Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress/Bioguide

Bioguide, find a grave pics
Are the pictures from Biographical Directory of the United States Congress and from the sight Find A Grave copyrighted? What if they are before 1921 or whatever year the fair use copyright thing went into effect? Could we just copy them over? I want to add some pictures to Nebraska senators, but don't know if the images are copyrighted.--Rayc 03:08, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Rayc, it is my understanding that if it is on a federal government website, then it is in the public domain unless otherwise specified. NOTE...if it is on a state government website, then you have to go by individual state law, as most of their images are not in the public domain. As far as the bio guide...because it is a federal government resource, they are public domain and free to use on wikipedia as long as they are not specifically marked as copyrighted to another person or organization. --ScottyBoy900Q ∞  05:38, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, sort of. If the image was produced by a Federal Government employee in accordance with his duties, then it's public domain. So most photos on Government websites are PD. But sometimes a government website will display images that are copyrighted by someone else. On the bioguide, I've seen images with a small (c) at the bottom, although I have no idea if the image is really copyrighted or not. Very troubling. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 00:05, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh, by the way, if a photo was first published in 1922 or earlier, it can be tagged PD-US no matter what. So a photo of a Senators who died in 1915 is absolutely in the public domain. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 00:06, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Never know. Might've dug up the corpses to take pics. :D --Mathwizard1232 00:23, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Copyright?
The Bioguide has a copyright page:. I was somewhat surprised to see that it did not explicitly say that the text is free-to-copy. Can someone put a link to an authoritative statement that the text is free-to-copy into the article here, so that us foreigners who don't know US copyright law by heart can refer to it and be calmed? --Alvestrand 09:02, 26 February 2006 (UTC)


 * The bioguide does not say that the text is free to use. But then again, they don't have to say it; no work of the United States Government can be copyrighted, and all text on that site is a work of the U.S. Government. I guess the closest I give you to a simple, declarative statement is this. If you want more detail, see this, but now you're delving deep into the pit of U.S. Copyright law. I guess you can either trust us -- it's copyright-free -- or you can do the research yourself and discover that it's copyright-free. All the best, – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 16:08, 26 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Ditto what Quadell said. And I might point out that the copyright notice applies only to the "images" in the site, not the text (and even then, it only says that not all of the images are in the public domain). The text has no copyright restrictions. older ≠ wiser 16:55, 26 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks - although the 2 links were the same, they emphasize the point. Is it safe to assume that everything under "congress.gov" is a work of the US government? (I've got scars from different parts of this battlefield...) --Alvestrand 18:49, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Template not working?
I went to the page for Chris Cox former R-CA, and the link doesn't work, it points at "http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=". Is the template broken or is it missing a parameter? --AW 22:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Fixed!--G1076 16:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks! --AW 16:57, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Using a bot to change Bioguide to CongBio
I have proposed a bot to change Bioguide to CongBio. It hasn't yet been approved, and it seems to have hit a snag in the approval process. If you could comment at Bots/Requests for approval/Polbot 4 about the usefulness or non-usefulness of such a bot, I'd really appreciate it. – Quadell (talk) (random) 12:27, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Earl Thomas Coleman
The category list at the bottom of the Earl Thomas Coleman page includes a category referring to this clean-up project. I don't think it belongs there. But I don't know how to make it go away. Can someone help?David in DC (talk) 14:46, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The category is part of the Cleanup Congress Bio template at the top of the page. So long as that template is in the article, the article is in the category, which is intended to help identify articles that need to be cleaned up. older ≠ wiser 16:46, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I think it would make sense for the category to show up on an article's talk page, not on the article itself. All the other categories relate to the subject of the article.  This one relates to the article's status within the encyclopedia. IMHO, the boilerplate box at the top of the article is sufficient to put readers on notice that the article was generated by a bot. David in DC (talk) 16:58, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Interest group ratings
I'd like to start a discussion about the relative benefits and drawbacks of including interest group ratings (eg, Sierra Club, National Taxpayers Union, Planned Parenthood, NRA, US Chamber of Commerce) on bios of current members of congress.

It seems to me that on one hand, the ratings can be instructive and are easily verifiable. But on the other hand, the vast majority of these so-called "non-partisan interest groups" are functionally partisan political action committees, and saying that "Joe Congressman received a 33% grade from Defenders of Wildlife" or "Jane Congresswoman has an F rating from Taxpayers for Common Sense" can be pretty misleading.

I lean against inclusion, but I'm interested to hear everyone's thoughts. Arbor8 (talk) 17:39, 23 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I also "lean against inclusion." Rankings change over time, and it would be hard to include all their historical rankings.—GoldRingChip  19:28, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

CongBio inline
I'm trying to make the CongBio and/or Bioguide templates work as inline citations, but I keep having formatting problems. Can anyone say how to do this, or if it's even possible? Thanks, SteveStrummer (talk) 01:38, 23 November 2015 (UTC)