Wikipedia talk:WikiProject European Union/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

This page is an Archive of the discussions from WikiProject European Union talk page (Discussion page). (January 2007 – December 2007) - Please Do not edit!

Barnstar Proposal *NEW*

Proposed Barnstar for contributions concerning the EU

Hi, I have made a barnstar that you may wish to use for people who make good additions to your sections, Contact me on my talk page please Chaza93 17:48, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

		The Barnstar of European Merit
		Here's my proposal. 12 stars instead of 15. {{subst:The Barnstar of European Merit|message ~~~~}}
		this WikiAward was given to {{subst:PAGENAME}} by ~~~ on ~~~~~

_└ ^{S. SOLBERG J.} / _talk ^┐ 08:09, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I had this in mind for some time, but did nothing about it. It's a good one Ssolbergj, I like it, perhaps without the motto inside the stars circle, it would be cleaner. --giandrea 22:44, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Collaboration of the Fortnight

I think the first thing we should do is to start improving the articles that we've got, some like Euro and European Union are decent, a great number of other articles need a lot of work though. Once I figure out how to set one up properly a COTF would be good. -- Joolz 23:27, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject European Union/MEP stubs

Greetings from WP:WSS. On WP:SFD, it looks like Category:Extended MEP stubs is going to be merged with Category:MEP stubs. Because there is a slight difference between the two, but not enough to keep a seperate stub type, User:Grutness suggested to make the category a list and linking it from {{MEP-stub}}. After asking User:Talrias and User:Joolz on IRC, that list is now Wikipedia:WikiProject European Union/MEP stubs. I'm posting this here mainly as a reminder. -- grm_wnr Esc 6 July 2005 17:46 (UTC)

Clean up Directives articles: consistent titling

I'm going to do some work on cleaning up (or creating) the Directives articles. For a start, I'd like to consult on a preferred style for the principal article (with the others as redirects, leaving major existing ones Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions as they are (but with a standard form redirect).

Options are these:

• 1 2001/37/EC
• 2 Directive 2001/37/EC
• 3 Cigarette packet warning signs directive
• 4 EU cigarette packet warning signs directive
• 5 European cigarette packet warning signs directive
• 6 Directive on Cigarette packet warning signs
• 7 Directive 2001/37/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 June 2001 on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States concerning the manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco products.

There are examples of all of them! Please add your observations initially, then we can invite a vote.

--Red King 16:30, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

• I'm not sure it's the best idea to just dive into a vote. It would be good to discuss the relative merits of the proposals first. 1 and 2 I am not greatly keen on because they are jumbles of letters and numbers to most readers, and don't have meaningful or memorable titles. 7 I think will be impractical. Now the question is while they have official long titles what about short titles. Are they official and specificied anywhere, in which case isn't one of "directive on cigarette packet warning signs" and "cigarette packet warning signs directive" going to be right and the other just wrong? Also, I think I would prefer to avoid specifying "EU" or "European" where possible (i.e. unless disambiguating). We don't do this for most laws of the world. British laws, for example, are always Name Year, such as Gender Recognition Act 2004. Unless another country uses the same formulation there's no need to specify, and I would suggest the same goes for directives. My first thoughts though are 6, 3, 4, 5, 2, 7, 1. — Trilobite (Talk) 16:57, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Fair comment. I've pulled the invitation to vote.

• Whist agreeing with Trilobite's logic in the ideal, my reason for favouring the prefix is becuase that is how I hear people refer to directives. It's nearly always "EU Directives" – but yes, there are certainly exceptions such as "Working Time Directive". Of course, if we put redirects in for all of these to the primary article, they'll be picked up anyway. How important is it to have "correct" title? For example, it's the Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions, not the EU software patents directive or the software patents directive. (Restrains Pavlovian response to the red links!). How correct to you want to be? Option 7 is clearly the "official" title.

• The first two are non-options for me, they're not common nor useful for people. Option 7 is just too long winded. I don't see any need for 'EU' to be specified unless disambiguation is needed. I think in all cases, such as the Working Time directive, the common usage should prevail. Consistency between our articles is one thing, but consistency with common usage is more important, I think. Personally, I prefer option 6, failing that, option 5 would be my second choice. -- Joolz 21:36, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

• Sorry for the late reply. I guess the problem is that the EU itself is not really consistent with its' naming conventions. For instance both REACH and chemicals directive are used in discussing this policy. Given the example above I woul go for 3 and 6. The most important thing would be to have the appropriate redirects in place, I guess

--Daniel Spichtinger 15:33, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

EU research policy & IST

It seems there is nothing on the EU research policy. I am working for a company that does a lot of EU projects in the IST field (one area of FP6) so I am planning to cover the specifics. I will also try to write an article on EU research policy as a whole and FP6 and 7 in particular. I have started small, with a piece on I2010, the Union's umbrella for ICT development. Comments are welcome. --Daniel Spichtinger 15:37, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Eu Coins menu

Some (or all) of the articles in { { EU Coins menu } } also has { {Eurocoins} }, is this on purpose? Or is it ok to remove the latter? MartinBiely 20:12, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

It seems rather redundant to have {{Eurocoins}} and {{EU coins menu}}, maybe {{Eurocoins}} should be sent to WP:TFD -- Joolz 21:25, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Done. Finally. ;) ナイトスタリオン ✉ 19:24, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

MEPs Lists categorization

I've been doing some work with the categorization heirarchy of the various lists of MEPs. In the past couple weeks, I've created subcategories Category:Members of the European Parliament by country and Category:Members of the European Parliament by term. The articles listing MEPs by country by term that appear in Category:European Parliament results now also appear in the appropriate country subcategory of Members of the European Parliament by country. Now I'd like to remove them from European Parliament results. The articles that I'd like to keep in the European Parliament results category are those such as European Parliament election, 1999 (UK) that show election statistics. There would be a See Also link to Category:Members of the European Parliament. Also, I think that European Parliament results should possibly be renamed to European Parliament election results. Note-I had placed a suggestion on the talk page for European Parliament results on 21 July 2005 proposing an alternative use of cat sort keys for the MEPs by country by term, but I have since changed my opinion and believe that they belong elsewhere in the heirarchy. Comments? Thanks, LiniShu 03:56, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm going to proceed with this plan after having waited for 9 days and not seeing any comments to the contrary. LiniShu 16:19, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

I was on holiday at the time and I missed your comments :P I'm not entirely sure how the category scheme will end up, will the MEPs be categorized by term as well? If so I don't think that's a good idea because some have been re-elected many times, which means a lot of categories. -- Joolz 18:37, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree that it's not necessary, and probably detrimental, to categorize the MEPs by term. The list-style articles of the type "MEPs for <Country> <Term>" serve that purpose, and have the advantage over categories of being able to provide additional information, such as party. The primary result of the work that I've done so far relates to the category paths that one can take to access the "MEPs for <Country> <Term>" type articles. They will no longer be available directly in Category:European Parliament results; instead they are available thru a.) Category:Members of the European Parliament --> Category:Members of the European Parliament by country --> Category:Members of the European Parliament from <country> --> List "MEPs for <Country> <Term>"' or b.) Category:Members of the European Parliament --> Category:Members of the European Parliament by term --> Category:Members of the European Parliament <term> --> List "MEPs for <Country> <Term>"'. Those are two possible paths; there are others. There is a good basic organizational structure already in place for the Lists of MEPs type articles, but I think there is some additional work that could still be done to improve the categorization, navigability, and consistency of these articles; I've had the idea of creating another subpage for this project in which the ideas could be outlined in a systematic way; providing opportunity for others interested in the EU project to have some input. I could get such a subpage started if you wouldn't object. Thanks for your perspective on all of this. LiniShu 12:10, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

It looks good, I remember looking at some of this a while back but it was in such a mess I didn't have the time to tackle it properly :) -- Joolz 12:15, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Commission Directorate Generals

I think that it is relevant to create entries for the 25 DGs. I will try to do this as my first real Wiki adventure. What should I think of before I start typing? How do I create a template for the DGs?

--Drdan 09:09, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi, welcome to Wikipedia! There's a short article on one of the DGs already, Directorate-General for Translation of the European Commission. I think a new template (I suggest {{eu-directorates-general}}) would be useful listing all the different DGs, as a starting point a modification of {{EU countries}}. I suggest putting this at the bottom of each DG article. Are you sure there's only 25 DGs? I'm looking at the EU commission list of Directorate-generals and Services and there's a fair few more than 25 (not all have a commissioner). If you need help just drop me a note on my talk page. Talrias (t | e | c) 12:32, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! Yes, there are a quite a few DGs. I had only planned to do stubs for the policy-making and external relations ones. I also found an entry for DG Infso. I will make an attempt on making a new template and post on your Talk page if/when I have problems. BTW Why aren't {{EU countries}} listed on the project page with the other templates? --Drdan 17:33, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Probably because no one has got around to adding it yet (or it was created before the EU wikiproject was founded). :) Cheers, Talrias (t | e | c) 17:49, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I have a new set of standardisation problems with the DG article names. It is clear that the Internal Services and the General Services only are collective names for sets of Services and DGs that are not policy-making [1]. I have named the General services page EU General Services, but I am not happy with that. Any suggestions before I proceed to Internal Services? A second question: the term External Relations is both a collective name and an actual DG. Though the DG for External Relations is policy-making, I am not sure that all the others that incorporated under the name of External relations are. This is causing me a headache both in terms of article naming and structure. --Drdan 07:49, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps we could list it on Wikipedia:Requested moves and ask people's opinions on how the articles should be named? Or even email the European Commission somethingorother and ask them what the official name is, since their websites aren't really much help unless you know the lingo. Talrias (t | e | c) 09:15, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Collaboration of the fortnight revisited

Revisiting Joolz's comment on top, i thought it'd be a great idea! There are so many articles on the EU which desperately need expanding, and i'm sure everybody knows something about. They just need attention.

Therefore, i cooked up a scheme for a Collaboration of the fortnight (based on the one on the Community Portal). I popped in the Eurobarometer as my first suggestion. Obviously, we'd need to flesh out the place to hold our voting for articles, but if we do, i'm sure that we can expand rapidly.

Here's my scheme, comments are absolutely welcome!

Collaboration of the fortnight

Help edit Eurobarometer, the WikiProject European Union's current collaboration of the fortnight! Please help expand it and bring it up to featured article standard. Eurobarometer is a survey performed by the Public Opinion Analysis sector of the European Commission since 1973. It regularly produces reports of public opinion of certain issues relating to the European Union across the member states. You can still help with last week's article, seen above, Delors Commission (see how long its been neglected), or help pick next week's article.

I've created a page for it – see Wikipedia:European Union collaboration. Talrias (t | e | c) 11:54, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Hmm too bad, i kind of liked my own scheme and all, i was hoping for comments first. But still, glad the page is up! --The Minister of War 12:16, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean! I just created the page where you nominate and vote on stuff and the associated templates (I haven't duplicated anything you have done). Talrias (t | e | c) 12:18, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Ah, its not very important! Let me be clear: good work!

It's just, i dont like the colours on the {{eucollab}} very much, that's all. My attempt above was done in EU-standard colors, i thought that'd look nicer. And i like the short quote also. But i admit, it's also probably just my ego working up ;-) --The Minister of War 12:39, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

The colours used on that template are the standard chosen by the community – see WP:TS. The short quote is a nice idea but I think putting it on the template as well will cause it to take up too much room. The main COTW short blurb is only used on one place – the Community portal – in other places it uses a template like the one I created. Talrias (t | e | c) 12:47, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the link; thought it might be standardized, but couldnt find it anywhere. I admit i still have to come to grips with WIki SOPs! Where would this {{eucollab}} usually be used? Just on this project page, or also on other places? If only here, i'd say lets expand it a bit. Just a short notice like this is hardly inspiring methinks!

By the way, i'm impressed with the speed by which you put up that page! --The Minister of War 12:57, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

To be honest, I pretty much copied and merged the WP:COTW and WP:UKCOTW pages (both of which I helped create in one form or another). The template could conceivably be used anywhere – some people put the collab. templates on their user pages, it could go on the EU portal page, etc.. I don't think it should be much longer – if we are going to have a longer section it should probably be another template (or indeed just update the actual page without using a template). Talrias (t | e | c) 13:14, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Portal merger

Someone has proposed that the European Union portal should be amalgamated into the Europe portal... not a good idea if you ask me. I think that the majority share my opinion. You can add your opinion on the talk-page. Looks like someone is busy vandalising the talk-page now. --Drdan 16:41, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

EU Law template

I found the EU Law template on the Secondary legislation pages (below). The template is a good idea, but it is used in a strange way. I think that something like it is required on the pages describing EU legislation, but it should probably be expanded to include all three types of legislative acts (primary, secondary, and court decisions). Deletion might be a bit harsh. --Drdan 10:06, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Seeing that the template EU law has been deleted I figured that something new was required in order to tie together the various pages on EU legislation. This includes not only the pages on how laws are created, but also the pages presenting the actual legislation. I have made a draft template based on the EU politics template. I am open for comments. template:Legislation of the European Union --Drdan 10:09, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Looks fine. --Red King 19:25, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Looking for comments on party chart

Hey all. I've spent the past day or so playing with this chart, and I think it's almost unveilable to public eyes. I was curious to see if you lot had any feedback. I imagine it would make an interesting standalone page; personally, I've found it sometimes frustrating to readily find a party of a particular tendency and see where it stands vis a vis transnational groups. Any thoughts, good or bad, edits, what have you would be appreciated. The Tom

Two, no, three points:

• I like it.
• It's huge. Don't know what one can do about that, though. Probably nothing.
• I added the BZÖ to it; it's rather laughable (much about Austrian politics is), but it's still notable (for now). ;)

ナイトスタリオン ✉ 08:37, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Mh, a fourth point: What about Hans-Peter Martin's list? It got 14% in the last European Parliament elections... en: doesn't even have an article about the list, though. Mh. ナイトスタリオン ✉ 09:09, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

I had him in the centre column some drafts ago, but figured that now that he's lost his party-mate, he's basically an independent and should be skipped accordingly. The Tom 09:12, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough. Either way, great work. Congratulations! ナイトスタリオン ✉ 09:29, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

I like it too. Where would you place this article? Now if only there were a table namespace. Good job though. Jacoplane 08:56, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Note: If you ever need my support vote for having table namespace, you've got it. ナイトスタリオン ✉ 09:09, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

On account of its width, it should probably constitute its own article. Anyone have any suggestions for a title? The Tom 21:17, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Table of pan-European political organizations? This is a tricky one, I'm not sure what the best name is. Can always be moved, though. Jacoplane 21:45, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Table of political parties in Europe by pancontinental organisation is in keeping with List of xxx by yyy syntax the list folks like, so I think I'll use that for the time being. Thanks all. The Tom 15:35, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Table of European Parliamentary groupings. Phrases like "pan-European", when used to refer to the EU only, make some people (Russians) cross.Seabhcán 15:48, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Except these aren't parliamentary groupings, nor constrained to the EU :) The Tom 17:11, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Member template

This user participates in the EU Collaboration of the fortnight.

I have created a template for members, since I could not find an extant one. I'll post it here for the moment, if no one objects I will add it to the headpage for every member of this project to be used. Gryffindor 18:28, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Mine's older, I'm afraid:

This user is a participant in WikiProject European Union.

 ;) —Nightstallion (?) 07:26, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

You cheat! just kidding :-) hm... should the colours maybe be changed a little to reflect more of the European colours? like a yellow instead of peach? or a blue? Gryffindor 14:20, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Mine was intended to follow the standard set by a slight majority of other WikiProject userboxes (which does certainly not mean that all follow it, though), and I'd personally prefer to keep it that way, actually... Nightstallion 14:30, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

One of the templates could be used for the EU Collaboration of the fortnight.--Fenice 14:57, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Are we allowed to use two templates for one project? Fenice what was your proposal..? Gryffindor 18:12, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that they are both the same project. A user might, for example,like to participate in the Collaboration of the fortnight but hasn't signed up for the project and will not do much at the portal. I agree that all these pages can be seen as part of the same project. Still, most collaborations of the week have distinct identities, colors, templates...so, yes, I'd say, let's take the yellow one for the COTF and the beige one for this page. Because, as Nightstallion said, most of the projects have beige userboxes.--Fenice 18:56, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

This user participates in the EU Collaboration of the fortnight.

It would look like this (I haven't changed the template yet, just a suggestion:)--Fenice 19:02, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, sounds good too I have absolutely no problems with the proposals. Gryffindor 17:01, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Great! This way, Gryffindor's work won't go to waste, either. ;) —Nightstallion (?) 21:53, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

How sweet :-) well, just trying to help here, nothing more. any other comments, advice, Fenice...? Gryffindor 22:58, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Participation Note

I've just marked myself as inactive in this project for now. I still believe it is a good project, and I enjoyed participating in the COTF in Oct-Nov of 2005. However, I am attempting not to overdo time spent on Wikipedia, and, with the time I do have available, am currently concentrating on other areas of interest. I may take a more active role in this project again, at some time in the future. Thanks and Cheers, LiniShu 16:58, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Too bad. Try to come back again when time allows you to, good luck! Gryffindor 22:59, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, we have slowed down a bit lately. Don't know why. You are always welcome back! --Drdan 16:11, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

List of European Union member states

Created from scratch to supplement our articles, currently up for WP:FLC. Your input would be appreciated. Thanks! —Nightstallion (?) 11:50, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

European Union regulation

The article European Union regulation is a bit thin. As it stands, it reads as though the "orders from Brussels" conspiracy theory could have some basis. It needs to be expanded with more examples and with more context. Is it the same as a UK "Order in Council"? --Red King 12:02, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

The Order in Council article is not very clear. Based on my understanding of it, it is not similar to a EU regulation in concept or purpose. The regulations are the EU's most powerful/comprehensive legislative tool, so it makes sense to expand on the article. The current examples are slanted towards patent law. --Drdan 16:18, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

MEP articles with broken links to the EU website

I don't know if any of you have noticed it, but many of the MEP articles have broken links to the MEP's official EU biography. The EU website was redesigned in early January, and all links became broken. Editors have fixed many of them, but there's still a lot left.

Fortunately, the EU webmaster appears to have preserved the individual ID-tag for each politician, so it should be pretty easy to make the updates with little difficulty. I've tried it on three different politicians, and the IDs were identical.

Howto: Simply change the broken link to [http://www.europarl.eu.int/members/archive/alphaOrder/view.do?language=EN&id=XXXX European Parliament biography] where XXXX is the four or five digit ID-tag from the old link. If in doubt, see e.g. my edit to Henrik Dam Kristensen. Best regards. --Valentinian 13:50, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Another method is used on the article for Jörg Leichtfried. It might be even better. In any case, it should be pretty easy to update the broken links. --Valentinian 14:03, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Committees

I'm currently working on the various stubs within the Standing Committees of the European Parliament section. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Liam Plested 00:02, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

European Parliament election, 2009

I've been meaning to write at least a stub for this, but I can't really think of too much information -- what else could we write, apart from new voting arrangements due to Bulgaria and Romania having joined by then? Input would be greatly appreciated... —Nightstallion (?) ^{Seen this already?} 21:44, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Croatia aims to join the EU in 2009 so that it can participate in the EP elections [2]. That's the only thing I know about it. Maartenvdbent 13:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Missing articles

We've got Accession of Bulgaria to the European Union, Accession of Croatia to the European Union, Accession of Romania to the European Union and Accession of Turkey to the European Union, but we lack Accession of the Republic of Macedonia to the European Union; in the same vein, we've got Iceland and the European Union and Norway and the European Union, but not Switzerland and the European Union, although that would be a very lengthy article, indeed. Anyone feeling up to it? I may get to it some time in the summer, but that's still some time away... ;) —Nightstallion (?) 11:23, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Add Ukraine and the European Union to that. —Nightstallion (?) 20:22, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

For anyone still reading this, what we currently need are Switzerland and the European Union, Armenia and the European Union, Cape Verde and the European Union, Georgia and the European Union and Moldova and the European Union. —Nightstallion (?) 09:59, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV

Hi sorry I don't know how to edit, this is my first (well second) time, so here goes.

"After decades of anti-racist campaigns, it became acceptable again to be against foreigners."

Does this seem POV to anyone else?

"Agitated European politicians regarded the support of Dutch politicians for the anti-European sentiments of their population as an uncooperative Calvinist attitude. Most Dutch people support the European Union, but are against too much power for the European institutions."

Now this has got to be POV. I haven't made any edits to the main article (except for disputing the neutrality, i think i put the sign in the wrong place), I want to see what other people think, but there is not one citation (that I can see) in this entire article, and that Calvinist assertion seems to be extremely value laden.

autocratus

Assessment

I've copied this from the Scouting WikiProject... now all we need to do is actually make it work. Anyone going to help me? ;) —Nightstallion (?) 09:56, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Portal

I've taken the liberty of starting to update the portal, hope ya'll don't mind. Over the next few days I'll be adding content, archives, suggestion areas, and populating lists. This should be a major and well laid out portal, not the shape it was in. I'm not a European, so anything I get wrong, let me know. You can see my other portals, as well. Thnx :) Joe I 16:56, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Suggestions

I'm in serious need of suggestions for Selected article and Selected picture. If you have any idea of an article/picture that is remotely semi-good, please post a link on the appropiate page. Also, if anyone knows of any other Featured content, please post it, or let me know, those were all I could find. Thnx :) Joe I 10:19, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Intellectual property

Just thought I'd throw it out there that many of the articles in {{IPL-EU}} about intellectual property laws of the EU need to be created (even stubs would help). This is the template below (subst'd to remove category links):

The template coding itself probably needs work too (I created it, but I'm sure its not very efficient) -^Рэд_хот 14:01, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

EU-related VfD

Here I say delete, others say weak keep, merge. Weigh in. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 14:18, 19 September 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 16:32, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Euromyth article

Hi, anyone feel like helping me keep this article out of the hands of the Eurosceptics? It's NPOV now as far as I can see and I'd like to keep it that way. But the latest addition to the talk page makes me think it's going to be attacked again soon... Marcus22 23:11, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Apparently without irony, Marcus22 says he wants to keep this article NPOV by keeping it "out of the hands of the Eurosceptics". So the "neutral" point of view is the Europhile one, in other words. This seems to be part of a broader trend to turn Wikipedia into just another arm of Brussels' already huge propaganda machine. Why?

(The above comment was made by an ip-address some months ago and then removed by Marcus22 recently saying that:

"this is an unsigned comment, so i cant reply to the author, which makes a daft allegation and with specific reference to my user name. so out it goes".)

This is not a user talk page. There is no rule than ip-addresses cannot participate in discussions. It does not qualify as personal abuse. Comments cannot just be deleted because a user doesn't like their tone. Marcus can reply to the author. That is what a talk page is for. Saving this Marcus can ask an admin to delete the comment. Caveat lector 23:06, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

• Oh, OK.. so this comment can stay as well then? Caveat Lector deletes things from articles such as the Euromyth article without ever trying to agree any kind of compromise. The bias of some editors in Wikipedia is shocking! Whatever happened to Wikipedia is NOT paper?

I doubt you'd trust me, but I am willing to mediate on disputes to ensure NPOV is followed. I can see a pro-EU bias on the page and would support reasonable changes that treats sceptic concerns fairly. I won't edit it myself and I'll only involve myself if someone asks for a quick mediation on a certain topic. If you do trust me, just drop a note on my talk page and I'll get onto it ASAP. Should be quicker than a formal process. - J Logan ^t: 15:00, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

States of Europe

I #know# this is not the right page – but can "someone" create relevant redirects for "States/states of Europe" and "States/states of the World" to the relevant listing pages. The former as a search term leads to States of the European Union and the latter to some thing that is nothing to do with what anyone wanting a list of countries would want. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.194.75.209 (talk) 14:08, 29 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 20:54, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Bulgaria and Romania acceding in a few hours

With Bulgaria and Romania joining the EU in a few hours (at midnight), we'll have to update all statistical data, country listings, maps, tables, templates, etc. related to the EU and its member states. I'm already looking forward to updating what I can alone, but it would be a lot better, effective and quick if we form some sort of team or multiple-member collaboration because there's quite a lot to be updated. Anyone willing to help? :) Todor→Bozhinov 13:54, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Poor quality articles in WikiProject European Union

The WikiProject European Union is a wonderful initiative, but it's validity is being compromised by inaccurate and biased content.

For example, Accession of Turkey to the European Union contains obvious factual errors and dubious POV. A casual glance at the article's Talk and History shows that other editors' contributions are being consistently edited out by a single editor.

Perhaps the articles included in the project need to be protected and moderated? 220.233.224.46 14:59, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Category:European Union

I've been trying to diffuse this category as much as possible and I think I've got it mostly done. Does anyone here have any suggestions or ideas to help further it? --Hemlock Martinis 07:19, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking something to cover things like european symbols/europeanism/supranationalism/intergration and so on, all those things that are general ideas, but can't think what name I could group them under. Same for the long lists of committies, organisations etc. - got the major ones in Institutions and its subarticles but some of these just don't fit well. -JLogan 20:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

GDP figures

There is a discussion underway in Talk: Spain regarding the source for GDP figures in the country info box. It appears that until recently, the Spain box used IMF numbers (for amounts and world rankings). Then an editor wanted to use more current data from Eurostat, with the reasonable position that these numbers may be more accurate, and were apparently more recently released. The obvious concern, however, is with consistency with other countries' info. Has this issue come up in any other discussions? I think the need for consistency among all articles trumps (i.e. let's use IMF data, since that's what other articles seem to use). Another proposal was to use Eurostat for the raw numbers, and IMF for rankings. Any thoughts from the Euro-crowd? Input appreciated! --Anietor 19:21, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Assessment Box

I fixed it. :). --Parker007 00:03, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Infobox flag straw poll

Hello fellow editors. A straw poll has opened today (27th March 2007) regarding the use of flags on the United Kingdom place infoboxes. There are several potential options to use, and would like as many contrubutors to vote on which we should decide upon. The straw poll is found here. If joining the debate, please keep a cool head and remain civil. We look forward to seeing you there. Jhamez84 11:49, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Attention needed

This article is in a dire strait: Accession of Turkey to the European Union. There seems to be a load of information, but they are so disconnected from one another and there is so much argumentative and analytical stuff bordering on banter that it has seriously become one of the worst articles in Wikipedia. There is absolutely no information about the technical aspects of the accession progress, nor is there a sound structure with the two biggest sections being "arguments for TR" and "arguments against". If anyone interested from WPEU can help out, that would be great. The article simply needs to be rewritten; even though there is a nice map and two photos and some stuff in the history section.. Baristarim 01:22, 1 April 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?} 18:32, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

EU Portal new layout proposal

Hello, I proposed a new layout for the EU Portal. The new layout is more like the wikipedia main page, it is more modern and schematic. Please, post any comment on the Portal's talk page. (You can find the link to my prototype EU portal there too) --giandrea 22:58, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Comment on List of countries and outlying territories by total area EU inclusion

You are welcome to leave a comment on the following Request for Comment (RfC):

Talk:List of countries and outlying territories by area#Request for Comment: EU inclusion in the list of countries and outlying territories by area

Summary: There is a dispute about whether the European Union should be included in this list. Its area equals the sum of its member countries. We are discussing if it should be included in the list or not.

Thank you, --giandrea 16:26, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

EU-based Userboxes

Hello everyone. I'm not a member of this wikiproject but I thought I'd share with you some EU-based userboxes I have made.
--One Salient Oversight 11:42, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

2 more – Algeria and Tunisia down the bottom --One Salient Oversight 01:27, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

+Greenland as well. --One Salient Oversight 02:25, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

+Armenia --Waterfall999 12:39, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Code	Result
{{User:UBX/EU Armenia}}	This user wants Armenia to join the EU.	What links here
{{User:UBX/EU Switzerland}}	This user wants Switzerland to join the EU.	What links here
{{User:UBX/EU Turkey}}	This user wants Turkey to join the EU.	What links here
{{User:UBX/EU Norway}}	This user wants Norway to join the EU.	What links here
{{User:UBX/EU Croatia}}	This user wants Croatia to join the EU.	What links here
{{User:UBX/EU Macedonia}}	This user wants Macedonia to join the EU.	What links here
{{User:UBX/EU Albania}}	This user wants Albania to join the EU.	What links here
{{User:UBX/EU Montenegro}}	This user wants Montenegro to join the EU.	What links here
{{User:UBX/EU Bosnia and Herzegovina}}	This user wants Bosnia and Herzegovina to join the EU.	What links here
{{User:UBX/EU Serbia}}	This user wants Serbia to join the EU.	What links here
{{User:UBX/EU Iceland}}	This user wants Iceland to join the EU.	What links here
{{User:UBX/EU Ukraine}}	This user wants Ukraine to join the EU.	What links here
{{User:UBX/EU Moldova}}	This user wants Moldova to join the EU.	What links here
{{User:UBX/EU Belarus}}	This user wants Belarus to join the EU.	What links here
{{User:UBX/EU Russia}}	This user wants Russia to join the EU.	What links here
{{User:UBX/EU Cape Verde}}	This user wants Cape Verde to join the EU.	What links here
{{User:UBX/EU Morocco}}	This user wants Morocco to join the EU.	What links here
{{User:UBX/EU Israel}}	This user wants Israel to join the EU.	What links here
{{User:UBX/EU Canada}}	This user wants Canada to join the EU.	What links here
{{User:UBX/EU Vermont}}	This user wants Vermont to join the European Union. †	What links here
{{User:UBX/Euro UK}}	This user wants the United Kingdom to adopt the euro.	What links here
{{User:UBX/Euro Denmark}}	This user wants Denmark to adopt the euro.	What links here
{{User:UBX/Euro Sweden}}	This user wants Sweden to adopt the euro.	What links here
{{User:UBX/UN Geneva}}	This user wants the UN to move to Geneva.	What links here
{{User:UBX/EU Algeria}}	This user wants Algeria to join the EU.	What links here
{{User:UBX/EU Tunisia}}	This user wants Tunisia to join the EU.	What links here
{{User:UBX/EU Greenland}}	This user wants Greenland to join the EU.	What links here

New EU template

Hi EU project

I have maded a new navigation box {{Central banks of the European Union}} and have added link from it to your project page. It should fit within the style of other EU navboxes. I did not know if this project tags its templates with a project tag.

You should conisdering archiving your talk page ist is 53 kilybytes long. Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page

Best Regards Mads Angelbo ^{Talk / Contribs} 11:30, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Maltese WikiProject

Please see WikiProject Malta for more details. We need lots of new members, and help constructing the project page. If you can or would like to help, please do so. Thanks, Anonymous Dissident ^Utter 02:53, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

BARNSTAR

Please see item 1 Chaza93 17:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Are Eurobarometer images in the public domain?

See Eurobarometer. Their report on their 2006 polling has some polling maps of Europe I would like to use on wikipedia and elsewhere. See the 2 maps here:

• http://gallery.marihemp.com/polls

See Eurobarometer 66: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/standard_en.htm --Timeshifter 14:23, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

EU History

Hi, you may have noticed the History of the European Union page is a bit limited, basically pre-1945 plus history of enlargement. I'm working on a new draft that has wider content and a better structure to frame history, currently if you want to add something you'd have to start a new section. It also has sub-pages for pre-1993 history – although that is just existing copied information. As its a big task, and needs lots of peoples ideas and points of view, I'd appreciate a hand in getting this going – particularly ensuring all existing information is properly displayed on the new page so it can be transferred over if there are no objections. Thanks. Comments and contributions please: User:JLogan/DraftEUHistory – J Logan ^t/_c: 11:22, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

New project page

I created a new project page. It can be seen here. I would like to remove the old page and replace it with the new content. What do you think about it? Thw1309 18:41, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

It's good, however I'm not sure what you're doing with the templates, I don't think they should be squashed up in the table. Plus, what is with the new stub template, what is wrong with Template:EU-stub? In terms of the welcome, I think we could find something better than the map with the stars, it's not very good. Aside from that, looks good. Should try to revitalise the project at the same time. Perhaps if you contact some of the members directly about it, get them all back here. - J Logan ^t/_c: 06:43, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

You are right with the stub template. I made this proposal because I did dot find the existing template. It is already changed.

I used this table, because this is a good method to use the templates. Perhaps every template could have a table of it´s own. Thw1309 07:12, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Hello. Yes, page looks good to me. Well done!! Sorry not much else to offer. V busy just now and when on Wiki I'm working on UK history at moment. Not been active on EU for quite a while. Will get back to it though. Marcus22 12:54, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Looking good, but I'm still not sure about the logos we've got going there. Few small points, oght not the project banner be placed under the heading "Project Banner" below? In general formatting, why is there a line at the end of each section? And I'm not sure about the need for a defult welcome. - J Logan ^t/_c: 14:59, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

You are right about the banner! The mistake with the banner came from trying to find the right place.

If anyone does not like the logo or anything else, please tell me, but please tell me how to do better, because that´s what I could do. I created this logo because I could not find anything better at commons.

I think that we need something to welcome newcomers. It seems to be the main problem of this project never to be in touch with it´s members. When I contacted the members today, I was not sure, how many of them did not know about their membership any more. This project has to compete with many other interesting projects and tasks within wikipedia. It can only survive, if there is a relation between the members, to show them, they are not alone within this project. A fist small step is such a welcome. (Another perhaps a newsletter) --Thw1309 16:45, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. In terms of logo, if we leave that till we get members back in maybe. I think we could do better than one welcome message though, look below. How about we replace the current collaboration system with something more flexible. Right now it is one for two weeks. How about someone proposes something, with criteria for success, and if it gains 5 supporters it becomes a project collaboration, regardless of how many others there are. Notice of the collaboration is then posted on the talk pages of the members (unless they say they don't want this – written next to their name on the list). The collaboration would only end when the criteria has been met? (or some failure criteria). - J Logan ^t/_c: 11:39, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Why should we have only one cooperation. I would prefer to begin with small steps. I think about an exchange of knowledge. Instead of one official cooperations we should construct a kind of market place, where every member can post an article or an article request and search partners for the realization or improvement. Part of this could be an "official" cooperation of all the members of the project. You are right about the form. It is not enough to post these things to the project page. Thw1309 13:17, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I didn't say only one, in fact I said a cooperation should be started regardless of how many others are going at the time. And a market place yes, that would be a de facto situation but I suggest a formal cooperation for backing so not everyone's talk page is swamped by requests from single users working on minor articles. - J Logan ^t/_c: 14:44, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I like it :-) Looks good to me. --Robster1983 15:59, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Love it. Big improvement! :)Scibah 16:24, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

A clear improvement, like it a lot. —Nightstallion 14:05, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Another new design

I made this new layout, but was reverted by Thw1309 because he said that I needed to contact every member of the project.
What do you think?Ssolbergj 21:47, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Old banner
New proposed banner

New, def. -and it is unrealistic to contact everyone. Be bold so to speak. - J Logan ^t/_c: 21:50, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Infact, I've rv the rv of the rv of the, whatever. Point is in improving this, users should be bold. If we get bogged down in bureaucracy of attacking everyone talk pages every time someone changes an image it will discourage spirit that drives collective improvement. If you think that the old one should stay then by all means try to get support against the change, but it helps no one to revert first ask questions later. Not like this is vandalism. - J Logan ^t/_c: 22:23, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Approve Yet newer version is a further improvement on design. Caveat lector 23:31, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the new proposal is better – though perhaps there should be a little more space between the top of the 'E' and the word 'wikiproject'. Raggio 08:58, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Definitely approve – I have always thought the old banner looked amateurish – the shadowed font looked a bit too 'WordArt' for me, and was hard to read. The new banner is much more crisp and professional looking. Rossenglish 09:42, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Approve The older one has a certain intensity which the new one lacks; but the new one is more immediate. So, on balance, the new one. Marcus22 10:06, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Approve The new one has a better graphic touch and reflects the EU flag.--Natl1 (Talk Page) (Contribs) 13:15, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Definitely approve – I love it!!!! Looks so professional. I'm not keen on the size of the EU Globes in the === H3s === though, maybe they could be a tad smaller. Bennelliott • Talk • Contribs 16:28, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Approve but I'd prefer a sans-serif font. - ^Estoy_Aquí^{(t • c • e)} 17:16, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Approve much simpler than the previous version, and much less striking. (good thing!) Scibah 17:32, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Approve It has my approval :-D (Btw, isn't it very EU-like to ask everyone's permission? In my opinion one of the things the EU could do without. Is a majority not enough?) --Robster1983 17:11, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Approve. Much easier on the eyes. Why isn't it up yet? --Hemlock Martinis 05:29, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Approve Looks much better! Politics rule 16:52, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Aprove for all the reasons already given. Do it. --Red King 22:48, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah, good, you already have. --Red King 22:49, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Approve – Just randomly stumbled across this on NightStallion's talk page and I definitely see the new proposed banner as an improvement. It just looks more professional. Way to go guys! --Naha|^(talk) 20:21, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Need help on Reform Treaty

A lot of help is needed on Reform Treaty. A lot of nonsense is written about the treaty, for instance that it has already a draft version. The European Council of June 22 and 23 only agreed on the broad outline of the treaty, and gave a 16-page long mandate to the IGC that is to start working in July 2007. That mandate is of course not a draft version of a treaty! I tried to clean the article up a bit, but it still needs attention. Maarten 13:20, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I was trying to ref the thing but as few others were adding them I was just going to wait till everyone had calmed down and maybe official details had come out. We have the press release and a few media analyasis so I'll get back to it now but I think it is pointless to develop it in too much detail until the IGC. - J Logan ^t/_c: 14:04, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

EU page

(from Talk:European Union, see and reply there please) Okay, I didn't expect the review so soon but we have the feedback nonetheless. I've tried to so something about History. I'm not sure about religion – I think it relates as much to the EU as it is going to, as much as any country article does. Enlargement needs to be looked at still but refs are the continuos problem. The tags put on by the reviewer were removed, but nothing done about them. I just have a simple question, are people serious about improving this article? If they are then we all need to look through all of this and reference it properly, and remove anything we can't reference. No matter how interesting or informative it may be it means nothing unless it can be backed up as a solid fact. If people do not want to put that effort in, and instead carry on adding things at random, then there isn't much point in trying to sort this out. So, everyone, are we going to get the EU's core article up to featured, be proud of it once more? - J Logan ^t/_c: 14:53, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Peer review of Accession of Turkey to the European Union

I've posted a peer review asking for advice and suggestions about Accession of Turkey to the European Union. It can be found at Wikipedia:Peer review/Accession of Turkey to the European Union/archive1. Anything you guys could add would be great. Thanks! --Hemlock Martinis 06:43, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Flag of the European Parliament

Hi, does anyone know of a free image we can use on Wikipedia of it? Just for history so it is not very important but would be helpful. It is on some photo service images but only very small and the copyright on that isn't sorted. Here is one image from a stamp if you don't know it; [3] [4] – J Logan ^t/_c: 12:07, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Germany

Any reason why Germany is listed as part of the project? No other member state page is and they are all covered by their national projects. - J Logan^t: 15:08, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Probably just the old Europe=European Union equation. Easily changed... done! Caveat lector 14:31, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

... next step the World!

Further on the the Germany section above, I can't help noticing that some editors have been overly ambitious on what comes under the WikiProject European Union umbrella. I note the following:

• Europe is rated as a B-Class European Union article.

• Apparently the EU now runs the European Song Contest. Articles on every yearly contest plus articles on every entrant fall to be considered under WP:EU.

• The template Template:World Trade Organization (WTO) does as well.

• The Fauna of Europe now come under our dominion.

• We are also responsible for edits to The Moog, an indie rock band based from Budapest and groups of Hungarian, Slovenian and Serbian dancers.

• As well as Montaña Corona a mountain in the Canaries, Çorovodë a city in Albania, along with Ahtra and some other Estonian mountains and islands.

• European scouting now is part of the EU now. See: WAGGGS-Europe Region and WOSM-European Region.

It is strongly suggested that the WP:EU (or category label as the case may be) tag should be removed from all these articles. Caveat lector 15:17, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh I totally agree, I think perhaps we should better define and enforce our scope. On the project page it is; "the following areas of the EU: Institutions, activities and policies. Economy. Enlargement process. History and Treaties". If it doesn't fall under that then it is removed from out lists, could be better defined, I'll be back on that. Also another point is the rating, I've fiddled with it a bit over time but some are still way to high or low, usualy high. They ought to be spread more. - J Logan ^t: 15:22, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Further to my point on the Eurovision articles above, I'm having some difficulty convincing alphachimp to reverse the articles inclusion in WP:EU. He rightly points out that only one user responded to my posting. If you agree that they should be removed (or have any opinion on the matter whatsoever) please add a response here! Caveat lector 19:22, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Fair point but how can you argue the fact that as Eurovision is nothing to do with the EU, it does not fall within the scope of WP:EU (as even the current scope on the main page states). - J Logan ^t: 20:38, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

The Eurovision is run by the European Broadcasting Union not the European Union. Other than having similar names these organisations have nothing to do with each other. Caveat lector 23:10, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Call for a vote

Just a straw poll to see if articles on the Eurovision Song Contest should be included in Wikipedia:WikiProject European Union. Caveat lector 20:50, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

• Exclude – for all my reasons stated above. Caveat lector 20:50, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
• Exclude & comment – Not a democracy, and it is clearly outside our scope. It is within WP Eurovision's scope though is it not?!! Why would we duplicate another projects work when it is outside out scope. Perhaps if some editors feel strongly, we could partner WP:EU with WP:Eurovision somehow? (along with other simmilar WP?) – J Logan ^t: 13:28, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
• Exclude. Outside scope.--Boson 17:22, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Right, that's enough of that. I managed to convince another bot owner to move the Eurovision articles out of WP:EU, so there's no longer any need to convince Alphachimp to make the changes. Caveat lector 16:59, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Thought in European Wikiprojects

I just added links to projects like Eurovision in the main page, and I was thinking. We have projects for most, bar three, members – we have projects for Eurovision and European History, we have Eastern Europe and Southern Europe. But no "WikiProject Europe". Was there one and now it is gone? Surely it would be good to have it to fill in remaining gaps in the projects? A parent project for all current European projects where we can co-operate (and cut overheads) and discuss with greater ease. It could cover for areas without projects and might help the smaller projects that are brought in. Thoughts? - J Logan ^t: 11:31, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, an overarching "WikiProject Europe" would fill the gaps and provide more "editor-care" for articles such as Airbus and Eurovision Song Contest.

We need answers for all potential scenarios:

• A franco-german joint venture; both are EU members – EU project or Europe project?
• Is the final criteria for EU project entry of an article that the subject of the article is directly linked, or a part of the EU system? - S. Solberg J. 14:35, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Well on the joint-venture, I'd say it would be Europe. Unless the EU was involved in running it of course. There is a hole in that of course, something like Eurocorps or the EGF. Considered to be EU projects but not under EU control. An the higer education area – a project extending across EUrope but heavily influence by the EU – pracitialy an EU project. To be honest I'm not sure, this ambiguity can be annoying sometimes. I say in such cases we do actualy follow the idea of it being directly linked/part of the EU system. It would exclude a bit currently in the scope but I doubt it would change much to be honest. In light of these problems though, I suggest we have some kind of "Scope Committee" or something, members who will solve disputes about what falls under which project.

On a side note, here is a draft scope document, me trying to deal with the other projects;

---

The Scope of WikiProject Europe shall cover all elements of Europe, subject to the exceptions below. It shall concentrate on improving and expanding content about the continent, its people, culture organisation. The Project would also maintain Portal:Europe.

Aside from the first exception, WikiProject Europe shall play a supportive and cooperative role where the project is small, inactive or makes a request. Materials and systems such as peer-review shall always be open to those projects. If a project becomes too small, it is free to become a taskforce of WikiProject Europe.

Specific exceptions;

• Topics non connected to Europe.
• Articles concerning the European Union.
• Articles about Eurovision.
• Articles on European History.
• Articles pan-Eastern Europe in nature, but not beyond.
• Articles pan-Southern Europe in nature, but not beyond.
• Articles dealing with the Former Yugoslavia and cross border issues in that area.
• Articles concerning Microstates.
• Articles about a single state in Europe which is covered by an existing national WikiProject.

Disputes concerning WikiProject Europe's scope shall be dealt with by an internal committee to be established.

The following states are without a national WikiProject. All are currently covered by a larger project but can still be supported by WikiProject Europe;

• Andorra. This is covered by WP:MICROSTATE.
• Belarus. This is covered by WP:EEUROPE.
• Hungary. This is covered by WP:EEUROPE.
• Kazakhstan. This is covered by WP:C.ASIA.
• Liechtenstein. This is covered by WP:MICROSTATE.
• Moldova. This is covered by WP:EEUROPE.
• Monaco. This is covered by WP:MICROSTATE.
• San Marino. This is covered by WP:MICROSTATE.
• Slovakia. This is covered by WP:EEUROPE.
• Slovenia. This is covered by WP:SEUROPE.
• Vatican City. This is covered by WP:MICROSTATE.

---

I would suggest that, if the projects agree, that Southern Europe forms the current basis of the Project – as its scope is covered mainly by national projects and is lacking only one national project (unlike Eastern Europe)- and Eurovision becomes a taskforce. Microstate might also want to but the others I would imagine continuing as child projects. On a small note, there is one note of support in from WP:EEUROPE. - J Logan ^t: 15:33, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. There are a lot of articles which would be at best dubious fits for most of the existing projects, and this proposal could help cover those topics. John Carter 14:37, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea. I'm frankly surprised we don't have one already. --Hemlock Martinis 18:45, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Good idea...KarenAER 19:34, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I have put out a formal proposal here to check wider opinion and get more people onboard. I have a temp page here for details. Meantime, I am going to check opinion on taking over SEUROPE. Albania was going to merge into it, I will check there also. If anyone has ideas or anything to contribute, it would be most welcome. Feel free to edit the temp page. Thanks! - J Logan ^t: 20:04, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Project has started and is taking over from Southern Europe. So there is a bit of work do to in addition to normal setting up. Please sign up here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Europe! - J Logan ^t: 07:25, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Territorial application of the Maastricht Treaty

A dispute had been raised relating to the territorial application of the Maastricht Treaty on the Talk:Saint Pierre and Miquelon page. It relates to whether or not a territory could be part of the European Union without being part of the European Community.

Please post any comments you may have on the talk page. Caveat lector 16:08, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Japan second economy of the world?

On the page of Japan, I found out that that article stated that 'Japan is the second largest economy of the world, after the United States'. So I've tried to change that into: 'Japan is the third largest economy of the world, after the European Union and the United States. That edit was changed back again, so I went to the talkpage of Japan, and I got into a discussion with someone, who argued that the EU's economy can't be called the first economy of the world, for it is not a country. The discussion can be read here: Talk:Japan#Japan second economy of the world? It is changed now (Japans' national economy is the world's second largest (...)), but I'm not sure how I feel about this. I think it's good, but still... If possible, please let me know what you think about this. Furthermore, it raises the question: in what perspective should we place the EU's economy? Are our 'attitudes coloured' if we are offended by the fact that some article's refuse to acknowledge the EU (in several ways)? And if our attitudes are coloured, then why aren't the attitudes of other people coloured, if they don't want to acknowledge the EU? --Robster1983 16:11, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Rob, I honestly don't know why you get so excited about this. You pushed this matter over on the US article as well. John Smith's 17:42, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I know, and in both cases (US and Japan) I backed down, for there was a fierce discussion about it, not in my favour. So I reckon that both cases are resolved. But that still doesn't resolve the situation about the EU: the discussion whether or not the EU can, or cannot (or should, or should not) be seen as a single economy. And that is why I wanted to start this discussion, and the place to start that, is the WikiProject EU page (which I'm a member of). I'm not doing anything illegal, I am not asking to people to get in edit-wars, I wanted to know what/ how people think about that topic. Therefore I am glad that you also got into the discussion, for every opinion counts, and every opinion keeps the discussion going. --Robster1983 11:59, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I say just leave it. Discuss on the talk page but don't change as it won't be accepted. The EU isn't seen by its own people, let alone others, as a single economy and state despite what the facts say. Why should they give up a nice fact like "largest economy" just because of a few facts? - J Logan ^t: 17:22, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. I will leave it alone. --Robster1983 19:35, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Isn't this just a matter of counting beans? The tradition is to state the size of the economy of a country as a whole. But in the UK case it is sometimes felt worthwhile to discuss the economy of Scotland, Wales, Ireland, or even London (which makes a big contribution to the UK as a whole). Whether you want to compare the economy of Japan to that of Germany, or the EU as a whole rather depends on the purpose for which you are making the comparison. The EU acts like a state in some respects, but not others. It increasingly acts as one entity for purposes of trade with external nations, so in that context it might well be worth mentioning. On the other hand, the size of an economy also equates to political clout, and in other world affairs the EU may split with each nation having different views. Then comparison of national economies is much more interesting. It is probably also the case that anyone wishing to trade in Europe would be more interested in one country than another, for reasons of language, customs, the sort of product which might sell well rather than in a different country. So the annoying truth would be that both figures are interesting. Sandpiper 08:52, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Call for comments

Proposal for change of structure on European Union page. Due to the changes, which may be considerable and will practicaly drop the current country-based layout, I request that people comment on the suggestions to achive a stable consensus. See talk page. Thanks all. - J Logan ^t: 09:36, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

European and European people

Hi. These are new pages and I was wondering if they are in the scope of this project? Also, in many parts of Wikipedia European seems to redirect to Europe. How can this be fixed? KarenAER 18:06, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Em, good question. Strictly speaking I don't think so. Unless the scope of the article is only related to EU citizens. Perhaps it could come under the project but if you look above at "Thoughts..." I am proposing a WikiProject Europe which would no doubt have these articles at its heart. - J Logan ^t: 18:38, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Member list

What happened to the member list?--Boson 06:14, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean exactly? - J Logan ^t: 06:44, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if that was a bit cryptic. I noticed that I had been deleted from the member list and, when I looked, it looked as if many other members were missing. Since the list was also a few thousand bytes smaller, I assumed that something catastrophic had gone wrong and whoever had been fiddling with the list would be alerted by my query.

It appears that only three users were actually deleted:

• blankfrackis,
• Boson
• E=mc².

A new user seems to have been created (unintentionally?):

• Aelffin.

The following users had their display names replaced by their real user names

• Pavel (completely different)
• Drdan (completely different)
• serbiana (completely different)
• Philippe R. (different)
• Wombat (different)
• HRE (different)
• M. Pokrajac (initial)
• ナイトスタリオン (different script)
• •ΚέκρωΨ• (different script)
• Húsönd (diacritics)
• J Logan (space)

The change was apparently made (without an edit summary) by Ssolbergj, with this diff, presumably with the noblest of intentions, given that the list is now scrollable, etc.--Boson 16:31, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I see, thanks for pointing it out. I've dropped a note on SSJ's talk page to see if there was something behind it. - J Logan ^t: 17:51, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I changed some signature-names back to the actual username because that's the only thing that works with {{user}}. It was a mistake (I did a lot of copy/paste) that names were removed. I have no idea how Aelffin came there. - S. Solberg J. 18:48, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Totally understandable, thanks. - J Logan ^t: 18:56, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Ad

The current ad

First I'd just like to thank SSJ for the fantastic work on the page he has done, we're very swish now! Lets hope we can all live up to it all. One small thing I'd like to discuss though is the ad, not sure about the message. Interested in Politics, believe in a common future. I think we need something more striking, and inclusive. Tapping into the diversity side maybe, its not all politics and that word might scare people off who could fill the non-politics gaps we have. Also perhaps out message should try to be inclusive of sceptics?

Perhaps if we sell it as a massive, diverse, underdeveloped topic and link it to real world stuff. Talk about how important the EU is, how much of an affect it has – that way we could also introduce topics of out articles – get people interested so they want to contribute and edit. And use striking colours, like the bar code flag idea, to catch the eye? Thoughts anyone? - J Logan ^t: 06:44, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Very difficult to come up with 2-4 neutral , not boring, short and catchy sentences about a strange "political creation" as the EU. And at the same time make it appeal to people against the whole thing?

Perhaps humour? An empire is rising.. Will you be a part of it? Join WP:EU! or Emperor Barroso needs servants...(if thats funny)... etc.

To be honest I think there's enough eye-soaring ads on wikipedia:ads. But of course we could for instance have a less depressing background image in addition to the new sentences. - S. Solberg J. 19:07, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I understand the problem, and I didn't mean to offend or anything. Just searching for ideas. Like the idea on humour though! Then again if the tabloids read it they would take it seriously, I can see the headlines already :p. Still, not asking you to change it though, like I said, looking for ideas. No one else seems bothered (no one seems bothered with the project anymore). Except you of course. Thanks for your constant and fantastic work here! - J Logan ^t: 18:26, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much!! Yes we just need ideas. - S. Solberg J. 13:41, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Again, this is for when we next feel a need to change it. Just had a thought on what to write after watching a promo vid from my old university. Humour is perhaps the way to go, but empire isn't quite right. Just be sarcastic. Say the opposite of what people see the EU as;

• Interested in...
• Exciting, intense debates on vital issues?
• Dynamic, popular personalities known the world over?
• Fast moving, dramatic events?
• Streamlined, democratic institutions?
• Powerful and polarising leaders?
• Then join...
• WikiProject European Union!

How does that sound? - J Logan ^t: 14:46, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Would everyone understand the sarcasm? I'm not sure if it would be comical to directly imply that the EU is undemocratic and its leaders unpowerful, unknown and irrelevant. There might be a risk of it being interpreted as extreme bragging or very eurosceptic.

We could just do it safe and boring:

• Interested in articles related to the European Union? Then join WikiProject European Union! We need you. – S. Solberg J. 11:28, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah they'll get it, its just playing on perceptions – not reality. The thing is the perception is our weakness too, which is why I am trying to think of some kind of gimmick. When dealing with the EU you can't be safe and boring, because for many it is boring enough as it is. Ooo, I just had an idea. How about we have no words? Just images? Flashes of the kind of ideas I put above but being serious – showing dynamic Europe and just ending with WikiProject European Union. That way we avoid the whole problem! :). All we would need of course is good enough images (we can work that I'm sure) – how does it sound in principle though? - J Logan ^t: 19:21, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Yea, i guess only images would work.

For the sake of developing the sarcasm idea:

• Fascinated by the Mickey Mouse Parliament?
• Love bureaucracy?
• Interested in europhilia issues?

- S. Solberg J. 21:06, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Interesting, and everyone loves bureaucracy! Red tape binds Europe together (seriously). Oh how about "Like traveling circus'?" too? Not sure about the last one. Another idea though is we could use figures, most of the project is obsessed with them; population, area, GDP, treade, borders, members etc etc. We could show importance through those maybe? - J Logan ^t: 07:32, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

part two

Sorry, bringing this back again. I do think actually we could do with something a little more balanced, "believe in a common future" is just a bit odd for me and I'm not sure how many people we will draw with this. How about, white and a stick man walks in and you have a speech bubble that, bit by bit, reads out the following: "Hi, I'm here to tell you about a WikiProject. It's European. You know, that place where good wine and beer comes from! But we don't write about that much. But we do drink wine and beer while we write. No, we're talking about something else, it is very important and has a big effect on everyone in Europe. And indeed the world. Not everyone likes it, it is a very interesting debate actually, but we try to be NPOV about it and just want to give you the facts as not many people know much about it. It's called the European Union. So, perhaps you might want to help us out some time. Thanks, merci, danke, gracias, tak....." (fades out to "WikiProject European Union" and just a simple EU flag next to it. nothing fancy).- J Logan ^t: 19:32, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Something like this?

Made this.. but I think we need to work on the text. Europe is probably not nearly as famous for its beer as it is for wine etc.. The normal flag didn't look very good next to the stylised logo. (insane aspect ratio of these ads) – $\mathrm {S}$. $\mathrm {Solberg}$ $\mathrm {J}$. 02:07, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Fantastic SSJ, great graphics as always! Yes, text needs working on, probably shorter! And yes beer might not be as famous, but we do have great beer. How about wine and history? I'm sure we could come up with something fun, lots of things we are great at. Like chocolate and healthy food, good living, great coffee, the renaissance and lots of beautiful women. The latter might get their attention. I'll drop a note on the EU article talk page so people actually see this. In fact, on the chocolate and healthy food, how about contradictions? land of cheap flights and the environmental movement, of fine art and Erasmus drinking parties? I know I know, keeping things simple and short is not my speciality! - J Logan ^t: 16:07, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

How about one stick man walks on saying "Come and discuss sports and the EU!" before several other stick men come on the screen and beat the first stick man with baseball bats. That'd be lovely. Otherwise its fine, I have to say I never really liked the whole "Believe in a common future?" thing as it was a bit biased. Not everybody loves beauracracy, overpaid MEPs and pointless Strasbourg buildings etc. The recent suggestions are definitely fine though! --Simonski (talk) 19:27, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Request – legal specialist needed

Been trying to get the institution pages up to scratch, got most up to GA but European Court of Justice is a tad harder. While I could write something, and I've been trying to get it sorted with organisation and references, it needs proper legal attention (I did a bit of law but it was ages ago). So do we have any legal specialists around who could work in that article? I'll still help on everything else, but I am politics – not law. Thanks. - J Logan ^t: 18:52, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Same as above for European Court of Auditors, but ECJ priority of course. - J Logan ^t: 16:26, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

For the moment I've not got enough time to get involved here but I'll try and get round to it in January or something, though what exactly needs fixed up? --Simonski (talk) 19:29, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Request – economic specialist needed

Same situation as above, but now it is the European Central Bank page. Started work but again if this is going to be woth while there needs to be someone with an economics background working on it also. - J Logan ^t: 16:26, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Is European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System part of EU?

Just wondering. I have Talk:European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System on my watchlist, and today I saw that European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System has been included as part of the European Union WikiProject.

The ECTS, eventhough is originates from the Erasmus program, is in my opponion not a EU system, and therefore I find the inclusion in the EU WikiPeoject kind of misleading. The ECTS system is today best known as a central part of the Bologna process, which is a coordination of independent countries including all of the EU members, but also countries that will probably never become members of the EU (ie Russia).

Apperently the Bologna Process has also been included in the EU Wikiproject, which in my opponion is even more worng. Esspecially due to the fact that EU does not have any legislative power over education (article 149 of the ToA).

It would be more correct to link to the EU project from those articles, or have I misunderstood the concept of the EU Wikiproject?--Rasmusdahl 12:05, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, yes and no. Erasmus is part of the EU, but is open to non-EU members (eg, Switzerland, Norway, Israel). ECTS is seperate from the EU (as is the whole Bologna process) but is actively supported by the Commission. I don't see any harm in having ECTS as part of the EU wikiproject, given that otherwise it would have no one looking after it! Physchim62 (talk) 12:28, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Wrong, now there is Wikipedia:WikiProject Europe just for this problem. On the actual question of EU or not, I always hear it called the EU system, yet it is used by others. I have a feeling it is one of those EU standards we've got the rest of Europe to adpot through the BP, like with the Energy Community, it is covering the Balkans yet the standards are those set by the EU – they just agree to follow them. That doesn't mean the standards are not EU, they are just used outside via a treaty. - J Logan ^t: 14:32, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, maybe I should take some time to look at the page. I agree with Physchim62 that it is OK to have it as a part of the EU WikiProject in order to look after it, but when that is said, I think that the distinction between EU and the Bologna process has to be clarified. I do not agree that because some call it the EU system, that it then is a EU system. The ECTS originates in 1989 with the first Erasmus program, but ONLY as a credit transfer system, and due to article 149 of ToA, only as a conversion table (both grades and credits). With the Bologna process the ECTS has seen much development. First as the credit system to be implemented nationally by the signatory countries, secondly as a accumulation system (which is very different from the transfer system, and still rather controversial). It therefore true as JLogan states that originates from within the EU, but only by name. The function and content has changed during Bologna. My conclusion is (unless someone disagrees) that it is OK that the system is included in the EU Wikiproject, but that some further development to the description of the ECTS should be done. I will make an attempt, but am a little busy right now with my final thesis. --Rasmusdahl 16:41, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Basically agree with Ramusdahl; however, there are quite a few EU projects in the field of education which extend beyond EU borders (Marie Curie grants, just as one example), it might be as well to start at Directorate-General for Education and Culture (European Commission) and work downwards... Physchim62 (talk) 13:20, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I would have thought any wiki project might adopt articles which have something to do with, or affect, their nominal titular area of interest. It can't just be things which belong to the EU. I don't know, but assuming there is an article about GATT, then logically the EU would take an interest and might reasonably adopt those articles as relevant to the EU. That would not stop other projects also adopting them. The importance of such an article might well be graded differently in different projects. Sandpiper (talk) 14:52, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

ugently needed media

I've noticed that you don't have a picture of Robert Schuman. As this is a quite important person I think that a non free image could be used. The EU has a audiovisual archive that allovs the use of the material as described below:

"This material is offered free of charge for EU-related information and education purposes. For any other use, prior clearance must be obtained from the Central Audiovisual Library of the European Commission."

copyright page

Make use of it as you see fit:

the European Commission’s Audiovisual Service

U5K0 20:19, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Still can't use it as we would a PD, it would illustrate RS article only and there are pleanty missing on that topic (PHS, AS and so on)- J Logan ^t: 07:18, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Yet another design change

I've been 'bold' changed a little on the layout design of the project frontpage, including changing the logo to something more "modern". Is it OK? - S. Solberg J. 21:48, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Em, I can't see much change in layout, certainly nothing bad, except for the top image – it seems to be badly sized up there. As for the logo, well I have to say I liked the old one better, I don't think it quite works as is. - J Logan ^t: 08:04, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I've reverted the logo. Sorry but I'm using a small laptop here so i can't see exactly how it will work with bigger screens. - S. Solberg J. 09:26, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

There is still a problem on the main page, at least for me, as the images are very long, it widens the page beyond my screen and squashes the text to the left. On the logo, perhaps some simple design influence by a building? For example a circle with an indent from the left following the curve of the Berlaymont, or a stylised version of the EP Strasbourg tower. Just a thought. - J Logan ^t: 16:57, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, but I don't understand what problem you mean. I've tried the page with larger resolutions. What's your browser and resolution? - S. Solberg J. 17:31, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Safari 1024. Now I've checked it works on Opera and Firefox. I don't think I have anything disabled on Safari, will check though. Perhaps a notice at the top of the page of what it is best viewed on? - J Logan ^t: 20:33, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Should we write "Users running Safari might experience layout problems"?

On the logo-things you mentioned; I guess of principle that I'd like to undermine and ignore the Strasbourg building, or at least not use it in the logo. ;P I hate the fact that it looks so much better than the one in Brussels.. It would have become a wonderful EIIT – S. Solberg J. 23:43, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps, but lets see if we can narrow it down. On settings, I can't find anything disabled but I have also had trouble with other small things such as on the reflist, when it is set to two col it still just displays it as one long list. What is the common factor here? Maybe I have an out of date plugin.

Oh I know what you mean about Strasbourg! When I went to the two cities I was thinking, well Brussels is better as a seta politicaly, but come on this building is fantastic! Why can't we move it to Brussels! How to make a hard choice harder. But what I was thinking with the logo is to have some real symbol of Europe in a logo so it wasn't just abstract – a map and stars like the euro coins. We don't have to worry about what the ECB has to worry about, we can be more creative I reckon. - J Logan ^t: 08:41, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Hello beautiful! I love that new logo, I mean, wow! You're a master of graphics SSJ, a true master. - J Logan ^t: 19:34, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

What I see with IE7 is a one inch wide, eight inch high column of text to the left, and a picture two inches high by twenty inches wide beside it (making the whole thing about two screens wide). Below this peculiar expanse of white space is a normal sized page which fits my screen. Not quite right, I think. Sandpiper 09:02, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I have that on Safari, I don't know what the difference is but it works fine on Opera and Firefox. - J Logan ^t: 11:12, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Lack of info

Hey, trying to bring European Court of Auditors up to GA along with the others, but I am running out of info. If anyone can contribute something I'd be grateful. - J Logan ^t: 16:57, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Standard EU blank map

Which blank (or easily modifiable) SVG map does the EU Wikiproject recommend for thematic maps to be included in articles about the EU? I've tried several. The best are those by Ssolbergj, Maix, etc. (this one, for example) but they are based on an original that excludes the Isle of Skye and other Hebridean islands – in total, an area significantly larger than Luxembourg. That might not seem like much in a European context but, believe me, as a Brit it's as obvious as, say, a map of the EU excluding Wales. (Remember that?) Is there not a totally official EU vector map of the EU available from one of the EU websites? Vinny Burgoo 23:25, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

MEP Categories

Looking through, the current system of organising MEPs is a total mess. Won't explain just look for yourself and you can see what I mean, for example how does one make sense of this Category:Members of the European Parliament from the United Kingdom. I propose the following system to cover organisation by term, constituency and party;

• Category:Members of the European Parliament

• Category:MEPs representing Germany

• Category:MEPs representing Germany for 2004–2009

• Category:CDU MEPs representing Germany for 2004–2009

• Hans-Gert Pöttering

• Category:MEPs for 2004–2009

• Category:MEPs representing Germany for 2004–2009

• Category:CDU MEPs representing Germany for 2004–2009

• Hans-Gert Pöttering

• Category:EPP-ED MEPs

• Category:EPP-ED MEPs for 2004–2009

• Category:CDU MEPs representing Germany for 2004–2009

• Hans-Gert Pöttering

• Presidents of the European Parliament

• Hans-Gert Pöttering

This would largely limit the categories of each article to just one, while allowing it to be viewed and located by all three levels of division. - J Logan ^t: 18:57, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Seems perfect! - S. Solberg J. 20:38, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I was wondering if "representing Germany" could be expressed differently to stress that it is the constituency (or people) that is meant, not the country. Belgium, presumably, would have more than 1 constituency.--Boson 23:13, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

that would also apply to the UK and Ireland, of course, but I think is somewhat important because they are direct elections.--Boson 23:41, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking about that, I see too options, we simply add another layer of categorisation above or below "Category:MEPs representing xxx for 2004-2009", or we simply have it based on constituencies so it is;

• Category:MEPs representing London

• Category:MEPs representing London for 2004–2009

• Category:LibDem MEPs representing London for 2004–2009

• Sarah Ludford

There is also the question of small constituencies, when organising Commissioners some of my categories were removed because there was only one Commissioner thus far. Here that would apply only to 5-6 MEP regions and in which case I would drop the political section of the last category and for political categorisation, they would be put directly into "xxx MEPs for 2004-2009" category. - J Logan ^t: 12:27, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Thinking further I favour this organisation fur sub-national constituencies;

• Category:MEPs representing the United Kingdom

• Category:MEPs representing the United Kingdom for 2004–2009

• Category:MEPs representing London for 2004–2009

• Category:LD MEPs representing London for 2004–2009

• Sarah Ludford

As opposed to this one;

• Category:MEPs representing the United Kingdom
• Category:MEPs representing London

• Category:MEPs representing London for 2004–2009

• Category:LD MEPs representing London for 2004–2009

• Sarah Ludford

As the former makes greater allowance for constituency changes. But now I think about it there will often be a problem with small political parties in large constituencies where a category for one or two will be questioned. Ludford for example is a lone LibDem MEP in London. So it would have to be for all cases that if there is just one MEP, the last category is foregone. So Ludford would be categorised under the following;

• Category:MEPs representing the United Kingdom

• Category:MEPs representing the United Kingdom for 2004–2009

• Category:MEPs representing London for 2004–2009

• Sarah Ludford

• Category:MEPs for 2004–2009

• Category:MEPs representing the United Kingdom for 2004–2009

• Category:MEPs representing London for 2004–2009

• Sarah Ludford

• Category:ALDE MEPs

• Category:ALDE MEPs for 2004–2009

• Category:LD MEPs representing the United Kingdom for 2004–2009

• Sarah Ludford

Under the last one, were London a national constituency it would read;

• Category:ALDE MEPs

• Category:ALDE MEPs for 2004–2009

• Sarah Ludford

This could perhaps be clarified in the category, a list showing the details of those not in a subcategory. - J Logan ^t: 13:18, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I see your point about the small size of categories. Bearing that in mind , I would go back to your original suggestion, though I would suggest changing the wording to something like "representing United Kingdom [or Irish or Belgian] constituencies", "representing the constituency of Germany", etc. to avoid giving the impression that the MEPs are representing their countries (i.e. a greater degree of indirection of representation). I suppose another alternative would be to have the hierarchy of categories in your second suggestion, except for party allegiance. This would increase the size of the categories, but party allegiance would have to be a separate category (or hierarchy of categories), meaning two categories would be assigned per MEP. --Boson 22:13, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree on your "representing xxx constituencies" point. In terms of grouping constituencies, we would still have the problem of small states such as Malta so I think it doesn't matter in that respect as to whether we have sub-constituencies listed or now. - J Logan ^t: 09:16, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Progress

Okay, I'm going to push forward on this. I will be noting progress below, if you carry out a reorder do please also list it below. - J Logan ^t: 14:17, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh and a small revision, changing "for" to "serving", makes a bit more sense, also I'm removing the state element from the political party, having it as "CSU" for example applies only to Germany anyway so it just makes it longer, to avoid clash of names though I'll just have "German CSU". - J Logan ^t: 14:28, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I have completed reorganisation of current German MEPs' so please look over the changes and provide feedback before I continue please as there are some points which may cause problems for some people. Thanks. - J Logan ^t: 19:56, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I've done France as well now. Still no comments? - J Logan ^t: 14:51, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

As promised on Talk:Political groups of the European Parliament, here is my response. Looking at the comments above, I cannot help but stand in awe at the scale of the committment (you're going to classify every MEP ever by Group, party and term. Wow!) But I do have serious reservations as previously expressed, both in the wisdom of the approach (WP:OC, specifically WP:OC#NARROW), and in the logistics (how many categories are you going to end up with?!), and in the time it's going to take, and I do get the feeling that I'm watching someone build a yacht in their garage ("Well, it's a lovely yacht, and it's beautifully turned out – but it's 20ft wide and the garage doors are only 10ft wide..."). I would also question whether this level of categorization will be maintained in future (what happns if User:JLogan falls under a bus?). It's a free Wikipedia and there is a part of me that wants to see it done, so please feel free to continue if you wish, but I would be failing in my duty as a consciencious human being (okay, maybe that could be phrased a little less pretentiously<grin>) if I didn't point out that this is perhaps too much. If asked, I would recommend the alternative categories of "MEPs for constituency x", "MEPs for term x", "MEPs for group x", "MEPs for party x", etc, which would be way simpler and quicker than the proposed "MEPs for party x for constituency y for term z", which may be an accident waiting to happen. (Using your Sarah Ludford example above, just put her in state, constituency, term and party categories "MEPs representing the United Kingdom", "MEPs for 2004-2009", "MEPs representing London" and "LD MEPs", not the categories "MEPs representing the United Kingdom", "MEPs representing the United Kingdom for 2004-2009", "MEPs representing London for 2004-2009" and "LD MEPs representing London for 2004-2009") I understand that difficulties have already been encountered and a proposed workaround is to divide MEPs into pre- and post-04, but that might just be sawing off table legs 2&3 to compensate for sawing off table leg 1.

So if you're asking me for my opinion, it's simple: don't do it.

If you're still going to do it, then good luck but please keep going until it's all done properly. For example, the category Category:Green MEPs serving 1984–1989 should be in a category ("Green MEPs"), but right now it's an orphan category (no sub- or super-members). You've got the category Category:Green MEPs serving 1989–1994 in the category Category:Greens–EFA MEPs, which poses an interesting problem: namely, G/EFA didn't exist before 1999 (for 84-89 it would have been just "Green MEPs"). You've got Philippe de Villiers categorized under a specific constituency (Category:MEPs representing the Ouest France constituency serving 1999–2004), which is in turn categorized under a general constituency (Category:MEPs representing the French constituencies). Which is fine. But then you've got Roseline Vachetta, who was also a 1999–2004 MEP, just categorized under a general constituency (Category:MEPs representing the French constituencies). And that's just the first few I've looked at. This illustrates the problem: by creating such narrow categorizations, you run the risk of multiple errors and the certainty of much work. I don't want you to take these comments as a slur on your hard work and dedication, which you have certainly demonstrated in the past beyond peradventure. But I do want you to take on board that the task is overcomplicated, error-prone and inadvisable. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but please reconsider. Kind regards, Anameofmyveryown (talk) 02:13, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, just on your last points first. The first category is empty because I buggered up with the names. G-EFA is the generic as that is what is there now, and hence the older sub-categories by term as just "green" as that was the name of that party back then, there would be a parallel category for pre-EFA members but under the G-EFA top category. On French constituencies, I had that overall to make it easier for people looking for French MEPs, and hence the plural, but there are people in that category because I do not know what they constituency is so they are there till I find out.

I don't think it will take very long though, I sorted the existing German and French categories within 48 hours (combined, did have a break of course) and we don't have articles for a lot of historical MEPs. Considering that though, what if I just have pre-2004 MEPs as individual categories but maintain the proposed system for post-2004 MEPs? As we have the data on them, articles for most of them and it limits the amount that is done. It wouldn't take much to categorise further members as each election takes place. - J Logan ^t: 15:31, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Sigh...OK, if you're daft enough to do it, then I'm daft enough to stand back <grin>. I strongly agree that the MEPs for 1999–2004 and earlier should not come under your proposed new system, and restricting it to the 2004–2009 term seems a good compromise. If it proves to be too much work/error-prone, then it shouldn't be too hard to revert. Conversely, if it's doable and accurate, then it can be rolled on to 2009–2014 and every term therafter. So everybody's happy. Best of luck, Anameofmyveryown (talk) 21:36, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Scanner

FYI: You may have noticed edits from people from the Council of Europe in their effort not to get lost under the EU. Though I thought to do a scan of EU institututions, the Commission is clean (bar one) but there are over 600 edits to the English wikipedia alone from the Parliament, if people have some spare time I suggest these are checked out for any bias, we do tend to elect some nuts: Wikipedia Scanner Results. - J Logan ^t: 09:16, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Example of the nuts, take a look at someones edits to the Alexander Lukashenko article, dffs: [5] [6] [7]. Oh better example! And I thought it was spotty teenagers doing this: [8] – J Logan ^t: 09:21, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, can't find much in the way of bias in the light search I did, except for [9] but from what I can tell it wasn't that accurate to start off with. And I thought there might be a good story in this :(, just childish edits mostly: [10]. - J Logan ^t: 09:37, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Overuse of main article tags

People here may notice that I have recently taken an interest in the 'European Union ' article. |Editing this article is currently a little difficult, so I though it might be a good idea to look at some of the 'main articles' mentioned in various sections. Only... when I did I started to find articles which seemed like they had been cut and pasted from the main article, and themselves contained lots of 'main article' redirects. This is daft. Someone might go in circles hopping from main article to main article until you ended up back where you started, none the wizer. There should not be this crazy maze of 'main articles'. Some of them should be minor articles actually dealing with the topic in question, not passing the buck to another article. There also needs to be considerably less repetition of exactly the same points in all the articles. I recall the GA examiners on EU made some comments about overuse of 'main article', too. Sandpiper (talk) 22:39, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Unless something has gone very wrong, it should not be possible to go round in cicles, as the Main template should always yield a tree structure. One reason to avoid use of the Main template might be that reviewers could justifiably regard daughter (and grandaughter) articles as a part of the main article, which should jeopardize chances of FA status, given the state of some of the articles. I think the use of daughter articles is probably appropriate for topics like Law of the European Union. I also think the amount that needs to be said might justify daughter articles there too. I was wondering if this would be a suitable place to discuss the overall structure and expansion of the articles about EU law. --Boson (talk) 02:15, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

More specifically what I saw was EU having, say, 10 sub article. Link one of these and I found text very similar to what I had just read, and the same links to main articles which appeared in the original EU article. So the subordinate article is performing the same 'head article' role as EU. This may make some sense where obviously an article on one part of the EU structure refers to different parts. But they are all ending up quick summarising separate parts and linking to another article which itself quick summarises most things. Too much repetition. I don't want to be reading the same text over and over, and I'm not too keen on seing the same set of pictures over and over in each article either. It gets boring, repetitious and ultimately uninformative for a reader. Sandpiper (talk) 11:13, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

The main problem is we just don't have the detailed minor articles, a lot of stubs have been created and people try to patch over. Only way to solve the problem properly is to to try press expansion of our articles. In regards to structure, where on earth does one start! The whole topic needs looking at, its a mess but my knowledge of the law is limited so I don't see much help I can be in that respect. - J Logan ^t: 16:32, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

On the hatnote point though, the rework on the European Union article has meant in some cases we have better or more exact data on the EU page than the main page. I suggest that once we get that page up to FA, we use it as a basis for improve all articles linked by hatnotes from it – these are out core articles anyway. - J Logan ^t: 19:11, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Navbox

Please see this new navbox, it seems very POV (and the European Empire like isn't even a page) and redundant (to the existing FR template) to me. Please comment on its talk page. Thanks. Template:Reach of the European Union. - J Logan ^t: 12:04, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

POV in European Union v. Microsoft?

I just came across the article European Union v. Microsoft. I don't know the details of the case, but the following sentence came across as quite pov to me: "The illegitimate granting of software patents in Europe by the EPO has been supported in the past by the European Commission but opposed by the European Parliament and European SMEs represented by UAEPME, as seen in the debate surrounding the failed Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions, so the motivation of the European Commission in allowing Microsoft to charge even limited patent royalties has been questioned by the FFII, an organisation that, as part of its wider campaign, opposes the introduction of European software patents. [22]." Another issue is that this single sentence is so long that it's very hard to understand. What do others think of this? (I know that the article's talk page is the appropriate venue for this, but that hasn't been edited since October 27, so my hopes of a response are higher here) Aecis^Brievenbus 00:35, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

There are lots of problems with that article, it needs a major clean up and brining up to date. Commissioner for Competition has a few articles referenced for the case if you want to see if you can find anything to back that line up in those.- J Logan ^t: 10:50, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

To give the project direction

I think the project could benefit by reviewing and promoting our short to medium term goals following a successful FA bid for European Union. What areas are lacking, what can be done to help our articles in general? Here are a few ideas off the top of my head;

• GA or general improvement for major articles linked by hatnote from European Union.
• Improve the law or economic topics, as a principle aspect.
• Improvement of election articles ahead of the 09 vote (establish a taskforce with national projects for the election?)
• Get Reform Treaty, and articles of new positions and changes, up to GA
• Try to link in EU topics to pages across Wikipedia to ensure their raise profile, rather than risk them being isolated to all but those looking for them directly
• Promote the use of euro along side dollar in lists in the hope of raising the profile of those articles
• Get all Top and High important articles, with some exceptions, to GA
• Try to promote mirror projects in other language Wikipedias, not all Europeans speak English! (Those of us who speak other languages could promote this in their native Wikis and we could create a basic set of WP:EU pages that are easily translatable for an easy start) Perhaps also a Project presence on Commons and WikiNews?

Any thoughts on these? - J Logan ^t: 19:19, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I think they are all good suggestions.

I wouldn't give the use of euros a high priority, and I can't, personally, work up much interest in the election details.

Personally, I would be more interested in improving the standard of the articles, less interested in the actual GA process.

My personal priority would be the law articles. I think the article Law of the European Union should be a lot longer. I also think there should be a more detailled (and impassionate) discussion of supremacy, direct effect, indirect effect, horizontal and vertical effect etc. I think that particular discussion would be too long for the Law of the European Union article and would not fit it any of the individual articles like Direct effect, but I can't think of a good title for such an article. I'm thinking of something more like the article European Union legislative procedure, which is positioned between Law of the European Union and the individual procedures. I also think we need (short) articles on more of the major court cases (ECJ and relevant national cases).I suppose all articles need reviewing to see how they are affected by the Reform Treaty. There might need to be some discussion of how to word things between signing and ratification.

Many of the MEP articles (mostly stub class and probably low importance) do not yet have a project tag. I was wondering if that could be done by a bot.

The importance of the Commissioners (the office) and the DGs might need revising (mostly my fault). --Boson (talk) 01:12, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with all the suggestions. May I propose that

• We organise all the Council presidencies

They should perhaps be integrated into the annual artices about the EU, so that we don't duplicate information. To properly line up with detailed text about the priorities of the respective presidencies would improve the project. It is really at the core of the political EU. And, we would get a reliable fair-use rationale for our precious presidency logos. A new EU presidency infobox template would also make it more coherent. - $\mathrm {S}$. $\mathrm {Solberg}$ $\mathrm {J}$. 01:12, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

To Boson: Of course not everything is something that interests everyone, so long as there is at least one person working on it! :). On GA process etc, I agree general improving the standard is needed but I'm mentioning it as standard bar really, although it doesn't matter if it is GA it is a useful measure of what we've managed to do.

You bring up a good point on updating due to the RT/TOL (its lets-invent-new-acronyms day!) and I suppose they would be dealt with as people come across them. On wording, I think that would just be the same as what everyone did with the Constitution. On MEP articles, well I wouldn't say it is a huge priority but sure, I'll take a look at the Commissioners, it is hard to get them on the right level I reckon.

SSJ: I was wondering about that a while back, at least something outlining their achievements, but I think we'd probably run out of data for most of them, they are only six months and very numerous. In the annual articles, we could just make sure we mention when the presidencies started or stopped, or have it in two six month sections?- J Logan ^t: 10:53, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

On the commons branch, I made a comment on the EU commons talk page to see if anyone there is interested.- J Logan ^t: 20:50, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Chairman by Seniority of the European Parliament

Hello there, now that we have an article on Louise Weiss, the EP's first chairman by seniority (1979–1983), could someone please create a list of MEP chair(wo)men by seniority, or a template ? Thanks, RCS (talk) 19:28, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

There is a stub section at Father of the House#European Union now where I've put the two I know about, her and the current guy. I'm trying to find the others.- J Logan ^t: 15:24, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Request for consensus

I've been doing some work on the European Parliamentary elections (see Final Results, Results by Timeline and Infoboxes for progress to date, although there is a shortage of "during" sources for the 84 election and "before" and "during" sources for the 89 elections) and it has become desirable to decide consistent colors for the Groups. I have started a discussion on Talk:Political groups of the European Parliament. If you want input on this subject, please go there. Regards, Anameofmyveryown (talk) 00:55, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

German speaker please

What is he on about? http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AEuropean_Commission&diff=179582285&oldid=163620641#Die_Verbrechen_der_Christdemokraten_in_Deutschland] – J Logan ^t: 17:00, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Everything and nothing!

The heading reads "The crimes of the Christian Democrats in Germany". The rest seems to have been cobbled together by copying random text from a variety of sources. Some seems to be about the EU budget, some is about unemployment benefit in Germany, etc. etc. It's something like the sort of stuff spammers fill their mails with to get past filters. Who knows? Perhaps it contains secret instructions for Al Qaeda operatives. --Boson (talk) 18:18, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, thought it would be something like that. If it is spam, it should be removed? I forget how WP policy is on this. I'll remove it, if I'm wrong please revert me.- J Logan ^t: 18:34, 22 December 2007 (UTC)