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)

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)

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)