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At the history section, change the information to include the following
A detailed account of an encounter between Arthur Barlowe with the people of Wingandacoa shows that they were a very structured society. They had defined positions for individuals and all people had well specified roles. The account shows that the Europeans first had contact with a team of people that included the King’s brother, his wife and many servants. One of the identifying factors included the form of dress and accessories. The nobles wore red pieces of copper on their heads. The rest of the individuals who were present at the time were servants to the nobles. They wore jewelry that was generally smaller. The roles of the various individuals were also so distinctly defined. The nobles were directly involved in the trade and they even visited the boat that the Europeans had come in. The role of the servants was to assist and accompany the nobles as needed. Dengfastish (talk) 19:55, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Not done Sorry, I think that level of detail belongs more on the Colony of Virginia or History of Virginia articles. Feel free to make the suggestion at those talk pages though!-- Patrick, oѺ∞ 22:39, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I saw Birdledew (talk· contribs) change this last week, and I admit I cringed. I am aware of the editwars in past years and strong feelings some users have about whether Virginia is defined in the first sentence as a state "in the South". We actually have a hidden comment right above the first sentence requesting that any user who wants to change the geographic descriptions first start a talk page discussion here. Mainly I want it to be neutral and well sourced, "Mid-Atlantic" is currently sourced to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while Southeast is sourced to National Geographic's mapping bureau, both of which are pretty solid. So I am fine leaving it as it is now, but am happy to discuss if other users want to.-- Patrick, oѺ∞ 16:23, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Right, I also found that once upon a time, alligators lived in Virginia around the swamp, and had been killed in the 1800s. But even if one gator or a dozen wander over the state line from North Carolina, which does have some alligators in the Great Dismal, I'm not sure it's notable enough to be featured among the state's fauna. There's just not yet a population of them in Virginia. There's no set logic for the species that are itemized in the Ecosystem subsection, it obviously doesn't list every species in Virginia, but I think we try to keep to ones that are a) specifically common, like white-tailed deer, b) emblematic of what's common, like rockfish or c) unique, like the Appalachian cottontail or eastern hellbender. Sorry to undo the edit, but I'm not sure alligators should get a mention on the article.-- Patrick, oѺ∞ 02:16, 9 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No prob. I just wish there was a list of reptiles of Virginia or something similar to make a note of this on. Ddum5347 (talk) 02:42, 9 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. West Virginia actually has these lists. Perhaps users can piggyback on on those lists, or find sources for specifically Virginia fauna.-- Patrick, oѺ∞ 17:36, 16 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sports section
This is an article about the state of Virginia. It summarizes the state in short sections. If the state of Virginia wins an annual award, say Forbes top state for business, or the U.S. News most liviable state, that is notable, and probably should be mentioned on the article. However the University of Virginia isn't "Virginia", nor is Virginia Tech, JMU, GMU or any of the other colleges. If a college in the state wins a championship, or makes it to a NCCA men's Final Four that isn't notable for the state. It works in the caption for the image in the sports section, just because that caption is describing the situation in the image portrayed. Think of a situation that isn't sports, say if a restaurant in Richmond won an award for best burgers in the United States. That would be interesting, but probably wouldn't need to be mentioned here, let alone get it's own subsection. I too root for the Hoos, and know college sports are life for fans and current students, but look at the other state articles, I don't see of the other fifty states that have a similar section.-- Patrick, oѺ∞ 13:56, 16 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I added four sentences about the most successful sports in the Commonwealth, including the 21st century NCAA Championships (or NCAA Regional Championships in relevant sports) of Virginia, George Mason, James Madison, Old Dominion, and VCU. Patrickneil (talk· contribs) voiced a concern that these four sentences added undue weight to sports, since Virginia "isn't just about college sports". I'm interested in seeing what he and others think in a more in-depth discussion about the size of the sports section here. He also mentioned it was "uncited", so I cited it.
In direct response to the above (we were writing at the same time), it's hard to mention the sports played in the Commonwealth without mentioning any national championships won by those teams. Winning a nationally televised (watched by tens of millions of people worldwide) national title is very different from winning a "burger award" for a diner, so it's hard to think that comparison is made in good faith.
I further note that in response to "but look at the other state articles" for their emphases, several other states (e.g., Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky) actually have much greater detail about their college sports teams than the few sentences about the NCAA championships won by teams from the Commonwealth I've added here. Omnibus (talk) 13:59, 16 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for adding citations, and removing the subheading. I stick with the assertion that UVA ≠ the State of Virginia. I'd say you can't write the Athletics section on the UVA article without mentioning their championships, but that's not the same as the geography article about Virginia the state. The thing is though, we do mention UVA's NCAAM and Capital One Cup championships and VT's bowl game success in the image captions, and I think that works without an additional paragraph in the prose. As the text stands right now, I am still concerned with counting GMU and VCU's Final Four appearances as "championships". If we're making up this standard of "watched by millions" or comparing to Ohio State football and Kentucky basketball, I think they key for notability would be sustained national success. Like VT's bowl game streak or Ohio State's overall record, which yes, is mentioned on Ohio. If you don't like the burger analogy, compare it to superlatives in other sections on this article that are perennial statistics, i.e. Virginia has top five K-12 schools, has the highest concentration of tech workers, or the highest median income. Is GMU's 2006 Final Four really key to understanding the state on an ongoing basis?
If you ask me, what the Sports section is missing, it would be statistics on youth sports. I'd love to see a sentence like "20% of boys and 30% of girls under the age 16 participate in youth soccer" or "participation in Pop Warner football has declined 60% since 1980." I'd be happy to hear what other editors think on all this.-- Patrick, oѺ∞ 16:23, 16 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Those other states' sports sections have statements like "Pennsylvania schools that have won national titles in football include Lafayette College (1896), Villanova University (FCS 2009), the University of Pennsylvania (1895, 1897, 1904 and 1908) and Washington and Jefferson College (1921)" as one example, or "Western Kentucky, the 2002 national champion in Division I-AA football (now Football Championship Subdivision (FCS)), completed its transition to Division I FBS football in 2009" as another. Not really aligned with your made-up standard of "sustained national success." The already existing captions were nice to understand the universities of Virginia and Virginia Tech, but didn't really reflect the state of Virginia and all its teams' collective level of achievement in college basketball and other college sports. And yes, the NCAA Regional Championships are actually considered as such. If you look at Jim Larrañaga's infobox or that of any other coach (who won an NCAA regional in some year) it says "Championships: NCAA Regional – Final Four (2006)". They are indeed NCAA regional championships.
I also think it could be interesting to include youth sports statistics if they somehow differ from the other 49 states in any meaningful way. Omnibus (talk) 18:02, 16 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I should not have suggested looking at other states, I mentioned it only in relation to the section heading, which you since removed. To be clear, WP:OTHERSTUFF is an argument to avoid, and frankly I do not generally recommend looking at other states, only a few of which have passed WP:GA or WP:FA, for their content, just to generally stay in line in terms of section structure. I'm very happy for Tom Izzo and all his success, but I'm not sure how that answers the query as to whether GMU's Final Four, or UVA's college world series appearances, further the encyclopedic understanding of state of Virginia. I think you're looking at this the wrong way, imagine a paragraph that started "basketball is one of the most popular sports in the commonwealth", followed by statistics on basketball in Virginia, followed by a sentence with "and Virginia high schools and colleges have also seen national success, including UVA in 2019." Building to that end is a better path to notability. Does that make sense? Text on this article has to be about Virginia.-- Patrick, oѺ∞ 18:20, 16 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It's an odd argument you are making that sports teams in Virginia have nothing to do with sports in Virginia. I'd be interested to see what others think. You did bring up other states, and as shown they consider the successful teams of their state to represent well the concept of sports in those states. Omnibus (talk) 18:24, 16 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No, not saying that college sports or college teams aren't notable, we can, should, and do mention the Cavs, the Hokies, intercollegiate athletics, the conferences, and perennial events in the state. Whether you call winning the elite eight a "championship" or not misses the point that these individual (and to some, "amateur") teams in individual years don't speak to the scope or timeframe this article is trying to cover. In a way, the multiple Capital One Championship are more noteworthy than the individual sports. We're trying to present a summary, and any way we can broaden the scope of the text, and illustrate patterns, makes it more encyclopedic. Like when the Ohio article lists Ohio State's overall record, that's 1,311 games over 130 years. VCU and GMU going to the Final Four is 4 games in one month in one year.-- Patrick, oѺ∞ 19:55, 16 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You convinced me, after some more thought, about sustained success being the major emphasis here. In this case, ODU's many (many!) conference championships over the years and 1985 NCAA Championship outweigh George Mason's fleeting 2006 "4 games in one month", as you put it. Omnibus (talk) 12:26, 17 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Again, I don't want to edit war, but I really think that File:Kyle Guy UVA (cropped).jpg is not a good photo. I understand you have strong feelings about the Virginia Cavaliers, but the photo itself is clearly taken at a distance, from a steep angle, and it doesn't show other players, the stadium, or any action. Kyle is standing at the free throw line, in a November 2017 cupcake game against Monmouth, so it's neither the championship game that the caption is describing, nor even the championship season. Kyle is from Indiana, his connection with the state is three seasons of college ball. Compare that with File:Greg Stroman at the 2014 Military Bowl.jpg, which has action and drama over whether the runner will stay on his feet, and the narrow depth of field keeps the eye focused on the subject. The action is in a bowl game, so directly relates to the caption, and the runner, Greg Stroman, is from Bristow. The bowl game streak is a long term pattern, the kind that at least for me, has the edge in terms of being encyclopedic. You may be too close to the subject to see this, but the College sports section reads like it was written by the University of Virginia athletics department, and we already feature a photo of UVA's campus in the Education section.
Here's my big question, would we feature this photo and so much attention on UVA's sports legacy on the article about Charlottesville or Albemarle County, or on United States or Earth? Then what's the argument that so much attention to one college department goes on the geography article about the state of Virginia? And to be clear, "other states do it" is not a great answer. -- Patrick, oѺ∞ 00:17, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Mike Scott and Joe Harris of the Virginia Cavaliers battle Cadarian Raines of the Virginia Tech Hokies for a rebound at Cassell ColiseumThis is not a geography article about Virginia. That's the article Geography of Virginia redirects to. But, anyway, more relevantly I did find some part of this image criticism valid, and since both the NCAA Championships and bowl streak are in the body already, I replaced Kyle Guy's image with one featuring now-professional players from both Virginia and Virginia Tech, the two most followed sports programs by Virginians. Two of the professional basketball players in the image came out of public Virginia high schools. It also shows the court, arena, and hundreds of Virginia Tech fans wearing their colors in the background. So, a pretty good image for this section I'd say! Omnibus (talk) 11:55, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, actually, that is a better picture. I'm kind of surprised that professional looking photo like that might be creative commons licensed, but neither TinEye nor Google Images see copyrighted versions online. Thank you for finding that. But geography article in the sense that this is an article about a place, a large place. As you can see at the top of this page, its part of WikiProject Geography. I'm just trying to say this is a general article with a very wide scope, and the amount of detail about UVA sports is probably excessive, smells of puffery, and a little bit promo too.-- Patrick, oѺ∞ 22:32, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Even more surprising is that the original location of that photo here has only 20 views across the past 9 years it has been there. At least it will be seen a bit more now. The article is about a political division made by mankind, and the people who live in it, moreso than about just a geographic place, to my mind, but that's just a discussion of semantics. I trimmed the college sports section all the way down to two short paragraphs. Here it is, sans citations:
In the absence of professional sports, several of Virginia's collegiate sports programs have attracted strong followings, with a 2015 poll showing that 34% of Virginians were fans of the Virginia Cavaliers and 28% were fans of the rivalVirginia Tech Hokies, making both more popular than the surveyed regional professional teams. The men's and women's college basketball programs of the Cavaliers, VCU Rams, and Old Dominion Monarchs have combined for 63 regular season conference championships and 48 conference tournament championships between them as of 2021[update]. The Hokies football team sustained a 27-year bowl streak between 1993 and 2019; James Madison Dukes football won FCS NCAA Championships in both 2004 and 2016. The overall UVA men's athletics programs won the national Capital One Cup in both 2015 and 2019, and they lead the Atlantic Coast Conference in NCAA championships.
I don't think anyone could rightfully say it smells of excess, puffery, or promo in this form. It also gives the very successful basketball/football programs of VCU, ODU, and JMU their due and not just Virginia/Virginia Tech. Omnibus (talk) 12:06, 24 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Awesome, I do think that's more appropriate for the section. Thanks for listing to my concerns, I know I'm not the easiest editor to work with sometimes, but I think this actually turned out well. I haven't found the sort of statistics on youth sports I was imagining, but maybe I'll try to flesh out the high school sports instead later.-- Patrick, oѺ∞ 13:37, 24 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I also think it turned out well, and admittedly better than if the sports section had been left to my own thinking only. Omnibus (talk) 11:46, 25 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Semi-protected edit request on 19 June 2021
Please correct the date of Walter Raleigh's expedition - it should be 1584, not 1684. I don't think a new citation is needed as the sources already cited surely include the correct date (as does the cross-referenced article on Raleigh).
Got it. Thanks. Drmies (talk) 00:43, 20 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
FA criteria
This article has held up quite well since its promotion in 2009 in some respects, but it has not managed so well with one other: length. The article has almost doubled in prose size since it was promoted. (t · c) buidhe 09:56, 20 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That's a hard comparison to make. Twelve years is a long time, and our understanding of what a complete article entails is entitled to change with time. I see a lot of subtle peacocking in that 2009 article. Its Education section boasts of its quality schools, but makes no mention of current segregation issues, its Health section mentions low infant mortality, but nothing on the state's woeful mental heath services, and its Law and government section highlights its Pew Center ranking but no information on the biannual budgeting process, so I feel much of the added length has been about giving readers a more rounded understanding of the article's topic. I'm in danger of being hypocritical here, defending length, because if you go through the talk archives, it should be clear that it's been twelve years of me telling other well meaning editors "no, that's too much detail about X, Y, and Z for this summary article." The sections themselves are all at a summary length, typically three paragraphs, and I'm happy for any help in making sure the article stays in summary style.
It's now the only U.S. state FA, and I do think it sets the standard for what a U.S. state article should look like, but I'd be fine if we want to bring the article to FAR at some point to see what outside voices think. If there's no rush, maybe that process could wait till after more 2020 Census numbers are released (should be in December), as there's still a handful of facts that are stuck using the 2010 numbers (like the Languages section), and I assume 11 year old facts could come up as an issue in a FA review.-- Patrick, oѺ∞ 14:14, 20 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
With as many sub-articles as there are, affording the opportunity for summary style, and looking at the amount of detail in each section, it appears that the current 14,000 words could easily be reduced to under 10,000 by applying summary style.
While I'm here, on MOS issues, there are MOS:CURRENT adjustments needed, and MOS:SANDWICHing in Religion and Demographics.
On keeping the article updated, kudos! I only did a quick scan of the sections that are typically not kept up to date on geography and places articles, and this looks good.
On comprehensiveness, considering the national news that Virginia made and continues to make, this topic could benefit from one more sentence, explaining the whys and the significance nationally: In 2021, Glenn Youngkin became the first Republican to win the governor's race since 2009.[432] Republicans also won the lieutenant governor's race[433] and the race for attorney general.. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:41, 4 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
History First?
I've been resisting this change for years, but I want to open a discussion on whether the article needs to switch the position of the Geography and History sections. I myself think of Geography as being the more fundamental topic to start with, but realize that it puts this article at odds with much of Wikipedia. I made a survey of the other U.S. state/territory articles today, 11 (CT, HI, MD, MS, NH, NM, OH, SD, WA, WY, plus VA) have Geography above History, but the other 39 states and 4 territories all have History before Geography. Many actually have an Etymology section first, but we've worked that information into the Colony subsection which I think works fine. While WP:USA doesn't have a standard, WP:CITIES does suggest History go first. Do other users see this as necessary or unnecessary? Since Virginia is currently the only FA among the states, it does kind of get to set a standard for others if we want to keep it as it's been.-- Patrick, oѺ∞ 13:36, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
History first personally makes more sense to me, but I don't think there is a wrong answer. You did the heavy lifting on getting this article to where it is, so I think you should get to make the call (absent a clear consensus to the contrary).--Mojo Hand(talk) 19:06, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Semi-protected edit request on 3 November 2021
Change the governor Ralph Northam to Glenn Youngkin 47.186.67.121 (talk) 20:01, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ralph Northam isn't the governor anymore and Justin Fairfax isn't the lieutenant governor anymore but it says that they're still in office and I want to change that. 87.210.229.242 (talk) 08:44, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Not done Sorry, I think that level of detail belongs more on the Colony of Virginia or History of Virginia articles. Feel free to make the suggestion at those talk pages though!-- Patrick, oѺ∞ 22:39, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
I saw Birdledew (talk · contribs) change this last week, and I admit I cringed. I am aware of the editwars in past years and strong feelings some users have about whether Virginia is defined in the first sentence as a state "in the South". We actually have a hidden comment right above the first sentence requesting that any user who wants to change the geographic descriptions first start a talk page discussion here. Mainly I want it to be neutral and well sourced, "Mid-Atlantic" is currently sourced to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while Southeast is sourced to National Geographic's mapping bureau, both of which are pretty solid. So I am fine leaving it as it is now, but am happy to discuss if other users want to.-- Patrick, oѺ∞ 16:23, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
Not done for now: Needs to be sworn in. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 20:08, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
Done ––FormalDude talk 09:34, 15 January 2022 (UTC)