User talk:GoldRingChip/Archives/2010

Unreferenced BLPs
Hello GoldRingChip! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot alerting you that 1 of the articles that you created  is an  Unreferenced Biography of a Living Person. Please note that all biographies of living persons must be sourced. If you were to add reliable, secondary sources to this article, it would greatly help us with the current  article backlog. Once the article is adequately referenced, please remove the unreferencedBLP tag. Here is the article:

Thanks!--DASHBot (talk) 15:59, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Vincent L. McKusick -

thanks for the work on the Massachusetts special election (Senate) for 2010 .. and Yes the Liberty Ticket I have never seen that on a commonwealth ballot before lol But its the ticket hes on now thanks for the proper corrections and re listings. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.147.97.167 (talk) 18:03, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Massachusetts senate special election 2010
Is there any chance you can add Joe Kennedy back to the info page?

Yes or no -Either way thanks for reading.

I took your advice and finally made an account - ^-^ SirWence (talk) 21:24, 10 January 2010 (UTC)SirWence

United States Senate special election in Massachusetts, 2010 protection
Why is this article semi-protected? There's no significant history of vandalism or edit-warring, especially not involving anonymous/new editors (which the protection policy states as the only circumstance in which a page should be semi-protected for edit warring). Perhaps there's something I missed in the history? Thanks. – Hysteria18 (Talk • Contributions) 18:20, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps overcautiously, I was concerned about the volatility of this subject. I'll take off the protection, and let's see what happens.  —GoldRingChip 22:50, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks! – Hysteria18 (Talk • Contributions) 23:11, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Admin help
Could you help with a requested move? The multi-move was already closed with a consensus of move all (discussion here). In implementing it, someone mixed up the Democratic Party with the Popular Democratic Party, which broke some templates and tables around Wikipedia, which in turn is how I learned about the move discussion. I've have done as much as I can to correct the problems, but an admin needs to move Template:American politics/party colours/Popular Democratic to Template:American politics/party colors/Popular Democratic over the redirect to the Democratic template I created trying to fix things. That should do it. Thanks for any help you can give. -Rrius (talk) 21:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks like fellow-admin User:Plastikspork got to it already. Does it look OK now?—GoldRingChip 12:51, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

VA AL and MA-1 Reps
FYI....I've added comments to the VA-AL dicussion.
 * OK, I'll check it out.—GoldRingChip 23:37, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, I've slightly changed some some of the infoboxes for Reps in Ma-1 serving more than 1 district (i.e. Theodore Sedgwick, William Eustis. It combines dates served for consecutive terms to show length of continuous tenure I thought woud be helpful. Succession boxes (at the bottom of the page) could be kept as is to show tenure within each district.   I have no interest in creating new ones by the way, just changing the current ones as time allows.  What do you think? Pvmoutside (talk) 22:39, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It's OK. I don't like lengthy infoboxes anyway, so I'm going to remain agnostic (ambivalent?) for now.—GoldRingChip 23:37, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Edit notices
Do know anything about bots or anyone who does? If so, we could see about adding edit notices through the magic of automation. I use AWB sometimes, but I don't think it would work for creating new pages. -Rrius (talk) 22:33, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Alas, I am not a bot person. I really wish I were.  I'm not even an AWB person.  Let me know if you learn more.—GoldRingChip  01:00, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

GA reassessment of Illinois's 3rd congressional district
I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. You are being notified as you have made a number of contributions to the article. I have found some concerns which you can see at Talk:Illinois's 3rd congressional district/GA1. I have placed the article on hold whilst these are fixed. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 00:10, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Merge discussion for Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act
An article that you have been involved in editing, Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, has been proposed for a merge with another article. If you are interested in the merge discussion, please participate by going, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Avic enna  sis  12:19, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I simply merged it. I'm glad you caught this.—GoldRingChip  16:52, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion regarding naming of elections for specific single seats
This is something that I wrote earlier on the discussion page of the List of special elections to the United States House of Representatives article, with emphasis added to bolded text. This is just a suggestion that I would like regarding the naming of elections for single specific seats in the House of Representatives. '''Under the current guidelines, the name of an election for a specific seat in the House for example is named Arizona's 1st congressional district election, 2006 (and in the case of special elections the word 'special' is simply added prior to the word 'election'). I would prefer that the names for specific seats be named something like "United States House of Representatives election in Arizona's 1st congressional district, 2006"'''. When I created United States House of Representatives elections in South Dakota, 2004, I came across this dilemma regarding the naming of such articles (which I resolved in this case by combining information regarding the special election and General election into one article). Under the current format, if I were to have created two seperate articles for the special and general elections, the former would have been named "South Dakota's At-large congressional district special election, 2004" and the later as "United States House of Representatives election in South Dakota, 2004". I believe that naming articles as "United States House of Representatives (special (in cases of special elections)) election in [State]'s [number] congressional district, [year]" fashion would be more accurate than the current format of "[State]'s [number] congressional district (special) election, [year]" since it emphasizes the fact that it is a federal election in a district for the U.S. House and not as a state election which the current format somewhat misleading portrays it as. I also favor changing the naming format considering that specific elections for the U.S. Senate are titled "United States Senate election (special) in [state], [year]" (I admit that the last example may not have been a perfect comparison, but I do hope that I got my point across) Fuelsaver (talk) 18:38, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

So do think that it would be better if the format for naming elections for specific seats in the House of Representatives were changed to "United States House of Representatives election in [State]'s [number] congressional district, [year]" from "[State]'s [number] congressional district (special) election, [year]"?

If this wasn't the appropriate place to post this then I appologize in advance (P.S. I also appreciate your supportive comments regarding the article United States House of Representatives elections in South Dakota, 2004 which I created inspite of fearing rejection by many other users) Fuelsaver (talk) 17:35, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Health Care Reconciliation Bill
Could you move Health Care & Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010 to Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010 over redirect? The actual bill uses the word "the", not an ampersand. I don't think this is a controversial move, but there was an edit to fix a double redirect, so I can't do it myself. -Rrius (talk) 18:10, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I moved the article to Reconciliation Act of 2010 to reflect the fact that, at the time, it was still technically the correct short title. Since then, the House has amended the title, as expected, to "Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010". The latter article is a redirect to Reconciliation Act of 2010 with the only edits aside from creation as redirect being double-redirect correction and my addition of db-move. -Rrius (talk) 23:04, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Disregard. It has since been taken care of. -Rrius (talk) 00:01, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Response posted
I have posted a response to your negative claim regarding the use of "honorifics" for Members of Congress on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress page. 24.3.220.206 (talk) 15:24, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Diane Wood
I'm currently involved in a dispute at Diane Wood with a fairly new user. I have attempted to engage the editor at the article talk page and the user's to no avail. Could you talk a look and weigh in? -Rrius (talk) 01:28, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Are you still having a problem? If so, could you please elaborate?—GoldRingChip 13:10, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

CongLinks
I was just searching in Follow the Money and found their format had changed. I went to post here and one of their staff members already had done so. I changed the template. Beyond that, I would prefer all the 'campaign money' links (FEC, OpenSecrets, FollowTheMoney) be grouped. That's how they're listed in the example format, but the Template itself changed the sequence for some reason. (We still have the three outstanding links on the Talk page. I have no idea who to invite, but the 2010 elections are already heating up.) Flatterworld (talk) 15:04, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅.—GoldRingChip 17:50, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Texas"'s"
Apologies for the mess, notice your moving them back now. I was just going by what i was familiar with as proper grammar i was taught. sorry for the extra work cheers Weaponbb7 (talk) 13:59, 27 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Alas, there is no "proper" rule here. I've read it both ways and personally prefer it this way: Texas's. But, however, I accept the other way ("Texas'") as well.  The problem we face, however, is the need for consistency.  Can you restore the rest of the articles?—GoldRingChip  15:34, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Alaska
I just created the Alaska Territory's At-large congressional district article and thought I'd let you know that there is a slight quirk in this district. From 1906 to 1912, it was actually technically the "District of Alaska's At-large congressional district" since Congress didn't make Alaska an official territory until 1912 and yet let it elect a delegate from the District of Alaska for six years prior to that. I made a redirect for all those millions of people who otherwise would be searching for that article in vain. It's probably too fine of a point to make a separate article, but thought I'd call attention to it. --Esprqii (talk) 17:32, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


 * OK. Nice catch.  Please put a note in the talk page, too.—GoldRingChip  17:52, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


 * So noted. Feel free to comment if you have anything to add. --Esprqii (talk) 18:13, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Colorado and Illinois
I don't know the answer. I tend to agree with the IP editor, and have said so in the past. No reliable source has referred ton these being special elections. Anywhere. The US constitution merely requires the the vacancies be filled by election. It's up to the states to decide how that will happen. While in general the appointments do last until the election, there is no requirement that the state fill the vacancy and hold a general election at the same time. Most states won't go through the trouble of holding a special election to fill a two month vacancy when a full 6 year term is decided the same day. The general would be deemed the method of filling the vacancy.I've attached the statutes from CO and IL. The only way to know for certain is to contact the respective secretaries of state for clarification.

Illinois says the senator elected takes office upon certification. If that certification is for a six year term starting January 3, 2011, then Burris stays in office until then. It all depends on whether there are two votes that day. I tend to think not.

(10 ILCS 5/25‑8) (from Ch. 46, par. 25‑8) Sec. 25‑8. When a vacancy shall occur in the office of United States Senator from this state, the Governor shall make temporary appointment to fill such vacancy until the next election of representatives in Congress, at which time such vacancy shall be filled by election, and the senator so elected shall take office as soon thereafter as he shall receive his certificate of election. (Source: Laws 1943, vol. 2, p. 1.)

Colorado says much the same thing, saying the appointee remains in office until the election. But it does also seem to indicate some wiggle room on just how that election takes place. 1-12-201. Vacancies in office of United States senator.

(1) When a vacancy occurs in the office of United States senator from this state, the governor shall make a temporary appointment to fill the vacancy until it is filled by election.

(2) When a vacancy occurs, the governor shall direct the secretary of state to include in the general election notice for the next general election a notice of the filling of the vacancy. The secretary of state shall give notice accordingly. At the election, the vacancy shall be filled for the unexpired term. If, for any reason, no United States senator is elected at the next general election, the person temporarily appointed by the governor shall hold the office until a United States senator is elected at a succeeding general election.

Source: L. 92: Entire article R&RE, p. 799, § 15, effective January 1, 1993.

Just my thoughts. DCmacnut &lt; &gt; 03:53, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that we should stop talking about them being double elections, but since I was the one who started this, I do want to explain. First of all, states have held double elections in this circumstance, so it is not unreasonable to believe a state would do it again. As regards Illinois, it says the vacancy "shall" be filled at the next general election and that the person is to take office upon receiving the certificate of election. The law clearly contemplates a special election at the very next general election, with no exception made for short terms as is done in some states.


 * Legally, that bit about when the senator takes office is superfluous because federal law determines when the senator takes office. However, it does show intent. The only way you could interpret the mandate for a special election not to apply when it would coincide with an election for the next full term would be if you read into it an assumption that senators elected at special elections take office on the following January 3. In saying the senator takes office immediately on receiving the certificate, any hope of reading January 3 into the law is brutally cast aside.


 * The Colorado law doesn't have that nice bit of clarification, but if you consider that there is no reason to read January 3 into the law, the lack isn't much of a problem. The "if, for any reason" clause shouldn't be read as giving the governor or secretary of state the right not to call the election, rather, it is belt-and-suspenders move to assure Colorado doesn't lose its representation in the Senate should someone make a clerical error or file a lawsuit or do something else that causes there not to be an election.


 * I don't know enough about Colorado to know what's going on there, but I have a good guess with Illinois. The state Democratic Party has been scared of losing the seat since the Blago mess exploded, and they don't give up that seat any earlier than they have to. -Rrius (talk) 18:28, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Requested move
The back log at WP:RM is pretty long. Could you take a look at Talk:State Attorney General? It should be fairly simple, but two people who don't understand capitalization under MOS commented, so that may not be helping it get done. -Rrius (talk) 18:09, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Reviewer
I'd like to be a Reviewer. I don't have rollback or autoreview because I've never seen how either could help me. (I already have Twinkle to do what rollback does, and I don't create enough new articles to have ever bothered asking for autoreviewer.) I do however think the pilot program is a worthy proposal and want to be a part of helping to see if we can make it work. What's more, I think this new tool would fit naturally with the sort of "gardening" I do regularly with respect to my Watchlist. I have read the reviewing policy and am aware that the tool is to be used only to protect against edits that violate BLP or otherwise put the project at legal risk or are nonsense, vandalism, or something else that clearly should not be in any Wikipedia article. Thank you for your consideration. -Rrius (talk) 19:07, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
 * What are you talking about?19:09, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
 * WP:Reviewer; it's new. -Rrius (talk) 19:11, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Would you prefer I asked someone else? -Rrius (talk) 19:14, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Probably. I'm not familiar with it.  I could look it all over at some point; but if you're in a hurry, you should ask someone else.—GoldRingChip  19:25, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Good enough. User:Courcelles has been granting the rights in preparation for the trial system going live today, so he's granted it. Thanks anyway, though. -Rrius (talk) 20:03, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Redirects
Hello GoldRingChip, about List of United States Senators from New York, I changed the links to the actual articles because they exist already. Redirects are used for a variety of purposes: This last one would apply to your U.S. Senate election redirects, but then you would have to create all these redirects, which I think is not really helpful, because anybody might write a separate article on the Senate election (as has been done for more recent elections), and then the name is not useable because it is already used as a redirect. So, I suggest to link now directly to the state elections, and IF somebody writes separate articles, that editor should have the possibility to use the established form "U.S. Senate election in XX, 9999" as the article name and then one can change the links in the list. (Also, you made a mistake with "1917" instead of 1916.) Kraxler (talk) 17:35, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
 * to find articles which have a different name
 * to see if a blue link works
 * to make a doubled entry disappear without much fuss
 * to link things without pipeing, etc.

Thanks
for adding the U.S. Public Policy WikiProject to the US WikiProjects box. :) --Sross (Public Policy) (talk) 15:00, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * You're welcome. Be bold!—GoldRingChip  20:08, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Party changes
I'm at the beginning of a revision of the early Congress elections in NY, and there might be more changes. The Congress Bios are not very reliable, I found already quite a few mistakes in them, one has to dig deeper into the sources. However, I think you still overlooked something: Since the Silas Talbot seat was vacant at the end of the 3rd Congress, in the party summary table of the 4th Congress there could not be a 0 in "vacant" at "end of previous Congress". By the way, John Williams (9th District) changed sides at some time after his election to the 4th Congress (as a DR) and his defeat running for the 6th Congress (as a F, defeated by DR candidate), but I have not come across the exact date yet, so there might be another change later. Kraxler (talk) 16:56, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * If you can, Congressional Biography know of their errors. They are usually pretty good about correcting themselves. Pointing them to a source with the correct information is helpful in speeding them along. -Rrius (talk) 17:04, 25 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Good job! I've made a correction to 4th United States Congress - it is right now?  Please make a not of Williams's changes and we should be fine with that.—GoldRingChip  21:05, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I actually had changed Williams's party affiliation in the 5th Congress, and then I changed it back. It seems he became a Federalist at the end of his first term, and ran as such for re-election.Jabez D. Hammond, in his Political History, states explicitly that Williams changed sides. See also my change to the list of the 9th District. The sources are (or will be) in my election articles, if somebody wants to point it out to the Congress Bio authors, that's fine, but I don't know them... Kraxler (talk) 17:09, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Senate elections
I think it's a really bad idea for you to redirect all the senate elections to the main senate pages. The reason why, as a big senate election editor, is because when I try to create senate articles I try to find them and you make it harder for me. It's also misleading readers. I'm not asking you to reverse everything you did, just stop doing it.--Jerzeykydd (talk) 21:55, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Illinois Senate Special
Vindicated! Diane Wood and the 7th Circuit say I was right! -Rrius (talk) 02:46, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Yup. I thought about our articles when I read the story.—GoldRingChip  13:30, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

List of the Presidents of the United States Senate
GoldRingChip, I undid your "undoing" of my addition of Strom Thurmond and Robert Byrd to the Presidents of the U.S. Senate article for the reasons I set forth in the Discussion page for the article. Maybe we can add a footnote to clarify that Thurmond only served as presiding officer of the Senate for a couple of hours in 1985, and that Byrd only so served for a two-hour period in each of 2002 and 2007. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 03:22, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Congresses
Hello GoldRingChip, I wasn't really sure, how to add this info. Thank you to clean it up. I also made some minor changes to 2nd United States Congress. Tredwell was, like Hasbrouck, elected after the Congress term began, but long before Congress actually met on October 24, as is correctly given in the infobox at the head of the article. By the way, your edit summary "If Cantine was never installed, then he never served." is not entirely correct. Cantine resigned before his term began, so he never served. But look at Isaac Bloom: He died after his term began, but before Congress met, so he was never installed either (a congressman can take his seat only on the first day Congress actually assembles) but is considered to have served. Also I would like to get your opinion on how to handle the New York seats in the 1st Congress. The members were elected on March 3 and 4 (and it took some time to count the votes, and announce the result), about the time Congress actually met on March 4. Since there was no quorum until April 1, there are no official records of what happened from March 4 to 31, and by April 1, three New Yorkers were present, but the other three arrived only late in April/early in May. The question is, should we consider the seats (all, or only three, or none?) vacant at the beginning of this Congress? For more info see United States House of Representatives elections in New York, 1789, especially the "Aftermath" section. Kraxler (talk) 19:12, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Extreme Wiki Vandalism
GoldRingChip,

I am looking into the history of some of the more vicious wiki vandals, and I believe that you might have at one point come into contact with one, perhaps even victimized by one. The user name changes often, and he/she often used proxy server IP's so I can't tell you specifically who, but if I may ask, have you ever had any problems with personal attacks or otherwise at any time? Specifically, but not exclusively, I am referring to posts between the 23rd of April 2006 and the 15th of May 2006. There seems to be a lack of posting on your talk page during this time frame, and it happens to coincide with the timeline along which this vandal edited. I believe that this user is related to a much older and community respected incarnation of User:Bobabobabo. If you have any information which could help, please respond on my talk page as I am asking many users about similar attacks.

I realize that this is itself an odd request, and if you have any questions or hesitations, please contact me via my user talk, and I will give you what full disclosure I can. Thank you for your time Sir/Ma'am. Cwill151 (talk) 19:22, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

111th congree
carte goodwin was only sworn in as a senator today. the democratic caucus would not enlarge to 57 senators until he took his seat and was capable of voting with them (on July 20th rather than July 16th)

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/07/20/senate.goodwin/

I've provided a link. Please change the dates on the 111th congress page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.106.116.233 (talk) 20:16, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Nevada 2010 Senate polling
Hello! I saw the changes you have made to the polling for the General Election concerning the Nevada 2010 Senate Election. I think the changes look good, but the format does not match any of the current 2010 races, or any races dating back to 2008 or 2006. I am in no mood to fight over it, but I was wondering if you would have any objection to starting a discussion, that could help improve all of our 2010 election pages. This is in no way meant to be rude, I cant stress that enough!!!

Thanks again, America69 (talk) 02:13, 21 July 2010 (UTC)


 * OK, I'll think about it- thanks for getting my attention. I guess consensus is a better way to go.  I'll get back to you soon.—GoldRingChip  02:14, 21 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Hello, I have decided to drop any objection to the changes and leave the project. So there will be no more objection on my part. Take care. America69 (talk) 17:54, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

E-mail
Do you have e-mail? I would like to ask you something in private? Thanks! America69 (talk) 20:20, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I do. I have just enabled it.  Contact me via the "E-mail this user" link in the Toolbox on the left side of the screen.  I believe that's how it works.—GoldRingChip  21:17, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I sent it to you! Thanks! America69 (talk) 23:25, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I would like to respond, but not by email. May I address your issues at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums‎‎?—GoldRingChip  01:19, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes. My things were so long, I didnt want to take up a lot of space. I look forward to your reply(s). America69 (talk) 03:28, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Using the minor tag and edit summaries
Hi, I noticed that several of your edits on the Dodd-Frank bill did minor tweaks (example) but it wasn't clear from the history page. If you could use the minor tag in these cases I would appreciate it since I don't have a super-fast internet connection. II | (t - c) 21:44, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks for pointing it out. I've been lazy marking "minor" but I'll try to be more faithful to it.00:11, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

New Mexico elections
I think you did a great job. Keep up the good work.--Jerzeykydd (talk) 14:45, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Parent categories
Hi, GoldRingChip - I know you're a conscientious editor, so I thought I'd bring this to your attention. I came across Category:John Jay and noticed that someone had added a huge number of parent cats, the great majority of which were not appropriate. I have cleaned out all but the two categories that I think are best suited given the contents of Category:John Jay. For future reference, it's not appropriate to apply the entire cohort of categories from the main article for a person to the category for that individual, since most of the articles will have nothing to do with those parent cats. (Please reply at my talk page.) Regards, Cgingold (talk) 01:54, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

refname errors
I noticed several of these: '' showing up in the United States House of Representatives elections in Massachusetts, 2010 article. Obviously they're mis-formatted, but I can't find a 'correct' one offhand to use as a pattern to fix it. Hope you remember how these work. ;-) Flatterworld (talk) 14:49, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Just needed a space between "ref" and "name."15:43, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

US Congresses
You say "vacancies are implied" (edit in 14th United States Congress), which is ok with me, but I had seen the vacancies spelled out at other congress articles. So, we should arrive at a general pattern somehow, there is still too much nonsense in these (like Installations, which have been voted down already, and the wrong "Seated" dates). We should call Sysiphus to help cleaning these articles up... Kraxler (talk) 23:00, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
 * OK. Let's try in the Member lists to leave out vacancies because they're implied.  We should note the passage/changes/vacancies in the "Changes in membership" section.—GoldRingChip  01:03, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

West Virginia vote
As a frequent editor of United States Senate special election in West Virginia, 2010 please go on the talk page and vote.--Jerzeykydd (talk) 22:35, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

North Dakota
Sorry, didn't see you were editing the ND-AL article this morning. Hope I didn't step on any of your edits. Anyway, I made a separate ND's 1st congressional district; it looks to me like the the current ND's at-large congressional district could be converted to the North Dakota's congressional districts page, which is a redirect, and the ND-AL page could be cleaned up just to reflect that district's information. What do you think? --Esprqii (talk) 17:45, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * ND1, NDAL, and North Dakota's congressional districts should all remain separate. Thank you very much for writing the ND1 page.  Your changes to ND-AL are fine. Keep it up.  I agree that the corresponding ND1 info should be moved from NDAL to ND1.  Do you want to do it, or should I?  Meanwhile, North Dakota's congressional districts should be written as a comprehensive page to discuss the history of ALL seats, districts and at-large. —GoldRingChip  18:12, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I think I already put all the info from NDAL that I thought needed to move to ND1, so if you see something else, go ahead and move it. I didn't remove info from NDAL because I thought the extensive list of representatives section would be a good start for North Dakota's congressional districts, with NDAL then being reduced down to only the info on the at-large seats. --Esprqii (talk) 18:19, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

House 1860 Election formatting

 * 1) GoldRingChip, thanks for the improvement on charts, more rigorous categories, and compact table of contents.  How did you streamline the table of contents achieved? Other articles are also plagued by 3-5" of content subcategories listed down the page, creating a huge gap in the text.
 * This Contents box is so much better. Could you show me here, or give me a link to the guideline page for formatting the contents feature?
 * 1) I was trying to follow the wikipedia guidelines for compostition, using an illustration for each section to draw the reader into the text. It looks like you've just stacked the Capitol photo and the early (before November) elections cartoon under the lead 'elections' box while you were reorganizing the logic and topics. Does it make sense for me to play around with the illustration placement some more?
 * for instance, when a new reader comes to the page, in the very first frame associated with the summary, I think that the period photograph of the Capitol at Lincoln's Inauguration is a dramatic and compelling illustration to draw the reader into the article right off.
 * 1) It looks like you've taken off the collapse command for the tables; I am like you, I like the tables embedded in the text or at the text, and immediately for reference at the place of discussion, rather than shoved down into a footnote or appendix.
 * But they do not seem to have a wrap-around feature for the adjacent text like the images do. It makes for big breaks of white space interrupting the narrative, so that's why I went with the collapse default with a [show] feature. I'd like to try them again to promote flow in the layout, sort of like a printed encyclopedia. Does it make sense to try?
 * 1) Since the Congressional delegations are listed alphabetically in the referenced online link, and available in the wikipedia article, 37th Congress,
 * I thought to add value to the information in this ELECTIONS article by grouping the states in regions as defined by their political characteristics in 1860, maybe with an introductory paragraph or two for each region, like the effort for the West.
 * At the very least, since the vacated state delegations did not sit in the Congress, I mean for them to be set apart as the House did do itself, by expelling those members who had left, but not resigned, like Virginia's Senator H.M.T. Hunter.
 * Anyhow, welcome back, and thanks again. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 02:53, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, is there an easy way to present lists like these delegations in columns without creating a two-box wikichart? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 03:00, 17 September 2010 (UTC)


 * My answers follow:
 * 1) I used the template, TOC limit and applied a parmeter, "2" which limits the TOC to just the headings that use "==".
 * 2) I dropped the left/right of the thumb because that way the reader's default takes over.  They will stack if the browser needs to stack them.  Most articles don't align the images and so by dropping the alignment I made it more like the majority of articles.  I suggest you look at moving them up or down as suits your style.  Be careful of left or right alignment because it can make the text zigzag around the page.
 * 3) This article, like other election articles, is primarily composed of lists.  So hiding them with a collapsible table defeats the purpose.  If you want to make them "float" like the images with the text going around them, then add  align=right  to the the table header so that the table header reads:  {| class=wikitable style=text-align:center align=right .
 * 4) *All of the quotation marks, by the way, can be removed when there is only one variable to be assigned. (So if the style statement had multiple variables (such as  "style=text-align:center bgcolor=#000000" , then quotation marks would be needed to contain them.)
 * 5) It's OK what you've just done by grouping the results by region.  In the context of THIS election, it makes sense.


 * Also- to contain them in columns, use col-begin at the beginning, col-end at the end, and then apply col-break before each column including the first.

For example:
 *    This is the first column.   This is the second column.   This is the third column.    

will look like this:

This is the first column. This is the second column. This is the third column.


 * I hope this all helps. I tried to retain as much of the great content you added and really I wanted it to reflect your style as well.—GoldRingChip  16:15, 17 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Very rich response. Lots to digest. Thanks again. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 19:36, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Line breaks in lists
Per the lists in the 37th Congress article, and others,
 * I have in mind general readers, such as high school students, looking to wikipedia for an orientation to the subject and a jumping off place for further research.

In long lists, there is a convention to break every three or five lines to aid in visual location, when the reader is looking to find the item and then looking away, such as in Census figures.
 * on the computer screen, there is no easy way to underline an item when taking notes from a library computer. (even when highlighting is made available and trained for in the state tests, kids don't use the feature.)

But, if that is not wikipedia style, so be it, no problem.
 * Still figuring out how to apply all of your last info. thanks again. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 13:34, 26 September 2010 (UTC)


 * It doesn't seem to be in WP style, and it's a little inconsistent with other lists. By the way, I just made some serious formatting changes, but in no way interfered with all your great research!!!  Please keep up the great work! —GoldRingChip  13:37, 26 September 2010 (UTC)


 * consistency in format and style is best for overall access to the information accross so many elements (Congresses). a plus
 * alpha listing allows rapid location and ready comparison to parallel Senate and Cabinet organization. a plus
 * with a simple Explorer toggle "Edit.Find on this page.Find:[name].next" the reader can have access to the state affiliation of each Member of Congress in the chart above, as well as other committee membership elsewhere. Quite Easily Done (QED)
 * I guess that the 'Joint Committee' for bill enrollment, etc. in the House is also a 'joint committee' of the same name on the Senate side, but I do not see the distinction in the LOC search page...so I did not impose my guess on the Senate list. Maybe later when I am more familiar with the LOC conventions.
 * I did notice that LOC make available multiple names for the same committees. That enables researchers to come onto the page from disparate sources-names and find the associated bills in each case. They also use a standard committee name where applicable to parallel modern terminology, without losing the contemporary. I tried to preserve some of that by having both LOC and Globe committee names... TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 14:28, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Opposition Party (United States)
I saw a chance to improve the 'Opposition Party' article by reading into Martis's Introduction to the Atlas of Political Parties. He has the 'Opposition Party' in both national party chart and in third party chart, but when you read into the article, we learn they were two different, but related (anti-Democratic, usually pro-union) entities.
 * (a) One was a Congressional Caucus, like all national parties before Jacksonian Democrats started national party conventions.
 * (b) The other was a southern (Mo, Ky, Ga, Va) third party with party label nomination of candidates and winning Congressional seats. NC representatives of similar persuasion, but not the party label, joined them in Congressional Caucus for the 36th Congress (and then they were gone from the Congressional Biographical Dictionary).

I checked back with JohnK who had repeatedly called for the deletion of the article over two years. He was kind enough to reply on the article discussion page that the article was improved.
 * How is the "factual error" label removed on an article? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 13:58, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Like this.—GoldRingChip 18:24, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Massachusetts 2010 governor race Cahills 'running mate'
Massachusetts gubernatorial election, 2010: Massachusetts 2010 governor race Cahills 'running mate'

The page for this is now listing Cahill as Running mate less due to Paul Loscocco, dropping out* (It is impossible for him to drop out or have his name removed from the ballot so he will remain on the ballot as the Running mate Lt Gov.) Thus I was curious if you thought it would be wise to put Paul Loscocco back up as his running mate - with the notation of what occurred, due to the fact that he will in fact be on the Cahill ticket come ballot casting time, Or simply leave it empty. 24.147.97.180 (talk) 20:20, 4 October 2010 (UTC)SirWence


 * Can you make the edit yourself (Be bold!), or are you too closely involved with the campaign (see Conflict of interest)? —GoldRingChip  21:14, 4 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I can try and make it myself (ive never been fantastic with editing the layout box), I was more so curious of your view on the matter ^^ 24.147.97.180 (talk) 21:33, 4 October 2010 (UTC)SirWence
 * Oh, I see. I think I agree with your logic that Loscocco should be considered the Lt. Gov. nominee, and therefore included in the infobox.  Even if he'd died, he'd still be the nominee.  If, by some miracle, Cahill WON the election, then Loscocco would be elected LG and would likely resign out of embarrassment.  I suggest you make the change to the infobox, and then start a discussion of the matter on the talk page.  —GoldRingChip  01:59, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I did both, thank you for your input it was much appreciated GoldRingChip. 24.147.97.180 (talk) 04:07, 5 October 2010 (UTC)SirWence

TN 1st congressional district start date
After your last revision, the article Tennessee's 1st congressional district now has three different start dates for the district. The lede says it was created in 1823, the header on the table says 1805, and you just changed the table entry for the first representative to a first term in 1813. Any help in resolving this would be appreciated, as I don't have a good source at hand. Thanks much -- Foetusized (talk) 07:01, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That's my mistake. Thank for letting me know!  I've now clarified it all to 1813. —GoldRingChip  10:34, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Clarifying "Retention Confirmed"
You asked me earlier what I meant by "Retention Confirmed" in the 1910 and 1912 Senate election articles. What I meant by that was that the state legislature re-elected the incumbent senator to another term in the Senate. I chose to use the term "confirmed" based on the usage that it is used regarding a legislature voting in favor of an appointee by a President or other executive to some appointive office, which is a closer comparison rather than modern post-17th Amendment elections to the Senate. I acknowledge that confirmed may not have been the best word to use, so would you like me to change it to "Retention Approved" or something else? Fuelsaver (talk) 16:40, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * "Election" is the proper term. It is not the confirmation of someone's suggestion, but an open election.  Same process, perhaps, as the election of a Speaker or Pres. Pro Tem.—GoldRingChip  17:44, 10 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Then, "re-election", "returned to the Senate", "incumbent in office for the ---th consecutive term" TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 22:08, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Small Business Jobs and Credit Act of 2010
You think you could possibly create an article on this piece of legislation when you have time? It would be greatly appreciated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by InfoFan (talk • contribs) 03:03, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

American Labor Party colour template
Hi, I've just seen that in September 2008 you created the template Template:American politics/party colours/American Labor, which redirects to Template:British politics/party colours/Labour for some reason. I've updated the British Labour colour template for consistency across the wiki, which now means that the colour has changed (including for the American party). Could you have a look at this please to see if the colour is still acceptable for the American party, if not change it's template, as I'm not too sure which date of American party it refers to (although currently the template is not actually used anywhere). Cheers, Zangar (talk) 14:30, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

American Clean Energy and Security Act
On October 11, 2010, The New Yorker did a feature on the rise and fall of this bill, called "As the World Burns": http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/11/101011fa_fact_lizza I thought you might like to use it. Best regards! -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:29, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

44th Congress & March 4/3
My bad......corrected the tables........Got a question for you on another issue.... I know there was some conflict earlier when I changed the old closing of congressional terms from March 4 to March 3, so I began changing to the March 4th date as I moved forward. Now I notice things are reverting back to March 4.......Any ideas on which date we should use? Pvmoutside (talk) 13:59, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not the authority on this. As you well know, I've been confused about this issues in the past.  I suggest you revert the other person's edits, and direct them to the source supporting your contention.  Sorry I can't be more illuminating.—GoldRingChip  00:42, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The most complete discussion of this issue on Wikipedia is probably in this thread. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:49, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Senate Article Edits
GoldRingChip, I appreciate the updates to the Senate Change in Composition, however you may be retracing some of my earlier steps.

(1) I would prefer to restore the "Key:" at the end to a vertical list of the various colors (as I originally designed it). When it is listed horizontally (as you have changed it to) the casual reader can easily mis-interpret this as being another chart listing with some significance attributable to the length of each bar (where none exists). With a vertical listing the reader is immediately alerted to the fact that this is different information (a "Key" and not another chart).

(2) More seriously. This is already a cluttered article, likely with too much content. In fact others have gone thru and done wholesale deletes of entire sections that actually have significance. So I'd suggest that if you are going to introduce the new category of "before the election" and "between the election and the end of the 111th congress" that you need some sort of explanation. As it stands now, you have a differentiation without explanation. I'd suggest a "*" with a quick note right at the chart, then a link to the actual race in the State-by-State section where you can give an explanation of this unique change between the 57-2-41 chart and the 56-2-42 chart.

Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by NateOceanside (talk • contribs) 16:09, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

House articles
I saw that you preferred a slightly different formatting on the table I added to United States House of Representatives elections, 1920. Since I'm thinking of doing a bunch of these procedurally, I would appreciate any further formatting comments you have as I can update my markup for other tables that I add. The tables for other years that are already filled out are generally quite inconsistent in format - column names, colors, text for result descriptions - so don't work perfectly as templates for new ones. Willhsmit (talk) 17:10, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I've just begun making a couple of changes here and there, thanks for noticing. Thanks also for your contributions to this project!  I suggest using the coloring scheme I employed for your changes.  Shade all of the incumbents' party column to the party color.   Shade the result column only if there's a change (pick-up or hold by another in the same party).—GoldRingChip  18:28, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Do you want me to edit the ones you've since added, so you get a better sense of what I'm suggesting?—GoldRingChip 18:29, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I think I updated to reflect your current change, but if you see something else to change I'll keep an eye out for it. Willhsmit (talk) 18:50, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, I made minor change to CT, and added to AR7.  See?—GoldRingChip  18:53, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Re: Discussion at Talk:United States Senate Democratic primary election in Pennsylvania, 2010#Purpose
Thanks for the heads up, GoldRingChip! I've responded at the talk page. —  Hun ter   Ka  hn  20:05, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Re: Utah Territory's At-large congressional district
For what it's worth, an edit war has broken out on the article above. I'm having some real trouble understanding the redirect editors argument. Can you help (and invite anyone else you think appropriate). I'm trying to keep the article more or less consistent with the other Territorial delegation articles.......Thanks.......Pvmoutside (talk) 21:55, 5 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Could I get a clarification. This is the third redirect discussion I've been a part of.  All the same situation as the Territory's At-large discussion.  The previous two times was to keep the redirect, this one was to remove.  The previous two came down to WP:Redirect... you add a redirect when, "Sub-topics or other topics which are described or listed within a wider article. (Such redirects are often targeted to a particular section of the article.)".  What does this statement mean?  Could you give me an example? Bgwhite (talk) 05:23, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure, honestly. What were the "previous two times"?  Perhaps that will explain it better for me.—GoldRingChip  14:06, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
 * List of cities in Utah (by population) is now redirected to List of cities and towns in Utah (targeted) article. It was redirected because all the information on the population page is now "described in a wider article"... All information in the population article is in the targeted  article, therefore it is redundant.  Also, the targeted article contains more information that the user may find interesting.  A comment on the discussion page of the targeted article says it best, "How many list of cities do we need? Shouldn't we be merging some of these list or expand them? The one could should really be merging into another list of cities in Utah, since they carry similar information." Bgwhite (talk) 21:27, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

United States congressional delegations from Utah
Grrr.... Laptop hard drive died. Interesting, you don't know how addicted to the internet you are until you don't have it.

Anyway, I saw you added shading back into the cells on the United States congressional delegations from Utah page. The shading is actually against Featured List Guidelines. The page recently was promoted to FL. The shading is a more recent event. I've cleaned up older FL List of Governor pages (promoted over 18 months ago) and they had it, but now it is no longer allowed. List of Governors of Maine is currently undergoing FL nomination.... The little colored boxed on the delegations article is a result of what is acceptable to the Governor's articles. Goto Featured list candidates, view any candidate and they won't have color. I believe the reason is for colored blind people as it may make it hard for them to read the text with certain colors Bgwhite (talk) 21:17, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Wow, I had no idea. Well… I'll have to think about that for a while to figure out how to implement it for other articles.  Got to be consistent, I suppose.  Meanwhile, I apologize for the shading changes in the Utah articles.  Can you revert it without the other changes I made?—GoldRingChip  23:10, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
 * One thing about FL standards... they keep changing and alot of it is unwritten. The last Governor's list promoted I learned about having to use stack instead of div for a long list of images.  Take a look at List of Governors of Georgia and List of Presidents of the United States to see the color blocks for showing political parties in action.  User Golbez came up with it.  I reverted the color changes on the Utah article, unfortunately I reverted some of the changes you made right after.  So, you might want to take a look at it.  One question, I saw you changed image to file.  Using "image" for me is an ooold habit.  Wikipedia says they can be used interchangeably.  I see both used, but "file" more often now.  Do you know if "file" should be used now? Bgwhite (talk) 06:07, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Re:File:112th Senate.jpg
I used MS Paint. I know it is not identical to the previous congresses because I don't know how to update that file from the other congresses. But its the best I could do. All the races are set in stone now so that image needed to be added to the 112th Congress article. Politics2012 (talk  —Preceding undated comment added 03:53, 19 December 2010 (UTC).

New Subcommittee on Environment and Economy
Could you take a look at United States House Energy Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials? You may recall that this committee disappeared in 2009 when the Energy and Environment subcommittee was created. We simply redirected this page to the new committee since it's jurisdication was transferred.

It has now been annouced that in the 112th Congress, Energy and Environment will be spilt back into two committees. I've restored the version of the Environment subcommittee article as a defunct article for now, with sources on the impending switch. The old committee will be renamed and regain its former jurisdiction, so my intent is to perform an article move to the new name once the change is official. I would be interested in your views on this. I can predict more changes like this, so I'm going to post a small note on WT:USC to caution editors about creating articles willy-nilly next year for new subcommittees.DCmacnut &lt; &gt; 16:39, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with your plan. —GoldRingChip  17:30, 17 December 2010 (UTC)