Talk:Denver/Archive 2010

Article title

Shouldn't it read Denver, Colorado rather than just Denver? Can this be easily fixed? Jeff Smith (talk) 06:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

We had a rather huge discussion ranging all over the place about a year and a half ago. The consensus was to drop the state in titles for most larger US cities. The current naming convention goes into more detail on this. At the bottom of Talk:Boston/Archive 4, along with some other cities, there's a taste of what was involved with the moves. AlexiusHoratius 06:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Climate

The weatherbox shows precipitation values which, I suspect, are actually only rain. If I read the info provided correctly, the reference confirms this and precipitation is actually much higher (snow alone is quite high). This leads me to question Denver's inclusion in the semi-arid climate zone (BSk). It's more likely continental. Can anyone confirm this? Koppenlady (talk) 20:59, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I am pretty sure that the numbers for precipitation include snow. It rarely rains in Denver in the winter. Generally snow is about 1/10 the equivalent of water per volume (depending on how much moisture is contained in the snow). So Denver's 61.7 inches of annual snow only equals about 6.17 inches of precipitation or about 40 percent of Denver's precipitation for the year. The rest is rain (or perhaps a small amount of hail). Vertigo700 (talk) 20:25, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I looked at the actual link for the weather statistics and see how you are confused because they describe it as "Rain Monthly Normal," but I believe they are still referring to melted liquid equivalent for the months when Denver only gets snow. Take a look: http://www.weather.gov/climate/index.php?wfo=bou and go to December 2009 under archives and you can see that they multiplied the snow total by .10 to get the "liquid equivalent" of the the snow for the year. In that case it was 63.7" of snow or 6.37" of precipitation. Vertigo700 (talk) 20:48, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

15 inches is definitely semi-arid considering its temperatures and it is really a classic BSk climate (near the midpoint between the temperate desert line and the humid line). If precipitation was higher, it would be Dfa (borderline Cfa in some local spots). CrazyC83 (talk) 23:47, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

calculation, according to data

• annual mean: 50.1 °F (10.1 °C)
• annual precip: 15.81 inches (401.6 mm)
• precip from APR-SEPT: 10.93 inches (277.6 mm) (69.1% distribution)

However, that essentially is, but not quite, 70%. So use a linear model to determine the threshold

• Pt = 20 * Tyr + [140 + 3.5 * (D - 30)]
  • Pt: semi-arid precipitation threshold
  • Tyr: annual temperature in CELSIUS.
  • D: percent distribution of annual precipitation solely within the months of April to September in Northern Hemisphere.

Thus according to these calculations, the cutoff is 479.0 millimetres (18.86 in). Thus this area is solid semi-arid, and not even borderline so. ---华钢琴49 (TALK) 01:35, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

• Someone keeps changing Denver's climate to Dfa, citing a map from a peer reviewed journal (http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/11/1633/2007/hess-11-1633-2007.pdf). The problem is the map graphics to me do not indicate what Denver's Koppen classification could be as they claim it does. See the North America map on 1639 and you can see that the area where Colorado and Denver would be (it's hard to tell exactly as the map has no labels or even longitude/latitude lines). The area has Bsk, Dfb, and Dfc. I think the mountain areas of Colorado are pretty much the domain of the former two and the map shows a limited area where those two climate zones predominate (mostly Dfb). I think it's ambiguous as to whether Denver is included in that area according to this citation as again there are no labels or longitudinal coordinates in which to verify the location of Denver. There is also nothing in the text of the article that indicates what Denver's Koppen classification is. I think we should use the previous edit until someone comes with a better journal or reference that actually clearly shows Denver's Koppen classification. Until then I believe the math that 华钢琴49 (TALK) developed. Vertigo700 (talk) 07:38, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Snowfall

NCDC's snowfall data are not sensible. If the average date of the first and last snowfall is in mid-October and late April (respectively), then how can September (at 5.3 cm) and May (at 3.3 cm) have some snow? plus the lowest/average minima in those months are 3.9 °C / 6.6 °C for May and 5.3 °C / 8.5 °C for September, certainly too warm for snow in a typical year. have there been some freak blizzards in those months? Mathpianist93 (talk) 04:12, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

You're examining two different types of data that are not necessarily correlative of each other. The average time when snow begins or ends is based on a limited calendar day average (one of 365 days of a year), whereas average month snowfall in a unlimitedly average number. So even when the average date of first snow is early (say September) that has less affect on the average date then an even small amount of snow on that date would on on average snowfall amount number. And yes, Denver has had relatively large but rare snowfall totals in both September (17.2" in 1932) and May (15.5" in 1868) that are added to the average snowfall total even when there are many years without snowfall in those months at all. Part of the issue also is that the NWS data is not an exact apples to apples comparison. For one, they have been only collecting data since 1872 (much less time than many older cities), and not from the same locations (From downtown until 1950, Stapleton until 1995 and DIA since then, though snow data is still collected at Stapleton), and the "normals and means" data only averages until 2000. Since I only counted two years (2001 and 2005) that had snow in either May or September, any update of the date since then would probably affect those means downward, but alas the NWS hasn't compiled the date for the last 10 years so we don't have that information in a nice verifiable way for Wikipedia purposes. Vertigo700 (talk) 20:15, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Population Growth

Recent census bureau estimates show that Denver is now 610,345 as of 2009. Im going to update the page accordingly. Link: http://www.denverpost.com/ci_14745419#ixzz0j7kCOqTb

Leahcim506 (talk) 21:42, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Selecting a different satellite image of Denver

Does anyone else feel that the satellite image of Denver is inadequate? I feel like this picture gives no perspective of way that metro Denver abuts the Rockies. I think a picture with a wider perspective, showing the metro region in relation to the Front Range, would be better here. TwasBrillig (talk) 17:51, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Having skied Colorado via DIA the last 4 winters I thought exactly the same when I saw that image. Maybe it's no big deal, now that we can all access satellite imagery but Denver IS the aerial gateway to the major Colorado resorts and this image might reflect this. My02cents (talk) 17:42, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Too many pictures

I think this page has WAY too many pictures in it, to the point of disrupting the visual quality of the page and even causing pictures to bump into each other. The page is also quite large and we should strongly considering getting rid of many low-quality, out-of-date or superfluous pictures on this site. They can all go to Denver's Wikipedia Commons page (if they are not there already) instead of clogging the main wikipedia site. My suggestions for removal include the out-of-date satellite image, some of the excess monument photos, the downtown buildings in the "neighborhoods" section, at least one of the City and County Building photos in the government section, the religious institutions photos strangely put in the "transportation" section, and the low-quality photo of Santa Fe Drive (that has most of the block in shade). However, I am open to suggestions. Vertigo700 (talk) 07:53, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree with that. This page is saturated with pictures of statues and up-close, partial shots of buildings that do not necessarily represent the character of the city. A few here and there are okay, but the sections you referenced have too many unnecessary photos. I'm not sure how to properly sign my comments, but I'll try. gtj82 09:14, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

CRIME ???

Has anyone noticed the "crime" section of this article? Is any of that information sourced? Even if this information is accurate, Do we really want give these gangs acknowledgement? There is a reason the news does not name specific gangs when reporting on the crimes they commit. If you decide you want this article on your page, I would at the very least reconsider the articulation. It appears that this section was written by "Gnative". From looking into his past edits it appears that he is attempting to make give Edgewater, CO a reputation as being associated with gangs and crime or give Edgewater "street credit".71.237.117.166 (talk) 03:14, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't know to which "Crime" section you refer, but the one I see has numerous references to mainstream sources. Is there another "Crime" section that I missed? If there are any particular statements that you identify as unsourced, please tag them with , and we will deal with them. I don't know why Wikipedia should have an editorial "head-in-the-sand" policy with regard to the crime problem in Denver or anywhere else. As for Edgewater, it is not emphasized in the article; on the contrary, it is only briefly listed, along with a number of other Denver suburbs. Again, you seem to be referring to a very different "Crime" section than the one I'm reading. Plazak (talk) 15:28, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Yesterday I removed the first paragraph of the Crime section, since it seemed fairly opinionated (probably original research, at least in part) and was sourced only to city-data.com, which is not a reliable source. The remaining content did seem to be based on decent sources, as Plazak states (I've not verified that it's based on the sources cited, though). However, I think the content and its placement in the article may represent undue emphasis. The standard outlines for city articles include History, Geography, Demographics, Government, Economy, Media, Transportation, and Education but "Crime" does not normally appear in the outline at the same level as those other topics -- and not sandwiched between Government and Economy. If the content is valid, this might belong in the article as a subtopic of some other topic, or possibly as a separate article on "Crime in Denver". --Orlady (talk) 15:46, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I checked the Los Angeles and Chicago articles, in both of which Crime is given a subhead under "Law and Government". This would seem to be a good place to put this section in the Denver article. As for the size of the Crime section in the Denver article, I do not believe that two paragraphs is undue emphasis. Unfortunately, by removing the statistics sourced from city-data.com, you deleted the lead that put Denver crime into its context with other US cities. There should be a reliable source that we could cite for Denver crime stats. Plazak (talk) 16:41, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

To me the biggest problem here is not that the article has a crime section, it's that the crime section is nothing but various gang anecdotes. A better crime section would talk in general about crime in Denver: What are the general crime rates? How has it changed over the years? How does it compare with other cities? Not just a list of various gangs in Denver and their activities. Vertigo700 (talk) 20:34, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the current content is out of context, but that lack of context doesn't justify insertion of unreliable statistics and original research on how the statistics compare with cities. The level of detail currently in this article, plus the additional detail that you are suggesting, would be more in keeping with a separate article on Crime in Denver. There would then be a very short excerpt in this article and a link off to the other article. And there does need to be a good source for crime statistics and the analysis of those statistics -- city-data is not a good source. --Orlady (talk) 00:24, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand why city data is not a good source. The article for Los Angeles uses city police data for its crime section. It seems that is the only reliable source of information about city crime. I don't think it's very necessary to have a crime section, but I don't think we can discount city data on this subject. Indeed it would seem to be the most accurate and possibly only information about crime in Denver. To me a good crime section would simply have information about the police generally...how public safety is organized in Denver and maybe just brief mentions of crime statistics in the city. Most of that information can be found here: http://www.denvergov.org/AboutUs/tabid/437567/Default.aspx. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vertigo700 (talk • contribs) 20:53, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

City data is not a reliable source because there's nobody with a reputation for fact-checking who can stand behind the data there. It might be census data, it might be data from some other reliable data provider, or it might be something self-serving that Susie the local realtor contributed to them. You can't tell. I searched the archives of the reliable sources noticeboard for discussions of city-data and found exactly two: this one where I was the only commenter -- ack! (but I do support my own views) and this later discussion with more participants. --Orlady (talk) 03:04, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

As for the City of Denver crime statistics, the source is reliable, but that site has a blizzard of very detailed statistics, and essentially zero discussion of what they mean. A lot of the data are for small areas of the city and partial years, and even city-wide year-long tables like this one have a lot of very specific statistics that are pretty overwhelming to some unfamiliar with crime data. In accordance with wP:PRIMARY, this is a type of primary source that Wikipedia should not be relying on -- articles need to present data along with explanations that were provided in published form by someone credible. --Orlady (talk) 03:18, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

From my poking around on the web, it appears to me that Denver disseminates a lot more information about crime than the typical city does -- in near-real time and down to the neighborhood level. The news media eagerly report on the crime rate, and if you look at more than a few of their stories, it rapidly becomes apparent that rates fluctuate from year to year and place to place, so (for example) one year murder is up and the next year it's down. Somebody must be tracking long-term trends and city-to-city comparisons over multi-year periods, but you won't find much long-term perspective in news stories like these (all from the period 2008 to 2010):

• Aurora's crime rate dips, but homicides on the rise - [1]
• Denver's declining murder rate follows national trend - [2]
• Number of crimes up 0.4 percent, driven by big jump in violent crimes [3]
• Denver crime-rate climbs while national urban crime rates mysteriously dip [4]
• Denver crime rate dives [5]
• Most Colorado cities see drop in overall crime rates [6]

--Orlady (talk) 03:42, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with what Vertigo700 (talk) and Orlady are expressing. The article may have its place, but naming off random gangs doesn't seem to be necessary. Why any one who would give groups of people (gangs) thrive off of raping killing and sell drugs any type of recognition in article like this, is beyond me. The author of that chapter seems to glorify these predators. There are a lot of different subjects to crime other than gangs. Also the statistics are from 6 years ago in 2004, the statistics from 2009 are quite different. I understand Edgewater is one of a few suburbs, tell me one suburb that isn't affected by gangs or crime...... Why single these suburbs out?......Why not list all the suburbs? or just call it Denver Metro or leave that out and leave it up to each individual city to advertise what gangs they have. The way this chapter is articulated makes me question the intentions of the author.

I do not see a single sentence in the Crime section that would "glorify" any gang; perhaps you could point one out. The section sticks to basic factual expressions, heavily referenced. If you object to the wording that would "single these suburbs out" then perhaps you can find a reliable source which explicitly says that every suburb has gang problems - otherwise your assertion is just your opinion; in the meantime, the 5 documented examples effectively get the point across that the gang problem is not confined to the City of Denver. But gangs are a problem in Denver (as well as many other places) and a wiki article should not be afraid to present both the good and the bad aspects of Denver. Do not shirk from the truth. Plazak (talk) 04:01, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I understand your concerns and agree with the majority of your concerns. I know for a fact that there is a significant gang presence in Denver and do not object that it is PROPERLY documented in this article. But it is important that this article is sourced and the information can be verified. This requirement that Wikipedia mandates is one of the things that makes it Wikipedia credible and not a run away blog or forum.This section has the appearance of being well sourced, but appearance is all there is.

The sources used in this section have multiple issues:

• A few of them link to Web pages that don't exist or don't work.
• A lot of the material references a MAGTF site as a source. MAGTF stands for Metro Area Graffiti Task Force. The site simply lists different gangs that have been "reported" to be in the Denver Metro Area. There is no indication that MAGTF is credible. The site was created a single Englewood Police Officer and is basically a blog.
• One of the other sources is a forum, the issues with this source are obvious.
• Some of the other sources touch on the subject, but in no way express the information detailed in this article.

71.237.117.166 (talk) 22:37, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Good call on those non-RS sources! I restored a little bit of the deleted material (note that a source is not rendered invalid if the URL goes dead -- and I had no problem finding the FBI webpage) and did a fair amount of revising -- based mostly on my own reading of the cited sources. Although the sources often didn't substantiate the text of the article, some of the sources did have good information. My biggest change, however, was to move the whole section to a new separate article, Gang activity in Denver. Since gang activity is the only "crime" topic in the Denver article, the Crime section was very unbalanced. The new article is currently linked from Denver only as a "see also," since there's no real good place in the article to link to it. --Orlady (talk) 03:39, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Orlady's solution. It appears that this editor is back. The article is written better, but this editor is still using the invalid sources as described above.I reverted the article to the way it was.71.237.117.166 (talk) 17:38, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Archiving

The talk page was getting a bit leggy, so I decided to archive anything from 2007 to its own Archive page. I also created pages for future archiving in case the need arises. I only did 2007 because I felt archiving that year provided more that sufficient room on the talk pages. There are of course other ways to archive pages, but I just went with the one we were currently using. Hopefully that works for everyone. Vertigo700 (talk) 21:14, 14 November 2010 (UTC)