User:Kelapstick/Kelapstick's Law

Kelapstick's Law states; The population of a settlement is inversely proportional to the world wide importance of information regularly added to the settlement's Wikipedia article. These additions usually involve details about shopping, entertainment, schools, junior sports teams, and news of local importance. These additions happen mainly on articles of smaller cities and towns where articles may not be fully developed, and typically are not watched by a large number of people. The additions are usually made by people from (either currently or originally) from the city or town in question, and are made as a way to improve the article by adding information, under the assumption that more is better. These addditions may be inappropriate because Wikipedia is not a tourist, shopping, or entertainment guide, nor is it a newspaper.

Definitions

 * Settlement - Any city, town, village, hamlet, or populated and named geographic location.
 * World wide importance - What the man on the Bondi tram would expect to find in a general knowledge encyclopedia (or in the example below we explore what somebody in Cuaró, Uruguay might expect to find while looking for information on Balzac, Alberta).
 * Regularly added - What a Wikipedia editor might expect to find when seeing an edit to a settlement page on their watchlist.

Balzac, Alberta
Balzac, Alberta is 24 km from Calgary. Statistics Canada has not released census data, however an estimate has been made by Industry Canada of 450 people. The "Services" section provides the following information to the reader:
 * 1) There is a general store that has a restaurant and filling station.
 * 2) There is a shopping centre named the CrossIron Mills, although it is not "officially" in Balzac.
 * 3) In 2009 Walmart intended to spend over $100 million to build a distribution center [sic].  It was to be completed in 2010.

Considering the following question. Our friend in Cuaró has recently become pen pals with somebody in Balzac. He decides he is going to look up information about where his pen pal is from. Is it critical for our friend to know:
 * 1) His pen pal can get gasoline within his community?
 * 2) The name of the shopping mall that is close, but not in the community?
 * 3) A major investment in the community made by Walmart?

Thompson, Manitoba
Thompson, Manitoba is a city 830 km from Winnipeg, the provincial capital. As of 2011 it had a population of about 13,000 people. The local economy is based on nickel mining, and the area serves as a regional hub. As of 2011, the shopping section of the Thomson article stated:

Compare that to the version from November 2008:

Notwithstanding it is unsourced, the newer section is preferred because:
 * 1) Does not give store names (because Wikipedia is not a shopping guide), and if a store moves or closes will not require updating from somebody in Thomson.
 * 2) Does not give an address, as per above, Wikipedia is not the Yellow Pages either.
 * 3) Relative importance, Tim Horton's coming to Thompson was a big deal, in Thompson. Our friend in Cuaró probably doesn't care that there is a Tim Horton's "just outside" the City Centre Mall, or that Safeway now provides more "quick meal choices".

Related

 * Example city talk page