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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Bkonrad (talk | contribs) at 02:39, 25 March 2005 (→naming conventions). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Seen elsewhere on Wikipedia: "Massachusetts is a commonwealth" -- what does that mean & why does this article say nothing about it? -- Tarquin

Massachusetts is a state whose name happens to be "The Commonwealth of Massachusetts". It's a commonwealth because that's its name. Doesn't have any other significance whatsoever, in terms of structure of government or relations with the other states that make up the US. So it's more like trivia than anything else, which is probably why it's not here. Now, if someone writes an article on what a commonwealth is, or what The Commonwealth is, THERE it might be an interesting example of how inchoate a term 'commonwealth' is.... -- Someone else 10:42 Oct 29, 2002 (UTC)
The page Commonwealth suggests that this term means the same as republic. -- Chris Q 11:08 Oct 29, 2002 (UTC)
Massachusetts government and most established state journalistic sources are very persistent about referring to the state as a 'commonwealth' and not a state. As in "State of the Commonwealth Address", "Secretary of the Commonwealth", "Commonwealth Museum", etc. However, when discussing the state in the scope of the nation, the phrase "and other states" seems to be completely acceptable, and the state symbols are referred to as the State Song, etc.
Looking at the arrticle for commonwealth, item 2 is "a state founded on law by agreement of the people for the common good". This statement is very similar to one in the preamble of the state-- er, commonwealth consititution: "the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good." That seems to be the only distinction that applies to Massachusetts -- no idea how it applies to the other 3 U.S. commonwealths of Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania; or how any other U.S. state's laws are somehow less intended for the common good.
-- KeithTyler 22:41, 19 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

State map

The state map is provisional, it is planned to be like Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. States/mockups. Especially for small states one can see very little of the state on the US map. - Patrick 19:59, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Higher education POV-fest

The Ivy League university Harvard University is arguably the most famous university in the world; Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Worcester Polytechnic Institute are top engineering and science universities; Amherst College and Williams College in western Massachusetts are top liberal arts colleges; Wellesley College, Mount Holyoke College, and Smith College are top women's colleges; Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Berklee College of Music are but two of the specialist institutions that are at the top of their fields.

When I read this, I experience a rising tide of nausea and an intense desire to do something humiliating to the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the student body of all those "top" schools.

Particularly Harvard. Most famous university in the world. in the world? Harvard is more famous than that twelfth-century pile of dreaming spires in England? I think it will take more than an "arguably" to fix THAT statement... VE*RI*TAS indeed. Dpbsmith 03:46, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC) P. S. "Harvard University" gets 2,560,000 Google hits; "Oxford University" gets 3,730,000. And FWIW "Yale University" gets 1,670,000 and "Cambridge University" gets 2,930,000. Dpbsmith 15:26, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)

OTOH, 32,500 pages link to www.harvard.edu, while 31,900 link to www.ox.ac.uk. -KeithTyler

New England Town

Suggestion: excise the section explaining the "New England Town" style of political division, and extrapolate it into a New England town article to be included by reference (and for other states). Thoughts? KeithTyler

I like that idea. Would that include a discussion of how New England townships differ from those in the rest of the country? RickK 00:10, 21 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Well, perhaps the explanation could be expanded upon, or perhaps with examples; and it could mention the trend in New England states to abolish county government (the concepts are related IMO, even though county abolition is a recent idea). And it could include a discussion/comparison of how new towns are formed in such a structure (i.e. by secession). Some history of the system would be deserved, too.
I have to say, after living in New England all my life, and then moving to the West Coast, the concepts of "county land", "county law", and "county police" were completely alien and astonishing to me.
KeithTyler 01:05, May 21, 2004 (UTC)

I too like the idea of creating a new article for New England Town. It's interesting how this contrasts with the rest of the country.

Acegikmo1 01:16, 21 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I think some of it is covered in the township article. Rmhermen 01:34, May 21, 2004 (UTC)
No, it is not. It is covered a bit in Town, though. I don't know how the word "township" got involved, because "township" is not at all what the section I'm referring to is talking about. KeithTyler 19:04, May 21, 2004 (UTC)
I believe the meanings of "Town" and "Township" differ enough from place to place that the two concepts are hopelessly intertwingled. I don't have time to check ANY of this, but I think that a New York State "township" that is rather like a New England town. Meanwhile, in the Western states that look all squared off from the air, you have "range-and-township" and townships are just square numbered chunks of land... but like a New England town, the land is fully subdivided into townships and every piece of land belongs to some township. In other words, if you describe a New England town I believe there are people who might pop up and say, "Oh! that really should be called a township". Or then again, maybe not. Dpbsmith 19:30, 21 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure about that, because IMO Massachusetts does not look at all 'squared off' from the air (though there are lots of straight lines; but that's more likely a convenience in boundary-drawing than in someone drawing a grid on the shape of the state).
Moreover, New England cities are known to "perambulate the bounds" once a year to make sure that the boundary markers with neighboring towns have not been moved (nowadays just a ritual more than an actual concern; New Englanders are big on ritual, especially the historic and fun-and-pointless kinds). If everything was gridded off, you'd think that boundary disputes would not become an issue. So something tells me that the boundaries of cities and towns in the new england town system has more to do with separating settlements (i.e. territoriality) than it does with just dividing up available land.
When I say "New England Town", I don't mean "town form of government", which may have some similarity to the civil township definition; but I mean the method of arranging cities and towns within the state land, which is distinctive to the rest of the country. I'm not even sure that New York's design is quite the same thing.
KeithTyler 20:10, May 21, 2004 (UTC)

Important cities and towns

The "Important Cities and Towns" list is getting unwieldy. I'd like to prune it down if we can agree on criteria. Proposal: include the three largest cities (Boston, Worcester, Springfield); cities and towns that have notable historical importance (Plymouth for the Pilgrims, Salem for the witch trials, Concord for the beginning of the Revolutionary War, Lowell for the textile mills); and cities and towns that have present-day cultural significance (Cambridge and Amherst are famous for the colleges and universities they contain; Provincetown is known nationwide as a gay mecca, usually in those exact words). Any others that are at this level of significance?—that is, places that people from outside Massachusetts would consider to be among the significant and well-known cities and towns of Massachusetts? I'm sure that Pittsfield and New Bedford are fine places, but they don't have a whole lot of importance to people from outside New England. Comments? AJD 05:06, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I don't understand why people like to make lists without brief comments on each item. I think the list should be reformatted into a bullet list format with a short explanation of what is notable for each city. For large cities that are included simply as being large, include the population. I'm not sure that cities on the list should be removed, because that usually gets contentious. Speaking as someone who has not put any of the cities on that list, I can nevertheless see some pretty solid claims for the inclusion of many. Here's a first cut.

Massachusetts cities and towns of historical or cultural importance include:

  • Amherst (center of the Five Colleges region)
  • Barnstable (the major city of Cape Cod)
  • Boston (largest city and state capital)
  • Cambridge (location of Harvard and MIT)
  • Concord (home of Thoreau, Emerson; site of first battle in the American Revolution)
  • Fall River (location where Lizzie Borden took her axe and gave her father forty whacks)
  • Lowell (historically important mill town; birthplace of Jack Kerouac)
  • Lynn (dunno about this one; Lynn, Lynn, city of sin...)
  • New Bedford (historically important whaling port, figuring in opening chapters of Moby-Dick)
  • Northampton
  • Pittsfield (where GE began; current location of GE corporate headquarters; location where Melville wrote Moby-Dick)
  • Provincetown (gay mecca)
  • Salem (witch trials; historically a port rivalling Boston in the early 1800s; birthplace of Nathaniel Hawthorne)
  • Springfield (location where basketball was invented by James Naismith)
  • Taunton
  • Worcester (location of Robert Goddard's pioneering rocket experiments)

Don't know what you'd say about Northampton other than also being in the Five Colleges area. Northampton has been prominent in gay rights; several(?) of the Goodridge(?) plaintiffs live there. Lynn is where GE makes jet engines, and Taunton is something of a semiconductor and electronics center. Dpbsmith 14:43, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

You could always include the birthplace of the American Navy, if you can determine which town it was. KeithTyler
Taunton is the birthplace of the Liberty and Union Flag. This is the red flag with a small British flag in the upper-left and the words "Liberty and Union" across it. It was once a major silversmithing city, and has connections to Robert Treat Paine. That's all I know about it, however. Not sure if any of that would qualify. Sahasrahla 08:25, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

The "legal holidays" section says "Massachusetts has several state holidays" and then presents a list which contains exactly one state holiday. I'd recommend throwing out the entire section, mentioning Patriot's Day somewhere else in this article, and adding Evacuation Day and Bunker Hill Day to the Suffolk County article where they belong. AJD 04:15, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Mass. General Laws Chapter 6 contains over 100 legal state holidays. Section 12C makes Bunker Hill Day a state holiday, and 12K makes Evacuation Day a state holiday. They're only really paid attention to in Suffolk County, but they're still state holidays. Easier than trying to put down all the ones that are completely ignored. Good Friday... eh... that's a tough one. Just my two cents. Sahasrahla 08:31, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

minor note: I've moved the Evacuation Day page to Evacuation Day (Massachusetts) due to a similarly-named holiday (or rather, former holiday) in New York. Don't worry, I'm taking care of the redirects.--Pharos 07:46, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"Taxachusetts"

I think we should mention this often-cited nickname of the state, because it shows more of the state's character. Anybody else? --Mjklin 21:07, 2005 Feb 14 (UTC)

  • I disagree. It's a decades-old detail of local politics. It's rarely used outside the state, and it's rarely used anymore inside the state (it was only used by Republicans, e.g. to attack Dukakis when he was governor, and they don't use it anymore because we've had Republican governors for about a decade). It's not of much interested to anyone outside the state who isn't involved in state politics. For evidence of rarity of use, if we make some searches of The New York Times, we find:
    • "Massachusetts" is mentioned 29 times in the last seven days, or about 1500 times per year
    • "Bay State," exact phrase, is mentioned 36 times in the years 2000-2004, or about 6 times per year
    • "Beantown" is mentioned 14 times in the years 2000-2004, or about 3 times per year
    • "Taxachusetts" is only mentioned 4 times, less than once a year
    • Of the four times it is mentioned, two are in the context of its no longer meriting its former moniker; one is former Republican state chair Healey warning that if the Democrats had their way the state might return to being Taxachusetts, and one is a Florida politico saying that Kerry will have to fight the "Taxachusetts" label. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:14, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Actually, the first time I heard it was a reference made on The Simpsons. Mjklin 04:33, 2005 Feb 15 (UTC)

First sentence

Massachusetts is a state of the United States of America, part of the New England region.

This sentence is unclear and makes it appear that the United States of America is part of the New England region. Not the reverse. -Tomás

Commonwealth

I don't understand why people are so adamant about removing Commonwealth from the name of Massachusetts. Would you call New Mexico, Mexico because the word "New" is just an adjective? Commonwealth has been the name since the beginning. Massachusetts was a Commonwealth before the United States Constitution was ratified.

Any one born and bred here knows its the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Have a nice day :) -Tomás Irish Hermit 22:18, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The heading should use the common name ("Massachusetts is a state...") because Massachusetts is the name by which the state is most generally known and referred to—the same reason the article on South Carolina begins "South Carolina is a state..." and not "The State of South Carolina is a state...". Of course everyone from Massachusetts knows the official name is "Commonwealth". That doesn't make it particularly important.
That's your opinion. Mine is different.
And that's why I'm letting this sit on the talk page for a little while, to find out whether anyone agrees with your opinion. I'd let it sit for longer, but I won't have time to come back and edit the article any later than that.
You're acting like you're the only Massachusetts native working on this article. And we're writing an encyclopedia here. What people are looking for when they look up an encyclopedia article on Massachusetts is its history, geography, government, and culture; not three paragraphs of historical background of trivia about the state's name. There's nothing wrong with putting it in the article, but it doesn't belong anywhere near the top. I'm going to re-revert back to my last edit; but first I'm going to let this sit on the talk page for an hour and a half or so to see if anyone disagrees with me. AJD 22:24, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Tommorrow morning I will revert back to my last edit so as not to do more than three reverts a day. Yes it is important to correctly write the name of Massachusetts. What you consider trivia is to me an important part of the Commonwealth's history and culture. Just because other states are named differently why should we abandon our heritage?
I know that I'm not the only Massachusetts native working on the article. And neither are you. How do you know readers don't want to know the how the Commonwealth came into being?
"How the Commonwealth came into being" is not the same as "why it's called a Commonwealth". And who's talking about "abandoning our heritage" or not "correctly writing the name of Massachusetts"? I'm just making educated guesses as to a reasonable order to discuss topics in an encyclopedia article, based on what I think people are likely to be looking for when they read the article.
By the way, Kentucky starts it's article The Commonwealth of Kentucky. Are you going to change that page?
One can only have so many articles on one's watchlist. I'm not interested enough in Kentucky to put a lot of effort into keeping that article up. And anyway, it's not really what version of the state's name the article begins with that I'm concerned about; it's your contention that the fact that Massachusetts is officially named a Commonwealth is more important than any other set of facts about the state.
By the way, this is from the Secratary of the Commonwealth's web page:
"Massachusetts, like Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kentucky, is called a "Commonwealth". Commonwealths are states, but the reverse is not true. Legally, Massachusetts is a commonwealth because the term is contained in the Constitution." Massachusetts facts Irish Hermit 22:48, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
If the Secretary of the Commonwealth's web page were a wiki, I'd edit that. It's awkwardly phrased, confusing, and misleading. AJD 23:07, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Another Mass. resident here. We definitely need to mention that Massachusetts is formerly known as a commonwealth, but there's no way it should be placed as the first section after the lead. It also should not be the first bolded title in the lead section - generally the article's title (i.e. the common name) should be the first thing in bold. I am also not sure we need to say "The Commonwealth of Massachusetts" above the infobox. I am all for discussing the state's status as a commonwealth, but it's getting way too much placement right now. Rhobite 23:24, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)
Sorry about that. I was just tinkering and didn't see that there was a flaming hot dispute in progress. I just expanded the sentence where it was. It wasn't intended to indicate that the matter was of great importance.
IMHO the current leading sentence,
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the United States of America
is exactly right. The first sentence should contain the word Commonwealth, and should make it clear that it's just a fancy name for a plain old "state." Any other details about what the heck the Commonwealth business is all about are basically trivia, which deserve a mention somewhere in the article but which can go anywhere. The fact that both "Commonwealth" and "state" are common parlance should be mentioned, because otherwise it might be assumed that Commonwealth is just a legalism. On the other hand, the "state cops" on the "state highways" are the "Staties," not the "Commonwealthies!" Dpbsmith (talk) 23:38, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Okay, we can move it into the History section as how the Commonwealth's constitution was written.

Another Mass. native, here. Massachusetts is a Commonwealth. Simple as that. Do we call the People's Republic of China the Dictatorship of China, because it's a dictatorship and not a people's republic? No. We call it the People's Republic of China because that is what the People's Republic of China has named itself.
Massachusetts named itself The Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Its government has always referred to itself as such, and still does to this day. State politicians always refer to the Commonwealth, the Globe calls it the Commonwealth, and even national media outlets refer to it as such.
Yes, Massachusetts is a state in the United States; however, it is called the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, just like Iowa decided to call itself the State of Iowa.
Keep the references to the Commonwealth. --AaronS 23:45, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
No one is suggesting removing references to Massachusetts as a "Commonwealth". The issue at hand is how much emphasis the history of the name ought to have. AJD 23:48, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I don't know if a paragraph-long quote from the Mass. Constitution belongs in the article either. Its only purpose is to "prove" that Massachusetts is a commonwealth, something that nobody here is disputing. I tend to oppose long quotes in encyclopedia articles, unless they're exceptionally good at illustrating a concept. I do think we should discuss the title of "commonwealth", but this time we should use our own words instead of copying text off of a Massachusetts government web site. The previous "commonwealth" section was a copyright violation. Rhobite 00:06, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)

It's not copyright violation. From the Mass. government web site's Terms of Use: "All of the material posted on the Commonwealth's Websites and accessible to the public ... is public record. Most of the public record posted on Commonwealth Websites can be copied and used for any purpose. For example, all judicial opinions and all laws and regulations are public record." See Terms of Use. These are primary sources and historical documents. The writings of John Adams are in the public domain. -- inserted by Coolcaesar:the above text was by IrishHermit

If the content of Mass. gov't web sites is public-domain, it's not copyright violation. What it is is plagiarism. It should be rewritten; especially the parts which are confusing, imprecise, and poorly written. AJD 04:06, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
To be fair, IrishHermit did link to the source of the text. I don't know if it could be called plagiarism, but we should make it clearer that it's copied. Rhobite 04:56, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)
Well, I still think it should be rewritten: it's just clunky and confusing prose. I don't have time to do it now, but I will eventually if someone else doesn't get to it first. AJD 05:16, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Just to point out, it's common knowledge among all American lawyers that judicial opinions and laws and regulations are public record. This is because of a famous case back in the 19th century involving a dispute that occurred when the U.S. Supreme Court switched reporters. The reporter who had just lost the contract to print the Court's cases tried to claim a copyright in the volumes he had printed for the Court and the Court said he couldn't do that.

Although many annotated codes and case reporters in law libraries do contain copyright notices, those are notice of what is called a "thin copyright," meaning that the copyright protects only the annotations contributed by the publishers, and the specific design of those particular books, and not the actual text from the legislature or judges.

I personally think that the paragraphs inserted by IrishHermit are a bit wordy but otherwise they're fine as currently placed under the Law and Government section.

--Coolcaesar 02:17, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that works on the Massachusetts state website were freely usable. Most other states don't license their work in this way, so I assumed that Massachusetts was the same way. I agree, the paragraphs are a bit wordy and quote-heavy but they're acceptable.
Offtopic, some laws actually are copyrighted. Many laws are written by companies and licensed to state and local governments. The Mass.gov notice is correct, these companies hold the copyright and the text of the law is not freely distributable. This practice made Slashdot a few years ago.. Rhobite 02:52, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)

I think I know which case you're talking about. In Veeck v. SBCCI the 5th Circuit ruled for Veeck on rehearing en banc. The cite is: Veeck v. S. Bldg. Code Cong. Int'l, Inc., 293 F.3d 791 (5th Cir. 2002).

It sounds like you're not familiar with the holding in the case. The 5th Circuit held that SBCCI has a federal copyright in its model codes, but not in the law. So Veeck was free to copy the model codes up to the extent that they were the law of the towns of Anna and Savoy (and if the towns had adopted a given model code in whole, he could copy all of it as long as it represented the law and he indicated it as such).

He was not free to copy any parts of the code that had not been adopted as the law, but because SBCCI failed to raise that argument in the district court (that is, the argument that Anna and Savoy had not adopted the model code at issue in whole), the argument was held to have been waived.

The point of Veeck is that private creators of model codes have a copyright in them only insofar as such codes have not been adopted into law. Once a piece of a model code is adopted into law, then that that piece loses federal copyright protection (to the extent that a reproduction of that text is a reproduction of the law).

--Coolcaesar 03:38, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't know how that case turned out. Thanks for the info. Rhobite 03:43, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)

Straw poll: what is the most appropriate name for this article?

Note: if you are not familiar with Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names), Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. states, Wikipedia:Naming conventions, please read them first. Keeping in mind the policies

  • "use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things,"
  • "Each U.S. state shall be called by the common name of the state, e.g. Texas, California,"

please vote for the most appropriate name for this article. (Any other names can be created as redirects to the most appropriate name).

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Massachusetts (the present name)

  1. Dpbsmith (talk) 02:10, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)


Note: the reason for this poll is that a user unilaterally moved this article to a new name without discussion. This article should not be moved until a) consensus is reached as to what the name of the article should be, and b) (if it is to be moved) people have agreed as to who will do the work of updating existing links to the present name. Dpbsmith (talk) 02:10, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Aw fork

What is The Commonwealth of Massachusetts all about? Keith D. Tyler [AMA] 02:12, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

naming conventions

From Wikipedia: Naming Conventions, Two of the nations where English-speaking people live are the United Kingdom and the United States, as an example of using the article the. You wouldn't write that, "People live in United Kingdom" or "She visited White House". The state is routinely refered to as "The Commonwealth of Massachusetts" in state documents, stae web sites, the news. Since 1780, we the people have refered to our state and government as "The Commonwealth of Massachusetts."

Like it sez, "If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, do not submit it. " Irish Hermit

  • User:IrishHermit, please look at the straw poll above, read the policy pages on naming articles in general and articles on states in particular, cast your vote in the straw poll, and wait to see what the consensus is. Until we have consensus to move the article, please don't move it and please don't edit the The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which is currently a redirect to Massachusetts. I'm considering a block if you continue to engage in disruptive behavior. Dpbsmith (talk) 02:31, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

From the Wiki page on editing: "Don't be afraid to edit pages on Wikipedia—anyone can edit, and we encourage users to be bold!"

I guess that's a lot of BS? Irish Hermit 02:33, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Maybe you should read and understand what the linked page at be bold says before saying its BS. older≠wiser 02:39, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)
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