Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mountains of the Alps/Archive 1

Need for more members
I'm wondering whether it would be a good idea to be a little pro-active in inviting membership of the project? Perhaps Ben   Mac  Dui  could advise. As a Munro, he must have some ideas about alpinism. Xn4 ( talk ) 05:27, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy to join. I'm already working with the Mountains WikiProject, but have already translated dozens of articles on the Alps from German Wikipedia and created numerous categories for mountain ranges e.g. Category:Kitzbühel Alps. Articles I've recently added include:


 * Glockner Group
 * Glocknerwand
 * Fuscherkarkopf
 * Johannisberg (High Tauern)
 * Eiskögele
 * Bratschen
 * Hinterer Bratschenkopf
 * Großes Wiesbachhorn - expansion
 * Hohe Dock
 * Fuscher Ache

I've also just added a new map and table with images at List of Alpine four-thousanders. --Bermicourt (talk) 06:54, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

More new articles
Just added:
 * Venediger Group
 * Ankogel Group
 * Großer Sonnblick
 * Mittlerer Sonnblick
 * Also categories for some new groups in the High Tauern

Do we want to have slot on the project page for new articles? --Bermicourt (talk) 16:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think that would be a great idea, but given that we have only got three members – one of whom is now banned, one of whom is you, the other being me – I can't see that the readership will be tremendous. Ericoides (talk) 13:11, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal
Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!


Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

New articles
I've created (by translation) the five wanted articles listed that are linked to German Wikipedia. If any of the others are on German Wiki I may create those too. --Bermicourt (talk) 18:05, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Article counter
I've added an article counter to the project page, but it won't work unless we can add ratings to the project banner. I'm not really sure how to do this and also I wondered whether we would end up competing with the main WikiProject Mountains. One option is that we could become a task force of WikiProject Mountains and ask them to amend their banner in some way so a) we could monitor our own progress and b) their banner in some way displays our subject field. Not sure where to go with this. Ideas appreciated. --Bermicourt (talk) 18:20, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, yes I also think this project should become a task force of WikiProject Mountains. The mountain community is not the busiest corner in Wikipedia, so we don't need two separate projects and (especially) discussion pages. Moreover, it's safe to assume that most members of WikiProject Mountains will be potentially interested in the Alps, like we, members of this project, are potentially interested in mountains in other areas. ZachG (Talk) 15:38, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Focus on Austrian three-thousanders
Hi. Just for info: I'm currently creating articles for all Alpine three-thousanders that have articles on German Wikipedia (mainly in Austria). When I've done that I will create at least stubs for the remaining Austrian three-thousanders i.e. those without an article on de.wiki. There are about 30 in toto. Then I'll probably break for a cup of tea... Gruß :) --Bermicourt (talk) 21:45, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Alpine three- and four-thousanders
Hi team. There is clearly an overlap between the List of Alpine four-thousanders and the List of mountains of the Alps above 3000 m in that the latter contains 29 four-thousanders which are probably amongst the 82 mountains of the former (although I haven't checked). Do we want to remove the four-thousanders from the latter? And do we want to adjust the article names for consistency? --Bermicourt (talk) 20:54, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I think the two lists are quite different and the overlap isn't a problem. List of mountains of the Alps currently redirects to List of mountains of the Alps above 3000 m so you need to list summits above 4000 m there (otherwise there will be people thinking there are no such summit in the Alps). On the other hand, List of Alpine four-thousanders is not a good target for List of mountains of the Alps because it's more a climbing list than a mountain list (many of the listed summits aren't technically mountains). In short you can see the List of mountains of the Alps above 3000 m (and the following lists) as a mountain-related list and the List of Alpine four-thousanders as a climbing-related list... ZachG (Talk) 20:26, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Closure?
I believe that this page is ready for a close down Thanks to me and Bermicourt there is now a page for almost all the famous peaks of the Alps - and for the few important mountains that are missing, I can create short articles for them within a few weeks. I therefore believe that we should focus our energies to the many important mountains that have very poor articles and try to improve them - this is a far bigger task! Thoughts? {Huddsblue (talk) 01:59, 21 February 2015 (UTC)}

And not forgetting DF5GO who has created some very important Alpine pages in recent months... {Huddsblue (talk) 02:15, 21 February 2015 (UTC)}


 * Thanks Hudds. I'm currently going through the red links on the List of highest mountains of Austria and taking a look over the border in Germany. But you're right, there are lots of stubs that need expanding, probably in order of height and notability. And I'd like to get Zugspitze to a featured article. --Bermicourt (talk) 22:20, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

It's time for this group to be closed I feel?
Nobody's contributing any more as all the major mountains in the Alps have been covered, yes? For mountain lovers, I believe we definitely need an active group for mountains outside of Europe, especially mountains in Africa and the Andes.


 * I've just been taking a holiday. I'll be back to do more mountains. Many of them are still just stubs, so there's plenty of work to be done here. --Bermicourt (talk) 09:08, 13 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm willing to help out by enhancing a few of the quite poor stubs on the W.European 4000mers, though I am rather committed on another WikiProject at present. There seems to be quite a lot of garbled or uncited information on some of the main summit peaks, with hundred year old texts appearing as modern climbing facts (3 hours of step-cutting on the Jungfrau, for example), or "many routes of PD" being on the Taschorn! I'd like to get a bit more of a sense of what's needed, and best-practice for article structure, before I sign up as a contributor to this Project. But having climbed the majority of the 4000 m summits on Goedeke's list over the past few decades, I'd be pleased to help see one or two of the stubs expanded and better cited. I'll take a look at the Aiguille de Bionnassay sometime, and maybe enhancing it might bring back a few pleasant memories, too! As for "all the major mountains in the Alps have been covered, yes?" . . .I think, no! Parkywiki (talk) 01:22, 4 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Agree, there's still a lot of work to be done. And some featured articles would be good too! --Bermicourt (talk) 08:10, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
 * LOL - I can't promise that! - most of my work has been with creating stubs or start-class articles. I'll be interested to learn more about specific priorities here though. It doesn't seem that the Projects Article Overview table is very accurate; is this automatically populated or done manually? It doesn't seem to show many articles of any grade, which is a bit odd, and even the Matterhorn at B-class/Top-importance isn't counted. Parkywiki (talk) 12:23, 4 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Me too. I translate a lot of mountain articles from German, usually working my way down a list from highest to lowest. Hadn't spotted the overview table though. I don't know how they work but I thought they updated automatically. Can anyone else help with that? Bermicourt (talk) 18:44, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
 * @Parkywiki. Oh and do add yourself to the members' list. Bermicourt (talk) 18:46, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, now done. If there's no response to our query concerning the article overview table, I'll contact a UK colleague who may be able to advise.
 * Hello Parkywiki, and welcome to the project. There is really a tremendous amount of work to be done and not so many Wikipedians, so it is good to see new people here. For the overview table, it is indeed not working but this is being discussed and hopefully fixed (see below). For the priorities, I think they have never been discussed anyway. But at least we have pretty accurate lists of mountains (WikiProject Mountains of the Alps), so if you don't know where to start, have a look at them. ZachG (Talk) 14:15, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Oops - I should have said thank you for the warm welcome @Z and @B. Any chance we can just delete the rather depressing archival note at the top of this talk page, or is that against the rules? If anything is designed to put people off from joining its a 6-year old notice of a potential closure discussion. Parkywiki (talk) 00:39, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * No worries. I think we need to keep links to those discussion. I changed the template, not sure if it looks really better though. ZachG (Talk) 15:04, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Scope of Group and a Notability question
Can I ask whether this group avoids straying into the territory of people or of features related to mountains (e.g. glaciers/alpine huts or first ascensionist and/or their guides)?

I ask because I note that there are quite a few gaps amongst what I would consider notable early pioneers/first ascensionist, and would be happy to contribute to some of these articles. If not this group, which ones? And is there a category of 'alpine first ascensionist' or equivalent applicable to the Alps - or indeed anywhere else for that matter? The categories I can find relate to their nationality, not their sphere of achievements. The sortable table List of first ascents is unfortunately not sortable by anything other than the first-named climber.

I was also curious whether first ascensionists are, by default, notable. I searched the WikiProjectMountains archive for discussion on WP:Notability for guides/climbers and found nothing relevant. There is nothing in WP:SPORT, although the 'Any Biography' section of WP:N has this to say, which I interpret as including first ascensionist and/ or those creating major new alpine routes: The person has made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in his or her specific field. I tend to find when I put new biog articles on WP:AfC they tend to get rejected if the adminstrator can't quite understand the specific area for which they are notable, of if one can't point to a reasoned justification on a Project page. Do we have one? Parkywiki (talk) 14:32, 9 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Our parent project, WikiProject Mountains, seems to have an emphasis on climbing, so I don't see why notable Alpinists shouldn't come under the scope of this one. Quite a few first ascenders do have articles, both here but especially on German Wikipedia, and I don't mind translating one or two when I have time. --Bermicourt (talk) 15:15, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * That's good to hear. Maybe a discussion on the scope of the project/task force is in order to see what other priorities it could include that relate to mountains in the Alps.Parkywiki (talk) 23:19, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Suggestion: Key Reference Works
I'd like to offer a suggestion:  I've just had a WP:AfC on Emile Rey turned down, partly on the grounds of notability, but mainly lack of citations (see Draft:Emile Rey). I was mildly irked because it was already more extensive and better cited than all the wikipedia articles on him in other languages (Fr, Es, It), though I probably shouldn't have included   as prompts for future work to reference new route info gleaned from the foreign language pages.

However this made me wonder whether, between those in this small group, we might have access to many of the key books we each might at times want to check for obscure references. This seems especially important for non-English reference books, and better than just copying references from non-English language wiki pages without checking them.

So my suggestion is whether between us there could be some merit in compiling a list of key reference books we each hold or can access, then simply sign our user names with three tildes after each one to indicate whether we have it. Of course, if there's an online version, that could be listed instead. Here's a taste of what I was thinking of:

Alpine Climbing Guides
 * Walliser Alpen (1983) M.Vaucher Parkywiki (talk)
 * The Alpine 4000m Peaks by the Classic Routes (1990) R. Goedeke Parkywiki (talk)
 * Eastern Alps The Classic Routeson the Highest peaks. (1992 English translation) D.Siebert Parkywiki (talk)
 * Mont Blanc Massif Volume 1 (1990) L.Griffin Parkywiki (talk)
 * Mont Blanc Massif Volume 2 (1992) L.Griffin Parkywiki (talk)
 * Mont Blanc Range Vol (1976 reprinted 1987) R. Collomb Alpine Club Parkywiki (talk)
 * The Mont Blanc Massif - the 100 finest routes (1975 english translation) G.Rebuffat Parkywiki (talk)
 * Valais Alps East Selected climbs.(199 L.Swindin & P.Fleming - Alpine Club Parkywiki (talk)
 * Valais Alps West Selected climbs. (1998) L.Griffin -Alpine Club Parkywiki (talk)
 * Bernese Oberland Selected climbs. (1993) L.Swindin -Alpine Club Parkywiki (talk)
 * Bernina & Greaglia Selected Climbs (1995) L Griffin -Alpine Club Parkywiki (talk)
 * Pennine Alps East -Saas & Mischabel Chains (1975) Alpine Club Parkywiki (talk)
 * Pennine Alps Central (1975) R.Collomb - Alpine Club Parkywiki (talk)
 * Pennine Alps Central (1875) R.Collomb Parkywiki (talk)
 * Ecrins Park Dauphinw Alps (1986) R.Collomb - Alpine Club Parkywiki (talk)

Walking Guides
 * Walking in the Dolomites G.Price -Cicerone Press Parkywiki (talk)

4000m peaks, general
 * In Monte Viso's Horizon - climbing all the Alpine 4000m peaks (1991) W.McLewin Parkywiki (talk)
 * Alps 4000 - 75 peaks in 52 days) (1994) M.Moran Parkywiki (talk)
 * High Mountains of the Alps(1994) Dumler & Burkhardt  Parkywiki (talk)

General
 * The Glaciers of the Alps(1860) J.Tyndall (Searchable)
 * The Alpine Journal (part searchable)


 * High Level -The Alps from End to End (1983) D.Brett. Parkywiki (talk)
 * Companion to the Alps (1974) H.Merrick Parkywiki (talk)
 * In Search of Limits - climbing the Alpine 400m peaks (1994) M.Bles Parkywiki (talk)
 * World Mountaineering (1998) A.Salkeld ed. Mitchel Beazley. Parkywiki (talk)


 * Alpine Climbing: Techniques to take you higher (2004) M.Houston & K.Cosley Parkywiki (talk)
 * Extreme Alpinsism: Climbing light, fast and high (1999) M.F.Twight Parkywiki (talk)
 * Peaks, Passes & Glaciers (1981) W.Unsworth - The Alpine Club Parkywiki (talk)
 * Mountains (1975) J.Cleare Parkywiki (talk)
 * The Mountain Vision (1941) F.S.Smythe Parkywiki (talk)
 * Mountaineerig Holiday (1940) F.S.Smythe Parkywiki (talk)
 * Climbs on Alpine Peaks (1923) A.Achille Ratti (Pope Pius XI) Parkywiki (talk)
 * Baedeker's Switzerland (1895) K.Baedeker Parkywiki (talk)

In due course, maybe the online resources could help expand the main Project page, too. Any thoughts? Parkywiki (talk) 13:09, 14 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Couple of comments. First, the notability bar for biographical articles seems to be higher than many other topics (unless of course it's a sportsman, musician or entertainer!). Second, English Wiki is far more fussy than other Wikis in demanding inline citations. That said, we should strive for adequate referencing; not least because it's the only way to raise the Wiki class of articles on the Alps and maybe even get some Featured Articles. Meanwhile here are a few of my sources:


 * Bourne, Grant and Körner-Bourne, Sabine (2007). Walking in the Bavarian Alps, 2nd ed., Cicerone, Milnthorpe, ISBN 978-1-85284-497-4.
 * Dickinson, Robert E (1964). Germany: A regional and economic geography (2nd ed.). London: Methuen..
 * Elkins, T H (1972). Germany (3rd ed.). London: Chatto & Windus, 1972..
 * Rees, Henry (1974). Italy, Switzerland and Austria. A Geographical Study. Harrap, London, ISBN 0-245-51993-9.
 * Reynolds, Kev (2005). Walking in the Alps, 2nd ed., Cicerone, Singapore, ISBN 978-1-85284-261-X.
 * Reynolds, Kev (2009). Walking in Austria, 1st ed., Cicerone, Milnthorpe, ISBN 978-1-85284-538-4.


 * If people think this is useful, we could easily create a subpage of the project for it. Bermicourt (talk) 14:44, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * It could be helpful. I've not used proper references here, just given a quick summary, and have added a few more from my library.Happy to check any refs if anyone needs me to - and hopefully vice versa. Anyone got any Italian, German or French guidebooks to the 4000mers and neighbouring peaks? Parkywiki (talk) 01:25, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Portal:Alps
Hi, finally created the Alps portal. The links need expanding and reviewing, but the basic structure is there and up and running. It's wider than just the mountains though. Bermicourt (talk) 11:23, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Very good! Thanks. ZachG (Talk) 16:53, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Looks excellent - a really great intro to the region. It could maybe do with a DYK section, too. (I tried to add a recent news story, but must be doing something wrong). Parkywiki (talk) 20:11, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Good idea. I think I prefer the DYK section to the recent news, since the latter tends not to be well maintained IMHO. I'm happy to change it if that's the consensus. Bermicourt (talk) 20:36, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I was wondering whether the 'New Articles' section could be more helpful in showing project progress and activity if it were retitled 'New or Enhanced Articles'? we seem to be a bit thin on the ground for completely new content here, but there is a wealth of two sentence stubs relating to the Alps in one way or another that desperately need enhancing. Maybe this is a way to show off some of these once they've been enhanced? In some case the minimum 5x increase used by WP:DYK wouldn't give us much more of an article (!), but at least it could form a guide to inclusion - and maybe it might  bring in a few more recruits to the project, too. Thoughts?Parkywiki (talk) 10:08, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Totally agree. --Bermicourt (talk) 11:52, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Article class and importance table, conversion of the project to a task force
I've placed a request for help on the parent project talk page, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mountains, although they don't have a table themselves, so we may have to try a project like Trains where they know how to do this. Bermicourt (talk) 19:30, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I saw the reply to your crie-de-coeur on their talk page, but I'm not sure I followed the answer. What's the next step? Parkywiki (talk) 23:28, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
 * They'll update the Mountain template so we can include 2 new parameters: "alps=yes" and "alps_importance=xxx". I then need to test if this automatically reflects in the table and, if so, we can then start adding the new parameters to the templates on the talk pages of Alpine peaks.--Bermicourt (talk) 12:53, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
 * OK - sounds like a fair bit of work. I presume that means there'd need to be a separate importance system for articles relating to Mountains of the Alps, rather using the same rating for general mountains? Are these criteria that already exist, or would they have to be worked up? Forgive the naive questions - I've not much involvement in article assessments or the auto-population of tables. Just interested in understanding the process, that's all. Parkywiki (talk) 16:49, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I found nothing about how to assess the importance of any article in the Mountains project, I think it is mainly individual editors who decide how important the subject is (see for instance Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mountains/Archive 9). I think it would be ok to have the same rating first (I guess the articles will be automatically tagged by a bot) then adapt it to the context of he Alps, which obviously means an increase of importance for many articles. Of course, I can also imagine many ways of having a neutral assessment with different criteria if we want that, for instance the more a mountain is listed, the more it is important... But at the end we should have a reasonable number of top-importance and high-importance articles, ideally high-quality articles that can be made and maintained. ZachG (Talk) 17:30, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
 * That does make sense, though there is a big difference between article 'importance' and 'quality'. I've now found there are some great guidelines for assessment of both criteria for general WikiProjectMountain articles here: WP:WikiProject_Mountains/Assessment which look very workable within the context of just the Alps. The question this group needs to consider, I suspect, is whether the importance scale is equivalent and immediately transferable just to those mountains of the Alps. Does it actually want or need its own grading system? For example, I would suggest that any of what I would innocently call the 'main' 4000mer summit peaks (eg Aiguille de Bionnassay, Lyskamm and Monte Rosa meet at least the WikiProjectMountains Mid-importance criteria, and most curently do, from a quick check.  Currently, Monte Rosa is Top-importance; Weisshorn is High importance, both Signalkuppe and Parrotspitze are Mid-importance, whilst Zumsteinspitze and Lyskamm are both currently graded as Low-importance. Other big, serious and stand-alone 4000mers, like the Aiguille Blanche de Peuterey and the Ag. de Bionnassay stub (which I've just started working on) have not yet been graded. It's all subjective of course, and can be changed by Project members, but to a mountaineer, Lyskamm and the Aiguille Blanche are both far more significant, recognisable, and well-known than either the Signalkuppe or Parrotspitze. I suspect this just needs a tweak to put Lyskamm and the Ag. de B. into Mid-importance ranking, defined as This article is relatively important to this project. The highest peaks in a mountain range generally fall into this class. It would certainly be interesting to see all the peaks listed within the Mountains of the Alps project and quickly view all their current importance gradings. (Anyone know of a short-cut to doing this?) It might be that this project doesn't need to give Alpine articles their own separate grading, but just needs the 'right' (if that's the correct word) to amend the parent project importance gradings), and maybe that avoids the need to review everyone from from scratch. It would be interesting to know what others think, and I for one will look forward to hearing how User:Bermicourt gets on. All greats stuff. Parkywiki (talk) 19:48, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for finding those guidelines. They are a good start. We probably need to tweak them for the Alps and I favour a set of criteria based on e.g. height, prominence, mountaineering importance, fame/popularity (although difficult to assess) and ranking (e.g. highest peak in a range or sub-range). Some of that data can be taken straight from other articles e.g. List of Alpine peaks by prominence or List of highest mountains of Germany. But first we need to ensure the table works! --Bermicourt (talk) 20:11, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah yes thanks, I overlooked the guidelines (although I'm sure I've read them a long time ago). I'd be in favour of adapting them (I mean only the importance scale, not quality) with neutral criteria as suggested Bermicourt. Since we have to decide between 4 categories (low, mid, high, top), we could have a series of questions with any positive answer adding one point of notability (0 points=low, 3 points and more=top). Here is an example:
 * Prominence: Is the topographic prominence more than 1500 m?
 * Elevation: Is it listed amongst the 82 four thousanders?
 * History: is the first ascent date recorded?
 * Fame: Is it amongst the 6 great north faces?
 * Popularity: Has it tourist facilities?
 * With these criteria we would have for instance Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa, Finsteraarhorn, Grand Combin, Gran Paradiso, Barre des Ecrins, Piz Bernina in the top category with (1,1,1,0,0), Grandes Jorasses, Matterhorn in the top category with (0,1,1,1,0) all the remaining 4000ers in the high category with (0,1,1,0,0), Zugspitze and Säntis in the top category with (1,0,1,0,1), the Eiger in the top category with (0,0,1,1,1), Piz Palü and Piz Roseg in the mid category (0,0,1,0,0), Monte Generoso and Rochers de Naye in the mid category (0,0,0,0,1) and so on. And, of course, if you think too many articles are in the low or mid category, just add other criteria such as the availability of first solo and first winter ascent dates, 300 m prominence (to distinguish between Lyskamm and subsidiary peaks of Monte Rosa), more flexibility like "either 1500 m prominence or range high point" etc... ZachG (Talk) 15:51, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Offering a points-scoring approach to guide seems a sensible starting point, providing it's not applied absoluitely rigorously. Some further consideration might then be needed - especially to avoid too many articles being graded as top or high-importance. To me as a (sadly ageing) alpinist, every 4000mer was top priority, but as a wikipedian I wouldn't view them that same way. I agree with all the gradings you've given here, but wouldn't agree that Signalkuppe and Zumsteinspitze are of the same 'top' importance' as the more stand-alone (and indeed recognisable by the informed tourist with a map or a postcard in their hand) summits as Lyskamm, Castor or Pollux. But these are small tweaks. It's good to see the template starting to be populated, letting one click each number and see a list of those peaks tagged at that grade. Parkywiki (talk) 12:20, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * With those criteria, Signalkuppe, Zumsteinspitze and Nordend would be actually only in the high category (0,1,1,0,0) but together with Lyskamm, Castor and Pollux. I'm really not sure if they should be high or top (Lyskamm, Castor and Pollux) but as I also think the criteria should be mainly a starting point, I don't mind at all if they are applied in a flexible way. I think we will see much better of to adapt those criteria when the categories are fully populated... ZachG (Talk) 17:20, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I just moved the 4000 m subsidiary peaks to the mid category (they are in general less than 150 m prominent, like Nordend and co, but not Castor, Pollux and Aiguille de Bionnassay) and moved a few to the top category (Ortler, Monte Viso, Jungfrau, Dom and Aiguille Verte, I think there is still room for a few additional summits there..). Let me know if you disagree. ZachG (Talk) 17:27, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Proposed disambiguation of Southern Alps (New Zealand) and Southern Alps (Europe)
The above move request was closed within a day as a "technical closure". The result is that, currently Southern Alps is an article about a mountain range in New Zealand and Southern Alps (Europe) is about the range in the south of the Alps. So there is a move request to move the former to Southern Alps (New Zealand) and make Southern Alps the disambiguation page. See Talk:Southern Alps. Bermicourt (talk) 21:59, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Proposed primary topic for Southern Alps: New Zealand
I have proposed that the primary topic for the disambiguation page Southern Alps is Southern Alps (New Zealand): the latter should move to the former. Feel free to join in the discussion at Talk:Southern Alps (New Zealand). Thanks! —hike395 (talk) 20:27, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I've just tried to grapple with what is being proposed here and have drafted a response which is to 'oppose'. But maybe I have misunderstood what is being suggested. So, @Hike395, does this mean that the page entitled Southern Alps (New Zealand) will be lost and renamed 'Southern Alps'? Bad move, in my mind. Here's my draft response - do tell me if I've got this all wrong: *Oppose because Southern Alps (New Zealand) gives immediate clarity, and will be returned by a search just on 'Southern Alps'. As the article entitled 'Alps' takes users to the European mountain ranges, it is logical to assume those 'not in the know' will believe the Southern Alps are a southerly extension of the European Alps. Are Wikipedia users expected to understand a subject before they look it up, or are we actually trying to help people  find stuff here? I go with the latter approach and urge clarity and common sense, and avoid bowing to those who not unreasonably have pride in a regional name and some damned fine mountains that I'd love to climb. If we use the term 'Southern Alps', it begs the question "southern to what?" So let's tell people. I'd be quite happy to support  Alps being changed to Alps (Europe) if that helps - and for precisely the same reasons I have outlined. Any clarity that can be added here would be appreciated by this user! Parkywiki (talk)
 * There has been a surprisingly rapid (1-day) discussion and decision to move Southern Alps (New Zealand) back to Southern Alps which I did not get time to comment on. I'm going to open a further move request to widen the debate. --Bermicourt (talk) 21:37, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Wow - I'm stunned at the unseemly haste with which significant decisions like this are made on Wikipedia - whether it's speedily deleting a brand new article before it's had time to get going, or moving/renaming a page. I am quite shocked how it's possible to quickly gather a posse of like-minded people together and get a favourable decision, based on numbers, not common sense and constructive argument. In my view even 7 days is too short a time for key decisions to be made. I had certainly expected time to air my thoughts here before transferring them to the discussion page. Thank you for re-opening the discussion. How long has it got this time? Parkywiki (talk) 22:16, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I didn't see Parkywiki's comments in time (For next time, you may wish to use to alert me through the notification system). You should always feel free to post directly to the RM discussion.
 * As for Alps (Europe), I think that goes against the guideline at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. When anyone says "The Alps", they mean the European ones, even in New Zealand (although you'd have to ask a Kiwi to double-check). They certainly don't mean a minor mountain range like the Issaquah Alps, even if standing in the middle of them. —hike395 (talk) 04:37, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks . I knew I was free to discus them on that discussion page . . . But I wanted to discuss my draft response here first in case I had misunderstood the intention of your proposal, and not unreasonably thought there would be a few day's grace to do this. I was clearly wrong, and wonder whey the matter was brought here to the Mountains of the Alps project page for discussion if that was to be the case.
 * I do agree with you that the majority of people of the world - perhaps with the exception of many in New Zealand - think of the European Alps when they hear the word 'The Alps'. But following that logic along, the rest of the world are then just as likely to assume that the 'Southern Alps' are the southern part of The Alps in Europe, so Southern Alps (New Zealand) seems a logical name to apply to that article. Maybe it somehow hurts national pride to have brackets after a Wikipedia title, but common sense should be to help the user, not anyone's feelings of pride. At the end of the day, it's just an extra mouse-click. What concerns me far more is the way that so many righteous, but often not very knowledgeable Wikipedia editors think its a quite acceptable policy to merge, delete, rename, re-order or generally dilute Wikipedia content for pedantic or  other reasons, rather than for sound common sense and with unseemly haste.  To call any of these actions 'discussions' is a misnomer.Parkywiki (talk) 10:15, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Mountain hut article for deletion
The article on the Fritz Pflaum Hut, a mountain hut in the Austrian Alps run by the German Alpine Club, has been nominated for deletion at Articles for deletion/Fritz Pflaum Hut. The outcome of this may decide the fate of all similar Alpine hut articles. --Bermicourt (talk) 12:09, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Mont Blanc - a proposal to enhance article
Now that our Article Overview table is functioning (and a huge thanks to those involved), we begin to see just how much work remains to be done. One of the stated aims of this Project/TaskForce is "to create a high quality article for every significant mountain in the range". So, with only 23 out of 2840 articles being above Start class - and 90% being just Stubs - there's clearly a huge amount for editors to do!

Not all the gradings are perfect, but the iconic Mont Blanc really does only deserve its current 'B' grading. I think it's quite dire for such an important mountain. So, I'd like to propose that this TaskForce undertakes to attempt to encourage editors to enhance at least one of our Top importance article, and that Mont Blanc would be the ideal candidate to focus on. Could we not get it to GA or even FA standard? What do people think?

My thoughts on a step-by-step improvement are as follows:
 * Seek agreement from the Alps Task Force/discuss initial plan
 * Lay out a plan on the Mont Blanc Talk page to encourage wider support, these tasks to include:
 * Offering a revised layout structure for the article
 * Check/read all references/footnotes
 * Temporarily add citation or clarification needed tags to challenge all uncited statements.
 * Improve English/grammar and remove irrelevant or repeated content. Clarify complex paragraphs.
 * Encourage everyone to enhance individual sections, where possible.
 * Seek input from other Projects (eg Geology)
 * Define Mont Blanc more clearly and distinguish from Mont Blanc massif
 * Put biennial Elevation data into a table for future updating every 2 years. (Needs better clarification of 'official' height, too.

Here's a suggestion for a better layout:


 * 1) Geography and Landform
 * 2) Topographic features (associated peaks, and glaciers,  cross ref-ing to the wider Mont Blanc Massif article)
 * 3) Glaciers
 * 4) Elevation (currently unclear and very complex – maybe a tabular form. Needs a clear statement of 'official' height.)
 * 5) Weather (Permafrost)
 * 6) Geology (seek help from Project
 * 7) Biodiversity
 * 8) History
 * 9) Pre-history/archaeology (if available?) Origin of name 'Cursed Mountain'
 * 10) Early exploration (link to Top of Mont Blanc
 * 11) Ownership of summit (currently a very complex section)
 * 12) Scientific
 * 13) Vallot
 * 14) Janssen observatory
 * 15) Subterranean observatory
 * 16) Second World War
 * 17) Tourism
 * 18) Early tourism
 * 19) Modern tourist development
 * 20) Railways
 * 21) Aerial cable way
 * 22) Mont Blanc Tunnel
 * 23) 1999 disaster
 * 24) Mountain refuges
 * 25) '''Mountaineering
 * 26) First ascents (first summer/winter ascents and traverses from either side, plus key new routes e.g. Peuterey Ridge)
 * 27) Normal routes (i.e. the four popular routes of ascent)
 * 28) Classic mountaineering routes (ie the well-known but more challenging routes, arranged by face Brouillard, Brenva,  Peuterey Ridge, Freney Pillar etc)
 * 29) Dangers
 * 30) Skiing
 * 31) Exploits and incidents 
 * 32) Timeline of achievements
 * 33) Stunts
 * 34) Deaths
 * 35) Air crashes (brief expansion worthwhile)
 * 36) Environmental protection
 * 37) Impacts of Tourism
 * 38) Impacts of climate change
 * 39) Cultural works
 * 40) Cinema and television
 * 41) Literature (include 7 line quote from Percey Shelley Mont Blanc)
 * 42) Other
 * 43) Gallery (properly captioned)
 * 44) See also
 * 45) References (remove Matterhorn reference (??)
 * 46) Footnotes (suggest separating explanatory footnotes from citations)
 * 47) External links

Care needs to be taken throughout to separate information more relevant to the wider Mont Blanc massif, from Mont Blanc itself, noting that many news journalists fail to distinguish between Mont Blanc and other lesser mountains in the range. To that end I have already removed a number of news stories relating to deaths occurring on routes not associated with the ascent of this mountain. I would welcome hearing what others think of this proposal. Parkywiki (talk) 14:37, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
 * It gets my vote. I'm not sure if there's a standard layout for mountain articles, but this looks good. Bermicourt (talk) 19:35, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
 * It gets mine too (ok maybe except the Mont Blanc Tunnel disaster section, which seems a bit off topic to me, aircrashes on the mountain are more interesting). And I couldn't agree more about the distinction between the mountain and the range. ZachG (Talk) 17:09, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Rather than immediately addressing issues on the Mont Blanc article, I have decided to work first on the Mont Blanc massif page in order to 'set the scene' and allow for content which relates better to the whole massif to be moved there. I have discussed this further on that article's Talk page, and have begun to remove irrelevant content from the various lists there as the first step. Suggestions or help is always welcome, of course. Parkywiki (talk) 23:33, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the feedback. In the end I felt a total rewrite of the Mont Blanc massif was needed, and have now put some of the content I had originally thought might go in the Mont Blanc article into the one for the massif instead. I hope it makes a reasonable introduction to the range. The challenge for that mountain is knowing when it's not relevant, and ought to go into one of its satellites, or the whole massif. Parkywiki (talk) 20:38, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
 * . Thanks for the rewrite (well, in that case it was more just writing than rewriting). I have a few suggestions to further improve the article: add an introduction including all aspects from geography to tourism (for those who are in a hurry), mountain ranges around the Mont Blanc massif (exhaustively), pictures of Mont Dolent and Vallée Blanche cable car... ZachG (Talk) 13:05, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * too! Great expansion of this article. Hope it gets a DYK. We should also get it reviewed for at least a B-Class article. --Bermicourt (talk) 18:08, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Good to hear - and nice suggestions, too ZachG. Maybe this is one occasion when the WP:MOS guidance on picture galleries is worth ignoring? Adjacent ranges could be good, though I shall scream if I hear any more references to the mysterious and elusive Graian Alps. Does anyone know if they really exist this far north, or is it a myth promulgated by a Wikipedian and accepted on every other website since that the massif is within them? The Vallee Blanche cableway system does need integrating better. I've just created a page on the new Skyway Monte Bianco (I was watching the cranes building it back in 2011 when I was there last). Might have some pics of, or from the summit of Mont Dolent I can add, too. A DYK for the MB massif is already submitted, and I'm doing another for the Skyway right now. Any chance Bermicourt you could enable a DYK section on the portal? I tried and failed. Nor could I work out why it takes +/- week for a new news item edit to resolve itself and appear on the portal. And while I'm in a curious mood, anyone know why the Refuge du Gouter page got a speedy delete some years back? I'm working on redoing that one - just don't tell anyone down under.Parkywiki (talk) 21:00, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Just a quick response between meetings: the Graian Alps (Fr: Alpes grées or Alpes graies) do appear to exist. They're certainly listed in Reynolds classic Walking in the Alps. Bermicourt (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't doubt that the Graian Alps exist. But I challenge whether that name can legitimately be applied to any mountains further north than the Aosta valley, or that Mont Blanc (and not Gran Paradiso) is the highest peak in that range. Apart from that article and innumerable other Wikipedia articles, plus all the spawned sites that copy and regurgitate dubious content ad nauseam, I can find no evidence to justify the 'fact' that the Mont Blanc massif is a part of the Graian Alps whatsoever. There's nothing in any of the Graiain Alps article's references that confirm this, nor anything I can find online. And Reynolds' books specifically differentiate the Graian Alps from the Mont Blanc range. In his "100 Hut Walks in the Alps", the chapter on the Dauphine Alps states: "Wedged between the Dauphiné Alps and the Mont Blanc range, the Graian Alps have at their hub the Vanoise National Park – a glorious region of glacier peaks reflected in a wealth of ..." You can find it with a Google book search with these keywords: Reynolds "Walking in the Alps" "graian" alps "wedged between".    And again here:    Parkywiki (talk) 02:54, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

SOIUSA question
...what is more doubtful are the made-up ranges and article names that are based on the SOIUSA system; a one-man reclassification of the Alps that AFAIK has yet to endorsed. Examples appear to include: Eastern Rhaetian Alps, Northern Styrian Alps and Tyrol Schistose Alps. Whilst the existence of the proposal might merit an article (albeit largely self-sourced), it doesn't justify the confusion of an unrecognised, alternative scheme of mountain ranges on Wikipedia and IMHO they should be put up for WP:AFD, unless the names are used outside of SOIUSA. Bermicourt (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I concur. The SOIUSA system is interesting, but it has its flaws and should not be used in Wikipedia in general, or at least it should be used carefully (see for instance Western Alps, in total contradiction with Geography of the Alps). Unfortunately, there are no universally-accepted subdivision of the Alps (especially the western Alps) and we have to deal with that. Yes folks, a lot of discussions and work ahead! ZachG (Talk) 17:39, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
 * That's true, there isn't a universal schema, but the Alpine Club classification of the Eastern Alps has been officially accepted by the German and Austrian Alpine Clubs and the Partizione delle Alpi is the current system used in France and Italy; so both of them carry some authority. But SOIUSA isn't accepted outside Italy and I'm not even sure it's been endorsed by the Italian Alpine Club to supersede Partizione della Alpi. The last time I checked, it had only been given an airing at one of their conferences. And there were virtually no sources for it apart from the author's own book. The SOIUSA articles were mainly created by one editor who appeared to be promoting it. Bermicourt (talk) 18:17, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I see that SOIUSA at least agrees with the Alpine Club classification of the Eastern Alps (AVE) on one essential point: the limit between the Western Alps and the Eastern Alps. On the other hand, the Partizione delle Alpi (which I must say I first confused with SOIUSA) has different versions of the Western and Eastern Alps with the Central Alps in the middle. I think the latter partition has its flaws (like SOIUSA, some groups are just collections of distinct subranges, for instance nb 14 and 16 on this map) so I would rather go with the AVE which seems to be a more solid subdivision. That would imply using SOIUSA for the division between Western Alps and Eastern Alps, in the main descriptions and eventually for Wikipedia categories if needed. Then we'll need to adapt either SOIUSA or Partizione delle Alpi for each individual range in the Western Alps. ZachG (Talk) 17:01, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Hmm, good points. The snag is that, however good we think a given system is, Wikipedia is supposed to reflect the sources. Currently AVE and PdA are schemas that appear to have sufficient authority for Wikipedia to use them, but SOIUSA does not. But as you point out that gives us another problem: what do we do where the AVE and PdA disagree. There are at least 2 options: we publish articles under both schemas, making sure they refer to one another where appropriate, or we follow national usage i.e. use the AVE in Germany and Austria, PdA in France and Italy and the Swiss system (which I gather follows neither!) in Switzerland. --Bermicourt (talk) 18:19, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Someone has clearly put a lot of work in writing innumerable articles based on the SOIUSA proposal, and with what justification I'm not entirely sure. I would have thought that just one article on the classification system and all its subdivisions would have been quite adequate, and all the rest should be AfD-ed, or merged together, until such time as the system gets generally recognised and adopted by a competent authority. And even then, reference to some esoteric classification system should be just that, and it shouldn't dominate the content or the intro paragraphs. I fear we are seeing yet another series of articles being created which self-support and validate those very articles, and with dubious supporting sources. see my comment in the previous topic. You guys seems to have a handle on this one, and I'm not keen to get dragged in to sort it out. However, I did look at a few of the pages created in the last year or two on subdivisions of this system. I added the following to the introductory sentence of a sample few which I don't think ought really ought to be in existence: xxxxx  is the proposed name for a subdivision of mountain ranges in a new, and as yet unadopted, classification of the Alps, located in yyyyyy.  There's far too much effort wasted by some editors on 'wikiturd-polishing', and not enough real effort going into creating worthwhile content in my opinion. I would hate to see this particular pile to gain dominance in a mountain article, though it's a sad fact - and rather an indictment- that a vast number of Alps Project articles on actual mountains are still just a couple of sentences in length after many years in existence, and considerably shorter than each page created on the subdivisions of what appears to still be an unadopted classification system which, even if it does get accepted,  isn't going to be relevant to most people wanting information on real mountains in real-world, recognised mountain range. Parkywiki (talk) 03:30, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Totally agree with all those points. I'm steadily adding new articles and expanding existing articles by translating them from German Wiki (Zugspitze is one example).
 * Re SOIUSA, I think what we need to do is steadily go through the SOIUSA-only articles and, as you say, put them up for AfD. One or two do have names that are common in the literature or may be common to other schemas, so they can stay. In the latter case, the article should be based on its wider meaning, not the SOIUSA definition. I'll start taking a look at this. Bermicourt (talk) 09:30, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
 * OK, Good luck! And the Zugspitze is looking a pretty fine article now, btw.Parkywiki (talk) 21:46, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Mountain artworks and copyright infringement in France, Italy or Slovenia
Anyone considering uploading images to Wikimedia Commons of summit madonnas or other 'artworks' on mountain peaks (or statues of mountaineers in the valleys) in France or Italy should be aware of the copyright issue in these countries. This relates to their being no 'Freedom of Panorama' thus requiring explicit permission from the artist or their relatives. See Freedom_of_panorama and the rules applying in individual countries. Obviously, if the usual amount of time has passed for copyright to have expired, this won't be an issue.

It is clearly right that Wikimedia acts to ensure all country's laws are observed. However, there does seem rather a tendency towards 'Wiki-nazism' in this respect, with images flagged for potential copyright violation, then deleted within 10 days (which is undue haste in my opinion, and might be appropriate had a court sought an injunction). But such haste prevents any reasonable opportunity for others to investigate and try to secure the relevant permissions whilst the image is still online. So the statue of Emile Rey in Courmayeur was deleted in 10 days over the christmas period, despite a clear demonstration of good faith in investigating ownership with the Italian authorities. Meanwhile the summit Madonna on Tour Ronde has equally been flagged for deletion, as has been inextricably linked to another image of the Mont Dolent Madonna. In the latter case the wiki-nazis failed to appreciate the statue is on the border with Italy and Switzerland and was erected by the young people of Switzerland where there is no Freedom of Panorama restriction. However the image currently remains at risk    Parkywiki (talk) 01:11, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

The lessons from this seem two-fold:
 * only upload summit photos containing a modern summit statue if it is incidental to the view, and not the main feature.
 * don't bother trying to help Wikimedia by investigating ownership of artistic rights because the wiki-nazis will get their way and delete content long before you ever manage to elicit an answer from the relevant authorities.

List of mountains of the Alps (2500–2999 m)
Hi, just to say that I'm currently working on creating the missing Austrian two-thousanders in the above list by translation from German Wikipedia.

Having averted the AfD on Fritz Pflaum Hut, we probably ought to look at improving the referencing on other mountain "huts" and adding the missing ones there too. --Bermicourt (talk) 22:09, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I admire your courage to undertake that! I tend to think people would prefer to see (or at least would benefit from) good, informative articles, rather than lots of well-polished lists leading to extraordinarily minimalist content. The alpine refuge/mountain huts is a good example of where attention could well be placed. Now we've got the super table working of articles by quality and importance, maybe we need a few more auto-filled tables, like huts, and mountain guides. Any takers? It's worrying to be able to see that 72 of the really 'High' importance alpine peaks still languish as tiny stubs, often less than 2,000 bytes in size after nearly 10 years in existence. Who was it who said this Project page should be deleted because the work has now all been done?? BTW: I've only today just discovered the superb little setting in Wikipedia's Preferences>Gadgets>Appearance which 'Displays an assessment of an article's quality as part of the page header' and changes the title colour to reflect this. We could do with this in Hovercards, too.Parkywiki (talk) 00:45, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Review of goals
I've taken the liberty of reordering the content of the Project page, and have slightly broadened the goals of the Project. Would other project members please check they are happy with this modification. Parkywiki (talk) 01:35, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
 * That looks good to me. I'm happy that we're about Alpine-related topics, not just the mountains of the Alps (which are amazing none the less!). --Bermicourt (talk) 07:23, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
 * No probs. However, if we really want to "physically" include other articles in this project, we have to use the WP:MOUNTAINS banner. That is ok for ranges, passes, geology etc. (and I was planning to propose it) but not glaciers, lakes or even mountaineering (which is in the scope of WP:CLIMBING). But that obviously doesn't mean we can't use this project to improve all related Alpine-related topics, we just won't see them in the super table... ZachG (Talk) 14:34, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't think I was intending to suggest expanding the use of the banner to articles that aren't directly related to alpine mountains, but I would like us to feel able, as a Project, to encourage content creation and to celebrate many types of article that are relevant to the alpine mountain environment - be it on glaciers, alpinists, mountain biodiversity, geology, or alpine settlement or mountain refuges. But it probably wouldn't help to have the super-table confused with other content - that should stay with just the mountains. How could we get a 'glaciers of the Alps table to operate - would this actually be helpful I hope by broadening out what the Project encourages, we might get more editors to sign up to contribute. Does someone need to work on the instructions for applying the 'Mountains of the Alps' template, or is this now redundant? And should there also be guidance on our Project page for the best 'Categories' to use or to put articles into? (I could probably do with some guidance myself!) Parkywiki (talk) 23:41, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Maybe we should ask other projects (like WP:CLIMBING and WP:GLACIERS) to have an "alps" parameter in the banner template in the same way than the WP:Mountains banner. Then WP:Alps would be, technically, a centralized collection of task forces. In this manner, we would have as much tables as we want (mountains, glaciers, mountaineering, lakes, rivers, etc). ZachG (Talk) 14:52, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

2 Proposals: Delete a Mountain Hut article and rename Mont Blanc glacier flood page
I have not formally proposed it yet, but I can see no reason for keeping the article on the 'mountain hut' known as the Refuge du Nid d'Aigle. Unlike the Fritz Pflaum Hut which we discussed recently, this hut is not in a significant location within the Mont Blanc massif, and seems more of a tourist destination/hotel than a refuge. At an altitude of 2,372 metres it's just 200m from the terminus of a rack and pinion railway line, the Mont Blanc Tramway. The only other wiki language article (in French) is exceedingly thin on content. None of my climbing guides to Mont Blanc mention it, even in passing, yet the Tête Rousse Hut and Gouter Hut are covered in detail as befits a significant mountain hut. Any thoughts?

I also propose renaming of the Mont Blanc glacier flood article to Tête Rousse Glacier, and am work up fuller content on the glacier as a whole. I've left a note on its Talk page seeking opinions.Parkywiki (talk) 20:38, 21 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I tend to be cautious about deleting articles, but in this case the logic is sound and I see no reason why the information it contains couldn't be incorporated elsewhere. In view of this and the Fritz Pflaum Hut discussion, it might be worth trying to come up with guidelines for whether an Alpine hut gets its own article. That could be based on size, relative importance, being recommended in a serious guide, whether the hut is a base for climbing one or more high mountains. I'd tend to err on the side of including them, but accept that some may be insignificant or e.g. just bog standard skiing or hiking cafes of which there are many (and very pleasant they are too!). --Bermicourt (talk) 18:07, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I've now added text and citations about the Nid d'Aigle refuge in the Mont Blanc Tramway article, prior to proposing deletion, which I hope covers it.
 * I think guidelines on inclusion of which huts would be helpful. I presume this couldn't be poaching on any other Project's territory? Significance could, in my view, be tested by a refuge giving special (ie high) access to particular mountains or areas, access to climbs, and inclusion with access details in  mountaineering guidebooks. (I specifically chose 2,500m as a cut-off in the Mont Blanc massif article to exclude every tourist-type of refuge, though felt it appropriate to include the Leschaux hut because of its incredible position, only accessible by glacier travel, and the mountains/routes to which only it gives access. In other lower ranges I would expect a similar, but lower cut-off would be used, as with the Fritz Pflaum Hut. As an aside, my favourite hut to visit was the Durier Hut, followed the next night by my least favourite, the Vallot Hut.
 * I also think consideration should also be given to the naming of mountain hut articles. Neither I, my fellow climbers, nor more importantly, any of my English (i.e. Alpine Club) climbing guidebooks covering 40 years ever call a hut by their French or German names. So it would be Torino Hut, not Rifugio Torino, and certainly not the French name currently used. i.e. Refuge Torino. (It's owned by the CAI and is on the Italian/French border, and mostly accessed from Italy.) Equally, I would expect an English article to refer to the Mischabel Hut, not Mischabelhütte as it is commonly cited in anglicised form as such. Has this ever been pronounced upon? (no pun intended). I recently put each country's sub-categories into the main entry for Category:Refuges of the Alps, but saw no consistency in naming here at all, either of huts or of categories. Just look at huts listed in Italy and Switzerland. Mischabelhütte redirects to Mischabel Hut, but in contrast Trient Hut redirects to Cabane du Trient. In fact, look at Category:Mountain_huts and one has to question why Refuges of the Alps is the only one so-named. Doesn't it need changing to Mountain Huts of the Alps? Parkywiki (talk) 02:43, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
 * The guide books I have translate Hütte as "Hut", but leave the rest of the name, so I've copied that until now. Where the hut is named after a city and has the German adjectival ending -er, it contradicts the usually WikiProject German convention where we drop the ending. Hence Innsbrucker Hut or Ravensburger Hut. I'd prefer Innsbruck Hut and Ravensburg Hut but we need to show that English sources use those names. Where the name ends in -haus I've resisted the temptation to change the name to "Foo House" although there is a translation logic in doing so. --Bermicourt (talk) 09:13, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree that names ought to be based on accepted useage only if in properly published, printed sources in English, not the odd website (though www.summitpost.org and the english versions of pages on camptocamp.org are often informative). My only experience of the name structure you mention is Braunschweiger Hut, with the 'er' kept in. I don't have the foreign language skills to say what's right - just the references to support sensible naming by english-speaking authors. I can offer to add a range of citations to mountain huts in any of the 4000mer ranges, and have guide books for the Otztal, too. To keep the 'evidence' (so-to-speak) all in one place, shall we first create a topic on Hut Names in English (on this page?), and add/edit all the citations there in a piecemeal manner and then gain a concensus. (Though I'm feeling rather wiki-ed out right now!) Any thoughts on the category name change - or is it best to do this task first? Parkywiki (talk) 11:59, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
 * The guidance on translation of names is here: WikiProject Germany/Conventions. It's normal to drop the -er and also to split compound nouns appropriately as the convention indicates. Once we are agreed on a convention for huts, we can simply add it to that page. Certainly we don't need to retain the -hütte or incidentally the hyphens in hyphenated names. Re category names... Mountain huts of France is the way to go. Reynolds refers to the French ones generically as mountain huts even though he tends to use the French (or Italian) native names for them. Bermicourt (talk) 14:30, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

I started moving a few pages (when appropriate). I also asked the Refuges of the Alps category to be renamed (at WP:CFDS). It looks like one editor started many stubs systematically using "refuge", so we'll have to move many pages. ZachG (Talk) 15:57, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Well done, Zach. We can help with the moves. Bermicourt (talk) 19:08, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Great stuff, thanks. (BTW: Mont Blanc massif is a DYK right now.) Parkywiki (talk) 20:55, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Seen it. Awesome - well done! --Bermicourt (talk) 21:22, 23 February 2016 (UTC)