Changes

==Legislative vote boxes== ===110th Congress votes=== Congresspedia uses extensions to create vote boxes for all 110th Congress roll call votes noted on its' legislation pages. The extensions take information in the boxes comes regarding a particular vote from [http://www.opencongress.org/OpenCongress], and display it in a colorful, informative display box. The following is an example of the text necessary to generate one of these vote boxes (the vote is on the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act):

===Votes prior to the 110th Congress=== For all bills prior to the [[110th Congress]] (before OpenCongress was launched), a separate process must be followed in order to generate vote boxes for roll call votes. Congresspedia editors have created separate templates for both House and Senate votes, and the following are instructions for entering the text necessary to call them: The House and Senate vote templates use the same inputs and you will need to collect the following pieces of information for them to work properly (instructions on how to input these pieces of information is below this chart): {| border=1 width=100%|-! Inputs for the House and Senate record vote templates|-|"'''Vote name'''": The name of whatever vote you're trying to record. The official name is best, but a common description of the vote works, too. Ex: "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq"* Note: You may wish to include a link to the page on the Library of Congress' [http://thomas.loc.gov THOMAS system], the Washington Post's [http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/ Congressional Votes Database] or another legislative information database (example: [http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.j.res.114: Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq]). If so, make sure to find a permanent link that will always lead to that page. Sometimes websites give you a link that expires or only works for you. Try opening up the link in another browser window to make sure it works there, too.|-| "'''Date'''": The date of the vote, formatted in AP style. Ex: "September 8, 2006"|-| "'''Vote result'''": State whether the vote passed or failed and give the count, biggest number first. Ex: "Passed, 80-20"|-| "'''Demvote'''": The Democratic vote. Put the biggest number first and indicate what that represents. Ex: "44-2 in favor" or "44-2 opposed"|-| "'''GOPvote'''": The Republican vote, formatted the same as the Democratic vote.|-| "'''Indvote'''": The Independent vote, formatted the same as the others. If this applies to only one vote, format it like this: "1 in favor".|-| "'''Congressnum'''": This is the number of the Congress. It is important use only a number here, with no spaces or other characters. Examples using recent congresses inclue:* "109" - The 109th Congress, 2005-2006.* "108" - The 108th Congress, 2003-2004.* "107" - The 107th Congress, 2001-2002.* "106" - The 106th Congress, 1999-2000 (and so forth).|-| "'''Session'''": This is the session, number one or two, of the Congress. The first session is the first year of the Congress, the second is the second year. Use only the numbers "1" or "2".|-| "'''Votenum'''": This is the official roll call vote number. Use only a number, with no spaces or other characters.|} Once you've collected all these pieces of information, you can plug them into the template call. Examples for both the House and Senate templates are below. {| border=1 width=100%|+ '''Input and Output for the Senate Record Vote Template'''|-!What you put in!What you get|-|<nowiki>{{Senate record vote</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Vote name=[http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.j.res.114: Authorization for Use of Military Force]</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Date=October 11, 2002</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Vote result=Passed, 77-23</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Demvote=29-21 in favor</nowiki><br><nowiki>| GOPvote=48-1 in favor</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Indvote=1 opposed</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Congressnum=107</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Session=2</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Votenum=237}}</nowiki> |{{Senate record vote| Vote name=[http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.j.res.114: Authorization for Use of Military Force]| Date=October 11, 2002| Vote result=Passed, 77-23| Demvote=29-21 in favor| GOPvote=48-1 in favor| Indvote=1 opposed| Congressnum=107| Session=2| Votenum=237}}|}<br>{| border=1 width=100%|+ '''Input and Output for the House Record Vote Template'''|-!What you put in!What you get|-|<nowiki>{{House record vote</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Vote name=[http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.j.res.114: Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq (final vote)]</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Date=October 10, 2002</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Vote result=Passed, 296-133</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Demvote=126-81 opposed</nowiki><br><nowiki>| GOPvote=215-6 in favor</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Indvote=1 opposed</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Votenum=455</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Congressnum=107</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Sessionnum=2}}</nowiki>| {{House record vote| Vote name=[http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.j.res.114: Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq (final vote)]| Date=October 10, 2002| Vote result=Passed, 296-133| Demvote=126-81 opposed| GOPvote=215-6 in favor| Indvote=1 opposed| Votenum=455| Congressnum=107| Sessionnum=2}}|} An additional but completely option field to put in is "'''align'''". This will tell the template to float to the right or left of any text that comes after it on the page. Simply insert "Align=right" or "Align=left" to make it float. Below is an example of "Align=right". {| border=1 width=100%|+ '''Input and Output for the House Record Vote Template'''|-!What you put in|-|<nowiki>{{House record vote</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Vote name=[http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.j.res.114: Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq (final vote)]</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Date=October 10, 2002</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Vote result=Passed, 296-133</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Demvote=126-81 opposed</nowiki><br><nowiki>| GOPvote=215-6 in favor</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Indvote=1 opposed</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Votenum=455</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Congressnum=107</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Sessionnum=2</nowiki><br><nowiki>| Align=right}}</nowiki>|}<br><div style="text-align:center">'''What you get:'''</div>{{Senate record vote| Vote name=[http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.j.res.114: Authorization for Use of Military Force]| Date=October 11, 2002| Vote result=Passed, 77-23| Demvote=29-21 in favor| GOPvote=48-1 in favor| Indvote=1 opposed| Congressnum=107| Session=2| Votenum=237| Align=right}} Links to the templates:* [[Template:Senate record vote]]* [[Template:House record vote]]<br><br> ==Bill info boxextensions==

Congresspedia uses a separate an extension to create bill info boxes for all bills (both introduced or considered) noted in on legislation pages. The following is an example of the text necessary to generate one of these info boxes (The example is again the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act):

Taking a look at this example, "USbillinfo" is again the standard opening text for the extension. "congress="110"" notes the number of the Congress for which the bill was introduced. "bill="H.R.985"" denotes the official bill number.