Talk:Iowa

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Notable Iowans

How popular are the 55 "Notable Iowans"? Here is the number of visits to each person's page in March, from Grok, ordered descending:

1. Ashton Kutcher 203327
2. John Wayne 174833
3. Herbert Hoover 134216
4. Elijah Wood 95850
5. George Washington Carver 77384
6. Jefferson Davis 69292
7. Brandon Routh 55274
8. Johnny Carson 51832
9. Slipknot* 48190
10. Shawn Johnson 46120
11. Cloris Leachman 42119
12. Glenn Miller 41652
13. Kurt Warner 31778
14. Andy Williams 25664
15. Kate Mulgrew 22272
16. Tom Arnold 21474
17. Norman Borlaug 19491
18. Donna Reed 19025
19. Bill Bryson 18394
20. William Frawley 17312
21. Tionne Watkins 15430
22. Henry A. Wallace 15102
23. Grant Wood 11369
24. Mamie Eisenhower 10957
25. Harry Hopkins 10792
26. John L. Lewis 10364
27. Bix Beiderbecke 10147
28. Aldo Leopold 10040
29. Carrie Chapman Catt 9741
30. Dan Gable 9198
31. Lolo Jones 9080
32. Bob Feller 8012
33. Robert Noyce 5674
34. Lou Henry Hoover 4436
35. John Vincent Atanasoff 4421
36. Cap Anson 4253
37. Meredith Willson 4033
38. Susan Glaspell 3765
39. Frank Gotch 3079
40. Harry Reasoner 2841
41. Buffalo Bill Cody 2828
42. Zach Johnson 2663
43. George Gallup 2592
44. James Van Allen 2503
45. Ann Landers 2446
46. Stanley B. Prusiner 2041
47. Nile Kinnick 1794
48. Simon Estes 1368
49. Alan J. Heeger 1262
50. Dazzy Vance 1235
51. Red Faber 965
52. Abigail Van Buren 921
53. Clair Cameron Patterson 673
54. Bess Streeter Aldrich 414
55. Maynard Reece 204

MEAN SCORE: 25493.49 (Andy Williams and higher)

Note: Slipknot should not have been included, since it is not a person, just like the Iowa State Fair and Iowa caucus are not persons.

I propose we delete all entertainers, writers, and athletes who have a score of less than 5,000, and take a hard look at all others less than 2500. If someone can't garner 2500 visits, they really need to win a Nobel to be included, I think. Perhaps I am being too draconian again... Thoughts? Bill Whittaker (talk) 18:18, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I would say this is a reasonable proposal, with an easily measured inclusion criteria. Either way, the section needs to be written in paragraph form and all entries need sourcing. CTJF83 chat 18:26, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Two other suggested entries who spent a lot of time in Iowa:

• John Brown (abolitionist) 73638 (ranked between 5 and 6)
• Black Hawk (chief) 7361 (ranked between 32 and 33)

Sounds good to me. CTJF83 chat 18:30, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Remove navbox?

I propose we get rid of the nav box at the bottom of the article just under "Realted Information". I find it hard to believe there are many folks who use these things to get around WP; IMHO it is pretty ugly as well... Bill Whittaker (talk) 16:00, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean the state direction box? CTJF83 chat 16:06, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

This thing:

Bill Whittaker (talk) 17:49, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Ya, that's what I thought, delete it, unnecessary. CTJF83 chat 18:07, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I've never liked those things (mostly for their size and the fact that they can be described as maps that are too simplified - the geographic relationship of Iowa and Wisconsin is no different than that of Arizona and Colorado, according to these), but I sort of relented when they got relegated to the bottom of the article. I will say that I've used the county versions on occasion, but I'm not really sure what the purpose of the state versions are, unless someone for some reason wanted to "travel" across the country using state articles in a certain cardinal direction. (There are already maps on the article that do a fine job of showing neighboring states.) I guess either removal or keeping them where they are is fine with me, I don't really care which. (Again, what I really didn't like was when they were originally plopped in the middle of every geography section, as geography sections on state articles are already usually packed with images.) AlexiusHoratius 18:14, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

OK, it's gone. If someone really loves this box and want to argue for it, they can start discussion again. Thanks, Bill Whittaker (talk) 15:14, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Cyclone State?

While I appreciate Hawkeye-Cyclone rivarly, search of google for "Cyclone state" came up with no reliable refs to the term being used for the state as a whole, just a passing reference to a billboard put up by a Cyclone fan. A few blog/facebook entries from Cyclone fans, but nothing from newspapers, books, etc. to indicate this is a widespread nickname. May have been put up because of the Saturday UI-ISU game. Can anyone find a better ref? Bill Whittaker (talk) 17:31, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

My opinion would be to keep it to the official one (Hawkeye state) and dump the others, as I've never heard it called the Cyclone state and certainly not the "Tall Corn" state. A lot of states have a lot of nicknames that someone could probably dig up some sort of "reference" for, but that doesn't mean we have to pack them all into the infobox. AlexiusHoratius 17:41, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

PS - take a look at the disaster that is the Michigan infobox. AlexiusHoratius 17:44, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I'd never heard of "Cyclone State" before, and the news article was the best I found to support it. I have no issues removing everything but the official one. VernoWhitney (talk) 17:45, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

In my 15 years as an Iowegian, I've never heard it called the "Hawkeye State", either. I think "Tall Corn State" and "Hawkeye State" are outdated 19th century expressions, vestiges from the era when everyone and everything had a nickname. (Also, until right now, I've never used "Iowegians" or heard us called that before, I'm glad that was removed from the article.) The only nicknames I've actually heard for Iowa are unprintable, coined by our friends in neighboring states. However, Wikipedia had deemed that we fill in the "Nickname" blank, and "Hawkeye State" and "Tall Corn State" are at least verifiable in the musty tomes of our forefathers. Could be worse, as Horatius pointed out, at least no one calls us "The Lady of Lake"... Bill Whittaker (talk) 00:18, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

"Blue Plate Special" is a printable demonym ;) (I'm barely old enough to remember that one...). Yeah, although it seems like every state has at least one nickname, only a handful (Lone Star State, Bay State...) are actually used very often. I doubt that anyone in casual conversation has ever refered to the Centennial State or the Beehive State by those terms. Like you said, though, I suppose we should stick something into the infobox field. AlexiusHoratius 00:51, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I concur with Hawkeye only. CTJF83 chat 00:09, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Trim "Cities" section?

The Cities section (changed, inexplicably, from "Attractions") has become a spammy dumping ground for info about cities that probably belong in each city's article. Anyone care to pare it back? Perhaps call it "Attractions" again, since it has a "Statewide" section? Bill Whittaker (talk) 17:22, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

The Demographics already has a "major cities" section (which could use some prose in addition to the table, but that's another matter) - my suggestion would be to re-name the section as "Culture" or "Arts and culture" or something (that's basically what it is) and then make Culture of Iowa an actual article (which could be expanded as well) and move overly specific stuff there. AlexiusHoratius 17:55, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm cool with either above, but definitely change it from "cities" and trim. CTJF83 chat 00:27, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

OK,

Changed title back to "Attractions"

I removed references to all “attractions” that lack an article page (but made 2 redlinks to things that should have articles). I removed some things that are not actually attractions, such as the Ames Straw Poll (no one can visit a straw poll).

Got rid of a lot of puffery and low-level attractions such as the Englert Theater (nothing personal, I love the Englert, but it is not worthy of being on the Iowa page.) Removed a lot of wordage explaining why things are interesting; if someone want to know why, they can just look on those pages. I agree with Al H., need an expanded Culture of Iowa page. Bill Whittaker (talk) 02:19, 27 November 2010 (UTC)