Talk:William Pocan

deletion

page should be deleted as this nominee will not be confirmed due to the blue slip, as seen in https://ballotpedia.org/Blue_slip_(federal_judicial_nominations) Let'srun (talk) 02:44, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

His nomination is still pending so I don't understand why that means it should be deleted. Snickers2686 (talk) 03:33, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Wisconsin judicial title

@Novemberjazz: Following your request, I'm starting a discussion to gain consensus on the proper title for this article's subject. I'll just say going in, I have done a lot of work on the Wisconsin court system and its history, and have read extensively on the constitutional and legal basis of the current Wisconsin court system and its previous configurations. I've built many of the Wikipedia articles on Wisconsin's courts and judges, and contributed extensively to articles on Wisconsin's constitution, government, and laws.

Basically my assertion is that the only proper title for a Wisconsin circuit court judge is "Wisconsin Circuit Court Judge for the X Circuit" or "Wisconsin Circuit Judge for the X Circuit".

Dealing with the first part of the title, it's absolutely critical to identify the officeholder as a "circuit" judge, because there are other types of judges which operate within the Wisconsin circuit court system, including administrative law judges and reserve judges. Also the Wisconsin constitution and law, when precisely describing this sort of judge, only use the term "circuit judge".

With the necessity of "circuit" in the title, it's then necessary to specify "Wisconsin Circuit Judge" as there are many "circuit court" systems operating in the United States. The word "court" in the title is purely optional, as it has no implications for the type of officer or their jurisdiction.

Next, the preposition must be "for" not "of". The officeholder isn't a member of or deriving his authority from the circuit, he's a state official with jurisdiction for a specific circuit. This construction can be seen commonly illustrated in other offices -- "United States District Judge for the X district" or "United States Attorney for the X district" or "Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division" -- all federal officials with a specific assigned jurisdiction. As opposed to "Governor of Wisconsin" or "Associate Justice of the Supreme Court" or "Member of Parliament" -- all officers whose authority is derived from their membership or jurisdiction.

The rest is fairly straightforward, we have to describe his jurisdiction properly. "Milwaukee Circuit, Branch X" or "Milwaukee County Circuit, Branch X" or "Branch X of the Milwaukee Circuit" would all be acceptable. But adding the word "county" does somewhat imply a relationship which doesn't exist to the county government.

It's also important to note reasons why alternative titles are improper:

• "Judge of the Wisconsin Circuit Court" is wrong for several reasons. First, failing to identify what type of judge, then referring to a "Wisconsin Circuit Court" which is not an entity -- if you were to use this construction, it would have to be "Judge of the Wisconsin Circuit Court System". But again, it doesn't properly describe what type of judge, and it gives an incorrect implication about the role of this judge in the state system. It's implying there's a single state panel with several judge members, like members of a legislature or justices of the supreme court -- that is obviously incorrect.
• "Judge of the Milwaukee County Circuit Court" is a common shorthand used by media, but like much of media shorthand, it's not literally correct. First, again, the title fails to identify what type of judge. And like the other title, it implies membership in a panel court, like justices of the supreme court, rather than an individual official with a specific jurisdiction. The "Milwaukee County Circuit Court" part then implies that this is a county judge or a county court, which is also not correct. Wisconsin abolished its county judge system back in 1978. All circuit judges are state officers, the circuit map (as of right now) closely aligns with the county map, but they are not identical, and those circuit boundaries can be changed by law at any time, and have been many times in the past.

The other part of this edit conversation was deleting the infobox parameters "profession" and "residence". These infobox parameters exist for a reason. The information is sourced in the body of the article. I've seen no justification for deleting this information.

Thanks! -- Asdasdasdff (talk) 20:00, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your message. I plan on reading it more thoroughly within the next few days. For right now, I have a few questions/comments.

• First, I am not familiar with Wisconsin's state-level judiciary. Do you have any sources that you're basing your assertions on regarding the title? I am not entirely convinced that Judge of is inferior to Judge for. The majority of federal judge articles I have come across use Judge of.
• As you point out, "Judge of the Milwaukee County Circuit Court" is common shorthand used by the media. I am confident that the majority of our readers do not have nearly as much familiarity with the Wisconsin judiciary as you. If they see a garbled mess in the infobox, they may decide to stop reading.
• As for the additional parameters in the infobox, just because they're available doesn't mean we need to use them. Pocan's residence isn't mentioned in the article, so including it (unsourced) in the infobox doesn't make sense. Novemberjazz 20:49, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

  • The majority of federal judge articles I have come across use Judge of.

  A lot of federal district court judges have incorrect titles on Wikipedia, but I'm not sure where to start a broader conversation on that. The federal style guides from the federal judiciary, White House, Congress, GPO, bar associations, all agree that "United States District Judge for the X District" and "United States Magistrate Judge for the X District" are the proper titles for federal judges in district courts. The only other federal judges that occur in large number are supreme court and appeals court judges, where "of" is correct, because they're members of a panel.

  • If they see a garbled mess in the infobox, they may decide to stop reading.

  I don't think its more messy than any other state legislator or state agency head. And don't think there's a population out there that would be turned off by a couple extra words on the side of the screen. When it comes to an encyclopedia article, which Wikipedia articles are supposed to emulate, accuracy is prioritized over expedience. And generally, if its possible we should be using the proper titles in infobox. You wouldn't put "46th U.S. President" in infobox in place of "46th President of the United States" just because it's a little more concise and often-used media shorthand.

  • As for the additional parameters in the infobox, just because they're available doesn't mean we need to use them. Pocan's residence isn't mentioned in the article, so including it (unsourced) in the infobox doesn't make sense.

  I don't really care that much about this item, but his residence is listed on each of the election report references used for the election boxes.

  Thanks! I'll look forward to your response. -- Asdasdasdff (talk) 21:50, 19 January 2023 (UTC)