Talk:Ratusz

Name and notability

I am not convinced that ratusz is notable; I think User:Altenmann was right the first time. This is not to say that this type of building is not notable, no. What I mean is two-fold. First, I think that there's no significant differences between "ratusz", German "rathaus", or whatever those type of buildngs are called in most of Central/Eastern Europe, and if we discount common architecture, around most of the world. In other words, what we are talking about are city halls (now a redirect to Seat of local government; an article which has some relevant if unreferenced content in the "history" section. I am not sure at this point whether we should rename any of the two articles; merge them, rewrite or do a combination of both, but it seems clear to me that ratusz is not the most popular name for the subject (whatever it is), and Polish city halls are not significantly different from German or (former Polish...) Ukrainian, for example. Comments would be much appreciated; I'll leave a note of those discussion on some relevant project pages. Cc User:Kpalion and User:Poeticbent who participated in the discussion. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:43, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree. There is no significant difference between the subject of this article and the subject of the seat of local government. The fact that some "ratusze" no longer serve as the main administrative buildings, but sometimes still serve as the traditional seat of government, is not unique to Poland - virtually all countries have numerous former town halls, etc. As I sit here in Toronto, I can see the old city hall and the new city hall at this very moment from my outside window. Merge the content. I would merge the content and redirect to Seat of local government. To the extent that this article can be developed as an overview of the history of polish town halls, or even an article on a unique form of architecture, then it would be a fine stand-alone article, although it should be renamed to reflect the more precise focus.

As an aside, the "Prominent examples" section of the article violates WP:V and WP:OR (who says that these are prominent examples? it's not up to Wikipedia editors to deem some examples to be prominent) and likely violates WP:IG (although that last issue could probably be easily fixed). --Skeezix1000 (talk) 14:45, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

• A great number of them are museums, not city halls. Prominent examples include ratusz in Torun (Muzeum Okregowe) with stainglass and gingerbread divisions, Poznan (Muzeum Okregowe) with Chopin division, Lublin (Muzeum Okregowe), Siedlce (Muzeum Okregowe), Bialystok (Muzeum Podlaskie), Gdansk (Muzeum Historii Miasta), Sandomierz (Muzeum Okregowe), Szczecin (Muzeum Historii Miasta Szczecina) and so on. We can't mix museums with city halls. Poeticbent talk 14:55, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Agreed, but that actually supports the concerns raised by Piotr and me. If these are museums, then why do we have an article that purports on its face to be about Polish town halls? It needs to be moved to "History of ratusz buildings in Poland", or something to that effect, to focus on the evolution of the architecture, the development of this use over time, and the historic preservation and reuse of the buildings. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:21, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

• Not so easy. A fair number of them still serve as Seats of local government often along with wedding halls and art galleries, restaurants, and God-knows-what i.e. Zamość, Kielce (city halls), Zielona Góra (city hall, wedding hall, restaurant an winery), Kętrzyn (wedding hall and dom kultury cultural centre), Kołobrzeg (city hall, wedding hall, cultural centre and prominent gallery of modern art) and so on. The fact that the word ratusz was borrowed from the German rathaus in the 12th century is a ridiculous claim to fame for the English city hall, because every other toponym in the Western world was borrowed from somewhere, usually from the old Latin. Poeticbent talk 15:46, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

You're completely missing the point. We already have an article on ratusze (sp?) - it's called Seat of local government. We don't need a separate article on the Polish word for the same concept. The fact that the Polish word origanted from the German word is not sufficient to merit a separate article, and the fact that some former town halls in Poland are now used for other uses is also not sufficient to merit a separate article (since there is nothing unique or unusual about that). To the extent that there a number of ratusz buildings in Poland that are of historic and architectural interest, many of which are partially or wholly repurposed and others which continue to be used as town halls, then move this article to "History of ratusz buildings in Poland" or "Architecture of ratusz buildings in Poland" (the former is probably better than the latter, since the former arguably gives more leeway to cover both issues) and finesse the text so that the article deals with a unique topic. Even "Ratusz buildings in Poland" would be better. It seems like the intent is to focus on the collection of landmark buildings in Poland, and not the concept of ratusz/town hall, but right now the article is not clear and seems to suggest that it is a country-specific duplicate of Seat of local government. As a duplicate, it should be merged. If you focus on a unique topic, then we should keep it as a stand-alone article. Skeezix1000 (talk) 16:02, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Can we please have more people comment on what I just said? Thanks, Poeticbent talk 18:46, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Comment on what? That some are used for museums and others for town halls? It's unclear what your position is, since you have just stated a bunch of facts which do not address the issues. I don't mean that to be critical - I am just confused as to what your position is. Do you have a problem with what I have proposed? --Skeezix1000 (talk) 20:22, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Please, don't take this the wrong way. I want other people to comment on the state the article is in, that's all. Personally, I think present title is the best per WP:TITLE policy/guideline; precise, straightforward and easily recognizable. And besides, it is also supported by reliable third-party sources. Why fix what ain't broke. Poeticbent talk 21:35, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

I have no issues with the article after its recent expansion. The topic is certainly notable and one could only argue about the proper title. If it were entirely up to me, I'd use a more descriptive English title, such as Historic town halls in Poland, but I've found (in Google Books) enough mentions of the word ratusz being used in English-language publications to consider the current title fine as well. — Kpalion^(talk) 22:38, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

But what makes them different from those in Germany or Ukraine? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 23:38, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Are there any "Ukrainian" city halls? Xx236 (talk) 10:06, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Nothing. I look at it as one of many articles of the "Category X in country Y" type. And it's quite common in Wikipedia to give such articles a title that is "X" in the language of country Y (cf. Autobahn, Château, etc.) — Kpalion^(talk) 23:46, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

I would agree. Perfectly valid article as a description of city halls in a particular country. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:07, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

The article should describe the history. Many buildings now in Poland were German and some Polish ones are outside Poland, eg. Ivano-Frankivsk.Xx236 (talk) 07:56, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Magdeburg rights influenced the ratuszes.Xx236 (talk) 10:04, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

• Magdeburg's own town-hall (Rathaus) was built in 1691 and enlarged in 1866.[1] By then, the most prominent ratuszes in Poland were already standing, including in many cities and towns located in the eastern provinces (modern Belarus and Ukraine). You are welcome to expand the article with reliable, third-party sources preferably not from the century of partitions but later. Poeticbent talk 16:07, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

"Erstmals erwähnt wurde ein Magdeburger Rathaus im Jahre 1244." de:Rathaus_Magdeburg

I don't mean the town of Magdeburg but the laws respected in hundreds of towns, some of them in historical Poland, some others in Poland since 1945.Xx236 (talk) 09:11, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

The article is bizarre. Very misleading and historically false.

Lets start with the Name of the Site. if anything it should be named Rathaus considering it's originally a German word and concept which then was adopted by multiple slavic languages.

Reading the article would make you belive that the whole town hall concept it is describing originated in poland and then swept over neighbouring states. Where as in reality it's a German thing. Rathäuser of this style were build by Germans in cities with big German populations in eastern europe/central europe.

This article the way it's written is pure fabrication and extremely misleading. It should either be changed completely or deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.16.184.232 (talk) 14:56, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Still historically inaccurate and pov.

Alright if nobody is doing anything about it i will. I brought up my issues ith it and was ignored. It's not only historically false and leaving out cruicial facts on the topic it's basically polish pov. This is against wiki rules and i will change this up in the next days unless somebody has a good argument against it. Considering, that it definitely is historically false and pov that would have to be a damn good argument. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.17.140.107 (talk) 01:13, 3 November 2019 (UTC)