Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities.html



The current WikiProject Cities Collaboration of the Month is Los Angeles. The previous collaboration was n/a.

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Featured article drive

I am planning one, and if all goes well it should be up and running in no time. I expect at the least ten of the eighteen cities within the scope to ultimately reach FA status. If you would like to help out, come and tell me.

--Starstriker7(^{Dime algo}_{or see my works}) 12:01, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good, I was wondering who is running WP Cities now? it fell silent for a long time last I recall. Anyway I just recently revamped Alaskan cities with the cities template since they've been getting so much attention via Sarah Palin. davumaya 19:55, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I assumed so as well. No one is really actively pushing the WikiProject forwards now, so I figured I might as well break some ground here. BTW, thanks for getting to me, and good work with Wasilla. --Starstriker7(^{Dime algo}_{or see my works}) 20:31, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is officially "running" the project. I've been trying to keep the review lists updated on at least a weekly basis for the past year or so. I've also tried to organize some of the suggested topic areas into a suggested article outline/template (WP:USCITY); one previously existed for UK cities (WP:UKCITIES). I'm pretty familiar with the WP:GAN procedures, so I can help move articles through that process. WP:FAC seems to be a bit 'anal-retentive' for my tastes; most articles I nominate there get shot down over the most miniscule crap,... but if folks want to push for FA, I'd help out -- in my experience, moving towards FA is best done by a collective effort by more than one editor. Dr. Cash (talk) 14:45, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Also began a Top 25 Canadian Cities Classes page in the same vein as the Top 25 US Cities Classes SriMesh | talk 02:58, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Waterfall Gully, South Australia FAR

Waterfall Gully, South Australia has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:30, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Abandoned settlements

Does the abandoned monastic settlement of Glendalough qualify for inclusion? The scope isn't clear: does the project include or exclude settlements that have ceased to exist? This would affect those where occupation became untenable, eg Pompeii, Dead Cities, or where the site ceased to exist (eg Dunwich). I note there is a project Wikipedia:WikiProject Ghost towns, but this doesn't seem to apply (although might be linked to the Cities project). Comments, plz. Folks at 137 (talk) 16:58, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Considering the sheer number of populated cities included in this project, I would say not to include abandoned settlements. If there is a wikiproject for ghost towns or archaeology, that would be the appropriate place for them. Dr. Cash (talk) 20:15, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I tend to agree, particularly since I have argued the project's scope needs to tightened or sub-divided. Perhaps this could be included on the project page. "wikiproject for ghost towns or archaeology": ghost towns are a particular sub-group of "extinct settlements", archaeology is a much broader topic. I've raised the issue elsewhere, although there are commonalities with WPCities. Folks at 137 (talk) 20:50, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Please have a look at this proposal for a new project (ExtinctSettlments) and add your votes and/or views. Folks at 137 (talk) 16:41, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

You could easily expand respective WikiProjects instead of creating an entirely new one on abandoned settlements. For instance for abandoned settlements in Saskatchewan you could make it apart of WP: SKCN. This would save it from potentially being WikiProject with little activity. Mr. C.C. (talk) 06:25, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

The move debate continues ...

The article move wars continue and there are now three proposals get US city articles moved from the long-standing standard of city, state to city, going against the WP:MOS. Three separate debates are currently ongoing, one at Talk:New Orleans, Louisiana and Talk:Boston, Massachusetts. Seattle, Washington was also previously moved to Seattle despite a clear lack of consensus, and without following proper procedures. I have re-initiated discussion on moving Seattle back to Seattle, Washington, since it was improperly moved in the first place. Please go to the talk pages of each article to participate in the discussion threads. Dr. Cash (talk) 18:42, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I have a preference for "city, state" names, but it's not apparent to me that that form is required by Wikipedia:Naming conventions (settlements)#United States. Am I missing something? --Orlady (talk) 20:44, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

It's not explicitly required, and exceptions to certain cities are allowed, if consensus allows it, for cities based on the AP Stylebook. Although, IMHO, I think if we shouldn't selectively apply the AP Stylebook to some cities without applying it to all cities that it mentions (e.g. if the AP Stylebook says that there are like 20 cities that can be called 'city' instead of 'city, state', then let's apply it uniformly to all cities instead of just ones that we want to? Dr. Cash (talk) 20:48, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Could you tone down the "move nazi" rhetoric, it's not helping your argument any. Calling the folks who want to move articles about nazis or facists or other such names accomplishes nothing except to inflame the debate and is getting kind of tiresome. Shereth 20:59, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Please note that this WP:CANVASSING is not neutral or appropriate. rootology (C)(T) 14:09, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Um, no. I believe that you are wrong here. There is no evidence of canvassing. Sorry. Dr. Cash (talk) 15:17, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Since the naming convention AND the AP style guide support Seattle per the longstanding exemption, the only other consensus that would decide this is at Talk:Seattle. Posting here seems to be canvassing, especially as your tone indicates that a move done in compliance with the naming convention is wrong. Wikiprojects have no authority over articles or naming conventions so posting here was unhelpful in the tone you did it in. rootology (C)(T) 15:21, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

It isn't canvassing to alert a WP of something relevant to the WP. Occuli (talk) 15:19, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

A neutral tone, sure. But this project has no special authority and his tone was not neutral. rootology (C)(T) 15:21, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

City name proposal

If we look at what's been happening with respect to city names in the past two months, Seattle, Washington has been moved to Seattle, New Orleans, Louisiana has been moved to New Orleans, and Boston, Massachusetts currently has a discussion that's leaning in favor of moving the article name to Boston. The rationale for moving this is based on the current naming convention for US cities, which allows exceptions for cities mentioned by the AP Stylebook as being eligible to be referred to by 'city' instead of 'city, state'.

I don't think we should be following the AP Stylebook selectively, and debating and voting on this every few weeks or months. Rather than that, let's just move all of the cities mentioned by the Stylebook to their 'city' name. The cities that would be affected would be:

Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Honolulu, Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York City, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle (cities highlighted in bold text do not need to be moved).

Discussion on this is currently taking place at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements). Dr. Cash (talk) 16:19, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Demographic data

A user recently changed the racial demographic data in the Denver article to reference a newspaper article which is in turn based on US Census data. No big problem so far, but the secondary source (the newspaper) reported "Hispanic" as a race and used "White, not Hispanic" as a racial percentage. The Census Bureau includes both numbers (depending on where you look) but as far as I can tell doesn't consider "Hispanic" a race. Is there a consistent guideline used in Wikipedia for this? -- Rick Block (talk) 00:48, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Because the Census Bureau's definition of Hispanic and Latino status says that H/L status is not a race, any newspaper article of this sort is incorrect. A newspaper repeating statistics not inconsistent with Census Bureau data, derived from Census Bureau data, wouldn't be incorrect (in my mind) under any situation, but anything that misrepresents (even accidentally) the Census Bureau isn't reliable in that situation. I know I've seen Census Bureau figures for H/L Whites and non-H/L Whites somewhere, but I don't know where to find them; this basic fact sheet for Denver doesn't include it. I've never been able to find my way around the Factfinder too well; I'm going to ask Omnedon, who plainly understands that website better than I do. Nyttend (talk) 16:39, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the fact sheet you refer to does include these numbers, just not in the "Race" section. In the H/L section there's a total non-H/L white percentage. I believe what the newspaper did in this case is report that as the "white" number, then the total H/L percentage (of all races) as the H/L number misidentifying this as a race, and then the other races (so the percentages add up to more than 100%). If a Wikipedia user did this it would be WP:OR, but the user has simply changed the numbers to match what the newspaper said. I'll revert this change on the grounds that we use Census Bureau data directly. It might be helpful if this were written down somewhere in a guideline or MOS entry. Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 07:38, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Article creep and metro figures

Many infoboxes (some editors have created their own) have "metro" figures in them in addition to city figures. The trouble with this is that there is usually a metro article already with the same info.

We are starting to see "article creep" here with people unable to place proper boundaries on geographic articles. There is no need for a city reader to know what any metro figure is - s/he can go to that article which has its own editors. They would maintain the figures in one place and one place only. They are "metro specialists" just as some of us are "city specialists." Why not let editors (and articles) comprise whatever they are named to do and not try to "creep" into the next higher level. I don't need to know who the president of France is why I read an article about Caen. I am happy to go to the one article that has that information by pressing the standard links from Caen to "France" where they will most likely have that info.

This opens the door to still other people who claim as "nearby" resources transportation and tourist facilities that are far away from the area which is sometimes an insignificant part of the metro. The idea seems to be to make it "more important." What are we trying to accomplish with these metro figures anyway? Student7 (talk) 23:50, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

There are clear metropolitan/micropolitan area distinctions: any state has a list of its metro/micro areas, whether huge like Texas and California, or minimal like Vermont and Rhode Island. It's quite helpful to include the metro population, especially for the principal cities, but also for other communities in the metro area. Nyttend (talk) 16:43, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

100k city templates

I have made 9 (CA, FL, GA, IL, LA, OH, NY TN, TX) for cities of over 100k of the following form {{NY cities and mayors of 100,000 population}} {{CA cities and mayors of 100,000 population}}. I used 100k as the cutoff because I did not want to do WP:OR and a list already exists at List of United States cities by population.

There are complainants about which cities should and which should not be included. Some propose that 100k is arbitrary. I note that some states have templates such as {{Texas county seats}} of county seats which would probably include most cities people are complaining about being missing.

Some question the placement of the template on both mayor pages or city pages. I think an article like Robert Cluck has benefitted greatly from the two templates I created for his page. I think the placement on the mayor pages is clearly useful and may have a minor impact on WP:AFD decisions for prospective articles by keeping articles from being orphans.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 15:57, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

The 100,000 barrier was the thing I had some problems with. Why? Basically because each state is different in terms of what size of population is considered "large", i.e. "notable" for cases such as this. I used my home state (Wisconsin) as an example. Wisconsin only has 3 cities (Madison, Milwaukee and Green Bay) over 100,000 people. So cities with much less than 100,000 people are considered "good-sized" and notable. Wisconsin has a slew of cities between 40 and 75,000 people that fit this description (Eau Claire, Appleton, Wausau and Fond du Lac are just a few examples). But in many states, these would qualify as small towns. I almost wonder if we should do a simple "top" criteria. An example would be the mayors of the top 10 or 20 cities in population. Btw, there are exceptions to "mayor". For example, in the ones I just mentioned, 2 use city managers and not mayors (Oklahoma City is probably the most prominent city that uses something other than mayor). I'm wondering if "chief executive" is a better term to use. Just some thoughts. I don't object to the idea of the template. It's more the criteria. We don't want it to be all encompassing but if it's too narrow, it doesn't have much use as a tool. --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 16:09, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Given the clear standard for inclusion, and reliance on the sources used at the List of United States cities by population, I don't see a core problem about this. I do share Woohookitty's concerns about states such as Wisconsin — Vermont, Maine, Wyoming, and perhaps other states don't have any cities of this size at all. Nevertheless, I find these templates useful, and the idea of listing both mayors and cities on a template placed on articles about both cities and mayors is useful and non-problematic in my mind. Nyttend (talk) 16:47, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

In terms of top, I created {{Top 50 U.S. City Mayors}} recently as well. Is this what you mean or do you mean create a top 10 for each state? This is sort of the same debate that the founding fathers had which caused us to have both the United States Senate and United States House of Representatives. I am not going to create templates for both types of list. You are free to create top templates for each state. In terms of international notability, I am not so sure the 10th largest city in Wisconsin is as notable as the smallest 100 k city in many of the states I have done. However, one certainly could create a top ten for each state. It would serve a different purpose. I think the purpose of these templates is clear enough. I do not mean to insult my neighbors to the north in Wisconsin (I live in Chicago).--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 17:40, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I had several comments about the templates including those mentioned above.

1.Why would I want to navigate around a state by large cities? Most of these are on the state template already.

2.Why do I care about navigating around a state based on the name of the mayor?

3.Since the templates are being inserted into are city articles, why am I interested in the mayor at all? More importantly, if I am looking at the Cleveland Ohio article, why do I care what the name of the mayor of Toledo is? Coming from another editor, I would have thought the templates were constructed to exaggerate the importance of mayors. (My first reaction before I checked the editors name  :) Mayors names, if anyone really cares, which I don't think they do, should go into the bios of the current mayors and the "Government of Toledo/Cleveland" articles if they exist.

4.Putting mayors in a template requires maintenance. Templates without them need almost no maintenance. Student7 (talk) 18:13, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia and the templates convey information. Large cities have all kinds of large city templates on them (largest in the world and largest in the US) that have never been questioned. There seems to be consensus that largest X templates are useful. The template serves a dual purpose. I am not going to create templates for cities, but the Mayor pages need to have the cities on them. There are all kinds of Category:United States political leader templates that require updating and this fact is not a reason to delete them. You would be surprised how fast new political officeholders are replaced on such templates. The templates were created for the Mayors. The city names will not be removed from the templates. If the city articles do not want them in this form then we can discuss that.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 18:21, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

So you're intending these primarily for mayors? I had misunderstood before. One thing about which I'd been rather concerned was that they were duplicating the state template; but as these are primarily for mayors, I can't imagine objecting on those grounds. One suggestion, however: perhaps it would be better to embolden the mayors' names, so that it was obvious that we were concentrating on the mayors. What do you think of this example, used on the Ohio template? Nyttend (talk) 18:38, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

The bolding does make the purpose clear. Powers ^T 18:53, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

That format looks O.K. except that you have to put the city name underneath the mayor so that at four or five wide (see CA, TX, or FL) it won't look so cluttered on a low resolution screen setting.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 19:40, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I have now reformatted all the templates.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 21:01, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

My main objection, Tony, is that this only clutters the city articles, without much utility for the reader. For mayoral articles, I have less objection, although inclusion criteria are still a possible point of contention. Powers ^T 18:53, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

For inclusion criterion, the options that I understand are 1. argue about a population threshold; 2. Use a count like top 10 for each state: 3. Do all county seats. I am against county seats because many county seats are 5 or 10,000k towns or cities that are not worth focus on an international encyclopedia. Many 200k oand 300k cities are not county seats. I think counts in many small states will lead us to less encyclopedically notable cities as well while excluding notable cities in larger states. Pushing the threshold does not make much sense to me either because the list seems to have already settled at a 100k threshold for whatever reasons.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 20:21, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, since this is about the mayors, one possibility is to use the inclusion criterion of the U.S. Conference of Mayors (which is 30,000 residents). According to the web site, there are 1,139 such cities, towns, and villages. I'm not saying that's the best choice, or the only alternative, but it's a possibility. Powers ^T 21:53, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

That is about five times as many cities as we are now including. On templates like CA, FL, or TX that would be a bit much.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 04:16, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Again, we are navigating from the article on Amarillo to the article on Brownsville by using mayors as a parameter! Why? Who would want to do that? Student7 (talk) 23:19, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

There are two different questions. Do we want these templates on mayor's pages, and do we want these templates on city's pages. I think the former is a clear yes and the atter is a possibly yes.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 04:18, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I sort of share Student7's view here. The whole purpose of these templates is navigation. Why would someone want to go between mayor's pages? Or city pages? I do wonder if these should be separated somehow. --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 05:23, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Just about every political office has templates of peers. If we look at Category:United States political leader templates, you will see numerous templates of peers. You can find U.S. state Chief Justices, U.S. State Secretaries of State, U.S. State Treasurers, Speakers of U.S. state Houses of Representatives, and U.S. State Attorneys General. All have both the office holder and his dominion. We should include both the mayor and the city on the templates. The question is whether each template should be duplicated without the Mayors for the cities.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 09:04, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any reason for a template. As a separate list it could have value but there is little to no value as a template. On articles like the California it is just more clutter. Mikemill (talk) 03:23, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

The reason for the template is for the mayor's pages. Before the last week mayors had no templates. I think there is also navigational value for the city pages. Look at the mayors pages. The cities are ancillary, but useful in the sense that people can tell which cities are big.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 04:16, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

The templates are a good addition in my mind and the objections pretty much amount to "I don't like it", aside from the arbitrary quality of the 100,000 cut off, which is only an issue in the less populous states. --IvoShandor (talk) 10:00, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

"I don't like it" is not very good as a reason to delete an article, but when it comes to placing navigational templates, it's perfectly valid. There's also "I don't think it's useful", "I think it clutters up the page", and "I don't think we should be telling users 'here are the big cities; everything else is small'". Powers ^T 12:20, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

All subjective criteria as well, not a good way to decide what stays and what goes, in my opinion. The templates don't tell anyone anything about "here are the big cities". The template is specific, cities over 100,000. The template doesn't make a judgement on what's big and what's small, the reader, or template viewer would have to do that. The template does set an arbitrary cut-off for inclusion, which I would say doesn't have to be set in stone. Don't be pedantic, there is a such thing as a "big city" and a "small city".--IvoShandor (talk) 13:50, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

These took a lot of work, and I don't mean to denigrate the effort of a very heavy contributor to Wikipedia. But basically, Texas mayors (to pick on particular group) get together once a year to meet the governor and have their picture taken. That's pretty much it for most of them unless their cities abut or something. So we are relating people without much in common except that they share a common title for a year.

For the offices you mentioned, yes, maybe we would want a template pointing to past mayors for a given city to see commonality/difference about getting to office and the problems they faced there.

Maybe the current templates could go into the mayors biographies but I think that is even stretching it since they would have to be swapped in and out when they changed. But, for me, that would have more of a purpose than keeping them in the cities (geographic) articles.

Right now, most of the templates at the bottom of city articles (exception somewhere I suppose) relate to geography. I would hate to add biography pointers. Besides the drawbacks we have mentioned, this might open up template placement to include a lot of things that weren't quite related. I find that a source of concern. Student7 (talk) 13:12, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

The fact that the mayors don't conduct business together does not mean the template is not useful. Recall the list above of U.S. state Chief Justices, U.S. State Secretaries of State, U.S. State Treasurers, Speakers of U.S. state Houses of Representatives, and U.S. State Attorneys General. We need to separate debate and note a third topic that has not been discussed. The templates are actually on three types of pages. 1. Mayors (I think consensus is heading toward keep), 2. Cities (I think consensus is heading toward remove or maybe no consensus) , 3. States (No discussion yet).--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 15:26, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Like to see Mayors = biographies only. Cities are probably worthwhile for states that have too many to appear on their state template, but maybe the state template should be modified? The states I am familiar with have the same state template on state articles AND other articles as well - again probably a matter of state size.

There may be a case for contacting several state Attorneys General, for kids contacting state Secretaries of State. Chief Justices? A bit of a stretch there. Treasurers? Good grief! How did this come about? It does show "orderly government" I suppose. These templates aren't in our jurisdiction. Were they discussed? I confess to templating state government articles; state politics maybe? But not people! I'm too lazy for one thing! Hard to see the use of many of the ones you mentioned. I wonder if they were discussed before implementing. Anyway, can't do anything about them here. Student7 (talk) 00:04, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

What Wikipedia is missing is a "beta test" mechanism. We all consider outselves "beta testers." But for something like this, if you were establishing a beta test, what question(s) would you ask a tester that would confirm the utility of these templates Hopefully not "name ten mayors in Texas"!  :) (When you finish with that one, try inventing a question that would cause the casual user to need a template to reference more than one state treasurer. That would be a challenge! Student7 (talk) 00:12, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Student, I am glad to see you mention the jurisdiction point as it relates to Category:United States political leader templates. I guess it would be wrong for WP:CITY to decide standard protocol for templates in this category. I am not sure whether I should talk to WP:WPBIO or WP:PLT. If you haven't noticed, I have made about five more of these templates. I have also created a mayor page for Scott Smith (mayor) although I have not done Arizona yet. He was the only mayor on {{Top 50 U.S. City Mayors}} without a page. I guess BIO or Politics has decided to have sufficient information to tell who is who. I think the templates would be useless without the city names on them. Of course, this does not mean they should be added to the city pages. However, singling out the Mayor to have their cities removed and no other political leader templates seems arbitrary. Which group do you think we should continue this discussion with?

In terms of an occaision why these templates might be useful, I worked a lot on Byron Brown after Hillary became the choice for United States Secretary of State. He is a darkhorse candidate to replace her who I have met personally and my father worked with. Suppose you wanted to see who is likely to replace Hillary. The places to look would be {{NY cities and mayors of 100,000 population}}, {{Current New York statewide political officials}}, {{New York State Senate}}, {{NY-FedRep}}, and {{New York State Assembly}}. Odds are the replacement is coming from one of these templates.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 06:03, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Not to put too fine a point on it, but virtually no one is going to look at those templates for that purpose, because a) their titles are not obvious (and note that the Assembly template doesn't seem to exist), and b) they contain far too much "noise" (as opposed to "signal") to be useful for that purpose. I don't think the average reader of Wikipedia even knows what a template is; they'd be much more likely to look for an article containing the information that they seek. Powers ^T 16:10, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I am way in over my depth in biographies and try to avoid them for that reason, but I like the idea of asking on WikiProject Politics which I just discovered today! I probably will not participate in that discussion which will be a mercy, I'm sure!  :) The collection of templates at the bottom is something to be considered. Some places already have too many which (like too many external links) people will just ignore rather than trying them however much they may deserve to be looked at. So it will get competitive after awhile. Some historic places have already reached that limit but so far no negative feedback. Take another year or so.

I would hope that Wikipedia is not the first place anyone would go to determine who will succeed someone in office. That would be a local/state analyst I would hope. I suppose one could be quoted here though that seems WP:CRYSTAL to me. I would rather stick to reporting the past. Wikipedia has enough problems with that, believe me!Student7 (talk) 23:46, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

The thing about politics is that the project has a low traffic talk page. I am more inclined to take it to BIO.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 02:03, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

• Discussion continued at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Biography#State_by_state_100.2C000_population_city_and_mayors_templates.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 22:11, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Harrisburg disambiguation

I have proposed moving Harrisburg (disambiguation) to Harrisburg, which at present is a redirect to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Discussion of this proposal is on Talk:Harrisburg. --Una Smith (talk) 22:25, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Kalimpong

Kalimpong has been nominated for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here.YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 05:24, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of City portals

Portal:Shreveport and Portal:Baton Rouge, Louisiana are up for deletion at WP:Mfd (Shreveport & Baton Rouge, Louisiana). The project's input would be welcome. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 07:15, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Question

Should the project banner be placed on the talkpage of every hamlet, town, city, and village article? Cheers. _{Trance addict - Armin van Buuren - Oceanlab} 18:05, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind. Cheers. _{Trance addict - Armin van Buuren - Oceanlab} 21:00, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Dhaka

I have nominated Dhaka for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here.YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 05:46, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

There are several city articles currently up for featured article review. Please click here to see the list. Dr. Cash (talk) 18:35, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion: rename project

To WikiProject Urban Settlements or something similar. WikiProject Cities tags are and will be used most of the time (90%+?) on villages and such (as they are more popular), and seeing the WP:CITY tag on villages is a bit confusing. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 12:30, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

So, if the article is about a small non-urban podunk town in the middle of B.F.E., it wouldn't be included? No, need to answer that, but maybe leave off the urban part. —MJCdetroit ^(yak) 14:26, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Good point. Wikipedia:WikiProject Settlements then? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:03, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I think the name works just fine... I believe "city" is generic enough. Really, I don't think anybody really pays too much attention to the names of WikiProjects or would be confused if some BFE town was marked with the WikiProject Cities tag. There doesn't seem to be too much obvious benefit to such a rename. Best, epicAdam^(talk) 21:09, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't raise the issues if it were just towns. The thing is, as I wrote above, the tag is used on a lot of villages - probably more then cities and towns - and this is confusing.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:24, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Does raise objection in the UK from time to time. City status in the United Kingdom is honorific and something quite different to the rest of the world. I'd support WP:SETTLEMENTS but won't lose any sleep over it. --Jza84 |  Talk  21:26, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not going to stand in opposition to the rename if there's a clear consensus among other editors. However, I'm typically against making such superficial changes without at least some evidence that there is some actual hardship caused to readers. Saying that something could be confusing doesn't mean that it is. Best, epicAdam^(talk) 23:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Cities/Settlements in California

If anybody is working on any sort of populated place (past or present) in California this book has some good information. It just has short snippets on each place name, but I've been using it for cities, unincorporated communities, and ghost towns in Yolo County, and it has been a great resource. Just wanted to share it if anybody is interested. Killiondude (talk) 08:51, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh I forgot to mention that almost the entire book is available to "preview" with Google Books. I've been using it entirely online. Killiondude (talk) 08:52, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

City population and area numbers

I'd hoped to better structure this since it's been bugging me for a while, but I've basically laid it out at Talk:Athens#Population_figures_.2F_infobox in response to a little population figure editwar going on there.

Basically, where does the authoritative data for population of city, metro and urban areas come from? Best or latest? These numbers get changed on a daily basis, in every city article. Is there a best practice or can we create one? Census data tends to be every ten years, new figures come out much more often - which wins? Franamax (talk) 14:38, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

All US population figures come from the US Census Bureau. We post whatever their latest estimate is for each city.--Loodog (talk) 15:21, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Statistics Canada conducts a census every five years, and these should be considered authoritative for population and other demographic data. I use this data exclusively for the infobox and article intro. Provincial, regional and municipal governments may provide annual population and other estimates, which may be used for elaboration in the demographics section of each article. Mindmatrix 00:05, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Airports...and other resources

Most major cities do not have airports! They normally require two mile runways which won't fit into most major cities which are urbanized. Airports properly belong in the metro article which encompasses the city and/or the higher level geographical grouping such as "state", "county", "province," etc.

And generally, places, unlike WikiTravel, should not be looked upon as portals to another area. That is a tourist outlook. So I don't read the Paris article to see information about Versailles or Chartres, which are properly in other articles. I do read the Paris article to learn (or get a link to) the Louvre, Arch de Triomphe, and the Eiffel Tower, which are properly within the context of "Paris." We need help with this. Editors are putting anything "within sight" into articles with clear geographic and governmental boundaries. In Wikipedia, articles have clear boundaries. All an editor needs to do is stick to the WP:TOPIC. Student7 (talk) 18:44, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't it depend on whether the article deals with any local government district which may be greater than the central built-up core (which may be thought of as "the city")? If it does, then details about an airport might be quite properly placed within that article. That is why your original pre-emptive change to WP:UKCITIES has been reverted, and a much clearer description of what might acceptable added.  DDStretch  (talk) 19:05, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

In an article about a city, I would find omitting any mention in the Transport section of the major airports serving a city to be a serious flaw. older ≠ wiser 21:38, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the two posts above me. The San Francisco Airport is about 10 miles outside of the city limits, in another county actually. I don't see the sense in placing stuff about SFO in San Bruno or South San Francisco's articles (because geographically they are closer). If one goes to the SF City article, they'd expect to see something about the SF Airport. Killiondude (talk) 22:31, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

First off, most place articles don't take credit for facilities they don't have. Second, one of the reasons for metro articles is to include everything in the region.

Third, if you think it through, why would anyone be interested in a facility that isn't there? You are WP:BIASed into thinking that WP:TRAVEL choices of a city are more important than, say the toilet paper they use, which is far more useful. Why not mention selecting Charmin over Bounty? Or their choice of Toyota (maybe not SF, but most places people have cars) over GM. These are simply travel choices, like TP choices. They are no more important to a casual reader than anything other irrelevant fact. Young people sometime view the place where they live (a city) as a portal to visit someplace else where they will be happier. It's fine for them to think that, but articles shouldn't be WP:BIASed in that fashion.

I would hate to see all suburbs surrounding a city to be described as a chopped down article of the metro, but that is what could happen if this error in logic is allowed to persist. (For staters, for 50 suburbs all surrounding a city claiming an airport that isn't there! If the city can do it why not each individual suburb?) Fortunately most don't at this point. Let's keep it that way. Student7 (talk) 16:19, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

It's hard to understand why you would expect that the major airports serving a city would not be mentioned in the Transport section. Regardless of where it is physically located, a major airport is an integral part of the economic infrastructure of a city. older ≠ wiser 16:42, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Student7: Although your slightly over the top purported analogies about toilet paper are in a small way amusing, they do not help the situation, except perhaps to give the impression that attempts are being made to caricature the position you seem opposed to, which is hardly a helpful technique of argument here, and which may, in fact, backfire (though not, I hope, in any toilet-related manner).

The problem is that you altered, unilaterally, the guidelines both for WP:USCITY and WP:UKCITIES so that they reflected the position you feel ought to apply here, and you did this shortly after you started to remove material from a number of articles about airports. You then raised the issue both here and at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements#Airports...and other resources, in this last case only after I had reverted the changes you had made to the UKCITIES guidlines and made some modifications to make the advice more clear. You then continued to remove sections about airports from various articles.

Most of these changes, but not all of them as I write this, have been reverted. It is clear that you do not appear to have consensus yet for the changes you are making, and so, pending a consensus view emerging, I suggest that you revert your own changes so as not to preempt the results of any discussion here. Whatever happens, I think it would be very unwise of you to carry on making any more removals of material about airports until the matter is further discussed. There is a fine line to be drawn between being WP:BOLD and being reckless, and I hope that the view is that you have not crossed that line from being bold into being reckless, but I imagine that any further removals until the matter is resolved would be viewed as being reckless.

I also think that the choice of some of the edit summaries used in removing the material are not particularly helpful: this summary and this summary, for instance, suggests that honest attempts to add material to articles by established editors are instances of confusing wikipedia with wikitravel. This seems to me, and possibly others, to be an exaggeration in that it pre-supposes that your interpretation of the various guidelines is the only one and widely accepted, which we are disputing, and that the editors who added the material were deficient in their knowledge in some way. This is not a good way to proceed; the edit summaries were badly phrased.

As for the substantial issue, it seems quite reasonable for transport sections of settlement articles to mention what facilities can be easily accessed by people in the settlement, even if those facilities do not formally lie within the settlement limits. This is because as previously noted, such facilities are often an integral part of the economic activity of a settlement. It is not the case that to include information about airports means that the articles appear to suggest that the settlements "claim" them entirely as their own, or falsely claim that the administrative control of the airports is in the hands of the settlements' authorities: the articles are merely providing information that any encyclopaedia would think useful to include for a settlement, even when they are not some (jumped-up) travel service, which you seem try to caricature the situation as being like. Let me put it another way: if all material were to be excluded from a settlement's articles that concerned things not formally in that settlement, then distances from state capitals, position within the larger state or country, and other such things would also be omitted. I don't think this is credible, and I note you seem to be single-mindedly concentrating on just airports here, rather than dealing with these other issues. The fact is that to remove these other aspects would be unacceptable and I think clearly so, and you probably know you wouldn't have a chance of persuading anyone round to your point of view; and for the same reason, removal of information about transport facilities and communications with other settlements (like airports) is unacceptable.  DDStretch  (talk) 17:39, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Fortunately for Wikipedia and readers sanity, most editors agree with me and stick to the WP:TOPIC when editing place articles, else all suburban articles would sound like every other suburban article and its metro city by claiming everything within driving reach and then some.

It is current common chamber-of-commerce thought that "every" city 'must have a) an Opera House, b) a sports arena, and c) an airport. San Diego actually does, I guess, but most don't. And to claim these when they aren't there is mere c-of-c boosterism.

It is great to have knowledgeable editors who a) live in a city or b) enjoy visiting a city, when attempting to insert info about that city. But when it comes to claiming people who never lived there, or construction that doesn't exist, or events that never happened, or if they did, not within the confines of the article, it crosses the line into "creative editing" and WP:POV and should be deleted. Student7 (talk) 18:06, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

"Fortunately for Wikipedia and readers sanity, most editors agree with me and stick to the WP:TOPIC when editing place articles, else all suburban articles would sound like every other suburban article and its metro city by claiming everything within driving reach and then some." You are being misleading again in what you write here in so far as you are assuming that your own interpretation is the correct one, and we have seen that it does not seem to be the case. Similarly, the hyperbole you indulge in when stating that what you have removed was equivalent to "claiming everything with driving reach and then some" is just plain willful distortion unless you have less intelligence than I am assuming you have on the basis of WP:AGF. So, don't shoot yourself in your feet again by making use of smear tactics to characterize what you object to. WP:TOPIC states "The most readable articles contain no irrelevant (nor only loosely relevant) information. While writing an article, you might find yourself digressing into a side subject. If you find yourself wandering off-topic, consider placing the additional information into a different article, where it will fit more closely with the topic. If you provide a link to the other article, readers who are interested in the side topic have the option of digging into it, but readers who are not interested will not be distracted by it. Due to the way in which Wikipedia has grown, many articles contain such redundant texts. Please be bold in deleting them." You will see that the content you have removed was there merely to "provide a link to the other article" and state why it was relevant in the first place to mention it and provide a link.  DDStretch  (talk) 18:33, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Let me try another tack with the few holdouts that are still left. What is the use of Metro articles? Are they 1) a useless redundancy that should be merged into the city (and all suburban articles) or 2) do they serve some other function?

What do you mean by "Metro articles"? I presume that has a meaning in the US, not the UK? If you mean a city's metropolitan area, then they serve function in the UK yes. For example, because of complicated and successive governmental and statistical arrangements we have Manchester, Manchester Township (England), Manchester (ancient parish), North Manchester, Greater Manchester, Greater Manchester Urban Area, Manchester City Region and the M postcode area. The Greater Mancehster Urban Area is effectively the Metro article for Manchester that I think you mean, and not only carries different meaning and content than the other articles, but also does have alot of value in the UK as a statistical unit. I presume this is also the case elsewhere in the world.

That all said, I'm not sure how that affects your arguement. As I understand it, to me it seems you're against the idea of saying things like:

• "Airport X lies within the metropolitan area of Y, Z miles away from the city centre".
• "There are no airports in X City, but Y Airfield lies in the neighbouring county, Z miles away".

The above are encyclopedic and if written well have context. Indeed Leeds Bradford International Airport lies in the City of Leeds, but is surely worth a mention in all the surrounding municipalities, including Bradford, which is in the name, right? I'm not sure I can agree with your objections and changes at all. --Jza84 |  Talk  03:02, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

(after ec)'[T]he few holdouts that are still left?!?!? So far, in case you hadn't noticed, no one has expressed agreement with your extreme and counterintuitive position. As for your questions here, they are non sequiturs. Of course metro articles are not useless redundancies. No has suggested they are. You seem to be the only one who thinks it would be appropriate to remove any reference to a major airport serving a city simply because it is outside the city limits. older ≠ wiser 03:07, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, I see no one supporting Student7's unilateral removal of guidance about airports from the relevant guidelines, and no one reinstating Student7's changes to these after the changes were reverted because they were made with no prior discussion. Similarly, I see no re-removal of content from articles after your removal of airport content from them was reverted, either. Instead, I see that people have taken issue with your limited interpretation of WP:TOPIC and your mis-characterization of the issues here and elsewhere: for instance, others not active in this section on this have expressed their disagreement about the actions being discussed here

Saying it often enough, or loudly enough, or using value-laden language to describe those who disagree with you as "holdouts" will not convince, except cast doubt on the seriousness with which you are choosing to continue this line. It seems to me that there are clear reasons why your own point of view is not achieving anywhere near a consensus view, and yet you choose to label people and arguments as "holdouts". Unfortunately, it may probably lead people to begin to wonder why, I'm afraid; if so, many may well think you would have brought this upon yourself.  DDStretch  (talk) 03:42, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

"Holdouts" meaning that most articles aren't written to include facilities not within their definition. Most editors don't monitor Project pages.

You are going to need good references if you do this. Let me give an example from real-life. I will "enhance" the latter part of the explanation with fiction.

In Melbourne, Florida there is an actual airport within the city limits. I can describe this airport as much as I please and other editors allow. It is really there. Like most airports near a dominant city, it has suffered from lack of service as the larger city drew in potential customers.

The dominant city is Orlando,Florida which has its own airport within its borders or maybe just owns it, I don't know. This is where the fiction begins. Drawing a vector from Orlando souteast through Melbourne - on the southeast side of the airport, probably 75% of flyers still drive the long way to Orlando! Walking back on this imaginary vector, fewer and fewer people use Melbourne until the center of the vector is reached in Orlando where very nearly 100% of flyers use Orlando.

However, being the big Melbourne booster I am, I now insert in the Orlando article that people use the Orlando International Airport and the Melbourne International Airport (both correct names BTW). This would be errant nonsence.

What we have here is two classes of facts that I will call "A" and "B". Class "A" facts consist of real objects and events within the constraints of the article. Class "B" consists of stuff that the residents of an area allegedly use that are outside of the confines of the article.

These "Class B" items need real justification with serious WP:FOOT from WP:RELY sources, not just copy from travel agents or the chamber-of-commerce.

Laguardia is real tough to use during rush hour coming from New Jersey as is any NY airport from New Jersey. Newark is probably not a realistic fallback airport for Trenton, New Jersey. If it is, it needs to be justified with facts, not just boosterism copy. Without this, Wikipedia becomes a meaningless collection of pretentions. Student7 (talk) 14:08, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Whatever point you may be trying to make has been lost in your speculative fantasy. A random perusal of articles for major U.S. cities shows that most do include mention of the nearby major airports, regardless of where they are physically located. So far, exactly no one has agreed with you that such mentions should be removed. older ≠ wiser 14:47, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with older / wiser. The whole "what if" scenario you wrote didn't really help your case. This Argumentum ad nauseam is now getting a little out of hand. Wikipedia works by consensus, and as it has been stated (multiple times by multiple people), no other person has opined with you. Killiondude (talk) 21:57, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

So it's okay to mention any airports within a couple hours driving distance? How about other features such as turnpikes. Ten minutes away. 30 minutes away? What?Student7 (talk) 21:46, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

It all depends on the consensus of the article. If the turnpike is particularly important, then it would probably get a mention. If not in the main article, then possible in a sub-article. All these "what if" scenarios are handled on a case-by-case basis. There's no one-size-fits-all rule like you're trying to determine. Best, epicAdam^(talk) 21:54, 5 January 2009 (UTC)