Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. states/List of state WikiProjects

Puerto Rico

I think we should move Puerto Rico back into the list along with the states. D.C., Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands (moreso than the smaller territories) are commonly listed in lists of "states," even though they are not states, simply becuase "states" is easier and more common to use than "political divisions" and most of the items on the list are states. Further, most people know right away that they are, in fact, not states, and are simply there so there aren't multiple lists. To have a separate category just for Puerto Rico, in this case, seems like it's overkill and makes things more complicated and less attractive. //MrD9 23:16, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I (obviously) disagree. The separate category isn't just for PR, the fact of the matter is that PR isn't a state...a WProj for DC or GU or AS or the USVI would fall into the same category. That PR happens to be the only WProj currently is the only reason it appears "oh, so all alone"... That said, I'm not averse to the the idea of rewording the text so that PR fits into the description better... something along the lines of "administrative divisions" would handle it, but would probably boggle more people's minds than the current arrangement is likely to... especially since states (unlike other territories) aren't "administrative districts", they're actually semisovereign areas in their own right ("administrative division" implies that the dividing comes from "above", which accurately describes the rôle of PR and other territories, but for states, there's no "dividing" going on, states instead are fundamentally "building up" the Union, rather than being appointed as divisions by the Union)... Tomer^talk 05:13, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I would have to disagree as well. (see Tomer's comments above) Ash Lux 19:05, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Name separators

I think that the long dash is more readable than the pipe because it makes a stronger visual separation between the names. Especially next to Illinois, the pipe looks like an i. I prefer the dash, but pipe separations are more common on Wikipedia. Any other opinions?--Jonathan Kovaciny 01:45, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

But an en dash (or an em dash, hyphen, or any other type of dash, for that matter) is not used in this case. Gramatically, dashes are used to "connect" things that belong together, to disamgibuate, to express ranges, and other things, not to separate lists. The vertical bar, on the other hand, is commonly used on Wikipedia and in other places (which also commonly alternateively use some form of dot) to separate same-level items. //MrD9 03:55, 3 April 2006 (UTC)