Talk:Florida/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Moving this article forward in 2008

For those of you who revert vandalism on this page, note that it is currently indefinitely semi-protected. After going through 10 separate semi-protection cycles last year (each time, removal of semi-protection resulted in a spike in IP vandalism), I requested long-term semi-protection at Requests for Page Protection. With IP vandalism no longer a problem, I'd like to work together to improve this article.

The weather section is an area that could be improved. Right now, there are a lot of cities on that list, using data from a commercial source of unknown reliability. In a discussion in July, Donald Albury made the sensible suggestion of using only the data from the cities in which the National Weather Service has regional offices—Jacksonville, Key West, Melbourne, Miami, Tallahassee, and Tampa—and add data for Pensacola with information from the Mobile office. The only problem is that the NWS has, in typical government fashion, fixed the system until it is broken, and several of the offices no longer have the data available in a usable form, and a couple of the offices state that the data they have is unofficial, and refer users to the National Climate Data Center, which does not have the rather elementary data we need in a usable format, and moreover, is not a free resource (in other words, there is a charge to retrieve some data). My suggestion would be to use the data available at the Southeast Regional Climate Center, which is linked from several of the NWS pages and is a project of the NCDC, located at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. The site has data for over 100 different sites in the state of Florida, in a format that is easy to use and very similar to the table we currently have. While data is available for all of the cities we currently have on the chart (and more), I'd like to propose pruning the table down to the seven cities proposed by Mr. Albury. If there are no objections, I'll do that this weekend. Horologium (talk) 15:11, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Could someone please post a photo of downtown Orlando under the "cities & towns" category? If West Palm Beach and St. Pete can have a photo, then Orlando should be up there as well. Also, there should be a photo of the University of Central Florida under the "Universities/Education" category since it's enrollment is the 6th largest in the nation. This article currently has too much focus on Miami and not enough on the other major metro's in Florida. Thank you.(talk) 09:23, 01 October 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Donniewan75 (talk • contribs)

Why is there tag about length on this article? It covers what it covers. I don't have any problem reading or navigating it. Apparently there were tew menny bigg werdz for someone?TheDarkOneLives (talk) 17:55, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I am confused as well about that length comment. The main menu at the top does a great job of sub categorizing the topics into areas that allow for easy navigation. I would not like to see this page split up into separate articles named "Weather in Florida," "Traffic in Florida," and "Sports in Florida." Instead, the Florida article should just be about everything in Florida! Jskiles1 (talk) 15:33, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

It you try "editing" article from the top, the editing program will tell you how long it is in bytes. It will point to an article which explains the current consensus about article size.Student7 (talk) 22:43, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Florida History

There seems to be an intention on the part of the historical sources here to categorically exclude the Seminole/Seminole Wars from the version of Florida history depicted here in Wikipedia. This may be due to embarrassment or lingering resentment over the spoils of "America's first Vietnam". However being one eighth Seminole Indian and ninth generation Florida Native, also having been brought up since elementary school to appreciate this vivid aspect of Florida history, I am forced to say I am incensed at these efforts to omit the Native contribution to the history of this state. No history of Florida is complete without atleast a paragraph in the article illustrating this colorful tradition, as opposed to some "reference or footnote" referring you to another article if you wish to read about it, which about all is listed currently.Rahiim03 (talk) 04:14, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

That's a good point. I hadn't realized that there is absolutely no mention of the Seminoles in the main history article, which needs to be corrected. Horologium (talk) 04:17, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

In response to your added comments, let's have a little assumption of good faith here. I really resent your implication that the editors of this article have acted in a racist or petty fashion. That's insulting and totally inappropriate. Horologium (talk) 04:26, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to disagree again but "racism" or "pettiness" was never alleged by me (not sure who injected these words). I only offered "resentment" or "embarrassment" as the possible cause of the omissions. Of course this was just an opinion. And with all due respect, and In any case, would love to see a more well-rounded article. Thanks. Rahiim03 (talk) 15:54, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Both Seminole Wars and Second Seminole War are long articles (too long, actually) and can be linked from the state history article. Since I've done a lot of work on those articles, I hope they are NPOV, but I would welcome all comments on them. In fact, I would like to work on getting one or both up to Featured Article status. -- Donald Albury 18:34, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Sometime tonight, I am planning to pull some of the leads out of those two articles (or the main History of Florida, which I haven't checked yet) and insert them into the history section. The two wars fit in nicely in the section between the Adams-Onís Treaty and statehood, and won't require any major surgery to add. Horologium (talk) 18:38, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Second Seminole War will fit there. The First Seminole War (while Florida was still Spanish) and the Third Seminole War (1855 - 1858) are covered by sections in the Seminole Wars article (Seminole Wars#First Seminole War and Seminole Wars#Third Seminole War). History of Florida does mention the First and Second Seminole Wars, but not the Third. -- Donald Albury 21:48, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I had totally spaced the third war, and I thought the first one was after the U.S. had acquired Florida from the Spanish. I obviously wasn't paying close attention... (wry grin). Let me see what I can do. Horologium (talk) 22:11, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I added in the First and Second Wars, but adding in the third war is going to require a bit more than cut-and-paste to provide context. Horologium (talk) 22:17, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Jewish ancestry

Does anyone else think that Jewish ancestry should be reported in the Demographics section? The figure is 4% (found in the figure for religion). As of now these numbers are included as German, Polish, and American but should be separate as Jewish for various reasons such as lack of identification and family ancestry. In fact, many "German Jews" are descendants of those from the Pale of Settlement, which was not actually associated with Germany. There is also a significant Israeli population which is not counted and is surely Jewish. Also, Hebrew is commonly spoken and does not show up in the article. Surely this information needs to be revisited soon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.108.233.209 (talk) 06:10, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Don't quite understand the problem. Demographics are self-reporting. That is, people identify themselves as Polish or whatever ancestry. People of Jewish ancestry tend to have a strong identity towards being Jewish and aren't not generally known to "under-report" themselves as "German" or "Polish" by mistake. These figures were taken from the 2000 government census and are not really subject to being "recast" differently. If people report themselves as "Aleuts," there can be no "reconstruction" as anything BUT Aleuts. They can't be "Methodists." That is a different census or a different part of the census. Israel is a tiny country. The number of Israelis living outside of Israel has to be infinitesimal. While these expats speak Hebrew/Israeli, they may also be sufficiently fluent in English. Student7 (talk) 21:30, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

An intersection of ancestry by ethnicity and religion is not something that is easily tracked, and is not really relevant. Further, "Jewish" is not an ethnic category used by the Census Bureau. The ancestry breakdown from the Florida fact sheet from the Census Bureau does not separately break out "Israeli", which indicates that the Israeli population in Florida is included in the "other" listing, and is too small to list alone. ("Israeli" is a Census ancestry category, code 419; a list of the codes is here. "Jewish" is not on the list, nor Ashkenazi nor Sephardic.)

As to languages, the only detailed data I can find is the data cited, from the Modern Language Association, which tracks the languages spoken in homes (i.e., primary languages). Hebrew is 17th on that list in Florida, used as a primary language by 0.09% of Floridians. data results for 2005. While it is undoubtedly spoken by a larger percentage as a second or third language, it is not widely spoken as a primary language.

Horologium (talk) 22:05, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I think that if the Jewish people had a significant impact on Florida that they should be included in this page.Floridapeaches (talk) 23:24, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Is "Jewishness" considered to be an "ethnicity" or a "religion" nowadays? Gamweb (talk) 18:37, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

There are identifiable genetic markers and specific diseases that manifest in Jewish populations.TheDarkOneLives (talk) 18:02, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Size of state

Citing the book, "The New History of Florida", copyrighted 1996, Published by the University of Florida Press (Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data/edited by Michael Gannon) pp. 428, 1st paragraph: "Florida is Geographically the largest state east of the Mississippi--recent calculations boosted the Sunshine State over its rival, Georgia. Florida boasts 65,758 square miles of land mass and 3,800 miles of tidal shoreline."Rahiim03 (talk) 08:15, 5 February 2008 (UTC —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rahiim03 (talk • contribs)

You have a reliable source, but there are plenty of other sources that say otherwise, including this from the U.S. Geographical Service, which makes Florida the fifth largest state east of the Mississippi. You would have to make a balanced statement, "on the one hand ... on the other hand", and it certainly would not belong in the lead. -- Donald Albury 01:41, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

The problem here, I think, is probably one of definitions. Florida does have the greatest total area of any state east of the Mississippi, but it has only the fifth greatest area of land among that same group of states. Basically, Florida has a whole lot of surface water. The U.S. Census Bureau's summary of such information is useful. Tim Ross (talk) 23:56, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Links

I'm new to this wiki article, and was wondering if links to certain specific topics should be added, or if the decision has been made to omit them to avoid showing just a page of links (lol). Specifically, significant fauna wikipedia articles such as the Florida_Scrub-jay, the Manatee, the Florida_panther, Sea_turtle, etc.

Additionally, should there be separate links to John_F._Kennedy_Space_Center and Cape_Canaveral_Air_Force_Station for the Economics section (rather than the {forgive me, but-} inaptly named "Merritt Island launch sites" article, which is not related to the economy but simply lists the launch pad locations - NONE of which are on Merritt Island, lol.) Tkech (talk) 16:46, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the fauna section is next on my list of sections to get fixed, and is going to get extensively reworked, similar to what I did with Environment of Florida, although on a smaller scale; I'm also going to add a flora section. The space program is all one component of the state's economy, and the link to a single article is appropriate, especially since the linked article clearly describes the two separate bases. It might be worth proposing a name change for the List of Merritt Island launch sites article if none of the sites are on Merritt Island. I'm not terribly familiar with the area, but there are a couple of other bases in Brevard County (Patrick AFB, for one) involved with the space program; perhaps "List of Space Program sites in Brevard County, Florida" or something similar. Horologium (talk) 17:04, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there were ever any launches from Patrick. It is pretty narrow, without much empty space. The connection is more historical; I think that the Cape facilities were once an annex to Patrick (50 years or more ago). I also remember (I hope correctly) that some of the older launch pads were on the barrier island that forms the Cape itself, but most of those were decommissioned many years ago. -- Donald Albury 21:15, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I know that there weren't any launches from Patrick, which is why I suggested a name that didn't include "launch sites", but IIRC there were support activities at Patrick that related to the space program. Horologium (talk) 21:47, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure there were. Unfortunately, I don't have any sources at hand. :( -- Donald Albury 16:11, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

There actually was one launch from Patrick_Air_Force_Base - they launched one rail-launched missile (minuteman? matador?) from the base across A1A towards the ocean. Never before, never again. Today Cape_Canaveral_Air_Force_Station is considered a part of PAFB. All of the active and inactive launch sites (listed in List of Merritt Island launch sites) are on the barrier island - evidently I am mistaken and it's called Merritt Island, tho it makes no sense to me. The 45th_Space_Wing is based at Patrick AFB http://www.patrick.af.mil and is responsible for the safety of the public during all launch activities, manned and unmanned. Now that I'm babbling all this, I see most of it probably belongs under Brevard County rather than in the Florida article due to the detail level. However, I am rather insistent that the TWO names best recognised by the public, John_F._Kennedy_Space_Center (for manned shuttle launches) and Cape_Canaveral_Air_Force_Station (for all unmanned launches and many historical manned launches) both be listed, rather than the List of Merritt Island launch sites which should be treated as a stub to both. I'd go add it myself, but given the recent vandalism I'll wait till we are agreed? Tkech (talk) 20:33, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Presidential elections results

User:Dwilso has indicated "I can't read the last paragraph because the presidential results interupt it", referring to the table in the "Government" section. Does anyone else have this same problem? I am unable to detect it with my setup. Tim Ross (talk) 13:41, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I noticed the edits too. The tables have been around for so long (at least a year, maybe a lot longer) that I'm thinking the problem would have been noticed a long time ago if it was really widespread. AlexiusHoratius (talk) 14:04, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

POV paras on where Democrats come from

I've been in on a number of discussions in other articles about voting and politics. The problems comes in where editors start talking about where votes are coming from and how future elections will turn out. For one thing, every vote counts (despite 2000!). Therefore the first vote counted in Florida is important. No area determines how the vote turns out. To do so, is to embrace a television fantasy that they use to keep people tuned in to their station. The last vote is not more important than the first vote. Each counts "one!" Television just tries to make them more interesting. This has nothing to do with reality which is what Wikipedia tries to concern itself with. So a bunch of people somewhere do not "determine" how Florida votes. There are no "swing" areas. I think the paragraphs did concern themselves with the past.

Sometimes, paragraphs seemed to project or predict the future which not only cannot be done in politics but it's against Wikipedia policy. Sometimes putting a group of sentences together that are themselves accurate can be POV if no analyst has put them together in quite that way before. So the editor needs to ensure that the idea presented is not novel. That would be WP:OR. The sentences do need footnotes.

I don't see anything particularly wrong with the line about the Democratic primary but then I wrote it! Some other editor removed it. Feel free to put it back. You have my support!  :) I would think it should be quietly mentioned someplace. I thought I had done that in a subdued enough fashion. Oh, well. Student7 (talk) 12:09, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I understand that you may feel passionately about the 2008 Florida Democratic Presidential Primary farce, but it really does not rise to the level of general interest information about the State of Florida. In a couple of years this will probably be clear to you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by CogDis2 (talk • contribs) 18:58, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I removed present tense not only because the article referenced was from 1998 but because nobody knows what today's voter is thinking until s/he pulls the lever or stays home, as the case may be. Wikipedia does a fair job of reporting the past. We are exhorted not to predict the future. Most pundit type articles try to do just that and therefore shouldn't be used. Student7 (talk) 13:07, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Passionately? Not hardly. But it does seem significant to the state that both parties considered penalties for the state holding it's primary early. This seems new. The context of Clinton/Obama/McCain is not that relevant I agree. Student7 (talk) 21:51, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Infobox and State Abbreviations

The state infobox implies that the postal abbreviation and ISO abbreviations are the only abbreviations for the state, ignoring the traditional abbreviation (Fla.). This may be an issue with the infobox template itself, but it should be addressed. Twalls (talk) 21:40, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Politics

In order to raise the temperature, some editors would like to project trends into the future or say that we know exactly today what voters are thinking, doing, and how they are going to vote. This is wrong in Wikipedia. We know the past. We don't know if 10,000 "Cubans" took the plane today for another part of the country. News at 11. We are not television nor a newspaper. We report the past and with the exception of elected officials, always in the past. And we don't know what these elected officials are going to do today either. Change parties maybe? News at 11. We don't need to breathlessly report todays facts which will change tomorrow.

It lowers the temperature and allows us all to edit rationally when we report the past as it should be reported. If it happened in 2008, it is still the past. If we word it correctly, we won't need to edit it tomorrow or tend it everyday like a garden.

The I-4 comment was a throwaway remark by a columnist. One could make the same remark about I-95 or I-75 or any other major TP in Florida. If the editor insists that it stay there, the 40% remark, which the columnist also said, should stay there as well. Anytime you can throw a loop around 40% of a state's population, you probably are going to define a "swing" vote. It is a silly remark and I don't think it should be in there in the first place. No vote is "better" than another in any state. That is a stupid television comment meant to keep us all tuned in and having nothing to do with reality. Student7 (talk) 13:11, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm still not sure what makes you so dubious of the article. The I-4 corridor is a big swing area because of its similar number of Republican and Democratic voters. The area could easily be tipped in favor of either party. I don't know why you have an unreasonable dislike of the word "swing", its a good word because it can easily "swing" from one party to the other; it is a good term to use to describe the political behavior of the I-4 corridor. Also I'm sorry, but you are wrong about the I-75 and I-95 areas, they are very different from the I-4 area. I-95 is largely split with Republicans dominating the northern portion and Democrats dominating the southern portion which is the South Florida Metro area and I-75 is mostly dominated by Republicans all the way through. I-4 is different because it is a pretty mixed bag of Republicans and Democrats all the way through with Republicans having only a slight advantage in recent years.--Lucky Mitch (talk) 03:45, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Go with the I-4 if you want. Please use the 40% remark, which was part of the original article. If we are going to refer to articles, they need to be accurately quoted.Student7 (talk) 11:29, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

State Motto

Holy Shit!!! Florida's State Motto is NOT "In God We Trust". That's the UNITED STATE'S MOTTO, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!!! somebody get the real motto on here...god...buncha' yankees...x(

The country and state have the same motto. Check out the seal. AlexiusHoratius (talk) 16:06, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Here is a link to a page on MyFlorida.com, the Official Portal of the State of Florida, which addresses the issue: link. The legislature actually passed a law in 2006 establishing "In God We Trust" as the official state motto. The phrase has appeared on the state seal since 1868 as an unofficial motto. There is some more information at List of Florida state symbols, which is all referenced, complete with links to the state statutes when applicable. Horologium (talk) 20:37, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Tallahassee Population

Just a minor thing, but in the "Largest Cities and Towns" section, Tallahassee should be in the >150,000 population category as the second largest city in the group. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.70.45.95 (talk) 07:44, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

One of fifty states

(Moved down to new section to maintain chronology) Yes, Jewish ancestry should at least be mentioned in the demographics section, seeing how it's at about twice the national average. Also, as I feel about the rest of the American States, it should be stressed the Florida is ONE of the United States, not just simply a U.S. state, and as it is in the Constistution, the word "State" should always be capitalized. The significance of our federation should not be understated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Supo1987 (talk • contribs) 06:01, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I suggest that you take that up with the folks at Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. states, where they specify that there be an article called U.S. states. -- Donald Albury 12:16, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I broke this out of the first header because it belongs at the bottom, in a section of its own.

Since this article is semi-protected, Supo1987 was not able to change the text of the article, as he is doing with all of the other state pages. As to ancestry, that has been discussed above, and there is no reliable source for that information. The topic is addressed in the article in the "relion" section. Horologium (talk) 12:37, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Global Warming

Could someone just elide the speculation on global warming and hurricanes? It's pretty axe-grindy hanging where it is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.135.118.176 (talk) 21:39, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Don't know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.121.33.78 (talk) 12:37, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Volunteers

Top and bottom of the national list is fairly notable and noticeable. No point in whitewashing it. This is a cultural thing. Who will care that the Jewish population of Miami ia 16.9% in ten years? Or any other fact in here? It is significant. All that was there was the facts. It is as much a fact as anything else in this article. Student7 (talk) 21:26, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I think it is a minor and transient piece of news, unlikely to matter to anyone in a few months. Even it you can find a consensus here to include it, it does not belong at the top of the article. Now, find a reliable source that discusses this in depth and analyses why it happens and what the consequences for the state are, and you will have something worth adding to the article. -- Donald Albury 14:43, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Donald Albury on this, although I don't necessarily agree with the rationale he provided in his revert. It most assuredly does not belong in the section on language. Horologium (talk) 15:55, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

It is not difficult to come up with a section/article on volunteerism at the local level or even the county level. It is nearly impossible at the state level since volunteering isn't done generally at that level. But this article (and subsidiary/forked articles) should contain that sort of information. Toqueville covered volunteerism in his epochal work Democracy in America, (cleverly not mentioned in the Wikipedia article, but then nothing else is either!). He felt it was fundamental to the American spirit. I really shouldn't have to be explaining this to Americans! So standing poorly is significant IMO. But it is (as is everything) up to the reader to interpret it. But if it is censored then, of course, it can't be analyzed. (Funny. I had no problem whatever when I placed highly scoring notices in those states.  :) Student7 (talk) 00:56, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Donald. This is not a case of "censorship", it's a case of removing a factoid of only minor importance. I doubt such a trivial statistic should be mentioned in any state article. And it most certainly does not belong in the Language section.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:42, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Per Cuchullain, this is not significant enough to be in the main state article. Censorship isn't relevant here, selection of the most important content is. Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:31, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

For the record, the single sentence read (no pov inserts),"The rate of volunteerism in Florida was 49th in the nation with 20% in 2007. Miami was 50th among 50 major cities." (reliable footnote based on national AP article)

What I would like to hear is why Miami is such a model city that low volunteerism can be ignored. I think an objective reader, seeing the above would draw their own conclusions. Except that they won't be allowed to since the information won't be there.

Also, why editors of articles about cities who stood tops think that this issue is vital enough to keep! I'm hearing a lot of "I vote for Joe, Sam and Jack" but not a lot of objectivity as to why volunteering is unimportant and why Toqueville was wrong. Student7 (talk) 12:49, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

One, the report has no context. The report had Utah at the top of the list. At a guess, I would attribute that to the large number of Mormons in that state. On the other hand, Florida has a large number of recent immigrants who may not share a 'volunteerism' ethic, although I expect that their children or grandchildren will. But that is all speculation on my part, and without reliable sources providing context the report, it is rather meaningless.

Two, editors who happily add what they think are favorable reports to articles about cities or states, whether or not they really mean anything, are engaged in 'civic boosterism', which doesn't belong in Wikipedia. See the recent editing histories of Gainesville, Florida and Valdosta, Georgia for my efforts to fight that sort of thing. -- Donald Albury 14:31, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

There are many state rankings around, some frivolous, I admit.

One ranked "health" based on some assortment of factors. I presume that might meet with your approval (if significantly high or low which it wasn't). Others purport to rank education which can be pov. I try to look at those, but those might be included right? Context and all that? (Florida is average BTW and if not here someplace else already). Others rank real estate based on problems/lack of problems. It would seem downright boosterism to omit those if Florida did not do well (towards the bottom but not the worst as I recall).Student7 (talk) 20:49, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

This seems pretty minor to me. It should be left up to consensus of editors involved on whether it is notable enough to include/omit. Garycompugeek (talk) 22:56, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Reporting of discussions about drilling

Do we really require in this section every blow by blow stand of every politician who is for and against drilling and when they changed and why? How about putting down 1) what the law is today. and 2) a proposed change that has the best chance of passing/consideration, but not everything that everybody ever said about it. Maybe we could go into more detail in some forked article? Student7 (talk) 21:08, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

It's in Environment of Florida, word for word (except for today's edits). That section was added by me to this article when I significantly expanded the environment article; I'm not committed to keeping it, but it is rather timely considering the president's rescission of the Executive order banning exploration two weeks ago. Jeb Bush's views could be pared out, but Crist's views (and that of the two senators) are relevant to the issue. I worked very hard to make that section NPOV, which is why it has a blow-by-blow breakdown; I didn't want to misrepresent anyone's views, and the timeline was needed to make it clear how the players' views evolved. Horologium (talk) 21:56, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I was rude. I apologize. I have changed the section title.

I agree that it is npov. I think the Jeb Bush issue should be somewhere else since it wasn't enacted. It may important to "environmental history" and/or "legislative history" but IMO not important enough for here.

The current issue is different and should stay IMO. But having Christ, Nelson and Martinez together clashes. As has been pointed out, the latter are federal, the first state. I don't really care who supports it if it isn't in their particular jurisdiction. For example, I don't care if Nelson supports or doesn't support Christ, since it is basically irrelevant to what happens. The feds need to be separated from the state IMO. Student7 (talk) 12:37, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Massive Tidal Wave From Canary Island Volcano

There seems to be a concerted effort to hide this from the readers of this article about the potential for massive loss of life in low lying Florida. Estimates range from total destruction of first 5 miles inland from east coast of Florida to going as far inland is Orlando. http://www.rense.com/general13/tidal.htm http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_damage_will_the_Cumbre_Vieja_Volcano_do_to_the_East_coast_of_Florida_if_it_erupts . Why hide it? A tsunami warning system would help evacuation. A series of controlled blasts to lower the volcano's height slowly could also be done by United Nations. But, this problem is hidden by people wanting to profit from sale of coastal real estate. -Anon e mouse.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.131.24.157 (talk) 16:44, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

How is this pertinent to an encyclopedia article about Florida? Predictions of damage from a collapse of Cumbre Vieja are highly speculative and variable. Personally, I think Florida is in more danger of flooding from a collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet than from a collapse of Cumbre Vieja, but that is also too speculative to include in the Florida article. Wikipedia is not in the business of spreading sensationalized warnings about events with an unknown but almost certainly very low probability of occurring in the foreseeable future. -- Donald Albury 18:18, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the prediction is for this to happen some random time in the next 10,000 years, but I couldn't find the cite. That would be a 1% chance in your life time of 100 years. Still, if you are there when series of 66 to 80 foot waves comes in, you are 100% dead. Look at the loss of life in Indonesia for a much smaller wave. http://es.ucsc.edu/~ward/papers/La_Palma_grl.pdf At http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2000/mega_tsunami_transcript.shtml Bill McGuires says he is not sure when it will happen, but if he lived in Miami and La Palma's Cumbre Vieja was erupting, stay tuned to the news (but a huge traffic jam would prevent evacuation for some people). 71.131.20.28 (talk) 03:04, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Can't edit

Why can't I edit this article? AdjustShift —Preceding unsigned comment added by AdjustShift (talk • contribs) 06:10, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

The article has been protected because of persistent vandalism. You can request changes here on the talk page, and they can be made if there is consensus to do so. If other established editors think it is time to remove the protection, I can do so. -- Donald Albury 15:46, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I think it should stay protected for a while longer, imho. At least a few more days. --Ebyabe (talk) 16:42, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

After it went through 11 rounds of semi-protection in 10 months last year, it was indefinitely semi-protected. I requested it and the protecting admin agreed with my rationale. (I obviously support maintaining semi-protection.) The fact that the talk page has been vandalized is reason enough to maintain indefinite semi-protection on this article, IMO. Horologium (talk) 17:45, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I hadn't realized. I'm all for indefinite semi-protection. I think it should be done more often, to more articles. I know we're supposed to assume good faith and all, but sometimes it can go too far, AFAIC. Let's keep this article's protection level as-is, then. :) --Ebyabe (talk) 17:58, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Economy

People feeling gloomy should come here. Nothing wrong with the economy at all! If real estate has been affected, you wouldn't know it by reading this article. The worst financial disaster since the 19th century seems to have escaped our attention. I had a note on home sales, but I see that there is "no place" for it. Student7 (talk) 19:31, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I am not opposed to noting that statewide housing prices have fallen off a cliff, but it needs to be cited to reliable sources, and it needs to be added to the appropriate section (which would be the economy section). Horologium (talk) 23:17, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Demonym

I am wondering if it is necessary to have the spanish version of Floridian (Florideño)? The official state language is English. I know there is a high spanish population, but other states don't have say how you say Rhode Islander in Italian, because there is a large Italian population. It seems like overkill to me. Dgreco (talk) 22:31, 4 December 2008

Agree that it seems like a bit much. (I recently fixed it as it was making the infobox way too wide, but I thought about simply removing it at that point.) For what it's worth, the articles on Germany and Mexico don't even have the respective native language demonym in their infoboxes, so why would we have it here just because there is a large Spanish-speaking minority? AlexiusHoratius 21:37, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I vacillated back on forth on whether to leave it in when it was added a few days ago, but decided that I would let someone else nuke it. We now have three votes to remove; if nobody objects, we could delete it in a few days.

FWIW, the other demonym added (Floridan) is almost totally disused except in reference to the Floridan Aquifer; if we delete the one, I'd suggest removing the other as well. Horologium (talk) 22:45, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Remove both. We don't even have "Florida cracker" in the box and it is more often used than the others. Student7 (talk) 01:13, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I am wondering if it is necessary to have the spanish version of Floridian (Florideño)? The official state language is English. -- Too bad various retail stores and folks who generate telephone hold-que messages don't feel the same way.TheDarkOneLives (talk) 17:41, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Okeewhatee???

I just want to know if Lake Okeechobee is in what category, like 10th largest lake in the world, or 7th largest fresh-water lake in the world, or so on. Thanks for all your help!

--WANNA KNOW EVERYTHING —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.233.207.39 (talk) 23:29, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

It is far from being in the top ten in the world in either category. It is only the tenth largest lake in in the United States, or ninth largest fresh-water lake in the United States.

1 Lake Superior Michigan-Minnesota-Wisconsin-Ontario 31,700 square miles

2 Lake Huron Michigan-Ontario 23,000

3 Lake Michigan Illinois-Indiana-Michigan-Wisconsin 22,300

4 Lake Erie Michigan-New York-Ohio-Pennsylvania-Ontario 9,910

5 Lake Ontario New York-Ontario 7,340

6 Lake of the Woods Minnesota-Manitoba-Ontario 1,485

7 Great Salt Lake Utah 2,117

8 Iliamna Lake Alaska 1,014

9 Lake Oahe (manmade) North Dakota-South Dakota 685

10 Lake Okeechobee Florida 662

For lakes wholly in the United States (most of the lakes above are shared by the United States and Canada), it is the fifth largest lake in the United States, or fourth largest fresh-water lake in the United States.

1 Lake Michigan Illinois-Indiana-Michigan-Wisconsin 22,300 square miles

2 Great Salt Lake Utah 2,117

3 Iliamna Lake Alaska 1,014

4 Lake Oahe (manmade) North Dakota-South Dakota 685

5 Lake Okeechobee Florida 662

Restricting it to lakes wholly within the United States, Lake Okeechobee is, again, only in the top five. And, it is dwarfed by the largest, Lake Michigan, which is nearly 34 times larger. Phizzy (talk) 14:20, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Politics of Florida

While we are not really desperate for a separate article, we will eventually need a "Poltiics of Florida" article as a companion to "Government of Florida" and to more properly link or maybe contain the new "Political party strength in Florida" article.Student7 (talk) 15:44, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Education section turning into list hell

I am concerned about the listification that has occurred in the education section over the past year or so. When I created the Education in Florida article by breaking out the section and reducing it to a summary, the intention was to reduce the number of lists in this article; now, we have four separate bulleted lists in this section. None of these lists contain any information beyond the lists themselves, and more importantly, two of them do not appear in the education-specific article, the article in which they should appear if they are retained. (See Wikipedia's guideline on embedded lists for an explanation of why we avoid bulleted lists with no content.)

I would suggest that we move the lists to the education-specific article, but because it is likely to generate controversy, I took it to the talk page first; by having a discussion first, we can avoid some of the strife that can occur with an ill-considered WP:BRD cycle. If there are no objections within a few days, I'll take that as assent and make the change. Horologium (talk) 21:51, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Completely agree; there isn't a reason to have lists like that on articles like this when both Education in Florida and List of colleges and universities in Florida are available for this sort of thing. Replacing the lists with a couple of paragraphs on the more important features of higher education in the state and largest schools would be the way to go here, I think. AlexiusHoratius 22:11, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Possibly "List of colleges..." can be in a "see also" section? The non-ICUF colleges aren't yet templated and might not be visible to casual reader. They would be in "List..." though.

Yeah, I was thinking Education in Florida for the main article link, and List of colleges and universities in Florida as a 'See also' link. The education section of the Texas article, while maybe a little long, is probably a good example for the basic layout of the section. AlexiusHoratius 20:36, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

While I can see the education section being to "listy" I have not seen a good education section for any states really. When I look at Texas it is just to sloppy and to be honest kind of tough to get through. I also think it is hard because what schools qualify to be listed and which don't? I am sure there is a good way to fix it up and possible a stepping stone towards uniformity for Education sections for each state. Dgreco (talk) 11 January 2009

I agree the Texas section could use some work, but I really think it is much nearer to what is expected of a FA or GA, in that it touches on the more important aspects and links to more specific lists (per WP:Summary style), than a raw list of seemingly every university in the state is. AlexiusHoratius 01:58, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

(Outdent) There are (as of 9 January 2009) two U.S. State articles which are FA quality (Minnesota and Oklahoma) and three GA states (The aforementioned Texas, plus Pennsylvania and Virginia). Of these, Pennsylvania does not have an education section in the main article or a daughter article (!) and the Texas one has already been discussed (there is also the daughter Education in Texas article). Virginia has a well-written four paragraph section in the main article, with no daughter article. The two FAs each have two-paragraph sections in the main articles (and no daughter articles, just {{See also}} links to lists). A quick check reveals that only seven states have separate articles covering education; of those, only Education in Kentucky and Education in Vermont are markedly better than what we currently have at Education in Florida. Some of the others are dreadful (Education in California, Education in Kansas). I really think that a three paragraph summary of education would do nicely for the main article, although it should include something about FCAT and the state's A+ for Education program, which does not (as yet) have an article. Horologium (talk) 02:45, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Footnotes

As the editor has said, total footnotes don't count, though the total isn't all that bad. Probably each paragraph should have at least one footnote. It would be better IMO if sections were tagged with "more footnotes" rather than the entire article. Student7 (talk) 14:01, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Religious Demographic

This only adds up to 88%. So... Why? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.203.158.104 (talk) 20:54, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Looks like the major issue was that someone left Hist. Black Protestant (8%) out of the Protestant category, as well as a few other 1% religions besides Islam. I've changed the stats to better reflect what the reference says. As for the other 3% or so, they probably fall into one of the religions in the <.5% category, which are probably too minor to mention here. Also, simply saying that x religion is followed by under .5% of the population isn't very informative, as that could be 50 people or 50,000 people. AlexiusHoratius 21:17, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

While we're on the topic, does anyone know where the Baptist, Methodist, and Pentecostal numbers are coming from? I couldn't find these on the reference given. AlexiusHoratius 21:25, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Minimum Wage

Florida Minimum Wage is now $7.21 as of 1/1/09 and will of course raise to $7.25 with the federal minimum wage this July.

http://www.floridajobs.org/minimumwage/index.htm

Attackturtle (talk) 21:09, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I went ahead and corrected the article and added a citation to the link you provided. Horologium (talk) 22:36, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Snow in Tampa pic

While I'm certainly not a fair use obsessive, I don't think that this photo belongs in the main Florida article as it's obviously not a typical Florida weather event. It's included in the climate articles for Tampa and Florida, which is much more appropriate, imo.

Rather than start an edit war, I'll leave the photo in place for now. But don't say I didn't warn you when the proverbial fair use police come a-knockin' down the proverbial door... Zeng8r (talk) 15:56, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Surprise tax

There is a "surprise" tax that needs notice someplace in this article and perhaps a separate article. Rather than repeat, here is a pointer. Student7 (talk) 12:08, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Highway numbering

I agree with the editor who reverted the highway numbering addition. I think that there could be a separate article for this though. There is for Great Britain, for example. Student7 (talk) 13:19, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I think that too much detail is not needed; however, an updated reference is an improvement. This section is not worth an edit war. Please discuss these issues on the talk page before altering the information further – for consensus. ~ All is One ~ (talk) 21:32, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I, too, prefer the simplified version. The profusion of detail available on the subject is not really suitable for the state article in my opinion. Tim Ross (talk) 22:08, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Military retirees

In 2007, there were more military retirees in Florida than in any other state, 186,102. footnote. Don't see where this can go in the article though. Student7 (talk) 02:19, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Reform school abuse

There was a lengthy commentary that was deleted on accusations of abuse in a reformatory, back when they had such things. If confirmed with a WP:RELY source, it could go into article about the judicial system in Florida (history), but not here.Student7 (talk) 19:25, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure that there is anything there. Take a look at the other two contributions from the account; they're a bit surreal. Horologium (talk) 19:43, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Famous Floridians

I would like to propose a new section for the Florida article. Other state articles have sections listing well-known natives/residents. I don't know exactly what kind of citations are required, but the people on this list have articles about them in Wikipedia already, so the perhaps the facts could be verified sufficiently through hyperlinks.

Stacy Cuthbertson Stacy511 (talk) 17:56, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Notable Floridians

Collapsed for readability

Julian Cannonball Adderley, jazz saxophonist Wally Amos, founder of Famous Amos Cookies Gary U.S. Bonds, singer and songwriter Pat Boone, singer Wayne Brady, television personality Fernando Bujones, ballet dancer Delta Burke, actress Luther Campbell, rap performer Steve Carlton, baseball player Jacqueline Cochran, pilot Mark Consuelos, actor Daunte Culpepper, football player Howie Dorough, singer Faye Dunaway, actress Gloria Estefan, singer Stepin Fetchit, comedian Dwight Gooden, baseball player Bob Graham, US Senator and Governor of Florida Bob Hayes, track and field athlete and football player Carl Hiaasen, journalist and novelist Hulk Hogan, wrestler and television personality Zora Neale Hurston, writer Michael Irvin, football player James Weldon Johnson, author and educator Frances Langford, singer Willis McGahee, football player A. J. McLean, singer Butterfly McQueen, actress Charles E. Merrill, founder of Merrill Lynch Jim Morrison, rock singer Osceola, Seminole Indian leader Tom Petty, musician and singer Sidney Poitier, actor and ambassador A. Philip Randolph, labor leader Janet Reno, Attorney General of the United States Burt Reynolds, actor Charles Edward Ringling and John Nicholas Ringling, circus co-founders David Maurice Robinson, basketball player Warren Sapp, football player Emmitt Smith, football player Wesley Snipes, actor, film producer Steve Spurrier, football player and coach Joseph W. Stilwell, army general Don Sutton, baseball player Norman Earl Thagard, astronaut Carrot Top, prop comedian Ronnie Van Zant, Donnie Van Zant,and Johnny Van Zant, musicians Bob Vila, television personality LeeRoy Yarbrough, NASCAR driver

I'd would actually oppose this a bit - you're right that many other state articles have lists like this, but none of the better ones do (the FAs and GAs, I mean). The main reason for this is that articles should generally avoid raw lists that do not put the information given into any sort of context. In other words, simply saying that so-and-so movie star grew up in St. Petersburg doesn't really say anything about the state of Florida. Another problem with these lists is that the length of these lists is hard to keep under control. (The list of people from Florida who have Wikipedia articles is a good deal longer than the list that you gave.) AlexiusHoratius 18:20, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Stacy, try List of people from Florida, which is (mostly) well-referenced. There are plenty of names missing from that list, but most of the better city articles have referenced lists (or child pages with referenced lists) that can be copied over to the main article. (Examples of child pages are List of people from Gainesville, Florida and List of people from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in which every individual is referenced.) Referenced lists are good, but long lists without references are bad. Horologium (talk) 18:27, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Follow-up: Lists should not appear in articles unless there is a good deal of accompanying text; articles with lots of bulleted lists will not pass the criteria for Good Articles, let alone the whole Featured Article process. I have created many small child pages with lists on them, trying to separate them from the oversize main article. I discovered during the Good Article process for Fort Lauderdale, Florida that virtually all of the lists had to be removed from the main article in order for it to get promoted. Take a look at the GA and FA state articles, and notice the almost complete lack of lists in them. Horologium (talk) 18:33, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Wintering fauna

The article mentions that many fowl winter in Florida. Of course, "many" fowl also winter in South America. We discovered, to our shock, that ducks in our pool in Central Florida, had wintered in the Carribean and were quite happy conducting their summer in Florida, when we left in early June! So there are lots of differences.Student7 (talk) 14:49, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that statement oversimplifies a quite complex subject, but I don't have the inclination to do anything about it for now. I have too many postponed projects as it is. -- Donald Albury 14:55, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I found this site, North American Migration Flyways, which talks about the Atlantic Flyway that connects eastern North America to the Caribbean and South America via Florida, and then found Atlantic Flyway, which uses only that site as a source. Here's a map of the the Atlantic Flyway from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Here's a radar loop of birds migrating across the Keys. There are plenty of other sites out there of varying reliability and usefulness. This site gives some numbers of species migrating through Florida to various destinations. I haven't found much on species wintering (or summering) in Florida. -- Donald Albury 20:13, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Cities over 100,000

I'm sure that this has been discussed before, but I think we ought to drop it from here because it contains the names of mayors, bios, which really have no place in a place article IMO. The cities, alone, I suppose. Student7 (talk) 01:04, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you are referring to. -- Donald Albury 18:48, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

It's nested under "Links to related articles" at the bottom of the page. (My opinion would be to remove it as well). AlexiusHoratius 19:34, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Spain regained the Floridas after Britain's defeat by the American colonies and its allies Spain and France

Spain regained the Floridas in the battle of Pensacola (March-May) of 1781, in which the Spanish governor of Louisiana, Bernardo de Galvez defeated the British troops of John Campbell, who won a decisive victory that allow regained the Floridas to Spain by the Treaty of Versailles, 1783.

Yes, the sixth paragraph of the history section of the article notes that Spain regained control in 1783. Horologium (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Re: Climate

{{editsemiprotected}} Re: Climate (hurricanes and global warming)

Currently contains the following: 
  Recent research suggests the storms are part of a natural cycle and not a result of global warming.

Suggest update [1]

(Houndsrus (talk) 04:46, 23 September 2009 (UTC))

Question: Welcome and thanks for contributing. In what way would you like to use that URL to update the article? Thanks, Celestra (talk) 15:31, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Economy stuff keeps getting deleted, I give up working on Florida wiki

Anybody want to add these forecasts? Seems anytime I add bad news about the economy, the wikipedia policy is to delete any bad news. USA today forecasts 2.4% job loss in next year: http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2009-02-06-new-jobs-growth-graphic_N.htm another reference to above, better explained: http://blogs.tampabay.com/venture/2009/09/wake-up-and-good-morning-whoa-this-is-hardly-how-i-want-to-start-the-day-and-end-the-work-week-with-some-nasty-forecasts.html

Reno newspaper carries forecast that Melbourne, FL home prices will drop 10% in next year: http://rgj.com/article/20091018/NEWS/310180001&OAS_sitepage=news.rgj.com%2Fbreakingnews —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.131.20.127 (talk) 17:39, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

This appears to be WP:CRYSTAL. If economists were infallible, it would be a different matter. "Bad news" is something that has happened. "Worry" is what we call dismal future projections. It isn't news. Not yet, anyway! :) Student7 (talk) 15:22, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Agreed per WP:CRYSTAL. South Bay (talk) 04:45, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Insurance

Home insurance has become a problem for Floridians since Hurricane Andrew. See for example this biased editorial. This needs to be mentioned in the article in some brief fashion and probably calls for a short article as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Student7 (talk • contribs) 14:11, February 3, 2009 (UTC)

"Largest"

"Largest" seems to be always construed to mean "largest population." I think doing this automatically is WP:POV. Cities with the largest area may include Jacksonville and Palm Bay. Student7 (talk) 16:24, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

What do you propose?--Cúchullain ^t/c 16:39, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

"Largest" is generally understood to mean "most populous" unless it's made clear that another measure is used. FWIW, as per List of United States cities by area, the seven largest cities in Florida are (in order): Jacksonville; Tampa, Cape Coral, Tallahassee, Orlando, Port St. Lucie, and North Port. Palm Bay doesn't make the cut. (While the data from the Census Bureau is from the 2000 census, Palm Bay's 2009 area of ≈98 square miles is still smaller than the first three cities' 2000 land areas, and most of the cities on that list are growing rapidly as well.) Jacksonville is the largest by both land size and population, so I'm not sure what the problem is there. Horologium (talk) 17:03, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I think word should be qualified when used. "Largest" should not be used without other qualifiers which state how it is meant. Assumption of size is preemtory, it seems to me. How is this clear to anyone other than a bunch of editors? How is this clear to someone whose first language (and culture) is not Anglophone? Or, for that matter, why would an Anglophone assume population is meant? Student7 (talk) 20:02, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know - I think "largest", in this context, means population to just about everyone. If we were to do a survey on the street, and asked people what the largest city in the US is, I don't think that Yakutat City and Borough, Alaska would be a common answer. AlexiusHoratius 20:23, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

• In order to stop this debate before it gets really lame, I have changed the section header "Largest cities and towns" to "most populous cities and towns", despite the fact that there is ample evidence that "largest" without a qualifier means "most populous"; cf List of largest cities in Brazil, List of largest cities throughout history, Largest cities in the Americas. Additionally, a quick review of several of the US state articles indicates that when the term "largest" is used, (either in the text or as a section head), it refers to population, not area. Nonetheless, I made the change to kill this. FWIW, Jacksonville is both most populous and largest in area, so we don't have to worry about the infobox here, but I'm willing to bet that in every one of the other state articles, that field contains the city with the biggest population, not the one with the biggest acreage. Horologium (talk) 23:03, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

ty —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.173.243.253 (talk) 21:48, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Sports

Under the list of sports teams, I would remove FC Miami as it's a minor league team and add the Jacksonville Sharks if we are including the AFL as a 'major' league. -rih7t 22 March 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rih7t (talk • contribs) 19:52, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Intercity rail

Would the Tri-Rail fall under the Intercity rail section? It is a communter rail and not a long distance rail line, but it does connect numberous cities on the east coast. Also, would it be appropreate to add information about the proposed SunRail and Florida High Speed Rail? Aalox (talk) 12:26, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 207.237.210.236, 5 May 2010

{{editsemiprotected}}

interwiki request to xal:Плоорид

 Done BejinhanTalk 12:41, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Zenestial12, 6 May 2010

{{editsemiprotected}} Please change in the Florida Education Section> Private Universities in Florida, on the list of non-ICUF colleges "Boca Raton Arts College" to "Digital Media Arts College".

For verification, please see the link that is already there.

Thank you,

Zenestial12 (talk) 15:56, 6 May 2010 (UTC)Omar Avila Marketing Manager Digital Media Arts College www.dmac.edu

Zenestial12 (talk) 15:56, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Done Thanks, Celestra (talk) 19:06, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

The East Coast Buffer

Can someone explain what the East Coast Buffer is all about? I'm having trouble finding a straight answer online. I figured someone here might know and tell me in a few words...

East Coast Buffer: Google Maps

Joel M. (talk) 21:25, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

The WP:Reference desk would probably be a better place for this, but for now, my (non-Floridian) guess would be that it is a type of green belt to limit development in the area so that it does not continue to sprawl (I usually dislike that word as it makes me sound like an environmentalist, but it sort of works here) indefinetly to the west and the Everglades. AlexiusHoratius 21:38, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Same paragraph written twice.

The section on languages seems to have a paragraph re-written twice, with some information left out of the second one. I do not know which one to keep as I know nothing about Florida, could someone please read both and decide which one should be kept. Dylan (talk) 16:32, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I realise that it was meant to be written like this as the second paragraph is referring to 2005, does anyone else agree that when reading this it is written in a very confusing way? Dylan (talk) 20:15, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Right. This sort of thing crops up often. New info needs to be merged or replace old if references are just as good. Note that history of language change may need to be preserved. Or not. Your choice!  :) Student7 (talk) 21:19, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Sister States

What is this? It just lists several territories of other countries but doesn't tell how they are related. 99.130.180.44 (talk) 18:03, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Although the reference is broken, it's sort of like sister cities/town twinning, but on the state level. Several other US states do the same thing. AlexiusHoratius 19:16, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

(E/C)It is essentially the same thing as sister cities, only at the state/province/regional level. The reference (which was broken, and is somewhat dated) notes (on page 2) that only pairings that are in good standing with Sister Cities International will be listed in the next edition of the publication. (I have changed the link to an Internet Archive copy of the PDF.) Horologium (talk) 19:23, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Picture of mosque

I admit the mosque is picturesque. Having said that, it hardly represents Florida. I would suggest deleting it and placing a picture of an old Catholic church in St. Augustine or maybe a Baptist church. This is not equal opportunity nor political correctness. It should be showing what is mostly in Florida, not what mostly isn't. Student7 (talk) 00:07, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Area of state

Registered editor has been tweaking areas of states all over the country, often without edit summaries. I just changed an area in text to match his, but now I don't know if his was right. But at least they match!  :) Student7 (talk) 21:18, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Fauna

I note that a user has just deleted the article's "Fauna" section without comment. I can understand why, but perhaps it would be best just to try to improve it.

The current listing is: Bottlenose Dolphin, Short-finned Pilot Whale, North Atlantic Right Whale, West Indian Manatee, American Alligator and Crocodile, Eastern Diamondback and Pygmy Rattlesnakes, Gopher Tortoise, Green and Leatherback Sea Turtles, Eastern Indigo Snake, Florida panther, Northern River Otter, Mink, Eastern Cottontail Rabbit, Marsh Rabbit, Raccoon, Striped Skunk, Squirrel, White-tailed deer, Key Deer, Bobcats, Gray Fox, Coyote, Wild Boar, Florida Black Bear, Nine-banded Armadillos, Bald Eagle, Northern Caracara, Snail Kite, Osprey, White and Brown Pelicans, Sea Gulls, Whooping and Sandhill Cranes, Roseate Spoonbill, Florida Scrub Jay, and Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo osceola), Red imported fire ant, Burmese and Indian pythons, African rock pythons, green anacondas, and Nile monitor lizards.

This almost random mixture of animals selected from the thousands in the state makes little sense to me. It includes no fish, only a single insect, no mollusks, no amphibians, and only a few of the state's endangered or threatened species. I suggest that we start all over, and pick a small selection based on those which are best known, most spectacular, most representative, or are most important. This would be quite subjective, of course, but less random than the existing article.

Also, if we do want a "Fauna" section, a matching "Flora" section is needed as well, I think. Tim Ross (talk)

I think I agree. (The section is back again. I didn't trace the reason). A lot of stuff I add, is from reliable sources. Those reliable sources, however, are not complete but are newspapers, which are focusing on a select group (endangered animals, say). Feel free to add stuff on Flora and expand the fauna section. Eventually we are aiming towards forking here, so extra detail can be tolerated in the short run that might seem a bit WP:UNDUE in the long run in the Florida article. Student7 (talk) 14:05, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Language(s)

I have reverted the addition to the infobox of Spanish as a language of the State. English is the official language of Florida. Even though the source cited puts Spanish speakers at about 16%, I don't think that justifies adding it to the infobox. -- Donald Albury 23:03, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

16% is a significant percent of a population. Putting a percentage by the number in the infobox would probably be a good idea, but a language that is spoken by more than 1/7 people should be included. —Ute in DC (talk) 00:19, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Agreed... (16%) of 18,801,310 people is 3,008,209 people... which is quite a significant number. CanadianLinuxUser (talk) 14:37, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Second highest percentage of Afro-Americans?

This recent addition seems highly questionable. I didn't find the 2010 racial statistics for states on the U.S. Census site, but did find the 2009 estimates at http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/. Checking a few "randomly selected" states from the interactive map there shows:

Mississippi 37.2%
Louisiana 32.1%
Georgia 30.2%
South Carolina 28.2%
Alabama 26.3%
North Carolina 21.6%
Virginia 20.0%
New York 17.2%
Tennessee 16.8%
Florida 16.1%

Are the intermediate estimates that unreliable? Fat&Happy (talk) 00:01, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for catching this so quickly. Should've caught it myself. I sort of wondered when I typed it in. From a normally reliable source. I don't know what she meant. Student7 (talk) 00:48, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Continuing to look at it after my original posts, I wonder if the word "senior" omitted inadvertently. The construction "highest percentage of Afro-American citizens" is a little odd, and given the subject of the article "senior citizens" would seem more natural. That would be an interesting, but still questionable and probably unimportant, statistic. Oh well, no harm done.Fat&Happy (talk) 02:14, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that would answer my question (and restore my faith in the author!). Not necessarily that important for this article, though, so just as well, I guess. But thanks again. That was embarrassing. I can see that winding up in all sorts of middle school and high school reports! Ugh! The type of statement I would normally like to blame on vandals!  :) Student7 (talk) 13:18, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Geography split

Article is too long. Probably ought to split off geography. Nice grouping of information. Student7 (talk) 14:41, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that it should be split and tried to do it (I wasn't going to make any cuts here for now - although some are needed - I was just going to do the basic stuff to create the article) but nearly every single reference in the section has only a "refname" and I can't locate the original code. (When I added the Reflist section to the new page, 30 or 40 references were errors with no original source in sight.) I'm not sure how to deal with this, and I just reverted my edit instead of spending the next 2 hours on the references. But like I said, agree that it should be split. AlexiusHoratius 23:38, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out! I agree that it is certainly easier to edit an article "uncluttered" by lengthy refs but I have learned to live with it, I guess and I'm sure you have. I'm going to put them in-line if there is only one cite. I will "copy" (duplicate) if there is one that appears to be outside geography. This will take forever at the rate I work! Maybe by 2012!  :) Student7 (talk) 23:32, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good; I just found out that the citation templates are at the bottom of this article. I had seen before where they were in different sections of the article, but last night I went down to the reference section - not in the edit window - and it looked like there weren't any citation templates anywhere in the article, as the cites were only used once. I can see now the point of doing it like this (like you said it doesn't clutter up the article code with long citation templates) - I had just never seen it done like this before. AlexiusHoratius 23:49, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I am glad you said that. I had never seen it done quite this way before. Except for the "moving" part, it's not so bad. I suppose we could move the geography and copy the bottom without checking. Doesn't seem elegant though and leaves "residue" in the bottom of each article. Quick though!  :) Student7 (talk) 01:02, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I just saw that you were doing another one "by hand", and was about to leave a message on your talk about the possibility of moving one section and then one block of citations. It would be a bit trickier than the normal way, but much less time-consuming than one-by-one. The big problem I had the first time was having about 45 'invalid citation' red things in the references section, and at first I had no idea how to fix it. AlexiusHoratius 01:09, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I tried to move it in blocks a couple minutes ago, and it was still pretty messed up. It still might be a bit easier doing them that way than doing it one-by-one, but not as easy as I thought it would be. AlexiusHoratius 01:21, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

If I don't drive all the Watchers nuts, I'd just as soon do it one at a time. Okay if someone else wants to do it, of course. Student7 (talk) 12:47, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I just went ahead and created the article (if Student7 wants to keep converting the references, that's fine with me). Still need some work, but the basics are in place. I didn't do any trimming here, although much is needed. I was thinking that the climate section (which already had an article) should be cut a good deal (Virginia#Climate might be a good reference). Although the climate varies from north to south, I'm not sure it needs as many city temperatures that are currently here. (Looking at the table, the temperatures of some cities are almost identical.) I was thinking maybe 3 cities (north, central, and south) and leave the larger tables for the geography and climate articles. AlexiusHoratius 01:53, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I missed that!  :( I did chop away at the remainder, hoping to reduce it to a "summary." I did the easy part!  :) I think it needs to be reduced by about half. How you reduce/summarize fauna, I don't know. Student7 (talk) 13:11, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I actually restored the climate chart data, because neither Jacksonville nor Key West are particularly representative of the state (especially Key West). I have no problem with pruning large chunks of text, but the chart is a great visual summary of the various climates in the state, and summary is what we want here in the main article. (It was also a bear trying to find all of those references, because even the NOAA sites don't have official climate data, even though they are the ones who collect and report all of the data.) The cities currently in the chart are the six NOAA sites within the state, plus the substation data for Pensacola (which is part of the Mobile, Alabama office). Before the last pruning of that chart (in 2007), there were 13 cities on the chart, including Apalachicola, the most extreme example of too much information. There seemed to be a consensus that having the NOAA office cities and Pensacola struck a nice balance between too much detail and not enough. Let's see if that consensus still holds true. I'm not a big fan of tables and charts, but temperature charts are one thing which are best presented in such a format. Horologium (talk) 16:11, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Note that one unpleasant side affect of the split, is that we now have three climate sections to maintain. One here, one in Geography of Florida and one in Climate of Florida. While we would, in a perfect world, completely fork climate to "Geography", clearly we can't do that here. Maybe we should (I hate to say this) delete it entirely from the Geography article and force the reader to go to the "Climate of Florida" article for everything. No summary there at all! Not desirable, but maybe workable. For compatibility, we could pull "climate" in here up to a full subsection. (Ugh!). Student7 (talk) 21:52, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Florida - History - Cuba

I just returned from Havana - and there was a lot of mention of the English invasion of Havana in 1760 - and supposedly the English soon after traded Havana ( including access to rest of Cuba) for Florida, (eg see Hugh Thomas 'Cuba' but badly covered IMO).

In any case there is NO mention of any of this in the article - and what is there is not very clear re Spain and England - time-line etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robfwoods (talk • contribs) 12:29, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the history section needs a rewrite. The British did capture Havana during the Seven Years' War. They released it in exchange for Spain ceding Florida to them, which began Florida's British period in 1763.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:04, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

History of Florida, the main article for the topic (linked from this article), has an entire section discussing the Colonial era in exquisite detail, including an explanation of why Florida was ceded to Great Britain. The level of detail of the state's history is not unreasonable for a main article when there is a sub-article. I agree that the history section could use some reworking, but I don't think that omitting the specifics is a horrifying oversight; the sixth paragraph clearly describes how Britain received Florida, and how it went back to the Spanish twenty years later. Horologium (talk) 15:44, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

++++++++++++++

Now checked out Wiki's 'History of Florida' - and the matter covered there - someone should get this into the section of history on the state page of Florida - certainly MISSING there is that the US took over west Florida - LONG before the formal takeover of East Florida in 1821 (Treaty of San Lorenzo of 1795, Spain recognized the 31st parallel as the boundary.) This stuff is too significant to be left out - thus 6th paragraph hardly 'clear'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Florida#British_rule — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robfwoods (talk • contribs) 20:58, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

We might could mention it, but the U.S. didn't take all of West Florida at that time, only the part known as the Republic of West Florida. The "Republic" didn't include any of the present territory of the state of Florida; the rest of West Florida, including Pensacola, remained with Spain until the 1821.--Cúchullain ^t/c 21:30, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

The occupation/annexation of West Florida by the U.S. occurred piecemeal over a number of years. There really is a limit on how much detail we can put in any one WP article. One place there would room for a fuller account would be West Florida. -- Donald Albury 00:11, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

If anything, the history section should probably be tightened up, rather than added to (except with inline citations, of course.)--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:38, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

State statistics list

In the state statistics list in the top right hand corner of the page, the state capital is listed as "Tallahassee Cause FLORIDA STATE SEMINOLES RULE!!!!". This seems to be the work of vandals and corrective action needs to be taken. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rgctobin (talk • contribs) 12:36, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

 Fixed Cluebot reverted the vandal. Horologium (talk) 13:23, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Biggest City

Jacksonville may be the biggest single municipality in Florida, but when Floridians think "big", they think Miami. Can it be included as biggest metro area? --198.179.173.2 (talk) 18:01, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

The infobox and several places in the article already mention the Miami area (the article refers to it as the "South Florida" metro area or something) as being the largest metropolitan area in the state. AlexiusHoratius 19:17, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be less confusing if we went back to calling it the "Miami metropolitan area" rather than the "South Florida metropolitan area".--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:35, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

You mean the Miami–Fort Lauderdale–Pompano Beach Metropolitan Area? A little long for the many places "South Florida" is used in the article; but once in the lead, followed by a parenthetical (South Florida) – and maybe in the infobox – would add some clarity. Fat&Happy (talk) 15:54, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

No, I mean just calling it the "Miami metropolitan area" at least in the lede and the infobox. Regardless of what we title our article on the area, Miami is the major city within the "Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach Metropolitan Area", as well as the largest and best known. Miami-Dade County alone has a population roughly equivalent to Florida's second largest metro area, Tampa Bay.--Cúchullain ^t/c 16:19, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

It's not a question of "what we title our article on the area"; it's an issue that if we are reporting government-provided statistics, we need to properly identify the area that the government says those statistics are for. Fat&Happy (talk) 17:18, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

First off, the government doesn't call it the "South Florida metropolitan area", that's just what Wikipedia happens to call it. Second, certain government offices call it the "Miami–Fort Lauderdale–Pompano Beach, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area", but no one else does; the reader doesn't have to read all that to know what area we're talking about. My suggestion is to say "Miami metropolitan area" in the intro and infobox, and then discuss the statistical definition in the appropriate section.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:11, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, this comment probably belongs on the SFMA article, but it pertains to this discussion. My problem is the appearance of boosterism caused by the inconsistent use of terminologies. Supposedly article names are based on "common name", i.e. the name by which an entity is most commonly known. While I have heard the term "South Florida" all my life, I was quite surprised to see something called the "South Florida metropolitan area". I would think if the area is most widely known as the Miami metropolitan area, the article should be renamed to that, and the term should be used in most references to the area. (A similar case can be found at New York metropolitan area.) But if, contrary to my personal experience, the most common name is South Florida metropolitan area, then that is the name we should generally use. But implicitly saying the area is usually called one thing while referring to it by another only causes confusion. Or in other words, a change may be desirable, but I think tou're pursuing it in the wrong place. Fat&Happy (talk) 18:45, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Remember that the metro area in question is 110 miles long, and for the most part is less than 20 miles wide, which distorts the relationship somewhat from other metro areas of comparable size. People who live in Jupiter, for example, are not likely to identify as part of the "Miami" metro area, but "South Florida" will work for them. Miami has less than 10% of the total population of the metro area, unlike big cities such as Atlanta or Phoenix or Houston. Horologium (talk) 19:12, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

As someone who was born and raised in Miami, but who lived in Palm Beach County for more than 30 years, I am against calling the whole metropolitan area 'Miami'. Hell, when I was 12 we moved from Miami to North Miami, and so I no longer lived in Miami. The term in general use in those days for the area that was a toll-free call from Miami was "Greater Miami". The currently named Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-Pompano Beach metro area resulted from three separate growth centers bumping into each other. "Greater Ft. Lauderdale" and "The Palm Beaches" did not develop as suburbs or extensions of Miami. -- Donald Albury 01:12, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I had originally been mildly in favor of "Miami" or "Greater Miami" (not sure if that phrase is used or not), but the last two editors brought up good points. Off the top of my head, I can't think of another metro area in the US in which the "core city" accounts for a smaller proportion of the area's total population. Minneapolis comes close, but we essentially have two core cities... So maybe South Florida works best. AlexiusHoratius 01:54, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that "South Florida metropolitan area" is not in wide use outside of Wikipedia. "South Florida" is used frequently, but isn't always restricted to the area we're talking about. Our usage is obviously confusing to some readers, or this wouldn't have come up.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:37, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think there is any reliable source we could cite that defines "South Florida" the way WP does (just the three counties). "Gold Coast" used to refer to the general area, but I'm not sure how widely used that is now. I don't think there is any fully acceptable general-use term for the Miami-Ft.Lauderdale-Pompano Beach MSA. Certainly, if someone can point us to a reliable source that defines a usable name for the three-county area, we should consider it. I've just noticed that the South Florida Regional Planning Council, which seems to have some sort of official status with the state as it includes members appointed by the Governor, covers Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties, but not Palm Beach County. Ah, and here it is, a map of Florida'a planning regions. Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties are in region 11, while Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River counties are in region 10. So, one official use of "South Florida" excludes Palm Beach County. It will be interesting if anyone can find an official or widely reported (in reliable sources) use of "South Florida" for just Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, but not including any other counties. On the other hand, it would be interesting to find any reliable sources that explicitly includes Broward and Palm Beach counties in "Miami". -- Donald Albury 21:37, 31 January 2011 (UTC)