Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Iowa/Government

Proposed standard for Iowa Legislator Infoboxes

Proposed Sample
Member of the Iowa Senate from the 36th 46th (2000-2002) district
Incumbent
Assumed office 2000
Preceded by	John Judge
Personal details
Political party	Republican

Original Sample
Member of the Iowa Senate from the 36th district
Incumbent
Assumed office 2002
Preceded by	Jack Holveck
Member of the Iowa Senate from the 46th district
In office 2000–2002
Preceded by	John Judge
Succeeded by	Gene Fraise
Personal details
Political party	Republican

As has been discussed here, it is pointless to show a "complete" infobox for Iowa legislators, especially since these are often made unnecessarily long by the redistricting every 10 years. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that long infoboxes exaggerate the stub-quality of most of the relevant articles. In the future this may not be a problem, but it is presently. At any rate, infoboxes are used for "at-a-glance" information, more complete information can be left in the succession boxes at the bottom of the page. This proposal is suggested to be in line with current standards for U.S. legislators, while retaining maximum clarity. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 23:28, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposed:

That where the "complete" infobox of an Iowa legislator would show multiple headers (multiple places that say "Member of the Iowa house from the nth District") for the same house in the General Assembly, and where such change in districts is the result of redistricting and not of moving from one district to another nor of a discontinuity of service in that house, the infobox should show only one "header" for the time in office, listing the original predecessor and final challenger. Examples are provided to the right. Note that this proposal would require a minor change to the template to allow the small text to appear after the word "district" on its own line, as in the section on John Major's Member of Parliament term(s).

Discussion:

Support as author. Avoids problems like at Mike Connolly (Iowa politician), while maintaining clarity. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 23:28, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

If they work in different districts, are you going to put all the Preceded by and Succeeded by people, or just the ones for their current district? Ctjf83Talk 03:22, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

The plan was to put the preceded and succeeded by people for the time in the legislative chamber (not district) if the change was the result of redistricting. If the change was the result of moving or discontinuous service, it would be treated as if it were a separate chamber. Crude, but about the best that can be done without having a lengthy infobox for long-term politicians. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 07:04, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Support. Much more concise. Psychless 23:25, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Conclusion:

Okay, seeing no objections, I'm going to figure out the code change for the template and implement these changes. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 19:34, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

The coding is  Done. You can see the code at work here. I will do the replacement in the articles shortly. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 03:10, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

New Discussion to this old subject

I support what I see so far. An observation is — do you think a secondary line in small text with a description of either "Redistricting" or "Relocation" as the reason for change in District is needed?

I seem to remember of examples of politicians relocating to improve their chances of being elected. Also for discussion what about a politician who was formerly in that district but was voted out and now gets re–elected? I am new to wiki and this may have been addressed before.

In a related area because of this discussion I went and looked at a Swati Dandekar an article i have done some work on. To my surprise I just noticed the double shaded title boxes for the first time (I may not be as observant as some) but then noticed what I see as a confusing point. Possibly the word "Former" should be placed in front of the "Member of" for previous elected positions. RifeIdeas Talk 16:48, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

No. The reason for their relocation is really not relevant to the infobox - you can find that reason in the article text. It is, therefore addressed only indirectly in the infobox by the use of a new header if the result was due to moving or being kicked out (and coming back into) office. On second thought, the better reason is that if re-elected in a different district due to redistricting, you are really serving the "same" term and get the same header. If re-elected in a different district b/c of moving, this is really a "different" term and you get a different header. Of course, if there is a time difference, this has to be reflected by a "term_end," so will necessarily be in a different header.

As for the question about "former", that is a question best brought up at the template talk page - Template talk:Infobox Officeholder, though I doubt you'll get anywhere with it considering that a) the template is widely used and b) this information is already in the template in the "term_end" parameter. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 20:31, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

You know, I can't find the "former" question in the archives of Template talk:Infobox Officeholder, so it's possible it hasn't been brought up before... --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 20:52, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

This information about templates seems to be above my level of knowledge at this time. Even with your help and with you putting in the new parameters such as "results in=" in the "Bruce Braley" examples, I could not find them in my own searching. (a little off topic) So at this time I will just have to accept your expertise in these matters and ask questions which I hope do not have obvious answers I have overlooked. My learning curve seems to be getting steeper haha. RifeIdeas Talk 21:26, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Vote count formats in articles

It would be nice to have a fixed standard for how we handle vote counts in articles. So far, there are three formats in play.

The one I used at first. This is what is in most articles. (Example from Matt McCoy (Iowa politician).)

McCoy was last re-elected in 2006 with 13,276 votes (66%), defeating Republican opponent Nicholas G. van Patten.

The second uses the "election box inline no change" templates and is used only in a few articles - at one point I was starting to change the articles over to this, before RL overtook me. (Example from David Hartsuch.) This edit was actually added by Ctjf83.

Year	Party		Incumbent	Status	Party		Candidate	Votes	%
2008		Democratic	Bruce Braley	re-elected		Democratic	Bruce Braley	178,229	64%
						Republican	David Hartsuch	99,447	35%

The third is the one RifeIdeas is putting in articles to reflect the 2010 elections. (Example from Tom Schueller.)

2010 Iowa House of Representatives District 25 General Election Unofficial Iowa Election Results

Tom Schueller (D) (5324 votes) (49.31%)

Brian Moore (R) (5473 votes) (50.69%)

write in (0 votes) (0.0%)

Which one should we use throughout the articles? --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 14:49, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I'll go ahead and give my view - I think the second one should be used - it gives a clear at-a-glance view of the election and can be easily expanded to include past elections without compromising readability so much as the text-based versions would. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 16:12, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I think it is important to show the succession of the election cycles and being a new editor I started with the basics here is an example of mine Swati Dandekar but I can see it is getting lengthy as in Chuck Grassley#electoral history. As I just learned how to do expandable boxes I plan to go back and redo the lengthy histories with one similar to Tom Harkin#Electoral history. Although I plan on using a separate expandable box for each year with the header in the box showing only year, election type and won or loss, drop-down would include who ran and and vote count. I also plan to go back and use expandable boxes for Committee appointments as they are getting lengthy also, possibly a combination.

For full clarity look at page Tom Schueller the example Philosopher used above. I just entered the 2010 election results as they were very close and also the header Electoral History. All of these politician stubs I have looked at were started after the 2006 election (example Polly Bukta) and then not updated. A point to be made the committee assignments have no date posted and are therefore out dated and not factual.

As for the second example I like the color but if I understand it correctly and you have multiple election cycles it grows lengthy. My vote is for expandable boxes possibly some kind of standardized system and colors. RifeIdeas Talk 17:30, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

What about using the second example, but putting it inside a collapsable box? --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} via alternate account 21:25, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

(off topic)The problem with the committee assignments is that they change frequently throughout the year, sometimes several times throughout the year, and often without any press release or dates on the official sites. It is, therefore, impossible to have a complete list unless you are willing to read the minutes of each day's legislative session - which is why I had only listed the current assignments or (for those no longer in office) the last assignments they held. If you are going to do a "per term" one, that's feasible too, I suppose - but it should clarify if they are the committee seats held at the beginning or at the end of the term. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} via alternate account 21:25, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I like the table best, I think it is a lot easier to just look at it and see what's going on at a glance, as opposed to paragraph form. I can't remember whose page it was on, but there was a cleaner looking table, I thought it was on McCain's page, but can't find it now...I'll get back to you on it.... CTJF83 chat 23:58, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Ok, it is McCain, but it doesn't look as clean as I first thought. The two party boxes don't look bad...but after that it is kind of wide. I also agree with a table gets too long, we can always collapse it. CTJF83 chat 00:01, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

So, can we agree to use the table above and collapse it if it gets too big? I strongly prefer the one on this page to the one on McCain's page b/c a) it allows a "standardized" format and b) it's templated, which makes it easier to use and understand. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 17:36, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I hope there is not a rush for consensus being this discussion is 3 days old. Being the newbie I have been trying to learn how to work the collapsible versions of code available to me. Look at My Progress for more explanation. As far as styles the John McCain#House and Senate elections and career, 1982–2000 article is all prose and the Electoral history of John McCain article is almost identical to my style and the length shows the flaw in the style I have used. I seem to remember reading somewhere in the Wikipedia guidelines about limiting color in Articles, but that may of been about text, I am not sure. I still vote for something new to all of the examples listed here including my own, as stated above. RifeIdeas Talk 21:25, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I vote for the table above with Bruce Braley, to me tables are a lot easier to quickly look at and get the information. CTJF83 chat 22:44, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Not that I have finished my quest for the perfect solution but here is an example I have discovered.

Template:Compact election box

Election	Political result		Candidate		Party	Votes	%	±%
2008 Iowa House of Representatives District 18		Democratic win		Bruce Braley (I)	Democratic	178,229	64%
				David Hartsuch	Republican	99,447	35%
				Write in		1,010	1%
				Rife Ideas	Green	10	0.1%
<span class="anchor" id="2008 Iowa House of Representatives District 20 result"><span class="anchor" id="2008 iowa house of representatives district 20 result">2008 Iowa House of Representatives District 20		Republican win		Bruce Braley	Republican	178,229	64%
				David Hartsuch (I)	Democratic	99,447	35%
				Joe	Libertarian	1,010	1%
				Philosopher for fun	For Fun Party	10	0.1%

Although I was disappointed that I could not make the color code work for the Libertarian Party like I did for the Green party (yet).
Still open for discussion? RifeIdeas Talk 04:09, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Looks pretty good, nice and clean...I put Joe in the bottom as Libertarian. CTJF83 chat 21:23, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks CTj, I had found out my 1 space mistake with Libertarian as I pointed out on my template page. RifeIdeas Talk 23:44, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, I still prefer the other, but I suppose this would be acceptable too. I propose that if we do this, we use the election title in the template below. Also, I still really prefer "no change" versions of the template (and notice that Rife Ideas left that blank in his example) - would anyone object to using a "no change" version of this template? (None exists currently, but several other election templates have a "no change" version, so I could create one for this template.) --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 00:45, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Using {{Compact election box}}

Bruce Braley's electoral history

Election	Political result		Candidate		Party	Votes	%	±%
<span class="anchor" id="Iowa House of Representatives elections, 2008 District 18 result"><span class="anchor" id="iowa house of representatives elections, 2008 district 18 result">Iowa House of Representatives elections, 2008 District 18		Democratic gain from Republican		Bruce Braley	Democratic	178,229	64%
				David Hartsuch (I)	Republican	99,447	35%
				Write in		1,010	1%
				Rife Ideas	Green	10	0.1%
<span class="anchor" id="Iowa House of Representatives elections, 2008 District 18 result"><span class="anchor" id="iowa house of representatives elections, 2008 district 18 result">Iowa House of Representatives elections, 2008 District 18		Republican hold		Bruce Braley (I)	Republican	178,229	64%
				David Hartsuch	Democratic	99,447	35%
				Joe	Libertarian	1,010	1%
				Ridiculously long name for example	Again long name for example	10	0.1%
<span class="anchor" id="2008 Iowa House of Representatives District 18 result"><span class="anchor" id="2008 iowa house of representatives district 18 result">2008 Iowa House of Representatives District 18		Democratic hold		Bruce Braley (I)	Democratic	178,229	64%
				David Hartsuch	Republican	99,447	35%
				Write in		1,010	1%
				Rife Ideas	Green	10	0.1%
<span class="anchor" id="2008 Iowa House of Representatives District 100 result"><span class="anchor" id="2008 iowa house of representatives district 100 result">2008 Iowa House of Representatives District 100		Republican		Bruce Braley	Republican	178,229	64%
				Write in	Libertarian	1,010	1%

I'd have to see an example? Would it say like "Democrat hold" or something? As for which of the tables to use, I don't really have a preference, both look good to me. CTJF83 chat 02:08, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

No, the only difference is that that empty column headed "±%" wouldn't be there. Most election templates have a "normal" verson which includes that column and then a "no change" version which doesn't include it. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 02:50, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Please explain...i thought the ±% was for how much more or less for example the Dems got percent wise from the last election? CTJF83 chat 02:53, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

See Template talk:Election box#Change column for an explanation of why it isn't a useful column. I've been looking around and it seems to be the consensus that that field isn't intended for U.S.-type elections. Also, you're right - the box shouldn't say "Republican win", it should say "Republican hold" or "Republican gain," but that parameter is included in the template already - I've changed my example above to reflect that. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 03:28, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Ahh, ok, ya I always just figured out the %, cause it was an entry space...do we 3 agree for this just above template for all articles? CTJF83 chat 03:34, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Being new at this I like this working to a consensus and I am learning so much from the two of you, I liked this {{Compact election box}} (just learned) style better because it was easier to read and follow across IMHO. I also did not like the "±%" (where do I find this symbol?) column and am glad to hear it can be eliminated(something I need to learn). In my search I did not see a parameter documented for "result = " (just learned it existed and still could not find) but am glad for it. I added 2 more examples I copied from My Progress to show another choice in the election title. But after moving it here I realized that there is the possibility of a candidate running unopposed so therefore there may only be 2 rows, theirs and write in. I also added a long name to see about problems popping up in narrow browsers. I think having elections in the name is redundant so I vote for not including it in the title.

I feel the need to point out that in the Iowa House of Representatives elections, 2010 page these will be stacked and the first title line can and should be eliminated for less busyness leaving only the District line. However in the individual Politian's sites I feel it should be the year first "2010 Iowa House of Representatives" or "2010 Iowa Senate" or "2010 United States Senate" especially if the same Politian has held more than 1 type of office. After we come to consensus on the style and layout (we are close) I propose eventually backtracking and doing all elections from 2000 to present. Oh and I still need to help on getting the right type of collapsible table for the individual Politian's sites and I propose having a "hide" box for all elections except the last election cycle. Lastly what do you think of having the main election header every 10 contests on the Iowa House of Representatives elections, 2010 site? RifeIdeas Talk 06:37, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I would like to leave "elections" in there both because that is the actual name of the page and because there is no such thing as the "2010 Iowa House of Representatives" (and we can't say "the xth General Assembly" b/c that's ambiguous between the House and the Senate). Additionally because many politicians are originally elected to positions in special elections (as will be happening in Senate District 48 following Kim Reynolds' resignation) and we will need to be able to point out which type of elections they are. If people have narrow browsers, I really don't see a problem with allowing the text to roll over to the next line.

I agree with everything else you said, except possibly for the last one about the election header every 10 contests - I think that one should hold off until we've created the page so we can see how it would look on the page before implementing it. As for collapsible boxes, obviously we don't need that for the election box or for politicians with just a few elections, but I'll put together an example for use on the longer politician pages in the example above. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 17:18, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

What do you think of this box? It uses {{show}}. You can see it in use in an article at Curley Byrd#Head coaching records. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 18:19, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I think the Template:show is overly simplistic. When I first came onto this site my first reaction was where is our examples? When I went to "Curley Byrd#Head coaching records." example same thing. It was not until I went to Template:show that I could see the white box on the colored background. (remember some of us are visually and otherwise challenged). After seeing that I retraced my steps and dropped down the various info boxes. Can the header box have color? Can the choice to have the box be open or collapsed available? I have seen examples of these somewhere but they use more complicated code.

As far as the title discussion I looked at many examples on other pages and the vast majority had the year at the end of the title so I concede, although I prefer leading with the date for ease of information finding. After some thought about the special election example you pointed out I thought about others. Although there will not always be a main page for some categories of elections there will be a need for them on the individual Politician's page like primary elections or caucuses, Iowa House and Senate, and Federal elections. Not trying to get overly complicated, but I feel the title area should consider all of these situations if the goal is to set one standard for all Iowa political races. RifeIdeas Talk 20:15, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

There is also {{collapse}} and its templates, but that looks even worse than this does (an extra "box" around it that isn't centered and apparently can't be centered, etc.). The best option, to have a show/hide option in the template itself could be brought up at Template talk:Election box, which seems to be the (or one of the) central talk pages for the election templates, but this is, unfortunately, not a change that we can make on our own. I would suggest using the {{show}} until/unless we can get the show/hide thing implemented into the template itself. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 20:26, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

New round

New GA, so new round of updates. Please see User:Philosopher/Legislative model for the model of the content/code being used. If that can be improved, please do so, but note changes on the talk page as any changes to it will need to be retrofitted to articles that have already been taken care of. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:36, 15 January 2013 (UTC)