Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities/Archive 15

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New to Wiki editing

Hi everyone! I'm new to Wikipedia editing. I'm a graduate broadcast journalism student at American University and am taking a class on Wikipedia. I've posted some pictures from my study abroad trip to Paris on Wikimedia Commons. Any feedback or advice for future posts is greatly appreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:A:3C80:244:28BE:AED0:62E1:224 (talk) 04:13, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Airports in infoboxes

The following discussion 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.

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Question: For a major city (like the primary city in a metro area), should the city's major airport be listed in the infobox? Seattle, Los Angeles, and New York City do this, while Atlanta, London and Paris do not, and this is currently being discussed at Las Vegas. A second question is whether it matters if the city's major airport is not in city limits. Seattle's major airport is not, and New York City lists two major airports that are and one that is not, and you could make an argument for adding other area airports to LA. Ego White Tray (talk) 15:24, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this to the attention of the WikiProject. Note that {{Infobox settlement}} contains an example which includes the major airport, just to clarify that this is not a new concept. I do not think it matters if the airport is in city limits, as this is often the case for the primary airports serving a given city. Additional, non-primary yet still major airports perhaps should be listed as a secondary airport, as is the case with Dallas Love Field and Dallas.

If we agree adding airports is in general a good idea (and I think it is), I'd like to propose adding a field for airports to {{Infobox settlement}}. Implementation will require the assistance of a template editor or administrator. I guess we will get to specifics at a later time... Cheers — MusikAnimal ^talk 17:25, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

If you elect to go this way a lot of details need to be resolved. The title for the entry in the infobox is one. 'Airport' is not good since it is meaningless as to the purpose as pointed out above. The more correct is 'major airport serving the settlement' which is too long. Also does this then get used on all articles? Airports can be listed for settlements in multiple states since some are the major airports for parts of 4 or more states. That is potentially hundreds of settlements per airport! Is this for commercial flights or what? Also Wikipedia is not a travel guide so why is knowing which airport serves the settlement not related to becoming a travel guide? Also from Help:Infobox, consistently present a summary of some unifying aspect that the articles share and sometimes to improve navigation to other interrelated articles. I'm not convinced that the airport serving the area meets this. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:11, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Note. The examples of where airports exist in the infoboxes is not an indication of consensus or precedence. As was pointed out by the closer in an edit war administrative action, these were recently added by User:Msloewengart who was behind the edits that brought the discussion here and is now blocked so they will not be able to participate in this discussion for a while. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:45, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Totally agree with Vegaswikian for the reasons stated. Best, epicAdam^(talk) 23:55, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me. Ego White Tray (talk) 02:19, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I currently offering my week oppose. I do generally like the idea, but I am not sure what the inclusion line is that differentiates an airport from other ports and major rail stations. Should Grand Central Terminal go in the info box? If not, what differentiates it from JFK Airport. Surly passengers arriving by plane can't be our cut off line. However, to Vegaswikian's concern about what airports to include, I think limiting it to International Airports might solve that problem. But other types of ports are also international, hence my week oppose. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 10:39, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

International airports are something else. In the US, many international airports don't have international flights. In Europe, I believe that virtually all airports have international flights. So as a decision criteria, that has more problems. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:41, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I move my position from weak to strong oppose. Vegaswikian is correct. I was applying Amera-centric conclusions here. What airports to include is a big issue. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 22:12, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose (Agree with above editors). The infobox is supposed to be a summary of a few easily digestible facts about the city to grab the reader's attention, not a summary of everything in the article.

Worse, a lot of cities have no airport. The airport is far outside city and sometimes county (or equivalent) limits. Their adherents don't want to admit this. So it's an opportunity for silly claims. We know who the mayor is and a few other salient facts. Let's not get into crazy land wars in what is supposed to be a simple summary in the info box. Student7 (talk) 19:50, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

I now agree. Student7 makes a good argument, this data just seems too complicated and subject to debate for a section that's supposed to accessibly include indisputable facts about the subject. — MusikAnimal ^talk 20:45, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Notwithstanding what appears to be a general consensus here to refrain from adding airports willy-nilly to info boxes, User:Msloewengart is continuing to do so. I've reverted a couple of recent edits, and left a couple of messages on his / her Talk page, but without much effect. I don't have much stake in this one way or the other, but it does bug me when editors so plainly exhibit WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT syndrome. JohnInDC (talk) 02:15, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Seven days have past since the last opinion on the matter was made. I'm closing this discussion with the result of not including airports in infoboxes as that seems to be a clear consensus. Ample time was allowed for opposing parties to make their points. I have opted for formal closure since we have a lot of edits to undo, and a formally written out consensus should help justify removal of content (link here in the edit summary). Feel free to challenge the closure if you see fit. Thanks! — MusikAnimal ^talk 16:29, 14 January 2014 (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.

Don't overlook Special:Contributions/68.191.43.129. JohnInDC (talk) 16:38, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

I just discovered this discussion after seeing a link to it in one of MusikAnimal's edit summaries (good job providing that, thanks). The way that the blocked editor was adding the airport information was by adding the full names of the airports, followed by the airport codes. Lengthy airport names such as Novosibirsk Tolmachevo Airport, George Bush Intercontinental Airport and Ürümqi Diwopu International Airport are the norm, but if just the codes and link(s) were provided, for example as (URC/ZWWW) the information could be conveyed succinctly. It's more or less on a par with the time zone, postal codes, telephone dialling prefixes and vehicle registration codes that are typically included in infoboxes for cities. As for airports outside the boundaries of a city, that is very common. If reliable sources refer to an airport as serving the city, that should be enough for us to associate it with the city. —rybec 00:38, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Can you provide evidence of "typically included" and "very common", because it appears to be the conclusion of the above discussion that this is not the norm, which is also my own editing experience. Your airport code suggestion also doesn't address several other issues brought up in the above discussion. Namely, why airports and not other ports of entry like train stations and sea ports? Dkriegls (talk to me!) 05:44, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you're asking me to show that airports outside the boundaries of their cities are commonplace, which is what I meant by "As for airports outside the boundaries of a city, that is very common." Although I chose them as examples of lengthy names, two of the examples I gave are also airports outside the boundaries of the cities they serve: Novosibirsk Tolmachevo Airport is in the town of Ob, not in Novosibirsk; Ürümqi Diwopu International Airport is in Diwopu township but not, it seems in Ürümqi. Only part of the Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport is in Atlanta; Orly Airport is not in Paris—further examples may easily be found.

The article on Novosibirsk has a telephone dialling code and several postal codes; the article on Houston has telephone dialling codes, a FIPS code and a GNIS feature ID (I didn't know that FIPS codes or GNIS feature IDs existed before seeing them in Wikipedia infoboxes). The article for Ürümqi has a telephone dialling code, a postal code, a license plate prefix and an ISO 3166-2 code. Further examples may easily be found.

The airport codes lend themselves to succinct presentation as a parameter followed by a value, and many readers will recognise them. If other modes of transport can be presented briefly and understandably, perhaps they could be included too. Although steamship travel isn't what it used to be, the Port of Tianjin and Port of Rotterdam are important to the economies of their respective cities. —rybec 08:11, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

I guess the point is, as you rightly point out using airport names instead of codes is what people do, but my point is that listing airports is not the norm on city infoboxes. Pointing out WP:OTHERSTUFF on infoboxes doesn't negate the other points made in the above discussion that led to its closure. Like, if we include airports why not other ports of entry like Grand Central and the Port Authority Bus terminal in NYC? What size airports and why? There's no easy way to scale that list down. A city like Chicago would have to list over 10 airports used by local residents. Etc. see above discussion. I don't think using airport codes helps with any of that, and it's best to not include airports in the infobox. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dkriegls (talk • contribs) 2014-02-04T22:04:58

Talk:Eastside_Los_Angeles#New_definition_of_East_Side

Neutral notification of ongoing discussion of where the boundaries of the East side of Los Angeles are taking place now for your editing pleasure at the above noted link! Bonne santé, mes citoyens!— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 02:35, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Requested move of Newport

A requested moves discussion has been started at Talk:Newport#Requested_move on a proposal to rename the article Newport to Newport, Wales.

This article falls within the scope of this project, so project members may wish to contribute to discussion. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:09, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Discussion on guidelines for article outline

Hi. I recently joined the project, and on the guidelines pages, I had a brief discussion (with a single other editor - Dkriegls) regarding trying to conform all the top US cities (as per List of United States cities by population) to follow the guidelines as closely as possible.

As has been pointed out in other discussions on this talkpage, while there is no strict policy on the format, it is also a quality of Wikipedia that folks don't necessary read an article all the way through, but simply go to the section in a city article which they are interested in. Additionally, even though this project is unique in that it is user-regulated, if we are striving to make articles as encyclopedic as possible (as indicated by the ratings scale), shouldn't we also be attempting to make the project as a whole as encyclopedic as well?

All that being said, I'd like to have a discussion regarding the viability of standardizing the city guidelines, and then beginning a project of bringing them all into that standard format. To me, this would solve two issues: first, the upgrading of the entire project to more closely resemble the historical conformity of encyclopedias (e.g. Encyclopedia Britannica); and second, it would aid people looking for a particular fact in an article, if the order was standardized. I've already gone through the first 26 cities on the list, and have gotten mostly positive feedback. In fact, only on two articles were any negative comments made, on Chicago, where my edits were reverted, but after explaining that they were per the guidelines, no further comments were made. Only on Washington DC was there an editor who simply does not like the guidelines, was there any significant negativity. Also, not sure if this is the right talkpage (should it be on the guidelines talkpage)? Onel5969 (talk) 14:40, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Having a uniform format helps increase clarity, which I would encourage and agree with. Note that there are some different guidelines, I have never compared them. But it might be worth trying to unify them worldwide, if the guidelines are not to different from each other (of course while allowing the necessary locally needed adjustments). CRwikiCA talk 16:52, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I am the one who objected on Chicago, and it was primarily that the format became worse, after your first edit - which you later rectified in subsequent edits, after the reversion. To impose binding conformity would require a binding decision of the whole editor corp, probabely at WP:VPP in an WP:RfC. But, it seems doubtful to me that a very strict rule would pass. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:30, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree, that on Wikipedia we cannot impose article formatting rules. Guidelines and striving for uniformity is good, although it should never be imposed against consensus on an individual article. I would definitely recommend discussing major formatting changes on the talk page especially for articles that have FA or GA status and might be formatted different from guidelines in their respective review processes. CRwikiCA talk 17:44, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

This is a great sentiment, but, as I mentioned earlier, it will take some very patient editors to work on a page by page basis to bring uniformity and won't likely come from on high by changing some Wikipedia rule. But I fully support the effort. Looks like the Chicago edit when okay. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 02:13, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for all the input. I'm through the top 30 cities in the US so far, and the only issue remains Washington DC. I've attempted to engage in discussion, but the folks there don't seem interested in discussion. Oh, well. The other 29 have gone well. I post a notice on the talk page first, eliciting discussion, then if there is none, I go forward and restructure the page. It'll take me a month or so to get through the top 100 US Cities, then I'll move on to the top 100 World cities. When I do, I'll attempt to get some type of consensus regarding reconciling the structure with the US structure, and let you all know how it turns out. I'm not jazzed myself on some of the choices (e.g. why is crime under government, not demographics? I understand the arguments, just disagree with them), but will make the changes per the consensus.Onel5969 (talk) 17:27, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Best city this and that

In quite many articles, there are prominent mentions that Lonely Planet or some other travel organization has named the city as the best for this of best for that some time in the past. Given that many travel organizations make several such lists (best city, best for nightlife, best for shopping etc) every year, and with new cities each year, I don't really see the relevance. Unless there's an official ranking of some sort, I would recommend removing all such mentions from city articles, or at least only keep the most recent (2013-2014). If Sarajevo was ranked best by Lonely Planet for something in 2006 or Thessaloniki best for something else in 2009, I'm not sure it's on any encyclopaedic value. This mentions are not proper rankings so saying the city is best is rather dubious. Particularly when there have been several rankings since in which the city is not mentioned.Jeppiz (talk) 15:11, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I could see an article specific due-weight argument against what you have pointed to, but I am having difficulty seeing a top-down ban as a good idea (as a related issue, do you have an opinion on use in tourism articles or sections?) Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:17, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Not looking for any ban, more in terms of proper representation and due weight. In other words, I don't think it should ever be in the introduction to a city (as is the case with Sarajevo, the article that brought me here as I had just seen a similar thing at Thessaloniki). The tourism section could be a relevant place for it, but then with wording such as In 20XX, Lonely Planet named the city as one of the best destinations that year instead of The city has been ranked as one of the best in world followed by a ref to Lonely Planet.Jeppiz (talk) 21:08, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree that any type of ranking should always be put into context: what group gave the ranking and the year it was given. I do that with schools too. --JonRidinger (talk) 00:46, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I think you would be hard pressed to make an argument for removing such listings, even from the lead. All the major cities include their top rankings from one index or another in their lead. So simply listing such rankings in the lead is widespread practice. Now, the second question (which was actually the first one posed), is Lonely Planet's rankings somehow less deserving? The only support for this argument I read above was that these aren't "proper rankings". If most major cities have some ranking they are tops on in their lead, what makes a WP:Notable source like a Lonely Planet ranking different? I'm not against this, just asking the question. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 05:32, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Good question. I would say there are two main differences. The first is that most other rankings tend to be based on some measurable fact, while the LP rankings are usually the opinion of a small number of personsl. The second is that most other rankings tend to be rather stable. If city X has the highest literacy rate, the most number of millionaires, highest ratio of doctors per inhabitant, or highest proportion of cyclists this year, it's very likely it will rank highly on the same criteria next year as well. LP is fundamentally different as the very idea is to find new spots, and usually the cities included on their lists (not rankings) are only included once. I do think that that is enough to be mentioned in the tourism sections, but I really don't see how it's relevant for the lead that somebody at LP thought the city was a good party city ten years ago.Jeppiz (talk) 14:11, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Agree. Note that for colleges, ratings are normally not summarized in the lead. Why not do that here? They are subjective. Nearly every city over 100,000 can claim something in the "top 10" in the US, however trivial it may seem to the reader. Student7 (talk) 22:41, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Be aware that the more top 10s we add the more pressure there will be to add those bottom 10s. Also most of these are based on some really arbitrary set of criteria and the results vary of time, so how much value are they in an article? Vegaswikian (talk) 23:45, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to User Study

Would you be interested in participating in a user study? We are a team at University of Washington studying methods for finding collaborators within a Wikipedia community. We are looking for volunteers to evaluate a new visualization tool. All you need to do is to prepare for your laptop/desktop, web camera, and speaker for video communication with Google Hangout. We will provide you with a Amazon gift card in appreciation of your time and participation. For more information about this study, please visit our wiki page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Finding_a_Collaborator). If you would like to participate in our user study, please send me a message at Wkmaster (talk) 01:20, 23 February 2014 (UTC).

Popular pages tool update

As of January, the popular pages tool has moved from the Toolserver to Wikimedia Tool Labs. The code has changed significantly from the Toolserver version, but users should notice few differences. Please take a moment to look over your project's list for any anomalies, such as pages that you expect to see that are missing or pages that seem to have more views than expected. Note that unlike other tools, this tool aggregates all views from redirects, which means it will typically have higher numbers. (For January 2014 specifically, 35 hours of data is missing from the WMF data, which was approximated from other dates. For most articles, this should yield a more accurate number. However, a few articles, like ones featured on the Main Page, may be off).

Web tools, to replace the ones at tools:~alexz/pop, will become available over the next few weeks at toollabs:popularpages. All of the historical data (back to July 2009 for some projects) has been copied over. The tool to view historical data is currently partially available (assessment data and a few projects may not be available at the moment). The tool to add new projects to the bot's list is also available now (editing the configuration of current projects coming soon). Unlike the previous tool, all changes will be effective immediately. OAuth is used to authenticate users, allowing only regular users to make changes to prevent abuse. A visible history of configuration additions and changes is coming soon. Once tools become fully available, their toolserver versions will redirect to Labs.

If you have any questions, want to report any bugs, or there are any features you would like to see that aren't currently available on the Toolserver tools, see the updated FAQ or contact me on my talk page. Mr.Z-bot (talk) (for Mr.Z-man) 05:33, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

"Plymouth"

The usage of Plymouth (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is under discussion, see talk:Plymouth -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 05:32, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Large scale removal of twin towns in city articles

I am writing here to see what the consensus is, Ohconfucius (talk · contribs) has been progressively removing twin town listings from city articles labeling it as cruft. he provides some explanation here but I don't think there is any community consensus for this removal. what do people think? LibStar (talk) 03:51, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

There was a discussion of deleting Sister cities on this very page (here). There was not a consensus for project wide delete. In that discussion, I generally supported deleting if the relationship lacked reference proving its notability and not just its existence. I think Ohconfucius should be reverted and he should be referred here if he wants to build consensus for his project wide deletes. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 23:39, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Portal:New York City FPO nomination

Hello. I have nominated Portal:New York City for Featured Portal status. Please engage in discussion at Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:New York City. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:09, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Please consider commenting at the above page regarding the nomination of the NYC portal for featured status. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:30, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Riverdale Park, Maryland

Could we get some more eyes on this please? I have to leave the net for the weekend in a few minutes, and I do not really have the time to try to deal with the very over-eager new editor there. From the appearance of his talk page, this may well end up at AN/I. John from Idegon (talk) 22:30, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm taking a look at it right now, John from Idegon, and the article is certainly a mess. I'm leaving message on the city's talk page, and let's see how he responds to it. Onel5969 (talk) 01:29, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

GA listing in jeopardy: Banská Bystrica

Banská Bystrica was reviewed and listed in Jan 2008. It has been tagged with sourcing concerns since October 2012. I have done a GAR, which indicates that the article doesn't meet several MoS criteria. The ten main contributors have been notified, though no work has been done. As there appears to be a fair amount of work needed, the article will be delisted in seven days unless someone objects. See Talk:Banská Bystrica/GA1 for more details. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 10:11, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Greenville SC to Mid-Importance

Greenville, SC should be listed as Mid-Importance, instead of Low importance. Greenville's urban population is 400,492, and has a metro area of 850,965. The cities ranking below Greenville in those categories are all listed under mid-importance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by OurKing15 (talk • contribs) 18:14, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities/Assessment#Importance assessment Greenville, SC would be considered a topic of mid-importance. However, I don't at all agree with the currently outlined WikiProject Cities priority scale. It would place New York City, the only alpha++ city next to London, as having high and not top importance. Take away any potential bias I may have and nearly everyone would still agree that this global city should be categorized as more important than say, Canberra. As such I boldly adjusted the importance at Talk:New York City. — MusikAnimal ^talk 16:59, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Category:Planned cities in the United States vs. Category:Planned communities in the United States

Anyone know what the difference is here? Planned city redirects to planned community, and the cities category includes some unincorporated communities (e.g. Celebration, Florida). --NE2 00:45, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

The Planned cities cat was created first in 2008; User:Vegaswikian created the Planned communities cat two years later. The communities cat is a parent cat holding the cities cat, but I'm not convinced that such a precise differentiation is needed, and there is potential for mis-categorisation. You could raise the matter with Vegaswikian and/or take it to WP:CFD for wider opinion. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 07:49, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

GA article being reassessed: Carnoustie

Carnoustie was reviewed and listed as a Good Article in Sept 2008. The article has been tagged with sourcing concerns since Dec 2009. I have done a GAR, which indicates that the article doesn't meet GA criteria for the WP:Lead, the size and focus, the prose, and sourcing. The main contributor has been notified, though is not able to do any work at the moment. Following the guidelines at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment, this WikiProject is now being informed as the article may be delisted. See Talk:Carnoustie/GA2 for more details. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 22:43, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Importance scale

Per #Greenville SC to Mid-Importance, I would like to propose a reform to the WikiProject Cities priority scale. It places Canberra as more important than New York City, Tirana as more important than Las Vegas, Pretoria as more important than Sydney, so on and so forth. I think it's clear that population or political stance doesn't necessarily equate to the topic's value to the project as a whole. How about adopting a more general assessment criteria, like that outlined by the Version 1.0 editorial team? — MusikAnimal ^talk 17:19, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

It's nice to have a more measurable criterion that "must have" and "fills in more minor details"; but I see your point. Perhaps we could amend the current chart by adding cities over 1 million to the "Top" category? Dkriegls (talk to me!) 06:15, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps tie "top" in some way to Global cities status per RS? Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:32, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

GA article being reassessed: Askam and Ireleth

Askam and Ireleth was reviewed and listed in Sept 2007. I have done a GAR, which indicates that the article doesn't meet GA criteria. Main contributors have been notified, and some work has been done, but progress is slow. Following the guidelines at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment, this WikiProject is now being informed as editing assistance may be needed to prevent the article being delisted. See Talk:Askam and Ireleth/GA1 for more details. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 09:44, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

GA article being reassessed: Basingstoke

Basingstoke was reviewed and listed in Aug 2007. It has been tagged with sourcing concerns since June 2012. I have done a GAR, which indicates that the article doesn't meet GA criteria. The main contributors have been notified, though are unavailable, so work has not been done. Following the guidelines at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment, this WikiProject is being informed as editing assistance will be needed to prevent the article being delisted. See Talk:Basingstoke/GA1 for more details. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 18:17, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

GA article being reassessed: Belfast

Belfast was reviewed and listed as a Good Article in March 2007, and last reassessed in Sept 2007. It has been tagged with sourcing concerns since August 2008. I have done a GAR, and I feel that the article doesn't meet current GA criteria. The main contributors have been notified, though are unavailable or not able to do the work at the moment, and there has been no progress. Following the guidelines at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment, interested WikiProjects are being contacted as editing assistance may be needed to prevent the article being delisted. See Talk:Belfast/GA1 for more details. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 22:00, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

How accurate are the weather tables anyway?

Regarding the weather tables... are they generally accurate? The answer to that question would have bearing on whether we should use them and how strongly we should feature them, I'd think.

I ask because I checked one at random (Buffalo, New York) and it sure isn't. See Talk:Buffalo, New York#I am confused about the climate table. In a nutshell, the table does not seem to reflect the sources (unless I'm reading them wrong -- they're complicated), plus one source ended 25 years ago which, things being as they are, is an awful long time. Plus in this case there's another simple curve graph which doesn't jibe with the table.

Maybe this doesn't matter so much. You can certainly gather from the tables the knowledge "In high summer (June-July-August) the hottest part of a typical day is in the mid-to-upper-seventies Farenheit (mid-twenties Celcius)" and so forth, and that's probably more or less true, and is good enough for many readers (and better for some). But maybe we should actually say that rather the implying a high level of accuracy we apparently don't have.

A spot-check of a few random instances by someone who is confident they can read the sources correctly (that take me out) would be useful in answering this question, I guess. Herostratus (talk) 15:13, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

@Herostratus: The ones in the U.S. and PRC that I've coded in the last 12 months are all completely accurate, minus a few locations that broke their monthly record highs/lows that I've missed. A little WP:COMPETENCE is required to use and interpret the sources provided. plus one source ended 25 years ago which that can't be helped because 1961–1990 is the last normals period which NWS has computed sunshine duration normals, while percent possible sunshine data ended in 2009 for all but a few locations; percentages on their own are not really useful. So, other than to update normals (which are only released every 10 years), monthly record highs/lows, there is no excuse whatsoever to edit the data once I've touched it anyway. "My master, Annatar the Great, bids thee ^welcome!" 15:44, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

All the Average high & low temps, Record low temps, Average Precipitation & Snowfall, humidity, and sunshine data checks out for the above-mentioned location as far as I can tell. The humidity & sunshine data is from here (see 1961-1990 MN3 HRLY, 1961-1990 MN_#HRS & 1961-1990 %OFPOSS data), and, in the USA, sunshine data was basically phased out with the addition of many automated (mostly ASOS) sites in the 1990s, so the last 30-year averages (or "normals", which are supposed to be updated every decade) are from the 1961-1990 period. The weather table in question is basically labelled this way as well ("Source: NOAA (relative humidity and sun 1961–1990)"). The additional graph located above the weather table in the Buffalo article also jives very well with a similiar graph that's available for plotting here by using the Buffalo Niagrara, NY site & the Daily/monthly normals "Product".

The only error that I could find was that the Record High Temperature for the month of June in Buffalo might actually be 98F as shown here at the Weather Channel site, which is not a primary source instead of 97F.

As I think can be seen by this exercise here, the weather boxes make the relevant climate data much more easily accessble to an average user than by just mentioning a citation that one has to parse through carefully. Guy1890 (talk) 00:25, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

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Yeah OK I see it now. It's at the National Weather Service site. It's hard to find and hard to ref because all the various suppages use the same URL. Too bad, but I don't know any simple solution to that. The addition of this, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) is useful because it does support the data I was looking at (monthly temperature avg high/low. It's hard to read and requires calculation but at least it's all right there. The title change (from "Climate data for Buffalo, New York (Buffalo Niagara Int'l), 1981–2010 normals" to "Climate data for Buffalo, New York (Buffalo Niagara Int'l), 1981–2010 normals, extremes 1871–present" is an improvement IMO and so is the Threadex link.

But OK. I was just raising the question. I missed the data. It's under "NOWData" rather than "Local Data/Records", which does have the data I was checking, but only through 2005. Another editor changed the May average daily high from 66.5 F to 68.7 F (etc.) and you have to figure he's got some ref for that or else he's correcting a misreading of the existing ref. Maybe not, but you can't assume that. You have to check the ref. It's frustrating because there ought to be simpler way to confirm basic and common raw data like this, but that's the fault of the refs and not us.

I guess we could add "then go to such-and-such place" or something as part of the ref. It's non-standard but I'd consider doing it. We do encourage page numbers for books. For large databases under one URL it'd make sense -- until they change the website interface. So I dunno. But OK, thanks for addressing my concern. Herostratus (talk) 00:35, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

The weather box for Buffalo is correct based on the sources in the weather box and from the WMO page (exactly the same numbers). That change in the May high from 66.5 F to 68.7 F would then be incorrect and possibly vandalism. Ssbbplayer (talk) 16:15, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Metro areas

Are metropolitan areas covered by this wikiproject? It came up at Talk:San José metropolitan area as your project not covering that. However, Talk:Tokyo carries a WPCITIES banner, and that is not a city, it is a metropolitan regional government. -- 65.94.171.126 (talk) 04:16, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

All towns, villages, sometimes unincorporated areas, and metro areas follow these Project Guidelines. The guidelines have been well established and discussed over years and they are fairly solid. There is no particular reason, IMO, to reinvent the wheel for each subset or superset of "city." Student7 (talk) 13:56, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

WP Cities in the Signpost

The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Cities for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. –Mabeenot (talk) 15:04, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

RFC for Template:Geographic reference

There is an RFC going on at Template_talk:Geographic_reference#rfc_5B71C8A. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 14:03, 16 June 2014 (UTC)