Talk:Texas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

↓    Skip to table of contents    ↓

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Texas article.
Article policies
Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4
Good article Texas was a nominee for good article, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. 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.
Peer review Texas has had a peer review by Wikipedia editors which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.
To-do list for Texas: edit · history · watch · refresh
  • Expand the lead section with three paragraphs (See the Houston article for example)
  • Summarize and trim many sections of the article
    • Convert religion section into prose
  • Insert more references
  • Improve article to featured article standards
  • Nominate article for peer review
  • Nominate article at Wikipedia:Good articles
  • Create Criticism Section?
  • Create a new Sports subpage?
The current Texan Collaboration of the Month is Marshall, Texas.
Every month, a different Texas-related topic, stub or non-existent article is picked.
Please read the nomination text and improve the article any way you can.

Contents

[edit] six flags

It says: "Texas boasts that "Six Flags" have flown over its soil: the national flags of Spain, the Fleur-de-lis of France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the Confederate States of America, and the United States of America" that is not completely true. It is the flag of the former kingdom og castille, and it is the flag of one of spain's autonomous communities (states). So "castilla y leon" is to Spain as Texas is to America. Could anyone correct that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.54.219.63 (talk) 08:56, 9 April 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Four Independent Nations?

I know of the Vermont Republic and Hawaii, but what is the fourth? Would . . .

"it joined the United States as the 28th state. It is one of only four states that was an independent nation before becoming a constituent state of the US."

. . .be better worded as . . .

"it joined the United States as the 28th state. It is one of only four states that was an independent nation--the others being Hawaii, the Vermont Republic and (whatever the fourth is)--before becoming a constituent state of the US."

. . .or perhaps a reference to the other prior nations that were annexed into the US? I think listing out the others would prove out the claim. I'd make the change, but I can't find the fourth ;)

How was Vermont any different than the other British colonies that fought the War of Independence. The Wikipedia entry on Vermont says that it was an Independent Republic "in the 14 year period during and after the Revolutionary War".

New Hampshire, for instance "It became the first post-colonial sovereign nation in the Americas when it broke off from Great Britain in January 1776".(Wikipedia "New Hampshire") It joined the United States six months later.

So wasn't New Hampshire an independent nation for six months, too? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.32.253.72 (talk) 03:50, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Vermont was not one of the original 13 states. They also were not part of the Unitedly States under the Articles of Confederation as the other New England states were.Traeshaw (talk) 16:25, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


Thoughts? Jamesfett 06:33, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, found the fourth was the California Republic. I'm going to make the change since I think it helps prove the claim. Jamesfett 06:43, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Of course, there was also the short-lived Republic of West Florida, which now forms parts of the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. --Evb-wiki 18:31, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Right now we have "Texas is one of only four independent states to enter the US federation" in the article, with a "citation needed" on it. How about something along the lines of "Texas is the only U.S. state that, prior to entering the U.S. federation, gained independence from another nation without foreign support and maintained it for more than a year." Assuming we can understand "foreign support" as not counting volunteers, mind you. A statement like this excludes the original colonies, California, Hawaii, and West Florida, and it sort of puts some substance to the "Texas pride" mentality. Nine years without the U.S. declaring war on Mexico is at least a little different from 90 days while the U.S. was having a conflict with Spain. -BaronGrackle (talk) 19:32, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Or, even better... "Texas is the only state that entered the U.S. federation through a treaty between independent nations." I found it at a Texas trivia site (http://www.50states.com/facts/texas.htm), so I'm not sure whether it's true. If it is true, then a citation of the treaty itself would be sufficient, and I think it would get the same point across as the current statement. Louisy trivia sites. -BaronGrackle (talk) 20:25, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Date of settlements prior to arrival of first explorer

"The French settlement was massacred by American Indians, and Spain only started sparse settlements, so most permanent settlements by Europeans didn't start until long after the first explorer arrived in 1521." Earlier in the paragraph, it states that the first explorer arrived in 1528. This is obviously an error, and the sentence is out of place. The flow of the paragraph is chronological, but this statement is out of that order.

Any ideas? Krazymike 16:28, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I nuked it. The first statement is overly simplistic. See, e.g., Fort St. Louis Archeological Project. The rest is weaselly, without a source, and doesn't really add anything to the paragraph. I also fleshed out the demise of Ft St Louis a little. --Evb-wiki 16:43, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Annexation of Texas

The annexation of Texas really is a big enough thing to deserve its own page but currently it is given less than a paragraph. Should that not be expanded to encompass more of the facts surrounding the event?

Danman111111 (talk) 08:05, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

i totally agree i have to do alot of different things for texas History expessially since im in honors! we need more info on the annexation of texas

User:Hello Moto13 (User talk:Hello Moto13talk]]) 12:21, march 2008

Of course, there is a separate article covering the Texas Annexation. --Evb-wiki (talk) 18:30, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I just read linked to the citation that was supposed to support that Texas was the only state to be annexed via treaty. That statement is false and even the source says the Senate never passed the Treaty. So I am going to give the writer a chance to delete that statement in a reasonable time, or I will MPA 17:11, 29 May 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by MPA (talk • contribs)

I've already removed it. I am not the original author of the statement. Here is the removed statement. "Texas is the only state to enter the United States by treaty instead of territorial annexation." First off, I can tell you for certain that it isn't true. Texas was annexed by an act of the U.S. Congress. No treaty with Texas was involved. The source http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/texas-revolution.htm is confusing in itself. While the statement was taken directly from the source, the source also goes on to say:
"In 1845, the political climate proved more favorable to the request for statehood. On June 23, 1845, a joint resolution of the Congress of Texas voted in favor of annexation by the United States. Acknowledging the idea of Manifest Destiny that had seized the American public, Secretaries of State Upshur and Calhoun negotiated a treaty of annexation with the Republic of Texas, but the treaty was rejected by the Senate due in large measure to the opposition of Northern senators. Recognizing that the two-thirds Senate vote required to ratify a treaty was unattainable, President John Tyler presented a simple declaration of the annexation of Texas to Congress, which passed it by joint resolution. On December 29, 1845, Texas officially became the twenty-eighth state in the Union although the formal transfer of government did not take place until February 19, 1846."
This statement is obviously at odds with the first one.Sperril (talk) 04:09, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Regional Affiliations of Texas Cities

Just a thought for discussion/debate...

The "U.S Region" table on the major Texas cities list seems, IMHO, to leave a lot desired. Sure, some of them (El Paso, San Antonio) are unquestionably "Southwestern." But, in particular, when one gets into Austin, or Plano or Ft. Worth, to label them either Southern or Southwestern is extremely subjective at best. For intance, I would label all of the latter mentioned as "Southern" rather than Southwestern, if by Southwestern the association means a greater historical and cultural kinship with cities in New Mexico or Arizona. It simply isn't true.

But anyway, that is just my opinion. Others may very well disagree. Which is the whole point. And why I suggest that particular table be taken out. Thanks for the hearing, y'all...and am interested in hearing what others have to say! :-) TexasReb (talk) 18:13, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the table is interesting but, IMO, Austin, Arlington, Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Plano and Garland are all southern whereas Fort Worth may be debatable (being "where the 'west' begins") but, it is very southern in almost every way, imo. El Paso, San Antonio, San Angelo, Corpus Christi, are Southwestern. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ultrasonic128 (talk • contribs) 04:33, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Just as a little related note about Ft.Worth as concerns the moniker "Where the West Begins". This came up in a now archived discussion, and there seems to be a lot of confusion about the history of the nickname. It was never intended to mean anything like "The South stops here", because the "West" was not considered a seperate cultural region, but rather just the frontier half of the country as distinghed from the "East." As it applied to Ft. Worth, what was meant a gateway boomtown to a new sub-region of the South itself, as different from the "Old South" of cotton plantation country. After all, Ft. Worth was a settled town when Texas was in the Confederacy and most of those early settlers were Confederate soldiers and people from the southeastern states moving west to get a new start. Oh well, just a note in passing here!  :-) TexasReb (talk) 19:41, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Not many have responded to the whole question of keeping/deleting the "regional affiliations" of Texas cities. So, I would like to rephrase the question. Does anyone have a strong objection to removing it? If so, why? I am not trying to be sarcastic nor challenging when asking, but rather, to better understand the rationale for keeping it. IMHO, other than obvious extremes such as El Paso or Houston, the whole South/Southwest thing is too much POV. I haven't touched the table yet, but if there are no responses within a reasonable length of time (several weeks or so), I am going to give serious consideration to it. TexasReb (talk) 17:32, 26 January 2008 (UTC) --I would make the case that this table should stay. While one can look at "regions" in concern to culture or proximity, you could also make the case that geography and natural forms also help to define a place. For instance, though Ft. Worth and Dallas are only 30 or so miles apart there is a distinct change in contour and landscape between the two (difficult to see in the urban area but very obvious on the periphery.) In addition, topography and landscape play into cultural and regional identity as they impact the industry and agronomy of a place. Ft. Worth is known for its' "Stockyards" and has prided itself on its history as a "cow-town." Dallas has never done so since it does not have this past. Ft. Worth was part of the old trails and cattle-drive routes, something that is more "Southwestern" or "Western" than "Southern." Just some thoughts.

[edit] Climate graph

Given the size of the article, and the fact that there is a main Climate of Texas article, do we really need 20 cities in the climate graph? Some of these, such as Dallas and Fort Worth, are near enough to each other that their average temperatures are almost identical. Would anyone oppose it if I cut down the graph to, say, five cities or so, representing various Texan regions? I could then move the larger (20 cities) graph to Climate of Texas. AlexiusHoratius (talk) 02:50, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

  • I agree it would look better formatted differently, with fewer cities listed on *this* page, however I think major cities such as both Dallas and Fort Worth should remain listed, as well as the state's major tourist destinations such as Corpus Christi and Galveston. Climate is more than just regions, for instance, due to coastal influences there is often 10 degrees difference in summer highs and winter lows between Houston and Galveston, yet they're only 50 miles apart. Anyhow, places of a more local importance, ie: Victoria & San Angelo, should probably be removed and included only in the list on the Climate of Texas article. My 2 cents... Nsaum75 (talk) 20:41, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to see more like only three or four cities for this article, but I'm willing to compromise. How about the five largest cities (Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, Ft. Worth) plus cities that aren't necessarily the largest, but will represent regions not covered by the largest cities ... I was thinking, in addition to the five largest, of including El Paso for West Texas, either Brownsville or Corpus Christi for South Texas, and Amarillo for the panhandle. I don't think that you are wrong in wanting to include other cities because of more subtle variations or the fact that they are tourist destinations, my only problem is that the table is currently taking up about 20k worth of space on an article that already has some serious size issues. If we don't have really solid limits on what cities to include, it will be difficult to cut more than a few. AlexiusHoratius (talk) 01:36, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Long list of Proposed Cuts

Use ctl F to find the various phrases.

  • Vermont acted as an independent nation for 14 years before joining the United States in 1791. California and Hawaii were also independent before being annexed by the United States. - (is the necessary in the intro?)
  • In addition to its own state flag, (Necessary)
  • emitting more carbon dioxide than France, the United Kingdom, or Canada. (necessary?)
  • and was one of a few states that permitted the execution of a mentally retarded person before the prohibition by the Supreme Court (move to justice system)
  • Known for their role in the history of Texas law enforcement
  • after California, after recently surpassing New York state. (do we have to mention other states)
  • have not risen at the astronomical rates of other cities such as San Francisco)
  • following New York state which has fifty-seven.
  • The state passed New York in the 1990s to become the second-largest U.S. state in population (after California). (new york and california necessary?)
  • (after Chicago and New York City)
  • In the April 1997 issue, Texas Monthly acknowledged Texas A&M University as "The best public undergraduate university in the state." A&M was also described as “The state’s academic powerhouse." ( I am an aggie, and i don't think this is necessary. try the washington monthly rankings. the t.u. also needs its own sentence)

I am cutting in a week unless told otherwise. Oldag07 (talk) 03:46, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Texan

why does Texan redirect to here, i thought Texan was supposed to be an English dialect page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.17.229.64 (talk) 23:11, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wind power

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/011808dnbuswindpower.30c78959.html found another source on why texas is leading the nation in wind power. Oldag07 (talk) 00:20, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Major Cities

Looking at the FA Oklahoma and Minnesota, this table can be converted into prose. Could we move this chart elsewhere. it is unsourced. Oldag07 (talk) 03:03, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Texas
rank		 U.S.
rank		 City Population
within
city limits		 Metro
Population		 Land Area
square miles (km²)		 Texas
Region		 U.S.
Region
1 4 Houston 2,144,491 5,539,949 601.7 sq mi
(1,558 km²)		 East Texas South
2 7 San Antonio 1,296,682 1,942,217 412.1 sq mi
(1,067 km²)		 South Texas Southwest
3 9 Dallas 1,232,940 6,003,967 385.0 sq mi
(997 km²)		 North Texas South
4 16 Austin 709,893 1,513,565 258.4 sq mi
(669 km²)		 Central Texas Southwest
5 18 Fort Worth 653,320 6,003,967 298.9 sq mi
(774 km²)		 North Texas Southwest
6 21 El Paso 609,415 415,810 250.5 sq mi
(649 km²)		 West Texas Southwest
7 49 Arlington 362,805 6,003,967 99.0 sq mi
(257 km²)		 North Texas Southwest
8 63 Corpus Christi 283,474 736,310 460.2 sq mi
(1,192 km²)		 South Texas Southwest
9 69 Plano 250,096 6,003,967 71.6 sq mi
(186 km²)		 North Texas South
10 86 Garland 216,346 6,003,967 57.1 sq mi
(148 km²)		 North Texas South


Also, someone posted this at the bottom of this table:

I LOVE DANIEL EARL BOLES

It needs to go.

Also, the heading of this section needs correction and formatting adjustments.

[edit] Sports Page

I thought this page from Minnesota project was quite interesting: Sports in Minnesota. Our main page's Sports section seems to be getting too crowded. Oldag07 (talk) 03:40, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Three New Pages

I suggest a

  • Healthcare of Texas page
  • Sports in Texas
  • Architecture of Texas

[edit] Revised Sports Section

I changed the sports section to:

  • To shorten it
  • make it more than just a list of teams.
  • Add references

Comments? Oldag07 (talk) 22:20, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GA Nomination

I just nominated this page for GA status. Hopefully it will work. I feel the "too long" template is inappropriate. Minnesota and Oklahoma are both FA's and they are both longer than this page.

  • Texas- 93,236 bytes as of 15:05, 27 April 2008
  • Featured article Oklahoma- 108,777 bytes as of 03:20, 27 April 2008
  • Featured article Minnesota- 94,530 bytes as of, 03:08, 27 April 2008

Who says everything is "bigger" in Texas? :-) Oldag07 (talk) 15:27, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed the 'too long' tag. This was a holdover from the bad old days when the article was around 108 kB. I don't see any reason why an article on a large and varied US state that has 119 in-line citations and is still under 95 kB needs this tag on it. AlexiusHoratius (talk) 19:37, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
The gallery of university campuses/buildings was removed from the education section, citing the recommendation of peer review. [1] I cannot seem to find the peer review comments. Could someone provide a link or point me in the right direction? I notice the UT pic was kept. I believe the gallery was there to provide balance. And I don't know of a reason why a gallery would hinder GA promotion. --Evb-wiki (talk) 01:24, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
oops, not peer review. . . . the old nomination. I miss read the comment too. Talk:Texas/Archive_4#GA_nomination Oldag07 (talk) 15:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
What exactly is the policy concerning placement of 'See also' links within an article, as in do they go at the top or bottom of the section? I had always thought that they go at the end, and WP:Layout says this as well, but the GA reviewer said they go at the beginning of the section, and I've also seen a few other cases in FA's that do this. In other words, was the reviewer wrong, or is there a policy somewhere else that says the 'See also' links go at the top of the section? AlexiusHoratius (talk) 15:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
It's got some fine points - "See also" for references/items not wikilinked within the body of the text goes after the body of the text. In general, WP:Layout suggests "Main, See also, Further", etc. go after the header and at the beginning of a section.--Parkwells (talk) 16:37, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GA quickfail

Hi. I'm sorry to inform you that I will be quickfailing this article. Here are some things to work on before renomination:

  • I counted ten "citation needed" tags in the article. Please cite.
  • Tags like "see also", "main article", or "further information" should go right under headers, not at the end of sections.
  • Stand alone years should not be wikilinked (ex. 1836 and 1845 in the lead).
  • Some of the citations need formating. Check Template:cite web for help with citing web sources.
  • Smaller paragraphs with only one or two sentences should be merged with other paragraphs, expanded, or deleted. There are rare exceptions, but most paragraphs should be longer than that.

That's it for now. Good luck in improving the article. Also, I deleted the archives on the talk page, as the talk header template lists them automatically now. Nikki311 01:50, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Citations needed

Almost done. just need to find sources for these 6 facts:

  • More than one-third of the foreign-born population in Texas and 5.4 percent of the total state population comes from illegal immigration.[citation needed]
  • When President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he reportedly said "We have lost the South."[citation needed]
  • Analysts have also attributed the shift of white conservatives in the South to the Republican Party as being due to shared values on gun rights, abortion, crime and welfare.[citation needed]
  • with the University of Texas Health Science Center recognized as a "world leading research and educational institution".[citation needed]
  • There are 181 colleges, universities and dozens of other institutions engaged in the research and development of Texas.[citation needed]

Oldag07 (talk) 02:40, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I found two lists of colleges in Texas: [2] and [3]. First one is from infoplease.com, lists over 200 schools, including community colleges, etc. Second one is from UT Austin, and only lists around 108 or so universities. I suppose we could just say 'has over 200 colleges' or 'has over 100 universities' or something. (I'm not sure why the UT list is so much shorter, maybe it has to do with accreditation or something.) AlexiusHoratius (talk) 04:11, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
As one who has contributed to the List of colleges and universities in Texas, I think the community colleges are the big differences between the two lists. I like your phrasing. Oldag07 (talk) 11:33, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
As for the page size ballooning out of control, I think we can rewrite/ clean up the economy section, and remove the the table in the cities and towns section. I think an extra paragraph or two of prose would be better than that table. Oldag07 (talk) 11:33, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Maybe this is a local quirk, but we'd say "colleges & universities", as the 2 aren't interchangeable. I suspect the distinction is worth noting, by mentioning both. Trekphiler (talk)Flag of Canada 11:41, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree they need to be identified separately, not totaled together.--Parkwells (talk) 19:14, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree that the cities table should be cut, along with the presidential elections table that was recently added under politics. Normally, I wouldn't mind these being in there, and would even support their inclusion, but the article is again growing a bit large, and the size problem will only get worse as we add more citations. AlexiusHoratius (talk) 17:39, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Do you feel that several paragraphs are necessary to explain that Texas was once a Democratic state, but now it is a Republican one. We can summarize that in a paragraph at most. Oldag07 (talk) 01:21, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
One paragragh should be enough. I found these sources:[4] [5] that should cover the issue if we need any more, they discuss the general shift from the Democrats to the Republicans, and some of the reasons behind it. AlexiusHoratius (talk) 01:58, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Economics section

I am trying to rewrite the economics section. Here is what i got so far. User:Oldag07/Sandbox Oldag07 (talk) 03:45, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I keep on thinking of new stuff to add to our economics section. most of this stuff was for wikipedia, originally researched by me and is therefore not yet on the Economy of Texas page. This pages' economics section admittedly is too long at the moment.

[edit] New direction

While doing research, I have had several inspirations on improvements to the rest of the page:

  • Trimming passenger rail transport, and writing more on the railroad industry as a whole. (it has had huge historical importance on the state)
  • Adding a seaport section
  • somehow add how important the state's location has made it for logistics.
  • Trimming the executive part of our article, and adding in our unique "plural executive" system.

BTW awesome source: http://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/ Oldag07 (talk) 06:08, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I am taking a break. I got all my short term goals done. see yaOldag07 (talk) 03:56, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wellness

I think we should add a Wellness section to the article. As it stands now, we have stats about obesity under the "Healthcare" section, which really isn't the place for it. I'd like to add a "Wellness" section, where we could also add stats about where Texas stands in the President's Council on Fitness, The Cooper Institute and the obesity stats, as well as other information. Any objections? Supertheman (talk) 09:57, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

We could just rename the section "health". then we could add your stats without problem. as for medical research, i am tempted to move that into education.Oldag07 (talk) 12:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Further reading

is a further reading section necessary for this page? Oldag07 (talk) 15:41, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

==Further reading==

Moved further reading. add it back on if you objectOldag07 (talk) 01:39, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] History Page

Looking at other states pages, Featured article Oklahoma, Featured article Minnesota, New York, and California and they all seem to have only one section for the history part of their page. Our history page is quite good and can absorb a lot of the obscure facts on this page. I am currently working on a shorter version of history in my sandbox and anybody is welcome to help. If there are no objections, than i will change it sometime after May 22. right now, i am going to remove the introduction to the history section. most of what it says is already in the subsections.Oldag07 (talk) 02:49, 15 May 2008 (UTC)