Wikipedia talk:WikiProject French departments

Tarquin, Olivier, do the French departments have a flag or coat of arms? If so, I´d be nice to include these in the table, like is done with the countries at WikiProject Countries.

Some other suggestions:

Put the department number in the table (maybe in the header, 06 - Alpes-Maritimes or Alpes-Maritimes (06))
Maybe it's better use English names. Department, prefecture are all perfectly good English words, while département, préfecture and especially sous-préfecture will not be familiar with most readers (though linking it already helps).

Jeronimo

Good point for the flags. In fact, French departments seem to have one, although it is very rarely displayed (being French, I do not even remember having seen the one of my own department). These flags seem to be based on the ones of the ancient provinces where the departments are located.

More often seen in France, though, is the logo of the Conseil General (the governing body of the departement).

I found a list there: http://www.cyber-flag.net, although there might be copyright issue.

Bottom line: flags would be graphically nice, also of very little relevance. Maybe they could be included as Jeronimo suggests, in the table, together with the logos. Or maybe the logos alone would be better.

Regarding the department number. I agree that it would be better to include it in the table. I am still wondering how to explain what this number is about if it is in the table.

I guess that the question about using local vs. English name is a very classic one on Wikipedia. Is there any guideline about this?

- Olivier

If the logos alone are frequently seen, that may be sufficient, flags could be added only if wanted.

If you want to include the number in the table, you may want to link it to an explanatory article about the numbers of departments in France.

The general rule in Wikipedia for local vs. English is to use the generally accepted English term if there is one. However, I'm not a native English speaker, and I don't know if department and prefecture are acceptable English language terms. Jeronimo

using "departement" with or without the e-acute is a nice natural disambiguation from many other uses of "department" (there's a redirect, so linking either with or with is fine). Most English-speakers shouldn't have a problem with it. I've seen "departement" commonly used in English when dealing with French geography -- maybe italicizing would be good. -- Tarquin 06:28 Sep 5, 2002 (PDT)

Disambiguation (river/department)

Any thoughts on how to do this? Eg:

I would tend to favor:

Cher (French departement)

since "departement" alone is not very explicit for most readers.

I prefer Cher (departement) - when people already have to use pipes, keeping them short is a good thing. That it's not very explicit does not matter much - information should go into the article's text, not into its title. The title is only important when someone needs to create a link to the page. Andre Engels

Fine. - Olivier

OK, let us use:

Cher (river) and
Cher (departement)

Olivier

In the case of just the department and the river, the following disambiguation has been suggested:

Use "Name" for the dept
"Name River" for the river.

But perhaps it is better to be consequent and name all the department entries "Name (departement)" - no matter if the name needs disambiguation? -Css

I think that following common Wikipedia disambiguation rules would be better. That is, use a natural disambiguator if available. The "Name River" forms an excellent natural disambiguator. While it may be inconsequent on the French department level, it is consistent on the Wikipedia level (compare f.e. Colorado and Colorado River). Jeronimo

Spelling issue:

Some departement names, made out of several words have hyphens between the words, some do not. I am not sure that this issue has been taken into account, and for several departements, several spellings exist. The best would be to find an official list, showing the proper spelling. For the moment, the best solution I can see is to refer to the websites of the "Conseil General" of the departements (their governing body). They seem to have harmonized their URLs. For instance, the URL of the Puy-de-Dome Conseil General is: http://www.cg63.fr (note that 63 is the departement number). - User:Olivier

French people use hyphens in many cases where others would not, e.g. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Louis-Philippe (king), Jésus-Christ, Notre-Dame (church), Saint-Denis (do.), etc. - In case of doubt, it is safest to include the hyphen.
S.

Correct. Nevertheless, it looks like there is a current tend for dropping them. - User:Olivier