Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Public Policy/Workbench

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Welcome to the workbench for WikiProject U.S. Public Policy! This page enables ambassadors to keep track of all the articles that are being worked on for this course, and to get involved with each other's work. Students, the comments left here should help you improve your article, and you are invited to respond to the comments if you need clarification or other suggestions. The idea is to create a center of activity and a place for good advice for different articles. This page is where everyone can see what other students of [course] are doing. Click here to see a list of changes made recently to the articles listed below.

Students
  • If you have comments and/or questions about a review, please add a response directly below the review for your article.
  • Please check back if you have not yet received a review.
  • If you would like your article reviewed as soon as possible, please add {{n.b.}} right before your article's name in the section header. This will get the attention of reviewers.
  • You may request a re-review of your article, but please be respectful of reviewers' time and other students' needs.
Ambassadors/reviewers

Theories of Culture and Politics

hi Angela, your draft is very well supported by references, great work :o). i would like to make two suggestions for further developments:

1) please consider to adapt the formating standards like bolding the title in the first sentence (so) and use wikilinks to connect your article with the rest of wikipedia

2) i suggest to analyze some additional literature for further expansion of your article. randall m. miller, for example, worked in "The Fabric of Control: Slavery in Antebellum Southern Textile Mills" in The Business History Review, Vol. 55, No. 4 (Winter, 1981), pp. 471-490 with the Barrington King paper collection and provided additional contextuelly historical knowledge for your theme, all best --Jan eissfeldt (talk) 21:46, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi Angela, great start! I've added some pictures to your article. Are you ok with moving the article from your sandbox to the main namespace? That's where the articles reside – and I hope we can get some more feedback once the article "goes live" :-) --Fschulenburg (Public Policy) (talk) 16:34, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

hi, Luckbethislady, your draft is already very well organized. would love to read the rest of it, all best --Jan eissfeldt (talk) 12:53, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Definietly a good start; make sure to nominate it for T:TDYK as soon as it is live (see the guide here for a how-to, and ask me questions if anything is unclear). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 21:00, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

hi Judy, , your article works out some mayor points, well done :o). i would like to make two suggestions for further expansionss so far:

1) please consider to adapt the formating standards like bolding the title in the first sentence (so) and use wikilinks to connect your article with the rest of wikipedia in state of weblinks. you can create a contects automatically

2) it would be best to analyze some scientific literature for further development of your draft. kevin malseed himself published more specific content in "Where There Is No Movement: Local Resistance and the Potential for Solidarity" (Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol. 8 Nos. 2 and 3, April and July 2008, pp. 489–514.) and some contextuell sfuff about - for example - the role of KHRG in thailand was worked out by inge brees in "Refugees and transnationalism on the Thai–Burmese border" (Global Networks, Volume 10, Issue 2, Article first published online: 1 march 2010 at p. 292.) , all best --Jan eissfeldt (talk) 18:38, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

As of this moment this is just a draft of a plan to create an article; no seriously reviewable content yet. I left a comment on the student's talk page concerning the planned gossip section (high chance of it ending unencyclopedic). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 21:04, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

hi Kevin, i read your draft and we replaced the pictures because there was no license since october, 14. i hope that you like the new ones, all best --Jan eissfeldt (talk) 18:50, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

  • maybe it would be a good idea to transform the family history of the founders in a biographical article, write a seperate section the main article about what the hotel claims to stand for and add some stuff about the architecture, all best --Jan eissfeldt (talk) 16:35, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

already live, hx to the author, Hec7 and Piotrus --Jan eissfeldt (talk) 13:07, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I just posted a note encouraging the student to nominate it for T:TDYK. Currently, the article has went through a 5x expansion on the 21 Oct, so it is eligible for nomination till 28 Oct. Please post here if it is nominated! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:56, 22 October 2010 (UTC)


Thank you so much. I would love a review as it is still a work in progress.


Hec7 (talk) 03:13, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

very well :):
  • it would be good to write a sentence about the structural context of the PCUS. 1967 was part of a strong movement-grow process (61 percent between 1946 and 1967, see Roger J. Nemeth and Donald A. Luidens: "Congregational vs. Denominational Giving: An Analysis of Giving Patterns in thePresbyterian Church in the United States and the Reformed Church in America" in Review of Religious Research, Vol. 36, No. 2, Special Issue: Patterns of FinancialContributions to Churches (Dec., 1994), pp. 111-122, p. 119.)
  • there is also valid literature about one of the typical "benchmarks" you have not yet fully developed in the article, homosexuality. jack rogers published "Biblical Interpretation regarding Homosexuality in the Recent History of the PresbyterianChurch (U.S.A.)" in Review of Religious Research, Vol. 41, No. 2 (Dec., 1999), pp. 223-238.
  • it's also important to note that the confession was not entirely a happy sit in. R. Hoge, Everett L. Perry and Gerald L. Klever summed that up directly on the start of there paper at p 116 ("Theology as a Source of Disagreement about Protestant Church Goals and Priorities" in "Review of Religious Research, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Winter, 1978), pp. 116-138") quote:
The present study looks at the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Recently, it has been one of the most conflict-ridden denominations in American Protestantism. Heated disputes have erupted over a series of issues in the last ten years-a new written confession adopted in 1967,...
that's it for now. if you wish i will keep in touch with your progress and if you need one of the articles i recommended or an other one you (maybe) can't find in the library of your university: please feel free to send me a mail and i will try to find a .pdf of it :), all best --Jan eissfeldt (talk) 12:54, 24 October 2010 (UTC)


qua note) => again three points (o:
  • first of all the general feedback to your first post review part: once again great work. your engagement motivated me immediatly to take an entire close look into your topic & source code. as you can see here, I'm not yet through all you have achieved so far ;O)
  • scheduling of periods and social action: please consider the option to write something explicit instead of "In recent years", "these times", and so on. i have started to replace some of the formulations bit I would feel uncomfortable to keep doing this without your (positive) feedback. the arguemtns: 1) the common reader'll be gratefull for something concrete (or at least as concrete as factually justifiable) 2) precision rules the empire (my pov)
  • in this context a question about the quotation of Peter Schaff: why do you used him instead of more important theologicans (the source aside) or summed his point up? his position is quite common in the continental european debates pre 1848 and if he is the best bet arround (can be) => maybe more context(?).
the review of this version continues tomorrow :), all best --Jan eissfeldt (talk) 14:59, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


  • as you can see here I finished my source code clean up and tried to transform the quote in a propper contextualized statement which uses schaff as an example. it's not perfect but please take a closer look into it
  • i reformulated only one main period schedule (in "Theological Implications")
  • one point: it is not always clear whether the text is reffering to "THE" church as a theological or the "CHURCH" as a social institution. however, i dealed with the conflict of Biblical inerrancy in the section about Revelation by puttung a "(Historical criticism)"-note in the text, all best --Jan eissfeldt (talk) 16:35, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

hi Onnolee, i reviewed your quite detailed article, good job :o). i would recommend to organize the data, which you don't want to transform in text, in tables rather than in lists, all best --Jan eissfeldt (talk) 13:16, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jraytram/Sandbox, I should have the full article done tomorrow

This is an ambitious project, but you seem to be well underway. I look forward to seeing what you do with it; your plans seems excellent.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 02:04, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

And it's live, as of Sunday evening. I plan to make more additions, but this is what I have for now. --Jeremy

hi Yesul, as long as i can say now you already summarized all key tags of this institution and used the wikipedia syntax pretty good :) but i think that it would be best to present the content rather as text than as a group of lists, all best --Jan eissfeldt (talk) 19:01, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Looks like a good start, I left comments 3 days ago at User talk:Joko123nm and I am waiting for a reply. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:57, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

This is currently only a statement of intent to work on it; I've left comments on User talk:Smj39 three days ago and I am awaiting a reply. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:58, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Introduction to Study of Arab World

Wow, this is an impressive article. I'm neither a public policy expert nor do I know a lot about the Arab World. As a "normal" reader I would suggest to add some pictures to the the text (like this one). Pictures provide context and make the article more lively. That's one of the first things I had to learn when I started writing Wikipedia articles in 2005. I hope this helps. --Fschulenburg (Public Policy) (talk) 21:48, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Homosexuality (Section 8.5, History, The Middle East)

Hi. You stopped into IRC briefly but left before I could reply. Your article looks good so far, upon a quick run-through. A few minor suggestions:

  • Citations should go after the period at the end of a sentence.
  • Link the first instance of any topic mentioned that readers are likely to want to know about (even if an article doesn't exist yet).
  • You have a couple of long quotes from secondary sources that are used because they are eloquent, rather than uniquely important. Generally, the preferred approach on Wikipedia is to summarize that kind of thing.

Keep up the good work!--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 21:20, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

speaks for itself :) --Jan eissfeldt (talk) 16:57, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

hi Anny, i reviewed your very(!) elaborated article. i would like to point out that it would improve your work even more if you adapt the formating standards like bolding the title in the first sentence (so) and use wikilinks to connect your article with the rest of wikipedia. a point to your last point: i would limit (or rename) your comparative part to the countries, which were unter french colonial administration. north africa as a geographical term is larger than the comparable socio-cultural structures you are interested in, all best --Jan eissfeldt (talk) 13:26, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

sandbox draft

Media, Politics and Power

Seminar In Intervention

First Kashmir War (Indo-Pakistan War of 1947)

Pashtun national identity

Wikipedia and Public Policy

This is an excellent article. The suggestions I have for improving it are:

  • Explain a bit more about the context; rather than just linking Baehr v. Lewin, explain briefly why it's relevant.
  • If there is any more information about why the initial request for a marriage license was denied, that would be good to add.
  • In the background section, it's not clear what the difference, if any, between marriage code and marriage statute are. It says the marriage code (which marriage code? a footnote to the code would be good here) was gender-neutral, but that Brause and Dugan wanted the marriage statute (likewise, which statute?) declared unconstitutional. Links to newspaper of coverage of the statute amendment would be good here.
  • The timeline of the background section could be made clearer. It starts in 1995, and then has no more mention of dates until 1998.
  • I'm unclear about "the marriage law constituted sex discrimination" argument from the state. Which marriage law, and how did it constitute sex discrimination? I thought this was the law the state was trying to uphold.
  • Explicit mention of titles, and links (even if the articles don't exist yet), would be good for all the cases discussed in the background section.
  • "As Republicans controlled the Twentieth Alaska Legislature, the Constitutional amendment passed with a vote of 42 yeas to 18 nays". That explanation should be either removed, or cited to a source that explicitly discusses Resolution 42 as a Republican issue, since the article says little about parties before this. It also looks like that tally combines the House and Senate votes, which doesn't make sense to me.
  • I don't see how quoting the description "overwhelmingly approved" adds much to the article. If it's to stay, though, I would suggest explicitly attributing it to whomever is being quoted.
  • I'm curious to know, if such info is available, a) more detail about the campaign, and what debate about the issue was like leading up to the vote, and b) how (if at all) Ballot Measure 2 relates to other defense of marriage amendments and the national-level politics of same-sex marriage.

--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 17:40, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

hi Peter, i just reviewed your article. it's quite difficult to write something solid on a topic of this area without available scientific papers, good job :) --Jan eissfeldt (talk) 18:14, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

  • Is currently approved for DYK :) sonia 05:54, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

hi Hayes, i reviewed your article, a fully developed basic encyclopedia entry, good work! i recommend to pick up an other aspect of geosocial networking: technology and cost efficiency. dexter h. hu, cho-ji wang and yinfeng wang just published a paper about that in lecture notes in computer science: "GPS Calibrated Ad-Hoc Localization for Geosocial Networking" (LNCS, 2010, Volume 6406/2010, 52-66, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-16355-5_7). an additional point: especially european administrations and a lot of other player are very concerned about this theme and it would be cool to use that as an other example, all best --Jan eissfeldt (talk) 18:50, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Intellectual Property Law for the Information Industries

This is a great start; it'll be a solid candidate for DYK (for which I'm leaving instructions on the talk page). The first thing I would suggest would be to expand the lead, to make clear in plain terms what the outcome of the case was. The next thing I would look for is more context for the case: why is it significant, and what have its ramifications been? Are there other related cases that happened later, building on the outcome?

In the section about the Lanham Act, it would be good to have a quick summary of how the Lanham Act is relevant and what it says.

There are a number of direct quotes in the article; be sure to give detailed citations for those, so readers can find out exactly where the quotes come from. --Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 19:50, 22 October 2010 (UTC)


Politics of Piracy

Nota bene*==== Secure Federal File Sharing Act ====

Urban Economic Development

There is discussion on the talk page of this article which suggest the article should be merged into Urban development in Detroit. My76Strat 00:41, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

This is an excellent start; it concisely defines the topic, and gives a good overview of some of the main issues (place-based vs. sector-based vs. combined). The first things that I would want to see more information about would be the scope of workforce development efforts (how common is this? how much money is put into it?) and the politics of it (what have the political discussions around workforce development been like?).

More inline citations would also be good, particularly to back up the parts about the different strategies and division of workforce development into those categories rather than other ones. If that gets done within the next few days, the article would be a great candidate for the "Did you know" section of the main page. For more details on how to make that happen, see {{DYK new}}.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 18:33, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

would be great to work out something about the results and reception. Kathleen M. Shaw and Sara Rab, for example, checked some stuff in "Market Rhetoric versus Reality in Policy and Practice: The Workforce Investment Act and Access to Community College Education and Training" in Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 586, Community Colleges: New Environments, New Directions (Mar., 2003), pp. 172-193, all best --Jan eissfeldt (talk) 17:14, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Grassroots Politics and Public Policy