Talk:Minnesota/Archive 4

message: What needs to be done to make this article featured? ReverendG 04:04, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Alot :) It need to meet the criteria at Wikipedia:What is a featured article? and I would think it needs to be as good or better than the other state pages. I think getting every section to the size of a subpage and then splitting them off and having a summary would be a good next step. It should probably end up with 50+ refeences, anything that is controvercial at all needs a reference.  -Ravedave 04:22, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, once we think the article is ready, we should have the article peer reviewed before we send the article off for the Featured Article review process.  That way, if there are any particular problems that need to be addressed, we can fix them before the FA process.  I'm not sure we really need to split everything off into a subpage, though -- if the article is just a number of links to lists, then it won't make FA.  On the other hand, there's certainly room to do subarticles that treat sections in more depth.  I'm planning to make the History section a good general overview of the state's history, and then after that expand History of Minnesota to include more details and to be more in-depth about things.  --Elkman - (Elkspeak) 06:26, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: definitly agree on the peer review. I just mean that if we can make each section large enough to be split off then we will have enough info for a good section in the MN article. Example: The history section is quite large, and pretty well written and that section has a subpage. -Ravedave 14:40, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

text: What is needed? First, correct errors. (The proposed North Star commuter line is not light rail; the Iron Range does not include Duluth; and is it really true that rail-borne traffic has declined?) Second, provide more authority (and a search for such citations will reduce the incidence of errors).  Third, fill gaps.  (A section on Culture which discusses hot dish but fails to mention the Guthrie, Minnesota Orchestra, SPCA, etc. is clearly lacking.)  Fourth, provide some analysis, not just lists.  Can't a few these lists be relegated to another page?  Being new to this game, I'll do some additions (and edits) as time allows but I'm reluctant to delete the work of others.  But given the length of the article shouldn't we look to relocate some of the more trivial or highly detailed information (for example, lists of highways)?  The history section is good, but is already long even though it ends in 1862.  Kablammo 03:15, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

text: In progress-- Revise Transportation section; sections for water and air transportation to be added, then redundant info on transportation to be removed from rest of article.  Kablammo 17:54, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Good work! Don't forget air transit. :) -Ravedave 22:01, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Article Status

message: This section has been revised to put the laundry list of companies into general categories. It however remains a temptation for everyone to add their own favorite company, and several of the better pages for other states do not have such a list.  I propose to delete the list of companies (maybe put them in a separate page) but keep a few paragraphs summarizing the states's transition from raw material production to processing and manufacturing, and the more recent growth of service and high-tech industries.  That should also shorten the section.  Kablammo 20:28, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Economy/Industry and Commerce 

message: Suggested changes:
:-Add an "Arts" section to "culture"; edit and shorten existing text and retitle it as "Popular Culture"
:-Make "Education" section a subsection of a broader section dealing with Health, Education, and Social Welfare, or words to that effect, and add the missing subsections.  Health should touch on U of M research and Mayo.  Social Welfare should deal with social services and perhaps also philanthropy. Relevant statistics could be included or cited in these subsections.
:-Somewhere add a section on media?
Are these appropriate?  And are there people who can do them?  Kablammo 16:01, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I want to finish the history section (i.e. mention briefly the urbanization in the early 20th century and mention the evolution of the healthcare and computer industries in the 1950s/1960s), and flesh out a few other things.  Also, I want to edit it to make it more succinct.  I should be able to finish that up by midweek next week.  (I pretty much have to; I'll be away from July 27 through August 4 or so.)  --Elkman - (Elkspeak) 04:18, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I started writing a media section, but I think it would just turn into a big list...Also everything would be Minneapolis/Metro centric. Any ideas on how we could get around that?-Ravedave 18:10, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We can't cover it all, so all you can really do is an overview.  Cetainly WCCO and the Hubbard empire should be mentioned.  Many of the outstate papers are now owned by a few large companies, and of course Clear Channel is dominant in radio.  And Minnesota Public Radio cannot be ignored (and has a separate article already).   But that's about the extent of my knowledge-- glad you are taking this on.  Kablammo 18:49, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Re: "Make "Education" section a subsection"... How about "Social issues" with Education, Health, Crime, and Social Welfare under it? -Ravedave 18:58, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree; make it a subsection.  I wouldn't use the word "Issues" however.  "The Social Milieu"?  "The Social Environment"? "Health, Education, and Social Welfare"?  Or your list?  Matters not to me . . .  On other topics-- I'm going to wait for Elkman to do his edit on history before I do another pass at the Economy and Transportation sections.  His excellent history touches on some of the things now mentioned there, so I may be able to remove some items (and refrain from adding others) depending on his final edit.  Kablammo 21:04, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  How about Socio-economic conditions? stats about personal income and demographics should probably go in the section as well... -Ravedave 23:07, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

text:  I think I'm basically finished with the history section at this point.  It might be a little more wordy than the rest of the article -- if that's the case, feel free to edit it down.  If I've mentioned something in the history section that's repeated elsewhere, especially in regard to economy and transportation, go ahead and remove it from one or the other if necessary.  I'm planning to work on History of Minnesota itself after we're done with the main article (and after I get back from vacation), since that article needs work.  --Elkman - (Elkspeak) 04:05, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Additional Topics 

message: If someone wants to expand the crime section there are some interesting topics to cover. Try googling "Minnesota gangster", "red lake shooting", "meth in minnesota", "police history minnesota", "jesse james minnesota", "Minnesota Department of Public Safety", "glensheen duluth murder", and finally "gangs minnesota". -Ravedave 06:28, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Crime

message: To be done:
Terain
:Needs to be sourced and edited for better flow. 
Flora and Fauna
:Add description of types of fauna
Protected Lands
:merge info on outdoor activities (now in Popular Culture) here?
History
:add summarization of MN hist (4-6 paragraphs)
Economy
:less 'facty' intro to ease the reader in. 
:Industry and commerce—rewrite; limit to Fortune 500 
Culture
:Fine arts and architecture
::Add mention of significant authors (Ole Rolvaag, Sinclair Lewis, F. Scott Fitzgerald, etc.); add "letters" to title
::Add a few significant buildings
:Entertainment
::summarize and cut significantly
:Popular Culture
::move discussion on outdoor activities to Protected Lands?
::copyedit and condense
Socio-Economic
:Crime and safety
::delete refs to metro area
::add discussion and statewide stats on crime rate, incarceration rate, trends
Transportation 
:correct
:add sentence on traffic congestion
:road funding
Politics
:rewrite, reduce
:limit discussion of recent elections
Media
:add public radio (partially done)
:Note WCCO
Agree?  Disagree? No pride of authorship-- edit mercilessly (including text above).  Kablammo 16:40, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Added terrain. Also these are the other state articles that are of Good Article status: Illinois, Kentucky and Michigan. Illinois seems to be the best of them. -Ravedave 02:35, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  To be done (as of August 15, 2006) 

message: According to WP:FOOTNOTE, for footnotes, the footnote should be located right after the punctuation mark, such that there is no space inbetween. For example, change blah blah [2]. to blah blah.[2] -Ravedave 03:49, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Note on style 

message: Might I propose that the "Socio-economic" section be renamed to something like "Social services"? Firstly, socio-economic isn't even a noun, it's an adjective. Secondly, the section really has nothing to do with economics.--Daveswagon 04:29, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Muhahaha my evil plan to have someone else give the section a good name has worked! Have at it :) -Ravedave 04:49, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd prefer an additional opinion on the matter, if possible.--Daveswagon 13:15, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Socio-economic?

message: The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.
*Consider removing links that add little to the article or that have been repeated in close proximity to other links to the same article, as per WP:MOS-L and WP:CONTEXT.
*Per WP:CONTEXT and WP:MOSDATE, months and days of the week generally should not be linked. Years, decades, and centuries can be linked if they provide context for the article. - cant find any
*Per WP:MOS, avoid using words/phrases that indicate time periods relative to the current day.  See footnote
*Per WP:MOSNUM, there should be a non-breaking space -   between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 18mm, use 18 mm, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 18 mm.See footnote
*Per WP:MOSNUM, when doing conversions, please use standard abbreviations: for example, miles -> mi, kilometers squared -> km², and pounds -> lb. cant find any
*Per WP:CONTEXT and WP:BTW, years with full dates should be linked; for example, link January 15, 2006, but do not link January 2006. cant find any
*Please reorder/rename the last few sections to follow guidelines at WP:GTL. 
*Please alphabetize the interlanguage links.See footnote AWB has already sorted them
*Per WP:WIAFA, this article's table of contents (ToC) maybe too long- consider shrinking it down by merging short sections or using a proper system of daughter pages as per WP:SS.See footnote its a long article
* article may need to undergo summary style, where a series of appropriate subpages are used. For example, if the article is United States, than an appropriate subpage would be History of the United States, such that a summary of the subpage exists on the mother article, while the subpage goes into more detail. 
*There are a few occurrences of weasel words in this article- please observe WP:AWT. Certain phrases should specify exactly who supports, considers, believes, etc., such a view.  See footnote  fixed
*Watch for redundancies that make the article too wordy instead of being crisp and concise. (You may wish to try Tony1's redundancy exercises.)
**While additive terms like “also”, “in addition”, “additionally”, “moreover”, and “furthermore” may sometimes be useful, overusing them when they aren't necessary can instead detract from the brilliancy of the article. This article has 30 additive terms, a bit too much.
**Vague terms of size often are unnecessary and redundant -  “some”, “a variety/number/majority of”, “several”, “a few”, “many”, “any”, and “all”. For example, “All pigs are pink, so we thought of a number of ways to turn them green.”
**Temporal terms like “over the years”, “currently”, “now”, and “from time to time” often are too vague to be useful, but occasionally may be helpful. “I am now using a semi-bot to generate your peer review.”
*As done in WP:FOOTNOTE, footnotes usually are located right after a punctuation mark (as recommended by the CMS, but not mandatory), such that there is no space inbetween. For example, the sun is larger than the moon [2]. is usually written as the sun is larger than the moon.[2]
*Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that the it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 2a. See footnote
You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Wikipedia's False Prophet  holla at me   Improve Me 03:20, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  APR 

message: Kudos to Ravedave, Elkman, Kablammo, and others for recent edits.  I think the article is shaping up nicely. Appraiser 01:06, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks to you too. Heres hoping we can make FA before my daughter is born and I no longer have any time :) - Ravedave (help name my baby) 05:32, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thanks 

message: This got long so I Archived, see: Climate of Minnesota - Ravedave (help name my baby) 21:52, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Climate

message: I wonder if someone can explain how this (template?) function works.  It seems to function as a simple link, but I am wondering what the advantage is to use  versus just using Rochester, MN I found it in this article, Minnesota's 1st congressional district, but apparently it works on all Minnesota cities.  
More to my point, I tried it on Mississipi cities by using (as a guess)  but that doesn't work.  I don't see any reference to the template (or  how to build one) here or on other Minnesota pages.  If you can shed any light on that, I appreciate it.  --Duff 18:44, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: mnclink|Cityname

message: Should terrain be renamed to Geography? The Geological history of Minnesota could then be the main article to that section. -Ravedave (help name my baby) 18:41, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm cool with that. Appraiser 19:05, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Also what about changing Geological history of Minnesota to Geology of Minnesota? Usually when something is titled Geology it includes how everything was formed. -Ravedave (help name my baby) 04:57, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That makes sense.  (I see quite a few articles link to Geological history of Minnesota and should be changed.)  Sorry for my error yesterday. Appraiser 13:03, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No biggie. I'll use WP:AWB tonight to fix the articles linking to the history. -Ravedave (help name my baby) 15:23, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed all the links. -Ravedave (help name my baby) 00:04, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Terrain

message: Should major festivals be added under culture? I am thinking Aquatennial, Saint Paul Winter Carnival, Minnesota State Fair and maybe some other big outstate ones?How about a mention of the skyway system somewhere? Both Mlps and St.Paul have the longest skyways at 5Miles each. Also the Science Muesum might be worth mentioning. -Ravedave (help name my baby) 00:04, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How about the Mill City Music Fest? -Ravedave (help name my baby) 00:26, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think Minnesota State Fair should be mentioned, with a couple of sentences.  I'm sure its attendance is the highest per capita of state fairs.  Aquatennial, Saint Paul Winter Carnival, Science Museum, and skyway could be in St. Paul or Minneapolis.  I don't know about Mill city music fest, but the 10,000 lakes music festival  in Detroit Lakes is big.
I was also thinking about expanding tribal government and reservations.  They're barely mentioned, and I don't think it should just be a white man's history of the state.  (I'm thinking about doing this after submitting for FA.)  Appraiser 05:46, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Iowa may have us beat per capita. I started filling in attendances at State fair this summer, it needs to be finished yet. Do you think you can work something on the Minnesota State Fair into the culture section in the next day or two? I would like to nominate for FA on 11/27/07. -Ravedave (help name my baby) 06:01, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Stuff to add

message: There was a recent change to religion stats.  The census bureau does not keep stats of religious affiliation and many of the sources which exist are based on self-reporting by the denominations, and vary widely.  We had this discussion some time ago and decided to go with the stats from the 2001 (not the 1990) scientific survey by CUNY., Exhibit 15.  Therefore I plan on changing it back to that prior version.  Any comments?  Kablammo 14:32, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Which source are you using?  I looked at the two in the article (currently 36 and 37) and couldn't find numbers that matched the 2001 stats.  Whichever source we use, we should be consistent for all the numbers in this section, and probably eliminate one of the citations, to be clear where the numbers came from. Appraiser 15:24, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh - I see it now - we were using exhibit 15? Appraiser 15:26, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I re-did it using Exhibit 15.  Double-check my numbers and see if you agree.  Appraiser 16:16, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religion 

message: I am working through the references slowly, moving them into the proper format (See Wikipedia:Template_messages/Sources_of_articles#Citations_of_generic_sources Citations of Generic Sources.  One of the considerations is how to represent the dates.  Looking at a variety of current Featured Articles it seems that the date format 2006-11-25 is favored.  This automatically gives links to the year, month and day.  The current preferred format in our article seems to be November 25, 2006 format.  This requires more work, but looks cleaner (IMO).  But a down side is that this is not how non-U.S. english speakers format dates.  Of course this is an American English article, so I am not sure what is best.  In a variety of featured articles, the 2006-11-25 format predominates, but is not the only way referenced.  Please see this featured article (History of erotic depictions) as an example of how I think it should be properly done. Your feedback on this is appreciated.
Atom 15:21, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Either way is fine with me, but you're right, it should be consistent throughout the article.  I see that there are several choices for the wikilink to Minor League Baseball: Minor League Baseball, Minor league baseball, or Minor league baseball.  Which is most appropriate? Appraiser 15:36, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The November 25, 2006 type is automatically formatted by media wiki and that is why it is used. See preferences to try it out. -Ravedave (help name my baby) 16:47, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  References, Dates 

message: Minnesota is not the healthiest state in 2006 according to every google hit it's third, or third, with Vermont in first.--Loodog 16:33, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The intro makes no claim has been made that it is.  However one resource cited in the text does rank Minnesota first:  The rankings depend on what is being measured.  The intro and text are accurate.  Kablammo 16:38, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Healthiest State? 

message: I am pretty sure that my baby is going to come early (< 2 weeks), so is it OK if I go forward with FA nomination today? I have created the subpage but not posted to the FAC page yet. Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Minnesota -Ravedave (help name my baby) 22:10, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Should the article be peer-reviewed before submitting for FA, or would that just introduce a lot of turmoil and delay the process by months?  Appraiser 05:40, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It already was peer reviewed recently, I'm not sure another PR would provide much, see template at the top. I went ahead and submitted this article. Fingers crossed! -Ravedave (help name my baby) 06:41, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  FA 

message: Okay, I checked and I see sources that say groundhogs and gophers are the same, and others that say they are different.  I suspect that they are different.  We need to get a picture of a Gopher, rather than a groundhog.  Atom 17:59, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I was going to say something to that effect; then I found this .  Our picture looks sort of like these drawings.  Maybe it IS a gopher.  Appraiser 18:27, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

text: This is defnintly a groundhog/woodcchuck Groundhog, the term "gopher" cover a wide variety of animals. You could probably call squirrels gophers, but since squirrel is more specific most people use that. Same applies here. I am pretty sure this is what the state was named after: Thirteen-lined_ground_squirrel -Ravedave (help name my baby) 18:42, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Groundhog photo