Talk:Belgium/Archive 3

Candidates for Monarchy

I wonder if my belief that Daniel O'Connell of Ireland, the Catholic Emancipator, was a candidate, along with Leopold, for king, is true? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 166.68.134.175 (talk) 16:42, 8 February 2007 (UTC).

No, the first choice to become King of the Belgians was the Duke of Nemours, a son of King Louis-Phillipe of France. But under international pressure he had to decline. -- fdewaele, 8 February 2007, 19:20.

Location maps available for infoboxes of European countries

On the WikiProject Countries talk page, the section Location Maps for European countries had shown new maps created by David Liuzzo, that are available for the countries of the European continent, and for countries of the European Union exist in two versions. From November 16, 2006 till January 31, 2007, a poll had tried to find a consensus for usage of 'old' or of which and where 'new' version maps. Please note that since January 1, 2007 all new maps became updated by David Liuzzo (including a world locator, enlarged cut-out for small countries) and as of February 4, 2007 the restricted licence that had jeopardized their availability on Wikimedia Commons, became more free. At its closing, 25 people had spoken in favor of either of the two presented usages of new versions but neither version had reached a consensus (12 and 13), and 18 had preferred old maps.
As this outcome cannot justify reverting of new maps that had become used for some countries, seconds before February 5, 2007 a survey started that will be closed soon at February 20, 2007 23:59:59. It should establish two things:

• whether the new style maps may be applied as soon as some might become available for countries outside the European continent (or such to depend on future discussions),
• which new version (with of without indicating the entire European Union by a separate shade) should be applied for which countries.

Please read the discussion (also in other sections α, β, γ, δ, ε, ζ, η, θ) and in particular the arguments offered by the forementioned poll, while realizing some comments to have been made prior to updating the maps, and all prior to modifying the licences, before carefully reading the presentation of the currently open survey. You are invited to only then finally make up your mind and vote for only one option.
There mustnot be 'oppose' votes; if none of the options would be appreciated, you could vote for the option you might with some effort find least difficult to live with - rather like elections only allowing to vote for one of several candidates. Obviously, you are most welcome to leave a brief argumentation with your vote. Kind regards. — SomeHuman 19 Feb2007 00:42 (UTC)

Category:Germanic culture

Belgium has been add to the new Category:Germanic culture by an editor. Please discuss this to ascertain whether this is appropriate or not - and act accordingly.-- Zleitzen^(talk) 13:40, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

A majority of Belgians speak Dutch (mainly in the Northern part of the country, i.e. Flanders), which is a German Language. Furthermore, in East Belgium, near of the German border, you will find the German-speaking Community of Belgium, which covers a territory where the main language is German (or German dialects). This representents about 70,000 German-speaking Belgians. In historic times, one of the main components of what is today Belgium was the Bishopric of Liège which belonged to the Holy Roman Empire although most of its territory was occupied by people who spoke Walloon or French. I think this should be enough to ascertain some links between Belgium and the Germanic culture. Finally, Belgium is actually at the crossroads of the Germanic and Roman worlds. --Lebob-BE 14:43, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Besides in category 'Germanic Europe', Belgium is also in the categories 'Latin Europe and 'La Francophonie', a modern cultural movement linked to the French-language, and in the category 'Nederlandse Taalunie', which has no cultural aspirations other than the language itself. — SomeHuman 19 Feb2007 16:10-16:26 (UTC)

German legend to locator map

The legend now in the caption of the locator map is primarily German (with an English translation). Do you think guys think that is acceptable for your country on English Wiki? Arnoutf 21:38, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I just found out that the same also applies to France. Apparently these maps have been created in German and need a translation in the local official language(s) with an English translation or, alternatively, need to be written in English only (which would probably be preferable as far Belgium is concerned, since there are 3 official languages in Belgium). --Lebob-BE 22:26, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

The Liuzzo maps have no language at all; the single 'legend' image that serves all maps was created by the same David Liuzzo who mainly works at the German-language Wikipedia. Neither the maps nor the bilingual German & English legend are on the English Wikipedia, they're at the international Wikimedia Commons. The legend had been presented at the WikiProject Countries where the maps were extremely thoroughly discussed, but no-one paid attention to the legend... Someone created a map caption text on nearly all the articles (at least the EU members) and properly linked to the bilingual legend. Meanwhile I rephrased the caption text and simply maintained the link to the legend. The best thing to do is to create a similar legend image and upload it to Commons by a different name, and then we simply change the name underneath the link in the articles. I'm afraid I'm not well equipped for graphical output and it would take me too long a time, but I'll be glad to change the links if one notifies me on my talk page that a better legend is uploaded (don't forget to license it so as to be acceptable). Please refrain from putting a comment about this in every article, it should be solved quickly without controversy for all articles as it requires only one image. Kind regards. — SomeHuman 24 Feb2007 00:35 (UTC)

Follow-up: It turns out that the English-language legend could easily enough be produced with my limited equipment. It's in use since several weeks. — SomeHuman 20 Mar2007 05:26 (UTC)

Obsolete coat of arms in the infobox

The infobox shows the obsolete coat of arms of Belgium decorated with the arms of the 9 (nine) Belgian provinces, the middle one on top being that of the Province of Brabant which ceased to exist on December 31, 1994. The picture being obsolete is not surprising: it's copyright notice mentions its author to be deceased more than 70 years ago... This needs quickly to be replaced with a version showing the 10 provinces (including Walloon Brabant and Flemish Brabant) if such exists (as the capital region is not part of a province) or no province —or no image— at all. — SomeHuman 20 Mar2007 05:21 (UTC)

Actually, that still is the coat of arms of Belgium... although the province of Brabant was indeed split in two in 1994, forming the provinces of Flemish Brabant and Walloon Brabant, the coat of arms was never adapted to the fact that Belgium now has 10 provinces in stead of nine... thus the pre 10 provinces coat is still the official coat of arms of Belgium. -- fdewaele, 27 March 2007, 14:10.

Redundant and misleading information

English speaking people who want to know the French or German names of a Flemish town or the Dutch name of a Walloon one should simply use a dictionary!

And please note that Dutch, French and German are not official languages in Belgium, as foreigners tend to think, but each is the sole official language in its own state, with only tine Brussels (161 km²) bilingual. So there is no difference with the UK and Italy: Portuguese is not an official language in the UK and French is not an official language in most of Belgium! Antwerp is not called Anvers, and Namur is not called Namen, anymore than Paris is called Parigi and London Londres.

People should stop thinking in terms of "official languages of Belgium" as there is an official language in, say, Spain. The situation is completely different. Derek Christopher Manderfeld

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.198.160.158 (talk) 12:52, 27 March 2007 (UTC).

As far I know, this article is about Belgium and, unless I would have missed some recent changes, French and Dutch are still official languages in Belgium (and German as well, by the way). So, I really don't see why this makes a problem to give both names. There is a big difference with the examples you have provided: Portuguese is not an official language in the United Kingdom not Italian in France. It might well interess a English speaking reader to know how Antwerp is called in French and how Liège is called in Dutch and German (maybe I should add the German translation as well, when there is one available).--Lebob-BE 14:57, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I think that most articles on Flemish municipalities do state that the French name is not an official name any more (although until very recently they were, and if I recall correctly there's still one municipality in Flanders with a French-speaking majority that ignores the fact that the French translation is no longer official). I don't know about the Walloon Region, but I think that the Dutch names there are still official (meaning there's an official list of translations) although they're probably only used in the municipalities with linguistic facilities, if they're used at all. And the municipalities of the German-speaking Community have two equally-valid names if I'm not mistaken.

There is also the fact that members of all three linguistic communities refer to certain municipalities with another name than the official one. For instance, most Francophones will refer to Leuven as Louvain, and most Dutch-speaking and German-speaking persons will refer to Liège as, respectively, Luik and Lüttich. I believe that those names should be included as they are used by a large part of the Belgian population and because they're in one of Belgium's official languages.--Ganchelkas 16:04, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I think this is the English Wikipedia and that therefore all the city names should be written in English only. It happened by the way that English names are closer to the French ones but there are exceptions like Ghent or Brussels for example. 09:53, 28 March 2007 (UTC) Vb

I agree with Vb on this matter: if every occurance of Antwerp should mention that name in four languages (English and 3 official languages of Belgium)... Even the here relevant English and Dutch would make sentences unreadable when naming four or five cities separated with commas. The names in English are linked to their article, that's where one finds the relevant alternatives. Only in a context where the name in a particular language for instance helps to understand a derived name of some institution, one could have an exception. — SomeHuman 25 May2007 08:27 (UTC)

A Misleading Article

Obviously, this website [1] should be taken into account.

You're absolutely serious? Belgium exists as much as The United States of America exists. Sneakernets 01:58, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Redundant information and incorrect (or unnecessary) translations

The great majority of Wikipedia entries on Belgian cities, provinces, rivers etc suffer from two great ills.

• Redundant information: most irritatingly, some busybodies like to add the French, German, Spanish or even Italian names of Belgian places, just because those names exist.

This is against normal Wikipedia standards. The English Wikipedia entries on London and Paris should not mention the French name for London and the Italian name for Paris. To an Englishman seeking information about the city, this is not relevant. In articles on Belgian places, it can even be downright misinforming: adding the French name for Gent or the Dutch name for Namur could lead people to think that both places are bilingual. Or that German is an official language there.

Only the 19 boroughs of Brussels (and every street, museum or church within them) are bilingual and should therefore always be referred to by both names. Ironically, precisely those places are now always referred to only in French!

• Hypertranslations: that is, translating what cannot and/or should not be translated. In many articles on Flemish cities, for instance, the name 'Grote Markt' is translated as 'central market square' or something similar. It would be very good to add that description, but people will really need the Dutch name 'Grote Markt' to find that precise place in towns like Sint-Niklaas. Sometimes the term "Grand'Place" is used for that Flemish town! Imagine a poor American looking for information on the Grand'Place in Sint-Niklaas, or even Saint-Nicholas.

More disturbing is the English translations of Flemish (and Dutch) provinces: Americans have heard of Flanders, but not of Oost-Vlaanderen and Vlaams-Brabant. As a consequence, there is no English name for them, and that is wonderful: no need to change names, no problems of confusion. Alas, contributors to Wikipedia have decided to make up their own translations and force-feed them on the British and Americans: "Flemish Brabant" (though not "Walloon Brabant", amazingly), East Flanders and South Holland!

This only adds up to confusion, as it makes it necessary to explain that East Flanders is located in the western half of Flanders, and South Holland is in the middle of the Netherlands! To use the real names only would avoid such confusion.

Both the redundant information and the hypertranslations were blatantly against Wikipedia standards last time I checked.

Derek Christopher Manderfeld 84.198.160.158 08:21, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

What is also against Wikipedia standards is to change what you have written on a discussion page after an answer had been given to what you had written first. Please answer the point instead. Moreover, this page is over Belgium, not Belgian cities. The last time I checked, Belgium was still a country with 3 official languages. Otherwise, please explain why any law published in the official gazette (Belgisch Staatsblad - Moniteur Belge) need to be published in the 3 languages (although one could discuss for the German language since it doesn't happen much in pratice. If you think that changes need to happen on the Flemish cities, please proceed. And please register as a Wikipedia contributor first. --Lebob-BE 10:19, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Demographics of Brussels

I dispute the edits of the anon editor and reverted them. (He reverted mine earlier on) First of all, there are no reliable numbers about language groups, simply because there is not an official count. Depending on the method used: surveys, language school attendance, voting behaviour, whether ot not one includes fluent speakers or basic knowledge, whether or not to include bilingual (when is one bilingual?), etc. different results are achieved one gets different results. The lowest estimate is that about 30-35% of the population of Brussels speaks natively/fluently French (according to this view: due to the recent influx of immigrants (56.5% of the population is of foreign origin), most people in Brussel do not natively speak the language and lack fluency), the highest 95%. According to the highest estimate 20% of the Brussels population speaks Dutch, according to the lowest less than 5%. I think that following one view, especially in the lead, is OR (synthesis of information to support a position) and POV. Furthermore, no reliable studies (if any exist, considering the ebove mentioned difficulties) were cited, which violates WP:V (not WP:CITE, my apoligy for the wrong mentioned guideline in the edit history commentary). Therefore I think we should stick to the facts: (1) there are considerable more French speakers in Brussels than Dutch speakers, and (2) due to the immigration, both languages become relatively less spoken. Sijo Ripa 13:20, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

• I agree with your point of view. However making of Brussels a multiethnic city is also POV. I must be clearly stated that the current language in Brussels is neither Dutch nor English but French. 81.209.227.178 09:49, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
  • (1) Brussels is a multi-ethnic city. First of all, there are the francophone citizens (of Belgian origin) and Flemings. Secondly, there are people from a foreign origin (Morocco, Turkey, Congo, ...). These groups all have a different ethnicity. (2) Brussels is officially bilingual. I don't object to the fact that it is mentioned or emphasized that the most spoken language in Brussels is French, but Brussels is nevertheless bilingual: Dutch speaking representation in government, Dutch speaking representation in parliament, Dutch language schools, bilingual road signs, etc. (3) Due to the immigration waves relatively seen fewer and fewer people speak French (or Dutch) at home or in their ethnic community (e.g., Turks speak Turkish in their Turkish community). This is a fact and isn't is any way used to say that French isn't the most spoken language in Brussels. However, in contrast to either Flanders or Wallonia the percentage of people of foreign descent is much higher in Brussels, and if the linguistic situation is mentioned, this should be added. Sijo Ripa 11:53, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
    • I checked the edit history, and I can agree with your edits. Sijo Ripa 11:57, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

In the course of all edits, the lead was shortened so that the relevant North/South indications were left out, as well as accurate numbers of inhabitants [also relevant to compare references and percentages]. Also twice mentioning of French: "It has two main languages: ca. 60% of its population , mainly in the region Flanders, speak Dutch (while Belgians often refer to it as Flemish), while French is spoken by ca. 35-40%. The inhabitants of the southern region Wallonia speak French." makes it look as if 35-40% of the inhabitants of Flanders and all the inhabitants of Wallonia would speak French. The "Less than 1% speak German in the German-speaking Community" was not a very convincing improvement of style either. I mainly restored the precise version which notes the usage of Belgium's official languages, instead of mixing such with figures of usage of these languages as inhabitant's primary languages. As this was not clearly stated in the much earlier version, I explicitly mentioned the difference in particular for the capital region (where it is most relevant). I also incorporated the references (that had apparently been borrowed from the capital region's article) and added a few more references; the phrase about the German-speaking Community (in the old version was said 1% 'lived in' it, which is not quite correct as within the geographical boundaries of the linguistic community there also live a number of French-speaking inhabitants) was rephrased as 1% being 'part of' this Community. — SomeHuman 02 May2007 03:44 (UTC)

French remains the primary language of Brussels:, but to what extent is unknown. If one starts adding percentages or numbers, other will follow, as the estimates vary wildly. This should not become a page cluttered with a comparison of studies and estimations. We can just stick to it that French is the most spoken language in Brussels, that an unknown minoty speaks Dutch and that immigrants speak other languages (which aren't surveyed, so impossible to know what % speaks what immigrant language). Sijo Ripa 06:49, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Figures do not at all vary wildly in the high number of proper sources, several of which are new. Just read them, but do such with care:

• 'Brussels' or 'the capital' might mean the City of Brussels (1 municipality) or the Brussels-Capital Region (19 municipalities), or in some cases even the metropolitan urban area (about twice the Region), and unfortunately it is not always clearly stated.
• The figures in my (months old, day before yesterday's and today's) version [though each of my versions got some improvements and especially more and even better references supporting it] are quite accurate and undisputed: these are figures that are wellknown for the language one can safely assume to be the official Belgian language people prefer to speak (badly or fluently, standard language or kind of a dialect), regardless their primary language: English, Turkish, Moroccan, ... do not play in the article for Flanders or for Wallonia, so it should not play for Brussels either. And such is correct and expected, as the non-Belgian languages do not play a part in the general culture, politics, economy, etc of Belgium [though English does play a part in culture and economy]. Indeed there probably are no very accurate estimates for primary languages of immigrants (numbers for nationalities are known but in particular an undoubtedly significant (several percent of the total population) but unpublished number of Belgian nationals are born to immigrants and may speak the foreign language as their primary language (but often not well enough to be a valuable asset to them outside their family and they will speak the local language e.g. at school or when already a bit older at work). That is precisely why the absurd 35-40% of French-speakers in Belgium was way off: the "reference", actually just a comment by a contributor, said this depended on 50% or 100% of the Brussels' residents being speakers of French; not a single serious source pretends Brussels to have more than 90% and no source at all more than 95% of French speakers (and the latter figure probably includes not only foreign immigrants but also Flemish people who are able to use and regularly have to use French in Brussels); not a single source pretends only 50% of the people to be able to speak and to regularly speak some French in Brussels either, that figure might only correspond to the number of residents in Brussels who speak French as their primary language - irrelevant as this is not considered for other regions though there too a most considerable number (lower percentage but on a much more numerous population) speaks a non-Belgian primary language.

Several other characteristics make 'my' version superior to the one you reverted to, for instance style and clarity (see my comment of 2 May here above); consistency: not starting with bordering countries with the Southwesternmost country (a Romance language country), then jumping past the North Sea to 2 Germanic language countries, finally 1 Romance language country again: The one and only normal way of summoning bordering countries (perhaps with an exception in some specific geographical circumstances such as starting at a large water surface), is starting at 12 o'clock and clockwise. In the Belgian case this is all the more obvious since the North Sea is the border in the Northweast, thus the first country clockwise, the Netherlands, is at 12 o'clock and ends with France to the East of the sea. It also creates the logical order of both northernly Germanic countries and then both southernly Romance language countries - which suits the second paragraph. But most of all, all statements are very well referenced, no weaselry or in this case perhaps an attempt to discredit a source like another "reference" in your version in which the contributor wrote "According to some sources ..." and a link to just one source without even mentioning what kind of source this was (I had actually made a proper reference to that linked source, now once again, because it happens to be a proper source).

— SomeHuman 04 May2007 02:01 (UTC)

PS: User:Dionysos1's edit with comment 'german is also a language of the walloon region, not "all" speak french + rephrased one sentence', would not have been provoked had you not reverted, though I appreciate his "Germanic and Latin Europe" instead of (in whichever order) "Germanic and Romance Europe" with his new links. — SomeHuman 04 May2007 03:22 (UTC)

I think the version of SomeHuman is not good. Only rough estimations should belong to the lead! Why because they are stable! Exact numbers must be changed at least each year. Even the number of Belgians is difficult to estimate with exactitude. People intersted in exact numbers have to look in the demographics section where each number must be referered with an clear reference (if possible official).—Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.175.245.180 (talk • contribs) 06:50, 4 May 2007

SomeHuman, I'm certain that you edit in good faith, but could you refrain from reverting the text before some consensus has been achieved? The numbers are disputed as can be seen by the numerous other estimates and studies, and three users' comments (including mine). The problem is also that every study receives criticism, especially surveys. The best thing to do would be to create a page "Demography of Brussels" which can deal (among others) with the contradicting ways of measuring and their different results and the criticism. I however think that a lead of a country page is not the place for such discussion and comparison for one city. I think we should stick to the certainties, especially in a lead. Your argument about Flanders and Wallonia is only partially valid: both Flanders' and Wallonia's have about 5-10% of their population which is of foreign origin. As a consequence the impact on the language statistics is much less relevant than when you have a city with 56.5% of people from foreign origin. Moreover, at least several newspaper articles exist which discuss the impact of this fact on the language situation in Brussels. In Flanders and Wallonia I have never read such articles, and if such situation would nevertheless exist it would only apply to some cities, not to the whole of Flanders or Wallonia. Nevertheless, I do not object to mentioning in some way that Dutch/French is language spoken by "almost-all" inhabitants of Flander/Wallonia, instead of "all". PS: I don't really know what the Germanic-Romance thing goes about, so I won't participate in that discussion. Sijo Ripa 09:10, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I can't possibly agree with anon's comment that only rough estimations belong in a lead. They are not stable at all for the simple reason that contributors will constantly challenge them, which is easy because sources will be found that give more precise figures. Especially about a country where all too many try to exaggerate/underestimate figures according to personal preferences.

It is however too tedious reading when all relevant figures are in the lead. Only the percentages of the population per region belong there (including indeed very well referenced percentages of French/Dutch balance as the preferred Belgian language for out-of-family communication in Brussels), though as German is the third official language in Belgium, the number of inhabitants of the German-speaking Community needs to be mentioned as well. The former (less than) "1%" however, exaggerated the real figure (73,000) and I think this figure of a medium-sized city is more informative than a percentage of a country's population. There are probably few countries where 73,000 people have their own Minister-President and parliament, this says something about Belgium's sensitivities.

Hence more detailed information on usage of languages, inhabitants of foreign descent, etc, belong indeed in the Demographics section, of this 'Belgium' article: Brussels just happens to be the capital of the country and its demographical data are a constant major issue on national politics (at federal and regional levels) - without Brussels (inside Dutch-speaking Flanders but itself very dominantly French-speaking), nationalist ideas (a few decades ago nationalist and rattachist movements in Wallonia, more recently nationalist politics in Flanders) would have caused Belgium not to have existed any more; but neither culture on each side of the language border can or will afford to lose it and none can solely claim it either. Also, Brussels is for nearly all foreign visitors the first and often the only Belgian city they get to know. It is thus not acceptable to store the data about the capital away into a separate article.

Rather than discussions here, indeed preferrable above 'finding a consensus', is a search for very decent references that have a reputation or authority regarding the subject they reference. I have been doing so since a week and I assume very few statements in the lead or in the Demographics section can now still be honestly disputed.

— SomeHuman 09 May2007 03:43 (UTC)

I strongly object to the sentence "Another 10% inhabits the officially bilingual Brussels-Capital Region, for approximately 85% using French." as it doesn't specify the French language "use". I doubt that as many as 85% use the language at home or in their community (such a figure would indeed be contested by recent research) or can speak it fluently. So the sentence should at least specify the circumstances in which French is used. Furthermore, I still don't think that the lead should be cluttered with discussion about Brussels... I don't say it's cluttered now, but it will be if other views will be added to nuance the current version. Sijo Ripa 15:29, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

FARC

The article is now featured article removal candidate. Could someone do something to prevent this! Vb 10:29, 9 May 2007 (UTC)~

User:Victor12 introduced a large number of fact-tags in the culture section, which indeed is underreferenced. One should however, not go as far as suggesting WP:POINT; some statements mustnot be referenced within this section.

• It is generally impossible to find references stating that something does not exist. The statement saying that "there are no bilingual universities, except the royal military academy, no common media, and no single, common large cultural or scientific organisation where both main communities are represented", can probably not be referenced but does not need it because it is very simply disproven by naming one bilingual university, one common TV or radio station, one common magazine, one common scientific organisation. Not being able to find one demonstrates the correctness of the statement far more convincingly than putting in some reference: references could still be wrong.
• Wikipedia guidelines do not allow to simply rely on linked Wikipedia articles as if such were proper references. On the other hand, if one has to put references in an article on Belgium to prove that Adolphe Sax invented the saxophone, each article will have to drag 500 references and 200 kilobytes along. If an article on Adolphe Sax exists, it will state he invented the musical instrument named after him because that is precisely what made the man notable enough to have an article at all. In such case the reference must be in his article and other articles linking to A. Sax may rely on that. Else every article that mentions about France "In its capital Paris" must immediately have a reference proving that Paris is the capital of France.

I do not have the time right now, to eliminate further ridiculous requests for references. I assume there are more. Better concentrate on referencing the many statements that either require a reference or have to be rephrased: in general the 'culture' section appears to have been written with a bit of overzealous enthousiasm... — SomeHuman 10 May2007 05:08 (UTC)

You're right, I may have gone overboard with fact tagging but even so the Culture section still needs some major editing. I'll try to point out my observations in detail:

• This sentence: The shared element is less important, because there are no bilingual universities... might be better merged with the preceding one and they could share references as the first one (culture concentrates in each communities) is closely related to the second one (lack of shared cultural elements).
• Belgium is well-known for its fine art and architecture. This looks as POV, so unless referenced it should probably be removed
• The Mosan art, the Early Netherlandish,[52] the Flemish Renaissance and Baroque painting,[53] and major examples of Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architecture, and the Renaissance vocal music of the Franco-Flemish School developed in the southern part of the Low Countries, are milestones in the history of art This needs to be rewritten for clarity
• Famous names in this classic tradition, why classic? As in Greco-roman classic?
• rich artistic production, check Wikipedia:Avoid peacock terms
• However, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, many original artists appeared, original? This sentence would be better of merged with the following one
• Belgium has a thriving contemporary art scene Without a reference this looks like POV

...major non-official holiday is the Saint Nicholas Day, which commemorates the festival of the children and, in Liège, of the students., needs a reference

• Even though I'm a tennis fan, I don't think it is important to mention Clijsters retirement in this article
• Belgians have a reputation for loving waffles and French fried potatoes (both originate from Belgium). needs a reference for the origin claim

That's it for now. Greetings, --Victor12 13:04, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

It says This rich artistic production, referring to the preceding list. Unless you can find someone not agreeing with such being quite 'rich', it is not a peacock term. I added Clijsters ending her career because the phrase mentions "current female tennis champions": she still is a champion though she just decided no longer to keep playing; after some time she will by no means be a 'current' champion and as it only then should become rephrased accordingly anyway, the actuality-clause is not only accurate but also appropriate for now. I removed some more of the (here above not mentioned) overzealous fact-tags.

I consider your argument for merging sentences to be irrelevant, hence invalid: the referenced first sentence does indeed highly concur with the second, therefore its references makes no further reference required. The requirements for references, mustnot force rephrasing either towards long sentences or towards another style of writing. The current phrasing appears good enough. — SomeHuman 12 May2007 05:09 (UTC)

Fair enough, however I would like to insist on some points.

• Belgium is well-known for its fine art and architecture. This looks as POV, as it is not supported by the following sentences. It needs a source or to be rephrased.
• The Mosan art, the Early Netherlandish,[52] the Flemish Renaissance and Baroque painting,[53] and major examples of Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architecture, and the Renaissance vocal music of the Franco-Flemish School developed in the southern part of the Low Countries, are milestones in the history of art This needs to be rewritten for clarity as it is an extremely convoluted sentence.
• Famous names in this classic tradition The term "classic" lends itself to confusion as to what exactly it refers to
• Belgium has a thriving contemporary art scene, with internationally renowned artists such as Jan Fabre and the painter Luc Tuymans Having internationally renowned artists is not proof of the existance of a thriving nationla art scene
• My objection to the Clijsters sentence is that it goes into unnecessary detail about her retirement. It could just say "Belgium has two current female tennis champions: the recently retired Kim Clijsters,[67] and Justine Henin."
• Belgians have a reputation for loving waffles and French fried potatoes (both originate from Belgium). needs a reference for the origin claim, as the article waffles does not mention their belgian origins (on the contrary it mentions a variety of waffles from around the world) and the French fried potatoes article states their origins are controversial.

Greetings, --Victor12 18:28, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Unlike a few other arguments, I didn't comment on the here repeated remarks because I mainly think you're quite right about those (though the Mosan art sentence is not that bad, I would only alter or drop a few words). For Clijsters, I'd wait to change the text till she actually skipped a few tournaments: for now it is still an announcement. I don't assume she might come back on her decision soon, but other people have been known not to quit after having announced such. For now, WP should not take this as an accomplished fact. If you read the French fried potatoes article carefully, you will find that the Belgian origin is not seriously contested (apart from a few wild claims and Americans thinking of a French origin which the French mainly deny) but rather acknowledged, even though it is not finally and undisputably proven (and most likely never will be). That's why the consensus of Europeans in general about a Belgian origin should become expressed instead of a blunt claim - but we'll have to find a way to express this without triggering more questions and yet without putting too much weight on it. I've no idea about the origin of waffles; if a proper source shows this to be Belgian, it should also become stated in the Waffles article. Kind regards. — SomeHuman 12 May2007 21:53 (UTC)

Brussels in the lead

I don't agree with the importance SomeHuman wants to give Brussels in the lead. In particular, though I agree with this sentence: "In this enclave within the Flemish Region however, neither language is the primary one for roughly half of the residents.[4][5][6]" I don't agree with putting it within the lead. I think this is POV! If one says this in the lead one need to say much more. A good compromise would be IMHO to put this comment as a footnote of the lead. I have already tried to do so. SomeHuman reverted my edits several times. Moreover I don't understand why SomeHuman insists on the order Flanders-Brussels-Wallonia in the lead. Why not Flanders-Wallonia-Brussels (order of number of inhabitants)? Vb09:15, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

The POV is in stating that in Brussels 85% speaks French, while it is not correct to give vague figures or "a majority" either: the figure needs to be said because the paragraph handles precisely the complex linguistic situation (in this subsentence: a mainly French-speaking region within the Dutch-speaking region). Thus I changed "speak French" (which strongly suggests native speakers) to "use French". Even then, everyone reading the lead will assume 85% of the Brussels population to be native speakers of French, while the latter actually form a minority (like the speakers of any other Belgian or foreign language). Thus not only is this addition not some POV, the very unusual fact that the capital has about 50% of native speakers of languages that are neither Belgian nor of one of the neighbouring countries, does put the linguistic discussions between Dutch- and French-speakers regarding Brussels in a rather curious perspective — and yes, this has clearly been noted. This too contributes to the complexity described in that paragraph.

As the information is necessary to relativate the equally necessary 85%, it cannot occur in a footnote. Footnotes are not intended to be read by the average reader (they make reading only tougher, for one who wants to get the finest detail or proof). And Wikipedia guidelines do specify that many readers only read the lead. It should thus definitely not mislead, which would occur by putting all too relevant information down in the more comprehensive section only.

The order is the more stylish: It does not require to specify as many percentages (e.g. for the population of Wallonia) because Brussels does require that percentage (else one would think the 85% to be some mistake). It is also needed because the Walloon region happens to incorporate the German-speaking Community. "My" order allows handling Dutch and French before mentioning yet another language spoken by a very small minority. Also it makes referring to the immediately forementioned Dutch (minority) and Flemish Region (enclave) appear much less jumping forth-and-back as when the enclave would be mentioned at the end of the paragraph as "your" order would do. Also geographically, we think north-to-south and thus in "my" order.

Thus changing that order would be highly POV, in particular because the second largest language gets mentioned just as quickly in "my" order: the only 'advantage' of "your" order would be that the regions are mentioned in order of their population numbers, which does not outweigh the disadvantage of jumping from Dutch to French to German to once again French and then twice Dutch, especially since the paragraph's topic is not 'regions of Belgium' but the linguistic (my order) division, which is complex enough without making the paragraph unreadably complex.

P.S.: The weight on Brussels is relevant: not only can one not say anything sensible and NPOV about Brussels in a much shorter way, while the situation in the most populous region is relatively simple; the capital is internationally very wellknown (better than the country perhaps, by name as well as by the more visited locality), and it plays an important role within Belgium, besides for obvious reasons (capital, international organizations) also in the linguistic political field. Not that I like Brussels all that much, it's just an observation of facts.

Kind regards. — SomeHuman 21 May2007 16:32-17:09 (UTC)

I agree with your arguments but I don't agree with putting the aforementioned sentence in the lead for the following reason. The thesis of many flemish nationalists is that Brussels stands as a multi-cultural Flemish city. French is considered as a minority language as Arabic, Turkish, Yiddish or Italian. They have geographic arguments like "Brussels is an enclave" (which can be disputed since Brussels is separated from Wallonia by only one municipality with French-speaking minority) or historic arguments like "the official language in Brussels used to be Dutch in the first half of the 19th century". On the other hand the French-speaking Belgians consider Brussels as a French-speaking city with a small Flemish minority. This dispute is not only rhetorical but of major importance in the case Belgium would split. Of course both opinions may be discussed. I however think this discussion does not belong to the lead. I therefore support the removal of the sentence from the lead (or at least its move to a footnote) and also some words making more explicit how difficult it is to provide an estimate for the number of French speaker in Brussels. Vb06:06, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid you are taking a personal view as a guideline: You do not accept the reality. Brussels IS an enclave, just as much as Baarle-Hertog. The one municipality does make all the difference (and there used to be many more municipalities: the current province of Walloon Brabant was Dutch-speaking). The article mustnot be altered because some people do not appreciate that reality. And it mustnot be tucked away somewhere far out of sight either, precisely because it is such an important aspect. Discussions on Flemish/Walloon viewpoints on that reality would not belong in the lead, and those are not there. From your reasoning, one could not mention Brussels to be using French in about 85% of the conversations either: some people do not appreciate that reality, and could demand to put only the official status, bilingual, in the lead. Surely the merely 70,000 people speaking German make a lesser percentage of Wallonia than the speakers of Dutch in Brussels (and less, even in absolute numbers), we could not mention them in the lead either. Such cleaned-out lead is not very helpful for the readers: the paragraph is there to point out the complexity which determines the political situation. The structure of the country belongs before demographics; who would understand why Belgium has chosen its overly complex type of regionalization if it were only a country with a northern and a southern people, which you would make it in the lead?

I do not know whether Dutch was the official language in Brussels, it surely was the native language and not just in the first half of the 19th century, but during its entire history. The French-speaking majority is a lot more recent: While French had become increasingly used since the end of the 18th century, only well into the 20th century it became the majority language. That aspect is not in the lead, it (or parts of it) is only mentioned in the demographics section - which appears the to be right place.

About 'many Flemish nationalists'... I hear conversations between VB-voters, though even they do not claim French to be a minority language in Brussels. They do still feel that Hugo Schiltz sold out Flanders by conceding to the regionalization making Brussels and the southern Brabantian municipalitis bilingual and French-speaking respectively (as I still heard when Schiltz died, recently). But that regionalization making Brussels an enclave by merely one municipality separated from Wallonia, is the Belgian reality. — SomeHuman 25 May2007 05:39 (UTC)

Dear SomeHuman, I really agree with the point that Brussels IS an enclave and I also agree that the number 85% is somehow POV-pushing. I however utterly disagree with putting this in the lead. Just looking at the map of the regions and communities prove the reader of this article that Brussels is an enclave! It is even not worth writing it! This is simply a true fact. What you say about Flemish spoken as a native language in Walloon Brabant and Brussels is also very true. I utterly agree. About the 85% number I think we should add some comment in the lead to tell how approximative this number is. However I stick to the point that the enclave sentence belongs elsewhere (for example as a footnote) Vb 06:56, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

No way. There is no POV-pushing involved, just stating the most important facts, and these are very well sourced precisely because some people of either language do not like to admit the reality. You bring no arguments, you just want to make the information disappear. You are alone in this as well. (The FARC had no comment on what is now in that paragraph.) — SomeHuman 25 May2007 08:10 (UTC)

Oh yes! Stating well-refered facts can be POV pushing! It all depends how and where it is done. The enclave argument (as well as the 85%) is an argument which must be included in a context and a discussion. Standing alone it is simply POV pushing. I already suggested alternative compromises that you repeatedly refused. I don't want the information to disappear. I just want the lead to stay short as do the reviewers of the FARC discussion. If you still refuse any compromise in this direction I will have to use the POV tag. Vb 07:54, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

See also #Let's do some real work, please. — SomeHuman 05 Jun2007 15:48 (UTC)

Coummunities and Regions

I don't understand why the maps of the regions and communities should be removed. They are IMHO very important. This is for strangers very difficult to imagine the respective size and overlapping between the different entities without any graphical representation. I morevore think the new array showing the competences of the different bodies unclear and moreover only approximative. It doesn't help naybody who ignores the Belgian situation. Vb

• I really do not understand what the table has here to do! Nobody understand the word "facilities" outside of Belgium. We really don't need that amount of details. The paragraph which someHuman repeatedly deletes is a long compromise between the editors who promoted the article for the second time to its current featured status. Please improve it. Don't delete it. Vb 11:13, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

• I agree with the three new paragraphs. They are a real improvement to the older paragraph. I regret however the concrete example about schools in Brussels which was IMHO very illumnating. Moreover I simply don't understand the table about the competences of the different bodies. What does provision mean in this context? Do you really think the facilities interest the reader of this general article? Vb 09:57, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I do. It is important to understand not only the regionalization's cautiousness for minorities (a returning issue), also for instance B-H-V which is mentioned in the Politics section. And the note under at the table does provide a link to the article on facilities. If it would not interest anyone, why would Wikipedia have a whole article on the topic? The table is the only one on WP that shows the four Constitutional language areas (an aspect entirely overlooked in the text) and how these are linked to the people (and hence facilities) and to the three other constitutional levels having geograpical limitations on competences.

The 'language areas' (Dutch taalgebieden are on WP usually called 'linguistic regions' (French régions linguistiques), though it has nothing to do with the (in particular in English) rather scientific concept of 'linguistics' and the term 'region' is confusing with the Regions of Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels-Capital. The language areas predate the regionalization and formed the basis of the three Regions and three Communities with their overlaps: there is no overlap with language areas [considering one is the 'bi'-lingual language area]. These for the regionalization historically so important and still constitutional fully upheld institutions of the language areas require a place properly clarifying their relation with the other institutions, which would take a lengthy and unreadable text, hence the table. Of course these constitutional institutions do not have their own political representation and thus one does not promote their names as eagerly, but they are more fundamental than the Regions or the Communities. Furthermore these may help the intelligent reader to understanding why the institutional Communities have geographical boundaries contrarily to the communities as groups of people.

I would think that 'Provisions for individuals & organisations expressing themselves in Dutch', 'Provisions for individuals & organisations expressing themselves in French' and 'Provisions for individuals & organisations expressing themselves in German' speaks for itself: 'Provisions' can hardly be misunderstood as the providing of a supply of food. If you know a better term to express Measures taken so as to ensure necessary assistance or help is made available, I'll welcome it.

By the way, I think you appreciate my returning the maps. (I don't think they are needed, because of their presence in the linked main article, but now at least they do not take such an overwhelmingly large place any more - as such they are not too bad as illustration.)

— SomeHuman 25 May2007 08:10 (UTC)

I still think the table is not clear. The words facility, provision and obvious must be explained in order to make the table understandable by foreigners. This would however lead to a too deep detailed description of the Belgian federal system. I think the best would be to replace the table by a short paragraph about the territorial comptences of the Belgian federal bodies. I'll work on this. However, since your English is definitively better than mine, I encourage you to check this for spelling. Vb 08:01, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I can't see any reason why 'provision' should require explaining: its usage in the table will appear very normal to (natively) English-speakers. I do not write on the English-language Wikipedia for it to be understandable specifically by foreigners (non-native speakers of English) as there should then better be a Pidgin-language Wikipedia for them, nor do I assume non-Belgians (as I assume you mean by foreigners) not to be able to read English or not to understand what a table is. Anyone able to read any table could not possibly be surprised that the field on the row of 'Dutch language area' and the column of 'individuals & organisations expressing themselves in Dutch', shows 'obvious'. Moreover, the table does explain 'facilities' by including a link to the article on that topic, even under the very first word, 'Facilities', in the small paragraph; and that paragraph is exactly where one expects it to be when finding an unclear term followed with a figure between parenthesis.

I rather resent your removal of the table with edit comment "rm table according to discussion. The info has been put and refered in the languages section": a discussion requires more than one person and there appears to be only you. Furthermore, you do not deny any of the arguments (another aspect of a discussion) which I presented here above. Certainly not all of the info is in the languages section and the latter does not allow a systematic overview as the table does. The table belongs in its 'Communities...' section as it clarifies the different power levels and their respective subjects. — SomeHuman 31 May2007 23:43 (UTC)

Perhaps the problem is a lack of understanding of the English language on your behalf. With edit comment "What is the Belgian era?", you modified "Historical contributions to the development of science and technology continue through the Belgian era." towards "Historical contributions to the development of science and technology were made in Belgium." — Those are completely different statements. The first mentions a history of S&T that continued after Belgium came to exist (exemplified by the famous people "of the Early Modern Age in the Low Countries" in the next sentence, and Belgians further on), the modified sentence is rather ridiculous as S&T after 1830 would better not be called 'historical contributions' when immediately followed by great contributions several centuries earlier. By the way, in this context "through the Belgian era" is exactly what it says, "Belgian times, the period of Belgium", understand: 'after contributions (suggested connotation: of meanwhile historical value and thus) in historical times, there were more contributions (suggested connotation: making history) all along the period that Belgium exists '. — SomeHuman 01 Jun2007 00:12 (UTC)

Dear SomeHuman,

• I meant by foreigners "non Belgian". I think the table isn't understandable by non Belgians. I think we need sentences! No table! You should maybe have a look at the versions of the Belgium article before it got for the second time featured. We have tried so many tables before we got back to texts! I therefore tried to write a paragraph which makes this clear. I am going to put this paragraph again. Please don't remove it. Improve it! Vb
• About the word "era". I understant that word. But at most "Belgian era" could mean "Since 1830" which is clearer because "era" is usually used for a period of time like the "swing era", the "Babylonian era", "French Empire era", "the era of the Belgian colonies", i.e. period of time which somehow marked history. I therefore think this should be somehow reworded. Vb 07:17, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

To make my point clearer. Which provisions are meant? What are facilities? What are linguitic regions? The table cannot be understood without looking at the "very badly referred" subarticles. This is the reason why I wrote the paragraph in languages about linguistic regions. And, as I wrote it, I realized the table was not needed anymore. Vb 07:36, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

'The Belgian era' is in this context quite clearly a specific period of time.

The table is as clear as the complex Belgian institutions allow, much more informative than your text. About this table, there is no 'we' but only 'you'. In particular as your text merely repeats what is already in the article. The linguistic regions are now clearly mentioned in the text and named in the table. The phrase about Art. 4 on the municipalities does not appear relevant without a legal analysis that definitely does not belong in this article, so only that went into the footnote, all other information of your text is utterly redundant. By the way, you need to lo in the 'Communities...' section for my text on language areas aka linguistic regions, before the table. That is where this information belongs, not in the 'Culture' section.

And please log on before saving edits, as I repeatedly asked you to to. Else, I will not address you as a regular contributor but without commenting regard you as any other anomymous IP-er who want to force his/her highly personal things into an article. — SomeHuman 01 Jun2007 09:14 (UTC)

• Sorry but "Belgian era" begins in 1830 or is just a nonsense or POV. Vb 11:22, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
• No I don't think so. See my suggested compromise below. Vb 11:22, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
• I have private reasons not to do so Vb 11:22, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I moved your replies outside my comment, it is unpolite and improper to insert replies, and considered disruptive as well as endangering readability not to put comments always at the bottom of a talk section. You can refer to "your 1st/2nd/3rd paragraph here above" etc if needed. It is considered rude to put each of your comments at the left margin (I always had to give your comments a proper indent before answering). And 'private reasons'...

"Since 1830" is not mentioned in the article (hence 'Belgian era' is better than even I assumed, as it is not POV). One should not accuse people of POV on a talk page: that is the place for discussions and expressing personal viewpoints is proper. The only 'POV' could be that the Dutch as the only country in the world consider 1839 to be the start of the Belgian era: King Albert I came to the Belgian throne in 1831, after the self-declared independence in 1830.

You "do not think so". What? The table being clear? (You agree Belgium to have complex institutions.) The table to be more informative? The linguistic regions to be mentioned in the text? Their being named in the table? The phrase about municipalities to be more relevant, or it to be understandable without thorough legal analysis? Your text to be redundant? (I'll prove it in a moment, because that suffices by itself to keep that text out of the article) Your text not to belong in the 'Culture' section, where you continue to insert it? That same text about linguistic regions and parliamentary Regions not rather to belong in the 'Communities and regions' section? Your edit comment "I insist" when once again after my arguments putting the duplicating text back, does not bring any more arguments than "I do not think so". Without such, this is not a discussion and can only lead to an edit war, however nice you might like to ask me not to 'start' one: You do not own the article at your sovereign whimses or 'thoughts' or 'private reasons'...

I assume you cannot log on from your employer's console as the security system may not allow submission of the log-on, though I doubt if than you could submit an edit. Anyway, since your IP keeps changing on article edits, you cannot assume other contributors to keep on trying to keep track of such. If there would be an exceptionally valid private reason, consider signing EVERY edit by 'Vb' in front of the '/*' (section name) '*/'. This is not a standard at all, but would be an improvement.

Now, I'll reset the indentation and first show your text in grey colour:

Though there is no official census on the use of languages in Belgium, each municipality's official language is univoquely determined by the law. Each municipality belongs to only one of four linguistic regions: the Dutch-speaking, the French-speaking, the German-speaking region and the Dutch-French bilingual region of Brussels. The Dutch-speaking region is the territory of the Flanders Region; the German-speaking region is the territory of the German-speaking Community; the bilingual region of Brussels is the territory of the Region Brussels-Capital; the French-speaking region corresponds to the rest of the Belgian territory (Wallonia without the territory of the German-speaking Community). In each of these linguistic regions the use of languages for contacts with public authorities, as regards administration, the law, education and labour relations in companies is ruled by the law: in the Dutch-speaking region, the official language is Dutch, in the French-speaking region, French, in the German-speaking region, German, and, in the Dutch-French bilingual region of Brussels, both French and Dutch on an equal footing. However there are some exceptions: in some few municipalities bordering the linguistic regions — the so-called communes with special status or communes with linguistic facilities— other languages can be used to contact local authorities.

Now I'll direct you towards what already is in the article:

• "There are no official statistics on Belgium's three official languages (or their dialects) that inhabitants prefer. As no census exists" (Culture/Languages — and if I'm not mistaken, I worded it like that because of your insisting much earlier.
• "The country's constitution was revised on 1993-07-14, still based on the earlier determined four language areas (taalgebieden in Dutch, Sprachgebiete in German) or linguistic regions (régions linguistiques in French),[24]" (Communities and regions) and even the index goes to exactly the first reference that accompanies your text (though the publisher is identified as the Belgian Senate instead of the Federal Parliament of the url in your reference, which is only a portal on which one still has to navigate to the Constitution (with 3 't's, not 2).
• The table's first column, named "Linguistic regions", contains four rows: "Dutch language area/French language area/Bilingual area Brussels-Capital/German language area" and each row shows which institutional authority may excercise its powers (while your "The Dutch-speaking region is the territory of the Flanders Region" is incorrect, they merely coincide; "the bilingual region of Brussels is the territory of the Region Brussels-Capital" is extremely wrong, though they do coincide; instead of "the rest of the Belgian territory", I would have used 'remainder' and for style avoid using 'territory' over and over again — for occasions requiring such, most often a table offers a better solution).
• "the territory of the Brussels-Capital Region (which came to be nearly a decade after the other regions) is included in both Flemish and French Communities" while it being "officially bilingual" is in the lead and mentioned several times elsewhere, and the text underneath the table expresses the powers of the Communities.
• The table mentions the 'facilities' and where they exist and for whom, and provides a link to the relevant Wikipedia article. One avoids "communes", that's a 1968ish way of living together; the encyclopaedic and unambiguous term is "municipalities". Your "in some few municipalities bordering the linguistic regions — the so-called communes with special status or communes with linguistic facilities— other languages can be used to contact local authorities" (besides containing language errors like 'some few') is false (or at least easily falsely interpreted): "other languages" is never correct, there is never more than one 'other language' that can be used in a municipality, see the table... ;-)
• Your link to a glossary mentioning amongst many other terms "Commune with linguistic facilities: Commune in which the inhabitants can use a language other than the official language of the linguistic region to which the commune belongs for their contacts with the public authorities (e.g. commune located in the French language region in which it is authorised to use German)." is superfluous, as this is not only clear from the table (with much more detail and mentioning the number of municipalities where-and-for-whom), but also in the Wikipedia article on the topic. I assume one might demand a source for the smaller print and for the main columns of the table, but further attention to 'facilities' does not belong in the main article on Belgium, and sources should already occur in the section's 'Main article' on 'Communities, regions and linguistic regions' and must be in the linked article on the facilities; giving such here requires more than the glossary definition and would here appear to be an overkill.
• Your info on municipalities in Art.4 of the Constitution is mentioned in a footnote, and that is more than enough as I argumented earlier.

I don't see much in your text that is not yet here above, do you? — SomeHuman 01 Jun2007 19:21 (UTC)

Dear SomeHuman,

The table I suggest latter would be OK for me. I think the table is clearer than before. The reference to the CRISP site is necessary because the concepts of linguistic regions and of municipalities with facilities should not be assumed to be known for any reader and therefore proven by an official reference. The term commune is not mine but stamms from both reference (translation of the Belgian constitution and glossary of CRISP, i.e. both authoritative references).

Vb 09:22, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

See also #Let's do some real work, please. — SomeHuman 05 Jun2007 15:48 (UTC)

PS: The column header 'Provisions for' (which you had found uninformative) was replaced with 'Authorities rendering services in the language of', and now forms one field with the line thereunder 'individuals & organisations expressing themselves' (above 'in Dutch', 'in French', 'in German'). — SomeHuman 05 Jun2007 23:07 (UTC)

undoubtedly wellknown

Could someone copyedit this paragraph. I already tried once but was reverted. Maybe is my English not better. I particlarly doubt about <<the "undoubtedly wellknown" better multilingualism>>

A survey published in 2006 by the Université Catholique de Louvain showed the "undoubtedly wellknown" better multilingualism in Flanders to be considerable : 59% of the Flemish respondents can speak French and 53% English; of the Walloons on the other hand, merely 19% Dutch and 17% English; of the Brussels' residents, 95% declare to be able to speak French, 59% Dutch, and 41% the non-local English. In their respective regions 59, 10, and 28 percent of people under forty can speak all three languages. In each region, German is notably less known than any of the forementioned languages.[46][4]

Thanks Vb 09:16, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

It is acceptable English, 'multilingualism' is 'ability to speak multiple languages' and thus 'the better multilingualism' can only be interpreted as 'the better ability to speak multiple languages'. Since 'multilingual' is not an everyday word in English (mainly because it is an uncommon asset amongst native speakers of English), 'multilingualism' is even more unusual — but not wrong. And "undoubtedly wellknown" just means that. The phrase "showed the undoubtedly wellknown better multilingualism in Flanders to be considerable" is borrowed from the referenced quote "montrent que la Flandre est bien plus multilingue, ce qui est sans doute un fait bien connu, mais la différence est considérable " (more literally, "showed that Flanders is clearly more multilingual, which is without doubt a wellknown fact, but the difference is considerable"). Since I contracted the typically lengthy French style, I only put quote marks around "undoubtedly wellknown" as this is a most correct translation for an apparently 'unencyclopaedic' statement — unless making very clear it to be a quote.

For instance, "showed the undoubtedly wellknown better ability to speak multiple languages in Flanders to be considerable" would incorrectly mean than anyone would become multilingual as soon as one steps on Flemish territory; "showed the undoubtedly wellknown better ability in Flanders to speak multiple languages to be considerable" could be considered, but might be misinterpreted at least by some readers as if it were wellknown in Flanders only, and allows the same false interpretation as the forementioned phrase. I do not want to use the more easily incorporated expression 'the Flemish' instead of 'in Flanders', as the study did not envolve ethnicity but compared regions in which also non-native people live. I do feel there might be a more appropriate adjective, simply to replace the word 'better', which could make reading more fluently — but so far one didn't pop into my mind (combined with multilingualism, the meaning mustnot deviate from —nor exaggerate— 'better at speaking multiple languages') — the French 'bien plus' means 'clearly more', but 'more multilingualism' is not correct. And 'the "undoubtedly wellknown' larger multilingual capacity in Flanders' expresses a possibility for the future instead of the present-day achievement; 'the "undoubtedly wellknown" greater multilingual ability in Flanders to be considerable' does not make clear that the greater ability than already wellknown is so considerable, it appears too much as if one simply repeats the ability to be 'greater' and to be 'considerable'. Hence, as each word actually counts, the phrase might better be maintained. — SomeHuman 31 May2007 23:01 (UTC)

Perhaps you can consider the WP:FARC to have (nearly) caused 'Belgium' to loose its 'Featured article' status. An earlier version of the phrase you are unhappy with, had been mentioned explicitly as problematic and I made minute changes so as to attempt to comply, and ended up with the one you quoted here above and still feel unhappy about. After numerous other improvements, most by myself, the current phrase did not prevent the article being put up for promotion again... — SomeHuman 01 Jun2007 00:33 (UTC)

Well I understand what does the sentence mean. I also think the meaning is univoque. However I doubt about the style. The words "undoubtedly wellknown" should be IMHO replaced by a subsentence. There are in the sentence too many adjectives and complicated (unusual) words put alltogether. The sentence need a bit of air! It is difficult to answer to question "what is considerable?" The fact that the multilingualism is better in Flanders? The fact that the multilingualism is undoubtedly wellknown? Maybe a careful grammatic analysis of the sentence can help. I however think we could write this simpler. Vb 07:03, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

English is not French, it does not need a lot of wind; compact sentences by meaningful successive words without many prepositions etc, is a major characteristic of the language. And one reason for its continued gaining world-wide importance. The (whatever is said about) multilinguism is considerable, plain grammar. Thus the better mulilinguism is undoubtedly wellknown, and the better multilinguism is considerable - which means a considerably better multilinguism. But not a considerably better multilinguism is wellknown, just better multilinguism is. And there is no doubt about it being wellknown either. Plain English. "Considerably undoubtely wellknown" or "considerably undoubtedly" whatever, is not English, hence the interpretation of my phrase as if 'The fact that the multilingualism is undoubtedly wellknown' would be considerable, could not occur to the English mind. — SomeHuman 01 Jun2007 16:18-16:34 (UTC)

I simply think we could write it better. Let me try the following. Maybe you'll understand what I mean:

A survey published in 2006 by the Université Catholique de Louvain showed that multilingualism is much wider spread in Flanders and Brussels : 59% of the Flemish respondents can speak French and 53% English; of the Walloons on the other hand, merely 19% Dutch and 17% English; of the Brussels' residents, 95% declare to be able to speak French, 59% Dutch, and 41% the non-local English. In their respective regions 59, 10, and 28 percent of people under forty can speak all three languages. In each region, German is notably less known than any of the forementioned languages.[46][4]

or maybe

A survey published in 2006 by the Université Catholique de Louvain showed the multilingualism in Flanders and Brussels to be considerably better : 59% of the Flemish respondents can speak French and 53% English; of the Walloons on the other hand, merely 19% Dutch and 17% English; of the Brussels' residents, 95% declare to be able to speak French, 59% Dutch, and 41% the non-local English. In their respective regions 59, 10, and 28 percent of people under forty can speak all three languages. In each region, German is notably less known than any of the forementioned languages.[46][4]

or even

A survey published in 2006 by the Université Catholique de Louvain showed the multilingualism in Flanders and Brussels to be considerable : 59% of the Flemish respondents can speak French and 53% English; of the Walloons on the other hand, merely 19% Dutch and 17% English; of the Brussels' residents, 95% declare to be able to speak French, 59% Dutch, and 41% the non-local English. In their respective regions 59, 10, and 28 percent of people under forty can speak all three languages. In each region, German is notably less known than any of the forementioned languages.[46][4]

The insertion of the "undoubtedly wellknown" makes the sentence almost unreadable. Do we really need those words? Do they make so much sence? Vb 21:59, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

At least my version follows the reference, which does not in the least mention 'Flanders and Brussels' in that same sentence and my version does not shuffle away the report expressing surprise about the difference being even more considerable than was already wellknown, nor that the multilingualism in Flanders was already undoubtedly wellknown. Perhaps you would prefer:

In 2006, the French Community's coheir of Belgium's oldest university published a survey report calling Flanders' leadership in speaking multiple languages "undoubtedly wellknown", and showing this ability to be considerably superior: (the rest of the paragraph remains unchanged)

For the last time, I indented your comment - unless perhaps you have some more 'personal reasons' for not following those Wikipedia conventions either. — SomeHuman 05 Jun2007 03:01 (UTC)

See also #Let's do some real work, please. — SomeHuman 05 Jun2007 15:48 (UTC)

Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg

An anon IP contributor, asumedly Vb, modified "Belgium and the Netherlands had a distinguishable course of history from sixteenth century onwards." into "Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg had a distinguishable course of history from sixteenth century onwards." I assume this to be an error: the present-day countries Belgium and Luxemburg had a largely identical course of history for two more centuries. One might write "Belgium and Luxembourg had a course of history distinguishable from that of the Netherlands from sixteenth century onwards", and so I did. Perhaps however, this statement is not perfectly correct either and since the article is 'Belgium', and the further explained course of history is thus that of Belgium (and its relations with the Netherlands), one might go back towards the original text rather than elaborating about for this article assumedly irelevant specificities. — SomeHuman 01 Jun2007 03:06 (UTC)

You are right. The preceding phrasing forgot about Luxembourg. But your change is an improvement. Vb 06:43, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Linguistic regions table

Dear SomeHuman,

What do you think about this compromise? This is a table my limited brain can understand.

Linguistic region	Official language	Authority, limited to their respective competences, of
		the Communities			the Regions (and their provinces)			the Federal government
		Flemish	French	German- speaking	Flemish	Walloon	Brussels- Capital
Dutch language area	Dutch	×	-	-	×	-	-	×
French language area	French	-	×	-	-	×	-	×
Bilingual area Brussels-Capital	Dutch and French	×	×	-	-	-	×	×
German language area	German	-	-	×	-	×	-	×
	In each of these linguistic regions the official languages are used for contacts with public authorities, as regards administration, the law, education and labour relations in companies. However there are some exceptions: in some few municipalities bordering the linguistic regions —the so-called communes with special status or communes with linguistic facilities— other languages can be used to contact local authorities.

Vb 11:15, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

It is not a compromise, it is obliterating the equally relevant provisions (obviously available facilities, the special facilities that are normally called 'Facilities' in the Belgian linguistic context, or no facilitating measures taken) for individuals etc. expressing themselves in the three national languages. If you do not understand that part, perhaps others do - give them a chance ;-)

You ask me to read your comments, I already did so and commented on those; you however do not bring arguments. 'Your' compromise does not offer any advantage (it takes just as much room in the article). Your table's 2nd column repeats the first as for Brussels the languages are not to be mistaken by the following columns (and of course the article text). Your text keeps repeating what is already in the article - and it is already oversized (accepted by the FARC only because so much is taken by the references, the article itself was not (much) too long.

What I am missing in your table is a definition of "obvious provisions". Which "obvious provisions" do have individuals expressing themselves in Dutch in Flanders? I think the provisions they have is that they can contact the administration in their own languange. I don't know whether a Chinese citizen would understand these provisions as obvious. And if so obvious : why do we need a table for it? Vb 22:14, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Indent your comments. If Chinese citizens are expressing themselves in Dutch in the Dutch language area, they too have the obvious advantage of being helped in a language they can understand. Stop behaving like this. You do not help Wikipedia. — SomeHuman 05 Jun2007 03:21 (UTC)

SomeHuman, please stop getting rude. Don't you think the sentence "individual expressing themselves in Dutch have obvious provisions in the Dutch language area" could be replaced by the simpler "Dutch is the official language of the Dutch language area"? If so I guess you must agree with me that my suggested table is easier to read than yours. I don't want to push any POV. Vb06:18, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

See also #Let's do some real work, please. — SomeHuman 05 Jun2007 15:48 (UTC)

PS: The simple table modification I just described in the talk page section (erroneously spelled) #Coummunities and Regions now clarifies 'provisions' and thus why these are obvious for matching language areas. — SomeHuman 05 Jun2007 23:17 (UTC)

Belgian era

The Belgian era (if there exists any) begins in 1830 (maybe 1839 for the Dutch). In the section about science and technology, it seems the Belgian era begins at the time when the Southern and Northern Netherlands began to split. I therefore think stating a Belgian era before 1830 is somehow POV because it assumes the existence of a Belgian nation much before 1830. Vb 22:08, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The sentence "Historical contributions to the development of science and technology continue through the Belgian era. " could be changed into : "New contributions to science and technology started to develop, as within the rest of Europe, in the Renaissance period." . This is just a first try to reformulate this sentence, but "Belgian era" certainly can't be used. JoJan 09:36, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

JoJan, there is more on this phrase elsewhere on this page. I have stopped feeding the troll who started this section on that topic after too many earlier non-discussions by continuous lack of proper arguments from one side, and I do not intend to repeat my arguments. — SomeHuman 05 Jun2007 03:07 (UTC)

Dear SomeHuman, I am sorry but I don't consider myself as a troll. You are beginning to lose your self-control. I am the one who got that article featured for the second time with the help of many bright editors. I am very committed to NPOV and this is precisely why I don't like the word 'Belgian era' in the sense you use it. Vb 06:09, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

So, can we agree then on the words "Renaissance period", since this carries no political or territorial implications, but just a time frame ? JoJan 07:49, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Vb 08:38, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Not a good idea : it is the article about Belgium, not about the 'Renaissance' which predates the kingdom by centuries, and certainly not that of 'Renaissance in Europe', 'historical' is good enough here and leaves the weight on the Belgians having continued the scientific interest and contributions. See also #Let's do some real work, please. — SomeHuman 05 Jun2007 15:48 (UTC)

Fisrt paragraph of the section Communities and Regions

I don't agree with the following paragraph:

The country's constitution was revised on 14 July 1993, still based on the earlier determined four language areas (taalgebieden in Dutch, Sprachgebiete in German) or linguistic regions (régions linguistiques in French),[24] to create a unique federal state with competences based on three levels:

I think the ", still based on the earlier determined four language areas (taalgebieden in Dutch, Sprachgebiete in German) or linguistic regions (régions linguistiques in French),[24]" part should be removed and the info (which is for sure relevant) put later in the paragraph. This is far too technical. The style is also too intricated and make the reading difficult. Vb 09:08, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

It is at the logical and properly prominent place, and again you simply try to get rid of what does not match your POV. — SomeHuman 05 Jun2007 03:06 (UTC)

No I don't. I utterly agree with the sense of the sentence. I simply don't agree with its style and with the place of this info at the beginning of the section. Vb 06:11, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

See also #Let's do some real work, please. — SomeHuman 05 Jun2007 15:48 (UTC)

The Brabançonne

The infobox mentions as anthem "The Brabançonne". Perhaps better "La Brabançonne" (In German it is "die Brabançonne" and in Dutch one says "de Brabançonne", without ever translating the anthem's clearly French name dating from the officially unilingual French-speaking Belgium: written during the Revolution of 1830 and adopted as anthem in 1860; the definite article does not appear to be a necessary part of the actual name). The infobox wrongly translates this as "The Song of Brabant". Though an anthem is musical and in this case the French-language lyrics predate the music, the very name of this one does not include a term like 'song': "çonne" has nothing to do with the French word "sonne" (from sonner, to sound) but is a suffix: "Brabançonne" simply means "Brabantian" (the Brabantian woman? — the implied French-language term is feminine for sure, thus certainly not the older Brabantian duchy (le duché du Brabant) hence Le Brabançon (male in French). Neither is it 'the Brabantian song', which would indeed have been la chanson du Brabant but in German das Lied von Brabant and thus das Brabançonne but the latter is an error and in Dutch het lied van Brabant and thus het Brabançonne and that too is an error. (For similar reasons, it cannot have meant 'the march of Brabant' either.) It is not the Brabantian fatherland as la patrie brabançonne see e.g.[2], because in Dutch the "dierbaar vaderland" that occurs in the lyrics has neutre gender while the Brabançonne is male. Thus the implied term remains otherwise unclear: the lyrics do not mention Brabant, nor did the original longer lyrics. Compare also with French "Les Brabançons", the Brabantians (the Brabantian people). So the infobox should show for anthem: '"La Brabançonne" (literally: The Brabantian)' or '"Brabançonne" (French, literally: Brabantian)' so as to clearly indicate that translating the name is not done.
The article The Brabançonne has little reason to incorporate the definite article 'The' in its title, simply Brabançonne would be more appropriate: the title obviously does not include the strictly English word "The" in any of the now three official Belgian languages in which official versions of the lyrics exist. Alternatively, the article could be named La Brabançonne, compare with both Marseillaise and The Marseillaise redirecting to the article named La Marseillaise, though in case a (French) definite article is part of the article's title, the introduction sentence should also mention the names in the official Dutch language 'De Brabançonne' and in the official German language 'Die Brabançonne'. With the English definite article 'The', there should even be three translations, another good reason to kick it out of the article title. Also the official .be web site mentions: 'the "Brabançonne"' with the doublequotes indicating a single word name. This web site also mentions it to exist only in French and Dutch, which is not confirmed by our article's "official" German version of the anthem; perhaps the page is not available in German on the .be web site? One can compare the in French rather fixed "La" before the name with e.g. "La Francophonie" which article is named "Francophonie".
Note: The expression in German language is also feminine though words in French and in German do not always have a same gender for identical concepts, in particular the meaning of 'patrie' (fatherland) would in German have caused "Das Brabançonne" but the translation and probably its naming in German came long after the origin of the anthem and one might not have realized what had been intended once or the suggestion of das Vaterland may not have seemed politically wise for the former German territory having become Belgian, though of course die Heimat is feminin again and might not have sounded as incorrect as the more straightforward translation of 'patrie'; standard Dutch 'de', and English 'the', do not give a clear clue as for the gender, but e.g. from dialectical den Brabançonne one knows it to be male to Flemish people.
By the way, the article named 'Brabançonne' on the German-language Wikipedia also wrongly mentions it to mean Das Lied von Brabant (neutre gender) which is rather ludicrous, but no more than wurde der Brabançonne (erroneously male) a bit further on. — SomeHuman 05 Jun2007 00:04 (UTC)

No way it'd become once again la Brabançonne; it should be The Brabançonne or simply Brabançonne, but there is absolutely no reason to use the French article, since, as you say, la Brabançonne is not more official (let alone correct) than de/die Brabançonne. Therefore I prefer the current use, though the translation is indeed not really correct. We could indeed kick the translation out. --Dionysos1 09:35, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

La Brabançonne is not more official now, but it was the original and once the only official expression. But I fully agree and we should then also drop the definite article from the title: as it can follow whatever language, it is not generally considered a fixed part of the anthem's name. We simply have to apply Wikipedia guidelines on dropping initial definite articles from the encyclopaedical article's title, Brabançonne. The opening paragraph of its own article does not require translations at all then, though in that article it should become mentioned that Brabançonne is French for Brabantian. In the 'Belgium' article, the infobox best maintains The Brabançonne but now without an attempt to translate (interested readers will follow the link). For now, I do not yet start moving the 'The Brabançonne' to 'Brabançonne' as there might still be more reactions coming. — SomeHuman 05 Jun2007 23:29 (UTC)

Dispute

There are mainly five points where User:SomeHuman and I (Vb) do not agree. Could some third person give their opinion about this.

• In the lead, "Another 10% inhabits the officially bilingual Brussels-Capital Region, for approximately 85% using French.[2][3]" the 85% is too controversial 80-85% would be better but I think no number at all would be the best.
• In the lead, I think the sentence "In this enclave within the Flemish Region however, neither language is the primary one for roughly half of the residents.[4][5][6]" belongs elsewhere (as a footnote or in the language section). This point is IMHO too controversial to stand there alone. A compromise has been suggested above.
• The sentence "The country's constitution was revised on 14 July 1993, still based on the earlier determined four language areas (taalgebieden in Dutch, Sprachgebiete in German) or linguistic regions (régions linguistiques in French),[24] to create a unique federal state with competences based on three levels:" is too complicated. ", still based on the earlier determined four language areas (taalgebieden in Dutch, Sprachgebiete in German) or linguistic regions (régions linguistiques in French),[24]" should be put elsewhere.
• The table

Linguistic region	Provisions for			Authority, limited to their respective competences, of
	individuals & organisations expressing themselves			the Communities			the Regions (and their provinces)			the Federal government
	in Dutch	in French	in German	Flemish	French	German- speaking	Flemish	Walloon	Brussels- Capital
Dutch language area	obvious	facilities (12)	no provision	×	-	-	×	-	-	×
French language area	facilities (4)	obvious	facilities (2)	-	×	-	-	×	-	×
Bilingual area Brussels-Capital	obvious	obvious	no provision	×	×	-	-	-	×	×
German language area	no provision	facilities (all 9)	obvious	-	-	×	-	×	-	×
	Facilities exist only in specific municipalities near the borders of the Flemish with the Walloon and with the Brussels-Capital Regions, and in Wallonia also in 2 municipalities bordering its German language area as well as for French-speakers throughout the latter area. The number of municipalities with facilities for speakers of the column's language are given within parenthesis.

should be simplified as suggested above.

• minor quibble: "Historical contributions to the development of science and technology continue through the Belgian era." I don't agree with the wording "Belgian era". I agree with the suggestion by JoJan (see above).

I therefore put the controversial-tag. Vb

I agree that in the lead it should be enough to say that Brussels is officially billingual, the estimated numbers can be mentioned down the article. Also I think the table is too complicated indeed, it could be used in a more specified article, but a simple explanation should satisfy here. As for the lead, what do you think of this:

The Kingdom of Belgium is a country in northwest Europe bordered by the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, France and for a short stretch by the North Sea. It is one of the founding and core members of the European Union, hosting its headquarters, as well as those of many other major international organizations, such as NATO. Belgium has a population of over ten-and-a-half million people, in an area of around 30,000 square kilometres (11,700 square miles), which makes it one of the world's most densely populated countries.

Straddling the cultural boundary between Germanic and Latin Europe, linguistic diversity often leads to political and cultural conflict and is reflected in Belgium's complex system of government and political history.[4][8][9][10] As a federal country, it is divided into three autonomous regions: the Dutch-speaking Flemish Region, the officially billingual Brussels-Capital Region and the French-speaking Walloon Region; in the latter however, there is a small German-speaking Community of about 73,000 people.

Or should we explain the difference between a Community and a Region already in the lead? I don't know how we could say that Dutch-speakers are in the majority without using too controversial numbers. A possibility could maybe be a remake of the following sentence: Although no official figures exist, a 60-40% (+/- 2%) relation is often supposed.--Dionysos1 10:01, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Let's do some real work

Vb, stop trying to keep information out of the article at places where it belongs. You and I do not agree mainly on a few layout points: where to put something in the article. I'm getting more than a little annoyed by your trolling behaviour: After having discussed every point, you continue to come back to the same topics without new arguments. More serious trolling occurs when, after all arguments have been properly presented so as to give opportunity to other editors to make suggestions, you restart your usually weakely argumented case (mainly stating that you do not agree or something belongs somewhere without producing logical reasons and without referring to guidelines) in a new section on the talk page. There you present an overly simplified case on which an innocent contributor is likely to react and, not seeing my earlier arguments, to agree. The main result of all this discussion is, that you have prevented me since weeks from doing serious work at the article itself because you keep demanding too much of my precious time, precisely because the FAR is more urgent than whether or not a table should include something or whether the lead should be shorter: it has been shortened considerably and only the important parts are in, you do not agree but the paragraphs in the lead are of an acceptable lenght, factually correct, and referenced, and no longer a cause of worry for the FAR reviewers. There are other matters to further tackle. Those are the priorities. Tagging the article as if there were a content dispute or POV will not help the overly impatient FAR/FA reviewers to grant FA status. So lets stay away from changing what is already satisfying. The one sentence possibly standing in the way of an FA status, will be modified largely as I suggested yesterday (though I personally feel the wording to become more radical and the sentence gets nearly 50% longer, it is correct and more readable in "undoubtedly" proper English. Let's get on with some real work and perhaps one day our disagreements will become solved by another contributor like Dionysos1, but not now: the length of the lead is just right, a shorter lead would cause FA problems: The lead mustnot be dull: neighbour countries, overall population, there are a few languages spoken, politicians of some areas have disputes with some of other areas ... all that goes all over the world for two out of three countries and does not make readers curious to find out the details; the current content does. I'm not going to address your last comments at the end of the multitude of sections that you have started, and hope any readers will not base their judgement on a single section but look for the arguments in other ones as well. A small note in the sections directing people here will do. Kind regards. — SomeHuman 05 Jun2007 15:32 (UTC)

Without going into details, in my opinion the lead is much too long. And it is complicated enough to frighten away any reader who has no idea of the complexity of the Belgian society. All complex situations should only be discussed in a summary manner, while still giving enough information. The in-depth explanation then goes to a special article. For instance, the above table belongs in the article Communities, regions and linguistic regions of Belgium and not in the article Belgium. Such a drastic overhaul would require a lot of work, but in the end it would be in the interest of our readers. JoJan 15:52, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid your opinion does not match the standards for Featured Article status: I seem to recall such to have been refused much earlier precisely because of the lead not being long enough (amongst other reasons): A good lead is supposed to be a whole section, though not overly long either (which it had become a while ago). The article about Belgium can only deserve FA status by mainly handling the topics for which Belgium is most known: the Walloon/Flemish disputes, Brussels, and thus the lead should suggest there being more in the sections, in which people should find more than what 'everyone' already knows. But you are quite right about a drastic overhaul: in fact even small changes usually require revising content further down (getting links back in somewhere, avoid using identical terms, getting back to what should read as if it were written in one fluent motion, etc). This is not the time for such. And certainly not for suggesting there is a dispute going on: the article content is stable (as much as possible) and must remain so while FA is within reach, see Wikipedia:Featured_article_criteria. Putting the 'dispute'-tag on precisely now, is directly steering for guaranteed failure on FA status — while there is no part of the content upon which there is any serious disagreement, only minor precise wordings, where exactly to put a phrase, and whether some columns should remain in a table have been discussed. Keep an eye on priorities, please. — SomeHuman 05 Jun2007 16:49 (UTC)

PS: I dropped a note at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Belgium. — SomeHuman 05 Jun2007 18:54 (UTC)

PPS: As I mentioned in the relevant sections of the talk page and in edit comments, several of the talk page disputes (unclear 'provisions' in the table, rather awkwardly worded '"undoubtedly wellknown" better multilingualism' phrase) were handled as well as the undisputed Brabançonne modification. — SomeHuman 05 Jun2007 23:53 (UTC)

I don't agree with SomeHuman arguments. I however utterly agree with the comments made by Dyomisos and JoJan. I also agree with the remarks made earlier on by Sijo Ripa. I would like the editors of this article to take this arguments into accounts. I have tried several times to edit the article along those lines and have each time been reverted. Could we try and find a compromise. Vb 09:30, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

You do not agree with my arguments... None of the dozens, eh? You do agree with the people whom I mentioned to be likely to have reacted in the first place on your remark in a new section without referring to the preexisting section on the same topic, in which my arguments occurred. That again and again opening of a new section without bringing any argument besides 'I don't like', is trolling and utter demagogy because an opponent either has to keep repeating all his arguments or has to leave your remark as if agreeing. And you just did it again hereunder by creating the fourth section on that table (apart from one about text on the same topic). When responding on an earlier comment, put your comment at the bottom of the relevant section, please.

I'm rather surprised to see you agree with Sijo Ripa, the person who nominated the article as Featured article removal candidate for several reasons of which none had been contested and thus nothing had prevented bringing it to proper Featured Article status by editing. Sijo Ripo did not comment at the FARC regarding anything in the #Demographics of Brussels talk page section; there his fear was that the specified data would be contested and then by other contributors' edits cause cluttering the lead of (after my earlier downsizing) admitted proper length into a too lengthy introduction. Apparently, delivering several proper sources has prevented such. Contrarily, I am not surprised, because the 2nd anon editor who commented in that section, appears to be you, as I assume by style and by the IP address matching the more than 20 different IP's that you have been using lately — though the anonymus did argument his case.

Anyway, I did appreciate your call "The article is now featured article removal candidate. Could someone do something to prevent this!" and we should keep the article in a stable version, in particular as my call on Wikipedia:Featured article review/Belgium caused at least two reviewers to have another look yesterday and thus we'll better stick to the observed visual presentation and to the lead (apart from one reviewer's suggested edit therein and at start of the History section, which I meanwhile attended to). Let's keep our priorities straight. — SomeHuman 06 Jun2007 18:59 (UTC)

So let me try to discuss your arguments.

• The Belgian era does not exist in the sense it is used in the text. We must get rid of this wording. The JoJan's suggestion is IMHO good. Of course the article is not about the Renaissance in Europe but noone claims this either. Of course the article is about Belgium. Hence I don't understand your argument at all. What I find good in JoJan's wording is that it avoids claiming Belgium (or the southern part of the Low Countries) would be some special case in Europe and put the Belgian case in its correct historical and geographical context.
• I read once again your arguments about the "undoubtedly wellknown" and I think I understood why we do not agree. It is a translation problem. The wording in French "sans doute" means here "probably", "for sure". This is not a claim of the authors this is just meaning: "It is well known that the Flemings speak better foreign languages than Walloons" (well known among the readers, i.e. the Belgians --- they don't claim it is well known worlwide). They say this because what they claim is that the Walloons do know much much less foreign languages than usually assumed. As a conclusion I would simply suppress the words "undoubtedly wellknown" because they are not a claim by the authors and are meaning less to a worldwide leadership.
• I agree with Sijo Ripa in the sense that I believe that less about Brussels in the lead is better in this case. The information presented there is too detailed for the normal international reader. Your argument is that the Belgium artilcle is featured because of what is interesting in Belgium, i.e. the language quibbles. I am not your opinion. I believe Belgium is featured because it is a well-balanced well-referred article about a country. Any article, and a fortiori any country article, is worth getting featured if well-done.
• The table about linguistic regions is much too detailed and IMHO belongs elsewhere or should be much simplified. I doubt anybody who does not know the Belgian political context is able to understand this. Your argument is that one can click on the facilities subarticle. I believe this is a wrong policy. This article is much too detailed for the reader of a general article like Belgium.
• The first sentence in Communities and Regions should refrain to refer to linguistic regions (and a fortiori to the translations of the term in Dutch, German and French). This repell any general reader to read further. Of course this info is relevant and worth mentioning but elsewhere in the section.

Vb 07:12, 11 June 2007 (UTC)~

You keep hammering on the same nails but bring no new aspects into the discussion:

• "The Belgian era does not exist in the sense it is used in the text". What "sense" would that be then? It is simply used, separating the historical pre-Belgian time of the Low Countries from the time during which the country is known as Belgium, and the following sentences clearly elaborate on that so it cannot possibly be misunderstood, provided one knows the meaning of the word 'era' in English. You must have used a most abridged dictionary if you would have found the term to necessarily mean a very specific and meanwhile closed period. In the history of the relevant geographical parts and its people, the Belgian era started when Belgium came to be and until further notice it still continues.
• "Ce qui est sans doute un fait bien connu", literally "which is 1. without doubt 2. a fact 3. wellknown", hence "without doubt a wellknown fact", shortly (and slightly less strong which is proper because in English one tends to use a more compact phrasing than the rather common redundancy in French) "undoubtedly wellknown". "Bien connu" here or anywhere else does not mean "probably" as you claim; the adverb "surely" is a wording similar to "doubtlessly", but contrarily to "sans doute" and "doubtlessly", the French "biensur" or English "surely" are mainly used in front of a statement that relativates a general assumption, whereas the survey report states the proven fact to be more considerable than already assumed, hence the wording in French and its proper translation in English.
  The importance of this statement and the report cannot be overemphasized as it comes from the authors of the most highly reputed French-speaking university in Belgium. That's why the name of the university does not suffice for often unilingual English-speaking readers who may not be aware of its name being French and not Dutch or of its reputation in Belgium. The descriptive indication of the university is clear and may make the more interested readers curious to read the linked article, which is an asset because it explains the university's sheer existence at the present location to be the result of one of the strongest language battles in Belgian history, quite relevant to this section in the article Belgium and even more so in this paragraph on learned languages as it was a battle about usage of languages in education. Your oversimplification falsifies the importance expressed in the strongly formulated short introduction of the survey report — in particular unacceptable because deeper in the report's text, its authors show a nearly ridiculous pro-French language bias by emphasizing "It's important to notice French (as primary or learned language) to be spoken by more people than Dutch is" ["Il importe de remarquer que le français (maternel ou acquis) est parlé par un nombre plus grand de personnes que le néerlandais."] where such is the clear result precisely of the report's conclusion: an aboninably low percentage of native speakers of French that are able to speak Dutch and the considerably (more than 3 times) better situation amongst native speakers of Dutch. [In case Walloons would only improve their knowledge of Dutch to the level for French nowadays amongst Flemish people, then it would be twice (2.5x) as "important to notice" that Dutch (then 88.5% versus French remaining at 75%) would be more spoken than French (75% versus Dutch now 70%) in the sense of that biased phrase, Belgians able to speak as is very clear from context.
  Your "they don't claim it is well known worlwide"(sic): neither do I nor does the article text suggest that: it says it's a claim in the report of a survey and it is as clear to the reader as to you or me that this is a Belgian survey, though the authors never express where the geographical limits of the 'doublessly wellknown' aspect would lie. Do you not know the possible difference between "wellknown" and "known worldwide", or do you assume our readers to be functionally illiterate?
• "The information presented there is too detailed for the normal international reader." It appears you and few others do not want 'normal international readers' to become informed. The importance of the information in the context of the article Belgium is clear and I argumented that far more extensively than what you attribute to be my argument: on 2007-05-09 03:43 (UTC), 2007-05-21 16:32-17:09 (UTC) (and my follow-up on your reply, on 2007-05-25 05:39 (UTC) and 2007-05-25 08:10 (UTC)). Your 'argument' was an accusation of POV-pushing as if it were out-of-context, while in fact it is precisely in context and most relevant to and necessary for the paragraph explaining 'linguistical diversity' to be so important in Belgian history and politics, which by itself is not a POV but a fact as shown by references (better read the comprehensive sources clearly proving this). Like your point above this one, you want to keep information you do not like 'international readers' to be aware of, out of the article or shuffle it deep down where it is not likely to be read by that many.
• Once again, you express no argument but merely your "humble opinion" about the table being too complicated, ununderstandable, and thus again assume functional illiteracy of readers, or in fact you find the table too informative ("should be much simplified" and you had already shown that to mean leaving out the entire part you do not like). My argument is once again not just what you claim it to be: that argument addressed only one aspect of your particular assumption about 'facilities' as part of the table, and you did not deliver any argument for weeding those out entirely.
• Over and over again you express your only concern to be shuffling even admittedly relevant and notable information (your words: "Of course this info is relevant and worth mentioning") out of sight and hopefully not seen by most readers — like anything that offers information relating to the conflicts between French-speakers and Dutch-speakers in Belgium, however relevant and important it may be in general and even from your point of view. I write an article from an NPOV attitude, which does not mean hiding the ackowledgedly important facts that might cause readers to understand, or even support, points of view on relevant topics. Doing so would indeed make a dull article which would repell a reader much sooner, and an article far from NPOV, for both reasons not deserving Featured Article status. I do not care as much for the recognition of status, but mainly for the essential qualities of an article, and hope both to coincide.

— SomeHuman 11 Jun2007 11:18 (UTC)

• Belgian era: The text states Belgian era and then speaks about Mercator and Vesalius which do not belong to any Belgian era (if there exists any).
• The text presents the survey as if one of the conclusions of the survey were: "the multiligualism of Flanders is undoubtedly well known". It is not one result of the survey. The conclusion of the survey is that "the multilingualism in Flanders is considerable compared to Wallonnia". This is different! The "undoubtedly wellknown" is not a result of the survey it is just a remark for the common Belgian reader which should not interest the international one.
• The intersted readers are not stupid. They just don't want to be hammered by too detailed and specific infos in the introduction of basic things! This is really just a question of style. NOT of POV! Vb 12:55, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Stop trolling and edit-warring: you apparently want to make this article lose FA status to avoid it being read for proper information which is very decently referenced and correctly translated as I showed and as anyone can verify by the French quote in the footnote. Your edit comment calling it a wrong translation is false but your replacer "translation" is not only very poor and hiding the for your by now most obvious POV undesired information, it was also false, e.g. "foreign languages are much better known in Flanders": French a foreign language in Flanders? Compared to Dutch in Wallonia. Uh! That is the most separatist POV I've seen in an article so far, both languages remain native to Belgium! Apparently you are functionally illiterate as to the Belgian era sentence and to what I earlier explained at lenght: you clearly can't get it into your skull that there are two eras: the Lowlandic one and the Belgian one. The first had Vesalius etc, the latter Sax etc. "Significant in an increasingly globalizing epoch" is not POV but (besides being rather stylish) explains the reason why the survey (and many other studies) pay attention to an age under forty: this is the obvious future basis, in this case: whether (nearly) retired people speak 3 (or more) languages will not matter much for Belgium's or its regions' future economical development. And as the figures do not show the Walloons to have commenced to come closer to the Flemish, that significance will be clear. But the actual conclusion is left to the reader, perhaps they could think it might not be a handicap for the Walloons and hence for Belgium. I'm not indicating which POV (however obvious and generally accepted or unlikely it might be) readers should adhere to.
For all clarity, let me quote a small part from the report's section '2. Et le futur ?': "Près de 60 pour cent des jeunes en Flandre connaissent le français, le néerlandais et l’anglais, contre 10 pour cent en Wallonie. La Wallonie est par conséquent en défaut sur deux points. Les Wallons n’apprennent pas la langue de la majorité des belges, et ils n’apprennent pas non plus l’anglais, qui pour de bonnes ou de moins bonnes raisons, est devenue la première langue internationale." and "il ne faut pas se cacher que l’essentiel est de changer les mentalités, encore que celles-ci puissent être partiellement rationalisées par un raisonnement de nature économique.". Besides pointing at the language of the majority of Belgians and that majority's economical supremacy (referring to the 'Marshal plan for Wallonia', recently promoted by Elio di Rupo), the authors point at economical consequences of not knowing the primary international language; they also express to rather expect the figures in the future to remain at the level of the under 40-year olds. My by you contested 6-words "POV" phrasing merely summarizes what gets much more attention in the university report (not just the survey's cold figures, but what the specialized scolars find clearly notable). I urge you to verify the provided sources before removing material with edit comment "rm some POV statement".
The relevance of German as lesser known than French, Dutch and English and such in each region, is perhaps a trifle arguable, but not very successfully for the article on a country that has it as its third official language after having mentioned English which is not an official language there. — SomeHuman 11 Jun2007 13:35 (UTC)

I am not trolling around. I just want to reach a compromise. There are not any Lowlandig or Belgian eras! You invented the concepts! In Wallonia, I have learned Dutch as "2ème Langue Etrangère" i.e. 2nd Foreign Language. This is an official term there is not any POV there but I understand your remark and have proposed a change into "non mother tongue language". Vb 18:55, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I did not invent those concepts, and I'm not going to prove it by even more references: you do not want to understand the term 'era', its a simple word, rather a synonym of 'period in history, though not very short like an episode'; the use of the word era is not restricted to some highly coined terms with an article title on Wikipedia containing the word 'era'. Of course there was a Lowlandic era (having several shorter eras, but those are for a series of History articles, not for a simple sentence in a 'Science and technology' section) and there was or rather still is a Belgian era. By the way, "non mother tongue language" [especially as used in your phrase] does not immediately suggest your première langue étrangère to have been English. Stop edit warring, you really do not have good arguments and you do not show any of my arguments to be invalid either; part of the problem (besides a clear POV) is a lack of feeling for English, which can make reading some of the prose and a table rather difficult for you. If there is a way of writing English in a really decent style while being clear and short, I'd prefer that; but without oversimplifying articles or by refraining from using words one might not be familiar with, hence repeated near-childish terms plastered all along an article. — SomeHuman 11 Jun2007 20:22–20:51 (UTC)

New version of the linguistic region table

Dear SomeHuman,

I think the new version of the table is more difficult to understand than before.

Linguistic region	Authorities rendering services in the language of			Authority, limited to their respective competences, of
	individuals & organisations expressing themselves			the Communities			the Regions (and their provinces)			the Federal government
	in Dutch	in French	in German	Flemish	French	German- speaking	Flemish	Walloon	Brussels- Capital
Dutch language area	obviously	facilities (12)	no provision	×	-	-	×	-	-	×
French language area	facilities (4)	obviously	facilities (2)	-	×	-	-	×	-	×
Bilingual area Brussels-Capital	obviously	obviously	no provision	×	×	-	-	-	×	×
German language area	no provision	facilities (all 9)	obviously	-	-	×	-	×	-	×
	Facilities exist only in specific municipalities near the borders of the Flemish with the Walloon and with the Brussels-Capital Regions, and in Wallonia also in 2 municipalities bordering its German language area as well as for French-speakers throughout the latter area. The number of municipalities with facilities for speakers of the column's language are given within parenthesis.

Vb 10:48, 6 June 2007 (UTC)~

Given that "facilities" in English is widely used to refer to "Toilets" it's actually rather funny. :) DrKiernan 08:11, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

That thought had crossed my mind as well ;-) — But fortunately, in English the term still retains its general original meaning and the terms in Dutch, French, and German all have 'facilit...' or 'Facilit...' and thus always became translated to 'facilities'. The latest version of the relevant section also shows a "See also: Municipalities with language facilities" at top, thus the reader will now be aware of the kind of facilities that is intended. The latest version of the table is:

	Official services rendered in the language of			Areas where the institutions for 3 groups of matters exercise power
	individuals & organisations expressing themselves			the Communities			the Regions (and their provinces)			the Federal State
	in Dutch	in French	in German	Flemish	French	German- speaking	Flemish	Walloon	Brussels- Capital
Dutch language area	yes	facilities (12)	not required	×	-	-	×	-	-	×
French language area	facilities (4)	yes	facilities (2)	-	×	-	-	×	-	×
Bilingual area Brussels-Capital	yes	yes	not required	×	×	-	-	-	×	×
German language area	not required	facilities (all 9)	yes	-	-	×	-	×	-	×
	Within parentheses: number of municipalities with special status, i.e. required to offer facilities for speakers of the column's language. Facilities exist only in specific municipalities near the borders of the Flemish with the Walloon and with the Brussels-Capital Regions, and in Wallonia also in 2 municipalities bordering its German language area as well as for French-speakers throughout the latter area.

The index [n?] underneath 'Flemish' leads to the Footnotes section where is shown:

n?.

Footnote: The Constitution set out seven institutions each of which can have a parliament, government and administration. In fact there are only six such bodies because the Flemish Region merged into the Flemish Community. This single Flemish body thus exercises powers about Community matters in the bilingual area of Brussels-Capital and in the Dutch language area, and about Regional matters only in the latter.

— SomeHuman 11 Aug2007 11:58–22:32 (UTC)

History

I don't understand why this new paragraph:

The 1830 Belgian Revolution led to the establishment of an independent, Catholic and neutral Belgium under a provisional government and a national congress. Since the installation of Leopold I as king in 1831, Belgium has been a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy. Initially an oligarchy characterized mainly by the Catholic Party and the Liberals, by World War II the country had evolved towards universal suffrage, the Labour Party had risen, and trade unions already played a strong role. French as single official language and adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie, had lost its overall importance as Dutch had become recognized as well, but only in 1967 an official Dutch version of the Constitution was accepted.

would be an improvement. I therefore restrored the preceding one which was the story of a long compromise between the editors. I think the new one is a bit POVed Vb 08:59, 11 June 2007 (UTC)~

I don't see why the two versions of that paragraph would be different in POV or NPOV terms. But I do see from other edits and trolling comments on the talk page, that you try to call my edits POV and thus find a way to continue elimitation or hiding far away of anything you have a by now clearly POV allergy against. Where is the story (fairy-tale?) of a compromise? If there is a discussion archived, please tell where and wherein that might show my version controversial. — SomeHuman 11 Jun2007 13:46 (UTC)

Please assume good faith! I think the new phrasing is much more complicated. The meaning of several sentences have been concatenated in only one. It is difficult here to understand the historical evolution because every element is squashed together. The last sentence is IMHO a clear flemish POV. Vb 18:48, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

You simply hate objective statements that do not amplify your POV. I just inserted a clarification in my today's reply a bit higher. I had prepared it, including my last remark "I urge you...". The latter counts once again for your remark here. Read the sources, not only the one by no less than the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, but also the relevant ones under general online sources (which until my edit had served for the entire history section) e.g. the one from the KMLA - hardly to be accused of Flemish POV. And your latest edit comment "rv; Let's start an edit war" does not let me assume good faith but confirms my suspicion of your deliberate sabotage of possible Feature Article status (see my intro comment of this talk page section '#Let's do some real work' and the one of 2007-06-05 18:54 (UTC)). You are an anon troll abusing 'content discussion' (which I already had shown to be little of a discussion by lack of proper arguments on your part, merely 'IMHO this is POV' is once again not content discussion) to even vandalize an article by removing all valuable elements not confirming your highly biased radical POV. — SomeHuman 11 Jun2007 19:49 (UTC)

P.S. There is always the full article on History of Belgium. That section here is very lengthy and thus either information has to be kicked out (I did not do that for it has not been proposed nor has the section been criticized for it at FA, I assume the same section may have existed when the article got FA status earlier: it did not appear to have style changes indicating later elaborations) or it must have a compact phrasing, which unfortunately does require certain skills in English grammar at the readers' side as well. — SomeHuman 11 Jun2007 20:53 (UTC)

PPS: Your edit comment on reverting my edit of the relevant paragraph, "restore preceding paragraph; I don't see any improvement)", see:
2007-06-08T22:55:04 SomeHuman (→History - 3rd paragraph: compact, style relates 2 last sentences + avoid arguably phrased bilingual status (having been suggested by Flemish for the entire country, refused by French-speakers)) — See: [3], "the country" does not have nor had "a bilingual Dutch-French system", only the Brussels-Capital Region. — SomeHuman 11 Jun2007 21:54 (UTC)

The system is bilingual (or even tri-lingual). At least seen from outside. The country has three official languages used in common at the federal level of government. The Brussels Capital Region is officially utterly bilingual. Of course each region is unilingual but seen from outside the country is clearly bilingual. This is clearly explained in the Demogaphics, Politics and Regions and Communities sections. In history, this is just simply stated. Pay attention not to destroy sentences and formulations which were already checked by the reviewers and editors of the second featuring process of this article. Vb 07:15, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Edit war Vb/SomeHuman

Both of us Vb and SomeHuman have exchanged our POV and do not find any agreement on the points listed above. I don't want to explain my arguments further and it seems SomeHuman does not want either. I am waiting for comments of other editors. Until that I shall reverse any of SomeHuman editing to the page. As the editor who managed to get this article featured I don't really stand the repeated insults and misbehaviours of SomeHuman. Vb 06:05, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Then leave the text as improved and presented at the FAR. Most of my edits are results of comments e.g. at the FARC/FAR and I did what I could to improve texts for style, accuracy and understandability. For every edit I delivered proper arguments as edit comment and often here in the talk page. I also delivered numerous references, most certainly very decent ones for anything that just might be controversial. The copyedit asked at FAR should get a view on this and not on a version in which Vb unilaterally decides to get rid of all that cannot confirm Vb's personal viewpoint. His reverts of texts are continuously full reverts to either an old and highly inadequate paragraph, or to his own POV revision that fails to show what most exemplary references pay a great deal of attention to. Vb never gave arguments either on why my text would not be correct and appropriate, nor on merits of what Vb made of it; Vb only makes remarks as 'too detailed', 'POV', but never why or what would make it POV., it's always 'IMHO it is this, IMHO it is that without bringing logical arguments, and never even attempting to show where or why my properly presented arguments would be incorrect.

- Vb: I don't agree / I don't agree with putting it within the lead. I think this is POV! Only once an argumentation was brough forward: stating that "the thesis of many flemish nationalists is that Brussels stands as a multi-cultural Flemish city" (A well-referenced fact: 56% immigrated from foreign countries or are 2nd generation), also mentioning the simple and undeniable fact, and most relevant to both Brussels and Belgium, of the Brussels-Capital Region being an enclave in the Flemish Region would be, according to Vb, a geographic argument of Flemish nationalists. (It happens to be the compromise between French and Dutch speakers as came to be, this is Belgium. The terms 'enclave in' means 'not a part of' and thus definitely not a Flemish city) The majority of the people in Brussels speaking French, is a favorite argument of French-speaking radicals, but it cannot be denied to be equally correct and relevant as the geographical situation, and both are mentioned in the same paragraph of which the purpose is and always was, to demonstrate the complexity of the Belgian linguistic situation.

- Vb: I really do not understand what the table has here to do! Nobody understand the word "facilities" outside of Belgium. We really don't need that amount of details and I still think the table is not clear. The words facility, provision and obvious must be explained in order to make the table understandable by foreigners. This would however lead to a too deep detailed description of the Belgian federal system. Could this be too difficult for outsiders and too detailed because the table shows 9 municipalites in the German-speaking Community and 12 in the Flemish offering 'facilities' for French-speakers, and only 6 in the French Community for German and Dutch together? I do not draw any attention to such and I do not assume many readers to do the arithmatic.

- Vb's section #Fisrt paragraph of the section Communities and Regions on this talk page

• Vb's intellectual honesty is in jeopardy as Vb admits what a 2006 report by a university states, Vb's word : "It is well known that the Flemings speak better foreign languages than Walloons" (well known among the readers, i.e. the Belgians --- they don't claim it is well known worlwide). They say this because what they claim is that the Walloons do know much much less foreign languages than usually assumed." Thus Vb indeed understands that the authors take it that everyone in Belgium knows the Flemish to speak more languages, but keeps modifying the paragraph [4] to a version that elimitates that most prominent statement by the authors, hence Vb's text states that the 2006 survey showed a better knowledge of languages, as if one had not yet realized this before, an accident de parcours one will soon remedy. The truth is that the authors point out that it was undoubtedly wellknown and the survey proved the difference to be considerable. This is a blaim on the French-speakers and the authors do express that (but my rendering of the report in the article does not), and thus Vb again pushes his POV as far as to falsify the authors' conclusion and comment [highly visible as it forms the report's short presentation] of the most renown university in the French Community in Belgium. And the latter for such matter most relevant fact too, Vb camouflages by insisting on simply putting the name of the university which will be utterly unrevealing for the large majority of readers who may well assume an anti-French bias from a Flemish university: many speakers of English cannot recognize it as a French name. And for Vb's POV, the innocent sentence about the third official language in Belgium must disappear: even with the German-speaking Community inside the Walloon Region, that region as a whole does not show higher levels of German being spoken and thus its French-speakers do not better in that language than for the already mentioned ones (this too is not pointed out in my text, though this too is pointed out by the authors of the report).
• Vb keeps reverting [5] to a version of a paragraph in the History section, that depicts Belgium falsely: "The country has since developed a bilingual Dutch-French system". The bilingual area of Brussels-Capital is bilingual, the rest of the country is unilingual, though there are several languages according to the geographical locations, and even in such misinterpreted meaning of 'bilingual' the statement is false: there are not two but three languages at equal footage. That same paragraph in Vb's version includes a typical francophone POV: "Originally, French, which was the adopted language of the nobility and the bourgeoisie, was the official language." This states that when Belgium became independent, the nobility and the bourgeoisie of Belgium was already French-speaking. That was the case for the nobility since centuries, but the bourgeoisie was not yet predominantly French-speaking: even in Brussels, 90% of the notary documents between 1740-1780 on property sales (before the 1795 French occupation and annexation and 1815 (re)United Kingdom of the Netherlands of what became Belgium in 1830) are in Dutch language (Hasquin, Hervé, 1979 see ref De Ridder, Paul). As property was an asset mainly of 'bourgeois' and not of 'the plebs', it is clear that even in Brussels the bourgeoisie was not in the least so francophone as it became all over the country during the first century of Belgium's existence. Once again, my text does not point out such, it simply corrects both false statements: (after mentioning "by World War II") "French as single official language and adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie, had lost its overall importance as Dutch had become recognized as well" - not POV, accurate, shorter. Obviously, for Vb it must remain POV even at the cost of documented truth.

There is no content dispute here, just one contributor unilaterally deciding this article must follow a most radical personal pride and conviction that violates the required NPOV.
— SomeHuman 12 Jun2007 17:09 (UTC)

Oh yes. There is content dispute. The position and emphase of the different aspect of the history/politics of Belgium belong utterly to the content of this article. A biased description of the country leads directly to a non NPOV! Vb 84.175.236.153 07:18, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

The Ginsburgh-Weber report was highly noticed as now also for your sake more explicitly expressed in the Taalunie footnote (Le Soir, Algemeen Dagblad) and noted by other notable scholars and, as I pointed out by the 'significantly'-phrase, economically important (see Weber and Schoors: professors in Economics) and from the new Schoors reference I point you at the poor knowledge of English in Wallonia and its importance for the future "in een markt met externe effecten" in a market with external effects. Thus (less cryptically) 'economically significant in an increasingly globalizing epoch'. So forget about POV and other improper tagging: the world sees what I always explained, even the Belgian French POV solutions suggested in the report are criticized, like I already had shown in an earlier comment before knowing about the Schoors reaction: the report is honest in its figures but shows a rather ridiculous POV.— SomeHuman 14 Jun2007 19:37 (UTC)

The numbers are facts. Opinions are just opinions and do not belong here. In particular when they are offensing for 40% of the Belgian population! Vb 06:55, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Uncontested and relevant "opinions" by renowned experts in the field, that have been published and then quoted in important popular media and commented on by other renowned experts — all these aspects well-referenced, regardless whether such "opinions" are flattering, do belong here: such is WP:NPOV. You just admit your unacceptable POV: For you, anything that might be offensive for French-speaking people or culture absolutely and scrutinously must be weeded out of the article: even with an expert biased towards, and the original Belgian top-university publisher connected with, the French Community. My phrasing is already a low-key rendering limited to the most relevant elements that were given a lot of attention and stronger wording by the experts. — SomeHuman 15 Jun2007 10:26 (UTC)

2nd Paragraph of the lead

I utterly agree with Maskell : The second paragraph is a monster. This was not all the time so: it went down the hill since SomeHuman edited it and accused any editor willing to improve this of functional illiteracy. Most details about Brussels and exact numbers should be removed. As Dyonisos said we need only the numbers 60%/40% (+/-2%) for describing the ratio Dutch-/French-speaking. Vb 12:58, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I suggest the following ersatz:

Straddling the cultural boundary between Germanic and Latin Europe, Belgium is linguistically divided. Approximatively 60% of the population speaks Dutch while about 40% speaks French. A small minority in the German-speaking community along the German border speaks German. Most Dutch-speakers lives in Flanders, in the north, while most French-speakers lives in Wallonia, in the south, and in the officialy bilingual Brussels-Capital Region at the centre of the country.<ref>Footnote: The exact numbers of Belgians speaking which language is a controversial issue because there is not any official census on the usage of languages in Belgium. Moreover the number of non Belgian residents in Brussels rose recently dramatically. This has made the estimations even more difficult. See the languages and communities and regions sections for more details.</ref>

Please don't hesitate to suggest any modification. Vb 13:30, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Done, a bit shorter and easier to read with a nice balance between the necessary and referenced 'enclave' and the 'nearby' Wallonia, which I must gladly agree to be equally important — but without a personal footnote that is not based on provided references: the controversy about this paragraph is between you and the references, all estimates of 80 or 85 or 90 are approximately 85 percent. — SomeHuman 14 Jun2007 19:38 (UTC)

This nice balance is simply some non NPOV that you want to push against other editors. Vb 06:52, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The reason why Marskell said this par is a monster is that this par is much too detailed for a lead section. We need here to refer to the article section and not to that many references. The enclave status of Brussels is evident. Look at a map!Vb 07:06, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The FAR reviewer Marskell called the 2nd paragraph 'a monster', without saying why: perhaps too detailed (which is why I left out the longer formulation about 56% immigrants), perhaps too hard to read (which I addressed by leaving that too detailed part out, allowing a considerably more clear phrasing). It has become a short paragraph (much shorter than the next in the lead). People do not have to look at maps inside articles before reading the lead, the borders of Belgium are equally evident by the map but still take a much more lengthy phrase in the opening paragraph. But I guess the borders are not what you erroneously consider to be 'POV'. It is hard to push non NPOV: that would be to push POV, and apparently, you fail to convince anyone what POV that would be. Your comment, immediately following mine stating the balance between Brussels being an enclave in the Flemish Region and being near to the Walloon Region (a clear NPOV by showing both relevant Communities' viewpoints on connection with Brussels - which for Community competences actually falls under both Communities), once again demonstrates your incorrect assertion that WP:NPOV is POV in case it just might deflect from pure French-speakers' POV. — SomeHuman 15 Jun2007 10:50 (UTC)

It's monstrous because:

a) The ref formatting makes editing incredibly laborious; I see this is an issue for most of the copy.

b) It's POV. Bizarrely, it properly introduces Flanders but does not properly introduce Wallonia. The second sentence should read something like the following "The two principal regions of Belgium are Dutch-speaking Flanders, with 55% of the Belgian population, and French-speaking Wallonia, which accomodates 33% of the people."

c) The phraseology is strange (see note below). Marskell 17:07, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, d) "...of which approximately 85% often as a secondary language mainly uses French in public" is indecipherable and probably over-specific for a lead, whatever it means. --Marskell 17:24, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, I think it's better. The 85% ought to be removed entirely, IMO, and placed in demographics. Using four or five references for facts should be avoided, unless there's some pressing need for them. Marskell 18:07, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I do not quite agree but... We'd better come to POV much later, when you appear to have finished copediting as an outsider. You should at least for now remain in that position.

As my latest edit comment states, from a pragmatic outsider's viewpoint (and the number of recent immigrants in Brussels cause many of the inhabitants to be outsiders as to the French/Dutch political discussion), the references do allow this formulation: "The nearby Brussels-Capital Region is an officially bilingual enclave within Flanders; with 56% of the Capital Region's residents being of recent foreign descent, and most others speaking French, this language is locally a de facto lingua franca." — "85% speak French", without precise specifics, was wrong: up to 99% can speak some French (be it hardly more than 'oui, merci' for some; 95% will manage enchanté mademoiselle), less than 50% are native speakers (in 2005, the numbers were different in 1999). The 85% did correspond to the number of people being able to express themselves in French (and assumed to mainly do so at least outside their family or community of a foreign country), except the inhabitants with Dutch as primary language. There has not been a study about how often an average Dutch-speaker actually uses French or Dutch at home (e.g. mixed marriage) or outside, while in Brussels. An outsider may not put as much attention to the precise usage of official Belgian languages within the Capital Region. I am afraid however, that my newest formulation could trigger Flemish opposition, as both the Flemish minority in bilingual Brussels and the Flemish commuters and visitors have the full right to expect to be addressed in Dutch. In practice, apart from official usage, a French-speaker stands a better chance in the officially unilingual Flemish Region (which experience is corroborated by the references about knowledge of languages in the regions). That's a major cause of the sensitivity for language affairs. Kind regards. — SomeHuman 16 Jun2007 00:35–04:25 (UTC)

PS: A shorter variant might be e.g. "The residents of a nearby enclave within Flanders, the officially bilingual Brussels-Capital Region, are for 56% of recent foreign descent and most others speak French, locally a de facto lingua franca."
I assume this (or similar formulation) can help avoiding a monstrosity while being accurate. (Perhaps missed amongst the references: a 'see also' General online references: Janssens, Rudy). — SomeHuman 16 Jun2007 04:48 (UTC)

All of which underscores that the sentence does not belong in the lead at all. The intro is not the place for difficult to parse statistics. Marskell 06:41, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

It is quite funny but I utterly agree with Marskell. The words "enclave" and "used in public" do not belong to the lead. They belong of the usual Flemish argumentation on the status of Brussels. This argumentation is defendable but does not belong to the lead. Vb 07:15, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Marskell cut out the phrase about 'used in public'. The 2nd paragraph of the lead no longer depicts the intricacies of language majorities within a region, and thus does not as well indicate why such complex system of government was developed. That simplification appears fine (as long as the last sentence about complexity does not directly refer to what preceeds), the more because not all aspects can come into the lead anyway. Hence, no suggestions about percentages of languages being spoken anywhere (and no need for a number of people in the German-speaking Community, they are simply comprised in the figure for the Walloon Region - mentioning it could for an uncareful reader be confusing as if Belgium would have a population of more than one hundred percent).

What does remain is: 1. all three official languages (aka all three standard languages of all native dialects in Belgium); 2. where these are official [disregarding the minor 'facilities'] (and thus indirectly the four language areas); 3. all three regions (simple: no mutual overlaps); 4. the percentage of the population of each region (precisely known); 5. the relative geographical positions of the regions — So one mustnot cut out any part of one of these five types of information, crippling the paragraph.
The nice part is that the initial subphrase indicates the major cultural communities (the true ones, not the institutional), and further on the third community (by the institutional name which coincides with the simplest description of the true one).

— SomeHuman 19 Jun2007 01:56 (UTC)

Copyediting

I'm willing to copyedit this per the FAR but that may be pointless if revert warring over-top of things is going to introduce new problems. Or bad new copy. "accommodates 58% of the population." The simple "has 58%" was perfectly fine. "An enclave therein is the..." Oh God, please find a way to get rid of "therein".

And now we have the dispute tags and whatnot thrown into the page. So, I dunno. Do we remove FA status until this settles down? Marskell 13:51, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes. I can't see how the tags and the star can co-exist. I feel sorry for those who have put in alot of effort to it.cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:57, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Strongly oppose: One editor who abuses the article for his own proven POV and sabotages the hard work of others despite dozens of attempts to bring Vb to reason, as I already explained above only to push a highly radical personal POV (though putting in POV tags on my edits in which the weakest possible formulations that NPOV can allow are, often after several adjustments, present). If this one-person series of actions after my explaining about jeopardizing FA, would be able to remove FA, then WP becomes an absolute slave of a POV-pusher and cannot maintain NPOV. One person deliberately causing such FA failing, would be a most powerful vandal, more vandalizing than all blatant vandals can obtain together.

Marskell, a country "has a population" of 10,500,000 million; a region "has 58%" (of the population), does mean "has a group of people that constitutes 58 percent" of the population. In other words, "the region has people"; to me, "the people have a region" which as an institution provides the necessitary services for the people. That is indeed the meaning of "The region accomodates 58% of the population". The phrasing is not just mine, I found several such wordings before changing it. Your copyediting is most highly appreciated, though this does not make you an absolute monarch whose authority mustnot be questioned. I also undid two more of your contributions, I know to be well intended (and I even truly appreciated the "Despite its present bifurcation", but it is immediatelaly followed with " The Mosan art, the Early Netherlandish, the Flemish Renaissance and Baroque painting, major examples of Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architecture, and the Renaissance vocal music of the Franco-Flemish School developed in the southern part of the Low Countries" — showing the 'bifurcation' to have a historical background for centuries, with very few exceptions (Baroque and partially Gothic though e.g. Brabantine Gothic was no exception), which makes 'Despite' impossible. Of course I appreciate your further good work as you by now already did for the COBRA movement. Kind regards. — SomeHuman 15 Jun2007 17:25 (UTC)

As regards POV-pushing, I'm working on the assumption the Vb would say the exact same of your edits; a disinterested observer oughtn't choose between editors as such, but judge the copy as it stands. As noted, your second paragraph was clearly POV. Re "has", I think you're over-analyzing. Always use the simplest word available, but avoid repetition.

I also have no intention of being an absolute monarch on copyediting. But there is some phrasing in this article that makes for difficult reading and needs going over by someone previously unfamiliar with it. In culture, which I just worked on and hopefully improved, specifics on three separate arts were shoved into one sentence. I have no problem with tweaks after an edit is made, of course. Marskell 19:44, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I take your point on holding a page to ransom, though there have been alot of concerns expressed before this point and it appears to be the icing on the cake. I started reading at one point and may weigh in again soon though I am the best copyeditor in the world - I don't want to dob User:Circeus in but....cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:39, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Can't make it out

Here's a doozy:

"Nevertheless, symbolically and materially the Roman Catholic Church stays in a favourable position, and the concept of 'recognized religion' caused a tedious path for Islam to become at the level of Jewish and Protestant religions, other minority religions such as Buddhism do not yet have such status." Marskell 09:49, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Symbolically: in several ways, for instance the yearly Te Deum at which the royalty and the government (even as this was formed by Liberals and Socialists) attends Catholic Mass, broadcast on the official regional television channels.

Materially: one should realize what it means to be an officially 'recognized religion' in Belgium: besides some financing via religious institutions of church buildings, the clergyman (or -woman if such would be the case, as far as the law is concerned) receive full wages (and pensions afterwards) as officials, financed by the taxpayer; unlike in some countries, the taxpayer has no say about which religion, if any, would be preferred; hence Buddhists support mainly Catholic priests and maintenance of churches by paying their taxes and still need to financially support Buddhists monks and temples privately. In the case of Islam, the forming of religious institutions (also necessary to identify the clergy) and their becoming recognized as to correctly represent the entire Islam community (which proved less obvious in a non-hierarchically organized religion since the financing system was built with the Catholic structures in mind), has caused many years of delay. Islam is well-represented amongst Belgian residents, for smaller communities the long path to go, may be an even more difficult one; nevertheless, the first step was recently taken for Buddhism.

The 'Belgium' article should not explain what I did here above (though it would be practical if there were a linked relevant specific article under 'recognized religion') but needs to indicate the de facto highly unequal treating of religions by an official design for recognition, in a country that has constitutional freedom of religion or philosophical conviction, and the article should name the relevant religions while at least mentioning the existence of a Belgian concept of 'recognized religion'. The sentence does not (need to) further elaborate: simply indicating the 'favourable position' not only symbolically but also materially, should suffice. And such is properly referenced. The only, be it not very substantial, part lacking in this sentence, is that also Humanism as (if) a secular "religion" has an organization and was recognized: elsewhere, the 'Belgium' article already gives sufficient attention to Freethought versus Catholic aspects. Naming Humanism under a title 'Religion' tends to cause heavy debates.

— SomeHuman 17 Jun2007 10:12 (UTC)

Buddhism is a recognised religion, it was recognised earlier this year if I recall correctly. The Buddhist Union of Belgium needs to organise itself first now, and if that's done they can get financial support starting in 2008. It is the eighth recognised religion in Belgium. --Ganchelkas 10:17, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Precisely, the first step was taken. Trying to "organize" a traditionally utterly unorganized religion without history of representative institutions, but with several strains, is what caused Islam's path to be so tedious: Buddhism may experience the same. The problem is caused by cultural differences between habits of strictly organized systems with a clear hierarchy, most suitable for Catholicism, and elsewhere a more de facto acceptance of mutually unorganized monasteries and clergy, supported (financially, food donations) directly by their adherers. But Buddhists have to pay taxes the moment they arrive in Belgium and converting to Buddhism does not give the right on a tax reduction either. Should Buddhist monks walk with their alm bowls towards City Hall around six in the morning to receive their daily food? Hence the demands set in Belgium cause a change of lifestyle and mindset, jeopardizing the authenticity and traditions of a religion. Buddhists have no mass, a fixed time for the community to gather, but at each visit to a monk, one brings food and money, also when the community gathers for a festivity at the monastery at which volunteers work together. Either that disappears, leaving no community, or it continues and causes double financing (whether of Buddhism twice if recognized, or of Buddhism and a non-adhered religion till then). — SomeHuman 17 Jun2007 10:47–10:55 (UTC)

I placed it here not just because of the intent of the wording, but because of the grammar. "...caused a tedious path for Islam to become at the level of..." is ungrammatical and the last clause needs a conjunction. If there are eight recognized religions, I'd suggest listing them and briefly encapsulating what the status means. Marskell 11:18, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Which would put undue attention to this topic in an already lengthy article: The main religions (or is it groups of recognized religions: I do not know which eight are recognized, surely Ganchelkas is one of the few contributors who so far were able to clearly point out flaws in my essential assumptions on which I had based argumentations on talk pages) should suffice here and further elaborations belong in Religion in Belgium (mentioned at top of the subsection). Unfortunately, I do not quite follow your grammatical analysis. As you understand the intend, please do improve on grammar, but try to accurately maintain the present content which is fully supported by references: religion is one of the most likely topics to cause endless debates and as it stands, it is not a subject of one. May I suggest (something like):
"Nevertheless, symbolically and materially the Roman Catholic Church stays in a favourable position, and the Belgian concept of an officially 'recognized religion' as also attained by, for instance, Jewish and Protestant religions, had for Islam caused a tedious path toward this level, while other minority religions such as Buddhism do not yet have that status."

I just found another source on the subject, be it only availabe in Dutch as far as I saw so far., see "Voorstel van resolutie (...) betreffende het islamonderricht in het onderwijs", on Islam teaching in education, more important for Islam than for e.g. Buddhism or Hinduism; the presented resolution handles viewpoints on religious freedom in Belgium. — SomeHuman 17 Jun2007 12:13 (UTC)

Just for the record, the following "religions" are recognised: Catholicism, Protestantism, Anglicanism, Orthodox Christianity, Judaism, Islam and the "vrijzinnige levensbeschouwelijke organisaties" (or whatever they're called officially), and Buddhism (though I'm not sure how far they are in the process of recognition, I suppose they're still trying to organise themselves). I once tracked down a piece of legislation listing the first seven recognised religions, I'll see whether I can dig it up again. --Ganchelkas 12:27, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

"A first step towards recognition" is the translation of my memory about my interpretation of what was said by, I think, (government) Minister Onckelinckx on TV news earlier this year. I do not think this first step might already be called a status of 'recognized religion': I assume it has few practical implications (apart from financing operational costs of the Buddhist Union of Belgium itself) and Islam had taken this step many years before attaining the desired practical level of recognition. My rendering includes Judaism, Protestantism and Anglicanism (the latter at least from a Belgian, Catholic reference frame considered Protestant like Calvinism, Lutheranism. The separate 'Anglican' is assumedly a consequence of the clearly organized hierarchical structure of what would otherwise have resorted under Protestantism, a wide group like Judaism which I assume includes the Antverpian Chassidim community).

My above suggested sentence might however best mention "Orthodox, Protestant, and Jewish religions" (no more need to call Orthodox 'Christian' than for Catholic or Protestant, in the context and word order one would not assume this to be Orthodox Judaism; furthermore the naming where I just found it, does not mention 'Christian' either, rather "katholiscisme, protestantisme, anglicanisme, Israëlitische eredienst, islamitische eredienst, orthodoxe eredienst", Israëlitisch, hm.)

(Also for Markell's sake:) "vrijzinnige levensbeschouwelijke organisaties" means 'Freethought lifestance organisations' (which in Belgium probably means organisations once best known as 'Humanistisch Verbond' (Humanistic Union) by the Flemish (as 'Centre d'action laïque' by French-speakers ???), and —judging by the Happy Human logo on their European parent's website— all members of the IHEU). — SomeHuman 17 Jun2007 16:20 (UTC)

And this

"There are no official statistics on Belgium's three official languages (or their dialects) that inhabitants prefer. As no census exists, such is not always simply established for an individual (language of which parent or of which years of education). Figures here given for Dutch, French or German include foreign immigrants and their children for whom neither is necessarily the primary language : 59% of the Belgian population, being 6.23 million people in the north, mainly in the region Flanders, speaks Dutch (while Belgians of both major language groups often refer to it as Flemish) ; French is spoken by 40%, comprising 3.32 million in the southern region Wallonia and an estimated 0.87 million or 85% of the officially bilingual Brussels-Capital Region — in which enclave encompassed by the Flemish Region thus a minority of perhaps 0.15 million speaks Dutch, its local language till shortly before Belgium's independence. With recent immigration having caused 56.5% of the capital region's population to be of foreign origin, usually natively neither French nor Dutch-speaking, neither official language is the primary one for roughly half of the inhabitants (though 74% has the Belgian nationality). In general the population of Brussels is younger and the gap between rich and poor is wider. Of the 73,000 people of the German-speaking Community in the east of the Walloon Region, around 10,000 German and 60,000 Belgian nationals are speakers of German; roughly 23,000 more of its speakers live in municipalities near the official Community."

I presume this has been revert-warred over. It's so muddled I don't even know where to begin. Marskell 12:24, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

---

"The residents of a nearby enclave within Flanders, the officially bilingual Brussels-Capital Region, are for 56% of recent foreign descent and most others speak French, locally a de facto lingua franca."

I have cut this for now to allow it to be incorporated into the above. It also doesn't make much sense. Marskell 12:32, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

The first part, as far as I'm concerned, does not need to be in the article. But Vb (possibly others as well) insisted on the "as no census exists" and tried to get a vague notion like 'majority' instead of figures on Brussels' French-speakers into the article, incorrectly argumenting that sources are contradictory. They are only contradictory if one does not read what precisely is shown by the figures and compares incompatible things. The 'census' part might be too relevant from one POV to leave it out: The language border and the municipalities with language facilities were determined for once and for all by the at that time (1962 I believe) most recent official census on the native language of the population (though already old, I think it dated from 1947 or so). The historical constant immigration by French-speakers into Dutch-language municipalities very near to the unofficial language border where they could remain in contact with French-speakers and were sure to find nearly all Flemish locals able to speak French (versus Flemish who by their knowledge of French, or poverty-stricken by lack of choice, rather emigrated farther away from Flanders to any interesting part of Wallonia, e.g. the still thriving mining and steel industry, where as a clearly small minority they simply had to speak French and became integrated soon, with French-speaking children), had caused a continuous northwardly creeping of the language border (most of the current Walloon Brabant was once Dutch-speaking). Hence the firm Flemish demand on fixed borders (which was compensated of course). As the border had to be final, politicians agreed on not trying to have a new census in the future, because such would then invoke questioning those definitively fixed borders. One can compare this with having national borders, those do not change because people from a neighbouring country immigrate. With respect to the recent Elio Di Rupo threats to strive for bringing Brussels' rim municipalities from the Flemish Region to the "bilingual" Capital Region which is de facto French-speaking, apart from official matters and even those have given problems for Dutch-speakers in the past, that 'census' thing has become a French-speakers 'blame' against the Flemish. Anyway, the same process of migration did not stop, of course. And the "facilities for French-speakers" which were according to the Flemish intended for the French-speakers who already lived there in the 1960s, kept being used by newcomers as the agreement on the facilities according to the French-speakers is a permanent obligation. Hence mayors trying to keep their local majority of Flemish people happy, with assistance from e.g. the notorious Minister Peeters, keep sending documents in Dutch and expect French-speakers to ask a French version at each and every occasion. This was after a long legal fight found correct, and (some) French-speakers blame the for this matter highest court to have made a political judgement. Hence the French side tried to get European inspectors/reporters to let the French-speakers in the Flemish Region become considered a 'language minority' that should be protected under a European protection scheme that was not ratified by Belgium, for the explained obvious reasons. From the French-language POV, the French-speakers are nationals of Belgian territory living in an officially Dutch-speaking area and thus a language minority, as seen by the European treaty; from the Flemish POV, the French-speakers immigrated into the Flemish Region and are thus not "nationals" of Flemish territory but voluntary immigrants, not protected by that treaty. There is however no subnationality in Belgium, thus from a European POV, Belgians are Belgians and remain such if they move inside their Belgian country, regardless the region. On the other hand, the constitution does not allow to change the language border or the changing of a facilities status of a municipality, unless by a special majority by the representatives from each side of the language border. Any Flemish party that today would consider changing that border, would commit instant suicide; thus Elio Di Rupo's attitude towards this is either window-dressing for his public, or an attempt to sell constitutional changes for further regionalization of specific matters as demanded by Flemish parties, at the highest price (to escape from an unthinkable language border negotiation while keeping repeated public promises of a desired constitutional change). But it does make this 'census' thing a very sensitive matter for the article.

The first sentence appears correct to me:

"There are no official statistics on Belgium's three official languages (or their dialects) that inhabitants prefer"... to speak or e.g. to fill in forms, in other words, which they themselves consider to be their own language if they are native Belgians, or the preferred Belgian language if they are immigrants or children of immigrants who learned to speak at first in their mother's or father's language. The second sentence indicates that it is very hard to obtain reliable figures on such: many people have parents originally speaking different languages, Dutch and French, which parent determines the child's language? Always the mother? What if the mother died or the parents were divorced and the child (exceptionally) stayed with the father, what if this happened at 1 year of age and what if it happened at 12? There are still quite a number of people in Brussels who can speak perfect Brussels dialect (a Dutch dialect with more French loanwords than elsewhere but perfectly intelligible for other Brabantian dialect-speakers and vice versa) but cannot read Dutch language, as they were educated in French-language schools and Dutch is only written in standard language, which they never learned to speak and is mutually less intelligible with the Brussels dialect. Instead of looking at the parents, which is no solution if both parents speak a foreign language, should one consider the first years at school in which one learned to read and write, as one's own Belgian language? Should it be the language in which one obtained the highest diploma, in which one is supposed to be educated to the highest level of mastering the language, and would the latter be logical as now many students go abroad to study e.g. for a masters degree, often in English, not a Belgian language? Thus any survey should set out precise parameters which are bound to be confusing for some of the surveyed people and scientifically and politically contested afterwards. How does one then determine a 'language minority' to exist?

This merely situates the socio-political problem. I hope to come back on this later on, to help finding a solution for the article. Kind regards. — SomeHuman 18 Jun2007 00:32–02:46 (UTC)

"'Too much details about Brussels in the lead'...

...to exclude NPOV, now to support that POV suddenly does not count any more?"

To be clear, I don't believe ANY of these details belong in the lead. "The officially bilingual Brussels Capital Region has 10% of the population" is perfectly fine. See WP:LEAD and explain why we need over-specifics in the first place. The article says " the territory of the Brussels-Capital Region is included in both the Flemish and French Communities." I first read "enclave within" innocently. I now see it as POV. We can't we just remove it entirely? Marskell 06:14, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree Vb 18:52, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Of course Vb "agrees". Markell, just read my 2007-06-19 01:56 comment and argumentation in the relevant section, do not allow crippling that fully consistent logic of this paragraph:

Straddling the cultural boundary between Germanic and Latin Europe, Belgium's two largest regions are Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north, with 58% of the population, and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia, which accomodates 32%. The Brussels-Capital Region is an officially bilingual enclave within the Flemish and near the Walloon Region, and has 10% of the population.[α] A small German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia.[•] Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political and cultural conflicts are reflected in the political history and a complex system of government.
α. Leclerc, Jacques , membre associé du TLFQ (2007-01-18). "Belgique • België • Belgien — Région de Bruxelles-Capitale • Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest". L'aménagement linguistique dans le monde (in French). Host: Trésor de la langue française au Québec (TLFQ), Université Laval, Quebec. Retrieved 2007-06-18. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)

The Communities are not Regions! The institutional concept of a geographically circumscribed area within which a language is official, is not what an uninformed reader would expect by the term community; and the paragraph does clearly state that two communities in the classical sense are involved in Belgium. The terms 'enclave within' have as only meaning in English entity which is not a part of but encompassed by another entity, namely, and 'near the Walloon Region' makes it clear that as well the classic-sense community of the encompassing Region as that of the nearby Region may relate to it, which is clearly confirmed by the term 'bilingual' (which actually does mean that both institutional Communities must play a role there). Your 'innocent' reading is the correct one, see for instance the provided reference that calls not only "Brussels" at first, but also the "Region" further on, an enclave in/within (dans) the Flemish one. Look in that source at the map of Brussels and the relevant encompassing and nearby provinces, to the right of the second mentioning as enclave, if you would still have doubts about 'within'. The source is a French-Canadian university, thus certainly not Flemish POV and most unlikely to have been influenced by such, at the contrary: the author is an associated member of the Trésor de la langue française au Québec (ever heard of La Francophonie?). It is however a wellknown French-Belgian POV to depict Brussels as if it were smack on the border between Flanders and Wallonia, thus to hide the correct information which puts the officially bilingual area of Belgium separated from the officially French-speaking area. That is as much Belgium as Brussels being bilingual or any other fact in the lead, and it is one of the most relevant facts regarding the language disputes and its settlements in Belgium. The lead mustnot depict Brussels in a way that otherwise to any innocent reader suggests the French-speaking POV that has never been true; Belgium is not a unitary state with French as single official or till 1967 advantaged language either, no more than it is still a part of the Low Countries or the United Netherlands with a 95% Dutch-speaking population in Brussels. And please, do not let Vb trick you by sometimes signing article edits with Vb and other times with every few days changing IP addresses (84.175.<rest changing>) as if there would be a crowd: it's only Vb. If you encounter paragraphs where Vb and I have different opinions about, you will most likely find several previous sections on this talk page about the particular subject. If you arrived here without reading the initially mentioned relevant section, do not forget to do so now. Kind regards. — SomeHuman 20 Jun2007 04:14 (UTC)

Funny enough I also agree with SomeHuman. I agree that Brussels is an enclave within the Flemish Region. What I don't agree with is putting this infomation in the lead because this information standing alone at the head of this article can be misunderstood and should be complemented with many other comments which clearly would make the lead too detailed and too long. This phrasing and editorial choice to put it in the lead is a clear POV-pushing case. I agree with Marskell in the sense that the best compromise is to utterly suppress the sentence. I already suggested a compromise above. In this compromise, a footnote replace all the currently existing footnotes on this topic in the lead. In this footnote only the fact is mntioned that the status of Brussels is complicated and that details can be found in the appropriated sections (Communities and regions as well as languages. Vb 06:12, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

"The Communities are not Regions!" Yes, and we need a clause to explain that. Or we don't. Just keep the lead short and save the details until later. It's a simple concept. Marskell 07:12, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

This used to be the concept of this article for years! I of course agree. Vb 07:31, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I see I've missed a whole lot of the discussion. What on earth can be so POV pushing about this:

Straddling the cultural boundary between Germanic and Latin Europe, Belgium's two largest regions are Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north, with 58% of the population, and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia, inhabited by 32%. The Brussels-Capital Region is an officially bilingual enclave within the Flemish and near the Walloon Region, and has 10% of the population.[α] A small German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia.[•] Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political and cultural conflicts are reflected in the political history and a complex system of government.

I consider this a good lead, with a logical order (north-south, large-smaller), no redundant details, and we got rid of the 'accomodates'. The enclave thing should stay because, as SomeHuman says, it's one of the major causes of conflict. That it is "near" the Walloon Region is ok by me as well. Btw, check the French article if you'd want some more to discuss. --Dionysos1 07:27, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

It is simply to detailed and too controversial to be discussed at this place. Vb07:31, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

So, it's alright than? Finally the discussion ends! --Dionysos1 07:34, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Last paragraph of Language section

I am the opinion this version of the paragraph is better than the current one.

In 2006, the university of Louvain-la-Neuve published a survey report showing Flanders' leadership in speaking multiple languages to be considerable : 59% of the Flemish respondents can speak French and 53% English; of the Walloons on the other hand, merely 19% Dutch and 17% English; of the Brussels' residents, 95% declare to be able to speak French, 59% Dutch, and 41% the non-local English. In Flanders, Wallonnia and Brussels, 59, 10, and 28 percent of people under forty can speak all three languages. In each region, Belgium's third official language, German, is notably less known than any of this survey's forementioned ones.

Because:

• The phrasing "Coheir of the oldest..." is pedantic and provides no information. I am aware that there is no official translation of the name "Université Catholique de Louvain". However most authors from this University translate the name as "University of Louvain-la-Neuve" because the translation "University of Louvain" can be mistaken with the "University of Leuven" (Louvain is the traditional English and French translation of Leuven).
• The phrasing "Economically significant in an increasingly globalizing epoch, in their respective regions 59, 10, and 28 percent of people under forty can speak all three languages." must be utterly changed because
  • "Economically significant in an increasingly globalizing epoch" is simply insulting for the French-speaking segment of the Belgian population.
  • "in their respective regions 59, 10, and 28 percent" is a totured wording. "respective" should be avoided if possible. It breaks the reading flow. THe reader has to read backward to understand what means which number.

Vb 06:33, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree the Coheir thing sounds way too biblical. The Vb's proposal is OK by me but I'd add French-speaking as well to make clear that this is not just a Flemish point of view. --Dionysos1 07:09, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

This is another clear case of what I accused Vb of in the beginning of section #Let's do some real work, including about easily finding a supporter. It's Vb's trademark 'technique'. As usually when Vb starts a "new" section somewhere later on, the real discussion went on earlier, all arguments have been properly presented in the section #undoubtedly wellknown. There is also more about this paragraph in the sections #Let's do some real work and #Edit war Vb/SomeHuman. I refuse to have to jump to every new section on old discussions at every of Vb's whimses and thus sooner or later Vb will be able to say "See talk page" if I stay absent for a week. I'm not going to rebuke the same a fourth time, or next week a fifth... A coheir is not so very biblical but rather feudal, and in this case the only way to present the fact that the university of Leuven is the oldest in Belgium, while the French-language (which for a part of its history has been its only language) was ousted out towards Louvain-la-Neuve; this still makes the latter entitled to say it's the oldest but so can the Dutch-speaking university at the original location. They truly are coheirs of the reputation connected with being the oldest university in the country. — SomeHuman 20 Jun2007 16:01 (UTC)

Of course I know the story of Louvain-la-Neuve. Also I know the word coheir is not biblical, but the construction is too complicated: it should just be the largest French-speakers university of the country or the University of Louvain-la-Neuve, that it's old doesn't matter in that context, nor that it has a Flemish counterpart. But I absolutely disagree with the last two points of Vb. I'm sorry for him that French is degrading on a world scale, but it's a fact. I understand your patience is gone now, after all those ridiculous discussion above. Respect actually for staying so calm. --Dionysos1 17:54, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Dear Dionysos1, dear SomeHuman,

I am also losing my patience: "Economically significant in an increasingly globalizing epoch" is an insult -- or at least a judgment -- which has no place in an encyclopaedia. This MUST be removed. That the Flemings are proud of their multilingualism is their good right but that does not allow them to be so arrogant. Please find a country article in Wikipedia where the knowledge of foreign languages is compared between the different segment of the population. Do you think the Flemings would be happy to read something like: "Economically significant in an increasingly globalizing epoch, only 10% of the Flemish people can use a computer while 30% of the Walloons can." Vb 07:45, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Do you think the Flemings would let it come that far and stay happy with such situation and say 'Let's all shut up about this subject, its hurts my dignity"? I'm not further commenting on the wishful thinking by an individual. The paragraph's main source that makes the "insult" is French-speaking, Walloon, most authoritative, published in 'Regards économiques' by economists, and its "judgement" is further discussed by another renowned academic specialized in economics (and as that second source shows, the original report was instigated by the European Union and thus all the more likely to play a role in future), and it also being quoted by national and international media as shown in references, makes the article's statement not only unbiassed and true, but also clearly notable, while still phrased more sotto voce than some of the original lines, a few quotes:

• nous abordons quelques aspects qui illustrent les conséquences importantes que la connaissance d’une langue peut avoir à la fois sur le plan macroéconomique et sur le plan individuel (noting important macroeconomical consequences of the knowledge of a language)
• Le tableau est impressionnant, l’avenir nous dira si l’opération aura réussi, mais il ne faut pas se cacher que l’essentiel est de changer les mentalités, encore que celles-ci puissent être partiellement rationalisées par un raisonnement de nature économique. ("The table is impressive, the future will tell us whether the operation will have been successful, but one mustnot hide from the essential, which is to change the mentalities, even though those can partially be rationalized by an argumentation of an economical nature.")
• En effet, la population anglophone est suffisamment importante dans le monde pour que très peu d’entre eux ressentent le besoin d’apprendre une langue étrangère (...), et sur le plan international, les Wallons resteront dès lors sérieusement isolés. ("In fact, the English-speaking population is sufficiently important in the world for very few of its members to feel the need of learning a foreign language (...), and on the international scale, the Walloons will thereby remain seriously isolated.")
• Au bénéfice intellectuel lié à la connaissance d’autres langues (pénétrer mieux dans d’autres cultures, d’autres littératures), s’ajoute souvent un bénéfice économique. ("On top of the intellectual benefit linked to the knowledge of other languages (better penetration in other cultures, other literatures), often an economical benefit is added.")
• Le déficit linguistique de la partie francophone du pays est très évident, et si aucune mesure n’est prise, le futur risque de ressembler très fortement au présent ("The linguistic deficit of the Francophone part of the country is very evident, and if no measures are taken, the future risks ressembling the present" - referring to a further continued deficit, in speaking languages obviously, and probably hinting at the economical lagging behind of the Region as well)
• Mais il est aussi important de se rappeler que l’importance internationale du français se réduit. ("But it is also important to remember that the international importance of French is decreasing.")
• Le chauffeur de l’ambulance est endormi, et il est temps qu’il se réveille ("The ambulance driver is fallen asleep, and it is time he wakes up")

And those quotes come from that Walloon source only; the Dutch-speaking economist in the second source makes a case that this does not go far enough at all, in particular on the first rather accepting "rationalized by an argumentation of an economical nature." (Translated from that retrieved quote: "So far the excuse for the poor knowledge of languages on the Walloon side, as a rational individual choice in a market with external effects. It is remarkable that the authors by their statement explicitly acknowledge this towering problem, but in formulating governance advices still assume their model to be correct.") The final reference that the first source itself mentions, is: "Truchot, Claude (2003), Languages and supranationality in Europe : The linguistic influence of the European Union, in Jacques Maurais, ed., Languages in a Globalising World, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press." — Sounds familiar? — SomeHuman 07 Jul2007 23:26 (UTC)

New European vector maps

You're invite to discuss a new series of vector maps to replace those currently used in Country infoboxes: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries#New European vector maps. Thanks/wangi 13:00, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Note on FAR closure

Having gone over the copy, I have closed this as keep at FAR (don't worry about the tag; the bot will take care of it). The prose could use some further tweaks, but it's better than it was and the most indecipherable stuff has been gone over. If serious revisions are undertaken, someone should contact a native speaker to look at them (a suggestion, not a criticism). Some notes:

• If you want to continue to edit war over one sentence in the intro, go ahead. I don't see the point. However, the basic structure of largest-to-smallest and equal words for Flanders and Wallonia should remain.
• It's mentioned above that Buddhism is now a recognized religion; if so, update the section. I don't think it would be inappropriate to list the eight recognized.
• The table is gibberish to me. I would radically simplify it and/or move it to a sub-article, if it's not in one already.
• Wording like "Economically significant in an increasingly globalizing epoch" is indeed POV. Let the facts speak for themselves. Marskell 12:23, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments Marskell. I utterly agree with you. Look at the simplified table I suggested long ago. Vb 18:30, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for many days of good copyedit work, Marskell. Nevertheless, you and Vb cannot stop to find utter agreement on highly POV edits and on censoring relevant, balanced and well-referenced NPOV information for not supporting that POV, with equally unsupported and never by any logic explained claims (gibberish, eh? in particular after your as Vb wanted wiping of the 1962-1963 'language areas' on which all consequent constitutional changes have build to finally arrive at the present federalized country, still maintaining the four language areas in the Constitution.) I never saw two different people at work with such an incredibly identical lack of offering an argumented discussion and totally forgetting to attempt to puncture presented arguments, while still continuing to state which is POV. The facts cannot speak, but the sources do. And they point out that the younger Walloons' limited knowledge of languages is a serious danger for their economical future. I did reply on your two initial comments in the section The LEAD on Belgium on my talk page. Your great one-mindedness with Vb appears to be rather in contrast with your blunt reverts (at several occasions just like Vb was used to, not checking differences and thus destroying unarguable improvements as well) of my far better documented and argumented edits, and certainly with your latest style on my talk page. — SomeHuman 22 Jun2007 03:09 (UTC)

Rwandan Genocide

I believe that the Rwandan Genocide should be mentioned in the artcile since Belgium is one of few colonist countries who are responsible for this genocide and for not doing anything to stop it. By the way, before sending a reply to my post please have a good look at the wikipedia article: Rwandan Genocide. Thelorien 18:39, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I am not of those opinions, neither of a particular Belgian responsibility, nor of the Rwandan Genocide requiring a mentioning in the 'Belgium' article (its links to Ruanda-Urundi and Rwanda suffice). In the 'Rwandan Genocide' article, I put a tag in its section 'Background' as I dispute the neutrality of that section (the weakest section of that article, causing its FA status being declined). See my reply to Thelorien on that talk page in its section Belgium Should Apologize. That should be resolved before considering a mentioning in 'Belgium'. Kind regards. — SomeHuman 24 Jun2007 20:15 (UTC)