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Article milestones Date Process Result February 21, 2005 Featured article candidate Not promoted April 12, 2006 Good article nominee Listed July 5, 2006 Peer review Reviewed March 25, 2007 Peer review Reviewed September 19, 2007 Good article reassessment Delisted July 7, 2013 Good article nominee Listed Current status: Good article

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Template:Vital article Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. France: Paris / French communes Top‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject France, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of France on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.FranceWikipedia:WikiProject FranceTemplate:WikiProject FranceFrance Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by the Paris task force. This article is within the scope of WikiProject French communes, a project which is currently considered to be inactive. Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Cities This article is within the scope of WikiProject Cities, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of cities, towns and various other settlements on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CitiesWikipedia:WikiProject CitiesTemplate:WikiProject CitiesWikiProject Cities Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Olympics High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Olympics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Olympics on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.OlympicsWikipedia:WikiProject OlympicsTemplate:WikiProject OlympicsOlympics High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. Template:WP1.0

This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

A fact from this article was featured on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the On this day section on August 25, 2004.

Copied text in Demographics section

Text and/or other creative content from this version of Demographics of Paris was copied or moved into Paris with this edit on 18:52, 3 April 2014. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists.

130.216.218.47 (talk) 23:21, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

History section gone berserk again

I see User:SiefkinDR has started a new wave of enlargement of the history section. Is this an article about the history of Paris or about the city of Paris ?? Der Statistiker (talk) 13:27, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Yikes, Siefkin why have you been expanding it? It's now back up to 190 kb and looks pretty long again. I thought you were going to work on periods of Parisian history articles? ♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:30, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Ok, I'm moving all of SiefkinDR's edits since August 13 here for discussion. All his edits concern the history section, which I have reverted to its August 12 state. Here below is the history section after SiefkinDR's edits from August 13 to August 15. They should be moved to the History of Paris article. The history section, even as of August 12, was already too bloated and should be trimmed (I'll let the trimmers work on this ;) ). Der Statistiker (talk) 13:45, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

@SiefkinDR: I hate to see time and effort wasted but really this article was already long enough when it was 160 odd kb. It definitely shouldn't go above 180. I wish you'd put your efforts into writing detailed articles by period of Parisian history like Medieval Paris instead.♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:54, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

A travel pamphlet (Lawrence, Rachel; Gondrand, Fabienne (2010). Paris (City Guide) (12th ed.). London: Insight Guides. ISBN 9789812820792. — with an average customer review rating of one-out-of-five stars on Barnes & Noble) is being used as a citation for the history section. Surely a more scholarly work exists to replace that? Depaderico (talk) 20:01, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

What subjects should be included in an article about a city? The weather and the hour at which cafés open? How can we write an article on Paris and ignore entire chunks of its history? Paris and its history are one block difficult to break because every monument, building, bridge, even its cobblestoned streets spell history.

There are articles difficult to fill because not enough knowledge about them or simply not much to write about. Here we have the opposite, an article about a city that has so much history that the difficulty comes not in digging for events worth writing about, but in eliminating meaningful events.

Out of curiosity, I compared the history section of several cities (decreasing order below):

78 336 bytes Paris (fr.wiki)

61 440 bytes Paris (en.wiki)

59 904 bytes NYC (en.wiki)

58 368 bytes Rome (en.wiki)

53 248 St Petersburg (en.wiki)

41 984 Paris, Texas (!) (en.wiki) - not bad for a town of 25,898 inhabitants that saw the light of day in 1840.

As for the size of articles (any rules & regulations?):

285 043 bytes St Petersburg (ru.wiki)

276 835 bytes Paris (fr.wiki)

259 794 bytes NYC (en.wiki)

241 545 bytes Madrid (sp.wiki)

193 526 bytes Paris (en.wiki)

What I think should be done at this time is:

• first go on with the editing/writing as being done, which is correcting mistakes and (yes!) adding details
• then when all is done, have our designated contributor-chief editor, i.e. Siefkin, go thru the article & remove all the details then judged not necessary & bring them to the various articles he has created. This way, he will pick material already edited & referenced and, the Paris article will be done.
• then, only then and not before, everyone should come in & give their opinion, as it is difficult to try to create something right while others are constantly on your back with a measuring tape.

Going thru such an article demands a lot of time, thinking, checking etc. and what comes out at this time may not be perfect, but perfection will not be reached in one session. It is comparable to making a statue, at one time it has hardly any shape & there is too much plaster. We are now removing some of the plaster & giving it some shape. However, it still will be a large statue as the article is on Paris (France) not Paris (Texas).--Blue Indigo (talk) 19:46, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Need for changes in history section

I made some small changes in the text, and some big changes in the images, something which which I think really needs improvement.

• I corrected the date of the founding of the University of Paris. (middle of the 12th century, not 1200). The incorrect date is still in the article.
• In the Middle Ages section, I added a mention of the building of the Louvre, Notre Dame, and Sainte-Chapelle. How can they not be mentioned in a section on the history of Paris?

• I put the sentence on the Enlightenment in with the the French Revolution, which is much more logical than including it with the Middle Ages.
• The existing article completely ignores Louis-Philippe. No mention of the Place de la Concorde, Arc de Triomphe, Napoleon's tomb.
• The existing article says Paris was "practically unscathed" by World War II, praises Choltitz at length, and mentions a 1966 movie. I added a sentence about the infamous 1942 roundup of Paris Jews, which shouldn't be ignored. Paris was not "practically unscathed."

• The existing article completely ignores events in Paris history since since the 1960s, with the exception of a vague paragraph about social change and unrest and some sentences, outdated, about Sarkozy's urban reforms in 2007. No mention of May 1968, of the Pompidou Center, Mitterrand, the Grand Louvre, La Defense, the Opera Bastille, the National Library, the Musee du Quai Branly, Mayor Delanoe, or the Velib' program. This section badly needs updating.

• As to images, the article really, really needs improving. It has a total of five images and three small and almost unreadable maps.
• It has one dark and gloomy image of the baths at Cluny, when there are beautiful images of the the ancient art of the city from the Carnavalet Museum.
• For the period from ancient times to the 18th century, It has a 19th century painting of what Clovis might have looked like, and an image of the chateau �of VIncennes, which was far outside Paris when it was built. There are beautiful medieval images avaiable of the Louvre, the Palais de la Cité, Notre Dame and Saint Chapelle. Why not use them?
• The 19th century section has no images at all except a small map. No images of the Paris Opera, Eiffel Tower, Paris boulevards, Paris Expositions.
• The 20th and 21st century articles have only one image from the Liberation. No images of anythiing since 1944, other than a small map of a proposed future transit system. No images of the new monuments, museums, parks, and changes in Paris.

I agree that the article could be shorter; there's more than there needs to be about early French Kings and about the Second Empire and Paris Commune. But I don't think the way to fix it is for one editor to immediately delete all the changes by another editor. I think this should be a collaborative effort, with all editors working together to make it better. SiefkinDR (talk) 09:48, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

This has already been discussed before. Read the previous discussions above. Everybody agree that the history section is too long and not proportionate to the rest of the article. If you feel like things are missing in the history section, you should only add them if you remove other sentences in the section, so as not to lengthen it. Things should be summarized in the most abridged form. Images should also be limited to the minimum. Free free to expand the economy or transport sections. They are very small compared to the history section or to the equally bloated 'Landmarks by district' section. Let's recall that this article is about today's Paris, not about the history of Paris or its tourist circuit. Der Statistiker (talk) 22:59, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

OK, that makes sense. I will edit and reduce the size of the history section, and when possible will include links to more complete articles on those topics, and to the history of Paris article. Some of the text on transport in the history section can move to the transport section. I do think the history section needs better pictures than it has now. .SiefkinDR (talk) 12:36, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Progress on the size of the history section

With the edits to the history section, the article is now down to 189,000 bytes, compared with 194,000 on August 14, when this discussion began. I hope we can hold it at this level, and that future additions on history can go into the history of Paris article, or into existing and future history sub-articles. Comments and suggestions welcome. SiefkinDR (talk) 12:03, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Composite image or the Eiffel Tower-La Défense

talk has reverted for the third time the lede image. Formerly a composite image showing a variety of monuments and panoramic views, Statistiker has repeatedly inserted an image showing only the Eiffel Tower with a lager view of La Défence (part of the Paris Metropolitan Area but not Paris) filling the background. I will revert this edit once again, as I believe the general public would benefit more by seeing other monuments in addition to the well-know Eiffel Tower right from the start of the article. Most other articles about major cities use composite images in the lede. This one should be no exception. Opinions welcome. Coldcreation (talk) 04:49, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikipédia says that "Whether to include an infobox, which infobox to include, and which parts of the infobox to use, is determined through discussion and consensus among the editors at each individual article." But there is no consensus on this montage, there never was any consensus. So we have to discuss. This picture is part of the infobox and the infobox "consistently present a summary of some unifying aspect that the articles share and sometimes to improve navigation to other interrelated articles." But it isn't the case here. The Arc de Triomphe, the Louvres, and the Eiffel Towers represent surely not the real Paris. This amateur montage represent the TOURISTIC Paris. Asks a Parisian where he is most often during his days. Ask him where he works. And then you will see how Paris is. There is an article from the INSEE for more informations: http://www.insee.fr/fr/themes/document.asp?reg_id=0&ref_id=ip1129 Sesto Elemento (talk) 08:54, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

I also agree that the photo montage that was forced in this article by an editor last year presents a cliché touristy view of Paris as seen by (some) foreign visitors. It would be like having a montage on top of the China article showing the Great Wall, a boy eating rice, an old man with Chinese beard doing t'ai chi ch'uan, and a bicycle in one of the few streets left of old Beijing. Not that these views wouldn't show China, but they would show only a certain aspect of China, completely disregarding the forests of skyscrapers that typify the modern Chinese cities, or the busy seaports, the big car traffic everywhere. Well it's exactly the same with the montage: not that it doesn't show Paris, but it shows only a certain aspect of Paris, and one that is more curios than encyclopedic. I don't think Misplaced Pages was created to propagate quaint old clichés. Der Statistiker (talk) 11:49, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Sigh We went through this for months last year. Those are the best known landmarks internationally. La Défence does NOT give a a fair balance of the feel of the city. Paris is not New York City. Find something of real concern to worry about. Please move on.♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:41, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

This photo montage does not give a fair balance of the feel of the city. Paris is not a tourist resort solely made of monuments and old buildings. Minato ku (talk) 18:45, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

And it's also not a metropolis city like New York. The montage image identifies landmarks most associated worldwide with the city and it looks perfectly appropriate. If you don't like it as a citizen, read French wikipedia instead. Has canvassing for support on that shoddy architecture website taken place again as it seems very suspicious you've all turned up at once again.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:31, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

No-one is saying it is, but these are the recognisable, even iconic, images of Paris. - SchroCat (talk) 18:56, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

We have had stability over the montage image recently, so it's a bit depressing to see a revert war breaking out again. Perhaps (esp Der Statistiker) the discussion could run it's course, rather than have you try and crowbar your personal preference in? - SchroCat (talk) 18:54, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Yeah but no but yeah but no La Defense is not in Paris, and it is not representative of Paris. Perhaps one day (soon) it will be a part of Paris, but presenting things like it already is is a lie. I've had at least to witness a few (often the same) hankering for participancy in the "World's Tallest Erections" competition since more than ten years already, so... enough? The OR POV of a few cannot trump reality. The lede image is fine how it is. THEPROMENADER 19:44, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, perhaps Misplaced Pages was not created to "propagate quaint old clichés" - but it certainly was not created to dispel them either. The picture is fine as it is. Timbouctou (talk) 20:37, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Minato ku, which bit of "stop edit warring and use the talk page" are you having difficulty in understanding here? The last stable image on the peg was the montage. It was there during the GA process, which gives it a measure of consensus. You are edit warring to your preferred version based on nothing at present. The etiquette here is to use the talk page to discuss in order to change the consensus, not just mindlessly bloody revert to your preferred version while the rest of us re discussing. - SchroCat (talk) 20:45, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Sadly I see Der Stastiker is also too stupid to understand the concept of discussion, and is content to mindlessly edit war despite a discussion being in progress. Rather pathetic way to ensure people are too pissed off to discuss things properly. - SchroCat (talk) 20:49, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

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