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A map of the US where city names are replaced by most Wikipedia’ed resident

pudding.cool

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Re: A map of the US where city names are replaced by most Wikipedia’ed resident

#111
post #98
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Birthplace would be interesting, but there’s plenty of famous/important people who are connected to a location other than their birthplace. Think sports stars who were on a team far away from their home.

Right, but I think that's a problem for large cities like Los Angeles. There's nothing particularly "Los Angeles" about Elon Musk that I know of, he's just really famous and (maybe?) happens to live there. And with birthplace, I think it's pretty interesting to browse the map for random tiny towns no one has heard of that happen to be the birthplaces of very famous people.

If I had to associate a place with Elon Musk, LA would probably be it. SpaceX is based in the LA area, and IIRC Musk does live down there somewhere (although I don't think it's in LA proper). Musk has also captured quite a lot of attention lately for his various antics and ventures.

The problem that LA has is that there are a lot of very famous people you might associate with it. It seems like a nearly impossible problem to solve.

I do agree that birthplace would be a more interesting map, but I think it would be more interesting for tiny places. I think LA would suffer from the exact same problem.

Re: A map of the US where city names are replaced by most Wikipedia’ed resident

#112
post #46

It's too bad there are so many duplicates. I think it would be more interesting if it was based on birthplace, since big cities that attract lots of businesspeople/celebrities just get tagged with someone really famous who doesn't have any particular connection with the city (e.g. Elon Musk on Los Angeles, Steve Jobs on basically everywhere in the Bay Area). The Wikidata "place of birth" field would probably be a rea…

I was born in Houston, Texas, but subsequently lived in 8 other cities in 6 states before I graduated from High School. I usually tell people I am from the last city I lived in when I graduated from High School (even though I haven't had any family that has lived there in decades and I haven't been back since I left for college), but really I don't have a "hometown". I'm not sure what the appropriate city would be for me if I became famous.

Re: A map of the US where city names are replaced by most Wikipedia’ed resident

#113
post #68

This is interesting in large part as a demonstration of how bizarre/indefinite the idea of being "from" a place is. For instance, Cambridge, MA isn't headlined by a famous MIT/Harvard academic, or local political figure, or even Neil Gaiman- but instead by Bhumibol Adulyadej, the previous king of Thailand, who was born there while his father was studying at Harvard, and left at the age of 2. Meanwhile, Boston gets Jo…

No mention of Bruce Springsteen along the entire Jersey shore too.

Jersey shore resident under the age of 100 here: Good! /s

That said, it's very weird. he's listed on wikipedia as tagged with "People from..." several towns in Monmouth county. Max Weinberg takes one town, but several of the towns Bruce is listed with are taken over by relatively unknown people (Sorry Mel Ferrer and Charlie Puth)

Re: A map of the US where city names are replaced by most Wikipedia’ed resident

#114

They've got an interesting definition of city... Seattle is all one city, but DC has Georgetown, Capitol Hill, and Dupont Circle in addition to a label for the entire city.

Go look at how far NYC gets broken down. Weird choices.

Re: A map of the US where city names are replaced by most Wikipedia’ed resident

#116
post #46

It's too bad there are so many duplicates. I think it would be more interesting if it was based on birthplace, since big cities that attract lots of businesspeople/celebrities just get tagged with someone really famous who doesn't have any particular connection with the city (e.g. Elon Musk on Los Angeles, Steve Jobs on basically everywhere in the Bay Area). The Wikidata "place of birth" field would probably be a rea…

I was born in Houston, Texas, but subsequently lived in 8 other cities in 6 states before I graduated from High School. I usually tell people I am from the last city I lived in when I graduated from High School (even though I haven't had any family that has lived there in decades and I haven't been back since I left for college), but really I don't have a "hometown". I'm not sure what the appropriate city would be fo…

Hey, are you me? My childhood wasn't as spread out as yours, but I still lived in four separate towns before I graduated high school, and then went off to college in a fifth town. The first two towns I lived in were close enough together I can name a vague region when someone asks where I'm from, but if they press for details I have a little story to tell.

Re: A map of the US where city names are replaced by most Wikipedia’ed resident

#117
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Birthplace would be interesting, but there’s plenty of famous/important people who are connected to a location other than their birthplace. Think sports stars who were on a team far away from their home.

Maybe, but it's still lame that Denver is represented by Peyton Manning. He was there a few years, but he isn't even the first person that the phrase "Denver quarterback" calls to mind.

I mean that probably proves he is Wiki'ed much more than John Elway. Mostly a recency thing I would guess.

Re: A map of the US where city names are replaced by most Wikipedia’ed resident

#119
post #105
post #59

Ah fuck, what a good idea and fun project this must have been. How do people come up with awesome ideas like this? Whenever I have time for a personal project it'll be like... "guess I'll uh.... make this LED on a raspberry pi blink... wheee"

I would bet you probably come up with a really good idea about once a week, and that's being conservative. The trick is just to store them in some always-accessible note taking app (e.g. Evernote, OneNote, Apple's Notes app) as soon as they come to you (i.e. in the middle of a totally unrelated lecture), and accumulate them over a long period of time (talking years here).

OP here. This idea was from looking at this map. https://www.wearedorothy.com/collections/music/products/u-s-...

Re: A map of the US where city names are replaced by most Wikipedia’ed resident

#120

So it's not "this is the person most wikipediaed in this city" but rather, "this is the person amongst those who are affiliated with this city, who is the most wikipediaed"

Your two version aren't in conflict, although the first is ambiguous. Are you just clarifying that that, in the first version, "in this city" is supposed to be a modifier of "person" rather than the "wikipediaed"?

They are totally different things. The first is influenced solely by Wikipedia users in the city in question. The second is influenced by a combination of all Wikipedia users and Wikipedia's association of people with the city in question.
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