Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities
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Thanks. — Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 09:52, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)
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, Ameriquedialectics 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 The other group feels that since the 2006 photo shows the Palace of the Republic, it is out of date and should be replaced with a photo from 2009.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
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]). |
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If this is something you want to take advantage of, please let me know below or by clicking here. –xenotalk 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. –xenotalk 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:
- 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.)
- 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.
- 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.
- 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)
- Examples: Hong_kong#Etymology, Cyprus#Etymology, and Cardiff#Etymology. SilkTork *YES! 14:27, 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)
- 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)
- 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)
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
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/fb/Yes_check.svg/20px-Yes_check.svg.png)
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)
- There is also a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#mapzones.org. Thanks, Alanraywiki (talk) 21:04, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
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)
- 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)
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)
- 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)
- I believe it refers to this. Shereth 19:59, 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)
- 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)
- OK, where to begin? For starters, meta wikimedia is a legitimate project, not a cabal. For seconds, if anybody wanted to add their podunk city to the list, they'd first have to get it on the Meta 1000, which is fairly hard to do. For thirds, we've proposed other criteria to allow big non-capitals like New York. Why do you believe that New York, Shanghai, Bombay, LA, and a few others aren't deserving of top-rating when capitols of countries that are smaller than those cities are? Purplebackpack89 (talk) 23:09, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
Top importance restricted to capitals
Someone just dropped the WP:Featured Article importance of New York City from top to high, on the basis that the WP:Featured article criteria require a top-importance city to be a national capital. There was a discussion of this question a while back (although I can't remember if it was here, at Wikipedia talk:Featured article criteria or Talk:New York City) and I thought the consensus was that this isn't a workable rule, although I don't know if that consensus crystallized into a definite change or redefinition. I think the rule's absurd, because many political capitals, including Washington, D.C., Ottawa, Canberra, Islamabad, Pretoria and Brasilia, were deliberately chosen either to avoid concentration of political power in a city that is already dominant culturally and economically (i.e. the country's most important city), or to appease the rivalry of two such dominant cities. As I understand the reasoning behind the rule, the project members were afraid that without some such rule, half the "top-importance" cities would end up being in the U.S., so there can be no more than one top-importance city per country. But if you had to pick one single, solitary city in the United States to be top-importance, no matter how much you might resent New Yorkers' perceived arrogance, you'd have to pick New York City rather than Washington or Los Angeles; if you had to pick one in Australia, it would have to be Sydney or Melbourne (both of which have hosted Olympic Games) rather than Canberra; and if you had to pick one top-importance city in Canada, it would have to be either Toronto or Montreal and not Ottawa. —— Shakescene (talk) 22:48, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
- The capital city of a country certainly has political importance, but using it as the sole criterion for being of "top importance" is absurd. Major cultural, financial, and economic centers such as New York, Milan, Mumbai, Frankfurt, Sao Paolo, Istanbul, Hong Kong, and Zurich are clearly of great world-wide importance and deserve top priority in editing.
- Boosterism is certainly a problem, but surely we can develop some reasonable guidelines and quotas. --macrakis (talk) 22:50, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
- (edit conflict:) By the way, although I've worked on a lot of New York City articles, I'm not a New Yorker, haven't visited New York since 2003, root for the Red Sox against the New York Yankees and am not a mindless NYC#1 booster. But as with everything boosterism—or civic insecurity—could obviously be a problem.
- Without reiterating my above sentiments I will simply state that I agree with the above two comments. Shereth 22:57, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
- Shakescene, I have to ask why you think having New York as a "top importance" article for WP:Cities matters? Do you think it will improve the article? Nev1 (talk) 22:54, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
- To be brutally honest, I really don't understand all the rankings and what purpose they serve. Although I wasn't involved in the work that made New York City into a Featured Article (I was working on The Bronx or New York City mayoral elections at the time), I know how much very hard high-quality work was put into it.—— Shakescene (talk) 23:23, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
- That doesn't really explain why you think that "top importance" rating is important to the article. What benefits will it have? This section exemplifies why WP:Milhist doesn't have an importance rating (and it does very well without it). Nev1 (talk) 23:17, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
- I pasted the wrong fix to an edit conflict. See above. —— Shakescene (talk) 23:24, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
- May suggest a thread called "Let's toss all ratings?". For the rec, I somewhat believe that not giving NYC or other world cities top has an impact on both the credibly of the article and the project.
¶ I found the discussion I was thinking of here. There are half a dozen places where this could be (and has been) discussed, so it's no wonder it's so fragmented and confused. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities/Assessment#Priority Ranking. —— Shakescene (talk) 23:38, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
Interestingly, when you think of it, you could make an argument for New York City as Top-Importance as the headquarters of the United Nations. One could also make a similar argument for The Hague as the headquarters of the International Court of Justice, and possibly Geneva. Dr. Cash (talk) 17:44, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
- But you could similarly do so for Strasbourg, which is an important city both now and historically, but perhaps not of "top" importance on a level with New York or Geneva. And what are all the other EU/OSCE centers (often deliberately not national capitals), Frankfurt, Luxembourg, the seat of the human rights court, etc.? —— Shakescene (talk) 00:41, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Let's toss all ratings
There are many reasons to get rid of the project’s importance rating and few that I can think of to keep it. Does the “importance” have any direct impact on the article? I doubt it. A prime example of the flaw with “importance” ratings is that it generates more heat than light. How with the above sections lead to the improvement of any article? The purpose of importance ratings was to prioritise which articles need attention, but I don’t think it can be argued that they work. The criteria is arbitrary (not something I have a problem with, but something many seem to) and there will always be people asking for it to be widened just a little more. New York’s important, but what about Ravenna? It was the capital of the Western Roman Empire and obviously a very important city, although less so today. The city of Babylon was very important yet isn’t even tagged by this project. The project doesn’t need importance ratings to function, just look at WP:MILHIST. They have avoided this kind of time sink by ditching the whole thing and sticking with simple ratings of article ' 'quality ' ' that assess the article and point out how it needs to be improved.
So let’s admit that the importance rating doesn’t work, generates more heat than light, and should be binned. Discuss. Nev1 (talk) 23:50, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
- I'm in absolute agreement here. I spent some considerable time thinking about importance ratings and came to the conclusion that it is so subjective (to both individuals and Wikiprojects) that it generates more heat than light. It would be more fruitful to work on the articles that you consider to be important rather than tell others what is important, was my conclusion.--Harkey (talk) 14:08, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
- Agree, reluctantly. Up to now, the clear but crude criteria have been acceptable and the ability to isolate capitals has been useful. But now, there is (unnecessary) dispute. I would suggest, as an alternative, the abandonment of "top" = capital, re-jig the high and top criteria (not low & mid as this would be too time-consuming to manage) and add a parameter "capital=yes" to the WPCities banner. Folks at 137 (talk) 14:34, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
- I'll say it again: if we can't fix it (top/high in=ity), and I'm not sure we can, toss it. Purplebackpack89 (talk) 16:05, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
- I don't think the idea of "tossing all ratings" is a good one -- it's really just a cop-out to avoid a heated discussion. However, the idea of modifying the WP:CITIES banner to add a capital parameter isn't a bad idea. That would allow us to keep track of cities that are capitals, which I think is what we're trying to do by incorporating that into the importance ratings. So then the importance ratings could be based more on population -- cities over 3 million or 5 million would be Top-importance, cities over 700,000 would be High-Importance, and so on,...
- I wouldn't recommend a simple yes/no for the capital parameter, however. If we could have a few options, like national, state, provincial, territorial, or no, that would help us keep track of which cities are capitals at various levels as well. We should also have individual categories that each of these classes would be placed in as well. Dr. Cash (talk) 17:35, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
- I'm fine with a population perameter (the number I've suggested is metro area of 7 million, based on the metro areas article), and with regard to the capitals, we could have have nationalcapital=yes, provincialcapital=yes, etc Purplebackpack89 (talk) 17:54, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
- In some cases I can see having importance rankings. Particularly for subjects which have multiple direct subtopics, like, well, virtually any religion, they can be used to indicate whether a given article is a main article, direct subarticle, sub-subarticle, etc., of that topic, and help make it a bit easier to note where given content should be moved, if nothing else. I'm not sure that there tend to be that many subarticles of individual cities thoughl That being the case, maybe they wouldn't be really necessary here. John Carter (talk) 18:31, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
- I'm fine with a population perameter (the number I've suggested is metro area of 7 million, based on the metro areas article), and with regard to the capitals, we could have have nationalcapital=yes, provincialcapital=yes, etc Purplebackpack89 (talk) 17:54, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
One of the bees in my bonnet is the general lack of focus or categorisation in wpcities. If the addition of a capitals=yes parameter is feasible then maybe we can consider further sub-divisions, much as the milhist and biography projects do. Geographical region might be one. Aministrative subdivisions of conurbations might be another. Don't forget that importance isn't purely a matter of population - international repute or profile is another, eg, Oxford or Cambridge or Versailles or Bhopal. If we are changing things a little then perhaps there are other fixes that are feasible. Oh, and please be cautious with the use of the word "cities" since in some countries this has a specific, sometimes legal, meaning and I have to repeatedly advise editors that "cities" = settlements. Thanks. Folks at 137 (talk) 20:15, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
- A "capitals=yes" function could easily be added. It would also be possible to add a limited number of parameters for continents, areas, and the like, but I don't think the banner would necessarily support one for each individual country. And I would agree that more than population and governmental status should be considered. Los Angeles, a city with a GNP that would make it one of the ten highest on the planet, is an example of this, as probably is New York City. We wouldn't want to be too Eurocentric (thinking about the addition of Oxford), but it could well qualify for inclusion, as could all the "cultural" centers of countries or areas. Frankly, a lot of the WikiProject about countries are really just more index pages than countries, and I speak as the person who created many of them, so many might not be that much help. But one option might be to do something like the following:
- 1) Maybe start a nomination for Top importance page like WP:NOVELS has, and "upgrade" all those that get consensus for such, with either a predetermined number of articles to be finally chosen or open-ended.
- 2) Work to bring as many of those articles selected up to C or B class as possible, as well as any others selected by WP:1.0.
- I'm fairly sure that would be at least a start for making the importance or priority tagging useful, anyway. John Carter (talk) 21:32, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
- I'm being to get more and more worried about the importance rating. If the recent debate is anything to go by, unless there are clear, simple criteria, it could become a real playground. Particularly if we have to come to a consensus over a nomination! Continental groupings and/or major countries (US, Russia, China) would be better than none. Didn't mean to be Euro-centric , just the ones that came to mind (ironic really, as I've occasionally moaned about wpcities being US-centric!!); Jerusalem might be another example. Otherwise, JC's is a reasonable plan. Folks at 137 (talk) 00:26, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
- In essence I support JC's plan, albeit in a circuitous fashion. I somewha feel that using the meta list is an extension of that, as one would have to get it on the meta list (which is pretty hard to do, it's not run by a bunch of crackpots as some have alleged) in order to get it top here; if we have our own nomination process, it should have some guidelines:
- population of ##-million (I say 7 million in the metro) OR historical/cultural/economic significance
- maximum of five in any one country (including the US, China or India) and fifteen non-capitals on any one continent
And if there are nominations, I nominate the meta non-capitals (NYC and LA in North America; Rio and Sao Paolo in South America; Cape Town and Lagos in Africa; Saint Petersburg and Istanbul in Europe; Sydney in Oceania; and Delhi, Calcutta, Mumbai, Mecca, Hong Kong and Shanghai in Asia). My thoughts Purplebackpack89 (talk) 22:39, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
- Some sort of way to limit the number of additions would definitely be useful, and would probably help make any selection of non-capitals a bit easier. But not necessarily that much easier. One question which comes to mind to me would be whether Cahokia, Chichen Itza, Babylon, Alexandria, and the like, which are historically important if not so important now, would be reasonable for inclusion. John Carter (talk) 22:55, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
- Well, Alexandria still exists, and the best example would be Tenochitlan. The problem is there isn't enough subcategorization Purplebackpack89 (talk) 23:08, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
- Agree to Teochitlan, but am curious what you mean by saying there isn't enough subcategorization. What kind of subcategorization would you be proposing? If there is a time to discuss it, now is probably as good a time as any other. John Carter (talk) 23:12, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
- Well, Alexandria still exists, and the best example would be Tenochitlan. The problem is there isn't enough subcategorization Purplebackpack89 (talk) 23:08, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Subcategorization
We need sub-categories in a variety of areas. Here are some that have come up
- World capitals
- Historical cities
- By country/region
Purplebackpack89 (talk) 00:03, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
- OK, so, just to be clear here, I don't see any sort of category for national capitals, but I do see Category:Capitals, which also contains Category:Former national capitals, Category:Capitals by country, and Category:Capitals of former nations. There is a Category:Former cities, but I'm not sure how to differentiate between ghost towns and what I think you mean, historically important former cities, or how to define "historically important", for that matter. And Category:Cities by country, which I admit is incomplete (Niue isn't there, but I don't know how many "cities" a country of 1,000 people can have) and doesn't separate out overseas territores like I personally would like. Cities by region, I'm not entirely sure what you mean there. John Carter (talk) 01:19, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
I think what we should do is to create two additional parameters for the WP:CITIES banner: (1) capital and (2) region.
The, capital parameter would be set to either:
- national (for a national capital)
- state (for a state capital)
- territory (for a territorial capital)
- province (for a provincial capital)
The region parameter would be set to either:
- africa
- asia
- australia-pacific
- europe
- northamerica
- southamerica
If categories don't already exist for each of these, then they should be created (e.g. Category:National Capitals). Dr. Cash (talk) 16:51, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
GA Reassessment of San Juan, Puerto Rico
San Juan, Puerto Rico 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 02:53, 14 December 2009 (UTC)