Talk:Gdańsk/Vote/discussion

This is the discussion page for the vote at Talk:Gdansk/Vote

How would Polish nobles sign it?

We promise that to ourselves and to our friends and friends of our friends, that we, who are signed under it, will defend the worked solution with our words, deeds and actions, that we will consider compromise as our own, and we will act together, commonly against any person, vandal or misguided, who would try to violate it, but only with accordance to wikipedia rules and without violation of our consciences and feudal privileges(^w^w oops too much reading Polish treaties :))) ). We will act agaisnt such persons with all our might, all our anger and until such person, no matter who they will be, will either cease to violate compromise or join it. We promise ourselves, as equal with equals, free people with free people, that we won't abandon our compromise, we won't change it without agreement of anyone else, we will stand united and indivisible.

(Hundreds and hundreds of signatures follows):-)

Szopen 11:11, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You have some serfs?-- Mr. Wszedroik

I noticed a couple of errors. Danzig became part of Prussia in 1793. It was a free city until 1939, not 1933. I would suggest, however, that we give the options of 1) always refer to it as Gdansk; 2) refer to it as Gdansk before 1793 and after 1945, Danzig in between; 3) refer to it as Gdansk before 1308 and after 1945, Danzig in between. Otherwise it looks good. The vote should be announced to the various places where votes are announced, so that we get people besides our usual folks. john k 15:10, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing the errors. About the voting options: This has the problem that votes may be split. See this example for options 1-3 above:

• (1) 4 votes
• (2) 3 votes
• (3) 3 votes

In this case, (1) wins, even though 6 people prefer it to be Danzig between 1793 and 1945.

Additionally, we should also decide on the voting period, and the winning margin. We could put it up now for discussion, start the vote on Monday 21st, and have a duration of 2 (3?) weeks. I would list it on Wikipedia:Current surveys and Wikipedia:Announcements, and maybe even list it on the Recent Changes header. The RC header should also be announced on the Admin noticeboard (and get more exposure?). I would also contact users related to the various edit wars on their talk page. As for the counting, I think an absolute majority (50% or more) wins. Sockpuppets and users with very low edit count or very new at Wikipedia may be excluded. (On previous instances, notices appeared on foreign language wikis asking people to vote here). Any thoughts? -- Chris 73 Talk 23:56, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

I would concur, although I generally think that the 1466-1793 period should be treated as a whole, unless Szopen would care to explain how Danzig/Gdansk's position changed after the union with Lithuania. john k 03:03, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I merged the sections. I will move the page to the GDansk namespace soon and add a comment on the Gdansk talk page. Voting starts on Monday, I guess. -- Chris 73 Talk 03:10, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

Vote proposal discussion

The Gdansk/Danzig naming problem is the core of a whole lot of other problems. Since so far there was no sucess in achieving a compromise (despite numerous attempts!), I believe a vote is needed for deciding the issue. The vote has not yet started and is in the discussion phase. The planned voting period is two weeks from Monday, February 21 0:00 to Monday, March 7 0:00. Constructive comments are welcome -- Chris 73 Talk 03:46, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

To add a tad to the confusion, there should be a third option for the 1807-1815 period. The city was officially a free city back then and its official name was in French - Ville Libre de Dantzik, afair. Halibutt 07:24, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think anybody proposes to use the french name. On the article about the free city, this should of course be mentioned. -- Chris 73 Talk 23:43, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

UoL (as a nickname for whole series of events, not for the act of union itself) affected whole Royal Prussia, not Danzig/Gdansk in particular (to answer John Kenney question). To gandsk, more important would be of course statuty karnkowskiego or whatever... Would you give me time to search for exact changes in status? Before Royal Prussia was autonomous province, after that it was just more voviodships of Poland. I think this affected status of Gdansk also.. Szopen 08:07, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

How much time do you need? If necessary, we can move the stat of the vote back a day or two. Otherwise I was hoping to start it in ~16 hours. We can add the one period in question again. Then it would be VOTE: Period from 1466 to 1569 with 1466: Second Treaty of Thorn returns the city to Polish suzerainty: The name used to refer to the city between 1466 to 1569 should be: + 1466: Second Treaty of Thorn returns the city to Polish suzerainty and VOTE: Period from 1569 to 1793 with 1569: Union of Lublin and events round it. -- Chris 73 Talk 08:14, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

I also expanded the Biographies vote to include other places that also share a history/name between germany and poland. Hope this is OK -- Chris 73 Talk 12:49, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

The Talk:Gdansk/Vote/Notice template can be put on the top of the talk pages of articles affected by the vote. This will increase exposure, and hopefully give more votes. After the voting period, the template text can be changed to summarize the results, which may also be helpful on various article talk pages. -- Chris 73 Talk 23:48, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

Hmm... Unfortunately right now all i found is exactly the same as previously: at Sejm of Lublin there was abolishing of authonomy of Royal Prussia (of which Danzig was formally part). I don't know how it affected DIRECTLY Gdansk/Danzig status (That it influenced Danzig INDIRECTLY, sicne it ceased to be part of autonomous province, is without doubt of course).Szopen 08:34, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Biographies

And a bit explanation why separate vote for biographies. It's simple: clearly German person articles would be visited most probably by Germans. Clearly Polish by Poles. I hope that would minimise revrt wars.Szopen 08:48, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I totally support that vote, and so far the majority of the users seem to do so. That was a great suggestion of yours. Also, the {{Talk:Gdansk/Vote/Notice}} was more though for article talk pages, less for user talk pages. For user talk pages i used a normal request (see User:Chris 73/Work). I'll change the talk pages of the respective users -- Chris 73 Talk 11:39, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

Vote proposal problem (Cross-Naming)

Vote proposals on cross-naming cover all history. This is awkward. Cross-Naming makes sense in pre-45 period, but is absurd for the contemporary articles like this one: List of cities in Poland. Therefore, the vote shuld cover only pre 45 period, or there shall be 2 separate votes.-- Mr. Wszedroik

I agree. Perhaps we should split up the vote. Chris, what do you think? john k 16:02, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It should be called Danzig in all circumstances before 1945 I think, but there should usually also be a note in the text that hereby is meant the city which today is situated in Poland and in Polish is called Gdansk. The form of this note could in most cases easily be just "(Gdansk)". For the time after 1945, Gdansk should be satisfactory. Since the city name is usually in form of a link in Wikipedia, it is easy for anyone to click through to the article on Gdansk and read about the city's name in different languages there.

As for the List of cities in Poland, I think the present common name should be used. OTOH, there should also be room for a List of German names for places in Poland, don't you think? These links should have links to oneanother. John Anderson 11:34, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

All very sensible. How about List of German names for places in Central Europe, though? That way we could include Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Czech, Slovak, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Romanian, Slovene, Croatian, and Serb cities that are often known by their German names as well as Polish. john k 16:27, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'm for it. Space Cadet 16:36, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If Space Cadet and I agree on something, it must be a good idea! john k 17:40, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sigillum Burgensium Dantzike

It was recorded in wikipedia Danzig/Gdansk article earlier, but was removed. Therefore posted here: In 1224 the official city seal stated : Sigillum Burgensium Dantzike with a Hanse Kogge cogg, very similar to other Hanseatic city seals, especially Luebeck. Danzig remained officially in the Hanse and took part in the meetings until 1669. Language and laws of Hanse was German. For seal of Danzig see article: http://www.schulverein-kassel.de/Schulverein/9/9113.75.html

Western Prussia (Westprussia) independent government status

For Wappen- seals of Westprussia incl. Danzig and its relation to Poland see also: http://www.westpreussen-online.de/html/wappengeschichte.html

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Danziger Willkür (Danzig Laws)

Danziger Willkür was the name given to the laws of the Hanse city of Danzig. In 1597 they were written as follows: Der See - und Handelsstadt Dantzig Rechte oder Willkuer 1597. In the year 1732 these laws were re-printed by Seelman in Danzig. After that they were several times reprinted at different locations. 20 Feb 2005

You are missing the point. The goal of wikipedia is not to record absolute truth. The goal is to record human knowledge. The goal of this discussion is not to decide, which name is absolutely correct to use for Danzig/Gdansk. The goal is how to make the rules, which will be fair enough and which will end the absurd revert wars.Szopen 08:22, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

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Pertaining to: Danzig History 1466-1793 1466 peace Second Treaty of Thorn and 1525 peace Prussian Tribut, both agreements were not authorized and not recognized by the popes nore the emperors, who continued holding supreme overlordship rights over Prussia. Neighboring Duchy of Pomerania was intergral part of Holy Roman Empire at least since 1181.

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No, they were not. That doesn't matter. Emperor never hold power over Prussia, since it was always contested by olish kings. Anyway, the arguments you are presenting i saw many times for last five years or so. Szopen 09:30, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

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William Urban's article on Prussia

Albert of Brandenburgs duties to emperor and pope http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:lqag5cL8YAAJ:department.monm.edu/history/urban/articles/State_of_the_grandmasters.htm+Casimir+IV+deutscher+orden&hl=en

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Article is great, but somehow misses the point that before Albrecht all TO grand masters were supposed to be vassals of Poland. What Emperors and popes thought about that, from Polish point of view is irrevelant, since TO was treated as Polish (though unwilling and hostile) vasssal. Szopen 10:26, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Inhabitants of Danzig Official Records 1537-1900

With Reformation churches started keeping vital statistics of every burgher- Kirchenbuch - Taufen Heiraten Tote (birth marriage death). Danzig church records of inhabitants: http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/fhlcatalog/printing/topicdetailsprint.asp?subject=352724&first=1 The books were filmed and can be seen at LDS Mormon Family History Centers.

Protest

I protest against a way the votes for Talk:Gdansk/Vote#VOTE:_Period_from_1466_to_1793 were countedexcluding 13 users on basis of little engagement in en:. As put on Talk:Gdansk/Vote#Poll_interpretation there were general consensus that they shouldn't, only johnK persistently refused to accept it. Also no limits of contribution required were agreed upon before so in many cases exclusion was arbitrary. Thus, result of this point of vote should be changed. -- Forseti 07:49, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Excluding users with low edit count is standard practice at wikipedia. Some users were not even logged in, others have NO edits except this page. -- Chris 73 Talk 08:21, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)

In my oppinion in this case difference was to small. I propose that both names coluld be used for period between 1466 to 1793. Radomil 09:42, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, with votes #7, #8, and #9 both names will be used for this period, although in the case of Gdansk/Danzig, Danzig should be used primarily. 10 votes difference is significant. If both options are allowed, the edit wars will continue, hence I am opposed to that idea. -- Chris 73 Talk 10:14, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)

From User talk:Chris 73: On what basis was my vote not counted? What does "any user of Wikipedia in good standing may vote" mean? How do you distinguish those? I would like to see some Wikipedia rule about it. --Akumiszcza 12:10, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• "There is no fixed rule, but users with a low edit counts are usually not included in votes. If you would be at wikipedia more often, you would know about this (and your vote would have been counted). Similar applies to other votes. Anonyous users definitely cannot vote, too. -- Chris 73 Talk 11:13, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)"
  • If there's no fixed rule, the voting is simply senseless. You can choose whatever reason for including a user or not in your votes, making the result you choose. This is not fair at all. In my opinion every user who can edit pages, can also vote. That's what democracy is about. People can vote no matter what education they received or what do they know about politics. So why here should be otherwise? Besides, what is important, basing the "good standing" of a wikipedia editor by the number of edits is just STUPID. User A makes many simple corrections (changing commas into semicolons for instance) or even destroys many articles. User B produced several big pages on important topics. User A can vote, B cannot. Stupid enough? --Akumiszcza 12:54, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Based on 1) no fixed rules about voting and 2) excluding some votes to the liking of persons, who also voted I believe the voting should be repeated (with fixed rules) if we don't want to have it boycotted. --Akumiszcza 13:10, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hmm... Doesn't anybody feel that excluding some votes based on no fixed rules is against the concept of free, open to everybody encyclopedia? It is the method prone to abuse. Am I alone here to think that every vote should be counted, as in each proper democratical voting? Please response, anybody... --Akumiszcza 13:31, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, this should be obvious. Perhaps it isn't because the vote was conducted by non-neutral party and as the results are to their liking they see no need to worry about protests. -- Forseti 21:47, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

For the record, at the time of voting, User:Akumiszcza had 9 edits, one with an actual text contribution and eight with an polish interwiki link. This would have been excluded at most votes, as the user is too new. While (s)he may have experience on the polish wikipedia, there is prettymuch no involvement on the english wikipedia. Also note, that other admins also listed dubious votes. This is standard practice at Wikipedia, and necessary, especiallly at votes like this where often foreign wikipedians with no involvement on the english wiki come to vote. --Chris 73 Talk 22:42, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

Well, define "new" then. From wiktionary: "new - Having appeared recently.". You appeared on 17 October 17th 2003 (original spelling from your site), I had my first edit on 9 Aug 2002. Your vote was counted, mine not. Logical?

he

So what? I use English wikipedia to translate some articles into Polish and to add some photos recently.

standard with no fixed rules, eh?

Well, even though I am not a great contributor of English wikipeadia, I have an interest in how my hometown is presented there. I protest not against the result of the voting, but the way it was conducted. If there were some fixed rules about voting on Wikipedia, you would not here my protest here. BTW, "thanks" for ignoring my protest on your pages and here also -- this answer was for Forseti, not me. --Akumiszcza 13:57, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"Thanks" for your editing, Chris. Now I really sound like an idiot... --Akumiszcza 07:36, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, at least I do no longer, as i did after your edit. Please do not write between the lines of my comments, as I much rather prefer to have my comments in one piece as I wrote it. If i would have commented on your comments, eventually the whole thing would be completely unreadable. Thanks for your understanding. -- Chris 73 Talk 10:19, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

Your comment was in frame. My comment is now a bunch of meaningless words. Nevermind, you wouldn't answer it anyway. --Akumiszcza

The general consensus is that votes can be taken by "members in good standing" of the en community. That is not to say that anyone doesn't value you putting up interwiki links. But the idea of a vote is to determine a consensus of the en community. You are, essentially, not a member of the en community (although you're welcome to join us, of course). It is not fair for en policies (especially en policies regarding usage, which is something that is fairly idiosyncratic to the English language) to be decided by people who are not really editors of en. john k 14:44, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

So maybe somebody would write down those general consensus rules and make some proper voting in the future? Otherwise, you would have more protests. BTW, why did you use idiosyncratic here? --Akumiszcza 15:58, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

By idiosyncratic, I meant that usage in English is tricky, and there's no clear rules. Unless one is fairly fluent in it, I think it would be very hard to have any sense of what the actual English usage is. Contributors from other wikis may not have that much grasp of English (your English is obviously pretty good, so I'm not referring to you specifically, although I'd imagine that anybody not living in the English-speaking world would be at a disadvantage in terms of knowing English usage), so it seems counterproductive for them to be able to vote on a question of English usage. I agree with you that it would be good if the voting procedures page was more explicit about these kind of things. john k 16:10, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I understand. But it is another argument against the way the voting was done. You say voters should have a proper grasp of English. I don't think "members in good standing" necessarily speak proper English, do you? One can make many small contributions using very rudimentary English and would also become a member in good standing in your definition. You (admins) have to decide, whom to include into your secret voting methods:

1. "members in good standing" as it is today. This is a vague term and you weren't able to define it properly. Also look at examples of users A and B in one of my previous posts.
2. The user cannot be too new (Chris said so). As I wrote before, the rule was not used in the voting (not to say it is controversial).
3. Users with good English knowledge. How do you check that? Some wiki exam?

All of these rules are highly controversial. Some active contributors can be excluded by taking any of these rules. That is why I think all votes should be counted. If one can edit, one should be able to vote. --Akumiszcza

Community move

Note that I have started to impose ([[Germanic language|German]]:Danzig) and {{Talk:Gdansk/Vote/Notice}} on pages that mention Gdansk. --JuntungWu 06:02, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Why Germanic language? Is it Danzig in every germanic language? Gdabski 23:36, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This is an obvious corruption of the community consensus. It suggest that all Germanic languages (including English) use Danzig instead of Gdańsk. All those pipings should changed to ([[German language|German]]: Danzig)}. – Kpalion (talk) 19:13, 17 May 2005 (UTC)