Wikipedia talk:WikiProject US State Legislatures

How to Handle Redistricting

I am looking for good examples of how people in the past have handled congressional redistricting on Wikipedia both on the district's page as well as on biographical data sheets (either State, Federal, or non-US).

Here's the problem: if a state has districts 1-50 and renumbers them every 10 years, then the wikipedia page for a single district, would likely follow the number around, instead of the geographical area. This would lead to the apparent fallacy that a numerical district changed parties every 10 years or so. Or that a biographical page shows a legislature representing the correct numerical district, but the incorrect geographical area.

Possible solutions that I've thought of: 1. Wikipedia should first and foremost reflect the here and now and the existing pages should be modified to reflect current redistricting. The historic record is secondary. (easiest logistically/most subject to historic inaccuracies) 2. Every 10 years (or as needed) create a brand new set of district pages tabulated by year. e.g. District 1 (current); District 1 (2010-2020); District 1 (2000-2010); etc. Ideally biographical data would then link to the correct district in time and space. (hardest logistically/most accurate) 3. Create #1, but include with it a sub-section on redistricting. (Middle of the road) Squatchis (talk) 21:56, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

@Squatchis: Hello. Redistricting is a kind of pain when it comes to the subject of our WikiProject. Seeing as this is a problem facing the US Congress pages too, I think you should raise a similar thread at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress.

As for what solution I think is best: I think both historical and current information is imperative for a district's wiki article. I do not think that your second proposed solution is really plausible. I'm not sure many outside of this WikiProject would consider individual iterations of districts to be notable enough for their own articles. I like Solution 1 the most, but I also kind of feel like that is what most of the district pages are now, right? For instance, the Michigan state house districts are pages that I've been working on. Here's an example of one here: Michigan's 42nd House of Representatives district. It first and foremost reflects the district's current boundaries. It also contains a subsection on the historical boundaries of the district, describing all the shapes the district has been in throughout its history. Now, not all the state legislative districts articles have a good record of their historical boundaries, but I've always assumed a list of historical boundaries are the norm on an article if one happens to have the information. Historical boundaries lists are common on US Congress district pages.

As for biographical articles, I'm not sure I see the problem you're hinting at. Is it that, hypothetically, someone could be reading an article about a state legislator from 1972, click on the link to the district from the legislator's article, and be presented with the current borders first and foremost instead of the borders from 1970-1980? I guess that is something of a problem, but I think a very simple fix is available of just specifying early on in district articles when the current district borders were drawn. For instance, saying "as dictated by the 2020 apportionment plan, the 44th district is located in parts of Allegan and Kalamazoo County." It COULD be helpful to have a section explaining redistricting on each article, but I don't think that sort of thing is generally considered acceptable. For instance, each article about "Abortion in X US State" used to have a section explaining the terminology of abortion, however, it was decided that the information was not specific enough to each article, and it was removed by consensus (see here) a while ago. RoundSquare (talk) 22:20, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

@RoundSquare: that Michigan 42nd House District is a great example. I'm primarily working on Iowa state politics right now which does not have that level of historical data.

(e.g. Iowa Senate District 3)

I also agree that option 1 is probably the priority currently (as in get the pages to reflect current reality) and then once that is complete add in the historic record as time permits.

I guess my problem with biographical data sheets is two fold:

1. As you mentioned, a 'historic figure' who represented a district, when you click on that district, the page does not perhaps reflect what the geographical area was for that figure. But as you pointed out, including a geographic portion like that in MI-42 would solve that issue.

2. For persons who span redistricting. On January 8th they are the Representative of district 1, on January 9th they are the Representative of district 2. Their district has likely changed only slightly geographically, but the number HAS changed. Is that worthy of a separate line in their bio?

I've made an example showing different possible forms. See Jason Schultz Squatchis (talk) 22:58, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

@Squatchis: I now have a better idea of what you mean, thank you for this. In regard to Iowa and states like it, the only way to clarify the geographical relation of legislator and district is to find the historical data. This probably won't be easy, but I think the easiest way to start is to record on each legislative district page is to record the previous district boundaries. We may not have a full list of the district boundaries, but we know what they are now, and what they were last redistricting cycle. Its okay for historical district sections to be incomplete. Most US Congress historical districts are. An incomplete geography section is better than a non-existent one, and should signal to the reader that these borders change from time to time. It might not tell then where the district of the 1972 legislator was, but it will let them know it might not be where it is now.

About your second concern, there are a few ways to indicate multiple different districts. I've seen some truly unintuitive ways to do it, like this one. I think we should work to remove this method, as it is barely readable. I've also seen the "different district, different office" approach, an example here and its the one I've used for a long time. However, I do think the one office approach, as seen here is the best approach now. It is efficient with space and readability. I think either of the last two I mentioned are acceptable, but that the last one is the best. I think we should try converting articles to look like that. I've never encountered resistance for doing it and it seems to be the norm for US Congress articles. RoundSquare (talk) 23:36, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

@RoundSquare:.

Oh yeah, I really like that third concise example. I'm on for making the current iteration to that standard. Thanks so much for the help. Iowa is marginally better now.

Best. Squatchis (talk) 00:22, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

@RoundSquare @Squatchis: I'm also a big fan of the third example for infoboxes. I believe it's the recommended use of the infobox. I've also noticed some people are putting (redistricted) after the successor/predecessor name in infoboxes if they represented a totally different area. Starrfruit (talk) 13:54, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Project-independent quality assessments

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Discussion at Wikipedia:Content assessment

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Wikiproject importance

What would constitute importance? I see unstandardized articles about state legislature topics. (Louisiana's 18th State Senate district vs Oregon's 52nd House district in importance). Would legislators have more importance because they are currently in office? (Mary Wagner, a legislator out of office vs Robin Vos, a Speaker of the House.) Masohpotato (talk) 00:13, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Mike Johnson (Louisiana politician)#Requested move 20 July 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Mike Johnson (Louisiana politician)#Requested move 20 July 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Векочел (talk) 18:31, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Martin Van Buren has an RfC

Martin Van Buren has an RfC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Emiya1980 (talk) 00:50, 6 September 2024 (UTC)