Talk:The Dakotas

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This article was nominated for deletion on March 12, 2008. The result of the discussion was keep.

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On June 3, this article was nominated for deletion. The discussion can be found at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/The Dakotas. The result was keep. Xezbeth 19:51, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Expansion

I would like to expand this article a bit, but I'm unsure of the best method. Should it be discussed as a singular region, or should there simply be a discussion about the similarities and differences?

Also, I may be alone on this, but as a native South Dakotan that has lived in several other states, I find it very annoying when non-Dakotans refer to it as though it were one state. For example: We took a trip to Mt. Rushmore, which is in the Dakotas. I suppose this is more of a personal rant, though, and I wouldn't know how to properly include any of this in an article.
--AlexiusHoratius 12:19, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

• IMO, the non-terminological stuff has to be primarily about what they do jointly, which shades into what they have in common with each other but not with their other neighbors. What's also true of the whole of a many-state prairie, or of much of the Midwest and/or Manitoba & Saskatchewan, is no more relevant to this article than what, say, Connecticut and Massachusetts have in common, but has not inspired a Connecticut and Massachusetts article. What is different between them could only be relevant if there is some surprise or irony involved ... suppose they have similar mineral resources, but way less mining is done in one because the raising of sheep is so much more favored by one's climate, and mining would disrupt that industry: sort of "You'd think they'd both have nickel mines, but no!"
  --Jerzy•t 05:29, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
  

We took a trip to Mt. Rushmore, which is in the Dakotas. I'm sorry this bothers you, but I think it's actually quaint. What's wrong with a bit of regionalizing? How about, "I took a trip to Mt. Washington, which is in New England?" Is that annoying to denizens of New Hampshire? (let alone all the people from all the other places called Mt. Washington ) What about the "Carolina" Panthers? Should that be annoying to North Carolingians, since the team is (barely) located in their state,and not South Carolina? I mean, you've got to find other peaves. (And I've got to find more significant things to write about. I can't believe I just wasted five minutes on this insignificant post.)Unschool (talk) 05:54, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

My apologies. With another editor's help, I realize now that my comment struck out above may have seemed demeaning to anyone engaged in editing or discussing this article. That was not my intent. Indeed, I find this type of article (dealing with little-known geographical debates) to be amongst the most fascinating. My comment was only intended to poke fun at my own interest, an interest which I cannot explain to those for whom these matters are seemingly silly. To me, coming across such discussions is the stuff of joy. Unschool (talk) 00:00, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "The Dakotas" - article about word or region?

The lead sent of the accompanying article says, and the first 2 of the 3 "readable prose" 'graphs bear out, that the article is about terminology; the third graph differs in describing the Dakotas rather than "the Dakotas". I think the article is incorrectly organized, and it can eventually go either of two ways:

1. If the first two 'graphs become a minor section, then the lead sent becomes something like

   The Dakotas are North and South Dakota, considered as either a pair of US states or as the totality of the land, people, and institutions of those two states.

2. If the first two 'graphs remain versions of what they are now, then all the facts currently in the third 'graph get moved to the North Dakota, South Dakota, Upper Midwest, and/or Midwest articles according to the respective relevance of each fact.

The difference between 1 and 2 rests on how much the #Expansion discussed in the preceding section produces: the project of expanding the article is an experiment to learn whether there is enuf information that is really about the pair of states or what's in the the pair, without being really about one or the other, considered independent of its "partner" in the Dakotas. (Which is to say, i think the Black Hills, Wounded Knee, and the two cities go out, no matter what.)
IMO, the content of the existing article is an argument for outcome 2, i.e., that the title can support a terminology article, but the phrase reflects most importantly the fact that the two states have the word "Dakota" in common to distinguish them from the rest of North America, and not much else.
--Jerzy•t 05:29, 30 May 2008 (UTC)