Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Texas/archive1

Texas

This article seems very comprehensive - it is a good starting point for all things Texas. Really well done if you ask me. Staypuftman 19:42, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Two fairly minor points:
  • It doesn't seem necessary to list the ships named Texas, since it doesn't really have much to do with the state, and doesn't really have a significant impact on people's perceptions of the state. That should go on the Texas (disambiguation) page.
  • Do we really need a list of all of the state's various designations? I feel we should pull out the more significant ones (e.g., flower, motto, bird, etc.) and find a new home for the other ones (e.g., dinosaur, molecule, gemstone cut), as they don't seem like data that are going to be relevant for most people looking up Texas. People going to an article with a name like List of official symbols of Texas (following the precedent of List of official symbols of Massachusetts), on the other hand, should expect to see all that stuff. Jun-Dai 00:43, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
• Please take a look at the nomination procedure on this page; simply adding a new section to this page is not the correct procedure. Regarding the article itself, I object based on the following FA criteria:

2b - I don't think the history section can be considered comprehensive when two eras (Reconstruction and New South and Texas modernizes) spanning 100 years are summed up in a total of five sentences.

2c - I am uneasy about the references all being web sources, but the real problem here is the fact that someone used another Wikipedia page as a reference. (See Wikipedia:Reliable_sources) Also, the enormous "further reading" section doesn't seem necessary, considering that none of the mentioned print sources were actually used as references.

3a - Based on other geographical FAs, the lead for Texas could be significantly expanded; try adding such things as the state's boundaries (and if they are defined by geological formations), bordering states, a little bit more information on the region's history (not just as a US territory), and anything (government, cities, economy, culture) that makes Texas unique. Most of this will be repeated later in the respective sections, but in more detail. --—Preceding unsigned comment added by Amuck (talk • contribs)

• Object. Large sections of the article are entirely unreferenced, e.g. all of the "History" section (one reference is hinted at the end, Blanton 2005, but the full citation turns out to be missing. I checked if there were any "general references" that might be supporting the history section, but there aren't. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 19:11, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

• Object per above. The History section needs to be much stronger than this. Also Image:HCPA Houston.jpg needs to be replaced, and the sports team logo removed. Jkelly 22:00, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
• Object.
  • The History section could be much better:
    • It lists the native american tribes who once lived in the area, but gives no information regarding the time period when they lived there or what happened to them.
    • European and American Settlement is rather short - there is one sentence about 1528 then the text jumps to four sentences about 1821-1833.
    • The text in Annexation and Statehood is unclear in places, for example, "Great Britain tried to maintain Texas independence (as a counterweight to the United States), maintained a Texas Embassy in London, and tried to convince Mexico to stop threatening war."
    • Reconstruction and the New South and Texas Modernises are rather short.
  • The article also lacks inline citations to support many of its statements. For example:
    • Law enforcement: "Texas leads the nation in executions by far, with 366 executions from 1976 to 2006."
    • Economics: "In 1926, San Antonio had over 120,000 people, the largest population of any city in Texas."
    • Economics: "As of 2006, Texas, for the first time, has more Fortune 500 company headquarters (56) than any other state..."
    • Demographics: "As of 2004, the state has 3.5 million foreign-born residents (15.6 percent of the state population), of which an estimated 1.2 million are illegal aliens..."
    • Race and ethnic origins: "The largest reported ancestry groups in Texas include: Mexican (24.3%), African American (11.5%), German-American (9.9%), Anglo American (7.2%), and Scots-Irish American (7.2%)."
  • Good luck with the article - Jazriel 15:52, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
• Object Precious little about Indigenous peoples of the Americas, considering that their descendants (whether you call them Cherokee, Mexican, half-breed, or whatever) are something like 1/4 of the state's population. --M@rēino 22:59, 18 August 2006 (UTC)