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[edit] Expansion / compression
Markles, I noticed your new template and wanted to direct you to the one that I also had made earlier today: (Template:CapitolComplex). I have a great interest in architecture, especially government buildings, and I was going to just go ahead and add the one I made to the applicable articles, but decided not to till I got feedback from everyone else on the project talk page (here). Do you think we could take the buildings off the template you made, and use the one I made strictly for the Capitol Complex articles? I plan on adding a lot more minor buildings to the complex template, so if we keep them on the USCongress template it may start to get cluttered....any thoughts? --ScottyBoy900Q 00:25, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't know. Frankly, when I grossly expanded Template:Congresslists I knew I was opening a can of worms. I wish it could have everything Congress-related in it, but then it would be too big.
I generally prefer boxes without images and with minimal white space. This means have the links be as plain, short, clear as possible without anything extra that's unnecessary. For example, compare Template:USCongressCommittees with Template:CapitolComplex (find them below). It's just my opinion; it hardly means I'm right. Let's discuss.
Here's the pros & cons of having more (Let's discuss):
- More: Complete. A researcher can find so much more and not miss useful articles. Some articles that might be missed will be read/edited/expanded.
- Less: Too cumbersome. Articles will have this huge box at the bottom that overwhelms the text of the article.
I would love to put all these resources together in one box.
--Markles 18:44, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
- I personally don't have a problem with having more than one template on the bottom of a page. I think having several different ones is much better than having one gigantic one that just inundates a visitor with more than say 15 or 20 links on it. It kinda drives me nuts when I want to find similar articles, then look to the template and it covers every possible other topic that's even slightly related. Just my opinion though. An idea now that I'm thinking about it...I totally agree that your "pro" listed above that researchers can find things better when they are grouped together. Perhaps we could provide a link at the bottom of all the Congress template boxes that lead to the project page. For example:
- -OR-
- On the Project page every article associated with the project someone might be looking for is listed. I dunno...thoughts? --ScottyBoy900Q 22:02, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
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- Many templates on a page might be a solution, I'm not sure. I do know we shouldn't have a reference to a wikiproject in an article, see Wikipedia:Avoid self-references. —Markles 01:06, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
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- I thought that was the case. And as I said, I don't see any problem with multiple templates. Should I add the complex template to the appropriate articles you think? --ScottyBoy900Q 04:25, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
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- Right now, the buildings are already in the mega-template, Template:USCongress. You could add the red-linked articles (right now there are four: the 3 LOC buildings and the visitor center). Or if there's some consensus, we could use your new template instead. —Markles 22:32, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
- I thought what we were discussing here was using multiple templates and not just the big "mega" one. If we're going to keep them in the mega-template, we need to expand it even more. As of now it simply is an incomplete list...a visitor might not have any idea which of them are senate office or house office buildings. If we add the LOC ones, again, people may not know they are LOC buildings. I dont mean to sound like I dislike the large template, I just think it already has too much information in it, thats why i made the seperate one for the buildings. We've got 5 more buildings to add to it if we're going to cover all Capitol Complex buildings in the USCongress template. --ScottyBoy900Q 22:59, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
- Okay, it's been a couple days and I haven't heard any objections to the template so i'm adding it to the applicable pages and adding it to the project template list. --ScottyBoy900Q 07:14, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Delegations by State?
Would anyone mind if we add a link to the "US_Congress_by_State" template (or to a wikipage based upon/containing it) to the first line of the "mega"- template? Currently, there are separate listings for the Senate and the House, and separate links for current and former members within each. The Senate does show a link for "Current & Former by state", but I think it would be good to have some sort of easy way to access entire Past & Present Delegations by State, given that the trend across the actual wikipages seems to be merging the "current", "former", "Senate", and "House" listings into single pages by State. Any thoughts? --Ross 23:40, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Other templates
Here are the other templates:
[edit] USCongresses
Template:USCongresses:
[edit] USCongressCommittees
Template:USCongressCommittees:
[edit] CapitolComplex
Template:CapitolComplex:
[edit] US Congress Delegations by State
Template:US_Congress_by_State:
[edit] Congresslists (old)
Template:Congresslists (before I expanded it):
[edit] US house elections
Template:US house elections:
[edit] US senate elections
Template:US senate elections:
