Talk:History of Puerto Rico

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[edit] History of PR

Not my intention to copy/paste plagiaries anybody's work here, I contacted the author of the page mentioned- waiting for a response. I am researching the subject to see if I can contribute a better article here. If deemed so, feel free to undo any changes.

[edit] Copyright violation?

I'm a little concerned that much of the recent changes to this article include verbatim copying of material from http://welcome .topuertorico.org/history.shtml this site. I've no problem with using that site as a guide, but mimicking the structure and copying exact phrasing is at best plagiarism and at worst a copyright violation. Because it is difficult for me to determine just how extensive the copying is, I'm mentioning it here first, to give some other eyes a chance to look it over before listing it on Wikipedia:Copyright problems.

Also, User:Jmoliver marked the edits as "minor" changes when it is in fact a complete re-write of the article. Please don't mark such major changes as minor. I had left messages on the user talk page, but with no response. older≠wiser 13:18, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Additional Copyright Violations? When wikifying the Invasion of 1898 section I did some googling to check some facts and found that some of the chronology had been lifted directly from this page: http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/chronpr.html. For example, this passage from the Politcal Reforms section was lifted directly from that page:

Dr. Julio J. Henna and Robert H. Todd, prominent leaders of the Puerto Rican section of the Cuban Revolutionary Party, began to correspond with United States President McKinley and Senate in hopes that they would consider including Puerto Rico in whatever intervention was planned for Cuba. Henna and Todd also provided the U.S. government with information about the Spanish military presence on the island.

I didn't closely compare the two pages to find more examples, but it's clear that this is a second area of possible plagiarism in addition to the above. I've added a citation but I don't think that's enough. Both these cases need to be addressed more thoroughly. mennonot 23:37, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] References need to be cited

The problem with this article (amongst so many others, crippling Wikipedia)is nobody cites their sources. All the information on this page is speculative without them.

[edit] Invasion of 1898

Under this heading, the number of troops in the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs need to be reconciled, somehow. 162.84.72.171 19:27, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

  • I removed the troops count in the 3rd paragraph because I could not find a reference other than this one http://welcome .topuertorico.org/history4.shtml. All other sites state that close 3,300 troops departed from Guantánamo and disembarked in Guánica. See [1] for a detailed count of troops. Joelito 21:10, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Citation style

You may want to consider changing the citation style so that the citation occurs following the punctuation. As in, after a period or a comma, as apparently this is what the Chicago style guide recommends, and this is what most FAs use. Pepsidrinka 02:26, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

  • I will correct this promptly. Joelito 03:00, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Random thoughts

I feel much more comfortable using the article talk page as opposed to the FAC page because I don't really feel I understand the FA standard well enough to put my input in. However, because the peer review is no longer open (atleast it shouldn't be if the FAC has started), I'm going to insert my random thoughts here that IMO, could standarize this article. I don't know what the precedent is, but IMO, words that haven't been assimilated into the English language, e.g., cacique, Mayaguez, Arecibo, guiro should probably be italicized. Also, do the two capalitized words denote proper nouns? They aren't linked, so perhaps you should either write their translations within parenthesis or link them. I think their might be a way to wikilink to wikitionary, though I'm not completely sure. Pepsidrinka 05:04, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Capitalized words are municipalities of Puerto Rico and the words not present in English should be in italic. Joelito 05:23, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Spain

Is there a reason, why the viceroyalty of New Spain is not mentioned? To me this looks like writing about Kansas without mentioning, that it is in the United States. The political framework of the Spanish dominions in the new world seems to be missing completely. --h-stt !? 09:03, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Singular, plural ?

Partido Estadistas Unido or Partido Estadistas Unidos ... ?? I have reverted changes to the name (someone thought it meant the United States and changed it to that), so a wikilink to the exact correct name would be good. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:54, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Its Partido Estadistas Unidos. A quick google search reveals that is the standard use. We just have to pick an appropriate reference. - Mtmelendez (Talk|UB|Home) 01:10, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Then I did an incorrect revert, because I thought the correct grammar was Partido ... Unido, and that's what the article had. Oops. I'll drop an apology note to the editor. Can you pick a ref for fixing this? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:13, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I made the change, and no I didn't mistake it with United States, I knew how it is spelled in proper Spanish don't revert changes on speculations if you aren't sure better yet next time ask the user that made the change for am explanation of his edit before reverting. -凶 01:16, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
It was the person before you who changed it to the United States, that I also had to revert, and then I tried to make the names agree (one was singular, the other plural). I'm sorry to upset you; I'll unwatch the article now. Saludos, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:20, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] history or prehistory?

This article begins thus:

The history of Puerto Rico began with the settlement of the archipelago of Puerto Rico by the Ortoiroid people between 3000 and 2000 BC.

Is that history, or prehistory? My understanding is that "history" means events that are documented; i.e. humans made records of events when they happened and we still have those records and we get the story from them. 128.101.249.149 03:27, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

You are conflating "history" with Recorded history. Pre-history is the study of events that happened before recorded history; history is both (recorded and unrecorded) Raul654 16:19, 18 June 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Plurality vs. Majority

I changed the word "majority" to "plurality" in the following statement, because winning an election by less than 50.1% of the vote is called a plurality, not a majority. "Luis A. Ferré was elected governor on November 5, 1968, with 43.6% of the vote, the first time a pro-statehood governor has received a plurality."

[edit] Referendums on statehood?

This ambiguity continues to spark political debates which dominate Puerto Rican society.

Would be very enlightning to list the last few referendums in which voters were asked to choose whether to petition the U.S. to become the 51st state. The percentages for and against would illuminate how strong the ambiguity is. Tempshill 18:30, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually its more ambiguous than that, on the last referendum there were five options and they came in this order: None of the above, Statehood, Independence, Free Association and Commonwealth, how about that? [2]-凶 05:37, 19 June 2007 (UTC)