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Talk:Fairbank, Iowa

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Population graph

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I'm concerned about the population graph pictured here, added to the article by User:PopePompus. The graph is low-quality, per MOS:IMAGEQUALITY, because the text is too small. As well, images must be "significant and relevant in the topic's context, not primarily decorative", per MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE. In this case, the graph illustrates exactly the same data as the "historical populations" template already in the article (a template used on 35,846 Wikipedia articles, and one very familiar to Wikipedia users). Adding a second image (which basically shows exactly the same thing as the existing image) to this very short article, unnecessarily disrupts the layout. The input of others regarding this chart, which this editor has added to many articles, would be welcome. Magnolia677 (talk) 14:42, 21 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Magnolia677. You will probably not be surprised to hear that I disagree. The text is small, and unreadable at the thumbnail size, but if you click on it to expand it to full size, it is easily readable even on a phone (at least on my phone). The x axis has a label for every census year, and the font is about as large as is possible without the year labels running in to each other. I don't see how the image can be considered decorative; it just presents in graphic form exactly the same information that is given in the population table. It does not duplicate any information presented by any other image on the page. When I look at a table like the "Historical populations" table that appears on all of these city articles, I am usually interested not in the exact population in 1940, but rather "Is the city growing?" "Is it dying out?" (sadly, many small Iowa towns are), "Is it growing exponentially?". A small graph answers those questions at a glance, and you can see the qualitative growth picture by glancing at the graph even at the thumbnail size, with the text too small to read. The graph does not take up much space on the page; it occupies far less page real estate than the table does. In the plot for Fairbank, you can see that the population was nearly constant from 1900 though 1960, and then growth took off. Obviously the same information is in the table, but I think the qualitative nature of the history is more easily seen on the graph.PopePompus (talk) 15:29, 21 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@PopePompus: In the "historical populations" template, the column marked "±%" indicates increases or decreases using both a "+" or "-", and a number. Magnolia677 (talk) 20:42, 21 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Magnolia677: I realize that. I'm not claiming that the little plots I'm adding contain any information that the table does not. Indeed, it would be difficult to extract the exact population values from my plots, whereas they are explicitly given in the table. But I think the plots give you an immediate overview of what is happening with the population, that takes more mental effort to derive from the tabulated values. Look, for example, at the plot for Ankeny, Iowa:
the plots shows you immediately that Ankeny's growth has been approximately exponential for the last 80 years. You can of course come to that conclusion looking at the tabulated values too, but for me a plot shows that more quickly.PopePompus (talk) 21:02, 21 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

1) These types of things shouldn't be automatically added to short community articles, because they can easily cause layout problems. If an article is longer, then it ok, because longer articles have more vertical space which helps prevent layout problems. 2) Plots in graphic file formats become stale over time and should be avoided as much as possible, because other users can't easily fix or add data points. 3) A person should try to use built-in charting features before creating graphic files. See Wikipedia:Graphs_and_charts#Line_charts • Sbmeirow • Talk • 03:30, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Sbmeirow: Well, the reason that the tables containing the population data are current (2020 census results) is because I updated every one of them for every Iowa city that has a Wikipedia article, along with the other references to current population (typically it is repeated three places in each article, the infobox, the first paragraph, and the historical population table). Since the plots I've added just show population on census years, the plots won't be obsolete until the 2030 census results are released. I have a Python script that will produce these plots from the tables all at once, so assuming I'm still alive in ten years, I can update them all very quickly.PopePompus (talk) 04:07, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

hey User:PopePompus - knock it off, you shouldn't be adding this graph to other articles while we are still talking about it here. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 15:05, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Sbmeirow: OK, I'll stop adding them while we're discussing it, but I think you should stop reverting my edits while the discussion is taking place, for the same reason. Perhaps this discussion should be moved to a different page. Having it here, on a Talk page for a small Iowa town, means that few people will see the discussion. You have not convinced me that my plots are valueless, but I certainly don't want to get into an edit war with anyone, and if there seems to be a consensus among editors that my changes have been harmful, I'll happily remove all the plots myself. I've added these plots to a large number of Iowa city articles already, including articles for much larger cities like Des Moines and Cedar Rapids. There are presumably many more people monitoring those large city pages than those of a small one, like Fairbank. I've received no complaints about my edits to those pages. Since your concern involves layout issues on short articles, would you be willing to specify a minimum article size for which you would not object to the plot being added?PopePompus (talk) 15:25, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I do not believe these should broadly used. They are duplicative of the table and unnecessarily take up space. Readers could visualize the data themselves in their mind or a plot of they need to, but there's limited space in the articles and they don't add anything. I don't think these are good plots in the first place, having a truncated but unmarked y-axis and dots that should be connected as a line graph. Reywas92Talk 21:54, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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