Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States Public Policy/Archive 2

RFC: Should there be a separate article called Targeted killing
Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 22:26, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ongoing Request for Comment, at Talk:Assassination.
 * New comments should go all the way to the bottom, below subsection, Discussion break.

New article: Freedom of Expression(R)
New article, created, at Freedom of Expression(R). Additional assistance in research would be appreciated, feel free to help out at the article's talk page. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 18:03, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

New article: Net.wars
New article, created, at Net.wars. Additional assistance in research would be appreciated, feel free to help out at the article's talk page. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 21:53, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

New article: The Best American Magazine Writing 2007
New article, created, at The Best American Magazine Writing 2007. Additional assistance in research would be appreciated, feel free to help out at the article's talk page. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 00:20, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Featured portal candidate: United States
Portal:United States is a current featured portal candidate. Please feel free to leave comments. -- RichardF (talk) 14:25, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Collaboration for the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Greetings, I realize this may not be exacltly in the scope of your project but I wanted to let you know that the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution has been chosen as the U.S. Wikipedians Collaboration of the Month for February 2011. As a project who may be interested in this article we encourage you to help to build it up to better explain the subject and to get it promoted. --Kumioko (talk) 20:49, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

United States Bill of Rights is a candidate for the U.S. Collaboration of the Month
The United States Bill of Rights article has been submitted as a possible candidate for the U.S. Collaboration of the Month. --Kumioko (talk) 16:20, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

US National Archives DYK collaboration
This summer I am serving as the first Wikipedian in Residence at the US National Archives (see Signpost article); in order to serve as a hub for activity related to the National Archives' collaboration with Wikipedia, I have recently created a project page at WP:NARA. Since it seems relevant to this Wikiproject, I wanted to point members to our first editing project, which was recently announced and can be found here. The National Archives is an incredible resource for images and other documents related to American political history. I would be grateful for any input as we work out the details, and, of course, your participation once it launches. Dominic·t 14:45, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

United States Bill of Rights has been selected as the United States Wikipedians' Collaboration of the Month for June 2011
The United States Bill of Rights, an article within the scope of this project, has been selected as the United States Wikipedians' Collaboration of the Month for June 2011. The goal this month is to get this article to Good Article standards by July 4th, 2011. All editors interested in improving this article are encouraged to participate. You can also vote for next months article of the Month here. --Kumioko (talk) 16:04, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

United States Declaration of Independence article needs to be adopted
I have performed a review at Talk:United States Declaration of Independence/GA1. However, the nominator has exercised his WP:RTV. The article needs someone to adopt it and address my concerns in order to regain its GA status. I will allow seven days for someone to step forward.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 02:34, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Input requested in article move discussion
Hi. Readers at this page may be interested in contributing to the discussion at Talk:Jeffersonian democracy. Thanks in advance for any input. -GTBacchus(talk) 16:40, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Nomination as a United States Wikipedians' Collaboration of the Month candidate
The United States Post Office, an article in this projects scope, has been nominated to be a future United States Wikipedians' Collaboration of the Month. All editors interested in improving these articles or voting for next months collaboration are encouraged to participate here. --Kumioko (talk) 20:01, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

United States v. The Progressive
This is a fascinating legal case, anyone want to collaborate on improving the page with me? Please leave a note on my user talk page, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 18:55, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * United States v. The Progressive

Merge discussion for List of U.S. minimum wages
An article that you have been involved in editing, List of U.S. minimum wages, has been proposed for a merge with another article. If you are interested in the merge discussion, please participate by going, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Metallurgist (talk) 17:59, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

New article: Freedom for the Thought That We Hate
New article, created, at Freedom for the Thought That We Hate. Additional assistance in research would be appreciated, feel free to help out at the article's talk page. Cheers, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 08:08, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Freedom for the Thought That We Hate

RFC on single payer polling data
Please consider weighing in on this RFC about whether the United States National Health Care Act (the "single payer" bill, H.R. 676) article should include this polling data or not. Thank you! Neo Poz (talk) 06:26, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Freedom for the Thought That We Hate - FA nomination
Freedom for the Thought That We Hate is currently a candidate for consideration of Featured Article quality status. The discussion page is at Featured article candidates/Freedom for the Thought That We Hate/archive1.
 * Freedom for the Thought That We Hate

Thank you for your time, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 04:38, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Created new article: Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties
I've gone ahead and created a new article for the book, Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties.
 * Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties

Collaboration and particularly suggestions for additional secondary sources would be appreciated at the article's talk page, Talk:Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 06:38, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Main Page discussion - Freedom for the Thought That We Hate
I've nominated Freedom for the Thought That We Hate for Main Page discussion.

Please feel free to comment at Today%27s_featured_article/requests. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 03:46, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Targeted Killings: Law and Morality in an Asymmetrical World
I've created the new article about the book Targeted Killings: Law and Morality in an Asymmetrical World, which discusses the subject of targeted killing.
 * Targeted Killings: Law and Morality in an Asymmetrical World

Further suggestions for research and additional secondary sources would be appreciated, at the article's talk page, at Talk:Targeted Killings: Law and Morality in an Asymmetrical World.

Thank you, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 04:12, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Random input
I would suggest checking out GLAM/BM, WikiProject Murder Madness and Mayhem, WikiProject North of the Rio Grande, WikiProject AP Biology 2008, and WikiProject AP Biology 2009 to see successful collaboration projects and how they worked. The real trick will be attracting several motivated editors to do what you want them to do. In my opinion, that is the hardest part of all of these efforts. I would also try to publicize this event more to try to attract motivated editors. With that in mind, I would make sure that this information gets posted in the Signpost (See Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions). Remember (talk) 13:42, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, we've definitely been studying the successful projects from the past. Part of the challenge here is that the goal is to find ways to make good assignments scale; something like Murder, Madness, and Mayhem could never work at the scale of, say, 50-100 classes per semester without a lot more Wikipedians helping out (see the post-mortem from the FA-team, which really pins down a lot of the hardest issues) .  And instructors less deeply involved in Wikipedia than the ones behind those projects you linked could never have pulled it off, without a lot more help.  So like you say (and as always with projects that start from the Foundation rather than the community) the great challenge is getting editors motivated to participate in productive ways.  My hope is that this will really be taken over and led by Wikipedians, because that's the only way it will have a longer-term impact, if it becomes a full-fledged part of the community.  As for the Signpost... look for a piece about it in the upcoming issue, and yeah, I want to leave regular updates at the Suggestions page as the project progresses.--Sross (Public Policy) (talk) 14:00, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * You also should check out WikiProject Medicine/Google Project when you get a chance. Remember (talk) 19:46, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Embassy
We encountered an idea at WP:GLAM/SI for a embassy for Wikiprojects, WP:GLAM/SI/WikiProject embassy that way you have a list of projects that are directly related and some people who specialize in developing that content, formating, templates, categories, etc, ready for access. Might want to consider the Idea. Sadads (talk) 23:08, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

open access
As I mentioned when this was announced, it would be nice if this project considered the accessibility of sources within its scope. See also, where a previously unavailable source was made available on Wikisource.

While it would be nice for this project to promote putting the original sources on Wikimedia Commons in PDF/DjVu/etc format, and engage in transcribing the text on Wikisource, I would consider it an important step for a project like this one to consider whether a high fidelity copy of the related sources are available on the Internet and are transcribed for easy copy&paste and discussion.

Also important is the need to consider whether the sources are likely to remain available. Obviously, relying on sites like GeoCities has proven to be problematic - we still have links to GeoCities, tripod and angelfire. Nearly as problematic is linkrot. e.g. the link Pub.L. 110-140 on Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 is right now reporting "Error Detected", and in fine print "Sorry, but the page you requested could not be found".

I did a quick audit of refs on Energy policy of the United States, which is a top importance 'B' article, and reported my results at Talk:Energy policy of the United States. Most of those are likely to have been copyrighted, and thus cant be archived on Wikimedia Commons, but several are by government, NGOs and even the UN. John Vandenberg (chat) 03:54, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Wow, that's a lot of broken links for one article. We should make sure to emphasize the importance of stable linking when we start working with students for this project; as you say, only a small portion could be archived by Commons or Wikisource, but many others probably have multiple different sources, some of which will be more stable than others.--Sage Ross - Online Faciliator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 11:17, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

importance ratings
We need to figure out the scope of the different importance ratings. As a starting point, I suggest the following: Thoughts?--Sross (Public Policy) (talk) 18:52, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Top importance is for the very broadest articles specifically about U.S. public policy, e.g., Environmental policy of the United States, and for the very broadest programs and sets of policies, e.g., New Deal.
 * High importance is for narrower articles about big chunks of U.S. public policy, e.g., Monetary policy of the United States, as well as very broad general articles about public policy that don't focus specifically on the U.S., e.g., Economic policy, major laws that affect significant sectors of public policy, e.g., No Child Left Behind Act, and major institutions relevant to public policy, e.g., United States Environmental Protection Agency.
 * Mid importance is for narrower or less important topics than High: non-U.S.-specific articles about narrower public policy topics, e.g., Money supply, institutions with a narrower public policy scope, e.g., Natural Resources Conservation Service, and significant laws that affect a more discrete area of public policy, e.g., Endangered Species Act.
 * Low importance if everything else: minor laws or amendments that are primarily significant only in a broader context, e.g. Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966, people who are policy makers but aren't strongly associated with any particular very important policy developments, minor agencies, departments and programs that have a narrow scope, e.g., EPA Safer Detergents Stewardship Initiative (SDSI).
 * I guess my first question would be, what is the scope of this project? All articles titled "xxxxx policy of the United States" obviously.  I suppose all current and historical US laws, presidential policies, and US policy institutions.  But then are we talking about all governmental bodies, policy advocacy groups, and political advocacy groups? Then if we include articles on people involved in U.S. policy, we could really go crazy- current and past policy institutional leaders, people who were notably subject to U.S. policies, people who enacted or lobbied for U.S. policies, people who studied or theorized about US policies or policies that the US later adopted, etc.  Are you also suggesting that broader, non-US-specific policy articles be included?  I'm of the opinion that the scope of this project really has to be carefully defined. johnpseudo 13:49, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I only have more questions. It is a difficult area to categorize and we could check this source :See also structure of the PolicyArchive.org database, a possible basis for categorizing articles. Things to definitely include, but I don't know where they fall in the importance level: Johnpsuedo already raised some of the tough questions. My vote would be, to include the broad range of topics and rate the less important articles as such within the project framework. ARoth (Public Policy Initiative) —Preceding undated comment added 20:54, 25 June 2010 (UTC).
 * Laws affecting public policy
 * Court cases that influenced public policy (ie. Roe v. Wade)
 * Issues relating to public policy (ie. voting rights, capital punishment, public education)
 * History of U.S. public policy
 * Notable persons in U.S. public policy
 * Definitely include:
 * Notable public policy experts and public policy pioneers (ie. Max Weber, a German sociologist and F.W. Taylor an engineer who studied industrial efficiency and created scientific management.)
 * Important activists who influenced public policy (ie. Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King Jr.)
 * Government officials who made important policy changes (ie. Woodrow Wilson did away with spoils system of government employment and implemented bureaucratic merit based government employment and George W. Bush implemented the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war.)
 * BUT where do we draw the line?
 * Do we include all presidents, governors, legislators, judges?
 * What about bureaucrats and appointed positions?
 * How do we distinguish between U.S. public policy and U.S. foreign policy? (ie. The Bush Doctrine is foreign policy, but it clearly has considerable impacts on U.S. public policy.)
 * Theories about Public Policy
 * Types of policy (ie. environmental, immigration, healthcare)

Project scope
I'm breaking this into a separate section, since it's different (but related) issue from the importance ratings. We can probably all agree about some of the kinds of articles that are definitely within the project scope:
 * U.S. federal laws
 * Articles specifically about U.S. public policy and its history, including articles about specific policies
 * U.S. policy institutions

Then there are broad classes that we should decide whether they are in or out:
 * State and local laws in the U.S. - (these are surprisingly underdeveloped; see all the redlinks in List of U.S. state legal codes) - include them all?
 * General articles about public policy that aren't limited to the U.S. but are relevant to it - this is a tricky one; I think these are relevant to the Public Policy Initiative (and students might want to work on some of them), but it might or might not make sense to include them in the WikiProject.
 * Policy advocacy groups and think tanks - These seem pretty relevant to the WikiProject to me.

Then there are other kinds of articles that we need to find the dividing line for:
 * People - Which biographies, if any, are properly part of this WikiProject? This is by far the trickiest; ARoth and johnpseudo have good examples above of why including people a) often makes sense, and b) represents a continuum from people intimately involved in public policy and relevant to it, to essentially every U.S. elected official and government employee who has an article.  The latter seems a overbroad to me.  Any ideas?
 * U.S. governmental bodies - Are all government bodies relevant to public policy, or just some subset?
 * Political advocacy groups - These ones are tricky too; many would probably make sense, but others are important for policy but only indirectly concern themselves with it, and others probably only have very tenuous connections to public policy.

--Sross (Public Policy) (talk) 18:22, 28 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I think the only way to have a clear definition here is to limit the scope of the project to articles with subjects that are US Policies or are about US policies. That would be quite restrictive compared to what you seem to have in mind right now.  But keep in mind the list of ~100 policy areas that used to be linked on Frank Schulenberg's user page (can't find it now); It would still be a hugely ambitious task to write good articles on each of these, not to mention each of the individual laws/other types of policies that fall under each of those subject areas.  So it would completely exclude policy institutions, state/local laws, general articles not specific to the United States, biographical articles, and U.S. governmental bodies.  This definition is obviously at odds with your current conception of project scope, but another idea would be to start with a very limited project scope and expand the scope on successive iterations of the project (B1, B2, future iterations...).  It seems to me the advantages of having a broad project scope (get more attention from wiki editors, allow more independence for participants) would be outweighed by the disadvantages (overwhelming administrative work, more-questionable value of quality improvement data - as the impact of project participants is diluted by general wikipedia editing).  Yet another idea would be to allow project participants to expand the project to include any policy-related article they become interested in editing, whenever they feel the need. johnpseudo 19:10, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, are you including articles about individual laws in your proposed scope? And why exclude U.S. policy institutions?  I see at least some drawbacks to including most of the other broader categories we're talking about, but policy institutions seems like a natural fit.--Sross (Public Policy) (talk) 19:38, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Here's Frank's page we were talking about that got moved: User:Fschulenburg (Public Policy)/Public Policy.--Sross (Public Policy) (talk) 14:57, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I might even exclude individual laws in the interest of keeping the scope manageable. I'd exclude U.S. policy institutions simply because the line is blurry between "policy institutions" and "advocacy institutions" and just "political groups". johnpseudo 14:39, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Scope - Biographies
As far as people are concerned you might be interested in the following categories:  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  02:05, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Category:American activists
 * Category:American civil servants
 * Category:American diplomats
 * Category:American educationists
 * Category:American economists
 * Category:American politicians
 * Category:American lobbyists
 * Category:American judges

This is a massive undertaking, and here are some brief mullings on where to begin.

Public policy is a mixture of direction (Congress/Executive Branch), interpretation (Supreme Court), popularization (news media), and polarization (interest groups and the public). None of the four elements can be ignored, but there is almost always an Issue at the crux of any public policy matter. Laws affecting public policy are usually responsive, not proactive. Therefore, IMHO, the sensible approach is to consider as the primary delimiter some of the recurring themes addressed by government (internal improvements, tariffs/international trade, slavery, piracy, the banking system, Federal/State relations, interstate commerce, taxation, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, voting rights) and restrict the discussion as much as possible to the national forum.

An example. With regard to the history of US public policy, you will find that one of the bellwethers of the 19th century is the American approach toward the veteran, specifically the Union veterans of the American Civil War. Correlations between the income from sales of public land/railroad fees and the outgo from pensions to invalid veterans and their widows and orphans are both direct and startling. The Bureau of Pensions was one of the most massive bureaucracies of its time, necessitating a huge building of its own. Calculations of the percentage of the Federal budget which went to pensions will encapsulate the history of entitlement programs and the underpinnings of their growth to today's Social Security, VA, and Medicare dilemma (now everybody wants a share like they got a share). A detailed and honest discussion of the political influence of the Grand Army of the Republic is warranted; it was the most effective lobbying group of the 19th century and into the 20th, and for sources start with the monograph Glorious Contentment and Congressional documents.

Genehisthome (talk) 17:19, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Categorization
At this point, there's not much of a category tree for U.S. public policy. The closest thing to a supercategory is Category:United States federal policy, which should be the parent category for many or most (but not all) the articles in this project's scope. I'm going to start filling out the category tree a little more fully soon; please help! One thing that might be useful for us is something Frank Schulenburg suggested: we can look at the way http://www.policyarchive.org/ organizes topics, and in many cases seems like a reasonable way to categorize similar Wikipedia articles. Frank wikified the their category structure at User:Fschulenburg (Public Policy)/Public Policy.--Sage Ross - Online Faciliator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 11:34, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Beware of presentism! Today's American policy priorities are not necessarily those of all time! A clear division between modern policies and historical policies, and the reasons for the change (the adoption of the Constitution is a good dividing line, World War Two is another), is practical.

Genehisthome (talk) 17:23, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I believe the presentist mindset is driven by who and what we are interacting with for our Grant money and initial classes. Sadads (talk) 17:30, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
 * It's true that the classes, in particular, will probably be focused on issues of present-day relevance, and I think that's also part of the motivation behind the grant. But that doesn't mean we should be intentionally presentist in the way we approach categorization or the general inclusion of articles for this WikiProject.  The overall point is to improve public policy coverage, not improve present-day topics.  And having good history should be relevant even for people who's main concern is present and future policy.--Sage Ross - Online Faciliator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 18:19, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree, in the long run we need to be very broad in our historical reach, but what sub-subjects do we need ready for the fall? Sadads (talk) 18:20, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Training answered that question. We should expect the following subject for the classes: at George Washington, Policy Analysis and Political management topics (both classes are introductory so students will be able to interact with a broad swath of articles); At Georgetown, Arab World and US Policy and Native American issues of worldview perception etc (hopefully in collaboration with WP:GLAM/SI and the National Museum of the American Indian); at Syracuse, Onondaga, New York related political articles, and at Indiana economic theory and Urban development related policy. This is only tentative but may give us a good place to start until we get requests from the campus ambassadors and the syllabi, Sadads (talk) 21:59, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Cool. So we should definitely try to incorporate those areas into the public policy category tree, to the extent that it's possible.--Sage Ross - Online Faciliator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 22:50, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Communications policy
One area I noticed that's not part of the public policy category tree is communications policy. For example, net neutrality in the United States isn't in a relevant category. There's a lot of other telecommunications policy content that similarly could be better categorized. I'm going to try to bring some structure to this area. The policyarchive.org categorization for this area groups together "Media, telecommunications and information policy", but I don't think that fits well with our category conventions. The three components of that might make sense as separate categories, but I'm not sure how clear the distinction is between media policy, telecommunications policy, and information policy. I'm starting with creating Category:United States telecommunications policy and we'll see where it goes from there. Feel free to help populate this cat. --Sage Ross - Online Faciliator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 13:09, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Video from Campus Ambassador training
Here's the video that Frank Schulenburg made at the Campus Ambassadors training last week, which brought together ambassadors and some of the professors who are participating in the public policy initiative. It's a nice 8 minute overview of what's going: --Sage Ross - Online Faciliator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 18:55, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

United States Public Policy articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release
Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the United States Public Policy articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 23:47, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Merge three noticeboards
I have started a proposal to merge three United States related Noticeboards into one due to all three having no, or extremely limited activity, in the last year. I believe this will invigorate the noticeboard if we keep any of them at all. I propose merging: into
 * U.S. Southern wikipedians' notice board
 * U.S. Northern wikipedians' notice board
 * U.S. Wikipedians' notice board.

Please provide comments here (including support or oppose). Comments are necessary to ensure that this does not intefere with ongoing efforts. If no comments are received in 7 days I will assume there is no problem and proceed with the merger. --Kumioko (talk) 19:39, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Assessment of Article
I'm in the Wikipedia and Public Policy class at Syracuse University, and I'm trying to move forward with my article; however, being new to Wikipedia, I'm having a difficult time advancing my article without having an idea of where my article currently stands. If someone could reassess my article on Alaska Ballot Measure 2 (1998), it would be greatly appreciated. Kcahlber (talk) 15:09, 15 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I made some formatting changes and copy edits, and I have left some comments on your talk page. Anyone else, please feel free to comment further.  -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:37, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Assessment of Fair Sentencing Act article
The Fair Sentencing Act article is currently rated as Start-Class but hasn't been checked against the article quality rating metric. It also has not received a rating on the project's importance scale. I was hoping the article could be given an up-to-date assessment based on the criteria for the United States Public Policy WikiProject so I can see where the article stands and what areas on the rubric I need to focus on improving. Thanks! Gsrogers (talk) 19:12, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Foster care
We have two newbies who have taken over the Foster care article in perfectly good faith, but, I believe, incorrect in their organization. They are not used to high level articles/policies, but articles (like places) where everything is lumped together. I have not been able to convince either of them. The article is seen by 500 or more people per day. This really needs some experienced editors. One isn't enough! Student7 (talk) 01:10, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

United States related Tag and Assess proposal
There is a proposal on WikiProject United States to task Xenobot with tagging and assessment of articles that fall into the scope of WikiProject United States. Please take a few moments to provide your comments about this proposal.

If you are interested in joining WikiProject United States please add your name under the applicable section here. --Kumioko (talk) 17:08, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Immigration
There are a bunch of pretty good articles on immigration. But there are too many and the information is therefore scattered. There needs to be an outline. For example:


 * Immigration to the United States (containing summaries of the following)
 * History of Immigration to the US
 * Bureaucracies handling immigration to the US (from 1891 BTW)
 * Have to have a "History of bureaucracy" which will duplicate some of the foregoing.
 * Illegal Immigration
 * History of illegal immigration

Anyway there is stuff all over the place now. Someone tried to merge two articles in May and never got any comments. So the main problem is not voting on an outline per se (!) but getting attention for the problem of scattered information. Right now, everybody is supporting their own "baby" and ignoring other articles, apparently. Student7 (talk) 19:16, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Invitation to help with WikiProject United States
--Kumioko (talk) 15:36, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Commons category
Are there more images like File:Politics of Piracy Fall 2010 Class Picture.JPG that would justify creation of a dedicated Commons category related to this project? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:58, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Invitation to participation!
Hello!

As you may be aware, the Wikimedia Foundation is gearing up for our annual fundraiser. We want to hit our goal and hit it as soon as possible, so that we can focus on Wikipedia's tenth anniversary on January 15 and our new project: Contributions. I'm posting across these Wikiprojects to engage you, the community, to work to build Wikipedia by finance but also by content. We seek donations not only financially, but by collaboration in building content. You can find more information in Philippe Beaudette's memo to the communities here.

Visit the Contribution project page and the Fundraising page to find out how you can help us support and spread free knowledge. &rArr;  Dan Rosenthal    Wikipedia Contribution Team  20:04, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Science policy
There is a discussion going on at Talk:Science policy about a reorganization/expansion of articles in that field including Science policy, Research funding, and Science policy in the United States. Any feedback would be appreciated! Antony–22 (talk/contribs) 05:47, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Public Housing
The lack of adequate access to affordable housing should a critical public policy concern in the United States. Since its creation in the 1930s, public housing has been associated with high rates of drug-use, violence, and crime. Officials at the Hartford Housing Authority note that “putting under one roof people who share similar social and economic difficulties breeds more of the same kinds of problems” and thus densely populated public housing units have proved ineffective at proving acceptable living conditions. Despite the critical nature of these issues, the current public housing page on Wikipedia lacks a detailed description of public housing alternatives that reduce the concentration of poverty and crime. Acernst08 (talk) 09:36, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

A consideration for cross project consolidation of talk page templates
I have started a conversation here about the possibility of combining some of the United States related WikiProject Banners into WikiProject United States. If you have any comments, questions or suggestions please take a moment and let me know. --Kumioko (talk) 20:32, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Suggested policy change to the tagging of non article items
I have submitted a proposal at the Village pump regarding tagging non article items in Wikipedia. Please take a moment and let me know what you think. --Kumioko (talk) 02:14, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Say Yes to Education
Would people please take a look at this article, Say Yes to Education, and see if you can add anything? Also, the article has an orphan tag. I was able to add a couple of links to other articles. Can anyone think of any other articles to link it to? All the best! -- Ssilvers (talk) 06:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Help needed on US health care reform
WP:MED has received a request for assistance at Talk:Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. As US public policy is not really within the diseases-and-treatment scope of WikiProject Medicine, I'm passing the request along to you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:53, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

US Collaboration reactivated & Portal:United States starting next
Casliber recently posted a suggestion on the talk page for WikiProject United States about getting the US Wikipedians Collaboration page going again in an effort to build up articles for GA through FA class. See U.S. Wikipedians' notice board/USCOTM. After several days of work from him the page is up and ready for action. A few candidates have already been added for you to vote on or you can submit one using the directions provided. If you are looking for inspiration here is a link to the most commonly viewed articles currently under the scope of Wikiproject United States. There are tons of good articles in the various US related projects as well so feel free to submit any article relating to US topics (not just those under the scope of WPUS). This noticeboard is intended for ‘’’All’’’ editors working on US subjects, not just those under WPUS.

The next item I intend to start updating is Portal:United States if anyone is interested in helping. Again this is not specific to WPUS and any help would be greatly appreciated to maximize visibility of US topics. The foundation has already been established its just a matter of updating the content with some new images, biographies and articles. Please let leave a comment on the Portals talk page or let me know if you have any questions or ideas. --Kumioko (talk) 23:32, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Public Policy
Question: Why do we only have a WikiProject United States Public Policy and not a more general and universal WikiProject Public Policy page as well or instead of?

I ask this because although many of the articles out there in academia and on Wikipedia are focused on public policy in the United States there are also many, and will be increasingly more, articles on public policy that are more generally and universally applicable such as policy analysis. To only have a project that only focuses on public policy in the United States around which to write and evaluate articles on a subject that involves people from all over the world seems a bit overly focused to me. I suppose it is because there is not a large enough group of people with sufficient interest in this subject on an international level to start such a group?

Don't get me wrong though, I do think that it is a great and wonderful thing that there is a WikiProject United States Public Policy. I just wish there was a more universal project in the same way there is a universal WikiProject Law or WikiProject Politics. --Discott (talk) 13:01, 17 January 2011 (UTC)


 * All WP:WikiProjects are created on the same basis: A bunch of individual editors decide that they want to work together.  If you and your ten best wikifriends want to start a WikiProject to work on non-US public policy, then you may do that.  We've even got a page to help you find some new wikifriends if necessary.
 * A WikiProject is not something supplied by the powers that be: it's just a group of editors who happen to like working together and happen to do it often enough that they want a page to talk to each other about what they're doing.  If one doesn't exist for a given topic, or if it's gone dormant, the only thing that means is that nobody was interested.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:54, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for getting back to me on this WhatamIdoing. I assumed as much and will look into it.  Although I suspect it will take me some time to move on this as I A) want to get more involved in this existing and exciting project and B) get better prepared and work out the level of interest in setting up such a project.  I just thought I would bring it up as I am sure it would come up in the future anyway and so it might be good to get people thinking about it in mean time. --Discott (talk) 08:12, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Manual of Style?
Is there a MoS for public policy articles? If not, I suggest one be developed in order to assist with article writing. Basket of Puppies 20:01, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That would be certainly a good idea, however unfortunately, we look at a lot of different types of articles from court cases, to history type articles, to laws and general issues. I think the first three have mos's somewhere, but if you wanted to write an MOS on articles that look like Energy policy of the United States, or Economic policy of the George W. Bush administration, I would really applaud the effort. We may want to consult some of our professors though on what they think of our outline and such though, to make sure we are covering the major topics in the field, Sadads (talk) 20:13, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Copy that. I'll check with Professor Weil when I see him on Monday. Basket of Puppies  20:41, 28 January 2011 (UTC)


 * WikiProjects are encouraged to write up style advice. There are many examples (some of which are very well done) at Category:Style guidelines of WikiProjects.  (NB that these pages generally aren't "official" WP:Guidelines, despite the category name, and you don't have to do a formal WP:PROPOSAL.)  See WikiProject Council/Guide for some information.
 * Since this project covers so many different types of articles, you might like to consider adapting the approach that we took at WP:MEDMOS, which I think is helpful for some purposes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:49, 28 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I'll talk this over with my professor. I know nothing about policy. Basket of Puppies  01:20, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Template on a recent article
Hi, someone put a talk page template ("This article was the subject of an educational assignment supported by WikiProject United States Public Policy and the Wikipedia Ambassador Program that ended in December 2010.") linking to this project on the 2011 Egyptian protests talk page, and the template says the public policy project ended December 2010. I'm a bit confused since the protests started in late January. Is the template misplaced or just outdated? Any ideas? Ocaasi (talk) 10:53, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmm. I'm not sure why that was added.  The Egyptian Liberal did it here, perhaps confusing it with the article on Egypt's Democratic National Party, which a student did work on (and still is working on).  I'll remove it.  (On a side note, that class ended in December, but other classes are part of the project this term.)--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 13:37, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. It's crazy enough over there without thinking that the Public Policy project predicted the protests before they started ;P And yes, I'm glad that the project is still going (it just would have meant you needed to update that template). Ocaasi (talk) 13:41, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Healthcare policy -- the IPAB
The Independent Payment Advisory Board was recently protected for 24 hours due to some edit warring. Perhaps someone here would find the topic interesting. Here's a NYT blog post about it. Jesanj (talk) 13:32, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Adding "Popular pages" to U.S.-related projects
A very interesting tool of the Wikimedia Toolserver is called WikiProject Popular pages lists. These lists are similar to project-related article lists like U. S. article lists used for generating assessment statistics. The Popular pages lists include the rank, total views, average daily views, quality and importance ratings for the listed articles. Here is the full list of projects using popular pages lists. An FAQ also is available at User:Mr.Z-man/Popular pages FAQ.

I recently added links to lists of popular pages as shown below to the U.S. Portal - WikiProjects box and the nominations sections for each of the selected articles boxes.

Portal:United States/Projects/Popular pages

Because this project was not included, I am bringing up the popular pages tool here. This tool makes it very easy to track three of four balancing dimensions when selecting articles for showcasing at a portal - quality, importance and popularity. When tracking the fourth dimension, topic, the related article lists tool (such as for U.S. article lists tool) also might be useful by filtering on categories of interest.

If you do decide to use this tool, feel free to update Portal:United States/Projects/Popular pages as well.

Regards, RichardF (talk) 02:15, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Robert McFarlane
User:Robert Carl McFarlane made a request on the editor assistance noticeboard that changes he made to Robert McFarlane be reviewed. We believe that he is referring to these. They were reverted en masse as "whitewashing", but it seems that this was a hasty judgment. Would someone with an interest in Iran Contra/Regan-era foreign policy like to give this a read over? If biographies or foreign policy are out of the scope of this project, feel free to remove this message. --Danger (talk) 03:11, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

US National Archives Wikipedian-in-Residence opportunity
Just officially announced...

"This summer, we hope to strengthen our institutional relationship with the Wikipedian community by hosting a Wikipedian in Residence. We are currently seeking applications for this student position for the 2011 summer. The Wikipedian will gain an insider’s look into the National Archives and develop an appreciation for the records and resources we have available." &mdash; US Archivist David Ferriero

This is a summer intern position, with stipend, for a student to work at NARA 2 in College Park, Maryland.

Full blog post and
 * Full blog post - by David Ferriero
 * Application + details (pdf)

Please spread the word and encourage all good candidates to apply. Cheers. --Aude (talk) 21:37, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Mailing list
Who would I talk to to get taken off the mailing list? I sadly don't have time to contribute to this project. J Milburn (talk) 09:51, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

The newsletter or the ambassadors one? I think we are trying to keep the ambassadors one to just people in the Ambassadors program, Sadads (talk) 10:55, 28 March 2011 (UTC) Sorry about that, I didn't read very closely, Sadads (talk) 11:44, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Off the mailing list, Sadads. J, are you on the Google Group mailing list or the Public Policy Initiative Updates mailing list? If you email me and include what address you are subscribed with, I'll make sure you get taken off.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 11:26, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I've emailed you. J Milburn (talk) 11:35, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador article supported by this WikiProject
Please be advised of a discussion at Talk:SAFE Port Act, which affects the article Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. That article is part of an educational assignment at Michigan State University supported by WikiProject United States Public Policy and the Wikipedia Ambassador Program during the Spring 2011 term. Further details are available on the course page. OCNative (talk) 03:38, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Declaration of independence
There is presently a debate over whether the list article Declaration of independence ought to include a hatnote pointing specifically to the United States Declaration of Independence. Those in favor argue that historical, demographic, and practical factors justify this treatment, while those in opposition argue that no country's document should receive special treatment under any circumstances. I am bringing the discussion to your attention because United States Declaration of Independence is included in this wikiproject. Please see here if you are interested in weighing in on the matter. Thank you. &mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 17:46, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Filipino Americans second or third largest ethnicity of Asian Americans?
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Filipino American. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 15:03, 28 May 2011 (UTC) (Using )

Article help
A request for help with an article;

This article is about a United Nations initiative.

It's not come about via PP; instead, it's something I 'accepted' via the articles for creation process.

Another user has queried whether it is acceptable - I think, mostly, because of the sourcing.

So - I'm asking for help.

I think it is a notable, and worthy, Encyclopaedic topic - and, given the topic area, I wondered if anyone from the USPP could put their skills to work, helping to improve it a little.

The references need work (although I've improved a few), it needs wikilinks, and it could/should be expanded with information from independent reliable sources - I've listed a few of those on the talk page.

Thanks, in anticipation.  Chzz  ► 04:02, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Contradiction in content between Filipino American & Indian American articles
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Filipino American. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 22:24, 4 June 2011 (UTC) (Using )

Integrated watchlists are now working
The Integrated watchlist tool is now up and working. It facilitates Wikimedia's Public Policy collaboration beyond Wikipedia to Wikibooks, Wikiversity, Commons, etc.. This works: User:Yair rand/interwikiwatchlist.js. It is explained here: User talk:Yair rand/interwikiwatchlist.js. Maybe some developer money could be found for making it work as a preference. Please pass this on. --Timeshifter (talk) 01:45, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Source about illegal immigration
Here's a source about illegal immigration that might be useful: WhisperToMe (talk) 06:17, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Porter, Eduardo. "Here Illegally, Working Hard and Paying Taxes." The New York Times. June 19, 2006.

On US federal prison sentences
WhisperToMe (talk) 02:56, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Fields, Gary and John R. Emshwiller. "As Federal Crime List Grows, Threshold of Guilt Declines." September 27, 2011.
 * Tracking the Growth of Federal Criminal Sentences

Public Interest Research Group
New eyes and opinions would be useful in the article on PIRGs. In particular, a single-purpose (IP) account has been adding material on a labor dispute and litigation, using one side's lawyers' website.

Sincerely, Kiefer .Wolfowitz 16:21, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Statesman's Year-Book, now in Wikisource
For historic information (1871, 1899, 1913, 1921) on U.S. states (including government, education, justice, poverty) and the empires, countries and coloines of the world, see the announcement at s:Wikisource:Scriptorium. --LA2 (talk) 21:16, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Is there an overall editor in charge of this project?
I have a concern that I'd like to express but I don't know where or who to contact. MathewTownsend (talk) 22:11, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
 * This WikiProject was formed as part of the Public Policy Initiative pilot; it's now a full program: Wikipedia Education Program, focusing on topics beyond U.S. Public Policy. I can answer questions about the Education Program, if that's what your concern is related to. -- LiAnna Davis (WMF) (talk) 22:21, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
 * My concern is current instance of copyvio/close paraphrasing by an online ambassador. Is it a concern to this program if online ambassadors engage in it? I'm concerned because I reviewed an article for GAN and couldn't get beyond the lede. Even after pointing it out to the editor, and the editor supposedly fixing it, it's still there. I'm worried that these online ambassadors are unaware of what copyvio/close paraphrasing is, but I don't know who to contact. MathewTownsend (talk) 22:29, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
 * It depends on which program that particular person is an Ambassador for -- if you'd like to email me the person's username, I can forward it to the appropriate person in charge of that Ambassador's program; or if you know which country's program they are an Ambassador for, I can direct you to the right person without you telling me the editor's username. -- LiAnna Davis (WMF) (talk) 23:29, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Possible Public Policy articles (Homeland Security)
A somewhat WP:POV presentation on nuclear safety has led me to believe that there is an opportunity for a set of articles on Homeland Security, involving local (unclassified, we're not WikiLeaks!) plans for response/evacuation, as the case may be. If acceptable to the current participants (who haven't have a chance to reply at this writing), there are issues that may need advice and ideas: content, naming the articles generally so there are npov and invite (by their title) other responses to emergencies of a public nature. See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Energy. Student7 (talk) 13:58, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
 * This is a runaround, an attempt to remove from nuclear power articles any information on nearby population, any by extension any information about evacuation plans and risks.Extremely hot (talk) 18:40, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes. We currently have a WP:COATRACK, WP:SOAPBOX situation with nuclear plants in the wake of Fukishima. This is an attempt at WP:NPOV which is being furiously opposed! But regardless of what happens to those articles, these articles, IMO, could still be viable. Student7 (talk) 12:51, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I Agree with that. It is very hard to obey WP:NPOV on such a hot topic.  We may want to simply wait a few more months for the public stir to die down.  From my experience, what I expect it to be a major issue for just a few more months.  We are currently in the middle of election cycle in the US, which leads to major WP:SOAPBOX situations on anything that relates to government or public policy.  Add a disaster in the past 2 years to the mix, and we have ourselves a tinderbox.   I think it would be a reasonable measure to wait until then to fork the emergency preparedness articles in on this topic.   In the mean time, we can keep the updated information in the appropriate current articles, as there have been revisions to policy in the wake of Fukishima. This will force reasonable context on most edits by preventing having an article based purely on the topic.  Hopefully this will reduce incentive for biased POV.--Robert Wm &#34;Ruedii&#34; (talk) 15:59, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Biased chart on ARRA page.
The chart File:ARRA Unemployment Rate Graph 2011-05.jpg has recently been used repetitively by the right wing to (falsely) argue that the ARRA actually made things worse. This is a high threat to Wikipedia's credibility.

However, it has several flaws: 1. It is based on an image dated before the act, that in the document that used it stated that it was using best-case estimates of the economy. They stated this in the article itself. Additionally it is dated several months before the proposal of the ARRA, when even the worst case estimates were far better than the best case estimates by the passing of the ARRA.

2. There was a sudden discontinuation of updates, when the unemployment rate improved and no longer met the right wing bias.

3. It makes no estimate of what the ACTUAL unemployment rate would be without the ARRA having passed.

I cannot on good ethics implement any solution as I too am biased on the topic, and thus any edits I make would be biased as well. However I can point out a few solutions:

1. Add a line on graph of worst case CBO estimates from the time of the ARRA passing, of unemployment without it passing and a line based on the same improvement rates. (This would obviously mean extending up the graph, as those estimates peaked at 12% when the chart was made and at 14% by the passage of the bill.)

2. Add an line of the actual figures of what it might have been without the recovery. This likely is not an option, as it cannot be done without bias.

3. Simply delete the graph. (This would likely put the right wing up in arms, claiming left wing bias, so this might be a bad idea, even though it is likely the right thing to do. Sadly this is where PR interferes with NPOV when something can't be expressed with NPOV.)

If someone who isn't politically involved can go and do this, it would be greatly appreciated. Like I said, my ethics forbid me from doing an edit that I know I would be biased on.--Robert Wm &#34;Ruedii&#34; (talk) 16:20, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:HighBeam
HighBeam details a limited opportunity for experienced Wikipedia editors to have access to HighBeam Research, an invaluable resource for locating reliable sources for articles related to public policy as well as other subjects.--JayJasper (talk) 18:42, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

More opportunities for editors to access free research databases!
I thought this information might be helpful to members and observers of this project...

The quest for getting Wikipedia editors the sources they need for US Public Policy-related articles and other content is gaining momentum. Here's what's happening and what you can sign up for right now: In addition to these great partnerships, you might be interested in the next-generation idea to create a central Wikipedia Library where approved editors would have access to all participating resource donors. It's still in the preliminary stages, but if you like the idea, add your feedback to the Community Fellowship proposal to start developing the project. Drop by the talk page of User:Ocaasi, who is overseeing these projects, if you have any questions.--JayJasper (talk) 17:14, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Credo Reference provides full-text online versions of nearly 1200 published reference works from more than 70 publishers in every major subject, including general and subject dictionaries and encyclopedias. There are 125 full Credo 350 accounts available, with access even to 100 more references works than in Credo's original donation.  All you need is a 1-year old account with 1000 edits.  Sign up here.
 * HighBeam Research has access to over 80 million articles from 6,500 publications including newspapers, magazines, academic journals, newswires, trade magazines and encyclopedias. Thousands of new articles are added daily, and archives date back over 25 years covering a wide range of subjects and industries.  There are 250 full access 1-year accounts available.  All you need is a 1-year old account with 1000 edits.  Sign up here.
 * Questia is an online research library for books and journal articles focusing on the humanities and social sciences. Questia has curated titles from over 300 trusted publishers including 77,000 full-text books and 4 million journal, magazine, and newspaper articles, as well as encyclopedia entries.  There will soon be 1000 full access 1-year accounts available.  All you need is a 1-year old account with 1000 edits.  Sign up here.
 * well, its very depressing. I keep reading about these offers. I have over 11,600 edits but because I haven't been here a year I'm eligible for nothing. Very demoralizing. MathewTownsend (talk) 17:26, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Proposal for United States A-Class review process
There is a proposal at WikiProject United States to start an A-Class review process for United States related articles. Please stop by and join the discussion. Kumioko (talk) 02:23, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Immigration regulation page edits
I am a student at Rice University studying poverty, justice, and human capabilities. For one of my classes we are supposed to find a topic on Wikipedia that we are interested in and expand or edit it. I have chosen to work on the page, Immigration regulation. Right now there are only a couple of sentences on the page, it needs a lot of work. My ideas for this page include changing the name to Immigration Policy then I would like to create a sub-section titled Immigration policy in the United States. Then within this sub-section, I will give information on the two sided debate going on in the US - should the borders be open or closed? I will give the benefits and disadvantages of each side and the political parties or important figures with these opinions. I also want to include a part that compares the policies of the United States to surrounding countries such as Canada and Mexico and I also want to compare the US policies with a country like Denmark. I feel like this is a very important issue that needs to be expanded on because immigrants make up such a large part of the United States' population. I feel like right now is a crucial time to work on it with the United States elections coming up. Also, the current page needs to be cited, so I will also work on that. I will use scholarly articles on immigration policies. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for me or any other ideas, I would really appreciate some feedback and guidance. Thanks! Amacune (talk) 21:28, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

School Meals in the United States
As part of a class project, I have identified a Wikipedia page relating to human rights and public policy that requires revision. The article that I have identified is the page on “School Meals in the United States.” This topic is important because providing meals in schools has far-reaching implications for educational success of students’ from lower socio-economic backgrounds, with the goal being to elevate educational achievement and eventually narrow existing income and social inequalities in the United States. The “School Meals in the United States” article has some good substance to that I can work with, but requires extensive expansion to more properly address the ways in which school meals are important for approaching issues of poverty and social inequality, and in what ways public policy can provide solutions. I plan on revising the existing sections of the article, as they provide some good information, but could include more detail. For instance, the lead section should be expanded to give insight as to why school meal programs are implemented and how policy can come into play. I will add sections that delve more into the topic of children’s food security, and how schools are used to attack this problem. Further, I plan on going into detail on numerous school meal programs that are successful, as well as those that have failed. Additionally, I will provide a section on the perceived issues of these meal programs and expand on public policy solutions that have been provided to alleviate these problems. The sources I will draw from include scholarly articles on meal programs, articles about specific meal programs, and books that detail food programs in the U.S. I ask for feedback from fellow users. Are there any comments on what I have planned? Are there any ways in which I can further improve my plans for revision? Moreover, are there any ways in which I can improve the organization of the article? Thank you, (Heidimkahle (talk) 21:52, 3 October 2012 (UTC))
 * The talk page of that article would be an ideal place to seek feedback from its editors.--JayJasper (talk) 21:59, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Fuck peer review, again

 * 1) Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties
 * 2) Wikipedia:Peer review/Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties/archive1

I've listed the article Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties for peer review.

Help with furthering along the quality improvement process would be appreciated, at Wikipedia:Peer review/Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties/archive1.

Thank you for your time,

&mdash; Cirt (talk) 01:07, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Free Expression Policy Project
I've created an article on the organization Free Expression Policy Project.

Suggestions for additional secondary sources would be most appreciated, at Talk:Free Expression Policy Project.

Cheers,

&mdash; Cirt (talk) 04:27, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Entitlement programs
The Entitlement page has nothing on US entitlement programs, but there's a redirect to that page from that term. Could someone please add a relevant page or paragraph somewhere that can be linked properly. What is included? What isn't? Why? I don't know and wouldn't know where to start to find out, so I can't DIY anything. Thks. for your help. 99.11.160.111 (talk) 11:55, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Discussion to remove the Automatically assessed logic from the WikiProject United States template
Greetings, there is a discussion regarding removal of the logic used to populate Automatically assessed article categories from Template:WikiProject United States. Most of the categories (over 220 Wikipedia wide) were deleted in February 2013 because they were empty. These categories were previously populated by a bot that hasn't run since 2011 and the categories aren't used. Removal of this uneeded/unused logic will greatly reduce the size and complexity of the WikiProject United States template. Any comments or questions are encouraged here. Kumioko (talk) 18:51, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Lest there is any confusion for people who don't speak the same language, the words "logic used to populate Automatically assessed article categories" refer to the feature that was supposed to allow this WikiProject's template to "inherit" class and importance ratings from other WikiProjects. Kumioko says that there are no longer any bots performing the function that formerly copied those ratings. --Orlady (talk) 23:38, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties for Featured Article
I've nominated Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties for Featured Article candidacy.

Comments would be appreciated, at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties/archive1.

Thank you for your time,

&mdash; Cirt (talk) 05:33, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act GAR
Hi There! I thought I'd post on this page to see if any people here might be able to help with the Good Article Review currently underway on this article? It feels pretty close but the reviewer is asking that, in particular, the article be reviewed for conciseness (tightening or trimming). Since I've written most of it, I'm having difficulty seeing areas that could be tightened/how, and would greatly appreciate assistance with it. Sb101 (talk|contribs) 11:16, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Archived some threads
I've archived some inactive threads to subsections which were notifications about discussions that have since been closed. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 06:14, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Not in Front of the Children
I've recently gone ahead and created an article about the book, Not in Front of the Children: "Indecency," Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth.
 * Not in Front of the Children: "Indecency," Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth

Help with suggestions for additional secondary sources would be appreciated at the article's talk page, at Talk:Not in Front of the Children: "Indecency," Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth.

Thank you for your time,

&mdash; Cirt (talk) 01:27, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Created new article = Sex, Sin, and Blasphemy: A Guide to America's Censorship Wars

 * Sex, Sin, and Blasphemy: A Guide to America's Censorship Wars

I've created a new article on the book, Sex, Sin, and Blasphemy: A Guide to America's Censorship Wars.

Help with researching additional secondary sources would be appreciated, at Talk:Sex, Sin, and Blasphemy: A Guide to America's Censorship Wars.

&mdash; Cirt (talk) 08:58, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties promoted to Featured Article
Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties was promoted to Featured Article quality.

Thank you very much to all who helped with this successful quality improvement project related to freedom of speech and censorship,

&mdash; Cirt (talk) 00:39, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

New article = Cutting the Mustard: Affirmative Action and the Nature of Excellence

 * Cutting the Mustard: Affirmative Action and the Nature of Excellence

I've created a new article on the book, Cutting the Mustard: Affirmative Action and the Nature of Excellence.

Help with researching additional secondary sources would be appreciated, at Talk:Cutting the Mustard: Affirmative Action and the Nature of Excellence.

&mdash; Cirt (talk) 04:18, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Seeking comments to improve Voting Rights Act of 1965
Greetings. I am looking for suggestions on how to improve the article Voting Rights Act of 1965, and I would be highly appreciative if folks from WikiProject Law could leave some comments about it on the peer review I requested at Peer review/Voting Rights Act of 1965/archive1. The article was recently promoted to GA status, and it'd be fantastic if we could get it up to FA status. Thanks! –Prototime (talk · contribs) 17:03, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Relevant RfD
I came across Template:WikiProject Public Policy, which is a redirect to Template:WikiProject Education. It's now under discussion at RfD. Especially since the idea of retargeting it to Template:WikiProject United States Public Policy has come up, you may be interested in commenting there. --BDD (talk) 16:23, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Pride 2014
You are invited to participate in Wiki Loves Pride 2014, a campaign to create and improve LGBT-related content at Wikipedia and its sister projects. The campaign will take place throughout the month of June, culminating with a multinational edit-a-thon on June 21. Meetups are being held in some cities, or you can participate remotely. All constructive edits are welcome in order to contribute to Wikipedia's mission of providing quality, accurate information. Articles within Category:LGBT in the Americas may be of particular interest. You can also upload LGBT-related images by participating in Wikimedia Commons' LGBT-related photo challenge. You are encouraged to share the results of your work here. Happy editing! -- Another Believer ( Talk ) 20:55, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet For Wikiproject United States Public Policy At Wikimania 2014
Hi all,

My name is Adi Khajuria and I am helping out with Wikimania 2014 in London.

One of our initiatives is to create leaflets to increase the discoverability of various wikimedia projects, and showcase the breadth of activity within wikimedia. Any kind of project can have a physical paper leaflet designed - for free - as a tool to help recruit new contributors. These leaflets will be printed at Wikimania 2014, and the designs can be re-used in the future at other events and locations.

This is particularly aimed at highlighting less discoverable but successful projects, e.g:

• Active Wikiprojects: Wikiproject Medicine, WikiProject Video Games, Wikiproject Film

• Tech projects/Tools, which may be looking for either users or developers.

• Less known major projects: Wikinews, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, etc.

• Wiki Loves Parliaments, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves ____

• Wikimedia thematic organisations, Wikiwomen’s Collaborative, The Signpost

For more information or to sign up for one for your project, go to: Project leaflets Adikhajuria (talk) 16:40, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Notification of a TFA nomination
In the past, there have been requests that discussions about potentially controversial TFAs are brought to the attention of more than just those who have WP:TFAR on their watchlist. With that in mind: Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties has been nominated for an appearance as Today's Featured Article. If you have any views, please comment at Today's featured article/requests. Thank you. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 22:16, 29 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)

Admission to the Union
I have created a new article on admission of states to the United States. Michael Hardy (talk) 23:44, 25 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)

U.S. square area
There has been a discussion at Talk:United States —sorry, in a wall of three sections — whether to use the U.S. Census Bureau “State and other areas” which uses the MAF/TIGER database, shared by the USGS and Homeland Security. The first box on the first line reports 3,805,927 sq.mi. for the 50 states, DC, Puerto Rico, and "Island Areas”. Some editors would like to see the figure of “50 states and DC” alone, which is available in a sub-chart.

In trying to find a resolution, I proposed a “Poll for two alternatives”, for reporting the total U.S. area in the info box.
 * A. Report area including territories, footnote 50 states and DC area.
 * B. Report 50 states and DC area, footnote area including territories.

The results are two A., three B, although one of the Bs says either way, and one of the Bs may be saying no footnote. Any comments are welcome. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 12:54, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Admission to the Union
Admission to the Union now has these sections:
 * 1 The process of admission
 * 2 Formation of states within the boundaries of existing states
 * 3 Anticipated admission of new states under the Articles of Confederation
 * 4 See also
 * 5 Notes and references

There's still an immense amount on law and politics and history that is not there. Michael Hardy (talk) 02:07, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Expert attention
This is a notice about Category:United States Public Policy articles needing expert attention, which might be of interest to your WikiProject. It will take a while before the category is populated. Iceblock (talk) 19:10, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I want you to join
I started a discussion topic at Talk:Public broadcasting. Please join in. JSH-alive/talk/cont/mail 15:05, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Assessment
I went ahead and assessed Foreign relations of the United States at being high-importance, but I honestly wasn't sure if this is correct. If somebody would like to weigh in on that, I'd appreciate the help. –Compassionate727 (T·C) 21:31, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Bishnupriya Manipuri is a Bangladesh people concept
Hello, Bishnupriya Manipuri name is a Bangladesh people concept its not related any part with Indian. Bangladesh Govt. approved its name of Bishnupriya Manipuri" but Govt of India its not approved. The name of BISHNUPURIYA only declared in India.

So, We are many different from Bangladeshi culture. I like to create different page name of BISHNUPURIYA for Indian People.

I hope you are support me..

Thanking you

Anup Sinha

Bishnupuriya language development organisation — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bishnupuriya (talk • contribs) 13:53, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Please See - Submissions
https://wikiconference.org/wiki/Submissions --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:50, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject United States - The 50,000 Challenge
--- Another Believer ( Talk ) 22:18, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. AIRcorn (talk) 23:14, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Trump administration family separation policy
There is a discussion at the Trump administration family separation policy talk page found here that members of this project might be interested in taking part in. -- ψλ  ● ✉ ✓ 03:09, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Discussion of interest
Members of this project may be interested in this discussion. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:18, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

1986 California Proposition 65
Hi together, phaps sombady can look for the 4 last qestion at Talk:1986 California Proposition 65 thank you--Calle Cool (talk) 10:38, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Request for comment on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act article
There is a request for comment on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act article. If you are interested, please participate at. —  Newslinger  talk   06:02, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool
Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:25, 27 October 2019 (UTC)