Talk:Florida/Archive 2

Transportation

I think Florida's transportation section should add the images of the highway number badges similar to the way they are used in the Missouri article. (link to Missouri Transportation section [[1]] ) --Britcom 05:47, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Birdwatching picture

Who removed my birding picture?

(Removed picture from talk page: it screws up the formatting of this page, and doesn't belong here.)

The picture was removed from the article by User:Britcom on the 10th of July. Look at the edit summary here if you have questions. Horologium t-c 00:35, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Article needs cleanup/subpaging

Right now, this page is absolutely enormous (about 98K). There is a lot of stuff in here that really doesn't add anything to the article, and several of the sections could be sent to separate pages with a link. I'm not going to do any major surgery without something resembling a consensus, but a have a couple of suggestions for separation.

• In the sports section, retain only the professional teams from the "Big 4" (MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL). Take the entire table and create a new page entitled List of sports teams in Florida, with a {{seealso}} or {{main}} link from this page to the new page. (That list could also use some cutting; there are amateur and defunct teams listed; if we made a new page, they could be separated out as dead.)
• The list of the ten largest cities in the demographics section is largely redundant to the list in the "Important Cities" section, which itself is largely redundant to List of cities in Florida. I'd suggest pulling the 10 largest cities list out of the demographics section entirely, and deleting anything below 75,000 people on the list of important cities. As it is, all of the cities with more than 50,000 people are already on the State of Florida template, which is on the bottom of the page. (Perhaps we should look at reassessing the inclusion standards on that template as well.)
• The public transportation system is pretty lame; it is essentially a listing of which cities have bus routes (and it's certainly not all-inclusive at that). I would suggest limiting listing public transport to commuter rail or other unusual systems (like the MetroMover in Miami), with a single sentence statement like "Many local governments in Florida operate bus systems." We don't need to list every single bus system (including the ones in Gainesville, Fort Myers, Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Sarasota, ad infinitum.)
• The temperature chart is a little too big. I'd suggest retaining Pensacola, Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Tampa, Orlando, Vero Beach, Fort Myers, Miami, and Key West, at most (some of those might be excessive, too, but this is just an idea).

Do I have any support, or am I on my own? I will assume that no answer within a week is assent, and will implement my suggested changes. That should jump-start the conversation! Horologium t-c 15:01, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I reverted your edit because I disagreed with the removal of the smaller cities in the list. I don't object to your other changes. I would have gone back and reedited but I didn't have the time, but would be willing to accept those other edits back. It is always best to keep your edits on one subject so a revert doesn't change unrelated minor changes.

I mostly agree with point 1 but I would keep the spring training and the indoor football, and the auto racing, and dump the minor leagues to a separate list. I think the whole sports chart is poorly designed and might be better served with a two column list.

I disagree with point 2, but I would be willing to accept a reformat or merger of the lists. Some small cities in FL are very important and historically significant to the formation of the state.

I partially disagree with point 3 in that I think the buses are important since many tourists rely on them, but I think only largest systems need to be mentioned and the others can be linked to.

For the temp chart, I would suggest Pensacola, Tallahassee, Jax, Tampa, Orlando, Daytona, Miami, Key West and adding Naples. That would cover the state's major climate zones. --Britcom 18:32, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

The edit you reverted had nothing to do with what I proposed above; the cities (and county) I deleted from the listing were cities of less than 25,000 people, in a section clearly labeled "City Population >25,000".

• The spring training and autoracing sections are not part of the monster chart, and can easily be retained, and I don't have a big problem with keeping the Arena Football teams on this page. The chart is a beast, but if we move it off the page, we can wrangle over the formatting at the new page, wherever it may be.
• To include small but historically significant cities is going to be a HUGE sticking point, and will make this page uneditable. Everybody will push to have their little podunk town listed, with some lame justification of why it is "historically significant". That is one of the reasons why I like the structure of the current list: it provides clearly identifiable, non-subjective criteria for inclusion. Subjective criteria allow way too much wikilawyering. This page has problems with sourcing as it is.
• Tourists are not going to look to the "Florida" wikipedia page if they are looking for bus info. Each city will have local bus data (and usually a link) on them, which is an appropriate location. This page is not.
• The temperature chart (as currently constituted) is a cobbled-together affair from some .com website of unknown reliability, which doesn't include Naples. I'd like to come up with a reliably sourced chart (which should not be too hard), but Fort Myers and Naples are virtually identical climatically (and fairly close distance-wise), so either is appropriate. I suggested Vero Beach instead of Daytona because Daytona Beach is rather close to both Orlando and Jax, while Vero Beach is a little further away, and covers the middle Atlantic coast better than Daytona.

I chose Daytona because it is the most significant Atlantic coastal city in Central Florida. Anyone who lives here can tell you that Orlando, Jax, and Daytona do not have similar climates. Vero is not notable or well known. Melbourne is the Eastern Central Florida NOAA radar site and is a major city. I would accept Melbourne. --Britcom 07:54, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

One of the issues I am trying to address is the sheer size of the page. Some older browsers choke on pages larger than 32K, and the Good Article criteria specifically mention that 32K size. This article is more than three times that size, which is ludicrous. I'm trying to identify some of the less-useful or improperly sourced material to cut this down to a manageable size, as I'd like to be able to nominate it for GA (and eventually FA) status, but it is totally unrealistic to nominate it in its current form. The other issue is sourcing; as I have been formatting all of the inline cites, I realize that many of them are not reliable sources. A lot of the current cites need to be replaced with something that qualifies. One of the cites is a real estate marketing page, and a couple others are obscure sites with no obvious expertise or referencing, and I've only done the first ten so far. Horologium t-c 19:29, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. I would be radical about it: any list or chart that cannot be covered in running text in a paragraph or two should be a candidate to be moved out of the article. I think lists and/or charts should be retained only if they are really strategic. Items of only local interest (restricted to a city or county) don't belong in the Florida article. On the climate chart, note that NOAA has only six offices in Florida: Jacksonville, Key West, Melbourne, Miami, Tallahassee and the Tampa Bay Area. Using hat list would be a non-subjective way of selecting cities to be included in a climate chart. Of course, the western panhandle would be far removed from any of the cities (their forecasts come from the Mobile, Alabama office), so Pensacola probably should be added. That would give seven cities, and relying on the NOAA list might help with arguments about including additional cities. -- Donald Albury 20:32, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Volusia County issue

I just noticed the "Bush-haters" are vandalizing the Volusia County, Florida article with bogus information. (I live in Volusia County) Please keep an eye on it (RE: Election 2000). Gamweb 22:13, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

This is not the appropriate page to address this issue. Use the Talk:Volusia County, Florida page. For what it is worth, however, that statement has been on the Volusia County page since 7 November 2005, when it was added by User:Staxringold, who also created the linked article Volusia error. Take it up with him on the Volusia County page or his talk page, please. Horologium t-c 22:42, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

New pictures

Many of the new pictures that have been added are nice, but they are too Miami-centric. This is the Florida article, not the Miami article. Can we reduce the number of Miami-specific pics, please? I'm bringing it up here first, rather than simply reverting. Horologium t-c 16:15, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Well since there weren't any pictures of any things in Miami before, I thought I'd put some up, considering its our largest metropolitan area. Also, a lot of those subsections had no photos at all such as the Public Transportation and the Sports sections. I think they're very much so relevant. The Port of Miami picture is an important part of our economy, the Metrorail is Florida's only heavy rail transit, the '97 Tornado represents our "tornado alley" nickname, Florida land boom of the 1920's, etc. I think they should be kept. -Comayagua99

Port St. Lucie population

According to the St. Lucie County Center for Commerce, the population of Port St. Lucie is over 150,000. I don't know if you want !to change this on the page or not. Check out this link. http://www.stluciechamber.org/City_of_Port_Lucie.asp Casey14 04:49, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Population figures from sources other than the Census Bureau are notoriously unreliable, as they often include unincorporated areas or even neighboring cities. The most recent US Census Bureau estimates, released on 28 June 2007, are for 1 July 2006, and are the source of the numbers used to group the cities by population. The Excel file can be found at http://www.census.gov/popest/cities/tables/SUB-EST2006-04-12.xls; it shows Port Saint Lucie's population estimate as 130,959. Considering the rate at which the city has been growing, I would not be surprised if it has more than 150,000 people now, but it's best to use a consistent standard rather than a pick-and-choose method. Horologium t-c 11:26, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I wasn't sure the status of population link requirments. And not to be nit-picky, but it shows Port St. Lucie's population at 143,000. Casey14 21:05, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Florida or La Florida???

The name is in Spanish for Easter, then: Florida or La Florida??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.43.240.125 (talk) 15:07, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

The Spanish name for Easter is Pascua, not Florida. Pascua Florida would mean "abundant flowery easter"

Higher Education

The note that University of Miami is the largest private university is no longer true. Nova Southeastern is now the largest. It seems out of fairness that a few of the larger private universities should be mentioned: Nova Southeastern University, University of Miami, Barry University, Stetson, Embry-Riddle University. It is true that you can't include everyone, but focusing only on University of Miami seems biased. 65.3.132.212 02:54, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Do you have a reliable citation for that statement? I will add it in, along with mentions of the others you mentioned (plus Rollins College) if you can provide verification for me. The whole education section needs to be rewritten in any case, since it is confusingly written and full of unsourced, PoV statements from someone who apparently doesn't care for testing standards. You will not be able to add it yourself unless you register; the article has been semi-protected again due to high levels of vandalism from unregistered users. Horologium t-c 13:09, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, The Chronicle of Higher Education has the data but it is a pay service. U.S. News and World Report Best Colleges provides data for undergraduate enrollments only. The data are most easily accessible at http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/classifications/ - but here it is a couple of years behind. Enrollment data for Nova is a total student body of around 26,000- U of Miami has 15,670 - Barry has 9,298. Lastly, Independent Colleges & Universities of Florida (ICUF) keeps the data but it is tricky to find. And yes, I forgot to mention Rollins, though I was focused on size. I think a list of all independent colleges that are SACS accredited might be offered- ICUF has the list on the website. Thanks!

Actually, your mention of the IUCF made it very easy to find the data in an easily-digested format, since this report has a nice chart (on page 7/Acrobat pg 12) which lists all of the IUCF member institutions and their enrollments. I was stunned to discover that Saint Leo University is the third-largest private university in the state. I'll take a whack at editing that section tomorrow; I'm off to bed. Horologium t-c 05:02, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad the links were helpful. I was surprised as well to see St. Leo there also. Good luck with the editing and thanks for all your work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.3.196.16 (talk) 04:08, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

It took me a couple of days to get around to it, but I expanded the colleges section considerably. I only listed the four largest colleges, but the citation links to the PDF document with the full listing for those who are interested. I also added information about the 28 community colleges in the state; with 109 separate campuses, they might be a bit notable. (grin) Horologium t-c 05:05, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

The article refers to Florida's state song as "OLd folks at home", when it is more commenly known (In florida [I should know I live there]) as "Swanee River"

Environment article inconsistencies

This is something that confused me and need clarification in the Environment section.

On the main page for Florida this statement appears.

"Florida ranks forty-sixth in total energy consumption per capita, despite the heavy reliance on air conditioners and pool pumps. This includes coal, natural gas, petroleum, and retail electricity sales. It is estimated that only 1% of energy in the state is generated through renewable resources.[14]"

However if you follow the link to the environment article this statement is made.

"Florida ranks fifth in municipal energy use per capita due to the continuous use of air conditioning and pool pumps. It is estimated that only 1% of energy in the state is generated through renewable resources."

These statements contradict each other. Or is total energy consumption per capita somehow different than municipal energy use per capita? stranger things have happened.

Dezarus 23:53, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. Since the link is dead, I can't read the original article which is cited, but the two figures are related. If one includes the District of Columbia, there are 51 states (I know, DC isn't a state, but work with me), and a state which is 46th highest is 5th lowest. It is likely that one of the figures is counting from highest-to-lowest, and one from lowest-to-highest, but without the original citation, it's not possible to determine whether Florida is a high-usage state or a low-usage state. Our energy consumption is certainly above average in the summer, but it's below average in the winter. Do we have any editors here with Lexis/Nexis access to check the original citation? Horologium t-c 04:47, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Capital Punishment

Any clue when the moratoria on the death penalty will end? It's been a while. Emperor001 14:18, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Never mind. I saw on another article that Christ removed the moratoria but now there's a new one nationwide. -- Emperor001 (talk) 17:54, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Pruning

I have eliminated about 17K of extraneous information from this article by creating two new article with all of their info from this article (Transportation in Florida and Education in Florida) and reducing those sections to summations, and by adding a link to Florida census statistical areas in the Demographics section and removing the duplicative list in this article. We are currently at about 79K, which is still far too large for any single article, but a few more bold edits like the ones I just made might get this article back down to something a little more manageable. Horologium t-c 17:27, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Ethnic composition

I have been watching the slow-motion edit war over the adding of the ethnic background list (complete with little flags) and I have to say that I side with the editor who has been removing it, or converting it to prose, rather than a table. This is not something that is really relevant to the article. Looking at some of the Good Article state articles (Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and West Virginia) and the one Featured Article state article (Minnesota), none of them contain this information, which is rather trivial. If we were discussing actual origins (that is, place of birth of residents) it would be a lot more relevant, but not a simple list of backgrounds, few of which have had any significant impact on the state. I'd say that Greeks (especially in Tarpon Springs), Cubans, and the various Caribbean immigrant groups (none of which appear on the list) have played a more important role in the development of the state's culture. This article needs to be made smaller, not larger, and another table of dubious importance is not worth an edit war. Horologium t-c 22:48, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. That is exactly what I am trying to say. I have left messages on the initial editor who placed the list in the article, but nobody reply. I don't know what I can do, except reverting. Chris! _ct 22:57, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation of 'Florida'

Britcom is insisting that the OED pronunciation of 'Florida' be used at the top of the article. I think that the pronunciations (flôr′ə də, flär′ədə) given at yourdictionary are closer to what I hear from many residents of the state. While the OED is a superior source for the meaning and etymology of English words, as a British publication it is likely not the best source for pronunciation of an American state name. The main point, however, is that the pronunciation of 'Florida' varies among even natives of the state, and it is not appropriate for us to prescribe one pronunciation over another. -- Donald Albury 11:17, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

You have a reasonable point, Donald, about the appropriateness of specifying one pronunciation. I would note that the IPN (ˈflɒrɪdə) seems to be basically the same as the sounded pronunciation at "YourDictionary", which I think they are representing with (flär′ədə). I've spent most of my relatively long life in the state, living from far southern to far northern, and have really only noticed two common variations. The usual version is, I believe, in terms of IPN code: flɒrɪdʌ, rather than the flɒrɪdə of the article, but that's just my opinion. In some parts of the state, especially the north, one commonly hears what I think of as: floʊrɪdʌ or even floʊdʌ. Perhaps this proves your point, that the whole issue is arguable. In any case, I can live with the current pronunciation if needed. Tim Ross 16:20, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

My own relaxed pronunciation is more like flärdə (2 syllables). I was born and raised in Miami, but I did live in northern Florida (Gainesville and Tallahassee) for about 15 years. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dalbury (talk • contribs) 21:22, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

More pruning

I created List of Florida state symbols and moved the list to the new page, with a link in the See also section. This cut antoher long list (and 5K) from this article, and is in line with similar articles (there are at least 12; see this search result); one of these (List of Maryland state symbols) is a featured list, and I plan to rework the Florida list into a similar format. This is the first time in a LONG time that this article has not had a warning to split the page when doing an edit on the whole article. There are a couple of other lists that need to be addressed, and the references need to be checked for accuracy, formatting, and whether they are still active, but I think we are making good progress now. Horologium t-c 17:36, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I have finished structuring, referencing, and creating a brief introduction for List of Florida state symbols; I'd like to have a couple of people take a look at it and sanity check it before I send it up for review. Horologium t-c 02:48, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Semi-Protected again

Once again, I have had the page semi-protected, as the IP vandals have started hitting the page again. Sorry to the two or three IP editors who have actually usefully contributed. Horologium t-c 11:55, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

No consensus for radical deletions on the Florida page.

Horologium's attempts to gut the Florida page do not have my approval, nor did he reach a consensus before he started deleting whole categories on this page. By reverting I am merely educating everyone here just how much Horologium has removed from this page. I think Horologium should be invited to go and tinker with subjects he knows something about because he doesn't appear to have anything constructive to add to the subject of Florida. --Britcom 09:25, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

You reverted several unchallenged edits up to two weeks old without even providing an edit summary. Please discuss this here before you revert again. As for your claim to be educating people, that sounds like making a point. -- Donald Albury 10:51, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Don't make me laugh.--Britcom 11:42, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

When you have read and understand Article Length and Summary Style, come back and we can discuss this in a civilized fashion. You are the only editor who has taken issue with changes that were made on the 19th of October; there have been about 150 edits since then. Consensus does not necessarily mean "what Britcom wants". As for your massive assumptions of bad faith and personal attacks, I suggest that your temperament may be suited to working elsewhere; you already have been blocked repeatedly for incivility. Instead of attacking me, try using the talk page first. You reverted five times before bringing it up on the talk page; I had addressed my changes on the talk page. (Added later: in fact, 5 of your last 12 edits anywhere in Wikipedia were the reversions I mentioned; it is you who appears to be not contributing much.)

Nothing has been deleted; all of the material has been moved to subpages. Tables which duplicated material elsewhere in Wikipedia were removed, and {{seealso}} links were included as appropriate to direct readers to the relevant articles. There is no reason that this article should be 98K in length, which put it in the list of the 1,000 longest articles in Wikipedia (it was number 863). Horologium (talk) 11:04, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

The largest usage of memory is formatting and images, not content you HAVE deleted content. You have made this State page one of the worst kludges on the pedia and it now ranks below many other states in usability and informative content. It is awful. Others besides myself have told you that they don't like what you are doing to the page, but you just ignored them. Many people here have been reverting you and that means its you who can't take the hint. You are the only one here that has been reverting me. I am sorry to be so blunt, but what does that tell you?

Florida is one of the largest and most popular States, so naturally its page is going to be large. You can't change that without damaging it. Is that what you want here?

As for being blocked in the past, it doesn't mean I am a criminal. It just means that I have an Admin who hates me because I dare to point out his UN POV political agenda here. He is a climatologist who has abused his powers on many people here on Wikipedia so he can advance his agenda and he has even been put on probation for his past abuses. I leave those comments up on my talk page because I am currently active in getting him banned. That is what I do here. I root out the bad apples. So why didn't you address the subject of this thread? You just wanted to attack me? --Britcom 11:42, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I went and took a look at article length. There are exactly twelve state articles that are longer than this, including both featured articles, and one of the four good articles (which was 75.4K when it was elevated to GA, FWIW.) Of the FA or GA articles, the largest state represented in that list is Pennsylvania, the fifth largest state (just behind us). Its article is 65.5K. California (the largest state by population, and third largest by size, is 71.5K (it's a B-class article just like this one). It would appear that article quality is not tied to state size.

Looking at Minnesota and Oklahoma, the two FA states, I am struck by the lack of embedded lists in the articles (only one in Oklahoma, and two in Minnesota). Your preferred version of the article (the 98K one) has four chunks of text or tables in it that duplicate information that is elsewhere in Wikipedia—the list of census statistical areas (now linked to Florida census statistical areas), congressional delegation (now linked to United States Congressional Delegations from Florida), Highways (now linked to Transportation in Florida, which was a word-for-word cut and paste from this article), and state symbols (now linked to List of Florida state symbols, which was on the front page of Wikipedia on 22 November 2007, as a Did you know? feature). Additionally, there have been quite a few improvements in accuracy, grammar, and citation formatting. Nothing has been lost, just moved to more appropriate subarticles.

As for being reverted by lots of people—Sorry, you are the only person who has reverted me. Look at the edit history of the article if you doubt the accuracy of that statement. Nobody else has complained about my edits to this page, either on the talk page or in the edit summaries, for those who bother with them. I would have discussed the issue with anyone who addressed it on the talk page (or even left an edit summary, which you failed to do on each of the six occasions you reverted to an older version of the article).

I brought up your running battle with WMC to address your civility, not to call you a criminal. Your first post in this topic was quite incivil towards me, and I noted that you have been warned in the past (and blocked because of it; all three of your blocks were at least in part for incivility). The one time you received a block for an additional reason, it was for 3RR, which is essentially what you did here in slow motion. Disagreeing with my edits is one thing, but your statement I think Horologium should be invited to go and tinker with subjects he knows something about because he doesn't appear to have anything constructive to add to the subject of Florida is simply inexcusable. I grew up in Florida, have lived here or have had family in the state continuously since 1971, live here now (and don't want to leave again) and have contributed an enormous amount of time and effort on Florida-related articles. I know quite a bit about the state, and feel that my two GA contributions (on Coral Springs, Florida and Fort Lauderdale, Florida) speak to that. Horologium (talk) 13:53, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Horologium, I don't throw the "incivil" epithet around like you do, but if you insist on discussing the subject, go back and read your incivil post on my usertalk page (this is exactly why I leave such comments on my page, so everybody can read them.) In effect you are pointing to the posts of a known abuser and saying here, "see, Britcom is incivil because he has posts on his userpage that say so." By doing that you have compounded WMC's abuse and brought yourself down to his level. If this was meant to discredit me and intimidate me into keeping silent on the subject of your edits, it hasn't worked, I suggest you adopt a more inclusive and respectful and less accusatory tone, then you are sure to ruffle fewer feathers. After all, it is edits on Florida that are the subject of this discussion, not me. The unrelated contents of someone's usertalk page are irrelevant here. But since you insist on making them here, I feel the need to set the record straight now. The 3RR that you refer to, never happened, and WMC is a known abusive Admin who has been sanctioned for his abuses here on Wikipedia and who continues to use Wikipedia to promote his agenda and lashes out at people who don't accept his biased opinion on Global Warming. Anyone can check the history of the incidents. So check your own facts before you attempt to tar someone just so you can get your way, don't just assume that everything written on Wikipedia is literally true.

Now that I have pointed out the smokescreen. Lets get to your accusation of "slow motion" 3RR on the Florida page. You have been matching me revert for revert. Either you maintain that I don't have the right to revert or you maintain that only you have the right to revert, which is it? I reverted your edits to bring the page back to the state it had been in for a long time. Your edits were too radical and encompassed removing or radically changing large blocks of content. This upset other people too who also have undone your changes. (that also qualifies as a revert) You should have sought input from the rest of us at each step rather than making unilateral changes en mass. That is why your edits needed to be reverted en mass. If you had made gradual edits that could have been edited along the way to suit other editors idea of what should be on the page then that would be normal, but huge single entry edits are disruptive to other editors. You left no choice but revert. I guess that may be your way of excluding others participation. This is supposed to be a collective effort. Not just a one man show. Every block of text that you change was put there by someone else and they may not agree that your change was needed, or improved the article. I am not sure at this point if you step on other peoples toes inadvertently, or if you just don't care about other people.

Your argument that the page is too big has nothing to do with the text. Text does not take up as much room as all of the other things that can be reformatted or removed. Furthermore, the population of a State has no relationship to the State's page size, rather the importance and popularity of a State is the factor that should be relevant. Florida should be at least as large as California, not markedly smaller. Florida has a lot to show and has a much longer history than most other States. Florida is not just a State of the union, it is an international destination, maybe even the most popular international destination. That warrants an article with a lot of content. So hacking an important article just to arbitrarily cut down its KB size is ill conceived.

Also, I want to clarify, that I don't "prefer" the version that I reverted to, nor do I want a large KB size article, I just want to maintain the content on the page that people would expect to find here. If you find that unacceptable, then why not just have a map of the State and dispense with all of the text? Would that suit your purpose? --Britcom 02:41, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) Do you really feel that my post to your talk page was incivil? I find that just a little surprising. There's no personal attacks, there's no condescension, there's no assumption of bad faith. The only thing incivil in that entire section is your rude response, which is both hostile and dismissive.

I never referred to your talk page; I referred to your block log ([2]), which is not the same thing. I was not attempting to intimidate you, I was telling you that you were (once again) acting in an incivil fashion, something for which you have a well-documented history. Your first post was a stream of condescension, arrogance, personal attacks, and assumption of bad faith, and while I am always willing to justify my edits, your attitude was not conducive to any type of constructive discussion. Your intemperate remarks to Donald Albury at the beginning and end of this discussion are additional examples, and your attempt to exclude him from from the discussion certainly flies in the face of your assertions that this article is supposed to be a collective effort.

As to the revert history, I have extracted all of the "major changes" in the article, other than the obvious blanking and random overwriting vandalism, starting with my first edit on 19 October:

• 10:32, 19 October 2007 Horologium (Talk | contribs) (98,568 bytes) (removed some OR, copy-editing.)
• 11:50, 19 October 2007 Horologium (Talk | contribs) (93,144 bytes) (→Metropolitan areas - added {{seealso}} link to Florida census statistical areas and removed redundant table.)
• 11:53, 19 October 2007 Horologium (Talk | contribs) (92,811 bytes) (→Largest cities and towns - removed cities with <100,000 people; they are still on the template, and none of them are particularly notable.)
• 11:54, 19 October 2007 Horologium (Talk | contribs) (92,837 bytes) (→Metropolitan areas - added clear to allow tidy lineup in next section.)
• 12:11, 19 October 2007 Horologium (Talk | contribs) (86,402 bytes) (→Transportation - Added {{seealso}} link to new Transportation in Florida article; reduced section to summation.)
• 12:25, 19 October 2007 Horologium (Talk | contribs) (81,754 bytes) (/* Education * Added seealso link to new Education in Florida article, which contains all of the original data here. Reduced section to a summary of article.)
• 11:46, 20 October 2007 Horologium (Talk | contribs) (80,933 bytes) (→Government - Added seealso link to United States Congressional Delegations from Florida. Removed redundant list of congressional reps.)
• 02:27, 21 October 2007 Britcom (Talk | contribs) (98,383 bytes) (Revert to revision 164385763 dated 2007-10-13 23:30:39 by EikwaR using popups)
• 08:49, 21 October 2007 Horologium (Talk | contribs) (80,520 bytes) (Revert to revision 165926270 dated 2007-10-20 21:57:11 by Chrishomingtang using popups)
• 01:04, 22 October 2007 Britcom (Talk | contribs) (98,509 bytes) (Revert to revision 166024933 dated 2007-10-21 10:12:42 by Kwamikagami using popups)
• 04:48, 22 October 2007 Lilgunner94 (Talk | contribs) (80,865 bytes) (Undid revision 166222572 by Britcom (talk))
• 04:48, 22 October 2007 ClueBot (Talk | contribs) (98,509 bytes) (Reverting possible vandalism by Special:Contributions/Lilgunner94. If this is a mistake, report it. Thanks, ClueBot. (32589) (Bot))
• 04:58, 22 October 2007 Lilgunner94 (Talk | contribs) (80,865 bytes) (Don't delete useful information . You deleted"Florida is the 4th most populated state .")
• 05:01, 22 October 2007 Blanchardb (Talk | contribs) m (98,509 bytes) (Undid revision 166245955 by Lilgunner94 (talk))
• 07:47, 22 October 2007 Horologium (Talk | contribs) (80,865 bytes) (Revert to revision 166217804 dated 2007-10-22 05:24:38 by Flyguy649 using popups)
• 09:16, 29 October 2007 Britcom (Talk | contribs) (98,509 bytes) (Revert to revision 166246243 dated 2007-10-22 10:01:07 by Blanchardb using popups)
• 11:28, 29 October 2007 Horologium (Talk | contribs) (80,865 bytes) (Revert to revision 166706072 dated 2007-10-24 08:27:37 by Horologium using popups)
• 01:32, 15 November 2007 Britcom (Talk | contribs) (98,509 bytes) (Revert to revision 166246243 dated 2007-10-22 10:01:07 by Blanchardb using popups)
• 09:02, 15 November 2007 Horologium (Talk | contribs) (80,882 bytes) (Revert to revision 171559092 dated 2007-11-15 00:40:20 by Horologium using popups)
• 12:27, 18 November 2007 Horologium (Talk | contribs) (78,576 bytes) (Created List of Florida state symbols; removed list from this page and provided link in See also section. Removed a few redundant links in that section.)
• 03:06, 3 December 2007 Britcom (Talk | contribs) (98,561 bytes) (Revert to revision 171641705 dated 2007-11-15 11:29:15 by Dalbury using popups)
• 07:37, 3 December 2007 Horologium (Talk | contribs) (78,960 bytes) (Undid revision 175437896 by Britcom (talk) Reverted.)
• 04:08, 4 December 2007 Britcom (Talk | contribs) (98,561 bytes) (Revert to revision 175437896 dated 2007-12-03 08:06:22 by Britcom using popups)
• 05:27, 4 December 2007 Horologium (Talk | contribs) (80,154 bytes) (Undid revision 175677676 by Britcom (talk) Reverted.)

Notice that the only people in this list other than you and me are three people involved in an edit war revolving around Lilgunner94 on 22 October, and note that he was blocked on 22 October for harassment of people involved in reverting his edits on this article. (He was also in violation of 3RR, but the harassment was more significant.) Your efforts to claim that I have been reverted by multiple editors are simply false; I point out again that you are the only person to have reverted my edits, and the only one who has complained about them. Also notice that in every single one of my edits where I removed something, I noted the new article to which the information had been moved.

Also note that I didn't do mass edits; each edit covered a specific section, and I did address it in the talk section (albeit as a fait accompli), whereas you didn't even bother to do that before you started reverting multiple edits. If anyone had addressed objections on the talk page, I would have stopped and immediately discussed my actions. Large-scale editing of this page had been discussed in July/August, with a suggestion to drastically scale back the information on this page, so I was not acting entirely on my own. In regard to your assertion that I am stepping on people's toes through deletion (or more accurately, moving, since that is what I did), if nobody edited the contributions of others, we wouldn't have an encyclopedia, we'd have a BBS or unmonitored discussion forum. Sometimes, articles need to be edited, which may involve the removal or modification of previously added material.

You keep bringing up the odd concepts of "popularity" and "importance" of the state. All states are "popular" and "important", from sparsely populated Wyoming to populous California, or from little Rhode Island to massive Alaska. Those terms are ill-defined and subjective criteria at best, and have no bearing on what should or should not be in the article. And by the way, the Florida article is not "markedly smaller" than the California article, it's bigger, even after all of the moves I have made. Neither article is well-written, however, which is part of what I am trying to address. It's not just size, but duplication of existing articles (or newly created articles which duplicate the information previously available here) and lots of embedded lists. The Manual of Style strongly discourages bare lists (see Embedded Lists, and there is no way that an article with a bunch of bare embedded lists will make it through Good Article nomination. This is not a presumption on my part, but rather personal experience.

You seem to want to emphasize Florida's appeal as a tourist destination; I'd like you to direct your attention to WikiTravel, which is the appropriate place to search for travel information. This is an encyclopedia, not a travel guide or a tour book. People are not going to use the Wikipedia article on the entire state as a guide when planning a trip to Walt Disney World, St. Augustine, or Miami.

Your last point is simply pointless polemic; it doesn't merit a response, but I will respond nonetheless. Moving a few sections of the article to appropriate subarticles is not the same thing as reducing the article to a single picture, and if you seriously consider them to be in any way equivalent, you need to reassess your ability to contribute constructively to Wikipedia. Again, my changes were made in full compliance with WP:Article Length and WP:Summary Style; if you are unwilling or unable to consider those when assessing my changes, there is nothing further that can be accomplished here. Horologium (talk) 17:49, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Britcom, you are the only one objecting here. It is you who is going against consensus. You do not have a veto on what happens with this article. -- Donald Albury 14:14, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Donald, Please do not antagonize. Horologium and I are discussing Florida.

Sorry, you don't have any right to exclude me from this discussion. If you want to discuss consensus, then you have to acknowledge that there are other editors around. I think Horologium is right and you are wrong. If that antagonizes you, so be it. -- Donald Albury 11:32, 11 December 2007 (UTC)