Talk:Texas/Archive 3

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

MUCH of the data in this page is out-of date. Needless to say the simple fact that TX is now one of 8 States where Caucasians are the minority is a major detail. Please Update. - A Texan.

Wondering how to edit this State Entry?

The WikiProject U.S. States standards might help.

"Texas larger than life attitude" is a POV

I had a differnt wording for that. When I return from vacation, I'll see if I can find it in the history. -Acjelen 15:12, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

No matter what you find, it's still POV.

Whatever you say "Texas larger than life" is tradition, not attitude. Millions of Texans are proud to describe their state with that phrase. (Eddie 23:16, 28 August 2006 (UTC))

Contents

Begging the favor of your esteemed perusal

I just finished writing the Texas article in Persian! See here. God it was hard. It takes me 5 minutes to type one sentence in Persian. And the code is a pain (all the WP syntax is confusingly inverted).

But its done. At least for now.

Go spurs!--Zereshk 11:22, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Looks fine to me—but of course I don't speak Farsi. -JCarriker 22:36, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
It still needs a history section.--Zereshk 00:21, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

The Civil War

The significance of the Civil War is overlooked in this article. Could we add some information? I want to know more about the situation in Texas during the Civil War. It would help the article, too. Stallions2010 22:55, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Honestly, Texas had very little involvment in the Civil War, other than that of supplies, which was cut off by the Union when they took over the Mississippi River in the capture of Vicksburg, Mississippi (July 1863) and a week later with the fall of Port Hudson, Louisiana.
  • Now, the very last major battle of the Civil War, was fought in Texas... it was fought May 12-13th, 1865, a month after General Lee surrendered. (Palmito Ranch) I'll go ahead and put those details into the article. Colonel Marksman 19:08, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
  • An excellent history of the collapse of the Confederate army in Texas appeared in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly last April: [1] -Ben 20:19, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

The statement that "Texas had very little involvement in the Civil War" needs to be qualified. If by Texas one means the physical soil, the statement would be true. However, TEXANS were heavily involved, and were considered uncommonly good fighters wherever they were. In fact, Hood's Texas Brigade (attached to Lee's Army of Northern Virginia) are consistently rated by military historians as the very best combat unit on either side.

Miscellaneous information adds

Made a few adds to the Miscellaneous information. Oh yeah, and it's no POV that Texas rules... ;P Colonel Marksman 20:11, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Along the "larger than life attitude" thread...just throwing this out there... I have 2 university degrees and have taken many different classes in many different disciplines (7+ years of college will do that for you), and to this date, the largest single textbook I have ever had for a class was in my 7th Grade Texas History class. The only thing that came close was an Art History survey course, full of illustrations, that and an Algorithm Analysis, and yet of all those credit hours, it's still my Texas History book that is the biggest. [Posted by unregistered user Marcos D. Stocco, marcos.stocco-1@nasa.gov] 07:21, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Re: Is Texas the South?

To elaborate a little more, Texas is its own unique region. The southern united states shares a large African-American minority and working class white society of mainly decedants of the British isles. Texas lacks these features but combines elements of the south and west into a isolated culture. Texas role in the Confederacy was minor, perhaps the least participated state in the war. Your comparisons of Atlanta and Dallas as being two southern cities are misleading. Atlanta shares more in common with Houston climatically, culturally, and Demographicaly. These cities have lost to a great extent their southern identity as they have become victims of urban sprawl. If you go to Atlanta you'd be far fetched to hear a native tongue until you reached 20 miles out of the city excluding the African-American inner city. Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia all share the most common features of what we would think as southern.

    • As to the statement in the above post that Texas role in the Confederacy was minor, see the post above in the Civil War thread. To wit, the soil of Texas itself was least affected, but the role of Texans involved in Confederate service was unsurpassed.


Texas is essentially a Southern state, even if not a typical one. Most of the things that make Texas TEXAS are Southern in origin and form...ranging from the dialect to traditional foods to history, religion, customs, and general political outlook. And according to most surveys on the subject, the overwhelming majority (some 86%) of Texans consider themselves part of the South. Even the most commonly associated icon of all -- the cowboy -- has direct Southern roots, the habits of which were primarily derived from the cattle drovers of the Old South. And most of them were ex-Confederate soldiers or the sons of the same.

I would agree that TX is a Southern state. Main I agree with the argument made above. It may be beneficial to point out that there is a spectrum of culture ranging from "Southern" to "Southwestern" as you move accross the state. JNAllen 04:13, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Change by anon

An anonymous editor made this change and provided no source. I'm not sure which is right and I don't have time to look it up right now. I'm putting it here so the change can be checked when someone has time. Johntex\talk 06:47, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Texas A&M University's article backs this up, and A&M's website verifies that the school opened in 1876. --SeanQuixote | talk | my contribs 04:41, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Add Smithsonian Education link?

Hello! I am a writer for the Smithsonian's Center for Education, which publishes Smithsonian in Your Classroom, a magazine for teachers. An online version of an issue titled "Establishing Borders: The Expansion of the United States, 1846-48" is available at this address:

http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/lesson_plans/borders/start.html

The issue includes a background essay and lesson plans on the Texan Revolt, annexation, and the Mexican War. If you think visitors would find this site valuable, I wish to invite you to include it as an external link. We would be most grateful.

Thank you so much for your attention.

This cannot be possible

Dalhart is even closer to parts of the Canadian border due north of it than to Brownsville near the state's southern extreme.

I've checked now. It's false. It's 892 mi from Dalhart to Brownsville. THe closed Canada location I can find is 1,143 mi away-Giant89 14:20, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the closest I could get to the Canadian border with about that milage in driving distance was Belfield, North Dakota. Still pretty impressive. — Laura Scudder ☎ 19:27, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. I pulled up my MS Streets 2006 and plotted a circle with Dalhart as the center. I hit Brownsville at 775 miles (roughtly) and it's not crossing the Canadian border anywhere on the circle. Ultimate ed 20:45, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps he means during the winter, when all of the glaciers in Canada push it closer to Texas... :) Kuru talk 23:14, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
You will also find the part about areas of the North East of Texas being nearer to Chicago than places in the South of Texas to be totally rubbish, and possibly even the other things stated in that paragraph. To be honest why bother including any of it? As it doesn't seem very accurate or important, I'm deleting it.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 10:37, 2006 June 15 (talk • contribs) 86.22.129.255.
Well, Texarkana does seem to be about the same distance to Chicago as it is to El Paso. It is also definitely closer to parts of NC and Florida than it is to El Paso. El Paso, in turn, is closer to San Diego than it is to Texarkana. Rather than take the statement out, lets improve it to be factually accurate. An accurate statement of this sort is useful to help the reader understand the size of the state. Johntex\talk 19:45, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Do what you wish y'all, I was just pointing out that obvious mistake. I like the idea of that paragraph, but it has got to be accurate.-Giant89 03:14, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Changes

All,

I made the changes to the population table. San Antonio is now the 7th largest city in the US: [2]

be cool.--Zereshk 03:29, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

You could have updated the other cities as well (for consistency). What is so great about being seventh-largest now? —RJN 04:03, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Not being from Texas but having lived there a few years when I was really young, I would guess it's much better than being 8th largest. ;) Jon 18:22, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Texan Collaboration of the Month

Howdy, Y'all! This article has been selected as the Texan Collaboration of the Month. For the rest of July, we will try to collaborate to bring this article up to the highest Wikipedia standards. For inspiration, we may wish to visit some of the other Geographical articles that have reached Featured Status, including the cities of Marshall, Texas, Detroit, Michigan, and Boston, Massachusetts. - Johntex\talk 19:23, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

History section

Some guidelines should be made as to the content of the history section of this page. On the ground the history of Texas is generally considered uniformly (that is, Texas has one history), but on WP the various jurisdictions plus two historical terms all have their own articles some with their own history sections. While it is important to summarize the past before 1845, the history section of this article should concentrate on Texas history since statehood. -Acjelen 21:06, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Additional sections?

In looking over a few geographical articles that have reached featured status, I have found a few sections in those articles that are not included here in this article (at least not as seperately named sections). We might want to consider if any of these sections are needed here. They include:

  • Culture - Landmarks, Annual cultural events and fairs, Performing arts, Museums and art collections, Other attractions, Media, Outdoor activities
  • Infrastructure - Significant Buildings, Utilities, Medical centers and hospitals

There are currently no featured US states, so countries and cities are the closest comparisons. Some of these things may not be appropriate here, or may already be touched upon in other sections already. Johntex\talk 23:25, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Flag myth

Acjelen quite rightly questioned the claim that the Texas flag is the only state flag that can be flown at the same level as the US flag. This is an urban myth, as a reading of the Texas Flag Code indicates.[3] I am not sure whether we should debunk this myth in this article or at the Flag of Texas article, or both. Another common myth about Texas is that its treaty of union with the US gives it a special right to seceed from the union. This is not true (though secessionists would say that all states have this right, not just Texas). It is true that the treaty gives Texas the right to split into 5 states to increase its representation in the senate. I'll be back with sources for these statements later. Johntex\talk 15:44, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Right to split into 5 states
I believe it was the 2004 Texas Almanac that had a discussion of differing legal arguments on whether the proviso in the treaty is still valid or has been invalidated by later legislation, etc. I don't have a copy handy to check for myself (I read a copy from the library), but I'm sure someone out there has a copy to consult before I get a chance to go back to the library and look it up again. Incidentally, there's a book out there somewhere that I read in the early 1990s, exploring a suggested division that allots a major population center to each of the derivative states; I seem to recall that it said that under some logical divisions, a state consisting mostly of the lower Rio Grande Valley would be a rival for "poorest state in the Union." This also reminds me, tangentially, that the Valley is a rich source for expanding beyond the Dallas/Houston/Austin arena, as some have called us to do.
As for the discussion of the flag issue and where it should be presented, I'd go for at least referring readers of this article to the debunking in the other article. Lawikitejana 06:53, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Miscellaneous topics

This section is very weak. I've checked for this section in other state articles. Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Montana all have narrative (as opposed to bulleted) information, Oregon does have such a section at all, and Virginia mentions only USS Virginia and Governor Wilder. -Acjelen 16:22, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree, some of these staements can easily be worked into relevant sections. For example:
  1. "Texas is the largest state in the contiguous United States, larger than the nation of France." - Geography
  2. "Texas is one of only a few states that were once independent countries." - History
  3. "Texas oil production averaged three million barrels of oil per day at its peak." - History
  4. "Four ships of the United States Navy have borne the name USS Texas in honor of the state." - Sites of interest
  5. "Famous for their role in the history of Texas law enforcement, the Texas Rangers continue today to provide special law enforcement services to the state." - Legal
  6. "One state holiday, Juneteenth (from "June" + "Nineteenth," its date), commemorates the day in 1865 that the slaves in Texas learned of the Emancipation Proclamation." - History
  7. "The San Jacinto Monument is the world's tallest monument tower and masonry tower at 640 feet." - Sites of interest
Johntex\talk 18:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

"The Texas Game"

I remember hearing this term in a college history course. It referred to the technique of American settlers moving in to foreign territory, becoming economically established, subverting or overthrowing the existing government, and then applying for admission into the US. The three examples cited were Texas, California, and Hawaii. Has anyone else heard this term? I was thinking maybe there should be a section or article but I'm not sure how notable the theory is. Dgies 21:44, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

  • I've never heard of it. I Googled "The Texas Game" and I get 31,000 hits, but the top ones are all about fauna or Texas Longhorn games. If you can find some notable references, I'd suggest it would be better off as its own article. It doesn't sound like it would be notable enough to make the main Texas article, where we can barely cover the really major points about the state. Johntex\talk 21:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
    • The whole problem in me trying to research notability was how sports and wildlife totally dominated the search results. That's why I decided to try asking here. It's possible it's just a pet theory of limited notability, but if could get some second hand confirmation or collaboration it could make an interesting article. It'd be hard to steer clear of WP:NOR if I can't find sources though. Dgies 05:43, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
      • Yeah, it can be tough to get a good Google search if it is being thrown off by the word "game". You could try going really specific like "The Texas Game"+immigration+overthrow or "The Texas Game"+immigration+California+Hawaii or (if you remember his/her name) "The Texas Game"+Prof-so-and-so. Or, go the other way and leave out the word game and maybe even the word Texas: "immigration"+"subversion"+"statehood", and other combinations like that. Johntex\talk 06:09, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Possessive of Texas

Wait: isn't the possessive of Texas "Texas's" instead of "Texas'"? -Acjelen 13:57, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

  • According to the University of Texas Department of Advertising:

EITHER use an apostrophe after the final s or add an apostrophe and another s to indicate the possessive form of singular nouns ending in an s, sh, or z sound.

"It is James' house ... or ... It is James's house." [4]
(emphasis in original) Johntex\talk 14:41, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
  • The University of Houston at Victoria has a more complex explanation and says it should be Texas'.[5] Johntex\talk 14:43, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
  • The Texas Legislature says it should be Texas'.[6] Johntex\talk 14:45, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
  • The Writing Center of the University of Wisconsin at Madison says:"According to the Chicago Manual of Style, when the singular noun taking the possessive form already ends in an “s,” the same rule generally applies...Texas’s flag...However, this is not the case in journalism and some other fields."[7] - Johntex\talk 14:49, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I have more sources for -'s as the correct form:

  • Brian A. Garner in A Dictionary of Modern American Usage (1998) states: "to form a singular possessive add -'s to most singular nouns—even those ending in -s and -x" (p. 509)
  • The revised third edition of Fowler's Modern English Usage (2004) states: "An apostrophe is required before a possesive s in the singular...and after a possesive s in the plural" and later continues "use 's for the possessive case in English names and surnames whenever possible" (p. 61)
  • Stunk and White (the fourth edition) have as their first rule of their first chapter: "form the possessive singular of nouns by adding 's. Follow this rule whatever the final consonant" (p. 1)

Garner reports that the AP stylebook requires a plain apostrophe in words ending in -s, but WP is not a newspaper. Is there a "Wikipedia is not a newspaper" page? -Acjelen 16:11, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

  • As far as newspaper style goes, we do have WP:WIN, which talks about news reports, but it does not speak to style. However, I should have also suggested checking our own WP:MOS. It states 'Possessives of singular nouns ending in s may be formed with or without an additional s. Either form is generally acceptable within Wikipedia. However, if either form is much more common for a particular word or phrase, follow that form, such as with "Achilles' heel" and "Jesus' tears".' - Johntex\talk 16:59, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
  • About the comment concerning the University of Texas, I'm not entirely sure that the apostrophe is entirely needed, or indeed, correct in this special instance. One might compare it to "Harvard Law School" as opposed to "Harvard's Law School". A lot of universities follow the same format, especially when talking about a college contained within the university - it's as if though the entire thing becomes a rather large compound noun. A rather mundane example (and probably far oversimplified) would be "history book". It might seem rather strange to call it "history's book" ;p. Just a thought :] Jjlongoria 16:43, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Gross State Product

How come we know the Gross State Product(GSP) of Texas for 2005, but not the per capita income? The state has surpassed New York so we need an update on List of U.S. states by GDP (nominal) as well.

I would like to suggest to add the GSP and GSP per capita figures to the template disposed on the front page of each state's website. (Eddie 21:51, 7 July 2006 (UTC))

If my understanding is correct, per capita income is different than per capita GSP (or per capita GDP). To oversimplify, I think per capita income is after tax money per person, while the per capita GSP is (consumption+investment+government spending+net exports)/(number of people) or (total economic activity)/(number of people). So, I think you could divide GSP/#ofpeople to get GSP per capita as long as only 1 source is used for the GSP information (and it's all for the same year) and only 1 source is used for the population data. Other than that limitation, I see no reason why you couldn't go ahead and make the change. Ufwuct 03:04, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
I meant to say per capita by GSP which is the GSP divided by the number of people. I will make the change. Just wanted to let you know what's going on. Eddie

Economy of Texas

A link to the Economy of Texas has been added to the page. The actual article still needs some work. Feel free to contribute. (Eddie 17:52, 9 July 2006 (UTC))

Further reading

I'm gonna clean this up, way to many books. Joe I 07:43, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Religion

What do we know about Religion in Texas? There is nothing in the article about it. I've looked under demograpics and there should be something included about it. Please update if you come across anything useful. (Eddie 16:27, 14 July 2006 (UTC))

Texas Modernizes: 1945–2006

I would suggest to use some information from the Handbook of Texas Online to expand our article about Texas after WWII. See History of Texas. (Eddie 20:03, 16 July 2006 (UTC))

I would like for this article to have more information, but you can not just copy and paste text from the Handbook of Texas and cover it up with your second edit by inserting {{cleanup}}. I have reverted your copy and pasting in the History of Texas article. —RJN 20:11, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
All right. I am not familiar with the rules of the Handbook of Texas, but I do know that it is a great source of information. Since it's on the internet anyone can copy it and paste it as well. I did not mean to do any harm and apologize if I broke any unwritten laws. Thanks for pointing out RJN, will watch it the next time (Eddie 00:20, 18 July 2006 (UTC))

Needs rewording

"the United States Supreme Court has agreed to review the case. Texas won the case "

Can somebody make this make a little more sense?-Giant89 02:19, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Picture of El Paso

My picture

El Paso New picture
El Paso New picture

is better in a way than the last one

El Paso Old Picture
El Paso Old Picture

. My picture shows the county courthouse, which is one of the landmark buildings in our skyline. the last one only showed the some main buildings. Plus, Mine shows the Sierra Madres in whole which makes it look nicer. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Smguy101 (talk • contribs) .

"Your picture" is of poor quality—it is extremely blurry. The second picture is much better in resolution and color—it looks professionally done. "Your picture" is already displayed on the El Paso article so it is only fair that someone else's picture be displayed in this article. "Your picture" does not have to be displayed on every page. —RJN 01:48, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
FYI: When you upload or contribute to anything here on Wikipedia, it becomes part of the community and is no longer "yours". —RJN 01:52, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't think the photo is of poor quality or blurry, I think the smog from El Paso makes it look that way. Maybe this will help illustrate the polution problems that El Paso/Juarez have.MonolithicNinja 17:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I like the way it is now, with the top picture for the El Paso page, and the bottom picture for the Texas page. The top picture is a wider shot, making the buildings smaller. It looks fine when we can make it large, as it is in the El Paso infobox, but for the small-sized pictures we have of cities on this article, the close-up shot allows the reader to see more detail of the buildings. Just my two cents. EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 18:13, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with EWS23 completely. It is good to have some variety, and the two images seem to work well on the respective pages. Johntex\talk 18:15, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


I'm Sorry guys, i must have been high or something when I argued about this. I agree with you guys totally, we need a lot more pictures of El paso up on wikipedia. Smguy101 04:37, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Comprehensive information

As the recent swapping in Education section points out, many sections of this article lack comprehensive information covering the state as a whole. The colleges and universities section is a thick list easily subject to edit wars about whether UT or Texas A&M should go first. Other list-heavy sections include "Healthcare and scientific research", "Mass transportation", and "Airports". For a different approach, see both the "Highways" and "Primary and secondary education" sections. They do a good job of describing the situation in a more state-wide fashion. -Acjelen 03:11, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

So you what do want to do, the college section is relatively unchangeable, any college thats removed will inevitably be editted back in. In Texas, college pride is a big deal, removing any major college system from the main page would cause edit wars as much as the A&M/UT wars are now. I actually like the way it is formatted now because while it may be rather long it is interesting and easy to read.-Giant89 04:01, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Right here there is information that should go in the article: "In Texas, college pride is a big deal". In most states there is one flagship university and/or one public university system. Texas has two flagship universities (as I explained to my family back in Wisconsin) and maybe four or five public university systems. -Acjelen 12:42, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I originally wrote this section of the article a year or so ago. I plan on rewritting it in the future and it will be a very a short and summarize version. —RJN 04:05, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Good luck. Maybe we could get that section protected after you change it? Can you protect individual sections? Than again, the wole article might do well to have protected status. BTW-Like I said before many Texans would beg to differ when you say there are two flagship Universities-Giant89 12:55, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Texas Collaboration of the month - August 2006

Hello fellow Texan Collaboration of the Month editors,
We have made some good progress with Texas over the past month. However, I am not sure if we have improved the article enough yet to contemplate nominating it for FA (or at least GA). I propose that we spend one more month on it before choosing a new topic.
I further propose that we archive the existing list of future candidate articles. Some of the nominations are quite old. I think we should take fresh suggestions during August for a new article to collaborate on in September.
I look forward to your thoughts. Please put comments at Wikipedia_talk:Texan_Collaboration_of_the_Month#August_2006. Thanks! Johntex\talk 01:00, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Who Cares?

Alright if you southerners don't want us in your club then so be it. You see in Texas we got over the Civil War, we don't hang around the Wal-Mart and fly a big old rebel flag from are trucks. We don't have accents so thick people will swear we were talkin dutch over a phone. We don't have to drive to Atlanta even if it is a 7 hour trip from are trailor to buy anything, get anywhere, or to have family reunions. We go to other beaches rather than Panama City, Fl. Are favorite number isn't 8. Professional is alot better than College. We know more highway routes than I-20 and I-10. We don't wrestle alligators. Humidity SUCKS!!! Not everyone has matching names. Oh Brother Where Art Thou?, was not the best movie ever made. Thank you, I speak for all of Texas.

I've been quite upset myself over the past few weeks, with people denying that Texas is part of the South. We fought the last battle of the Civil War and were the last troops to stop fighting. We suffered with the rest of the South in everything that we went through - slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and segregation. And now this is how other Southerners view us, as not being a true Southern state? But no matter what everyone says we are still part of the South, every last bit of Texas. From El Paso to Dalhart to Jasper to Brownsville. So you pretty much insulted us right here. (But I see your anger, I'm getting pretty annoyed too.) Texas is part of the South, and for those who don't believe it...be it fellow Southerners or anyone else...is wrong and ignorant of Southern history. Stallions2010 22:37, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

The poster who claims to speak for all Texas sure as heck doesn't for me or most Texans I know on this subject!! While Texas --in many ways -- is for sure in a class by itself (A Whole 'Nother Country) it is essentially a Southern state historically, culturally, and in outlook. Oh sure, there are exceptions in the big urban areas where there are lots of northern transplants. And large parts of the state don't fit the moonlight and magnolias image, but most of the things that make Texas TEXAS are Southern in origin. The Confederate Flag still has its place in the hearts of Texans and Confederate monuments adorn most courthouse lawns in the state even out to El Paso. The Texas accent is just one of many sub-dialects of what is broadly known as Southern speech (which makes perfect sense as most of the people who originally settled Texas came from other Southern states). The idiom is the same way...Southern (the use of y'all, yonder, fixin' to, referring to soft drinks regardless of brand as "coke", and etc, etc). And it is worth mentioning in surveys on the subject, the vast majority of Texans consider the state to be in the South (86%)and themselves to be Southerners. The fact is, if the Southern influence were removed from the state the place would be unrecognizable as Texas.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Texasreb (talk • contribs) 05:55, 2006 September 29 (UTC)

Sourcing of Texas

Clearly, there is a lack of sources in the article. My contention is that the vast majority of the unsourced material has been historically supported by the general citation of The Handbook of Texas at the bottom of the article. Since there's an online version of the entire book available, which is nicely indexed, there should probably be direct pointers to material that's available online.

This isn't everything; there are also a lot of random factoids that have crufted into the article over the last few months that need to be sourced or removed, and some of the lists here need to have criteria defined for them. Since it's a large article, any opinions on the best way to go about working this? I've half a mind to revert Clair's ka-jillion tags back in and removing them one by one as a way of keeping track of the work. Kuru talk 04:02, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Working on the history section now; should be the easiest to cite. Kuru talk 04:12, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
I think the ka-jillion tags are ugly, which is why I originally put the {{unsourced|article}} template at the top. It signals a deficiency without asserting that there's anything wrong with the content, although there are some places that border on [1] or [2] content. (Not the worst case I've seen in US States articles, by any means. New Jersey's article says they have the #2 waterfall east of the Mississippi, second only to Niagra Falls, although I found six or eight falls east of the Mississippi that are higher than NJ's, and I wasn't even looking hard. ::grin::)
The best way to handle it, in my experience, is simply to attack one section at a time, nail down every factual assertion in every sentence. Most of these things are pretty easy to find. The <ref></ref> markup is only one click, and it leaves the cursor between the >< so you just type [], backspace, hit Ctrl-V, then add in the name of the page following the URL. It goes pretty fast. And in many places, you can name your <ref> so that it's fast to put another copy of the ref by each fact it supports.
There are all sorts of articles showing up everywhere, talking about how Wikipedia can't be trusted, but if you have lots of citations, people will click on two or three of them, find that the article can be trusted, and then they go ahead and use the article. And if you have good <ref>s, it really cuts down on the edit wars. It's worth doing. ClairSamoht 04:28, 4 September 2006 (UTC) Help make Wikipedia the most authoritative source of information in the world
For an example of a well-sourced article, I invite everyone to take a look at my work-in-progress at Lawyer. I have been working on it on and off since January. --Coolcaesar 07:04, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Frontage roads

I think it would be difficult to prove (or at least be a lot of work) to show that no other state has a frontage road policy like Texas's. However, there is plenty of data on frontage road mileage in Texas and on the TxDOT policies of building frontage roads almost everywhere they possibly could. There also exists a lot of claims (by roadgeeks, visitors to Texas, but most importantly some Texas state officials) that Texas's omnipresent feeder roads (as I like to call them) are unique to Texas. I would like to scale back the wording though to not make so bold a claim ("...no other state...") and provide sources on Texas feeder road mileage. The mileage for Texas is easy to find; it will probably be harder to find this data for other states, but I think enough can be found for a reasonable comparison. Ufwuct 22:46, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I was the one that added that tag, and the reason I used Template:dubious rather than Template:fact is that the whole article lacks citations, but that claim in particular smells fishy. Most states are building frontage roads as they build new highways. Here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, they just expanded US 30. It was 4 lanes, and it went to 6, and then then added 4 to 6 lanes of frontage roads as well. And they have a lot of "Texas loops" allowing you to do a u-turn from a frontage road headed one way to the frontage road headed in the opposite direction. So while Texas may have gotten there a bit earlier, it's not like they are the only one doing it any more.
I like your idea of listing feeder road milage, though, especially if you can show context. State, county and city articles often fall victim to a chamber-of-commerce "all hat no cattle" glurge. Showing that there's 3 miles of feeder road for every 5 miles of highway (if that's what it is) should make an impact. It;s sorta like "Hitler's law": You don't have to tell readers that Hitler was evil. All you have to do is to show what he did, and readers can figure it out for themselves. ClairSamoht - Help make Wikipedia the most authoritative source of information in the world 23:16, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
I see your point for your choice in the tag. I changed it to make sure that it wasn't deleted, which I think was more likely with the other tag. I do think feeder roads for far-out rural interstates are Texan, but not unique. I also think that specifically buying up right of way for feeder roads in heavily urbanized areas is a very "Texan" quality not seen very often in other places, but it is by no means unique either. I've definitely seen feeder roads in other states, sometimes for moderately long distances, but generally, I've seen many freeways that are mostly "feederless" (I-10, I-75 in FL, I-93, I-95, I-495 in MA, I-55 in MO, I-24 everywhere). There are a few more "Texan" qualities of freeways (like the towering highway lights), but this might not be the place to list all of that.
I also agree with you on the chamber-of-commerce quality to some of the articles. You can't blame people for being proud of their city/state/sports team, etc., but we must work to counteract this. Most of what I could find on TX feeder mileage says that there's about twice as many feeder road miles as interstate miles. I'm assuming that the feeder road miles are "centerline" miles rather than lane miles, but it's also possible that TxDOT is counting both sides of the freeway (double counting). There are also non-interstate freeways in the Houston, San Antonio, DFW, Austin, Corpus Christi, McAllen-Harlingen, Brownsville, and Beaumont metro areas that I know have feeder roads. Also, U.S. 75 north of Dallas, U.S. 59 on both sides of Houston, and U.S. 290 have long freeway sections with feeders, although these are not interstates. I'll have to get a better understanding of my data before I feel comfortable adding it though. Thanks for the feedback. Ufwuct 23:34, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Article Size

I'm pretty sure other states have it too, but the Texas article could use some subarticles or something. It's pretty detailed with a lot of information. Colonel Marksman 03:28, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The Texas article is the size of Texas!
Okay, that was a cheap shot but I think it's pretty funny. =-) --Coolcaesar 01:35, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Yes, Colonel. I've seen about 40 state articles in the last month, it appears that everybody is fighting the same battle, and your solution is the one that seems to be working best.
What seems to work best is when the state article contains only one paragraph, two at the absolute outside, of summary. That way, everybody who wants to work on History of Texas goes to History of Texas and you get a really good article there, instead of two lesser versions of the history. Even in areas like geography and geology, you've got about four paragraphs, and that seems to invite "creeping featuritis".
I'd suggest that you really need to create "Texas Culture" and "Education in Texas" articles, because if they got their own articles, editors would feel less constrained by space, more likely to let the subject be covered fully. But right now, what you really need to do is to move tons and tons of content to the history and Texas State Government pages, and integrate it with existing content, and get the state page content down to a single paragraph or two.
I've noticed that the Texas article has shown marked improvement in the last month or so, in terms of citing sources. You folks really are doing a lot of work here, and it shows! ClairSamoht - Help make Wikipedia the most authoritative source of information in the world 06:26, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Median Income

How come there's no median income summary in the right hand table? Many of the other states have a median income listing. --speedoflight | talk to me 10:35, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Funny Vandalism

Someone vandalized the first sentence. I laughed so hard when I saw it, but I fixed it. Secos5 02:16, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

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