User talk:Olivier/Archives 2006

Perpignan and Catalan POV

Olivier, could you have a look at the Perpignan article? There is this Catalan Wikipedian who keeps adding POV information to the Perpignan article, portraying Perpignan as if it was part of a Catalan "comarca". In particular, he uploaded the map to the right into the article.

This map is very POV, it shows the commune of Perpignan inside the so-called "Comarca of Rosellò", as if comarcas had administrative recognition in France! I already told him to upload a map of Pyrénées-Orientales instead, but that user doesn't want to listen. Can you have a look? I am tired of reverts.

You could also have a look at Rosselló (comarca). Roussilon is presented as a Catalan comarca "currently under French administration". This has Catalan nationalist sounding to me. Hardouin 11:38, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:WikiProject French départements

This project was recently marked inactive due to inactivity. The project talk page has not been edited in the last two months, and the project page has not been edited in the last three months. --AllyUnion (talk) 07:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Paris Streets

Olivier,

I've just begun the Wikipedia:WikiProject Paris Streets and would like to draw your attention to it - please help if you have the time. I would also like to ask your advice on naming conventions for Paris' streets - it's a bit of a stickler as arranging their category order for their name is not a problem (pipe trick) but for arranging them by arrondissement in another (double pipe trick? No such thing.) is another deal altogether. I have come up with an idea or two but would much appreciate your input - everything's on the project talk page. Thank you. ThePromenader 11:19, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your help in the Paris streets pages. I didn't know that the {{stub}} should go below categories. I can cancel the above "pipe trick" question, this is more or less solved. I will finally have time to work on the project today. Cheers. THEPROMENADER 08:35, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Long page name

What in the world was this page name (now a redirect) all about? (You created it back in Jan 2003.)

Krungthepmahanakornamornratanakosinmahintarayutthaya...

As I type this, it's causing havoc with the formatting of Special:Allpages (might be "fixed" by the time you check it because of the addition or deletion of articles since I posted this). Unless there's a good reason to keep it, I'd like to put this up for deletion. - dcljr (talk) 10:57, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's the full name of "Bangkok". In fact, I did not create it, but merely moved a similarly named page to the one you mentioned (see [1]). For an obscure reason, there is no trace of the original page. I have no opinion about keeping or deleting it. olivier 06:50, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, well. I'll just leave it alone. - dcljr (talk) 07:24, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Crazy article

Olivier, I think you may want to have a look at the article called French people. This article is the craziest I have ever seen on Wikipedia, and I mean crazy as in insane, appalingly biased. French people are presented as an "ethnic group" who inhabit France and also parts of North America and other continents. I don't think even Jean-Marie Le Pen would have dared to write such an article influenced by racial theories. I see no solution short of totally deleting the article. Another solution would be to rename the article "French nationals" or "French citizens", but then we would have to change almost the entire content of the article. Let me know what you think. Hardouin 21:35, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think that one of the main problem is: do the French people form an ethnic group or not? I admit that the article is strange, but I don't really know how to deal with it at the moment. A start may be to resolve the question of "ethnic group" and also compare this article to the ones about other European "ethnic groups". See Italian people, English people or Spanish people articles, which might as well be biased in the same way. olivier 08:04, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The article has been tagged for deletion by David.Monniaux. Check the discussion going on at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/French people. As I have made it clear there, there are nations which were formed around the concept of ethnicity, such as the German nation or the Japanese nation, so it makes sense to have a German people or Japanese people article, but other nations such as the Spanish nation of French nation were built around the concept of statehood, so in this case it is a misrepresentation to talk of an ethnic Spanish nation, or an ethnic French nation. So yes, there is more than just the French people article that needs to be deleted, but not all article on ethnic people need to be deleted. Hardouin 12:13, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Confirmation request

Hello Olivier. Since you're the person to have created category:Hong Kong newspapers and populated it, I would like to request for your confirmation at the discussion here, on whether there was any articles on Hong Kong newspapers previously categorised to category:Chinese newspapers before you created the Hong Kong category. Thanks. — Insta ntnood 19:33, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly I don't remember, and I am not that sure that it would really help in the debate anyway. olivier 05:42, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

French arrondissement categories

Hi Olivier, I noticed your recent changes to remove a couple of categories from the Arrondissement of Coutances and Arrondissement of Saint-Lô pages. I have been updating all arrondissement pages and have noticed that including {{france-geo-stub}} seems to be redundant, as there is also a link to the region's geo stub (e.g. {{IledeFrance-geo-stub}}), which are sub-categories of the France geo stub category. As I continue editing these pages, I will remove the {{france-geo-stub}} stub. Some time in the future I will go back and update all the arrondissement pages that I have already worked on.

I'm less certain about the category names that each article should be linked to. Do you have any reasons for including the category of the département's arrondissements (e.g. [[Category:Arrondissements of Manche|Saint-Lô]]) but removing the département's own category (e.g. [[Category:Manche]])?

Kiwipete 21:00, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the work on the arrondissements articles. In fact [[Category:Arrondissements of Manche]] is a sub-category of [[Category:Manche]] and of [[Category:Arrondissements of France]] and therefore, including [[Category:Manche]] in the arrondissement article is redundant (the same thing applies for the communes and the cantons). Do you have any other idea about it? olivier 04:59, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, after I replied yesterday, I did a bit more digging around and came to the same conclusion as you. I will continue my editing and remove the [[Category:Manche]] categories. This will leave each arrondissement page with only the relevant région geo stub and the arrondissements of xx category. Kiwipete 20:06, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Countship" (sic)

Since you're often an editor of articles on medieval counties, such as County of Flanders, you may disagree with their wholesale removal to "countship's by User:Fastifex and feel that there's little authentic possibility of confusion with Artois County, North Dakota or something. How does "countship" strike your well-read ear? Perhaps a tactful word from you? --Wetman 11:04, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of airports in France

I just added Miquelon Airport and Saint Pierre Airport to the list. However, I am unsure of what to put under the department so I just left it as N/A. Could you take a look and correct it. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 10:54, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please look at this page

If you are a supporter of Don Bosco, take a look at this page.

St John Bosco and LGBT edits evrik 05:02, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

re: French communes

Do you want me to convert the twenty or so communes I did to that format? --NYArtsnWords 03:40, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Up to you. At least, I believe that it would be better that you use the template for the new ones. olivier 04:22, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

about french painter Maurice Boitel

Why do you erase " Eure county" and write "Eure département" ? 1/ Only french people living in France know what is a "département" and everybody knows what is a county (from french "comté") 2/ Normandy was a long time an english province with counties (comtés). 3/ The article being written in english, it's better to use english words, not a word like "département" which has an other meaning in english.

Thanks for signing your postings in the future.

1- If you don't know that a department may refer to a subnational entity (it certainly does not hane only ONE other meaning in English), you can still click on the département link and you will read "The départements (or departments) are administrative units of France and many former French colonies, roughly analogous to British counties" in the first line. I think that it is explicit enough and the information is just a click away. Also, for your information, there are départements in at least 6 other countries. Besides, I am quite sure that not only "french people living in France" know what a département is... you know French people living outside of France also know quite a few things, and foreigners living in France, well, happen to be quite knowledgeable about the country as well... even many non-French people living outside of France are remarkably knowledgeable about French matters...

2- Comtés disappeared in 1790, some time before the birth of Maurice Boitel, and Eure was not a comté anyway. Normandy was last substantially controlled by the French speaking English crown in the 15th century. That's also quite a while before the birth of Maurice Boitel.

3- Foreign words are acceptable in the English Wikiepedia in order to refer to foreign entities. If you browse around, you will see that Spain has comarcas, Italy has comuni, Russia has oblasts, many Arabic speaking countries have wilāyahs, among others. Remember that it is the English language Wikipedia, not the England-centric Wikipedia.

So, basically writing that Maurice Boitel was born in Eure county is plain inaccurate. Now if the Maurice Boitel article is of special importance to you and you don't want to see a French word in the article, you can alternatively rephrase:

Maurice Boitel was born in Tillières-sur-Avre, Eure département, in Normandy - into:

Maurice Boitel was born in Tillières-sur-Avre, in Eure, Normandy - or:

Maurice Boitel was born in Tillières-sur-Avre, Eure département (French equivalent to an English county), in Normandy

Thanks. olivier 02:40, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Links removal

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)

Wikipedia survey

Hi. I'm doing a survey of Wikipedia editors as part of a class research project. It's quick, anonymous, and the data will be made available to the Wikipedia community later this month. Would you like to take part? More info here. Thanks! Nonplus 23:51, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Survey (another)

Hi! It seems that the idea of conducting surveys on Wikipedia is not very original. Anyway, if you are not tired of contributing to studies about WP, I invite you to complete the following survey as well. Thanks for your time! --Mermes 23:09, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New 'Large French Cities' Infobox Template proposition

Hello,

I've left the following comment on all 'French city' article sporting the 'Large French Cities' infobox template. If you care to comment as well, please do - thanks.

I'd like to bring your attention to a new - or other - version of the "Large French Cities" infobox presently at use in a few French cities pages. The present version is much too large, partly because it consecrates too much space to information having little importance to French demography and an only distant and indirect relevence to the city itself. Instead I propose to follow a less cumbersome model closer to that used by the New York City article - you can view the new version in the Paris talk page here. Please view and comment. THEPROMENADER 22:29, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the message I left on every talkpage containing the 'Large French Cities' infobox:

As a result of some discussion over the past weeks, there is an updated template available for perusal in its 'published ' form (filled with data) here - all comments welcome. -- THEPROMENADER 07:30, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Arrondissements

How's this for a start? It certainly is better than other previous edits (this for example). Any more suggestions to my automated arrondissement correction, I'm accepting suggestions(Could you please post to my talk page rather than my bot's? Thanks a lot!). F e tofs ^Hello! 00:52, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How about this? F e tofs ^Hello! 13:42, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I considered implementing the two links you suggested, but I don't know to make it stop linking the other occurrences of the word. If I find any way to do it I'll tell you. F e tofs ^Hello! 14:26, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You need to edit the vandalism from today's featured article

When you locked the edit feature from Hong Kong action cinema you didn't remove the vandalism. Currently, the article begins: Hong Kong action twat. --Jayzel 16:02, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind, I see it's now been fixed. --Jayzel 16:04, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I actually did remove most of the vandalism. A litterally last minute anonymous vandal just managed to sneak in before I protected the article. olivier 16:07, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see you've protected today's featured article. You know, it's not usual practice, and this is fairly often discussed among us admins. We always expect multifarious vandalism of today's featured article, and treat it as a way of introducing new users to the idea that you really can edit the articles. The vandalism is usually fixed pretty quickly throughout the day, and any that is missed is easily removed at the end of the day by simply comparing the current version with the version from before the article was featured on the main page. Will you please consider reversing the protection? --RobertG ♬ talk 16:09, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you compare the versions of the article between the time I semi-protected it and my previous edit 4 and a half hours before, you will notice a very limited difference, and a very intense activity of editing. Basically vandalism and reverting. I decided to semi-protect the article after restoring a large part of the text which had been erased and had been unnoticed for one hour, and after removing some graffiti. So we are facing the dilemma: a new user reading this article in a vandalized form may form a poor opinion of Wikipedia. On the other hand, as you are arguing, the semi-protection goes somewhat against the principle of freedom of editing upon which Wikipedia has been built. Basically, anonymous users have only added vandalism to this article, probably getting some sort of feeling that "you really can edit the articles ". So I still believe that my decision to semi-protect the article, at least for a while, was justified. If you think very much differently, or if you think that it is time to unprotect it, then I suggest that you go ahead and unprotect it. olivier 16:31, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Saints Wikiproject

I noted that you have been contributing to articles about saints. I invite you to join the WikiProject Saints. You can sign up on the page and add the following userbox to your user page.

I also invite you to join the discussion on prayers and infoboxes here: Prayers_are_NPOV.

Thanks! --evrik 18:36, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Aubazine/Aubazines

I noticed your recent change to this name, and wondered what your source of information is. I have searched two sources and both give the name as Aubazines. The sources are INSEE (http://www.insee.fr/fr/nom_def_met/nomenclatures/cog/ListeC.asp?TABLEZ=&numreg=74&numdep=19&numar=1&numct=04#res) and the AA 2005 Maxi Atlas France (ISBN 0-7495-4260-8). Kiwipete 10:26, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You may actually be very right: my source was the French Wikipedia. olivier 10:27, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Obazine orthograph is also used when referring to the cistercian abbey. It seems to be the initial . cf http://www.correze.org/communes/aubazine.htm

origine du nom : Conserve le souvenir du cadre forestier choisi par saint Etienne pour y installer un monastère et entreprendre des défrichements. Selon l'auteur de la Vie de saint Etienne, « le pays boisé d'Obazine » était appelé ainsi « à cause de l'opacité des forêts ». Cette étymologie est convaincante (latin opacus, touffu, sombre, opaque + suffixe latin -ina). La forme la plus ancienne du nom, vers 925, précise qu'Obazine est le nom de la forêt (silvam quae vocatur Obazina). L'orthographe moderne est injustifiée. © Marcel Villoutreix : Noms de lieux du Limousin ; Paris, Christine Bonneton éditeurs, 1995

Marrant, non? L'exactitude y gagne ce que l'esthétique y perd... Disdero 16:53, 5 June 2006 (UTC)Disdero[reply]

Why was "The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob" moved?

Just wondering why it was moved to Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob. I am not aware of any Wikipedia guideline which states that films must have article names in their original language. The vast majority do not, and this film was in fact released in the US on DVD recently under the English title and is thus known to English-speakers by that name. Unless there IS in fact some wikipedia guideline to this effect that I haven't seen, it seems that it might be better to have this film under its English title. Esn 17:04, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am not aware of any guideline for or against the title being in its original language. BUT as a matter of fact most of the French films in the English Wikipedia have their title in French (again, no rule, just rule of thumb statistics). Also the other film titles on this page are in French (Le Corniaud, La Grande Vadrouille and La Folie des Grandeurs) and the full filmography of Louis de Funès, the main actor, is in French. The English language IMDb website also gives the title in French [2], along with The Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (International: English title) and The Mad Adventures of 'Rabbi' Jacob (USA) as possible English titles. I do not object an English title here, but I do not see any good reason why The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob should be favored over The Adventures of Rabbi Jacob or even over The Mad Adventures of 'Rabbi' Jacob (note the 'Rabbi'). Being the recent DVD title in the USA is not a very strong argument for a universal English language encyclopedia, but if it makes you happy.... just go ahead and move it! olivier 17:22, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the answer. I primarily wanted to know if there was a policy about this, as it seems like something that might need attention in the future (the current state of events forces people to look for a film in more than one different language when it's listed in a category, such as "1972 films"). Again, thanks. Esn 17:46, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you: looking for a movie in a category may be a challenge for this reason, and the whole Wikipedia definitely lacks homogeneity in this particular respect. Having a look at the category "1972 films", one can find French films listed under their French title, some under their English title, a Spanish film under its Spanish title and an Italian one under its English title. The question of which language should be used for the title is, I believe, not an easy one: some foreign language films have several English titles, some may not even have one. For that reason I would tend to favour the original language title. On the other hand, difficulties arise for languages not based on the Roman alphabet. That applies for instance for the many Hong Kong movies: an English title is almost always used for them in Wikipedia, although there is in many cases not a single "official" English title for these movies. If you find or know of more information/discussion that would be helpful here, please let me know. Thanks. olivier 06:41, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Erasure Error?

Olivier, it seems that you have by error eliminated a good lot of your talk page below the comment I left above. While I'm here, can I ask you for one final comment on the Paris infobox changes? Consensus is already there but it would be great to finalise things and make sure everyone's happy who can be. Thanks. THEPROMENADER 07:43, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for pointing out the deletion. Apparently my browser played some tricks... I think I have restored everything now. olivier 02:31, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Roman theatre in Orange

Thanks for your updates, etc. I didn't know how to get that German image onto the English site, so that's very helpful. Vivaverdi 00:33, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You are welcome. olivier 11:15, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Reverts by User:Hardouin

Olivier,

I don't know how to ask you for help in this matter, but for the time being it just concerns the infobox we'd been working on on the Talk:Paris page. Since there was no further comment on the matter I went ahead with the update based upon the consensus we had reached. It spent almost a week uncommented and uncomplained about in its respective articles, and was even inquired about. Last night User:Hardouin went and reverted ad verbatim every page containing the infobox - and this four times, transcending the WP:3RR rule. This has been reported and (I hope) is being dealt with, but if you could leave a comment about this on the Paris talk page I would be much obliged. I would ask you to reinstate the improvements, but I'm not sure if that would be a legitimate procedure. Anyhow, thanks. THEPROMENADER 07:57, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You no longer need worry about this - Hardouin has been banned for the WP:3RR rule, and I have reinstated the infoboxes for what I hope to be the last time. It would help a lot if you could put in another word on the matter - also about anything else can be improved in the article! Finally, I would like to ask your help in seeing an end to any wholesale reverts - these are counterproductive and are not often based on fact - and pointing this out often takes a lot of talk-page space, which is discouraging to potential contributors. Constructive discussion tends to be more concise and goal-oriented than heated retorts by those seeing hours of work cancelled at the whim of one contributor's mouse-click. Please help put an end to this. On my end I'll be trying once again to raise contributor interest in the article - there's also the Portal:Paris to complete. Thanks for all your input - there's much more space in many articles because of it. THEPROMENADER 23:03, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see that Promenader is particularly clever and shrewd in his efforts to tarnish my name in my back, and win people to his side. I find that behavior quite disgusting to be honest. The point remains, though, that Promenader deleted all the French cities infoboxes which I had created more than a year ago with absolutely no regard for the incredible amount of time I had spent to create these infoboxes and find the information, and he replaced them with new infoboxes that contain POV (Promenader's view that metropolitan areas are misleading and not relevant in French context). I have posted several messages at Talk:Paris that express this in detail, and I have offered proofs that show that Promenader's personal view is not the view shared by INSEE. Despite this, I am being accused here of the vilest things in total disregard either for the amount of time I have spent working on these infoboxes, or for the factual evidence that I brought forward. Olivier, read the messages I wrote at Talk:Paris and let me know what you think. Hardouin 20:22, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template:French communes

I'd like to tell you I would... but, I will likely forget... I do it when I am going for speedy... I think that Template:tableau comm should probably redirect to the standard English one (since they use the same syntax) and periodically we can use a bot to change it without redirect... so, if you want to in a bit... or if I remember we can place a bot request to fix all of that. It's just a good thing I don't use Template:French communes which I used to use before the other two were created... and it's probably better in so far as its parameters are in English. gren グレン 12:27, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is it possible to have a template redirect to another one? olivier 17:06, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Talmont

Thanks for the great additions to Talmont! - Ballista 04:27, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And Pointe de Grave - Ballista 04:29, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome! olivier 08:12, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Route Nationale

I have added a request to move back RN to its previous naming since Route Nationale refers to the acronym RN. Cheers, Captain scarlet 15:11, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I guess that I disagree with you this time, Captain. See my answer at Talk:Route nationale (France). Cheers. olivier 15:49, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Polytechnique

Je ne vois pas très bien pourquoi on ne pourrait pas écrire que l'X est "the best known French engineering school", alors que c'est un fait tout à fait objectif. Autant essayer d'être le plus précis possible : on n'écrirait pas que Shakespeare est "one of the best known English playwrights", et je pense qu'il est presque aussi certain que polytechnique est plus célèbre que Centrale que Shakespeare est plus célèbre que Marlowe ou Pinter

Quelque chose d"objectif" doit etre "demontrable". Si vous avez des statistiques pour supporter cette assertion, pas de probleme, a condition de les referencer. A defaut de cela, des manieres possibles pour exprimer cette "perception" de facon "NPOV" sont "one of the best known", "probably the best known", "arguably the best known". Enfin, le referetiel est absent dans la phrase actuelle. La plus connue ou et de qui? En France? a Palaiseau? aux USA? en Afrique du Sud? parmi les recruteurs francais? Je pense qu'un esprit rigoureux et scientifique comprendra ces arguments aisement. olivier 05:34, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

c'est vrai que je ne connais pas de statistiques sur la renommée des écoles. Disons alors la plus prestigieuse, ce qui est facile à vérifier par les statistiques d'intégration: tous les admis à l'X intégrent soit cette école soit une ENS (et avec les désistements, les admis à l'X sont la plupart du temps aussi admis dans les autres écoles d'ingénieur qu'ils présentent). La question du référentiel, dans cette optique, ne se pose pas: l'X est l'école d'ingénieur dont le concours d'entrée est le plus sélectif, et donc celle dont le niveau académique moyen des élèves est le plus élevé (au moins à l'entrée).--2514 15:55, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Recoit les eleves de classes preparatoires scientifiques qui ont eu des scores parmi les plus eleves durant quelques jours de concours a l'age de 19 ans = "la plus prestigieuse" ... interessant, mais logiquement inexact. Quoi qu'il en soit, "la plus prestigieuse" n'echappe pas au besoin de referentiel: "la plus prestigieuse" aux yeux des moines tibetains? des agriculteurs du Sichuan? des habitants de Santiago du Chili?? olivier 08:40, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

La plus prestigieuse chez ceux qui connaissent les écoles d'ingénieur français, notamment ceux qui tentent d'en intégrer une. Ceux qui ont le choix entre l'X et une autre choisissent l'X, il me semble que c'est la meilleure manière par laquelle on puisse montrer que polytechnique est plus prestigieuse que les autres. Bon on est pas obligé de mettre "la plus" si il faut des chiffres pour appuyer cette affirmation, ce qui se comprend très bien, mais dans ce cas, la formule "one of the best known" n'est pas plus pertinente que "the best known" : là non plus aucun chiffre ne vient étayer cette information. Pourtant personne ne songe à contester "one of the best known", car cela semble une évidence, et si l'on se fonde sur ces évidences de l'opinion commune, il faut bien admettre que l'X n'est pas seulement l'une des plus prestigieuses mais la plus prestigieuse, je pense que personne connaissant un peu le domaine ne le contestera.--2514 12:19, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bon, c'est inutile d'argumenter eternellement sur le sujet. Les arguments que j'ai exprimes sont ceux qui sont aussi exprimes pour certaines universites americaines par exemple. Dans a peu pres tous les pays qui ont des universites/ ecoles, il y a des gueguerres pour savoir laquelle est la plus prestigieuse, la meilleure, etc. En general, l'impression que donne une phrase du type "l'institution XYZ est la plus clelebre" (ou prestigieuse, ou la meilleure) donne plutot l'impression que quelqu'un a ecrit ca de facon biaisee. Ecrire "one of the" permet d'eliminer le doute de partialite du redacteur, et je dirai meme, donne plus de credibilite a la description. DONC vous pouvez ecrire ce que vous voulez, je ne changerai pas a nouveau, mais il y a des chances pour que d'autres personnes viennent a nouveau modifier le texte avec des arguments similaires aux miens. olivier 12:36, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

voir http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3226,36-784379,0.html du 16/06/2006 pour une intéressante et dénombrilisante relativisation Disdero 14:29, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

non non, c'est sûr que ce n'est pas très grave. Je tiens seulement à préciser que je suis un littéraire qui n'a aucun intérpet personnel pour le prestige de l'X. Quant à l'article, je ne vois pas très bien le rapport, si ce n'est qu'il place l'X à la meilleure place parmi les écoles d'ingénieur françaises.

Paris Education

Olivier,

Would you have time to contribute an "Education" section to the Paris article? I have begun something in this direction but am not informed enough on the subject to be able to discern what's "essential" and what's not. I've managed to make a start that you can find here - perhaps if you don't have the time you could monitor my progress. I'd frankly prefer that you do it, though; I've done a lot for the article lately. This will also be the last major addition to the article before it goes to peer review - finally! THEPROMENADER 08:03, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the source, but there's still the chore of sorting what's important and what's not... okay, I'll try and let's see how if flies. Please do fix any flubs. Thanks again. THEPROMENADER 13:17, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a bit distracted today... just saw your additions. Thanks a lot, and please don't hesitate to do the same as it develops. Can use all the help I can get. THEPROMENADER 13:28, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Basque placenames

Hi there. I see that you had warned User:Iparragirre regarding moves of articles to their Basque names, without discussion or consensus. He/she has been at this again, and it looks like it'll need an administrator to sort some of them out. Can you help at all? --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 09:40, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

His last moves were made before my warning. Should he/she make more moves without consensus, he will meet criteria for beeing blocked. As an administrator, I can put the warning into effect. olivier 09:44, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, I notice that you put the article "Aldude" back to "Aldudes". My first impression is that the article name should reflect the name in the language actually spoken in the town, but I certainly could be wrong about that. Can you direct me toward any policy/guidelines that address this issue? I wasn't aware that any existed, and I would appreciate being able to read up on them. Thanks, roma rin [talk ] 19:29, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are several guidelines regarding the naming of articles and specifically those for places. You can check: Wikipedia:Manual of Style, Wikipedia:Proper names (check the "Place names" section there), Wikipedia:Naming conventions, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places), Wikipedia:France-related topics notice board, and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names).

Admitedly, there is no convention yet explicitly formulated for the name of French places which have alternative regional name. The following more general guidelines speak in favor of "Aldudes":

"Maintain consistency within each country": all articles for French communes are named after the official French name of the commune (plus possibly the département name when a disambiguation is required), with local name(s) mentioned at the top of the article.
This is an English language encyclopedia, so for most geographical names of large and/or important features (countries, states, continents, oceans, seas, major cities, major rivers and lakes, etc.) the English name and alphabet is used in preference to any term that is clearly from a language other than English. Always, where possible, follow the first mention of the name with the original-language version:

Cologne (German: Köln, IPA: [kœln]) is the …

Mount Fuji (富士山 Fuji-san, IPA: [ɸuʥisaɴ]) is the …

As features on the landscape get smaller, the existence of English equivalents to local language names becomes less likely. It is sometimes customary, as with personal names, to transliterate these place names so that they are better understood by an English speaker. This is a practice that is losing favor to preserving local spelling to the extent possible.

Now, how do we define "local" is an interesting question. In any case, for the sake of consistency among French communes, I believe that it is more appropriate to use the official French name. Over 3,000 articles for communes follow these rules. The very few exceptions are the communes which have a different English name, like Dunkirk, but this usage of the English name is consistent with the above mentioned conventions. I believe that a change in consistency for other places like "Aldudes" (which, by the way, I am opposed to), should be discussed in the talk page of the Wikipedia pages that I have listed above, rather than users going into "wars" of moving articles. olivier 05:36, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just saw that you posted a similar question on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions, so I believe that the subject would be better discussed there. olivier 05:49, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, this all makes sense. Thanks for the information! roma rin [talk ] 23:37, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wat Sisaket Wrong Picture

Please look for this page : Wat_Si_Saket. The picture is wrong, but User:Dcflyer's Vandalproof did revert my edit. Could you help ?

Chaoborus

Talk:Boston Tea Party

Howdy, I noticed that you and I seem to post in one or two articles dealing with progressive issues in political science/sociology. There's currently a debate beginning in Boston Tea Party as to whether the article should include the category [3]. It meets definitions set in the articles Terrorism and Definition of terrorism, however, there are several self-proclaimed patriots who watch BTP who refuse to recognise the fact. The simple criteria for terrorism generally seem to be intimidation or destruction of property in order to change public policy or public opinion while a state of war has not yet been declared. Some users would rather use recent acts of terrorism as a yardstick, rather than using a firm definition, and hence lose their ability to discuss matters calmly. Would you be able to pop in to the Talk page and join in the discussion? Thanks much, samwaltz 05:10, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome!

Welcome!

File:World map.gif

Hi, and welcome to the Countries WikiProject! As you may have guessed, we're a group of editors working to improve Wikipedia's coverage of counties.

There are a variety of interesting things to do within the project; you're free to participate however much—or little—you like:

Starting some new articles? See some model pages such as Cambodia!
Want to know how good our articles are? The assessment department is working on rating the quality of every country article in Wikipedia.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask another fellow member, and we'll be happy to help you. Again, welcome! We look forward to seeing you around! Shy1520 10:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Theta Beta Potata PUNK HOUSE Deletion Review

Theta Beta Potata

This article was first started by me and was deleted back in May '06. I was reading the punk house article and saw that the link for the TBP article was no longer red so I clicked on it and there was an article back up, started by another user. I dont know who started it because, it was deleted soon after I saw it. The decision made in the "Article for Deletion" debate should be reconsidered. The article is about a punk house not a fratenal organization. It seems that the debate, run by User:ChrisB and results were reported by User:Mailer Diablo. I will post this on their talk pages. This is the first time I have requested a deletion review so please let me know what else I need to do. If there is anything. I am on wikipedia frequently and I want to learn. Thanks. Xsxex 16:28, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Cast of Saving Private Ryan

A point was raised that the information on that page was duplicated from a webpage outside Wikipedia. Take the issue to WP:DRV if you would like a second opinion. -- Denelson 83 07:01, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template:French commune

No worries mate.

have a look at Template:Infobox Department of France, Template:French canton, Template:Major French Cities for the other templates used in France articles. I have tried to make them all look similar so that there is uniformity. What do you think? --Bob 02:15, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

DRV log

Hi,

For some reason (I'm not sure if the mistake was yours, or Can't Sleep Clown will eat me, who edited the log immediately before you) the DRV log for Sept 3 on Bathory-Kitsz reopened yesterday in error. I had closed the debate on September 8; the debate was done then. Your remarks, added yesterday, were added to the log of a debate already finished. When I made the decision and closed the log on the 8th, the consensus clearly favored endorsing the deletion, as you can see in the review link. The review link does not contain your comments because they were added in error six days after the debate was closed.

The primary complaint of those supporting deletion was lack of verifiable, reliable sources, obviously an important consideration. Best wishes, Xoloz 16:06, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

AfD things

I can see that you've been around here a very long time, but I think you might be a bit unfamiliar with AfD as it now operates. Although Wikipedia:Consensus still is the guiding rule, the idea that "consensus = majority" was thrown out ages ago. "AfD is not a vote" is a maxim of great importance in deletion discussion, and admins routinely discount newer or obviously self-interested commenters all the time. (See WP:SPA for example.) The best AfD closers balance the "raw tally" against the "strength of the argument", with -- I guess -- an emphasis on the latter. If you see admins not doing that, then, by all means, send the closures to Deletion Review. Thankfully, only knowledgeable editors frequent there (I assume newbies realize they will be largely ignored.) One may not always agree with the decisions, but they are almost always thoughtful. I took up the mantle of closing most DRVs a few months ago -- its a boring job, because it is mostly just counting (at DRV, where we only decide whether discussions need to be restarted, opinions are usually sound, and a simple majority does decide things -- it's like a forum for cloture.) DRV does its best to correct the mistakes the AfD makes.

As it happens, a centralized discussion on AfD reform just ended, resulting in its division into categories for easier navigation. Good places to start more discussion of AfD would be at the Wikipedia:Village Pump or at Wikipedia:Centralized discussions. I don't think the idea of screening voters beforehand would work -- as I say, most good admins "screen" each AfD, and discount newer or biased commenters as they close the AfD. Best wishes, Xoloz 17:13, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Paris Arrondissements

Hello - I saw your work on the "Paris arrondissement" categories and have a question or two. It was suggested to me just last night that Paris' arrondissement categories have "Paris" added to them in some way as a future disambiguation with Lyon's arrondissements and other forms/locales of the same administrative entity. Secondly, am I to assume that Paris' arrondissements should always be presented in Roman numerals? I also ask this because I was just thinking to update the Template:Paris_streetbox to automatically include its relevant categories. THEPROMENADER 09:32, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well the Paris arrondissement categories already have "Paris" in their name. I am not sure if I understand your remark here? See Category:Arrondissements of Paris. Maybe you are talking about the articles? In that case, I agree that they could go through a name change, including "Paris" in their name. There is no standard for the numerals of Paris arrondissements that I am aware of. Someone started with Roman numerals here, and it has somewhat become the internal standard. Do as you want with the streets, but maybe there is better things to do first before changing these numerals. olivier 09:43, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good lord, you're right. I looked back to the question in question and the disambiguation concern in fact has nothing to do with categories - article namespaces, rather. Still, it's a question worth getting consensus upon.

I do not want to change anything, I just wanted to be sure that the categories were definitive before integrating them into any project. THEPROMENADER 10:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mount Tambora

Hi Oliver. Back in July 2003 it seems you added a longish quote on the eruption of Mount Tambora. Diff: [4] Do you know where this came from? There appears to have never been a reference in the article. I have a similar one with a refence though. Hope you can help. Thanks --Merbabu 13:28, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Back in July 2003, I cut & pasted the quote from the Java article, as I had mentioned then in the edit summary (Mount Tambora article, July 4, 2003). You can see the corresponding removal edit in the Java article on July 4, 2003. At that time, the Java article was primarily made of details about volcanoes and eruptions. I don't know where this material came from. It had been initially added on January 17, 2003 by an anonymous user. Hope this helps. olivier 14:15, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

many thanks. It's a good quote, but unsourced. Mount Tambora is going thru a bit of a rework as discussed in Talk:Mount Tambora --Merbabu 18:48, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hey. Thanks for tagging all those film articles with {{Film}}. Since you're adding, I'm wondering if you could help us (WP:FILMS) grade the articles by putting a grade when you add it. Normally, if it has some type of {{stub}}-template than it is stub-class. If so, then you can add |class=Stub next to the Film tag ( {{Film|class=Stub}} . If you need any more information, you can check Wikipedia:WikiProject Films#Article Grading and Category:Film articles by quality. This is of course, completely optional, it is just a request and can be completely ignored. Thanks for your past, current, and future edits. Cbrown1023 04:01, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I will try to help with (WP:FILMS), but I might add more plain {{Film}} missing tags first. olivier 04:05, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Départements of France

Hello Olivier- I made a proposal regarding the above page that may be of interest to you: Wikipedia:Requested_moves#13_October_2006. -Eric ^(talk) 18:32, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Olivier,

I'm seeking out Wikipedia experts to share their methods for the benefit of all. I've set up a Virtual classroom for Wikipedians to learn, teach, and share advanced wiki-skills. Right now the participants are engaged in a show and tell of their user interfaces (the tools we use to navigate and work on Wikipedia, including programs, extensions, scripts, settings, etc.). I hope you will stop by to share and compare. Interiot, Rich Farmbrough, and CBDunkerson have been kind enough to help get things started by describing the interfaces they use. User:Interiot has even completed a new Firefox extension to make navigating Wikipedia easier. It is available in the announcements section on the Virtual classroom page. I'm really curious what tricks and techniques you use. Hope to see you there. The Transhumanist 11:51, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cantons of France

Olivier, I want to ask you for your guidance on a question and subsequent discussion I have been having with Rarelibra about changes he has been making to the cantons of xxx department pages. Can you shed any light on his reasoning, because it seems very confusing to me, and I think the changes he has made should be reverted. Regards, Kiwipete 08:54, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject France

A proposal has been made for the above WikiProject at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals#France. Would you be interested in contributing to it? STTW (talk) 20:39, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Article in need of cleanup - please assist if you can

The article Abbreviation, to which you have helped contribute, has been flagged as requiring cleanup.

If possible, we would appreciate your assistance in cleaning up this article to bring it up to Wikipedia's quality standards. If you are unsure what the nature of the problem is, please discuss this on the article's talk page.
If you do not want to receive bot-generated messages on your talk page, please consider using the nobots template on your user talk page

Problems with User:R9tgokunks

Olivier, it seems there is a problem with User:R9tgokunks. This guy is editing a lot of German-related articles, and has recently edited Alsatian and Lorrainian related articles, introducing a lot of POV in those articles. I left a message at Talk:Strasbourg to explain the situation. In particular, this guy is germanizing the names of places in Alsace and Lorainne, replacing "Alsace" with "Elsaß", "Mulhouse" with "Mülhausen", etc. He has also made POV edits in the history sections of Metz and Colmar, calling their liberation by the French army in 1944 as an "annexation". I see you have already reverted him in the Colmar article, but he has reverted your reverts. Nobody answered my message at Talk:Strasbourg, that's why I'm sending you this message. I'm afraid this guy is going to re-germanize the Alsace and Mulhouse articles unless someone stops him. Godefroy 05:08, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with this user is that he is using references from other articles to justify his changes as not POV. For instance, in the case of his re-revert of the Colmar article, he mentioned a line in the history section of the Alsace and Alsace-Lorraine articles, which states that Alsace-Lorraine declared independence for a week after WWI, before France regained control. Thus his point is that this was actually an "annexation" of an independant area. This point goes widely against the mainstream historical view, but I think that the Alsace-Lorraine article should say clearly if it was an annexation or not, in order to have a strong argument for or against the "annexation" view. For instance this independence was not recognized by any country or international organization, as far as I know. In any case, I reverted this statement in the Metz article, because it was made about the post-WWII return to France, while the independent week was after WWI. So I suggest that the discussion really goes in Alsace-Lorraine and if an agreement can be found there, then it will be very clear what should be written in the town-related articles. Please let me know if you have specific complaints about this user (what and in which article). I can warn him and if he breaches any Wikipedia rule, I can then block him if he continues breaching them. olivier 07:25, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Olivier, so far R9tgokunks has not reverted the articles Mulhouse, Metz and Alsace, but let's keep an eye on them. I've also just "degermanized" the Strasbourg article. Apparently this user doesn't understand that this is the English Wikipedia and keeps replacing names such as "Strasbourg Cathedral" with "Straßburger Münster" as if it was the German Wikipedia. Since I'm at it, I checked this user's history, and apparently he has something against France. He deleted a paragraph in the article French language which explained that from the 18th to the 20th century French was the leading international language: [5]. The paragraph was factually correct. Why did he remove it? He also downgraded the French language at List of languages by number of native speakers, removing figures from the Francophonie organization and replacing them with much more conservative estimates, apparently in an effort to show that German is more spoken than French: [6]. Now the article says that there are only 67 million native French speakers, which is the lowest figure I have ever seen. The Francophonie states that there are 115 million "real" Francophones (people fluent and using French on an everyday base) and another 60 million "occasional" Francophones (2nd language Francophones who master it enough to communicate with it and use it occasionnaly), giving a total of 175 million Francophones worldwide. On top of these 175 francophones, it is estimated that there are a total of 110 million people who have learned French at school and can use it to some extent. All these figures have now disappeared from the article thanks to R9tgokunks. Godefroy 16:10, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New wave of vandalism by R9tgokunks at Strasbourg, Mulhouse, and Alsace. I have reverted the changes. The same user also changed your edit at Metz, replacing the word "returned" with "transfered", but that sounds ok to me. Did you have a look at those language articles I mentioned above? Godefroy 15:07, 1 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your help here. I am afraid that I will not have much time to deal with it in the next few days. If problems continue with this user, you can have a look at Wikipedia:Resolving disputes. In any case, please let me know if you think that I can help. Thanks again. olivier 16:22, 1 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]