Talk:Washington, D.C.: Difference between revisions
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:::::Anyway, I do thank you for humoring me, I hope you'll duly consider my suggestion. [[Special:Contributions/100.38.57.194|100.38.57.194]] ([[User talk:100.38.57.194|talk]]) 21:31, 20 March 2024 (UTC) |
:::::Anyway, I do thank you for humoring me, I hope you'll duly consider my suggestion. [[Special:Contributions/100.38.57.194|100.38.57.194]] ([[User talk:100.38.57.194|talk]]) 21:31, 20 March 2024 (UTC) |
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::::::Good proposal, let's use a list of top DC landmarks to determine which pic is in the infobox. Sincerely, <span style="border-radius:8em;padding:0 7px;background:orange">[[User:Thinker78|<span style="color:white">'''Thinker78'''</span>]]</span> [[User talk:Thinker78|(talk)]] 04:59, 21 March 2024 (UTC) |
::::::Good proposal, let's use a list of top DC landmarks to determine which pic is in the infobox. Sincerely, <span style="border-radius:8em;padding:0 7px;background:orange">[[User:Thinker78|<span style="color:white">'''Thinker78'''</span>]]</span> [[User talk:Thinker78|(talk)]] 04:59, 21 March 2024 (UTC) |
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:::::::Composing a collage is not as simple as just listing out the most recognizable landmarks in a city and using the top ones. If we did that for D.C., the infobox would be entirely National Mall monuments/memorials, which would be a touristy/incomplete representation of the city. We're using the National Cathedral currently to represent D.C.'s many landmarks outside the mall, and also just since it's a really visually compelling photo of an architecturally striking building. |
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:::::::That said, I'm not wedded to it if we can find something better. Particularly, if we were to replace it, I think it could be nice to have a photo of an embassy take its place, as those are also a big part of D.C. If anyone has a suggestion for a high-quality photo of a recognizable embassy that looks good in vertical orientation and at small scale, feel free to share. <span style="border:3px outset;border-radius:8pt 0;padding:1px 5px;background:linear-gradient(6rad,#86c,#2b9)">[[User:Sdkb|<span style="color:#FFF;text-decoration:inherit;font:1em Lucida Sans">Sdkb</span>]]</span> <sup>[[User talk:Sdkb|'''talk''']]</sup> 17:33, 21 March 2024 (UTC) |
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Crime in Demographics?
Crime in DC has an article of its own, why is it a subsection of Demographics? Demography doesn't study crime stats. Sativa Inflorescence (talk) 15:48, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
- I've 'promoted' the Crime section so it isn't a subsection of Demographics. —ADavidB 07:55, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
- While I agree that having "crime" under demographics feels incorrect, I also don't think having it as a separate section makes sense. Other cities, like Chicago, known for their crime issues (regardless of whether some city articles should have more of an emphasis on crime), don't have it as its own section. I like Chicago's set up -- "Law and government" with crime nested in. You could rename "city government" for DC "law and government" and add crime there. Defrank1 (talk) 20:14, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
Citations needed
More than two years ago I raised concerns about the number of missing citations in this article. Since then this number has only grown to 28, which would be an automatic fail for an FA candidate. Unless this issue is fixed soon, I don't see how we're not going to have to nominate this for FA review. Bneu2013 (talk) 03:54, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- What do you mean by "missing citations"? Are you referring to dead links within citations? Please be more specific as to what is missing and where, as it will help with corrections. —ADavidB 00:36, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
- (I later realized you mean the number of "citation needed" statements within the article, as this section is titled.) —ADavidB 00:42, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
- I've resolved four of these by adding sources, and invite help from other editors. Removing unsourced information is sometimes a good response as well. —ADavidB 05:25, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
Why is the National Cathedral in the Info Box but I was blocked from adding the National Basilica for religious balance?
If you're gonna have the National Cathedral (Episcopalian) it's only fair to also have the National Basilica (Catholic) otherwise it just looks like religious favoritism. Either have both or neither.
These are both significant architectural landmarks of near identical size (the National Basilica is the 2nd tallest building in DC) it doesn't make sense to have one but not the other IMO.
I was told by a mod that I could not add St. Patrick's Cathedral to the New York City info box because that would be "favoritism towards Catholics when American cities have churches of many denominations" WHY DOES THAT NOT APLLY HERE?
Alfred Carbo (talk) 01:15, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
Too many building images
Skimming through this article, way too many of the images are just exterior shots of neoclassical-style buildings. D.C. has plenty of those, yes, but they connote very little to readers, most of whom won't be able to identify them at a glance, about what content will be in that article section. In a few cases, they are the only real option, but in many others we could swap them out for better alternatives. Sdkb talk 06:39, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
- I've gone through the article and overhauled the images to try to address this. While doing so, I noticed many other deficiencies; overall this needs an FAR quite badly. Sdkb talk 07:11, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
Collage
In 2020, myself and a few other editors did a comprehensive redesign of this article's collage. We looked at the corpus of available quality images, considered the various visual signifiers of the city (going beyond just the touristy National Mall view), and applied established best practices for collage composition. The version we came up with (above left) I thought was really good. Unfortunately, image collages have a bad habit of deteriorating if not closely monitored, and when I checked in recently, it had deteriorated to the version on the right. Going through the changes:
The deteriorated version puts the captions under each individual image rather than at the bottom, breaking up its visual cohesion and increasing its overall length (which is particularly bad, since space is at a high premium given the article's already-long infobox). There can be an argument for doing that sometimes when the captions are really important (although personally I think such cases are very rare), but given that many of D.C.'s icons are globally recognizable, it's particularly weak here.
The 2020 design has a nice balance. It includes three images of iconic National Mall landmarks, but balances those with others: the National Cathedral, representing all D.C.'s landmarks outside the Mall; a featured picture of a WMATA station, a system known for its iconic architecture and encountered daily by many Washingtonians; storefronts in Adams Morgan, giving a sense of D.C.'s economic character and local neighborhoods; and displays in the Air and Space Museum to represent the Smithsonian museums.
The choices in the deteriorated version, by contrast, are weak. Collage images appear smaller than normal ones, so it's important that they look good at small scale. The top image is far too zoomed out to work for that — the Capitol building is miniscule, and basically nothing else is visible. Farther down, I'm flattered that an image I took of the Wharf is used, but it's very generic — it could be a marina in any city, so does nothing to visually identify D.C. The image of Georgetown is also so far zoomed out that the only identifiable element is the Key Bridge, which is not exactly the Golden Gate. The Smithsonian Castle image, while nice, is a poorer choice to represent D.C.'s museums than a gallery interior — someone who doesn't live here is unlikely to know what that building is, so it just adds to this article's overload of building exterior images rather than instantly connoting museums.
Given all this, I propose that we restore the curated 2020 design. Courtesy pinging Cristiano Tomás, who reverted my recent attempt to do so, and APK, who was involved in the redesign. Sdkb talk 00:45, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
- I'm trying to figure out why including an interior Metro image is ludicrous. Metro's interior brutalist design is an iconic feature. Overall there are way too many photos in the article. Same goes for a lot of the neighborhood pages. APK hi :-) (talk) 03:57, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
- Agreed, APK.
- Seeing no further engagement from others, I'm going to restore the edit. Sdkb talk 03:34, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
- @Cristiano Tomás has now reverted the edit twice, without engaging here, most recently with summary
restoring stable montage - it is BAD PRACTICE to have INDOOR IMAGES in a city's montage, I dont know how many times I have to write this. From Tokyo to Toronto, Paris to Beijing, London to Los Angeles
. There doesn't seem to be any blanket consensus that I'm aware of that it is bad practice to have indoor images in the city, and examples of other cities that don't happen to have indoor images doesn't constitute one. Building from first principles, images in city collages ought to be visual signifiers representative of the city, and if indoor images fit that bill, why not use them? Sdkb talk 03:59, 17 March 2024 (UTC)- FWIW, here's another vote for the 2020 version, basically for all the reasons given by @APK: better photography, iconic Metro design, and a nod to the Mall museums (easily the most-visited things in the city and the most-visited museums in the hemisphere). PRRfan (talk) 05:20, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
- @Cristiano Tomás has now reverted the edit twice, without engaging here, most recently with summary
Columbia fact check
Wikipedia says DC, Columbia,was named for female. Wrong!!! Named for Christopher Columbus 2601:981:4401:1EA0:5166:5D93:CE43:CC52 (talk) 18:25, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
- Please carefully read Columbia (personification), which explains the female personification and its origins from Columbus's name. Cullen328 (talk) 18:29, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
I'll say it again maybe somebody will listen this time
I was told adding St. Patrick's Cathedral to the New York City collogue was "unfair religious favoritism" why does the same not apply here with the National Cathedral? It doesn't make any sense. Mods need to address this. Either apply rules consistently or don't have them at all. Alfred Carbo (talk) 13:49, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
- The national cathedral is a major landmark in DC, far more so that the National Basilica. I say this as a Catholic myself: the infobox is not a venue for "this montage should include X image to represent my community in X city". The montage is a device used to quickly highlight major visual landmarks of the city, that's it. If you ask me, St. Patricks Cathedral would be fine in the NYC infobox, but that city also has more landmarks than most of the country combined, so what makes the cut of the montage is always going to be disapointing to someone. But you are crying fowl over nothing. If you look at Saint Paul, Minnesota, the Catholic cathedral there is in the montage because its without question one of the most important local landmarks. Mexico City also shows the massive Catholic cathedral in the montage - would you cry fowl there is no protestant one? What matters is the prominence of the monument - not the faith of those who practice in it. Cristiano Tomás (talk) 14:11, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
- "The national cathedral is a major landmark in DC, far more so that the National Basilica."
- I don't necessarily disagree but worth noting the National Basilica actually gets more visitors each year, about 1 million at the National Basilica vs. about 800,000 at the National Cathedral.
- And I was explicitly told by Mods adding St. Patrick's Cathedral to the NYC infobox (which is the most famous church in the country period) was "unfair favoritism towards Catholics" if those rules are gonna be in place in New York with its famously large Catholic population they certainly should be applied consistently in our national capitol. Keep the main infobox secular and put the National Cathedral down with the other religious buildings in the religion section of the page. I think that's fair.
- St. Paul isn't as big of a city, doesn't have many landmarks and the Cathedral there is huge so I guess that would make sense and Mexico is 80% Catholic so the same rules really wouldn't apply. Alfred Carbo (talk) 14:46, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
- You are looking at it from a skewed perspective - the infobox is a representation of physical landmarks, that is it. There is no notion here of "fair" or "unfair". Inclusion of a "protestant cathedral" does not mean anything other than the building is famous. NYC is famed for a lot of things, but I can't say St. Patrick ranks in my top 10 most notable landmarks (but that may just be me!). I dont know what anyone told you on the NYC page, but if the consensus there is that St. Patricks isnt a great addition to the montage on that article, then so be it. This has nothing to do with secular vs religious favoritism or catholic vs protestant favoritism. It has to do with iconic landmarks representing a city and the consensus of the editors working on those articles. Cristiano Tomás (talk) 19:55, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
- If we go by your logic is the National Cathedral a top 10 DC landmark? I would say not (at least not for me personally).
- Not just NYC but a lot of other American cities (including but not limited too, Boston, Baltimore & Philly) have their info boxes explicitly kept secular (I know I've tried to add churches in the past and got told a big fat NO) but D.C. of all the cities has a church in their info box. It just seems bizarre and hypocritical to me on the part of Wikipedia. There should be a similar standard of play for cities in the same country.
- And if any American city legitimately should have its info box kept secular it's Washington, D.C. the national capitol
- Anyway, I do thank you for humoring me, I hope you'll duly consider my suggestion. 100.38.57.194 (talk) 21:31, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
- Good proposal, let's use a list of top DC landmarks to determine which pic is in the infobox. Sincerely, Thinker78 (talk) 04:59, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- Composing a collage is not as simple as just listing out the most recognizable landmarks in a city and using the top ones. If we did that for D.C., the infobox would be entirely National Mall monuments/memorials, which would be a touristy/incomplete representation of the city. We're using the National Cathedral currently to represent D.C.'s many landmarks outside the mall, and also just since it's a really visually compelling photo of an architecturally striking building.
- That said, I'm not wedded to it if we can find something better. Particularly, if we were to replace it, I think it could be nice to have a photo of an embassy take its place, as those are also a big part of D.C. If anyone has a suggestion for a high-quality photo of a recognizable embassy that looks good in vertical orientation and at small scale, feel free to share. Sdkb talk 17:33, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- Good proposal, let's use a list of top DC landmarks to determine which pic is in the infobox. Sincerely, Thinker78 (talk) 04:59, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
- You are looking at it from a skewed perspective - the infobox is a representation of physical landmarks, that is it. There is no notion here of "fair" or "unfair". Inclusion of a "protestant cathedral" does not mean anything other than the building is famous. NYC is famed for a lot of things, but I can't say St. Patrick ranks in my top 10 most notable landmarks (but that may just be me!). I dont know what anyone told you on the NYC page, but if the consensus there is that St. Patricks isnt a great addition to the montage on that article, then so be it. This has nothing to do with secular vs religious favoritism or catholic vs protestant favoritism. It has to do with iconic landmarks representing a city and the consensus of the editors working on those articles. Cristiano Tomás (talk) 19:55, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
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