Skylines and skyscrapers on Wikipedia

[LivinAWestLife]

Also, there's a skyscraper discord server now! We have 110 members and counting, with channels for general discussion, photos, building appreciation, and projects from all around the world. Check it out if you can! https://discord.gg/MvFbwuhWpc

[Dariusb]

Originally Posted by LivinAWestLife

A user named dallaz or dallaz95 has been badmouthing me and my work on City-Data because I had a debate with him a few months ago on whether Dallas' recent growth was "one of the most impressive in the country", a stance I've since changed my opinion on. Pretty disappointing to see but what can you do lol. It would have been better if anyone but him had brought it up.

https://www.city-data.com/forum/city-vs-city/3288791-top-25-us-cities-most-skyscrapers-82.html

Anyway, I've also edited the pages for Austin, Jersey City, Pittsburgh, and Detroit. Pretty big contrast between the first two and the last two: Austin is the clearest example of an American skyline with huge recent growth, while the last two were among the largest US skylines in the first half of the 20th century, with lots of gorgeous Art Deco icons, but have not built much especially after 1990.

I'm sorry for not doing the history sections of these cities yet because those are indeed very time consuming to do, even if I have an idea of what the general write-up should be like.

I remember that. I go to the Dallas forum there regularly and saw what they said. Anyway, thanks for your time and work that you put into all of this. It's much appreciated.

[LivinAWestLife]

Thanks, it’s the only negative reaction I’ve seen to far, thankfully. Does anyone have any cities they’d like to request? I have a few in the works

[New Brisavoine]

Why only on Wikipedia? Here is one taken by yours truly, 3 summers ago.

[LivinAWestLife]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Why only on Wikipedia? Here is one taken by yours truly, 3 summers ago.

This thread is for representation of info about skyscrapers and skylines on Wikipedia. If you want this photo to be used for the article for Paris you can upload it to Wikimedia Commons, where Wikipedia gets all its photos due to copyright issues. Otherwise, seems like a distracting comment :/

[New Brisavoine]

^^I uploaded the skyline picture of Paris in the article about skyscrapers in Paris long ago (actually I'm the person who contributed to the creation of that article, which was quite a challenge back then, as some US and Canadian Wikipedians argued that "La Défense is not in Paris, so those skyscrapers are not a list of Paris skyscrapers, bla bla bla").

The article could do with a new picture however (hadn't checked it in a long time). The current picture is rather outdated, and some people have added some ugly pictures that don't really add much information to the article.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

^^I uploaded the skyline picture of Paris in the article about skyscrapers in Paris long ago (actually I'm the person who contributed to the creation of that article, which was quite a challenge back then, as some US and Canadian Wikipedians argued that "La Défense is not in Paris, so those skyscrapers are not a list of Paris skyscrapers, bla bla bla").

The article could do with a new picture however (hadn't checked it in a long time). The current picture is rather outdated, and some people have added some ugly pictures that don't really add much information to the article.

I was today years old when I learned that La Défense is not actually in the city of Paris.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by JManc

I was today years old when I learned that La Défense is not actually in the city of Paris.

Really? IIRC, Tour Montparnasse is the tallest within the city limits of Paris.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by craigs

Really? IIRC, Tour Montparnasse is the tallest within the city limits of Paris.

Yes, my whole life has been a lie. Next thing you're gonna tell me is that the Statue of Liberty is in New Jersey...

[iheartthed]

deleted

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by JManc

I was today years old when I learned that La Défense is not actually in the city of Paris.

Technically, Canary Wharf is not in the city of London either.

Unfortunately Wikipedia has been taken over by people splitting hairs, people who obscure knowledge by trying to be too subtle. Believe it or not, these 4 or 5 Wikipedians (one crazy guy from Toronto who has lived in Paris for the past 20 years, two American guys, and one or two other Anglophones I can't remember) have waged a major Wikipedia war to prevent the famous picture of Eiffel Tower and La Défense in the background to be the lead picture of the article, because "La Défense is not in Paris", "you're showing things that are not in Paris". It would be as if you had a picture of the mall in Washington DC as the lead picture of the Washington DC article, and these people fought a war to remove the picture because in the background the hill of Arlington National Cemetery was visible, and "Arlington is not in Washington DC".

That's the picture they fought to remove:



Even Le Monde, the newspaper of records in France, wrote an article about that crazy Wikipedia war. They interviewed me for it. Unfortunately I was supported by no French Wikipedieans, so these 4 or 5 guys won, and now the Paris article is a complete mess, presenting the city as if it was Venice, with only pictures of old monuments, as if there was no modern architecture in Paris, and insisting Paris is only the 20 arrondissements, period. A city of 2 million people smaller than Bucharest.

That's the Le Monde article: "On Wikipedia, a new battle of Paris is raging"



These same crazy guys (particularly the guy from Toronto living in Paris, who is the craziest of them) also tried to delete the article "Tallest skyscrapers in Paris", because "La Défense is not in Paris". I managed to won that fight only after changing the name of the article into "Tallest skyscrapers in the Paris Region", but even that label they didn't like, they said "Paris Region" is not an official name, and it should be "Tallest skyscrapers in the Île-de-France region", which would make the article completely invisible, as nobody knows what "Île-de-France" is in the Anglophone world, and in any case the regional council use the name "Paris Region" in English.

I won that one, the name "Paris Region" remained, but they insisted on including the Eiffel Tower and renaming it "Tallest buildings and structures in the Paris region" instead of "tallest skyscrapers".

Anyway, that's Wikipedia for you. Lots of crazy guys. Some of these guys edit day and night, like they never sleep, so if you're a normal person you can never win against them. One of these guys (now I remember), from Ireland, called Mr Blofeld, sided with the crazy guy from Toronto, he was the most vicious one. He edited Wikipedia literally 24 hours a day, like a robot.



That's why I've largely stopped editing Wikipedia, despite having created lots of articles there over the years. The Paris article, in particular, is an unmitigated disaster now. And they even managed to remove the picture with La Défense from the French Wikipedia article about Paris too!

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by craigs

Really? IIRC, Tour Montparnasse is the tallest within the city limits of Paris.

About to get a height increase too (which has the heritage conservationists up in arms).

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by JManc

Yes, my whole life has been a lie. Next thing you're gonna tell me is that the Statue of Liberty is in New Jersey...

I absolutely love that. And it's true that even being here 20+ years we still run into the odd new and surprising thing from time to time.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I absolutely love that. And it's true that even being here 20+ years we still run into the odd new and surprising thing from time to time.

The Statue of Liberty and Liberty Island are in New York but it is surrounded by New Jersey waters.

[Nouvellecosse]

I was just commenting on the Paris thing but nice of you to clarify just in case.

[New Brisavoine]

La Défense is within the Greater Paris Metropolis now, created in 2016. The metropolitan council that gathers Paris and its suburbs. But the 4 or 5 wackos I mentioned would have none of it, they said (if you can believe it): "the Greater Paris Metropolis is not yet very well known, so we still cannot say that La Défense is in Paris, so the picture with La Défense in the background cannot appear at the top of the article".

If you don't believe me, feel free to replace the current pile of old monuments they put on top of the article with the picture of Eiffel Tower and La Défense (which stood as the lead picture of the Paris article for YEARS before these 4 or 5 wackos hijacked the article), and see the reaction you get. Hint: it won't be pretty (as Dr Petiot told his lawyer 2 minutes before being guillotined).

[JManc]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Technically, Canary Wharf is not in the city of London either.

I knew that about London but I think Greater London...the London we think of London...is also incorporated in some form. As for La Défense, it felt so to all the action in Paris.



As for nerds on Wikipedia, La Défense is Paris because without Paris, there would be no La Défense.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by JManc

I knew that about London but I think Greater London...the London we think of London...is also incorporated in some form.

As per my last post, La Défense is now part of the Greater Paris Metropolis, just as Canary Wharf is part of the Greater London Authority, but they would have none of that because they said the Greater Paris Metropolis is not yet well known!

Originally Posted by JManc

As for nerds on Wikipedia, La Défense is Paris because without Paris, there would be no La Défense.

Go tell them that. There were dozens of pages of discussion on the talk page of the Paris article, all archived now by the Toronto guy who wants to hide the controversy about his hijacking of the article.

And no, they are not nerds. They are far worse than nerds. They are bullies, dictators, and aggressive maniacs. I had to hide all my identity online because I was afraid of what some of these guys could do. They launched accusations against any French Wikipedian who dared to support the lead photo with La Défense, they opened complaints in the archane arbitration procedures of Wikipedia, had them all banned with accusations of "sock-puppetry", "double accounts", and whatnot.

You have no idea of the crazy people they are. They have the same pathological personality as serial killers.

Anyway, since you don't know the history of that article you probably cannot understand and imagine that I'm just a bit hyperbolic.

[LivinAWestLife]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

As per my last post, La Défense is now part of the Greater Paris Metropolis, just as Canary Wharf is part of the Greater London Authority, but they would have none of that because they said the Greater Paris Metropolis is not yet well known!


Go tell them that. There were dozens of pages of discussion on the talk page of the Paris article, all archived now by the Toronto guy who wants to hide the controversy about his hijacking of the article.

And no, they are not nerds. They are far worse than nerds. They are bullies, dictators, and aggressive maniacs. I had to hide all my identity online because I was afraid of what some of these guys could do. They launched accusations against any French Wikipedian who dared to support the lead photo with La Défense, they opened complaints in the archane arbitration procedures of Wikipedia, had them all banned with accusations of "sock-puppetry", "double accounts", and whatnot.

You have no idea of the crazy people they are. They have the same pathological personality as serial killers.

Anyway, since you don't know the history of that article you probably cannot understand and imagine that I'm just a bit hyperbolic.

Is this in English or French Wikipedia? Sounds pretty insane lol. I hope to never come across like this myself.

Worse was when I tried to kindly suggest cutting down an article that was too long for the Birmingham (UK) page and he responded with increasingly long tirades about my editing

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by LivinAWestLife

Is this in English or French Wikipedia? Sounds pretty insane lol. I hope to never come across like this myself.

English Wikipedia.

The article in the French Wikipedia was more balanced, not shying from presenting the modern Paris and Greater Paris (not just the historical 20 arrondissements), which is natural since it is largely French people who edit the French Wikipedia, so they don't have the fantasized imagine of oh-là-là Pareeee that Anglophone editors can have, but unfortunately in the past 3 years that "heritage" presentation of Paris has now also spilled over into the French Wikipedia, and the picture of the Eiffel Tower with La Défense was also removed as the lead picture of the article (after a fight on the talk page, and unfortunately when these fights take place it's never possible to win them).

But the fight in the French article was nothing like the epic battle in the English article.

Just to give you an idea of the nonsense, the Toronto guy in the English article also refused the use of the term "metropolitan area" in the article, he aggressively deleted all references to a "metropolitan area" of Paris in the article, claiming that it is a US concept that doesn't apply to France, that INSEE (French statistical office) has defined an "aire urbaine"* and so therefore it cannot be called "metropolitan area" in English, it should be written as "aire urbaine" in italic (to obscure matters of course), and anyway this statistical concept is not well known, so it's too detailed for a generic article like the Paris article, and bla bla bla. Endless reams of discussions on the talk page like that, like talking to a wall.

*(literal translation "urban area", but in fact what INSEE called "aire urbaine" corresponds to what Anglophones call "metropolitan area", which was always a bit confusing, but now INSEE has redefined the metro areas by using the international definition of the FUAs, and they call them AAV, or Aire d'Influence d'une Ville, literally "catchment area of a city", so there isn't that confusion anymore, but the battle in the Paris article took place back when INSEE used the "aire urbaine")