Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress/Archives/2014

NSA does not deny spying on members of Congress

• Fung, Brian. "The NSA refuses to deny spying on members of Congress." The Washington Post. January 4, 2014.

WhisperToMe (talk) 06:53, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Enlisting Wikiproject US Congress to get Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution to FA

Over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mass surveillance and WikiProject Intelligence, we've been discussing trying to push the 4th Amendment from GA to FA. There's a peer review request on it, but no reviewing so far.

Would people from WikiProject US Congress like to help assess and improve Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. With all that's going on right now, Wikipedia should have an article on the Fourth Amendment we can be proud of. --HectorMoffet (talk) 10:55, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Jim Moody, former Milwaukee Congressman

This WP:BLP article needs more references. Some now-reverted promotional-tone edits may have some useful information that can be incorporated into the article, but only if they can be reliably sourced. See Talk:Jim Moody for more. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:01, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Popular pages tool update

As of January, the popular pages tool has moved from the Toolserver to Wikimedia Tool Labs. The code has changed significantly from the Toolserver version, but users should notice few differences. Please take a moment to look over your project's list for any anomalies, such as pages that you expect to see that are missing or pages that seem to have more views than expected. Note that unlike other tools, this tool aggregates all views from redirects, which means it will typically have higher numbers. (For January 2014 specifically, 35 hours of data is missing from the WMF data, which was approximated from other dates. For most articles, this should yield a more accurate number. However, a few articles, like ones featured on the Main Page, may be off).

Web tools, to replace the ones at tools:~alexz/pop, will become available over the next few weeks at toollabs:popularpages. All of the historical data (back to July 2009 for some projects) has been copied over. The tool to view historical data is currently partially available (assessment data and a few projects may not be available at the moment). The tool to add new projects to the bot's list is also available now (editing the configuration of current projects coming soon). Unlike the previous tool, all changes will be effective immediately. OAuth is used to authenticate users, allowing only regular users to make changes to prevent abuse. A visible history of configuration additions and changes is coming soon. Once tools become fully available, their toolserver versions will redirect to Labs.

If you have any questions, want to report any bugs, or there are any features you would like to see that aren't currently available on the Toolserver tools, see the updated FAQ or contact me on my talk page. Mr.Z-bot (talk) (for Mr.Z-man) 05:31, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Sunlight Foundation data

I am organizing an event with the Sunlight Foundation in Washington, DC, focused on using their API data to improve Wikipedia articles. We are currently brainstorming ideas on how their (objective, reliable) data can be used to improve Wikipedia articles, and any ideas and insights you have would be useful. One idea we have is to develop a bot that would be used to keep infobox data up to date, so that whenever there's an update with their API, the corresponding Wikipedia article gets an update. Please let me know what you think of this idea, and feel free to recommend other ones. Here are the different APIs—bear in mind that not all of them are necessarily useful for Wikipedia's purposes. Harej (talk) 21:31, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Please also let me know if there are other WikiProjects I should be reaching out to. Harej (talk) 21:37, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Harej! Will you keep me updated on the status of this event? I would probably like to attend. I think a bot that would keep infoboxes updated would be fantastic. Thanks. HistoricMN44 (talk) 13:43, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

CongLinks and GovLinks

We are having a long discussion on the CongLinks template about its purpose and usage. That applies to the GovLink template too, which was recently deleted, and which I plan to request restoration next week. One of the key issues is the purpose of CongLinks. My side (the pro-link side) says more information is better; the other side (the pro-deletion side) says more restrictions are better. The CongLinks template page itself says that its purpose is to link for members of Congress. Its actual usage has been to link to their challengers as well. I would like to change the template page to reflect that actual usage, but I want to check here first to see your opinions in the larger context. Since the CongLinks deletions were very controversial, I'm sure editing the template page's description will be controversial too. My proposal is simply to change "This template is only appropriate for legislators who served any time during or after 1991" to be "This template is only appropriate for legislators who served (or ran for office) any time during or after 1991." What do you all think? Is that, in fact, the purpose of CongLinks (and GovLinks), as I assume, or am I engaged in wishful thinking JesseAlanGordon (talk) 03:58, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Seeking comments to improve Voting Rights Act of 1965

Greetings. I am looking for suggestions on how to improve the article Voting Rights Act of 1965, and I would be highly appreciative if folks from WikiProject Law could leave some comments about it on the peer review I requested at Wikipedia:Peer review/Voting Rights Act of 1965/archive1. The article was recently promoted to GA status, and it'd be fantastic if we could get it up to FA status. Thanks! –Prototime (talk · contribs) 17:05, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Hillary Rodham Clinton move request

Greetings! A proposal has been made at Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton#Requested move 8 to change the title of the article, Hillary Rodham Clinton to Hillary Clinton. This notification is provided because this article is listed as being of interest to this project. Cheers! bd2412 T 17:55, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Thomas F. Bayard

Senator Thomas F. Bayard is nominated for Featured Article. If anyone has the time to review it, I would really appreciate it. --Coemgenus (talk) 13:39, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Images Comment

I have added BEP engraved portraits to some bios which have no image at all. I have two engraved portraits which I think are better than the existing images and would like some guidance on whether or not to replace. 1) John E. Kenna in John E. Kenna 2) Alfred H. Colquitt in Alfred H. Colquitt Thanks--Godot13 (talk) 08:05, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

RfC at Template talk:Infobox officeholder

Concerning the anomalous results when a congressional district is sufficiently changed in location as a result of redistricting as to make "predecessor" and "successor" names not relevant to the individual Congressperson. Collect (talk)

Editors on Representative (and state legislator) articles should give attention to this RfC, as the results will affect a large number of succession boxes. I'm also interested in whether the issue Collect raises has been discussed before; I was sure that it must have been, but no one has linked to any prior discussion. My own feelings on the issue Collect raises are torn, but I'll post some comments in a day or two. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:06, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

It actually should only affect cases where states have lost districts as a rule - most states actually do not change much each decade. In cases where there are major alterations,however, the issue can be of substantial importance. Collect (talk) 01:20, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet For Wikiproject U.S. Congress At Wikimania 2014

Hi all,

My name is Adi Khajuria and I am helping out with Wikimania 2014 in London.

One of our initiatives is to create leaflets to increase the discoverability of various wikimedia projects, and showcase the breadth of activity within wikimedia. Any kind of project can have a physical paper leaflet designed - for free - as a tool to help recruit new contributors. These leaflets will be printed at Wikimania 2014, and the designs can be re-used in the future at other events and locations.

This is particularly aimed at highlighting less discoverable but successful projects, e.g:

• Active Wikiprojects: Wikiproject Medicine, WikiProject Video Games, Wikiproject Film

• Tech projects/Tools, which may be looking for either users or developers.

• Less known major projects: Wikinews, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, etc.

• Wiki Loves Parliaments, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves ____

• Wikimedia thematic organisations, Wikiwomen’s Collaborative, The Signpost

For more information or to sign up for one for your project, go to:
Project leaflets
Adikhajuria (talk) 14:49, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Editing dispute with Shelley Moore Capito article

I'd like some help with this editing dispute that's being discussed now. The info that another editor prefers not to be shown in the lede includes SMC's middle name in the first sentence and mentioning that she's a daughter of a former WV governor. I thought that middle names were always included in the first mention of a person's name per WP:BIRTHNAME. Arbor to SJ (talk) 06:28, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:48, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Category for structures named after members of Congress

What do we think about a category for structures specifically named after members of Congress? Examples: Robert C. Byrd Bridge, Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse, G. V. Montgomery Lock, Pete V. Domenici United States Courthouse, etc.

Let me know if any thoughts. KConWiki (talk) 02:24, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Expert attention

This is a notice about Category:U.S. Congress articles needing expert attention, which might be of interest to your WikiProject. It will take a while before the category is populated. Iceblock (talk) 05:57, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

March 4 or 3

I believe we had this discussion before & the consensu was to go with March 4, but I'm not certain. Anyways, when did the pre-20th Amendment Congressional terms expire? March 3 (at midnight) or March 4 (the following noon Est)? GoodDay (talk) 01:35, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

This discussion has been started over and over again, and finished always without consensus, for a variety of reasons. Contemporary sources, like the printed Congress bios, state March 4, [YEAR], to March 3, [YEAR + 2]. The 20th Amendment fixed the term expiration at noon on January 3. Before that, there was absolutely no place where a time of day or even a date was stated in any legal text or statute. That's a fact. I suggest you read the pertaining essay on my talk page. Kraxler (talk) 00:54, 22 October 2014 (UTC)