Talk:Posen (region)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is only about the Prussian Regierungsbezirk ("administrative district") of Posen (the southern district of the Prussian province of Posen):

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Former Countries, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of now-defunct states and territories (and their subdivisions). If you would like to participate, please join the project.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale. (FAQ). Add comments

and as a part of Prussia therefore also:

Germany Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Germany, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to articles related to Germany on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please join the project and help with our open tasks.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.
(If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)


Is this project dead? Halibutt 21:39, Jun 26, 2004 (UTC)

No, why would you think so? It's important to realize that this article is a bridge in the structure (as being formalized in the Historical States WikiProject) of the Prussian hierarchy of the 1800's. The parent article is Posen Province and the child articles are the Kreise. The admin district doesn't have a lot of significance besides the grouping function, so there won't be a lot more adding to this article. Bwood 01:32, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)


About the "Polish Spellings" column of the table: I see that someone has started linking to Polish city articles. I'll not change them until the correct material is more developed. There should not be any links in this column. The only links will be to the Kreise articles. The Kreise article contain links to the Standesamt articles. Links to the articles of the Polish towns will occur in the Standesamt articles. The town articles cover the town throughout history, so there is no need to duplicate them in this series of articles which is part of the Historical States project, and follows the administrative structure of the Prussian state, before 1871. Bwood 01:32, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It's not someone, it's me again. As far as I remember we had a conversation about this series some month or two ago and you stated the same as above. However, I noticed that no further additions were made to the Kreise articles ever since and most of them do not contain any data. That's why I think the project is dead or at least abandoned.
As to the links to the cities - they should be there no matter what. I can't imagine an article about Prussia without any link to Koenigsberg or an article about Germany without a link to Berlin. All the Kreise are not some abstract entities but units of administrative division formed around towns and cities. I doubt there should be separate articles on Poznań and Posen, so the best way would be to link to the present-day towns. Especially that the history sections cover all of the towns' history. Also, the "Polish" names that you put in the articles are false and in most cases have nothing to do with the real Polish name. That's why I find it essential to correct them (there's no such city as S~rem, neither in Poland nor anywhere else; the city name is Śrem). Halibutt 13:51, Jun 27, 2004 (UTC)
First, please continue to fix the spellings, no arguement there. Second, there is a proper, organized place for the city/town links, but not in the "Polish spellings of the Kreise names". But, as you say, the material is slow in developing (I only have so much spare time, so I work on this in chunks). Until the Kreise pages are ready, I think it's ok to link to the city pages, as that is better than nothing and may be useful to some. I've brrm spending most of the few hours I can, on the Project definition, so that the organization is defined and a consensus is reached in an official manner, instead of this being my personal project. I'll come back to the Kreise and Standesamt pages as soon as I can. Bwood 16:02, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Where is the correct place for links to the actual towns? Halibutt 07:09, Jul 13, 2004 (UTC)
In the Communities tables of the Standesamt articles if they exist (few do yet). If they don't exist yet, go ahead and put them in the Standesamt tables of the Kreise articles if *they* exist (most do). I'll move the links down the hierarchy as I am able to fill it in. Bwood 04:11, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
So, you basically propose to have two articles on counties based in, say, Środa: one on the actual county throughout its existence and one on a brief period already included in the earlier article, but at the same time not mentioning the name of the town it was centred around? Unacceptable to me. Halibutt 22:54, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
"Two articles?" Yes, one is general purpose, another is within a specific context of jurisdiction and time, part of a specific knowledge project.)
"Mention the capital?" Yes, I have no issue with discussing the capital, nor in linking to the main article about the town. There *is* a specified structure of articles that follow the logical hierarchy that mirrors the governmental structure that the project is based upon.
I think much of this is mute, as the current structure template includes all community names. See Kreis Kolmar, for example.
All Kreise articles now contain a complete, comprehensive list of the member villages/towns Bwood 14:16, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, they did, but the admin nazis reverted them back to stubs. Hopefully someone will wikify the material and bring it back. Bwood 13:40, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Redirecting pages for the individual "Kreise"

Seven of the 27 articles for the individual Kreise contain no content beyond "Kreis XYZ was one of many Kreise (counties) in the southern administrative district of Posen, in the Prussian province of Posen." They are: Kreis Bomst, Kreis Fraustadt, Kreis Gostyn, Kreis Grätz, Kreis Jarotschin, Kreis Kempen, and Kreis Kosten. In early March, an editor proposed that Kreis Gostyn be deleted and I removed the prod notice a few days later. I feel encyclopedic articles could be written on the individual Kreise, but as it stands, the seven articles listed above contain no content that is not already in this article. So, I propose that we redirect those pages here until someone recreates them with more content. Comments? If no one objects within about 2 days, I will go ahead and redirect the articles. -- Black Falcon 04:54, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

That is fine, and gives me incentive to fill in the articles. (Due to hassles from those with an axe to grind, I've refocussed my energy to a wiki where I can make progress and not have to expend energy protecting the Project from those who have personal agendas. This has been quite successful, and the current project over there involves a GoogleEarth placemarks file that shows all the churches, civil registration offices, and synagogues.) Bwood 15:21, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Alright, then. I have redirected them. My concern was that someone might successfully nominate them for deletion and then future recreations might fall under WP:CSD#G6 or have to be performed through deletion review. Until the articles contain further content, I think the least controversial thing is to have them as redirects. In any case, their edit history is preserved and can always be reverted in order to expand the articles. Cheers, Black Falcon 17:42, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
OK, I've begun to update the articles (Bomst & Fraustadt, so far). I think you'll find that they contain enough material to prevent nominations for deletion  :) Bwood 16:58, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, I've finished updating all the pages. There are some scattered link problems, bugs in the process of converting links from one wiki to another. I'll try to clean these up manually. It looks like the Genealogy.net wiki project has given up developing an English version for Posen, and just links back to my wiki. The German Wikipedia version of these pages is not consistant, many are built on the WWII divisions, with brief references to the 1815-1919 Kreise. I will no longer defend the Standesamt articles, unless someone else picks up the ball, which is not likely. If Hallibutt wants to link the Polish names to the general articles about the villages/towns, I won't oppose, as long as a clarification is added at the top of the table. Bwood 14:14, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, after all that, I didn't do it good enough for WikiPedia, so all that was a giant waste of time. My wiki has essentially been blacklisted so I'm not going to continue to raise my blood pressure trying to get anything constructive done at WikiPedia, ever again. It's just too combative. You and the others are welcome to revise the work that I've contributed if you want. I hope you will. My position (in a few words) is: the material really needs to cover all levels of the state of the period right down to an article for each independant village (but not necessarily each hamlet), as well each parish, civil registration office, etc. There is no practical way to create and protect that many articles on WikiPedia. I can and have done that on birchy.com. I had hoped to build a bridge between the two, maintaining duplicate articles at each wiki, from the Kreis level on up. I was happy to share the work we've down at Birchy.com on the Prussian Posen province with the wikiPedia audience, as long as the bridge existed so that if a researcher stumbled on the wikiPedia articles first, they could conveniently continue their research on the more specialized wiki. I got pidgeon-holed as a spammer, instead. So I don't see any reason to encourage researchers to articles that dead end, when they don't have to. But you and the others are welcome to carry on. Good luck against the "Danzigers" (as the discussion below provides a fresh example). Feel free to grab material from birchy.com as you have time. My time is better served adding material to it, rather than trying to share it with the monstor that WikiPedia has become. You know, it used to be: "material first, quality later". Now it's "Quality first, material eventually, maybe". I don't have too many years left in this world. I've enjoyed compiling and making easily available a lot of data for others to use, I hope to do much more. If I do, it will be available on WikiPedia, unless you and the others pick up the torch. Goodbye and good luck! Bwood 13:31, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Prussian POV

The Kreis of Posen District articles present Prussian POV. Either they should be labelled as biased or rewritten.

Technically the Kreis articles should link articles describing places when possible, rather than www.birchy.com . Polish spellings are omitted or they are erroneous. Eg - in the article Kreis Posen Ost the name Pudewitz is in almost any line, but no link to Pobiedziska exists and the article Pobiedziska doesn't inform that the name Pudewitz was official. The Wikipedia should be a Wikipedia, not a summ of the Wikipedia and a Prussian-English Wkipedia, like it is now. The existence of Polish population isn't mentioned, the same of Polonized German settlers Bambrzy.Xx236 10:15, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Of course it's Prussian POV. Didn't you read *any* of the several explanations? (Article Map at bottom of article; the WikiProject Former Countries project banner at the top of this page). These are not general articles. This article is about the Prussian admin district, and is part of a series of articles, in a formal project of Historical States.
The links go to where the data is. When there are WikiPedia articles that fit the requirements of the project, then they should go there. Until then, why not put the interest of the reader first? If you follow those links, you will see that they contain various degrees of detailed information about the village during the Prussian administration: population tables, locations of the Catholic and Protestant churches, the synagogues, civil registration offices, even police and courts. You won't find any of this in the general knowledge wikipedia articles, even if you can them at all. Instead you'll find a glossed over history, and the names of the current soccer and motocross teams. Dropping the links and hiding them in a single external link will rob the intended audience of useful information.
Polish spellings are provided when known. Instead of objecting, why not add them yourself? And even though it goes against the purpose of the Project, if you link the Polish Spellings to general articles about the town or village, *I* won't fight it, but might put a disclaimer. Pudewitz is mentioned in "almost any line" because it was where those offices were. If you follow the links, you are presented with articles about those offices or parishes, not the town itself.
The existence of Polish population *is* mentioned, see the third paragraph. Polonized German settlers should be discussed in articles that deal with history of the area before the scope of the articles in this project. These were the remnants of what most historical texts refer to as the "First" and "Second Waves of German immigration". During the time of Prussian occupation, very little Polonization occured. Bwood 14:06, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your explanation but I keep my point - this isn't Prussian Wikipedia. An average reader has the right to read the texts with a current map. I'm not a Wiki expert, but the majority of articles link other sites once, at the end. Only lists of universities link sites, but once, not in any line. Xx236 07:37, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

My comment regarded The Kreis of Posen District articles, not this article. I mean that districts with Polish majority don't inform about this majority.Xx236 13:43, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Which of the other [[Category:Former_countries_in_Europe|projects would you like us kill? There's too much material to include in the general articles. Bwood 14:00, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

See the comment by Halibutt 13:51, Jun 27, 2004. I write the same after almost two years. You see the region as a phantasy land. It was a real land, with Polish majority or big minority. The time has changed, not only Prussians have rights. Xx236 07:55, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

So? There are more than one neo-Nazis on WikiPedia, also. I'm quite aware that many of today's Poles would like to quash any non-negative detailed discussion of the Prussian occupation of Poland or at least have absolute control of the presentation. Answer my question above. Which other of the Historical States projects would you like to kill? Why is Prussia any different from them? Please redirect your comments to the appropriate Project pages, because that is where the issue will be decided.Bwood 16:38, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Title

I moved the article from "Posen district" to "Posen (region)" in accordance with the translation guide and the naming used in Category:Regierungsbezirk. Olessi 22:34, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, those that came up with the "official" German-English translation requests/Translation guide made some bad choices. I've skimmed the rather heated debate and since I can't propose a workable compromise (except possibly the one I mention below), I won't tilt the windmills much. The upshot is that WikiPedia adopted a EU document as "gospel", which is based on British English not American English, even though American English is more universal. A Kreis is best described as a small US "county". "District" is too vague and could be applied to any size area, from an acre to a continent.
"Regierungsbezirk/Bezirksregierung" has no US equivelent, but is a division of the Kreise of Province into administrative districts. I could live with "administrative region" instead, but not just the vague "region". Again, "region" doesn't yield a clue as to size, and is too vague to be useful.
That said, even if the aforementioned translation guide is taken as "gospel", the recent changes don't even follow it. Instead of it's proclamation of "government region", only "region" has been used. Even "government region" is too vague in US english. "Administrative district" is far from perfect, but for Americans anyway (can't speak for other english-speakers, due to ignorance), implies the closest match to reality. It would really be best to not translate, and to use "Regierungsbezirk" in the title and explain the term in the first paragraph.
A third objection to the use of the term "region" is that it subverts the scope of this and some (but only some) of the articles in the category that it has recently been lumped into: "Former government regions of Germany", which doesn't necessarily limit the members to "Regierungsbezirke", nor more significantly to Prussian Regierungsbezirke, of which this article is a specific member, as part of the Historical States projects and it daughter projects, as the template (which has been deleted some time in the past) below spells out:

(((((((((begin ArticleMapPosenDistricts template)))))))))))

Template:ArticleMapPosenDistricts

(((((((((end ArticleMapPosenDistricts template)))))))))))

Already, it's membership in those projects has been vandalized out (you have to visit this Talk page to see that it's part of the project, and then you have to visit the project pages to have half a chance to understand the correct scope. Now, with the name change to "region", no one will know that it refers specifically and only to the Regierungsbezirke Posen, and now the clueless will expand the scope and it will be impossible to defend the article from Polish history revisionists who will rewrite it to minimize the Prussian involvement.Bwood 03:32, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
As a followup to the above, consider this first sentence of the article"
"Posen was the southern of two Prussian administrative regions, or Regierungsbezirke (Polish: Rejencja), of the Province of Posen (1849-1918) and its predecessor, the semi-autonomous Grand Duchy of Posen (1815-49)."
This is misleading because "Posen" was a town, a Stadtkreis ("urban county"/"urban district"/"large township"/etc), two Landkreise ("rural counties"), a province, one of several traditional regions of Poland (as "Poznan" of course), and who knows what else.
Each Prussian province had 2 or 3 Regierungsbezirke so this discussion applies to some 2 dozen or more articles.03:43, 15 November 2007 (UTC)