Talk:2013 Honduran general election

Results table format

Hello all. Which format do you think serves the article better?

• Format 1:

Candidate	Party	Votes	%	Result
Juan Orlando Hernández	National Party	900,626	35.62	President
Xiomara Castro	Liberty and Refoundation	740,973	29.31
Mauricio Villeda	Liberal Party	510,052	20.17
Salvador Nasralla	Anti-Corruption Party	360,277	14.25
Romeo Vásquez Velásquez	Patriotic Alliance	5,155	0.20
Orle Solís	Christian Democratic Party	4,354	0.17
Jorge Aguilar Paredes	Innovation and Unity Party	4,019	0.16
Andrés Pavón	FAPER-Democratic Unification Party	2,729	0.11
Valid votes		2,528,185	100.00
Null votes		82,934	3.13
Blank votes		37,401	1.41
Total votes		2,648,520	100.00
Registered voters		5,355,112	61.71% turnouta
Source: TSE (80.14% of ballot boxes counted). a Projection.

• Format 2:

Candidate	Party	Votes	%
Juan Orlando Hernández	National Party	900,626	35.62
Xiomara Castro	Liberty and Refoundation	740,973	29.31
Mauricio Villeda	Liberal Party	510,052	20.17
Salvador Nasralla	Anti-Corruption Party	360,277	14.25
Romeo Vásquez Velásquez	Patriotic Alliance	5,155	0.20
Orle Solís	Christian Democratic Party	4,354	0.17
Jorge Aguilar Paredes	Innovation and Unity Party	4,019	0.16
Andrés Pavón	FAPER-Democratic Unification Party	2,729	0.11
Invalid/blank votes		120,335	–
Total		2,648,520	100
Registered voters/turnout		5,355,112	61.7
Source: TSE (80.14% of ballot boxes counted)

Share your opinions here, please. Thanks. Pristino (talk) 22:02, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

The second one is preferable as it is in line with the vast majority of election articles on Wikipedia, the coding is far better (no pointless quotation marks or wasteful spaces), and it doesn't have a pointless final column/shading for the winning candidate. Number 57 22:05, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

The "vast majority of election articles" which have been edited by you, because you've added this format to nearly every election article on Wikipedia. This is NOT a Wikipedia standard. I vote for "Format 1". Pristino (talk) 22:16, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

The first one, without the results column. Both the top infobox and a glimpse at the numbers shows who won, and a column with one line in it does not look pleasant, but the dark shading of the first option and separating blank and invalid votes is nice. Dralwik|^{Have a Chat} 22:41, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I think the second one is the better one, as it is Wikipedia standard. I also think we should wait with putting a table until all votes are counted and a reasonable consensus have been reached about the result. It's premature to talk about a president-elect with 20% of the votes uncounted. --Soman (talk) 22:56, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

The section was originally entitled "Preliminary results" until someone changed it. Perhaps "Partial results" would be better. Number 57 22:59, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

There is no Wikipedia standard/policy/guide for election results tables. What you frequently see is a type of layout created by user "Number 57" and implemented on a large number of articles, which its creator is now calling the standard. Pristino (talk) 00:52, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, that's not true - I did not create this layout. When I wrote my first election articles (all the Israeli ones in around 2006) I had no particular interest in other elections, and just copied a format from other election articles. When I started doing other election articles a few years later, I merely continued using this style. Number 57 07:52, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

FWIW, there's no standard. French presidential election, 2012#Results, United States presidential election, 2012#Results and Republic of China presidential election, 2012#Result all have different formats. What's important is that all elections of the same type from the same country must have identical formats. Also, FWIW, I prefer option 1 w/o the "Result" column as per Dralwik, with or without the highlight for the winner. If people would insist on "option 2" I'd strongly suggest a separate "Valid votes" row since apparently that statistic is available. –HTD 20:25, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree. Consistency is important, but intra-country consistency is more important than inter-country consistency. I would be willing to do away with the "Results" column, but I believe the "Valid votes" row is key. Pristino (talk) 06:51, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

TBH, I don't know what's the deal in removing the "valid votes" row as that is 1) obviously an improvement, and 2) has been used elsewhere. I believe this format ("option 2") is only used when there is barely any information available in an election. In any case, highlighting the winner and having a "results" column is redundancy. I'm only for highlighting (aside from boldfacing) the winner if there are multiple winners in an election, or if the template is used on an article where there is another template that has multiple winners. –HTD 09:22, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

OK, how about this as a compromise? It adds the additional info requested (valid votes and %s for invalid and blank) but retains the more common layout. Number 57 16:24, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Candidate	Party	Votes	%
Juan Orlando Hernández	National Party	900,626	35.62
Xiomara Castro	Liberty and Refoundation	740,973	29.31
Mauricio Villeda	Liberal Party	510,052	20.17
Salvador Nasralla	Anti-Corruption Party	360,277	14.25
Romeo Vásquez Velásquez	Patriotic Alliance	5,155	0.20
Orle Solís	Christian Democratic Party	4,354	0.17
Jorge Aguilar Paredes	Innovation and Unity Party	4,019	0.16
Andrés Pavón	FAPER-Democratic Unification Party	2,729	0.11
Valid votes		2,528,185	100
Blank votes		37,401	1.41
Invalid votes		82,934	3.13
Total		2,648,520	100
Registered voters/turnout		5,355,112	61.7
Source: TSE (80.14% of ballot boxes counted)

I still like the highlighting of winner and totals rows as it gives you instant visual information without needing to actually read what's on the table (very useful for a quick glance at an article). But if this is all you're willing to compromise at this moment, then I agree with this format, for the time being. I would like to read what others think, too. Pristino (talk) 21:14, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "all you're willing to compromise" - if we have the highlighting of those rows as well as the above, then it's just your original version, so not a compromise at all. But anyway, I've asked everyone back for their opinion. I'd like to get this sorted soon so I can get back to working on election articles without having to worry about going back and changing the table format later. Number 57 21:17, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

We're not defining a Wikipedia standard here, we're just agreeing on what format is best for this article. Whatever we decide to do with this article should not be taken as a precedent for other articles. Pristino (talk) 04:26, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

So does that mean we have to have the same discussion every time you follow me to a different country's article set? You clearly followed me here from the Chilean elections (changing the format of the results table less than a day after I have first put it on the page), after an identical disagreement there, having not edited any non-Chilean election articles for over a year. If you're going to do that again, then I think we need to have an agreement that this applies elsewhere, as I would not waste my time having an identical discussion every time I put a set of results on an election article. Number 57 11:18, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Excuse me, but I'm not new at editing Honduran election articles. You might want to take a look at this edit from the Honduran general election, 2009 added on election day. Your argument that I've followed you here is not accurate. Pristino (talk) 05:44, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

On my side, I find the second option much easier to work with. And I agree with Number 57 here, it's not useful to have content disputes across a large number of articles. Rather than engaging in an content dispute here, the proper move would be to settle this through a Wikipedia guideline. --Soman (talk) 13:42, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Does it really hurt if we highlight valid and total votes? –HTD 15:41, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, because it makes the table look completely different to the most common style. As I said, it we have the shading as well, then it isn't a compromise in any sense. Number 57 16:40, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

As what I've earlier illustrated, there's no "most common style", and if there's one, we don't necessarily have to be bounded by it. Shading rows which are not vote totals from candidates are used with a darker gray shade, or "set apart" by visual aids, seems to be standard practice on election templates that don't use "the most common style":

{{French presidential election, 2012}} {{Singaporean presidential election, 2011}} {{South Korean presidential election, 2012}} {{Polish presidential election, 2010}}

All of these examples do employ some dark shade of gray at least once. Even the electionbox templates employ this, barely:

• {{Election box candidate}} is shaded #F9F9F9
• {{Election box total}} is shaded #F6F6F6
• {{Election box total}} is shaded #F6F6F6

The "most common style" is frankly used on elections where we have the barest of available information. If we have more available information, we don't have to stick to a template that actually restricts our ability to convey information. If anyone's into compromising, let's just use the shades in the electionbox templates. –HTD 17:08, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Also, since this article doesn't include an election where multiple candidates are elected in one ballot, I'm for leaving the highlighting for the winner, but I'd still support boldfacing the winner as that seems to be used in many -- but it seems not universal -- practice. Since it's was suggested here, there's no good reason -- "we'd follow the crappy format isn't -- to edit war over it. –HTD 17:26, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand how you don't understand that it's not a compromise, it's just accepting option 1 100%. Your claim about only using the Wikitable format when there is the barest of information availeble is simply not true - see here, here etc. Number 57 17:15, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

"Accepting 'Option 1' 100%" is using the Wikicode of "Option 1" verbatim with no edits.

As for your examples, it seems that it you who added the results results boxes, and everyone else went with the flow. Now I don't wanna be embroiled with your beef against Pristino (or anyone else), if there's any, but on other articles where other people edited before you entered, they didn't follow your format. If this guy is continually edit warring you on this, I don't want to take part, but my stand here is that we don't have to abide by the format that you're imposing. Like you said, it's "BRD", once it's an improvement, and that other articles that other people have massively edited aside from you did not use your format, then there's no sense in imposing your format as the standard. Also, I'm not supporting anyone else's own self-imposed format over yours since that's even worse: that's edit warring. –HTD 17:26, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Also, if you really want to impose a singular standard for all presidential/single winner elections, we might as well use templates.

And what changes to option one are you actually proposing? If you're referring to the final column and the bolding, Pristino only added that to the version on the talk page, not his version that he added to the article. A version that looks like this is not a compromise, it's just him getting exactly what he wanted.

Re a template, Unfortunately I don't think it would be possible to build a template that could cope with so many different formats of elections around the world (or, for example, what happened in this year's election in the Maldives). If we could, then I'd be fully supportive of using one, but unfortunately my experience is that some editors who are only interested in the elections of their own country are extremely protective of such articles and refuse any attempt to bring them into line with elsewhere (not just the results table, but also headings, infoboxes etc). That's basically how this whole dispute started.

The changes to Option 1? Remove the "Result" column, ditch highlighting for the winner. I've already said this earlier. Is this a compromise? I don't know; I think it was also him that came up with that same suggested ugly "Option 1" that is used on other Honduran election articles. If he ditched that ugly "Option 1" to this, is that a compromise for you, as we take the other Honduran articles into concern? Do we have to compromise? Maybe, if the two options are drastically far apart; at this point, we're fighting about shadings on a row. Let's try this: use a darker shade only for valid votes, or for total votes; at this point, other formats -- those that don't use your format -- do use darker shades, but don't agree on what row and by how many.

No, that is not a compromise for me, because that is Pristino's version (and what he's done on Chilean general election, 2013). I've no idea why he added those extra bits to the one he added to the talk page. Number 57 18:26, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

I haven't checked, but if that's him that edited the earlier Honduras election article, he might have actually compromised with you already. AFAIK, because I've passed a Chilean elections DYK before, there's also this "Results" column which was sorta important since they use/used the binomial system; again, that could be better served by highlighting or boldfacing.

If that wasn't him, then we're back to my next question: do we have to compromise if the options aren't that far apart? Apparently he has two options: the one with the "Result" column, and the one with two gray shades, while yours has one shade. What he edited to this article is his second option, while he suggested her in talk is his first option, and he might have used or copied that somewhere. His second option is nearest to your first option. So again, does it really hurt if your version, which is not that used on other election articles that aren't looked upon by other people won't be used? If other people aren't using it anyway, we can't really accept the "but it is the most used format" argument. –HTD 18:58, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

It is his version - look at the edit history of the article (specifically here). That was his first version. The addition of the bolding and additional column on the talk page was a second version, and couldn't have been an attempt to compromise, because they aren't part of the original table I put on the article (option 2). This wasn't already a compromise because it's exactly the same version he's been using on the Chilean articles.

As for how we compromise, I've already accepted two changes to the original layout - i.e. splitting the invalid/blank votes and also having a total valid votes column, and I'm only asking for one compromise (the shading of the two total rows) in the other direction - I don't understand why that's so hard to give up? Number 57 19:16, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

I haven't realized about splitting the invalid/blank votes but I would've merged them together anyway; there's no difference to the reader as all are invalid votes in the first place. I would have preferred a boldfaced winner but would not lose sleep over it. As for the two total rows, how about lightening the shade? By a quick visual inspection, those are too dark as compared to the 4 examples I gave... –HTD 19:28, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

I'd rather split out the votes rows than introduce row colouring to maintain a consistent look for Honduran results – looking at the existing Honduran articles, around half are in the format of option 2, around half are like this and two (2005 and 2009) are different to all the others. Only the latter two have the shading. Number 57 19:43, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

I'd prefer at least one row that has a darker shade that separates the vote totals of the candidates from other stats; that's essentially the use of having a different shade. This is one format that the election results tables that don't use your version that is universally followed. –HTD 06:20, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Question: If it was you alone (with the silent consent of everyone else who went with it either because they were satisfied, or didn't know they can edit it, or no one else bothered, or some other reason) who went with your format, why should other people go by yours? If there truly are many different table formats of elections (at least in cell shading, in almost cases there's an almost strict order of candidates->valid votes>-any invalid votes->turnout->total possible voters if available), then surely there's no correct way on structuring election articles? If there are truly "so many different formats of elections around the world", then why are you imposing a one size fits all formatting? –HTD 18:15, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

The formatting (i.e. where we bold and colour the rows) can easily be applied to any any results table. What I meant is that different countries will have different shaped templates (some will have double the number of columns if they have split vote electoral systems), and that's difficult to factor into a generic template. Number 57 18:26, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

We can make two templates, one that has one round, and another that has two; or we can make one template that has an optional second round. In either case, there are also several variations of the template such as the use of party colors and abbreviations or full names of the parties it'll be quite hard to implement. If there was a universal template, this can be easily remedied with just one click.

Call me lazy, but if we can't make a universal template, there's no sense in applying your table formatting to all templates, since it'll all be edited anyway either piecemeal or wholesale, and that it turns out that it is not applied universally. –HTD 18:58, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

I will have a go at creating a proper template and let you know when done. Number 57 19:16, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

That's nice because you can't go around the place imposing your table formatting since 1) it isn't a template; people can still freely modify the formatting more easily than templates and a "ILIKEIT" argument has much as weight as "this is the formatting I've been using that I applied on hundreds of articles no one cares about", 2) people can use their own format that's totally different from yours, and 3) maintaining templates are easier. –HTD 19:33, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm not compromising enough?

Let's look at the Chilean general election, 2013 article:

• It was originally called Chilean presidential election, 2013, as we used to separate Chilean presidential/parliamentary elections, until Number 57 started merging them.
• The results table look originally like this, as edited by me:

****

Provisional results including 99.34% of polling stations.

Ballot number	Candidate	Party/Coalition	Votes	%	Result
1	Franco Parisi Fernández	Independent	661,738	10.12
2	Marcel Claude Reyes	Humanist Party/Everyone to La Moneda	183,524	2.80
3	Ricardo Israel Zipper	Regionalist Party of the Independents	37,744	0.57
4	Marco Enríquez-Ominami Gumucio	PRO/If You Want It, Chile Changes	716,654	10.96
5	Roxana Miranda Menses	Equality Party	83,015	1.27
6	Michelle Bachelet Jeria	PS/New Majority	3,050,864	46.68	Runoff
7	Evelyn Matthei Fornet	UDI/Alliance for Chile	1,634,917	25.01	Runoff
8	Alfredo Sfeir Younis	PEV	153,475	2.34
9	Tomás Jocelyn-Holt Letelier	Independent	12,742	0.19
	Total valid votes		6,534,673	100.00
	Null votes		67,112	1.00
	Blank votes		47,053	0.70
	Total votes		6,648,838	100.00
	Total voters enrolled		13,573,143	48.98% turnout
	Voting age population		13,160,122	103.13% registered

Note: There are 41,349 ballot boxes in the country.

****

With a runoff results table:

****

Ballot number	Candidate	Party/Coalition	Votes	%	Result
6	Michelle Bachelet Jeria	PS/New Majority	—	—
7	Evelyn Matthei Fornet	UDI/Alliance for Chile	—	—
	Total valid votes		—	100.00
	Null votes		—	—
	Blank votes		—	—
	Total votes		—	100.00
	Total voters enrolled		13,573,143	N/A% turnout (N/A% over VAP)
	Voting age population (VAP)		13,160,122	103.13% registered

****

• Number 57 changed it to this (using as arguments: "rm completely redundant duplicate tables" and "Put candidates back in vote order per readability and common sense"):

****

Provisional results including 99.92% of ballot boxes.

Candidate	Party	First round		Second round
		Votes	%	Votes	%
Michelle Bachelet	PS/New Majority	3,069,912	46.67
Evelyn Matthei	UDI/Alliance for Chile	1,645,227	25.01
Marco Enríquez-Ominami	PRO/If You Want It, Chile Changes	722,252	10.98
Franco Parisi	Independent	665,402	10.11
Marcel Claude	PH/Everyone to La Moneda	184,901	2.81
Alfredo Sfeir	PEV	154,593	2.35
Roxana Miranda	Equality Party	83,685	1.27
Ricardo Israel	Regionalist Party of the Independents	37,963	0.57
Tomás Jocelyn-Holt	Independent	12,829	0.19
Total valid votes		6,576,764	100
Null votes		67,547	1.00
Blank votes		47,333	0.70
Total		6,691,644	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		13,573,143	49.30
Source: Servel

Note: There are 41,349 ballot boxes in the country.

****

And then to this:

****

Provisional results including 99.93% of ballot boxes.

Candidate	Party	First round		Second round
		Votes	%	Votes	%
Michelle Bachelet	PS/New Majority	3,070,012	46.67
Evelyn Matthei	UDI/Alliance for Chile	1,645,271	25.01
Marco Enríquez-Ominami	PRO/If You Want It, Chile Changes	722,270	10.98
Franco Parisi	Independent	665,414	10.11
Marcel Claude	PH/Everyone to La Moneda	184,906	2.81
Alfredo Sfeir	PEV	154,593	2.35
Roxana Miranda	Equality Party	83,687	1.27
Ricardo Israel	Regionalist Party of the Independents	37,965	0.57
Tomás Jocelyn-Holt	Independent	12,820	0.19
Invalid/blank votes		114,892	–		–
Total		6,691,840	100
Registered voters/turnout		13,573,143	49.30
Source: Servel

****

It is interesting that his first version did separate null and blank votes and did shade the totals row.

• After some discussion in Talk, we arrived at this compromise version, which looks a lot more like his preferred version:

****

Provisional results including 99.98% of ballot boxes.

Candidate	Party/coalition	First round		Second round
		Votes	%	Votes	%
Michelle Bachelet	PS/New Majority	3,073,570	46.69
Evelyn Matthei	UDI/Alliance for Chile	1,647,490	25.02
Marco Enríquez-Ominami	PRO/If You Want It, Chile Changes	723,066	10.98
Franco Parisi	Independent	665,959	10.11
Marcel Claude	PH/Everyone to La Moneda	184,966	2.80
Alfredo Sfeir	Green Ecologist Party	154,701	2.35
Roxana Miranda	Equality Party	82,291	1.25
Ricardo Israel	Regionalist Party of the Independents	37,795	0.57
Tomás Jocelyn-Holt	Independent	12,820	0.19
Valid votes		6,582,474	100.00
Null votes		67,361	1.00
Blank votes		46,394	0.69
Total votes		6,696,229	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		13,573,143	49.33
Voting age population/turnout		13,160,122	50.88
Source: Servel Note: There were 41,349 ballot boxes for the presidential election. The results above are a revised count made by the polling officers the following day.

****

Number 57 not only just changed the 2013 election, he began changing a lot of Chilean election articles, sometimes using provisional results on older elections instead of the final results sanctioned by the election courts and preferring to use alternative sources (such as "Nohlen") instead of official sources, all while radically changing the tables.

I think I've done enough compromising; now it's time for you to give something up. Pristino (talk) 06:24, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Er, we did not arrive at that version by consensus. You just made it up and put it on the page – there was no discussion about the version you implemented. Plus then edit warring to try and implement it here was a poor faith WP:POINT violation.

As for your comments about Nohlen, he is regarded as one of the world's experts on elections, particularly Latin America. His books open with the preface that his data is often different from that produced by "official" sources because he corrects mistakes they made and didn't admit. For example, in this instance where you have added the official results, the vote counts are all lower than Nohlen's figures, suggesting that the official figures omitted something, perhaps one polling station or votes from abroad. WP:SOURCE makes it clear that "third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" are preferable to primary sources (such as election authorities). Number 57 08:09, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

The 1993 results are wrong. They were better before you edited the table, but they are still wrong, and they are also wrong on the Servel website, which is unfortunate, because they claim to have "official" results from Tricel (the election court). Well, I happen to have the official results from Tricel, ballot box per ballot box, and the results differ. The problem is I can't add these results because I haven't been able to find them on a reliable source online. The results for the 1999 election (first round) are also wrong on the Servel site, but I was able to find the court ruling online, which coincides with the results I have (ballot box per ballot box) from Tricel, and so I've corrected those. Pristino (talk) 08:20, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I notice you fail to admit that Nohlen was right about 1999–2000. You removed his figures and replaced then with the allegedly "correct" results, then realised that the official source was wrong, then reinstated the correct results which were exactly what Nohlen had in his book. Number 57 08:26, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, Nohlen was right this time, but how was I supposed to know Servel would be wrong when they themselves claim on their site to be using results from "TRICEL"? All the results on the Servel site are correct (they are actual Tricel results), except for 1993 and 1999 (I've checked them all). Pristino (talk) 08:31, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

And just so you know, these are the correct results for the 1993 election (from Tricel):

• Manfred Max Neff: 387,421
• Eugenio Pizarro Poblete: 327,483
• Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle: 4,044,778
• Cristian Reitze Campos: 81,828
• Arturo Alessandri Besa: 1,703,372
• Jose Piñera Echenique: 431,227
• Null votes: 271,414
• Blank votes: 136,968
• Total votes: 7,384,491

If you can find a reliable source for these, I'd be grateful. Pristino (talk) 08:37, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

References

Links

>> Electoral fraud in Honduras? (Lihaas (talk) 16:35, 19 December 2013 (UTC)).