Talk:History of Indiana

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Good article History of Indiana has been listed as one of the History good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
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Contents

[edit] There is hardly nothing here

OMG! This is the history for the great state of Indiana.. Well I must do something about this.Cool10191 (talk) 16:34, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for getting it started! I'm not very good with writing prose, but I'm very willing to help write this article. Reywas92Talk 18:01, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
OK so I wrote - colonial period, indiana terrotiry, statehood, and civil war.. I don't know very much about modern indiana though.. lol But I have a good historical background now to build on. I will do some more research and work on it more, need some pictures tooCool10191 (talk) 20:15, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
One other thing, i said Indian and Indians alot.. lol I should probably say native american or whatever is PC. So anyone who wants can fix that to however they feel is apropriate. I justCool10191 (talk) 20:25, 5 March 2008 (UTC) always called them indians is all.
'Indian' is ok. 'American indian' is better. When possible, use the tribal name. Any term you use, however, will offend somebody, so don't sweat it. See Native American name controversy. Mingusboodle (talk) 20:37, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I believe Tecumseh was a Pontiac, (not the car) i will look into it. -cool10191 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.38.8.229 (talk) 13:00, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok! We have done a great job improving this artcile. Offhand, I don't know much more than is already added, so I am going to move on to something new, i will ad more as i discover it. Thanks MingusboodleCool10191 (talk) 12:20, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Clark

After Clark's further repulse of the British forces in Fort Detroit the whole of Indiana was secured for the United States in 1783. Clark received large swaths of land in southern Indiana for his services in the war and today Clark County is named for him. Clark never made it to Detroit. Everytime he tried, something went wrong. What does this paragraph refer to? Mingusboodle (talk) 20:43, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I was refering to the repusle of the forces sent FROM fort detriot. I will make that more clear-cool10191 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.38.8.229 (talk) 12:58, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Civil War

The Civil War section seems mostly to repeat the story of Morgan's Raid, which has it's own article. While that is an important story that belongs here, I think it could be better summarized, and the details left to the article about the raid. What that section could use more of is the impact the Civil War had on Indiana, in terms of demands on industry, agriculture, development, etc. I've read that nearly 200,000 hoosiers served in the War, which means they were gone from their homes, farms, jobs, etc. Nearly 25,000 never returned. That's probably the pivotal point that needs to be made. Mingusboodle (talk) 04:54, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree adding that would be good. I added most of the civil war section, marogan's raid and a few other things are all I am familair with. I know alot of what indiana regiments where in what battles and who and where they died and in what numbers, etc, imight be able to come up with something on that but will take a little research in my libary for precise numbers. Morgan's raid was really the most impacting part of the war on the state though. Indiana did not receive alot of demands on it's resources really, not compared the eastern states and even Ohio. New England, NY, and PA, bore the brunt of the war costs and supplying the army with men and supplies Cool10191 (talk) 14:46, 8 March 2008 (UTC).
I researched a little bit and added my findings into teh civil war section. I sperated off morgans raid to be a subsection of the civil war. Cool10191 (talk) 16:03, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] AD or CE? Style question

When stating dates on wikipedia is AD (Anno Domini) or CE (Common Era) preferred? Also is BC or BCE preferred for early period dates? Cool10191 (talk) 03:54, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

From what I can tell, there's no formal policy. Either is fine. If you want to see people whine about it, look at the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate. Mingusboodle (talk) 18:26, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Good Article Review

I'm glad to pass this article as GA. Although it is somewhat lengthy, the History of Indiana is skillfully written, shows no bias, is accurate factually, has verifiable sources, and has innumerous images that assist the article greatly. To improve this article to FA status, I suggest that the tasks in the To-Do List Infobox above, more information regarding modern-day Indiana and infoboxes for Indiana's contributions and losses during the American Civil War and both World Wars, should be completed. With a little time and effort, this article should become a FA. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Laurinavicius (talk • contribs)

[edit] World War Memorial

I added a link to the Indiana World War Memorial Plaza under the caption for the picture. However, it should be noted that it was originally a World War ONE memorial. Pershing laid the cornerstone in 1927, long before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Today it serves as a memorial to both World Wars, but we might want to reconsider the placement of the picture. Mingusboodle (talk) 00:08, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm ok with moving to the WW1 section. I placed there because I was thinking of it in the context of a general "War" memorial, rather than a specific war, but you are correct, it was WW1 oringaly. I will try to word that in. Charles Edward 03:17, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FA Nomination

Do you think this article would pass the FA review? My concerns are the reference formatting; im not sure how to the fancier stuff I see on some other articles like meta:cite. I am also not sure about the "Stable" requirement since it is relatively new. But otherwise i think it would pass. Do you think we should work on it some more or try the FA review? I am going to submit for a peer review for now. Charles Edward 17:26, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I see that one of the things you're concerned about is length. Something we can do is edit down certain topics and rely on links to other articles to provide more specifics. For example, there's an article on Indiana in the American Civil War, so we can probably shorten that section (in this article) down to the bare bones and make sure all the relevant information is on the other article. This is a time-consuming approach, but I think it would give us a better result.
The other option is to split the article into separate pages, like Pre-State History of Indiana, Indiana in the 1800s, etc. I don't particularly like this option, but if we had to do it, we could. Mingusboodle (talk) 02:53, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I like the shortening the civil war section idea. I think it probably has most room to have things taken out, especially since it has it's own articles. I will try work on that today.
For what it's worth, the History of Minnesota was the featured article for 11 May 2008. I looked it over to see how it compared. It was at least as long as this article. Mingusboodle (talk) 01:11, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
And it has a very similar layout, thats interesting. I can try to copy the way their references are formatted, but on retrieved dates for sites, and properly format the book references like they have them and ad ISBN numbers. I think that will get it to what we need for FA. Thanks Mingusboodle. Charles Edward 12:57, 11 May 2008 (UTC)


I've went through what the peer reviews suggested. I have converted all the references to citeweb and citebook to standardize their format. I also expanded referencing in the sections with only a few - I tried to get each paragraph to contain at least one footnote. I don't think an article can be "over-referenced". I've redid any formatting that did not comply with the MoS. I've also expanded the smaller sections somewhat and the twentieth century section looks pretty good now I think. The infobox on the hoosiers contributions in the wars where removed with the comment they where not Indiana specific, which is somewhat true, so I have not added them back. So.. I guess I will submit for an FAC review sometime today. Charles Edward 15:25, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image for opening

What would be a good image for the first paragraph? I am trying to think of something that is definitively Hoosier, but nothing is really coming to mind. FA criteria says we need a image there. Charles Edward 20:52, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Does it count if we put it just below the intro? One thing I can't stand is a long TOC with nothing else around it. We could align an image to the right of the TOC to visually balance that part of the article.
I've kept my eyes open for a good image to use, and nothing has really caught my attention. We could just move one of the pictures from the article, especially from one of the sections that seem to have more pictures than needed. Another option- maybe not a good one- is to put the Seal of Indiana at the top. It would help identify the article as being about Indiana, and it represents the pioneer history of Indiana.[1] Mingusboodle (talk) 15:30, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Seal of Indiana sounds good. I added a bit to that article awhile ago to de-stub it and it's been in use since at least 1803. Or we could move on of them up like the war memorial or the race car crash. Of course an automobile accident may not be the best representative of Indiana (hahaha). And i dont think it would be against the rules to put it by the TOC because it would still be in the opening section. I am by no means an expert on wiki rules though. Charles Edward 15:41, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Apparently someone didn't like it next to the ToC because it got moved. No idea who... you cats have been busy! Seriously, I made one minor change during my lunch break, and by the end of the day there were more than 50 updates. Hats off to all of you! The big blank space next to the ToC is still a pet peeve of mine, but if it doesn't bother anyone else, I'll leave it as is. Mingusboodle (talk) 01:50, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
That was me. You can change it back if you really want, but I think it's better there. My reasoning is that 1) Images are in general the first thing on the right, 2) So you don't have to scroll down to the first pic, 3) If someone has the TOC hidden then the pic interferes with the next paragraph, and 4) I like pics to be at the top of a section rather than the bottom of the one above it. Reywas92Talk 02:08, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Links

This is just a minor issue... I know Wikipedia guidelines say that we should only link a word to an article the first time the word appears. In an article this long, though, I have absolutely no problem linking a word a second time if it reappears some distance from original link. I've seen that a few times in this article, and I don't have a problem with it at all. Does anyone else? Mingusboodle (talk) 16:58, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with it. I have remove alot of duplicate links back when I wikified it according to the MoS a couple weeks ago. But in some places the first mention is like twenty parapgraphs away from from the first link so if someone was jumping down via the table of contents they would miss the first link. Charles Edward 19:10, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Failed FAC Review

Well the FAC review failed. Oh well. I was able to address all the referencing, sourcing and MOS issues . Pretty much the only thing I don't think I was able to address was the prose issues. I have made several attempts to copy edit the article and to me it reads fairly well now. There was also several comments about pronoun and article usage. And to be honest, I'm not perfectly sure what that means but I have went through and replaced many pronouns with nouns as the is the only thing i could think of to address the issue. As far as using articles, I don't have the slightest idea what to do about that. I am not sure what else to do? If it needs work on prose someone besides me is going to have to do it because that's pretty much as good as I get. But all in all I think it was productive. Even if it's not FA quality I am proud of it! :) Charles Edward 02:08, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

If it failed FAC, it's no fault of your own. You've put a great deal of work into this article, and you should be proud of how far you've brought it. I followed some of the FAC suggestions and realized that this article had some glaring issues that I can't see because I've read it too many times. My suggestion is that we step back for a time and return to this article when it's no so ingrained into out brains. Mingusboodle (talk) 02:57, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Your right! After reading it SOO many times you start to completely over look things. I still think is close to FA status and hopefully in a few months it can be submitted for a new review. And you should take credit too! You wrote a large part of the article yourself. :) Charles Edward 12:11, 2 June 2008 (UTC)