Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress/Archives/2004

session dates vs. period served

OK, I'm a little confused about how to describe the dates that a member of Congress served, particularly for pre-1934 Congesses. The Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress seems to do it two ways. For example, I'm looking at the entry for Lucius Lyon. Here [1] the 23rd Congress is listed as 1833-1834. But here [2] the dates are given as March 4, 1833-March 3, 1835. So should I write that he served from 1833-1834 or from 1833-1835? I suppose I could include the exact dates, but that seems to me a bit tedious for persons elected to multiple terms. Bkonrad | Talk 16:23, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The bioguide simplifies things because, today, congresses begin and end on January 3. In the past, it was early March. When it says the 23rd congress is 1833-1834, it means March 1833-March 1835. He should certainly be listed as serving from 33 to 35. Personally, I don't think exact dates are needed unless the person started or ended their term at a date other than the proper start-end date, like if they resigned, died, appointed or contested the election. --Golbez 14:46, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Tables

I've joined this because of the work I've been doing on the tables of state delegations; good examples at US Congressional Delegations from Kentucky and US Congressional Delegations from Florida. These could be a very useful cross-reference tool. These list who served in what congress from a particular state; the #th Congress articles list who served from what state in a particular congress. --Golbez 14:46, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Congregator

I've been playing around with a program I wrote (called congregator) to extract data from pages at [3]. I created a page for the Thirty-second_United_States_Congress as a trial run and then went through and checked the links. More to come.K4 pacific 03:23, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Be warned - the BioGuide's database is sometimes wrong. I typically run into 1-2 errors per state, where it lists someone in the wrong congress, or doesn't list them in the proper congress. (The bios themselves are fine, but the database linking them together is not) --Golbez 05:24, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I've found that the bios are not 100% reliable either. Usually just small errors, but enough to make double-checking things worthwhile. older≠wiser 11:36, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC) PS, re: K4 pacific's program--I think it's great--just add a note at the top that the data was automatically extracted and needs to be verified. older≠wiser 11:39, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Your script is linking to the Georgia disambiguation page, no the state. I have fixed the Thirty-second_United_States_Congress page, but your script needs tweaking. Susvolans 13:00, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll look into it. I haven't done any besides Thirty-second_United_States_Congress and Ninety-eighth_United_States_Congress yet because I am working on a way to automatically verify the links. K4 pacific 14:03, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)