Talk:Mechelen

Which is the relevance of a map 'Location of Mechelen in Antwerp province'?

- historically: none (area of the historical Duchy of Brabant, of which the Belgian province of Antwerp is only a part, would be: Mechelen lies close to its center and the other cities there were relevant to Mechelen's history, and (still) to its culture and economy;

- nowadays, national and Flemish governments and administrations are far more relevant - at the start of the 21st century some politicians vaguely considered eliminating the provincial level.

- geographically: does not help situating Mechelen: the city's location is better known than the borders of the provinces; the main characteristic of the city's location, is that it's precisely in the middle between Antwerp and Brussels: about 25 kilometres (15 miles) from either internationally well-known city; and in the center of the modern region Flanders.

Suggestion: replace it with a small rudimentary map of Belgium with its three regions, pointing out the locations of Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Hasselt, Louvain, Brussels, Mons, Namur, Liège, Luxembourg (like http://en.wikipedia.org/upload/7/70/Belgium_RegProv.png though Flemish colour shades should be close to one another; Walloon shades also, Brussels in a different colour) and Mechelen; or a link to a larger map showing all the municipalities that may serve to situate any other place of interest in Belgium by grid references and name of the municipality. -- User:83.182.60.42 (at times submitting from an open access point as 213.224.87.185) 2006-05-18 00:30-00:43 (UTC)

I agree more or less that the map is pretty irrelevant for situating Mechelen in Belgium or Flanders, but that's not the point of the map. This article is also about the municipality, the administrative division (gemeente, commune) Mechelen and every municipality is supposed to have a WP page, with a map showing the territory of that municipality. Compare to Berlaar for instance. For reasons of consistency, the current map should be kept. A more general map however would be a welcome addition. Petergee1 13:07, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

How about an infobox for this kind of map and associated information? Something like Template:Infobox Town DE (see talk for usage). -- Blisco 14:01, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Interesting template, pointing out the municipality in Germany (much larger than Belgium) but not its boundaries within the district or region (further links show district and region boundaries well within the federal state) - so some level is missing, else why maintaining the dark gray 'arrondissement' [lower court of justice] = 'kieskring' [residence for electing candidates to a higher level] and the light gray provincial mapping for Belgium?

Furthermore, a template requires a strict logic - such is hard to find in Belgium, e.g. the 19 municipalities of the capital region do not belong to any province, the 'arrondissement'/'kieskring' Brussel-Halle-Vilvoorde consists of municipalities from the Flemish as wel as from the capital region and few understand all consequences - and any Belgian system is likely to get modified by new exceptions -- User:213.224.87.185 2006-05-22 01:52 (UTC) - On the other hand, a template is used for Mechelen on the Dutch Wikipedea site. -- User:213.224.87.185 2006-05-25 14:07 (UTC)

Famous inhabitants

New section added by Fram 2006-05-29 11:17, see section Mechelen on his Talk page -- 83.182.60.42 2006-05-30 00:31 (CEST)

Page layout

The page looks awful with the photo at the top left of the page. It's shunting the Table of Contents into the middle of the page, and the opening paragraph is squashed into a thin block of text above it. There's so much space further down for the photo, why jam it up there? --DeLarge 23:26, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the sliver of text sandwiched between the picture and the map does not look good. Putting a picture on the left at the same level as the ToC, however, may not be that bad (see Bruges or Bastogne). It reduces the amount of white space at the top while giving the reader a quick visual introduction to the city. Is there any guideline re. location of the ToC? LVan 00:04, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't look bad at all if you close your browser's left pane (search/favorites/history in IE), or if you use a sufficiently high resolution screen as has become rather standard these days. No layout with picture, infobox and openened content [especially since the latter cannot simply be properly positioned] will appear really nice on all practically possible screen widths. — SomeHuman 23 Nov2006 02:40 (UTC)

My left pane wasn't open, and I viewed the page at both 1024x768 and 1280x1024, in three different browsers (IE6, Firefox, Opera 9). It looks lousy in all configurations. And for the record, according to official statistics, 1024x768 is by far the most popular screen resolution, more common than all other resolutions combined.[1][2] Laying out Wikipedia to suit the tiny minority running high res monitors seems very exclusionist to me, especially when there's nothing to stop people putting that photo elsewhere. --DeLarge 16:15, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

1024x768 is 'a sufficiently high resolution screen as has become rather standard these days', and it didn't look lousy to me. LVan's current compromise puts the top left picture underneath the introduction, unfortunately causing the History section to start to the right instead of underneath the picture. Which layout looks more 'lousy' (and under which condition such as screen width) seems a matter of taste to me. — SomeHuman 29 Nov2006 06:05 (UTC)

I agree that much of this is a matter of taste. For reference, however, there is a guideline in the "Images" Section of the Manual of Style that advocates against sandwiching text between two images facing each other.LVan 22:09, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Two opposing images tend to 'fight' for attention. The guideline does not mention an image and an info box; nor an image and a rightside content box – which is especially applied for very long content boxes and thus likely to have an image somewhere on its left. — SomeHuman 2 Dec2006 04:48 (UTC)

<indent reset>There is an image in the infobox, if you're going to be pedantic -- the manual of style doesn't specify photographs when recommending against sandwiching text between facing images. What of course makes it even more redundant is the very similar image which exists further down the article. A better image, since it doesn't have some bespectacled female windmilling away in the foreground to distract the reader. --DeLarge 01:21, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

A better static picture of the Cathedral, not as well suited as a city view (though the woman may be a bit too artificially lively). Pedantry? Does a gray provincial map really fight for attention with a photograph? — SomeHuman 4 Dec2006 22:32 (UTC)

There are 96 Geography and places pages which have been awarded FA status. 94 of them have only one image in the opening. The two that do have an opening section so lengthy that the TOC is below the left-justified image. There is not a single FA article which shunts the TOC to the middle of the page the way you've done. If you're capable of overlooking the standard of that many peer-reviewed pages, and the previously referred to WP:MOS suggestions, and you still think it looks better as-is, then I guess no-one's ever going to convince you... --DeLarge 23:59, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I cannot appreciate your aggressive style of each of your above comments. Please note that I accepted (in fact, welcomed) LVan's compromise that brought the main introduction paragraph on top of the photograph, and only the short second paragraph can now occur between the photograph and the infobox. I just started looking for FA articles on cities in reverse alphabetic order (a habit), and the first I opened was Weymouth. Do you mind comparing this with Mechelen? The only difference is that the photograph comes somewhat lower, but the text flows between photograph and infobox in an even slightly narrower area. Thus your argument convinced me that the present layout will not prevent a 'Featured Article' status. You might also note that I contributed to the text of the article, and not in a minor way, even before I created my user account. Precisely because the poor state in which I had found my home city on Wikipedia was my reason to start writing. That may matter more than impolite criticism. — SomeHuman 5 Dec2006 01:52 (UTC)

The difference is that the photograph is not in the introduction, so the text box is not shunted into the centre of the screen.

It almost looks tolerable at a specific resolution (1280x1024) in a single browser (IE) if you're willing to overlook the indented TOC, because the bottom of the picture and the TOC line up. However, that doesn't work with either Opera or Firefox; in fact in those browsers the current photo position causes the "History" heading to be indented as the TOC. And of course, that layout attempt breaks down at any other resolution either. I'd recommend downloading them both so you can see the difference.

As for "impolite" or "aggressive", care to point me in the direction of any specific comment? I've so far criticised only the layout, which as pointed out is contrary to every FA and the MOS guide, and I've made absolutely no edits to the article. AGF. --DeLarge 09:01, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Bringing the contents box between photograph and infobox, prevents pushing the first section far down while creating an immense white horror zone. That's the part that LVan liked as well. Layout rules in general (I do not mean just Wikipedia), go for showing a picture near the start of a page. Your preference creates a large white area to the side of an open contents box and pushes the picture out of sight, both are highly undesired. Furthermore, Wikipedia autostyles do not allow precise positioning and/or dimensioning of the contents box, and either an open or a closed contents box will always look ugly for some screens regardless the chosen layout. At some screen widths etc with closed contents box, not only the first section title, but also the initial lines of the section, will float around the picture – by itself a reasonable feat that is actually searched for by some stylists. The important thing is that the width between the photograph and the infobox is sufficient for all reasonably normal screen configurations to allow text with about as many words per line, as is common in magazine or newspaper columns. As said, any 'solution' remains a matter of taste and fails to suit all screens equally well. — SomeHuman 5 Dec2006 20:16 (UTC)

For your information, two experienced users recently moved the intro pictures in the Ghent and Bruges articles (and a few more pages that were in the same situation) because they experienced superimposition of picture over contents. This being definitely unacceptable, I reluctantly proceeded to do the same with half a dozen other pages that I knew of, including Bastogne, which I referenced earlier. I guess we’ll just have to live with those unsightly blank spaces until someone figures it out… LVan 01:10, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

As the picture was shown in what now again is a white area, it cannot possibly have had priority at the cost of the content – at the contrary: their moving the picture down pushed the there following text deeper down. One of the two users did not even bother to comment his change; as far as I see, neither participated in a discussion on layout (besides a non-informative reply on your statement) or can be assumed to have basic knowledge about graphics/design/layout. I think you should not have followed their example and either should have left things alone or first have sought capable advice. — SomeHuman 7 Dec2006 02:42 (UTC)

PS: In the case of Bastogne, especially for speakers of English best known for the Battle of the Bulge which is mentioned at the photograph: moving the latter (far) down has put this important content information far away from the introduction where it belonged. — SomeHuman 7 Dec2006 02:58 (UTC)

<reset indent> "As the picture was shown in what now again is a white area, it cannot possibly have had priority at the cost of the content." The edit in question looked like this in IE6, but this in Firefox 2.0 and this in Opera 9. As you can see, an innocent edit in one browser has a catastrophic effect in the other two. --DeLarge 10:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

As an aside, two things. First, making statements like "neither [user]...can be assumed to have basic knowledge about graphics/design/layout" and "you should...have left things alone or first have sought capable advice" sails very close to the wind in terms of both assuming good faith and personal attacks, which is ironic considering your previous complaint directed at me. And the edits to Bastogne moved the picture to a place where it was close to the relevant text (mention of the Battle of the Bulge is near the bottom of the article). Same with this page; the "bad" cathedral photo is placed in an out-of-context position relative to the content, while the "good" cathedral photo in the 'Places of Interest' section is visible to WP readers as they read about St. Rumbolds itself. It'd be better to move the top picture even if it wasn't screwing up the TOC. --DeLarge 10:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

From your Firefox and Opera screenshots it is obvious, and unlike my first assumption, that Fram (the unnamed user quoted by LVan) used the term superimposition quite literally and correctly though did not use the term contents correctly, for the article text, but for the contents box; and indeed such layout is unacceptable. Meanwhile I had made several edits on that Bruges article which may or may not have improved on that situation; would you please have a look at that 2006-12-06T22:27:53 version in both browsers: in case the contents box is still superimposed by the photograph, feel free to move the latter (unless someone knows how to manage and correct the browser-dependent stylesheets/javascripts that Wikipedia uses, that's the real cause of the problem).

I don't see how unnamed users can be considered under personal attack by stating (after showing that I had a look for such indication) that we cannot simply assume that they have basic knowledge of a field of interest for which most people do not have that knowledge; the users did not pretend having that knowledge either (unlike Fram, Ghekeu did not even comment his edit). It has absolutely nothing to do with assuming good faith: one's good faith does not depend on one's particular knowledge – assuming good faith does not mean assuming special skills. And without their skills being established, LVan should not have taken their examples as an imperative directive to immediately make similar changes in other articles (whilst discussion here was still going on) – that's logic, again not a personal attack or questioning his good faith. Wild accusations of personal attacks or of one's lack of assumption of good faith, often is considered a personal attack and definitely does not indicate assumption of good faith. With hindsight, of course LVan may have interpreted 'superimposition' more literally than I obviously had held possible, which – clearly not needing any further 'capable advice' – makes his intervention perfectly allright.

Moving the picture to the relevant section removed the only reference to the Battle of the Bulge from the introduction of the Bastogne article. An introduction is supposed to give a rough indication of the major feats regarding the topic; further details are in sections underneath. Thus moving the picture with its short text mentioning the world-famous battle removed essential information that belonged in the intro. Without that picture, the intro text itself needs to be modified so as to shortly mention the Battle of the Bulge. The picture with its text did such in a very elegant way. Most of this goes for Mechelen's Saint Rumbolds Tower, often literally and thereby figuratively seen as a symbol of the city. It is therefore appropriate to have its picture in the intro section; though as Mechelen is, as a city, much more than its cathedral, the picture should also show a city view. Unlike the battle with respect to Bastogne, Mechelen's old tower is only one of many rather famous feats – it should not be in the intro text by itself. Both the battle and the tower samples give thus a clear indication how a photograph in the introduction section can uniquely improve an article, provided the technical matter disrupting the contents box would be solved. — SomeHuman 8 Dec2006 09:14 (UTC)

Just noticed this discussion here. I would like to say that I don't feel personally attacked or offended by any of the comments above, although I do appreciate that SomeHuman took the effort to re-evaluate what I did. I am indeed not knowledgeable in the fields of graphics, layout, webdesign, etcetera, beyond what any experienced Wikipedia user knows. I meant "superimposed" quite literally: the image was placed over the contents box, making it unreadable. I use Firefox with XP. That is the only reason I moved those images. I have not looked at this particular dispute, so I don't know if the problem here was the same, and if the moves were an improvement or not. I did not discuss my page moves on the talk page, because they were quite urgent and necessary (a good layout is not urgent, but when things become unreadable, some swift action is necessary). Fram 10:57, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Civility and personal attacks are defined by the user's conduct in relation to the policies, not the recipient's reaction to them. And "basic knowledge" ≠ "special skills"; especially when repairs to a damaged page were being effected. However, I've no interest in pursuing that, merely ensuring that any future commentary is limited to the edits themselves, and not assumptions about how much an editor knows has or how capable they are of giving advice.

I knew I'd seen it somewhere in black and white... Wikipedia:Guide to layout#Images, end of the fourth paragraph: "Placing an image to the left of a header, a list, or the Table of Contents is also frowned upon." If you still think your layout looks better, then I guess this is my last word on the matter.

Finally, regarding your edit of 19:48, December 5, 2006 ("infobox syntax simplified while maintaining: a) width of text matching the map, b) blank leftside baulk between article text and infobox textlines equals the Wiki default baulk left of the map") - everything remains slightly misaligned for Firefox or Opera users. --DeLarge 14:40, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

In the context as I had clearly described, even basic knowledge = a special skill. I never questioned anyone's capability to give advice, so you now accuse me falsely. I never questioned the right the users had to make their edits either; merely that an example set by users whose relevant capabilities are not established, are not a directive to be followed blindly. You deliberately overlook the fact that I had not imagined a really literal superposition to have occurred of the photograph over the 'content box, table of contents' (it had seemed a subjective feeling of my edit giving more weight to appearance of the photograph than to the appearance of the 'content', which is [the 2nd paragraph - which I had written - of] the introduction text). Finally realizing the true problem - I spontaneously admitted that such of course allowed Fram's immediate course of action; that goes as well for LVan following that course of action, which too I admitted.

This makes it hard to understand your continuously complaining attitude regarding myself; your superiority, "merely ensuring that any future commentary is limited to the edits themselves" (the pot blaming the kettle); and your continuous presumption of the worst of faith on my behalf, like once more "If you still think your layout looks better, then I guess this is my last word on the matter." — On the other hand, yep, my layout does look better (provided the superimposition gets solved), though you are welcome to frown upon it.

For let us see what the Wikipedia:Guide to layout#Images guidelines say:

• "In general, it is considered poor layout practice to place images at the same height on both the left and right side of the screen. Not only does this unnecessarily squeeze text, but this might also cause images to overlap text due to interferences."(1)
• "Placing an image to the left of a header, a list, or the Table of Contents is also frowned upon."(2)
• "Generally, if there are so many images in a section that they strip down into at a 1024x768 screen resolution, that probably means either that the section is too short, or that there are too many images."(3)

(1) states that there should not be a single image at the height of the image in the infobox. The first image can then only be put lower than the whole infobox. (2) states that there should be no image to the left of the table of contents (TOC). So we can either put an image immediately to the right of a left-aligned TOC, or the TOC and the image must be one on top of the other, or the left-aligned TOC is at the same level as the right-aligned image. In the 2nd case the intro would have 1) the text, 2) the image but lower than the image in the infobox (see above), 3) the TOC, all one above another, thus the height of the intro could be no less than infobox + image + TOC. In the third case the intro would have text + TOC one above another on the left; on the right we have the infobox with the image (photograph) underneath; on a 1024x768 screen both the TOC and the photograph are out of sight, we need to scroll down, while a very large white area remains underneath the text. Else the first named section starts either beside or underneath the TOC, in either case above the photograph and thus the photograph appears as if belonging to that section instead of to the intro. A solution that brings the photograph underneath the image of the infobox (regardless whether that photograph is on the right or on the left side of the screen) always violates (3). In other words, there is simply no way to have a photograph and an infobox like Mechelen has, both in the introduction section - unless we apply the first solution:

One might stick to the guidelines by putting the left-aligned TOC underneath both paragraphs of the text and the photograph to the right of the TOC (both vertical-aligned to top) but 1) it looks ugly, unbalanced, and the photograph moves left/right whenever the TOC opens/closes (unless one would force a width for the TOC but this would need modification when the length of the article's longest section title changes and appears sloppy while the table is closed), and b) partially because the margin between TOC and photograph cannot be under control, even with the very narrow TOC as Mechelen has now, the photograph overlaps the image of the infobox in an 800-width screen (which Wikipedia wants to support) and is thus totally unacceptable; none of these problems occur for the current design with the TOC to the right of the left-aligned photograph (if needed as may occur in a very narrow screen or really low resolution, the TOC moves nicely underneath the infobox - in a pretty elegant way this is also the case for current Mechelen's 2nd paragraph, by the way). It is for this kind of situation that the prime Wikirule states, There are no rules. The matter that may deserve further discussion, is whether 1) the second (or in fact in other similar situations, the last) paragraph of the intro should start beside the TOC and thus become rather squashed (though only under rare circumstances, and that can be circumvented by connecting a few words with invisible '&nbsp;' so as to set the minimum text width: instead of being squashed, the paragraph then moves down till it can use the width underneath the infobox as well) but everything appears best in most situations and always in higher screen resolutions as become more and more prevalent, or 2) the whole info text must be forced on top of photograph and TOC (which is much less interesting in high resolution screens). Personally, I do not think it is wise to try and enforce either because the widths of the photograph, TOC [thus longest section title], and infobox all determine which choice should be made.

About the simplification of the infobox syntax, I had not imagined improving the result: the first table I had created ensured that a large misalignment in Internet Explorer (6) was resolved and it should at least have been better than before for other browsers as well; the second merely simplified syntax and thus maintenance, for an identical result. Being slightly misaligned for Firefox or Opera users is quite acceptable, as normally the differences between browsers cause more serious imperfections regardless the solution. It seems to indicate that at least the major problem of the photograph superimposing the table of contents, is resolved.

Much like my first comment in this section: No layout with a few short paragraphs of text, a photograph, and an infobox will appear really nicely in the introduction section while its table of contents is opened as well as when it's closed, on all practically possible screen widths. — SomeHuman 9 Dec2006 22:51 (UTC)

Openstreetmap.org mapping party

I just want to announce that Openstreetmap.org will organise a mapping party in Mechelen on the 9th of February. Everybody is welcome to come and help. A better map will be available for use in Wikipedia after the event.

Project_page

--Polyglot (talk) 17:07, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Cavalcade

More details about the cavalcade in Mechelen would be helpful, here or on Cavalcade. --Una Smith (talk) 12:40, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Philippe Couplet

Philippe Couplet was a Jesuit missionary to China, born in Malines. PHG (talk) 15:43, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Removed addition about religious orders and buildings

With some regret I removed the additions by IP-user 84.196.113.124. There was some interesting info there, but the lack of references and the very poor language made it inacceptable to me. Actually, it looked liked some kind of tourist info flyer passed through a translation machine, with little if any subsequent correction or polish-up. Had the user created an account, some discussion had been possible and I would gladly have offered helped in refining the text. Jan olieslagers (talk) 15:18, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

"Malines"

I have some trouble with the recent mention of the French denomination Malines - not as such, but rather with the emphasised side-note "French is an official language in Belgium". While not untrue, this seems irrelevant to me - one might as well emphasise the Greek name of the good city - if any - on the grounds that the city is in Europe, and Greek is an official European language. Greek being an example, of course, Portuguese or Latvian would serve equally. But I know the subject of languages is delicate, especially in little Belgium, so I won't revert the supposedly well-meant modification without discussion. Jan olieslagers (talk) 16:26, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

The word "Malines" is not only French it is the english classical and traditional form of the name of this town. --Bruxellensis (talk) 10:36, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, I always understood that traditionally the English say "Mechlin" rather. But this is not my point. The Malines mention can certainly be there; but I should prefer it to be on par with any other foreign-language names. Still waiting for Frau Arendt's comments. Jan olieslagers (talk) 11:50, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

For example: the Malines Conversations.--Bruxellensis (talk) 12:55, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

As a traveller, the name Malines is important. It has nothing to do with politics, rather, when a train conductor gives an announcement in French after garbling the English announcement (if any was given!), this may be the only way to know what he's talking about. A more extreme example has been the issuing of Eurostar tickets to Bruxelles-Midi, while most of the signs say Brussel-Zuid! Or was it vice-versatile? Stagehand (talk) 06:37, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

When travelling to a place where cultures meet, some preparation is never wasted. When travelling from Munich to Milano, one might be confused to find the destination announced as "Mailand". Far worse surprise on the return trip, when the Bavarian capital has become Monaco. But again, I am not saying the mention of Malines should not be there; I just insisted it should be on par with other foreign denominations. Jan olieslagers (talk) 06:43, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

What is the etymology of Mechelen?

Böri (talk) 08:52, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Dialect

In the section on dialect, the Mechlinian dialect is described as "pin-pointingly distinct from other Brabantic dialects". "Pin-pointingly" is not idiomatic English, and I don't understand what is intended by it. Can somebody please correct? GrindtXX (talk) 23:54, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Removal of "Mecheln" from the lead

The name of this Dutch-speaking town is Mechelen. It's traditional English name is Mechlin, whereas the French version, Malines, is also the most common modern English form. The German version has no justifiable place in the articles lead as,

• German is an official language of Belgium, but this does not apply to the Flemish region, ie. there are no trilingual road signs and the city of Mechelen does not publish any of its official documents in German or anything of the sort.
• The German version of the article doesn't even use the German form.
• Mechelen has no cultural link to either German or Germany.

AKAKIOS (talk) 16:43, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

I have changed it, seeing that nobody objects. AKAKIOS (talk) 08:35, 5 June 2017 (UTC)