User talk:Mic

Archive (December 23, 2002 - March 24, 2003)

Header format

Hi Mic, you changed Template:NobelPrizes with a comment of "Conforming to header format". Where can I get the standard header format ? Jay 14:40, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Swedish Maps

In the german Wikipedia we are discussing about using your Län and County maps. Of which license they are? Not as in the english Wikipedua, in the german Wikipedia only GNU FDL or public domain is possible. Are all maps GNU FDL? What about the portraits of Birger Jarl etc? I would be glad if you could answer me in the German Wikipedia, because perhaps we will use them there, de:Benutzer:Stern

Hi! I have added a GFDL disclaimer to the image pages, which I hope will clarify their status. I created the maps and I welcome use of them through out Wikipedia. -- Mic 08:52, Mar 30, 2004 (UTC)

Images

Thanks a lot for adding the GNU FDL disclaimer to your Län maps. I already uploaded them. In case of the landskaps I will translate the legends of the images in the next days and upload them, too. Are the portraits of Bengt Oxenstierna & the other images also GNU FDL images? 82.83.37.204 14:54, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

You're welcome. The black and white portraits derrive from a source where copyright has expired. I will try to find the source and post it to them, but I can't immidately recall it. -- Mic 21:29, Mar 30, 2004 (UTC)

Finland's declaration of independence

See that talk page. Mabye something for source.wikipedia.com?

Btw: I considered further wikifikation of your introduction, but it ended with virtually every word being made into a link, and I decided not to. ;-)))))
--Ruhrjung 21:45, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

That's excellent! I didn't notice it before. I also agree with the assessment that the Diet changed in 1906. However the constitution did not change until independence. So, what is more important; the name change or change of the representation? Basically, the line has to be drawn somewhere. The text seems genuine however and hopefully it is error free. The Finnish text is another chapter, but maybe we can find some skilled help with that. -- Mic 22:46, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)

I added the finnish text to wikisource. Damn, now I have to create a finnish section on wikisource too. :) -- Jniemenmaa 05:39, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It looks good. :) -- Mic 11:39, Apr 16, 2004 (UTC)

Astrid Lindgren

Hi Mic, perhaps you could help me with my question on Talk:Ronia the Robber's Daughter --Woggly 19:05, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I never thanked you for your answer, sorry, that wasn't polite of me. Someone else ended up editing that page before I got around to it, but your answer would have been helpful to me, as I hadn't realised that "Noddle-Pete" was simply the name of a character in the book. Thanks!--Woggly 11:25, 22 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

US state-notion

I don't know if my reaction is unique, but it strikes me as odd (alien, outlandish...) to see the articles on provinces of Finland, where the notion of Finland is similar to that of US states - what's the next step? "Upland, SE" ? /Tuomas 20:32, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[[Lapland, Finland]] is the disambiguation for what was formerly the separate entries [[Lapland (province)]] and [[Lapland (region)]]. You may not have noticed that "Placename, Country" is a standard disambiguation used on Wikipedia. What you may have noticed is that all placenames in the United States have the structure "Placename, State", without exception. In that case however it is not explicitly used as an exception for the purpose of disambiguation. -- Mic 21:30, Apr 19, 2004 (UTC)

If that is the "standard disambiguation used on Wikipedia" then it's a sad thing. Wikipedia should be more keen on its credibility than so. I looked for that standard, and didn't really find it. I see discussions on Australia and British counties and so on, but where is it stated that countries of EU should be equated with states of USA? /Tuomas 14:04, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

To tell the truth I'm not sure if I understand your query. Is your question regarding why there is a disambiguation in the first place, the style of this particular disambiguation, disambiguation of geographical placenames in general or perhaps even about placenames in the United States? -- Mic 15:08, Apr 20, 2004 (UTC)

OK, låt oss då byta språk. Som student i statsvetenskap, men också som diplomatson, har jag lärt mig att vara försiktig med analogier mellan USA och EU, eftersom dessa alltför ofta leder till en felaktig bild av EU i främmande länder. Dessutom är det givetvis så, att det finns en opinion både i Finland och i andra EU-länder som är mån om att demonstrativt punktmarkera oberoende av USA. Jag har absolut ingen anledning att betvivla sanningshalten i ditt påstående att "X, Finland" skulle vara i enlighet med Wikipedia-standard, men jag lyckades inte hitta denna standard beskriven när jag letade. (Vad jag hittade var referencer till "disambiguation" med parenteser, utom för specifika undantagsfall.) Och jag håller alltså en sådan standard för olycklig, främst för att det ger en felaktiv bild av EU:s medlemsstater som jämförbara med USA:s delstater, men också därför att en sådan standard förmedlar en onödig grad av US-centrism.

Vänliga hälsningar!

/Tuomas 08:28, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Genom din explikation så förstår jag bättre vad du syftar på och för att rensa undan eventuella oklarheter så kan jag börja med att deklarera att någon USA-centrism inte har avsetts, varken explicit eller implicit. Som bekant finns det ett behov av att ord och begrepp som är fler- eller mångtydiga skiljs åt på Wikipedia, därav begreppet "disambiguation". Det finns en stor uppsättning av olika rekommendationer för Wikipedia, men eftersom det inte finns någon central eller absolut auktoritet så finns det i egentlig mening inte heller någon absolut standard, som jag kanske lite slarvigt uttryckte tidigare. Det som jag avsåg var snarare konventioner, vilka förvisso ofta uppfattas som ett slags de facto-standarder.

I de allra flesta fall så används parenteser vid åtskillnad av ord och begrepp, men vid åtskillnad av geografiska platser så används kommatering framför parenteser. Jag tror att det är ett misstag att uppfatta detta som ett utslag av USA-centrism, vare sig vad gäller tillämpning eller utformning. Att genom denna typ av minimalistiska skillnader försöka uttyda tecken på någon slags bakomliggande struktur, eller konspiration, skulle kunna uppfattas som ett anfall av "Kremlologi", men jag tror inte att detta varit din avsikt på något sätt.

Vad gäller formatteringen som sådan och i de fall den används så anser inte jag att den förmedlar ett felaktigt intryck, vare sig om Europeiska Unionen eller dess medlemsländer. Jag anser inte heller att Wikipedia på ett strukturellt plan bör anpassa sig efter olika former av spridda missuppfattningar och på något sätt försöka bygga in dessa. Inte heller bör olika former av överenskommelser, förutom NPOV, slutas om att på visst sätt företräda en uppfattning eller att markera visst ställningstagande. Uppfattningar och missuppfattningar betingade av kunskaper, utbildningssystem, kulturella skillnader, personliga agendor, etc får tillräcklig omfattning och spridning ändå, trots NPOV.

I korthet så förstår jag din frågeställning bättre och jag tror att jag förstår din farhåga. Jag håller dock inte med om att det skulle vara ett problem på det sätt som du ser det, och om så skulle vara fallet så anser jag inte att det skulle vara Wikipedias uppgift att adressera detta. Åtminstone på inte det sättet. Frånsett detta så tycker jag visst att det finns bättre och sämre sätt att namnge artiklar vad gäller åtskillnad (dvs "disambiguation"), att man kan ha åsikter om och att man i fall av vikt kan diskutera detta. Vänliga hälsningar! -- Mic 19:00, Apr 24, 2004 (UTC)

Hjärtligt tack för ditt svar! Jag vill inte onödigtvis förlänga en disussion, men undrar i all vänlighet om du övervägt alternativen Swedish Lapland— Finnish Lapland (som sidtitlar, alltså). Jag tar väl inte fel, när jag (från Skåne) uppfattat det som att man i Sverige betraktar Lapland som ett landskap (som tar slut vid Torne älv)? I denna internationella kontext kunde man på så sätt tydliggöra att Lapland inte är antingen finländskt eller svenskt (och givetvis samtidigt komma bort från det där kommatecknet). Russian Lapland och Norwegian Lapland kunde i så fall i kongruensens namn etableras som "redirects". Den nuvarande distinktionen mellan Laponia och Lapland (province) är måhända inte nödvändigtvis den optimala. /Tuomas 13:20, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

När det gäller Lapland så finns det där en artikel för hela regionen från Norge till Ryssland. Vad gäller Finland så är Lappland förnärvarande ett administrativt område med både en länsstyrelse och ett förbund. Det förefaller vettigare att täcka bägge dessa aspekter i en artikel än att ha upprätthålla en uppdelning. Det är också av detta skäl som artikeln inte bör heta "province" eller "region" eftersom den då utesluter den ena sidan. Men andra slags åtskillnad är ju förstås möjliga. Den bild som ges av landskapen generellt är snarare den av historisk indelning vilken gällde fram till Oxenstiernas reform, snarare än den tilldelade rollen som marknadsföringsnamn för länens turistsatsningar. Även den kulturella identiteten är rotad till landskapen snarare än till länen. Knappast någon lär väl ha definierat sig som Nordälvsborgare, Malmöhuslänning, eller Stockholmslänning istället för Dalslänning, Skåning eller Upplänning. De flesta, undantaget Norrbottningar, ser nog snarare landskapet än länet som platsen dit man är kopplad, men jag kan inte uttala mig på samma sätt om detta även gäller i Finland. Där kanske du har en bättre bild? Men om en artikel nu skall heta province som exempelvis Oulu (province) så tycker jag nog att Oulu Province eller Province of Oulu är ett bättre namn. Det heter ju (på svenska) Uleåborgs län, inte Uleåborg, med län underförstått när man talar om själva länet. Varför skall man då översätta län, etc till province, county eller vad det nu kan vara? Det kan synas en berättigad fråga, men jag tror att det är betydligt lättare att ta till sig begrepp man förstår snarare än att tvinga läsaren att ta till sig nya. På något plan är jag nog fortfarande konfunderad över vad ett "vojvodskap" egentligen är, och jag tror nog att "Polens provinser" hade varit lättare smälta. -- Mic 00:02, May 11, 2004 (UTC)

Replied at User talk:Jniemenmaa.

Johan Tobin

Say, does [[Johan Tobin]] make any sense to you. My swedish stops at things the muppet's chef said, but this kinda looks like a teenager autobiography? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:18, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It's been swiftly deleted, but I would concur with your assessment of its nature and agree that it was indeed a candidate for speedy deletion. -- Mic 09:28, Apr 22, 2004 (UTC)

Super, thanks for your help. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 11:19, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Please see Talk:Grand Duke of Finland. /Tuomas 23:13, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Meänkieli, Torne Valley, Torne River et al.

Be careful when you change English-language usage. Periods go inside quotation marks. There is no "the" before most university names. Several of your changes to the Meänkieli page introduced errors.

Dear anonymous user, I took the liberty of revising and amending the contributions that you made to Meänkieli language, Torne Valley, Torne River etc. I also took the numerous of stubs created on variations of these and turned them into redirects to the respective articles. Wikipedia works by the principle of successive improvements and you are most welcome to make corrections and contributions to articles. However, it is adviseable to write a comment for all significant contributions that you make in order to make a review of your work easier. It is also customary to sign postings on talk pages, such as this one. I hope you like the place and that you will decide to stay. -- Mic 19:51, May 21, 2004 (UTC)

time to move Karelia/temp to Karelia ?

You have the magic sysop powers to make moves that involves deletions.

Please see Talk:Karelia_(historical_province)#Moved.
--Ruhrjung 04:11, 27 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Why did you leave Sweden?

Hi Mic, I see from your previous contributions that you like to concentrate on Swedish issues, which I think is fine. So why did you create the new Norwegian politicians category where only one person is present: Vidkun Quisling? I guess it may be the only one you have heard about. Don’t you know any Swedish politicians. Or do you want me to make that category?
--Arnejohs 17:56, 31 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Arnejohs. You seem concerned over something, however it's not really clear what your point is. -- Mic 20:17, 31 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Category:British politics

er ... why did you just go and create this when the whole point of the exercise earlier today was to remove the British and use the correct term UK. I'll be recommending a speedy delete. --VampWillow 20:10, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing it out. I see no problem what so ever in replacing it with a better terminology, but please enlighten me of the earlier exercise. -- Mic 20:41, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

No worries ... basically someone earlier put 'British political parties' in play although British is incorrect to refer to many of them. Thankfully they'd only added about five links. The correct term for anything which relates to all of the countries of England, Wales, Scotland and N.Ireland is 'UK' as British strictly refers to only England and Wales (and is argued about in some other areas!) even though it can be a useful shorthand to people not from the UK. (It is a bit like calling 'Nederlands' 'Holland') --VampWillow 21:12, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The reason why I used British was simply a question of consistency, ultimately it falls back to Category:British people which I noticed somewhere yesterday. Correctness however, ought to outweigh consistency so would I support the change. I am aware of the distinction between UK and British, but thank you for explaining it again. What I was thinking about was rather if there was a discussion or similar that I ought to have been aware of? -- Mic 21:31, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

British People becomes a difficult one as the whole timescale thing comes into play (UK is fairly recent, slightly older is British, etc) so no easy answers. The discussion was only between myself and the person who initiated the politics category. I'm looking at how some of the others work. Many thanks for your input though. --VampWillow 21:50, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

You overload Category:Entertainment with Category:Television etc. It's wrong. Of course some kinds of Television programs are kind of Entertainment, But not all. By overoading of Category:Entertainment (and may be other) you make categories not usefull. Also, pay attantion, there is direct and indirect relation. For example, TV is kind of mass media, mass media is kind of culture, TV is not kind of Culture directly, only inderectly. Kenny 13:28, 2004 Jun 2 (UTC)

I think that the merit of Entertainment as a functional category remains to be proven, and I see no problem in removing Television from it. That classification only came about as a result of reclassifying Television Shows, from Entertainment to Television. There is also overlap between Television Shows and Television series. -- Mic 15:14, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Could you please remove you not relevant links to Entertainment ? Kenny 10:18, 2004 Jun 3 (UTC)

America

Good work with categorising the American nations! However, Belize down to Panama should be considered Central America (a subset of North America), not South America. On Category:America I proposed dividing the continent into North America, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. Do take a look. Cheers, –Hajor 23:09, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Nedless to say, but you are of course correct. It seems I was more concerned with correcting the capital "C" for countries of the old South America category, than bothering to think whether or not it was actually belonging there. Thanks for correcting me. Cheers, -- Mic 05:43, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Tree-induced forestry blindness. Happens to the best of us. Cheers, –Hajor

Den fjättrade ankan

I've just a minute ago removed the toto of ankan's edits to Finland-Swedish. Some of them might be merited, but I am in a too angry state to get something meaningful out of it. If I had tried to, I would also for sure have made highly unfavorable comparisons with Sweden's handling of the Finnic minorities here. It might be wrong to believe that his point of view is solely his own private, but I've not in Sweden encountered anything like it - I wonder where such people thrive. In any case, I dare say that Finland-Swedish self-designations and their own views on their place in the world have considerably more significance than his Great-Swedish boasts.

It might be a good idea if you took a look at the issue, and maybe, if you have time and energy, tried to create something that could comfort him. See also his move of Maamme. :-(( /Tuomas 07:22, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I raised the naming issue at Talk:Maamme/Vårt land and I think the discussion could benefit from some more input. I am monitoring the development at Finland-Swedish, and I agree that inputs there needs to be well balanced. It would be nice to get someone with a Finland-Swedish background involved on the issue. Finns or Swedish speakers, that does not belong in the group, both have different perspectives on the issue between eachother, but also a different perspective than the Finland-Swedes. On a related issue, I did some work on merging Ethnic Swedes with Swedes. Both articles needs more work, and both of them belongs to the same potential mine field. -- Mic 17:42, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Categorizing and Wars

Hey there...just came across the edit you did on Seven Years' War. While it would be great to have every war categorized by the parties who were involved, it could get a little ridiculous in some cases (i.e., the World Wars). I think in the cases of more limited conflicts, it certainly makes sense to classify them among [country A's] wars, but we need some kind of system or solution in dealing with wars that have more than just two or three participants. Unfortunately, I'm at a bit of a loss to figure that out right now. Cheers, Postdlf 12 June 2004 20:09 (UTC)

Much of the work being done on categories is tentative and migth be necessary to alter at some point. Personally, I would prefer fewer categories, and then using a function to produce the union of several categories to produce: for example a list on Swedish wars, from articles belonging both to "Sweden" and "Wars". The whole idea subcategories could actually be put in question. However only having one category for "People" would produce a monster list and a compromise has to be done somewhere. -- Mic 17:42, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Companies of XX

Discussion continued at User talk:Burgundavia

Gustav II Adolph of Sweden

Look, fellow: That is just the guys title! You don't list Queen Elisabeth II under "Liz_II_of_the_United_Kingdom". It's the same with Gustav II Adolf. It may well be that it's common to say "Gustavus Adolphus" but the proper English or Swedish name and title should be used.

"Part of undoing an incompetent or malicious attempt to move by cut and paste to hide the edit history of the article."

I think your revert is incompetent and unscientific. There never was a "malicious attempt", and I only used copy/paste because it moving the page did not work.

The proper name is:

Gustav II Adolph of Sweden or Gustav II Adolf of Sweden

forgot to sign User:Sky

Reply to the unsigned post above

Dear semi-anonymous person. I am sure that your pleasant ways and the habit to always to sign your posts has brought you nothing but success and goodwill in your endeavours elsewhere on Wikipedia, even if you seem to have omitted using any of those manners here. But let's leave the social etiquette aside to examine your previous actions and editing style.

Editing style

On June 11 you undertook a series of edits to change location of the Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden article. In doing so you posted the content of the article, by a cut and paste move, at a new location with out signing that post or disclosing the source. Prior to this you moved the edit history of the article to a previously unused location and redirected the original entry to the new unsigned post made by you.

I'm not sure what you wanted to achieve, but what you accomplished was to make it extremely hard for experienced users and virtually impossible for new users to find the old edit history of the article among the ten redirects to the new location, and instead it passed you off as the source of the content.

Incompetent or malicious

This is a particularly bad method of editing articles and it is not designed to increase the credibility of the editor in the Wikipedia community. Also I think it shows an extremely bad sense of judgement, not least since you had already on April 23 been informed by User:Ahoerstemeier on your discussion page that "Moving an article should not be done by copy-and-paste - we should preserve the editing history of the older one". Yet you did not only choose to ignore that in the case of the article on Gustavus Adolphus, but on the day before that ill fated action you also decided to remove that comment from your talk page.

To me this is a sign that you either do not have the capacity or the inclination to learn how Wikipedia works, or else that you intentionally decided to disregard the advice that was given to you. To me this seems "incompetent or malicious", as I commented when I made the necessary repairs to your disruptive actions from June 11.

The naming question

Secondly regarding the naming issue, I find it interesting that you are able to singlehandedly determine the proper naming format to use for a 17th century Swedish monarch. As there were no consistency in spelling for written text, even the monarchs would spell their own names differently from one occasion to the other. Because of this there are several conventions already in Swedish on how to spell the names of the monarchs, let alone for there to be a single established system in use in English. Having someone determine the proper spelling on that basis gives it all a touch of ridicule.

Needless to say Gustavus Adolphus is not the only issue regarding the naming of Swedish monarchs which has arisen after the last comprehensive revision of the names used for the articles on English Wikipedia. As there in most cases are several different forms which are accepted and different conventions to follow the best way to settle these is to do them in concert. You should feel free to join in on such an effort. (See also: User talk:Sky#Regarding your editing style) -- Mic 12:03, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)

see User talk:Sky. Also, bear in mind that this is the English wikipedia and different Swedish forms of the name really do not matter. Sky 08:48, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Apparently, the content you were referring to has in less than a month slipped into the oblivion your talk page history. I'm not sure of what, where or whether there is actually a point to comment directly to you when your instinctive behaviour seems to sweep anything that needs to be hidden in under the proverbial rug. Obviously, Gustavus Adolphus and the other articles concerning the Swedish monarchs will receive the attention that they are in need of in due course. There is a currently a review of those article names under way and I feel that your participation would be more valuable and constructive there as opposed to you enforcing your view unilaterally. -- Mic 20:51, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Dear Mic, I hope you are aware that this is English Wikipedia, wherefore names should be in their English forms. Actually, most of names have an English translation, thus do not worry. The rest are usually very rare names. So rare that it is not very useful to go deeply into their centuries-old spelling habits. The preferable choice is the name spelling which is most familiar to today's English readers.

English Wikipedia shall not be made using Swedish viewpoint. If conflicts about names arise, we probably should recuse Swedes, as long as there is no evidence they are basing their opinion on used English texts (books etc). I have seen too often that anyone from another country than an english-speaking, tends to remember the name versions of books and schools of that language.

Gustavus Adolphus is clearly not useful form.

Gustav Adolph is probably the most familiar to English readers.

213.243.157.114 01:56, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

As this particular Wikipedia site is an English language project, English language conventions clearly have precedence and ought to be used. However, this does not prohibit discussion regarding the ambiguities or differences that exists for singular or between different conventions within the English language. Sometimes, you may need to go to the source to understand the basis for the construct of a convention and in such cases clearly the source matters.

In any case the situation regarding the naming of Swedish monarchs needs to be clarified and I will try to take a look the comment you made at Talk:List of Swedish monarchs in the near future.

Further more, duplicating and renaming existing articles, using such neo-syllogisms as you did with the "Treaty of Pähkinäsaari" and others, is not only confusing but also contradicting to your intentions here. -- Mic 20:51, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Formatting

The category discussion is ongoing everywhere on wikipedia; categories is a better and more automatic/dynamic topic navigation instrument, but only manual lists can contain not yet created articles. Chronological listings can also only be done manually. I like what you have done to Category:Swedish wars, and I think this is the best solution until our devs implement a better one. Also, I'd like to take the opportunity to let you know that your maps, images and portraits relating to swedish history are a very valuable contribution. Cheers. ✏ Sverdrup 12:57, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The Wikipedia project as such, is interesting on several levels, not the least the apparent appeal it has to us who willingly devote fair amount of our time to the project. Contributions to and development of the project which spans over several planes is never in stasis and the "Categories" is an example of this. Categories will help to keep Wikipedia more systematic and with less effort than otherwise needed. It's always a pleasure to see the contributions of good solid editors that helps pushing the project in the right direction. ;) One can only hope at the end of the day that one is able to count oneself among them...

Well... maybe I should remind you that not only Sverdrup, but also I, think that most things you've done are outstanding. I've not at all studied the Sky-case in detail, but I hope you remember that Wikipedia won't get destroyed if you wait some days to restore consistency. Delays may even make it easier to come on speaking terms with someone. /Tuomas 13:04, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree in that dialogue is and ought to be the preferred choice, but sometimes that may prove difficult and then a bit of peer pressure can be a recourse. Patience is not merely a virtue, but also quality that prevails. Right now my mind is mostly preoccupied with catching up to date. My summer holiday, turned extended wikibreak, has left me roughly a month of edits to review. :} It goes with out saying that I also regard you ceaseless toiler for the common good of the project, which we're all involved in. -- Mic 20:51, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps

...may be of interest to you. /Tuomas 08:38, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll look into it. -- Mic 20:51, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

SAOB

Hi, Mic, excellent work on the Swedish stuff there! Looking to flesh out the Selma Lagerlöf article somewhat and getting nowhere (I'm an inexperienced editor and get sidetracked too easily), I was drawn into messing about with the Swedish Academy/SAOL/SAOB entries instead, adding a few links and so on, and did one particular thing I thought I ought to tell you about, since it was a reversal of a change you had made: I changed the description of the SAOB back from "thesaurus" to "dictionary." I've left a note about why on the Talk page for the entry. I do understand, from your pages and comments on various options and delimitations, that you don't make edits without considering their implications, and I'd certainly be happy for you to change this one right back, if it's something you feel strongly about. (Not looking for a full-scale revert war here.:-))--Bishonen 22:32, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I think it is a good assessment since it places both publications within the dictionaries category. -- Mic 18:31, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Lars Forssell?

Hello again, Mic, I got to thinking Cornelis Vreeswijk was more urgent, and more fun, than Selma Lagerlöf, and I've expanded the article on him a good deal. Mentioning Cornelis' Lars Forssell album in this article, it struck me: have you thought of perhaps putting Forssell on the Swedish writers list? It's up to you, of course, and I have no opinion as to whether he'd go best on both the lists or only on the long one. (In case you want him, he was born in 1928 and is a member of the Swedish Academy.)--Bishonen 22:49, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hello Bishonen. It's always nice to see new editors joining Wikipedia and I hope you will decide to stick around. I will certainly take a look at your edits, but currently I have about a months worth of work backedup to review. This means that it may take a few days before I get around to it, but if you're looking for new tasks I have always thought that the list of holders of the individual chairs in the Académie française was a nice trait. Why not implement something similar for the Swedish Academy? Welcome. -- Mic 20:51, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, nice to meet you, Mic. After I wrote the above messages, and a few more on article talk pages, I belatedly hit your contribs button, saw the dates, and realized you'd been away for a while and would indeed have a lot of stuff backed up when you returned. I didn't mean to greet you with a pile of old messages, sorry about that. That's an interesting suggestion about the Swedish Academy. Hmmm. On the other hand, I'm kind of looking for not getting sucked into full-blown wikiholism, here, so I'll see. Bishonen 21:27, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Pretty funny list of "Other notables" :-)

Hi, Mic, redlinked user Stombs has made a couple of joke additions to "Other notables" on the List of Swedes. I suppose he thought it was too short or something. I'd revert it myself if I knew how. Bishonen 10:24, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

P.S. I've nominated the Stefan Engeseth page which was simultaneouosly created by the same user on Votes for Deletion. Bishonen 15:38, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It seems that the question will be resolved shortly. Well handled. -- Mic 18:02, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the support, Mic, but I don't think I handled it well at all. I completely misjudged Stombs, who's a nice Kiwi newbie, not a Swedish prankster. That's OK, though, I think he and I are all cosy now. On the other hand I just lost my temper again in the Stefan Engeseth discussion, with another person. Naturally I think I was justified, one always does, for a while. Bishonen 22:49, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It is problematic to prematurely assess the intentions of other people. Most times you will find that editors are both cooperative and reasonable after discussing the matter, however there can be exceptions. I think it was well handled in so much that I agree with your conclusions that none of the articles belong under on the list of (notable) Swedes and that the Engeseth article doesn't belong at all. I have been trying to keep the list tidy by moving less notable names to sublists, because there is a value in listing an article when it actually exists. However, categories, which is a relatively recent creation might be better suited for this purpose. Vendela Kiresbom, would actually belong to a category of "Swedish models" or "Other Swedes". Creation of either category is probably a better choice than creating additional sublists to the list of Swedes. -- Mic 06:13, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Naming Swedish regiments

Hi, I've got a question about how to name the regiments I'm working on in my List of Swedish regiments. I was pointed to you by Jao. I'll just quote what I wrote to him:

BTW, I had a little dilemma before starting my regiments' articles, writing the names in Swedish or English? I know that you should try to write the English names as often as possible, but as I worked my way through the list of names of regiments, I came to the conclusion that trying to translate medieval, renaissance and modern Swedish military terms was really hard. What do you think?

He suggested that I'd use English names for easy-to-translate regiments, such as Westrobothnia Regiment and the like, but possibly keep the Swedish names for regiments and formations with names harder to translate, Landsregementet i Norrland (Regiment of the Land in Norrland does sound very strange), Riksänkedrottningens livregemente till häst (Guards Regiment to Horse of the Realm Widow Queen???) or Livdrabantkåren (Bodyguard Corps isn't near the actual name). As I'm a little pedantic when it comes to formatting, I don't like the thought of having half the regiments' names in the list translated, and the other un-translated. I'd suggest keeping the Swedish names in the list, but linking easy-to-translate names such as Västerbottens regemente to the article page Westrobothnia Regiment, while hard-to-translate names keep their original name in both the list and the article title, but giving a try to translate the title on the article page.

What's your opinion?

feldgrau 18:01, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hello. The list of Swedish regiments is a nice addition in it itself, however a few things can be said about naming of articles and use of language. To what extent and how ought names of Swedish institutions be translated to English on Wikipedia? As Swedish and English are both Germanic languages, translating or implementing an English terminology should be quite easy. The similarities are not so great however that such a step may be omitted. To a native speaker of English or another Germanic language a phrase in Swedish might actually be intelligible, but to someone lacking this frame of reference it might be very hard to comprehend. This means that consistently using Swedish names as the article name, and the main identifier, might not be very helpful other than to a narrow circle of Northern Europeans.

Nonetheless, there are some other factors to consider. Such as, that it might actually be hard to find the appropriate terminology, and I would certainly prefer the original names/terms to be used over a set of bad translations. Consistency can certainly be an issue, but a few bad forms should not be allowed to stand in the way if a good English terminology exists, for a subset. Though, the entire set would ideally conform to a consistent form.

One of the common fallacies is to attempt a direct literal word for word translation from Swedish to English which most often produces poor and odd looking results. A better approach is to find the corresponding terminology in English and then transfer the Swedish meaning. What may be hard here is to actually find the existing appropriate terminology in order to apply it. Most often one may find that an exact correspondence might not exist, which in turn may lead to some form of approximation. One obvious example that can be used to illustrate this is the title of the the Swedish head of government:

The literal translation of "Statsminister" may very well be Minister of State, but to use that would be directly misleading. The appropriate translation is instead Prime Minister. (Which, besides specifically being the designation for the first among equals of the British cabinet, also is a generic designation for a head of government in a parliamentary democracy.)

So, let's take a step back and look at some of the examples that you bring up:

The most cumbersome seems to be "Riksänkedrottningens livregemente till häst". Let's see what we get if we employ corresponding terminology rather than literal translation:
- Queen Dowager - has virtually the same meaning as "änkedrottning".
- Horse Guards - is an earlier regiment in the Household Cavalry of the British monarchs
- The Queen Dowager's Horse Guards seems to be a more suited translation than "Guards Regiment to Horse of the Realm Widow Queen"
"Livdrabantkåren" could be translated into the Royal Guards Corps. There is actually a regiment called the Life Guards in the Household Division, but the name seems to give less of a regal, than a Baywatch connotation.
Finding a mauch for "Landsregementet i Norrland" is a bit harder. The question seems to centre on what "Land" pertains to in this context. Is it to the nation of Sweden, or rather to the province of Norrland? One possible form could be the "Norrland Provincial Regiment". An even better choice might be to take the easy way out, and use the alternate name form "Storregemente" as a basis, with the Norrland Grand Regiment.

-- Mic 18:23, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer! I'll see what I can do and return to you in case any more difficult names might appear!

feldgrau 13:16, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:Swedish directors

Kan du ta bort ovanstående kategori? Jag skapade den av misstag.:-( Gunnar Larsson 20:52, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Done. By the way, nice work on Carl Milles, Lars Levi Laestadius, et al. -- Mic 14:48, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:Municipalities of Skåne County

Thanks for changing the name to fit with the convention. The reason all (almost) the municipalities were added to the category is simple: right after I added the category to the template, someone went through all the articles and added langlinks. It seems like they aren't added to the category until the article in question is edited again. [[User:Sverdrup|User:Sverdrup]] 09:55, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The real problem here seems to be that they are added to a template, which has already been posted. My contention was to avoid working the way through all the municipality articles again, but it seems nearly unavoidable unless some new nifty features can be added. Thanks for clearing it out. -- Mic 15:11, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Image on VfD

Please note that images should be placed on Wikipedia:Images for deletion rather than Wikipedia:Votes for deletion. Thanks! -Frazzydee 16:29, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing it out! It has been reposted there. Cheers. -- Mic 16:33, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Urgent

Hi, Mic, do you have time to take a look at the Sång till Skåne VfD listing, by any chance, and, if the spirit moves you, comment there? I realize that you're very busy, but now that a sockpuppet from Skånepartiet has joined in, it's a little urgent. I don't want to write any more in that discussion: there's a lot from me already, and our friends from other countries don't have the background for sorting out whether it's me or the other person that's being weird. I've dropped a note to Fredrik, too. (And boy, am I ever going to get vandalized, but I don't care about that.) Bishonen 20:57, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Posted a comment on vfd. It could be a candidate for Wikisource, which could then be used as an external link in Wikipedia articles. Like in the terribly underdeveloped Culture of Scania. -- 22:27, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Categorization of Swedish municipalities

Why are you categorising the municipalities both as Category:Municipalities of Sweden and Category:Municipalities of XYZ County? Since Category:Municipalities of XYZ County is a sub-cat of Category:Municipalities of Sweden, an article which is a member of Category:Municipalities of XYZ County are implicitly members of Category:Municipalities of Sweden. At least that was how I understood the categorisation gudielines when I studied them a month or so ago. — David Remahl 12:40, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

In more strict terms something ought not to be placed twice in the same hierarcical structure. Obviously this is not the way that the Wikipedia categories works, since it would prohibit an article or category to be placed in more than one category, or as more than one subcategory, at the same time. Central government administation of local authorities as well as secondary municipalities in Sweden are grouped by counties, however categorization by nationality also serves a purpose in comparison with categorization for other countries like Finland and Denmark. Etc. -- Mic 13:21, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Your recently added stubs of Swedish municipalities seems to have some problems. E.g. Skutskär starts with Bålsta is a town.... andy 18:02, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It seems I was a little too quick to hit save. Thanks for pointning it out. Cheers. -- Mic 18:13, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Admin needed

As the first admin I came across who's online at the moment, would you mind speedy deleting the rather nasty homophobic bullying article at Stephen tofler. Various anons keep removing the delete notice. --195.11.216.59 09:25, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Seems to already have been handled by Fuzheado. -- Mic 09:30, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Storhelsingfors, Huvudstadsregionen, dess "samarbetsdelegation" och andra förvirrande benämningar

You might want to reconsider your latest change, of Aug 17th, to the article on Helsinki Metropolitan Area. I do not say that I necessarily had got it right, but I have the impression that the result of your change was disadvantageous.

I put some effort into a topic which, honestly, really didn't interest me very much, and am now disappointed to see my inserted distinctions being removed.

The main problem is, of course, the language barrier. Mainly that between English/Fenglish/Swenglish and Finnish–Finland-Swedish.

A brief repetition of what I concluded by investigating the issue through a personal friend working for the city of Espbo.

There is the conurbation, the Metropolitan area, the continuous town in terms of architechture and general perception. It includes plenty of waters and woods, but that's no different from Stockholm with Djurgården and Ladugårdsdjärde for instance. In an administrative sense, that city is divided in four municipalities. But for English-language readers, the terms town and city are surely to prefer. They cooperate in what is called Huvudstadsregionens sammarbetsdelegation, which is of quite some importance for the daily lifes of the population.
Then there is the Metropolitan region which includes suburbs within commuter distance.
And finally, there is "Storhelsingfors" which is virtually irrelevant, except in statistics, but is almost identical to the Metropolitan region. (The difference can be traced to higher administrative divisions in governmental regions and provinces.)

Now, you moved a list including suburb-municipalities with population densities around 100 inhabitants per square kilometer into the article on the metropolitan area, whose idea briefly is to say that "Helsinki as a captial is a city in the size above the million, not (as can be misinterpreted from data for the municipality of Helsinki) of half that size." This is maybe not ideal.

I guess you have been in Helsinki. Esbo is practically a district (en stadsdel), of Helsinki, or maybe a set of districts, except in the administrative sense. When you go to Esbo, you have no more feeling of moving from one town to another than you have when moving from Söder to Årsta or Gamla Stan in Stockholm.

--Ruhrjung 12:52, 2004 Aug 25 (UTC)

Hello! I realised that alot had happened after that I returned from my summer sabatical from Wikipedia. Among the new creations were a short string of articles covering the various statistical units covering metropolitan areas in Northern Europe. Rather than to leave them free floating an virtually unconnected to other articles my approach was to try to integrate, format and structure them in to coherence with the rest of Wikipedia. This therapy mainly focused on the articles covering Metropolitan Stockholm, Metropolitan Gothenburg and Metropolitan Malmö, but in the process i also touched the entries regarding Helsinki, Copenhagen and Hamburg. This work is nowhere near finished but there but I hope I was able to advance their progress at least a few steps. Regarding Helsinki I believe my efforts there were quite modest, and the result, as you point out, transitional at best.

Regarding the issue as such I was considering how best to approach the problem before work was started. One of the contentions was how to relate the role of the [[Geography of _City_]] articles regarding the various entries relating to the geographical divisions of a city. There is the political entity, the city centre, the conurbation, the metropolitan area, statistical units, regional entities and various ad hoc bodies to relate to. An ideal structure on this might never be finalized, but it ought at least be as transparent as possible to the potential reader. Meaning, feel free to improve and correct on the entries, aiming to improve the information contained in them and their presentation. To me integration between articles is an important issue, and categories can be a good tool in that, but the linking articles the traditional way is still of prime importance. -- Mic 13:41, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

First of all: Thank you for your elaborate answer.

Secondly: Neither I was, or am, very happy with the added articles on Stor-...

Thirdly: The longterm solution might be more or less radical changes to the article on Helsinki, but for now I would be happy with just removing the table from the article on the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, where I believe it to be more confusing than informative, keeping the almost identical table in the article on Huvudstadsregionen. This is, I admit, the equivalent of reverting your change. I hope we don't develop any habit of revert wars! ;-))

OK?

--Ruhrjung 14:45, 2004 Aug 25 (UTC)

Absolutely, go ahead. Cheers! -- Mic 06:27, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Trying to follow some minor fuss on Scania, that so far hasn't reached the level of dispute connected to the naming of ex-German towns in Poland, and on the Talk:Metropolitan Malmö, I noticed in User_talk:Sverdrup#Metropolitan Malmö a reference to Aire urbaine that improved my understanding of English terminology, and at least partly unvalidated my reasoning above. Probably, this is already known to you, but in case it isn't... :-)
--Ruhrjung 10:40, 2004 Aug 27 (UTC)

Thank you, I am now aware. -- Mic 07:27, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

...Can't help to notice that your contributions today have been of the same high class as usual! /Ruhrjung 20:55, 2004 Aug 27 (UTC)

The whole point of what we are doing here is to improve on the current state of affairs. But certainly there are distinctions and it can be nice to know that progress is noticed. However, we should all be aware of that we have limitations and that does certainly not exclude present signatory. -- Mic 07:27, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Svenska tretungade örlogsflaggan

Såg att du fixat en bild på den svensk-norska unionsflaggan. Det var lysande, jag hade länge saknat den. Skulle du dessutom kunna fixa en bild på den tretungade svenska örlogsflaggan så vore det också jättebra. Den fjättrade ankan 16:20, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Rename Johan Jacob Anckarström

Why did you rename Jacob Johan Anckarström into Johan Jacob Anckarström? See Talk:Johan Jacob Anckarström. --Martinl 09:51, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Possibly it was an attempt to adjust to practices used elsewhere, probably also Swedish Wikipedia at the time, but in vain as it may seem. The convention used in Nationalencyclopedin, and currently Swedish Wikipedia, is good enough for me, feel free to change it back. -- Mic 07:27, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! I will. --Martinl 22:07, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Maps&Flags

Hi there, I am using/translating/editing some of your maps for the German Wikipedia. I wonder to which year exactly does the Map of Sweden showing the County borders relate? Is it 1809? Please post you answer here. Thanks, Janneman.

And something else, since you seem to be an expert: I found this Flag of Karelia in the Estonian wiki. Do you happen to know where this comes from or for which historical/political/geographical portion of Karelia it is supposed to be a symbol? Thanks again, Janneman.

The Swedish County maps are all current. Latest change was in 1998 when Västra Götaland was created. There are presently no county maps covering the changes regarding Skåne (1997), Stockholm (1967), Öland (1819) and Norrbotten (1810) and earlier. There are however maps that cover the Provinces (Landskap), which were the administrative entities existing before the Counties (Län) were introduced in 1634.

It would seem that the flag you ask about relates to East Karelia, which declared independence in 1919. Flags of the World is a much better reference than Wikipedia, regarding flags. At least so far. Cheers. -- Mic 07:27, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Province or County in Swedish bios

Hi! As a newcomer Swede on Wikipedia, I started out checking some Swedish references. Looking at Göran Persson, I was surprised to see his place of birth being stated as "Sudermannia" and not "Södermanland country". I assumed this was not the result of an intentional decision and took the liberty of changing it. Later checking the log, however, I see that you've previously changed it in the opposite direction, stating that "Cultural identity is bonded with the historical not the administrative subdivision". Firstly, I want to tell you that it was a newbie mistake of mine not to check the log to see if the phrasing was intentional. But since the change is already made, I want to state my reason for differing.

I think the "place of birth" should be a geographical piece of information and not a cultural one. And as such, I would consider it inappropriate to refer to current administrative divisions such as Katrineholms kommun as a part of a historical region rather than the appropriate greater administrative division it belongs to. To me, it is mainly a tool to make the reader understand where the place is. It is possible to imagine examples were your way of doing it would make it harder for a non-Swede to find a place on a modern-day map (i.e. places in Härjedalen or Dalsland)

Furthermore, while the historical provinces arguably have a big relevance for the self-percieved cultural identity of modern Swedes, that is not the only factor in play. Modern administrative divisions do play a part as well, even though their importance varies. But the fact that Norrbotten has a "provincial" flower and animal seems to further strengthen the implicit claim made by many Luleå inhabitants claiming to be "norrbottningar".

(There are also, I think, more general problems with the term "cultural identity". But I think starting a discussion about them for the sake of this argument probably would be considered overdoing it.)

Again, sorry for changing first and discussing later. Alarm 12:03, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hello! You have a number queries relating to the usage of geographical references and I will try to reply to them briefly. As I'm somewhat uncertain regarding your expression on geographical information I feel that it is unavoidable to start with a short rehash of terminology. When refering to the place of birth in a biography it is rarely a concern for the physical geography, as we are not primarily interested in the composition of the litosphere, the fauna, or similar facts. What we are interested in is a part of the social sciences known as human, or cultural, geography. It can in turn be divided into various subdisciplines such as social, political or economical geography. It is an illusion that geography as a discipline would somehow be separate from human culture.

Relating to Göran Persson, we might be interested that he was born in a small town and not merely that the birth was an event entered to the civic registry of a particular municipality. The town of Vingåker is a tangtiable example of human geography in Sweden. The municipality of Vingåker however is an example of a current administrative entity and as such a special variety in the political geography. The significance of this is that the town of Vingåker exists and will continue to exist independently from the administrative entities that are operating from one time to another.

The roles of the administrative entities are still relevant and highly so for current affairs, politics, etc. In the case of Göran Persson, it is obvious that he was an important politician in the municipality of Katrineholm and a leading Social Democrat in Södermanland County even before he became a government minister and in these cases the proper entities should be referenced. Even if the basic structure of the counties has remained more or less intact since their introduction in 1634 they remain to this day not much more than administrative entities. The provinces preceded the counties and historically they did have a political role, however this is beside the point because their enduring legacy lies in being cultural subdivisions of Sweden.

While cultural geography relates cultural identity on a larger scale it is obviously difficult to apply it in specific cases. There are obvious difficulties in putting a label on the self-perceived identity, cultural or otherwise, on individuals and in the case of the article on Persson and I probably should have phrased it better to avoid any misinterpretation. However, it is indisputable however that the town of Vingåker resides in Sudermannia, and as such that piece of information is more inclusive than merely stating references to municipality and county. However, currently there doesn't exist separate articles for towns and for municipalities named after towns or cities. In many cases this confuses references to geography and in some ways in might be helpful separate them into different articles.

There are few notable exceptions where the role of the provinces as a fundamental geographical reference has been surplanted. The only noteworthy case is that of "Norrbotten", which even if it never had been an historical province came to be considered as a traditional province, during the course of the 20th century. Even if the traditional province of "Norrbotten" takes its name from "Norrbotten County", it refers only to that part of Westrobothnia contained within the county when it was created in 1810, following on the Treaty of Fredrikshamn, and not to the entire county.

I noticed, by the way, that you did some nice work relating to the Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees (TCO) and the Swedish Union of Clerical and Technical Employees in Industry (SIF). Welcome to Wikipedia. -- Mic 07:37, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Swedish universities

Nicely done with the new infobox and the transparent logos for the Swedish universities! I will import these to Swedish WP as well. At some point I will begin articles on the individual faculties in Uppsala and Lund, which have both historic seals (the original four faculties) and modern ones (at least in Uppsala), but they are more difficult to find; I will need to hunt them down in printed versions. (The UU logo here is also scanned from a printed version; the digital version downloadable from the university site has much less detail.) Uppsala University also has a relatively new coat of arms (apart from but derived from the design of the seal) and flag (same as the arms but different shape) which should be shown somewhere in the article. Please look at my articles on Uppsala University Library, Scholarly and Scientific societies at Uppsala University and Student life at Uppsala university, which all need more work but are intended for eventual translation to English.//Tupsharru 09:17, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Nice work relating to Uppsala University and also relating to the previous versions of the infoboxes. What I wanted to achieve by introducing changes was primarily a standardization of the infoboxes. Implementation by template not only assured that but also enables to make editing easier. The new layout, based on that used by Harvard University and the other Ivy League schools, also demanded the logos to be transparent. The newly uploaded images are in four cases based on the versions that you uploaded, after having been made transparent and saved in a lossless format. You are possibly aware that saving a logo in a lossless format such as PNG creates smaller files and does not cause degeneration in image quality. Lossy formats such as JPEG are good for photographs, but for logos lossless formats better to use. WikiProject Universities is still under development and is only used for testing, but it can give some lead regarding how to organize the structure of a university article as it grows.

The infobox is simple to implement and its not necessary to have all the facts and figures if it is posted to as stub, but there should be some form of structure between articles like University Colleges and Schools that are part of universities and for faculties as you refer to. Is it possible to adapt the infobox template to accomodate all the possible variations or should they each have their own template. -- Mic 10:53, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree that this template is nicer, but I wasn't sure how to make transparent logos. I think it would be nice to use a similar looking infobox for libraries, faculties/schools (insofar as they get articles), and perhaps the student nations of Uppsala and Lund. Something similar enough to the university infobox to connect the institutions visually but still different in order not to confuse these subordinate institutions with the universities themselves. Perhaps partly navigation box with the university logo in small size and the other articles in the series at the base of the box. Any thoughts on this?//Tupsharru 12:21, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's a good idea and I would like to assist in that process. I'm sorry for the tardy answer to your question. ;) -- Mic 19:33, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've been doing some preliminary sketches for infoboxes (based on the university box) which you can see on my Swedish sketch page[1], but I'm not really satisfied with anything yet. //Tupsharru 20:02, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I would like to do some more structural work on the basic box. The intention is not to change the layout, but rather to achieve a higher level of technical control. If we have boxes in sub articles I think there should be both a reference to the university, and some distinguishing feature to separate it from the university infobox. I like the use of the logo and the coloring, and I think it could work as a distinguishing mark at the top of the box. Faculties and parts of the university could be separated from student organizations by different colouring. -- Mic 18:49, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm not very good at this box/table editing; I'm going about it according to a trial and error-method (mostly error, but the worst versions don't usually get saved), copying bits of code from other places just to see what happens with various changes.

The red color is the official graphic identity color for UU. Perhaps an infobox with the seal and as strong coloring as I have now given them should be reserved for university units, with nations and student organizations having perhaps only the color as a border around the box. It would also be nice if the university library could have an infobox according to a particular library model, but with elements of the university graphic style incorporated. (One could then make similar infoboxes for research libraries without a university connection, such as the Royal Library. I suppose these may also be useable for non-Swedish institutions, if they find general acceptance.)

Lund University (graphic identity pages) uses a certain blue (PMS 280) in print and a darker blue on the web, with a light brown or bronze color (they call it "lejonbrons") (PMS 1395) for the seal and sometimes just as a contrast color; in the equivalent infoboxes for Lund, the Uppsala colors should be exchanged accordingly.//Tupsharru 08:55, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

While I think it's commendable to retrieve this kind of information, I'm afraid that this will perhaps not take place universally for all universities. From a systematic point of view I would think it better to maybe have one type of coloring for faculties, one for departments, one for research libraries and so on to easily identify the type of article to the reader. Though coloring particular for the invividual university might be integrated somehow as well. Are you aware that there is a Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities? The project seems kind of slow moving, but if and when it will be launched, the template developed there will probably take presedence. There are different ways to approach this, one way might be to do some developing on the side and later bring those ideas into the project, another way may be to launch ideas in the project as such. -- Mic 13:29, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

AstraZeneca plc

Hi Mic, I explained why I made the changes on the talk page of the article. Can you tell me what is wrong with using the legal name of the company as the title of the article? There may be some case for using AstraZeneca, but having a space in the company name is clearly wrong. Can you respond on the article talk page, please. Cheers [[User:Noisy|Noisy | Talk]] 08:30, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Check out Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions#Public_limited_companies. ed g2s • talk 22:16, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hi. I notice you have just Category:Skanska. Does a company really deserve its own category? Even the article only has a few paragraphs. DJ Clayworth 18:38, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Someone felt obliged to create an article for Göinge Mekaniska, omitted to mention that it a subsidiary of Skanska, and categorized into Category:Companies of Sweden. As you might have noticed, the minor Swedish companies that have articles are not yet classified. The main reason for this is the extra ordinary corporate structure regarding differences in company size in Sweden. There is a relatively high share of transnational corporations based or owned in Sweden comparative to the size of its population. However there are extremely few midsize companies leading to a corporate structure formed more like a champagne glass rather than a pyramid, which would be the normal case. Because of this the differences between large companies and minor companies is particularly great. It could be the case regarding to categorization that this might best be solved by creating a separate category for minor companies, but before this is evaluated Göinge Mekaniska would not have properly belonged to the main category. The intention was to solve this, at least temporarily, without delisting that particular article from completely from categorization. However, it would seem that you caught the window of opportunity between creation and recategorization, leading to this long an elaborate answer to a very simple question. -- Mic 19:19, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Swedish cities

Well, I guess as it stands now it works. But it looks like you are the expert, so you should make the call. Maybe as the articles about the actual cities become bigger they should be split and then incorporated in the category. [[User:Yardcock|Yardcock | talk]] 21:42, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Arms for Norrbotten province

There are arms designed for Norrbotten by the state herald's office and registered with the Swedish Patent Office in 1995. Please see the heraldry pages on the National Archives site. I hope this link works:[2] Otherwise just go through http://www.ra.se and follow the link to "statens heraldiska verksamhet" and then to the heraldic register.//Tupsharru 20:12, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The fact that there is a coat of arms promoted by the Norrbotten County Administrative Board is not new, the question is rather if it has any significance. The coats of arms of the Swedish provinces are significant because they have a history and because they are components in the coats of arms for the counties. This has neither. More information availiable at Flags of the World. -- 18:47, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Need your help

Hey Mic. You look like a competent and experienced guy here. Since you have once edited Regions of Ukraine, may I ask you for help with templates and redirects there? As a native Ukrainian, I find the existing system of naming regional articles (such as Cherkasy) both confusing and offensive. For explanation of my point, see Subdivision of Ukraine. E.g. the city of Cherkasy is a capital for Cherkas'ka oblast' (or Cherkasy oblast') but definitely not for itself. So I decided to rename articles for each region according to their official (Ukrainian) names and also edit other confusing geographic stuff. What I'm asking you for, is to change the existing "Regions of Ukraine" template according to the actual above-mentioned scheme. It seems to be the starting point of that reform. But I'm incompetent in such Wiki stuff. Thank you, AlexPU

It is possible to see what pages links to an article by using the "What links here" funtion. Open "What links here" for the article in question and you will see how the article is linked, including any "Templates" used on the page itself. -- Mic 13:29, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Oscar Levertin

Hi there, Mic. I'm writing an article about poet and critic Oscar Levertin (1862 - 1906), a kind of Verner von Heidenstam figure except that, dying early, he never got into the Swedish Academy and all that kind of thing. He's pretty much forgotten, I guess, but I kind of like him, and there's a lot of good stuff in Nordisk Familjebok 2nd ed. that I can use, so no problem there. But I've started to worry about the form of the name in the article title. See, Nordisk Familjebok calls him "Oskar Evert Levertin", which seems excessive, don't you think? I mean, it's not like anybody ever uses the "Evert" in referring to him, it's not like for instance "Erik Axel Karlfeldt". Also, how about the Oscar — Oskar? I always thought it was Oscar, myself, but I'm far from sure. I've started to create redirects for some of the name forms, before even pasting my draft article at any of them, but it strikes me that I should stop, and consult you, before I go ahead and create something irrevocable. At least, before I embarrass myself by creating a page I'll need to ask an admin to delete. Do you have any general middle name/spelling principles that you go with, Mic? Or any opinion about this particular Oscar? Bishonen 16:49, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Regarding format, one name is enough, unless he actually both like Erik Axel Karlfelt. If you are unsure of the spelling make a choice and if you should find out later that another spelling was used, change it and move the article. It is not a problem to have a few redirects to an article, it might make it easier to find the article. However creatinga an abundance of redirects for an article, especially if it would be a minor one, would necessitate some to be deleted. An important feature is to categorize an article, it makes it alot easier to find. Personally I think that categories work better than lists, because lists require constant updating while categories more or less run them selves. -- Mic 13:29, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, Mic. I looked around a little, and decided to go with the "August Strindberg"/"August Johan Strindberg" type principle for the middle name, because it seems to be the usual thing: i. e., as you may have seen, I used "Oscar Levertin" for the title, but "Oscar Evert Levertin" for the first bolded mention in the text. And I've gone with the spelling "Oscar", since it's what LIBRIS has in the bibliographic descriptions of the first editions. Hadn't thought of looking there, but of course it has to weigh more than the Owl spelling him "Oskar". (I hadn't seen the {{owl}} template before, that's very cute. :-))

You know something else, though? That "August Johan Strindberg" at the head of August Strindberg, that's just wrong. Checking ... yes, Swedish Wikipedia, the Owl edition, and Encyclopedia Britannica all concur: it should be "Johan August Strindberg". I'm going to change that right now. Btw, do you happen to know if there's some special reason we don't have a picture of Strindberg? Swedish Wikipedia does, and those photos Strindberg took of himself have to be public domain with bells on, I would have thought. Maybe I'll look into it. Anyway, thanks for your help, Mic, see you around. Bishonen 15:00, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Svenskt biografiskt lexikon (vol. 22, p. 644) calls him Oscar Ivar Levertin, and that has very likely been checked with various original sources.//Tupsharru 15:26, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Translation of "ort"

Hi, Mic. What's the best translation for "(tät)ort"? Population centre? (this seems wrong) Fredrik | talk 21:02, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hi Fredrik. I know, it's difficult. The problem seems to center upon the fact that a term like "city" also entails a separate administration, but as you are aware that is not the case in Sweden. Within one municipality there may be several "tätorter" of different sizes and the one where the municipal administration is situated does not have a separate status as such. It is merely common that the largest "tätort" within a municipality also becomes the "municipal centre". In Wikipedia articles it is currently more or less impossible to separate a municipality and the "tätort" after which it is named, and on top of that there is the terminology confusion! Until 1971 the concept of "stad" was used, and I believe that all those "tätorter" which had recieved charters before 1971 should be called "cities". Any "tätort" in Sweden not fulfilling that requirement is most likely smaller in size a because of that de designation "town" seems appropriate. "Tätort" is a statistical measure and I imagine that there should be some limit to how small a town could be, where the next steps in the hierarcy downwards are "hamlet" and "village". The only caveat is that a handfull of quite small places like Torshälla would be called a cities by virtue of their charter and despite their size, but I think it is possible to live with that and offer an explanation to these cases. For the Swedish terminology "Köping" there is an equivalent found in "Market town" and where applicable that could be used. The List of cities in Sweden includes "Städer" with the year of their charter, but I have not been able to find a comprehensive list of "Köpingar". Btw, "municipal centre" a euphemism for "centralort" (kommun) that I have been using. Let me know if you have a better suggestion. Cheers. -- Mic 21:46, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I did create a series of articles for a number of municipal centres that are differently named than the municipalities they belong to and the style used was similar to that of this example: Nossebro. Whether municipal centres or municipal seats ought to be used is probably a question of what needs to be empasized. Just "centre" is probably more akin to "centralort", while seat describes it as a centre for the political administration, and these are not necessarily the same thing. -- Mic 07:02, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)