Talk:2014 United States House of Representatives elections in Michigan

Bona fide journalistic citations required for listing candidates
Candidates for congress must be backed by bona fied journalistic citations or by inclusion in the Michigan Secretary of State listing of candidates from the MI SOS web site. Self-promotion is not allowed. Steelbeard1 (talk) 19:19, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

District-specific Sub-Categories
In the process of providing district-specific information for each of Michigan's 14 current congressional districts. This is going to involve a great deal of templating up front, which will create a very messy appearance initially. All editors, please give me 24 hours to get the clean-up work done before attempting to undo any changes. Kevinrexheine (talk) 13:42, 24 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Please add "Former State Department official Bobby McKenzie" to the District 11 declared Democratic candidates when you get the chance. Here's the citation: Thanks, Orser67 (talk) 20:52, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Patience. I got to it in due course.Kevinrexheine (talk) 00:49, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Phase one of the renovation is complete. All of the congressional districts have been accounted for, and the obvious candidates have been added in the appropriate spot, according to the references that are readily available. My next step is to reach out to a few media and political contacts and see what they know. That, however, is for normal business hours. Kevinrexheine (talk) 03:01, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I totally understand why you've reorganised the page like this. But I think it may have made it unnecessarily long and messy. Other pages have short blurbs about the declared candidates, rather than a list. Also unless a candidate is particularly notable (i.e Declares, gains traction in the polls, then drops out) is it really necessary to have a declined section. This whole page just seems too long. If you look at pages like United States House of Representatives elections in Idaho, 2014, United States House of Representatives elections in Illinois, 2014, it seems a lot better way of doing it so the page doesn't spiral out of control, size wise. Guyb123321 (talk) 11:48, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
 * First, Idaho only has two congressional districts. Second, while Illinois has 18 congressional districts, not all are represented on the page in question.  Third, I don't live in either of those states, but I do live in Michigan.  Fourth, the "under construction" banner was there for a reason; the Federal Election Commission was using the federal shutdown as an excuse to drag their feet with new declarations of candidacy, and it seemed wise to allow the rest of the month to let the paperwork run its course.  That having been said, I'll clean it up sometime in the next 24 hours, if you can be patient. Kevinrexheine (talk) 19:06, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

"Potential" vs. "Declared" Federal Candidates
As mentioned elsewhere on this page, in order to be listed as "declared," candidates for federal office must be supported by either: (a) a bona fide media citation from a reliable third-party media source, or (b) inclusion in the Michigan Secretary of State official listing of candidates. FEC Disclosure Form 2 (Statement of Candidacy), while useful, doesn't by itself rate inclusion on this page in any category other than as a "potential" candidate, and must eventually be supported by a FEC Disclosure Form 3 (Report Of Receipts And Disbursements) in order to be viewed as other than self-promotion. Kevinrexheine (talk) 16:30, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * My point was, your edit moved incumbent Congressmen who are running for re-election to "potential", which isn't the case. Also, with incumbents, when they file to run for re-election, that's not "self-promotion". Tiller54 (talk) 12:39, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with your point, as we've discussed elsewhere, but disagree on application. That having been said, for the balance of this month, I'll be doing some scrounging through media sources to track down candidacy declarations and contest polls.  (Any help you can provide in that regard would be appreciated.)  Thank you so very much for your QA work here. Kevinrexheine (talk) 12:59, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Sure, I'll help out if I can. Thanks, Tiller54 (talk) 13:15, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Now that the filing deadline has passed, we will see which candidates did file in the official list. Those that did not file will be removed and the 'Potential' categories removed. Those who did declare but did not make the list will be moved a the new category 'Failed to qualify'. Steelbeard1 (talk) 17:20, 23 April 2014 (UTC)