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Friday, August 31, 2012

Teh Internets Any Wikipedia Editors in the House?

Posted by Dominic Holden on Fri, Aug 31, 2012 at 12:31 PM

The entries on Washington State's congressional district are old, old, old. Old like Oregon Territory. Old like that movie Cocoon. Old like Slade Gordon drinking a Metamucil smoothie and giving himself a placenta facial.

They're so old that the maps in those entries still show the old district boundaries—see the 1st District and 9th District—from before the state got a new district and all the old distrct were radically redrawn on February 1 of this year. That was sixty-hundred-zillion internet eons ago. Whoever fixes them wins the internet forever (and a free placenta facial).

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You had me at facial.

Posted by Simply Me on August 31, 2012 at 12:41 PM

Why not edit it yourself, Dominic? It's easy to do, and there are plenty of guides online that will teach you how to source and footnote everything correctly.

Posted by kitschnsync on August 31, 2012 at 12:47 PM

@2) Uh, I just complain about things on blogs. And I have zero idea how to make a digital map.

Posted by Dominic Holden on August 31, 2012 at 12:57 PM

Request for the Wikivandals: if you are going to replace the map with a picture of a penis, please make it an attractive one.

Posted by MacCrocodile

on August 31, 2012 at 1:12 PM

Technically the old boundaries are still in effect. Maybe someone could add a section on the new district boundaries, but changing the whole article would not be the way to go.

Also, the maps they use come from a source that hasn't created updated ones. It's easier to wait for the new maps to come out rather than create new maps from scratch that will then have to be replaced later for the sake of consistency.

And if you just want data about the new districts, the Redistricting Commission site is a better bet anyway.

Posted by Cascadian on August 31, 2012 at 1:38 PM

Dominic, anyone can edit Wikipedia and you get extra cred if you're a registered user which anyone can become. If it's important enough for you to whine about it I'd say it's important enough that _you_ can do the fix.

Posted by Weekilter on August 31, 2012 at 2:34 PM

I'd edit them, but the old boundaries remain in effect until January 2013. Additionally National Atlas, the government mapping service that Wikipedia draws from for Congressional district maps does not yet have 113th Congress maps in print form. http://www.nationalatlas.gov/printable/c…

Posted by ADR on August 31, 2012 at 3:27 PM

Go ask someone at the Wikimedia Commons Graphics Lab: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Common…

Posted by Anonymous Coward #8192 on August 31, 2012 at 7:57 PM

Sorry Dominic, I can't edit the wiki entries because I'm too busy posting sage and supercilious blog comments advising you how easy it would be for you to research and update all these data yourself.

Posted by capicola on September 2, 2012 at 1:15 AM