Wikipedia talk:WikiProject US State Legislatures/Archive 2

Archive 1

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Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

January 2012 Newsletter for WikiProject United States and supported projects

The January 2012 issue of the WikiProject United States newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

 
--Kumi-Taskbot (talk) 18:16, 16 January 2012 (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) 16:48, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposal for United States A-Class review process

There is a proposal at WikiProject United States to start an A-Class review process for United States related articles. Please stop by and join the discussion. Kumioko (talk) 02:24, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Discussion to remove the Automatically assessed logic from the WikiProject United States template

Greetings, there is a discussion regarding removal of the logic used to populate Automatically assessed article categories from Template:WikiProject United States. Most of the categories (over 220 Wikipedia wide) were deleted in February 2013 because they were empty. These categories were previously populated by a bot that hasn't run since 2011 and the categories aren't used. Removal of this uneeded/unused logic will greatly reduce the size and complexity of the WikiProject United States template. Any comments or questions are encouraged here. Kumioko (talk) 18:51, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Lest there is any confusion for people who don't speak the same language, the words "logic used to populate Automatically assessed article categories" refer to the feature that was supposed to allow this WikiProject's template to "inherit" class and importance ratings from other WikiProjects. Kumioko says that there are no longer any bots performing the function that formerly copied those ratings. --Orlady (talk) 23:38, 31 August 2013 (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. Please also let me know if there is anyone in particular I should reach out to. Harej (talk) 21:04, 27 February 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)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:58, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Please See - Submissions

https://wikiconference.org/wiki/Submissions
--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:34, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject United States - The 50,000 Challenge

You are invited to participate in the 50,000 Challenge, aiming for 50,000 article improvements and creations for articles relating to the United States. This effort began on November 1, 2016 and to reach our goal, we will need editors like you to participate, expand, and create. See more here!

---Another Believer _(Talk) 22:18, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!

A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.

– Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Bot run to auto assess some of the Unassessed articles

There is a discussion here for a Bot to do an assessment run through the 2000+ Unassessed articles that currently fall under WikiProject United States and the projects supported by it. Please post any comments or concerns you might have there. --Kumioko (talk)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:25, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Deletion discussion

Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2005 Louisville vs. West Virginia football game - Johntex\^talk 16:41, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Football categories..

I'm thinkin' about creatin' different categories for football players like for Catigories:West Virginia Mountaineer football players 2007 and then for every player on the team that has a article tag their pages. And do that for every year for say the last 15 years or so. It's just an idea to help make it easier for people to find other players from the same year. --Crash Underride 20:04, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

September 2011 Newsletter for WikiProject United States

The September 2011 issue of the WikiProject United States newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

 
--Kumioko (talk) 03:23, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Nomination as a United States Wikipedians' Collaboration of the Month candidate

One or more articles relating to this project have been nominated to be a future United States Wikipedians' Collaboration of the Month. All editors interested in improving these articles or voting for next months collaboration are encouraged to participate here. --Kumioko (talk) 19:55, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

December 2011 Newsletter for WikiProject United States

The December 2011 issue of the WikiProject United States newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

 
--Kumioko (talk) 01:53, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Image deletion discussion

Relevant deletion discussion at Wikipedia:Files_for_deletion/2011_December_30#File:WestVirginiahelmet.png.--GrapedApe (talk) 17:29, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Scope of this WikiProject

Should the Washington, DC City Council and the legislatures of the five inhabited territories be included within the scope of this WikiProject? 70.122.40.201 (talk) 20:18, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

User:Peteforsyth User:RFD User:Orangemike User:Jack_Cox User:331dot User:Presidentman User:Rockhead126 User:Mpen320 User:GPL93 User:BWellsOdyssey User:RoundSquare 70.122.40.201 (talk) 23:48, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Good question. I don't see any reason why not. There's nothing requiring rigid definitions or boundaries in terms of what a WikiProject takes on, and these entities clearly have strong similarities to state legislatures. Is there a specific task or project you're thinking of? -Pete Forsyth (talk) 00:08, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

No, just wondering. 70.122.40.201 (talk) 20:11, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree with User:Peteforsyth in it being a good question and that it probably should include the suggested legislatures. God knows the territorial legislature pages need some attention. Some of them don't have any pages for any of their current legislators. One contributing factor to that seems to be that they don't have as good a coverage as state legislators do (which is saying a lot, as state legislators don't have a ton as it is). A big question of mine is this: Do territorial legislators have inherent notability like state legislators? RoundSquare (talk) 00:13, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Those are technically two separate questions. I'd say yes to including territorial legislators in this project, and will leave the other one to a different noticeboard. --Orange Mike | Talk 01:17, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

RoundSquare, nothing has inherent notability. Everything, especially a biography, requires at least a minimum level of independent sourcing: WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:BLP require that, and they trump anything else. It just happens that it's incredibly difficult to get into a state legislature without attracting that. Guy (help!) 11:24, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes to the territorial legislatures and the Council of the District of Columbia as part of the WikiProject. I'd love to work on them.--Mpen320 (talk) 01:54, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

The former United States territorial legislatures should be included; Several United States territories were admitted to the Union as states. I have written several articles about individuals who were elected to territorial legislatures. The former United States territorial legislatures should also be included within the scope of this WikiProject. Thank You-RFD (talk) 19:17, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Massachusetts legislative districts and sessions

We're having a discussion over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Massachusetts about the naming convention for sessions of the state legislature (currently, e.g., 179th Massachusetts General Court (1995–1996)); and for legislative districts (currently, e.g., Massachusetts Senate's 3rd Middlesex district and Massachusetts House of Representatives' 3rd Middlesex district). Input from this project's members is welcome! _``` t b w i l l i e _{`</sub> $1.25 <sub>`} 18:33, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Toll Booth Willie. I think the consensus around removing the parenthetical date from the title is correct, as this is generally done for other state legislature sessions that are numbered as Massachusetts' are. The district naming is a more complicated issue. I can see the desire to change the name to something shorter because they aren't simply sequentially named, but at the same time, Massachusetts often uses words which are more commonly associated with locations in Britain, making the reference to Massachusetts in the name useful. I think that naming convention "A - always disambig parenthetically" makes the most sense for cutting down on unnecessary words while also making the subject of the article clear from the title. (Let me know if I should post this on the WikiProject Massachusetts page as well). RoundSquare (talk) 22:41, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Please do repost it there, as we're trying to keep the discussion centralized in one location. Thanks for your thoughts! _``` t b w i l l i e _{`</sub> $1.25 <sub>`} 22:48, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Picture copywright

Hey, sorry if I'm asking this in the wrong place, please let know if there's a better place to put this question. I was looking at Ruth Johnson's page, and noticed her picture here: Picture. It's listed under the "Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication." Is this true, and if so, how can we check that? The website does say that the picture is free for public use, but I remember I uploaded photos that had a similar disclaimer that were taken down. I may have simply put the wrong copywright information on them, but I wanted to check if this was valid for inclusion on Wikimedia, because if so, I'd like to upload more pictures with this disclaimer for the US Legislature WikiProject. RoundSquare (talk) 03:56, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Update necessary

We should update state legislature seat allocations, list of members and other things. There has not been any update in light of the 2020 elections. A lot of information is out of date. Regards,Ppt2003 (talk) 16:11, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Potential task force for Minnesota Legislature?

I've recently become involved with members of the Minnesota Legislature and I've come to realize quite a bit of work needs to be done. Among other things, the 15th-68th legislative sessions need articles, both the Senate and House of Representatives articles could use expansion, and many, many, many, individual legislators need articles. This scope would be large, so multiple individuals would be needed. Would anyone be interested in this topic? This was also posted here, and I figure this would be a task force split between the two projects. Jordano⁵³ 19:29, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Historical state legislator notability

If a ( Historical) person was a state legislator at one point but had no other claims to notability does being a former state legislator in itself confer notability? ( Mainly talking about 1 paragraph long stubs of dead former state legislators with no other info or notability on the article .)Jackattack1597 (talk) 22:10, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Hello @Jackattack1597:. According to the notable people guidelines about politicians and judges, anyone who has has served on a statewide legislature is considered notable. Notability on Wikipedia is not generally something that can be lost. If something is considered notable at one point in time, it retains that even after it becomes more obscure. This is also true for state legislators. This is my understanding at least. RoundSquare (talk) 23:20, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

@Jackattack1597: RoundSquare is absolutely right. The applicable guideline here is WP:NTEMP, "notability is not temporary". They were just as important in their day as today's state legislators are today. While it may be true that these dead former state legislators' articles are one-paragraph stubs now, just as current legislators' articles were built using contemporary sources, presumably similar historical sources (e.g., newspapers from that era) can be found to expand the dead former legislators' articles -- remember, there is WP:NODEADLINE. _``` t b w i l l i e _{`</sub> $1.25 <sub>`} 02:39, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Requesting assistance with Minnesota legislative BLP articles

Querying whether this project is still active. I've stumbled across a ton of issues with members of the Minnesota Legislature, similar to issues I've found with members of the Montana Legislature. The issues I've seen at a glance: term start/end date problems, predecessor/successor issues with redistricting, district/constituency formatting (sometimes in the wake of redistricting, sometimes not), and a banned user who added lots of copyrighted content directly into several articles, etc. Further, the issues are not limited to the incumbents, but their predecessors as well. Those are some of the problems I've seen at a glance, and it's almost overwhelming. Thanks. --PerpetuityGrat (talk) 16:08, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

For an example of a nightmare infobox that I was referencing above, see Tim Faust. These types of errors/inconsistencies are very common. --PerpetuityGrat (talk) 16:19, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Hello, I noticed that as I worked on several states legislatures. And you're right it is very overwhelming. So far I have done California, listed all the members dating back to the 1880s for Both Senate and Assembly which is a combined 120 districts, and filled in the infoboxes for starting/end dates for California legislative members articles that didn't have an infobox. I also fixed the dates with a good portion of the Kansas legislative members. Dates shouldn't be that hard since they can be found in the state consitution. I used this one on ballotpedia to help me figure out when a elected official is sworn in for each state. https://ballotpedia.org/When_state_legislators_assume_office_after_a_general_election It's very helpful. I can help out whenever I get a chance. Dillon251992 (talk) 21:42, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Awesome! Yeah, I've been using that too actually. The prime issue I'm having recently are districts, successors/predecessors, and redistricting... Montana and Minnesota are just a few states that change almost every incumbent's legislative district by a number or two. I'm seeing a lot of predecessor/successor parameters state "redrawn district" or "constituency established" and don't even list a predecessor/successor (obviously, totally wrong). I'm moving forward with the literal predecessor, as in abiding by the exact district number, as I think it should be, seems most logical rather than try to abide by an area/regional predecessor/successor. That's my frustration right now. --PerpetuityGrat (talk) 01:32, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Districts can be complicated as the locations change, however the district numbers don't as they will stay the some. In order to find the predecessors and successors, you're going to have to do some deep research. In some cases you can go on state legislators website where you can do a search. It depends on which state because not all state legislators have predecessors listed that date back a longtime, where you'll have to find them in House and Senate Journals. I had to do this a few times when I was working on California's districts. California has a non gov site that lists them (joincalifornia.com). It took me sometime to fix California's politicians with incorrect dates/predecessors/successors, but I managed to do it. We are going to need a lot of editors to get this done. Dillon251992 (talk) 19:15, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

"I'm seeing a lot of predecessor/successor parameters state "redrawn district" or "constituency established" and don't even list a predecessor/successor (obviously, totally wrong)." To answer your question on this area. Everyone has a different way of doing it which can lead to confusion and I fixed some of that for my state California. For example, if you write "preceded by" or "succeeded by" and insert name after redistricting, just put round brackets for (redistricted). Dillon251992 (talk) 19:24, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Category for Members of Confederate State Legislatures

I think we should make a category for members of state legislatures of the Confederate States of America. There doesn't seem to be any category like that currently on Wikipedia. I assume it would be a subcategory of this: Category:Legislators in the Confederate States. I am unsure of exactly what to call this proposed category, however. If anyone could give suggestions for this category name and/or provide articles which would fit this category, I would be gracious. If you are against a category of this sort being made, I would also like to hear from you as to why it shouldn't be made. RoundSquare (talk) 23:57, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

If you want to make it. Go for it, I'm not against that. It's just going to take a lot of work to find which articles that have state legislators who were part of the Confederate State. Dillon251992 (talk) 19:01, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

User script to detect unreliable sources

Main page: User:Headbomb/unreliable

I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. Some of you may already be familiar with it, given it is currently the 39th most imported script on Wikipedia. The idea is that it takes something like

• John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14. (John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.)

and turns it into something like

• John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14.

It will work on a variety of links, including those from {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}} and {{doi}}.

The script is mostly based on WP:RSPSOURCES, WP:NPPSG and WP:CITEWATCH and a good dose of common sense. I'm always expanding coverage and tweaking the script's logic, so general feedback and suggestions to expand coverage to other unreliable sources are always welcomed.

Do note that this is not a script to be mindlessly used, and several caveats apply. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable.

- Headbomb {t · c · p · b}

This is a one time notice and can't be unsubscribed from. Delivered by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:02, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Inconsistency in state senate district article titles

I noticed that some state senate district articles have inconsistent titles. For example, some are titled "State's Xth Senate district" (such as Illinois's 13th Senate district), while others are titled "State's Xth State Senate district" (such as California's 1st State Senate district). Which one is preferable? Kornatice (talk) 21:48, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

@Kornatice: Hello. What you noted is real, but isn't an inconsistency. Different state senates have different names. The Illinois upper house calls itself the "Illinois Senate", while California's upper house calls itself the "California State Senate". Different states call their upper houses different things. It seems the general rule is to name the district pages after the name of the state's upper house. For instance, Colorado has the "Colorado Senate", therefore its senate district article titles are "Colorado's Xth Senate district". I have noticed that many states call their senate districts "senatorial districts", and perhaps we should start to change titles to that, but I haven't proposed that anywhere, and there's been consensus on that as of yet. For right now, I recommend sticking with how they are now.

Let me know if that was confusing at all, or if you have any further questions. –  RoundSquare (talk) 22:07, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. Kornatice (talk) 22:11, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

But by what virtue does California call its senate the "California State Senate?" I only see that really on its website. It's not called that in its constitution. --PerpetuityGrat (talk) 23:52, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

@PerpetuityGrat: Hello. If the California State Senate calls itself that, then I think that is a virtue in and of itself. If its not specified in the state constitution, I don't know what other mechanism would give it the name, but if the institution uses it itself, I don't see what reason we have not to use it. I assume each state legislature Wikipedia article title was given the specific title it has for similar reasons. Each one I've looked into is consistent with how the institution self-identifies. You're free to look into the question of how the institutions got their names yourself. –  RoundSquare (talk) 00:38, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

I noticed a new discrepancy. The title of the article for Wisconsin's upper house is "Wisconsin Senate", but its districts' articles include the "State" (e.g. Wisconsin's 33rd State Senate district) and so do the articles for its elections (e.g. 2022 Wisconsin State Senate election). Is there a reason for this? Is is a problem? Kornatice (talk) 21:46, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

@Kornatice: Thank you for noting the discrepancy. I've noticed there is a somewhat bigger discrepancy with the Wisconsin Senate as a whole. Firstly, the name of the article contradicts what the institution calls itself. Its calls itself the "Wisconsin State Senate". There was a conversation about what it should be called from 2007 to 2010 in the Talk Page. People note that there really isn't a consistent name to it, and several official sources go back and forth about it. This talk of names has made me realize something: the name "the United States Senate" seems very established, but the phrase isn't used in the US Constitution. It could just as easily be called "the Senate (United States)". I think there should be a larger discussion about what to call these institutions now. However, whatever we call the Wisconsin Senate on Wikipedia, it should be consistent across article titles. I don't know if we should move the "Wisconsin Senate" to the "Wisconsin State Senate", or if the election and district articles should change however. We need some standard to fall back on. Anyone whose reading this, please feel free to provide input. As far as I know, consensus should drive this decision. We may need to ping some of the more active members of this WikiProject to get some agreement. RoundSquare (talk) 23:12, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

This really speaks to a more broad discussion, since state houses are really not very well known to the public... a lot of uninformed citizens think that state reps/assemblymembers and state senators fly to represent them in DC. Many just don't know the difference between a Wisconsin Senator and a US Senator (from WI). TLDR, I think that the prefix "state" isn't even required in most cases, it's just to further differentiate. --PerpetuityGrat (talk) 15:23, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Current Iowa Senate

I have created a new page listing the current members of the 90th Legislature of the Iowa Senate under page title List of Current Members of the Iowa Senate (placeholder) and have pushed a request that the page List of current members of the Iowa Senate be renamed as List of Members of the 89th Session of the Iowa Senate (or something to that effect.

Before I go an try to do the same with the State Representative List, is this an appropriate means of updating these lists? I figured the data in the current article is still valid - its just for a separate legislative session.

The redistricting of the state in 2020 in general has made for a mess of work. So any advice on how to preserve but update is appreciated.

Squatchis Squatchis (talk) 19:38, 4 February 2023 (UTC)