Talk:United States

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All the content of this pages seemed to be dumped directly from the CIA World Factbook. I moved it to OldPage just in case there was added content. -- Stephen Gilbert

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Paul Drye,

It's a known fact that USA has participated in various wars. To name a few: Spanish War, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War and recently War against Terrorism. So, I think it's okay to specify about war. --Ramesh.

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Version 2 of this page claimed a similar deleterious effect from the September 11 terrorist attacks as the Great Depression and the US Civil War. I suspect that's an exaggeration - either way, it's too early to tell. I'm not claiming that September 11 wasn't a very important event, and I mean no disrespect to the thousands who died. It's just that the other events are even more important. --Robert Merkel

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I added some content to this otherwise links page. There really should be more info on this page to cover the highlights of US history, military, people, economy etc. The "subpages" should be reserved for the detailed stuff only, oh well. --maveric149, Thursday, April 18, 2002

I did some editing on the policital/government stuff, as I agree this is should not merely be a link site, especially since many of the linked pages only contain lists. jheijmans

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I see you re-added Russia as a bordering country ("it's only 2.5 miles away from the Aleuts"). However close, it is not a border of course. We might as well start stating that Spain and Africa border, or England and France, Sweden and Denmark, or Yemen and Somalia. If you wish to say that Russia is close, that's ok, but it doesn't border.

Also, you might want to add Cuba, since that country actually borders the US (!), in Guantanamo Bay.

jheijmans

Like I said in the edit history, its not a big deal. However, the territorial limit of any nation is 12 natical miles with an exclusive economic zone going out to 200. Territorial waters are legally treated as the same as terra firma territory -- all laws are the same. 2.5 miles is well within the territorial waters of both Russia and the United States -- they therefore share a common border. The same is true for two bordering nations or states that are separated by a wide river or lake -- a border line is drawn in the exact middle of the body of water. Cuba and France are well beyond this 12 mile limit. Military bases and embassies are treated differently in these discussions, and the example of Guantanamo Bay is incorrect -- the land is in fact Cuban territory, we simply have a long term lease to the property that we enforce by our military presence (this was, of course, negotiated pre-Castro and we simply held it despite his protests. This legal distinction is also why we have our "detainees" there -- so that the US Constitution does not become a problem) --maveric149, Thursday, April 18, 2002

I think you are technically correct here, but that would also mean France and Britain border (Dover Strait is about 21 miles from coast to coast), and then I don't even count the Channel Islands. (Same would go for Denmark and Sweden, f.e.) However, the common idea of a border is that a land border. So, should we state that Russia has a nautical border (or whatever that is called) with US?

As for Guantanamo Bay, I mentioned this border, because it is also mentioned in the CIA World Factbook. I didn't know the dirty details of it - it's quite like the Canal Zone in Panama then? jheijmans

From New York to Wisconsin, over 700 miles, the US and Canada are separated by water, often more than 12 miles but everyone thinks of this as a border. And yes Guatanamo is like the Canal Zone was - we rented it while pointing a gun. --rmhermen

Guantanamo Bay is a very technical issue as it is Cuban soverignty but U.S. control (rented by U.S.). So I think it is not precisely true to say the U.S. has a land border with Cuba. --Daniel C. Boyer

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The "Democratic Republic[?]" of the United States of America. Is it part (with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea) of the "axis of evil"? --Daniel C. Boyer

This problem is still unresolved. "Democratic republic" has a different meaning than (and a meaning perhaps the opposite of) what the words mean separately. --Daniel C. Boyer

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"After the European discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492..." -- This is highly debatable as it ignores Viking visits almost 500 years prior. This should be clarified/expanded. Daniel C. Boyer

Those don't really count; knowledge of the new continent did not spread much at that time, and the settlements were very short-lived. In other words, an isolated incident that shares little or no continuity with the widely-known, (so far) permanent awareness and exploitation of the continent by Europeans sparked by Columbus's failed voyage to India. Since the context is the colonization from which the United States directly grew, there's no point in mentioning the Vikings there; certainly not in a general overview section. --Brion VIBBER

Maybe putting "discovery" in the text would help clarifying that it wasn't really a discovery? I otherwise agree with Brion. Jeronimo 01:03 Jul 29, 2002 (PDT)

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The following was formerly in Talk:United States of America/Temp:

Brion, are you sure there's no official language in the USA? I think all government writing is in English and that English has to be taught at schools. Or is that really only "de facto", as you say? That's kind of surprising to me then, and I've never seen it like that in any encyclopedia or other source. Can you clarify? Jheijmans 00:08 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)

Yep, there is no official language of the US -- just as you say a de facto one. --mav 00:13 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)

Correct; it's a little weird, but there is no de jure official language of the United States (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/question.htm). (Pay no heed to the rumor that German missed becoming the official language by one vote (http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/german.htm).) --Brion VIBBER 00:24 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)

OK, so I can learn something from Wikipedia as well :-) This should then be explained in the upcoming "demography" section, where of course the rise of the Spanish language should also be mentioned, I suppose.

However, maybe it's convenient then to drop the "official" from the table, or add a footnote, or else it may be strange for other "ignorant people" (like me). OR is an explanation in the article enough? Jheijmans

Well, there's no sense in leaving the information out; English is the language that laws are passed in, that government services are always provided in (though service in other languages is often provided additionally -- if I spoke only Spanish I'd do just fine at the Social Security office), and that most education is in. Buuut, it's not really the official language, so we need the "de facto" disclaimer.

Actually, we probably should have an article on the official language issue and the English-only movement, which could be conveniently linked from the table. --Brion VIBBER

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Just a curious question about this then: is it possible to go to a school in the US, and not learn English (in theory, not in practice, I hope)? Jheijmans

Well, go to school yeah. Graduate, I'm not so sure. ;) Generally if you don't speak English you'll get dumped into some kind of bilingual education system, of which there are a huge variety ranging from heavy immersion into English to keep-the-kids-in-their-safe-native-language-environment-as-long-as-possible. The site I linked above should have a lot of info on this if you're really interested. --Brion VIBBER

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Absolutely. Particularly in California, at least until a few years ago, there were quite a few public schools that taught classes in Spanish, Mandarin, Vietnamese, and Tagalog. California voters decided they didn't much like that and got rid of it. But there are still many private schools. It's not uncommon at all for residents of, say, East Los Angeles or San Francisco's Chinatown to live their whole lives without speaking enough English for basic conversation. Several individual states have passed resolutions declaring English the "official" language of the state, but even in most of those you can get voter registration forms and such in Spanish. And there is no federal law. In fact, such a law would probably be ruled unconstitutional. --LDC

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Wow, this country never ceases to amaze me (not always in a positive sense, mind you) - even more so when I was there earlier this month. But to get back on Wikipedia issues: Brion, I think an article on the legal status of English in the US of A would indeed be very useful (the text you linked would be a great starter if it were uncopyrighted) and easy to link to from the table. Jheijmans 00:48 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)

I've linked it to a stub page at Languages in the United States (if that title's too awkward, suggestions are welcome). Feel free to use the aforementioned Language Policy site (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/) as a source of information, but it's not even vaguely NPOV so you wouldn't want to copy stuff directly out of it even if it weren't copyrighted. --Brion VIBBER 00:36 Jul 25, 2002 (PDT)

(end of the former Talk:United States of America/Temp)

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Table of contents 1 Naming of Entry 1.1 Headings 1.1.1 Territories 1.2 E Pluribus Unum is still a national motto

Naming of Entry Great job to everyone who labored on the new version of the USofA article. It looks great! --mav 00:16 Jul 29, 2002 (PDT)

Thanks, though I hope some actual Americans will step in to add to my texts, some of it is pretty lame, I think. This leaves the problem of the naming of the article though - should it be at United States or not? Jeronimo

Yes it should -- There is no reason why the USofA gets to be at its full name when every other country is listed at its conventional short form. I will make the move it nobody objects. However, this will require me to first delete the redirect page United States so nobody freak out. --mav

Just to remind: the links to all the "subpages" and CIA stuff should also be changed if you do make the change. I promise I won't freak out (c: Jeronimo 00:27 Jul 29, 2002 (PDT)

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I haven't yet moved the CIA intro or gov / pages because I don't know what to name these. How do the gov CIA pages relate to the "politics of" sub articles? --mav

I would imagine that the "Government" and "Transnational Issues" sections would sort of fit under "Politics of". --Brion VIBBER

As for the introduction page, this is what was usually put on the main country page. Since - I think - we have a good replacement for that, there's no need to keep it. As for the government; this should be covered at Politics of the United States I think.

I myself am not sure about the former "Transnational Issues", now, "Foreign relations". Isn't this something to put at History and/or Politics? Jeronimo 00:59 Jul 29, 2002 (PDT)

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Can somebody fix this page? It spans the entire page and fills the right margin so you can't get to the links on the right column. -- Zoe

Seems okay to me. I'm using Mozilla 1.1beta at 800X600 on Windows 98SE, what browser, OS and resolution are you using? Bryan Derksen

I'm using IE 6.0.2 and Windows Me. It fills the entire page. How do I do a screen shot? -- Zoe

Same problem with W98/MSIE6/800x600/Cologne Blue skin.

Links are floating over the text because of both the picture width and the data table, but I believe that if the first sentences could be closed into a new table of fixed width (thinner and higher), normal wide text (as large as the picture) could follow readably below the end of right links.

Now, what width should this table have to be readable in every configuration? Would it be better to move the picture to a separate page?gianfranco

The issue here is that the table is way I mean way too fat. We shouldn't try to fix this by HTMLing the text -- we need to fix the table. --mav

I tried to remove the picture, and it works now. IMHO, that image should be reduced in width or moved to a separate page. --Gianfranco

I tried to replace the original picture with a .png one large 580 (136kb), and I hope it works well with a 640x480 resolution too (please, let us know), then I tried a .jpg one, still large 580 but 110kb less (19kb). Of course, the .jpg one is evidently less precise. In case this width is agreed, which format would it be better to use? --Gianfranco

If a jpeg has text in it, or other sharp lines, the quality factor should be at least 88 to prevent sand. (If your jpeg editor uses quantization tables directly, ask me.) -phma

the following was compressed at 60/255 ratio: see (http://www.wikipedia.com/upload/9/91/Us-map-580-2.jpg). How is it now? --Gianfranco

I restored the cellpadding of the table, since that makes the table readable, I also made the table width smaller again by improving the size of the cells that hold the images. The width is not determined by the national motto row, maybe it can be put in two rows (using
)? Jeronimo 04:04 Aug 6, 2002 (PDT)

I've restored it somewhat since most of the article was now in italic and the table looked chaotic. I don't know how it looks now on the problematic browser, but please let's not save changes that are obviously just tests. -Scipius

It looks fine now. Thank you all very much! -- Zoe

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Minor nit; I find it more natural in general to proceed from west to east (as north to south, left to right, top to bottom), so I would prefer listing the time zones, which are inherently related to physical areas on the Earth's surface, as "UTC-10 to UTC-5" rather than "UTC-5 to UTC-10". Am I a crazy person for this? --Brion VIBBER

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Hey, I don't really care if you want to make the table less clear. But Demographics is much better than Demography. It's great that's what the template has, but the template should be changed. Consistency isn't as important as quality. --The Cunctator

And you are the final arbitrator of quality? I don't recall electing you to that position. I do recall that several of us voted on this very issue and decided to go with "demography". I'm a native English speaker too and to my ears there is nothing wrong with "demography" at all. You are more than welcome to put this to another vote but please stop changing these types of things unilaterally. --mav

I agree with The Conctator in this matter -- not that he is the final arbitrator of quality, but that this issue should be revisited and reconsidered. "Demography" is the study of demographics; the information currently listed under "Demography" is not about demography at all, it is demographics. The only reason I can imagine for the current mistake is that "Demography" rhymes with "Economy" (sort of). It is interesting that these words are not really parallel -- Dempography is the study of demographics, and Economics is the study of the economy. It makes sense to head a section "economy," but the real parallel would be to follow this with "demographics," not "Demography." We might as well change "Economy" to "Economics" -- that wouldn't make sense, nor does "Demography."

I was not involved in the past discussion. But my understanding is that Wikipedia is an ongoing process. I do not think this means that we should constantly be changing conventions, but I do think it is reasonable to revisit this one. Slrubenstein

Well reasoned and stated. You have convinced me with a few brief words that could not otherwise be done by unilateral changes. I second the call for a revote on this issue. --mav

I discussed my actions on Talk:WikiProject Countries. Voting is a bad way of handling things--it's only necessary in the real world because there aren't better ways of dealing with things, as there is with a Wiki, which is simply editing. --The Cunctator

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While Cunctator is right about "simply editing" in many cases, I must point out that discussing and gaining consensus also has a value. People are more willing to do heavy lifting when they opinion has been heard and considered. For large projects, we need many hands.

Now, for Tolkien's stuff I did not seek consensus. I just decided on a plan and spent several hours editing everything into the way I wanted it. I could do that because (a) I know something about the topic and (b) I type fast. But I don't know enough about geography.

So I'd like a consensus to emerge, yielding a set of formulas I can follow whenever I get time to help. --Ed Poor

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"Consistency" is not a goal in its own right. It helps serve real goals like readability and accuracy, because it helps to ensure that all the topics are covered for each subject, and that they are presented in an order that is proven to be helpful. But individual articles will have differences, and that's OK. If countries with a long and detailed history have a slightly different-looking history section from new small countries, that's fine. Authors should do whatever makes a good article for that subject. As for "demographics", I have to go with correctness over consensus. Again, consensus is a useful thing that helps serve our goals sometimes, but it is not a goal in itself. Correctness is. --LDC

Yeh, I (KQ) cast my vote to follow the format at WikiProject Countries, but I think LDC is right on this one. (I should have looked them up earlier): here's this from dictionary.com:

demography n. The study of the characteristics of human populations, such as size, growth, density, distribution, and vital statistics.

demographics n. (used with a plural verb) The characteristics of human populations and population segments, especially when used to identify consumer markets: The demographics of the Southwest indicate a growing population of older consumers.

Headings

And what about the headings? I really, really liked the previous method better. It's just a matter of taste of course, and it looks like we're linking to history instead of history of the United States here. Jeronimo

I'm a bit confused. How does History of the United States look like a link to history? --The Cunctator

I'm sorry, I looked wrongly. However, I do now have the objection that "History of the United States" as a section heading is pretty redundant. There's no "External links for (Topic X)" heading either. A "History" only title indeed suggests it's a link to History. Also, it is not clear that the text there is only a summary - people may be urged to add lots of stuff to it, while that is not the intention. The previous form was much clearer in that aspect. Although it's mostly cosmetic, I think it's a good thing to try and use one consistent "look-and-feel" for all country pages, and I'm for putting back the old form of section headings. Jeronimo

Also Cunc please stop changing the headings -- having the heading titles also as links is not an improvement. We want to emphasize that what is contained on this page is a mere summary of what is at the link -- thus the format that was agreed on. --mav

Having "Main article:" is not an improvement either. There are better ways of indicating a summary. And the policy of even having summaries at all, instead of just links to the appropriate entries, is somewhat counter to the general Wikipedia approach. I'm working on a discussion of it at Talk:WikiProject_Countries right now. And it's "Cunc". --The Cunctator

Mav, I prefer the separate heading and link as well, but I'm not sure about the usage "Main" article. This article is the "main" one, in the sense of being central and most comprehensive. Those others I would called "Detailed article" or "Expanded article", I think. --LDC

Good point. I will think of a better way to do this. --mav

I think The Cunctator is on the right track with having the headings remain unlinked and having a See: [X of United States] link at the end of each section summary. I will experiment with this general format later to see if it can be improved. I would also like to thank The Cunctator for turning the history summary into a real summary -- people were adding to that section as if it were the history of article. --mav

I just want you to know I think the linked headings are better (see Spetember 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack[?] for an example), and think the See is a fallback to something necessary in paper but not here (m:Wiki is not paper). But I also try to compromise. --The Cunctator

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Are you sure the motto of the US is "In God We Trust"? I thought it was "E Pluribus Unum." - Montréalais

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The national motto is "In God We Trust", by Act of Congress July 30, 1956. "E Pluribus Unum" is the motto on the Great Seal, which involves a link with heraldry.

The fourth verse of "The Star-Spangled Banner" includes "Then conquer we must/When our cause it is just/And this be our motto, 'In God is our trust'. And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave/O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."

--GABaker

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Someone please move this article back to its correct location. There is no country called the United States. The country in question is called the United States of America. If you persist in this ridiculousness, I insist you move the Netherlands to Holland (I grew up in a community of Dutch immigrants and no one ever refered to the country as the Netherlands always Holland so obviously it is the conventional form of the name) and Mexico to the United States or to United States of Mexico, and the United Kingdom, Great Britain and Northern Ireland etc. all back to England where they belong. This is anti-American bias again. In short the name of the country is America, the form of government is United States, just as Germany is a Federal Republic and Mexico a United States. Rmhermen 16:49 Dec 10, 2002 (UTC)

Of course there's a country called the United States. It is located immediately south of Canada, as you will find out if you ask any English-speaking Canadian, practically none of whom call it "America" or anything else but the United States or US. Besides, the CIA World Factbook gives the name United States as the title of its article on the country in question. I think that's a pretty ostentatious way for a country to be called something.

Furthermore, your other examples are incoherent. Holland and England are poor choices not because they are not common use, but because "Holland" is factually not identical to the Netherlands, and "England" is not identical to the United Kingdom, as any Scottish, Welsh, or Northern Irish person will tell you. However, there is no English-language account under which "United States" is different from the United States of America. - Montréalais

Charlie Chaplin is English. -- Zoe

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The US article is not entirely in accordance to the template of WikiProject Countries. For instance, there is no "Holidays" section. I know that Holidays in the US is a somewhat vague matter, but there does in fact exist a list of federal holidays, which is the closest parallell to offical holidays of other countries. There is a clearly defined list in the culture pages, but that obvisouly seems to serve another, more cultural purpose. It even lists April Fool's Day as a holiday(!) Finally, someone going to the US looking for a list of holidays, expecting to see one (as (s)he would expect from the Wikipedia template), will be disappointed. -- Egil 08:41 Apr 17, 2003 (UTC)

Egil, I took a look at the guidelines and it does appear that holidays has its own section. I believe that the current holiday list is too long to be included in its entirety. How about:

1. add a new section to the United States page called Holidays. List the top 10 holidays.
2. Have a main article called Holidays in the United States, containing the more extensive list.
3. Remove the existing list from the Culture of the United States.

I'd like to avoid having duplicate lists of the same thing. I'm still not sure how best to split the list, but as I said earlier, I believe its current form is too long for the main page. Sfmontyo

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My edit of April 17 is intended to include more or less neutral factual information regarding capitalism, social class and its effect on politics. I got sidetracked a bit on European immigration and on writing an essay on support of political parties. There is a typo supprort which can be corrected when someone makes a new edit. Fred Bauder 13:07 Apr 17, 2003 (UTC)

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Territories

Can someone add information about actual or fomer territories not included in a state that belongs or has belonged to the USA ?? (apart of what appears in the page ):

• The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands
• Outer Continental Shelf Lands[?] defined in the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act
• Canal Zone[?]

The only part of the Trust still a territory is already on the list. The outer continental shelf lands are underwater and I think the Canal Zone went back to Panama with the Canal in 1999. This isn't the page to list former territories; that should go on the history page. Rmhermen 23:30 May 12, 2003 (UTC)

So, I suggest include this information in a section of History_of_the_United_States, like proposed in Talk:History_of_the_United_States. This History of Territory Composition of the U.S.A.[?] it´s very interesting (i.e., some Acts have references to nowadays or historical territories).

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Why is this page at United States rather than United States of America? Wouldn't the latter make more sense? Looking at What Links Here, it seems most pages link to United States of America anyway. -- Timwi 00:40 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

For the same reason why our article on the former US president is at Bill Clinton and not the pompous William Jefferson Clinton. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names). Oh and look at at "What links here" again - the vast majority of links to this page link via United States and the "What links here" function craps out after the first couple thousand links so that page does not have all the links in it. --mav

If this is the case, the article should reside at the ultimately lazy US (note the lack of periods in the abbr.). It is a problem that the article does not reside at United States of America, because while the former is a valid redirect, if I am lazy and type "united states of america" (lowercase as here) in the search field and hit "Go" I do not reach this, the primary article, but rather Demographics of the United States. Hmm. Ed Cormany 00:01 25 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Not anymore now :) -- Timwi 22:22 25 Jun 2003 (UTC)

? What are you talking about? It works for me fine. And US is too ambiguous for a page title so that example is a straw man. IMO, it shouldn't even be a redirect but that would break too many links. Page titles are always a compromise between formality, ambiguity and common usage. Oh and "United States" is more common than just "US" just as "United Kingdom" is more common than "UK" in anything but the most informal of writing. Wikipedia is neither formal or informal and our page titles should reflect this. --mav

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E Pluribus Unum is still a national motto

"On July 30, 1956 a law was passed stating that "the national motto of the United States is hereby declared to be 'In God we trust'." (70 Stat. 732. 36 U.S. Code 186). The House Judiciary Committee recognized that the phrase E Pluribus Unum had also received wide usage in the United States, and the joint resolution did not repeal or prohibit its use as a national motto. In 1963 the Department of State took the following position: "'In God we trust'" is the motto of the United States. It seems to the Department, nevertheless, that there is ample basis both in history and I law for calling 'E Pluribus Unum' a motto of the United States." The Congress has used both." http://www.usscouts.org/flag/sealmotto --Jiang 23:23 4 Jul 2003 (UTC)