Talk:Nail Men

Germany High‑importance

	Germany portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Germany, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Germany on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.GermanyWikipedia:WikiProject GermanyTemplate:WikiProject GermanyGermany articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Austria High‑importance

	Austria portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Austria, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to articles about Austria on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please join the project.AustriaWikipedia:WikiProject AustriaTemplate:WikiProject AustriaAustria articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

A fact from Nail Men appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 1 September 2011 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that people in Berlin raised over a million gold marks for charity in World War I by hammering nails into a wooden statue of Hindenburg 12 metres (42 feet) high?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2011/September. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Nail Men.

Wikipedia

Name of article

In the Deutsch Wikipedia the term is rendered as "Wehrmann in Eisen" which translates to "Armed man/soldier in iron". Though they also give a large variety of other nicknames, "Nail man"(Nagelmann) is only one of the last one's. Perhaps we should consider changing the article's name to "Soldier in iron"?--Macarenses (talk) 06:17, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It was hard to find the best title. The most inclusive German term is Kriegswahrzeichen - "war monument" - but that is too general and suggests a war memorial. The English-language sources are split between calling them Nail Men and Men of Iron, and focus on the statues of people; an alternative would have been to translate Wehrmann in/im Eisen, but the meaning there is on the edge of "guardian", "defender" and "armed man", and I haven't found English-language uses of any of those translations as terms for the things. So I went with the one of the 2 that I've seen used in English that was clearer and less likely to be confused with Iron Man.--Yngvadottir (talk) 12:10, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree and would have liked to see that concise unique name on the Main page, but didn't find support. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:20, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Good point, "Nail Men" it is then.--Macarenses (talk) 14:28, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]