Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities/US Guideline
Latest comment: 10 months ago by Sbmeirow in topic Updating the infobox example
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Neighborhoodscout.com should not be used as a source
This is a real estate tech company that uses proprietary algorithms to rank neighborhoods based on things like crime stats. It's opaque how these numbers are arrived at. It's likely just taking municipal/county data, but it doesn't provide citations (eg what year or years the data is using). IMO that fails the verifiability standard. The same goes for when it's cited for neighborhood bounds and demographics.
It greatly resembles city-data, which is on the spam blacklist. For these reasons, I think it's prudent to remove all citations to neighborhoodscout.com. Sativa Inflorescence (talk) 03:24, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
Long lists of mayors
US city articles occasionally contain painfully long lists of former mayors, such as Mount Vernon, New York#Mayor. Do these mayors lists improve articles, or just more cruft? Thanks for your input. Magnolia677 (talk) 20:06, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
Tornadoes
When do tornadoes become notable? I see tornadoes listed all the time in geography sections, "In 1924, the roof of Fred Jones' barn was ripped off by an EF2 tornado", and I've had many heated discussions about tornadoes. Is there some criteria, like EF4 or a body count number? I'm eyeing the Monroe, Louisiana#2020 tornado and it looks like a nothingburger. Thanks. Magnolia677 (talk) 20:17, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
- Though the 2020 Monroe tornado didn't kill anyone, it did damage many buildings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Easter_tornado_outbreak#Monroe,_Louisiana • Sbmeirow • Talk • 23:28, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
- Tornadoes and other natural disasters (forest fires / floods / hurricanes) can a have a major impact on communities, and some of the worst can permanently change a community. Even if no one dies, a natural disaster can be one of the most important news events for the community over decades. As for tornadoes, they are extremely scary things at night, more scary than monster movies, even more so in the distant past before internet era / cellphone era / tv era, especially before weather radar. In the modern age, death count isn't enough to be a filter for major natural disaster events, because cellphones / weather radios / tv / radio has provided advanced notice to minimize deaths or prevent deaths from happening, especially during the day time when most people are awake, but night time is another matter. Just because no one dies, it doesn't mean a natural disaster should be removed, because there still could be significant destruction to a community. --- In general, for natural distasters, we should leave these events, even minors ones. My feeling is that small events should be short and in paragraph form as minor part of the history section and not have subsection above it. For major events, where significant damage occurs, even if no one dies, then may deserve a subsection for the event. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 22:51, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
- 1955 Blackwell-Oklahoma Tornado - 20 died / 200 injured / hundreds of homes destroyed / hundreds of homes damaged
- 1955 Udall-Kansas Tornado (same storm as above) - 77 died / 270 injured / 192 buildings destroyed
- 1990 Hesston-Kansas Tornado - 1 died / 59 injured / 247 building destroyed / some houses completed blown away leaving nothing but foundation
- 1991 Andover-Kansas Tornado - 13 died / 300+ homes destroyed :: in 2022, another tornado hit Andover, but 0 died / 3 minor injuries, lived saved because modern media & cellphones warned everyone
- 2007 Greensburg-Kansas Tornado - 11 died / 95% of city destroyed
- 2011 Reading-Kansas Tornado - 1 died / 2 injured / 70 buildings destroyed
- • Sbmeirow • Talk • 23:17, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks for your input. What I sometimes see is the addition of a notable weather event to communities fairly untouched by its damage, but still officially in its path. I was just wondering if there was some threshold, but its probably just editor discretion. Magnolia677 (talk) 10:00, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
- editor discretion, just like everything else in the history section. If a tornado damaged some trees but nothing else, then it isn't notable enough. If a tornado damaged a building outside of the city limits, then it likely isn't notable enough. If a tornado killed anyone, then probably should leave it, so not to be cold-hearted about it. If an article is short, then probably best to leave the tornado text, just to help provide some filler to the article. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 20:13, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks for your input. What I sometimes see is the addition of a notable weather event to communities fairly untouched by its damage, but still officially in its path. I was just wondering if there was some threshold, but its probably just editor discretion. Magnolia677 (talk) 10:00, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
Multiple unexplained redirects
User:TillmanJosh has redirected--without explanation--dozens and dozens of notable city articles over the past year. Some have been reverted, but many others remain as redirects. If other experienced US city editors could also have a look at some of these redirects it would be appreciated. --Magnolia677 (talk) 17:38, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
- Perhaps they could provide a better description of what they are doing in the edit summary -- but just looking at the first one I came across Parfreyville, Wisconsin it looks like an almost entirely unreferenced stub. One is to The Romance of Wisconsin Place Names, which if it is like similar books I've seen for other states, it provides little more than a sentence or two about a place. And the other reference is to GNIS for the extremely problematic category of "populate place". It has been discussed many times previously that GNIS is not a reliable source for the category of "populate place" as that often included rail sidings, crossroads, defunct trading posts, etc. In general, I would support merging such permastubs into to corresponding next level of administrative entity. If at some point additional references are found, the stub can easily be re-split. older ≠ wiser 19:04, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
- I messaged this editor three years ago to inquire about their redirecting of articles, without response. User:Stewpot has also reverted some redirects. Some article may indeed be found to be not notable enough for a Wikipedia article, but the wholesale redirecting of so many articles is not the way to accomplish a cleanup. Magnolia677 (talk) 19:21, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
- So are we supposed to let articles that have at most two-three sentences- some of which have been last edited 10+ years ago and have very little chance of being expanded upon in the near future- flood Wikipedia? My goal at the end of the day after noticing several deleted or otherwise existing articles that have nothing more than the location and a sentence or two of history be redirected into the town that the community was in. As User:Bkonrad pointed out, the GNIS "populate place" source should not just be the only way an article can be made and sourced off of. Like they also mentioned, these can easily be reverted if additional resources (preferably more than just two sentences) are found. Almost all the articles that I merged and redirected were simply where the communities were, and were redirected into their respective towns with the same information. I will say that I could of made some explanations; however, I did put in an explanation as to why I renamed this singular article and there is still only village of Cleveland in Wisconsin. TillmanJosh (talk) 01:27, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
- @TillmanJosh: Redirecting should only be used when it is likely not to be controversial, per WP:BLAR. Two editors have left multiple messages for you to stop doing this, which should indicate your redirects are controversial. Instead, at Advance, Wisconsin, you reverted two editors in order to redirect the article. It took me five minutes to locate a reliable source to support that Advance, Wisconsin, had a population of 50 in 2004. If you feel these stub articles should be removed, please conduct a thorough WP:BEFORE, and then nominate them for deletion. Magnolia677 (talk) 11:48, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
Updating the infobox example
Should the infobox example on the guideline be updated to reflect the changes made in major cities' articles? The guideline uses New York City as an example, but the infobox in the New York City article has been updated. Xeror (talk) 07:49, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
- In general, the infobox in WIKIPEDIA:USCITY should be an example of the goals of this guideline, instead of reflecting a real article that change over time. Technically, the infobox in WIKIPEDIA:USCITY doesn't have to reflect any real city, instead an imaginary city that fills in the most applicable fields with reasonable data is all that is needed. If a real city is chosen, New York City isn't the best choice, because it is a unicorn compared to ten's of thousands of community articles in USA, thus a more realistic smaller city would probably be a better choice. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 04:19, 23 November 2023 (UTC)