Talk:Aalborg

WikiProject Cities assessment
Hey all, I'm the WikiProject Cities assessor of this article. If feedback is what you want and need, come to my talk page and give me a holler! --Starstriker7(Dime algoor see my works) 01:52, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Population
Someone changed the population from 123,000 to 123.000. I suspect this is a confusion about differences in the representation of thousands in English where a coma is used as a separator and a point is a decimal place. Or it was just vandalism. Slinky Puppet 16:12, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Hello, it was probably just a misunderstanding. In many cultures the "." and the "," is used differently than in the British and American cultures. It could instead be discussed why the English Wikipedia should follow the isolated British (and American) culture at all in this matter? I sense that many people with English as primary language, imagine Wikipedia (en) as concerned and centered around their specific culture, but it is not the case at all. They need to wake up and realize the international perspectives. I support you in changing the "," to "." though, as I believe it is the accepted norm of the international global culture.


 * Btw. outdated non-scientific measurements like ounces, feet, gallons and what have you, should be discouraged on Wikipedia (en). The global world have long time ago adopted the SI system of measurement and have left the middle-ages, where each town had their own system. The old units of measurement, might be helpful to the uneducated few, but in the long run they cause a lot of trouble and misunderstandings and is not acceptable in any modern day communication on the international scene. And Wikipedia (en) is international in its mission and scope and is just exploiting the English language, without serving that specific culture. Thank for raising this important issue. RhinoMind (talk) 16:00, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Area for the urban area
According to the article Aalborg urban area is 139 sq. km, but where does that information come from? The urban area is smaller than that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Christian2381 (talk • contribs) 10:42, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Guidebookspeak
I tried to zap the guidebookspeak from the article. But it's creeping back:


 * The Helnan Phønix Hotel is the large and most prestigious hotel in the city, situated in a mansion which was originally built as a lavish private residence in 1783 for a Danish brigadier. [50] It was converted into a hotel in 1853, and today has 210 rooms, furnished with dark oak.[50] The Chagall was established in the 1950s and is noted for its reproductions of Marc Chagall paintings in the rooms. [50] Radisson Blu Limfjord Hotel, operated by the Radisson Hotels chain contains 188 rooms and is served by the Italian restaurant Vero Gusto.

If I understand correctly, one guidebook to Scandinavia said in 2011 or thereabouts that the Helnan Phønix Hotel was the most prestigious hotel in the city. But what, if anything, does that mean? The best? The most expensive? The one most fancied (for unknown reasons) by people on expense accounts? Who notes the Chagall reproductions? What does "is served by" mean that "has" doesn't mean? Etc. -- Hoary (talk) 12:25, 31 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Change it. And document it here if problems persists, as you did above. RhinoMind (talk) 16:08, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

More articles about Aalborg
I'm creating and wl articles relevant to Aalborg: --Rosiestep (talk) 18:41, 31 August 2013 (UTC) • Jens Bang's House

• Jørgen Olufsen's House

• Nytorv Square

• Danish Distillers

• Aalborg Symphony Orchestra

• Aalborg Portland

• Limfjordsbroen

• Jernbanebroen over Limfjorden

• Limfjordstunnelen

• Aalborg Teater

• Museums in Aalborg

• Kildeparken

• Østre Anlæg (Aalborg)

• John F. Kennedys Plads

• Port of Aalborg

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/House of Music (Aalborg)
This one is currently at AfC. Once released, I want to rename it to Musikkens Hus. --Rosiestep (talk) 02:41, 2 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Looks to me as if the submission was rejected!!! Not sure how to proceed. Perhaps a new article Musikkens Hus can simply be written drawing on the rejected draft? (No wonder we keep losing keen new editors.)--Ipigott (talk) 11:47, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

It was rejected on August 25th. I did a bit of work on it myself yesterday and asked for a new review. I thought about just approving it myself, but I wanted the article creator to see the process from start to finish. I also left a note on the reviewer's talkpage. You are right, we do keep losing keen new editors... and a seasoned one overnight (user:Ched). --Rosiestep (talk) 17:39, 2 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Here's what the article draft says about what has already transpired:
 * House of Music (Danish: Musikkens Hus) is a venue in Aalborg, Denmark. It is located at Musikkens Plads (Music Square) by the Limfjord in the new cultural center area of the city. The building contains a concert hall and practice rooms for the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra and The Royal Academy of Music.
 * I.e. "It exists at place X and contains Y and Z." The remainder of the draft is about what will (it is said) transpire.
 * I had nothing to do with this draft and appreciate that it was well intended. However, Wikipedia's notability standards aside for a moment, this strikes me as very thin material indeed for an article. If the building will soon be completed, one can expect that it will thereupon become noteworthy (in the normal, non-Wikipedia sense of the word). Well, wait for this to happen and then create an article based on published sources about the building.
 * Conceivably, the building is the subject of considerable interest even before it is completed -- because it's architecturally innovative/delightful/insensitive etc. This would make it noteworthy. Can architectural or other sources be adduced for this.
 * I was a keen new editor once. Here's my first ever new article, in the state in which its second editor found it. It was unsourced and terrible then, and it's still unsourced and terrible now! -- Hoary (talk) 05:24, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The building is certainly notable in its own right, as is the very idea of building such an enormous music centre for a city of just over 100,000 inhabitants (in addition to the facilities already in the Aalborg Hall complex). I hope we can get this sorted out soon. It seems rather strange to me that seasoned editors have to wait for permission to write an important red-linked article, simply because a newbie is experiencing some difficulties. As for Voigtländer (how logical to start with that one), dear Hoary, are you not afraid of being faced with AfD? The rules (or thier interpretation) seem to be changing quickly with the result that even some of the early FAs are now under threat with their lack of inline referencing. On Voigtländer, the Swedish article seems to be one of the few with some kind of referencing. Thanks btw for drawing attention to some of the Aalborg refs. I hope you are now happy with the changes.--Ipigott (talk) 10:20, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
 * If the building is enormous for the population, then it would be wise for the article to cite somebody saying this. &para; As I dimly remember the genesis of the Voigtländer article, I was appalled by the frequency of various misspellings within other articles ("Voigtlander" and even "Voightlander") and thought that the best way to fix them would be via an article on the subject, correctly spelled. Since then, yes, I've become quite obsessed with the risk of AfD, and have tried to proof articles against this. (My most recent new article [I think], weighed down with twenty references.) &para; Yes, my own niggles are being addressed very well, and this is certainly "GA" material. -- Hoary (talk) 12:45, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Companies
The introduction made grand claims for some of the town's companies. I slapped a warning flag on that, and then looked at the more detailed stuff in the section about companies.

The sourcing is pretty bad. (For example, a grand claim for one company is sourced to that company's LinkedIn page.) Somebody who, unlike me, knows about the cement, turbine rotor or akvavit business should take a look. -- Hoary (talk) 05:24, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
 * It's fixed now. Good. -- Hoary (talk) 13:58, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Detail, and obsolescence
We read:
 * The Aalborg City Council consists of 31 members, including the mayor. Eleven of the council seats are held by the Social Democratic Party, [...]

The first sentence is fine. But the second -- is this degree of detail really appropriate, and can it be kept up to date? I fear that at best it needs to be prefaced with "As of August 2013", or whatever -- which of course weighs it down. Comments? -- Hoary (talk) 13:58, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Done.--Ipigott (talk) 20:47, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I think it would be relevant to somehow document the political make-up of the council. the detail-level could of course be discussed and external links to the distribution, could probably solve this. The council are on election every 4 years in Denmark and that interval should be long enough for reliable updates. Anyway: to post an (as of 2013) or the like, is not a hassle at all. RhinoMind (talk) 16:14, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Geography
We are told "The land is very low-lying, with an average elevation of about 5 metres (16 ft)." (unreferenced). I know the city well and while there is a low-lying area along the waterfront, there are many hills in the area, some reaching a height of 50 metres. Some districts towards the south are especially hilly, and from the hills of Nørresundby on the other side of the sound, there are excellent views of the city of Aalborg. I have looked for valid references to all this but have not been able to find them although you can see the lie of the land from the marathon map. Perhaps our geographers can help?--Ipigott (talk) 20:23, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

The perils of auto-translation
We read (rhymes with "red", and after markup-stripping):


 * Nordens Kridtgrav has an area of 12.6 acres (5.10 ha) and is 600 feet (180 m) long and 200 feet (61 m) wide, with a depth of 12 feet (3.7 m) at its deepest point.[33] The chalk cliff around the lake ranges from roughly 10 feet (3.0 m) to 25 feet (7.6 m) in height.[33]

The first thing I noticed about this was that the units were the wrong way around, or anyway in the opposite order to that used elsewhere in the article. The source is this article (by one Hans Christian Andersen), which says something that even to my Danish-ignorant self looks curiously similar:


 * Søen udgør 12,6 hektar, og er 600 meter lang og 200 meter bred, samt 12 meter dyb på det dybeste sted. Kridtgraven er omkranset af en høj skrænt, som er mellem 10 og 25 meter høj.

Here's what Google Translate did with this when I asked it:


 * The lake is 12.6 acres and is 600 feet long and 200 feet wide and 12 feet deep at the deepest point. Chalk grave is surrounded by a high cliff, which is between 10 and 25 feet high.

(As its translations aren't static, your kilometrage may vary.) I infer:


 * 1) for Google Translate, the conversion rates are:
 * 2) *1 metre = 1 foot
 * 3) *1 hectare = 1 acre
 * 4) the contributor has been not only using Google Translate (or similar) but trusting it
 * 5) this isn't just a summary of what Andersen writes; it's a (sadly garbled, would-be) quotation, touched up in places

The last of these can be described as plagiarism. A harsh verdict and a harsh word, I know; but it's pretty clearly an example of the third among the forms of plagiarism listed here.

I'm not going to look through the history of the article to find the contributor, who surely meant well. But I urge the contributor to think very hard. -- Hoary (talk) 09:51, 7 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I'd have to disagree with you there. Those sentences are largely based on figures and figures are not easy to re-represent without "plagiarism". Almost half the words are "plagiarised" numbers. "Nordens Kridtgrav has an area of 12.6 acres (5.10 ha) and is 600 feet (180 m) long and 200 feet (61 m) wide, with a depth of 12 feet (3.7 m) at its deepest point.[33] The chalk cliff around the lake ranges from roughly 10 feet (3.0 m) to 25 feet (7.6 m) in height.[33]" vs "The lake is 12.6 acres and is 600 feet long and 200 feet wide and 12 feet deep at the deepest point. Chalk grave is surrounded by a high cliff, which is between 10 and 25 feet high" is absolutely fine. You try suggesting a better way in which you can convey those figures without it being remotely similar.. ♦  Dr. Blofeld  12:17, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
 * It gets the depth of the grave wrong with 8 meters (its 12 meters not 12 feet). And its size wrong by 16 acres. A Danish hektar is 2,47 acres. Autotranslation  does not work in GAs.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 12:38, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
 * And you have how much experience of GAs exactly? The article is almost entirely written by a fluent Danish editor who did not use google translate. ♦ Dr. Blofeld  12:41, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes I know: if you read a terse, fact-filled sentence or two, it's hard to rephrase them other than via additional verbiage. And yes of course the great majority of this article was written by somebody who has no problem with Danish. Its flaws aside, the article is very good. So let's work to zap the flaws. -- Hoary (talk) 13:29, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
 * You might want to check the geography section.♦ Dr. Blofeld  13:45, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Done. But past my bedtime, and therefore not well. (While I like unpretentious language, should "rainfall", near the end, instead be "precipitation", to include snow?) -- Hoary (talk) 14:24, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Speaking of the above-mentioned "experience of GAs": Dr. Blofeld asked me to review this article, and as you can see I've started it, but there's still work being done on it, and I don't want to make suggestions that will become obsolete as changes are made. (For example, I was planning to comment on the excess verbage in this article, but an editor has fixed much of it.) Perhaps I should wait a little while until everyone's satisfied that this article is ready for a GA review? Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 18:41, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Maybe another day to give a final copyedit would be advisory...♦ Dr. Blofeld  19:57, 7 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I must say I am rather surprised at the detail given to Nordens Kridtgrav which is certainly not a key feature of Aalborg or its geography. I would suggest the sentence with all the disputed figures would be best left to the day an article on the quarry itself appears -- if it is indeed notable enough. As for the excess verbiage, I'll have a look through the whole thing tomorrow. This is just the kind of excellent feedback the GA process reveals: points that those of us who have been editing the article have simply not borne in mind.--Ipigott (talk) 21:01, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually the numbers aren't disputed; but I agree with the gist of what you're saying here. -- Hoary (talk) 22:36, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

I've removed this entirely now anyway so it doesn't matter.♦ Dr. Blofeld  12:15, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Fifty-one

 * . . . overlooked by St. Mark's Church on the eastern side. Fifty-one species of bird have been recorded in the park.

is the way I'd render it. It's common for style guides to specify the spelling out of numbers when they must appear at the start of sentences. According to WP's beloved MOS: "Numbers that begin a sentence are spelled out". (Erm [cough] as I look at this section of MOS, I also see various other prescriptions that surprise me and that I've flouted, perhaps in my dehancements to this very article. Ulp.) -- Hoary (talk) 22:36, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

author / first+last
Because (i) some authors' names weren't specified as they should have been for Template:Cite web, (ii) I remembered the parameters "lastN" and "firstN" but not the parameter "authorN", and (iii) I didn't notice that "authorN" was used in some references, I added "lastN" and "firstN". I even converted at least one instance of "authorN" to "lastN" and "firstN".

It's always struck me as silly that references in Wikipedia's preferred "Vancouver system" (not in alphabetical order of author) should invert authors' names. So I greatly prefer "authorN" and 'm happy to convert back from "lastN" and "firstN" to "authorN" if youse think this is a good idea. -- Hoary (talk) 04:25, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

PS if the article does retain "lastN" and "firstN", then I'm afraid that Ipigott or somebody else who's familiar with Danish names must check that my divisions into first and last are correct. Sometimes I had to guess. (But again, I'm offering to change the lot to "authorN" if asked.) -- Hoary (talk) 08:55, 8 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I see you've done quite a bit of work on all of this. It is indeed extremely difficult to know which is the true last (i.e. family) name of a Dane. You really have to be familiar with the families themselves. For example Klaus Spang Hansen would probably be Spang Hansen, Klaus whereas Hans Jørgen Hansen would no doubt be Hansen, Hans Jørgen. Søren Bitsch Christensen (who comes up in the article) is generally listed in Scandinavian bibliographic sources as Bitsch Christensen, Søren, but unfortunately many English-language listings have him as Christensen, Søren Bitsch. So what do you do??? As far as I can see, there is no easy solution. Let's just leave things as they are for the time being. (Personally I prefer the non-template approach to refs as it is much more straightforward to list names starting with the given or Christian name and going on to the family or surname. Then there's no problem with first and last.)--Ipigott (talk) 08:53, 9 September 2013 (UTC)


 * A simple solution would be to convert (A) LastN + FirstN to (B) AuthorN. And I'm offering to do this. In fact, I'll just go ahead and do it, if nobody objects within a day or so. -- Hoary (talk) 10:36, 9 September 2013 (UTC)


 * When in doubt, I use WorldCat as my go-by. For example, it shows Søren Bitsch Christensen's surname to be Bitsch Christensen. --Rosiestep (talk) 23:17, 9 September 2013 (UTC)


 * That's a good choice of source. But one hopes that the name appears in WorldCat, and if so then that the librarian who entered the information got it right. &para; I've converted the template parameters, as I suggested/offered above. -- Hoary (talk) 08:13, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Verification needed
This article contains statistics (population numbers for example) that are (1) unsourced or (2) are not mentioned in the citation given. To do: find new sources, verify existing sources and adjust information. —  37  (talk) 20:52, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I'll check the figures and sources tomorrow. I see Danmarks Statistik has changed its approach.--Ipigott (talk) 21:08, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Done. The stats for the city include Nørresundby (see Demographics section for explanation).--Ipigott (talk) 08:20, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Limfjorden is a fjord, also in (British) English (at least).
Example taken from Oxford dictionary: "‘This is a huge advantage of fishing the Baltic: there are so many bays and inlets and fjords that many, many of them have never seen an angler in recent history.’" - this sentence wouldn't be possible if only "Norwegian type" fjords are meant. By the way, "Viking" means "(man) from (the) fjord(s)" - and "fjord" has been used in British English, in the same sense as in Scandinavia. In Scandinavia "vik" ("bight" rather than "bay") is a synonym of "fjord". Boeing720 (talk) 15:50, 1 August 2018 (UTC)