Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress

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See also: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress/Bioguide: Talk page for the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress/COTW: Talk page for Discussing our regular Collaboration Of The Week Archive 1: October 2005 – July 2006 Archive 2: July 2006 – December 2007 All subpages Tracking recent changes Some of the best pages to track are trackable via your favorite RSS or atom reader. See Wikipedia:Syndication. Recent changes RSS feed atom feed Recent changes to 110th United States Congress RSS atom Recent changes to 109th United States Congress RSS atom Recent changes to United States Congress RSS atom Recent changes to United States House of Representatives RSS atom Recent changes to United States Senate RSS atom Article alerts This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. 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Thanks. — Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 09:47, 15 March, 2009 (UTC) Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Naming conventions for United States federal buildings Opinions are requested at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Naming conventions for United States federal buildings, which affects this project to the extent that it deals with Congressional naming legislation, and buildings relating to this project (for example, if "U.S." is adopted for federal buildings, United States Capitol would be moved to U.S. Capitol. Cheers! bd2412 T 19:10, 17 July 2010 (UTC) I would like to see more opinions expressed at this discussion, which has relatively few editorial voices involved in determining an issue with broad reach. I believe that RFC's are traditionally kept open for a month, so opinions may be still posted for a few weeks. Cheers bd2412 T 19:14, 2 August 2010 (UTC) Discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums#Polling You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums#Polling. —Markles 10:41, 21 July 2010 (UTC) (Using {{Please see}}) Roman numerals for Senate classes Should we use roman numerals for Senate classes? It seems archaic (or is it pretentious?) to use them for class 1, class 2, class 3 (class I, class II, class III). See, e.g., List of United States Senators from Massachusetts‎ —Markles 19:22, 31 July 2010 (UTC) Seeing no dissent after a month, I'll make the change.—Markles 17:21, 2 September 2010 (UTC) Image The picture of Bob Filner is gone i just wanted to tell you so you can download a new one. Spongie555 (talk) 04:50, 23 August 2010 (UTC) Relevant AFD - Rob Miller (South Carolina politician) Article page = Rob Miller (South Carolina politician) AFD discussion, is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rob Miller (South Carolina politician) (2nd nomination). Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 22:20, 2 September 2010 (UTC) United States Congress Issue The United States Congress article, along with the United States Supreme Court and President of the United States articles, have been undergoing a fair amount of controversy lately about a Critcism section added to all three articles in 2009 after some extended discussion. More recently, an editor removed the sections from all three articles. The sections were restored to the court and president articles, and they remain restored and under discussion (again). The congress article though has seen a more aggressive battle. Another editor (not the one who initially removed the section) has been repeatedly removing the section despite other editor's attempts to retain it and discuss it. I personally reported the editor to WP:AN3 today. I'm asking for two things here. First, it would be great if some project editors would comment on the ongoing disussion on the Talk page of the congress article. We have a few editors contributing, but not a great many. Although I take an interest in the discussion, my main interest is in the court article. Second, if appropriate, comments on the admin noticeboard would be helpful, too.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:30, 12 September 2010 (UTC) U.S. Congress articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm. We would like to ask you to review the U.S. Congress articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th. We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback! For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 23:45, 19 September 2010 (UTC) 5% polling rule There is discussion at Talk:United States Senate election in Illinois, 2010#The rule regarding the convention that only candidates who poll above 5% are included in the infobox before the election. Despite links to the discussion where the convention took shape, some editors question its existence because it is not stated on a Wikiproject page. Please weigh in. -Rrius (talk) 19:29, 25 September 2010 (UTC) Revamp of United States Congress article here at Revamp of US Congress I'm asking for people to have a good look at a proposed revamp of United States Congress in the sandbox here at User:Tomwsulcer/United States Congress. I was spurred to fix it after one editor kept repeatedly removing a criticism section; the initial focus was trying to incorporate the criticisms within the body of the article, but then I got involved in expanding, revamping the article. It's grown to about 160K, has nice pictures. References are double. The big difference is that many more academic-type viewpoints have been added -- academics who study & teach about the Congress. So I hope it's a huge improvement but I would like others to weigh in on the proposed changes, since the article is important and heavily trafficked. There are also new spinoff subsidiary articles created to handle some of the overflow.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:04, 28 September 2010 (UTC) Merge three noticeboards I have started a proposal to merge three United States related Noticeboards into one due to all three having no, or extremely limited activity, in the last year. I believe this will invigorate the noticeboard if we keep any of them at all. I propose merging: Wikipedia:U.S. Southern wikipedians' notice board Wikipedia:U.S. Northern wikipedians' notice board into Wikipedia:U.S. Wikipedians' notice board. Please provide comments here (including support or oppose). Comments are necessary to ensure that this does not intefere with ongoing efforts. If no comments are received in 7 days I will assume there is no problem and proceed with the merger. --Kumioko (talk) 19:39, 12 October 2010 (UTC) Roy Blunt's Political Ads in Upcoming Senate Race I noticed that Rep. Blunt mentioned his ideas about creating jobs and to go to his web site for details - Roy Blunt.Com. - I did that and no where can I find any reference to a program iniated or proposed by him that would create jobs. Also I watched a polital ad that mentioned Robin Carnahan's support of President Obama's position on an energy plan and would cost Missouri 32,000 jobs. How did Rep. Blunt's staff arrive at this figure as I have not read anything about this in any newspaper or articles in magazines? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.63.6.135 (talk) 00:30, 14 October 2010 (UTC) You will not find this answer on Wikipedia. Please see Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. Otherwise, good luck with your research. —Markles 00:37, 14 October 2010 (UTC) Scope and Goal of this WikiProject All WikiProject project pages should have sections detailing the project's scope and goals. This project seems to lack these staple items. __meco (talk) 12:58, 15 October 2010 (UTC) You're right. Can you write one, please?—Markles 17:29, 15 October 2010 (UTC) Being a mere visitor I think that is something project members should conceive. __meco (talk) 18:52, 15 October 2010 (UTC) Invitation to help with WikiProject United States Hello, WikiProject U.S. Congress! We are looking for editors to join WikiProject United States, an outreach effort which aims to support development of United States related articles in Wikipedia. We thought you might be interested, and hope that you will join us. Thanks!!! --Kumioko (talk) 15:36, 2 November 2010 (UTC) Gang of Seven unassessed article is featured on BBC News today 3 Nov 2010 This article is in poor shape and needs to be reviewed by knowledgeable editors. Veriss (talk) 11:48, 3 November 2010 (UTC) WikiProject cleanup listing I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick (talk) 20:49, 7 November 2010 (UTC) Democrat party incorrectly identified as democratic throughout Change democratic to democrat for correct party identification. 71.105.162.213 (talk) 04:05, 17 November 2010 (UTC) No. Please see Democrat Party (phrase), a political epithet used in the United States instead of the Democratic Party. —Markles 13:20, 17 November 2010 (UTC) Huge problems with infoboxes on House of Representatives election articles & Senate election articles They create the impression that one is 'elected' Speaker, in the same manner as one is elected President. One is only elected Speaker at the beginning of the new Congress & by the full membership of the House. GoodDay (talk) 16:42, 23 November 2010 (UTC) They create the impression that one is 'elected' majority leader, in the same manner as one is elected President. One isn't elected majority leader, but rather elected Senate leader of his party & then known as majority leader, merely cuz his party will be the majority party in the Senate of the next Congress. GoodDay (talk) 16:49, 23 November 2010 (UTC) I agree this is incorrect, but it is not a "huge" problem. Pelosi, Boehner, Reid, and McConnell are the people most representative of their parties in their houses. So it is right to put them there. The fact of them being elected later doesn't really taint these articles. However, I can see a good argument to be made which would remove the people as figureheads altogether and just talk about the parties. (After all, look at the 1994 House election in which the Republican leader, Bob Michael wasn't even running for re-election.) Is that OK?—Markles 17:34, 23 November 2010 (UTC) It still doesn't look right. Though Gingrich was the out-going Republican whip (minority whip), he still wasn't elected Speaker via the mid-term election. He was only 'later' elected Speaker in January 1995, defeating the Democratic nominee. GoodDay (talk) 17:51, 23 November 2010 (UTC) Yes, that supports my suggestion that we should take the figureheads out altogether.—Markles 18:17, 23 November 2010 (UTC) They gotta be deleted. GoodDay (talk) 18:28, 23 November 2010 (UTC) It's the same with the Senate elections, concerning the majority leader. GoodDay (talk) 18:29, 23 November 2010 (UTC) Slightly different. A majority leader in either party in either house leads her/his party regardless of elections and Congress start dates. Only the Speaker is nominated (suggested?) by their caucus and subsequently elected by the whole house. Leaders are selected by their caucuses whenever they please.—Markles 19:56, 23 November 2010 (UTC) Grant you, the Senate is trickier, as only 1/3 of it is up for election every 2 yrs. GoodDay (talk) 19:58, 23 November 2010 (UTC) Can someone link me to what you're talking about? I'd like to determine for myself if the impression they give is present and, if so, if the impression is a "huge" or otherwise unreasonable problem. JasonCNJ (talk) 21:58, 23 November 2010 (UTC) Latest examples: United States House of Representatives election, 2010 & United States Senate election, 2006. Nobody was elected Speaker or Senate majorit leader on mid-term election night. These covers all House & Senate elections. GoodDay (talk) 22:06, 23 November 2010 (UTC) If you change the "Elected Speaker" to "Presumptive Speaker", I think that would work. Makes clear that they weren't made speaker by the November election, but that everybody (including the voters) knew that would be the effect of the election. "Presumptive" is normally used in presidential elections to indicate the party nominee after clinching the win in primaries but before actually getting the nomination at the convention; this is reasonably analogous. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:31, 24 November 2010 (UTC) If there's no objections, I'll do that tommorrow. Now, whatabout the Senate elections articles? GoodDay (talk) 01:37, 24 November 2010 (UTC) I think "elected" and "presumptive" are a bit too oblique, while "Speaker," "Majority leader" and "Minority leader" are sometimes accurate and other times inaccurate. Thus, perhaps we could come up with a better term, such as "leader of the party"?—Markles 13:31, 27 November 2010 (UTC) I was gonna go through all the House & Senate elections articles, to remove the inaccurate mentioning of speakers & leaders from the infoboxes, but it's too much comotion. GoodDay (talk) 06:51, 27 November 2010 (UTC) Reid & McConnell were leaders before the 2010 election, remained so after the election, and will continue as so when the new Congress begins. Their job is not re-elected, it's continuous. —Markles 13:31, 27 November 2010 (UTC) I'm not sure what you mean here. Both Reid and McConnell were re-elected to their leadership posts on November 16 (see this Politico story for example). Wasted Time R (talk) 14:21, 27 November 2010 (UTC) But there was no nation wide election for Republic Senate leader & Democratic Senate leader on November 2 (like there is in presidential elections). Reid & McConnell didn't face each other head-to-head in any contest. Those articles are about the elections of Senators 'only'. GoodDay (talk) 14:54, 27 November 2010 (UTC) Infobox At the bottom of the infobox, instead of Speaker before election & Elected Speaker, howabout Outgoing Speaker & Incoming Speaker. GoodDay (talk) 22:07, 27 November 2010 (UTC) A consideration for cross project consolidation of talk page templates I have started a conversation here about the possibility of combining some of the United States related WikiProject Banners into {{WikiProject United States}}. If you have any comments, questions or suggestions please take a moment and let me know. --Kumioko (talk) 20:26, 27 November 2010 (UTC) Invitation to participate! Hello! As you may be aware, the Wikimedia Foundation is gearing up for our annual fundraiser. We want to hit our goal, and hit it as soon as possible, so that we can focus on Wikipedia's tenth anniversary (January 15) and on our new project, the Contribution Team. I'm posting across WikiProjects to engage you, the community, in working to build Wikipedia not only through financial donations, but also through collaboration in building content. You can find more information in Philippe Beaudette's memo to the communities here. Please visit the Contribution Team page and the Fundraising page to find out how you can help us support and spread free knowledge. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT PRAISE 13:18, 30 November 2010 (UTC) Suggested policy change to the tagging of non article items I have submitted a proposal at the Village pump regarding tagging non article items in Wikipedia. Please take a moment and let me know what you think. --Kumioko (talk) 02:08, 6 December 2010 (UTC) Discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2010 December 5#Utah Territory's At-large congressional district You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2010 December 5#Utah Territory's At-large congressional district. —Markles 11:43, 8 December 2010 (UTC) (Using {{Please see}}) Error in Adam John Glossbrenner Bio Adam John Glossbrenner was A clerk IN the US House of Representatives 1843-47, not Clerk OF the House. Benjamin Brown French was Clerk Of the House. Check http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=G000242 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerk_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives#List_of_Clerks for corroboration. The two men were friends, but French was Clerk and Glossbrenner was a subordinate. -Freelance Historian —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.185.147.114 (talk) 19:36, 10 December 2010 (UTC) Thank you! You can make the change here. Be Bold!—Markles 22:06, 10 December 2010 (UTC) A note on subcommittees for the 112th Congress A point of information and word of caution for editors of congressional committee articles as we approach the start of the 112th Congress. Please make sure you move articles if the committee is renamed rather than starting over from scratch with a new article. This will ensure edit histories remain intact. Subcommittees often experience renamings and jurisdiction shifts every two years, particularly if there is a change in party control (like in the House), or a change in committee leadership. Already, some incoming Republican chairmen have annouced changes they intend to make to subcommittee structured. However, a simple name change does not justify the creation of a brand new article. An example of this will be the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee. It is being split into two subcommittees,[1] going back to its previous incarnation in 2007. Therefore, the Energy and Environment Subcommittee should be moved to its new name, Energy and Power, while the former Environment and Hazardous Materials subcommittee is being restored and renamed Environment and Economy. I have also started a sandbox to make start work on updating committee memberships if anyone would like to contribute.DCmacnut<> 16:51, 17 December 2010 (UTC) List of persons who have served in all three branches of the United States federal government I have gotten this article started. Please let me know if I've missed anyone, and particularly if I've missed any "near misses", such as people who served in the executive and judiciary branches who ran unsuccessfully for Congress. Cheers! bd2412 T 19:15, 22 December 2010 (UTC) Seems daunting, but go for it.—Markles 21:32, 22 December 2010 (UTC) District histories Hi. I have not formerly been part of this or any other WikiProject, but this seems a good place to report my idea. I have long been bothered by the fact that all the congressional district pages give a long list of the representatives from that district without mentioning how the district's boundaries have changed, often drastically. As a pilot project, I have edited AZ-1 and AZ-2 to give this information. Extending this to all such pages would, of course, be a huge project, which I don't necessarily have time for. For now, I am interested in any feedback as to the importance of this project, and whether the information might be better represented. Thanks, --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 20:27, 22 December 2010 (UTC) Good idea. It's been done in a few articles already (see, for example, Massachusetts's 3rd congressional district) but it's a tremendous undertaking to try to do it for all districts. I suggest, while you're working on the Arizona district pages,that you remove the Representatives birth years, as it's irrelevant to the article .—Markles 21:27, 22 December 2010 (UTC) I started something similar but got sidetracked when it proved a huge undertaking. Check out Alabama's 8th congressional district for another formating option.DCmacnut<> 21:54, 22 December 2010 (UTC) Thanks for the good ideas. I've updated my two-page pilot project, but may not do more for now. I encourage anyone interested to do the same for other pages. The Historical Atlas of United States Congressional Districts, 1789-1983 has the counties nicely tabulated. It would be nice to say something about quadrants of the state, or major metro areas, to help orient the reader, but that may be even farther in the future. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 05:17, 23 December 2010 (UTC) WP:12 This redirect is up for deletion. I hope I'm posting on the right project page. See Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2010 December 22. Simply south (talk) and their tree 21:04, 22 December 2010 (UTC) Alas, you're not. This project is Congress-based, and doesn't get into Presidential elections. Try contacting Wikipedia:WikiProject United States presidential elections. —Markles 21:28, 22 December 2010 (UTC) Discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress/Ordinal congresses#Senate elections You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress/Ordinal congresses#Senate elections. —Markles 15:28, 23 December 2010 (UTC) (Using {{Please see}}) Requested move I have nominated David Price (American politician) for move, though I have no preference, to 'congressman', 'U.S. politician', or 'North Carolina politician' (in order of simplicity). I thought it best to put a notice here so interested parties would know. Please read and comment. 75.204.179.20 (talk) 07:01, 25 December 2010 (UTC) This has been relisted due to lack of consensus (only 1 response). Please comment so that a path forward can be chosen. 75.202.142.52 (talk) 19:31, 1 January 2011 (UTC) 109th United States Congress I have nominated 109th United States Congress for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. File:112th United States Congress Senators.svg Senators' party membership by state   Democrats   1 Democrat and 1 Republican   Republicans   Independent I recently made this image to replace a PNG image. I have noticed the legend entry for Independent is a bit clunky. Originally, I had the map depict states with one Dem and one GOP as striped blue-red, but it became an eyesore (and thus I made that purple instead); however, I left one Dem, one Ind as striped. How should we deal with Independent legend entry and the whole striping thing. Also just, so you guys know, the map is coded so that it can handle vacancies. In the case of a vacancy, a state is striped black (i.e. a given state could be blue-black, green-black, or red-black in the case of a vacancy); also in the rare case that a state has two vacancies simultaneously, it can turn the whole state black. Thegreyanomaly (talk) 08:31, 6 January 2011 (UTC) What program did you use to edit the image?—Markles 11:47, 6 January 2011 (UTC) EditX XML editor. It is completely text editable, so using Inkscape on this would cause problems. Thegreyanomaly (talk) 19:18, 6 January 2011 (UTC) Discussion at Template talk:USBill#Broken for the 112th Congress You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:USBill#Broken for the 112th Congress. For some unknown reason, {{USBill}} isn't working in this new Congress. —Markles 16:14, 6 January 2011 (UTC) (Using {{Please see}}) Also commenting here. The template isn't broken. It has been returning an error because some resolutions have not been added to the THOMAS database yet. Once they are added, it will work fine.DCmacnut<> 21:37, 6 January 2011 (UTC) Committee lists/chairs in the Ordinals? Should we add a list in each of the ordinal Congress articles (1st United States Congress…112th United States Congress) of the committee chairs for that Congress? It seems appropriate to me.—Markles 01:28, 13 January 2011 (UTC) I have long thought about adding committee information for each congress some time ago (I think it's in the archives) and agree with the idea in principle. The information is available from a variety of sources. But we it could get unwieldly unless we limit it somehow, such as only those ordinal congresses when they began establishing standing committess (1816 for the Senate and 1801 for the House). There were 123 Senate committees in the 1st Congress alone. Another option would be to limit it to Congresses after the adoption of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, which established the modern committee system. In 1906 there were 66 Senate committees. In 1920 there were 80.DCmacnut<> 15:28, 13 January 2011 (UTC) US Collaboration reactivated & Portal:United States starting next Casliber recently posted a suggestion on the talk page for WikiProject United States about getting the US Wikipedians Collaboration page going again in an effort to build up articles for GA through FA class. See Wikipedia:U.S. Wikipedians' notice board/USCOTM. After several days of work from him the page is up and ready for action. A few candidates have already been added for you to vote on or you can submit one using the directions provided. If you are looking for inspiration here is a link to the most commonly viewed articles currently under the scope of Wikiproject United States. There are tons of good articles in the various US related projects as well so feel free to submit any article relating to US topics (not just those under the scope of WPUS). This noticeboard is intended for ‘’’All’’’ editors working on US subjects, not just those under WPUS. The next item I intend to start updating is Portal:United States if anyone is interested in helping. Again this is not specific to WPUS and any help would be greatly appreciated to maximize visibility of US topics. The foundation has already been established its just a matter of updating the content with some new images, biographies and articles. Please let leave a comment on the Portals talk page or let me know if you have any questions or ideas. --Kumioko (talk) 19:32, 15 January 2011 (UTC) Women in Congress I put a question at List of members of the United States Congress by longevity of service on including a section on longest serving women in Congress; comments please. 75.203.254.91 (talk) 01:58, 17 January 2011 (UTC) Treaties Can someone explain to me why treaties signed by the executive branch are an appropriate subject to list in the various articles on the 5th or 36th or whatever Congress? Treaties are relevant to Congress in terms of their ratification, not their signature. It makes little sense to list Jay's Treaty in the 3rd Congress when the 3rd Congress did not discuss Jay's Treaty at all - as far as congress goes, Jay's Treaty properly belongs to the 4th Congress, doesn't it? john k (talk) 04:35, 17 January 2011 (UTC) Perhaps taking it off their 'to do list', not having to override a veto, which would have required further action? 75.203.254.91 (talk) 07:55, 17 January 2011 (UTC) Er, you've gotten it backwards - treaties are signed first by plenipotentiaries representing each party (and, in the American case, those representatives represent the president, specifically), and then ratified by the Senate afterwards. All of the laws are listed by the date they became law (i.e., date of presidential signature). The problem is that something like Jay's Treaty was signed in London in late 1794, while the third congress was still in its second session, but not actually presented to the Senate for ratification until the summer of 1795, in the special session of the 4th Congress. john k (talk) 18:46, 17 January 2011 (UTC) I think I was the one who added them originally. I agree with you, however, that they should be included only the ordinal Congress articles that are relevant.—Markles 14:15, 17 January 2011 (UTC) USCongress Party Summary template As far as I can tell, the Party Summary template has successfully been added to all previous Congresses. I was looking for a way to help, so I started with the "to do list." Should that task be removed from the list? I'd like to be bold but I also don't want to overstep my bounds. Somanytictoc (talk) 03:36, 19 January 2011 (UTC) Moved to Template talk:USCongress Party summary § Ways to help Relationship with WikiProject United States People from a variety of WikiProjects have had concerns about the scope of WikiProject United States and its relationship with other WikiProjects. We have created an RFC and invite all interested editors to discuss it at: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject United States#Mission statement for WikiProject United States. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 15:33, 26 January 2011 (UTC) Proper nouns I'm quite frustrated by Wikipedia's apparent inability to distinguish between a proper noun and a common one or a collective one. A proper noun is capitalized. "Congress," for example, when the word refers to that branch of the USA's federal government comprised of the Senate and the House of Representatives, is a proper noun. Some other germane examples of proper nouns: "Congressional District" - the area which, my local Board of Elections tells me, defines the boundary of the area the person I get to vote for, as a Representative, will represent. "Congresswoman," "Congressman," honorific titles used to describe that person elected as my Representative are also used as stand-alone proper nouns. So, please, tell me from whence comes this - what seems to me quite improper - Wikipedia omission of capital letters on proper nouns? Ruth-Claire (talk) 01:05, 28 January 2011 (UTC)Ruth-Claire Can you point out some specifics? In a nutshell, here are the proper capitalization rules as I understand them, based on the consensus developed by this project. Yes, Congress is a proper noun in all cases when referring to the U.S. Congress. "Congressional" as an adjective, however, is not. In the majority of cases, congressional is an adjective and not a proper noun, and therefore not subject to capitalization. It is never "Congressional" as a stand-alone word. It is congressional committee and congressional district. But it is Congressional Budget Office or the Congressional Record. in the case of "congressional district", obviously some choose to capitalize Congressional District when it is part of the full proper noun, as in New York's 1st Congressional District. However, lower case is also acceptable, and that is the path this project has chosen. Yet, when referring to "congressional districts" in general terms, lower case is always the proper form. federal is never capitalized unless part of a proper noun. It is the United States federal budget and U.S. federal government, but Federal Trade Commission and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. It is Congressman, Senator, or Representative when it preceeds the person's name, such as Representative John Boehner or Senator Harry Reid, but is lower case in other uses, such as "each state is represented in the U.S. Congress by two senators, and a number of representatives determined by population." I hope this helps. Again, if you have specific examples, please share them.DCmacnut<> 16:15, 31 January 2011 (UTC) Let's make completed election boxes their own templates I'm working on a rewrite of Kirsten Gillibrand and I included election boxes ({{election box}}) for each of the elections she's been involved in. I realized they aren't appropriate for the biography, so I put them in the election articles. Then I realized there's no way to keep control of the correct, sourced boxes. Let's start a system where these boxes are templates. I'd propose, for example, Template:Election box-NY 20 2008, Template:Election box-NY 20 2008 and Template:Election box-NY Special Senate 2010. Then these pages can be watched and inserted into articles using minimal code (if use of Template space if frowned upon, we could store them as subpages of this group, doesn't matter to me). Categories will have to be made, etc., but I think it would make things better. Comments? upstateNYer 22:51, 29 January 2011 (UTC) Broken Congressional committee URL's I recently noticed that many if not most of the external links for House subcomittees and Senate subcommittees are broken. I suspect that this is due to URL changes as a result of the new session starting, especially with the change in ruling parties in the House. Updating all of them is too big a project for one person, so would anyone else be willing to help out updating the URL's? Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 05:02, 6 February 2011 (UTC) I don't understand what you mean. They all are blue linked.—Markles 13:29, 6 February 2011 (UTC) I'm talking about the external links at the bottom of the individual subcomittee articles. Unlike wikilinks, external links are blue whether they're broken or not; you can only tell if you click on them. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 21:37, 6 February 2011 (UTC) Collaboration for the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution Greetings, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution has been chosen as the U.S. Wikipedians Collaboration of the Month for February 2011. As a project who has identified this article to be in your scope we encourage you to edit this article and help to build it up to better explain the subject and to get it promoted. --Kumioko (talk) 20:49, 7 February 2011 (UTC) Source for past committee assignments Is there a source that lists all past committee and subcommittee assignments of members of Congress? upstateNYer 01:33, 18 February 2011 (UTC) I've used the Congressional Quarterly Almanac for this. Each volume (example: Congressional Quarterly Almanac 93rd Congress 1st Session 1973) lists all the chairs and members of each committee, each subcommittee, and each special committee for that session of Congress. Better local libraries have many of the recent volumes, a good university library will have them going back decades. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:30, 18 February 2011 (UTC) The official Congressional Directory also has committee and subcommittee information (for example), but the GPO website only has copies since 1997. Google Books has copies from the early 1900s. Libraries may carry the rest. —Designate (talk) 03:42, 18 February 2011 (UTC) That's perfect. Exactly what I needed. Incidentally, does this wikiproject host a page on 'commonly reference sources' or anything? Because I feel this should probably be included in such a list. Admittedly I didn't spend much time looking around before asking here. upstateNYer 05:02, 20 February 2011 (UTC) Featured portal candidate: United States Portal:United States is a current featured portal candidate. Please feel free to leave comments. -- RichardF (talk) 14:26, 22 February 2011 (UTC) BLP noticeboard discussion I have started a discussion at the BLP noticeboard about Rick Santorum, santorum, and santorum (sexual neologism) that editors here may wish to join. Mike Christie (talk – library) 10:02, 23 February 2011 (UTC) List of members of the United States House of Representatives who never took office/Franklin Potts Glass, Sr. Hi-I started articles about people who were elected to the United States House of Representatives and never took office. There is a list about this people. I got interested in this while working on the Iowa Territory article and came across Francis Gehon who was elected to the House but never took office as a non-voting delegate because of a change in law. The talk page of the list about these people who were elected but never took office had a diccussion about whether there should be some category. Maybe, we should take a look at that one again. I also started an article about an Alabama newspaper editor [Franklin Potts Glass, Sr.]] who was appointed to a vacant US Senate seat in 1913 but never took office because of the ratification of the seventeenth ammendment to the US Constitution that had just taken place. Any comments would be greatly appreciated. Thank yo-RFD (talk) 13:06, 8 March 2011 (UTC) Advice on staffers At least two of the biographies on my watchlist have periodical rewrites from staffers. They volunteer their affiliation, but even so they are targeted editors. I don't really feel like getting into battles with them - they're on salary, and some of the work is necessary maintenance. But they burnish their boss's article and add PR-type claims of sponsoring bills, leading fights, opposing injustice, and funding local projects. Vandals are simple to deal with - how do we deal with staffers? They're not as clumsy as they were a few years ago.   Will Beback  talk  12:09, 24 March 2011 (UTC) I have no specific advise, but I suggest posting your query at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard and mention specifically that you're dealing with professional boosters (perhaps akin to publicists).12:51, 24 March 2011 (UTC) United States Bill of Rights is a candidate for the U.S. Collaboration of the Month The United States Bill of Rights article has been submitted as a possible candidate for the U.S. Collaboration of the Month. --Kumioko (talk) 16:20, 30 March 2011 (UTC) New Congressional districts As new congressional districts are being passed, I'd like to remind everyone not to simply remove the old ones from articles when these take effect. I saw that in a previous post here that people are including histories in the individual district articles, which is great. I suggest adding "Historical districts" sections to the state articles (e.g. New York's congressional districts), which would have discontinued maps. Thanks, Reywas92Talk 19:28, 16 April 2011 (UTC) Structure of articles for U.S. Congress members re: campaigns Although the Guidelines for these articles address the separate campaign articles, User:Jerzeykydd has been consistently circumventing them and labeling his edits 'cleaning up'. Here's an example. He merges the campaign material into the Congress section in an attempt to trivialize the job itself and bury the important points such as Committee assignments. This has been some campaign of his (all Senators, all Reps) to make Congress appear to be nothing more than some team sport, putting all the focus on the campaigns. As you can see, he also DELETED the link to the 2010 campaign to make it appear the article didn't exist - that's specifically addressed at the end of the Guidelines. This is not editing in good faith, imo, as this has been discussed several times and he apparently believes the consensus doesn't apply to him. All the member articles were in compliance with the Guidelines by the time of the 2010 election, and that took a great deal of my time. Since then, he has been on a personal quest to change all of them, and has reverted those I've once again restructured. This really must be addressed, as it's pointless for me to continue on this project if he's allowed to continue 'doing his own thing'. Flatterworld (talk) 15:49, 24 April 2011 (UTC) Page move discussion Please comment at Talk:Rod_Blagojevich_corruption_charges#Requested_move on moving Rod Blagojevich corruption charges → United States v. Blagojevich.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 18:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC) Santorum (sexual neologism) Santorum (sexual neologism) This article has recently been expanded with additional sources and referencing improvements. There is also some ongoing discussion about that, at the article's talk page. If you are interested, please have a look at Santorum (sexual neologism) and the associated talk page discussion at Talk:Santorum (sexual neologism). Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 20:50, 13 May 2011 (UTC) Politics related navigational template nominated for deletion The navigational template {{Political neologisms}} has been nominated for deletion. Please see discussion, at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2011_May_25#Template:Political_neologisms. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 17:53, 26 May 2011 (UTC) Charles Curtis It seems odd to me that a former Senate Majority Leader and Vice President of the United States should have an article rated of "low importance" by the Wikipedia U.S. Congress group. Smallchief (talk) 09:54, 28 May 2011 (UTC) Then you may upgrade the rating yourself and discuss it on the talk page. Be bold!—Markles 13:23, 28 May 2011 (UTC) United States Bill of Rights has been selected as the United States Wikipedians' Collaboration of the Month for June 2011 The United States Bill of Rights, an article within the scope of this project, has been selected as the United States Wikipedians' Collaboration of the Month for June 2011. The goal this month is to get this article to Good Article standards by July 4th, 2011. All editors interested in improving this article are encouraged to participate. You can also vote for next months article of the Month here. --Kumioko (talk) 16:02, 3 June 2011 (UTC) Request for comment - Santorum (neologism) Santorum (neologism) Request for Comment discussion started, please see Talk:Santorum_(neologism)#Proposal_to_rename.2C_redirect.2C_and_merge_content. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 06:24, 4 June 2011 (UTC) Voting section Moved from Talk:New York's 9th congressional district § Voting section WTF do the ranges mean? If it's a rep / dem share, that's pretty stupid, neither exhaustively complete (is the difference between the total and 100% spoiled ballots or what?) nor concise. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 09:52, 7 June 2011 (UTC) It means the stated winner got the larger number, and the next place finisher got the next number.—Markles 12:18, 9 June 2011 (UTC) I think the Presidential races are totally out of scope here, and should be deleted. Kraxler (talk) 14:55, 9 June 2011 (UTC) Like in other congressional districts, this information gives some insight into the political leanings of the district. That is their scope.—Markles 15:05, 9 June 2011 (UTC) I think the political leaning can be judged from the congressional elections, and that's what the article is about: the district and the persons who represented it. Kraxler (talk) 15:09, 9 June 2011 (UTC) Daniel Webster FAR I have nominated Daniel Webster for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Brad (talk) 00:48, 28 June 2011 (UTC) Question about Sections Is there an agreed upon order for major sections on Congressmen and Senators? I don't mean the introductory box, but I see some pages where Major Legislation and Controversies are up front, and others where they are last(ish). Campaigns might be right after "early life and career" or last, just above the nicely formatted box of results. If someone could direct me to the list of suggested sections, I would appreciate it.Senor Island (talk) 00:48, 6 July 2011 (UTC)Senor Island, 7/5/11 There isn't one. This project isn't very active (from what I've seen), so the better articles are usually written by individuals to their own preferences. Take a look at the GAs and FAs for some of the better examples, but they don't have a consistent layout. My preference is Lead Early life/upbringing Early career (pre-politics or local politics) U.S. Representative career (or other office) Lead section: Election, re-election, committee history (especially past and present chairmanships) Broad area of policy, with major legislation associated with the subject Broad area of policy II Broad area of policy III Misc. (other major issues) U.S. Senate career (etc.) Same layout as above Political image or views Post-Congressional career or legacy Personal life Electoral history (an "appendix" so to speak—succinct table format or separate article) References My preference, of course, differs from others', and it isn't set in stone. If someone's had a forty-year career it's better to break it up chronologically rather than by policy area, for example. As you mentioned, some people like to put the campaign sections at the end of the article. This is senseless to me; I think the article should be roughly chronological, and a politician gets elected before he passes legislation. If I add an "electoral history" table, I'll put that as an "appendix", since it's big, awkward, and encompasses multiple offices. The prose about each campaign/election, however, should fit in a rough chronology, because it forms the "story" of the politician's career. That's typical of most biographies outside of Wikipedia, and I don't know what the argument is for inverting it. I try to pretend every member of Congress later became president, and how would their career be summarized? You would talk about how they first got elected and how they got where they were. You wouldn't write about their career and then leave their campaigns as a footnote. The re-election campaign section, if there is one, can either go before or after, or you can divide the career section. There's no ideal place. But for most politicians, re-election isn't a very big story and can be summarized in a few sentences after the initial election section. The "Congressional career" sections should focus on real legislative accomplishments, while the "Political image" section ought to focus on third-party opinions. I very much dislike long lists of policy positions, and prefer to give a general leaning on the political spectrum as defined by advocacy groups. Long campaign-style policy lists (e.g., Abortion, Illegal Immigration, Energy, etc., etc.) are next to worthless in a biography unless they're particularly noteworthy—you would never see them in a presidential biography, for example. A "Controversies" section is usually a bad idea. Anecdotes should fit comfortably in the prose. If they look out-of-place or overwhelm the article, they should probably be reduced or left out entirely. Anyway, those are just my thoughts. Hopefully you consider them reasonable. I wouldn't be comfortable with a sitewide standard since there are so many Congress articles and so few of them have gone through a review. Some individuals have tried to systematically reorganize every article, stamping a template without really contributing any content, but that usually makes people mad (it makes me mad). It's better to focus on content and let the layout fit into whatever order seems natural. There's plenty of room for everyone to try their own thing and maybe a consensus will develop over time. Sorry to be so verbose, by the way. I've had this in the back of my head and haven't really written it down anywhere until now. —Designate (talk) 01:48, 6 July 2011 (UTC) Thanks for a quick and very good answer. I suppose the only place I differ is I prefer a Controversy section and a Major Legislation section, because those are things I personally like to find easily. I usually see Campaigns broken out, which I also like. So that's something like: Lead Early life/upbringing Early career (pre-politics or local politics, including other elected offices) Political Campaigns Summary (I found too many years posted made it look bad) Senor Island (talk) 22:01, 8 July 2011 (UTC) Most recent campaign Current Campaign (if any) Contributor Profile — Preceding unsigned comment added by Senor Island (talk • contribs) 16:12, 7 July 2011 (UTC) U.S. Representative career (or other office) Current Committee Assignments Past Committee Assignments, especially chairmanships or leadership positions Caucus Memberships Major Legislation (if any) Controversies (if any) U.S. Senate career (etc.) Same layout as above Political Views (which should include at least 3 good quotes) Project Vote Smart link and summarySenor Island (talk) 21:00, 8 July 2011 (UTC) Interest Group Ratings Post-Congressional career or legacy (if any) Personal life Electoral history (table format) Works (if any) See also References External Links Senor Island (talk) 16:41, 6 July 2011 (UTC) What is "Political Courage test link and summary"?—Markles 17:56, 8 July 2011 (UTC) It's really Project Vote Smart. It's a questionairre that most Congressmen fill out that makes their positions on most big issues of the day transparent to voters. The questionairre is known as the Political Courage Test. Beyond simply answering the questions, politicians can add their own quotes or coloring to their "standardized" answers. It is a completely neutral method for bringing a politician's political views to light, as the answers (or non-answers) are direct from the source.Senor Island (talk) 21:00, 8 July 2011 (UTC) Chaplain of the Untied States Senate I took the article labeled as a "list" -- Chaplain of the United States Senate -- and have made it into what I think is a pretty good article. (I say, modestly.) Could someone take a look and change the rating from "list" to something else? Thanks! NearTheZoo (talk) 19:10, 28 July 2011 (UTC) Done. Nice job.—Markles 22:20, 28 July 2011 (UTC) Thanks very much, Markles. I learned a lot doing the article! NearTheZoo (talk) 22:34, 28 July 2011 (UTC) Chaplain of the United States House of Representatives This article is rated "list class," but I just added information which I think moves it from a "list" to an "article." Could someone take a look and consider reevaluating it? Thanks! NearTheZoo (talk) 13:18, 8 August 2011 (UTC) US Senator list templates {{U.S. Senator row}} , {{Start U.S. Senator}} , {{End U.S. Senator}} , have been nominated for deletion. These are currently unused, however, it appears that lists of US senators by state table articles use plain wikitable code instead of templatized rows. So, is it preferable to use a template or plain wikicode? 70.24.251.158 (talk) 05:12, 20 October 2011 (UTC) I suggested a speedy delete. We use wikicode.13:05, 21 October 2011 (UTC) District demographics Good morning - what are the guidelines for the demographics information on congressional district pages? I updated the page for the district I live in, New York's 12th Congressional District, as the demographics have changed significantly in 10 years, but I'm not sure if we have to stick with 2000 Census data until 2010 data comes out, or if we can base it on other estimates...if anyone knows I'd be interested to find out. Thanks! Paul (talk) 14:33, 24 October 2011 (UTC) Welcome! Generally, we try to keep the historical perspective for most/all articles. Thus, I recommend adding information as demographics change. Do not remove the old information, but instead, write how it's changed from one census to the next.—GoldRingChip 19:08, 24 October 2011 (UTC) Nomination of Leon Panetta as a United States Wikipedians' Collaboration of the Month candidate Greetings, as a WikiProject that relates to this article, this notice was sent to let you know that the article, Leon Panetta, has been nominated to be a future Collaboration of the Month article. All editors interested in voting for or improving these article are encouraged to participate. You can cast your vote here. --Kumioko (talk) 16:43, 31 January 2012 (UTC) WikiWomen's History Month Hi everyone. March is Women's History Month and I'm hoping a few folks here at WP:U.S. Congress will have interest in putting on events (on and off wiki) related to women's roles in the US Congress. We've created an event page on English Wikipedia (please translate!) and I hope you'll find the inspiration to participate. These events can take place off wiki, like edit-a-thons, or on wiki, such as themes and translations. Please visit the page here: WikiWomen's History Month. Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to seeing events take place! SarahStierch (talk) 21:02, 1 February 2012 (UTC) Question: Is it true (as recently ranted on Fox News) that U S Congressional 'staff' members do NOT have to repay college loans? Can someone please expand this page to includes 'benefit?' 71.234.169.208 (talk) 14:22, 21 February 2012 (UTC) Species of Senate candidates I notice that a cat is listed on the United States Senate election in Virginia, 2012 article. Is there a requirement that a Senate candidate be human? Hack (talk) 16:24, 4 March 2012 (UTC) There is an age requirement, 30 years, which the cat would not meet.—GoldRingChip 17:24, 4 March 2012 (UTC) See Article One of the United States Constitution#Clause 3: Qualifications of Senators; note that meeting the requirements is a barrier to taking office, not to running as a candidate or winning the election - underage candidates have won (some took office before turning the required age), later elected individuals waited until attaining the age, and candidates have won despite being dead. Dru of Id (talk) 22:39, 4 March 2012 (UTC) Good point — then I guess a cat could be a candidate; a cat could win; but a cat couldn't serve. For that matter, so could a cactus or the color blue.—GoldRingChip 02:25, 5 March 2012 (UTC) The cat could poll the highest number of votes, but to win it must be declared the winner by the canvass committee (or election inspectors...), which I doubt they would do. But it would certainly be the "moral winner"... Kraxler (talk) 00:33, 6 March 2012 (UTC) The original question was more about whether the cat could be registered as a candidate and/or get its name on the ballot. Hack (talk) 07:08, 6 March 2012 (UTC) Which would depend on Virginia state election laws, which I don't know. Dru of Id (talk) 12:35, 6 March 2012 (UTC) AfD - List of United States Senators who died in the 2010s This article is up for deletion and I could really use some support for it to stay. I plan on making other lists to easily show senators and representatives by date of death, all of which will look presentable in this template. I chose to break up the senators by decade because 1 page for each year would have too few and 1 for all time would have too many. I also made this page to summarize as well as link to all of the current congressional death pages. This creates a very easy way to view a significant moment (death) from these important people. Please weigh in on the discussion. Thanks. RoadView (talk) 04:32, 8 March 2012 (UTC) For the sake of being balanced, I encourage you to voice your support for deletion if that's what you feel is necessary. RoadView (talk) 19:19, 8 March 2012 (UTC) AfD - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of members of the United States House of Representatives who died in 2012 Please weigh in on the discussion for this as well, thanks. RoadView (talk) 22:33, 8 March 2012 (UTC) South Dakota's 1st congressional district - counties? What were its counties between the 1912 and 1982 elections? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.149.242.9 (talk) 16:23, 1 April 2012 (UTC) Moved to Talk:South Dakota's 1st congressional district Which congressional districts has Kennedy Space Centre's Launch Complex 39 been in since the 1966 elections? I know that Bill Posey and Sandy Adams are Brevard County's current reps whose districts cover the KSC area, Merritt Island, Titusville, and the Space Coast. I also know that before Bill Nelson (one-time Shuttle astronaut) became a Senator he represented the area until he retired at the 1990 elections; he was elected to the House in 1978, but I do not know for sure if the area was ALREADY a part of his district at the time, or if it was transferred to his seat in subsequent redistricting during his tenure. Any help would be appreciated, thanks! Harry Porter, 26, UK — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.149.242.9 (talk) 16:30, 1 April 2012 (UTC) Moved to Talk:List of United States congressional districts § Kennedy Space Centre's Launch Complex 39 South Dakota's 2nd congressional district - counties? What were its counties between the 1912 and 1982 elections?--86.149.242.9 (talk) 16:35, 1 April 2012 (UTC) Moved to Talk:South Dakota's 2nd congressional district 2012 Redistricting Hey everyone...it looks like we have alot of work ahead of us to edit/move articles to reflect redistricting...has there already been a discussion on this, and is there any policy in place? Thanks & let me know if I can be of help. Paul (talk) 16:36, 13 May 2012 (UTC)