Template:Outline of knowledge coverage WPT

United States Project‑class

This page is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States Project This page does not require a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.

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

Invitation to join GLAM-Wiki US

Hello! This WikiProject aligns closely with the work of the GLAM-Wiki initiative (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums), a global community of volunteers who assist cultural institutions with sharing resources with Wikimedia. GLAM-Wiki US is a new community initiative focused on organizing cultural collaborations within the United States. GLAM organizations are diverse and span numerous topics, from libraries and art museums to science centers and historic sites. We currently have a backlog of interested institutions- and we need your help! Are you interested in helping with current or future GLAM projects? Join→ Online Volunteers We hope you'll join the growing GLAM-Wiki community in the US. Thank you! -Lori Phillips (Talk), US Cultural Partnerships Coordinator For more information visit→ The GLAM:US portal or GLAM-Wiki on Outreach

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Details: [3]

Instructions: [4]

Awards to be given: [5]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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