Talk:Minneapolis

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High school graduation rate

Someone made this edit saying that Minneapolis had one of the lowest high school graduation rates in Minnesota, citing this page from the Minnesota Department of Education. When I checked the report (the 2005-2006 Dropout/Graduation Rates-Special Populations report), it reveals that Minneapolis has a low graduation rate of 66.08%. I sorted the data and found that there are several school districts with lower graduation rates. Intermediate School District #287, Red Lake, and Cass Lake-Bena appear to be the only public school districts that have lower graduation rates. I'm not exactly sure if some of the other school districts listed are actually charter schools or some special vocational school districts.

Regardless, I think an explanation of the school graduation rate should be listed within Minneapolis Public Schools, since they're the responsible school district, and the data should be better qualified as to exactly which districts are selected within that sampling. (By the way, within the same edit, the editor asked for citations within the lead about Minneapolis having twenty lakes and wetlands and having a park within 1/2 mile of every house, even though those facts are mentioned later in the article.) --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 06:05, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Maintenance

I made a few edits just now just to clean up some stray things. A nice addition in the Religion section and a mention of World Figuring Skating competition in 1998 are good but have been added verbatim to cuts and the To Do list for lack of citations. Tags asking for citations in the lead have been removed. Newsy section about the I35W bridge has been cut and the Transportation section "main" tag links to that article instead. Newsy section on Olympics bid is interesting but for the most part sounded "also ran" so I moved it there as well. -Susanlesch (talk) 16:50, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Trivia in photo captiions

File:Prince-crop.jpg

Prince studied at the Minnesota Dance Theatre through the Minneapolis Public Schools.^{http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/dca/docs/PlanforArtsCulture.pdf}

Many of the captions have promotional trivia. I am not taking them out yet, but want others to comment while I continue to think about it. TableManners^U·T·C 00:20, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. Although I don't see anything in the captions of a promotional nature, I am more than happy to move the text of captions to the article if necessary. For my comprehension skills it is easier to read in context of the image but perhaps others read in other ways (entirely possible). -Susanlesch (talk) 14:47, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Draft Minneapolis Plan

In case anyone else who might be interested missed this, and thanks to MinnPost for mentioning it, Minneapolis has a new draft city plan. They say comments can be in person at a January meeting or sent to their Web site. The chapter I saw so far looks like it could be useful as a source of facts (aside from planning). -Susanlesch (talk) 03:10, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Parks distance from home

Hello. A statement in the lead that a park is within 0.5 miles of every home was flagged for 'fact'. I had hoped to look this up today but am not able to help. The biography of Wirth cited in the "Parks and recreation" section doesn't quite cover it so I removed the sentences for now. -Susanlesch (talk) 15:32, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Population

Why does the U.S. Census American Fact Finder say the population of Minneapolis is 372,833 here and 369,051 here? -Susanlesch (talk) 08:28, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Note the 369,051 estimate gives an error of +/-9,889. I bet Mpls sent a challenge to the Census estimate considering the margin of error and pushed the pop estimate up--since many funding agencies look at Census estimates. In that case it takes into account building permits and new homeownership which the Census Bureau might not have the latest results. The Community Surveys are also done throughout the year for everywhere and doesn't necessarily reflect the entire year's progress. Thus the given 2006 estimate reflects the most recent data whereas the Community Survey is a snapshot of the year 2006 whenever it took place. .:DavuMaya:. 20:01, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

where is the racial profile for minneapolis? Before there was census data clearly stating that mpls isn't a bunch of whities like the rest of the state. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.120.52.67 (talk) 06:15, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

What do you find missing? Looking quickly what was there is still there at Minneapolis,_Minnesota#Demographics. -Susanlesch (talk) 16:06, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

"A bunch of whities" is nonsense. A large number of people of African descent live in Minneapolis, most of them descendants of people who were already in America in the 19th century, but also a substantial number of recent immigrants from Somalia and Ethiopia. Michael Hardy (talk) 11:11, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

The demographics section is kind of dumb. My main concern is the quote "Home ownership among black and Hispanic residents is half that of white, and one-third of the Asian population lives below the poverty line." is not completely informative since the Asian population is no longer homogeneous due to recent immigration. It would likely be as correct to say another one-third of the Asian population lives above the $100,000 income bracket. NPR article back in '02 And home ownership is not always analogous with poverty. With demos things can be spun either way especially since we have no clear majority. I'd rather not tinker and let you do it Susan. .:DavuMaya:. 20:13, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Greetings, Davumaya. Would you be interested in starting in on Demographics of Minneapolis, Minnesota to see how things pan out? My to do list outweighs my discretionary editing (the fun kind) and I couldn't subcontract until next year if then. Brookings and the U.S. Census may have some new data after the 2010 census which might be a good time to rewrite. -Susanlesch (talk) 20:35, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh blasted! You've strong-armed me into it :) Sure, demos are sort of my day job anyway. .:DavuMaya:. 19:01, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Minneapolis Public Library/Hennipin County Library merger status

The Minneapolis Public Library merger mentioned as pending happened and was finalized earlier this year; the library web site has info. The main page should probably be updated to reflect this. I'm not sure, however, how to keep the other info (circulation size data) up to date with the changes, or how best to update the paragraph. Elehack (talk) 03:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

It would be great if you can write that, feel free. I wrote to their webmaster (the mail bounced) and hope Hennepin County restores the History of Minneapolis real soon. —SusanLesch (talk) 04:15, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Re-recording

Re-recording text. Please make your changes now. .:DavuMaya:. 19:18, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

coordinate mix-up

I noticed the template placing the coordinates at the top-right corner caused Magnus' GeoHack to send you to France due to an error of some sort. I am not familiar with the mapit template so I've hesitated to make the change. Here is what was causing it: {{Mapit-US-cityscale|44.977|−93.266}} --Bobak (talk) 21:01, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Glad you noticed, Bobak, and thanks to MH for fixing it. Looks fine now. —SusanLesch (talk) 01:14, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Temperature snafu?

The chart for the climate includes 'record lows' of -36 Celsius for both February and March. However, the Fahrenheit version has -40F for February and -32F for March. Which numbers are correct? I note that the information was 'retrieved 27 October'. I presume maybe a new record occurred this year and the Fahrenheit version was changed but not the celsius version? Could someone with local knowledge of Minneapolis' weather please appropriately update these numbers?? Tonzo (talk) 05:51, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Tonzo. You might have as much knowledge about it as anybody here, if you'd like to try to fix it. Seems like an error and I don't know when it was introduced. —SusanLesch (talk) 06:17, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Maintainers

Greetings. This article may need some dedicated support in the future. I think I counted two maintenance issues raised already and due to lack of support from WikiProject Minnesota for main page inclusion on the city's sesquicentennial in July I've decided to let this one go (there is a lot of support at large and I would guess it will be there but couldn't say for sure). Thanks to every editor (I hope most of you have a barnstar!) who has helped keep this featured for a whole year. Nice work. Most likely, for a city this size, somebody exists with wiki skills who may have heard of it and might wish to maintain and/or change it. I wish you good luck. —SusanLesch (talk) 01:39, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I nominate Susan for Barnstar of Diligence

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		To Susan for her fabulous watch and commitment to Minnesota articles especially Minneapolis. .:davumaya:. 23:56, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

! .:davumaya:. 23:56, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Skyline photo

Way back, we had a discussion about what would make a good skyline photo. I blathered on about two ideal locations that I'd seen, but I hadn't photographed. Well, with the right combo of wind and sun last Saturday, I realized this was my time to put my money where my mouth is with my new camera. I hope this super-sweep of downtown mitigates the lack of river with other content. I've made the caption pretty detailed since it includes a lot of buildings and neighborhoods. I hope I wasn't presumptuous in swapping it. --Bobak (talk) 22:42, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Hm..... it's a haute photo for sure. I'd almost like it as an in-text panorama. I'm wondering could you take more pano photos but try to capture land surrounding the skyscrapers.

This SF one captures an iconic image with the downtown and surrounding neighborhoods.

.:davumaya:. 23:52, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I took this one of the St. Anthony Falls. I've tried a few others but I haven't stitched them yet. One I took on the same day as St. Anthony Falls from the Guthrie's Endless Bridge didn't quite work as well because the sun had set too much. I will try to retake it another time. SF and most of my ethnic homeland of California has mountains and other elevations that make awesome photos like that one you posted much easier. In the midwest you often have to work with a building or know someone with a helicopter... :-p --Bobak (talk) 00:32, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Darnit I use to have access to the Pillsbury Mill but its under construction now. The perfect shot I say is the Falls, skyline, and a little bit of East Downtown/Elliot Park from the northeast. Riverview Towers might give this angle. An alternative is if you can get onto one of those public housing high rises in Phillips and take a shot across the south Mpls neighborhoods, highway, and skyline. .:davumaya:. 00:45, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, my suggestion a year or so ago was to schedule a condo viewing at one of the condo towers across the river, bring a camera for the stated reason of taking photos of the condo room for your own memory, then also be sure to take a photo of the spectacular view you asked to also see... The only problem with across the river (St. Anthony area) is that the sun will often be against you. --Bobak (talk) 01:09, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Lol well the next tallest building across the river will be Phoenix on the River which is under construction. You'll need a decoy to distract the sales person, maybe take someone along as your "wife." :) .:davumaya:. 04:00, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Nice work, Bobak. Your timing and aspect ratio however are poor for main page nomination for 20 July. I'd suggest the long-standing skyline by gomattolson for another week. Thanks for the barnstar and for taking the time to support that nomination, davumaya. —SusanLesch (talk) 23:26, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind. The FAC director has chosen the city flag which I love. Peace. —SusanLesch (talk) 23:32, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Odd, isn't the city flag a fair use image? ~ Eóin (talk) 05:44, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Eóin, you're right (I forgot). It's the only non-free image in the article. Pretty funny. —SusanLesch (talk) 19:23, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

A more Main Page friendly crop of the panoramic photo

I can easily make a crop of the wide-photo to match whatever the preferred ratio is. I'll try and match a new version to the gomattolson's ratio. --Bobak (talk) 18:38, 18 July 2008 (UTC) --

Here we go, the same photo as above, but cut to a ration that fits what they might want on the main page. Now that I think about it (as it was already uploading), I can see good reasons for going with gomattolson's photo on the main page --it would show two different views of the downtown without cluttering up the main article. His angle is totally different than mine and shows the more old-world buildings of the North Loop (Warehouse District). Meh, now we have the option at least. --Bobak (talk) 19:05, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

(running out of :::s) I like this crop, has a little bit of everything. Theres a little church, little park, little plaza, orch hall, skyscrapers, old, retro and new buildings (Ivy!!!!!) Rawk, I keep dis. .:davumaya:. 19:08, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

The new skyline is great for later but IMHO not at 100px on the main page. Squint and see what you see (I see gray). OK with me to swap it back. Happy 150th by the way. :-) SusanLesch (talk) 22:57, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Two Things:

Two things I think should be addressed before tomorrow's big FA showing: 1. The library merger. It is currently stated that the libraries (Hennepin County and Minneapolis) are considering merging. This is, in fact, not true. They have now merged. 2. SOmething about the relatively newly implemented citywide Wi-Fi feature should be added, possibly in utilities, or economy where Wi-Fi is mentioned, but not pertaining to the citywide wifi. I can help, if need be. BobAmnertiopsis∴_ChatMe! 03:32, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

um... anyone notice all the pictures were replaced with nazi emblamns? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.255.143.104 (talk) 00:45, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

someone took care of that