Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2019 August 16

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August 16[edit]

Hi,

There are colors in the list but no indication of what they mean. 1.55.216.41 (talk) 02:28, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, they may not mean anything. Colors are sometimes used just to make it easier to track where you are in a big chart, but I'd expect them to be more evenly distributed in that case. Another problem with the chart, that I've fixed, is that it made it look like nobody in the US gets any paid vacation, when it's simply left up to the company to decide how much. SinisterLefty (talk) 02:49, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
They were originally added over 7 years ago, by an IP address,[1] and it appears the original intent was to separate different numbers of days. That idea seems to have gone adrift in the intervening years. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:09, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I fixed the chart. It's now alphabetized, with colors for 0, 1-20, exactly 20, and 20 plus days. Mexico was tricky, since it's 6-24 days, but that's mostly less than 20, so I used that color. SinisterLefty (talk) 10:46, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Having alphabetized, you no longer need the colors. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:51, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The colours illustrate the amounts of leave in each country. so they do add some value.--Phil Holmes (talk) 15:26, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If so, then per Wikipedia practice there 1) should be a key so we know the purpose of the colors and 2) For accessibility purposes (color blindness) there should be an alternate, non-color based way of marking the differences alongside the color, and the color distinctions should be of a high-enough contrast to stand out from each other. --Jayron32 16:04, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Remember your own advise further up: "Wikipedia only gets better when people fix it." "...you're allowed to..." fix it. "No one here would stop you."--TMCk (talk) 21:58, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The color adds something, but not much. I'd be fine with somebody either adding a key or removing the color. The info is available in another form, by just reading the numbers. SinisterLefty (talk) 18:40, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It's a shame that there are ranges; this is the kind of thing that normally screams out for a sortable table. There are workarounds for number ranges, but nothing is really satisfactory as the key value to use (min, max, etc.) will change depending on the intended point. Matt Deres (talk) 19:20, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The IP who posted it 7 years ago said, "I copied and pasted table from the related German page and translated the content to English." Theoretically, this whole discussion should be moved to that article's talk page. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:18, 17 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I've now given Mexico a unique color to reflect the unique range of days it has. SinisterLefty (talk) 18:15, 17 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

seventh fastest growing regional city in New South Wales[edit]

Hello,

From Bathurst: "Population growth has reached 1.6% per annum over the five years until 2010, making Bathurst the seventh fastest growing regional city in New South Wales.[7] ", [7] is this link. I just wanted to check if you know what are the previous six cities which top the stats, and what is the current stats for 2019 or 2018 or something similar. I don't see where to find this information in the source. Please check. Thank you.

Regards, --Gryllida (talk) 07:15, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I can't help with an answer, but I am seeking a definition. What does "fastest growing" mean? By simple numbers? By percentage? Something else? Over what period? HiLo48 (talk) 10:09, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
A map of the fastest growing cities in Australia (2019 update) uses the percentage increase in population for each Local Government Area. Bathurst doesn't make it into the national top ten. Alansplodge (talk) 12:07, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
See also Bathurst Population 2019, which shows that growth has slowed a little; however, no "top ten" for NSW that I can find. Alansplodge (talk) 17:10, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
What is a "regional city"? DuncanHill (talk) 18:11, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
One that's outside the capital city. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 18:48, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Do we actually have a formal definition for a city in Australia these days? I hope it's more sensible than the American one that allows Soldier, Kansas, population 136, to be a city. If Soldier gained 15 people, it would have a population increase of over 10%. But Bathurst would have to gain nearly 4,000 people to have a growth rate of 10%. "Fastest growing" is not really a helpful measure. HiLo48 (talk) 23:03, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
See List of cities in Australia: The definition of a city in Australia varies between the states. State capital cities may include multiple local government areas (LGAs) within their boundaries and these LGAs may be cities in their own right. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 23:17, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, HiLo48, Alansplodge, DuncanHill, JackofOz! I'm glad to know the fresh data and the definition. --Gryllida (talk) 21:40, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Cities or Towns in the United States with the name "Lima"[edit]

I live in the town of Lima, Ohio. I just learned of another "Lima" in Western New York. I was just wondering how many "Limas" there are in the United States? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.213.47.175 (talk) 23:32, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

See Lima (disambiguation)#United_States and Lima, Wisconsin for several. DuncanHill (talk) 23:37, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Gosh, what a lot of Limas. Are they all named after lime (fruit) or limestone, or something else? Alansplodge (talk) 15:42, 17 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the famous Lima is the one in Peru, which has an etymology section in the article. I don't know how many towns and cities in the US are named for it or something else, though our article on Lima, Ohio, suggests that it's named for the one in Peru. The US went through a period of naming towns and cities after exotic locations (c.f. Cairo, Illinois, Paris, Texas, etc.). Matt Deres (talk) 15:55, 17 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Many of which are pronounced differently from their native pronunciation. There's LYE-muh, Ohio; New BER-lin, Illinois; CARE-oh, Illinois; and of course Paris, Illinois and Texas both, (mis-)pronounced the normal American way, PAIR-iss. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:26, 17 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Many rural areas may be named for lima beans, if they grow or have grown them nearby. Lima beans are named for Lima, Peru, though, so those are still indirectly named for it. SinisterLefty (talk) 17:34, 17 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Geographic Names Information Server lists 11 "populated places" with the exact name "Lima" (and a few more where it is a variant name, which I won't include here):

Lima, IA, 42°52' 6"N  91°44'35"W
Lima, IL, 40°10'39"N  91°22'43"W
Lima, MT, 44°38'13"N 112°35'31"W
Lima, NC, 35°11'51"N  77° 8' 8"W
Lima, NY, 42°54'17"N  77°36'41"W
Lima, OH, 39° 3'51"N  82° 7'12"W
Lima, OH, 40°44'33"N  84° 6'19"W
Lima, OK, 35°10'26"N  96°35'59"W
Lima, PA, 39°55' 2"N  75°26'26"W
Lima, SC, 35° 5'21"N  82°26'50"W
Lima, WI, 44°38' 2"N  91°52'23"W

However, I have observed in the past that this server lists many unincorporated or other unofficial place names, so it's possible that there are some that you would not want to count. --76.69.116.4 (talk) 20:00, 17 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

GNIS tends to be a comprehensive list for place names that have ever had reliable documentation. The system doesn't really distinguish between incorporated vs. unincorporated places, etc. All it cares about is if there is a patch of the U.S. that people would recognize as having a name. --Jayron32 17:45, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If you use the U.S. Census shapefile repository, you can easily distinguish between an incorporated area and a census designated place (populated, but unincorporated). For example, I happen to live in Mountain Park, which some say is part of Lima, SC. It is a CDP, not a town or city. From what I see, it is nothing more than an intersection of highway 25 and route 11. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 23:12, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
US Census tracts can be defined differently than other ways of defining places. Especially in places like New England, they can make a real mess of what is usually fairly simple local geography. Some CDPs are purely creations of the census bureau for their own statistical purposes, and have never been locally recognized. --Jayron32 12:48, 23 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Census tracts and CDPs are not the same thing. A census tract is used to divide the population into small chunks. A census designated place is an unincorporated location that has a name recognized by the local population. 199.164.8.1 (talk) 16:53, 23 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]