Talk:United States

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by HelpingWorld (talk | contribs) at 02:37, 22 November 2023 (→‎Total area of the United States). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Former good articleUnited States was one of the Geography and places good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Did You KnowOn this day... Article milestones
DateProcessResult
December 15, 2005Good article nomineeListed
May 7, 2006Featured article candidateNot promoted
May 8, 2006Featured article candidateNot promoted
May 18, 2006Peer reviewReviewed
July 3, 2006Featured article candidateNot promoted
September 21, 2006Peer reviewReviewed
October 19, 2006Featured article candidateNot promoted
June 19, 2007Featured article candidateNot promoted
July 9, 2008Good article reassessmentKept
June 27, 2009Featured article candidateNot promoted
September 6, 2009Peer reviewReviewed
January 19, 2011Peer reviewReviewed
March 18, 2012Good article reassessmentDelisted
August 10, 2012Good article nomineeNot listed
January 21, 2015Good article nomineeListed
February 22, 2020Good article reassessmentDelisted
December 19, 2020Peer reviewReviewed
Did You Know A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on February 3, 2015.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the United States accounts for 37% of all global military spending?
On this day... A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on July 4, 2008.
Current status: Delisted good article

Religion section: en.wp reporting a Radiance Foundation-commissioned online survey

In this edit, @KlayCax: added a Deseret News article reporting the results of an online survey conducted on behalf of Skylight, "an initiative of the Radiance foundation". The article states: Skylight’s mission is to use technology to help young people embrace God-centered spiritual habits. Like the Deseret News, it’s part of Deseret Management Corporation. I do not believe this is a sufficiently impartial source to be used in the article. I also believe that targeted online surveys are generally to be taken with a couple pillars of salt. Other thoughts? -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 06:42, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies, I dropped a number from the diff. (fixed)-- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 17:31, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Deseret is considered a reliable source. We handle it the same as the Christian Science Monitor. Good journalism despite its funding. This isn't a Epoch Times situation. KlayCax (talk) 16:23, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If anybody else supports your addition we can ask at RS/N about the reliability of online surveys funded by the Radiance foundation. For the moment, after one workweek, nobody has supported it so we don't really need to bother anyone over there, imo -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 18:02, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've also noted the addition of this online survey by the Radiance Foundation in Religion in the United States. -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 11:01, 28 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

2nd country with the most GDP?

many sources say that the United states of America has the most GDP, while on Wikipedia, it says that China is the richest country. 174.66.101.236 (talk) 16:12, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

?? List of countries by GDP (nominal) - List of countries by GDP (PPP). Moxy- 20:22, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're confusing GDP with PPP. NocturnalDef (talk) 13:51, 31 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Request for Comment: What should the lead mention regarding the United State's record?

Should the lead mention inequality, incarceration, human rights, low corruption, and the US as a "melting pot"? -- RockstoneSend me a message! 23:05, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
There is a lack of consensus for any of the listed to be included in the lead of the article. Per WP: ONUS, all should not be included in the lead at the present time, although several editors in the RFC believe that some merit inclusion. (Without a clear agreement on what those things are.) Aquillion, KlayCax, and Rockstone all gave good arguments for inclusion/exclusion, although none of their arguments seemed to be particularly more convincing than the others. Editors have widely expressed concern that the lead has grown far too long. However, there was no consensus on how to fix the issue, or essentially any other forms of agreement among editors beyond this. (non-admin closure) StardustToStardust (talk) 15:35, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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Oppose all- Firstly, while the notion of the United States being "melting pot" has some support in the literature, it is not universally agreed upon.

The article itself mentions that concepts such as the country being a "salad bowl" have also found support. One would tend to assume that per capita immigration would be more notable than total net immigration. Countries such as United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, British Virgin Islands, Monaco, Liechenstein, et al. far surpass these totals per capita. The other things also have immense problems and should be similarly removed.

  • Using liberal democracy as a metric is heavily problematic and presents many problems

1.) Why are we using liberal democracy here instead of, say, a global comparison? (As is overwhelmingly done.)

2.) What are we classifying as a liberal democracy?

Chile, Israel, Uruguay, and Turkey have all been to varying extents classified as such, and have higher levels of income inequality than the United States — the country is classified as "medium" Gini — but do not have it mentioned in their respective leads. While as a social democrat I personally believe that the United States should take more steps to reduce income inequality. There is overwhelming evidence (scroll down to see image) that it ranks just about average globally in this metric. It would also seem to necessitate other lengthy, verbose statements in this article's (and others) lead. People could argue that: (and I'm not seriously suggesting this)

  • The United States is the only Western, liberal democracy to recognize the death penalty in certain states and de jure federally. Because of this, it should be mentioned in the lead.
  • Shouldn't countries such as Monaco, Canada, and New Zealand have it mentioned in their leads for having some of the highest housing prices among liberal democracies?
  • Chile, Uruguay, and other nations are liberal democracies that have a higher Gini than the United States. This would seem to necessitate mention in their articles. Maintaining the status quo presents many problems.

For others:

  • Human rights (and to a lesser extent corruption) are somewhat subjective and hard to define. I'm personally not in favor of these things being listed in many countries article's leads because of this.

The vast majority of this stuff is unneeded for the lead and comes across as editors attempting to make the U.S. look good/bad. Get rid of all of it. KlayCax (talk) 04:32, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Support inclusion as outlined at the last 2 RFC about this. Can drop liberal democracy as this tells readers nothing.Moxy- 23:24, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Include liberal democracy and melting pot these are key topics in any introductory middle school US history and politics textbook. A standard social studies topic area. "Salad bowl" can be contrasted as well with melting pot. Andre🚐 23:31, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Saying or liking to liberal democracy (or Western democracy for us old timers ) isn't very useful we should be saying what type of democracy it is. But in this case we should be saying developed countries. Moxy- 23:44, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support everything except inequality. I'm not convinced the US is truly more unequal than the average liberal democracy. The US's incarceration rate is only remarkable when contrasted to other liberal democracies (it is 6th in the world now), which is why the lead currently is comparing against other liberal democracies. --RockstoneSend me a message! 00:34, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Premature RfC. Maybe, maybe not, it doesn't make sense to group these all together in one RfC, and the discussion has not even reached the point where anyone has brought forward any relevant sources (say a similar tertiary source on the United States) demonstrating due weight or lack of, or even made any decent reference to the body text to argue due weight or lack of. CMD (talk) 01:28, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose all. The lead should be the absolute broadest summary of American history, geography, and system of government, with maybe a little about American culture. We absolutely should not be sprinkling in details about specific issues. At best, they're undue. At worst, they're active attempts by editors to stick their own pet issues into the lead. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:26, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    That's how I feel as well. A lot of this needs cut out. KlayCax (talk) 01:54, 2 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY and the significant emphasis on these things given in the sources, especially for inequality (which should probably have even more focus in the lead than it does now given the massive amount of focus it gets); however, corruption and human rights may require tweaks. All of these broad topics have focus and coverage in sources comparable to most other things already in the lead. Inequality in particular has, at a glance, the most coverage of all these things by a significant margin, so it ought to be included regardless of if people don't personally believe the US is more unequal than other nations. Regardless of how individuals feel about it, it has massive amounts of coverage in sources discussing the US as a whole and therefore deserves coverage here. Arguing about how the US compares to other nations (with the implicit statement that sources shouldn't give it the focus they do) is WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS thinking. And even beyond that, comparisons to other nations aren't even a policy-based criteria - we include stuff in the lead based on weight and focus in sources. If every nation has sources discussing inequality in the lead, then we would have sources discussing inequality in the lead for every nation, just like we do for eg. system of government and economy and other things that get major focus for every nation. The purpose of a lead isn't to be "fair" for an editor's personal notion of fairness but to reflect the balance and focus of the sources. However, academic coverage of corruption and human rights in the US rarely focuses on just "does better than other nations"; these are not untrue statements but they're not the main thrust of coverage, so we might want to tweak how we describe them. We may also want to tweak the melting pot sentence to "often described as..." or the like because while the descriptor is significant and WP:DUE for mention in the lead (and we have enough secondary sources about the term's usage that a general attribution like that wouldn't be WP:WEASEL; it is a frequently-used descriptor and is covered that way), it has a complex history and is not uncontroversial in its meaning. --Aquillion (talk) 02:54, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Concur. Shoreranger (talk) 13:25, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. (Summoned by bot). Considering WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY, I can see the following in the body:
  • 3 sentences mentioning "inequality".
  • 1 paragraph discussing incarceration or prisons.
  • No mention of "human rights" outside the current lead, but discussion of various types of rights
  • No mention of corruption outside the current lead.
  • 1 sentence mentioning "melting pot"
There may be other mentions that have escaped my crude keyword search approach. If the above is an accurate survey of the body (and I'm not definitively saying it is), I'd say there could be a case for including the following in the lead: inequality and incarceration. The others, not so much.
This of course is all on the assumption that everything in the current body is covered with due weight.
More generally, I think we should take great care with any elements that represent current political issues. The United States is a big place with a lot of history, and the bar should be very high for including any aspect in a four-paragraph summary. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 09:25, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY and backed by RS. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 19:09, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – The lead already contains the text: The U.S. ranks highly in international measures of quality of life, income and wealth, economic competitiveness, human rights, innovation, and education; it has low levels of perceived corruption. It has higher levels of incarceration and inequality than most other liberal democracies and is the only liberal democracy without universal healthcare. As a melting pot of cultures and ethnicities, the U.S. has been drastically shaped by the world's largest immigrant population. With appropriate linking. What is it that needs to be changed? Dhtwiki (talk) 03:30, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of editors (including me) have argued that all of these things should be removed from the article. Melting pot, human rights, and corruption mentions come across as pro-American POV pushing. Universal healthcare, incarceration, and inequality come across as the inverse. WP: Leadfollowsbody does not mean that everything in the body has to be included in the lead. (Particularly when it is subjective or controversial... such as human rights.) KlayCax (talk) 06:10, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose incarceration, low corruption, and "melting pot" because there are competing views on these topics. Support inequality but qualified according to the sources. Senorangel (talk) 03:20, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as to match what you would normally learn about the country [1].204.237.50.190 (talk) 12:27, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Since I mentioned the massive number of sources that focus on these things in my rationale above, here's what I found going over them. This isn't exhaustive because anyone who glances at Google Scholar can find massive numbers of highly-cited papers about each and every one of these things. Note that all the papers below have received hundreds or even thousands of citations:

  • Inequality has massive amounts of high-quality academic sources specifically discussing inequality in the United States from numerous angles; it could probably support a sentence in the lead all to itself.[1][2][3][4][5]
  • Incarceration also has a ton of coverage; not quite as much as inequality, but enough to support a mention in the lead.[6][7][8][9][10]
  • There is a lot of coverage of how the United States relates to human rights, but rarely just from the perspective of discussing the country's own human rights record, and more often in the context of discussing how either its limitations or how it affects US foreign policy. See eg. [11][12][13][14][15]
  • Sources on corruption are more sparse (still a lot, just not comparable to eg. inequality) and don't, at a glance, have a single unifying theme; most of them talk about the corruption that does exist rather than focusing on corruption in the US being low in absolute or relative terms. This isn't to say that the statement is untrue; the sources do support and mention it. But it doesn't instantly leap off a source search as a single unifying theme with massive academic coverage the way "the US has heavily-covered problems with inequality" or "the US has a massive amount of mass incarceration" do.
  • The concept of the US as a melting pot has massive coverage, often as part of discussing both immigration and assimilation in the US; however, the term is treated as something with a complex and sometimes contested history in terms of its meaning, rather than as a simple statement of fact - we should cover it, but we might want to tweak our wording. [16][17][18][19]
Obviously as mentioned there's a lot more; these are just the first few sources with hundreds of cites to them (and in the case of inequality in particular, most of those are in the thousands, and there were many, many many more.) --Aquillion (talk) 03:36, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Generally support those points, but I want to share my concern over the use of the term "melting pot" because it does not have a universally accepted definition, which may itself be argued to be intentional by some factions. On the other hand, if the amorphous nature of the definition is covered well enough in the Wiki article on it, so if it is linked that may allay some concerns, but not all. Shoreranger (talk) 13:32, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
References

References

  1. ^ Keister, Lisa A.; Moller, Stephanie (August 2000). "Wealth Inequality in the United States". Annual Review of Sociology. 26 (1): 63–81. doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.26.1.63. ISSN 0360-0572.
  2. ^ "Income Inequality in the United States, 1913–1998 Get access Arrow". academic.oup.com. Retrieved 2023-10-16.
  3. ^ Waters, Mary C.; Eschbach, Karl (August 1995). "Immigration and Ethnic and Racial Inequality in the United States". Annual Review of Sociology. 21 (1): 419–446. doi:10.1146/annurev.so.21.080195.002223. ISSN 0360-0572.
  4. ^ Heathcote, Jonathan; Perri, Fabrizio; Violante, Giovanni L. (1 January 2010). "Unequal we stand: An empirical analysis of economic inequality in the United States, 1967–2006". Review of Economic Dynamics. Special issue: Cross-Sectional Facts for Macroeconomists. 13 (1): 15–51. doi:10.1016/j.red.2009.10.010. ISSN 1094-2025.
  5. ^ "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from Capitalized Income Tax Data". academic.oup.com. Retrieved 2023-10-16.
  6. ^ Travis, Jeremy; Western, Bruce; Redburn, F. (1 January 2014). "The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences". Publications and Research.
  7. ^ Enns, Peter K. (March 5, 2014). "The Public's Increasing Punitiveness and Its Influence on Mass Incarceration in the United States". American Journal of Political Science. 58 (4): 857–872. doi:10.1111/ajps.12098. ISSN 0092-5853.
  8. ^ Pratt, Travis C. (24 October 2018). Addicted to Incarceration: Corrections Policy and the Politics of Misinformation in the United States. SAGE Publications. ISBN 978-1-5443-0804-3 – via Google Books.
  9. ^ Enns, Peter K. (22 March 2016). Incarceration Nation. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-13288-7 – via Google Books.
  10. ^ "Why Mass Incarceration Matters: Rethinking Crisis, Decline, and Transformation in Postwar American History". academic.oup.com. Retrieved 2023-10-16.
  11. ^ Cmiel, Kenneth (December 1999). "The Emergence of Human Rights Politics in the United States". The Journal of American History. 86 (3): 1231–1250. doi:10.2307/2568613. ISSN 0021-8723.
  12. ^ American Exceptionalism and Human Rights. Princeton University Press. 10 January 2009. doi:10.1515/9781400826889/html. ISBN 978-1-4008-2688-9 – via www.degruyter.com.
  13. ^ Compa, Lance (6 August 2018). Unfair Advantage: Workers' Freedom of Association in the United States under International Human Rights Standards. Cornell University Press. doi:10.7591/9781501722639/html. ISBN 978-1-5017-2263-9 – via www.degruyter.com.
  14. ^ Apodaca, Clair; Stohl, Michael (1999). "United States Human Rights Policy and Foreign Assistance". International Studies Quarterly. 43 (1): 185–198. ISSN 0020-8833.
  15. ^ Soohoo, Cynthia; Albisa, Catherine; Davis, Martha F. (2009). Bringing Human Rights Home: A History of Human Rights in the United States. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-2079-7 – via Google Books.
  16. ^ Hirschman, Charles (August 1983). "America's Melting Pot Reconsidered". Annual Review of Sociology. 9 (1): 397–423. doi:10.1146/annurev.so.09.080183.002145. ISSN 0360-0572.
  17. ^ Swanson, Bert E. (August 2014). "Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, and Irish of New York City. By Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. (Cambridge: The M.I.T. Press and Harvard University Press, 1963. Pp. 360. $5.95.)". American Political Science Review. 58 (1): 130–131. doi:10.1017/S0003055400288436. ISSN 1537-5943.
  18. ^ "Is the Melting Pot Still Hot? Explaining the Resurgence of Immigrant Segregation". direct.mit.edu. Retrieved 2023-10-16.
  19. ^ Sollors, Werner (1996). "Democracy versus the melting-pot: A study of American nationality". Theories of Ethnicity: A Classical Reader. NYU Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-8035-0 – via Google Books.
For this sort of high-level article, and especially for the lead of this high-level article, sources on a specific topic do not provide a clear picture of due weight. We could probably find thousands of sources for every single item mentioned in the article. A better point of comparison would be similarly high-level coverage. The obvious comparison, Britannica, mentions diversity/immigration and economic inequality, but not the other topics under discussion (incarceration, human rights, corruption). Looking internally, an en.wiki-focused approach would be to consider the article body puts emphasis on, and seeing how best to summarize that in the WP:LEAD. CMD (talk) 04:10, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
High or low corruption can come and go depending on the government. It is usually not included in the long-term history of a country. Incarceration is discussed in a paragraph in the article body. The complicated context and reasons for it are not discussed. So I am not sure it should be picked out for the lead. Senorangel (talk) 01:56, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The only problem I have with mentioning incarceration is that the US has made great strides to reduce its incarceration rate. It no longer has the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world. Of course, to say that the incarceration rate will continue to decline is a bit WP:CRYSTAL... but I hope so! --RockstoneSend me a message! 06:40, 5 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What source is there for this statement?
  • Gramlich, John (August 18, 2021). "America's incarceration rate falls to lowest level since 1995". Pew Research Center. The U.S. incarceration rate fell in 2019 to its lowest level since 1995, according to recently published data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the statistical arm of the Department of Justice. Despite this decline, the United States incarcerates a larger share of its population than any other country for which data is available.
  • "United States profile". Prison Policy Initiative. May 19, 2022. With nearly two million people behind bars at any given time, the United States has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world.
  • "Incarceration Rates by Country 2023". World Population by Country 2023 (Live). The United States leads the world in total number of people incarcerated, with more than 2 million prisoners nationwide
Moxy- 14:34, 5 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Moxy: World Prison Brief. See List of countries by incarceration rate for more detail; it is now #6 in the world and has dropped precipitously due to COVID-19. Note that your last citation (World Population By Country) is still accurate: in absolute numbers, the US has the highest total number of people incarcerated. -- RockstoneSend me a message! 03:32, 6 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Disposable income per capita in the lead

How much income is defined as disposable or discretionary can vary a lot across even developed countries. It also does not reflect inequality, if any. Total GDP or wealth should be sufficient here. Senorangel (talk) 03:20, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Race in the lead

The history of races, especially Blacks, in the United States is very unique and important compared to most other countries. But this is not mentioned at all. Senorangel (talk) 03:20, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 22 October 2023

Change "The ensuing American Civil War fought between 1861 and 1865 became deadliest military conflict in American history." to "The ensuing American Civil War fought between 1861 and 1865 became the deadliest military conflict in American history." HarriotLovesYou (talk) 19:10, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

 Done Cannolis (talk) 19:25, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 23 October 2023

Under "Culture & Society" and under the "Mass media" section, the last paragraph's first sentence states that the United States has the second-largest gaming market by revenue. It hyperlinks to a Wikipedia page which has a table with countries and their respective gaming market revenue. However, the highest revenue gaming market is actually the United States. What is currently written may be outdated, and should be changed to represent this fact. Change it to:

The video game market of the United States is the world's first-largest by revenue. RedCat8881 (talk) 16:40, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

RedCat8881 (talk) 17:26, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

 Done Elli (talk | contribs) 18:05, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Should we remove the mention of the Space Race in the lead?

Should we remove this sentence: "They also competed in the Space Race, which culminated in the 1969 landing of Apollo 11, making the U.S. the only nation to land humans on the Moon."

The Space Race is the least significant event out of all mentioned in the paragraph and belongs to the Cold War anyways. It just feels off there. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 04:33, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why do some editors seek to minimize a country's technological prowess? The Space Race, and the first humans on the Moon, placed America in the tech driver's seat. This was, and remains, a phenomenal achievement. Yes, it was also a signal event of the Cold War, but that only adds to its significance: Even amid the growing U.S. debacle in Vietnam, the country proved its economic and scientific superiority over its main adversaries. It still holds that advantage today. The passage is beyond relevant and should stay in the lead. 71.255.77.207 (talk) 17:03, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't want to do so. Technological improvement is important. Heck, I'm a space nerd too that made 2000 edits on SpaceX Starship. However, as much as I love space, I do think that it is geniunely not that significant in the most broadest view of U.S. history, because:
  • JFK does not really care about space (source). He used the Space Race as a way to gain support for his presidency, and it likely does not really matter to him if the Moon landing actually happens or not. The Moon landing happens because of an interesting mix of "politicians need to flex their patriotism", "superpower needs to flex their power", "scientists want to go to the Moon and use this as an excuse to do so", etc.
  • For manned space exploration, progress after Apollo has been horrid. The U.S. revert back to low Earth orbit capability with the Space Shuttle, even losing orbital capability from 2011 to 2019, and only recently humans would land back on the moon under the Artemis program at 2020s. This is a 50-year regression and further suggests that Apollo is not that significant in the history of space exploration.
  • There are also other technological progress being made that the Cold War has a hidden deep reason, such as the discovery of Superheavy elements where there is a back and forth between American and Russian teams over who discovered which element first, verification of particles in the Standard Model where the U.S. discovered almost all of them, and so on. Giving the Space Race a mention in the lead while ignoring the rest is a bit unfair for me.
I hope you now understand why I made this argument. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 17:18, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There was "regression," and I realize there is "other science", but the Moon landing was an example of the country's unique ability to challenge itself and compete with others in the face of very dangerous risks. There were disasters, as with the Challenger, but the only country to carry its citizens to a place other than Earth is the U.S., and that was 54 years ago. 71.255.77.207 (talk) 18:07, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So do the Soviet Union. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 12:56, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No country has taken on the expense and human risk in space that the U.S. has. None. This was a great American achievement. Calling it out as such in the lead, as a national achievement, is appropriate. 71.255.77.207 (talk) 19:14, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think any proposal to add or remove from the lead of a mature article should be made with reference to WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 21:34, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The mention does go on a bit and could be trimmed: "They also competed in the Space Race, which culminated in the 1969 landing of Apollo 11 on the Moon." Dhtwiki (talk) 03:33, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
At the very least: "in the 1969 U.S. landing of..." Apollo 11's origins are not known to most readers now. 71.255.77.207 (talk) 19:19, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep the idea, if not the exact sentence. It alludes to a lot more than just the historical event, and the reader can learn that from the links in the sentence.Shoreranger (talk) 19:36, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Simplify it to "With the 1969 landing of Apollo 11 on the moon, the US succeeded in the Space Race." HiLo48 (talk) 23:58, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, just read the request and am surprised that this is even a question. Of course the United States is known for landing people on the Moon, and of course this is lead worthy if not arguably first paragraph worthy. p.s. have edited the sentence and added the full six lunar landings. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:50, 31 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I think we should, the minimum is just saying The U.S competed in the Space Race, and succeeded after the landing of Apollo 11. also I’m pretty sure other countries have landed in the moon, feel free to criticise my opinion since I’m not an expert on this kind of stuff, I’m more into zoology and science than that. Cometkeiko (talk) 08:47, 1 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Hello Cometkeiko. The NASA crewed missions include the only humans to so far land on the Moon. Not everyone knows what Apollo 11 was, so the extended descriptor seems needed. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:13, 1 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I’ll definitely do research later. Cometkeiko (talk) 15:44, 1 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep it had a major impact on foreign policy and an even greater one on American STEM education and advanced technology. Rjensen (talk) 09:11, 1 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep -- the US is the only country to have landed humans on the moon. That is relevant to discuss in the lead. --RockstoneSend me a message! 09:12, 1 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    But it’s atleast not the only country to go to space, I would say Keep, but simplify. Cometkeiko (talk) 11:20, 1 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    That's whataboutery in this discussion. As a technical achievement, landing humans on the Moon is of a different order of magnitude than landing equipment there.71.255.77.207 (talk) 15:38, 1 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • After edited the sentence is now pretty simple for containing a large amount of information ("Their" pertains to the preceding sentence about the cold war): "Their Space Race culminated in the 1969 landing of Apollo 11 on the Moon, the first of NASA's six crewed lunar landings." Randy Kryn (talk) 13:03, 1 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"미국" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect 미국 has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 November 2 § 미국 until a consensus is reached. Anonymous 19:14, 2 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

U.S. vs. US

A Canadian editor just made a blanket style change from the American initialism "U.S." to the Commonwealth "US". In fact, the "default" argument in his edit summary does not apply to American usage, which is standard in WP articles about American people and places. There is no consensus yet to make such a global change. 71.255.77.207 (talk) 16:24, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is not the right location for general issues affecting other articles. I suggest this is raised with the editor in question, and if a dispute persists then raising it at an appropriate noticeboard. CMD (talk) 17:33, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I refer to this very article, "United States". For the last 15 years, "U.S." (American usage: with periods) has appeared instead of "US" (British-Canadian usage: no periods). A Canadian editor, "Graham", just replaced every mention of "U.S." with "US" in this article. The choice of "U.S." vs. "US" was always debated here on this Talk page in the past. 71.255.77.207 (talk) 22:14, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure of what relevance my nationality (which you've mentioned twice now) is here, especially given that MOS:US explicitly makes no distinction between American and Canadian English. Graham (talk) 01:41, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Chipmunkdavis: - no, this is the right article, as the change was unilaterally made here. I've undone it. WP:MOS is clear. Graham11 - please don't make changes like that again without broad consensus. -- RockstoneSend me a message! 22:29, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you IP and Rockstone, reading back I misinterpreted blanket change as width rather than depth. CMD (talk) 01:15, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Please see my response below. Graham (talk) 01:41, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The MOS does not mandate the use of "U.S." in articles using American English. It does, however, mandate the use of "US" in articles that also use initialisms to refer to other countries, irrespective of the national variety of English used in the article. Graham (talk) 01:41, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Moved from User talk:Graham11

Hi Graham11, I've undone your edit to United States, as it does not follow consensus or the MOS. The MOS is clear: "retain U.S. in American or Canadian English articles in which it is already established, unless there is a good reason to change it". There was no good reason to change it here. There was only a single instance of "UK" being used; I've fixed that by changing it to "United Kingdom". Please don't make changes like that again without getting consensus. Thank you! -- RockstoneSend me a message! 22:34, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There was a rather good reason to change it; that is, to bring the article into compliance with the sentence immediately following the one you quoted from the MOS: Because use of periods for abbreviations and acronyms should be consistent within any given article, use US in an article with other country abbreviations. It's self-evident that bringing an article into compliance with another provision of the MOS is a "good reason" within the meaning of that provision.
That this is a "good reason" is reinforced by the fact that the sentence which you quoted in part (For commonality reasons, use US by default when abbreviating, but retain U.S. in American or Canadian English articles in which it is already established, unless there is a good reason to change it) links to MOS:RETAIN. MOS:RETAIN provides:

Sometimes the MoS provides more than one acceptable style or gives no specific guidance. The Arbitration Committee has expressed the principle that "When either of two styles is acceptable it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change."

Where the existing style is not compliant with the MOS, it is not what MOS:RETAIN considers an "acceptable style" and therefore MOS:RETAIN does not apply.
Rockstone35, while you may not like the way in which the article was brought into conformity with MOS:US, preferring instead to change "UK" to "United Kingdom" – and I am happy to discuss the merits of my edit – I must ask that you retract your assertion that my edit "does not follow ... the MOS".
Additionally, I am wondering why you reverted revision 1183909631 (which had the edit summary Fixing typos) and revision 1183909817 (which had the edit summary Fmt citations). And if we are to use "U.S.", one should probably change the existing uses of "US" in the article (in reference to the Census Bureau and the EPA). Graham (talk) 01:41, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This article uses American English, and there is no compelling reason to change a huge number of references to "U.S." to "US", which is disruptive. Changing "UK" to "United Kingdom" to satisfy the MOS is significantly less disruptive. The entire spirit of MOS:RETAIN is to avoid disruption. As for why I reverted those other edits, it was the easiest way to return to the last version of the article where U.S. was the norm (I really don't want to go through hundreds of cases of "US" and bring it back to "U.S.". I guess I could have used sed or something). In any case, if you really think that we should use "US" instead of "U.S.", then you could do an RFC. --RockstoneSend me a message! 01:48, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This article uses American English, and there is no compelling reason to change a huge number of references to "U.S." to "US", which is disruptive. Changing "UK" to "United Kingdom" to satisfy the MOS is significantly less disruptive. The entire spirit of MOS:RETAIN is to avoid disruption. The MOS only calls for retention of the existing style where that style does not otherwise contravene the MOS. Again, you seem to be making an argument here for bringing the article into conformity into the MOS in a different way than I did, rather than making an argument for why my edit "does not follow ... the MOS". I would ask that you either substantiate your accusation that I am disregarding the MOS or retract it.
As for why I reverted those other edits, it was the easiest way to return to the last version of the article where U.S. was the norm (I really don't want to go through hundreds of cases of "US" and bring it back to "U.S.". ...) Why would you have to "go through hundreds of cases of 'US'"? The edits I was referring to were made in separate revisions, each of which were labelled in the edit summary. Graham (talk) 02:06, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Graham: "U.S.", like "D.C.", has been the text style in this article since 2005. Periods with those two initialisms are pretty standard in American English, and still predominate. Yes, one exception: for footnotes and source citations where the original article used "US". But no to changing even one "U.S." to "US" in general text, because that introduces inconsistency and is unsightly. 71.255.77.207 (talk) 05:04, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Whether you view it as "unsightly" in this particular article is irrelevant per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. Graham (talk) 05:36, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It is actually relevant whether it is unsightly, because that's what the consensus here has been. You are disregarding the spirit, if not the letter, of the MOS, which is designed to reduce disruption, like I said. I find it hard to believe that you thought changing 100+ references of U.S. to US was less disruptive than changing one reference to UK to United Kingdom, but assuming good faith... OK. At least now that you know better, you won't do it again, right? --RockstoneSend me a message! 09:26, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Beginnings (before 1630)

I suggest the above subheading be updated to "Indigenous inhabitants". Is this acceptable? The current heading is vague and does not reflect current thinking on American history. Rwood128 (talk) 15:30, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 12 November 2023

In foreign relations, it says 30 nato members but recently this year, Finland joined nato turning 30 into 31 nato members.HelpingWorldMobile (talk) 16:59, 12 November 2023 (UTC) HelpingWorldMobile (talk) 16:59, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@HelpingWorldMobile and HelpingWorld: how does this work:[2] I think it makes more sense to just remove the count from this article; it's already correct and explained in the NATO article linked in the sentence. Rjjiii (talk) 17:04, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah it would make more sense to remove the number.HelpingWorldMobile (talk) 17:11, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
 Already done M.Bitton (talk) 17:23, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Cleanup

I am going through the article a section at a time to copyedit, clean up, source content, and spot check existing sources. I've looked through the many FA, GA, and PR archives listed above and noted that size and sourcing were the two main issues.

I'm using a tool that flags sources a potentially problematic. I've listed the flagged sources below:

This doesn't mean that the facts are wrong or that the sources necessarily need to be upgraded. They just need scrutiny, Rjjiii (talk) 04:05, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Shoreranger, you removed the Norse colonies, which is fine, but the heading still begins at 1000 AD. Do you mind adjusting the heading to give a date that reflects the body text? Rjjiii (ii) (talk) 01:02, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Good point, will do. Shoreranger (talk) 15:50, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What about adding: 'Greenland was the first part of North America to be colonized by Europeans. Settlers from Iceland and Norway arrived there in 986. Then, around 1000, a temporary colony was established in Newfoundland at L'Anse aux Meadows'? Rwood128 (talk) 11:58, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The Norse attempts to colonize North America is significant, but there is no good evidence that they reached anywhere within the current boundaries of the U.S., which is the limiting factor in this context. Shoreranger (talk) 15:50, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A further thought. The history of the USA as a British colony didn't begin in 1492. Rwood128 (talk) 12:08, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
True, but Florida was the first Spanish colonial possession in what would become the U.S., which is what this paragraph should be getting at. Could be worded better. Shoreranger (talk) 15:49, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Additionally, the early Spanish voyages explored to some degree the United States Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Navassa Island which are a part of the United States, and Cuba which once was a protectorate. The Norse explorations did not make lasting settlements beyond Greenland, and there's no evidence that explored the present-day US. Rjjiii (talk) 18:40, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why is there no mention of 9/11 in the lead?

September 11 attacks are considered a very important event in the history of the United States, but why is it not mentioned? Parham wiki (talk) 14:00, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but other significant things also aren't included, such as the events of January 6th 2021, the rise of China as a super power, the very high crime/murder rates, etc. The lede is quite long as it is. Rwood128 (talk) 15:12, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

First paragraph has too many "it" refs.

Recent edits have introduced too many clunky references to "it" at beginning of the lede. One way to fix this is: "The United States (not "It") is the world's third-largest country..." 71.255.77.207 (talk) 20:35, 19 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Inconsistent linking style

I already addressed this issue in some of my edit summaries: There is inconsistency throughout this article regarding the linking of country ranking lists: Sometimes, the attribute to which the linked article refers to is linked along (e.g., "The U.S. is the world's largest importer and second-largest exporter, as well as the largest consumer market"), while in other cases, only the word "largest" is linked (e.g., " […] the U.S. possesses by far the largest amount of wealth of any country." I don't care about which style should be used throughout the article (though I think the first variant looks cleaner), but it would be nice if someone could change the links accordingly so that they are at least consistent. Thanks in advance. Maxeto0910 (talk) 19:42, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I now cleaned up the lead section according to the first variant (but without linking "world's" along to be consistent with the lead section's first paragraph's sentence about the population, in which we can't link the word "world" consistently because "Americas" is already linked separately). However, there are still many more cases in this article of said inconsistent linking, just so that you know. I'll change them accordingly if I see them, but you are still welcome to help. Maxeto0910 (talk) 20:08, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Total area of the United States

The US Article on wikipedia states the US is 3,796,742 square miles. Every website has a different answer on how many sq miles the US is, https://data.census.gov/profile?q=United+States&g=010XX00US says its 3,809,525 square miles while other sources put it as in the range of 3.5 million to 3.9 million and https://www.census.gov/geographies/reference-files/2010/geo/state-area.html states the total us square mile area is 3,805,927 which is mentioned in the geography section of the United States articles, also other wikipedia articles like Geography of the United States puts it as 3,794,100 and List of countries and dependencies by area lists it as 3,796,741. How do we know which ones right? `~HelpingWorld~` (👽🛸) 02:32, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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