Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities/Archive 16

Weather box
I am currently working my way through Good_articles/Geography_and_places, to check on the condition of the listed articles. I have noticed a tendency in some articles to rich use of media, and in particular the use of Template:Weather box. My initial instinct is that the box is rather noisy and distracting, and does not follow guidance at WP:NOTSTAT, WP:Embed and MOS:TABLE, in that if the important/essential information/statistics is already summarised in prose then such a table is either not needed, or if considered useful due to the significance of the climate to the topic, then it should be collapsed. There is also the consideration of due weight and focus - where an article is on a location which is not particularly notable for its climate, and where the information is already given in prose that the weather is typical for the region or country, then displaying a large and colourful table with a lot of detailed weather data for a village seems a little excessive.

However, I have noted that the weather box appears in a wide range of articles, and often has been in place for some time, so its use is well established, so my concerns may be misplaced, and that the box has wide approval and consensus. However, as I couldn't find any previous discussion in the archives, I felt it was worth bringing up for discussion to see what the general consensus is - and if it might be useful to draw up guidelines for use of the box in settlement articles.  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  10:46, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I, for one, like the weatherbox, although I think its placement is important to cut down on the white space in some articles. I agree that it should be collapsible, and perhaps if we reach consensus that could become part of the guidelines.  I do think, in general, there should be direction for the weatherbox in the guidelines, since it is so prevalent.  There's an editor who's done quite a bit of good work in the climate section of many of the city articles I watch, Lieutenant of Melkor, and I'm adding him to the discussion since I think he may have some good insights into this. User:Onel5969, 13:42, 29 April 2014


 * When would Template:Climate chart be used in stead or as well as Template:Weather box? The climate chart contains less data, and would appear to be more appropriate for smaller settlements.  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  16:29, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I think that while the weather box is a useful tool, its presence is not always a useful addition. Articles on villages in particular come to mind&mdash;more often than not climate is best described in the articles on an upper-level administrative divisions (although there are, of course, notable exceptions). Stub- and start-class articles (which is what most village articles are anyway) are another example&mdash;all too often adding a weather box creates white space problems, which are not easy to fix. Perhaps a recommendation should be added to the template advising against placing it to the articles on minor locations, especially where climate of an upper-level division is already described?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); April 29, 2014 ; 16:42 (UTC)
 * I prefer the climate chart which gives a quick and digestible overview of climate in a visually interesting way. It neatly supplements a prose description of climate. The weather box is too big with too many primary source statistics. I agree that detailed climate information is not needed in every settlement article and is better covered at the district or county level.--Charles (talk) 19:51, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Most of the suggestions above are reasonable, but one should also bear in mind whether there is a reasonably well-maintained climate station specifically designated for a settlement. Regardless of whether a locale is famous for its climate (à la Oymyakon or Verkhoyansk) or layout concerns, if there is such a station, the information should be included: Climate chart if only normal temps+normal total precip are available, Weather box if more normals are available. Regarding "too many primary source statistics", 1) labeling them as "primary source" as if that were a negative factor is inappropriate, normally it is the meteorological arms of governments that collect this data, making it often the best, if not only, data available for a site. 2) I am sure there are many readers interested in snow, frequency of precip/rain/snow, sunshine duration, relative humidity, and the monthly extreme range in temperatures, all which Weather box support, but Climate chart does not. " My master, Annatar the Great, bids thee welcome! " 23:13, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I think there are readers who are interested in the level of detail provided by the Weather box, but they have to be balanced by the readers who are not. Wikipedia is a general encyclopaedia, our aim is to provide a summary of the most important information so that the reader is not overwhelmed by data. Though a bit crude: the more selective we are, the more useful we are to the most people. Some readers would also welcome bus and train timetables (see WP:NOTTIMETABLE); a map with detailed street index; opening times of the local chemist; recommendations and phones numbers for the best restaurants, etc. However, quite early on it was decided that Wikipedia would not be WP:INDISCRIMINATE, especially as regards statistical data: "Where it is not necessary .... omit excess statistics altogether and summarize any necessary data concisely." For larger regions, it is useful to have detailed summaries of overall weather conditions, as that is part of the overall picture; but to have that data repeated for every location is not necessary. I think best practise would be, as suggested, to summarise the local weather, and direct the reader to the higher level article if they wish for the greater detail.  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  01:53, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
 * What a "larger region" is needs to be defined first. If that includes major cities for which there usually are devoted climatology stations, then we are in total agreement here. " My master, Annatar the Great, bids thee welcome! " 02:02, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, I was thinking as I wrote the above that it would be helpful to define "larger region", especially as it would then be useful to include a link to the article on that region's climate, such as Climate of south-west England, and to comment if there are variations in the locality for what is regarded as average for the region. To note, for example, that annual rainfall in the Greater Manchester area is lower than average for the UK due to the protection provided by the mountains in North Wales, though it experiences higher than average rainfall during the summer months.  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  11:05, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
 * From what I've seen so far on Wikipedia, not all of the rows in the "Weather box" table are frequently used - depending on how much reliable data is available for a specific location. Using the "climate chart" instead may save some space (if indeed that is a real issue for certain articles) as only a very few parameters can be displayed with it. Not all geographic locations will have specific climate data available for that same, exact location - so either of these boxes shouldn't be used for "nearby" climate sites IMHO. Making the "weather box" collapsible sounds like an excellent idea to me, and just summarizing local climate conditions in small paragraph format is always an option (though I doubt that doing both that and using a box will usually be ideal). I've always been generally in favor of more information vs. less information in Wikipedia articles, provided that there were valid, reliable sources for the information provided. "Primary sources" are actually preferred for this type of climate information, especially in the USA (the NWS). In other words, it's better to cite the specific agency that collected the data in the first place if at all possible, since it's usually more accurate. Guy1890 (talk) 06:52, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree that it can be useful to have more rather than less information, though how we store and present the information is important. We don't need to repeat essentially the same information on every article when linking to that information may be a more appropriate and useful approach. Writing good regional climate articles, and then linking to them as needed, may be a more effective approach than using weather boxes on all location articles.  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  11:05, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
 * "We don't need to repeat essentially the same information on every article when linking to that information may be a more appropriate and useful approach." If there's actual, verifiable climate information available for a particular geographic location, then that information won't be "repeated" anywhere, since that infomation is unique to that location only. Are there climate "averages" (I have some trouble using that term, since all climate numbers are just longer-term averages themselves) available for specific regions of geography? Sure, but those "averages" are almost always derived from a set of unique, individual locations with different (although sometimes similiar) numbers. I'm not at all opposed to "good regional climate articles", but doing that doesn't necessarily replace accurate & specific climate numbers for specific geographic locations.
 * BTW, by default, the weather boxes are not setup to be collapsed, but, if you add the parameter "|collapsed= Y or |collapsed= Yes", the box will always start out displayed in an article in a collapsed state. I think that solves any space issues. Guy1890 (talk) 02:21, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * While there are issues regarding the use of the weather box due to the creation of excess white space, you can use the parameter '' before the table, and  (can be any number, not just 50%; I prefer 75% or 80%) after to shrink the weather box to remove the excess white space. I have done this on many city articles. There is no need to advise users not to put weather box in village articles if the source is reliable; some of them are known for having a unique climate such as the examples given above and I think many readers are interested in knowing which places are the coldest, warmest, sunniest, cloudiest, rainiest, etc. I would support the usage of weather box over the climate chart because I agree with other users that more information is better than less information and secondly, it does not automatically round the data as it does in the climate chart (makes the data less verifiable and precise). Ssbbplayer (talk) 14:27, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Fixed the div style so it shows up. CBWeather, Talk, Seal meat for supper? 15:25, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Corrected the ordering in Climate chart so the normal tmax/tlow display properly. " My master, Annatar the Great, bids thee welcome! " 15:33, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Here's an example of both templates for Kugaaruk a smaller community of 711 people. In this case I've used while the article uses. There is an obvious problem with climate chart, see User:Jolly Janner/Climate for more examples, that has been known about since 2009, Template talk:Climate chart, and is not just a problem with cold temperatures. There are some other problems with it. To get an explanation you end up at Template:Climate chart/How to read a climate chart when you click on the "explanation" link. That needs fixing as well if the chart is to be used in a lot of articles. If the chart uses inches for rain, as it should for US places, it rounds them up to one decimal place rather than the customary two decimal places that the National Weather Service uses. Also the figures in the chart are so small as to make them unreadable. I can read the weather box even when set to 50%.

Even if the climate chart did work correctly I would still prefer the weatherbox because it gives more information and what it shows is more accurate (no rounding). There are problems with the weather box. There have been some concerns that there is way too much blue. However, there are options to change to pastel and green or no colour at all. For some reason it converts mm to three decimal places while it should be two, but cm to in works fine. The % humidity line needs defining, is that the humidity at 6 am, 3 pm or a 24 hour average. Obviously, the weather box can be set to collapsed to avoid distracting the reader. So for somewhere like Austin, Texas I would reduce the size of the weather box and collapse it. Then the reader has the choice to see greater detail or not. CBWeather, Talk, Seal meat for supper? 17:03, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
 * It looks as if the weather box defines "% humidity" as the average daily % humidity, but I agree that this should probably be displayed for the user. Guy1890 (talk) 02:29, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I also agree with some users above, "weather box" is the best tool but in articles about smaller towns we can use option of "collapse". Personally, I am against to using of div style="width:x%. Artificially reduced (option "width:x%") weather box is unreadable, strange and it includes only little less space than normal. Subtropical -man   talk   (en-2)   17:57, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

The weather box and the climate chart really do two different, but complementary things. The weatherbox provides detailed data, but isn't very useful as a visualisation. Color coding simply isn't the same thing as a chart. The two templates should be merged, so that we can have both detailed data and a visually effective chart generated from the same input data. Zocky | picture popups 01:46, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't have much of a horse in this race, though I lean on the side of inclusion. However, I wanted to address the opening claim that this might violate WP:NOTSTAT. I spend a lot of time with lists and this sometimes comes up. WP:NOTSTAT is not a call for no data charts or statistics. It's a call for clarity, presentation, and relevance to the article. Hence the text: "articles should contain sufficient explanatory text to put statistics within the article in their proper context for a general reader. In cases where this may be necessary, consider using tables to enhance the readability of lengthy data lists." I think both forms of weather presentation being discussed here are clear, concise, and presented in a complimentary manner. Charts are an acceptable way to add additional presentation clarity to data already discussed in the body text. This discussion thread never seemed to address that original argument against inclusion, so I just wanted to make sure it wasn't still being considered as a reason for exclusion. Cheers. D kriegls  ( talk to me! ) 05:31, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Good point raised Dkriegls. I think, however, when people reference NOTSTAT, one of the points they are considering is: "Where it is not necessary ... omit excess statistics altogether and summarize any necessary data concisely." And that is the part that was in my mind when I referenced it at the start.
 * I'm not sure we are getting a clear consensus here on the best way forward. There's an inclination away from the weather box, or at least reducing it, from some editors, and a defence of it from others - especially those interested in weather. I think it may be worth reaching out to the wider community to get more input. It's a shame we can't set up a simple reader survey for moments like this, as we sometimes tend to make assumptions regarding what readers want based on our own inclinations.  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  17:27, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
 * With stats, it seems an important, if not crucial part of geography, supporting a claim of Koppen which sometimes seems invented otherwise. But collapsed.
 * The chart is admittedly clever, eyecatching and understandable. Maybe too much so for an encyclopedia. Maybe better for an almanac since it lacks granularity. Simple English Wikipedia perhaps?
 * As far as "reader vs editor", it seems to me that we have sufficient editor input here to represent "all shades of opinion." A lot of editors here that I never heard of before (except the last two) and they are all representing the topic well IMO.

Student7 (talk) 18:10, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

RfC: When is the presentation of statistics excessive?
Concern has been raised that the use of statistics in Weather box and Climate chart in some settlement articles may be excessive, and so violate WP:NOTSTAT, and that the presentation of the data may not be following guidance at WP:Embed and MOS:TABLE. A counter-view is that the data is useful, unique to each location, and desired by enough readers to make the use justified and within policy. There have been suggestions that Weather box if used should be collapsed, or that Climate chart should be used instead. There have been suggestions that such detailed data is best placed in higher level articles, either at state or country level or in dedicated regional climate article such as Climate of south-west England, and that local level articles should summarise the local weather and direct readers to the higher level article for greater detail. Discussion has not reached a consensus.  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  10:54, 9 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Surveys

Should use of Weather box and Climate chart be restricted in some way?

 * Yes:
 * 1) The boxes, Weather box in particular, are loud and distracting when used in a settlement article, particularly for small towns and villages. The weather is but one aspect of the article, though use of an intense amount of detailed statistics in a very large and colourful box attracts a disproportionate amount of attention. We have guidelines and policies on such matters to avoid articles becoming swamped by media boxes full of small, detailed data. Demographics, ethnic, political, religious composition, twin cities, mayors, bus routes, train frequency and operators, sporting successes, school academic results, etc - there are many items which can and often are contained in media boxes which strain for our attention with vivid colours and large presentation. The weather in the majority of villages, towns and cities can be summed up helpfully in a sentence or two, with a link to a higher level article for more detailed information for those who wish it, so a weather box is inappropriate. Exceptions can be made for certain localities which have distinctive or notable weather. For those localities which do require more detailed data, the Climate chart should be considered first, as it provides a quicker, more useful and less distracting summary.  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  10:54, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 2) People with a particular interest in weather data like to include a lot of statistics. That does not mean that the average reader wants to read through a mass of raw data. Those who do can go to the sources cited for it. Wikipedia does not aim to include vast amounts of detail but rather to give a full but interesting overview of a subject. Overmuch detail makes a page unreadable for most people. I agree with SilkTork that the climate chart is preferable.--Charles (talk) 22:38, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 3) For most locations, climate chart should be adequate. Having a giant table of weather data in every place article is crufty. Kaldari (talk) 03:57, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 4) I think full data okay, but collapsed, else chart threatens to overwhelm the article IMO. Student7 (talk) 21:27, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 5) Yes for weather box, otherwise it's an indicriminate display of statistics. If local weather patterns are worth writing about, then they should be written about and the weather box can be included. If there's no reason to mention weather patterns because they are not notable then the weather data is also not notable. -- Cooper 42 (Talk)(Contr) 16:32, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 6) Get rid of them. Useless. Put a link to find them elsewhere. GeorgeLouis (talk) 23:19, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 7) Yes, in the sense that whether to include them should be a case-by-case decision by editorial consensus at a particular article.  An argument can be made for this sort of excessive factoid collection and really, really excessive visual in-you-face display of a visually confusing color riot, which raises some non-trivial accessibility concerns, might be okay on major city articles (e.g. New York, London UK, New Delhi, etc.), but it's overkill on smaller city and town articles.  A much stronger case could be made for inclusion if they (especially ) were not such a visual assault.   is essentially a exploitation of a loophole in MOS:ICONS, to do everything that guideline says not to do; it's an evasion of the intent of the guideline, using HTML and CSS coloring instead of image icons to, on a technicality, plaster a article with cutesy, distracting icon-like Chiclets. I'm sure this template appeals strongly to 13-year-old girls who collect stickers.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:32, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 8) Detailed weather or climate stats for every settlement, no matter how small, is overkill. I think SilkTork gives a good general guideline in the introduction (i.e., go "regional" instead of "local") - Nabla (talk) 11:33, 10 June 2014 (UTC)


 * No:
 * 1) In settlement articles, there's nothing "excessive", "loud" or "distracting" about simply informing readers about what the updated, specific climate statistics are for a unique geographic location. Since climate statistics, by defintion, are long-term (30+ year) averages, re-averging many of those averges "in higher level articles" will only further smooth out the data being shown to Wikipedia users. Weather, by defintion, is not the same as climate. Roughly speaking, climate is an average accumulation of short-term weather events over a much longer period of time. IMO, there is really no such thing as "too much infomation" in a Wikipedia article, as articles can be broken up into smaller articles if they become "too big" over time. Guy1890 (talk) 20:24, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 2) In addition to the arguments set forth by Guy1890 above, the concern that Weather box is 'excessive', 'loud', or 'distracting' can be easily eliminated by collapsing the table. The data typically presented in these two templates is 30-year averages/normals, which provide a succinct picture of what is considered 'the norm' each month that prose cannot efficiently do. Moreover, if the average reader wishes to compare two locations, either Weather box and Climate chart provide a much quicker and more comprehensive comparison of seasonal patterns than any number of sentences; for instance, 1) Cheyenne, Wyoming and Cleveland average roughly the same amount of snowfall, but have vastly different monthly distribution patterns (Climate chart does not provide snowfall), 2) The normal annual average high temperature in Denver and Philadelphia is about the same, but there is a large disparity in the normal high temperature in each month, which Weather box can illustrate better than prose can. " My master,  Annatar the Great, bids thee welcome! " 23:38, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 3) No, per above arguments.  Subtropical -man   talk   (en-2)   08:45, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 4) No If it is distracting, this issue can simply be alleviated by collapsing it by default as mentioned by the comments above. Also, the weather box contains many essential information that are of value that the climate chart cannot display such as snowfall, days with precipitation/rain/snowfall and sunshine duration. It is a better way of summarizing the climate rather than use prose since I agree with the statement that it provides a sufficient picture of the normal conditions in each month. Also, the climate chart will round the precipitation and temperature while the weather box does not. Furthermore, we cannot just expect the readers to go to the source if they wish to read through a mass of raw data as mentioned by some users above; in many cases, the reliable primary sources used for the climate data in some cities (eg. cities in China or Japan) are not in English and occasionally, these sources can suffer from link rot, so the data cannot be viewed. Ssbbplayer (talk) 16:03, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 5) No per above. It seems to me a made-up problem. Do we have any hint that readers are confused by the boxes? I never heard such a complain and I do not personally find them distracting at all. They are extremly informative and compact at the same time, and are often one of the best features of our location pages. -- cyclopia speak! 23:03, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 6) no, there is no need for any formal restriction. Frietjes (talk) 14:23, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 7) no, this is genuinely useful information, which I (for one) quite frequently find myself using. It should be retained. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 16:55, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 8) No The templates contain useful and relevant information presented in a reasonably compact format. Its not nearly as distracting as the nominator claims. To the contrary, information on climate (such as what the template provides) should be considered essential for any article about a city. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 22:50, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 9) No, I don't see the need for such a formalized restriction process. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 17:58, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 10) No. I don't see climate charts as much, but they of course would have their use cases. The weather boxes on the other hand provide much more detail, so I'd consider the two mutually exclusive given the subject and the data available. Weather boxes may be proportionally large for articles on some settlements, but speaking for myself I've always valued how visible they are. You often don't realize you have an interest in this data until you see it, and if it is a big enough distraction within a particular article it can simply be collapsed. No finite rules here, it's all relative. &mdash; MusikAnimal</b> <sup style="color:green;">talk 00:00, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 11) No per . While I wouldn't go as far as to call them "one of the best features", I agree with the rest of that statement completely.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  16:02, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 12) No The information should be presumed to be useful and it would ideally be available for every region which has weather reports.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  19:34, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 13) No never seen any problem with these boxes, which present reasonably complex data sets in a clear concise format. I find the colour palette provides an at a glance view that is much clearer than text descriptions. I would be concerned that were these boxes not to be used that any sourced prose that replaced them would become unnecessarily cumbersome and would make it inherently more difficult to provide information on trends in a clear manner. Fenix down (talk) 10:53, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Should Weather box and Climate chart be collapsed or uncollapsed as default?

 * Collapsed
 * 1) This would make sense. Particularly if there are other templates on the same page.  SilkTork  <sup style="color:#347C2C;">✔Tea time  10:54, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 2) Support by default should be collapsed --Moxy (talk) 15:12, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 3) Support, with the condition that individual articles may choose as the editors there see fit. If there is data from more than one station/reference period presented, the non-official station should always remain collapsed on the main city page. Sub-articles, of course, are an entirely different matter. " My master, Annatar the Great, bids thee welcome! " 20:15, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 4) Support - This is a reasonable comprise in terms of any concerns over article spacing & formatting, and the "weather box" can be changed to accommodate this request. Guy1890 (talk) 20:27, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 5) Weather box if we must have it should be collapsed. Climate chart does not need to be. These need to be considered separately.--Charles (talk) 22:42, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 6) Support. A reasonable compromise. --LT910001 (talk) 05:29, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 7) Support at least for weatherbox. this is a good compromise  DGG ( talk ) 16:56, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 8) Support for weather box. Case-by-case decision for climate chart -- Cooper <tt>42</tt> (Talk)(Contr) 16:32, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 9) Collapse them. Very distracting. GeorgeLouis (talk) 23:19, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Uncollapsed
 * 1) Support uncollapsed. Nonsense to make things more difficult for the reader by needing them to click to see data. Do we have evidence we need this? It seems to me it just makes the user experience worse. -- cyclopia <sup style="color:red;">speak! 23:03, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 2) Uncollapsed. If it needs to be collapsed by default, it's cruft. If it's legitimately useful information, we shouldn't be hiding it from the reader. Also, Climate chart already keeps the Imperial conversions collapsed by default. If we collapse the whole thing by default, anyone who wants to see the Fahrenheit information will be forced to click twice to get to it. Kaldari (talk) 03:53, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 3) Uncollapsed. Better than collapsed. Subtropical -man  <span style="display:inline-block; margin-bottom:-0.3em; vertical-align:-0.4em; line-height:1.2em; font-size:85%; text-align:left;"> talk  <abbr class="abbr" title="intermediate level of English" > (en-2)   17:05, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 4) Support uncollapsed In my opinion, collapsing the templates makes the articles look somewhat sloppy. They look a lot better uncollapsed. Also, if we collapse there is a risk that people reading Wikipedia on cell phones or ipods will have difficulty opening the templates. So long as the template remains of a reasonable length, I fail to see the need to collapseSpirit of Eagle (talk) 22:56, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 5) Support uncollapsed, essentially agree with, above. Cheers, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 17:59, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 6) Uncollapsed by default, however, if for a given article it seems better to collapse it, then that could be decided on a case by case basis.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  19:36, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 7) Uncollapsed. Never collapse content in articles.  Don't make things hard on users.  If the charts are "distracting" or "annoying", improve them.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:23, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 8) In the (few) cases when the information merits inclusion, why hide it? - Nabla (talk) 11:34, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Should use of Weather box and Climate chart be decided on a case by case basis?

 * Yes
 * 1) Not all geographic locations will have specific climate data available for that same, exact location. Data from "nearby" climate sites shouldn't be displayed in other settlement articles. It is important to use valid, reliable sources for any information provided in Wikipedia articles, and "primary sources" are actually preferred for this type of climate information, since it's better to cite the specific agency that collected the data in the first place, if at all possible, since those sources are usually more accurate. Guy1890 (talk) 20:28, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 2) Yes - There are many situations where the necessity of this information may differ; another thing to take note of is the fact that weather and climate can sometimes vary greatly between very short distances, and specific information, especially on "Climate of" (and sometimes "Geography of") articles, can be a significant part of the article in helping a reader understand the text. The  also, under some circumstances, may hold information that would be unpractical to directly include in the text but which may still be useful for understanding the subject. The  does not have as many features, and in using it, sometimes, information may be forced to be left out.  Dustin  ( talk ) 21:02, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 3) Yes, per above arguments.  Subtropical -man  <span style="display:inline-block; margin-bottom:-0.3em; vertical-align:-0.4em; line-height:1.2em; font-size:85%; text-align:left;"> talk  <abbr class="abbr" title="intermediate level of English" > (en-2)   08:42, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 4) Yes I would prefer city articles to use the weather boxes since it contains many important information that the climate chart or prose cannot show but can help readers understand the overall picture of the climate in a better context. On the other hand, the climate chart is more useful for summarizing a climate over a larger region such as Climate of south-west England and Geography of Ontario where the use of a weather box would be excessive detail and redundant. Ssbbplayer (talk) 16:35, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 5) Yes. Per my !vote above. Everything's relative... you have a use case for weather box vs climate chart. In one article the weather box is collapsed since it's proportionally large and stands out, when the data itself is not particularly interesting. Meanwhile another article is quite large and the weather box does not clutter as much so it is left expanded; or perhaps that settlement is known for it's fluctuating climate pattern, so we'd want that data visible by default. &mdash; <b style="color:black;">MusikAnimal</b> <sup style="color:green;">talk 00:06, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 6) Of course. Everything like this, even infoboxes, are decided on a case-by-case basis. No group of editors such as a wikiproject or fans of this template have a WP:OWNership right to force all other editors to agree to have huge, visually noisy and questionably useful templates of this sort of every single city article.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:25, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 7) Of course. Just about everything is. Lets set a guideline, and follow it 99.9% of the times, agreed, but there is almost always a margin for the remaining 0.1%. If some location is notoriously different from its surrounding, why not? - Nabla (talk) 11:38, 10 June 2014 (UTC)


 * No
 * 1) This is the current situation, and I think usage has become excessive so is not working. Some awareness that control is required would be useful.  SilkTork  <sup style="color:#347C2C;">✔Tea time  10:54, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 2) No. Some sort of consistency would be better.--Charles (talk) 22:45, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 3) No. We want to be consistent and I don't see any reason to have differences between articles on cities or locations. -- cyclopia <sup style="color:red;">speak! 23:03, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 4) No. We should be consistent, and use the weather box which is more useful. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 16:58, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 5) No. Essentially agree with, above. Cheers, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 18:00, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 6) No Uniformity is good as it makes articles look cleaner and makes the information easier to find and compare. While I recognize that variances will exist in what is required for an article, they are not so extreme that the use of templates need to be decided on a case by case basis. There are going to be several broad categories such as city or region, which we should be consistent within. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 19:23, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 7) No per Spirit of Eagle. While I'm not sure I'm a proponent of uniformity to quite the degree he is describing, in this case his position is sound.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  16:00, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 8) No The boxes should be in region articles. They should be uncollapsed by default. After that is established, experiments with collapsing them or making other modifications on a case-by-case basis may be tried.   Blue Rasberry   (talk)  19:37, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
 * 9) No - as long as there are no claims that the source used is unreliable it is fine by me. Agree with Spirit of Eagle's comments and would be concerned that a case by case approach would involve unnecessary bureaucracy. Fenix down (talk) 10:56, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Is this weather data actually measured data for the settlement, or just an estimate based on nearby weather stations? I would think there's a case for having detailed data for actual weather stations, but far less reason when there's not a weather station. But I admit I'm not an expert on the topic. --Colapeninsula (talk) 15:52, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * For most U.S. and Canadian cities the data comes directly from stations at a nearby airport or even from a non-airport location in the city's core itself; some examples of the latter in the U.S. and Canada on this site that I can readily think of are: New York (Central Park), Toronto (The Annex), Baltimore (Maryland Science Center), San Francisco (Mission Dolores), etc. I agree that if there is no station designated, and the settlement is small enough (depending on country), there is far less reason for inclusion. " My master, Annatar the Great, bids thee welcome! " 20:03, 9 May 2014 (UTC)


 * The data displayed in either of the boxes under consideration here don't include "a mass of raw data". In fact, there are many examples of only a select few rows in the weather box being used at all in Wikipedia articles, since many geographic locations don't record all of the meteorological data needed to fill the entire weather box out. As was highlighted in the discussion immediately above this RfC, the climate chart appears to have some significant bugs to it which occasionally prohibit it from accurately displaying data. One can think of plenty of reasons why quickly displaying climate data in chart form would be useful to the average reader. For instance, knowing accurate climate data will easily allow users to plan for a trip to a geographic location that they have never been to before or allow them to easily see significant differences between geographic locations that they are familiar with & locations that they are not familiar with. Guy1890 (talk) 02:57, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't have an opinion on the general question, but I checked a random instance of a weather table and (if I'm reading things right) it seems to be not accurate. If the tables are generally not accurate, that would have bearing on the question and probably result in a lot more "don't use" votes. Since it's a peripheral question I put the details on this in a separate section, here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities Herostratus (talk) 15:41, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet for Wikiproject Cities at Wikimania 2014
Hi all,

My name is Adi Khajuria and I am helping out with Wikimania 2014 in London.

One of our initiatives is to create leaflets to increase the discoverability of various wikimedia projects, and showcase the breadth of activity within wikimedia. Any kind of project can have a physical paper leaflet designed - for free - as a tool to help recruit new contributors. These leaflets will be printed at Wikimania 2014, and the designs can be re-used in the future at other events and locations.

This is particularly aimed at highlighting less discoverable but successful projects, e.g:

• Active Wikiprojects: Wikiproject Medicine, WikiProject Video Games, Wikiproject Film

• Tech projects/Tools, which may be looking for either users or developers.

• Less known major projects: Wikinews, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, etc.

• Wiki Loves Parliaments, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves ____

• Wikimedia thematic organisations, Wikiwomen’s Collaborative, The Signpost The deadline for submissions is 1st July 2014 For more information or to sign up for one for your project, go to: Project leaflets Adikhajuria (talk) 09:29, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Featured Article
Hi all,

I recently submitted the article Briarcliff Manor, New York to the list of featured article candidates. I am actively following its review, and will be glad to take criticism and advice, and I welcome you to edit the article directly. Would any members of this WikiProject take some time to assist in the article review? Thank you.

Respectfully, -- ɱ    (talk)  00:17, 29 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Cheers! Well, after a very quick look, I can comment that I am not a big fan of the "Neighboring places" graphic. I rarely see it on big cities or featured cities and only see it as filler for small towns without much else in the article. My opinion is that it useless space filler that is better communicated in prose. But honestly, just my opinion. I do remember a debate about it ending in the same conclusion, but nothing at a policy level. Otherwise, all the big check list items were there, but again, just a quick look see. D kriegls  ( talk to me! ) 04:23, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Dkriegls, I wish you had posted this to the review page, now one of the coordinators closed it for not enough responses. I agree that the neighboring places graphic is large and perhaps could be put into prose, but its layout is decent and simple, and it shows people nearby towns without needing a citation as text would. I don't think a single citation could be found that could cover all of that anyway. Thanks for the feedback.-- ɱ    (talk)  19:45, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Location maps
Shijiazhuang has a typical example of the frustratingly useless style of infobox location mapping that is all too common across Wikipedia. When you come to an article about a city, or any other place, the first thing you want to see is a clear map showing location within a context that you understand. Here there are three totally useless maps (for this purpose), and the only useful map is a tiny inset right at the bottom. People need to realise that outlines of countries cut out of their context are often hard to recognise, especially when mixed up with maps of local adminstrative areas with unfamiliar shapes. The inset map, with the surrounding countries, sea and helpful shading, is the one that should be shown prominently at the top in the infobox. The other low-level stuff can be relegated to another place. 86.179.112.79 (talk) 17:23, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Assessment
I just added a request to the assessment request list, but I thought I'd post a notification here because it looks like there's a significant amount of requests awaiting response over there. Could an experienced editor please consider going over each of the articles still needing assessment? Thank you! - <span style="font-family:Mistral,'Brush Script MT','MV Boli',calibri;text-shadow:gray 0.1em 0.1em 0.3em;"> Sweet Nightmares  21:47, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Distance from major cities
I'm not involved in this project, but I look up a lot of cities. Something that is definitely missing from almost all the articles on small cities, and that would be very useful IMHO, is a consistent (or any) mention of the nearest major city or widely recognizable location. Today I looked up Nathrop, Colorado. While there is a lot of technical information about its location, for the life of me I can't figure out whether this is some remote mining community, or whether it's an exurb of Denver, or close to some more well-known place in Colorado. It seems to me that encyclopedia users would want to have information like this. I know that I do, and I know that it is too often not available in Wikipedia. An exception that I looked at today is Carlsbad, California. When you read the introductory paragarphs, they pretty much tell you just where this place is located.

Another thing that is frequently missing is whether or not a city is in a Metropolitan Statistical Area of any sort. Carlsbad might well be part of the San Diego area, but you can't tell from the article or the infobox. Lou Sander (talk) 16:01, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
 * You can get a gist of the location of any place quickly by using the MiniAtlas (click on the down arrow on the globe image to the left of the coordinates). This won't help you with the MSAs, of course, but figuring out whether a place is in the middle of nowhere or in the suburbs of a big city is something this tool makes immediately obvious. You can zoom in and out as you need, too. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 31, 2014 ; 16:27 (UTC)

That is really nice! Thanks for pointing it out. Readers who don't know about that feature are still in the dark about where a little-known place is in relation to better-known places, though. IMHO, something about that should be in the body of the article, unless the place is well-known. Lou Sander (talk) 00:11, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

List of municipalities in Tennessee
Hello, editors of WikiProject Cities:

List of municipalities in Tennessee is outdated, and not, in its current state, one of Wikipedia's best. Thus, I'm nominating it for featured list removal. The relevant discussion is at Featured list removal candidates/List of municipalities in Tennessee/archive1. Thanks. Seattle (talk) 15:40, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Government of Louisville, Kentucky requested move
It has been suggested that the subject city subarticle be moved to Louisville Metro. Please read all the arguments made so far and participate if you have a chance. Thanks! Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 21:39, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Category:Fortified cities and Category:Walled towns
FYI and  have been requested to be merged together -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 06:16, 27 August 2014 (UTC)