Wikisource talk:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases

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[edit] preliminary work

The first things to do are:

  • design a basic wikiproject wiki to post at top of concerned pages. this tells people that the pages are current subject to dramatic changes and encourages them to participate
  • agree on basic style guidelines
    • is naming convention acceptable for adoption across all pages
    • how should headings look on pages should they look just like the rest of the pages or should they be bold and/or centered
  • finish wikiproject page to open for business and post on wikiproject index (whereever that is)

--Metal.lunchbox 04:00, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the headings look better centered and bold and it makes it easier to read.--Metal.lunchbox 04:18, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] linking cases

I'd like to propose that all cases be double listed in Wikisource under their common case name (as they are currently and under their citations which would redirect to the case. This would make wikifying the articles much simpler. All one who need to do is bracket in the citation. This also makes it so that people can easily find cases even if they don't know how they are written here at wikisource. Tinker v. Des Moines or Tinker et al. v. Des Moines school district or someting else. you get the point. If anyone disagrees tell me. --Metal.lunchbox 05:19, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think this is a good idea. Even though I think the titles "Plaintiff v. Defendant" should be standardized, I think creating these redirects would be beneficial anyway.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 23:46, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category

I know we are adding these cases to the category for US Supreme Court decisions but do we also need to add all the concurrent opinions and dissent opinions seperately. Instead of just having each one being add to the category and making it look more cluttered. --Wabbit98 11:05pm 13 Decmeber 2006 (PST)

that's a very good point. We can easily change this by removing the category link to USSCcase2. That way only the main page with the sylabus will be listed. As far as clutter it certainly make a big difference but I'm not sure if it makes sence. I mean shouldn't those pages be categorized? The rest of wikisource seems to function as you are describing, only one category listing no matter how many subsections. I'll remove the category link form the template. Thanks--Metal.lunchbox 20:38, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure I'm following this discussion very well, but I'll add my opinion. I think only the "main" page for each court case should be categorized. This will make maximal usage of the (mediocre) category system, as people will only see the titles of the court cases and not all the subpages of those cases; this would be a more "common-sensical" approach, as most people would be browsing the category for the cases themselves and not individual rulings of those cases.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 23:46, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
This is done. --Metal.lunchbox 20:15, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] links to wikipedia or wikisource?

when wikifying pages should the cases referenced on these wikisource pages link to wikipedia articles about them or directly to wikisource pages? I say we should go to wikipedia 1. Wikipedia has more and so we're more likely to get a decent link 2. its logical to lead readers to encyclopedia articles for a little understanding of the concepts put forth in referenced cases. we can then make sure that the wikipedia articles link clearly to wikisource pages.--Metal.lunchbox 22:08, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

As well we do not have many pages on Wikisource that we could reference anyway at this time. How about redirecting from Wikipedia to Wikisource on the cases we do have up already like Furman v. Georgia and the Connecitcut one. -- Wabbit98 2:13pm 14 December 2006 (PST)

well at wikipedia they've got a template that automatically searches for pages at findlaw.com. Lets get a few decent cases going and then see if we can't convince somone active with that template to aim to wikisource. In the mean time I'll just put one of those silly {{Wikisource}} things on the page--Metal.lunchbox 22:34, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Could we manually change some of them like Furman and Griswold? --Wabbit98 1:13pm 15 December 2006 (PST)

I disagree. I think if a court case references another case, we should make internal links (links to the case here on WS). If we at the time do not have the case, then adding the internal links might spur its creation more readily. This actually falls under the grid of "how do we differentiate ourselves from other libraries": one of the ways I've noticed that we can stand out is by internal linking. Many places do not link to documents that are referenced in another work. If WS did so, it would help stand itself out (besides, if a court case is referenced in another one, the other person might want to read what the text actually says--similar to they would want to know what a concept/word is if they read it on Wikipedia).

The header can provide introductory material from WP and link to WP (which is standard if there is a related page existing on WP), but I think outside of the header, most links should be internal.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 23:51, 15 December 2006 (UTC)


Zhaladshar I am not to familiar on how to link within WS. I know how to link something from here to WP, but within WS. --Wabbit98 3:55pm 15 December 2006 (PST)
  • link inside wikisoure = [[Furman v. Georgia]]
  • link to wikipedia = [[w:Furman v. Georgia]] without the "w:" all links will be internal.
There's a million links to be done and I think we need some consistancy about wiksource v. wikpedia 796 U.S. 24 (2010) before we get involved in the wikifying. Personally I think it's easier when reading to see a brief article about a referenced work cited in a case because they cite cases (esp. more recently) about once every two or three sentences. Of course, as i belive you are suggesting, Zhaladshar, easier is not always/usually better. I see no compelling reason to adopt a clear policy for either one above the other so it will come down to what most people here think we should do. In the mean time I'll be reformatting not linking.--Metal.lunchbox 20:24, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


Also another thing is are we going to add just certain main cases or eventually every single opinion. Right now we are just busy, me and Metal.lunchbox with just reformatting what we have. So that needs to be talked about, every opinion or just certain opinions. --Wabbit98 8:20pm 16 December 2006 (PST)
I'd suggest we concentrate on reformatting what we've got for now. Of course that's not to stop anyone from adding some cases. There's no reason the supreme court case index can't have many many more cases. once we're done bringing the pages we have up to speed we can start adding. Even if we just add select cases there's still plenty to choose from. If theres a case you'd like to see here just add it.
Metal.lunchbox: The biggest reason I have for keeping internal linking is that WS wants people to use these pages for research purposes. We want them to look us up for the texts they are writing papers about/collecting for a presentation/etc., and if we keep with internal links, the person doing the research can actually read the source texts that are referenced in a work they are reading and can get a better understanding of the actual source text without having to rely on just a summary statement of the work.
However, this does not mean that they can't get just a couple-line summary. In the headers, there is a note parameter, where we are supposed to add an excerpt from WP which collects a summary of the most important/relevant information about a particular source text. So, keeping with internal linking, a reader does get the summary statement but also gets the source text itself. If a reader wants something more indepth, he can easily click the link in the {{wikipediaref}} to read all about the text on WP. I see internal linking as killing two birds with one stone.
Wabbit98: WS strives to collect complete texts. That means we want to have all the opinions of a court case, regardless of how minor/unimportant it is. This does mean more work for the contributor, but if they don't want to add the complete text, they should add {{incomplete}} to the page so another can add it.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 16:16, 26 December 2006 (UTC)


Okay I am having issues linking cases within Wikisource. In a couple like Roe v. Wade and a few others in the syallbus and the opinions they mention cases we already have but when I go to link them it shows that these cases do not exist in Wikisource when they clearly do. Obviously I am doing something wrong. -- Wabbit98 2:52pm 26 December 2006 (PST)

Could you show me a page where this problem is exhibited? I might be able to help if I can see it.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 20:36, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

When should we start changing the links at Wikipedia so that they go here to the opnions themselves? Also how is it done, because I know I am going to screw it up. -- Wabbit98 10:56pm 11 Janurary 2007 (PST)

In theory it isn't difficult but what they are using a very sophisticated template which links directly to Findlaw, a commercial site. personally I think that's a horrible idea because, 1. not all the cases are present on findlaw, 2. findlaw is a commercial site, and 3. we've got an awesome collection on wikisource that gets automatically overlooked. I propose that we ignore the template problem for now because I don't know how to and have no authority to be changing the template. What we can do though is to change the little links at the end of the pages that ironically also link to findlaw. I think we should replace those with a link to wikisource. I say we do it exactly like this. It's small, simple, and it works.--Metal.lunchbox 07:26, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

After a brief chat with the folks over at the Wikipedia SCOTUS project. I think we should deal with wikipedia articles linking to wikisource like Schenck v. United States using the {{wikisource-inline}}. under "External links" subsection. The talk page for the template explains how to use it.--Metal.lunchbox 16:03, 14 January 2007 (UTC) --Metal.lunchbox 16:03, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] United States v. U.S. District Court

Thanks for putting in all of the work on these Supreme Court text files. I have long wanted a text companion to this page I started. I was wondering if you would consider changing or modifying how you put the wikisource link on the wikipedia page. I would propose using the {{wikisource}} notification icon {{wikisource:United States v. United States District Court}} instead of/in addition to the {{wikisource-inline}} link you are currently using. I have read the comments on the project page. I first stumbled upon wikisource after noticing the icon on a wikipedia page. It jumped right out at me, so to speak. The better we inform others of the availability of wikisource material related to the articles they are reading, the more informed the reader will become. That seems to occur best if they notice the wikisource icon sooner rather than later. Sometimes people just don't linger on a wikipedia page long enough to absorb all of the quality information. Its a tag that has more eyeball grabbing power.Jmcneill2 10:16, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] pages, sections, parts ?

I'm trying to edit Furman v. Georgia/Concurrence Marshall and I'd like to break it up with his introduction on the first page, and the sections I,II,III etc on seperate pages. on the header link I don't know what to call these. is it section I, part I, § I? this page is much too long and we should establish a common way of referring to different sections that is inline with standards. I suspect that "§ I" is the way to go--Metal.lunchbox 22:27, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


I think Part I or saying Section I would be better than § I. Using § I sounds like we are quoting US Code instead. --Wabbit98 3:37pm 14 December 2006 (PST)

This should be pointed out but in the orginal documents, other cases are in italics and I have been trying to make sure they are put in italics when I copy them over. So just be careful of that so we know which cases they are citing in their actual work. I also bold whatever was bold as well. --Wabbit98 3:40pm 14 December 2006 (PST)

Yeah the symbol's a bit imcomprehensible to. Let's go with section. I just believe that it helps to have standards. Section I it is--Metal.lunchbox 06:10, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

It is getting difficult to deal with the long opinions. Take a look at Reynolds v. Sims. Two of those opinions are long. How would the template look like though? --Wabbit98 11:06pm 14 December 2006 (PST)


Is there a length at which point we should spilt up the sections into seperate pages? --Wabbit98 3:15pm 15 December 2006 (PST)

I don't think ther is a length at a which we should split If the opinion seems very long and already has good divisions then break it up. I did that with Marshall's opinion in Furman v. Georgia. Other long pages can be broken up in a similar fashion--Metal.lunchbox 20:14, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

There are advantages to having a long page instead of several short pages. Its less confusing, harder to get lost, easier to search, etc. however there as some that are clearly just too long, very hard to read and harder to edit. use your discretion. if you are annoyed by the length of a given decision just break it up. err on the side of keeping long pages--Metal.lunchbox 02:59, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I looked at the opinion of the court for Reynolds v. Sims. I'm not sure how big the original opinion is (i.e., not split up), but I think if it's smaller than 150 kb, there is no real need to split it up. However, if the text is going to be split like it is, subpage notation should still be used. So, instead of Reynolds v. Sims/Opinion of the Court I and Reynolds v. Sims/Opinion of the Court II it should be Reynolds v. Sims/Opinion of the Court/I and Reynolds v. Sims/Opinion of the Court/II to keep in standard with the page naming conventions WS has adopted. If no one objects I'll make the page moves.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 16:22, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't agree with the 150k thing for the following reason. I don't have a top of the line computer and use internet access where I can get it, When I open a page of more than about 80k to edit it is very difficult not only to navigate but to process, very slow. I do however agree that we should err on the side of keeping pages together. I just broke up a few pages that I was having difficulty editing. As for the naming convention I have no reason to think that putting broken up pages in a subdirectory is either a good idea or a bad idea. I just organized it in a way that made sense to me. If you think that is a better way to do things then by all means go ahead. And I'll use that as a reference in the future if/when I decide to break up some more pages. Thank you--Metal.lunchbox 19:20, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
actually adding another subdirectory adds another level of complexity. It would mean that we would have to add another template USSCcase3 or somehow magically make one template to support all three direcotry levels. I prefer simplicity but I also think that the SCOTUS section should generally conform to the wikisource norm. There is nothing particularly challenging about making another template but it's just one more thing to go wrong in what should be a very simple process, adding a document. wikisoure is already very difficult to use for those not familiar, why make it any harder?--Metal.lunchbox 23:04, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Let the header take care of linking to pages at that level. There really isn't any need to make USSCcase link to every single page (or subpage) for each case. I think so long as it links to the pages for concurrence and dissent, that's fine. It doesn't have to link to subpages of each dissent/concurrence.
For example, suppose we are on the page John v. Jane/Opinion of the Court/I (because the opinion is so large it must be split up). I would imagine the header would look like
    {{header
    | title    = [[../../]]
    | author   = Some justice
    | section  = Opinion of the Court, Part I
    | previous = 
    | next     = [[../II|Part II]]
    | notes    = 
    }}
And then we could place USSCcase2 on this page which would link back to the Opinion, and the different opinions by other justices. Any thoughts?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:54, 30 December 2006 (UTC)


I like what Metal.lunchbox did in the Marshall opinion in Furman v. Georgia. If you take a look at that header it spilits it up where you can still go to the other opinions as well. -- Wabbit98 8:38am 30 December 2006 (PST)
Actually I wasn't suggesting changing the template to show all of the subpages but a third template would be needed if we put the section pages in a subdirectory, because the links would be broken. It's not complicated. "../" would have to be "../../", etc. Personally I think the little navigation bar i did at the top of Marshall opinion in Furman v. Georgia works well, small and legible and uncomplicated. I'm just not wild about putting the sections in a subdirectory. I think we should make things less complicated instead, that is some of the shorter sections should be consolidated onto one page. For the momment I'm just going to avoid this issue by not splitting anything ever. --Metal.lunchbox 19:33, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Could the problem not be solved merely by adding "../Whatever" instead of just "Whatever" to the template parameters? That way, USSCcase2 could still be used and it would only take a small amount of extra typing to get the links to work? I understand what your problem is (I didn't know what you meant, but I see the possible problem you were talking about), and am wondering if this possible solution would suffice. Ideally, if it does, we could only use one template and just add the necessary amount of "../" to the parameters.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 21:58, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] US Supreme court page

The Case law page is super long and if we are going to be adding to the supreme court section which is already pretty substanial perhaps we should put it on a seperate page. That would allow the cases to link directly back to the US Supreme court page instead of to the case law jungle--Metal.lunchbox 23:29, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


I agree with that; it already seems overcrowded with just the few cases that are there right now. --Wabbit98 3:30pm 14 December 2006 (PST)

What shall we call it though. I thought wikisource:US Supreme Court is that good?--Metal.lunchbox 06:11, 15 December 2006 (UTC)


That sounds good to me. Time to edit what we have now. --Wabbit98 11:05pm 14 December 2006 (PST)

New United States Supreme Court case index page. I used that name because wikipedia titles their page that way. eventually we'll have to come up with some kind of scheme to organize them beyond just a long list but it works just fine for the momment--Metal.lunchbox 20:10, 15 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Cases

I have been thinking about what cases we can add to the list after we are done reformatting and how it might be organized further. First, I believe we should defintly have the cases that are listed on the Wikipedia site first and the landmark ones as well. After that we should just go from there and add whatever cases we want to add. In terms of organization, you can do it a couple of different ways; by year and/or by whoever the Chief Justice is. So if people what to search by the Chief Justice to see what cases he was involved in, they can do that and if they want to search just by year to see what cases were decided that year; that can be done as well. This is just my two cents. --Wabbit98 8:57 am 18 December 2006 (PST)

Currently we have so few cases that some chief justices only presided over one or two and others a dozen or so. This of course will change as we add more cases. with more cases it makes good sense to organize the cases choronologically by who's running the court. THis is simple enough to achieve. I think you've got the right idea about cases to add. keeping up with wikipedia will keep us busy into the next decade. The other logical ways of browsing the cases are by author and by subject matter. With each opinion listing its author we can easily make author pages for each judge all to be included in a category of Supreme Court Judges. We could have a simple link to the category page on the SCOTUS index page. easy enough. organizing cases by subject is very diffucult and the wiki format doesn't make this very practical. As this goes we should just respect the interlinking that the cases already do and try to add linked cases to the template whenever possible. --Metal.lunchbox 20:53, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of organization, what do you think of this →user:Metal.lunchbox/Sandbox. Do you think this kind of sortable table is a useful way of organizing the cases? I can see how it would be useful but it could also just steepen the learning curve that much more, discouraging people from contributing.--Metal.lunchbox 22:09, 18 December 2006 (UTC)


Yeah we are going to be busy just keeping up with Wikipedia but we are making progress in reformatting the cases we have. In one of the few remaining red links on the Supreme Court page, I believe the Regents one. Looking at the source we are using there is a Justice who concurs in part and dissents in part. So how would we label that in the header, he is not fully concurring with the decision but he is also not dissenting fully as well. That organization might have to wait until we have more cases up and are fully working. It would still help if we got another person helping on this. But yes reformatting will take some time of the cases we have, but it looks like we are both getting better at it and it is going quicker now than before. I will not be able to update anything for the next few days as this is finals time at college, I will be back to updating on Wednesday night.--Wabbit98 2:16pm 18 December 2006 (PST)

The second table on the sandbox page is a table based on organizing by chief Justice. I kinda like the idea and its a hell of a lot less complicated than the sortable table. look at them both, tell me what you thnk. Yeas we could definitely use a few more voices/helping hands. I'll propose something for the concurring/dissenting issue and we can deal with that in time. Great work by the way. Dunno how you can find the time with the impending doom of finals so close.--Metal.lunchbox 22:36, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

My vote is for the chief justice table. its more flexible and easier to manage and understand.--Metal.lunchbox 17:44, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

My vote if we decide to use a table in the future with more cases is the chief justice table as well. -- Wabbit98 9:53am 19 December 2006 (PST)


Taking a look at the table should we use the name or number? I prefer name over number. -- Wabbit98 2:09pm 19 December 2006 (PST)

Concur in part and dissent in part should be handled as "Concurrence/Dissent [Author's last name]" That is what makes the most sense to me. If you have a better idea please share it. --Metal.lunchbox 14:49, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Scratch that, Concurrence/Dissent is a really bad idea, makes it a subdirectory. how about "Concurrence-Dissent [Author's last name]"?--Metal.lunchbox 03:00, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

How about instead have it say "Concur in part and Dissent in part" and can be added the the USScase template if needed. -- Wabbit98 8:19pm 25 December 2006 (PST)

I've already added this to the template. parameter is "concurrence-dissent_author1 = " and the files will be named similarly "Concurrence-dissent [author's last name]". I chose this format because it's meaningful but short. We can can alter this as much as you like though see as how none of the pages yet use this. "Concur in part and Dissent in part" may be the most acurate but it's quite longer.--Metal.lunchbox 00:03, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] template placement

So the Template for the Project {{WikiProject USSC}} is to go on the talk pages. That seems kinda useless so If you feel like omitting the wikiproject template altogether so be it.--Metal.lunchbox 20:07, 22 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] New York Times v. United States

Metal.lunchbox could you take a look at that case. There are 6 concurring opinions and 3 dissenting. In the navigation bar on the right it only shows 5 conurring even though I expanded the USScase template to include all 6. -- Wabbit98 12:22pm 23 December 2006 (PST)

Fixed USSCcase and USSCcase templates to support up to 8 concurrences. its showing up now in New York Times v. United States--Metal.lunchbox 02:57, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] concurrence-dissent

As you can see on the main page for this project and the page for {{USSCcase}}, I 've redesigned the template to make it a little more streamlined and readable for cases with many opinions and added support for opinions partly in concurrence and partly in dissent. The pages will be called "Concurrence-dissent [Author]". In the next few minutes I'll do the same for {{USSCcase2}}--Metal.lunchbox 22:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I've added more magic to the template. It now does plural/singular agreement and excludes the link cases cell if there aren't any linked cases. This means won't be confused by S's and less pointless info distracting from the content.--Metal.lunchbox 23:59, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re-design?

I see a lot of the cases are being redesigned in the template. Why are we changing it to this way and is it easier? I am not complaining about it just curious. -- Wabbit98 4:25pm 28 December 2006 (PST)

hmm. I'm not sure I understand your question. All the pages using the templates should now look a little diferent. I thought it was simpler smaller and easier to read/navigate this way. It was very easy and can always be changed back. That's why I started this project by designing a template, no matter how many pages use the template I only have to change the template page once and voila! Of course if you have any ideas about how to improve the template go ahead or if you don't feel comfortable altering the template make a suggestion either here or on the template's talk page.--Metal.lunchbox 23:39, 29 December 2006 (UTC)


Maybe I didn't explain it very well. Eariler this week all the reformatted cases had like the following :

Opinion of the court

Concurring {name of the Justice)

Concurring (name of the Justice)

Concurring (name of the Justice)

Dissent (name of the Justice)

Dissent (name of the Justice)

With each one as its own seperate page and the authors last name under each one. Now it looks like this :

Opinion of the court

Concurring (name in red or blue)

Dissent (name of the justive in red or blue)

Hopefully this is clearer in what I am talking about

[edit] a few pages that still need the basics

There's been a whole lot of work done. To complete phase one of this wikiproject all the cases presented on the index page should conform to the basic style conventions we've developed. This means making sure that the cases are complete and divided and named as they should with Header and USSCcase/USSCcase2. There are only a few cases left that need this:

I'm forgeting about the Judith Miller case, because it's just such a different kind of document and frankly I don't understand it.

After this Phase one business we can move onto more interesting things, like adding tons of new cases to the index, adding author pages for all the justices, adding redirects from citation numbers etc.--Metal.lunchbox 22:08, 31 December 2006 (UTC)


Miranda v. Arizona has all the text. Most of the rest I can not find at the Cornell site I have been using. I have been working on reformatting and adding a few cases here and there. -- Wabbit98 3:20pm 3 Janurary 2006 (PST)


I can not find New York v. Connecticut (1798) opinions at the Cornell site as well or the other early ones in red right now. If you want to chat live I am on the #wikisource channel on IRC whenever I am on Wikisource. Never mind I found Chislom v. Georgira -- Wabbit98 9:37pm 3 Janurary 2006


[edit] Regents of University of California v. Bakke

Could you take a look at this one at http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0438_0265_ZS.html there are seperate opinions I do not know off hand if they are Concurring or Dissenting, might need to make a few changes to the template. It is an ugly looking case. -- Wabbit98 9:57pm 3 January 2006 (PST)

Well, I ran into this issue yesterday when I looked at Dred Scott v. Sandford. I was also using the cornell page as a reference. several of the concurring opionions are "seperate." To be honest I don't properly understand the distinction myself. They signed on to the opinion of the court and then wrote really wordy seperate opinions. That sounds like the same thing as concurrence to me, but that's just my own ignorance. I suppose we should expand the template to support "seperate opinions" in the same fashion as the other three categories, but I'm really not going to do anything until I properly understand what a "seperate opinion" is.--Metal.lunchbox 08:19, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe email a law professor and ask him or her. -- Wabbit98 12:45am 6 Janurary 2006 (PST)


Looking at some of the historic opinion I think we are going to need to add a Seperate opinion line or 3 since many of those at least have one Seperate opinion. It does not categorize them into Consent/Dissent or any other way. Going to make the template even longer now. -- Wabbit98 12:14am 7 Janurary 2007 (PST)

Template now supports separate opinions which are listed after Concurrences, Dissents and Concurrence-dissent. see Dred Scott v. Sandford --Metal.lunchbox 15:36, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


Thanks for adding them. Those cases with these seperate opinions are going to be monsters. -- Wabbit98 3:36pm 15 Janurary 2007 (PST)

[edit] New User

Great to hear that someone else is interested in this project. I assure you that we all find the learning curve at wikisource to be rather steep. That said, take a look at the wikiproject page under "Style Manual" for an idea of how the court decision pages should look. The page may seem a little hard to understand, but all the case pages are basically the same so when in doubt just copy and paste from another case. Any questions or issues just ask here or on the talk page of one of the users participating in the project. To give you an idea where we are, most of what we are doing is adding cases to the index. If you don't know what cases to add you could take one from the list below. --Metal.lunchbox 20:33, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Cases being added

I'm not sure how helpful this is but here's a list of cases that I'll be adding over a while. Most of them define the Bill of Rights (esp. 1st amendment) or serve to incorporate them following the 14th Ammendment:

[edit] Author Pages

I think this needs to be worked on next, we are getting a lot of cases but not a lot of author pages to link to their decisions. I am no good at making these, I tried to link one of the current Justices to a opinion and it was a disaster. So I feel that this should be started by someone, anyone and start linking them to their opinions before we get to many. Just my two cents. -- Wabbit98 10:32am 21 Janurary 2007 (PST)

The good news is that it's pretty simple and the linking happens automatically. The bad news is that theres alot of Justices and even more opinions so its very time consuming. I've done a little of this already but I think you're right when you say someone should try to catch up the author pages. I'm on it. --Metal.lunchbox 19:57, 21 January 2007 (UTC)


Why on some of the author pages did you remove Dissents, Concurrences and Concurrence/Dissent before any cases have been added to them? -- Wabbit98 4:20pm 23 Janurary 2007 (PST)

No important reason. Just thought the pages would be more readable without empty subsections. --Metal.lunchbox 00:29, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

So basically just add them when we need them. Also I have seen on the USSCase2 that you edited that down. Does that mean we do not need all that extra space? Wabbit98

Yeah when you call the USSCcase templates you only have to use the parameters that you are putting info in. That means that though the template supports a whole lot of opinions, if its a simple unanimous decision with no other cases you want to link to you could just include " {{USSCcase}} " or " {{USSCcase2}} " after the header. see Marbury v. Madison. --Metal.lunchbox 23:49, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikisource and Wikipedia

I think that Wikisource should be broadly expanded and integrated with Wikipedia to include the case text for every case article that Wikipedia contains. And beyond that, I would like to see many more cases added to Wikisource. Right now, I'm trying to gauge the level of activity in this particular WikiProject before I begin working. I'd like to know if anyone would object to changing the Manual of Style from Case name/Concurrence Name to Case name/Name's concurrence. It seems like a more logical approach. Also, I think that the data entered into Wikipedia's w:Template:SCOTUSCase could be used here very easily, and I'm considering writing a more intricate template that would make editing easier. Does anyone have any thoughts? Cheers. --MZMcBride 20:17, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed changes

Here a few changes I'm proposing to make this WikiProject more in-line with its sister project on Wikipedia:

  1. Move the WikiProject from Wikisource:Wikiproject US Supreme Court to Wikisource:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases
  2. Deprecate Template:USSCcase and Template:USSCcase2 for a single template that would allow copying source code directly from Wikipedia; this information does not need to be entered twice
  3. Overhaul the Manual of Style for the WikiProject including moving opinions from Case name/Dissent Name to Case name/Name's dissent
  4. Overhaul Wikisource:Supreme Court of the United States
  5. Expand United States Reports

A lot of good work has been done here and on Wikipedia and it seems stupid to duplicate the effort required. For example, a listing of every case is available on Wikipedia already. In addition, hundreds of cases already have case citation and the Court's opinion on them already. A simple copy-paste operation would be very efficient and would allow quicker text creations. Please tell me any thoughts you have about these proposed changes. Cheers. --MZMcBride 02:00, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I certainly appreciate your suggestions, but I'm a little unclear on exactly what you are proposing. First, I think that Case name/Name's dissent instead of Case name/Dissent Name may be a better format, but I'll suggest this: It would be a whole lot of work moving all the pages and links and If it ain't broke don't fix it. Its a good idea but the difference seems minor I think that what's been happeing with United States Reports is right-on. If that's the way they catalog the stuff then maybe we should add that too. Let's expand it. Also, I don't know what you mean by overhaul Wikisource:Supreme Court of the United States. What are you proposing? As well, this double template thing has come up many times and I think the consensus is if there's a better and simpler way to do it why not. At this point we're just waiting for someone to come up with something better. I made two templates to handle the two directory levels for each case. If you can navigate through both directory levels with one template, I'll give you a gold star. I don't know enough about templates to do it. Finally, Wikipedia integration is definitely for the better. Anything you can come up with to better and more seamlessly integrate with wikipedia is going to benefit both projects. What we've come up with so far for this project is definitly not perfect, but it works. Let's make it work better.--Metal.lunchbox 19:09, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

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