Template talk:Cite UN World Population Prospects
Versioning of UN WPP data[edit]
The 2022 version of the UN WPP is the 27th version (mentioned in the 2022 Summary booklet). I originally thought they came out annually, until I found the 2019 Summary; ISBN 978-92-1-148316-1) which is listed as the 26th version of the publication. (Presumably there is therefore no 2020 or 2021 edition.) This requires changes to the list of valid inputs, as well as the switch statement which derives the version number for editions without direct evidence; that will have to be switched to a presumed 3-year interval? Mathglot (talk) 00:47, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
- The report comes out mostly biannually, with some variation: 1992, 1994, 1996, 2000, 202, v6, 208, 2010, 2012, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2022; as shown in the UN WPP archive at https://population.un.org/wpp/Download/Archive/Standard/ so the year of the next version can't necessarily be predicted. Mathglot (talk) 18:05, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
Related templates[edit]
Possible duplicate of {{UN population}} at least in part. It has data hard-coded into the template, and with param |ref= it more or less duplicates this one. Mathglot (talk) 06:40, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
- Actually, its param
|ref=does not support verifiability, as it has a pointer to https://population.un.org/wpp/ which contains no population data, but only pointers to them, and suffers from link rot as when the next version comes out, the data files are generally moved to the UN archive and zipped. Probably ultimately the|ref=param there should transclude this template to retrieve the citation (or just use this one directly). Mathglot (talk) 18:14, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
Previous year data[edit]
Previous year UN WPP data for reports released from 1992 to 2019 is available at https://population.un.org/wpp/Download/Archive/Standard/ in zipped files containing multiple spreadsheets. For example, 2019 data is at https://population.un.org/wpp/Download/Files/5_Archive/WPP2019-Excel-files.zip .Referencing the correct zip link is good enough for verifiability, even if it doesn't permit direct accessibility to the location of the individual spreadsheet containing the data, as is the case for 2022 data. (It's a bit like writing a citation to a publication of Aristotle's complete works without providing the volume, chapter, or page number; annoying to find the data you're looking for, but still fulfills verifiability at a minimal level.)
In the case of 2019, I had found the original location of the files before they were removed and zipped; most of them are still available at the internet archive as individual files which can be linked directly. They could be added to the template if desired, but I'm of two minds about that; I wonder if it's worth it? If added, that would mean we could go to articles which still refer to 2019 data, and link the correct data file directly, using param 2019 (one could leave out |rows= and |cols= and just have the year and nothing else; it still meets verifiability and is probably not worth specifying for previous-year data).
If it's worth going back and updating links to articles which reference 2019 data, this template could be updated to handle that case (using a subtemplate that would #switch on year and statistic (CBD, CBR, TNF, IMR, etc.), and return the correct url for that year and statistic. But is it worth updating articles that still point to 2019 data? Maybe we should just concentrate on updating articles to 2022 (and beyond) going forward. Mathglot (talk) 19:23, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
2019[edit]
The "highlights" brochure for 2019 is here (prose; 46 pages, with numerous graphs and tables).
The 2019 UN WPP data is contained in dozens of individual spreadsheets, and are now in the UN archive at this zip file. The zip file is addressable, but the data files within it are no longer individually directly addressable at the UN site. The individual files contained in it are still mostly directly addressable in the internet archive, so citing them with |url-status=dead |archive-url=link |archive-date=date using the links and archive dates from the links below provides complete verifiability to the specific data file:
These provide direct access to specific WPP spreadsheets for 2019, should we decide to update the template to handle 2019 data. Mathglot (talk) 20:17, 11 August 2022 (UTC)