Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States/Archive 8

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"Redtails"

With the failure of the requested move at Talk:Red Tails, it seems to me that the target of the redirect Redtails comes into question. People at the film article dispute that the Tuskegee Airmen are known as the Redtails/Red Tails, so should "Redtails" redirect to the African American fliers, or should it point to the film article, or the disambiguation page? (Note: several sources were brought up at the requested move showing that the Tuskegee Airmen were indeed known by that name, at least by a few people)

70.49.124.157 (talk) 10:03, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Complete nonsense by the anon; no one disputes that "red tails" identified the aircraft of the Tuskegee Airmen, but Red Tails is an article about a film. This is an example of Tendentious editing and a failure to Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 19:42, 29 January 2012 (UTC).

Red tails doesn't exist. And if the film is at Red Tails, I don't see why the primarity of Redtails isn't also up for discussion, since it might just be better to point it at the film. 70.49.124.157 (talk) 06:06, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Nomination of Leon Panetta as a United States Wikipedians' Collaboration of the Month candidate

Greetings, as a WikiProject that relates to this article, this notice was sent to let you know that the article, Leon Panetta, has been nominated to be a future Collaboration of the Month article. All editors interested in voting for or improving these article are encouraged to participate. You can cast your vote here. --Kumioko (talk) 16:37, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Question re bots for clean up

WikiProject Texas on its main page has a link for Clean Up listing by category. Therein, Orphaned Articles has a count of 377 articles. There are also almost 2,000 Texas articles that need coordinates. Does anyone know of bots that can do either of these tasks? Maile66 (talk) 12:56, 1 February 2012 (UTC) Conversation moved to Wikipedia Bot Requests. Maile66 (talk) 13:15, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

WikiWomen's History Month

Hi everyone. March is Women's History Month and I'm hoping a few folks here at WP:United States will have interest in putting on events (on and off wiki) related to women's roles in United States's history, society and culture. We've created an event page on English Wikipedia (please translate!) and I hope you'll find the inspiration to participate. These events can take place off wiki, like edit-a-thons, or on wiki, such as themes and translations. Please visit the page here: WikiWomen's History Month. Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to seeing events take place! SarahStierch (talk) 23:50, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the heads-up.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:29, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

FA Review on Night of the Living Dead

I have nominated Night of the Living Dead for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. --George Ho (talk) 08:39, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Use of George W. Bush image, "shoeing" incident and WP:BLP

Your opinion is solicited for an ongoing discussion on the biographies of living persons noticeboard. The discussion is in reference to the use of George W. Bush "shoeing" incident images on a number of Wikipedia articles. [link to discussion] — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 15:55, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Reagan Day commemoration

WikiProject Conservatism cordially invites you to celebrate Ronald Reagan Day. On February 6 The Conservatism Portal will commemorate Ronald Reagan Day with a format specially designed for the holiday. The Conservatism Portal has recently been promoted to Featured Portal. – Lionel ^(talk) 03:27, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject embassy updates

WP:WikiProject United States/WikiProject embassy will need some updates. The U.S. Roads WikiProject has formed task forces for every state and territory lacking one, and consolidated all of the existing state-level subprojects into task forces of the parent project. The exception is that the New York State routes project remains as a subproject at this time. Imzadi 1979 → 12:58, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Your right thanks. I will work on getting that taken care of in the next couple days. Feel free to make the chanegs your self if you find the time. --Kumioko (talk) 14:37, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I started working on updating that page today, still got quite a bit more to do though. I'll keep working on it over the next few days. --Kumioko (talk) 04:56, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

AFD for Luce–Celler Act of 1946

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Luce–Celler Act of 1946. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:52, 7 February 2012 (UTC) --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:52, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject United States History banner

{{WikiProject United States History}} and {{WikiProject United States|UShistory=yes}} exist, should the subproject banner be merged into the main USproj banner?

70.24.247.54 (talk) 04:38, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Not unless the US History folks want too and there is no requirement for them to do so. There are a lot of articles that both projects have in common so the US History was added to the WPUS so that the WPUS project can identify more easily which ones the 2 have in common. Some projects have differing policies on how articles are to be treated and this allows us to do things for some projects (like see redirects, templates, categories, etc.) that some projects don't care about. Its not meant to under cut them. Also, in some projects the scope of the project might go a little beyond "United States" (such as Pre texas, Pre california, Pre United States colonial America, etc.) personally its not a problem but it has come up as an issue to some users. with that said I would be perfectly happy to do that if the US History project wants too. --Kumioko (talk) 04:51, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

United States counties established in xxxx

I am a little surprised that the categories Category:United States counties established in xxxx, with xxxx being the year of establishment, do not already exist. As per this discussion on my talk page, I am no longer adding U.S. counties to Category:States and territories established in xxxx (example of one of those categories). What would the community think if I created the various Category:United States counties established in xxxx categories and categorized each U.S. county appropriately?

Please let me know if I need to clarify. Thanks! --Andrew (User:90) (talk) 22:30, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

In case others have comments, I will also ask this: If I create these categories, what should I do with Louisiana (which has parishes instead of counties) and Alaska (which has boroughs instead of counties). Should the parishes and boroughs be left out or should they be included in these categories? --Andrew (User:90) (talk) 23:05, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Unclosed {{Div col}} templates

Many articles in the xxxx in the United States series (example) are all jumbled up at the bottom because someone has used the {{Div col}} template for the birth and death sections without closing it. Our two options for fixing this are (1) close each instance of {{Div col}} or (2) remove each instance of {{Div col}}. Since there are only a couple items in each list, I propose we remove {{Div col}} entirely from these sections. Would anyone object to that?

Note: {{Div col}} is a template used to make a list show up in multiple columns instead of just one. It generally is not used unless there are a lot of items in the list. --Andrew (User:90) (talk) 22:39, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

American Crossword Puzzle Tournament

Do you Support or Oppose including this article and adding the WPUS banner? – Lionel ^(talk) 02:06, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support Falls within scope. – Lionel ^(talk) 02:06, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per standard wiki practice that if there is a sub-topic wikiproject already covering the page you don't tag it with a more general tag. In this case its already covered by a state wikiproject. -DJSasso (talk) 02:41, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Wrong. A "standard wiki practice" does not supercede a wikipedia guideline. And besides, MILHIST, WPChristianity and a host of others are projects were the parent and the sub-projects both tag or share tags on articles. – Lionel ^(talk) 02:48, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

If you think that this project should adopt this "standard wiki practice" that "you don't tag it with a more general tag" then propose it here so that the membership may debate and adopt or reject. Standard wiki practices are not binding upon this group unless and until they adopt it by consensus. – Lionel ^(talk) 03:25, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

It actually has been getting discussed, at a wider forum. See WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. A wikiproject cannot in any circumstance overrule the will of the wider community. LOCALCONSENSUS is a policy which over rules a guideline. -DJSasso (talk) 12:55, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support The page dose fall within the scope of the project. And it seems that Djassso didn't read above No project can control another project or other editor: No project can demand that another project support an article, change its scope, quit working on an article. ie the wider community can not force WPUS to change its scope, which is stated in a set guideline not a standard wiki practice--Dcheagle 03:26, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• I have read above. Unfortunately WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is a policy which states WikiProjects can't over ride the rest of the wiki community. -DJSasso (talk) 13:00, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

American Elec. Power Co. v. Connecticut

Do you Support or Oppose including this article and adding the WPUS banner?– Lionel ^(talk) 02:13, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support Falls within scope. – Lionel ^(talk) 02:13, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per standard wiki practice that if there is a sub-topic wikiproject already covering the page you don't tag it with a more general tag. In this case its already covered by a state wikiproject. -DJSasso (talk) 02:39, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support The page dose fall within the scope of the project. And it seems that Djassso didn't read above No project can control another project or other editor: No project can demand that another project support an article, change its scope, quit working on an article. ie the wider community can not force WPUS to change its scope, which is stated in a set guideline not a standard wiki practice--Dcheagle 02:55, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• I have read above. Unfortunately WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is a policy which states WikiProjects can't over ride the rest of the wiki community. -DJSasso (talk) 13:02, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

American Brass Company

Do you Support or Oppose including this article and adding the WPUS banner?– Lionel ^(talk) 02:19, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support Falls within scope. – Lionel ^(talk) 02:19, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per standard wiki practice that if there is a sub-topic wikiproject already covering the page you don't tag it with a more general tag. In this case its already covered by a state wikiproject. -DJSasso (talk) 02:40, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support The page dose fall within the scope of the project. And it seems that Djassso didn't read above No project can control another project or other editor: No project can demand that another project support an article, change its scope, quit working on an article. ie the wider community can not force WPUS to change its scope, which is stated in a set guideline not a standard wiki practice--Dcheagle 02:56, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• I have read above. Unfortunately WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is a policy which states WikiProjects can't over ride the rest of the wiki community. -DJSasso (talk) 13:01, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

The four above examples

Are not good examples to dispute over. If you want to dispute over an example chose something solely CT related.

• The crossword comp moved to NY
• The cruise line is active in Alaska
• The lawsuit concerned six states as defendants
• The company had works in Chicago, Wisconsin and Canada

These four are all then suitable for other geographical based projects than CT.

Rich Farmbrough, 21:15, 16 February 2012 (UTC).

United States v. The Progressive

• United States v. The Progressive

This is a fascinating legal case, anyone want to collaborate on improving the page with me? Please leave a note on my user talk page, — Cirt (talk) 18:22, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm curious to work on it with you, but don't know much about much, but I can try. But I'll be away for a few days, maybe next week.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:20, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

This project's future

It seems that as of late the prevailing argument is that this project has become too big and the community has stated and continues to state that themembers of the project cannot dictate their scope nor tag articles they feel are in it. My bots tasks has been revoked which also means that the collaboration and Newsletter will stop because I simply don't have time to maintain those and manually do all the things the project needs. Weve done a lot of great work and we have come along way but I wanted to leave this message for those that might be watching that its very likely that the community will force us very soon to break apart. This means that each individual project that is supported by WPUS and makes up the common community will revert back into individual projects and that if a lwer echelon tag (such as a state tag) exists we won't be able to tag that article. This also means that the states can't tag the city articles and so on. So this means that this project will not be allowed to tag very much because almost all articles fall into one or more of the 100+ US related projects. --Kumioko (talk) 16:27, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

All this griping about what gets tagged as what is pretty silly, imo. Right now, we dual-tag many articles with WP:Kentucky and WP:Louisville tags, and I don't see a problem with that. I think one of the more useful things this project could do is develop a respected, highly-participatory A-class review process. Most of the state, city, and other projects under this one don't have enough regular contributors to sustain an A-class process on their own. Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 16:36, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Would you be so kind as to link me and other project members to the discussion where the community is going to force the project to break apart? Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 16:40, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I think this might be in more than one place. Here's part of it. And More on the noticeboard. Here's Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Clarification needed on article tagging policy. Perhaps there is more elsewhere.Maile66 (talk) 19:10, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Should also point out that Kumioko (talk · contribs) just got blocked for edit warring over this project tagging issue. Not saying the block was justified or not (haven't looked into it) but just pointing out the user's inability to respond here for at least the next 31 hours or so. Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 19:24, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes thats most of it. You can also see a small discussion on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds, User talk:Kumi-Taskbot and User talk:Markvs88. I got blcoked so I am leaving this one last post just to clear the loose ends. I apologize for the method I have to leave this but I have no choice and I'll probably get at least a block extension for doing it. I personally believe that I was blocked more to prevent me from fighting for the projects than anything else. With that said. If you want to keep the project running you are going to have to fight for it or else you may find that a minority of active editors will reduce its scope to nothing more than a shell and a noticeboard. I admit I find myself no longer desiring to participate in the pedia after it was made clear to me in multiple discussions by multiple editors that I was doing no good. Good luck. --Kumioko (talk) 19:26, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

And so many good editors have fallen by the wayside over the years, for essentially the same reasons. I wish you would reconsider, wish you would stay. Maile66 (talk) 19:56, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I doubt that you would find that to be the consensus of the active editors here. Where there maybe contention by others that the Project is somehow "trampling" on other projects by including an article into this projects scope (which is odd, as a subject can fall under multiple scopes and usually that doesn't create a conflict), the greatest contribution (IMHO) of this project is that it has taken smaller projects under its wing and thus has highlighted those projects to other editors who may not have been aware of that project's existence.

How one can be blocked for civil discussion is beyond me.

Although there has always been a contention of the scope of this project (from its beginning) even in some of the most contentious subject projects, we as a community have been able to reach a consensus or agree that there is a lack of consensus, and leave things as is. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:15, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I look forward to conducting a experiment on a pet article to catch one of the more troublesome projects in a fallacy regarding their intentions regarding tagging. Hasteur (talk) 21:57, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Huh?

Is this a statement of open opposition to this wikiproject and its wide scope?

Looking at the discussion at the Village Pump, there appears to be a group of editors who appear to adhore a situation where two (or more) wikiprojects have overlapping scopes. Is this related to such an opinion? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 22:03, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I actually support WPUS and Kumioko's viewpoint. There's a article that is under a project I work with that I added the WPUS banner to manually. An editor that has extradordinarily opposed viewpoints regarding the WPUS project removed it citing that we don't need the WPUS banner on it. I intending to run an experiment where I poke the editors who are associated by removing their banner claiming the same justification for removing the WPUS banner. Hasteur (talk) 22:48, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I like the sound of that, but contrary editors will accuse you of being WP:POINTy and may seek to have you disciplined for your efforts.--Hjal (talk) 22:57, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Relevant guideliens from Wikiproject guide and its subpage:

WikiProjects have sole and absolute authority to define their scopes

A group of editors cannot be forced to support any article that they do not wish to support, or prohibited from supporting any article that they wish to support

No project can control another project or other editor: No project can demand that another project support an article, change its scope, quit working on an article.

Only this group of editors decides on its scope, what articles are included, and what articles are excluded. If there is a consensus to add an article, removal of the banner is disruptive and a violation or WP:EW. Editors removing banners must be informed of the group consensus and warned to cease. Editors edit warring against project consensus should be reported for WP:ER or WP:ANI as appropriate. – Lionel ^(talk) 02:28, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

The key to that is Wikiprojects are open to everyone, so if people from outside the project (so to speak) can form a consensus that a project such as this one has too wide a scope then this project would then have to narrow its scope. Like everything else on the wiki a project doesn't own its scope, it still has to defer to the wider community if the wider community feels it is not appropriate. -DJSasso (talk) 02:35, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Wrong. "WikiProjects have sole and absolute authority to define their scopes." I see no provision for "outsiders" in this clear and unequivocable official wikipedia guideline. – Lionel ^(talk) 02:52, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

The point of the outsiders comment was that they were people you would call outsiders. Anyone can join your project. Thus anyone from any other project can be involved in your consensus making discussions and thus can affect the scope of this project. In otherwords you can't stop people from outside the project being part of defining your scope since anyone can join. -DJSasso (talk) 13:06, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

As well per the same guideline you quote Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Guide/WikiProject#Inappropriate_exclusivity "Broadly speaking, neither those members whose names are on a project's list nor those "charter members" that supported its initial creation have any special powers or rights compared to other editors. In fact, in nearly all projects that elect coordinators, editors that have participated in some small way, but haven't yet placed their names on the formal membership list, are even allowed to vote on an equal basis with listed members." So essentially anyone from any project at any time may decide on consensus whether they officially signed your membership list or not. -DJSasso (talk) 13:37, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

It also goes on to say "most projects simply assume that any editor currently involved in its work is a member." Which means essentially that anyone that works on articles you consider in your scope to be a member of your project. Thus all of the WPConnecticut editors are by extension part of your project if you think those articles are part of your scope. So if they don't think the tag should be on those articles they have as much say as you do. -DJSasso (talk) 13:40, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

There are many things the community can decide upon with a wikiproject. While it can MFD a project, one of the things it cannot do is change the scope. – Lionel ^(talk) 02:54, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I endorse what Lionel has posted here, only editors who are members of WPUS can determine the scope of WPUS.

If other editors which to join WPUS, they can as members of project have a say of what the scope is. If after a scope is changed and those new other editors leave, due to WP:CCC the remaining editors can revert the change of the scope to what they believe the scope of the project should be. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 03:53, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Then I think you need to read WP:LOCALCONSENSUS which is a policy which of course over rides a guideline. No local consensus can over ride the consensus of the greater community. It specifically mentions a WikiProject cannot override the greater community. -DJSasso (talk) 12:57, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

And then of course there is Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Guide#Article_tagging: "Overtagging is disruptive - WikiProject banners should not be used to duplicate the category system or portals." Which is exactly what is currently happening. And then there is Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Guide#Identify_the_best_structure: "WikiProject - This format is best for topics with thousands, or at least several hundred, of pages in the proposed scope. You'll still want to investigate any related projects, because they may already have a task force covering the same topic." Which heavily suggests your scope should not include that which is already covered by another related project. -DJSasso (talk) 13:32, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I totally agree, this project is not good. Unlike this project, the United States Wikiproject ain't very worth it. The only problem is that people don't give a damn about it. I don't care if they tag any articles related to US, I wish they don't overtag as much. I would possibly to abolish the project and split and get it over with. Right now, this project has too many problems in the past, and I would say, this project is clearly too conservative. JJ98 (Talk / Contributions) 15:32, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

WHAT?!?

Imagine if someone said WikiProject X is to liberal or to communist or to (insert politically ideology here), and this is one of the reasons why it should be abolished?

Count me as appalled and fearful for the future of neutrality in Wikipedia. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:47, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, I didn't mean to abolish it, just the possible split state level and US-related projects. JJ98 (Talk / Contributions) 21:09, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

@DJSasso: I am not a member of WPUS, nor any state/city wikiprojects. This is not my wikiproject. My involvement here is as an "outsider", completely neutral. My posts are based on relevant policies and guidelines.

Regarding LOCALCONSENSUS, it appears to contradict the proj guide. Before any "wider community" attempts to change the scope of this wikiproject, the wikilawyers will have to hash it out. That said, "sole and absolute authority" is extremely strong phrasing, and disregarding this should not be done lightly. In addition, the concept behind wikiprojects is that they are a group of people, and the community in the past has allowed these groups to be self-directing and to the extent possible, autonomous. For "outsiders" to meddle in the minutiae of these groups would seriously undermine all wikiprojects. – Lionel ^(talk) 23:17, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm still missing something - what is stopping this project from coordinating tags with the other projects (particularly CT, the one that caused the issue here)so as not to cause conflict as we've seen this week and prior? Why can't some sort of compromise be found? UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:44, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Frankly, because what I have been trying to tell you and other and what you still fail to realize, is that Connecticut, US roads and several others have article ownership issues and vehemently refuse to allow this project to tag any article in those projects scope unless approve it first. We did work with a lot of projects, particularly those on the supported projects list on the Projects main page but also others like Virginia, Oklahoma and others including joint projects with US related articles between GLAM, MILHIST and others. --Kumioko (talk) 15:01, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Some background bullets

For those who may be considering picking up the pieces I left scattered around and keep this project going the following might be helpful. In response to my misguided view that a WikiProject should be able to tag the articles in its scope without other editors and projects showing ownswership over them. Perhaps I was a bit overzealous in my tagging but but it was to ensure that content with no or sole project support would not be left abandoned or to rot. If content is not tagged with a project banner then you have only categories in which to do maintenance on the related articles or content. Since much of the content doesn't have categories, or because the category structure is prohibitively hard to work with and use with an almost endless supply of problems associated with them, using categorization to run a project isn't an efficient way to conduct WikiProject Business. Additionally, bot notifications such as Popular pages, featured content and article alerts doesn't work with categories alone. THEY MUST be tagged with a project banner in order to work. If you fix that problem then my overzealous tagging would not be as needed. Perhaps instead of using Category:WikiProject United States articles to display the 200+ thousand articles we could simply allow the input of hundreds or thousands of categories instead for these tools/bots to work. It seems like that might be more efficiant (sorry for the sarcastic comment here. Its intended to be somwhat humorous while pointing to a problem). The above comment, I think covers why I think they should be tagged but I will clarify, Its so that the article or other content is covered and counted by the project so that the project will be notified/counted if it is promoted, deleted, moved or submitted for something like reviews or discussions. In addition, here is a quick run down of why I was doing what I was doing:

1. First I recreated the WPUS project, built up the infrastructure, got things running and editors watching.  Done
2. We developed some procedures for automating some of the tasks, maintaining the articles and establish scope.  Done
3. Determine which US related projects are active, which ones are not, which ones want/need help or to build a closer collaboration and which ones do not.  Done
4. Next we needed to identify the content (this is what I was currently working on) not already tagged and tag it. If we can't measure it we can't manage it.
5. Once we identify completely what we have (an inventory so to speak), we determine what needs to be kept and improved, what needs to be eliminated, what should be consolidated (Such as the myriad of Presidents of the United States lists, one line stubs, etc.) and what we needs to be added (like the 900ish Medal of Honorr recipients that don't have pages yet).
6. Continue to refine the above topics, recruit users, tag articles as they are developed, automate as many as possible through bots and automation, etc.

As with many things these were all a work in progress and I was refining things as I went. Additionally there were overlaps between items. I hope this helps to explain what I was doing, and why and what I won't be doing in the future. Good Luck. --Kumioko (talk) 15:36, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

American Cruise Lines

Do you Support or Oppose including this article and adding the WPUS banner?– Lionel ^(talk) 02:13, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support Falls within scope. – Lionel ^(talk) 02:13, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per standard wiki practice that if there is a sub-topic wikiproject already covering the page you don't tag it with a more general tag. In this case its already covered by a state wikiproject. -DJSasso (talk) 02:41, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support The page dose fall within the scope of the project. And it seems that Djassso didn't read above No project can control another project or other editor: No project can demand that another project support an article, change its scope, quit working on an article. ie the wider community can not force WPUS to change its scope, which is stated in a set guideline not a standard wiki practice--Dcheagle 02:54, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• I have read above. Unfortunately WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is a policy which states WikiProjects can't over ride the rest of the wiki community. -DJSasso (talk) 13:02, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• Comment: With a company within the United States, it automatically belongs to the project corresponding to the location of its corporate headquarters. Since American Cruise Lines is based out of Connecticut, it belongs to WP Connecticut. If WP Connecticut is within the WP US hierarchy, then the page is within the WP US hierarchy. WhisperToMe (talk) 13:49, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Newsletter and monthly collaboration

I just wanted to leave a quick note that there will be no more newsletter or updates to the monthly collaboration due to the prevailing community consensus to immediately stop support, maintenance and expansion of this project. --Kumioko (talk) 11:55, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Cycling in the United States

There is a HUGE number of articles in Category:Cycling in the United States but there is no Cycling in the United States article. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 03:14, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Possible split of WikiProjects

Based on the comments from WikiProject Montana and WikiProject Florida, which they opposed it, I would suggest to split into few projects since it has a activity and some would remain to be part of WikiProject United States. JJ98 (Talk / Contributions) 21:18, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Jj98, I assume good faith on your suggestion. I have these comments:

• Maybe put this on a back burner for the moment. Things are so heated on multiple issues, on multiple pages, that people's nerves are raw. The kind of climate that invites volatile responses.
• No part of WPUS should be split off without the consent of those members. After a few days for everyone to step back and calm down, if that's possible, this idea should be submitted formally at Requests for Comments.
  • Because of the current climate, it would be better if the RFC was written by a neutral party.
  • All WPUS members - ALL of them - should receive a personal notice when, and if, the RFC is posted.
• Hopefully, Kumioko comes back. Even though Kumioko does not claim ownership of WPUS, enough of Kumioko's work has been put into this project, that it's only good manners to wait and see. Kumioko's block is only for 31 hours from yesterday. Maile66 (talk) 22:50, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Maile66 (talk) 22:50, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't see the need for such a split, I always thought of it as a co-jurisdiction, federal system type arrangement when it comes to the cross tagging provided by the WikiProject United States Template, even if those lower level (more specialized (smaller scope)) wikiprojects fell under the WPUS header.

For instance, I was one of the few active members of WikiProject Asian Americans. When Kumioko first came along, like other wikiprojects, I was concerned. However, it was my opinion that allowing the greater national wikiproject to share coverage of Asian American related articles it may lead more active editors to become interested in the field and grow both WPUS and WPAA activity at the same time.

Except for the end of the WPAA Template and its absorption into the more inclusive WPUS template did the higher level project change how WPAA functions. WPAA still has its own membership list, it's own assessments, and other activities that a WikiProject does (even if there are very few active members).

Now, I understand that one's mileage may very, that is one's opinion of what WPUS may differ... --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:16, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

United States GAR

An article that you have been involved in editing, United States has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the good article reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Cambalachero (talk) 18:26, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Task force tags stopped appearing after WikiProject Kentucky was subsumed into this WikiProject

WikiProject Kentucky includes an Eastern Mountain Coal Fields task force that has tags on a number of articles related to that region of Kentucky. Now that the state Wikiproject has been subsumed into this one, the task force information no longer appears on talk pages for those articles. The information does appear in the template for the US Wikiproject, though. What would it take to restore it to the template display? --Orlady (talk) 18:45, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

If you could give a couple examples I'll tell you how to fix it. --Kumioko (talk) 18:50, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

After looking at a couple there are a couple things that could be done. Replace the applicable parameter to |Coal-fields= or the alternate seen in the documentation here or add that parameter alias to the Template code and implement it. --Kumioko (talk) 18:55, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

The templates on talk pages where the task force isn't showing up include the parameter Eastern Mountain Coal Fields=yes. Can you add that as an alias? Also, I'm seeing that some talk pages that have the parameter Coal-fields=yes are displaying in WikiProject Kentucky/Louisville. (For example, see Talk:Cumberland Gap National Historical Park.) This is wrong; Louisville is nowhere near the coal fields. --Orlady (talk) 19:05, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I would leave a note on the talk page of Template:WikiProject United States for an administrator to fix those 2 problems. I'm sorry but after my recent experience at ANI I don't wish to get involved with the project or even in general editing anymore, at least for a while. Maybe once the wounds heal and I can get all the salt out of them I'll start doing some things again. --Kumioko (talk) 20:10, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'm an administrator, and I'd be happy to edit that template, but I don't know how to fix the problems there. It's not exactly obvious how to fix issues in code as complex as what's in that template. --Orlady (talk) 00:45, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

You can add aliases by changing the following line:

|tf 3                = {{{Coal-fields|{{{KY-coal|}}}}}}

Immediately to the right of the bar | that is to the right of KY-coal, you can add {{{variable|}}}... You can keep stacking these for each term: {{{variable|{{{variable|{{{variable|}}}}}}}}} - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 01:13, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

There are a couple more places you need to update the code also. Ask MSGJ or Redrose they are bother really good at it. --Kumioko (talk) 02:36, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, following Floydian's good advice, I added the variable. I also found the lines that made the coal fields a subsidiary of Louisville. The pages I've looked at appear to be OK now, but it's likely that I am overlooking some niceties of importance to template designers. --Orlady (talk) 05:05, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

The fix broke louisville. Now Louisville is showing as Eastern Kentucky coal fields. --Kumioko (talk) 12:21, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I went ahead and fixed it this time in the sandbox Template:WikiProject United States/sandbox. I also removed a ? from one of the Durham categories. It just needs to be implemented. --Kumioko (talk) 14:32, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

some suggestions for member lists

I've just scrubbed the member lists of all users who are subject to long term blocks. There are a few things that could make these lists easier to manage so that bots aren't sending newsletters to users who aren't reading them, leading to the odd situation where one bot is filling up talk pages and another is archiving them, month after month, for no good reason.

1. Alphabetize all lists Currently only a few of the member lists are in alphabetical order, so when removing an entry one has to search up and down in the edit window until they find it. When they are in alphabetical order it is much, much simpler to manage them.
2. Have each project check its lists I've removed everyone under a long term block, but there are a lot more names listed here than there are actual active participants. If each sub-project checked its list and removed anyone who hadn't edited in say, six months there would be a lot fewer unread newsletters being delivered.

Just some thoughts aimed at helping make this easier to manage and avoid wasting resources. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:11, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree completely. I cleaned up the users on the Texas list recently, possibly for the first time in the existence of the project, not only scrubbing the long-term blocks, but scrubbing the red link inactive editors whose user pages had been deleted. I would add one suggestion to yours:

1. Separate into Active and Inactive lists What's the point of carrying an editor as active if they haven't contributed to Wikipedia for years? However, some would say an Inactive list is better than deleting them altogether in case the editor returns.Maile66 (talk) 13:00, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

In the ice hockey project we separate into three categories. Active, Semi-Active and Inactive. Active are people whose edits are mostly made up of articles under our scope. Semi-Active are people who occasionally edit articles under our scope and Inactive are people who haven't made an edit to any pages under our scope for 6 months. Any editors who still haven't made an edit under our scope in a year are deleted from the list. And we do list adjustments twice a year. However, our membership is much much smaller than this one so probably wouldn't work as well here because it does take awhile to check each editors contribs. -DJSasso (talk) 13:57, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Or you could have people subscribe to the newsletter. That is how I have seen a number of projects do it. I know a lot of people don't like getting such things unless they specifically ask to get them. -DJSasso (talk) 13:54, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I will let you all decide on whats best but here are a few suggestions of things that I thought about in the past.

1. Use numbers vice bullets so you can see how many there are
2. Separate Active and Inactive editors (I would set Active as having edited Wikipedia within the last 6 months, I wouldn't limit it to the scope of the project). I removed a lot of them from the different projects but there are probably still some there.
3. There is very little value in keeping Usernames, even in the inactive lists, of those with indef blocks. These could/should probably be removed
4. I recommend keeping the concept of inactive editors and keeping a list of them. My goal was to contact them once or twice a year to see if we could get them editing again and if they were still watching their pages.
5. Alpha sort the lists. Some of the lists were sorted by the date they joined the project instead of alpha order which makes it hard to find them.
6. IMO its better to send the newsletter to the editors who signed up for the project and let them decide if they don't want it rather than assume they don't want it and only send it to the ten that take the time to say they do. This is partially because, as other people see their talk pages, they also see the newsletter even if they are not currently members. --Kumioko (talk) 14:15, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I would suggest one more thing about member lists:

• List user names with the WP standardized linking of the name inbetween the two brackets. No other formatting. It might look oh-so-cute-and-artsy-personalized to the editor who uses eloborate font and color coding around their own listing. But it doesn't look that way on everybody's monitor. In some cases, it can be a faint unreadable blur .The administrator of the list works in the edit screen, where it becomes a nightmare to get past the coding just to find the basic user name. Maile66 (talk) 14:52, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree that it should be standardized. I think there are 2 good ways to do it.

1. The way you suggest which would make the account like like this: Maile66
2. or you could use the User template which would make the account look like this: Maile66 (talk · contribs)

I would suggest the latter. It adds a link to contibs right there and will make it a lot easier to verify a users activity for future verification of participant activity. --Kumioko (talk) 15:28, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I like the user template a lot. A perfect idea. Now if only someone who knows what they're doing could code the participant lists to say "Insert your name in this user template, and click Submit to add your name to this list". Other than that, I'm not sure how you could get users to use only one format. Great idea, however. Maile66 (talk) 15:56, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Once the list is setup to only use one format people will tend to naturally follow it and if the odd one doesn't it can easily be fixed. In the years since we switched to using the user template at the project I am mainly involved in people haven't signed it in another format that I can remember. -DJSasso (talk) 16:05, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I just set up the Texas Active Participants with the user template. Now that I've gone through the names one by one, I can see how that template is very useful to future clean up. Only one click to see user contributions.Maile66 (talk) 18:46, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

FAR

I have nominated Frederick_Russell_Burnham for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:03, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Occupy movement

Wikipedia:WikiProject Occupy movement

I have begun the procedure for beginning the project by making the proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals. To add your name to support the proposal go to Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Occupy movement.--Amadscientist (talk) 23:13, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

KML outline data for all US counties

Hello guys, there has been a discussion on the Geographical coordinates project which led to the development of a new scheme to add line and outline data to applicable Wikipedia articles. I've been working on a bot to add KML outline data to each US county. These outlines would show up as an area highlight (click the blue globe in the top right of Los Alamos County, New Mexico for an example) and links to Google Maps and Bing Maps can be displayed with the county outline as an overlay. I'm sure you can provide further insight and ideas on the GeoProject discussion page, and you might leave a comment or two at my bot request page for the county job at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/DschwenBot. Thanks! --Dschwen 21:47, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Category:African-American people

Category:African-American people, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has been nominated for deletion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:47, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Haymarket affair Good Article reassessment

Haymarket affair, which is listed as part of this WikiProject, has been nominated for a community reassessment to determine if it meets the good article criteria and so can be listed as a good article. Please add comments to the article reassessment page. Thank you. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 19:48, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Asian American infobox discussion

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Asian American#Infobox Image discussion 2012. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:27, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Jose Vargas

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Jose Antonio Vargas#Immigration status. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 17:41, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

edit required

These sentences don't make sense:

In 1764, Gilpin purchased 39 acres of land much of which is located in and around present day Millington, MD. Millington was then known as Head of Chester considering the As a member of the American Philosophical Society, Gilpin was involved with planning a possible waterway that would be a shortcut for shipping from the Chesapeake Bay to the City of Philadelphia.

I suspect that someone made an editing error. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.242.86.145 (talk) 12:51, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Ah. This was in Chesapeake and Delaware Canal because someone vandalized it. Sorry; not all articles are on the WP:WATCHLIST of a watchful participant. Jim.henderson (talk) 16:53, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Discussion regarding change to Philippines Campaign (1944–1945)

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Philippines Campaign (1944–1945)#Emphasis on British. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:27, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Merge comments required

Please comment on a merge at Talk:Radio y Televisión Martí. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 06:12, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Newsletter

I recommend that you send out the March newsletter. A remembrance of your (I'm a non-member) former members contributions would be most fitting. Also a call for volunteers would be a good idea. If someone writes it here Wikipedia:WikiProject United States/Newsletter/March 2012 I can send it out with Edwardsbot. Let's not let him fade away into oblivion without thanks from the group he loved. – Lionel ^(talk) 08:31, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Second Generation Immigrants in the United States

I am creating a new Wikipedia article titled “Second Generation Immigrants in the United States.” On the project page it states that one of the project’s primary aims is to add knowledge to Wikipedia concerning subjects that are of national significance. In the U.S. Census Bureau press release of October 2010, it states that as of 2009 11% of the US population is a second generation immigrant. The population of second generation immigrants in this country is increasingly becoming a national concern in term of policies. As more and more US citizens are born with at least one foreign born parent, this percentage will surely increase. Thus, the voice of second generation immigrants will gain power through numbers. Also, since the majority of second generation immigrants are of minority status, their growing numbers can be used to advocate minority rights and demand governmental action. I plan on including various statistical data showing education and income levels obtained by second generation immigrants, along with information on theories of assimilation, as how these children are assimilated into society can have a huge impact on future economic successes and therefore on the overall developmental progression of the nation. Is there any other type of information that I should focus on in the creation of this article that would further promote the goals of this Wikiproject? I would greatly appreciate any suggestions you may have. Thank you. Marymorales291 (talk) 04:03, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Human Trafficking in Houston, Texas

I am creating an entry on "Human Trafficking in Houston, Texas" which will specifically explore the types of trafficking found in the city as well as the city's characteristics, legally and culturally, which make the city a popular hub for trafficking in the United States. There are pages created for Human Trafficking and Contemporary Slavery, but there are not sections designated specifically for Houston. Even on the page for Houston, Texas, where other crimes are listed, human trafficking is not. I plan to edit the page "Slavery in the United states" and add a section about the contemporary slavery issues in Houston today. Are there any objections to this? Right now the page is concerned with slavery in the colonial America up until the Civil War, my edits would add information of a very different time period and type of slavery. Amacune (talk) 22:18, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Why is trafficking in Houston different from other cities in the US or the South West? Vegaswikian (talk) 22:57, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

The topic of Human Trafficking in Houston could be a worthwhile one for an article, but I have severe difficulty imagining how human trafficking in a single U.S. city merits discussion in Slavery in the United States, which deals with slavery throughout several centuries of U.S. (and pre-U.S.) history. --Orlady (talk) 15:04, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Also human trafficking is illegal, whereas up to 1865 slavery was not. To me, putting it in the slavery article would be like adding Sex-selective abortion into Eugenics -- they're related, but not really the same thing as times have changed. But I can certainly see it as a section of Human trafficking in the United States, and/or a subarticle of that. Best, Markvs88 (talk) 15:45, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Please let the Houston WikiProject know about this too! Anyway if you have literature that discusses specifically the phenomenon in Houston, it could be doable. It's like History of the Hmong in Merced, California WhisperToMe (talk) 17:47, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

History of the Hmong in Merced, California

For discussion on whether to merge the History of the Hmong in Merced, California, please see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Asian_Americans#History_of_the_Hmong_in_Merced.2C_California WhisperToMe (talk) 18:05, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

AFD filed: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/History of the Hmong in Merced, California WhisperToMe (talk) 18:53, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Women's History Month and Texas First Ladies and Gents

For Women's History Month, I created List of First Ladies and Gentlemen of Texas and an accompanying Navbox. It's an area that has slipped through the cracks in Wikipedia. Photos are needed, as are individual pages. While all the presidents of the Republic, and the Governors of the state, have had individual articles created, most of the First Ladies of Texas have not, becoming neglected footnotes in history as names married to important persons. The state's only First Gentleman - James E. Ferguson - has his own page, but only because he was first a Governor. Any help anyone would care to give would be welcome. Maile66 (talk) 20:15, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

You might want to drop a note to User:SarahStierch. She deals with a lot of Womens related events and might be interested in helping out. 71.163.243.232 (talk) 21:15, 11 March 2012 (UTC)(formerly Kumioko)

Good information to have. I notified her. Good to see you. Maile66 (talk) 23:35, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Requested articles (Spanish land grants)

Under "Other" above, it cites "Spanish land grants" in California and historic Mexico. I didn't want to just arbitrarily delete that, but the subject matter seems to have been covered in Spanish land grants in California (redirect to Ranchos of California) and Spanish land grants in New Mexico. Maile66 (talk) 22:06, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories

The article needs some work. It presents a lot of claims by conspiracy proponents as is and gives them undue weight to a fringe position among historical academics. On the talk page we're also discussing what can count as a reliable source. At least I recommend adding the page to your watchlist. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 01:56, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

RM: Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette → Marquis de Lafayette

• (Discuss) – Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette → Marquis de Lafayette Kauffner (talk) 13:58, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Help neutralize anti-American POV, please!

Hi, I hope those with an interest in WW2 or military history consider looking at the Western Betrayal article which as it stands now is largely aimed at blaming America and Britain for everything that went wrong in Europe from 1939 on. Can anyone write an alternative POV or neutralize the whole article such that British and American perspectives are given some currency? Pultusk (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 04:32, 2 April 2012 (UTC).

As a scion of the former Czechoslovakia, I find the article to be fairly accurate. The Western Powers were woefully unprepared and capitulated at every turn until the actual invasion of France. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Norway, Denmark et al were basically given away as pawns. Then after the war, the US and allies sit around instead of invading Berlin, give away Prague and all of Central Europe! The US did a wonderful job keeping the peace with the Soviets during Cold War, but how it handled its dealings with Europe after WW1 through the Fall of the Wall was hardly flawless. Best, Markvs88 (talk) 13:26, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:HighBeam

Wikipedia:HighBeam details a limited opportunity for experienced Wikipedia editors to have free access to HighBeam Research, an invaluable resource for locating reliable sources for articles and content related to the United States as well as other subjects.--JayJasper (talk) 18:50, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Don't let this project Die

I realize that Kumioko is gone but don't let this project die because one user has left. 71.163.243.232 (talk) 14:24, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Make suggestions. Which members have the know how? What needs to be done?69.237.144.124 (talk) 14:36, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

There are tons of things to do in the main project or in one of the supported ones. A lot of users want to see this project fail. That shouldn't mean that the project dies though. 71.163.243.232 (talk) 15:38, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

If it does slack, you could consider joint work with WP:North America. 70.24.248.211 (talk) 04:06, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Adding articles for all populated places in GNIS with a bot

Many articles on cities in the United States were originally created with a bot from U.S. census data, and then expanded by individual editors. I think it would be worthwhile to create articles on all populated places in the United States for which articles do not already exist using the data available from the Geographic Names Information System and perhaps from other reliable sources, such as post office records and state geographical names agencies, so that editors wanting to add information about a particular unincorporated community could have a stub to start from. The information from GNIS is enough to create a respectable stub article on each place. See West Virginia Central Junction, West Virginia for an article that I created only from GNIS data, and Mooselookmeguntic, Maine and Olema, Washington for articles that I created with GNIS data and other references.

I don't have the programming skills to create a bot to do this, but I'm hoping someone else will. Eastmain (talk • contribs) 01:14, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea the problem is that a lot of editors don't really like stubby little articles. Plus it would be fairly hard to program a bot to create these articles without duplicating existing ones. I think what would need to be done is to create the articles as a subpage of something like the project or your namespace and then build on them a few at a time to make sure they had enough content to pass judgement from some of the more finicky editors. Good luck though. 71.163.243.232 (talk) 02:24, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

As an editor who heavily references the GNIS, I don't think this would work very well. The GNIS includes neighborhoods, mobile home parks, new housing developments, and the like as populated places, and not all of those are notable. There's often no way to distinguish between neighborhoods and communities in the GNIS without checking the coordinates. Even if notability wasn't an issue, this would make categorization a problem, since so much of that depends on knowing if a place is unincorporated or not. I'd love to see an article on every notable place in the GNIS, but I don't think bot creation is the way to do it. TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 04:03, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I admit I am not familiar with the GNIS or whats in it but is there a way to pick out at least some things we could create articles against? Maybe there is a way we could manually make a list of some that need articles and then use the GNIS data to create the articles from that list. 138.162.8.57 (talk) 13:48, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Bad idea, IMO. Not every "populated place" in GNIS warrants an encyclopedia article. As TheCatalyst31 notes, the GNIS listing of "populated places" now includes numerous trailer parks and residential subdivisions. (Apparently, if there's a sign at an entrance, it qualifies as a populated place.) --Orlady (talk) 15:54, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

And then those bots that zap through and tag everything for lack of whatever the bot is programmed for, or immediate proposals for deletion. Potential for duplication of existing articles, too. I'm already running across redlink geographical names - especially on Ghost town lists or Request for Article lists - that already have existing articles, just named with a slight difference. The older the settlement, the more likely it is that there is more than one spelling, more than one way to word it, sometimes having two seemingly unrelated names that refer to the exact same community. It may be slower, but this is one area where automation doesn't trump the slower human individuality..Maile66 (talk)

Thanks, good explainations. Completely makes sense to me. Like I said above I'm not that familiar with the GNIS data. 138.162.8.58 (talk) 17:17, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Maybe you are identifying a need to make sure that existing articles have redirects from all variations and previous names for those places, not an easy or trivial project. If this was done, then we would avoid some problems. As to the truly missing articles. Having a bot that created articles from an editor approved list would seem reasonable. If you elect to do this with an approved list, then you could also choose to leave items on the list for, say a week, before it is turned over to the bot. That would allow time to see if the article does exist under another name. After all the goal is completeness and not mistakes. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:31, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Whoever would take on such a task should be paid to do it. Too time consuming and extensive. However, for any volunteer willing, I submit the redlinks on List of ghost towns in Texas. I personally have cleaned this one out many times because of the duplication issue. And I wouldn't have a bot create from this list, just because GNIS says so. It's a never-ending task, on this one list alone. So, cheers! to anyone willing. And please start with some other state besides Texas, because we don't need anymore bot-generated tagging of new article inadequacies.Maile66 (talk) 19:07, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject United States/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2012

There are more than 80K unassessed articles about US. I had a idea to start a contest regarding Assessment.

I thought that United States has a good number of articles now and needs clean up.

This will be beneficial for articles as well as editors as they will be able to interact with editors in their country and will learn new things and can obtain a lot of knowledge about their country.

Please add your name here if you want to take part in this contest: [1] and [2]

Details: [3]

Instructions: [4]

Awards to be given: [5]

Work that is to be done can be viewed here: [6]

Regards! Yasht101 08:06, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Just a note, there are quite a few that are redirects so if someone has access to AWB and identifies them that would be an easy group to knock out. I'm also not sure how you came up with the 80K number but I think this idea is a good one. 71.163.243.232 (talk) 11:23, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

To be specific; there are 76K unknown-importance articles and 28K totally-unassessed articles Yasht101 11:27, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion: a contributor to Salon.com/ campaign manager for a U.S. representative who was elected

Thor Hesla might be borderline notable, even though the article has been nominated for deletion.

Is he notable for anything that has not been mentioned in the article?

(He is probably not notable only for being a victim of a terrorist attack.) --Sywoofer (talk) 08:56, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Split proposal for "History" section of Social Security (United States)

I have proposed a split for "History" section because some are concerned about length of the section. I have posted this message for hopes of coming into Talk:Social Security (United States). --George Ho (talk) 03:29, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Cheers task force

I have created a task force proposal for television show Cheers at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Cheers. Come there for discussion. --George Ho (talk) 04:54, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Jim Yong Kim

Jim Yong Kim is currently rated as high importance, is that right? Seems like a president of the World Bank isn't all that important to the US. 70.49.124.225 (talk) 05:38, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree. I change WPUS and NH to low but I left Dartmough as top since he was a President of the college. Kumioko (talk) 11:35, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Category:Military history articles with incomplete B-Class checklists

In addition to the tag and assess drive suggested last week WikiProject Military history is looking for editors to help them do B-Class assessments to the 24,000+ articles that need it for their project. I'll try to knock out some while I have the time, but clearing out this category might go faster with some help. I noticed that a huge number of these articles also related to WPUS or one of the supported projects so I thought some members of this project might be interested. 138.162.8.57 (talk) 18:54, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't know what is possible with a bot, but I wonder if you made a request at Bot requests, that maybe some knowledgeable editor could work up something that would help out your project.Maile66 (talk) 20:02, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the suggestion and I agree. Unfortunately other members don't like the idea of a bot asssessing the articles automatically. 138.162.8.57 (talk) 20:23, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Well...I just had a look at that project's membership list. That's the largest membership list I've seen on Wikipedia. I wonder if it holds the record. Nevertheless, 24,000 articles is a hunk of work for volunteers. Since I'm not a part of that project, what I think has little value. But you would think somebody could do a WP RFC, and maybe the group could come up with criteria that could be put into a bot. Although, as I say, I don't know much about bots. And maybe that project would just as soon have its own ideas of how to tackle such a workload.Maile66 (talk) 21:51, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

A bot can never do a B-class check as that is a human job involving looking at references at least cursuary. What a bot can do though is including the checklist tags into the relevant banner for people to fill. This will alert people who have the article on their watchlist to have a look and assess and will make that assessment process easier as we don't have to worry about markup. Agathoclea (talk) 07:30, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree that a bot can't do everything but I would argue that there are things that a bot can do with regards to the B-class checklist. For example it could look for obvious problems with referencing (such as if there were none) mark no for B1 References. It could check the main page for stub templates or size and in some cases, at least for very obvious ones, mark no for B2 Coverage and accuracy. B3 and B4 would be hard to do with a bot and B4 could be done if the article didn't have some supporting materials. For example, if it had no images or infoboxes then I would say that it probably didn't meet B5. I do think that if a bot did this it should leave a short note beside it saying it was done automatically by a bot but I am fine with it if people prefer to do it manually. Kumioko (talk) 13:55, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Some articles seemingly needing assessment

Some articles have fallen back into the unassessed categories when a second state template was converted to the US template instead of merging. I found those when checking the assessment log for articles going eg from stub to unknown. It is worth keeping an eye on the log, but I am sure there are a number of older cases like this and it be more worthwhile to set a bot at this to untangle to straitforward cases. Agathoclea (talk) 05:37, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I noticed that too and I was in the process of fixing the coding for that a couple of months ago but got fed up with the drama and said forget it. I found it quite hard to account for every variation of how the WikiProject templates displayed and that was part of the problem with the conversions. It is shocking how many different ways a WikiProject template shows up out there and almost any attempt to standardize the formatting, even for just this project, is met with disdain from those who aren't doing the task and don't acare about this project. Kumioko (talk) 14:00, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

The problem is actually having two (or more) of the same banner either directly or due to a redirect/wrapper and the two banners not agreeing on the assessment. I think the bot when checking for the assessments and classifications does not use a strict topdown logic therefor the stored assessment switch between the two values so effectivly a 1 in 4 chance of a change. That is why the log was 5 pages long when I started to work my way through. Down to 4 now. Agathoclea (talk) 08:03, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Copyright

This proposal relates to copyrights. Feel free to discuss. --George Ho (talk) 17:00, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

United States Senate election in Connecticut, 2012

The project banner for United States Senate election in Connecticut, 2012 was reverted as not in scope for our project. See also the reverters reasoning at User talk:Agathoclea#United States Senate election in Connecticut, 2012. I said I will refer it to the project page to decide if the article is in scope or not. Agathoclea (talk) 13:54, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Yeah thats not surprising. Markvs88 pretty much blindly reverts any additions of the WPUS banner to Connecticut articles. There are users in a couple other projects that act the same way like USRoads. This is going to sound like a tirade for a moment but...I tried to make an issue out of Marks innapropriate displays of aricle ownership, violations of 3RR and uncivil conduct a couple months ago, got blocked and the whole situation went downhil from there staining my credibility and good standing on Wikipedia. The community then showed me that they are currently tolerant of these sorts of actions, which I find disappointing and a shame. I frankly think that Marks (and others) displays are petty, innapropriate and flatly against policy but I refuse to get into the middle of another pissing match with these users after that situation showed me that the community, or the majority of it, doesn't care. Kumioko (talk) 14:26, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

An election is a local (CT) issue and is certainly not within the scope of WPUS. The WPUS is for national issues and whatever local projects it has merged into itself, not everything that has, is, or will ever happen on United States soil. The article in question is covered by four projects that actually relate to it.

Kumioko, it is not blind, it is consistant. If you don't like it, let's talk about it again. Maybe this 4th or 5th time you won't run away. Best, Markvs88 (talk) 14:29, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Mark, I do not have any desire to have a discussion with you about your hostile actions yet again. Its frankly a waste of my time and a waste of otherwise useful Wikipedia harddrive space to discuss anything with someone who refuses to listen. Just because you don't think its in scope, does not make it true no matter how much you wish it to be. Your right on one thing, your actions are consistently blind. Now go away, your hostile comments and pointless snide comments are not welcome here. And I didn't run away, I was blocked because the community decided that your article ownership and 3RR violations were more appropriate that my reversion of them. Kumioko (talk) 14:40, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Ok this looks I stepped on a long history of vandalism here. Then again the US has a long history of states doing their own thing - even having their own presidents. Agathoclea (talk) 14:53, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I understand Kumioko! It's not you. It's never you. It is always everybody else that is at fault. Again, I welcome disucssion on this matter but will not accept your ultimatums. You can say that, but you know you've always run away. Best, Markvs88 (talk) 14:59, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

(editconflict) We are actually digressing and arguing with an outsider - the real issue why I brought this here is do the members of the project feel the article is in scope or not. Anybody else cares to comment? c (talk) 15:02, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

More on topic, there are also 2 related projects that are supported by WPUS that apply. One is Wikipedia:WikiProject US State Legislatures and the other is Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Government. I believe both apply here and should also be added to the article. Kumioko (talk) 15:18, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Wow, that looks familiar! Best, Markvs88 (talk) 15:04, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately the truth of the matter is that until about a year and a half ago this project was defunct and a good number of the 100+ US related projects (you can see them in the Embassy tab) were defunct or inactive as well. When I started to rebuild and revive this project in the hopes of also reviving some of the others and providing a core project from which to help support these projects and the articles in them several projects and editors felt that it was a hostile takeover. Its been a back and forth since then, with Mark currently taking the lead in defending his little corner of the Wiki from the Evils of Kumioko and WPUS. Contrary to what some may try and get others to believe I have never, and never had the intention too, take over any project. Particularly not those that didn't want any. I do however think that any project has the right to add their tag to any article they feel is in their scope. In the past, with only a couple exceptions, if even one editor in a project opposed being supported by WPUS I didn't add them or added them to the joint projects list. There have even been a few cases where they said yes (or didn't reply at all) and then later changed their mind and were removed. Kumioko (talk) 15:15, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I just know I'm going to regret weighing in on this, having observed a tiny portion of the previous drama at a distance, but as to the instant case, I absolutely think any federal election falls within the intended scope of this project. Yes, it is a state election, but it is for a federal office, and any single state election can potentially have a dramatic effect on the balance of power in the entire chamber and Congress. (See Scott Brown's election to the Senate from Massachusetts.)

As to the larger point about what projects tag what articles, I'm bumfuzzled as to why so much energy has been devoted to it. The banners take up so little screen real estate, especially with the advent of the banner shell, that I can't imagine why it is worth all this to keep another banner off. To use the hyperbolic analogy I'm seeing thrown around, if someone created a WikiProject Milky Way and tagged every article in my Governors of Kentucky pet project, my level of concern would be somewhere between infintesimally small and non-existent. How is it that big a deal? It might be one extra turn on a scroll wheel. I don't get it. Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 15:54, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Family planning and birth control in the United States

I have created the Family planning in the United States and Birth control in the United States article to fill gaps and as a tidy up of Family planning. The articles need work. I am no expert on these topics. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 10:29, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Page of the Wikimedia United States Chapters Council on Meta now in Spanish

We have the page meta:Consejo de las secciones estadounidenses de Wikimedia on Meta for speakers of Spanish. It is a Spanish-language version of the page meta:Wikimedia United States Chapters Council WhisperToMe (talk) 04:10, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Idea to emphasize specific projects over United States in Template:WikiProject United States

I had an idea that I think will benefit not only WikiProject United States but the supported projects as well. I am working on refining the logic in Template:WikiProject United States to favor at least some of the individual projects over the umbrella United States project. What this would do, if I can get it to work at all, is to display the individual project (Arizona for example) as the primary project with United States in the lower supported project role when applicable. This would give the individual project more influence and prominence on the article while still allowing the use of one template, still alowing the articles and other content to be tracked across multiple project categories (United States and Arizona for example) and I think give more emphasis where its due. I'm not even sure if I can get this to work but my preliminary attempts at Template:WikiProject United States/Arizona indicate that its possible. Does anyone have any thoughts, ideas or suggestins on this idea? Kumioko (talk) 19:36, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I had something like this in mind for projects that do not want to give up their onw identity but do not mind us using their banners to track US articles. Only snag is when you got more than one state project. Agathoclea (talk) 20:52, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately I'm not sure if this is going to be possible. After playing with the code over the last couple days and talking with some of the developers this may not be possible unless we completely reengineer the template, stop using the WPBanner template and even then it would require a lot of code. I'm not sure its going to be practical. I still haven't completely given up hope and intend to continue to work on it but its not going to be a trivial thing to do in any regard. Kumioko (talk) 14:59, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Please come participate in this discussion

There is a discussion over here on what food might best represent American cuisine. Please come offer your opinions. Thanks! ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 06:18, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

WP US template

Quick question: are the individual state WP templates supposed to be replaced by the standard WP US template, with links to the individual state projects? 76.7.224.171 (talk) 03:29, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Only if the state is supported by this project. Kumioko (talk) 11:30, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I was just coming here to ask as I noticed a couple of states missing on the template as switches. Agathoclea (talk) 05:32, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

The template doesn't support all the state projects. Only the ones that wished too be. Some examples of projects that did not want it are Virginia, Maryland, Oregon, Florida and several others as well as some US related ones that are not states like US roads, NRHP and US Congress as examples. I hope this helps but if I am misunderstanding the question let me know and I will try and clarify. Kumioko (talk) 13:13, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Is there any guidance regarding the assignment of state parameters (such as OH=yes)?

For example, (a) is there some state assignment for every article that is related to any one of the 27 supported states, in a broad sense as the WPUS banner itself is used? (a2) same for the dozens of supported cities? (b) should every article be assigned to the state or city where it is likely to have the highest importance rating? or do these assignments routinely reflect "People from" categorization?

I'm prompted to ask now because Kumioko today assessed (compare versions) the biography of Grant Johnson, which is on my watchlist. But the biography was previously assigned to Ohio, so this merely provides the occasion to ask about use of state and city parameters. --P64 (talk) 16:23, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

No problem, along with several others I am currently trying to tackle the unnassessed articles so thats why that one popped up. In general though, if you look at Template:WikiProject United States it lists all the parameters of the template including the supported projects, Ohio included (although WikiProject Cleveland is not supported at this time). In general, to answer your question, yes if the article is associated to Ohio it should have the banner and be assessed but there are still a lot of articles for a lot of projects missing. I hope this answers your question but if not I would be glad to clarify. Kumioko (talk) 16:30, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Here are some specific questions about Grant Johnson which clarify the general. He is notable entirely for baseball and primarily as a player, secondarily as a captain/manager/etc? while a player (~30 years, baseball hall of fame type career). He was born and raised in Findlay, Ohio, and essentially matured there as a ballplayer.

Given the same history but Cincinnati instead of Findlay, would he be assigned to Cincinnati instead of Ohio or to both?

Would he be assigned to Ohio if he emigrated before the onset or maturation of notability, say age 15? What if he emigrated from Ohio at age 3 (not raised there), never to return?

If he played and managed professional baseball entirely for teams based in one state, say Illinois, should/would he still be assigned to OH? Would it matter if he were claimed by Wikiproject Chicago and graded mid-importance there?

P.S. I see that "all-Chicago" or "all-Illinois" and any semi-realistic alternative career except one based in Ohio would have located GJ outside the state and city Wikiprojects supported by WPUS. (Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York; Philadelphia, NYC --few big states or cities are here. I should have noticed this previously but didn't.) --P64 (talk) 20:28, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I would say assign him to both so that he would appear in either project. Kumioko (talk) 20:31, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Some articles needing assessment

I know this was recently suggested as a drive but I am going to throw it out here again for anyone interested. We seem to have built up a substantial backlog in articles that need to be assessed or given an importance to the project(s). I have been and will continue to chip away at this over the next couple of weeks as I find the time. It appears others are working this as well and that is appreciated. If anyone else wants to pitch in and do a few assessments for the US related project thats nearest to your heart your assistance would be greatly appreciated. I have added these below the assessment table on the main project page but below are a couple of progress bars just to help give a face to the problem and the progress.

Click on [show] for progress bar for Unassessed United States articles
72% complete Backlog: Unassessed United States articles Goal: 0 articles Current: 8,026 articles Initial: 28,647 articles

Click on [show] for progress bar for Unknown-importance United States articles
37% complete Backlog: Unknown-importance United States articles Goal: 0 articles Current: 46,157 articles Initial: 73,309 articles

Kumioko (talk) 19:35, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I just wanted to leave everyone working on assessments a note about the progress up to this point. So far we have assessed 418 articles and added the importance for 425. That's a pretty good dent in just a couple days. Kumioko (talk) 21:57, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I just wanted to give another update. We have assessed 1672 (5.8%) articles and have assigned an importance to 11,302 (15.5%) and it continues to go down. In addition I noticed the number of articles that fall under the projects scope increased by a couple thousand so we are getting ahead dispite the increase in articles being added. Great job to everyone who is helping. Kumioko (talk) 19:30, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

As of May 21 we have assessed 7786 articles and assigned an importance to 29864 articles. We are continuing to make outstanding progress. Kumioko (talk) 19:22, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Assessment & Review Request: Sawtooth National Forest

I have recently made major revisions to the Sawtooth National Forest page. I think that with some review and revision this article will qualify for FA status. I also think that this forest may have the most comprehensive coverage (including all linked pages about forest features) of any U.S. National Forest, and perhaps any protected area. Feel free to make grammatical and formatting changes, but before adding, removing, and changing content I would like to hear about the changes. Fredlyfish4 (talk) 21:28, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Just a fast glance - this is a fantastic article with wonderful photos. Maile66 (talk) 21:44, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I made a few updates to the tables per MOS:DTT. Before this could go to FAC though, the sources will need some review. Several appear broken in terms of formatting, and I'm not sure all of them qualify as "high-quality reliable sources", or in some cases, as "reliable sources".

• Just double check that things are done consistently in terms of formatting. I would find replacements for the IMDB links and anything that looks like it's a fansite (peakbagger.com) or otherwise has user-submitted content.
• If you're using the citation templates, use them for all citations for consistency; if not, make sure everything is manually formatted in a consistent fashion.
• Try not to fix citations with full first names with those that use initials only. (I'm not saying either is better or worse, but I prefer using full names where possible.)
• Try to make sure everything has authors in "Last, First" format.
• I personally try to make sure that each has an author (even if it's "Staff" on corporate works), a date/year, publisher, etc. I'd rather expend a little time to make sure everything is as complete as possible than have questions on where the source originated.

In short, comb for the niggling little stylistic things ahead of time, and you'll save yourself time during the FAC process. With FAC, the devil can be in the details. Good luck! Imzadi 1979 → 22:17, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Other than whats listed above here are a couple of things I recommend:

• The lede shouldn't have refs. The lede summarizes the article so the place in the article where the information is contained should have the reference
• The lede is a bit too long IMO
• The lede should summarize the article but there appears to be some info in the lede that isn't in the article
• Bare refs such as 1, 2 and 12. This expands on what Imzadi1979 said about standardizing the refs.
• Use a consistent date format. I see at least 3 different formats

Yeah, the dates consistency. MOS:DATEUNIFY This got pointed out to me recently, so just passing it along.Maile66 (talk)

• It would be best if the images had alt text. I don't know if its required but its highly recommended.

Aside from these mostly stylistic and nitpicky things great job it looks like a really well written article. Kumioko (talk) 01:57, 12 May 2012 (UTC) Thanks for the help folks. I've been working on making changes per your suggestions.Fredlyfish4 (talk) 01:31, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

The Big Mo, and Cher

A discussion has been opened on the talk page of the battleship USS Missouri (BB-63) centered on the issue of whether or not to include a mention of battleship's appearance in the music video If I Could Turn Back Time, all interested editors are welcome to participate.

70.24.251.208 (talk) 05:31, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Citigroup Center

FYI Citigroup Center has been requested to be renamed. See talk:Citigroup Center; as one of the iconic buildings of an American skyline, you might want to know. 70.24.251.208 (talk) 03:42, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

List of signers of the United States Constitution

I have nominated List of signers of the United States Constitution for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Harrias (talk • contribs) 14:04, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

List of Tea Party politicians

Specifically, Talk:List of Tea Party politicians#Post-AfD clarification and possible slimming down. Input would be much appreciated. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 14:50, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Polling order

In Talk:United_States_Senate_election_in_Massachusetts,_2012#Polling_order, we are having a dispute concerning whether polls should be listed in chronological or reverse-chronological order. I would appreciate any outside input from the broader group of editors who contribute to these articles. Thanks! johnpseudo 16:16, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

There I have posted "Five cents on chronological list order". The cents use articles familiar to me and do not concern polls directly. The remarks are wise, of course, but some of the exhibits may be useful reference for some editors. --P64 (talk) 16:50, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Question concerning coverage

I had a question about the WikiProjects supported by the WPUS banner. I see that certain states are supported by the banner but not all. Why are all 50 states not covered? 64.6.124.31 (talk) 19:11, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

The banner only supports the projects that want to be supported. Some states such as Oregon, Florida and others have opted to not be supported byt the project and or this projects banner. Is there a certain project you had in mind? Kumioko (talk) 19:16, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

No, I've been adding importance tags to the various ACW articles. These tags only seem to be supported by WPUS, not by the individual state projects. 64.6.124.31 (talk) 19:20, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Looking at your contribution history I see what you mean. Theres no good answer but the best I can say is that some projects are better than others at identifying the articles in their scope. Many of the US related projects are only minimally active so there are a lot of articles that need to be tagged. I tag between 500 and 1000 per day but there are just too many and unfortunately I don't have a bot anymore so it takes forever to do. Feel free to add the WPUS banner to them as well if you want. WPUS supports the ACW parameter as well as Milhist so that way the article will be in both projects scope widening the number of folks that see it. Kumioko (talk) 19:35, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

So basically add WPUSA banner to USA articles, even if the state WP doesn't support the project? 76.7.235.118 (talk) 18:28, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

The deal is that some state Wikiprojects have become subsidiaries of the USA WikiProject, but others continue to exist as separate WikiProjects. I don't speak for the leadership of the USA WikiProject, but history indicates they probably would be happy to have the USA banner on every article that is in some way related to the USA. --Orlady (talk) 19:14, 6 June 2012 (UTC) However, if an article is related to a specific state and that state has a separate WikiProject that has not tagged the article, the members of the state WikiProject likely would be happy to have you tag it for them. There are various reasons why articles can get overlooked. --Orlady (talk) 19:17, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Thats mostly correct but I do want to clarify one thing. Although I would agree that virtually any US "related" projects are subsidieries to the US project I don't want to give the impression that they are subserviant to it. IMO even the inactive ones have full freedom to make their own decisions and set their own scopes and related stuff. Sharing the banner just allows some reduction in maintanence of templates, categories, etc. and allows the articles that fall under those projects to be reviewed and watched in multiple places (the more the better IMO). We have also worked to somewhat standardize naming conventions for some subpages (like project to do lists, assessment categories, membership lists, etc.) so that they are more or less equal from one project to the next. IMO one of the best things that WPUS does is act as a central point of assistance for those projects that have gone inactive or defunct, or are semi-active. Particularly for the articles that fall under that project, many of which would otherwise be ignored or forgotten. Of course there are a lot of very active projects too and that all helps the group. Again just my opinion but we are stronger as a group than as individuals and that is true for the projects too. Kumioko (talk) 19:36, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

(ec)My issue is that the project covers so many articles that it is not really manageable. The last time I looked, the assessment change list was so long it was truncated (Actually just checked, and today's list covers part the articles that start with 'H'). That says something about the size. I think we need a better way to deal with massive projects. My other issue is that of assessments. The way the templates work, the top project's assessment applies to all of the underlying projects. While the differences may be small, there may be differences. I think at this point, we should consider pushing joint projects. The concept seems interesting but what it means and how to join is not explained on the main page. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:40, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

That only shows the activity in tagging and assessing. BTW the "subprojects" do have their own importance assessment. eg a "Low" for WPUS might be a "Mid" or "High" for Ohio. WikiProject Africa works on a similar system and has the potential to include even more articles eventually. Agathoclea (talk) 20:46, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I realize the size=unmanagable argument comes up a lot but I don't really see it. The project only has about 160, 000 articles. Quite a few projects have more than that including Biography and Military history and they are still manageable. I would also like to note that there are quite a few joint projects already associated. Some with Milhist, some with Glam and still others for other things. I agree that the project is large and is growing but that does not mean its unmanagable IMO. Its no more unmanageable than have 70+ individual projects, many of which are inactive, doing nothing or little to the article. I had hoped for more bots and activity in the project at this point but it is fairing pretty well. There are a lot of people working on content from different angles relating to the project. We are collaborating with multiple projects and plenty of other things. I would also note that the long assessment list isn't a negative its a positive. It means people are doing stuff with the project, they are working on articles, doing assessments, tagging them for the project, etc. Kumioko (talk) 23:35, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Here is some grist featuring depth of project scope rather than allocation to supported state and city projects.

• 2012 Boston Red Sox season — Boston Red Sox, Major League Baseball
• Caldecott Medal — Association for Library Service to Children, American Library Association
• National Book Award for Nonfiction — National Book Award, National Book Foundation

Each row concerns one article, listed first, that I used last hour for exhibit in "Five cents on list chronological order" (re #Polling order on another talk page [7]). None of the three is now in WikiProject US. The second and third listings are less general and more general parents of the exhibit article. Bold marks those now in WikiProject US. Major League Baseball is based in the U.S. but operates regularly in North American and the Caribbean with one member ballclub in Toronto. ALSC is one division of the American Library Association. BRS, ALA, and NBF are private organizations, not government. There seems to be principle or two in operation here. --P64 (talk) 16:50, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

After reviewing the mentioned articles most of these previously contained a state or city level project that is now supported by the WPUS banner. You are absolutely right that there are a lot more articles that could or should be tagged that aren't yet. Unfortunately article tagging bots are in short supply these days with most of the main bot ops that did them on the Absent, blocked or banned list for various reasons. The operators of the 2 that remain, are very very busy with other tasks and rarely take on tagging runs. That means that article tagging is left a manual, tedious and ntime consuming process. Kumioko (talk) 17:26, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment, which I did hope to elicit. I do not know or say myself that those articles should be tagged. To me it seems reasonable, offhand, that this project tags main articles on organizations in the U.S. (BRS, ALA, NBF) but does not tag all articles in their categories (the first-listed articles that I used as exhibits a few hours ago).

For what it's worth, the two British literary awards articles Carnegie Medal in Literature and Kate Greenaway Medal are not tagged by any "national" wikiproject, nor is the Welsh Tir na n-Og Award, only by WP:Children's literature, akin many articles on American literary awards --in contrast to U.S. Presidential or NEH honors. But the parent organization CILIP is tagged by WP:UK as well as WP:Children's literature (and others).

Again FWIW, i probably would have tagged for WP:US the ALSC article, same as ALA is tagged.

Is there consensus for greater depth in WP:US tagging? (not every member of an American baseball team?!) --P64 (talk) 19:35, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

A lot of it depends on wether or not the article is at the national/multi state level or if the article falls into the scope of one of the projects which are supported by the WPUS banner. If the answer to either of those is yes, then it should probably be tagged. With that said, there have been long and heated debates about the scope and size of WPUS, largely for no reason IMO. Some of the other US related projects feel infringed by WPUS while others seem to be just wanting to protect their swim lane or their articles of interest. In the end, I think this is pointless because the policy in Wikipedia state that a policy can tag whatever articles they feel are in the projects scope. Also, we should be more worried about whats best for the articles and content not our personal pet project. Again my opinion is that, wtih some exceptions, the more projects that watch an article the better. So, as far as I am concerned if the article is in the scope of US then it could or should be tagged. Especially if it falls into the scope of a project that is supported by the WPUS banner. Kumioko (talk) 19:43, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Civil War GA reassessment

I have nominated American Civil War for a reassessment of its Good Article status due to its extreme length. (see Wikipedia:Good_article_reassessment/American_Civil_War/2) Please comment as this is a community reassessment.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 21:40, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Banner issue

Kumioko,

I just ran across this: Talk:Jim Garrison, and think you might want to look at the page. Something seems to be off, and it looks like you were the last one to edit the banner. Maile66 (talk) 22:26, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks I fixed it and identified a few more that have that problem (not just for WPUS) and I'll work on getting that fixed. Kumioko (talk) 00:58, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Report on the use of self-published sources

The first version of a report on the use of self-published sources is now available, in Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia reliability. Some of the self-published sources listed in the report pertain to this project.

Suggestions on the report itself (a discussion has started here), and help in remedying the use of the self-published items that relate to this project will be appreciated. History2007 (talk) 06:16, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll definately take a look at that later. I'm kinda surprised there aren't more but these are all fairly written about topics so it shouldn't be too hard to find something. Kumioko (talk) 11:10, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

I have relayed the notice, with some comment, at Talk: Negro league baseball. --where I didn't think to add any WPUS banner -I never do- but it's a main-main article ... oh, my, History of baseball in the United States is a main-main-main article that doesn't ... Be assured that "there aren't more" because the work of so many American editors is not tracked here (and so many references are incomplete).

Looking ahead, we will need a way for discussion among editors, perhaps in projects, to approve particular self-published sources. --such as those used at Negro league baseball, probably in contrast to reference 1 at History of baseball in the United States. --P64 (talk) 17:30, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

This is just my opinion but I think that self published sources are ok as a secondary but not a primary source. I think there could be exceptions to this but in general I think that will be an ok rule of thumb. Kumioko (talk) 18:01, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Self-published sources are rarely ok to use as a source for an article in any capacity with a few limited exceptions as detailed at WP:SPS. The first is where the author is a published expert in that field, and applies in the case of Paul LaVanway on the Brockway Mountain Drive article. Mr. LaVanway is a local Upper Peninsula of Michigan historian whose articles have appeared in Michigan History, a journal published by the Historical Society of Michigan since 2009 and the State of Michigan before that. He's also lectured at the Keweenaw National Historic Park, further cementing his credentials as a historian, and allowing his self-published book on the roadway to be used. (The book has had assistance from the local historical society, but they didn't approve of the text, so it's a SPS.) If he wrote and self-published a book on chemistry or music though, that could not be used as he is not a chemistry or music expert.

The other exception to the SPS rules is allowing sources to be used about that source as long as we do so carefully. There are five listed guidelines to follow, but we can quote a company's website for information about itself, or we can use a celebrity's Twitter or Facebook pages for certain details, but ideally we can replace such information with third-party sources as much as possible. In short though, we have to evaluate the quality of each SPS, and if the situation is similar to the Brockway/LaVanway case, the source can be used. If not, it should be replaced in the long run. Imzadi 1979 → 19:35, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't agree or disagree with that.

As i understand the current effort, it is limited to "self-publishers" in the sense, publishers whose business is known to be enabling authors to "self-publish" in a different sense.

Kumioko, it occurs to me the reported numbers may be small because this survey is limited to field publisher= in some cite template. (no time to check this now) --P64 (talk) 20:07, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

I think Imzadi has some good points and I think we all agree its going to be a case by case basis. Kumioko (talk) 20:17, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Self-published sources should be restricted to primary sources (as a source about itself), for topics that deal with that particular source (as a source about itself), or its author (as a primary source). They should not be used for topics that are the subject of that source, so should not be used as a secondary source or a tertiary source. 70.24.251.208 (talk) 05:22, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Reviewers needed for FA nomination

An article from this project is nominated for Featured Article status: Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders. To assist the process, visit its FA review page to add comments, or register support/oppose sentiments. Cheers. --Noleander (talk) 00:05, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I dropped a few suggestions but some other folks may want to take a look and see what they see also. Kumioko (talk) 02:18, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

WP:KY has this page, updated by AAlertBot, that tells when any of the project's articles enter a review workflow (GA, FA, PR, ACR, etc.) Do we have this for WP:US? Should we? Could give folks looking for something to review a place to start. Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 14:02, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Great idea. Yeah we have it and its located in a couple different places. Its on the main project page if you scroll down a bit and on the to do list. Here is a link to a template that was created for it: Template:WPUnited States Article alerts. Also, most of the supported projects also have their own although some still need to be created for some of the less active projects. I hope this helps. Kumioko (talk) 14:19, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll add that to my watchlist. Lots bigger than I first thought, but still, that'll be a good reference. Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 15:13, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Yeah it is pretty big but it makes it a lot easier than running all over to different venues and differnet projects. I find it very helpful myself to save a few keystrokes. Kumioko (talk) 15:51, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Barack Obama FAR

There is a discussion ongoing at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Barack Obama/archive9Lihaas (talk) 16:30, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Pleasant Valley Cattle Wars

Wikipedia article = Pleasant Valley War.

A good source of information on the Pleasant Valley Cattle War is the book, "Oxen to Oxides," by John Fletcher "Fletch" Fairchild, who was born in 1897. This book exists only as a typed manuscript (as of June 2012). Fletch Fairchild recounts the stories told to him about this Graham-Tewksbury feud. His book greatly elaborates as to how the feud began, particularly the role played by the Daggs Brothers. He recounts the story of the first white man killed in the feud, as well as two prior incidents where men were killed PRIOR to the shooting of John Tewksbury and William Jacobs.

A copy of this book is in the Sedona Heritage Museum, Sedona, Arizona.

The article's title should be changed from Pleasant Valley War to Pleasant Valley Cattle War, which is what he called it and he knows how the locals referred to it, because he was there. My two cents.

Forrest747 (talk) 03:57, 15 June 2012 (UTC) submitted by forrest747

Is the logo eligible for copyright?

Is the WikiProject US logo even eligible for copyright protection? It's just simple geometry. (You could have an unregistered trademark on it and license the trademark under CC-BY-SA.) 68.173.113.106 (talk) 23:22, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Coordinator for the US National Archives WikiProject

The US National Archives WikiProject seeks a coordinator to help reboot the project and work on new initiatives! The role is modeled after other Wikiproject coordinators, like the WikiProject Military History coordinators. The coordinator will work with the Wikipedian in Residence to organize and increase participation in the WikiProject, with the goal that the WikiProject is an active space for collaboration maintained by and for the Wikipedia editors, rather than the National Archives.

Please see the full information at Wikipedia:GLAM/NARA/Coordinator. Feel free to pass this note along to any interested parties. Thanks! Dominic·t 16:05, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Blanking of Future section of Politics of Texas

The Future section at Politics of Texas has been blanked 4 times since 2 June 2012. Interested editors are invited to comment on this issue at Future section discussion.
In response to a posting at WikiProject_Texas, User:Maile66 suggested posting a notice here for increased visibility and said that he had requested temporary page protection.
SBaker43 (talk) 17:01, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not sure what else SBaker43 can do about this, but some of the big thinkers of Wikipedia are over here. What seems to be happening, is that an entire section is being repeatedly blanked by IP addresses. I've looked at the section, and I see no validity for removing the section. I've requested temporary page protection. If anyone else has any ideas, please offer them. Maile66 (talk) 17:13, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Requesting temporary page protection is probably the best course of action at this time. If after that temporary protection is lifted and edits continue, then a request for indefinite protection can be made. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:23, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Perth requested-move notification

A requested move survey was started at Talk:Perth_(disambiguation)#Requested_move, which proposes to move:

• Perth → Perth, Western Australia
• Perth, Scotland → Perth, Perthshire
• Perth (disambiguation) → Perth

Background: There was a previous requested-move survey which ran from late May to mid June. There was a great deal of controversy surrounding the closure and subsequent events, which involved a number of reverts and re-reverts which are the subject of an ongoing arbitration case; there was also a move review process. — P.T. Aufrette (talk) 04:09, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Isn't this a subject for a WikiProject Australia?--Tomwsulcer (talk) 09:44, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and WikiProject Scotland also. But because of the truly exceptional circumstances surrounding the first requested-move survey, I thought it would also be useful to try to gather a very wide range of opinions from people without any connection to Australia or Scotland. — P.T. Aufrette (talk) 13:14, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Michelle Rhee

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Michelle Rhee#Relation of subject to Paul Scott. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 10:12, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Template:United States

Template:United States, a redirect to Template:United States political divisions, is being discussed at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion#Template:United States. Your views would be most welcome in that discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 17:25, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Update on project wide article assessments

We are doing great so far on the assessments for the project. Not only have we dropped from 28, 647 articles needing assessment to below 16, 700 (representing about 42% complete, we also dropped from 73, 309 articles lacking importance to below 36, 000 (representing 50.9% complete). At the same time we added about 27, 000 pieces of content and several projects so great job for those that are working on this.

Many of you are focusing on specific projects so this progress bar chart will not truly reflect your efforts but the chart below does give an idea where the project as a whole stands.

Click on [show] for progress bar for the Unassessed United States articles
72% complete Backlog: Unassessed United States articles Goal: 0 articles Current: 8,026 articles Initial: 28,647 articles

Click on [show] for progress bar for the Unknown-importance United States articles
37% complete Backlog: Unknown-importance United States articles Goal: 0 articles Current: 46,157 articles Initial: 73,309 articles

Again great job. Kumioko (talk) 18:24, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Demographic information

I'm not sure where to ask this, so I'll float it here and we'll see how it goes. On what seems like hundreds of thousands of articles on Wikipedia about United States local municipalities (cities, townships, counties), there are demographic blurbs. They were predominantly taken from the 2000 Census, and there is an incomplete effort to transition this to 2010 Census information. I am particularly interested in the median household/family income data. Where was this drawn from, and what's being done to update it for 2010? Is income even something that the Census measures, or is that handled separately by the American Community Survey? I think some effort at consistency here is worth thinking through. What source was used for the 2000 median income information? MrArticleOne (talk) 14:36, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree that this data was likely derived from the 2000 census and a lot needs to be updated with the new data. Additionally many of the URL's have changes so the sources needs to be updated as well. It is a massive task and has come up before. I think that some can be updated with a bot but the last time it came up none of the bot operators were interested in doing it. I also seem to remember some folks feeling like using the census data directly constituted original research but there were a lot of us that didn't agree with that either. I don't remember what the last thoughts were. I'm not 100% sure what the source used was for the median income but it was probably the census. I would say if you find a source, like the new census I would go ahead and update it. I hope this helps and please let me know if you have any ideas of how to update even some of these. Kumioko (talk) 14:44, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I'm not sure that the Census collects median income information. Like I say, it may come from other sources. I was really trying to figure out what source was used in 2000. I'm not an expert on what information the Census collects. I haven't seen income information in the Census results I've nosed through, but that could just mean it hasn't been released yet, since the data comes out in waves. MrArticleOne (talk) 15:03, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I was working on Table of United States Micropolitan Statistical Areas, and I updated 48 manually, and have 528 to go. Yes, it's a massive task. Does anyone know of a way to transmit easily, the csv or xls tables from the Census Bureau into the tables in these respective table articles (on CSA, MSA, etc.)? Thanks, --Funandtrvl (talk) 15:49, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Do you have a link to one as an example? Kumioko (talk) 15:57, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the new data is here for the micropolitan table -- csv or in xls. --Funandtrvl (talk) 16:09, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Do you want the whole table converted as is or do you need some changes to it. Converting it to a table should be pretty easy. The hardest part would be gettint the header columns right but all the main section would only take a couple minutes. Kumioko (talk) 16:55, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the whole table would need to be converted. The only difference is that the list from the Census Bureau is alphabetical, and the table in the article is by ranking. It's a sortable table, so I don't know how you could make it by ranking, using the csv stuff. Let me know how you do it, is it a script?? --Funandtrvl (talk) 17:10, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

OK no problem. Its not so much a script as a process. I pull the table into excel. Concatenate the columns putting |- and | in place as necessary. Then I take that whole table into Word and replace the |- and | with themselves and a line break and then I build the column header manually. It sounds harder than it really is. Once you've done it once or twice it doesn't take long. Can you tell me hwo the columns matchup between the csv linked above and the articles table? I see on the CSV there are 2 different sets of date fields and don't know which to use. Kumioko (talk) 17:19, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

In the meantime, User:Buaidh has graciously updated the table for us, and I will check the other tables too. I'm wondering if you and he use the same way to convert the tables? So, the tables are taken care of, but the thousands of articles, as mentioned above, don't have the demographic updates yet, like # of households, age of residents, breakdown of races, etc. Any ideas on how to automate the process? And thanks so much for letting me know how to convert these tables, I never would have thought of it!! --Funandtrvl (talk) 18:55, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure there must be a way but I don't know exactly how it could be done. Its possible that if we submit a bot request someone will do it but I haven't had very good luck with that myself. I do agree it needs to be done though. Kumioko (talk) 19:01, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

The historic Daisy video

Should this be the next Featured Pic?

The historic Daisy ad helped Lyndon Johnson win a landslide over Barry Goldwater in 1964 and is an important turning point in political and advertising history. The entire full length video is up for Featured Picture! Click here to check it out. – Lionel ^(talk) 09:10, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Double-crested Cormorant

See discussion on whether to include the alternate colloquial name of "nigger goose", currently disputed. go to Talk:Double-crested_Cormorant#Inclusion_of_colloquial_name_.22nigger_goose.22 Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:50, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Infobox image discussion

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Filipino American#Lack of images. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 23:52, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Subsections of Americans article

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Americans#NON WHITE HISPANICS(SOME OTHER RACE) or HISPANICS SECTION. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:00, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Error on US 2000 Olympics page

Venus Williams won gold in tennis singles, not Serena — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.64.145.190 (talk) 02:18, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Invitation to comment

Hi,

This is an invitation to "United States" members to comment on my proposal for a "Westerns" WikiProject to deal specifically with articles regarding Western movies and Western TV series', major Western actors, directors and people involved in this vast genre over the past century. This is for the fictional Wild West – such as Hollywood's re-imagining of the Old West – so not a historical project. Comments, ideas and further support appreciated. Thanks. — Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 12:24, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Westerns

Roanoke, Virginia Obama speech

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Barack Obama#Article idea. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:43, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Missy Franklin

FYI Talk:Missy Franklin is currently discussing issues concerning people with dual citizenships, in this case, Canada and USA -- 70.50.151.36 (talk) 08:04, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Comments by NiD.29

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Military history of the United States. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 16:35, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

mermaids

I want to know more about the documentary I saw on Animal Planet. It was extremely moving, but not quite convincing to me,although,I believe anything is possible. I would like to know if the scientists from NOAA are legit, or is this just another way to invite fallacies into everyone's heads? I firmly believe the government will go towards any lengths to dispell this is true. I also believe that it may "tie into" alien intiatives within the ocean environment. Is there a connection,or is it a separate issue altogether? SOS — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lori anthos (talk • contribs) 21:25, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

What is going on here?

What's this business of WikiProject United States taking over all the state wikiprojects? This is inane. I've been actively working under the auspices of the WikiProject Rhode Island, and then it gets sucked up into some big meaningless conglomerate. This is a corporate takeover. Come on folks, what's next? WikiPrjoect Wikipedia? Wikiproject World? I would like to be working within a wikiproject that is limited in scope and meaningful. Please return Rhode Island to its own wikiproject!Sarnold17 (talk) 09:26, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry your upset. WikiProject Rhode Island is still its own project the only thing that changed was that it shares the same banner with all its functionality, some of the project pages where standardized to make them easier to update and a couple of bots where setup to automate a couple tasks. There is no requirement for you to do anything outside WikiProject Rhode Island and in fact each of the state project still need help and support including Rhode Island. Also see the discussion on the WikiProject Rhode Island talk page. Agathoclea is exactly right in their comments as well. We didn't do anything without discussion. I started a discussion on the project page and left it for 18 days before taking action, that was back in September 2011 and here it is July 2012. That to me is a pretty good indication that the project could use a little help which is what we are trying to do. Not a hostile takeover. I hope this helps explain things a little. I really hope you continue to participate in the Rhode Island project, the project needs editors and so do the articles it supports. Kumioko (talk) 11:12, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I would contend it's been far more helpful to have the full resources of the US wikiproject at your disposal. Many of the state wikiprojects have only a few active editors by themselves. —Ed!^(talk) 13:45, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your speedy response. I now see two issues. The first is not that RI falls under the United States project; the issue is that the identification of the article with Rhode Island gets lost on the talk page with this big banner with an American flag. The identification of the article with Rhode Island is reduced to a single line with a couple of symbols. The banner totally misplaces the emphasis of what the article is about. Who cares that the article is about the United States? That probably applies to a majority of articles on English wikipedia. The emphasis should be placed on the individual states. Yes, the big issue is the banner. And not only is the emphasis mis-directed, but so is the importance scale. I might have a subject who was in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, and the importance may have been mid, high, and top in each one respectively. However, on the scale of the United States, the subject would have a low importance, because someone in Wagon Tracks, Montana may have never heard of the subject. So now, what do we put for the rating? The second issue is that the use of state banners is not consistent. Yesterday I was trying to incorporate a banner for a subject that was in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York. Under the United States banner I added the RI and MA codes, but it didn't work for NY. I, of course, discovered that New York has kept its original state banner (hooray for New York!), and that a state code did not work under the United States banner. Also, I did not just recently discover this issue; I became unhappy about it several months ago when I began seeing the old banners replaced by the new. I didn't pay a lot of attention to it because I was much more interested in creating content; however I was annoyed by what I saw. I only visit the Rhode Island project page occasionally, because, as you noted, there's not much going on there, and I think I'm the only one that has made any changes to it in the past two years. However, on a fluke, I visited the project's talk page for the first time, yesterday, and noticed that another editor voiced a concern about this issue several months ago. That's all I needed to go public with my dissatisfaction. So, in recap, I find that the WikiProject United States banner is inappropriate due to a mis-placed emphasis, and I find its importance rating scale (already an ambiguous issue) to be unclear and mis-directed; and that the use of state codes is not consistent. Thanks for listening.Sarnold17 (talk) 14:02, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I understand the concern, but please keep in mind this is a global encyclopedia. It does not, and should not, show preference to the United States, or organize itself in any way as though the US is the primary audience. The crux of notability is focused on the global importance -- for everything. If an article is notable only in one state and unheard of elsewhere, we should be questioning if it is notable enough to be on Wikipedia. —Ed!^(talk) 14:19, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, wikipedia is global, but I'm not going to back down from my position. I would be equally as dismayed if WikiProject Linicolnshire got sucked up into WikiProject United Kingdom. If I'm going to read an article about England, I'd like to know where in England the emphasis lies. If I'm going to write an article that is of concern to a specific shire in England, then I want that reflected on the talk page, not WikiProject United Kingdom.Sarnold17 (talk) 14:28, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Since you raised several points I am going to respond to each separately as bulleted below. Please let me know if I missed any:

1. Use of the WPUS Project banner - I understand that by using the banner the Rhode Island project doesn't have a big bold banner itself however I also don't think that its hidden either. I have tried to make the supported projects display as boldly and evenly as I can. I have tried several things to make the supported projets more prominantly unfortunately I am also bound by the technical limitations of the banner.
2. Not all state projects are supported - Your also correct in that not all US related projects are supported by WPUS. Currently there are 93 supported projects which can be seen if you look at the project page for WikiProject United States. You'll see the list of supported projects, which is currently only about half the states.
3. Differing importance - The WikiProject United States supports multi importance for articles. This means that an article can have a different importance rating for United States and for each supported project. So it could be Low for US, Top for Montana, High for American Old West, etc.
4. Only occassional visits to the Project page - The problem here is that no one seemed to update or respond to comments on the project. Its great that editors like yourself are editing the articles and they are frankly more important than the prjoect, however if the project isn't updated then it isn't good either.

As with Ed I think that the Rhode Island project and its articles gains more from the WPUS support than it lost in its banner but I hope this helps to explain things a little.Kumioko (talk) 14:37, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Re traffic statistics on project pages - a sobering reality Not just US states, but any project page..69.237.146.24 (talk) 14:51, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Some projects are rather active (ie. WP:MILHIST), but most aren't that active. The question is how large a net to throw in consolidation, and how big is too big for a regular wikiproject which instead should be a coordination wikiproject. Per discussions at WP:CANADA and WP:COUNCIL, all the states can be signed on to WP:USA banner regardless of the feelings of the projects being signed on, as long as you don't redirect their own banner to the WP:USA banner. Though if you track what happened at WP:CANADA, they tend to delete banners of projects they "sign on" to their mass banner, and that ends up with bad feelings from the other projects for denigrating their topics (especially by removing banners from their top importance articles) And projects that got their banners replaced end up having lower activity, so killing those projects off, effectively. So... if a project is signed onto WPUSA's banner, should there be an active drive to replace that projects banner with the mass WPUSA banner? If there is, it could end up by killing the smaller project, since their information would disappear with you use bannershell, and their importances disappear if you don't expand everything.

However, if you look at WP:MILHIST, the merging of projects, and their talk pages, that increased activity, and the number of watchers and editors available to improve and fix the articles. So, the converse was true, since each project was focused in too small an area to maintain an active userbase, but many of the users of the main project shared interests, and would help out when issues came out.

Personally, I think that top and high importance articles should use a separate banner, to make it clear who actually cares about the topic. -- 76.65.131.160 (talk) 04:45, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I think this is my biggest concern about losing the individual state tags; when you have a subject that is truly and legitimately of high or top importance to a project, that fact gets totally lost in the enormity of an entity as big as the United States. Thanks for adding your $.02.Sarnold17 (talk) 13:19, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I can see that WPUS is actually working, because I've seen tags appearing in a lot of the content that I've created, but have avoided updating the talk page. This has prompted me to go back and clean house, and as of yesterday I have redone all of the tags in every article that I've created, and many others in which I have an interest. So, hooray for WPUS. However, the issue remains that the emphasis of the article is lost with the WPUS tag. The solution: redesign the WPUS tag. Put the WPUS business in fine print at the top of the tag, and then allow each state to have its bold and shiny symbols, ratings AND IMPORTANCE, so that it STANDS OUT as it did with individual state tags. After all, if you want to know what an article is about, you go to the talk page and look at the tags. That's the way it was pre-September 2011. Since then, when you go to the talk page you see WikiProject United States loudly proclaimed, and then somewhere in the substrata lies the IMPORTANT state info. As in my earlier comments: the emphasis needs to be reversed.Sarnold17 (talk) 13:41, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

First let me say thanks for the props. Disagreements aside its nice to know that people feel that things are working. If the importance is the main problem then its really a non issue. As I mentioned before the template allows for every project to have its own importance. Its right there in parenthesis right after the project name and Icon. I might be able to code something that emphasises them a little more but I'm not sure. The code for that template is ridiculously complex and its used by a lot of projects so even minor changes can have far reaching consequences. It really boils down to this, if the project(s) want to break away thats fine, however if there are no editors who are willing to maintain that project, monitor the talk page and take care of the Project tasks and articles then its counterproductive to be alone. The fact that it took 9 months for anyone to notice or comment that the project had been added to the supported projects list seems evidence enough to me that its not a problem. I would also note that it is quite a bit of work to convert a template into or out of the WPUS one so if Rhode Island or another project decides to leave it will take some time to craft some code and apply the change. Since Rhode Island has over 3300 articles currently with a lot more that could/should be tagged (I haven't finished running them yet till this discussion is over) it could be about 5500-6000 pieces of content total including images, categories, templates and the like. We would also need to redirect several bots and support pages to reflect the change. Its doable but a bit of effort. Kumioko (talk) 13:52, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't mean for this to sound as harsh as it's probably going to, but I find this a curious statement: "After all, if you want to know what an article is about, you go to the talk page and look at the tags." With all due respect, if I want to know what the article is about, I read the lead. I rarely visit the talk page, and if I do, it's usually to see if an issue about the article content is being discussed, not to see what WikiProjects are interested in the article. The only exception is if I want to make sure it is tagged for WikiProject Kentucky, my WikiProject of choice. Besides all this, the individual WikiProjects still maintain their own project pages and categories that reflect an article's importance relative to that WikiProject, so I don't see how the present arrangement impedes their work on that front. The counter argument to making each state project's symbol (usually a flag) more visible is that the talk pages of articles that are supported by multiple states (and there are several such articles) get cluttered with lots and lots of flags. I personally don't see a problem with the present arrangement. Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 14:39, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I had to ask for help on this one but take a look at this.

I think adding the extra block of color is a little much but this will allow the supported projects importance to be much more prominant and visible compared to WikiProject United States. Let me know what you think. Kumioko (talk) 23:40, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Kumioko, for your efforts to bring some resolution to this. You have indicated that you don't care for the cosmetic change, and I suspect that a majority of those reading this would agree with you. I find it a step in the right direction, but also realize that it doesn't resolve one of the basic issues I had in the beginning, and that is that the United States is way too big a topic on which to assess things. When articles are assessed using such a broad brush, we then lessen the ability to differentiate between articles, and therefor lose some color, flavor and interest in the wikipedia experience. Certainly WPUS was created for a purpose, to bring multiple inactive projects under some form of active oversight. But why do we have to assess articles on such a massive scale? I remember the first time I noticed a WPUS banner on the talk page of one of my articles. I didn't know what happened. I went back and tried to re-create the old Rhode Island banner, but couldn't do it. Something was lost. Taken away was some little bit of identity that I had become accustomed to seeing in the articles of interest to me in my tiny little corner of the world.

I would have never brought up this entire mess had I not seen that one other editor voiced a concern some time ago. That editor has not chimed in on the current discussion of the issue, and I don't see any result to my venting that is going to produce the change in my mind's eye, or bring things back to the way they were. I don't think I have much support, and I sense that support for keeping the things the way they are now is fairly strong. For this reason, I would like to bow out of this discussion, with sincere apologies for becoming the fly in the ointment. I'd rather not see any changes made at all, because they will consume time and effort on someone's part, where the effort may be more fruitfully used elsewhere. I will get over my difficulties, and currently need to get back to more important endeavors. So thanks to all who chimed in, and particularly to you, Kumioko, for your sincere efforts at appeasement.Sarnold17 (talk) 12:27, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I just want you to know that I have no problem with you or that you brought up the issue. I understand your feelings and I appreciate your willingness to be flexible. I truly believe that the projects are stronger and more effective working as a group and as a whole than as individuals. Please let me know if you have any other ideas or concerns about the project or how it functions. Kumioko (talk) 13:30, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm coming to this really late, but are the importance ratings really needed? They're extremely subjective, and Milhist gets along just fine without them (possibly even better, with no importance-related disputes!). Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 03:11, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Just wondering

Is there any particular reason why this project doesn't have a collaboration with WikiProject Florida? I mean, it would make sense if two project collaborated. Steel1943 (talk) 02:59, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

We tried but several members of the Florida project vehemently opposed any collaboration for the Florida projects, even the Inactive/defunct ones. Kumioko (talk) 11:04, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

More opportunities for editors to access free research databases!

The quest for getting Wikipedia editors the sources they need for articles related to the United States and other subjects is gaining momentum. Here's what's happening and what you can sign up for right now:

• Credo Reference provides full-text online versions of nearly 1200 published reference works from more than 70 publishers in every major subject, including general and subject dictionaries and encyclopedias. There are 125 full Credo 350 accounts available, with access even to 100 more references works than in Credo's original donation. All you need is a 1-year old account with 1000 edits. Sign up here.
• HighBeam Research has access to over 80 million articles from 6,500 publications including newspapers, magazines, academic journals, newswires, trade magazines and encyclopedias. Thousands of new articles are added daily, and archives date back over 25 years covering a wide range of subjects and industries. There are 250 full access 1-year accounts available. All you need is a 1-year old account with 1000 edits. Sign up here.
• Questia is an online research library for books and journal articles focusing on the humanities and social sciences. Questia has curated titles from over 300 trusted publishers including 77,000 full-text books and 4 million journal, magazine, and newspaper articles, as well as encyclopedia entries. There will soon be 1000 full access 1-year accounts available. All you need is a 1-year old account with 1000 edits. Sign up here.

In addition to these great partnerships, you might be interested in the next-generation idea to create a central Wikipedia Library where approved editors would have access to all participating resource donors. It's still in the preliminary stages, but if you like the idea, add your feedback to the Community Fellowship proposal to start developing the project. Drop by the talk page of User:Ocaasi, who is overseeing these projects, if you have any questions.--JayJasper (talk) 17:46, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Could Some People Here Please Take a Look at this Article and Try to Improve it?

List of United States Presidential autobiographies. I created this article, but no one seems to be editing or improving it, which is disappointing considering that this article has a great purpose. Thank you. Futurist110 (talk) 01:05, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

US Flag file coloring concern

I don't know if this has been discussed before, but this has been bugging me for quite some time. The colors on the svg file of the US Flag look faded like they were left in the sun for too long rather than the colors that are found on a flag in good shape. Are we 100% sure the source used gave us the right colors? (I do take notice it could just be my monitor, however after calibrating it several times, I don't think it is.) CRRaysHead90 | ^{Get Some!} 14:07, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Looks fine to me.--Dcheagle | GO TEAM USA 23:25, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

For me the blue does look faded and the red seems off. But that's just my option on my monitor. Vegaswikian (talk) 05:08, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

There are a few different color definitions, as listed at Flag of the United States#Colors? We could verify which set of colors that the SVG is using and change it as necessary, assuming there's a "correct" set of colors to use. Takes about 5 minutes to download the file, update it and replace it. Imzadi 1979 → 05:35, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Looking over the file history over at Commons, the colors were changes to this after a discussion on the talk page for Falg of the United States in 2010. I went back and found it here. If I wasn't unavailable at the time I would have brought up this problem. CRRaysHead90 | ^{Get Some!} 19:27, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Ok, after reading most of the discussion and scanning other parts of it, it seems the dispute was never really settled with one user fighting for the pantones to the bitter end and he was dismissed as trolling. So I think it's time to resume the debate officially and try and settle this, because the colors don't look right on a computer display. I shall inform the main practitioners in that debate. CRRaysHead90 | ^{Get Some!} 19:59, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Every computer display is different, so you’re bound to get some variation from one to another. I recommend downloading the image, opening it up in Photoshop on any computer with a well-characterized display (ideally, use a hardware device for this), and assigning sRGB as the image’s color profile. Alternately, you could try to find a display that is natively as close to sRGB as possible, and then looking again. One example of such a display is the recently released iPad. I arrived at the current colors based on fairly extensive research, and was extremely technically careful to convert color values from the official specifications, as described on the image pages and old commons discussions. Unless you have some specific technical or historical evidence why my work there was incorrect, there’s no reason to change it. One issue you may be running into: many mass-produced flags do not actually match each-other or the specified cloth colors, as can easily be verified by visual inspection or by measurement. Based on these flags and pop culture depictions, you may have an inaccurate idea of what the official flag colors are supposed to look like. Finally, bear in mind that color and color vision are complex, and depend on numerous factors. It’s very hard to make a single precise depiction of a color from one medium in another, and factors like what colors are surrounding your computer make a surprisingly large difference in the color you’ll see. Put the same image on a white background or a middle gray background or a black background, and it will look different in each case. The first thing to try though is making sure you have a well calibrated computer display, and are working in a color managed software environment. –jacobolus (t) 21:45, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

One more thing: you can easily find the official documents which specify the colors, online, and if you want, I’m happy to send copies of the JOSA paper where those colors are given precise measurements. You’ll want to consult a color scientist for advice about how to convert those to sRGB. –jacobolus (t) 21:55, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Seeing no responses here, I’m assuming you folks are in agreement and are through with the discussion. I’m going to stop tracking this page, but if a conversation starts back up, feel free to ping me on my talk page and I’ll check back in. –jacobolus (t) 11:06, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Louisiana

Kumioko, I think you might have some ideas about this. It involves all the references for articles for Louisiana made by (blocked) editor Billy Hathorn. Big problem with this. His method of referencing was to slap bare urls all - now mostly dead links - over everything. He did over 100,000 edits in Texas and Louisiana, and who knows where else. But this post is strictly about his Louisiana dead link bare urls. I created Louisiana Center for Women and Government Hall of Fame and, naturally, looked for any pre-created matching articles for the individual entries in the table. And I was wondering why everything in Louisiana was in such poor shape, dead bare urls all over the place. Louisiana politics was Billy's bailiwick. Because the pre-existing article Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame, was not in a sortable I could use, I reworked it inserting 100 references of my own. Again, that article and related articles were Billy's work, in whole or in part. Dead bare urls all over Wikipedia. I've been looking over at the WikiProject Louisiana, and I think it might not be active. My question: is it feasible that a bot could be created to zap through the Billy Hathorne related articles in Louisiana and catch those bare urls? I suspect it would involve many, many articles. But those articles look like trash the way they are now. Also, one of the reasons Billy got banned was apparently copyvio, complete copy and paste. Big problem. Got any ideas how to clean up Louisiana? Maile66 (talk) 00:29, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Yep that's certainly possible. The first question about bare links is pretty easy, the copyvio is a bit harder but still possible. I suspect there is a trend with the dead links so if we can find out if the URL just is dead or changed to something that will help determine the fix that's needed. For the copyvio, there are only a couple bots I know of that deal with those and the main one is User:CorenSearchBot. It might not catch everything but its a start and we can go from their. I am cutting way back on my editing but if you want I can drop a note on a couple bot pages and see if we can get some of the problems at least identified if not fixed. Sorry I wasn't too much help but I hope this helps a little anyway. Kumioko (talk) 00:41, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

I took the liberty of building a quick table of his edits, sorta. I can only pull in the first 25000 edits (Only bots and admins can pull in more and I am neither). User:Kumioko/BillHMess is a table of 25000 of his edits, grouped by content title with a count of the number of edits to that piece of content. That should help zero in on the problem areas Thats 4641 items including categories, DYK's, etc. Kumioko (talk) 01:02, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

There's a long-running contributor copyright investigation of the Hathorn edits at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20110727. No sense in reinventing the wheel by creating and investigating a new parallel list of his contributions. For what it's worth, a major problem with his work was the inclusion of lots of nonencyclopedic details (e.g., biographical details of the relatives of the article subject). It may be possible to reduce some sourcing problems with his articles by removing details that don't belong in the article, regardless of the source. --Orlady (talk) 13:46, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Ok, and I posted Here Maile66 (talk) 01:11, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Good luck. Unfortunately bots that make edits to articles have a higher chance of making a mistake because of the large variations in how articles are made and appear so they have a higher chance of making someone upset. All the bot operators who were willing to do a bot to make actual edits to articles like this have been driven away. The majority of the operators left are ultra conservative and rarely do any bot actions that affect changes to articles. I hope I am wrong but its unlikely that any will accept the task. Kumioko (talk) 12:25, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Orlady's information above was also valuable insight. Given our (yours and mine) attempts to get someone to take on the old tasks of Femto (etc) bot, I'm not holding my breath on this one. Just thought it was worth a mention, since Louisiana seems like an untended garden. A side note that is perhaps only amusing to me: The LA Political Museum was created by the state legislature. Politicians saluting themselves. Kind of like the voting on the Oscars and Emmys. However, having done the sortable on the inductees, it does put all those individuals-articles and referencing in one place for whoever would want to use it. One step forward for Louisiana. Maile66 (talk) 14:10, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

I went through the Louisiana articles and fixed some things on a couple hundred problems that were identified by AWB or some custom logic that I have. I am going through the Arkansas list now. I also identified some areas for improvement for AWB's logic of fixing/identifying unformatted references and broken brackets. I have identified several variations of bare refs and unformatted URL's and I can go back through and fix some of those but that's a much more manual process. Now that I have done the AWB general fixes it will be easier to identify those exceptions without having to turn on or off things. If there are certain things that you want me to look for/fix please let me know. Also, if you have a suggested fix for that problem that would be great too. Kumioko (talk) 15:36, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Westerns

Howdy, WikiProject United States! Your editing history indicates that you may be interested in joining the new Westerns WikiProject, a collaborative effort to improve and maintain Wikipedia's coverage of fictional Wild West articles. If you are interested in participating, you are welcome to sign up at the project page. We hope you will join us! Ma®©usBritish{chat} 01:32, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, it's not particularly well worded for non-userpages, but yeah, this WikiProject is now setup and still in the early stages of building its project area before user-participation can really begin to function. Anyone interested, please feel free to join. Note, this project not only covers film and TV, but Western novels, comics, actors, directors and authors, etc who make the fictional-Wild West possible. Thanks, Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 01:32, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Most decorated soldier of Second Indochina War contradictory statements

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Jorge Otero Barreto#Most decorated. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 05:21, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

A-Class review process for WikiProject United States

There has been some discussion on my talk page in the last few days about getting an A-Class review process going for WikiProject United States. There are a few of us already interested but I wanted to start a discussion here to give the rest of the project a chance to comment before building the infrastructure. Does anyone have any opinion about this project developing an A-Class review process? Here are a few thoughts I have about it:

1. WikiProject Military history has a very good process we could use as a starting point. We may need to tailor a few things for this project but its a solid start.
2. Should US related projects outside those supported by WPUS be able to submit?
3. Should we use the existing WikiProject template to identify A-Class process or create new templates for tracking it?
4. I will drop a note on the supported projects talk pages in the next couple days with a link to this discussion.

Please let us know if you have any questions or comments about this proposal. Kumioko (talk) 23:51, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

I notified all 103 of the supported/joint projects of the discussion. Kumioko (talk) 02:31, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

As someone who regularly uses the MILHIST review process for folks who only served a few years in the military and then went on to have long political careers, I'd hate to see us restrict who could submit. If it has a clear relationship to the US, I think we should allow it to be submitted. I know WP:USA has sometimes had a difficult relationship with projects that don't want to be supported, so being inclusive here could be something of an olive branch, where being exclusive could further an us-versus-them mentality that I think we want to steer clear of. Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 13:41, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

I think that's right; people can get rowdy if they see you as trying to exlude them from FAC, and A-class won't work unless it's a place that helps people succeed at FAC. A-class can't be as tough as FAC (otherwise, why do it at all?), but if A-class reviewers give significantly different answers than FAC reviewers give, then A-class will just be setting people up for failure. So: I think A-class is only going to work if we can convince people who know something about consensus at FAC to participate. We'll see. - Dank (push to talk) 13:57, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

I also agree with the above comments. I think Milhist has a good process in place, are their any other active A-Class reviews that anyone is aware of? Kumioko (talk) 14:04, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

WP:HWY/ACR covers WP:USRD, WP:CRWP, WP:UKRD and the rest of the Highways Project, although most of the nominations come from USRD or the Ontario subproject at CRWP. (It had been hosted at USRD with a clone at CRWP before they were merged and moved to HWY.) The pace of reviews is a bit slower (14 days is the minimum, but a couple months is the norm), but the reviews tend to be friendly and thorough. The goal has always been at that ACR to prepare articles for possible FACs, although not all A-Class articles are intended for further review in all cases. Imzadi 1979 → 18:10, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Defining the requirements to meet A-class status seems to me to be maybe the biggest hurdle here. And it would certainly help if the A-class review had some sort of clear indications as to what would and would not be eligible. Here I'm thinking of, for instance, articles on maybe US sports temas, like in the Olympics and Davis Cup, maybe competing overseas. Would they qualify for this A-class review or not? Otherwise, I think it would be a great idea if it can be started. I used to do some A-Class review with WikiProject Biography some years ago, and I know that, at the time, it was hard to necessarily review the content of some of the articles relative to other reference sources, but that might be a bit easier now. I might not be the best possible candidate for a reviewer, but if this does take off let me know and I can at least try to help where and if I can. John Carter (talk) 00:00, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I have a pretty liberal of US related so to me the answer would be yes. Personally the process is to improve the article not about turf wars with some other project who might get their feelings hurt because we are encroaching on their articles. Any help would be appreciated no matter how insignificant it might seem. Even just grazing it over for basic typos and grammar (I have been accused of being bad at the latter, myself). I hope the discussion generates more interest though, after three days we only have a couple comments so that's not really a good sign. Four editors IMO aren't enough to do something like this. IMO we should have at least ten to start even if they only do some minor things each. Kumioko (talk) 00:07, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

The rules over at WikiProject Biography when I was involved in their A-Class was to have two approvals by regular reviewers, and, honestly, I only remember the number of such reviewers never getting much higher than three at any given time. Four could work, if they were willing to do a lot of work. Maybe it would be a good idea to leave comments over at the GA and FA pages requesting maybe some help from knowledgable editors there, and maybe add something to the Signpost asking for other reviewers. But, remember school is just about ready to start, or locally here just started this past Monday, and I think a lot of people may be tied up with that for a while. I definitely think giving this at least a week or two more to see if there is more interest, and, yeah, maybe asking some US editors at GA and FA to help out if they can. John Carter (talk) 00:31, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment/A-Class criteria says that any two reviewers can support promotion to A-Class on the article's talk page absent a formalized process. WP:HWY (and USRD, CRWP, etc) requires four reviewers. If you can cross pollinate with other projects to tap into potential reviewers, then I'd set the bar a little higher than two, especially if there isn't a deadline on reviews. Imzadi 1979 → 00:51, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

(ec)I agree that it could work with only 4 and frankly I have no problems doing the work of setting up the process. I'm probably not going to be too actively involved in it after that though, my plans are to start cutting back my time on WP significantly and attending to more things in real life although I have said that before. I think my soon to fail RFA was just the nudge I needed although I admit I feel to vested at this point to just up and quite and walk away. I also agree that adding notices to the GA and FA (also FL and possibly peer review IMO) would be good. I already left notices on all of the projects supported by the banner. I didn't notify any of the others though. If someone thinks we should let me know. Due to some hard feelings between some and WPUS in the past I don't want to do it of my own accord but if folks here think we should I'd be glad to do the work. I'll leave the discussion here as long as needed.

@Imzadi. Thank you for the help in this discussion. I personally think 2-3 is perfectly fine but I will defer to the groups judgement on how many are required. Kumioko (talk) 00:57, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

tagging

The banner already includes (or should do so) the flag for A-class, so stay withing the banner I say. But like with GA and FA it should also be in the article milestones template. A-Class is usually considered better than GA AFAIR. Agathoclea (talk) 12:11, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

The banner does include the capability for A-Class assessments as can be seen here. I think that it might be beneficial though to include something for letting people know there is an A-Class review or has been. Like how some of the peer-review/oldpeerreview logic. Kumioko (talk) 13:05, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

That the banner can track the A-Class assessment isn't new, but what would be new is to add a facility like {{U.S. Roads WikiProject}} has as shown on Talk:M-1 (Michigan highway). Note how that banner has a link to the article's ACR page in the text that reads "A discussion on promoting this article to A-Class is underway. Please give your opinion." Once an article's review is completed, it gets added to the {{ArticleHistory}} like on Talk:H-58 (Michigan county highway). Imzadi 1979 → 14:10, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the example. Thats what I was thinking too but couldn't think of where to give an example of it in action. Kumioko (talk) 14:50, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Lacking support

Unfortunately after 10 days we have only had a couple folks comment. For something like this to work I think it would need more than a couple editors and it just doesn't seem like we have enough support for something like this at this time. Kumioko (talk) 02:05, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Tend to agree, especially since I'm very hit-and-miss right now on my wiki time, and I still want my major focus to be article creation/expansion. Thanks for continuing to look for ways to make WPUS better, though, Kumioko. I think there is a general lethargy on wiki right now that has kept a lot of projects and processes from doing much. Maybe that will change soon. Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 13:18, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Just like WikiProject Ohio had a review department which they had no A-Class review for years. JJ98 (Talk / Contribs) 03:05, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Apollo program

I have nominated Apollo program for a GA review. JustinTime55 (talk) 18:13, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Project newsletter

Given the amount of material involved with this project, I think maybe having some sort of newsletter, maybe like the MILHIST Bugle, might be useful. I kinda keep the current Christianity newsletter going, so I know a little about getting one together theoretically if not necessarily artistically. But something of the type might be useful in maybe getting some more people more actively involved. Any opinions, and, if yes, any specific ideas as to how it should look, what it should include, that sort of thing? John Carter (talk) 18:33, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

(ec)I agree. I did one for about a year but stopped doing it and the project collaboration in February when I went through dramageddon. No one else was interested in continuing it and I didn't and still don't feel as though I am the right person to do it anymore. Frankly given my history on the pedia I think I repel more editors than I draw so thats why I have stopped doing mosst of the project coordinator type things like that. You can see the infrastructure for it and the old newsletters here. If you or someone else wants to do it I would be glad to help out some. Kumioko (talk) 18:53, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Input needed at RfC

Input is needed at an RfC regarding tea party: Talk:List_of_Tea_Party_politicians#RfC:_What_is_criterion_for_inclusion_in_this_list.3F. --Noleander (talk) 18:49, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

United States Military Date Proposal

A discussion on the encyclopedic need for the use of military dates on United States military related articles is taking place at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Proposal to strike out the requirement that American military articles use military dates. Please join in.--JOJ ^Hutton 23:25, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Peer-review request

Hello. I've been creating American diplomat articles for a while now, and I hope this is the appropriate place to request a peer-review of some of my articles. I really can't discern between start-class and stub-class, B-class and C-class, etc., and I hope that some more experienced editors can accurately grade these articles. When I made most of them, I mass-included the {{us-diplomat-stub}} template, and many now seem to be of start or C class or better (like Chad and Marshall Islands, contrast Togo/others). Thanks in advance. (Note: Many also may require certain tags and refs filled in, etc.) All of these except for William Bodde, Jr. and Edward W. Mulcahy (start-class) are currently listed as stubs.

• United States Ambassadors to Burkina Faso - Generally good status

1. Thomas Dougherty
2. Jimmy J. Kolker
3. Sharon P. Wilkinson
4. Donald J. McConnell
5. Edward P. Brynn
6. Leonardo Neher
7. Julius Waring Walker, Jr.
8. Pierre R. Graham
9. Thomas S. Estes
10. R. Borden Reams

• United States Ambassadors to Chad - Generally good status

1. Louis J. Nigro, Jr.
2. Christopher E. Goldthwait
3. David C. Halsted
4. Richard Wayne Bogosian
5. Robert L. Pugh
6. John Blane
7. Jay Pierrepont Moffat, Jr.
8. Donald R. Norland
9. William G. Bradford
10. Edward S. Little
11. Edward W. Mulcahy
12. Brewster Morris
13. John A. Calhoun
14. Wilton Blancké

• United States Ambassadors to the Marshall Islands - Generally good status

1. William Bodde, Jr.
2. David C. Fields
3. Joan M. Plaisted
4. Clyde Bishop

• United States Ambassador to Togo - Generally worse status

1. David B. Dunn
2. Gregory W. Engle
3. Karl W. Hofmann
4. Brenda Schoonover
5. Harmon Elwood Kirby
6. Rush Walker Taylor, Jr.
7. David A. Korn
8. Owen W. Roberts
9. Howard Kent Walker
10. Marilyn P. Johnson
11. Nancy V. Rawls
12. Albert W. Sherer, Jr.
13. William Witman II
14. Leon B. Poullada
15. Leland Barrows

• Others - Generally worse status

1. Leon B. Poullada - Iceland
2. James Irvin Gadsden - Iceland
3. Penne Percy Korth - Mauritius
4. Samuel Rhea Gammon III - Mauritius
5. Robert C. F. Gordon - Mauritius
6. George Roberts Andrews - Mauritius
7. Cesar B. Cabrera - Mauritius, Seychelles
8. William Garvelink - DRC
9. Roger A. Meece - DRC, Malawi
10. Jeanine E. Jackson - Malawi, Burkina Faso
11. Eunice S. Reddick - Gabon, Sao Tome and Principe
12. R. Niels Marquardt - Madagascar, Comoros, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon
13. Horace H. Smith - Laos
14. Nancy Halliday Ely-Raphel - Slovenia
15. E. Allan Wendt - Slovenia

• Non-diplomats

1. Henry A. Smythe - U.S. Collector of Customs
2. Daniel P. Gordon - Rhode Island State Legislature Lower House member

• Non-biographies

1. United States Ambassador to Mongolia
2. United States Ambassador to Laos
3. United States Ambassador to the Seychelles
4. United States Ambassador to Mauritius
5. United States Ambassador to Cameroon
6. United States Ambassador to the Marshall Islands
7. United States Ambassador to Montenegro
8. United States Ambassador to Kosovo
9. United States Ambassador to Ivory Coast
10. United States Ambassador to San Marino

I originally intended to go to WP:Biography, but I figured this is more relevant to the United States (diplomacy). Again, I would greatly appreciate any peer-review classing/article improvements. RoyalMate1 22:31, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I looked through a lot and the ones I looked at look like they are assessed correctly. WikiProject Military history has a good explanation of the various assessments here that might help and generally applies to all projects. If you have any more specific questions I will try and answer. Kumioko (talk) 18:14, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

So, say, if an article has ~ +5,000 bytes and is adequately ref'd, worded, formatted, etc., it's usually start-class? RoyalMate1 18:54, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I would say yes but it also depends on what those 5000 bytes are. I would say subtract out the number of bytes for the infobox, categories and any invisible comments. Then that should give you a pretty good idea of the content size. Kumioko (talk) 18:58, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Alright. So, for example, Gregory W. Engle (4665 total bytes), Karl W. Hofmann (8167 total bytes), Johnny Young (diplomat) (6056 total bytes), and David A. Korn (5705 total bytes) could all be considered start-class? RoyalMate1 19:10, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I would say yes on those. Kumioko (talk) 19:13, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Ok, thank you. RoyalMate1 19:18, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Demi Lovato listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Деми Ловато, ديمي لوفاتو, دمی لواتو, Деметриа Девонн Ловато, Деметрия Девонн Ловато. Since you had some involvement with the Demi Lovato redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 10:01, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

MastCell allegation

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring#User:RightCowLeftCoast reported by User:MastCell (Result: ). RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:59, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Write an article about your state's cabinet!

While making this template, I was surprised by how many of these articles do not exist. Savidan 20:21, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Films about Obama

You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Barack Obama#Films. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:30, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Voorhees College

Voorhees College, founded in 1897, is a historically black college. It is omitted in the city of Denmark, SC listing.

Additionally, Denmark Technical College was also omitted under Denmark, SC. Charles3rd (talk) 21:16, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I added an "Education" section to Denmark, South Carolina. Those schools are there, now. Thanks for mentioning. Maile66 (talk) 21:47, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

File:Samuel Phillips Lee.jpg

File:Samuel Phillips Lee.jpg has been nominated for immediate deletion as being unsourced -- 14:20, 2 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.65.128.252 (talk)

Usgreatseal.png

file:Usgreatseal.png has been nominated for deletion as being unsourced -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 14:25, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I removed it. That image is a work by the US government and is not subject to Copyright. It does need some better sourcing but its not subject to copyright and certainly not eligibly for speedy deletion. Kumioko (talk) 14:35, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

That's what I thought as well. -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 14:50, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Henry-E-Erwin.png

file:Henry-E-Erwin.png has been nominated for deletion as being unsourced -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 14:50, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Recommendation for a change to Template:WikiProject United States

Currently Template:WikiProject United States has logic to create a category for articles that have or do not have |listas=. This parameter is used to help sort the article into the correct order in categories but in many cases its not needed because other projects, like WikiProject Biography already have it and that sort applies to any of the other projects listed. So, what I have suggested is to eliminate the category for United States articles without the listas parameter and just have it for those with the parameter.

On the request, the admin folks said I needed to leave a note on the project discussing the change. So here are a couple questions relating to the task:

1. Should we eliminate the logic for the With/without listas parameter completely?
2. Should we leave the categories for both With and without the listas parameter?
3. Should we remove the logic and categories for without the parameter (recommended because most will never have it meaning there will always be a couple hundred thousand articles in it)
4. Should we also do the above decided change to WikiProject Mississippi which is supported by the template and has the same issue as described above?
5. Should we add logic to the template, to track the with listas parameter for the other projects supported by the template?

Please let me know if you have any other suggestions. Kumioko (talk) 12:53, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Since no one has commented I am going to ask that the logic/category for United States articles without a listas parameter is removed. I will leave the logic to show the ones who do have it. Kumioko (talk) 00:31, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Future-Class for assessments

Someone has suggested using Future-Class for the project to identify the articles that are of a future tense such as the upcoming elections. Does anyone have any comments about doing this? Kumioko (talk) 23:58, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

In theory, that's not a bad idea. In practice, who is going to monitor and keep up with when they have to be changed from Future to something else? An example of how something like that works out, is any article that gets tagged for whatever. After the issue has been taken care of, nobody removes the outdated tag. I'm fine with Future-Class, if an automated system can be put in place to update it when it's no longer that class. Maile66 (talk) 00:06, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Personally I am on the fence of whether we need it but wanted to leave it to the project to decide. I don't think it would be a huge amount of work because I doubt there would ever be more than 50 at most and then that would probably be a seasonal thing but I admit I don't know for sure. I agree using some kind of bot process would be better but I doubt at this point we would get any kind of bot support. Kumioko (talk) 00:11, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah. I just think anyone's involvement with Wikipedia is iffy at best. Many good intentions, but you know what they say about the road to hell being paved with good intentions. The very necessity of the WPUS coming into being is a testament to the here-today-and-gone-tomorrow nature of Wikipedia. If nothing else, this would take a watchlist to be set up and monitored. And we know what happened to project watchlists when FemtoBot's daddy got his knuckles rapped. Maile66 (talk) 00:28, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah its a shame about that. I don't have too many positive comments (really non at all) about that whole debacle so I'm gonna keep my comments mostly to myself. Kumioko (talk) 00:34, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Adding Future-Class has been beneficial in other projects. It hasn't required much in the line of work to maintain. If someone has an issue, they could just look at the category once in a while to see if past events need to be reassessed. Imzadi 1979 → 00:46, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

How about a template right at the top of the article page? Like Template:Current, but one that says Template: Future? Maile66 (talk) 01:02, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

That's a really good idea. The template could have a date identified that could trigger a category once the current time caught up with the future date identified in the article/template. That would make it a lot easier to identify those that are no longer future. I also think that this template would help us identify articles that may not meet Future. Kumioko (talk) 01:29, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Meh, you two are overthinking this. How hard can it be to check the Future-Class category once in a while to see if there are articles that shouldn't be there anymore? Category:Future-Class U.S. road transport articles is easy to check once in a while to see if any roads were opened or cancelled, and re-assess. Why should the analogous category for elections be hard to check say two weeks after Election day each fall? Imzadi 1979 → 01:50, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I just looked and there are only a handfull that I can find directly that would apply. Here are a couple:

• 2013 United States federal budget
• 2013 United States Figure Skating Championships
• 2013 United States Men's Curling Championship
• 2013 United States Women's Curling Championship
• 2014 United States Figure Skating Championships
• 2014 United States Olympic Curling Trials

I just wanted to get an idea. I tend to agree with Imzadi actually that it really wouldn't be that much effort but its fine with me either way. Kumioko (talk) 03:33, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

WPBANNERMETA is lousy with these kinds of things, Future/etc should be a separate rating parameter from class, since it removes the ability to rate the class of the article. It should be like "attention", with a y/n option if used. Many things can have quality attached and still be future. -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 04:19, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

That's a good point. It would be easier to add a parameter/category as it would to add a future class. Kumioko (talk) 04:35, 4 September 2012 (UTC)