I've taken out the table on Napoleonic Era and put in this opening: The Napoleonic Era is an period in the History of France. -- it provides a link "up" to the higher topic. I think the drawbacks of the table (ugly markup) outweigh the convenience. But see what you think -- feel free to disagree & restore it :) -- Tarquin 13:20, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)
- I think that such historical tables are great, since they really clarify the stages of the history of countries. They have been added to quite a few countries already, like History of Germany, History of Algeria, History of Romania, History of Russia. I am not sure to understand what you mean with "ugly makup". Anyway, I am quite struggling with the periodization of the French History, and have added the table to the First French Empire article, instead of Napoleonic Era, which covers more than France. Any comment welcome! olivier 10:14, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Hi, Olivier
This User talk:Yanyang1985. I have seen your message about
The reason I add every city with its province is that I am afraid there are
two/more than two same named cities in China(I am sure there are.) So I thought maybe I could do some thing to avoid future duplication( I believe wikipedia WILL have entry for everything in this world, someday!). So that is why. What do you think after I have explained, Olivier? Should I add the provinces or should I just leave it what it is? 2:22pm, 26 Aug 2003(GMT)
- Your concern is justified, and there has been quite a lot of discussions in Wikipedia around this topic. The concensus today is as follows: we try to keep titles as simple as possible, and their purpose is not to carry information. Now, about the titles for cities:
- the format is (city name), (state) for cities in the USA and Canada, for disambiguation reasons AND because it is a common way of referring to cities in these countries
- for other countries, it is a case by case situation. Typically, we do not disambiguate upfront, but rather when a naming conflict actually occurs. In addition, when a city is much more famous than other ones of the same name, we use a disambiguation block, and keep the "main" city with the shortest possible title (see examples in Venice and Paris).
- I believe that the Chinese cities we are talking about are the famous ones carrying these names. Thus, they probably should have the short title (name only). If other cities with the same name appear, than disambiguation blocks will probably be appropriate. Please feel free to comment and let me know if I can answer other questions. In any case, thanks for your contributions and welcome to Wikipedia! olivier 06:45, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Thanks,Olivier. That answered my question. I also want to ask you about quotes. I just saw you have moved my quotes in Suzhou and Guilin toward the end of the articles. I was thinking the quotes in the beginning of an article could attract people to read more, but I could be wrong. Please tell me more about use of quotes in wikipedia. I appreciate your help. Tim 14:59, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)
About Humboldt Universität zu Berlin: for future reference, articles on Wikipedia are supposed to be named in English. The individual who originally moved it to the German name (contributions) is apparently the vandal User:Heine. Cheers, Cyan 20:40, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC)
- I had moved the page myself to "Humboldt Universität zu Berlin". For one of the most famous universities in Germany, I have no problem using its German name. Tons of articles in Wikipedia are named in the local language - for your future reference. olivier 04:06, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)
For clarity (and for other readers), the chronology of the page's location is:
- Heine moves to the German name, 10:18, 30 Aug 2003
- Cyan moves it back, 21:11, 30 Aug 2003
- Olivier moves to the German name, 10:27, 31 Aug 2003
- Cyan moves it back, 16:40, 1 Sep 2003
The references I had in mind are Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) (from User talk:Heine). The phrase "for future reference" wasn't intended in a snide way, and I apologize for its use. Cheers, Cyan 00:18, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I allowed myself link this user page of a born in France user to his french user page for the wikipedians which also can french (ça existe peut-être :-). -- ArnoLagrange 08:10, 9 Sep 2003 (EDT)
Hi Olivier. I just tried to send you an email to your hotmail account, but it bounced, saying "mailbox unavailable". Do you have another email address? In case you're wondering, I'm sending out developer contact details to a few active Wikipedians, so that you can contact someone when the server goes down. -- Tim Starling 12:33, Sep 13, 2003 (UTC)
lol. try writing some math articles. not easy... LirQ
- (For reference, my initial posting on User talk:Jiang): That's very unusual, but this time I disagree a bit with you. I believe that the president of the PRC should be in the Macau and HK tables. British colonies have the Queen listed in their tables, so why not include the top-level politician in charge of the "mother"-country. olivier 01:02, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Which dependency articles are you talking about? I can't find any. A better question: which dependency articles have country templates applied to them?
I just think it's redundant to list the PRC president in the articles. The PRC president is given no special role or status in the SAR government. Hu is head of state in HK in his role as state president of the PRC, not in right in HK or Macau. We already know that HK is part of the PRC and that the PRC has a president. Who this individual is should be left to the PRC article. I dont see the need to list it in separate places. --Jiang 01:20, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)
- American Samoa, Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, Saint Lucia, Solomon Islands/Temp, Tuvalu, Wales. olivier 01:40, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)
- American Samoa - badly done; Bush is not "Chief of State". I would drop his name and add in the governor
- Andorra - not a dependency; Chirac and Spanish guy are listed because their power as heads of state is granted by the andorran const., not becayse andorra is a dependency of France
- Antigua and Barbuda- not a dependency; in each Commonwealth Realm, Queen Elizabeth is queen individually of that realm (i.e., Queen of Canada, etc), not because she is queen of the UK. IF the UK were the abolish its monarchy, she would still be queen of Canada.
- Aruba- netherlands and aruba considered separate countries, " The monarch heads the executive branch (regering) of the kingdom and each country individually. "
- Australia-same as above; not a dependency, a commonwealth realm
- Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, Saint Lucia, Solomon Islands/Temp, Tuvalu - same; not dependencies, "In these states she is officially known as the Monarch of that state, not as the monarch of Great Britain. "
- Wales- what's with this one?
Note that Bush is not listed at Puerto Rico.
--Jiang 01:51, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)
- Why are you fighting over the "dependency" denomination, which, by the way, I did not use? My initial comment was about the appropriateness of having the head of state of the PRC in the HK and Macau tables.
- Article 12 of the HK Basic Law states: "The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall be a local administrative region of the People's Republic of China, which shall enjoy a high degree of autonomy and come directly under the Central People's Government."
- Therefore, by constitution, whoever is at the head of the "Central People's Government" is ultimately head of HK. Interestingly, that's the same situation as with Andorra, dependency consideration aside. Thus, the core of the question seems to be the redundancy thing for a territory that is a dependency of another one, but enjoys a high degree of autonomy.
- I admit that the British colonies I was referring to in my initial posting are former ones - so, these examples were not relevant. The only current British colony which has a template applied is Pitcairn Islands, where only the governor is listed - note that this leaves some room for interpretation for all the other colonies' tables, which are yet to be completed. American Samoa would be a couter-example, but you do not like it on grounds that the description of the role of Bush there is incorrect. That does not mean that he should not be listed in the table under his appropriate relationship to the place. In the case of Puerto Rico, as you certainly know, the table has seen substantial remodelling very recently. Therefore, that has not left enough time for the Wikipedia community to reach a stable agreement on the contents of its table. The other US dependencies do not have a table yet. On the other hand, we did not include the Head of the PRC in the tables of the other first-level PRC's political divisions. Same applies for US states, French departements... but these territories do not enjoy "a high degree of autonomy" as HK and Macau do.
- Unless we have further evidence that I missed, my conclusion is that the jury is still out for answering the question: "should we include the Head of State of the "mother"-country in the table of territories enjoying a large degree of autonomy?". This being said, if you feel strongly that Hu should leave the table, than feel free to remove him. My opinion at this point is quite neutral, slightly skewed toward the "he should be in the table" side. olivier 03:05, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)
- Note that a broader discussion about this topic might be of interest to the participants of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries. olivier 03:12, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I moved it to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries for further discussion. --Jiang
Du Mu as a Chinese word (loan word), shouldn't be written in italic in English? I am not sure, I think every loan word from other language should be written in italic in English, which means all the Chinese in thoes Chinese-related pages should be in italic. Am I right? --Gboy 03:10, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)