Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of United States district and territorial courts/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was not promoted by The Rambling Man 10:08, 5 September 2009 [1].

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List of United States district and territorial courts

Nominator(s): MZMcBride (talk), MBisanz (talk), and BD2412 (talk)

• Featured list candidates/List of United States district and territorial courts/archive1

I am nominating this article for featured list because I've worked on this article with MBisanz for a few months, worked it through DYK and PR and I believe it is now ready for featured list status. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:06, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Comments

Nice article! A few comments:

• Mention what the Courts of Appeals are in the lead.

• Done

• See also goes before refs

• Done

• Expand the lead explaining the former courts and subdivided courts. Reywas92^Talk 21:47, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Fixed bullet two. Still need to work on bullets 1 and 3. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:58, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Comment For the subdivided courts, is it accurate to use the date on which the un-divided court was established? For example, the District of Alabama was established in 1820, and was subdivided in 1824. Yet, for the Northern, Middle, and Southern courts, you have their date of establishment as 1824. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:57, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Because "District of Alabama" is listed under List of United States district and territorial courts#Subdivided courts with the 1820 date and the subdivision date, I think it's fine. Do you think it's unclear or have a better suggestion for presenting the information? --MZMcBride (talk) 22:58, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I think the table is fine as is, but the table could use some points of clarification. I'll expand on this I review it later. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:02, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Comments from Dabomb87 (talk · contribs)

• "The courts hear both civil and criminal cases and each court is paired with a bankruptcy court." "court" (or a variation) is used thrice in this sentence. How about "The courts hear civil and criminal cases, and each is paired with a bankruptcy court."

• Done

• "United States District Court for." Logical punctuation, the period should be outside the quotation mark.

• Done

• I think the table needs a key. For example, what is "Citation" referring to here? "Est." is also commonly used to abbreviate "estimated", and as I explained above, it should be explained that subdivided courts use the establishment dates of the original court.

• Done

• What is a "meeting place" in the context of the courts?

• Done

• Use {{sortname}} for the chief judges.
• For the "Citation" column, you should probably sort by the state's abbreviation.
• Edit bunching needs to be fixed in the "Active courts" section; see Wikipedia:How to fix bunched-up edit links.
  • Done—Chris! _ct 04:23, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
• The alt text needs a bit of work. Alternative text describes things that can only be verified by looking at the picture. For example, "Exterior view of the Richard C. Lee Courthouse" isn't useful because readers don't know what the Richard C. Lee Courthouse is. Dabomb87 (talk) 20:20, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Done MBisanz ^talk 16:05, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
    • The rest of my comments haven't been addressed. The alt text needs work, but I don't have time to provide guidance. Consult Eubulides (talk · contribs). Dabomb87 (talk) 22:40, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
      • That doesn't appear to be a registered user. I think MZM is doing the sort stuff. MBisanz ^talk 02:07, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
        • No edits have been made in five days. Dabomb87 (talk) 04:39, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Sources

• The third general ref needs a publisher.

• Done

• Refs 4 and 5 need publishers and last access dates. Dabomb87 (talk) 20:20, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

• Done

Comments

• Empty cells should have emdash

• Done

• I think it is helpful to include the locations of the courts

—Chris! _ct 04:23, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

• For many of the districts, there isn't one primary location, and listing 8 names for those with many locations seems cumbersome. MBisanz ^talk 02:07, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Alt text is mostly present, but needs work.

• Most of the alt text entries are near-duplicates of the caption. Alt text should minimize duplication with the caption; see WP:ALT#Repetition. For example, the alt text "A map of the boundaries of the United States Courts of Appeals and United States District Courts" is largely a duplicate of the caption "Map of the boundaries of the United States Courts of Appeals and United States District Courts".
• Generally speaking, this alt text shouldn't contain proper names such as "E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse" because a non-expert can't verify them simply by looking at the image. See WP:ALT#Verifiability.
• Two images lack alt text; see the "alt text" button at the upper right of this review page. The big seal Image:US-GreatSeal-Obverse.svg and the little pair of scales File:Scale of justice.svg are both decorative, I expect, and can be fixed with "|link=" as per WP:ALT #Purely decorative images. The big map Image:US Court of Appeals and District Court map.svg needs some alt text (but presumably not that much) as per WP:ALT#Maps.

Eubulides (talk) 09:29, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Two things only. After you fix them, I'll support.

• "The number of district courts in a of a court of appeals' circuit varies…" doesn't make sense.
• "The largest courthouse is…" In terms of physical size? Clarify. Mm40 (talk) 17:48, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.