User talk:Tidying Up/Archive

... just a few odds and ends

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Hello Tidying Up! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. If you decide that you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. You may also push the signature button located above the edit window. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. This is considered an important guideline in Wikipedia. Even a short summary is better than no summary. Below are some recommended guidelines to facilitate your involvement. Happy Editing! -- youngamerican (ahoy hoy) 18:26, 15 February 2007 (UTC) Getting Started Wikipedia Tutorial How to edit a page The five pillars of Wikipedia Manual of Style Be bold in editing How to write a great article WikiProjects Getting your info out there Cite your sources Neutral Point of View Point of View Verifiability Uploading images Image use policy Getting more Wikipedia rules Policy Library Getting Help New contributors' help page Where to ask a question Help Desk Frequently Asked Questions Getting along Wikiquette Civility Sign your posts Wikipedians Conflict resolution Getting technical Cleaning up vandalism Pages needing attention Peer review Utilities Village pump

Stop ce

You appear to make a lot of edits with edit comment "ce", changing e.g. 'to the (direction)' into 'on the (direction)'. Stop that. Did it not strike you as rather odd that almost every article uses "to" and almost none uses "on"? Do you think all Wikipedia contributors to be unaware of the English language? Just to give you an idea of how wrong you are: try "Scotland on the north" (740 Google hits), "Scotland to the north" (20600 Google hits). Please revert your edits of this nature. — SomeHuman 28 Feb2007 05:31-05:42 (UTC)

Thanks for your invitation for a discussion about "borders on" vs. "borders to" usage. I did try a number of other Google searches (following your suggestion).

The phrase "borders Pennsylvania on" gets 272 hits; the phrase "borders Pennsylvania to" gets 24 hits. You may be interested in the following search results as well:

• Virginia ("borders Virginia on" = 49 hits; "borders Virginia to" = 14 hits)
• Mexico ("borders Mexico on" = 353 hits; "borders Mexico to" = 140 hits)
• China ("borders China on" = 532 hits; "borders China to" = 348 hits)
• Ontario ("borders Ontario on" = 45 hits; "borders Ontario to" = 0 (in this context))

Finally I entered the following search phrases in Google (which limit the search to the English language Wikipedia pages), and got the following results:

• site:en.wikipedia.org "borders on" = 1,610 hits
• site:en.wikipedia.org "borders to" = 623 hits

This is not an exhaustive search, and I expect that you can find many examples of the ratio being different (but please do filter out non-geographical useages).

I think that "borders on" is the more grammatical phrase. The useage "That borders on treason!" or "That borders on libel!" are certainly familiar; I assume "That borders to treason!" is not a useage you are familiar with.

I'm not sure if this is a British/USA difference. While I do see a closer "to/on" ratio when I enter in British Isles placenames, also both useages appear (try comparing "borders London on" with "borders London to," and filter out references to Borders books or the group "No Borders" for an interesting comparison).

After thoughtful consideration, my view is: It appears that the phrase "borders to" is used in British English along with "borders on," and that both "borders on" and "borders to" are commonly used outside the UK.

Under these circumstances of both useages being widely used, I'll resist making similar changes in other articles to the phrase that is more commonly-used within Wikipedia ("borders on)" but I won't be reverting any that I've already made.

Again, thanks for the opportunity to discuss this quite interesting topic. Tidying_Up _t 02:25, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I think I see where you make a mistake: you look for "(place) borders on" and "(place) borders to". You should look for "(place) on/to the (direction)", e.g. "(place) to the North". Obviously, "to" is not always more common. Try googling for such places that you know to be located to the XXXX of another, as I did for Scotland knowing it to be located to the North of England, searching for "Scotland on the North" versus "Scotland to the North". (There will probably not be many texts saying 'Scotland to the West' as that would only be true for the North Sea which has more places in that direction and Scotland would not be the first-mentioned). I'm not suggesting that each of your edits was wrong, but only to revert those "on the North" (West/Southeast/...) towards "to the North" (W/SE/...). It does not need to be behind "borders", it might as well be e.g. "located to the East of ..." but beware searching for a too general phrase that would include e.g. "located on the north shore". Kind regards. — SomeHuman 2 Mar2007 02:55-03:00 (UTC)

With all due respect, it appears that you've missed the point. Going through a large number of these variations, and disregarding uses of the phrase which are not in this context, it appears that both useages are used and accepted. Indeed it appears that within Wikipedia "borders on" is the more common variation (disregarding non-geographical uses). Since it appears that both uses are acceptable, I will not be reverting any of changes I've already made. Tidying_Up _t 17:41, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Ohio

I was wondering what was the motivation for the changes you made to the Ohio lead on February 15.

As I examine the changes made...several issues come to mind:

a.) The Economist quote was beautifully elegant and gave a very good modern summary of the uniqueness of Ohio. Plus, unlike most of the article, it is actually cited. :-) Why did you think it required removal?

b.) A major failure point of this article is that it does indeed lack a lot about the Native American contribution to the state. However, starting the lead of the Ohio article with information regarding that contribution is misleading. Unlike other states, like, New Mexico or the Dakotas, the Native American population was exiled from Ohio fairly early on and have played no role in the last 200 years--the years of Ohio history which have made it the state today. It is, alas, inappropriate for the article's lead.Jimbobjoe 14:04, 5 March 2007 (UTC)