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In 2020, myself and a few other editors did a comprehensive redesign of this article's collage. We looked at the corpus of available quality images, considered the various visual signifiers of the city (going beyond just the touristy National Mall view), and applied established best practices for collage composition. The version we came up with (above left) I thought was really good. Unfortunately, image collages have a bad habit of deteriorating if not closely monitored, and when I checked in recently, it had deteriorated to the version on the right. Going through the changes:
The deteriorated version puts the captions under each individual image rather than at the bottom, breaking up its visual cohesion and increasing its overall length (which is particularly bad, since space is at a high premium given the article's already-long infobox). There can be an argument for doing that sometimes when the captions are really important (although personally I think such cases are very rare), but given that many of D.C.'s icons are globally recognizable, it's particularly weak here.
The 2020 design has a nice balance. It includes three images of iconic National Mall landmarks, but balances those with others: the National Cathedral, representing all D.C.'s landmarks outside the Mall; a featured picture of a WMATA station, a system known for its iconic architecture and encountered daily by many Washingtonians; storefronts in Adams Morgan, giving a sense of D.C.'s economic character and local neighborhoods; and displays in the Air and Space Museum to represent the Smithsonian museums.
The choices in the deteriorated version, by contrast, are weak. Collage images appear smaller than normal ones, so it's important that they look good at small scale. The top image is far too zoomed out to work for that — the Capitol building is miniscule, and basically nothing else is visible. Farther down, I'm flattered that an image I took of the Wharf is used, but it's very generic — it could be a marina in any city, so does nothing to visually identify D.C. The image of Georgetown is also so far zoomed out that the only identifiable element is the Key Bridge, which is not exactly the Golden Gate. The Smithsonian Castle image, while nice, is a poorer choice to represent D.C.'s museums than a gallery interior — someone who doesn't live here is unlikely to know what that building is, so it just adds to this article's overload of building exterior images rather than instantly connoting museums.
Given all this, I propose that we restore the curated 2020 design. Courtesy pinging Cristiano Tomás, who reverted my recent attempt to do so, and APK, who was involved in the redesign. Sdkbtalk 00:45, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm trying to figure out why including an interior Metro image is ludicrous. Metro's interior brutalist design is an iconic feature. Overall there are way too many photos in the article. Same goes for a lot of the neighborhood pages. APKhi :-) (talk) 03:57, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, APK.
Seeing no further engagement from others, I'm going to restore the edit. Sdkbtalk 03:34, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Cristiano Tomás has now reverted the edit twice, without engaging here, most recently with summary restoring stable montage - it is BAD PRACTICE to have INDOOR IMAGES in a city's montage, I dont know how many times I have to write this. From Tokyo to Toronto, Paris to Beijing, London to Los Angeles. There doesn't seem to be any blanket consensus that I'm aware of that it is bad practice to have indoor images in the city, and examples of other cities that don't happen to have indoor images doesn't constitute one. Building from first principles, images in city collages ought to be visual signifiers representative of the city, and if indoor images fit that bill, why not use them? Sdkbtalk 03:59, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, here's another vote for the 2020 version, basically for all the reasons given by @APK: better photography, iconic Metro design, and a nod to the Mall museums (easily the most-visited things in the city and the most-visited museums in the hemisphere). PRRfan (talk) 05:20, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Do you think we could replace the current image of the National Cathedral with a more recent one that has neutral coloration and no vignette? The current one looks like an amateur holiday picture compared to the other images. –Tobias (talk) 15:05, 17 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Does the current one have non-neutral coloration? It seems fine to me, but I don't feel strongly. Sdkbtalk 16:11, 17 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Sdkb Unfortunate wording, my bad. I'd call it rather unnatural. The current image is dark, the depths even more so, and the building appears to have a color gradient from yellowish to almost dark grey, despite being actually white. Since we're on the topic: we could possibly crop the image of the Capitol to center the dome a bit more. –Tobias (talk) 17:10, 17 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
1965 map...
See in this edit:
The legend on the map notes that it was "photorevised" in 1983. That revision appears to have removed most of the "tempos" which were in the mall area until around 1970 (the caption is inaccurate because it does not take the revision into account) TEDickey (talk) 00:53, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Semi-protected edit request on 4 May 2024
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The geocode currently provided for Washington, D.C. actually corresponds to Baltimore, Maryland.
I think a better geocode would be 38.8896421,-77.0079272, which is the U.S. Congress building. NDMIwiki (talk) 15:39, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@NDMIwiki: Hi! I'm seeing coordinates at the top of the article that are for a point roughly north of the Capitol Building and no other coordinates. Where in the article are you seeing the coordinates that are for a Baltimore location? ~ Pbritti (talk) 16:06, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I apologize — looking at it now looks fine, but when I looked at it earlier and clicked, it took me to a location in downtown Baltimore. It may have just been a glitch in translation, or momentary. NDMIwiki (talk) 20:36, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Semi-protected edit request on 5 May 2024
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The first paragraph of this wiki should be replaced with this amended and more acurate version*********
"Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia,(renamed in 1871) formally the Territory of Columbia (named Sep 9th 1791) and now commonly called Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States.
The city of Washington is positioned on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with Maryland to its north and east. The city of Washington, was named for one of our founding fathers and 1st President, George Washington. The surrounding territory, the District of Columbia, was named in honor of Christopher Columbus. Columbia, being the female personification of Columbus, and at the time, it was a commonly known patriotic reference for the United States during the American Revolution. The city of Washington was founded in 1790. When Congress passed the residence Act, the 100 square mile territory established around would eventually become the Territory and then District of Columubia. Although the territory would not be recognized by the states, that it was taken from until 1801. Even so, the 6th Congress season was held in the unfinished capital building in 1800. 2603:6080:EA05:A148:84E3:7DD4:BCEF:4E8A (talk) 05:52, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not done. Too much detail for a lead's first sentence, less concise, and not within MOS. ~ Pbritti (talk) 15:59, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Splitting the article
There is a diffrence between Washigton D.C. and the District of Coloumbia. Blackmamba31248 (talk) 01:53, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And what is that difference? --Golbez (talk) 04:58, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Washington is the City and Coloumbia is the district it belongs to. Blackmamba31248 (talk) 14:23, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Okay but that's not saying they're any different. There is one entity, the District of Columbia, which is also known as "Washington". Just like how the City and County of San Francisco are the exact same entity, or the city of New Orleans and Orleans Parish. We need more than Blackmamba31248 saying they're different to split the article, you need to explain why and how. --Golbez (talk) 14:50, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, yes. Orleans Parish and New Orleans are seperate polities, along with Washigton and Coloumbia. Blackmamba31248 (talk) 15:12, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The state of Louisiana disagrees - Orleans Parish is equal to the city of New Orleans. They are the same entity, in all ways. Just like how Washington and the district are the same entity. --Golbez (talk) 19:46, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also, this is your third time now, perhaps at some point you'll figure out how the article is spelled that you want created. --Golbez (talk) 19:47, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Fine. I was unaware of this. Discussion closed. Blackmamba31248 (talk) 19:55, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
FAR
FAR absolutely needed, unless someone’s willing to save the article here. the most prominent problem is in the number of citations needed, in addition to numerous unsourced sentences/paragraphs. other problems include the excessively long lead, the [unreliable source?] and [obsolete source] tags, and the numerous single-sentence paragraphs. if i’m being honest, most city WP:GA articles are better than this. 750h+ 14:56, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
level-4 vital article is rated FA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
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Not done. Too much detail for a lead's first sentence, less concise, and not within MOS. ~ Pbritti (talk) 15:59, 5 May 2024 (UTC)
