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User:Baldhur/German cities

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Just some thoughts about how to design an article dealing with a German city. Feel free to add your comments wherever you want.

General

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Objections against a template, rightly raised by Andy: It doesn't make much sense to adopt a template with an infobox for cities in only one country, then we'd better aim for a common city template used for all cities world-wide. The other administrative subdivisions are unique to one country, so some design differences between an article on a german district or on a province of Thailand don't strike as much as design difference between two cities. IMHO instead of the strict template like it is used on de: a guideline of topics which should be present in a good article on a city is what is needed - the german template gives that guideline only as a side-effect of the strict sectioning structure, every section present in the template means a good city article should have that section.

Conclusion: No infobox will be created for the city articles. Existing infoboxes (e.g. Schweinfurt) should be deleted and their informations integrated into the text.

Short info

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Brief information that could be included in the article introduction:

  • District and state: yes
  • Population: yes
  • Area: unsure; dispensable
  • geographical location: yes
  • location (e.g. on the bank of river X): yes
  • postal code, phone code: no (does not belong into an encyclopedia)
  • coat of arms: no (should be moved to another place in the article)
  • locator (map showing the location of the city): unsure; does exist in many articles, so it should probably be added to other articles as well

Sections

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Following the introduction there could be the following sections:

  • History: yes
  • Geography: unsure; there's not a lot to say in most cases
  • Sights, buildings: yes
  • Coat of arms: unsure; I would like to have it but there is still the open question of legal usage; in any case a description can be added
  • Politics: on city level obviously without interest; for large cities the mayors could be mentioned
  • Traffic (railway stations, airports, highways): unsure
  • Partnerships with other cities: yes
  • External links: yes (not only official website, but also websites of museums, buildings etc.)