Talk:Virginia/Archive 5

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I'd like to reduce the scale of the tables in the Politics section. We've had a table of presidential election results in that section going back to 2014 or so, but that only had 1980 onward. In the last year, that's been brought back to 1952 and a second table of gubernatorial elections since 1953 was added. I feel this is too much for this summary section. My proposal was to trim each of these to 1992/93, but that edit was reverted, so I'd like to ask what the argument for 1952/53 was? Why seventeen election cycles? Why are the numbers for Democrat Timothy B. Stanley's victory over Republican Ted Dalton worth highlighting to the casual reader? I understand these charts have been added to other U.S. state articles, but other stuff exists is not a great rationale for inclusion, and would suggest that maybe they should be reduced too. The prose in the section here gives the information that Virginia voted for Republicans in presidential elections from 1968 to 2004, and for me, going back to 1992 allows the chart to show the most recent pendulum swing towards democratic candidates. My personal preference is for no charts, leave them to the articles like Politics of Virginia or Elections in Virginia, and to use a photograph to illustrate the section, but I think this is a compromise. Thoughts?-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 17:47, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

I think your question has a couple of different components, so let me break them down into a few parts:

First, I've started with 1952 in presidential elections since it's the end of the FDR era and the start of post-War reconstruction in the USA; Eisenhower was the first R elected in 20 years. It's a couple of elections before AK and HI participated so there's an amount of data from the 1952 and 1956 elections that can be garnered prior to their participation. It's also the first presidential election where tracking polls were used and media perception factored into the results far more than previous runs. The media was too intimidated by FDR personally -- particularly the power he held, he literally censured and terminated radio broadcasts he didn't like through the FCC, which he established for that purpose, but I digress -- and the ongoing threat abroad to poll him despite their ability to do so. While they started tracking Truman, Eisenhower became the first president to have consistent polling regarding his approval ratings. In other words, the 1950s were the start of modern American politics.

Second, in the 1950s we began witnessing political realignment in the North and South start to take shape, which arguably just finished in the late-2000s with AL cleaning its Ds from statewide office. Historically, the former supported corporate-backed Rs at the state level while segregation Ds controlled the latter.

Third, VA has an interesting background since it elected govs on single terms. In most states, the charts start with the 1952 presidential election and their 1952/1953/1954 gubernatorial race (depending on how they stack their four-year terms). This allows people to compare recent presidential and gubernatorial elections results together since the timeframe are similar. In VA there's a single year difference in presidential election results. Because VA has a history of picking R presidential nominees and D gubernatorial nominees, I think it contextualizes the political reality that VA likes having checks-and-balances in government (although that appears to be changing due to NOVA land).

Fourth, when composing the charts, you've got to pick a date, and having both presidential and gubernatorial elections begin as close to the 1950s as possible helps buildout my case in points one, two, and three.

Fifth, I also think there're parallels between the political charts and the census charts. Why do we put census charts that go back hundreds of years? Because it contextualizes demographics over a period of time and you can glean population falls and growth. I think the same logic applies to political charts.

Sixth, I do believe it's imperative that state pages have similar levels of content and structure. That's one of the reasons why we put census charts on all of the state pages, it streamlines content. I don't think it's good for the overall project to have differing levels and requirements established. It makes sense to have a uniformed approach and including them (the political charts) goes that direction. It's one of the reasons why I've been changing the formatting in them to match so they're easier to update going forward.

I hope this helps... Buzzards-Watch Me Work (talk) 06:24, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

But why here? Why does the 1952 election results need to be here, rather than on another Wikipedia article? Modern American politics may have begun in the 1950s, but this isn't a history of American politics, its an article that is summary in nature, and can never cover all the data about every topic to do with the state. The table at Elections in Virginia#List of elections and turnout could be a better place to show this info. Our goal here is to present the reader with a quick overview of the facts, and direct them through wikilinks and Template:Main to more specific articles about the state. The first paragraph of the Politics section describes the poltical realignment you mention above, and Wikipedia's Manual of Style suggests that prose is often preferable to long lists. If its important, let's summarize with prose first. If the state has a history of electing governors of the opposite party as the president, let's find a source and add a sentence to the section.

I do appreciate the desire to standardize the U.S. state articles, I agree they're all over the place. I would though suggest starting a thread at WP:STATES, which would give an effort greater authority and build consensus. Looking at each of the 50 state articles as of right now, six have no election tables (KS, LA, MI, MS, ND, SD), while 17 don't have gubernatorial elections (AZ, AR, CA, ID, IL, IN, IA, KY, MT, NE, NV, OH, OK, TN, TX, WI, WY), so I think there's just as much of an argument to be made for standardizing by removing tables, rather than adding more.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 16:52, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

I'd also mention that the U.S. census chart is a template that's gone through a ton of discussion, and is part of a larger standard for populated places, which is why you see it used on the WP:USCITIES guideline page. And though Virginia is obviously not a city, its not crazy to try to follow the general pattern there.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 20:01, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Yes, so what's the issue with including political charts when census tables have already been established? At the end of the day, I'm following some of the same logic they used in establishing the use of census charts on place articles. The politics write-up here has plenty of space to hold the pres. and gov. charts. Because it's good to contextualize the data with write-ups. I think having the census tables and political charts on the main page show underlining trends, which can and should be explained in the write-ups but having the tables better explain it when someone is skimming the page. When you mention you want something that provides "a quick overview of the facts" charts and table to that best over write-ups. Returning to the census tables, that's why we have them here -- easy to access the information for someone who just wants to know the basics. That's why I think it's impactive that we include data charts/tables.

One of the reasons you wouldn't include charts in the write-ups is lack of supporting material, which I think we've got a decent amount of here. If you examine some of the other state pages without the charts, they either don't have sufficient government/politics sections or in the case of MI someone (an unconfirmed user) just removed it. Also, as someone who edits politics articles, a lot of states don't have the already existing level of supplementary material pages, like VA -- this effectively voids using them since we can't place tables on pages without write-ups due to policy.

As for the pages that already use presidential tables, I've been trying to streamline them to 1952 since a number of them go back to the early-20th century or even late-19th century in one case. I mean it's pretty much a standard to use presidential tables on state pages since 44 of them (45 until MI was changed) use them, plus DC btw. I've also been trying to correct some of the formatting issues since a number of them use different fonts and etc. Buzzards-Watch Me Work (talk) 23:55, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Just a heads up that another user did start a discussion thread on the WikiProject about this topic.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 17:39, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

I noticed some back and forth reverts on this topic, and wanted to start a discussion about it. The sentence being added is "Liberty University is Virginia's largest university, with an enrollment total of greater than 110,000 students." Liberty is mentioned in the Religion subsection, and while it would be remiss for this article to exclude the state's largest university in the Education section, I do find that number to be misleading at the very least, because it includes online and part-time students. If you go to their campus, you will find 15,000 students, which would make it the 10th or 11th largest in the state. Neither of the references provided for this sentence include the 110,000 number either. @JzG: and @AlaskanNativeRU:, do you want to explain why the article should or should not have this sentence?-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 18:28, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps it could be changed to approximately 100k students. Do you not think the other universities in the state include online or part time students in their enrollment figures? Luckily we don't have to apply any of our own metrics since the sources clearly point to and state that Liberty is the largest University in Virginia. [1] [2] [3] [4] AlaskanNativeRU (talk) 02:27, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Here's what the sources actually say:

Roanoke Times (2015): 81,459 students, "The enrollment figures count all students enrolled for academic credit, including those studying online and part time".

Washington Post (2015): "Largest private nonprofit university in the country, in part because of its extensive online program"

NCES (2015): National rank #3, Total enrollment 80,494 "Includes online and distance education courses."

Augusta Free Press (2018): "Liberty is Virginia’s largest and most rapidly growing institution of higher learning. Since 1992, Liberty’s fall enrollment increased from 8,500 to 75,044."

Virginia Business (2018): "Today, it is Virginia’s largest university in terms of total enrollment, with 103,388 students (15,105 residential and 88,283 online)"

Liberty University (Current}: "Total enrollment exceeds 100,000"

To avoid WP:SYN, it would be best to use a single source to support both the enrollment numbers and "largest in Virginia". –dlthewave ☎ 12:19, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

The Politics section of several states have maps of registered Republicans and Democrats. I think these are more encyclopedic than a map of a given election, which may have more to do with an individual candidate. However I can't find any data that shows the party breakdown in Virginia, either by county or otherwise. The Virginia Department of Elections publishes month by month reports on the total numbers of registered voters, but doesn't show which party they're registered with. Does anyone know of a reliable source for this data? Maybe a news organization has numbers (or reliable estimates) on a national basis?-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 19:50, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

The pronunciation given has four syllables. I've always heard it pronounced in three (Vir-GIN-ya). What's the source for this one? Kostaki mou (talk) 22:54, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

See Help:IPA/English. Basically, our /iə/ for English is a shorthand for "either /i.ə/, with two syllables, or /jə/, with one". And sources like Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary and Merriam-Webster show both possibilities. Nardog (talk) 17:53, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't like edit warring, so I'm hoping another editor here agrees with me that Wikipedia shouldn't include wildly out of date media. A 1928 U.S. Geological Survey map was recently added to the Geography section on premise that the article needs a map of cities, towns, and rivers. Putting aside my doubts that Wikipedia articles necessarily need maps of towns, there's a bunch of inaccuracies in this map, particularly around Hampton Roads:

• No Shenandoah National Park, this 124.3 square mile park was designated in 1935
• Princess Anne County no longer exists, it became Virginia Beach in 1963
• No Fairfax City, it separated from Fairfax County in 1961
• Nansemond County no longer exists, it became Suffolk in 1974
• Warwick County no longer exists, it became Newport News in 1958
• Elizabeth City no longer exists, it became Hampton in 1952
• Potomac, Virginia no longer exists, it became Alexandria in 1930
• Occoquan Creek is now Occoquan River

How does a map with these major omissions and errors aid the article's readers? WP:AGE MATTERS on Wikipedia, and 91 years is too old.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 15:08, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

This is a compelling argument. However, the map still aids the readers because it's 99% correct, per the many hundreds of names that are correct. Out of the six other maps in the article, there is no map that delineates the names of cities, towns, county names, lakes, rivers, designated county seats, etc -- all in relation to the topography. As a compromise, I placed the map under the History/Post-Reconstruction section, designating it as a Historical map, of 1928, with a footnote about name changes, which, btw, are historically informative. Having no such map at all does the reader a far greater disservice than having the map with its several dated names. If there is a clear consensus to remove it, as always, I'll abide by consensus. Appreciate the concern, and the scrutiny, but this discussion should have occurred, and resolved, before the map was repeatedly deleted. Most importantly, this article still needs an up to date high quality general reference map of the same quality and resolution as the 1928 map. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 17:29, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

First off, I always welcome more discussion, that is why I started a topic for this. WP:EDIT says that a lack of content, i.e. removing, is better than false or misleading content. And that's what the 1928 map is, its misleading content. Those bullet points I put above were just the items I saw in a few minutes of checking, there's probably dozens more if one checked every placename. The solution you've come up with, including the map and then adding an asterisk to note its issues is like adding an image of Thomas Jefferson with the caption "The Governer of Virigina, since this painting was made there have been changes" with an asterisk that says "This is not the current governor of Virginia". There's actually a good amount of discussion and guidelines about how to use old sources with the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, which is public domain but often out-of-date. The use of this specific file is going to be fairly limited to an article about the historic geography of the state, but this is not that article, its an article about the state in 2019, and neither the geography nor history sections seem apropriate to me, and I will note we link to this article with its detailed county map in the Cities section. But here's the compromise that I see: what we both probably want is this map, but for Virginia to replace the current topographic map. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of work and a fair amount of GIS and vector knowledge. I've requested help at WP:GL/I, but till then, I've replaced it with an interactive Template:Maplink map. Any other editors have thoughts?-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 16:02, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Just an update to this discussion, Ikonact took up the request to help, and created a beautiful new topographic SVG map that I've added to the top of the Geography section. I'm really happy with this result and think it should satisfy users that want a map with roads and cities as well.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 14:14, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Viginia. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Steel1943 (talk) 23:05, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Virgina. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Steel1943 (talk) 23:06, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Virgiinia. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Steel1943 (talk) 23:06, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Here is a table of Metropolitan Statistical Areas in Virginia that was added this week. I don't think we need both this and the "Largest cities or towns in Virigina" table next to each other, and I recognize the "Largest cities" table is commonly found on many, many Wikipedia geography articles. Does anyone have a good suggestion for another place it could be featured?-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 01:41, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

I didn't realize we do have an article Virginia statistical areas and the chart is now copied there. Thanks!-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 17:15, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Photo caption in the Sports section needs updating. Virginia Tech has the longest active bowl streak currently, not second. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8805:3B00:19C5:B90A:6421:1108:41DE (talk) 10:30, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

 Done Got it, done! Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 16:12, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Virginia has a growing culture in the hip hop and music world. Influenced and overlooked by many. A lot of the natives of Virginia are starting to hand together to give Virginia the push it needs to be recognized for our talents and abilities to create things people want. Despite people like King Push for finally putting some in play for the local artist, Virginia natives had no real help when it came to pushing their music from industry personal. Which created an need for local photographer, graphic designers and videographers. With everyone seeing the bigger picture and filling these voids there is no question that VA the 757 is up next. Phillthis phillthat (talk) 10:20, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Since July of 2018. Needs to be updated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bmcdouall (talk • contribs) 18:53, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

 Done, thanks.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 21:59, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Greetings editors, I'd like to solicit input about the "Largest cities or towns in Virginia" template. The trouble is with several of Virginia's urban areas being counties, and with Virginia pretty much uniquely having these "independent cities." Right now, the table includes 20 items, 18 are independent cities, but #4 Arlington is a county and #14 Leesburg is a county seat (i.e. town). The current table links to "biggestuscities.com" as its reference, which isn't perhaps an ideal source but also doesn't list Arlington, leaving that population number technically unsourced.

One option is remove Arlington from the list, or both Arlington and Leesburg, and just have a ranking of independent cities. Winchester and Salem would get added. But is that really the best way to describe the situation to Wikipedia's readers? Several counties that are very urban get left off while Salem's modest 25k pop gets included? Arlington County, with 8,000 people per square mile, is more like a city, while Chesapeake city, currently #3 on the list, has just 630, and is more like a county. So wouldn't Arlington more closely fit the readers' widely understood definition of a "city" as an urban area? But then if we include Arlington County and its 237,521 people, what about Fairfax County and its 1.1 million? What about ranking every jurisdiction, both cities and counties? What's the justification for singling out Arlington?

I made some options to chose from: First the "no build" current option just with numbers from the Census Bureau, then the version with counties included, and then an alternative that lists the largest Metropolitan statistical areas by size. MSAs are certainly a valid option from the U.S. Census Bureau to rank urban areas.

What do editors think? Option A, current table with Arlington and Leesburg? Option B with 11 counties and 9 cities? Option C with the MSAs? Or what about Option D, no table at all? Since all the options have issues, why not just rely on the prose to explain the situation? Thoughts? -- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 21:21, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I didn't see any replies, but I'm leaning towards replacing the template with the MSAs, option C above. If any editors see an issue with that (such as there only being 14 MSAs in VA, not 20 to fill the template) do feel free to respond.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 21:12, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

This edit request to Virginia has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

At the history section, change the information to include the following A detailed account of an encounter between Arthur Barlowe with the people of Wingandacoa shows that they were a very structured society. They had defined positions for individuals and all people had well specified roles. The account shows that the Europeans first had contact with a team of people that included the King’s brother, his wife and many servants. One of the identifying factors included the form of dress and accessories. The nobles wore red pieces of copper on their heads. The rest of the individuals who were present at the time were servants to the nobles. They wore jewelry that was generally smaller. The roles of the various individuals were also so distinctly defined. The nobles were directly involved in the trade and they even visited the boat that the Europeans had come in. The role of the servants was to assist and accompany the nobles as needed. Dengfastish (talk) 19:55, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

•  Not done Sorry, I think that level of detail belongs more on the Colony of Virginia or History of Virginia articles. Feel free to make the suggestion at those talk pages though!-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 22:39, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

This edit request to Virginia has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

PurplePineapple 30000 (talk) 16:02, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

• I saw Birdledew (talk · contribs) change this last week, and I admit I cringed. I am aware of the editwars in past years and strong feelings some users have about whether Virginia is defined in the first sentence as a state "in the South". We actually have a hidden comment right above the first sentence requesting that any user who wants to change the geographic descriptions first start a talk page discussion here. Mainly I want it to be neutral and well sourced, "Mid-Atlantic" is currently sourced to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while Southeast is sourced to National Geographic's mapping bureau, both of which are pretty solid. So I am fine leaving it as it is now, but am happy to discuss if other users want to.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 16:23, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

@Patrickneil: So I was able to find a source that states gators were present in Dismal at one point, but were extirpated. [1] https://thevlm.org/herp-highlight-1-american-alligator/ Also, IUCN has southeastern VA as part of the species' range [2] https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/46583/3009637 Thoughts? Ddum5347 (talk) 21:28, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Right, I also found that once upon a time, alligators lived in Virginia around the swamp, and had been killed in the 1800s. But even if one gator or a dozen wander over the state line from North Carolina, which does have some alligators in the Great Dismal, I'm not sure it's notable enough to be featured among the state's fauna. There's just not yet a population of them in Virginia. There's no set logic for the species that are itemized in the Ecosystem subsection, it obviously doesn't list every species in Virginia, but I think we try to keep to ones that are a) specifically common, like white-tailed deer, b) emblematic of what's common, like rockfish or c) unique, like the Appalachian cottontail or eastern hellbender. Sorry to undo the edit, but I'm not sure alligators should get a mention on the article.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 02:16, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

No prob. I just wish there was a list of reptiles of Virginia or something similar to make a note of this on. Ddum5347 (talk) 02:42, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. West Virginia actually has these lists. Perhaps users can piggyback on on those lists, or find sources for specifically Virginia fauna.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 17:36, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

This is an article about the state of Virginia. It summarizes the state in short sections. If the state of Virginia wins an annual award, say Forbes top state for business, or the U.S. News most liviable state, that is notable, and probably should be mentioned on the article. However the University of Virginia isn't "Virginia", nor is Virginia Tech, JMU, GMU or any of the other colleges. If a college in the state wins a championship, or makes it to a NCCA men's Final Four that isn't notable for the state. It works in the caption for the image in the sports section, just because that caption is describing the situation in the image portrayed. Think of a situation that isn't sports, say if a restaurant in Richmond won an award for best burgers in the United States. That would be interesting, but probably wouldn't need to be mentioned here, let alone get it's own subsection. I too root for the Hoos, and know college sports are life for fans and current students, but look at the other state articles, I don't see of the other fifty states that have a similar section.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 13:56, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

I added four sentences about the most successful sports in the Commonwealth, including the 21st century NCAA Championships (or NCAA Regional Championships in relevant sports) of Virginia, George Mason, James Madison, Old Dominion, and VCU. Patrickneil (talk · contribs) voiced a concern that these four sentences added undue weight to sports, since Virginia "isn't just about college sports". I'm interested in seeing what he and others think in a more in-depth discussion about the size of the sports section here. He also mentioned it was "uncited", so I cited it.

In direct response to the above (we were writing at the same time), it's hard to mention the sports played in the Commonwealth without mentioning any national championships won by those teams. Winning a nationally televised (watched by tens of millions of people worldwide) national title is very different from winning a "burger award" for a diner, so it's hard to think that comparison is made in good faith.

I further note that in response to "but look at the other state articles" for their emphases, several other states (e.g., Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky) actually have much greater detail about their college sports teams than the few sentences about the NCAA championships won by teams from the Commonwealth I've added here. Omnibus (talk) 13:59, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for adding citations, and removing the subheading. I stick with the assertion that UVA ≠ the State of Virginia. I'd say you can't write the Athletics section on the UVA article without mentioning their championships, but that's not the same as the geography article about Virginia the state. The thing is though, we do mention UVA's NCAAM and Capital One Cup championships and VT's bowl game success in the image captions, and I think that works without an additional paragraph in the prose. As the text stands right now, I am still concerned with counting GMU and VCU's Final Four appearances as "championships". If we're making up this standard of "watched by millions" or comparing to Ohio State football and Kentucky basketball, I think they key for notability would be sustained national success. Like VT's bowl game streak or Ohio State's overall record, which yes, is mentioned on Ohio. If you don't like the burger analogy, compare it to superlatives in other sections on this article that are perennial statistics, i.e. Virginia has top five K-12 schools, has the highest concentration of tech workers, or the highest median income. Is GMU's 2006 Final Four really key to understanding the state on an ongoing basis?

If you ask me, what the Sports section is missing, it would be statistics on youth sports. I'd love to see a sentence like "20% of boys and 30% of girls under the age 16 participate in youth soccer" or "participation in Pop Warner football has declined 60% since 1980." I'd be happy to hear what other editors think on all this.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 16:23, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Those other states' sports sections have statements like "Pennsylvania schools that have won national titles in football include Lafayette College (1896), Villanova University (FCS 2009), the University of Pennsylvania (1895, 1897, 1904 and 1908) and Washington and Jefferson College (1921)" as one example, or "Western Kentucky, the 2002 national champion in Division I-AA football (now Football Championship Subdivision (FCS)), completed its transition to Division I FBS football in 2009" as another. Not really aligned with your made-up standard of "sustained national success." The already existing captions were nice to understand the universities of Virginia and Virginia Tech, but didn't really reflect the state of Virginia and all its teams' collective level of achievement in college basketball and other college sports. And yes, the NCAA Regional Championships are actually considered as such. If you look at Jim Larrañaga's infobox or that of any other coach (who won an NCAA regional in some year) it says "Championships: NCAA Regional – Final Four (2006)". They are indeed NCAA regional championships.

I also think it could be interesting to include youth sports statistics if they somehow differ from the other 49 states in any meaningful way. Omnibus (talk) 18:02, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

I should not have suggested looking at other states, I mentioned it only in relation to the section heading, which you since removed. To be clear, WP:OTHERSTUFF is an argument to avoid, and frankly I do not generally recommend looking at other states, only a few of which have passed WP:GA or WP:FA, for their content, just to generally stay in line in terms of section structure. I'm very happy for Tom Izzo and all his success, but I'm not sure how that answers the query as to whether GMU's Final Four, or UVA's college world series appearances, further the encyclopedic understanding of state of Virginia. I think you're looking at this the wrong way, imagine a paragraph that started "basketball is one of the most popular sports in the commonwealth", followed by statistics on basketball in Virginia, followed by a sentence with "and Virginia high schools and colleges have also seen national success, including UVA in 2019." Building to that end is a better path to notability. Does that make sense? Text on this article has to be about Virginia.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 18:20, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

It's an odd argument you are making that sports teams in Virginia have nothing to do with sports in Virginia. I'd be interested to see what others think. You did bring up other states, and as shown they consider the successful teams of their state to represent well the concept of sports in those states. Omnibus (talk) 18:24, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

No, not saying that college sports or college teams aren't notable, we can, should, and do mention the Cavs, the Hokies, intercollegiate athletics, the conferences, and perennial events in the state. Whether you call winning the elite eight a "championship" or not misses the point that these individual (and to some, "amateur") teams in individual years don't speak to the scope or timeframe this article is trying to cover. In a way, the multiple Capital One Championship are more noteworthy than the individual sports. We're trying to present a summary, and any way we can broaden the scope of the text, and illustrate patterns, makes it more encyclopedic. Like when the Ohio article lists Ohio State's overall record, that's 1,311 games over 130 years. VCU and GMU going to the Final Four is 4 games in one month in one year.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 19:55, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

I changed it up a bit.

Current:

In the absence of professional sports, several of Virginia's collegiate sports programs have flourished. The Virginia Cavaliers, VCU Rams, and Old Dominion Monarchs have combined for 63 regular season conference championships and 48 conference tournament championships between their men's and women's college basketball programs as of 2021; Virginia's men won the 2019 NCAA Championship, VCU reached the 2011 NCAA Men's Final Four, and the Lady Monarchs won the 1985 NCAA Championship. The Virginia Tech Hokies and Virginia Cavaliers football programs have played 53 bowl games between them, with Virginia Tech sustaining a 27-year bowl streak between 1993 and 2019; James Madison Dukes football won FCS NCAA Championships in both 2004 and 2016. The Virginia Cavaliers athletics program has also won numerous NCAA championships this century in college lacrosse, college soccer, and college baseball; the Cavaliers won the nationwide Capital One Cup for overall men's athletics in both 2015 and 2019, and with 20 NCAA titles the Cavaliers lead the Atlantic Coast Conference in men's NCAA championships.

Previous:

The Commonwealth's teams have been very successful during the 21st century in college basketball, with the Virginia Cavaliers winning the 2019 NCAA Championship, and the George Mason Patriots and Virginia Commonwealth Rams reaching the prestigious Final Four events of 2006 and 2011, respectively, after winning NCAA Regional championships. The Cavaliers program has also won numerous NCAA championships this century in college lacrosse, college soccer, and college baseball; the James Madison Dukes won college football Division I FCS NCAA Championships in both 2004 and 2016. The Virginia Cavaliers won the nationwide Capital One Cup for overall men's athletics in both 2015 and 2019, and with 20 NCAA titles the Cavaliers lead the Atlantic Coast Conference in men's NCAA championships.

You convinced me, after some more thought, about sustained success being the major emphasis here. In this case, ODU's many (many!) conference championships over the years and 1985 NCAA Championship outweigh George Mason's fleeting 2006 "4 games in one month", as you put it. Omnibus (talk) 12:26, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Again, I don't want to edit war, but I really think that File:Kyle Guy UVA (cropped).jpg is not a good photo. I understand you have strong feelings about the Virginia Cavaliers, but the photo itself is clearly taken at a distance, from a steep angle, and it doesn't show other players, the stadium, or any action. Kyle is standing at the free throw line, in a November 2017 cupcake game against Monmouth, so it's neither the championship game that the caption is describing, nor even the championship season. Kyle is from Indiana, his connection with the state is three seasons of college ball. Compare that with File:Greg Stroman at the 2014 Military Bowl.jpg, which has action and drama over whether the runner will stay on his feet, and the narrow depth of field keeps the eye focused on the subject. The action is in a bowl game, so directly relates to the caption, and the runner, Greg Stroman, is from Bristow. The bowl game streak is a long term pattern, the kind that at least for me, has the edge in terms of being encyclopedic. You may be too close to the subject to see this, but the College sports section reads like it was written by the University of Virginia athletics department, and we already feature a photo of UVA's campus in the Education section.

Here's my big question, would we feature this photo and so much attention on UVA's sports legacy on the article about Charlottesville or Albemarle County, or on United States or Earth? Then what's the argument that so much attention to one college department goes on the geography article about the state of Virginia? And to be clear, "other states do it" is not a great answer. -- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 00:17, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

This is not a geography article about Virginia. That's the article Geography of Virginia redirects to. But, anyway, more relevantly I did find some part of this image criticism valid, and since both the NCAA Championships and bowl streak are in the body already, I replaced Kyle Guy's image with one featuring now-professional players from both Virginia and Virginia Tech, the two most followed sports programs by Virginians. Two of the professional basketball players in the image came out of public Virginia high schools. It also shows the court, arena, and hundreds of Virginia Tech fans wearing their colors in the background. So, a pretty good image for this section I'd say! Omnibus (talk) 11:55, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes, actually, that is a better picture. I'm kind of surprised that professional looking photo like that might be creative commons licensed, but neither TinEye nor Google Images see copyrighted versions online. Thank you for finding that. But geography article in the sense that this is an article about a place, a large place. As you can see at the top of this page, its part of WikiProject Geography. I'm just trying to say this is a general article with a very wide scope, and the amount of detail about UVA sports is probably excessive, smells of puffery, and a little bit promo too.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 22:32, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Even more surprising is that the original location of that photo here has only 20 views across the past 9 years it has been there. At least it will be seen a bit more now. The article is about a political division made by mankind, and the people who live in it, moreso than about just a geographic place, to my mind, but that's just a discussion of semantics. I trimmed the college sports section all the way down to two short paragraphs. Here it is, sans citations:

In the absence of professional sports, several of Virginia's collegiate sports programs have attracted strong followings, with a 2015 poll showing that 34% of Virginians were fans of the Virginia Cavaliers and 28% were fans of the rival Virginia Tech Hokies, making both more popular than the surveyed regional professional teams. The men's and women's college basketball programs of the Cavaliers, VCU Rams, and Old Dominion Monarchs have combined for 63 regular season conference championships and 48 conference tournament championships between them as of 2021^[update]. The Hokies football team sustained a 27-year bowl streak between 1993 and 2019; James Madison Dukes football won FCS NCAA Championships in both 2004 and 2016. The overall UVA men's athletics programs won the national Capital One Cup in both 2015 and 2019, and they lead the Atlantic Coast Conference in NCAA championships.

Fourteen universities in total compete in NCAA Division I, with multiple programs each in the Atlantic Coast Conference, Atlantic 10 Conference, Big South Conference, and Colonial Athletic Association. Three historically Black schools compete in the Division II Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association, and two others (Hampton and Norfolk State) compete in Division I. Several smaller schools compete in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference and the USA South Athletic Conference of NCAA Division III. The NCAA currently holds its Division III championships in football, men's basketball, volleyball, and softball in Salem. Virginia does not allow state appropriated funds to be used for either operational or capital expenses for intercollegiate athletics.

I don't think anyone could rightfully say it smells of excess, puffery, or promo in this form. It also gives the very successful basketball/football programs of VCU, ODU, and JMU their due and not just Virginia/Virginia Tech. Omnibus (talk) 12:06, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Awesome, I do think that's more appropriate for the section. Thanks for listing to my concerns, I know I'm not the easiest editor to work with sometimes, but I think this actually turned out well. I haven't found the sort of statistics on youth sports I was imagining, but maybe I'll try to flesh out the high school sports instead later.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 13:37, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! I also think it turned out well, and admittedly better than if the sports section had been left to my own thinking only. Omnibus (talk) 11:46, 25 April 2021 (UTC)