Talk:Gdańsk

Skip to table of contents

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Gdańsk article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14: 3 months

Please stay calm and civil while commenting or presenting evidence, and do not make personal attacks. Be patient when approaching solutions to any issues. If consensus is not reached, other solutions exist to draw attention and ensure that more editors mediate or comment on the dispute.

Gdańsk was a Geography and places good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
November 30, 2022	Good article nominee	Not listed
March 24, 2023	Good article nominee	Not listed

Current status: Former good article nominee

Poland Top‑importance

	Poland portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Poland, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Poland on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PolandWikipedia:WikiProject PolandTemplate:WikiProject PolandPoland
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Hanseatic League (defunct)

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Hanseatic League, a project which is currently considered to be defunct.Hanseatic LeagueWikipedia:WikiProject Hanseatic LeagueTemplate:WikiProject Hanseatic LeagueHanseatic League

Cities

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Cities, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of cities, towns and various other settlements on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CitiesWikipedia:WikiProject CitiesTemplate:WikiProject CitiesWikiProject Cities

Middle Ages Mid‑importance

	Middle Ages portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Middle Ages, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the Middle Ages on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Middle AgesWikipedia:WikiProject Middle AgesTemplate:WikiProject Middle AgesMiddle Ages
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Former countries: Holy Roman Empire / Prussia

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Former countries, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of defunct states and territories (and their subdivisions). If you would like to participate, please join the project.Former countriesWikipedia:WikiProject Former countriesTemplate:WikiProject Former countriesformer country
	This article is supported by the Holy Roman Empire task force (assessed as Top-importance).
	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Prussia, a project which is currently considered to be inactive.

Germany Mid‑importance

	Germany portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Germany, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Germany on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.GermanyWikipedia:WikiProject GermanyTemplate:WikiProject GermanyGermany
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

This page is affected by the Gdańsk (Danzig) Vote. The following rules apply in the case of disputes:

For Gdańsk, use the name Danzig between 1308 and 1945
For Gdańsk, use the name Gdańsk before 1308 and after 1945
In biographies of clearly German persons, the name should be used in the form Danzig (Gdańsk) and later Danzig exclusively
In biographies of clearly Polish persons, the name should be used in the form Gdańsk (Danzig) and later Gdańsk exclusively.
For Gdansk and other locations that share a history between Germany and Poland, the first reference of one name in an article should also include a reference to other names, e.g. Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) or Gdańsk (Danzig). An English language reference that primarily uses this name should be provided on the talk page if a dispute arises.
Reverts to conform with community consensus are excluded from the three-revert rule (3RR). Only the place names can be reverted exempt from the 3RR according to the outcome of this vote, additional changes fall again under the 3RR. Please use descriptive edit summaries.
Persistent reverts against community consensus despite multiple warnings may be dealt with according to the rules in Wikipedia:Dealing with vandalism. In case of doubt, assume good faith and do not bite newcomers.

The detailed vote results and the vote itself can be found on Talk:Gdansk/Vote. This vote has ended; please do not vote anymore. Comments and discussions can be added to Talk:Gdansk/Vote/discussion anytime. This template {{Gdansk-Vote-Notice}} can be added on the talk page of affected articles if necessary.

Section sizes

Section size for Gdańsk (38 sections)
Section name	Byte count	Section total
(Top)	12,876	12,876
Names	11	5,728
Origin	1,532	1,532
History	2,729	2,729
Ceremonial names	1,456	1,456
History	58	60,921
Ancient history	1,806	1,806
Early Poland	3,023	3,023
Pomeranian Poland	3,468	3,468
Teutonic Knights	5,915	5,915
Kingdom of Poland	11,963	11,963
Prussia and Germany	5,346	5,346
Free City of Danzig and World War II	17,182	17,182
Post World War II (1945-1989)	7,457	7,457
Contemporary history (1990-present)	4,703	4,703
Geography	404	11,884
Climate	11,480	11,480
Economy	3,273	3,273
Main sights	141	14,475
Architecture	11,064	11,064
Museums	2,415	2,415
Entertainment	855	855
Transport	6,428	6,428
Sport	4,597	4,597
Politics and local government	3,188	3,785
Districts	597	597
Education and science	1,681	1,681
International relations	28	3,479
Consulates	689	689
Twin towns – sister cities	896	896
Former twin towns	893	893
Partnerships and cooperation	973	973
Demographics	8,912	8,912
People	49	49
See also	425	425
Notes	24	24
References	33	33
Sources	3,092	3,092
Total	141,662	141,662

Pronunciation

I don't know Polish, but I came here to figure out how to same the name of this city because Gd is a bit difficult to say with English consonants. I still have no idea, but I got to write about my experience for a moment.

Polish City?

What does that mean? "Gdańsk is a city in Poland" would sound much less nationalistic and reflect the fact that Gdańsk/Danzig has a much more diverse history than just being a Polish city (today).

The whole article seems to be infested with polish nationalism, especially the history section. Too bad.217.22.143.23 (talk) 11:47, 17 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Gdańsk IS a Polish city built on the ruins of Danzig. If all the buildings in a city are destroyed, culture scrubbed and people ethnically cleansed, then new cheap buildings built on top and new people from somewhere else with a different culture (far east Poland) are shipped in is it still the same city? The Impartial Truth (talk) 21:23, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

But the communists copied the old buildings architecture and rebuilt it, not like the USSR was interested in building newly designed gothic architecture Crainsaw (talk) 15:46, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I remember years ago there were multiple news stories about intentional editorialization of Wiki articles by a coordinated group of nationalists. It could be that many articles were never reviewed in this manner, or that reviews were struck down for some reason including possibly lingering elements of (Polish) nationalists preventing their edits from being reversed. 2A02:1210:1CA7:D700:3DDB:CA7D:A7C3:337C (talk) 00:10, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It was German only for a while, and Polish most of the time. It could have been german had they not been stupid and started ww2 along with a massive genocide. Quit being salty and get over it. Awhileo (talk) 06:47, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As the greater article reflects, it had been ethnically German not only for a while but for centuries. Even under periods of Polish territorial control. Hitler's pretext for invading Poland was its refusal to return Danzig, so any statements that the city could've been returned without the war is mere speculation. 213.112.245.97 (talk) 07:42, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Confusion about Gdansk/Danzig

Hi, I am confused about the Gdansk/Danzig different names and I think it might be useful to clarify this in the article. Specifically, is Danzig a translation of Gdansk or a wholly different name? Was the city officially renamed or do we just use a more accurate translation now?

It also might be useful to add a sentence in Names saying the name Danzig was used a lot by english speakers in WW2 and sources about that if anyone (like me) clicks over from ww2 articles. Safes007 (talk) 00:54, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Gdańsk is the original Polish name of the city, Danzig was derived from it, I will try to write something about it in the article Marcelus (talk) 08:54, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Gdańsk/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Mike Christie (talk · contribs) 22:25, 23 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'll review this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:25, 23 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

File:Johannes Canaparius (Jan Kanapariusz) Gyddanyzc Gdańsk Danzig.jpg says it's CC 3.0 but I don't see any evidence on the source website that the library states that those are the licensing terms. However, as an image of a two-dimensional work that is out of copyright in itself, it's public domain, so no change is needed.
File:Mapa miasta Danzig - lata 20. XX w.png says it's PD in Poland because the author has been dead for 70 years. The author is given as Edward Carstenn; if that's accurate we would need some evidence that he died before 1953. I don't think this is the correct licence.
File:Arrested defendants of the Polish Post Office in Gdansk.jpg is used under a claim of fair use. I can see that it's an important photograph, and a claim of fair use seems reasonable somewhere, but I don't think it's necessary to understand an article about Gdańsk. It would be better in an article about the history of the Polish Post Office, or about Gdańsk in World War II, or about the Nazi occupation of Poland, or probably in several others, but I don't think it can be justified here.

I'll look at the sources next. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:58, 23 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I started looking at the sourcing, and I've decided to fail the article on sourcing and, to a lesser extent, on being too long and too detailed. I see the previous review also failed the article for lack of sourcing, and that reviewer added some "citation needed" tags, but judging from how you've sourced this article I don't think the message about what sourcing is needed came across. The way to think about it is that everything in the article needs to have a source. For example, if you look at the "Economy" section, you have a source for the first sentence, and for half-a-dozen of the companies listed, but you don't have a source for the second or third sentence, or for the great majority of the companies. Everything needs a source. This is far too much work to be done during a GA review.

However, the article is also too long. Some examples of excessive detail, and places where more sources would be needed if you keep some of that detail:

We don't need a list of 60 companies in the city.
Details of earlier composition of the city council -- even in a "history of Gdańsk" article this would be too much detail; it belongs in an article about the history of the Gdańsk city council.
We don't need to list every school in the city, and some are unsourced anyway.
Similarly are all four scientific and regional organizations worth including? And again some are unsourced.
Much of the "Sports" section is unsourced.
There are too many images -- if you cut other material you'll have to cut some images anyway, but the point of images is not simply to introduce as many as possible, it's to inform the reader.
Much of the transport section is unsourced.
The history section could probably also be cut quite a bit. Have a look at WP:SUMMARY, which explains "summary style". Sub-articles can be used to hold material that is too detailed for a parent article. Here you have a good deal of information that would be good in "History of Gdańsk" but is excessive here.

I won't go through every section in this way, but the same problems are apparent throughout the article. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:51, 24 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Has the vote not become outdated?

Talk:Gdańsk/Vote

First of all, the decision was based on a simple counting of votes. I do not know what it was like in 2005, but we certainly do not make decisions in this way now. Moreover, the differences are negligible (e.g. for the period 1466 to 1793, it is 10 votes), which clearly indicates that there is no prevailing opinion.

What's more, the usus in relation to other cities with a similar history is quite different. Making Danzig and other Polish cities (Szczecin, Wrocław etc.) with a partly German history into special cases. Without any logically identifiable justification. For example, why is Prague not referred to as "Prag" in topics concerning the period when it was inhabited mostly by German-speaking people and was part of the German states? What about Maribor/Marburg? Why do we not use the name "Kijów" for Kyiv when it was part of Poland, or even when it was mostly Polish-speaking (mid-18th century)? What about Lviv? There are many other examples.

For me, as someone who started editing English Wikipedia long after 2005, this balance is incomprehensible. Above all in relation to cities like Gdańsk, Toruń, Elbląg, which from 1454 almost until the end of the 18th century were part of the Polish state. On what basis do we use the German names to them for this period?

It seems to me that this topic has taken on a new significance with regard to decisions made in the last few years on Ukrainian place names (most notably WP:KYIV), which clearly indicate that the preferred place name also in a historical context is the modern Ukrainian version "Kyiv". Only "unambiguously historical topics" allow for the Kiev version. Why not apply an analogous rule to Gdańsk and other Polish cities with a similar history? ( Incidentally, I should note that WP:KYIV does not provide for names containing the form "Kijów" even for the period when the city was part of Poland, e.g. Kiev Voivodeship. This is a separate topic, but shows the imbalance I am talking about).

I hope that my proposal will be met with an open-minded approach and a willingness to have an informative discussion. Marcelus (talk) 21:17, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Danzig in lead.

Danzig redirects here and is commonly used in English to refer to the city historically. Such a term should be in the lead cf. Myanmar, Thailand, and Swaziland. Traumnovelle (talk) 22:45, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Merangs you've refused to express an actual reason for opposing this nor have you engaged on the talk page about this. Traumnovelle (talk) 22:17, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Traumnovelle: - Please make sure to find a consensus before implementing the change, and allow me to respond. Commonly used today (apart from a historical context) is quite a POV statement, unless you're a native German speaker. Do you have any statistics to press the claim for the English-language Wikipedia? I do understand your point and I don't personally disagree, however, the former name "Danzig" is widely mentioned throughout the article where necessary (and chronologically correct), including in the top footnote. Placing it in very first sentence, in the lead section, and in bold would make the wrong statement as it is quite a contentious and delicate topic for many. Thus, I am undoing an edit that would have been undone by someone else. Merangs (talk) 22:21, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How is it any different that the examples I've provided? If a reader searches for Danzig and ends up here they should be able to easily find out why they've arrived here from the lead - they should not have to scroll to a section to find that out.

Britannica also includes the name Danzig at the top: [1]

This tertiary source says it is known as Danzig: [2]

This travel guide source states 'you may know it as Danzig': [3]

Having it in the footnote makes it unlikely to be seen by a reader and is not of much use to someone who types in Danzig and ends up here. Traumnovelle (talk) 22:36, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, when you first arrive on the page you are notified that "Danzig redirects here. For other uses, see Danzig (disambiguation) and Gdańsk (disambiguation)". Isn't this sufficient? Moreover, the Berkeley source is for historical context and also mentions 'Gedanum' – is that found anywhere in the first paragraph apart from the footnote, where the German name is also mentioned? The New Zealand Herald comprises information dug out of the internet at first best opportunity. I believe that all former names are already placed in the footnote and, for instance, I do not see how "Danzig" could be more important than the native Kashubian name for the place in contemporary times. Merangs (talk) 22:49, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No that isn't sufficient, that doesn't tell me why it redirects here.

>I do not see how "Danzig" could be more important than the native Kashubian name for the place in contemporary times.

Because Danzig is a name commonly seen in English where as I have never seen Gdunsk used in English and has never been used as the English name of the city.

Just look at the search data: [4] Danzig is searched for as much (or even more) than Gdansk in English speaking countries.

Why would this be different to Siam, Burma, Swaziland, Ceylon, etc.. All these articles use former English names in the lead to help aid the reader. Traumnovelle (talk) 23:00, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The stat you provided shows a major difference between the two names in popularity. I think other users need to voice their opinion as I am very neutral on this, though I emphasize that other numerous names are in the footnote and the lead shows the title of the article. I just anticipate that it might cause an edit war. @Piotrus: - what is your take on this?