Talk:Census/Archive 1

Archive 1

poll tax

--139.76.128.71 18:25, 6 January 2006 (UTC)--139.76.128.71 18:25, 6 January 2006 (UTC)UK Census:

1981 was too early for Poll Tax (should we use "community charge" here? The name Poll tax is not neutral. But then not using it isn't either.) The poll tax was near the end of Thatcher! It didn't hit the 2001 census too badly from what I've heard, but there is some lingering suspicion. The (famous London) poll tax riot was March 1990.

Early UK census: wouldn't that part of the UK under Roman occupation have been censused? (So that the claim of the AD C7 as the earlies would be false?)

Muppet 10-Jun-2003 16:09 BST

Census quote.

There was some quote used when I was in school pertaining to the census and government. Somthing along the lines of the census is the foundation of a government or the first thing it does. I don't know the exact quote, but I feel it would be a good idea to add it to the article.

Ambiguity in first paragraph

The last two sentences of the first paragraph contain an ambiguity:

[Taking a census] can be contrasted with sampling in which information is only obtained from a subset of a population. As such it is a method used for accumulating statistical data.

The "it" in the last sentence: is this supposed to refer to taking a census or sampling? As it appears in the "Census" article, I have to assume it refers to taking a census. But census data would not, as far as I'm concerned, be "statistical data". You don't (usually) do statistics on data from an entire population, you do it on samples. Right? I'm currently having a very similar discussion in Talk:Statistics. Someone please come agree with me. <g> - dcljr 04:13, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You are thinking of inferential statistics. It is quite possible to have descriptive statistics from an entire population. I agree that sentence is not as clear as it could be. zzuuzz ^(talk) 10:03, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

---

zzuuzz is absolutely correct. Statistical analysis using descriptive statistics (central tendencies, frequency distributions [histograms, paretos et al.]etc..)can be performed on a sample or a population. Statistical analysis using inferential statistics can only be performed on a sample. The behavior of the population can be "inferred" from the statistical analysis of the sample. The confusion stems from calling a "parameter" a "statistic". From the Triola book "An Introduction to Statistics", a Population is the complete collection of all elements to be studied. A Census is the collection of data from every element in a population. A Sample is a subset from the population. A Parameter is a numerical measurement describing some characteristic of a population. A Statistic is a numerical measurement describing some characteristic of a sample. For example, in the 1984 US Presidential election, Reagan received 58.8% of the popular vote. Since this numerical value is from the all the popular votes cast during the election, 58.8% is a parameter. Exit polls during the 1984 election showed Reagan with 61% of the popular vote. Since Exit polls are based on samples, 61% is a statistic. statzman 2006 Jan 06

Without disputing the authorities cited, but merely as a matter of usage, is it really true that "census" necessarily implies the (entire) population? I really don't think that the US Census (to pick a random example) covers the whole population at all, let alone in the same depth. I've lived through five of them, and don't believe I've ever been directly involved. Jackrepenning (talk) 21:28, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Maybe too late to be useful, but... it might be more accurate to say that a census attempts to cover the entire population. In practice, it's impossible to reach everybody, and in consequence many agencies do in fact conduct inferential statistics on census data, attempting to correct for this undercoverage in one way or another.

Even if coverage were 100%, inferential statistics still comes into play if you want to go beyond describing the characteristics of people on Census night, and attempt to describe the probability distribution/'superpopulation' from which those Census results are drawn. --GenericBob (talk) 21:53, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Ancient censuses

Edited the Ancient censuses section: separated the Biblical references from the historical statement about the Romans and cleaned up the Biblical paragraph.

Both paragraphs could use more work, especially the Roman one. Hopefully, more information, and from other cultures, can be added to the section to make it less dependent on a religious text. SpacemanSpork 21:16, 2005 Feb 23 (UTC)

United States census

The US section contains the following sentence:

But there is not a federal census legislation (nor for federal voting).

I would edit it to clarify but I don't know what it means. Can someone else help? Chick Bowen 22:12, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Methods of performing the census

I feel this page is lacking. I was looking for information on countries where the census is performed by querying the government databases rather than by filling forms (such as my native Finland). Couldn't find any information on this as based on this page, most countries still live in the dark ages.—This unsigned comment was added by 213.169.28.108 (talk • contribs) .

It's true, most countries that have a census, perhaps by definition, send forms out to the population. There are certainly some recent developments with population databases which will spell the end of the census as we know it, which should be mentioned. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 21:31, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

A census is the process of obtaining information about every member of a population (not necessarily a human population). By this "definition", a database query, which spans the whole population of a country is a census. Being Finnish and never having gone through the process of filling out the forms, anything but the queries just sounds preposterous to me. If the government knows how much they should tax me (and they do, and not simply because I work at a public institution), it shouldn't be too hard to count me as a member of the population. It's just a matter of efficiency.

Actually, the idea of a census is to get info of the entire population of a country at a given time generally whether or not they are paying tax, students, illegal immigrants, criminals, tourists etc etc. In many countries, there are limitations on the amount and type of data that may be stored on a person and how this can be shared (although exceptions could be made for a census of course). There are going to be quite a few people, legally resident in a country with very little info on government databases (only things like birth certificates etc). With very limited However I would say in many countries people would be concerned if the government is so easily able to colate the information in all their databases. You call it efficiency, others may call it big brother. Note also that the census info is expected to be highly confidential and often info is asked that the government possibly shouldn't otherwise know, e.g. religion, ethnicity, country of origin, parternership status (the government may perhaps know marriage but possibly little else), living situation, household income (this is not necessarily the same thing as how much you are legally taxed), place of current residence (AFAIK in many countries it is quite legal for a person to use a PO box for most things although you will usually have to reveal your place of residence for voting) and other stuff I can't remember. And the census also in theory anyway makes it more likely that the truth will be known since it's supposed to be competely confidential so people are hopefully more likely to tell the truth then whatever facade they may have been keeping up for whatever reason. I'm also somewhat doubtful whether it would be more efficient to collate all the data in the pre-computer age. Some of it like residence type for example may be known from local council records if you know the address. But we're talking about a lot of diverse databases here and I personally suspect in the pre-computer age anyway it would still have been more efficient to just use forms rather then collate the diverse amounts of data in diverse databases. Note even in Malaysia, where identity cards are compulsory after 12 (and you're supposed to keep your address updated) census are still carried out. Sure Malaysia has a lot of inefficiencies but I don't personally believe it is simply because of that. There is a lot more censuses are intended to cover then databases do and should have. However if you're sure Finland does conduct a 'database' census or dump then you're welcome to add what you know. Nil Einne 00:41, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Looking at this page [1] it appears I'm right and in fact it was only recently (1990) that Finland moved to a 'register' based census... BTW, one thing to consider is that Finland is AFAIK a country with a very high level of social welfare and therefore the government tends to have a lot of into on what their citizens. Many other countries have less and therefore the goverment similarly has less info. Universities for example are not necessarily state (government) owned and therefore they may have their own policies about what data they share with who and people may not like it if the goverment forces them to share data. Perhaps it comes down to what I said however. In many countries, especially the English speaking developed. commonwealth countries (including the US here even though it's not technically commonwealth) the people tend to have a greater concern about what info the government has on them. While it may seem like a good idea in theory to make a greater use of available resources and safe time and money this is more likely to concern these people. Even if the information is already there and perhaps it can already be easily be collated, actually doing so may lead to (perhaps irrationally) a great level of concern so it's simply not done. Coming from Malaysia, I don't have so much concern (for example I don't really care about ICs) but I can safely say people here in NZ often do. All countries are moving away from this to some extent in this modern world but at the same time, there is a greater awareness and concern about privacy issues. Sorry if I'm not making sense, I'm tired. Nil Einne 00:46, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, maybe in other countries people are more sensitive about their governments keeping data on them. Still, my original point was that this page should cover the more modern ways of doing a census. Clearly the page is lacking. Also, I would like to note that actually my privacy is a lot better protected by my government than in many places where the census is still conducted in the conventional way. For example, the US, the Patriot Act gives the government a lot of power, but according to you, the people would still be offended if their data would be in government database from which their information could easily be queried. Actually, those databases actually exist already, but for some reason, they are not used for this purpose. --62.142.198.22 10:34, 24 March 2007 (UTC) (Ok, there seems to some information on Danish census)

Well in some ways you've hit the nail on the head haven't you? It's surely not surprising Americans would be scared of such easy access to the databases given the easy room for misuse by things like the Patriot Act. Note that I wasn't saying there was anything wrong with the Finnish way simply that I didn't think you understood the fears of people in other countries and they they would definitely not consider it 'inefficient'. Whether or not the Finnish way is better is somewhat moot. For example many Europeans who have national ID cards are surprised by the fierce opposition of people in the UK to national ID cards considering the existensive use of CCTV there. Many are also I think surprised by the fierce opposition to national ID cards in the US considering the often poor state of their privacy laws covering corporations (and the poor attitude of their corporations too) and stuff they do seem to allow like the Patriot Act. And I have some sympathy for their views. But that is their view nether the less. BTW, do databases covering religion and ethnicity and languages spoken, and other things commonly collected in censuses in several anglophone developed countries really exist in Finland? And I still don't quite understand how Finland deals with illegal immigrants in censuses Nil Einne (talk) 16:59, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Historical populations

I recently created the {{Histpop}} template to make it easier to read and edit historical population tables in demographics sections of articles.   JEK   Wednesday, December 11 2024 at 21:32

Histpop removed in favor of {{USCensusPop}}, but it can still be used for non-US locations. /Timneu22 00:55, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The Law

Correct me if I missed it, but I saw no mentioning of the laws of taking a census. I mean, I know for a fact that in Canada, it is required by law that every household must complete a census form, and failure to do so could result in some form of criminal prosecution (the ads for our most recent census drilled this into our heads). I don't know what the law is surrounding other countries, but I think this should be looked into and integrated into the article in its appropriate place. -- Reaper X 20:12, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe it's true in most countries or at least most commonwealth countries. It's true in New Zealand and AFAIK also Australia, Malaysia and the UK. N.B. It's mentioned here that it's compulsory in India and in the Australian subpage it's compulsory in India but you're right the info is lacking. Nil Einne 01:08, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

It's required by law, but so are a lot of things. It's required by law that two trains in Texas must each stop while the other passes. I don't think we need an article listing every state that requires it by law (whatever that really means). If you want one qualifiying ad hoc sentence that says some states require it by law, then I am in favor of that. Kcchief915 (talk) 20:21, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Anniversary Links

Under the heading "canada", the two links quinquennial and decennial both redirect to anniversary, which has no relevance to Canadian census regulations in any way. Either the links should be removed, or should link to articles that are relevant to Canadian censuses. --Nin 08:41, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

and it is also vital to democracy (voting)

This sentence in the introduction has been bugging me for a while. In many countries (such as the UK) there is a completely separate register for voters, and census records are not used for any other purposes than statistical abstracts and perhaps release after 100 years. Are there countries which rely on census records for voting, or does this refer to counting different groups to ensure representation, or does this relate specifically to the counting done for Gerrymandering in the United States? -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 00:56, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK voter records are usually seperate. At least in NZ and Malaysia they are as far as I know (although in Malaysia 'voter records' they are part of a wider database). However I think you might be missing the point. Voter records are AFAIK often (usually?) not used to draw electoral boundries because the precise locations of voters may not be recorded in voter records. Census info does record such info and it also records all eligible voters regardless of whether or not they're registered to vote (if you have to register to vote, I believe you don't have to in the US). So the census is usually seen as the best way to draw electroral boundries and this may be required in law. See [2] for example. Note the actual voter records never intersect with the census info and the census info is confidential and only demographical info is released. Nil Einne 01:07, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Interestingly the UK does not appear to use census data however "The Commission obtain the enumeration date electorate figures from electoral registration officers, either directly, or indirectly through the Office for National Statistics (ONS)" so you're right there Nil Einne 01:17, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

So census data is used to draw electoral boundaries according to counts of particular groups. Is that right? I'd like to stretch this sentence out into a wider point about representation. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 01:43, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

UK Census information being sold

I changed the reference to UK Census statistical information being 'sold to interested parties' to 'also made available in published reports and on the ONS website.'

Although it's true that if you wanted one of the printed reports you'd have to pay, you could get the pdf of the report free on the web, and you can get hold of any of the results on CD (including the detailed stuff not in the printed reports) on CD free of charge from ONS. I agree that you could have a bit of a detailed quibble about whether the samples of anonymised microdata are charged for or not, but it seemed to be less misleading, without getting into huge detail, to remove the suggestion that you needed to buy the data. Jonesey67 13:29, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

1931 UK Census

You should be aware that there is no 1931 Census. It was destroyed during thr London Blitz. Regards, Paul Norfolk Dumpling 10:24, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Version 0.7 review

I decided not to include this article in version 0.7. This is a shame, because it is an important topic, but the page is really lacking in breadth. It consists mainly of snippets of information about how/when censuses were done in various countries. There is little general information about the science of this, what questions are asked and why, applications of census data by both government and by others, different ways a census is carried out, etc. The article will be checked again for a later release. Walkerma 03:27, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Hello, You made the correct decision. I am a demographer and I stumbled on this page while searching for something else. In addition to the comments you make above, some of the material in the entry and much of the material in the "talk" is incorrect. I hope I am not violating Wikipedia talk guidelines by saying this; I write to support your decision, not to be insulting. Censuses are a familiar part of modern life, but their technical aspects are understandably less familiar. I hope to return to edit at a future date -- I never imagined adding to a Wikipedia page, but of course I concur with your comment that this is an important topic! MEH76.100.177.240 (talk) 03:32, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

hmmmm...

I am working on an Anthropology Quiz for my History Class and I just needed to look it up and this was one of the top hit sites....I really do like wikepedia, it helps alot with all of my school assignments!!!!!!! -Sarah Analicia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.14.97.80 (talk) 18:16, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Census-Does it only mean population census?

The word population in the definition of census has more of a statistical meaning rather than its literal meaning. Otherwise how does one use the terms like agricultural census, livestock census, economic census, etc?

The entire page is devoted to population census. I feel that clarity has to be brought in at the beginning

--K N Unni (talk) 05:48, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

China inconsistency

Population censuses have been taken in the People's Republic of China in 1913, 1944, 1972, 1999 and 2004. ... Some 6 million enumerators were enganged (sic) in the 2000 census <=??? Flavio Costa (talk) 20:59, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

"Babylonian" Census

The article claims a census taken by Babylon c. 3800BC. This is long before the rise of Babylon (first mentioned 24th century BC according to the wiki Babylon article), and several centuries before the first known cunieform text. Is anyone aware of the status of the census in early Mesopatamia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.198.202.38 (talk) 09:23, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

"Most recent census" image

This image seems to be out of date - Australia's last census is shown as 2000-2004, but in fact the most recent census was 2006.

I think this image is going to be problematic for a Wikipedia article because it'll be impossible to keep it up to date; there are almost 200 countries in the world and a lot of them have regular censuses, so the content will be constantly changing. OTOH, it seems a shame to just remove it - any ideas?--GenericBob (talk) 10:44, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

It was uploaded to German wiki in 2006, then copied to commons, and altered by others since. The main point is that most countries have censuses frequently, but Germany and a few other countries had no census in the last 20 years or so. -- Matthead  Discuß   15:02, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that aspect of it was interesting - I wonder if there's some way to present that information in a way that doesn't need updating so often? It might be more useful to code by 'frequency of census' for those countries that have a regular census cycle (e.g. 5 years for Australia, 10 years for the USA), but if the OP isn't around, that might be tricky to achieve. --GenericBob (talk) 22:05, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Since the map is out of date, I replaced it with a human-interest image. --Boxplot (talk) 16:29, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

"Most Developed" Claim

It is dubious to insert arbitrary opinions, in particular, that the Roman Empire's census was the most "developed" in the ancient world, when all I see are modern day estimates of the population, rather than those figures (from the actual census data) surviving into the present context of discussion, as in the case for China.Facial (talk) 20:23, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Reorganized Ancient/Medieval Section

I've put some of the distinct ancient and medieval political entities into their own categories, with some new information for China. Hope you like it.Facial (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:28, 18 March 2010 (UTC).

What does the Constitution say about census?

Just exactly does the U.S. Constitution say is required that a citizen must answer? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.0.155.164 (talk) 19:15, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

"The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of 10 years, in such manner as they shall by Law direct."

-- Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution of the United States

This states that the census is required to be taken once every ten years as needed to apportion the number of representatives each state has in the House of Representatives. At the state level, this data is also used to draw up district lines for each state's senate. Additional questions such as race and ethnicity are used for federal funding programs and to verify that states are in compliance with voting rights legislation. Most of those questions are originated on the census in the early 1800s (with the obvious exception of the race question since the voting rights acts didnt come around until 1960 with the civil rights movement.) BTW, this information all comes from census.gov if you want to verify it for yourself or even research it more in depth. Iron_Engineer (talk) 08:36, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

why is it important 2 fill out the census

'''''u must fill out the census it it really important for all 2 know how many ppl live in our world and in our states nd countrys''''' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.234.80.66 (talk) 03:47, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

India - National Population Register

Currently there is a link to National Population Register, which redirects to Citizen Information Project, which refers to the [[United Kingdom] only. Could someone please check and correct? Wiki-uk (talk) 14:49, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Does not belong to WPStatistics

It is unfortunate that the word “statistics” has so many meanings in our language. First, there is statistics as a science. Then there is a statistic, which is a function of the data collected. There are also statisticians, who may be either the statistics scientists, or alternatively people with minimum education whose job is to collect and store the data. The project WPStatistics is entirely devoted to statistics as a science. It does not deal with the statistics as any particular data which may have been collected by someone (even if that someone is the government). Thus, it does not deal with the census data, or the “number of homeruns in the last season” data, or the national household survey data, etc. This article is outside of the scope of the project, much like the computer game Modern Warfare 2 is outside of the scope of the Wikiproject Computer science (although undoubtedly computer science was used in the development of the game).  // stpasha »  19:52, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

The project page doesn't mention that - will post there suggesting that the scope be clarified. --GenericBob (talk) 12:11, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I added the WPStatistics template to the page. I was unsure at the time whether it was the right thing to do, so asked here and didn't get any negative feedback. Cordless Larry (talk) 15:47, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

As a rule of thumb, I say that any article which can be started as “In statistics, ...” falls under the scope of WikiProject Statistics. Additionally, the project includes articles about famous statisticians (although arguably it should have been a different sub-project).  // stpasha »  16:38, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. I'd have thought official statistics were relevant to mathematical statistics since they often provide the basis for problems in that discipline. For instance, census data is frequently used as the basis for benchmarking/regression estimation, and for predicting the bias and variance properties of a sampling method, and as the source of microdata. I wouldn't begin the article with those issues since they're not the main focus here, but it still seems relevant. --GenericBob (talk) 23:43, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Can I suggest that these points are made at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Statistics? Cordless Larry (talk) 07:11, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

I hope the inclusion of the enumeration strategies section satisfies the requirements for inclusion in the statistics WP. Further adjustment is also made through sex ratio/demographic analysis which may be useful to bolster this argument. Sadly these census operations are gargantuan to the point of clear methodology not being well reported. Hence at least some of the political controversy. Ca3tki (talk) 10:14, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

The point was discussed at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Statistics (discussion now archived). The project is not limited to "mathematical statistics" and/or "probability theory". The inclusion at the top of this page of the Statistics project banner indicates the article's inclusion in the scope of the project. However, there is (and has been) little activity on the "official statistics" type of article, so that any new efforts are particularly welcome. Melcombe (talk) 13:34, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

This article is in WPstats because I added it last week. I can see that individual country censuses are not wanted in the project but I think this one should stay. I guess it's just that the population benchmarking process is not very well documented anywhere. I guess we need an attributes section to engage with matching, uniqueness and question choice.Ca3tki (talk) 16:07, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

The idea of the stats project is to improve the stats-related content in any and all articles. The project template plays two main roles: (i) to allow grouping of all related articles under project categories with importance/class codes (see categories that show at the end of article talk pages); (ii) to allow those interested in the project quick access to any quesions/points made on article talk pages. For what you are presently concerned with, you might want to think about developing a separate article, linked to from here. But you might consider also whether there is sufficient overlap for it to fit into one of the other articles under Category:Survey methodology or Category:Sampling (statistics), such as Sampling frame. Melcombe (talk) 17:02, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Quality

This page, I am sorry to say, is of poor quality. It is pretty much just a list of different countries and their census systems, which really should be on its own page. I propose writing about the use of censi, problems encountered carrying them out etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.251.99.54 (talk) 09:34, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

That would be a valuable addition to the page - feel free to do so! (Although, note that the plural is "censuses", or in Latin simply "census" - not all Latin words ending in 'us' get pluralised with a '-i'.) --GenericBob (talk) 09:49, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd also support this. The country sections don't really belong here and should be their own pages. Cordless Larry (talk) 20:44, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Proposed merge of UK census....

This is the place to talk about the proposed merge of the UK Census section into Census in the United Kingdom. The UK census section in this article is twice as long as the other ones (with the exception of the US census one, but that's a different proposal), so I'm proposing we merge most of the section into Census in the United Kingdom,, but still leaving a bit behind. --- cymru lass ^{(hit me up)}⁄_{(background check)} 00:29, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I support the merge, although I think it might be better to merge all of the country sections in their entirety to separate articles, per the discussion above. Cordless Larry (talk) 08:26, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I support that too. Bluewave (talk) 16:45, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

I oppose the merger because it seems unnecessary. If you look at the following section about the USA Census, it is four times longer again! The entry about the UK Census is not excessive - after all, it's been taken for over 200 years. If required, readers can follow the link to the full article. Sionk (talk) 10:17, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Ancient Chinese Census Data

I have made the claim that it is the world's oldest surviving census data. It should be easily verified. Facial (talk) 01:12, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Article Photo

Is totally amazing. Kudos to whoever did that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.180.204.186 (talk) 05:25, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Removed Boycott - Ireland

I removed mention of a supposed boycott since it was related to Scotland and not Ireland. I'm pretty sure it's a criminal offence to boycott a census in Ireland so we should require rock solid sources. IRWolfie- (talk) 21:18, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Reverted -- the calls were for a boycott in Ireland, despite being illegal. However, "calls" for a boycott are not, hence The Journal is an acceptable source for calls for a boycott, but there is little evidence of whether there were participants or not. It would be better to move the CACI info to their wiki page, and shorten the "calls for a boycott" section here. Jim no.6 (talk) 10:33, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

There was no call for a boycott in ireland. The Journal does not mention any boycott in Ireland or anywhere. IRWolfie- (talk)

It does, in the sources cited. Please re-read them. In particular, follow the link in the sentence "However, an online petition has been posted ... " in the Journal article. Jim no.6 (talk) 23:02, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

First of all:

• The Journal article does not state anything relating to a boycott of the Irish census. It reports on the criticism over CSO using CACI (UK).
• The online petition link within The Journal article does not mention anything about a boycott. It urges cancellation of the CACI (UK) contract and states opposition to their role in the census.
• The Observer article speaks of only a boycott to the Scottish census.
• The CACI in Iraq link has nothing to do with Ireland, census, or boycotts.

• This does not confirm a boycott.

Secondly, why is this even included on a general "Census" article anyway? If there is a controversy about a particular country's census, that controversy should be presented on that census's article (like this and this). It is pointless to present a census controversy here and not at its main article. If so, this article would likely be littered with controversies from censuses performed in other countries.

Based on the above, I am removing this content. Hwy43 (talk) 08:01, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

An attempt was made to reinsert the text with some very dubius sources, I have reverted it. The same sources were being used in Census of Ireland 2011 as well. IRWolfie- (talk) 17:37, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

The petition is entitled "Boycott Irish Census 2011", and was created by a group called "Boycott Irish Census 2011"! That's hardly 'does not mention anything about a boycott' ...

I agree that it should be in Census of Ireland 2011, and not here though.Jim no.6 (talk) 12:32, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

A keyword search for "boycott" on all links above, as well as the online petition link within the article, yielded no hits on December 1, hence my comment above.
Note that an online petition through a website that allows anyone to sign up and create their own petition on anything would not be a reliable source to support content at Census of Ireland 2011. Hwy43 (talk) 06:08, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

United States

The section on the United States census seems way too long, considering there is already an extensive, separate article about it. I suggest it is reduced by at least 60-70%, so it does not dominate this list and be a complete imbalance. Do others agree? Sionk (talk) 10:46, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's probably a good idea. Wikipedia can be (more than a) bit US-centric at times (and I'm an American!) David1217 ^{What I've done} 18:57, 2 September 2012 (UTC)