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Should infoboxes for USA towns have US pushpin maps?

Infoboxes for many US towns contain map images that show the location of the town within its county, and the location of the county within its state. There has been a discussion at User talk:Cs california about whether we should add a pushpin map showing the location of the town within the United States. I'm copying the discussion here, in order to get community consensus. —hike395 (talk)

California towns: pushpin map redundant with existing map

Hello, Cs. I noticed that you reverted my edit at Mammoth Lakes, California. I think that adding a pushpin map to infoboxes for California towns does not help our readers. For example, at Mammoth Lakes, California, there is already a map that shows the location of the town in Mono County, and the location of Mono County within the State. Showing the location of the town in the United States simply takes up space and makes the main article more crowded. Hence, I removed the pushpin map.

I would not object to adding the pushpin map to infoboxes that do not already have county locator maps.

If you don't agree, can we open this issue up to wider discussion? Thanks! —hike395 (talk) 04:46, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

I disagree Based on the following:
1. It takes up more space than most taxonboxes or the machine learning and data mining navbox.
2. Cross wikipedia support: This is pretty standard as it is done on the Polish wikipedia, Tagalog wikipedia, spanish wikipedia and for the mammoth lake article see(French, Polish, [1], Serbian) If it does not help readers they would not have it in so many other languages
3. Many articles on major cities that are separated into districts/provinces (eg. Manila, Paris,Guangzhou, Madrid, Barcelona).
4.Location infoboxes are designed to take up to 3 maps.
5. It gives context to where the place is in the US. You are not the only one looking this up on wikipedia, how would other people know where this is in context to the US?
--Cs california (talk) 10:32, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
Please do not add the pushpin maps. They don't add anything to the encylopedia, and it is a big pain to remove them. Thank you. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 02:17, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
I second what BeenAroundAWhile said. Rcsprinter123 (chatter) @ 10:50, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
I do not see any rebuttals to my points. If it is redundant why is it on large cities and other wikipedia projects?--Cs california (talk) 10:55, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Lack of consensus for USA pushpin maps

Just a few weeks ago, as a result of this discussion, there was consensus among the participants at Wikipedia:WikiProject New Jersey that state-level pushpin maps are unneeded, as articles statewide already have maps showing the location within the county and of the county within the state. These state-level pushpin maps are being removed. I appreciate your efforts to add pushpin maps of the United States, but there appears to be no consensus at any level that they should be added. These maps add space to already large infoboxes, and provide context that is readily available at articles about the county, state or country. Nor is there any need to show pushpin maps of the hemisphere, Earth, our solar system or the the location of places within the Milky Way, all of which is available elsewhere.
Please stop and take stock. Before making further changes, reach out at any level and obtain consensus for your actions, huge numbers of which have been reverted by editors across the country. If there is no consensus, you can stop adding these maps once and for all and move on to other activities. If there is consensus, there are methods that will be far more effective to add these maps, such as using bots to do so. Until then, I'll be happy to do the reverts to restore the status quo. Alansohn (talk) 20:03, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
I disagree with the lack of consensus since many major cities already have these maps (eg. Manila, Paris,Guangzhou, Madrid, Barcelona, San Francisco). Also there is cross wiki support as shown here Polish wikipedia, Tagalog wikipedia, spanish wikipedia. Lets take one of your New Jersey article Asbury Park, New Jersey some of the articles such as italian,Dutch, Croatian, Azerbaijani, and French --Cs california (talk) 23:52, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
Consensus would be in the English Wikipedia. It might well make sense to provide the greater context in the Polish, Tagalog, Italian, Dutch, Croatian, Azerbaijani and French Wikipedias, and they may have even reached consensus on those pushpin maps. Sure there are some cities with the maps, but that's mostly because there are no local maps that could fit the bill. The overwhelming majority of articles in the English Wikipedia *DON'T* have these pushpin maps for the United States. Before making further changes, reach out at any level and obtain consensus for your actions, huge numbers of which have been reverted by editors across the country. If there is no consensus, you can stop adding these maps once and for all and move on to other activities. If there is consensus, there are methods that will be far more effective to add these maps, such as using bots to do so and I'll be happy to join you in this effort. Alansohn (talk) 01:03, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
There is no consensus to remove it from the template either. So I guess I will just stay away from Your New Jersey pages. As for huge numbers of which have been reverted by editors across the country that is only by you. far more effective to add these maps, such as using bots to do so No bots will not work for this since you would have to write multiple if statements to accommodate the different conditions for CDPs and different countries. Just because you discuss on your project page does not mean there is consensus. All examples I gave are large cities that are heavily edited not some small CDP. If they keep the map that means that there is consensus among editors. I do not see you requesting to remove the extra pushpins from the infobox template or asking for them to be removed from other wikipedias for consistency.--Cs california (talk) 06:00, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
That reversion is not only by him, it's by me too. I agree with Alansohn, you must have consensus before proceeding. I do not think these maps add anything of value and thus I've already removed several. Stay away from New York pages as well.--ɱ (talk · vbm) 09:40, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
I'm in the process of reverting the addition of US pushpin maps to Nebraska communities on my watchlist, for reasons stated by Alansohn et al. Unless and until consensus is reached in favor of adding the maps—and that's expressed consensus, not merely "consensus" in the qui-tacet-consentit sense—please don't add any more to articles on Nebraska municipalities. — Ammodramus (talk) 13:12, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
I do not see how no consensus means removal and his argument was only for New Jersey Project and he made his case. You are moving the goal post and spamming my notifications so I am reverting your edits. --Cs california (talk) 22:33, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
Furthermore I do not see any discussion linked from either of you guys showing there is the consensus is "No pushpin maps" only from Alansohn so I am respecting only his project since he actually keeps all his stuff consistent (eg. adding all census numbers and agreement to add those pink maps). Both of you make a very poor case. The New York Pages have various formats and none of you did any cleanup to make it consistent.--Cs california (talk) 22:57, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
In this discussion topic, Alansohn has objected to location-in-US pushpin maps for NJ articles. Ɱ has objected to them in NY. I've objected to them in Nebraska. In an earlier discussion on this page, Hike395, BeenAroundAWhile, and Rcsprinter123 objected to them. This doesn't necessarily mean that consensus is solidly against them, since people who object to something are more likely to comment than people who approve of it; but it certainly indicates that there's nothing like uniform consensus in favor of them.
One of your edit summaries notes that not all Wikipedia readers are from the US, and presumably don't know where Nebraska is. However, I suspect that the great majority of people reading articles on Nebraska municipalities are American, and would know. Those who aren't and don't can easily find out by clicking on the "Nebraska" Wikilink. I've attempted to address the situation of non-US readers in some Nebraska articles by changing the lead to include a phrase like "...in the state of Nebraska in the Midwestern United States". This serves the purpose, and is far less obtrusive and space-filling than the location-within-US map.
"Obtrusive and space-filling" is the problem with the inclusion of the maps. First, they create compositional problems by extending the infobox further down the page. If there are graphics or tables, they get pushed down below the bottom of the infobox. If there are graphics on the left side of the page, extending the infobox can lead to the sandwiching of text between the graphic and the infobox, which is contrary to MOS:IMAGELOCATION.
In MOS:INFOBOX, under the "Purpose of an infobox" heading, a general principle of parsimony is laid out:
"[K]eep in mind the purpose of an infobox: to summarize key facts that appear in the article. The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance... [E]xclude any unnecessary content".
Adding a map that'd be unnecessary for the great majority of readers seems contrary to this principle. When I look at an article with the within-the-US map, I have to scroll down to see most of the data in the infobox. This seems inconstent with the MOS's at-a-glance standard.
To reprise: the within-the-US map is unnecessary for most likely readers of articles on small cities in Nebraska. It extends infoboxes down the page, creating potential problems with placement of graphics and tables, compelling readers to scroll down to see the "key facts" in the infobox, and generally violating the MOS's parsimony principle for infoboxes. The number of editors who've come to this page to ask you not to include such maps suggests that there might be a consensus against their inclusion. I think that the onus is now on you to show consensus in favor of them before adding them to any further articles, or reverting their removal from articles to which you've already added them. — Ammodramus (talk) 01:56, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

OK I am happy to discuss this further but where? I do not want my page full of discussion stuff. But here it goes:

Pushpin maps are introduced in Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps/Conventions/Pushpin maps and use only one svg file so they save more space by not having multiple files. Maps use CIA World Factbook maps 2008 style consistency as as shown Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps/Conventions/Location maps. Pushpin maps are in this style The infobox for cities allows 3 maps. If people did not want this many maps they would have removed it from the infobox settings directy or not have it the settings implemented when it was created.

Note that you are not the only one using wikipedia, so not everyone will know where your State/province/region is in reference to the country. So claiming that we only need the city location inside Nebraska and assuming people know where Nebraska is within the US is a miss attribution since wikipedia is used worldwide. So given a country at random, you living in the United States, would likely not be able determine where a city is given the state/province/region without navigating to another page or using a map.

Large cities mostly have pushpin maps for examples:

  1. Barcelona will show where Barcelona within Catalonia and Barcelona within Spain.
  2. Toronto shows where it is inside it's province Ontario and where it is with respect to Canada
  3. Guangzhou shows where it is inside it's province Guangdong and where it is with respect to China
  4. São Paulo show where it is within the state of São Paulo and where it is with respect to Brazil

These examples show that the pushpin maps provides good context of where the city is within the county. As a bonus the map helps people who use wikipedia that have Dyslexia to easily gain context through the map. Those who say "why not have a map of the world and milky way" argument is moving the goal post. The scope of the Template:Infobox settlement is within the country, hence country is usually the default on the part which is filled in as subdivision_type, with 3 additional subdivision types. Having a map of country fits within this scope as country is a parameter in the text. Support

Consensus is shown by a silent majority that have been editing for years and has not had problems with the maps. Wikipedia is a made of a community of users, pages with more edits shows more engagement and refinement to a standard. Most large city in the US has had this for several years

  1. New York City has had the pushpin map since February of 2010
  2. Los Angeles has had the pushpin map since February 2010#
  3. San Jose has had the push pin map since Feb 2010 and User:Alansohn did not have any problems with it back then eithersource
  4. Houston source
  5. Chicago source

We can look at this and think of it as testing for if there is agreement for these types of map since there are several thousands of edits since the maps are put in indicating that there is some consensus among users since they still have not remove the maps. There is also support cross wiki that I have shown in above arguments. As for your MOS's parsimony principle many template boxes are longer than these infoboxes (especially for plants with many synonyms) that is why there is a simple english wikipedia for that and also you can limit the size of the maps and pictures.

As for your MOS:INFOBOX the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance and short form, and exclude any unnecessary contentthe map does both.

Secondly you apparently miss the fact on MOS:INFOBOX that Readers greatly outnumber editors . Your claim of Adding a map that'd be unnecessary for the great majority of readers seems contrary to this principle is false about 18% is from the US that is one out of every five visitors you cannot just not say I am designing wikipedia just for that one person and ignore the other four. Just because a couple editors got mad means nothing, you guys only apply the edits to the pages you like instead of making everything consistent. I do not see any actions keeping pushpin maps suppressed on every US city, cdp, and suburb or propagated to all pages so it is meaningless. Also I got more thanks on the notification for adding the maps than I got people telling me to not add them.

Hope this explains my point.

-Cs california (talk) 02:13, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

You say "Consensus is shown by a silent majority". Wikipedia:Consensus explains that it is not.
I think there is general agreement that pushpin maps showing the whole of the U.S. are not required in infoboxes apart from on the articles of major cities. This status quo should remain. Rcsprinter123 (prattle) @ 10:25, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Discussants at New Jersey Wikiproject discussion about same topic in April: Tinton5, Magnolia677, Djflem, Castncoot, Alansohn, JackTheVicar. —hike395 (talk)

Further discussion

@Rcsprinter123 Did you not read this part? "consensus is a normal and usually implicit and invisible process across Wikipedia. Any edit that is not disputed or reverted by another editor can be assumed to have consensus." Large cities have the largest editing sample and which takes precedence from more edits. If no one made the edit and then someone else reverted I do not see how you can make a case that it is not necessary. 2010 to 2015 is FIVE years people had a chance to remove it and chose not to.--Cs california (talk) 22:27, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

OK. But my main point stands. Rcsprinter123 (vent) @ 22:29, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

How does your point stand when I show my point has consensus via:

Consensus is a normal and usually implicit and invisible process across Wikipedia. Any edit that is not disputed or reverted by another editor can be assumed to have consensus.

— Wikipedia:Consensus#Reaching_consensus_through_editing

As for the small Wikiproject decision under:

Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. For instance, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope.

— Wikipedia:Consensus#Level_of_consensus

The edits I presented above were from a pool of cities and all had 5 Years of edit history with pushpin maps not being removed. The sample size of these edits are in the thousands unlike other cities. I also showed above that one out of every five viewers of wikipedia pages are NOT from the US. What evidence do you provide that your point stands? --Cs california (talk) 22:44, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Good comments. See: MOS Guideline WP:INFOBOXUSE "The use of infoboxes is neither required nor prohibited for any article. Whether to include an infobox, which infobox to include, and which parts of the infobox to use, is determined through discussion and consensus among the editors at each individual article." Unless there is consensus on changing the guideline - in an appropriate forum - it is up to the consensus on each individual article as to whether to include or not include a pushpin. I do not think obtaining a consensus on a WikiProject regarding a guideline is appropriate - see WP:WPEDIT and WP:PGCHANGE for changing guidelines. Cheers Gmcbjames (talk) 22:47, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
I have reverted these pushpin maps on the California pages where I keep watch. Simple good sense would tell one that pushpin maps should not duplicate information already given by maps made to a larger scale. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 00:13, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
Yes this is true only for true for the Washington, D.C. page. Please read the comments discussed above. --Cs california (talk) 02:05, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
It looks like WP:INFOBOXUSE makes mass changes to infoboxes difficult (perhaps by design). I feel bad for Cs california, because he/she will have to discuss the layout of every edit that is objected to; or simply do his/her mass change, and let other editors remove the pushpin maps on a case-by-case basis. —hike395 (talk) 04:41, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
I am also doing edits on a case by case basis if it has a US map already like Washington, D.C. it makes sense not to have it because there is already context. But the maps really help people in other countries and people with dyslexia.--Cs california (talk) 04:47, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
Adding information to an infobox would potentially help some readers. Adding that information to the infobox often harms the layout of the article. What WP:INFOBOXUSE tells us is that you can't have a centralized discussion or decision about it -- you have to make the trade-off for each article. Looking at Mammoth Lakes, California, I think that the extra information is worth the extra clutter. —hike395 (talk) 10:08, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
Yes I agree there are trade offs. You can add `| pushpin_map_narrow = yes` to make the template smaller but it will be fatter. But I think the weather box should be adjusted to be smaller. If the margins for the month column is eliminated it would look much better. I also change the picture to a higher quality one I found (a bit dark but seems better). Don't know if you agree but I find the other one quite low quality--Cs california (talk) 11:37, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
@Cs california: I've got a bit lost with the conversation above, but my main point was the "major cities only", not the "silent majority". Rcsprinter123 (jaw) @ 11:59, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

If a nice clean map exists that shows the location of a community within a County & State, then a Push Pin map isn't needed, and it's definitely not needed for numerous short articles, because it increases the length of the infobox to a point that where it can be longer than the article (yes, I've seen them). Unfortunately, the "County/State" maps haven't been uploaded for every city in the USA, though some states do have maps for every incorporated community (i.e. Kansas), see my conversation with User:Rcsprinter123 at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Rcsprinter123&oldid=647019125 The ONLY place where I use Push Pin maps in Kansas is unincorporated communities and ghost towns that don't have a county/state map, because those maps were never created. If the County/State map in shown in an article, then any user can easily click on the County or State link to see where that county or state is located in the USA, thus I vote that Push Pin maps shouldn't be added to articles that have County/State maps. The infobox concept is great, but the "Infobox settlement" has gotten out of control to the point of no restraint in their length, and this is a perfect example of un-necessary junk that causes infoboxes to be too long. On a related topic, the city seal and city flag are worthless junk that increase the length of infoboxes (other than local people, almost no one cares about those things). • Sbmeirow • Talk • 11:11, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree that it makes some infoboxes long and its use for unincorporated communities and ghost towns. It is true you can click on county and state to get to the article but the visuals help users get information quickly and help those who are not from the US. If you think that is redundant I can just as well argue that we do not need country, state, and city as the information is in the article and the geocode shows the location. But to counter this I am not the only one using wikipedia, some of this information is useful for bots to grab if I am writing an application. So I disagree with your point that they are not useful comments above. I do not see what you have against flags and seals but if it is there someone will enter it because it is a form of representation for the city or else why would a city have a flag at all? -Cs california (talk) 11:53, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
I concur with Sbmeirow's point about infobox bloat, although "junk" seems like an unduly negative description; I'd say "non-key facts", in reference to MOS:INFOBOX's phrasing re. the purpose of an infobox. Many facts can reasonably appear in the article, but should be left out of the infobox, both to enable readers to focus on a few of the most critical facts, and to prevent compositional problems related to infoboxes that stretch deep down into the article, or even beyond the end of the text.
Cs california notes that not all WP readers are from the US. I think the 18% figure cited above refers to all Wikimedia sites, and that the correct figure for English-language Wikipedia would be 36%. Still, over two-thirds of readers are from outside the US, and we should certainly consider their needs. However, the readership-by-country distribution undoubtedly varies significantly from article to article, and we can make some reasonable surmises about how it varies.
Articles with no connection to a particular country (e.g. Higgs boson, truss bridge, barn owl) probably have a readership distribution similar to the overall: 1/3 from the US, 2/3 from elsewhere. Articles whose subjects have strong US connections but often appear in worldwide media (e.g. Martin Luther King, New Jersey, Mississippi River) will have a more US-skewed readership, but will still have lots of extra-US readers. Articles with strong US connections whose subjects are very little covered in international media (e.g. McCook Daily Gazette, Old Baldy (Lynch, Nebraska), A. T. Hill) are likely to have very few or no non-US readers.
In balancing the value of additional information against the evil of infobox bloat, we should consider the likely readership of a particular article. Articles on major US cities are likely to draw a reasonably large number of non-US readers; articles on hamlets tucked away in the cornfields will attract very few readers, and almost all of them will be from the US. Thus we should give more consideration to extra-US readers in, say, San Francisco, but can assume that the readers of Tamora, Nebraska will all come to the article with a pretty good idea of where and what Nebraska is.
This would explain why, as Cs california has noted, within-the-US pushpin maps have been accepted in articles on major US cities, but there's been a great deal of opposition from editors watching articles on smaller communities. Rather than trying to establish a blanket policy, we should decide on a case-by-case basis, with an initial presumption in favor of keeping the map out to minimize the infobox. — Ammodramus (talk) 12:33, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
I have less of an issue with LONG city articles, but very short city articles need to trim the infobox bloat as much as possible until the article is long enough so a longer infobox doesn't overwhelm the article. A few years ago, I added a 2nd map (census map, not push pin) to over 100 small cities in Kansas, and since that time I've been working on removing them because their infoboxes were too long. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 12:52, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
Concerning the percentage of viewers by country, those stats are meaningless in this discusion unless you can tell me the percentages for cities that are NOT over 100,000 population. I'd expect that an extremely high percentage of viewers of smaller communities are Americans. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 12:52, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
My problem is you guys have no context or standards for what is too long. If I have a different screen size it would be short for me but long for you. I think voting on it is meaningless per Wikipedia:Consensus#Level_of_consensus and a better way to deal with our disagreements would be Wikipedia:Third opinion. It will provide an opinion from an NPOV individual and would give better guidance context for editing. --Cs california (talk) 20:28, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
Per the instructions at WP:3O, it's to be used "[i]f no agreement can be reached on the talk page and only two editors are involved" [boldface in original]. Since seven editors have been involved in the discussion at this location to date, and others had discussed the matter earlier at User talk:Cs california, the third-opinion process seems to be contraindicated. Furthermore, the discussion's only been up at this forum for about 30 hours, so it's premature to say that the matter's been "thoroughly discussed"; there may be other WikiProject watchers who aren't yet aware of the discussion or who haven't yet had a chance to join it. — Ammodramus (talk) 22:01, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
While I agree that infoboxes are cluttered, I think the USA pushpin maps improve the articles. The visuals are probably the most useful part of the infobox, and the USA maps are particularly helpful to those without extensive knowledge of US geography. This is the English language Wikipedia, not the US Wikipedia after all. Jacona (talk) 22:22, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
I thought that once people started discussing an issue in a talk section that editors were suppose to halt making edits on the subject matter until an agreement had been reached.... well that hasn't slowed down User:Cs_california because this editor is still doing it, see link. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 22:42, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
Sorry noone told me until now. Thanks Magnolia677--Cs california (talk) 23:53, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
I support the use of pushpin maps in infoboxes. They are clean and low-detail, so readers quickly get a sense of place. In articles where the only map is a state pushpin map, such as Artonish, Mississippi, the state pushpin map should take precedence over the USA map. Actually, why not just use the state pushpin map? If someone wants to know where the place is in the USA, they can click on the state link in the first line of the article. Magnolia677 (talk) 23:16, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
The state maps are good for small town locations. But they provide no information on the County. That is why someone went through all the old maps to convert them to include state and county. I have no problem with any visuals that show the city within the US as in pushpin maps or a state map in reference to the country as in Bethel, Vermont. Visuals get the information fast for most people. So 250px of space on an infobox is worth the sacrifice. -Cs california (talk) 00:22, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
The USA pushpin map is very useful for non-Americans on wikipedia wanting to situate the place in the context of the continent. I would vote to keep the USA pushpin map, even with very short articles, as wikipedia is international. Mattximus (talk) 00:27, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
Came here after Sbmeirow notified me. For one thing, Cs california, are you aware that your edits (or at least some of them) are doing absolutely nothing? Look at the Randolph, Vermont article before and after your edit: there's no pushpin map either way. Please check your coding before mass-adding it, because you waste your own time and that of others if all those edits don't change anything. As to the issue at hand, I see the national pushpin maps as extraneous and not particularly helpful: they make long infoboxes even longer, and they're not particularly necessary, because the infobox and the introduction in most of these articles tell readers that the place is in the USA, and if people don't know where in the country Vermont is, they can check its map easily. Let's take a random town in India, Kanjikkuzhi, which shows you where in Kerala it's located. Unless you know where Kerala is, the map won't show you where in India this place is, but you can click the link to Kerala, see where it is in the country, and immediately have a good idea where the town is: no need for a national map, even though you don't know much about India. Why would non-Americans need one for the USA? Nyttend (talk) 00:49, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
I disagree with Sbmeirow's point about infobox bloat, although "junk" seems like an unduly negative description. If it were consider junk then they should not be nominated in Featured articles in Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities/Top 100 US Cities Article Classes (eg Houston, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, Cleveland, Minneapolis). Are Second Many of the featured articles has had that information for over Five years and over 2000 edits for each page supporting WP:CON via Reaching consensus through editing. As corrected by Ammodramus 36% of the readers are english leaving 2/3 non english users for the whole wikipedia. You can cherry pick that not all of them will see your page, but Wikipedia is an enclyclopedia and should have the same quality for each article. If I go to a small town on several of the other wikipedia projects like Poland, spanish, italian they would give you both maps. They DO NOT assume everyone is from their country, hide the big map for reference, and think you can click on the name of the country to find out more information. Lastly wikiepedia add lots of redundant features to be inclusive with information helping people get their information quickly, they added Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia to read to people which not many use, which Sbmeirow may also consider junk, but just like the visuals it helps a group of people or else they would not have started the project. --Cs california (talk) 01:08, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
A major difference between FAs and these articles is article length: the infoboxes are already long (many are longer than the articles), and making the infobox even longer when the article's so short isn't a good idea. That's not a problem with FAs, simply because they're significantly longer. Consider a related topic: city FAs typically have images illustrating a lot of important spots in the community. Commons:Category:Smithville, Indiana looks helpful, with images of a historic site, the former school (two images), an interesting house, a fraternal lodge building, a park, the post office, and a whole category for a church. Should we go and add most or all of them to Smithville, Monroe County, Indiana because images of these topics could be expected in an FA? No, because that many images would be too much for an article of that size. Same with an extra infobox map. Nyttend (talk) 01:26, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
For your example of Smithville, Monroe County, Indiana you should add the content since you know the information about them you can improve the quality of the article as you mentioned there is a historic site so you can add the information on it using guidelines in Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Adding_images_to_articles. I do not see why you cannot add a gallery with brief descriptions until someone adds more articles. It seems like your saying Smithville, Monroe County, Indiana can NEVER be a FA which I do not believe is true, if you do research and write it in a similar style to the large articles I do not see why it would not be a FA. Featured articles are considered quality so we should try to follow their style you can always add more information to compensate for the length. I don't know what your problem is with the long infobox but does having it violate any wikipedia policies? --Cs california (talk) 01:57, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
I know the content because Smithville was formerly my post office: adding stuff of this sort would largely be original research. Quoting WP:IG, "A gallery is not a tool to shoehorn images into an article", and if we got Smithville to an FA, these images would be interspersed throughout the article: the historic site image in History, the school in Education, the park in Parks, etc. If you're so concerned with modelling after FAs, don't start advocating doing something that wouldn't be found in one. My point is that other stuff shouldn't overwhelm the text, which adding these photos would do, and to which your addition of these extra pushpin maps contributes. Please listen to everyone here and stop beating a dead horse. Nyttend (talk) 02:46, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
Nyttend might not have said it but I will. The only way Smithville ever makes FA is if every former POTUS, Prime Minister of Great Britain and Premier of Russia moved there and they staged nude Jello wrestling every Saturday night, whilst the local pharmacist was discovering the cure for cancer in his storeroom. This might seem flippant, but the truth is a good 50% of the US settlement articles don't even have the potential to be C articles, much less FA.John from Idegon (talk) 03:16, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
And why would your arguments be credible John? per Wikipedia:Civility and WP:PA

blah blah blah....take it to the article talk pages and stay off mine. understand, or do you need a map?

— John from Idegon (talk) 05:17, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
[2] --Cs california (talk) 05:23, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

@Nyttend Adding the maps are inclusive of reader per:

Articles in Wikipedia should be understandable to the widest possible audience.

— Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable

and

Visual depictions enable many people to learn more effectively, and allow technical concepts to be communicated in a more concise and clear manner.

— Wikipedia:Make_technical_articles_understandable#Add_a_picture

This is especially true for people with dyslexia and some illiteracy. So you are not suppose to write articles just for a USA audience. As for the long template for small articles seeWikipedia:Editing_policy#Wikipedia is a work in progress: perfection is not required: Another may help standardize the article's formatting, or have additional facts and figures or a graphic to add.--Cs california (talk) 09:21, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

User:Cs california's concerns are legitimate and I share them, but there should be a way to present a town's geographical location in the context of the continental USA that does not necessitate the addition of a separate large map of the country. Frankly, for small towns of no significance at the national scale it simply looks silly. (This appears to be the consensus opinion: why it looks silly for small towns but not for bigger ones is something I'll only discuss if people really want to – I don't want to belabor what many people apparently perceive to be common sense.) I suggest looking at how this issue has been solved for other large countries, especially Canadian localities, in which the pushpin map of the province/territory includes a locator map of the province/territory in Canada. See for example Alert, Nunavut or Souris, Prince Edward Island or Leamington, Ontario for how this might work in different contexts. (Since county-level administrative divisions are often not so important in Canada, this often means that the infobox needs only one map.) Cobblet (talk) 10:47, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
I like the Canadian model, with a pushpin map showing within-province location and a small inset map showing the province within Canada. I didn't like the large-scale map in the Leamington article, which I thought extended the infobox unduly, but the Souris and the Alert maps were great. I wish we could adopt that scheme for the US and ditch the county maps, since I don't think location within county is a "key fact" from the standpoint of MOS:INFOBOX. However, I suspect that there'd be a certain amount of pushback from the people who did the work of generating the county maps...
After reading Nyttend's comment above, I spent some time looking at India articles. I am not from India and don't know Indian geography at all well, so I was in a position similar to that of a non-US reader looking at an article on a US city with a within-state map but no within-country map. I didn't find it problematic at all: even for inland states where the state map gave no clues as to where in the country the state lay, it was easy enough either to click on the Wikilink to the state's name, or to click on the coords and go to the Google map. Based on that experience, I'm inclined to hold my initial position: include within-US maps for large cities that're likely to draw more extra-US readers, and stick with within-state maps for smaller municipalities, whose readers are likely to come to the article already knowing what and where Wyoming is. Ammodramus (talk) 23:22, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
I agree with Cobblet the Canadian model fits a lot better and has all the features provided from the two maps. But create one of those for all 48 states + DC will be a pain. Unless someone thinks County level is more important than state & country. The only information the county maps give is the size of the city relative to the county and not all maps give that information either. You have a white map, Washington DC has its own weird map, the standard CIA type map and another grey one that was used in the early days of wikipedia. So having one map with the state will be more useful as we only have to create 48+1 svg for the towns, CDP, and cities and leave the county ones in the county. That will solve that problem with the unincorporated communities looking weird too. So it looks like a good compromise--Cs california (talk) 03:42, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
I support the Canadian model. I personally find the location-within-county information to be of low value, while location-within-state/province is much more useful. (Unless you live in a county, you're very unlikely to find relative location within that county to be useful). We should chose what's good for our readers, not for what makes map editors happy. —hike395 (talk) 04:00, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
Later --- I think we have what we need to implement the Canadian model for the United States, today. Take a look at the current version of Mammoth Lakes, California. I got rid of the county map, and changed |pushpin_map= to "USA California", and used |pushpin_image= to substitute an existing map of California with the US as an inset (File:California Locator Map with US.PNG). I haven't checked, but I bet many (all?) U.S. states have a calibrated map with insets. I think it looks good! More compact than the previous version, and more informative, too. —hike395 (talk) 04:43, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
Later -- bad news. Not all states have calibrated maps with insets. For example, File:Washington Locator Map with US.PNG has a very different bounding box than File:Washington Locator Map.PNG. —hike395 (talk) 04:50, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
I prefer them in the CIA world Factbook format as it is used as a standard Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps/Conventions/Location maps where did you guys get your maps Cobblet? Is there a way to make them and upload them? or combine this map here and this one here --Cs california (talk) 06:59, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
Unfortunately I don't have any experience with cartography or map conventions on Wikipedia – I really am just an outsider. But perhaps you might try contacting the authors of the maps you pointed out, or User:Ruhrfisch who is the maker of the original US state locator maps and see if they're able to help you. Cobblet (talk) 07:17, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
Before deciding any edits. We also should see what User:Rcsprinter123 thinks about this if you check on his page he has good maps of how big a city is within the county and it not be good to exclude their usage. --Cs california (talk) 07:30, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
Thanks to Cobblet for suggesting the Canadian model, and to Hike395 for figuring out how to apply it at the Mammoth Lakes article. I've applied it at three articles on unincorporated communities in Nebraska (which didn't have in-county maps to begin with) and I think it looks good: Tamora, Berea, and Lindy. Of course, Nebraska has that convenient concavity below the Panhandle where an inset map can fit; a generally convex state like Colorado or Wyoming might present compositional difficulties.
In the course of this discussion, Cs california has brought up the subject of dyslexic readers. I'd like to note that we also have visually impaired readers, for whom the maps will do little. Could I suggest that if we go on map-revision campaigns in our various states of interest, we either add an alt-text to the map briefly describing the location within the state, or (better, in one editor's opinion) change the description in the article's lead from, for instance, "in Custer County, Nebraska, United States" to "in Custer County, in the central part of the state of Nebraska, in the Midwestern United States"? This has the added advantage of fixing the WP:SEAOFBLUE issue, and Wikilinking "US" seems contrary to WP:OVERLINK.
If we adopt this approach, at least for the states like California and Nebraska in which it's possible, we should probably proceed cautiously, since changes to maps at city articles seem to draw a certain amount of reaction. If this discussion seems to reach consensus on axing the within-county and county-within-state maps in favor of within-state pushpin maps with state-within-US insets, I'll probably apply it to ten or twelve of Nebraska's larger cities, with a pointer to this discussion in the edit summary, to see if additional article-watchers want to join in. Ammodramus (talk) 13:04, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
I think it's worth keeping the "within-county and county-within-state maps" so that one can see where in the county they are, especially in relation to other conurbations, how much of the county they take up, and what shape the city limits are. This is what they were designed to do and why they have been successful in most states. Rcsprinter123 (confabulate) @ 13:49, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Further discussion, continued

  • Oppose maps in city infoboxes. I found this discussion by accident, and have not previously participated in these discussions, but I have now watch-listed this page. I oppose the automatic inclusion of geographical location maps as unnecessary infobox clutter in the majority of city infoboxes. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Infoboxes: "When considering any aspect of infobox design, keep in mind the purpose of an infobox: to summarize key facts that appear in the article. The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance. Of necessity, some infoboxes contain more than just a few fields; however, wherever possible, present information in short form, and exclude any unnecessary content." Stuffing a map in every infobox contributes to overly long infoboxes. If locator maps are relevant to the subject, they can be inserted into the relevant section of the article text, rather than overloading the infobox. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:00, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
There seem to be two basic facts about a city that almost everyone wants to know: where is it, and how many people live there? You could represent "where is it" with text or coordinates, but that doesn't really intuitively answer the question for most readers.
Thus, I think a (single) map is probably the most important piece of information in an infobox. I agree that town infoboxes are filled with clutter, though. There is so much less useful information in a typical town infobox that I would throw away before removing a map. Who the heck cares about the town emblem? Time zone? water area? Let's get rid of those before getting rid of all maps. —hike395 (talk) 15:38, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
Simple: include the locator map in the main body of the article. Maps in the infobox often contribute to the problem of infoboxes that are overly long, leading to odd layout and design problems. There is no reason why photos, maps and other images cannot be presented in the main body of the article when the infobox has grown too large. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:50, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Support maps: the problem I see with the maps is inconsistency in the type of map. Some just show the city limits and maybe what state/province it is in, but for readers not familiar with the state or provinces, it's not helpful in where the city actually is. When I go to a city article, most times it is to see a visual of where it is. Some maps are very helpful, while others aren't because they don't let me know where in a specific country or state a city is. But removing them completely from the infobox won't necessarily solve design problems. In many smaller city articles, it will likely create new design and layout issues because the article either doesn't have an appropriate section yet or it has a very small section. That's not to mention the inconsistency of whatever section editors place the map(s) in. Where a city is located is basic information, which is what the infobox is for. Perhaps we can look at removing things like the ZIP/postal codes and area codes from the infobox if there is major concern about length. --JonRidinger (talk) 17:21, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
Response: JonRidinger says: "In many smaller city articles, it will likely create new design and layout issues because the article either doesn't have an appropriate section yet or it has a very small section. That's not to mention the inconsistency of whatever section editors place the map(s) in." Uh, no. If you want a locator map in the article, then please take the time required to add two to four descriptive sentences explaining the geographic location, with sources, of the city instead of stuffing a map into the infobox. Otherwise, upon exactly what sources/references are you relying for the map and to establish the city's location? Once again, this is an example of users who can't be bothered to write proper encyclopedic text, but instead insert something they believe to be of importance in the infobox. If it's not important enough to be described in text, it's not important enough to be included in the infobox. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:56, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
You still have the design issues. If your main qualm for maps in the infobox is the design constraints it puts on the rest of the article, then placing a map in a small section will do the same. A simple sentence or two will not solve that (you'll have a section with a lot of white space or overlapping into the next section(s), on top of the other graphics that many even well-developed geography sections already have). Geography sections also typically have a climate chart in them and demographics sections have the population trends. Any maps placed in an article should be more detailed; not the only maps. It also doesn't address the consistency issue. Further, there are a lot of things that are simply explained better visually, and location is one of them. If you've never or rarely seen a map of an area, saying "Maryborough is a city in southern Victoria, Australia" does absolutely nothing to help a reader know where that is beyond Australia. And considering the opening sentence of most city articles does identify where the city is located, having that visual right there makes design sense too. --JonRidinger (talk) 18:14, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
Also, it's not simply a matter of editors inserting something they "believe to be of importance", but more inserting what is common in almost every city article. Many times it's far more reflective of the article's state of development than of the value of the information. An article not having a well-developed geography section but a map in the infobox doesn't mean the map isn't important; it means the article hasn't had editors who have taken the time to develop the geography section (or, in most cases, the rest of the article). In many cases, editors have made locator maps for every city in a given state, so inserting them into an article is far easier than writing an entire section. --JonRidinger (talk) 18:18, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
I'm afraid I have to disagree rather strongly with Dirtlawyer1's argument for sourced text rather than pushpin maps. First, we've got sources for the latitude and longitude of US municipalities. The articles I've looked at cite US Census Bureau data, but the US Board on Geographic Names also provides citable lat-long coordinates.
Lincoln County in Nebraska
Second, it's difficult to provide a verbal description of a location that comes close to working as well as a map. I'm working up an article on a Nebraska state legislator, and am trying to find a good verbal description for the location of his district, which is coterminous with Lincoln County, Nebraska. I'd invite Dirtlawyer to try it: take a look at the map and come up with a clear "two to four descriptive sentences". Is it south-central or southwestern? Once you've got a description that you like, find a source for that description. Bear in mind that readers may not know Nebraska geography at all, so descriptions like "near the confluence of the North Platte and the South Platte Rivers" or "east of the Panhandle" won't be of much use. On the other hand, most sources are Nebraska-based, so they assume that the reader knows where the city of North Platte is, and use that as a point of reference. Good luck, and let me know what you find... Ammodramus (talk) 18:42, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I've got to agree with Hike395 on this. I think a locator map is more important to most readers than the time zone, the area codes, the mayor, the land area... In fact, it'd be better for most readers to have infoboxes with maps and no photos than with photos and no maps—and that's speaking as someone who's added infobox photos to hundreds of articles on Nebraska municipalities.

However, I have to disagree with Rcsprinter123. The city-within-county/county-within-state map would be better moved down to the article body.

  • These maps don't really show the subject city's location with relative to other conurbations, since the other conurbations aren't labelled. It'd be better if the county articles included good maps with all municipalities clearly labelled, so that an interested reader could follow the Wikilink there.
  • Size relative to county size can be deceptive, since it depends on the county size: just looking at the size of the red blotches on the within-county maps, one would conclude that Kearney, Nebraska was bigger than Flagstaff, Arizona.
  • In most cases, shape of the city limits really doesn't seem like a "key fact" from the standpoint of MOS:INFOBOX. If, for instance, the shape's noteworthy because the city's throwing out lots of weird tentacles to annex high-value areas (e.g. Marana, Arizona), the subject should be discussed in the article body, and illustrated with a larger-scale map. In the Marana article, the within-county map doesn't really show the strip annexations all that well.

We need to steer a course between the Scylla of infobox hyperplasia and the Charybdis of too-sparse infoboxes. I think that the best middle ground would be the inclusion of a single pushpin map showing location within state, with a small inset of state within US. I'd strongly favor the exclusion of city seals, flags, mottoes, nicknames, &c., &c.; while these could reasonably be included in the article body, they're not significant enough to merit real estate in the infobox. — Ammodramus (talk) 17:48, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

If you do not like it for the flags mottos, nicknames, seals, can it be rearranged to move them to the bottom of the infobox or something like that. Move up the main information to the top. If you look up a map usually you want to know where it is how big, probably zipcode or timezone if I am sending something or traveling --Cs california (talk) 07:27, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Support existing city in county + county in state maps, otherwise support alternate very clean replacement map, but reject USA pin maps: • Sbmeirow • Talk • 18:17, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
 Question: @Sbmeirow: --- would you support USA pushpin maps as a clean replacement map? Or is it inadequate in some way? —hike395 (talk) 17:40, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
no, because the pushpin maps lacks local details since it is 3000 miles wide instead of 30 miles wide. A replacement map should be in ten's of miles wide to show enough local detail. Though I prefer the pushpin map to NOT be included on short articles, if consensus did win in its favor then I would prefer the pushpin map to be scaled down to a small size. Though the existing county/state maps are nice clean line drawings, they lack some important things, like interstates and highways, which I think would help a lot, but I'm not sure if those details are available, still it would be a monumental undertaking to migrate to a new set of maps, and likely one person would never want to do it by themselves since there are ten's of thousands of cities in the USA. For most small cities in the USA, the existing maps are better than nothing, better than scanned junk, and better than pushpins! • Sbmeirow • Talk • 22:08, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
I thought the map on Washington DC was informative.
For the US editors arguing this out, try Stanstead, Quebec and try to figure out where that is! I have complained about this to our fellow editors. I think it has improved a bit, but not so much you can determine where anything is in respect to the rest of Canada.
Not that some maps out west will look about the same: a square village inside a square county inside a (nearly) square state!  :) Student7 (talk) 23:01, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
It took me a couple minutes to find Stanstead, Quebec so I agree -Cs california (talk) 07:21, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
FIFY. Cobblet (talk) 11:40, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
Sbmeirow: I did include interstates in yellow on maps such as this one, but they didn't really show up too well so I abandoned the practice. Rcsprinter123 (discuss) @ 09:16, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

--- Some editors (e.g., Cs California) want 5000km-scale maps, in order to show the broadest context. Other editors (e.g., Sbmeirow) want 50km-scale maps, in order to show local details. I personally think that a 12500km-scale map (California-scale) is about right. Other editors (e.g.,

Dirtlawyer1) want to exclude maps entirely. I assume that the diversity of opinion reflects a diversity of information needs in our readers.

How about if we embed a small (200px by 200px) WikiMiniAtlas in the infobox, at some intermediate scale, as the only map? That way, people can zoom in/out to their desired scale, and it won't take a lot of room in the infobox. (I'm not 100% sure that this is technically feasible, but it seems plausible). What do editors think? —hike395 (talk) 15:23, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

For every town in the world? Good luck making that change. 86.175.21.68 (talk) 21:39, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
We would just need to edit the Infobox template: if coordinates are provided, embed the WikiMiniAtlas, and ignore the map arguments. Not a problem, unless WikiMiniAtlas maps turn out not to be easy to embed. —hike395 (talk) 04:04, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
I think a change of this magnitude would require strong consensus to implement. Something along the lines of an RfC would be in order. Rcsprinter123 (yarn) @ 10:01, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
Given the lack of response here, I doubt if we could get community consensus. —hike395 (talk) 10:20, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Support existing city in county + county in state maps, otherwise support alternate very clean replacement map, but reject USA pin maps per Sbmeirow's arguments.- MrX 14:47, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject USA civility and ownership issues

It seems like this would be a better issue for Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard. I present the following to backup my claims of this issue here:

WP: Ownership

Examples:

"I do not think these maps add anything of value and thus I've already removed several. Stay away from New York pages as well."

— ɱ (talk · vbm) 09:40, 5 June 2015 (UTC)]
source


In the meantime, I will revert it on every small town in Indiana, Michigan, Idaho or Oregon you add it to. So save yourself the trouble and just don't add it.

— John from Idegon (talk) 05:17, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
source

See: "An editor comments on other editors' talk pages with the purpose of discouraging them from making additional contributions" --Wikipedia:Ownership_of_articles#Actions

Claims edits were unnecessary without context 1 234


See: "An editor reverts a change simply because the editor finds it "unnecessary" without claiming that the change is detrimental. This has the effect of assigning priority, between two equivalent versions, to an owner's version." --Wikipedia:Ownership of articles#Examples of ownership behaviour

Basing all edits over a 3 person Consensus despite Wikipedia:Consensus#Level_of_consensus:

Since consensus has at least 3 people that feel the extra map is unnecessary, I am going to be bold and start taking down the redundant maps for unincorporated communities.

— Tinton5 (talk) 23:28, 23 April 2015 (UTC)]
Source
and propagating the 3 person consensus to other projects per edits [3][4][5][6][7][8]

See details: "Please clear this with WikiProject X first." Wikipedia:Ownership of articles#Statements

Wikipedia:Civility and WP:PA

blah blah blah....take it to the article talk pages and stay off mine. understand, or do you need a map?

— John from Idegon (talk) 05:17, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
source

See: Wikipedia:Civility#Identifying_incivility per (d) belittling a fellow editor, including the use of judgmental edit summaries or talk-page posts


NO ONE has sided with you on it. You are effectively editing against consensus on a very wide scale, and when an RfC gets done, which it will soon, and you are told the community does not want this

— John from Idegon (talk) 05:17, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
source


See: Wikipedia:Civility#Identifying_incivility per (a) taunting or baiting

--Cs california (talk) 07:01, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

"NOT WINNING AN ARGUMENT" is NOT the same as "LACK OF CIVILITY", instead your are Beating a dead horse per what User:Nyttend previous stated (http://i.imgur.com/oYAC3Q9.gif). • Sbmeirow • Talk • 11:34, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
I am not trying to win an argument by Beating a dead horse per Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not about winning and Wikipedia:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_a_democracy, if you did not noticed I am grounding all my arguments on different points in wikipedia's policy. Noone is going to win it to reach a consensus. The Lack of civility has nothing to do with you and only to do with members within actions of Wikipedia:WikiProject USA. --Cs california (talk) 19:50, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
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