Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geography/Archive 5
 | This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:WikiProject Geography. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
| Archive 1 | ← | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 |
Help populating Category:Former colonial capitals ?
I created Category:Former colonial capitals, but am not totally sure as to what else to put into it? There have to be plenty of other good articles that qualify, so any help populating it (and maybe putting a note at the top to help define the topic) would be great. MatthewVanitas (talk) 05:41, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Chamberlin trimetric projection
I've spent the past couple of weeks fussing with the Chamberlin trimetric projection. This projection is popular with the National Geographic Society maps. I've included a small image of a NGS map on the page, but it is up for deletion - the "fair use" argument is questioned. I'm still a little fuzzy on "fair use". In any case, I welcome some input on the page and recent edits, and request advice on the NGS map image question. Somewhat related, it seemed to me that the collection of pages concerning the NGS, rather underplayed the importance of the NGS maps. I'm not sure how to fix that. I tried to include the NGS map image on the National Geographic (magazine) page, but it was quickly removed; that one was fair, since each inclusion of a "fair use" image needs its own rationale. I'll also note that most of the pages on mapping projections seem to need a bit of development; it is hit and miss with those. Bdushaw (talk) 06:38, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
List of basic geography topics
I propose that the List of basic geography topics article be nominated for deletion at WP:AFD. The nomination would read as follows:
This lists of loosely associated topics fails WP:NOT#DIR. The reasons are three fold:
- "Basic geography topics" or "Basic topics in geography" is not a recognised subject matter by the world at large in accordance with WP:NAME. If the title of this list were to be to "List of basic topics in geography", "List of topics related to geography" or "List of geography topics", this would make no difference;
- The definition of a basic geography topics is neither defined nor cited by any reliable secondary source that supports the inclusion of this list as a seperate standalone list article;
- In reality, the subject matter of this list is the categorisation of certain topics as being geography related, which is already dealt with by the Category:Geography and its related sub-categories.
This list is basically WP:Listcruft that provides no context in the form of commentary, criticism or analysis that could provide context to the reader. It is a magnet for original research and unsourced content that is in no way encyclopedic.
Can any editor suggest a radical remedy these issues? Comments at Talk:List of basic geography topics#Deletion proposal would be most welcome. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 20:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
WP 1.0 bot announcement
This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:21, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Tall Yusuf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Mount_Yosifon
I have provided several reliable sources at the talkpage showing its real, standardized name. If anyone has reliable sources for its name, sources calling the hill something else, please ad them to the talkpage. I will hopefully soon be changing the name of the article to what the reliable sources say. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 19:22, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Conurbations/metro areas
FYI: I have put forward a proposal for a guideline on writing articles discussing individual conurbations and metro areas. I have requested feedback here if you are interested. --Mcorazao (talk) 15:12, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Renaming Cities, towns and villages categories
I have propose merging all instances of "Category:Cities, towns and villages in COUNTRYNAME" to "Category:Settlements in COUNTRYNAME". 150 categories are included in this proposal.
If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the categories' entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:59, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
Categorising human settlements
A series of discussions at CFD over the last few days have revealed a number of problems in the naming conventions of the top-level categories for inhabited human settlements.
The issues are too wide-ranging to be resolved in the format of a CFD discussion, so I have opened a centralised discussion at Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Categorising human settlements to try to find a consensus on how to proceed.
Your contributions will be welcome. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:41, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
Usability of GeoTemplate
Comments on the usability of {{GeoTemplate}} (the page listing mapping services found by clicking on coordinates in articles) are invited, at Template talk:GeoTemplate#Usability redux. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 17:37, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Area bounded by latitude and longitude lines?
Is there a standard term in geography for an area bounded by latitude and longitude lines? Colorado and Wyoming both have this shape, which has been described in these articles as a "geoellipsoidal rectangle". I can't find any evidence that this is anything other than a neologism, invented by an editor here. MATLAB calls this shape a "latitude-longitude quadrangle" (see [1]). Are either of these terms more or less standard? Is there some other term for this shape typically used in geography? Feel free to respond here or at talk:Colorado#Geography/shape. Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:24, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Defaultsorting of articles about latitude and longitude lines
Someone asked a question at the help desk wondering why, for example, the article 10th meridian east is listed in Category:Lines_of_longitude between 109th meridian west and 110th meridian east I told that person that the solution to the problem is very simple yet quite fastidious. It consists of adding, to every article on a line below the 100th, a defaultsort parameter adding a zero (two in the case of lines 0 through 10) at the beginning of the article name, like this. Can anyone do this for all 200 articles involved? Or perhaps assign the task to a bot? -- Blanchardb -Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 21:34, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
- Try asking on WP:BOTEQ. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 22:14, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
LIDAR Contour Mapping
LIDAR Contour Mapping (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) needs help. "This is my school project for a GIS and Cartography class", as the creator candidly puts it. Guy (Help!) 07:33, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Missing articles
I've updated my list of missing geography-related articles and the like - Skysmith (talk) 12:45, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Is there a generic location infobox? {{infobox location}} redirects to {{infobox settlement}} which is not appropriate if you're not talking about a settlement.
If you want to document some spot on the Earth where something occurred, what infobox should be used? (preferably with an auto generated location map)
70.29.208.247 (talk) 12:05, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Fallingrain.com
Hi please join in the thread at here. Falling rain was compiled in 1995-1996 and lists false population estimated within a 7 km radius and altitude data which reliable government sources and google earth and consistently proved wrong, often dramatically so and oftne lists settlements or draws railway lines which no longer exist. Unfortunately many editors believe this data to be reliable and have used it or linked to it in over 9000 of our encyclopedia articles, presenting the read with false information or directing them to false information through external links. This site has recently been used as a source for the mass creating of generic stubs about Kenyan village. The creator is now aware of the problem and thanks to a Xenobot has now been dealt with but we still have 9000 articles using this as a source/link. I and other well trsuted experienced editors/admins such as User:Darwinek, User:Orderinchaos and User:Satusuro have called for this to be blacklisted asap and did so back in December. Four months later we are still stuck with 9000 links in articles and a lot of data which we know are false. It seems however this is not adequate enough for deletion and that a wider consensus is needed. Please can you comment on the black list page in the link given and offer your views on this situation. Thankyou. Dr. Blofeld White cat 22:18, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
FYI, File:SnowballGeography.gif (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for deletion. 70.29.208.247 (talk) 04:24, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Proposed move of Western New Guinea
see Talk:Western_New_Guinea#Survey Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:23, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
stub templates
FYI, the image for Template:Crater-stub (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) was recently changed, and the image was enlarged to make it take up alot of room (does not play well when there are multiple stub templates on an article)
See the discussion on the talk page {{crater-stub}} (talk) if you have an opinion on the issue.
70.29.210.155 (talk) 23:35, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
Geography sidebar
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I've put together a sidebar for geography. They're used fairly well in other discipline pages in Wikipedia (see, for example: {{Sociology}}, {{Anthropology}}, {{GeneralPhysics}}), and avoid all the links being tucked away in navboxes at the bottom of the longer pages.
If people here are in agreement, or no one has major reservations, I'll start adding it to geography pages.
Needs work on:
- Image: For now I've used the image from the {{History of geography sidebar}}, but this should probably be replaced. Any good suggestions?
- Physical geography - I'm a Human geographer, so all I've done for now is copypasta the information from {{Physical geography topics}} and {{tl|Geography topics}
- List of geographical societies could do with much tidying up & expansion.
--Cooper-42 (talk) 23:25, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
Councils vs Places
UK Local Authorities are inherently notable. Yet many council names are currently redirects to articles about places; which are not the same thing at all. I feel we should do the same for all authorities which don't at the moment have their own articles. For example, I recently split Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council out from Metropolitan Borough of Walsall. I started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom#Councils vs Places; what are your thoughts? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 11:49, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Pizzo Coca is frontpage DYK
Hello, I just wanted to let your WikiProject know that Pizzo Coca, an article that I 5x expanded, is currently frontpage with a picture of the mountain. I know the master WP is Mountains but I tagged the article with yours as well because the mountain encompasses more than just a point in space. And, I'm also WP:BOLD. If your WP could look at the article, I would like to see it brought up in Class status and possibly be considered for FA status. ----moreno oso (talk) 12:13, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
History section on Human Geog
I've added a history section on the page. It's cobbled together from my own knowledge and information on History of geography and related pages.
The referencing is slim, as I'm currently on fieldwork with no access to a library - nothing on there is dubious, and it's all stuff I know is kicking around in textbooks, I just haven't got the refs on me. So any help there would be greatly appreciated.
It also needs major copyediting for style etc. It could possibly be broken down into sections, and I'm sure the grammar is a bit off. Anyone prepared to put another pair of eyes to it would be appreciated.
Thanks, --Cooper-42 (talk) 21:03, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
Assessment of stubs based on length
You may be interested in taking a look at this bot request, to comment on if/how your project wishes to assess articles as stubs based on length. - EdoDodo talk 17:18, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
rfc on terminology of populated places
I would appreciate the comments of outside editors to add vote and/or insight on this issue. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Israeli settlements Thanks. --Shuki (talk) 00:47, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
Ural Mountains could use map
The article Ural Mountains would benefit from the addition of a map.
-- 189.60.73.240 (talk) 03:36, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Mountains of Central Asia needs work or deletion
Mountains of Central Asia isn't of very good quality, is a near-orphan, and contains a lot of redlinks that should probably be reassinged to other existing articles.
We should fix or delete this article.
-- 189.60.73.240 (talk) 03:43, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Size of islands
I would like to contribute to the definition of island by adding a small text. An Island is any piece of land that is surrounded by water and smaller than Australia. or An Island is any piece of land that is surrounded by water and not bigger than Greenland.
(and it's obviously a fact that there is no piece of land bigger than Greenland and smaller than Australia).
189.122.116.113 (talk) 02:35, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
Fantasy Geography
There is a discussion going on Fantasy Geography in Talk:New_England#If_six_states_were_one_state..... Other editors may wish to comment. Student7 (talk) 14:11, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
Côte d'Ivoire vs. Ivory Coast
There is an RFC at the Côte d'Ivoire talk page about whether Wikipedia should be use the name "Côte d'Ivoire" or "Ivory Coast". Those who would like to express their opinion and participate in the discussion should do at that talk page. Orange Tuesday (talk) 20:06, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
WikiProjects North America and East Asia
FYI, two regions without supranational coordination wikiprojects have had them proposed, see
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/North America
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/East Asia
76.66.193.119 (talk) 19:51, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
Policy on gazetteer content
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia Talk:What Wikipedia is not#How is Wikipedia a gazetteer? How is Wikipedia not a gazetteer?. patsw (talk) 12:08, 19 July 2010 (UTC) (Using {{Please see}})
What does geotag aborted mean? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.147.55.216 (talk) 04:51, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
Lake Peipsi-Pihkva
has been recently moved to Lake Peipus. Please express your opinion here. Materialscientist (talk) 07:51, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
Country subdivisions
Maybe you can have a look at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)#Country_subdivisions - would you support table inclusion? It would give the people an overview about how to name country subdivision articles. Currently there is no central overview. Schwyz (talk) 20:44, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Islands of the British Isles
Hi! There is currently an initiative under way at WT:BISE to resolve disputes in the use of the term "British Isles". I have recently made a proposal for dealing with articles about islands within the British Isles. I would welcome input from members of WikiProject Geography (and, indeed, any other relevant WikiProject). Could I ask anyone who's interested to consider the proposal and then comment in this sub-section?
Many thanks! TFOWR 09:56, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
style guideline for disambiguation of places
There's a proposal at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Order of entries allowing geographic order explicitly, again which may be of interest. The proposal is for a change to disambiguation page style guidelines, to allow, explicitly, for dab pages of places to be ordered by country, state, city, rather than by a more complicated ordering. Many dab pages are currently organized by geography; this proposal would make clear that is acceptable. Please consider commenting there. --doncram (talk) 20:48, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
All cities of the world with a population > 1000
Hi. I'm creating lists of cities with a population > 1000 sorted by country (not all the lists are created, my bot is still running). The number of cities is ~ 80,000. The data come from Geonames. It may contain errors, but they are so useful. You can help converting red links into settlement stubs or creating redirects.
Regards. emijrp (talk) 09:24, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- Gag. Get rid of teh FLAGCRUFT, it look awful and makes the template unreadable.Skookum1 (talk) 21:56, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Deletion Discussion
A deletion discussion for a page within the scope of your project, List of largest empires, has been created. You are welcome to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of largest empires (5th nomination). Qwyrxian (talk) 01:12, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Help request - evaluating sources
We have a bit of a conundrum at the Central place theory article, where a suggestion has been made that a source has been plagiarized (see the Talk page). The source itself appears to be a copy from another website, so I'm not sure anymore which is the "one true source". Can someone have a look? The question is mostly whether the wording used in the assumptions which form the basis for the theory are irreducible, i.e. is this the standard method by which anyone would present the theory? Or are there sufficiently diverse methods of outlining the theory that it becomes probable that the writing was slavishly copied from this one source? And if so, what is the original source that was copied from? Hopefully there are enough links on the talk page for you to access the relevant information, if not, please let me know. Thanks for any help with this! Franamax (talk) 20:41, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
British Isles Meitheal
Hi all —
A while back the British Isles article underwent a peer review. Most of the suggestions coming out of it have been implemented and IMO the article is approaching GA standard. This is an article that had been dogged by POV issues and in-fighting amongst its editors so the achievement of getting it to the standard it is in admirable for all involved. However, one major sticking point is referencing, which are appallingly sparse. There is no way the article could achieve GA as it stands on account of the state of referencing.
The task of fixing it up isn't impossible. There are about 30 paragraphs that need referencing. With enough editors, we would only need to take two or thee paragraphs each to get the job done. To that end, I've set up a "meitheal" page. The idea is for anyone who is willing to help out to take a paragraph at a time and to references just that paragraph. If you can do more than one then great. Just come back and take another one.
The meitheal page is here: Talk:British Isles/Meitheal. If you're willing to help out, just dig in.
Thanks, --RA (talk) 17:39, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Geography articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release
Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.
We would like to ask you to review the Geography articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.
We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!
For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 23:04, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
Flatlands
FYI, Flatlands has been prodded for deletion. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 05:02, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Major proposed overhaul of Sea of Japan naming dispute
The article Sea of Japan naming dispute has been under full protection for about 1 month due to an edit war that occurred in August. Discussion on the talk page stalled at the end of August, and there are not many active participants on that page. Since that time, I have been working on a wholly new draft to fix, as best as I could, many of the numerous problems on the article. Since this article falls within the purview of this Wikiproject, I am inviting members to come participate in the discussion on the talk page at Sea of Japan naming dispute#Major overhaul, which explains the current articles deficiencies (poor sources, disorganized, etc.) and what I have done to fix them. In that section you will find a link to the draft version in my user space. While this article and its subject are clearly a contentious matter, I sincerely believe that we can create a useful and NPOV article about the subject through the careful involvement of more editors. Thank you for any help you can provide. Qwyrxian (talk) 10:32, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Geaography naming question.... is this confusing for readers not in the know...?
| County Mayo Contae Mhaigh Eo | ||
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| Motto: Dia is Muire Linn (Irish) "God and Mary be with us" | ||
| Location | ||
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| Statistics | ||
| State: | Ireland | |
| Province: | Connacht | |
| County seat: | Castlebar | |
| Code: | MO | |
| Area: | 5,585 km2 (2,156 sq mi) (3rd) | |
| Population (2006) | 123,839 (17th) | |
| Website: www.mayococo.ie | ||
| County Armagh Contae Ard Mhacha | ||
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|---|---|---|
| Location | ||
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| Statistics | ||
| State: | United Kingdom (Northern Ireland) | |
| Province: | Ulster | |
| County seat: | Armagh | |
| Area: | 1,254 km2 (484 sq mi) (28th) | |
| Population (2001) | 159,085 (14th) | |
Currently over at WikiProject Ireland Collaboration, we've been working on amendments to the Ireland Place Infobox. Whilst we have everything settled upon there is one issue i would like to bring to the attention of this board - does the use of the Ireland pipelink, rather than just using Republic of Ireland unpiped lead to confusion for readers who don't know the difference between the two?
The current Ireland Manual of Style is that if the state and island are being talked about in the same paragraph/context then the Republic of Ireland is to be used to avoid confusion with the island of Ireland - however the island in this case is not being explicitly stated, though it is depicted in the map - so does that qualify the use of Republic of Ireland unpiped?
Heres Rannpháirtí anaithnid's sandbox demo of the infobox for when it applies to Republic of Ireland counties with the piped link:
Do you think stating just "Ireland" is confusing for readers who don't know the difference between the state and the island? Mabuska (talk) 22:28, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
- For completeness, here's the same template for a county in Northern Ireland (a part of the UK). --RA (talk) 22:56, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
- Of note maybe to anyone who may wish to comment is that the offical name of the Irish state is "Ireland" ("Republic of Ireland" is not actually an official name or long-form name). Also this question had been the focus of an ArbCom case and is still a touchy area for many editors who have strong views that "Ireland" should be used as the name of the state. The relevent MOS entry is at WP:IRE-IRL, which also links to vote (yes, vote) that eventually ended the the ArbCom process. --RA (talk) 23:00, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
Rwanda peer review
Hi guys,
I've already mentioned this over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries so not sure if I should be listing it here too, but would appreciate any input I can get anyway. To wit, I have just nominated Rwanda (which I have been working on a lot recently) for peer review.
The peer review page is: Wikipedia:Peer review/Rwanda/archive2
I would very much appreciate any input into that, as part of my overall goal of elevating the article to WP:FA status.
Thanks! — Amakuru (talk) 21:08, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
Ottoman provinces
FYI, Kars Province, Ottoman Empire and Karaman Province, Ottoman Empire have been nominated for deletion. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 05:53, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
Workgroup nominated for deletion
Wikipedia:British Isles Terminology task force, a workgroup of WikiProject Geography, has been nominated for deletion. TFOWR 16:20, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
Tempers ran a little high at Canada - please take a look and discuss at Talk:Canada#northern_North_America to help everyone reach consensus. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:14, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
Searchlight Triple Point
Can someone look at Searchlight Triple Point? This seems to be a point where three watersheds meet. I'm not sure this is encyclopedic, not to mention the fact that the only Google hits for this name are the article! I think this meets the delete criteria, but I don't know. If this is a problem, can someone with some knowledge in the area look at the edit histories of the two involved editors? Thanks. If you need me to look at any responses, please leave a note on my talk page. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:01, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
Spam / Advert?
National Council for Geographic Education reads like a promotional brochure, especially the section called "Why join NCGE?".
The Transhumanist 04:41, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
Toponymy
A new WikiProject Toponymy was suggested here, and it was recommended that instead it would be made a part of WikiProject Geography. Comments from this project's members would thus be much appreciated. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); November 29, 2010; 19:02 (UTC)
Geography of the Americas
The Spanish Wikipedia has es:Geografía de América with no English equivalent. Would anyone be interested in writing "Geography of the Americas" ? WhisperToMe (talk) 05:54, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
The creator/defender of this article submitted an AfD after I objected to its existence, long before I got around to an Afd msyelf. A recent Afd on Quadripoint failed, and that article has since spiralled out of control with conflation and undue weight and original research, and its evil twin is Tripoint and there's also quasi-geometric topics like List_of_sets_of_four_countries_that_border_one_another. Geo-junk, backed up by tons of coordinate cites but no actual cites establishing these as valid topics. All such articles are masses of coordinates, and largely built out of them, and conflated upon them - as geo-fabrications by people totting up similar numbers or situations and trying to pretend that they're a topic. Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a compilation of trivia and abstractions built on trivia.Skookum1 (talk) 21:57, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Antipodes
An editor has placed the subsection "Antipodes" in the article Geography of the United States. This is amusing, I suppose, but not encyclopedic IMO. Kids want to know what they are digging down to. But adults? And where does the addition stop after nations? States/Provinces? Towns? Indivicual landmarks (all with lat/long BTW so antipodes easy to compute, right? I don't think it should stay. Student7 (talk) 02:34, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
- I was having similar reservations about this section in geography of Russia. While I do believe this information is encyclopedic (when properly referenced) and the level of detail is acceptable, I don't feel such broad articles are a good place for this kind of information. I suggested that the editor consider creation of stand-alone articles which can be linked to from the broad overviews. I'd be interested to find out what others think, however.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); December 10, 2010; 03:45 (UTC)
- I didn't think it was notable enough for stand-alone articles, but was equivalent to a lot of the trivia in the geography articles, like the most extreme points. IMO the westernmost point of a country is about as important (as in not) as its antipodes, but both are fun, and have some social relevance, such as sister cities based on antipodes. As for kids, they use WP too, and some of those kids are 50 yrs old.
- As far as this getting out of control, one of the things that makes it interesting is that it's unusual: There is not a single piece of inhabited land antipodal to the continental US, and how many landmarks can there be on Kerguelen Island, or the border region of Montana opposite it? Similarly with Russia: Buryatia-Patagonia is as far as it goes, with the only significant twinned towns being Ulan-Ude and Puerto Natales, neither of which suffer from an excess of detail. Would "BTW, this town is antipodal to X" really be any less relevant than it appearing in the background shot of some soap opera? I think a little common sense is all that is needed there. — kwami (talk) 04:23, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
- Having thought about it since my earlier post, I'm thinking this is almost the definition of non-WP:TOPIC. Does not belong in the article because it isn't part of the geography.
- Does this stop with earth-bound places? What about earth's "anti-whatever" on the opposite side of the sun? (a subject of myth incidentally). Or the solar system on the other side of the Milky Way, etc. This is amusing science fiction IMO, but just not encyclopedic.
- It like saying that Wilt Chamberlain is the antithesis of Danny Devito and deliberately putting each in the other's article. Funny, but not really informative. Student7 (talk) 20:31, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
Soap opera appearance
I think Kwamikagami's comment on relevance of "soap opera" deserves comment, separately. I think we have to consider the importance of the place. For some tiny towns on which I watch articles, a mention in a soap opera might be the high point of their history! :) (See, for example, Craftsbury,_Vermont#Craftsbury_in_film. Ironically, the film article does not bother to mention the tiny town! :( . But for a place like, say, Versailles and many other notable places, nearly all fictional mentions are irrelevant and non-WP:TOPIC. Even James Bond movies and National Treasure deliberately try to use important places as backdrops so people can say, "I've been there! I recognize that!" and identify with the film even more. So the film is deriving their status from the place, not the other way round. So the films, never mind their box office success, are merely WP:SPAM when mentioned in the article of someplace really famous. The famous place will most likely be there or be remembered, long after no one can remember the film anymore. Student7 (talk) 20:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
Pinyin in non-Mandarin articles
See the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(use_of_Chinese_language)#Inclusion_of_Mandarin_in_HK.2C_Macau.2C_and_overseas_Chinese-related_articles over the relavancy of Mandarin Pinyin in articles where the local Chinese population does not use Mandarin. 184.144.166.27 (talk) 04:36, 31 December 2010 (UTC)