User talk:Worldbruce

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Welcome to Wikipedia, Worldbruce! Thank you for your contributions. I am Sminthopsis84 and I have been editing Wikipedia for some time, so if you have any questions feel free to leave me a message on my talk page. You can also check out Wikipedia:Questions or type {{help me}} at the bottom of this page. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I see that you haven't done a lot of editing over the years, so a warm welcome seems appropriate at last. It's very gratifying to see you working on the Bangladesh upazila articles, which could use all the help they can get! I look forward to seeing you around. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:03, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

SM Sultan

It was done automatically by the software, rather than being a change that I intentionally applied. Looking over what happened, though, I believe the problem was that you were using the <ref name=german><!-- Gloss by itself --></ref> format in the article body. That doesn't work as intended, unfortunately — a gloss can't be split off from the reference content in that manner so that it's standing alone as the only content nested inside a particular invocation of the ref tags, but rather has to be directly next to the actual content of the reference it's glossing.

So in this particular case, if the gloss is necessary for one particular invocation of the reference but not applicable to others, it might be necessary to create a separate ref=german2 citation for the content that needs to be specifically glossed as "supports solo", citing the specific page number in the source that "supports solo" instead of the entire page range of ref=german, so that the gloss can be left in the references list alongside the content of that particular citation.

Hope that helps a bit. Bearcat (talk) 15:30, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Dhaka

Hello, again. Thought I'd continue this on your page. After further research, I was able to find some maps showing the defined municipal limits of the north and south Dhaka city corporations:

Map 1

Map 2

These probably don't include the recent incorporation of more land and suburbs into the city corporations, but they at least show the thanas and upazilas. I guess my final question is how the Dhaka Statistical Metropolitan Area (seen in the second map) is defined? Are the building blocks for this upazilas/thanas or something else? If it's upazilas/thans, exactly which ones outside the city corporation are included in this statistical metropolitan area? It seems that the Greater Dhaka page includes this Dhaka Metropolitan Area and then many, many other upazilas/thanas and municipal corporations. I know see that the term "Dhaka City" actually refers to the "Dhaka Statistical Metropolitan Area" as opposed to the incorporated city, which is how we'd define "city" here in the United States. I'd like us to nail down the area and most recent census population numbers for: Dhaka City Corporation (north and south) and Dhaka Statistical Metropolitan Area, and then on the city's page to be clear throughout the article what we're talking about when we mention "Dhaka" or "city." I might even look into "Greater Dhaka," but that doesn't seem to be an officially defined area, and we'd have to figure out which upazilas (and which parts when the it's only part of them) are included. For that, we'd have to delve down into a level even below upazilas, which I guess are union parishads.

Thanks! --Criticalthinker (talk) 10:54, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

A noble quest, Criticalthinker. I have more than a gigabyte of 2011 census data from the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. Give me a few days to poke through their reports and see what answers I can come up with. --Worldbruce (talk) 05:58, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for this. I have one additional question that I thought you might have the answer to. In the city and municipal corporations, are wards a subdivision of the upazilas/thanas whithin those corporations, or of the city corporations, themselves? I guess what I'm wondering is if, as optional divisions, if wards cross upazila/thana borders in cities, or if they are fully contained within their upazilas/thanas? This is just a personal curiosity, not much relating to my interest in redoing the civic administration on Dhaka's page, as I imagine it'd be hard enough to find a total list of thana/upazilas in Dhaka, let alone exactly how many wards it has. --Criticalthinker (talk) 11:11, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Wards follow city/municipal corporation boundaries, but don't always align with thana boundaries. I'm not aware of any that cross three thana borders, but plenty include portions of two thanas. In contrast, union parishads, the administrative unit below upazilas, are always wholly contained within their upazila. Dhaka's councillors are elected by ward, so when there are municipal elections someone knows exactly how many wards there are, what their boundaries are, what their populations are, who ran for election, and who won. They don't necessarily share the details though, or keep any information that is publicly accessible up to date. --Worldbruce (talk) 16:10, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. This is what I figured and wanted to be sure of, and it's pretty similar to most other countries. Wards are an electoral division of cities/municipalities as opposed to being in the system of administrative divisions. Since I got that out of the way, this gives me another question: When cities or municipalities want to expand into surrounding areas and they don't annex entire upazilas/thanas, are they required to annex entire union parishads/municipalities/cities (administrative divisions) or can they simply annex specific wards (electoral divisons) of those union parishads/municipalities/cities. To put it more simply, do you know of any cities/municipalities which have jurisdiction over only parts of territory adjacent union parishads or other cities/municipalities? --Criticalthinker (talk) 08:59, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

@Criticalthinker: I've never before had occasion to dig into these questions in depth. What I found upends some of my assumptions. Read on. --Worldbruce (talk) 22:02, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

2011 Census

The key source for Dhaka census data is: "Population & Housing Census 2011: National Report Volume-3: Urban Area Report" (PDF). Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. It gives the following historical background:

The Dhaka Municipality was established in 1864 ... The municipal committee was reconstituted as paurashava in 1972 ... In 1983 it was replaced as Dhaka Municipal Corporation and finally in 1991 it got the status of a city corporation.

When the report refers to the city (usually as Dhaka City, but also Dhaka Metropotitan [sic] City or Dhaka Metropolitan Area) it means an area larger than that covered by Dhaka City Corporation (DCC). A third entity, Dhaka Mega City, larger than Dhaka City, is mentioned briefly.

Dhaka City

The report describes the city as follows:

[The city] consists of 42 thanas including Dhaka City Corporation with 92 wards, 2 restricted areas, and 837 mahallas and its adjoining 17 unions as other urban area. The thanas are Adabar, Badda, Bangshal, Bimanbandar, Cantonment, Chakbazar, Darusalam, Demra, Dakshin Khan, Dhanmondi, Gendaria, Ghulshan, Hazaribagh, Jatrabari, Kadamtali, Kafrul, Kalabagan, Kamrangir Char, Khilgaon, Khilkhet, Kotwali, Lalbagh, Mirpur, Mohammadpur, Motijheel, Newmarket, Palton, Pallabi, Ramna, Rampura, Sabujbagh, Shah Ali, Shahbagh, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, Shyampur, Sutrapur, Tejgaon, Tejgaon Industrial area, Tongi, Uttara, Uttar Khan and Wari.

Their phrasing is difficult to parse without studying their tables, and I hope you can come up with a clearer explanation. Breaking it down, Dhaka City consists of the 42 listed thanas. Another way to put it is that Dhaka City consists of DCC plus 2 restricted areas and 17 union parishads. Those 17 unions are parts of 12 of the thanas, specifically the portions of those thanas that extend outside DCC. (Four of those unions are split among thanas, something I didn't know could happen).

		Union
		Badda	Beraid	Bhatara	Dakshingaon	Dakshinkhan	Demra	Dhania	Dumni	Harirampur	Manda	Matuail	Nasirabad	Saralia	Satarkul	Shyampur	Sultanganj	Uttar Khan
Thana	Badda	•	•	•											•
	Biman Bandar					part
	Dakshinkhan					part
	Demra						•					part		•
	Jatrabari							part				part
	Kadamtali							part				part				•
	Kamrangirchar																•
	Khilgaon				part								•
	Khilkhet					part			•
	Sabujbag				part						•
	Turag									•
	Uttarkhan																	•

The city is divided into 92 wards, but one doesn't need to know that to understand the census area and population. The number of mahallas is also a red herring.

According to the 2011 Bangladesh census, Dhaka City had an area of 315.98 sq km, and a population of 8,906,039. According to the 2001 census, it had an area of 1371 sq km, and a population of 9,672,763. There is a discussion, that I will leave to you to read, of how the census bureau abandoned the concept of Statistical Metropolitan Areas (SMAs) after the 2001 census and how that makes comparisons between the censuses difficult.

DCC

Historical population

Year	Pop. (000)	±%
1981	2,476	—
1991	3,613	+45.9%
2001	5,327	+47.4%
2011	6,970	+30.8%
2011 population excludes the restricted areas of Biman Bandar and Cantonment Source: Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics

According to the 2011 Bangladesh census, DCC had an area of 126.34 sq km, and a population of 6,970,105. The 2011 census excluded from DCC the two restricted areas, Biman Bandar and Cantonment, which previously had been included in the DCC line item. I believe this accounts for the decrease in the area of DCC from 153.84 sq km in 2001. The exclusion of the restricted areas also decreased population somewhat, but that was more than offset by population growth.

Dhaka Mega City

The report doesn't say much about Dhaka Mega City, but it is evident that they define it as Dhaka City plus five paruashavas (municipal corporations), and six upazilas. The paruashavas are: Gazipur, Tongi, Savar, Narayanganj, and Kadam Rasul. The upazilas are: Keraniganj, Bandar, Narayanganj Sadar, Gazipur Sadar, and Savar Upazila. According to the 2011 Bangladesh census, Dhaka Mega City had a population of 14,171,567.

Subsequent events

After the 2011 census, DCC was split into DNCC and DSCC.

In May 2016, DNCC was expanded from 82.63 sq km to 114.58 square kilometres (44.24 sq mi), and DSCC was expanded from 45 sq km to 64.17 square kilometres (24.78 sq mi).

Basic arithmetic is not original research, so we should be able to compute the population, as of 2011, of the area now within the bounds of DNCC and DSCC. This post is getting long, so I'll leave that for another day. --Worldbruce (talk) 22:02, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

References

Thanks. This is a lot to take in but it answer basically all of my questions. To sum everything up:

- Like in most places I've studied, municipal and administrative divisions are two different layers. As an example, we've learned that city/municipal/union councils can exist in multiple thanas/upazilas. These municipalities are overlaid atop the administrative divisions.

- Apparently, when Dhaka's two city corporations annex land from surrounding municipalities, they annex entire council areas and not just parts of the council areas.

- Dhaka City Corporation (now split between DNCC and DSCC) is what we'd call a "city proper" and this is what the page should be centered around as it relates to the population and area listed in the infobox and throughout. So, at the most recent census (2011) we had a city proper with a population of 6,970,105 at 127.63 sq km in size. While we won't have an official population until the next census (though, there are certainly estimates), what we do know is that the city proper with the addition of 16 union councils has now added an additional 178.75 sq km to the existing 127.63 square miles for a total area of 306.38 sq km.

- Dhaka "City" is a statistical area/definition that adds in close-by suburbs. To better differentiate it from the city proper, I'd most likely almost always refer to it by it's official name to avoid confusion: Dhaka Statistical Metropolitan Area. What I'm far less clear of is the whole 42 thanas thing, so it'd need to be specified which of these thanas are totally within the two city corporations, which whole thanas exist outside of the two city corporations, and then finally which parts (union councils) of the remaining thanas are included. I'm not sure if the 42 number is just the thanas in the city corporations or if the 42 number is whole thanas and parts of others.

Anyway, thanks, again. If you ever need me for any advice if you ever try to clarify the page, always feel free to ask. --Criticalthinker (talk) 12:37, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Actually, the more I think about this the more I want a list so we know which complete thanas/upazilas and which parts of others (the unions) make up the two municipal corporations. I want to be able to clearly define this. Also, do you happen to know the translation of the texts on this map in the map's key? Because that might help with this. --Criticalthinker (talk) 08:10, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Sorry to bug you Worldbruce, but were you ever able to compile a list of all of the thanas completely under the jurisdiction of the two Dhaka city corporations, and then those union councils under the city coporations in the adjacent thanas/upazilas?

Hello? --Criticalthinker (talk) 08:22, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi Criticalthinker. Your question is not forgotten. I was on the road, and consequently not editing, for a couple months earlier this year, and have never caught up from that. As near as I recall, all the necessary information is in the above references, it's just a matter of digging it out. Anyone can do that, you don't have to wait for me. I don't think the map on the Dhaka District page contains enough detail to be useful for your purpose. The legend reads, from top to bottom: District borders, Thana, Union, Thana headquarters, and District headquarters. What it calls thanas have, since 1984, been called upazilas, it doesn't show any subdivisions within the city, and it doesn't show all the unions. --Worldbruce (talk) 15:12, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

I only ask you, because I have tried researching this myself. You've layed out many of the problems I find: the maps don't show the thana/upazilas, or the ones that do don't show the unions. It becomes even more difficult given that I don't speak or read the language. Curiously, there seems to be many maps showing the wards, but those aren't administrative divisions of the state. We've nailed down that the two municipal corporations includes both thanas in their entirety (though, we still don't have a comprehensive list of even these), but also that they include only parts of thanas (unions), too, but nailing down which of those unions belong to the two city corporations has proven very difficult. --Criticalthinker (talk) 06:44, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Page mover granted

Hello, Worldbruce. Your account has been granted the "extendedmover" user right, either following a request for it or demonstrating familiarity with working with article names and moving pages. You are now able to rename pages without leaving behind a redirect, and move subpages when moving the parent page(s).

Please take a moment to review Wikipedia:Page mover for more information on this user right, especially the criteria for moving pages without leaving redirect. Please remember to follow post-move cleanup procedures and make link corrections where necessary, including broken double-redirects when suppressredirect is used. This can be done using Special:WhatLinksHere. It is also very important that no one else be allowed to access your account, so you should consider taking a few moments to secure your password. As with all user rights, be aware that if abused, or used in controversial ways without consensus, your page mover status can be revoked.

Useful links:

• Wikipedia:Requested moves
• Category:Articles to be moved, for article renaming requests awaiting action.

If you do not want the page mover right anymore, just let me know, and I'll remove it. Thank you, and happy editing! Alex Shih^Talk 21:54, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Speedy deletion declined: Bangladesh–Tanzania relations

Hi there, and thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia! I wanted to let you know that I have declined your G4 speedy deletion nomination of Bangladesh–Tanzania relations because it is not sufficiently similar to the version deleted via discussion in 2018. If you believe this article does not meet Wikipedia's notability criteria, feel free to nominate the article for deletion via AfD. I hope this makes sense! Let me know if you have any follow-up questions, comments, and/or concerns. Thank you! Significa liberdade (she/her) (talk) 15:37, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

@Significa liberdade: Thank you for examining it. So that I may address the differences in a deletion nomination, may I have a copy of the deleted article restored to my user space, draft space, or wherever you choose? (Or, since the current article is a translation from Bengali to English of bn:তানজানিয়া–বাংলাদেশ সম্পর্ক, which in turn is a translation from English to Bengali of the deleted article, does it need to be restored anyway and history merged to preserve attribution?) Thanks. --Worldbruce (talk) 15:51, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Hi, @Worldbruce! I've temporarily restored the article in my sandbox and will redelete in one week. Please let me know if you attribution needs to be fixed. Significa liberdade (she/her) (talk) 18:19, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

I have now re-deleted the article from my sandbox. Significa liberdade (she/her) (talk) 18:21, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Worldbruce, I've seen you around, esp. at the library, and I just wanted to say thank you for your ongoing dedication to our beautiful project. Also, I really want to tell you that you got a pretty cool user name. May we all be citizens of the world. Drmies (talk) 21:02, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious

Seven years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:12, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

For you

Hi Worldbruce,
I guess you need this: List of members of the 1st Provincial Assembly of East Pakistan. Mehedi Abedin 20:53, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

Resource access

How to access "Biographical Encyclopedia of Pakistan" for free? Do you have pdf of the book? Mehedi Abedin 00:19, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

@Mehedi Abedin: I don't know of anywhere that offers a free digital copy of the whole thing. I have pdfs of selected pages of the 1960-61, 1969-70, and 1971-72 editions (70+ pages in all), scanned during past visits to libraries. Unfortunately, none of those libraries are nearby, so I can't easily get more. If you have a list of names or page numbers, I can check whether I happen to have those pages. If I don't, WP:RX will be your best bet. --Worldbruce (talk)

take a look

Hi, Can you take a look here, please? I asked them to add a secondary source for it, but they reverted my edit without addressing the issue. আফতাবুজ্জামান (talk) 21:27, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

C. W. Kim article (resources)

		The Good Heart Barnstar
		I really appreciate your help and the time you gave to this. Cheers Mme Maigret (talk) 05:30, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

United National Liberation Front of Western South East Asia close

Hey there, I just wanted to ask why you closed that discussion as no consensus rather than consensus against the proposal. I don't have many strong feelings, but I think everyone participating disagreed with the proposal and it might be good to shut it down as it's the 2nd time that the article has been nominated for the same merge/deletion. EmeraldRange (talk/contribs) 15:37, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

@EmeraldRange: Let me preface my answer with some general observations. The advantage of funneling merge proposals through AfD is potentially greater and more timely participation, particularly for pages with few watchers. I've noticed, however, that participants react to merge proposals at AfD with an AfD mindset. They are accustomed to thinking primarily in terms of whether the topic is notable (keep) or not notable (delete).

I carefully considered whether to close the discussion as consensus against or as no consensus to merge to the proposed target. All three participants opposed the proposal, so how did I determine consensus?

Two participants' reasons (yours and Raihanur's) were overly focused on notability. Flyingphoenixchips didn't assert in the proposal that the topic is non-notable, or that any information should be removed from Wikipedia. Notability is a necessary condition for a stand alone article, but not a sufficient one. It is not a guarantee that a topic will necessarily be handled as a separate, stand-alone page. Lack of notability is only one of five common reasons to merge.

Participants all commented on the nominator and the quality of their nomination: you, before you found out that merge proposals do go through AfD now; Raihanur, with innuendo about multiple nominations (even through the second was immediately closed as a duplicate, and one of the !votes in the original discussion was for merge); and Yue, concluding the nominator was either using LLM or was incompetent. Ouch!

On his part, the nominator started things off on the wrong foot and failed to make a clear case for merging. On their part, participants didn't consider reasons for merging other than notability, or discuss the proposed target or any other possible targets. So the discussion could not be closed as consensus against merging — anywhere, for any reason, ever.

I also considered contributing to the discussion, relisting, or doing nothing and leaving it for someone else to close. None of those offered real hope of a stronger consensus.

The final aspect that factored into my close was the observation in WP:NOCONSENSUS that "some editors may use the phrase no consensus or 'no consensus to support' as a softer way to describe a rejected proposal". --Worldbruce (talk) 01:05, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your explanation! As you saw I am new to the idea of using AfD for merge discussions so I appreciate your nomination so I can understand future discussions better! Cheers. EmeraldRange (talk/contribs) 01:19, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

@Flyingphoenixchips: If I may switch from my closer hat to my Dutch uncle one, don't try again on this article. I know how vexing it is to be unable to convince colleagues of something. But sometimes you have to walk away and trust that the system will work. Eventually someone else will improve the article or persuade others to merge or even delete it. Until then there are 7,208,216 other articles to work on. --Worldbruce (talk) 01:08, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

for sure! agree with this @Worldbruce Flyingphoenixchips (talk) 01:31, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks

The thanks were for helping bring that discussion to a consensus following the sock intervention. Ever been asked if you wish to be an admin? Kind regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 00:32, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

No one has ever suggested seeking the mop. The community values content creation in admin candidates, and historically I've been more of a gnome. --Worldbruce (talk) 00:56, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

There's a lot of admin work that requires gnoming. I think the content question is applied far more strictly the younger one's Wikipedia age and also in the context of what else an editor brings to the table. Feel free to tell me you're not interested or will give it some thought. But I've seen you around AfD long enough to feel you'd be a net positive. Kind regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 11:38, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

Article on Khas migration into Nepal

Hello Worldbruce,

Hope you are well,

I was wondering if you interested in a Wikipedia article I am creating. The article is called ‘Khas migration into Nepal’. The khas are a branch of the indo-aryan peoplee. If you want to check out the article here it is:

Khas migration into Nepal Nish Aryal (talk) 00:55, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

No, the topic is not in my area of interest. You've created 12 new drafts in 18 days. You may be putting too much energy into creating new articles, one of the most difficult tasks on Wikipedia, and arguably less important than maintaining and improving articles that already exist. --Worldbruce (talk) 01:30, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

quick request

Hi, just a quick request, please don't ping me into arguments. Gnomingstuff (talk) 23:10, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

CS1 error on Bangladesh–Pakistan relations

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