Jump to content

Talk:San Diego/Archive 4

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5

Hotel del Coronado

The images include a picture of the Hotel Del Coronado, but this famous hotel is located in the city of Coronado, not in the city of San Diego. I see there is a WP page for the metro San Diego area, perhaps that would be a better place for this picture. 15.195.201.88 (talk) 20:12, 28 December 2010 (UTC) Ernie Bornheimer, 2010-12-28

This problem has now been solved thanks to User:SusanLesch. --MelanieN (talk) 05:30, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 68.7.165.59, 25 January 2011

In research paragraph, please hyperlink Celgene (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celgene). Thanks 68.7.165.59 (talk) 06:30, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Done. (I didn't know how to officially "accept" the request's template, so I just removed the template.) AlexiusHoratius 06:38, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Old and Incorrect info in First Para.

If you check the Forbes article San Diego was listed as the 5th best LARGE''''city to live in.It didn't even make the top 100 "top places". Also this info is now 5 years old. The Money magazine "richest cities" info is 6 years old and this should be noted.BrianAlex (talk) 16:25, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi, BrianAlex. Forbes hasn't repeated this story since 2005, so San Diego is one of the richest cities until they decide to rewrite their article. I added a source and dated a sentence in the lead, thanks to your note here. Best wishes. -SusanLesch (talk) 05:27, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

San Diego a financial and economic center

How do you say this without making it sounding like "puffery." While it is the truth, it is obvious that some editors feel stating this is making me sound "desperate" for "praise. Perhaps if I were to seek out reliable sources it would be more viable for input in the article. 08OceanBeach SD (talk) 02:00, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Good idea. Even better if you can find it as a direct quote with citation. I don't really understand what Student7's problem is with this phrase. This kind of summary of the city's status (when true) is common in the intro section to city articles. See for example Chicago. --MelanieN (talk) 15:47, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
Make it be informative, encyclopedic, and it will seem less fluffy. Find a source that says San Diego is the nth most productive (third most, fourth most, whatever it is) financial and economic center in California. Binksternet (talk) 16:49, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
Thank you both. I will get on it! 08OceanBeach SD (talk) 01:12, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
I don't see why it is necessary to announce something that may appear pov and should be obvious from reading the material. The city is large. It is rich. These are certifiable facts. Why are the adjectives (which can be found in any puff piece) essential? We appeal to intelligent people who are sufficiently educated to form their own opinion. Why foist our pov one on them? Why can't they draw their own conclusion? "Financial center", incidentally, implies banking and stockbroking facilities equal to New York or Chicago. Not sure that San Diego nor Los Angeles, for that matter, meets that criterion.
What are we trying to say with "economic center?"? What does that phrase mean? That there is a lot of money here? That there is a lot of business conducted here? That there are a lot of major corporations located here? This can be better said IMO by demonstrating each of these in the text, and maybe summarizing it in the lead. But the phrase "economic center" is like saying "the baby is cute." We shouldn't be using trite phrases. San Diego is unique and has unique business characteristics. Maybe those may be legitimately described and summarized IMO. The better business journals may have something usable and believable. Forbes? Business Week? WSJ? Student7 (talk) 12:32, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
I understand what your saying, but it isn't really "fluff" or a POV if it's true. How else do you say a city is an economic center without saying that? And I believe the financial and economic center was in reference to the state, which would not put it in the same tier as New York or Chicago. I believe only San Francisco is the only California city that holds that distinction. 08OceanBeach SD (talk) 23:00, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
I am just trying to automatically avoid a cliche in the lead. Does economic center mean high density of domestic product per square mile? I would suspect that is a strong factor. How is SD more of an "economic center" than any other city of its size: say Dallas metro? metro Atlanta? Not that I want to rattle the metro cage! It's just that eastern cities are constrained by political divisions sometimes. Does it mean "personal income per square mile." Less likely I think. That could mean Grosse Pointe. Just trying to be logical rather than use phrases that we all use verbally that often are relatively meaningless. In other words, this should be defined objectively, not because some financial columnist thinks it sounds nice.
Note that my new, and perhaps WP:OR definition might put a smaller place higher on the list for lots of domestic product and small area! Not the desired outcome, I admit. And it can't be OR. Someone besides me has to have thought of it (a highly likely possibility).
If "financial center" is off the table for this article, that would be a plus, I think. I don't think it is true nor useful to describe SD. Student7 (talk) 14:17, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
You wouldn't even think of saying it in reference to California? 08OceanBeach SD (talk) 23:07, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
Just discussing the one term here "financial center." No. I think it is meaningless for the state itself. NYC is a "financial center." Applying this to (for example) upstate NY would be meaningless IMO. And if not NY state, why anyplace? We are talking now, financial banking. If I bring my corporation in for an IPO, your people have the capability of coming up with a business plan to sell this IPO on the very first day it is offered, for a price that will please me, my stockholders, and (presumable) future stockholders. Or I want a $50 billion dollar loan, and want to float bonds. That sort of thing. And buying/selling commodities on an exchange, the center of which is localized. Student7 (talk) 14:39, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

So "financial" appears to be overstatement, but "economic center" can certainly be brought into the article. Of course, even Julian, California, is an economic center of some very minor sort, so to make San Diego's assertion encyclopedic and useful, the relative economic strength should be stated or ranked. Something like "San Diego is the center of an economic region which is"... third or fourth or fifth strongest in California, after Greater Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area, and possibly Sacramento area or Orange County. Binksternet (talk) 17:27, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I just saw this. Thanks for the suggestion. San Diego, I believe, ranks higher than Sacramento and Orange County. 08OceanBeach SD (talk) 02:15, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Cutting sports

Hi. I would like to make some cuts in the next week or so to the sports section which seems way too long. This is a very good article. Congratulations to everybody who wrote it. -SusanLesch (talk) 04:51, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

San Diego is a very "sporsty" city. It's something it's notable for. However, not that I disagree with you. I'm just interested in what are thinking of doing? Whether you have a plan or not, or an outline of how you imagine it. 08OceanBeach SD (talk) 23:09, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the comment that it's a "sportsy" city. But I think it's probably notable for more than major league sports (and for never winning a championship). Like how about boating and surfing? I will try to limit my changes to just editing out extra words and to maybe floating the table. -SusanLesch (talk) 18:13, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
Never winning a Championship? See 1963 San Diego Chargers season, San Diego Sockers (1978–1996), and San Diego State Aztecs under Championships.
I do agree that the section could use some trimming of the non-notable stuff though, but do not agree with SusanLeach's comment that San Diego is a "Sportsy" city.--Jojhutton (talk) 18:22, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
Jojhutton, that comment wasn't mine. It was from 08OceanBeach SD. I made a suggestion to include boating, but I see that the America's Cup was already mentioned. -SusanLesch (talk) 18:39, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
Whatever works. I just wanted to be sure it includes most notable information. 08OceanBeach SD (talk) 20:28, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
Doesn't seem too badly written. I am hardly an enthusiast for these subsections, but could some of the material be saved by forking to "Sports of San Diego"? (Doesn't sound classic. Probably something better). The short summary here would still be the key, of course. Student7 (talk) 18:44, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
Is Sports of San Diego a new article? If so I think I may like your idea. 08OceanBeach SD (talk) 21:39, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
Would that be a move/rename of the new article History of sports in San Diego? I would favor that. I think a "sports" fork makes more sense than a "history of sports" fork, and we don't need both. In any case I think we should keep a few paragraphs in the article, in addition to the greater detail in the fork - similar to what is done with Culture of San Diego. --MelanieN (talk) 21:49, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
OMG! Now there's an article that could use some work.--Jojhutton (talk) 22:39, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
I like Sports of San Diego as the title. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 08OceanBeach SD (talk • contribs) 23:56, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
Sure, the "History of sports..." article can be moved or deleted. -SusanLesch (talk) 05:00, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
Moved. We can create a History section in that article to place information being remove currently. 08OceanBeach SD (talk) 01:26, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
I just moved the pre-edited version of the SD sports section to Sports in San Diego. I didn't edit it, figuring that I'd probably missed a lot of improvements. Moved the stuff that was there to the bottom as "History." I don't mean for this to be cast in stone. Change it if you want. This is just what I thought was going to happen earlier. I thought the section in this article was going to become much shorter. So this would have been a summary of the former material. Student7 (talk) 14:42, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Cityscapes

The article used to have three or four cityscape photos. User:SusanLesch found this excessive and removed several. User:08OceanBeach SD added one back. Let's reach a consensus about these: how many to have, and where to put them.

I have no problem with multiple "cityscape" or "skyline" shots but I would like to see them scattered throughout the article as illustrations, rather than grouped together in one place.

Also, I don't much like that section heading "Cityscape" - with subheadings "Communities and neighborhoods" and "Downtown renewal". But looking at the suggested layout for an article about an American city at Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities/US Guideline, I see there is a place for such a heading - but it is supposed to be a subheading under "Geography". I will change it to that and then we can discuss the idea of multiple cityscape photos in the article. --MelanieN (talk) 16:33, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I like one or two panoramas, and if two then not together. Also, if two then not both nighttime shots. The better night shot is this one, IMO: File:SanDiego_panorama.jpg, taken from North Island, with a prominent full moon and its reflection in the water. Binksternet (talk) 17:22, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
I really like that night shot. One panorama is enough to give the idea. Decide on one. (Sorry I removed some before. The article looked like a collection of several people's travel photos, which is nice for a stub but not for a B class article going on a GA. There are an infinite number of possible people's travel photos and no room here.) -SusanLesch (talk) 18:09, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
I'm perfectly okay with peoples reasoning. No Melanie I did not take the photo, but I do enjoy finding good photos on Commons that no one ever uses! The one with the moon is definitely the better shot. The other thing about the cityscape is that I often see it as its own heading in other city articles. 08OceanBeach SD (talk) 20:26, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Something weird about this

This is strange. Looking at the article, the next-to-last paragraph in the Sports section says "San Diego have been named as a team in the WAMNRL which will begin in summer 2011.[82]". I wanted to edit that line, to move it into the same paragraph as the rest of the rugby information, and to change the British usage "San Diego have" to the American "San Diego has". But when I click on "edit this article", that sentence isn't there! It should be right after the Bayfair Cup paragraph and before the road race paragraph, but it just isn't there in edit mode. Anyone understand why I can't see that sentence? Or want to make these changes for me? Thanks! --MelanieN (talk) 18:59, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

LOL! As Roseann Roseannadanna Emily Litella used to say, "Never mind!" It appears SusanLesch made the exact same change while I was thinking about it - and I was looking at the version that hadn't been changed yet! --MelanieN (talk) 19:04, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
One of the worst possible things tech support can tell me is "clear your cache" so I am happy to hear you solved this. -SusanLesch (talk) 20:59, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

America's Cup

SusanLesch and I seem to be in a disagreement about whether the America's Cup should be included in the main sports article, or only in the fork. Her point is that it was 15 years ago. My point is that it was highly noteworthy even though it was a while ago - fully the equivalent of a Super Bowl win. It kind of put San Diego on the sports map internationally, and was considered so consequential that a branch of San Diego Bay was renamed America's Cup Harbor - as it is named to this day [1]. IMO it is of far more significance than (for example) rugby. What do the rest of you think? --MelanieN (talk) 05:31, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

P.S. The number of cities that have hosted an America's Cup race in the 150-year history of the trophy: seven. --MelanieN (talk) 05:46, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
Hi, MelanieN. Actually, despite the fact that I removed it, I agree with you that this is a very significant event (I keep carting around the photo of that trophy). So if you'd like it here that would be great. -SusanLesch (talk) 18:11, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
Easy solve! I also agree with Melanie though. I'm glad it worked out. 08OceanBeach SD (talk) 01:48, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
OK, I'm putting it back. But we still need to go through and prune down the "sports" section - as was the original idea when creating the separate sports fork. I'll give it a shot. For starters I think the road races and amateur sports can properly be relegated to the fork. But I think Over-the-line and the America's Cup should stay as being so importantly associated with San Diego. What about the table of teams and venues -- delete? --MelanieN (talk) 03:37, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
I think the length it is at now is fine, I understand the purpose, however I was afraid of this, that it might get pruned to short. 08OceanBeach SD (talk) 03:44, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
I would like to see the Sports section cut to about half of what it is now. If not, then what was the point of the fork? My preference would be to remove the chart and the rugby. Those are things which are better left to the fork IMO. --MelanieN (talk) 19:51, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
That would leave it terribly small. It should be left the way it is, however the chart should be removed. Also looking at other city articles - New York#Sports, Chicago#Sports, Los Angeles#Sports - they all have relatively lengthy sports sections without the chart. So we should follow similar suit. 08OceanBeach SD (talk) 19:59, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Lengthening intro?

Does anyone else feel the introduction to San Diego should be extended another paragraph or so? Comparable to other American cities of its size, it's relatively short. 08OceanBeach SD (talk) 03:35, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't make sense that the first sentence is not something like "San Diego is a city in California"." I've reverted your edits. HkCaGu (talk) 08:00, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
If you look at the date of my previous post, you'll see it was posted almost two months ago. The intro has since been lengthened by other WP San Diego members in accordance with the recommendations from the Good Article Status reviewer. I would also like to point out that my revised edits of the introduction made it perfectly clear that San Diego is indeed a California city: "San Diego, named after Saint Dicadus, is the birthplace of California." 08OceanBeachS.D. 19:08, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
But for a major city (one that qualifies to not having to be suffixed by ", State"), historical significance should come after its geo-economic significance. A birthplace can be insignificant and not even currently a city. HkCaGu (talk) 00:05, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
Actually the whole sentence stated what the city was known for, i.e. the birthplace of California, mild-climate, and military relationship. Your last sentence doesn't make sense to me. San Diego is not currently a city? Regardless, I have no problem with the way the paragraph is organized. I was merely pointing out my edits made perfect sense and were completely logical. There are many ways to structure an introduction and you simply favored one way. 08OceanBeachS.D. 01:47, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
A birthplace of something can already be a ruin, e.g. Babylon. If that is so, it's perfectly OK to address it first and foremost as a birthplace of whatever. But San Diego is a major city. It is known first as a city, the X-th biggest in California, and then all the historical significance comes later. HkCaGu (talk) 01:53, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
You fail to address the fact that the sentence contained more than historical information; it contained information unique to and symbolic of San Diego. 08OceanBeachS.D. 01:56, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

San Diegoans or San Diegans

I returned San Diegoans to the infobox because it has been used historically and is still being used. Certainly, San Diegans is the more common, but the sources who use the extra letter are quite reliable.

So only 139 results on Google Books! That's laughable, right? No, not really. The books include Two years in California from 1876, James Miller Guinn's History of California from 1915, The Rotarian from 1912, Ebony from 1966, California: a guide to the Golden State from 1967 (a Federal project), Billboard magazine in the '60s, The Pacific States of America in 1972, Give peace a chance: exploring the Vietnam antiwar movement from 1992, The Congressional Record from 2000 (with a California legislator speaking), Saving sickly children from 2008, etc, etc. These are not fiction works or misbegotten handbills. They are solid and reliable sources. Binksternet (talk) 04:52, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I won't post them, but I got at least two dozen hits for "San Diegoans" in the Proquest newspaper archive. But "San Diegans" gets 28,361. Given that disparity, maybe we shouldn't include it in the infobox.   Will Beback  talk  06:13, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
I was the one who deleted it from the infobox. I think it should not be listed, as it is not in general use currently. To give an example of current usage, I searched the archives for the last 30 years of the San Diego Union-Tribune. The term "San Diegan" got 12,000 hits. The term "San Diegoan" got three hits - and when I went to look at those three hits I found they were mistakes based on a missing space (examples: San DiegoAn Expensive Tune", "San DiegoAn Outstanding Teen"). Binksternet's research shows that the term was once in common use, but it is archaic. --MelanieN (talk) 15:49, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
I will concur with Melanie on this. Its not in current use and is very hard on my guttural to pronounce, which is why, I figure, its no longer in use.--Jojhutton (talk) 15:58, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
How about a word to indicate that San Diegoans is by far the more uncommon usage? I think it is still significant—minor in comparison but not absent. For instance: Demonym: San Diegans, San Diegoans (uncommon). Binksternet (talk) 16:06, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
I would be OK with keeping it with the "uncommon" tag. I think we would be doing a disservice to our readers if we led them to think "San Diegoans" was a common term. They might use it inappropriately ("What do you San Diegoans think about this?" or "I just moved here, I am a San Diegoan now"). Maybe it should read Demonym: San Diegans (uncommon: San Diegoans). --MelanieN (talk) 16:23, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
Your parentheses captures it best. Binksternet (talk) 16:27, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
Even reliable sources can make mistakes. In that Congressional Record entry where Congressman Filner is quoted using "San Diegoans", he's also quoted three times as using "San Diegans" - including in the paragraph following the instance of "San Diegoan". Also, in an ngram comparing "San Diegan" to "San Diegoan", the latter doesn't even get a blip. While not entirely absent, I'd say "San Diegoan" is probably too minor to put in the infobox, even labeled as "uncommon" - but it might be able to find a home somewhere in the body of the article. Dohn joe (talk) 16:31, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
That was my thought, too, Dohn Joe - that the Bob Filner reference was simply the result of an error by whoever transcribed his comments for the Congressional Record. I can't imagine a longtime San Diegan like Filner saying "San Diegoan". --MelanieN (talk) 16:56, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
Here's another thought: How about Demonym: San Diegan (archaic: San Diegoan) ? --MelanieN (talk) 00:03, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Something to point out, there are currently to demonym sections. I vouch the second one towards the bottom is kept, like most other city articles have. 08OceanBeach SD (talk) 02:29, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Oh, I see what you mean. I agree with your removing one of the demonymn listings from the infobox. Now we just need to decide how to handle "San Diegoans". --MelanieN (talk) 14:20, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
I'm still inclined to leave it out of the infobox. I don't know that "San Diegoan" has ever been more than a minor demonym, and so even calling it "archaic" may still be overstating its usage. If you look at the early Google Books results, there were 16 results for "San Diegoan" through 1940, and 613 results for "San Diegan". That's almost 40 times more, even in the "old days". There's never been a time when "San Diegoan" was anything but a minor variant. I think it's confusing and misleading to put anything besides "San Diegan" in the infobox. Anybody else agree? Dohn joe (talk) 19:16, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Well I'm not married to the the -oan ending, I just wanted to demonstrate that it was not absent, that it has been used recently and used in the past to a small degree. During my four years at UCSD—back when dinosaurs roamed the earth—I feel certain that several people used San Diegoan in conversation. The minor demonym isn't completely gone. Cheers— Binksternet (talk) 21:59, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Add San Diego County Library system to "Libraries"

In the 2009-2010 fiscal year the San Diego County Library had 33 branches and two bookmobiles; circulated over 10.7 million books, CDs, DVDs, and other material formats; recorded 5.7 million visits to library branches and hosted 21,132 library programs. The San Diego County Library is one of the 25 busiest libraries in the nation as measured by materials circulated. Despite budget cuts, the County library system has increased hours of operation. 

[1]
[2]

Mjvoss (talk) 21:19, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for this information. It should really go into the San Diego County, California article rather than this article. This article is about the city of San Diego which has its own library system separate from the County library. --MelanieN (talk) 23:49, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
I know, its not a well known fact that the City of San Diego has its own library system, separate from the county library system. In fact, there are no county libraries within San Diego city limits at all. Its hard to explain to people the difference between the city and county of San Diego. some people think its all just the same, like people thinking Orange County is Los Angeles.--Jojhutton (talk) 00:07, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

GA Review

GA toolbox
Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:San Diego/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: WTF? (talk) 18:52, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I'll be reviewing this article over the next few days. At first glance, it looks like it's in very good shape. The lead section is a good introduction and is well written. There are three 'citation needed' tags which need to be addressed, in the 'geography', 'crime', and 'real estate' sections.

The article matches up well with the US city article guidelines. Some of the subsections under 'demographics' should be merged into the main section -- the 'race & ethnicity' and 'other estimates' sections are very short, and not really covering a new major subtopic other than presenting some statistics. Most city articles at GA & FA levels do not include these as separate subsections, and incorporate the data into a well-written, concise, 'demographics' section. 'Crime' is fine, and can stay where it is. 'Personal income' really falls more under 'demographics' as well, since it's dealing with information about the population itself, as opposed to a more broad-based description of the economy as a whole. So it should be integrated into the 'demographics' section.

The 'cityscape' subsection contains zero text and two wide panoramic images. Subsections should not contain zero text. It might be better to pick one image (including both seems excessive) and move it to the end of the neighborhoods section (and hence the end of the geography section as a whole) and delete the subsection header. The 'communities and neighborhoods' subsection as it is is really just a list of neighborhoods. It doesn't really contain any description on their organization and/or how these neighborhoods interact as a whole in the greater community. It is also completely unsourced. Is "Skyline" really an individual neighborhood?

Delete the bulleted listing of cable channels under 'media'. Listing the on-air broadcast stations should be included here. A listing of cable channels is typically specific to cable provider, and generally not governed by municipal laws. Wikipedia is also not a directory.

The subsections entitled 'San Diego City Council' and 'major highways' contain no prose & only bulleted lists. This information is best if integrated into prose and included in other sections.

That's the big stuff for now. I'll provide more review against the 6 GA criteria in the next day or two. WTF? (talk) 18:52, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, WTF (great username!). Looks like we've got our work cut out for us. I'll get started on the Neighborhoods section. --MelanieN (talk) 22:59, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Thank you as well! Will it be put on hold until we get all of this fixed? Nevermind, I see you mentioned you have more reviewing to do first. 08OceanBeach SD (talk) 01:06, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I'm still reviewing, specifically in regards to the six criteria. But that shouldn't stop people from fixing the obvious stuff, like the citation needed tags and some of the organizational issues. WTF? (talk) 18:08, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

There, we have cleared all three "citation needed" tags, and the neighborhood and cityscape sections have been revised. (Yes, Skyline is really a neighborhood! [2]) Still more work to do, I realize. --MelanieN (talk) 00:25, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

The Personal Income and Race and ethnicity subsections have been integrated in to the Demographics section. 08OceanBeach SD (talk) 01:55, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Nice job on the streets and highways, OB and Dohn Joe! --MelanieN (talk) 23:29, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Thanks! I feel like we have most obvious kinks worked out at this point. 08OceanBeach SD (talk) 02:17, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

more detailed review

GA review (see here for criteria)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
    Overall follows the manual of style, but the prose jumps around a lot. It's really more of an almanac with a random collection of information, as opposed to a concisely-written encyclopedia article presenting paragraphs written about the city and describing how things interact together. See below for more details.
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
    The article appears to have good facts and not WP:OR, but there are significant areas where more citations are needed (see below, as well as the 'citation needed' tags I've added to the article. Citations in the 'references' section that only have a single URL should be converted to proper citations, including author/title/date/publisher/etc, preferably using the citation templates.
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
    The article covers the major topics of a city article, per WP:USCITY guidelines. The information could be better organized into a better written encyclopedia article. The presentation of info sort of jumps around a lot and much info looks like it was inserted by many people and not organized into coherent and concisely written sections.
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
    See below (politics section).
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars, etc.:
    The article is stable. I can't see any evidence of edit wars or other issues.
  6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
    a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
    All images have suitable captions (though a minor issue with some is that you generally don't put a period at the end of statements in captions, per WP:MOS). The image File:San Diego-Tijuana JPLLandsat.jpg in the geography section needs an appropriate copyright tag in it's description.
Added "(NASA/JPL photo)" but usually that information is accepted as part of the image page in the commons (I think). Anyway, it is a free image. -SusanLesch (talk) 01:57, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
Also went through all the captions, which now only end in a period if they are a complete sentence. Thanks for pointing this out. -SusanLesch (talk) 02:05, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
  1. Overall:
    Pass/Fail:
  • Overall, the lead section covers the basics. It gives a reasonably good introduction to the city, and the infobox is helpful. There could be an additional short paragraph in there on the founding & some brief history (nothing too extensive). I am a bit concerned by the presence of 8 citations in the lead; since the lead is supposed to be a SUMMARY, which summarizes the article, the information should be presented and cited in the body of the article (subsequent sections), and cited there. The last two sentences of the lead look more like advertising and promotion rather than encyclopedic information.
I have added a brief history summary to the lead. Thanks for the suggestion. --MelanieN (talk) 14:33, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
We have also removed some of the clutter from the lead section. --MelanieN (talk) 02:59, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
  • The history section is very poorly organized. It jumps around and isn't ordered chronologically, and looks like some sentences were inserted rather piecemeal. It doesn't do a very good job of telling the story of the city's founding and subsequent development over the course of three centuries.
I added some pictures that help to show the narrative. -SusanLesch (talk) 19:34, 1 April 2011 (UTC) Also made copy edits that put things in chronological order. Thanks for pointing out this needed doing. -SusanLesch (talk) 02:17, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
I also edited the section for clarity and flow, and eliminated some of the random sentences that (as you noted) didn't really fit in the narrative. --MelanieN (talk) 00:25, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
  • "The city's police department has been a national leader in its commitment to neighborhood policing." -- I know it's cited, but this statement looks like it came straight from an advertisement for potential new residents.
Good catch. First I tried to edit it but the source is about specialized gang units which doesn't quite relate to the topic of the paragraph. So it's been removed. -SusanLesch (talk) 01:14, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Regarding ref. 39, beachcalifornia.com does not appear to meet reliable source guidelines. A better source for these averages would be either NOAA, the weather channel, or wunderground.com.
You're right about beachcalifornia.com which has been replaced with City of San Diego figures from the department of Public Utilities. -SusanLesch (talk) 00:12, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
  • The climate section could be better organized. The first three "paragraphs" cover the section intro, then some records & averages, then a whole paragraph on some rather trivial info about official record keeping, and then a new paragraph with a single sentence stating that "There have been only nine days with a recorded temperature of 32 °F (0 °C) or below since record-keeping began in 1872." Seems like this could be reorganized and some of the trivial information heavily paraphrased and condensed.
I did some reorganization. --MelanieN (talk) 14:41, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
  • "San Diego is known as the "birthplace of naval aviation, although Pensacola, Florida makes a rival claim." This statement needs a citation.
I took care of this by adding a reliable citation and removed the Penascola claim. 08OceanBeach SD (talk) 20:14, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
  • "San Diego harbor holds one of the largest naval fleets in the world. This has become the largest concentration of Naval facilities in the world due to base reductions at Norfolk, Virginia and retrenchment of the Russian naval base in Vladivostok." When did this occur? There is no citation backing up this assertion.
Could not find a source for this in Google so I removed it, but there is a source (U.S. Navy itself) for what we say now. -SusanLesch (talk) 02:03, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
User:RightCowLeftCoast came up with three good sources for the "largest naval fleet in the world" so one's been added to the article. -SusanLesch (talk) 00:16, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
  • When I read a subsection under 'economy' entitled, 'defense', I expect it to contain more information about defense contractors and businesses done in conjunction with the military. For example, are the shipbuilding and/or defense supply centers in the city? This section actually contains information on military facilities themselves. It might be more appropriate to include this in a main section entitled, 'Military', and move it to a position in the article immediately following 'Government'.
It appears, as mentioned below, that Melanie took care of this by renaming the title "defense and military" as well as adding more relevant information. 08OceanBeachS.D. 02:54, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
  • The 'manufacturing' subsection is rather weak. It begins, "There are San Diego companies that develop wireless cellular technology." and then has several random facts that seem to be added rather disjointedly. Could be weaved together better. 'Tourism' is written a little better, but is still very dependent on specific, dated facts, and could be weaved together into a more coherent 2-3 paragraphs describing the tourist activities.
I have rewritten/reorganized the entire Economy section to make it flow more smoothly and incorporate your suggestions. --MelanieN (talk) 00:57, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
  • The 'education' section mostly just lists the schools and colleges in the city, and has some data on %age of bachelors degrees and the 9th most educated city in the US. It might be nice to have some information on the total number of teachers & students. How much does the city government spend on education?
The city government does not run the schools. As with most places in California, public schools are operated and funded by a separate, independent school district. That's why the article contains no details about the schools - just links where people can go to the school district(s) for information. I inserted a sentence under "Local government" explaining the situation. --MelanieN (talk) 02:49, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Culture section is very, very short. Perhaps some information in Culture of San Diego could be moved in here? Though I see what it's separate -- most of that sub-article is not cited at all (not that that's an issue with THIS article's GA, but if some of it is to be moved here, it needs to be).
  • "The amateur beach sport Over-the-line was invented in San Diego, and the annual world Over-the-line championships are held at Mission Bay every year." This statement needs a citation.
Citation supplied. --MelanieN (talk) 14:41, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
  • The first line of the 'government' section states, "The mayor, city council members, and city attorney seats are all officially non-partisan by state law." But then, the 'elections' section goes on to explain that the mayor is a Republican. How can this be?
The elections are nonpartisan, in that candidates are not identified by party on the ballot; elections are simply by who gets the most votes. If there is a runoff you can wind up with two Democrats or two Republicans competing against each other. But of course, like virtually all politicians in this country, most candidates are either Democrats or Republicans. Our standard phrase for local officials is "so-and-so is a Republican, although local elections are officially nonpartisan per California state law." We could add that if it would help. --MelanieN (talk) 14:41, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
I rewrote to make the situation clearer. --MelanieN (talk) 00:25, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
  • The 'politics' section doesn't really describe the overall political scene of the city and how that helps to mold the city's local government. It actually covers some very specific current issues and some scandals regarding specific individuals. It's not really appropriate for this section. The gay marriage stuff probably should just all go into Same-sex marriage in California and the scandal stuff is better suited for articles on those specific individuals. Including it here really doesn't make this article WP:NPOV.
The scandals are removed, but now I wonder if that's right--San Diego seems to be governed by scandal. I might have to put them all back in. -SusanLesch (talk) 03:12, 4 April 2011 (UTC) Re-added some major scandals (but left out Sanders' reversal on gay marriage for now because that really isn't a scandal). Anybody, feel free to keep or remove that whole section. -SusanLesch (talk) 03:46, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
I think this section needs to stay. It has been trimmed to the basics. The Duke Cunningham info does need to be in there IMO; there are no BLP issues since everything is factual and well documented. I have tried to think of some way of explaining WHY Mayor Hedgecock was forced out of office, but it's just too complicated - what with his two trials and subsequent court decisions and pleas, it would have to go into way too much detail to avoid BLP issues. Let people go to his article for the info. --MelanieN (talk) 14:33, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
  • The post office section is rather trivial and silly. Of course San Diego has a post office. I think just about every city in the US with a population over 10,000 has a post office! This whole section can be removed without any major problems.
I agree, and I have deleted it. --MelanieN (talk) 14:41, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
  • The county/state/federal section should definitely come before politics. The part about Randy Cunningham is better suited for his personal article than an article about the city 99WP:NPOV).
Agree about the order, and fixed. A Randy Cunningham summary has been retained as it really did seem to be part of the city's cluster of scandals during that period. --MelanieN (talk) 00:25, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Largely insufficient citation in the transportation section.
  • If you're going to use those sub-sub-sections under the 'transportation' section, I'd make 'transportation' a main section and include those as major sub-sections. Multiple-level sub-sub-sections are highly inappropriate and very confusing for the reader, especially since the difference in font-size is minimal and makes it hard to figure out what's a sub-section vs. a sub-sub-section. The part about 'utilities' is completely uncited, and rather trivial anyways.
This has been taken care of. Transportation was left a subsection but the sub-sub sections were removed and the section was rewritten to have a better flow including most of the removed information that wasn't moved to Transportation in San Diego. 08OceanBeachS.D. 07:09, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The article at present does not meet the six GA criteria. It is on hold at WP:GAN for up to two more weeks while editors work in the issues. After that, if the issues have been resolved, it can be promoted. WTF? (talk) 03:15, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your time! Looks like we have the next two weeks cut out for us... at least our next to weeks of WP time! 08OceanBeach SD (talk) 03:24, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Thank you too for all your helpful suggestions! I think we should respond to them above as we deal with them - just so we can keep straight what has been done. --MelanieN (talk) 14:41, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Is this review done and the article ready to be passed? Not much has happened in the past month and it looks like things have been addressed. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 04:07, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Comments

Lightmouse (talk) 13:59, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

It seems that the link to 1_E8_m² comes from the 'area magnitude' section of the infobox that says '1 E8'. I can't test it myself because I'm on a really slow connection. Please try removing that and if it works, we won't need to get the infobox changed. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 14:57, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Right you are! Area magnitude removed. -SusanLesch (talk) 16:14, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
Excellent. Thanks for sorting out the other issues too. All my comments resolved now. Good luck. Lightmouse (talk) 18:41, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Hi. I would be happy to fix these if you can tell me what pattern to follow. Wikipedia is sadly remiss in not advocating a date format. Which one do you choose, Ohconfucius? -SusanLesch (talk) 02:07, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Fixing this is easy enough, it's a question of deciding which date format May 7, 2011 or 2011-05-07. If there is no strong preference either way from the assembled editors of this article, I'd be inclined to go for 'May 7, 2011' throughout, as I believe this format is more easily parsed by the reader. Let me know if you agree and I will put it into action. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:14, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
Thank you very much for all your help! --MelanieN (talk) 15:36, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Status?

This review is currently on the report as the one that has been open the longest and it appears that there has been no activity on it for two weeks. Although WP:There is no deadline, I'd like to see it wrapped up before long, if that is reasonably possible.

A few points about some of the comments above:

  • The Good article criteria do not require perfect or consistently formatted citations. It actually requires only enough that the reviewer can figure out what the source is. This is very minimal, and I personally hope that most GAs will typically exceed it (especially for bare URLs, which are a serious WP:Linkrot risk), but I would not fail an article for imperfect or inconsistent citation formatting. The criteria do not even mention WP:CITE, much less require compliance with it.
  • Citation templates are neither encouraged or discouraged on Wikipedia. Many editors like them; many editors loathe them. The choice is entirely up to the regular editors of this article.
  • The Good article criteria also do not require compliance with the main WP:MOS page or pages like WP:OVERLINK. So while I'm glad that the captions now follow the house style and the capitalization was fixed and the overlinking has been reduced, this is similarly a point that a GA reviewer should not be failing an nomination over. I do not believe that the reviewer was threatening to do that in this case; I point this out as a matter of clarifying the general case, and because we get frequent complaints about reviewers (often accidentally) appearing to require far more than the actual GA criteria. I encourage reviewers to clearly mark such good-but-not-required advice as "optional" or "minor" or otherwise not required. Most editors are happy to have a better-than-Good article in the end, but clarity is also helpful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:35, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
Unless I'm mistaken we have taken care of all of the requests made by the reviewer as well as other users. I wonder if you should or could ping User talk:Wiki.Tango.Foxtrot who seems to still be an active user. -SusanLesch (talk) 00:24, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
I agree. We have taken care of all of the reported issues and more. It is nearing two months now that the article has been up for nomination and since the review started. 08OceanBeachS.D. 22:04, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
I left a note; the reviewer appears to have been mostly off-wiki for the last two weeks. If we need to find another person to take over, then we can do that, but perhaps we'll wait a few more days. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:46, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
If necessary, how long should we wait before finding someone else to close the review? 08OceanBeachS.D. 01:20, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
I'll do a read-through tonight and see if there are any remaining issues. If not, I'll pass it. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 17:14, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Apologies on the delay in getting this passed. It appears that there has been a good deal of collaboration going on in improving this article, and I decided to let editors take a little more time than usual because it looked like people were working well together. My commendations on your excellent teamwork.

I just went through the article, and barring a few minor copyedits that were simply easier to fix than list here, I think the article is ready for GA. Two last remaining issues. First, the JPL/Landset image in the geography section http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:San_Diego-Tijuana_JPLLandsat.jpg seems to have a copyright warning attached to it by another user. Please address that. Secondly, there are three "citation needed" issues (cityscape, education, and transportation) that must be addressed prior to GA. I still have some minor concerns with the brevity of the culture section, and it certainly would not pass an FA review. But I think it's sufficient for GA.

Cheers! WTF? (talk) 21:48, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I took care of all the citation needed tags by adding reliable sources. As far as the image goes, it would seem that the warning does not affect its usage as the image adheres to the criteria present on the tag and maintains two appropriate usage tags licensing the image in the public domain. I would not think it affecting of the GA status as it seems to follow the criterion.
"Illustrated, if possible, by images:
  • images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content; and
  • images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions." 08OceanBeachS.D. 22:54, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
Is there a way to find out who added the warning? When I click on 'file history', it just redirects me down in the page and I can see where you edited the auto contrast, but it doesn't show who added the warning. I've had some bad experiences with copyright types on this Wiki before, and it would be best not to anger them. Though I do hate it when someone randomly adds a tag like that and fails to mention it on the article talk page where it might be of interest. WTF? (talk) 23:30, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
I looked at the tag and I believe it is part of the tag originally added when the image was uploaded. I believe it is a simple warning that comes with the NASA tag (second one down), but our image isn't affected as shown by the first NASA tag. 08OceanBeachS.D. 23:38, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
Ok, the tag issue is probably fine, since it looks like it was added with one of the tags. If you can fix it, great, but unless someone complains, I'll let it go. The citation issues are mostly resolved, though I'm still a bit unsure of the skyline citation under cityscape. The article sentence reads, "The beginning of skyline growth in San Diego is attributed to the construction of the El Cortez Apartment Hotel in 1927." with a citation to skyscraperpage.com. That page shows three other buildings prior to El Cortez around 60-70 m tall, but doesn't really attribute the actual growth of the skyline to any of the buildings. So it could likely be WP:SYNTH or WP:OR if our sentence attributes the growth of the skyline to the fourth building on that list. WTF? (talk) 15:34, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, WTF. I'm still puzzled about what kind of additional information is needed in the "culture" section. Can you give me some suggestions, or point me toward a Good city article that has a satisfactory culture section? --MelanieN (talk) 03:53, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Melanie, it may be of benefit to review the Washington, D.C. culture section as the article maintains FA status. One perhaps more comparable to San Diego is Montreals culture section, with GA status. 08OceanBeachS.D. 23:30, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
That's a good tip. I will add that, when I usually review a city article, what I look for in the Culture section is not just a description of landmarks, monuments, and points of interest. I am also interested in how those points of interest integrate into the overall cultural scene and the population. For example, how do theaters contribute to the theater & arts scene? What kinds of annual cultural events take place in the city? It's also best not to merely link to the websites of the theaters and festivals themselves, but to dig around for some news articles & reviews written by critics (note: not blogs; actual newspaper stories) about these things. The various festivals in a city often tell a lot about the population. The Flagstaff, Arizona article has a pretty decent arts and culture section written this way. Hope this helps. WTF? (talk) 01:58, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I think I may have cleared up any issue with the latest sentence revision: "The development of skyscrapers over 300 feet (91 m) in San Diego is attributed to the construction of the El Cortez Apartment Hotel in 1927, the tallest building in the city from 1927 to 1963." Thoughts? 08OceanBeachS.D. 00:03, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

That's actually pretty good. Looks like all the issues have been cleared up here. The article can now be listed. Congratulations to all those involved. WTF? (talk) 01:58, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Mjvoss, 24 March 2011

{{edit semi-protected}} During the 2009-2010 fiscal year the San Diego County Library had 33 branches and two bookmobiles; circulated over 10.7 million books, CDs, DVDs, and other material formats; recorded 5.7 million visits to library branches and hosted 21,132 library programs. The San Diego County Library is one of the 25 busiest libraries in the nation as measured by materials circulated. Despite budget cuts, the County library system has increased hours of operation. [3][4] Thank you Mjvoss (talk) 03:02, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done Here --Obsidi♠nSoul 08:01, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
Ah, fair enough. Didn't see previous discussion above. Apologies.--Obsidi♠nSoul 15:24, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
I apologize for the confusion, San Diego County is referred to a few times on the City page. Thanks to both of you and for adding the content to the County page. Mjvoss (talk) 01:19, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Weather extremes

There is an unregistered editor who is adding weather extremes to many US articles, as he has done here. I do not know how valid they are.

But for SD, there is another problem about "extremes." It is unlikely that a high or a low is going to be experienced near the water. Port Loma comes to my mind, but there are a bunch of other places as well. The likelihood of those areas reaching 111 degrees Fahrenheit in September 1963, is pretty small. Maybe not even 100. Seems to me that this should be qualified to "at the airport" (which is close to the water) or more likely to somewhere else. Student7 (talk) 22:39, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Generally speaking you're right, but during hot Santa Anas, the hottest parts of SD can actually be on the coast. That 111 in Sep. 1963 at the airport is for real. And I wouldn't doubt that Point Loma would have been that hot or near to it. References would be nice though, for whoever's adding the stats. Dohn joe (talk) 22:56, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
Problem solved. I found references - along with an object lesson into why we shouldn't just accept somebody's uncited word. The "all time low" cited by this person was incorrect. (They may have gotten it from answers.com which is also wrong.) The low was in 1913, not 1949. I have added the correct information, with the reference. --MelanieN (talk) 00:57, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Thank you Melanie. This article needs to have as many correct citations as possible if we're going to achieve GA status. 08OceanBeach SD (talk) 01:17, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
The official weather station was actually downtown until 1940. I updated the article with the info I have, but if anyone knows (or can find out) where the station was before 1913, that would be awesome. Dohn joe (talk) 01:35, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Ha! Look what I found - http://mrcc.sws.uiuc.edu/FORTS/histories/CA_San_Diego_Conner.pdf Dohn joe (talk) 02:04, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Good job! --MelanieN (talk) 02:59, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Education in San Diego

1. I'm guessing that there should be an "Education in San Diego" article and/or "Education in San Diego County" article. It would collect and fork to current articles on public schools, but would have ptrs, lists of private schools, as well. Include all colleges, I suppose.

2. The article, maybe this one, should have one sentence that explains why the school districts overlap from other areas. Were they just grandfathered in before the city expanded? In one case, one school district moved into the city limits! This was a surprise to me. Not being a resident, not sure what is going on here but needs one or two lines someplace. Thanks. Student7 (talk) 18:19, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Need a photo

In the Geography section, I wonder if anybody here could take a better photo of the mesas? I'm not sure of the best vantage point but here's what I got at Qualcomm Stadium File:San Diego hills-20110331.jpg (it was supposed to show the freeway and trolley line connecting mesas but I'm not sure they showed up). -SusanLesch (talk) 19:29, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Honestly, I wouldn't think that we would even need a photo there. there appears to be enough already, and that photo as it is right now, is a bit obscure. I guess if a better photo could found, or taken, then perhaps a photo could be used.--JOJ Hutton 19:47, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
I would think you would need a photo from higher up. Try to get on a highrise in the city. Maybe there would be a good vantage point from Point Loma or even on the bridge? 08OceanBeach SD (talk) 22:01, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks you guys. Jojhutton, it seems to be the unique thing about the city, other than the ocean. But thanks for your opinion. I removed it for now. -SusanLesch (talk) 01:50, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
Driving on the I-5 from Solana Beach to downtown you have the opportunity to get some good photos. Good luck! 08OceanBeachS.D. 01:53, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Fork transportation?

In reference to the GA review for San Diego - "If you're going to use those sub-sub-sections under the 'transportation' section, I'd make 'transportation' a main section and include those as major sub-sections. Multiple-level sub-sub-sections are highly inappropriate and very confusing for the reader, especially since the difference in font-size is minimal and makes it hard to figure out what's a sub-section vs. a sub-sub-section. The part about 'utilities' is completely uncited, and rather trivial anyways." - I propose we create a new Transport in San Diego (that doesn't redirect to the county article) article along the lines of Transport in Perth article. It would allow us to get rid of the sub-sub sections by minimalizing (is that a word?) the amount of information and would better the article and San Diego scope as a whole. 08OceanBeachS.D. 23:19, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with forking, but would still need some summary here. "Transportation in.." would be the American expression I think. It does roll up into "Transport" category up the line.
Water is what keeps SD going. You might be able to live without electricity or gas, but not water. Uninteresting maybe, but quite essential. It is linked. I think "Infrastructure" is a key part of any place article. Americans love cars. They take electricity, water and gas for granted. But it still needs to be documented somewhere IMO. Student7 (talk) 22:28, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
You had me confused with that tangent. We only have about a week I think before WTF resumes assessment of the article so we need to get working on the forking. I guess I can start. 08OceanBeachS.D. 03:04, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

The fork has been created. 08OceanBeachS.D. 06:41, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Clutter in the lead section?

What do you all think about moving some of the clutter (such as "iHub innovation center", "fifth-wealthiest city", etc.) out of the lead paragraph and other sections such as Economy or Demographics? I hadn't thought about it, but WTF commented that such things may not belong in the lead. --MelanieN (talk) 16:25, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Yep, I agree iHub should move down. I added the first residents in the shortest possible way because they lived there for so long. -SusanLesch (talk) 16:55, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Weather

The reviewer is correct: this article is using a very weak source for weather data. I think NOAA might have some summaries to work in. I am not an expert on weather data and think someone else might do a better job. -SusanLesch (talk) 02:06, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

It turned out this article already had NOAA data (only one weak source which I replaced with City of San Diego data). -SusanLesch (talk) 03:54, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Teamwork

I'd just like to say that it has been a real pleasure working with all of you to improve this article and hopefully bring it to Good Article status. Everybody has pulled together; I can't ever remember a more cooperative and pleasant online experience. This is the first time I have ever worked on a Good Article project and I've really enjoyed it. At this point I think we are about as ready as we are going to get. Thanks to all of you (especially SusanLesch, 08OceanBeach SD, and Dohn Joe) for a really outstanding job! --MelanieN (talk) 02:09, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I would also like to extend my gratitude. Hopefully our combined efforts are enough. This is also my first GA project and if there is yet more we need to work on, it seems we have a good team to tackle the task! 08OceanBeachS.D. 02:32, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
I was just a bit player. The three of you did the heaving lifting. And regardless of whether it gets to be a "Good Article", this is really a good article. Dohn joe (talk) 16:06, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
MelanieN, thanks much for your note. You did an amazing job on this article. Great work, to you and everybody! -SusanLesch (talk) 18:26, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Skyline

Hi. I don't mean to sound ungrateful for a photo of the skyline, which we have. But what do you say that the clouds could go away? Like in this picture at The Weather Channel? -SusanLesch (talk) 16:57, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I changed the infobox but also suggest these photos (we have a whole bunch of them in commons:Category:San Diego, California and commons:Category:San Diego skylines). -SusanLesch (talk) 17:08, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
File:San Diego Reflecting Pond.jpg
File:MtSoledadView.jpg
File:SanDiegoSkylineApr09.jpg
I'm actually in favor of changing it back to the montage. I would have reverted that move if I hadn't seen this discussion! 08OceanBeachS.D. 01:41, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
I've seen your reaction to skylines now in two places, and sorry, but I do not agree with your feelings. You can have a montage for a while but then I am planning to change this photo back. -SusanLesch (talk) 03:10, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
I reverted back to the montage simply because the skyline photo in the montage wasn't fuzzy. I have no problem changing it, but we need more opinions than our own. By the way, of the photos you have selected above, I find :File:SanDiegoSkylineApr09.jpg the most appealing, though it is to wide for an infobox. 08OceanBeachS.D. 03:11, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
The dimensions are a little different in the original. But the one I picked had a skyline in perspective for those of us who don't dote on downtown. I'm not sure though where it was taken (if it was from Coronado or somewhere outside the city it would have to go anyway). -SusanLesch (talk) 03:19, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
True; maybe if cropped from the right it would fit better. But then again the clouds are present and that seemed to be a minor issue you had with the previous photo. Also, the one you had previously selected showed a unique view, I believe that's the photo I edited to focus on that view, but it was taken at dusk and the buildings were not as defined. 08OceanBeachS.D. 03:22, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
Hey, this is San Diego - we're not afraid to let people see that we sometimes have clouds! 0;-D My thoughts on the infobox image (and please don't get into an edit war about that, after all the cooperating we've done up to now) is that we should do whatever is going to look best when we are evaluated for Good Article status. Doing a survey of some American cities that have been judged to have Good Article status, I find that about half have a montage in their infobox - examples: Atlanta; Albany, New York, - and half have a single cityscape type picture - examples Denver; Galveston, Texas - so apparently either approach is OK. My own preference would be for the montage. To me, San Diego is much, much more than just another collection of tall buildings, so the montage exemplifies my image of the place better than a skyline shot does. --MelanieN (talk) 03:35, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
P.S. While doing that survey I discovered that none of the 10 most populous American cities have Good Article status. If we are successful in our quest, we will be the largest U.S. city with a Good Article. --MelanieN (talk) 03:39, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
That would be neat! Yes, Melanie is write. We should put the GA achievement first. She is also right on the lack of montages. I posted one at San Francisco, California, but after a discussion it was decided not to have one. My own personal preference as before is the montage, though an extremely good photo in its own right (as was the case with SF) could hold the infobox. 08OceanBeachS.D. 03:43, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
You guys are right. GA is the goal (and FA after that). Anything that helps that goal is good! If you wish to remove any of the other things I added yesterday, here's permission in advance. Here's to GA. Hope we get it. -SusanLesch (talk) 14:26, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Looking at the montage to see if it is really representative of San Diego, I was wondering: should we replace one of those pictures with a picture of the beach? After all the beach is one of the things San Diego is best known for, more than the Point Loma Lighthouse (dear as it is to my heart) or even the skyline. --MelanieN (talk) 14:37, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

P.S. In fact, except for the Black's Beach surfer, we don't have a single beach photo in the article. We need to fix that. Where should it go? --MelanieN (talk) 14:39, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
Climate might be a good section for the photo? Also, we might replace one of the smaller montage images with the one being used for Ocean Beach, San Diego - File:Sunset pier.jpg. Also, there is one other beach type photo in the article, and that is the La Jolla Shores image in the real estate subsection. 08OceanBeachS.D. 01:30, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
I was thinking more of something that specifically focuses on the beach and people using it - for example [3] or [4] or [5] or [6]. BTW would somebody be willing to add that third one - the beach below Sunset Cliiffs - to the Point Loma and/or Sunset Cliffs articles? I'm no good at pictures. --MelanieN (talk) 16:01, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
If you can improve the caption, the pic is in both articles now. I also swapped in the second one above into this article (in place of the weather service building which wasn't a great image). You're very good at pics! -SusanLesch (talk) 18:10, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, that's great! I did tweak a couple of the captions. Big improvement! --MelanieN (talk) 04:07, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

The current picture of La Jolla Shores, is a picture of 939 Coast and while it may have been taken from La Jolla Shores, gives no idea of what that beach and area look like. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.65.151.235 (talk) 04:03, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

About the weather information in the lead

I like the new information Susan came up with about the climate, but I wonder if it belongs in the lead? WTF seemed to indicate that we shouldn't have a lot of citations in the lead, which he said is supposed to be a summary, with the cited material elsewhere in the article. Do you think we should move those two sentences to the climate section? And maybe leave a mention of the good climate in the lead? On the other hand, if we brag about our climate WITHOUT a citation, we are going to get dinged for that. A quandary. What do the rest of you think? I'm just trying to look at the article through a GA evaluator's eyes.--MelanieN (talk) 06:11, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I would say the weather is one of the most important facts about SD and should be moved FURTHER UP into the lead, replacing all that garbage about land area, population, etc., which could refer to any city of SD's size and area. Yes, if SD has any other special points (Naval Base, etc.), then it should go in the lead, not be buried beneath the fold, as the old-time newspapermen would say. Yours, GeorgeLouis (talk) 06:25, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
Hats off to MelanieN. Great job placing climate in the lead and following up with details below. I also removed a Money magazine 5th place down (sorry we had a system error here and it came out twice in the edit summaries). -SusanLesch (talk) 15:57, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the insight, GeorgeLouis. You are right, we need to emphasize what San Diego is famous for. --MelanieN (talk) 17:08, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
Good point about the population GeorgeLouis! Nice job with the climate Melanie! I added back some of the history information but only added information special or unique to San Diego. 08OceanBeachS.D. 22:06, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
I added back the rest of it. The section was pretty stunted without it. The reviewer asked for a "short paragraph" on the history and that's what we now have. --MelanieN (talk) 22:55, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Largest Naval Fleet in the World

Found a good source for the claim:

  • Eric Terrill. "Submitted in response to Federal Funding Opportunity: FY 2011 Implementation of the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS)" (PDF). Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System. University of California San Diego. Retrieved 21 April 2011. The Port of San Diego includes the largest naval fleet in the world, and Port Hueneme is the only deep water port between Los Angeles and San Francisco and the only Navy controlled port between San Diego and the Puget Sound. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

And here is another:

It was also stated that it is the largest navy port in the continental United States, however the source is dated:

I hope this helps with the GA attempt. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 07:00, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

These are great, thank you. I added the first one because it's recent and makes an outright claim. -SusanLesch (talk) 00:13, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Military impact

The San Diego Military Advisory Council released a report last week on the military's impact in the San Diego region. The Union-Tribune article covers some of the statistics, but the full 70+ page PDF report can be downloaded from that article. It would be a great resource for expanding and sourcing the military section (as well as the related base articles). --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:11, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the source! We'll find a way to incorporate it I'm sure. 08OceanBeachS.D. 03:57, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 68.8.59.136, 12 May 2011

under the education part California International Business University should be included. thanks

68.8.59.136 (talk) 03:27, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Okay, sounds legitimate. Will do. --MelanieN (talk) 04:56, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Coordinate error. SOS

{{geodata-check}}

The following coordinate fixes are needed for


—68.84.179.1 (talk) 00:59, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

 Not done. No coordinate error is specified, and the coordinates look OK to me. Deor (talk) 19:48, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Chaparral

This statement in the WiKi article is not true: "Like most of southern California, the majority of San Diego's current area was originally occupied by chaparral, a plant community made up mostly of drought-resistant shrubs" >>The Chaparral was introduced in the 19th century to stop land erosion<<...... Very little Chaparral was native to the area...looking at the early pictures amply demonstrates this fact... today it has become quite a fire hazard occupying most public land.Lewisharry (talk) 19:10, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that is true. A natural coastal chaparral belt was described by Le Roy Abrams in his 1904 Flora of Los Angeles and vicinity as stretching from Santa Monica to San Diego. In 1903, Out West magazine wrote that the Forestry Bureau was studying the possibility of using chaparral as an erosion control measure, so it does not seem likely that it was used as such prior to 1903, at least not extensively. If chaparral was planted to control erosion it would only have been to augment or widen the existing chaparral belt.
Chaparral is a fire hazard only because people build structures in it... if they did not build on chaparral land, the bushes could burn and regenerate cyclically as they have for ages before man. Binksternet (talk) 19:34, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Excellently said Binksternet! Chaparral existed long before cities developed Southern California. This source points out that Native Americans burned chaparral to make way for the expansion of grasslands that were a food source for wild game and to protect themselves from predators that hid in the chaparral. It would appear that it is indeed native. 08OceanBeachS.D. 20:28, 6
I could find no support in an internet search for Lewisharry's contention that chaparral is introduced rather than native. I assume that he was requesting to have someone add this to the article (since as a non-autoconfirmed user he can't edit the article). I think the consensus here is that we do NOT intend to add this because we can find no reliable sourcing to back it up. In fact, I found and will add to the San Diego County article the information that San Diego County contains more than a million acres of chaparral - twice as much as any other California county, per The California Chaparral Field Institute. --MelanieN (talk) 02:33, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I have done research in the California Room at the main branch of the San Diego public library on the Chaparral issue.... There are accounts of widespread importing Chaparral from Texas and planting of Chaparral in San Diego county from the mid 19th up to the mid 20th century... And old timers I have talked to remembering this being done..... I have lived here in San Diego since 1975 ....As for people living in the Chaparral areas, San Diego Chaparral filled canyons go all the way to the ocean in places Lewisharry (talk) 18:29, 7 July 2011 (UTC) July 2011 (UTC)

Well, Lewisharry, we are always open to evidence here, but all the evidence I can find says that chaparral was here long before the European settlers arrived. Examples:
As pointed out above by Binksternet, if chaparral was imported, it only augmented existing native belts of chaparral. Sources repeatedly show it being native to San Diego and the wider Southern California region. 08OceanBeachS.D. 07:14, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Vandalism and semi-protection

The article has been refreshingly free of vandalism for the past 6 months because it was under semi-protection. The semi-protection expired on July 19, and within 3 days (July 22) the usual tired old "whale's vagina" vandalism was added by an ISP account. I wonder if this article needs permanent semi-protection? Let's see how it continues to go. --MelanieN (talk) 00:29, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Again on July 23. --MelanieN (talk) 21:42, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
And again on August 2, and August 8, and August 9. Sigh. --MelanieN (talk) 17:26, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
Page protected. OhNoitsJamie Talk 17:47, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
Thank you! --MelanieN (talk) 01:05, 10 August 2011 (UTC)


I once had an edit filter to keep it out, but the mavens over there decided the vandalism was too rare to merit a specific filter, which imposes a tiny delay to all edits. A bot might be able to patrol the article routinely for it, if anyone knows of a good vandalism bot which could be expanded.   Will Beback  talk  01:18, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Birthplace of California?

What makes San Diego the "birthplace of California", as it states in the lead section, compared to Monterey, California (you may want to read that article)? Is there a reference that uses this term for San Diego? Thanks, 72Dino (talk) 05:08, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I'll look for a reference, but it's pretty obvious: San Diego was the first Spanish settlement in present-day California. San Diego presidio and mission were founded in 1769; Monterey was founded in 1770. --MelanieN (talk) 15:42, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
Well, that was easy! The term is widely used. I added a scholarly reference. --MelanieN (talk) 15:53, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from LeeRP, 24 August 2011

The population is stated throughout the article as 1,307,402. The Census Bureau made an adjustment to that number down to 1,301,627. The best way to verify this is to go to the San Diego Redistricting Commission's web site. That figure is being used by the Commission itself. I know as I have been involved in this process since last year. If you need more specific detail for verification please let me know. I have never edit anything so this is all very foreign to me.

If you really feel like digging it is mentioned somewhere on their web site that it was for an error in locating military persons totaling 5,785. I'm certain this could also be verified at the Census Bureau as well.

LeeRP LeeRP (talk) 04:45, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Done Used this as a reference. --Jnorton7558 (talk) 05:21, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Add LGBT news outlets to "Media"

There are no LGBT news outlets represented in "Media" in San Diego, CA. Please list the newsweekly "LGBT Weekly" which serves the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in San Diego both in weekly print and daily web news coverage. This is the only LGBT media outlet that runs weekly in print and daily on web within the San Diego County.

Source/verify... See: http://lgbtweekly.com/about/

Ruthsd (talk) 15:33, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

There are several LGBT media outlets in San Diego. The most notable appears to have been the 20-year-old print daily Gay and Lesbian Times, but it went out of business in 2010.[7] Some remaining outlets include the San Diego Gay and Lesbian News, Gay San Diego, Out in San Diego, and the LGBT Weekly but none of them appear to be notable enough to be listed in this article. Sorry, I am going to say NO to this request. --MelanieN (talk) 23:43, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Peer review work

The San Diego article was listed for peer review back in July. I just wanted to make sure everyone knew and that the review could give editors, and members of WikiProject San Diego, things to fix in the article that would give this article a better chance at achieving FA status. Unless this has already been done, judging by the issues listed, we have some more work cut out for us! Cordially, 08OceanBeachS.D. 17:44, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5
  1. ^ http://www.sdcl.org/aboutus.html
  2. ^ http://dbpcosdcsgt.co.san-diego.ca.us/screens/AR2010/index.html
  3. ^ San Diego County Library. San Diego County Library http://sdcl.org/aboutus.html. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  4. ^ "COUNTY LIBRARY DIRECTOR WINS STATE AWARD". San Diego County Library. Retrieved Posted December 17, 2009. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:San_Diego/Archive_4&oldid=1137172186"