This is the page to deal with discussion and nominations for the U.S. Collaboration of the Month (USCOTM), previously U.S. Collaboration of the Week (USCOTW). The USCOTM is a collaborative effort led by participants to improve different United States articles. In its initial incarnation (as USCOTW) from November 2005 until mid 2006, articles were selected every two weeks. From September 2006 until August 2007, articles were chosen on a more sporadic basis (around monthly) and saw a lot lower level of activity. The collaboration became inactive at that time. As of January 2011, the Collaboration has been reactivated for a trial (after a slew of editors joined the wikiproject), to see if some articles might be improved collaoboratively to good article or featured article level.

The idea is that new editors might work alongside more experienced editors and the overall coordination might result in some high profile or large articles being worked up that might have proven too arduous for one editor.

As of now, three previous collaborations, Washington, D.C., Statue of Liberty, and Music of the United States are featured articles, while History of New Jersey, and Mount Rushmore were promoted and subsequently delisted. Three additional articles received good article status but have since been delisted.

The next USCOTM will be picked on March 1st 2011, by the highest number of votes. The current time is 15:04, June 25, 2024.

Nominated articles remain active here as long as they continue to gain support, after which time they are archived. Failed nominations can be renominated any time. (Archived nominations) Past improvements and the results can be seen at Wikipedia:U.S. Wikipedians' notice board/USCOTW/History.

In the event of a tie between two or more nominations, the nomination made first will be used.

How to nominate

George Washington (7 votes, stays until April 17)

Nominated 03:57, 17 January 2011 (UTC); needs 3 votes by April 17 (minimum 3 votes per month)

Support:

1. Spongie555 (talk) 03:57, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
2. Shearonink (talk) 13:45, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
3. Purplebackpack89 21:23, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
4. Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:01, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
5. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 13:50, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
6. Arctic Night 02:55, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
7. The more I think about it, the more I think this is the sort of article these collaborations were designed to punt into GA or FA territory. It is iconic yet should be more manageable than some other big articles I can't think of as I am writing this but will surely pop into my head in the next hour or so...Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:28, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments:

• First President of the United States and very important in American history. It was already a GA maybe it can get back to GA Spongie555 (talk) 03:57, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• I've been working on this article in a small way. and if everyone in this Project could help get it back to Good Article status?... It's already visible (getting thousands of hits daily), if it could be Good again, that would be great. Shearonink (talk) 13:45, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• This is a good topic, but in my view, the article in its present state is in fairly good shape. 162 references. Excellent traffic. If people choose this one, would the task be to make it a GA or FA?--Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:01, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• I think setting a goal of FA is good but I think we will need to take it one step at a time. If we can get it to GA that will be a big improvement IMO. --Kumioko (talk) 00:45, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Good Article status is a good waypoint along the way to Featured Article candidacy, and generally results in a pretty rigorous review. I strongly recommend it, especially for larger articles. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:22, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Review

Here are a few comments that may help in the improvement of George's article. Major improvements have been made to this article in recent weeks and I think we are pretty close to getting it to at least GA level.

• The article just went through a GA review (it failed in September 2010) so there are some good advice for improvements to the article there. After spending the better part of 2 hours reading the suggestions and reviewinng the history of the article most have been addressed. Mostly by the same three editors. I recommend we contact them to help with the article as well. For one they have already done a lot of the work on the article thus far and would probably appreciate assistance and secondly they might be a little irritated at us pulling the carpet out from under them so to speak after they have done so much work on it.
• The lede is a bit too long and needs to be shortened
• The lede should not contain any inline citations. It is a summery of the article so the citations should already be in the article with references
• We need to fix the bunching problem in the beginning.
• The article doesn't flow chronologically like it should. I jumps around grouping things Like personal life together rather than flowing in order of occurance. I think this needs to be cleaned up.
• There are a few places that still need inline citations.
• Too many images on the right. We need to spread them out a bit more
• Again we need to standardize the dates. there are 2 or 3 different formats used in the article
• Didn't George write a few things? I think we need to add a works section to list at least some of them
• There is a whole separate article for George Washington bibliography. Do we really need this. Seems kinda unencyclopedic and maybe we should roll it into the article. --Kumioko (talk) 17:35, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Chesapeake Bay (6 votes, stays until April 1)

Nominated 12:16, 1 September 2010 (UTC); needs 3 more vote by April 1 (minimum 3 votes per month)

Support:

1. Bardobro (talk) 12:16, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
2. Yes, I think this one could work well. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:26, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
3. (Iuio (talk) 08:17, 20 January 2011 (UTC))[reply]
4. --Tomwsulcer (talk) 17:07, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
5. cmadler (talk) 16:21, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
6. HuskyHuskie (talk) 19:51, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments:

• I believe Chesapeake Bay should be a USCOTM because of the historical, ecological, and economic importance of the Bay and its tributaries to the United States. This was already tagged as nominated for USCOTM, but there is nothing on this page. Bardobro (talk) 12:16, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• I must say, having a look at the article, there is a lot of scope for expansion in the history, ecology, and noting things such as nearby towns and tributaries etc. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:26, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Especially this history; I can easily imagine a History of Chesapeake Bay article. cmadler (talk) 16:21, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• First of all, I agree with the above comments--History of Chesapeake Bay should already exist. And Chesapeake Bay itself is not only worthy of the efforts to get it to FA status, I can't think of even five geographic articles more worthy. Additionally, I would like this article to get a larger, more diverse, audience reviewing it. (In particular, I have questions about the insistence of locals that the definite article is mandatory with any usage; I would like to see if this position is tenable for an encyclopedia, not of Maryland, but of the entire English-speaking world.) HuskyHuskie (talk) 19:51, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's plausible that locals do use the definite article. A similar case that comes to mind is Ohio State University, which many alumni insist should always be "the Ohio State University". cmadler (talk) 15:20, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wall Street (4 votes, stays until March 14)

Nominated 08:05, 14 January 2011 (UTC); needs 2 more votes by March 14 (minimum 3 votes per month)

Support:

1. Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:05, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
2. Tomwsulcer (talk) 14:17, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
3. Kumioko (talk) 14:29, 14 January 2011 (UTC). I'm gonna go with this one too.[reply]
4. (Iuio (talk) 08:17, 20 January 2011 (UTC))[reply]

Comments:

• I believe Wall Street should become the new USCOTM - it is an iconic geographical and economic place. Just a feeler to see waht folks think. It might be modest and circumscribed enough to get to GA without too much work. Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:05, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• • Comment: I have been working on a revamp of Wall Street here in a sandbox; it's an expansion, needs more pictures, perhaps better organization and viewpoints from others, if interested. Please feel free to edit it in the sandbox if you wish.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 05:17, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Review:

I hope its ok to post this here but if not feel free to move it to the articles talk page. I was looking through the Wall street article and it is a massive improvement over the pre Collaboration version. I fixed a few things already but here are a few things that could use some improvement in the article. I am going to work on some of these as well. I think that we are pretty close to getting this to GA quality and wether it actually makes it to collaboration article of the month I think we should try and work on it too as we find the time of course.

• I think we should notify the other WikiProjects that might be interested in helping with this. New york, New York City, Economics, etc
• Inline citations shouldn't be in the lede
• lede needs to be expanded a little. Its a bit short
• Needs a little prose and grammer work. There are some choppy sentances, run-on sentances and things of that nature.
• I think there are too many images on the right and I think it would look better if we shift them around a little more
• There are still a couple places that need a reference such as the section titled Wall Street versus Main Street, some of the items in the Wall Street in popular culture section and the Transportation section
• Some of the references need to be cleaned up a bit such as 3 and 15
• I don't think we need to caps all the author names
• I'm not sure about the quotes in the inline citations. Are these needed?
• I think the dates in the inline citations should follow a standard format. We are using 3 or 4 different formats. If the format changes it should be because we are following the display of the article or paper but generally I would say use month day, year.
• We use a lot of Newspaper articles like USA today, New york times and Wall Street journal in the article and it might be good to see if there is a book or 2 as well to subsidize some of these newspapers. Some could argue that the New York times and Wall street journal are not objective enough to offer unbiased opinions. --Kumioko (talk) 14:13, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lake Erie (4 votes, stays until March 14)

Nominated 08:16, 14 January 2011 (UTC); needs 2 more votes by March 14 (minimum 3 votes per month)

Support:

1. Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:16, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
2. Guerillero | My Talk 19:51, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
3. North Shoreman Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 16:37, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
4. Tomwsulcer (talk) 16:48, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments:

• heck, I dunno why I thought of this one over the others...I was thinking of the Lorax by Dr Seuss...This is concise and could be more easily doable than others. Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:16, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Note. I have a tentative revamp here. If interested, please give feedback. I'm unsure about categories, pictures, formating, stuff like that.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 02:14, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Update. This article has been upgraded substantially so it's much better than before, but still could use work. but I don't think it needs much more attention. I'm looking for other projects which have (1) high readership (2) high importance (3) low quality -- ie unreferenced, poorly written etc; please point me to these if you come across them, thanx. I may get to other projects soon but I probably won't be fussing with Lake Erie much, although I may keep it on my watchlist for a few months or so.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 16:16, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • FYI, Wikipedia:WikiProject United States/Popular pages can be used to sort based on pageviews, importance, and assessed quality. cmadler (talk) 16:44, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks. I added that page to my wikilinks and I'll check from time to time.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 17:06, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanksgiving (United States) (2 votes, stays until April 1)

Nominated 1 February 2011 (UTC); needs 1 votes by April 1 (minimum 3 votes per month)

Support:

1. Tomwsulcer (talk) 17:18, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
2. I like to saw logs! (talk) 22:09, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments:

• What's weird is there are two articles -- Thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving (United States). The general Thanksgiving article is very short, with perhaps 20 references if memory serves, but HIGH traffic -- sometimes 4K readers per day on average. The US-specific Thanksgiving article is longer, perhaps 60K, with more references, but only about 900 readers per month, and it has more references. I had thought Thanksgiving was mostly a US-related holiday (am I right about this?). So the way the articles are organized, most people searching WP are likely to WANT to have the US-specific info about Thanksgiving, but come across the general article which is short with only 20 references, and think that's it; that is, they don't click on the more informative US-specific article. This might be an issue for redirects and disambigs; but in both instances I think the articles (general & US-specific) need work.

• I agree, this duplicity means that the generic article is quite a bore. This situation needs some help. I like to saw logs! (talk) 22:09, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Review:

California (2 votes, stays until February 14)

Nominated 08:14, 14 January 2011 (UTC); needs 1 more vote by February 14 (minimum 3 votes per month)

Support:

1. Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:14, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
2. JJ98 (Talk) 05:54, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments:

• California is the most populous US state - should be easy for lots of editors to help out as much of the material is general. It's already been to FAC once (the review can be looked at). Might be a good one to divide up workload. Anyway, just an idea...? Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:14, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • This article (as of Jan 17th 2011) looks (to my eyes) to be in pretty good shape. If people decide to focus on this one, I'll help if people can point to what needs work.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 02:05, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Review:

Here is a partial review of the California article. I will go and work on some of these as well later. I think that we are pretty close to getting this to GA quality also and whether it actually makes it to collaboration article of the month I think we should try and work on it too as we find the time of course. I also think we need to notify the California related projects and let them know this one is on the docket.

• Inline citations shouldn't be in the lede
• Needs a little prose and grammer work. There are some choppy sentances, run-on sentances and things of that nature.
• There are some very short sections like Cities and regions that need to be expanded
• I recommend adding a table for regions with some facts about each if possible like population or what the region is known for. There are huge differences between them and we don't really explain it very well.
• I think there are too many images on the right and I think it would look better if we shift them around a little more
• There are several places that need a reference such as the section titled Geography, Ecology and Climate to name a few
• I think some sections like Ecology and Climate need some expansion
• It needs a few more pictures such as the section for Flora and Fauna and Cities, towns and counties
• There is a section for Cities, towns and counties and a subsection above it under Demographics for cities and nI think we should combine them
• There is a huge military presence in California and I think we need to expand this section a little with more of a prose layout than bullets
• The Racial and ancestral makeup has several bullets of information and I think we need to rewrite this to be in more of a prose format
• Some of the references need to be cleaned up a bit such as 8, 36 and 93
• I think the dates in the inline citations should follow a standard format. We are using 3 or 4 different formats. If the format changes it should be because we are following the display of the article or paper but generally I would say use month day, year.
• If we are using a shortened reference format for the references like we do with reference 15 then we should be consistent and do it for all of them
• If we are going to use the shortened reference format then the Long version of the reference being shortened should be under a reference section, not Further reading. --Kumioko (talk) 14:43, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Corwin Amendment (1 votes, stays until February 20)

Nominated 09:05, 20 January 2011 (UTC); needs 2 votes by February 20 (minimum 3 votes per month)

Support:

1. RekishiEJ (talk) 09:05, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments:

• Very interesting, as this amendment preserves slavery, but never ratified. Also this article is still stub-rated, which means it lacks much important content. RekishiEJ (talk) 09:05, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Billy Yank and Johnny Reb (1 votes, stays until March 1)

Nominated 01:58, 29 January 2011 (UTC); needs 2 votes by March 1 (minimum 3 votes per month)

Support:

1. Purplebackpack89 01:58, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments:

• Both articles are only a couple of sentences long, a disgraceful state considering the 150th of the ACW is in three months. Considering that many history books have asides concerning them, I'm sure we can do more Purplebackpack89 01:58, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Review:

I think these articles are too short to do a meaningful review but I did do a couple of minor improvements to the Billy Yank article and will add some more as time goes by and will work on the Johnny Reb article as well. Has amnyone mentioned this to the MILHIST folks? Specificially the American Civil War task force. --Kumioko (talk) 14:50, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Articles of Confederation (1 votes, stays until April 1)

Nominated 1 February 2011 (UTC); needs 2 votes by April 1 (minimum 3 votes per month)

Support:

1. Tomwsulcer (talk) 17:18, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments:

• Article length => 50K bytes, that is, there's room to expand it; about 30 references, should probably have more; high article traffic 4K readers per day. Plus TOP importance rating; important historical subject. So I think this article could use improvement so that's why I'm nominating it.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 17:36, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Review:

Consider joining the US collaborative efforts by signing in the participants list below with * ~~~ ,which will generate your name. Template:User USCOTW {{User USCOTW}} is an userbox that will result as the template on the left, to be placed on user pages.

Instructions for updating

1. Locate the article with the most votes; in a tie, keep open for 24-48 hours for tiebreaker to find the new USCOTM.
2. Adjust {{collab-us}} to the current USCOTM (keep the wikilink).
3. Remove Template:UScur from the old USCOTM and add it to the new one.
4. Add Template:USold onto the talk page of the new USCOTM, with two parameters: the current date and the year.
5. Correct the new changing date located above at Nominations. Cut and paste the above nomination and move it to WP:USCOTWN
6. Update the information on WP:USCOTWHIST, adding the information about the last USCOTM and the date, # of votes, article name, and # of words onto the top of the wikitable.

Participants

Participants help out on the current USCOTM, nominate new articles, vote, and provide comments.

• Iuio (talk · contribs)
• Morphh (talk · contribs)
• Casliber (talk · contribs) - just helping out for a bit to get it off the ground :)
• Cmadler (talk · contribs)
• Tomwsulcer (talk · contribs)

Template:CHICOTW Template:USCongressCOTW

{{USCOTM}} - to announce the topic
{{Collab-us}} - the name of the current USCOTM
{{USnom}} - to be placed in the talk page of the nominated articles
{{UScur}} - placed on the current collaboration article
{{USvot}} - to be placed on voters talk page
{{USold}} - to be placed on the talk page of past USCOTMs
{{User USCOTW}} - an userbox for placement on user pages for users who frequently participate in USCOTM