Template:Infobox U.S. legislation is permanently
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This is the
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Infobox U.S. legislation template. |
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Does anyone know what "Titles amended" refers to? Does this refer to the USC titles that were amended? - Ta bu shi da yu 02:14, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
What do we do with a bill that has not yet been voted on/passed? For example, FAIR USE Act. -- Briguyd 01:02, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't this be updated to use the Template:United States legal citation templates? Currently, a URL to the public law must be given manually, and the Template:USPL and freinds can't be used. What's the way to go about changing this? Int21h ( talk) 04:05, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Because of lack of information in the public, people often think bills before Congress have already become law. The misapprehension is compounded by the way we name articles. Instead of calling something the "X Bill", we call it the "X Act" before it is enacted. Whether that is nonetheless wise is certainly debatable, but editors also use this infobox for bills. Unfortunately, the infobox is wholly unsuitable for bills. In the top section it says, "Enacted by the [Xth United States Congress]" and provides no indication of current status or recent changes in status. These aren't failings, obviously, as this template was never intended to apply to bills. However, the situation needs to be addressed. Is the better solution to amend this template to be more inclusive or to create a new one for bills? - Rrius ( talk) 02:32, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
The box needs parameters for veto and override, for enacted legislation. I did a workaround for a veto/override at Clean Water Act, but the default text displays "Signed into law by President" which is not correct. I suggest the following new parameters:
If possible, it should flag an error if both "signedpresident" and veto/override parameters are entered.
These are the essential parameters. Other parameters could be added for the situation when a bill becomes law without the President's signature, and for a veto situation there could also be a parameter for the date the President returned the bill to Congress. (See
Veto for description.).
Thank you in advance!
Moreau1 (
talk)
20:22, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
The "cite public law = " parameter is not displaying the label. (For example, see Clean Air Act (United States)). Can someone fix? Thanks. Moreau1 ( talk) 05:39, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
I would like to make a few changes to this template to make its name-related fields more reflective of actual usage by legislative drafters and legal researchers. In particular, changes would include:
|name=
, |fullname=
and |acronym=
back, as aliases for |shorttitle=
, |longtitle=
and |colloquialacronym=
, respectively. I see that you already added |nickname=
back, not as an alias to |othershorttitles=
, but in addition as a separate param. Is that intended? Thanks. —
Grollτech (
talk)
13:21, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
|acts amended=
(displays the parameter, but no label)|amendments=
(does not display anything)|acts amended=
. Are you sure about |amendments=
? They show up at the bottom, as in
DOMA. —
Grollτech (
talk)
20:53, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
|amendments=
is working fine. Much appreciated!
Moreau1 (
talk)
01:09, 1 July 2013 (UTC)Hi all! I'm new-ish to Wikipedia, so I don't dare make these changes myself, but I have some ideas for improvements to this template. I'm part of a WikiProject, Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Federal Government Legislative Data, that is focused on getting notable pieces of US legislation up on Wikipedia. A lot of US legislation is notable without ever becoming law (CISPA in the last Congress, the fight against which Wikipedia participated in; potentially the new immigration bill that's getting a lot of media attention, etc). I was hoping some changes could be made in order to make this template more helpful on the pages of legislation that never becomes law.
Please let me know what you think of these proposed changes. I'm excited to see more legislation being posted on Wikipedia where concepts and agencies can be wikilinked to in order to help the general public understand legislation better. I'll watch this page for follow up comments. Thanks! HistoricMN44 ( talk) 13:47, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Hi All! I'm cancelling my request for changes to this infobox. I've worked with several other people to build a separate infobox directed at proposed legislation so that no changes need to be made to this template (which seems to be designed with enacted legislation. I'll post a link to that template here once we are done with it, in case anyone is interested. Thanks! HistoricMN44 ( talk) 13:34, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm looking for suggestions on the best way to handle legislation (or portions thereof) being declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the Defense of Marriage Act article, I added the following under "Major Amendments":
In the Voting Rights Act of 1965 article, however, I similarly attempted to add:
but it was removed, with the comment: "constitutional interpretations are not legislative amendments".
Now, I understand the difference between legislative and judicial amendments, but IMHO, a declaration of unconstitutionality is still an amendment, and I see no template documentation that narrowly restricts "amendments" only to those of the legislative variety. The only acceptable alternatives would be adding it to the SCOTUS section, or the addition of new parameters to the template that are specific to declarations of unconstitutionality, such as:
|unconstitutional sections = 4(b)
|unconstitutional codified = {{Uscsub|42|1973b|b}}
|unconstitutional date = June 25, 2013
This approach, while it provides for consistent handling of such scenarios, fails when the Court strikes separate sections on separate dates (I have no idea how often this occurs).
I therefore seek thoughts and comments from others. Thanks, — Grollτech ( talk) 17:49, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
United States v. Windsor, 570 U.S. ___ (2013), (Docket No. 12-307)
every decision in which a court interprets a statute, I'm talking about the U.S. Supreme Court, which I believe carries at least some measure of relevance to U.S. legislation, declaring a portion of that legislation to be unconstitutional. Leaving the infobox, which includes the history of the legislation, without any mention whatsoever of the Supreme Court decision is a flat-out lie by omission. George Orwell III, thank you for the example of the Line-Item Veto... did Congress come along after the SCOTUS decision to replace those sections with the words "Omitted"? I think not. I have no problem if consensus is to simply add verbiage to the SCOTUS section, along the lines of:
United States v. Windsor, 570 U.S. ___ (2013), (Docket No. 12-307), in which Section 3 (
1 U.S.C.
§ 7) was
struck down by the Supreme Court on June 26, 2013.
"Voting Rights Act Amendments of 2014 Public Law 110–145, Congress creates a new Section 4(b) in response to Shelby County v. Holder"
? If that same bill were to contain amendments to other provisions, should the infobox also describe the other provisions amended? If we were consistent in these ways, it would make the infobox unwieldy. And I don't see how not including such specific information is a "lie by omission"; if the court case is listed in the appropriate section in the infobox, and discussed in the content of the article, then the relevant information is certainly there, just not in full detail. –
Prototime (
talk ·
contribs)
01:47, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
|SCOTUS cases=
(as you know, there are 18 of them listed in the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 article) to find this out? So much for high-level overview. And where the entire Act was ruled unconstitutional, as in the
Line Item Veto Act, I think we do a disservice to our readers (who are mostly average people, not students of law) to omit that from the infobox. —
Grollτech (
talk)
02:52, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
|statutory notes=
parameter, and think it is a good one. At the end of the day, whether it is noted under |SCOTUS cases=
, |statutory notes=
, or elsewhere makes little difference to me, as long as there is some standard way of handling it. Like I said before, "My main point is that it needs to go somewhere." Thanks. —
Grollτech (
talk)
03:12, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
Second - here's a link to the list of SCOTUS rulings mentioned in that .gov site's notes section. It's complete thru 2002 but you'd have to check the supplements to get that list updated to reflect any additional rulings from 2002 to 2010. -- George Orwell III ( talk) 07:54, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
Let's include excerpts in the infobox when key provisions can be quoted.
For example, the infobox for the WARN Act would include the following lines:
| excerpt1 = An employer shall not order a plant closing or mass layoff until the end of a 60-day period after the employer serves written notice. | excerpt1cite =
Legislation often affects the Code of Federal Regulations as well as the United States Code. For example, the infobox for the WARN Act should include 20 CFR 639 as well as 29 U.S.C. §§ 2101– 2109.
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
68.32.224.49 ( talk) 16:53, 16 March 2014 (UTC) The house vote link is incorrect. It should be:
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/106-1999/h276
The actual tally was 343-86 and six no votes.
The house vote currently on the site is the vote to agree to sending the house and senate bills to confernce committee.
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
The box for Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is misleading, in particular, the section titled "Legislative History". The fact that it passed the House by a vote of 416-0 when it was called the "Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009" is trivial, bordering on irrelevant. There are 6 bullets points, distinctly divided, and because point 3 is "Passed the House on" and point 4 is "Passed the Senate as", to the average reader (who didn't otherwise know) it looks like the ACA itself passed the House 416-0. (Bullet points shouldn't rely on previous bullets points for their meaning.) The factoid that it passed the House 416-0 as the Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009 could/should be included parenthetically in bullet point 1. The section should go like this:
The ACA is a highly partisan, hotly contested bill. The two HISTORIC votes that really mean something are the 60-39 and 219-212. These should be featured most prominently. Trailspark ( talk) 17:41, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
{{
Infobox U.S. legislation}}
. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. That page is
Talk:Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. --
Redrose64 (
talk)
18:00, 29 March 2014 (UTC)I didn't even know they existed until now, but {{ California legislation}} and {{ New York legislation}} could use some help. (There may be other state templates?) A quick Google search for the full name of the NY SAFE Act (a piece of highly publicized New York legislation) shows that both the NY Senate and Assembly have separate bill numbers and websites, and the Senate tracks both on its website, so that will have to be dealt with. I'm still trying to figure out if we will be able to link to the chaptered law.
I think state laws are the next logical step, the current lack of the templates' visibility and usage gives us the ability to "start fresh" instead of dealing with legacy parameters and the like, and the expertise of this template's editors would be greatly appreciated. Int21h ( talk) 04:30, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
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edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
There's a typo in the final Public Law citation on the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangered_Species_Act.
The line that reads
Pub.L. 97–3041, 96 Stat. 1411, enacted October 13, 1982
Should read
Pub.L. 97–304, 96 Stat. 1411, enacted October 13, 1982
I have no idea how templates work, but this is a simple factual error so I figured I'd point it out. 129.174.252.250 ( talk) 14:08, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
{{
Infobox U.S. legislation}}
. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. This will be at
Talk:Endangered Species Act. --
Redrose64 (
talk)
14:33, 3 April 2014 (UTC)This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
This info box is wider than it needs to be. It's wider then most other side info boxes and looks a bit awkward and nonuniform as a result. My request is that this box be narrowed to the width of others. Thank you. Drdpw ( talk) 12:44, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Recently, an editor changed (with this edit [1]) the field that was formerly labeled "Supreme Court cases" to "SCOTUS cases". I request that this field be returned to the label "Supreme Court cases." Lay readers are unlikely to understand what the acronym "SCOTUS" refers to, and they should not be required to click on the wikilink to find out. The term "Supreme Court" is more recognizable and understandable for the average reader. And as far as I can tell, the change was not discussed before it was made. Thanks. – Prototime ( talk · contribs) 00:07, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
Is this resolution suitable for you, Prototime? -- George Orwell III ( talk) 02:32, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
While I'm at it, I'd also like to request that the text under the "Major Amendments" and "United States Supreme Court cases" sections of the template be returned to left-justification. The text under every other section of the template is left-justified, but for some reason, an editor changed the text in those two sections to center-justified (with the same edit as before, [2], again without discussion). The contrast this creates is jarring, and it interrupts the flow of the template. Furthermore, it messes up the use of bullets in those sections to delineate between separate items (e.g., see the "Major amendments" section of the template on the Voting Rights Act of 1965 article). Thanks. – Prototime ( talk · contribs) 05:18, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
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edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
The Legislative History for The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 states "Introduced in the House as H.R. 3103 by Bill Archer (D-TX) on March 18, 1996" Other sources including his own wikipedia page state that William Reynolds Archer was a Republican from 1969 on. Please change his affiliation from D-TX to R-TX. 138.26.199.48 ( talk) 23:35, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Effective date is stated "January 1, 1969" - but this is a year before it became law. Since the text of the law doesn't specify otherwise, NEPA would have become effective when signed: January 1, 1970 Paugus ( talk) 04:30, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
{{
Infobox U.S. legislation}}
. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned.
Jackmcbarn (
talk)
04:33, 14 November 2014 (UTC)This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Passed on the house NOT houe (S missing!) 122.106.68.132 ( talk) 22:04, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
{{
Infobox U.S. legislation}}
. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. Wherever this spelling error occurs, it's not in this template. --
Redrose64 (
talk)
22:49, 5 February 2015 (UTC)This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Remove or Capitalize 'the' on 'the 105th United States Congress' / Grammar. Number203 ( talk) 12:55, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
{{
edit protected}}
template. --
Redrose64 (
talk)
13:25, 26 February 2015 (UTC)I suggest that the template be changed so "Public Law" is abbreviated as "Pub.L.", not "PL" as is currently the case. This could cause confusion with private laws, abbreviated "Pvt.L.". - 98.247.176.218 ( talk) 17:55, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
In this template, if there is a conference report, then it will show that the conference report was passed by one house in passedbody3 and the other house in passedbody4, and there are no further passedbody# parameters for any further actions. But what if one house passes the conference report, but the other house amends it, and then the first house agrees to the amendment? How do you indicate that? -- Spoon! ( talk) 22:13, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
The infobox certainly needs "Repeal date (if the law was repealed), replaced legislation (to name legislation that the current one replaces), replaced by (to name legislation that replaced the current one)" parameters. -- Thinker78 ( talk) 19:20, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
Could we add
|short_description={{short description|United States law|noreplace}}
or
|short_description={{short description|United States legislation|noreplace}}
to the template, to provide a default short description to pages it's on? I've added a lot of short descriptions to US laws. -- Daviddwd ( talk) 01:18, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
@ Daviddwd:, you might want to use {{Edit template-protected}}; also you might find my section below interesting. II | ( t - c) 22:37, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
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edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
As noted by @
Int21h: over at
Template talk:Infobox United States federal proposed legislation, it would be helpful to sync this with
Template:Infobox United States federal proposed legislation. I'm particularly interested in authorizationsofappropriations
at the moment, which is used by
Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017 (because it's erroneously using the proposed template) but not in, say
Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018.
II | (
t -
c)
22:35, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
Is there a rationale for the exceptionally large font size for the short title? 142.161.83.66 ( talk) 04:58, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
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edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
titlestyle
be removed.
142.161.83.66 (
talk)
23:06, 24 October 2019 (UTC){{
edit template-protected}}
template. This title style appears to have been in place for at least the last nine years.
Here's a version from 2010 that has essentially the same size. Please establish a consensus on this talk page to make this change. –
Jonesey95 (
talk)
00:32, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
This workaround is pretty ugly. Is there a better way to display a bill that was introduced simultaneously in the House and Senate? ☆ Bri ( talk) 01:22, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
By my read we're missing dates of committee action. At the least we should have the date a bill is referred to committee and the date of discharge from committee. For a bit more on this see Congress.gov: legislative-glossary: committee activity -- CmdrDan ( talk) 00:57, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
@ Primefac: Merged Template:Infobox United States federal proposed legislation here a couple months ago, which seems mostly fine. But looks like the "introduced in" field from the proposed template is being treated as an alias of "enacted by"? Enacted generally means "made into law", which is not really applicable to proposed legislation. (examples: American Dream and Promise Act, Bipartisan Background Checks Act, Elijah Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, and dozens more)
Some possible resolutions: we could change the wording displayed to "introduced in" across all templates, support both a "enacted by" and "introduced in" field, or pick which words to display depending on some parameter. Any of these options seem fine, my only concern is that implying proposed legislation is "enacted" is a bit misleading. 〈 Forbes72 | Talk 〉 05:08, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
If nobody has any input, I propose we change the text displayed by the template from "Enacted by" to "Introduced in", per above. Keep the underlying parameter name "enacted by=" so nothing breaks. 〈 Forbes72 | Talk 〉 02:54, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
|introducedin=
parameter with no space. Maybe you could tweak the sandbox to show what you actually want?
P.I. Ellsworth -
ed.
put'r there
02:45, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
|introducedin=
and |introduced in=
params I suggest "announced in" or "announced by" rather than "introduced in". Also, you have gotten rid of the |enacted by=
param, which will break a lot of iboxes since this template is not only used for "proposed" legislation. It's also used for done deals too, isn't it?
P.I. Ellsworth -
ed.
put'r there
04:59, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
|enacted by=
param? The test cases I linked above in my sandbox (a proposed bill, a passed bill) both have "|enacted by=" field filled in and they rendered fine under my suggested edit. Afaik, my suggested edit of modifying the bold text while keeping all the parameters the same wouldn't break any pages. I'm not opposed to modifying params, but to keep things simple, my proposal is just to take the line | label5 = Enacted& nbsp;by
and replace it with | label5 = Annouced& nbsp;in
in the template. 〈
Forbes72 |
Talk 〉
01:38, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
|introduced in the=
pram from the legacy proposed templates, hope it looks ok. I had to futz around a bit with the syntax since I don't edit templates too often, but the
current revision seems to ready. 〈
Forbes72 |
Talk 〉
02:35, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
The legislative history section currently has too much bolding. I've tweaked the sandbox so that it no longer bolds words like "on" that aren't as central. Please let me know if it looks good; I'll implement in a few days if there are no concerns. Cheers, {{u| Sdkb}} talk 07:43, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
Reported by the joint conference committee on June 16, 1934; agreed to by the House on June 18, 1934 (agreed) and by the ' on. That's our clue that there are missing parameters. This probably began with this edit back in 2015. Now take a look at the test cases page, where I've included that ibox. Three more parameters were filled in (with untrue example information); the italics have disappeared and the template behaves correctly. All that is needed is for the correct information to be added into the parameters in the ibox on the "Frazier–Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act" page. This template works correctly as long as needed parameters are filled in. P.I. Ellsworth - ed. put'r there 05:15, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
|passedbody4=Rock Island Quartet
|passeddate4=July 4, 1776
|passedvote4=no way in heaven nor hell
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edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Under the "United States Supreme Court cases" section, could a link to
Supreme Court of the United States be added in order for the link to not redirect every time it is clicked? Something like this:
"[[Supreme Court of the United States|United States Supreme Court]] cases" --
Politicsfan4 (
talk)
01:33, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
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edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
This template is missing a parameter where U.S. legislation was put to a vote, but failed. It has only passed. I am hoping that someone can add a parameter so that it says something like Failed the House, or Failed the Senate. Interstellarity ( talk) 18:42, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
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edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Description of suggested change:
In Congress, under the regular order, bills are subject to three rounds of amendment between the Houses (i.e., you can potentially have a Senate amendment to a House amendment to a Senate amendment to a House bill, or a House amendment to a Senate amendment to a House amendment to a Senate bill).
The current infobox only allows for two rounds of amendment, so you can't input information for bills such as the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 or the CHIPS and Science Act in a procedurally accurate way.
At the very least, the infobox should include agreedbody5/agreeddate5/agreedvote5 parameters (and ideally more, to allow for those rare occasions on which the three-round limit is exceeded). Ringwiss1 ( talk) 10:36, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
The article set both public law url
and cite public law
, which the template's documentation doesn't appear to contraindicate, but this results in the "Public law" links in the output getting borked.
Cybercobra
(talk)
04:18, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
public law url
and returning "link-type=html". I'm not familiar with how it's programmed but a Google search shows me Module results. –
The Grid (
talk)
15:22, 26 January 2023 (UTC)There is currently no parameter in this template for the current status of a law. This is included in some other legal wikiboxes including Template:Infobox U.S. State legislation and Template:Infobox UK legislation. I suggest that we add a similar parameter to this infobox along the lines of the U.S. state law infobox for federal laws so that the current status of them can be easily discerned by looking at it. Olumys ( talk) 12:59, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
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edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Description of suggested change: As raised in May 2014 above, this template seems needlessly wide. I see no reason why it shouldn't use the default navbox width.
Testing this change in the sandbox, I see no problems introduced by making this change.
Diff:
− | bodystyle = | + | bodystyle = |
Belbury ( talk) 16:15, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
A small subset of Acts – primarily authorization and appropriation Acts – form an annual series. For example, every year (since 1961) there has been a National Defense Authorization Act. I think for those kinds of annual Acts, it would be a very useful addition to the infobox to have it include links to the predecessor and successor in the annual series.
There is a related phenomenon when sometimes a well-known Act is replaced with a major rewrite. For example, the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 replaced the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, which in turn replaced the Internal Revenue Code of 1939. We potentially could use "succeeds"/"precedes" to handle that case too. (Right now, not in the case of the Internal Revenue Codes specifically, since currently we don't have separate articles for them, just sections in one article, although we could if the article was split up in the future.) This is a slightly different case, because a new fiscal year's Authorization/Appropriation Acts don't technically repeal the prior year's, which remains on the book – most of their provisions only apply to that fiscal year (and hence soon become practically irrelevant even if still technically law), but often provisions get attached which don't directly authorise/appropriate funds and hence can apply in future years too. However, we probably don't need to reflect that technical distinction in the Infobox (although it would simplify mapping the Infobox to Wikidata, where we probably do want to reflect that distinction in different Wikidata properties.)
Please let me know if people are okay with this idea, and if they are, I will suggest and edit. SomethingForDeletion ( talk) 00:29, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
Template:Infobox U.S. legislation is permanently
protected from editing because it is a
heavily used or highly visible template. Substantial changes should first be proposed and discussed here on this page. If the proposal is uncontroversial or has been discussed and is supported by
consensus, editors may use {{
edit template-protected}} to notify an administrator or template editor to make the requested edit. Usually, any contributor may edit the template's
documentation to add usage notes or
categories.
Any contributor may edit the template's sandbox. Functionality of the template can be checked using test cases. |
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Infobox U.S. legislation template. |
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Does anyone know what "Titles amended" refers to? Does this refer to the USC titles that were amended? - Ta bu shi da yu 02:14, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
What do we do with a bill that has not yet been voted on/passed? For example, FAIR USE Act. -- Briguyd 01:02, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't this be updated to use the Template:United States legal citation templates? Currently, a URL to the public law must be given manually, and the Template:USPL and freinds can't be used. What's the way to go about changing this? Int21h ( talk) 04:05, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Because of lack of information in the public, people often think bills before Congress have already become law. The misapprehension is compounded by the way we name articles. Instead of calling something the "X Bill", we call it the "X Act" before it is enacted. Whether that is nonetheless wise is certainly debatable, but editors also use this infobox for bills. Unfortunately, the infobox is wholly unsuitable for bills. In the top section it says, "Enacted by the [Xth United States Congress]" and provides no indication of current status or recent changes in status. These aren't failings, obviously, as this template was never intended to apply to bills. However, the situation needs to be addressed. Is the better solution to amend this template to be more inclusive or to create a new one for bills? - Rrius ( talk) 02:32, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
The box needs parameters for veto and override, for enacted legislation. I did a workaround for a veto/override at Clean Water Act, but the default text displays "Signed into law by President" which is not correct. I suggest the following new parameters:
If possible, it should flag an error if both "signedpresident" and veto/override parameters are entered.
These are the essential parameters. Other parameters could be added for the situation when a bill becomes law without the President's signature, and for a veto situation there could also be a parameter for the date the President returned the bill to Congress. (See
Veto for description.).
Thank you in advance!
Moreau1 (
talk)
20:22, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
The "cite public law = " parameter is not displaying the label. (For example, see Clean Air Act (United States)). Can someone fix? Thanks. Moreau1 ( talk) 05:39, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
I would like to make a few changes to this template to make its name-related fields more reflective of actual usage by legislative drafters and legal researchers. In particular, changes would include:
|name=
, |fullname=
and |acronym=
back, as aliases for |shorttitle=
, |longtitle=
and |colloquialacronym=
, respectively. I see that you already added |nickname=
back, not as an alias to |othershorttitles=
, but in addition as a separate param. Is that intended? Thanks. —
Grollτech (
talk)
13:21, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
|acts amended=
(displays the parameter, but no label)|amendments=
(does not display anything)|acts amended=
. Are you sure about |amendments=
? They show up at the bottom, as in
DOMA. —
Grollτech (
talk)
20:53, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
|amendments=
is working fine. Much appreciated!
Moreau1 (
talk)
01:09, 1 July 2013 (UTC)Hi all! I'm new-ish to Wikipedia, so I don't dare make these changes myself, but I have some ideas for improvements to this template. I'm part of a WikiProject, Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Federal Government Legislative Data, that is focused on getting notable pieces of US legislation up on Wikipedia. A lot of US legislation is notable without ever becoming law (CISPA in the last Congress, the fight against which Wikipedia participated in; potentially the new immigration bill that's getting a lot of media attention, etc). I was hoping some changes could be made in order to make this template more helpful on the pages of legislation that never becomes law.
Please let me know what you think of these proposed changes. I'm excited to see more legislation being posted on Wikipedia where concepts and agencies can be wikilinked to in order to help the general public understand legislation better. I'll watch this page for follow up comments. Thanks! HistoricMN44 ( talk) 13:47, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Hi All! I'm cancelling my request for changes to this infobox. I've worked with several other people to build a separate infobox directed at proposed legislation so that no changes need to be made to this template (which seems to be designed with enacted legislation. I'll post a link to that template here once we are done with it, in case anyone is interested. Thanks! HistoricMN44 ( talk) 13:34, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm looking for suggestions on the best way to handle legislation (or portions thereof) being declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the Defense of Marriage Act article, I added the following under "Major Amendments":
In the Voting Rights Act of 1965 article, however, I similarly attempted to add:
but it was removed, with the comment: "constitutional interpretations are not legislative amendments".
Now, I understand the difference between legislative and judicial amendments, but IMHO, a declaration of unconstitutionality is still an amendment, and I see no template documentation that narrowly restricts "amendments" only to those of the legislative variety. The only acceptable alternatives would be adding it to the SCOTUS section, or the addition of new parameters to the template that are specific to declarations of unconstitutionality, such as:
|unconstitutional sections = 4(b)
|unconstitutional codified = {{Uscsub|42|1973b|b}}
|unconstitutional date = June 25, 2013
This approach, while it provides for consistent handling of such scenarios, fails when the Court strikes separate sections on separate dates (I have no idea how often this occurs).
I therefore seek thoughts and comments from others. Thanks, — Grollτech ( talk) 17:49, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
United States v. Windsor, 570 U.S. ___ (2013), (Docket No. 12-307)
every decision in which a court interprets a statute, I'm talking about the U.S. Supreme Court, which I believe carries at least some measure of relevance to U.S. legislation, declaring a portion of that legislation to be unconstitutional. Leaving the infobox, which includes the history of the legislation, without any mention whatsoever of the Supreme Court decision is a flat-out lie by omission. George Orwell III, thank you for the example of the Line-Item Veto... did Congress come along after the SCOTUS decision to replace those sections with the words "Omitted"? I think not. I have no problem if consensus is to simply add verbiage to the SCOTUS section, along the lines of:
United States v. Windsor, 570 U.S. ___ (2013), (Docket No. 12-307), in which Section 3 (
1 U.S.C.
§ 7) was
struck down by the Supreme Court on June 26, 2013.
"Voting Rights Act Amendments of 2014 Public Law 110–145, Congress creates a new Section 4(b) in response to Shelby County v. Holder"
? If that same bill were to contain amendments to other provisions, should the infobox also describe the other provisions amended? If we were consistent in these ways, it would make the infobox unwieldy. And I don't see how not including such specific information is a "lie by omission"; if the court case is listed in the appropriate section in the infobox, and discussed in the content of the article, then the relevant information is certainly there, just not in full detail. –
Prototime (
talk ·
contribs)
01:47, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
|SCOTUS cases=
(as you know, there are 18 of them listed in the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 article) to find this out? So much for high-level overview. And where the entire Act was ruled unconstitutional, as in the
Line Item Veto Act, I think we do a disservice to our readers (who are mostly average people, not students of law) to omit that from the infobox. —
Grollτech (
talk)
02:52, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
|statutory notes=
parameter, and think it is a good one. At the end of the day, whether it is noted under |SCOTUS cases=
, |statutory notes=
, or elsewhere makes little difference to me, as long as there is some standard way of handling it. Like I said before, "My main point is that it needs to go somewhere." Thanks. —
Grollτech (
talk)
03:12, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
Second - here's a link to the list of SCOTUS rulings mentioned in that .gov site's notes section. It's complete thru 2002 but you'd have to check the supplements to get that list updated to reflect any additional rulings from 2002 to 2010. -- George Orwell III ( talk) 07:54, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
Let's include excerpts in the infobox when key provisions can be quoted.
For example, the infobox for the WARN Act would include the following lines:
| excerpt1 = An employer shall not order a plant closing or mass layoff until the end of a 60-day period after the employer serves written notice. | excerpt1cite =
Legislation often affects the Code of Federal Regulations as well as the United States Code. For example, the infobox for the WARN Act should include 20 CFR 639 as well as 29 U.S.C. §§ 2101– 2109.
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
68.32.224.49 ( talk) 16:53, 16 March 2014 (UTC) The house vote link is incorrect. It should be:
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/106-1999/h276
The actual tally was 343-86 and six no votes.
The house vote currently on the site is the vote to agree to sending the house and senate bills to confernce committee.
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
The box for Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is misleading, in particular, the section titled "Legislative History". The fact that it passed the House by a vote of 416-0 when it was called the "Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009" is trivial, bordering on irrelevant. There are 6 bullets points, distinctly divided, and because point 3 is "Passed the House on" and point 4 is "Passed the Senate as", to the average reader (who didn't otherwise know) it looks like the ACA itself passed the House 416-0. (Bullet points shouldn't rely on previous bullets points for their meaning.) The factoid that it passed the House 416-0 as the Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009 could/should be included parenthetically in bullet point 1. The section should go like this:
The ACA is a highly partisan, hotly contested bill. The two HISTORIC votes that really mean something are the 60-39 and 219-212. These should be featured most prominently. Trailspark ( talk) 17:41, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
{{
Infobox U.S. legislation}}
. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. That page is
Talk:Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. --
Redrose64 (
talk)
18:00, 29 March 2014 (UTC)I didn't even know they existed until now, but {{ California legislation}} and {{ New York legislation}} could use some help. (There may be other state templates?) A quick Google search for the full name of the NY SAFE Act (a piece of highly publicized New York legislation) shows that both the NY Senate and Assembly have separate bill numbers and websites, and the Senate tracks both on its website, so that will have to be dealt with. I'm still trying to figure out if we will be able to link to the chaptered law.
I think state laws are the next logical step, the current lack of the templates' visibility and usage gives us the ability to "start fresh" instead of dealing with legacy parameters and the like, and the expertise of this template's editors would be greatly appreciated. Int21h ( talk) 04:30, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
There's a typo in the final Public Law citation on the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangered_Species_Act.
The line that reads
Pub.L. 97–3041, 96 Stat. 1411, enacted October 13, 1982
Should read
Pub.L. 97–304, 96 Stat. 1411, enacted October 13, 1982
I have no idea how templates work, but this is a simple factual error so I figured I'd point it out. 129.174.252.250 ( talk) 14:08, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
{{
Infobox U.S. legislation}}
. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. This will be at
Talk:Endangered Species Act. --
Redrose64 (
talk)
14:33, 3 April 2014 (UTC)This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
This info box is wider than it needs to be. It's wider then most other side info boxes and looks a bit awkward and nonuniform as a result. My request is that this box be narrowed to the width of others. Thank you. Drdpw ( talk) 12:44, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Recently, an editor changed (with this edit [1]) the field that was formerly labeled "Supreme Court cases" to "SCOTUS cases". I request that this field be returned to the label "Supreme Court cases." Lay readers are unlikely to understand what the acronym "SCOTUS" refers to, and they should not be required to click on the wikilink to find out. The term "Supreme Court" is more recognizable and understandable for the average reader. And as far as I can tell, the change was not discussed before it was made. Thanks. – Prototime ( talk · contribs) 00:07, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
Is this resolution suitable for you, Prototime? -- George Orwell III ( talk) 02:32, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
While I'm at it, I'd also like to request that the text under the "Major Amendments" and "United States Supreme Court cases" sections of the template be returned to left-justification. The text under every other section of the template is left-justified, but for some reason, an editor changed the text in those two sections to center-justified (with the same edit as before, [2], again without discussion). The contrast this creates is jarring, and it interrupts the flow of the template. Furthermore, it messes up the use of bullets in those sections to delineate between separate items (e.g., see the "Major amendments" section of the template on the Voting Rights Act of 1965 article). Thanks. – Prototime ( talk · contribs) 05:18, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
The Legislative History for The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 states "Introduced in the House as H.R. 3103 by Bill Archer (D-TX) on March 18, 1996" Other sources including his own wikipedia page state that William Reynolds Archer was a Republican from 1969 on. Please change his affiliation from D-TX to R-TX. 138.26.199.48 ( talk) 23:35, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Effective date is stated "January 1, 1969" - but this is a year before it became law. Since the text of the law doesn't specify otherwise, NEPA would have become effective when signed: January 1, 1970 Paugus ( talk) 04:30, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
{{
Infobox U.S. legislation}}
. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned.
Jackmcbarn (
talk)
04:33, 14 November 2014 (UTC)This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Passed on the house NOT houe (S missing!) 122.106.68.132 ( talk) 22:04, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
{{
Infobox U.S. legislation}}
. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. Wherever this spelling error occurs, it's not in this template. --
Redrose64 (
talk)
22:49, 5 February 2015 (UTC)This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Remove or Capitalize 'the' on 'the 105th United States Congress' / Grammar. Number203 ( talk) 12:55, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
{{
edit protected}}
template. --
Redrose64 (
talk)
13:25, 26 February 2015 (UTC)I suggest that the template be changed so "Public Law" is abbreviated as "Pub.L.", not "PL" as is currently the case. This could cause confusion with private laws, abbreviated "Pvt.L.". - 98.247.176.218 ( talk) 17:55, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
In this template, if there is a conference report, then it will show that the conference report was passed by one house in passedbody3 and the other house in passedbody4, and there are no further passedbody# parameters for any further actions. But what if one house passes the conference report, but the other house amends it, and then the first house agrees to the amendment? How do you indicate that? -- Spoon! ( talk) 22:13, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
The infobox certainly needs "Repeal date (if the law was repealed), replaced legislation (to name legislation that the current one replaces), replaced by (to name legislation that replaced the current one)" parameters. -- Thinker78 ( talk) 19:20, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
Could we add
|short_description={{short description|United States law|noreplace}}
or
|short_description={{short description|United States legislation|noreplace}}
to the template, to provide a default short description to pages it's on? I've added a lot of short descriptions to US laws. -- Daviddwd ( talk) 01:18, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
@ Daviddwd:, you might want to use {{Edit template-protected}}; also you might find my section below interesting. II | ( t - c) 22:37, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
As noted by @
Int21h: over at
Template talk:Infobox United States federal proposed legislation, it would be helpful to sync this with
Template:Infobox United States federal proposed legislation. I'm particularly interested in authorizationsofappropriations
at the moment, which is used by
Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017 (because it's erroneously using the proposed template) but not in, say
Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018.
II | (
t -
c)
22:35, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
Is there a rationale for the exceptionally large font size for the short title? 142.161.83.66 ( talk) 04:58, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
titlestyle
be removed.
142.161.83.66 (
talk)
23:06, 24 October 2019 (UTC){{
edit template-protected}}
template. This title style appears to have been in place for at least the last nine years.
Here's a version from 2010 that has essentially the same size. Please establish a consensus on this talk page to make this change. –
Jonesey95 (
talk)
00:32, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
This workaround is pretty ugly. Is there a better way to display a bill that was introduced simultaneously in the House and Senate? ☆ Bri ( talk) 01:22, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
By my read we're missing dates of committee action. At the least we should have the date a bill is referred to committee and the date of discharge from committee. For a bit more on this see Congress.gov: legislative-glossary: committee activity -- CmdrDan ( talk) 00:57, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
@ Primefac: Merged Template:Infobox United States federal proposed legislation here a couple months ago, which seems mostly fine. But looks like the "introduced in" field from the proposed template is being treated as an alias of "enacted by"? Enacted generally means "made into law", which is not really applicable to proposed legislation. (examples: American Dream and Promise Act, Bipartisan Background Checks Act, Elijah Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, and dozens more)
Some possible resolutions: we could change the wording displayed to "introduced in" across all templates, support both a "enacted by" and "introduced in" field, or pick which words to display depending on some parameter. Any of these options seem fine, my only concern is that implying proposed legislation is "enacted" is a bit misleading. 〈 Forbes72 | Talk 〉 05:08, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
If nobody has any input, I propose we change the text displayed by the template from "Enacted by" to "Introduced in", per above. Keep the underlying parameter name "enacted by=" so nothing breaks. 〈 Forbes72 | Talk 〉 02:54, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
|introducedin=
parameter with no space. Maybe you could tweak the sandbox to show what you actually want?
P.I. Ellsworth -
ed.
put'r there
02:45, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
|introducedin=
and |introduced in=
params I suggest "announced in" or "announced by" rather than "introduced in". Also, you have gotten rid of the |enacted by=
param, which will break a lot of iboxes since this template is not only used for "proposed" legislation. It's also used for done deals too, isn't it?
P.I. Ellsworth -
ed.
put'r there
04:59, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
|enacted by=
param? The test cases I linked above in my sandbox (a proposed bill, a passed bill) both have "|enacted by=" field filled in and they rendered fine under my suggested edit. Afaik, my suggested edit of modifying the bold text while keeping all the parameters the same wouldn't break any pages. I'm not opposed to modifying params, but to keep things simple, my proposal is just to take the line | label5 = Enacted& nbsp;by
and replace it with | label5 = Annouced& nbsp;in
in the template. 〈
Forbes72 |
Talk 〉
01:38, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
|introduced in the=
pram from the legacy proposed templates, hope it looks ok. I had to futz around a bit with the syntax since I don't edit templates too often, but the
current revision seems to ready. 〈
Forbes72 |
Talk 〉
02:35, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
The legislative history section currently has too much bolding. I've tweaked the sandbox so that it no longer bolds words like "on" that aren't as central. Please let me know if it looks good; I'll implement in a few days if there are no concerns. Cheers, {{u| Sdkb}} talk 07:43, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
Reported by the joint conference committee on June 16, 1934; agreed to by the House on June 18, 1934 (agreed) and by the ' on. That's our clue that there are missing parameters. This probably began with this edit back in 2015. Now take a look at the test cases page, where I've included that ibox. Three more parameters were filled in (with untrue example information); the italics have disappeared and the template behaves correctly. All that is needed is for the correct information to be added into the parameters in the ibox on the "Frazier–Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act" page. This template works correctly as long as needed parameters are filled in. P.I. Ellsworth - ed. put'r there 05:15, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
|passedbody4=Rock Island Quartet
|passeddate4=July 4, 1776
|passedvote4=no way in heaven nor hell
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edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Under the "United States Supreme Court cases" section, could a link to
Supreme Court of the United States be added in order for the link to not redirect every time it is clicked? Something like this:
"[[Supreme Court of the United States|United States Supreme Court]] cases" --
Politicsfan4 (
talk)
01:33, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
This template is missing a parameter where U.S. legislation was put to a vote, but failed. It has only passed. I am hoping that someone can add a parameter so that it says something like Failed the House, or Failed the Senate. Interstellarity ( talk) 18:42, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Description of suggested change:
In Congress, under the regular order, bills are subject to three rounds of amendment between the Houses (i.e., you can potentially have a Senate amendment to a House amendment to a Senate amendment to a House bill, or a House amendment to a Senate amendment to a House amendment to a Senate bill).
The current infobox only allows for two rounds of amendment, so you can't input information for bills such as the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 or the CHIPS and Science Act in a procedurally accurate way.
At the very least, the infobox should include agreedbody5/agreeddate5/agreedvote5 parameters (and ideally more, to allow for those rare occasions on which the three-round limit is exceeded). Ringwiss1 ( talk) 10:36, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
The article set both public law url
and cite public law
, which the template's documentation doesn't appear to contraindicate, but this results in the "Public law" links in the output getting borked.
Cybercobra
(talk)
04:18, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
public law url
and returning "link-type=html". I'm not familiar with how it's programmed but a Google search shows me Module results. –
The Grid (
talk)
15:22, 26 January 2023 (UTC)There is currently no parameter in this template for the current status of a law. This is included in some other legal wikiboxes including Template:Infobox U.S. State legislation and Template:Infobox UK legislation. I suggest that we add a similar parameter to this infobox along the lines of the U.S. state law infobox for federal laws so that the current status of them can be easily discerned by looking at it. Olumys ( talk) 12:59, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Description of suggested change: As raised in May 2014 above, this template seems needlessly wide. I see no reason why it shouldn't use the default navbox width.
Testing this change in the sandbox, I see no problems introduced by making this change.
Diff:
− | bodystyle = | + | bodystyle = |
Belbury ( talk) 16:15, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
A small subset of Acts – primarily authorization and appropriation Acts – form an annual series. For example, every year (since 1961) there has been a National Defense Authorization Act. I think for those kinds of annual Acts, it would be a very useful addition to the infobox to have it include links to the predecessor and successor in the annual series.
There is a related phenomenon when sometimes a well-known Act is replaced with a major rewrite. For example, the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 replaced the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, which in turn replaced the Internal Revenue Code of 1939. We potentially could use "succeeds"/"precedes" to handle that case too. (Right now, not in the case of the Internal Revenue Codes specifically, since currently we don't have separate articles for them, just sections in one article, although we could if the article was split up in the future.) This is a slightly different case, because a new fiscal year's Authorization/Appropriation Acts don't technically repeal the prior year's, which remains on the book – most of their provisions only apply to that fiscal year (and hence soon become practically irrelevant even if still technically law), but often provisions get attached which don't directly authorise/appropriate funds and hence can apply in future years too. However, we probably don't need to reflect that technical distinction in the Infobox (although it would simplify mapping the Infobox to Wikidata, where we probably do want to reflect that distinction in different Wikidata properties.)
Please let me know if people are okay with this idea, and if they are, I will suggest and edit. SomethingForDeletion ( talk) 00:29, 4 June 2024 (UTC)