Talk:Sofia

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Sofia was the Article Creation and Improvement Drive for the week spanning from Sunday, 29 January 2006. For more details, see the Article Creation and Improvement Drive history.

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	To-do list for Sofia:	edit  · history  · watch  · refresh
general cleanup and expansion, pick other good photos add references greatly expand History section to a separate article degree expand Geography section, add climate information clean up, expand and restructure Culture section add other sections (such as Demographics, Sport, Communications and media, Tourism, Education) create articles for notable Sofia-related topics to enrich general encyclopedic coverage (quarters and town regions, facilities and structures, landmarks, history of the city, notable figures and residents, etc.), expand other existing sections substitute info table with a suitable and better template comments from AID nomination This is an important Bulgaria-related article, which at the moment is full of unnecessary bad-quality images, poorly written content and... lacking information. A lot of work has to be done on this one, just have a look. Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov ? Talk 14:57, 18 December 2005 (UTC) Although in my opinion every capital city should eventually become a featured article, I think that Sofia may require different skills to the others on this page. The Bulgarian edition is already a featured article, and I think that with some translation work the English one could be brought up to a similar level. However, the other candidates would seem to have to be improved from scratch.-Estrellador* 12:40, 2 January 2006 (UTC) The Bulgarian version does not seem to have inline citations and that would be a prerequisite for an article to become featured here.--Fenice 12:58, 2 January 2006 (UTC) Yes, the Bulgarian Wikipedia article about Sofia may be featured, but featured article criteria there are a whole lot lower than in the English Wikipedia and I wouldn't actually suggest using the article in Bulgarian as anything more than a source. Yes, indeed, it's better than what we have here in English, but not good enough. ? Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov ? Talk 19:19, 2 January 2006 (UTC) I just want to mention that the Sofia article in bg: is featured in the first several months of the Bulgarian version. Currently all these old featured articles are revoted and Sofia is somewhere at the limit (see [1]). --Nk 12:27, 4 January 2006 (UTC) I agree that every capital city should be closing in on FA territory. This one is nowhere near and is a worthy AID candidate. Soo 01:59, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

This page has been selected for the release version of Wikipedia and rated B-Class on the assessment scale. It is in the category Geography.

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. This article has been tagged since January 2007.

Contents 1 Satellite image 2 Removed Advertising Links from text 3 Night life 4 Second oldest city/capital in Europe 5 Sofia Municipality allows us to use their pictures and materials 6 Remove history stub notices 7 Picture caption 8 External links 9 Picture order 10 Photo Gallery 11 City center 12 This page is getting too long

[edit] Satellite image

The satellite image overlaps and conceals text. This occurs (albeit in different places) whether you're using Firefox or IE6. Could someone who knows how to make WP images look pretty fix this up? Rlw 21:06, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removed Advertising Links from text

I have removed the link which was in wrong place. Website providing daily news about Sofia, Varna and other cities, SofiaNewsRoom.

[edit] Night life

May I suggest to delete this section. It contains nothing informative but a promotion of a dozen of places without any support of their notability. Mukadderat 17:12, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

If I remember them correctly, they were about the ones I would've thought deserve mention myself, but I agree the way it was written was not suitable for wikipedia.

PLEASE GET THE LOGO RIGHT: EVER GROWING NEVER AGING —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.130.98.138 (talk • contribs).

[edit] Second oldest city/capital in Europe

This is mentioned three times in the article already, sometimes the oldest city, sometimes the oldest capital. What's the source, how can we prove that? Besides, I think telling the same fact three times is just too much. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → 10:17, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Presumably, Athens would be the oldest. Is there evidence to suggest that Sofia was established before Rome? Doug 21:13, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[unspecified personal attack by unsigned User:85.130.98.138removed]

I'm sorry, your chances of getting an answer seriously decline if you don't write in English, discussions here are normally carried out in that language. Pschemp | ^Talk 22:36, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

The anonymous user's not asking for anything, he's use language at and threatening RexNL because of the reverts (although he might not known what's happening at all and that RexNL made the reverts, which are, by the way, justifiable). He also says he's unhappy about the quality of English in the article (he claims he's studying English philology at Sofia University and is thus the only one here who knows anything about the language). I suggest we remove his comment, as per Wikipedia:Remove personal attacks. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → 09:44, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Go for it. I was just trying to be polite pending translation. Ya know, Assume Good Faith until I know what it says. I totally agree the reverts were correct as I did one myself. Pschemp | ^Talk 16:01, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Done. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → 16:56, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sofia Municipality allows us to use their pictures and materials

Hello,

Just wanted to share with you that Sofia Municipality has given us permission (text states that we can use the materials on their web site, it's posted in the Bulgarian Wikipedia) to use their materials. There are a lot of nice pictures and useful information on there which I think we can put to good use here. Regards, --Vanka5 05:07, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Could you please clarify if the permission extends only to the Wikipedia? If so, it is unusable. Wikiacc (¶ | ∞) 20:56, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

My understanding is that we can use it on Wikipedia. I am really not familiar with the different licenses on Wikipedia but if there is a license that says that materials can be used on Wikipedia only and then maybe used elsewhere only by referencing the originator I would use that one. By the way the permission did not sound really strict, as if if anyone asked the author they would have given them permission. I left a message for the person who got the permission and either he or I will get back to you on that one. --Vanka5 02:27, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Remove history stub notices

The History subsections (Antiquity, Middle ages, etc.) are just long enough for this article, in my opinion. The whole history is longer than that in the India article, for example. All we need is a couple of sentences about what happened after socialism ended. Perhaps there needs to be a more detailed "History of Sofia" article, but remove the stubs notices from the history subsections in the main Sofia article. -Pgan002 22:30, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree we could remove the stub tags, but we certainly need a separate History of Sofia article. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → 07:24, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I've removed them for now. If anyone has objections, you can always express them here. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → 12:31, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Picture caption

Sofia has been a centre of Eastern Orthodoxy since the times of the Roman Empire

The caption of the photo should say what the image represent, i.e. what church is pictured and why it's signifiant to this article. Also, talking about Eastern Orthodoxy during the Roman Empire is an anachronism, as the schism occured much later. bogdan 17:25, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External links

I've gone through the external links, and removed the links to sofia.com (not updated since April 8, 1998), Sofianewsroom.com (old news not specific for Sofia, novinite.com would be a better link), Impressions of Sofia Video (404 Not Found) and Sofia Photo Gallery (second link to the same website). Do we want to keep the link to Sofia 2014? Do we agree that the link to SofiaInYourPocket is spam (User:Turpster tried twice to add it, it's this user's only contribution except for edits in the In Your Pocket City Guides article)? Do we really need the long list of links to educational institutions? I propose to move it to a List of institutions of higher education in Sofia Preslav 07:33, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Yep, you've done a good job! The SofiaInYourPocket thing is spam, the guy seems to advertize it, and we don't really need. Don't know about Sofia 2014, it looks abandoned, but has some historical value. At least we should make it clear what it's about (Sofia 2014 would sound odd to anyone who's not familiar with it).

As for the educational institutions, we can add these that are missing to List of universities in Bulgaria, which we can order by city/town, and have a 'see also' in the Education section linking to List of universities in Bulgaria#Sofia. Todor→Bozhinov 09:24, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Picture order

I think it is missing.And what I done was to order them.But it is returned the older version.I want to ask why Sofia University is in Architecture,Mall of Sofia in Education, Church of St Sophia in Sport,why Ivan Vazov National Theatre isn`t in Places of special interest and what is the building of DZI noteworthy for in the capital.And also why not some of the pictures to be in the left side of the page.Thank you.--85.130.11.193 15:04, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

They're not ordered in any relation to the sections in most cases. I wouldn't object to ordering them in such a way or putting some to the left, but your version had some photos overlapping and didn't look OK at least at 1024x768, so I reverted. Feel free to reorder them again, just make sure they are arranged so that they don't overlap. Also, I don't think the article can deal with any more pictures — it's currently full if not overflooded :) As for the DZI building, it's not in any way special, just like some others in the article, it just shows some architecture. Todor→Bozhinov 15:11, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

ok I see now.Thank you for the answer. (: --85.130.11.193 15:40, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

All the pictures have to be inserted into a photoalbum or something like it! There are too many pictures on the right side and they are not symmetric with the text on the left. I am not saying that they have to be deleted, but rather turned into smaller clickable images.

They're small and clickable... And what do you mean by "symmetric with the text on the left"? Certainly, the article would use a gallery, but at the moment I'm quite busy with other things, including on Wikipedia, so perhaps at a later stage I'd do it. Unless someone does it before me, which I would appreciate... Todor→Bozhinov 17:16, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I am saying that currently there is a huge column of pictures on the right side and there is not enough text on the left, which creates big empty white spots. It doesn't look esthetic at all. Делян 13:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Bravo Bravisimo to the first picture (National Assembly Square in central Sofia), PERFECT!!! It is extremely great idea to show the back side of the hors on top of the article for the CAPITAL city!!! Which idiot put this there??? Was it deliberately??? K.Velev :26/03/2007

I suppose the idea was to show both the cathedral and the National Assembly in one shot, and the focus was not on the monument. Can you donate a picture which shows the horse from a better perspective? --Cameltrader 14:42, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd be that idiot, and to be honest I find nothing wrong with it. It's a monument, it has a back side, yes, so what? Does it say somewhere that the back sides of monuments shouldn't be photographed? The photo is of great quality, it shoes the National Assembly, the cathedral, the monument and even part of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in one shot, so what's the problem? Also, mind your language. After all, not everyone is capable of using such sophisticated phrases like "bravo bravisimo" [sic], and that doesn't make one an idiot :) Best, Todor→Bozhinov 18:00, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Photo Gallery

There are too many inline photos for the length of the article and they break the page's flow in almost any resolution.

I suggest each section of the article needs no more than 2 photographs, selected on merits such as quality and relativity, and then we could create a separate section at the end where the rest are posted in a gallery-like format.

Please discuss.

--Kroum 16:52, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Err, I dunno, it's OK at 1024x768 and I don't see any problems with the text's flow. I would support rearranging the pictures to be relevant to each section and including the rest in a gallery, but I still find the current format OK. Many people seem not to like it, though. Todor→Bozhinov 17:37, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] City center

Why the city center is discussed so widely? It is alfuw and crowded. The traffic is way too much. If you ever go to Sofia don't go there! The outskirfs are better. Superboy88 15:30, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, traffic and crowdedness are an issue of every large city. The city centre has most of the major sights attracting visitors to Sofia, practically all of the state institutions are located there, and it's the hub of economic, political, social, cultural, etc. life in Sofia and, in most cases, Bulgaria as a whole. So why really? Adding info about the outskirts is always fine, as long as you cite sources. Or you can write separate articles on the neighbourhoods of Sofia instead of complaining and giving inappropriate advice :) Todor→Bozhinov 18:53, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Do you think that it is appropriate to show FOUR images of traffic jam near Orlov Most? Isn't it better to show the readers of the wikipedia the beautuful face of the capital? Each city has traffic jams, some of them much more heavy than Sofia but this is the first place to see so many images devoted to the problem. Let as take an example from Belgrad and make this page more beautiful, because I do not think that belgrad is superior to Sofia in any way. --Gligan 11:07, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This page is getting too long

I think this page is getting too long, with too many photos. I think we should discuss how to make it more manageable and readable by splitting off sections and deleting non-notable parts. My candidates for deletion: the section on hypermarkets and the photos of the traffic jam at Orlov Most. Preslav 07:47, 5 February 2007 (UTC)