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Talk:Germany/Archive 3

"Nazi Germany" - or why not quite simply Germany?
I agree - the whole "Nazi Germany" thing is very tiresome - no one would talk about when the "Republican Americans" invaded Iraq. I can understand that Germans don't like reading about when "the Germans invaded Poland" or "the Germans killed six million Jews" but the fact is they did, and the fact that they were led by Nazis at the time doesn't doesn't alter that history. PMA 03:03, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * You are most probably right, that some Germans feel a need to make a difference between "Germans" and "Nazis". It would be stupid to argue against such a suspicion. However, a distinction is also made an integrate part of West-German identity as a constituent in the democratic post-war reeducation, that Western Allies and many Germans alike felt to be called for. (Probably, there were similar processes in East-Germany, but I can not comment on that.) Having grown up in Cold War Berlin, I can most certainly say that we were given the impression that we were expected to feel different from the Nazis without forgetting that the Nazis were Germans too. Who gave us this impression? The adults and the society/community together. Chiefly teachers and mass-media, I guess. I understand it as a heritage from the earlier post-war years.

 * A consequence of this is that not so few Germans (according to my strictly personal estimate) perceive a lack of recognition from the allied nations in NATO for the distinction between Nazi Germany and the democratic Federal Republic of Germany, as either a sign of disbelief in "our" conversion to democracy, which hurt convinced democrats, or as a more or less propagandist tool to brand present-day Germans and Germany by the association to our Nazi history, which arouses among other things nationalist sentiments that doesn't exactly facillitate the international relations.

 * There is, furthermore, a slightly different approach to this phenomenon, that I perceive to be harder to explain to many of the peoples around us:
 * France has been a pretty much continuous state, from its creation a thousand years ago until today. The same can be said about England, although expanded, Spain, the Scandinavian kingdoms, and many other countries that were founded somewhat later. Germans, however, make often a distinction between not only "Germany" and "Nazi Germany", but between Germany as "the land of the Germans" and the multitude of different states that have existed through history in Germany, of which the Federal Republic, West Germany, Nazi Germany, the Weimar Republic, the German Empire, and the German Confederation are only some of the most recent. We do this, not to distance ourself from these states, but to emphasize an important aspect of our history in order to avoid misinterpretations and over-generalisations. Maybe, as a side effect, some Germans make a much clearer division between the concepts land or country and state, than do for instance the French or the Swedes. We can, in casual speech, use the term Germany in two "quite different" meanings, namely as the Federal Republic and as the land of the Germans — and which concept we denote seems selfevident to us from the context. But here, at Wikipedia, this differentiation is blurred, and people, including me, get annoyed by what some of us perceive as slappyness when Germany is confused with Germany.

 * I do not agree with you, that many Germans should react against the adjectival usage you exemplify with. The Nazis were Germans too, the Wehrmacht was a German army, and "the Germans" most definitely invaded Poland (many times through history — most recently in 1941). This is not controversial, except for, maybe, with far fringe groupings near the edge of the right wing. You see, it's rather a matter of exactitude. It was the state that existed 1933–1945, commonly referred to as Nazi Germany or the Third Reich, that invaded Poland, not that of 1948–1990.

 * I would have been happy with Germany being a disambiguation page, and this page being re-named to, for instance, Germany (federal republic), but I also realize that this is not the most likely development at Wikipedia.
 * --Ruhrjung 08:04, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

Federal Republic of Germany would be better than Germany (federal republic). We could make do like Ireland/Republic of Ireland, with the Germany article discussing history and geography, and the Federal Republic article dealing with the present day state, I suppose, but this seems unnecessary. john k 08:09, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * I think we have seen plenty of tension over this issue. Heimdal and Gideon are only the last example. There are some similarities with the issue of Britain vs. Great Britain vs. United Kingdom, including some users' insistence on correcting what they perceive as slappy usage by others.

 * I would also suggest, that Germans in daily speech maybe have about as much latitude in their usage of Bundesrepublik v.s Deutschland as have the British in their usage of United Kingdom vs. (Great) Britain vs. England. Wouldn't in reality an article titled Federal Republic of Germany fit well beside United Kingdom and United States — that we actually do not call Britain and America?
 * --Johan Magnus 15:44, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * yes, it would be better w:de:Benutzer:Schaengel89

 * "I agree - the whole 'Nazi Germany' thing is very tiresome - no one would talk about when the 'Republican Americans' invaded Iraq."

 * The analogy quoted above is not rational. The government that was responsible for invading Eastern Europe and perpetrating the holocaust no longer exists. Consequently, a person cannot be faulted for making a distinction between the actions of the German state currently in power and the Nazi regime that disintegrated in 1945. This fact has no bearing on issues of moral responsibility, which should be firmly laid on those individuals guilty of the crimes (whether German, French, Hungarian, etc.: recall that the Nazis relied on collaborators). Questions of responsibility aside, the invasion of Poland and extermination of the Jews were initated and carried out by the Third Reich as a matter of state policy, and the Third Reich doesn't exist. If the United States' system of government was completely replaced by something else, a person might be quite justified in describing the invasion of Iraq "by the American Republic," or whatever. It's a question of semantics, and, for obvious reasons, of importance to Germans who want to distance themselves from crimes committed by other people: note that most Germans were not even alive when the crimes were being committed.

 * The principle applies more broadly. We like to talk about the "Americans" rebelling against the British. Technically speaking, that is inaccurate: certain segments among the American colonists rebelled against the British, while other segments (though smaller and less influential) remained loyal; the rebels did not generally think of themselves as "American," but as "Virginian," or whatever. Nevertheless, as Americans, the Revolution has assumed a firm place in our national identity, so we apply that identity retroactively. That's okay, provided that we acknowledge what we're doing.

 * one question, s.o. wrote that the second Reich is the one Bismark created 1871. In his book

Das dritte Reich (1923) Arthur Moeller van den Bruck called the Heilige Römische Reich Deutscher Nation the first Reich. So far so good, but if you look at symbols etc. the Nazis had a differed opinion. first Reich - the roman empire ( about 1000 years ) second reich - the holy roman empire of german nation ( about 1000 years )and the dritte reich ( das 1000 jährige reich ) Olli

I see nothing wrong with seperation of Germany and Nazi Germany. To me, it's just being more specific. The German Confederation, German Empire, Nazi Germany... etc. are all equally German, but significantly different entities. Oberiko 15:27, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Cleanup - shorten this article
This article is 42kB long. According to WikiProject Countries, we should use summary style. Most sections here (e.g. history, economics, society (not part of the template) etc ) and need to be drastically cut. Details belong in the daughter articles, not here. One line sections and sections entitles "Introduction" are also not acceptable. --Jiang 05:23, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Ehm, I would move the history into a single article and give a short summary of this. --User:ckorff 15:57:23, 25 Feb 2005 (GMT+0100)

 * I guess I'm the chief responsible for expanding this article, by adding new sections and images. Personally I like it as it is now. Germany is a big and complex country; it deserves to be covered extensively. Heimdal 16:41, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I've removed a few unnecessary headers. The images are fine. A few problems remain. The lead section of the article is lacking--the first two paragraphs should explain more on why the subject is significant, not just tell where it is geographically located. The history section also needs to be reduced to half. Extensive history can go in History of Germany. Please do not remove the cleanup tag until these are done.

I'm not sure whether "foreign affairs" should be under politics, or have its own section like at People's Republic of China and Republic of China. There's some debate on this...I'm leaning towards the latter since the "main article" Politics of Germany doesnt say anything about the subject. --Jiang 22:46, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * I've decided to move it to its own section. PRC and Cambodia are both FA, both have it separate.--Jiang

Heimdal, please do not revert me unless you are prepared to give reason and respond to my comments on this page. In addition to the notes listed above, do note Manual of Style, which asks that headers be left uncapitalized after the first word. --Jiang 11:50, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Jiang, I do suppose that the article is long, but I don't think that it is too long. Actually, I've seen articles on the Wikipedia which are even longer. Heimdal 12:14, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * I agree that it would be better to stick to the guidelines rather than everyone doing things the way they personally prefer. I think Heimdal could do a good job of shortening the article as he has done a lot of good work on it recently. Heimdal, can't you be persuaded? Saintswithin 13:04, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Saintswithin, thank you for your kind words. Since your English is obviously much better than mine, I wish you could do the job of "cleaning up". I'm currently busy with writing a Wikipedia article on Germany's coat of arms...- Heimdal 14:02, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Hi Heimdal, it seems you did have time for this page after all! I'm not too sure about the idea of removing the "main article" headings: it is much easier for anyone who wants to go to the main article page if the link is at the top, rather than hidden somewhere in the text. No doubt that's why that's recommended in the guidelines. If you're trying to make it shorter, I think there are still one or two tiny things that could go from the history section. Saintswithin 14:15, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Dear Heimdal, You may want to consider WikiProject Countries. --Ruhrjung 20:04, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

Heimdal, once again, please stop reverting me unless you are willing to explain yourself. The cleanup tag remains because the article needs cleanup for reasons Ive given. Dont you agree the lead section needs work? Not only the tag...but I see no reason for reverting my other edits. One paragraph sections should not exist. Sections should never be titled "introduction". The Manual of Style should be followed. Understand? Why do you disagree? Can you explain? I'm quite perplexed here. --Jiang 22:51, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This article seem to be overdosed on history. I propose to move the history section to History of Germany/temp, in order to edit the text of History of Germany to a coherent narrative including what's removed from here. --Johan Magnus 11:59, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Once again, Heimdal has mass reverted me, not only me but subsequent edits by Moncrief, 213.39.199.251, and PMelvilleAustin. This has been done with no comment whatsoever on this page or any other page. --Jiang 22:55, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Jiang, just who told you to remove the "Foreign affairs" section? Besides, I wonder about your interest in "cleaning up" the Germany article, although it should be obvious that you know rather little about the country, and that you probably have never visited it. Johan Magnus, the history section might be "overdosed". But I decided to change the section after a certain user started to add images of Nazi camp mass graves to it, with the implicit intention of embarrassing German Wikipedia users. German history does not consist only of those 13 years, and it was my aim to make that clear. My suggestion would be to remove the "Holy Roman Empire" section, and let history start with Germany since 1871. Now that would shorten the article a bit. Heimdal 10:14, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Just for the record, the accusations by Heimdal above, which I previously missed, are false. His percepetions, however, do shed light on the motives for his vandalizing and many times unexplained mass reverting contributions by several users. His understanding of Roma sociology - the mistakes were put in the article time and again and are still there - is to say the least unfortunate. So is the fact that the homosexuals and disabled are again not there, as they were murdered with the others. Heimdal does everything he can to minimize the genocides in German's history, including flooding it with information and time and again deleting several murdered population groups. I think that real errors and omissions should be fixed, even when the page is protected. He has taken over total control of this article and too little is done to fix it. gidonb 15:23, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * Also if that would shorten the section "a bit", there would be a long way to go until the article look like other country-articles. --Johan Magnus 10:33, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Johan Magnus, excuse me the question, but why does the Germany article have to "look like other country articles"? Heimdal 10:54, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * For instance as a courtesy to the reader, to increase Wikipedia's useability, to not unnecessarily diminish the credibility of the content, to not give the impression that Germans expect them and Germany to be treated exceptionally without reason. In other words: There are reasons, why Wikipedians like the Wikiprojects. --Johan Magnus 11:20, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Johan Magnus, as you may have noticed, for example, the infobox of the Sweden article uses the parametrisized template (by courtesy of Cantus), whereas the Germany infobox does not. From this little detail you may see that not all country articles look like each other (thankfully not). I believe that the Germany article is broadly in line with the Wikipedia requirements. If you think otherwise, you may consider to contact the administrators. So far I've seen no complaints from the "official" side, although I'm sure they do check these articles regularly. Heimdal 12:20, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * I think you've misunderstood the role of administrators. The debate you are now involved in, which we are happy to see, is the way Wikipedia works. Compare for instance: Overview FAQ I guess you're a rather experienced Wikipedian, but I don't know how well you are acquainted with the relatively new Category-system. Maybe you would like to take a look at Category:Wikipedia FAQ? Administrators' role is not to convey complaints to you, but to execute certain tasks in accordance with the policies, as for instance blocking anonymous users who can't help vandalizing articles, or deleting faulty articles.

 * The guidelines of a Wikiproject are, among other things, a tool to facillitate the colaborative effort by the numerous Wikipedians who contribute to the articles in question. --Johan Magnus 15:18, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Johan Magnus, of course Germany is exceptional; isn't Sweden exceptional too? Look at the Japan article, and compare it with the piece on France: do they look the same? In Sweden, for example, you have this folkhem thing - the Swedish welfare state - which is really very unique. Why don't you devote a special section to it in the Sweden article? I still encourage you to contact the admins, if you have serious objections regarding the Germany article.Heimdal 15:48, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * One thing that could be done to shorten the history section is to meld the German Empire / WWI sections and the Nazi Germany / WWII sections. Those conflicts precipitated the downfall of the political establishments that participated in them, but do not in my opinion, merit synopsis-level treatment apart from those governments. Shimmin 20:43, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

Heimdal, my knowledge of the subject has nothing to do with the issue at hand here. It is also irrelevant if you cannot point out what specifically I am inserting into the article that is false. I see no accuracy dispute here. see no personal attacks.

I did not delete the foreign affairs section. I moved it to its own section after "economy" following precendent described above. If you believe this should be done otherwise, then let's hear your take on this.

If you would like to mass revert my edits, then please justify every single thing you reverted. For example, why should one-sentence sections such as "international rankings" even exist? I combined some sections that only had one paragraph, far short of what is needed for a section to stand alone. That's an easy way to save space. What is wrong with that? --Jiang 23:07, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Jiang, it looks like you to ask AllyUnion to block the Germany article so as to prevent other users, who are not as totally ignorant as you, such as Saintswithin, to continue their good and sensible edit work. Let me guess: you started this "cleanup" fuss in the first place because you wanted to get rid of certain sections you disagreed with, such as the one on "foreign affairs". Or maybe it just piques you that the Germany article is a bit longer than the ones on China. I was quite right to call you a vandal.

 * I would recommend you to waste your "cleanup" efforts on the People's Republic of China instead. It's just cheeky to post cozy pictures of Jiang Zemin together with Bill Clinton at a time of serious divisions between the US and China over Taiwan.Heimdal 17:02, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The "foreign affairs" section is still there as "foreign relations". I did not get rid of it. The rest of your personal attacks aren't really relevant. Can you please address the subject at hand so we can settle this dispute? are you interested in resolving this dispute? You are free to edit the People's Republic of China as I am free to edit the Germany article. This is the nature of a wiki. --Jiang 19:39, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Jiang, once the protection expires, I'll revert your silly, ignorant, misinformed edits, be sure of that.--Heimdal 19:43, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Dear Heimdal,
 * Since you emphasized the importance you put on official complaints, I do hereby "officially" raise the complaint about your breach of Wikiquette, constituting a breach against Wikipedia's official policy. As you can follow on Dispute resolution:
 * the first step was taken by opening the discussion at this talk page.
 * the second step was taken by requesting community comment on the issue.
 * the third step was the protection of the page, according to Protection policy, to allow the process to move forward.
 * meanwhile, it looks like a Request for comments about your conduct as a user might be called for. You are kindly advised to study the content at that last link carefully, in order to get some inspiration about what not to do in your situation.
 * I hope the following steps then will prove to be unnecessary.
 * Good luck!
 * --Johan Magnus 07:36, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I would like to note that User:Heimdal also used very inappropriate language in his postings to me (see above). He also mass reverted many of my corrections and edits to the page Germany, sometimes without explenations. Since I felt alone in my efforts to make this page more neutral and factually correct and was very offended by the for Wikipedia unusual language used by Heimdal, I had to cease my efforts and move on. My polite emails to his user page were deleted. I have made positive contributions to this article, which last over time, and look for oppertunities to contribute in more pleasant environments. I am glad that others, such as Jiang, continue the efforts for this page from the place where I had to give up. 16:14, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

From User talk:Jiang: Hello Jiang, I would be ready to compromise with you over the Germany article. I shall remove all the subsections of the article's chapters (with subsections I mean sections like "Holy Roman Empire", "German Empire", "First World War" etc in the History chapter, for example). That would automatically shorten the article. The idea with the subsections originally came to me when studying the structure of the Japan article - see for example the chapter "Society" there, which I copied and which you dissolved. Since they appear to offend you, the subsections will go. You in turn will need to accept that the text of the article will not be shortened. The paragraph about the "Holy Roman Empire" for example will be reinstated, although it will no longer be a subsection but a simple paragraph. Likewise, the piece about "Foreign affairs", which you rechristened "Foreign relations" - and which for some unknown reason you placed behind the "Economy" chapter, of all places - will be put back into "Politics", though as a simple paragraph, not as a subsection. Another point is your decision to remove my title "Parliament" above the piece about the Bundestag and the Bundesrat, and to rename it "Government". But in a parliamentary democracy like Germany's, parliament and government are not one and the same thing. In the Japan article, for example, the subsection about the parliament is rightly called "The Diet", NOT "Government". So do us all a favour, ask AllyUnion to unblock the article. You have time to consider until next Monday, as I shall be away over the weekend. Heimdal 13:58, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for offering to discuss this. I'm glad we can finally get some discussion going. Actually, I am fine with subsections/headings provided that they are followed by enough text. I did not remove the paragraph about the "Holy Roman Empire" (The first Reich ? known for much of its existence as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.... is still there). I just merged the headers "Holy Roman Empire" and "German Empire" to save space. Since you're offering to do away with headings completely, I presume this is fine with you? The actual text of the history section, when compared between "my" version and "yours", differs only by a few sentences. I just removed "main article" headings of links already contained within the text, removed an image that was crowding/creating whitespace, and made the images smaller so theyd fit on 800x600 screens. Looking at the diff, is there something contentwise you would like restored? If there's a promise that this section wont get any longer than it already is, then I will compromise by not pursuing the issue further and not reinserting the cleanup tag.

In the politics section, I did not simply rename the "Parliament" section "Government". I moved the header higher to include discussion of the constitution, Chancellor, and system of government, and then removed the headers on "head of state" and "Federal Constitutional Court" to include discussion of the president and Bundesverfassungsgericht. by "Government" (note capital G), I was trying to refer to the government as in its structure and institutions. Would renaming the subsection from "Government" to "Government structure" make it clearer? The Japan article separated Diet from Imperial Household, not unlike here where I merged the sections on government institutions.

The "foreign relations" section is where it is because, as I've outlined above, there is prcedent for keeping it separate from politics. My main concern for moving it under politics is that the main article Politics of Germany make not mention of the topic and does not even link to foreign relations of Germany. However, I will not object if it is moved there. What is the reason for using the term "foreign affairs" versus "foreign relations" given that the article foreign relations of Germany uses the former?

Some other things: If you still object to any of these changes, which you reverted, then I would like to know the reason. I prefer that there not be a "society" section for the sake of consistency, but if that is reinserted, I won't object. The Japan article has its flaws, so I'd look at WikiProject Countries first for standards.
 * I moved "states" to its own section. This is done everywhere else and Geography of Germany does not describe political divisions. Here in wikipedia, these geography sections focus on physical geography so I thought it was inappropriate to move something on political divisions under the header.
 * I removed the subheadings under the economics section because they were each followed by only a short paragraph--not enough to make a section. in the interests of saving space and conforming to standard formatting guidelines, i removed them.
 * I merged "education" with demographics in the interests of saving space and because it only had one paragraph.
 * I moved culture behind religion because it's convention to have the "culture" section be last. Any reason that this would put text out of sequence?
 * I removed "International rankings" because it was a one-liner not deserving of its own section. i dont even think it's relevant.
 * I reformatted "Miscellaneous topics" in standard bullet point form used in almost all other country articles. I removed redundant listings--links already linked before in the text.

I look forward to working with you to resolve any outstanding issues. AllyUnion posted that he no longer wanted to be involved in this, so I'll unprotect this article myself when all is settled.--Jiang 12:27, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Just and only for the record it might be noted, that I do not see why the history section of this article has to be this long, that what's the article History of Germany is there for; which makes me feel rather unhappy about Heimdal's statement that we in turn will need to accept that the text of the article will not be shortened.
 * --Johan Magnus 15:10, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I too believe this chapter is too long. Given the rude language he used when refering to me, I have reason to believe that this related to certain events in the History of Germany which user Heimdal previously tried to minimize their exposure. I do however see Jiang's efforts in a positive light. It is difficult to deal with someone who takes control over a page. gidonb 18:40, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * I still think strongly that the history section should be drastically shortened. Though the rules and standards are flexible they should only be altered when there is both good reason and consensus to do so. I see neither here. Consensus here seems instead to lean towards shortening the section, than leaving it as is or longer. --Jiang

The history section is much longer than even the longest sections on other pages. It has 1655 words: compare it with other countries' main page history sections - USA 219, UK 561, Egypt 364, France 452, Japan 972. I've shortened a few minor details but really it could do with a simple summary, with the details in the main articles. Perhaps it could be shortened in this way:
 * The incident which sparked off the war was the assassination of the Austrian heir apparent and his wife at Sarajevo in Serbia on July 28th 1914. The causes were the opposing policies of the European states, the armaments race, German-British rivalry, the difficulties of the Austro-Hungarian multinational state, Russia's Balkan policy and overhasty mobilisations and ultimatums. Germany declared war on Russia on August 1st, and on France on the 3rd; Britain declared war on Germany on August 4th.
 * ==> Germany declared war on Russia on August 1st, and on France on the 3rd; Britain declared war on Germany on August 4th.

i.e. just the facts of what happened, with the reasons elsewhere if people want to know more. Any comments? Saintswithin 10:01, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * sounds like a good plan. We should keep in mind that History of Germany is itself an overview of the history of Germany series. In that article, I counted approx 1720 words, not including headings and captions. This does not differ much from 1655. We need to have three levels of specificity here, but instead, we have more like two since the history section here is almost as long as the general history article. This duplication is not helpful for our readers. I believe the section here should be shortened to at least half its current size- to 800 words and preferably less. I think the level of detail Heimdal had in mind would be best served by the History of Germany article alone, rather than having two articles going into the same detail. If any info removed from here is missing at History of Germany then let's add it in there. We wont be losing any info--Jiang 10:25, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Jiang, as I have said to you already - I'm ready to compromise with you over the structure of the article, but not over the text. Through the removal of the subsections the article would automatically be shortened. Besides, it's not up to you to decide what should be written into the Germany article and what not, and how long it should be. I'm ready to fight this out with the the administrators if necessary. - Heimdal 11:39, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Of course it is not for me to decide alone how long this article should be and what it should contained. The rules are made through community consensus and convention. Five of us here so far (myself, Saintswithin, gidonb, Johan Magnus, and Ruhrjung) have expressed the sentiment that the history section is too long. Only one has implied otherwise - you - and you've not provided a reason for it while we have. Is this not enough to sway towards condensing? The guidelines set out at WikiProject Countries have been discussed countless times by numerous editors and have lasted for two years. If we're going to differ, then there's must be a good reason and and consensus. What are your reasons for differing and where is your consensus? As I have already discussed at Requests_for_page_protection, the refusal to discuss the specific issues under dispute and weigh each of these changes rationally makes it impossible for us to arrive at a resolution here on this page. This is a collaborative project in which everyone who decides to edit is part--not just me and you. We cannot simply agree that I let here and you'll let there...even if I lay off the history section, there are still four others, and perhaps many more once theyre made aware, believing it should be shortened. Their voice cannot simply be ignored. This is not a two person project.
 * The administrators are not given editorial authority. I had the capacity to protect this page myself, but as an interested party did not do so and asked for another administrator to do it. Regrettably, if there is no willingness to discuss the content and to weight the arguments and rationales i have set out on this page, then I have no choice but to take this further in the Dispute_resolution process. I really don't want to do this, but I feel left with no other choice. My understanding of precedent suggests that you will be banned from editing this article and placed on personal attack parole after the dispute passes arbitration. (just go to Requests for arbitration/Completed requests to see for yourself) I don't really want to see this happen since you, after all, are a German and could do much to improve this article and keep watch over it. I'm sure you're well meaning and don't really deserve. I hope, for the sake of yourself and others, that you reconsider and please address the content under dispute. --Jiang 12:29, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I still think Heimdal could do an excellent job of shortening the history section here as he has the best overview of all of us and can see what the main facts are, plus he's bilingual. The History of Germany article would look much better if it was something like the history section here is now, with more pictures and a little extra detail. The section "History of Germany" is very short, and there's nothing on The Revolutions of 1848 in the German states. People looking on the Germany page will be going to the linked pages to get more detail without realising that actually the information here is better set out and hardly any less detailed in places. Moving the information would make the whole thing look far more professional and make it less frustrating to read. Saintswithin 13:06, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

From Requests for page protection
Germany I keep getting mass reverted by User:Heimdal, who has so far ignored my requests to tell me exactly what he thinks is wrong with my edits. He has simply called them "vandalism". I am trying to cut down the ridiculous size of the article and format it according to the Manual of style and WikiProject Countries. a misguided newbie? I hope page protection will encourage some discussion since simply asking for discussion isnt working. --Jiang 23:14, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * I recommend protection for 2 weeks. And thus, I shall be protecting the article. -- AllyUnion (talk) 06:55, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Comment removed

 * Jiang is an excellent editor who has put incredible amounts of work into standardizing and cleaning up the various country articles. Please do not insult him or his contributions. Snowspinner 19:38, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

 * I did not admit that I know "virtually nothing about Germany". I said my geographical location and personal travel experiences are irrelevant to me editing the article--I was formatting and not adding content. Even then, such qualifications are irrelevant.

 * Will you agree to a truce? If you don't touch the article, then I won't? then we lift the protection to allow others to edit it? --Jiang 21:51, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The protection will not expire automatically in two weeks. It will expire when serious attempt at discussion has been made. Attacking me for not being from Germany, having never been there, etc. and therefore not having a right to edit the article is not serious discussion. Everyone, please refer to Talk:Germany to see the dispute. --Jiang 19:33, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * comment removed

I shall not be involving myself further in the protection or unprotection of this article. I leave it to another administrator to whether it needs unprotection at the end of the two week suggested period. -- AllyUnion (talk) 23:34, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

AllyUnion, I apologize to you for my past rudeness. I was just very upset, since I believe that Jiang does not deserve your protection. Please compare his version of the Germany article with my version. Some points: Put briefly, Jiang has made such a mess of the Germany article that it hurts! - Heimdal 10:54, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * In the History chapter, and without asking anyone first, Jiang wiped out the paragraph about the Holy Roman Empire - although he chose to left stay the related image of the prince-electors, which looks very awkward now.
 * In the same History chapter, Jiang changed the title "German Empire" into "Imperial Germany" (whatever that means), although "German Empire" is the English equivalent of Deutsches Reich, and there are articles under that name on the Wikipedia.
 * In the Politics chapter, Jiang changed my title "Parliament" over the section about the Bundestag and the Bundesrat into "Government", despite the fact that the related paragraph is in fact about the German parliament, not the government. Never mind that in a parliamentary democracy, there is a difference between parliament and government. In the Japan article, for instance, the piece about the parliament is rightly entitled "The Diet", NOT "Government".
 * In the same Politics chapter, Jiang removed the paragraph about "Foreign affairs", rechristened it "Foreign relations" and put it behind the "Economy" chapter, of all places.
 * In the Japan article, the "Economy" chapter is carefully structured into sections about the agricultural, the industrial and the service sector. I structured the "Economy" chapter in the Germany article likewise, with four subsections entitled "Agriculture, fishery", "Industrial sector", "Service sector" and "Natural resources". Jiang dissolved all subsections.
 * In the Japan article, there is a chapter called "Society". I copied the idea. Jiang dissolved the chapter and all subsections.

 * I am not the one being protected or deserving protection. I asked this article be protected for the sake of dispute resolution and I will see to it that it remains protected until this is resolved.

 * I believe there are some fundamental misunderstandings that have cause unnecessary hard feelings here. I mentioned some of these misunderstandings at Talk:Germany. I will repeat some of them here:
 * I did not take out the paragraph on the Holy Roman Empire. Please take a closer look. I merged the "Holy Roman Empire" and "German Empire" section under the heading "Imperial Germany".
 * I did not simply change "German Empire" and "Imperial Germany" as explained previously. It was a merge of two sections.
 * I did not simply change "Parliament" to "Government" in the politics section. I merged the "Introduction", "Parliament", "Head of State" and "Federal Constitutional Court" sections into a single section on government structure.
 * The move of the "foreign affairs" section was made following repeated consultations on the talk page, and repeated requests for comment on the talk page. I have made my rationale clear there. So far no one has bothered to discuss them
 * As I posted on Talk:Germany, the subsections in the economy sections did not have enough content to have their own headers. Just because it is done wrong in the Japan article is no excuse.
 * As I posted on Talk:Germany, we need should be looking wikiproject countries rather than Japan as a guide. If there is a consensus to differ, then that is permitted. However, there is no consensus to change things and my repeated requests for reasons behind using a different format have fallen silent.
 * Unfortunately, Heimdal has just posted on Talk:Germany "I'm ready to compromise with you over the structure of the article, but not over the text." Again, he has again ignored requests to discuss my points on specific disputes of content. This is despite the near-consensus, expressed by not only myself but Saintswithin, gidonb, Johan Magnus, and Ruhrjung (that's 5 to 1, not considering quality of argument) that the history article needs to be drastically shortened. Unfortunately, the Heimdal's position that there can be no compromise over content, despite counter-opinions and counter-arguments, and refusal to discuss the specific issue and weigh each of these changes rationally makes it impossible for us to arrive at a resolution through discussion. Regrettably, this article must be protected indefinitely until Heimdal expresses willingness to act otherwise or this is resolved further through the dispute resolution proceedings.--Jiang 12:07, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Jiang, but in a democracy like Germany, the Federal Constitutional Court is not - I repeat NOT - part of the "government structure", but of the judiciary. Only in dictatorial systems like the People Republic of China's are the government and the judiciary one and the same thing. And it's just plain wrong to merge the Holy Roman Empire with the German Empire under one the title called "Imperial Germany", because at the time of Charlemagne, something like "Germany" didn't even exist yet. Besides, who are you to decide what is right and what is wrong (see your comment above about the Japan article). In view of your obvious ignorance about all things German, shouldn't you be a bit more modest instead? - Heimdal 12:27, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * These are good points and I acknowledge them. Posting stuff like this is all I ask for. When you post "government structure", do you mean executive branch? A judicial branch is still part of the government, I presume? It's just not executive. Please take this further at Talk:Germany. --Jiang 12:35, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Heimdal, I specifically stated that I would not involve myself any further in the protection or the unprotection of this article. And I shall not. However, I accept your apology, and I apologize if any of my comments were read as an insult. Please bare in mind that I am doing my best to assist you by providing alternative solutions. The whole Germany Wikipedia comment was a suggestion on the fact that we have other Wikipedia projects in different languages, and their community may differ greatly from the English Wikipedia. I would like you to stay with the Wikipedia project, even though it may not be the English one. However, I am glad you have decided to stay and cooperate with the other editors. Just remember, we are not mind readers and we can not read beyond the texts of what is posted here. If you are angry at something, and if you do not express why, we have no way to really help you. Being stubborn and saying nothing doesn't help us try to help you achieve a solution that works the best between people. I have worked with Jiang, nearly getting into an edit war myself over Template:University of California several months ago when I first joined the Wikipedia. However I found that Jiang is an outstanding Wikipedian who is a open, willing, and compromising individual that is willing to listen what you have a problem about, and likes to see any issues resolved from the article. As you can see, Jiang has expressed a willingness to help you and would like to know what you have a problem with. I hope that you and Jiang can come to some kind of agreement over the article such that any issues with the article is resolved. Please keep in mind of the Wikipedia's policies, and remember that we're hear to build a neutral point of view encyclopedia, not to bruise egos, ideals, or beliefs. -- AllyUnion (talk) 13:52, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

AllyUnion, thanks for your reply. Jiang asked me above whether "a judicial branch is still part of the government". My reply is: NO. Because in a democracy, including the United States, there is the principle of the separation of powers between the government and the judiciary. I'm surprised that, as a student at the University of California, Jiang doesn't know this himself. Unfortunately, Jiang is preventing me from correcting the mess that he has made of the Germany article. Apart from that - if he believes that the structure of the Japan article is "wrong", why doesn't he put a "cleanup" banner above that page, remove all the subsections, and ask someone to protect his edits, as he has done with the Germany article? Best wishes. - Heimdal 14:23, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * I know my government and politics very well, mind you. There's no point in personally attacking me. I don't know what definition you're using for "government", but in the US, the government is composed of three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. Courts are part of the judicial branch of government. The courts, in their role of enforcing and interpreting laws, are indeed part of the government. Of course, there's a secondary definition for parliamentary systems meaning the PM and his ministers, but it should be obvious, in context, which definition we're using. Even if we use the secondary definition, we would not be putting the entire parliament under it.

 * I asked you kindly to reply to my changes, and even outlined them for you. Simply calling them a "mess" won't help any of us understand what is your beef with my edits. If I happen to be wrong or misleading, like with the use of "Imperial Germany", then I'd like to know. For the record, Heimdal posted on my talk page "I do not even intend to discuss with you any further, as long as you keep the article blocked." Unfortunately, trying to resolve our differences through simple discussion isnt working. --Jiang 01:29, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Jiang, I know that in English (but not in German!), "Government" can mean as much as "the State". But then, it might have been better if you would have changed the title of the chapter "Politics" into "Government", or "Government and Politics". But to place "Government" (meaning "the State" here) as a subsection of "Politics" doesn't make any sense. If "Government" means "the State", what does "Politics" mean then: the "Super-State"? That's the problem: your edits are half-baked, they are not carefully thought through. They should never have deserved protection in the first place. - Heimdal 12:04, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * My edits were not being protected in the first place. Please refer to the protection policy as has been outlined to you by AllyUnion. Protection is meant to facilitate discussion, not favor a particular version. I am not calling you a vandal.

 * I partially agree with you, but what applies for Germany applies for all other countries. I was simply following the template, which calls for the section to be named "politics" instead of "government and politics". My edits are not "half-baked" (again, please cut the personal attacks). They are made in accordance to established policies and conventions. There was debate over the naming of this section at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countries. You are free to reopen this discussion to change the overal standard, but we should remain consistent.

 * Poltics does not mean "super-state". It means "1. The art or science of government or governing, especially the governing of a political entity, such as a nation, and the administration and control of its internal and external affairs. 2. Political science. 3. The activities or affairs engaged in by a government, politician, or political party 4. The methods or tactics involved in managing a state or government."  So government can be considered a subset of politics, but politics is not limited to government, it also centers around the personalities and conventions of government. The current setup does make sense based on my understanding of the term. --Jiang 17:15, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * I'm glad to see that my tip on the meaning of the word "government" was helpful! I'm afraid that this particular subject has a *lot* of words which have subtle differences in meaning between English and German, which may not be obvious even to very advanced speakers of either language; the differences are not usually even in bilingual dictionaries! I suspect "politics" may also have a different meaning in German to English, so be warned that any arguments may actually be caused by misunderstanding. Saintswithin 08:42, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I received this note on my talk page "Jiang, I prefer to wait until your protection request expires. That should be next Tuesday or Wednesday. First thing I'll do is to revert the mess you've made of the article and give the whole thing a shorter structure. Then let's hear what the others have to say about it. Mediation can wait. I'm sure that no person in his or her right mind would prolong the protection of your confused edits any further. - Heimdal 15:36, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)" (emphasis mine)

As I am threatening to be mass reverted, the protection should not expire. I would appreciate it if another admin would confirm this because Heimdal is using the notion that protection will somehow "expire" in two weeks to stall any discussion posting (again on my talk page) "I do not even intend to discuss with you any further, as long as you keep the article blocked." --Jiang 17:15, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * As a matter of fact, I have not joined the Wikipedia to take orders from Jiang. I think I have made sufficiently clear above why I believe that Jiang's edits are faulty, and why they should never have deserved protection in the first place. I have offered him a compromise - that I will shorten the article's structure, if he in turn agrees that the text itself will not be shortened - which he refused. First he threatened to block the article indefinitely if I didn't comply to his wishes, now he is even threatening to ban me from Wikipedia. What kind of coercion am I to expect next. Sorry but I have to leave now, because unlike Jiang, I don't have the time to spend the whole day in front of the computer. - Heimdal 17:54, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

At where you complained about my edits, I responded and explained. What do you still find "faulty"? Everything? It wouldn't seem so if I'm not getting a response. Some issues, which i conveniently outlined for you, have not been addressed by you. I will phrase them in the form of questions in the hope on receiving some clarifications: As I have said before, the Japan article should not be used as a template. I will go and "fix" and "mess" there (to use your terminology) one once I am done here. Your compromise is unacceptable because four other users have expressed the view that the history section is too long and needs to be shortened. There is no way any of us can bow down unless we are persudaded leaving the section as long as it is now is the best thing to do. What are your reasons? do you have any? --Jiang 00:39, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * what is your opinion on the precedent to have foreign relations sit on its own? why keep it under "politics" when Politics of Germany makes no mention of the article? why call it foreign affairs when the main article uses the term "foreign relations", as do featured articles like People's Republic of China and Cambodia?
 * why do you want to have "states" under geography when Geography of Germany focuses exclusively on physical geography and every single other country article has political divisions under its own heading?
 * why include so many subheadings under the economics section when none of these subsections have enough content to be sections on their own?
 * what is wrong with moving culture behind relgiion given that the convention would be to have the "culture" section be last
 * why even bother with a one-liner section on "international rankings"? how is it even relevant?
 * what is wrong with formatting "Miscellaneous topics" in standard bullet point form used almost everywhere else on wikipedia where there is a list? what is wrong with removing listings of articles already linked in the text from that section?

This is all very unsatisfying. As far as I can see, Heimdal disregard arguments put forth by anyone, thereby in effect demonstrating his disrespect for all other contributors at Wikipedia. --Johan Magnus 13:26, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This is exactly my experience with Heimdal, when I previously tried to make positive contributons to this article. He keeps on attacking persons concerned with this page, until they quit improving, so he can do what he wants. Unexplained mass reverts, personal attacks, unclear objections, anything is fair game. I follow this discussion with much deja vu. gidonb 13:08, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * A (very) small part of the problem seems to be the difference in what's meant by the word "government." The Federal Constitutional Court is most certainly part of the German "government," as the word is used in American English. Similarly, the FBI is part of the American "government," along with the Environmental Protection Agency, the local police, and the Internal Revenue Service. What the Germans call "Regierung" is better translated as "administration": no American would refer to the "Bush government" or the "Clinton government," at least not in the same way that the British refer to the "Blair government." If Wikipedia adopts American English as the standard for its articles, as I'm pretty sure it does, then Jiang's use of the term is correct.

I also agree that the history section is too detailed. The history of Germany is long, complicated, and influential, and deserves more space than it has here; that's what the History of Germany article is for. Herr Heimdal: your English is very good, but it's clear from the conversation that you're missing subtle connotations of certain words that even native English speakers have trouble with. Without this understanding, it must appear that you are up against willful and contrary foes - but you must believe that we do not want to suppress or taint any information, we simply want this article to be as useful as possible. If it is too long, it will deter readers. Moving the fine details to a more suitable location will improve every aspect of this article. Pjrich 16:45, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Size of Muslim population
There is a page from the Federeal Statistical Office in Germany: http://www.destatis.de/basis/e/bevoe/bevoetab4.htm According to that there are 1.9 m turks living in Germany. As they form the larger part of muslims the number of 3.4 m seems much to high Anonymous User:82.82.110.238 18:02, 20 Feb 2005

 * The Economist seems to believe in that. See: Muslims in Europe. --Johan Magnus 18:51, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * qantara.de("the concerted effort of the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (Federal Center for Political Education) Deutsche Welle, the Goethe Institut and the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (Institute for Foreign Relations) to promote dialogue with the Islamic world.")says 3.2 million Muslims live in Germany, and also: "most of Germany's Muslim population are guest workers from Turkey who were recruited during the 1950s and later. There are also a large number of political refugees including Iranians, Kurds, Palestinians, Bosnians and Afghans." Saintswithin 19:15, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * I guess most of the Muslims in Germany are former Turkish guest workers and their families, who often have the Turkish citizenship but often also the German so that they are counted not as Turks in the statistics. ben 14:43, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)

Small error
Germany is ranked as the 13th largest nation in terms of population. However, according to List_of_countries_by_population it's ranked 14th.
 * Those figures are a projection for July 2005, however. Saintswithin 12:10, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

change image please
please change the image Image:Germany map states.png into Image:Map objekt and num file final.png. the last is in the commons, but looks thesame. w:de:Benutzer:Schaengel89

small mistake
Under the image of Luther: "German reformer and reformer of Gemany" – redundant, isn't it?

-- Serpens 20:02, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * Bad language, rather. I believe the writer ment that he was 1/ German, 2/ reformer of the German language, and 3/ in effect the most drastic reformer of Germany (i.e. the land of the Germans) between Attila (or rather Charlemagne) and Napoleon.
 * --Johan Magnus 00:45, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * This was exactly my intention, with points 2 and 3 combined. Please feel free to improve the phrasing. gidonb  01:49, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC) Just to clarify: with German reformer I meant a German whose impact as a reformer of christianity goes far beyond the current boundaries of Germany.  gidonb  01:57, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * Ah. I don't think the intended pun works in English. In German, Reformator often refers specifically to the driving forces behind the Reformation (the one with a capital R). The English word reformer is much more generic. (I could be mistaken.) We need a native English speaker to clean this up. Thore 09:14, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * Thanks for the recognition of my pun. I will change the first reformer to reformator. Others can continue from there. gidonb  13:47, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * But is reformator an English word? Thore 14:07, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * No, Reformator is not an English word. Why don't we just say something like "Father of the Reformation", or some such? john k 14:41, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * Thanks, I changed it as you suggested. No need to discuss further improvements. Just go ahead and do as you wish. gidonb  17:14, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * The caption is in correct English now, but how is it a pun? Saintswithin 10:47, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * The original version was attempting something like (in mock-English) "German reformator and German-reformer", since Luther is both a reformer of (the language) German and the father of the Reformation. I think that's a good caption (it's informative and makes the reader want to learn more), so I gave it my best shot to keep the idea, but make it English. Looking at the sorry result, maybe we should just abandon the idea and find a non-punning caption... Thore 11:31, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * I don't think it works too badly, Thore - those familiar with the Reformation get the idea that he was instrumental in that, and in reforming German language, and there is the hint of a double-reformer semi-pun there. Berek 12:17, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(Sorry, but I couldn't resist:) A person whose name I don't even want to mention here dared lump the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich together into one single subsection (!), and you are discussing about a pun for the Luther image?? The social democrat Philipp Scheidemann, who proclaimed the first democracy on German soil on 9th November 1918, would be turning in his grave if he woud see this page. Please remove the German flag from this page - this article is about anything, but for sure it's not about Germany. Well then, happy continuation, Jiang, Gidonb and Thore. Weiter so! -Heimdal 12:59, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Changes after the protection
For some reason my corrections with respect to the populations which were murdered in WOII were undone *after* the page was protected. Notably the homosexuals were removed and the Sinti tribe, which is together with the Roma tribe part of the Roma people, was reentered. Also the link to the Porajmos, the Roma people's equivalent of the Holocaust, is to my opinion very important. I assume the undoing of my edits was a mistake and look forward to these facts being fixed once more. I believe that these populations deserve to be included in a correct manner. There is no reason that errors should be added to the contents of a page, after it is protected. gidonb 22:12, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * The unprotection of this article was a mistake, so the article was reverted back to its originally protected version. The page was not supposed to be unprotected as the dispute had not been successfully resolved and would have turned into another edit way. These edits will be restored once the page is unprotected again. However, this will not happen until Heimdal either chooses to discuss the dispute or is banned. When either of these events happen, then a request can be made at requests for protection. --Jiang 02:10, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * If this is the way admins must handle the situation by protocol, no problem. I am all in favor of applying the rules with respect to Heimdal. As long as my comments will be considered at one stage or another. gidonb  07:51, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * Can I suggest you poll opinion between the two versions? If there's a consensus in favour of one version or the other (or any point in between) it should be possible to unprotect the page on that basis, regardless of the participation of any particular individual.  Long-term protection is not a good option (or an especially likely one, I'd imagine).  Alai 10:51, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

A poll?
I think a poll on the issue whether this article ought to adhere to the guidelines of the Wikipedia Country-project would be a good idea. --Johan Magnus 10:57, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * no one is saying that the template should be applied stringently - for example the template makes no provision for foreign relations or relgion sections. that is not really the dispute here. any poll needs to be more specific than that. but if there are reasons to deviate from the template under dispute, these reasons should be made known before making a poll. --Jiang 11:21, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * What do you believe the specific, key issues to be? A poll may be over-doing things, but there should be an attempt to establish a consensus, rather than simply a Sitzkrieg.  Alai 18:44, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I put this in once more (modidified), as it may get lost in the long history: The accusations by Heimdal above, which I previously missed, are false. His perceptions, however, do shed light on the motives for his vandalizing and many times unexplained mass reverting contributions by several users. His understanding of Roma sociology - the mistakes were put in the article time and again and are still there - is to say the least unfortunate. So is the fact that the homosexuals and disabled are again not there, as they were murdered with the others.

Heimdal does everything he can to minimize or erase the genocides in Germany's history, including flooding it with information and time and again deleting several murdered population groups. I think that real errors and omissions should be fixed, even when the page is protected. Heimdal has taken over total control of this article and the change in to the standard takes very long. Why don't we skip the elections, as they mostly represent the number of names someone creates who alters his identity and discussion page frequently, and just get to work.

Personally, I expect all populations that were killed in the German genocides to be listed (the holocaust as it is at present), with links to the holocaust and the parajmos, and to include one picture which represents all genocides. I do not think that is too much to ask for or that it consitutes of excessive coverage, on the contrary. Some 12 million people were murdered in these genocides. Also it does not replace more pleasant chapters in the history of Germany. gidonb 15:23, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Can I propose a temporary sub-page with a working version of the section in question be created, with a view to editting it "off-line", and achieving what agreement there is to be had? I won't unilaterally do so myself, as there may be a "better" version in the article history to work from. Alai 18:44, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I would like the fix the worst errors now, since we are doing a bad service to the public who may read it. I agree that is very important information in the mass reverted versions. Your idea of working on a draft is fine with me. I would like to hear what the others have to say. gidonb 22:18, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I have come to this discussion only recently, and have followed it with some interest. Forgive me for saying something that probably has been mentioned before, but I think the sensitivity towards the genocide issues in Germany's history are quite understandable, and have difficulties in seeing how exactly a NPOV perspective on this can be reached. I checked the corresponding article about the USA for how similarly problematic issues were handled there. (These issues could include, say, the treatment of Native Americans during the colonization, slavery, or the use of weapons of mass destruction against civilians in WWII). Unfortunately, that was very little help, since these issues aren't mentioned at all on the USA page. ''Edit to add: I'm wrong, as pointed out below. Sorry for being sloppy. I was searching for "native" on that page. Should have searched for "Indian".'' The History of the United States mentions "battles" with native Americans and explains the reasons for slavery, but otherwise relegated these issues to yet another page. No mention is made of Hiroshima. I assume that these formulations were chosen in order to be mindful of reader sensitivies. Should a similar approach be used for the Germany page? Thore 19:58, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That is plainly UNTRUE. Both issues are mentioned in the very concise article United States. Reasons for the German genocides can very well be given at another page. As you may have noticed, I did not mention these in my concise draft. It would get too long. There are many other issues and events in Germany's past and present which should be touched upon in a concise article. What Heimdal has done to this article - by his admission out of very specific motives - is plainly devastating. The article should be short and well readable, for everyone. I find it hard to believe that the fact that Germany has some black chapters in its history, would come as a great surprise to anyone, including Germans. gidonb 22:18, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * Indeed! The History section states:
 * During the 19th century, many new states were added to the original thirteen as the nation expanded across the North American continent, destroying many Indian nations in a decades-long military campaign, and through coercion, military prowess, and diplomatic leverage, it acquired a number of overseas possessions; during this period the nation became an industrial power. (my underlining)

 * That article is an example of what we could strive for, keeping in mind that Germany's history from the Franks till today somehow has to be evenly illuminated on very few lines. Specifically, that means that I do not totally agree with gidonb's views and proposals, which I think put civilian sufferings outside of the death camps (not the least behind the Eastern Front) in too much of a shadow.
 * Ruhrjung 01:17, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing that out. Don't forget that slavery is also mentioned. All Thore's 'facts' were wrong, which really undermines his claim. All articles should mention the good with the bad. Interesting that Americans seem more open to (self)critisism. gidonb 04:42, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out my inacurracy about "Indians". The USA article is really very good, and I should have spent some more time reading it. That was very sloppy of me. However, this means my original plan was ok: The USA article seems to be a good example of how things could be handled. A would think a phrase like "murdered many native Americans" is not very NPOV, neither is "killed many native Americans". Neither are there images of slavery or Hiroshima on the main page. Instead, the formulations in the USA article are neutral, correct, and precise, and there are links to brilliant articles exploring these issues further. Maybe we should strive for that? Thore 08:03, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Germany/Archive 3


text: User talk:69.249.14.171

title: User talk:69.249.14.171


text:
Talk:Drug court

2606:1C00:2802:27:0:0:0:17A3 (talk) 18:27, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Aww
Aww my first article. I appologize for putting up the section headings without any filler, I started writing this one a little too late, but I'll be sure to fill in those sections with at least the basic information tomorrow. -Jonamerica 06:34, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * (p.s. if it's poor wiki edicate to have empty headers I appologize, feel free to remove them. I put them there in case others wanted to add to the article before I get to it tomorrow, they'd know what areas would be helpful to work on.)

Removal
"Drug courts have been scientifically proven to significantly reduce drug use and crime and do it cheaper than any other justice strategy."

Going to need to see some serious citations on this.

references, and some clean up recommended
Hi there- brand new member, though I've come to wikipedia for info, actually how I ended up here today. I can update your references I think rather easily. A lot has come out in drug court literature during the 2000s. The cite you mention to Roman et al's study should be added (2003), and Belenko is a central author in drug court research. I could supplement and develop a number of areas. I think this is a good start, but there are topics and conditions of treatment you describe here that may be specific to certain jurisdictions' areas that were covered in the lit you cite. And, the approach to treatment is so-called "therapeutic jurisprudence" (my POV on "so-called"), involving a system of sanctions and rewards to change behavior. This needs fleshed out. I could help with this if you are open to these changes. Best, Valerie
 * Please feel free to update the article. Wikipedia is all about many users updating articles, so no need to ask my permission. :) -Jonamerica (talk) 16:05, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Article splitting
Concern was raised by an editor about the recent split that I carried out. From my talk page:

 * Alan,

 * I work in the public policy space, and just noticedchanges to drug courts. I don't think this change, with a breakdown by geography, makes sense as the general drug court model is ideologically the same around the world.  If anything, I think the text of original drug court page should be restored, with subsections for Australia, Britian, and the 2 or 3 other locations.  A large majority of the drug courts, greater than 90%, are in the US, so the topic is highly US centric.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.36.79.59 (talk) 14:33, 28 August 2012 (UTC) "

and

 * "Sorry, I am not very good with Wikipedia so I created another post. This is the EXACT problem I have, this bias issue you mention, where the majority or the well funded can create bias. Essentially, the drug court research is 50/50 pro/against, BUT, there is a huge lobby machine pushing out its pro drug court research publically in the media, and this lobby has a financial incentive to do so. If anything, the research being published against drug courts is from FAR better sources, including Harvard, Yale, Cambridge, The Brookings Institute, the UK Justice Ministry, and others. The drug court lobby publishes mostly studies done by either drug courts themselves, paid for by drug courts, or done by industry associations. The drug court industry orginally wrote this article as a banner advertisement for the indusry, touting growth in drug courts and only research that supports their case. This is the most visible media venue/resource for drug courts in the world - moreso than newspaper articles, other websites, associations of drug court professionals, TV media, etc. Any law student, citizen, representative, ect. seeking to learn about drug courts, who googles drug court, comes up with this site first. It must be accurate, and unbaised for all.

 * Thanks so much. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.36.79.59 (talk) 04:23, 1 September 2012 (UTC)"

I had split the article into Drug courts in Australia and Drug courts in the United States as a logical progression in article (and Wikipedia) growth and to avoid issues with systemic bias. In relation to the split out of the articles I don't think the concerns raised above are valid. There may be some concern about whether there is an adequate summary but this can be addressed with some editing. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 22:06, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

 * I agree Alan's point here about moving discussion from various user pages back to the article. Here's some discussion from my talk: page. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:37, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Andy,

I am a novice to Wikipedia, but help to maintain a few topics I have knowledge of as best as I can. One of these is called Drug Court. A gentlemen recently edited the website, some Wiki expert, but not an expert in the topic area. I find his edit annoying, as when you go to drug court, you now see a bunch of categories, but very little information like one used to - for instance, all you really see now is "drug court in australia," "drug court in us," "drug court in uk," and on, and on, and on. I saw in your talks you had an exchange over this categorization on other sites.

I wanted to know what you thought of this as more of an expert than I, and if it could be revert or some compromise made that actually put a real level on info on the main "drug court" page... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.36.79.59 (talk) 05:01, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

 * I guess you mean these edits. At first sight they're a reasonable split of a large article - moving content (not deleting it) to new articles at Drug courts in Australia etc.  Just read these linked articles - all your content is still there, just re-arranged.
 * WP has an international audience. Many readers will be interested in a topic in general, or that topic in their country, but may not be so interested in that topic everywhere in the world. This new structure makes it easier for readers to see the overall topic, and they can still read the per-country articles if they're interested.
 * Perhaps this should have been discussed better beforehand at Talk:Drug court, but Alan Liefting instead followed the "bold" principle of WP:BRD and just went ahead and did it. He's entitled to do that, you're entitled to complain about it afterwards, maybe even reverse the change. As it is clearly now somewhat controversial, I'd recommend this is raised at the article talk page. Be careful though - per WP:CONSENSUS, asking the community for an overall opinion is also accepting that you're going to follow that consensus opinion, even if it disagrees with your standpoint.
 * I've not read these articles in detail, so I could be missing some key point where they only make sense if read as one overall article: perhaps the Australian coverage makes detailed reference to the American content, or US policy was itself based on some earlier trials in Australia. Those could be valid reasons as to why a single article is clearly better. However in general, this is just the sort of article situation that's improved by a split like this, and so I'd support Alan's changes (even though I have a history of disagreeing with him over categorization).  Andy Dingley (talk) 09:39, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

 * One comment on the readability of the drug court article is that, as you seem to be concerned, it may indeed have lost readability because content has moved to Drug courts in the United States. Now Drug courts in Australia isn't a problem - that's a simple (and quite dry) article that merely lists their use and distribution. However the US article includes some important history of how drug courts developed, and detail of their differences from other courts. This needs to appear in drug court itself.
 * There would seem to be three options here:
 * Duplicate this background content into both the US and the overall drug court articles. Duplication is OK between such articles (although both sections should be carefully edited, so that they include only the content relevant to that article. NB this doesn't mean "content relevant to only that article"! - there will still be overlap)
 * Move the content back to the overall article. That may leave the US article a little bare, and some of this content is still highly relevant to the US article specifically.
 * Reverse the split. This is after all simple. Nor is the un-split article too big to remain as a single article.
 * Overall I'm on the fence here. I began by seeing this as a legitimate split, I now see it as having damaged the drug court article and must be fixed. I think that a split article could be repaired without too much effort, probably by some duplication. If a good fix isn't forthcoming though, I would support simply undoing the split as the way to achieve an acceptable article. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:53, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

 * This discussion should be taking place at Talk:Drug court. I will start a thread there. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 21:39, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

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This article needs to be cleaned up
Wow, this article is brimming with biased language; and I personally support drug courts:

>Drug court are often touted as the single most successful intervention in US history for leading people struggling with serious addiction out of the justice system and into lives of health and long-term recovery — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2606:1C00:2802:27:0:0:0:17A3 (talk) 18:24, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

title: Talk:Drug court


text: User talk:64.230.186.159

title: User talk:64.230.186.159


text:
Ignacio López Rayón

Ignacio López Rayón (July 31, 1773 – February 2, 1832) was a general who led the insurgent forces of his country after Miguel Hidalgo's death, during the first years of the Mexican War of Independence. He subsequently established the first government, Zitacuaro Council, and first constitution of the proposed independent nation, called Constitutional Elements.

First years
López Rayón was born in Tlalpujahua, Intendancy of Valladolid, the first son of Andrés Mariano López-Rayón Piña (1742–1805) and María Josefa Rafaela López-Aguado y López-Bolaños (1754–1822). He went to the Colegio de San Nicolás in Valladolid (today's Morelia) and in Mexico City's Colegio de San Ildefonso where he became a lawyer in 1796. He lived in Mexico City but when his father got sick he had to go back to Morelia to take control of the family business (agriculture and mining) and the post office in the town. In August 1810 he married María Ana Martínez de Rulfo.

Mexican War of Independence
During the first months of the Mexican War of Independence he got in contact with Antonio Fernández, an independence soldier. Rayón sent him a letter with the idea of creating a group of people to represent the power of Fernando VII to try to stop the waste of resources. Miguel Hidalgo was in agreement with the idea. The Spanish tried to capture Rayón but he escaped and joined Miguel Hidalgo's troops in Maravatío. Later on, he became Hidalgo's private secretary.

Miguel Hidalgo
In Guadalajara, Hidalgo named him Secretary of State, and as such, he signed the emancipation of slaves on December 6, 1810. He organized the provisional government with José María Chico as president, Pascasio Ortiz de Letona as ambassador and Francisco Severo Maldonado as chief editor of the first newspaper of the rebellion: El Despertador Americano (in English: The American Watchclock).

Miguel Hidalgo's army was defeated in the Battle of Calderon Bridge and Rayón escaped to Aguascalientes to join Rafael Iriarte. They went to Zacatecas to join the rest of the army that had escaped from the Battle of Calderon Bridge.

The army moved to Saltillo, Coahuila. The insurgents' chiefs tried to travel to the United States, while the army remained in Saltillo with Rayón as the army chief; because of this Rayón became general. In this travel Miguel Hidalgo, Ignacio Allende and the others were captured in Wells of Baján and sentenced to death.

Battles after Hidalgo's death
On March 26, 1811, Rayón moved out from Saltillo to Zacatecas. At that time his army comprised 3500 soldiers and 22 guns. The Spanish army found Rayón's army in the way of Agua Nueva, and Rayón lost 77 men (prisoners). On April 1, the battle of los Piñones began, which Rayón won after six hours. On April 13 Rayón sent Pedro María de Anaya and Víctor Rosales to scout the Zacatecas army, while he took position in the "Los Misioneros de Guadalupe college". On April 15, 1811, the battle for Zacatecas began. Patriot general (nicknamed "el Amo Torres") conquered the "Cerro del Grillo" hill where all the artillery, ammunition, food and silver was. With these actions Rayón's army won the battle. Once in Zacatecas, Rayón spent most of the time with his army, training, getting uniforms and improving his war techniques. Rayón chose to move to Aguascalientes because a big Spanish army was coming to Zacatecas. While Rayón's army was traveling, Colonel Miguel Emparan intercepted them, but Rayón won and kept moving toward the Intendancy of Valladolid. On May 3, close to La Piedad, the Battle of El Maguey took place. Rayón lost the battle and his resources. In La Piedad he tried to get more resources and move out to Zamora. Here he organized some troops and sent them with Torres to Pátzcuaro. Torres was attacked in the Tinaja Hill. Rayón went to help him and they both won the battle against the Spanish army.

Rayón tried to attack Valladolid (today's Morelia) but because the Spanish received reinforcements he ceased the attack. He went to Tiripetío to change the course of the war. Here he distributed his forces, starting a guerrilla war. He sent Torres to Pátzcuaro and Uruapan, Navarrete to Zacapu, Mariano Caneiga to Panindícuaro and Manuel Muñiz to Tacámbaro. Rayón went to Zitacuaro to prepare the defense. Emparan left Maravatío to attack Zitacuaro on June 22. Rayón had fewer men than Emparan but better artillery. Rayón's army attracted the attackers to town. Close to the artillery range, the battle lasted the whole day. The Spanish could not take the town, with heavy losses for both armies.

Zitacuaro Council and the Constitutional Elements
Rayón conceived the idea of creating a central government to unify the independence leaders. He wrote a letter to Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon; Morelos agreed to become a member of the group and sent José Sixto Verduzco in his representation.

From August 19 to 21, Rayón, José María Liceaga, Joaquín López, José Sixto Verduzco and others created the Supreme National American Meeting. Rayón was the president. They created the first revolutionary newspaper, the El Ilustrador Nacional edited by Andrés Quintana Roo and José María Cos. Because the importance of Rayón, the Spanish sent an assassin J. Arnoldo but he failed and was killed. On January 1, 1812, Zitacuaro was attacked by general Félix María Calleja. The revolutionary army resisted a long time. Finally Calleja saw that taking the city was hard and changed his plan and left it. While Calleja was leaving the revolutionary army also left Zitacuaro. Calleja was now too far from Zitacuaro to intercept the revolutionary leaders. When Calleja knew that the city was open, he occupied it. After the Zitacuaro events, Rayón took part with José María Morelos in the first National Congress at Chilpancingo.

Four years later, he was arrested by Nicolás Bravo and sent to prison until 1820.

After the war
After the war, he became the state treasurer of San Luis Potosí.

In 1828, he ran for President but lost to Manuel Gomez Pedraza.

López Rayón died on February 2, 1832, in Mexico City.

title: Ignacio López Rayón


text:
Talk:Johannes Opdam

Untitled
This guy's last name is not widely known because of an unwritten but widely regarded held by Dutch mass media not mention surnames when reporting on suspected or convicted criminals. Is that convention appropriate for Wikipedia?

Life in prison is life in prison. Not 20 years.

"Johannes O."
The article page is currently called "Johannes O." but the person is referred to as Johannes (John) Opdam throughout. Either we should rename the page to Johannes Opdam, or add a sentence to explain why the page name excludes his surname. -Stelio (talk) 15:24, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

title: Talk:Johannes Opdam


text:
Talk:Jefferson County Public Schools (Kentucky)

History
The present-day school system includes a former independent city school district that was absorbed by the county system under court order in the mid-1970s. The city system definitely goes back further than 1953, and the article should probably be updated by someone who is familiar with the history. Also, the last sentence about it being widely recognized may be true, but it could use some supporting facts. --Bill Lumbergh 06:40, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Can the page Education in Louisville be merged in this article? Thief Lord 15:12, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

 * Not necessarily. This one could probably be merged into the Education in Louisville, but Education in Louisville could not be merged in here, as there is much more about Louisville Education than the K-12 School System. - Braindrain0000 15:09, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

 * There is no "Education in Louisville" page that I know of. Correct me if I'm wrong.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 15:11, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

 * You're right, there isn't. I think what may be under consideration is the List of schools in Louisville article. My point still stands - since there's more to Louisville schools than JCPS, it doesn't work right. And, once I finish getting my information together (including the last seven years of history), I'll be removing the stub tag from this article, so the probably reasoning for the original suggestion would no longer apply. --Braindrain0000 22:22, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

 * The List of schools in Louisville article seems to be covering all area schools. Are you saying that it needs to have a different format?

 * Regarding this article, thank you for all the good work regarding history--I'm thinking some of the text regarding busing could be added to the History of Louisville, Kentucky article. Also, please don't take it personally, but I have to ask if the text added was "in your own words"--it's so good, it appears like it possibly was copied straight from another source.  It's just that the Wikipedia has strict policy on copyright violations, thus my due diligence.  At any rate, it would be good if the material added was footnoted with a reference.  Thanks for understanding--I would ask these things of any contributor if I wasn't sure. Cheers!  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 22:54, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

 * It is based on a specific document (which I realize I need to cite, though it is available through the JCPS website), but I have put it in my own words as much as possible (there are some things that can only be said so many ways and maintain a professional writing style). No bragging intended, but I do normally write that way. If you want something by which to compare, look at some of my copyedits about a month back on The Sims 2. The writing style is different by virtue of the subject matter, but you should see some consistency between the two. I'm also doing the history as I read through the sources. For instance, the source I used only goes through 1999, thus the outcome of the 1998 lawsuit isn't there (where many of the quotas were lifted) and the lawsuit that's going to be heard by the supreme court isn't there. That's because I haven't gone through the available news articles yet to fill in those details. I'll reconsolidate some of the history when I have more information to contribute. That will help with the matter a bit.

 * The link to the original document I used is . If anyone has a problem with what I added being too close to the original for comfort, I'll gladly self-revert it until I have more sources that I can mix and match with.

 * On the List of Schools in Louisville issue - I'm in favor of creating a template for the bottom of the page that can be placed on all Louisville-related education pages (here, the high school articles, etc.) --Braindrain0000 03:27, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Without fully researching this, I will assume good faith that you are handling this as you should. Thank you for explaining how you put together the article.  Re: the template, what would go on it?  I'm not exactly sure what you want to do.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 14:58, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

 * It'd be similar to the Higher Education in Kentucky Template. It could have general "Education in Louisville" articles, referencing this one (among others), then have a list of the schools in a compact format. That section would be based on the List of Schools in Louisville article as far as categorization is concerned. The downside is that there aren't a whole lot of schools with pages, and definitely few with more than a stub to speak for it. --Braindrain0000 16:22, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Red links for future articles could go in such a template. My main concern, though, is that this template would necessarily be quite large.  I would recommend a template for JCPS-related topics only.  There's already a template for  Catholic elementary schools, and perhaps there could be templates to cover other aspects of private/religious schools.  But a template that includes all area schools would be thick, and people here tend to not like thick templates.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 16:33, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

 * And I just realized that the "Education in Louisville" reference is actually to the Category by that name. --Braindrain0000 03:29, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Source Info Added, etc.
I've added my source list for the article. Unfortunately, there aren't too many sources to work with on the pre-merger side of things. However, I was able to retrieve a couple of pertinent articles from the C-J and blend them in to improve that section. Do you think we have enough to remove the stub designation? If not, what do you feel we need? --Braindrain0000 12:50, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

 * I think it's clearly no longer a stub. Perhaps its governing/revenue structure could be discussed more thoroughly (including the relationships between all the stakeholders), along with a list of current board members.  Thank you immensely for all the work you have put into this.  Cheers!  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 15:03, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Board of Education
I like the material on the Board of Education, but I'm wondering: Is the Board considered a part of JCPS or is it a separate oversight/governing board? If it's the latter, it may deserve its own article, especially since we tend to put all elected assemblies/individuals into their own articles. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 17:00, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

 * That's complicated. I'm reading the Board Policy Manual right now. It sounds more like a separate oversight board when defined verbatim from the Kentucky Revised Statutes. Technically, it reports to the State Board of Education, so on and so forth, but it functions nearly identically to a Board of Directors for a corporation. Even if standard policy is to make elected groups into their own articles, I'm not sure it's profitable to do here, as there is not much information distinct from the identity of the school district. Also, the terms "Jefferson County Public Schools" and "Jefferson County Board of Education" are nearly synonymous from a legal standpoint. All union agreements are made with JCBE, with a team of JCPS employees generally acting as the representatives of the board. Is there a precedent for separating a school board into a separate article from school district proper? --Braindrain0000 21:19, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

 * I don't know. This is a new one on me.  And this does appear a bit complicated. I suppose that for now, JCBE should redirect to this article. Thanks.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 22:08, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Bluegrass Initiative and Every 1 Reads
Thanks for not wholesale reverting my changes. I think your revisions may be introducing point of view. If you're trying to encourage people to consider the Bluegrass Initiative's position, you might want to know that your changes actually make the Bluegrass Initiative's position sound less reputable - it now comes across as a position that can't stand on its own. It must be pushed with words like "only" (implying that there is an expectation, which is point of view), "documented" (implying that there has been specific investigation and testing for the purpose of comparing the rating systems, which is not shown in the cited article), and "conveyed" (which is ambiguous unless it specified to whom something is being conveyed). If you don't let the facts speak for themselves then it will continue to come across as PR-speak, and readers will recognize it as PR-speak and discredit the entire idea. I don't know enough about the situation to care (except that Wikipedia's guidelines require Neutral Point of View), but I'm interested in your thoughts on this. --Hebisddave (talk) 21:22, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Jefferson County Public Schools Kentucky Logo.png
Image:Jefferson County Public Schools Kentucky Logo.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 17:49, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

NPOV violation?
"Now that Wake County, North Carolina abandoned its SES plan Jefferson County - JCPS is the largest district in the United States with true diversity."

"With true diversity". The tone of that seems to break NPOV in favor of the very controversial busing policy JCPS is currently using. It doesn't sound like a purely factual, neutral tone of voice to me, it sounds like it is speaking favorably of the policy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.210.74.18 (talk) 18:33, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 19:44, 29 April 2016 (UTC)


text:
Talk:Mayor of Christchurch

Merge?
Does this really deserve its own article? I'm for merging this stuff with Christchurch, is anyone for or against that? --Yogi de 06:41, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * I'd merge it with Christchurch City Council, myself.Mr gronk (talk) 20:22, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
 * There's enough material for it to deserve its own article. There are pages like this for most of the bigger places in New Zealand; refer to Category:Lists of mayors of places in New Zealand  Schwede 66  22:55, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Don't Merge
Keep seperate as for other main centres. And I suppose Edward Brenchley Bishop 1866 is also Edward B. Bishop 1873-74? Hugo999 (talk) 10:31, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes - fixed it.  Schwede 66  15:36, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

And John Ollivier 1856-60 is the City of Chch MP 1856-60, and came second in the 1889 by-election? Hugo999 (talk) 10:33, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

 * Yes, but Christchurch Country, not the urban electorate. And yes, he gave it another shot later on.  Schwede 66  15:49, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Years of mayoralty for early mayors
I've changed the years of mayoralty for the early mayors (up to 1899) and this is now no longer in sync with the main source, i.e. the list as shown on the Christchurch City Council website. The reason for this is quite simple - mayoral elections in the 19th century were held annually in around October or November, with the incoming mayor always being installed in December. Sometimes, the new mayor would chair the remaining council meetings in December, and sometimes, the installation was the last thing that was done prior to the xmas break. Either way, a mayoralty starts with being installed as mayor, and what I've seen so far, that was always done in December of the year prior to what is recorded by CCC in their list. Elections for both mayors and councillors were held annually prior to 1915, and a mayor installed in say December 1890 would be replaced by a new mayor in December 1891. CCC would record such a mayoralty as '1891', whilst it is recorded here as '1890–1891'.

It's my plan to write bios for all of the mayors, and when I get each one done, I shall put a reference for the respective year range in the table. Feel free to discuss this if you see this differently.  Schwede 66  04:01, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

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Needs Updating
we had the Mayoral election in 2022 in which Phil Mauger became Mayor. This isn't in the article yet Theo molteno (talk) 21:24, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

 * It's a wiki, i.e. anyone can edit the article. If you feel that something is missing, please add it.  Schwede 66  08:07, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Mayor of Christchurch


text: Category:2002 elections

title: Category:2002 elections