Talk:Memel

Spelling
Is "coverted" supposed to be "converted" or "coveted" or "covered"? -phma

NPOV
I tried for NPOV, but can someone who didn't write this please check the facts. The previous version was full of references to the "German Reich", which is simply wrong for the period after WWI, and extraneous stuff about Prussia. Vicki Rosenzweig

Merge Memel and Klaipeda
What do you think about joining articles Memel and Klaipeda into one under the name Klaipeda, and leaving this one as a redirect link? I think, having two articles about the same city a bit excessive. //Darius Mazeika

Formatting of a disambiguation page
Matthead regarding your last edits to this page please see the guideline Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) and more specifically the section "Individual entries" bullet point 2. --Philip Baird Shearer 08:58, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Memel redirect to the city or the disambiguation page
As Memel in German refers to City and/or River, I've changed the redirect into a disamb. --Matthead 22:33, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
 * In the English language, Memel almost always refers to the city and not the river. I am redirecting Memel to Klaipėda again, and the latter article already has a disambiguation for the river at its introduction. Olessi 03:48, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Reverted. River and town are different things, and the different meanings of Memel need to be clearly explained, not hidden in some longer article. That's what disamb. and various tags in Wikipedia are for. --Matthead 04:00, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

When there are only two items in a disambiguation page and one item is referred to significantly more than the other, I do not see the need for a disambiguation page. However, I will add additional information from the interwikis and conform this page with the Manual of Style. Also feel free to read through Hatnotes. Olessi 05:12, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Darius Mazeika and Olessi. Most (all?) of the the internal links to Nemel are to Memel/Klaipeda and a google search returns far more pages to the city than the river --Philip Baird Shearer 10:34, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
 * about 15,700 English pages for Memel Klaipeda -wikipedia
 * about 575 English pages for Memel Neman -wikipedia


 * Thank you for your interest in this matter and your attempt to clarify it. In addition to your Google counts, I've also tried some other, possibly related words. Here are the results in ascending order:
 * 316 English pages for Maas Neman -wikipedia
 * 554 English pages for Memel Neman -wikipedia
 * 15,100 English pages for Memel Klaipeda -wikipedia
 * 28,300 English pages for Neman Lithuania -wikipedia
 * 36,900 English pages for Memel Lithuania -wikipedia
 * 37,300 English pages for Memel Maas -wikipedia
 * 38,300 English pages for Memel Prussia -wikipedia
 * 68,600 English pages for Memel Germany -wikipedia
 * Do these results speak for themselves? Please acknowledge that the predominant use of Memel in English language is in connection to both the river and the city, as they are related to the history of Prussia, Germany and Das Lied der Deutschen (which BTW is not is not linked in the article). This outnumbers interest in the current situation and names. Please revert your moves and make Memel an article of its own in which the historic development and different uses are explained, rather than a simple redirect that bypasses the disambiguation and explanation. People who are interested in present Klaipeda or Neman can go there directly, but those who want to inquire about Memel deserve to be told about Memel first. Thank you in advance! --Matthead 17:15, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Reference of "Das Lied der Deutschen" was added in 2004. If you are referring to the Memel disambiguation, the Manual of Style says to avoid overlinking. Olessi 15:07, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Interesting as you list is most of them do not search in such as way as to differenciate between City and River, which is all I wanted to show. I do not "acknowledge that the predominant use of Memel in English language is in connection to both the river and the city". The city but not the river. This is not just from blog sites but also from other encyclopaedia usage: See also: 1911 Britannica states that it can be both but puts the town first and states the river can be either.
 * http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/Neman Columbia list the River as "Neman (nyĕ`mən), Ger. Memel,"
 * http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/Klaipeda Columbis also states Klaipeda, formerly Memel
 * http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9051935
 * http://www.britannica.com/ebc/article-9373213?query=belarus&ct=
 * http://54.1911encyclopedia.org/M/ME/MEMEL_RIVER_.htm

So given historic and modern usage in ENGLISH I think the Memel redirect should point to Klaipeda with a line at the top to the Memel (disambiguation) page. There is no need to have a sperate article on Memel town or river because they were once German, there is not one for the Königsberg or the Danube, or in the United Kingdom for Derry and Londonderry --Philip Baird Shearer 17:51, 26 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, I'm kind of puzzled that you denounce your previous Google counts as "just from blog sites", but consider this as a sign that you are willing and able to change your mind. Yet, the sources you provide now also prove my point rather than yours:
 * http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/Memel Disambiguates between "Memel, city, Lithuania" and "Memel, river, E Europe"
 * http://www.britannica.com/search?query=Memel Disambiguates between 16 entries, starting with "Memel dispute", "Klaipeda", "Neman River"
 * 1911 Britannica both has entries on Memel town and Memel river, but does not contain the terms "Klaipeda" and "Neman" at all, illustrating that these are rather modern developments, compared to over 600 years of previous history. Another document (forgotten by some?), called Treaty of Versailles, does refer to Memel only, also. The Memelland dispute of 1923 and after (which not only refers to the city and the river, but to the area in between) is also not mentioned in the disamb-article. So, once again I recommend to revert your moves, as Memel has several different, geographically and historically important meanings, and is not only a former name of a city, as implied by your redirect. --Matthead 21:46, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Of course BE 1911 does not use the term Klaipeda it was written pre 1914! Any English document pre-1914 is likely to use Memel for the city, which is what this dispute between you and me is about. BE 1911 uses starts "MEMEL, or NIEMEN, a river of Russia and Prussia" So although it does not use the spelling "Neman" it does use the spelling "Niemen". The primary meaning in ENGLISH is the town.

The reason for emphasising the Encyclopaedias, is because of the guideline Reliable sources, so not only is the term Memel used overwhelmingly on the internet to mean the city (common usage) but it is also used as such in reliable sources. --Philip Baird Shearer 08:41, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Seems best to get more people involved in this debate, see: Wikiquette alerts --Philip Baird Shearer 09:33, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Philip. This is the name of Klaipeda. --Molobo 14:43, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I am a completely uninterested party &mdash; I really don't care which article gets the "first prize" of being the target of Memel. That said, I'll add two cents:  I generally prefer disambig pages when there are a number of alternative links (as the current disambig page currently has).  I also feel that readers unfamiliar with wikipedia tend to miss the disambig links at the top of articles ("for other meaning of the word, see xxx"), so in terms of maximum clarity, I support the disambig page. dewet|✉ 19:06, 27 May 2006 (UTC)