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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5→Archive 10

Writing

Not to be a negative Nancy or anything, but the last two-thirds of this reads really badly. It's choppy and sounds like a list. Elfangor801 08:27, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Hi, Elfangor801. Yes, no question the article would benefit from the work of writers. Can you say please what you mean by "last two-thirds"? Let's say, for example, you mean starting with #14 International, #15 Famous Minneapolitans, #16 Minneapolis in popular culture, #17 Attractions, #18 References, #19 Futher reading and #20 External links. Yes they are lists and yes #14 to #17 could be moved out to "List of...." child articles if the whole article is rewritten to include what leaving them out will omit. Or, for example if you mean above # 14 International, we do need writers' skills as someone else pointed out resulting in a new item in the to do list. Thanks. -Susanlesch 16:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Four lists moved (#14 to #17). Does that help? -Susanlesch 22:29, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I just kind of said last two-thirds because that's about when I noticed it. It's not necessarily that it reads like a list, it's just that most of the paragraphs give off four or five individual facts with their own sentences and it sounds very choppy and the continuity between facts doesn't flow very well. For example, here's a paragraph from the "Economy" section:

"The giants General Mills and Cargill grew and diversified from flour milling, storage and trading businesses created during the city's early years and today are also headquartered in the city's suburbs. The Minneapolis Grain Exchange founded in 1881 as a regional cash market is still located near the riverfront and is the only exchange for hard red spring wheat futures and options. Xcel Energy renewed its license in 2004 for the Hennepin Island Hydroelectric Plant begun by Northern States Power Company in 1882 and still harnesses the waterfall to produce 12 megawatts of electricity."

There aren't any transitions between the sentences, it would read better as:

"The giants General Mills and Cargill grew and diversified from flour milling, storage and trading businesses created during the city's early years and today are also headquartered in the city's suburbs. Founded in 1881 as a regional cash market, the Minneapolis Grain Exchange is still located near the riverfront and is the only exchange for hard red spring wheat futures and options in the country. Although industrial flour milling left the city long ago, Xcel Energy currently operates the Hennepin Island Hydroelectric Plant, built by Northern States Power Company in 1882. The power plant's license was renewed in 2004 and still harnesses the waterfall to produce 12 megawatts of electricity."

It might be a bit comma heavy (I have comma issues), but a similar mixing up might be a good thing for the article in general. Elfangor801 07:25, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I would agree with the comment about the writing style. The "Media" section especially is very hard to read.Gopherbone 23:07, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

  • If you want, I can make some changes. I'm actually a copy editor on my school paper...which may not be a huge deal in reality, but I know how to write pretty well. It'd be great for the Minneapolis article to be a FA. Elfangor801 03:32, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
  • It's not that complicated. I usually use this <ref>{{cite web | last = | first = | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = | work = | publisher = | date = | url = | format = | doi = | accessdate = }}</ref> Just fill in what you can find and delete empty fields. Title and URL are required.--Appraiser 05:02, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes, 'cite web' is the template I used too in this article, about 100+ of them. A person in the village pump just told me that all those templates may be part of the reason this article is loading slowly, so I am moving to even simpler refs, and hoping that is all right with everyone. It is probably unusual to have so many refs to begin with. Removing the extra markup might also give more room for content. -Susanlesch 00:49, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Some kind of structure to the citation data might be useful in the future so I restored the 'cite whatever' templates even though they cost about 6.6K for 130-some cites. Just posting those numbers here in case the article goes up over 90k again (last week the page was sometimes over 20 seconds to load on my machine, and now it is sometimes about half that). -Susanlesch 22:35, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

The following sentance seems like it needs to be reworded: "The first Jewish congregation formed in 1878 as Shaarai Tov, and after a fire in 1902 built the synagogue Temple Israel in East Isles.[95]"

elevations

I had put in elevations according to Google Earth (686 and 925). The USGS has 687 and 980 here [1]. The lows are close enough to be due to rounding, or even river level (since the elevation of the lowest point is at the river's edge) as the Mississippi leaves the city. I wonder if USGS is measuring from the top of the tower.

So, as a curiosity check, the Washington National Cathedral article says that the top of the tower is 676' above sea level and 301' above ground level, yielding an elevation of 375'. It is well known that the cathedral is built on the highest point in D.C. Google Earth shows an elevation of 377' at the front doors of the cathedral. Again, close enough to be adequate. But the USGS says that the highest point in D.C. is 410'. WTF? My conclusion is that Google Earth is probably right and USGS must be using some non-standard method for elevations. I'll change this article back and cite Google Earth if no one has a counter-argument or a more reliable source.--Appraiser 20:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


  • I don't know about DC, but in Minneapolis it turns out that the "well known" location of the highest elevation is simply wrong. Even some official Minneapolis web sites cite Prospect Park as the highest point, but it isn't. There's an official sign at Deming Heights Park proclaiming it the highest elevation in the city, and Google Earth corroborates it. I'll take GPS readings if it would be useful. In the meantime, a good internet search shows a definite split in opinions on the topic.

--Justinulysses 05:57, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Using Google Earth I get 965' just across Fillmore St. from Deming Park. But I also checked Waite Park, and got 974' near 34th and Ulysses. What's the highest elevation you found, and where is it?--Appraiser 13:07, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Oh, that's interesting. I get the same results you do. It's clear that Prospect Park isn't even close to being the highest point. What does the USGS have to say?Justinulysses 18:14, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
For those of us with no Google Earth, is 980 right for Prospect Park? Because that is higher than 965 or 974 I will change that back at least for now. P.S. And reverted again based on 925 above. Sorry I was confused and believed the article for a second. -Susanlesch 06:31, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Google Earth gives me a max of 925' near Prospect Park, a max of 965' near Deming Heights Park, and a max of 974' near Waite Park School. None of the Google Earth high points lies exactly where I know those local highs to be, they tend to skew south or east by perhaps 100 feet or so. I would love to see official topographical maps that show official measurements. I've also been meaning to borrow a GPS and see what I can measure for myself.--Justinulysses 07:39, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Intro

Normally intros do not have citations in them as they should be a summary of the article (which will have the citations) -Ravedave 17:24, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Nearly all of the U.S. city featured articles have one or more citations in the lead. This may be because the authors are calling out a fact that is either more specific or more general than one cited in the body of the article. -Susanlesch 18:25, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
    • You can do the lead however you like I was just pointing out what I have noticed. If the lead is supposed to be a summary, why would it have specific info? -Ravedave 19:11, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Muderapolis

I believe the term Murderapolis is significant enough that it deserves mention in the article. The murder rate during that time was terrible and should not be whitewashed. -Ravedave 19:11, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Load time, file size

Hi. Did anyone else notice the file size and how slow this article was to load? We were up over 90k plus templates plus images. In the past couple of days, templates have been removed and some text and templates trimmed. Is it faster now? I just learned that the source has the following information which might help as a reference point or to compare with other articles. Maximum is 2048000 bytes. -Susanlesch 17:50, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Before

  • Pre-expand include size: 1077764 bytes
  • Post-expand include size: 494652 bytes
  • Template argument size: 386930 bytes

Trim

  • Pre-expand include size: 1035753 bytes
  • Post-expand include size: 479894 bytes
  • Template argument size: 372151 bytes

Minus templates

  • Pre-expand include size: 850946 bytes
  • Post-expand include size: 317371 bytes
  • Template argument size: 245963 bytes

Not sure that is the whole story. I asked about this in the Village pump. -Susanlesch 19:09, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Comment

The Demographics section is larger than content of the "Main Article: Demographics of Minneapolis, Minnesota" link. Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose? Gopher backer 02:27, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Are you proposing that Demographics of Minneapolis, Minnesota be deleted? (I'd probably have worded this question the other way around -- "The Demographics article is shorter than the Demographics section of the main article. Does that mean it needs work?"). -Susanlesch 13:06, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Sports images

Are there any pictures of a Gopher sports team playing on campus? It seems like an image showcasing a facility in Minneapolis would be preferred.Gopherbone 07:16, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Would you like to request an image at Wikipedia:Requested pictures or take a photo yourself? Free images are very difficult to find. I was happy and incredibly lucky to find two of Gopher women in any sport. Both high quality and both basketball at Ohio (#1 and #2 were on Flickr tagged "women Minnesota"). Regarding are there "any," Flickr might have an image of women who are not Gophers doing some other sport (or other images of Gopher women's sports that are tagged something else) or maybe they will have Gophers in the future. Did you see the image of Gopher men's basketball at Williams Arena that was in this article for quite some time? -Susanlesch 13:53, 3 May 2007 (UTC). P.S. #2 has been cropped. Does it look better now? -Susanlesch 14:39, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
There's a free photo of the Gophers playing at the Dome that I took and is sitting in the Metrodome article. --Bobak 16:01, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Hi. You're welcome to try it, speaking only for me. There are a number of factors to consider including the venue, variety of sports, the visibility of persons, their gender, balancing the content of only two sports photos, and probably more. -Susanlesch 17:21, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Skyline Image

I know bridges are something Minneapolis is proud of having, but I feel the current photo isn't working. Can't we focus on the downtown and then add photos of the bridges? I mean, that's not even the most attractive bridge (Stone Arch and Washington Ave. are much better). --Bobak 16:16, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Is this a request for someone else to do something? If you look at the edit history and speaking just for me, we had four or five different skylines this week alone. (Those photos have since been uncropped in the commons.) Respectfully, it isn't as easy as people may think. Someone uploaded four to Flickr this week. I will try yet another one in the meantime. -Susanlesch 17:03, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Hello, Bobak, what do you propose? I created a category, Category:Skylines of Minneapolis, Minnesota and one on the commons, Category:Skylines of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Spoonbridge is unfortunately a copyrighted sculpture and what I thought was the best pure downtown image (commons) has a license cloud too. What I thought was the best night image was categorized "light pollution" yesterday on the commons, pretty funny. I may have missed some. -Susanlesch 18:26, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Looks like a few were missed from the Skyline category, I've found a few more and tagged them. Looking through previous versions, the one I thought looked a bit better was in this previous version of the article. I guess it's not high res enough. The current photo just makes it look like we're a city of bridges or something of that nature and I've never known us for being that. Early on the article had Stone Arch Bridge as the "skyline" photo and it was replaced for a skyline photo; I replaced it with this (which for full disclosure was mine, but I'm not saying its the best because it's a night photo). Something like that low res day photo would look much better. --Bobak 17:56, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Oh, thanks for finding more. Yes, licensing issue aside I liked that first one you link to, too. -Susanlesch 19:26, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Here's another idea: someone can go over the St. Anthony Main (I could this weekend) and take a photo of the downtown skyline with the Mississippi in the foreground --wouldn't that look a little more Minneapolis? --Bobak 17:59, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
#1. Something about City of Lakes. Example in place.
#2. Something about Mill City. Example in place.

Thinking out loud. Minneapolis has a few but two main nicknames: City of Lakes and the Mill City. Image quality from a talented photographer, double meaning (picturing multiple themes), and originality can trump these thus the panorama for a while. Maybe an image that signifies one or the other nickname would do the trick (examples added at left and right). -Susanlesch 19:26, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Those are both really good ideas, if I had to pick one of those two as they are, I'd go with the lake photo. Looks like the Lake photo is from Calhoun. With that said, I like the idea behind the mill photo and the composition. It might even be easy to get the river in as well --it looks like the photo was taken from near or on Stone Arch Bridge (before I checked the date I noticed it was a bit older since the Mill City Museum is under construction in the pic); that photo would've also been taken before the Guthrie was built, just to the left of the silos. If the weather isn't as ridiculously hot on Saturday as it is now, I might walk over there and see if I can't snap something similar with a higher resolution (I don't have a professional camera, but it should be able to do something similar). --Bobak 20:43, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Revisiting this after a while, #1 looks nice in the main article. --Bobak 21:54, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

-The current skyline/infobox photo (lake calhoun/boat) sucks. It does the actual skyline absolutely NO justice. C'mon, i've seen some great photos of the skyline in the infobox and they continue to be replaced by shitty ones. The info box photo should showcase Minneapolis' stunning skyline and leave the rest of the articles to showcase lakes, greenways etc... ---outinthered 7/11/07

I would suggest anything with a fairly close-up view of the skyline, Actually Bobak has a nice suggestion under me, those shots from the condominiums just across the river are amazing (and there are one or two shots in the commons I believe)[[2]] User:Outinthered|--outinthered]] 10:00, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

  • I'm not sure you're following the discussion? We cannot use that one. And I cropped it "close-up" as you may have seen in the commons but the image has a license cloud. Thanks for your input though. -Susanlesch 11:12, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Skyline grail?

Also, if anyone can get around to it, I've been thinking the very best photos are available in the condo buildings just across the river from downtown (in St. Anthony/Nordeast). For example, I found a prime example in this condo listing, maybe I'll pretend to me a millionaire to take a photo from that balcony (you get river, bridges, falls, mills, skyline, and you avoid those damned power lines that mar any photos below a certain height)... I visited the Falls/Pinnacle, but I couldn't get high enough. --Bobak 23:48, 18 June 2007 (UTC).

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.


Minneapolis, Minnesota → Minneapolis — It is extraordinarily unlikely that the average Wikipedia user who searches for "Minneapolis" is looking for something other than this article. On the page Minneapolis (disambiguation), there are only three articles other than Minneapolis, Minnesota. They are Minneapolis, Kansas, Minneapolis, North Carolina, and Minneapolis-Saint Paul. There are only three other articles to which "Minneapolis" can refer. None of these articles are noteworthy enough to justify the Minneapolis page itself to serve as a disambiguation page. For these reasons, I say that there is no reasonable justification for this article to disambiguate itself by adding "Minnesota" to its title. —-- R'son-W (speak to me/breathe) 05:23, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

Discussion

Any additional comments:
@Susanlesch: I hadn't been to this article until yesterday. -- R'son-W (speak to me/breathe) 19:17, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
@TJ Spyke: I am proposing this move for the exact same reasons why Chicago and Philadelphia succeeded. The most common usage of "Minneapolis" is in reference to this particular city, and the most common way for this city to be referenced is as "Minneapolis", not "Minneapolis, Minnesota". Therefore, the article's title is a violation of WP:NC(CN)—The preceding unsigned comment was added by R'son-W (talk • contribs) 15:27, July 7, 2007.
Which is a guideline; WP:NAME allows for exceptions in special cases for uniformity or other project-related concerns. "Except where other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions give a different indication, use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things". This is one; and the convention is the much-tried settlement convention to which I link. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:43, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
WP:NAME also says the following: "It is important to note that these are conventions, not rules carved in stone. As Wikipedia grows and changes, some conventions that once made sense may become outdated, and there may be cases where a particular convention is "obviously" inappropriate". A bot automatically changed all U.S. city pages to CITY, STATE naming format to create a standard where there was none previously. Instead of having a plethora of article title types (CITY (STATE), CITY (city), CITY (STATE city), etc.), there was a clear form for city articles' titles to take. This was a good move at the time, but the result today is that many city article names are/were awkward (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; New York, New York; Indianapolis, Indiana; etc.), unnecessary as the city is more well-known than the state (Chicago, Illinois; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Boston, Massachusetts; etc.), or otherwise in violation of most commonly-used name conventions (San Francisco, California; Honolulu, Hawaii; Miami, Florida, etc.). This is a flawed naming convention, and seeing as attempts to develop a blanket method to renaming these pages have all failed, the most logical method is by a case-by-case basis. The precedent has been set with Chicago and Philadelphia. Minneapolis is another clear example of where the CITY, STATE naming convention is inappropriate. -- R'son-W (speak to me/breathe) 06:00, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
I disagree that it is flawed; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is local usage. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:54, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
The attempts to establish a line as you described were long, meandering debates that led nowhere. The fact is that with the immense amount of cities and towns in the United States, there can be no blanket policy that defines a clear line between which cities are noteworthy enough to not warrant the inclusion of the state in the article's title and which are not. The best method is to decide on a city by city basis. I know that I may be beating a dead horse here, but Chicago and Philadelphia have set the precedent for this method. It comes down to the most commonly-used name. Take my hometown as an example. If you clicked the link, you'll notice that it automatically redirected to a CITY, STATE page. There are no other cities with my hometown's name, but I agree that it should remain at a CITY, STATE page. This is because my hometown isn't widely known, and thus whenever it's referenced, the state name follows it. This is the most commonly-used name for my town. In the case of this article, "Minneapolis" is more commonly-used than "Minneapolis, Minnesota". Therefore, the article should be relocated to "Minneapolis". -- R'son-W (speak to me/breathe) 03:06, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
If no line is possible, we should not draw one by whim, as you suggest here. I would support, and have supported, drawing one by guideline, and it may now be possible to do so.
But if that is not done, what is to be done with primary or unique municipalities?
  • Move some of them to an unpredictable location, on no rational basis, except a case-by-case assessment of world notability? No.
  • Deprive all of them, including Nevada City and Lucas Township, of their state? No; we'd only have to move them back when a Lucas Township is created in South Africa.
  • That leaves: Use CITY, STATE for all of them, unless some extraordinary reason can be shown. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:46, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
"Move some of them to an unpredictable location…" What's unpredictable about this move? We're not talking about moving this to a nonsense page name or anything. I would also say that this is the most rational basis. If people honestly think that "Minneapolis, Minnesota" is a more commonly-used term for Minneapolis, then the current page title would win out. The problem though is that people who oppose aren't doing so based on what the city is most-commonly used, they're doing so because of this guideline. According to WP:NAME, guidelines can be gone against. Other cities articles have gone against these guidelines by way of a requested move, and that's what's happening here.
"Deprive all of them, including Nevada City and Lucas Township, of their state?" No, of course not. That's just silly.
"That leaves: Use CITY, STATE for all of them…" This is mostly my point, actually. I'm talking about erring on CITY, STATE unless the community decides that that's unnecessary. The problem is that the vast majority of opposition votes have nothing to do with the proposal or discussion, it's always "Other cities are CITY, STATE…" every time. Never acknowledging that there's a debate over the guideline, but worst of all, not debating the topic at-hand, but rather the macrocosmic issue of what the entire naming policy of Wikipedia should be, which is what we're doing now.
On that note, let me just say again that in this particular case, the naming policy of Wikipedia is flawed. Minneapolis is more commonly referenced without "Minnesota" following it. This isn't about whether we should throw out the entire CITY, STATE system or if Los Angeles, California should be at Los Angeles or anything else other than the proposal above. -- R'son-W (speak to me/breathe) 19:55, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Note to all editors: This topic has been debated at great length here and here. No consensus was reached after extensive, and sometimes acrimonious debate. ●DanMS • Talk 23:54, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
That box should be in the discussion section, not the proposal section. -- R'son-W (speak to me/breathe) 00:24, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it be moved. --Stemonitis 05:42, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

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