User talk:Prussian Fool

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Happy editing! --Darwinek (talk) 00:29, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Help page discussion moved here
(I moved this entire discussion here because the help desk gets archived very quickly.) -Arch dude (talk) 14:51, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Hi there! I have just a couple of questions about adding population data from non-census sources to the infobox that's ubiquitous to pretty much all pages for cities and towns in the United States.


 * There are a lot of towns and cities in the United States I have found in my research on nineteenth-century America that, for whatever reason, did not have separately-counted population statistics returned to the U.S. Census bureau. However, many of these places did have population figures and/or estimates that show up in contemporaneous, but non-census sources, particularly in gazetteers of the United States, and in fact a lot of these numbers already appear in articles across Wikipedia, albeit without any sources provided for where the numbers came from. Since the historical population table used in most U.S. city articles was seemingly intended to be filled out using official census counts, I presume that any additional data that I add to the tables should be noted as being non-census sources using a reference or footnote marker (such as the number from 1852 provided for the article on the history of San Francisco). Are there any "best practices" that I should follow when adding these types of data to articles?


 * I have two rather interesting cases (both derived from the same source) where both cities' populations were not officially reported in the final census count, but were nevertheless recorded and reported to a local newspaper in the same year as the census in question (1850), and these figures were furthermore provided by an individual who I was later able to verify was the person responsible for conducting the U.S. census operations in the county where these two cities were located. Since this particular case would seem to involve an unusual gray area between official and unofficial counts (considering that they were conducted as part of the federal counting procedure, but for some reason never made their way to the final census reports), if I were to add these numbers to the respective city articles, what would be the best way to acknowledge the unusual circumstances surrounding how these numbers were found?

Thanks for the help!

Prussian Fool (talk) 21:41, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Your instinct was correct: the source must be cited, and the apparent improper implication that the source was actually the US Census must not be allowed to stand. I see no reason not to use a contemporaneous reliable source. In the "gray" case, it's not clear that you should try to document the reliability of the individual instead of just citing the newspaper source. If the individual is a noteworthy person, then maybe add a Wikipedia article on that person or add to an existing article on the person, and the citation can carry the individual's name and a link to your article. -Arch dude (talk) 01:55, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the response! Happy to hear that I had the correct hunch when it came to adding sources for non-census figures, and if I come across such unsourced numbers that are already in articles in the future I'll do my best to find proper citations for their actual sources. Is there any "standard" preference for how to format these types of references within the infobox itself? (If not, I suppose that I'll probably just use the San Francisco example I linked above as my sort of visual "template" for creating these citations in the future). And regarding my "gray" case, I'm fairly confident that the person in question isn't quite notable enough to merit his own Wikipedia article! I merely brought him up to emphasize that the source in question is as close to an actual census figure as one can find that isn't actually one, although if possible it is definitely something I'd like to make a note of in the text of the reference itself. Would something like that be allowed? Prussian Fool (talk) 02:44, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Issue 1: your example has a problem. the table as a whole needs a citation to the US Census, Maybe just a footnote "figures from the US census except where noted". Issue 2: adding the facts about the almost-notable individual to the reference will require a citation within the reference to your source of info about the individual. There is a way to do this, but I have forgotten it. -Arch dude (talk) 04:00, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, I noticed that issue as I started looking through other town/city pages! I ended up figuring out a way to create references that are nested inside of explanatory notes. I implemented it on a few pages so far, including the one for Greenfield, Indiana; do you think this combination would work? (I went this route because I wanted to avoid cluttering the main body of the infobox with links, if possible). And to the other issue, I wonder if a similar, nested approach could be used to handle the citation I'll need to verify the status of the census-taker in question—what do you think? Prussian Fool (talk) 04:21, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

OK, now we are here and can discuss this a bit more. First, a minor point: the term "Infobox" has a specific technical meaning: An Infobox is produced by one of the many templates whose names start with "Infobox" and that derive from. They are most frequently used at the top of the article to add the box on the right. The census table templates are not infoboxes. No harm done, but I was initially confused. Next, I appreciate your work. Thank you very much for taking on this cleanup effort. Both of your examples will work and are far better than just ignoring the problem.

Please note that We are now getting into matters of editorial judgement and aesthetics, and your opinion is just as valid as mine, so you may choose to use any approach you like. Of the two, I prefer the one at history of San Francisco. I appreciate that you do not wish to clutter the table with those little superscripts, but I think it's better to have them right there next to the affected date. It may be possible to modify the template to left-align the dates column to keep the 4-digit dates lined up properly. Your use of a footnote in addition to the citation in the Greenfield, Indiana example also works, but in addition to not having the note directly next to the date, it also requires you to add a "notes" section to the article. Instead, I would prefer to keep things in the reference section. This is a personal preference. I am still looking for the example for adding a ref inside a ref. I know it's here somewhere -Arch dude (talk) 15:18, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
 * OK, here is the guide: Nesting footnotes

Basically, you use the template instead of tags. -Arch dude (talk) 15:46, 18 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks so much for helping me out with all of this! I definitely have a lot to learn, whether it be Wikipedia terminology or formatting my edits... so I very much appreciate the feedback! I gave it some thought later last night and definitely see the downsides to the method I previously implemented (especially with regards to having to add a notes section to every single article I update), so I'll refrain from nesting them like that in the future. Given the nested reference example you showed me, I guess it is also acceptable to simply attach my note about the source to the end of the reference itself? If so, that will certainly make life easier (not to mention less cluttered)!


 * One issue I'm unfortunately running into is that the US Census population table doesn't seem to support attaching footnotes directly beside the year or population figure of interest (and the San Francisco example seems to use a different template altogether); granted, this could all just be yet another case of me not knowing what I'm doing yet, but I've tried placing the reference in a couple of places within the Greenfield, IN table, and doing so seems to break it if it's not placed at the very end. I've tried finding examples of American cities using this particular template, and unfortunately all of the ones I've looked at so far (colonial cities like New York and Boston) seem to use a different template that allows for extra text, references, etc., to be placed next to a year or population number, and even then they still attach their additional notes and citations at the bottom of the tables. Since this particular template seems to be the one that's used on the vast majority of U.S. city articles, I reckon whatever solution I come up should try to conform to whatever limitations are imposed by that particular template... that all said, given the precedence shown on some of the articles for the largest cities in the U.S., would it be safer to simply keep adding my citations for non-census sources to the bottom of the table?


 * Anyway! All that said, I did want to thank you too for showing me the nested reference example. I appreciate you finding how to do that for me, and I'll see what I can come up with using that format! Prussian Fool (talk) 16:37, 18 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Okay, you can disregard what I'd said about assigning the references to a specific year breaking the table, as I did some more digging and found out how to properly implement notes. (Here is the reference re-implimented on the Greenfield, IN page). Although I suppose my question about which implementation of the reference is preferred still stands, albeit less so now that I've figured out how to do it properly! Prussian Fool (talk) 17:14, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, you encountered a very messy template as one of your first experiences here. Fortunately, you did a great job of finding the info. You think of yourself as a newbie, but you are operating far above the level we usually encounter at the help desk. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is nearly 20 years old now. It has had more than ten million unique editors, and we are a very loosely coordinated crowdsourced project. In any given 30 day period, more than 100,000 unique editors will make at least one edit each. Thus you will find quite a bit if inconsistency and duplication. This is a most a minor annoyance if we can achieve our goal of building a great encyclopedia.
 * You can find all articles that use a particular template by going to the template's page and clicking on the "what links here" link in the left-hand column. Unless you are really dedicated, I doubt you will want to review and modify all the articles. However, if you can think of some algorithmic approach to finding problematical articles from that list, then we can probably find an expert to create a bot. -Arch dude (talk) 03:56, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah well, that's just the way the ball bounces sometimes, so I'm just happy I was able to figure it out! Thanks for the kind words though—luckily I do already have some experience with Markdown and other markup languages, so the learning curve for Wiki editing hasn't been quite as bad as it might've otherwise been.
 * Well I think you've answered all of the questions that I had, which I greatly appreciate! I've tried getting myself into a sort of rhythm by working on population tables and demographics sections in articles on a few other cities and towns in Indiana. Feel free to look over my edits so far and see if they're more or less good to go! And if not, let me know if there's anything I might want to do differently with them going forward, and I'll be happy to adjust as needed! Prussian Fool (talk) 04:13, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Wrong reference for 2020 census, please fix ASAP
Concerning your Alabama county edits, you linked to the wrong census reference. You need a unique reference for every article! Please fix all of them ASAP.

The reference to https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045219 in https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Autauga_County,_Alabama&type=revision&diff=1038498109&oldid=1031356986&diffmode=source is wrong for this county, as well as all of your other edits that use this link in your references, per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Prussian_Fool

The correct reference link for Autauga County, Alabama is https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/autaugacountyalabama/POP010220

All other county links have a similar format, so you can substitute the lower-case name of other counties in place of "autauga".

• Sbmeirow  •  Talk  • 05:46, 19 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi Steve—I wanted to say thank you for showing me what I did wrong and how to fix it. I'm still pretty new to editing Wikipedia (been reading it since I was still in grade school though!), so I'm always happy to fix anything that I may have messed up. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I fixed all of the QuickFact references for Alabama's counties. Thanks again for helping this newbie out! Prussian Fool (talk) 23:07, 19 August 2021 (UTC)


 * By the way, I documented the new county infobox population fields tonight, see Template:Infobox_U.S._county


 * • Sbmeirow  •  Talk  • 05:56, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

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