Portal talk:Government of the United States

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Please leave suggestions and input here. -Aude (talk | contribs) 18:19, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

1 Proposal
2 Maintanance
3 Width
4 Nice portal
5 Topics
6 Naming and scope of portal
7 Integrate Senate terms lookup?

[edit] Proposal

I have put together a proposed new portal to cover U.S. Government topics. The proposal is at Wikipedia:Portal/Proposals#United_States_Government, with a mock-up of the portal at User:Kmf164/United States Government. For a better idea of how portals work, check out Wikipedia:Featured portals. My thoughts were to use part of the portal to highlight featured articles and pictures. Another part of it could highlight current events (news stories, as well as things like current/pending legislation, nominations, Supreme Court cases/decisions, etc.). The third part could be some topic directory. The last section could highlight WikiProjects and things to do. I'd like to know if has suggestions on improving the draft. Also, would anyone here be interested in helping to maintain it, should it be approved. -Aude (talk | contribs) 18:34, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Maintanance

Portal maintenance tasks would involve:

Important - Keep the current events updated
Choosing articles and pictures to feature from those listed at Wikipedia:Featured articles and Wikipedia:Featured pictures, respectively.
Maintaining the list of articles/categories, etc.
An important aspect of maintaining this portal, is to recognize that it is a subportal (or subtopic) of Portal:United States (which is a subportal of Portal:North America), Portal:Politics, and Portal:Law. It is important to chip in and help keep these related portals up-to-date, make sure the featured pictures and articles are rotated regularly, and make improvements to those portals. -Aude (talk | contribs) 18:34, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Width

I fixed the section's width.-Gangsta-Ea ster-Bunny-(19:55, 19 May 2006 (UTC))

Thanks. -Aude (talk | contribs) 20:06, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nice portal

Very much like the portal. My suggestion is to reserve a space for unusual, wacky and/or weird government related articles; one that springs immediately to mind is Federal Consulting Group. Paul 05:51, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

That might fit in a "did you know" feature. Such a feature doesn't have to have 4-5 short bullet points, but could have 1-2 small-medium blurbs with such articles. -Aude (talk | contribs) 19:58, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Topics

copied from User talk:Kmf164 - I added some things related to SCOTUS cases. Two questions. Do you have any preference about press sources I used all NY Times, but you seemed to have a diversity of CNN, Fox News, etc. Also, do you want to have any coverage of the fourth estate itself, or just the traditional three branches of government? I think something middle of the road, like the administration's reaction to newspapers revealing all its secretive counter-terrorism stuff, would be appropriate.--Kchase02 T 03:49, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm open to whatever ideas you and others have. The news stories were taken from Current events, where people use a variety of news sources. NY Times is definitely okay as a source. As for portal coverage, your suggestions sound good. I'm also thinking that maybe the portal should be called "Government and politics of the United States" - though it's wordy. -Aude (talk contribs) 04:03, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming and scope of portal

Congratulations on the successful creation of this portal. A few comments on it:

The portal should focus exclusively on the federal government of the United States, rather than on all government in the United States or on politics in the United States in general; this will help maintain its focus, as the federal government is so extensive a topic that including state governments and/or politics would make it quite cumbersome.
A clear guideline should be issued as to whether United States Government or United States government is correct; I believe the former is correct since it refers to the United States Government (a proper noun), rather than the concept of government in the United States (a common noun).
An interesting addition to this would be a section for strange, unusual, or little known aspects of the U.S. Government. See for example Duck and Cover, Federal Consulting Group, Redacting with Confidence, Invention Secrecy Act, United States Commerce Court, and quite a few others. (One can count on the U.S. Government for occasional bizzareness.)