List of United States federal legislation

This is a long and comprehensive list of Acts of Congress even including those during the Articles of Confederation. It is not complete, but it will grow and evolve over time. It needs some work, but it already has a lot of useful information in it. Please give it a fair review. —Markles 14:01, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Support - Chadlupkes

While we may quibble about the definition of major legislation, I think this article is a very impressive piece of work and deserves recognition. It's also a great starting point for branching off to more comprehensive lists for each Congressional session.

• Support Hmains 00:14, 24 September 2006 (UTC) However, this article is already 65K bytes in size when edited and can only grow larger. How could the list be split into 2 or 3 articles or subarticles, now or in the future? Perhaps a 1801-1900 sub article and a 1901-2000 sub article with the possibility of later breaking at 50 year intervals if any 100 year article itself gets too large.[reply]

  Comment: I agree the article will need to be split into a series of lists by date at some point. Given the size, I feel sooner rather than would be best. Tompw 21:50, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  Comment: I reluctantly concur about splitting. I would really like to have one list because it just makes it easier to find things. But it is getting pretty big. I think splitting should wait at least until the Featured status is resolved and then for some time afterwards (if approved).—Markles 22:19, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Support Covalent 17:37, 24 September 2006 (UTC). Article is well done and represents a lot of research and compilation of data. Kudos to Markles.[reply]

• Comment: My main problem is that list does not have a clearly defined scope. A featured list should be "Comprehensive: Covers the defined scope by including every member of a set" (Wikipedia:What is a featured list?). Either the list intends to list every single Act of Congress (a mammoth task no where near complete yet, and one I wish you the best of luck with); or there is some way of choosing which Acts to include - and there are no stated criteria for inclusion. Which is the case? Tompw 20:04, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  Reply: You know, that's a very good point. I don't know how to define its scope clearly. Can you (or anyone else here) help me us Wikipedia with this?—Markles 20:31, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  Reply: Well... I personally feel that listing every single Act would be over the top, and not really useful a lot of the time. A better option would be to list all Acts for which Wikipedia has articles (more subjectively, maybe also Acts for which it should have articles on, but doesn't yet). Tompw 21:50, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  Discussion continues: That's a good idea. Why don't you incorporate this standard onto the article page. I've created a little blue (#ccffff) wikitable box, which you can change. With this standard in mind, then, do you support featured status?—Markles 22:19, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  Only if you can show that the list is largely complete... It seems you've used everything cited in the "xxth United States Congress" articles.... but is everything from Category:United States federal legislation and all its 30 sub-catergories? Tompw 23:04, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  Actually, it's the other way around. I've copied many/most from this list out to the many Congress articles. And most of the articles from the category & its subcateogries (excepting Category:United States proposed federal legislation).—Markles 01:28, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Support In view fot the above. Tompw 11:52, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• • Support stilltim 02:10, 25 September 2006 (UTC) a useful list and indeed the source of the information on the xx Congress pages.[reply]
• Oppose No clear inclusion criteria, no completeness, not outstanding organization or presentation. Rmhermen 18:57, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose until inclusion criteria are better defined. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ 09:09, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - I agree that the criterion for inclusion needs to be more explicit. A list of "significant" legislation from a US law textbook would be ideal. It is also noticeable that there the list is heavily weighted to recent legislation - are laws made in the last few years really more significant than ones that have lasted 200 years, or have all the old ones been repealed? -- ALoan (Talk) 10:18, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Actually, some time ago I added quite a few entries to the list to make sure it captured every piece of legislation identified in Brian K. Landsberg (ed), Major Acts of Congress, ISBN: 0028657497. My understanding is that the book is authoritative in the field. bd2412 T 14:21, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Great - please would you add that as a reference, and add a sentence explaining the selection in the lead section. Does this list contain many extra ones, on top of the "Major Acts" listed by Landsberg? How were they selected? Is is really the case that there were 18 "major" acts in 2003/4 and 14 so far in 2005/6, but only 17 in the 50 years from 1811 to 1861 (including 13 Congresses that seem to have done nothing of any importance at all)? This is an important list, and there seems to be some progress in sorting out these problems, but the selection criterion and proper referencing are important enough for me to object until they are sorted out. -- ALoan (Talk) 15:36, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• The Acts contained within the article exceed those in the book. First, some Acts not appearing in the book already had articles. Second, the book seemed to me to be weighted towards older legislation, while Wikipedia in general is better with more recent events. Third, the book was published in 2003, and has missed developments since. bd2412 T 01:27, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• support - Very impressive and interesting list. highly useful too. Sotakeit 13:14, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, well-done list! bd2412 T 14:22, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Object per ALoan—selection policy is key. --Spangineer^es (háblame) 04:33, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]