Template talk:Politics of the United States

Comment
It should be obvious that this "series" is unacceptable at the top because it pushes relevant photographs towards the bottom in exchange for not so relevant links. If it is not converted into a footer, I will revert en masse.--Jiang 00:23, 12 May 2004 (UTC)


 * It is hardly obvious - Politics of the United Kingdom has worked very effectively this way, and people find it much more instructive to have a series header than a photograph. Many Wikipedia article series head an article, especially with general overviews such as these. Please look around the music genre boxes for example. Headers are a common part of Wikipedia, used in city, country pages, history etc. Why not in politics? These pages are clearly a series.


 * These aren't biographies, where the photo of course deserves a place at the top. These are descriptions of institutions. The pictures are either just examples of processes in action, or the buildings. And to be honest, the buildings should have their own sites, if the pictures are that important to you. If you think the politics header is basic - then expand it. It's supposed to be a start. Many people have little idea of the workings of governments and these headers help them to find their way around. I don't know whether you find it so ludicrous because you are very familiar with this particular political system, but the idea would be to extend this to every political system in the world, standardize, and by thus pointing out missing pages, encourage growth. That way, lesser known/understood political systems will become comprehendable and transparent. Pteron 00:37, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

The claims that the Politics of the United Kingdom has "worked very effectively this way" and that "people find it much more instructive to have a series header than a photograph" are entriely substantiated. There is no evidence that people generally prefer these series boxes pictures and there's the discussion to suggest that quite a few are opposed to the idea, and making listings that seem to have no clear chronological order into footers (instead of series boxes) seems to be the compromise action (mediaWiki:cults and Template:Jesus were spared deletion this way). Take a look at the proposed series boxes policy. There is previous discussion at Wikipedia talk:Article series and Wikipedia talk:Page footers. Just because "series" exist elsewhere doesn't make it appropriate here. The UK articles have fewer pictures because their govt websites are copyrighted.

I don't like the idea of this grouping of articles at all, but am willing to allow it to sit at the bottom of the article. If people are clueless in the field of American politics, wouldn't directing them to politics of the United States be much more efficient than throwing in a link to the Senate Majority Leader? If the Senate Majority Leader is relevant and ever comes up, then it would be obviously linked in the article itself and linking it on the side wouldn't be necessary. IMO, which is unsubstantiated like yours, people ignore these boxes. They're just there because theyre pretty.

I don't buy your argument that those pictures have less relevacny, or at least less relevancy than the group of links. The building is not just a building, but a symbol of the institution itself. Examples of the processes in action helps the reader develop a mental image of what he/she is reading, making the article more memorable. Just like how a biography describes not what a person looks like, but what he did, an article on an institution describes not what the building looks like, but what the institution does. Institutions are just like biographies. A photo of the House chamber is more relevant in the House article than a link to the Vice President.--Jiang 01:02, 12 May 2004 (UTC)


 * The sites you have linked to show that people are actually quite divided on this issue. The list is much clearer than in most cases - it simply lists the highest government organs. While you could argue that some cases merit placing the list below a picture (the political parties might be such candidates - I'm unhappy cluttering the top of that article), no one is talking about eliminating a picture. If, as you are hoping, people actually read the article, they will be fed visual impulses soon enough. Boxes at the bottom are for less clearly related topics.


 * The idea is that the reader start with the more general topic and then, without having to search the article, can jump to the next relevant page . Pages tend to link to superordinate and subordinate topics, but not to ones on the same level. For instance an article on the Courts will link to politics of the United States and to different types of courts, but not to the President, etc. But someone trying to grasp the big picture might want to see how these two topics interrelate, without flipping back to the 'main article' every time.


 * The boxes serve an important purpose besides informing people about other connected topics - they also offer a host of red links to be added to. Even for the United States, an overview of elections is simply missing! There, I didn't know that - did you? This will cause people to work on the top level of hierarchy and from those subpages more and more red links will open up possibilities to write. Of course, for the US, the politics sections are pretty complete for the most part, but many countries' political systems' entries look very very bleak. And please, don't say, "aha - then form a WikiProject" - that's a great idea, and worth considering, but then these boxes would be even more necessary to alert people to the existance of that project.


 * First off though, a few paradigms are needed - and the US is at least a good system to go for to get people motivated to look at a box and give suggestions on how to modify it. This is how the wiki works, as you know - experimentation. Politics boxes are untested. The field is perfectly coherent and often badly connected. If the US politics page did a semi-decent job describing the American political system, perhaps we really wouldn't need a series box. This is not the case however. Before threatening with deletion, perhaps you should wait what other people say about this... We're sure to hear from others now that I provocatively placed the boxes at the top of the articles. I have my position, but it isn't doctrinaire and I may be willing to back off from it, once I've heard more opinions. Pteron 01:49, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

While people remain divided on the issue, converting non-chronological grouping into footers is the general compromise and standard practice. This is the first objection to converting a series into a footer that I've seen. The debate is over whether to have them at all. The issue is not over whether to put the picture there or not, but whether a link the Senate Majority Leader in an article on the House of Representatives is more relevant than a photograph of the House chamber. Of course readers will still see the picture, but which do you want them to see first? I do not see how this grouping of articles is more cohesive than some other footer articles. What has House have to do with the Chief Justice? One is a chamber of the Congress, the other is a position on the Supreme Court.

As for your example on how an article on the courts lacks a link to the president, I don't see why the presidency would have anything to do with the "big picture". The "big picture" exists at [Politics of the United States]. If the two subjects are related, the link will exist, as it should, and creating an extra link to the side is not necessary. Otherwise, the link to the presidency is irrelevant. If someone wants to learn about the preisdency, the can put their cursor over the upper right hand corner field, insert the title "POTUS" and press "Go". It's simple enough. This listing is clearly not a "series" since if I really wanted to learn all there was to know about the US govt, I could learn about the supreme court before I learned about the Congress. Furthermore, why the Senate Majority Leader and not the House Majority Leader? Why the House Speaker and not the President PRo Temp of the Senate? Whether to include certain positions in the government is arbitary. I don't understand what you mean by "next relevant page". If this "series" is meant to link parallel articles, it does a bad job. "Federal government", "senate", and "congress" all sit on different levels. There's also no parallelism with the govt positions, between political parties and government institutions, nor with the single link to "election". In any case, there's no reason not to make this a footer. LEt people see things and click once theyre done with reading the article.

The argument that this helps alert people of red links is flawed. The purpose of our edits is to improve the content and look of an article and just that. We are interested only in the final product and not the process. Requests to get articles written can be done at Requested articles or one may just spam all the relevant talk pages (even this is not recommended, to say the least of spamming articles themselves). We could try something like Template:BuddhismOpenTask, but to spam the article space (if we disregard the other reasons for keeping this thing) is highly inappropriate. That aside, I don't ask that this listing be removed. The same could be accomplished if it sat at the bottom of the article.

I'm not intersted in deleting this, just modifying this to reflect its importance in the article. IF there's something wrong with the US politics page, then fix that. This is no excuse for a bad page over there. --Jiang 05:24, 12 May 2004 (UTC)


 * If I receive no further response to my objections, I will revert. I would like to see a footer, but I don't see an easy way to make one. The grouping here is illogical. --Jiang 08:47, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

Government!
Most of the items listed in that box involve U.S. Government, not U.S. politics. This primary caption should read "This article is part of the series Government of the United States" and it should be renamed MediaWiki:GovernmentUS. Kingturtle 16:38, 13 May 2004 (UTC)


 * Let's save the trouble of having to move this. What the mediawiki is called matters little. Just change the content on the page. --Jiang 20:35, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

Is this "series" active?
I noticed the series "Politics and Government of the United States", and got interested: I have been looking around for the series to join, and can't find anything. I finally found this discussion, and its 2 ½ years old. So, I'm trying to find out what happened here. Anyone have any information? Richiar 00:49, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Libertarians?
Does the Libertarian party really merit mention on this template when no other third parties do? --Jfruh (talk) 21:53, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Swapped legislative/executive...
...as per the order they appear in the constitution. Historic anomalies notwithstanding, the executive was never meant to be the dominant branch; privilege of place is unwarranted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.105.244.192 (talk) 22:46, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Well done! I swapped out House and Senate for the same reason. --Daysleeper47 (talk) 15:34, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Template:Politics of the United States sidebar templates
There is a second template at Template:Politics of the United States sidebar templates. Bebestbe (talk) 23:24, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Edit request
Hi. Please replace the beginning of the section with the following, which adds a heading and updates the template's categorization: 

Edit request
"ran of" should be "ran on" —Preceding unsigned comment added by RCFleischer (talk • contribs) 14:53, 26 September 2008 (UTC) timothy had a good idea — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.9.25.24 (talk) 19:22, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Interwiki for Macedonian
Can you please add mk:Шаблон:Политика на САД to the interwiki of this page. I cannot do it myself as it is locked. Thank you --B. Jankuloski (talk) 00:10, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 08:14, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Interwiki for Danish
Could you please add da:Skabelon:USA's politik to the interwiki section of this template. Thanks in advance. --Broadbeer (talk) 20:51, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done - Rjd0060 (talk) 03:45, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Edit Request
A new article, Governor (United States)‎, is now on line. Please change:  ** Governors  to:  ** Governors‎ (List) Thanks! - BillCJ (talk) 18:01, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Edit Request - Political Parties link
Several of the menu names in this list actually link to an article. It would be appropriate for "Political Parties" to link to Political parties in the United States. Right now there are links only to specific political parties as far as I can tell; it would make sense for the category to link to an article on US political parties in general. If an admin could make this edit to create this link I'd appreciate it. Thanks Locke9k (talk) 20:36, 27 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Renewing request for this link to be added. Some response one way or another would be appropriate.  I am presently considering requesting unprotection of this page as the talk page seems to be so little monitored that requesting admin changes is nearly impossible.  Locke9k (talk) 17:02, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

edit request
The section on congressional comparisons with parliamentary systems states that a Parliament is made up of all 3 branches of government, executive, legislative and judicial. This isn't true, generally parliaments only contain the executive and legistaive, the judiciary is independent in all democratic states. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JackBeNimble (talk • contribs) 06:06, 9 April 2009 (UTC) 2007sa

Camel-case
There are a few cases of camel-case in this template: "Political Parties", "Party Leaders", "State Courts", and "Local Government". Parties, leaders, courts and government are not names, nor are they titles (in this context). Should be corrected, but the template is protected. LarRan (talk) 10:46, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. — RockMFR 13:17, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Tnavbar
Use navbar instead of Tnavbar. Locos epraix ~ Beastepraix 20:37, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Template:Tnavbar simply redirects to Template:navbar. —  Jake   Wartenberg  21:43, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I know. It will just keep this clean. Locos epraix ~ Beastepraix 05:15, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. — RockMFR 13:17, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Various links
Could somebody make these fixes? All are permitted under R2D as templates are exempt from the "Do no fix redirects" guideline. Just some link fixes:

Circuit Courts of Appeal Governors Legislatures (List) Other countries  TJ   Spyke   00:33, 8 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Checked; in the existing template;


 * In "Judiciary", "Circuit Courts of Appeal" is linked to United States court of appeals which redirects to United States courts of appeals
 * In "Subdivisions", "Governors" is linked to List of current United States Governors which redirects to List of current United States governors
 * Also in "Subdivisions", "Legislatures (List)" (ie the word "List") is linked to List of U.S. state legislatures redirects to List of United States state legislatures
 * In the footer, "Other countries" links to Politics of present-day nations and states, which redirects to Outline of political science


 * 👍 - so I recommend making the changes as requested  Chzz  ►  03:34, 8 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Done, thanks to the requester and my diligent helper monkey. Skomorokh,  barbarian  05:58, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Edit request
Please add Category:Exclude in print to the template page. Kind regards, SpitfireTally-ho! 14:10, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I assume adding it to the /doc page is okay? If so, ✅ &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:36, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * That's brilliant, thanks. Kind regards, SpitfireTally-ho! 15:17, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Subdivisions?
A bit misleading. The states are not subdivisions of the federal government. The arrow, in fact, points the other way. The federal government is a union of the constituent states. As such, the category called Subdivisions would be better entitled as Federalism and linked to the article Federalism in the United States. -- Foofighter20x (talk) 17:34, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ Let's give it a try, see what other people think. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:59, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Wrong link with Chinese interwiki
This template should be linked to zh:Template:美國政治 instead of zh:Template:美國政冶. I have no authority to correct it. Please fix it. --Pubuhan (talk) 04:16, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Disambiguation
State court should be disambiguated to State court (United States). StAnselm (talk) 21:28, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 192.133.12.101, 21 February 2011
The article states that, "The second youngest governor ever elected was J. Neely Johnson of California, when he was elected in 1855 at the age of 30," but William Sprague was 29 when he became governor of RI in 1860.

192.133.12.101 (talk) 21:55, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It is not this template which states this, so you are probably posting this to the wrong page. Please try the talk page of the article which says this. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:16, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Add category
Please add Category:"Part of a series on" templates into the template.  A. Z. Colvin  •  Talk  23:39, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Nhajivandi, 3 September 2011
Hello I would like to add Term limits in the United States in the Election secton of this templete because it is part of US politics and it should be in there.

Thank you Nhajivandi (talk) 02:41, 3 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure where they would fit. Perhaps you would like to experiment on Template:Politics of the United States/sandbox and then give time for other editors to comment. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:14, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Presidency/Executive
Would it be possible to change the Presidency header to Executive as this is how it is laid out in the constitution plus the section contains things like the Cabinet. -- Barryob  (Contribs)   (Talk)  16:34, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done The original justification for "Presidency" seems to have been changing adjectives to nouns.[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Politics_of_the_United_States&diff=228463699&oldid=225507733] But "Executive" can also be a noun with this meaning. Anomie⚔ 19:46, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Change back to point to politics box, not sandbox
I noticed that this doesn't show up correctly on the articles it is put on. It shows "This template is part of the series:" even on articles where it should change to say "This article is part of the series:". It used to say "this article" and really should say that since it is generally used on articles (I hesitate to say only used there, because I don't know that for a fact). I'm not an admin, so I can't change it. Started looking into it and saw where the code was changed from to. Really, a live template like this shouldn't ever point to a sandbox. There are plenty of other ways to show examples of proposed changes. I see some of the discussion at Template talk:Politics box and might post there if no one replies here after a while. But needing/suggesting changes like that doesn't mean we change the live template first. Anyway, I think correcting this will also answer the CapitalR's question in their last edit on this template about VTE not working right. This does show, then, that the sandbox template being proposed needs some fixing to make it work correctly. Thank you. -- JoannaSerah (talk) 04:12, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I changed the sandbox template to say "article" instead of "template". Simply changing this template to not use the sandbox messed something up so I couldn't do it -- I'm not sure what the issue is yet. --CapitalR (talk) 20:43, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Edit request from Medo9
House word, means Home, the House word calling for House of Representatives No name of Speaker of the House of Representatives, Name of Parliament Speaker in all Politics templates No name of President of the United States Senate, Name of Parliament Speaker in all Politics templates Medo9 (talk) 15:11, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. You'll have to be much more clear in what you want changed. Anomie⚔ 16:57, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Fixes
Could somebody make these fixes? All are permitted under R2D as templates are exempt from the "Do no fix redirects" guideline. Just some link fixes:

Party leaders Other countries  TJ   Spyke   06:52, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I fixed the Party leaders link, but the other one is actually not in this template, but in a meta-template used by this one. I'll look into fixing it there.  --CapitalR (talk) 07:45, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ Fixed them both now. --CapitalR (talk) 07:47, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

States governments
The template mention state governors before state legislatures, but nearly all states mention the legislative before the executive in their state constitution. So it must be modified. John Doe 1346 (talk) 22:43, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

update to use a standard sidebar template, rather than a sandbox template
please replace the code of this template with [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Politics_of_the_United_States/sandbox&oldid=521068105 this version] of the sandbox (see [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Politics_of_the_United_States/sandbox&diff=prev&oldid=521068105 diff] and testcases). this change does several positive things let me know if there are any problems. you may also want to semiprotect the two meta-templates if you are worried about vandalism. Although, I guess that isn't a problem if we were using a sandbox template before? Frietjes (talk) 16:06, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) Uses sidebar with collapsible lists, rather than a sandbox template, which allows us to eliminate all the messy div statements, and not worry about someone actually using the sandbox.
 * 2) Fixes the "atlas" link at the bottom of the sidebar, which was missing the "the" before "United States".
 * 3) Fixes the "view / edit / discuss" links at the bottom of the sidebar, which were missing the "the" before "United States".
 * 4) Fixes the wrapped title, by slightly increasing the sidebar width
 * Yes check.svg Done Anomie⚔ 22:28, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Overstyling
per discussion at MOS:ACCESSBILITY, I have undone the overstyling. Frietjes (talk) 14:38, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 February 2017
The first sentence of the second paragraph of this article is factually incorrect. The current occupant of the Oval Office is the 45th individual to hold the office. 137.254.7.172 (talk) 21:40, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the template . Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned.  B E C K Y S A Y L E S  02:57, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 February 2017
Oh, bother, please ignore the previous edit request. It is correct that 44 PERSONS have held the office. Sorry ... 137.254.7.172 (talk) 21:41, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done  B E C K Y S A Y L E S  02:57, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Requesting removal of seals
Per WP:ICONDECORATION, the seals should be removed as they are purely decorative, and quoting User:Howard the Duck, "The seals are horribly indistinguishable at that size." Jeremy ( Message ) 14:29, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 January 2023
Can you use the template? Thank you. 143.44.165.210 (talk) 03:52, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Lightoil (talk) 05:13, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Color of show/hide links
When the implementation of collapsible lists changed from for using class collapsible to mw-collapsible, the show/hide links got same color as other links, blue, which are difficult to see on the red background. I suggest the color is changed back to white. It can be done with a rule for .mw-collapsible-text in a templatestiles page. Dipsacus fullonum (talk) 08:29, 16 May 2024 (UTC)


 * My suggestion is in Template:Politics of the United States/sandbox. I moved styles parameters and inline styles to Template:Politics of the United States/styles.css. The show/hide links are white. They and the link in the title line also now have white underlining when you hover over them. Dipsacus fullonum (talk) 10:57, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I see no objections, so I'll use sandbox version now. Dipsacus fullonum (talk) 08:26, 20 May 2024 (UTC)