Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities

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Thanks. — Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:52, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

{{Greater Los Angeles Area}}

If anyone monitoring this page would kindly put {{Greater Los Angeles Area}} on their watchlist i'm sure people interested in reading about this area would appreciate it. Thanks, Amerique^dialectics 20:06, 4 July 2009 (UT

FAR for Ann Arbor

I have nominated Ann Arbor, Michigan 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.

GA reassessment of Northeast Philadelphia

I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. I have found some concerns with the article which you can see at Talk:Northeast Philadelphia/GA1. I have placed the article on hold whilst these are fixed. You are being notified as the talk page has a banner for this project. Thanks, GaryColemanFan (talk) 06:14, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process after the original re-assessor had to drop out. I have found some concerns with the referencing which you can see at Talk:Northeast Philadelphia/GA1. I have placed the article on hold for a further seven days whilst these are fixed. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 02:21, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Lead Photo for Berlin

We seem to be having some trouble choosing which photo to use for the lead image for the Berlin article. See the discussion here. Basically one group feels that a photo from 2006 is more artistically pleasing. The other group feels that since the 2006 photo shows the Palace of the Republic, it is out of date and should be replaced with a photo from 2009. Please provide further input. Thanks! imars (talk) 19:42, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

13,052 unassessed articles? Xenobot Mk V can help!

Xenobot can help WikiProjects with many unassessed articles because it can a) check for a {{stub}} or featured template and auto tag as such (e.g. [1] [2]) b) inherit ratings from other WikiProjects (e.g. [3] [4]) WikiProjects can set their confidence levels as permissive or restrictive as they like and exclude certain ratings. For example, A is excluded by default. Some projects have also elected to divide their category list into sections of default importance (see WP:CATS/INDIANA, [5] [6]).

Xeno 5 is alive! AI Performance data CHI 1583 1226 IND 993 735 121 TOR 3925 1991~

xenobot's autoassessment logic only one rating available two or more available auto-stub/inherit conflict notes default Y if only a single rating is available Y if they all agree N do not assess CHI · TOR · BIO · &c. liberal Y if only a single rating is available Y most frequent (highest when tied) SONGS conservative N do not assess Y if they all agree N do not assess IND

If this is something you want to take advantage of, please let me know below or by clicking here. –xeno^talk 20:57, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm.... Cambridge, Massachusetts needs to be assessed in WikiProject Cities. if it were to be assesed by Xenobot, I would rather it use a conservative logic, but seeing that it would still get High Importance B-Class, I would rather the assesment be done manually.

--RayqayzaDialgaWeird2210    14:59, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Importance doesn't get inherited - it has to be set by category the way Indiana does it. Of course, this is an optional part of the overall bot task primarily designed to assess the class. –xeno^talk 18:29, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject District of Columbia

I am looking for advice regarding Wikipedia:WikiProject District of Columbia - Several users there said that they do not wish to have the project's scope cover DC suburbs (using any definition), and one user suggested starting a parallel DC area WikiProject. I argued that having the DC project extend to NOVA and the Maryland burbs would make the project stronger; other US city projects cover suburbs (the exception I can think of is NYC, which covers a city of 8 million). Anyway, would the Cities project recommend having parallel DC only and DC area WikiProjects? Why or why not? WhisperToMe (talk) 21:45, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

What is the advantage? Since DC is not covered by a state project, a WikiProject is important. But what is the advantage of double coverage for the outlying suburbs to have more than one "place" Project? They are already covered by their various state projects. Student7 (talk) 21:14, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Etymology section

In the guidelines to writing about cities and countries we tend to provide suggestions that information about the origin of the name / the etymology is given in the history section, and - if there is enough material - that a sub-section can be created. In usage some editors prefer that the etymology details be placed in their own section - which is fine if there is enough data to justify it, and the information may be found reasonably interesting or useful to the average reader. But the question now arises as where to place a stand alone Etymology section. I often find them placed as the first section - ahead of the History section - and there is a part of me which can see the logic of that. However, there is a greater logic in having the history section first, as that is the first section that readers would expect - it is generally what encyclopedias do, and the history always comes before the name (I suppose there may be settlements and countries which were named before they existed, but these must be very rare!). Where etymologies are usually placed in dictionaries and references books is at the end of the entry - and that may be where someone interested in the etymology may be expecting to look. There may be other options as to where to place the etymology, and it would be useful to get some opinions and revisit the guidelines to make things clearer. As a starting point, here are four suggestions:

1. Etymology - details of the origin of the name should be placed in the History section; if there is sufficient material an Etymology subsection should be created within the History section. (If the subsection grows so large as to justify a standalone section, that section to be placed after/before the History section / at the end of the article.)
2. Etymology - details of the origin of the name should be placed in the History section; if there is sufficient material an Etymology section should be created and placed after the History section.
3. Etymology - details of the origin of the name should be placed in the History section; if there is sufficient material an Etymology section should be created and placed before the History section.
4. Etymology - details of the origin of the name should be placed in the History section; if there is sufficient material an Etymology section should be created and placed at the end of the article.

I will copy this to other related WikiProjects. SilkTork *^YES! 10:24, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm having a hard time imagining a situation where an "entymology" section would grow so long as to warrant the creation of its own section. Given that a place's entymology is arguably a part of its history, it seems only logical that one would find that information withink the History section. If the History section is long enough to be broken down into subections then it ought to be one of its own subsections. Personally I would prefer to see it first (get it out of the way). Shereth 14:12, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Examples: Hong_kong#Etymology, Cyprus#Etymology, and Cardiff#Etymology. SilkTork *^YES! 14:27, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

If any city would be worthy of an entomology section, it would be NYC for its cockroaches ;)--Louiedog (talk) 14:44, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't see why any of those could not happily exist as a sub-section of "history", but to me it's really a case of "six of one, half a dozen of the other" :) Still, if I was magically writing all of our style guidelines I would have them all be made a part of the "history" section. Shereth 17:33, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I would prefer having one rule for placing etymology. That way, no arguments. And for Loodog, there is already a section, "Wild life" for NYC!  :) Student7 (talk) 15:40, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

If the focus is on the linguistic etymology of the name of the city, that is a distinct topic from the history. If the focus is rather on how the city acquired its name, that is a subsection of history. I'm not suggesting this is a good example, but consider Kalamazoo, Michigan#Name origin and Etymology of Kalamazoo. Or many of the items in Category:Placename etymologies. older ≠ wiser 16:05, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Other examples where the topic is more than the history of the name, including theories of origin, linguistic meanings, etc (with various ways of putting the info in sections or not): Buffalo, New York#Name origin, Washington, Tyne and Wear#History "Toponymy", Paris#Etymology, Kolkata#Name, Beijing#Names, Lima, and, a non-city example, Oregon#Name and its main page, Oregon (toponym). Pfly (talk) 18:25, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Location maps

As I've looked around, I've noticed some weird ways of showing where a city or town is located. The cities in Massachusetts that I deal with such as Melrose, Massachusetts have a map that makes it very easy to identify where the city is with respect to Massachusetts as a whole. Since most people know the shapes of the states and how they relate to the country as a whole, this is a very good way of depicting the location. There seems to be a ton of articles such as West Hempstead, New York, that show a census map. For someone who does not live in the area (or any of the surrounding communities) that map is useless. There is no landmarks to use to gauge the position. If there isn't already a convention for these maps, I urge this project to draft one. The map like that of Melrose is imo the best type. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 03:10, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Good point. I guess each state/province Project has to slug this out on their own. There is apparently no generic help, which is a shame, if true. The worst I saw was Quebec, which is largely uninhabited, as it turns out. So all there was, was a little bitty red dot near the bottom of the province. Montreal got a slightly bigger dot, I suppose. Mercifully they have changed.

Having said that, it may not be the answer to the regularly shaped western states: Kansas, Dakotas, Colorado, Wyoming, etc. A part of a featureless blob, still seems like nothing, unfortunately. (Might as well keep the red dot, I guess!  :) Student7 (talk) 13:51, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't find the map at Melrose, Massachusetts very helpful. At first glance, it looked as though the entire shaded area (representing Middlesex County) was for the city, which of course didn't make much sense. Only when I squinted and leaned into the monitor did I notice that one tiny speck in the map was shaded red. Personally, I find the pushpin maps to be the best general maps for showing location in a larger context. West Hempstead, New York has such a pushpin map immediately below the census map. I agree that census map is not very helpful. older ≠ wiser 14:29, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

The word "largest"

Using this word automatically to mean population should stop IMO. "Largest" could also mean area. The word should be modified unless it is clear in context. "Largest area" or "biggest population." Student7 (talk) 16:28, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

"Sister City" or "Twin City"

Which is the better one to use, "Sister City" or "Twin City"? Both are used and to me it doesn't look good (See London, New York City and Odessa for three different). Is there any consensus on which one to use? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.227.58.24 (talk) 08:58, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

As a general rule, use the terminology that is used in the city described in the article. The term "sister city" is generally preferred in the U.S., but I have the impression that the terms "city twinning" and "twin city" (or "twinned city"?) are preferred in places that use British English. --Orlady (talk) 03:57, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I thought we were pretty much using "twin city" for places outside the US. I thought that Europe, and not just the UK, preferred that. But I could be wrong. If true about the UK only, this would be another good reason to identify articles on the talk page by idiom.

IMO, "city twinning" and "twinned city" sound funny, but I suppose there are situations where they have to be used. Student7 (talk) 13:11, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Per Sister cities, "Twin town" is preferred in the UK, France, and former Soviet bloc countries; "Sister city" is preferred in the Americas, Asia, Australia; "Partner city" is used in Germany and other locations. If only it were as simple as British English vs. American English ... Shereth 16:38, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I did read the below. Nonetheless, why not put this in either on the Project Page or as a forked article? It's the best I've read. Student7 (talk) 15:12, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

The usage is quite dependent upon the locality, and as stated above, the article should reflect actual usage, and not just what looks good to us. Note that the terms "twin cities" and "sister cities" both have other connotations and so any attempt to standardize the way they are used at Wikipedia is likely to result in further confusion and problems. Best to just stick to what is used by the city in question. Shereth 16:35, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

how do they do this for every town?

I want to make one for Hall, New York. Every other little town and city has one. Daniel Christensen (talk) 00:53, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

See the documentation at Template:Infobox settlement -- or if you only want the map and not the entire infobox, see Template:Location map. You will need to know the latitude and longitude. older ≠ wiser 21:14, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

GA Reassessment of Springfield, Illinois

Springfield, Illinois has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Malleus Fatuorum 19:57, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Template:Climate

Would this WikiProject be interested in take up the use of this template? It is a "request box created in 2006 by an editor who was working to add climate sections to articles about geographical regions", and is currently nominated for deletion due to non-use, but the nominator stated he would withdraw the nomination if someone is willing to take up use of the template. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 21:11, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Personally, it doesn't look like a terribly useful template. I can't really forsee it being used on any real scale. Shereth 21:34, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Need third opinions

Can someone from this project take a look at Template_talk:GR#Too_vague. and Template_talk:GR#Page_needed? This involves adding {{page needed}} tags to a template that is transcluded on tens of thousands of city articles. Kaldari (talk) 20:32, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Map won't show up on Morodvis article

Resolved

I was tidying up the Morodvis article, but I cannot get the pushpin map to work.

I looked at the Ohrid and the Skopje articles, which also use Template:Location map Republic of Macedonia, and the markup appears to be correct, but no map is showing up!

Any help would be much appreciated. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 17:45, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

• It seems to be working now - I didn't do anything to it since, and it wasn't showing, but it is now! -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 11:18, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

User:Worldenc and their charts

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Worldenc blocked, for Sock puppetry. Cross project discussions can be found through link provided below by Alanraywiki--Hu12 (talk) 17:45, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

---

Worldenc (talk · contribs) has created thousands of charts to display some information on thousands (not exaggerating) of articles. They have met some opposition on their talk page, but have also met some people who are in favor of (at least some form) of the charts. Yesterday I had logged on with Worldenc flooding my watchlist when they had added images to many of the pages that I keep watchlisted. Today I log on, and see that Hu12 (talk · contribs) has rolled backk all of these edits (keep in mind, the edit amount is greater than 2,000 articles) with no apparent discussion. At least none that I could find. According to WP:ROLLBACK#Mass rollbacks (and common courtesy) it is normally standard procedure to discuss in situations like that before doing a massive rollback attempt. In any case, I would like it if we could get some sort of consensus for this, because Worldenc has put so much effort into trying to improve articles, only to have all of his effort removed in one (automated) swoop. I personally like the idea of what Worldenc is trying to accomplish, but there might be a better way to accomplish it. Killiondude (talk) 20:49, 28 November 2009 (UTC) I'm also going to leave notes on WP:VPM and several users' talk pages who I saw were involved/discussed this topic.

I like the charts, but I believe they're not appropriate for every article. I've already gone and reverted Hu12's deletions for nine articles about incorporated cities and towns in my area. I'd love to see some serious discussion of when we should or should include demographic charts for settlements in the encyclopedia. --Stepheng3 (talk) 20:57, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

There is also a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#mapzones.org. Thanks, Alanraywiki (talk) 21:04, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of that discussion, thank you for pointing it out. Now we have discussions in separate areas, which is what I was trying to avoid... Killiondude (talk) 21:08, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Merging two New York municipality articles?

Geneseo, New York is currently a merged article for a town and a village in Livingston County, New York. This is at variance with every other municipality article in New York and the rest of the country: we always have separate articles for separate municipalities, even if they overlap; see Category:Towns in New York, Category:Villages in New York, and similar categories for Vermont (towns and villages) and Wisconsin (cities, towns, and villages) for very similar examples. The merger — enforced by a single editor over the objections of multiple other editors, including me — is that this mailing list discussion trumps our universal practice of separate articles for separate municipalities. If you're not familiar with New York municipality articles, you can read Administrative divisions of New York — essentially, villages are within towns, but there are wide areas in towns that aren't in villages, so this situation doesn't at all resemble a small-scale consolidated city–county. In this specific situation, the village includes less than 7% of the area of the town. Is there any objection to restoring this set of municipalities to the way that every other similar set of municipalities is done? Nyttend (talk) 05:01, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Concur: I concur with Nyttend's assessment of the erroneous merger of town and village for Geneseo, New York. New York's political hierarchy is very structured and I believe that, unless the village dissolved, that there should remain two separate and distinct articles; one for the village and one for the town.--Pubdog (talk) 01:20, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I am somewhat sympathetic toward the idea of merging these types of articles, particularly when the only (obviously) distinguishable information is the demographics. Still, given these are indeed separate entities, they should have separate entries per Wikipedia's role as a gazetteer (and for the sake of consistency across New York location articles). Shereth 15:20, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Articles need to be separate. Too often we find "article creep" where the larger area (metro usually) "creeps" into the smaller article (city usually). Creeping should be stopped. Articles have boundaries and should be kept separate. That one editor imagines them together instead of separately, is an idea that should not be allowed to prevail. We'd get all higher level articles taking over the smaller, with finally one big "USA" (or "world") article!  :) Student7 (talk) 14:20, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree the two Geneseo articles should be de-merged, but I disagree that such metro-area "creep" is undesirable. Cities and villages only have well-defined borders when it comes to politics and administration, not when it comes to their cultures and their people. Powers ^T 02:55, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Importance ratings

There was a change to Importance ratings proposed on this page ("Slight tweak to Top-priority") that has slipped through, nem con. Did anyone see and think "fair enough"? Or should a proper consensus be formed? I have some issues to the change which the proposer has, in good faith, applied to the affected articles. BTW, other proposals have been made on that page. Folks at 137 (talk) 15:58, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

It seemed to me that, from the current top article at assessment, there was some support for adding a few non-capital cities for months. Also, I would say the concern about a North American bias is untrue for this, as only 2 of the proposed additions are in North America Purplebackpack89 (talk) 17:10, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I have no issues with the proposed change, myself. Shereth 17:19, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I actually have a strong opposition to this. The page you refer to refers to a "meta 1000", with no link to any page or article or anything else. I have no idea what this is, and using this to determine priority ratings is foolish at best. Any changes made to the importance of these cities must be reverted immediately. Dr. Cash (talk) 19:45, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I believe it refers to this. Shereth 19:59, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I saw that on his talk page. But I'm still opposed to the changes, which were done without consensus developing. You simply need more concrete criteria (status as a capital, population, etc) to determine importance ratings than the "opinion" of a bunch of random editors posting on some "meta wiki". Dr. Cash (talk) 20:05, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

It was up for a week, and you didn't comment. Purplebackpack89 (talk) 20:37, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Just for the record, all changes to the affected city importance ratings have been reverted. Dr. Cash (talk) 20:07, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Honestly, Cash, your strong oppose is ridiculous. First off, I made those suggestions, waited for a response, and none came for over a week, not from you, not from anybody. Second, if you take a look at the top section, from April, a consensus appears to be that cities other than capitals should be considered, with only the initial editor speaking in opposition. Thirdly, the meta 1000 is more than just a bunch of random guys, it requires consensus from meta users around the world, and is not some random list. Fourthly, how is "national capital or Meta 1000" not concrete criteria? Finally, how can you argue that some place like Podorigo, Montegenro or Koror, Palau is more important than New York, Mumbai or Rio de Janeiro. As of now, it's 2 for, and only you against, by the way, so your reverts are currently in the wrong. Purplebackpack89 (talk) 20:20, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I suggest that discussion on this topic be consolidated in one place? Either here or at the assessment talk page, but it's hard to follow going back and forth. Shereth 20:46, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd probably put it here, since ppl read this more often; though important information and good arguments are on the other. Purplebackpack89 (talk) 20:49, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Let's not forget the purpose of importance ratings: they exist to help editors and projects identify and prioritise which article should be worked on and unless they encourage editors they have no effect on the reader. I honestly don't see the need for "importance" ratings as I doubt they have much effect. Has anyone looked at the list and said to themselves "there's an article there that needs work, I better get to it"? That said, I like the capital cities rule as it leaves no room for opinion, time consuming arguments, or nationalist pride. If it means Mecca isn't officially of "top importance" to this project (not Wikipedia as a whole), then so be it. Genuinely important articles will attract attention and work regardless of their project ratings. Nev1 (talk) 21:01, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Good point about the fact that these importance ratings are specific to this project and not the encyclopedia as a whole. Still, I can't really swallow the argument that any useful scale would consider an obscure settlement of less than 1000 residents more important than one of the most important financial centers of the world simply because one happens to be a seat of government. Shereth 21:15, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

That's sort of my point, far too much emphasis is being put on the importance of the importance scale. It's not something worth arguing over as I frankly don't believe it matters whether half the articles are rated as "top" or just three. The fact that someone believes it's important and worth a second thought is what I find ridiculous. The benefit of the current system is that there's no arguing; it's not perfect, but neither would the proposition to use the list on Meta as it opens scope for more people to come forwards with their opinion about what is "important", diverting time from actually improving the articles that are supposed to be so important. I'd argue that Manchester should be of "top" importance as it was the birth place of the Industrial Revolution, but by the current criteria it's not, so that's that. It didn't affect the article or the effort many editor made to improve it. Nev1 (talk) 21:28, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Excellent points all around. I suppose that rather than trying to make a counter argument (for one is really not necessary when I am largely in agreement with you) I will simply state that I am of the opinion that the criteria should be modified in some way to be more inclusive and I would support any effort to do so, but won't lose any sleep if it doesn't and won't exhaust any more pixels trying to convince people to agree with me. Thanks for your insight. Shereth 21:36, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

If we can't fix it to be inclusive, we might as well toss it, I guess Purplebackpack89 (talk) 21:47, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

If it doesn't matter in determining which articles get edited, then we should stick with the status quo and make no change to the importance ratings. The whole point being is that you can't start imposing some very nebulously-defined criteria on "top-importance" articles, which were probably written up by some small cabal of editors and make that the gold standard. The importance criteria in this project are defined by specific criteria, which is what should be honored here.

It should also be pointed out that Purplebackpack89 improperly implemented his importance ratings when he did it. He posted the proposal on the talk page of the assessment area, but when changing the ratings, he did not change the descriptions on the main assessment page, which still simply states that Top-Importance is national capitals and nothing else. So because it was improperly done, it fails. Dr. Cash (talk) 22:22, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The other problem if we start imposing some nebulous, user-defined "standard" on the importance ratings, is that the whole assessment thing will quickly get way out of hand and we'll have editors from all sorts of cities and towns trying to "promote" their articles to top-importance here because they'll find all sorts of ways of justifying it. So we need a specific line to cross here for the barrier, and the best one is whether a city is a national capital or it is not. Dr. Cash (talk) 22:28, 10 December 2009 (UTC)