Talk:Atlanta

Archived discussions Talk:Atlanta/Archive 2003-2018

Time to fix this page

It's time to update this page. Any takers? I'm in. Tdempsey (talk) 02:48, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Facebook post - Let's fix this mess. I am co-publisher of Intown Atlanta and Westside Atlanta Guide & Maps (soon to add Beltline Atlanta Guide & Maps). This Wiki needs a major overhaul. Not sure how many people read this but would be useful for all. 03:35, 23 January 2019 (UTC) —The preceding comment was added by Tdempsey (talk • contribs)

I will start with the first paragraph and districts. I want to add North Atlanta to the mix and designate West Midtown.Tdempsey (talk) 03:40, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Welcome! Before you change the district structure of the city, how many listings do you think you could include in the new districts? Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:51, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

@Tdempsey: Wonderful! I'm glad to see someone else taking an interest. However, don't rush into something like splitting out a small district like Westside... we just got done removing a lot of articles for tiny districts and consolidating them into something more usable for visitors. And there's still more work to be done on that front; places like East Point, College Park (Georgia), and Hapeville are still treated as separate cities rather than part of Atlanta, and a broader discussion on what to include in Wikivoyage's boundaries of "Atlanta" has been waiting for years to have some action taken on it. --Bigpeteb (talk) 18:34, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

@Bigpeteb: Thanks! I'm looking at this section by section - and currently see districts as a major eye sore. However, I believe West Midtown SHOULD be highlighted eventually being an up-and-coming neighborhood. Like I said, I am working on the first paragraph and then move to the district question. I see many more districts. Tdempsey (talk) 02:04, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

How many districts in total, and about how many listings do you anticipate in each article? The district structure we use on Wikivoyage is whatever best serves the traveler, which often is neither the same as the official number of districts nor the districts the local Tourism Office uses. The key point is whether each of the districts you'd like to create articles for has enough of interest for a visitor to reasonably fill an article, which basically means multiple sights or activities, multiple stores, multiple restaurants and multiple hotels. Districting on Wikivoyage is an art, because we want to district cities when there is too much content to be contained in an article, but only when the tourist sights are spread out; Karachi is one of the world's most populous cities, but it is undistricted on Wikivoyage because the great majority of the sights are in one district. Similarly, when a district article gets too full, that can be a good reason to divide that area into two districts. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:12, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

@Ikan KekekI would have As many district as as logical areas for Atlanta. We are not Karachi and that model would not work here since Atlanta is so diverse. Tdempsey (talk) 21:50, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Karachi is quite diverse, too, if you mean ethnically. But what's important is to make a specific proposal. Decide how many districts are needed, and make at least a good estimate of how many listings each listing will have. Then, we can try to come to a consensus on it. My role in this discussion, by the way, is to ask questions and make remarks like the above; I don't personally know Atlanta. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:42, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

New Districts

Suggestions for new districts??? I would like to add West Midtown, Inman Park, Little Five Points and Virginia-Highland to start. Tdempsey (talk) 21:52, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

For Midtown, I suggest the Google Maps rule - https://www.google.com/maps/place/Midtown+Atlanta,+Atlanta,+GA/@33.7868002,-84.3970265,14z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x88f504420bd78c53:0x878c894c30b9bbe2!8m2!3d33.783315!4d-84.3831166 Tdempsey (talk) 23:55, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

I am leaning toward the Google Map model for Atlanta neighborhood/districts? Any comments welcomed. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Edgewood,+Atlanta,+GA/@33.7602896,-84.3931373,13z/data=!4m8!1m2!2m1!1satlanta+neighborhoods!3m4!1s0x88f5014c652caf61:0x9468f75666919154!8m2!3d33.7553874!4d-84.3407106 Tdempsey (talk) 00:10, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm not all that familiar with Atlanta, but I'd caution against creating too many small districts whose articles don't have much content. That was the problem with the last district structure, which you can see the gist of in this old revision. For instance, this is what the Inman Park article looked like.

If we reduce Midtown to just the area on Google Maps, what will happen to the other areas that Atlanta/Midtown currently covers? Will they become new districts? —Granger (talk · contribs) 06:38, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

@Tdempsey: Strongly disagree.

Wikivoyage has many long-standing policies about how articles should be organized and written, and the overarching one is that the traveller comes first. One of the consequences of this policy is that WV defines its own limits of what constitutes a region, city, or district. This is described in WV:Geographical hierarchy, particularly the sections on cities and districts, and on dividing geographical units. We are not beholden to exactly follow the official city limits, for example. Thank goodness, because Atlanta's city limits would be a big hindrance in trying to create a useful guide book. Go to a bookstore and pick up any Atlanta guidebook, and you'll see the same thing: all of them cover the broad area of "Atlanta" or even "metro Atlanta", rather than "the official limits of the incorporated City of Atlanta".

The same is true for districts. Many cities' residents distinguish between dozens and dozens of small neighborhoods, because that's useful for them. But how is it useful for travellers? Usually, it isn't. Thus, we don't use such fine-grained districts on WV. This is how we handle Manhattan, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, DC, and many other cities. (In fact, several of those articles points out to the reader that it doesn't follow the fine-grained neighborhoods that locals do.) Even though Google Maps and other sources may show lots of very small districts, short-term visitors don't get any benefit from us structuring articles into such tiny units. It would leave our readers having to click through dozens of pages, with each page having only a scant handful of listings. It's much better if all the information that travellers need can be consolidated into a small number of pages, organized in a sensible way that's easy for people unfamiliar with the area to understand.

I suggest you go read WV:Geographical hierarchy#Districts in cities very carefully. It explicitly cautions against doing exactly what you're trying to do.

Now, by all means, we welcome your help in improving Atlanta's listings. Some districts like Downtown, Midtown, and Decatur have lots of listings, but other districts are not as complete; some districts badly need more listings (look at Atlanta/South), while others need some editing and better descriptions and organization (such as grouping restaurants by price range). And if we find that a particular district is getting too full and too complex, then we can talk about splitting it into smaller districts. But experience has taught us that creating mostly-empty pages does nothing to help us fill in those pages with content, so we avoid doing that whenever possible. Create listings and other good content first, and then (re)organize it into districts as needed. --Bigpeteb (talk) 16:56, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

@User:Bigpeteb: Thank you, User:Bigpeteb. The reason I posted this comment is to get the advice you have offered. I was unaware of WV cities and will review it carefully. Thank you again for the comment. Tdempsey (talk) 20:25, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

The only change at this point I would suggest if splitting West Atlanta into - West Atlanta and Westside. Westside has grown tremendously and only getting bigger. Tdempsey (talk) 20:48, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Okay... so go to Atlanta/West and add some listings to reflect all the new stuff that's there! Then, when there's enough content that it doesn't make sense to all be on one page, we can discuss how to redistrict it.

I'm guilty of forgetting this sometimes too: what makes a travel guide useful is content, as in listings. We can re-district and re-re-district articles until the cows come home, but unless there is actual content for people to read about, it will not help anyone decide what to See or Do or where to Eat or Drink or Sleep. --Bigpeteb (talk) 21:57, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Preview image

Best representation of Atlanta?

Seems the Dragon Con wikidata image (see Q5305076) is the one shown when hovering over a link to the city. I think it is somewhat confusing for a modern American city. Dragon Con seems to be the first listing with a wikidata parameter. I don't remember the specifics of the algorithm, but perhaps the dimensions of Bright Atlanta.jpg just after the {{printdistricts}} in the lead don't satisfy it, or perhaps we got the algorithm changed to first search for an image in Understand, where there is no photo. –LPfi (talk) 10:53, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Hahahaha! :D S'pose it could have been worse...--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:04, 19 May 2021 (UTC)