Portal talk:Germany

Useful subpages

• Portal:Germany/Selected articles and pictures - list of possible selected articles and pictures
• Portal:Germany/Selected article - shows all selected articles that can be shown on portal
• Portal:Germany/Selected picture - shows all selected pictures that can be shown on portal
• Portal:Germany/Anniversaries - overview of existing and missing Anniversary pages

Page Views

This is one of the best portals that the English Wikipedia has. It has had an average of 104 daily pageviews during the baseline period of 1 January 2019 - 28 February 2019. By contrast, the head article Germany has had 15,549 daily page views in that period, and that doesn't count views of History of Germany, states of Germany, or any topic that is about Germany.

I am not proposing that this portal be deleted, only that portals that are broken or neglected be deleted. But this is as good a place as anywhere to put portal view metrics. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:52, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you that's useful. But a primary assumption is that portals are no different from articles: sitting in mainspace, easy to find, highly linked from other articles and designed to be reader-facing i.e. to inform and entertain. Let's break that down. First, it's not in mainspace so that immediately means it will never appear in any searches - the main means by which readers navigate. Second, it is well linked, unlike many portals, both from articles and from categories. But typically the portal link in articles is buried in the footer information at the bottom of the page along with other general navigation aids, so I'd say the links are not that visible. It'd be interesting to survey, BTW, how much readers use the different navigation means to see which are the more effective. Third, it is relatively informative, but there isn't a lot of article coverage; ironically you have to navigate away to the sub-portals to find that. But however, good it is as a portal, it will never get the hits of the equivalent article as it's not in mainspace and the search box will never display it.

So there are only two ways to improve on the current situation. We could make this portal more visible by somehow getting portals to display in searches. Caveat: they really must be of sufficient quality to do that. If that's impossible, then we can make them more visible on the articles themselves e.g. put them in the infobox and more visible in . The other way to improve it is to recognise that portals have other purposes. One is as a navigation aid. This portal isn't great in that respect as there are relatively few article links and so the coverage isn't wide. Bizarrely the topic is almost too broad to provide good coverage without the sub-portals, although I think it could be better. Another key purpose of portals, one that I have used to good effect, is as a project tool to improve coverage of a topic. To be fair, I have the advantage that, usually, I can import a ready-made portal from German Wikipedia where they are fully on board this. But I have also set one up from scratch using the same principles and it's not too difficult. A good project-facing portal will have a comprehensive set of article links that is balanced (aiding prioritisation) and clearly laid out (aiding navigation) plus sections listing featured and good articles on the topic, articles for improvement, wanted articles and images, and, yes, some red links which show where coverage is still required. You can see at a glance how good the coverage i and create and improve articles in a focussed way, ideally with the cooperation of other project editors. HTH. I can honestly say that, without the portals I have created, I would not have had the incentive or focus to create many of my articles. Bermicourt (talk) 07:56, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

• It is also interesting to compare portals to other navigational and meta pages: This portal usually gets as many pageviews as the category, the outline and the talk page combined. —Kusma (t·c) 13:01, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Portal expanded

The portal has been expanded with the addition of a new selected cuisine section. The article selections listed below were added. If anyone is interested, please feel free to discuss these changes here. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 13:16, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Selected cuisine entries

1 * Westphalian ham 2 * Rinderbraten 3 * Flammekueche 4 * Schweinshaxe 5 * Sauerbraten 6 * Bremer Klaben 7 * German wine 8 * Fischbrötchen 9 * Bratwurst 10 * Beer in Germany 11 * Handkäse 12 * Currywurst 13 * Knödel 14 * Maultasche 15 * Bayrisch Kraut 16 * Magenbrot 17 * Cuisine of Hamburg 18 * Mett 19 * Berliner Weisse 20 * Pomeranian cuisine 21 * Saxon cuisine 22 * Thuringian sausage 23 * Königsberg marzipan

FYI: Request for comment regarding Austrian (or Swiss) Standard German

Hi, I would like to call your attention to the following request for comment because it is relevant to Standard German, especially to Austrian (or Swiss) Standard German:

• Help talk:IPA/Standard German#Should we use Austrian (or Swiss) Standard German pronunciation for topics related to Austria (or Switzerland)?

Thanks --mach 🙈🙉🙊 14:32, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

German standard, Switzerland and Austria are part of Germany in history. Germany is older as state. --92.76.97.5 (talk) 18:16, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

That's rubbish, Switzerland and Austria were never part of Germany historically and both are older than Germany. Germany was a collection of states within the Holy Roman Empire until 1871. To answer the question, we are at liberty to use regional spelling and terms for regional articles so I imagine it's okay to use regional pronunciation too. In any case, there is no standard German way of saying some Swiss and Austrian words e.g. standard German doesn't recognise Swiss "merci" or Austrian "Droggn". If anyone disputes it, add both. Bermicourt (talk) 07:19, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Best style choice – country name for Germans born between 1933–1942: German Reich, Nazi Germany, Germany?

Hello everyone,

I'm looking for some style guidance on the use of the birth_place parameter in the Template:Infobox person for people born in Germany 1933–1945. I did a hasty revert of this edit on Michael Haneke's page – instinctively assuming that a one word addition of "Nazi" in the article of a famous film director is vandalism. I soon saw this was not the intention of Pjesnik21, and apologized to him here. Since then I've been looking for a style guide or discussion on this issue, and found little so far. The explanations at the template are pretty vague: "Countries should generally not be linked", as well as "for historical subjects, use the place name most appropriate for the context and our readership."

In the German WP, we stick to the official name used in every historical period, which for 1942 would be "German Reich", and for 1943–1945 was "Greater German Reich". But looking at articles here, I haven't found a single one yet that uses "German Reich" for Germans born in 1942. Instead, most just use Germany, either with a link to that article, or without a link. See for example: Hannelore Hoger, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, Jochen Rindt, Margarethe von Trotta, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul. This includes articles like the one on Alexandra, who was born in East Prussia, which is not part of Germany anymore. Some use piped links to the article Nazi Germany, for e.g.: Hannelore Elsner, Reinhard Mey, Werner Herzog. Even less common seems to be the direct link to Nazi Germany – and of those examples, most seem to have been inserted by an IP: Sigfried Held, Reinhard Klimmt, Volker Rühe – so that doesn't raise my confidence in that method.

What is the best practice in your opinion? I feel uncomfortable leaving these few directly-linked "Nazi Germany" in place – unless we would decide to make that the guidance for every article. I would suggest "German Reich" instead – but for some reason, that doesn't seem to favored right now. Greetings from --Sprachraum (talk) 04:24, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Portal:Germany/Selected picture with POTDs

Kusma, how do you feel about using template {{Portal pictures}} for "Selected picture" section of the portal? Using this template allows simple and easy addition of new POTDs as selected pictures to the portal. There is no need to write the caption, no need to create a subpage, no need to update |max= for {{Random portal component}} at Portal:Germany for every picture. Just adding another date to the invocation of {{Portal pictures}} is needed (example).

At Special:Permalink/1046362843#Slideshow is an example of how it could look on Portal:Germany with a selection of POTD pictures (I've just selected randomly from a search). And at Special:Permalink/1046361192#Portal:Germany/Selected picture you can see how this selection would look like at Portal:Germany/Selected picture. —⁠andrybak (talk) 08:17, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Note, that existing subpages can also be included via parameter |subpagemax=50. Demo with just current subpages: Special:Permalink/1046364955#Selected pictures list. —⁠andrybak (talk) 08:33, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

@Andrybak, do what you think is best, I'm not currently working on the portal in any serious way. The POTDs have a very different bias from the old subpages, and while I personally like the old selection better (it uses FPs from Commons, which have a much wider selection of modern photographs instead of the many restorations of old images among our local FPs/POTDs) they are both high quality selections. Best way forward would be to use both and adapt the captions so they are all of similar style and length. —Kusma (talk) 09:44, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

@Andrybak, in the current setup we need |more=no in the POTD-derived subpages, otherwise there will be a duplicate link to the Selected picture subpage on the main portal. I think I've fixed all, but please double check. —Kusma (talk) 10:25, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

I have implemented {{Portal pictures}}: Special:Diff/1055062966. Now I'm gonna go add some POTDs to the list.

etc. —⁠andrybak (talk) 17:13, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Germany flag

Germany of flag 136.158.39.74 (talk) 09:13, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

The portal shows the flag prominently and links to Flag of Germany. Portal:Germany/Selected article/32, extracted from Flag of Germany, is sometimes chosen randomly as the selected article. Would you like to suggest an improvement? Certes (talk) 13:54, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Saxony from 1918-1945. Also a Request to make a portal for Saxony.

I Request that the Gau Saxony article be expanded to also contain events from 1918-1933 which would be Events under the Weimar Republic.We could also make an article about Weimar Saxony. Another Request is to make a portal for The German state of Saxony so we can discuss stuff like this in that portal. Zyxrq (talk) 00:47, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Portal:Saxony got trashed in 2019 during the mass deletion campaign, but was rescued and moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany/Portal:Saxony along with the other state portals that didn't survive the cull. If we are allowed to restore German state portals, we could bring it up to date and then move it back to mainspace when we're happy with it. But worth checking with Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals whether this is now acceptable. Bermicourt (talk) 06:35, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with recreating this portal. The mass deletion campaign stemmed from an admin who went on a disruptive campaign on deleting portals based on a faulty assumption or made-up criteria (i.e. less than X pageviews per month should be considered for deletion) that ultimately led to dozens of portals being deleted and the admin desysopped by ArbCom. It looks like Portal:Saxony was one of the victim from this carnage that its effect is still being felt 3 years later. As long as the portals (Saxony and others) can be maintained once in a while, I support having these portals recreated. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 17:46, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, that is helpful. Of course, the portals need to be brought up to date and to meet the usual portal standards, but at least we can move forward. Bermicourt (talk) 17:57, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Portal:Saxony is now up and running and editors are encouraged to use it to track and update Saxony articles. It would be useful if we could incorporate bots that give automatic readouts on the number of Saxony articles, the newest articles and those with issues. German Wiki uses bots like "User:MerlBot/InAction", but I can't find its equivalent. Bermicourt (talk) 13:08, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Weimar States

States of the Weimar Republic: Free State of Prussia, Free People's State of Württemberg, Republic of Baden, People's State of Hesse, Free State of Anhalt, Free State of Brunswick, Free State of Waldeck-Pyrmont, Free State of Lippe, Free State of Schaumburg-Lippe, Free State of Oldenburg, Free State of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Free State of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. articles of Weimar States that should be created [[Weimar Bavaria]] [[Weimar Saxony]] [[Weimar Thuringia]] Zyxrq (talk) 01:51, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

"Flammkuchen"

I have some doubts about the German words; I noticed that there are many words with a capital letter, could you tell me how I can understand which ones they are? JackkBrown (talk) 20:48, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't think we have a MOS rule about when English text should retain the capital initial when borrowing nouns from German. In the case of Flammkuchen, Wiktionary claims that the capital F is optional in English. Certes (talk) 21:53, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

@Certes: so in the sentence "The Alsatian flammekueche (standard German: Flammkuchen; French: tarte flambée)", should "Flammkuchen" be spelled with a lowercase initial? I know it's not important, but that's all I need and then I have finished my work on an important page. JackkBrown (talk) 21:57, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

I think it's optional, so I would be inclined to leave the text as it is (effectively seeking a second opinion from whoever created it and going with that). Certes (talk) 22:00, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

@Certes: perfect, thank you. JackkBrown (talk) 22:02, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Kölnisches Stadtmuseum

Hello all, recently there were major developments in the history of the museum, I updated the article accordingly. It would be very nice if somebody could proofread my translation (which was supported by DeepL). Thanks! elya (talk) 17:54, 23 March 2024 (UTC)