User talk:GoldRingChip/Archives/2015

Therequiembellishere
I've contacted Risker about my concerns with User:Therequiembellishere's refusal to wait until 114th Congress begins, before he updates infoboxes & succession boxes of Senators, Representatives, Governors & Lieutenant Governors. For some reason Therequiemllishere is also refusing to acknowledge editors on his talkpage. GoodDay (talk) 07:31, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The changes to the 114th Congress are premature but of no long-lasting harm. I agree that it shouldn't be done, but it's a negligible mistake. My greater concerns are with the editor's mass changes to lots of other pages that are content-driven and should be reverted.—GoldRingChip 14:32, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Therequiem is a funny editor - I don't doubt he's done alot of good for the encyclopaedia, but alongside that he also has some strange edit habits. As evidenced on his talk page, I had a dispute with him over his strange obsession with removing office orders from infoboxes. You know, the 12th Governor of Hawaii, 4th Governor of Alaska, stuff like that, where he would remove the numerical orders. I raised my concerns first in November 2012, and on-off over the following year, but I never received a response. It would seem that, when challenged, therequiem just goes silent and carries on his work regardless. Eventually, it got to the point where I felt there was no alternative but an ANI. Unfortunately, it received scant attention, either in approval or disapproval of my concerns, because I suspect it was a little too niche for most people. A dispute over office orders isn't exactly going to set the world on fire. Rather than acknowledge the ANI, therequiem just simply stopped editing for a few weeks until it all died over. Afterwards, he 'seems' to have cut back on this office order stuff, but I haven't exactly been analysing his edits. Looking back over the history of his talk page, it seems this concern has been raised by others for many years. I don't have has much beef with him as I used to, but nevertheless I suspect that, whilst he has done good, this could be one of those editors who has also done damage for many years under the radar, and is worth an appraisal of his work. Redverton (talk) 13:21, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * His choosing to ignore others concerns, is very troubling. GoodDay (talk) 15:41, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree. I don't think I should start a complaint because I'm an Admin and it's kind of a conflict.  I'm happy to add to it once it's started, however.—GoldRingChip 17:28, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Likewise, my particular concern with him isn't as relevant anymore, so I can't start anything up. However, I too am happy to contribute. Redverton (talk) 19:27, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Note, that he's gone into hiding, again. GoodDay (talk) 16:06, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not willing to attribute it to malice or even negligence.—GoldRingChip 16:14, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Therequiembellishere replies
I went back into class and work last Saturday and I'm pretty occupied from 9 to 11 most days. So sorry.

First regarding GoldRingChip, I never understood the purpose of the specific succession boxes for US Representatives considering the normal succession box is perfectly functional. I also don't really understand why American federal offices feel the need to have their own unique box with it's own set of rules different from every other parliamentarian, which just deals with "Member of the [xxx legislature] from [xxx constituency]" typed in manually. I find this to be far more accessible to editing from a casual editor, especially non-American editors. As far as the information goes, the only difference are specific dates, which I almost never see in any other succession box. Usually, I've only seen the "years" section filled with just years.
 * The succession boxes for U.S. Congresscritters allows additional fields such as districts, classes, and alongsides.—GoldRingChip 16:23, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * There is no reason to remove the specific date in favor of the year-only date other than "that's how it's done elsewhere." If you're creating the succession box for the first time, feel free to include just the years as that's better than nothing.  But if you're editing an already-existing box, I suggest that you not remove correct information for the sake of consistency.—GoldRingChip 16:23, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Redverton, office orders have been an on-off issue over the past years I've edited and while the last time I was involved in a major discussion regarding their need, the consensus largely fell on the side that they weren't. Again, American articles have a particular sensitivity to including them and their determination in keeping them seems to have bled into the larger project due to their high profile (due to the high amount of American editors). Which is something that I will admit I've slowly and grudgingly come to concede. The thing that does irk me most is the assumption that once the order appears on a page, no matter how long the particular page or the larger list of officeholders in that line have existed without it, removing them is automatically seen as something much more malicious than what it is. It's something I am coming slowly around to, but my natural inclination is still against them overall.

GoodDay, I think you do tend to blow things out of proportion in a rather protective way. What I would see as a small difference in editing style you tend to characterize as some sort of personal slight. That may itself be overstating it, but considering the years I and other editors have spent merely putting in end dates on a succession box once a confirmed successor is known to be heading imminently into office, it seems to me like your own personal aim to prevent this from happening more than anything else. I'm particularly confused with your taking issue with me updating boxes simply because the date is in the future. We know these people will take the office I update onto them and I try to make sure I use the "succeeding" section to prevent the "Incumbent" label from appearing beneath their title, as well as the "Elect/Designate" appellation depending on their mode of selection. I don't get why it's wrong to put their upcoming office in the infobox and succession box when they are known to have been publicly selected for that office and would rather see hiding such information as more disruptive. Your final point of contention is over a matter of hours regarding when these indicators of imminent ascension are taken down for incumbency. I again don't really see why it is so important to make sure that they not be edited between midnight and the exact minute of noon considering how many various officeholders around the world without the heightened glare are edited at midnight on their known date of assumption.


 * I'm glad you've contacted us. But, I still disagree with your elect/designate succession boxes. GoodDay (talk) 06:59, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * BTW, you're correct that I shouldn't have hidden the succession boxes, that you created. Therefore, I've unhidden them & made slight changes to them per a compromise offer. GoodDay (talk) 08:15, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Overall, I do find these differences to be mostly down to my own style of editing and belief in trying for uniformity across the project as opposed to the regionalisms that have taken hold over some geocultural leaders. In some extreme cases, this imbalance has led to the significant declining of quality and/or readability of some articles' boxes. My focus on American boxes as of late is in the vein of how prominent their articles are on the larger scene and proclivity for reference in debates far off and removed. Despite some form of consensus toward one way (like not having office orders) in a majority of articles, the amount of views on American articles elevates them to a point that influences beyond just other American articles. So I've sought to make the American boxes as uniform across one another (particularly among the higher-profile articles, such as the federal leadership) and as high quality and updated as I can to try to make sure that when they are used in this manner, it's not a faulty box being held up. I've talked in circles a few times here so I'll wrap it up. Thanks. Therequiembellishere (talk) 06:08, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Request for opinion and advice
Hi! You seem to be one of the most experienced U.S. politics editors on en Wiki, so I though I'd ask you some questions about a few things.

First off, I'm thinking of revising the List of United States House of Representatives elections articles: List of United States House of Representatives elections, 1789–1812 and List of United States House of Representatives elections, 1814–1834. The reason for doing this is best expressed by the first comment at Talk:List of United States House of Representatives elections, 1789–1812 – indeed, I've worked up a "vertical table" version of this table at my Sandbox page. But in so doing, I realized that the current date ranges for these articles are completely arbitrary – so I've got a proposal about this at the Talk page. Basically, I'd like to revise these articles with "vertical tables", but covering date ranges more closely corresponding to the First Party System, the Second Party System, etc. (which will necessitate a couple of article moves).

Which brings me to my first big question for you: What do you think is a better idea? – Doing a third list article, List of United States House of Representatives elections, 1854–present, which would cover all Dem-v-Rep elections (to the present day)? Or do you think it would be better to split this list up into separate articles, roughly tracking the time periods covered by the Third Party System, Fourth Party System, etc.?

Second question – is there a "U.S. elections" project on en Wiki? I looked around for one the other day, and didn't see much. I have concerns about how many U.S. House district articles are currently focused, esp. the California ones – as these are currently focused more on past election results, rather than on the geographical locations of previous district lines. (IOW, the past election results for many districts in large states are irrelevant, as the area "California's 20th congressional district" covers now is usually quite different than what "California's 20th congressional district" looked like in, say, 1960 – an extreme example of what I'm talking about is, here which lists election results all the way back to the 1860s when CA-01 was totally different back then than what it looks like today... But I don't want to make any big changes to articles on this front, until I can check with a larger pool of editors that such changes will be accepted, which is why I'm hoping there's a "U.S. elections" project group I can check in with first.

Sorry to ramble, but thanks in advance for any help you can provide! --IJBall (talk) 22:29, 20 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, they should be reoriented to be vertical, not horizontal. I also think it's better to have larger articles that are more inclusive, instead of splitting up articles into smaller chunks. Historical trends are easier to understand that way.  So I suggest either making the article one mammoth table (1789–present) or at most, breaking it in to parts: 1789–1854 & 1854–present.  There are some US elections wikiprojects; I believe I'm a member.  I also used to edit WikiProject U.S. Congress, but it's been dormant for years.  There is some debate over districts that no longer cover the same geography; I won't argue it all here, but my take is that it is a consistency in name on paper even though it changes soil every decade and there's some value to it– all districts (in states with more than one district) change at least a little each decade, and sometimes the change is wholesale.  —GoldRingChip 15:59, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for getting back to me. For logistical reasons, I think I'm going to stick to my plan for three lists (1789-1822, 1824-1852, and 1854-present) – because there were so many different parties operating from 1789-1852, trying to cram them all in to one table (even a "vertical" one) would be too difficult, and I don't think such a table would "fit" on one screen, whereas that shouldn't be a problem if this period is split into two tables for 1789-1822 and 1824-1854. But your thoughts did help me clear up for me that it's better to do one 1854-present list, so that's good.
 * On the Wikiprojects – yeah, I did get the impression that they were dormant these days... Too bad.
 * On the district articles and election results: my thinking on this is that historical election results should actually be listed in separate elections based articles – e.g. the election results for CA-01 in 1864 should be listed at United States House of Representatives elections in California, 1864 (which they are), but not necessarily at California's 1st congressional district as they really aren't germane there. But I'm in no hurry to do anything on this front. It's just too bad that there's not a forum like a Wikiproject to discuss these kinds of things with a wider audience of editors...
 * Anyway, thanks again! --IJBall (talk) 21:50, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Great initiative— good luck and Be bold! Let me know if/when you'd like me to review your work.—GoldRingChip 13:07, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Nice revisions to that list
I like what you've done on the List of Presidents of the United States. Have you considered making George Clinton's VP tenure extend down across both presidents he served under? I was working on something similar here, but was never happy with the formatting. --Coemgenus (talk) 18:45, 12 March 2015 (UTC)


 * ✅! —GoldRingChip 20:48, 12 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Cool! That list has been on my to-do list forever, I'm glad someone went and did it. --Coemgenus (talk) 22:41, 12 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Now that you see how it can be done, you can apply it to other pages. It's a neat trick I learned a few months ago.—GoldRingChip 00:44, 13 March 2015 (UTC)


 * I have reverted your edit from the List of Presidents of the United States. Please seek input from other editors before making a massive edit like that one.  Thank you. Mitchumch (talk) 03:57, 13 March 2015 (UTC)


 * OK. Will do.—GoldRingChip 13:48, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Template:Ushr
Can you fix the template? The transclusion looks broken: 114th United States Congress. --George Ho (talk) 20:55, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅. My mistake! Thanks for bringing it to my attention!!—GoldRingChip 01:55, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Illinois House of Representatives
GoldRingChip, this question pertains to the Wikipedia article Dennis Hastert. As shown by this diff, you appear to have been the first editor to add subsections for Hastert's electoral history in the Illinois House of Representatives. As you can see by this Talk Page entry, posted today by Neutrality, it would be helpful to know the source(s) of your statistics. I realize it's been more than seven years, which is a very long time in Wikipedia terms, but if you could possibly recollect where this data came from, we'd be most grateful. Thanks for your consideration. Kent Krupa (talk) 16:48, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Answered at: Talk:Dennis Hastert—GoldRingChip 16:57, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Massachusetts's 2nd congressional district special election, 1852
I'm a little confused. I think something's gone wrong. Gamaliel ( talk ) 23:39, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
 * for bringing it to my attention. I've just edited it, which should have fixed the problem. Is it ok now?—GoldRingChip 23:42, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes. Thanks!  Gamaliel  ( talk ) 23:57, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep them coming.—GoldRingChip 00:39, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

List of current United States Senators by seniority
I noticed that you edited the above page. Do you think this page is necessary? I split it from Seniority in the United States Senate, but my split was reverted a few times, and another editor commented that he didn't think it was necessary. The list of senators by seniority should only exist once to avoid duplication, so perhaps I should tag this page for deletion. Thanks, Natg 19 (talk) 23:34, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I saw the dispute about the split but I don't feel strongly either way.  I guess it's an unnecessary split because it just creates a duplicate article.  In those future cases in which the current Congress has had replacement Senators, THEN the Congressional list would be different from the Current list, but I think it's just excessive.

Thanks for House elections work Comment
Thanks for your work on House elections. I've started updating them for the 2014 returns (I am going alphabetically, done with Alabama and most of Arizona). I am new here; in fact, you have been on here for as many years as I have days! So, if you have any hints or advice for work on those pages, let me know (with 11 days here, I am not sure of the best way - will I see it if you do it here? Or my talk page? I did put this page on my watchlist). Thanks again. -- PeterLFlomPhD (talk) 23:15, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * It's great that you're adding this information, Be Bold!
 * Use better sources than Ballotpedia. Ballotpedia can get you started on where to find the better sources, but Ballotpedia  can be edited just like Wikipedia, so it shouldn't be cited as a source.
 * Instead of listing any further suggestions here, I've made edits to Arizona's 8th congressional district, which should give you an idea of how to proceed. Check here for the edit history.
 * Come back to me with any questions. —GoldRingChip 13:37, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks!
 * OK, I fixed up Arizona's sources. Then I was looking at Alabama. I noticed that many of the results don't have references. Not sure what to do about that
 * I think I will wait until September when the Almanac of American Politics comes out and has all the results in a nice easy to read format. That's a verifiable source, too, and won't have link rot. Does that make sense? --- PeterLFlomPhD (talk) 21:39, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes.—GoldRingChip 12:43, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Democratic Party color
For the record...

...I'm really not sure I like the new color choice at. Was there a previous discussion about this? I feel like a lighter blue works better with text. FWIW. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 19:08, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I would like to second the above sentiment. In terms of adding something new to this conversation, I would also like to mention that there has been a request to revert and for protection on the talk page of the template. Williw (talk) 22:06, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, all good points. I didn't think before I acted.  I wasn't actually being bold, I just thought I was doing some routine maintenance.  User:Spartan7W made a significant change to Template:Democratic Party (United States) and I just made the adjustments to keep it all consistent.  Now I see that that template has been reverted.  Therefore, I will adjust the colors back.  Sorry for the confusion!—GoldRingChip 01:12, 12 August 2015 (UTC)


 * My edits have been reverted (albeit by fallacious reasoning). Furthermore, this color does not function well in the application of this color template.  Spartan 7W  §  04:50, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Table header template improvements
Hello—I saw that you liked the little test I ran on Ordinal US Congress Senate and 11th United States Congress this morning. I think that this change to the template may be a way of improving the symmetry of table-code in many governmental articles without actually requiring any changes to existing articles. I explained my fix and solicited comments from PrimeHunter on his talk page, and your opinion would be welcome too. Cheers —jameslucas (" " / +) 15:06, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

September 2015
Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=678934212 your edit] to List of U.S. states by date of admission to the Union may have broken the syntax by modifying 4 "{}"s. If you have, don't worry: just [ edit the page] again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?action=edit&preload=User:A930913/BBpreload&editintro=User:A930913/BBeditintro&minor=&title=User_talk:A930913&preloadtitle=BracketBot%20–%20GoldRingChip&section=new my operator's talk page]. It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 14:44, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

✅—GoldRingChip 16:59, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Reference errors on 1 September
Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that an edit performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. as follows: Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?action=edit&preload=User:A930913/RBpreload&editintro=User:A930913/RBeditintro&minor=&title=User_talk:A930913&preloadtitle=ReferenceBot%20–%20&section=new report it to my operator]. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:23, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * On the List of U.S. states by date of admission to the Union page, [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=678934212 your edit] caused a broken reference name (help) . ([ Fix] | [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Help_desk&action=edit&section=new&preload=User:ReferenceBot/helpform&preloadtitle=Referencing%20errors%20on%20%5B%5BSpecial%3ADiff%2F678934212%7CList of U.S. states by date of admission to the Union%5D%5D Ask for help])

✅—GoldRingChip 00:29, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

cleanup cats
I guess your script barfed and added all the if statements.... United States Senate election in Georgia, 1819, United States Senate special election in Georgia, 1824 and United States Senate special election in Georgia, 1972 Bgwhite (talk) 06:39, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It sure did! I fixed them.  I wish there was a way to make my template work for Georgia and Washington, but I can't make it so.  I'll fix these.  Thanks for bringing it to my attention.—GoldRingChip 13:46, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

2016 Senate Composition addition...
I'm glad that you added the Composition table, but this seems like something that could be created from arguments to a template (albeit a complicated one), have you looked into that?Naraht (talk) 18:22, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh, yes. I've considered it.  I've built these tables for Senate elections in early years (see, e.g., United States Senate elections, 1800 and 1801).  You're right that it would be complicated, and I'm not confident they'd be worth it. But I'll keep considering it because it's got to be better than doing it all manually. —GoldRingChip 13:58, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

june 11-12, 1974 resolution about Baltic states - had to be 93rd US Congress, n'est-ce pas?
am editing a book now, chronology of estonia, and this statement needs verifying. that US congress passed some resolution or smth, about not recognizing annexion of Baltic countries to Soviet Union, in june 11-12, 1974. maybe you could help? i did all googleing i could, but to no avail. actually, the year might be wrong, or anything, i've already spotted several signs that compiler of the book is not very scrupulous about things and days. if source is possible to find, it would be nice addition to wiki article about soviet occupation in (annexion thereof) baltics; actually, as there is no mentioning of 1974 resolution in this article, i started to doubt about that at all. US senate and house of representatives, this chronology book says, were dicussing 'baltic question' and passed the resolution. i'm afraid to be lost here in wiki-jungle, could you please reply to my talk page? BirgittaMTh (talk) 18:17, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, I know nothing about it. However,  a non-binding resolution (i.e. not an Act of Congress), passed in 2005: "Expresses the sense of Congress that the government of the Russian Federation should issue an unambiguous admission and condemnation of the illegal occupation and annexation by the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1991 of the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania."  Is that what you're looking for?—GoldRingChip 21:23, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

courtesy note
As a recent editor to United States Senate elections, 2020, I'm giving you a courtesy notice to inform you it's been submitted for deletion. LavaBaron (talk) 01:45, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Ohio's 8th
What is your problem? Why must you undo all the work given to that list? You gave neither rationale nor reason for your changes. There was no party color problem, I was using accurate colors for the Democratic and Republican Parties. I don't see how adding the fact someone (two) were Speaker isn't relevant in the notes section of the list. Your formatting is poor, and is unacceptable on the mobile format. There is a reason why portraits and names ought to be separated, otherwise the table falls apart on mobile platforms. There is a reason why the term dates are separated by breaks atop and below a dash, as they format well on desktop and mobile setups. You obviously didn't like my changes so you completely tear them apart? Why not discuss them? My changes had basis, rationale, practical considerations, and were necessary to fit with visibility concerns.  Spartan7W  &sect;   00:39, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:58, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Color inconsistency
Hey G, I found some color inconsistency with two political parties at your template, concerning meta/color and party shadings. The two parties which are affected by this are the (non-party) Independent and National Republican parties. The inconsistency is for meta/color only, where the template shows it as being identical to party shadings. The actual meta/color for Independent is DDDDDD, and for National Republican it is F0F071.

Meta/color and party shadings
I hope you can make the necessary adjustments. Thanks! Best, --Discographer (talk) 21:06, 24 November 2015 (UTC)