[Wikipedia-l] Commons Database

[Thomas Dalton]

On 29/11/2007, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Nov 28, 2007 11:27 PM, Michal Rosa <michal.rosa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Just a quick example,
> > according to en Wiki the population of Washington DC is 581,530,
> > German Wiki says it's 548.360, according to French Wiki it's 553 523
> > and Polish Wiki states it's 582 049.
>
> What you're actually seeing here is what happens when data is stated
> to a higher degree of accuracy than is warranted.  When a number which
> changes daily is quoted so exactly, of course different sources will
> differ.  I'm not sure where this practise of stating populations as if
> they could be determined down to the individual person came from.

Populations determined from census results can just justifiably stated
to full precision, since a census is an exact count, not an estimate.
Of course, some people are always going to get missed out, but that's
a matter of accuracy, not precision (which is what you meant, I
think). Anyone announcing population figures not drawn directly from a
census that state it more precisely than nearest 100 are just kidding
themselves, IMHO, nearest thousand is probably more appropriate.