Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Belgium/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Welcome to the WikiProject!

You can ask or discuss anything related to the project right here! --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 21:27, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, gentlemen, since there is going to be no Belgium very soon, I wonder what the point of all of the below might possibly be (or what you think that it might be...). Aren't you wasting your time on non-existing issues? Wojciech Żełaniec (Poland) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 153.19.24.115 (talk) 16:07, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Even if that were true, there would always be reason for a wikiproject belgium just for historic reasons. And please, don't provoke ;-) Fisheke 00:57, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Ziet er goed uit voor een begin! I zal af en too wel eens komen zien =) -Casualty- 18:15, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! But let's talk English on enwiki, in case someone from Wallonia wants to join... --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 19:52, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Or Brussels ;-) --LucVerhelst 11:07, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I'll throw this page into my watchlist and see what i can do when i see something interesting. However: don't get you hopes up as i don't know much about the country i was born and raised in :-). Fisheke 08:54, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I'll be watching the project, too, but I don't think I will have a lot of time to be actively participating.
I believe this WikiProject is a good thing. There are some factors however that might threaten it, and for which we all should look out. Of course, they'll come to no surprise to anyone knowing Belgium. The first is of course the linguistic divide, with the diminishing knowledge of each other on both sides of the language border, the other being the left-right divide, especially in Flanders.
To prevent for these possible threats to cause harm to the project, I suggest that we all stick very closely to all the Wikipedia Guidelines, and that we first and foremost start by assuming good faith.
(An example of the problems that might (will ?) arise is Steven's remark above (I'm absolutely sure he didn't mean to step on anyone's toes) about the use of English, in case someone from Wallonia wants to join. A Fleming would probably see no harm in it, "Wallonia" colloquially being used as a synonym for "French speaking Belgium", a Belgian French speaker however usually makes a clear distinction between "Wallonia" on the one hand and "the Belgian French speaking community" on the other, and might feel offended by "Flemish ignorance" or even "Flemish imperialism". Solution : let's look out for these intercultural differences, but also let's always assume good faith.)
Amen. ;-) --LucVerhelst 11:07, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay but I really think that wasn't on purpose, I would write "from Flanders" too when I really mean "a Fleming".Evilbu 11:31, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I quite agree that it most likely wasn't on purpose.

And most Flemings really don't mind if you write "from Flanders" when you mean "a Fleming"... ;-) But certainly let's not go deeper into that.--LucVerhelst 11:46, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Well I'm in:). My English is quite good, but not good enough (yet) to say that I can write articles in English that don't require to be checked by a native speaker of the English language. Some of my interests are : the political system of Belgium (I'm a mathie so I'm also interested in making sure Wikipedia has a decent explanation of things like allocation of parliamentary seats), putting little anecdotes (trivia) in the articles about Belgian municipalities and finding coordinates of things in Belgium (and the rest of the world:)).Evilbu 12:50, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for joining, and I apologise for not distinguishing between Wallonia and Brussels.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 18:55, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

A proposal by Evilbu concerning translations

Isn't it weird that there wasn't a WikiProject for Belgium yet? Anyway, many of the articles that need to be created already have a Dutch or French version, like Didier Reynders. Maybe we should change the page (give them the color blue or something) so people can see the difference between a (relatively simple) translation and writing the article from scratch?Evilbu 12:46, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Alternatively, if we put links to the French and Dutch articles after every required article, it would immediately be clear that a translation might suffise. Like this :

• TC Matic (nl:TC Matic/fr:TC Matic), Noordkaap (nl:Noordkaap/fr:Noordkaap), The Radios (nl:The Radios/fr:The Radios)
• Didier Reynders (fr:Didier Reynders/nl:Didier Reynders), RTL TVI (fr:RTL TVI/nl:RTL TVI)

It wouldn't be too difficult to create a template for this. --LucVerhelst 13:31, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

It wasn't difficult : I created Template:Beln and Template:Belf. Use : enter {{Beln|Article name}} resp. {{Belf|Article name}} and you'll get Article name (nl/fr) resp. Article name (fr/nl). Example : {{Beln|TC Matic}} gives TC Matic (nl/fr), {{Belf|Didier Reynders}} gives Didier Reynders (fr/nl).

But I was mistaken. The links to the French or Dutch articles don't appear in red when the article there doesn't exist (see fr:Article name which link is blue, but the article doesn't exist on fr.wikipedia). Getver.

Anyway, it's still useful. What do you think ? --LucVerhelst 13:51, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't say it's that bad. It's a list of links to nonexisting articles anyway, so who cares about the red colour? I say : GO!Evilbu 14:42, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh no wait, on second thought, that is confusing, what if there is only a French version and no Dutch version, or vice versa? Can't we have three templates? One only linking to the Dutch, one only linking to the French, and one linking to both. I don't care about the other, I like to defend my language but I'm not that extreme :) .Evilbu 14:44, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Nail on the head. Adding to the problem is the possibility that a Dutch version might not have existed when the article was listed here (and the templated added), but was created shortly after that. Then the information here would be incorrect, only pointing to the French version, while there also is a Dutch version. Creating 4 different templates (2 for each language + 2 bilingual ones) would mean creating maintenance work on the list. --LucVerhelst 14:54, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

No, I think going for three (or four) templates is a good idea. Look, the list isn't exhaustive anyway. A name on that list needs an article, it's a "reminder". Adding that there is a Dutch and/or French article is a "reminder" too. Maintenance work from time to time is nice but the system can work without it too.

But seriously, do you really think we Belgians are gonna fight over the order in a template :)? Just put French first, or take the alphabetical order, nobody complains about Afrikaans having a top position in the list of available languages?Evilbu 17:02, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a whole lot simpler if we just look for info on other wikis ourselves... Maybe you know other languages, the articles might have different names on different wikis,... Also, I don't want to create an overlap with the "English translation"-projects (see: Pages of interest on the project page), but more a meeting and discussion place for interested people.

Btw there was a WikiProject Belgium before (see the Archive1 on top here), but it was a hoax, some guys tried to write articles on small municipalities...

--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 18:52, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

"the articles might have different names on different wikis". Grmbl, you know I completely didn't think about that one ? I had just reworked the template idea, creating Template:Belg which makes multiple languages in all orders possible, and then I read this... :-D --LucVerhelst 19:32, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

It was a good idea, but I already noticed it didn't work for Noordkaap :(. But let's not abandon the idea completely! Why don't we just write a f or a n (or both) to indicate existence of an article in another Wikipedia? I just believe in organized efforts, and I think it's convenient when one indicates whether or not translation or lack of info is the problem.Evilbu 20:25, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Luc Verhelst did a great job! But may I make another suggestion? How about a Belg2 template, only requiring the name of the person and the languages? I mean, Noordkaap is an exception, many of the articles are about people and usually the name is the same in all articles. So in short : a sophisticated Belg template only to be used when the title is not the same, and a handy Belg2 template that only requires a name and the languages? I don't know much about templates, really, I'm just proposing ideas:) Evilbu 20:45, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Manneken Pis <- like that ? {{Belg2|Manneken Pis|af|cs|da|nl|fr}}

Although I'm starting to think that the trouble it takes doesn't outweigh the gains. --LucVerhelst 20:56, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Stop saying that! I like it:) . I think it's gonna help. Thanks for making these templates.Evilbu 21:05, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

"Arrondissement" and "Municipality"

I've seen "arrondissement" or "administrative district", and "municipality" or "commune" (in the sense of the Dutch terms "stad", "gemeente" or "deelgemeente") being used interchangeably in several articles. Wouldn't it be better if in all articles a uniform terminology for these concepts is applied? --Ganchelkas 13:49, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

You can add "district" to that (as in "District of the city of Antwerp" vs. arrondissement).

You're right. But we should keep in mind that the use will differ whether you're using the word in its legal meaning, or in day-to-day usage. Or doesn't it ? --LucVerhelst 13:59, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

If they are used correctly, I don't really mind... Too much trouble to enforce uniform terminology in my opinion.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 18:57, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

The term 'district' is not very common outside the Antwerp area. As far as the term is needed, I assume 'arrondissement' (a specific term identical in Dutch and French languages) should be preferred: it can and will be more easily linked to its specific article that describes the relevant situation in the whole of Belgium (as an administrative district, a separate jurisdiction, an electorate circumscription). In everyday language there is never talked about whatever meaning for an arrondissement, thus we do not need to use 'district' as an everyday term used for an everyday topic in other countries. User Luc Verhelst might like to inform us how the term 'district' is (legally, in local newspapers, in daily speech) relevant for (which exact) Antwerp area.

In every article that describes a specific municipality, that term should be used (e.g. as 'a city and a municipality' in the province of ...) see my recent remarks in another user's talk page (especially last paragraph of my 10 Oct2006 comment).

In a text without official description, one can most often use 'city' (only for the main town of a municipality that ever obtained city rights, listed (unfortunately not yet completely) in a separate article), 'town' (which I suggest for all other municipalities), 'township' or (in still recognizable agricultural or nature surroundings) 'village' for today's submunicipalities (Dutch-language deelgemeenten) that once were a municipality, or 'hamlet' (as Dutch-language gehucht) for the places that never have had their own mayor. Such places however, that are (and seem to always have been) mere subdivisions of the built-up city or town, or at its immediate outskirts (groups of houses or a few streets that seem never to have been self-supporting for daily needs), we use 'quarter' (Dutch-language wijk).

— SomeHuman 13 Oct2006 18:35-20:10 (UTC)

It seems that 'district' (as I mentioned for Antwerp) is the correct term for an inner-municipal division for municipalities of more than 100,000 inhabitants. If so, is this an official obligation for the whole of Belgium, or just for certain regions? Anyway, we should only use the term in that sense then. — SomeHuman 15 Oct2006 21:24 (UTC)

I don't believe that the 100k line us used for distinguising different Districts. In Antwerp, the districs are simply the old municipalities that fused together to form the greater minucipality of antwerp. And i have no other knowledge of the term "District" in belgium otherwise. If you were to simply take 100k inhabitants for all the Districts of antwerp (Hoboken, Wilrijk, Berchem, Antwerp Center, Deurne, Borgerhout, Merksem,.. 700k?) Antwerp is a large city but don't exagerate. Fisheke 22:03, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid you misunderstand: it is the municipality of Antwerp (461,496 inhabitants) that has (well) over 100,000 inhabitants, in which case districts had to be created (I assume), I still do not know how large or small these districts may be. If over 100,000 causes creating 2 districts [one would not make sense], that would suggest over 50,000 per district - sounds about right for Antwerp (max. 9, you mention 7 districts [*]). A few cities in Belgium that are perceived as rather large, exist in fact out of several full-fledged municipalities and thus do not have districts. If I'm right and not forget one, than Ghent (233,120) and possibly Bruges (117,224) might be the only others in Flanders; the City of Brussels (144,784) and possibly Schaarbeek (111,946) in the Brussels-Capital Region (if it applies there); Charleroi (201,300), Liège (187,086) and possibly Namur (107,178) in Wallonia (if it appies there), should have districts. In case the 100,000 was a limit at the specific moment of setting it, then two or three of those might have grown since then while remaining without districts. — SomeHuman 16 Oct2006 03:03-03:23 (UTC)

A district (also used in Dutch language) seems to coincide with a sub-municipality (Dutch deelgemeente), though having a District Council (Dutch districtsraad or deelgemeenteraad) (1992 proposal, mentions 175,000), (confirms 1998 modification), (2003 proposal). In 2000 however, the Flemish Parliament mentioned districtsraad and deelgemeenteraad as (if) not identical. About Antwerp (1996 Senate discussion) [1] (refers to law and decree), [2], [3] (both mention 100,000). Definitely no obligation: Ghent has none oldrecentrecent; about Brussels — SomeHuman 16 Oct2006 23:48 (UTC)

Clearly, there should be an article about 'Districts in/of Belgium', 'Districts in/of the Flemish Region' (both could be mistaken for Arrondissements of Belgium), 'Districts of Antwerp' (?) since stubs like the sub-municipality Antwerp (district) do not link to such article and I for one am curious about the current legal situation, on how district councils influence the municipal level, on whether elections for the district councils are on separate lists from the municipal council list... — SomeHuman 17 Oct2006 00:13 (UTC)

[*] in my 16 Oct2006 comment: "max. 9" and indeed there are 9 districts of Antwerp.

See also Talk:Municipalities in Belgium#Cities and ... municipalities? on related topics.

— SomeHuman 1 Jan2007 23:41 (UTC)

Tournai/Doornik (biggest municipality of Belgium in area) has also districts but there are not political divisions as the Antwerp's districts. David Descamps 10:12, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Tournai/Doornik has about 67,000 inhabitants and thus does not comply to the 100,000 set (see in earlier links above) for creating the sub-municipal districts as in Antwerp. Only about Ghent I read a few months ago, that it considers creating such. The 'districts' in Tournai/Doornik are probably police districts that (after some earlier pilot projects) were legally enforced rather recently following the reorganization of the Belgian police forces (Municipal + National Gendarmerie/Rijkwacht + Judicial Police), and can be found all over Belgium. Those are not administrative subdivisions with an elected council, but a formal cooperation between - let's say, police stations (perhaps often or always from different municipalities, the city might have a police zone with some neighbouring municipalities, and another one with other neighbours, I assume). — SomeHuman 3 Jan2007 20:41 (UTC)

Getting more members, francophonics too, Germanspeaking Belgians too!

It seems that there are quite a few Flemings on Wikipedia, but I don't know about the Frenchspeaking Belgians. Fruitsmaak, before they start accusing us of establishing a launching pad for Flemish-nationalist attacks on articles that concern Belgium :), we should also get some francophonics to (at least) know about this place? But how?Evilbu 14:36, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm contacting everyone in Category:Wikipedians in Belgium, regardless of language issues. I have been begging the Francophones more because they are underrepresented in that category... Anyway let's not get involved in language paranoia, I'm just asking everyone so nobody will be able to claim that they weren't invited. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 19:01, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Steven, just a minor remark (or actually : question) :)

"Bonjour,

"j'ai pris l'initiative de créer WikiProject Belgium, si tu veux contribuer vous êtes vraiment bienvenu! Je crains un peu que nous manquons des contribueurs Wallons et Francophones..."

I think you have to use "le subjonctif", thus : "que nous manquions". I also think it's weird to use "tu" and "vous" in the same sentence. I'm a Fleming so I'm not 100% sure though...:)Evilbu 20:19, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I think "vous" is preferable, as you (presumably) don't yet know the people you're inviting. Anyway, I think there'll always be more active Flemings than Walloons here for two simple reasons: there are more Flemings than Walloons, and the percentage of Flemings that speak English is higher than the percentage of Walloons that speak English. --Ganchelkas 22:34, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes I know about the subjonctif,... but I'm just to lazy. Hadn't noticed the tu-vous. And seems like I said contribueurs instead of contributeurs.

Anyway I'm really busy right now, if anyone wants to continue inviting people from the category, be my guest. I left off at the letter L, so M-Z need to be invited, although some others have been invited already (like LucVerhelst) through other channels (articles in our scope they have contributed to). --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 22:50, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I've contacted most non-Flemings from M to Z. Apparently I should be a bit more careful just as well :) : "l'impression que c'est" needs a "subjonctif" instead...Evilbu 18:38, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay we finally have one : Mamour :) and I think there will be a few others too in the near future!Evilbu 20:47, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I just though of something, why only talk about Flemings and Walloons... what about the German speaking Belgians in the east? It would be great if we'd have one of them too here:(.Evilbu 09:06, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

o New member willing to help. (Flemish) German speaking Belgians 'll be hard to find... Edit: I always forget to sign.. sigh Titirius (talk) 16:49, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Licentiate / Master

Today I translated Johan Vande Lanotte, and I saw that User:Ganchelkas did Bruno Tobback. I decided to translate the Dutch word for the typically Belgian title "Licentiaat" as "Master", which today also is the correct name for the degree. I noticed Ganchelkas used "Licentiate".

I would like to propose to always use the same term. I would suggest (of course) to use "Master", as this is the name today, and as this is more easily understood in the English speaking world. What do you think ?--LucVerhelst 13:57, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, the artice 'Licentiate' does explain that a Licentiate is the equivalent of a Master's degree and Licentiates still exist in the English-speaking world, but I don't really mind which term is used as they're essentially the same. On second thought, perhaps using "Master" is indeed better as it's a much more common term.--Ganchelkas 14:17, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I am a student at the university in Ghent, and the students just one year behind me will become masters, but I checked and I can assure you I am still on track to become a "licentiate". It's being reformed..it's a mess.Evilbu 16:59, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

So, best not spend too much time on Wikipedia, or you might end up a Master after all. :-D --LucVerhelst 17:48, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

On the other hand, Wikipedia can be pretty useful when you're a student:)Evilbu 18:27, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

But watch out with it, you may find a lot of information your professor doesn't agree with... Piet | Talk 14:53, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Concerning articles that have just been created

Hello,

it seems several requested articles have already been created, which is GOOD :). It is also a good idea to leave the titles on the titles, but with a "strike". I myself am a little uncertain about my English, can we agree on some sort of color or any other sort of "make-up" indicating "created, but seriously, do check my English". Thank you!Evilbu 19:23, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

1. Your English doesn't seem to be that bad. (Or, alternatively, my English is not good enough to see how bad your English is.:-D )
2. This formatting might be a good idea, although we should keep in mind that there already is Wikipedia:Translation into English/Dutch and Wikipedia:French Collaboration Project, both of which are aiming at translating articles into English. Some sort of collaboration might be interesting. I really wouldn't mind if say, a Hollander or a Canadian would participate in translating these articles.
3. The section is called "Article creation drive", so let's not focus too much on translating alone.

--LucVerhelst 20:01, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

A suggestion : if an article is created, the link to the new article turns blue, so the strike through isn't really necessary. We could agree that the creator of the article doesn't strike the link, but that this is done by anyone that checked the article for spelling. Just an idea. --LucVerhelst 21:24, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes Luc, seems like a good idea to me. I checked and couldn't find any flaws either (guess my English is better than my French ). I'm still worried about overlap with the translation projects. But it's a good thing that several people are able to express concerns on Belgian topics on this page.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 13:40, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, we don't really have a leader do we? Well, following the be bold policy I declare that to be the way to work, and I will add it to our portal:).Evilbu 21:06, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Portal

I've created the Portal:Belgium. I hope you like it :-) (of course, it isn't finished yet, certainly the anniversaries section needs lots of work). For those of you interested, it is completely based on the Portal:Germany, but I hope all contents are now relevant for Belgium instead of Germany. Fram 20:32, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Great ! I added Portal:Belgium to Portal:Browse and Portal:List of portals --LucVerhelst 21:01, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Nice choice for "Selected article" --LucVerhelst 21:04, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

It has been a featured article, so I could hardly go wrong there (and hey, I like comics!) Fram 05:13, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

One question : what information on that page is created dynamically ? In other words, will it take a lot of time maintaining ? Things like birthdays, etc... --LucVerhelst 21:11, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Only the birthdays are created dynamically, I believe (but I have to check). I'll try to create at least the next week today, I'll see how far I get. I'll try to give some important ones, but there may be trivial ones as well, as there aren't that many for every day. I've just created October 3rd. Fram 05:13, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Some comments:

1. Great that someone has taken this up, great work Fram!
2. I have to be honest, I really don't like the colours...
3. I suggest we change the headers "for October" to "of the month".
4. I've added Belgium-related news articles from the English Wikinews. I'm an active writer there.
5. I've added an associated Wikimedia-box.
6. We should inform other portals of our new portal.

I'll probably edit some more, as I have some experience from the featured Portal:Medicine. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 15:04, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!

1. The colours are the Belgian colours, how dare you not like them ;-) I have taken those from the Portal:Germany (well, I have taken everything from there...), but changed the gold to yellow. But feel free to change them, I'm not especially fond of them either.

2. We can change the headers, but the month name gets changed automatically every month (just like the birthdays get changed automatically every day).

3. and 4. Thank you!

5. I've added the portal to other portals where applicable (Portal:Europe and Portal:Germany). If you know of any other portal where it is pertinent, please do add it.

Edit whatever you want to, it was just a first version. I'm adding anniversaries for the whole year, so I'll be quite busy... Fram 19:01, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Userbox

I've created a userbox (see the project page) for everyone wanting to idnetify himself as a member of this project on his or her userpage. As always, this is just a first version, feel free to change the look (colours, image, ...) of it, or if you rather have it deleted, just say so! I've used the coin image because I don't like our flag (the colours, ugh) and it is free to use and a symbol of Belgium. A better image is however welcome. Fram 09:19, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I like the userbox, but I added another (many WikiProjects have multiple userboxes, so users can choose), which might be more straightforward.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 18:10, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Let's just abandon the idea of " from List of governments", "from rivers in Belgium"

Hello,

I respect everyone's input (as usual) but I would like to propose that we just stop listing our proposed articles like that. It's confusing, Bert Anciaux is from the list of politicians, but Inge Vervotte is from the list of famous Belgians, while they are both politicians and in both cases, it's pretty much the sole reason for them being famous.

Let us just sort them like this "politicians", "rivers", "buildings".

What do you think? Evilbu 14:22, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Suuuuuuuuuuuuure, good idea, you know just do it! Be bold! --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 16:46, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I did a first small step towards such reforms. Now how will we do the rest? How about artists, with as subcategories singers, television personalities, comic book drawers... The thing is that I don't know all those Belgians... I guess you guys could help me with that? (Fram for the comic book drawers :) ).

Evilbu 20:02, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Done :-) Fram 05:25, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you!Evilbu 16:06, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Category:Cities and towns in Flanders

I just noticed some added a new category tonight for Cities and towns in Flanders (he includes cities and towns in the Brussels area too). I'm not sure what to make of this and whether this project supports these changes. Interestingly enough this person has made no move to change Waloon cities to a new category. Considering today's elections and a series vandalism on the fr.wikipedia I wonder whetehr this new category and all the related changes shouldn't be reverted.

I was not certain where to ask this, luckily I found the new portal and the project, hopefully some of you know better how to react to this.

On an unrelated issue, I've been drawing (pasting together) coats of arms for various Belgian municipalities (mostly waloon so far, but some flemish ones too). The past week I've slowed down (to none for a few days now), but plan to eventually continue at a slow pace until all Belgian municipal coats of arms (for which I can find a reliable source) are done. If anyone would like a particular municipality's arms done in priority let me know (I have some problems with the fusion-municipalities as my sources predate those laws) on my talk page.--Caranorn 22:15, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any harm in the category... do you have a specific problem with it?--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 22:24, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

My only problem is that this move will leave all the "waloon" cities and towns under the Cities and towns of Belgium while the "flemish" ones (including Brussels) will be in a sub group. It is of course possible that this reflects an actual difference within Belgium's territorial organisation (waloon cities and towns under federal authority?) which I'm unaware of. Considering this change occured yesterday when separatist parties gained electoral ground in both communities I'd tend to see this as an attempt to portray Flanders (and Brussels) as separate entities...--Caranorn 11:51, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Caranorn, while we have no real authority at all, we do care about matters like those. Could you provide links to that vandalism on the french wikipedia, his name and the category?Evilbu 00:09, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

On the french one it was something similar (in that case by an anon who was promptly blocked and the changes reverted). Here it's a registered user and I have no clue what his purpouse is. The fact that he's only created a category for the Cities and towns of Flanders and includes Brussels in the list makes me wonder though. But then I'm hopelessly out of date concerning the organisation of Belgium.--Caranorn 11:51, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Please provide links or give us the user's name... It's really hard to say anything about it now.Evilbu 13:05, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I guess I forgot to link in the category here it is again [Category:Cities and towns in Flanders] (can't link directly to a category). The user who created it (and changed various cities and towns' categories to the new category) is User:Rudi_Dierick. And again, maybe this is legit, I'm honestly getting ever more confused concerning Belgium and might start believing anything.--Caranorn 16:45, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Category:Cities and towns in Flanders. I have no problem with the category (when a category becomes too large, it is better to create subcategories, and if it is fairly clear with only a few ambiguous ones, then it is a good category. I object to the simultaneous change of the text of some articles from "xxx is a city in Belgium" to "xxx is a city in Flanders", since in this case the country is the important thing, and it looked like the change was made mainly for political reasons. Fram 05:08, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem with a category like that. The user is probably Flemish and it's okay if he is more interested in Flemish towns, everyone who is interested can make a subgroup for Walloon towns just as well. But I cannot stress enough, when you see a questionable change, you have to give us a link (in fact-ask if you don't know how to do it- you can use "History" to show us exactly what he changed). Brussels Capital Region is not in Flanders or Wallonia, it's the third and smallest region, in both size and population.Evilbu 16:11, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone here know why we have a Category:Cities and towns in Belgium and a (more complete) Category:Municipalities of Belgium? If not I would suggest merging them.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 12:31, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Deurne (Belgium), Ekeren, ... are no municipalities, even though they are cities or towns. And a few municipalities (Heuvelland, Zwalm, ...) are not cities or towns, but a collective name for a bunch of towns solely. But apart from that, I agree that the current situation is far from ideal, and having to list every municipality in the other category as well is useless. If we make municipalities of Belgium a subcategory of cities and towns of Belgium, then we don't have the need to categorize them all twice. This would include something like Heuvelland indirectly into the category of cities and towns though, which strictly speaking is incorrect. Fram 13:52, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Belgian picture (Stevenfruitsmaak's creation)

Map of Belgium and its three regions (colours), two of which  have provinces (thin black lines).

Communities:	Regions:
Germanophone Community (red & blue striped)	Brussels-Capital Region (orange * )
Flemish Community (yellow * )	Flemish Region (yellow)
French Community (red * )	Walloon Region (red, incl. blue striped)
* Citizens of the Brussels-Capital Region may belong to the Flemish or French community.

• I don't think we have any map of Belgium showing all regions, together with the German speaking territories, AND the provinces. It would really give a good idea of the situation though. Evilbu 09:04, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

We do now: Image:Belgium_provinces_regions.png, although I would call it only a sketch made with some rough copy-pasting. Let me know where you would like to use it.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 14:15, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

:) Wow Stevenfruitsmaak, I'm impressed:). That was fast. (This project IS paying off). Uhm, it is really not that easy to find a map like that(!). I'd like to use it for Communities and regions of Belgium, Communities and regions of Belgium... and how about using it in Belgium as well (it even has a picture of a painting located in Belgium, so why not use that one here...). I see you have already done that in the mean time.

Some suggestions:

• A common problem with a map like that is the East Cantons. Right now they are blue while the rest of Wallonia is red. It's confusing when you start saying, yellow color indicates the Flemish territory... but red and blue together indicate the Walloon region. My proposal : let's do all of the Walloon region in red, but let's "arceren" (sorry don't know the word French or English, couldn't find it) those East Cantons. Other options are possible too.
• Writing names of provinces in the map (might make it confusing though)

What do you think? Evilbu 16:32, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Please don't laugh, it's the first time EVER I upload a picture:). Well that was my proposal? A more skilled artist might execute the idea a bit better, but you get the idea.Please click on me to see clearly what evilbu really meant

Evilbu 18:34, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I've created another version, which you should be able to see above. I don't think naming the provinces would be a good idea because (1) that would have to be done in different languages (2) the articles about regions and provinces have been split up, and there's no sence in explaining something complicated like the regions together with an unrelated matter, the provinces.

PS: I think the matter is covered well in article Belgium with the different panels, so let's not use it there.

--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 14:49, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Great! If I may add yet another suggestion, maybe we should let a (very discrete) line still appear in the picture to show the precise border. I (accidentally!) obtained a result like that in my own sketchy attempt. But this is definitely very similar to what I had in mind. This project already seems to do its job quite well : bringing heads together :).Evilbu 20:36, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Well I would prefer if there were no border, since the image was merged from two different images, causing the border not to be exact as it is, just compare it to a map and you will see that this is merely a scheme that gives an impression but scores poorly in geographical correctness. So I think it's not a good idea, unless someone else has the Photoshop-skills to put in the exact border and then do the rest. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 15:10, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Yesterday, I had rephrased and placed the colour indicators of the image I found in the article Communities and regions of Belgium. I find it currently shown here with the previous text. I think my ammendments make it even more accurate and visually more attractive and clear, especially since it was shown in the article at a smaller size that made the text wrap awkwardly. It took a bit of css, but it seems worth it - very good image for the purpose in the mentioned article. — SomeHuman 13 Oct2006 22:14 (UTC)

Yes your rephrase was much better, thank you!--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 22:35, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

(Other readers, don't bother looking for differences any more, Stevenfruitsmaak already updated the one in this section.) — SomeHuman 14 Oct2006 00:57 (UTC)

Update: Meanwhile the version in Communities and regions of Belgium became edited (by Tobias Conradi and by myself). — SomeHuman 23 Oct2006 23:15 (UTC)

East Cantons in Belgium

As I already mentioned, I would like to make Wikipedia shed some more light of the smallest (official) language group in Belgium : the Germanspeakers. Some questions that could lead to edits (or new articles) :

- do they vote for the Walloon regional Parliament in Namur just like everyone else?

- do Frenchspeaking people, living in Eupen for instance, get to participate in elections for the German speaking parliament?

- do Germanspeaking people outside of the nine official municipalities, but living in a facility town for Germanspeakers (like Malmedy), get to vote for the German speaking parliament?

Thank you ,

Evilbu 16:40, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Question 2: Yes. By the way, there are not so many of them. About 5%. The French speaking schools in Eupen are full of pupils from the small Walloon villages just West of Eupen. That is Original Research by the way - I noticed when I attended a Roman Catholic first communion celebration in Eupen (1998). Why French speaking parents send their children there? Perhaps to ensure that they know some German? I do not know whether this is legal, but it is the reality.

Question 3: No. But in the not very distant past it was possible for voters in Malmedy to influence the result. [4] does not say when it was changed.

Question 1: a tricky one. It is in fact the Belgian version of the West Lothian question (and yes, we should point our version out there too!) The point being of course, that there is only one Walloon parliament, but two governments: a Walloon one and a French-speaking one. So, since the German speakers depend on the "Walloon Region" economically, they get to vote for the Walloon parliament - which means that their representatives in the Walloon parliament (if they have any) can also vote on cultural matters concerning Jette or Comines, but not on Eupen or Sankt Vith. I must confess I am not sure about this one, but it seems obvious to me - and I haven't heard of any disenfranchisement of German speakers or representatives here. I suppose it would be rather ridiculous for the Gouvernement de la Communauté française to depend on a representative or representatives of the German speakers to have a majority, but it would not be the first Belgian paradox, I suppose. --Pan Gerwazy 13:27, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, I spoke before my turn on question 1. I have to correct my answer, and significantly. First, of course there ARE representatives of the German-speaking community in the Walloon Parliament. Three, to be exact. Herbert Grommes, CdH. Monika Dethier-Neumann, Ecolo. Edmund Stoffels, PS (or SP). There is also a member living in Waimes (René Thissen, CdH). I found these people on this list. HOWEVER, strangely enough, when I look for them in the French-speaking Parliament (Walloon Parliament+19 representatives from Brussels), here (but you will have to scroll down a little) I do find Mr Thissen, but not the three German speakers. Checking the telephone numbers for "087/", I do find people who are NOT on the member list of the Walloon Parliament: BONNI Véronique (PS) from Dison, ELSEN Marc (CdH) from Verviers, REINKIN Yves (Ecolo) from Stavelot. So it seems we do not have a major West Lothian question in Belgium. How they do it, I do not know - the parties who got these seats seem to run a German speaker (who will sit on the Walloon parliament) and a French speaker (who will sit on the French-speaking Parliament) in a sort of tandem. The net result IN PRACTICE is a slight over-representation of German speakers in the Walloon parliament: 3 representatives while the German speakers constitute about 2% of the population of "economic" Walloonia. But in most parliament around the world you have checks and balances like that. --Pan Gerwazy 10:16, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay thank you. I was thinking of another system : when there a regional elections in Wallonia, you give a special form to the people in those nine municipalities : when they do vote for a Germanspeaking party and not francophone, their vote on the Germanspeaking parliament counts (I think this is what they do in Brussels). So in theory... it's possible to have a Frenchspeaking member in the Germanspeaking parliament??(Your comment on the 5% is remarkable, how come the Frenchspeaking population doesn't become a majority like they have done in several Flemish municipalities with facilities?).

Evilbu 10:31, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

The inhabitants of Eupen and Sankt Vith vote twice, once for the German parliament (see this one) and once for the Walloon parliament (see this and note the difference!). Result? In the Walloon parliament they have three German speaking representatives, who seem to get "replaced" for the French-speaking parliament by three French speaking people from the very same Verviers arrondissement. I do not see what the vote for the German speaking parliament could have to do with it. I do not think the fact that there is a perfect correspondence in party size could be plain coincidence. The fact that the PFF has no seat, whereas it is the second largest party in German speaking Belgium, could suggest that there is apparentage involved - meaning the results from Liege and Huy influence how the German seats are distributed (which means we have a kind of West Lothian question in reverse!). I have been googling desperately, but cannot find the answer how they do it. Perhaps there is some kind of golden rule which says three representatives must be German speaking and they take these from the best placed German speakers (or better said: inhabitants of the German speaking area) for the parties who earned these seats, replacing them with a French speaking substitute for the French speaking aprliament? Only 5% French speakers in Eupen, yes. In fact, the number of French speakers has lately been decreasing, it seems. Eupen is not close to Brussels - in fact, it is close to Aachen and German speaking immigration from Aachen is now even re-germanizing the villages West of Eupen. Of course, theoretically the German speaking parliament could have a French speaking member, why not? The Flemish parliament has some. As for the influence of German speakers in Malmedy, Waimes, Aubel, ... on the result for the German Rat (diminishing the strength of the PDB) - the site of the German speaking Parliament claims that only happened once, in 1973: read the note below.--Pan Gerwazy 12:24, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

How about some sort of small reference desk for Dutch-French-English translations?

Hello,

I was taking a look at an article (about Marie Arena), and I was considering translating it. But there were some (technical) terms that I found a bit difficult to translate like schatkist, FOREM,beroepsopleiding. I could omit things like this, but that is not good. I could also leave the Dutch words (or French) and put a question mark next to it. That's ugly. How about a small place on the project where we can say :"Look I'm about to translate this article, but I just need a translation/convention on these few things." As I said before, I don't have the guts to put my knowledge of the English language on en-4 or anything, but I do know quite a bit of language, and I wanna help out some more.... What do you think? Evilbu 13:46, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I would prefer keeping translation on the translation page... but I like the idea, you could develop it on a subpage like Marie Arena/Temp, and put a notice here and on the translation pages? I'm just brainstorming here... --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 15:07, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

What exactly do you mean by "subpage"? From a technical point of view, how does it work? You are right (I'm all pro-centralisation) that translations should be done where they should be done... but on the other hand this might be a good place to decide on conventions we are going to use. A list of terminologies like "Minister of Brussels Affairs" could hang around here so it doesn't have to be asked everytime someone needs it. I'm just brainstorming too... :) But I cannot stress enough that whatever pops up as a result, must give insecure members (like me:)) a pat on the back to keep translating instead of retreating.Evilbu 15:26, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

A subpage is something typical of WikiNews... you develop something temporarily on a subpage called e.g. Marie Arena/Temp, and when the questions you had have been resolved, you move it to the namespace itself. On the temporary page, you could use question marks.

If you feel that we need uniform terminologies, we should start thinking about a Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Belgium) entry, many other countries already have something similar.

Oh and... keep translating!

--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 15:44, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I can give that a try. I do think that if we have those temps hanging around, waiting to be checked, they should be on the portal too. However we cannot create confusion, remember we already have the nonstriked but not red =unchecked policy :(.Evilbu 16:04, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

You are not supposed to create subpages in article space (so no Marie Arena/temp please). See Wikipedia:Subpages. When you are working on a page, you can do that in subpages of your userpage or user talkpage (User talk:Evilbu/Marie Arena or so. If you want to have the input of others there, you can put a link to that subpage on Talk:Marie Arena or so. Fram 11:04, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Everything is fine by me, we just have to agree on something. I am willing to write such things on my own userpage. I do want the input of others so putting a link on the talk page is not enough, it should be here as well. That's what this project is about : working together.:)Evilbu 17:54, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Fram for pointing that out. Evilbu, keep us up to date on how this is working out.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 21:55, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Communities and regions of Belgium

There's an ongoing debate (and associated revert war between User:Tobias_Conradi and User:SomeHuman) here about the organisations of some articles:

1. Should Provinces of Belgium be moved to Provinces of regions in Belgium, because the provinces are subdivisions of the regions?
2. There was some overlap of Subdivisions of Belgium with other articles, but that seems to have improved.

You're invited to expand the consensus beyond just those two people...
--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 15:24, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

As I originally stated, you're invited to discuss this on the article's talk page, where I've moved the discussion.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 10:32, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Waving flags

This discussion is now archived:

• Consensus could not be reached to further change the project banner.
• This discussion is causing damage to this project by making the talk page unmanagable and scaring away participants, falsly giving the impression that this project is hopelessly caught up in political discussion, which it is not.

--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 10:28, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

We are creating confusion about Victor Hoxha, let's work together and solve it!

I requested the Victor Hoxha article. I am very pleased to see someone gave it a try. But it says :"After serving half of the sentence he was paroled on the condition that he returned to Kosovo and never came back to Belgium."

In Laurette Onkelinx, I MYSELF wrote : "september 2006, it was reported that the criminal Victor Hoxha had returned to Belgium - he was deported earlier from Belgium in 2006, and told not to return for ten years"

In the talk page of that article : [5] I brought forward my own source for that claim : [6]

But Intangible used this source : [7]

They are conflicting!

Evilbu 19:47, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Suggest (unless one could reliably find out without original research, which source is correct):

• Victor Hoxha: ..."to Kosovo and not came back to Belgium."
• Laurette Onkelinx]: ..."and told not to return"

Immediately following each statement: <ref>[source 1 ...], [source 2 ...] (sources mention a different period during which V. Hoxha is not to return to Belgium).</ref>

or else instead of the latter: <ref>[source 1 ...]</ref><ref>[source 2 ...]</ref><ref>(the above two sources mention a different period during which V. Hoxha is not to return to Belgium).</ref>

— SomeHuman 16 Oct2006 20:26 (UTC)

AID – Bilingual Prime Ministers

On the Article Improvement Drive, Evilbu suggests adding the first language of the prime ministers to their list, admittedly controversial and to demonstrate a political evolution. That goes a dangerous way: their second language is just as relevant... too much proving a point (undue weight), rather original research like (the facts can be found easily enough, but putting those in a comparative table...). It just belongs in each prime ministers' own article. — SomeHuman 2006-10-18 01:10 (UTC)

What do you mean "the facts can be found easily enough"?Evilbu 13:47, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with SomeHuman; undue weight, original research-like. Btw, can't that be inferred from their political parties of origin?--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 18:21, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

To reply to your last point first: no, as most parties were unitarian (i.e. both for Wallonia and Flanders) until about 1970 or so. Apart from that, I agree that it is probably a bad idea to add such info, not because it is original research (if you can find a source for every PM you mention the language of, then turning that info into a list is not OR), but because it will be hard to verify for the older PMs. Is the first language of Pierre de Decker (or Pieter De Decker), who comes from Zele and studied in Paris, French or Dutch? I have no idea, perhaps he was perfectly bilingual, writing in French but speaking Dutch at home? And in the end: does it matter that much? Add the info, if sufficiently verifiable, to the artices about the individual PMs, but as far as I'm concerned, don't add it to some list. Fram 18:39, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, the party doesn't say much because they used to be unitary. Is there anyone here willing to debate that Guy Verhofstadt or Wilfried Martens have Dutch as their first language? Probably not. Is there anything wrong with writing that they are Flemings or have Dutch as their mother tongue (come on, the first one's French really isn't as good as his Dutch...)in their own article. So if you disagree with a list like that, I would still like to request that you give me the mother tongue of those prime ministers if you know it and it is not disputed. I'd like to point out that Edmond Leburton explicitly refers to him as the last Belgian prime minister with French(EDIT:not Dutch, silly evilbu) as mother tongue.Evilbu 18:46, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

...I think you mean French in your last sentence ;-) Fram 18:52, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Woops, of course:).Evilbu 18:57, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

This kind of info doesn't seem to be that relevant to be included in that list. I mean other pieces of information could also be included, yet we're not thinking about them, like the province or origin. --moyogo 18:56, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Anke Vandermeersch

I would like to have some opinions on Talk:Anke_Vandermeersch#Video. Please discuss it over there. Thanks.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 15:34, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Please discuss it over there!--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 14:58, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 16:55, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Userboxes on Belgium

I feel there should be more userboxes about Belgium, so I've drafted a few related to Belgian political parties and one for users who support Flemish independence, but I intend to create more userboxes related to Belgium. I'd like to get some opinions on the draft userboxes I've got so far. The draft userboxes can be found here, please discuss them over there. Thanks. --Ganchelkas 15:33, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm against all userboxes except those indicating what someone is doing on Wikipedia (projects, tasks, ...). So I'm against those. But whatever you do, don't put them in the project but keep them on your (or someone elses) userpage please. See e.g. Wikipedia:Userboxes and Wikipedia:Userbox migration. Fram 12:53, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

As long as we don't start using them here there is no problem. But Ganchelkas, why isn't there a userbox for Walloon independence:) .— Preceding unsigned comment added by Evilbu (talk • contribs) 15:39, 29 October 2006

Both userboxes and politics in belgium are controversial, so I foresee a lot of opposition. If people haven't created them so far maybe it's because it's not necessary.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 14:01, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, I honestly don't think politics in Belgium is more controversial than politics in any other country, it's just different. I also expect some opposition, but not more than there is against userboxes about personal beliefs and points of view in general. Nor do I think that adding userboxes about Belgian politics would meet more opposition than the userboxes that already exist about French politics, British politics, German politics, American politics, etc... I'm of the opinion that everyone should be allowed to put whatever he or she wants (within certain limits) on his or her userpage and that everyone should be allowed to state which party he or she supports. But rest assured, I will keep them on my own userpage. Also, I didn't think there'd be much interest in a userbox for Walloon independence, but if there is I'll create one. :-) --Ganchelkas 17:57, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I've set up the userboxes here: User:Ganchelkas/Userboxes. --Ganchelkas 11:29, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Stub discussion

I should have known that not following the procedure would cause this, anyway belgium-sport-stub template is on stub type review, and you're welcome to voice your opinion! Btw am I the only one who thinks that this kind of process is a bit exagerated and instruction creep?--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 13:58, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

New project activities?

Hi all,

I wanted to ask you what you think on starting up some new activities on this project, because I feel it would be pointless to start them up if they wont be put into practice due to lack of interested users.

1. Assesment
2. Peer review
3. Collaboration of the month?

Please comment. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 18:35, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I like your ideas, but I'm not sure we'd have enough interested users to conduct peer reviews.--Ganchelkas 12:27, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

And judging from the lack of enthusiasm here, I guess that goes for the other ideas as well... Ah well maybe some day...--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 17:15, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Help needed

I need some help; but first I'ld like to boast a bit :-) I have created most of the anniversary pages for the Portal:Belgium, so that every day automatically a few new histroical facts appear that happened this day in the past and are somehow Belgium-related. I have added so far 1461 items, averaging 4 a day, and 149 days also have a picture. Most are birthdates and dates of death, the rest are battles, disasters, and a few other things. Most of the people added are either royalty/nobility, or sportsmen (mainly cyclists and soccer players, but I have tried to restrict those to the most important ones), but a significant amount are scientists, clergymen, and artists. You may also expect a male porn star, one date BC, a Playmate of the Month, and a horse... I will continue to look for possible additions, but I would like to ask anyone who creates an article, who expands an existing article with dates (since many important Belgians aren't listed with their full date of birth and/or death, and couldn't thus be included), or who comes across an article I have forgotten to add, to please add it to Portal:Belgium/Anniversaries/January or any of the subsequent months. The same goes for images: I would prefer to have one image for every day (and if possible to use each image only once as well), so those may be added as well. Take care that you only add images in the public domain or with another acceptable license (GFDL or Creative Commons are acceptable as far as I know, fair use is not acceptable on these pages though). Finally, I have still 26 dates with only 1 entry, and a terrible 11 dates without any entry: please please please, if you can add something to those 11, I'ld be grateful, as otherwise we'll have an empty section on the portal front page. Those eleven dates are Feb 2, March 29, June 12, June 16, August 31, Sep 14, Sep 21, Sep 29, Sep 30, November 30, and Dec 19. Thanks! Fram 14:31, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Toledo (K.U. Leuven) AfD

If anyone is interested:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Toledo (K.U. Leuven).

--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 19:55, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Bruges burial

Please can you tell me how to find the burial place in Bruges of John Arbuthnott, 8th Viscount of Arbuthnott ? - Kittybrewster 21:50, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

To improve the article, or is it just a question as a tourist?--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 11:12, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The former; although when we know where he is, we can all visit him. - Kittybrewster 14:11, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, sorry to bite you. Anyway I googled and found nothing.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 16:30, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

For those of us undertaking higher studies...

There is a Category:Wikipedians by alma mater: Belgium, currently only with subdivisions for KULeuven and RUG, but you can create others.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 20:30, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I've added myself to the newly created subdivision of Groep T. Fisheke 22:14, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Error in Voeren article?

Voeren says :

"In 1988 concessions to the Francophone inhabitants were made. The powers of the provincial government of Limburg were curtailed and more autonomy was given to the municipality. The government of Wallonia was allowed to build facilities for Francophones in Voeren." Is this correct? I thought those facilities have been there since the sixties? Thanks,Evilbu 15:00, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that normally, administrations of one region are not allowed to subsidize or help organisations in another region. There was an argument about the Brussels region subsidizing a French paper in the 6 communes a facilités, and a library in Sint-Genesius-Rode. If this means that Wallonia was allowed to do certain things in Voeren-Fourons (I also remember something like that) that would mean that "build facilities" refers to buildings like schools, a cultural centre, a library. Not to the language system. Silly ambiguity, I think. --Pan Gerwazy 00:47, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

If it is about Francophone schools, libraries, and such, the competent authority would not be the Walloon Region but the French Community. LHOON 08:07, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Naming survey Brussels

FYI, a naming survey just started about the article titles for the bilingual municipalities in Brussels-Capital Region at Talk:Brussels-Capital Region#Names survey. Markussep 11:40, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 21:30, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

New Belgian categories

Hi all! I just created the following new categories;

• Category:Health in Belgium (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Category:Belgian surgeons (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Category:Healthcare in Belgium (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Category:Hospitals in Belgium (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

- Populate away :) I've added a few of the obvious entries and put them in the proper regional sub-cats - Alison^✍ 18:18, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Station infobox

I made an infobox for Belgian railway stations (adapted from nl.wikipedia) which has been put on existing station pages and can be adapted for new station pages I hope to add in the next times. Also, I plan to make line boxes. LHOON 10:45, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Using native terms

How would you all feel about using native words and nomenclatures in all Belgian administrative division article texts? eg, use Gemeinschaft or communauté instead of the English word community in the text of all Belgium articles, not just the titles as it could be argued that it is more precise. --Bob 04:02, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree that in dedicated articles the official names must be mentioned. But, as a lot of institutions in belgium have a multilingual name, it just not practical. I thought that most institutions even provide english translations? (see http://www.fed-parl.be/ukindex.html as an example). Conclusion: i would mention the french/dutch/german name where possible but in the article refer to the english-language nomenclature. Fisheke 10:06, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Dictionnaire des femmes belges

I bought a copy of the Racine Dictionnaire des femmes belges: XIX^e et XX^e siècles. It has more than 400 articles, all quite long enough to be condensed and/or paraphrased to produce reasonable-sized articles on Wikipedia. I've started at "A" (for Akarova); I might get to "B" (for Maria Baers) by March-ish. Worth a look. Angus McLellan (Talk) 20:30, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Infobox for municipalities?

I noticed there's not one standard infobox template for towns/municipalities in Belgium. Some towns have no infobox at all (Antwerp and many smaller places), some (non-standard) infoboxes for other towns (Leuven), and several very simple infoboxes (Mechelen, Liège (city), Namur (city)). There's also {{Infobox Belgium Municipality}}, which looks rather OK, but is not widely used (Ghent, Tournai and some smaller places), and needs some attention IMO (a map of the position within Belgium would be nice). For some inspiration see the infoboxes for towns in Germany (example: Cologne) and Greece (examples: Kalamata and the new {{Infobox Greek Dimos}}). I'd like to help improve here, thoughts? Markussep 16:42, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that there should be a standard infobox template, and I think the Infobox Belgium Municipality is a very good one. It's essentially the same as the templates used on the Dutch and the French Wikipedia. But it does still need a tiny bit of work, for instance: how do we translate Deelgemeente into English? In the Infobox Belgium Municipality template "Commune's sections" is used, but I don't think that's an accurate translation. In a similar template I used once, I translated it as "constituent communes", but I'm not quite sure about that translation either.--Ganchelkas 16:58, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Infobox Belgium Municipality has some nice features I didn't notice at first, for instance the automatic lookup function for coordinates. Some things I would like to change about the infobox are the map (I think it's much more informative to show the location within Belgium, for instance with a dot-on-map such as {{Lageplan}} or {{Location map}}, maybe combined with the location-in-the-province-map), "coat of arms" instead of "blazon", show no seconds in the coordinates (that's way too precise for a town), improve the alignment of the population figures, hide the NIS number (the national statistics institute of Belgium is meant, isn't it?), and there are some commas instead of decimal points. About the constituent municipalities/communes, are they still administrative units, or only formerly independent municipalities? Maybe "districts" or "boroughs" would be OK, or simply "subdivisions". Markussep 18:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the location within Belgium is preferable. I mean, if the location within the province is shown, someone who is unfamiliar with the provinces of Belgium still doesn't have a clue as to where the municipality is located. The NIS is indeed the "Nationaal Instituut voor Statistiek" (National Institute for Statistics), but I think in English "Statistics Belgium" is more commonly used. And the "deelgemeenten" are formerly independent municipalities, but "districts" can't be used as, for instance, the municipality of Antwerp is divided into districts, but in almost all other municipalities the "deelgemeenten" are not an administrative subdivision. Perhaps it would be best to leave the part about the "deelgemeenten" out altogether, after all they can be mentioned in the text. And I think we can also leave out the telephone areas and the distribution of seats in the Municipal Council.--Ganchelkas 01:23, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I've copied this discussion to Template talk:Infobox Belgium Municipality, let's continue it there. Markussep 14:13, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

List of municipalities in the Flemish Region

I think the municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region should be removed from this list. On the one hand I'm inclined to see Brussels as a part of Flanders, but on the other hand the municipalities of the Brussels Region are not in any way a part of the Flemish Region. I'd like to know what you think about this. Please discuss on the article's talkpage.--Ganchelkas 14:40, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that ideally they shouldn't be there. But in m opinion it is more important to somewhat standardize List of municipalities in the Flemish Region,List of municipalities of the Walloon Region and Municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region and to create a decent cross-reference between these three. if this is done, the overlap is indeed to be avoided. I'm adding it to my to-do list (which is alread so lengthy) Fisheke 16:41, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree on both issues (Brussels municipalities shouldn't be in the Flemish region list, and standardization of the lists). Especially the Brussels list is very messy, with all these red links. I like the idea of adding the numbers of the municipalities as they are on the maps of the provinces (partially done in the Flemish list). The sections (as partially given in the Walloon list) are not necessary IMO. The standard title should be "List of municipalities of the X Region" (see Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (country-specific topics)). "district" (as in Flemish list) must be "arrondissement", do we need those in the lists? And let's make them nice class="wikitable sortable"! Markussep 17:14, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Edran

Hello Project: Belgium,

I'm not a member, but I found an article on WP:RA about Edran (automobile manufacturer) and I decided to write it. I'm not familiar with your guidelines, so I will leave it to you people to decide what to do with it from here. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 17:47, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Bilateral relations discussion

I would like to invite you all to participate in a discussion at this thread regarding bilateral relations between two countries. All articles related to foreign relations between countries are now under the scope of WikiProject Foreign relations, a newly created project. We hope that the discussion will result in a more clean and organized way of explaining such relationships. Thank you. Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 18:49, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Latin cultures

Hello everyone! You may want to go to Latin cultures an participate in the article and discussion. There are a lot of disputed statements... The Ogre 12:30, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Project banner

This week I added the project banner on all the articles I wrote on Belgium (science, politics, and history), and changed the wording of the banner a bit so it is a bit more in acoordance to other related Wikiprojects. Any comments are welcome, even rejections/reverts of the change of course. Pvosta 15:00, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Belgium FAR

Belgium has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. LuciferMorgan 11:35, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

FAR re-opened by User:João Felipe C.S yesterday on grounds of "disputed neutrality". DrKiernan 11:15, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Paul Colin

When checking some info on Leon Degrelle, I noticed that links to Paul Colin were going to somebody totally unconnected: a French poster designer. Luckily that guy was also dead, so no BLP there.

I put our guy at Paul Colin (journalist) and quickly translated some info from three useful links on the internet. Thanks to Tazmaniacs the thing looks more or less presentable now. However, should not Paul Colin really direct to the Belgian one? Of course, the poster designer lived much longer, almost made it into the computer era, and so will probably have more googles, but still I think our chap is more important to the average Englsih speaker in the world. Or is that Belgocentric?

Oh, and we now have red links on Robert Poulet, Marcel Demonceau and Prosper (or George) Dezitter. Anyone tempted, please go ahead! --Pan Gerwazy 14:40, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Belgium in popular culture

Belgium appears to be popping up in lots of movies, in sometimes strange ways (birthplace of Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers movies, as a rude word in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, ...). Should this be added, or is it just too silly? -- Whale plane 16:46, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Language border map (Taalgrens - Frontière linguistique)

I made this map Image:Language border (Belgium and France)-en.svg about the language border in Belgium and in Northern France. Perhaps someone is interested... David Descamps 08:59, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Help needed

I have recently been editing the entry on the Belgian cosmologist and priest Georges Lemaître and am confused by his name and titles; I hope a Belgian native can help sort this out. (i) in the 1930s he was usually styled the Abbé Lemaître. What does this mean? One editor suggests it implies he was a monk or abbot, but there is no record of this in anything I've read about him (by profession he was a professor at Louvain). Is Abbé equivalent to the title "Father" for catholic priests in English? (ii) As noted on the talk page, different sources give different versions of his full name. Is there an easy way of making sure (e.g. on-line public records)? Thanks in advance. PaddyLeahy 12:58, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Current AfD about a Belgian filmmaker

There currently is an AfD for the article on Turkish-Belgian actor and director R.Kan Albay. Since notability is the thing in question and all of his films are in Dutch, it would be helpful if some Belgian Wikipedians could look it over. Malc82 22:18, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Leopold III of Belgium

Yes, a tiny wee bit controversial, but let's not forget that at least one newspaper judged Wikipedia on the correctness of this one. Now, until I started work on this, I noticed that there wer no references (!) and no mention of the political testament. Since most of the indignation was actually caused by that one, it needs to be mentioned. Well, the French article does not mention it either...

Now, I found out a few things about the testament which are not even in the Dutch article. However, most of it is in Dutch, a small portion is in French. Blame Maurice Dewilde. Practically nothing in English, however. Though there is a book on JSTOR - anyone with access to that, who can find the page numbers? You can help! See the relevant talk page!--Pan Gerwazy 16:13, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Belgium FAR the second

Belgium has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:12, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion in Biographys

If anyone on this project is interested in history, it would be interesting to read about actors from Belgian history! I don't think they are so much known in other coyntrys, so it would be interesting! It would also be interesting to read about witch trials in Belgium. Just a suggestion!--85.226.235.174 12:29, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

North Sea collaboration

North Sea is the current Article Creation and Improvement Drive collaboration. WikiProject Belgium members may find that a relevant focus. I have refrained from rating the article pending the result of the collaboration. Perhaps a regular member of this project could find a place for the collaboration banner on the project page itself? __meco 22:31, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

North Sea has recently been translated from a Feature Article in German wikipedia, as well as the article was nominated for Wikipedia:Article Collaboration and Improvement Drive and received a multitude of improvements. It is currently under peer review. Could it receive an assessment review? SriMesh | talk 04:45, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Congress Column, Brussels - possible error on page

The page on the Congress Column states "It was inspired by Nelson's column in London and by the Colonne de Juillet in Paris, both erected during the 1840's". However, I was just at the Column today, and the tourist info panel in front of it says it was inspired by Trajan´s Column in Rome. Anyone have a source for the former info? Should I change it? I´ve already edited Trajan´s Column.--Mushboom 20:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

No response so have amended page.Mushboom 12:14, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Redundant information and/or wrong language

Articles on Belgium tend to contain little bits of information that are redundant and misleading.

For instance, the article on Geraardsbergen, a Dutch speaking town, mentions "(French: Grammont)". Likewise, the article on Namur mentions the Dutch name Namen. This could give people reason to believe the towns are somehow virtually bilingual, since the English articles on places outside Belgium do not mention the names of these cities in any language other than English and the original language (e.g. London, Venice/Venezia, but not Londres, Venise or Venedig). Why treat Belgium different from the rest of the world?

Also, there is a tendency on Wikipedia to translate what doesn't need or even shouldn't be translated at all. The town of Gent is known to English speakers as Ghent, so it makes sense to mention both names. But few Britons have heard of Vlaams-Brabant and Oost-Vlaanderen, so why complicate things further by "translating" the names? It only leads people to think East Flanders to be in the eastern half of Flanders, while it is actually in the western half... The article on Antwerp is often edited by busybodies eager to mention what the place is called in Spanish and Italian. If you really think anyone in Dublin or Saskatoon gives a damn, then don't forget Antuérpia next time. It's Portuguese.

Also, in the past many places in Belgium were known to all foreigners by their French names. Now that travel guidebooks, British and American newspapers and expats living in Belgium all begin to know Mechelen and Leuven by their real names, what's the use of changing their names in English (and even in titles of articles) to Louvain and Malines? I even saw the Grote Markt of Sint-Niklaas being called the Grande Place recently!

I'm saying this because I'm not an experienced wikipedian, but a very experienced and qualified translator and interpreter. It is typical for bad translators to be eager to translate absolutely everything. Good translators know some things are better left untouched. Especially names my friends, especially names! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.198.162.87 (talk) 22:02, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

As far as giving the translation of placenames in Dutch and/or French is concerned I can only point out that there is in Belgium an official list of placenames with their translation in either Dutch/French/German. Geraardsbergen-Grammont is such a case. Wether it is useful to make use of it on Wikipedia, I leave for all parties concerned to decide. Boerkevitz 19:03, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

The problem with that list is that the Flemish government wants to ban its use. However, this place is still called English Wikipedia. For the title, we choose the prevalent name in English. If it is not clear what the prevalent name is, then we use the English self-name that the subject chooses to call his/her/itself. I can assure you that the Province of East Flanders calls itself the Province of East Flanders in English, so that is not only prevalent English, but also self-name. In the case of Mechelen, it is not very clear what prevalent usage in English is: Mechelen, Mechlin, Malines? (Google does a very bad job on Mechelen, and recognizes Dutch pages as English - eg it finds "allintext: Mechelen -site:be -site:nl -the" no fewer than 26,000 times, practically all Dutch pages of course). So we should go for the self-name, and the website of Mechelen says Mechelen. Leuven/Louvain/Löwen is a different matter. The website of the town uses Leuven in French, English and German and that sounds simply hilarious to me (eg the website of Mechelen has other ideas about Leuven in French and German)! However, googling on English internet pages outside Belgium in the past year tells me "Leuven" is more frequent than "Louvain" so, as much as I'd prefer an historic name, I have to support Leuven now. On English wikipedia, by the way - do not expect my French and German accounts to support Leuven there. By the way, I suspect that many Dutch speakers here may have a problem with Louvain and Malines primarily because the English name is also French, but strangely, they do not object to "Ghent", "Antwerp", "Ostend" because the English name differs from the French one. Sorry, that cannot be right. If the prevalent usage in English changes, and the town website uses the Dutch name too, we cannot use the (usually historic) English name any longer.

As a matter of fact I do object to Ghent. Ghent is not marked on any maps or roadsigns that I know of. The fiction that Ghent is the popular name used for Gent in English is maintained solely by those who claim to know a little English, most of whom are anglophile residents of Gent. Just as Middle English Gaunt has been abandoned let's dump Ghent and its totally redundant "h". Fpr the record I am a native English speaker, I have lived in Belgium for over 30 years and I am a professional translator and a sworn legal translator. I have been trying to dissuade officialdom from using the archaic Ghent throughout my career, and it is sad to see that Wikipedia has decided to persist in this folly. Everybody got to be somewhere! (talk) 22:16, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

With certain established exceptions my feeling is that the local name current in the language of the Administrative Region in which the place lies should be applied. The exceptions to this general rule are Antwerp, Bruges, Brussels, and Ostend. The alternative names of those places for which alternative names exist should be placed in brackets after the name at the head of the article. A case in point is Ieper. The official name is Ieper, but it continues to be known to military historians as Ypres. However, as anybody interested in the literature of the period knows it was long known as "Wipers", simply because the Ypres spelling presents insurmountable challenges to the English speaker.

Because Belgium has been frequently occupied by foreign powers it is relevant to include alternative names, as these alternatives often appear in historical records and even in product names, e.g. Mechlin for a type of lace. Although this may seem confusing to persons who do not have experience of countries with such a depth of historical texture, it is better than allowing misconceptions to continue, such as, for example, that Tournai and Doornik are two different places. Everybody got to be somewhere! (talk) 22:16, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any objection to giving relevant alternative names in articles. It's a service to our readers, nothing more, nothing less. IMO the French names are still relevant for Flemish towns and Dutch names for Walloon towns, and not only for historical reasons. Belgium is certainly not the only country for which these names are given, see for instance Thessaloniki (a whole section is devoted to alternative names), Shkodër, Ljubljana, Wrocław. BTW I am surprised about the titles given to articles in Dutch wikipedia for towns in northern France (e.g. Robaais for Roubaix and Toerkonje for Tourcoing). I'm Dutch, and I've never encountered these (old Flemish?) names in real life, except Rijsel for Lille and Duinkerke for Dunkirk. But that's their problem. Markussep ^Talk 10:30, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

As for mentioning alternative names in the introduction: any name that is relevant in English should be given. If there are enough English pages on the Internet with that name, or the town was once officially known under that name, sorry, but that name must be mentioned in the article. And that also applies to Spanish versions: we simply check how widely known the Spanish name is in the English-speaking world. I suppose only Gante qualifies, for obvious reasons.

I agree that any name that is likely to come up in secondary literature (or on road signs) should be included, but just what are the obvious reasons for calling Ghent "Gante"? --Paularblaster 12:42, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Side note: I am sure there are editors who on English Wikipedia do not want to see "Grammont" even in the introduction, but on Dutch Wiki, they insist on Rijsel, Toerkonje, Kales, Valencijn ... being the titles of the articles on these French towns? Why are they trying to "have their cake and eat it"?--Pan Gerwazy 16:05, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're driving at. "Venice" is in English, the Italian name is given; the German isn't, even though Venice has in the past been ruled by German-speakers. Surely using the Dutch for "Lille" in Dutch is as normal as using the English for "Venezia" in English? And Grammont as redundant as Venedig? -- Paularblaster 01:12, 16 November 2007 (UTC) 14:37, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

History of the Walloon Movement

Is someone motivated in checking spelling and grammar in that article? Thank you! David Descamps 07:11, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Belgium news

A couple of days ago I added a suggestion to the talkpage of Portal:Belgium, but as no one has responded I'd like to repeat my suggestion here. I think that the "Belgium news" section on the Belgium portal should be transformed into something like the "In the news" section of the New Zealand portal, so that events for which a Wikinews article hasn't been created (yet) can be mentioned in that section as well.--Ganchelkas 13:20, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Brussels pages.

If the City of Brussels relates to the core municipality, and Brussels-Capital Region to the region with all its municipalities, what does Brussels relate to? (please reply here if possible: Talk:Brussels#City or Region ?) - J Logan ^t: 16:45, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

It seems quite clear to me.. City relates to the technicalities about the municipality (inhabitants, surface, mayors,..).. Region relates to the region (which is a lot larger than the municipality, clarifying the insitutions of the region and for some bizar reason also something on demographics, probably because that data is specific to the region) and Brussels itself.. just about the greater geographic area (most of the things related to brussels are not confined to the City, or even to the Region).. maybe a metropolitan area (but it's not formally called so). I suggest you familiarize yourself with the belgian federal structure, taking that this division makes sense. Do note that both the City and the Region are linked to in the first paragraph of Brussels, perhaps adding them as disambiguationlinks might be a good idea. ˜˜˜˜ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fisheke (talk • contribs) 17:54, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

CfD nomination of Category:Flemish academics

Category:Flemish academics has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page.

This discussion started on November 28, so don't delay if you wish to participate. Cgingold 01:30, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Needed: Military history of Belgium during World War II

Hi. In looking at Category:Military history of Belgium during World War II it appears that there is no lead article for this. Belgium was a key state in the beginning of the Second World War. If anyone can assist by starting Military history of Belgium during World War II it would fill an important gap. There are many good and reliable sources for this topic. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 09:58, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

European Parliament constituencies

Dear WikiProject Belgium, I am currently going thru the constituencies of the European Parliament. Belgium currently has three EP constituencies, which are designated on Wikipedia by the terms "German-speaking electoral college" [8], "Dutch-speaking electoral college" [9], and "French-speaking electoral college" [10]: hopefully the derivation of the names is obvious. I am trying to find out when these constituencies were first used for European Parliament elections. According to extant Wikipedia articles, the Dutch- and French- speaking constituencies were first used for the 1979 EP elections, and the German-speaking one for the 1994 EP elections. But the articles are unsourced. A Google search shows that the majority of published articles give election details on a Belgium-wide basis, making it difficult to tell what constituencies were used at the time. I will continue to mine Google to see if I can find something, but in the meantime, may I ask you to answer the following questions?

• When were the German-speaking_electoral_college, French-speaking electoral college and Dutch-speaking electoral college constituencies first used for European Parliament elections?
• Were there any other Belgium European Parliament constituencies?
• Is there any obvious source I should be using for these searches?

For the avoidance of doubt, I am aware of the special status of Brussels with regard to these constituencies.

Thank you for your assistance in this matter, Kind regards, Anameofmyveryown (talk) 17:52, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I used the following source to create some of those articles: [11] It's unfortunately not available in English, but it lists the results of all elections in Belgium since 1848. You can find the results of elections for the European Parliament by selecting "Les résultats d'une élection précise" (beneath "Par dates") and then selecting "Parlement européen" as "Type d'élection". You can then choose the date of the election of which you want to see the results. The results of the 1979, 1984 and 1989 elections show only two electoral colleges, namely the Dutch and the French-speaking electoral colleges. The 1994 election and all subsequent elections show three electoral colleges (the Dutch, the French and the German-speaking electoral college). So the German-speaking electoral college was first used for the 1994 election. :-) --Ganchelkas (talk) 18:24, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for that, that was very helpful (and quick!). I will copy this across to the infobox talk pages Template_talk:Infobox_German-speaking_electoral_college,Template_talk:Infobox_Dutch-speaking_electoral_college and Template_talk:Infobox_French-speaking_electoral_college for future reference. Thank you for such a speedy reply. Regards, Anameofmyveryown (talk) 21:05, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Latin Europe

Hello WikiProject Belgium/Archive 2! There is a vote going on at Latin Europe that might interest you. Please everyone, do come and give your opinion and votes. Thank you. The Ogre (talk) 20:33, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Law of Belgium

I just started this stub - right now it is literally two sentences, with a great deal of expansion needed! bd2412 T 05:49, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Is there any reason not to call it Belgian law? That seems a more natural title (as per English law and Roman law). Or do legal systems with the Napoleonic code insist that the law is "of" a national law-giver, or something? --Paularblaster (talk) 09:04, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Date of formation of Belgium?

The editors of the Belgium article have settled on 1830 as being the foundation of the state (I note with concern though that this date lacks any external referencing, per official Wikipedia policy WP:VERIFY).

But this article - List of countries by formation dates - claims that the 'Date of statehood' of Belgium was actually 1790 (again, completely unreferenced). Both articles cannot be correct, so which is it? Please come to the party armed with some proper external refs, per official Wikipedia policy WP:VERIFY. --Mais oui! (talk) 13:26, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, very funny. --Paularblaster (talk) 15:36, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

1790 is the 'brabantse omwenteling' a 'minor' revolution in Brabant and Henegouwen against new edicts of Jozef II. Especially the ones from 1787. However the 'revolution' didn't just die of and thus Jozef II, mobilised the army, took some of the leaders captive, took away priveledges,... However opposition was still growing, and wanted a return to the soevereignity of the Provincial states. The most notable leaders were Van der Noot and Vock. Van der Noot however had to flee to Breda in 1788, from there he planned an invasion and a revolution. In 1789 he and a small army of 'patriots' did invade and they were succesfull. And in 1790 independance was officially announced, and 'de Verenigde Nederlandse Staten'(dutch) or 'Etats Belgiques Unis'(French) [rendered in English: The united states of the Netherlands/Belgium] were created. It was a loose confedaration of 9 provinces, lead by a congres. (Just as the US of A) Then Vonck and Van der Noot (and their followers) got into a fight. With the Church being the instigator and chosing sides with Van der Noot. This devided the country in two (how ironic can history be...) And after Leopold II took over from from Jozef II international support from England, Holland and Prussia was gone. While France didn't want to support Van der noot (who had won the fight). All this combined with a very weak confederation, meant that the confederation was shortlived. Leopold II reconquered the Southern Netherlans december that same year. (1790)

In 1830 Belgium seperated itself from the United Netherlands. But Belgium constitution and was internationally recognised at 1831. In 1838 Willem (the dutch king) finally recognised Belgium after a failed invasion. (sorry for the short awnser 1830 onwards but I'm in a hurry)

1790 wasn't the creation of Belgium, it had different borders, different flag (same colour but then horizontal stripes), different istitutions. However it was the creation of Belgian nationalism, and a warning for the future.

In other words the date I would use would be 1830/1831. Not just 1830 or 1831, but 1830/1831 (it took a bit of time, and it's hard to say when Blegium was officially and really created). 1790 isn't the correct date that's for sure.

source: memory + GERARD,E., 'Hedendaagse geschiedenis', Leuven, 2005, p56-60 & 86-91.

Titirius (talk) 16:43, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Brussels naming conventions

I've noticed that a lot of edit warring and disputes arise over the names of Brussels related articles. User:Hooiwind and I have devised some naming conventions which are fair, logical, and reduce disputes. We propose putting this banner ({{Brusselsname}}) on the talk page of Brussels-related articles, in particular those with naming disputes:

Note also the conventions themselves, linked to in the banner. It would be nice if we could reach some sort of consensus. Thoughts? -Oreo Priest ^talk 21:42, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it's strange to begin an article with another name than the one used in the headline. I think we should use the same naming conventions as places in Finland, where Swedish and Finnish have equal status and the majority language is always mentioned first (see for example Helsinki and Ekenäs). Aaker (talk) 15:26, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

See Talk:Brussels-Capital Region#Names survey, result for a previous discussion about the names to use for the articles about the Brussels municipalities. Brussels is officially bilingual French and Dutch, the majority in the Brussels-Capital Region is French-speaking. Apparently, the French names are more used in English than the Dutch names, but this isn't always clear. I think both the French and the Dutch names should be given in the first line of the respective articles, but I don't think it's necessary to mention them both all the time (once should suffice). I don't really care about the order in which they are mentioned, it seems better to start with the article title. We should avoid article titles like Arts-Loi/Kunst-Wet metro station and La Roue/Het Rad. Markussep ^Talk 18:09, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

You seem to agree with everything except for the order in the first line of the article. That the title only comes second in the first line is exactly to compensate the second language and I don't think it disturbs reading at all (for once, logic has to give way to neutrality, but only in the first line and the infobox). In fact, it is already common practice, so why not just codify it. Also, we have proposed the title to be used throughout the article (so only once both would be mentioned). In practice, this will often turn out to be the French name. That way it enjoys its situation as majority language enough.--Hooiwind (talk) 19:08, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I also like alternative language being used in the first line of the article. I feel that using the article title first (usually French) makes it seem like the other name (usually Dutch) is somehow subordinate, when the region is officially bilingual and everything has two names. Having said that, using the one name (again, usually French) as the article title and throughout does justice to the fact that French is more predominant in English and the French majority. I also feel strongly the first line and infobox be codified one way or another, because I've seen edit wars over the order, which could easily be prevented. -Oreo Priest ^talk 20:55, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Draft Guidelines for Lists of companies by country - Feedback Requested

Within WikiProject Companies I am trying to establish guidelines for all Lists of companies by country, the implementation of which would hopefully ensure a minimum quality standard and level of consistency across all of these related but currently disparate articles. The ultimate goal is the improvement of these articles to Featured List status. As a WikiProject that currently has one of these lists within your scope, I would really appreciate your feedback! You can find the draft guidelines here. Thanks for your help as we look to build consensus and improve Wikipedia! - Richc80 (talk) 18:58, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 2766 articles are assigned to this project, of which 216, or 7.8%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 14 July 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. More than 150 projects and work groups have already subscribed, and adding a subscription for yours is easy - just place the following template on your project page:

{{User:WolterBot/Cleanup listing subscription|banner=WPBelgium}}

If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page; I'm not watching this page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 15:59, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Dutch speaker

Can a Dutch speaker please record the Dutch pronunciation of Brussels for its article? Thanks. Please reply at: Talk:Brussels#Pronounced.... - J Logan ^t: 21:47, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

will do! I have a mic and I'm Flemish.Titirius (talk) 16:46, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Oh and I thought I'd posted this but it seems I haven't. I'd appreciate a French speaker who can record files for Berlaymont and Cinquantenaire.- _JLogan^t: 19:53, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism(?) on Belgian Canadians

Have a look at this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=81.240.63.19

I tried to repair some of the damage he caused, but I do not know how this sub-category thingie works. "Anyone for tennis?"

Actually, his only edit not concerning Belgian Canadians was quite a sensible one. Hadise did not participate in a Belgian Pop Idol contest, but in a Flemish one, on a Flemish television station. However, someone was then attracted to that article and not only changed that into Belgian again, but changed her spoken language from Dutch into Flemish. Yes, right - the girl lives in Mol and her mother lived and worked in Holland. WP:POINT? --Pan Gerwazy 13:38, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I think you did the right thing reverting him. Apart from the fact that the category isn't empty (which is good enough as a reason), we should never redirect a larger category to a smaller one. Category:Flemish Canadians should be a subcategory of Category:Belgian Canadians (and in fact, I'll make that change right away). If he or she continues making such changes, you can give him/her a freindly warning on his talk page (in your own words, or using one of the templates at [WP:VAND]]). Fram 14:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Btw Émilie Heymans is in the Category:Flemish Canadians but she was born in Brussels. According to common beliefs, Brusselers are not Flemish, or at least not all, even though Brussels is historically and geographically in Flanders. It gets confusing since Flemish could either mean from the geographical "current Flanders" (old Flanders + Limburg + part of Brabant with Brussels in it) or it could mean Flemish as in member the Community (does that include the French speaking Brusselers + suburbians?). In any case... I'm getting confused now. If I'm a Brusseler, am I Flemish? What if my mother tongue is French or Lingala? --moyogo 18:49, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

You were probably right to change that. People born in Brussels whose mother tongue is French or Italian do not belong in that category. I did not dare to change that one - the other girl born in Brussels was a singer, which may explain why the languages she speaks are recorded in her article, so I did change her status. Emilie's sister is called Séverine, not a very frequent Christian name in Flanders (understatement...) but as I was not sure whether Séverine was born in Belgium, I did not count that as an argument. Actually, I am glad someone performed that change instead of me: having a good look at the photographs on Emilie's biography page proves that Séverine is older than Emilie. --Pan Gerwazy 12:44, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

The language a persons speaks in Brussels doesn't make that person Flemish or not. The only thing that defines wether someone is Flemish or not is their paperwork. I know some people who talk french but are Flemish. It has completly nothing to do with common believes. If someone's parents were flemish they'll be flemish unless they decide to be registered otherwise. Titirius (talk) 09:29, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Some bullshit. There is no such thing as a "Flemish" nationality on paperwork. Everyone born in Belgium or from Belgian parents still gets the Belgian nationality, not a Flemish one. The only thing that makes a person Flemish (ie. the only factor that gets a person under flemish jurisdiction) is their domicile. I currently live in Flanders so i am Flemish, but if i were to move to Wallonia tomorrow i would become a Walloon. In this same context, i find it quite stupid to make a split between Flemish and Walloon Canadians. Fisheke (talk) 09:47, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

You're making a bit of an idiot of yourself, Fisheke. (Just a bit, though. ;-] ) First calling something bullshit, and then coming with an explanation that is wrong.

You are forgetting the existence of the communities in Belgium. You can actually be "under Flemish jurisdiction" (i.c. the jurisdiction of the Flemish Community), while not living in the Flemish Region (i.c. the Brussels Region).--Luxem (talk) 18:07, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Communities are based on the linguistic regime of communes from 1950's, not on some imagined nationality. You have so called Dutch-speaking communes where 80% people are native French-speakers in, same goes with communes in Bruxelles where Arabic-speakers represent more than 50%… Actually, Flemish, Walloon, Belgian French-speaker, Belgian German-speaker, that's either only administrative or just personal feelings. Personal feelings are not a good criterion in an encyclopedia. Speculoos (talk) 07:00, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Russian offices in Belgium

Hello WikiProject Belgium. I am working on a list article Diplomatic missions of Russia and in desperate need of photos. Would any project members be in the position to be able to help with photos of:

• Embassy of Russia to Belgium, Avenue de Fré 66, 1180, Bruxelles
• Consulate of Russia in Antwerp, Della Faillelaan, 20, 2020 Antwerpen
• Consular office of Embassy, 1180 BRUXELLES, rue Robert Jones – 78
• Russian Centre of Culture and Science
• Permanent Mission of Russia to the EC

Any help anyone can give would be appreciated. Regards --Russavia ^{Dialogue Stalk me} 05:55, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I can not promise anything, 1) I seem to remember that under Belgium law buildings come under the architect's copyright and photos are forbidden and 2) some one may get into trouble photographing foreign embassies these days. Lastly some of these buildings are not worth photographing from the outside. The embassy is very nice, but hidden from the road by the gardens. The consulate is simply the "back door" or converted coach houses or something behind the embassy. The cultural centre is a typical double door in a old terraced Brussels street. --triwbe (talk) 06:47, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Smurfs

A bunch of Smurfs articles were just prodded, see Category:Proposed deletion as of 17 August 2008 70.51.11.210 (talk) 13:02, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Windmills

I've been creating lists of windmills in Belgium. West Flanders list will be finished tomorrow. Additional photographs would be welcomed. Mjroots (talk) 20:38, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Leuven

I have created Category:People from Leuven. Please populate. - Darwinek (talk) 11:14, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Which are the Major Federating Units?

For me the Regions. For the table: the Communities. Is it not a difficult question? For Flanders, it is evident that the Community is more important but not for Wallonia and Brussels. The whole wallonian and french-speaking press is stressing on the importance of the Regions and about a negociation with Brussels, Wallonia and Flanders. Which solution for the table? José Fontaine (talk) 22:39, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Huh ?

What table ?

I don't think Wikipedia is a good place to "decide" these kind of things. We should simply note the facts (based on verified sources). --Luxem (talk) 14:00, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I am not a jurist and my English is bad, so I begg your pardon]. This table: Federation#List of federations. Robert Senel (University of Ghent), said (but I forgot where he wrote that), that the most important units are the Flemish Community, the Walloon Region anf Brussels (as a Region). In reality the Flemish Region (de facto) doesn't exist because it is almost the same thing as the Flemish Community (There is no Region's Parliament nor Region's Government in Flanders). The Communities have no taxation power de jure, but the Flemish Community well and de facto because it includes the Flemish Region. The representatives in the most important Parliaments (Flanders, Brussels,Wallonia) are not directly elected on the base of the Communities but on the base of the territories of the Regions. For the negociations which are beginning now, the Flemish parties are claiming a negociation with TWO components (Only the Flamings and the Francophones), but Wallonia and Brussels are claiming a negociation with THREE (Brussels, Wallonia and Flanders). And a compromise took place. I think there is a difference between the Flemish views and the Walloon (and Francophone) views... There is also an error here: Federalism#Federalism with two components : Belgium is a federal State with 'three components (following Senel or de facto) and (following the Constitution or de jure) six Federating Units (3 Communities, 3 regions). The two pages (Federalism and Federation), must be changed as far as Belgium is concerned. De jure, there is an absolute equality between the six Federating Units (3 C and 3 R). But there is yet an annoying thing, i.e. the Commission communautaire française in Brussels; it is also a (theorically or de jure) Federating Unit. I don't know what we must do but the pages must be changed. We may do perhaps as the fr:Wp does it and we may perhaps speak of six units. There is a contradiction between the de jure and the de facto because I agree with Senel: de facto, the most important units are Brussels, Wallonia and the Flemish community. I have all the sources in Charles-Etienne Lagasse Les nouvelles institutions politiques de la Belgique et de l'Europe Erasme Namur 2003 ISBN 2-87127-783-4. But I don't know what we must do in order to be clear...and in order to make clear that the most important units are Wallonia, Brussels and Flanders. It is possible to write that on the base of the "bon sens"... ? José Fontaine (talk) 16:27, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I made a change to the table. What do you think ? (I believe you are forgetting the German Community.) --Luxem (talk) 16:41, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

A very good idea!!! You are very pragmatic! I was not thinking of that, but I put the names of the units. What do you think? I must yet put the names of the communities... (also the german speaking). We do not the same as the others but it is perhaps necessary for Belgium (in order to make it clear)? Are you from Luxembourg? José Fontaine (talk) 17:04, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

- I would have put the German community with the major units (because they can exercise their own competences without interference from the other communities or regions), and the French community with the minor ones (seeing that in the French speaking part of the country the focus of power is with the regions).

- Maybe we should put the names in the footnotes. For the other countries, there are no names given either.

- I'm Flemish. Hope you don't mind... --Luxem (talk) 21:55, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

-I'm Walloon and I don't mind, of course! I have great friends in Flanders (for instance Ludo Abicht and some friends who unfortunetely died as Kas Deprez and Johan Anthierens, that was great with them and also with a young woman Denise Van Dame etc.), and I was guessed many times in Flanders by Flemish militants (I speak dutch, not really good but ik probeer om mijn Nederlands te verbeteren). At this moment, I am wondering if the best solution is not putting no units in the minor units because even the French Community can also exercise its own competences without interference (etc.). The point of view of Senelle is very just and interesting but it is de facto. It is right that the two Regions are very important at the Francophone side, but that doesn't eliminate the French Community (for me unfortunately... with some regionalists of Brussels i am again this community). So I put the German speaking of Belgium in the major units and nobody in the minor. It is correct following the Constitution. German speraking community is minor because it is small, but on the juridic plan, that donesn't matter, I think (Luxembourg is as important as Germany in the EU for instance). What do you think? Het best! José Fontaine (talk) 23:07, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

You write : "even the French Community can also exercise its own competences without interference". Is that absolutely right ? Would it be possible to have different coalitions in the Brussels and Walloon Regions on the one hand, and the French Community on the other ? I don't know if it's technically possible, but what if the Community had a PS-Ecolo coalition, and the regions an MR-CdH coalition ? (I know that at present this is politically impossible, CdH is closer to PS and Ecolo than to MR).--Luxem (talk) 08:21, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I am copying this discussion to Talk:Federation. That is the right place to talk. Let's continue there. --Luxem (talk) 08:23, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Belgium-related articles needing geographical coordinates

Based on a search of Wikipedia's articles related to Belgium, I've found some articles that I believe are about places in Belgium, and could usefully have geographical coordinates added.

The articles in question are listed in Category:Belgium articles missing geocoordinate data. At the time of writing, some examples included:

1. Arrondissement of Brussels-Capital
2. Arrondissement of Namur
3. Arrondissement of Verviers
4. Chimay Abbey
5. Ghent University Library
6. Hôtel Solvay
7. Leopold Canal

...and there are many more, as well. At the time of posting this notice, there were 148 articles in this category needing geographical coordinates.

Why add coordinates?

By adding coordinates, a Wikipedia reader can easily view the location on a street map, nautical chart, topographic map, by satellite photo, realtime weather map, and in many other ways. Coordinate data makes an article eventually appear in various services such as Google Maps' Wikipedia overlay, Google Earth, and Wikipedia's own internal map service. Coordinate data also helps readers looking for geographically-based data, such as locations near a reference point, or related information.

How can I do it?

The articles are all marked with {{coord missing}} tags, which need to be replaced with {{coord}} tags that contain the location's latitude/longitude coordinates; or you might be able to add coordinates to an existing infobox. You can find out how to do this at the Wikipedia:Geocoding how-to for WikiProject members. Please let me know if this is useful, or if you have any questions! -- The Anome (talk) 09:36, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

North Sea

North Sea is currently undergoing GA review. Any assistance appreciated.SriMesh | talk 00:12, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Verhofstadt II?

There are articles for the Verhofstadt I and Verhofstadt III government, was there a Verhofstadt II? --AW (talk) 22:13, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, 2003-2007, see Guy Verhofstadt#Verhofstadt II. Markussep ^Talk 22:44, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks --AW (talk) 18:40, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Hoax?

Is Luc Brewaeys a hoax or not? --MacRusgail (talk) 17:11, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

It looks genuine to me.

Did you think it was a hoax because of the whiskey names ? The man apparently chooses "surprising" titles for his works. The Whiskey names are an example for that.

You could check this website, if you read Dutch. --Luxem (talk) 17:55, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

John J. Goossens

Undid changes. Someone added totally irrelevant/unrelated information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.193.191.98 (talk) 20:21, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 04:56, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Ultratop 40

I created Ultratop 50 article. Can someone proofread it. Cheers!--Chanaka L (talk) 05:28, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Done. It was already pretty good English. -Oreo Priest ^talk 03:02, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Oreo Priest!, Before you David Edgar corrected some grammar. I think your credit must go to him. Cheers!--Chanaka L (talk) 03:12, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Very important for Wikipedia articles on Belgium

[12] - SSJ ☎ 22:34, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Proposal for a 200-WikiProject contest

A proposal has been posted for a contest between all 200 country WikiProjects. We're looking for judges, coordinators, ideas, and feedback.

The Transhumanist 00:39, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

GA Sweeps invitation

This message is being sent to WikiProjects with GAs under their scope. Since August 2007, WikiProject Good Articles has been participating in GA sweeps. The process helps to ensure that articles that have passed a nomination before that date meet the GA criteria. After nearly two years, the running total has just passed the 50% mark. In order to expediate the reviewing, several changes have been made to the process. A new worklist has been created, detailing which articles are left to review. Instead of reviewing by topic, editors can consider picking and choosing whichever articles they are interested in.

We are always looking for new members to assist with reviewing the remaining articles, and since this project has GAs under its scope, it would be beneficial if any of its members could review a few articles (perhaps your project's articles). Your project's members are likely to be more knowledgeable about your topic GAs then an outside reviewer. As a result, reviewing your project's articles would improve the quality of the review in ensuring that the article meets your project's concerns on sourcing, content, and guidelines. However, members can also review any other article in the worklist to ensure it meets the GA criteria.

If any members are interested, please visit the GA sweeps page for further details and instructions in initiating a review. If you'd like to join the process, please add your name to the running total page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles from the worklist or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. With ~1,300 articles left to review, we would appreciate any editors that could contribute in helping to uphold the quality of GAs. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 22:26, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

2003 & 2005 US Women's Open Draw Sheet to make bracket!

http://www.sonyericssonwtatour.com/SEWTATour-Archive/Archive/Draws/2005/905.pdf 2005 US Open - Women's Singles
http://www.sonyericssonwtatour.com/SEWTATour-Archive/Archive/Draws/2003/905.pdf 2003 US Open - Women's SinglesDONE
I did the 2001, which somebody else can do the 2003 & 2005! These two are the only two that are need and can be done with sources right now left to do!TW-RF (talk) 06:39, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject TRANSWIKI

You are invited to join WikiProject TRANSWIKI and join the Dutch language transwiki project. The aim is to draw up a full directory of missing articles from Dutch wikipedia and build a team of translators to work at bridging the gaps in knowledge. We need your help, so if there are any Dutch speakers here please join up as your language skills are crucial. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 17:38, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Brussels naming conventions

A discussion has (re)started about naming places and objects that are related to Brussels. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Belgium/Brussels naming conventions. Markussep ^Talk 16:25, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

For the record, it's been resolved and we've arrived at a consensus. Oreo Priest ^talk 01:32, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Francophonie?

Does anyone think there should be a WP:WikiProject Francophonie? It would be like WP:WikiProject Commonwealth that handles the British Commonwealth.

See Talk:Organisation_internationale_de_la_Francophonie_(OlF)#WikiProject_Francophonie? for the discussion.

76.66.197.30 (talk) 07:58, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Adding articles to WPBelgium

I recently found User:AnomieBOT, which can automatically add articles to a wikiproject by their categories. I propose we get the WPBelgium banner added to every article in Category:Belgium rather than doing it manually all the time. Thoughts? Oreo Priest ^talk 01:34, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

That would probably have to exclude the History of Belgium category, as many of the articles within are only marginally related to Belgium. Oreo Priest ^talk 01:39, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

As far as I know, this has been useful in some other country projects. Just be sure to consider exactly what you add, if it's class & importance both left blank, or if you wish to assign class=stub by default. Tomas e (talk) 12:29, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Cass=Stub should only be given automatically to those articles that have a stub template, of course. As for project taging based on category and its subcategories: I know that this has gone rather wrong for Wikiproject France, which tagged many articles not related to France as well (e.g. articles on Belgian comics and authors, which were in the cat Franco-Belgian comics, which was eventually part of category France). Auto-tagging will result in articles like 333rd Artillery Battalion (United States) and everything in Category:Ancient Gaulish and British deities tagged for Wikiproject Belgium. One can also wonder whether animals like the Common Shrew or the European Rabbit should be added to the project. I think that semi-automated adding (through AWB or something similar) is preferable. Fram (talk) 13:23, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

You're probably right. Oreo Priest ^talk 16:50, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Image request

For those of you in the Brussels area, would someone mind photographing the b.house, the Brussels Airlines head office in Zaventem? This image must be uploaded onto the English Wikipedia, because of the lack of freedom of panorama in Belgium. Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 07:26, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Belgium copyright laws and photographs of buildings

As I have mentioned before, Belgium does not permit, or at least restricts, the publishing of photographs of buildings as the image is the intellectual copyright of the designer/architect. This is now more or less confirmed by the page Commons:Freedom of panorama#Belgium which refers to the law here. I'm afraid there will have to be some cleaning up done. --Triwbe (talk) 15:47, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Further, I see that this may only apply to commercial use, but I am not a lawyer (Yipee:). --Triwbe (talk) 16:10, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Public domain#Photographs of buildings you cannot use photos of buildings in Belgium. See also commons:category:Atomium. --Triwbe (talk) 21:29, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

So in other words images of Belgian buildings have to be uploaded onto the English Wikipedia and other fair use-accepting Wikipedias, not Commons. If any Belgian building pics that fit the description are on the commons, they should be moved onto the English Wikipedia. WhisperToMe (talk) 01:29, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

On another note, I am requesting a photo of the Brussels Airlines b.house head office in Zaventem. It should be uploaded onto EN, not Commons. WhisperToMe (talk) 01:32, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

What's the expiry date? Architect's life plus 100 years? --Paularblaster (talk) 02:44, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

70 years, I see. So does it only affect relatively recent structures, or would anything renovated in the course of the last century be likely to be covered? --Paularblaster (talk) 00:38, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Brussels task force

Another idea: Why not make a Brussels task force? It can maintain the Brussels portal and improve on Brussels-area articles as well. WhisperToMe (talk) 07:41, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I doubt very much that would work. There's only a handful of us who edit articles on Brussels, and we mostly know who each other are already. Oreo Priest ^talk 09:04, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

The point would be to attract more people to work on Brussels - by seeing the task force tag people who are specifically interested in Brussels would find out about the task force join the task force. WhisperToMe (talk) 09:45, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Passchendaele Ridge

Passchendaele Ridge seems to feature in several battles, but there's no article on it. Can someone write one up? 76.66.197.2 (talk) 09:17, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

WP:MILHIST would probably be a better place to ask. Oreo Priest ^talk 12:40, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

A geographic description would be a nice start, before I ask MilHist to fill in the battles that took place on it. 76.66.197.2 (talk) 12:31, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I doubt you'll find one here. The only people who would know or be interested in the geometry and location of an otherwise unnoteworthy ridge like that would be those who are interested in the battles that took place on it. Go to MILHIST. Oreo Priest ^talk 14:41, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Maps of Brussels communes

How do I get maps of the different municipalities in Brussels? I'm trying to find which commune that 137 Rue Royale (at one time the HQ of Sobelair) is located in. WhisperToMe (talk) 10:38, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

This address is located in the central part of the city, inside the "pentagon" and close to Brussels Park which means that it is Bruxelles-Ville/Stad Brussel. A standard map site like Via Michelin typically indicates the exact commune if you search for the address with either its postal code or just type Bruxelles as location. Tomas e (talk) 12:00, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

two artistic Belgians

Hello Belgians and Belgophiles! I've recently encountered the articles on Filip Naudts and Eric Van Hove. Both (together with their SPA editing histories) somehow smell a bit off to me. Is there something wrong with them, or with my nose? -- Hoary (talk) 23:34, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Political parties

There is a dispute about the name of articles on Belgian politlcal parties on this (English language) Wikipedia at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Political parties#Belgian political parties, and whether Wikipedia:Naming conventions (political parties) exception 4 applies to those or not. All opinions are welcome. Fram (talk) 13:35, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Passendale

It seems that somebody added wrong interwikis to the Passendale article; many lead to the pages about the battle, not about the village. Fix em please. --CopperKettle 06:40, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

cultuurprijs Raymond Majean

Bonjour and hoi. In this AfD of a Belgian artist the cultuurprijs Raymond Majean has been brought up as a standard of notability. I've found a few articles in De Standaard referring to it, but have no very clear idea of whether it's major enough for him to meet WP:CREATIVE as a result of having won it. Any input at the AfD from someone familiar with it - or who speaks enough Flemish to find out - would be appreciated. Cheers! Olaf Davis (talk) 15:53, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Cleanup list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Belgium/Cleanup listing#Unreferenced BLPs

FYI - A massive discussion is taking place at a Request for comment (RfC) Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people. About 50k of articles are currently unreferenced and therefore in danger of deletion, some of those are on Belgian subjects, e.g. Gery Verbruggen (gold medal at the 1999 World Games in Dubai etc) was speedy deleted for being unreferenced. I have added the proper template on the main page to have a bot generate the cleanup list after some days (hopefully). The cleanup link in the title above (now a redlink) will then point to a list of unreferenced articles with the WikiProject Belgium template on its talk page. Please revise articles on the list, when possible,

1. review them for contentious unsourced information pr WP:BLP concerns
2. add references (you may e.g. lift references from the Belgian page, if that page exists)
3. remove the {{BLP unsourced}} template from the article.

We need a lot of hands for this. Thank you. Power.corrupts (talk) 12:25, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

KU Leuven, UCL

Dear members of the WikiProject Belgium, I would like to draw your attention to a problem concerning the articles related to the Catholic University of Leuven which is being discussed here. User:Bruxellensis, who is usually active on the French Wikipedia, is currently rewriting all articles related to the Catholic University of Leuven from his own point of view. He holds that KUL and UCL were founded in 1834 instead of 1425 and that there are no historical links whatsoever between the academic institutions that have been vested in Leuven in the course of time. This opinion is only supported by a minority of historians. Today it is common understanding and the self-conception of KULeuven and UCL that there exists a historical continuity back until 1425. The view that User:Bruxellensis expresses should be confined to a "critism" section. It should not be presented as prevailing opinion. User:Bruxellensis has already rewritten the relevant articles on the French and the Latin Wikipedia according to his view. He has tried to do so on the German Wikipedia. Now he has started the same discussion on the English Wikipedia. I have tried my best to explain to him that Wikipedia is not the right place for original research and that it is not the right place to present a minority view as the prevailing one. In the beginning I assumed good faith but every discussion with him results in an edit war. I would be glad if someone could express his point of view and perhaps make suggestions of how to cope with this conflict. Best regards, Athenchen (talk) 20:48, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

You are correct, right down to it being relegated to a small section in the article. Mainstream sources state it was founded in 1425. Oreo Priest ^talk 23:57, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Can WikiProject Belgium take the Belgian pages in hand, please? I have posted a similar NPOV on the Duchy of Brabant discussion page about an IP edit replacing the English placenames with Flemish ones. At a higher level, the linguistic frontier question is becoming heated at the moment and is rubbing off in all directions: it may be necessary to put an edit freeze on all Belgium.

Edit freeze on all Belgium? That's certainly not going to happen. We try to do what we can, but hey, that's life. Oreo Priest ^talk 18:17, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I am sure the UCL (or its latin name) was founded in 1425. It is obvious. I am a Walloon and I am able to understand a Fleming who wants to underline that the Duchy of Brabant was Flemish (excepted the Walloon Brabant), because it is right and actual. And I think it is possible to be cool about Belgium. Even if there is a difficult conflict. Flemings and Walloons are able to manage it. Sincerely, José Fontaine (talk) 23:08, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit freeze means locking all articles so nobody can edit them. But yeah, we can keep cool heads... Oreo Priest ^talk 23:33, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

This explains how the bl***y interwiki link mess related to the various Leuven/Louvain university articles came about! I noticed recently that the three articles I wrote in Swedish Wikipedia weren't iw-linked the way they were supposed to. Sigh. Tomas e (talk) 11:41, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

By the way, this whole complex of articles apparentlyn need to be looked at in terms of their naming, becuase it really seems that User:Bruxellensis has messed up things considerably. For example, Old University of Louvain seems weird in English because of "old" (even if the French could accept "ancienne"), and questionable because of "Lovain". And why use State University of Louvain, i.e., using the French name of a Flemish city for a university in the United Kingdom of Netherlands to describe it in English? Tomas e (talk) 11:55, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Bruxellensis is a francophone, and there were lots of problems with their translation. I've cleaned up some of the grammar and clarified some of the prose, but I certainly didn't fix everything. For what it's worth, Louvain used to be the standard name in English, but now there isn't really a dominant one. I guess it should be moved. Oreo Priest ^talk 14:31, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Ferho Derwich

This has been WP:PRODed for lacking a source. Can you help? Maurreen (talk) 19:31, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

City/Town category organisation

The categorisation of places in very unclear. There is a large category Category:Cities and towns in Belgium with (in my opinion, too large) a number of subcategories that are not in sync nor logical. There currently seems no reasoning behind putting an article in either Category:Cities and towns in Flanders, Category:Cities and towns in West Flanders, Category:Cities, towns and villages in Hainaut, Category:Cities and towns in Belgium,... or even the unnecessary two article Category:Langemark-Poelkapelle. A large cleanup is necessary to make this useable for wikipedia visitors. 195.177.83.221 (talk) 14:55, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced living people articles bot

User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects provides a list, updated daily, of unreferenced living people articles (BLPs) related to your project. There has been a lot of discussion recently about deleting these unreferenced articles, so it is important that these articles are referenced.

The unreferenced articles related to your project can be found at >>>Wikipedia:WikiProject Belgium/Archive 2/Unreferenced BLPs<<<

If you do not want this wikiproject to participate, please add your project name to this list.

Thank you.

Update: Wikipedia:WikiProject Belgium/Archive 2/Unreferenced BLPs has been created. This list, which is updated by User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects daily, will allow your wikiproject to quickly identify unreferenced living person articles.

There maybe no or few articles on this new Unreferenced BLPs page. To increase the overall number of articles in your project with another bot, you can sign up for User:Xenobot_Mk_V#Instructions.

If you have any questions or concerns, visit User talk:DASHBot/Wikiprojects. Okip 01:29, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Margareta van Eyck - Sister of Wife?

Margareta van Eyck is listed in Wiki as Jan van Eyck's sister and yet many other sources on the web indicate that she was his wife. I'm not an art expert nor anything else but someone who knows probably ought to check it out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.241.92.187 (talk) 21:27, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons

The WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons (UBLPs) aims to reduce the number of unreferenced biographical articles to under 30,000 by June 1, primarily by enabling WikiProjects to easily identify UBLP articles in their project's scope. There were over 52,000 unreferenced BLPs in January 2010 and this has been reduced to 32,665 as of May 16. A bot is now running daily to compile a list of all articles that are in both Category:All unreferenced BLPs and have been tagged by a WikiProject. Note that the bot does NOT place unreferenced tags or assign articles to projects - this has been done by others previously - it just compiles a list.

Your Project's list can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Belgium/Unreferenced BLPs. As of May 17 you have approximately 82 articles to be referenced. The list of all other WikiProject UBLPs can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons/WikiProjects.

Your assistance in reviewing and referencing these articles is greatly appreciated. If you have any questions, please don't hestitate to ask either at WT:URBLP or at my talk page. Thanks, The-Pope (talk) 17:53, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Dutch people

A Request for Comments which may be of interest to this Wikiproject is waiting for your input at Talk:Dutch people#RfC on how to define the Dutch as an ethnic group, and what to include. Fram (talk) 07:07, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

SOS

Bonjour. Je suis Belge et une excellente contributrice sur la Wikipédia francophone mais connait mal l’anglais et très mal le fonctionnement technique de WP en. Pourriez-vous revoir mes articles pour les améliorer ? Merci déjà,

Hello. I am Belgian and good worker on the French Wikipedia but have a bad English and don’t know the running for WP en. Can you see my articles and improve them ? Many thanks in advance, --Égoïté (talk) 07:42, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Ca va, je les regarderais. OK I'll have a look --Triwbe (talk) 08:12, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Grand merci ! Thank you very much Triwbe ! Si tu veux me contacter, il est préférable de m’écrire sur WP fr To contact me, it’s beter to write on my page of WP fr. Have a good day, --Égoïté (talk) 14:16, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

New category: Category:Belgian Congo

I was surprised that such a cat didn't yet exist, so I created it. Still needs some populating (you can take some clues by looking at the French version of the category). Note that this does not cover Leopold's Congo Free State, but rather the 1908-1960 state. Thanks for any help sorting the proper articles into this category. MatthewVanitas (talk) 10:25, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Belgium-related articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Belgium-related articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Sunday, November 14th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of November, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

If you have already provided feedback, we deeply appreciate it. For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 16:30, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject cleanup listing

I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick (talk) 20:15, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Paul Colin (journalist) Article

I'm interested in someone from WikiProject Belgium to rate the importance on Paul Colin (journalist). It would be appreciated. Adamdaley (talk) 06:43, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Outdated text

Members of WikiProject Belgium need urgently to update some of the relevent articles. Statements such as "After the June 2010 elections, a new government will soon be formed" (currently appearing in the Belgian federal government article) are likely to result in considerable (frustrated) merriment. While all of us would no doubt like to see the current crisis resolved (in one way or another) and the stalemate brought to an end, the existing text of several of the WikiProject Belgium is so out of date that an interim editing is required. Rif Winfield (talk) 13:47, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Go for it. Oreo Priest ^talk 10:33, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Syldavian

All input welcome. Thank you. ^walk victor falk ^talk 07:03, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Gilles de Binche - a festival or a composer?

Apparently there is a classical Flemish composer named 'Gilles Binchois' or 'Gilles de Binche'. Of course, there are also the Gilles of the carnival of Binche, known as the 'Gilles de Binche'. Anybody have any idea how these are related? It seems very improbable that it be a coincidence, yet I can't seem to find much or any good information on it. Even the town's official website makes no mention of the composer, and instead offers an unconvincing explanation that 'Gilles' comes from 'Gil' being a common name in Spain at the time. Anyone have any ideas? Oreo Priest ^talk 13:09, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Its only a coincidence. Gilles Binchois was from Mons, and the name Gilles or Aegidius was verry currently in use at this time. de Binche was the family name of his mother, perhaps also the name of a seigneurie or a manor. History is full of coincidences of this kind. Bien cordialement.--Bruxellensis (talk) 14:49, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Minority language names outside of Brussels

I just wanted to let the members of the project know that there is a discussion about whether or not to include the minority official language in articles about officially monolingual cities at Talk:Halle, Belgium, although it is not limited to Halle. Thoughts are welcome. Oreo Priest ^talk 17:04, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Deletion of election poster images

I wish to inform you that this image and this image have been nominated for deletion. Silverseren^C 19:56, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, they contain non-free content, so there's no real way we can stop them from being deleted. Oreo Priest ^talk 14:58, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Robert de Foy: assistance request

Dear team, I hope that this finds you well! I need some assistance in clarifying and improving the article on Robert de Foy. I originally created a stub article in 2007 after re-writing the article on Holocaust trains. I was going through some old articles today, and noted that the De Foy article had been neglected, adjust by various anon's. I hence had a looked at Dutch Wikipedia entry for De Foy, which I note had a controversy section which was directly highly critical of the English Wikipedia article - I have since removed the offending text, not seeing as either compliant with either WP:5P or at all colaborative between wikipedia teams. As much of the source material is either in Flemish or Dutch - neither of which I have basic capability in - and as the Dutch wikipedia entry merely lists references and has no inline citations, I need some assistance in improving the rewritten article. Thank You! Regards, --Trident13 (talk) 19:12, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

I have tried to improve the entry in English. I refer to my remarks on the discussion page of Robert de Foy. He is one of these civil servants who had to navigate in difficult circumstances under nazi-occupation. Although sometimes suspected of having been too friendly with the occupants, he has been vindicated, fifteen years after his death, by the official recognition of his support of the Jews in Belgium. Andries Van den Abeele (talk) 13:58, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Francophone

Francophone has been nominated for deletion. 65.94.47.63 (talk) 04:51, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Belgium Municipality/Population

I received a request on my talk page (from Klodde (talk · contribs)) to update the information from 2006 to 2010. Since I don't know how the data was generated, and I haven't edited much in Belgium, I thought I'd pass it on here. I'm writing here, rather than at Template talk:Infobox Belgium Municipality/Population, as it's probably not heavily watched. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:25, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

We can copy the data from Dutch wikipedia: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sjabloon:Infobox_gemeente_België/Inwoners (source: Belgian statistics service, see [13]). We need to replace the decimal commas by decimal points, and the population date has to be changed to 1/1/2010 in the {{Infobox Belgium Municipality}} as well. Markussep ^Talk 09:40, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

And we also need

• http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sjabloon:Infobox_gemeente_België/Werkloosheidsgraad for the unemployment rate, in Dutch 2009, English 2006
• http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sjabloon:Infobox_gemeente_België/Inkomen for the Mean annual income, in Dutch 2007, English 2003, that's 8 year's ago!

The most difficult is changing the dates I think, I really have no idea how we can do this, hope we find a solution

Klodde (talk) 15:20, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I've updated the population data, and changed the year to 2010. Maybe I'll do the unemployment and income data later. Markussep ^Talk 11:37, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Antwerp

User:Fram has twice removed the French name from the infobox here, on the grounds "it isn't a local language". This seems very odd to an English reader, but I'll leave it to you guys to sort out. Johnbod (talk) 23:54, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

It isn't really a local language. The first line is enough, it doesn't need to be in the infobox too. For a discussion on the matter which has yet to be hammered into policy, see Talk:Halle,_Belgium#Alternate_city_names_in_Belgium_RFC Oreo Priest ^talk 15:08, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Belgium Municipality

There is a discussion about the Template:Infobox Belgium Municipality and whether it should remain an independent template or a redirect to / shell of Template:Infobox settlement. Please join the discussion at Template talk:Infobox Belgium Municipality#Infobox settlement. Fram (talk) 09:26, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

• I support the newer version, as it appears in the test cases.--Ultimate Destiny (talk) 09:23, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support the new template.--Nero the second (talk) 13:05, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support the sandbox template, most recent version (8 October 13:38, ID 454544506). Markussep ^Talk 13:37, 10 October 2011 (UTC) Reminder: when the template is exchanged, copy the subtemplate User:Nero the second/Economy to Template:Infobox Belgium Municipality/Economy.
• Support current sandbox template, the only thing that seems to be "missing" is the male-female ratio, which is not really an important one in Belgium. Everythin else is still there, and it looks a bit better. I have no problem with keeping the current one either, the new one is not really a great improvement, but it's certainly not worse either. Fram (talk) 13:42, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

University of Kent in Belgium

It looks as though a small error crept into the list of belgian universities. The university of Kent is also listed as a Belgian university. The error might be understandable, since for english speakers Ghent and Kent apparently sound the same.(My former Irish boss had the misunderstanding of Ghent a few times) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 157.193.6.10 (talk) 22:41, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Dexia

About Dexia The HQ is at Rogier 11 B-1210 Brussels So which municipality is it in? Thanks, WhisperToMe (talk) 14:33, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

If 1210 is the postal code, it should be in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode.--Ultimate Destiny (talk) 14:45, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! WhisperToMe (talk) 14:52, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Looking for Jacques Raymond DeWeur

Hello, My father was in the Airforce and had fond memories of his time in Beauvechain Belgium. I recently found pictures of a young girl and boy sitting in front of what appears to be a glass hothouse for growing plants. It would be wonderful to make contact with them to find out what they remember of this time and to share the pictures.

Thanks Patrick Bobbitt patrick_bobbitt@hotmail.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pbobbitt (talk • contribs) 14:14, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Wallonia-Brussels Federation or French Community of Belgium

I am not a very regular contributor to this wikipedia, so I hope I do not do anything inappropriate if I mention here the fact that there is a discussion right now on Talk:Wallonia-Brussels Federation in order to have the name change that happened a week ago reversed, and the article go back to its initial name of French Community of Belgium. Asavaa (talk) 10:28, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

More municipality questions

Which Brussels municipalities are these groups in?

• European Association for Osseointegration - 287 Avenue Louise – 4th floor 1050 Brussels, Belgium
• Eurocontrol - Rue de la Fusée 96 Brussels 1130 Belgium

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 08:30, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

1050 is Ixelles, 1130 is Brussels itself (former municipality of Haren, merged with Brussels). --GraafGeorge (talk) 14:32, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much! What about 11, Rue des Colonies, 1000 Brussels, Belgium ? It seems to be in the City of Brussels, but which quarter? WhisperToMe (talk) 11:55, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

WikiWomen's History Month

Hi everyone. March is Women's History Month and I'm hoping a few folks here at WP:Belgium will have interest in putting on events (on and off wiki) related to women's roles in Belgium's history, society and culture. We've created an event page on English Wikipedia (please translate!) and I hope you'll find the inspiration to participate. These events can take place off wiki, like edit-a-thons, or on wiki, such as themes and translations. Please visit the page here: WikiWomen's History Month. Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to seeing events take place! SarahStierch (talk) 22:09, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposed merge: Stoemp and Stamppot

hi everyone. I have proposed the merge acoording to the redirect that already exists on nl.wiki, and similar comments/evidence on the internet and also on a discussion page on fr.wiki. The merge has been proposed in parallel also on fr.wiki, it.wiki and es.wiki. the proposed main title would be stammpot (sorry belgium :) )--Alexmar983 (talk) 12:25, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Antwerp Jain Temple

Hello! I recently came across pictures of the Jain temple in Antwerp and subsequently read about the Jain community in Belgium. From what I could see from the pictures, the temple looked beautiful, even by Indian standards. Given its architectural splendor, I'm sure a parallel piece of Indian architecture thus far didn't exist on Belgian soil. I felt that this topic deserved mention on Wikipedia and so created Jainism in Belgium. I request the members of this group, especially those who reside in Antwerp, to build upon the page, it's just a stub now. Also, please correct any factual errors that I may have introduced as I have personally not been to Belgium, though I'd love too!--Aayush18 (talk) 08:47, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Technicus or Technicien

Hi! Can someone please clarify what "Technicus" means in the context of Belgian government ministers (for instance in the context of Ministry of Defence (Belgium)? I thought I was proficient in French but, to me, all "technicien" means is Technician which doesn't really make sense. Brigade Piron (talk) 16:24, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Counts of Louvain: request move to Counts of Leuven

Hello everyone, for those interested: you are free to participate in the move request put here: Talk:Counts of Louvain#Requested move2. My argumentation behind this move request is that "counts of Leuven" has a much higher contemporary usage than "counts of Louvain". Google shows an overall preference for "counts of Leuven", on average (=including all counts) there are five times more "of Leuven"'s than "of Louvain"'s. Morgengave (talk) 21:48, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

List of companies of Belgium

I have just started a requested move over at List of companies of Belgium, and it doesn't look like many people are watching it. If anyone would like to comment, I'd be very grateful. The discussion is being held at Talk:List of companies of Belgium#Requested move. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 06:48, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Requesting references/fact-check for an article

Found Paul Ooghe whilst doing New Page Patrol. It's an article about a Belgian World War I veteran who passed away in 2001. It's currently unreferenced but well-written, and I suspect that any references will be Belgian or at least from that part of Europe, and I don't know where to start looking. If anyone is interested in helping, I'd appreciate it. Will be crossposting this at WikiProject Military History. - Jorgath (talk) ^(contribs) 19:06, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Seems fine. Found some sources I added. Asavaa (talk) 19:33, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! - Jorgath (talk) ^(contribs) 19:52, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Ernest Nys

I have just created this article from the German version of the article using Google Translate. I came across him as a subject because of my interest in the history of international and Lassa Oppenheim spoke well of one of his works for what was then (mid to late 19th century) the history of international law. He also was professor of international law at Brussels, nominated over 10 times for the Nobel Peace Prize, and a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. I hope someone from this WP project. Amongst other things, I could not tell from the googlge translation when he took over his professorship. IMHO (talk) 23:42, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Also, I tend not to place banners for WikiProjects I don't involve myself in, at least sporadically. If a member of this WP agrees that this subject falls within the WP's scope, please add the banner to the subject's talk page. IMHO (talk) 23:46, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Phaleristics

Just a heads up, I started a List of Orders, Decorations and Medals of the Kingdom of Belgium linked to individual award articles. At the moment I am still building the list and most articles are at the stub or start stage. My intent is to develop each article to B class (C at the minimum). Fdutil (talk) 11:47, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Roman Belgium

Category:Roman sites in Belgium has been created, but unfortunately I can't find very much to fill it. Can everyone please keep a look out and tag other articles into it? We're really lagging behind other countries in this area... ---Brigade Piron (talk) 20:15, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Request for comments at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

At Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#npdata.be I posted a question about a Belgian web site, Non-Profit Data. Comments there would be welcome.07:23, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

New articles created or greatly expanded

Recap of sporadic work from 1 June 2012 to date on Belgian Orders, Decorations and Medals

Created article 1914-1917 African Campaigns Commemorative Medal

Created article Yser Medal

Expanded article Volunteer Combatant's Medal 1914-1918

Created article 1914-1918 Commemorative War Medal

Created article Deportees' Cross 1914-1918

Expanded article King Albert Medal

Created article Inter-Allied Victory Medal 1914-1918 (Belgium)

Created article Civilian Disobedience Medal

Created article Political Prisoner's Cross 1940-1945

Expanded article Commemorative Medal of the War 1940-1945

Expanded article Civic Decoration (Belgium)

Created article Centenary of National Independence Commemorative Medal

Expanded article Military Decoration (Belgium)

Expanded article Croix de guerre (Belgium)

Expanded article Commemorative Medal for Foreign Operations or Missions

Expanded article Cross of Honour for Military Service Abroad

Expanded article Medal of Military Merit (Belgium)

Expanded article Volunteer Combatant's Medal 1914-1918

Created stub 1870-71 Commemorative Medal

Created stub Fire Cross 1914-1918

Created stub Maritime Medal 1940-1945

Cretaed stub 1940-1945 Military Combatant's Medal

Created stub Volunteer's Medal 1940-1945

Created stub 1940–1945 African War Medal

Created stub 1940–1945 Colonial War Effort Medal

Created stub Medal of the Armed Resistance 1940-1945

Created stub Civilian Resistance Medal

Created stub Prisoner of War Medal 1940-1945

Expanded article Military Cross (Belgium)

Expanded article Commemorative Medal for Armed Humanitarian Operations

Expanded article Commemorative Medals for Army Marches

Created stub Commemorative Medal of the Reign of King Leopold II

Created stub Commemorative Medal of the Reign of King Albert I

Created stub Medal for Services Rendered

Fdutil (talk) 18:20, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

3 September 2012

• Expanded stub into article 1940-1945 Military Combatant's Medal
• Expanded stub into article Maritime Medal 1940-1945
• Expanded stub into article Volunteer's Medal 1940-1945

Fdutil (talk) 21:22, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

RFC proposed article name change from Hesbaye to Haspengouw

Comments are requested concerning the above proposal. See Hesbaye.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:26, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

IMHO, use the proper name in the language spoken in the geographical area. In this case, Dutch would seem quite logical. Fdutil (talk) 14:18, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Comments should be on the article's talk page, not here. Oreo Priest ^talk 21:09, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

4 September 2012

• Created article Political Prisoner's Medal 1914-1918
• Expanded stub into article Commemorative Medal of the Reign of King Albert I

Fdutil (talk) 20:50, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

5 September 2012

• Expanded stub into article Commemorative Medal of the Reign of King Leopold II

Fdutil (talk) 23:18, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

7 September 2012

• Expanded stub into article 1870-71 Commemorative Medal

Fdutil (talk) 00:05, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

9 September 2012

• Expanded Croix de guerre (Belgium)

Fdutil (talk) 01:52, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

10 September 2012

• Expanded stub into article Fire Cross 1914-1918

Fdutil (talk) 15:57, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

12 September 2012

• Expanded stub into article Prisoner of War Medal 1940-1945

Fdutil (talk) 04:19, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

13 September 2012

• Expanded stub into article Medal of the Armed Resistance 1940-1945

Fdutil (talk) 15:39, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

15 September 2012

• Important expansion of Civic Decoration (Belgium)
• Expanded stub into article 1940–1945 Colonial War Effort Medal

Fdutil (talk) 15:42, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

22 September 2012

• Created article 1830 Volunteers' Commemorative Cross
• Created Labour Decoration
• Expanded List of Orders, Decorations and Medals of the Kingdom of Belgium

Fdutil (talk) 03:14, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

23 September 2012

• Created article Iron Cross (Belgium)

Fdutil (talk) 19:30, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

24 September 2012

• Created article Commemorative Decoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Creation of the Railroads

Fdutil (talk) 03:25, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I have redirected this one, as it doesn't appear to be a notable medal. It didn't have any reliable, independent sources, only primary sources and perzonal websites. Fram (talk) 07:43, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

The redirect has been "UNDONE". You didn't redirect, you outright deleted a proper article on a State Commemorative Decoration. Please use the article's TALK PAGE in the future to settle any questions you might have, do NOT arbitrarily delete articles. A simple question would've shown you the validity of the sources and would have avoided this quite frustrating situation. To have one's research arbitrarily and summarily wiped out like that is quite frustrating to say the least! Wikipedia uses concensus to avoid such situations. Fdutil (talk) 14:54, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Euro gold and silver commemorative coins (Belgium) at WP:FLRC

I have nominated Euro gold and silver commemorative coins (Belgium) for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:00, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

French speaking 'minority' in Grimbergen

In Belgium, languages are used for official purpose, according to language regulations and within regions as clearly defined in the Belgian constitution. Grimbergen is also not a community with so-called 'facilities' for french-speaking and is a uni-lingual community, that integrally belongs to the Flemish Region. It must be clear that referring to a 'french-speaking minority' is legally incorrect and creates a false impression. A french-speaking party is indeed represented in the local council, but this is equally valid for every other (local) party. No more, no less. 94.225.213.116 (talk) 22:53, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Red image links on Belgium page

The map in the provinces section of the Belgium has a number of red image links. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 08:47, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Corrected some (image) links in the {{Belgian provinces Labelled Map}} and {{Coat of arms}} templates, should be OK now. Markussep ^Talk 11:19, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

La Monnaie/De Munt

Hi, The article named La Monnaie/De Munt is really confusing for non-Belgians. Can we get some concensus either way about which name should be used on the title? If it's good enough for the communes of Brussels, it should be good enough for an opera house. Thanks --(Brigade Piron (talk) 12:00, 21 October 2012 (UTC))

Easy. The Brussels naming conventions were established to deal with this sort of thing. I've moved it. Oreo Priest ^talk 15:15, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

New mayors and majorities

If you notice people inserting the "new" mayor or majority into the infoboxes for municipalities before 1 January 2013, please undo their change and add a hidden comment like <!-- Please do not replace the mayor and the majority until 1 January 2013. This lists the current mayor and majority, not the future one --> . We should show the current situation, not the situation as it will probably soon be. Althoug the elections were in October, the mayor stays in place until the end of the year. Fram (talk) 07:09, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Military history of Belgium

Hi guys. Just to draw this to your collective attention, but we have no article Military history of Belgium - the title of which currently directs onto History of Belgium - whether they're trying to make a comment, I am not quite sure. It's true that it ain't the biggest martial state ever, but there should definately be an article about participation, including 1830, Mexican Intervention, WW1, WW2, Korea, Congo & Rwanda, Kossovo, Afghanistan &c. Even Luxembourg has one (Military history of Luxembourg)... Brigade Piron (talk) 15:22, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

It's very likely not trying to make a comment. And what personally distresses me more than the lack of a page on Belgium's military history is the sorry state of the page on its entire history. Oreo Priest ^talk 17:12, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

True. Might be easier to start with military history first though? --(Brigade Piron (talk) 19:29, 31 October 2012 (UTC))

History of Belgium

Right, I've done quite a bit of work on the article History of Belgium - please can everyone concentrate on this article for the moment? It is one of the key articles on the projects - it would be great to get it right! If people could add references, that would also be great!!! --Brigade Piron (talk) 22:39, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

If someone could re-assess the new article, that'd be good! Brigade Piron (talk) 18:54, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

You can do that too! You did a great job ironing out a lot of the problems that article had. Good work! Oreo Priest ^talk 22:58, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! I've put the other project on hold for a bit, while I work on Art of Belgium. Anyone fancy helping? ---Brigade Piron (talk) 15:23, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

List of castles in Belgium

Hello. I would like to invite all native English speakers to comment at Talk:List of castles in Belgium on what to call the page and most of the objects on the list. A very large number of the places translated as 'castle' are not in fact castles (fortified, thick walls, etc.), but rather châteaus or manor houses or something like that. I specify native speakers because the question at hand is what word makes the most sense to use in English, so it's probably best that commenters be native English speakers or at least mention their native language when commenting. Thanks, Oreo Priest ^talk 23:02, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Alternative place names in the lead of articles

I'd like to inform the wikiproject of a discussion that occurred at Talk:Halle,_Belgium#Alternate_city_names_in_Belgium_RFC. The clear consensus of the discussion was that each place's name should appear not only in the local language, but also the other national language. In each case it should still be clear what the local name is. There was also some support for including German in the lead of each article, but not enough for it to be considered a clear consensus. Oreo Priest ^talk 23:08, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Belgian history "task force"

Hello, Following sterling work done by several members of this project on making History of Belgium a nice article (better than History of Britain!), I think it might be good to capitalize on the success by creating a "task force" within the project aimed at Belgian history. Quite frankly there are so many Belgian history/politics stubs that need work (take a look at the biographies of even the more successful Prime Ministers!) that a "task force" is pretty much essential just to sort them. I'd add that there is already a category (Category:Wikipedians interested in the history of Belgium) but as yet no way of sorting stubs. My idea would be to combine History, Military History and Politics in one group, though I'd be interested to know your thoughts! --Brigade Piron 10:26, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure how having a task force would really help, because I don't know much about those. But I'd be happy to help or at least be a second set of eyes to look at whatever you might need. Oreo Priest ^talk 17:30, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Can anyone confirm this is Ostend?

Hi, I have been working on the TID class tug article, and there are two pictures of TID 172 which have been uploaded to commons without a description of where they were taken. There is another picture here of the ship at the same location, with distinctive buildings in the background, which I think includes the cathedral at Ostend, but wondered if anyone can confirm the location, and maybe even the event. Thanks in anticipation. Bob1960evens (talk) 18:16, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

This is almost certainly Ostend: I managed to figure out where this picture should have been taken using Google Maps: [14], but I don't know yet when this should have been taken.Evilbu (talk) 21:27, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Brussels naming convention

• Arts-Loi/Kunst-Wet metro station
• Kraainem/Crainhem metro station
• Stockel/Stokkel metro station
• Erasme/Erasmus metro station &c.

Are stations included in the Brussles Naming Convention? If so, could everyone decide which name to use since I don't know these areas well myself - my hunch is that the francophone name would be best? --Brigade Piron (talk) 16:10, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

I can't see why they would be excluded, so they should be moved. I don't have the initiative to do it myself, but if you want to take the task on, go for it. French will always be the preferred language (unless for some reason there is evidence otherwise) for reasons explained on the naming conventions page. Oreo Priest ^talk 19:32, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Per Oreo's suggestion, all moved to French titles, except Kraainem (for reasons evident in the text of the article) and Erasmus because it can be moved into English (see Erasmus) without distorting the real name.---Brigade Piron (talk) 19:43, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Ok. Is there a reason you moved just those four, rather than all of the stations? See Template:Brussels Metro navbox (although the navbox itself is probably fine and more clear as-is. Oreo Priest ^talk 20:13, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Those are just the four I've seen, I'm sure there are more but many are on "redirect" anyway. I'll change any more if I come across them.--Brigade Piron (talk) 21:06, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Translation difficulty

I've been doing a bit to the article Regiment 12th of the Line Prince Leopold – 13th of the Line and I've come to the conclusion that it needs, desperately, to be renamed. Apart from anything else, the title is wrong as it is a Battalion rather than a Regiment. The original names (Bataljon 12 Linie Prins Léopold - 13 Linie/Bataillon 12e de Ligne Prince Léopold - 13e de Ligne) are a good deal more elegant so I would like a consensus on what to rename it as. 12th-13th Battalion of the Line is the best I've got so far, the "Prince Leopold" part can be explained in the article I hope. Might there be a case to leave it in its original language though? ---Brigade Piron (talk) 12:00, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I think the current version (12th-13th Battalion of the Line at time of writing) is reasonably good, and you've handled it well, so don't worry about it. What might the "original language" be, keeping in mind Wikipedia explicitly forbids double titles? Oreo Priest ^talk 19:24, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Belgium in WWII

Hello, Can someone take a look at this page (Belgium in World War II) and tell me what class of article it is and what still needs to be done?Brigade Piron (talk) 11:35, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Problems with Template:Culture of Belgium

Hello, Template:Culture of Belgium seems to have spontaneously bust itself (no malicious edits?!) but unfortunately it is out of my area of expertise. Could someone have a look at it and see if it can be fixed? All the best, ---Brigade Piron (talk) 09:51, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

What's broken? Looks fine to me. Oreo Priest ^talk 04:05, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

OK, it seems to have resolved itself. I'll put it back in History of Belgium. ---Brigade Piron (talk) 08:04, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Turns out the edits that broke it were at the parent template: Template:Culture of region. They were also well-intentioned, for what it's worth. Oreo Priest ^talk 13:31, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure what breakage you're seeing, but it was almost certainly temporary and caused by a caching issue. See Template:Culture of Belgium/sandbox, which is what should have been shown after the recent updates. If there's a problem with that output, please explain what it is: otherwise, I'll be restoring the live code, which also impacts almost a hundred other templates.

Apologies: it appears I hadn't pushed some code I'd been meaning to add. Will have this fixed shortly. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:22, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Should be fixed now. If you can see anything in the sandbox which is still broken please let me know: otherwise I'll push this update out. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:48, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. Cheers, Oreo Priest ^talk 21:54, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

"Drives"?

"Of the 9832 articles in this project 3083 or 31.4 % are marked for cleanup, with 4397 issues in total."

That's a lot. On the other hand, it only took me about an hour or two to add a couple of articles of the wishlist and remove a dozen issues from the above mentioned list. Would it be possible to organize drives, like the GOCE does? For example, there are 196 Orphaned articles left, let's try and clear that list by the end of February? Mathijsvs (talk) 09:38, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Past countries in Belgium

Hello, I've noticed that the Spanish Netherlands and Austrian Netherlands redirect to invidual sections rather than full articles. I take it that this should be sorted out since all have very distinct history and are of quite a good deal of importance to the project. Anyone interested in assisting in sorting this out? ---Brigade Piron (talk) 10:54, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Do they have a distinct history? They might be convenient periods for breaking up history, but was there really an important difference between them except for which foreign country chose the governors and foreign policy? Serious question. Oreo Priest ^talk 17:25, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

No. Each has a very distinct history, rather like the German Empire and Weimar Republic. Just different. Except on an existential level... ---Brigade Piron (talk) 16:16, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Belgian Dutch

The name of Belgian Dutch dialects is up for discussion, see talk:Belgian Dutch dialects -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 05:47, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Category:People of the Historical Event

Hello,
I've been looking at creating categories for the various Belgian revolutions which have happened in history and I'd just like to ask exactly what merits someone to be in the Category:People of the Liège Revolution. On one level, it could be "Liège revolutionaries" (as it is now) but would it also qualify people who are significant to the history of the Liège revolution ("People important to the Liège revolution")? For instance, would the Prince-Bishops (and other counterrevolutionaries) themselves be eligible for a place in the category? Thanks ---Brigade Piron (talk) 16:25, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

yes our goal is to help readers understand the event and you need both sides to see what the dynamic was. therefore I recommend including counterrevolutionaries. Rjensen (talk) 16:39, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree: "People important to the Liège revolution" would fit the category better, since the inclusion of both parties is almost mandatory imho. Mathijsvs (talk) 23:43, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Alerts

I have requested Wikipedia:WikiProject Belgium/Article alerts be activated, when the link turns blue it has been. In ictu oculi (talk) 15:53, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Broken Broechem infobox

Hi guys. I was just passing and noticed that Broechem is showing an error on its infobox. I'm guessing that's because it's not big enough to have an NIS code which in turn means it shouldn't be using {{Infobox Belgium Municipality}}, but I thought I'd let you know, it's not my area. Le Deluge (talk) 20:58, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Broechem is not a 'municipality' (commune/gemeente), so it shouldn't be using that template. I've fixed it. Oreo Priest ^talk 15:53, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

GA Nomination - help please!

Hello,
The article Belgium in World War II is up for review for GA status. If anyone from the project would be interested in reviewing it, that'd be great! ---Brigade Piron (talk) 10:25, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Caroline Lacroix Baroness Vaughan.jpg

file:Caroline Lacroix Baroness Vaughan.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 05:11, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

"This user identifies as a Rexist"

I have identified this template for speedy deletion, but thought it might help to present my reasons here.

Rexism is not an political ideology, it was a Belgian party. It was a political party that collaborated with Nazi Germany to the maximum extent and was heavily implicated in the Holocaust during the occupation, not to mention the massacre of innocent civilians at Courcelles. It is outlawed by the Belgian government. The template "This user identifies as a Nazi" is understandably banned; I hope this template (which is akin to "This user identifies as a Belgian Nazi") will follow suit.---Brigade Piron (talk) 16:42, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

I have declined a G10 speedy deletion as an attack page, for reasons explained at User talk:JohnCD#"This user identifies as a Rexist", and suggested WP:MFD. JohnCD (talk) 19:30, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Now deleted.---Brigade Piron (talk) 07:10, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Umicore

Hello,

I work for Umicore and notice some factual errors on our entry in the EN and NL versions. I would liek to see how best to get an impartial update of the Umicore page.

Thanks,

Tim Weekes Director of Communications — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.242.202.228 (talk) 08:30, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

The page is not locked, so you should be able to make the changes which you see appropriate yourself, see here: Help:Editing. Please remember that the page should remain impartial and unpromotional though. ---Brigade Piron (talk) 09:43, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

As a directly involved party, it is preferred though if you make your changes at the talk page of the article instead of directly into the article, to prevent any appearance of biased editing. Talk:Umicore is the place to be then. WP:COI has more information on how to deal with this (especially the section WP:COIU). Basically, if you suggest changes and additions on the talk page of the article, you can wait and see how people react, or (if it is urgent or if no acceptable reaction happens after a few days) add {{Request edit}} to the talk page section where you have suggested changes. If necessary, there are other means of dispute resolution available, but let's hope that the above is sufficient. Fram (talk) 09:52, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Fram is correct: propose the changes on the talk page, and neutral parties will handle it. Oreo Priest ^talk 22:42, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

"Liege"

The usage of Liege is under discussion, see Talk:Liege (disambiguation) -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 05:34, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

British vs. American English on Belgium

Seems only fair to let the whole project know - the use of British English on the Belgium article is under discussion here. ---Brigade Piron (talk) 11:03, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Half-done GA nomination

Hello,

I've written the article on Belgium in World War II which has been up for GA Nomination for nearly a month. A reviewer started making the changes and believes that there is "not much work to do" on it but has had to drop out - I would be extremely grateful if someone would have a look at it so that it can be moved for A class nomination.

All the best, ---Brigade Piron (talk) 10:53, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Organizing edit-a-thon in Belgium in June, who helps?

On Saturday 29 June there are European edit-a-thon planned in several countries with the subject World War I. This World War had Belgium as chess board so it would be great and a good idea to organize a an edit-a-thon in Belgium.

What is an edit-a-thon?

An edit-a-thon is a (small) event where people come together and work on articles on a particular topic. Often such edit-a-thon is organized for people relatively new to Wikipedia and held at an organization.

What are the needed ingredients?

• At least two users from Wikipedia being there (I am prepared to)
• A short explanation/presentation about Wikipedia (encyclopaedia), the neutral point of view, fee license, no original research, mentioning sources. (is available)
• Cheatsheets <Help:Cheatsheet> (can be printed or ordered with a chapter)
• A list of subjects which are missing in a certain language
• Organization with knowledge/library (preferable) or other location, must have internet connection
  • Organization can also publish a press release to attract interested people and people from that organization

Conclusion: the only work is in finding an organization.

What are possible organizations?

• Brussels: Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History < http://www.klm-mra.be/ > in Parc du Cinquantenaire, Brussels

• Overview of museums: http://www.euro-t-guide.com/See_Type/WWI_1.htm

I am not aware of other museums/etc, anyone? Another possibility is a university with a history faculty. Which universities have such?

Questions

• Who want to contact organizations in Belgium to ask if they are prepared to participate? (We have a Wikimedia e-mail address if you like: wmbewikimedia.org.)

• Who wants to help out on the day itself to help users edit Wikipedia?

  (You only need to know how to edit Wikipedia and know what a neutral point of view is.)

• Who is willing to help with the rest of the organizing of this edit-a-thon in Belgium? (like creating a list of missing articles about World War I, etc)

For this purpose I have created the page: meta:World War I edit-a-thons/Belgium

Be welcome! Romaine (talk) 16:21, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

AfC submission

A heads-up regarding an AfC submission you might want to review. Regards, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 14:38, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm out of touch with Belgian insults, but is "sale flamand" really anything more than sale + flamand? Is it really different than 'dirty Jew' or 'dirty Frog'? Is this combination of two words really notable enough for its own article? Oreo Priest ^talk 18:26, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

No, I agree with Oreo. Possibly had some currency, but certainly not worthy of a page.Brigade Piron (talk) 07:16, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

I thought i'd mention that somebody recently created this article was recently created. Apparently it was a bot cleaning up an unused template. I don't know what the course of action is.Pinfix (talk) 03:31, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Saturday 29 June: edit-a-thon about First World War in Belgium

On Saturday 29 June there are several edit-a-thons organized in several countries in Europe with the subject World War I. This World War had Belgium as chess board so it is great to announce an edit-a-thon in Belgium. This event where new and existing users can write and expand articles is held in Leuven (Louvain). The location is KU Leuven - AGORA Leercentrum and is located at the E. Van Evenstraat 4 on 15 minutes walking from Leuven railway station.

What is an edit-a-thon?

An edit-a-thon is a (small) event where people come together and work on articles on a particular topic. Often such edit-a-thon is organized for people relatively new to Wikipedia and held at an organization.

What are the ingredients?

• A short explanation/presentation about Wikipedia (encyclopaedia), the principles: a neutral point of view, free licensing, no original research, mentioning available sources.
• Cheatsheets/antisèche/spiekbriefjes
• Some literature, you may take it to the event and is very welcome
• An internet connection is present

How can I sign up?

Signing up is needed at wmbewikimedia.org

Be welcome! Romaine (talk) 02:32, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Michel Brusselmans

Am at this very moment listening to radio Klara Continuo broadcasting an orchestral piece by Belgian composer Michel Brusselmans. Looking for more information about him, I was surprised that he has an entry in German Wikipedia ([15]), buth nothing in English or Dutch WP. Regards. 94.226.157.161 (talk) 14:47, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

JanCockx

File:Jcockx 001.jpg (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) and File:Jcockx 002.jpg (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) have been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 08:05, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Assessment Request for Armand Abel

I attempted to translate the French Wikipedia version of the Armand Abel article via Google Translate since I don't know French, but I only did the short bio and "source", though. I am requesting an assessment since WikiProject Belgium doesn't have an Assessment page of its own. Thank you in advance. Buspirtraz (talk) 02:44, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

I looked through it and tidied it up. Cheers, Oreo Priest ^talk 19:44, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Belgian National Day

First, happy national day everyone!
Second, the article (Belgian National Day) is little more than a stub at the moment (I translated the French language article, which isn't great itself) so would anyone like to do more work on it today? It's article of quite high importance to the project overall! ---Brigade Piron (talk) 09:00, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Gaston Dethier.jpg

image:Gaston Dethier.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 03:26, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Belgian military history

Hello, I wondered if anyone from this project might be interested in joining the planned Belgian-task-force at WP:MILHIST? Your attendance would be much appreciated! Brigade Piron (talk) 10:37, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

{{La Francophonie}}

Template:La Francophonie (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 02:58, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

{{Dutch Language Union}}

Template:Dutch Language Union (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 08:49, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Carl De/de Keyzer

Back in mid-2006, and of course benevolently, Pinkville moved an article to "Carl de Keyzer" (indexed under "Keyzer, Carl de"). As the man is Belgian rather than Dutch, I think he should be "Carl De Keyzer" (indexed under "De Keyzer"). It's not clear from his website: this tends to refer to him as "CARL DE KEYZER" and the title (in HTML terms) does indeed refer to him as "Carl de Keyzer". Magnum refers to him as "Carl De Keyzer", but Magnum seems careless about these matters. (It drops diacritics, it drops the hyphen in "Bar-Am", etc.) He's uppercase "De" in this French-language Belgian source and in this Dutch-language Belgian source -- though conceivably they're putting their own house style above his personal choice. For what they're worth, the nl:WP article on him and the fr:WP article on him both have him with uppercase "De". Comments? -- Hoary (talk) 09:07, 31 August 2013 (UTC) .... bunch of bizarre typos corrected 03:30, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Certainly seems a good case for a move?Brigade Piron (talk) 09:51, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Done. His own books, like "Trinity", have upprcase De, which is logical for most Flemish Belgian names (excepting old nobility and some irregular ones of course). Fram (talk) 08:04, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. Now tidied a bit too. (He deserves a hugely better article, but then so do many photographers.) -- Hoary (talk) 01:55, 4 September 2013 (UTC) .... PS it's a wonder that either of you understood what I meant through the barrage of typos with which it was expressed. -- Hoary (talk) 03:30, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Alerts

Apart from watchlisting separately Wikipedia:WikiProject Belgium/Article alerts can be transcluded into the Project main page. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:45, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Edit-a-thon today in Antwerp

see nl:Wikipedia:GLAM/MoMu Fashion edit-a-thon 2013/Onderwerpsuggesties Jane (talk) 11:54, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

English exonyms for place names

English_exonyms#Belgium. Can someone check this please. See also article Talk. Many thanks. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:09, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm familiar with all of those except for 'Filford'. I would be mildly surprised if a city as small as Vilvoorde had its own exonym, but then again I don't know everything. Oreo Priest ^talk 06:05, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

So it turns out 'Filford' is correct. [16] Who knew? Oreo Priest ^talk 06:12, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Does anyone with this project have any issues with this edit? Thanks. Dohn joe (talk) 19:44, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

There's nothing 'wrong' with it, though I don't think it's good to remove all the qualifying sentences. 'Courtray' is also technically correct. Also, it has to be noted that some of those on the list are medieval terms that haven't had currency for several hundred years, which should probably be noted...Brigade Piron (talk) 22:39, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Do you think an introductory explanatory note could address that, without the lengthy annotations? (See also Talk:English_exonyms#List_of_unreferenced_annotations for a similar discussion.) Dohn joe (talk) 23:08, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Belgian chocolate

Dear all,

I'd welcome comments from members of the project about where exactly Belgian chocolate should redirect. I believe that the term refers to Chocolate produced in Belgium, as well as the culture of chocolate shops, types of chocolates etc. associated with it, and should thus redirect to Belgian cuisine#Chocolate which covers this. User:Loginnigol, however, believes that this refers to one type of chocolate, Praline, and persists on redirecting it there. Anyway, all feedback would be welcome since I'm too busy "lying and twisting facts to suit [my] agenda" apparently. Brigade Piron (talk) 16:29, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Or a third option: redirect to both, a.k.a. disambiguation. -Loginnigol (talk) 16:45, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

'Belgian chocolate' is definitely not limited to pralines, and I have never heard it used as a synonym for 'praline'. I am strongly in favour of Brigade's proposal. Oreo Priest ^talk 18:24, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been featured

Hello, Please note that Low Countries, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of Today's articles for improvement. The article was scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Today's articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing! Delivered by Theo's Little Bot at 01:00, 27 January 2014 (UTC) on behalf of the TAFI team

Portal:Belgium

I've been looking at our project portal recently which, though probably under-used, is really one of the key bits of our project's contribution outside article creation. The portal is linked on literally hundreds of our pages, yet is unfortunately in a sorry state. In particular, the Belgian news portal has nothing at all since September 2013 and the oldest bit of content still showing on the main page there is a year older still. It would be great to see some new work on the portal as a whole, but I proposed the first part to be getting rid of this outdated news-section and replacing it with a "selected article" (of FA, GA or B class) similar to that found on Portal:World War II. What are everyone's thoughts on this? Brigade Piron (talk) 21:14, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

To be quite honest, I don't think it's worth the trouble. It sees very little use, with only 2600 views in the past three months [17]. For comparison, that's the same as Bombardment of Brussels, a single article that isn't exactly the centrepiece of the project, or 10 times less than Leopold I of Belgium, which is an important subject but currently served with only a short article. You're welcome to update it of course, but I think it would be good to keep in mind that you can probably have more impact if efforts are focused elsewhere. Oreo Priest ^talk 23:57, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

I created this, in a distant past when I believed Portals to be a useful thing. I now think they are a waste of time, so I won't be spending any further time on it. But I have obviously no objection against anyone disagreeing and reviving the portal! Fram (talk) 15:50, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Monica De Coninck

Dear Belgium experts: I have added some information from an old draft to the article above, and also some references, but I am not familiar with Belgian politics, and it might be best if someone from this project checks to make sure that I haven't introduced some inaccuracies. Thanks in advance. —Anne Delong (talk) 19:00, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 17/03

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Viesville. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 15:35, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

In the time it took them to submit the AfC, they could have translated the French version into a stub. Be bold! Oreo Priest ^talk 19:31, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 27/03

Draft:Jean-Louis de Boubers. Notable? FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 01:53, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

It has 10 references and a version in another language. So it obviously is. Oreo Priest ^talk 13:17, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 07/04

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Garland of Antwerp. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 18:43, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

None of the sources even mention it at all. Declined. Oreo Priest ^talk 00:51, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Pieter Bruegel the Elder's The Blind Leading the Blind (1568) — Featured Article Candidate

I've put up the article for Pieter Bruegel the Elder's painting The Blind Leading the Blind (1568) as a Featured Article Candidate. Please participate in the review! Curly Turkey (gobble) 08:16, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Pride 2014

You are invited to participate in Wiki Loves Pride 2014, a campaign to create and improve LGBT-related content at Wikipedia and its sister projects. The campaign will take place throughout the month of June, culminating with a multinational edit-a-thon on June 21. Meetups are being held in some cities, or you can participate remotely. All constructive edits are welcome in order to contribute to Wikipedia's mission of providing quality, accurate information. Articles within Category:LGBT in Europe may be of particular interest. You can also upload LGBT-related images by participating in Wikimedia Commons' LGBT-related photo challenge. You are encouraged to share the results of your work here. Happy editing! --Another Believer _(Talk) 18:53, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

New logo

The new logo is ok I suppose. I certainly see what you were going for. In the case of template:WPBelgium it doesn't work to have a logo being a picture with a picture of text, so I've restored just the flag. Oreo Priest ^talk 21:58, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

As you like. It just occurred to me it was a bit dull just using the flag (particularly since we use it for the Portal too) but obviously my design wasn't that great. But I for one would still welcome alternative submissions! Brigade Piron (talk) 22:16, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Languages in censuses and Race and ethnicity in censuses

Pleas add information about this country to this articles.--Kaiyr (talk) 04:21, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Done for the languages in census. SPQRobin (talk) 07:40, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

thanx!--Kaiyr (talk) 09:19, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

World War I

This is the centenary of the First World War and today marks the anniversary of the German invasion of Belgium. Perhaps some effort should be made on related articles or to try and get some of that on the Front Page. -Ad Orientem (talk) 13:53, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

FA review of Tintin in Tibet

Hello; thanks to the competent editing of many, including additional assistance by Brigade Piron, Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Tintin in Tibet/archive1 is now a WP:FAC and is looking for any competent editor to review and provide support for WP:FA.. Cheers. Prhartcom (talk) 15:23, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

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

"Flemish Giant"

FYI, the usage of "Flemish Giant" is up for discussion, see Talk:Flemish Giant -- 65.94.171.225 (talk) 05:59, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

"Belgian Landrace"

FYI, the usage of "Belgian Landrace" is up for discussion, see Talk:Dutch Landrace -- 65.94.171.225 (talk) 06:32, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Expert attention

This is a notice about Category:Belgium articles needing expert attention, which might be of interest to your WikiProject. It will take a while before the category is populated. Iceblock (talk) 03:07, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

"Namur", "Antwerp", "Liège" links and their provinces

Dear all,

After hundreds of disambig notifications over the years, I wondered whether any members of the project might support the idea of renaming Belgian provincial articles away from Antwerp (province), Namur (province) and Liège (province). The French wiki have always used the "Province of X" format (see here for example) and, speaking personally, I have never heard anyone use the term "Namur" etc. alone to describe the province - so it seems rather odd that we are doing so! More importantly, it would get rid of the irritating disamig pages (now generally converted to redirects) at Namur etc. Would anyone object to such a move and is there a way to start a single move discussion to discuss all the articles together? —Brigade Piron (talk) 11:36, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

'Province of X' names could work. On the other hand, it won't solve any disambiguation mess. That would have to be done by arguing that the cities (actually just Namur, because the problem doesn't exist for the others) are the primary topic. That should be discussed for Namur only, because it's a very different case than the others.

As for multiple moves, see Template:Requested_move#Multiple_related_move_requests. Oreo Priest ^talk 14:30, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

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

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

Harej (talk) 16:56, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Moerbeke-Waas → Moerbeke

There is a move discussion at Talk:Moerbeke-Waas#Requested move 02 February 2015 to rename the article to the town's official name ("Moerbeke"). You are invited to join the discussion there. -- P 1 9 9  ✉ 15:56, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

AfD: Andenne Bears

Please see: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Andenne Bears. Thanks, Ejgreen77 (talk) 00:10, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Additional AfD's:

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brussels Tigers

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Grez-Doiceau Fighting Turtles

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Liège Monarchs

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Charleroi Cougars

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tournai Phoenix

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Luxembourg Steelers

Thanks, Ejgreen77 (talk) 18:06, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

@Ejgreen77: - In so far as any amateur American football teams really merit articles, most of these AfDs could be rejected with a cursory search of google as part of the due diligence of the nom. See 1, 2 etc. American football is hardly big nationally, but the fact that these teams are listed on L'Avenir (a respected regional newspaper) should be enough. Perhaps there's a certain bias here against non-English language sources? —Brigade Piron (talk) 21:02, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

@Brigade Piron: Thank you! Would you mind dropping a line to that effect at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Andenne Bears? Like I said in my comment in the discussion, we really need more participation from French-language speakers there. Ejgreen77 (talk) 23:28, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Should these aviation-related articles be merged?

For those of you familiar with the Belgian government structure, I found that we have two separate articles:

• Federal Public Service Mobility and Transport
• Belgian Civil Aviation Authority

Two questions:

• 1. Is the "Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU)" actually under the authority of the civil aviation authority, or is it only under the authority of the FPS? (the FPS organigram can help with that question, if it exists)
• 2. Should the CAA article be merged into the FPS article?

WhisperToMe (talk) 18:53, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

As I read their website at http : // www . mobilit . belgium . be / nl / (spaces inserted for clarity) (you may substitute fr for nl if you prefer) the term "CAA" or its local equivalents are no more being used. That is to say there is just the FPS, formerly called a Ministry, with five branches; the AAIU is part the "aviation" branch. My idea would be to indeed merge the CAA article into the more general one. Not that the information in it is very relevant, to my eyes. Jan olieslagers (talk) 04:54, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Categorizing Belgian regions

See this discussion. Marcocapelle (talk) 20:25, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Categorizing Belgian history and heritage

There's a discussion here that members of this project would probably be the best placed to comment upon to achieve a workable consensus. --Andreas Philopater (talk) 12:11, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Specifically, about how best to categorize events and foundations that are part of the history of Belgium but predate the kingdom of Belgium. I've been developing things like Timeline of Belgian history and 1580s in Belgium, but am holding off continuing until there is some clarity about how to categorise the spin-off articles. --Andreas Philopater (talk) 11:05, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

André Langrand-Dumonceau

Seems like an interesting figure, but not that many sources for him. Likely more in non-English sources. Would be nice if you could figure out how to link him so we can remove the orphan tag. I thought about linking him from Belgium in the long nineteenth century but I am not sure where would be a good part. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:55, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Added a link from Chemins de fer Orientaux . --Andreas Philopater (talk) 16:27, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Unassessed Articles

Re: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Belgium-related_articles_by_quality. There is a backlog (ie more than 50) Unassessed Belgium-related articles. The count is currently 4775. I draw it to attention because I cannot see on the Project Page how assessment of these articles is listed as an identified activity. JDE188.164.224.203 (talk) 14:11, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Article alerts

This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the display=none parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. — Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 08:51, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

Dutch/Belgian Dutch/Flemish

There seems to be an inconsistency in the language description for Belgian films where Dutch, Belgian Dutch or Flemish is the language used. A film can have more than one country and more than one language but even without this complication there seems to be an issue. It is possible that the issue also arises within topics other than films.

The language for Belgian films where Dutch/Belgian Dutch/Flemish is used is variously given as Dutch (most common), Flemish (sometimes) or Belgian Dutch (unusually).

Belgian films where Dutch/Belgian Dutch/Flemish is used may be within the Flemish-Language Category and/or in the Dutch-Language Category regardless of the language description used.

Where Belgian films using Dutch/Belgian Dutch/Flemish are listed as being nominated for awards I have only seen the language being given as Dutch. This may reflect the official nature of the nomination.

Leaving aside the case where Netherlands Dutch is actually being used and just considering Belgian films where the language is that used everyday within the relevant part of Belgium (presumably Flanders) would the Belgium Project expect to see the language always identified in the same way - rather than Dutch in some circumstances, Flemish in others?

If there is to be one language description how would the Belgian Project expect it to be given? An issue with just stating Dutch or Flemish without further explanation is that editiors are changing it back & forth in good faith.

The Film Project may have their view on this but I thought it worth raising it here first.

There may be an argument for re-organising the film categories so that it is possible to separate films in the Dutch language into Dutch & Belgian but the identifying language should probably be resolved before considering this.

JDE (A Visitor)188.164.224.203 (talk) 19:06, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

• Could you give a couple of links to specific examples?--Andreas Philopater (talk) 18:31, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

• Okay. I'll do that. JDE188.164.224.203 (talk) 21:41, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for showing an interest. I hope the following examples help. I'm focusing on details in the infobox in the first instance - the text may describe the same information differently. From what I've seen I'm inclined towards "Language = Dutch (Flemish)" to be accurate and achieve consistency without inviting repeated re-edits.

Ad Fundum Based in University in Flanders: Film = Belgian; Language = Dutch; Categories = Dutch-Language Film & Flemish-Language Film

Frits and Freddy Film = Belgian; Language = Belgian Dutch; Categories = Flemish-Language Film

Janssens tegen Peeters Film = Belgian; Language = Flemish; Categories = Dutch-Language Film & Flemish-Language Film

The Broken Circle Breakdown is an example where the Language has been switched more than once between Dutch & Flemish.

JDE188.164.224.203 (talk) 22:01, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

• Thanks, that does make the point a lot clearer. I'm no expert, I have to say, but my understanding is that the official language is Dutch, and the variants of Dutch spoken in Flanders are collectively called Flemish (or sometimes Belgian Dutch, but I think that falls foul of common language in English: as far as Google Books shows, it simply isn't used by English writers). I can see no reason to use "Dutch" for some films and "Flemish" or "Belgian Dutch" for others. We might go either way, but I agree that some consistency would be desirable. My own preference is to use "Dutch" for the language, since that is the official language, and there is no official "Flemish" standard. Of course, characters in films often don't speak standard forms of the language. Do you have any thoughts on whether to go with "the official language" (Dutch) or "the variants spoken in Flanders" (Flemish)? --Andreas Philopater (talk) 07:45, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Within a film article language can be mentioned in three ways: it can be assigned to one or more language categories; it can have a language in an Infobox, and there can be some description in the text. As you say Dutch is the official language (& as far as I can tell the language given if a film is listed for an award or in competition) but the language actually used is probably the colloquial form, Flemish. I think 'Dutch' has to be at least part of the description, but for accuracy, clarity & to minimise re-editing I suggest it is reasonable to also reference the variant used, ie 'Flemish'. So without a strong lead from the Belgium or Film Projects I would go for "Language = Dutch (Flemish)". I'm inclined to trial this where current setting is "Language = Flemish" so that 'Dutch' is included but 'Flemish' not excluded. I'd also point to this discussion to make a 'final decision' more inclusive. JDE78.149.231.228 (talk) 14:28, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
    • The question belatedly occurs to me (it should always be the first question, really): what do the sources do? Is there, for example, any sort of Flemish Film Institute or suchlike that has any sort of consistent terminology? --Andreas Philopater (talk) 16:19, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
      • I've been looking without any success so far. JDE78.149.231.228 (talk) 17:51, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
• The meaning of especially the term "Flemish" is an eternal problem. Dutch as spoken in Flanders can range from authentic dialects over "tussentaal" (what is commonly/colloquially spoken) to standard Dutch, and the line between these can be blurry. As for films, it's not often that the language is explicitly marked, but when it is, it's almost always "Nederlands" (Dutch), regardless of the variant(s) spoken. Most likely exactly because of the problem of defining when speech starts/stops being dialect/tussentaal/standard language. It's relevant to note though that the term "Vlaamse film" is very common (see e.g. [18]) to refer to films produced in Flanders and/or by Flemish producers and mostly in Dutch (again, Dutch being any of the aforementioned variants).
  Personally, I like the term Flemish to differentiate from "Netherlands Dutch" (since in the majority of cases "tussentaal" is spoken and this is otherwise not acknowledged), but encyclopedically we should probably list "Dutch" as the language spoken in the film. We can then give more information in the article when a certain dialect is used. And if we consistently use "Dutch", an idea is to then have a category "Flemish films" (subcategory of "Belgian films") rather than "Flemish-language films". SPQRobin (talk) 00:33, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Thank you. I may have to be out of the discussion for a couple of days but will pick up your points then. JDE78.149.227.203 (talk) 13:43, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

As identified above a variety of factors (sources, being encyclopedic, common practise & practicality) point to language being Dutch. Fuller explanation is often given in individual articles and this can be encouraged. Restructuring of sub-categories also makes sense. I will start by pointing affected articles to this discussion and then continue systematically. Thanks again Andreas Philopater and SPQRobin. JDE2.97.32.172 (talk) 18:03, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

• I have created a new section below (Language of Belgian Films) so that discussion over the approach and actually managing the process can be kept separate. JDE2.97.32.172 (talk) 19:47, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Language of Belgian films

The purpose of this section is to outline an agreed approach to dealing with language in articles about specific films. Please keep any discussion about the approach separate by using the above section Dutch/Belgian Dutch/Flemish. An entry on the talk page of every relevant film should point contributors to this section. JDE2.97.32.172 (talk) 19:27, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Checklist:

• Where Dutch or any variant of Dutch (including those that might be described as Flemish) are used within a film the infobox of the related article should show Language = Dutch.

• Where available fuller explanation of language used should be given in the article.

• Include in category Belgian films.

• Include in category Dutch-language films.

• [It is proposed that category Flemish-language films be superceded by category Flemish films (as a sub-category of Belgian films) at which time all films that are in both categories Belgian films and Dutch-language films will be included in the new category.]

• Make an entry in talk page of article for relevant film pointing to this section:

The language of record where Dutch or variants of Dutch (including those that might be described as Flemish) is used has been discussed at the [WikiProject Belgium talk page] and an approach has been outlined there. Please don’t make changes to the Infobox language or the language categories of this film without checking the WikiProject Belgium talk page section Language of Belgian films. You may contribute to the discussion at the WikiProject Belgium talk page section Dutch/Belgian Dutch/Flemish. Details are not given here to allow for future change.

JDE2.97.32.172 (talk) 19:38, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

At 10.07.2015 the stats from Belgian film categories are:

Belgian films = 382

Belgian films & Flemish-language films = 15

Belgian films & Dutch-language films = 71

Belgian films & French-language films = 198

Belgian films with no language category = 103

JDE2.97.32.172 (talk) 19:40, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

I would just call it all Dutch; it's the official language according to the government and the constitution. Besides, you'd have to start splitting hairs to distinguish Dutch from "Flemish"; it's much more logical to just stick with 'Dutch' for everything. Oreo Priest ^talk 22:53, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

• I was away from Wikipedia this summer so am only coming back to this now. I did notice that the multilanguage video of "Let It Go" from Frozen has both "Dutch" (at 0:48) and "Flemish" (at 3:37) versions; but is this a distinction only made in dubbed films? --Andreas Philopater (talk) 07:29, 24 September 2015 (UTC)