Talk:United States/Archive 6

message: Bear in mind I am shortening for readability, not for shortening's sake. I've identified two further places where it is unnecessarily wordy - Race, and Social Issues. The Race section has more information than the main article! And Social Issues seems to be a unique segment, if the PRC's page doesn't have one, then really, it's there only to attack the USA. Race needs to be MOVED to the main article and some kind of short mention left behind, and Social Issues, I don't know, turn it into a two sentence section whose only purpose is to introduce the main articles. I'm putting this here because I'm about to leave for the day, so someone else take up the work. Thanks :) Sorry if I sound harsh above, but most of the comments at first sounded like shortening for shortening's sake, which is a really bad motivator. Shorten for readability and usefulness, which is what I'm doing. --Golbez 14:28, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
:Try and see what text is really needed here. I would suggest a radical cut down of the text on the page. Get the page to 22kb. After that inclusion can always be there. See Wikipedia:Wikiproject Country for what headings are recommended. A precis of the text would get the bulk of the matter here, while removing the extra details.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 16:29, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
::22k? I'm assuming that's a typo for 32k, and no, again, shortening is not the motivation here. Getting to 32k is not my ideal; cleaning up the article is. It just happens to be that many sections need shortening or moving. There is no reason whatsoever to simply chop off the article at the knees purely to get it to 32k. --Golbez 17:13, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
::By the way, I'll point out that India cheats - they use a template for their infobox, which saves them several kb. :) They also have much better pictures than we do. Again - 32k is not the ideal, readability is. --Golbez 17:15, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
::: I know the India page cheats. :) But I've already suggested the same above. I believe quite a lot of kb will be saved. Yes it was 22 kb.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 17:27, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
::::We USED to do that; I think the current standards are to NOT use a template for a one-time-use in such a fashion. And that is again focusing only on the size, and not on the actual article. By saying 22k, I think what you're saying it, chop it down to the 100% bare bones, and then add in as needed? --Golbez 17:41, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
:::::1)I'm not sure if there is a "no one use policy". The Main Page has a couple of one use templates. Many countries have infobox templates too. It keeps unnecessary markup away from the page. 2) Exactly, you've got my point. Trust me, I've used this methodology many times. Précis is the way to enrichen the page. (A vague analogy again: a 5 hr movie won't sell as well as a 2.5 hr one, lots of edits are done to reduce the film length). Best of Luck,  =Nichalp (Talk)= 20:12, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
::::::Main Page, Current Events, etc. are special pages and not regular encyclopedic pages. There must have been reason the editors of this page abandoned the one-use template, I don't know what it is. --Golbez 20:18, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
::::::: Its a good start. Now 56 kb. BTW the infobox takes just 2kb.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 18:00, May 25, 2005 (UTC)
From a readability standpoint, 30KB is just the starting point where an article may be getting too long. Reading an article of that size takes about the same amount of time as the average person's attention span, so going past that point has its costs and those costs need to be justified by the need for the article to be comprehensive (expansive topics simply need more space). The likelihood of being too long to efficiently cover its topic steadily increases as an article grows past that point so such articles should be closely examined to see if they still efficiently cover their topics in spite of their size. I personally do not think any topic is so expansive that it needs 60KB of space, but there are many topics that need 40 to even 50KB of space. I think this is one of those topics (the closer to 40KB the better, though). 
The beauty of a hypertext encyclopedia is that more detailed treatments of sub topics can be covered in separate articles that are just a click away. Print encyclopedias, such as Encyclopedia Britannica, tend to jam everything into monolithic articles due to the fact that cross referencing other articles is such a pain. Others, such as Encarta, only cover topics in a mid level of detail. We should take full advantage of our hypertext environment and be able to cover topics in a mid level and a high level of detail - all in one encyclopedia. That is the aim of Wikipedia:Summary style (oh, and lead sections should also serve as concise articles in their own right - so that is three types of encyclopedias we can be at the same time by using Summary style). --mav 14:55, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The quest for shortening

message: Page protected to discourage graffiti. I suggest it remain protected until the fuss over the Koran desecration controversy of 2005 fades away.
Till then, I hope critics of the US will add neutral, balanced text explaining the reasons for their anti-American sentiments to whatever article(s) they feel are appropriate. Wikipedia does not endorse OR condemn US policy. (See NPOV policy.) -- Uncle Ed (talk) 15:10, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
--Most of the vandalism on this page looks like it is either done by teenagers or the mentally ill, not necessarily from people overseas who are upset about recent news stories. I think blocking this page is unlikely to do much good. --Jleon 15:30, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Since the page is locked and I cannot currently make the edit myself, I'll put it down here so that it's not forgotten. Can somebody please make it clear that the President and V-P are elected on the same ticket. As the article reads it could be taken to mean that there are separate elections for the two posts. --Rednaxela 19:19, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

text: can someone please add an interwiki link to mt:Stati Uniti ? thanks. Srl 09:18, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Protection?

message: People keep removing the reference to Columbia as a name for the United States; Columbia is a perfectly valid and used name (you know, "Columbia the Gem of the Ocean", "Columbia Broadcasting Corporation", "Columbia Gas", "Columbia Pictures", etc.) which is now somewhat archaic but still used poetically, and should remain.  Note that it is NOT the same as Colombia the country, if that's what the editors are thinking.
Earpol 20:56, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Columbia

message: If I may give my two cents... the top ancestry map in the article is very interesting, but it is also very misleading for people not familiar with statistics. The map tend to over-represent minorities. One example: take a county in Virginia in which 30% of people have Black American ancestry, 29% have German ancestry, 28% have English ancestry, and 13% have Irish ancestry. On the map, this county will appear as an African American county, although in reality white people are 70% of the population in this county. Same can be said about the Mexican counties on the map. It would make more sense to provide a map of races, based on Census 2000, with a colour for each county according to which race is the majority in the county (either non-Hispanic White, or Hispanic, or Black, or Asian, etc.). Such a map would better reflect the location of minorities in the country. Hardouin 21:24, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Top ancestry map 

message: Hmm, I wonder where the "Criticism" section is... Maybe such an imporant section as "Federal holidays" took its place?  helix84 14:22, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think there used to be a Criticism section, but it is now the enormous WP article on Anti-Americanism (with an equally huge talk page attached).  I concur with Jleon.  If people really want to read about criticism of the U.S., that's what the Anti-Americanism article is for.  --Coolcaesar 22:03, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism 

message: If you read the article, you may be forgiven for thinking that this country doesn't have a government at all. Where is the section in which I can learn more about the US political system - the powers of Bush, Condi & Co - Congress, the Senate, the judiciary? I could not find one word about it. Did I miss something? - Heimdal 16:12, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Politics

message: The PPP and currency exchange rate from US dollars to US dollars is by definition 1.0, see purchasing power parity. The PPP numbers can be removed. But all reporting areas that doesn't use the US dollar should of course have both. - Jerryseinfeld 01:57, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you agree or what? - Jerryseinfeld 19:28, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: PPP