Talk:Iowa

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is part of WikiProject Iowa, a WikiProject related to the U.S. state of Iowa.

	United States Portal This article is within the scope of the United States WikiProject. This project provides a central approach to United States-related subjects on Wikipedia. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards.
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the Project's quality scale. (If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)

Wondering how to edit this State Entry?
The WikiProject U.S. States standards might help.

Contents 1 Official language 2 Religion 3 Rural Flight 4 History 5 Animals of Iowa. 6 Senators 7 Famous Iowans 8 April 21 edits 9 width/length of states 10 New Sports section added to updated Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. states format 11 New Governor

[edit] Official language

Last I heard the official language bill was not passed, ergo Iowa has no official language. Unless I've missed some big news since like 5 years ago when it was the popular US thing to be doing, which I don't think I did, I'm reverting it back to "None" as the official language. If I'm wrong, accept my apologies and put a blurb here. I'd like to see some kind of reference. Cburnett 03:31, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It would appear I'm wrong: IA Code, Change 1, Section 18. Cburnett 03:46, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

iowa is a potato country

So... why didn't you revert your revert? I changed it back. --Ben Brockert 04:34, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

I was actually waiting for someone to say something to affirm or deny it, but whatever. I would have eventually. Cburnett 04:44, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Ah. The bill seems fairly cut and dried. Nice job finding a reference, though. --Ben Brockert 04:52, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Religion

User:BSveen, please provide cites for the old numbers and the new numbers. Also, please explain your objection to the way I reformatted your addition. --Ben Brockert 17:49, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

I have no objections to anything you did, except for your reverting of the new religious data. The source for the new data is this:

Kosmin, B. & S. Lachman. One Nation Under God: Religion in Contemporary American Society; 
Harmony Books: New York; pg. 88-93. Religious Composition of State Populations. 
Self-identification of religious loyalty, phone survey w/ 113,000 people; by City U. of New York.

The detailed numbers can be found on Adherents.com on the Iowa page. (I added the source to the external links section). This Kosmin data is the most comprehensive and best all-around data I have found anywhere. What I did was copy down all the percentages of all the religious idenitifications; added the various Protestant denominations together, added the 'Other Christian' denominations (Mormon, Eastern Orthodox, and any non-RC non-Prot. Christian denomination) together, and added the 'other religions' (non-Christian religions) to get what you now see in the article. I feel this is a much more straightforward and better way to present the religion information, as opposed to the old way (my old version), which I felt was lacking---that's why I replaced my old data, I felt it was not straightforward enough.

The old data is from this site.

Now, if I may ask a question: Why did you call me a racist? -BSveen 19:04, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

Thank you, that clears things up nicely. The original numbers are more recent, and as such are more valid. The advantage of an online encyclopedia is that one needs not be satisfied with old information; it is our obligation to provide the most recent applicable data. As such, I've edited the page to show the most recent statistics and the cite.

To reply to your question: It is quite telling that you just changed your user page. racism: discriminatory especially on the basis of race or religion (Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University). Your user page[1]: "I am commitedly anti-Islamist"; islamist: a believer or follower of Islam (same source). Before that, bolding yours, "I am anti-Muslim"[2]. Aren't edit histories a wonderful thing?--Ben Brockert 03:42, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I am anti-Muslim (i.e., anti-Islamist, there is not a clear distinction between the two in the real world, despite what propagandists and their victims may claim...I am friends with some Muslims, but make no mistake, I am against Islam, in the same way that a man may be anti-fascist and still be friends with an individual with far-rightest political beliefs.). This does not make me a racist (if you read carefully, you would see that in that same page history, I said that I do support secular Muslims). Being anti-Islamist is akin to being anti-KKK...both are horrible organizations run by bigots and fanatics.

And no, honestly the recent data really isn't better, that is precisely why I replaced the old data with the new data...(furthermore, I don't see why you have some sort of personal vendetta against all my religion edits -- or maybe against me personally, as you used baseless insults against someone you have never met.). One example of why the new data is not the best to use: For Utah, I think the new survey said that 52% of people were Mormon, which is a much-too-low number no matter what way you stack it up, I mean more people in Utah than that are members of the Church of Latter Day Saints! The old data is much more accurate and realistic, it gives 70% as the answer. Plus, there is no confusing "Other" category in the old data (what does "other" mean? surely it doesnt mean non-Christian religions...non-Christian religions were less than 0.5% 10 years ago according to the old survey and now they are 6%? This is impossible, there has not been a massive influx in to the state of non-Christian persons in the past decade). There are plenty of reasons why the new data should not be used; I've been thinking about it off-and-on ever since I keyed in the original data weeks ago, a few days ago I decided I needed better data, and started to research. If data is known to be faulty, it should be thrown out, just as a scientist would throw out results he knows are obviously wrong in an expirement.

-- B Sveen, a non-racist, despite what Mr. Brockert falsely claims. Decemeber 14 2004

I once again changed the statistics back. Here are some reasons why:

• There is no shortage of space, so no need to collapse the stats.
• There are people who call themselves catholic who are not roman catholic
• "Christian" can't be assumed to be protestant.

You interpretation of the data is your POV by definition. Whether you think the survey results are "realistic" or not, they are the survey results, and you can't alter them to your personal bias.

I don't have a vendetta against you or your edits, I have a vendetta against non-neutral POV and innacuracy in an encyclopedia. You pointed out that you have done similar edits to other acticles, so I will be reviewing them as time allows. --Ben Brockert < 03:21, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Rural Flight

Why is there a mention here of the free land offers? Isn't it the case that only Kansas is giving away free land? Someone correct me if am wrong, and if I am right perhaps we should delete the mention of free land offers --User:kenallen 27 October 2006

[edit] History

I moved the history to History of Iowa because it made Iowa rather long and I thought it deserved it's own article. I think a shortened history of Iowa should be added in its place but I'm not sure what it should include.

Also, the History of Iowa page can now be expanded as it's not limited to a subsection of Iowa.

Cburnett 05:28, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Good job. I too thought it needed to be done, but I wasn't bold enough. It was taking up a disproportionate amount of the page. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 20:46, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Animals of Iowa.

I helped by putting some Animals in the article. --Relaxation 22:02, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

What criteria did you use to create the list? Got a reference or anything? It would also be nice to link them to the articles on each animal. Cburnett 22:40, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761560308_2/Iowa.html

Hope this helps.

--Relaxation 22:57, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Senators

Just wondering if the colors in the list of senators is supposed to indicate party? If so, there are several errors. Identity0 08:34, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Famous Iowans

Glad to see the Iowa#Famous Iowans section getting fleshed out, but we should probably discuss some criteria for who gets included, and how. I've been removing non-natives who didn't do anything notable to their career/life while in Iowa (Ronald Reagan, for one); on the other hand Hayden Fry gets in because he's hugely famous for what he did in the state. The Wright Brothers were questionable, but as I recall the Eastern Iowa Airport has some famous memorabilia about their stay here.

I've also been trying to put them in roughly date order, oldest to newest, but some don't have firm dates yet. -- nae'blis _(talk) 18:22, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Seems to me that most of the names are in alpha order, not in date order, save for the last few. I'd be inclined to bring them all into alpha order by last name. -- BuckRose 20:44, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I put them in alpha order. Chronological just doesn't make sense for such a list; the list centers on the famous attribute of a person so it's, additionally, much harder to specify when they were famous to put them in order. Going simply by birth date is extra meaningless. Furthermore, alphabetical requires no debate and no qualifications to sort. Chronological requires both the decision of what specific action should be used for sorting and then determining what that date is. IMO. Cburnett 23:44, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

S'fine by me, I just wanted to get SOME sort of order to the list...I'm not convinced the table is an improvement yet, though. -- nae'blis _(talk) 03:01, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

It's tabular data, and HTML has only one decent way to display tabular data. I've been open to an alternative for a long time now and haven't found or heard of one.... Cburnett 04:05, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I disagree that it's tabular, it was a list of people with short descriptions afterward. You've shoehorned it into a table now, but it was more free-form before. Also, as you may have seen with the "Important cities and towns" section, tables in Wikipedia can run into other parts of the page in disastrous ways. I'm not sure what was so wrong with it before, and what are you considering a long time now? The list had 7 or 8 people on it a couple of months ago [3]... -- nae'blis _(talk) 17:55, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Long time means since I've been using HTML. Cburnett 18:19, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] April 21 edits

Can someone who follows this article look at the changes today. There appears to be a lot of garbage that needs reverting. Vegaswikian 05:28, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I fixed most, if not all, of them. --Iowahwyman 14:53, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] width/length of states

It seemed odd to me that the East-West distance was listed as the length of Iowa and the North-South as the width. So, I checked Minnesota and Massachusetts articles. They both followed the convention of referring to the 'horizontal' (East-West) as width, and the 'vertical' (North-South) as length. Dunno whether there is coverage of this issue in any Wikipedia style book or the like. Seems that a convention should be followed uniformly for all the states. Publius3 09:03, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Sports section added to updated Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. states format

The Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. states format has been updated to include a new Sports section, that covers collegiate sports, amateur sports, and non-team sports (such as hunting and fishing). Please feel free to add this new heading, and supply information about sports in Iowa. Please see South_carolina#Sports_in_South_Carolina as an example. NorCalHistory 13:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Governor

I would like to remind the Wikipedia Community that after the Inaguration and Oath of Office on Friday, January 12th, 2007, this article and possibly many others will need to be changed in order to reflect Chet Culver as Governor and Patty Judge as Lt. Governor of Iowa. I will try to remember and change that. But if someone reads this after Friday but before they are updated, go for it! 71.214.225.2 04:23, 11 January 2007 (UTC) Kshannon 03:09, 15 January 2007 (UTC)