User talk:Wiesecke

Telephone numbers in Germany
I have largely undone your edit in article Telephone numbers in Germany, as it introduced inconsistencies and potentially misleading conclusions to a reader. I did not simply undo it directly, because there was an intermediary edit that I did not wish to undo, and you had also introduced interesting information about the town of Zossen and its changed area code (thanks for that, by the way). So, instead, I edited the text.

1. You had changed domestic East German area codes to the +37xx form, but this was out of line with the context, as domestic East German area codes were being discussed, so the form 0xx was indicated, and consistent with the rest of the text. To avoid any confusion, I also stressed more clearly that it was former domestic area codes that were being talked about.

2. In the passage "microstates whose telephone networks had formerly been integrated to those of surrounding larger countries", you had also changed that to "...integrated into those..." I reverted that, because that was grammatically incorrect and potentially confusing.

Your edit would have been correct if the exact opposite process had happened - i.e., for example, if Monaco had formerly had a separate telephone system from that of France and then had been absorbed into the French system, because into conveys an idea of transformation. So, the use of the preposition into could make a reader be puzzled, understanding that this was what happened - but then why the new country code? This would make no sense.

It was the reverse that actually happened: Monaco's telephone system used to be part of the French network, but then was separated from it. Thus, the phrase merely described the state of things before that separation, as indicated by the adverb formerly. In this case, describing a state rather than a transformation, the correct preposition to use with integrated is to, and I have restored it.

--UrsoBR (talk) 12:31, 9 February 2014 (UTC)