EATC, I have completed my project of making an article about every PA State Senator from 2000-now. Now, I am starting the larger project of creating an article for every PA House member serving from 2000-now.

I have all missing members listed at User:A. Gorilla/sandbox, along with an archived copy of their PA House profile. This profile provides all the information that is needed to get these articles up to decent stub quality and will keep them from being deleted. This is a large and probably tedious project, but a useful one. Once we get these up to stub status, others will come by and expand them into fuller articles --in time.

So, I would like to invite you to help me with this project. I have a template at User:A. Gorilla/sandbox1, and you can just copy and paste it for each new article. Feel free to edit as you wish at either of these pages to help note the progress. Also, please let me know if you are familiar with anyone else who might be inclined to help out. --A. Gorilla (talk) 05:32, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can tell, we now have a page for every State Rep and State Senator who served from 2000-now. Thanks for the help! Of course, lots of these articles are just a name, an infobox, and an external link, so they need some work, but at least the articles are up! Now, I would like to get pages for the 50 or missing state rep districts. --A. Gorilla (talk) 22:14, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good work in having a page for all those state representatives and state senators. Now for improvements. For example, Jim Lynch (Pennsylvania politician) has four inline citations. When should an article like this be rated class=start rather than class=stub, and consequently have the stub template removed from the article? This is a question for the general case, since there are many hundreds of articles on PA state representatives and PA state senators.--DThomsen8 (talk) 16:48, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks! The debate over rating (start versus stub), for me, is one that centers around references. I think an article like that, with some text and citations would be a stub. Articles that Blargh has created, where it's just the infobox essentially, would be a start class article, IMO. In terms of removing the stub template, I generally eyeball the amount, quality and deliniation of text on the page. If there is enough text that it has been broken into sections (of reasonable length) and the prose of the article extends past the infobox, I remove stub designation. My way is subjective, I know, but I think such subjectivity is almost necessary with such a matter.

I think my subjective judgment is the opposite of what you are saying, but maybe not. I rate all articles without at least three inline citations as stub, and only upgrade them to start, or maybe, if fairly long and detailed with five or more inline citations, preferably secondary sources not directly dependent on the subject of the article, class=C. Having a stub template in the article is different from class=stub on the talk page, because it calls attention to the article by a more visible category than the template.

I also run AWB on articles, and that service sometimes removes the article space stub, or provides a message that a long article might not be a stub. --DThomsen8 (talk) 17:44, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I saw this edit, and I think it is best to leave the links the way they were. Generally, the external links should reflect the title of the webpage to which they point, which is why the official senate profiles are titled like this:"Pennsylvania State Senate - Robert J. Thompson (R)" and the official caucus webpages are titled like this:"Pennsylvania Senate Republican Caucus - Robert J. Thompson." When you strip out the PA State Senate/PA Senate Caucus descriptors, it makes the links less useful and more likely to be deleted by a careless editor later on. Cool.--A. Gorilla (talk) 01:28, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In case you didn't know this, when a state rep or senator retires/loses/doesn't run for re-election, their terms expire on November 30th of that year. Here you have Chadwick's term going until the year after his retirement. That would make sense, since the inauguration for the successors are in January of the next year, but technically, they are done (and stop getting paid) that previous November 30.--A. Gorilla (talk) 04:26, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You say that the current labels are "plenty easy to read." Would you not welcome an improvement? Is that not allowed? Why don't you change all the Pennsylvania ones to the short, clean label I have been using? Improvements are not allowed if they break with an awkward form in every other member of congress' article in the encyclopedia? Nothing can ever improve? Needed consistancy trumps obviously quality? Besides you've got most of them all wrong. Look closely. Please restore the label I was using and spend six months giving some thought as to which is superior. Why do we spend so much time on trivial labeling issues and so little on actual content? stilltim (talk) 19:43, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Where did you find January 2 as the beginning and end dates for these two former County Commissioners? If we don't know the exact dates, we should just keep the year: it's better to be overly general and correct rather than too specific and possibly wrong.[1] and [2]--Blargh29 (talk) 00:36, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I thought that you might be interested in this: Wikipedia:WikiProject Pennsylvania/Politics and Government. It's a coordination location for people who write about Pennsylvania politics and government.--Blargh29 (talk) 03:53, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a cite for this date? When a date is more specific than just the year, we really need to cite that. (Like at Frank LaGrotta._ Otherwise, someone will just change them around later. The House Journals are great sources for that. Most PDFs there are text searchable, which makes it easy, just CRTL + F and search for the legislator's last name. However, it is not necessary to cite November 30 as a legislator's last day in office if his term is simply expiring, as opposed to ending for death/resignation/election elsewhere.--Blargh29 (talk) 05:42, 12 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

After some research, I believe that unlike the State House, the Pennsylvania State Senate was organized into numbered districts since the constitution of 1854. So, the articles in Category:Pennsylvania Senate Districts need to be updated to reflect this reality. At some point in the future, I guess we ought to backfill those senate district pages back to 1854.--Blargh29 (talk) 03:54, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Great. We'll get this sorted out eventually.--Blargh29 (talk) 04:17, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• I'm in the process of creating stubs for all PA Senators dating back to 1969.--Blargh29 (talk) 02:49, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are under discussion here. Cardamon (talk) 06:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just so you know, some troll thinks you're my sockpuppet. He even filed a report, which I tried to speedy delete. --William S. Saturn (talk) 07:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I notice that quite a few of your references are pretty much bare URLs with a page title. I would like to suggest that you consider using Wikipedia:Citation templates for your references. I have written an essay listing the benefits of citation templates: User:Blargh29/Using citation templates. Cheers! --Blargh29 (talk) 05:55, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• By the way, I am going through the PA House members and adding predecessor/successor values, as well as any adding any relevant WP:HATNOTEs. I'm starting with 203 and working down. Next, I will go through the Senators and add any PA House tenure to their infoboxes. I see you often edit for floor leaders and whips. There is a good list of people who have held these offices in the PA Manual. What do you think about making a page for party leaders in the House and Senate? Maybe something like Party leaders of the United States House of Representatives? Anyways, keep up the good work.--Blargh29 (talk) 05:59, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Check out The Public Record (newspaper) and follow the website link to the online newspaper. Jimmy Tayoun and his associates may lean towards the D's, but there is a lot of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania news there, especially in the columns. --DThomsen8 (talk) 20:51, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks for the heads up, will do.

I don't know if you ever used these before, but the House Journal and Senate Journal are really great resources to locate dates for inaugurations and resignations for House/Senate bios.This page has some good example citation templates, too.--Blargh29 (talk) 01:33, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• By the way, I have been seeing some errors in the "term_start" and "term_end" parameters. Sometimes there are some dates that confuse when an official is elected versus when they are sworn in, (like at William Quest). Other times, the dates are incorrect because they are too specific. If we don't have a source saying that someone took office in 2001, we shouldn't assume that it was January 2, 2001. If we are going to be really precise with our dates, then we need to get good sources on that. If the Wilkes University Election Statistics Project says their term started in 2001, let's leave it at that. That sound reasonable?--Blargh29 (talk) 07:08, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is perfect. Thanks! That really helps. --Blargh29 (talk) 08:03, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mean to be rude, but we really can't be adding dates that are more specific than our sources indicate. For James Gallen [here, you added an inauguration date, where the source at Wilkes University simply gives the year of 1965. In order to be so specific, we need a more specific source, like the House Journal or the Pennsylvania Manual. This is important because those dates could be wrong, since these legislators might have been elected in special elections. Also, I have seen some instances where you have added incorrect dates for inauguration, usually by using the election day.--Blargh29 (talk) 02:59, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks for your note. For now, let's rely on the House or Senate journals for inauguration dates. Those are going to be the most complete and accurate statements for inauguration dates. If you look at the first day of each session, there is usually a list of new members who are inaugurated. Is that a good place to start?

• Also, I would really hesitate to rely too much on the Wilkes resource, since there are a lot of tyops and errors the further you go back in time. (see User:Blargh29/Wilkes for my collection of its errors). --Blargh29 (talk) 00:10, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Would you be interested in working on external links for house and senate members? The external link section at Larry Farnese is a fairly good example of good external link coverage.--Blargh29 (talk) 17:06, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Maybe I haven't been clear about explaining my thoughts on the dates/years situation. Let's say there's a fellow for whom the Wilkes Project tells us served from 1991-92. There isn't any more information about what particular date he was sworn-in or elected. So, in that infoboxs, we should limit ourselves to saying that he served from 1991 to 1992. Without more information, we can't go and say for sure January 1, 1991 to November 30, 1992. That is being too specific, and is actually WP:Original Research on our part. Does that make sense? --Blargh29 (talk) 08:40, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please take a look at Aristotle, Inc., a new article I created, which is relevant to Pennsylvania politics because of the John Perzel connection.

An article with this title was deleted in the past as not notable, but with additional material I think it is notable, or can be rescued should it be challenged. --DThomsen8 (talk) 16:05, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Took a look, and I definately think it's worth keeping. Hats off on the find. I'd come to bat to save it if it came to that. Clearly more work needed, but certainly meets notability, IMO.

Here are more references and a quote for future use.

Aristotle releases dead and moved voter numbers on Massachusetts.

• • http://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Massachusetts-has-estimated-116K-dead-voters-on-its-rolls-81977052.html

• • http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzM3NzhmZTNlZWUyNjBlMWRlMDNlZTM4NWU3MWU1N2I=

Info on Aristotle board member towards the bottom of this reference:

• • http://blog.taragana.com/business/2010/02/04/senate-panel-oks-union-lawyer-for-labor-board-but-nominee-could-face-larger-hurdle-on-floor-28081/

Press release about News Corp:

• • http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aristotle-calls-for-newscorp-to-sell-myspace-and-disclose-any-liability-risk-from-contacts-sex-offenders-may-have-had-with-children-using-the-social-networking-service-83272642.html

Quote from the press release: “Aristotle also is recognized as a global pioneer in political technology, providing indispensable tools to those who seek to use the Democratic process to influence decisions at the ballot box. Every occupant of the White House -- Democrat and Republican -- for more than 25 years has been an Aristotle customer, as are many U.S. Senators, members of the U.S. House of Representatives, and Democratic and Republican state party organizations. For information about career opportunities or for client inquiries, go to www.aristotle.com.” All that directly from their website. --DThomsen8 (talk) 17:50, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Eugene Saloom has no references, and has an orphan tag. I added information about his former business, but the citation creating tool is not working this morning for me. There should be a citation for his PA house service, though. Can you help?--DThomsen8 (talk) 13:55, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your interest in Wikipedia. Your recent edit on Jerry Wainwright violated two of Wikipedia's Five Pillars. Entries must maintain a Neutral Point of View and be subject to verifiability. If you want to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.206.138.33 (talk) 22:07, 14 March 2010 (UTC) --Thank you for your interest in Wikipedia and welcome! Your recent edit on Jerry Wainwright was not not subject to verifiability. Wainwright is not currently a coach since he is not affiliated with a team. We don't say that Digger Phelps is a coach; we say he "was" a coach since he no longer has a team to coach.[reply]