Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress/Districts

message: * Should decades old data be discouraged in districts whose boundaries have changed dramatically? Most pages have several decades of voting history, but for many districts in populous states boundaries change dramatically every decade so this data is not very useful. For example, I was reading the page on CA-18 and was really surprised to see that this very educated liberal district voted for Bush in 00 and 04. Then I realized that 2001-2011 CA-18 was a rural/industrial district in the San Joaquin Valley. Having a contiguous history of voting results in "CA-18" is not helpful when you consider that the old district and new district have nothing in common except for the name. Perhaps it would be best to split the data, with the data for the current district first, and then data from previous versions of the district clearly marked as such.Bruinslacker (talk) 20:46, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Suggestions

message: I have created a rough map of Georgia's 1st congressional district as it stands for the 110th Congress. I used the aforementioned Census Bureua data, GIS software, and Photoshop. It's a very rough approximation, but should serve its purpose until the federal government creates a higher quality public domain version. You can compare it to the version from the 109th Congress. It didn't take that long to create, so I could do the other 12 districts if nobody has a problem with this rough version. Crossreferences on the main project talk page. Dcmacnut 04:32, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Map of Georgia's 1st Congressional District

message: Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Succession Box Standardization#Question about redistricting for a question I have about how to present geographic discontinuities due to redistricting in succession boxes. Thanks. older ≠ wiser 15:25, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question about redistricting 

message: It would be nice to be able to provide demographic information about each district.  More details on geography would also be useful. john k (talk) 20:36, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Demographics 

message: I note the other states have separate articles for the At-large district and District 1, if it has had both in their history. North Dakota has District 1 and At-large merged in the same article; shouldn't these be split, or is ND-AL/ND-1 somehow different? --Golbez (talk) 04:37, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Found another one, Vermont has no district 1 article, but has an at-large article. --Golbez (talk) 14:32, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  North Dakota 

message: Question: Should all the Territorial district articles be renamed "Foo Territory's At-large congressional district" to "Foo Territory's congressional district"?
* Support: ALL of them are at-large.  "At-large" is redundant.  Nobody thinks of them as being called "Foo Territory's At-large congressional district."—GoldRingChip  19:46, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: *That clarifies things. As far as Rrius's concerns over whether these are called congressional districts, and were considered as such when they existed, the Congressional Directory classifies them as congressional districts. I need to find one of my older copies for reference, but I see no problem continuing to reference territorial districts as congressional districts.DCmacnut<> 19:21, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

text: **Good, as long as we have a source, I'm happy. -Rrius (talk) 17:17, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

text: For the broader point, I'd like to see the districts describe the territorial changes, too. Unfortunately, I don't have any access to old maps, so I can't really help. If someone hits the mother lode and wants to upload maps (even if it has to be somewhere other than WP or Commons), I'd be perfectly happy to help. -Rrius (talk) 17:22, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

text: Support renaming All territories elected delegates at large, and the delegates represent a "congressional district". It might be nice to create a category like"Category:Congressional districts of United States territories" or "Territorial United States Congressional districts".  --Esprqii (talk) 18:16, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

text: Questions Why not handle the state at larges at the same time? Some states will have to retain "at large" because they've also had multiple districts, so "State's congressional district" would be misleading or confusing. For states that have only ever had one district, dropping "at large" wouldn't hurt anything. Would it be problematic to have some states with "State's At-large congressional district" and others with "State's congressional district? If so, is there reason for disparate treatment of territories (e.g., is it enough that no territory ever had more than one delegate)? Finally, whatever change we make, can we also drop the capital letter in "at-large"? -Rrius (talk) 19:03, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Sidenote: I noticed this section of the "delegate" entry which states that "when a territory was officially recognized by Congress to be properly organized, it would send a delegate, sometimes two ....(emphasis added)" This is fully uncited. I can't find any territories that had more than one delegate. Any evidence of that? If not, it needs to be corrected. --Esprqii (talk) 19:26, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The Philippines had two.  Both were elected at-large.—GoldRingChip  19:32, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah...well, if that's the only one, we should probably just call that out as the exception rather than the way it sounds now, which is more like, "depending on whether Congress felt generous that day..." --Esprqii (talk) 19:35, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I've made the change. -Rrius (talk) 19:44, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

text: Can you make it so if the district number parameter is set to TERR (or even NONE, if you want to make it possible to do this for any entity) it causes the district field to not be used? You probably still need to set the state name parameter to the name of the territory. So then  would produce "Oregon Territory's congressional district". Would that work? --Esprqii (talk) 21:54, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

text: *Oo!  Good idea.  I'll try it in the next day or two.—GoldRingChip  23:05, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

text: *Wait, we'd have to enter new data for ALL the articles that transclude it.  I wish there were some way to do a text search inside the parameter like I'd do in an excel function such as ' = if ( right ( A23, 9) ="territory" , … ) '—GoldRingChip  13:10, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Territory At-large" or just "Territory" 

message: Continuing the discussion above. I've always felt the district articles hould do more to talk about the district as a "place," rather than just providing information on who represented it. For example, see Historical Boundaries at Alabama's 8th congressional district articles. What defines a district as evolved over time, with some states electing multiple members from the same numbered district or multiple members at-large. I think that's an important part of the articles.
I've done some research of older Congressional Directories (pre 1950). In general, each state's delegation is listed by district. When there is only one member, the district is numbered "at-large." Territorial delgates are listed last, but lack the "at-large" modifier. From the late 1890s on, the Directory started including a section called "Maps of Congressional Districts." Terrorities are included in this section (again after the states). They are all lumped into one category of "congressional districts," and the territories aren't called anything different. Is that enough to style them "congressional district" for Wikipedia purposes? I would say so, since it is a term that people are relatively familiar with, and helps describe the place (which is represented by a person). Here is are examples from the 61st Congress (page 407), 62nd Congress (page 396), and [64th Congress (page 398).
No matter what we decide, we should be consistent and be mindful of the audience. If nothing else, at-large (for states) allows us to disambiguate between districts for states that once had just one member but now have more (e.g. Utah, Arizona, New Mexico) or states that lost members to redistricting (e.g. Montana, the Dakotas, Delaware).DCmacnut<> 17:08, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: For the broader point, I'd like to see the districts describe the territorial changes, too. Unfortunately, I don't have any access to old maps, so I can't really help. If someone hits the mother lode and wants to upload maps (even if it has to be somewhere other than WP or Commons), I'd be perfectly happy to help. -Rrius (talk) 17:22, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

text: Support renaming All territories elected delegates at large, and the delegates represent a "congressional district". It might be nice to create a category like"Category:Congressional districts of United States territories" or "Territorial United States Congressional districts".  --Esprqii (talk) 18:16, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

text: Questions Why not handle the state at larges at the same time? Some states will have to retain "at large" because they've also had multiple districts, so "State's congressional district" would be misleading or confusing. For states that have only ever had one district, dropping "at large" wouldn't hurt anything. Would it be problematic to have some states with "State's At-large congressional district" and others with "State's congressional district? If so, is there reason for disparate treatment of territories (e.g., is it enough that no territory ever had more than one delegate)? Finally, whatever change we make, can we also drop the capital letter in "at-large"? -Rrius (talk) 19:03, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Sidenote: I noticed this section of the "delegate" entry which states that "when a territory was officially recognized by Congress to be properly organized, it would send a delegate, sometimes two ....(emphasis added)" This is fully uncited. I can't find any territories that had more than one delegate. Any evidence of that? If not, it needs to be corrected. --Esprqii (talk) 19:26, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The Philippines had two.  Both were elected at-large.—GoldRingChip  19:32, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah...well, if that's the only one, we should probably just call that out as the exception rather than the way it sounds now, which is more like, "depending on whether Congress felt generous that day..." --Esprqii (talk) 19:35, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I've made the change. -Rrius (talk) 19:44, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Is "at large" a place?

message: I'm pretty good at coding templates, but I can't figure out how to change the code for  to eliminate "At-large" in territorial articles only.—GoldRingChip  13:25, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Can you make it so if the district number parameter is set to TERR (or even NONE, if you want to make it possible to do this for any entity) it causes the district field to not be used? You probably still need to set the state name parameter to the name of the territory. So then  would produce "Oregon Territory's congressional district". Would that work? --Esprqii (talk) 21:54, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

text: *Oo!  Good idea.  I'll try it in the next day or two.—GoldRingChip  23:05, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

text: *Wait, we'd have to enter new data for ALL the articles that transclude it.  I wish there were some way to do a text search inside the parameter like I'd do in an excel function such as ' = if ( right ( A23, 9) ="territory" , … ) '—GoldRingChip  13:10, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coding 

message: :Yeah, I discovered that Oklahoma's 9th district was actually designated an At-large seat. It was not technically a numbered district, though it is the 9th of their districts and is listed last in the Biographical Directory. The Oklahoma's At-large congressional district article actually handles this in a pretty good way: it lists both instances where the state had at-large districts. We should probably have these articles renamed in the plural: "Foo's At-large congressional districts" and then list the various reps and timeframes when they took place.
:I would prefer to make the OK-09 district redirect to an "at-large districts" article because I don't think the district was ever called the ninth district, except in the context that the state had 9 districts. In the case of PA, create the plural "At-large" districts article, then make a note on the 25th, 26th, and 27th district articles to point out that for a time Pennsylvania had that many districts and elected some congresspeople at-large and provide a link to the At-large district articles. --Esprqii (talk) 17:13, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oklahoma's 9th district 

message: You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress#Voting section.  —GoldRingChip  18:11, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress#Voting section

message: On another note, I've noticed that Martis and CNN lists the single representative districts as 1st district vs. At-large, including present single representative congressional districts (i.e. Vermont, Wyoming, Alaska). What are your thoughts about changing to conform?
Pvmoutside (talk) 01:23, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Let me know where and when it gets posted. -Rrius (talk) 14:09, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Switching to 1st district would cause problems for states like North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana which once had 2 or more districts, which have since been eliminated due to redistricting. Also, a little clarification on Martis. He used his own defintion of At-large. He reserved "At-large" for only those "extra" statewide districts for states that otherwise were devided into separate numbered districts, to distinguish those seats from those elected on a general ticket. He counted states with single districts differently, hence using District 1. I would say that we should continue using At-large, because Martis definition is one of his own creation, and CNN probably uses it's own nomenclature as well. Moreover, the official National Institute of Standards and Technology policy on numbering at-large congressional districts is to use "00" when identifying at-large districts numerically:
For a State whose representative is designated "at large"-- for the 98th-102nd Congresses, this applies to the States of Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming-- for the 103rd Congress, this applies to the State of Montana -- the Congressional District is designated as "00".
I'm game for a broader discussoins, but I'm for sticking with at-large as the official government standard.DCmacnut<> 14:22, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Based on the arguments here, I'll leave everything as is. Sounds like there are bigger fish to kill than changing around the AL districts.  Thanks for the input.  I'm moving this discussion over to Category:At-large United States congressional districts unless anyone can think of a more appropriate place.Pvmoutside (talk) 12:50, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  At-Large vs District 1 

message: Please do not use deprecated terms per MOS:RELTIME Blainster (talk) 20:25, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deprecated terms: "current" & "present" 

message: Added topic Blainster (talk) 20:53, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deprecated terms: "current" and "present"