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I prefer to keep discussion threads together. If I left you a message, please answer on your talk page, as I am watching it.

Hey there, long time since we chatted. I'm wondering if you were planning an automated way to update the lists of municipalities when the census results are released in a few weeks. If not, I can start by manually moving the 2016 population figures to the second column and removing the 2016 population from the density calculation, and keep the template in the talk page until the data is released. I won't do this of course if you have a more efficient plan! Thanks! Mattximus (talk) 01:13, 5 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I plan to use an automated approach that will be more efficient. It will generate all the necessary code from scratch. Prepping a template with blanks would therefore be throw away effort as I would just overwrite it. After I have the vast set of Alberta articles tackled within the first couple days (as described in the above thread), I will focus on the municipality lists of other provinces. If you grow impatient and don't mind a less efficient approach, I suggest you work backwards by jurisdiction with the least amount of municipalities. i.e. Yukon, NWT, Nunavut, NS, and then PEI. A sandbox would be a better place to do the work so that it doesn't permanently clutter up talk pages. Also be wary of transferring over 2016 results as many municipalities will have revised figures due to intercensal boundary adjustments (especially in PEI). Cheers, Hwy43 (talk) 02:12, 5 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks I was thinking you would be planning this. I can then help with updating the lead and other tidying efforts. Mattximus (talk) 15:18, 5 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Just if you are interested: there is someone working on using python (pywikibot tool) and wikidata to add all population census figures in Costa Rica (about 500 districts) from every census in just a few minutes. Conversation here: Talk:Cantons of Costa Rica. As an experiment they tried linking it to Santa Bárbara (canton) infobox. Do you see any potential doing this for Canada? It would be nice to take a few seconds and have all thousands of municipalities infobox page updated instantly...! Mattximus (talk) 16:39, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the heads up. It won't take a few seconds because every municipality infobox will have to be edited anyway to call the data from Wikidata (once loaded to Wikidata). Thus, not interested right away for the 2021 census. Maybe during downtime in 2023 or beyond in preparation for the 2026 census. Hwy43 (talk) 09:24, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Mattximus: the tables for List of municipalities in Alberta are now updated. Could you update the prose accordingly, and also fix any precision errors within the tables arising from my semi-automated wikicode-building regex process? Cheers, Hwy43 (talk) 19:21, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, just a note that they done a big reform in IPE, replacing the Island Lots outside of the municipalities by the Fire Districts. As for Wikidata, the populations of municipalities of Alberta and Quebec of 2021 are now uploaded. Fralambert (talk) 20:46, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Fralambert: you bet. Heard in advance that StatCan would now be recognizing all of PEI's municipalities. These unincorporated fire districts for the balance of the island were a surprise to me. Surely much better than the previous lot system. If the population counts of municipalities get linked into Wikipedia articles from Wikidata please let me know and supply me with diffs on how such being done to gain a better understanding. Maybe I will learn a new trick. 04:27, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I used OpenRefine to download the data ([1] or [2] for exemple). The longest part is reconcile the municipalities with the correct one. For Quebec, Alberta and maybe Newfounland and Labrador, the instance (P31) are clean enough so downloading, but I don't think this is the case for the other provinces/territories. By clean I mean that each type of municipalities have their items (ex: [3] or [4]).

Finally, I discover that Statcan made a special sheet for the RCM in Quebec ^^. [5] Fralambert (talk) 02:13, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

So how do these efforts on Wikidata make life easier on its equivalent Wikipedia articles? Hwy43 (talk) 03:55, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

can do this weekend! Mattximus (talk) 03:24, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Mattximus: BC and SK tables are updated, so same favour requested there as well. Note that I have yet to unhide the sortbottom rows for the three tables for SK. I will do that after I update them. I am just retiring for the night. Hwy43 (talk) 06:41, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The text for Alberta is completely updated, and all significant digit errors have been corrected. The only issue is that the citations need updating. I was weary of removing the 2016 citations for fear of breaking the links. Other than that it's done and I will move on to BC and SK next! Mattximus (talk) 18:16, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Mattximus: tables for SK, MB, YT, NT, and NU are each now fully complete awaiting the same pass through the prose from you. Hwy43 (talk) 23:19, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

NB and PE ready for you. Hwy43 (talk) 06:04, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Done AB, MB, BC, NU, YT, NT, NB, PE. Just missing updated citations and the areas of unincorporated areas in the footnote of Nunavut. Will work on the rest this week. Thanks for the updates! Mattximus (talk) 01:59, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Mattximus: table for NL now done. Hwy43 (talk) 06:39, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As is the table done for NS. Hwy43 (talk) 20:11, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Pages that are 100% complete: AB, BC, MB, NB, NL, NS, NT, ON, PE, YT. Partially complete: NU. Incomplete: QE, SK. Mattximus (talk) 01:13, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Mattximus: what remains with PE, NU, NS, and SK? I will likely tackle single and lower tiers in ON this weekend and end on QC hopefully before the end of the month. Roncanada is making valiant strides in a non-automated manner in the meantime. Hwy43 (talk) 07:02, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the acknowledgement@Hwy43 Roncanada (talk) 13:10, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Updating of the text, the citations and decimal corrections remain for the last 5. NU has a special citation issue I need to work on as well. Will try to work on it more soon. Mattximus (talk) 02:57, 19 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Mattximus: thanks for the explanation. ON is now done. I will try to tackle the QC behemoth next. @Roncanada: not sure if you were the one that set up the merged cells for back-to-back repeating municipal statuses in the QC list a little with ago. My automated process to build the table with the new census results will not replicate that effort. Merging the cells is really a futile effort as, because it is a sortable table, the merging disappears when readers sort by any column within the table. Cheers, Hwy43 (talk) 22:58, 19 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Mattximus and Roncanada: all rows at List of municipalities in Quebec are now updated with the 2021 census results. I will swing back later to update the sub-total and total sortbottom rows, which are temporarily hidden. Cheers, Hwy43 (talk) 21:21, 20 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers pal Roncanada (talk) 14:47, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Hwy43. Just picking up on the comments by User:Mattximus about linking the data from wikidata. IMO this is the perfect time to start doing that. The effort to update the infoboxes with new census data is the same effort to change the field to a template calling for the data from wikidata. There are already templates for that or we can create a custom one for Canada.

BTW, I don't think you should remove historic census data like this edit. It is obviously easily verifiable. If you doubt the validity, it is better to tag it with ((cn)). I have been gradually updating this info with ((Historical populations)) and eventually I'll catch up. Thanks. -- P 1 9 9  ✉ 13:27, 1 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@P199 Hi, most of the population data of Quebec and all of Alberta are uploaded in Wikidata. As for the other provinces, we have to check if all the instance (P31) are correctly enter, and if all the First Nation communities exist. Fralambert (talk) 15:08, 1 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The only jurisdiction that I have updated infoboxes with 2021 census data so far is Alberta. One edit at each municipality article is all it took. As I understand it, the wikidata approach requires at minimum two edits per municipality – one at its wikidata page and one at its article. That is double the edits. I have yet to be shown or convinced how the wikidata approach is just as efficient let alone more efficient. I asked a question above about how things are made easier that has yet to be answered.

Updating the infoboxes for municipalities elsewhere in Canada is on my to do list but low on priority because it does appear there is interest by others, including three people here, in doing the wikidata approach. I invite those interested to show me how it is just as or more efficient. If Quebec's data is loaded at wikidata already, then go for it. I see it has yet to be done at Montreal, which I would expect would be a natural starting point but nothing has happened yet in the nearly two months since the 2021 census data was released.

In my recent sweep of Ontario municipality articles, I have been deleting unsourced population counts. I could instead use the ((cn)) for such, but WP:CANPOP applies. The content must be referenced.

Now I have also come across some instances where population counts are referenced as <ref>Statistics Canada: 1996, 2001, 2006 census</ref>. Linking to other articles is the improper way to source population data let alone anything on Wikipedia. Instead, population figures should be sourced to the actual census webpages or publications that explicitly verify the figures. I could have deleted all census data with these improper references in accordance with WP:CANPOP as well, but this is where I have drawn my line of reasonability for this sweep.

Here are links to StatCan's webpages and publications for the 1901 through 2021 censuses. These were used for properly referencing historical population templates for all municipalities across the three territories and PEI recently. Cheers, Hwy43 (talk) 02:05, 2 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I am surprised at your comment that you haven't seen "how the wikidata approach is just as efficient let alone more efficient". A little investment in linking to wikidata has huge dividends. Just look at municipalities in Finland or Philippines for example. The Philippines went through a census in 2020, and once the data was published, it was mass uploaded to wikidata (data can be speedily mass uploaded through spreadsheets I think). No edits were needed in WP at all (neither the infobox or prose) because of the smart links to wikidata. The advantages of linking to wikidata should be obvious... -- P 1 9 9  ✉ 13:41, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Who is going to mass upload everything? Who is going to embed the smart links in the infobox? Montreal’s was uploaded (first of two edits). There are five population entries there. No one in two months has done the second required edit (i.e., applied a smart link) to Montreal. The smart link would have to call the correct of the five entries. Meanwhile, one edit’s effort updates land area, population, density, year, ref, and hidden note here. Code is mass generated using formula in spreadsheet for all municipalities’ infoboxes at once. Embedding smart links on ~340 Alberta municipality articles is equal to editing the same articles with the mass generated code from a spreadsheet. Hwy43 (talk) 19:16, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We should use 2021 Canadian census—it's the common name and the article title, and it's also more specific than "Census of Population".

But most importantly, you keep writing "[City X] recorded a population of N." No, it really didn't, since it's a city and can't record anything. The city isn't doing the census: Statistics Canada is. A population of N was maybe recorded for it (i.e. City X) but really a more appropriate way of stating it would be "City X's population was N" or "The population of City X was recorded as N", "was determined to be N", etc.

I wouldn't normally say anything and I appreciate your updates, but you are going through a large number of articles using this same format and it would be nice not to have to re-edit them all to address these issues. —Joeyconnick (talk) 08:05, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry... also forgot to mention you are using ((nts)) which is for table sorting. A better template would be ((val)), which has |fmt= which can be set to "commas". —Joeyconnick (talk) 08:08, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Joeyconnick: thanks for the ((val)) tip. The way I regex the code for these paragraphs it will be a pain in the ass to make sure |fmt= isn’t applied for digits less than 1,000, so I may code it in regardless as there will be no harm.

I see where you are coming from on the "recorded" piece. Though more exciting than "had" it isn’t technically correct. I haven’t landed on how I will adjust yet but your suggestions are helpful. I have ruled out the possessive version (City X's) though as my regex coding will erroneously create instances like "Blackfalds's".

I am not prepared to avoid the official name of Canada's census. Canada 2016 Census was moved to 2016 Canadian census with an edit summary of "common name" with out any discussion or evidence to support such claim. The true common name of Canada's five-year census program is indiscernible because there are so many variants (StatCan hasn’t helped given it has rebranded the official name of the census so many times over the years). When indiscernible, use of the official name is acceptable and shouldn’t warrant usage controversy. What was really at play during that bold move was consistency among census articles on English Wikipedia. Nearly all of them have since been moved over to "YYYY Country census" or "YYYY Countryian census".

I will amend my approach as outlined above as I implement in Atlantic Canada and then in ON, SK, and QC. In the meantime, I have put on my to do list to circle back and fix AB, BC, MB, NT, NU, and YT. Right now these things aren't breaking Wikipedia and are non-detrimental. Hwy43 (talk) 05:38, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Heck, among all the variants out there, I bet "YYYY census" would likely be ruled the "common name" of Canada’s five-year census event, but such would require disambiguation from others performed elsewhere in the world the same year. i.e., 2021 census (Canada). To work around this, the WP community started using the country name as the disambiguator. The format when I started was Canada 2021 Census. It has since evolved into 2021 Canadian census. Hwy43 (talk) 06:00, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You are doing a lot of excellent work in updating the census figures, something I'm lazy to do. Some tips. Instead of using ((val|2864|fmt=commas)) use 2,846 which is quicker to type and doesn't add bloat to the article especially when using ((val|632|fmt=commas)) Using ((cvt)) instead saves on having to add |abbr=on. Plus if you are using km2 the you don't need to include the sqmi. Those are just suggestions to speed up. The main thing is the infobox. You aren't changing it to 2021 and thus leave an orphaned reference to 2016 in the article. See here where you removed the two references and the bot had to restore here. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 05:53, 15 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi CambridgeBayWeather. Appreciate the tips. I am a fan of continuous improvement. The way I mass build the wikicode from data tables downloaded from StatCan (using concatenation formulae in Excel), I can’t get Excel to force the "thousands" comma, when applicable, in the final wikicode. Surely there is a workaround if I get off my own lazy ass and simply Google search for a solution. I will investigate, and implement ((cvt)) as well, before I entertain the behemoth that is Quebec with over 1,100 municipalities (last of the 13 Ps/Ts left in Canada to do).

I will also investigate and implement before I circle back to improve what I have previously done for MB, BC, and AB (see them listed in my ambitious 2021 census to do list). Since the quantity of articles in northern Canada is small, I will gladly circle back to those a third time once solved. With the quantities of municipality articles in some remaining provinces high (particularly SK, ON, and NL), I can’t promise I will circle back to those but will keep in mind for when the 2026 census results are released in early 2027.

With respect to infoboxes, another pass for that is also on my to do list. There is a faction keen on using wikidata instead (see above), so I am hoping someone steps up. If no one does I will pass through as originally planned. Fortunately some article watchers are seeing my paragraph additions and updating the infobox, the population history template (if in use), or both (e.g., shout out to Jwkozak91 as an example). Such is greatly appreciated for reducing my load downstream.

As for the orphaned refs, the bot automatically restores them so I let it do what it was programmed to do. If I do everything at once – add/update the Demographics section, update the infobox, update the population history template, AND do ref maintenance that a bot will take care of anyway – my efforts to tackle the ambitious to do list will be greatly slowed and I may never get through it. Certainly I would not be as far along as I am in my progress to date. Sizeable chunks are the way to go for us volunteers, unless WP is hiring (then a career change might be in order). Cheers, Hwy43 (talk) 06:36, 15 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@CambridgeBayWeather: Excel concatenation formulae adjusted to force comma delimiters thereby avoiding nts/val templates and replace the convert template with the cvt template. See implementation here. Thanks again. Cheers, Hwy43 (talk) 20:18, 15 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Good morning,

I see the edits I made yesterday to the Leduc County Wikipedia page ^[1] were rejected. I'm new to making edits on Wikipedia, but wanted to update this page on behalf of the municipality to ensure it is accurate. If you are able to assist, I've relisted some of the edits and the supporting references below.

-The flag image is not accurate. -The current list of localities aligns more with our subdivisions; however, the current list is not exhaustive -- a complete list is located on our land ownership map available here: ^[2] -The localities should be updated to reflect the following: Glen Park, Michigan Centre and St. Francis ^[3] -Nisku can be removed from the list of hamlets. -The list of Councillors is incorrect. Our mayor is correct as Tanni Doblanko, but the list of councillors is as follows ^{[4] [5]} Rick Smith Kelly-Lynn Lewis Kelly Vandenberghe Larry Wanchuk Glenn Belozer Ray Scobie

Thank you, 207.229.37.114 (talk) 16:25, 1 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Leduc County rep. I will address each in the numbered list below.

1. Flag image: I am not an expert on that. I will try to point you in the right direction on how to fix in a later message.
2. Localities: StatCan is our source for localities. See here. I don’t know why they have more in their list and the County has less in its list.
3. Nisku: Municipal Affairs is our source for hamlets. See it listed as a hamlet here. I suggest the County email Municipal Affairs requesting that Nisku’s hamlet designation be removed from this Municipal Codes publication by using the contact information here. Once Municipal Affairs updates its Municipal Codes to exclude Nisku, then we can drop it from this article as well.

   While you are at it, I would suggest asking Municipal Affairs to recognize East Vistas as a hamlet. It meets the criteria in the MGA. In speaking with Municipal Affairs in the past, s.59(2)(c) of the MGA states a hamlet must have land “used for non-residential purposes”. Non-residential is not defined for the purpose of hamlet designation in the MGA and the purpose of this criterion wasn’t to limit non-residential to just commercial and industrial. The purpose of this and the other hamlet designation criteria was to prevent requests to designate country residential subdivisions and manufactured home parks as hamlets. Regardless, other uses such as public utility, municipal reserve, and institutional are also non-residential in the absence of an official definition for hamlet designation purposes.

4. Council: I can update that.

Cheers, Hwy43 (talk) 19:35, 1 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your detailed reply! I very much appreciate the information/recommendations you shared and your assistance in making updates. 207.229.37.114 (talk) 19:52, 1 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Recommend you keep all the provinces on your watchlist. It's the only way, to keep them consistent. GoodDay (talk) 19:50, 2 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

They are. Hwy43 (talk) 20:39, 2 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

FYI re: this, see this. Also, what has changed in the last 8 years since this? Hwy43 (talk) 09:17, 3 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I do remember her past problems, concerning infoboxes. Had briefly considered going to either WP:AN or WP:ANI, about her latest behaviour around the topic. But, figured maybe an RFC would settle the matter & nobody would need to be topic-banned. GoodDay (talk) 15:10, 3 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Will this RfC even be closed? I have been waiting nearly 11 months for Wikipedia talk:Piped link#RFC to clarify WP:EASTEREGG applicability to parameters in settlement infoboxes to close. Or did I do something wrong when initiating that RfC? Is it because I didn't add ((rfc|pol|hist)) to it like you did here? Hwy43 (talk) 22:53, 3 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

		Editor of the Week
		Your ongoing efforts to improve the encyclopedia have not gone unnoticed: You have been selected as Editor of the Week in recognition of your great contributions! (courtesy of the Wikipedia Editor Retention Project)

User:Clovermoss submitted the following nomination for Editor of the Week:

Hwy43 is an active Wikipedia editor that improves articles about Canada and does a lot of other great work all around the encyclopedia. He has contributed to 10 featured lists about municipalities and has created several maps about highways and communities. He has been enthusiastically improving articles since he first started editing in 2009, totaling more than 108,000 edits, more than 80,000 of which have been dedicated to mainspace. I think Hwy43 deserves recognition outside of WikiProject Canada, so I'm nominating him for Editor of the Week. This award was seconded by User:Mr Serjeant Buzfuz

You can copy the following text to your user page to display a user box proclaiming your selection as Editor of the Week:

((User:UBX/EoTWBox))

Thanks again for your efforts! ―Buster7 ☎ 12:37, 9 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]