Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States Federal Government Legislative Data

Project tasks
Are there any tasks at the moment that contributors can assist with, in terms of WikiProject construction? -- Another Believer ( Talk ) 18:41, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * We're just putting together some ideas for to-do list which we'll put on the project page. We'll update this as the DC event continues.  Excited to have you on board!  Also, we're asking questions like, what kind of legislative data is appropriate for Wikipedia, and at which articles... how can we access that data and distribute it either with manual editors, or infoboxes, or bots...  so if you have any thoughts about potential targets or directions to move in, please share. Cheers! Ocaasit &#124; c 19:02, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. I will watch for task lists and action items. If the project decides to participate in article assessment and/or post "WikiProject United States Federal Government Legislative Data" banners on talk pages (or perhaps this activity is all under the scope of other US-related WikiProjets), I can assist. -- Another Believer ( Talk ) 20:49, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Agency list
Departments/agencies scanned and posted automatically- this is in progress. WikiProject United States Federal Government Legislative Data/Agency List tedder (talk) 19:18, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Notability
Are all bills notable? Would it be helpful to the encyclopedia if it becomes flooded with stubs for bills, especially those that do not become law? -- Another Believer ( Talk ) 20:46, 15 March 2013 (UTC)


 * That is my chief concern. Wikipedia is meant to be a tertiary source, not a secondary source. We should only report on legislation that has achieved a meaningful amount of reliable interpretation by others. We can certainly cite primary sources in addition to secondary sources, but no article should be built only on thomas.gov or any other legislative database.


 * There's a reason for this. Congressional activity is very subjective and confusing (Consider Obamacare, which was widely reported as "a bill" but was really a combination of the "Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009" and the "Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010"—and unrelated to the House's "Affordable Health Care for America Act", which was widely dubbed "Obamacare" and whose provisions still circulate in chain e-mails despite it never becoming law). Meanwhile, a small bill painstakingly advocated by Congressman Xxx can get sucked up into an omnibus sponsored by Congressman Yyy who had nothing to do with the legislation, or altered in subtle ways that change its meaning entirely.


 * It sounds like part of this project is to apply some of that subjective information to legislation, and I support that. I just worry this will inspire our more obsessive-compulsive editors to start a mass addition of uncritical content just because it's there. That's a nasty habit of some editors on Wikipedia: if something exists in two places, they will giddily flood the site with it and shove it into every nook and cranny and get crabby to the point of tears if someone wants to question any instance of it.


 * The very act of putting information into a database distorts it tremendously (does Mitt Romney's infobox tell you anything about who he is, really?) We need the subjective interpretations of other sources about where the legislation came from and what it's doing and what it means; it's Wikipedia's goal to summarize that, and to use the hard data as a useful reference, not as the core of the article.


 * Sorry to rant—I do support any effort to make articles easier to build, so I wish this project luck. Just please keep WP:N and WP:TERTIARY in mind. —Designate (talk) 21:51, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * i think that first cut is all enacted law text at wikisource United States Statutes at Large. notable ones with article at wikipedia (develop notability criteria). maybe migrate this project to task group at WikiProject U.S. Congress. maybe even build links between cato xml, and wikidata. Farmbrough's revenge ⇔ †@1₭ 00:46, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Perhaps a bright-line test we could use is committee passage of a bill. If a bill does not pass a committee in either house we do not consider it notable. We can make exceptions for bills that somehow become notorious despite not passing a committee vote but I think it's a good general rule. Harej (talk) 05:55, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I started out thinking, over-simply, that all bills should go on Wikipedia, but more thought brought me to the conclusion that bills should be subject to the same rules for notability as anything else. Any bill that is going places in Congress will be written up in reliable sources, signaling its notability. So, I'm pretty close to Harej: Committee passage of a bill makes it probable that it's notable, but there are non-notable bills that get out of committee, too, such as the Post Office renaming bills. So sticking with Wikipedia practices about notability is probably the right thing. JimHarperDC (talk) 16:08, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * With reference to Designate's concerns, I think methodical reporting on notable bills will tend to clear things up. What they call "Obamacare" was indeed the product of two bills, one of which was language substituted into an entirely unrelated bill. And yes, smaller bills will sometimes be drawn into a larger bill. Hopefully, if we get in the habit of writing about all notable bills, those articles can tell the story of how one bill was incorporated into another or how a bill's original text was gutted and replaced between the time of its introduction and its passage. JimHarperDC (talk) 16:16, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I think you need a balance between procedural process, media coverage and overall importance. For example, a bill with three sponsors to require gun ownership by citizens would never make it procedurally but obviously would be important and get massive media coverage. And some rapidly advancing minor tweak on some existing legislation might get a subsection, if that, in an article. CarolMooreDC 16:21, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed. General rules on notability should apply, with passage out of committee one signal of notability among many. JimHarperDC (talk) 01:48, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Potential reliable source
Other than the older THOMAS system perhaps in the sources section you should add this website. I have used it in the past, and as a website published by the Library of Congress and believe it to be a reliable source.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:19, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I have added beta.congress.gov to the list of external resources that are suggested on the proposed layout page. Good call! (Another of the adds, WashingtonWatch, is a site I run. Please advise: COI? It's a place for discussion and activity like the others, but it's also ... mine.) JimHarperDC (talk) 16:27, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Template
It would be convenient to have a Project template (with assessment parameters) for talk pages. Is there already one in place? Also, I created an article yesterday, after joining the Project; could you tell me if it's of acceptable quality? I read your previous discussion, and I will be adding media coverage to the pertinent section shortly. Regards, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 17:51, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Your article looks good to me! There are tweaks I'd make to it, but that's what makes wikis so cool! ;-) A thing we need is a methodical way of referring to bills, because when they become laws their identifiers change (e.g. H.R. 41 became Public Law No. 113-1). I'm going to ruminate on that and then post it on the talk page for the model article layout for bills. I might stand to understand better how redirects could be used to make sure an article about a bill can be found after it becomes a law. Please advise there. JimHarperDC (talk) 01:57, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Changed my mind. Gonna do it right here. JimHarperDC (talk) 02:32, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

cheers for that! FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 11:16, 20 March 2013 (UTC) oh, and a userbox would be nice, but I have no knowledge on how to make one... FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 11:31, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Tracking Bills Through Their Lives
There's an interesting challenge that I'd like to get help solving. Four, actually. I lack knowledge to figure them out confidently myself.

FIRST - article titles: Bills start their lives with introduction, and they always have a bill number (such as H.R. 1234 or S. 502). They often, but don't always, have a popular name (such as "The Happiness Protection Act"). When they become law, their "number" changes to something like "Public Law No. 113-23" (the first number referring to the Congress that passed it, and the second number being the next integer after the bill that went before). So when we produce articles about notable bills, how should the article be titled? We don't really have a suggestion in the current article layout. Should it be Popular Name (if it exists), then bill number and number of Congress? (e.g. "The Happiness Protection Act (H.R. 1234, 113th Congress)" or, when a bill doesn't have a popular name, "H.R. 1234, 113th Congress") I think that makes sense...

SECOND - bills becoming laws: When bills become a law, it should be listed on Acts of the 113th United States Congress *as a Public Law* rather than its identity as a bill, an H.R. or S. number, which is not typically used any more. Is there any way to change the title of the article? I suspect not. In that case, I think the thing to do would be to create a redirect or redirects from the Popular Name/Public Law Number to the article about the bill (modified to reflect its passage into law).

THIRD - notable bills that don't necessarily become laws: It seems if there is regular writing about bills before they become laws (which I sincerely hope will happen), we might want to have a "Notable Bills in the 113th Congress" page parallel to Acts of the 113th United States Congress where they could be collected. Make sense?

FOURTH - our kooky Congress: Finally, there's the curious problem where Congress takes a bill and substitutes entirely different language. For example, the main Obamacare bill started its life as "The Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009." Later, Congress swapped out all the original text and gave it its now-familiar name: "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act." It doesn't happen all that often, but it happens often enough with big bills that we should have a plan. I think that there will almost always be a popular name with such legislation, and keeping the old name will be really confusing, so I propose that a NEW article should be created with the popular name (bill number, congress number) to capture that version of the bill. Links from the earlier version to the new version would make clear what has gone on.

Comments? JimHarperDC (talk) 02:32, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Hello Jim! 1) I believe popular names are the way to go, and your proposed format for bills that don't have one is fine. 2) I think a change of name can be requested (post script: this is actually easier than I thought, it's done by just clicking the Move button on the top right-hand corner of any article, next to the Watchlist star; if the move is controversial, then one can use the Requested moves procedure), but in the long term it would be more convenient to just place several redirects, for the simple fact that people will be looking for different versions of the legislation, as long as the article's procedural history section clearly states what the chain of events were. 3) Agreed, although it should "notable notable" bills; aren't they all notable? 4) Yes, as that example shows, there is no article for the The Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009, so in that particular case I believe it should be the other way around: a new article should be created with the old bill. But the other way needs to happen too. Hope this helps! FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 11:29, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Helpful thoughts. Re: 3) Haha. I guess "notable" is implicit in there being articles about them so, "Bills in the 113th Congress" is all that is needed for the title of such a compilation, and one might have to fend off the over-sharer who wants articles about go-nowhere bills introduced to congratulate the latest NCAA champion basketball team. JimHarperDC (talk) 13:12, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
 * We strongly agree on that one! FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 13:31, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
 * With respect to the first item: bills should go by their popular name, whether dubbed as such in the media or in Section 1 of the bill. Luckily there isn't a lot of room for overlapping titles, since bills tend to be styled as X Act of Year (or X Act, Year), so it's not like we'll need parenthetical disambiguators to distinguish between National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013. For bills that are genuinely notable, it shouldn't be that difficult to come up with a name. Yet if somehow we can't come up with a name, I think "H.R./S. XXX, YYYth Congress" is reasonable.
 * With respect to the third item: an article on every bill in a given Congress would be interesting, even if it includes unremarkable bills that are dead in the water. That being said it should highlight the notable bills of a Congress.
 * With respect to the fourth item: Bills that are introduced, are not particularly notable, and then get subsumed by a much bigger bill are probably best left as footnotes in articles about that bigger bill, with redirects as necessarily. I've made Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009 a redirect to Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. What if, though, we write an article on a bill that subsequently gets gutted so that it can serve as a vehicle for another one? I suppose then we'd leave the extant article intact, explain how it was amended via substitute to create the new bill, and then we'd link to the new bill.
 * Those are my thoughts. Harej (talk) 08:15, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Naming Articles???
Hi All! This was discussed some in the previous section, but there doesn't appear to be a consensus. How are we naming bills? Are we including the H.R. number or not? I've been creating articles an *including* the H.R. number (in part because I didn't see this discussion), but another member has been moving and renaming the articles to remove the H.R. number.

The key thing to me seems to be whether including the H.R. number in parentheses adds value or not. For me, I think it would because I would potentially use the H.R. number as a search term. Searching for "National Pediatric Research Network Act of 2013" is pretty long to type out versus just searching for "HR 225". Of course, that leaves open the possibility that the next congress might have a notable HR 225 and send me to the wrong bill...

Many bills also don't include a year number in their short titles. Is this something we would want to include? This could cause challenges if we add a (2013) to the end of the article name of a bill that doesn't get passed until 2014.

It looks like there are several possible ways to name articles:

(Using "short titles" which are provided in the bill)
 * National Pediatric Research Network Act of 2013
 * National Pediatric Research Network Act of 2013 (H.R. 225)
 * National Pediatric Research Network Act of 2013 (H.R. 225; 113th Congress)
 * National Pediatric Research Network Act of 2013 (113 H.R. 225)

(Using "long titles" = never appropriate since they tend to be a whole paragraph in length)

(Using acronyms) When do we want to use the acronym in the article title? Some, like CISPA, PIPA, SOPA, etc became known by their acronym, rather than by what the letters stood for. So, in which cases do we title the article using the acronym? etc... [note that there is a 2012 version of CISPA that already has a different legislative history and will face different supporters and criticisms and such, thus necessitating an article name distinct from the old 2012 CISPA...]
 * CISPA
 * CISPA (2013)
 * CISPA (113 H.R. 624)
 * CISPA (2013) (113 H.R. 624)
 * Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act
 * Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA)
 * Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act (CIPSA) (H.R. 624)

So, which way of naming do you like best? Why do you prefer that one over the others - is it clearer? More in-tune with Wikipedia convention? Some other reason? HistoricMN44 (talk) 21:07, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
 * If the article content does have the HR number, then simply googling the number will lead you to the appropriate article (named in any other way) in the first few results at least. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 21:23, 2 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The problem is that the same bill can have multiple numbers throughout its legislative history. And then, when enacted, it has additional numbers (Public Law, U.S. Statutes at Large).  We should remove the bill numbers from the title and put them in the lede sentence.  Google, and other searches, should still find them that way.—GoldRingChip  13:16, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I like the style that includes the bill number and congress number: "National Pediatric Research Network Act of 2013 (H.R. 225; 113th Congress)." It may have made sense to use more casual names when coverage of bills has been spotty, but with more bills getting more coverage, it is important to distinguish them from others with the same name - either when there are bills with the same name in the House and Senate (and sometimes multiple bills of the same name in the same body), or when there are multiple bills with the same name in different Congresses. JimHarperDC (talk) 12:56, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Then we run into the problem of bills being considered repeatedly during many congresses. There ought to be one article, with the bill's name (or eventual/latest name), and different sections discussing differences among various bills with similar goals.  If one bill is finally enacted, we won't just be throwing away the unpassed versions.—GoldRingChip  18:32, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
 * What about the use of redirects? If the bill changes names or numbers in the same Congress, can we just build a redirect for the new bill number?  So the article remains "Popular Name (HR #)" but there is a redirect from the new HR # to the original version?  Would that work, or would there be too many redirects (are they avoided for some Wikipedia reason)?  Alternatively, what about disambiguation pages?  If we eventually have multiple HR 932 articles from different Congresses, could we build a disambiguation page for all notable HR 932s? [This would be a very futuristic proposition - we don't really need these now...] HistoricMN44 (talk) 13:35, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Secondly, what is the appropriate length of a Wikipedia article and how do we best avoid confusion? Take CISPA, for example.  It was a very significant bill in the 112th Congress that garnered a lot of media and public attention.  It has a specific procedural history covering who sponsored, who cosponsored, what businesses and groups sponsored it and when, and different activist events.  Now CISPA is back, in a new form, introduced at a new time, with new numbers, with some businesses changing sides, some politicians changing sides, and new forms of internet activism.  My concern is that adding a new section about the new bill and grafting it on to the old article will be too long (is there a too long Wikipedia article?) or will confuse people by giving them multiple numbers and multiple Congresses.  Would clarity be improved by having two articles, both of which would clearly state in the intro that there were two bills from two Congresses, and then use a disambiguation page to distinguish between the two (or simply redirect people to the new CISPA article)?  Thanks for all your comments.  HistoricMN44 (talk) 13:35, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
 * See Article size, which seems to imply that excessive length was a problem in the past, but as servers have improved it's become less of an issue. Redirects would work, but there's no reason to split up the article.  It's all one subject, and should be covered in one article  We've used single articles in the past to cover various competing (and repeating) bills on a single topic, and I don't know why there's a move to start splitting them all up.  If someone wants to know about the U.S. Federal Budget, there should be one article discussing it, which should include competing bills, later amendments, pros and cons, etc. —GoldRingChip  14:25, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
 * you could build a section for each congress. when it starts getting too long, then split into each bill, with a summary at CISPA and link to "main" bill article. normally too long is around 32kb. Slowking4Farmbrough's revenge ⇔ †@1₭ 14:28, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I think the biggest omission in our event the other week, GoldRingChip, was not getting you there. You've obviously got years of experience in this area, and you've dedicated a lot of work to it. I sincerely regret not getting in touch with you. We've been doing a lot of work with legislative data, and our hope now is to make it a useful tool for Wikipedians. So we're late arrivals to Wikipedia, in a way - and apologies for that - but hopefully we have a lot to offer. This talk about bill naming and having more, finer-grained articles is in anticipation of a significant increase in the amount of legislative information available on Wikipedia and to Wikipedians. The offer I extended on your talk page - email discussion, lunch, etc. - definitely stands.
 * To illustrate some of what we could do - and this is hot off the press - I just saw it for the first time an hour ago - my data guy is playing around with taking our enhanced XML markup of bills and turning it into bill text suitable for WikiSource or WikiData. Take a look at this stab at generating wikitext including wikilinks from bill XML. Note the links to members of Congress, committees, the Smithsonian, and so on. It still needs plenty of tweaking, but I think we could do cool things, and it's up to us to figure out what. I hope you'll see this as a positive and not a negative, and I ask for your patience with us - and your help! JimHarperDC (talk) 15:47, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

United States-Israel Strategic Partnership Act of 2013
Well, I'm starting one for United States-Israel Strategic Partnership Act of 2013 (or should I call it "U.S.-Israel etc" or "US-Israel" which I think is the Wikipedia standard for the abbreviation) which already is (H.R. 938 and S. 462), so I can't see doing two different articles. It probably will pass this time around as well. It has at least three excellent sources (and hopefully will have some minimal debate before passing) but I want to put a stub template on it. Not sure which wikiproject stub to use. Any thoughts? CarolMooreDC &#x1f5fd; 22:48, 15 April 2013 (UTC)


 * United States-Israel Strategic Partnership Act of 2013 would be the best name. —GoldRingChip 00:47, 16 April 2013 (UTC)


 * My opinion is that it's better to disambiguate bills by house of Congress and by Congress, naming them United States-Israel Strategic Partnership Act of 2013 (H.R. 938; 113th Congress), for example. Many bills are introduced with the same name but different provisions in the same Congress, and they are reintroduced in subsequent Congresses with the same name and different provisions. Each has its own procedural history, of course. If you're sure that the bill will pass (Wow! Some kinda insider?) and can be handled in one article, I could see one article. But given the propensity of bills to recur repeatedly over time, and the wide variance in provisions and procedural history among bills, why not construct a hierarchy of well-organized articles along the lines I discussed in the "Organizing articles about public issues and legislation" section? (Question, though: Are you planning to just create a stub? Why?) JimHarperDC (talk) 03:47, 16 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I think it's worth noting that the two United States-Israel Strategic Partnership Act of 2013 bills (H.R. 938 and S. 462) have the same name, but do not have the same provisions. They are similar, but not exact.  The summaries are available HR 938 here and S 462 here.  The summaries are similar, but in a different order - the real differences are evident in the actual text of the bills.  The text will need to be identical before the bill ever becomes law.  Please keep the differences in mind when you write the article(s).  :)  As for the ease or difficulty of passage, the Senate bill already has opposition from the Council on American–Islamic Relations over the visa provisions (see ).  In any event, I'm happy to see you're interested in this project!  Thanks.  HistoricMN44 (talk) 13:37, 16 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Good point. And with some similar articles, bills are proposed in Congress after Congress until finally it's enacted.  So then the name would change like the "Wikipedia Editors Act of 2009," "Wikipedia Editors Act of 2010," and "Wikipedia Editors Act of 2013."  Finally, if the 2013 bill is enacted, there would be a single article, titled  "Wikipedia Editors Act of 2013" and the other bills would redirect to the 2013 article with discussions of earlier bills included in the legislative history.—GoldRingChip  14:41, 16 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Let me add, there is no need to have multiple articles on bills that are all intended to make one Act. Especially no need to include the bill number and congress in the article's name.—GoldRingChip  14:44, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Article stub template and category
A response to my self above and more on this topic. The relevant article stub template is which produces the text:


 * This United States federal legislation article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. to be put on the bottom of an article.

There is a "Stubs" box on the main WikiProject_United_States with the template and it probably would be a good idea here too for legislation stubs.

I also put Category:United States federal legislation stubs under development since there may be some good half developed stubs there. (Mis-copied the name in the edit summary, FYI.) CarolMooreDC &#x1f5fd; 00:52, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikiproject template for talk page
I don't see a talk page template for this project and don't know how to make one. I just created United States-Israel Strategic Partnership Act of 2013 - it was so big it didn't need a stub template after all!

I just put on the talk page Wikiprojects for the two relevant nations. I see that other articles created as part of this project don't have any wikiprojects at all. Or do people just want to use the template? Once decided or created it can be put somewhere on the WikiProject United States Federal Government Legislative Data/Proposed layout page. CarolMooreDC &#x1f5fd; 06:30, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * This is an odd WikiProject because it was formed to discuss the amount of interest in developing laws about articles with data, and not for general community collaboration. For this reason, there is no WikiProject template. It is my opinion that there ought not be a template until or unless this project takes a more general scope.
 * In any case, the page you made has other WikiProject templates on it now. There probably could be a US legislation WikiProject and this could be the start of it if there was interest in developing it, but the community is not organized right now. Thoughts?  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   20:56, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * You mean developing articles about laws, right? FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 21:27, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * My thoughts = huh? What's the difference between what we are currently doing and a formal WikiProject like you are discussing?  Also, yes, I'd be interested in developing a more robust WikiProject - this is fun!  (And wildly educational...) HistoricMN44 (talk) 21:25, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Naming laws
Someone just posted on a general board about policy for naming laws. See Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles. Since this board had discussed this previously I thought that I would crosspost notice here.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)   20:50, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks! JimHarperDC (talk) 04:58, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

What do you think of this?
I was making my usual reviews and stumbled upon this. Worthy of inclusion? FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 22:26, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Interesting. I amended it to place it in better context as an amendment to a bill. An article on the bill it would have amended doesn't exist yet, but perhaps one will come along soon. I think it's notable, if thinly documented. Whatever you decide, be encouraging! ) JimHarperDC (talk) 04:44, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks for that! FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 13:51, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Marketplace Fairness Act
I just merged the 2013 and 2011 bills into one article, Marketplace Fairness Act, to show you how we can keep them all together.—GoldRingChip 12:48, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * We can disagree on the Act's provisions, but the merge certainly looks good! FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 13:55, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * That's the point. Thanks. —GoldRingChip  14:04, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I worry that lumping many bills under a common name will not stand the test of time (given more thorough reporting of more bills in Congress). Let's say that in the next Congress a bill is introduced with the same provisions as the three The Marketplace Fairness Acts we've seen so far in this Congress, but it's name is the "Fairness in Internet Commerce Act." Will there be a vestigial article about the many bills that happen to have the name "Marketplace Fairness Act" and a new one about all the bills with the name "Fairness in Internet Commerce Act"? Or should bills on the same topic be reported consistent with the issue they cover? Above on this page and in the main page at "Organizing articles about public issues and legislation," I made a run at an article hierarchy that I think makes sense. It does contain an implicit preference for shorter articles, which all may not share, but the issues dealt with by a bill are complex and quite different from the procedural information and actions taken on a bill. Consider the possibility that the most informative article arrangement may not be to cluster them by name. Whatever the case, we're doing good things for 'merica here. JimHarperDC (talk) 15:50, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * A new article would be created if the 114th Congress's act was very different. Otherwise, they'd all just get clumped into the same article.  As a general idea, I think that we lump them all together if either the set of bills all have the same end target, or in the case where if one is enacted, then the others die. —GoldRingChip  16:19, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * At least they'd all get decent coverage on Wikipedia if they're notable and they die, one way or the other. I don't think the solution is dichotomic; what works for one act might not work for the other. In this particular case, if the act expires again (and assuming it's passed in the future), perhaps it would be convenient to have all the previous versions clumped into the one article, and the final act with its provisions into another new article, which clearly links to the other conglomerate article. Does this make sense? Basically, what I'm trying to convey is that the nature of some long-withstanding acts might call for such treatment, on an individual interpretative basis. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 17:46, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I (predictably) disagree with this change. I can't understand why so much time is being spent merging articles (when they clearly offer links to the older version of bills, so anyone who actually cares can find them) when time could be spending time adding additional, new information to the existing articles as they are or even writing brand new articles about other notable bills instead.  Things got left out over the course of this merge (a summary of the details of the bill in the opening section, data about the procedural history of the bill from the 112th Congress, etc).  One of the problems with clumping all the various versions together in one article is that it requires a lot of maintenance.  With separate articles, when one Congress ends, the old article about the old bill can become in effect "archived" and require only a paragraph or two of additional information (one on the end of the Congress and the death of the bill, one on a potential successor bill attempt in a subsequent Congress).  When the various versions are all lumped in the same article, people may mistakenly alter the details of old versions by mixing in details about new versions.  The infobox about US legislation becomes not very useful (since it is designed to reference one bill, not three or five or whatever).  The multiple versions also distract people from current issues.  It's nice to know that Congress has attempted to pass a bill before, but what's truly useful to know is what the details of the bill currently in Congress are, who its opponents and supporters are, and what the debate is on.  Reading about multiple versions of a bill, including dead versions, can be confusing, especially to people not familiar with the American legislative system.  I guess I'd rather see time spend on adding more information, rather than simply rearranging it.  Thanks. HistoricMN44 (talk) 14:04, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * In your response to my hypothetical, GRC, about a new version of the "Marketplace Fairness Act" being introduced in the next Congress under the name "Fairness in Internet Commerce Act," you said that they should be clumped in the same article. What would the name of the article be? If you named it after either bill, it seems to me like people looking for the other would be unlikely to find it. Do you regard that as a problem? If so, what is your idea for solving this problem when it arises? JimHarperDC (talk) 15:41, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * If only one bill is enacted, the others are only interesting (in an encyclopedia) as they pertain to the legislative history. Yes, they are technically different, but that's why we have different sections of the same article.  As for the naming question for the "Fairness…Act," that's why we have redirects.  The article would be named for the latest version of the bill (whether or not enacted).—GoldRingChip  17:57, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Subjects in bill articles
Regarding the use of bills as the subject of a sentence in the article about a piece of legislation: I strongly urge that using the bill's abbreviation (H.R.221 or S.727, etc) be considered an appropriate way of using a bill as the subject of a sentence. For example: "H.R.221 was proposed in the 112th Congress." There has been a lot of debate about placing multiple bills in the same article. If we are going to do that, using the bill's number as the sentence subject must be done for clarity's sake. If multiple bills are in the same article, just saying "The bill was proposed in the 112th Congress" is not specific enough - WHICH of the bills was proposed then? I've been using bill abbreviations as a subjects and someone has been going around to change this. This seems like both a waste of time and a mistake, since it damages the clarity of the articles. In the article being discussed above, the Marketplace Fairness Act, there are FOUR different bills being discussed - just saying "the bill" should never be done, because each of the four bills are different. It needs to always be very clear which version is being referred to. Just because a few bills can be summarized as having the same content doesn't mean that they actually do. The reader needs a clear way to distinguish between them. Thanks. HistoricMN44 (talk) 14:19, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I think you might be right here. I suggest we use the number (e.g., "H.R. 123") for the sake of precision, and the general term (e.g., "the Bill" or "the Act") for the sake of readability.  Sometimes one is better than the other.  "When the Armed Services Committee debated H.R. 123, its opponents often referred to it as a budget buster.  But once the Bill cleared the committee and reached the floor on a Friday evening, it was quickly approved by voice vote.  In the other chamber, Senators considered its sister bill, S. 45, and filibustered that bill to death.  In the end, neither bill was enacted."—GoldRingChip  18:03, 25 April 2013 (UTC)�

Example of naming
Check out, for example, Employment Non-Discrimination Act. It's a bill that's been reintroduced year after year.—GoldRingChip 12:18, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * This is indeed a good way to handle bills that have been introduced over and over without good documentation on Wikipedia. I'm willing to take from this example that there shouldn't be hard and fast rules. Perhaps good documentation of a bill can justify having a stand-alone article about it, while the bills with relatively less documentation can be clumped. Possible? JimHarperDC (talk) 18:50, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * That's along the lines of what I think should be done. Steadfast rules are particularly inconvenient. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 19:02, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I think the ENDA act could be (could have been?) expanded greatly to include discussions of previous bills. There's no reason to write multiple articles about the same bill.—GoldRingChip  02:33, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Changes to infobox
Hi All! I want to talk about some proposed changes to the US legislation infobox we've been using. It's currently designed to focus on enacted legislation, rather than the proposed legislation we have been spending more time on. There are some suggestions I've proposed (many/most are User:JimHarperDC's ideas) on the talk page for the infobox. Here: Template talk:Infobox U.S. legislation. I'd love to have some feedback (probably on that talk page, so other users not part of our project, but who edit the infobox can participate). Thanks! HistoricMN44 (talk) 14:02, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Why change it? Just mirror & split the same off of the existing template and make one for introduced/proposed legislation instead (using a different color scheme of course). I know I wouldn't find enrolled legislation being mixed in with the christmas-tree of all the other types of legislative instruments in use -- and/or in their various stages of mark-up -- very helpful at all (quite the opposite as a matter of fact). -- George Orwell III (talk) 09:16, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm glad you think it is a good idea to make a second infobox... because one is in progress. :)  It's been an interesting experience to learn so much about infoboxes, mostly through trial and error.  Someone else did make changes to that infobox, altering the title/name fields, and now they are going through and manually updating the fields on all articles that link to the infobox!!  I didn't realize that's what would have to be done to add any fields, so I'm glad several of us decided to go with a new infobox instead.  Thanks for your comments. HistoricMN44 (talk) 13:25, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
 * ??? Then why hasn't the above linked request for modifications been updated to reflect that path of development and the (May 2013) request(s) clearly withdrawn? Maybe you haven't observed how things "work" around here enough yet to realize that somebody will eventually come along and take it upon themselves to implement your changes - making a huge mess of the existing infobox's usage even though the requested changes have been superseded with that addition of the before-mentioned customized template. Part of the success of any open-ended, community driven collaboration such as Wikipedia depends upon everyone striving to maintain their own little corner of virtual space without messing up/on someone else's in the process. The surest way to cast a negative light on one's endeavors around here is to infringe upon your neighbor's progress unnecessarily. And please don't take any of this the wrong way - just some friendly advice in hopes it will lead to your success rather than getting bogged down in the evil's of the occasional "Politics-of-Wikipedia" war. Prost. -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:13, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing this out - it never occurred to me to go back and remove my requests. I got pretty much no response at all, so I guess I assumed no one cared or wasn't planning on doing anything.  I'm not sure what you mean by "infringing upon my neighbors progress", since I haven't made any changes to the existing template (and therefore haven't messed anyone up), just asked for help/advice/comments on doing so, but... Anyway, I will go back to the places I posted about this and note that I am no longer requesting any changes.  I appreciate the help - I've only been editing Wikipedia for a few months now, and mostly just dealing with articles, not anything more complex. Thanks.HistoricMN44 (talk) 13:31, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Meet-up
No digital stream available, or similar? FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 20:25, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * 'Fraid not, this time... Patch you in by phone? JimHarperDC (talk) 03:01, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * That's fine, no problem. Our times probably wouldn't match anyway. I look forward to reading the proceedings. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 14:18, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Physician Payments Sunshine Act
It is a small thing and it is not even a passed act, but I made Physician Payments Sunshine Act. This proposal was enacted under the Patient Protection Act. I am just posting here to show my continued interest in this project.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)   20:06, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

LOC legislative data challenge
fyi: "The Markup of US Legislation in Akoma Ntoso Challenge invites competitors to create representations of selected US bills using the most recent Akoma Ntoso standard." 98.169.251.81 (talk) 14:27, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Cool! Thanks for letting us know. HistoricMN44 (talk) 17:21, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
 * It seems like this contest is asking for submissions of the best way to present legislative data. If that is the case, then a Wikipedia entry ought to be a sound contender if it is possible to associate Wikipedia articles with XML data. Is it possible?  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   20:21, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, I asked some of our XML people and that's not quite right (about what the contest wants). There are ways to use XML data to create better Wikipedia articles (we're working on that in reference to some nicer infoboxes), but the type of report and such that this contest wants is not Wikipedia related.  Their focus is on the actual text of legislation, not information about the politics surrounding the bill, its procedural history, and stuff like that.  One day we might be able to use the content they generate or link to their pages, but not yet.  The legislation text they want is designed more to be readable to computers, not human beings.  Feel free to pursue the contest if you want, but from what I (now) understand, Wikipedia would not be an appropriate medium to generate the data they want. :(  HistoricMN44 (talk) 15:58, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Wikisource then? Wikisource could be a repository for the entirety of legislation if there was a way to port the text. We could take the text of a single law and put it into Wikisource as a contest entry. One of the advantages to Wikisource is that it would be a natural platform for tracking version control, if multiple versions of a text existed, and also it is a multilingual platform if a law were ever translated - even unofficially - into multiple languages even with non-Roman characters.
 * If you are interested in infoboxes there is a rather heated discussion about them at WP:MEDICINE for something similar. The proposal there is a partnership with government health repositories in which robots put external link templates on the talk pages of articles to send users to other archives. If there were a way to pull law texts into Wikipedia, both the main page and talk page should be considered as landing points. Right now so much automated content integration is controversial. Perhaps someone here has a stake in the conversation happening there - Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine.  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   20:07, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Wikisource - we're on top of that! :) ...sort of. We have a project going that involves applying XML tags to legislation, and then a project that converts as many of those tags as possible to wikilinks.  There are some formatting errors and few other bugs, but enough of it is working that we've (I've) been able to put some legislation up on WikiSource.  There are probably some rules and conventions I've been unintentionally violating, but no one over there has said anything yet.  Check out these pages HistoricMN44's pages for examples of legislation already up there.
 * Ugh... debates about infoboxes! They seem so subjective - some subjects/topics should have infoboxes, some are probably unnecessary.  Really, if people spent as much energy on writing articles as they do on arguing about how to, we'd have a lot more content.  That said, we are in the process of creating an infobox and using those same XML tags to generate partially automated infoboxes (which should be freely available on github... eventually).  This part isn't working yet, but maybe in a week or two.  I'll post some examples here once things are working.  :) HistoricMN44 (talk) 20:22, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Proposed minor rename
Hello everyone. This WikiProject's name is pretty long, so I've been thinking of a new name for it. If we changed the name to WikiProject United States Federal Legislative Data, it would be one word shorter while conveying the same meaning (a WikiProject about data produced by the federal legislature). Let me know what your opinions are on this rename. Harej (talk) 20:28, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi! What's the difference between having a long name and a slightly shorter name?  I just bookmarked and watched this page ages ago, so I rarely even think of what the name is.  What's your goal with the name change?  Without knowing that, I really don't have much of an opinion.  Thanks.HistoricMN44 (talk) 15:19, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * "Government" has a non-standard meaning in English. Americans consider it to mean "institutions of governance" while all other nationalities, AFAIK, consider it to mean "cabinet or executive branch". We have not meshed out some sort of agreement, so there is a constant tug-and-pull between the definitions. (Government of Kosovo bit me recently.) As read by a non-American, this title could be mis-interpreted as related only to executive (impliedly secondary/delegated) legislation, aka executive regulations.
 * This is an eccentric and unresolved issue/topic. For example, while Americans use "Government of" to discuss the government (see!?) as a whole, "Politics of" seems to be used more for this purpose elsewhere. Its going to become an issue sooner or later, but ATM, IMO, non-Americans and non-Brits have little clue how their government works and I don't see them getting a clue anytime soon. E.g., my articles on European judiciaries such as Germany and Sweden appear more complete and better cited than their native language versions. (Russia is actually OK in Russian, crazy enough.) But even while those judicial articles are ridiculously uninformative, its the only topic of their government, sorry, politics, that IMO is even near decent. Int21h (talk) 23:10, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Sunlight Foundation data
I am organizing an event with the Sunlight Foundation in Washington, DC, focused on using their API data to improve Wikipedia articles. We are currently brainstorming ideas on how their (objective, reliable) data can be used to improve Wikipedia articles, and any ideas and insights you have would be useful. One idea we have is to develop a bot that would be used to keep infobox data up to date, so that whenever there's an update with their API, the corresponding Wikipedia article gets an update. Please let me know what you think of this idea, and feel free to recommend other ones. Here are the different APIs—bear in mind that not all of them are necessarily useful for Wikipedia's purposes. Please also let me know if there is anyone in particular I should reach out to. Harej (talk) 21:05, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to Wikiconference USA
Hello! In New York City Friday 30 May - Sunday 1 June Wikiconference USA will be held as a national United States Wikipedia meetup hosted by Wikimedia New York City and Wikimedia DC. All are welcome to attend. Scholarship applications to cover travel expenses are accepted until the end of March and presentation submissions are requested until that time but can be accepted until closer to the conference.

In previous years New York City conferences have gathered 150 attendees. At this conference we are hoping for more people to attend.

It would be nice if participants and supporters of this WikiProject could attend. Anyone with questions may contact me or any of the other organizers, or post on the conference website.  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  22:10, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject Law: "Federal Government Legislative Data" is a subtopic of "Law"
I think we should be bringing up major issues, especially those which concern large numbers of articles and/or are contentious, on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law. This wikiproject maybe should have been considered a WP:TASKFORCE of that wikiproject, but that's not really any of my concern. What is my concern is that many, many discussions that concern WikiProject Law have not been discussed at WikiProject Law, and further, that I don't even think WikiProject Law was even informed of the existence of this wikiproject so we could even watch this talk page. (I only found it by chance a few months ago, stalking User:HistoricMN44 to find out what other edits, and articles, they were making.) Even if mention was made, major decisions, such as article naming conventions, should be and should have been made involving WikiProject Law participants. Just a "hey this discussion about a naming convention about law articles is going on" and "hey there is another wikiproject that is significantly related to this wikiproject" would have, and will, suffice.

I consider myself to be a fairly heavy editor in legal topics. And you must see the problem of heavy editors in legal topics like me not being able to find, and not being aware of, discussions about major consensus issues concerning legal topics, such as article naming conventions.

This is going to cause significant annoyances. I missed all those conversations from the start of the first discussion (March 2013) until about June 2014 when I discovered this wikiproject's existence only by chance. (And I've been busy since then.) This means I want to bring up those discussions again, this time on WikiProject Law with a larger, more experienced pool of Wikipedians. Particularly the naming convention. Please, people, at least inform editors working on related efforts of information which may concern them. And I don't just mean this talk page; after forking a template and using it on hundreds of articles, inform the original template's talk page of the forked template's existence. (E.g., the similarities and differences between Infobox U.S. legislation and Infobox United States federal proposed legislation.) I think its going to save alot of effort and trouble in the long run. Int21h (talk) 22:43, 18 August 2014 (UTC) Int21h (talk) 22:52, 18 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Hi! Thank you for expressing your concerns. Here are a few comments back.
 * First, Wikiproject Law was contacted.
 * On April 24, 2013, WikiProject Law was invited to a discussion about titles. Invitation from the talk page. No one replied. The discussion in question is here and this Wikiproject was mentioned.
 * On June 10, 2013, WikiProject Law was asked (by me) for information on the rules related to talk page banner usage of the project's banner. Question here. The post specifically mentions that this wikiproject exists and what it is. Again, no one replied to this message on the talk page or directly to me.
 * After two failures of anyone to reply, why would anyone continue to contact a Wikiproject that clearly wasn't interested? Or potentially wasn't active?
 * Second, Please do not bite the newcomers. The first I'd ever heard of a WikiProject was at the March 23, 2013 event. Why would I realize their importance, how to contact them, or what the appropriate behavior was? At that point, I had less than a hundred edits, almost all of them to the same two or three pages. My most sophisticated skill was being able to add different kinds of footnotes. While there were a few experienced editors at the event, many (most?) of the attendees were not. Perhaps the experienced editors should have been more vigilant about contacting other people, but... ? Wikipedia is full of volunteers. Maybe they didn't know much about Wikiprojects either, or tried contacting and got the same lack of interest, or just forgot. Editors are human.
 * Third, the point of this initiative was to increase the quantity and quality of articles on Wikipedia written about current, active, important pieces of legislation in the United States Congress. That's a very specific project and it has certain experienced its share of growing pains, including those about article titles. Many difficulties were not originally anticipated and we/I have dealt with them as best as we could. My experience on Wikipedia has been that it's very hard to get many people to weigh in on a issue, especially if it is something that requires some specific expertise (knowledge of types of names of law and draft law). This can be very frustrating, as I'm sure you know.
 * If you think you can get more people to respond to a debate on article names (or whatever else), for for it.
 * Fourth, regarding infoboxes... A request for modifications was made on the talk page. Only one person really followed up on it, and they didn't reply a second time. I did post that a new box was being created (and forgot to ever mention it once it was done). Although the history section shows most of the creation being done by me, much of it was actually done by two other much more experienced editors crowded around my laptop at an event. If there are still errors, that's because template creation is hard (to me!) and maybe we didn't test it enough. As it stands now, we have a program on github that is automatically generating the information that goes in the initial infobox. It saves me a lot of time and is quick for me to add to article pages of other bills from the 113th Congress. If you want to bring in some other template editors, we can.
 * Fifth, now is probably a good time to address many of these issues. Congress will be out of session until the second week of September. It is then out of session again for almost all of October and a good chunk of November to campaign for re-election.
 * Is there a more permanent place to have any of these discussions than the WikiProject Law talk page? If we are going to have a lengthy discussion on article name conventions (or anything else), I'd like to have a more permanent place to display it (possible as a subpage of this Wikiproject???) so that it does not need to be re-hashed every time a new editor finds this topic/project.
 * Finally, describing yourself as "stalking" me is a little creepy. I hope that does not extend to real life, since I have recently outed myself in order to take part in a discussion on Congressional editing of Wikipedia (which you can watch on C-SPAN's website). I hope that you just meant you looked at my contributions to see what else I worked on.
 * Sincerely, HistoricMN44 (talk) 14:59, 19 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I admit I missed the "Project banner usage?" topic. But it is by no means an introduction to or notification of this wikiproject, or what I consider to be "contacting" Wikiproject Law as I framed it, and mention of this wikiproject was merely incidental. From a quick search of WikiProject Law's talk archives, it counts as literally the only mention of this wikiproject. I reject that "WikiProject Law was invited to a discussion about titles"; Article titles is not Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law, nor is it even close. (Nor do I even think that was the proper forum; Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (government and legislation) was.) This is exactly the discussion that WikiProject Law should have been notified of. (The "invitation from the talk page" is an edit to the CongressEdits article.)


 * WP:DONTBITE is irrelevant. I care not about why mistakes were made or by whom, only that they be corrected. Discussion is as proper for newcomers as it is for experienced editors, and WP:DONTBITE will save no one from it. Volunteers and newbies included, participants of this wikiproject in particular. If your point is that this conversation is improper, you are wrong. If your point is that I'm being too hard on this wikiproject, here, now, because you were a new editor more than a year ago, you are wrong. I agree that now is a good time time to bring this up.


 * As for Infobox U.S. legislation, I admit I missed that, again. I don't know why, seriously I think I'm watching that page. But in any event that's my bad. Template creation is hard (for me too, probably for most of us), which is why I do not like template forking, which is why I think it better to modify templates with experienced editors watching it and making suggestions and corrections. But before I say too much I want to bring that part of this discussion there.


 * As for my use of the word "stalking", I suggest you think about whether a WP:GOODFAITH editor would mean for it to "extend to real life". I personally find it distasteful that you would even imply such a thing. Let's keep this discussion on-point.


 * Discussions can be had anywhere. Just tell us about it on WikiProject Law, which "is aimed at creating a greater consistency among the law related articles". And it has been mostly ignored about the same from the participants of this wikiproject. This is my main point.


 * And I realize this discussion, and my demeanor, may seem contentious and crude and rude and confrontational and creepy. It probably is. I'm sure I'm violating plenty of Wikipedia essays. But I am irritated that while I had my head buried in research for state law articles, really becoming quite exhausted from it, dutifully watching the WikiProject Law and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (government and legislation) talk pages for topics that I would find relevant and important, I discover those discussions were being held, just everywhere else but there. And I only discovered it by a chance encounter with one of this wikiproject's participants, and only because that participant had this wikiproject in their recent contributions. And I want to make sure this wikiproject understands why I'm irritated. Int21h (talk) 23:47, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

== "Urging the Government of Burma to end the persecution of the Rohingya people and respect internationally recognized human rights for all ethnic and religious minority groups within Burma (H.Res. 418; 113th Congress)" ==

Notification of advanced RM discussion at: Talk:Urging_the_Government_of_Burma_to_end_the_persecution_of_the_Rohingya_people_and_respect_internationally_recognized_human_rights_for_all_ethnic_and_religious_minority_groups_within_Burma_(H.Res._418;_113th_Congress)

Gregkaye ✍ ♪  07:40, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Shortcut: WP:USLEGDATA
I have created the above shortcut which I propose be adopted for general use in place of WP:LEGDATA. This is on the basis that the US is not the only country in the world with legislation and that legislation produced in other countries also has data. I did an internet search on the term: "legislative data" -(US OR "United States") and got about two thirds of the results as for "legislative data" AND (US OR "United States").

I have added reference in the short cuts box on the article page and present the option for the WP:LEGDATA reference to be removed.

Gregkaye ✍ ♪  08:22, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Transitioning to Congress.gov
I've noticed that a lot of the citations in legislative articles use the THOMAS system as citations. On September 26, beta.Congress.gov will become Congress.gov, and in a few months, THOMAS.gov will be phased out entirely. Can someone make a bot to change the URLs of the citations to Congress.gov? If there is an existing template that is automatically generating these citations I can change that to the new system. --PiMaster3 talk 01:19, 23 September 2014 (UTC)


 * USBill currently uses THOMAS, as I brought up on its talk page in October 2013. I think that template accounts for many links. Any and all links that directly used THOMAS will break. Which is why templates are preferred over direct links. The real solution is to identify situations where editors are using THOMAS links directly instead of a template and seeing if there is a systematic issue. But maybe replacing links en masse will work too, as long as the THOMAS links are somewhat systematic (which is a big if). I think there is a bot or talk page for such link replacement requests, but I don't know where. Int21h (talk) 06:19, 23 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I was looking at the template and it's a bit more complicated than I thought. Someone with more technical expertise than me will have to update it. --PiMaster3 talk 02:31, 1 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Its done. Thank you for bringing this up. Int21h (talk) 02:35, 1 October 2014 (UTC) Int21h (talk) 18:23, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal
Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:48, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!


Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

AfC submission
What do you reckon on Draft:Furthering Asbestos Claims Transparency Act (FACT) Act of 2015? Best, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 01:18, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject United States - The 50,000 Challenge
--- Another Believer ( Talk ) 22:09, 8 November 2016 (UTC)