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Sandra Navidi page

Dear Boson: Creation of this article was my assignment as a college project, which required that the subject be a notable figure. Sandra Navidi is a public figure in the global economic and financial communities. I had noticed her first on Wall Street Warriors and researched her further. Wall Street Warriors was a TV documentary that profiled her professional and personal life as a woman on Wall Street. It was broadcast in over 25 countries and ranked # 1 most downloaded documentary on iTunes for two consecutive months and thereafter maintained top rated for several more months. Since then she's been scrutinized by various international media outlets and from different angles over several years. The biographical and factual statements have been corroborated by multiple reliable sources that are not paid for by or affiliated with the subject. This Wikipedia article has accumulated over 6700 views in the last 90 days, which seems to be indicative of significant public interest. She is googled so much that when you enter just the letters sandra n in the search box, her name is the top hit. She has achieved significant accomplishments in her own right, and through her contributions has influenced the work of people like Nouriel Roubini, (who stands among the world's best known & most respected economists) and business leader legends like George Soros. The profiles in the article’s external links were all independently researched and written by the respective journalists. Ms Navidi has been retained by many reputable companies and universities for public speaking engagements all over the world. Since 2009 she has given over 400 interviews as a financial expert on international media outlets; for example Bertelsmann, Springer, Burda, n-tv, RTL, CNBC, CCTV, Phoenix TV, Huffington Post, AOL, France 24 and over 200 business websites. I made recent changes to the article to provide the information that you & your editorial team felt was necessary, and removed information that you felt did not belong (including superfluous references and peacock terms). The acknowledgement given to Ms. Navidi in Dr. Roubini's book may seem trivial, but is actually quite significant due to his position as one of the world's top economists. It is my belief that this individual meets all of the notability requirements for a Wikipedia article and that a remaining room for subjective discretion doesn’t negate that. Whytestone (talk) 19:24, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate your comments posted at the deletion discussion page. Over the last week I've re-read the article (trying to think like a Wikipedia editor) and removed elements that had a promotional feel to them. I attempted to tone it down and stick to the facts. Another editor gave suggestions on several references that were not suitable, and I removed all of those this afternoon. If you advise your thoughts on what other elements you feel are promotional or are not worded properly, I would be happy to make additional adjustments. Whytestone (talk) 01:17, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

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Thank you

The Working Wikipedian's Barnstar
For showing that you are one of a small number of editors willing to take on truly difficult tasks Jac16888 Talk 20:37, 15 April 2013 (UTC)


Party finance in Germany

Hi, can anyone please explain to me why this article has a C-class rating? I have improved it months ago and there was no change in the rating. As I am quite interested in the topic I would rather get some help on how to improve it. Thank you! Khnassmacher (talk) 05:47, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

WP:GER currently does not assess at higher than class B, since we have no formal class A assessment process in place.
I have taken a look at the assessment and checked the class-B criteria.
As you will see, I have left "grammar and style" and "supporting materials" unchecked for the time being.
  • "Grammar and style": There are a couple of typos/spelling mistakes that need fixing. Otherwise, I think the style meets B-class criteria, though it could be improved.
  • "Supporting materials": I think the article might benefit from some graphic elements to break up the text a bit and illustrate the figures.
As regards further improvements (not necessarily required for B class):
  • I think the introduction could be improved to provide a better summary of the article (see WP:LEDE).
  • I'm not sure that the bulleted list is appropriate in the introduction (see WP:PROSE).
  • Though I think the references are adequate for B class, there are some evaluative statements that could do with better attribution. Some evaluations seem to be presented as fact, and I'm not sure that is always appropriate.
--Boson (talk) 13:01, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Dear Boson, thank you for providing such detailed information. As for "Grammar and style" I will try to deal with the typos, however, beside that I feel unable to do much because my native language is German and my English may not suffice to provide more improvements. As for "supporting materials" data and graphs are available, but unfortunately I am unable to do the uploads etc. As for the "introduction" I will give it a try maybe next week (that would include the bulleted list). As for "evaluative statements" I'll check it out. As you may see from the above conversation regarding "NPOV" this may be just a matter of wording. Are unexpected/ surprising facts evaluative? Khnassmacher (talk) 06:07, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

I have had a "constructive look" and fixed the typos that I found; so that should remove the resulting grammar problems. I also changed a few things to make the article more in line with (my understanding of) WP:MOS. When I have a moment, I will try a bit more copy-editing. The English is good but, as a native speaker, I might be able to improve the style a bit. As regards the graphics, I am no expert, so I can't help much, but if you have some figures that you could put on the talk page, I might be able to construct a bar chart; there is also a graphics expert I know from WP:WikiProject European Union who might be able to help with some graphics, if you know what you would like (e.g. pie charts). As regards "evaluative statements", I was thinking of things like
  • ". . . stipulations of the German Basic Law have been far ahead of other constitutions in modern democracies:" This comparison with other states appears to be unsourced.

Although that's a plain fact, I can't think of any source. However, here is my reasoning: Older constitutions (like the U.S.) do not even mention "political parties", let alone make any prescriptions for the activities (Just remember George Washington's Farewell Address!) More recent constitutions, say the Italian of the mid-1940s and the French of the late 1950s, assign a role to political parties but don't make any prescriptions either. The German Basic Law of 1949 bothered to state that "parties have to account to the public for their sources of funds". No research needed - plain professional knowledge. How can you go about it in Wikipedia? Khnassmacher (talk) 05:10, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

  • "Four events or decisions may have caused this trend: . . .". Since this is opinion or speculation I would prefer to have it sourced, to avoid "original research", though rewording to stress the changes more than the causation would also be an option.

I'll try rewording! Khnassmacher (talk) 06:00, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

--Boson (talk) 13:08, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Boson, many thanks again for taking such a great interest in the article! I appreciate that very much. Above I have entered two comments to your valuable details. Early this morning I enlarged the introduction first and during the day I will go on improving the text without hurting any of your contributions. After that I'll prepare some data and put them on the talk page first (not without giving a short notice to you). Khnassmacher (talk) 06:08, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

The problem with "stipulations of the German Basic Law have been far ahead of other constitutions in modern democracies", as I see it, is that it might falls foul of WP:OR/WP:SYNTH. I think Wikipedia defines "original research" in a very restrictive way (reasoning is limited to things like simple arithmetic) because several editors can contribute to an article and we do not verify credentials, meaning that we cannot rely on an unknown editor having the necessary background knowledge and skills to make correct assessments. "Other constitutions" implies "all other constitutions" without explicitly naming any, and "ahead of" can be seen as a value judgement, implying "better". I don't think it is a serious problem but it might be better to state that the German Basic Law has (more detailed?) provisions on parties that are not found in other (older?) written constitutions such as . . . (as you have written above). This may not completely solve the problem, but it makes the individual parts of the statement more objectively verifiable. Just a thought! --Boson (talk) 07:31, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi, thanks again for this very reasonable suggestion! I will try to follow your advice. Khnassmacher (talk) 11:46, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi, this is just a short note about the state of my activity. I have completed my effort to weed out the typos and added a few minor points. The data, however, will take some more time because my printer is currently unable to print PDF files. We'll have it fixed as soon as possible and then I shall enter die data for bar or pie charts on the article's talk page. You'll be informed when this step has been completed. So long, Khnassmacher (talk) 17:02, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Boson, I have put the data for pie or bar charts on the "Party finance in Germany" Talk page. Unfortunately the saving process destroyed the layout which had looked quite o.k. during the editing. I hope you can handle that. It helps to go back to editing status. Thanks a lot!Khnassmacher (talk) 06:20, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

I have converted the data into "floating" sortable tables and put them straight into the article. Floating tables have the advantage that they break up the wall of text (like images) and they can easily be displayed on the left or right of the text, which automatically flows round the table. Perhaps you could check if the figures are all OK. Since there are several data groups, I wasn't sure about the simple graphs that I can do. If you wanted pie charts, we would need one for each party, I think. With bar charts, we would need a group of several bars for each party, which also gets a bit more complicated. Anyway, see what you think of the tables. By clicking on the little arrows, the table can be sorted by any column. --Boson (talk) 19:20, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Dear Boson, thank you very much for this excellent operation! The tables look great. I checked all the data, they are perfect. And the interactive mode is the icing on the cake. As for pie and bar charts: Indeed, I was thinking of a pie (actually two separate pies) for each party. I also have seen (aggregated) bar charts with just one bar per party where each element (of spending or revenue) sits on top of the other. Thus you get the same impression as in the pie charts, but the individual bars also present the (comparable) size of the various parties. I absolutely agree with you that individual bars for individual items do not make much sense. Would you mind if I think of some more tables and we go through the same procedure again? All the best & Thanks again! Khnassmacher (talk) 06:19, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

More tables shouldn't be a problem. I think you probably want a stacked vertical bar chart, as described at Wikipedia:Graphs and charts, but I am not familiar with how to do these. I see the pie chart is also described as experimental. So perhaps we can concentrate on getting the tables done before possibly asking someone else for assistance with the graphics. --Boson (talk) 21:32, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Boson, I have entered additional data for an additional table on the talk page. Hopefully you can repeat the trick of turning those into a perfect table just like the others. Thank you very much, Khnassmacher (talk) 16:51, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Khnassmacher, I have added the table. I didn't make it sortable this time but you can add or remove the word "sortable" to change that. As before, please check that I haven't messed up any of the figures. --Boson (talk) 17:39, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Boson, I have checked the data. They are all fine and the new table looks prefect, too. Thank you very much for your help. Obviously there is nothing much that can be done at the moment. So, I'll just wait for the new rating to come up sometime around. All the best, Khnassmacher (talk) 05:23, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Notifications box replacement prototypes released

Hey Boson; Kaldari has finished scripting a set of potential replacements available to test and give feedback on. Please go to this thread for more detail on how to enable them. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:29, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer

it was nazi germany's motto but dianna wrongfully removed, what is your opinion need a third party view in the Talk:Nazi_Germany#Motto Peterzor (talk) 08:40, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Courtesy notification

Hi Boson. I indirectly mentioned you at WP:ANI, as I posted a diff from your talk page in a discussion thread there. The thread is Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Personal Attack by Peterzor. Best, -- Dianna (talk) 21:22, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Hello! There is a DR/N request you may have interest in.

This message is being sent to you let you know of a discussion at the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute discussion you may have participated in. Content disputes can hold up article development and make editing difficult for editors. You do not need to participate; however, you are invited to help find a resolution. The thread is "Nazi Germany". Please join us to help form a consensus. Thank you! EarwigBot operator / talk 06:26, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Misleading headings for two articles

Hi Boson, hopefully you don't mind that I bother you again. Among the "political funding" articles there two country-specific items that should be identified to foreign readers. I have entered my position on the talk page of each article but nothing happens. Therefore I ask you to have a look at Chocolate Soldier (Parliament) and Draining law which I feel should be more clearly related by naming them "Chocolate soldier (U.K. Parliament)" respectively "Draining law (Belgium)". Thank you for your effort! Khnassmacher (talk) 15:54, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

There are two issues here: (1) procedure and (2) policy (in the wider sense).
Procedure
If the rename (known as a 'move' on Wikipedia) were uncontroversial, you or I could perform it ourselves, using the Move tab (or drop-down) at the top left right. If the best title has been previously discussed, the move should be treated as controversial. If the move is not clearly uncontroversial, the correct procedure is a "requested move". This is the procedure that should be used here, in my opinion. I would suggest that you read about the 'requested move' procedure at WP:Requested moves and decide if you want to do that. If so, you could add the text to the appropriate talk page, as shown ot WP:RM/CM. Feel free to ask me for assistance.
"Policy"
The main problem is disambiguation "policy" (the disambiguation guideline). The form of an article title with a word in parentheses should normally be used only for disambiguation (often abbreviated to DAB on Wikipedia), which is described at Wikipedia:Disambiguation. Disambiguation is normally used only when there is actually more than one existing Wikipedia article with the same expected title, e.g Mercury (planet) and Mercury (element). Adding disambiguation when this is not the case is sometimes known as "preemptive disambiguation" and is 'deprecated'. It could, nevertheless, be argued that adding "Belgian" is a matter of precision rather than disambiguation, so "Belgian draining law" might be a better proposal (see also Wikipedia:Article titles#Precision and disambiguation). "Partial" disambiguation (e.g. Parliament vs UK Parliament), has also been discussed, e.g. here.
-- Boson (talk) 21:47, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your explanations and advice. I intend to do two things: First, think about really appropriate names for the articles (not just shortcuts to solve an obvious problem as above), second familiarize myself with the guidelines that you mention and then act accordingly. Best, Khnassmacher (talk) 06:15, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

You're very welcome. Please do not hesitate to ask if you have any problems or want some feedback before making a formal proposal. Discussions about moves can sometimes get a little heated and the process is, perhaps, not ideal when lots of new suggestions are made in the course of the formal discussion. The requested-move (RM) discussion is automatically advertised at a central location and this attracts more participants to the discussion, which is probably helpful here because there are few people with these two articles on their watchlist (in both cases fewer than 30, which is the lowest figure that is made visible). Some participants in RM discussions specialize in article title guidelines and help to keep titles consistent.
I assume that the Belgian title alludes to what would be "einen Sumpf trocken legen" in German. I'm not sure that comes across in the English translation (since "draining" is wider and does not conjure up the unsavoury association of "Sumpf"), but a translation can only do so much.
Another point that has just occurred to me is that "[Draining] Law" should perhaps be capitalized, since it is a proper name (or a translation of a proper name, even if not an official name) rather than a descriptive title. --Boson (talk) 07:45, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks again for taking such a lively interest! As for "draining" and "Sumpf" you are perfectly right (this is exactly what the article is all about, and quite rightly so) and I also feel that the title does not bring across the issue. At the moment my preferred title would be "Party finance in Belgium" but that would require some additional content and most likely a new introduction. However, I am still considering before I finally take action. It is certainly a good idea that I consult with you first before I go ahead. Khnassmacher (talk) 05:29, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi, just to let you know what is going on: I have contacted some Wikipedians who were involved with those articles in the past and now I am waiting for their response before moving any further.Khnassmacher (talk) 09:57, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for keeping me in the loop! By the way, I notice that you posted one message to User:Ground Zero, rather than User talk:Ground Zero. You don't seem to be the only one, but I thought I'd let you know. --Boson (talk) 10:22, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the advice! I have copied my posting to User talk:Ground Zero. Still have to check the other ones because I may have made the same mistake there. Khnassmacher (talk) 15:16, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

June 2013

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  • ''Aker Yards Ukraine Holding'', of which FLC West held 70 percent and Aker Yards held 30 percent). The transaction was effective retrospectively from 1 January 2008, and since 22 September the

Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 21:50, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

RFC of interest to you

You might like to contribute to this RFC concerning the recent trouble with DeFacto. Martinvl (talk) 06:40, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Merge proposal

Now that it has been decided to merge Hitler's murder paradox to Grandfather paradox, the way is open for you to propose your suggested merge of Grandfather paradox, Bootstrap paradox, and Predestination paradox to Temporal paradox. I just read all of them again, and I think you are right. They are good candidates for a merge. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:19, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I think I'll wait a bit, though someone else might like to make the proposal. The problem is that, the more often I read the articles, the more I am convinced that any merge (including the one just decided) requires a lot of work on the articles concerned, since they are contradictory and not well-sourced. Merging them all into one article might serve the reader by making the contradictions more apparent but I am not keen on creating such a contradictory article so I would prefer to resolve some of the contradictions first, which is not trivial.
For example, the article Grandfather paradox claims that the paradox refers to "any action that makes impossible the ability to travel back in time in the first place". On the other hand, the article Temporal paradox implies the same definition involving logical impossibility (which would mean that, however notable, we are talking about the same topic and merely need to decide whether to name the article Grandfather paradox or Temporal paradox. However, the article Temporal paradox states that the grandfather paradox is only an example of a temporal paradox, implying that it is a sub-class that does not include all similar logical impossibilities. On the third hand, the ontological or bootstrap paradox (as defined) is clearly a paradox of a temporal nature and is thus a temporal paradox, but this means changing the definition in the article temporal paradox to include closed loops, such as where someone goes back in time and has sex with their mother (or another ancestor), leading (directly or indirectly) to their own conception. The definition of the grandfather paradox does not include the Hitler paradox (since the latter does not involve causal impossibility) meaning that it had to be "shoehorned" in by introducing the likelihood of the grandfather paradox also applying to the situation. This does not mean that inclusion of Hitler paradox in the Grandfather paradox is incorrect, since articles can discuss related topics but, in my opinion, it is not ideal, and we need to avoid misleading the reader into believing that the Hitler paradox is a sub-class of the grandfather paradox as defined, rather than merely being a related temporal paradox. There may be some blurrring caused by changing the source's "variation on the grandfather paradox" to the articles present "variation of the grandfather paradox". The distinction is important, since a variation of an x might be interpreted as a "variety of" x, but a variation on an x is more unambiguously something different from an x. --Boson (talk) 12:49, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

What do you think of this?

What are your thoughts on this closure? GabeMc (talk|contribs) 19:41, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Library Survey

As a subscriber to one of The Wikipedia Library's programs, we'd like to hear your thoughts about future donations and project activities in this brief survey. Thanks and cheers, Ocaasi t | c 15:19, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

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I have a question. You reverted my proposed change https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Agile_software_development&oldid=586322474&diff=prev in which I added a link to a page on my blog with agile self-assessment toolks and checklists as possibly promotional link. It is true that that page is on my blog, and that I offer support in using the checklists and tools.

I have heard from many people that they value this list. I think that it can help people to pick an agile self-assessment tool or checklist that suits their needs. New ways of doing agile self-assessments become available, and I will keep this list up to date.

Can you please reconsider your decision, or let me know in which way this information can be added to wikipedia?

Regards, Ben Linders — Preceding unsigned comment added by BenLinders (talk • contribs) 10:35, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Replied at your talk page.--Boson (talk) 12:09, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

FA article modification update

Thank you, Boson, for your suggestions regarding the WP:FA article Fuck (film).

I went ahead and implemented all of your recommendations and adjusted the wording in the article accordingly.

Perhaps you could revisit at Wikipedia:Today's_featured_article/requests#Nonspecific_date_1 ?

Thanks again,

— Cirt (talk) 02:26, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Boson, for changing to Support, most appreciated! — Cirt (talk) 12:15, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

WP Germany in the Signpost

The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Germany for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. –Mabeenot (talk) 02:33, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Precious

German history and institutions
Thank you, veteran editor with "special knowledge of Germany, German history and institutions", for quality contributions to articles such as Walter Hallstein, for watching articles related to the European Union, for precision and clarifiction, - you are an awesome Wikipedian!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:50, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Oh, wow! Thank you! Awesome! --Boson (talk) 18:21, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Translation issues

I wonder if something can be done about naming a Schloss a castle and a Stadt a city. Respectable sources do it, including the WHS pages and the websites of places, but do we have to follow? Most, I think, derive from Germans translating, without knowing differences enough. Weimar: Schloss is the most generic term, covering many buildings in history and several functions. I wish we didn't have the conflict of List of cities in Germany by population and Free imperial city, many of which don't belong in the other definition, but then Town privileges. Could we perhaps say in an article such as Weimar that it was a Freie Reichsstadt but is no Großstadt? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:57, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, I don't have very strong feelings about this particular article. I'm not keen on mistranslations becoming established, but I could live with the Schloss being called " . . .Castle" as a proper name, even if it is mainly based on a mistranslation by German sources – names are not always a true reflection of reality. I feel slightly more uncomfortable about writing ". . . is a castle" in Wikipedia voice, since that probably misleads the reader – unless there is some evidence that it is in fact a castle (e.g. battlements, etc.)
Perhaps the conventions should also include a sentence, explaining when to use "palace" (e.g. Schloss Bellevue) and when to use "castle" (e.g. Schloss Neuschwanstein)
As regards town/city, it could easily be argued that being a "freie Reichstadt" with an imperial charter justifies calling it a city, but the nomenclature has been discussed, and a consensus reached at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Germany/Conventions#Cities, towns and villages, so I think it would be proper to raise it there, possibly quoting a few examples. Here too, I am less concerned about proper names than classifications in Wikipedia voice. Since cities are also towns, it should be unobjectionable to write ". . . is a town . . ." and add an explanation (possibly a footnote) with more details.
Generally, I'm happy with anything that does not mislead the reader, as might result if patriotic editors who live in a particular town get "their" town "upgraded" and towns of a similar status are not "upgraded". I think that is one of the main points of having these conventions.
--Boson (talk) 15:30, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
Thank you, good thoughts. I just found a elaborate source for the Stadtschloss Weimar, translating carefully: The Palace at Weimar, no city in the name, and the only city in the text Erfurt ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:44, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
ps: I doubt that Neuschwanstein, a artificial playful thing for no defense, should be termed castle, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:45, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps a bad example! I think of it as a "make-believe castle". I would say it's definitely positioned as if for defence, as seen

here. --Boson (talk) 17:07, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

City - town

Just sharing thoughts. Obviously, a city can be defined by population, and also by status. Our article City starts with old history, certainly not the population-city. I wonder a bit why that is not in Town, which is simply placed between village and city. I could imagine a lead for City that defines the different understandings, right in the beginning. I could then imagine redirects such as City by population and City by status, leading to that same explanation. The word city might be pipe-linked one or the other way. Thoughts? Better names? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:59, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Sorry I took a while to reply. This was mainly because I have been trying, unsuccessfully, to think of something useful to say. Anyway, here are some random thoughts that are probably not much help.

I'm not too keen on the names, but I can't think of anything better. Perhaps the names should follow later, when the content is clearer. I think the problem is that people are not consciously aware of the two concepts. I suspect it is not an issue for "normal people" because people just know which towns deserve to be called cities. It becomes a particular issue in cross-cultural contexts, mainly for translators and writers of international encyclopedias.

I would say there is a difference between casually referring to a settlement as a city ("Blogsville is a city in . . ."), probably largely based on size, and the formal categorization of a settlement as a city ("Blogsville is a city.", with a full stop, or "Blogsville is a city . . ." in an encyclopaedia), largely based on status. Because of the "status" issue and the ambiguity of the term, PR people will, no doubt, also tend to upgrade towns to cities; reliable sources may be a problem.

In the US (or perhaps just some states) the barrier for calling something a city seems to be very low, but the threshold in England is pretty high. Formally, it requires a royal charter that grants city status (as opposed to mere town status). Traditionally, this meant having a cathedral, though there are even some towns with cathedrals that now have only town status). In a cross-cultural context, this may also be mixed up with other administrative issues, e.g. the issue of German kreisfreie Städte, which could perhaps also be compared to the (now historical) English buroughs or American New England towns.

Perhaps the section City#Distinction between cities and towns could be expanded and a longer summary of that be included in the lede. City status in the United Kingdom is also quite interesting.

I wonder if more should also be explained in Wikipedia/Project space, not just at WP:GER but also where differences between British and American English are discussed.

Feel free to discuss further, though I'm not sure I can be much help. --Boson (talk) 12:33, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your helpful thoughts. I think a start could be to link city, because people from different cultures may have different concepts, and could find that in the lead - hopefully. (In German, we have Dorf - Kleinstadt - Stadt - Großstadt, not to mention specialties, like Kreisstadt etc.) Until the recent discussions, I more or less thought that city equals Großstadt, but obviously it's not that simple ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:37, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Please participate in the Conversation on Germany

Hi, Thank you for your participation in the image review on discussion on the Germany talk page. The Image has now been reverted for the third time and ruins of Berlin photo is back. I would really appreciate your participation in this discussion and hopefully reaching a consensus. Thanks again.Monopoly31121993 (talk) 19:00, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

RfC picture suggestions

--IIIraute (talk) 01:27, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. --IIIraute (talk) 16:18, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Germany article

Do you have a suggestion how to proceed regarding the issues of the Germany article? I really dont have the nerve for endless talkpage discussions like those which are occuring there atm. I surly could rewrite for example the Third Reich/Weimar paragraph easily, but I fear that will end up in plain reverting and lots of endless discussions about every single sentence. This is something I dont want because I could use the time more efficiently than for chaotic Wiki discussions like this. We should also not intermix the issues of the article: The picture dicussion, the rewrite of the Third Reich / Weimar section, and the general article issues (missing sources, other sections) regarding FA are all different issues. We should focus on one thing first. StoneProphet (talk) 13:22, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

  • As regards the image: I don't see any point in more discussion, since everything has been said. Ideally everybody would take the two minutes to fill in the survey, simply stating how many images they want (bearing in mind the FA criteria and other recommendations, such as Wikipedia: The Missing Manual, Chapter 15), and which ones. If 10 people respond that's about 20 person-minutes. Add on 10 minutes for an admin to determine consensus, and we're done. If several people return from holiday or something and respond at the last minute, we would have to advertise an extension of the time to allow others to respond, but that shouldn't mean any more effort. I don't intend to spend any more time on the issue until more people have selected which images they want or the RfC period is up, so I have temporarily turned all my attention to the other issues.
  • As regards Weimar and the Third Reich: I think this is the most important issue (also from the FA perspective). If you think there is any chance of resolving this isssue without endless discussions, I would say we should sort it out and leave the other issues till later. I would be quite happy for you to propose a new version of the whole section, written in summary style. Perhaps it would help a bit if you wrote a draft on a user subpage and after a brief discussion asked the simple question (at Talk:Germany) "Which is better: (a) the draft, (b)the current version, (c) the consensus version of 1 June, before the last batch of edits.
I am open to any other suggestions. Anything must be better than talking to a brick wall. --Boson (talk) 15:47, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
Well if I would know another way to solve all of this without much hassle I wouldn't have asked you. ;) I usually dont engage in such meaningless discussions on WP because I hate them. Anyway, what you say sounds reasonable. I will try to write a draft for the Third Reich / Weimar section in the next days. StoneProphet (talk) 21:16, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Credo

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frau ribbentroop

hi why you trying to hide that out in the world shes now being compared to frau ribbetroop — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.167.205.217 (talk) 10:55, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

I have replied at your talk page. --Boson (talk) 12:57, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Formatting in Singular they

You wrote "In your recent edit to Singular they you changed the formatting of the title of a 5-page article to italic. Did you consider MOS:NOITALIC and MOS:QUOTETITLE?"

No, what are they?

Graham.Fountain | Talk 09:45, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Assessment needed - Otto I

Hello Boson, as someone quite active with Germany-related articles could i bug you for a favor? The article Otto I could use a re-assessment for Wikiproject Germany and Wikiproject Former countries (to B-class imho). Theoretically any editor can assess such an article, but it would feel more than odd for me to do it myself - as i am heavily involved with the article. Please let me know, if you have time and interest in this topic area (no problem, if not). Thanks in advance. GermanJoe (talk) 15:37, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

I have checked some of the B-class criteria for WikiProject Germany, but do not currently have time to check for accuracy. It would probably be better if someone else did that, but if that doesn't happen I will try to find time later in the year. --Boson (talk) 19:54, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
OK, no worries :). I'll continue working on the article anyway or maybe try going for GA sometimes (although i still need to tighten referencing some more). GermanJoe (talk) 20:18, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for checking the other points in the meantime - just saw your update on the talkpage. Any feedback, positive or negative, is always appreciated. GermanJoe (talk) 20:22, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
And thanks aswell for updating the WP:Germany memberlist. I was on a Wiki-break, so better late than never :). Your maintenance on Germany-related stuff is really appreciated. GermanJoe (talk) 20:38, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Minister President

Sorry my friend, I have never heard in English this word Minister President, it must be a joke! Are you really sure? Why do we catch up this expression from German into English language? This is rudiculous. State Premier sound much more better and is real English. Monart (talk) 06:03, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

If you have never read the term "minister-president" (alternatively spelled "minister president") in English, you cannot have not read much on German politics. The head of a German Land is usually referred to as a "minister-president", or sometimes "prime minister". Both terms have advantages and disadvantages.
Some advantages of "minister-president" in the context of the article on Winfried Kretschmann, the Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg, which is what we are talking about:
  1. In Britain, for example, it clearly designates a non-British office.
  2. It is the term approved by the German Foreign Office.
  3. It is the term used in English by the state of Baden-Württemberg.
  4. It is the term used in other articles (e.g. List of Ministers-President of Baden-Württemberg).
Perhaps you mean that the term is not used for similar offices in English-speaking countries that you are familiar with, which is a different issue. Similarly the word "governor" is used in England for the head of an American state, and "National Assembly" is used for the lower house of the French parliament, though those terms are not used to refer to British institutions. In some situations it may be appropriate to "translate" the name of an institution into what translators call a "cultural equivalent" but this is not normal encyclopedic usage. The name in formal (encyclopedic) usage is commonly an established calque, which, I hope, answers your question "Why do we catch up this expression from German into English language?". --Boson (talk) 12:12, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for you efforts. I understand, nevertheless it is horrible. Monart (talk) 15:14, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Request, please

Would you do me a kindness and answer the question that I asked[1] in reply to your comment at WT:No personal attacks#Vote 2? I am sincerely trying to consider everyone's concerns re this policy, but to at least get this first step accomplished, which I feel in my gut would make the existing text more readable, and make a better platform for discussing changes, if there are to be any (per consensus, of course). I would be beholden for your collaboration. Lightbreather (talk) 18:56, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. I followed up by offering a tweaked proposal. Would you check it out again, please?
Also, I have a question about your comment. Which policy/guideline/essay advises editors to come to the aid of others when they are attacked? If I've ever seen it, my mind is drawing a blank. The only think I could think of is the "Talk page" bullet under POV railroad: Prevention and resolution, which says:
If you see that an editor has been isolated on a talk page and is becoming agitated, feel free to enter the discussion and to exert a calming influence. This will often break the battleground dynamic and reduce tension. The behavior of bullies almost always improves when other, more neutral parties are present.
If you'd share the link, I'd very much appreciate it. Lightbreather (talk) 21:28, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm not just thinking of Wikipedia pages. The exhortation to help the victims of attack and stand up to people bullying others is quite common. This may take the form of something like "If you see someone being bullied . . . stand up for the victim . . . try to defend the person being bullied . . .").
I am experiencing connection problems, so I may not reply promptly. --Boson (talk) 00:26, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Ein Bier für dich!

Cheers Serten (talk) 15:51, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
Thanks! --Boson (talk) 16:04, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Ein "Draft" für dich!

User:Boson/Carsten Eggers draft. Hafspajen (talk) 12:19, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! I am currently working on the translation, using a copy on my computer to make things easier in case a history merge is wanted. I will copy it into User:Boson/Carsten Eggers draft when I have a first draft ready. --Boson (talk) 13:00, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
@Hafspajen: I have now finished a first draft at User:Boson/Carsten Eggers draft. I have left some links to German Wikinews. They should probably go, but I thought they might be useful for the time being in case anyone wants to use them for adding to the article. I have also left some longish German quotations (with translations). I shall now be taking a break, so feel free (anyone) to continue editing in my user space and move to mainspace as and when you think fit. --Boson (talk) 19:44, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Holy smoke!! Excellent, indeed. Well done. Hafspajen (talk) 19:47, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Dates and numbers

Howdy, would you please restore some of the posts you've accidently deleted at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers? -- GoodDay (talk) 18:55, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Sorry about that. It appears to have been fixed now.
Don't know what happened there. No conflict was indicated, and I didn't intentionally touch anything but what I added.
--Boson (talk) 19:13, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Notice of WP:GS/UKU

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updates on a number of points incorporated

Hi, just a note that the points you brought up at Talk:Nipo_T._Strongheart#Copy-editing_etc have been addressed. --Smkolins (talk) 19:50, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Welcome

to WP:QAI! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:56, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

I came across the Marienkirche, Lübeck, reading "St. Mary's is considered to be one of the outstanding places of organistic significance in Germany." Organistic significance? Never heard a phrase like that. I have no time to read further ... --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:15, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
It looks as if "place of organistic significance" is intended as a translation of "Organistenstelle" (i.e. the position of organist"), which is what has been in the German article since 2005. Unfortunately, though it seems very likely that the position of organist at this church has a lot of status, I can't find a source to support it. --Boson (talk) 19:10, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
With people like Buxtehude, and the church being the largest in the town, that's quite obvious. What I mean is that in general the article seems to suffer from strange translation, and many articles from German lack citations. I don't have extra time this week to take care of it, want to improve some compositions, including Buxtehude's Klag-Lied ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:55, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
Hmm! I've taken a closer look, and some of it is very odd. Some facts also look a bit dodgy ("Germany's third-largest church"?), I wonder if it might be better to do a fresh translation of the current German article, which seems to be much longer. It might take a while. What do you think? I used to have a beautiful illustrated glossary of church architecture (E-F-D) but it seems to have gone AWOL. --Boson (talk) 02:11, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
Sounds good to me! - I often use my own wording instead of a close translation. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:24, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Reference Errors on 16 November

Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that an edit performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. It is as follows:

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:35, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

 Done--Boson (talk) 00:51, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Support with the list of feminists page?

Hi Boson, thanks for all your incredible work on the List of feminists. FloNight and I were looking at the page and wondering whether it would make it simpler if it was less in a tabular form and more in terms of a chronological list, so it was easier for folks to add names and details to it? For example, see these lists of American artists. Right now, for instance, it's tough to know how to add names easily (especially if you're a relatively new editor). And of course, that's useful to do when we're trying to make sure there's cross-referencing, and no orphan templates slapped on pages re feminists/feminist work. :-) In fact, I came upon the list when trying to see if Leonore Davidoff was mentioned in any list of feminists. Will you let us know if this idea might help your work, and if you need our support in any way? I know a bunch of folks have been working on it, but you seemed to be the person holding it together most recently, so thought it best to check with you. Thanks! Anasuyas (talk) 18:33, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm in two minds about the choice between a list and a table.
There is also a more focussed list at List of women's rights activists.
The list of feminists was in table form when I first came across it, and I started editing it mainly because it was tagged as original research. So I thought I'd quickly fix that by adding sources. Famous last words (before counting the number of entries)! When choosing sources for evidence that the person concerned was a notable feminist, I tried to give preference to sources that listed several feminists, preferably from different perspectives, hoping to make the list of sources a useful bibliography in its own right. Anything else I have done to the article is based on things I noticed while doing that.
It's on the back burner at the moment because I am somewhat short of time and am also trying to work on a couple of other things with greater "urgency".
The table started off as a simple list, grouped by "type of feminism". When the ordering was changed to chronological, the list was also converted into tables. That was this edit by @The Vintage Feminist:; so perhaps they should also be consulted.
More a less as an experiment (since it would be easy to reverse if anyone objects), I combined the tables into a single table and made it sortable. I found this quite handy because it does enable the reader to sort the table, grouping for instance living feminists (date of death blank), chronologically by date of birth, country, etc. For the editor, the sortable table also makes it easy to see which entries are unsourced, if there is a meaningful short description, if certain countries or regions are under-represented, etc.
Having said that, I'm not extremely happy with the table as it is now.
Editing tables is, of course, a pain (though I haven't tried Visual Editor properly). I usually copy/paste the table into a word processor table and use quick-and-dirty macros to convert from wikitext to word-processor table.
Subsequently edited to produce a ping --Boson (talk) 01:26, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
I understand the ambivalence, Boson. :-) I'm pinging The Vintage Feminist and FloNight as well, since all three of you are far more experienced editors than I am. Perhaps we could do a bit of both of what you're suggesting, which is to create a few different tables, based on chronology so they're sortable (and mergeable, if needed), but short enough in each section so it's easy to manage? I haven't tried the table editing function in VE yet myself... this may be the moment to break tabla nullius?? Let me know, Anasuyas (talk) 02:41, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
p.s. I will say that as a feminist who doesn't come from the US or UK, the 'types of feminism' don't always resonate with me, or my worlds of feminist history and experience. But having the self- or other- identification in terms of types does, of course, help in the comments section. Perhaps the chronological divisions do help get past the constraints of types of feminism in terms of classifications. Anasuyas (talk) 02:44, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
Hi all, I was recently toying with the idea of listing by country, then chronologically with a new column for a single sentence about the person. I agree that the 'types of feminism' column being problematic, it's actually the reason I tried to do something with the list in the first place. this is what it looked like before I did anything to it. I tend to find that 'radical feminist' gets used slightly as a euphemism for 'extremist feminist' or 'mad feminist', whilst 'sex-positive feminist' is attached to porn stars for its positive connotations to push POV. That was why I was thinking of the sentence / description column that focuses on the individual a bit more.
Perhaps as a start we should try and add some of the missing citations, and maybe put it to the wider WP community for their comments? --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 14:33, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
The Vintage Feminist , I like the idea of doing a Rfc about the content and design of the table(s) (or list(s).) I looked through the history of the article and saw the various ways that the information was presented in the past. Right now the table seems too long to me compared to some of the other versions of the page that made it easier to look at the table of contents and find the locations of the material on the page.
In general I like the idea of tables that are sortable but it is intimidating for people who are new to editing. So if we decide to stay with a table maybe we should leave a reminder note that it can be edited with the VE or put a message on the talk page about asking for help. Sydney Poore/FloNight♥♥♥♥ 15:31, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
I like those suggestions, The Vintage Feminist, thanks much. I will work on adding some of the missing citations, and perhaps you, Boson and FloNight might feel comfortable taking on the RfC? I also like FloNight's suggestion that if we decide to stay with a table or tables, we should help newbies with understanding how to edit it more easily. Anasuyas (talk) 17:03, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
Editing difficulties

Visual editor looks like it has the potential to solve the general problem with editing tables. I'm not sure how safe it is to use. I did notice some anomalies/opportunities for improvement:

  • The comments in the "source" column were replaced by an exclamation mark (not sure if that is a bug or a feature), and you can't edit the comment (at least I couldn't).
  • When you edit a table cell, it looks as if you have to enter the whole text (rather than just fix a typo), but I haven't read the manual carefully.

Without VE, it is not too difficult, if you copy the 2 or 3 lines of an existing entry and then edit very carefully between the '|' characters.

Sources

I do, of course, welcome any assistance in finding sources. I have, so far, been looking for the "low-hanging fruit". If I could find a source within about ten minutes, I added it (but often got distracted into reading more of the sources than I needed to). Otherwise I added a citation-needed template (if I wasn't too optimistic) or a dash with a comment (if the article reasonably claimed notability as a feminist but didn't provide a source that unambiguously called the person a feminist). I also tried sorting by country so that I could concentrate on a few specialist sources at a time. I had almost got through the French feminists when I had to pause. Some of the entries flagged as needing citations may, of course, be candidates for removal from the list.

Content

There seems to be agreement that (at least some) "types of feminism" (such as "first-wave") are problematic. I think the ideal is a short sentence or similar comment (we are probably more flexible here if we stay with table format), briefly stating the person's claim to notability from the feminist perspective and possibly a general classification like"suffragette". I think I "borrowed" at least the gist of a sentence if available in the list of women's rights activists (if necessary shortening a bit) and left the type classification where there was nothing else (removing the rather superfluous simple classification "feminist").

Further discussion

I think a wider discussion, such as an RfC, advertised at relevant projects, is probably a good idea, but I would prefer to get obvious problems (mainly sources) fixed first, before attracting wider attention.

--Boson (talk) 18:22, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
I'll do my best to look for sources then, Boson, and we can see where we go in a while. I am deeply empathetic to the occupational hazard of reading more of the sources than adding them. :-) I'll leave it to you to see when and where the RfC might make sense. thanks! Anasuyas (talk) 17:43, 27 November 2014 (UTC)
p.s I'll also try playing with VE and tables in the meantime to look at some of the bugs/features you mention. Anasuyas (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 17:44, 27 November 2014 (UTC)
Finding sources seems to be the way to go then, regardless of the end format. As a matter of interest this draft was the sort of thing I had previously been thinking of, with the contents box then based on nationality: 1. Argentine feminists, 2. Australian feminists, 3. Austrian feminists etc.
My logic was that a lot of the entries are for sex workers or former sex workers (e.g. Annie Sprinkle) whilst other entries are for professors (e.g. Ann Oakley). Anyone doing research on feminists and using the list as a place to start would be able to discount any that they thought fell outside their research criteria. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 05:54, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Stylization of the "common name"

In January 2013 there was a "RfC on COMMONSTYLE proposal" at WT:AT in which you expressed an interest. FYI there is a similar debate taking place at the moment, see Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Stylization of the "common name" -- PBS-AWB (talk) 12:13, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Recent Hallstein edits

Hello Boson, could you have a look at the recent Walter Hallstein edits (from a Chinese IP) please? As you have edited this article in the past, you can probably better judge those additions. I have no detailed knowledge about Hallstein myself, but would like to avoid possible drive-by smear (if those allegations happen to be false). Thank you. GermanJoe (talk) 03:58, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

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