Talk:Alexandra, New Zealand

Untitled
Why have two people now tried to reformat this article as though it is a finished entity rather than a stub to be developed? Most mature articles on towns have sections covering location, demographics, history, economy and unique features. Moriori's edit splits the economy material across two other sections, which will be akward once the article is expanded.
 * That's when it gets any necessary reformatting. However, no problem. Moriori

Secondly, since when does W have a policy of km for Kilometre? If it does, it is wrong.


 * What we think is less important than wiki style which was designed to give conformity throughout the entire site. See here for km, mm etc. Incidentally, your edit left the page with both Km and km! Moriori

I have two references which say that all SI prefixes greater than 1 should use capitals while all less than 1 use lower case. This is to eliminate confusion between deci and Deca, milli and Mega, pico and Peta etc. and the other prefices follow suit for the sake of consistency. dramatic 19:15, 10 May 2004 (UTC)


 * We can all find references re other styles, but surely it is the Wiki style that is important.That's why I have again changed Km to km. Cheers. Moriori 22:51, May 20, 2004 (UTC)

carisbrook
carisbrook has no 'e' on the end
 * Thanks - but why didn't you just edit the article? dramatic 08:31, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

continental climate
Sorry but Alex doesn't have a continental climate. Refer Koppen Climate classification. Live in Montana or North Dakota if you want "severe winters and hot, dry summers"
 * Seriously. Alexandra winters are about as "severe" as those of central Virginia.--Mishnayd (talk) 04:20, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Climate
This hasn't been much of an issue as of yet (especially with this article) but I want to preempt a problem that I can definitely see occurring, as well as have an argument ready in case it becomes an issue and a dispute arises. Alexandra has neither a semi-arid climate nor a continental climate, going by the most widely used climate classification system, the Köppen-Geiger system. Using the climate data found in Alexandra's article, my explanation follows.

Continental climates (Type D): These climates are defined as having at least four months with daily mean temperatures equal to or above 10°C, one month with a daily mean temperature equal to or below 0°C, and not being dry enough to be classified as arid or semi-arid. While Alexandra meets the first and third criteria, it fails the second criterion. The daily mean temperature in the coldest month, June, is 2.9°C (average daily high of 7.5°C plus average daily low of -1.7°C, divide by 2). The aridity criterion will be covered in the next paragraph. Make no mistake, Alexandra does display greater continentality than most of New Zealand, but, strictly speaking, its climate is not continental.

Semi-arid climates (Type BS): These climates are defined as having an annual average precipitation lower than, but greater than half of potential evapotranspiration, with potential evapotranspiration being represented by a calculated precipitation threshold. This threshold (in millimetres) is calculated as follows:


 * First, find the annual average temperature in °Celsius and multiply it by 20. Alexandra's annual average temperature is 10.8°C (annual average high of 16.7°C plus annual average low of 4.9°C, divide by 2)


 * Second, find the percentage of annual average precipitation that falls in the high sun months (October through March in the Southern Hemisphere). If the percentage is below 70%, then add 140mm. If the percentage is equal to or greater than 70%, then add 280mm. On average, Alexandra receives 201mm of precipitation from October to March, which is 54.3% of its 370mm annual average.

Alexandra's precipitation threshold is therefore 356mm (10.8 x 20 + 140 = 356). As this is lower than Alexandra's annual average precipitation of 370mm, Alexandra does not experience a semi-arid climate (though the difference is only 14mm).

For brevity's sake (read: laziness), I will not positively show that Alexandra has an oceanic climate (Type Cfb), but the criteria to be met for a climate to be classified as such can be found in my source, which will be given under my signature and timestamp below.

1brettsnyder (talk) 04:53, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

My source

Māori name: should it be the transliteration (Areketanara) or the historically attested Manuherikia?
The article currently gives the transliteration of Alexandra into (Areketanara) as the Māori name for Alexandra. Is there any authoritative source for this? As far as I can see from a limited scan, this is not official or in common use. The LINZ website has no mention of it. Given that one of the names for the town in the gold-mining period was Manuherikia (from the river), it seems strange to drop a historical name in te Reo for a transliteration of the more recent English name.

I'm not sure what the usual policy is when deciding between a transliteration and a historical name and would be interested to see examples or evidence which would decide this either way. Will also be interesting to see what the Ngāi Tahu mapping project suggests once it is released: http://ngaitahu.iwi.nz/our_stories/cultural-mapping-unlocks-ngai-tahu-history/

Thanks in advance for any input on this. BenBenOcho (talk) 12:27, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
 * You can check out Place Names of New Zealand – Ingoa Wāhi o Aotearoa. It also has reference to the Maori equivalent of Alexandra.
 * You should bear in mind that 97.4% of the population in Alexandra said they belong to the European ethnic group. Perhaps the local Maori living there can help you confirm what the Maori name of the township is. --BrianJ34 (talk) 09:15, 3 May 2017 (UTC)