Talk:U.S. state

Request for comment on state-equivalents

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is a rough consensus in the below discussion to oppose including these territories. Although determining consensus is not merely an exercise in counting noses, there is a clear preponderance of editors opposing the inclusion and there are no policy-based reasons to discount those opinions. The limited opinions in favor of inclusion do not advance any policy reasons to include and the citations advanced in favor of inclusion have not persuaded the discussion participants. (non-admin closure) Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 06:40, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

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The question is, should a section about state-equivalents be included in the U.S. states article? The U.S. Census Bureau defines 6 state-equivalents: American Samoa, the District of Columbia, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Even though these areas are not U.S. states, they are treated as though they are states (for statistical purposes) by the U.S. Census Bureau, and by other federal agencies of the United States (such as the U.S. Postal Service). Those opposing inclusion of these entities argue that they are not relevant to the article, while those in favor say they are relevant. There is a previous discussion about this issue in the section above (the section entitled, "Reverted state-equivalents section"). 02:17, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Oppose - there is no legally-recognized category of "state equivalents": each of these has its own unique history and status. This article is about actual states, and does not include, say, Wisconsin territory either. --Orange Mike | Talk 23:17, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

• Support a mention, though in a way that makes their status clear. They're often discussed in contexts where states are discussed and are therefore relevant enough to be brought up at least briefly in this article. --Aquillion (talk) 04:21, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose -- Concur with Orange Mike. We already have an article on Political divisions of the United States that covers those issues in detail. This article is already a gigantic mess as is and the last thing it needs is to become even more confusing. If a user is unable to use search engines, the multiple infoboxes in this article, or the parent United States article to drill down to the existing article that already covers those issues ad nauseum, they need remedial courses in basic literacy, computer literacy, or Web browsing. Please review WP:NOT. Wikipedia is not a textbook. And this is not the Simple English Wikipedia. --Coolcaesar (talk) 06:41, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose -- Calling them equivalents is demonstrably false. "Equivalent" means two things are essentially equal. The essence of statehood is clearly laid out in the constitution and the cited entities aren't anything like states--getting assigned a zip code does not mean you're a state. Glendoremus (talk) 20:09, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose: The USCB & USPS may use the term state-equivalents when organizing their work, but the term is a misnomer. While treated as like a state for statistical and postal purposes (read in here "organizational ease & convenience"), the fact remains – these jurisdictions are not U.S. states (which is the scope of this article). Drdpw (talk) 22:16, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support: The 6 mentioned jurisdictions are first-order administrative divisions just like the U.S. states. Because they are not U.S. states, they don't belong in the list of the 50 states. However, they could be mentioned in their own section. See this link: [1] it says "Census Bureau treats IAs as state equivalents" ("IAs" means "Island Areas", which are American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands). In another link ([2]), the following was said: "States are the primary governmental divisions of the United States. The Census Bureau also recognizes the District of Columbia as a State equivalent in the economic census. The Island Areas (which include Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands) are also recognized as State equivalents in the Economic Census of Island Areas."

Similar information is also at this link: [3] These 6 entities are similar to states in many ways. For example, the 5 major U.S. territories have governors just like states, they have legislative assemblies just like states, and they have constitutions (or the equivalent of constitutions) just like states. In addition, in 5 of the 6 jurisdictions (all of them except American Samoa), the people born in those jurisdictions are U.S. citizens, just like in the U.S. states. So a person born in the Northern Mariana Islands is a U.S. citizen. Even in American Samoa, they are "U.S. Nationals" (U.S. Nationality is granted at birth in all jurisdictions of the U.S.) Also, the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories have congressional districts just like the U.S. states; see for example Guam's at-large congressional district. Consider also that the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories have U.S. district courts just like the states (see for example United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, which appeals to the First Circuit just like Massachusetts and New Hampshire). LumaP15 (talk) 00:35, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose: Sure, for statistics (census) and special obscure record/admin keeping (US postal) you can make units for comparative purposes but it remains that these are not states and no, we don't need or would want a tacked on section devoted to them in this article, which is hardly a statistics article, indeed statistics is the like the least important thing in this topic. The proposal is basically the very model of, tangential, rabbit hole, poor writing/organization. No objection to a see also link to Political divisions of the United States and Territories of the United States (Another way to say this, is the topic is already complete in coverage without the proposed addition. The proposal is basically for an entirely self-contained, extraneous or orthogonal, section addition, that is a truncated duplicate of other topics, like adding a section entitled, 'Things that are not U.S. states': '(1) List of sovereign states - 'these things are not US states but in some ways they can be compared to US states, they are called states, they have governments, a broader type of sovereignty . . . etc. etc.') No. Please, no. -- (I have added to my comment and re-signed) Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:21, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose - these are not states. The government and citizenship / immigration differs from the United States and is varied among these locations. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:22, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Comment. The only U.S. territory with its own immigration system is American Samoa (the rest are part of the main U.S. immigration system). Also, the only U.S. territory where U.S. citizenship is not granted at birth is American Samoa (though, they are still granted U.S. nationality at birth, meaning they can get a U.S. passport). U.S. citizenship is granted in D.C. and the four other territories. LumaP15 (talk) 16:41, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

So ... not like States in diverse ways, not even like each other. I will put a See Also for Insular area and for Territories_of_the_United_States and I think they should not in this article any more than states should be in those articles. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:55, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

• Support – per Aquillion and LumaP15. It's useful for a reader of an article on states to know that things called state equivalents (DC and the territories) exist, especially since these equivalents share features with states (they're regional subdivisions of the country, have their own regional governments, are to varying degrees represented in the federal government, etc.) and are treated as states for some purposes (census, post office). Whether the section title should be "state equivalent" or something else is a separate content issue, but the information should be on the page. The section as written in the thread (which was in the mainspace article at some point) above looks pretty good to me. – Levivich 04:35, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose they are not U.S States so why mention them, if they have equivalence in other areas then those article are were they should be mentioned but I dont see why they need to be here and I dont see any reliable sources that treat them as states. MilborneOne (talk) 12:49, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
• I think two separate issues have been problematically conflated here: first in the prompt, and consequently in many of the following !votes. The first question is one of nomenclature: what do we call occupied U.S. territories which do not have the status of states? The actual legal/administrative term is insular area, though that term also embraces unpopulated territories. Regardless of the term that might ultimately settled upon by consensus, I think a lot of the assertiveness in the oppose !votes comes from particular aversion to "state equivalent"--which, as a matter of WP:WEIGHT, is used in too narrow a set of contexts to justify utilizing it in the manner proposed. But all of that is a separate inquiry entirely from the question of whether we mention the five populated U.S. Territories. I think clearly the article must do at least as much as to pay lip service to their existence with a few sentences of to describe the manner in which they differ in legal and political status, with generous cross-article linking and piping. That is vital information that anyone accessing this article may reasonably be looking for, or at least want to know in a survey article of the topic. In any event, we need to try to disentangle the two questions a little, because it is presenting us with a false choice between two options among many, neither of which is particularly suitable, in my view. Snow ^{let's rap} 15:17, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Disagree, I think the opposes know what is proposed is a separate section (which is in fact a separate topic) and it is not "vital" in the least to this article; it is not needed nor belongs in this article, and does not complete the article but rather sets it on a tangent. (Now, if someone wants to make a different proposal, it can be discussed in a new talk-page section perhaps, but it seems most unlikely given the comments so far that "vital" will get any agreement in any form). -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:58, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Well, we can always ping people back to clarify their positions, I suppose. But I'd be surprised if a significant number of the !votes above were not predicated more in a rejection of the OP's specific proposal. Mind you, I'm not saying that I definitely support a new section: as far as I can tell, such a section would be largely redundant on the "possible new states" section, already in the article. I don't see what would be gained by repeating a summary discussion of those territories and their present status, which section would surely cover a lot of the same ground. Regardless, I do think it is advisable to bear in mind that there are two distinct issues folded into the OP's prompt and that, at a minimum, discussion moving forward needs to address each. Likewise, the value of the RfC is further degraded if we allow ourselves to consider only the options of 1) mentioning these state entities not all, or 2) treating their status as generally equivalent to states. Neither of those options really accords with WP:WEIGHT or what our readers might reasonably expected to find here, and there's a whole spectrum of options of other reasonable middle-ground solutions--most of which would serve better than either of those full-throated extremes. Snow ^{let's rap} 02:19, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose specifically about "state equivalents" but Support adding info about territories Statistically Equivalent just means that some data is merged for the purpose of the census. They aren't states, and not all of the ones mentioned are even incorporated territories (meaning the U.S constitution does not apply there). However, I do believe the article needs to have more information about territories in general. It doesn't need to be a whole section, one sentence in the lead will do. --Puzzledvegetable^{Is it teatime already?} 17:48, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

The underlying problem is the poorly considered decision by someone on the MediaWiki side to not show infoboxes on Wikipedia in mobile mode. In desktop mode any intelligent user can easily cross-reference to that information through the infoboxes. So a compromise approach would be to have a single sentence at the end of the lead paragraphs merely noting that states are one type of political division of the United States, along with the one federal district and the territories (with appropriate links to all those articles). That would help clarify the distinction without running into WP:UNDUE. --Coolcaesar (talk) 12:46, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

I’ve just added the sentence. --Puzzledvegetable^{Is it teatime already?} 17:03, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Alanscottwalker How would you suggest I make this edit? --Puzzledvegetable^{Is it teatime already?} 17:49, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Well, not that way :) I do not get what the problem is, it seems very odd to have an article on what states are, where the lead concerns itself or lists other things. (On another level one of the issues above is misleading readers that state's and territories are essentially the same (eg. equvilant) because they are not. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:28, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Concur with Alanscottwalker. The problem with such a sentence is that it needs to be extremely precise and nuanced (both in its phrasing and in its location in the article) to avoid that misleading implication. It would take an hour or two to work through those delicate issues and I don't have the time right now. Which goes back to the larger issue. We already have an article on Political divisions of the United States and Wikipedia is not a textbook. --Coolcaesar (talk) 07:23, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

• Support Users above keep saying they're "not states." Nobody thinks that they are states. But they are similar to states, in that they are top-level subdivisions of US territory. It makes sense to mention them in the article, in the same way that county equivalents are mentioned in the article on US counties – as top-level subdivisions of states. Whether or not they are specifically termed "state-equivalents" is another issue. You could call them "state analogs" or "similar subdivisions" or whatever it is that you prefer. AlexEng^(TALK) 19:08, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

That analogy is without merit. WP doesn't have a separate article on county-equivalents in the United States, so the article about counties is the next best place to explain that distinction. But the distinction between states, territories, and the federal district is already thoroughly explained in Political divisions of the United States. It sounds like you may be unfamiliar with WP:NOT as well as the difference between an encyclopedia and a textbook. The writing styles are quite different. --Coolcaesar (talk) 04:01, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose Article should stay on topic. Adoring nanny (talk) 10:48, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
• No, but... (Summoned by bot) – No, per Article title policy: "The title indicates what the article is about and distinguishes it from other articles." That said, sometimes an article needs to define its scope a bit more than can be done solely from the article title, especially if there's room for doubt. The fact that we're having this Rfc, implies that there is room for doubt. So, no, we shouldn't have a section about "statelike" entities that encompasses those entities as within the scope of the article topic, but yes, we could, and possibly should, have a brief mention somewhere talking about how non-state entities are not states, as a way of clarifying the scope of the article by exclusion, with appropriate wikilinks so interested parties can find further information elsewhere about them. Mathglot (talk) 05:38, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Semi-protected edit request on 25 January 2020

please remove "is its power" under the heading

With the federal government

Another enumerated congressional power is its power is its taxing and spending power.[42] 2003:CF:747:D700:AC95:4308:B195:DB8C (talk) 11:48, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

 Done –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 15:00, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Pluralize title

The title should be in plural for consistency. Compare Provinces and territories of Canada, States of Germany and many others. I recommend States of the United States, for consistency with Territories of the United States, President of the United States and similar articles. The use of the abbreviation doesn't seem stylistically good here. Since the "S" meens "States", it doesn't really fix the redundancy either. But U.S. states would also be better than the status quo. User38453838 (talk) 07:50, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

See also: Emirates of the United Arab Emirates, States of the Federated States of Micronesia. User38453838 (talk) 14:32, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 5 February 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: consensus to not move. The proposed new name is already a redirect to List of states and territories of the United States (non-admin closure) NNADIGOODLUCK (Talk|Contribs) 19:33, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

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U.S. state → States of the United States – The singular and use of abbreviation is inconsistent with analogous articles, e.g. Emirates of the United Arab Emirates, States of the Federated States of Micronesia, States of Germany, Territories of the United States. The abbreviation in the current title feels unprofessional. "U.S." should generally only be used for organizations with the abbreviation in their official name. User38453838 (talk) 07:37, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

• Comment – States of the United States is a redirect to List of states and territories of the United States, other analogous articles don't have seperate articles about the state as an entity and the list of states. The abbreviation is common on Wikipedia (MOS:USA). – Thjarkur (talk) 17:57, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - the is the WP:COMMONNAME term for this topic, abbreviation included. -- Netoholic @ 03:11, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - The editor proposing this needs to review the archives for this article. This issue has already been debated many times over the past 15 years and the consensus has always been to keep the existing name. --Coolcaesar (talk) 06:36, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

There is only two discussion to rename this article to this proposed title (link: move 1, move 2; the other proposed title is "States and Commonwealths of the United States of America" and "State (United States)"). The 1st is from 2005 with the result "no consensus". The 2nd is from 2015 but only one replying and the discussion is not closed. Hddty (talk) 04:18, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.