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Talk:Paris/structure discussion

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Can we discuss the tweaks and qualms of each section under its own heading below? I hope this can sort discussion out nicely. Virgin territory, new tweaks, new title...

The tourism debate (concerning little on the Paris page) has been archived.

Introduction

Introduction and perhaps this whole page : Could we perhaps avoid specifically mentioning other countries and regions in making statsitical comparisons? This offends some and has been the instigator of constant "revert wars" even on this page. "20th largest" or something like that should do if the need be. In fact it would be nice to avoid all "greater than" language at all, unless it is indeed an uncontested and widely-known fact. Paris is indeed the world's most visited city. "Most romantic" is something else entirely...

I wondered if that would be controversial. I don't know why Paris is called "the most romantic city in the world". But here is a quick fact. Google results for ["most romantic city in the world"]: 45 000. Google results for ["most romantic city in the world" -paris]: <2000. ["most romantic city in the world" -venice]: <40800. In other words, 92% of web pages that say "most romantic city in the world" refer to Paris in some form, whereas less than 2% refer to Venice, for example. Whether it is the most romantic city is debatable. However it is undeniable (and verifiable!) that it is "dubbed"/"referred to"/"called" "the most romantic city in the world". Notice I put it in a paragraph on names for Paris as well - it's not a fact, it's an appellation. Whew. Stevage 12:44, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, best be dainty. Sometimes even proven "bigger or better" statements draw fire : ) ThePromenader 15:45, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

That aside I cleaned up and separated the "metropolitan area" population info and the GDP - they don't use the same statistical region so should not be confused, and I hope my version makes the concept of both more accessible to the uninitiated. ThePromenader 11:50, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I understand the "romantic" phrase as a widely-used reference, Stevage, but I do think it more than tiptoes into a "touristy" POV on Paris. Just thought I'd point that out. (added: what I mean is that it's a language that sells, not tells : )

PS: and "google frequency" should not be cited as a source! Point taken though.

ThePromenader 18:33, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay for the "romantic" but no need for the reference as it is - I don't think Google listings qualify as such : ) ThePromenader 17:08, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I asked the same question at Wikipedia talk:No original research and was assured that a Google search listing is sufficient. It's just a question of verifiability. Again, the question is not "Is Paris romantic?". The question is "Do people say that Paris is romantic?". Stevage 12:52, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Hey, it's okay and it's good that you asked. As you may have noticed a "cite your sources" drive has only recently begun here and things are still pretty ambiguous (and complicated!). I took the reference off because I thought it simply wasn't needed - everyone agrees I'm sure that Paris is romantic and I thought you had put the reference there for my attention only. The rest was a question of... okay, sure, taste : P ThePromenader 19:15, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

General

The "replacement page" is much, much too wordy. There is so much that could be said on Paris that it needs to be concise to the point of terseness. For example the "Paris and its GDP" seems to be a whole paragraph devoted to ways of defining the borders of Paris! Similarly in economy, the style is wrong. "We must look larger than to the city itself to speak of Paris' economy. If it can be considered that it is anything produced by the city, for the city, or depending on the city, its place on a map would spread well into the suburbs, and always has" This may be appropriate for a text book or original research, but it's wrong for Wikipedia. The equivalent here would be the short phrase "Paris and its surrounding suburbs" or even just "Greater Paris" or "Ile-de-France". There is just no justification for such wordiness, and precise definition of terms here. (Stevage)

When you look at New York City you can see what is missing here. That page gives you a real feel for New York, the culture, the vibe, the changes, the good and the bad etc. Why should the Paris page be reduced to mere stats and dry numbers. Why is Paris seen by Americans as such a "romantic" destination? Why do people talk about the "magic" of Paris? It may not be logical, but it bears some discussion...(Stevage)

Whew, you write almost as much as I do : ) - best sign your name though please, Stevage, it took a second to find who "you" were.

Sorry, bad habit of mine. Stevage 17:25, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Never mind "my" page, it is a result of built-up... whatever. All that basically counts on there are the titles. The order of things, the skeleton.

I see you completetly on the New York page. Another example is the Hong Kong page that Olivier cited earlier. Many details on my page and this one are a written result of a "POV standoff" and must go. It was mostly on a "how big is Paris" theme, a very difficult question to sort out in light of recent statistics that reflect Paris' reach of influence into its suburbs more than the actual physical spread of the city itself. I think it's summed up quite nicely now in the intro's last passages, but it took a few weeks to work through. ThePromenader 16:07, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

ThePromenader, I notice you removed my reference to the dominating position that Paris exerts over the rest over France. I don't mind you tweaking/improving etc, but is there a particular reason for removing the information entirely? It's one of the major reasons that Paris is Paris - because so much of France is centralised within it. Compared to other countries, to have 1/6th of the population of the country in the capital city is huge. The national French news on TF1 (as you are obviously aware) is very Paris-centric, and all the major art galleries etc are based in Paris. Some mention of this fact seems to be appropriate, to differentiate it from capitals like Canberra in Australia (a tiny town of civil servants), Washington DC (a decent sized town with political influence but little business), Berlin (the largest city, but less than twice as big as the second) etc.

I don't think we should be hamstrung by the fact that it's difficult to express some notions in terms of hard fact. If something's true, and lots of people have said that it's true, it can be included. It doesn't need to come down to hard facts and figures. Stevage 13:14, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have posted my doubts before removing that. It again has to do with the "greater than" tone - I do understand what you meant, and the government has been actively enforcing since decades a "decentralisation" program (to a point that the île-de-France région is actuallly losing industry), but perhaps could you have stated it in a less "dominant" way? My removing that right away was a gut reaction to earlier events so again sorry for that. And yes, I do totally agree that "Paris is particular" and this was one of my main misgivings with this article - its being lumped together as one with its suburbs. ThePromenader 16:28, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I have changed the rather ugly image of the Eiffel Tower to a Featured Image version. Also to try and get the layout to sit better I have put this image on the left, in the third paragraph and moved the infobox up to level with the top of the article. Anyone have any comments on this? Stevage 00:01, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Nice to see things a-moving : ) I do think things look a bit tight up there though. But perhaps this is because of the adjascent long boxes (City template and TOC). Did you see my message answer to yours? I've set up a place to "try things out" here - but as you like.

if you don't mid Stevage, I put the photo over to the right again - the long table of contents coincide badly with the infobox, "squeezing" the text and forcing everything down below both. At least this way the text can "wrap up" to a higher spot. We definitely should look for something nicer though. ThePromenader 11:50, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't mind. I would like if possible to avoid huge spaces of text in the text because of the (excessively long) infobox or table of contents. Stevage 12:39, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I have come across a strange article, Paris districts. It has a lot of information on a few districts - notably the two Seine islands and the left/right banks. Until I transferred some information to the islands, it actually had more information on all of these topics than the individual articles! I suggest we rip up the whole page, transfer it to Left Bank etc, then turn the page itself into a brief overview. The only trouble is that Left Bank currently services Barcelona too, so will need some sort of disambiguation page. I have left word there and at Right Bank suggesting we split them up. Incidentally, the right bank page has some weird random facts and links on it...any takers for cleaning up? Stevage 22:32, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

LOL - that page is a creation of mine from some time ago that I completely forgot about! I see that Olivier has since modified it so best not "rip it up" right away - others have connected to it since as well which is even more surprising. It has nothing to do with this article anyways, so why discuss it here? Just asking. ThePromenader 23:18, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I know people read this talk page :) By "rip it up", I meant, transfer its contents to other pages. I didn't mean throwing anything out.... Stevage 23:53, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Yikes. What I meant was is that I started it because I thought it fulfilled a purpose - Paris does indeed have districts known to all and frequently referenced but not indicated on any administrative map - but if you want to do anything that constitutes a clarification or improvement go ahead. ThePromenader 02:40, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I think it's potentially misleading to say: "Because of its financial, business, political, and tourism activities, Paris today is one of the world's major transportation hubs." Both the road and rail networks are specifically designed to route international travellers away from Paris. If there is a rail hub, nowadays it is Lille. For air travel, Amsterdam is challenging Heathrow's dominance as the European hub. The only area where Paris could claim to be a major European hub is air cargo. But Frankfurt alone handles more than the combined cargo of all Paris airports. I'd be inclined to drop this sentence unless someone can clarify what it's intended to convey. Adrian Robson 09:16, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

A glass is half empty or half full. Lille is not a major air hub. Frankfurt is not a major rail hub. London is of course not a major rail or road hub. Paris may be 2nd in all of these categories. I wonder where your information about air traffic come. According to the lists linked at the end of World's busiest airport, Paris is 2nd in Europe behind London (passengers) or Frankfurt (cargo), and Schiphol is 3rd. And these numbers do not include Orly and other Parisian airports. I also wonder how Lille can be a better hub than Paris because it only gives access to North-Western Europe (and most of the people probably take direct trains without stopping in Lille). Gare du Nord claims to be the 3rd train station in the world (but, unfortunately, the article gives no source).

Furthermore, Amsterdam and Lille may be important hubs, but most passengers don't stop there and go somewhere else. These cities cannot be compared to Paris as transportation destinations. Maybe that word needs to be clarified. Thbz 21:12, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmmmm - agreed that the word "hub" is not the best adapted for that phrase - not because Paris' isn't one, but because the word "hub" isn't connected with Paris' tourism, business...etc activities: it means that Paris a simple transfer point. Destination it is. ThePromenader 01:19, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Thbz, you've hit the nail on the head - that's what I found troubling about the sentence. Paris is not an international hub (you're right Promenader and you beat me to saying it) it's a destination. What I was trying to get at was that most people wouldn't choose to travel from Hamburg to New York via Paris, whereas I believe that Schiphol actively promotes transit flights from, say, minor UK airports to connect to international flights. This is what a hub means in the U.S. sense (eg Chicago, Atlanta). The concept of hub hasn't really existed in Europe except for cargo until quite recently. By contrast, Paris is definitely (and most inconveniently!) a domestic hub. If you want to travel by train from Brittany to Provence, you have to go via Paris. But the fact that you have to travel for 45 minutes from one main station to another within Paris to change trains underlines that Paris is not a hub in the U.S. airline sense but a destination. The system is designed for people to go to Paris and stay there, not change trains and go on somewhere else. Adrian Robson 12:58, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Interesting points. Yes, Paris is an international air destination, and a domestic rail hub. Particularly on TGV - I'm not sure there are any TGV lines which don't lead to Paris? Adrian's points would be well made in the article. Also I should point out I deleted any references to buses a while ago, these should be reinstated by someone :) Stevage 00:40, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

The source mentioned by user Thb above is wrong (lists linked at the end of World's busiest airport). These lists used preliminary results. I am correcting them now using final 2004 Airport Council International figures. Charles de Gaulle Airport is number 2 in Europe behind Heathrow in terms of passenger trafic, but number one both in terms of total cargo and total plane movements. Adding all Paris airports together, all Frankfurt airports together, and all London airports togeter, Paris airports are number two in terms of passenger traffic behind the London airports, but still number one in Europe in terms of cargo. In term of plane movements I don't know. Hardouin 15:19, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

This all helps towards clarifying the wording of the section I originally mentioned. As with rail, it would be interesting to see if it's also the case that there is a lot of domestic air cargo and mail. I had the feeling that on international freight Frankfurt used to be ahead of Paris, which was what I was trying to point to. The ACI [1] puts Frankfurt at number six globally but it rather looks as though ADP doesn't provide figures for Paris. I think France is geographically bigger than Germany so it seems likely that it has more domestic cargo. In any case, perhaps as you've pointed out Hardouin, this is more significant for the busiest airports article. Adrian Robson 22:28, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

The ACI figures you pointed to are just PRELIMINARY results for 2005. Usually Charles de Gaulle Airport does not provide preliminary results, so you can't make comparisons. You'll have to wait until July 2006 to get FINAL results for 2005. Also remember that freight in Paris arrives not just at Charles de Gaulle Airport, but also at Orly Airport, whereas in Frankfurt there is just one airport. Hardouin 01:16, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

About the hub thing, I think what was meant was air transportation. Don't forget that Charles de Gaulle Airport ambition is to become the largest air hub in Europe, and if I am not mistaken it is already the largest hub of continental Europe, ahead of Amsterdam and Frankfurt. Behind this ambition lies the merger of Air France-KLM. For an illustration of this, check the list of victims of the May 2004 collapse at CDG Airport ( [2]): there were two Chinese guys on their way from Beijing to Mexico City, one American-Lebanese doctor on her way back from Beiruth to NYC, and one Ukrainian girl on her way from Kiev to Miami. I think that sums up nicely the hub concept. Hardouin 01:16, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

To begin with, I cannot accurately describe the feeling one gets to see days of a group effort at improvement completely reversed on the pretext of two trifling errors. Even these were not errors per se and easily remediable: move or remove the Oppodium; precede "englobed Paris and its closest departments" with "roughly". If this was not enough, to then label a revert "Correcting errors (grammatical and factual), trying to improve style" but in reality reverting almost the text to a de facto precedent version (of one's own writing)... and the same over two sections... I don't know what to think. I don't know what to call this. It was certainly not done with the general aim of improving the article, nor in the name of making information clear and accessible for other users. Looking over today's "work" has been extremely revealing is all I can say.

I am going to revert to the last version by Stevage and pretend this never happened. I will all the same fix the "controvertial bits" as if a comment about them really was left on the talk page, and the improvements can go forward from there. Thanks to all who are contributing, and please let's continue undaunted. We're headed in the right direction.

ThePromenader 18:59, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Either you are totally paranoid, either you do it on purpose. I did not revert the text to a "de facto" precedent version. Checking the history of the page will easily show that. I corrected errors (such as for the prefecture of Paris, or such as calling Clovis a German, as if the concept of a German Nation already existed in 500 AD!), and these are not "triffling" errors. It's funny how all the errors that you make are always "triffling", but whenever someone else dares to edit your work it is always very "serious" and we should almost ask for your authorization before. You basically accuse me of article appropriation, but look at your attitude, you seem to be the one thinking the article is yours. The history section is a good example of this: first you rewrote the section entirely ( Revision as of 14:15, 14 December 2005), deleting everything that user Stevage had left after trimming the section. Then instead of "reverting" your edit, I only corrected the obvious errors (such as replaced "oppodium" with "oppidum"), and I also re-added the trimmed paragraphs from user Stevage that you had deleted. Even Stevage complained about your entire rewriting of the history section (read here). The history section as it stands now is of course too long (due to your lengthy explanations of Paris expansion in medieval times), and should be trimmed further, but should not be reverted to your exact original prose with disregard for the work of several Wikipedians over many months, as you have just done. As for the administration section, either we talk about the prefectures and we then need to be detailed to avoid misleading people, either we remove them altogether from the section. The administration section did not mention the prefectures originally, and it is user ThePromenader who added them a few days ago. Personally I think the section could be as well without mentioning the complicated prefecture system. Hardouin 22:51, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Good Lord. Of course you have appropriated this page; you yourself are the author of over two thirds of the very mess we're trying to fix. Now you "own" even more since you added a huge (and unneeded) swath of text to the Administration section that you have appropriated and protected in exactly the same way as all else you wrote. Now we have yet another section to dance around. Yes the history section did need a total rewrite; what was left over from the trimming was historically very cut and paste and consecrated much of its texts to events which only indirectly concerned the city of Paris - of course only someone knowledgable about this city's history would see that.

I really don't have time for this foolishness. This page is being held hostage against the threat of revert should any major changes take place, and we have not even begun to wade into the worst of the text yet (the area and demography sections namely). It sounds drastic but through all the waffling and weak arguments it come down to that, and I've had months enough here to see it. The only solution against total a total revert is "compromise" which basically comes down to moving or at most cutting down a body of text but leaving it in the form it was written by its authour. The only pre-edit dialogue Hardouin has ever engaged in comes down to a "leave it alone" message, and his post-edit dialogues (usually accompanied by reverts) are most often limited to telling people how "wrong" they are or why they "shouldn't have" made changes. Ceci n'est pas une critique mais un constat. And this isn't the only page.

Anything anyone submits here is open to editing, and the entire Wiki concept is based on the (somewhat hopeful IMHO) theory that all articles will improve with time: Someone will add a fact, another will add another and so on until someone will rearrange the facts into a more coherent form and later perhaps yet another will split up the page between several when it grows too long or contains information too specific. The only thing that will stand to time is the info itself, how it is presented, and where it can be found. Hardouin's behaviour is corrupting to this process because he introduces a central "who did what" theme that for him takes priority over all else.

The question anyone should ask themselves before submitting anything is "is it an improvement"? One knowledgable in a subject may want to add fact but lacks writings skills, but if the fact is helpful the answer would be yes because someone having writing skills can make corrections later. Should someone with writing skills want to make a change to the readablility of factual text the answer would still be yes as, should any errors be made, someone knowledgable will come along later to correct them. The only motivation any changes should have is making more information more accessible, and the info forwarded should be supportable by a strong argument. Yet this is in no way a mirror of what has been going on in this page for over a year now.

I don't need to do anything here. If I was to be accused of wanting "a page of my own" I have already contributed several, and one of them is much more important than this one will ever be. Anyhow nothing I should contibute will be an altar to anything "I know" - I give what I can how I can, and it is for the others to do with that what they can do best and if they can do better than I first did than so be it - I will gladly recognize this. On the other hand, to see a work stagnate in a muddled state of utter mediocrity for over a year because of reasons having nothing to do with "information for all", I find this difficult to swallow. My perseverence has been the launching pad for (and even ressurection of) several publications, yet with a single web page and its single guardian I seem to have met my match. Now, if you please, I'm late. ThePromenader 09:30, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

To be honest, I find it very difficult to work out who changed what to what when by looking through the diffs. Somehow we ended up treading on each others' toes. I would ask again that before anyone reverts anything other than vandalism, they should either warn the user, or at least leave a polite note on this talk page explaining why they're doing it. Similarly, before rewriting a whole section, to outline what they're doing and why. I understand that ThePromenader had a whole "work in progress" version of the article on his talk page...unfortunately that's not very useful as you never know when it's going to get copied, or exactly what state it's in. The end result is here we have a very wordy history section, and I'm in doubt as to exactly what its merits are over the previous version. "It needed to be remoulded" doesn't really satisfy me on that score. Sometimes old, cludgy sections do need to be rewritten from scratch...but I'm not sure that was the case here. Stevage 23:51, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I totally agree. The history section didn't need to be totally rewritten from scratch. Same goes for the introduction. Hardouin 00:07, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I understand why you would agree. Yet if someone reads something and thinks of a way that it could be said in a clearer way, he is more than welcome to make that change if it is indeed an improvement. I don't know why you bring up the introduction again - it contains 90% the information it had before, as did the history section - where's the problem if it reads in a more organised way? ThePromenader 17:12, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I think my objection is that we had a copy-edited, trimmed, fairly concise history of Paris. It gets replaced with something completely different that is neither copy-edited, trimmed or concise. So I think in order for such repetition of work to be justified, a more precisely stated reason than "thinking of a way that it could be said more clearly". It may be clearer to you, but so far I'm not seeing it. Stevage 23:13, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

My choice of words is not always the best. Let's try this visually. You take one logical group of events (raising open right hand, fingers together), you take a later logical suite of events (raising open left hand, fingers together) and you place them one after another (placing hands horizontally one in front of the other) to make a discernable chain of events that's easier to read and remember. Historically and consecutively speaking, the text as it was read like this (lacing fingers of both hands together). I de-laced the events, but I'm not very good as concision. So the text became bloated again. For sure I should have done that before you did your edits so again apologies for that. ThePromenader 00:10, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

History

This one's a real head-scratcher as the History of Paris page is already quite complete. Most of what's here has to go, but to where? ThePromenader 17:24, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

To the bit bucket. The result should be a shortish paragraph that summarises the most important events. For Paris they might include its founding, when it became the capital, the storming of the Bastille, possibly 1968, and bombing during WWII. Since I know nothing about history, these few events that I have at least heard of might be good candidates to keep :) Stevage 17:28, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Also, see the 'history' section of Melbourne, compared to the History of Melbourne page for a guide. Stevage 17:29, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I know a lot about this city's history but I wouldn't even mention many (if any) political events - more a demographical growth record with reasons that the "boom began" - Roman occupation (garrison town), short description of time spent as a (largely symbolic) Merovingian territorial capital (and feudal county capital), then the first Capetian reign "boom" (begun by making their county fief capital capital of all France) that continued through to the "second boom" brought by travel technology and the Universal Exposition era... Hmmm, once sentence. Maybe I could just cut n' paste that. : ) ThePromenader 18:01, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Son of History

I have reduced the side of this section by roughly half, but think it could stand to be trimmed still further. There is already a very complete article History of Paris, so all we really need here is a quick summary to the user to explain where Paris came from. This is a preliminary cut and could stand further tweaking - please feel free! I welcome your comments. Stevage 01:30, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I suppose I could see to this. The more political events should go as many of them are in fact the History of France and not the actual history of the City itself. I'm going to "keep it demographic" meaning to its periods and areas of growth and the reasons why things happened that way. I've other things to do first but when it shows I'd be much obliged if you could check up on it, Stevage. Cheers!

ADDED: Actually I don't think it merits a rewrite, just to be "lightened" of a few indirect political events. I may clarify the "early growth" part a bit though. ThePromenader 08:59, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good. I tried to remove all non-Paris specific details. It's probably worth keeping the moment when Paris became the capital, although from memory it lost and regained the title to Tours at a certain point, didn't it? But yeah, come to think of it, stuff about Paris mayors being treated as kings is less than critical. Stevage 10:46, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

There is no precise moment when Paris became the capital, and it would be wrong to give a date. Remember that the concept of capital as we know it today is modern. In old days, the kings moved from castle to castle, and from royal estate to royal estate. There was no capital in the modern sense. The only thing that we can say is that Paris became the seat of the royal administration in the 12th century (no precise year), alhtough the royal administration left Paris in the early 15th century (English occupation, Joan of Arc), and left again for Versailles between 1682-1715, 1722-1789, and again 1871-1879. Hardouin 12:07, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

No, you will not find a date in any textbook but it is generally accepted that Paris became "a" Capital of France with the Capetian dynasty (with their other court and castle in Orléans), and definitely became capital through political reorganisation and edict by Louis VI. In reality mentioning all this is not really neccessary as it but indirectly concerns the growth of the city itself; it is quite enough to say "Paris' rise into its role as a Capital began with the Capetian dynasty." (added - But you are right to point out this controvertial item and your advice is duly taken) ThePromenader 17:46, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I've been pottering away at the history section over morning coffee for almost a week now. I re-molded a lot of it around a "city growth" theme that basically explains how the city got to have the shape it has today. I left out everything politico-war involvement because quite frankly such events only affected in-in-directly (if not at all) the form the city has today, and anyhow the history that happened in Paris is quite nicely outlined in detail in the history of Paris page. Thus a reader can skim through to the later more "today" parts without being bogged down in detail. The present text only mentions in passing Paris' most major renovations still visible today, those of Haussmann, so I added that (yet in passing at just a slightly slower pace) in there too. It's still too long (about the same as it is now) but let me know what you think - you can find it on a sub-page here. ThePromenader 17:24, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

It seems that sub-pages are findable so I guess I screwed up by making one. (see also "transportation" below). I spent lunchtime going over the edits, info and links (narrowly avoiding linking one of the City's Counts to a Star Trek character : ) so all works well for now. I tried to stay as concise as possible but I'm sure there are still bits that can be cut or "de-worded". In all I re-arranged everthing into a "how the city became to be the city it is" theme understandable even to those with little knowledge of Paris or History. Hope it works for you all. ThePromenader 14:23, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Transportation

I also threw together a newly-subdivided transportation section from former edits - still needs work and some "porting" from this and other articles. Have a go at it here. ThePromenader 21:28, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

LOL! Last night somebody found the above and moved it to a page of its own and started correcting it. I'm inclined to leave it as it is... in any case it was much too elaborate for here I think. I was hoping that we'd get some "page structure" discussion in before deciding that, but what the hey. Perhaps we can organise the Paris page transportation into a simple "road, train and air" or something like that. ThePromenader 10:44, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

If you didn't want it to be "official", you should have put it in your personal namespace, i.e. with the following name: User:ThePromenader/Paris Transportation. Thbz 12:04, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you Thbz - I did exactly this before but got the feeling that I was "hogging" edit propositions I wanted to be open to all. Lesson learned : p ThePromenader 14:29, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't want to revert the change made without discussion. I think personally it looks better having the Eiffel Tower up the top, from an aesthetics point of view - the Eiffel Tower *is* Paris after all. And the Paris flag is just ugly, really. And I sort of think the infobox is less relevant for massive cities, where the info you're looking for is less likely to be "what department is Paris in" type stuff. But what do you all think? Stevage 02:52, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Go ahead and revert it, he even said we could in his comment : ) Left it all the same to "try it out for a while" but the picuture is definitely much better up there where it was. I can see what ian13 meant though: many other "City" pages have the infobox up there in this way. Best that it be as it was for now, then we can find a "nicer" solution when the page restructuring is done. ThePromenader 07:23, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I put the picture back up again - we'll find a better solution later. Thanks for the essay though ian13 ; ) ThePromenader 07:14, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Is Paris still a major player in world fashion? What can we say about it in the cultural section? Stevage 00:40, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Hey, you're giving us a lot of work : )

Fashion is a strange little oddbit because it should be part of "culture" but is today something more towards... an international trade show. Should be mentioned, but where? Good point. ThePromenader 10:20, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Would it be possible to make the recent editions less wordy? Concise as possible. Comparisons are out (unless it be in a hit-list) for the simple reason that very few readers know anything about the city Paris was being compared to; unknown compared to unknown = non sequitur. It would also be very nice to have an "île-de-France" photo instead of the "petite couronne" image in place now as a compliment to the arrondissement map - it will be confusing to someone not already familiar with the Paris region. Only references to administrative regions should be used here. In fact, in this article, I question the importance of explaining in such detail, in the Paris page, the administration of the île-de-France region: this subject has a page of its own. ThePromenader 10:15, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I also suggest we limit this section's info to "jurisdiction" instead of bleeding into "what's decided for where" - the latter can be much better explained in an article of its own, but as it is (and written) it is a bit too elaborate for this article destined for a general-interest user. I will try to simplify but more must be done I'm sure. ThePromenader 22:02, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with reducing wordiness, and chop whenever possible. ThePromenader, I'm not sure I like your recent rewrite of this section - it seems to have changed from being a "this is the state of Paris administration now" to being "here is the sequence of events over the last two centuries". In an encyclopaedia, generally the focus should be, where are we now. How is Paris divided up, how does it govern? For particularly strange situations, history is interesting, but generally anything beyond ", a relic of the 18th century commune system, " is probably un-necessary. Or could be moved to History of Paris. I'll have a closer look tomorrow, but at first glance, I'm not sure that this has improved this section...or maybe you could give us an idea of your thinking here, what the goal is? Stevage 01:36, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I to tell you the truth I don't like it much either. Hardouin's edit was correct in its information but, interlaced with Paris' other jurisdictional explanations, it was difficult to understand to the layman. My edit contains the same information "explained" chronologically, and yes it smacks more of history than Politics. All the same I managed through doing this to cut the Administration section down (namely by eliminating repetition) - I will try to "de-crypt" the present version, but I would much appreciate it if you could de-word it after. Needed for most all I write it seems : ) ThePromenader 08:18, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Done. Cut it down to a few sentences. I was getting bogged down in the details but a night's rest was enough to see through it all to the roots. I wish we could set up some sort of common work space where whe all could work on edits before publishing them. ThePromenader 09:32, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay, done again. I made a nice little plan (right), but in the section as it is there is no room for it. Stevage, since it is you who added the photos there, can you find a place for this if it's worthy? I don't want to touch your very recent modifications without asking first. ThePromenader 21:15, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Brilliant image. I've incorporated it now and think it works extremely well. There are now three maps, corresponding to the three levels of the section - commune, department, region. I'm really happy with the way that looks now and the structure we have. Don't be too afraid of "touching" things, just go easy on the wholesale rewriting of sections, yeah? :) Stevage 00:00, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

The map is indeed great, but there is one problem that I have already explained to ThePromenader: the so-called "areas of high-density inhabitation" seem haphzard, many built-up areas have been forgotten. To draw the limit of the built-up areas, we should use the official unité urbaine of Paris that was established by INSEE in 1999, and not make up our own limits, which is original research. Here below I put two maps showing the unité urbaine of Paris. I couldn't find better quality maps, so please let me know if you find some better ones. On these maps, the built-up area (unité urbaine) of Paris and suburbs is in red, whereas the rest of the metropolitan area (aire urbaine) is in blue. The "areas of high-density inhabitation" on ThePromenader's map should be a reproduction of the red areas in the maps below. I already tried to explain this to ThePromenader a few weeks ago, but my suggestions were flatly rejected. Hardouin 01:06, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I will "correct" the plan today, but this is an exercise rather futile for the simple reason that this is a map 250px wide. This little factoid makes the above "accuracy" arguments seem quite silly - I think the real intent there is to have the "spots" removed altogether. No need to insinuate that I am "making up" data either. GDP be damned, roughly half the Île-de-France region is farmland. I don't see why we should hide this. ThePromenader 12:43, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Roughly 70% of the United States is farmland. That doesn't make the United States a rural country! Hardouin 14:00, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

What exactly are you trying to say? Do you really think that comparison can apply here - what are you trying to insinuate by this vague argument? All I would like you to do is allow us to show Paris for what it is. I severely question your motives for wanting to modify that plan; your explanations to Stevage were overly-elaborate and unsound. I don't appreciate your accusations of POV and "intent to mislead" either. This is all indeed very "bad faith" and I would really like to know what your real intentions are. ThePromenader 21:35, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you Stevage. Hardouin, the image contains no precise information of any title outside of the departemental limits. I did not "flatly refuse" anything, I just wouldn't blindly follow "work orders" without knowing exactly what I was to represent. I'm sorry I didn't modify it to your liking, but if you would like me to, you could ask me - for example. That way you won't have to explain to other people how to do it. ThePromenader 18:39, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

To be honest I didn't see the built up bits. If they're original research, why not just remove them? They're not really crucial to an administration section, which is basically just about borders and names. Perhaps one of the other maps you (Hardouin) put would be relevant to the demographics section? Stevage 01:47, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

File:AUParis1.jpg File:AUParis2.jpg

Actually the administration section looks quite good although long - it's all about setting a level of "how deep we get into it." The "petite couronne" photo is a bit confusing at first glance as its place in the text (and reality) is minimal. Forget the accusation of "original research" (vague as it is) - those "built-up areas" are purely representative and taken from a 2003 rail map. Let's not split hairs. ThePromenader 11:53, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Funny that you consider it long, I was going to suggest that logically it needs another paragraph: Paris as the capital of France. I love the elegance of it: Paris as a commune, Paris as department, Paris as a prefecture, Paris as a national capital, slowly broadening the scope. I don't know what would need to be said in this last section other than that the parliament is there, the Elysee palace etc. But since I don't think those two facts are mentioned, that's probably an indication it deserves to be there? Stevage 23:16, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes I shouldn't fall into the trap of "it was better before". That suite is pleasing though, isn't it? I wish we could apply that "small to big" (or "start to end") order of explanation to other parts of the page, it would make things much easier to understand for everyone. ThePromenader 00:19, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi ThePromenader, can you let us in on what you're trying to achieve with rewriting the history section? I had put a bit of work into trimming down the previous version to the bare essentials, and it looks like I may have to do it again...so I'd just like to know what the substantial improvements are here. I notice wordiness is back:

• The Seine river wes a formidable barrier to the region’s first travellers, and the easiest means of crossing it was where it was at its narrowest: to each side of its largest island. This crossing eventually became a beaten path, and later river traffic would make the Parisian basin into a much-travelled crossroads. The island was settled from around 250 BC with the “oppodium” of the Celtic “ Parisii”; these people, known as boatmen and traders, used their island location to control commerce all along the river even from their settlements' early years."

Is it not sufficient to write: "Paris was first settled by the Celtic Parisii people, on the Ile de la cité, which was a convenient crossing point."? Let's keep it tight, yeah? Stevage 01:41, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Stevage, it is exactly because of the "trimming down" that I rewrote the section: Historically speaking it was very cut-and-paste! Sorry for all your work. I had put it to a sub-page to this one to rewrite a coherent join between everything (didn't you see it? See above), but the page, visible to all I guess, got nominated for "speedy elimination". I put it here as it was, and it has yet to be "de-greased". You are completely right in what you say, and by all means do what you will with it. Sorry that you have the same job twice, but with this new context I hope it will be really tight but in retaining some historical sense. : ) ThePromenader 08:05, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmm. The history section is exactly where it was a month ago - far too long and wordy. Could we please set a definitive size limit, and just stick to it? There is a whole History of Paris article for little details like whether archeologists dispute the exact locations of the beginnings of Paris etc. This is just a quick summary. It's frustrating to trim it down to almost the right size (say, 4 paragraphs), only to see it balloon back out due to supposed "inaccuracies". Stevage 15:28, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Normally I don't have time for this. The latest change, on the pretense of an "innaccuracy" (that no doubt would have been chopped as a needless detail anyway), in much the same spirit as for the administration section, is a total revert that ignores the purpose of even having rewritten the section. I will deal with this later today. ThePromenader 15:38, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I have killed this section. It's just a poor way to group this material. If the info is relevant to Paris, it should appear in relevant sections, otherwise it should not be there at all. Grouping everything that's outside the borders of Paris is not very helpful to the reader. Stevage 00:19, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

• Business district
  • La Défense - major office, cinema and shopping complex, west of Paris.
  • Grande Arche de la Défense - built in line with the Louvre, place de la Concorde and Arc de Triomphe.

• Chateaux and churches
  • Palace of Versailles - the former royal palace of Louis XIV and later kings, in the town of Versailles to the southeast of Paris.
  • Vaux-le-Vicomte, near Melun, a smaller palace on which Versailles was modelled.
  • Saint Denis Basilica - ancient Gothic Cathedral and burial site for many French monarchs, located north of the city.

• Civil Constructions
  • Arcueil Aqueduct - built in the 17th century and raised in 1874, it channels water from sources 156km to the south of Paris to the Montsouris reservoirs.

• Recreation parks and areas
  • Parc Astérix
  • Disneyland Resort Paris

Then insert it in the relevant sections, but do not delete it altogether please. Hardouin 01:44, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I primarily it moved here to avoid other people contributing to it, as has happened previously. Let's see, LA Defense and Grande Arche are already referred to. We don't have much on churches, but should create a section and move those there, with a note that they're in the suburbs. How close is the Arceuil Aqueduct to Paris? Is it important? Parc Asterix and Disneyland could rate a brief mention under tourism, but they're already in the top 10 list anyway. Stevage 02:57, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

How about getting back to working on the overall structure the page should have? This way we would have a designated place to move things should we feel the need to move them. Perhaps we could start a new talk page for that. ThePromenader 11:00, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

The Arcueil Aqueduct is in the Petite couronne, about 2 miles from the boundary of the city of Paris. Hardouin 13:20, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Let's work on this again, and ignore the history section's history. Reading it now, I see there is a major focus on population expansion and walls. Unfortunately, stating every time that the city grew a bit, or that the walls were moved/rebuilt becomes very wordy and not particularly relevant. Could we not simply say "over 800 years, the continous growth of the population led to new sets of walls being built no less than six times" or whatever? We need to get this section down. Stevage 00:42, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

ThePromenader added the wall thing. You may want to discuss this with him. About the walls, if I'm counting well, there were seven walls (1- Lower Roman Empire around the Île de la Cité, 2- 11th century around right bank only, 3- Philip Augustus around both banks, 4- Charles V around right bank only, 5- Louis XIII around a small part of the right bank only, 6- 1784 around both banks, for tax purposes, and 7- 1840s around both banks). There was also a 8th line of defense, built in the petite couronne in the middle of the 19th century, beyond the city limits, but this was not strictly speaking a wall, but a series of forts built above hills surrounding Paris on all sides (such as Mont Valérien, fort d'Issy, etc.). Hardouin 01:39, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

By the way, in the debate about creating a Greater Paris, architect Roland Castro is proposing to annex the petite couronne to the city of Paris and to set the new limits of the city on the line of the forts surrounding Paris. As you can see, the wall mentality is still alive in France. Lol. Hardouin 01:42, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

That's the thing with Paris' history - there's over 2000 years of it. I've done my best to "keep it demographic" and avoid centering attention on events that do not concern the growth of Paris - the history in Paris is not necessarily the history of Paris. It's true what I see today is a long dry read (and I also see that a few non sequiturs have magically reappeared) but it can stand much further cutting for sure. I can look to it later today. ThePromenader 10:00, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Why do we want to "keep it demographic"? Any significant events that took place in Paris are relevant. The view "how did Paris expand and grow to become the shape it is now" is a fairly narrow one. Events such as wars, treaties being signed, immigration, significant laws etc are all relevant to a "History of Paris". Really, this section should not be so complicated - it should amount to simply taking the most significant highlights from the History of Paris article. Stevage 13:59, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

What I meant by "keep it demographic" was "keep it to the events that made the city what it is today" and leave the rest for the more detailed History of Paris page. As far as I'm concerned all the "significant highlights" are already in the article plus a few "extras". I see what you're getting at, but we're talking about a complete change of tone. I'll have a look again at the "old" version to see what you liked there. ThePromenader 19:46, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I see now that some parts of the history article are not only overly long, they are just plain silly. We do not speak in an article of "historians rejecting POV's of other historians" just to spite the effaced writ of other contributors. Can we get around to making some improvements please? ThePromenader 20:24, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Excuse me, now that I look I see that almost every change I made last night has been reverted. With no explanation. Once again. I was just getting calmed down... ThePromenader 10:43, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I do like that you've split it up between sub-headings. Perhaps that would be a good base on which to "brief things up" a bit. Later today. ThePromenader 08:10, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually I won't be doing anything here today - It would be best that I be busy elsewhere to better get a grip again. Cheers. ThePromenader 20:48, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

This article speaks of Paris like no other publication in existence. The "aire urbaine" statistic (explained below), has been erronously translated and applied to this article without explanation, making Paris look as a huge and sprawling metropolis comparable to North American "metropolitan area" counterparts. The use of this latter term through all points of the article is not only inaccurate but factually (no references) impossible. Below are the recurrant article misconceptions singled out and explained one by one.

aire urbaine != metropolitan area

The aire urbaine is a statistical tool unique to France. It measures commuting between and around a central "pole" area, in this case Paris, and the land surounding. Its inclusion criteria is very indirect as it includes communes (like counties) "that have at least 40% of its resident employed population has a job in the pole, or in a commune drawn (in the same way) by the same." [3] The result is a vast statistical area including land 45% farmland.

The metropolitan area definition and inclusion criteria is so varied from country to country that a general idea of "what it is" is vague at best - this is duly noted duly in the introduction to the metropolitan area Wiki page - and this impeaches the credibility and accuracy of any comparisons with the metropolitan area of any other countries. All the same, comparison is even quite elaborate here, and has even resulted in a "who's the biggest" revert war with the London article. There is little call to use this term in this article in the first place (see below), but if it is needed, because of its uniqueness, there is no reason why the term "aire urbaine" cannot be used, explained briefly and linked to its corresponding page.

aire urbaine != Île-de-France

The economy section expounds repeatedly "Paris metropolitan area GDP", but no such thing exists. All referencable publications in existence use the Île-de-France region as a limit for speaking of Paris' economy, so there is no reason why this article should not too. What's more, the GDP figures cited by the very institute that created the aire urbaine take their figures from the Île-de-France as seen here. Even in spite of an absence of support for a "metropolitan area GDP" theory, its author indicates only that the figures are "not available".

Justification for the above has been attempted by saying that the aire urbaine and Île-de-France are "almost the same". This is an "apples to pears" argument, as the first term describes an analytical statistical limit and the second an administrative region. The fact that they are similar is only coincidence, or, as their origin an purpose is completely different, should be accepted as such.

aire urbaine != Greater Paris

Every web site in existence using the term "Greater Paris" speaks of and refers to the Île-de-France [4]. The same for every government, industry and association, even the one this page's authour insists on citing in English and French. Still no mention of aire urbaine or metropolitan area, only " Paris region" and Île-de-France.

aire urbaine != Paris

There is no citable reference in existence that says Paris is as large as its aire urbaine. Not even a web page. Only here. This must be embarassing for Wiki.

The above indicates real and concrete factual errors and imposition of POV throughout several sections of the article, so I trust that the tag I have placed will remain in place until this is answed to correctly and sorted out. The author of the contested misconceptions has already tried removing it once, so now that this is posted I trust this will not happen again.

THEPROMENADER 10:00, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

added "greater Paris" sub-section. THEPROMENADER 23:00, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I don't see a reason to panic here. Some terms have been slightly loosely. Some statistics which applied to one definition of Paris have been misused to apply to a different one. And I'm not seeing what "mother of all POVs" could possibly be imputed with such a dry topic as stastical divisions. You want "mother of all POVs"? Go look at climate change or holocaust or something. A little less inflammatory language, please.

Okay, removing "mother of all". THEPROMENADER 01:38, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

May I suggest we simply define "metropolitan area" to be Ile de France and go from there? And that we avoid using "aire urbaine" (if, as you say, it doesn't exist outside of france), unless absolutely necessary? Stevage 00:03, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I think using "aire urbaine" or "commuter belt" would be wiser. Using metropolitan area linked to such will link to an article whose introduction tells how ambiguous this term is. The metropolitan area is not the île-de-France. THEPROMENADER 01:38, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

1. Introduction.
   The city of Paris proper has 2.1 million inhabitants [1], but its centre of influence extends to cover a "Greater Paris" metropolitan area that has a population of about 11.1 million [2]
   - This is an untrue association. See aire urbaine != Greater Paris -

If it's untrue, please fix it. What *is* the population of the metropolitan area? I tried to google for it and came up with a figure of roughly 10 million. Fix it. Don't scream at people. Stevage 00:03, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I would love to fix it. Scream at people? No upper-case here - Separating text from italicised other. I don't think you read the above - "Greater Paris" is the île-de-France, nothing else. THEPROMENADER 01:38, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

- See Aire urbaine != metropolitan area. I stress that the latter is not wrong per se, but it is inaccurate, contested, extremely doubtful, extremely speculative, and has no place in a website whose role is to re-publish information. I would like to know the source of this claim as none are cited. Present in the introduction, it only serves to reinforce its authour's "metropolitan area" POV.

Quite frankly, this looks more like disagreement over which term to use, rather than some insidious POV. It seems to me that all definitions of metropolitan areas are somewhat vague. Should we not just say "amongst the largest 25 urban areas in the world"? Stevage 00:03, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I think you mean largest 25 metropolitan areas. I would agree but I don't see the point - and I did sress that this wasn't "wrong," just vague and uneccessary. THEPROMENADER 01:38, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

1. People.
   Inhabitants of the whole Paris metropolitan area are known officially as Franciliens, i.e., from Île-de-France.
   - See aire urbaine != Île-de-France. Again a surrepticious introduction of POV. "Francilens" is from "Île-de-France" and could be simply stated as such.
   

This paragraph is clearly using the definition "metropolitan area = Ile de France". You are presuming that metropolitan area = aire urbaine. That's where the disagreement is coming from. Stevage 00:03, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

That's not at all where the dispute is coming from. The metropolitan area (aire urbaine) is not the île-de-France. "Francilien" has described "someone from the Île-de-France" even before the concept of the aire urbaine existed. So there is no call at all for the term "metropolitan area". This what one could call "slipping one in". THEPROMENADER 01:38, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

1. Demographics.
   As a matter of fact, as of February 2004 estimates, the population of the city reached 2,142,800 inhabitants, increasing for the first time since 1954. As for the metropolitan area, it reached approximately 11.5 million inhabitants in 2004, growing twice as fast in the 2000s as it did in the 1990s. The metropolitan area of Paris has been in continuous expansion since the end of the French Wars of Religion at the end of the 16th century (with only brief setbacks during the French Revolution and World War II).
   
   As can be seen from the figures, only 18.5% of the inhabitants of the metropolitan area of Paris live inside the city of Paris. Visitors to Paris, who mostly stay within the city, are rarely aware that 81.5% of "Parisians" actually live outside of the city itself, in its sprawling suburbs. A majority of Parisians also work outside of the city proper: at the 1999 census, there were 5,089,179 jobs in the metropolitan area of Paris, of which 67.5% were located outside the city. These peculiar facts are due to the conservativeness of French administrative limits (see Geography section above).
   - This one shows this article's imposed theme to a tee.

It would helpful if you would spell out what you think the "imposed theme" is. This is getting frustrating. You're angry at something, but I can't see what. Stevage 00:03, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

The "imposed theme" is ""Paris" is a huge thriving metropolis, is more important to France than the Île-de-France region, and is comparable to the world's largest metropolises." THEPROMENADER 01:38, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

That is why you put the disputed flag on the article? I'm speechless. However I'm grateful to you for at last summarising your objection. Now can you please restate that same sentence, but in a way that expresses *your* point of view? Forgive me for not seeing what is wrong with that statement...yet. Stevage 02:23, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Hehem. I should have stressed that the "bigger than the Île-de-France" was the central misgiving. Of course Paris is a metropolis comparable with those of other countries - but only to the limits of its agglomeration. Do you really want to include towns separated from the city by vast expanses of rural land? May I remind you (sorry again) that the Île-de-France is 45% farmland. Should this be presented in the "great metroplolis of Paris"? THEPROMENADER 09:18, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

- Not a whisper of the city of Paris itself and its differences with its "aggomération" suburbs, just all lumped together as a whole as "metropolitan Paris". And again comparing the incomparable (See Aire urbaine != metropolitan area) The last phrase, using only "Paris", just adds confusion, but the reader will most probably assume we speak of the same area.

If you think it's imprecise, fix it. I don't know what the figures refer to, but if they refer to Ile de France, then obviously you can't just replace it with some other definition of Paris. Stevage 00:03, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Just again a general flounting of the metropolitan area being the center of all and nothing else. Aire urbaine is indeed the term to use here in the imposed context but there is no metion of the city itself. Comparing this area with other cities... it gives ambiguity the importance of fact. This could be written more simply. THEPROMENADER 01:38, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

1. Economy. - almost the entire Area section is in flagrant error and full of POV. See aire urbaine != Île-de-France. Again the ficticious "Paris metropolitan area GDP" - no such thing has ever existed in any book, nor in any statistic. There exists only the Île-de-France statistics for anything GDP as even the reference shows quite clearly. All encyclopedias, governmental agencies and staticians speak of the Île-de-France when speaking of "Paris' economy". The " aire urbaine" statistic shows only where people are working and what jobs they do; it has nothing to do with GDP, or product at all, so can't be cited as such. The authour, instead of falling back to the correct Île-de-France district for giving correct statistical info as no "metropolitan area" GDP numbers exist, insists on stating here and in his Paris Economy page that Paris' metropolitan area GDP numbers are simply "not available".
2. Administration.
   There are currently plans to create a metropolitan structure that would cover the city of Paris and some of its suburbs in order to increase administrative efficiency. The current socialist municipality of Paris is pushing forward the idea of a loose "metropolitan conference" (conférence métropolitaine), while some in the right wing opposition propose the creation of a more integrated Grand Paris (i.e. "Greater Paris").
   - "political propositions" are not "plans" until they are voted. This is pure crystal ball speculation. Yet perhaps one day the authour's POV will one day become reality. Unfortunately, today, it is not.

War plans are war plans regardless of whether a war ever happens. But by all means change the word 'plans' to 'proposals' rather than debating it here. Stevage 00:03, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Partly the point - Wiki is a place for fact, not debate. There are tons of proposals in the works. IMHO this is still "crystal balling". THEPROMENADER 01:51, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Enough for now. Short conclusion tommorrow. Long day's work and I'm beat. THEPROMENADER 23:00, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

So yeah. What is this really all about? I'm running out of patience here. Every time I visit this page there is yet another blow up between you two. Personally I don't see a crisis here. If some of the terms have been misapplied, they can be fixed. If statistics are in fact wrong, well, it wouldn't be the first time that Wikipedia has been in error. Could you perhaps come up with a simple, concrete, concise proposal to "fix" this article, and write it up here? Hint: It doesn't have the word "rewrite" anywhere in it. Stevage 00:03, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I have already run out of patience. I did do a correct, neutral and factually correct correction (I rewrote nothing - find it in the history) but Hardouin reverted at least five times without even changing a word of his writ, engaging a real discussion (in ignoring arguments) and providing verifiable citable sources. I then took the last step and called for mediation.

In the meantime if you would like to do the research you'll get a good idea of what's wrong. On this note, your input actually is of little help to this as you have not taken the time beforehand to find and verify the correct and most commonly used terms and the veracity of what's written, and this creates a fog that of course will be taken advantage of. It comes down to this: you will not find any other article in existence speaking of Paris as this one does. This is wrong for Wiki for many reasons above POV. It's the facts for me and nothing else. Sorry to have dragged you into this, but it must end. THEPROMENADER 00:46, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually I was going to conclude with a description of the "imposed theme" but I have spent all the time I can affort in the above. It comes down to this - everything here must be NPOV, meaning verifiable fact. Everything listed above is not for various (indicated) reasons, but most of all simply because it is far from common usage to refer to Paris as its "metropolitan area" - common usage is "Paris" or "Paris region". The former is a city, the latter is the île-de-France. This is just where the irrelevency starts. This is not a question of "making compromises to better get along", this about fact. Again I'm sorry that I must draw the line, but I have had enough. All of the above must be referenced or corrected to "common usage" terms or remain disputed. There is no compromise for fact. THEPROMENADER 01:38, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I really wish you could be more clear. What POV are you imputing? You say there is no article that speaks of Paris "as this one does". What in particular? We don't work on the basis of some "underlying theme" or some "overall" problem - we work on specific paragraphs that have specific problems that can be fixed. It's not Hardouin's article, and it's not yours either. It's just what it is, and it belongs to no one. For what it's worth, NPOV does not mean "verifiable fact" - it simply means, neutral. Eg, the statement "I am wearing jeans" is an unverifiable fact but it is not NPOV. You should be very wary of accusing people of making POV statements as it gets their nose out of joint.

I don't really want to get into a discussion about common usage, but it seems to me that "metropolitan area" and "Greater Paris" are easily understood terms and sound normal. "Paris region" doesn't sound English. "Aire urbaine" I have never heard of outside the context of this article - and I wager our readers haven't either. I strongly recommend we use common terms, but if we don't, we should at least have a quick note up the top - then we can use whatever terms we like. Stevage 02:17, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree about providing clear explanation for terms used. If too long for insertion in the article it could always be a footnote. THEPROMENADER 09:22, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Look, this is simple. If no publication in existence uses these terms to speak of Paris, where does the idea of writing them come? Directly from the writer's head. This is both original research and against WP:POV. Also, you'll find Wikipedia:NPOV_dispute enligtening, especially this passage. this is also very informative.

Please Let me remind you that our role here is to re-publish existing fact. I won't even get to the writer's motivations for his choice of terms, but you've hit it on the head with "metropolitan area sounds normal" - even today, do you know what an "aire urbaine" is? The idea "metropolitan area" gives you, English-speaker, is not it.

My apologies but this is a discussion about common usage - citable fact using common usage terms. Again I suggest that you read up on this before suggesting what should or should not be used as a term - and we haven't even gotten to the "where and how" of it yet. My actions in no way suggest this is "my" article; I don't care at all who makes changes, I care just that this article's misconceptions be corrected. Hardouin knows very well his own misconceptions and the unprovability of his claims, yet he wil not make any changes himself and impedes those of any other contributor. So I must draw attention to the error here by other means. I am damn sure of both the factual innacuracy and "Paris == its aire urbaine" POV shared by almost no other, so please, by all means, verify this. Start with the encyclopedia Britannica and the Encyclopedie Universalis. Please - If you do not cut down to the facts in all this, you won't understand much of what I'm "getting at" and you'll just be providing more occasions for us to be spun in circles. THEPROMENADER 09:02, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

PS: And please read the top (of this section) " *** != *** " part again - I outlined this article's terms and ambiguities quite clearly there and provided links and references. Thanks and cheers. THEPROMENADER 09:51, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

This page is improving: Its structure is being cleaned up, redundant parts removed, all around a central "modern Paris" theme set into a language and context accessible to a wide variety of readers from all cultures.

The job is major so perhaps it would be a good idea to use talk sub-pages for major edits, that way we can keep this talk page clean and not worry about over-editing the original Paris page. To avoid all "revert" conflict I would like to suggest for any major changes, starting a topic titled with the topic needing editing: this way all proposed improvement ideas will be open to scrutiny and dialog. The same if we have any qualms with something recently changed or added: this way we can maintain dialog in eliminating any excuse for unruly reverting.

In light of the above, a revert of any previously discussed improvements without any prior warning or show of interest in the editing will be inacceptable. I ask all concerned to please allow this page to improve.

Cordially,

ThePromenader 02:16, 28 November 2005 (UTC) (aka "Josefu")
ThePromenader 17:11, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I'm a bit more of a fan of "change it, then see if people can see problems with it, let them improve it again". Reverting any major good-faith change is pretty mean. Discussing every change *before* implementing it is possibly a bit too bureaucratic for this task? Stevage 17:25, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree completely. Actually the "This is what I'm doing!" warning would serve more to avoid conflicting (voir simultaneous) edits. ThePromenader 22:23, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Can we discuss the tweaks and qualms of each section under its own heading below? I hope this can sort discussion out nicely. Virgin territory, new tweaks, new title...

Area

I cleaned this one up a bit this morning, but I'm having problems with its second and third paragraphs - the latter is frankly incomprehensible. Do we really need to go to such comparitive lengths? Yet remove this and there's almost nothing left to the section. There's the "understandibility factor" as well. Plus I didn't find the "square area" statistics so couldn't source them - I will look later but if someone in the meantime...

I'd in fact re-title this to something like "Terrain" or "Geological Lay" so that, in addition to the city's actual spread, there could be a description of some of the city's geological features (rivers, islands, hills).

ThePromenader 09:49, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Land area and geology are two distinct things. Add a geology section if you wish, although some might consider it too detailed information for the article. Hardouin 12:35, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Hardouin, your changes to my changes are fine but perhaps indicating Paris as a "commune" here is making unnecessary complications. Anyhow this is more or less explained further down in "Administration" so best add detail when timely. As for "too detailed", what of all the inaccessible comparisons? Also I think "some" would think it quite natural even to explain the lay of Paris in the same breath as its shape, let alone under the same heading. ThePromenader 15:09, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

If there is a geological/topographical section, can I suggest it be at the end of the article? It's a bit odd that the altitudes of the various hills is right up the top, when this information is valuable to almost no one. Otherwise, make a Paris topography article and get rid of it all together. Stevage 13:18, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I do see the sense of putting a topography part up top - it allows us to imagine where the city is and its size, and how it occupies its land. It gives a reader a "zooming in" feeling as we move from its place in the earth to its land (river, island etc) and how much of this it covers: this gives a reader a base upon which to place all the detail he will find further into the article. Actually I'd even spend a passage in a bird's eye visual description of the city and its most visible landmarks in all this (Eiffel tower by river shore in western Left bank, Arc de Triomphe visible across the river at the western end of a west-east line that is the Champs-Elysées): This would not only be factually rich for a reader, it could be interesting. I think this would only take a passage or two to do as it would mention only the major landmarks. This could even be a summary combination for geographical location, altitude and area, so the more "exact" information could have its own page... what do you think? ThePromenader 19:49, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I've given this a bit of thought over the past few days (while taking clients up, down and between all parts of Paris) and am thinking that there should be two parts to this - A descriptive "area" section (visual "lay of the land") followed by a - I am very taken with this suggestion - "description" section that would describe where the major landmarks (parks and monuments) lie in the above - and I had even the "inkling" idea of, as perhaps a conclusion, describing what parts of the city are animated by day and by night. This section could have a "see districts" link under it... ThePromenader 14:07, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

I understand that some people are having strong feelings about how this article page should look like. Without going into the details, here is my feedback: the Paris article is way too long and a substantial part of the information contained in this article should be moved to sub-articles.

The rationale is quite simple: think about the reader. Who is the typical reader of such an article? Probably 2 main types: 1- someone browsing Wikipedia and looking for an overview about Paris, and 2- someone looking for specific details.

The article as it is today is absolutely discouraging for the first type of reader, and most people won't read anything in this article and simply zap to another one. Period. So I guess that it misses the point of informing readers about Paris at all.

The second type of reader will most probably browse and look for the section of his/her interest and will click on the specific sub-article. The current Paris article makes it quite difficult for such a reader to quickly find information.

Information architecture is a key aspect of any readable article or website. Look for instance at the Hong Kong article. Hong Kong is a city about the size of Paris. There are literally hundreds of Wikipedia article specifically dedicated to Hong Kong topics, yet the main article itself remains readable and detailed information does not appear overwhelmingly in the main article.

A few examples about the Paris article:

• does the history section of the main article need to be so long?
• does such a long section about the population growth belong to the main article?
• does the long section "Workforce and sectors of the Paris economy" belong to the main article?
• does the list of mayors belong to the main article?

I hope this can help. olivier 14:25, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you Olivier! Please help here if you have the time. ThePromenader 14:56, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I have just had a look at the Hong Kong page - vendu! It's great down to its footnotes and references. Thanks for the example.

ThePromenader 17:45, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

There is truth about what you say. At the same time, one thing I have noticed over the months on Wikipedia, is that as soon as we start trimming an article by creating sub-articles, there are always new users over the months that come and add new info into the trimmed sections, so that in the end we end up with a main article that is as long as before it was trimmed, and sub-articles that are redundant with the main article. It's very hard to coordinate people.

Perhaps in this case we should just add a hidden comment <-- Please don't make this section any longer --> into that bit. Stevage 10:48, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Also sometimes it's just very hard to make a concise summary for the main article. Take the Paris economy. As you can see from the workforce by economic sectors, the Paris economy is very diverse, and it's very hard to summarise it in a few lines, as there are so many different economic sectors involved. If you put the long list of economic sectors in a sub-article, how would you summarize the Paris economy in the Paris article? That list in particular I added yesterday because of Josefu (aka ThePromenader)'s complaints that the article said nothing of what exactly is produced in Paris.

I'm not sure it's that tricky. If you only had one sentence, you would say "Paris has a diverse range of economies, including the following: ....". If you had two, you would keep a comparison with other specialised cities. If you had three...etc. :) Stevage 10:48, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I have already summarized the Economy of Paris article. Hardouin 12:07, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

The Paris mayor list we can easily move into a sub-article, that should be no problem. Population growth we can also easily put it into the demographics of Paris article, as it will be easy to make a short summary. History section is quite hopeless, as it is the section most edited by people, who constantly add new info, most of the time irrelevant (such as Paris lost the 2008 and 2012 Olympic games, irrelevant in a quick summary of Paris history). Perhaps we could simply translate the Paris history section of a Larousse dictionary, which is both quite thourough and short. What do you think? I don't think translations of our own would expose us to copyright complaints, no? Hardouin 15:10, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Hardouin, again you are attempting to "stall into the details" to delay change. You asked for opion, you got it, and what needs to be done is clear. There will be no "coordination of people" and you certainly will not be attempting to do anything of the sort. Nor is there any "my writing" or "we who wrote the article" writing responsibility to perpetuate. What is written is the only thing of importance here, and if you want to protect your work from scrutiny, criticism and change, best write a book and get an editor. People are free to contribute to this article in any way they please, and it is only normal that there will be a "maintenance cycle" of new additions, cutting, moving, rewriting followed by more new additions. Your blocking this page in this cycle is most probably the very cause of its sorry state.

ThePromenader 15:38, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

There are a number of "lists" on this page. I hate lists. Can we turn them into prose, and get rid of the less prominent items on the lists? In particular:

• List of hills: Why bother?
• List of landmarks: Turn the most important ones into prose, move the others...somewhere?
• Chronology: Is the History section not sufficient? Suggest we scan this, if there's anything vital missing from History, move it there, otherwise dump this section
• Museums: Turn into prose

I could probably dig up the reference to the manual of style where it says that lists are totally evil under all circumstances. :) Stevage 15:07, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Go to it sir; you're the "prose guy" : ) If you would like some input for context (order of things and the relation between them) I could help there. The chronology could most certainly have its own page, as could the monuments (there's already a "museum list" page)... actually I don't know about the altitudes: would they really merit a page of their own? ThePromenader 15:20, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

It would be a good idea if everything "list" would be accordioned under a unique "other articles concerning Paris" subtitle and moved to pages of their own and marked as stubs - in their present state they're incomplete, but this would be a pretty good invitation to elaboration. And new categories! ThePromenader 17:30, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Agree. Instead of a list of ten items, there should be a prose section mentioning five items, and a "main article" with another twenty items. Not that the "main article" should necessarily be a list - that could itself be prose.

Did I mention that I don't like lists? :) Stevage 11:48, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I have delistified Monuments and Landmarks, creating Paris landmarks. The text in this section should probably be one long or two short paragraphs, so please add more information as appropriate. Stevage 12:33, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I have delistified Parks and Gardens. The List of parks and gardens in Paris already existed, but could possibly be turned into prose as well. In this instance I didn't remove any of the items that were in the short list, but just turned it into text. A couple of related articles still missing. Stevage 12:50, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Great to see things movin' ahead, but I know you'll miss those lists... but I think this whole section needs re-thinking as, as it is, it seems to have its *ss between two chairs. None of the sections (lists or paragraphs) are complete (with the info they have), nor can they be pages of their own. There should be a "paris monuments" page that is more than just a list - what are the majority of the monuments about? There is something to be said there. And the same for any "list of" page for that matter - I can, for example, write more than a tad on Paris' parks and gardens. Like, for example, before the 19th century Paris didn't have any. ThePromenader 19:31, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, obviously a page that talks about Paris landmarks in general, while citing examples would be ideal. I don't have any specialised knowledge, so I'll leave that stuff up to you. All I know is, lists within a larger page are ugly and lazy, so I'm booting them off into subpages, and you can do what you like with them afterwards :) A quick summary sentence along the lines of "Before the 19th century, Paris had no gardens, but a program of jardinification led by Napolean XVIII since then has led to the following gardens being created" would be great. Stevage 00:14, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Arg, you work late. And that would be Napoleon XIV who did that sir : ) No, really, what I meant was if someone's going to create a "list" page, might as well add a summary of what the list's about, otherwise it will just be a directory. If that job needs a doer, if you boot it I'll... um... shoot it. Bed time for now though. ThePromenader 00:49, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to add an education section, but I simply don't know aything on the topic. It would mention the Sorbonne, Sciences Po, and the University of Paris. ENA I gather moved to Strasbourg this year. Are there other major universities that I'm missing? Which famous people came through these universities? What is particularly remarkable about the universities in Paris? Thanks. Stevage 14:44, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

There are several "Universities" in Paris. Sorbonne is one of them (n°1, of course); Dauphine has also a very good reputation. ENA has moved to Strasbourg at least 5 or 10 years ago. Note that, in France, many of the best students don't go to the university, but to engineer schools (Polytechnique and Centrale have moved to the suburbs, Les Mines is still there (in the Jardin du Luxembourg), or to Normale Sup' (which trains professors, both in science and in philosophy or litterature: the best minds in the country are probably there), or to Sciences Po (most politicians and many journalists have been trained there before going to ENA). You may also mention the Collège de France because it's unique: the best professors give high-level lessons there to everybody (free entrance). And the "quartier latin" which still hosts most of the prestigious educational institutions. Note that, in the Middle Ages, the whole Left Bank was called "The University". And also mention the Cité Internationale Universitaire, where thousands of foreign students live in a privileged environment (an kind of parc with remarkable buildings by Le Corbusier and others...). But maybe this is too much ;) Thbz 01:22, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, even having spent a year at a polytechnique I don't really see the difference between that and a university. I don't suppose you feel like attempting to start this section yourself? :) Stevage 02:35, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

(Scratching head) I can tell you everything about Paris' Universities and colleges up to around... the 1789 revolution, but nothing after. This does merit a short section though. Pretty please? ThePromenader 07:26, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Have you spent a year at Ecole Polytechnique or in a "polytechnique" institution somewhere else ? Ecole Polytechnique is a school owned by the Army. It's located in Palaiseau (south of Paris) ; it's the most famous engineer school in France (the next ones are Centrale and Les Mines) ; most of the French politicians and CEOs are "énarques" (ENA) or "polytechniciens" (Ecole Polytechnique). The French engineer school system (which I know a little about, since I went through it!) is separated from the University system and deserves another article, but this is not Paris-specific. Thbz 09:52, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

No, actually the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble. Anyway, what are the 5 most important tertiary institutions in Paris? Why are they important? How many international students come each year to study in Paris? Stevage 15:42, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

To be more specific about a section dedicated to Education in Paris: I don't think this section should be very large, because the education system in France is very centralised and unified. Few things are specific to Paris, so Education in France (which at first sight looks very good to me) tells you everything you need to know. Young French students dream of École Polytechnique or ENA, not of Parisians universities which do not mean much more to them than Grenoble or Toulouse universities. Of course foreign students prefer to come to Paris, which I can understand... If ThePromenader feels like writing a few lines about the ancient "Université" (which gave its name to the whole Left Bank in the Middle Ages), maybe I could add something about the situation now... Thbz 15:26, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay for the writing, but it will have to be tomorrow. I'll set up a sub-page for that. Thanks Thbz. ThePromenader 07:33, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Administration

Son of Administration

Sorry to backtrack, but I've found the time on this fine Sunday morning to really read this section, and see that there's still a few ambiguities and a glaring addition (was it there before?) that simply has to go :

"There are currently plans to create a metropolitan structure that would cover the city of Paris and some of its suburbs in order to increase administrative efficiency. The current socialist municipality of Paris is pushing forward the idea of a loose "metropolitan conference" (conférence métropolitaine), while some in the right wing opposition propose the creation of a more integrated Grand Paris (i.e. "Greater Paris"). This issue may be a central one in the next municipal election in 2008."

...for the simple reason that this is an article about Paris, and not an article about how we would like it to be. Then there's this little chestnut:

"This région encompasses the city of Paris, its suburbs, and most of the commuting belt beyond."

...which insinuates (yet again) that the "commuting belt" has a central function when it in fact does not. You can lie statistical regions on administrative regions, but not the other way around. Besides, most readers won't have a clue what "commuting belt" signifies for Paris - at best they will get the impression that all within this region commute directly with Paris which is not at all true. This attempt to "reverse-stamp" Paris on its "aire urbaine" is again repeated here :

"The hundreds of suburban communes around the city of Paris also each have their separate administrations, which accounts for the extreme complexity of the administrative grid in the metropolitan area of Paris."

...you could have more simply said "the île-de-France administrative grid". The intent of all this is quite clear.

The above corrections are completed now, and the île-de-France plan placed to "fill the space" left by the unneeded "petite couronne" map. ThePromenader 13:15, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

As for the appropriation and modification of my île-de-France map submission, I can't at all object, but I can feel insulted that I was not consulted properly beforehand. I could have made better changes myself (for the very simple purely technical reason that I have the original illustrator file), but first I must know what I am to change and why, otherwise I will not be able to do so accurately. I also think that removing the "built-up" areas is a bit much, as they gave a very good impression about who lives where. If it must be accurate I can add the correct "unité urbaine" data - hard to find because it is used for only the most technical statistical ends. You will find no Paris "unité urbaine" map anywhere but on the INSEE site - nor Paris "aire urbaine" for that matter. Actually, as an aside, a google search for an "aire urbaine" map associated with "Paris" gives this: (Google) - two of the three results are here on wiki and the work of... well. In any case the map as it is is quite sloppy and I will see what I can do to fix it. Hardouin, you mentioned that you have links to this so they would much be appreciated if they can help to this end.

ThePromenader 12:10, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually aires urbaines are quite used outside of INSEE. In Google you should type "aire urbaine" only, without the word Paris. The mention of plans to create a Greater Paris is quite appropriate, this gives us a sense of evolutions. We don't offer only a rigid picture of what's the situation now, but also a sense of what may happen next. That's what encyclopedias always do. About Île-de-France, at the 1999 census, there were 10,952,011 inhabitants in Île-de-France, and only 109,974 of them did not live inside the aire urbaine of Paris. In other words, 99% of the inhabitants of Île-de-France live inside the metropolitan area of Paris, so it is totally justified to say that Île-de-France is the commuting belt of Paris. Hardouin 13:31, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I think my arguments are quite clear, and this page does not need any more statistical ambiguity than it already has. As I said before, no other web page in the world concerning Paris (ab)uses statistical data in the way this one does, not even French pages, and most importantly, not even the INSEE's own website. Your way of presenting things is rather backwards and misleading. You have even been reminded of this by someone even more knowledgable than myself and still you refuse to listen to reason. Care to explain why? ThePromenader 13:44, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

No, your arguments are not clear at all, I'm sorry to say. Your prose is often long winded and difficult to follow. From what I understand, you basically don't like the fact that this article talks about the metropolitan area of Paris, you'd rather it talks only about the city of Paris, but this makes no sense at all. We are in 2005, not in 1905. I have already pointed out to Encyclopaedia Britannica and to Encyclopaedia Universalis, which both refer to the whole metropolitan area of Paris, not just the city proper. I invite everybody to check these encyclopedias. Hardouin 13:54, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Now you're just trying to muddy the water and avoid the argument altogther. The Enclyclopedia Britannica (open in front of me) in fact does not speak of any "metropolitan area", it speaks of a "Paris region" and at most "Parisian agglomeration". I don't at all mind your using the term "metropolitan area", it's your misusing it that I dislike. Again, I am not alone in calling you out on this, so why do you refuse to listen to reason? ThePromenader 14:26, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

The concept of aire urbaine was introduced by INSEE in 1995, therefore it is no surprise that Britannica is not using the word metropolitan area yet. It takes time to update paper encyclopedias. The great advantage of Wikipedia is that we can update things much more quickly. As for people "calling me" on this, can you be specific and cite user names instead of making vague insinuations? Hardouin 14:31, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

If you don't mind, I have the 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica and the entire Paris entry for the 2002 Encyclopédie Universalis and neither of these mentions the Paris "aire urbaine". Without even getting into that, I don't understand how you can cite a source as proof then say later that that source couldn't be proof. You know very well of who and what I spoke earlier but if you must make me drop all tact to spell it out look here. ThePromenader 18:34, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

The edition 2002 still contained information from their 1975 edition, so trust me, they don't update it very quickly. What matters is that they refer to the whole "connurbation" as they call it, which we now call metropolitan area. As for the link to my talk page, I see that you are spying any of my move. Honnestly you really have time to waste. This French user who messaged me is just ONE user, and I answered his message on his talk page, which you have probably already read I suppose. ONE user is not PEOPLE. You always make generalisations from one user. That's what I call bad faith. Hardouin 12:04, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Now you're getting nasty again. Universalis' "outdatedness" doesn't change the fact that you cited it as proof for your arguments. Where did I say "people"? - I said "I am not alone in calling you out" and "you have been reminded of this by someone more knowledgable than I". If you don't mind, I have more than once left messages on your talk page as you on mine. And of course I know of his talk page because it is he who I asked to kindly help me to make you see reason - so much for "spying". Yet again you are just trying to fog the obvious. Yet now that you make me think of it you do indeed have two people telling you that you are flat wrong in presenting things as you do myself included. How many unmaskings do you need? You really should rethink your position ; you cannot strive to make people, no matter the reason, learn only what you think they should know. ThePromenader 20:23, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

If the admin section is going to stay this long it needs substructure. It may make Paris's multiple roles much clearer to have a City/Commune/Department/Region structure. Stevage 01:49, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

LOL just an addendum - Paris is a City/Commune/Department - complicated, non? Thus now there are two administration sections - this one and "Region". Cheers : ) ThePromenader 09:35, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I thought to do that this very morning as an epilogue to my 2am edits. Done. ThePromenader 08:07, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Hardouin, would you please explain why you reverted the changes made by ThePromenader to the Administration section? I find it very discourteous to revert good-faith changes made by others without even adding a comment to explain why. Of course you're very welcome to improve work done by other people, but reverting should be saved for cases of pure vandalism, which is not the case here. Thanks. Stevage 14:05, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand your message. I did not revert changes made by ThePromenader, I only restored information that had been deleted (prefecture of police, prefecture of Paris, complexity of the administrative grid). Hardouin 15:24, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

See the " Revision as of 12:52, 15 December 2005" - it amounts to almost a total revert of much of the work I did rewording, trimming etc. I'm quite happy to discuss the merits of the work I did, but it's just rude to revert without so much as an explanation.

As an example, you reverted this:

Paris' and its neighbouring departements – 
Hauts-de-Seine (92), 
Seine-Saint-Denis (93) and 
Val-de-Marne 
(94) – were a single "département", 
Seine, until they split up in 1968. In 
spite of this, the prefecture retains jurisdiction for the police and fire brigade for all four départements. Paris 
thus has its own traffic wardens, but no municipal police force.

to this:

The Prefecture of Police jurisdiction, which used to be the whole Seine département, is now limited to Paris 
proper, but for some matters (such as fire protection or rescue operations) it still covers the three 
départements of the petite couronne. On the other hand, the jurisdiction of the Prefecture of Paris, 
previously called Prefecture of the Seine (before 1968), is now strictly limited to the city of Paris.

and this:

Number 75 was once the official number of the 
Seine département, which encompassed the 
city of Paris and its nearest suburbs. In 1968, Seine was split into four new départements: the city of Paris 
proper (which retained the number 75) and three départements (
Hauts-de-Seine (92), 
Seine-Saint-Denis 
(93) and 
Val-de-Marne (94)) 

What exactly are you saying was deleted, and by whom? You seem to have clobbered work that I did in your efforts to "restore" this information Stevage 15:48, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

This part that you mention above was indeed entirely wrong, that's why I rewrote it. Paris (75) and its three neighbouring départements (92,93,94) were not a single département before 1968. The Seine département that existed before 1968 was smaller than the current 75+92+93+94. Check Seine (département) for more details. Also, there is no "the prefecture". There are TWO DISTINCT prefectures, the Prefecture of Police on the one hand, and the Prefecture of Paris on the other hand (plus also the Prefecture of Hauts-de-Seine, the Prefecture of Val-de-Marne, and the Prefecture of Seine-Saint-Denis). So you see I reverted this because it was too simplified and thus very misleading. Hardouin 16:09, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I wish you had stated this at the time. It would save a lot of ill feeling. Stevage 23:52, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Um - I do understand why this was put there. After all our discussions about getting rid of lists, is it really a good idea to add another one? ThePromenader 17:04, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

That was my first reaction too :) I think the information is relevant and interesting, but I'm not sure of the best way to present it. Maybe in a little table down one side? Stevage 23:11, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I have moved it to a little table down the side - I think that works. Stevage 00:19, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I took the liberty of daintying up your table a bit and adding some space to its left ; ) ThePromenader 13:33, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I've removed the comparisons with other cities. I just couldn't see the relevance. At maximum, *maybe* the comparison with SF has a place here, but basically the links seem a bit arbitrary and to say more about how other cities define their city borders.

For comparisons, in the metropolitan area of London, approximately 60% of people live inside Greater London proper (2001 census), while in the New York-Newark-Bridgeport metropolitan area, 37.8% of people live inside New York City (2000 census). Even in the Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County metropolitan area, 22.6% of people live inside the city of Los Angeles proper. Paris can be more rightly compared to the San Francisco Bay Area, where only 11% of inhabitants live inside the city of San Francisco proper. However, unlike in the San Francisco Bay Area, there is no city inside the metropolitan area of Paris that rivals Paris, the largest city ( commune) after Paris being Boulogne-Billancourt, with only 108,300 inhabitants in 2004.

International comparisons are needed. You can't understand statistics without comparisons. A figure in itself means nothing. Look, let me give you an example: I can tell you that 17% of people in France are 20 y/o or younger. This in itself means nothing, and is not going to inform you much. But if I also tell you that in the third world people below 20 are 30%, that in Europe they are 15%, and just 13% in Germany, then the figure starts to make sense, you can infer that the age of the French population is more similar to developed countries than third world countries, but that nonetheless it is slightly younger than in the rest of Europe, in particular Germany. International comparisons are needed to make stastical figures informative. Hardouin 01:56, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Could you reword it to make it shorter? As it stands it's long, and it doesn't seem to make a non-statistical point. It has been pointed out many times in the article that the boundaries of Paris are small. Hence it would seem to flow logically that the majority of inhabitants must live outside? The tighter you draw the circle defining "the city", the more people must logically be found outside, no? There may be a more significant point than that there, but for the time being, I as a reader, could not see it.

I apologise for removing the section without discussing it here first - I didn't realise you had written it. Stevage 03:01, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Stevage, I second you for removing the City comparisons - in fact this was one of the first things I proposed to do to this page. Your first reaction was dot-on: You just don't see the point. Only if you live in one of the cities compared to will you have a chance of understanding (and perhaps not even then). People can fathom a "hit-list" comparison (Europe's third largest...) perhaps then giving a statistic (...with 12% of its population...), but singling out seemingly unassociated countries just for reasons of comparison comes across as being rather non sequitur. ThePromenader 10:58, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Ah, but I see now that it has been cut down. Good start : ) ThePromenader 11:16, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Hardouin, I've restored the department map as I think it serves to visually explain to the user at what level Paris is being viewed. Most of the information in the map is, as you say, redundant due to the regional map, but it's more detailed, and shows clearly the shape of the Paris department and the three around it. Do you feel strongly that it should not be there, or just that it's not necessary? Stevage 02:51, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

If I may, Stevage, that map has little importance today as it shows a jurisdiction belonging only to the Police Prefecture. Historically this region was more or less Paris' former "Département de Seine" (the jurisdiction of the all-powerful "Prefecture de Seine" administration that was later split up into two "Prefecture de Police" law-enforcement and "Prefecture de Paris" law-making administrations) but I think the administration section no longer goes into that depth of detail. ThePromenader 10:49, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

As always, lots of mistakes here. The Préfecture de la Seine was not split into the Préfecture de Police and Préfecture de Paris. The Préfecture de Police already existed before 1968. This is how it goes:

• before 1968:
  • Préfecture de la Seine
  • Préfecture de Police

For instance during the French Second Empire, Baron Haussmann was Préfet de la Seine, while Symphorien Boitelle was Préfet de Police.

• after 1968:
  • Préfecture de Paris
  • Préfecture des Hauts-de-Seine
  • Préfecture de la Seine-Saint-Denis
  • Préfecture du Val-de-Marne
  • Préfecture de Police

So as you can see, the Préfecture de la Seine was split in four, whereas the Préfecture de Police was left untouched, although its jurisdiction was reduced to Paris proper. It is false to say that the little map shows the jurisdiction of the Préfecture of Police. The jurisdiction of the Préfecture of Police covers only the city of Paris. It extends to the Petite Couronne only in a special cases, such as the coordination of police action. And it can also extend to the Grande Couronne when the Prefect of Police acts as Prefect of the Paris defense zone. Yes, it is very complicated.

Anyway, about the little map, I put it in the first place because there was no other map available, but now that we have a larger map of Île-de-France, it is not necessary anymore. If the goal is to make the article as short as possible (as I thought that was the goal now), the map should be removed. But if you prefer to leave it, then leave it, but it defeats the purpose of tightening the article. Hardouin 13:00, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Where in my phrase did I say "1968"? Napoleon vested the power over the entire department de Seine to a single "Prefet" when he created the office in 1800, since then this office has been divided into two, and today only one remains to any extent. Please read what you intend to criticise before you criticise it. ThePromenader 13:29, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

No, you're wrong. Napoleon created TWO préfets: the Préfet de la Seine, and the Préfet de Police, both created in 1800. The first Préfet de Police in 1800 was Louis-Nicolas Dubois, whereas the first Préfet de la Seine in 1800 was Nicolas Frochot. Hardouin 13:44, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Alright then, I stand corrected. Apologies. But this does not at all discount my argument. ThePromenader 14:27, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I think if there is a "Paris as department" section, it deserves a map - as a "each subsection gets a map" kind of illustration. When ThePromenader says it shows a jurisdiction belonging only to the Police Prefecture. does it mean that the boundaries of the department of Paris have no real significance other than for the police? If that is the case, we could well do with a shorter section here. Stevage 13:56, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

If you would like a simple answer, the administrative limits of the "département de Paris" are no bigger than the city itself. ThePromenader 19:53, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

The Promenader was trying to say that the map (Paris + petite couronne) shows the jurisdiction belonging to the Préfecture de Police. As I have explained above, this is wrong. As for the département of Paris, it has significance for those public services administered by the département. For instance, if you have no income you receive RMI, the minimum income for poor people. RMI is administered by the département of Paris, not by the city, although in practice the département and city are ruled by the same Conseil de Paris. The département is also competent for control of legality. For instance, there was a funny example when I was in Law School, if you start building a nuclear plant in the département of Paris without having an administrative authorization, the Préfet de Paris (prefect of the département) will declare you have committed an infraction and fine you (as would happen in any other French département). On the other hand, the Préfet de Police, in charge of public order, will probably send the police to stop work on your nuclear plant (whereas in other French départements, the prefect of the département would be in charge of both public order and control of legality). These are examples where the département of Paris is competent, not the city. Hardouin 14:20, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Excuse me, not explaining something down to 100% to-the-roots intricate detail is not being wrong. It seems that you're misunderstanding me on purpose - we are not speaking of the function of each jurisdiction but its reach. The Prefet de Paris' responsibilities include the administration of the police in all the petite couronne's departments and if I must prove this than look here. All I said this morning - and this began simply - is that if the map in place was to show anything it would be this jurisdiction. Other than that it would be a map of the petite couronne which by itself would be pretty pointless in a section labelled on "Paris as a departement" as the département of Paris is no bigger than itself. Let's not even get into the intricacies of the Prefect of Paris being also the Prefect of the île-de-France - if you want to present Paris from that angle you must remodel the article. You cannot show administrative limits and speak of wider function and expect people to understand. ThePromenader 19:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but you seem to be very confused about all these prefect things. The link you pointed to above is for the "Préfet de Police", it is NOT for the "Préfet de Paris". And if you care to read the webpage you yourself asked me to read, you would find out that the jurisdiction of the Préfet de Police is Paris proper. Only in a few circumstances does that jurisdiction extends to the Petite Couronne. Hardouin 11:56, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Of course that should read "Prefect of Police" if the page I went through all the trouble of indicating is that of the Prefet de Police. Yet my error. I also said "administration of the Police of all four departments" which means that, in other words, Prefet de Police is "da boss" over all this area. Please don't be so intent on finding error, you'll always miss the point of what's said. And, btw, why is that map still there? Through all this I thought we did agree that it no longer had any importance. ThePromenader 11:11, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I think everything I would like to say on this topic is covered at WP:Civility. Stevage 22:43, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

And this is also an interesting page. Adrian Robson 12:17, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Lol. Puts it in perspective doesn't it - do you call them 'closed captions' or 'subtitles'? I thought it was pretty simple actually. Subtitles are what you see on SBS, closed captions are what deaf people use. But, hey. :) Stevage 14:33, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Hardouin, I hope you don't mind what I've done to this section. I've tried to retain the comparisons with other cities, but do so in a more readable way, with slightly less precision. Footnotes give the dates of the censuses, which aren't hugely important as they're pretty close to each other. Is there any support for Paris being one of the most multicultural? As I noted in the article, Melbourne is at 38%, so 19.5% doesn't strike me as particularly high. Stevage 02:58, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Stevage, I have removed your mention of Melbourne and its 38% because this figure is ONLY for the City of Melbourne proper. What it says is that 38% of the 50,175 residents of the City of Melbourne in 2001 were born overseas. This says nothing of the metropolitan area of more than 3 million people. Typically, inner cities tend to have much more foreign-born than whole metropolitan areas, because "natives" tend to be in the majority in distant suburbs. For instance in the article it says that 27.5% of the inhabitants of the New York metropolitan area were born outside of the US, but inside New York City there were actually 40.5% of foreign-born. Australia being a country of immigration, I wouldn't be surprised if the metropolitan areas of Melbourne, and above all Sydney, had high percentages of foreign-born. If you can find the relevant statistics for the whole metropolitan areas at the Australian statistics office website, then put it in the article. Put we cannot put figures that are limited to inner cities only. Hardouin 12:33, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

My mistake, thanks for correcting that. Stevage 14:12, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Heh, I did some research and managed to find figures for Eastern Melbourne, (around 20%), Victoria (somewhat higher, don't remember), Sydney (31% [5]), Australia (22%) and some other towns. The figure of 31% is not interesting enough to include IMHO. Interesting though to think that Paris is considered "multicultural", when the whole of Australia has a higher average of immigrants. Stevage 14:25, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

The thing is, in Australia many of these foreign-born come from UK or Ireland, whereas in Paris they come from cultures very different from France. In any case, if London with 19.5% of foreign-born is considered "multicultural" (this was so flaunted during the Olympic bid in Singapore), then Paris with 19.4% can certainly be considered multicultural too. Hardouin 15:09, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, probably lots of the Paris "immigrants" are Algerians, Tunisians etc. Fwiw, I'm happy to consider Londoners a different culture. I did note somewhere in my brief researches that there were something like 200 countries represented in Melbourne. In other words, basically all of them. Stevage 20:36, 19 December 2005 (UTC)