Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Former countries/Archive 4

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Former countries (inactive) This page is within the scope of WikiProject Former countries, a project which is currently considered to be inactive.

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:WikiProject Former countries. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

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Archive 4

Archive 5

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Archive 9

Help needed

Can anyone make any improvements to Mauretania Caesariensis? It has only one source, which is in German. Johntex\^talk 20:35, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

If anyonne here can't help, perhaps you should try the people over at WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome - 52 Pickup 16:02, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Template hierarchy and proper usage

It seems that the introduction of the project infobox template has been a great success so far, it is being used or referred to in some two hundred former country articles already. In most cases hierarcical issues is not a big problem, since there is typically a single state with belonging subdivisions at any one time. However it has come into occurence cases where I feel that the template is not being appropriately used.

One such example is the Kingdom of Romania article, where the template is being employed with various content no less than four times within the same article. Another strange situation is evident in the Czechoslovakia article where the template is used despite the fact that several states or entities has claimed the territory during its existence, which already has their own articles and infoboxes. In odd cases there has also been articles created consisting of no other content than merely an infobox.

The problem with these examples are basically that the infobox has been applied into an article or article structure, which it was not intented for. It is important that the proper articles are created or adapted from earlier structures into a form that is consistent with the guidelines of the project. In the examples metioned I fear that this is something that couldn't be approved even if treated as being of a transitional nature, but rather something that needs to be adjusted in order to prevent a development where this kind of misuse is perpetuated. -- Domino theory 15:45, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi. Nice to have you back. Going over your points:

• Kingdom of Romania: this is a problem page and should be fixed.
• Czechoslovakia: I have no problem with this page using an infobox. Sure, this page covers various versions of Czechoslovakia but the page serves well to cover all possible versions. Breaking this up would require a lot of work. I've been having similar concerns about Prussia. For such pages, it has to be accepted that these overall pages will exist and many readers will expect them to exist. So far, I've found that the best way to get around this is what I've done for Prussia: put up an infobox that covers the entire period describe in the article and have links to the different versions under the history section (Duchy, Kingdom, Free State...), where each of these entries have infoboxes of their own - and the Czechoslovakia entires should probably also be set up like this. By doing it this way, it can alert readers to the existance of these more detailed entires, which they probably would not have noticed otherwise.
• Nothing but an infobox: yes, another problem.

It is true that we have to be careful that the infobox is not misused, but new creative uses that do not hurt overall article presentation do not count as misuse and should be investigated. - 52 Pickup 15:54, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Propose new Category

Propose creating Category:Emigrants of former states. To be a sub-cat of Category:Emigrants by nationality or Category:Emigrants. We badly need this to clarify whether, for example, a "Ukrainian immigrant to Canada" was born in Austria-Hungary, the Russian Empire, Poland, the Soviet Union, or independent Ukraine. We already have some cats that could go into this like Category:United Empire Loyalists who are Americans who fled the US at the time of the revolution for Canada. Others could be Category:Soviet emigrants, Category:Russian Empire emigrants, Category:Austro-Hungarian emigrants, etc. Sound good? Kevlar67 20:57, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Created new Cats

Created Category:People of former countries and the sub-cate Category:Emigrants of former countries. Hope we can populate them. Kevlar67 20:19, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Cat up for renaming

Category:Former countries in North America is up for renaming. Here. Please contribute. Kevlar67 00:38, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

No article on former country?

I'd suggest creating an article on former country, similar to Proposed country at the very least.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  21:10, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Bishopric of Speyer

I just created an article for the bishopric of Speyer. Would that be considered a former country? The prince-bishops had secular as well as spirtual responsibilities. But then again, they were subject to the prince-archbishop-electors of Mainz and to Trier. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Imars (talk • contribs) 07:54, 28 February 2007 (UTC).

I forgot to sign. imars 07:55, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely. Not only does it belong here, but it is covered by the HRE subproject - 52 Pickup 12:12, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Ryukyu

I would appreciate it if someone familiar with the structure/syntax of the infobox could take a look at my work on Ryūkyū Kingdom. I cannot seem to get the previous/succeeding links to work properly & to show the flags; also, just a general glance-over to make sure things are in the right place, etc. Thanks much. LordAmeth 10:15, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to cause trouble, but I do have another question/problem. The kingdoms of Nanzan and Hokuzan are conquered by Chūzan in the early 15th century, forming into the Ryūkyū Kingdom. Thus, it is perfectly fair to say that Nanzan and Hokuzan were "disestablished" in 1419 and 1429 respectively. But the Ryūkyū Kingdom thus formed continues to call itself Chūzan - how might we address this? To put it plainly, I fear that there are too many things in the infobox that work automatically by default - there needs to be an option for a country to change its name, government type, organization, independence/dependence, etc without being labeled and categorized as disestablished. Thoughts? LordAmeth 10:39, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Normally, a change in government type is reason enough to say that it is disestablished and to have a new article for the new form. For a change in name, if you want to place that in the infobox, it is probably best to place a footnote next to the name at the top of the box. - 52 Pickup 08:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

WPFC assessment drive

Over 1000 articles are now tagged by the {{WPFC}} banner, which is great to see. Now it is time to correctly assess all of them. Most articles have not been assessed, and many of those that are assessed should be re-assessed.

Following the brilliant ideas put into action over at WP Military History, I have come up with a new set of assessment guidelines. These new guidelines are clearer, straightforward, and make it a lot easier for everyone to see what the standards are so everyone can participate. The {{WPFC}} banner has been re-vamped to accommodate this new ratings system and new categories have been formed (although the categories might take a day or two to become correctly re-populated).

I say that many articles should be re-assessed because a large fraction of them were assessed by me. And my standards have not been fully uniform. These new rules should make that simpler and clearer. Some notes

• A big change here is the in the requirements for B-Class. For an article to qualify for B-class status, it must pass a 5-point checklist. This checklist is now visible within the banner (under "Additional information") for all articles ranging from unassessed to GA-class, containing directions for how to record your assessment. For example:
  • For an example of an article that has passed B-Class assessment, see Talk:Irish Republic - this places the article in Category:Reviewed B-Class former country articles
  • All articles which are currently given B-Class but have not done the 5-point check are now placed in Category:B-Class former country articles needing review
  • For an article that has not fully passed B-Class assessment, see Talk:Polish government in Exile - note that this article belongs to our Extraordinary Governments task force which could do with some more input.
• For FA-Class, assessment is easy: if the article has been externally awarded FA status, then that's that.
• Similarly for GA-Class, but the 5-point check should still be done. Also, GA articles can be further assessed for A-class status (see next point).
• Assigning A-Class is something that should not be done individually - that is really something that the group must do together (for example, see this review from WP MilHist). This is why there are no A-class former country articles. If you would like to propose an article for A-Class status, please list it here.
• Start-Class is now more clearly defined - something better than Stub-Class but does not satisfy all 5 points for B-class.
• Stub-Class: In many cases, this will be very easy to assess. If the article contains any stub templates (or should contain one), then enter {{WPFC|Class=Stub}} as the banner. If you think that the article deserves Stub-Class but does not contain any stub templates, drop the "auto" field.
• There is a problem in that some entries have been made that contain the infobox and nothing else. Instead of defining these as NA-Class (where they become forgotten), say {{WPFC|Class=Stub|attention=yes}}, which places the article in Category:Former country articles needing attention (eg. Talk:United Provinces of New Granada)
• The old input requests (flag, coa, map, infobox, structure) are still present.

Of course, please continue to tag all former country articles with the WPFC banner, but please try to help out with assessment. An exception is for articles tagged with the WP Prussia banner. Since WP Prussia is a child project of this one (effectively a task force, but should stay separate for now), it is not necessary to tag articles which are already tagged with the Prussian banner - although the same assessment rules should hold.

Please take the time to look at the instructions for using the banner.

Once all articles are properly assessed, then we can work on improving the articles. - 52 Pickup 09:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

The WP Prussia banner has now been incorporated into the WPFC banner. It makes it easier for me to manage both project that way. So now for any Prussia-related articles, use the WPFC banner with the parameter |Prussia=yes, and replace any instances of the Prussia banner that you enounter. - 52 Pickup 18:50, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Former countries in Japanese history

As there are already categories for Category:Former countries in Chinese history and Category:Former countries in Korean history, I created one for Japan (Category:Former countries in Japanese history). This was intended primarily to help encapsulate the various provinces or proto-kingdoms or whatever we want to call them which show up in ancient Chinese chronicles prior to the centralization and pseudo-unification of the Yamato, Nara, and Heian periods, e.g. Nakoku, Tsushima Province ... I suppose, if we translate 国 as "province" and not as "country", that makes them part of the Yamato state and thus renders this category unnecessary... Sorry for not fully thinking this through before I did it.

Nevertheless, assuming we do categorize these various things (and other things like the Republic of Ezo and the short-lived 12th century Kingdom of Hiraizumi which I have yet to flesh out an article for) under "Former countries in Japanese history", the question arises of how to deal with certain other subjects, such as Japan's 20th century colonies. Is Empire of Japan a "former country in Japanese history"? Do Korea under Japanese rule or Occupied Japan fall into this category?

Thoughts and suggestions would be most appreciated. Thanks. LordAmeth 20:49, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Good questions. Since these categories already exist, we can put them into the Former Country template for future assignments - it is not yet implemented, but if you say |region = Japan, Korea or China, this will do the job.

Former states would fit in these categories, but not IMO provinces of these old states (they should probably be in subcategories of these categories). So Nakoku could use Infobox Former Country, and Tsushima Province could use Former Subdivision (which does not perform the "countries" auto-categorisation parts - categorisation for that particular template is still someting which might need some work).

Following how things have been done for other regions, Empire of Japan would be a "former country in Japanese history", as would Occupied Japan. Korea under Japanese rule would first be placed under Former countries in Korean history since this is physically located on the Korean peninsula (|region = Korea), but then Former countries in Japanese history may be manually added aftwerards.

Since the "Former countries in (continent)" categories are now very full, we should probably work a bit more on these subcategories. - 52 Pickup 08:57, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Bilateral relations discussion

I would like to invite you all to participate in a discussion at this thread regarding bilateral relations between two countries. All articles related to foreign relations between countries are now under the scope of WikiProject Foreign relations, a newly created project. We hope that the discussion will result in a more clean and organized way of explaining such relationships. Thank you. Ed ^¿Cómo estás? 17:58, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Is there a current collaboration article?

I ask because I noticed that Republic of Ragusa is listed as part of this WikiProject, and contains a lot of information, however it is in need of serious work to be a good article. The Republic of Ragusa was an absolute jewel of a city-state when it existed, managing, through excellent political manoeuvring, to survive for hundreds of years at a time when there were huge warring empires all around that could have crushed it in a second. I would absolutely love to see this article brought up to featured article standard. Anyone for it? Lexicon (talk) 18:59, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

There has never been a collaboration article - probably because there are not usually enough acitve members at any one time. If there are any currently-active members, please speak up now. If there are enough, then perhaps we can get started with collaborations. - 52 Pickup 19:08, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Template overhaul

I've recently completed a code rewrite of the Former Country and Former Subdivision infoboxes. There are a number of big changes:

• The code is now a lot cleaner.
• The infobox itself is more compact (and similar in appearance to Infobox Country).
• Various new cateories have been added. (see the list), including the above-discussed ones for Japan, China and Korea.
• Whether or not the status bar displays now depends on the status value. This parameter was originally intended to help in categorisation, so it was not necessary to display it all the time (eg. stating "Empire" is pretty unnecessary). So now the status is not always shown, although the categorisation still works.
• For sandbox work, the |_noautocat=yes parameter (which prevents article categorisation) now works properly.
• New country type: |status=Exile for governments that existed only in exile (eg. Free French Forces) or for when the government was driven into exile (eg. Belarusian National Republic). This feature is still experimental so use it carefully. The handling of exiled, provisional and other special government types is something that needs a bit of work, hence the creation of the Extraordinary Governments task force. Ideas are welcome.

A few things regarding infobox use - please correct any infoboxes that you see that don't follow these points:

• If giving a non-English name where the latin alphabet (our alphabet) is used, place the name in italics. This was originally done automatically, but it made the mistake of italicising non-Latin characters as well.
• Use status_text sparingly.
• Leader slots are not intended to be completely filled. If a state has 5 people in a certain position, list all 5. If it has more, give only the first and last person. In this case you will need to wikilink the person's name and follow it with "(first)" or "(last)"
• Event text should be as short as possible. Try to keep to a 1-line maximum.

And finally, the infobox is not a substitute for the article. It is a supplement on which an article can be built. - 52 Pickup 14:25, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Cudos to the clean-up and rewrite! I haven't checked the entire code but I can see alot of improvements, like the noautocat, which is no small feat. I'll try to add on your improvements as the work progress.

One thing that I have noticed is how the flags and arrows are displayed on top of each other while coats of arms (20px) are displayed next to the arrows, in the flag navigation. Is this intended or is it maybe just my browser? -- Domino theory 20:41, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about the late reply (the last month has been madness for me). That problem should be gone now - I remember it happening on my browser a while back but not any more. The next thing I would like to do is to make the infobox collapsible in some way - at lower resolutions this infobox can be very big and obstructive sometimes. This will take some time. - 52 Pickup 20:10, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Citations

For a long time, I've neglected citations. This is just a note to ask everyone to keep an eye out for references and to correctly cite them. See WP:CITE for more details. - 52 Pickup 21:31, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Dayuan FAR

Dayuan has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. LuciferMorgan 14:38, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Translation

A lot of information on former countries can be found on wikis in other languages. User:OwenBlacker has just made the interesteing step of stating his language abilities on the WPFC member list. This is a good idea, and so I am asking everyone to follow suit. This can be of assistance in future translation and collaboration work.

So please state on the WPFC members list what languages you can read - starting with your native language(s) (in italics) followed by other languages (starting with the one you are strongest with). - 52 Pickup 21:06, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Annexations

What's the standard form for noting succeeding entities in the case of annexations? I've found several different cases, and I'm not sure if there is any consensus towards the standard form.

• Kingdom of Scotland is listed as being succeeded by the Kingdom of Great Britain, and not by Scotland.
• Kingdom of Hawaii-->Provisional Government of Hawaii, which is listed in the infobox as being succeeded by both Territory of Hawaii and United States; the Territory is listed as succeeded by Hawaii (i.e. the State of Hawaii).
• Ryukyu Kingdom was listed as being succeeded by Okinawa Prefecture, but this has been replaced with Empire of Japan.

It is in fact this last one which I am curious about. The Ryukyus did not become the Empire of Japan; rather, they were annexed into the Empire as Okinawa Prefecture. What do people think? LordAmeth 20:26, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

The format that I have been following is to give a subdivision as a successor if it is clear and simple enough and this has worked pretty well so far (eg. Republic of texas --> Texas). Same for annexations (eg. Free City of Frankfurt --> Province of Hesse-Nassau) . So from your 3 items, I'd probably go:

• Kingdom of Scotland --> Scotland, with Kingdom of Great Britain linking backwards to the Kingdoms of Scotland and England
• Kingdom of Hawaii --> Provisional Government of Hawaii --> Territory of Hawaii --> Hawaii
• Ryukyu Kingdom --> Okinawa Prefecture

How does that sound? - 52 Pickup 15:43, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. That was my thought to begin with, and I am glad to be backed up on this. I've reverted the Ryukyu page so as it indicate that it became Okinawa Prefecture. Cheers. LordAmeth 18:01, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

No worries. There are a few rules of thumb here. Feel free to expand upon this. - 52 Pickup 18:10, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Provinces of the Achaemenid Empire

Hello everyone. I just joined the project. I have recently created an Achaemenid provinces template: [1]. Please help with correction, expansion of articles, etc... I have already created several articles regarding some of these Achaemenid provinces, and others that I couldnt find much information on I linked to their current Wikipedia articles (such as Caria). For an example of an article I created for this template, see Lydia (Achaemenid). Please help, I'd appreciate it, thanks.Azerbaijani 16:39, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

French client republics of Italy

I recently read a reliable book about the Jacobinic Republic of Perugia in 1798 and in the brief history of the state there weren't any historical documents (between the several official letters or historical maps analysed in the publication) where there was cited the name Tiberina Republic. I suspect that the first (anonymous) editor made a mistake with the names. I am not certain, but I think that most of the errors are reasonable confusions between the names of the posterior Imperial departments. Could anyone check the articles? --Grifomaniacs 14:40, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Finally I added to both articles an {{unsourced}} template. I think that we should rewrite the article starting from the trusted german version. --Grifomaniacs 11:33, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Former cities

Does anyone know of any style conventions or infobox templates for former cities? I am currently working on the sorely deficient article on Edo... Obviously, there are examples of former cities like Constantinople and New Amsterdam from which I can work (both beautifully extensive articles, btw), but I'm just wondering if anyone has any further suggestions. And whether or not this type of thing might be incorporated into the Project somehow? Thanks. LordAmeth 09:43, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Interesting point. I haven't seen anything that explicitly deals with former cities. You are right: in some cases it is not enough to simply place this information in a "History of <present name>" article. Maybe the people over at WP Cities might have some thoughts on this. - 52 Pickup 16:49, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, even a "History of X" article would be fine, I'd guess, for most cases. But simply having a History section in the city's main article is most often quite insufficient. I've commented on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Cities#Former_cities as well; we'll see what comes of this. LordAmeth 10:40, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Kingdom of Finland (1742)

The Kingdom of Finland (1742) is an article that deals with the attempt to create a Russian buffer state out of occupied territory in Finland in 1742, during the then current Russo-Swedish War. Since the article exists it comes into the scope of this project and I have added the project infobox to the article in order to improve and provide additional structure. (Infobox edit)

What has happened is that a previous editor on the article decided to remove the infobox from the article by reverting to his or her previous version. This raises two issues:

1. The editor seems to think that the infobox confers some kind of status to an article. The case is of course that the infobox is there for informative purposes.
2. The editor seems to be heavily involved with the creation of the article and may be trying to treat the article as his or her own personal essay. The case is of course that Wikipedia articles can be edited and improved by anyone.

Rather than responding in a quid pro quo fashion in that article concerning the principles of this project or Wikipedia in general, I wanted to sound out whether any kind of similar incidents has been encountered, within the scope of the project?

There are many articles in the project that cover states that never materialized into established and universally recognized countries. Part of the raison d'être of this project is to introduce a common structure of the information in this order of articles, and the infobox is an integral part of this effort. -- Domino theory 20:05, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

West Germany still exists, please remove it from Category:Former countries in Europe !

West Germany still exists! The Federal Republic of Germany was founded in 1949 and is alive and kicking, is has grown in 1957 by one and in 1990 by 5 states. Most simply call it Germany since the last expansion. See also Talk:West Germany national football team for another example of an attempt to "remove and kill" the 1949-1990 part of the ongoing German history.

Please remove West Germany from Category:Former countries in Europe! The Category:Former countries in North America does neither include the original 13-United-States etc. up to the 49-United-States. -- Matthead ^discuß!     O       20:45, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

"Remove and kill"? No need for dramatics. The article has now been removed from this category. As for the US states, the article Thirteen Colonies would reasonably fit within the N.America category (since the category also includes colonies, and the 13 colonies are the predecessor to the USA). The only reason that it is not currently within the category is that it does not use the Former County infobox. - 52 Pickup 21:03, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

HRE taskforce needed

As much as I appreciate your idea of creating an own taskforce for the Holy Roman Empire (since this topic is in itself tackled and complex enough to even demand its own portal), it seems more or less moribund by now, as somebody mentioned. However, it would be nice if you'd drop by and leave your two cents in the most recent debate at TALK:Kingdom of Germany. Thank you. --Tlatosmd 13:03, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Featured article review of Congo Free State

Congo Free State has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. — Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:47, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Weimar Republic Good Article review

One of this project's good articles, Weimar Republic, has been nominated for review of it's GA status. Anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Drewcifer3000 19:48, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Schönthal infobox + similar

I note that User:OwenBlacker has applied, as on behalf of this project, an Imperial Abbey infobox to the article on the town of Schönthal, and has been reluctant to remove it. Apart from the problems with this one article this raises some more general points:

(1) Schönthal the town was never a state - the template is in respect of the former Schönthal Abbey - and it is misleading to add a template suggesting that it was. OwenBlacker has claimed that this is the policy of this Wikiproject - ie, that in the absence of the right article, you can simply add your templates to the nearest existing artice instead, as here, even if that is not accurate. If that is indeed the policy of this project, rather than a single editor's individual habit, please rethink it, as it is very misleading, not to say lazy - it doesn't take long to create a reasonable stub.

(2) There is no evidence that Schönthal was ever an imperial abbey. Before trusting some template I want to see presented in the relevant article some evidence that what the template claims is in fact true. I suggest that it is not good practice to slap these templates on without backing them up - the claims they make are surely liable to the same standards of sourcing and referencing as the rest of Wikipedia.

I raise these points here as they look like issues likely to recur, and it would be quicker to have them dealt with in one go now. HeartofaDog (talk • contribs) 17:15, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I've covered the second issue on Talk:Schönthal, but the other issue should be dealt with here, as it's wider than just that one page.

Personally, I think that, rather than creating a stub article that is unlikely to get significantly expanded, it makes more sense to put Template:Infobox Former Country on an existing article, as the abbey itself is only ever likely to be a section of that article.

Opinions anyone? — OwenBlacker 19:44, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to hog the discussion but as the creator of a great number of articles on abbeys, I don't agree at all that these articles are doomed to remain forever stubs - esp if they had imperial status. And whether or not they are, it is simply inaccurate to add cats, templates etc to articles to which they don't apply.

On the second issue - whether a template should be applied if its claims are not sourced in the article to which it refers - Schönthal illustrates this very well, but the point is wider than that one article. The template was applied to an almost contentless stub for a town named something similar (Schönthal / Schöntal), and the information it contained was of course wrong, because it referred to a different place. Information in templates must surely be the same as other information on Wikipedia - it must be sourced and checkable. HeartofaDog (talk • contribs) 22:14, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

In the absence of any 3rd party opinions, I will continue this discussion with Owen on his Talk page, as there several outstanding issues specifically to do with the application of the project infobox to Imperial abbeys. HeartofaDog (talk • contribs) 10:56, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Contentious map at Majapahit Empire

I work on WikiProject Indonesia, and there's currently a discussion at Talk:Majapahit Empire, which is listed under the scope of your WIkiProject, about whether a disputable map should be included. It seems (from the main project page) that maps are encouraged, but the exact political nature and extent of the Majapahit Empire have been the topic of considerable debate (as explained in the article). Recently a map was added, based on a biased primary historical source (the Nagarakretagama) to illustrate its claim of the extent of the empire, which (given the nature of the source) is disputed. However, my feeling is that since there are few other records, a map is useful, as long as its caption and the accompanying discussion make it clear that it is from such a source and may not represent historical reality. Others seem to feel that (perhaps because a picture is worth a thousand words) that illustrating it makes the article seem biased in favor of the view, and that having no map is preferable per NPOV. I thought perhaps this sort of dispute has come up here before with poorly-recorded political entities in the past, and wondered if there was a consensus in how it should be treated. Please join the discussion at the talk page if you have any insight or suggestions. Rigadoun (talk) 17:24, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Bias / NPOV check on East Prussia

I've added a bias tag to East Prussia as it sounds biased to me. ...the region was conquered by invading Teutonic Knights who either murdered and enslaved the native populaton, while turning others into serfs... and ...the demographic situation was changed and descendants of German conquerors and colonists were forced back to Germany... to give examples. 84.145.195.64 02:11, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Ottoman Empire WikiProject

I've proposed the creation of one here. Your input would be appreciated. Thanks! --Hemlock Martinis 20:57, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Parentage

Hi there

I'm coordinator of the Wikipedia: WikiProject History and would suggest to add you as one of our child projects so we don't have to doubletag your stuff. Besides we could try to help each other with administrational stuff. Greetings Wandalstouring 14:32, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

A good idea. Any help with admin work is welcome. - 52 Pickup 20:34, 10 November 2007 (UTC)