Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of cities and towns in Alabama/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by Giants2008 18:17, 4 October 2015 [1].

List of cities and towns in Alabama[edit]

List of cities and towns in Alabama (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Mattximus (talk) 15:27, 31 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have completely reworked this list to now include more statistical data than anyone really needs. I've also tried to standardize formatting to be consistent with other local administrative lists (modelled after List of cities and towns in California). Please let me know if there is anything else that can be added to perfect this list. Mattximus (talk) 15:27, 31 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Jakec

Very nice list, here are a few comments.

  • "These 460 incorporated cities and towns" is a bit repetitive since the previous sentence also uses very similar wording. Suggest shortening to "The cities and towns".  Done
  • "Thirty-four cities are Class 6" "Forty cities are Class 7": I think numbers above 10 are supposed to be written in numerical form and either way, sentences shouldn't begin with a number. Done
  • For reference 2, is there a link that shows the actual query results?
  • The link actually pipes to the Alabama list, but then redirects back to the main page. I suspect this particular reference does not allow direct linking unfortunately.
  • Okay.
  • A few towns appear to be missing 2000 census data; some have an explanation and some don't.
  • I agree that this is a problem. I have tried to add all notes that I could, but some I just could not find. I asked the wikiproject for Alabama and the USA, but none could help me on this. Here I am stuck. I suspect they were simply incorporated after the 2000 census, but can't find a source to confirm this. Any advice?
  • I'd say if you can't find any sources to confirm that they weren't incorporated, then just leave it as it is now. I checked the first one I saw (Kellyton) and was unable to find anything.
  • For Anderson, the change in population reads "−20.3}}" and is at the top of the list when sorted by population change in descending order.  Done
  • I think it was supposed to be {{nts|-20.3}}, not {{-20.3}}, so I've fixed that.
  • Millbrook doesn't have population density.  Done
  • Notes d and e have some stray formatting.  Done
  • I realize this is a lot of work, so I won't insist on it, but a column for elevation would be nice. I think you can use the GNIS for that.
  • I considered this, but left it out for a few reasons. The first, is that it would hamper the formatting by making the table too wide, and second that I'm trying to standardize all such lists, and the altitude is not generally included. The most important reason is that I think the list should remain focused on the human aspect (population, density, arbitrary areas...) and not the geological aspects, which would do well with it's own list. Generally, the best lists have a narrow focus and try not to include everything.
  • Fair enough.

--Jakob (talk) aka Jakec 16:12, 31 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments, they are greatly appreciated and I have tried to address them all above. Please let me know if there is any more changes you would suggest. Mattximus (talk) 18:08, 31 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - a good list, and my concerns have been addressed. --Jakob (talk) aka Jakec 18:06, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • CommentThis seems to be a problem, but I'm not very sure. When I click "Density" in the list, looks like something not right. But I click land area, population, change, they all seems fine.--Jarodalien (talk) 02:59, 4 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You are right! That's odd... I do not know how to fix that... Mattximus (talk) 12:02, 4 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This could be a browser issue. Density works for me as it should in both Firefox 40.0.3 and IE 11.— Maile (talk) 23:05, 4 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I thought I commented, but apparently not. I know what the problem is: the data isn't raw numbers, so it's being sorted as strings and thus 1000 comes "before" 200. You should be able to fix this by using the {{sort}} template, so that {{Pop density|2688|15.54|sqmi|km2|prec=1}} becomes {{sort|0173.0|{{Pop density|2688|15.54|sqmi|km2|prec=1}}}} and {{Pop density|6397|6.36|sqmi|km2|prec=1}} becomes {{sort|1005.8|{{Pop density|6397|6.36|sqmi|km2|prec=1}}}}. I'm not sure if there's a more elegant way to do this. --Jakob (talk) aka Jakec 23:13, 4 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I asked at the template help page, which is usually very fast to respond, to see if there is a more elegant solution. Thanks for pointing out the error! Mattximus (talk) 23:39, 4 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I have added data-sort-type="number" to the Density column header per Help:Sorting#Numerical sorting problems.[2] PrimeHunter (talk) 04:05, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The intro needs some TLC.
An example "237) [5]"
    • Added that period. Also rewrote that section to hopefully make it more clear.
  • So is there a Class 1 city or no (Birmingham)?
    • An IP user recently added this section to the lead, I cleaned up the citation but will have to do further research to confirm this is true. Mattximus (talk) 20:21, 11 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • Make sure the table is consistent
        • Done
  • Move the pics out of the way so the table shows without a ton of whitespace.
  • Have a statistics section (i.e. summary of no of entries by class?).
    • This is summarized in the lead. I'm not sure how you would like it displayed differently. Mattximus (talk) 20:21, 11 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • I generally like some form of stats after loooong tables. Maybe say how many of the 460 are towns and how many cities.
        • I added the total list to the lead, including number of towns and cities and totals. Town, city, and grand total stats for each column are found at the end of the table.
  • The 2000 pop is not referenced.

Nergaal (talk) 18:11, 11 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from — Maile (talk) 19:18, 22 September 2015 (UTC) (UTC)[reply]
Comments from Maile
Per MOS:DTT. I see you have scope="col", but you don't have scope="row" for each row. It needs to have both. — Maile (talk) 13:30, 22 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I tried this, and it screws up the formatting. You can see my attempt here : User:Mattximus/sandbox4. Any thoughts? The original looks much better. Mattximus (talk) 14:55, 22 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well the first one, you duplicated the entry on the first row. But I know what messed up the format. Please look at the one I changed. Instead of putting the exclamation point to the left of it, use the vertical bar. That should do it. — Maile (talk) 16:03, 22 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I think it's fixed now. I updated the main page. Mattximus (talk) 18:20, 22 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support - Everything else looks fine to me. — Maile (talk) 19:18, 22 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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