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San Jose, California FAR

San Jose, California has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:04, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Former cities

Hello all. I've begun work on the article for Edo (the city which has since become Tokyo) and I was wondering if you all have any standards, precendents, infoboxes, or other suggestions for Former Cities on the whole. New Amsterdam and Constantinople are both excellent articles, I think, but don't really follow a standard "city" format, and are devoted much more to chronological history than discussions of Society, Culture, Geography, Governance and administration, etc. as a normal city article would be. Since the format (i.e. the headings/sections and such) for cities should work just fine for former cities, I guess my question really is whether or not there is (or can be made) an alternate infobox which lists population over time, key mayors/administrators, key events, etc. as much of the information on the current city infobox is focused on modern-day current population, governors, post codes, telephone area codes, and the like. But also, if any of you write extensively these types of articles (Constantinople, New Amsterdam, History of X City), I'd be eager to hear your thoughts as to your approach, style, format, whatever.

I've posted a similar comment on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Former_countries#Former_cities and would look forward to, perhaps, some collaboration between the two projects on making this work. I apologize for my total lack of understanding of template coding, else I'd do it myself and/or help out more considerably. Cheers. LordAmeth 11:01, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

For the infobox, one example that comes to mind is York, Ontario which was amalgamated in 1998 with Toronto. I'll see about putting together an infobox for you later today. :) —MJCdetroit 12:05, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Auto-generation of missing city articles

I've been noticing that there's many cities and towns in the U.S. that didn't have articles auto-generated for them in the early days of the Wikipedia, like what was done for most cities, well, U.S. cities anyway. Does anyone have the know-how and time to look into this and see if it's feasible to finish creating all the city/town articles via bot? Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 20:21, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Articles to be included or excluded in city wikiprojects

Has any city wikiproject established any (somewhat hardened) rules for what articles to include or exclude, especially in relation to people articles but also other article types? I'm thinking of working on something like this for WikiProject Louisville. Thanks. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 03:04, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Johannesburg FAR

Johannesburg has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Epbr123 18:40, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Just thought people would be interested,... the article on Minneapolis, Minnesota has just been promoted to featured status! This article has recently undergone a tremendous amount of research and editing recently, and is definitely worthy of the FA star! Susanlesch has done a large portion of the editing. Congratulations! Dr. Cash 20:24, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Cleveland, Ohio FAR

Cleveland, Ohio has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:16, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Scope of project

What is the scope of this project? Does an article like Sør-Trøndelag really fall within the scope of this project? If so, it seems the project is slightly missnamed. Jerazol 21:55, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that article should be removed from the project (you can remove it). If that area was in the U.S., it would not be included in this Cities project, as it would fit within Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. counties.--orlady 23:00, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Counties are not part of WikiProject Cities. Epbr123 23:18, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Is there any downward limit to the size of settlement that inherently belongs to the project? Do you consider both Flåvær and Skageflå to be within the project's scope? __meco 07:34, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Non-tagging of categories

Having taken upon myself to tag all Norwegian settlement articles with the WPCities banner I have made a few misses which fortunately are quickly corrected. Dr. Cash is doing a big job following in my footsteps adding priority and class and also correcting any mistakes he sees me doing. On my talk page I was told that categories for cities should not be categorized, only the articles themselves. I am wondering though if this means that the project doesn't want category pages to be tagged at all? E.g. this removal of the project banner from a category page where all the article entries are themselves settlements makes me curious about this. Would that mean that also categories such as Category:Municipalities of Norway or Category:Cities in Norway should not get tagged?

I would think that tagging categories where all entries are inherently within the scope of the project would be a smart and useful thing (a) showing editors that any new articles should be tagged with the project banner right away, and (b) because the tags function as recruitment posters for the project. Besides, since there is a "class = Category" parameter that is valid within the banner template, and there is little maintenance to worry about with a category page, I would think that some application of the project banner to category talk pages would be appropriate. I'm not aware of any previous discussions you may have had on this subject. __meco 20:51, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Unless there is some policy somewhere that forbids it (or advises against it with good reason), it seems like a good idea to tag the appropriate categories. People are always going around proposing to delete lists and categories--without a project tag, one aof ours might get removed without an opportunity to oppose the deletion. We should also review tagged categories to make sure that they are sensible within the parameters of the project.--Hjal 03:54, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Non-tagging of templates

As a follow-up to the issue of categories there seems also to be an issue with whether templates should be included in the project. Dr. Cash and I appear have diverging opinions on this and he has reverted my addition of the WPCities template to Template talk:Municipalities in the Balearic Islands with the edit comment "rm template from WPCities (unnecessary to have individual templates in wikiproject; cities only please)." Also the templates contained in Category:Norway county templates (the templates albeit county templates themselves do contain a list of minicipalities) were divested of the WPCities tag. Is Dr. Cash to strict in his assessment of what whould be included or am I too liberal here? __meco 08:32, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Importance of Eidsvoll

Eidsvoll is one of Norway's 400 plus municipalities located some 50km north of Oslo with a population of less than 20,000. Basically this justifies it being classified as low importance in the WPCities assessment scheme. However, in Norway this is historically a rather significant location as the Norwegian Constitution was signed here in 1814. This fact may (or may not, I don't know) be more prominent in the awareness of Norwegians than it would be in other countries. I just wonder if this would justify jacking it into the mid-importance range? The assessment criteria currently don't seem to justify this (although, I suppose, if we dug up some 1814 international newspapers there would surely be mention of this). __meco 08:06, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

That's fine. The article has been reassessed at mid-importance, due to the historical significance. I wasn't aware of this before. Thanks for pointing it out. While the 'importance' assessment generally follows population, there are exceptions that can be made for things like major news coverage, major cultural events held there, or other things that might be historically significant. For example, Williamsburg, Virginia in the US would fall under this category, as the population is very small (less than 25K), but it's historical significance during the american colonial period is very significant. Dr. Cash 08:14, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

City list?

Is there a list of city articles tagged for this project? Or is the only list the Category:Cities one? Most other projects generate a list purely from the tags added to talk pages. Folks at 137 09:18, 17 July 2007 (UTC)


Grants Pass, Oregon >> modifying "Media" standards with major town forum (adding "Media: Internet")

I'm still primitive on editing pages. If you think this idea is beneficial, please come to the Grants Pass, Oregon, page and assist. The idea is also for other cities regarding what's in "Media". Grants Pass >> Grants Pass, Oregon / Wikipedia

Basically, I suggested the adddition of "I Love Grants Pass" to the Grants Pass page. Its basically the only forum website in Grants Pass, and its a significant website. While discussing that as an "External Link", I visited Wikipedia's page on the City of Portland, Oregon, and noticed a "Media" section that listed commercial television and radio stations, and newspapers. On the Grants Pass page, I suggested that it also have a "Media" page, with the addition of major city website forums. Because if newspapers are included, it makes no sense to exclude top-tier websites in cities that are dedicated to the city's specific information. I think that other city pages, like Portland, Oregon, should also include "Media: Internet" alongside newspapers and radio stations, if there are websites that fit. As for Grants Pass, if you can help on this and advance getting that link added, please come on over, as its almost out of my league. I know how to make a few minor edits, add a photo, and a few paragraphs. Thanks.Mdvaden 22:02, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Forum and blog sites generally do not fall under the 'media' category of an article. The reason for this is that, although the internet can definitely be thought of as a form of media, blogs and forums have very, very limited editorial control (and in most cases, none at all), versus traditional media like newspapers, radio, and television stations. So their notability and reliability generally fails wikipedia's reliable source guideline.
They are also generally discouraged from being added to the 'external links' section, primarily because wikipedia is not the place to promote a personal website (see WP:EL). If a forum site grew enough, and became notable enough to warrant its own wikipedia article, then it might be able to be added to the media section (examples would be sites like Slashdot or Fark.com, which have considerable followings). But I would wager a good bet that, in the case of ilovegrantspass.com, that it would go up for deletion within 1-2 weeks of being created, citing non-notability. Dr. Cash 21:51, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Modification to this kind of policy should occur in the near future, with internet media becoming prevelant. For example, the I Love Grants Pass forums have more news stored than the local newspaper. And newspapers are allowed on Wikipedia, as in Portland's case. Some newspapers are "personal" almost as much as some websites. This leaves a bit of inconsistency. I propose that SOME forums be allowed in some situations, but only after discussion. A guideline could be to add only the 2 or 3 largest forums in a city, and only after discussion and review produces approval that the particular websites contain significant information. The "user" level can be ascertained by the forum's index pages, which virtually all list the total number of users. Anyway, its not my call, but I think it would serve more encyclopedic benefits than the "Chamber of Commerce" listed for a city, since the Chambers are profit driven business groups offering almost no information. Thanks for the replies.Mdvaden 04:06, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Newspapers have an editorial board, editorial policy, as well as a formal and official business license. It is an official channel in a particular city or market (more likely, market, because most newspapers cross city borders these days). The Chamber of Commerce also has an official and formal connection with the city (although the Chamber is usually only linked to under external links in city articles and not included in the article itself. Most discussion forums and blogs are run by some nerd living in his mother's basement who just makes the site look official (and most don't do a very good job at this). True, some might have more users than others, but in the long run, they're mostly just blogs,... Nevertheless, IF a forum site has a large following and a good amount of traffic, if would be useful to link to it under the external links section. But if a forum has very few users and almost no traffic, as judged by looking at the forums themselves and the user section, then it should definitely NOT be linked from external links, because it has not attained any level of notability yet, and wikipedia is not a place to promote websites. Dr. Cash 06:08, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
That's a good perspective. The forum I mentioned, in relation to Grants Pass, is reputable enough that even the local Sheriff law enforcement post announcements and feedback on it. For now, One contributor posted a DMOZ link in External Links, to a tier that includes the forum. But for now, I'm going to study this angle and get more familiar with how other city pages are being designed. No rush. Thanks again.Mdvaden 03:49, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
I think you have a sound outlook on this issue, and it appears reasonable from my perspective that "I Love Grants Pass" could be included in the Wikipedia Grants Pass article. Doing as you suggested, looking up the forum index tells me that there are 700 registered users, and with Grants Pass being a city of 30,000 people, this is significant, I suppose. As for your concerns over Wikipedia's present strictness towards web forums, which I share, the rationale for this has expounded by Dr. Cash. I also agree with your prognosis that this will be modified (i.e. relaxed) in the foreseeable future, or at least it ought to. __meco 07:51, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
My input (as it has consistently been) is that Wikipedia is not the place for this type of "community bulletin board" information (such as local utilities, etc). A handy test that I use for encyclopedic content/notability, is "What would someone researching from Berlin (or Tokyo, or Nairobi) want to know about this city?" This kind of "local services" information is not "encyclopedic" and often is simply spam. Spamreporter1 21:33, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm with Spamreporter. dot com sites are mostly selling themselves and their subscribers, often real estate or c-of-c related. These are essentially spam sites as far as I am concerned and I have been removing them whenever possible. I like a "clean" external reference section with geo stuff and maybe the official city webpage. That should be about it. Huge lists are counterproductive anyway - no one is going to bother going through a monster list of webpages after reading a lengthy article. Everyone listed has the self-satisfaction of being included, but no one winds up with any new "eyes" on their page. Kind of funny when you think about it! Student7 02:00, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Duluth GA/R

Please be advised that the Duluth, Minnesota aticle is currently being demoted from its WP:GA status at WP:GA/R. The causes are: not enough references, too much lists, and random year wikification.--SidiLemine 13:06, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Charlotte, North Carolina

In my opinion, this article's mass transit section has turned into a pro-con piece on the light-rail system under development. The edits appear to be driven by one user with a strong point of view - as evidenced by the fact that only one side of the "debate" has sources. The debate may well be interesting (if fully developed), but I think it's a bit much for a city article. I think a summary would be more appropriate - and a separate article on the light rail system more appropriate. The anon-editor, however, doesn't appear to agree. I'm going to unwatch the article for a few weeks and see how it sorts itself out. Rklawton 17:38, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Mokum

Someone deleted {{WPCities}} from Talk: Mokum. Isn't this article within the scope of this project? – Ilse@ 10:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I re-added the project template. – Ilse@ 18:16, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Flag icons in twin towns sections

Hi. This has been the subject of some recent controversy at Gibraltar, where various editors have very strong opinions on whether United Kingdom or Northern Ireland is the best flag to represent Ballymena. I would propose there is no need for these flags at all; even a very big city will likely only have 10 or fewer twinned with it, and text is perfectly adequate for this many entries. Does anyone have a good encyclopedic reason why these divisive icons should remain, in terms of added value to the project? If not I think we should remove them. WP:FLAGCRUFT is an essay which provides a far more detailed rationale about why we should be careful in how we use flags on Wikipedia. --John 19:15, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

  • I agree that there's no need to include flags in the twin town sections. It just seems to be a tradition that's formed in city articles for no reason. The twin town section should be written in prose anyway. Epbr123 19:47, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Personally, I kind of like the use of the flagicon templates in sister cities & twin towns sections. They seem pretty minor, and sort of spruce up the section a bit. I do object to their overuse in other sections, however, but I think in this section it is acceptable. Dr. Cash 06:50, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Marshall, Texas FAR

Marshall, Texas will be put up for FAR within the next week. If any objections, please discuss on its talk page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Okiefromokla (talk • contribs) 20:57, August 24, 2007 (UTC)

Project page update

I've updated the main project page, moving some information to linked pages, removing some old and stale information, and overall freshening things up a bit to make it easier to read. I've also added a list at the top to some of the articles currently undergoing FAC, GAC, or peer review, so perhaps some editors can take a look at them and give a little extra TLC to some of the FAC candidates as needed. I'll try to keep this list updated on at least a weekly basis, as time permits. Dr. Cash 06:48, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Chennai

Chennai has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.

Can any town be listed under "list of towns"

Or do they have to be incorporated? Brian Pearson 00:37, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Postal codes

Should USPS postal codes be called abbreviations or should they more properly be called postal codes? Most almanacs list abbreviations for the states, but they are not the two-letter codes.Wl7aml 22:05, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

USPS postal codes (zip codes) are clearly not abbreviations, and hardly encyclopedic. Many cities have LOTS of zip codes, and including them in an article isn't really necessary. Furthermore, without a more detailed geographic reference regarding what area is specifically covered by the zip code, it's almost useless information. Dr. Cash 04:20, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

FAR notice

Seattle, Washington has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. LaraLove 17:17, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Marshall, Texas FAR

Marshall, Texas has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Okiefromokla•talk 17:39, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Please add WP:FAR notices to the main Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities page, in the top area where review announces are. Thanks! Dr. Cash 18:46, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Ashdod - peer review

A request for Peer Review of Ashdod, Israel, has been listed. We will appreciate any comments that will help us improve the article. -- Derwig 18:28, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Please add WP:PR notices to the main Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities page, in the top area where review announcements are. Thanks! Dr. Cash 20:40, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

zip codes & area codes in city infoboxes?

Since when did we establish consensus that this information was either desired or actually encyclopedic to be included in city infoboxes. I was under the understanding that it was far too much information, and totally unnecessary to be included. But apparently, CapitalR has taken it upon himself to automatically start updating infoboxes with this totally unencyclopedic crap. Dr. Cash 07:01, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

The Cities/Guideline page suggests using a Geolinks template in the "External links" section. The Geolinks templates may be superseded by recent changes in the coord template which provide a list of mapping services when the geographical coordinate is clicked on. Please participate in the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Geographical_coordinates#Geolinks-coord_Issues and consider changes to your guideline. I notice that recent versions of the Geobox template emit coord-style coordinates and locator maps. (SEWilco 16:03, 17 October 2007 (UTC))

More contributers needed

Good day every one . I spend a very long time trying to improve several cities articles , for example :Jeddah . In fact, i couldn't even reach the GA class because simply i'm working alone . is there anyone interested to join :)  A M M A R  14:55, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Recent changes on New York City article

Hi there has been a flurry of activity on images on the New York City article. I think they need a little more collaborative attention and invite other editors' opinions: Talk:New_York_City#Images_need_attention. Thanks -- SiobhanHansa 14:56, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

A Question

Hello, I was wondering if WP:CITIES was just for larger cities or for any town, anywhere. I would like to add a WP:CITIES template to the Stephens City, Virginia page, but want to make sure it fits within the rules of this WP. Thanks for any help you can give. Take Care...NeutralHomer T:C 03:32, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

The wikiproject supports any city or town (large or small). I've added the template to Stephens City, Virginia, and assessed it at B-class (article has good detail on its history section, and is taking shape, but is largely unreferenced), with low-importance (based on population). Dr. Cash (talk) 07:39, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
I completely forgot I posted this here. Many thanks though. I need to get the "Further Reading" section into the references. I have had too much on my plate. I will work on that sometime this morning (pushing 3am here) or tomorrow. Please let me know (here or on my talk page) on how to improve on the article as well. I would like to get the article up to featured status (well, I hope I can). Take Care...NeutralHomer T:C 07:45, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

New project: U.S. streets

Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Streets --NE2 02:46, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Redirection of census-designated places

User:Polaron is proposing the redirection of CDP articles throughout Vermont to the towns in which they are located. If this is accepted, this would lay precedent for similar action to all other CDP articles to the governmental bodies in which they are located, whether towns, townships, or counties. Please offer your comments on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Vermont. Nyttend 20:15, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Not correct. Only those towns that have a single CDP with the exact same name as the town. I don't see how this would be a precedent except for the exact same situations in other New England towns. --Polaron | Talk 20:16, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification. However, what's the difference? If any CDP deserves to be redirected, all others do as well. Nyttend 20:47, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Because while towns in New England are incorporated places, they are not classified as such by the U.S. Census Bureau. CDPs for the larger towns are created so that they will appear in various tabulations for places. Otherwise, no such "place" would exist. --Polaron | Talk 20:55, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Omit Barcelona, Spain from project

Barcelona, Spain should be omitted from this project until the issues of the current article's serious imbalance and poorly-written English are addressed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.33.35.125 (talk) 16:40, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

That's not a reason to remove an article from a wikiproject. On the contrary, it's probably an indication that more users should be paying attention to it. Dr. Cash (talk) 07:15, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Project name

I've just noticed a number of pages I'm watching have been added to this "Cities" project, eg, Kintbury and Greenham. They are all small villages in the England and can by no stretch of the imagination ever be classified as cities. It is most confusing to the reader having a cities tag stuck on a page for these articles. Should this project not have a more appropriate name? How about Wikipedia Project:Places or Wikipedia Project: Cities, Towns and Villages? If not I think it is more appropriate to remove the tag altogether to avoid confusion. Dahliarose (talk) 08:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Your front page...

...looks awfully funny. I'm using Explorer and the participants text is overwriting what is below it. I didn't want to remove or revert anything, but you might want to take a look. Katr67 17:11, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Same for me. It's almost unreadable. I would prefer that this got fixed by someone who understands the scroll-box thingy, but I'm going to revert to the old list if this isn't fixed soon. Perhaps the list should be on a sub-page?--Hjal (talk) 05:51, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
  • 24-Dec-2007: (5 days later) I have fixed the Participant table, half-converted into table form by another volunteer on 07-Oct-2007 (see below: Adjusting participant table). There were several, multiple formatting problems. I agree with you that keeping the Participant table as a subpage would be better, because I think future formatting bugs could be just as confusing, to garble the front-page again. -Wikid77 (talk) 02:13, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

List of cities and towns in Tennessee is up for Featured List consideration. Please add any comments to its FLC discussion page. This may be a good template for other states to adopt for their lists of cities as well. Kaldari 18:44, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Presentation of economic statistics

The original distribution of census statistics was done well for the time several years ago and well before my time. Lumped together, they are terrifically boring. I have taken to breaking off the statistics on personal income and placing it in a separate section under "Economy." The section also includes statistics on business, etc. Where is it written that statistics must be presented in the same old dull, unreadable way? Student7 (talk) 23:06, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities/Guideline calls for just that, when the demographics section itself is improved.--Hjal (talk) 05:09, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Importance of an article

I have seen that all capitals of countries are de facto considered "Top"-importance articles just because of being capitals, and however many cities which can be much more populated, more economicalty important or, in particular, more likely to appear and be searched in an Encyclopedia, are rated with a lower degree of importance. As an example, I can not sincerely understand that the stub Moroni, Comoros is a more important article than Barcelona, Los Angeles, California, Sao Paulo or San Francisco, California.--Xtv - (my talk) - (que dius que què?) 16:02, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Could somebody please answer if there is really a criterium to classify what Top or High importance means?--Xtv - (my talk) - (que dius que què?) 17:56, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Article assessment guidelines, for both class & importance, are outlined here. Dr. Cash (talk) 19:48, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Altrincham

Hello WikiProject Cities team, Just a note that Altrincham (of England) is a current featured article candidate. The nomination/discussion page is found here. -- Jza84 · (talk) 20:40, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Adjusting participant table

24-Dec-2007: The participant list was half-converted into a table, beginning on October 7, 2007; however, the precise formatting of the wikitable (transcluding another wikitable) was not completed until now (24Dec07), so the table was too narrow and overran the ending paragraphs. The "div style" was changed from "height:400px" to "width:520px" for a wider notes column. Beyond the efforts at Wikipedia, remember that the wiki-collaboration software (MediaWiki version 1.6) is a beta-level technology, attempting to extend incompatible features of prior wiki software. It's all very confusing, not the work of experienced computer scientists, but rather a series of hacks done by hacks to meet the approval of hacks, and who knew sane people would one day use wiki projects? Wikipedia could migrate to some type of professional wiki software, but currently MediaWiki (version 1.8.2?) is being enhanced and might become more usable some day. Honestly, the wiki-edit mode doesn't even allow search-and-replace, which is a trivial edit feature fully implemented over 30 years ago, so everyone is frustrated and trying to get formatting and wikitables to work. Thanks for your understanding. If an "elephant is a horse designed by committee" then MediaWiki software is a crippled two-legged elephant with a hernia, to keep the focus to the highest possible praise for MediaWiki software. -Wikid77 (talk) 02:02, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

"Born in" should be cited . . .

Although I'm not fond of "Prominent Native" sections for city pages, at the very least each notation should bear a source. I went through the list for Inglewood, California [[1]], adding sources for the natives where I could find them and just deleting the names that couldn't be sourced. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 01:09, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I concur. Its really prevalent in smaller cities, where there are typically laundry lists of C-list celebrities and athletes with unreferenced ties. Is it really important for those researching Binghamton, New York to know that Ota Ul\u010d may live there? \u2014Preceding unsigned comment added by Ccwaters (talk \u2022 contribs) 15:43, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree as well. I think these lists should be referenced and the significance of each person included should be discussed. Most of these lists as they currently exist are trivial. There was a proposal to delete these sections awhile back, and some talk about writing a guideline, but there was no consensus on the matter and no guidelines exists, as far as I know. I think a guideline should be discussed in an effort to make these sections less trivial and more useful. Strobilus (talk) 19:30, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
WP:UKCITIES recommends that "Notable people" should be in prose, and have citations like any other material. This seems to be working for UK articles like Stretford and Neilston. --Jza84 |  Talk  21:29, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Pronunciation

athinaios and I are having a discussion about the use of pronunciation in Brussels. We are not reaching an agreement, and I was about to take our discussion to the talkpage of Brussels, but felt that it is relevant enough for a wider Project discussion. There is a guideline - Help:Pronunciation that pronunciation on Wiki should be in IPA. However, I can see the usefulness of having the local pronunciation for articles on cities. asthinaios and I are not in disagreement on that issue, however asthinaios feels that there should be a pronunciation for each official language in Belgium because Brussels is the capital city. My view is that German is not the official language of Brussels and would not be heard in Brussels any more than in any other non-German European city. There is an argument that we are not WikiTravel and all pronunciation should be in IPA, however the German article is a FA and has both German and IPA pronunciation. I feel where it makes sense it's fine, though where it doesn't we wouldn't be pushing too hard against Wiki convention. Is there something we could write up to put in the guideline on the use of names in different languages and pronunciation in city articles? Something like: Names of the city should be given in each of the city's official languages. Pronunciation of the city name should be in IPA as per Help:Pronunciation, though can also be in the main local language(s) if thought helpful. SilkTork *What's YOUR point? 19:46, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I would like to stress that this thread appears to be a misunderstanding. Brüssel is not a variant local pronunciation of Brussels, but its actual name in German, one of the three official languages of Belgium, of which Brussels is still the capital. All three official Belgian names of the city have been in the article since January, 2003. Whether we remove the pronunciations is one issue, but this really seems to be about removing the name as a whole. If anywhere, this thread should be on the Brussels talkpage, in my opinion. athinaios | Talk 19:54, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I've put a note on the Brussels talkpage linking to here. SilkTork *What's YOUR point? 20:00, 9 January 2008 (UTC)


Comments

Hi I`m currently working into expand Panama City, I would ask everybody as a favor, please see Panama City, Panama page, and leave any comment or suggestion about how to improve it in the Talk page. If posible it would be nice if someone make a To Do List as a guideline. Thanks. Nando Cdl (talk) 03:51, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

250th anniversary of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

2008 marks the 250th year of the city of Pittsburgh. I was thinking that it would be really nice to get the city's wikipedia article up to Featured Article status; it's currently a B-class article, having never even been a GA or FA, or even nominated for peer review.

Anyone willing to help with this? Please leave comments over at Talk:Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Dr. Cash (talk) 16:32, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

userbox

Are there any userboxes for users who are participants in this project
anyway , if there arent here's a proposition

This user is a member of WikiProject Cities
This user is a member of WikiProject Cities




--Bindicapriqi (talk) 17:01, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Potential adjustments to the project banner

Would the members of this project object to having the project banner equipped with additional functions which would allow your banner to assess for the various extant geography (national, regional, etc.) WikiProjects and subprojects as well? I believe that this project probably has more information available on how to construct city articles than most national projects do, and combining the banners would help to reduce the banner oversaturation problem as well. John Carter (talk) 22:35, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Tel Aviv

Just to let you know that Tel Aviv, a current FAC currently has a copyedit request. If you are able, please contrinute atWikipedia:WikiProject League of Copyeditors/Requests.--Flymeoutofhere (talk) 13:08, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

The reviewers of the article want another copyedit so if anyone could help, itd be much appreciated. Flymeoutofhere (talk) 12:04, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Templates with red links/2008-Jan-Cities

Hi, I think this belongs to you. Please note that I am continuing to collect and add relevant templates to the page. Cheers! bd2412 T 05:27, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Notes, Footnotes, References

At Nyttend's suggestion I have placed remarks at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities/Guideline#Notes, Footnotes, References about following the Wikipedia:Guide_to_layout headings suggestions and Wikipedia:Citing sources#Section headings guidelines. --Bejnar (talk) 19:07, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Glenrio

Glenrio is a community in the southwestern United States (acknowledged by the USGS to be in both New Mexico and Texas), but it doesn't have a state name attached as is required for US communities. There's been a lowlevel discussion on this community for the past several weeks, and we're not entirely sure what to do with it \u2014 it's obviously not a significant and well-known community like Philadelphia, New York City, and Chicago that don't have state names attached. What's the proper state name to attach to an unincorporated community in two states? Or should Glenrio be made an exception because of its peculiar situation? Nyttend (talk) 21:29, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

How about titling it "Glenrio, Texas/New Mexico"? Does that violate any policy? -- Orlady (talk) 21:43, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it's supposed to have one state name attached; but the current format violates it as well. Therefore, we have to make an exception to some sort of policy :-)
Well, that's an interesting one. I see three possibilities:
  1. Leave it at Glenrio. While fairly well-established, the US city naming in WP:NC:CITY is not beyond WP:IAR when there is good reason to do so.
  2. Use Glenrio, New Mexico since that is the name of the post office. However, Glenrio, NM, maps to zip code 88434 -- although the USPS indicates Glenrio is an acceptable name while the actual name is San Jon, NM. The zip code on the Texas side appears to be 790XX, although I'm not sure what the XX means.
  3. Use Glenrio, Texas, it looks like most of whatever is left of the place is on the Texas side of the border.
At the moment, I think I'm inclined to the first option. older \u2260 wiser 01:57, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
I really don't like the idea of not having a state name, but all other options discussed seem worse. Perhaps Glenrio, United States? It's not well known enough to stand by its own in the way that the other three cities do. Hopefully we'll get more of you WP:CITY members to comment on this Nyttend (talk) 02:06, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Urrgh, Glenrio, US, would be awful. There's nothing binding about WP:NC:CITY on unincorporated communities in any case, it is simply convention, and in some cases there is value to being unconventional. older \u2260 wiser 02:17, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
I also disagree with the 'Glenrio, US' idea. What about Glenrio (New Mexico, Texas)? Dr. Cash (talk) 02:39, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
I suppose you do have a good point, since no other communities nationwide (AFAIK) do that. Communities also use the "COMMUNITYNAME, STATENAME" format, so the parentheses wouldn't be as good as a standard format name. If we use both names, we'd do better to use a comma like with municipalities. Nyttend (talk) 04:09, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Apparently I'm not the first one to think of "PLACENAME, United States": Wikipedia:Naming conventions (settlements) notes 'A United States city's article should never be titled simply "city, country" (e.g "Detroit, United States").' Nyttend (talk) 04:14, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
And by the way, with the ZIP code: ZIP codes come in a three-layer format \u2014 the first number being a region of the country, the second and third being a subregion, and the fourth and fifth being specific post offices within the subregion. Therefore, if there's a ZIP 79001, it's post office #1 in subregion #90 of region #7. Nyttend (talk) 04:16, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
I understand somewhat about what ZIP codes mean. I just wasn't sure what the Census Bureau meant by listing the ZCTA as 790XX. From the Census Bureau mapping there isn't any more specific code available than that for the area including Glenrio. older \u2260 wiser 13:33, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
When the Census Bureau lumps several areas together into a single statistical unit, it usually means there aren't enough people in the smaller area to report statistics on them without violating the confidentiality of the census forms. --Orlady (talk) 15:48, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
As awkward as Dr. Cash's idea sounds (Glenrio, New Mexico, Texas), I think I like it. It is unique. A google hit with either state will bring it up. Still have some template problems about where to include it. I assume both states (or maybe that's already been resolved). Student7 (talk) 15:58, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
What about Glenrio, New Mexico and Texas? We don't use parentheses for unincorporated communities, and if we list as Glenrio, New Mexico, Texas, it makes it look like it's a neighborhood of a Texas community named New Mexico. This way, we could get both names in without any confusion. And don't worry about the template problems; if we're having a single article under a single title for both states, it should be listed on both templates. Nyttend (talk) 16:08, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
The Prinsengracht in Amsterdam by night

I have nominated a picture of the Prinsengracht in city center of Amsterdam as a featured picture candidate. If you agree that this picture is among the best pictures on Wikipedia, please support the nomination on Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates#Prinsengracht by night. Thank you for your help. \u2013 Ilse@ 11:40, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

UK vs US standards for outline

I assume that when neither country is involved, whoever gets there first uses their countries standards? I'm editing a city in the old USSR. It currently has UK-like features and nomenclature. I don't think there's been any spelling mishaps (!) but the real problem is structure and nomenclature which seems very very British. "Motorways," "Civil society," "Sport" (instead of Athletics), etc. Since they were there first, this prevails, right? One problem here is that cities within a country will not have the same structure at all since the structural differences (which I just messed up!) are substantial. I imagine this has been discussed before. Student7 (talk) 14:16, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Try changing it to the English style you prefer. If nobody complains, then you're good. Only if there is a dispute do we fall back to that "policy" of defering to the original style. Yes, this policy would sometimes result in variations within a non-English speaking country, but in the end that is better than some non-productive dispute about whether to use US- or UK- English. --Polaron | Talk 14:24, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
US vs. UK English is really just a matter of semantics, and officially, the manual of style has no preference here. Articles on more US-based topics should use the US-based English, and UK-based topics should use the UK English. Editors are discouraged from making major changes strictly favoring one usage over the other. Dr. Cash (talk) 16:10, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Public domain text style again

The walling off of public domain text as quotations is again being discussed at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Return of PD text style. Forcing public domain text to be wrapped inside quotations would affect many city/town articles. -- SEWilco (talk) 15:56, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Huh? You're going around to how many wikiprojects, to try to raise an alarm not well-related to the discussion you raised about Bathhouse Row. By the way, Bathhouse Row is a very nice set of historic buildings in Hot Springs, Arkansas, that is a National Historic Landmark of the united states. doncram (talk) 17:48, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Two wikiprojects, as I mentioned in that discussion, due to city/town articles having sections (or being since creation wholly composed) from Census and other government descriptions, and many ship descriptions coming from public domain sources. They're quite susceptible to a requirement of locking PD text inside quotation marks. -- SEWilco (talk) 18:34, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Could you point to a specific city/town article, or two, which includes public domain text, and which has (or for which you could provide) a link to the specific public domain source of that text? That would help focus the discussion here. If you're talking about very generic short descriptions of places edited by anonymous Census department staff, then I think the correct treatment would be different than for long quotations written by Harrison, that are copied into the Bathhouse Row article. For other readers, Bathhouse Row is a set of buildings that a woman named Harrison nominated for U.S. National Historic Landmark designation. I think it would be more productive if we could talk about the issues you see with the use of public domain text in City/Town articles here, and talk about the Bathhouse Row article in the discussion section you opened about it over there. Sincerely, doncram (talk) 18:55, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
The first two towns I clicked on are Bartlett, Illinois and Ephrata, Pennsylvania. I suspect the Geography and Demographics sections are from Rambot; you'll have to ask him what his sources were and what other parts of articles were created from PD text. You might want to ask others before asking him to rerun the bot to wrap things in quotation marks. -- SEWilco (talk) 19:09, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Neither of those articles mention use of a public domain source for text in the article. Can you provide a link to the specific PD text that you think was copied into either of these articles? And if you are telling me that there is PD material copied into these articles, which is not attributed, then i would indeed have the opinion that the articles would be improved by at least mentioning the source. Don't you agree? Or, do you think there are other issues with these articles? Also, it would help the discussion if you would clarify whether you have an issue with these articles' use of PD text, or if you project that someone else does, or what. I think it would help if you would own up to your own complaints, if you have them. Sincerely, doncram (talk) 20:11, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Redundant entries for city's website and coordinates

As this project would be involved, I wanted to place a notice here that a question was posted at WP:External links about the listing of a city's official website in multiple places in an article, as well as multiple listings of the coordinates. --- Barek (talk \u2022 contribs) - 00:21, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I've replied to the EL question over there. As far as the coords, it helps to have them in multiple places: at the top so we can easily find them when accessing the article; in the infobox because it's a summary; in the geography section because they're geography; and in the ELs because they're external links. This already came up some time ago in discussion about {{Geolinks-US-cityscale}}. Nyttend (talk) 13:57, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't really have a problem with having this information in multiple places in the article, as a little bit of redundancy is good. But I'm not crazy with what the template puts in the external links section (e.g. "City is at coordinates lat/long"). This looks rather boring and trivial, and doesn't really stick to the 'external links' thing very well. The template used to actually have more details about what site (google maps) that was being linked to here, which was better. But this new template design really sucks, IMHO. Other than that, I have no problem with the other redundancies. Dr. Cash (talk) 15:46, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Frankly, it's not my favorite either, but they've done so much battling about it that bringing it up again would likely be pointless. Nyttend (talk) 23:21, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

City v. Town

I know this is a perennial debate, but, other than using the undefined and apparently random decision of the US Census to call a place a town or a city, is there any standard wikipedia policy on this matter? From reading in the archives, it looks like a lot of, at least, the articles about cities and towns were created by 'bot, which just went mindlessly (as robots do) with whatever the census said. Pilch62 (talk) 03:33, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Sweet. Yet another case where the Census Bureau classification does not accord with local statutes. For those interested, this concerns Pocomoke City, Maryland. This looks to be similar to the situation with California, where municipalities can style themselves as either cities or towns, but that styling is without any express distinction under state laws. See Article 23A Section 10 of the Maryland Code [2] older \u2260 wiser 12:14, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't believe there is a policy or even an established guideline on this. However, in the absence of any other information, articles for U.S. incorporated places do generally use what the Census Bureau uses. That said, if there is information from state law or from the city/town/village charter, I think that should override the Census designation if they differ. If state law does not make a distinction as it appears to be in this case, I say go with what the place calls itself. --Polaron | Talk 12:37, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
This official state list of municipalities refers to it as a city, aside from the Census listing it so. Nyttend (talk) 12:56, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Pocomoke City's formal NAME is Pocomoke City. Similarly, there is an abandoned town in Accomack County, Virginia that is officially called "Franklin CIty". That doesn't make it a city, either--it's still a few run-down buildings at the end of a landing. Googling "Pocomoke City" and town results in multiple references among state court records and state and local newspapers to the place as a "town". Pilch62 (talk) 13:12, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
PS: THe Maryland Manual also refers to Ocean City, MD, which is defined by the Census as a "town", as a "city". If we're going to use the Maryland Manual as a source, then we'll have to change Ocean City, too. The point is that the Maryland Manuel refers to each municipality by what it calls itself, which is not necessarily what it is. Frankly, I think the simplest solution would be to call all incorporated entities in Md. (that aren't counties) "municipalities", since that's what, under state law, they are. Pilch62 (talk) 13:23, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Obviously we can't search for "Pocomoke City" and city, since that's the same as searching for "Pocomoke City" by itself. Googling local references, on the other hand, isn't necessarily what we want: in a couple of minutes, I found lots of references (here are three [3] [4] [5]) that speak of Dexter City (population 166, surely a village) as a town, even though there aren't any towns in Ohio. The way locals and even simple officials speak of places isn't the way to do it. See Gallipolis, Ohio, pop. 4180, for a further example: the municipal website calls it a city, and the Census Bureau calls it a city, but the state law is obvious that it's a village. Yes, there is precedent for overturning the Census statistics when they're plainly wrong, such as with Gallipolis, but since Maryland doesn't make a distinction of this sort, I don't see how we can have a source more authoritative than the Census Bureau. What is your official source, by the way, for wanting to call it a town? Nyttend (talk) 13:38, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
How is Ohio relevant to Maryland? And your implication that wikipedia MUST use the Census is entirely wrong--please show where on wikipedia it requires a municipality must be described by what the Census calls it? As for a source, please search "pocomoke city" and "town" in the Maryland Archives--you will find many references to the "Town of Pocomoke City". What I find most perplexing is your insistence that we MUST call this municipality a city, based solely on the Census, without ANY wikipedia policy or rule to back you up, and incontravention of both state and local use. Pilch62 (talk) 16:13, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I'd appreciate it if you'd stop SHOUTING here. My point about Dexter City is that (1) the Census Bureau doesn't always call a municipality something because it's in the name, and (2) that people often call it something other than what it really is: if people can call Dexter City a town when it's a village, surely people could call Pocomoke City a town when it's a city \u2014 but that doesn't change what it really is. As far as Gallipolis: in this case, as in the case of cities such as Agawam and Amesbury in Massachusetts, the Census Bureau made an error, and this has been corrected \u2014 with an official reference that demonstrates the Bureau's error. I'm not saying that Ohio (or Massachusetts) has the same local government structure as does Maryland: it's simply that people don't always call a municipality what it is, and that therefore we must depend on official sources. The guidelines (see below) say that Census data should be the basis for demographic data, and the data are measured for the city of Pocomoke City, not the town of Pocomoke City. If we grant that PC is a town, either (1) we have an internal inconsistency, with the article referring to PC as a town and the demographics as a city, or (2) we're violating what we're supposed to do, since the data are for a city. Therefore, the only way to follow the guidelines properly is to list it as a city unless we have overwhelming reasons to do otherwise. Nyttend (talk) 23:20, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I would have appreciated if you had chosen to discuss the issue instead of simply reverting--it's obvious that you are the only person here who has this implicit belief that cities and towns should be defined by what the Census says, and it would nice if you'd acknowledge that. And you show no guidelines in this post, nor have you yet to show any citation (other than your own belief) that there must be some "error" on the part of the Census before a designation other than theirs is used. In any case, "demographic data" has nothing to do with what wikipedia decides to call cities or towns--demographic data is just that, data about the demography of an place, and has nothing to do with nomenclature regarding that place. Again, please provide citations for your points regarding wikipedia policy: you have yet to do so, and it's becoming more difficult to believe that you're arguing in good faith without them. Pilch62 (talk) 23:42, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
You also fail to provide any rationale for the distinction the Census mkes between a city or a town, while presuming that that distinction is somehow significant to the data the Census presents. If the Census doesn't define the difference between a town and a city (which it doesn't), please explain why the Census choice between calling a place a city or a town is in any way definitive for wikipedia (or anyone, for that matter). Pilch62 (talk) 23:51, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
How can I provide a rationale? I'm not the Census Bureau. Moreover, the demographics section includes bits such as "residing in the city" and "household in the city" \u2014 that's what I mean. Furthermore, I have never seen an official and reliable source that refers to the place as a town, while I have this reliable source, the Census Bureau, that says it's a city. Just because the judge that you note is a reliable source on some things doesn't mean that s/he is on this. Is Bill Clinton a reliable source on the intricacies of heart surgery, or is George Bush a reliable source on Tibetan languages? Neither your judge nor my farm near Dexter City is a reliable source on what kind of municipality PM is. On the other hand, the entire point of the Census Bureau is to provide a reliable source for the population and society of our nation; unless you're calling its reliability into question, I don't see why you continue to prefer else (which specific source you've never cited) to the Census Bureau.
Please note that the Census Bureau performs a Census of Governments every five years; the most recent one that's online seems to have been 2002. Obviously, errors can be and are made (Gallipolis was still listed as a city in 2002), but the Census Bureau surveys (or attempts to, if the local government doesn't fill out its survey) every local government nationwide, and I would guess that it asks the locals to tell them what kind of municipality they are. If the Census is dependable enough for the organisation of our Congress to depend on it, and if Wikipedia finds it dependable enough that the Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities/Guideline says that demographic numbers in all US municipality articles are supposed to be solely from US Census data, I don't see why we should attempt to override the Census in this way without a specific, proven example of how the Census Bureau made an error. I have no absolute policy statement that we have to use the Census in this way, but from "good and necessary consequence" I believe that it logically follows that we should follow the Census in this way too. Nyttend (talk) 04:30, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
So you've refused to look at the Maryland Archives via the link I provided directly above?? Or are you saying that Maryland legislative and court records are not official and reliable?? You're certainly lying when you say I've never provided a source--it's directly above. Again, I have to question your good faith in continuing to make this argument if you don't even bother to look at the official sources I've provided. There is NOTHING reliable about the Census designation of town vs. county--ít's merely what some nameless bureaucrat at the Census decided to label it, and the fact that neither you nor the census provides a rationale for the distinction makes your reliance on it laughable. I DO think that the Maryland Assembly and the Maryland judiciary do know just a bit more about the appropriate designation for municipalities in their own state than ANYONE at the Census. And in any case you have ALSO failed (yet again) to provide ANY source for your continued assertion that wikipedia requires the use of the Census designation. That pretty much ends this discussion. Pilch62 (talk) 16:14, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
By the way, please note that the Census Bureau performs a Census of Governments every five years. In 2000, the most recent Census of Governments was 1997. Obviously, errors can be and are made (Gallipolis was still listed as a city in 2002), but the Census Bureau surveys (or attempts to, if the local government doesn't fill out its survey) every local government nationwide. If it's dependable enough for the organisation of our Congress to depend on it, and if Wikipedia finds it dependable enough that the demographic numbers in all US municipality articles are supposed to be solely from US Census data, I don't see why we should attempt to override the Census in this way without a specific, proven example of how the Census Bureau made an error. Nyttend (talk) 14:05, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Discussions like this often hinge on whether (and where) to use the technical rather than the practical or vernacular meaning of certain terms. Some users apply the terms "town" and "city" quite strictly according to statistical classifications while others use the words more as descriptions to convey a sense of the nature of the settlement. Each has merit, and many sources do both. For instance, the Maryland Municipal League (an association of cities and towns controlled and maintained by city and town governments) uses the name "Pocomoke City" while also repeatedly calling it a town: The town was incorporated..., the town offers stores and services along Route 13..., the town is the business center for the surrounding area..., etc.[6] Determining which of these approaches is the clearest, most accurate and most suitable for Wikipedia I guess is the question.
BTW, semi-related posts regarding towns and cities appear in discussions at the U.S. Counties WikiProject. Huwmanbeing ☀★ 16:41, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely. What I find of concern is robotically referring to the US Census to distinguish between the two, when the Census itself doesn't have a definition (technical or otherwise) for either term. Also, it doesn't do wikipedia any good in terms of its reputation for reliability if articles on general subjects use terms in a contrary fashion to the way those terms are used in the "real world". Rather than trying to jam the round peg into the square hole, a more subtle, case-by-case approach seems to be called for. Pilch62 (talk) 16:58, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
The U.S. Census does have standards it follows when determining how to classify a populated place, as described in FIPS 55.3; they aren't assigned arbitrarily. Nyttend is correct to assert the importance of census data, since it's a significant part of a great many articles and is a widely-used and reputable source.
It's true that technical Census terminology in WP has sometimes been simplified or its categories combined for the sake of accessibility; however, barring a strong rationale for doing so (or clear evidence of error), it's reasonable to follow the Census. Also, I do tend to agree that, when in doubt, articles should give preference to the "real world" nature of the place, largely because doing so conveys a more accurate description of the subject. In this case, though, the stuff I've seen isn't consistent in terms of "city" versus "town", and both terms appear. The archives link you posted seems to be a portal, and searches on "Pocomoke" return a great number of results. Which documents in particular are you looking at? Huwmanbeing ☀★ 17:28, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't see on that page of the Census site where any definition or description of a distinction between town and city is made--I searched. If you can point to a numbered paragraph where that exists, I'd appreciate it. And I am not at all suggesting that Census terminology shouldn't be used--I have no problem at all with CDPs, for example (which some people appear to). But one can point to objective criteria that the Census uses to define them--I have yet to see or be shown any objective (or subjective! ;) Census criteria for calling a place a town or a city, and don't believe there are any. Are far as the Maryland Archives, a search of the two search items "Pocomoke City" (in quotes) and "town" will reveal many instances of Maryland legislation referring to "Town of Pocomoke City". Pilch62 (talk) 18:22, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
There is only one instance of "Town of Pocomoke City" (dated 1929) but there is also one instance of "City of Pocomoke City" (dated 1953), so that doesn't help. What does the charter of Pocomoke City call itself? Also, regarding the Census municipality classifications, as Nyttend mentioned above, the Census Bureau does a survey of municipal governments, basically asking them what they are. The Census generally uses the classification that is listed by whoever in the municipal office is responsible for filling out the census forms. --Polaron | Talk 18:48, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Um, I just searched *only* for "town of pocomoke city" and came up with 66 instances, into the 1960s--I didn't scroll through the list further. That doesn't even include references to, e.g., "said town" referring back to a reference to "Pocomoke City", which my other search revealed. Here's the link--sorry I didn't provide this earlier, but I didn't think anyone would have trouble duplicating my results. I also did the same search, using "city of pocomoke city", which brings up 6 results. And I'm really not sure that using what one clerk in any city or town government had to say on one particular day about what the city or town is legally called (or even what it's called locally) is probative at all--I've talked to lots of those clerks, and they're not any more trained to make that kind of distinction than US Census officials. Likewise, the kind of civic boosterism on the part of a town clerk is likely to result in lots of places with "City" in their name being called a city, whether that's accurate or not. Again, it seems to me WP should be hewing either to some kind of objective criteria (as for CDPs, or incorporated entities), or at least some kind of legal status, rather than what some guy at the Census happened to say (or hear) on a particular day. If the Census HAD objective criteria for a city/town distinction, which they're certainly capable of creating, since they've done it for so many other things, I'd shut up. But they haven't . .. . Pilch62 (talk) 19:09, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
You misunderstand what the Census does. It simply uses the term that the municipal government tells them. In that sense, it's not really the Census Bureau doing the classification. Now regarding the search results of "town of" versus "city of", the latest "town" result is for 1963 (one instance) with several instances of 1953. The earliest instance of "city" is 1943 with some results for 1990. Could it be that Pocomoke City changed what it calls itself sometime between 1943 and 1963? Again, what does the charter of Pocomoke City call itself? Could you contact several officials of Pocomoke City to ask what their legal municipality type is? You could just use "municipality" and get away from this problem as state law makes no distinction anyway. --Polaron | Talk 19:24, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Not at all--I understand that that's exactly what the Census does. But I wouldn't trust a town clerk to provide me with accurate legal information about what kind of entity a municipality is any more than it seems to me a Census official should trust one (and I know some town attorneys I wouldn't trust to know the correct answer, either  ;). As for the reference to "City of Pocomoke City" in 1990, it is not in the legislation itself, but rather in the headnote provided by the publisher. And in Maryland, as you point out, it doesn't matter whether a municipality calls itself a town or a city--they are all, by definition, municipalites--so there could be no "legal" change from town to city. As I said elsewhere in this voluminous debate ;), I would have no objection to changing all the references to Md. cities & towns to municipalities, but that's not how WP has been arranged (at least at this point). But, if I were going to sue Pocomoke City, and had to choose accurately whether to sue "Town of Pocomoke City" or "City of Pocomoke City", I'd go with "Town", and wouldn't feel it necessary to alert my malpractice insurer, either.  ;) Another example: one can do the same two searches in the Maryland Archives regarding Ocean City, MD, whose legal name most certainly is "Town of Ocean City, Maryland" (I know this from personal experience), and one comes up with over 100 refs to "Town of" and a dozen to "City of". Of course, Ocean City has been involved in more litigation and legislation than Pocomoke . . . Pilch62 (talk) 19:55, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[unindent] It's obvious that I am not the only person here who has this implicit belief that cities and towns should be defined by what the Census says. If we doubt the Census Bureau (on which vast numbers of aspects of American society, including the government, rest!) on the type of municipality, why should we trust them on population? I'd trust the municipal official, a professional, to be more accurate than average people, but the guidelines (linked twice above) say that we should trust the demographics that consist simply of responses by individuals, households, and families. Obviously, the state data are inconsistent: of course state law is a reliable source, generally more reliable than the Census, but if we can't determine from the state law, why shouldn't the PC article trust the source that over 99% of municipality articles trust without question? Nyttend (talk) 20:45, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

No one doubts the demographic data per se, which is what the main job of the Census Bureau is. However, the place type itself is something else altogether. One can trust demographic information without having to trust legal municipal classifications. The Census does get its place types mixed up sometimes. --Polaron | Talk 20:54, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Thank you, Polaron. And to answer Nyttend's questions: we know what MD state law says, therefore it is unnecessary to rely on unreliable info from the Census. And the municpality articles trust without question because they were created with a robot. Robots don't ASK questions. End of debate. Pilch62 (talk) 23:19, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
But what is the type of place? We don't know from state law what type of municipality it is: it's not like Vermont, where the state constitution lists every municipality. Since the state law doesn't say that the Census is wrong, why do we have to reject the conclusions of the Census? Nyttend (talk) 16:48, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Look, this is getting ridiculous--if you can't accept facts, and refuse to document your own points, you oughtn't be an editor on wikipedia. I've proven mine, and I'm not going to continue this pointless discussion to humor your inability to accept facts. Good day. Pilch62 (talk) 17:07, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
is it me, or is this debate turning in a circle? the Census doesn't have the final word on the categorization of state place-names. that's the province of the state. the "type of municipality it is" is a moot point; according to maryland law, it is a municipality. that's what it is! - Metanoid (talk, email) 16:59, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
It's not you--someone here is arguing for the sake of argument, because he apparently can't admit to being incorrect, which I find annoying after a while. Pilch62 (talk) 17:07, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Just one comment from an innocent bystander here  :) Since the census is important to the article, I would think that we would try to follow the census. The only time this has almost failed for me (okay Vermont, different rules) I started to follow "local convention." Mercifully, someone stopped me at the critical moment. In retrospect, it would have messed things up royally for all our successors to that article and allied articles, had we tried to follow some seat of the pants "local convention." In lieu of adequate census direction, my thought, probably naive, is to follow state statutes. I realize that may not answer the question for some local case which may have to worked out separately. A "waiver," as it were. ) But sticking with the census will stand us in good stead for the editors who follow our trail. They can't get lost that way and could if we use ambiguous appellations. 20:48, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
well, IMO, that doesn't help much. the debate is partly over what counts as "adequate census direction", and if there actually is such a thing. it's the Census that's ambiguous here. and (if you've followed the sources, both here and at the article under contention), you'll see that maryland law, where incorporated locales are concerned, allows only for "municipalities". several other states do likewise. - Metanoid (talk, email) 21:52, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
The Census Bureau has this "requirement" that a municipality be classified as either a city, town, village, or borough, even if the state doesn't. For the article, we don't have to be exclusionary. For example, we can say: "Pocomoke City is a municipality in the U.S. state of Maryland. The U.S. Census Bureau classifies it as a city." --Polaron | Talk 22:08, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Remember, please, that this whole thing started with a question: is it a city or a town? No source has ever been provided for its status being a town. As far as Metanoid's statement is concerned, also note §9 of the same part of the Maryland Code as Bkonrad noted above: it recognizes the existence of "cities, towns, and villages". As far as Polaron's most recent statement, please remember that consistency requires that a similar entry be given for every municipality in the state: if we have to say this for Pocomoke City, we have to say, "Annapolis is a municipality in the U.S. state of Maryland. The U.S. Census Bureau classifies it as a city." And as far as Pilch's last statement: I've documented my points over and over again, and (unlike his points, which I acknowledge and find to be insufficient) have found that that documentation has been ignored. If my questions are left unanswered \u2014 notably, my question for sources for it being a town \u2014, I will press to have them answered. Nyttend (talk) 06:41, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Wow, just an out and out lie--several sources were provided. Nyttend, if you revert the Worcester County pages again, I will report you for intentional vandalism. Pilch62 (talk) 04:23, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
I really don't think that these make sense, since several sources of equal standing were provided that call it a city, and since you don't think that they count as good sources, yours must not either. I've added all the relevant sources (including the Maryland Municipal that is the least authoritative in my mind) to the article. Nyttend (talk) 13:16, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
The Maryland Legislature calls it a town--the fact that you have lied repeatedly saying that no sources were provided to you pretty much makes anything you say irrelevant at this point, since it's obvious you're not acting in good faith. Pilch62 (talk) 00:34, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Straw Poll on Kosovar City name

I'd like to draw everyone attention to vote here, It is about how the name of the kosovar capital should be like , with s,sh or \u0161 --Cradel 16:01, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Although I'd like to remind everyone that an RfC is most definitely not a vote, comment and discussion is indeed welcome. Happy\u2011melon 20:10, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

It has been suggested that a discussion that started at here and here on the appropriateness of Chamber of Commerce and official tourism external links be continued here. My feeling is that Chamber of Commerce links are boosterish, bordering on advertising and low in encyclopedic content, but are borderline acceptable (http://www.chemungchamber.org/ was the original point of contention). However, official tourism sites (http://www.orlandoinfo.com is an especially egregious example) frequently cross the line into pure advertising with little or no redeeming value, and should be avoided. Comments, guidelines, advice? TIA, -- Mwanner | Talk 23:21, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Not all C of C sites are equal. I don't think there is any basis to categorically exclude all C of C sites. At the same time, I don't see any reason to give them an automatic pass either. The more egregiously commercial should be omitted. older \u2260 wiser 01:51, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Re:Category:Deprecated Banner WikiProject Cities articles

The articles that were in the above Category now have the new Banner WPCities. Kathleen.wright5 13:38, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Category:Templates of city populations

Hello to all. I am interested in joining this WikiProject in order to standardize the templates that shows the top 20 cities of the countries. I have already helped out by making three others (after the original on of Mexico, but they are all beginning to separate from being standardized and a "war" is beginning to be fought over them. I wanted to know if (along with me joining) these templates, and future ones, can be standardized as part of this project. Please tell me what you think, and if this could be possible. — NuclearVacuum 18:17, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Gangtok in FAR

Gangtok has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Amartyabag TALK2ME 03:03, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

What is to be included here?

Having many small municipalities included on my watchlist, I have seen an astounding number of municipalities being tagged as part of the Cities Wikiproject, including places with barely hundreds of residents. Is it the intention of this project to tag every single article for every municipality on earth as part of this project? Is there manpower to do all of the tagging and why shouldn't this be done by bot? Is there any expectation that the tens or hundreds of thousands of such articles will be updated in any meaningful manner? Alansohn (talk) 16:42, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Hong Kong FAR

Hong Kong has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Joowwww (talk) 11:49, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Cities in the USA

Hi, I noticed that cities in USA, such as Boston, have images of their position in their state. I don't know much of the position of the states in the USA. Shouldn't someone add a image of a city's position in the USA as a whole? That's more friendly to readers such as myself. Thanks Mallerd (talk) 12:58, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Since the US is so large geographically, I think that the location within the state is a better option. One can easily see where in the state the city is, and if they're interested, they can click on the state link to find out where that state is in the union. Putting a dot on the USA map wouldn't be as accurate as putting a dot on the state map. Dr. Cash (talk) 14:56, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, it is done for Russia, Australia and China. Brazil and Canada don't seem to do this however. Mallerd (talk) 19:16, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm inclined to agree that a map showing the location in a country is helpful. I rather like the pushpin maps that are on some U.S. places, such as Egelston Township, Michigan, that show both the location within the state and a smaller inset showing the location of the state within the nation. older \u2260 wiser 21:03, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that's useful. Mallerd (talk) 00:21, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Peer Review for Meridian, Mississippi

I've just requested a peer review for this article. I've never really commented on this WikiProject, but the page is in it. If anyone would be willing to participate in the review, suggestions would be helpful. I'm trying to get the article to GA or even FA status. Thanks to all! --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 17:30, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Traffic density

Question for you folks. Is there a useful standard way to measure the road traffic density in a city, for both local streets and highways? I suppose one could take the population and divide by geographical area as an estimate, but I was thinking there might be a more scientific way of measuring the actual traffic (e.g. provided by municipal surveys). Ham Pastrami (talk) 07:19, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Category:Redeveloped harbourfronts

I live in a city where our inner harbour has been remade for recreational use, in the Old Port of Montreal. This redevelopment was in part inspired I think by Baltimore's Inner Harbor. I see that the Auckland waterfront is being redeveloped. And here in Canada, the Harbourfront is a bustling concern, as is HarbourFront in Singapore, False Creek and many others. I'd like to create a category, to group them in a way which is distinct from the categories for parks and places in their respective cities. I'm sure there are many such areas and I've only scratched the surface. Any thoughts on this prospective category and my proposed name? Thanks, Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:05, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I see that the parent category for this proposed cat, Category:Ports and harbours, uses Commonwealth spelling and I will too. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:09, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

As much as I am leery about terms that begin with "Post-" many of these re-developed harbours are mixed use, with recreational land along the water but also residential and other commercial use (malls, etc.). So would Category:Post-industrial harbourfronts be a better choice than Category:Recreational harborfronts? Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:01, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm now thinking that Category:Redeveloped harbourfronts is the way to go. "Redeveloped" is broad enough to include all use, and the category page would explain that this is a cat for historic ports that have been developed for recreational, touristic, residential and other post-industrial use. cheers, Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:34, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I've created the category as Category:Redeveloped ports and harbours, based on the main parent cat: Category:Ports and harbours. Please make any comments on the category Talk page -- or help to populate. thanks, Shawn in Montreal (talk) 03:00, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

(A belated comment) The category seems a good idea. It's now been moved by User:Cyde to Category:Redeveloped ports and waterfronts which also seems a suitable name as its not the harbour that's redeveloped so much as the water frontage of it. There's a host of articles on the old London docks which can also be moved into this subcategory from the parent. I'll have a flick through them and do this over the next day or so. Euryalus (talk) 02:18, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

FritzpollBot

I wanted to inform this group about a new bot currently in development, User:FritzpollBot, that will potentially create millions of articles for places that are missing on Wikipedia. See User:Fritzpoll/Geo categorical assessments for some statistics, 28000+ in Bangladesh and 78,000+ in Pakistan. I would appreciate it if members of this group add suggestions to the bot approval page. Thanks, Ganeshk (talk) 15:04, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Bot approved: dabbing help needed

Hi there. Fritz bot has been approved at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/FritzpollBot for filling in a possible 1.8 million articles on cities and settlements across the world. Now dabbing needs to be done for links which aren't sorted as the bot will bypass any blue links. and I need as many people as possible to help me with Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/Places to prepare for the bot. If you could tackle a page or two everything counts as it will be hard to do it alone. Thankyou \u2666Blofeld of SPECTRE\u2666 $1,000,000? 12:09, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Featured Article status for San Francisco, California

Although this article is listed as a Featured Article, it no longer meets the criteria. For the most part, it looks very good. There is a lack of references throughout the article, though. If the article can be thoroughly referenced, I have no problem with it remaining as a Featured Article. I wanted to mention this to the relevant WikiProjects to see if anyone is willing to work on the sourcing for this article. Best wishes, GaryColemanFan (talk) 21:51, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

San Francisco, California has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. GaryColemanFan (talk) 15:39, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

User Request: Counties

You are specifying multiple counties in info boxes. I am doing genealogy work and need to know what county the city is traditionally/historically a part of to list in my genealogies...not all the counties that it has spread into. For instance Tullahoma, TN city website lists iteself as Coffee Co., TN but Wikipedia lists its as two different counties. Please figure out a way to specify which county is primary county and which ones are secondary. It would prevent genealogists from having to pick around multiple websites to figure it out. Thanks if possible. \u2014Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.144.27.67 (talk) 00:01, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Mexican city article naming

Please note that there are current move requests for Cancún, Mexicali, and Torreón. Please share your opinions if interested. Thank you. --Polaron | Talk 01:45, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 1869 articles assigned to this project, or 15.8%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 18 June 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 15:59, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Assistance Requested at AfC

Hi there, I'm working on the WP:AFC backlog and I came across this request: Wikipedia:Articles_for_creation/2008-06-15#Stokes.2C_Pitt_County.2C_North_Carolina. I can't tell if this is worth it's own article. Any advice/taking care of the article would be appreciated. I'm going to cross post this to Wikiproject NC also. Thanks! CredoFromStart talk 14:38, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Ahmedabad FAR

Ahmedabad has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.

Demographics section of US cities

What is the reason behind having multiple redirects to the same article, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, in the demographics sections? I was just looking at Golden Beach, Florida and there are seven links to the same census article in one sentence, which seems like overkill. Shouldn't the first line after the section header be {{seealso}} followed by the ethnic groups being unlinked or linked to the relevant article about them? CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 11:33, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

  • The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
  • The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
  • A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles. Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 21:03, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Kirkcaldy article work

hello recently i undertook a major revamp project on the Kirkcaldy article by re-building the content and my work has been praised by a couple of users. however, i want to request a copy editor to look at my use of words and sentence structuring, now all my work is doneKilnburn (talk) 00:36, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Greater Manchester

Hello folks, Just a nudge that Greater Manchester is up for FAC at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Greater Manchester. Your input and feedback would be most welcome. --Jza84 |  Talk  02:41, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Bot proposal

I have filed a request to add functionality to my bot, specifically to update the various US city and town articles per the updated, official Census figures. The folks over at BAG suggested I would need more input from the community given the potential scope (there are approximately 19,500 incorporated places in the US), so I am bringing this up for attention here, and will likely also make mention of it over at the village pump. You may want to chime in here (I will link to this discussion) if you have any thoughts on the matter. Specifically, what the proposal entails is updating the "population_total" field in the infobox to match current Census figures, and tacking the appropriate citation in the "population_footnotes" field. Thanks, Shereth 15:21, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Category:C-Class WikiProject Cities articles

The list in Category:C-Class WikiProject Cities articles is empty. All other class lists have some items. Some articles - eg, Aarhus, Aberystwyth and Abington, Massachusetts - are shown on their talk pages as "C" but they're included in Category:Unassessed-Class WikiProject Cities articles. What's the explanation? Folks at 137 (talk) 11:47, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

The {{WPCities}} template does not cater for C-class articles. If you wish to use the classification then the template needs modifying first. Keith D (talk) 12:07, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Articles to focus on for collaboration

Due to the upcoming Republican and Democratic Conventions in August, we might want to focus on improving the articles on Denver, Colorado (currently GA-class) and Saint Paul, Minnesota (currently B-class). Also, not to be too US-centric, does anyone want to take a crack at Beijing (currently B-class), with the Olympics coming up? Dr. Cash (talk) 02:20, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Managed neighborhoods

Hi. I've just come across an article Kai Nani at Makakilo - although it would seem to be a neighborhood in Hawaii, it's actually a community run by a board of directors (i.e. a business). So, do these types of community come under this project, or should they be regarded purely as businesses ? CultureDrone (talk) 13:42, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

It looks like the article in question is about a non-notable apartment complex and should probably be deleted as advertising spam. Dr. Cash (talk) 17:53, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Reliably sourced information on population reverted

Hi there. Recently some reliably sourced material I added to the Corvallis, Oregon page was reverted because "WP:CITY requires that it be only US Census Bureau data for population". Is this an accurate statement? Can I get a link to this requirement? It should be noted that I left the population as sourced by the US Census Bureau in the infobox, but simply added (in one case more up to date) info on population in the section discussing population. My problem with this reversion is that this is reliably sourced material, and no objection other than "WP:CITY forbids it" is the justification. I understand that population figures may be a hotly contested issue on some pages but I don't see how any Wikiproject can justify superseding WP:V by disallowing some reliably sourced content based on essentially personal preference. The issue here is the Census Bureau numbers are significantly different from both an academic study and the city's official website, and I think we should allow the reader to decide rather than forcing the USCB numbers on them. That seems reasonable enough, no? VegaDark (talk) 05:30, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

The guideline in question is WP:USCITY. My personal preference is that the demographic information for cities remain as consistent as possible, hence the use of Census data rather than using local estimates. This is because, in my experience, local estimates tend to be rather generous while Census estimates are more cautious, and I'd rather have the numbers slightly understated than overstated. That said, it's not a terribly important issue in my opinion, and as long as the Census numbers still appear on the page and it is made clear that the non-Census data is clearly marked as such, it doesn't bother me. Shereth 13:41, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
The problems with allowing non-Census data: (1) like Shereth said, local estimates tend to be more generous and (2) inconsistent methodology because it's a different source than that use for every other city. The only one agency that's estimated all local populations is the Census Bureau and not the City of Corvallis or Oregon State. All other cities use Census data, as does List of United States cities by population, Table of United States Metropolitan Statistical Areas, and Table of United States Core Based Statistical Areas.--Loodog (talk) 13:52, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
If reliably sourced, local estimates I would argue are more likely to be accurate. The US Census Bureau has a ton of places to estimate the population for, while local estimates obviously devote a lot more attention to their specific location in order to get the most accurate they can be. As long as it is reliably sourced, I see no reason to remove population estimates from other sources as long as the USCB numbers are also mentioned. Finally, WP:USCITY says "it is just a guideline and there are no requirements to follow it in editing", I think this is one case where this needs to be applied. VegaDark (talk) 06:21, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
That misses the point. It's completely inconsistent with the methodology used in every other American city. We're not going to us USCB data for every American city.--Loodog (talk) 13:30, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Anyway, if you want to do that, a better place for discussion would be the Corvallis talk page. The only point to discussion here would be to try to change the guideline, which is (1) unlikely and (2) not your intent (I imagine).--Loodog (talk) 14:13, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

It is perfectly acceptable to mention population estimates from any reliable published sources so long as the census estimates are also given. Kaldari (talk) 21:38, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Lincolnshire, Illinois for PR

I've put in work, and I'd like to see what you guys think. It's still missing several sections that could be inputted (specifically Infrastructure and Government) but I plan to fill those in as soon as I can. The peer review page can be found at this location. Any comments would be appreciated. --Starstriker7(Say hior see my works) 14:31, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

FPC Keizersgracht in Amsterdam

The image KeizersgrachtReguliersgrachtAmsterdam.jpg is a featured picture candidate. You can support/oppose the candidate on Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Keizersgracht in Amsterdam. Thank you. \u2013 Ilse@ 20:31, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Announcements

Is there a total number of announcements that should be present on the WikiProject home page? It seems like 20 would be a good limit, but I wanted to discuss it here first. Best, epicAdam(talk) 20:50, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I haven't been keeping a set number on the page at any given time. I've been sorta trying to keep it going back about three months, archiving older announcements. But it's been kinda fluid, and I really just eyeball it -- if the announcements gets to be a long list, I archive some,... Dr. Cash (talk) 20:13, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
What would we do without you, Dr. Cash? :-) I figured having a number or procedure in place would be a good idea, just in case you weren't around. -epicAdam(talk) 00:11, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

US city ZIP codes

I don't know a whole lot about the history of this wikiproject and whether or not this has already been debated (it doesn't seem to have been debated in the active talk page) but how come US city infoboxes don't contain a range of ZIP codes in which the city is located? I came to a city page for an American city looking for the zip code and then noticed that it doesn't exist for any city (at least not the five or six I searched for to verify). Is there any particular reason, or just an oversight? I'd think it would be pretty useful to include, if not in the infobox then somewhere in the article. Betterusername (talk) 05:35, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Just to clarify I mean including a range of zip codes, not a list of them... I realize that many American cities have way too many zip codes to list out individually. What I'm suggesting/asking about would look as simple as "26713-28223" or something (it wouldn't take up more than one line). Betterusername (talk) 05:38, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
I don't think there is anything that would prevent you from entering a range where appropriate. older \u2260 wiser 13:06, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
A range of zip codes is not always accurate for many cities, since zip codes are allocated in a different manner than simply by political boundaries. So, most major metro areas will have several zip code ranges instead of just one. Most decent-sized cities will also have way too many zip codes such that listing them all in the infobox is a bad idea. Zip codes are also rather trivial and pointless information to include in an encyclopedia article, and isn't really needed. But I can see why some editors might want to put them in, since they can be added mindlessly by someone needing something pointless, trivial, and ridiculously simple to do. It would be much better if editors actually contributed to the useful content of articles than this mind-numbing, worthless crap. Dr. Cash (talk) 15:55, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Peer Review

Hi, I was hoping someone could help me out with my peer review request for the Davenport, Iowa page. I worked really hard to get it to a GA in March, and am hoping to get it to an FA by the end of this year. Any help anyone could provide would be greatly appreciated! Thanks! Ctjf83Talk 02:28, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for WikiProject Cities

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7. We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations. A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible. We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 23:15, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Coordinates

Please see WT:GEO#Coordinates_in_US_cities_articles:_where_to_display. -- User:Docu

What does PD mean?

"Any postcard first published in the U.S. before 1978 without an explicit copyright notice is PD." What does PD mean? Questioningly, GeorgeLouis (talk) 20:35, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

It's common Wikipedia shorthand for public domain. --Wikiacc () 22:06, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I get it \u2014 to save ten keystrokes, one uses an abbreviation that normally means Police Department (but could mean Public Defender or 162 other things). See http://www.acronymfinder.com/PD.html . Hmm. In short dudgeon, your friend, GeorgeLouis (talk) 05:51, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Population threshhold

Is there any guideline as to a minimum population for a town to be within the scope of this wikiproject? BTW this talk page looks overdue for archiving? dramatic (talk) 21:18, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I guess not. The criteria for cities are "municipalities and other civil divisions, including cities, towns, villages, hamlets, townships, unincorporated communities, sections of municipalities, and neighborhoods." If you have a notable neighborhood with a small population, I suppose it could be included. Did you have anything particular in mind? GeorgeLouis (talk) 21:43, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
Not particularly - my interest was first piqued when my watchlist showed that Taupo had been added to the project - and most people in New Zealand would call Taupo a town rather than a city*. But the project page includes towns, so that aspect is not of importance.
* New Zealand has fewer legally constituted cities since local government reform in 1989, which saw many urban areas become part of a wider district. I guess I would personally put the cutoff of the town/city divide at around 30,000. The divide between village and town is much more debatable. dramatic (talk) 00:24, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Confession time. I added Taupo - it qualifies according to scope. Moreover, from what I remember, it has local significance. If you look at the US places that have been added, then Taupo qualifies more than many. It's a valid discussion point, however, does this project have no limit? It will become unmanageable. As a side issue, another ed has reverted some inclusions - see my talk page for details and his argument. My response is on his. Comments would be appreciated. Folks at 137 (talk) 23:45, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

FPC Red-light district in Amsterdam

The image RedLightDistrictAmsterdamTheNetherlands.jpg is a featured picture candidate. You can support/oppose the candidate on Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Red-light District. Thank you. --Massimo Catarinella (talk) 22:45, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Featured article drive

I am planning one, and if all goes well it should be up and running in no time. I expect at the least ten of the eighteen cities within the scope to ultimately reach FA status. If you would like to help out, come and tell me. --Starstriker7(Dime algoor see my works) 12:01, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good, I was wondering who is running WP Cities now? it fell silent for a long time last I recall. Anyway I just recently revamped Alaskan cities with the cities template since they've been getting so much attention via Sarah Palin. davumaya 19:55, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
I assumed so as well. No one is really actively pushing the WikiProject forwards now, so I figured I might as well break some ground here. BTW, thanks for getting to me, and good work with Wasilla. --Starstriker7(Dime algoor see my works) 20:31, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
I don't think anyone is officially "running" the project. I've been trying to keep the review lists updated on at least a weekly basis for the past year or so. I've also tried to organize some of the suggested topic areas into a suggested article outline/template (WP:USCITY); one previously existed for UK cities (WP:UKCITIES). I'm pretty familiar with the WP:GAN procedures, so I can help move articles through that process. WP:FAC seems to be a bit 'anal-retentive' for my tastes; most articles I nominate there get shot down over the most miniscule crap,... but if folks want to push for FA, I'd help out -- in my experience, moving towards FA is best done by a collective effort by more than one editor. Dr. Cash (talk) 14:45, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Also began a Top 25 Canadian Cities Classes page in the same vein as the Top 25 US Cities Classes SriMesh | talk 02:58, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Waterfall Gully, South Australia FAR

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

Abandoned settlements

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

Considering the sheer number of populated cities included in this project, I would say not to include abandoned settlements. If there is a wikiproject for ghost towns or archaeology, that would be the appropriate place for them. Dr. Cash (talk) 20:15, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I tend to agree, particularly since I have argued the project's scope needs to tightened or sub-divided. Perhaps this could be included on the project page. "wikiproject for ghost towns or archaeology": ghost towns are a particular sub-group of "extinct settlements", archaeology is a much broader topic. I've raised the issue elsewhere, although there are commonalities with WPCities. Folks at 137 (talk) 20:50, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

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

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

The move debate continues ...

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

I have a preference for "city, state" names, but it's not apparent to me that that form is required by Wikipedia:Naming conventions (settlements)#United States. Am I missing something? --Orlady (talk) 20:44, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
It's not explicitly required, and exceptions to certain cities are allowed, if consensus allows it, for cities based on the AP Stylebook. Although, IMHO, I think if we shouldn't selectively apply the AP Stylebook to some cities without applying it to all cities that it mentions (e.g. if the AP Stylebook says that there are like 20 cities that can be called 'city' instead of 'city, state', then let's apply it uniformly to all cities instead of just ones that we want to? Dr. Cash (talk) 20:48, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Could you tone down the "move nazi" rhetoric, it's not helping your argument any. Calling the folks who want to move articles about nazis or facists or other such names accomplishes nothing except to inflame the debate and is getting kind of tiresome. Shereth 20:59, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

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

Um, no. I believe that you are wrong here. There is no evidence of canvassing. Sorry. Dr. Cash (talk) 15:17, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Since the naming convention AND the AP style guide support Seattle per the longstanding exemption, the only other consensus that would decide this is at Talk:Seattle. Posting here seems to be canvassing, especially as your tone indicates that a move done in compliance with the naming convention is wrong. Wikiprojects have no authority over articles or naming conventions so posting here was unhelpful in the tone you did it in. rootology (C)(T) 15:21, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
It isn't canvassing to alert a WP of something relevant to the WP. Occuli (talk) 15:19, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
A neutral tone, sure. But this project has no special authority and his tone was not neutral. rootology (C)(T) 15:21, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

City name proposal

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

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

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

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

Demographic data

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

Because the Census Bureau's definition of Hispanic and Latino status says that H/L status is not a race, any newspaper article of this sort is incorrect. A newspaper repeating statistics not inconsistent with Census Bureau data, derived from Census Bureau data, wouldn't be incorrect (in my mind) under any situation, but anything that misrepresents (even accidentally) the Census Bureau isn't reliable in that situation. I know I've seen Census Bureau figures for H/L Whites and non-H/L Whites somewhere, but I don't know where to find them; this basic fact sheet for Denver doesn't include it. I've never been able to find my way around the Factfinder too well; I'm going to ask Omnedon, who plainly understands that website better than I do. Nyttend (talk) 16:39, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Actually, the fact sheet you refer to does include these numbers, just not in the "Race" section. In the H/L section there's a total non-H/L white percentage. I believe what the newspaper did in this case is report that as the "white" number, then the total H/L percentage (of all races) as the H/L number misidentifying this as a race, and then the other races (so the percentages add up to more than 100%). If a Wikipedia user did this it would be WP:OR, but the user has simply changed the numbers to match what the newspaper said. I'll revert this change on the grounds that we use Census Bureau data directly. It might be helpful if this were written down somewhere in a guideline or MOS entry. Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 07:38, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Article creep and metro figures

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

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

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

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

100k city templates

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

There are complainants about which cities should and which should not be included. Some propose that 100k is arbitrary. I note that some states have templates such as {{Texas county seats}} of county seats which would probably include most cities people are complaining about being missing.
Some question the placement of the template on both mayor pages or city pages. I think an article like Robert Cluck has benefitted greatly from the two templates I created for his page. I think the placement on the mayor pages is clearly useful and may have a minor impact on WP:AFD decisions for prospective articles by keeping articles from being orphans.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 15:57, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
The 100,000 barrier was the thing I had some problems with. Why? Basically because each state is different in terms of what size of population is considered "large", i.e. "notable" for cases such as this. I used my home state (Wisconsin) as an example. Wisconsin only has 3 cities (Madison, Milwaukee and Green Bay) over 100,000 people. So cities with much less than 100,000 people are considered "good-sized" and notable. Wisconsin has a slew of cities between 40 and 75,000 people that fit this description (Eau Claire, Appleton, Wausau and Fond du Lac are just a few examples). But in many states, these would qualify as small towns. I almost wonder if we should do a simple "top" criteria. An example would be the mayors of the top 10 or 20 cities in population. Btw, there are exceptions to "mayor". For example, in the ones I just mentioned, 2 use city managers and not mayors (Oklahoma City is probably the most prominent city that uses something other than mayor). I'm wondering if "chief executive" is a better term to use. Just some thoughts. I don't object to the idea of the template. It's more the criteria. We don't want it to be all encompassing but if it's too narrow, it doesn't have much use as a tool. --WoohookittyWoohoo! 16:09, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Given the clear standard for inclusion, and reliance on the sources used at the List of United States cities by population, I don't see a core problem about this. I do share Woohookitty's concerns about states such as Wisconsin — Vermont, Maine, Wyoming, and perhaps other states don't have any cities of this size at all. Nevertheless, I find these templates useful, and the idea of listing both mayors and cities on a template placed on articles about both cities and mayors is useful and non-problematic in my mind. Nyttend (talk) 16:47, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
In terms of top, I created {{Top 50 U.S. City Mayors}} recently as well. Is this what you mean or do you mean create a top 10 for each state? This is sort of the same debate that the founding fathers had which caused us to have both the United States Senate and United States House of Representatives. I am not going to create templates for both types of list. You are free to create top templates for each state. In terms of international notability, I am not so sure the 10th largest city in Wisconsin is as notable as the smallest 100 k city in many of the states I have done. However, one certainly could create a top ten for each state. It would serve a different purpose. I think the purpose of these templates is clear enough. I do not mean to insult my neighbors to the north in Wisconsin (I live in Chicago).--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 17:40, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
I had several comments about the templates including those mentioned above.
1.Why would I want to navigate around a state by large cities? Most of these are on the state template already.
2.Why do I care about navigating around a state based on the name of the mayor?
3.Since the templates are being inserted into are city articles, why am I interested in the mayor at all? More importantly, if I am looking at the Cleveland Ohio article, why do I care what the name of the mayor of Toledo is? Coming from another editor, I would have thought the templates were constructed to exaggerate the importance of mayors. (My first reaction before I checked the editors name  :) Mayors names, if anyone really cares, which I don't think they do, should go into the bios of the current mayors and the "Government of Toledo/Cleveland" articles if they exist.
4.Putting mayors in a template requires maintenance. Templates without them need almost no maintenance. Student7 (talk) 18:13, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
This is an encyclopedia and the templates convey information. Large cities have all kinds of large city templates on them (largest in the world and largest in the US) that have never been questioned. There seems to be consensus that largest X templates are useful. The template serves a dual purpose. I am not going to create templates for cities, but the Mayor pages need to have the cities on them. There are all kinds of Category:United States political leader templates that require updating and this fact is not a reason to delete them. You would be surprised how fast new political officeholders are replaced on such templates. The templates were created for the Mayors. The city names will not be removed from the templates. If the city articles do not want them in this form then we can discuss that.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 18:21, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
So you're intending these primarily for mayors? I had misunderstood before. One thing about which I'd been rather concerned was that they were duplicating the state template; but as these are primarily for mayors, I can't imagine objecting on those grounds. One suggestion, however: perhaps it would be better to embolden the mayors' names, so that it was obvious that we were concentrating on the mayors. What do you think of this example, used on the Ohio template? Nyttend (talk) 18:38, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
The bolding does make the purpose clear. Powers T 18:53, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
That format looks O.K. except that you have to put the city name underneath the mayor so that at four or five wide (see CA, TX, or FL) it won't look so cluttered on a low resolution screen setting.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 19:40, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
I have now reformatted all the templates.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 21:01, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
My main objection, Tony, is that this only clutters the city articles, without much utility for the reader. For mayoral articles, I have less objection, although inclusion criteria are still a possible point of contention. Powers T 18:53, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
For inclusion criterion, the options that I understand are 1. argue about a population threshold; 2. Use a count like top 10 for each state: 3. Do all county seats. I am against county seats because many county seats are 5 or 10,000k towns or cities that are not worth focus on an international encyclopedia. Many 200k oand 300k cities are not county seats. I think counts in many small states will lead us to less encyclopedically notable cities as well while excluding notable cities in larger states. Pushing the threshold does not make much sense to me either because the list seems to have already settled at a 100k threshold for whatever reasons.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 20:21, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Well, since this is about the mayors, one possibility is to use the inclusion criterion of the U.S. Conference of Mayors (which is 30,000 residents). According to the web site, there are 1,139 such cities, towns, and villages. I'm not saying that's the best choice, or the only alternative, but it's a possibility. Powers T 21:53, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
That is about five times as many cities as we are now including. On templates like CA, FL, or TX that would be a bit much.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 04:16, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Again, we are navigating from the article on Amarillo to the article on Brownsville by using mayors as a parameter! Why? Who would want to do that? Student7 (talk) 23:19, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
There are two different questions. Do we want these templates on mayor's pages, and do we want these templates on city's pages. I think the former is a clear yes and the atter is a possibly yes.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 04:18, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
I sort of share Student7's view here. The whole purpose of these templates is navigation. Why would someone want to go between mayor's pages? Or city pages? I do wonder if these should be separated somehow. --WoohookittyWoohoo! 05:23, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Just about every political office has templates of peers. If we look at Category:United States political leader templates, you will see numerous templates of peers. You can find U.S. state Chief Justices, U.S. State Secretaries of State, U.S. State Treasurers, Speakers of U.S. state Houses of Representatives, and U.S. State Attorneys General. All have both the office holder and his dominion. We should include both the mayor and the city on the templates. The question is whether each template should be duplicated without the Mayors for the cities.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 09:04, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
I don't see any reason for a template. As a separate list it could have value but there is little to no value as a template. On articles like the California it is just more clutter. Mikemill (talk) 03:23, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
The reason for the template is for the mayor's pages. Before the last week mayors had no templates. I think there is also navigational value for the city pages. Look at the mayors pages. The cities are ancillary, but useful in the sense that people can tell which cities are big.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 04:16, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
The templates are a good addition in my mind and the objections pretty much amount to "I don't like it", aside from the arbitrary quality of the 100,000 cut off, which is only an issue in the less populous states. --IvoShandor (talk) 10:00, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
"I don't like it" is not very good as a reason to delete an article, but when it comes to placing navigational templates, it's perfectly valid. There's also "I don't think it's useful", "I think it clutters up the page", and "I don't think we should be telling users 'here are the big cities; everything else is small'". Powers T 12:20, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
All subjective criteria as well, not a good way to decide what stays and what goes, in my opinion. The templates don't tell anyone anything about "here are the big cities". The template is specific, cities over 100,000. The template doesn't make a judgement on what's big and what's small, the reader, or template viewer would have to do that. The template does set an arbitrary cut-off for inclusion, which I would say doesn't have to be set in stone. Don't be pedantic, there is a such thing as a "big city" and a "small city".--IvoShandor (talk) 13:50, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
These took a lot of work, and I don't mean to denigrate the effort of a very heavy contributor to Wikipedia. But basically, Texas mayors (to pick on particular group) get together once a year to meet the governor and have their picture taken. That's pretty much it for most of them unless their cities abut or something. So we are relating people without much in common except that they share a common title for a year.
For the offices you mentioned, yes, maybe we would want a template pointing to past mayors for a given city to see commonality/difference about getting to office and the problems they faced there.
Maybe the current templates could go into the mayors biographies but I think that is even stretching it since they would have to be swapped in and out when they changed. But, for me, that would have more of a purpose than keeping them in the cities (geographic) articles.
Right now, most of the templates at the bottom of city articles (exception somewhere I suppose) relate to geography. I would hate to add biography pointers. Besides the drawbacks we have mentioned, this might open up template placement to include a lot of things that weren't quite related. I find that a source of concern. Student7 (talk) 13:12, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
The fact that the mayors don't conduct business together does not mean the template is not useful. Recall the list above of U.S. state Chief Justices, U.S. State Secretaries of State, U.S. State Treasurers, Speakers of U.S. state Houses of Representatives, and U.S. State Attorneys General. We need to separate debate and note a third topic that has not been discussed. The templates are actually on three types of pages. 1. Mayors (I think consensus is heading toward keep), 2. Cities (I think consensus is heading toward remove or maybe no consensus) , 3. States (No discussion yet).--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 15:26, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Like to see Mayors = biographies only. Cities are probably worthwhile for states that have too many to appear on their state template, but maybe the state template should be modified? The states I am familiar with have the same state template on state articles AND other articles as well - again probably a matter of state size.
There may be a case for contacting several state Attorneys General, for kids contacting state Secretaries of State. Chief Justices? A bit of a stretch there. Treasurers? Good grief! How did this come about? It does show "orderly government" I suppose. These templates aren't in our jurisdiction. Were they discussed? I confess to templating state government articles; state politics maybe? But not people! I'm too lazy for one thing! Hard to see the use of many of the ones you mentioned. I wonder if they were discussed before implementing. Anyway, can't do anything about them here. Student7 (talk) 00:04, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
What Wikipedia is missing is a "beta test" mechanism. We all consider outselves "beta testers." But for something like this, if you were establishing a beta test, what question(s) would you ask a tester that would confirm the utility of these templates Hopefully not "name ten mayors in Texas"!  :) (When you finish with that one, try inventing a question that would cause the casual user to need a template to reference more than one state treasurer. That would be a challenge! Student7 (talk) 00:12, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Student, I am glad to see you mention the jurisdiction point as it relates to Category:United States political leader templates. I guess it would be wrong for WP:CITY to decide standard protocol for templates in this category. I am not sure whether I should talk to WP:WPBIO or WP:PLT. If you haven't noticed, I have made about five more of these templates. I have also created a mayor page for Scott Smith (mayor) although I have not done Arizona yet. He was the only mayor on {{Top 50 U.S. City Mayors}} without a page. I guess BIO or Politics has decided to have sufficient information to tell who is who. I think the templates would be useless without the city names on them. Of course, this does not mean they should be added to the city pages. However, singling out the Mayor to have their cities removed and no other political leader templates seems arbitrary. Which group do you think we should continue this discussion with?
In terms of an occaision why these templates might be useful, I worked a lot on Byron Brown after Hillary became the choice for United States Secretary of State. He is a darkhorse candidate to replace her who I have met personally and my father worked with. Suppose you wanted to see who is likely to replace Hillary. The places to look would be {{NY cities and mayors of 100,000 population}}, {{Current New York statewide political officials}}, {{New York State Senate}}, {{NY-FedRep}}, and {{New York State Assembly}}. Odds are the replacement is coming from one of these templates.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 06:03, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Not to put too fine a point on it, but virtually no one is going to look at those templates for that purpose, because a) their titles are not obvious (and note that the Assembly template doesn't seem to exist), and b) they contain far too much "noise" (as opposed to "signal") to be useful for that purpose. I don't think the average reader of Wikipedia even knows what a template is; they'd be much more likely to look for an article containing the information that they seek. Powers T 16:10, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
I am way in over my depth in biographies and try to avoid them for that reason, but I like the idea of asking on WikiProject Politics which I just discovered today! I probably will not participate in that discussion which will be a mercy, I'm sure!  :) The collection of templates at the bottom is something to be considered. Some places already have too many which (like too many external links) people will just ignore rather than trying them however much they may deserve to be looked at. So it will get competitive after awhile. Some historic places have already reached that limit but so far no negative feedback. Take another year or so.
I would hope that Wikipedia is not the first place anyone would go to determine who will succeed someone in office. That would be a local/state analyst I would hope. I suppose one could be quoted here though that seems WP:CRYSTAL to me. I would rather stick to reporting the past. Wikipedia has enough problems with that, believe me!Student7 (talk) 23:46, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
The thing about politics is that the project has a low traffic talk page. I am more inclined to take it to BIO.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 02:03, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Harrisburg disambiguation

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

Kalimpong

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

Deletion of City portals

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

Question

Should the project banner be placed on the talkpage of every hamlet, town, city, and village article? Cheers. Trance addict - Armin van Buuren - Oceanlab 18:05, 14 December 2008 (UTC) Nevermind. Cheers. Trance addict - Armin van Buuren - Oceanlab 21:00, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Dhaka

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

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