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Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Municipalities of Coahuila/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by The Rambling Man via FACBot (talk) 00:25, 1 September 2018 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Municipalities of Coahuila

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Municipalities of Coahuila (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Mattximus (talk) 14:10, 26 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This list is modeled cloesly after two successful Mexican municipality nominations Colima and Aguascalientes, keeping similar format and sourcing. I believe it meets featured list requirements but I am very open to any suggestions for improvement. This list is part of a greater goal of creating a featured quality list for all municipalities, adding to my previous 18 promoted lists of municipalities of North America all using standardized formatting, making them look more consistent and encyclopedic. Thanks for helping me on this project. Mattximus (talk) 14:10, 26 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from The Rambling Man (talk) 11:54, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
  • No need for bold link to Coahuila (if that's happened in the previous 18 FLs, they need to be fixed too!)
  • Strangely enough it was the only one that had bold link... fixed  Done
  • You have two different piped redirects to the same article in one sentence, which isn't brilliant for our readers.
  • I can see that, however I can't think of a way around it. There is only 1 article that lists both the states by population and the states by land area...
  • I see what you are saying, but I wonder about a reader who wants to see which states are the largest by area, they will not know they can click on the list of states by population to get this information unless it is linked twice. Hmmm... Is there a way to resolve this?
  • You could add some information about first/latest to incorporate in the lead as well, since that information is in the table. Done
  • Probably also worth discussing the population change in general since that's in the table too yet not discussed in any way in the lead.

The Rambling Man (talk) 10:23, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • I thought about this, saying something like the state is growing faster than Mexico as a whole, or finding the average growth rate etc, but really the list is about individual municipalities, so generalizations for percent change are not super useful to the reader. For example, a small town with a growth rate of 50% is less significant than a large city with a growth rate of 10%, so it really depends on the row you are looking at in the list itself.

Comments by Dudley

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  • On the surface this works for me since I'm more familiar with first past the post terminology as well, however the source uses "plurality" and there are technically a few kinds of plurality that are not first past the post, and I'm not 100% certain that it is first past the post in local Mexican elections.
  • It is not an issue for this article but it is curious that the Mexican lists are in Category:Lists of municipalities, but not the US and Canadian ones.
  • They appear to just use topic boxes instead (which I actually prefer), whereas this one uses both (I personally find the category link at the bottom to be a bit redundant and ugly compared to topic boxes). I kept it since I had no good reason to remove some other user's work.
  • The dagger for state capital should be on the municipal seat, not the municipality.
  • It's the whole municipality that is the "state capital", the seat is the site of government for that municipality, which likely but not necessarily overlap.
  • For consistency, you should give the date of the name change of Guerrero, as you do with the other ones. Done
  • In note 4, you only give the second half of the book title.
  • Interesting find! I did some digging and it looks like google books has the title wrong, here is the official title: [2]
Resolved comments from Giants2008 (Talk) 22:08, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comments –
  • Note a: Space should be removed before the cite.
  • Note b: Typo in "municipalitie's". Done
  • Note c could use a period at the end. Done
  • Note d: First two words of "the 27 February 27, 1868" should be taken out. Done
  • In ref 3, "on" should probably be removed from the access date for consistency.
  • I completely agree, however I can't seem to figure out how! Does the cite act template for some reason use "on", but the cite web does not? Any idea how to correct this?
  • It must, as I've never seen this template in use before and your formatting is normal-looking. I'll strike the comment to avoid punishing this article for a template's issue, but you might want to leave a note on the template's talk page about this apparent inconsistency with the rest of the templates. Giants2008 (Talk) 00:23, 22 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved comments from « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:57, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comments by Gonzo_fan2007
  • I would combine the first and third sentences of the first paragraph. "Coahuila is a state in northern Mexico that is divided into 38 municipalities."  Done
    • I also would remove "located" as redundant to "in"  Done
    • Should northern be capitalized? You capitalized Southern in Municipalities of Campeche. Don't know the MOS, but stay consistent. Done
  • I changed the lists for all states to have the same format.
  • In the first paragraph and the table, is there a need to go out to 3 decimal points on the land area? I would recommend rounding to one decimal (or even whole numbers).
  • Not really, however this is exactly the accuracy published by INEGI and all these lists are populated with official government data. Some countries use only 1 decimal, most use 2, but Mexico seems to be the only one so far that uses 3. I like to just use whatever the official census bureau uses.
  • Link Intercensal Survey  Done
  • First sentence, third paragraph, you need a comma after "Abasolo"
  • I added the comma just a bit before this, does that work?
  • Second sentence, third paragraph, you need a comma after "Ocampo"  Done
  • last sentence, last paragraph, you need a comma after "Madero"  Done

That's it Mattximus. Nice work! « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 17:19, 2 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from TompaDompa (talk) 16:45, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
  • Google results suggest that "Northeast Mexico" is not consistently capitalized like that and should therefore be rendered "northeast Mexico" per MOS:COMPASS.
    I'm happy to make this change, but I'm basing it on the Spanish proper name for the region, which according to MOS:COMPASS, means it should be capitalized. I really don't care either way, however here is my source: [3]
    I think you meant to link [4], but no matter. I'm persuaded. TompaDompa (talk) 13:15, 12 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • A recurring issue is that of MOS:UNCERTAINTY. The land area is almost certainly not known to 1/1000 square kilometer precision, even if the source gives a figure with that many decimals. Even if it were, it would be very overkill to have that precision here. I suggest rounding to integer values for the area. The population is trickier, but again the figures given by the source are almost certainly overprecise. I don't quite know how to solve this in the table since the figures are used for calculations (perhaps write something in the header cell about the source being the official count?), but in the text I would simply write "The largest municipality by population is the state capital Saltillo, with over 800 thousand residents, while the smallest is Abasolo with one thousand residents."
  • You brought up a very interesting problem with rounding areas! The land area *is* known to that precision according to INEGI, but the problem with rounding high precision area numbers is that you can't simply go up to 1 when it's 0.5-0.999, because areas actually *decrease* when resolution is lowered. This is counter intuitive, but consider a circle that is perfect. Ok that's 1. Now consider a circle with many little protrusions, it's now greater than 1, say 1.005. When you round you are returning it to the circle, which is 1, but actually mathematically rounding would bring it up to 1.01! Unfortunately, this would now fall under original research if we report a number different than whatever the statistics bureau reports.
  • I stand by my original point. Per MOS:UNCERTAINTY, Precise values (often given in sources for formal or matter-of-record reasons) should be used only where stable and appropriate to the context, or significant in themselves for some special reason. I don't see that as being the case here. TompaDompa (talk) 13:15, 12 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • However the act of rounding areas is actually generating *new* information, essentially made up by me, which is against WP:OR. It's not like rounding the population, which would not generate new information, just lose precision (and follows MOS:UNCERTAINTY)). For example 815 people could be rounded to 820 no problem, the 0 is your unknown. Do you want me to round area of 865 to 870? 860? The truth would probably be closer to 860, but the math brings it to 870. So I would arbitrarily have to pick one of those two numbers. Would you recommend I just always round down? Like 879 to 870? That would actually be more accurate, but again, OR. Mattximus (talk) 13:58, 12 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would simply use the parameter in the conversion template which determines the number of decimals and set it to 0. I don't find the argument that conventional rounding would constitute WP:OR particularly persuasive. TompaDompa (talk) 17:10, 12 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is actually a wiki page describing this problem! Maybe it does a better job of explaining why this is OR than I did. It is found here Coastline paradox although it's focused just on coastline (2D) the same principal applies to area (3D).
  • I am familiar with the coastline paradox, but that applies to the spatial resolution of the measurement (i.e. the method used), whereas this is a question of the precision of the final figure. An analogy using basic arithmetic would be rounding figures before adding them up (which would constitute WP:OR) vs. rounding the final sum (which would not). TompaDompa (talk) 19:27, 12 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maybe just a footnote explaining what you rounded to? I had the same comment above that TompaDompa is making. I don't think rounding is considered original research. Rounding is a matter of mathematical fact. 1.55 is always 1.6 when rounded to one decimal point. I understand your concern, but in an easy land-based analogy, if I own .95 acres of land, I can say I own about 1 acre of land and still be accurate, especially if there is a footnote explaining the rounding. Just say something like "all land areas rounded to the nearest whole number." « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 02:51, 21 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Guerrero was originally incorporated as Rio Grande, changing its name March 18, 1834" – missing "on" before the date. Done
  • "On August 7, 1827, the name of the town was changed from San Fernando to Villa de Rosas, and then to Rosas in October 4, 1857, and finally to Zaragoza on February 27, 1868." – "in" should be "on". Done
  • I'm not a big fan of the gallery. I don't suppose the images could be placed on the side as the middle one is very wide, but I would at least move the gallery to below the table rather than above it. I would then also move the last paragraph of the lead to the "Municipalities" section as sort of an intro to the table.
    As for the gallery, I agree with you that it's nicer when it's down the side (which is how I originally had them), however after many of these reviews, the gallery is placed where it is due to accessibility issues brought up involving small screens/low resolution.
    Is WP:ACCESSIBILITY affected by moving it below the table? If it is I guess the table will have to stay where it is, but I don't see why that would be the case. TompaDompa (talk) 13:15, 12 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is possible to place at the bottom, but I'm just following the format of all of these other pages. It would be weird if this is the only page out of 114 list of municipalities in North America to have it at the bottom. But you are right it would still follow WP:ACCESIBILITY but just be really strange compared to all the others. Mattximus (talk) 13:58, 12 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

TompaDompa (talk) 01:22, 12 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your excellent review TompaDompa! I've done the easy ones, but asked your opinion on the more controversial changes. The capitalization I really don't care about so if you have strong views after seeing the Spanish reasoning I'll just change it. The area though is trickier as I mention above. Mattximus (talk) 12:55, 12 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

OK TompaDompa, I've went through every list and rounded all areas. That should be the last outstanding comment? Mattximus (talk) 20:41, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I think two decimals is still overly precise, but it is the last objection I have, yes. TompaDompa (talk) 09:43, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Now that Mexico has been changed, two decimals is the standard for all featured lists of cities (*List of municipalities in the Northwest Territories, List of municipalities in Nunavut, List of municipalities in Ontario, List of municipalities in Saskatchewan, List of municipalities in Yukon, List of cities and towns in Alabama, List of municipalities in New Brunswick, Cantons of Costa Rica, List of cities and towns in Montana, List of municipalities in Maryland, List of municipalities in Mississippi, List of municipalities in Louisiana, List of municipalities in Nova Scotia, List of municipalities in Rhode Island, List of cities in Nevada, Municipalities of Colima, Municipalities of Aguascalientes, List of municipalities in New Mexico, List of cities in Alaska, List of cities in Alberta, List of cities and towns in California). It would be strange if only these two were different than all the others, no? Mattximus (talk) 13:34, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I think they should all be rounded. I won't press the issue, however. TompaDompa (talk) 16:45, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Support TompaDompa (talk) 16:45, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FLC/ar, and leave the {{featured list candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through.
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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