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Talk:Paris/structure discussion

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Concerning what most likely inspired the comment that opened the thread above, there are a few things that should change/be understood before (speaking for myself here) any request to have the page lock removed is forwarded:

1) A general public ignorance of particular subjects and details is no justification for publishing untruth. The Paris page contains factual errors, and these were imposed on it by many means to get a point across. The most glaring example is, just by 'hazard', again the metropolitan area: the INSEE had never made any 2004 or 2005 estimations on this subject, yet this fictitious insert is present in both the article and the oversized infobox.

2) The wholesale reverting, in part or complete, must end. When a contributor sees fit to edit a passage, that means that there's something to be improved. If there is something to be improved in the new edit, then it should be edited in the same way. Simply reverting in part or in entirety whole passages of text is an act both seemingly protective, lazy and in total disregard for the research and edit time spent by the editor making improvements - and this especially when it becomes known that the reverter is the author of the passage targeted.

3) All statistics and seeming opinions must be verifiable. A reference is the only argument possible for presenting anything that fits into one or both of these categories. This article contain(s/ed) many authoritatively-toned phrases comparing one region or another or presenting personal conclusions as evident fact that in fact, when verified, turned out to be inaccurate or simply untrue.

I for one would like to use the talk page more constructively. Do you want to talk about what's good for or what needs to be changed in this article? Let's! It would be nice to discuss in a forward direction for a change.

THEPROMENADER 10:45, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Hardouin, if you agree to the above, feel free to request that the page protection be removed. THEPROMENADER 23:45, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

The introductory paragraph asserts that Paris has a reputation as the heart of Europe. Assuming that such a reputation exists, this needs to be clarified with some qualifying words: many people in Europe, for instance, do not know of this reputation. Is this a reputation that Parisians believe exists ? Is this a non-European perspective of Paris ? Or is this French government propoganda ? (Yes all that the state authorities say in France isn't necessarily true - witness the cover-ups of the Paris massacre of 1961). Either way, it would be more correct and interesting to know the background to this phrase. --jrleighton 08:42, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The referenced event is quite questionable in existence. I wouldn't be so quick to assert it as typical of French policy. I really don't see how it has any connexion at all with the topic in question. -- Aquarelle 13:17, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

The fact that Paris has a reputation as "a romantic city" and as "the heart of Europe" was added by (Australian) User:Stevage on January 3, 2006 ( [1]). You may want to ask him directly why he added that. I remember he argued that Paris was regarded by millions of people as a romantic city, so it ought to be mentioned in the article. Personally, I think that to refer to Paris as the heart of Europe is a bit excessive (as excessive as English people who constantly refer to London as the capital of Europe). I also think that the mention of Paris as a romantic city right in the introduction is a bit of a cliché. Hardouin 23:49, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Personally I don't see the problem here, after all it is referred to as a "reputation", individuals may disagree with it but it's rather hard to deny that reputation does exist. And yes, the "romantic city" may also be a cliché but it's still a very popular one (and for better or worse abundantly exploited by tour operators all over the world!). I take "the heart of Europe" to refer to that and to the cultural importance of Paris in Europe, just like London's significance in both cultural and financial terms - I don't think one should avoid acknowledging that kind of importance just because some people take it to competitive "who's better than who" limits. Pepita 09:42, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I can't say that I have ever heard of anyone who professes either of London or Paris to be the heart/centre/capital of Europe/EU. A note about a romantic city, yes; but let's remove this reference to the heart of Europe - unless somebody can come up with any credible evidence to the contrary. --jrleighton 09:51, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I think there's little doubt that neither Paris nor London is generally considered to be the heart of Europe. Geographically, they obviously are not. And culturally, the term "heart" sits uneasily in a continent (as opposed to a country) composed of a vast swathe of languages and historical traditions that are completely distinct and even today know little of each other. The only context in which I've heard people talk of the heart of Europe is in reference to the central European countries - Vienna, Prague etc. Try a search for "heart of Europe" on Google. I'd vote to remove the reference - I don't think it's accurate. Adrian Robson 15:49, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Good points. I agree with the removal, after all "heart of" was too vague and bound to be read differently. The new "one of the main cultural and political centres in Europe" sounds much better (that's how I'd read it anyway, not in the geographic sense). Pepita 14:44, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Three weeks is enough. Time to edit. -- Tony Sidaway 12:45, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

As there have been provided no sources for the much-asked-for and oft-reverted to inexistent INSEE estimations, these must go. A little less needless detail to deal with. I can't imagine the motivations for attempting to impose nonexistent numbers as reality - but let's avoid such practices in the future, shall we? THEPROMENADER 13:51, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I've added estimates for 2006 for the city and the metropolitan area from the World Gazetteer which can be found here [2]. About the infobox, I moved the information because it only adds 2KB to the article which I am sure can be reduced with some summarising in the sections. I was going to start a generic infobox but if you already have one Promenader then we can go with that instead. Green Giant 13:58, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Yikes, you're quick. Green Giant, IMHO I would be careful about those numbers - I would take them directly from the INSEE if I were you, as this is what you can call a diehard verifiable source - the numbers on your site don't match these. If there exist no numbers on the INSEE site, that means that none have been published yet. I don't know how they got that 'calc' number on the site you mentioned above - it looks like an estimation of their own. It would be a good idea to keep to using solidly documented numbers taken from official sources, don't you think?

I left off working the infobox when it was half done (it's just saved text for now) so no, for now I've nothing complete and publishable. If you want to do it right away, please do - I won't have the time today, anyway. THEPROMENADER 14:24, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I used the World Gazetteer based on the reference given for it by GE Source at [3] but I see your point about official sources so I have removed the estimates. Green Giant 14:39, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I didn't notice that till now - thank you, Green Giant. THEPROMENADER 14:52, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I think whenever figures from official sources are not available, estimates from credible sources should be used instead. For instance in the US the last census was in 2000, yet most US cities articles list 2005 population estimates which can't be from the US Census Bureau. If we follow ThePromenader's rigid logic, we should remove all population estimates from all US cities, and also from all US states by the way... Hardouin 15:19, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Here I disagree, and strongly. This isn't my logic, this is Wiki's logic - all information must be verifiable, and this is indicated quite clearly in the link directly under the window of each and every edit we make. The only acceptable estimations are from official sources (but this itself is questionable: is it really neccessary to publish such hypothetical information?). The 'credibility' of anything outside this is often a matter of opinion only and, as unofficial sources are often many, one can be selective in which numbers are the 'right' ones. Making one's own calculations is also out - the numbers must be compiled and published by the source itself, otherwise the numbers can be deemed questionable. Lastly, just because others do it doesn't make it right - in fact, other people's behaviour shouldn't even worry you unless you intend somehow to get directly involved - only 'acceptable information' policies count, and that only where you're editing. THEPROMENADER 20:55, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Factually speaking, that 'economy' phrase suggesting that tourism is not important to Paris aside, I'm pretty happy with the article as it is. Consider this case closed then. Personally speaking, I'm going to take a bit of a 'from Paris' holiday - I may be toying with infobox propositions in my spare time but won't be editing for a few days at least. Cheers! THEPROMENADER 07:27, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Now that the 'flashback machine' has once again done its work, the fictitious facts are back, and not only that, they have returned with dubious brethren... Even more to clean up now. Thanks. THEPROMENADER 23:17, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I have archived most of the discussion partly to give a fresh start to the page and partly because it had reached 220 KB. There is now an archive navigation box at the top right to make it easier to access the talkpage archives. Happy navigating :) Green Giant 14:50, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Hardouin, I'm getting really sick of this. Again you have reverted in many places past many edits from many users to texts you abviously store on your hard drive. Again the numbers you post are NOT from official sources, and again you ignore a previous discussion on this. Again you re-insert 'chip-chip' phrases such as 'the population of Pairis' metropolitan area is...' This is not an article on Paris' commuter belt, this is an article on Paris. Will you kindly stop with your obsession please, and show some respect for other contributors? Thanks. Your behaviour is very provocative, especially to those who know the real truth and context of what you write.

PS: I noticed that you masked your many reverts under a single 'inserting standard infobox...' announcement - what sort of 'editing' is this? THEPROMENADER 08:35, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

PPS: And you even re-inserted the vague, pompous and oft-complained about "bigger than" phrases... I really have no time for this. THEPROMENADER 08:39, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I don't find your infobox fitting to an article such as this - GreenGiant and I posted earlier on the matter (he may even be making one), yet you just ignore this and paste one of your own without contacting anyone or making any sort of announcement. I don't find this sort of behaviour to be very civilsed nor respectful. I'm still on 'holiday' and have no time to deal with all this - In the meantime I hope someone else will have the sense to. THEPROMENADER 08:30, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Now that I've had a look at them, the most annoying thing about the above reverts is that none of them are marked improvements; most all are simply returns to "how Hardouin wrote it before." It is with actions like these this that we are to raise this already trodden-upon article towards 'featured' status? How is one to re-install the improvements effaced by the above reverts - re-revert, as usual? It's conditions like these that create a childish and anti-productive 'last revert wins' war that has little to do with anything quality. Rather than play this silly game, I'm going to try to garner enough editing interest in this page that both our edits will become only a fraction under/of future better-quality contributions. THEPROMENADER 18:27, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

There are again quite a few corrections to be made, Hardouin. Again your speaking of the metropolitan area in using Ile-de-France statistics - mentioning the ile-de-france afterwards does not justify this sort of contextual wrangling. Speak straight from the source, or not at all; anything outside this is personal research. I will be correcting and commenting one by one - and most of this will just be a recap of why it was corrected in the first place. I can't say I appreciate this wasting everyone's time on trifling details - but if they're going to be there, they have to be correct and comprehensible. Let others decide whether they are interesting or not - I for one won't be putting them back should they go. THEPROMENADER 15:36, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I did all I had time for today, which wasn't much. I have yet to deal with the above, as I was working from the top down.

• Introduction: I changed practically nothing, yet moved things around a lot. That breathless all-in-one 'paris and built-up so metropolitan' went again though - sorry for the I don't know how many'th time - for its pure clunkiness, overkill and irrelevence now that there is a whole demographics section attributed to that kind of thing. Just how much can one put in the intro? I think the 'Paris is one $*%&$* big city' couldn't be clearer now. Perahps we could insert subliminal messages... THEPROMENADER 18:12, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
• Geography, Altitude, Climate: I understand why the titles were taken off here (super-long contents box) but these were good for clarity - so I 'aped' a title subsection that won't appear there. I also tweaked the "paris hasn't grown" part around (some items repeated because of chunky information flow) but that's about it. This part would actually be better suited for the demographics section. I remember speaking about a "Lay of the Land" bird's eye visual description of Paris with Stevage - if I do come up with something I'll propose it. THEPROMENADER 18:12, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

(sound of stomping feet) Here came Hardouin. No comment, but a complete to-the-letter wholesale revert on most every edit above. Left this comment on it: "Promenader, I thought you promised you would stop wholesale reverts and changes. I see good resolutions are gone. Why do you ALWAYS revert every edit I make. Why?"

Can someone please explain to me in what way my edits were "wholesale reverts"? Can someone please tell me how those edits were not improvements? And first off, when have I ever reverted anything that wasn't a revert, and second, when have I ever promised 'not to make wholesale reverts' - that I have never made? This coming from a person who is in the process of wholesale reverting another editor's good-faith edits? The utter weasliness of this is astounding. Can someone tell me what dark, evil ulterior motive there is in working towards understandable, well-written fact? THEPROMENADER 20:49, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Hardouin, you have a serious problem. You only edit what anyone edits - never anywhere else. You have without exception stomped your presence into most every contribution to this page that wasn't already yours, no matter by who. Should no-one edit, this page stagnates. Should someone edit, and especially myself, you are here within hours (voir minutes) re-editing the same passages. This page's history is living proof of months of this. What is one supposed to think of such behaviour - ? THEPROMENADER 21:03, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Gratuitous reverts aside, the introduction still and once again contains the very fictitious numbers that I sought to remove - the site linked to is hardly what you'd call a citable source. If the numbers don't exist on the INSEE site, they don't exist. Period. THEPROMENADER 16:07, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

User ThePromenader keeps deleting the 2006 estimate for the metropolitan area of Paris (11.6 million people) without any valid reason, except that it doesn't come from INSEE. As if there weren't already enough INSEE references in the article... Did he prove the figure to be wrong? No. Yet he keeps deleting it. INSEE is certainly a great organization, but it also has its flaws, in particular it is not very good at updating figures. The last time they offered French metropolitan areas statistics was in 1999, and FYI there won't be new official figures from INSEE before the year 2009 or 2010 (when the current 5-year census campaign is over). After 2009-2010, ThePromenader will be very happy (or unhappy), INSEE should publish revised figures for French metropolitan areas every year, or so they promised. In the meantime, World Gazetteer is a respected source of information and is used in many Wikipedia articles. Moreover, whenever I use figures from independent sources that are not government sources I always double-check the figures to make sure I am not copying something wrong or invented. In the case of the 11.6 million figure, I double-checked and found no problem with it: INSEE officially estimated the population of Ile-de-France at 11,362,000 as of Jan. 1, 2005. That's a 409,989 increase compared to IdF population at the 1999 census. Given that 99% of IdF population live inside the metropolitan area of Paris, that means the metropolitan area of Paris had a population in 2005 very near: 11,174,743 (1999 census) + 409,989 = 11,584,732. So I don't see what's wrong with the figure reported by World Gazetteer. Hardouin 01:13, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Your arguments are vague at best, and essentially amount to nothing. The ile-de-France region is not the statistical aire urbaine so you cannot use the former's numbers as the latter. I am not the only one to have told you this - at least a thousand times already - and such manipulation but amounts to Original research. Nice that you find the 'all from the same sources' argument convenient but again you misuse this - statistics are gathered by one source, and it is best that the 'source source' be cited. In the INSEE's case, if they haven't published the numbers, they don't exist - unless you know of another organisation conducting a census of their own. Run the numbers yourself all you want, but again this is original research. Wiki is intended to be an archive of re-published fact; it is not a soapbox for a thesis supporting the opinions of User:Hardouin. THEPROMENADER 03:30, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

And Hardouin, even before you posted, I think by reading through the above you would have seen that there is already a consensus on this subject - perhaps you could do this article the service of fixing your errors yourself. THEPROMENADER 08:08, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

What exactly is going on here? This is too odd for words. Here we have two editors editing the same phrase within hours of its being changed - one returns the first phrase to its original clunky and repetitive English:

"The city of Paris within its administrative limits has an estimated mid-2004 population of 2,144,700[3], but over the last century the city has grown well beyond its administrative boundaries"

... and the second reverts the phrase outright to its original form, down to an unneeded and dubious website reference. Neither editor has changed anything else in the article. I'll just chalk this up to coincidence again, I guess.

The argument:

"A metropolitan area is more than just an "area of economic influence" "

...is not at all a justification for a total revert. If a commuter belt is not an area of economic influence - a sum of who does what job where - I don't know what is. The phrase is back in its exact former state save for a colon - and this wee change in fact this makes the sense of the phrase even more untrue: Paris has NOT grown to the limits of its metropolitan area as its present form would have us believe. This is just plain wrong.

Clunky English, grandiose insinuations and dubious sources for selective and unneeded detail should be the norm here? What about the simple, well-written truth? How is one to accomplish anything here if a single contributor reverts any effort to this end? How frustrating.

THEPROMENADER 03:06, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

PS: And I AM getting sick of spending all my time filling these talk pages with arguments. If it weren't for the impending-revert predjudice of one contributor here, there would be no need to do so. What a waste of time. Apologies to all, all the same. THEPROMENADER 03:11, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

(scratching head) Metropolitan, I don't really understand your attachment to Hardouin's phrase - you have reinstated it to the letter. In addition to the reasons I stated above, I changed this phrase for various reasons :

...its pure clunkiness. "Administrative limits" and "administrative boundaries" means the same thing, so this is badly-written repetition.

"...and the population of Paris metropolitan area" is bad grammar, but this is a lesser problem. We are now three on the talk page to agree that the source supporting this phrase is not valid, and that the INSEE is the only valid source for such info. The last INSEE aire urbaine numbers date from 1999. I for one do not see the need for such info, especially in the introduction, as Paris' commuter belt statistics are much less important to it and much less used than for many of the world's other major cities. Backwards, yes, but reality.

Finally, as a whole, this phrase is arranged to suggest that the statistical urban area and metropolitan area are the city of Paris too - they aren't. Paris is a much smaller centre of all this, and my version of this phrase made this fact quite clear. Paris has conservative borders, perhaps, but we are here to define reality through fact. I will not modify your re-insertions, but I hope you will see the reason in the above and make the needed corrections yourself.

THEPROMENADER 19:00, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry but if I like the way that paragraph is written, it's mainly because we understand well that Paris agglomeration is the result of Paris growth (and not a conurbation such as Rhein-Ruhr or Randstadt). However, I've just moved that paragraph at the end of the introduction because I believe it is more coherent this way. Metropolitan 00:12, 20 March 2006 (CET).

Okay for the order of things, but as for the 'targeted phrase' - did my edit not state the same thing, and just as clearly, and this in a shorter sentence? Granted that it is better in two sentences, but what about its faulty grammar, needless repetition and dubious source? Do you think it is acceptable to just leave leave it like this? If not you or I, someone fix these, please. THEPROMENADER 01:59, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with his grammar, but I agree that it is a little repetitive (perhaps we could just drop the second "administrative" and use either a synonym or nothing). Excuse me if I missed something, but does Insee have no statistics on the agglomeration ? If they do, then perhaps we could use them instead. If not, then I don't see any problem with Hardouin's (where are they from ? Le Figaro ?) I disagree with ThePromenader in that the agglomeration is not directly related to the city. How can you say that Paris's commuter belt statistics are not important ? How is this so different than the "other cities" where the central point of the agglomeration is the ville propre ? I feel that it is unfair to the reader to use the most conservative definition of Paris for a Wikipedia article. For an economics paper, yes, but is that how we want this to be written ? – Aquarelle 12:47, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

You're right, the grammar can be corrected with a single " ' " ("Paris'" instead of "Paris"). The agglomeration statistics are already present and cited correctly - "Today, Paris urban area (the contiguous built-up area) has a population estimated at 9.9 million in 2005[4]" - the French 'urban area' is in reality slightly larger than the actual contiguous built-up area (it extends to its commune borders), but what the hey.

The dubious source is from a site called 'World Gazeteer' - the work of a single person who, by the way, does not cite his sources.

I never said that the agglomeration is not directly related to the city - au contraire! There is all the same a distinction between the 'Paris agglomeration' and 'Paris' - this should be clear to a reader. When in Montreuil, one is in the Paris agglomeration (not that one would call it that, not even one living in Montreuil), but not in Paris.

The commuter belt statistics are hardly used or even mentioned by any French adminstration - if you want proof of this do a search on the official Mairie de Paris' and Île-de-France websites for 'aire urbaine'. Most Franciliens have never even heard of the 'aire urbaine' or 'unité urbaine' statistical terms (proof here [4]) - so we cannot speak as if they are an integral part of the culture! This all I meant by 'important to Paris'. See what I mean?

What do you mean by 'conservative definition' - dry and technical? If so, I agree. THEPROMENADER 14:14, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

This is all the same a bit much to be making about one phrase. IMHO I had it right before - judge for yourselves - and I have yet to hear what was 'wrong' with what I wrote. As the goal here is fact and clarity, if one wants to show such an attachment to this phrase, best fix it - as, as it is, it is clunky and wrong, and above I clearly state why. Thanks. THEPROMENADER 23:59, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your PM ThePromenader. I've changed this into : "The city of Paris within its administrative limits has an estimated mid-2004 population of 2,144,700[3], but over the last century the city has grown well beyond those boundaries.". Hope this way there's not the repetition that posed you a problem. Metropolitan 00:58, 22 March 2006 (CET).

Bearing in mind that not everybody uses Firefox, I have tried to move the table and the map so that there are minimum white spaces and the text doesn't push the table to one side. If you have difficulty viewing them now, please suggest modifications. Green Giant 03:23, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I personally have no real problem about the way it is, however it seems ThePromenader told us that this display was superimposing the image on the table on the browser Safari (MacIntosh). Personally, I believe Hardouin's display is not specifically worse than yours. Actually, I tend to prefer it very slightly because I feel the table and map were better integrated in the text. But that's only a matter of opinion. Metropolitan 15:33, 13 March 2006 (CET)

I think this has more to do with a monitor size problem - what are you seeing? Should the table and map be aligned on the same line - or aligned one over the other? Here I've got the map floating to the top left and the table to the bottom right. At least they're not overlapping anymore, but they are taking up a lot of space (with the empty fields around them). THEPROMENADER 16:14, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry: It's the other way around. The table is up to the left; the map is down to the right. THEPROMENADER 19:11, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

No matter what is the origin of the issue (browser or window resolution), I believe there are lesser chances that the table and the map would be badly displayed using Hardouin's solution. Metropolitan 03:40, 14 March 2006 (CET)

Just a quick word to say that I had to modify Anthony Appleyarddisplay of the demographics table and map because it wasn't appearing fully on smaller screen resolution (for instance, 1280x1084). If the current proposal doesn't satisfy you, feel free to change it, though it would be better to explain why in this section. Metropolitan 17:48, 15 March 2006 (CET)

I'm going to be re-inserting the much-shortened version of the 'Demographics' section reverted by Hardouin: for reasons why, please (re) see the #Sloppy re-inserts comments above. All the same, there were some misgivings with the 'Towers' section - what would be a good replacement? My original meaning was 'a relatively homogenous mix of office/living space' - yet without stating the proportions (ratio) of office/living space. I don't have the source for this - but perhaps it is not necessary to go to such detail. For the 'empty of habitation' office skyscrapers brought up by Gnetwerker , I get the point and this will be changed too. For further improvements, please work from here. THEPROMENADER 21:53, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Again single-handedly deleting the contribution of other users? And for what? for your jargon-esque prose, full of clumsy and inapropriate expressions: e.g. "Paris enjoyed a role as France's productive leader". A "productive leader"? what's that? and why the past tense? Not to mention your reference to a "de-habitation tendency". "De-habitation" is not an English word, check your dictionary. I see no justification for deleting information and contributions from other Wikipedians to replace them with your poorly written and often biased prose. Hardouin 11:45, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I really have to love how you simply turn accusations around at the person making them. It is you who eliminated the work of at least three contributors by re-pasting your months-old needless comparisons of your own writ - not that of others, so you do not state truth here - and needless because consensus decided it that way. The rest of the information is still there. Biased prose? This is a baseless accusation. Your criticisms are noted, all the same. Anything else that can be improved? THEPROMENADER 13:14, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

You guys really need to turn it down a notch. To start with, can we concentrate on content first, prose style second? If you don't like a sentence, then discuss it hear in a non-hostile tone, and I am sure we can get consensus! But if you do nothing but throw rocks, no one will listen. -- Gnetwerker 16:57, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Gnetwerker. – Aquarelle 18:37, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

As long as the topic concerns edits with a goal of improving quality and content I can have no stones to throw. When one contributor wholesale reverts/needlessly 'stamp edits' all other's (namely one's) attempts at improvement for reasons outisde this, there is issue for discontent. One can't just expect one editor to silently accept this sort of treatment from another in the name of 'let's not bother everyone else' - otherwise this article would never change. I would even argue that this is the goal behind such practices; most 'arguments' presented after such abuse are tailored for 'first sight validity,' but in essence are all either trifling or invalid, and in no way are nowhere near enough to justify reverting entire sections of text. It is unfortunate that there is only one person who reverts like this, but as long as this goes on the talk pages will be full of reasons why this is wrong. Anyone can criticise and correct edits all they want, but this wholesale reverting must stop. THEPROMENADER 02:15, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Demographics is re-shortened, but modified in light of above criticisms. If there is anything 'missing' not present already in the Demographics of Paris article, please add it there. THEPROMENADER 18:45, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Hardouin raises a very interesting point when he says: "In what way an image of Adolf Hitler's one-day visit to Paris is reprentative of the city's history? What about Queen Victoria or President Wilson's visits to Paris? Let's keep some perspective."

While, on the face of it this is a perfectly valid criticism, there could also be an argument for suggesting that the picture is fundamental to the Parisian psyche. For Anglo-Saxon visitors, particularly Americans, the concept of having being invaded is so remote as to be virtually unintelligible. But for older Parisians, this experience is still within living memory. How it colors your attitude can only be guessed at by those who haven't experienced it. Sartre wrote about how difficult it was to answer a polite German soldier's request for directions without feeling guilty.

This suspicion of foreigners has coloured the attitude of a whole generation of Parisians. Compare the smiling, friendly and helpful younger generation of today. Why did a majority of those over 65 vote Yes in last year's referendum on the EU constitution while the younger generation voted No? I think it was because the older generation remembers invasion first hand and sees the EU as primarily a defence against a fourth invasion by the Germans in little more than 100 years. How far an article like this can get into explaining the attitude of a city's inhabitants - why they behave the way they do - is debatable. But without wanting to suggest that Hitler's picture should be restored to the article, I do think it points the way to a very important point about the way Parisians have behaved in the past, and even continue to act to some extent today. Adrian Robson 13:50, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Outside your I don't doubt interesting insight, the reason why that picture of the one-day visit of Hitler in Paris is so visible on the Internet is mainly because it makes laugh the youngest of American French-bashers. It has no reason whatsoever to be published on Paris main article, and it's even debatable to publish it on Paris History article. I don't believe it serves Wikipedia's reputation in any sort to make it appear in this article. Hence I fully support Hardouin in this move. Metropolitan 16:22 28 March 2006 (CET).

Green Giant, I believe it's a better idea to show the map in a larger frame so that we wouldn't have to click on it to be able to read the legend. The way it is, it's harder to read both the table and the map on the same screen. Feel free to give me your idea about it. Metropolitan 18:19, 6 March 2006 (CET)

I would agree but Wikipedia convention is that images should not be overly large - usually between 100-400px. However I tried to compromise by keeping it at 450px. Green Giant 17:33, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

(Big grin) Great to see so much editing - wish I had time to participate. Just one suggestion though - I think I've mentioned this - would it be possible to make a 'demographics' infobox for that section of the article? That way you could put the written info and legend underneath the plan in a column, freeing the 'leftmost' area for text - that way all the text would be readable and you could enlarge the plan - making it readable too. Also, is it really important to have an 'Île-de-France' demographic box here - wouldn't that be better suited to the 'Île-de-France' article? And - LOL - Delanoë is bigger than the Paris plan : ) THEPROMENADER 17:43, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The map and tables take up a lot of page architecture - does the article really need all this, and to this extent? I would say that areas of growth (since it is this we are talking about in this section, aren't we?) should be prioritised for simplicity - and the details concerning each outlying administrative boundary should come second, if at all: departmental limits have hardly changed since centuries, and do not at all reflect Paris' natural growth. I think population 'circles' (or something of the sort) would suffice to show where the most densly-populated areas around Paris are - there is one of these available somwhere... Oone last thing - the fact that the 'land colour' on the plan ends at the Île-de-France's limits is confusing - at first glance one would think that this is the Paris metropolitan area. If you don't mind, I could have a look into this today. I'll of course ask your opinions before publishing anything. THEPROMENADER 08:37, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

You're wrong about the départements, Promenader. Departmental limits in Île-de-France have been completely changed in 1968 (that wasn't centuries ago). Check your history books. Or check Seine (département) for more information. Otherwise, I sort of agree with the rest of what you said. Hardouin 15:29, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

We both contributed to the 'Administration' section and my memory is not that short. I'm not going to include each and every detail when my argument doesn't need them! : P THEPROMENADER 20:32, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, the department of the Seine nearly encompassed all of Paris and the inner ring departments. As weird as it sounds, untill the 60's, the separation between Paris and the near suburbs weren't as marked as today. And this for several reasons. First, they were in a same department encompassing 6 million people. Second, the périphérique highway wasn't yet created. Third, we were describing what we call today the Ile-de-France as the région parisienne (Paris region).

Anyway, I've rearranged the section. I've removed the table showing departments (I've moved it into the Ile-de-France article) and I've rearranged the two remaining elements so that it appears well on both FireFox and Explorer (it wasn't the case with Green Giant's proposed display). Now it's completely integrated to the rest of the article.

As for Ile-de-France being marked, people aren't stupid and knows perfectly that the world doesn't end at the borders of Ile-de-France. If it's white beyond, it's because there's no data available from the Préfecture d'Ile-de-France (which clearly appears in the sources at the bottom right), not because built-up, wooded and agricultural areas don't exist beyond that limit. I can always add in the legend that those datas are for Ile-de-France if you insist. But removing that map because of this sounds to me a bit exagerated. Metropolitan 17:04, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I never said a thing about removing anything - regrouping, maybe. You don't like the idea of a unique infobox, and the plan legend incorportated into it? This way the plan could be bigger and the text readable (and searchable!).

As for my earlier comment, I was speaking from a visual point of view - of someone not stupid, but uninformed of what the Ile-de-France or AU is. Of course I don't expect that viewers would think that a fitting legend for the white areas would be 'theyre be dragons here' : ) THEPROMENADER 20:32, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

The map and the table as they are now are much better than the weird arrangement I left it in, personally I haven't used Explorer for a long time so I apologise for that mistake. Green Giant 16:16, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

One last note for this section - On my browser, Safari on OS X, with a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels, the legend and the map are overlapping by almost a third. I wish I could put a screenshot here... THEPROMENADER 20:32, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

BTW, the iaurif MOS map link is working again - I wrote the webmaster about it a while ago : ) THEPROMENADER 21:08, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Here's a trial demographics plan I slapped together this morning - the red lines could be clearer but hey. A left sliver of the UA is chopped - the plan wasn't made for UA info, and none others exist - so compensated by doing the same on the right. I think we get the idea though. This is all I have time for today, at least for now. THEPROMENADER 11:31, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

...just a note on this morning's creations - I thought that transforming the region's agricultural/forest into a beige-olive/green color gamme made things simpler, and giving urban construction a stark blue-grey color made it clear and separate from the rest. Since the concentration is on natural growth here, I gave the ex-centric regions an increasingly white opacity - the agglomeration/urban area has none; the aire urbaine has some (around 35%) and the outliying regions, although present, are even more opaque. This way I thought , in retaining the 'agglomeration' colour scheme (and the presence of outlying agglomeration growth) all the same centring the attention on Paris and its growth itself. Hope you all see the logic in this. THEPROMENADER 22:58, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Bearing in mind that not everybody uses Firefox, I have tried to move the table and the map so that there are minimum white spaces and the text doesn't push the table to one side. If you have difficulty viewing them now, please suggest modifications. Green Giant 03:23, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I personally have no real problem about the way it is, however it seems ThePromenader told us that this display was superimposing the image on the table on the browser Safari (MacIntosh). Personally, I believe Hardouin's display is not specifically worse than yours. Actually, I tend to prefer it very slightly because I feel the table and map were better integrated in the text. But that's only a matter of opinion. Metropolitan 15:33, 13 March 2006 (CET)

I think this has more to do with a monitor size problem - what are you seeing? Should the table and map be aligned on the same line - or aligned one over the other? Here I've got the map floating to the top left and the table to the bottom right. At least they're not overlapping anymore, but they are taking up a lot of space (with the empty fields around them). THEPROMENADER 16:14, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry: It's the other way around. The table is up to the left; the map is down to the right. THEPROMENADER 19:11, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

No matter what is the origin of the issue (browser or window resolution), I believe there are lesser chances that the table and the map would be badly displayed using Hardouin's solution. Metropolitan 03:40, 14 March 2006 (CET)

Just a quick word to say that I had to modify Anthony Appleyarddisplay of the demographics table and map because it wasn't appearing fully on smaller screen resolution (for instance, 1280x1084). If the current proposal doesn't satisfy you, feel free to change it, though it would be better to explain why in this section. Metropolitan 17:48, 15 March 2006 (CET)

I want to raise two points about the size of the article. Firstly, the Wikipedia guidelines on article size recommend 32 KB as an ideal size but this is no longer a hard-and-fast rule. The article was 51 KB and after some summarising and condensation it stands at 49 KB, but it would be wise to put the article through a weight-loss programme aiming to truncate down to about 40 KB as a compromise. This means cutting down on waffle text and getting straight to the point - no more conversation-style pieces like "on the other hand" and "as a matter of fact". It also means that sections should not be too long and should not go into lengthy details which would be better in a daughter article.

The second point I want to raise is that there are too many images at the moment. Apart from the ones in the infobox and the tiny images in the Name section, there were 18 main pictures and images including seven in the Culture section at the bottom. I have already removed the Panorama picture because it didn't add anything to the Economy section and the Train times drawing because it is vaguely based on requests to the SNCF website. I propose that at least four images be removed from the Culture section:

the Pompidou Centre image

the Montmartre image

the Lake in Bois de Vincennes image

the Chanel pic

The Arc de Triomphe, the Mona Lisa, the Statue of Liberty and the Stade de France images are better known or more relevant so they should stay.

From the Administration section, I propose the Arrondissements map be removed because it is already in use at the more relevant Arrondissements of Paris page. Removing all of these pics will reduce the size by about 1KB and move the article towards a healthier size. Anybody have opinions on this? Green Giant 05:19, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

One note, Green Giant - the images are not at all included into the page size - only the code calling them is. The page size is a sum of all the page's text and the code it takes to display it properly. The Eiffel pic alone is 26k... imagine them all together.

I would think that the arrondissement map should stay - if it goes there will be no map of Paris here at all. As a replacement I am already working on a more general map of Paris (requested by Thbz - I've not forgotten!) - the smaller version is already online. As for the rest-I've nothing to say for or against, but it's true that downstairs is a bit cluttered : ) THEPROMENADER 07:27, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Can't we just keep the pics ? I know that we aren't writing a childrens' book here but I think they adds to the article. And it sounds like (as TheProlenader put it) that removing the scripts that signify the pictures would save us almost nothing. – Aquarelle 12:13, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Aquarelle. I don't believe the kilobyte saved is worth the loss of those image to the article. Articles for countries or large cities are bigger for specific reasons. If the size would count in a way or another, I would say it would be more to be sure that someone studying the topic could read easily the whole article than because of memory. Metropolitan 15:29, 13 March 2006 (CET)

I agree with Aquarelle and Metropolitan, we shouldn't be obsessed with the size of the article. The recommended size limit was set a long time ago, in those days when computers had little memory. If we absolutely need to trim something, I suggest deleting some monument pictures at the bottom of the article which don't really add much to the article, but trimming more text is simply defeating the purpose of an encyclopedia: in the end the article will look like a dictionary entry. Not Wikipedia anymore. Also, I see Green Giant has deleted a lot of sub-headings. I don't know what other people think about it, personally I think it makes the article less organized and harder to access (people need to plunge themselves into long paragraphs to find a specific information, instead of directly jumping to the subheading they are most interested in). Hardouin 18:07, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

(Holding up sign: "Image Size Does Not Figure in Page Weight") - But what we can do is touch up clunky, long-winded and repetitive phrases such as "The city of Paris within its administrative limits has ... but over the last century the city has grown well beyond its administrative boundaries" - as some have tried to do here. Couldn't resist : ) THEPROMENADER 18:45, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong on the pics, but there are more images than can fit on the page reasonably, especially the culture section which was a mess before. The only way to fix that is to reduce the number of images. This might surprise you all but image sizes do figure because browsers are not going to be displaying the source text but the actual image itself. So the actual page size is much bigger than the 49 KB shown in edit mode.

The reason I raised these issues was that this article was once a featured-article candidate (FAC) which failed for various reasons, and I think we should aim towards featured-article standards and plan for a peer-review in the near future.

• Specifically I would point to the guidelines in Wikipedia:What is a featured article? and note that it recommends that a FAC "has images where appropriate, with succinct captions and acceptable copyright status; however, including images is not a prerequisite for a featured article."
• The article is also lacking in significant sources and citations - there are seventeen citations at the bottom but three of them don't link to anything which makes them useless. Of the remaining fourteen, eight are from INSEE which is too large a proportion from one source. The eight INSEE citations should stay and be complemented by several more citations from other reliable sources.
• On the question of subheadings, I would point to Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Headings and highlight that it recommends avoiding the overuse of subheadings. There are still more subheadings than there should be especially in the Culture section.

This article should be a summary of the various daughter articles which is why there is are single and multiple templates for linking to these articles at the top of some sections. If there is something detailed to be added, then it should be added to the daughter articles, leaving the summary sections here to highlight the matter and point readers to them.

So before there are any more large additions to the article, we need to have a serious, calm debate about what parts of the article need to stay and what needs to be moved to daughter articles. Text definitely needs trimming so that only the essential information remains and yes, the images need to be reduced in number. Once we have the article at a reasonable size, we need to request a peer-review and see what outside opinions make of the article. When that is done, we should have a strong featured-article candidate. So pull up your socks and don't be sentimental about any images or text when it needs to be axed (or should I say guillotined?) Green Giant 20:01, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

By the way when you have the time, look through the Bulgarian and Finnish featured articles on Paris. The Bulgarian one is 29 KB and the Finnish one is just 21 KB, with a grand total of eighteen images between them and nice neat infoboxes which don't go into extensive details. I'm not suggesting that the infobox here should be that short but it is definitely much bigger than is necessary. Green Giant 20:24, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I can't but agree with the 'daughter article' part - only today I was browsing some of my first edits on wiki and re-discovered my 'virgin' thoughts about this article before I began actively (attempting to) edit it. You'll discover some marked similarities I think : )

Yes, images do contribute to the weight to the article - yet they don't figure in that 32k warning mentioned at the top of every long edit page. If you must know, the article, with all its photos, weighs 720kb. The code, on the other hand, only weighs 49.4kb. I mention this just to be clear; Green Giant, I totally see your point.

As for the 'other language' articles - they are short but they do lack in (by what languages I can fathom) encyclopedic context. It's all a question of 'how much we're going to say' - but for this we must decide on what is to go to a 'daughter article' or not.

As for 'attachment to images', one of those proposed for 'guillotining' is mine. You won't hear me whimpering if it's in the best interest of the article. THEPROMENADER 21:25, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

And if I can add:

Citations: Although I do agree that this article is overabounding in statistics, if they are to be sourced somewhere they should be to the source - which in these statistics' case is the INSEE. I honestly don't understand 'different sources' - perhaps you mean for more global subject matter, like, for example, the history of Paris? Take the silly 'Parisii' name for example - every book says something different, and some books specialise in areas where others don't. Applied to this I understand. Statistics, on the other hand, are gathered by a source, and should be taken straight from that source whenever possible.

Sub-headings: I think the reason for this rule is because of overly-long contents boxes... I tried 'fake headings' in the Geography section but I'm not sure how this looks in other skins/browsers, so perhaps this was not a good idea. There should be 'some' sort of division between subjects though... on the other hand, if each subject was shorter and less detailed this problem would not exist.

Have a great day all. THEPROMENADER 09:16, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, I don't think at all that I am being sentimental about the pictures. I would be in agreement to delete two or maybe three maximum, but no more. After all, isn't a picture worth a thousand words ? In my opinion, they are important to such a visual topic as Paris. Paris is not a theory or a philosophy, it's a city, and we experience cities by seeing them. And yes, I understand quite well how the size of the script works in proportion with the size of the page.

Secondly, I agree with ThePromenader that the INSEE figures are the best ones out there for the statistical matters. Who else are you going to go to for more accurate / well-rounded information ? You might find other sources, yes, but most likely they will be based on the work that the INSEE has already done.

Lastly, I believe that if there were some articles which would merit being slightly longer than the old 32Ko limit, I would have to say that such famous ones such as Paris would have to be included amoung them. And since it is a longer article, we need more subheadings so that people who do not want to go through all of it can pick out the information that they are interested in/looking for. Yes, GreenGiant, I think we all agree that "excessive" use of headings is a bad thing, but the question is how far can we go to try to organize the article before we have gone too far. Honestly, I don't know. I can't speak for the average reader, but to me the current number of subheadings is not immoderate. – Aquarelle 22:19, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Just a quick word to say that I fully agree with Aquarelle on this point. Metropolitan 00:33, 15 March 2006 (CET)

If I've upset anyone by my suggestions, I apologise but I don't know how else to put this. If we are not going to aim for featured-article status, then I don't see much point to this article. It's necessary to look through the guidelines and apply them to the article as best we can. For example, we have no less than eight subheadings in the Culture section, which is really eight more than are needed. Do we need two separate short listings of Historical centres and Districts, especially when the Paris districts article lists some of the Historical centres as districts? Look back to the version of the 6th of March when the page was unlocked and the eleven main sections had no less than twenty-nine separate subheadings. Did we really need four subsections in the Geography section entitled Coordinates, Area, Altitude and Temperatures? Did we need a separate subsection called People in the Name section? The best-organised articles don't have numerous subheadings but they do have daughter articles where they go into more detail about particular topics. The excess images could easily go into appropriate daughter articles without having to lose them completely.

My point about citations was that we have to show that the article has not been based mainly on a single source of information - more than half of the 14 working reference-links are to INSEE. As an example, I note that there is a claim that La Défense is the largest business district of Europe (a significant claim) but what is the source of this claim? The reference-link at the bottom is to EPAD, which manages La Défense and is obviously going to say "La Défense est le premier quartier d'affaires en Europe". We need to read this claim from an impartial organisation and if there isn't one, then the claim should be downgraded. A quick search on Goggle shows the Academic Conferences page on Paris and a host of French websites supporting this claim but nothing from the European Union. Another minor example is the Twin Cities section at the bottom of the infobox, where it says there are partnerships with 32 other cities but without any reference to show where this information came from. It would be better to have a link to the relevant page on the official Paris website, which incidentally shows partnerships with 33 cities (I will change that in a moment). We need to avoid grandiose claims unless there are solid, neutral sources of information to back up the claim. Green Giant 04:28, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I do see your point. But here the problem is not the sources, as these result from the article content. At one point most of this article was the sole writ of one person with a fascination for statistics - since there are (still) many statistics in the article, each should be verifiable, and if there is only one source for such statistics than all the sources will be the same. This does look rather odd for sure. To 'lighten' this load we can get rid of all the predictions - are these really needed? We get the idea with a few existing numbers.

As for the sub-headings, this as well stems from another deeper problem - article structure. You will find the same information through different spots in the article, some even needless: Altitude, latitude and longitude, for example, could be infobox material, and this would cut down a few sub-titles. This would leave 'geography' and 'climate', but parts of 'geography' is repeated in part in 'demography'. If these were merged and rearranged, for example, this would cut down on a few more subtitles - and article length. Do you see what I mean? THEPROMENADER 08:24, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Hardouin, in re-pasting your own writ from months ago over the improvements of several contributors [5], and in addition to your blatant disregard for these, it seems that you didn't even look at the rest of the article you were pasting into and the result is jokingly sloppy. In the demographics section, for example, where you unabashedly re-pasted ab litera the 'density' section (again your own writing from almost a year ago), you didn't even think to modify the existing text that was in fact a result of a merge of 'population' and 'density' - now there are two variations of the same 'Paris' population is rising again' phrase, one in each section.

As for the rest of the re-pasting: the language is extremely wonky in some places, breathless in others (many of these a result of trying to create association between normally unrelated elements), missing commas which render sensless some passages... all this and re re-appearance of jokingly insinuative phrases such as "81% of people in the Paris metropolitan area live outside of the city proper (1999 census figures)" (what is this article about?) - this one begins with a number, a no-no known to anyone with even a basic command of English grammar. This would not be a problem if the edits were a first draft - but your hasty pasting was an obliteration of time-consuming efforts by many to improve this article.

THEPROMENADER 11:03, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

This whole argument, especially the vehemence of it, is a mystery to me. I sat down and line-for-line compared the two versions (pre and post) reverted to/from most recently by ThePromenader, and for the life of me I do not see why the differences should prompt such antagonism. ThePromenader, I respectfully suggest that you calm down, be nice, and remember no personal attacks. Hardouin, I understand your point about more recent population figures, but if you believe a sub-article is an acceptable solution, why not create it? Also, Hardouin, it would be easier to support your editing viewpoint if you discussed your major changes on this page first -- you mostly seem to be in the position of defending them ex post facto.

Personally, I found that (aside from the overall article being too long), the information and format provided by Hardouin seemed useful and not at all provocative, and certainly not deserving of the revert instituted by ThePromenader. -- Gnetwerker 09:21, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I have removed this morning's message, as yes, I was quite angry.

As for the passage in question: Gnetwerker, I suggest that you look again - Hardouin's edit to the passage in question was a revert, as it reinstated text from a previous version - and this morning I simply cancelled this. I have never reverted anything on this page that wasn't an unwarrented revert. As for the phrase itself, there were actually very few factual differences at all - I had spent a morning rewriting it to eliminate the repetition created by Hardouin hastily pasting his/her own text dating from months before into it (see #Sloppy_re-inserts. The provocation is not at all in the content, it's in Hardouin's manner of editing - this user only targets (reverts) phrases written by him/her self that are modified by others, even if the original texts contain errors or outright inventions or are badly written, and this has gone on since months. It has been near impossible to make any progress on this article because of this. I suggest (apologies to Aquarelle) that you have a look through the Archives if you would like to know more on this.

FYI, I am in the midst of preparing a complaint against this user, as his/her editing habits are corrupting to any editing process.

Thanks all the same for your input. THEPROMENADER 10:00, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

It's okay. =p In fact, I'm rather suprised you remembered. – Aquarelle 12:06, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

The problem with ThePromenader is that he believes this article is his, and he can delete the work of others with total disregard for the time they spent to collect the information and statistics. Not only he deleted a whole lot of information, but didn't even care to move that information to a sub-article. On top of it, I note all the demographic information ThePromenader deleted referred to the metropolitan area of Paris, whereas ThePromenader left in the article demographic information regarding only the administrative city of Paris. This should alert everyone to the kind of POV attitude that has motivated ThePromenader for months now. In a nutshell: ThePromenader wants to devote the article to the administrative city of Paris (2 million people), and remove pretty much all information concerning the metropolitan area (11 million people), wishing to present Paris as a small city really not comparable to other major world metropolises: I quote ThePromenader:

Paris' density is nearly as high as New York City's Manhattan island, yet it has none of the skyscrapers of the latter metropolis.

This is a very subtle way to push POV. Paris is currently the European metropolis with most skyscrapers (check: Tallest structures in Paris), but almost all skyscrapers are technically located outside the administrative city proper, so ThePromenader's sentence is "technically" correct (if one understands Paris as meaning the administrative city only), but it is totally misleading. I hope this help new users understand the kind of POV going on here. Hardouin 13:06, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, I cannot agree with Hardouin saying that Paris is the European metropolis with most skyscrapers. That's a very subjective point of view. Frankfurt is very well-known for its skyscrapers and cities such as Madrid, Moscow, London or Istanbul have already built and will continue to build a large number of skyscrapers. However, he's right about rejecting the assumption that there's no skyscrapers in Paris. That reminds me about the Tour Montparnasse article where it was mentionned in the introduction it was the only skyscraper in Paris. This is wrong, we can't deny the fact La Défense exists. And even in considering La Défense should be ignored because it's in the banlieue, there is still the Front de Seine near the Eiffel Tower and the towers of the 13th arrondissement. There are more than a hundred towers in Paris which are above 300 feet after all. Metropolitan 20:41, 23 March 2006 (CET)

According to skyscraperpage.com, a very good reference for skyscrapers, there are 11 skyscrapers above 150 meters (492 ft) in Paris and suburbs (not counting Eiffel Tower), 9 in Frankfurt and suburbs (not counting Europaturm), 9 in Greater London (not counting BT Tower), 6 in Moscow (5 more if you include spires), 6 in Istanbul (not couting TV towers), 4 in Warsaw (1 more with spires), 1 in Madrid. So I don't think it was subjective of me to write that Paris is the European metropolis with the most skyscrapers. Unless you consider small towers to be skyscrapers too, which is quite subjective. Hardouin 13:23, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

By the way, if I am to wade into this I should first admit my background/bias. I am American, but I own an apartment in Paris and travel there often, so I feel that I know Paris reasonably well for a foreigner. Thus I am not familiar with the minute details of French bureaucracy (I wish I knew less!), but have an overall familiarity. Of course I am also familiar with New York. I am not a demographer or statistician, and I have no other POV on this that I can think of.

I will bring up one point: I think the Manhattan analogy might be a little misleading, but for different reasons than Hardouin -- strictly speaking, most of the "skyscrapers" in Manhattan are not residential buildings, but commercial ones. Certainly there are some tall buildings with residences, but my impression of both cities is that this is not an apples-to-apples comparison. But the argument seems to go deeper, about article length and edit style. Can someone map out the main issues? -- Gnetwerker 15:42, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, all this is a matter of points of view so it shouldn't really be mentionned in this article but actually I consider Manhattan and the city of Paris as very similar. Indeed, both have a high density despite a large part of the territory being dedicated to office buildings (Paris Western part or Manhattan's Midtown and Downtown). Just as you said, what makes the density of both places is essentially the residential midrise buildings (from 5 to 10 floors). In many ways, the economical relationship between Manhattan and the three other boroughs (outside Staten Island) is also very comparable with the economical relationship between the city of Paris and the three neighbouring departments. The only difference is actually that the economical core of Paris is not exactly in the city proper but also in the department of the Hauts-de-Seine. Anyway, all this might be interesting but remains vastly off-topic. Metropolitan 20:50, 23 March 2006 (CET)

There's a point being missed here. Nothing short of vandalism justifies a revert such as the one Hardouin made and always makes. The version you restored, Gnetwerker, is in fact Hardouin's revert. I don't think you compared as closely as that, as all the repetition outlined in #Slopppy re-inserts is back - and you'll notice that Hardouin re-pasted the old version without even trying to correct any of the errors outlined in the same comment. This is not a step forward, this is a step back, and you have reinstated it. Could you set this straight please, and from there anyone can apply any of the improvements mentioned above. This would also be a return to something resembling a normal editing process.

The first issue was the article length and structure. It then went to detail and fact in light of the arguments posted after a series of reverts to attempts to improve these. Now that the factual issues have been researched and exposed clearly (and are presently being ignored) the issue has returned to article length and structure, and the cycle begins again. I have contacted directly this article's other editors: they haven't a negative word to say about this article's disssection/improvement, and some of these even provided encouragement to this end. So we can ignore the 'disrespect' accusation, and please feel free to make any improvement to this article.

ThePromenader left in the article demographic information regarding only the administrative city of Paris.

... this it totally untrue. All of my edits I have ever made concerning such subjects always contain information about Paris as an agglomeration. As for the singled-out towers phrase (that does not at all reflect my 'intention' of 'chopping Paris') - if it could be said in a better way, please improve upon it, but this is not an argument enough to justify reverting the whole section and the other improvements it contained. THEPROMENADER 07:14, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Without taking anything of substance out of the lead, I reorganized it to conform more to WP:LEAD, which says: "The lead should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it could stand on its own as a concise version of the article. It is even more important here than for the rest of the article that the text be accessible ....". User:Hardouin apparently disagrees, but I strongly suggest broader support for a simpler intro, with exta detail on demographics, word city status, and other stuff moved into appropriate sections below. Comments? -- Gnetwerker 18:26, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I do much like the shorter version, but there is one wee problem that a simple change of a word would fix: unfortunately there is no district called 'central Paris', unless you are speaking of her innermost arrondissements. Saying simply "Paris" or "the city of Paris" would do the trick. THEPROMENADER 19:11, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

PS: I stand as well behind the idea of leaving detail for later on in the article. THEPROMENADER 19:13, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I did choose "central Paris" deliberately, for the following reason: the WP:LEAD is supposed to be a brief synopsis of the article, very accessible to the reader, inviting him or her into the article as a whole. I think that using more "casual" nomenclature makes the intro clearer, as if one says "city of Paris", then this leads to the whole discussion of the various urban divisions and sub-divisions. If you are talking about New York City, you can talk about "the five boroughs" or "the greater metropolitan area" or "manhattan" or various other divisions, some of which are clear to readers, some less so. But in Paris, very few outsiders understand (coming into the article) the distinctions between the Commune, the departement, and so forth. I am not going to defend this to the death, by any means, but I do feel that I am trying to stick up for the average reader, rather than the specialist, at least in the intro. -- Gnetwerker 19:25, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Then perhaps stating simply 'Paris' would be enough, as everything that is outside Paris isn't called simply Paris, and this in any language and sense of comprehension. When you're in Montreuil (and even just a few metres outside Paris' borders) you are no longer in Paris, you are in Montreuil. This is a 'black and white' particularity that sets it apart from the world's other cities, and I think this should be worth mentioning in its original context - or in other words, as it is. The 'five boroughs' would be understood by NY locals and perhaps not foreigners for sure, but the five boroughs exist. 'Central Paris' doesn't in any language - or at least not with the signification you give it. I don't think this is so complicated - at least I hope I made things clearer THEPROMENADER 19:53, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, if anything out of the city proper is completely disconnected from Paris, then explain me why do we talk about "Paris La Défense" to designate a CBD which is built outside the périphérique ? The same is true for "Aéroports de Paris" (Paris Airports), "Disneyland Paris", "Propreté de Paris" (Paris region dustmen), "Préfecture de Police de Paris" (National police forces serving the 4 central departments in Ile-de-France), and so on and so forth. Metropolitan 03:32 29 March 2006 (CET).

Naming conventions to show an entity's association with or proxiimity to the Capital - the examples you cite are nothing more than a selection of these - and the Prefecture de Police is a leftover from the old 'prefecture de Seine' years (I quite remember Hardouin bringing up the same point to almost the same question) - these selective and organisation-particular naming instances cannot justify calling an entire region a 'Paris' name that it doesn't have. I'm sure you see my point. THEPROMENADER 07:28, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, User: Green Giant seems to have addressed the issue by deleting the whole section, and I am not (for the moment) going to mess with it. However, what is it about this page that has people editing like crazy without participating on the Talk page? (And yes, I know GG was here pre-March 15) -- Gnetwerker 23:02, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for noting the change, but I didn't delete whole sections. What I did was to condense the information and order it logically. The article should not have not have an introduction of two short two-line paragraphs and two short three-line paragraphs. The introduction needs longer paragraphs and less detailed explanations. The detail should go into the sections further down or better still into daughter articles. Look further down and you will see I have simplified several sentences and paragraphs which looked more like random musings. If you think I haven't participated on the talk page, you should note that my most recent suggestion (removing/reducing images) went down like a lead balloon with other editors. The same seems to have happened to my suggestion that we work towards Featured Article status by applying the guidelines on Wikipedia:What is a featured article. Believe me I have witnessed the ugly edit-war which has been taking place but the details are in the archives which Promenader has recommended so often to people wondering about the debate going on. I even added a navigation box to make it easier to go through the archives :P . Anyway, have a look at the two versions I saved at the layout change and picture changes to see where I think the article should move towards. My recommendation is ignore the "occasional" reversions and be BOLD :) Green Giant 00:25, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

P.S. I think most of the editors here would be ideal candidates for locking up in a mental asylum :P (only kidding) Green Giant 00:25, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Re sections, I will certainly take your word for it, but the population stats disappeared somewhere along the line. I think the result is fine. I tried to be bold, but you were bolder. -- Gnetwerker 00:49, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Ahh well now, the reason the population stats disappeared is that the relevant statistics are repeated immediately to the right in the big ugly infobox. They had a single citation which linked to a website that was unacceptable as a source because it has no official status. That reminds me I forgot to remove the reference at the bottom and brings me to another point. I think it's high time we adopted a different citation system which I have seen on several excellent articles. It invloves using the <ref> and </ref> tags plus the relevant links/notes within the body of the text and then at the bottom all that is needed is the <references/> tag. The net result is no visual difference but when you add or remove a citation it is added or removed from the References section automatically. Plus I hear it is all the rage over in Featured Article-land. I will boldly change it now because I don't think there is any credible argument against changing. :) Green Giant 01:10, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Seriously Green Giant I don't understand where's the need to shrink so much the article. If that's about saving memory on Wikipedia there are a lot of articles which could be shrinked before this one. Metropolitan 03:38 29 March 2006 (CET).

To be honest, I am motivated towards getting this article to featured status. There is still a template at the top which tells of a failed previous attempt and even though some people find the archives difficult you should have no trouble reading this -> Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Paris. That was more than a year ago and sadly the last few months have been taken up by a pointless edit war. If we are not going to work towards a high standard for this article then there's not much point to Wikipedia. I strongly suggest everyone (Aquarelle, Gnetwerker, Hardouin, Metropolitan and Promenader and anyone else I have missed) take a good long look at the guide on Wikipedia:What is a featured article and give me your honest opinion whether anybody wants to work towards that? It is not just about reducing the size of the article, although that is important.

The real point here is that we had long rambling discussions in the text. If you were wanting to read an encyclopedia article on Paris, would you want to read sentences with "On the other hand though" and text with incorrect comparisons being made like the one between the area of the City/Commune of Paris, the New York borough of Manhattan (not a city), and the metropolitan area of Greater London (not a city either). Look at the ugly Culture section and try to convince someone that there really should be so many pictures. We still have several extremely short (one/two/three line) paragraphs - which is definitely against the grain of featured articles. Until today we still had 18 references of which three had no online links to anything. Of the remaining fourteen, eight referred to INSEE data. I am not proposing we dump INSEE but I would like to see more references for the rest of the text. It is simply unacceptable that more than half the working references are from one source. We need everybody to pull up their socks and work towards a high standard and not cry about someone making bold changes.

Just to cap it off, I haven't been able to work on this article much lately because I have worked with another editor (the one and only Pepsidrinka who incidentally has just become a sysop/admin (nerd to you and me)) to get the Pakistan article sorted out. One month ago it was a poorly written, POV-ridden stinkhole but it is now a featured article, you can check for yourself the way that the article has come along. I've just looked at your userpages and two of you have a single word as your userpage. Only one of you has an award for good work (take a bow Promenader). None of you has a single featured article that I can see. Maybe you have awards and featured articles on other wiki's or you have hidden them somewhere but it seems unlikely. I would genuinely Love for you all to be able to display a great big featured-article star on your userpages and with it a barnstar or two. Promenader, do you remember Nichalp's userpage? Everyone have a look and tell me you don't want to be able to display an umpteen dozen barnstars, featured articles, featured lists and did-you-know's on your userpages?

I for one, will no longer tolerate the petty edit war that is still taking place here. If it flares up again, you can bet your life insurance that I will follow the procedures towards conflict resolution and if necessary I will put forward a motion to have persistent offenders barred from editing this article. So, let's just all get on together and make certain that in a short time we can proudly put Paris up for Featured Article Candidacy. Before that we need some bold editing, an outside peer review, a nomination for good article status and then we'll "go for gold". Oh, and make sure you read the wikilinks I pointed to in this summary. Green Giant 02:27, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Count me in on your 'star drive', Green Giant : ) THEPROMENADER 07:33, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

La Defense does not host Euronext: they are located in the Bourse de Paris [6] and have their Paris offices on the rue Cambon [7] near the place de la Concorde. The claim that Euronext even had a capital was already a head-scratcher - they make a point of being pan-European, and you won't even find anything about Paris being their capital on their own website [8] - and even if it were, it would be a role purely symbolic (the actual marketplace is but a room full of computers). Also, the claim that Euronext is the second-largest market is vague - on what criteria? A search such as this one [9] sums this up in a nutshell. In all, this claim should not have merited such a lengthy place in the introduction - besides, it is much better written in the summary way it is. THEPROMENADER 19:14, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Green Giant, your threats are supposed to scare anyone? Drop that kind of tone please. As for barnstars and featured-article stars, seriously, I find this way of showing off very childish. I don't know about other contributors, but personally I have edited, contributed to, or created from scratch literally HUNDREDS of articles in the past two years. Actually I think I am ranked 400 something largest contributor on Wikipedia, but I have never highlighted my contributions on my user page, neither have I asked for any barnstars of decorations, because I COULDN'T CARE LESS ABOUT MEDALS OR SHOWING OFF. I really find this so childish. Finally, I don't understand your obsession with featured-article status. Honestly, I have seen featured articles that are crap, and on the other hand I have seen excellent articles that are not featured article, so I'm not sure that featured-article thing is really meaningful. Are we going to delete everything and leave this article as dry and short as a dictionary entry just to get an elusive featured-status decoration? In the past month I think already about a third of the article was deleted in that crazy drive for featured-status. I would like to hear other users on this, not just the usual Green Giant and Promenader. Hardouin 20:39, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, you have heard from me before, but I will say it again: without taking a position on the tiny, "how-many-angels-can-dance-on-a-pin" details being discussed (re: population, etc), I will say that the article, when I started looking a few weeks ago, was startlingly poorly written and organized, and that a simplification and general rewrite was well in order. While I happen to agree that the Featured Article process is over-rated (once Bulbasaur achieved FA, how credible can it be?), it nonetheless sets down some guidelines to improve articles. This article, as I pointed out, was an egregious violater of WP:LEAD. I don't know whether GG has gone too far, but I classify his work as an improvement. -- Gnetwerker 20:49, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I can only second the above - The intro is much improved and to the point. If the reader cares for detail he'll examine the TOC and/or scroll down, so it is only logical to leave detail for the body.

I do see a lot of valid arguments that were totally ignored in the pointing out of nonexistant 'threats' - but I totally understand the impatient tone in thinking to an outsider's view of the shenanigans going on here since months - with hardly any positive result at all. I totally get the message of GG's above : time to move forward.

A featured article is a damn fine thing because it gets more attention (criticism) and because of this *should* get even better. I don't drive for awards either but looking at a page full of them is impressive - it shows an interactivity and recognition by other users above the qualities of the award itself. If we were all writing books of our own I could perhaps understand a disdain for this type of system, but here we are editing on, over and behind other contributors we can't always know on first sight. In short, barnstars are a form of recognition if not anything else.

As for this article, it is not going remain the role of one contributor to decide what's 'best' for it - we should be many to compliment a mutual goal of veracity and comprehension. But for that we'll need contributors knowledgable on what's best to 'cut and polish' in an article - and for this one, to that end, things are lookin' up. THEPROMENADER 22:35, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Green Giant, your threats are supposed to scare anyone? Drop that kind of tone please.

Precisely which bit did you find threatening Hardouin?

As for barnstars and featured-article stars, seriously, I find this way of showing off very childish.

What is wrong with wanting this article to be among the very best on Wikipedia?

I don't know about other contributors, but personally I have edited, contributed to, or created from scratch literally HUNDREDS of articles in the past two years. Actually I think I am ranked 400 something largest contributor on Wikipedia, but I have never highlighted my contributions on my user page, neither have I asked for any barnstars of decorations, because I COULDN'T CARE LESS ABOUT MEDALS OR SHOWING OFF.

That's great. You may well have started hundreds of articles and I congratulate you on that but quantity is not everything. This is not about showing off or threatening anyone. It's about creating and maintaining high-quality articles. Have any of your articles ever been peer-reviewed? If they have then you should know better. If they haven't, then you have a serious issue to deal with. Just so we are clear, nobody asks for medals or barnstars. You actually have to do something that impresses another editor and then you might get a barnstar if they think you deserve it. It is pathetic that you have to put some comments in capitals because it shows who is really being childish here.

Finally, I don't understand your obsession with featured-article status. Honestly, I have seen featured articles that are crap, and on the other hand I have seen excellent articles that are not featured article, so I'm not sure that featured-article thing is really meaningful.

What's wrong with wanting to improve an article towards a standard established by Wikipedia consensus? Does it bother you that hundreds of editors have contributed to a process you are dismissing as childish. If you are not going to have articles peer-reviewed by uninvolved editors, if you are not going to provide comprehensive references and if you are not going to present honest existing facts without any personal viewpoints - then all of your hundreds of articles are worthless.

Are we going to delete everything and leave this article as dry and short as a dictionary entry just to get an elusive featured-status decoration?

No we are not going to delete everything. When have I said this? I have suggested a perfectly reasonable approach which hundreds and even thousands of other wikipedia editors have participated in and continue to do so.

In the past month I think already about a third of the article was deleted in that crazy drive for featured-status.

What crazy drive are you talking about? Mostly it's been suggestions so far, but lets examine this one-third claim of yours. Look at the version that Sean Black locked on 14 February which you can find here -> [10] and that version is 47 KB. The current version is 46 KB but we are to believe that a 1KB difference amounts to one third of the article vanishing? Grow up Hardouin and stop misinforming everyone.

You might recall that you, Hardouin were trying to defend ludicrous claims but you have still not provided a single answer to back up your ideas. Weeks and weeks have gone by and you conveniently ignore the fact that you were supporting erroneous information in this article. There was a nice convenient table for you to work through and it is still there in archive 7. Perhaps you can provide us with some evidence that Seine-Saint-Denis' population being 63% of Queen's Borough population is similar. Maybe you can show us how Guatemala and Vietnam are subtropical countries? Is that what Wikipedia is to you - hundreds of unreviewed error-laden POV articles? I find it interesting that of the three responses so far, the only negative one is yours. Perhaps you need to examine your own motivations and aims before you start denouncing consensus-based processes as meaningless. Green Giant 23:11, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally the 1KB slimming is down to the change in reference method. :P Green Giant 23:28, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

You perfectly know that the KB length of Wikipedia articles is not a good indication of what's actually inside the articles. But then, you so much love to prove me wrong on everything I say, you're ready to use any argument. If I said the earth is round, I'm sure you would find a very argumentative way to prove, that, well, no, the earth is not round, because it is flat on the poles, or something of the kind. For people interested, here ( [11]) you can see a comparison between the article as of Feb. 14 and the article now, showing all that was deleted in just a month and a half. Hardouin 12:22, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Hardouin, I'm sorry but Green Giant's criticisms of your work were founded, pointed and clear, and you have yet to answer any of the questions he asked. THEPROMENADER 13:25, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I totally agree with what user Metropolitan wrote above. So much has been removed from the introduction now that it defeats the purpose of an introduction. There's not one word anymore about how many people live in Paris. Guys, seriously, do you step back sometimes and consider what you're doing? This, now, looks like the introduction of an old Wikipedia article from 2002 or 2003 when articles were so short and incomplete. I mean, even the most obscure Chinese city gets an introduction longer than this. Can some sensible contributors express their opinion here? Hardouin 20:48, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

The intro should follow WP:LEAD, if it doesn't you should edit until it does. -- Gnetwerker 20:51, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

As you may have noticed, we have been threatened by Green Giant (read above) if we dare to edit his edits. Not what I would call a very positive way of working together. Hardouin 20:55, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Not sure if I missed something but I only saw Metropolitan speaking of the entire article, not only the introduction. Even then, the introduction depends on the detail the article will go to - if you're going to repeat it below, you don't say it in detail up top. If this were to be but a three-paragraph summary the situation would be completely different. Balance against redundancy. Now, what do you mean by asking for 'sensible contributors' - do you mean to suggest that some of us aren't? Please be careful in how you say things. And again for the 'threats' - you are again putting words of your own into someone else's mouth - where does GG say anything about anyone's, never mind his own, edits? - but perhaps he was referring to the very anti-'working together' act of wholesale reverting the work of other contributors. And even then, those 'threats' you so expound are... promising to instigate perfectly normal Wiki procedures against anything disrupting the course of open and honest editing? What can anyone have against that? THEPROMENADER 23:05, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

If you feel threatened by my intentions to follow the normal procedures then that is really sad. As pointed out above, I fail to see where I have threatened anyone for editing my edits. I see nothing wrong with adhering to the guidelines used by countless hundreds of others. I do see something wrong when not having named anyone specifically, I get a barrage of criticism from one editor who feels threatened. I don't see anyone else complaining so perhaps we can move on and work to improve this article? Green Giant 23:23, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I keep returning to the New York City article to have a look at the intro there, and I do think that there should be some population information for the Paris article. Yet without getting into a 'how many fairies can dance on the end of a pin (in leaving enough room for the Titanic)' argument, this info must comply with WP:LEAD's 'standalone accessiblity' points. Now before anyone goes reverting anything, Perhaps we should discuss this here first. I have had a play with it in GG's Paris sandbox - have a look and let us know what you think. I did my best not to elaborate. THEPROMENADER 09:29, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Your really want to have my opinion about your paragraph on Paris introduction in this sandbox ThePromenader ? Okay, then I'll be very honnest with you, that's pure crap. Once considering the specificity of France when it goes about its administrative communes, any article about a French city which would not mention at the strict minimum its agglomeration is worthless. There are 36,000 municipalities in France... only in Paris metropolitan area, there are nearly twice more municipalities than in the whole country of Belgium. The 24 other EU countries all together have 45,000 municipalities. In such a context, considering any France's central municipality as being the city in itself is simply an irrelevant view.

We had a perfect description of Paris population which was taking four small lines and which was summing up things very accurately. It's exactly identical to the introduction paragraph from the French article on Paris. Why changing it ? What bothers you about this ? What's the part you don't like ? Don't say it's because it's "too technical" since it would be a lie, wprds used to describe it are very simple. Don't say that those are just irrelevant statistics as that would be a lie too. The INSEE are determining those statistics for French official census. Don't say those statistics aren't used since any article about Paris would have a reference to those stats. Then, I simply ask you, why ? Metropolitan 15:01, 30 March 2006 (CET)

Why are you citing the introduction for the French Paris article as a 'must-follow' reference - without saying that you were the one that wrote it? The message you left on the talk page there wasn't much appreciated either. There is nothing wrong with the phrase you wrote; it is more a question of 'how much to say where'. What is the introduction written for - an article called - 'Paris' or an article called the 'Paris agglomeration'? The answer to this question is the answer to yours. Keep to the basics in the intro, and save the details for later. Is this so difficult to understand? THEPROMENADER 09:54, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Metropolitan, that's a lot of flame - and whatever are you going on about? Where is there not mentioned anything about the agglomeration - that I in fact made a point of putting in? What are you going on about comparing municipalities in metropolitan areas - to those in other countries? In what way does this concern a summary introduction? I really don't see your point.

I also don't understand why you're targeting me for the 'old' phrase - I was very clear why I disliked it - it is still written above, did you not read it? I was happier with it with the reptetion removed and cut into two - and not suggestively stuck into one phrase with Paris as if it was one and the same. Remember we are talking about an introduction here, and not the text body - where this text is repeated several times already.

That aside, you have yet to say in any way how my population insert proposition is 'pure crap'. THEPROMENADER 16:38, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

PS: And I just noticed your change to the 'tallest buildings' phrase - I'm sorry but La Défense is not in Paris so it can't contain the 'tallest buildings in Paris'. I don't at all mind the information being there, but tell it how it is. While I'm here, I don't at all understand why you should be just as angry as Hardouin - to date you have edited but a few phrases in this article. How about instead talking with everyone about how we can make this article better, instead of reflecting on how it was 'before' ? As you are a relatively new editor to this article, i don't really understand your seemingly defensive attitude. THEPROMENADER 16:52, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

It's rather impressive how in your mind the administrative excuse is considered as enough to ignore everything about Paris. "The Stade de France is not in the administrated area labelled as Paris so there's no large stadium in Paris", "Paris airports are not in the administrated area labelled as Paris so there's no airport in Paris", "Paris skyscrapers are not in the administrated area labelled as Paris so there's no skyscraper in Paris". Why official administrative borders are so decisive to you that you are ready to deny everything about Paris urbanistic and economical structure ? I thought Hardouin was paranoid but the more I know you the more I believe he may not be that wrong. Metropolitan 19:34, 30 March 2006 (CET)

It's not an excuse, it's a fact. If it's not in Paris, where is it? What is Paris? Define it yourself for us instead of being so vague about it, and show us where other references say the same. Am I cutting out any of the places you speak of, or saying that they have no place in this article? Not at all - but I ask that you state things as they are. Your arguments are neither logical nor reasonable. BTW, I think you wanted to say "I know Hardouin thought you were paranoid" - but I don't see the point of your saying it. What has this person or opinion have to do with content or editing? THEPROMENADER 18:02, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Metropolitan, not only have you not told me clearly why my proposition is crap, you have ignored it and all discussion in just pasting the old version back into the introduction where it was. It is sometimes amazing how much your editing habits resemble those of another contributor here. What's the rush? THEPROMENADER 18:14, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

The answer to this should be obvious to you. Your paragraph is crap because of your stubborn refusal to mention any other figure than the 2 million one for Paris. Sorry to disappoint you but that's only 20% of the population of Paris agglomeration. What suggest your paragraph is that Paris is a city of 2 million people surrounded by a sparsely inhabitated countryside. How can you suggest that Paris suburbs are simply about sprawl ? Do you know many sprawls with skyscrapers business district such as in La Défense ? Do you know many sprawls which are the most densely inhabitated areas in Western Europe, such as all the inner suburbs of Paris ? Have you already put a feet in Levallois-Perret, in Le Pré-Saint-Gervais or in Malakoff ? Tell me where is the sprawl in those areas ? Where ? Metropolitan 21:43, 30 March 2006 (CET)

So 'sprawl' is off the mark - but let me remind you that we are speaking of a proposed text in a sandbox - nothing like the already-published text you yourself decided to re-paste in the face of all discussion and proposition. For the umpteenth millionth time I have never ever attempted to sever the content of this article at Paris' borders so please stop it with this inane argument of Hardouin's. I am really finding it increasingly difficult to differentiate between you two. THEPROMENADER 21:41, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Metropolitan, I really don't understand your and Hardouin's drive to create 'grey areas' in this article. There is no "Paris outside its administrative limits" - ! Anything outside Paris' borders is not called 'Paris': globally the suburbs are called the "suburbs", the "Paris agglomeration" or at a wider (and more vague) Île-de-France-covering scale the "Paris region", otherwise you have to call a suburban locale by its 'real' name (commune, département), and it is as simple as that. Every standardised reference in existence keeps to this simple rule; I don't understand why you two refuse to. THEPROMENADER 06:59, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

PS: I changed the 'offending word' in GG's Paris sandbox - that done, is the intro proposition still 'total crap', and if so, why? Thanks in advance. THEPROMENADER 10:33, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

(continued below: ThePromenader's bias)

Did it bother anyone that I moved the TOC down and to the right? It certainly solved the layout problem, but perhaps some would think it 'against the rules'. Just wondering at the consensus on this. THEPROMENADER 00:09, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Note: Originally I had cut this from the "introduction" discussion above - because it had nothing to do with it - and put it under a separate title; not the one present. Because of the personal affrontery and senseless argument with no visible target nor goal - the conversation (seemingly) closed I archived it. Now it is back again - apologies for the wasted time and space. THEPROMENADER 13:00, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

(continued from Introduction bis above)

Metropolitan, unfortunately the problem goes far beyond only the introduction. ThePromenader has a POV approach (Paris is the administrative city of Paris period, everything else is not Paris) and applies this approach methodically to the whole article. Now that he received green light from Green Giant, he again trimmed the demographics section and deleted information about the whole aglomeration. In particular, he deleted this:

and replaced it with this:

One can only be struck by the amount of biaseness here. Promenader's presentation seems to suggest that somehow Paris is a small city of 2 million inhabitants, in total decline since the 1920s. He says Paris led France economically speaking in the 1920s, but now it's in decline. This is a total misreprensation of reality of course. The Paris metropolitan area has been in continual growth since the 1920s (population wise and economically wise), with only a brief setback during 1939-1945. And Paris is still the overwhelming economic and population leader of France, not to mention it is one of the largest economic centers in the world.
When I pointed that out before, Promenader said:

Funny isn't it? Let's turn Promenader's argument upside down: city of Paris statistical information is also in the table, so let's remove city of Paris stats in the demographics section as well. Yet Promenader chose to remove only agglomeration statistics. A very POV choice.

Unfortunately, Promenader is very good at winning people to his side and smearing people who object to his bias (check the messages he sent to Green Giant, Gnetwerker, and others), so now it's impossible to undo Promenader's edits, because whoever will do will be accused of being a reverter or doing "page appropriation". Metropolitan, I think the only way out of this is to bring other people to explain to Promenader why his choice of limiting Paris to the administrative city only makes no sense. At the moment there is just you and me who tell him he's wrong (plus remember that he still believes that you and me are the same person... sock-pupettry paranoia...), but as I understand you live in Paris maybe among your friends you can find some people knowledgeable about Paris who want to express their views here. Personally I live in between two countries at the moment and I have no French acquaintance that I can think of. Hardouin 13:31, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

It's amazing how much time is wasted on this talk page over trifling nonsense that has nothing to do with article quality. Hardouin: your 'examples' are selective, imprecise, and tailored for the 'first-time viewer' who knows little about what has gone on here since months already. The second text you present did not "replace" the first in any way - you only 'chose' each section for its postitive/negative connotations - how wily of you! In that light, we can toss the accusations following in the trash. As for the rest, Paris did indeed lead France by far as capital of production (your argument is already gone here), but today the Île-de-France is rivalled by the Rhone-Alpes region! Will you please stop wasting everyone's time with long-winded, vague, yet accusatory arguments that have nothing to do with fact or quality? Thank you. As for your completely unfounded POV accusations, pick up an encyclopedia, turn to "Paris", start copying and I'll be happy. You can't get much simpler than that. THEPROMENADER 14:12, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Promenader, your arguments are becoming sillier and sillier. Rhône-Alpes rivalling Île-de-France? On which planet are you living? According to INSEE ( [12]) in 2003 the GDP of Île-de-France was 448.9 billion euros, three times higher than the GDP of Rhône-Alpes (149.5 billion euros). How can Rhône-Alpes be rivalling Île-de-France? Plus you seem to forget that Île-de-France is basically a metropolitan area, whereas Rhône-Alpes is a very large region made up of many separated metropolitan areas and several totally distinct provinces (Savoy, Dauphiné, Ardèche, and so on). Your comparison is both inaccurate and inappropriate. Instead of always berating me and Metropolitan, perhaps you should refrain from editing subjects you don't seem to be very knowledgeable about. Hardouin 14:44, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Rhone-alpes is catching up to the Île-de-France in employment in industry. The topic was de-industrialisation so completely correct and in context. Encyclopedie Universalis, p.394, "Portée et limites de la "désindustrilalisation" parisienne" . Anything else? THEPROMENADER 15:17, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

According to INSEE ( [13]) in 2003 the added value of manufacturing industries in Île-de-France was 38.9 billion euros, 60% higher than Rhône-Alpes (24,2 billion euros). You're living on another planet Promenader. Hardouin 15:30, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

(Waving 'hello') employment in industry. Workers leaving Paris. De-industrialisation. (pointing upwards) Indicated reference. Are we talking about economy might in the demographics section? Your arguments don't even apply. Please stop wasting our time. Thank you. THEPROMENADER 15:42, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Promenader, but you are the one wasting our time with your ignorance of the basic fundamentals of economics. Can someone explain to Promenader the difference between deindustrialisation and economic decline? FYI the reduction in the total number of people employed in manufacturing (as I believe that's what you mean by "industry") does not mean the total workforce in the economy is shrinking, or people have to leave the region. As jobs disappear in manufacturing, new jobs are created in services, more than compensating for the lost jobs in manufacturing, and so total employement is actually rising. Hardouin 16:55, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Still trying to argue one topic with another? Your vague complaint was with a 'worker exodus' line in the demographics section; we are not talking economy here, and nowhere anywhere did I mention economical decline. Will you stop digging for/inventing arguments please? I don't see what you're trying to accomplish here other than trying to make another contributor look stupid. I made my point quite clearly above, and a referenced one at that. Enough already? THEPROMENADER 17:19, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Promenader, you wrote:

and you deleted:

By refering only to the administrative city of Paris without looking globally at the whole agglomeration, and by focusing on manufacturing without regard for the larger picture of the whole economy, you introduce heavy bias and end up with your conclusion that Paris is a small and declining city of 2 million people. A total misrepresentation of reality. I'm sorry but there's no excuse for that. Hardouin 17:36, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Again the first phrase did not at all replace the second, this is only your invention - I already told you that this sorry sort of argument doesn't work. You're not even trying to make sense now as the subject being spoken of was Paris' loss of population. THEPROMENADER 17:54, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

PS: A good lot of this page, and this section in particular, is going to the archives. People don't want to read reams of seemingly pointless arguments such as this one. THEPROMENADER 17:59, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh, so whatever information or figures disagree with your biased vision of reality is pointless. How convenient! Please let other users decide what's pointless and what's not. As for the sentences at stake, everybody can check here ( [14]) ThePromenader's edit on March 30, 2006 at 18:30. As everybody can plainly see, Promenader deleted the paragraph I highlighted above, and left only the "Paris is a city of 2 million people in de-industrialisation and decline" paragraph. Hardouin 18:33, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Where did I ever say the phrase you "quote" as if taken ad verbatim. This entire section is utter tripe. Apologies for having been dumb enough to be led into it. THEPROMENADER 18:58, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Hardouin, you un-archived this? It is not me you're making look like a fool in all the above. (chuckle) But it's you who insist. (To all) Apologies yet again for the mess. THEPROMENADER 12:51, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

ThePromenader archived the whole conversation above (a one day old conversation!) for just one reason: he doesn't like people who object to his silly views and bias. So I un-archived it. The points I mentioned still remain:

• ThePromenader deleted the paragraph regarding the 11 million people Paris agglomeration from the demographics section
• ThePromenader presents Paris as a small city of 2 million people in deindustrialisation and decline
• and last but not least, Promenader pretends that Île-de-France is rivalled by Rhône-Alpes (read above), which is the most ridiculous thing I have ever read.

Can people knowledgeable about France comment on this please? Hardouin 13:37, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

If we want the demographics chapter to keep a tiny bit of relevancy, then it has to at least mention demographics of Paris agglomeration as a whole. Otherwise, this becomes utterly irrelevant. There's no more revelancy in summing up Paris demographics to the sole city of Paris than in summing up London demographics to the sole city of London. I've reorganized that chapter with as unique objective to make it as accurate and short as possible. Now please, archive this discussion because this talk page is getting completely messy. Metropolitan 14:10, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

It wouldn't be so messy if Promenader wasn't adding new messages 10 times a day or so to this talk page, oftentimes silly messages, such as the Rhône-Alpes argument. I totally agree with your demographics edit, unfortunately I'm afraid it's just a matter of hours (or minutes) before Promenader floods this talk page again with new messages severely objecting your edit. Hardouin 14:18, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

It takes two to have a conversation, dear. I made my point clearly above, and it is you who are arguing apples to oranges yet proclaiming you're 'right'. If you don't want an article accessible to the general public, if you think your opnion above standardised references and everyday naming conventions, if you don't give a fig about what others think of the quality of your work, I really wonder what your goal is on Wiki. THEPROMENADER 15:19, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Always making accusations, aren't you. Hardouin 15:27, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

constatations, not accusations. The archives are full of it! THEPROMENADER 16:11, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

PS: If you would like to archive the above again before too many people see it, I won't complain. Personally I wouldn't like the above to be in the limelight were it mine, but this was your choice. THEPROMENADER 16:19, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

This replaces an earlier knee-jerk post. Actually the edits aren't bad, alhough I still don't see why 'bits of Hardouin' appear there. I understand completely the 'relevency' of Paris as an agglomeration, but Paris as an agglomeration is the Paris agglomeration and not simply Paris - my problem is with a deviance from standard naming practises, not with the subject spoken of. The text is still fine as it speaks first of Paris, then of Paris as an agglomeration - this is called putting things in context. You see, it is possible to make progress without filling the talk pages with accusatory sh*te. THEPROMENADER 15:37, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

(rolling eyes) of course I must say something about the "81% of people living in the metropolitan area don't live in Paris" part - this is not only obvious because of sheer size difference - Why are we skipping the most relevent part in saying this - shouldn't the Paris agglomeration be the reference here? Wouldn't it be more logical to say that a certain percentage of a city's natural growth (density!) is within the city limits? Digging to the very limits of the sparsely-populated farm-and-forest commuter belt even defeats the very purpose of this phrase. I'm sure you can find the proper numbers somewhere. THEPROMENADER 16:06, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

You're so totally illogical Promenader. The section as I had originally edited it spoke first of Paris, and then of Paris agglomeration. Yet you deleted my edits. When it's me who makes edits it's always wrong, but when it's someone else doing the very same edits, then it's fine, except for the "bits of Hardouin", as if everything I wrote had to totally disappear. If you don't like me, I can't change it, but don't let your personal aversion pollute this talk page and this article. And I would appreciate if you could abstain from censuring all my edits as a matter of principle. Thank you. Hardouin 15:46, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Say, would you mind holding the inventive accusations and insults please? Thank you. I only look at what's written, and improve what I can if I see that it is needing of improvement; as for you I've been doing my best to ignore you, but it's a bit difficult to do when you and your muddy-meaning-ed texts keep reappearing - unchanged. THEPROMENADER 16:06, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Hardouin, there's no reason to get upset in here. The reason why I've taken back some of your former paragraphs is simply because I knew they existed and it was easier for me to pick among former versions than to write a new version by myself. This being said, I've still made some edits, with as unique objective to make a description which could be the shortest and most relevant as possible. Something which isn't so easy actually. Metropolitan 23:43, 3 april 2006 (UTC)

I'm not upset at you, I'm upset at Promenader's petty censure of whatever I edit. Hardouin 10:47, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Your accusation is completely unfounded, Hardouin. Remove "petty", trade "edit" for "revert" and your statement would be accurate. That aside, and the note above aside (you do see the logic in it, right, Metropolitan?), in reading it two days later I actually quite like the end result. For sure it is not an easy task to add detail and retain interest and readability. Bravo. THEPROMENADER 15:42, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Can we stop the bickering, please! I am still at something of a loss about what continues to provoke all of this bile. User:Hardouin, your constant and ill-advised picking at Promenader makes your points hard to support, while Promenader, my impression is that you are goading Hardouin. As near as I can tell, and I have not paid close attention to the bickering above, you two are still disagreeing about what to call and how to define "Paris" and (for lack of a better term) "the greater metropolitan Paris-land area", which Hardouin calls by the unlovely term "agglomeration".

The deeper issue seems to be that Promenader is taking the position that Paris is (perhaps) shrinking, or at risk of doing so, due to "museification" or (to use an American phrase) "urban hollowing", whereas Hardouin wishes to portray the greater Paris area as a vibrant and growing region. Is this correct?

Is it possible that both positions are correct? Anecdotal evidence and press reports that I have seen support the idea of central Paris becoming more rarified, and with the price of apartments, it is easy to see why. On the other hand, there is no denying the growth of Paris outside the peripherique. Hardouin, if you could first, stop calling people names, and then break your complaints down into a couple of clear points, it would be easier to address them. -- Gnetwerker 17:30, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

(grin) Aaaargh vous-même : )

You've got on the head - The Paris agglomeration is both these.

My 'guff' was with this article's tendency to lump them both into a single indiscernible one - until a short time ago it could have been called "Paris metropolitan area" as the information and statistics about the city itself were secondary to this.

This is an article about Paris. Paris is backwards in its refusal to accept anything outside its péripherique as its own (or even as being a result of its own existence), and you will find evidence of this coming out of every mouth and TV screen and in every book you read here. I don't agree with this either, but we can't in writing this article bridge this gap in Paris' place and pretend this division doesn't exist. Silly, prejudiced, backwards, but this is how it is.

What we can do though in a 'Paris' article is to talk about the city as a city entity, but we have to do this we have to use the proper referencable terms, and this in context. 'Paris agglomeration' and 'Paris region' are examples of usable terms - but I remind you, neither are called only 'Paris'. This makes things difficult when writing a 'Paris' article - as reading many encyclopaedias will show - but they do it all the same without having to invent anything new at all. Mimicking these is my only goal for this article - in of course adapting the flow of the prose to the context already present here.

Hardouin has (often) suggested creating a "City of Paris" article that speaks only of the city within its limits, and reserving the "Paris" article for speaking of everything to the limits of the Paris commuter belt - but in reality only the opposite can ever hope to be practicable - or referencable. First off, there's the above - Paris has stubbornly strict limits, and nothing outside of Paris is called anything else, if not lumped with the rest, than its own commune or département name. Second off, there exists no "Greater Paris" - the next step up is Paris' petite couronne ring of three departments, but Paris as an agglomeration stretches past these. The next step out would be the Île-de-France which is sometimes casually called the "Paris Region" (région Parisienne), but this extends far beyond Paris as an agglomeration. Complicated, eh? You can stop banging your head on the table.

So as a compromise, I suggested that we keep it as KISS as possible and speak of both in this same article - first of Paris, then of Paris as an agglomeration where applicable (for subjects such as population and immigration, for example) - separate then as one as there are often great contrast between the city and its suburbs that deserve - and even need! - mention to paint an accurate picture. Most every reference in existence does exactly the same as what I've described above, and the fact that I want the same is no coincidence.

I hope I made things clearer. THEPROMENADER 19:35, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Gnetwerker, I'm afraid you haven't been around here long enough. You would get pretty pissed off too if one user had constantly reverted your work and attacked your integrity over the past 5 months as has been my case. Hardouin 19:53, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Hardouin, while I will defend to the death your right to be pissed-off, it is Wikipedia policy that you need to keep it off of these pages. I may not have been engaged in this petty war for as long as you, but i know this: if you keep posting angry comments and letting Promender successfully goad you, you will lose your argument. -- Gnetwerker 20:15, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Whatever that statement is, Hardouin, it's bald-faced. Turnaround accusation aside, if you would like my lengthy compilation of your months of 'roadblock antics' you're welcome to it. At least I've never resorted to 'getting personal' - its' a bad sign when this happens when when discussing things like veracity, facts and readablility. THEPROMENADER 20:23, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

You've never resorted to 'getting personal'? Seriously, let me refresh your mind, and enlighten Gnetwerker. This is what Promenader wrote at User talk:Stevage on December 17, 2005:

Hardouin is a wily little creature and it is unfortunate that Wiki has little means of dealing with the likes of him.

So stop acting as the self-righteous guy please. Hardouin 20:51, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Is it possible that this can be resolved by agreeing to use certain terms to mean certain things, to wit:

1. City of Paris - meaning the traditional civic boundaries of Paris,the commune, the 20 arrondissements;
2. Paris urban area -- meaning Paris and its immediate suburbs (the aire urbaine?);
3. Paris region or Ile-de-France region -- the larger Ile-de-France region

If we were to consistently use these (or other!) terms, and agree to include at appropriate places the information about all three, would that end this fight? -- Gnetwerker 20:15, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, - that's exactly it - save that the "paris urban area" is the "unité urbaine de Paris" : ) THEPROMENADER 20:26, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Promenader wrote:

Paris has stubbornly strict limits, and nothing outside of Paris is called anything else, if not lumped with the rest, than its own commune or département name.

Oh yeah? Then how can the airports, all located in the suburbs, are called Aéroports de Paris? How can the university located in the distant suburbs of Orsay is called Université Paris 11? How can the La Défense business district, located in the suburbs, has zip code 92030 Paris La Défense? How can the company treating water in the suburb of Ivry-sur-Seine is called Eau de Paris? Promenader, you're confusing administrative limits with economic and daily life realities. Hardouin 20:44, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Names of associations are taken from or for the administrative regions they operate in or represent - not the contrary. THEPROMENADER 21:10, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Hardouin, do you have a proposal for a uniform nomenclature? -- Gnetwerker 20:46, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I have consistently (for the last 2 years) proposed and written:

City of Paris proper for the administrative city of Paris (Ville de Paris), to avoid ambiguities

Paris metropolitan area for what the French national statistical office call aire urbaine of Paris, which in practice is almost equivalent to the Ile-de-France region (Paris region)

Problem is Promenader irks at the very mention of the word "metropolitan area", as if metropolitan areas somehow existed only in North America, but not in France. Hardouin 20:55, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

How about leaving me as a reference out of this? Instead, please refer to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopédie Universalis, the Mairie de Paris website and see how often aire urbaine is spoken of or used as a reference there. The aire urbaine exists; I have nothing against its application where it is applicable (when, for example, speaking of commuters to Paris or Paris' commuter belt), but you cannot simply leap from the Paris péripherique to the very edges of the Paris commuter belt as if there is nothing inbetween - or as if it is one solid, dense whole. Only the Paris agglomeration is this as Paris' natural growth, and it is for this that I think our attention should focus there. THEPROMENADER 21:10, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Typical Promenader in his choice of oriented sources. It is no suprise that Paris city hall wouldn't talk much of the metropolitan area, because Paris city hall is in charge of the administrative city of Paris, not the metropolitan area. As for the two encyclopedias mentioned, their Paris articles were written before 1995, which is when the French national statistical office (known as INSEE) introduced the notion of metropolitan area (aire urbaine) in France, so it's not surprising that these encyclopedias do not mention the metropolitan area. You can bet that next time Encyclopédie Universalis rewrite their Paris article, the demographer and economist in charge of the article will make heavy use of the aire urbaine. Since 1995, INSEE has been consistently using the aire urbaine for all its analyzes of French urbanization and city functions, yet Promenader conveniently avoids to mention this. Hardouin 21:22, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Two among the world's most cited references "oriented"? You can look at the official Île-de-France website if you like too and there's nothing there either. I have the 2006 Encyclopedia Britannica. You cannot predict what they 'will do' and justify using 'their' language now based on that rather wild prediction - most importantly, if they haven't done it yet, we have nothing to cite. This is not negligable here. The INSEE made the "aire urbaine" so of course they make extensive use of it - but as I note below, neither the governement nor official publications do. Iet me remind you that I was the one who first brought the INSEE reference links here for the aire urbaine statistics. THEPROMENADER 23:57, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

For my information, what is the distinction between "urban area" and "metropolitan area"? Hardouin, do you think "metro..." is better, and if so, why? Prom, what say you? -- Gnetwerker 21:25, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Urban area is what the INSEE call unité urbaine. Metropolitan area is what the INSEE call aire urbaine. Check aire urbaine for more information. Hardouin 21:36, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Prom, it appears that Hardouin would accept this:

1. City of Paris - meaning the traditional civic boundaries of Paris,the commune, the 20 arrondissements;
2. Paris metropolitan area -- (in first use adding (aire urbaine)) meaning Paris and its immediate suburbs;
3. Paris region or Ile-de-France region -- the larger Ile-de-France region.

Would you? I propose that we do not use the unite urbaine designation.

I should also say that I am not at all certain that the page Aire urbaine represents the distinction (if any) between urban and metropolitan in American usage, though that may be beside the point. (FWIW, I do not think that the English-language wikipedia should slavishly use French nomenclature if they impede understanding the issue at hand, though they can and should be mentioned). -- Gnetwerker 22:18, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

(added after seeing above) "Metropolitan area" is the city, its suburbs, and its commuter belt - in this case, coincidentally, an area around the size of the île-de-France region. THEPROMENADER 23:23, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Be careful - "Metropolitan Area" (commuter belt) is only a rough transaltion of "aire urbaine" - the North American and French definition (and inclusion criteria) for these terms is not the same so difficult to compare. Hardouin wrote that article, but yes, have a look. See especially metropolitan area for a lesson in ambiguity. Since the term "metropolitan area" is quite well known in North America, some from there would use (travel agencies, for example) "Paris metropolitan area" to casually describe the Île-de-France region - they are not at all the same nor of the same conception, so no citable reference does the same.

Urban area, on the other hand, describing more or less the limits of an agglomeration, is becoming a more world-standardized measure - but still, standards differ. France, for example, takes the limit of this measure to the border of a 'qualifying commune' - but hey. So I have much less reservation with using the term "urban area" to define the Paris agglomeration. But, ugly as it is, I still think "agglomeration" best suited as a word as it is a direct translation of the most commonly used French word to describe Paris' natural growth, as in "l'aglomération parisienne" . While you're at it, have a look at "unité urbaine de paris", "aire urbaine de paris" to see how often they are used as references for discussions/articles on Paris as compared to "agglomération parisienne" and "region parisienne".

Thus I think "Paris", "Paris agglomeration" and "Paris region" (Île-de-France) best suited to describe the general 'spreads of Paris' spoken of in this article, and the more statistical terms only where they can apply to an informative end. This is pretty well already done IMHO. THEPROMENADER 23:23, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Some tests (for discussion)

As a frequent visitor to Paris (and property owner there), here are some of my leanings. They may be incorrect, but I present them for discussion -- Gnetwerker 22:26, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

• Euro Disney -- just outside of Paris, but you can get there on the Metro (or is it the RER?)

Euro Disney is in the municipality of Chessy, 26 km (16 miles) east of the administrative border of the City of Paris, but both inside the urban and metropolitan area of Paris. It is accessible by RER, not Métro. Hardouin 22:54, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

• CDG -- outside of Paris, in or near Roissy, non?

CDG stradles the territory of 7 municipalities ( Tremblay-en-France, Roissy-en-France, etc.), 18 km (11 miles) northeast of the administrative border of the City of Paris, but partly inside the urban area of Paris, and totally inside the metropolitan area of Paris. Hardouin 22:54, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

• Versailles -- outside of Paris, in ... uh ... Versailles?

The Palace of Versailles is located in the municipality of Versailles (85,000 inhabitants), 10 km (6 miles) southwest of the administrative border of the City of Paris, but both inside the urban and metropolitan area of Paris. Hardouin 22:54, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

• La Defence -- in Paris

La Défense stradles the territory of 3 municipalities ( Courbevoie, Puteaux, and Argenteuil), 3 km (2 miles) west of the administrative border of the City of Paris, but both inside the urban and metropolitan area of Paris. Hardouin 22:54, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, La Défense stradles the territoru of Courbevoie, Puteaux and Nanterre, not Argenteuil. Argenteuil is located right at the North of the departement of the Hauts-de-Seine, in Val-d'Oise. Metropolitan 11:48, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

• Marche aux Peuces -- on the outskirts of Paris, but just inside the peripherique

The Marché aux puces is located in the municipality of Saint-Ouen, just beyond the administrative border of Paris, but both inside the urban and metropolitan area of Paris. Hardouin 22:54, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

• Ikea -- there's one near CDG, and one on the way to EuroDisney -- both outside of Paris (to me)

All Ikeas store (there are many) are in the suburbs, but all of them within the limits of the metropolitan area. Hardouin 22:54, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

So in a nutshell, none of the places your mentioned are located inside the administrative city of Paris. The situation in Paris is very similar to Sydney where the City of Sydney is only a small part of the larger Sydney metropolitan area. Hardouin 23:09, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

(Grin) Good one for before bed. All of the above are outside of Paris. I can make this simple: Ask someone from around here: "Where is Euro Disney"? He/she would answer "Marne la Vallée" (and perhaps add) "just outside Paris". "Where is La Défense"? you would get "Just to the west of Paris" or simply "Courbevoie" (or Puteaux - it's between at least three communes). The Montreuil flea market, just outside the péripherique bridge (fake gold watches, anyone?) you would get "Montreuil" . BUT: depending on the viewpoint, the above are trick questions: if someone in North America were to ask another North American in North America "where is the Clignancourt flea market? " of course he would first say "Paris!" - and only should the conversation continue, the former description would come into play.

My distinction is this: You can put a suburban 'lieu' in a Paris article as being associated with Paris, but if you must give it a placename it you can't call it Paris. Simple as that. THEPROMENADER 23:20, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

We all agree on this, but you must realize once for all that administrative borders are too arbitrary and too different from a country to another to be considered as the only relevant point in an article on a specific city. The urban area has to be taken into account, especially in articles about cities which are actually only the inner core of their agglomeration, such as Paris and a lot of other French cities. To take a counter-example, the municipality of Rome in Italy is actually larger than Rome urban area. As for London, the Greater London is actually an administrative region of the U.K, not properly speaking a municipality. However, it's widely recognized in everyday life as a city. Should the article about London speak strictly about the City of London and nothing else ? Let me doubt about this. Metropolitan, 5 April 2006 (UTC).

Metropolitan, I can see what you are hinting at, but that's about it - your argument is not at all clear.

All the same, let me remind you yet again that I have absolutely no misgivings with speaking of Paris as an agglomeration in this article. My article misgivings were with certain 'unclear' passages that suggested that somehow everything within the Paris agglomeration (or worse, Paris metropolitan area) is called simply "Paris." This is not at all true, and any reference in existence will prove this to you.

I really don't where you're headed with the "too different from a country to another" part either - the goal here is not to make Paris resemble other cities; Paris has well-defined administrative liimits and long-standing naming conventions (backwards at they are) that give it a character of its own, and this cannot be simply glossed over. If all is explained clearly and correctly it will be perfectly understandable for all.

Yet again, the London example as a comparison is a bad one: everything within very official "Greater London" can be called simply "London," and this even on the official Greater London Authourity website. No naming conventions comparable to this, official or unofficial, exist for anything outside Paris.

All I have ever asked is that we stop all the 'blurring' of Paris' borders by omission, misrepresentation and mis-naming and comply with the language used in existing references. Is this so difficult? THEPROMENADER 14:32, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Promenader wrote:

everything within very official "Greater London" can be called simply "London," and this even on the official Greater London Authourity website. No naming conventions comparable to this, official or unofficial, exist for anything outside Paris.

Promenader, re-read what I wrote above about "Aéroports de Paris", "Université Paris 11", "92030 Paris La Défense", and "Eau de Paris". Sometimes I really wonder if you read what other people write... Hardouin 19:06, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Hardouin, you are comparing apples to oranges again. I speak of Paris' ill-comparison with an entire region called by an official name governed by a real and functioning political organisation that calls its Greater London jurisdiction "London" - you selectively cite individual organisations whose names are taken from their service to the city. Please stop tailoring your arguments for the eyes of the lesser-informed please; we both know the real validity of what you write so let's stop wasting other people's time. THEPROMENADER 19:46, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

If someone is wasting our time, it's not Hardouin. Stop accusing him of such. – Aquarelle 17:13, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Verify the above, then post your comment again if it still applies. Thanks. THEPROMENADER 07:04, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Well! It certainly took a while, didn't it? We're almost there : ) THEPROMENADER 23:46, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Honestly, I really don't understand that "Good article" tag. To me, in many ways the article looks worse now than a few months ago. After the rampage of wholesale changes and edits, there are now many paragraphs who look totally disconected with each other, there are pieces of information in one place that are contradicted in other places, subheadings that gave clarity to the article have almost entirely gone, and the simple distinction between "city of Paris" and "Paris metropolitan area" that existed before has been replaced by a profusion of terms that can only confuse the majority of people ("city of Paris", "Paris metropolitan area", "agglomeration of Paris", "Paris urban area", "Paris region", "commuter belt", and so on). I really wonder what was the motivation for placing this "good article" tag. Hardouin 10:35, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

How about giving some concrete examples of these 'contradictions'? As for the subtitles, this is discussable. The rest is pure exaggeration - each term is perfectly understandable when used in context; of course they are confusing when lumped together without any explanation at all, so enough for this argument.

This article reads clearer than it did before; most of it is referenced; its layout is better with added graphic support; it has been reduced in some places into a language digestable for a greater readership; most of the needless trumpeting 'greater than' phrases found in no reference have been dampened down or removed; inaccurate and inventive comparisons understood by none have been reduced to a context accessible to the imagination of a less statistically-specialised public; a general re-organisation and merging of similar topics has eliminated much needless repetition. In what way is all this not 'good'? THEPROMENADER 13:29, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Of course it's "good" in your view. You wrote or inspired most of the changes, so you wouldn't say they are bad changes, would you. My comment was addressed to people not involved in these changes and not prejudiced either in favor or against the recent wholesale changes. Hardouin 13:45, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Before you two launch into a verbal contest, please note that the article has only been nominated for good article status. Any editor not involved in the article can pass or fail it, so let's not worry so much about it as it is a fairly weak standard. What is needed is a peer review, which would point out good and bad points from an outside viewpoint. Green Giant 13:56, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. THEPROMENADER 14:21, 11 April 2006 (UTC)