Talk:Berlin/Archive 2

This needs a LOT of work

Compared to the articles about most major cities this is really disappointing at present. It needs a history section. It needs an overview of the structure of the city. And most of the other sections need to be made less like lists. Readers don't need this page to find the specific articles about things in Berlin as they can use category:Berlin for that. A lot of the links are red, and most of them should probably go. What matters is to explain to us what is essential about the city, to put things into context, and generally make it readable prose, rather than lists. Merchbow 06:48, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, probably it will be best to have a look at the German language article and transfer some of it's content. I'll have a look at it as soon as I find the time.. --Johnnyw 11:53, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I have some time and will do as you suggest. Marco polo 17:02, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Great! Thanks a lot. I already took care of the introduction. But the huge bulk of the article still remains... --Johnnyw 17:48, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

News: German Wiki Notice Board

Since it is much needed, I created the Wikipedia:German_Wikipedians'_notice_board. I am not a German, and (so) it needs people of the German wikipedian community to bring it up to scratch. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) File:UW Logo-secondary.gif 02:44, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Opening photo

I am about the replace the photo that appears near the opening of the article. The photo now in place is an aerial view of Berlin, probably looking west from the Fernsehturm. At the thumbnail size at which it appears on the page, it is hard to see anything in the photo, which is not very engaging graphically. Even when the photo is enlarged to full size, it does not, to my eye, convey the look or feel of the city. To me, it makes Berlin look ordinary and drab, which it really isn't.

I am planning to replace this photo with one of the Brandenburg Gate. It is admittedly a bit cliché, but the article would benefit from a visually engaging opening, and the Gate is photogenic. It is also one of the most recognized landmarks of the city. And this is an encyclopedia article. It is expected for an encyclopedia article to present the most characteristic symbols of a place to newcomers, even if they are cliché to the iniates. The alternative would be the Siegessäule, but the symbolism of a gate is a good fit for the opening of the article. Marco polo 15:24, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The Brandenburg Gate (maybe with a bit of the Pariser Platz visible) will do nicely as an introduction. --Johnnyw 16:15, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I chose the nighttime shot because the black and gold colors of the photograph harmonize nicely with the red, black, and gold of the infobox on the other side of the page. In terms of colors, a big piece of blue sky would look awkward there, to my eye. But if someone doesn't like it they will change it.

By the way, there are vandals coming through periodically deleting the photo. One of them added a reference to Star Trek to the article intro. I reverted. Marco polo 21:31, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Someone came through and deleted the photo again. I am sensing that a fair number of people don't want a photo in that position, so I will not restore it. However, I would like to have an opening photo somewhere. What if the photo sat in the right column above the infobox, as it does for Paris? Comments? Marco polo 15:05, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

That would be nice. It seems that the problem lies with the display resolution of some users. If the photo remains where it was, the article text gets squashed between the image and the infobox. Moving it to the right would solve that problem. --Johnnyw 15:17, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I put the photo at the upper right corner of the page, but only by creating a new paragraph break and inserting the code for the infobox between paragraphs. Just adding the tag for the photo above the infobox caused the infobox to shift to the left of the photo, creating an extremely thin column of text on the left side of the page. That looked awful, so I came up with my awkward solution. It would be nice if someone could find a more elegant way to do the coding. I don't have a background in HTML and can't do that on my own. Marco polo 21:26, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

This morning when I opened the page, the infobox and all of the photos were displaying error messages. I don't know if somehow the last change caused this problem. It is hard to understand, because when I looked at the final version in the history, everything was displaying okay. However, on my screen, Johnnyw's last edit created a single line of text running to the right edge of the page between the opening photo and the infobox. This looked terrible. So I reverted to the previous version, which also solved the display problem. If there is a way to make the coding simpler while putting the opening photo directly above the infobox (without any text running in between them and without other display problems), that would be nice. But for now, the existing arrangement seems to work. Marco polo 15:58, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Well the errors were unrelated to my changes, but the changes obviously did not solve the problem on every system. If I group everything in a table, there seems to be a problem with the index, with the introduction colliding massively. I'll have another go on it as soon as I find the time to spare. Best wishes Marco, keep up the good job. --Johnnyw 17:27, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Don't know what I did wrong in my tests. Now it works perfectly. I put the image and the infobox in a new floating-table.--Johnnyw 17:33, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Johnny! Hopefully everybody will be happy with this. Marco polo 23:23, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I had to take a couple weeks off and came back to find that someone had deleted the photo from the top of the article without saying why. I restored it. Please, if you don't think it belongs there, have the courtesy to say why. Thanks. Marco polo 16:36, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

The table is way to wide! It s sad cause you cant really read whats on the side and the graphic improvement witht the new pic is undermined; if someone knows how to move - lets say - the map and coat of arms on top of each other that would help

illustration

The illustration of this article really sucks. --84.63.8.209 03:48, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Image loading problem?

Anyone else having trouble getting the image located in the "Berlin's boroughs and localities" section to display correctly? However, when I go to the link for the full size image, it loads fine. --PS2pcGAMER (talk) 05:39, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I changed the image size and that seemed to fix it for me. --PS2pcGAMER (talk) 03:16, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Better pictures needed !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(The above heading was added by User:84.189.97.13 at 14:23, 11 April 2006)

You're welcome to go commons:Category:Berlin and find some. Angr (talk • contribs) 14:38, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good Article Collaboration of the week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please vote for Berlin: Wikipedia:Good Article Collaboration of the week and be part of Berlin improvement Sashandre all the best for you

Pictures of streetlife, clubs, parades ,galleries,diversity needed  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sashandre all the best for you

What does this article need?

Im from the Good Article collaboration, and I just wanted to ask, what does this article need really? There seems to be a bunch of talk about images, is that possibly the main area to work on, or are there still problems like the person at the top of the page is talking about with a history section or whatever? Homestarmy 00:32, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

To Do List

We do need an extension or a fully new written introduction on the following topics: The capital;Economic trends;Media;Sports;Tourism,Conventions,Trade Shows;Education;Theatres,OperaHouses,Music(also Danceshould be mentioned).Some missing links in the lists have to be created. By now the layout should be fine, we do need though pictures of Festivals,cafe,shopping,streetlife,clubs,people and a satellite image (Landsat).

any further suggestions ? you are welcome!

Sashandre all the best for you

there seems to be a very small list of references for such a large article, do they really cover all the information in the article? Homestarmy 13:38, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Well we seem to have all the list things paragraphified, and there seem to be plenty of pictures. Homestarmy 12:38, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

So the collaboration ends tommorow...

Does anyone here want this up for a peer review or something? Homestarmy 15:57, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh, did we make it to Good Article Collaboration of the Week? I totally missed that... sorry... I would have contributed if I had noticed! Angr (talk • contribs) 16:11, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, I forgot that my time is like 6 hours off from Wikipedia time, so the collaboration is offically over. How does anyone here feel about maybe nominating this for FA status, or are there some things that we should work on that might warrent a peer review instead? Homestarmy 00:59, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I still have some issues with the article, one of which is mentioned in the topic immediately below. Angr (talk • contribs) 07:25, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Sentence in lead

I'm bothered by this sentence: "The city serves as an important crossroads for the eastern EU members and is a main junction of national and international transportation." First of all, what does "crossroads for the eastern EU members" mean? And as for being a main junction of national and international transportation, Berlin famously isn't one. Until recently, you couldn't fly anywhere out of Europe from Berlin, and there are still very few flights from Berlin to North America and Asia, and AFAIK none at all to Africa, Australia, or South America. Angr (talk • contribs) 21:44, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I hope the intro is more specific now. Sashandre all the best for you

Spellings

At the moment the article has a mixture of British and American spellings. Since the topic is not specific to any English-speaking country, the Manual of Style suggests we follow that of the original editor. The oldest version of this page uses color and center, so I suggest regularizing American spellings throughout the article. Angr (talk • contribs) 08:11, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Go for the American spelling, we need harmonized language Sashandre all the best for you

Reichstag picture

Hi Sashandre, I'm not sure I agree with your positioning the Reichstag picture after the WWII and Berlin Wall pictures. I suppose you're using it to illustrate Berlin's position as capital of post-1990 reunified Germany, but the Reichstag was built -- and dedicated Dem deutschen Volke -- after the 1871 unification, so I think it's a better illustration of Berlin's position as capital of the Deutsches Reich (it is the Reichstag after all), and so the picture should be in the "17th-19th century" section. Angr (talk • contribs) 21:52, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi Angr, great correction work by the way! You are right with the dedication after 1871 but I´m very much in favor for the post-1990 position because of several reasons. a) Significance of dt.Reich is of minor relevance today b) half the appearance is the new glass dome which is contemporary c) For over 40 decades it was disabled but is now rather a symbol of rebuilt Berlin after Reunification. d) it fits to the context below (politics) Sashandre all the best for you

Well, okay, I guess you have a point. What this article still needs is inline references in Wikipedia:Footnotes style, though. There are some references listed at the bottom, but there's no indication of what facts were gotten from what sources. Since I'm not the one who added them, I can't do it myself, but someone really needs to. Angr (talk • contribs) 23:13, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

We could start with rudimentary footnotes, I don't know much about the MLA style myself, but certainly a section could be started somewhat anyway. Homestarmy 01:15, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

If you or someone else can at least get the sources lined up with the facts they're sourcing (using the <ref> and </ref> tags explained at WP:FN), that would be a great start. I can fix the style later. Angr (talk • contribs) 07:34, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

World Cup Logo

The World Cup together with the Olympics is the pre-eminent sportsevent with global significance. Since Berlin is the center arena and the host of the final ,I think it is absolutely appropiate even necessary to show the Logo. Sashandre

Please read Fair use for when we are allowed to use copyrighted images in articles. Basically, we can only use them in articles about the person or object they illustrate. So the World Cup logo is fair use in the article about the 2006 World Cup, but not in an article about Berlin. In this article, using that logo amounts to a copyright violation. Angr (talk • contribs) 12:21, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Seems to be correct, we have to leave it ... Sashandre

But this article mentions things about the world cup in berlin....right? Homestarmy 14:08, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but the article is not about the World Cup. Therefore the logo does not illustrate the subject of the article. Therefore using the World Cup logo is not permissible under fair use. Another thing to keep in mind is that it isn't even true that Berlin is hosting the World Cup. Germany is hosting the World Cup. Some of the games, including the final, are being played in Berlin, but most of the games are being played in other cities. The relevance of the World Cup logo to an article on Berlin is extremely tenuous. Angr (talk • contribs) 14:23, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

But that part of the article is about the World Cup, right? Or did somebody just place it in there randomly for no reason? Homestarmy 17:27, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that part of the article is about the World Cup, but that's not good enough to claim fair use of the image in this article. We have a link to the article about the World Cup, and the logo is in that article. The logo is not essential to understanding the section, it was just there for decoration, and that is not fair use of a copyrighted image. Angr (talk • contribs) 21:17, 29 April 2006 (UTC)