Talk:2016 United States presidential election in Washington (state)

Thanks for a good article.

Voting continues very soon. -- Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 04:10, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Pie graph is better

Not sure why anyone would want to keep the old graph. Coloring in large swaths of empty real estate doesn't communicate any meaningful facts about the election. A map dominated by red creates a highly misleading impression. When you see how few people live in Garfield or Columbia counties, for example, it's really of little importance how they voted. On top of that, the shade map requires a color key to explain itself, taking up as much space as the map itself. You can contain all that information in the map, and add a dimension of number of votes on top of that. Yet still keep the geographical relationship and shapes of the counties.

I can't think of any compelling reason to want such a simplistic map. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 06:37, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

"Standard map" is terrible reasoning. We don't choose worse over better just because worse is consistent with a lot of other articles. I've already fixed Oregon and California, and eventualy I can get to them all. Or thousands of others can do so, if they aren't stymied when they try. When you stonewall incremental changes, you bring the process of building an Encyclopedia to a halt. This is explained in Wikipedia:Editing policy. Perfection is not required; to get there from here requires small changes. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:39, 12 December 2016 (UTC) Dennis, I appreciate your efforts to try and make meaningful change on these articles. And I can assure that these attempts will not go unnoticed. Alas, it is mildly absurd to change these maps, as many Wikipedia readers do not wish to delve deeply into such a map. Now, people who view such pages are not novices, and can deduce that a State that has more conservative counties, but an overwelmingly democratic electorate, has many sparsely populated counties. Secondly, a simplistic map helps better convey the change over time in the State, and is not In fact misleading, as the info box displays the vote tallies in the election, so people can view the counties changing with the vote changing. Thirdly, the goal of Wikipedia is to make things easier to understand, and to squint at a pie chart to see if counties are democratic or republican or trending that way is much more complex and difficult than looking at colors to see a map. And finally, while you may not like it, these maps are the status quo, and every network and reputable site in America uses this, so it is better to correlate with them than going rogue. I very much appreciate your effort, but it will eventually all be changed back. PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 23:10, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Where's your evidence that anyone has trouble comprehending these maps? Similar maps appear on other articles, having been there for several years, and not a single reader has complained that they don't get it. This isn't Simple English Wikipedia. The fundamental problem with the supposedly simple map you're pushing is that it has no objective basis. There is nothing in the way election results are determined that organizes the results by country. You could just as easily group them by zip code or census block or any other arbitrary division. Why do we choose this particular one, when it has such a biased visual impact? If visual impact doesn't matter, then why do we want graphs instead of plain crosstabs? Graphs do aid readers in understanding, but only if they don't distort the data. Increasing the visual weight of arbitrary geographical areas, such as taking tiny Garfield county with a only a few hundred voters, and inflating it to the same visual weight as a county with millions of residents, is grossly biased.

How can a filled map convey change over time? There is no temporal dimension in that map. What about that map has any advantage with change over time, over any other map?

At the national level, we do have the Electoral College system, where state divisions are important, but individual states are decided on the overall popular vote.

Clearly, a map which communicates the relative number of voters in a county corrects the gross bias inherent in choosing to break a state into county results. The core policy WP:NPOV requires this. The desire to gloss complex data, or make articles consistent is nice, but there is no policy behind such niceties. The neutrality policy is of far greater weight than that. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:34, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

This is a perfectly valid reason. I see where you are coming from, but this only works in states that have populations that substantially shift the vote tabulation in each state. While I understand the use of this graph in states such as CA, or OR, it would not be logical in states like AZ, MT, or ND. Thanks for editing. PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 23:39, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

It "works" in all states, because all states give equal weight to each voter. No weight is given to geography. On an Electoral College level, it's different. When you compare side by side pie maps of a state with an evenly spread population and one where it is concentrated in cities, that contrast itself tells you something you didn't otherwise know. When you simply color in each county, as if any candidate "won" that county, and the geographic size of the country meant anything, you mislead readers on multiple levels.

To see if any readers do find it confusing, as you claim, it has to be out there for them to see. Your assertion deserves to be tested, and not taken on faith. This is one of the points of WP:Editing policy, to let the encyclopedia find what is best by doing it, not stifling change. And the NPOV policy obviously is critical. Making it seem like one candidate "won" a large part of a state with misleading visuals is a gross policy violation.

On the other side, there are no policies cited that support keeping the filled-map. You might like it, you might imagine unproven benefits, and you might prefer consistency, but there's no policy behind any of those. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:50, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

I'd like to also state that I'm no coming from a biased pro-Republican point of view. I'd also like to say that the there is no evidence the vast majority of users agree with the pie graph, and I hope that you reconsider this use of nebulous policy to State your non consensus point of of view PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 23:51, 12 December 2016 (UTC) I hope you found our discussion to be productive, as we edit not for our personal gain, but for the betterment of the greatest free encyclopedia on the internet. I believe that in one of your aforementioned policies, that any thing on a page should reflect consensus, and I believe now that your graphs should be given a shot on the page. However, if editors persist in reverting these graphs, you should respect the will of the editorial committee PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 00:09, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

• I see both sides here. Dennis is right that the pie charts do convey more information. However, I don't find then easier to read in all cases (some pies are very small) and they aren't the common format that is typically used in the media (is that a weight argument?). Before changing all the maps and getting on a fight over all 50 state I would suggest this is a perfect RfC type question. Post it on the project page and the target pages (I know that's a lot) and let consensus decide. Springee (talk) 01:13, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

A voting cartogram

A cartogram like the one here would be cool. Barring that I think Dennis' pie chart view appropriately shows the actual result afforded by each county's voting. As he says, the breakdown by county is only an artifact of the administration of the vote tally and has nothing to do with the result, which is all-up for the state. - Brianhe (talk) 02:29, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I think it is fair to say that counties are not inherently biased, and could swing either way, and aren't inherently biased, which WPOV requires. It would be prudent to say if many editors find the chart egregious, wouldn't it be fair to revert? To add multiple views, a cartogram, pie chart, and county results could all be in the visual for fairness? PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 02:50, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean exactly by "counties are not inherently biased" but the Eastern Washington/Western Washington red/blue divide is well known [1]. - Brianhe (talk) 03:02, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

It is a split indeed, no one is doubting that assertion, but just because some counties are more conservative, doesn't make that county biased on a map, as it is an undeniable fact that x county is from x to x, and has x amount of people and has a liberal/conservative trend PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 03:05, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Great read, that article BTW!! PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 03:06, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Counties can tell a lot of the trend of the state, ex: Macomb in MI, bell weather counties in other states PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 03:08, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Wouldn't one think that seeing the divide between east and west could enlighten readers. Something that is intended to better the page is not vandalism, or biased PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 03:10, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

This is not because "counties are biased". That makes no sense. Each voter gets one vote, no matter where they live. But when you take a county with only 300 people and devote the same -- or even more -- visual space in your graph to a county with four or five orders of magnitude more voters, you create a distorted image. When you see the majority of the state colored one color, and only a small portion colored the opposite, and the small portion carries the state, it looks for all the world like a small urban minority is imposing its will on the 'majority' across the state. This tops has an extensive literature: [2][3], Choropleth map, etc.

The pie map is a relatively easy solution. It corrects the problem of misunderstanding the number of voters in a region, while maintaining the real geography. You see not only the relationship between counties, but the shape of the counties is correct. Cartograms are also a good solution. One disadvantage is they can become so distorted that the underlying geography is utterly lost; a that point you might as well have gone totally abstract and used a tree map. Cartograms of the whole US aren't a big problem because most readers have seen maps of the US thousands of times; they don't really need to be reminded of how each state is shaped. But when you make a cartogram of counties, most of your readers don't live in that state and they've probably not seen very many maps of each county. Doubly so for non-US readers. So when you distort the counties, you can't count on readers understanding what they real shapes were before you distorted them.

But the more practical issue is that cartograms for any arbitrary map are much harder to generate and maintain. I could relatively quickly make pie maps for all 50 states; the most time-consuming part is when you have to massage the data from Secretary of State websites that won't just give you a simple crosstab, but rather some hideous rich media that you can't work with. But the geocoding for the counties, and the computation for the cartogram, are non-trivial. Most of the tools for that are expansive. I could still do it, but it would take longer. For the near term, I'd like to give non-biased maps on all 50 state election articles. Later, at least not until the official results are published, a second pass could be made to produce cartograms.

All of this applies only to typical state, county, or city elections. The US Presidential Electoral College system is a whole other problem. It has all the bias issues of a choropleth, but gives each state a special weight beyond the number of voters. Many have struggled to find the best way to represent that visually, and I don't have a strong opinion on what the best solution to that is. But these one-person-one-vote elections are very easy: you have to correctly display the number of voters, be it with a tree map, pie map, or cartogram. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 04:04, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

With respect, this still does not prove a bias in the map, and therefore there needs to be a consensus amongst wiki editors and readers that your map is preferred to the standard map. Thank you, that's all I will say PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 04:25, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm going to be honest, your model probably makes more sense, but I have this perfectionist attitude and that attitude is affected by the maps I've learned from. Due to this, I can't enjoy editing articles with the pie chart, and I won't be able to sleep, I know it sounds crazy but everyone has a tic and this is mine. I hope you'll understand PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 04:32, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Vetoing edits because of perfectionism is actually a policy violation. It's in the WP:Editing policy that I've pointed to several times because I really think it would help to read it. It says: "Perfection is not required: Wikipedia is a work in progress." and "At any point during this process, the article may become disorganized or contain substandard writing." When you jump on the revert button because a change isn't quite perfect, you prevent Wikipedia from getting any better. I've already made several improvements to these maps, based on hints you've given. It would be easier if you would just come out and say specifically what it is about these maps that is a problem. I could correct the problem directly without having to guess.

You've been given several articles that explain what is biased about naive filled maps. Here's another one: Coding entire regions "has no relevance at all to the data". County size has no relevance to state election data. States are not won by winning counties. Here's another discussion of the same issue; it actually influences people's thinking. Okanogan County has a vast area, 5,315 square miles, in state of 71,362 square miles. You're creating a mark, a solid shape of Okanogan County, that covers over 7% of the map of Washington, to represent only 6,298 votes, out of 2,001,336 votes cast, which is only 0.3% of the votes. You inflate the relative importance of this county by more than 22 times. This error is repeated in every county. The pie charts scaled to the number of votes corrects this, presenting the number of votes in fair proportion. In fact, Garfield county's 279 votes are so few that they would occupy less than a pixel on any map that showed a properly scaled circle of King County, so even showing a speck in Garfield gives that county undue weight, though it's an acceptably small exaggeration. It would seem odd to ignore Garfield entirely, so we round them up a little. But maps that distort the weight of so many counties by a factor of more than 20 is a gross violation of the NPOV policy undue weight. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:06, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree that cartograms are very cool, but the articles you are showing, while compelling, are based on an idea of thought that people will take the maps at face value. This is technically speculation, and according to CON, the consensus page says we should compromise when two different ideas collide. I propose that we keep the pie graph, or switch to a cartogram while keeping the regular county image below with a caption discussing the distortion or something of that nature. I'm sure we can come to a reasonable conclusion. PS, when I was referring to the words pompass jerk, I said those words as my opinion on the way I acted. I'm glad we are reaching a compromise PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 20:27, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

You can indent your comments by adding a colon : before them.

It's easy to talk about how great cartograms are, but have you ever tried to make one? Saying "let's use a cartogram" isn't a real compromise, because we're not going to see a cartogram any time soon. If such a map actually existed now, then using that map would be a real compromise offer.

The existence of bias, and the way it misleads readers, is not speculation. It's easy for you to cast doubt on it, but that's merely your speculation, in direct contradiction to several respected, widely published experts in the field of data visualization, political science, and cartography. "On the one hand, experts say the world is round, on the other hand, I think maybe it's flat!" Silly, right? It's false balance. There is no real expert point of view that says that the world is flat, and there are no experts in the relevant field who dispute the fact that a naive filled map is biased and misleads readers.

At the very least, I'd ask that you hold your horses. Leave it up for a while and see how it works. What is the rush? If readers are so confused by pie charts, why aren't they saying so? Look at the other articles that use these charts, like Washington Referendum 71, Washington Referendum 74, and Washington Initiative 502, and Seattle City Council. Where is the evidence that readers can't understand this type of map? You've been given many links to evidence that naive filled maps are biased. Where is your evidence that they are not? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:02, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I have no problem with waiting, I'm glad you said that. But it's been 2 days that this graph has been semi-up, and I think we can say that a page on the presidential election garners more traffic than WA referendum. PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 21:10, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't mean that as a knock. I think it's commendable you're willing to discuss compromise, as I know many an editor that wouldn't be so courteous. But it's been less than 2 days, and it's important to remember editors are readers too, and we have had multiple editors voice their concerns. I think that the standard map is not false, it is not untrue. In addition to the pie graph, we could have the standard map by the pie graph, with a caption describing the differences. Or we could, behind the pie charts, color in the counties a respective color, as to clear up who received more votes in each county, as some pie charts are very small, and while retaining the color of the map, the pie graph is there to clear up confusion and provide the context you are lobbying for PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 21:22, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I have finally read all of your posts in its entirety and have come to a final conclusion: I think if we were to have red and blue on a map-no shades or key, and proceed to put in or around each county the percentage of the electorate it represents, I would be in full support of such course of action. Or we could have 2 maps, your map and the custom map, with respective captions. I just believe a colorful map, with appropriate changes made for distortions, provides the reader with the best experience PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 00:06, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

There is this continued discussion of the small urban minority, no where in any Wikipedia edit will you find similar language in which readers were confused by the conventional map. And there has not been significant evidence presented to say beyond a reasonable doubt, these maps are better. Therefore, we should resolve the matter by compromise, and I've laid out, like you've asked, reasonable terms. Thanks PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 01:32, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

And even if like in the articles presented, there is confusion amongst readers, one can simply look at the county results and see the large amounts of voters in small geographically King county, one can see that it is higher than in Garfield or Columbia counties PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 01:34, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Maybe in the table, adding a column stating the county's % of electorate may help even more PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 01:38, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

This map, File:Washington Presidential Election Results 2016.svg, is deceptive no matter where you put it. It shouts that one side won 3/4 of the conses in Washington, implying a majority which is not real. "Winning" a county is not a thing. It shouts that "most" of Washington voted one way, when in fact that large area represented on the map is a small minority of the vote. The area being emphasized is meaningless, and the number of counties is meaningless. We have a reasonably good map that doesn't have these flaws.

If you want to offer a compromise, it has to not violate WP:UNDUE. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 03:08, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Where do you get this insinuation that it is implying a majority? Both of these maps contain information, a merging of these maps to one that suits both our needs is working best. PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 03:11, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Where do you get this insinuation that it is implying a majority? Both of these maps contain information, a merging of these maps to one that suits both our needs is working best. PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 03:11, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Double reply, sorry PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 03:12, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Again, you can indent your comments to make the thread readable using a colon. It's considerate to others trying to follow and participate in this discussion to indent.

Where do I get the insinuation that it implies a majority? Did you read any of the half dozen article that have been shown to you describing the bias in this type of maps? Again, I am not pulling this out of thin air. I tediously walked through the mathematical problem with presenting a large geographical area to represent a small number of voters, in this case distorting their importance by more than 20 to 1. You've been asked to read several expert sources that explain the bias happening here. Did you read them? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 03:19, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Wouldn't in theory, major news networks that on alll their election maps, have counties colored in? To say every single major news network's election results do not get weighted, only a select few articles from those networks do is ludicrous. I also was wondering whether our discussions you feel are violating guidelines, I hope you don't take all my words to heart, I'm not arguing with you personally, but with your position. I'd just like to make that clear. Weighting states that we should have our sources in proportion to where they are in reliable sources. On this election page, we are reporting election results, and every single reliable source reports results in this manner PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 03:19, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry about the indentation, I will try my hardest to comply in the future PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 03:21, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

BTW, I did read the articles and while they all did state there are multiple ways to state any sort of mapped statistics. It all depends on how practical that type of mapping it is. PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 03:22, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

To quote an earlier guideline, Wikipedia doesn't need to be perfect PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 03:24, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

It is not ludicrous to say that TV news tends to be lazy and overly simplistic compared to print media. And with a very short news cycle, they often don't have the time to generate more complex maps for every jurisdiction across the country.

Did you read the NYT article linked above? It said this: "Just like the county-level map below, the bulk of the map is covered in red. Less-populated areas that cover the center of the country tend to vote Republican, while smaller, densely populated places along the coasts and in large cities lean Democratic. This provokes a common complaint about shaded-area "choropleth" maps like this: They are misleading because they seem to suggest that the vast majority of America votes Republican."

If you're attempting to argue that TV networks dispute this claim made by a very large number of geographers and data analyst, then please cite it. I don't believe any expert has every attempted to make this argument, but if you know of one, then let's see it. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 03:27, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

I will say again, we can have a pie graph in the infobox. It is much easier to comprehend if we have the county colored solid blue or red in the background to try and keep some remnants of tradition along with keeping county lines. The pie graph will outweigh-no pun intended, the county colors, as I continue to agree with it. I don't see the problem with keeping the pie graph prominent within the infobox image, while having the county colored in the background PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 03:30, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Coloring the county solid blue or red indicates that the county was "won". No such event occurred. Nobody wins counties. Emphasizing the area of the county is the source of the bias, along with emphasizing that one side "won" 30 of 40 counties, when no such "wins" exist. That's what coloring a county means: it was "won". We color in states when they are won in the general election, but states are winner take all, and when you win a state, you get all the electoral votes. Not so with counties. Only the state's popular vote matters.

Another quote: "…laziness and lack of curiosity all to often are the most important source of this bias. The choropleth map is perhaps the prime example of this bias by default." from How to Lie with Maps by Mark Monmonier, Professor of Geography at Syracuse University. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 03:35, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, there are cons to choropleth maps. But there are also pros: https://viscomvibz.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/the-pros-cons-of-choropleth-maps-blot-maps-patch-maps/ And in

UNDUE weighting, it says proportionally to their sources and benefits, shall determine their place in an article. Now having no choroplethic maps so ever would be disproportionate to its benefits. Wikipedia is a place for learning in depth about things. And knowing who performed better in counties and possibly the county's reputation as a bellweather or what have you can be showed in a multitude of ways. Does the conventional map deserve a place at the top of the page-maybe not, but it has a place, as it does have benefits PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 03:45, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

This continued unwillingness to come to an agreement, a compormise of any sort should revert back to the consensus of the editorial community. PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 04:11, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

If a mass majority of editors express distatste for these maps, it is only fair to remove them. I'm not gonna fight anymore, because I've got better things to do than get angry. I'm sure you do too. But I'd advise you to hold off for maybe a week or two before spreading these maps across the website, as we have no feel for the view of the editorial community, and if they form a consensus on the matter PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 04:27, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Why should I come around when you fail over and over to present any kind of argument? It's a false accuation to say I'm unwilling to come to an agreement. I will compromise, I will make changes to the maps. I'll do all sorts of things. But you have to offer facts, and reasoned arguments. You're largely making stuff up. Don't blame me for not going along with that.

You cite only two pros to choropleth maps: can be used on any scale, and can help bring out hot spots. Scale is not an issue here, except insofar as your map egregiously distorts the scale of the votes in some counties. What hot spots are you revealing with these maps? Not relevant.

What is this map telling us at all? It gives us no clue at all who won, or by how much. Since we have no idea how many votes were cast, or how they are distriubuted, the percentage win for each county means absolutely nothing. Sixty percent of what? Did third party candidates play a role? No idea at all. How densely or widely distributed were the votes cast? No idea. The pie map gives you a rough idea who won, and by how much. It tells you whether or not third parties got a significant share of the votes, and where. It tells you how many votes overall were cast in the state, and at what locations. It's filled with information. The filled-area map is nothing but decoration that means nothing. If grossly misleads the reader by reporting how many counties were won, when in fact, counties are not "won" at all, and winning 30 out of 40 counties is not a thing. Totally arbitrary.

"If a mass majority of editors express distatste for these maps, it is only fair to remove them." False. Wikipedia is not a democracy. We make decisions based on reason, not head counts. See Wikipedia:Consensus. "Wikipedia is a place for learning in depth"! What depth? This map you like is vague at best, and misleading at worst. If you want depth, you should favor the map that contains more information, not less. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 07:51, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

I like your pie graph, I really do. I believe it deserves a place on the page-no argument there. However, in a technical sense, there may not be a "winning a county", but we here at Wikipedia should accommodate people who are used to looking at county maps as well-as having both but in context can only enhance the page. Are you arguing more information-would be worse? And maybe if when one clicked on a county on the map it would revert to the results tab, and when one could see the results of the county there? These compromises are fair-both schools of thought incorporated. That's what compromise is. PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 13:33, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

As previously mentioned, your overly strict interpretation of guidelines is stifling the view that reflects obvious consensus. A map should have context provided within the page, and this one does. Why do we use counties if it is an arbitrary, in your view measurement? Because it is a way to show results. Choose area code, congressional district, zip code, census block-they'd all show the same thing, that there are more Republicans in eastern Washington than Democrats. Just like the map show that there are more Democrats in King county than Republicans. It is not distortion to show the standard map- that rural areas are larger in size, and are more conservative-IF you have proper context. My caption last night did, and was compromise. Don't take it from me, counties are important. Donald Trump-was the first Republican to lose Orange county in CA in more than 75 years fact. And if you scroll through ever other page detailing California's presidential election, you'll see Orange county in Crimson red. Now, it is important-don't you think, as a showing of changing demographics in California or what have you that fact. You wouldn't know that by looking at your map. While both arguments debated here are spirited, you say consensus should be based on reason. Who's to say my argument isn't better or worse than yours. It's a matter of opinion, not fact.

In a previous statement I believe you referenced how the impact of third parties is not prevalent in conventional maps, but prevalent in your pie graph. This is simply false. Not only is it difficult to deduce percentages on your graph, the table in results, which I thank you for editing, displays though percentages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PalmerTheGolfer (talk • contribs) 15:35, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

I have come to the conclusion that since we have fought this a proverbial stalemate, reason has not prevailed. As a result I hope you take my advice, but regardless I know you're trying to make things easier to understand. I'll sit back and watch the article take its path. If it comes to it, please respect consensus, whatever it may be PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 16:42, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Texas Man 34's edits are fine with me. If you wish to switch the order of the maps, that'd be fine as well. According to Wikipedia:Neutral Point of view/FAQ assumptions are allowed in circumstances. Therefore shouldn't we be able to assume that readers will know the results of the election, and can deduce that the blue counties are more populated? And that's why democrats won by 12% PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 20:01, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Here are some articles that discuss why pie charts are not good for elections and other things: http://www.businessinsider.com/pie-charts-are-the-worst-2013-6 another one from Duke, in which the "squint test" is relavent: http://guides.library.duke.edu/datavis/topten one more, as now I've shown that maps deserve equal weight as there are many legitimate views against pie charts as well: http://www.storytellingwithdata.com/blog/2011/07/death-to-pie-charts PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 20:12, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

I'd also like to say that under edit warring, there is a 3 revert rule, as it states you can't revert an edit more than 3 times, and such violations can result in blocking. PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 20:19, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

in 24 hours PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 20:20, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Another article: https://www.geckoboard.com/blog/pie-charts/#.WFG7OnQ8KhA PalmerTheGolfer (talk) 21:38, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Did you read your pie chart article? It's true that when alternatives are available, pies are best avoided. Pie maps is one of the few cases where they are preferred. You clearly can't stick a bar chart on a map. You could try to put tree maps on, but with this many counties, it wouldn't work.

It's important to remember that the alternative to the pie chart you're offering is not another chart with the same data. You're offering no data. You're saying, "Oh, pie charts can be bad", lets replace it with "40% of ???". A percentage of an unknown is basically nothing. So yes, pies have their problems, but they are far better than nothing. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 02:04, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

What information is given by a pie map vs filled area (aka choropleth)?

Comparison of choropleth and pie maps

What does it tell us?	Choropleth	Pie map	Notes
Who won the state?	¯\_(ツ)_/¯	Y	Pie map has a color key with the candidates ordered by overall vote, with the winner on top. Latest versions have the winner in bold, with the exact percentages next to the names. Visually, strong victories are obvious in the pie map, while close races are not as easy to discern, which is an accurate reflection of the data. In early versions of the pie map, if the race is close, you have to look hard at the data. In the choropleth, who won, and by how much, is completely missing, though it can mislead you into thinking a losing candidate won. Facepalm
Was it close or a landslide?	¯\_(ツ)_/¯	Y	Blowouts are dominated by color in the pie map. The amount of one color or the other in the choropleth is meaningless, because you have no idea how many votes were cast in each county
Were third party candidates a factor?	¯\_(ツ)_/¯	Y	The filled map has only one color per county; it only tells you about one candidate. You don't know how many there were, or how many votes they got. Even the other major party candidate is ignored.
How many candidates were on the ballot?	¯\_(ツ)_/¯	Y	The pie map lists the names of every candidate, as well as "write in" and "none of the above" in states that have them, in the unused space around the corners of the state borders.
How many votes were cast?	¯\_(ツ)_/¯	Y	The colors on the choropleth show how far ahead the "winner" was, but there is at all on the number of votes is included. The pie map has all this.
What is the distribution of voters?	¯\_(ツ)_/¯	Y	States with an evelnly spread population have similar sized pies in each county, while states with highly concentrated big cities have a few very large pies and many very small ones. The filled area map tells you nothing at all about distribution of voters
How well did each candidate do?	Partially implemented *only one candidate	Y	It's clear in the pie map if a candidate won a majority or a plurality, and you can see which candidates had significant shares, in counties with a significant number of voters. Candidates with very small shares of the vote, and counties with very few voters, are visible, but only barely so, in scale with the data. The filled map only has information about the top candidate; all other candidates are a mystery.
How many counties did the candidates win?	Y + Facepalm	Y	The choropleth puts strong emphasis on winning counties; the more counties a candidate "wins", the more the map is lit up with that candidate's color. Winning a majority of counties is utterly meaningless, and drawing attention to this is not a feature, it's a defect. The pie map tells you who had the most votes in the relatively significant counties, but those with few votes at stake are de-emphasized.
How far ahead was the "winner" in each county?	Y + Facepalm	Y	The color range indicating the "winner" was head by 40-50%, 50-60%, etc, is factual, but highly misleading. Deep blue in a large area does not indicate anything about how the race turned out. Nevada is a case in point: it looks like the red candidate won a blowout, "wining" all but two counties, and by large margins to boot. The fact that the other candidate's moderate margins in two counties resulted in a plurality win is not even hinted at in the choropleth.
Does it use space efficiently?	N	Y	The choropleth requires a color key to explain the meaning of the color ranges. In spite of the amount of space given over to decoding these colors, you don't actually know anything by them, because "50% of an unknown quantity" equals an unknown quantity. The pie map uses as much space as possible, limited by the shape of the state and the distribution of the counties. States like California are shaped in a way that leaves large areas unused, but choropleth does no better in this regard. The pie map's key is inside the image, taking advantage of any empty corners created by the shape of the state.
Is it worth while to study this map?	N	Y	The choropleth's meager information is at a low resolution. What you learn from your first glance is all there is. You can carefully note the color gradations of each county and find out the percentage indicated, but that is a percentage of an unknown, so it's a waste of your time to spend too much time on it. Comparing state choropleth with each other is pointless; you have no idea how many votes are in each county, or how well other candidates did in other states, or even who else was on the ballot. The pie map has finer detail beyond the general outcome indicated by the dominant color on the pies. Looking closer reveals how many third party candidates there were, and how well they did. All the candidates names are on the key. The name of each county is readable. Clicking for full resolution reveals more detail about the smaller sized counties, and the minor candidates. Comparison with other pie maps illustrates differences in each state's urban-rural contrast, and the relative distributions of their populations, and how many names appeared on each state's ballot. If the race is close, you might have to look hard to determine who is ahead. The state's winner gets more color space, and you can figure that out by looking closer. If there is a clear winner, the pie map makes this obvious immediately.
What are the names of the counties?	¯\_(ツ)_/¯	Y
What is the exact percentage of the top candidates?	¯\_(ツ)_/¯	Y	Updated versions of pie map has percentages in the color key after the names of the top candidates
Any info on the surrounding geography?	¯\_(ツ)_/¯	Y	Pie map includes some details of the surrounding states, helping to place the geography in context. Choropleth is abstracted version of the county outlines only, with whitespace surrounding floating county shapes.

This is a partial table. I will update with further details. Updated Dec 15. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:59, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

• Hello @Dennis Bratland:. I totally understand what you are saying and I really appreciate your work. The maps you have been created are absolutely helpful, but this does not mean that the previous choropleth maps should be "deleted" from the articles. Choropleth maps are widely used (not only for elections) not only in Wikipedia, but in the News and lot more. For instance let's take our main elecion map, which has been widely used throughout the articles, into the consideration. Since it is a choropleth map, does that mean it must be deleted from every single article?
  I personally believe both type maps can be used in the infobox of the state articles, as it is now. To be honest, I don't believe that choropleth maps are misleading to many people.Ali 04:03, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

• The only people I can think of who are not misled are those who carry around in their heads the number of votes cast in each county of the state they are looking at, allowing them to (in theory) mentally calculate the correct weight of each county. I find this implausible, much like a person who can read the text blue without any chance of being mislead by the color of the font. Such readers may exist, but if you're depending on them to ensure your graph is not creating a false idea, you're likely to fail nearly always. And for readers who do carry that data around in their heads, why do they need a map anyway? For the vast majority, the map is doing a disservice. I don't think "everybody else is doing it" is an adequate excuse.

  There's only one reason I know of that such maps are ubiquitous: they are quick and easy to make. Anyone who can make a map of a county at all can color it. The only reason to keep such a map is if you have no other options whatsoever. Especially since, as spelled out above, they offer essentially no meaningful information at all.

  For the moment, keeping both maps is what were seeing in the articles. I predict that the misleading, useless map will eventually be removed from all of them, once enough editors overcome their irrational resistance to change. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 04:18, 16 December 2016 (UTC)