germany on 23 May 1949; the Soviet Zone established the German Democratic Republic on 7 October 1949." No, the Soviet Zone didn't establish the DDR, the Soviet Union did.
    • "were somewhat reduced"—spot the redundant word.
    • "During the summer of 1989, in the face of a growing migration of East Germans to West Germany via Hungary and mass demonstrations, East German authorities unexpectedly eased the border restrictions in November 1989,"—There are time-phrases at the start and finish that seem to overlap.
    • "sent a peacekeeping force to secure stability in the Balkans and sent a force"—repetition.
    • "In recent years,"—this should be banned from WP as so vague that it's useless. "Since 2001"? "Over the past five years"?

Now, why not try out our new League of copy-editors? Specify precision of expression, commas, and redundancies. Perhaps the Director is willing to wait another few days ....? Tony 09:04, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I introduced the changes you proposed above. I guess I never took the time to carefully copy-edit the entire article. I will do that, and also I have taken your advice and asked the League for help. TSO1D 14:30, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I went through the entire article and did a general copyedit. I'm sure I missed some things, however. I've become so used to the text in its current form that I'm liable to overlook certain errors. Nevertheless, I have to say that I'm satisfied with the general quality of the text. Hopefully others will catch any residual mistakes, but at this point I don't see what else I can do to improve the article's quality. TSO1D 23:54, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak support, is a great article and there are only tiny problems left with it. Mathmo Talk 08:16, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
    • If you have any specific concerns, could you please list them so that the editors of the page can try to improve those aspects of the article. TSO1D 20:54, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Object Fails 1c. How did this article get this far into FAC without cleanup of basics like WP:MSH?
    • What is this at the bottom of the article? ( [nds:Düütschland]] ) ?
      • That was added a few hours ago by another user who added the interwiki, fixed it now. TSO1D 18:18, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
    • There are unformatted and incorrectly formatted references throughout (example: http://www.olympic.org/uk/games/past/table_uk.asp?OLGT=2&OLGY=2006 Turin 2006 Medal Table] International Olympic Committee. Retrieved 2006, 12-28 )
      • In that example, is it just the extra bracket, or was there something else as well? And other than that what sources are not formatted correctly? I thought I had used MLA style for all. TSO1D 18:18, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
    • A spot check of the references turns up lacking - this, for example, is a dead link (Germany: Culture Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2006. Retrieved 2006, 12-27 )
      • That one is strange. I did it again and it seems to work now. TSO1D 19:13, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Pls indicate a German-language icon on sources which are not in English - it does me no good to click on those sources to attempt to verify them. For example, (Spanish) is the Spanish-language icon - I don't know the German one.
      • It's (German) and I will do that.
    • What is this? (Hoppenstedt business databank 2002 )
      • Oh, I had replaced that one, I guess that got lost in some reverts though. Anyway, I will do it again. TSO1D 19:13, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Include all bibliographic info in citations; for example, the authors on this and this.
  • I stopped checking references, since the referencing is overall sloppy and incomplete.
    • I did it for most of them, I guess I just missed some. I'll go through them again and check and I will correct these two. TSO1D 19:13, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Why did you leave out the rising mortality rate, mentioned in one of the BBC sources, and what is that due to?
    • I mean a lot of information was left out, only a summary of the most important aspects of German demographics was kept. Besides, I included the BBC source because I needed a citation for the birth rate, and having found that I did not pay close attention to the rest of the article. TSO1D 19:13, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
  • "Critics have alleged?" Please specify what critics.
    • I completely removed those two sentences. The view of non-compliance was held by a small minority. In any case, that part was too detailed, the rest already exists in subarticles. Anyway the problem disappears there. TSO1D 20:53, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
  • The article is undercited - I'm going to add ref tags to only a few sections as examples. Many statements also need to indicate as of when (a date). I cited some of the facts myself, by using named refs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:14, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
    • I will provide sources for the ones you listed. The problem is that for many of them, I just added a citation at the end of a group of sentences supported by one source. I guess I will add it for every instance though. TSO1D 19:13, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I think I have addressed all the major concerns that you presented. I checked all sources and tried to make them conform to Wikipedia standards. I added language tags for the sources that were written in German. I also filled your citation requests and added new sources elsewhere and removed the problematic bits of text you identified. TSO1D 23:37, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
The references are looking better now, although every time I've come back to the article, I've found more referencing problems that needed to be fixed. External links could use pruning per WP:EL and WP:NOT - they should be kept to a minimum. The CIA factbook is already used as a reference, hence shouldn't be be in External links. This doesn't look "encyclopedically" useful - [4]; this says it's "official" or "government", but the website doens't seem to indicate that, and it seems commercial [5]. Can the Wikitravel link be included in the sister projects box? Science and technology is unreferenced. Main templates are used incorrectly: they should indicate when a main article is summarized back to this article via summary style, yet many of the articles listed as Main are barely stubs, aren't cited, and don't support the text given in this article, meaning for example, that the Culture section should be better cited, as it can't rely on the daughter articles. (The main templates should be switched to See also on the articles which are barely stubs.) For example, Education in Germany is an uncited diseaster needing cleanup - it can't be the main article upon which an FA depends, nor can Germanic culture. Demographics of Germany, Geography of Germany, Judiciary of Germany and Economy of Germany are also uncited rambling unorganized articles - I suggest that none of these are appropriate uses of the Main template, and might be listed as See also. Those are the ones I checked working from the bottom up - I stopped there, since I'm finding that the daughter articles don't support the text in the main article. I'm not convinced this article yet rises to the level expected of an FA on the English wikipedia: I don't speak German, so I don't know about the German Wiki. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:37, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I reduced the external links per your suggestion and removed some quasi-trivia. As goes for the main templates, I removed it for education and German culture, but Geography of Germany has useful information on other geographic landmarks of the country, Economy of Germany includes much relevant data, and demographics of Germany and Geography of Germany also supply further info. Thus I see no reason to remove them. Whereas I agree that they could be improved, I don't agree that it's necessary to remove them altogether. And I know you don't like this argument, but all other national FA's are the same way. Look at Canada, for instance, where many of the subarticles linked with the main template are in a much poorer condition than Germany's articles. As for science and technology, what exactly could sources be provided for. I found one for physics, but most of the text is purely Common Knowledge. TSO1D 21:04, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I added some references to that section after all. But I don't think it needs to go any further. I mean is it really necessary to provide a source for the fact that Gutenberg invented the printing press in Europe or that Geiger was the inventor of the Geiger counter? TSO1D 21:54, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Support now, the article is much cleaner, has been copyedited, and is better referenced. I'm still concerned about the use of the "Main" template, and would prefer they be switched (in some cases) to See or Further (since the daughter articles are *clearly* not the basis for summary to the main article), but that's not enough to object over. Nice, persistent work. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:27, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment User:Raymond arritt over at Wikipedia:WikiProject League of Copyeditors was kind enough to pitch in and copy-edit the article. Perhaps those who commented on prose could revisit this one? Gzkn 09:47, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose (1) section heading in the history section blow out this size of the TOC; (2) Social issues section is biased to whatever this author things these issues are - merge demographic issues into the demographics (demographic effects of reunification, opposition to immigration etc) section and drop the rest; (3) Education also should be a part of demographics; (4) Merge Sports into cluture since its so short and sport is a part of culture in many other country FAs; (5) The science and tech section just adds a long list of names to the article - a brief mention of technical innovation in the history section would suffice. The culture section could use some work too, how does being a large market equate to influnce on trends, is Kraftwerk the only successful German music export, wasn't Rubens Flemish?--Peta 02:44, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
1) Even if the subsections inflate the TOC, they are useful in sectioning that part of the article. I tried it without them and it didn't work too well. Of course, there will always be the matter of bias, but the social issues section reflects what the media covers to the greatest extent, not the views of the authors. If you believe that any element is given undue weight, please explain which one. 3)How can education possibly be merged with demographics??? 4)Ok, I merged sport and culture. 5)I really don't think a brief mention of German innovation in the history section would be enough considering the long history of science and technology in Germany. Besides, to what period should it be added? 6)No one said that Germany's large market makes it influential, that sentence just describes the actual situation; Kraftwerk is only given as an example, there are many more, but I don't believe that section should be expanded further. Oh, and Rubens was born in Germany, but his family fled to the Netherlands because they were Protestants. TSO1D 21:10, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I decided to merge social issues and demographics after all, and seems to work fine. As for education, I scratched my head for a long time over this, but I just don't see a way of merging it anywhere else. However, given the peculiarities of German education and its importance to the state, I don't think it should be too big a deal to just keep a small section for it.TSO1D 01:23, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
How about merging tech into the economy section? It really is predominately a list of names just taking up space.--Peta 02:48, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
I merged science with culture. I just didn't know where else to put it, but the information there is too important to Germany to be removed entirely in my view. In any case, scientific pursuits have been a deeply intertwined with German culture and some of the philosophers mentioned elsewhere in that section also were important scientists and mathematicians. Do you think this works?TSO1D 03:10, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
I believe, however, that most of Peta's stated concerns have already been addressed. Could you please specify what major problems you believe persist. TSO1D 20:31, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
I concur, the article went through a lot of changes since the start of the FAC, and unless further specific objections are raised per FA criteria, I don't know what can be made of this objection.Baristarim 05:51, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Provisional sSupport This is a very good article. I hope you approve of my edits. The article has clearly benefited from the past few weeks of hard labour by its proposer and by the constructive commentators. Consequently the problems that I have with it are relatively small and if they can be addressed, I would give it my strong support.

  • The rise of liberal and nationalist movements was in part a consequence of disagreement with restoration politics. I don't understand. IMHO liberal movements arise from enlightenment; nationalism out of better mass communications. Link to restoration doesn't help.
    • The problem was that nationalism and liberalism emerged simultaneously and were believed to be linked at the time. This was mostly an intellectual phenomenon that attracted much more support from students than from the masses at that point. And this liberal-nationalist movement emerged in Germany in great part due to the fact that these young intellectuals disagreed with the repressive and conservative way in which the Prussian government (or others) operated during this period. More detail can be found in the main article for the period: German Confederation. Of course, it might help to go into further details, but don't wish to expand this section further. But I removed the useless link to restoration. 21:24, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
  • After scrimping to fit German history into a metaphorical postage stamp there are four lines occupied by its capabilities in wind-power. Seems excessive.
    • Ok, I reduced that to about a line and a half. There actually used to be an entire section about this kind of stuff, and this is one vestige of the old mammoth. TSO1D 21:24, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Not sure that its large cities are caused by the country's federal structure since this is recent. Each state has a capital which may have provided a nucleus back in history, but since I have supposed that people have clumped together mainly by economic factors, so it is by definition decentralised. Do state capitals automatically cause a population increase? Compare Springfield, Illinois with Chicago.
    • Regardless of the validity of the reasons (which I myself doubt), it's mere speculation, and original research. I removed the reason and just left that fact. TSO1D 21:24, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
  • There are 500-1000 children schooled at home in Germany.In a country of 80 million it it hard to justify its inclusion as a significant feature/issue in a summary of German education.
    • I agree, that fact is really of no importance given the small number of people affected. TSO1D 21:24, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
  • If Kraftwerk is your best example, I would not describe Germany's influence on the world's popular music as strong. If anything it is not pulling its weight. JMcC 20:25, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Ok I just said that they influenced music, without any further adjectives. I agree, the influence hasn't been that great, and it's misleading to call it strong, but I assume there must be at least something there. TSO1D 21:24, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
      • Not sure why you're picking on Kraftwerk though. This was an immensely influential band in electronic music and has been recognized as such numerous times. Now of course, nowadays one might argue that noone singing in a different language than English has a world-impact on music but if any German band ever had a universal impact, it's got to be Kraftwerk. Pascal.Tesson 00:48, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Not sure why my vote of strong support has been altered by someone else back to 'provisional'. Perhaps I never saved it. If it happened, it must be against Wikipedia policy. I have re-instated my support. JMcC 08:55, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Looking at the edit history, I see no tampering. It seems like it was simply a lapse on your part. Pascal.Tesson 09:08, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.