Talk:Washington (state)/Archive 1

message: What county is this one?
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&z=13&ll=48.986751,-123.054256&spn=0.05272,0.130978&om=1
KyuuA4 21:12, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Point Roberts belongs to Whatcom County.  Myasuda 22:26, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Washington County Map

message: Moved article to clarify and to match ueage of Georgia (U.S. state) when more than one geographic entity shares a name. EdwinHJ | Talk  01:34, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems excessive to move the article, when none of the other geographic entities is likely to be confused with the state. --Yath 02:38, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: REVERTED! Cburnett 03:40, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Move of article

message: Anybody know what happened to the List of Washington State parks page? It was all filled in and ready to expand, but now the link is dead. Have our neighborhood Deletaholics flushed it? — RJH 23:17, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  State Parks 

message: I saw an edit that was probably well-intentioned, which I reverted, because it changed the total percentage of Christians from 71% to 73%, and that resulted in the grand total of all religions becoming 102%.
The reason I think the change was well-intentioned (although not explained at all, and not done by a logged-in user) is that the sub-categories of Christians add up to 73%.
The whole thing can be attributed to rounding error, I believe.  If a few of the sub-categories were rounded up to whole percentages, then they can, in aggregate, add up to quite a bit more than 71% even though the number of Christians comes to 71% of the total.
The right thing to do, in this case, absent a compelling reason to the contrary, is to leave the percentages as they are.--GraemeMcRae 20:39, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religious Affiliation Percentages 

message: I noticed in the text of the article a claim that Rossi was certified as the winner by the Secretary of State. That seems inconsistant with not only what I've heard, but the article on Wikipedia about the Washington gubernatorial election, 2004. Can someone check on the factual accuracy of this? Here is the specific text:
"In 2004, Washington's gubernatorial race was so close that the Secretary of State certified Republican candidate Dino Rossi as governor-elect almost a month after the polls had closed, beating out the Democratic candidate Christine Gregoire by just over two hundred votes."
Davidpdx 16:00, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't check to see where that sentence is in the context of the article, but that sentence refers to the original count of the votes (before the recount). This is confirmed at this official site. Notice the date of the last update, 12/23/04. EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 20:48, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

text: P.S.: Actually, that December date is the end of the final hand recount. Not sure of the exact date that the 200-vote margin was official, but the first recount was official on November 30th, as seen by this official article, which had a 42-vote margin.  EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 20:55, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, so it looks like maybe the Washington gubernatorial election, 2004 may have been the one that mislead me then. It doesn't state that on there, maybe it should. I don't know. I'm not really familiar with these pages (for the record I'm from Oregon). I was just curious though. Davidpdx 15:46, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rossi certification after election 

message: In my opinion, making Washington refer/redirect to Washington State is quite wrong. 
Worldwide, the word "Washington" is probably used most frequently to refer to Washington, D.C.. 
Many non-USA users have probably scarcely heard of Washington state (Imagine the confusion if "Paris" redirected to Paris, Idaho). The word is also used about as frequently to refer to George Washington and (according to Google) to various colleges and universities. We should change the current state of affairs. - 21 November 2005
:Washington, D.C. actually has a name other than "Washington". So does our friend George Washington, the University of Washington, and many other things, as you can easily see on Washington (disambiguation). The state, however, does not have another name. Its name is no more Washington State than Virginia's is Virginia State. (Washington State actually refers to something else entirely--follow the link.) Matt Yeager 23:26, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Nonetheless, couldn't Washington redirect to the disambiguation page and have this article at Washington (state)?  jfg284 you were saying? 06:35, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Not really. As the state is the only thing that properly is referred to as Washington, there's no need to have it anywhere else (contrast it with, say, Georgia (U.S. state), which is NOT the only thing properly referred to as Georgia). Matt Yeager 07:00, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: This redirect considered harmful

message: These should be merged. --Lukobe 23:22, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good to me.  I also noticed that someone linked 'Democratic Party' to the US Republican Party.  Nice trick, but I fixed it.  Chadlupkes 18:51, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Nice catch.  As per Lukobe's suggestion, a politics section that had been near the bottom of the page was merged into the Politics in Washington section without being smoothed over.  I've taken a shot at reducing the (whopping) redundancy, but the section could probably still use a lot of loving care—please feel free to step in and edit it if you can make it clearer! — Jonel | Speak 03:39, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two gov't sections 

message: The third paragraph regarding the name of Washington State, Washington D.C., and the battleship makes little sense and it confusing. Is Washington state named after George Washington or or a battleship? Does this paragraph seem cyclical somehow?
: Not only confusing, but also inaccurate.  All US Navy battleships (including both USS Washingtons) were named after states.  There were other ships in the US Navy named after George, however.  I've tried to clean it up - does it make more sense now? -- Jonel | Speak 20:26, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Naming of Washington State 

message: Washington should be moved to Washington (U.S. state) and Washington (disambiguation) to Washington. By Google Test, Washington state gets 515,000,000, "George Washington" gets 31,300,000, and "Washington DC" gets 513,000,000. Washington alone gets 1,100,000,000. There are more results not about the state than about it, and the state and capital are fairly even. With Georgia (which does have Georgia (U.S. state)), the ratio from Georgia state to Georgia is 205,000,000 to 309,000,000 (meaning Georgia is most commonly referred to as the state), yet it still has the parentheses in Wikipedia even though Georgia is about 2/3 the primary use. -- King of Hearts | (talk) 02:31, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  2nd Proposed Move 

message: is it really the most common search for Washington? I think maybe it'd be better for Washington to link to Washington (disambiguation and this page should be called Washington (state). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Yonatanh (talk • contribs) .
:This has already been discussed multiple times and the consensus was to leave things alone (or there was no consensus to change). --Lukobe 00:17, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Dab pages are horrible primary target pages. SchmuckyTheCat 04:22, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

text: 'Washington State' is a university (WSU).  Many people refer to Washington as Washington State, particularly in the east, to avoid confusion with Washington, DC.  However, this is not its official name.  Additionally, nothing else is officially named Washington, except the state.  No one would suggest that Colorado be disambiguated to avoid confusion between the state of Colorado, the Colorado River and pollo colorado. Lennon 22:58, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Although I agree that the current name of this article is appropriate, you should note that the official name of the U.S. capital is indeed "Washington", and when it is called "Washington, D.C.", the initials are merely added as a clarification, and are not part of its name. --Yath 00:22, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Uh uh. D.C. stands for District of Columbia. If it were merely an invention for clarification, D.C. would stand for nothing.--65.16.61.35 15:15, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Washington State 

message: I'm not sure if this has been mentioned on another article, but this new state slogan is definitely notable for the attention and negative press it got. -- Миборовский 08:34, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Say WA isn't the new state slogan. It's an advertising tag line. Kind of like Nike's "Just do it". --Bobblehead 15:40, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: NPR's website says it is:  -- Миборовский 20:25, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Might be a misunderstanding by what you mean by "slogan".  Washington's official nickname is still "The Evergreen State". According to the State's Tourist department "Say WA" is just the brand for tourist advertising, so not overly notable IMHO. Doesn't mean you can't add it, but considering none of the states I checked include the advertising brand on their articles I wouldn't say it's notable.. --Bobblehead 20:50, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The AP () refers to it as an "advertising slogan".  The phrase is just the brand (slogan, tag line, campaign pitch, catchphrase, whatever you want to call it) for tourist advertising; the amount of (mostly negative) press it's garnered makes me think a 1-2 sentence mention might be appropriate.  Certainly no I Love New York, though. -- Jonel | Speak 02:39, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, for heaven's sakes, please no. Please, please, please no. The fact that it would embarrass over six million people to have that information out on the internet probably isn't a just reason for keeping the phrase out of the article, but I really wish it would be. =/ Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 04:36, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There's a difference between a slogan and a nickname. Let's keep the (stupid) slogan out of this article. --Lukobe 05:22, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Do you live outside the Pacific NW?  The commercial is supposed to attract people to visit the state, so if you don't, then you shouldn't see the ads. --Bobblehead 19:29, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Say WA?! 

message: This article has been vandalized many times due to The Colbert Report satirizing Wikipedia and saying that Oregon is Washington's Mexico. I request that semi-protection for 7 days should be on this article --XMajinx 23:49, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Colbert Report Vandalism 

message: If I understand correctly, the latitude and longitude ranges are extreme values.  Because of the zigzag nature of the US/Canada border, small strips of the state exist north of 49-00-00 N.  The previous edit, 48-59, suggests that the northernmost extent of the state is more than a mile short of the international border.  See also 49th parallel north, especially the reference to Washington v. Norman.  I adjusted the value to 49-00. --Co149 06:08, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Range of Latitude 

message: The Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. states format has been updated to include a new Sports section, that covers collegiate sports, amateur sports, and non-team sports (such as hunting and fishing).  Please feel free to add this new heading, and supply information about sports in Washington.  Please see South_carolina#Sports_in_South_Carolina as an example. NorCalHistory 13:55, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New ''Sports'' section added to updated [[Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. states]] format   

message: I began to make some edits, but only got to the intro and a bit of the demographics.  Trying to emulate the structure style and citation template style used in the excellent Minnesota article.  This page's citation styles appear to be unstandardized and often lacking.  Hopefully my edits are ok and I can get around to doing more later. Pfly 16:35, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Improvements

message: A page about the December 2006 Pacific Northwest storms has been created. --Chris S. 20:13, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page about the windstorm 

message: Anyone mind if the image gallery is removed?  There are only two photos in it, which could simply be incorporated into the text rather than kept in a gallery. State articles are already very long and an image gallery just adds unnecessary bulk.Pfly 03:31, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Gallery