Talk:United States/Archive 11

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. Precis 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: 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: "The United States traces its national origin to the United Colonies of America".
:I really hate these fuzzy statements we get in Wikipedia.
:What does "traces" mean?
:Next question: if "traces" means "believes that" then what exactly is the entity "United States" that believes it.
:Next question: depending on what "traces" and "United States" mean I will ask what "its national origin to the United Colonies of America" means.24.64.166.191 07:34, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Instead of this meaningless fluff, why can't we just write what happened: "some politicians held a meeting and agreed to form a federal entity". 24.64.166.191 22:15, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "The United States traces its national origin" 

message: I'm not going to get into a revert war, so we can just discuss it here.  As I understand it, there is exactly one documented case when someone attempted to infect Native Americans with smallpox.  It was Jeffrey Amherst, in the the 18th century, and he was a British officer, not an American officer.  JimWae, as the one who's supporting the addition, can you cite another incident, which actually occurred in the 19th century and involved the United States government?  The effectiveness of the attempt is also debateable, and the text makes it seem as if a great many Native Americans were killed as a result of the attempt.
Population_history_of_American_indigenous_peoples#Deliberate_infection?
Discuss.  Everyone else's input is also welcome, of course.
-- Dpark 21:40, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Even if it did happen, it's so minor an event that it doesn't warrant mentioning in this summary article. "Diseased blankets" will just bring up odd questions. --Golbez 21:43, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)
No, you see, we need to mention every remotely offensive or terrible thing that America has ever committed against any nation or people in the US overview page in order to equally represent everyones problem with America.  Any positive or uplifting stats should be removed promptly. (Sarcasm) J Shultz 02:58, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Smallpox Blankets 

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)
replies: text:  Look in any reputable dictionary.  Dictionary.com | Columbia (second definition) -- Dpark 21:53, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: It's probably just because it's never used anymore except in DC, but few people give much thought to that.  So yeah, it should stay and hopefully whoever's changing it will get the hint. Ddye 03:01, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: I'm the user who originally added Columbia to the list of alternate United States names, and I have had to put it back more times than I can count.  Most of the time, but not always, it's an anonymous edit that removes it, but without otherwise changing anything.  I really, really, don't understand why it's a target!  It is a perfectly valid alternate name, like America.  Probably somebody who doen't know what they are talking about, confusing it with the country Colombia. Earpol 10:54, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: I added the wiki link,hopefully to avoid confusion about that. Also, Columbia is  historically accurate. --ThomasK 17:10, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
Since it's now linked to the explanation on the Columbia page, maybe we could avert an edit-war by removing the parenthetical descriptor entirely? Ddye 00:36, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: I feel the parentheses are necessary.  The US is certainly not refered to as Columbia on a regular basis, and that should be made clear. -- Dpark 02:10, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: As a matter of fact, it was linked to the Columbia page for quite some time until the recent round of edits.  Also, the parenthetical descriptor was present.  Neither helped to avert an edit war :-)  Earpol 15:13, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Columbia 

message: I edited the religion table, but using the same set of data as originally used. What was done was the following: "Refuseds" were "divided out" (e.g., if one religious group had 40% for a given year and refuseds were 5% that year, it became 42% because 40/95=42), this was done because "refuseds" skewer the data and both sets of data need to be out of the same percentage. One year's refuseds were much different than the other year, and in effect this skewers the data by making one set out of 97.7 and the other out of 94.6, by editing out the refuseds they are both out of 100 which is obviously best. Many publications, newspapers, magazines, etc. do this when publishing poll results and tag on a note to the poll results saying "not sures omitted" or something similiar, if someone wants to add a note saying "refuseds omitted" then that is ok. Other changes made were to re-arrange some of the Christian groups as some were in the wrong places, Mormons are not Protestants nor are JWs, they were each given their own categories under the Christian section. "Christian - no denomination supplied" was added under the umbrella group Protestant. - BSveen 17:24, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
===Religion Table===
The Religion table is set up something like this
               	1990 	2001 	Changein %
Total Christian	88.3%	79.8%	-8.5%
The table caption is incorrect - an 8.5% decrease would actually be 80.8%.  The decrease is in percentage point, not "change, in %", which would actually be 9.7%.  Guettarda 23:17, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Religion

message: The Religion table is set up something like this
               	1990 	2001 	Changein %
Total Christian	88.3%	79.8%	-8.5%
The table caption is incorrect - an 8.5% decrease would actually be 80.8%.  The decrease is in percentage point, not "change, in %", which would actually be 9.7%.  Guettarda 23:17, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Religion Table

message: I have removed the following sentence from the section on Class:
In terms of relative wealth, U.S.  residents enjoy a standard of personal economic wealth that is close to that known in Scandinavian countries and Switzerland.
(end of quote.)
There is considerable doubt that the Scandinavians or the Swiss enjoy income parity with the U.S.  If anyone puts that sentence back in, they should provide documentation of that fact.
Although I will concede for the purposes of this debate that they had it 30 or 35 years ago, I get the strong impression that American average income since then has risen much more than Swiss and especially Scandinavian incomes (Norway excepted).
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html for example gives the relevant GDPs per capita as of 2004 as follows.  As you can see the Swiss and most Scandinavian countries currently have significantly lower GDP per capita according to this source.
*$ 40,100                    United States            
*$ 33,800                     Switzerland             
*$ 32,200                       Denmark               
*$ 31,900                       Iceland               
*$ 29,000                       Finland               
*$ 28,400                        Sweden               
(I omitted Norway from the list because Norway currently does enjoy
income parity with the U.S., as I noted in my edit.)
For an explanation of how those number were calculated, go to
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/docs/notesanddefs.html
and then search for "GDP methodology".  The short story is they are derived from data supplied by the OECD.
See also
http://www.res.org.uk/society/mediabriefings/pdfs/1996/November/Henreksen.pdf
http://swopec.hhs.se/hastef/papers/hastef0412.pdf
--User:Kadelia 11 July 2005
GDP per capita and average income are not the same. While the US does have one of the highest per capita GDPs, it also has a significantly higher income inequality than the places mentioned. See  for the stats. I have not put that sentence back in, but only because I don't see a need for it. --Kennyisinvisible 04:41, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  U.S. average income is higher than Scandinavian or Swiss 

message: John Hancock. Google it if you please. --Matt Yeager 23:31, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
John Hancock, was absolutely not the first president of the United States. see. President of the Continental Congress, It clearly and correctly states that John Hancock is sometimes incorrectly reffered to the first president. Although the United States was an independent country at the time, the office was called President of the United States in Congress Assembled, the first president of The United States of America was most definatley George Washington. (Mac Domhnaill 23:06, 7 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Who the first president actually was

message: The official name of the US is United States of America, shouldn't that be the title of the article?
: Please look at the very first heading on this page. -- Coneslayer 22:44, 2005 July 26 (UTC)
it would make sense to change the name only if there was another united stares, of, say russia around somewhere.
Gabrielsimon
Both titles are good, and it may not be worth changing.
Tony 05:18, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Neither can I.  I vaguely recall that this issue may have been discussed before and the consensus was to keep the current name.  --Coolcaesar 14:05, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  The first entry on this page directs one to Archive 9.  (SEWilco 14:08, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  move to United States of America? 

message: I wonder whether this should be removed and covered further down in the article:
'Each state has a relatively high level of autonomy under the federal system.'
It begs the question, relative to what? US states are not as autonomous as Canadian provinces, for example. It also sits oddly as a brief statement without further explanation, especially at the opening, in which a low level of detail is appropriate.
Tony 05:16, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reference to the 'relative autonomy' of the states, end of para 1 

message: I wonder whether contributors support the idea that it would be neater and easier to read if the nation were referred to simply as 'the US', i.e., without the dots; that is, after the opening, and in all instances for which there's no good reason to use one of the longer names. Currently, usage in this respect is inconsistent.
Tony 05:23, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with Woodstone, we should use U.S.A., instead of "the US." --Gramaic | Talk 08:17, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  USA instead of U.S.A.? (SEWilco 15:22, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consistent reference to the US throughout? 

message: What is this statement supposed to mean, and, where are the citations that back it up?
"It is conceded even by defenders of the U.S. that people who cannot compete effectively in the employment marketplace, such as the elderly and the disabled, enjoy less material security in the U.S. than they would in the social democracies of Western Europe unless, of course, they hold significant savings or get significant help from family members."
"defenders of the U.S." ??  Who's that, the Army?
I didn't delete the flamebait.  
I also didn't edit it.  I think the person who wrote it should do that.
Somewhere in that gobbledygook is a statement that may be worth making, but heck, it deserves to die as is. Need to steer around POV when comparing the US to other nations—it needs to be done, but carefully, in my view.
Tony 03:41, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  c'mon, is this flamebait, or solid Wikipedia material? 

message: My impression is that the article is heaving with blue text, which makes it more difficult to read. In my view, this makes it a less attractive resource, particularly for children and non-native speakers, who may be more easily put off by the visual complexity of blue-peppered text. Although links are a valuable aspect of Wikipedia, they can encourage some readers to go off exploring a range of other topics, when our primary task is to enlighten them about the United States, through a relatively easy, continuous read. Wikipedia's style manual says:
'... On the other hand, do not make too many links. An article may be considered overlinked if ... more than 10% of the words are contained in links; [if] it has more links than lines; [if] a link is repeated within the same screen—40 lines, perhaps;...'
The manual refers to years, such as 1995, 1980s, as 'low added-value links ... date forms such as year only (e.g., 1981) should be treated like any other words and linked only if there is some particular relevance.' (My highlighting)
A rough tally shows that 26% of the words in the opening paragraph are blue, and 19% in the history section. The opening of an article probably requires a higher density of links, but could I put in a call that contributors keep their eyes out for unnecessary links, bearing in mind that just because an item is not linked doesn't mean that the reader can't key it into the search box and (typically) be rewarded with another article.
Specifically, I'd like to suggest that the 'low added-value' years (as opposed to dates) be delinked unless there's a good reason not to. Sure, some of the year articles have information relevant to the article, but there is  a link to Timeline of United States history at the top of the section; that's a much more focussed, relevant link, and the individual blue years, if anything, will detract the reader from that link. I'd also opt to delink centuries: the link to the 20th century, for example, tells my children:
"The 20th century lasted from 1901 to 2000 in the Gregorian calendar. Common usage sometimes regards it as lasting from 1900 to 1999, but this is considered incorrect due to the nonexistence of a "Year Zero" before AD 1/1 CE. The 20th century is also sometimes known as the nineteen hundreds (1900s), referring to the latter usage. Decades are almost always considered as starting with the "0" year and named accordingly ("1960s", etc.), so the first decade of a century technically overlaps back into the preceding one. However, a number of arguments have been used to justify the common usage. One was advanced by the scientist Stephen Jay Gould, that the first decade had only nine years. Another was that the astronomical year numbering system for years does have a year zero, the year normally known as 1 BC. In 2000 the International Organization for Standardization clarified ISO 8601 to use the astronomical year numbering system, so retrospectively endorsing all the people who had celebrated the new century a few months earlier. The term is also used to describe various periods that overlap with the calendar definition, most notably the Short twentieth century and the Modern period. It also had a place in popular culture shown by its use in names such as 20th Century Fox and the Twentieth Century Limited."
Wow, that's really helpful in the opening paragraph on the United States. In my view, a balance is required to make the text easy to read.
Tony 02:33, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too many links? 

message: I'm wondering what sort of laws there are on United States citizenship, or maybe more specifically necessary qualifications for naturalization. --Ihope127 17:26, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citizenship laws? 

message: Two days ago 130.237.205.96 posted this statement on the talk page of the Germany article:
Currently it says the form of government is "Federal Republic", whereas the United States page says "Democratic Federal Republic". Germany is hardly any less of a democracy than the USA. Either the US page or this one should be changed.
He received no answer but since I think that 'Federal Republic' suggests a democratic system, maybe it wouldn't be wrong to delete the word 'democratic' before 'Federal Republic' in the United States article.NightBeAsT 23:52, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A more democratic federal republic? 

message: you'r the only one who'd reverted me so you'r the only one I need to work it out with so far. after I thought about it, dough, I should also put it on the talk:u.s.. I'm pretty sure you havn't fully explained anywhere why you reverted here.
I think 
"Americans (except some convicted felons) enjoy universal suffrage upon reaching the age of 18,"
is more truthful and more importantly more honest than 
"Americans enjoy universal suffrage upon reaching the age of 18,"
perhaps we could take out "convicted". I'm not married to it.
I think it's worth including.
that's all for now. thankz, Schzz-niddl-bam snip snap sack 06:19, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: <span style="color: darkred;">I don't think so</span>

message: Can this be made a little larger? What's the point when you can't see the details. Tony 00:31, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tiny pic of state and local government 

message: Why is this in the summary article? Can it be moved to a daughter article? If this is to be retained here, I can think of dozens of more important tables that should be included. The article is already dauntingly long for a summary. Tony 02:47, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Federal holidays?