User talk:Markussep/Archive 9

Parishes
Hi, is it possible you could merge the parish templates into ones by district. I think ones like Template:Parishes of Lagoa are too short to really justify being on their own. The point is to improve navigation I think, I'd want to navigate across Faro District by municipality in the same template. How are you getting on with Portugal anyway? What still needs doing?♦ Dr. Blofeld  19:22, 22 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi, the districts of Portugal have been abolished some years ago, so I don't think that merger would be useful. I'm pretty much done with Portugal now, and have been working on Albania lately. There are still many Portuguese parishes without articles, so if you're interested in creating some? Markussep Talk 19:36, 22 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Wrong, districts were never extinct. Your interpretation of the 2013 law is POV. --B.Lameira (talk) 17:31, 6 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I suppose districts are still used informally and in some instances, but most of their responsibilities have been taken over by other bodies. There are no civil governors anymore, are there? Do you mean that they have not been officially abolished in the constitution? If that's correct, we should add that to the Administrative divisions of Portugal article. Markussep Talk 12:45, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Wulmstorf (Thedinghausen)
Hi, did you know about de:Wulmstorf (Thedinghausen) when you moved Wulmstorf, Neu Wulmstorf yesterday? --Aeroid (talk) 08:10, 23 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi, I moved it to Wulmstorf because there was no article with that title yet. If the article about the other village Wulmstorf is created, we could move this one to a disambiguated title. Markussep Talk 21:01, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Coimbra
Hello, Markussep! I'm Portuguese, though I edit predominantly in the Spanish Wikipedia. I've noticed you've edited a lot about Coimbra on the English Wikipedia and that you also have some knowledge of Spanish. I'd thank you, if you can, if you could collaborate with me on editing about Coimbra in the Spanish Wikipedia, since it's quite underdeveloped, in comparison with the English and Portuguese wikipedias. Thanks a lot for your attention! Greetings! Viet-hoian1 (talk) 19:12, 5 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi Viet-hoian, I'm sorry but my Spanish is really basic, certainly not good enough for writing text. But I'm sure there's other people around who can help. Regards, Markussep Talk 19:35, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Cantons of Pyrénées-Orientales
Hello Markussep. I have been working for a long time on the communes and cantons of Pyrénées-Orientales. Please do not destroy former cantons by moving them to new names which do not correspond to the same cantons. I will be reverting those moves as furthermore you are now linking together the wrong pages with other languages. New cantons are yet to be created (I am working on it) and I will then be updating the cantons on all of the 226 communes of Pyrénées-Orientales. Thanks. Poulit (talk) 03:10, 7 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I have been in doubt about some of the cantons that had more or less the same composition but a new name, like for instance the Canton of Thuir that became the Canton of Les Aspres. I wasn't sure whether the old cantons would be worth keeping, but I'm fine with the way you rewrote them. BTW it's been a lot of work implementing the new cantons for all of France, and I'm not finished yet. I suppose someone should implement the changes in the commune articles as well, I'm glad you want to do that for Pyrénées-Orientales. Markussep Talk 08:51, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Cantons of France are not an easy business. I've been doing a lot of work for these on the French Wikipedia (not yet finished in the details but quite advanced), so I am starting now the same on the English Wikipedia. I will also try to do the same for the Gers department (32) and if I find the time for Aude (11) as well. Courage for your corrections to do for the rest of France ! Poulit (talk) 10:08, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Markussep please stop! Moving items around and changing their meaning is bad. Also bold deletion of information is bad. FreightXPress (talk) 21:51, 12 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Not available in English Wikipedia: https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikidata-terminator/?list&lang=en&mode=tx&q=claim[31:(tree[15916867][][279])] FreightXPress (talk) 23:42, 12 May 2015 (UTC)


 * FreightXPress, I don't completely understand what you're trying to tell me here, and what you want me to do with the wmflabs link you added above. I'm updating the articles about the French cantons according to the current situation. If you think the old canton situation should be kept, feel free to add a "history" section, but keep in mind that the borders of cantons have been changed many times. Markussep Talk 11:09, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * You delete information and others are free to re-add it? Is that meant to be generous? Why do you remove the information in the first place? The wmflabs link shows articles that don't exist in the English Wikipedia but in several others. This is so thanks to English Wikipedia merging different topics into combined articles. You are one of the people active in that area. See Danish municipalities for how to do it right. Pre-reform entities have each their own article. Messing around with these entities by merging them and explaining the topic in sub-sections is deteriorating the English Wikipedia. One entity - one article, this is the only proper way. Everything else will lead to mess. FreightXPress (talk) 22:43, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I have a problem with the rude way you describe my edits. I do not simply delete information, I replace outdated information (that wasn't even referenced BTW). I hope you agree that having up-to-date information is preferable to having outdated information. Your comparison with Danish municipalities is not valid, for several reasons. I don't see separate articles about for instance the pre-2007 and pre-1970 Esbjerg municipality. Danish municipalities have a far more important role in administration than the French cantons, that aren't much more than constituencies for departmental elections. There are far more cantons (2,054!) than Danish municipalities, most of which don't even have an article yet. As I already wrote above, the borders of cantons have been changed many times, so the situation you want to keep has probably been the situation from the 1980s until 2014. If it is readded (but I'm not going to do it), it should be properly sourced. Markussep Talk 10:08, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Infobox Greek Dimos
[copied from User talk:Alakzi/Archive 1]

Hi, I saw you converted the Infobox Greek Dimos into a wrapper for Infobox settlement. I noticed some issues:
 * pop_community and area_community aren't displayed. I tried to find a quick workaround, but Infobox settlement doesn't support a third population_blank field.
 * a map box (show/hide) is shown below the pushpin map, also if the image_map field is empty Solved this one myself, see Template:Infobox Greek Dimos/testcases

See Askos, Sochos and Lagyna for example. Do you have ideas how to fix this? Markussep Talk 15:08, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Is the community population (and area) not mutually exclusive to the municipal unit's? Presumably, no article uses both. Alakzi (talk) 17:16, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
 * A community is a subdivision of a municipal unit. If they have the same name, which is the case for Lachanas, Assiros, Aiani, Ptolemaida, Gargalianoi, Filiatra and many more, the articles give data for both administrative units. Markussep Talk 18:06, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I know that it's its subdivision, but I'd not considered the possibility that we'd be presenting both in the same article. It might be better to revert to an earlier version; I've not got time to look into this now. Alakzi (talk) 18:12, 26 May 2015 (UTC)


 * OK. I made a temporary fix, (mis)using the demographics fields, but I think the nicest way would be adding population_blank3 and area_blank3 fields to Infobox settlement. I don't think I can edit the (sandbox of) Infobox settlement without creating a total mess, maybe I'll post something on the talk page about this problem. Markussep Talk 11:05, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Your article Proti, Serres
Welcome, and thank you for contributing the page Proti, Serres to Wikipedia. While you have added the page to the English version of Wikipedia, the article is not in English. We invite you to translate it into English. It has been listed at Pages Needing Translation, but if it is not translated within two weeks, the article will be listed for deletion. Thank you. Bo ng an &reg;  &#8594;TalkToMe&#8592;  14:27, 10 August 2015 (UTC)


 * The last time I saw the article, it was in English. I see someone copied the Greek wikipedia article on top of this one, I reverted it back to the last English version. I guess that's a better solution than tagging it with all kinds of maintenance templates. Markussep Talk 14:38, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Question
Hello Markussep, please can you tell me, why any texts will be written in the headline and text beginning in italics? Regards -- Sweepy (talk) 21:25, 3 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Generally, titles of books, films etc. are written in italics, and also foreign words and scientific names of plants and animals. See MOS:ITAL. Markussep Talk 09:32, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks and have a good time. Regards -- Sweepy (talk) 13:33, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Your above declaration was so useful and by chance I have corrected at Rove beetle from bolded as you telled me. Therefore your statement was perfect for doing after the straight tip from you for the en-WP. Congratulation, you are a very good interpreter. More so voluntary contributors wished are all WP's desperately!!! And bootly, too, all others editors from all nations, p.e. for me as a German... That's exemplary and you've deserved a medal!!! I hope, that persons in power read this!!! And more than ever you're a NETHERLANDS, working for en-WP!!! I hope it for you, because you are a fine friend for international understanding!!! In your language: Een voorbeeld vor vriendschap iedereen lui dit wereld!!! In French: Chapeau!!! Once more thanking and regards -- Sweepy (talk) 22:19, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi markussep, thank you very much for your changes in Othonoi island! Please can you make the same changes in to the greek article too? Thank you Katechis303 (talk) 12:22, 18 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I only have some passive knowledge of Greek, not enough to write articles in it. Markussep Talk 12:23, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Zschopau
Hello, once more. At above I corrected the infobox-dates. The newest date is as 2014. Shown is 2013. Please will you be so kind, to correct it, too as done before at Mansfeld-Südharz. Thanks and regards -- Sweepy (talk) 06:18, 6 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Done. Markussep Talk 08:39, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks! -- Sweepy (talk) 09:05, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Mansfeld-Südharz
Good Morning Markussep, you reverted my correction as above. Because I saw a great many as same as I did, p.e. two of them at Berga, Saxony-Anhalt and Ahlsdorf. Furthermore in Germany is it the correct and official spelling...Regards -- Sweepy (talk) 09:03, 7 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't know why it didn't accept the number including spaces, it does accept them for towns. Anyway, the number is not shown in the infobox anyway, so it's not so important. Markussep Talk 09:44, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Real, I saw it otherwhere. When I find examples, I will tell you. Now I think, may be it is'nt shown, because this field is in German written - |Gemeindeschlüssel -. The others are in English. Is it so? Regards -- Sweepy (talk) 11:20, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Berga, Saxony-Anhalt
Hello once more. In the infobox will not be shown the elevation dates, though I corrected it too. What's here wrong and can you do it, please? Thanks and regards -- Sweepy (talk) 09:31, 7 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Strange, apparently the field "elevation" is not accepted anymore, but when I changed it to "Höhe", it worked. The "elevationmax" field is not supported anymore either. I can't fix that myself, when I have time I'll look into it. Markussep Talk 09:57, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, it is so. Is it not possible, to correct the table for all or must I correct it at all towns individually? Regards -- Sweepy (talk) 08:37, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Wallhausen, Saxony-Anhalt
Good morning, please can you correct the table, because the division is not showing? Thanks in advance and regards -- Sweepy (talk) 09:56, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Apparently the subdivisions will only show if you use the field name "Gliederung". I changed it, and added the Ortsteile. Markussep Talk 20:57, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Saxony-Anhalt
Hello Markussep, in above the same problem as written to you. The dates of infobox will be shown as 2013-12-31. I corrected it as 2014-11-30. Please can you correct the table for this (or others) again? Thanks and regards -- Sweepy (talk) 20:30, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I can't do that, because it hasn't been done at German wikipedia yet. Probably they'll do that in October or November (as they did in the past years), and then immediately to the 31 December 2014 data. Markussep Talk 20:59, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Julia River listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Julia River. Since you had some involvement with the Julia River redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. ZH8000 (talk) 23:03, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Oberrothenbach
Can you please assist and/or ell me on what templates and articles Oberrothenbach can link to? I'm also confused on the difference between a town, village, and municipality in Germany. In my country a village is a small town...--Sιgε &#124;д･) 15:37, 8 October 2015 (UTC)


 * The towns and municipalities listed in the Zwickau (district) are independent municipalities (in German: Gemeinden, see that article). The difference between town (German: Stadt) and municipality is that a town has additional historical privileges, for instance market rights. A municipality or town can contain several population centres, for instance villages or quarters. Oberrothenbach is part of the town Zwickau, and since it's not directly adjacent to the core town Zwickau, I would call it a village. Markussep Talk 20:19, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I added a template and listed in it as a Gemeinde but I can't find the village's CoA online (like every other German town ever) and there's a few errors and missing info, like duplicated geographical coordinates in the top-right. Can you help please? --Sιgε &#124;д･) 00:21, 9 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Sure I can help. But, it's not a Gemeinde, it's a Stadtteil (literally "town part") of Zwickau. I will modify the infobox accordingly. Markussep Talk 08:13, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much. I'll try to add more info. Please though if you could find the coat of arms (if it has one?) I would be very pleased !--Sιgε &#124;д･) 15:30, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Municipalities in Brazil
Hello, Markussep! I see you've been working on articles about municipalities in Brazil, thank you for your effort. Is there any particular reason you've been removing "Municipality of" from their official names? Because the vast majority of Brazilian municipalities are officially known as "Município de _______" (which translates as "Municipality of _______"), as one can see at official documents and stuff. Victão Lopes Fala! 14:05, 19 November 2015 (UTC)


 * My main reason is that the full name (including the "municipality of" part) shows up in the location map. IMO it doesn't add much. Markussep Talk 14:13, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh, it seems this can be fixed by adding the "| pushpin_label = " parameter. See Carapicuíba for an example. Victão Lopes Fala! 14:30, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Nice! Markussep Talk 14:33, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

meusel witz
hy markussep, kleines sprachgenie? - zu meuselwitz haette ich eine huebsche ergaenzung: meuselwitzer dichtergarten - von dort kommen (alle nach 1945 geboren) 5 poeten, der bekannteste wolfgang hilbig. von interesse? ausserdem besaesse ich fotos (allerdings leider erst vor ca 6 oder 8 jahren aufgenommen) von einem haus, das bis ca 2006 als wohnhaus benutzt wurde und vorher kz-baracke war! ich hatte auch mal alte aufnahmen aus dem krieg aus dem lager von einer heimatfroscherin bekommen, die sind leider verlorengegangen im pc (die liessen sich vielleicht auch wieder besorgen). die meuselwitzer schämen sich ja mehr für dieses lager, obwohl sie eigentlich nicht viel dafür können. Ruessen-Kleinstorckwitz (talk) 19:37, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi, if you can write English yourself, feel free to add your content (preferably with references) and/or photos. You can upload photos to Wikimedia Commons. Otherwise I may be able to help, or point you to people who can help. Markussep Talk 15:07, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Changing to new French regions
I see you are changing the regions in the infoboxes for French towns. There are several thousand infoboxes that need to be changed and there is currently a bot waiting to be approved to change the infoboxes to the new regions...see: Bots/Requests for approval. For Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine, there are 10 departments, 44 arrondissements, and 5189 communes...a total of 5243 infoboxes that need changed. That is a lot of work to do! AHeneen (talk) 03:38, 13 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I didn't know about this bot, thanks for telling me. Actually, the regions do not need to be changed in the infoboxes, that's already done automatically (the region is determined from the INSEE code). But they need to be changed in the article text, is the new bot going to do that? There have been changes in the arrondissements in Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin and Moselle, I'm planning to implement those in the articles using AWB. And there's the cantons reorganisation, it's going to be a lot of work to do that for all communes of France. Markussep Talk 08:27, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Communes of the x department
Hello Markus- I see that you have undone several of the article renames I've done over the years to fix the awkward naming convention chosen by the editor who created the "Communes of the x department" series. He, like you, is a well-intentioned editor who is not a native speaker of English, but who chooses to make the bulk of his contributions on the English Wikipedia. As a native speaker myself, I can assure you that no native speaker would say or write the words Communes of the Marne department; that construction is utterly awkward in English. Did you look at those articles' edit histories before you moved them back? I have been slowly fixing the names as I encounter them since I first noticed the issue four years ago; see User_talk:Olivier/Archives_2012. I would appreciate it if you would move the titles back so I don't have to. There's no value in being consistent if we are consistently wrong. Eric talk 15:09, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi, I moved 10 of those lists back to the "Communes of the x department" titles, consistent with the other 90+ lists, which you apparently haven't been able to move for the past four years. Could you please explain why the titles "Communes of the x department" are so awkward? I can't imagine they're really ungrammatical or totally incomprehensible, but well, I'm not a native speaker. Note that plain "Communes of x" may be ambiguous for some departments, like Jura and Nord. Markussep Talk 15:18, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi Markus- The awkward construction is certainly comprehensible, but it's just wrong. The least ambiguous long format would probably be Communes of the department of X, or even Communes of the French department of X. I went with a shorter format because I figured that the relatively few people who would come across or make use of these lists would already be familiar with the topic and would get the context immediately.
 * I'm not sure how to explain the awkwardness, but I am sure that other native speakers would agree. I'm guessing that it would be the equivalent of naming a French article Communes du Loire département--a yucky construction in French, albeit one whose meaning would be understood. I wish I knew Dutch so I could try to come up with an equivalent. One English example might be to take the standard construction the city of Amsterdam and morph it to the Amsterdam city. Proceeding from there, if someone decided--God forbid (God verhoede?)--to create an article that lists all the streets in Amsterdam, and applied the current commune list naming convention, the article would be titled Streets of the Amsterdam city. If I've chosen a good example, that should look wrong to you. I encounter many edits from many non-native English speakers on en.wp who for some reason prefer to work here rather than on wikis in their mother tongue. Such editors often undertake large projects here unilaterally. Meaning no offense whatsoever to you and Olivier, this kind of activity generates a lot of clean-up and maintenance that could easily be avoided by consulting native speakers first.
 * Olivier did a lot of work to create those commune list articles. But he did it unilaterally, almost certainly without consulting a native speaker, and he chose a bizarre naming convention, I presume based on a guess at how "[Liste des] communes du département du Jura" would be expressed in English. Not a terrible guess--just not the right one, and not something I think we should perpetuate in the name of consistency, especially in an encyclopedia. When I discovered these articles, I was hoping there might be some bot or other tool that would facilitate a bulk rename, but I couldn't find one. I did not have the time or energy to undertake renaming them all myself, and I failed to motivate Olivier to do it himself, so I decided to simply rename them as I came across them. I think it would be good to get input from others on the naming convention for these lists. Eric talk 19:08, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your explanation. I guess it's about whether the construction "the X department" is proper English or not. Could it be a regional (British vs. American English) expression? I agree that it would be good to invite others to discuss the article names. Markussep Talk 09:04, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Definitely not a regional difference. I'll move some of the above to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_French_communes and ping some editors, if you think that's a good idea. Eric talk 15:26, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
 * OK. Better notify Wikipedia talk:WikiProject France as well, the communes project doesn't look very active. Markussep Talk 15:31, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

hasbaye etc
See here.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:05, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Portuguese municipalities
Hi Markussep. Just wanted to drop by and say a very big thank you for merging the Portuguese municipality articles. Some nut split the articles years ago and created such a mess, that it eventually drove me out of Wikipedia. Meanwhile many websites picked up on the Wikipedia articles and even nowadays some Portuguese towns on Google Maps bear "Municipality of" in their names. That is now being fixed, and it is probably thanks to you. Very well done indeed. :-) Hús  ö  nd  13:07, 6 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Glad you like it :-) Markussep Talk 11:53, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Invitation to discuss on Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Cyrillic)
Hello! As there is already an only proposed Wikipedia guideline on naming conventions (Cyrillic). The proposal is still in development, under discussion and needs of gathering consensus for adoption. Since I am well experienced on this subject, I would like to criticize the official transliteration of Bulgarian as it gives too many errors, which also causes some losses of sounds “ǎ (a hacek”), decentralise itself from other slavic languages (“c” and “š”  voices), which is also conflicting in itself (see street signs  and ). By this revision, it is away from being accurate and not able to satisfy the needs of an encyclopedia which claims to be scientifical. These are the reasons I invite you to read Scientific transliteration of Cyrillic and involve the discussion in order to contribute a possible concensus. Wish to see you here thanks Manaviko (talk) 13:26, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

River basins
Hi Markussep, I'm on the road, but I will get back to you. --Bermicourt (talk) 15:25, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi Markussep, yes I think you've found the only discussion on this at the Rivers WikiProject. I was hoping for support to at least use this schema in Europe, but the result was apathy! I adopted it because I translate lots of articles from German Wikipedia as you know and thought their category system made sense. At least no one seems to be against it. I haven't fully got my mind around your progression templates, but they seem to make sense as long as they get used multiple times. That said, when I copy the German articles the progression is already there. I guess the advantage of your progression templates is that its quicker to type them in that amend the German text if it's different e.g. Nordsee has to be changed to North Sea every time. I also like Template:Category doc drainage basin; we just have to type in the river name each time, the rest is the same.
 * Even cleverer, I think the German river infobox template automatically adds the river basin category, but that may be too difficult for us at this stage without consensus to do this for all rivers worldwide.
 * Finally, you're mostly right that "articles of rivers that have their own basin category (like the Fulda) are not categorized into the basin category of their parent river (the Weser in this case), only the category is in that parent category." However, on German Wikipedia this rule appears to be occasionally broken, mainly I think for the higher-order rivers of major rivers. I tend to just follow the German Wiki pattern, assuming they know what they're doing. But I haven't really double-checked that. Gruß. --Bermicourt (talk) 20:23, 8 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Actually no, you don't have to type in the river name in the category template, it adds that automatically (using the magic word ). To break the apathy, let's bring it up at WT:RIVERS. You're right, the progression templates only make sense if they're used several times. I guess there's enough sub-stub German river articles like Antrift, Grenff and Truse to practice with. Markussep Talk 08:04, 9 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I realised that almost as soon as I asked it! Anyway I'm slowly replacing the text on existing categories with your template and adding the template to all new categories. Great idea! --Bermicourt (talk) 20:59, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

"Tributaries of the Foo" categories
Hi Markus, I've been wondering how to deal with the issue of "Tributaries of the Foo" categories which largely overlap (but are less logical and structured) with "Foo basin" categories. I like your solution of emptying the category and making it a soft redirect, but should they still have a parent category? If you go to the parent, Category:Tributaries by river, they're shown as empty which seems odd. Also where there is a Commons category called "Tributaries of the Foo", I assume we link that from the "Foo basin" category as well as any eponymous category? Does that make sense? --Bermicourt (talk) 17:23, 19 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Hmm, maybe these categories ( and ) should be merged eventually. I don't know what to do about the Commons categories. There is a commons:category:Tributaries of the Moselle River and a commons:category:Moselle Basin, but I think they should solve that themselves over at Commons. Markussep Talk 19:00, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Drainage basins - terminology
Hi Markus, I've stumbled across another issue. It seems that "drainage basin" is a mainly US and Canadian term that is not common elsewhere. In the UK, they mainly talk about "catchments". "Basin" is also used, but that can mean a geological basin as well as a river basin. So "river basin" is sometimes used too. In Australia they talk about "catchments" and "sub-catchments". I'm probably going to use "catchment" for UK rivers, but need to do more research first. Bermicourt (talk) 06:45, 20 April 2016 (UTC)


 * As we're getting flak about the perceived complexity of sorting of articles within the category, I've simplified the template you created; I hope you don't mind. We could improve it still further; I've had a go here: User:Bermicourt/Basins, but don't like the page length. It might be better in a table form. --Bermicourt (talk) 08:03, 24 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I think you improved the documentation template, it's nice as it is now. Markussep Talk 13:19, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Romanian river codes
I have entered articles for many rivers in Romania. Officially, rivers in Romania are identified by codes and indicating these codes is essential for persons who want to find information regarding these rivers. You systmatically have eliminated these codes for some of these rivers, replacing them with other information. I would not object if you added information, but deleting important information from these articles, even if they are stubs is not acceptable. There are other changes which you also made, which are not acceptable. For instance, in the case when some rivers have two source branches where you consider the main course of the river and one of these branches as being the same river, which is incorrect. Why do you work on some rivers and leave the others in their original version? I have difficulties understanding why you are so keen to change the information on the rivers of Romania.

There is also a problem on the list of Romanian rivers. You change information on the rivers but do not correct any other information which links to these rivers.

Could we at least have a discussion on the matter. I really have doubts on the depth of your knowledge of the rivers of Romania and have strong objections on your changes.Afil (talk) 01:31, 25 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I think we have had a discussion about Romanian rivers some years ago, but I guess it's good to reopen the discussion. I believe that you put a lot of effort into creating several thousands of river articles, but I'm afraid there are some problems with your edits. Our previous discussion was mainly about the notability of some of these rivers, many of which are very small and not even shown on very detailed maps like http://www.harta-turistica.ro/ and http://buzau-county.map2web.eu/ (and others of the same series). I did not touch these rivers this time, apart from adding a maintenance category. I do think that mentioning so many very small rivers obscures the more notable rivers. I was very surprised that you added coordinates for the smallest streams, but not for major rivers like Râul Doamnei, Ilfov River and Teleorman River. Then the concerns you mentioned:
 * I removed the river codes because I needed the "free" field in the Geobox for the progression of the river. I think this is much more valuable information than the codes, which are at best useful for people accessing the Romanian water database. The only place where I have found these codes being used was this (very useful!) water quality overview.
 * Source branches: you probably refer to situations like Tazlăul Mare River, which I merged into Tazlău River. I have not seen the upper section of the river Tazlău, above the confluence with the Tazlăul Sărat, referred to as Tazlăul Mare anywhere except on Wikipedia. Also rowater.ro does not mention a Tazlăul Mare (see page 915).
 * I guess we disagree about article names. Common usage for European rivers in English Wikipedia is to use only the proper name, without the descriptive word "river". See also WP:NCRIVER. Therefore we have the articles Rhine, Rhône, Danube, Tisza et cetera. I don't see why it would be different for Romanian rivers, except for rivers where the name would be meaningless without the word "râul", like Râul Doamnei or Râul Mare. But in those cases it obviously should not be translated, we don't translate Rio Negro either. Markussep Talk 11:02, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Could you comment on my remarks above? I'm going to readd the progression parameters you removed. Markussep Talk 08:45, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

The first objection is regarding the river code. The codification of the rivers of Romania has been considered a major achievement of the water authorities in Romania. It has the same value as the postal code of settlements or other similar codes. I don't know how you know so much about the rivers of Romania but I can assure you that it can hardly exceed mine. In any case, what is totally incorrect is to eliminate one information in order to include the one which you consider incorrect. Both information can perfectly well be included, as you can see if you look at some of the rivers.

Several rivers of Romania (and in other countries) have two sources, the main river starting at the confluence of the main branches. I can assure you that there is the Tazlăul Mare and the Tazlăul Sărat which are both branches of the Tazlău River. To find this you would of course have to look at a correct geographical atlas or at detailed maps. For the Tazlău basin there are maps of the mountain area which show these rivers correctly. The cadaster of the rivers identifies one of these branches as the main branch, which does NOT mean that the branch upstream of the confluence does not have a different name. As many rivers have the same name as localities, this would mean that instead of putting River XXX, in most cases you would have to use XXX (river), to discern in from the locality. In any case, if you want to change all the about 10,000 rivers of Romania, this would be quite a big exercise. If you do, you would also have to change all the lists of rivers of Romania. In some cases the toponimy in the rowater directory is wrong and geographers have corrected the name. For correct information you have to confront the information with the ones accepted by the Romanian Academy or by the Faculty of Geography.

As far as the notability of the rivers is concerned, please be aware that this was discussed and that for Wikipedia no river is too small to be included. The maps you are quoting are far from being acceptable. If you want correct information you have to use the military maps.

Please do not change any more these rivers which you have probably never seen or studied. Keep your corrections for the subjects you know. Afil (talk) 05:37, 6 October 2016 (UTC)


 * First of all: you do not wp:own the articles you created or expanded. You have the right to question my edits, but it would be good to provide good references that others can check if you want to change something. Simply saying "I know more about Romanian rivers than you" is not sufficient. BTW I am using some of the same references that you have quoted in your article edits, for instance the presentation by Ovidiu Gabor about the Trotuș basin, which shows the upper course of the Tazlău as ... Tazlau. About the river codes, I'm not going to argue about that anymore. I still think it's not information that belongs in an encyclopedia, but the solution you chose in for instance Cormoș River is fine with me. I'm not going to change the titles of all 9,009 rivers, but I do prefer the XXX or XXX (river) scheme, as is used for most articles about rivers in Europe. It's not high priority for me, apart from some major rivers. Markussep Talk 10:04, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

River basin sorting
Hi Markussep, I still think those who made a major change without achieving consensus with others whom it impacts need to sort this out, either by reverting their change and then discussing the way ahead or by coming up with a fix. It's not acceptable to cause a major problem and then expect people to just suck it up without going through the normal consensual process. However, I agree there may need to be a fall back if all else fails. Gruß. --Bermicourt (talk) 20:21, 26 September 2016 (UTC)