Template talk:United States Congress

Expansion / compression
Markles, I noticed your new template and wanted to direct you to the one that I also had made earlier today: (Template:United States Capitol Complex). I have a great interest in architecture, especially government buildings, and I was going to just go ahead and add the one I made to the applicable articles, but decided not to till I got feedback from everyone else on the project talk page (here). Do you think we could take the buildings off the template you made, and use the one I made strictly for the Capitol Complex articles? I plan on adding a lot more minor buildings to the complex template, so if we keep them on the USCongress template it may start to get cluttered....any thoughts? --ScottyBoy900Q 00:25, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. Frankly, when I grossly expanded Template:Congresslists I knew I was opening a can of worms. I wish it could have everything Congress-related in it, but then it would be too big.

I generally prefer boxes without images and with minimal white space. This means have the links be as plain, short, clear as possible without anything extra that's unnecessary. For example, compare Template:USCongressCommittees with Template:CapitolComplex (find them below). It's just my opinion; it hardly means I'm right. Let's discuss.

Here's the pros & cons of having more (Let's discuss):
 * More: Complete. A researcher can find so much more and not miss useful articles.  Some articles that might be missed will be read/edited/expanded.
 * Less: Too cumbersome. Articles will have this huge box at the bottom that overwhelms the text of the article.

I would love to put all these resources together in one box.

--Markles 18:44, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I personally don't have a problem with having more than one template on the bottom of a page. I think having several different ones is much better than having one gigantic one that just inundates a visitor with more than say 15 or 20 links on it. It kinda drives me nuts when I want to find similar articles, then look to the template and it covers every possible other topic that's even slightly related. Just my opinion though. An idea now that I'm thinking about it...I totally agree that your "pro" listed above that researchers can find things better when they are grouped together.  Perhaps we could provide a link at the bottom of all the Congress template boxes that lead to the project page. For example:


 * -OR-


 * On the Project page every article associated with the project someone might be looking for is listed. I dunno...thoughts? --ScottyBoy900Q 22:02, 1 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Many templates on a page might be a solution, I'm not sure. I do know we shouldn't have a reference to a wikiproject in an article, see Avoid self-references. &mdash;Markles 01:06, 2 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I thought that was the case. And as I said, I don't see any problem with multiple templates. Should I add the complex template to the appropriate articles you think? --ScottyBoy900Q 04:25, 2 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Right now, the buildings are already in the mega-template, Template:USCongress. You could add the red-linked articles (right now there are four: the 3 LOC buildings and the visitor center).  Or if there's some consensus, we could use your new template instead. &mdash;Markles 22:32, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I thought what we were discussing here was using multiple templates and not just the big "mega" one. If we're going to keep them in the mega-template, we need to expand it even more.  As of now it simply is an incomplete list...a visitor might not have any idea which of them are senate office or house office buildings.  If we add the LOC ones, again, people may not know they are LOC buildings.  I dont mean to sound like I dislike the large template, I just think it already has too much information in it, thats why i made the seperate one for the buildings. We've got 5 more buildings to add to it if we're going to cover all Capitol Complex buildings in the USCongress template. --ScottyBoy900Q 22:59, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Okay, it's been a couple days and I haven't heard any objections to the template so i'm adding it to the applicable pages and adding it to the project template list. --ScottyBoy900Q 07:14, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Delegations by State?
Would anyone mind if we add a link to the "US_Congress_by_State" template (or to a wikipage based upon/containing it) to the first line of the "mega"- template? Currently, there are separate listings for the Senate and the House, and separate links for current and former members within each. The Senate does show a link for "Current & Former by state", but I think it would be good to have some sort of easy way to access entire Past & Present Delegations by State, given that the trend across the actual wikipages seems to be merging the "current", "former", "Senate", and "House" listings into single pages by State. Any thoughts? --Ross 23:40, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Other templates
Here are the other templates:

USCongresses
Template:USCongresses:

USCongressCommittees
Template:USCongressCommittees:

CapitolComplex
Template:CapitolComplex:

US Congress Delegations by State
Template:US_Congress_by_State:

Congresslists (old)
Template:Congresslists (before I expanded it):

US house elections
Template:US house elections:

US senate elections
Template:US senate elections:

Deaths by year
Are deaths by year links really necessary in this template? This template is already huge as it is, and adding more such links doesn't really help. I think that a better solution is to keep the latest year's link, and then link to the relevant "Deaths by year" category for members of congress. There's no reason the template needs to contain every single link related to congress. --CapitalR (talk) 15:40, 27 February 2012 (UTC)


 * ✅ - To cut down on the clutter, I removed each individual year link and replaced them with 1 link to a new page which has summary tables that link to the original pages. I also made a new template which will provide clean and easy navigation between current and future deaths pages. RoadView (talk) 00:35, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Sites
Have added the Old Brick Capitol and years to the two former sites already listed (Federal Hall as 1789-1790 and Congress Hall as 1790-1800), which cover the template subject and term 'United States Congress', but should the six sites of the Continental Congresses be added as well? I've just added five appropriate sites to the Government of the United States under the Articles of Confederation template. The complete list would include:
 * Carpenters' Hall (1774)
 * Independence Hall (1775-76, 1778-1783)
 * Henry Fite House (1776-77)
 * Nassau Hall (1783)
 * Maryland State House (1783-84)
 * French Arms Tavern (1784)
 * Federal Hall (1785-1790)
 * Congress Hall (1790-1800)
 * Old Brick Capitol (1815-1819)

Since the 'History' section includes a link to 'Continental Congress' I thought of adding them, then decided that adding five to the Article of Confederation template may cover it (although Carpenter's Hall is left out), but per template subject of 'United States Congress' thought that a talk page discussion should take as the Continental Congress starting in 1776 was still a United States Congress under the descriptor. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:02, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 September 2021
Please remove the links to List of living former United States senators and List of living former members of the United States House of Representatives, as those articles were deleted. 2601:241:300:B610:F1BA:AEF9:9050:8993 (talk) 22:29, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅Interesting Geek (talk) 08:47, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Update office
The wiki link in the “Legislative Offices” section pointing to United States Congress Office of Compliance should be updated to point to Office of Congressional Workplace Rights and the office name updated. 140.147.2.1 (talk) 21:57, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ —&#8288;PlanetJuice (talk • contribs) 19:16, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 July 2023
You now have a list about members of the 94th United States Congress, so remember to add this. 24.46.53.73 (talk) 19:46, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Ferien (talk) 20:29, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 August 2023
Someone should do a list of the state delegation duos in the U.S. Senate by longevity (for at least 20 years or more) and brevity (for either at least 10 or 6 years or less) of service they spent together, this year. 24.46.59.173 (talk) 20:46, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. -Lemonaka‎  21:12, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
 * OK, I would like a list of state delegation duos in the Senate, but by longevity and brevity of service, this, and I supported the change I want it to be made, this year. 2600:1017:B82E:1B3E:20C9:AC56:5671:7AD5 (talk) 21:43, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 August 2023
You might want to add two Senate-exclusive articles, a list on how long they served together, since the Senate has two senators from each state, add a list of Senate state delegation duos by longevity of service (20+ years), and the list of Senate pairs who served together for over 20 years will include current pairs, like a list of members of Congress who served for over 36 years. Don’t forget to add a list of Senate state delegation duos by brevity of service (2- years), and the list of Senate pairs who served together for less than 2 years will exclude current pairs and Senate pairs who briefly served together in the 73rd United States Congress, like a list of members of Congress who either served for less than 2 years in the House or served for less than 6 years in the Senate as well. 24.46.59.173 (talk) 21:25, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 August 2023
You didn’t make a list of new members of the 93rd United States Congress, yet. 24.46.59.173 (talk) 13:30, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 September 2023
You should to a list of U.S. Senators who served, just a single term (6 years or less). 2600:1017:B83C:50EF:65AC:2EDA:F903:8741 (talk) 22:09, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the template. If you would like, you can create such a draft article yourself. Tollens (talk) 06:19, 7 September 2023 (UTC)