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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5

Whatever spelling is chosen, please be consistent

Not going to get involved in the naming discussions, but when/if they're settled, please use that spelling consistently throughout the article, as mentioned by the GA reviewer above. It's very distracting to a copy-editor (whose duties include spell-checking) to see the same thing spelled several different ways throughout the article. Suggestion: Tokyo was once known as Edo. They explain that in the History section, with a link to Edo for more extensive information on the old city. Perhaps the same could be done here. Also, the same issue cropped up when this editor copy-edited Hezbollah, which has various other English transliterations (Hizbullah, Hizbollah, etc.). They reached a consensus on Hezbollah pretty quickly, with a to-do note to explain the spelling varieties in the intro. (Hasn't happened yet, but presumably, it will.) Unimaginative Username (talk) 23:57, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

"Advancing industrialization"

Re: "...the communist government ... ordered the construction of the country's largest steel mill ... thus advancing industrialization of the city by attracting a new working class." Wouldn't industrialization be advanced just by the act of building factories and other industries? (which would then attract workers) Without knowing the facts behind this statement, I might suggest re-phrase as something like "... spurred the industrialization of the area by ordering the construction of the country's largest steel mill". Growth of the new suburb from the workers attracted to these jobs could be mentioned in a separate sentence if deemed significant, and sourced. Unimaginative Username (talk) 00:23, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Why are the salt mines referred to as "royal"?

"Points of interest outside the city include royal Wieliczka salt mine..."
It's not clear to me why the word "royal" is there. The linked WP article on the mine does not include the word "royal" or any reference to royalty other than as visitors, apparently. Please explain this word, or perhaps it should be removed? Thank you, Unimaginative Username (talk) 07:42, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I seem to vaguely remember a story about Wieliczka having been granted a royal charter sometime in the distant past, but I cannot find anything quotable. PL:WP does not mention anything royal either, so I'm about to delete the word.--Jotel (talk) 20:26, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Some interesting reading here... http://poland.as/Must_see,_must_be!/Wieliczka/311,,1,1,0,0-Wieliczka.html —PētersV (talk) 04:08, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Moved second info box to fix edit bunching

There are were three "edit" tags in the middle of the "Middle Ages" section. These were probably intended for the "Etymology" section and the top of the Middle Ages section. An editor involved in this article should apply the section edit tags where appropriate. Unimaginative Username (talk) 07:48, 19 November 2007 (UTC), member, League of Copy-editors

  • I gave myself a crash course in WP:BUNCH. The bunching problem showed in my Firefox browser. Moving the second info box seems to have fixed it, but anyone with more expertise in layout, codes, the fixbunch template, etc. is very welcome to put the infobox back where it was and to use one of the more sophisticated code-based methods to avoid the edit bunching. Unimaginative Username (talk) 08:58, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

City names box

I added a small box to the Etymology section. I think it's better then listing the city's names in various languages in the paragraphs. Languages are listed in alphabetical order. I used the following criteria for including a language in the box:

  • Languages which have, or used to have, an official status in the city (Latin, German, Polish)
  • Languages which are, or used to be, spoken by the majority or a substantial minority of the city's population (German, Polish, Yiddish)
  • English, as this is an English-language Wikipedia.

Names in languages which do not fulfill the above criteria should be listed at Names of European cities in different languages which is where the More languages link directs to.

If y'all don't like it, do away with it. If it stays, it might be eventually made into a template and used in articles about other cities as well. — Kpalion(talk) 04:38, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

The box is ugly and totally unnecessary – no major city has anything like that, and for a good reason. However, the idea of sorting languages in Etymology according to criteria is a lot more interesting. --Poeticbent talk 05:46, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
The esthetics can be improved of course. And if a standalone box is bad, how about integrating it into the Template:Infobox Settlement? Whatever the format, I believe it would be quite useful as it would give you all the historically relevant names at a glance and help ensure that they are seleted and sorted according to well specified criteria. What is the "good reason" other city articles don't have anything like that (beside the reason that nobody thought about it before)? — Kpalion(talk) 10:21, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
This is hardly just about aesthetics. The box looks like a picture of misery with 5 slots listing foreign names (like English) already expanded beyond that – right in the opening line of the article – thus rendering the box redundant. It is not comprehensive (see WP:MOS) and unencyclopedic. It is a bad idea. I suggest you look at featured articles on cities for guidance. --Poeticbent talk 16:39, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
I removed the Latin and German names from the lead to reduce redundancy. Still, if there's some information in the text which is repeated in the box, I don't think that's wrong. Or are you going to remove the main infobox because it mostly contains the same infromation that is already in the text? Why do you think it's not encyclopedic? Which part of MoS says it's bad? I looked at featured articles on cities and yeah, they don't have boxes like this one. Maybe some of them should? You didn't answer my previous question: how about integrating the box into the Template:Infobox Settlement?
Anyway, if you want to add more information about the history of Cracow's name, please do. For me the box was the easiest way to clean up the mess that the Etymology section was. — Kpalion(talk) 18:02, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


No need for a {{cn}} tag

The sentence in question states: Kraków is known by varying names in different languages with the English spelling of Cracow becoming less and less frequent in printed literature.

Here are the new advanced search results:
Updated December 17, 2007, with "Poland" added to search in order to weed out non-English titles:

If you cared to have an even more advanced look at the results, you'd find out that (a) results for Kraków and Krakow are lumped together (b) most of the works listed there are by Polish authors, specialists in everything but English linguistics, and they can hardly be described as setting trends for real (i.e. native) English. --Jotel (talk) 08:10, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Updated December 17, 2007, with "Poland" added to search for Kraków/Cracow:

Again, an advanced look (beyond the hit count) would reveal there still are many, many books in Polish (no, I have no idea how to weed them out). There also are such works as Legendary Cracow =Legendarny Kraków: Wersja Dwuje̜zyczna Angielsko-polska or Kraków =: Cracow = Krakau = Cracovie = Cracovia. --Jotel (talk) 08:10, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

On average, the spelling of Krakow is ten times more popular than Cracow among reputable English sources. Proof is in the pudding. Results copied and pasted from FAC discussion page updated. Btw, what is this obstructionism (below) all about? --Poeticbent talk 17:19, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

This is beyond belief....
The quoted Google Scholar results return mostly authors' names, mostly spelled Krakow anyway.
The Google Books result are biased by books published in Polish.

Is there a WP award for the most selective quotation???

Encyclopaedia Britannica: the results refer to the style manual of a single publication.
Columbia: contains Kraków, Cracow and Krakow, so I fail to see a proof of anything here.
And now for more single publication results: The Times (UK), does not use Kraków. Ditto the Guardian. Ditto the Telegraph. The Independent: Kraków 5 hits, Cracow 23 hits. NY Times: Kraków 340 hits, Cracow 800+ hits.The {{fact}} returns. --Jotel (talk) 11:53, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Instead of calling names, could you care to answer my point? What about newspapers results quoted above? So if somebody presents data inconsistent with your preconceived ideas, this is disruptive? Citation IS needed. --Jotel (talk) 20:53, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
A positive (?) suggestion: let's drop the offending sentence altogether, instead of wasting time on finding evidence supporting one point of view or another. Changes of English usage are undoubtedly fascinating for some, but this matter hardly belongs to the article on Kraków (or Krakow or Cracow...)--Jotel (talk) 09:16, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Done --Jotel (talk) 08:40, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Table in "Demographics" section has a problem.

The population and density table in the Demographics section has a problem. It matches the reference just fine, but the reference has a problem too. The Population goes up about 105 thousand between 1970 and 1978, but the population density goes DOWN in the same period. I assume that the population density figure for 1970 is wrong, and instead should be about 1800 -- Ch'marr (talk) 01:33, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Notable residents?

Note: The following statement has been included in the Portal talk:Poland/Poland-related Wikipedia notice board discussion.

There’s a continuous, unremitting problem with the so called notable residents of most Polish cities. The choices are always arbitrary and suspiciously selective. The names are added by chance and equally quickly removed and than reinserted. The "people section" idea poses unnecessary challenges for metropolitan cities such as Kraków, where notable residents would count in thousands. The problem with smaller cities is even worse, where red links and attempts at self-promotion abound. Various special interest groups often use this channel to prove a point about their own ethnic presence ahead of everybody else. The question is, should we continue with this practise, or perhaps aim at creating sub-articles for all those cities, and call them "Notable residents of such and such city" i.e.: Notable residents of Kraków? The section is widely discouraged by the League of Copyeditors and absent in practically all quality articles on world cities anyway. --Poeticbent talk 19:05, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

You might be interested in Category:Lists of people by city. I don't mind mentioning notable people for smaller towns, but things can get rather unwieldy for places like Wrocław and Poznań. Olessi (talk) 20:59, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
The idea is there, but the category is terribly under-populated, because there are virtually no new articles leading to it. --Poeticbent talk 18:44, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Hejnał Mariacki

The section on Stare Miasto discusses the Hejnał Mariacki, the trumpet call played from the Church of St. Mary. It presents, apparently as fact, the idea that the legend of the broken note dates from a novel of the 1920's. I happen not to believe that, and I've expressed my doubts, along with some reason, on the talk page for Hejnał Mariacki. The source cited strikes me as something more of a travel log rather than a scholarly investigation. Since I think the question is far from certain either way, I think the definitive statement should be kept to the article on Hejnał Mariacki, where it can be discussed in one place. (Remember, there are actually people who consider Wikipedia to be a scholarly and authoritative resource.) I'd prefer to see in this article a simple statement that there is such a legend, along with ample link to the other article. 140.147.236.194 (talk) 18:38, 15 August 2008 (UTC)Stephen Kosciesza

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