Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of municipalities in Alberta/archive1

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 Hahc21 10:01, 10 January 2014 (UTC) [1].[reply]

List of municipalities in Alberta

Featured list candidates/List of municipalities in Alberta/archive1

Nominator(s): Hwy43 (talk) 19:38, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured list because it is a complete and comprehensive list of all municipalities within the Province of Alberta (Canada) completed to the same standard as the recently FLC promoted equivalents for other Canadian provinces, namely List of municipalities in Manitoba and List of municipalities in Ontario. Hwy43 (talk) 19:38, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from Dudley Miles

This is an excellent list. On a quick look, I have a few minor quibbles.

"Alberta's 357 municipalities cover 99.8% of the province's land mass and are home to 98.6% of its population." This implies that 1.4% of the population live in 0.2% of the land mass which is not in municipalities. How is this?

Indian reserves and Indian settlements, which aren't municipalities. I'll add a note. Hwy43 (talk) 04:47, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Done via addition of new note. Hwy43 (talk) 07:27, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"in some cases, Metis settlements." "In some cases" sounds vague. I would explain it or leave it out. Also, I know you link Metis, but it is so unusual (at least to me) that I would prefer an definition in brackets.

I'll attempt to explain this, likely within a note, or come at it from a different angle. Hwy43 (talk) 04:47, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Done by rewording and referencing alternate source for Metis settlements and added a qualifying brief definition after "Metis people". Hwy43 (talk) 07:27, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The table of 269 urban municipalities is very long for a table with no break. Could you make it easier for readers to find a municipality by making the default sort alphabetical and adding Template:Compact ToC? Dudley Miles (talk) 14:48, 5 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Can and will do that. Hwy43 (talk) 04:47, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Done Hwy43 (talk) 07:27, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The template 'List of municipalities in Canada' at the end is in red. Is this a typo? Dudley Miles (talk) 14:38, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No typo. The article is non-existent. Hwy43 (talk) 14:59, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've wondered about this as well. With these individual province articles all using a navbox, List of municipalities in Canada should be created with something. 117Avenue (talk) 03:09, 7 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've been thinking of creating something for a while now, but have been focused more so on FLing the provincial lists first with Mattximus. Do you want to create something 117, or do you want me to take a crack at an interim stub for now? Cheers, Hwy43 (talk) 05:20, 7 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've created a redirect for now, I don't want to distract you from FLing. 117Avenue (talk) 06:46, 7 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Was thinking this as well, it would be a nice finale to bring this to featured topic. The List of municipalities in Canada would be easiest to create once the provinces are complete. Mattximus (talk) 16:16, 7 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry to always be that guy, but, as you know, this list is extremely duplicative of List of communities in Alberta, and again with Specialized municipalities of Alberta, List of municipal districts in Alberta, List of cities in Alberta, List of towns in Alberta, List of summer villages in Alberta, and List of census agglomerations in Alberta. Yes, those include a little bit more info and some former municipalities, but I don't see why the same datasets should be copied three times. I was a bit confused by seeing identical information in different places, and duplication and redundancy can pose the problem of the pages falling out of sync when changes are made, so I would encourage a simple merge. The communities list appears to already have everything that's in this list, plus the unincorporated settlements. Reywas92^Talk 14:50, 5 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See this recent deletion proposal that resulted in a speedy keep. You are correct there is duplication. However, what you may not have yet seen is that all the data in the tables at the main articles is transcluded to the List of communities in Alberta article, so thus far there is no duplication with risk of pages falling out of sync when changes are made. For this list article, the specialized municipality and Metis settlement table data are both transcluded from their main articles as well. The intent was to implement complex customized transclusion to do the same from the main articles for the urban and rural municipalities as well, but I haven't mastered that yet. I do intend to investigate this further as redundancy has been a concern that I've voiced previously.[2][3] In the meantime, as you've also noticed, the main articles do contain more information for each municipal type (more columns, additional sections, lists of former municipalities, etc.), which would bog down this summary list article of all varying municipality types and require splitting back to the current state. Hwy43 (talk) 04:45, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I had this criticism as well for a prior nomination. Especially with articles like list of towns, villages, districts etc that you mention I'm still on the fence. I have sympathy for list of census agglomerations (which are very different) and list of communities which is like a catch all. What convinced me was WP:NOTPAPER. As long as each page adds *something* that is not found in this list then why not? I believe the list of municipalities is probably the best and most useful page out of the lot you mention, as municipalities are actual governing entities with borders and tax payers and elected officials. Something like census divisions are just for statistical purposes, and communities is a mishmash, so I'm glad this is the one that is being nominated, for what it's worth.Mattximus (talk) 23:31, 5 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from Mattximus

Comments from Mattximus (talk) 23:34, 5 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The page has a lot of maps, many of them are quite good. But I'm wondering for simplification sake (and formatting will look much better), is it possible to merge the 3 maps found just under Rural municipalities into one, and leave it on the right so text can follow on the left?

Yes. I'll undertake, and the separate maps can be retained for the applicable main articles. Hwy43 (talk) 04:45, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Done and also similarly consolidated the four maps within the "Urban municipalities" section into a single map. Hwy43 (talk) 07:27, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Can the Specialized municipalities table be sortable?

Of course. I'm surprised it isn't already. I'll investigate. Hwy43 (talk) 04:45, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Done Hwy43 (talk) 07:27, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Question Are the metis settlements actual municipalities (or function like a muncipality?) The paragraphs indicate it's both a community and municipality, is this correct?

Municipalities are communities (incorporated communities) but not all communities are municipalities (as there are unincorporated communities). It can confuse nonetheless though so I have removed the reference to "community" in that section. Hwy43 (talk) 23:26, 7 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have replaced all the Metis with Métis. Hope that's ok.

Sorry but I have reverted. Neither the Metis Settlement Act, the provincial news release, the various Alberta Municipal Affairs sources, nor the Metis Settlements General Council use "é". I was torn about this when drafting the section, and opted to go without it based on these sources. I think avoiding the "é" in the context of Metis settlements as municipalities in this article is appropriate given usage in the sources. Hwy43 (talk) 23:26, 7 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Would you consider a hybrid? Keep Metis for any reference to any document that spells it as such, but when talking about the people without specific reference to document as Métis?

I do not have any view which is best but I think the same should be used throughout. Showing the name two different ways would be confusing for readers, who might think it means two different things. Dudley Miles (talk) 13:40, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, withdraw comment. Mattximus (talk) 17:00, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Layout is much better with the merged maps. Excellent list. Mattximus (talk) 16:58, 7 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support. A very good list. I have not tried to make my comments resolved as one of them led on to comments by other editors. By the way, is there a template for making comments resolved? Dudley Miles (talk) 18:24, 7 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from The Rambling Man (talk) 17:24, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Image captions which are complete sentences should take a full stop.

Done Hwy43 (talk) 04:36, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not keen on the placement of a lot of the references, there's no reason a reader can't wait until the end of a sentence to find the reference for the fact being stated.

Done Hwy43 (talk) 04:36, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Are "acts" of law italicised? Question really since many on Wikipedia are not.

Italics removed for now – I treat legislation titles like book titles as they were traditionally published in hard copy. I'm having second thoughts about removing though. Hwy43 (talk) 04:36, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Why has Metis lost its accent?

Discussed previously above. See discussion following last of Mattximus' comments. Hwy43 (talk) 04:36, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"summer village" or "Summer Village"?

Latter is only used once and is used correctly in its context. It is capitalized here because it is forming part of the official legal name of the subject municipality. Hwy43 (talk) 04:36, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"...is a type of urban municipality" what is this bringing to each section since each time you say exactly the same thing?

Removed Hwy43 (talk) 04:36, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Four paragraphs and yet you manage to mention "specialized municipality" 13 times, it makes for bland reading.

Reduced and reduced similarly the high frequency instances of "special area(s)". Hwy43 (talk) 04:36, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Do we really need land areas in the prose to be accurate to 1/100th of a square kilometre? It looks really awkward.

Done leaving precision for smaller land areas where appropriate (such as where area was less than 10 km2). Hwy43 (talk) 04:36, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Would recommend you use something more explicit than "List" for all the lists, just in case someone wants to link to specific sections of the article.

Done Hwy43 (talk) 04:36, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

PDF references with multiple pages should cite the page (or page range) relevant to a reference.

Partially done – added pages to all those where appropriate, with the exception of five of the sets of municipal profiles (cities, towns, villages, summer villages and municipal districts) as the amount of unique relevant pages are excessive (16, 108, 93, 51 and 64 respectively) and none of them are sequential (so a range can't be used to avoid listing every single unique page).
Adding pages aren't appropriate to the balance of PDF references based on the content they support. For example, the entire Special Areas Act and Metis Settlements Acts stipulate governance of the their respective 3 and 8 municipalities, so no need to page-range their entire PDFs. Same applies to the various multi-page orders in council and the like that entirely support the applicable content presented in the article (e.g., name changes/previous names, incorporations, dissolutions, amalgamations and status changes). Hwy43 (talk) 22:17, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ref 24, 41 etc need to be fixed for en-dashes rather than spaced hyphens per WP:DASH.

Done Hwy43 (talk) 04:36, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Rambling Man (talk) 16:33, 2 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Nice piece of work: I couldn't spot any issues with it and I happily support it. - SchroCat (talk) 19:52, 5 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This article has been promoted. There may be a slight delay while the bot processes the nomination. Congratulations. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:31, 6 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks everyone! Cheers, Hwy43 (talk) 14:38, 6 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.