Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases

Have we considered making this wikiproject a "task force" of WP:Law?

Hi team,

This weekend I attended the the NYC Wiki-Conference 2009, and was asking for some guidance on how to pursue the WikiProjects I've been talking about ("1L Curriculum" and "JD upperclass curriculum.")

However, the consensus was to start projects like these as a "task force" of an existing Wikiproject (in this instance, WP:LAW). They refered me to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Guide/Task_forces, and indicated that the advantage of using task forces is that 1) you don't spread your talent too thinly - everyone shares a talk page; and 2) the "bureaucratic"/"administrative" tasks are centralized, freeing up more resources to do the actual writing of articles.

So I just made a post at the Wikiproject council, asking for advice on how to start this task force. And one of the comments was,

“

(Frankly, I'm not sure why SCOTUS isn't a task force of LAW to begin with, but that's just me.) Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 03:35, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

”

What are your thoughts? Would you guys be willing to make "US Supreme Court Cases" a task force of WP:LAW? Agradman ^talk/_contribs 15:53, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject SCOTUS is a daughter project of WikiProject Law. Is there any importance to the "task force versus wikiproject" distinction whatsoever? --MZMcBride (talk) 20:51, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

HELPFUL, but extensive & intimidating, explanations of what a task force is

The only importance I know of is in the minds of some individual editors. It would be noted that, whatever their formal names, all the directly Christianity-related projects use the same banner and are, in that way, functional task forces of the main project, whatever their names. Personally, I think it works best if the task forces are formally designated as such, but in some cases, particularly with projects which are already rather well established, there may be an initial aversion to changing the name. I think the best thing to do would be to formally propose a merger of the two groups, and see what the resulting comments are before making the decision. John Carter (talk) 22:28, 27 July 2009 (UTC) (edit conflict) This is a good question. At the hyperlink I provided above, WikiProject Council suggests that the better way to organize the parent-child relationship is the "task force" model, but I can't explain why. However, I've asked the question on the talk pages of some major Wikiprojects that make extensive use of this model (i.e., WP:Military History, 35 task forces // WP:India, 55 workgroups), and invited them to visit and describe their experiences. Agradman talk/contribs 22:31, 27 July 2009 (UTC) I posted this over at MILHIST, but I am placing a curtesy copy here as well so that others can see it. By definition a task force differs from a project in two big ways: first, a task force is focused on a more specific area of the general project (for example, our WWII task force focuses on all aspects of military history pertaining to WWII) which makes a TF's scope more narrow, and task forces are usually dependent on their parent project for infrastructure support (assessment ranks, perr reviews, A-class reviews in our project's case, etc). In this case, the major distinction is that the SCOTUS task force would be a more narrowly focused aspect of WP:LAW and would have to rely on WP:LAW for peer reviews, outreach support, MoS issues (specific to the Law community), assessments, and other higher matters dealt with at the project level. TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 00:02, 28 July 2009 (UTC) There's no particularly important meaning in the different designation ("WikiProject" versus "task force") in and of itself, although the latter terminology does make things a bit easier to understand when it's used consistently. The real difference between a fully independent WikiProject and a task force (or a WikiProject that functions as a task force, such as the ones John Carter mentions) is that a task force uses the parent project's technical and procedural infrastructure (internal templates, review processes, open task listings, bots, and so forth) rather than maintaining its own. This allows the task force to focus more on direct article writing, with the responsibility for maintaining the internal structures being centralized in the parent project, and the workload for doing so being reduced by eliminating redundancy between the parent project's task forces. Taskforces differ from independent Wikiprojects by reusing much of the infrastructure of the parent project. They get to use the departments like Assessment, Collaboration, Peer review, Automation (bot operators) etc. that are readily available at the parent project. They also help avoid talk page clutter by using a single banner (the parent one). Regards, Ganeshk (talk) 01:48, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

This is not a distinction of great importance in this case, I think—this project doesn't, as far as I can tell, maintain a large amount of internal structure in any case—but, considering that there's already discussion of creating another task force under the Law WikiProject, I think it might be worth moving some, if not all, of the other child projects into the same model. The Law WikiProject could then develop a task force infrastructure (similar to the one used by, say, military history) and have it immediately benefit the entire area, rather than only a single task force. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 00:23, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

To do list maintenance

I just added dates to the items on our to-do list. One item is from 2009; 5 items are from 2008; 9 items are from 2007; and 12 items are from 2006.

To me, this is an instance of inadequate maintenance (either we've neglected to remove the completed items, or we've neglected to complete the items -- I don't know which). I'm not saying this to insult the committed and dedicated contributors to this Wikiproject -- I'm just pointing out that we might be well-served to host our to-do list at WP:LAW, where we can benefit from the larger community of people to help us with these maintenance tasks.

I suspect that the people at this project, like me, enjoy writing and editing articles more than they enjoy doing maintenance tasks. So this feels like a win-win proposal. Agradman ^talk/_contribs 15:17, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

RE MZMcBride: although WP:LAW claims that we are a "child project," we don't show a WP:LAW banner on our talk page; our project page only mentions WP:LAW in that we're included in the category. Essentially, we're two separate Wikiprojects. For example, we've developed our own standards for structuring/citing/templating articles, separately from all the other law wikiprojects. By contrast, under the "task force" model, WP:LAW would have a "styleguide" task force, and its responsibility would be to develop standards for all the WP:LAW task forces. That way, we don't find that Circuit Court opinions diverge from Supreme Court opinions; and British users will not get tripped up with American standards. (for example, before Ironholds was familiar with American standards, he changed "X v. Y" to "X v Y", because there wasn't a single task force for agreeing upon citation formats.) Agradman ^talk/_contribs 20:48, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

request for comments: where do we stand on {{ussc}} and {{scite}}?

I have been researching the discussions regarding {{scite}} and {{ussc}} that occurred prior to my involvement at this WikiProject. My understanding is that:

1. we've reached consensus that however we do citations, it should be done via template, not manually (to avoid the need for "bots" to intervene when our policies change, or when newbies get it wrong)

2. most editors prefer for the wikilink to point to United States Reports, not case citation.

3. many editors do this via {{scite}} rather than {{ussc}}, because {{ussc}} indiscriminately generates an offsite hyperlink, which is inappropriate especially in the lead.

Based on these (mis?)impressions, I have some thoughts:

• Regarding 2, Have we considered making "430 U.S. 113" link to List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 430? This is analogous to what is done at WP:USC using {{USC}}. For the benefit of the layperson, we can add more info from United States Reports via bot + transclusion.
• Regarding 3, My feelings towards {{scite}} vs. {{ussc}} are as follows:

1. I think our Wikiproject should strive for consensus around a single, and simple, citation format.
   • This is because our principal priority should be to "scale" our WikiProject so that its methods can be learned by as many law-student-editors as possible. My job on student government next year is to recruit law students around the country to this Wikiproject, and I don't expect to have trouble rousing up the interest; we must prepare for the flood ...
2. This single template should support the ability to create off-site links, even if it's not implemented everywhere (i.e., it should be used only in the body text (not the lead) of articles).
   • Last month, at my request, {{ussc}} was rewritten so that {{ussc|487|654|1988|pin=675}} produces 487 U.S. 654, 675 (1988) -- i.e., the text "654, 675" now hyperlinks directly to the pincite. Naturally, in two weeks this feature hasn't yet caught on; but I think it will be critical in the long run, if we're to provide meaningful competition against, e.g., the Lexis "headnotes" which annotate the text. (For my first awkward attempt to demonstrate how this would work, please see the "Structure" section)

Taking these ideas together, I propose the following --

1. by default, {{ussc|487|654|1988}} should not generate an off-site hyperlink. Instead, the only link should be from "487 U.S.", pointing to List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 487.
2. To generate a hyperlink from {{ussc}}, you will have to specify the pin. e.g., to produce 487 U.S. 654 (1988), you must type {{ussc|487|654|1988|pin=654}}
3. While I believe strongly in "free as in freedom", I cast a reluctant vote in favor of restricting the offsite options to justia only, because pinciting is available only at justia and findlaw, and findlaw seems to be deprecated by consensus. (true?)

Thoughts? Agradman ^talk/_contribs 16:10, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't like the idea of linking only pieces of the citation. It looks goofy and sloppy. Either the entire unit should be linked ("44 U.S. 402") or none of it should be, in my view. I don't particularly care where it links to—nobody ever clicks them anyway. You also don't address how to deal with {{scite}}, or why it's bad to keep them separate. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:55, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

• I'm fine with linking the entire unit. Actually, that makes more sense. Good point. On further reflection, I strongly prefer linking only the first part (e.g. 44 U.S. 402, not 44 U.S. 402). This is because 1) we're going to be linking to the Reporter now (44 U.S.), so the link should point from 44 U.S.!! Also, how would external pincite hyperlinking be compatible with your format? (I respect the desire not to make something "look goofy and sloppy," but I think the logistical concerns outweigh it.)
• While I don't personally care where it links to, I raise the issue because this archived discussion indicates that other editors do. Apparently, these people felt that if case citations were going to link to anything, they should link to something descriptive -- for the benefit of laypersons, and also to improve Search Engine Optimization. At the end of the conversation, user:Chaser and user:Postdlf both preferred "to link to the article on the specific case reporter" (i.e. they came up with this idea), but there was a dissent from user:Scientus and the conversation grinded to a halt. (MZMcBride, I can't opine whether "nobody ever clicks on them anyway"; but if you're mentioning this to suggest that you're OK with this change, I'm glad to hear that.)
• Regarding {{scite}}: Sorry, my post was confusing. I had {{scite}} in mind when I said that "our Wikiproject should strive for consensus around a single, and simple, citation format," noting that "our principal priority should be to "scale" our WikiProject so that its methods can be learned by as many law-student-editors as possible." If we have some editors never using {{scite}}, and some users never using {{ussc}}, then I think that is a sign that we've had a failure of communication. I am advocating that we reprogram {{ussc}} to consensus, and then either 1) have a bot substitute {{ussc}} wherever there is a {{scite}} , or 2) rewrite the {{scite}} code to be identical to be this consensus version {{ussc}}. MZMcBride, it sounds like you're partial to {{scite}}. What sort of changes would you like to see in {{ussc}} for you to be comfortable using it? Agradman ^talk/_contribs 22:00, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

{{scite}} is simple and works well for leads. I'm not sure a general purpose solution for all SCOTUS-related citations everywhere is a good thing. It's possible that you would want the citation in the lead to be "plain" while you would the citation in the external links section to be more complex. When you have half the citation in dark blue, the other half in light blue, and other strange linking, it starts to look sloppy (like we just figured out how to create links). Think about it this way, removing the <span class="plainlinks"> (like we should for external lniks) it looks like this: 430 U.S. 44 (1934) (And if we're linking off-site, the external links arrow should really be there.)

To me, that looks terrible. I was initially hesitant to remove the links from the leads (I actually had the bot stopped), but the more I see it, a plain version for the lead seems best. United v. John, 483 U.S. 49 (1998), ... looks pretty clean to me. I don't know, maybe that's just me. I'd be interested to hear what others think. I think "scite" is easier to remember (and is more pronounceable), but that's just more opinion. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:41, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea of having pin cites to the actual cases when a specific section is referenced or quoted but not to a general description of the case (in which case the link should go to an article about the case). I think having links to the reporter volume make some sense, but what people will really want when they are reading a description of a case is a link to the pincite, not a link to the reporter in which the case that was referenced was published. I am neutral on how the pincite citation format should look except that if the link is external we need the external link arrow. Remember (talk) 13:04, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Agraman asked me to clarify my statement above so here are my points:

• I agree that by default, the template should not generate an external hyperlink to the text of the case; the external link should only appear when a specific section is referenced or quoted.
• I think having links to the reporter volume make some sense, but what people will really want when they are reading a description of a case is a link to the pincite, not a link to the reporter in which the case that was referenced was published. Alternatively, the link should go to an article about the case.
• I am neutral on how the pincite citation format should look except that if the link is external we need the external link arrow. Remember (talk) 20:57, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Remember about the reporter volumes, but I'd go even further. Just linking to some offsite copy of the case is the cleanest way of doing this: 487 U.S. 654 instead of linking to the volume, since the volume won't be useful for most people. As to deprecation of pincites, if we're unable to do the handy pincites in the future, we could always redo the template output to produce 487 U.S. 654, p. 675. Regarding 20241031131306, if we're keeping it for the initial lead citation, we should rename it "leadcite" to clear up confusion about where to use it.--chaser (talk)

Recent proposed changes to the outline

I've noticed some changes were proposed to the outline by Wikidea, who is (I believe) a British Wikipedia editor. Although the changes go against the grain of the "consensus" that was reached on these pages regarding the proper outline for Supreme Court articles, I think it's unfortunate that we've created standards for "Supreme Court case articles", rather than standards for Common Law cases in general. There should be a standard for all common law cases.

For this reason, I've proposed that WP:LAW should have a "styleguide" task force whose responsibility is to set standards (RE citation, outlining, etc.) for all the legal related sub-WikiProjects and articles. Now would be a good time to revive this idea. Thoughts? Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 06:10, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

• Support, and would welcome the chance to play a part in such a team and get WP:MOSLAW somewhat useful. Ironholds (talk) 17:34, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States

I'd like to try to get Demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States up to FA status. Any additional eyes would be appreciated! I've also listed this article for peer review at Wikipedia:Peer review/Demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States/archive1. Cheers! bd2412 T 10:06, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law/notability

Hey everyone, I'm sorry we neglected to invite you to this discussion, we're thinking of unrolling a notability guideline for WP:LAW. See in particular the thread regarding summary orders since it's highly relevant to our work. Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 01:51, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the entry under Other Lists for Jehovah's Witnesses

Does this link have any bearing upon the content of the page as a whole? If so, what are they? If it does not, then it needs to be integrated into the cases project and stricken from this page. If it is there out of humor, then it is of poor taste and needs to be removed altogether.

And for the record, I'm not affiliated with them, just a believer in the Constitution and what is written in it. Nighthawke75 23:18, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Key image in Near v. Minnesota listed for deletion

See discussion here. I'm still at a loss to figure out why. Postdlf (talk) 03:15, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Capitalization of Justice

Can someone authoritatively clarify the proper capitalization of "justice", standing alone. "Associate Justice" and "Chief Justice" seem to be unambiguously correct with full capitalization, but is it "justice" or "Justice" when the word stands alone, encompassing both? This article had lowercase in the title until I just moved it (as to many others), but they tend to capitalize the word in the text. If I was wrong, the linked article should be moved back.--chaser (away) - talk 20:15, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Renaming of U.S. constitution case law categories

Please participate at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 October 27#U.S. case law. postdlf (talk) 05:26, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Google publishing legal opinions

Check it out [1]. Remember (talk) 21:23, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Merge proposal

Redheylin (talk · contribs) has proposed a possible merge of articles North Carolina v. Alford (1970 Supreme Court of the United States case), with the form of guilty plea it spawned, Alford plea. Discussion is at Talk:North_Carolina_v._Alford#Contradiction_tag. Thank you for your time, Cirt (talk) 14:53, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Please also see Wikipedia:Content_noticeboard#Tags_at_Alford_articles. Cirt (talk) 05:15, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 December 23#Supreme Court cases by year

Your participation is welcome. postdlf (talk) 09:58, 23 December 2009 (UTC)