Talk:Virginia's at-large congressional seat

Order & consistency

Is consistency necessary? If so, should this article be consistent with other Virginia districts which list in alphabetical order and include birth-death dates? Or should all the articles list in chronological order, without birth-death dates?

Let's develop a consensus, before wide-spread changes are enacted.—Markles 13:46, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

The problem with this district is it was a general ticket, with multiple members elected at-large on one ticket, and there's no one proper way to display it. Chronological order isn't necessarily possible, since they all served at the same time. Most historical records I've seen, list general tickets in order by number of votes received from highest to lowest. That would be my preference. If that information isn't available, then I think numerical order is proper (listing them in order based on which district they were redistricted) as it is now. DCmacnut<> 19:04, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I figure, as a general matter, it's like the List of United States Senators from [state] articles. The New England and part of the South are in one format, and most of the others are in a different one. Some lists include different information from other states, and I think that's fine. If most states are one way, but Virginia is another way, I say let Virginia be different. As for this article in particular, It's such a weird district that I don't think it matters what we do. If you want to to be like the other Virginia districts, that's fine with me, as long as it still reflects the oddity of the 73rd Congress. -Rrius (talk) 00:14, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I like the way that the other Virginia districts are set up. The two biggest discrepancies are with the "Lived" column and "District Home" category.

Lived - Important for historical context, differentiates between representatives with the same name, and gives reader information on age of the representative.

District Home - I believe this is irrelevant because districts encompass a large amount of area and the actual home is only the representative's central office. This information is unknown for almost every representative prior to the 1970's (except for rep's residence). Especially in an at-large situation, what does district home have to do with anything when the congressman technically represents the entire state?

Regarding order, if we don't want to use alphabetical order, I propose to do it under the House ranking procedures, which is date of their start of service. Technically, there should be no order based on prior district number. -PJLazy(talk) 01:46, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

• Why put the "Lived" dates in parentheses? Should it also have month & day, not just year, so it's consistent with the "Time Served" column? The "Time Served" column needs a better header because it seems like a prison term. —Markles

• Parentheses are the common way of writing in academic texts (i.e. "...Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)..."). I think any more info than just the years makes it too much information.
• I agree, the "Time Served" is strange and there are a number of different ones I have seen "Service", "Term", two-columns - "Began"/"Ended". "Term" doesn't work, because the dates are not tracking the term, which is two years, but the length of service. How about we convert it to a two-column format and go with "Took Office" "Left Office"? It looks nice in some other places it is used.

I fooled with the chart a little and this might look better if you like it (it is centered more on chronology):

Took Office	Left Office	Representative	Lived	Party	Reason for Leaving
District Created: March 4, 1813
March 4, 1813	September 11, 1816	John Clopton	(1756-1816)	Democratic-Republican	Died
September 12, 1816	December 16, 1816	Vacant
December 17, 1816	March 3, 1821	John Tyler	(1790-1862)	Democratic-Republican	Declined to run
March 4, 1821	March 3, 1823	Andrew Stevenson	(1784-1857)	Democratic-Republican	Elected to Virginia 9th District
District Eliminated: March 4, 1823

• A few ideas:
  1. I want to keep the Representative in the first column.
  2. I think having two columns for In/Out is excessive, just leave it at "December 17, 1816 – March 3, 1821."
  3. The parentheses is also unnecessary; it's used when inline, (i.e. "...Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)..."), but isn't needed in a table. Perhaps we could combine the Years Lived into the Representative column, since it has no bearing on the table.
  4. Italics isn't needed, nor is the bold.
  5. "Declined to run" is easier said as "Retired."
  6. Can't just say "Reason for Leaving" because maybe it would also include (in other district articles) a reason they came in, such as redistricting.

Version 2:

Representative	Party	Years in office	Reason for Term
District created		March 4, 1813
John Clopton (1756-1816)	Democratic-Republican	March 4, 1813 – September 11, 1816	Died
Vacant		September 12, 1816 – December 16, 1816
John Tyler (1790-1862)	Democratic-Republican	December 17, 1816 – March 3, 1821	Retired
Andrew Stevenson (1784-1857)	Democratic-Republican	March 4, 1821 – March 3, 1823	Redistricted to the 9th district
District eliminated		March 4, 1823

—Markles 14:01, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

• Sounds good regarding leaving the Representative in first column
• I'm not the biggest fan of having the years inside the Representative box, but for the sake of compromise, I think we could make that work.
• We could remove the italics on "Vacant", but I think we still need to have it bolded for "Creation", especially to separate it in those districts that have been eliminated and recreated. If you want to take the bold out, lets add a bar in between to make a clear distinction.
• "Years in office" doesn't correctly define the field. I think it is close though...How about "Time in Office"
• I don't mind keeping it as "Notes", however, I only want it to show the reason for no longer serving. I think the redistricting notes should only be included in a paragraph at the top because the chart is primarily talking about who the Representative was. It does not matter if the district was redestricted, because the successor is still the representative of the 1st District. The only other thing I think we might want to add is the reason for Creation and Elimination...i.e. "Census reapportionment" "Part of Kentucky at statehood", etc.
• I thought that "declined to run" is better because "retired" infers that the person retired from politics and a lot of times, the person would run again in a new place.

Version 3:

Representative	Party	Time in Office	Notes
District Created:		March 4, 1813	Census reapportionment
John Clopton (1756-1816)	Democratic-Republican	March 4, 1813 - September 11, 1816	Died
Vacant		September 12, 1816 - December 16, 1816
John Tyler (1790-1862)	Democratic-Republican	December 17, 1816 - March 3, 1821	Declined to run
District Eliminated:		March 4, 1823	Census reapportionment
District Recreated:		March 4, 1813	Census reapportionment
Andrew Stevenson (1784-1857)	Democratic-Republican	March 4, 1821 - March 3, 1823	Elected to Virginia 9th District

--PJLazy (talk) 04:16, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

• I would still rather omit the person's birth/death altogether, but you want to include it for the sake of disambiguity. That's why I suggest putting it in the "Representative" column.
• "Nowrap" the Representative column.
• Let's also omit the colon after "District Created:" and "District Eliminated:" and "District Recreated:" because it's implied from this being a table. Otherwise we'd put a colon in every line… "John Clopton:" Also, the second word should be lower-case.
• "Time in office" is OK, but now I fear it's going to reflect the duration of the tenure: "2 years" instead of "March 4, 1821 - March 3, 1823". How about "Tenure"?
• I like the full-table dividing lines you added. Great solution. But don't use {{Party shading/Independent}} because that's not static. Use, instead, style="background:#cccccc" or {{subst:Party shading/Independent}}
• I don't know why I've been using "Notes" as a header. We do need a better name.
• We do need to include, in the "Notes" column, why that person came in as well as out. In some cases, they were redistricted from a second or third district if multiple districts were combined into one.
• I'd like this table we're redesigning to be a model for all the ~500 district articles, not just at-large. That's why "District home" is helpful - it tells the reader where the district is in the state. But, as you mentioned above, it's not a good indicator, and should be replaced with a better solution. In some articles, we list the places included in the district. See, for example, California's 23rd congressional district (which needs to be improved, but it's a good start). That would remove the need for the "District home" and could simply be omitted from at-large articles as being obvious.
• "Declined to run" is OK. Perhaps clarify "Declined to run for re-election"? Expand when possible.
• The dash between dates should be an ndash. I type it directly from my computer, otherwise use –. (See Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Dashes.)
• "District" should be lower case, and we don't need to put the state name there unless it got split off (Mass.→Maine; Va→WestVa).
• Link to censuses.
• —Markles 14:45, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Version 4:

Representative	Party	Tenure	History
District created		March 4, 1813	Census reapportionment
John Clopton (1756 – 1816)	Democratic-Republican	March 4, 1813 – September 11, 1816	Died
Vacant		September 12, 1816 – December 16, 1816
John Tyler (1790 – 1862)	Democratic-Republican	December 17, 1816 – March 3, 1821	Declined to be a candidate for renomination because of impaired health
Andrew Stevenson (1784 – 1857)	Democratic-Republican	March 4, 1821 – March 3, 1823	Redistricted to the 9th district
District eliminated		March 4, 1823	Census reapportionment
District recreated		March 4, 1833	Census reapportionment
Fictional Rep (1801 – present)	Republican	March 4, 1833 – present	Lived forever

I'm not sure where the discussion is going on, but using years to differentiate only matters where there is a possibility for lack of clarity. Thus, only where multiple people have the same name (and can't be disambiguated with middle names, initials, or suffices (e.g., junior or II) should we use dates. -Rrius (talk) 02:16, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

• I'm not a big stickler for details, so work out whatever you'd like and I'll try to conform moving forward. Overall, I like the idea of the rep name being first, I don't like years lived. I think there are too many dates with terms listed. I prefer a simpler view.

Consider different formats for the At-large vs. districts. The same formats may not work for both.

I don't like the listing of individual congresses (i.e 34th, 35th, etc. It is ok for those regularly maintained, but a lot of work to maintain 425 districts every 2 years unless someone can create a bot (some are going out of date as we speak) and I have no interest in mnually maintaining all of them for that purpose. On the other side, it would be good down the road to list historical changes to each district, since boundarys change every 10 years and would give accurate information on how boundarys change. I'm maintaining MA-3 this way,and can be talked into all the MA districts, but no interest in maintaining all 425 districts this way. Illinois 1 and Massachusetts 3rd are some examples. They also can be added later. Those are some comments for now.......Pvmoutside (talk) 22:26, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

If keeping up with the changeover every two years is the only problem with listing Congresses, we could make sure to add that to the to-do list at WP:WikiProject U.S. Congress. That should help with getting people to do the work. -Rrius (talk) 23:40, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

• Sorry, I have had a busy week at work. Since I have been the big proponent of the lifetime inclusion, I will be the one to cut it out altogether.

• Also, I have found a book that gives the "district home" starting with the 10th Congress onward. I will be willing to input these in. However, it is more like "residence" which should work best since it applies in both At-Large Districts and numbered (Residence always was in the district where you were elected/appointed). I will be willing to input this information.
• I don't like long explanations in the "History" section as a lot of it will be left up to opinion ("He retired due to legal scandal"). How about "Declined renomination"?
• I don't like the "Redistricted to" because it does not fully explain if the representative was re-elected, defeated, or simply didn't run. Redistricting information can be placed in the written portion at the top of the page.
• I am not a fan of the numbered congresses being included in the chart. I don't think it really matters as anyone what numbered Congress it was anyway and it just clutters up the chart and makes the charts difficult to organize.

Version 5:

Representative	Residence	Party	Tenure	History
District created			March 4, 1813	Census reapportionment
John Clopton	Richmond	Democratic-Republican	March 4, 1813 – September 11, 1816	Died
Vacant			September 12, 1816 – December 16, 1816
John Tyler	Williamsburg	Democratic-Republican	December 17, 1816 – March 3, 1821	Declined renomination
Andrew Stevenson	Fredericksburg	Democratic-Republican	March 4, 1821 – March 3, 1823	Elected to the 9th district
District eliminated			March 4, 1823	Census reapportionment
District recreated			March 4, 1833	Census reapportionment
Fictional Rep	Bumpass	Republican	March 4, 1833 – present	Lived forever and ever

PJLazy (talk) 02:59, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Parties

• After we get some of the formatting worked out, I would like to have a discussion on parties. -PJLazy(talk)PJLazy (talk) 03:08, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
  • OK, but let's discuss it at a more widely-read article to get a broader discussion.—Markles 14:01, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
    • I will let you pick the article. Not sure which will be a better one. PJLazy (talk) 04:16, 27 January 2010 (UTC)