Talk:Texas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
This subject is featured in the Outline of Texas, which is incomplete and needs further development. That page, along with the other outlines on Wikipedia, comprise Wikipedia's Outline of Knowledge, which also serves as the table of contents or site map of Wikipedia.
↓ Skip to table of contents ↓
          This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:
WikiProject Texas (Rated GA-Class, Top-importance)
Flag-map of Texas.svg This article is within the scope of WikiProject Texas, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of related to the U.S. state of Texas on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.
Good article GA  This article has been rated as GA-Class on the project's quality scale.
 Top  This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.
WikiProject United States (Rated GA-Class, High-importance)
Flag of the United States.svg
United States portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.
Good article GA  This article has been rated as GA-Class on the project's quality scale.
 High  This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.
WikiProject Mexico (Rated GA-Class, High-importance)
Flag of Mexico.svg
Mexico portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mexico, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Mexico on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.
Good article GA  This article has been rated as GA-Class on the project's quality scale.
 High  This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.
WikiProject Former Countries (Rated GA-Class)
OrteliusWorldMap.jpeg This article is within the scope of WikiProject Former Countries, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of now-defunct states and territories (and their subdivisions). If you would like to participate, please join the project.
Good article GA  This article has been rated as GA-Class on the project's quality scale.
Version 1.0 Editorial Team     (Rated GA-Class)
This article has been reviewed by the Version 1.0 Editorial Team.
ButtonGreen.svg This article has been selected for Version 0.7 and subsequent release versions of Wikipedia.
Good article Texas has been listed as one of the Geography and places good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
WikiProject Echo      (French)
Other languages square icon.svg Texas is a featured article on the French Wikipedia. You may be able to improve the article on this project by drawing content, media or references from that article. To get involved with featured articles in other languages, visit WikiProject Echo or its discussion page.
Texasflaginstate.PNG

The current Texan Collaboration of the Month is Marshall, Texas.

Every month, a different Texas-related topic, stub or non-existent article is picked. Please read the nomination text and improve the article any way you can.
Nuvola apps date.svg A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day... section on March 30, 2004 and December 29, 2008.
e · h · w · r Stock post message.svg To-do:


Change the date of the Louisiana Purchase from 1801 to 1803


Contents

[edit] Geography

Moved to FA Prep page

[edit] French Texas

Under the Six Flags section the author suggests that the French flag flew over Texas due only to Fort Saint Louis. This is simply not the case. This is just more Wiki-inaccuracy. The map of the Louisiana Purchase clearly shows that France laid claim to much more than Fort Saint Louis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Territorial_Acquisitions.png) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.162.94.66 (talk) 13:59, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Because of Fort Saint Louis, France believed they had a claim to all of Texas. Spain, likewise, claimed to own all of Texas. The border dispute between these two superpowers ended when Spain took control of Louisiana. When Spain ceded the land back to France, the border language was ambiguous, and when France sold Louisiana to the US shortly after, the American government interpreted the borders as liberally as possible. I'll check the wording in this article to make sure that it is not misleading. Karanacs (talk) 17:15, 29 August 2009 (UTC)


[edit] Modern Texas section

The paragraph that says: "Respectively one eighth of all texas live in a major metropolitan area such as Houston, Texas. The Dallas Fort Worth Metropolitan Area is the largest in Texas. While Houston, Texas is legally the largest city in Texas and the fourth largest city in the United States, the Dallas Fort Worth conglomerate is much bigger than Houston, Texas and all surrounding suburban areas." Should be the last paragraph in that section, since the following paragraph continues where the previous one left off.

Also, WAY more than one eighth of all Texans live in a major metropolitan area. Just Houston (5.7 million) and Dallas-Fort Worth (6.3 million) combined have half the state's 24 million population. Adding to that San Antonio (2 million), Austin (1.6 million), and El Paso (700 thousand), puts the number over 16 million. So it should say "two thirds of all Texans".

Here's my proposed revision:

Respectively two thirds of all Texans live in a major metropolitan area such as Houston. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metropolitan Area is the largest in Texas. While Houston is legally the largest city in Texas and the fourth largest city in the United States, the Dallas-Fort Worth conglomerate is much bigger than Houston and all surrounding suburban areas. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DKW 85 (talk • contribs) 00:29, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Nice catch. You are right. Go change it. Oldag07 (talk) 00:36, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Well I would, but I don't have access to the edit page for Texas. --DKW 85 (talk) 01:54, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Etymology

I miss here information about the origin of the name "Texas". You can find it in the Spanish version. This is what I found on the web, which is almost the same as what the Spanish article says: TEXAS, ORIGIN OF NAME. The word texas (tejas, tayshas, texias, thecas?, techan, teysas, techas?) had wide usage among the Indians of East Texas even before the coming of the Spanish, whose various transcriptions and interpretations gave rise to many theories about the meaning. The usual meaning was "friends," although the Hasinais applied the word to many groups-including Caddoan-to mean "allies." The Hasinais probably did not apply the name to themselves as a local group name; they did use the term, however, as a form of greeting: "Hello, friend." How and when the name Texas first reached the Spanish is uncertain, but the notion of a "great kingdom of Texas," associated with a "Gran Quivira" (see QUIVIRA) had spread in New Spain before the expedition of Alonso De León and Damián Massanetqv in 1689. Massanet reported meeting Indians who proclaimed themselves thecas, or "friends," as he understood it, and on meeting the chief of the Nabedaches (one of the Hasinai tribes) mistakenly referred to him as the "governor" of a "great kingdom of the Texas." Francisco de Jesús María, a missionary left by Massanet with the Nabedaches, attempted to correct erroneous reports about the name by asserting that the Indians in that region did not constitute a kingdom, that the chief called "governor" was not the head chief, and that the correct name of the group of tribes was not Texas. Texias, according to Jesús María, meant "friends" and was simply a name applied to the various groups allied against the Apaches. Later expeditions by the Spanish for the most part abandoned the name Texas or else used it as an alternative to Asinay (Hasinai). Official Spanish documents continued to use it but later narrowed it to mean only the Neches-Angelina group of Indians and not a geographic area. Other putative meanings have less evidence from contemporary accounts to support them: "land of flowers," "paradise," and "tiled roofs"-from the thatched roofs of the East Texas tribes-were never suggested by first-hand observers so far as is known, though later theories connect them with tejas or its variant spellings. Whatever the Spanish denotations of the name Texas, the state motto, "Friendship," carries the original meaning of the word as used by the Hasinai and their allied tribes, and the name of the state apparently was derived from the same source.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Frederick Webb Hodge, ed., Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico (2 vols., Washington: GPO, 1907, 1910; rpt., New York: Pageant, 1959). "Letter of Don Damian Manzanet to Don Carlos de Siguenza," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 2 (April 1899). William W. Newcomb, The Indians of Texas (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1961).

Phillip L. Fry —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.47.164.249 (talk) 22:32, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] DART vs. METRORail

I'm not trying to be bias, but I'm afraid I can't help it. Why is the picture of a METRORail train in the Transportation section when DART's light rail is already established and more well known outside the state? NThomas (talk) 08:17, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Not sure, and why is there a picture of Dallas in the "Cities and towns" section when Houston is the largest city in the state? Should we replace both images? Postoak (talk) 12:28, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
Okay, I swapped the image to Houston under the "Cities and towns" section, but could not find an image of DART's light rail to replace. So feel free to replace the METRORail image when someone can find an image for DART's light rail. —RJN (talk) 07:02, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Article looks fine to me

Shrug. What's with all the tags added to the top of the article? I doubt they're appropriate for an article listed as GA. —Aladdin Sane (talk) 00:43, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you as the article looks fine to me as well. That user failed to add his comments on the talk page for putting that tag in the article. —RJN (talk) 00:51, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
Agree with the above. I'd be interested in knowing which sections of this well-sourced article resemble a 'personal essay', or which sections feature a tone or style not appropriate for Wikipedia. While the article is certainly rather long, it has over 220 citations and it shouldn't be penalized for this. AlexiusHoratius 01:04, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
The tagger has done this before. User talk:Waterjuice#One of your edits to Texas Oldag07 (talk) 01:19, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
Looks fine to me also. The user should discuss the reasons for tagging. I will undo the tags until Waterjuice can give some explanation. Postoak (talk) 02:45, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
Sounds like fair idea. Not sure where the editor's fan-pov concerns come from. --Nsaum75 (talk) 02:53, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
The tags are legitimate to the article and should be left alone, enough said.. Waterjuice (talk) 03:54, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
Not even close. --Evb-wiki (talk) 13:42, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
This article went through WP:GA review. Please give clear reasons why the article is being tagged, otherwise they will be removed per consensus. Postoak (talk) 04:04, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. Its difficult to ascertain problems an article may or may not have, if the editor tagging it doesn't expand on why its being tagged other than "they are legitimate". The current consensus amongst editors is that the tags in question are improper, however those positions can be re-evaluated if a convincing argument can be made. --Nsaum75 (talk) 08:53, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
The problem seemed to resolve itself last night with Waterjuice's resignation. —Aladdin Sane (talk) 15:13, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
(undent) Observation: Not that it matters now but in my experience editors that have a fundamental problem with a topic often find reasons to fault articles about the topic. From this person's edit history I would guess this is a Californian ... --Mcorazao (talk) 21:41, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
Was I the only one here thinking, "Don't mess with Wikipedia"? —Aladdin Sane (talk) 22:04, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
It is hard to assume good faith from Waterjuice. He has made a few questionable edits after claiming to be "retired". Oldag07 (talk) 05:16, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Confused again

Given this diff, what does 50 years of presidential election results have to do with the state of Texas? Shall we also include Namibian presidential election results? —Aladdin Sane (talk) 10:52, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Removed, it was unsourced and not very well placed. Please revert if anyone disagrees. Thanks, Postoak (talk) 22:16, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Size

This page has been ballooning in size as of recently. as of now, the page stands at ~126,000. when this page gained its GA status it was ~101,000. Any suggestions on what could be trimmed? Oldag07 (talk) 18:02, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Um, the above referenced diff added 2814 bytes to the article (123,200 bytes versus 126,014 bytes) (about a 2.2% increase if my math is right). I note the data is unsourced, irrelevant (because the Electoral college determines presidency, not popular vote), off topic to the article, and looks to me personally like POV-pushing vandalism. I'd appreciate its removal.
Speaking in general about the article's size, I noticed it when I first reviewed the article: My response was <shrug> "Oh, well, it's a big state". The problem that I've had overcoming size issues in articles I edit is that they are always fixable under WP:SS, but to actually accomplish a move of material one needs to be an expert on both source and destination articles in order to 1) be sure that all relevant data is preserved in the move, 2) insure no data is duplicated in the target article, and 3) insure that the summary paragraph left in the primary article fairly summarizes the sub-article. "This," says I, "is a big job." It's not really a simple cut-and-paste. —Aladdin Sane (talk) 18:33, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
Suggestions on trimming:
  • History - A good guidline is that history summaries on geographical locations be less than a dozen paragraphs. This one has more than double that.
  • Geography - The Geology section could be simplified. Rather than trying to summarize all of the major points of the geology it should pick a few of the most significant/interesting things and mention them.
  • Climate - Mentioning Indianola history, while fascinating, is unnecessary.
  • Religion - The Lubbock "local lore" comment can be removed (probably inappropriate anyway). The detailed table on all of the different religions could be simplified or removed (would be a shame but it is not absolutely necessary). Note that there is some redundancy in that the section mentions number of adherents for some faiths and then mentions these same faiths as percentages.
  • Government and politics - Texas Ranger discussion could be trimmed a little. The discussion of gerrymandering, while interesting, can probably be trimmed or eliminated. The discussions of the 2000, 2004, and 2008 elections are not essential discussions, at least in their current form (informative but, if space is an issue, these can be cut back).
  • Economy - The bits on renewable energy are interesting but, given that their impact is currently not large, this could be abbreviated. The note on "urban sprawl" is not essential info.
  • Transportation - The Airports section need not discuss so much the airline headquarters (arguably it should take these out and instead mention other airports). The Railroads section could be summarized a bit more too.
  • Culture - The Arts section could use a slight trim (e.g. a tad too much detail on Deep Ellum and ACL).
  • Education - Presidential library info is interesting but not essential.
Hope that is helpful.
--Mcorazao (talk) 23:15, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Shouldn't the culture section reflect more on the general culture of the state versus the fine arts. Texas is known for it's unique blend of cultures.Texdoc41 (talk) 18:59, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Texas"