Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Prussia/Archive 2

Article merge
I completed my translation of de:Mark Brandenburg at User:Olessi/Mark Brandenburg. In the meantime, User:Der Eberswalder moved Elector of Brandenburg to Electoral Brandenburg and updated the information. How should we best combine the information? One option would be to cannibalize the article in my userspace into Slavic Brandenburg (as discussed above) and create a Margravate of Brandenburg article (which Electoral Brandenburg would be merged into). The Geography section could be pasted to a talk page instead of going into the namespace. Elector of Brandenburg could be recreated to discuss the duties of the prince-elector. These would fit in with the suggested template. Any thoughts? Olessi 23:11, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Nice work. The creation of a separate Margraviate article makes sense and would then form a clear distinction between the political and geographical aspects of the Mark article. I'm unsure about having the Margraviate article separate to the Elector one. Is there enough information to justify separate articles? I don't know. And from our earlier discussions about template layout, a separate article causes a bit of a headache. - 52 Pickup 12:03, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Margravate versus Margraviate
I have renamed the redirect for Margraviate of Brandenburg to Margravate of Brandenburg. Note that margravate is the correct spelling for this word in English. I have gone through Wikipedia to correct all links to the Margraviate of Brandenburg so that they now point to Margravate of Brandenburg. By the way, I agree that this redirect deserves to become an article on the history of this state, though it would be good to watch out for overlap with the Mark Brandenburg article. Obviously, "Electorate of Brandenburg" would need to remain at least as a redirect (with the redirect now pointing the other way), since so many articles link to that term. Marco polo 15:21, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

My proposal is to make Margravate of Brandenburg the sole article, while Mark Brandenburg and Electoral Brandenburg would only be redirects, so there wouldn't be any overlap at all. "Margraviate" is an accepted English spelling, although I have no preference for one or the other.

Do we want the article at Margravate of Brandenburg or Electorate of Brandenburg? I prefer having the article at "Margravate of Brandenburg" since the principality was always a margravate, but not always an electorate. Having the article at "Margravate" would allow the inclusion of most of the Ascanian information, while "Electorate" would not (presumably it would be at "Slavic Brandenburg" instead). Here is how the other elector-states are currently titled:


 * Archbishopric of Mainz
 * Archbishopric of Trier
 * Archbishopric of Cologne
 * Bohemia
 * Palatinate
 * Electorate of Saxony
 * Bavaria (History of Bavaria)
 * Brunswick-Lüneburg / Hanover (state)
 * Hesse-Kassel
 * Salzburg
 * Baden
 * Württemberg (History of Württemberg)

I don't think there is enough info to warrant separate Mark / Elector articles; we could simply make a subsection detailing the elector's duties and honors or include it at Prince-elector. I found Old Prussia yesterday and tagged it for merger with Prussia (region); do we want to include a cleaned-up article about the region within the template as well? Olessi 17:32, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The idea to have Margravate of Brandenburg as main article and Margraviate, Electoral, and Mark Brandenburg as redirects sounds reasonable. --Der Eberswalder 00:05, 22 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I completed the article merges/redirects. Have a look at Margravate of Brandenburg! Since "Slavic Brandenburg" is a phrase that I cannot find any sources for (and therefore original research), I renamed that link within the template to Northern March. Since the margravate lasted until the dissolution of the HRE in 1806, I added 1806 to the template as well. Olessi 06:32, 23 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Excellent. The article now looks very complete. The entries for the other electors needs a lot of work - which I would like to organise via WikiProject Former countries/HRE task force, but there aren't that many people involved with this, and those of us who are are too busy with other things. The history templates look good with your changes. We still need to fix the colours used before putting it up.- 52 Pickup 14:26, 23 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I checked some references, and, despite my earlier comment, I agree that it should be "margraviate" rather than "margravate". The former form is preferred by more sources.  I have been changing the spelling whenever I see it in related articles.  Marco polo 21:07, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Merge of Old Prussia and Origins of Prussia
Yes, I support that the Old Prussia article should be incorporated into the Prussia (region) article. The content of the Old Prussia article refers to the time before with what the Prussia (region) article begins. It seems like a simple copy and paste and redirect. If there is opposition feel free to change it back. --Der Eberswalder 00:05, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Or maybe OP and P(r) should not be merged. It seems better to me to let Prussia (region) as it is and move Origins of Prussia into Old Prussia. Any thoughts? --Der Eberswalder 00:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I could see Origins of Prussia being merged into Old Prussia, while Prussia (region) would be a survey article summarizing the history of the geographic region (including a summary of Old Prussia). Olessi 05:39, 22 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Agree. - 52 Pickup 14:27, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Former districts
I originally posted this here but received no response.

The current naming system for Kreise is to disambiguate where necessary with Name (district). Is there any reason not to use this style for the former districts east of the O-N Line? Regarding Landkreis Trebnitz, for example, we would use Trebnitz (district) instead of Landkreis Trebnitz. "Trebnitz" could then be turned into a disambiguation page listing the former district and Trzebnica.

Any thoughts? Olessi 19:13, 22 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Sounds perfectly reasonable. Give it a go. - 52 Pickup 14:28, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Template
I fiddled around with the colors at Wikipedia:WikiProject Prussia/Template:History of Prussia; my edited version is in the middle. Some ideas to consider are adding more rows to "Margraviate of Brandenburg" (since it lasted until 1806) and adding a section(s) for Berlin / History of Berlin, since the city played a major role in the history of B-P. Possibly divide the section after "Free State of Prussia" into "Brandenburg" and "Berlin"? Olessi 17:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I tried to use softer palettes recommended at Wikipedia talk:Colours. Olessi 17:53, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Any objections to the creation of Template:History of Prussia using the middle version of Wikipedia:WikiProject Prussia/Template:History of Prussia? Since the series includes the history of Brandenburg as well, I would prefer Template:History of Brandenburg and Prussia or Template:History of Brandenburg-Prussia, actually. Olessi 23:09, 13 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Go for it. You're right, Template:History of Brandenburg and Prussia would be a better name. - 52 Pickup 08:17, 14 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I included the template in each article except for Brandenburg-Prussia, since there wasn't enough room there. Olessi 17:18, 14 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I felt compelled to edit the template because it indicated inaccurately that the Free State of Prussia controlled the entire territory of the Kingdom of Prussia after 1918 (when in fact much of what had been Royal Prussia returned to Poland) and, even more inaccurately, that the State of Brandenburg controlled the entire territory of the former Kingdom of Prussia after 1945 (when in fact it controlled not even the entire territory of the former Margraviate of Prussia). Marco polo 01:13, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I just have a suggestion for the template to include the Memelland and even the current territories in Russia (Kaliningrad Oblast), Poland and Lithuania, as written here Template_talk:History_of_Brandenburg_and_Prussia for more consistency and completeness. Kazkaskazkasako (talk) 17:57, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Including articles about modern cities in Prussia WikiProject
Recently a number of articles about modern cities have been tagged as included WikiProject Prussia by User:R9tgokunks. I think this is not a good idea, for at least two reasons: Balcer 15:56, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Prussia's territory included a large chunk of Europe. I think it would be totally unreasonable to include every single locality on that territory within the scope of Prussia Wikiproject, even places that belonged to Prussia for only a few years.  It would require including tens of thousands of articles about various places in Germany, Poland, Russia, Lithuania and Denmark.  What would be the practical use of that?  So, for the sake of consistency, none should be included.
 * It is not good practice to include articles about a modern city in a project that deals with a defunct state. Most of those articles devote themselves to describing the modern situation of that city, which has little to do with Prussia.  On the other hand, it might be reasonable to include city history articles (say History of Berlin) within the scope of WikiProject Prussia.
 * You are absolutely right. This banner should be used sparingly, and only on articles that are specifically related to Prussia. - 52 Pickup 17:05, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with your point, but then now, shouldnt we add major cities like Königsberg, Berlin, Danzig, Stettin, Kattowitz, and Poznan?-- Hrödberäht 15:04, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia articles about large modern cities have usually only a small fraction of their text devoted to the city's history, so I think it does not make any sense to include them in any of our "historical" projects. An article about the history of a large city might qualify, though even there it might be debatable if a city was a part of a historical entity for only a relatively short time.  I can already see arguments that including History of Gdańsk in the Prussia project would not be justified, as the only significant continuous period in which the city was a part of independent Prussia was from 1815 to 1871, i.e. about 5% of its history.  Balcer 15:32, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I think if significant historical events happened during that period—i.e. a non-negligible portion of the historical text is discussing its history as part of Prussia—then it makes sense. We're usually pretty liberal about overlapping wikiproject "membership" in that way; for example, a large number of Greek cities include WikiProject Turkey, and a large number of Turkish cities include WikiProject Greece, and this is generally not controversial (some of the edits are controversial, but the wikiproject banners on the talk pages aren't). --Delirium 20:02, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
 * If the city has a long description of its history in its article, then it should anyway be moved to a separate "History of (city)" article, and I see no problem with tagging that article as part of the Prussia project, if necessary. However, if we follow your proposal to include articles about modern cities in the project, we will have endless arguments about defining what a "non-negligible portion of historical text" amounts to.  Anyway, Prussia disappeared off the European stage as an indpendent entity in 1871, so tagging articles about modern Polish, German, or Danish cities as included in that project strikes me as a little bit bizarre.
 * Let's remember that this whole discussion started when one user started to aggressively insert this tag into discussion pages of many Polish cities only because they once belonged to Prussia (regardless of the content of the article, and even for cities which were part of Prussia for about a decade). We should certainly define criteria to avoid a repetition of that unfortunate experience. Wikipedia should not be a place where a few determined users work to recreate defunct states (even if only in virtual reality).  The borders of Europe have moved around quite a lot in the past century, and many Wikipedia users would feel uncomfortable if an article about their modern city is tagged with the flag of its former masters. For one broader example, imagine if every city in India got tagged as belonging to some "British Empire"-type project.  'Nuff said.  Balcer 20:29, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, I pointed out that in Greece/Turkey we already do have a situation of a modern city being tagged with the flag of its former master, and nobody seems to much object. Thessaloniki is part of WikiProject Turkey since it was once part of the Ottoman Empire, while Istanbul is part of WikiProject Greece, since it was once part of the Byzantine Empire, to pick just two examples. I do agree that this should only be the case for cities with significant history from the relevant Wikiproject, and that "History of [x]" articles are generally better targets; it would be weird to tag historically unimportant (or recently founded) Greek or Turkish cities with the other Wikiproject's tag. But I don't see why including History of Gdańsk in the history of Prussia is more objectionable than including Thessaloniki in the history of Turkey. I'd say the same for a British Empire Wikiproject—remember, Wikiprojects are fields of study, not "claims". Thessaloniki is studied by historians of the Ottoman Empire, so makes sense in that Wikiproject; similarly anything that is studied by specialists in Prussia or specialists in British colonial history would make sense in relevant Wikiprojects.  Heck, I'd extend it to even more defunct states, like Sumeria. --Delirium 20:42, 25 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is vast and one can always find isolated counterexamples to any general trend, but this does not change the fact that tagging articles about modern cities with projects related to their former political masters is extremely uncommon. For another illustration, check to see how many cities in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are included in WikiProject Russia. As for the Thessaloniki example, could it simply be that History of Thessaloniki has not yet been created?  (and it really should be since that article is already beyond the size recommended by Wikipedia guidelines).  Why don't we simply agree that only  "History of [x]" articles can be included in the Prussia project when it comes to modern cities and towns.  That would be a neat, non-controversial solution which I would fully support.  Balcer 20:54, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Just created svg version of Prussian flag from 1903-1918, hope it is of use to you
I've just created a relatively good vector image of the Prussian flag from 1903 to 1918, I was unclear about details on the Prussian crown as no clear image was available to reference it from but, otherwise is better than the jpg version. It's titled Image:Flag_of_Prussia_1903-1918.svg I hope this is of use to you working on the Wikiproject for Prussia. I will release the Coat of arms of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1903-1918 shortly.

User:R-41


 * Nice work. Thanks! - 52 Pickup 05:51, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Maybe you can help me?
Hi there, I'm currently doing some research for the play "The Prince of Homburg" By Heinrich Von Kleist and was wondering if you could help me out. I've looked everywhere but can't seem to find any information on the 'commandments' of the Prussian military. I believe there were a set of rules/guidelines that all Prussian Officers had to abide by; but I simply cannot find a copy of them anywhere!

Thanks and I hope you can help! 195.195.77.86 12:55, 20 September 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.5.92.186 (talk) 22:01, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Bias / NPOV check on East Prussia
I've added a bias tag to East Prussia as it sounds biased to me. ...the region was conquered by invading Teutonic Knights who either murdered and enslaved the native populaton, while turning others into serfs... and ...the demographic situation was changed and descendants of German conquerors and colonists were forced back to Germany... to give examples. 84.145.195.64 02:11, 30 September 2007 (UTC)