Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Germany

ß again

User:Vanruvan decided to move a large amount of articles with ß to ss without any discussion and without fixing any associated templates. I know this is very tiresome and has been chewed through many times over. I reverted his move on 2. Fußball-Bundesliga as it is on my watch list and left him a message but there is many more. Calistemon (talk) 19:22, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Why would someone move Fußball-Bundesliga to Fussball-Bundesliga, which is misspelled in a German sense?! Would there be a reason for doing that?--Zarbi1 (talk) 21:17, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

ßecause they don't like ß? :p -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 21:04, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

There is currently a push by some sports editors to rename articles to get them in line with their interpretation of policy, according to which titles that are foreign words or names should be spelled essentially randomly, depending on whether there are English sources or not, and if there are, on whether most of them systematically drop diacritics and replace umlauts and ß, or not. But ß is really a special case in that (1) the letter presents unusual problems to most English speakers when compared to standard Latin letters with diacritics, (2) the letter is not used at all in standard Swiss German orthography (which replaces it by ss), and (3) many if not most of the most high-quality English sources, including reference works, also make this replacement. In this light I would not be opposed to a general rule that we replace ß by ss. But we really need to handle this consistently. Otherwise we will end up with some biographical articles using ß and some replacing it by ss, a very bad thing. Hans Adler 22:08, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

The letter is a pain, to be honest, but like you said, there needs to be consistency. What was done was one user moving articles without any consent or asking anyody elses opinion. On top of this, none of the templates were ammended, the typical lazy aditude of somebody that just wants to make a point. Overall, I would be happy to get rid of ß! Calistemon (talk) 23:04, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I think this is one of a small number of special cases, because this is a German proper name. The whole point of using this term is that it is a German proper name,not an English proper name. There is no meaningful way that English sources can be relevant, within the meaning of WP:EN. If WP:EN is applicable, the article should be renamed to something containg the words "football" and "league". This is similar to a book title like Die Endlösung or a culturally bound concept like "the Endlösung". If there is good reason to use the foreign term, we should use the foreign spelling (unless non-Latin scripts require transliteration). I think this is different from personal names, where it can be argued that in some cases a person's name is an English proper name, even though the person is (or was) German.

As I understand the guidelines, consistency between articles is not an explicit consideration. I, personally, think it should be, but that would require a change to the guidelines, and I don't really want to go there (because it is like mud-wrestling with pigs). --Boson (talk) 21:47, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Are you arguing that "Fußball-Bundesliga" is a proper name? I am not sure that I can agree with that. It's at most a borderline case, being a totally unoriginal description that also serves as a name. One difference between English and German is that you can't recognise the 'name-ness' of a string of words by capitalisation. Hans Adler 23:46, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

It seemed to me quite obvious that it was being used as a proper noun. It still seems obvious to me that the article title is being used as proper name, just like Premier League or Football League One, but I see that reasonable people could argue otherwise. I suppose it could be regarded as loan word; in that case, it should probably be lowercased (like autobahn and kindergarten). I suppose it could also be taken as a descriptive term; in that case it should be in English. Even if the German noun is retained, the ordinal "2." (with the period) needs to be changed, since this is a purely German convention. It also needs {{Italic title}} adding. Although I think it is being used here as a proper name, it might be better to use an English title (either as a common noun phrase or as a translated—and disambiguated—proper name), e.g. "Second national German association football league" or "Second Federal League (German association football)". In any case, there should be some consistency within Category:Association football leagues in Germany (which there is not at present) and possibly within Category:Association football leagues by country. The latter would suggest using German but not including the word for football at all (except, possibly, in English and parentheses for disambiguation). This should not be a problem, since this is an unofficial name (not like DFL Deutsche Fußball Liga Gmbh). On balance, I tend toward Zweite Bundesliga, adding "(German association footbalI)" if disambiguation is necessary to distinguish it from Austrian and American football. This would, incidentally, avoid the ß problem. I don't think there is a perfect solution. --Boson (talk) 22:11, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Within the Wikiproject football there is a strong tendency to stick with the original name of a league rather then translating it, especially when the name has now common English replacement. However, the name should make sense to all readers, not just German ones. The current name has two issues: 2. means little in the English speaking world. The ß can all to easily be mistaken for a b and is therefore ambigious and should be replaced with ss for that reason. 2nd Fussball-Bundesliga would be much easier to understand. Both Fussball and Bundesliga are internationally pretty well understood, at least by football (soccer) fans. Calistemon (talk) 23:54, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Please, this cannot be about proper names or mere 'consistency'. You might be laughing your asses off, but as a German native speaker, it is my opinion that correct standard writing with eszett ß should NEVER be replaced with a double-s, unless an article is clearly referring to Switzerland. All other German-speaking countries do use the ß, so omitting/replacing it would simply give Wikipedia misspelled content. It would be a different thing if old content is updated to reformed German orthography (where some ß 's do become double-s). But no Fussball, Strasse, weiss, heiss, Scheiss, Masse (when Maße is meant) and all that, please. I would find it much more sensible to add an IPA phonetic transcription to the first occurrence of a word in an article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TurnspitDawg (talk • contribs) 14:28, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

That approach may make sense on the German-language wikipedia; not so much on the English-language one. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 03:14, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

It is about proper names in the wider sense (including German institutions and other cultural phenomena with no exact English equivalent) because for common nouns the English Wikipedia normally uses English words - and therefore English rules of orthography apply. English Wikipedia should not normally use the words heiß, weiß, or Maße with any spelling - except as part of a proper name or the like. When using foreign proper names (because there is no established English name), the appropriate foreign sources are applicable (Swiss for Swiss topics, German for German topics).

It is about consistency to the extent that - independently of the rule on using English - arguments can be made for ignoring the relevant sources and consistently either using or changing certain Latin characters (such as ß) in foreign words (even in proper names), in the same way that Wikipedia has its own house rules on other typographical matters, such as use of italics.--Boson (talk) 11:55, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

In many cases, there are English-language sources that commonly use a form of the name, so generally it's not a huge issue and we don't have to delve into non-English-language sources. It's difficult to find English-language sources for really only the most obscure topics. But otherwise I do agree with what you have written. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 01:42, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but it is the language community, not Wikipedia, which establishes English words. In my view, a few English sources using a foreign word is not sufficient to establish an English word. Munich, Paris, National Assembly, and kindergarten have been established as English names or words; Müller & Meyer AG has not, even if is mentioned in the share prices section of the Financial Times. I would say, most cases are somewhere in between and there is no bright line. --Boson (talk) 10:07, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Need help with umlauts in article titles

I confess my knowledge of the German language is quite rudimentary so maybe there is a simple explanation to dispel my confusion. I've been bringing over articles from the German Wikipedia by running the text through Google Translate (yes, I know, it yields really yucky translations from German) and then doing my best to clean it up.

However, I'm a bit confused about the use of umlauts, especially in article titles and people's names. For example, I brought over an article on Eugen Klöpfer from the German Wikipedia and kept the umlaut over the "o" in the English Wikipedia. However, the article in the German Wikipedia on Malte Jaeger has no umlaut over the "a" even though I have seen this name spelled as "Malte Jäger" in sources. I know the two spellings are basically equivalent so what I really want to know is which is preferred for the English Wikipedia? Should I create the article in the English Wikipedia as Malte Jaeger or Malte Jäger?

For that matter, I'm struggling with the spelling of Suess in "Jud Süß" which is spelled "Süß", "Süss" and "Suess" in different sources. German sources tend to prefer "Süß" and English sources generally use "Süss". Most English sources refer to the German film as "Jud Süß" and the British film as "Jew Süss" so I refer to the title role of Joseph Süß Oppenheimer as Süß rather than Süss in the article on Jud Süß (1940 film).

And, as long as we're on the topic, I refer to him as Süß and not Oppenheimer. Any thoughts on whether that's appropriate?

Finally, Werner Krauss seems to be uniformly referred to as "Krauss" and never as Krauß. In fact, I've never seen Krauss spelled with a "ß". It's been 35 years since I studied German in college. Is there something about when to use "ss" and "ß" that I've forgotten? Thanks for any help you can give me. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 18:58, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

As general background information, there are four levels of support for the four special German letters: Full support (ÄÖÜäöüß all available), umlauts only (ÄÖÜäöü available but not ß – example: Britannica appears to use this style), small umlauts only (äöü available but not ÄÖÜß – example: Swiss typewriters), none at all (e.g. ASCII). While there is only one way of replacing an umlaut, there are two options for ß: normally ss is used, but when it's important that the original spelling can be recovered, sz is used. (Because sz is much rarer than ss in German and is usually distinguishable from ß.)

In former times, spelling was less standardised and some people deliberately spelled their names with ae rather than ä, etc., e.g. to turn the extremely common name Müller into the slightly less common name Mueller. Many such as Goethe spelled their name sometimes one way and sometimes the other. Nowadays there is a standard spelling for everybody.

• de:Malte Jaeger: As the first sentence of the German article explains, the name is sometimes misspelled as "Jäger" in cast lists. Presumably this is because either at some point during film production someone assumed that "Jaeger" was a misspelling due to lack of umlaut support and tried to undo it, or more likely because someone knew the actor personally and just wasn't aware of the non-standard spelling of his name. Please create the article under Malte Jaeger, with an {{R from misspelling}} redirect from Malte Jäger.
• The three spellings of "Süß" reflect the three levels of support for German letters. Two of them are correct on the English Wikipedia: "Süß" and "Süss". Unfortunately, we do not yet have a consensus on whether we systematically replace ß by ss in article titles in the same way that Britannica does. For names this can result in a loss of information and in an additional need for disambiguation. This is not a good time to try getting a consensus on this because there is currently a vigorous push to get rid of all diacritics in titles, including the perfectly familiar accents in French names – even though some English families have carried names with French accents for many generations. Trying to solve the ß problem now would only increase the disruption. I suggest that you look at other, related articles. Do what they do, and if none of them has the problem, just do whatever you prefer.
• As you can see at the disambiguation page de:Werner Krauss, both spellings of "Krauß/Krauss" are in common use, and for each person separately one needs to know which spelling they are using. You can think of the spelling "Krauss" as somewhat analogous to the American English spelling of the name Australian Labor Party.
• Another example that you didn't mention is Armin Mueller-Stahl. Apparently his father was born with the family name "Müller" and had it changed to "Mueller-Stahl" to make it more easily recognisable. (Extremely common names such as Müller or Krauß are one of the few reasons that the German authorities accept as valid for changing your name.) Hans Adler 19:53, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Hans, thank you so much for that lucid explanation. It cleared a lot of things up for me. I do not intend to get into any disputes regarding the ß problem. I was just trying to get some confirmation that I was doing something acceptable in using "Süß" instead of "Süss" in English Wikipedia articles. In this, I was following the convention used by the majority of English sources that I have seen. Your post suggests that I'm at least on reasonably defensible ground in doing so. Thanx again. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 21:14, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

null edit to keep this section from being auto-archived for a few more days... I'm referencing this discussion in a FAC discussion page. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 18:29, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Staatsschauspieler

Any thoughts whether the article State actor (Germany) should be at that title or at Staatsschauspieler? I note that there is also an article at State actor which is completely unrelated to this topic. I created State actor (Germany) but I'm starting to think the article should really be titled Staatsschauspieler.

The original article is at de:Staatsschauspieler in the German Wikipedia.

--Pseudo-Richard (talk) 07:25, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I would file it under Staatsschauspieler or possibly actor of state. A state actor is an entity that acts in a totally different sense and happens to be a state, so this doesn't seem to be a good translation. Hans Adler 18:11, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I agree which is why I raised the question in the first place. I just wanted to get some support from more knowledgeable editors. I have moved the article to Staatsschauspieler. Thanx as always for your invaluable assistance. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 18:24, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Potentially malicious acts at Wilhelm Busch (pastor)

I'd like to ask for 3rd party opinion, in the article on Wilhelm Busch (pastor) there been performed deletions that I personally regard for strange. The claim is that edits are removed because "material not relevant to articles subject. (TW)" but I regard the text for absolutely OK as it correctly states from sourced information that pastor Busch influenced Ulrich Parzany, who continued after Billy Graham in ProChrist evangelic international campaigns. Moreover, the book by Busch has been removed from article sections dedicated to Bibliography (* Busch, Wilhelm (2009) (in German). Plaudereien in meinem Studierzimmer [Small talks in my study] (11 ed.). pp. 299. ISBN 978-3761557044. ) under the same flag which sounds absolutely irrational to me. Please advise. Thanx --Stephfo (talk) 17:52, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree. The material seems entirely relevant - i.e. it's about the article's subject. Also I don't buy the tag about long quotations. It's difficult to see how they could be "shortened" without losing the essence and, as long as they're correctly quoted, fine. But check out the editor - he's says he's anti-religion, so no surprise his edits about a pastor are not particularly helpful! But how do we achieve balance without an edit war? --Bermicourt (talk) 19:49, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

The book definitely belongs in the article. I can't judge whether the Parzany mention is OK. That depends on their relative importance. Often it is not fair to a subject that someone else felt influenced by the subject. Hans Adler 18:07, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Description of events between 1945 and 1991 question.

Which of these is correct for wikipedia (in display, I'm ignoring links for now)?

• The 1971 world tiger riding championship occured in Heidelberg, Germany.
• The 1971 world tiger riding championship occured in Heidelberg, West Germany.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Naraht (talk • contribs) 16:15, 11 December 2011‎

The latter. East and West Germany were definitely different countries at the time. However, the relevant period doesn't quite start in 1945. For the earliest years you would have to say something like "X-occupied zone of Germany", with X being the appropriate Allied country. Hans Adler 17:59, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. The article in question that I was considering changing was 28th World Science Fiction Convention, I'll change it now. I should have used 1950 as my dividing line. And Bizone and Trizone make it even more fun...Naraht (talk) 14:35, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

West Germany, or Federal Republic of Germany, is the correct way. But where is the 1971 world tiger riding championship article? I was really looking forward to it! Calistemon (talk) 14:48, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Probably somewhere in Category:World of Warcraft.

Translation of Bezirk and Kreis

I noticed that both Bezirk and Kreis are translated as District here on Wikipedia. That seems confusing to me. It also makes little sense when, in Bavaria for example, the Bezirk Schwaben (District Swabia) is administratively set above the Landkreis Augsburg (District Augsburg). While this is very clear in German in the English translation it makes not much sense. How would you distinguish? Calistemon (talk) 11:38, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Generally we translate the Regierungsbezirke like Schwaben as "(administrative) regions", see for instance Tübingen (region). I did see some instances where "district" is used, e.g. the Regierungsbezirk article itself. Bezirk may also refer to a subdivision of a city, e.g. Hamburg-Mitte and Spandau. I see these are both translated as "borough". "district" is generally used for the Kreise. See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany/Conventions#Administrative units. Markussep ^Talk 12:16, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Handy page you pointed me to! Calistemon (talk) 12:40, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Krampus!

(cross-posted at Wikiproject Austria) Hello German friends. I'm trying to prepare an article for Did You Know's Christmas article set. Krampus was a stub, so I'm starting a little (hopefully 5X) expansion. Posting here to ask for more eyes on the new material: I wasn't aware of Krampus until two weeks ago, so I'm working from scratch on this topic. Any fact-checking/revisions would be appreciated. I'm also working with only English sources, which are a bit thin. In the spirit of season, I humbly request some help with some good German references, or pointers in the right direction, and ideas for expansion (or expansion by your wonderful selves). I still need to add at least 3 or 400 words to get it up to the DYK requirements. Krampus will throw you in his washtub if you don't oblige ;) (Note: this editor not responsible for the "in popular culture" section (grimaces)) The Interior (Talk) 05:25, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

• Krampus at de.wikipedia The Interior (Talk) 05:27, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

A dilemma

I've got a little dilemma with a Germany-related article: I've created Kama tank school today. Shortly after moving it into mainspace I came accross the Panzertruppenschule Kama article. Its the same subject just with a German article name, back from 2005. My initial instinct was to propose a merge but the content of the article was completly unreferenced and actually had a maintenance template requesting that references should be added, dated 2009. Also, the sources I provided for the new article do not confirm the facts that differ between the odl and new one. So I made it a redirect, for now. What to do? Request a history merge? I'm not sure! Calistemon (talk) 11:44, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Jud Süß (1940 film) is a Featured Article Candidate

Please review the article and leave your comments here. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 20:58, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Lüth-Urteil

I want to write an article on the de:Lüth-Urteil. My problem is that the way the U.S. names court cases is different from the way Germany names court cases (and I suspect the U.K. may have yet a third way of naming cases). In Germany, this case is known as the "Lüth verdict" or the "Lüth decision". I don't know if that is it's formal name but that is, anyway, the title of the German Wikipedia article. In the U.S., such a case would likely be known as "Harlan v. Lüth". So, my question is: What should we use as the title for the English Wikipedia article on this important German court case establishing the supremacy of the constitutional right to the freedom of speech? --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 18:19, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

German court decisions are not named. There are several ways a decision can be referred to, including court plus Aktenzeichen (reference number) or court plus year plus consecutive number. However, in practice any decision that someone would want to cite has been published in a relevant journal. In the present case the normal reference would be "BVerfGE 7, 198", which means "Decisions of the Constitutional Court, Volume 7, page 198". Frequently cited cases often also get a common name, which typically mentions only one party or another important feature of the case. In this case the common name appears to be "Lüth-Urteil", i.e. "Lüth decision" or more literally "Lüth verdict". You can see many other examples of common names in de:Kategorie:Entscheidung des Bundesverfassungsgerichts. E.g. de:Lissabon-Entscheidung ("Lisbon decision"), which simultaneously decided many petitions related to the Treaty of Lisbon, is named after the city.

Our practice to name English and American cases after their formal names seems to be in tension with WP:COMMONNAME. As a similar practice for German cases makes no sense, we should use the common names for them, translated to English. Hans Adler 10:54, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

American court decisions are named that way because that is the way English courts named their cases for centuries. It is evocative of the adversarial nature of the English legal system. I think "decision" is probably best, given I have seen it used alot for foreign jurisdiction court cases. Int21h (talk) 17:13, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Mass move of German categories

There is a mass "speedy" move of German categories - mainly districts, people and regions - at WP:CFD which project members may have a view on. --Bermicourt (talk) 08:17, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

All the proposed moves are per C2D criterion, which is "matching category name to the title of the category's main article". Unless it is believed that the article names are wrong, then I don't see why the opposition. (Also, it's WP:CFDS.) - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 09:11, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

The article names are not wrong—they are in perfect order—quite exceptional in their immaculate consistency, in fact. It is the category names that are out-of-whack and need to be renamed to conform to the article names. What exactly is the problem with this proceeding per the usual speedy crition? As The Bushranger notes, this is a routine "clean up" criterion that is generally uncontroversial. Is there any reason we want the category names to be different from the article names when they deal with exactly the same topic? I wouldn't think so ... Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 10:41, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

It is good to line up category and article names, once article names have been standardised. However, that is not the case here; currently there are several different styles of German/Austrian district name (both are Kreis in German):

1. No mention of "district" either in English or German: Nordsachsen, Category:People from Ahrweiler, Weimarer Land, Ottakring
2. "District" in German, Kreis left untranslated as part of name: Heidekreis, Vogtlandkreis, Saale-Orla-Kreis, Category:People from Westerwaldkreis
3. "District" in German, Kreis left untranslated in front of name (mainly Prussian): Kreis Bromberg, Kreis Ostrowo.
4. "district" in brackets: Leipzig (district), Nordhausen (district), Sonneberg (district)
5. "district" in lower case (mainly categories): Category:Lichtenfels district, Category:Augsburg district
6. "District" in title case (mainly Austria): Steyr-Land District, Bludenz District, Kitzbühel District
7. "District of" before the name (mainly people categories): Category:People from the District of Birkenfeld

So the article and category naming is not consistent at all and we need to sort that out before mass-moving categories, or we will only have to mass move them again when a convention is agreed. Whatever we agree, there will be a major change to either German or Austrian Kreis articles. :::I propose that we do no more category moves until we have agreed a consistent article naming convention for the Kreise and then do the necessary moves. In passing I would say that the Austrian districts are both very consistent and we could do worse that adopt their convention i.e. "FOO" where no disambiguation is needed and "FOO District" where it is. That's also a good translation of "Kreis FOO", simply changing to English word order and it parallels what we do elsewhere. But the key is to get the convention sorted out for articles first, then categories. Finally when we do get around to deleting categories, please can we inform the creators as per the normal Wiki process. Thanks. --Bermicourt (talk) 15:10, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

As to "we will only have to mass move them again when a convention is agreed", that is OK. It is no different than a mass move (revert) because you don't like the mass move. You can propose all you want want, but the "we" you refer is only the few editors here; if it is actually a policy of mass reverts you propose, then ... well, it defeats your argument that mass moves should be avoided. I see the transient state of the category names in sync with the transient state of the article names as a better alternative to the transient state of the category names not in sync with the transient state of the article names. Int21h (talk) 17:37, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

What ever the rights and wrongs I oppose this mass move of German district categories until there has been a proper discussion here as user Bermicourt has said. This has all the vibes of bureaucratic foul play.--ClemRutter (talk) 20:00, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Well then I think it is a question of philosophy then. It kinda reminds me of those people that must do things in or with a certain order, no matter how inefficient or pointless. (*cough* German Wikipedia...) "Inefficient or pointless" in this context would be checking all the possible WikiProject, category and article talk pages for some ongoing discussion about a tangent issue (article name change proposals tangent to C2D) before you do something that is clearly within policy specs and non-destructive. If certain people want to go down this path and ultimately go crazy, whatever, but to expect others to do it ... that's just mean. (I refuse to do this, for instance; "refuse" being the operative word.)

And why is foul play suspected? Int21h (talk) 20:55, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

The speedy should go ahead (as it involves no work other than that already done by the proposer, and no cogent reason to delay has been advanced) and further speedies should follow any renaming of articles. Occuli (talk) 21:07, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

The category structure was in a very rough state when I started looking at it—for starters, many of the "people from FOO" categories were not subcategories of the corresponding "FOO" categories, which is about as obvious an oversight as it gets. I think the changes can be made, since no major article moves are pending. Then if the articles move, the categories can be renamed to correspond. This is routine, and it's silly to say anything has to be done in a certain order, especially when no one has previously expressed any initiative to change anything. No change is ever final, especially not ones that go through speedy rename. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:51, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I fully support Good Ol’factory here. I think the format that he's gone with is a-okay and aside from that, is fully within the WP:CFDS criteria. Jared Preston (talk) 23:31, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I have to correct the statement that Austrian districts are Kreise; they're not, they are Bezirke, see f.ex. de:Bezirk Bludenz. --Matthiasb (talk) 00:15, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and just another detail: in most federale states of Germany they have Landkreise; it is called only Kreis a) in Northrhine-Westphalia and in Schleswig-Holstein oder b) if it is part of the name, eg. Rhein-Neckar-Kreis oder Heidekreis. --Matthiasb (talk) 00:19, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes; and you know—the names for the articles reflect that. As I said, they are in immaculate condition naming-wise. It's the categories that are a mess. My nominations were meant to clean this up and bring the categories and the articles into conformity with one another, which is the standard usage of C2D. Is there any substantive reason to oppose these from going forward? Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 06:04, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

It appears to me that making the category names consistent with the article names only has advantages. Given the terminological differences between the various German states, it's not as easy as one would expect to decide what the best article names are. But once the category names are all consistent with the current article names, we only need to discuss the article names and can let the category names follow them in the obvious way. Hans Adler 10:23, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Of course it makes sense for category names to conform to article names. But only if the articles conform to an agreed naming pattern, which they patently they don't. I assume Good Ol' is acting in good faith (although he seems to have forgotten to inform category creators), but I would ask that we get a consensus first on a district article naming convention (which also addresses whether we need to harmonise with Austrian naming - called Bezirke but translated as "district"). If we get a consensus, fine, let's move ahead. --Bermicourt (talk) 20:08, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

As noted above by User talk:Matthiasb, the Germany districts are currently named consistently. They are disambiguated with "(district)" if disambiguation is needed, and "Kreis" is is included in the name in the two circumstances outlined above. The Austrian ones differ, but as those are districts of a different country, there's not a pressing need to standardize the German with the Austrian, though it could be done. But the German ones are consistently named. If the name format ever changes, the corresponding category names can and should be renamed to match the article names. As noted above, there really is no downside to category names matching the articles that deal with the identical subject. Finally, there is no duty to notify a category creator when a category is nominated for speedy renaming, nor should there be given the nature of the changes. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 09:56, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Engelbert Humperdinck RM

• (Discuss) – Engelbert Humperdinck → Engelbert Humperdinck (composer) Kauffner (talk) 15:09, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Marktkirche Halle

The Marktkirche, Halle, known under many names (pictured on the Main page on Christmas Day) has been proposed as a Good Article. General help is welcome, especially with references. Specific question: which Gulden was used at Wallenstein's time? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:57, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Lutherhaus

I would like some feedback on the article Lutherhaus and Augusteum. It is my first article, so I would really appreciate any advice. Thanks!DopplerRadioShow (talk) 05:52, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Otto Von Bismark is it really necessary to have "Prussian-German"?

Prussians are Germans both by nationality and ethnicity, it seems a bit pointless.--Vincentnufcr1 (talk) 16:37, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Help against right-wing nationalism in Wikipedia

Since 2005 through to 2012, a guy has been undertaking an experiment, spending almost every edit on nationalist lobbying against German subjects and seeing how it works out. He is still roaming freely, almost unchallenged and greatly successfully because of a widespread lack of interest.

• MyMoloboaccount (talk · contribs · page moves · block user · block log) /Current
• Molobo (talk · contribs · page moves · block user · block log) /Former

• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Molobo
• Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)/Archive_13#Anti-German_editing
• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European mailing list, known by Wikileaks as the Wikipediametric group

In Wikipedia, Admins and Arbitrators are influenced by the number of people because majority support is their own lifeblood. If not even Germans care, no one will care.

Unsigned contribution of IP 188.40.54.165.

The above dirt is obviously a biased hunt for a person. The accusations create a climate for a campaign in which the partly well sourced arguments of the hunted person don't count anymore. In the users discussion User talk:188.40.54.165 you will find remarks like „Please refrain from making unconstructive edits to Wikipedia”. May be interesting to follow the given links though, and to read the story from your own point of view.--fluss (talk) 10:47, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me we can't completely ignore the issue of our unnormalized self-image http://www.welt.de/print/wams/nrw/article13815946/Und-da-war-es-wieder-das-deutsche-Problem.html perhaps is this the real reason why someone like MyMoloboaccount could misuse the project for so long? As long as he's able to rewrite history with Wikipedia, it exploits and undermines everyone else's contributions and motives.

Unsigned contribution of IP 188.40.54.165. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.40.54.165 (talk) 20:38, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Templates Foreign character and Foreignchars

I see that the templates {{Foreign character}} and {{Foreignchars}} are being removed from articles (orphaned) following a discussion here.

As far as I am aware, the nominator did not notify this project, though it is, no doubt, one of those most affected. Was anyone here involved in the discussion and part of the apparent consensus to delete the templates? Something similar happened in 2008, and the templates were restored after the affected projects became aware of the discussion.

See Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2008 June 2 and Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2008 June 3 --Boson (talk) 21:47, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I've seen the discussion, but chose not to get involved, as the result was obvious right from the start, as the user who started the discussion misrepresented the use of this template and noone was willing or able to actually take a look at what it is used for. We'll just have to accept it's gone, I'm afraid. Madcynic (talk) 20:47, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:East Germany#Satellite state of the USSR or not

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:East Germany#Satellite state of the USSR or not. Should this article describe East Germany (the former German Democratic Republic) as a satellite state of the former USSR? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:27, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Need a fact-check for a German reference

Hello all. This is regarding Philipp Hildebrand, a recently resigned Swiss banker. There is some suggestion by an IP user that Hildebrand was set up by Christoph Blocher. The IP has provided this reference ([1]) to support this edit. Can't read German, is this source being accurately represented? Thanks, The Interior (Talk) 20:05, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Comments could be made at Talk:Philipp Hildebrand, where a thread has started on this issue. The Interior (Talk) 22:13, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Open page move discussions

• (Discuss) – Moonlight Sonata → Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven)
• (Discuss) – Heer (1935–1945) → German Army (1935–1945) Kauffner (talk) 11:19, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Not quite sure how I got here

I have spent many hours trying to get a wikipedia entry for my grandfather who received an OBE for services to his country (Great Britain) in 1946. He was also mentioned in despatches for his efforts during The First World War. I hadn't realised that I should have not mentioned that and that my proposed wikipedia entry would be prvented by pro German sentiments. It is almost 100 years since the First World War surely it is time to forgive and forget? So many young men lost their lives and it really doesn't seem right that the ones that survived should be penalised. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.108.248.186 (talk) 19:29, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Could you please be more specific. Has a page been deleted? If so name of the article and reason given for the delete? --Traveler100 (talk) 19:53, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I presume this refers to Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Arthur Claud Lisle O.B.E., which was rejected on the grounds that the subject did not meet Wikipedia's notability criteria. I can't find any sources documenting adequate notability (e.g. award of the Victoria Cross) or entries in any other encyclopaedias. There doesn't appear to be any evidence of pro- or anti-German sentiments being involved. --Boson (talk) 21:55, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Rail accident investigation

Hi! I found an English page documenting rail accident investigation: http://www.eba.bund.de/cln_031/nn_249968/EN/EBA/Organigram/AccidentInvestigation/accidentinvestigation__node.html?__nnn=true (EBA) And a website in German from what may be the investigating agency: http://www.eisenbahn-unfalluntersuchung.de (Central Office for Accident Investigation, EUB)

• And here is the EBA organigram: http://www.eba.bund.de/cln_031/nn_249968/EN/EBA/Organigram/organigram__node.html?__nnn=true

So is it that the EBA has responsibility for accident investigation, but the EUB actually does it? I'm not certain who does what... WhisperToMe (talk) 07:59, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

German Visa Affair 2005 -- NPOV?

Hello, I skimmed through the article; I was going to remove the NPOV tag as outdated, but I'd appreciate a second / third opinion on any issues. - RoyBoy 00:19, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

The entire article is made from uncited sentences. (Well, one sentence has a citation, to the effect that some regulation was canceled.) Hence, no sentence can be easily verified. The general citations at the bottom are akin to adding a citation of every article saying "A book from the US Library of Congress"; which is, in effect, saying go do the verification research yourself. This article is about as trustworthy as a website on GeoCities IMO. Int21h (talk) 04:01, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't say it's quite that bad. More like saying "Read these 5 articles and create your own footnotes." We should remember that the article was mainly created in 2005 and was probably originally translated from German Wikipedia, which was then not really into footnotes. So someone at least went to the trouble of finding some English references. I have fixed the outdated links (I hope). If I get time, I may get round to matching the statements in the article with the 5 articles and putting citation-needed tags on the remainder, but I will not be disappointed if someone beats me to it. --Boson (talk) 10:27, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

WikiWomen's History Month

Hi everyone. March is Women's History Month and I'm hoping a few folks here at WP:Germany will have interest in putting on events (on and off wiki) related to women's roles in Germany's history, society and culture. We've created an event page on English Wikipedia (please translate!) and I hope you'll find the inspiration to participate. These events can take place off wiki, like edit-a-thons, or on wiki, such as themes and translations. Please visit the page here: WikiWomen's History Month. Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to seeing events take place! SarahStierch (talk) 22:10, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Citizenship or nationality for German Empire-era biographies

At Talk:Emmy Noether#Nationality a dispute arose whether we should mention her Bavarian citizenship in the infobox and in the lede, or the less precise German nationality. There are precedents for both, with Albert Einstein having citizenship and David Hilbert or Theodor Fontane having nationality in the infobox. Opinions? Huon (talk) 00:26, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Willy Brandt School of Public Policy

Hey, I am new to English Wikipedia, but would like to contribute. Since I am not familiar with the policies of translating articles from German to English, I wanted to ask if it's okay, to just translate an already existing, German wikipedia article (e.g. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willy_Brandt_School_of_Public_Policy) to English, creating a new article? Or do I need to find all the sources in English and/or cite them appropriately as done in the German article?

Appreciate any comments or help. Jakenite (talk) 08:45, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The edit summary should note that it is a translation and link to the original (e.g de:Willy Brandt School of Public Policy).

The template {{Translated page}} with appropriate parameters should be added to the talk page.

Inline citations should be given, preferably using the appropriate templates (e.g. {{Cite web}},{{Cite book}}). It would be ideal if you could provide English sources, but German sources are acceptable. They should be marked as German by using the 'language=' parameter of the citation template or adding the template {{De icon}}. If you don't use the citation templates, that's OK; someone will probably add them for you. Feel free to contact me if you have any problems.

To avoid what is sometimes known as "citation plagiarism", I would say that you should personally access and confirm any sources you retain, or at least indicate that they come from the German article and have not been verified directly.

--Boson (talk) 10:45, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

If you do not create the article in one go, you should make sure that the first version at least contains sufficient references to establish notability and links to the German article, to avoid any problems with new page patrollers. --Boson (talk) 10:50, 6 February 2012 (UTC).

Thanks a lot for the advice! Recently I did not find the time to work on it, but will start translating the article in the next weeks, trying to consider as much of your advice as possible.

Jakenite (talk) 14:56, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

New template on German literature

I've started this template because I think it would be useful to have a navbox for German literature. Please feel free to add authors to the list. A couple notes:

• This template is about literature written in German, not literature written by German citizens or literature written in Germany, so it includes Austrian, Swiss, German-Jewish, migrant literature, exile literature, etc. Simple nation-state distinctions don't really work well as organizing principles for the history of literature.
• Authors should be notable, with a reasonable chance of being included in an undergraduate or graduate syllabus in a German studies course.
• The periodization (like any periodization) is provisional rather than absolute. If a section gets too large, we should think about breaking it down to smaller ones.

Sindinero (talk) 08:37, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

German Party

I have entered a few remarks on the "German Party" talk page that you may want to consider. Best, Khnassmacher (talk) 18:00, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

User:Estlandia

(See Talk:German Wikipedia for details): This user (formerly User:Miacek, see de:User:Miacek) is known to vigorously promote right-wing POV at the German Wikipedia. Most of his “translated” articles here are highly selective collections of claims that mostly feature viewpoints of the German far right or even right-wing extremists and that do not include the current state of the public and scientific debate in germany although it is well known to this user. See for example Hans-Helmuth Knütter before my revert and compare it with the German article − even Google translate should be sufficient to see the differences.

His latest edits in the German Wikipedia article (and elsewhere) follow a well-known pattern: debates that have finally been resolved (usually not to his contentment) at the German edition are carried over to the English edition. Since en: does not have the manpower nor the necessary sources and informations to control these edits, political POV (and in this case even worse: ultra right-wing and right-wing extremist POV) widely goes unnoticed. I do not have the time, let alone the nerves, to put up with this kind of bold POV pushing here. My considerations are simple: the damage is greater if he acts like this at the German site so I am playing the watchdog there. English articles are not the first adress for German-speaking readers when they are seeking information, so it is not giving me sleepless nights. However, I consider this user's behaviour highly harmful to the English Wikipedia. All in all, he is making Wikipedia's section on German politics worse by adding articles and information, so you really should consider putting an end to this if you are interested in a half-decent account in these topics. I have also posted this on the talk page of the German Wikipedia article. If you would like to have additional information on this user's history and behavior, feel free to contact me on my talk page on de: or ask de:User:Hozro oder de:User:KarlV.--Toter Alter Mann (talk) 10:53, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Accusations that my articles are highly selective collections of claims that mostly feature viewpoints of the German far right or even right-wing extremists is simply slander and should best be removed. WikiProject pages are not meant for encouraging stalking or personal vendetta. It's of course no surprise 'Toter Alter Mann' would come to attack me - his and his pals' manipulations in German Wiki have been documented in detail in a newspaper article that I dared to refer to in the article on German wiki. Estlandia (dialogue) 13:11, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

If someone needs additional information about the background of this marginal dispute – he will be welcome to read my documentation about this conflict of interests on de:WP. Regards--KarlV 15:00, 23 February 2012 (UTC)