Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities/US Guideline

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, such as Wikiville, Moosylvania, 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. Though I made up Wikiville for an imaginary city name (but later I discovered "Wikipedia:Wikiville"), and borrowed the silly Moosylvania for an imaginary state name (from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show), we could use Lists of fictional locations for naming ideas to borrow or tweak to create an imaginary city and imaginary state for this article. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 04:19, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't think we even need to make up fictional place for the infobox. All we need are placeholders. For images, we can use icons from SVG cityscapes icons. The only place that needs real data is maplink. My main focus is on the guideline reflecting how the articles of major U.S. cities, not only New York City, have the infobox presented. Xeror (talk) 14:52, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Rankings

I believe the "Rankings" section of this guideline should be removed. The request for comment that this section cites posed a narrow question as to whether or not a specific list from Money magazine should be included on a specific city's page. IMO this does not support the blanket statement that the request for comment concluded that ALL lists of a similar type (subjective) do not belong on a city's Wikipedia page. Each publication and each survey uses varying standards, some of which are more subjective and some more objective and statistically-sound. 76.232.123.103 (talk) 22:08, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

I restored the section, then rewrote it how I think long term editors meant it to be (I could be wrong). Though this Chanhassen, Minnesota discussion in 2021 lead to the Ranking subsection being added to the "editor tips" section of this article, it is well known by long term editors that it was established practice farther back in time, even if it wasn't documented in this article. Unfortunately, many subtle practices aren't documented or fully documented in this article. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 08:05, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I support the original version of this guideline, restored by User:Sbmeirow. The RfC about magazine rankings was overwhelmingly against them. Magnolia677 (talk) 12:40, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Sbmeirow, I reverted to the original version before my edit, using your logic that we should discuss before editing. Here are my thoughts:

1) To say that every single newspaper, magazine, and website ranking has no encyclopedic value is a statement that lacks a supporting source. It is therefore an opinion, and I believe it should be presented as such to avoid confusion.

2) I believe it is best to avoid making hyperbolic and unsubstantiated statements as the one above, which is why I edited the guideline to state that each such ranking should be evaluated on its own merits when being considered for inclusion in a US city article. It is illogical to assume that all rankings appearing in magazines, newspapers, or websites are of the same quality. As an example, many peer-reviewed statistical publications contain rankings, and are republished or reproduced in newspapers, magazines, and of course websites. Peer-reviewed journals have their own websites. If the current guideline stands as worded, editors will need to remove any ranking sourced from any website from all US city articles. This would include population rankings citing the US Census Bureau website, or any journal website.

3) As stated previously, the Chanhassen RfC was specifically focused on whether the specific ranking from Money magazine should be included in that specific city article. The RfC did not in any way conclude that all rankings from websites, magazines, or newspapers should not be included in all US city articles. As such, if we can not reach a consensus here, and if the practice is not well-documented as you allude to, we may need to solicit a new Request for Comment for the purpose of this guideline.

4) I believe that the prior points alone are enough to support my original edit. For the sake of discussion, we can consider another specific example, separate from the US Census Bureau website example noted above: The U.S. News & World Report Best High Schools Rankings.[1] The ranking methodology is developed in partnership with a nonprofit social science research firm, RTI International.[2] The analysis and subsequent rankings are editorially independent of U.S. News & World Report's business operations. All data used in the rankings comes directly from state education departments, the federal Department of Education, along with Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exam data. These are clearly objective datapoints. A computed score based on objective, uniformly-gathered school performance data is indeed valuable and notable information to a reader and helps digest information more efficiently than scouring through the raw data itself. Amalgamations of information are indeed the very point of encyclopedia articles to begin with.

5) My point in the above example is not to argue for a blanket exemption for a particular source(s), but rather to demonstrate that there are indeed rankings that are of higher quality, and definite encyclopedic value, as compared to others. As such, I believe this guideline should be edited to simply warn against including those of low or no value, with examples given. In the end, whether or not a particular ranking should be included within a particular article will of course be up to consensus therein.

Thanks for reading if you've made it here! Hoping to get some more input. 76.232.123.103 (talk) 06:22, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

I support the original version of this guideline, restored by User:Sbmeirow. These ranking articles are pumped out every year because they are popular. Wikipedia does not include every fact and editors need this guidance since they are included in reputable publications. Of course, if one is actually useful in an article, it can be used. Filling space with "city Y ranked number one in some ranking" does not improve the articles though. 〜 Adflatuss • talk 16:37, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

RfC at Talk:Minneapolis#RFC on first section of Minneapolis

Your input is welcome at Talk:Minneapolis#RFC on first section of Minneapolis. --Magnolia677 (talk) 21:53, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Do infoboxes for US cities need pushpin maps for North America? For Earth?!?!

Huge numbers of articles for places in the United States use pushpin maps in the settlement infobox, but there seems to be little standardization and / or consensus as to which maps to include. Even the guidelines are inconsistent. WP:USCITY shows a model infobox for New York City with maps for New York state, the United States and North America, while the actual article for New York City includes maps for all three, plus Earth. Meanwhile, Template:Infobox settlement shows model infoboxes for Chicago and Detroit that only include a single pushpin map for the United States, while the article for Chicago itself includes both Illinois and United States and the one for Detroit shows pushpin maps for Wayne County, Michigan and United States.

To me, county, state and United States make sense to provide multiple levels of context. But given that the United States is a rather large and rather well-known country, is it ever necessary to include pushpin maps for North America? Is there anyone reading English Wikipedia articles from outside the country (or from another planet) who would need to have the location of a city in the United States shown on the planet Earth in order to gain sufficient context? Should there be a US City standard or should this be settled by consensus for each city? Alansohn (talk) 13:58, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

No, I would not expect anything larger than the country level for any country, though region could be appropriate for small/less-recognizable country outlines. Earth is too low resolution to be helpful. Reywas92^Talk 14:58, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Reywas92, agreed, but I'm restricting this question to places in the United States for exactly that reason of global recognizability. Alansohn (talk) 17:15, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

In general, SVG maps were created for incorporated community articles in most states, thus is why I removed pushpin maps from those articles, also to shorten the infobox in those articles. Pushpin maps are more useful for unincorporated communities and ghost towns, because SVG maps weren't created for most of them. Someone added interactive maps for larger cities. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 00:17, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

I think smaller U.S. places that have more recognizability outside the US should be able to be marked on continental or even Earth pushpin maps for ease of instant accessibility of relative geographical context by non-US readers who are familiar with specific smaller US places without needing to take an extra step deeper to dig. In other words, I would advocate judging smaller municipalities on a case-by-case basis rather than having one size fits all. Castncoot (talk) 00:47, 7 May 2024 (UTC)