Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. states/Archive 3

message: I think it would be pertinent if this project could have a look at harmonizing the various state footer templates, all of which seems to follow different displaying conventions. I havejust started a discussion at the Canadian discussion boad forour provincial templates and think it would be interesting if all of these could me made roughly similar. Circeus 18:48, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This does sound like a good idea, as it's annoying to look at articles that related to multiple states when the bottoms of the articles have state templates that look very different from one another. A great example is New York metropolitan area, which has NY/NYS/NJ/CT/PA all on it--FIVE Templates (only four of which are states, but still)--all of which look very different. Not only the different template (and flag) sizes and colors, but the content on each is different, and it's somewhat annoying. //MrD9 20:47, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's do something about it now. There's a discussion we're having at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. states/state templates regarding state template standardization. Join in or help out. Thanks ;) — Webdinger BLAH | SZ 01:26, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  State footer templates 

message: I thought it might be useful to create a shortcut for this article. My suggestion would be WP:USS. Comments? //MrD9 20:47, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shortcut WP:USS? 

message: I created the subpage Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. states/state templates to list all of the U.S. state (and other related U.S.) templates. This way they can be compared and hopefully standardized? //MrD9 04:59, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  State Templates 

message: Hello. I'm a member of the Version 1.0 Editorial Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing articles using these criteria, and we are are asking for your help. As you are most aware of the issues surrounding your focus area, we are wondering if you could provide us with a list of the articles that fall within the scope of your WikiProject, and that are either featured, A-class, B-class, or Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Do you have any recommendations? If you do, please post your suggestions at the listing of all active Places WikiProjects, and if you have any questions, ask me in the Work Via WikiProjects talk page or directly in my talk page. Thanks a lot! Titoxd(?!? - help us) 18:44, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team|Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team]] cooperation 

message: Joe I 02:29, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Opening Soon

message: I stumbled across the article Extreme points of Massachusetts and I think it might be interesting to have that for all the states.  I looked for a New York one, but no luck, so I made one. Шизомби 01:44, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm, actually there's a Extreme points of U.S. states article.  I wonder if state ones should redirect there. Шизомби 02:19, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Extreme points

message: I rcently spun off History of New Mexico since it was taking up too much space in the parent article.  However, not being an expert in the subject, it was pretty much a cut-and-paste job.  If anyone want to take a look and improve it or New Mexico#History it would be much appreciated.  Eluchil404 23:43, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of New Mexico 

message: Please check out List of current and former capital cities in the United States and make sure that everything appears accurate and well-referenced. A word of warning: the page does contain quite a bit of complicated wiki formatting, so if you're not comfortable editing it, just post your changes on the talk page and someone more experienced will apply them to the article.   JEK   19:58, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  History buff needed 

message: I've worked for the past month to update Portal:United States and keep it better maintained.  Though, I think the portal would be even better with broader participation.  One way to do that is instead of choosing the "selected article" myself each week, if others would nominate articles and help make decisions.  (same goes for pictures, though these are stocked up through July 29)  If you would like to nominate or weigh in on what should be featured, please visit the portal. Thanks. -Aude (talk contribs) 21:31, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Nominate articles for [[Portal:United States]]

message: There is a poll going down at Talk:Georgia (country), you guys might be interested. - FrancisTyers · 17:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Georgia

message: The message: "Can anybody fix the US Dependencies infoboxes? It's displaying incorrect information. By WikiProject U.S. guidelines they should be corrected too." was moved from the top of the project page to here.   
I will look into the problem with the infobox but I'm new here. • CQ 16:16, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What is the problem that needs to be fixed? older ≠ wiser 16:48, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure, either. I just moved the question to here from the project page. Unless they're talking about Template:USPoliticalDivisions, I have no idea what "infobox" they are referring to. CQ 17:49, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Insular_area (US Dependencies) 

message: WikiProject United States has been proposed. Please see the note there about this project and show support. CQ 16:33, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject United States 

message: Shouldn't this be "Politics and government" as per the "Politics of..." pages about countries? Personally, I've always found it rather silly that the politics pages there are called politics and government when there's always a separate accompanying government page... Anyway, Politics of California and Government of California are a good example of how to go about this in terms of naming IMO. A "Law of..." page is appropriate as well, and would be covered by the government part of the "Politics and government" header. As for the note about having similar systems, yes and no; the systems are similar to an extent but are different enough that separate articles about each state would be appropriate for all three cases. Any thoughts? Moulder 09:51, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it should be called "Government and politics", and it should have a higher placement in the state article (I suggest after "History").  It would seem natural that government structure would be discussed before politics (thus "Government and politics" rather than "Politics and government").  "Law" naturally falls under "Government", so it doesn't need to be in the heading. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 16:13, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Law and government" 

message: Is it possible to change the template to reflect the new 2005 U.S. census? The articles now all have 2000 as the most recent shown census I believe. Current figues for each states population can be found at , although in some circumstances, the 2005 figures are estimated.--MONGO 21:31, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: All 2005 numbers are estimates. A census only occurs once every 10 years. —Mike 02:02, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox template 

message: The American Civil War task force has formed at WikiProject Military history. U.S. states in the American Civil War is missing some entries. See this listing for missing articles and categories. Thanks! Join! • CQ 00:13, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The American Civil War Portal is quickly becoming a Reality. Better get on board! See American Civil War task force, WikiProject Portals and Portal! • CQ 13:55, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  U.S. states in the American Civil War 

message: I noticed you have an outline for the body of a state article. It looks good with one exception... why is there no place for the climate of the state? One thing I've noticed in many(but not all state articles) is there is nothing about the climate/weather of the state. I could see someone who is going to visit an area who would look up the wikipedia page of the article to see what they should wear... and finds nothing. I guess maybe most people assume that everyone knows what weather is like for every state, but many of the people who might read the article might be from outside the US or perhaps the state has such variation in climate that it is worth mentioning in the article (eg. Flagstaff Arizona has more days below freezing than any other  large city in the lower 48- not what you'd expect for an AZ city). I just think this is a glaring deficiency in so many state articles- especially since climate is such an important factor in so many states (Colorado skiing, Florida tourism, etc.) Thoughts ? Jcam 00:41, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  comment on body of article... 

message: Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory.  This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you.  B2T2 18:41, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Project directory 

message: I am suggesting that the currently suggested section heading Professional sports teams is too restrictive.  Instead I propose that the suggested section heading simply be Sports.  In many states, there are no or few professional sports teams, and the focus is on college or high school sports.  In addition, use of the current heading would prevent reference to the Olympics and similar sports events in the state.  Comments please.NorCalHistory 18:25, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:   Propose using section heading ''Sports'' instead of ''Professional sports teams''  

message: I often edit US related articles by adding United States to the lead sentence(s) - not every English speaker in the world is familiar with every US State/County/City etc. - but I have found couple of examples that use the link US State of X. I edited the first example to read State X, United States as I have previously done. When I found a second example I came to the Project page to check for policy in this matter. I have not found any.
In the event that policy is promoted for US related subjects I would suggest that using US State of... is not adopted. A link by State name is sufficient for identification and search purposes, and the further link to the nation also helps search/identification. It also simplifies the link tree on US related articles. It is also in keeping with articles relating to nations other than the United States (eg. there is no equivalant use of UK County of... - I would comment that I am a British contributor.) I feel, however, that this is obviously a point to be addressed by the participants of this Project - although I will watch this page and would be happy to respond if requested. In the meantime I shall continue to edit US related articles as previously.LessHeard vanU 23:52, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree. I find the formulation U.S. state of X generally preferable to what is generally a multi-level comma construct. I.e., cityname, statename, United States (or sometimes even placename, countyname, statename, United States). But there are undoubtedly places where statename, United States is just fine -- I wouldn't want to try to codify one or the other. I don't know what you mean by simplifying the link tree. There is no correspondence with "UK County of" because U.S. states are not really comparable to UK Counties.  The text identifies the state as part of the United States and in context, a link to the U.S. state article is more meaningful that a link to the United States article. I mean, if you are reading about an individual born in x city in y state in the U.S., what is the likelihood that you'll want to go from that article to the main United States article? older ≠ wiser 04:45, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Apart from standardisation within Wiki (where English Counties do equate with US States, being the primary subdivision of a country), it makes searches by web engines far easier; an engine may be given the parameters "Seattle" & "United States" as the enquirer does not know which State Seattle is in. This could be avoided if the link was "United States State of...", but that is grammatically unwieldy.LessHeard vanU 20:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree that States in the USA are a "subdivision of a country" in the same sense that counties are in the UK.  We have counties in the States and they are equivalent to counties in the UK. The States are separate self-governing republics somewhat similar to the way devolved Scotland is now.--Britcom 10:54, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use in general US related articles 

message: Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention.  Badbilltucker 22:04, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia Day Awards