Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Romanian counties by foreign trade/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was not promoted by Dabomb87 01:17, 4 November 2009 [1].

List of Romanian counties by foreign trade[edit]

Nominator(s): Mario1987 18:26, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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I am nominating this for featured list because i think it meets all the requirements needed for FL status. Mario1987 18:26, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment

  • Why is the total column separated from the main table?
    • It doesn't sort properly. Mario1987 15:13, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • It could be sorted properly, actually. I'll help you with this if you don't know how.—Chris!c/t 23:18, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Shouldn't the article name be List of Romanian counties by imports and exports?
    • I don't know. What do the other editors think? Mario1987 15:13, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I see that almost all sources are in Romanian. Are there any English source available? Also in one ref, r in Romanian should be capitalized.
    • The majority of sources are from the National Statistic Institute that are in Romanian. And i fixed the r. Mario1987 15:13, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

—Chris!c/t 18:38, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose/Comments from KV5
  • "This is a list of..." - featured lists no longer begin this way. See recently promoted lists for examples of better prose.
  • An awfully long list to have absolutely no images. Looks very dry.
    • What images should i add? Mario1987 15:13, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • What I might do is add the maps that show the location of each county within Romania (one for each table row, add an image column after the "County" column). Then, perhaps this image of Bucharest in the lead, with a caption explaining that Bucharest is the capital and is part of the county that accounts for xx percent of the total foreign trade, etc., etc. Don't forget that all images will need alt text. KV5 (Talk • Phils) 15:48, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Dryness is exacerbated by the fact that the lead is pretty much a solid mass of blue. There's got to be a better way to break that up, perhaps by including major companies in the table with their counties (that's the only function they are currently serving in the lead) or by having a distinct section of prose with its own heading after the lead and before the list.
    • I added a new column in the table named Important companies which includes the largest companies in the respective counties. Mario1987 15:13, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Year" column is unneeded if all are the same. A note that numbers are based on 2008 figures is sufficient.
    • Removed the column from the table and added in the first paragraph. Mario1987 15:13, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • All figures should have the same significant digits (4.0 instead of 4, etc.). I would also like to see $ and % signs in the table proper, rather than just the headers.
  • Why isn't the "County" column sortable?
    • Should it be? Mario1987 15:13, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Alphabetical sorting can be helpful if someone knows the name of a county and wants to find it quickly, so yes. KV5 (Talk • Phils) 15:23, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • How can i sort alphabetical? I only made numerical sorting. Mario1987 15:33, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • What does the "Rank" column mean? A key is needed to explain it.
    • How can i explain this? Mario1987 15:13, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well... what does the rank column mean? KV5 (Talk • Phils) 15:23, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • The ordering of counties depending on exports and imports. Mario1987 15:33, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • So #1 has the highest combined total of imports and exports, #2 has the second-highest combined total, and so forth? KV5 (Talk • Phils) 15:45, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • I just realised that the Rank column sorts properly only for exports but not for imports. What should i do? Mario1987 08:35, 29 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
              • That was sort of my point. If the "rank" is by exports only, then you don't need to have the rank column at all. If it's ranking the counties by total combined imports and exports, then you need to note that in a key or, preferably, add a column with the total imports and exports by county, and remove the rank column altogether. KV5 (Talk • Phils) 11:51, 29 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
                • As of right now, this issue is the only thing holding back my support. Please clarify the rank column in the list; is it by imports, exports, combination of both, a net value of some sort?—NMajdan•talk 13:39, 29 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
                  • Removed the rank column to avoid further issues. Mario1987 14:33, 29 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with all of Chrishomingtang's comments above as well.
  • No spaces between numbers and percent signs.

This list isn't ready for promotion yet, but with some work, it could get there. KV5 (Talk • Phils) 20:30, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment while really neat, the "Important companies" requires a citation or otherwise it will look like original research. Nergaal (talk) 17:20, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The list looks okay as far as the references used go, but there are a couple of more or less subtle issues that shine through the cracks. Let me list them one by one:

  • I am concerned about the ephemeral quality of the list itself. I'm sure there are many FLs out there which provide info that needs to be updated periodically, but how many face the risk of being updated from top to bottom within, say, five years? This one does, particularly since it includes several variables for each entry.
  • There is the concern of WP:SYNTH. An entire column, for "major companies", appears to have been gathered through an editorial process: "the statistical source says so much foreign trade, the newspaper source says these forms did this and that in that county, so let's put them together". The same appears to be the case for the entire introductory paragraphs, where we are told in detail how counties x and y got to where they are, without this being spelled out in the sources (just guessed by the editor).
  • There is a copyedit issue with the sources: the publishers for the sources are indicated chaotically or cryptically, when they could be spelled out. Some of the publishers cited we have articles on. In all cases where diacritics are part of the publishers' names, the editor left them out. (The same goes for the titles of the articles, but here I admit that, in case the articles were published without diacritics, it's more of a matter of choice.) Dahn (talk) 19:13, 29 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I believe the idea pf having this list is a very good one. But there are a number of small problems with the list as of now, which underline the complexity of the issue, and why there are entire bodies doing statistics:

  • Bucharest is not part of the Ilfov County. The simple fact that data in the sources given so far is available only for the sum of the too, doesn't mean they have to be together.
  • I added a second list grouping counties by development region. I believe this is compulsory.
    • I agree but we need references for that. Mario1987 16:33, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please use English way of representing numbers with , and .
  • The numbers don't add up. For exports the sum I get is 41,668.9, but the table says 41,453.4. It's difference of 215.5 million USD, or 0.6%. For imports, I get 64,380.4 by adding up, but the table says 66,610, which is 2,229.6 million USD short (3.3%). Give me only 1/1,000,000 of that money, and I'll do a lot of wiki work for you. :-) I guess the problem is sources. Possibly the sources for each county are different from the source for the entire country, hence the difference. Also, I would be careful that 2008 means January to December 2008, not July 2008-June 2009, as the source file for Bucharest apparently says (correct me if I am wrong). As I said, it's a lot of work in real life to get this data exactly.
    • Yes i admit the slight miscalculation for exports but the imports add up to 66,780.4 so i don't know how you calculated (did the total five times :)). The problem is that the sources are in euro and i listed them in US$ to be more easy to understand for the majority of users. When i wrote the article the INSS site used Jan-Dec 2008 but i guess they updated the facts. Mario1987 16:33, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would like however to welcome the idea of listing the major companies. Are these major exporters or major importers? Maybe the table could also indicate how much they mean in the import/export. Are these just the first 1-2 with 4-5% of the share each, or so they account for 30-40%? I would also definitively list many more companies for Bucharest. Dc76\talk 15:52, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The companies listed are the most important companies (hypothetical) from the respective county in terms of exports and imports. Feel free to add (or replace) companies anywhere in the table where you think i didn't indicate the proper company but please provide a reference. Mario1987 16:33, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • This "hypothetical" confirms my WP:SYNTH concern above. Whose hypothesis? - The editor's. Dahn (talk) 17:15, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • I said hypothetical because you never know what company pops up as beeing the most important in foreign trade in our country. You should know this because you live in Romania. From now on please leave your "irony tone" aside when you talk to me. Mario1987 17:24, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • "because you never know what company pops up as beeing the most important in foreign trade in our country" - first of all, hypothetical is hypothetical; you set your article on the path of original research, by guessing as to what contributed to economic growth in x and y counties (whether it's a decent guess or an educated guess, or even an obvious guess, it don't matter for wikipedia). And please see again my earlier comment where I tell you that this list would require regular reviews for relevancy from top to bottom, precisely because (emphasis:) 60 to 90% of the info is subject to change, and will likely do so soon, only to change yet again a little later. You created yourself a list that you will keep busy on until the day you die, always trying to catch up with reality. More of a stock market panel than an item of encyclopedic relevancy. This goes for the entire article, not just for the companies column, but it is especially true for the companies column. (As for my supposed irony, I frankly applaud you ability of identifying a tone in texts, but let's not get hung up on that, shall we?) Dahn (talk) 18:11, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • I think that you didn't even read the article. If you had done so you would have seen that the county economic information is based upon facts from 2008 issued by INSS. The company column is even more simple because major exporting or importing companies don't magically appear over night do they? I know you have a problem with myself but don't let this matter affect the article thru unsupported problems that you think it has. Mario1987 18:48, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent) I have read it, and I did note that it is based on the INSS info - my only comment on that issue is that the way in which you had chosen to organize the references gives no real clue as to the source and nature of the sources, not meaning to say that the sources are unreliable. Now, the rest of your reply addresses nothing in the point I made: regardless of the supposed likelihood and your "promise" that things won't change (magically or not), they are subject to change. The INSS will likely present new regular reports, which may indeed change the entire hierarchy, over and over again - the problem I see in that is the entire list is ephemeral (as opposed to it having some ephemeral info); you dig?
As for the company column, it has two, distinct but not unrelated, glaring problems. One (which you persistently ignore in your replies) is the WP:SYNTH issue - an editorial judgment which has it that "revenues are due to x and y company", when the sources don't say that. The sources used are mere disparate news items which state that the companies exist in x county, and maybe that they have a major contribution to some area or another, but don't necessarily back any of the claims you make about their relative importance, which you correlated with the bare INSS facts (which, incidentally, makes it not just original research, but also superfluous). Is this clear? The other problem is that it, in addition to the likely changes for the INSS data, is another variable likely to rot, and neither I or this project you contribute to can reasonably be placated by your assurance that this won't happen. And it doesn't even matter if that info changes "over night" or not; what matters is that they will likely change throughout. Now, I'm hoping other reviewers will understand the points I'm making, as you manifestly won't. Dahn (talk) 19:45, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • If you would have any idea what you're talking about you should know that the INSS Buletin statistic judetean ONLY changes twice a year but what can i expect from a guy like you whose only purpose is to demean a fellow editor. "you dig?" Mario1987 09:40, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    We manifestly have a communication problem here, though I don't know how I could be more explicit. First of all, it "only" changing twice a year means precisely what I said: that this list you've created is likely to change in large part (perhaps entirely) if not in half a year, then conceivably in two years, or five years. We are here taking a vote on how to provide featured status to something that, by definition, by the very way in which it is conceived, will not feature the same facts in the near future. Sure, a lot of FLs will also be updated, probably; but not entirely, and not with regularity. And then what? Do we take a new vote on this every six months or so? That said (and I've said from the beginning, way before this was an FL candidate), serious thought needs to be put into whether this should be a list at all, not into whether it should be an FL. Same goes for other such "something and foreign trade" lists, but I don't see them going through the same motions, nor do I have the patience to try and state this point to every opinionated guy out there. Dahn (talk) 10:37, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes i do think we have a communication problem because you just won't understand. In the prose of the article it is stated that the facts are for the year 2008, when data for the full year 2009 will be available i will update the entire article and so on. And the part you don't understand is that major changes in foreign trade don't just appear in the manner you say it will. The only things that are supposed to change are the actual numbers but nothing on the dramatic side that could affect the current of future ranking. Is this so hard to understand? If so just ask for help or guidance and you will see that things aren't that difficult as you say they are. And again i please urge you to reconsider your thoughts and oppinions regarding me. Mario1987 11:41, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Sigh. The info contained in the list, the very subject of this list, entry by entry, from top to bottom, will change at least once every year. The numbers will change, the hierarchy is also likely to change (sure, the top five or so are unlikely to change as much, but the rest is bound to fluctuate wildly). You basically create a list that you submit for review with info that will no longer be relevant, accurate, whatnot after x period. This not only makes it impossible to maintain the at least on principle guarantee the FL standard (just what are we voting on, if it will change entirely?), but it means that the list is quite possibly in breach of WP:NOTNEWS and WP:NOTDIR. And please stop trying to divert this discussion by making it look like I have something against you personally: you are virtually indifferent to me, and I'm commenting on the flaws as I see them in the article; the issues we've had in the past related to content, your loose interpretation of norms, and the irresponsible "devil may care" editing style. The only one who's making this personal is you, Mario, and I think you remember that the way in which you chose to phrase that hostility toward me is what got you blocked the last time around. So please turn off the drama and focus on what I'm telling you, before you discredit yourself some more with this kind of comments. Dahn (talk) 11:55, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I see that this discussion isn't going to end any time soon. So i propose to rename the list to List of Romanian counties by foreign trade in 2008 so that you can rest easy. Fair enough? Mario1987 12:16, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd be very interested to know what encyclopedic value that kind of detail will have. Catch 22 if you will, but that's because the whole initiative was questionable to begin with. Dahn (talk) 12:21, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with the above editor that the WP:SYNTH issue for the Major companies column is problematic. If no reliable sources exist that say x and y companies contributed to that county's import/export, then we cannot say that relationship exists. I say remove the column to avoid such problem.—Chris!c/t 22:32, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I haven't fully reviewed the list, so I can't support or oppose. But I don't believe that the likelihood of change over time in the list is a big concern. We have other featured lists that vary on at least an annual or bi-annual basis, and they've continued to be kept up in fairly good shape. And if the list is not kept up to date, then, well, that's why we have FLR. So, if it meets the criteria, I think this should be listed. As a side note to Mario, and I mean no disrespect here, but the quickest way to sink your nomination and chase off potential reviewers is to take a critique personally and react angrily. Geraldk (talk) 18:03, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes i know and i am sorry for that and hope i didn't offend anyone but the user just won't understand exactly what you wrote just above^ regarding the variation of the list. Mario1987 18:32, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Gerald, I only raised this concern for other editors to assess (which is why I did not even actually vote). Now, having repeatedly searched through Category:Featured lists, I have so far only seen Global Peace Index, promoted back in 2007, as one where the info would have to be reviewed and is likely to change entirely - yet even here there is another temporal benchmark which will not change. Dahn (talk) 18:53, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Every US county list should have its population figures updated annually as new census estimates come in, the tall building lists could change rapidly as new construction is completed, etc. I understand you were just raising the point for other editors to comment on, I just think it's not an issue. We'll see what others have to say. Geraldk (talk) 21:06, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree w/ Geraldk again. All FLs need to be updated from time to time. So, this is not an issue.—Chris!c/t 04:20, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Gerald, are you referring to lists such as List of counties in New Jersey? Because, if we are, your analogy is flawed: the topic of such lists is not the perishable data, that data is just a detail in the article; here, it is the basis for the article. Also, this article we're discussing, unlike such lists, ranks the entries on the list by that perishable data, and everything on the list is dependent on that ranking. Same for the list of all tall buildings (and without commenting on why such lists too are poorly conceived, cause they are). Sure, new taller buildings are likely to pop up, but the exiting ones are unlikely to shrink. Here, all data is subject to change, and any correlation between terms on the list is likely to fluctuate, particularly in times of crisis - open up one factory, shut down another, and, at some tens of thousands in urban population per county, you've got yourself a new economic reality on this level of detail. It's an essential nuance I've tried to emphasize in my earlier posts.
  • Chris, in addition to urging you to read my above reply to Gerald, please allow me to insist on contradicting your statement that "All FLs need to be updated from time to time." The more correct way to phrase that is "Some things on most FLs will probably need updating from time to time." In this case, however, it's "The data on which the list depends, and according to which it ranks the entries, the very way in which the list is arranged and every information about everything on the list is likely to become irrelevant in the near future." Who is going to spend time every six months revisiting the INSSE data and reviewing all parts of the list?
  • In other news, the creator of this list has since been banned. I don't know how it reflects on this discussion, but in case it does. Dahn (talk) 05:11, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm afraid we just disagree, Dahn. Wikipedia is both encyclopedia and almanac, and these almanac-style lists have nothing in the featured list criteria which bar them from being recognized. Nor should they, IMO, as long as they are kept up to date. I'm afraid I don't see much difference between all or some data on a table changing, because in either case change has occurred and some of the data and ordering will need to be updated. That's just as true for a single column in List of counties in New Jersey, for the entire table in Most populous counties in the United States, or for lists which simply add new entries annually like List of winners of the Mathcounts competition. Geraldk (talk) 13:09, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Let's agree to disagree. Dahn (talk) 13:51, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Who is going to spend time every six months revisiting the INSSE data and reviewing all parts of the list?" - well, that is the job of the nominator or anyone else interest in doing so. After all, this is a wiki, so potentially anyone can come along to review or update.—Chris!c/t 18:48, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, we all know everyone can, but it's looking like no one will - this was a pet project (and his fringe interest), so chances are it will end up edited by Mario's sockpuppets. In any case, no one other than Mario's sockpuppets can be expected to. And the core issue is not addressed: the principle of creating a list on that rationale is what's really the problem, IMO. Why wait six-seven months for this list to rot and prove my point, instead of thinking in advance? Dahn (talk) 20:13, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note you shouldn't have deleted the "Important companies column. I would suggest to put it back with the names that are featured here. It should work as a good enough reference for important companies (if they are rated in the top 500 in Eastern Europe). Nergaal (talk) 19:02, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Except doing that would have still been WP:SYNTH, not to mention that the page you link to appears to be someone's personal project (fails WP:RS). Dahn (talk) 19:10, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Still SYNTH. Dahn (talk) 19:27, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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