Portal talk:United States/Archive 1

Contribute to French Wikipedia!
If you know a bit of French, do not hesitate to translate some of your work about the United States of America in the French wikipedia !--Revas 05:59, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Improvement Drive
The related articles American Empire, History of Minnesota, National Football League and Space program of the United States have been listed to be improved on This week's improvement drive. To support one of these articles you can add your vote there. Also, Rodgers and Hammerstein is nominated at the Biography Collaboration. --Fenice 07:15, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Activity?
Is this portal going anywhere? Christopher Parham (talk) 21:18, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Stable versions
would you like to create certified articles in science? -- Zondor 03:33, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

United States article on featured candidate nominations list
Featured article candidates/United States

Cast your vote! The more responses, the more chances the article will improve and maybe pass the nomination.--Ryz05 t 17:50, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Nominate articles for Portal:United States
I've worked for the past month to update Portal:United States and keep it better maintained. Though, I think the portal would be even better with broader participation. One way to do that is instead of choosing the "selected article" myself each week, if others would nominate articles and help make decisions. (same goes for pictures, though these are stocked up through July 29) Thanks. -Aude ( talk contribs ) 22:08, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
 * John W. Johnston just got made a GA plange 03:03, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion
Biography section see Portal:Texas. Jo e  I  19:42, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * One issue with that is right now the columns have the same number of boxes, allowing the two columns to line up fairly evenly. I'm not sure what else to add to keep the columns even? -Aude ( talk contribs ) 20:53, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Current Events Move
Hello Portal:United States members -

If you so desire, you can move Current events in the United States under the new current events portal (note that the Current events page is gone). Adopting the portal's layout is optional (although it would be nice if you did to some degree). Alternatively, you can move the current events page under your portal or just leave the page where it is (I don't think all of the current events pages will be moving into portal-space). joturn e r 04:15, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

New Portal
Hey, I started a Portal:Military of the United States. No where near done, but don't say I didn't warn ya. :)  Jo  e  I  10:45, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Selected article
Is there some reason there is no article for this week? Instead there is a red link to Portal:United States/Selected article/2006, week 36. --Lethargy 20:44, 5 September 2006 (UTC)


 * fixed. --Aude (talk contribs as tagcloud) 22:14, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Cemetery
Help decide if cemeteries are inherently notable at North Church Cemetery, Hardyston. It is up for deletion. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 04:31, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

News sources
What the heck is with sourcing our news to sites like "AndhraNews.net" and anti-American BBC? This is America! We only accept real news sources here. USA! USA! USA! Nualran 07:33, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

PD images of cities
America As It Was is a huge resource for vintage postcards in the U.S., organized by state. Any postcard first published in the U.S. before 1978 without an explicit copyright notice is PD. Lots of photos, aerial views, and maps of many U.S. locations. I hope this is useful to your city or region of interest. – Quadell (talk) (random) 18:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Current events subportals MfD
A discussion about most of the Current events subportals has been opened at Miscellany for deletion. You are invited to participate in discussing the fate of these subportals. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:33, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Selected article quality
The following selected articles are no longer GA or better: 1964 New York World's Fair, Galveston Hurricane of 1900, Space Race, September 11, 2001 attacks. &mdash; Zaui (talk) 22:56, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Although "Importance" is not explicitly mentioned in the above nominations suggestions, the Space Race and 9-11 articles are rated as "Top" importance by the projects that rated them. The other two are "Mid." I support keeping the top-rated articles and switching out the other two. Maybe exposure here will help get them back up to FA quality. RichardF (talk) 23:27, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, I've replaced the other two (and moved this discussion to the talk page). &mdash; Zaui (talk) 23:36, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

How's this for the rule-of-thumb from the to-do list? "As a guideline, let's stick to using Featured, A or Good content to populate each 'Selected' section where possible. The main exception would be for Top or High Importance articles of B quality." Since the United States project only rates a fraction of the relevant articles (see FA-Class biography articles about Americans for example), I would accept ratings from any project that reviews articles about some aspect of the United States and/or Americans. RichardF (talk) 21:06, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm OK with this. &mdash; Zaui (talk) 22:47, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Selected location possibilities
Looking through the geography and places FAs, here are US-related:
 * Looks good to me. There's no reason they all can't be added eventually. RichardF (talk) 00:04, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Here's a usage question. Should Plymouth Colony and Manzanar be replaced and moved from Selected articles to Selected locations and no other location articles be added to the more general section? Since there are so many featured US articles, that would be fine with me. RichardF (talk) 18:42, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Cities and states

 * Ann Arbor, Michigan✅


 * Boston, Massachusetts✅


 * Cleveland, Ohio✅


 * Detroit, Michigan✅


 * Erie, Pennsylvania✅


 * Grand Forks, North Dakota✅


 * Houston, Texas✅


 * Louisville, Kentucky✅


 * Minneapolis, Minnesota✅


 * Minnesota✅


 * New York City✅


 * Oklahoma✅


 * Providence, Rhode Island✅


 * San Francisco, California✅


 * Seattle, Washington✅


 * Tulsa, Oklahoma✅


 * Youngstown, Ohio✅

Protected areas

 * Bryce Canyon National Park
 * Chaco Culture National Historical Park
 * Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve
 * Death Valley National Park
 * Everglades National Park
 * Glacier National Park (U.S.)
 * Mount Rushmore
 * Mount St. Helens
 * Presque Isle State Park
 * Redwood National and State Parks
 * Shoshone National Forest
 * Yellowstone National Park
 * Yosemite National Park
 * Zion National Park

Others - for articles if needed

 * Mackinac Island
 * Mauna Loa
 * Metacomet Ridge
 * Monte Ne
 * Paulins Kill
 * Plunketts Creek (Loyalsock Creek)
 * Prairie Avenue
 * South Side (Chicago)
 * White Deer Hole Creek

Selected panorama location
I do not feel that the selected panorama is situated in the best location. I think the page looks a bit too uniform and box-like with the panorama box following the main US box at the top, and feel that the panorama should be moved down, under the "In the news" and "selected location" sections (similar to the main page where the main photo is closer to the bottom). I feel that a GA or FA level biography and a US-related article are more important than a photo, however nice it is. Any thoughts? Happyme22 (talk) 23:31, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I was just trying it out at the top to get a reaction. Moving it below the news box would require breaking the variable length columns into two groups. I don't mind trying it, but keep in mind it will cause two areas (three total) of "white space" when the column heights (randomly) don't match up. If folks don't like that, my next recommendation is to put it just above the Featured content box. RichardF (talk) 02:56, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I think it looks better, but it does cause that big white space. Why not just add more events to the "In the news" section to draw out the box? Is that permitted? OR we can create a "selected anniversary" section, as recommended in the To do list above, and place that below the news section in the hopes of covering up most of the space. --Happyme22 (talk) 04:10, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The "causes" of the white space are all the "Selected..." sections. They randomly display content of different lengths. It's very difficult to get several selections to be of similar sizes and meaningful content for any given section. The issue is compounded by having multiple randomized sections.  That's what happens when you have lots of content. The number of news items can be whatever we decide it should be.  The "On this day section" actually encompasses anniversaries.  I'm going to comment on that. RichardF (talk) 04:44, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I liked it where it was, below the intro. Give the portal a little wow factor, IMO. &mdash; Zaui (talk) 05:20, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Er, I disagree. None of the others are like that. But since I'm not a regular visitor or editor to the portal, I suppose you can do whichever you please. Happyme22 (talk) 05:53, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, Portal:Photography is like that. It was the inspiration (and still my personal preference) for where I originally put the panoramas here.  I'll let someone else make the next move. :-) RichardF (talk) 13:16, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I've put it back. The layout works better - fewer gaps between sections - and it makes the portal stand out. Whether any other portals do this or not shouldn't matter, it's not like we're dealing with legal precedent. &mdash; Zaui (talk) 18:30, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Featured Portal nomination for U.S. portal
(copied from my talk page)

Zaui, I finally got over a month's lead time for the 'On this day' section of the U.S. portal! >;-o) What else would you like to see before you re-nominate it for featured portal status? :-) RichardF (talk) 21:00, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I really don't like that all but one bio is politician-related. I'd rename the current section something like 'government biographies', start a new biography section, move Rosa Parks there, and populate it with non-politician bios. If you're ok with that, I'll get that started.  There's only a couple more articles to add to the 'Selected location' section for it to be complete. &mdash; Zaui (talk) 15:57, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The politicians thing was just an arbitrary starting point on my part. If we're going to divide up bios, maybe we should select some groupings first. I found several FA-Class biography articles about Americans that were classified into seven distinct categories (8 counting "core"). If we used two groupings, one might be "Entertainment" bios:  Actors and filmmakers, Arts and entertainment, Musicians, and Sports and games.  The other might be "Government & Academia" bios: Military, Politics and government, and Science and academia.  Rosa is listed under Politics and government. RichardF (talk) 21:55, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I like this idea. Let's give it a try.  Doesn't the Rosa Parks classification seems off?  But looking at the available categories, I'm not sure where she should be classified - there should be a 'society' category. &mdash; Zaui (talk) 22:48, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay! As a civil rights figure, Rosa had quite an impact on politics and government, so that seems like a good fit to me. We could call that group "Society bios." Looking at Portal:Contents/Portals, two of the highest level topics are "Culture" and "Society."  The two groupings above would still hold together the same way under these broader and shorter headings. I'll add another section to get it started. RichardF (talk) 01:52, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

To get the ball rolling, I added the Portal:United States/Selected culture biography section with two core entries. Now, we can add more bios and figure out how to balance out the main page again! >;-o) RichardF (talk) 02:37, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I also added all the featured bios to the Featured content section to show them all in one accessible place, and help show readers and editors what "Selected culture bios" and "Selected society bios" mean. RichardF (talk) 20:27, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, good idea. I've started to add bios to the society section.  &mdash; Zaui (talk) 21:46, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

After the bio sections, we need to clean up the 'selected article' and 'selected article picture' sections - there needs to be more in each section and we need to check the quality of each. &mdash; Zaui (talk) 21:46, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * "we need to clean up the 'selected article' and 'selected article' sections" (?) :-) Ten is the sentimental minumum needed for selected sections. I still like the to-do rule of thumb, "As a guideline, let's stick to using Featured, A or Good content to populate each 'Selected' section where possible. The main exception would be for Top or High Importance articles of B quality."  RichardF (talk) 23:07, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Whoops - sorry, I mean 'selected article' and 'selected picture' sections. Space Race doesn't meet the quality standards anymore - there may be more, I'll have to check. &mdash; Zaui (talk) 04:48, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay. :-) RichardF (talk) 11:54, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Selected article article/bio/location screen height
See Wikipedia talk:Featured portal criteria for a discussion of box screen heights. I would say the selected article/bio/location screen heights here are pushing the limits, particularly the right column. Perhaps we should strive to keep these display heights within a ballpark 100% view for a 1024X768 display. RichardF (talk) 11:55, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, I'll work on trimming. &mdash; Zaui (talk) 17:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I've pared down the location entries to meet the guideline. &mdash; Zaui (talk) 16:29, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Just FYI
The USA portal in Persian (Iranian) Wikipedia is now up and running:

Took me a lot of work. But it's getting lots of positive feedback there.

Just to let u folks know:)--زرشک (talk) 22:42, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

U.S. Roads portal
You might want to link to P:USRD since that's clearly related, and a featured portal.  Imzadi  1979  →  20:02, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Does anyone have any opinions about adding a section to the portal for a featured project?
I would like to add a section to the portal to feature a different US related project (possibly in a random pick basis like the articles are). With about 100 US related projects that are at least semi active I think we have more than enough. I would like to start with the more active ones such as US roads, Wisconsin, NRHP, MILHIST/ACW, etc. Does anyone have any opinions on this? --Kumioko (talk) 16:39, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea, it will help me figure out where to start!! :) A. Ward (talk) 21:21, 19 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I disagree. Portals are about the content, not the projects. They're not supposed to be self-referential. WikiProjects are not content, they're discussion forums, the "back end" of Wikipedia, if you will. Portals, like the Main Page, are supposed to be featuring the "front end", and so I don't see a purpose to featuring a project on any portal beyond a statement of their existence at the bottom of the portal page.  Imzadi  1979  →  21:46, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

The Americas
If someone from this project has a moment to comment at Category talk:American record producers, regarding my comments there. I am either way off track, or it is a thing worth considering. Thanks - My76Strat (talk) 12:34, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

GAs
New GAs that fall under this portal:
 * American automobile industry in the 1950s
 * 1950s American automobile culture
 * Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 00:03, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Detroit bankrupty --> Chapter 9 bankruptcies in general
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_United_States#Can_anybody_here_help.3F 46.142.17.120 (talk) 10:38, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

add United States Portal to Category:Populated places in the United States
I want to add United States Portal to Category:Populated places in the United States articles by JarBot and i ask for approval.--جار الله (talk) 21:30, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Metea
Hi, anybody out here who can give a second opinion on this image?, imo it would look better on the article. Thank you for your time. :) Lotje (talk) 05:01, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Notice from the Portals WikiProject
WikiProject Portals is back!

The project was rebooted and completely overhauled on April 17th, 2018. Its goals are to revitalize the entire portal system, make building and maintaining portals easier, support the ongoing improvement of portals and the editors dedicated to this, and design the portals of the future.

As of May 2nd, 2018, membership is at 60 editors, and growing. You are welcome to join us.

There are design initiatives for revitalizing the portals system as a whole, and for improving each component of portals. So far, 2 new dynamic components have been developed: Template:Transclude lead excerpt and Template:Transclude random excerpt.

Tools are provided for building and maintaining portals, including automated portals that update themselves in various ways.

And, if you are bored and would like something to occupy your mind, we have a wonderful task list.

From your friendly neighborhood Portals WikiProject. Hope to see you there. Sincerely,    &mdash; The Transhumanist   07:49, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

"Portal:New Mexico" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Portal:New Mexico. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:23, 17 August 2019 (UTC)