Talk:Christian Wulff

Prime Minister vs. Minister-President
Historically a Prime Minister is leader of a cabinet in a monarchy while the monarch is the head of the executive and the government himself (the cabinet ist part of the state or crown council which is presided by the monarch)!

A German Minister-president is not only head of the government as he holds either the function of a head of state (that fact is to be seen in three privileges: confering orders and decorations, holding the right of pardon and clemence, and the internal and external representing of the state)

A German Minister-president is not a primus inter pares in the council of ministers but its leader

There is no original English term for a German Ministerpräsident, but the word is intranslatable. Consequently a neologism must be formed and used. It is absolutely normal to compose new words. So a German Ministerpräsident will be an English Minister President, because it is not the same as a Prime Minister.

compare The German Federal Council is not the Upper House of Parliament, because there is no hierarchy between both chambers of the German Federal Parliament! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.4.103.180 (talk) 22:08, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

There seems to be a dispute over the correct translation of Ministerpräsident. While some use Prime Minister is used, others consider Minister-President to be correct. Maybe a solution can be found this way.


 * There is only one solution that is possible, as Prime Minister is the official title used consistently in English by the Government of the State of Lower Saxony and the office of the Prime Minister itself (the latter includes a statement by the incumbent Prime Minister where he uses the title). Here's Christian Wulff CV at the website of the State Chancellery as well. Any other solution than the title used officially in English by the government (that also happens to be the common English term and is widely used by English language sources like The Guardian) would clearly be original research. I say we stick to the official sources and end this meaningless discussion. If someone has a problem with the title used by the government, Wikipedia is not the place to change it. Josh Gorand (talk) 14:43, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Official sources only relevant alongside other reliable sources. That said, "prime minister" appears to be what is most commonly used in reliable English sources (official or not). It may be worthwhile to add "or Minister-President", for the purpose of including the wikilink. -Rrius (talk) 22:34, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I have created a separate article on the office of Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, where I have included the link to Minister-President, noting that it may also be translated as such, but is translated as Prime Minister by the state government. Josh Gorand (talk) 05:16, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Based upon everything I've seen from you here, this looks like the artcile is POV pushing on your part. Kingjeff (talk) 15:16, 2 July 2010 (UTC)


 * That's the most ridiculous accusation I've ever heard, and I don't think it needs an answer. Josh Gorand (talk) 16:47, 2 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I think it actually does. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia based on user collaboration. You clearly haven't grasped this concept, as you falsely insist on ignoring facts that contradict your version of reality. This fits quite neatly into a pattern that has seen you push articles into your direction by blatantly ignoring, denying or plainly fabricating facts. Fact is that you have a website and I have an official translation of the Constitution of the State of Lower Saxony, provided by the Legislative Assembly, the body which originally passed the constitution. It clearly states that, if anything, "Minister-President" is supposed to be the term used. Unless you can prove that this translation of the constitution (in a separate document, no less) does not have equal rank with the text of the original constitution, you are plainly ignoring the facts. Your actions can be perceived as uncooperative and hostile. You do NOT have the rank of an admin, and a majority of those who actively work on this page are against you. I hereby warn you that if you persist with this conduct that I shall most certainly report you to the admins who can then make a decision as they see fit. Given that you've only been a registered user for the past few weeks, you are already taking a lot of liberties, particularly in the socially awkward way in which you deal with other users. Leicchaucer (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 06:01, 3 July 2010 (UTC).


 * How about "Presiding Minister" (or the visually closer but more antiquated "Minister President [no hyphen]")?

"Presiding Minister" is etymologically, grammatically, and semantically sound. So is "Minister President [no hyphen]"; although the phrasing of the latter is closer to that of the German original, the benefit of this closer parallel comes at the cost of a more antiquated and stilted tone in English.

The German loan word element präsident and loan word Präsident[in] (for the difference, see the discussion below) are formed by borrowing the stem of the Latin word praesidens, praesidentis, the present active participle of praesidere ("to preside"). When used as a word element, as here -- as opposed to as a stand-alone noun (the capitalized Präsident[in]) -- its meaning is the same as that of Latin praesident-, i.e., "presiding" in the participial-adjectival sense.

1) a) Therefore, "Presiding Minister" is etymologically and grammatically correct.

-- b) "Presiding Minister" is also semantically correct in that it recognizes the Ministerpräsident as being a minister of government just like all the others are, i.e., closer to a "first among equals" than is the American President (noun form), who is a chief executive having plenary authority over his Cabinet officers, who are charged with carrying out his (lawful) orders and who serve at his pleasure.

2) a) "Minister President [no hyphen]" is grammatically and semantically correct because in this phrasing "President" is a post-positive adjective meaning "presiding"; this adjective, too, is derived from the Latin participle stem, making it etymologically correct as well. (For other examples of phrases containing post-positive adjectives derived from Latin participles, see "knight errant" and "letter patent". More familiar phrases using non-participial post-positive adjectives include "[Attorney/Solicitor/Surgeon] General" and "Knights Templar".)  In this way, the non-hyphenated phrase is superior to the rightly-criticized "Minister-President", in which the use of the words in an appositional noun-noun compound functioning as a dvandva (cf. "Secretary-Treasurer") suggests a greater separation between the roles than actually exists:  The hyphenated phrase suggests "Minister and President"; the non-hyphenated phrase suggests "Minister who presides".

-- b) "Minister President" has the advantage of looking more like the German word, but that advantage comes at the cost of an almost artificially stuffy tone: stuffy because the post-positive adjective is an antiquated phrase form, and artificial because virtually all phrases containing a post-positive adjective are "frozen forms" preserved only by legally sanctioned or especially longstanding use. If one coins a new phrase using a post-positive adjective construction, one risks giving the impression that one is consciously attempting to sound archaic.

For this reason, I think "Presiding Minister" is the best translation, though I won't complain if the community settles on the non-hyphenated "Minister President".

165.176.7.3 (talk) 22:03, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
 * "Präsident" is not a participe in the term. It does not meaning "presiding minister" but the Minister who is President in the Council of Ministers. Str1977 (talk) 10:33, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I always call the the position Minister-President wit the hyphen. Wouldn't Prime Minister be something like Erste Minister and wouldn't presiding minister be Leitender Minister? Kingjeff (talk) 00:11, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

"Minister President" may have the "advantage" of looking like a German word, but I see no reason why we need to make the title look like a German word. When the Germans call David Cameron a Ministerpräsident, they are surely not trying to make it look like an English word. I naturally oppose "Presiding Minister" for the same reasons as stated above (it's original research, whereas we have English language sources that establish that the title used in English by the government and the Lower Saxon PM's themselves is Prime Minister, which is also the common English term – see Prime Minister of Italy for a comparable case). Josh Gorand (talk) 05:13, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The Germans don't call David Cameron a Ministerpräsident, though. The usual German term is Premierminister, a French-German approximation of the original Prime Minister. It's funny that the Germans try that with the British head of government, but make no attempt to do the same with the Italian Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri or his Spanish counterpart, where Ministerpräsident is used. So my interjection is certainly no invalidation of the argument against making the title look German, just a clarification of the actual practice. Bibfile (talk) 08:14, 2 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The terms Mnisterpräsident and Premierminister are absolutely equivalent; however aside from Hamburg, Bremen and Berlin the term Ministerpräsident is used to describe the first minister of the remaining Länder in Germany. Actually the term Premierminister is mostly used for countries using the Westminster system (e.g. UK, Candada, Australia) while Ministerpräsident is used otherwise. But there's no special rule to use this or that. --Matthiasb (talk) 09:09, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

The term to be used (and to be honest, German usage of English can be dubious at times) is "Premier". Wikipedia is not the official subsidiary of the Lower Saxon provincial government, but an independent encyclopaedia. "Prime Minister" is the term used for a national head of state (such as the Prime Ministers of Australia, Canada, New Zealand or the United Kingdom). Additionally, this is an English-language encyclopaedia. Don't you think it would be appropriate to use the term that is most used by English publications, such as The Financial Times, the Guardian, the New York Times, the Economist and the Deutsche Welle (which itself is financed by the German federal government). Germany is not a nation with English as its official language, with Lower Saxony being a German province. Run by German-speaking bureaucrats, whose approximation of German terms in English is not exactly correct. Using "Prime Minister" implies that Lower Saxony is somehow not a constituent state of the Federal Republic of Germany, but an independent nation. Surely, Wikipedia ought to avoid these sorts of conflicts. I know that I'll be hurting some of my fellow Wikipedians sentiments (especially Josh Gorand who I fully expect to revert the edit, thereby blatantly ignoring the line of argument I'm advancing here), but "Premier" is the term used by Australia and Canada for the leaders of the constituent provinces of the respective nation-state.

Have a look at these links and tell me that these are dubious sources. To reiterate, here at Wikipedia, the homepage of the Lower Saxon government is not a substitute for the usage of the correct term.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5655378,00.html http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/04/lower-saxony-premier-mcallister http://news.scotsman.com/news/The-Scottish-politician-who-is.6393644.jp http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iihhcVLYOhalhFyTfa9J6WgOPIUw http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0702/1224273804065.html http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65T39F20100701?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/02/AR2010070201970.html http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/World/Story/STIStory_537826.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/world/europe/15germany.html?src=mv

I personally don't think that the (incorrect) usage of a title by the Lower Saxon government trumps the designation espoused by not just several Commonwealth countries or, for that fact, the numerous journalistic sources. Therefore, the term "Premier" passes the test and should substitute "Prime Minister". Leicchaucer (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:32, 2 July 2010 (UTC).

No, the term Prime Minister is the official English term used by the government, and is also used by the English language press. I think it's appropriate to use the same term as used by The Independent, The Guardian, Deutsche Welle, the New York Times, the BBC, Financial Times and others.
 * http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/humiliation-for-merkel-as-coalition-stages-revolt-2015170.html
 * http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/kohl-faces-regional-defeat-it-is-the-year-of-the-voter-in-germany-and-the-first-poll-is-in-lower-saxony-on-sunday-writes-steve-crawshaw-from-hanover-1428328.html
 * http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/30/christian-wulff-elected-german-president
 * http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-28/lower-saxony-s-new-head-backs-volkswagen-expansion.html
 * http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-01/merkel-s-candidate-wulff-wins-german-presidential-election-in-third-round.html
 * http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/21/business/worldbusiness/21auto.html?ref=wendelin_wiedeking
 * http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/business/worldbusiness/23cnd-volks.html?_r=1
 * http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/christian-wulff-sworn-in-as-germany-s-new-president-35245
 * http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=7270.5826.0.0
 * http://m.ft.com/cms/s/0/eecbdd9a-8444-11df-b9f8-00144feabdc0.html?catid=75&SID=google
 * http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,1979065,00.html
 * http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2242899.stm

Prime Minister is the formally correct term, "Premier" is merely an unofficial shorter term sometimes used by journalists (similar to the German word Kanzlerin instead of Bundeskanzlerin). The Prime Minister, who's even a native English speaker, himself uses the title Prime Minister as pointed out repeatedly. The title Prime Minister is used consistently by the government and in official government publications in English.

Also, there is no "provincial government" in Lower Saxony, there is a state government that has full jurisdiction over it's PM's title. The state existed before it was part of any federal republic, so technically speaking, it was a country like any other country from 1946 to 1949, and it had a Prime Minister. The German states are considered (partly souvereign) states in the legal sense, not provinces (a lot of them even had their own kings/monarchs until 1918)*. "Premier" may be the term used by Australia and Canada for the leaders of their provinces, but the state government of Lower Saxony doesn't use "Premier" in English, they use Prime Minister.


 * (*"Die Länder sind nach Rechtsprechung und herrschender Ansicht in der Rechtswissenschaft originäre Staatsrechtssubjekte. Gemäß Artikel 32 Absatz 3 Grundgesetz hat ihnen der Bund zudem beschränkte Völkerrechtssubjektivität verliehen. Dementsprechend können die Länder Verträge mit anderen Völkerrechtssubjekten abschließen". More here.)

Btw., "prime minister of lower saxony" returns 38,200 Google hits, "premier of lower saxony" returns 32,100 Google hits and "minister president of lower saxony" returns 7,180 Google hits. While all terms may be used, Prime Minister of Lower Saxony is both the title used officially by the government in English, and the most widely used term in the English language. There are no valid reasons whatsoever to wage a campaign against the term at Wikipedia, if you don't like it, wage it against the government in Lower Saxony or write letters to all newspapers and other sources using it, don't use Wikipedia as a vehicle for your POV. Josh Gorand (talk) 22:31, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with Josh that such insulting terms like "province" should be avoided. Str1977 (talk) 10:33, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I personally don't think that you've made a viable case for the usage of the term "Prime Minister". Unfortunately, as predicted by myself, you have not even addressed the line of argument presented earlier in the slightest. As you seem to be pointing out the primacy of the government of Lower Saxony's usage of the term "Prime Minister", you will certainly understand if I reintroduce the debate on the term "Minister-President"? I'm sure you will agree that the Constitution of the state is the prime legal document from which even the powers of the state government are derived (that's what they teach you in constitutional law class, anyway). I'm also sure that you will agree that, particularly in a democratic system of government, the document takes precedence over any formulation adopted by the state government. By the way, can you quote the requisite document or ordinance that declares that "Prime Minister" is supposed to be the one and only term to be used for the leader of the government of Lower Saxony? If so, I'm sure that the other Wikipedians would appreciate this constructive input on your part. It would also go a long way in clarifying just why you are so insistent on using what patently is a contextually incorrect term. Lower Saxony, contrary to your implication (and for which, I note, you have not provided any credible source) was not a sovereign entity, but was created through a merger (under the auspices of the British military administration) of several states (Hanover, Oldenburg, Schaumburg-Lippe). If you knew your history, you would also be aware that there was no entity called "Niedersachsen" prior to 1946. Your argument that Lower Saxony is an entity separate from Germany is patently false and I will not even dignify it with a further remark.

Also, we don't measure the legitimacy of a claim here at Wikipedia by the number of Google hits. We measure it by substance. Imagine there were different claims re: Christian Wulff's second and third names...would you go by the Google hits? Or by fact? Somehow I doubt that Google has the wisdom of time captured in its interface. The fact remains that you have failed to refute the line of argument I have presented, whereas I have presented both historical precedent and credible journalistic sources. The fact remains, sir, that the Constitution of Lower Saxony (in its OFFICIAL translation) uses the word "Minister-President", whereas you merely quote a few pieces of HTML code as proof that the state government and Mr McAllister himself (I doubt he has the time to service or police the Premier's website) sanction the use of the incorrect term "Prime Minister". If anything, we should be using "Minister-President", as the Constitution's official translation supersedes any claim by the state government, which (and I'm sure you will agree) derives its powers from this very constitution. The sources you present have either also used the word "Premier" or are quite dubious (NDTV, Thetrumpet? Ha!). Now that your line of argument has been comprehensively refuted, I hereby ask you to either revert to the term "Premier" or "Minister-President" (the latter being used by the Lower Saxon Constitution).

Finally, get your English right: The term "Premier" is not a short form of "Prime Minister". It may be in German, but this is an English-language encyclopaedia - with English spelling, English grammar and, yes, English-language context. And in this context, we don't say "Premier David Cameron", but "Prime Minister David Cameron"...David McAllister is not the Prime Minister of Lower Saxony. Oh, and by the way: Don't you dare talk about POV when your own contributions re: the German presidential election are blatantly biased and contain more POV that the Lower Saxony Legislative Assembly building.

Asking the Powers That Are at Wikipedia to please take a vote on this and resolve this conflict. Seems I may have to ask an admin to resolve this....cheers, people! Leicchaucer (talk)


 * I suggest you stop trolling. You are really only wasting everyone's time here. This has been discussed now ad nauseam. It has been demonstrated that Prime Minister is the most established and official term. The term Minister-President is not an option because it's 1) not used by the state government in English 2) it's the most rarely used term in English of the three. The Lower Saxon Constitution doesn't say anything about the PM's title in English (and your interpretation/translation of a German language primary source would be original research in any case), however, the website of the government makes it very clear what the title of the PM in English is. You haven't presented any line of argument, just your own POV. No, we are not going to use anything else than the established English term used officially by the government. Josh Gorand (talk) 23:37, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Using Prime Minister seems akward for a state. Prime Minister is usually used for the head of a federal government. In this case, it could be used to describe the position as the top minister of a government. präsident portion of the word seems to far off to translate into prime. I would think Premierminister or Ersterminister would translate into Prime Minister Kingjeff (talk) 23:54, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It may seem awkward to some, but it is the title actually used by the state government (and by reliable secondary sources as well). We cannot make our own judgements based on what we think they should do, we should stick to what reliable sources say. Prime Minister isn't usually used for the head of a federal government, it's perhaps most commonly used for heads of non-federal governments (not all states are federations). The meanings of the terms we are discussing (Prime Minister, Minister President, First Minister etc.) are identical (=the one heading/presiding over/chairing the government, the first minister), and there is no reason a translation needs to be a literal translation. Prime Minister of Italy is clearly not a literal translation of Berlusconi's formal title in Italian. The PM of Denmark (which is much smaller Lower Saxony btw.) is literally called "State Minister" in Danish, and Prime Minister in English. There are numerous examples. Prime Minister is merely the most common term in English for a head of government. German states are not fully souvereign, but they aren't mere provinces, they hold a status in between, being formally considered states in their own right and subjects of international law. Josh Gorand (talk) 00:03, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Josh, I'm not trolling...and it's you who has been expressing his POV all the time. You've also been criticised for not being unbiased when it came to the Left Party in Germany. So I do seriously doubt your credentials in terms of being able to tell anyone what to do. As it'd seem kingjeff and I have a different view than you. So, if you have a different interpretation of the facts, then you should ask a Wiki admin to leave a nice comment and we shall follow his/her lead. Until then, I suggest that you stop being so insufferably arrogant and condescending towards people who merely wish to improve the quality of Wikipedia. Many thanks. Leicchaucer (talk)

Josh, why are German states not mere provinces like a Canadian province, an American state or Australian state? Also, for the record, Canadian provinces get their mandates from the Queen Kingjeff (talk) 02:33, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, there seems to be general agreement that Minister-President or similar is not a suitable term. This gets us one step ahead, at least. The question whether it should be Prime Minister or Premier might not be essential. Acccording to Premier, there are various documented English-language cases where Prime Minister and Premier are used interchangeably, so it seems overly precise to try to make a distinction between them with respect to an office from the non-English speaking world. The discussion whether German states have more rights than Canadian provinces or not is certainly not going to lead anywhere. So, I suggest that both premier and prime minister should be considered acceptable translations for Ministerpräsident, since one has to recognize that foreign terms can never be translated perfectly. Chl (talk) 03:12, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Where do you get this impression from? And yes, there is a perfectly fine translation to be found in the collaborative work of two renowned institutes, which I have taken the liberty to quote above. Now, Mr McAllister has all my sympathy when he uses the title Prime Minister, thus styling himself on a par with Mr Cameron, alas Kingjeff is right, there are no Prime Ministers of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.--Dodo19 (talk) 04:28, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * According to this entry, Prime Minister is used for the leaders of a national government. The Chancellor of Germany has been listed here, whereas no mention is made of the leaders of constituent entities of a given state. Given the usage of the term (and surely, Wikipedia cannot ignore common usage of the term), "Prime Minister" is not an appropriate title for the leader of a constituent part of an independent nation. I note that Josh has not made the claim that Lower Saxony has aspired or is aspiring to national independence. I further note that there is no uniform practice amongst the state governments in Germany. In fact, North Rhine Westphalia - Germany's largest state in terms of population, the size of its economy, territorial size and political influence uses the word "Premier" as the designation for the leader of the state executive. I agree with kingjeff and Dodo19. "Prime Minister" is an inappropriate designation based on actual usage worldwide. This is not the German Wikipedia and not a subsidiary of the Lower Saxony Premier's office. Josh Gorand has a self-referencing website and dubious sources. I have well-established sources and the official translation of the state constitution. Whilst being a lawyer myself, I don't appreciate being lectured about international law (having studied it myself) or German history. The German states are no different than Canadian provinces or Australian states. They are constituent parts of the nation of Germany. No more, no less. As such, the use of the term "Premier" to describe the "Ministerpräsident" is perfectly valid and certainly supersedes the unrealistic, unfounded usage of the term "Prime Minister".Leicchaucer (talk) 06:25, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Leicchaucer, your claim that NRW "uses the word Premier" is untrue. The title of http://www.nrw.de/en/state-government/prime-minister/ is Prime Minister - Landesportal Nordrhein Westfalen. The site navigation says: "You are here: Home > State Government > Prime Minister". At best, they use both "Prime Minister" and "Premier" interchangeably, as I said before. However, just as the website of the British government would be more relevant than the website of the US government if we were discussing the British PM's title, the website of the Lower Saxon government is the most relevant source in this case, not a completely different state. Josh Gorand (talk) 15:55, 3 July 2010 (UTC)


 * There is not just one possible translation of the term "Ministerpräsident" - "Minister President", "Prime Minister", "Premier" (but NOT "presiding minister" - an obvious neologism) all are valid translations and there is no real argument against using either in any place. However, if we want to establish a uniform usage, we should go with the one that would be most apt, recognisable and common in the English language, which is Prime Minister, especially since there already is an article Prime Minister of Lower Saxony in existence. (Minister-President is not a common English term and Premier is not in any way superior to Prime Minister and sounds a bit more like a colloquial form.)
 * But regardless of how things turn out, two things have to stop:
 * the constant talk about this or that English term being official and the cluttering of articles with links supposedly demonstrating that this or that term in official - this has been done for all the three terms mentioned above now but it is still ridiculous. If Mr McAllister or Mr Wulff say this or that English word 100,000 times a day, there is still only one "official" term, and it is the German one.
 * the personal attacks levied by one side against the other and vice versa, screaming "POV" or "troll" doesn't get anyone anywhere.
 * There are several fallcies proclaimed here: the term Ministerpräsident has nothing to do with being head of state (some imagine it to be a combination of "Minister" and "President"). Statements like "Using Prime Minister seems akward for a state. Prime Minister is usually used for the head of a federal government." is just plain absurd, as can easily be seen by the British or French example: both nations use (in English) Prime Minister without being a Federation and despite having a different person as head of state. BTW, Germans very occasionally do speak of the British PM as Ministerpräsident because that is the equivalent known to Germans. Str1977 (talk) 10:14, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * "I personally don't think that you've made a viable case for the usage of the term "Prime Minister". [...] Also, we don't measure the legitimacy of a claim here at Wikipedia by the number of Google hits. We measure it by substance."
 * Only that thus far there is no substance in your argument. There is no real argument possible for this or that English term but common usage in the English language.
 * "The fact remains, sir, that the Constitution of Lower Saxony (in its OFFICIAL translation) uses the word "Minister-President""
 * That's nonsense. The constitution of Lower Saxony uses the German language and, ipso facto, does not use English terms at all. It is a prime legal document but only in its German original (which BTW strangely speaks of "Ministerpräsidentin or Ministerpräsident" - do we want to copy this?). It can in no way be the basis for deciding which English term to use, except that its (purel informative, non-binding) translation is one piece of writing constituting the body of English ways to express this. Relevant but not in any way superior to any other item.
 * "Lower Saxony, contrary to your implication (and for which, I note, you have not provided any credible source) was not a sovereign entity, but was created through a merger (under the auspices of the British military administration) of several states (Hanover, Oldenburg, Schaumburg-Lippe). If you knew your history, you would also be aware that there was no entity called "Niedersachsen" prior to 1946. Your argument that Lower Saxony is an entity separate from Germany is patently false and I will not even dignify it with a further remark.
 * Under German constitutional law, the states are primary to the Federal Republic (but not to the German people - you can see this by reading the preamble of the Basic Law, preferably in its original form). Also, historically the states existed before the foundation of a nation state in 1871 (with which the current Germany legally considers itself to be identical). Sure, the actual state of Lower Saxony was founded only in 1946 and hence does not pre-date Germany (however, other states - Bavaria, Hamburg, Bremen, Saxony, in a way Schleswig-Holstein and Hessen do) but the argument is not one of history but of law. Lower Saxony was not founded as a sovereign state but neither was the Federal Republic sovereign in 1949. It only achieved it in three steps: 1955 (for the major part), 1968 and 1990. But Lower Saxony (or any other state) are not simply adminitrative units of the FRG but states constituting that Federation, sharing in its sovereignity (limited at first, complete since 1990).


 * I'm for Minister-President. Jared Preston (talk) 10:46, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

The only relevant source in this can be a dictionary. I have quoted one above, I can quote another here, which says that a Ministerpräsident of a Bundesland is a Minister-President (cf. Otto Springer (ed.): Langenscheidts Enzyklopädisches Wörterbuch. Der Große Muret-Sanders. Vol. II,2 L-Z, 8th Edition, Berlin/München 1999, ISBN 3-468-01126-1, p. 1052, s.v. Ministerpräsident, 2.) The term is also used by publications such as the International Who's Who (s.v. Koch, Roland, as Mr Wulff is not mentioned, yet). There is a well-established use of the term in highly relevant publications, which should be reflected in Wikipedia. --Dodo19 (talk) 10:49, 3 July 2010 (UTC) P.S. The article Prime Minister of Lower Saxony cannot be used as an argument here, simply check the page history!.
 * Dictionaries are not the only relevant source and a single one hardly is. It is the actual usage by English-speakers when referring to that office that counts. And that three terms are used overall has been established. It is our decision to either stick with one or opt for pluralism (but not of articles), preferably based on which English-speakers commonly would choose. Str1977 (talk) 11:32, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Au contraire, mon frère. Dictionaries are the relevant source here - and it is hardly a single one, I quoted at least two, and can come up with more, if need be. The overwhelming majority of English-speakers doesn't know that something like a ministerpräsident of a German Bundesland exists. Therefore it can only be this, or experts, like Arthur B. Gunlicks, whom I quoted elsewhere, who can determine what the proper term is. More so, who is going to do the count? google-books has more hits on Minister-President than Prime Minister in this context. --Dodo19 (talk) 12:05, 3 July 2010 (UTC)P.S. Why do I get the feeling I have told you this all before? Déjà-vu, isn't it?


 * I just found an English-native speaker who is definitely competent: She uses Minister President and Minister-President. --Dodo19 (talk) 12:36, 3 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Dictionaries are relevant inasmuch they record the usage of term but not in prescriptive manner, not simply overriding other evidence of usage. And more so, since what we need is application to this case, not just a simple rule that "Ministerpäsident can be translated by Minister-President". We all know that! The question is not that but what the most common translation would be.
 * The English-speakers concerning us here are the ones referring to the phenomenon (so your "most have never heard of it" is beside the point - newspaper articles, press statements are relevant sources) - and no single English-speaker is priviledged, so spare us the Queen. You have not told me this before (at least I can't remember) and even if you had, it would change matters. You seem to think that everyone who has heard your view should simply accept it. Experts? In what? Please, no more of these supposed substance reasons that have been brought fort here and all have been humbug. Usage is all that counts!!! Str1977 (talk) 12:46, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Says who? Your out of hand rejection of evidence is telling. What are dictionaries good for, then? We are talking less than 200 individuals here. We are talking thirteen Bundesländer here. How are you going to quantify your claim? We are looking for the most accurate translation of a specific title, not a near miss. Prime minister is not wrong, but it is not right either (see references given above). The Queen is most relevant, as she is one of the few English-speakers who will address a Ministerpräsident in English. Others, like the US President, use the same term, (Minister President. Journalists have the choice to trade accuracy for colloquialism, e.g. HM Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother was regularly called Queen Mum in papers and on TV. Now, are we working on an encyclopedia here or on a tabloid? --Dodo19 (talk) 13:11, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Dodo, have you read my posting? How can you say I reject evidence? I do not reject dictionaries as evidence but I dispute that they (or some speech recited by the Queen, written for her by some government underling) constitute the only evidence in existence. Yes, papers tend to be less than exact (as evidenced by those that called Mr Böhrnsen President of Germany) but this is not a matter of accuracy because we all agree on the facts of the matter, that the office in question is called "Ministerpräsident des Landes Niedersachsen" and nothing else. There are different ways to translate this and the three I mentioned are all not inaccurate. Minister(-)President closely follows the German term but is IMHO not a very common one, while Prime Minister and Premier use equivalent English terms and are naturally more commonly used. But they are not inaccurate.
 * Given the preoccupation of some with trifles and the disregard of some for proper work (not speaking of this article but of those that simply copy and paste articles from the German WP without bothering to translate), we must be working on a tabloid.
 * Let me reiterate: the issue is not one of accuracy (inaccurate terms like "leader of Lower Saxony" or neologisms like "president minister" should not be considered at all) but about the commonness of three accurate terms. Str1977 (talk) 17:06, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Josh Gorand (talk) 21:57, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

An attempt at a summary of this lengthy debate: Which is the proper English translation of Ministerpräsident? Chl (talk) 14:24, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Minister-President. Pro: most obvious equivalent; preferred by diplomats (in which group I'd include the Queen and her staff), presumably in order to avoid exactly the same debate we're having here. Con: confusing to non-expert English speakers, since the term is not used in any other contexts.
 * Prime Minister. Pro: commonly used, well-known English term; used by reputable sources as a translation for Ministerpräsident. Con: may be interpreted to mean a national head of government only.
 * Premier. Pro: corresponds to usage in Canada and Australia with respect to heads of government of subnational states; is also used by reputable sources as a translation of Ministerpräsident. Con: not as well known as prime minister; may be understood to be a mere abbreviation of prime minister.
 * "Prime Minister. ... Con: may be interpreted to mean a national head of government only."
 * There is nothing in prime minister that makes it a national head of government. Hence the objection is void.
 * "Premier. ... Con: not as well known as prime minister; may be understood to be a mere abbreviation of prime minister."
 * Which is not a problem at all because it really is the same word, simply taken from the French form. Since Prime Minister is in no way inaccurate, such an understanding would not be harmful at all. Str1977 (talk) 17:06, 3 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I could add to the pros and cons:


 * Minister-President: Con: Not used by the state government, in addition to being the least frequently used term in English of the three (Prime Minister, Premier, Minister President)
 * Prime Minister: Pro: Used consistently by the state government in official publications in English, most common English term
 * Premier (literally, "first"): Pro: More frequently used than Minister President. Con: It's (in this context) a more colloquial term that doesn't include the word minister, and that seems to be used interchangeably with Prime Minister when referring to German state heads of government. Josh Gorand (talk) 16:14, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * You are aware that this is only one of thirteen state governments to use the term? In effect some use Minister-President, some use Prime Minister, one uses State Premier. and others don't bother having an English language website. If anything this shows, that neither state chancellory has a clue, what they are talking about and randomly pick a term. Thus the use by government institutions from English-speaking countries is much more significant, they all use Minister-President, some with, some without hyphen. --Dodo19 (talk) 16:41, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The main argument cannot be the English usage of the Lower Saxon state government but the propensity of usage by English-speakers (which is also the basis for the state government's practice). State governments needn't "have a clue" because how their office is called in foreign language is of absolutely zero interest to them. Nobody in Germany - except for those few German collaborating in the English WP (like myself) - cares about English-speakers say. The world doesn't revolve around them and the verocity of the debate is simply absurd. Str1977 (talk) 17:06, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Frankly, the argument that the government of Lower Saxony uses Prime Minister in their (promotional) publications is a non-starter. I have found five state governments that use Minister-President, with or without hyphen (,, , , ], four that use Prime Minister [, , , ), and one that uses both Prime Minister and Premier , yet in German they are all Ministerpräsidenten. Are we supposed to use a different title for the Bavarian head of government than for his colleague in Saxony-Anhalt? Or shouldn't we rather, for the sake of consistency, use the same English term for all Ministerpräsidenten, regardless of what their translation services have chosen? The latter, I should think. [[User:Bibfile|Bibfile]] (talk) 18:06, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It is not a non-starter, as what the Lower Saxon state government says is an example of what term is commonly used (just one example - not one dictating matters, but a first hunch). Now other state governments may use different terms, and we may react in two manners:
 * Either we determine what the most common translation of Ministerpäsident is for all thirteen German offices of that name and use that term for all thirteen.
 * Or we restrict our determination to the Lower Saxon case and let the others take care of themselves, possibly allowing for pluralism here.
 * While I think a uniform line on all thirteen to be preferable, it is also more difficult to achieve. Therefore I suggest that examples from other states are not considered - though I actually do not doubt that the common expression for all of them will turn out to be Prime Minister, once we get beyond the silly stance that there is one source which alone answers the question. Str1977 (talk) 09:27, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * For the sake of consistency, we should use the most common English term, Prime Minister, in all relevant articles. Minister-President isn't really an English term at all, and both Prime Minister and Premier are most frequently used when referring to heads of government of German states. Josh Gorand (talk) 19:25, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Personally, I don't care which one is used. However, I'd like the diplomatic sources that have been mentioned and which you've chosen to either ignore or dismiss into consideration. Actually, I quite like the argument that the Queen should know ;-)Bibfile (talk) 20:00, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * For the sake of consistency, why not stick with the term Minster-President, as it is already in use in Wikipedia to describe all the other Ministers-President of the German Länder, just check the categories of Mr Wulff's article. For some reason I doubt, that you will be changing all the links, redirects, categories etc., leaving a right mess, we are talking some 200 articles here. Would be much more worthwhile to rename the remaining few articles that popped up recently ... -Dodo19 (talk) 19:51, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Dodo, I can hardly take this posting of yours serious. You are basically saying, "For the sake of consistency, why not stick with my choice"? Especially since you tried to delete valid information just for the sake of removing the term you don't like. And WP cannot be a source for itself. Str1977 (talk) 09:27, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll definitely change the categories and other articles when I'm done quarreling with you. Josh Gorand (talk) 20:06, 3 July 2010 (UTC)


 * It is common practice to use a calque for foreign offices, rather than a term for an equivalent office in a country that uses the target language. As far as the "official" title goes, the German foreign office is reponsible for foreign relations and the German Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt) uses the term "Minister-President" (with capitals and hyphen). Source: The Web site of the German FO also explains that it is inappropriate/misleading to translate into an 'equivalent' office of another country. --Boson (talk) 17:32, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The Foreign Office is part of the federal government and has no jurisdiction whatsoever over other states in this regard. The German states have ceded some of their sovereignty to the federal government, but not the right to determine the states' political systems, names and titles. Josh Gorand (talk) 19:25, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The phrase Bundesrecht bricht Landesrecht comes to mind. --Dodo19 (talk) 19:51, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * There is no "Bundesrecht" that determines what state institutions are called. There is also no "Recht" at all that determines English translations. The state government does not legally determine an English translation, neither does the Foreign Office. Str1977 (talk) 09:27, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think the English translations of government information pages are a matter of jurisdiction. The Foreign Office has access to far more authorative translation services than the state governments, and I would assume that some thought has gone the explanation mentioned above. Bibfile (talk) 20:15, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * A total non-sequitur. Federal office does not mean more qualified translators. It is not their choice but the choice of English-speakers (native speakers and German official publications as well). Str1977 (talk) 09:27, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I would believe a native English speaker like the incumbent PM would know the correct term. Josh Gorand (talk) 21:05, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Does Mr McAllister have any qualifications as a translator, or does he merely use the term that sounds best to him? Or does he simply follow the established practice for promotional material from the government of Lower Saxony? Would he use Minister-President if he had become head of government of, say, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern? That he calls himself Prime Minister does in no way create a precedent for all German states.Bibfile (talk) 21:23, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The Prime Minister is a native English speaker and a native German speaker. Besides, he is the Prime Minister, and he doesn't need any qualifications. We are discussing the titles of the Prime Ministers of Lower Saxony, not other countries/states. Josh Gorand (talk) 21:31, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * As by your own admission you plan undertake the monumental task of changing the categories and other articles, this has progressed beyond the mere determination of the correct title for the head of government of Lower Saxony. Being a native speaker of both languages does not necessarily qualify anybody to make valid translations between the two, so David McAllister saying he's Prime Minister doesn't necessarily make him Prime Minister, which your argument seems to rest on. Bibfile (talk) 22:10, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The state government saying he's Prime Minister makes him Prime Minister though. It's really a matter of who has the authority to decide (at least in Lower Saxony). Josh Gorand (talk) 02:45, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * If you argue with the authority to decide, I'd say that the constitution of Lower Saxony as published in its Englisch translation by the State Parliament calling the office Minister-President does make Mr McAllister Minister-President. But you have chosen to ignore that before, so I fully expect you to do the same again.Bibfile (talk) 06:40, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * THE CONSTITUTION IS WRITTEN IN GERMAN - A TRANSLATION CANNOT BE BINDING ON ANYONE. Str1977 (talk) 09:27, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I am aware that the constitution is written in German, but I was answering to Josh's claim that the translation used on the state government's webpage is binding. Given that the translation of the constitution is provided by the very body that issued said document, I would consider the claim of the term given there to be the correct one as at least as strong as the state government's translation. 95.33.117.254 (talk) 09:49, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Oops, sorry, I forgot that I wasn't logged in. Bibfile (talk) 09:52, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The Bundesrat says he is a Minister President. That settles it then, Bundesrecht bricht Landesrecht. --Dodo19 (talk) 05:07, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Some random low-ranking webmaster or whatever at the Federal Council who isn't aware what the correct title in English is and who probably isn't a native English speaker, has 1) nothing to do with German law, 2) is not relevant as the Federal Council has no authority in this matter. I would be like claiming the Council of Europe determined the titles of the heads of government of their member states. If we have to chose between the term used by the Prime Minister himself, who's also a native English speaker, and his state government, and the title used by a non-native speaker webmaster at the Federal Council, I'll prefer the term used by the government over the webmaster term. Josh Gorand (talk) 16:32, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * "who isn't aware what the correct title in English is"
 * There is a CORRECT TITLE IN ENGLISH !!! Str1977 (talk) 09:27, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * And how about the translation of the constitution of Lower Saxony kindly provided by us by the legislative assembly of Lower Saxony, the very institution which created the constitution from which the state government derives its authority. Would you also claim that it has nothing to do with German law and that it has no authority on this matter?Bibfile (talk) 05:43, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

There is always the option Ministerpräsident instead of an english name. Kingjeff (talk) 19:10, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I really find it puzzling how Germans expect the rest of the world to use German terms in English and other non-German languages, while all other countries are perfectly happy with their titles being translated into sensible English. Ministerpräsident is not an option because we are writing an English language encyclopedia. Besides, Ministerpräsident has totally adequate equivalents in English. The Germans are not so special that their heads of government's titles are impossible to translate. Josh Gorand (talk) 19:25, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Centerum censeo! The translation given in dictionaries is: Minister-President.--Dodo19 (talk) 19:51, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's as simple as that. From my selection of dictionaries: Pons Kompaktwörterbuch (1997): "Ministerpräsident(in)(m/f) prime minister; der ~ von Hessen the chief minister of Hessen"; Langenscheid (1972): "Ministerpräsident[/b] m prime minister, premier; in Deutschland etc.: minister president."
 * Just this small selction provides us with three alternatives: "prime minister", "chief minister" and "minister president", so we can't just say that "dictionaries" give Minister-President, just as we can't say that it's Prime Minister because David McAllister uses it. I'd like us to come to a consistent solution for all German Ministerpräsidenten, taking into account a range of sources, including the diplomatic ones that Josh chooses to ignore or dismiss. Bibfile (talk) 08:12, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Josh, it is an option. On english Wikipedia Bayern München is called Bayern Munich, not Bavaria Munich. Real Madrid is not called Royal Madrid. Eintracht Frankfurt is still called Eintracht Frankfurt. Point is that it is the most common english name that is used. By the way, I'm a native english speaker. It doesn't look like it's getting anywhere. One side thinks it should be one way and the other side says it should be the other way. Kingjeff (talk) 23:24, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that you will have a hard time finding a single reliable English language source that refers to Christian Wulff or his successor with their German language title instead of one of its English equivalents. So, I don't think it's an option at all. Josh Gorand (talk) 02:37, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm going to throw in another link, from the Bundesrat, using Minister-President: here. How are we going to get this mess sorted? Jared Preston (talk) 16:37, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Voting has started here. Kingjeff (talk) 03:06, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Comments from uninvolved editors

 * Prime minister This is the term officially used in the English language as supported by reliable sources relating to this specific post. This is the English WP thus it should be written in English.  Overly literal translations, such as minister-president are not English words or terms. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:23, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd tend to agree. Regardless, I'd suggest that the correct venue for this discussion would be at Talk:Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, and this article should use the same title - whatever is eventually decided. TFOWR 13:33, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but this remark is completely off the point, as there is already enough evidence posted here proofing otherwise.--Dodo19 (talk) 14:42, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I responded to this RfC. Martin Hogbin (talk) 15:46, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Appreciated, and I've struck part of my comment. TFOWR 15:50, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't see any problem with Minister-President. It's not as ambiguous as Prime Minister. Jared Preston (talk) 16:02, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I see two problems. Firstly Minister-President is not an English word or term, it is obviously a literal translation of a foreign word. Secondly it is not the term used by reliable English language sources to refer this specific person. Martin Hogbin (talk) 16:18, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Then the Minister-President article needs a complete re-write for all of the countries where it applies to... Jared Preston (talk) 16:32, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe so but maybe there are reliable English language sources that use the term Minister-President to refer to other holders of this office. From what I see here, reliable English language sources use the term 'Prime minister' to refer to the office of Christian Wulff. Martin Hogbin (talk) 16:39, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I just can't fathom how any single country, a federal republic like Germany in this instance, can have more than one Prime minister. Prime means "of the greatest relevance". OK, on a Bundesland-level this could be seen as true, but as some have tried to argue, Lower Saxony, in Christian Wulff's case, is not a separate entity to the republic it belongs to. NO country has more than one prime minister. Even "First Minister" would be a better solution than "Prime Minister", but I don't know what suggests using that term. I just don't think Minister-President, as has been used before, is as ambiguous as other examples as some people have suggested. German: Ministerpräsident; Esperanto: Ministroprezidento; Spanish: Ministro presidente; French: Ministre-président; Dutch: Minister-president; Swedish/Norwegian: Ministerpresident; Portuguese: Ministro-presidente – is there a need to break this trend? Because as far as reliable sources go here, everyone has a handfull of their own and understandably want to be listened to. How are we going to get this discussion sorted out? Jared Preston (talk) 16:53, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Prime Minister, or Ministerpräsident (which means the same) for that sake, refers to the first minister within that particular government, for instance the cabinet of Lower Saxony. Yes, the German states are separate entities that are part of a federation, but that are still considered states in their own right, some of them have treaties with other states outside Germany. Germany was founded much in the same way as the European Union, as a loose federation of souvereign states that had their own kings, governments, prime ministers, courts of law, militaries and so on. The term Ministerpräsident is used in Germany when referring to the prime ministers of other countries than Germany as well (like Italy), it's simply the standard German term for what we call Prime Minister in English, having the same meaning. Josh Gorand (talk) 17:00, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

We did establish that both Prime Minister, Premier and Minister-President are used in English when referring to the Lower Saxon (and other states') heads of government, but that Minister-President was the most uncommon term of the three in English, and I agree it's not really an English term, merely a literal translation of a German term. I think Prime Minister is the best term both because it's used consistently in English by the Government of Lower Saxony, and because it's widely used by reliable secondary sources in English when referring to this particular office, and because it's overall the most common term in English for a head of government. I'll add to this that all three terms really have the same meaning. Josh Gorand (talk) 16:57, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * If we settle with Prime Minister, all of the pages, articles, categories (and templates?) will need to be changed. Are you prepared to do all of that, Josh? Creating redirects where needs be? And are others happy to go with it? Because somewhere we're going to have to draw the line under this discussion... Jared Preston (talk) 17:04, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I previously said I was more than willing to do this. Josh Gorand (talk) 17:07, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Who says, Minister-President is a literal translation? This smell of OR. BTW Prime Minister is not an "English" word either --Dodo19 (talk) 17:32, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

I think that this is getting ridiculous. Josh Gorand, despite being presented with ample evidence to the contrary, wishes to ignore the factual element of this discussion altogether. Is there a mechanism on Wikipedia to have someone like that censured? If not, we certainly need one, because the neuroticisms of one member should not be allowed to overrule 1) common sense (a Prime Minister is patently the leader of an independent state...Josh, you have still not responded as to whether you claim that Lower Saxony, in your view, aspires to secession or is an independent nation - because that's what the term "Prime Minister" implies) 2) facts (the Constitution of the State of Lower Saxony in its official translation establishes the term "Minister-President" as the one to be used. It has also been used by diplomats and is used by many other German states) and 3) standards of appropriateness: I find the whole insistence on a patently incorrect title unsettling, particularly as Josh seems to insist on ONLY accepting an entry on the state's official website (which, as you admitted in the Federal Council's case, could have been written "Some random low-ranking webmaster or whatever [...] who isn't aware what the correct title in English is and who probably isn't a native English speaker). In the process, he is turning Wikipedia into a jurists' convention, lecturing us mere mortals (by the way, I am a lawyer by profession who has also studied constitutional law) about how subnational entities should be treated, when all most of us are looking for is to create an encyclopaedia for laypeople, rather than a legal database full of vague legalese. The fact remains that Premier or, if we must, Minister-President, remain the best options for designating the title. If Mr McAllister proclaimed himself Emperor tomorrow, would we accept this claim? Therefore, I call for a proper vote on here on whether to go ahead with either Premier, Prime Minister or Minister-President and change the pages accordingly. Remember, Josh, that this encyclopaedia is not about what YOU want, but about the user-friendliness for everyone else. We have to assume that other readers would be comprehensively confused when reading about the "Prime Minister" of Lower Saxony..."Prime Minister?", people would ask. Has Lower Saxony declared independence? Is it preparing secession? These are questions that are best avoided, particularly in order to avoid unnecessary confusion. Finally, I close by providing two more examples: The Prime Minister of Spain is known as such in Wiki, but is actually the President of the Government of Spain. In fact, the Government itself says President of the Government...so shall we rename this article too? Similar issues apply to Italy. Are you hereby proposing to change this name? Should we rename the British Prime Minister the "First Lord of the Treasury"? Where does this madness end? I call upon you, oh great Josh, to finally come to terms with the fact that you are not infallible, that there are FACTS that blatantly contradict your position and that you are the lone voice opting for the ridiculous assertion that Lower Saxony is an independent, secessionist entity that has its own "Prime Minister". In Germany, we call the "Prime Minister" the "Chancellor". Leicchaucer (talk) 18:37, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Leicchaucer, your claims are simply unfounded:
 * "1) common sense (a Prime Minister is patently the leader of an independent state" No, prime minister does not mean that we are talking about an "independent state" - Lower Saxony is not an independent state but it is a state in its own right, not just an administrative unit.
 * "2) facts (the Constitution of the State of Lower Saxony in its official translation establishes the term "Minister-President" as the one to be used." There's no such thing as an official (i.e. binding) translation).
 * "3) standards of appropriateness: I find the whole insistence on a patently incorrect title unsettling" presuppoeses that Josh's preferred term is incorrect. But actually, it is just as correct as Prime Minister or Premier. The issue is about what the most common term is.
 * How can you complain about Josh trying to push legalese when you are (invested with the authority of being a lawyer, which is both irrelevant and uncheckable at WP) claim that there are officially binding translations and nonsense like prime minister must refer to indpendent nation sates.
 * "If Mr McAllister proclaimed himself Emperor tomorrow, would we accept this claim?" We would truthfully report his proclamation, which would be a violation of the federal and state constitution. And he wouldn't be using the word Emperor, mind you?
 * "Remember, Josh, that this encyclopaedia is not about what YOU want, but about the user-friendliness for everyone else." Nor is it about what you want. I can't see how Minister-President is more user-friendly than Prime Minister.
 * "people would ask. Has Lower Saxony declared independence?" Nobody would be asking that!!!
 * "The Prime Minister of Spain is known as such in Wiki, but is actually the President of the Government of Spain. In fact, the Government itself says President of the Government...so shall we rename this article too?" You are making Josh's case here. According to your reasoning, we would have to rename that article (and many others) to reflect the Spanish term more closely. The Prime Minister of Spain is called that way because the term is more common - the same reasoning goes for the Prime Minister of Lower Saxony.
 * "Should we rename the British Prime Minister the "First Lord of the Treasury"?" We do have an article of that name, which should inform you of the reasons why we shouldn't be doing it.
 * "Where does this madness end?" Maybe when some editors are held responsible for personal attacks?
 * "that you are the lone voice opting for the ridiculous assertion that Lower Saxony is an independent, secessionist entity that has its own "Prime Minister"." Well, the facts are that YOU, Leicchaucer, are the lone voice voicing the ridiculous assertion that the term "prime minister" involves independence or secessionism.
 * "In Germany, we call the "Prime Minister" the "Chancellor"." No, in Germany we call the federal prime minister Federal Chancellor.
 * Str1977 (talk) 09:57, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * You are clearly not here to write an encyclopedia, and no, I'm not the only one who insists that we stick to what reliable sources say instead of your original research. Your comments are not really worth any reply beyond this. Anyone can say they're lawyers when they are anonymous - it simply doesn't matter, Wikipedia is based on reliable secondary sources. Final stop. We have now established that Prime Minister is the common English term, used officially by the government in English, and used by countless reliable secondary sources in English. There is nothing more to discuss. Josh Gorand (talk) 18:44, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Arrogance and condescension in spades. That's all you have to offer, my friend. Wikipedia is indeed based on reliable secondary sources. The problem is that you are clearly ignoring those sources that don't suit you. I note that you avoid the answers to uncomfortable questions that you don't like. Who are you to decide a discussion is over? "We" have "established" nothing here, Josh. Your half-knowledge is startling and your arrogance even more so. You have no right to dictatorially end a discussion on here. You are not an admin and not even a long-standing user, unlike myself. So kindly take your comments and...well, I'm sure you as an enlightened person will know the rest. My knowledge of the law is at least as extensive as yours, if not even more so. All I can see is that your claim (and that's all it is) stands against mine and of the third group that (understandably) says that we should use Minister-President. Your assertions have no solid, qualitative or logical foundation whatsoever, which is the reason why you resort to insults, personal attacks and baseless assertions. In the process, you manage to contradict yourself (which you obviously and understandably don't like...who would if they were exposed as an intellectual phony?) several times. So kindly spare me your pompous and incredibly uncooperative attitude. Or do you have an link to an official document with the status of a prime document (like, say, a constitution or an ordinance of the Lower Saxony government) that settles this issue? I don't think you do and, as you correctly said elsewhere, a website could have been edited by any "random webmaster" with only basic knowledge of English. You seriously want to suggest that we substitute the judgment of such a person for the Constitution of Lower Saxony? I suggest that we refer to the chief executive of Lower Saxony as the Premier or the Minister-President of Lower Saxony and add "that the government of Lower Saxony on its website prefers the term "Prime Minister", whilst other states use the terms "State Premier" (NRW) or Minister-President". I will call upon an admin to make a final decision based on the facts. I shall certainly not stand for one neophyte editor to hold Wikipedia hostage to his lack of logic or knowledge on the usage of official terms in the English language. Leicchaucer (talk) 19:23, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * David McAllister certainly does enjoy calling himself Prime Minister as I have read. However, looking at the English pages of the local government (Niedersächsischer Landtag) – they also use Minister-President. (See here). So now I'm wondering what we're going to do. User:Leicchaucer has certainly hit the nail on the head that we're going to need more than one person's arguments to gain consensus and unfortunately there aren't more people daring to add to this discussion. Having read Josh's ferocious arguments, I'm not surprised. I concede to wanting to give up so that someone I don't even know gets what they want because something like this isn't worth losing sleep about. Those who shout the loudest usually get what they want anyway. But this whole discussion, spreading out onto other talk pages, needs to be centralised, summarised thoroughly and reflected upon. With such a thing, consensus may change over time. But judging on the things I've heard and read, and being a native English speaker in Germany, I feel quite strongly about having anything other than "Minister-President" as a translation of Ministerpräsident. One may argue that this isn't helpful for the layman when it comes to German politics, but let's face it, the odd person coming to Wikipedia to read about German politics, if he knows nothing about it, is going to want to read about what a Ministerpräsident is and does to get to know more about the subject. And calling a head of a local/regional parliament a "Prime Minister" does absolutely nothing but to obfuscate the matter even further. I don't think Premier is a great translation either, but at least "Lower Saxony State Premier" is better than Prime Minister. Germany does not have Prime Ministers, it has Ministerpräsidenten. If anyone is going to be the Prime Minister here, isn't it going to be Merkel? Before I studied German, I thought it was strange how the chancellor could be the head of state as I only knew the Chancellor of the Exchequer; but just because someone doesn't know what a Ministerpräsident is, that doesn't mean I have to give him a strange, unrelated translation and then awkwardly try to explain what it means. Ministerpräsident = Minister-President; I can look it up on Wikipedia here (if the article has been written well by fellow Wikipedians...). But as I wanted to point out before, all of the other interwikis in other languages have no problem in explaining, simply, what a Minister-President is as a direct translation (or even transliteration if you like) from the German language. German has, admittedly, a number of fauxs amis, but this, I truly believe, is not one of them. Come on, you'd call a Ministerpräsident a Minister-President, just like you'd call a spade a spade! Jared Preston (talk) 22:28, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * If you think the Prime Minister of Lower Saxony is head of a "local" "parliament", you have got it all wrong. The prime minister is head of a state government of a state with 8 million inhabitants. He has ministers, under-secretaries and so on. He's not the head of the parliament at all. I really find it pathetic how certain users continue to pretend that I'm the only one who supports Prime Minister, when the official term has been supported by several users on this very talk page and additional users on other related talk pages. Instead of walls of text with personal theories and insults, you could both come up with some reliable sources that are better than the official English language website of the government or the BBC. Btw., the Chancellor is not the head of state. If you feel strongly about the titles of German politicians, you should at the very least make yourself familiar with the basics of German politics. This discussion could and should have ended when we found the link to the official English language website of the government (and additional English secondary sources). This is an enormous waste of time, time that could have been used to write and expand articles instead. Josh Gorand (talk) 00:03, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * You're not the only one who supports Prime-Minister, I know. But on the other hand, we wouldn't be having this discussion if the suggestion wasn't objected to in the first place. In all honesty, if we're going to use the BBC as a reliable source then we should admit it is not that reliable since they, too, also use other terms than Prime-Minister when referring to Ministerpräsidenten; just like the state government does too. The second external link, from your preferred website, Josh, also calls Ernst Albrecht "the [former] Minister President of Lower Saxony" (without hyphenation). Jared Preston (talk) 07:33, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Josh, with all due respect, but you’re the one throwing around insults and deterring others with your bullying nature and hectoring style from further contributing to this discussion. Maybe your grasp of mathematics isn’t strong and if so, I apologise for being harsh. So, let’s see how many people advocated the term “Prime Minister” and how many advocated other terms:
 * Prime Minister: JoshGorand
 * Premier and Minister-President: Leicchaucer, JaredPreston, Dodo19, Bibfile, Boson, kingjeff
 * I think it's safe to say that the consensus goes against your position, Josh.
 * In addition, the following English language news sources have referred to the head of the Lower Saxony government as “Premier”: Reuters, the BBC, the Financial Times, the Deutsche Welle, The Guardian, Agence France Presse, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Independent, Bloomberg, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, The Times, Fortune, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Straits Times, the Irish Times, The Scotsman, The Economist, Time, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The Daily Telegraph, the English language edition of Der Spiegel
 * You will find that all your reliable news sources have been comprehensively rebutted. In fact, I have provided the editors with a greater number of reliable news sources than you have. You will also find that corporations such as Thyssen Krupp, RWE, Deutsche Telekom and the Deutsche Messe AG (with its seat in Hanover and merely the organizer of the world’s largest computer fair, namely Cebit!) and even the German federal government refer to Christian Wulff as the “Premier of Lower Saxony”!
 * There is also the small matter of the Lower Saxony state constitution calling the office “Minister-President”. The prime legal document of the state, the English translation of which was published by the Lower Saxony Parliament for the perusal of (among others) diplomats and international jurists, does not refer to the office as “Prime Minister”. That’s a clear fact. Plus, as Lower Saxony is not an independent nation and comparable to an Australian state or a Canadian province, the term "Premier" strikes me as the most appropriate.
 * The fact that you are unable and/or unwilling to even acknowledge that is deeply unsettling – it’s a denial of clear facts. What disturbs me even more, though, is your skewed sense of what is a reliable source. Amongst the sources you quote is this article from The Trumpet. It is the “newspaper” (if you want to call it that) of the “Philadelphia Church of God”. Now, maybe I have missed something – but I haven’t really seen The Trumpet win a Pulitzer Prize lately or being a recognised news publication. Instead, the article talks in apocalyptical terms about the end of the world and how there might be a government “with radical ambitions” being installed in Berlin soon. Now, if that’s not an unreliable source I don’t know what is.
 * Finally, you have a habit of using “weasel phrases” on Wikipedia, including “it has been established” or “many commentators say” and the like. One of the first things I learnt at Bar School was to make an argument and back it up with sources. The problem with you, as with some editors on Wikipedia, is that you just make a claim based on your whim and fail to support it with anything of substance. When you’re called on it, you complain, insult, become aggressive and fail to show any recognition of new facts. That's immature and childish behaviour.
 * In conclusion, your view on the matter has been discredited and overruled, bears no substance to reality whatsoever – I shall revert any edit of the word Prime Minister in the context of Lower Saxony to “Premier” from now onwards until this matter has been properly resolved. I call upon you one last time, Josh, to make way and not block the further development of this and other Lower Saxony-related articles. It’s not your private playground, but a proper encyclopaedia. If you can’t bear that in mind, then I suggest that your energy may be spent more efficiently elsewhere. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Leicchaucer (talk • contribs) 08:35, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * "Prime Minister: JoshGorand
 * "Premier and Minister-President: Leicchaucer, JaredPreston, Dodo19, Bibfile, Boson, kingjeff
 * "I think it's safe to say that the consensus goes against your position, Josh."
 * Can you get more dishonest, Leicchaucer. You clearly were not looking for any other proponent of prime minister, while you listed every opponent you could find (and the posting below shows that even that list is wrong).
 * WP is indeed a proper encyclopedia (or should be) and hence nonsensical theories about "secessionism" should be treated as the nonsense they are. Str1977 (talk) 10:05, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Leicchaucer, thank you for once again demonstrating how dishonest you really are. Your ranting is not worthy of an answer, because you are not here to write an encyclopedia, as evidenced by your behaviour. Your comments consist exclusively of outright lies (as the repeated claims that I'm the only one supporting Prime Minister), strawmen, personal attacks and walls of text with ridiculous personal theories that are totally inappropriate for an encyclopedia. Josh Gorand (talk) 15:46, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Josh, you have been presented with clear facts, namely:
 * - the Lower Saxony constitution
 * - sources from quality newspapers and other media organisations that rebutted every one of your spurious claims
 * - press releases from major corporations
 * - the usage of the term "Premier" by the State of NRW
 * - the lack of a uniform term
 * - The German Foreign Office clearly stipulating another term
 * - a federal government press release that clearly recognises Christian Wulff as the Premier
 * You choose to ignore them, as they don't suit you. Whilst two more editors seem to be open to using "Prime Minister", I don't think that this can overturn the sources presented. Rather than addressing each of these arguments in turn, you are the one insulting and insinuating against anyone not spouting your random theories. It's people like you who ruin Wikipedia as a credible source of information. It's funny how you fail to recognise that my arguments have any merit whatsoever. You are the one spreading ill will and "outright lies" about the sources to be used. You were the one choosing to use the website of a sectarian organisation in support of an extremely tenuous theory. I have asked you repeatedly to provide either a) the text of an official ordinance by the State of Lower Saxony stipulating the term "Prime Minister" or b) a formal government release. You provide neither but persist with showing no flexibility, no acknowledgment of official sources other than the ones that suit you or baseless arguments about "personal theories". Could you quote one example of a "personal theory" that I used? Yours is a totalitarian approach to processing information - taking the bits that suit you and leaving everything else aside. THAT is intellectual dishonesty at its finest. So thank you for showing the shallowness of your intellect once again. Nonetheless, I don't know you and have no personal animus against you. What I do have an animus against is the lack of even seeing merit in the other side's argument. Not even the attempt of a compromise. Yes, I have been rough in my rhetoric, because I feel passionate about looking at all angles of an argument. Wikipedia is not about a "my way or the highway" approach, as you have advocated more than once (I won't bother posting all the stuff you have used as a reply to other editors' reasoned arguments). It's about collaborating. No personal offence was intended and, if I did indeed cause any, I sincerely apologise.
 * On that note, I'm happy to defer to the results of a vote being taken on the matter. I apologise to any editor whose opinion I summarised incorrectly in the heat of the moment. This was indeed my mistake and I shall use my judgment more wisely. I would ask the other editors to kindly look at all the sources before making a decision. The Lower Saxony State Government's judgment can surely not be substituted for the state's constitution from which the government derives its authority in the first place. Leicchaucer (talk) 17:00, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Leicchaucer,
 * You first complain that Josh supposedly ignores evindence contrary to his favoured term, stating (correctly) that there is a lack of a uniform (English) term exist but then you turn around to state: "Whilst two more editors seem to be open to using "Prime Minister", I don't think that this can overturn the sources presented." The sources presented do not prejudice the issue in this or that way - in the end we need to decide for ourselves.
 * Apologies on your part are pointless, when you keep on repeating the same old nonsense: "The Lower Saxony State Government's judgment can surely not be substituted for the state's constitution from which the government derives its authority in the first place." - Nobody is doing this. But the constitution uses a German term and its female form and hence says nothing about our issue. Also, a German state constitution has no authority on the English language. Str1977 (talk) 07:45, 6 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I would like to point out that I am advocating neither of the three terms discussed, I am merely asking to consider sources giving "Minister-President" and, indeed, "Premier" on their merits, and not to dismiss them out of hand for not being in line with the source one editor considers the only reliable one. I can see how the impression that I advocated a specific term developed, though. Bibfile (talk) 09:02, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * And I for my part do support "prime minister" as it appears to me to be most common term used, based on the evidence. I could live with "Minister-President" (and will not engage in nitpicking arguments about hypens and capitalisation), and if it must be, even "Premier", but cannot live with nonsensical and pretentious pseudo-discussions that merely push their little pet theories about how any of these three terms is unsuitable, incorrect or wrong, implying this or that. Str1977 (talk) 10:10, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The problem is that there is no 'correct' answer as this office is not in an English speaking country thus any English name will be some sort of translation. Like you I support "prime minister" and for the same reasons as you.  I agree with your suggestion below that in this case we have simple poll, with all sides accepting that there is no perfect solution. Martin Hogbin (talk) 11:48, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the solution of a simple representative poll, retaining to discuss

Voting has started here. Kingjeff (talk) 03:06, 6 July 2010 (UTC)


 * 1) We use discussion and consensus, not voting at Wikipedia. See Voting.


 * 2) You cannot just start a vote, not even without any prior discussion relating directly to what you propose to vote over, on the relevant page. You also cannot expect people to be familiar with the Christian Wulff talk page before they vote. A vote where only the ones who have been following the Christian Wulff discussion are able to take part is meaningless and premature.


 * 3) The question of whether all heads of government of Germany should have the same English title (i.e. the topic of your proposed vote) is a different question than the question being discussed here (which is merely which title is correct in the case of Lower Saxony, we haven't looked thoroughly into sources relating to other states), and is a question that would need more discussion. The fact that the title of the head of government of one state is Prime Minister, doesn't automatically mean that the same is case in other states. I think we always would have to look at reliable sources relating to a particular office.


 * 4) At this time, I think such a vote that you have proposed is not relevant, because voting is generally not used at Wikipedia and because no general discussion over the question has yet taken place, and (especially) an uninformed and premature vote doesn't carry any weight. Josh Gorand (talk) 05:37, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * 1. Thank you for providing us with the link to the entries about voting on wikipedia. I am sure no one else would have been able to find it without your help. Also, thanks for telling us about using discussion consensus, I'm sure nobody has ever heard about it.

By the way, have you read all the articles on that page?


 * 2. While there is a point that the vote may have been started a little hastily, there has been a very brief discussion about it beforehand. However, you chose to lock yourself into conflict with another editor at the time and probably had no time to notice where the efforts in finding a solution were going.


 * 3. I thought that we had established that stating things 'the title IS Prime Minister' or 'the title IS Minister-President' are not really helpful, as the title IS 'Ministerpräsident' in German and our discussion is mostly about usage in the English language. A number of sources for either have been mentioned both for the case of Lower Saxony and other states, and the discussion has started to spill over into determining which term we might use for the other 12 German states with Ministerpräsidenten, as some of us think that it might be advisable to use a consistent translation into English for one and the same German term for an office.

Bibfile (talk) 07:42, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * A discussion at a more general level at WikiProject Germany or some other place could be helpful, but I think the vote was started prematurely and is not going to be helpful given the way it was started and the lack of prior discussion, which also means that those who haven't already taken part in/read the discussion on this page will not have any clue what the problem is all about. Also, I suspect that most people paying attention to that page are users from the German Wikipedia who aren't native English speakers, and I don't think a vote trumps sources.


 * I suggest we don't vote at this time, but that we continue the discussion at a page other than the Christian Wulff talk page instead. We haven't yet discussed the idea of using the same title for the heads of government of all German states (regardless of what sources relating to the individual states say?) thoroughly and we (almost) haven't looked into sources relating to other states either. In the case of German states, it's not that simple either, since several of them used to be fully independent, and were semi-independent even in the Weimar Republic era, and even today are considered states in their own right. Where do we draw the line? Also, there no need to rush anything, and end up with a result that will be need to be reversed at a later time. Josh Gorand (talk) 08:17, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Because of the RfC, I think we need to keep the discussion here for a little while, but I agree that it would be better if a centralized discussion took place elsewhere, rather than repeat this discussion on all pages that mention a German Ministerpräsident. If conflicts were not already in progress, the WT:GER page might have been a sensible choice since many of the people who are knowledgeable about Germany and/or the German language and translation look in there. Since, in German, the same term is used for the heads of all Länder, it would seem sensible to use the same term for the heads of all the constituent states in English as well. I also agree that is is better to do it slowly and get it right. In the meantime we should probably also keep other articles as they were before this issue arose here. As regards the active membership of WP:WikiProject Germany, I believe it includes native English speakers who have studed or taught German history, constitutional law, etc. at university level. Because of the desirability of consistency across articles, similar issues have previously been discussed there. Josh, I'm not sure what you mean about some of the German states being considered states in their own right even today. Some use terms like Freistaat in their name but this does not imply that they are constitutionally independent of the German federal state, except to the extent that in a federal state, such as Germany or the USA, all the constituent states can be said to retain some measure of sovereignty. Foreign affairs, for instance, are the sole responsibilty of the federal level (Article 73).--Boson (talk) 17:39, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Since you understand German, check out de:Land (Deutschland): "Die Länder sind nach Rechtsprechung und herrschender Ansicht in der Rechtswissenschaft originäre Staatsrechtssubjekte. Gemäß Artikel 32 Absatz 3 Grundgesetz hat ihnen der Bund zudem beschränkte Völkerrechtssubjektivität verliehen. Dementsprechend können die Länder Verträge mit anderen Völkerrechtssubjekten abschließen". Josh Gorand (talk) 08:32, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, the Länder (all of them) have a very limited capacity to act as subjects of international law. Article 32 GG states (using the trabslation at iuscomp.org) Relations with foreign states shall be conducted by the Federation. In those areas of law for which the Länder are exclusively responsible, they may conclude treaties with foreign states, but only with the consent of the Federal Government. I would be interested to see if that consent would be forthcoming for a treaty signed by someone calling himself "Prime Minister". The Länder do indeed conclude treaties, not only with each other but also with neighbouring countries. I believe Lower Saxony did once contend that they didn't neeed the federal government's consent to conclude a concordat with the Holy See, because the Holy See was not a foreign state; in the event, it was irrelevant because another concordat provided that the federal government's consent was required. It did occur to me that one difference between a minister-president and a prime minister is that the former may have some functions of a head of state, while the latter is only a head of government. --Boson (talk) 15:36, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The states are states in their own right, which historically and ontologically pre-existed the federation they entered. Their sovereignity now is of course limited by the provisions of the constitution but still they are not mere units of administration of the FRG. In fact, the existence of states is one of the elements unchangeable under the constitution.
 * And again, this nonsense pops up: "It did occur to me that one difference between a minister-president and a prime minister is that the former may have some functions of a head of state, while the latter is only a head of government."
 * That's just sheer nonsense. German states do not have an actual head of state. Functions that in other states are typically exercised by the head of state of course are exercised by somebody else, either by the Prime Minister of the state or by the President of parliament. That makes neither head of state. But most importantly this has nothing to do with differences in what English term to use. Nothing in the word "Ministerpräsident" suggests head-of-state-like qualities (and a Prime Minister could do just the same) and I would be glad if people didn't constantly pop up and repeat such nonsense.


 * I don't think there is any question about the existence of the states. I was addressing what I perceived as an implication that, although the German term Ministerpräsident is used for most of the states, different terms (e.g. prime minister rather than minister-president) should possibly be used in English for some states, based on some sort of greater independence of some states. Otherwise, I don't know why the point was raised. I was pointing out that, whatever the history, German constituent states now have very limited powers with regard to foreign relations. I'm not sure why you state that " they are not mere units of administration of the FRG"; this seems obvious, but irrelevant to my point, which referred to articles 73 and 32 of the Grundgesetz, which together strictly limit the sovereignty of the constituent states in foreign affairs.
 * "Sheer nonsense" seems a litte exaggerated (not to say unhelpful). I don't think anyone was suggesting that German Länder have an "actual head of state". The point I was addressing is that, when translating cultural or institutional terms, one has various choices, the obvious two being (a) a calque/loan translation (such as "minister-president") or (b) a cultural equivalent (such as "prime minister"). Obviously, the "cultural equivalent" translation is apropriate only if the institutions in the two countries are equivalent and the target language is associated with one particular country. So differences in the respective functions of an English prime minister and a German Ministerpräsident are relevant in deciding whether "prime minister" is an adequate tanslation. One obvious difference is that a British prime minister is the head of government of a unitary, internationally recognized sovereign state (in the definition used for UN membership), while a  German Ministerpräsident is the head of a constituent state of a federal, internationally recognized sovereign state; his or her powers may go beyond those of a pure head of government in a parliamentary democracy, and may include powers normally associated with a head of state (precisely because there is no separate head of state). If one wanted to use a cultural translation, "governor" would also be a candidate (if writing for an American rather than Commonwealth readership). The question of whether to use a "cultural" translation or a calque (loan translation) is important, because the popular press may be more inclined to use a cultural equivalent, whereas reference works and serious academic studies would probably favour a calque, so as not to suggest inappropriate equivalences.
 * Wondering about your talk of administrative units, it occurs to me that you may have misinterpreted my previous use of the term "constituent state" to imply something like "administrative unit", but that was not intended; I usually avoid the (mis-) use of the term "federal state" in this sense, and other readers might not be familiar with more specific terms. --Boson (talk) 10:08, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately I have my doubts that a poll is going to provide us with a solution.Bibfile (talk) 06:02, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * There is no 'correct' answer to this question. A poll seems the only way to prevent endless discussion in which no side is ever going to be able to prove its case.  Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:25, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I wasn't referring to a 'correct' answer, I know there is none, or three, or four, or x. My doubts were about the vote bringing about a (temporary) end of the conflict, but I certainly hope that I'm wrong. Bibfile (talk) 21:36, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe you're right. I for my part will accept the result of the poll and still hope that given that an outcome has been reached, the exchange of false and nonsensical claims and theories aiming at reaching an outcome will also stop. Postings like "X is still better as it is more common" however valid and don't bother me much. Str1977 (talk) 11:07, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Since the RfC has expired, can we now close this, and the earlier discussion as "no consensus"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Boson (talk • contribs) 21:12, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Continuity as Head of State
Just a question here. Is the information listed correctly in the infobox where is states that he directly replaced Horst Köhler? Or can it be replaced with Jens Böhrnsen who served as acting President from the time of HK's resignation to CW's appointment. I don't know what the actual policy is so I do not wish to make an edit only to have it instantly reverted once a more familar editor examines it. I am aware that it was known that JB was acting, but by stating that the previous was HK leaves a vacuum in the dates that we all know was filled by JB; and on most other articles pertaining to offices, it is usually presented in a one-by-one order regardless of whether the individual was standing or permanent. Can someone explain the situation here? Evlekis (Евлекис) 08:01, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * There is a difference of opinion whether Jens Böhrnsen was head of state at all, and there is little doubt that in the official count of Presidents of Germany Horst Köhler was Wulff's predecessor. See the discussion above on this page, titled 'Succession' Bibfile (talk) 08:10, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * But the whole position is merely a token isn't it? There is nothing realistic about the office, and it was promulgated in places that Böhrnsen presided, and says so in his article. Evlekis (Евлекис) 09:10, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * As I said, there is a difference of opinion about Böhrnsen's status as head of state, which is also reflected in the discussion about the inclusion of a sucession box on his page, I think.Bibfile (talk) 09:20, 12 July 2010 (UTC)


 * There is no difference of opinion among the reliable sources that have been found (in large quantities) so far, they all agree Böhrnsen was head of state. There is, however, a difference of opinion among the sources (that include the entire German and world press and the German government) and a small number of Wikipedians who have read and interpreted some primary source material for themselves (that they didn't understand). Josh Gorand (talk) 09:47, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Need for a refresh of the middle sections of this article
A number of sections in this article discussing Wulff's history were clearly written around 2005, and discuss the uncertain result of 2005 elections, the uncertainty around whether he will run for Chancellor, etc, in the present tense. I don't have enough knowledge of what did happen to edit, but it would be helpful if someone who does could edit the text from a 2011 perspective. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.231.172.154 (talk) 13:53, 27 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Done Alandeus (talk) 08:31, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

pronunciation
Isn't German rhotic and, therefore, wouldn't the r at the end of Walter be pronounced, albeit softly? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.103.145 (talk) 21:05, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

primie vs mini-pres consistency
while all other German Ministerpräsidenten are called mini-pres the low saxon Ministerpräsidenten are called prime ministers on wiki - it's the same job and the same title (Ministerpräsident) so why use different terms ??? please be consitent and either call all German Ministerpräsidenten minister-president or primier pr prime minister or landlord ;) consistency_guy17:45, 1 November 2011 (UTC)46.5.184.243 (talk) 17:45, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Loan-scandal of Dec. 2011
The loan-scandal has been mentioned insufficiently yet. 2.210.43.153 (talk) 20:54, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Added a couple of paragraphs with appropriate sources and references. Should be sufficient. (i.e please don't bloat.) Alandeus (talk) 08:23, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Kai Diekmann accused him of lying about the phone call shortly after the interview. --79.246.111.27 (talk) 15:47, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Is this true? Maybe. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/world/europe/germany-president-christian-wulff-stops-publication-of-threatening-call-to-bild.html--Däädaa (talk) 03:08, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Prime Minister
The consensus, per Wikipedia policies, is to use Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, because
 * this is the title of that article, see Prime Minister of Lower Saxony
 * This is the official title used by the Lower Saxon government, see http://www.international.niedersachsen.de/en/home.html
 * This is the title preferred by English language sources, as established previously

The title "Minister-President" is not used by the Lower Saxon government and is the least common term among English language sources, as established previously. It is also not the title of the article on that office, which is Prime Minister of Lower Saxony. Replacing the link to the article on the office with that of a redirect will be considered vandalism. Josh Gorand (talk) 06:42, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I, along with many other people, have gone over this with you. Stop your point of view pushing. Kingjeff (talk) 21:02, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
 * it does not make much sence to call the Ministerpräsident of one german state Primie and all the other Ministerpräsidenten Mini-Prez. That's STUPID! Ether call all Primier or call them all Mini-Pres. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.5.184.243 (talk) 11:00, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia articles are based on reliable sources. The Lower Saxon government and reliable sources in the English language use Prime Minister. We don't use Ministerpräsidenten as this is not the German Wikipedia. Josh Gorand (talk) 18:03, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The Lower Saxon government holds no expertise in the English Language. In general the English in documents issued by official German agencies is abysmally bad. This is the international English Wikipedia and we do use native words if no proper English translation exists. English speakers would never associate "Prime Minister" with the job of a Ministerpräsident. Most dictionaries render Ministerpräsident as "Governor of a German state". &#9798; CUSH &#9798; 19:16, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
 * This has been extensively debated, and it has been demonstrated that English language sources prefer the term Prime Minister of Lower Saxony. English language sources do generally not use the term "Governor of a German state" (which is your unsourced OR, and which is factually incorrect as well). This is the English language Wikipedia, and we use the English language term, as established by English language reliable secondary and official sources. We do not use the German language here at the English Wikipedia (I would also assume that the current Prime Minister, a native English speaker, holds some expertise in his own native language (Official English site of the Lower Saxon government, which uses the term Prime Minister and where the Prime Minister signs as Prime Minister). In general, official sources carry significant weight here at the English Wikipedia, and the Lower Saxon government consistently uses the term Prime Minister in English. When the term used by the official source is also the term preferred by most English language secondary sources, there is nothing to debate. It has also been decided to name the article on the office Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, its stable name for the duration of several years. So the calls to use something else are all based on original research, and not on reliable sources and policy. I encourage everyone who wants to join this debate to first read all the previous debate on this issue, the results of which was, inter alia, that the name of the article on the office remains Prime Minister of Lower Saxony. Josh Gorand (talk) 20:08, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
 * then all German Ministerpräsidenten shpould be called prime minister by wiki, it does NOT make senece to call one Ministerpräsident prime minister and all others minister-president on wikipedia; wiki calls all german Länder states and not one land the other one province the next one region or county or country, and all german (Land-)Kreise are called district in wikipedia and not one county and the other one circle and an other one region or department or parish, and I'm pretty shure if someone would check out all the webpages of those Kreise or as en.wiki calls them district some of them would call themself region or county or even cirle and not distirct, so according to abouve statement that the lower saxon Ministerpräsident should be calld Prime minister while all the other Ministerpräsidenten are calld Minister-president on english wikipedia all those Kreise/districts that call them selfs region or county on the english version of their webpage should be renamed to county, region... Right ? and i'm also not shure if all the German Länder call themselves states on their pages either so if those call themselves diffrent as well they should be calld diffrent in en.wiki... Right ? 10:50, 21 February 2012 (UTC)10:50, 21 February 2012 (UTC)~Consistency? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.5.184.243 (talk)
 * http://www.german-business-portal.info/GBP/Navigation/en/Country-Information/Rheinland-Pfalz/rheinland-pfalz.html here Rheinland-Palatinate (Rheinland-Pflaz) uses country and region and not state; and Lower Saxony call itself federal state and not state, so I guess we should change the States of Germany page
 * english wikipedia calls all other Ministerpräsidenen minister-president and not prime minister - there should be consistancy, it does not make sence to call one Ministerpräsident prime minister and the otehr Ministerpräsidenten minister-president - chose one and use it for all Ministerpräsidenten178.210.114.106 (talk) 16:11, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

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Scandals, resignation and final acquittal
It would be useful to mention the real reason for the media-show against Wulff. He read the so called laws before signing and similar to Koehler before, refused to sign it when against the so called constitution. That was a no-go for the puppeteer. 2001:E68:543D:905:983D:9A0A:2248:4B87 (talk) 12:12, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

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