Template talk:Populationof

Many articles have population figures (search). To keep track of these and assist keeping them up to date, suggest replacing general text with this template. Will look at adding date tracking categories if helps. --Traveler100 (talk) 09:43, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Suggestions for better wording? Is blue pen icon Blue pencil.svg a good idea or would the wikidata icon Notification-icon-Wikidata-logo.svg  be better? --Traveler100 (talk) 14:41, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
 * What does this template do? Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:14, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Hopefully new document text helps. --Traveler100 (talk) 11:39, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Thinking the rounding text should only be for million, for thousands and hundred maybe round to closest but state fully as numbers? --Traveler100 (talk) 11:40, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
 * What's the next step here? ---Selfie City (talk | contributions) 23:54, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I think I have worked out how to get not just the population numbers from Wikidata but also the source. Just been busy else where had not got back to this. --Traveler100 (talk) 02:21, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Copied from Wikipedia:

Moved from cotm

 * Moved from Collaboration of the month:

I don't really think this template is necessary, since this is not an encyclopedia, so it doesn't hugely matter that we always have the most up-to-date census figures. Like Alasdair says, most travellers only want a rough idea of how many people live in a given place, and our articles often don't match up with official census areas anyway. We are a wiki which generally minimises the use of templates, and introducing a new one for something which is barely related to travel or relevant to most people is going against this spirit. It seems particularly undesirable to have the Wikidata logo in the middle of prominent prose, such as the lede of an article, or alternatively in the Understand section. I for one do not want to see this become a regular feature of our articles.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 23:53, 22 September 2018 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth, I very much support the use of this template, and I think it's a wasteful duplication of effort to have editors just going to sister sites and noting population figures, rounding them off, and writing them here. However, I do agree that the logo isn't ideal. It may be that the blue pencil, as suggested a while ago on the template's talk page, is both less obtrusive and makes the purpose of the link more apparent (e.g.  seemed to think it was for citation purposes). ARR8 (talk) 00:36, 23 September 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't think that a template is necessary, but I don't object to its creation. However it should only be added to articles by the editors in the course of regular edits, when the editor is likely to have an understanding of whether the area covered by the template is the same as the article. I don't want to see any global or bot edits adding this template. The template should round the figures to two digits - we don't want people to read the population of Greater London is 9,787,426 - 9.7 million is sufficient. AlasdairW (talk) 11:50, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
 * The template does round the figures and used words for large numbers. I did not create it with the intention of any mass adding to articles, just to replace non intelligent existing entries with a smart update version, or manual but with an easy way of finding any mention of population numbers. --Traveler100 (talk) 12:37, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree with AlasdairW's cautions. I also think we may want to tinker with the template a bit. "408 thousand" and "486 thousand" (as displayed in Lapu-Lapu and Atlanta) look a little unusual to me. I would suggest that we have the template write "408,000" and "486,000", and only write out part of the number as a word if it's in the millions or higher. —Granger (talk · contribs) 13:03, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I would agree with the above (Granger's suggestion), if the template is going ahead. I remain unconvinced of its utility, but would be more comfortable if it had an 'invisible' presence on the page, i.e. it just blended into the rest of the text. Even the blue pencil is intrusive; why does it need any symbol at all? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 13:09, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Can we move the discussion and improvement suggestions for the template to the template talk page? Keep discussion here as to whether a population figure update cotm is needed. --Traveler100 (talk) 13:50, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Moved. —Granger (talk · contribs) 14:25, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

So, can the template be changed to address the issue I pointed out above? —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:12, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I could change it, but this is really User:Traveler100's template. I'm personally ambivalent on whether to write thousands with numbers or words, but I would rather make the change than see the template lie unused. It doesn't feel like my call to make, though. If Traveler100 said something to the effect of him not minding, but not having time to implement it right now, I'd go ahead. I, of course, don't actually know the distribution of basic Wiki-scripting knowledge in the community - it may be possible that everyone participating in this discussion could change the template as well as I can, and are waiting for the same reason, and this message is very presumptuous. If so, apologies. ARR8 (talk) 01:32, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Agreed. --Comment by Selfie City  (talk about my contributions ) 02:55, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, this doesn't seem to have moved forward. What's the plan with this? --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk | contributions ) 00:25, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I suppose we need consensus on whether the benefits of keeping figures reasonably up to date outweigh the disadvantage of having a template in the text. That consensus should probably be sought in the travellers pub.
 * As noted above 1990 figures are often adequate, but not so in a town or village that has got deserted. If we start using it, I agree that there should be no icons and that the figures should be rounded to two significant figures (one would suffice in many cases, but making the template smart enough to know when is hardly worthwhile). --LPfi (talk) 06:59, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * If this template is used, it has to avoid words. 486,000, not 486 thousand, which is just not idiomatic in English. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:46, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Right, that makes sense. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 13:49, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I suggested something along those lines above. I think words should be used only for numbers greater than or equal to 1 million. —Granger (talk · contribs) 13:52, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Maybe; I think that's arguable. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:20, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * For example, Shenzhen currently says "a bustling city of around 20 million." I think "a bustling city of around 20,000,000" is less readable and less commonly used. —Granger (talk · contribs) 23:42, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * When the number exceeds one million, it should probably not be written out in digits; however, we can just apply that rule to 10,000,000 and above and, therefore, instead of using a template, notate the populations of those few extremely large cities manually. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 23:55, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

First, I think that keeping population figures up-to-date is very important. For most places, the population won't change significantly aver ten or fifteen years, but having out-of-date figures makes Wikivoyage look out-of-date. Readers won't be impressed by an article that starts off by telling them what the population of the town was in 2006. Let's let the other Wiki travel guide give readers historical population figures. So if this template keeps us looking fresh, then I'm for it, and even having the Wikidata logo doesn't bother me.

I do want to see a change in the text, though. Rounding the numbers to the nearest 000 or million is important because Wikivoyage is not an encyclopedia. In the same vein, "Latest population figures are about xx million" is more encyclopedic in tone than we need. I suggest any of these as an improvement: Ground Zero (talk) 11:24, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
 * 1) "There are about xx million people here", or
 * 2) "It is home to about xx million people", or
 * 3) "It has a population of about xx million people"
 * Changed wording ✅. --Traveler100 (talk) 10:38, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Needs wikidata parameter
There's a problem with this template on Atlanta: our page on Atlanta deliberately doesn't follow the city's official limits, because per WV:Geographical hierarchy that definition is useless for travellers. It doesn't follow the Atlanta metropolitan area, either, as that includes too many suburbs, although in text we list the population of that area because it's the next biggest area for which there are statistics.

If this template had a  parameter, then Atlanta could link to Q971998 for the metro area; it's still not the best figure, but it's more helpful and informative than the population of the City of Atlanta. --Bigpeteb (talk) 20:23, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Traveler100 (talk) 10:07, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Wonderful, thanks! But, why name the parameter  instead of  ? --Bigpeteb (talk) 17:09, 30 December 2019 (UTC)