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Following the Supreme Court decision on gerrymandering on June 27 2019 I deleted the reference to the USA being a representative democracy as the decision clearly states that it not need be so under the Constitution. My deletion was reverted with the suggestion that we need a discussion. So be it. I invite discussion. What are the grounds for describing the USA as a representative democracy? It clearly was not one before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and it is not clear that it is now if a) A president can be elected with many fewer votes than another Candidate, and b) Congress and other legislative bodies (example the Wisconsin Senate and Assembly) can be elected with large majorities that do not reflect political opinion within the collective electorate.
I deliberately did not attempt to provide an alternative description. Some international indexes have used the term "flawed democracy" but I am not sure that their standing is sufficient for Wikipedia so I left it blank. It is my contention that the person who reverted my post has effectively expressed an opinion which may not stand up to close examination. Wickifrank ( talk) 16:33, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
Representative democracy simply means that people with voting rights elect officials to represent them, and (unlike a direct democracy) do not themselves participate in the decision making. It does not mean that the political system is fair or that everyone has voting rights. One of the key criticisms on representative decocracies is that they are themselves a form of oligarchy:
References
The phrase used in the article is " It is a representative democracy, "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law" ". This expressly refers to "Majority Rule" . The SCOTUS ruling is that this need not be the outcome of an election in the USA and that a minority ruling over a majority is acceptable even when it is the consequence of a decision made by that very minority. I do not think the description can be allowed to stand any more than one describing the moon as being made of blue cheese. Wickifrank ( talk) 21:08, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
None of that is the point. If no one is talking about Harcourt's article, then to modify this article based on it would constitute original research. We can only care about it if other reputable sources say we should. Same for all the other articles - their mere existence is insufficient. I mean, I agree with it all on a personal, emotional, and even intellectual level - but it's absolutely insufficient to modify an encyclopedia over. -- Golbez ( talk) 04:36, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
The title "majority leader" exists in the House and Senate, but the top person in the House is the Speaker. The government box lists the President, Vice-President, Speaker, and Chief Justice. The Senate is the upper house, and I think the Senate Majority Leader should be included there also. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EvanJ35 ( talk • contribs) 16:53, 20 July 2019 (UTC)
Any proposal for modification to the guideline should be posted at its talk page,
WT:MOSBIO. —
Eyer (If you
reply, add {{reply to|Eyer}}
to your message to
let me know.) 23:29, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
This is a very highly read article with major size issues, like the Donald Trump article and others. The main concerns seem to be the inclusion of trivia and recent events, but it's likely that there is excessive information here that would be much better suited in sub-articles which have the benefit of being able to go further into detail. Onetwothreeip ( talk) 07:28, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
Hi there! Basically a new account here, but I was thinking maybe the Great Depression period could have a line added about the Mexican Repatriation? It's a fairly significant event in US history that doesn't get a lot of attention, in which somewhere between 400,000 and 2 million United States citizens were deported from the US because of rising anti-immigrant sentiment by most major political factions in the US. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Imaginestigers ( talk • contribs) 21:37, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
Two sentences struck me as odd. "The South fought for the freedom to own slaves, while the Union at first simply fought to maintain the country as one united whole. Nevertheless, as casualties mounted after 1863 and Lincoln delivered his Emancipation Proclamation, the main purpose of the war from the Union's viewpoint became the abolition of slavery." This is misleading at the very least, and a flat-out falsehood at worst. It would be more accurate to say that "The South seceded primarily in order to protect the institution of slavery," but this sentence confuses with the reasons for seceding and the reasons for fighting the war. The South's reason for "fighting" was for independence. Also, at no point was the Union's primary goal the abolition of slavery over the preservation of the Union. These two sentences are not cited, and it shows. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.202.252.234 ( talk) 14:45, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
I deleted the map of Spanish-held regions of the current United States. This article is already too long (with a WP alert to this effect), and it's unhelpful to add a map of such busy detail in Spanish (the language of this article is English). The hyped labels "Alta Luisiana" and "Baja Luisiana" denote territories that were ceded to Spain for just 38 years and had no Spanish settlements. Even New Orleans, Biloxi, and Mobile remained French-speaking throughout this time. This is problematic at so many levels and is better replaced by a map of true Spanish settlements/missions. The map should also be in English. Mason.Jones ( talk) 16:32, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
The United States is 3rd in total land area behind Russia and Canada with 9,826,675 square miles. China is slightly smaller at 9,596,960 square miles. The article flips this with China being slightly larger which is false. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.39.117.242 ( talk) 18:07, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
I have changed the page to feature CSA instead of MSA in the population table of regions. CSA is much more comprehensive in its scope at covering true population regions of the United States. For example, MSA splits up San Jose metro from San Francisco/Oakland (both are known together as the "Bay Area"; not separated, therefore MSA creates an artificial distinction that makes no sense). Same with Baltimore-Washington, San Bernardino/Riverside and LA. CSA does not make artificial distinctions between areas that are part of one bigger metro region.
If we are going to make a table of cities by metropolitan areas instead of top 10 cities, it has to be accurate and fully represent what a U.S. region actually is. This is why listing CSAs instead of MSAs is much better. EndlessCoffee54 ( talk) 17:10, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
While MSA sometimes doesn't adequately cover entire metropolitan areas as EndlessCoffee54 describes, CSA often combines more than one distinct metropolitan area. I would support a reduction in the size of the information displayed. Onetwothreeip ( talk) 22:32, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
Based on what appears to be consensus, the infobox will be removed and replaced with the three-bullet list mentioned above. EndlessCoffee54 ( talk) 00:47, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
I can see that this page is extended protected. Can you tell me what's going on?!. I'm just looking for valid and solid evidence to edit the correct information in this article.. Thank you. Alif Fizol ( talk) 13:16, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
This page, in the culture, seems to look for ways to slander America, and makes somewhat skewed claims to do so.
The melodrama in the “culture” section is particularly egregious; you claim America has a “massively higher population of overweight and obese” to any country, to paraphrase, but that isn’t true. Mexico has a greater total obesity rate, and countries like Mexico, Canada, Germany, the UK, Ireland, and Australia all have incidence of per capita obesity, childhood obesity rates, and/or total obesity that surpass the US’s rate of overweight/obese. Even considering that, the “overweight” calculation based on the BMI is a notoriously disingenuous measurements of health, and a Los Angeles Times article recently revealed that 54 million Americans were mislabeled overweight/“unhealthy” when they in fact did not have excess fat.
Either way, I would cut back on the insulting, stereotypical, and inaccurate hyperbole, as, for all intents and purposes, America’s obesity rate is *not* particularly far ahead of many countries, again, namely countries like Germany, Mexico, Canada, or the U.K., which have comparable or greater rates of obesity. Can we please delete most of that? Or re-word it? Cryalot93 ( talk) 03:52, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
Please excuse the typos Cryalot93 ( talk) 03:53, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
First, I would point to this:
“ Fast food consumption has sparked health concerns. During the 1980s and 1990s, Americans' caloric intake rose 24%;[664] frequent dining at fast food outlets is associated with what public health officials call the American "obesity epidemic".[672] Highly sweetened soft drinks are widely popular, and sugared beverages account for nine percent of American caloric intake.[673]”
This is redundant when you devote a section to discussing health in a section further down in the article, therefore it strikes me as excessive and out of place on the cuisine section. Keep the indictment of health to the one section. Cryalot93 ( talk) 04:41, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
The information here:
“ Obesity rates have more than doubled in the last 30 years, are the highest in the industrialized world, and are among the highest anywhere.[342][343] Approximately one-third of the adult population is obese and an additional third is overweight.[344] Obesity-related type 2 diabetes is considered epidemic by health care professionals.[345]”
Is therefore redundant. It’s also misleading and not correct. First of all, BMI isn’t an accurate indicator of excess fat or lack of health. Second, a number of industrialized countries, and a vast number of countries overall, have either comparable or higher rates of obesity to the US, namely: Mexico, the United Kingom, Canada, Germany, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand. And these are only the most significant ones. The U.K. and Australia have higher rates of childhood obesity than the US. Mexico has a higher rate of obesity overall. Canada, Australia, and Germany almost identical. All of these countries have a greater prevalence of overweight and obese people per capita. And honest real-life application of this warped knowledge is totally absent, as the percentage (under BMI) of those labeled overweight/obese isn’t significantly different between the US and any of these countries, and in some respects, America comes out healthier. It’s not like there’s a noticeable difference between the amount of overweight people between the US and Canada. The information, and the data, is misleading, and it’s sort of out of place here.
On top of this, there is no other page for equivalent information on any of these other country’s Wikipedia pages; it’s just for the US that it is mentioned. That seems to me like we’re over-scrutinizing, stereotyping, and slandering the US a bit here.
I’d like to see this content paired down/combined/written in a more democratic way. Cryalot93 ( talk) 05:08, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
Why is there a single line at the end of this section identifying the number of "sanctuary cities" in the USA? I did not erase it, as the datum is potentially interesting, but it seems like it should either be part of a section on migration (which I did not see among the section headings), or requires clarification as to what this has to do with law enforcement and crime. Is the point to draw attention to the fact that the question of whether immigration constitutes a law-enforcement issue is still unsettled in the USA? BMN ( talk) 19:59, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
"America" is a continent extending from the North Pole to the South Pole, not a country.
The country misnamed as such is the "United States of America".
-- 2A01:CB00:885:F600:3516:36:B6AD:4EAD ( talk) 10:50, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
"American" is sometimes used informally in Latin America to refer to people and subjects pertaining to the USA, but this is also widely frowned upon, see, e.g.: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/what-does-american-actually-mean/276999/, especially when people from the USA do it. "North American" is also commonly used informally. The formal term, both in the media (e.g., https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-48998509) and most government offices, seems to be the unwieldy "estadounidense," which would translate to "unitedstatesian." As the length of the discussion here suggests, it seems like it is at least worth mentioning in the article, in the paragraph on the use of "American," that use of the term to indicate the USA is somewhat frowned upon, at least outside the country. BMN ( talk) 19:59, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
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Denonym: Please include United-Statesian, as "American", although popular in the USA, causes confusion and indignation to people living in the whole American continent. References: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/United-Statesian https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/American Mario A. Castro-Rojas ( talk) 17:54, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
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The United States is not a Democracy. If it was the majority would rule. The Untied States Inc. is a Democracy, not the United States Republic. A US Citizen lives in the Corporate United States Inc. Please clarify has this is grave misrepresentation of the Constitutional Republic United States. There is a big difference and the public must be correctly educated about the difference. 2603:301C:DDF:0:D00C:F7E3:1126:E524 ( talk) 23:54, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
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The only thing that has to be changed is that when you search for the term "america" the information that you should be getting is regarding the american continent not just a country in it, in every other wikipedia site that is not in english there is the correct information on the term 169.198.254.64 ( talk) 18:16, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
It's noteworthy mentioning that Abraham Lincoln had a plan to reship negroes back to Africa and was negotiating this with several countries, however was assasinated before any plans could be finalized. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.179.225.181 ( talk) 18:11, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
African-American leaders... to colonize some place in Central America. That article goes on to say,
By April 1863 Lincoln was successful in sending black colonists to Haiti as well as 453 to Chiriqui in Central America; however, none of the colonies were able to remain self-sufficient.So, there was both a failed plan and some failed action taken. No explicit mention of negotiations with other countries, although that could easily be implied. It's noteworthy, but I agree that it's too much detail for this article. We don't mention Liberia here with respect to its establishment as a result of similar, but more noteworthy, colonization efforts. Dhtwiki ( talk) 10:05, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
America is two continents, and redirecting the entire name to one nation when there are countless others within the domain is a devaluing insult to every one of said nations. This is coming from a proud U.S. citizen making this correction. Googinber1234 ( talk) 05:36, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
does anyone mind if I add template {{Skip to top and bottom}} to this entry? -- Sm8900 ( talk) 13:10, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
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The United States is the Republic or Government of the Union of this Country America. The United States of America. America is a 50 state Country the U.S. is the Union. CarlCaliroots89 ( talk) 22:37, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
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The Wikipedia page claims that "the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area" because, as listed under the notes, "The Encyclopædia Britannica lists China as the world's third-largest country (after Russia and Canada) with a total area of 9,572,900 sq km, and the United States as fourth-largest at 9,526,468 sq km...[while] [t]he CIA World Factbook lists the United States as the third-largest country (after Russia and Canada) with total area of 9,833,517 sq km, and China as fourth-largest at 9,596,960 sq km." This is no longer accurate as the CIA World Factbook lists the United States as the 4th largest country in the world. Could someone fix this? It's listed in the first paragraph, the second paragraph of the Geography, climate, and environment section, and on note D. Thanks
untitled
16:45, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
I noticed that there was a "Leading population centers" list that was removed from this article, and it used metropolitan "statistical" areas, not city populations. Can somebody please add a "Largest cities" template that uses city populations, which are well-defined, and not metropolitan areas, which are subjective? The template should list America's 20 largest cities: New York, LA, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, Austin, Jacksonville, Fort Worth, Columbus, San Francisco, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Seattle, Denver, and Washington, DC. Sanjay7373 ( talk) 05:32, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
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Please change the definition of the united states government from "a federal republic, and representative democracy" to "a constitutional republic" Invictus1171 ( talk) 23:54, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
The deletion of the further reading section removes sources from the article, sources which citations in the body linked to. Now we have a plethora of citations in the article with no actual sources, just last names, dates and page numbers. The onus is on those who want to remove the further reading list to go through it and remove those sources which are not used as citations, then rename it "Bibliography" and restore it, OR go through the article and modify the citations and add the sources directly into the citation instead of in a further reading/biblography section.-- C.J. Griffin ( talk) 12:57, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
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I refer to the section entitled Civil War and Reconstruction era.
I take some issue with the bold part of this sentence: While President Lincoln attempted to foster friendship and forgiveness between the Union and the former Confederacy, an assassin's bullet on April 14, 1865, drove a wedge between North and South again.
I suggest it should instead be written as:
While President Lincoln attempted to foster friendship and forgiveness between the Union and the former Confederacy, the assassination of Lincoln on April 14, 1865, drove a wedge between North and South again.
At present it is unduly rhetorical and not written in encyclopedic tone. It's also, frankly, confusing: see WP:LEAST. An bullet can not drive a wedge between the North and South, although the implication - ie the assassination, obviously can and did. If this seems obvious, I refer to WP:OBVIOUS. 130.95.175.240 ( talk) 13:25, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
"'America', 'US', and 'USA' redirect here."
That's US-centric bias. To most in the rest of the world America includes both north, south and central america and doesn't refer to the United States of America. This is the English wikipedia, not US wikipedia. 217.210.93.240 ( talk) 17:54, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
I heard that some sources are biased toward the U.S. and include a certain area of water (not sure how much) for the U.S., but not other countries. So, I was wondering if I could change the part where it says “third or fourth largest country by total area”, since including those waters for all countries, the U.S. is the 4th biggest. APersonThatDoesStuff ( talk) 23:47, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
The last two paragraphs under the section "European settlements" should be removed because they have no relation to the US. Other editors have said that it gives background on Alaska and Hawaii, which would later be states, but this was long before the US or the thirteen colonies ever had any relationship with them. We don't need this background on this article; this should only be on their specific articles or on general colonization and exploration; this article is specifically about the US, which was founded on the east coast of North America, far away from those places.-- Roastedturkey ( talk) 17:28, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
Why is the area in the infobox listed in miles first and then kilometres second?
I realise that miles are the most commonly used measurement in the USA, but it's inconsistent with the infobox for every other country's page. It makes comparing the areas of multiple countries needlessly confusing, both for people used to kilometres (who expect to look at the first value) and those used to miles (who expect to look at the second value.)
There was a discussion in the past debating whether to show miles vs kilometres (as the articles had only listed kilometres at that time), before settling on showing both. That part makes sense, but having them in a different order for different countries seems odd. Nameless Voice ( talk) 00:19, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
Is no one else concerned by the sheer length of this thing? Over 420 kilobytes. No other article on a country even comes close to that, and that's including articles in some other languages. As a matter of fact, it is literally the longest article on Wikipedia, excluding timelines and lists. I can also recall two templates condemning its length that have been added in the past month. Does no one else feel we should dumb it down? At least a little? jackchango talk 03:53, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
@ Dhtwiki: Please see this discussion for the opposition to the excessive infobox content. Onetwothreeip ( talk) 09:38, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
@ Mason.Jones: Can you explain your opposition to the trimming measures I implemented? All I removed were unnecessary or irrelevant. Onetwothreeip ( talk) 19:47, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
I don't think we should worry about dumbing anything down. If you want to read the whole article, great. If you don't, figure out what category you want to narrow your search with and start from there. Ctrl + F is also a thing. If the other country articles aren't as long, maybe they could benefit from being longer. Wikipedia should strive to be history's both most accessible AND most detailed encyclopedia. Just my 2 cents. Myagooshki66615:42, 23 November 2019 (EST)
Dear Sir, I appreciate your efforts in this article. My only confusion here is why the article 'the' should be applied before 'United States of America'. USA is particular country.Why shouldn't it be written without 'the'? Why don't we try to amend this traditional error? Isn't it our duty to rectify the errors of past and give only purified knowledge to the coming generation? I wait for a quick answer. Thanks. Birbal Kumawat ( talk) 17:00, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
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Vardab8888 ( talk) 00:41, 27 November 2019 (UTC) it says the usa is the worlds third or fourth largest country when its actually only the fourthhttps://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk%3AUnited_States&preload=Template%3ASubmit+an+edit+request%2Fpreload&action=edit§ion=new&editintro=Template%3AEdit+semi-protected%2Feditintro&preloadtitle=Semi-protected+edit+request+on+27+November+2019&preloadparams%5B%5D=edit+semi-protected&preloadparams%5B%5D=United+States
This refers to a reliable source that we could and should quote, a linguist that questions the traditional etymology and presents the derivation from Markland. -- Espoo ( talk) 00:37, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
I noticed that there's a warning that this page might be too long, and that it may contain too many citations. I'm new to Wikipedia, so I'm not sure what should be done - should the article be split into a main article with subpages, or should the article just be shortened?
Thanks,
Cake ( talk) 06:07, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
Two editors ( here, most recently) added Spanish and French as recognized languages and added Spanish and French versions of the country's name to the infobox.
Now, an argument can be made for Spanish, because it is officially recognized by Puerto Rico. However, I see nothing in the article that supports French as having any recognition. So, here are a number of concerns that I have.
I welcome input from editors here about how to present this in the infobox. — C.Fred ( talk) 17:29, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
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I need edit access 104.190.164.167 ( talk) 17:32, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
I don't get it.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:26, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
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. |
Archive 90 | ← | Archive 93 | Archive 94 | Archive 95 | Archive 96 | Archive 97 | → | Archive 100 |
Following the Supreme Court decision on gerrymandering on June 27 2019 I deleted the reference to the USA being a representative democracy as the decision clearly states that it not need be so under the Constitution. My deletion was reverted with the suggestion that we need a discussion. So be it. I invite discussion. What are the grounds for describing the USA as a representative democracy? It clearly was not one before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and it is not clear that it is now if a) A president can be elected with many fewer votes than another Candidate, and b) Congress and other legislative bodies (example the Wisconsin Senate and Assembly) can be elected with large majorities that do not reflect political opinion within the collective electorate.
I deliberately did not attempt to provide an alternative description. Some international indexes have used the term "flawed democracy" but I am not sure that their standing is sufficient for Wikipedia so I left it blank. It is my contention that the person who reverted my post has effectively expressed an opinion which may not stand up to close examination. Wickifrank ( talk) 16:33, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
Representative democracy simply means that people with voting rights elect officials to represent them, and (unlike a direct democracy) do not themselves participate in the decision making. It does not mean that the political system is fair or that everyone has voting rights. One of the key criticisms on representative decocracies is that they are themselves a form of oligarchy:
References
The phrase used in the article is " It is a representative democracy, "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law" ". This expressly refers to "Majority Rule" . The SCOTUS ruling is that this need not be the outcome of an election in the USA and that a minority ruling over a majority is acceptable even when it is the consequence of a decision made by that very minority. I do not think the description can be allowed to stand any more than one describing the moon as being made of blue cheese. Wickifrank ( talk) 21:08, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
None of that is the point. If no one is talking about Harcourt's article, then to modify this article based on it would constitute original research. We can only care about it if other reputable sources say we should. Same for all the other articles - their mere existence is insufficient. I mean, I agree with it all on a personal, emotional, and even intellectual level - but it's absolutely insufficient to modify an encyclopedia over. -- Golbez ( talk) 04:36, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
The title "majority leader" exists in the House and Senate, but the top person in the House is the Speaker. The government box lists the President, Vice-President, Speaker, and Chief Justice. The Senate is the upper house, and I think the Senate Majority Leader should be included there also. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EvanJ35 ( talk • contribs) 16:53, 20 July 2019 (UTC)
Any proposal for modification to the guideline should be posted at its talk page,
WT:MOSBIO. —
Eyer (If you
reply, add {{reply to|Eyer}}
to your message to
let me know.) 23:29, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
This is a very highly read article with major size issues, like the Donald Trump article and others. The main concerns seem to be the inclusion of trivia and recent events, but it's likely that there is excessive information here that would be much better suited in sub-articles which have the benefit of being able to go further into detail. Onetwothreeip ( talk) 07:28, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
Hi there! Basically a new account here, but I was thinking maybe the Great Depression period could have a line added about the Mexican Repatriation? It's a fairly significant event in US history that doesn't get a lot of attention, in which somewhere between 400,000 and 2 million United States citizens were deported from the US because of rising anti-immigrant sentiment by most major political factions in the US. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Imaginestigers ( talk • contribs) 21:37, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
Two sentences struck me as odd. "The South fought for the freedom to own slaves, while the Union at first simply fought to maintain the country as one united whole. Nevertheless, as casualties mounted after 1863 and Lincoln delivered his Emancipation Proclamation, the main purpose of the war from the Union's viewpoint became the abolition of slavery." This is misleading at the very least, and a flat-out falsehood at worst. It would be more accurate to say that "The South seceded primarily in order to protect the institution of slavery," but this sentence confuses with the reasons for seceding and the reasons for fighting the war. The South's reason for "fighting" was for independence. Also, at no point was the Union's primary goal the abolition of slavery over the preservation of the Union. These two sentences are not cited, and it shows. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.202.252.234 ( talk) 14:45, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
I deleted the map of Spanish-held regions of the current United States. This article is already too long (with a WP alert to this effect), and it's unhelpful to add a map of such busy detail in Spanish (the language of this article is English). The hyped labels "Alta Luisiana" and "Baja Luisiana" denote territories that were ceded to Spain for just 38 years and had no Spanish settlements. Even New Orleans, Biloxi, and Mobile remained French-speaking throughout this time. This is problematic at so many levels and is better replaced by a map of true Spanish settlements/missions. The map should also be in English. Mason.Jones ( talk) 16:32, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
The United States is 3rd in total land area behind Russia and Canada with 9,826,675 square miles. China is slightly smaller at 9,596,960 square miles. The article flips this with China being slightly larger which is false. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.39.117.242 ( talk) 18:07, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
I have changed the page to feature CSA instead of MSA in the population table of regions. CSA is much more comprehensive in its scope at covering true population regions of the United States. For example, MSA splits up San Jose metro from San Francisco/Oakland (both are known together as the "Bay Area"; not separated, therefore MSA creates an artificial distinction that makes no sense). Same with Baltimore-Washington, San Bernardino/Riverside and LA. CSA does not make artificial distinctions between areas that are part of one bigger metro region.
If we are going to make a table of cities by metropolitan areas instead of top 10 cities, it has to be accurate and fully represent what a U.S. region actually is. This is why listing CSAs instead of MSAs is much better. EndlessCoffee54 ( talk) 17:10, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
While MSA sometimes doesn't adequately cover entire metropolitan areas as EndlessCoffee54 describes, CSA often combines more than one distinct metropolitan area. I would support a reduction in the size of the information displayed. Onetwothreeip ( talk) 22:32, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
Based on what appears to be consensus, the infobox will be removed and replaced with the three-bullet list mentioned above. EndlessCoffee54 ( talk) 00:47, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
I can see that this page is extended protected. Can you tell me what's going on?!. I'm just looking for valid and solid evidence to edit the correct information in this article.. Thank you. Alif Fizol ( talk) 13:16, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
This page, in the culture, seems to look for ways to slander America, and makes somewhat skewed claims to do so.
The melodrama in the “culture” section is particularly egregious; you claim America has a “massively higher population of overweight and obese” to any country, to paraphrase, but that isn’t true. Mexico has a greater total obesity rate, and countries like Mexico, Canada, Germany, the UK, Ireland, and Australia all have incidence of per capita obesity, childhood obesity rates, and/or total obesity that surpass the US’s rate of overweight/obese. Even considering that, the “overweight” calculation based on the BMI is a notoriously disingenuous measurements of health, and a Los Angeles Times article recently revealed that 54 million Americans were mislabeled overweight/“unhealthy” when they in fact did not have excess fat.
Either way, I would cut back on the insulting, stereotypical, and inaccurate hyperbole, as, for all intents and purposes, America’s obesity rate is *not* particularly far ahead of many countries, again, namely countries like Germany, Mexico, Canada, or the U.K., which have comparable or greater rates of obesity. Can we please delete most of that? Or re-word it? Cryalot93 ( talk) 03:52, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
Please excuse the typos Cryalot93 ( talk) 03:53, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
First, I would point to this:
“ Fast food consumption has sparked health concerns. During the 1980s and 1990s, Americans' caloric intake rose 24%;[664] frequent dining at fast food outlets is associated with what public health officials call the American "obesity epidemic".[672] Highly sweetened soft drinks are widely popular, and sugared beverages account for nine percent of American caloric intake.[673]”
This is redundant when you devote a section to discussing health in a section further down in the article, therefore it strikes me as excessive and out of place on the cuisine section. Keep the indictment of health to the one section. Cryalot93 ( talk) 04:41, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
The information here:
“ Obesity rates have more than doubled in the last 30 years, are the highest in the industrialized world, and are among the highest anywhere.[342][343] Approximately one-third of the adult population is obese and an additional third is overweight.[344] Obesity-related type 2 diabetes is considered epidemic by health care professionals.[345]”
Is therefore redundant. It’s also misleading and not correct. First of all, BMI isn’t an accurate indicator of excess fat or lack of health. Second, a number of industrialized countries, and a vast number of countries overall, have either comparable or higher rates of obesity to the US, namely: Mexico, the United Kingom, Canada, Germany, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand. And these are only the most significant ones. The U.K. and Australia have higher rates of childhood obesity than the US. Mexico has a higher rate of obesity overall. Canada, Australia, and Germany almost identical. All of these countries have a greater prevalence of overweight and obese people per capita. And honest real-life application of this warped knowledge is totally absent, as the percentage (under BMI) of those labeled overweight/obese isn’t significantly different between the US and any of these countries, and in some respects, America comes out healthier. It’s not like there’s a noticeable difference between the amount of overweight people between the US and Canada. The information, and the data, is misleading, and it’s sort of out of place here.
On top of this, there is no other page for equivalent information on any of these other country’s Wikipedia pages; it’s just for the US that it is mentioned. That seems to me like we’re over-scrutinizing, stereotyping, and slandering the US a bit here.
I’d like to see this content paired down/combined/written in a more democratic way. Cryalot93 ( talk) 05:08, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
Why is there a single line at the end of this section identifying the number of "sanctuary cities" in the USA? I did not erase it, as the datum is potentially interesting, but it seems like it should either be part of a section on migration (which I did not see among the section headings), or requires clarification as to what this has to do with law enforcement and crime. Is the point to draw attention to the fact that the question of whether immigration constitutes a law-enforcement issue is still unsettled in the USA? BMN ( talk) 19:59, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
"America" is a continent extending from the North Pole to the South Pole, not a country.
The country misnamed as such is the "United States of America".
-- 2A01:CB00:885:F600:3516:36:B6AD:4EAD ( talk) 10:50, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
"American" is sometimes used informally in Latin America to refer to people and subjects pertaining to the USA, but this is also widely frowned upon, see, e.g.: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/what-does-american-actually-mean/276999/, especially when people from the USA do it. "North American" is also commonly used informally. The formal term, both in the media (e.g., https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-48998509) and most government offices, seems to be the unwieldy "estadounidense," which would translate to "unitedstatesian." As the length of the discussion here suggests, it seems like it is at least worth mentioning in the article, in the paragraph on the use of "American," that use of the term to indicate the USA is somewhat frowned upon, at least outside the country. BMN ( talk) 19:59, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
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Denonym: Please include United-Statesian, as "American", although popular in the USA, causes confusion and indignation to people living in the whole American continent. References: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/United-Statesian https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/American Mario A. Castro-Rojas ( talk) 17:54, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
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The United States is not a Democracy. If it was the majority would rule. The Untied States Inc. is a Democracy, not the United States Republic. A US Citizen lives in the Corporate United States Inc. Please clarify has this is grave misrepresentation of the Constitutional Republic United States. There is a big difference and the public must be correctly educated about the difference. 2603:301C:DDF:0:D00C:F7E3:1126:E524 ( talk) 23:54, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
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The only thing that has to be changed is that when you search for the term "america" the information that you should be getting is regarding the american continent not just a country in it, in every other wikipedia site that is not in english there is the correct information on the term 169.198.254.64 ( talk) 18:16, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
It's noteworthy mentioning that Abraham Lincoln had a plan to reship negroes back to Africa and was negotiating this with several countries, however was assasinated before any plans could be finalized. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.179.225.181 ( talk) 18:11, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
African-American leaders... to colonize some place in Central America. That article goes on to say,
By April 1863 Lincoln was successful in sending black colonists to Haiti as well as 453 to Chiriqui in Central America; however, none of the colonies were able to remain self-sufficient.So, there was both a failed plan and some failed action taken. No explicit mention of negotiations with other countries, although that could easily be implied. It's noteworthy, but I agree that it's too much detail for this article. We don't mention Liberia here with respect to its establishment as a result of similar, but more noteworthy, colonization efforts. Dhtwiki ( talk) 10:05, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
America is two continents, and redirecting the entire name to one nation when there are countless others within the domain is a devaluing insult to every one of said nations. This is coming from a proud U.S. citizen making this correction. Googinber1234 ( talk) 05:36, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
does anyone mind if I add template {{Skip to top and bottom}} to this entry? -- Sm8900 ( talk) 13:10, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
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The United States is the Republic or Government of the Union of this Country America. The United States of America. America is a 50 state Country the U.S. is the Union. CarlCaliroots89 ( talk) 22:37, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
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The Wikipedia page claims that "the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area" because, as listed under the notes, "The Encyclopædia Britannica lists China as the world's third-largest country (after Russia and Canada) with a total area of 9,572,900 sq km, and the United States as fourth-largest at 9,526,468 sq km...[while] [t]he CIA World Factbook lists the United States as the third-largest country (after Russia and Canada) with total area of 9,833,517 sq km, and China as fourth-largest at 9,596,960 sq km." This is no longer accurate as the CIA World Factbook lists the United States as the 4th largest country in the world. Could someone fix this? It's listed in the first paragraph, the second paragraph of the Geography, climate, and environment section, and on note D. Thanks
untitled
16:45, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
I noticed that there was a "Leading population centers" list that was removed from this article, and it used metropolitan "statistical" areas, not city populations. Can somebody please add a "Largest cities" template that uses city populations, which are well-defined, and not metropolitan areas, which are subjective? The template should list America's 20 largest cities: New York, LA, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, Austin, Jacksonville, Fort Worth, Columbus, San Francisco, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Seattle, Denver, and Washington, DC. Sanjay7373 ( talk) 05:32, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
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Please change the definition of the united states government from "a federal republic, and representative democracy" to "a constitutional republic" Invictus1171 ( talk) 23:54, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
The deletion of the further reading section removes sources from the article, sources which citations in the body linked to. Now we have a plethora of citations in the article with no actual sources, just last names, dates and page numbers. The onus is on those who want to remove the further reading list to go through it and remove those sources which are not used as citations, then rename it "Bibliography" and restore it, OR go through the article and modify the citations and add the sources directly into the citation instead of in a further reading/biblography section.-- C.J. Griffin ( talk) 12:57, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
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I refer to the section entitled Civil War and Reconstruction era.
I take some issue with the bold part of this sentence: While President Lincoln attempted to foster friendship and forgiveness between the Union and the former Confederacy, an assassin's bullet on April 14, 1865, drove a wedge between North and South again.
I suggest it should instead be written as:
While President Lincoln attempted to foster friendship and forgiveness between the Union and the former Confederacy, the assassination of Lincoln on April 14, 1865, drove a wedge between North and South again.
At present it is unduly rhetorical and not written in encyclopedic tone. It's also, frankly, confusing: see WP:LEAST. An bullet can not drive a wedge between the North and South, although the implication - ie the assassination, obviously can and did. If this seems obvious, I refer to WP:OBVIOUS. 130.95.175.240 ( talk) 13:25, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
"'America', 'US', and 'USA' redirect here."
That's US-centric bias. To most in the rest of the world America includes both north, south and central america and doesn't refer to the United States of America. This is the English wikipedia, not US wikipedia. 217.210.93.240 ( talk) 17:54, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
I heard that some sources are biased toward the U.S. and include a certain area of water (not sure how much) for the U.S., but not other countries. So, I was wondering if I could change the part where it says “third or fourth largest country by total area”, since including those waters for all countries, the U.S. is the 4th biggest. APersonThatDoesStuff ( talk) 23:47, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
The last two paragraphs under the section "European settlements" should be removed because they have no relation to the US. Other editors have said that it gives background on Alaska and Hawaii, which would later be states, but this was long before the US or the thirteen colonies ever had any relationship with them. We don't need this background on this article; this should only be on their specific articles or on general colonization and exploration; this article is specifically about the US, which was founded on the east coast of North America, far away from those places.-- Roastedturkey ( talk) 17:28, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
Why is the area in the infobox listed in miles first and then kilometres second?
I realise that miles are the most commonly used measurement in the USA, but it's inconsistent with the infobox for every other country's page. It makes comparing the areas of multiple countries needlessly confusing, both for people used to kilometres (who expect to look at the first value) and those used to miles (who expect to look at the second value.)
There was a discussion in the past debating whether to show miles vs kilometres (as the articles had only listed kilometres at that time), before settling on showing both. That part makes sense, but having them in a different order for different countries seems odd. Nameless Voice ( talk) 00:19, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
Is no one else concerned by the sheer length of this thing? Over 420 kilobytes. No other article on a country even comes close to that, and that's including articles in some other languages. As a matter of fact, it is literally the longest article on Wikipedia, excluding timelines and lists. I can also recall two templates condemning its length that have been added in the past month. Does no one else feel we should dumb it down? At least a little? jackchango talk 03:53, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
@ Dhtwiki: Please see this discussion for the opposition to the excessive infobox content. Onetwothreeip ( talk) 09:38, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
@ Mason.Jones: Can you explain your opposition to the trimming measures I implemented? All I removed were unnecessary or irrelevant. Onetwothreeip ( talk) 19:47, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
I don't think we should worry about dumbing anything down. If you want to read the whole article, great. If you don't, figure out what category you want to narrow your search with and start from there. Ctrl + F is also a thing. If the other country articles aren't as long, maybe they could benefit from being longer. Wikipedia should strive to be history's both most accessible AND most detailed encyclopedia. Just my 2 cents. Myagooshki66615:42, 23 November 2019 (EST)
Dear Sir, I appreciate your efforts in this article. My only confusion here is why the article 'the' should be applied before 'United States of America'. USA is particular country.Why shouldn't it be written without 'the'? Why don't we try to amend this traditional error? Isn't it our duty to rectify the errors of past and give only purified knowledge to the coming generation? I wait for a quick answer. Thanks. Birbal Kumawat ( talk) 17:00, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
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Vardab8888 ( talk) 00:41, 27 November 2019 (UTC) it says the usa is the worlds third or fourth largest country when its actually only the fourthhttps://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk%3AUnited_States&preload=Template%3ASubmit+an+edit+request%2Fpreload&action=edit§ion=new&editintro=Template%3AEdit+semi-protected%2Feditintro&preloadtitle=Semi-protected+edit+request+on+27+November+2019&preloadparams%5B%5D=edit+semi-protected&preloadparams%5B%5D=United+States
This refers to a reliable source that we could and should quote, a linguist that questions the traditional etymology and presents the derivation from Markland. -- Espoo ( talk) 00:37, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
I noticed that there's a warning that this page might be too long, and that it may contain too many citations. I'm new to Wikipedia, so I'm not sure what should be done - should the article be split into a main article with subpages, or should the article just be shortened?
Thanks,
Cake ( talk) 06:07, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
Two editors ( here, most recently) added Spanish and French as recognized languages and added Spanish and French versions of the country's name to the infobox.
Now, an argument can be made for Spanish, because it is officially recognized by Puerto Rico. However, I see nothing in the article that supports French as having any recognition. So, here are a number of concerns that I have.
I welcome input from editors here about how to present this in the infobox. — C.Fred ( talk) 17:29, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
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I need edit access 104.190.164.167 ( talk) 17:32, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
I don't get it.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:26, 25 December 2019 (UTC)