Talk:Malmö

notorious ghetto boiling with riots

hi fellowed malmöiter!

An IP-user added this paraphfgar:

Social problems

A large part of the population in Malmö are immigrants. The notorious ghetto Rosengård is boiling with gangs and riots, and the unemployment ratio is very high. When the Islamic mosque burned down in 2002, immigrants were throwing rocks at the firemen thus preventing them from putting out the fire. Fox News did a cover story on the severe immigrant problems in Malmö in 2004.

Maybe not a totally accurate descritpion. I'm sure every city has "social problems" if you look deep enough. What do we compare to? Malmö has 16% immigrants or similar. London and Paris have far greater (I think). If you have ever been to Rosengård I don't think you would find it boiling with riots.... The unemployment ratio is high among immigrants in Rosengård, but to say "very high" is not accurate... in some parts it is 20% , in some 50%. The islamic mosque did not burn down (I live just 200 meters from it and should know) , an adjacent not finished schoolbuilding did, and another adjacent building.

--Fred chessplayer 09:25, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

User:212.247.86.17, who added the passage in question, seems to originate in Helsingborg. In my judgement, (s)he attempts to use Wikipedia as a propagandist tool. He is, of course, not alone in such habits, but there is no reason why the text should remain. One of the things Wikipedia least of all ought to be is a forum of discussion.

I have, however, absolutely nothing against figures for segregation and immigration and so on. But the article must be balanced and credible, not a vehicle for xenophobic parties that hope to get the same influence east for Öresund as they now have in the west.

I removed both the passage and the npov-banner. --Johan Magnus 15:28, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Social problems

Ok, I've found a source for the Fox News thing about Social Problems in Malmö. Here is a page I recommend with a discussion and a link to the Fox News story. [1] When I'm writing this, only the google cache works: [2]

A quick google search give other link that have drawn from the Fox story:

• http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2004/11/swedes_reach_mu.php
• http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/004060.php
• [3] In swedish

As the linked discussion page above suggests the Fox News article is very biased. I expect nothing else from a series focused on the Muslim Threat in Europe.

Someone might visit the Malmö article after watching the story on Fox, so it may be a good idea to write about the subject Social Problems in Malmö. I don't follow the debates in Sydsvenskan or read the paper at all, but someone who does and feels obliged to set things straight is welcomed to write...

--Fred chessplayer 02:14, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You may want to continue on my attempt at Malmö#Economy. --Johan Magnus 04:45, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

...I also, when I was at it, restructured the initial section, whos heavy exercise of population figures has disturbed me. I forgot to put something in the edit-summary, though. ;-/ --Johan Magnus 05:29, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I might do it later. It looks OK though. --Fred chessplayer 05:41, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

William Borroughs

So , did you just remove my info at will? I request you put it back. --Fred chessplayer 05:41, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The year of the establishment of Gamla Kyrkogården and the year of the inaguration of the bridge?[4] In the context of nightlife and entertainments? You think that's the right place? Central cemetries are strange only to Americans used to New Towns. Mind you, from Föreningsgatan virtually to Rosengård there is an even larger one! ;-)

But of course, if you insist! Do you? --Johan Magnus 07:51, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Why is not Gamla kyrkogården and the influence of Oresundsbron interesting? And the topic is not nightlife, but miscellanious. I'm not going to discuss this though, I can only refer you to wikipedia policy not to delete others' material (unless it is wrong or copyvio). At most, if you think it is wrongly placed, you should move it to a more appropriate place. Because it did take me some time to find the material in question, and it is of course discouraging if you just remove it. I'm not going to reinsert it in some other place though, since you might then delete it again.

Personally I would, and might will, write about the cemetary in the centre of the city. I don't know if only Americans are unfamiliar with this concept. The cemetary is, IMO, ugly and takes up a lot of space. But it is also a part of Malmö's history. --Fred chessplayer 23:11, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I didn't realize that you entered the Borroughs quotation with the aim to criticize the cemetry. However, I judged your text by its own merits, and found the prose to be unnecessarily burdened by the long parenthetical comments. With all due respect, I didn't find it badly located, just without much relevance in the context. My sincerest ambition was to improve the text, not to pursue any city planning agenda, although I have nothing against traces that reminds about the history of the town, of which that cemetry is one, located in the periphery of the town that was protected by moats and walls. I propose you try to put your comments on cemetries and changes due to the bridge in contexts of their own. Remember: If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly... do not submit it.

--Johan Magnus 08:09, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If you thought the text was misplaced, why didn't you just move it? --Fred chessplayer 16:58, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I improved it! :-) --Johan Magnus 08:05, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Intro

Toumas: Nice to see that some of my changes were left intact... and I like how you arranged the thing about Burroughs. But I do ask: have you read the page about Multiculturalism? Please the the page. In what way do you think it does not fit to describe Malmö? I consider it to do so very much, and for that reason I have to change it back to what it was. Respond if you object. I like the other edits. Except that I personally don't consider Arlöv and Limhamn important enough to be in the introduction. --Fred chessplayer 19:57, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm convinced you'll gain from appreciating the cooperative nature of Wikipedia.

Belonging to one of those cultures an asserted multiculturalism ought to refer to, I just don't see any traces of other cultures than a Swedish (or often Scanian) expressed as anything else than as (more or less supressed) subcultures. Concurring with the article on multiculturalism, I consider it a bad joke to say that Malmö should seriously strive to become that — let alone already have become.

I think you better explain where you see manifestations of different cultures being considered equal and being equally treated.

Best regards!

/Tuomas 22:01, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hello. Thanks for your advice. I'm sure you have a point in your comment. But I think the foreign influence can't be ignored. Don't you agree that all falafel, pizza and kebab shops and all shops around Möllan are the result of multiculturalism, and furthermore most politicians in the Möllevången stadsdel (and probably in other places) are foreigners? --Fred chessplayer 08:33, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that's multi-ethnic, not proof of a multi-cultural society. Take holidays for instance. They are solidly attached to one Lutheran Swedish culture. /Tuomas 13:05, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Spelling of "Skåne" is important information since the name Scania isn't that well known and used. I for instance have always spelled it as "Skane". Also the name "Skåne" appears in the info box in the word "Skåne County".

Secondly I don't understand why the number 250,000 should link to Malmö Urban Area. It makes little sense.

Third, the way the paragraph about the Oresund Region is written now is more clear than the way it was written before, since it may be mistaken that the population figure of 3,5000,000 goes for just these two areas, when in fact they go for the Region in total.

These are the opinions I hold.

--Fred chessplayer 22:30, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

the reason i originally added 'skåne' was because a) that is the name of the county, not scania. i feel it is important to introduce the name of places in their language and then, if absolutely necessary, use a translation. b) i've never heard scania before in my life. c) if you look at other references to locations in and around malmö, they are referred to using the swedish name, and then translated. and malmö is never translated, nor even spelled without ö.

on to the reverts: they don't make sense. i agree with fred chessplayer here. it's the entire region of öresund, not just copenhagen and malmö, that amount to 3 500 000 people. also, the second 'with' keeps coming back when you revert anyways. should you insist on reverting, i insist grammar is corrected.

--Jocke 01:56, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hi Jocke, hi again Fred!

I am not quite convinced that it was a wise move to designate the Swedish landskap in Latin, as is done, although I can see some advantages with this. However, in case you really think that their best known names in English are "Skåne", "Västergötland", and so on, then you shouldn't start here, but by renaming the articles in question. (All of them, i guess! :-)

I realize that I may appear smug, but that's not at all my intention. I wish to keep the Wikipedia articles conform with eachother.

I am, by the way, not quite convinced that I remeber where it says that "No unknown info in the Introduction" is policy. Can you help me out, Fred?

/Tuomas 10:55, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hello! Look at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Guide_to_writing_better_articles#Lead_section>. While it is not a policy, it is a guideline.

There is also a policy ( I think ) that unknown terms should be given a shorter explaination. If an American comes to this page , and reads "ah, he was born in Scania" how should he know what is Scania? This is why I keep adding the word "province" :-) --Fred chessplayer 11:25, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Adding "province of" is good, imho.

The reader that arrives to the page and reads "Malmö [...] (...) is the largest city in Scania and southern Sweden." understands from the context that "Scania" is an entity that can contain a city but is smaller than Sweden. If the reader doesn't know what Sweden or Scania is, then he might guess or he might click on the links. If he is interested in the Swedish name for Scania, or for Sweden, he is likely to check at these pages.

If "Skåne" is better known for native English-speakers, then the article name (of the article on Scania) ought to be changed, and Scania be made into a redirect. After that we have no, or very little, reason to use "Scania" at all.

The point is that this is not the place for that discussion. As long as the title of the article remains Scania, we do assume that "Scania" is the best known name in English, and then the addition of "Skåne" appears to be nothing but a foreign language distorsion for the reader of the English text on Malmö. :-)

Thank you, for the direction to the guideline, by the way.

/Tuomas 11:49, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This is my opp on the intro: For us it is obvious what Scania is, but how can someone from another continent know? It could be a district, a province, an area. It also seems important to mention that Scania is the southernmost province in Sweden, since this is vital information for anyone who wants to visit it; however I'm tired of having my edits reverted all the time so I'm leaving it be for now.

A geographical map would also be great -- I've heard with lantmätariet, but their maps are not Public Domain and I don't know how else to acquire one.

A recent encyclopedia begins Malmö city and port, seat of Skåne län (county), southern Sweden. It is located across The Sound (Öresund) from Copenhagen, Denmark. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9050357

if people call scania skåne, why should we not do it? we are not the language police... i would consider it great if someone would give an explaination in the article -- I and Jocke have tried -- , but it seems other contributors are more interested in deleting others edits than making edits of their own.

I consider Vancouver a good model for how to make a page about a city. But it is a matter of taste, and I think the intro is OK as it is and will not change it. In any case, it's nice to see your interest in the article along with your latest edit on immigration! --Fred chessplayer 16:56, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Not seeing all of one's edits survive is part of life here around.
• You ask "If people call Scania Skåne..." - and this is an important point that I tried to address above. It can't be delt with on the level of this singular article. It must be delt with in a way that contributes to increased consistency within Wikipedia. (A quick google test gives me the impression that "Scania" and "Skåne" appears about equally often in English texts on the WWW. Your points thus can not be dismissed without serious consideration.)
• The good thing with the internal wiki-links is that you don't have to explain things at the place where you use a linked concept. Explanations of what Scania (or Skåne) is can be made, and are better made, in the article on Scania. To illustrate this point: the Vancouver article does not give specifics about British Columbia, that is left to the very article on British Columbia.
• It's a very valid and relevant question, whether it's more important to point out Malmö as a Swedish or as a Scanian city, since trying to press in references to
  1. Towns of Scania
  2. List of cities in Sweden
  3. Scania (as one of the provinces of Sweden)
  4. Skåne County

may make the prose too un-inviting, which is a bad thing for the start of an introduction.

• I'm not particularly good at keeping track of Wikipedia policies, but some direction is to be found at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). The Wikipedia-internal controversy is demonstrated at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English).
• Consistency within Wikipedia, with Wikipedia guidelines and policies, and with other Wikipedia articles is (according to what I perceive as the dominant opinion here) more important than concistency with other encyclopedias. It goes without saying that different encyclopedias aren't necessarily consistent with eachother.

/Tuomas 22:45, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

if one were to actually look at the scania article, one would find 'scania' being used as the title and initial reference only, and then 'skåne' throughout the rest of the article (with the exception of the 'terra scania' reference). i would take that as a sign to therefore use 'skåne' within an article, as is done in the scania article. also, the naming conventions tuomas gave only seems to point at this practice - use english for article titles, use native elsewhere. if i'm mistaken, find another article to prove me wrong, please. --Jocke 07:22, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there is much to add to this discussion. But maybe we ought to Wikipedia:state the obvious: Someone who is proficient in English has acquired the pattern to pronunce Scania but not Skåne.

Skåne is a good name, but it looks alien to the English reader and disturbs the reading process and decreases the credibility and makes the text look less professional. There is a great difference between using it in the article on Scania, where it can be properly explained, a pronunciation guide can be provided, etc, etc, ...compared to using it in other articles.

You read Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English), didn't you?

--Johan Magnus 16:50, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A note on the Sound file

According to the village pump at wikimedia commons, file names with special characters may lead to problem. But Wikipedia English will update their software in mid-June, when this problem hopefully will be solved. Until then, sound files such as Malmö, Göteborg and Östersund will not always work (it apparently only works for some people). --Fred-Chess 09:54, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Lead IPA

There's a been a very insistent fiddling with phonetic transcription in the lead, and quite incorrect to boot. However, to avoid further bickering, I have now changed the IPA to illustrate phonemic transcription which is equally applicable to virtually all dialects. Only long vowels are diphthongized in Swedish and the /ø:/ is under no circumstance pronounced with an [e] (the same vowel as in the words lek or fel), but rather with a glide that is best described as [^œø:]. Tentatively it could be said that in rapid colloquial speech it would be pronounced as an [ɛ] (the unrounded equivalent of [œ], but this is quite speculative and most likely very specific to certain contexts and dialects, e.i. not helpful to any non-Swedes. If anyone wishes to change it again, please show that you have a basic knowledge of IPA or of Swedish phonology (no matter the dialect).

Peter ^Isotalo 12:43, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Having taught Swedish for most of the last 30 years, and most of that as an employee of Malmö municipality, I guess I have that basic knowledge. (I have, of course, no idea what IPA ɛ should stand for, but it's well known that the short /e/ and short schwa may appear hard to distinguish when there is no need for distinction, as would be the case here.)

The final sound of Malmö is no [ø]-sound. That would be hypercorrect. No-one says so, except in declamatory style. The used sound is not rounded, which can easily be seen if observing speakers. Whether it's closer to open-mid or close-mid cardinal sounds may be disputed.

The previous vowel is long and diphthongized.

E. Olofsson/Family Olofsson 15:10, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

IPA transcriptions are certainly not decided merely by the local dialect of a particular town or city. The only dialect that is perceived as neutral in Swedish is Central Standard Swedish and this is what most Swedes would expect if, for example, being provided with a pronunciation file. Non-Swedes are certainly no exception and are not in the least helped by impressionistic analyses by people who don't know IPA. And since I am a native Swede myself and pronounce the word the way I hear it mostly, it feels very odd to hear someone calling it "hypercorrect".

Christian Elert describes the dipthongs of Scanian and the southern dialects in Allmän och svensk fonetik, and he does mention [e] or [ə]-sounding pronunciations when it comes to the long phonemes /u/ and /ʉ/, but /ø/ is described as mentioned in my previous post. It really makes very little sense that they be centralized, since the direction of Southern Swedish dipthongs is outwards, not inwards. It's actually the dipthongs of Central Swedish that are directed inwards and very prone to [ə]-glides. Other than that the schwa seems to be common only as unstressed /e/.

I'm reinserting the phonetic transcription and if you object, I would like to see more than just personal opinion.

Peter ^Isotalo 19:19, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Education

This paragraph:

Malmö has a variety of both public and private schools. One of the most notable private schools is Bladins, with an impeccable reputation and huge waiting lists. Malmö Borgarskola is the largest high school in the city, also holding the renowned IB school, one of the best in the World, rivaling that of London, Paris and New York. The most popular school however is S:t Petri skola [2], with extraordinary students as well as teachers. The school is the only school of languages in the whole city and we invite you to visit us in our old but also modern equipped building on the 22.11.05 at 18.00-21.00 o'clock.

Is advertisement allowed in Wikipedia? "Extraordinary students"?!!

No, it shouldn't be. I removed it. // Fred-Chess 09:10, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Malmö crime

From article

City police have recently lost control over certain ghettos in Malmö. As rape has become a serious problem in and near these neighbourhoods, female travelers should make sure to locate these areas in Malmö and avoid them.

Ambulance drivers and parking inspectors who will not enter say their uniform draws the attention of gangs of Muslim youth, and police do not enter without backup. These areas were the grounds of an unfortunate 24-day series of rapes and attacks in August. City police are in the process of adapting to the new situation in Malmö. There are also online debates being held at the Swedish Muslim forum about an internal solution to the matter.

Aftonbladet and Expressen are not reliable sources.

Fred-Chess 16:00, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Ah, blaming everything on the foreigners, again, I see. --Anittas 17:47, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

As I understand it, many of the criminals (i.e., people committing crimes, such as rape and assault) are Swedish-born Muslims. They aren't foreigners then, are they? Also, isn't it terribly POV to baldly claim that Aftonbladet and Expressen aren't reliable? Why not? Says who? Please back up your claim. From looking at the Aftonbladet page on Wikipedia, I see it is called a tabloid albeit a serious one, and its readership is in the top five. It seems like a mainstream media source, perfectly acceptable for a source in Wikipedia.

Both papers reported much the same things about Malmo, yet you decided to remove it. Why? Are two sources too few? How about getting the same or similar information from other sources? Is Fox news "not reliable," too? Check this [5] out, which is Fox's coverage of much the same topic. This information is verifiable from multiple sources, and needs to go back into the article.