User talk:Philosopher

Due to real life commitments, I'm not editing as often as I'd like.

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Cats

Hi Philosopher! Just letting you know that when you add categories to U.S. States which already have the name of the state as a category (i.e. If a page has Category:Hawaii) you don't need to add Category:U.S. states to the page. This is because the state category will already have Category:U.S. states as a parent category. Hope this makes sense. Cheers! -Orashmatash- 17:24, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

The instructions for Category:U.S. states said that the state should be in it as well as the state's category. This makes sense and is consistent with the instructions for eponymous categories at en's WP:EPON. Since our local guideline doesn't touch on that kind of category, I assumed it defaulted to the en.wikipedia guideline, per WP:R. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 17:39, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, Djsasso seems to agree with you (he's reverting the others), so maybe I was mistaken. I still think it's unhelpful for readers if categories that have identically-named subcategories are only in that category. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 17:43, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually I was just reading your comment here now and am surprised by en's instructions on the matter. I have always seen it done this way on en in the subject areas I edit. So its possible I am wrong. Their instructions don't make sense to me to be honest. -DJSasso (talk) 17:46, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that if you don't make an exception to the rule for eponymous categories, articles like Iowa and France, if categorized consistently, will only ever be in Category:Iowa and Category:France, respectively (excluding maintenance categories). Which kind of defeats the purpose of categories, in my opinion. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 17:48, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh I know...to me that is sort of the goal on main articles like a country or state, to reduce down to the most important categories possible. And if you need further categorization you click through the cats. But I can completely see your other point. -DJSasso (talk) 17:51, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Iowa

I found the stat by dividing Iowa's population (3,046,355) by the area in kilometers (145,743 km squared). The mile figures are also off; however, the source I used for the population lists Iowa's square mile population density at 54.5, not the enWP's 53.5 square miles, which leads me to think the mistake is not on our part. Albacore (talk · changes) 22:07, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. Since we don't have a source for the information in the infobox currently, any objection to my sticking the Census information there w/ reference? (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/19000.html, bottom of the page) I think I'll do the same thing to en:Iowa. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:22, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

This is already used as a source in our infobox. Best, Albacore (talk · changes) 23:12, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh, good. Didn't notice that for some reason. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 23:16, 5 December 2011 (UTC)