Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums/Archive 21

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Flags in the infoboxes of elections

I don't know when the parameter or whatever was added. But the election infoboxes look great, with the addition of flags. GoodDay (talk) 03:16, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Can you please give an example? This would seem to run strongly against MOS:INFOBOXFLAG... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 03:54, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

2024 United States presidential election for example, has the American flag at the top of its infobox. Every executive & legislative election article (country, province, territory, state, municipal etc), has a flag at the top of its infobox. GoodDay (talk) 08:43, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

My personal feeling is that these are unnecessary, and do run afoul of MOS:INFOBOXFLAG. That said, I've seen worse examples of this. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 15:23, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

This is a clear violation of MOS:FLAG and should be removed. I would prefer it if the infobox was changed so that no flag was possible. Bondegezou (talk) 15:31, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't know how long they've been there, exactly. Only noticed them a few days. GoodDay (talk) 20:33, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

At least circa 2007, or maybe even when the template was created? Vacant0 (talk) 20:40, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I noticed somebody removed the flag from the 2024 US presidential election article's infobox. But the flag is in all the Year US presidential election articles infoboxes. Indeed the flags are in all the Year Place election articles infoboxes across Wikipedia. GoodDay (talk) 20:36, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I removed it. It's a clear violation of MOS:FLAG, however common it is. Not all election article infoboxes do use the flag, although many do. (Indeed, we have an established consensus explicitly banning them from Northern Ireland-related articles.) I support establishing a consensus here that the field should not be used, or just removing the field from the infobox (or otherwise adapting the field so it doesn't display a flag icon). Bondegezou (talk) 21:41, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I've no preference either way (inclusion or exclusion), as long as whatever's decided is applied consistently across all related articles. GoodDay (talk) 21:44, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

If agreement can be reached to just change the infobox template, that would be great. However, I think waiting for such consistency or letting an expectation of consistency hold back editing goes against WP:WIP. We should fix articles where and when we can. Bondegezou (talk) 21:50, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I also note that using flags for sub-national regions is an even more egregious violation of MOS:FLAG as per MOS:SOVEREIGNFLAG. If we can't get a general agreement, I hope we could at least agree not to use flags for elections not at a national level. Bondegezou (talk) 21:46, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

They're practically in all levels, right down to the municipal executive & legislative election articles. The best move is to eliminate the mechanism that's allowing the flags to be shown. GoodDay (talk) 22:00, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@Bondegezou: you're removing the "country" parameter, not doing something like setting a theoretical show_flag parameter to false. If you think the template has bad behavior, get a consensus to change it, but please don't edit the articles to remove a valid template parameter in the meantime. Elli (talk | contribs) 22:08, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I will further note that MOS:FLAG is not policy and that consensus can be silent -- the fact that it doesn't look like there have been objections to this for over a decade seems to indicate that it has some level of approval. Elli (talk | contribs) 22:10, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I have seen numerous objections to this over the last decade, many discussions and some shifts in behaviour, albeit no global consensus that pleases everyone. However, my focus has been more on UK elections than US elections.

Article content should be based on MOS over the presence of a template parameter in an infobox. I can't believe that needs stating! The former, MOS:FLAG, is a community consensus that has also stood for over a decade. Just because a template parameter exists is not a reason to use it, not over and above existing consensus as laid out clearly in the MOS.

If people want flag icons decorating their infoboxes, I would urge them to seek a change to MOS:FLAG to allow that. Until then, I harbour no embarrassment about arguing for obeying the Manual of Style. Bondegezou (talk) 22:25, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@Bondegezou: The country parameter is used in at least one other place in the coding of the infobox, though. In the future, it may potentially be used elsewhere. You shouldn't remove the parameter just because you dislike how it displays; that's a discussion for the template itself. If you think your change would have consensus, there's no deadline, you can wait and implement it in the infobox template. Trying to implement it in each article instead, leading to an inconsistent look and many pointless edits (compared to just editing the template) isn't the right approach here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elli (talk • contribs)

Not to speak on Bondegezou's behalf, but it's not really a matter of disliking display, so much as display of the parameter breaches the MOS. The purpose of an infobox is how it displays. And as others have mentioned, it's even worse when people display subnational flags or political party logos, including using UK county names in the "country" field. I'm happy to be part of a consensus here to deprecate use of the country parameter or, ideally, to remove the option of displaying a flag in the infobox altogether. Ralbegen (talk) 10:06, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I suppose the flag identifies which country or even subdivision the election is being held at. I suppose it's better if this is transformed into a "countryname" parameter just like 99% of other infoboxes out there.

This also identifies in which body the election is being held under. For example, special elections (sorry, by-elections) can be unclear on which political entity it is being held at. A US flag means it's for one of the houses of Congress, a state flag means it is for a state legislature. Again, transforming this to a countryname parameter would make this better. 13:44, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Can you picture the reaction to having in the infoboxes of the Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish & (less angry) English election infoboxes? GoodDay (talk) 13:59, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

For Westminister elections, no, but as per current usage, the relevant "national flag" is displayed for devolved legislature elections. Howard the Duck (talk) 15:05, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

The Northern Irish flag is not used, as per past discussion and consensus against its use in Northern Irish election articles. Tensions are heightened in Northern Ireland, but the same principle applies everywhere. Avoid politically loaded iconography that is merely there for decoration. Bondegezou (talk) 15:46, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

From what I know, Northern Ireland does not have a de jure flag, so its non-usage seems to be on point. Howard the Duck (talk) 15:47, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

See Flag of Northern Ireland and Northern Ireland flags issue. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:55, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

You don't need a flag over, under and besides the words "2024 United States presidential election" to tell you what country it will occur in! Where there are multiple applicable flags, inclusion practice only obfuscates, like the use of a saltire in the current version of 2019 United Kingdom general election in Scotland. It's false to assume that election infobox flags include some useful information that not even experienced editors can agree on, let alone new users looking to edit a prominent part of the article that they've taken issue with. Best to be rid of them all. Ralbegen (talk) 14:35, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Good thing we ditched "Sammarinese" (was that the right spelling?) as the article title for elections in San Marino. There might be a handful of other examples elsewhere, but I suppose this isn't like sports leagues where the country it is being held at isn't gleaned upon at the title per se. (assuming you're a grandma who has no idea on how 21st century sports operate, where is the National Basketball Association played at? Is the Premier League the premier league of sepaktakraw?) 15:05, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

GoodDay, the fact that we would expect a negative reaction to having in the infoboxes of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish elections just goes to demonstrate exactly what MOS:FLAG lays out, namely that flags are contentious, political symbols that, as per WP:NPOV, we should avoid. The neutral way to avoid all such negative reactions is to follow the community standard of the MOS and remove unnecessary, decorative flag icons from all election article infoboxes. Bondegezou (talk) 15:46, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

If flags are gonna be removed. They would have to be removed from all Year election articles. GoodDay (talk) 16:30, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Commentary rows in polling tables

There is an RfC that is perhaps of general interest at Talk:Opinion_polling_for_the_2022_Australian_federal_election#RfC_on_commentary_rows around whether opinion polling tables should have rows providing commentary on the events of the day. Input welcomed. Bondegezou (talk) 12:11, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Additional parameter for WikiProject banner

As I was reading through an article, I noticed that it lacked an Infobox. I went to the talk page, but noticed that the WikiProject banner template is fairly minimalistic. I am wondering if there should be a new parameter added to the banner that should be used on articles that lack infoboxes. This parameter can be found on WikiProject Sweden, architecture, and molecular biology. Compare the article on the 2021 Gibraltar abortion referendum (does not have an infobox) to the article on the 2021 Mexican corruption trial referendum (has an infobox). — Painting17 (talk) 20:58, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Good day! - how do we get members to help focus on a particular article?

how do we get members to help focus on a particular article? Thanks a bunch. Quiet2 (talk) 09:10, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

I was giving attention to a lot of election & referendum articles, but have eased off in the last few days. GoodDay (talk) 20:52, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

@Quiet2: For a start, you could state exactly which article you have in mind. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:13, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Electoral district disambiguation

Without looking, can you tell the difference between Durham (electoral district) and Electoral district of Durham? Maybe WP:AUSPOL mandates "Electoral district of Foo" whereas WP:CANADA (or the inactive subproject WP:CANELEC) uses "Foo (electoral district)". Perhaps some other country's Wikproject has decided on a third pattern. Until I edited the articles listed at Durham (disambiguation)#Electoral_districts, they generally had hatnotes for articles about other districts in the same country, but not those abroad. To avoid confusing unwary readers, it seems to me that electoral-district articles need either (a) more cross-national hatnotes or (b) a cross-national disambiguator convention — in this case, maybe "Foo (Barian electoral district)" or "Electoral district of Foo (Barland)". jnestorius^(talk) 06:29, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Absolutely agree - all of the articles would be much more easy to find if they were titled using one convention. Personally would go for "Foo (Barian electoral district)", just because it seems a bit less clunky than "Electoral district of Foo (Barland)", but to be honest there just needs to be something agreed to make it less of a mess. Gazamp (talk) 14:20, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

FWIW there's another convention: "Foo's <ordinal> congressional district". This is used in US House districts, and we copied this to Philippine congressional districts. The Philippines has separate "Legislative districts of Foo" series for general information on electoral districts in all levels in a particular place. Howard the Duck (talk) 15:40, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

I suppose there won't be disambiguation needed for such articles, at least for US ones, but you'll never know... Howard the Duck (talk) 15:44, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure I see the need for a cross-national disambiguator convention - I doubt many readers find it especially confusing, and it just adds an extra layer of disambiguation to what are otherwise natural titles. I'd also note a great many associated pages that would also need changing (e.g. each Australian district has an associated results page). There can always be redirects if people are having difficulty finding articles (are they really?). Entirely in favour of more cross-national hatnotes wherever needed. Frickeg (talk) 22:17, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

I can, but it helps that I also happen to know the difference between County Durham and Durham County, or at least Durham County, New South Wales. It's a fairly esoteric topic & I would frankly be surprised if many of the people who live in the area knew the name of the county, let alone that it used to be the name of the electorate. Australia has adopted a consistent approach of "Division of ..." for federal electorates and "Electoral district of ..." for state electorates. This exited before my time on wikipedia, but I suspect it is largely because that is the way the electorates have been named eg [1] There are relatively few that require disambiguation, such as Electoral district of Paddington. I would be surprised if there were many people trying to find a particular electorate in Australia by typing it into the search bar & I don't see how wikipedia will be improved by the disruption caused by the name changes. I too support the use of cross-national hatnotes - in the unlikely event someone lands on the wrong page, it will help them quickly find what they're looking for. --Find bruce (talk) 02:30, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Croatian elections template discussion

There is a discussion at Template talk:Croatian elections#2022 redux regarding the layout of the template. Views would be welcomed. Cheers, Number 57 20:17, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Uttar Pradesh polling

There is a discussion at Talk:2022_Uttar_Pradesh_Legislative_Assembly_election#Adding_Opinion_Polls about what polling is reliable and should be included in the article. I don't know what the right answer is, but I think some additional input is needed to stop a cycle of reverting. Bondegezou (talk) 09:21, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Bar graphics that display wrongly

I've just cut this:

Elections Canada September 21, 2021, federal election results

↓
160	119	32	25	2
Liberal	Conservative	BQ	NDP	G

from 2021 Canadian federal election. These kinds of bars display incorrectly on some devices with smaller screens (and that's how most people read Wikipedia). The bars for each party can be the wrong size, because the bar always remains large enough to display the text in it. (Try minimising your browser window while looking at the Green Party bar.) The majority point arrow can go all over the place. In other words, we have an articles that 'say' the wrong thing because the graphic doesn't work. We have previously agreed that we should therefore never use these and a bunch were deleted from articles. But they keep turning up again! Can I ask for a more concerted push from WikiProject members to get rid of these (or replace with a graphic that displays reliably)? Bondegezou (talk) 09:15, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

So, it looks like they're all over the Canadian election articles: on all federal elections from 2019 Canadian federal election back to 1867 Canadian federal election; possibly on all the provincial Canadian elections, like 2018 Ontario general election and 2020 British Columbia general election. Bondegezou (talk) 09:22, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Fully agree that these graphs are awful, and I remove any that I see (although I almost never edit Canadian election articles). Cheers, Number 57 22:38, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Yeah these aren't great. I'll remove when I see them; if we must have a visual representation of this there are much better ways to go about it. Elli (talk | contribs) 01:00, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

I had no idea there was a consensus against these graphs. Do you have a link to the discussion? Not that I doubt you, I just want to make sure I'm on solid ground if I go removing them, and have something to refer back to if challenged. — Kawnhr (talk) 00:28, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

It has been discussed many times, but searching the archives is tricky! You can just point people here. Bondegezou (talk) 09:25, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Fair enough! I've just gone and cleared them from a few BC elections, and will continue this periodically from here on out. — Kawnhr (talk) 22:23, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

I've no objections to the elimination of those graphics-in-question. GoodDay (talk) 20:36, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

I suspect if one were to go through many of the older Canadian federal/provincial/territorial election articles. They'll find many out-dated graphics. GoodDay (talk) 20:43, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Discussion about electoral redistribution categories

I have proposed a cleanup/rescoping of the categories Category:Redistricting, Category:Electoral redistributions and category:Redistricting in the United States. You are invited to the discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2022 February 17#Redistricting. Thryduulf (talk) 12:29, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

"Redistricting" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Redistricting and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 February 15#Redistricting until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 12:38, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:1891 Cisleithanian legislative election#Requested move 22 February 2022

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:1891 Cisleithanian legislative election#Requested move 22 February 2022 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 21:13, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:1897 Cisleithanian legislative election#Requested move 22 February 2022

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:1897 Cisleithanian legislative election#Requested move 22 February 2022 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 21:13, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:1907 Cisleithanian legislative election#Requested move 22 February 2022

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:1907 Cisleithanian legislative election#Requested move 22 February 2022 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 21:14, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:1907 Cisleithanian legislative election in the Kingdom of Dalmatia#Requested move 22 February 2022

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:1907 Cisleithanian legislative election in the Kingdom of Dalmatia#Requested move 22 February 2022 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 21:14, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:1911 Cisleithanian legislative election#Requested move 22 February 2022

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:1911 Cisleithanian legislative election#Requested move 22 February 2022 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 21:16, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:1911 Cisleithanian legislative election in the Kingdom of Dalmatia#Requested move 22 February 2022

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:1911 Cisleithanian legislative election in the Kingdom of Dalmatia#Requested move 22 February 2022 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 21:17, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:1900–1901 Cisleithanian legislative election#Requested move 22 February 2022

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:1900–1901 Cisleithanian legislative election#Requested move 22 February 2022 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 21:21, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Interactive maps in congressional district articles

Hi, I would like to see if any of you thinks that interactive maps should be inserted into articles on congressional districts or lists of them (eg. Illinois's congressional districts). I believe this is a positive since this removes the hassle of making maps in the form of images one by one and readers can click around and zoom into the maps. This would look a lot like the map I added in User:Twotwofourtysix/sandbox#Heading 1. I appreciate any feedbacks. (Courtesy ping to CX Zoom) —twotwofourtysix^{(My talk page and contributions)} 04:59, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

A downside to this can be that, at least I don't believe, the map can take numbering/labels on the districts. However, this shouldn't be much of a problem in articles of individual congressional districts. —twotwofourtysix^{(My talk page and contributions)} 05:01, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes this is fabulous, thank you! Would be glad to see this for all of them. Good to still include a static map too of course to include numbering, once we have consistent versions of those. Reywas92^Talk 14:23, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

This is an amazing idea. I was thinking of adding external links to DRA on every map but this is much better as everything stays within Wikipedia. Static maps look good, but this would also enable readers to accurately find what district they are in simply by zooming in. ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 14:45, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

FTR, I'm not sure we should use an external website like DRA that way anyway. Even as an 'External link', I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with that... So "in house" interactive maps is a much better solution. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:15, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Update: The map(s) above have been moved and now listed at User:Twotwofourtysix/2023 congressional district maps because it quickly became obvious to me that the shapefiles can be too large for the maps to be included together. This may be a problem if they're included in those articles in big states like California and Texas. I even had to simplify California's shapefile significantly because otherwise it's technically too big for a page at all. —twotwofourtysix^{(My talk page and contributions)} 04:04, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Since maplinks would enable users to go down very deep into the map, I'd like to see having the most precise information being here. I'll try to fix this as soon as I can manage to get a CA geojson. ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 04:39, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

@Twotwofourtysix: I made the precise version of CA map here: User:CX Zoom/California's congressional districts (2023). It is used a maplink here: User:CX Zoom/TestPage27. Works out fine imo. ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 19:47, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Also for huge states, I have a separate plan in mind if it gains consensus, notice how I took the first 8 districts and created User:CX Zoom/California's congressional districts (2023) part 1, and next 8 districts to create the part 2, then transcluded them at User:CX Zoom/California's congressional districts (2023) combined, which now has all of those 16 districts, see it's maplink at User:CX Zoom/TestPage28. This one was just for showing the potential. We can store a state's map in two parts, and another page can transclude all of those districts into one combined page for each state. For now, California, the largest one got covered within a single page, but I'm skeptical that it wouldn't have been possible if had 53 or more districts because a page's size limit is only 2,097,152 bytes (Wikipedia:Article size § Technical issues), and with 52 districts its 2,095,870 bytes already. ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 20:11, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

The article size limit was also what limited me from entering a more detailed shapefile. Also, for the numbering of districts, I figured out that I would do that by using points and markers and also using titles and descriptions for each districts, even though it would only show up when it's clicked on an expanded map. See User:Twotwofourtysix/Massachusetts (the points don't show up on the thumbnail for some reason but they show up on the source) —twotwofourtysix^{(My talk page and contributions)} 00:36, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

I've never made these before, but you could save 25% of the size with negligible loss in precision by just truncating the coordinates to three decimal places. Reywas92^Talk 20:58, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

I've now added these maps in the individual congressional district articles of Montana, Utah, Massachusetts, Iowa's 3rd and 4th, and I'm now working on Illinois. The problem I've come across now is, other than the uncertain nature of maps in litigation, that some districts switch numbering. For example, Tucson-based AZ-2 became AZ-6, Flint-based MI-5 became MI-8, and IA-1 & IA-2 switched places for some reason, just to name a few. This is a problem because I'm using switchers to switch between the old and new district lines. Are there any suggestions for this? —twotwofourtysix^{(My talk page and contributions)} 09:16, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, unfortunately they do that and we keep them organized by number not by location, so if it has two maps, it should be the ones with the same number even if in different places. Reywas92^Talk 14:31, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Also, just found out there are existing geodata for 2016 CD maps already, eg. c:Data:Illinois's 7th Congressional District (2016).map, although it seems to be less detailed than the map I imported from DRA (c:Data:Illinois's 7th congressional district (2013–2023).map) —twotwofourtysix^{(My talk page and contributions)} 03:15, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

@Twotwofourtysix: Can you please point me to that switcher, which you're using? Thanks! ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 06:15, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Do you mean the template? I'm using {{switcher}}. —twotwofourtysix^{(My talk page and contributions)} 06:33, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Update: I've solved (?) this by simply colouring the districts and showing both the old and new districts together in New York's 22nd congressional district and New York's 24th congressional district. —twotwofourtysix^{(My talk page and contributions)} 10:18, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Sorry for having to bother you all again, but which of these interactive maps are better: the one currently at Minnesota's 1st congressional district with the switcher template, or this one which depicts district changes directly (losses from district in red, gain in lime green):

—twotwofourtysix^{(My talk page and contributions)} 10:18, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, can't believe this section hasn't been archived yet. Anyway, I've added this style of map to New York's 27th congressional district and plan to add similar maps to other to-be-eliminated districts. —twotwofourtysix^{(My talk page and contributions)} 11:48, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:European Parliament constituencies in the Republic of Ireland#Requested move 14 March 2022

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:European Parliament constituencies in the Republic of Ireland#Requested move 14 March 2022 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 20:27, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Modern Whig Party

There is a discussion at Talk:Modern Whig Party#Serious unresolved issues that may be of interest to some. -- Otr500 (talk) 15:01, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

2022 Coventry City Council election

Hi, I've done a fair bit of work organising 2022 Coventry City Council election, but I'm having some difficulty with one of the templates (the one which makes party colours automatically insert). I've explained my problem in the talk page for the article, if someone has 5 minutes to spare could they help out with that? Cheers! 5.68.219.54 (talk) 15:58, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

User script to detect unreliable sources

Main page: User:Headbomb/unreliable

I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. Some of you may already be familiar with it, given it is currently the 39th most imported script on Wikipedia. The idea is that it takes something like

• John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14. (John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.)

and turns it into something like

• John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14.

It will work on a variety of links, including those from {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}} and {{doi}}.

The script is mostly based on WP:RSPSOURCES, WP:NPPSG and WP:CITEWATCH and a good dose of common sense. I'm always expanding coverage and tweaking the script's logic, so general feedback and suggestions to expand coverage to other unreliable sources are always welcomed.

Do note that this is not a script to be mindlessly used, and several caveats apply. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable.

- Headbomb {t · c · p · b}

This is a one time notice and can't be unsubscribed from. Delivered by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:01, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Relative time references

I've noticed that a huge number of election articles contain As of {{CURRENTYEAR}}, usually in a sentence such as As of {{CURRENTYEAR}}, this is the last time. This use of the "CURRENT" magic words should be avoided when dating statements, as it implies that the article has been verified more recently and is more up to date than it really is (and I've found examples where the statement it referred to was out of date). Although these articles don't use the {{as of}} template, the advice at Template:As_of/doc#Usage_guidelines still stands that Using this template with values such as {{As of|now}} or variables such as {{As of|{{CURRENTYEAR}}}} is a relative time reference and the equivalent to using "currently", which is generally against the precise language guideline. I am going through and fixing these in batches, usually just replacing the year with the current year (except in cases where there is a clearly defined year that should be used instead), but I wanted to give this WikiProject a heads up. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:08, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

I personally think it's simply best to avoid these kinds of statement. They tend to be a bit OR-ish are are rarely supported by references. Number 57 18:38, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. I'll start tagging them with {{OR}}. Interestingly, most of the ones I've looked at were added by IP editors (including a bunch starting with 67.44.192.###, 47.223.78.###, 47.148.67.##), although amongst my sample were ones by Putitonamap98, Negrong502, Thomascampbell123, OneToughNerd, Love of Corey, LD1998, Pencil1315, DukeOfDelTaco, Psherman122, LD1998, and 20person. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:29, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Currently, there are 136. ― Qwerfjkltalk 09:19, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

Yup, I've been slowly getting rid of them in batches. Just a handful left now. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 22:16, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Primary candidate photos in election articles, part 2

Following up on the earlier discussion about this, I think it's become abundantly clear we need an actual solution on the matter. Since the RfC - where reactions were mixed at best - these large image galleries have continued to proliferate in election articles - even in elections with only a single candidate in each primary, like 2022_United_States_Senate_election_in_Vermont. In many articles, like the 2022 Rhode Island Congressional elections, the images are of a visibly horrendous quality, likely screengrabbed from YouTube videos. This image in particular is clearly awful and lacks any real encyclopedic value, as is this one currently being used on 2022 United States Senate election in Arkansas. It boggles the mind how anyone could find value in these.

Moreover, most of these galleries are now accompanied with an obnoxious disclaimer that:

The images in this gallery are in the public domain or are otherwise free to use. This gallery should not be construed as a list of major or noteworthy candidates. If a candidate is not included in this gallery, it is only because there are no high-quality, copyright-free photographs of them available on the Internet.

This is, of course, a patently ridiculous and unprovable claim; you cannot, in fact, claim that there are no free-use images on the entire internet. This is an inherently unprovable claim, and putting this ridiculous claim in Wikipedia's voice is clearly not acceptable. Moreover, giving images to some candidates but not others does inherently provide credibility to some candidates but not others, and that's before getting into inherent concerns over clutter and accessibility. Simply put - there's a lot of issues with these galleries and tables.

While it's clear that some editors do want these galleries, there's no project-wide consensus on the matter. I highly recommend we come to some sort of recommendation on to how these galleries are to operate, if we even keep them to begin with. I'm of the frame of mind that they should be removed entirely from all articles except for Presidential elections, per longstanding WP:EDITCON. Toa Nidhiki05 14:05, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Agree that the footnote is unnecessary. The nominees’ pictures will go in the infobox. Reywas92^Talk 01:01, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Template talk:Infobox election § Should an election's official logo be included in the infobox?

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Infobox election § Should an election's official logo be included in the infobox?. Chlod (say hi!) 00:02, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Hello! This discussion is still open to comments and your feedback is requested. Chlod (say hi!) 04:15, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

UK By-Elections link to last

I think that UK parliamentary by-elections, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Birmingham_Erdington_by-election should have as the link to "last" not as the link to the last general election but instead to the last election for that constituency, for the previous example, that would be: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Erdington_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s. Has this already been answered and if not, do people agree or disagree? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 18egr (talk • contribs) 19:02, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Voting surveys are not "opinion" polls

I see the title of a lot of articles (all?) on election and referendum polls in enwiki start with Opinion polling for.... That strikes me as wrong; strictly speaking, voting surveys are not opinion polls. An opinion is what someone thinks of something, not something she intends to do. That's why RealClearPolitics calls them election polls, and YouGov calls them voting intention surveys. An "election opinion poll" would ask people who they think will win, not who they intend to vote for.
I could boldly start renaming the pages in the best spirit of WP:CYCLE, but I'm sure someone will click-revert it without even asking simply bc that's the current norm. So I thought I'd raise the issue here first. — Guarapiranga ☎ 04:23, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

What do you suggest these articles should be named as then? —twotwofourtysix^{(My talk page and contributions)} 04:55, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Whatever is most commonly used by WP:RS:

• Election polls for... (as does RealClearPolitics)
• Voting surveys for... (as does YouGov)

... or simply:

• Polls for...

— Guarapiranga ☎ 06:04, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

I would say "opinion poll" is the common name, even if formally they are known as voter intention surveys. Number 57 19:41, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

A cursory, logged off Google search of news articles on elections with poll on the title returned for me 280,000 results, including:

• Cost of living and fixing aged care are top concerns as election nears, ANU poll shows
• Polls show Labor in election-winning lead at campaign’s halfway point
• Labor leads polling at the campaign’s halfway mark
• Poll points to tight contest in Goldstein between Wilson and...
• As the election campaign begins, what do the polls say, and can we trust them this time?
• Polling station opening times today explained and how to find ...
• PCs have ‘pulled away’ from pack as Ontario election set to begin: Ipsos poll

A search for election articles with opinion poll in the title returned for me 2,250 results. Referring to electoral polls as opinion polls is therefore 99.2% uncommon among WP:RS. — Guarapiranga ☎ 23:37, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Guarapiranga, your survey above is flawed. It's picking up articles about elections (e.g. "Polling station opening times today explained..."), not just articles about opinion polls/voter intention surveys. Your survey shows "poll" is a commonly used term: "poll" appears to be short for "opinion poll" or maybe "election poll". I don't see support for your suggestion of "voting survey" or "voting/er intention survey".

Ergo, I agree with Number 57: "opinion poll" is the commonly used term and what we should use. Guarapiranga, you could add some text to the opinion poll article about terminologies, but I don't see the need for the change you suggest here. Bondegezou (talk) 10:24, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

@Bondegezou: I don't see support for your suggestion of "voting survey" or "voting/er intention survey".

I didn't suggest that. My suggestion was to use "whatever is most commonly used by WP:RS." My impression is that opinion poll is not commonly used by WP:RS to refer to voting surveys (yes, my Google search test above is imperfect--what test isn't?--but inferring from that the opposite conclusion, is a logical fallacy).
Having said that, to be practical, here are 3 suggestions I'm indifferent about:

1. Electoral polls for the 2022 Australian federal election
2. Voter polls for the 2022 Australian federal election
3. Polls for the 2022 Australian federal election

— Guarapiranga ☎ 11:39, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

I note that the Wikipedia article is called opinion poll. Perhaps you should propose changing the name of that article and, if there is agreement for that, we can follow suit elsewhere. But I doubt there will be agreement for that!

It is apparent that "electoral poll" and "voter poll" are less common than "opinion poll". I think the only argument one might make is for "poll" over "opinion poll", but I think "poll" is ambiguous as the actual vote can also be called a "poll". Bondegezou (talk) 15:10, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

I disagree with this, I don't think there's any issue with calling them "opinion polls", because voter intention polls are an opinion (a view or judgement formed on something) of who a respondent thinks they would vote for at that point in time. Part of the Australian polls above are preferred prime minister and leader satisfaction ratings, which are obviously opinions because the vast majority of Australians won't vote for the prime minister unless they live in their electorate. As Bondegezou says, I think calling them polls, electoral polls or voter polls runs the risk of causing confusion with actual elections which are also called polls. --Canley (talk) 15:32, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, ok, I'll drop it; you're right, Bondegezou; no support for the change here. But, no, the main article on opinion polls need not be changed; there indeed are opinion polls, it's just that not every poll is an opinion poll. Shopping surveys, for instance, are not opinion polls (though product/brand satisfaction are).

Just to be clear, Canley, of course satisfaction ratings are opinion polls; it's voting surveys, IMHO, that aren't. But it seems I'm splitting hairs. — Guarapiranga ☎ 06:35, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I also think calling voter preference polls "opinion polls" is clunky, and probably inaccurate. It's just that there's probably no other term that's preferable to this either. So we're stuck with a bad term purely for convenience's sake. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 13:05, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Fictitious results in some local elections

After spending the last days following the very interesting NI elections, I've just fallen on 2017 Clackmannanshire Council election, which (as of the time of writing, I'm going to correct this in a moment) contains some obviously fictitious results (which, on top of that, did not have a proper source to support them until I added one just now). Now, the user who seems to have contributed these doesn't seem to have been particularly active (Special:Contributions/Scottishbanter93); but I wouldn't be writing this here if I didn't doubt that its possible similar fictional numbers also exist elsewhere (2017 Stirling Council election has other obvious examples, but I'd bet it's not the only one). If anybody has some patience, a wee bit of common sense about how STV works, and some know how in finding acceptable sources (this seems somewhat borderline, but its probably accurate and much better than nothing), extending the exercise to other pages might be worthwhile. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:40, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Now done on both pages I mention above (you can look at the history to see what the issue looks like). It might also be pertinent to do the same kind of sanity check on the inevitable flood of new similar pages which will arise from the recent elections... Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:01, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Might have found the culprit for some more of these: Special:Contributions/Devite... There are dozens of examples like [2] or 2. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:19, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

You may want to look for evidence that Scottishbanter93 and Devite are the same editor. If they are, you can take this to WP:SPI and at least get the accounts blocked for both socking and hoaxing. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 12:30, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

CUs only have access to recent data, and both of these last edited way too far back for it to be any use. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:38, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

You make the case based on behavior/editing similarities (e.g. editing the same articles in the same way). You don't ask for a CU in this case. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 13:30, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Talk:Nacionalista Party#New electoral performance tables

Philippines political party results tables were wholesale changed -- in the middle of an election! -- then conveniently a "discussion" was started justifying(?) the change. This changed the look of the tables from the rest of the world. I would agree changes were needed, but a discussion first has to be done, then do the changes next, instead of the reverse.

We'd also be needing templates for tables such as this if ever the project wants a consistent "look" for tables such as this. Howard the Duck (talk) 22:38, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

County-level results in American elections

Is there a template or a recommended way to include county-level results when we're adding the results from Gubernatorial/Senate elections in the United States? I've come into possession of a copy of Dubin's book of results from 1776-1860, so I have the data, but I'm unsure what the best way would be to add it to articles. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/they)^{Talk to Me!} 15:25, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

In the past when I've had access to the data, I've done it like this, which just matches the presidential county results boxes. Curbon7 (talk) 19:42, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Makes sense! Thanks :) ThadeusOfNazereth(he/they)^{Talk to Me!} 14:57, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Is cumulative voting a type of cardinal voting — or not?

Hi all. I recently discovered this known inconsistency, with cumulative voting claiming to be a type of cardinal voting, but cardinal voting strongly implying that it excludes cumulative voting! Who's right? There are threads on both the cardinal talk page and the cumulative talk page with existing discussion on the matter. Grateful to anyone who can help clear it up! DougInAMugtalk 22:41, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Have commented! Bondegezou (talk) 06:01, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Australian election tables showing full results

Discussion about Australian election tables showing full results in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian politics#Election results if you want to comment.

--Yilku1 (talk) 17:47, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

OurCampaigns in external links

Since OurCampaigns is now listed at WP:RSP as "generally unreliable," I've been slowly replacing OurCampaigns references with better sourcing, such as academic texts or official election results - I know books are less verifiable because of access issues, but especially for older or more obscure elections, they're the only place results are available. I'm wondering if people have any strong feelings about OurCampaigns links in the external links section of articles. I know it's not unusual to link to UGC there (for example, IMDB links on relevant articles), so I haven't been removing them. Any thoughts on this? ThadeusOfNazereth(he/they)^{Talk to Me!} 17:21, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

"Now listed"? Wow. I saw that site for the garbage it is a long time ago. Your explanation appears to touch upon why it's taken so long for the project to catch up, namely the misbegotten belief that a URL is necessary for verifiability and we can't consider anything else for that reason. Of course, WP:SOURCEACCESS, which is a policy, clearly suggests otherwise. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 05:06, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree with you re: WP:SOURCEACCESS. I think we should certainly try to make as many sources as possible open access, but that shouldn't be a requirement. A bigger problem is that very few of the comprehensive print sources are digitized - I own print copies of some, but for others I've had to sit in my uni's library for several hours to use. I don't think OurCampaigns is necessarily garbage either - I've noticed very few discrepancies between it and published sources, and even those can be explained as either obvious typos or contentious results. The bigger issue is that so many of their pages don't cite their sources! It's making the conversion process much more difficult than it has to be. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/they)^{Talk to Me!} 07:57, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your contributions! Please do remove such external links as well. It's a really ugly website that has no added benefit to our own articles. IMDB is at least useful for compiling video clips and comprehensive details (even if much is user-generated) in a popular and professional website, but OC's design hasn't been updated since it was created. Reywas92^Talk 05:41, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

That's a good point about IMDB, which also has a professional side and paid editors as well. OurCampaigns seems like a fandom wiki that got too big for it's own good (we're lucky that wasn't Wikipedia's fate!) ThadeusOfNazereth(he/they)^{Talk to Me!} 07:58, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Which page mentions the outcome of the US 5% vote share (infobox) RfC?

Hi all, is there a policy/guideline page which mentions the outcome of this RfC? I need to cite it when reverting an edit in my watchlist. Thanks! —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 13:56, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

I created the shortcut WP:5% rule, which refers to a later discussion widening its application beyond just the US. Number 57 14:34, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Results overkill

Recent UK by-elections articles, like 2022 Wakefield by-election and 2022 Tiverton and Honiton by-election, now show the same results in four different formats: there's the main Results section with a table of the results; the same results are tabulated in the infobox (excluding candidates on less than 5%); the infobox also has a two-part bar chart (the first showing the results and the previous results; the second showing change) for several but not all candidates (cut-off unclear but not the same 5% cut-off); and there is also a pie chart of the results in the Results section.

This is silly. I've never seen a real encyclopaedia article give the same results four times over. I've not see any online coverage give the same results four times over.

I suggest 2 things: (1) Dump the pie chart. Pie charts are a poor way of showing data. To quote the pie chart article: Statisticians generally regard pie charts as a poor method of displaying information, and they are uncommon in scientific literature. (2) Move the bar charts to the Results section. Infoboxes are meant to be compact things according to the MOS. Repeating the same results twice in an infobox is unnecessary. The bar charts are too shrunken to be clear when in the infobox. So move them somewhere more sensible.

I started a discussion at Talk:2022_Wakefield_by-election#No_pies, but I think this needs Project consensus. I will also seek input from Wikipedia:WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom. Bondegezou (talk) 21:44, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

• Agree with your suggestions. Reywas92^Talk 03:55, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
• Agree. I think this also applies to the recent ploriferation of graphics which combine charts with maps in infoboxes and elsewhere in articles, which in addition to your suggestions I think should never be used in preference to traditional results maps. These also often colour divisions by winner's voteshare as well as winner (example), which without any disrespect to the users who produce them, is another symptom of the uncontrolled reduplication of results to the detriment of the reader. Even the bar chart graphics in those by-election articles contain redundancy: change in voteshare is clear by putting the previous and new voteshares side-by-side, as in the top chart. The changes chart does not add anything but visual noise. (I'm also baffled at the inclusion of a 50% line and no other guides, the decision not to spell out party names, the inclusion of an in-graphic title, so on...). I hope I'm not unreasonably widening the scope of discussion; I think these are all elements of the same problem! Ralbegen (talk) 10:19, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
• Comment In my view, the pie chart is the weakest of the five results formats. The results are also given in a table format in the opinion polling section for the Wakefield election article, which I believe is necessary for the article. The infobox and the results table should unequivocally remain as well, while it is the pie charts and bar charts that may be questionable. I lean towards removing them, but I would support keeping them if there are editors or readers who find them useful. They are also more defensible in articles for general elections rather than those in single constituencies. Onetwothreeip (talk) 10:27, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
• Tend to agree. The pie chart is indeed a less effective way to portray the results than the bar charts, in my opinion. Although, if others find it useful and it's placed at some point of the page where it's not botherly pushing content aside when on a smaller split screen, I'm not pushing for it to be deleted. The bar charts should absolutely be removed from the infobox, though. It's very detailled when the latter is only supposed to give a summary of the event. It belong on the page itself.--Aréat (talk) 14:29, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
• For me, it's the pie chart which is useful: it shows the percentages both as a proportion of the whole and also relative to other candidates; and in the case of Tiverton and Honiton, the reflex angle of the Lib-Dem slice is an instant indicator that the vote share was greater than 50%. The infobox barchart is tiny (unreadable without enlargement), misleading (why is the previous result shown on the right of each pair) and distracting (the taller bar of each pair dominates, whether that is the current result or the previous). We should definitely keep the table in the Results sections, these give both more candidates and more detail than the table in the infobox. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:06, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
• I'd eliminate both the pie & bar charts. GoodDay (talk) 22:10, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for everyone's input so far. I think it's currently 5:1 against the pie charts, and there's also a clear majority in favour of moving the bar charts out of the infobox. There are also several issues that have been raised about the details of the bar chart: I'm tagging 沁水湾, who did those charts. Further input is welcome. Bondegezou (talk) 10:39, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

• Thanks for keeping me in involved in this meaningful discussion. These bar charts are intended to highlight swing and tactical voting, which are crucial in by-elections. I don’t think it’s a major issue whether they stay in infoboxes or re-locate to the result section. If there are suggestions on making the charts more legible I’d love to hear them.—沁水湾 (talk) 10:59, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

I am convinced by Redrose64's comments that there is value in the pie charts. Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:56, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

There are 2 (related) points. (1) Do we have the results repeated too many times? (2) Are pie charts generally a bad idea? Let me consider the latter. Edward Tufte in his classic The Visual Display of Quantitative Information says, "The only worse design than a pie chart is several of them [...] pie charts should never be used". By and large, pie charts are not favoured in the academic literature. Various experiments have shown people are poorer at interpreting pie charts (e.g. doi:10.1109/IV.2019.00034). Here's a basic reader summarising the problems of pie charts: [3]. That all said, they do have some supporters: see doi:10.3102/10769986030004353. But I think broadly we can see pie charts are not recommended.

Another way of approaching this is to be guided by what reliable sources do. Reliable sources tend not to use pie charts for reporting by-election results. I did a quick survey using a Google news search of coverage of the Tiverton results and I saw 4 sources give just a table of results (New Statesman, Devon Live, UK Parliament website, Teignmouth Post), 2 just give a bar chart (Sky, Telegraph), 1 gave a bar chart and a table (BBC), while the Guardian had both a bar chart and a line graph. I saw no pie charts used. Bondegezou (talk) 09:00, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Manual of style issues

I noticed today that articles about Israeli elections all misused bold face. For example, in 1983 Israeli municipal elections, the opening sentence appeared as:

Municipal elections took place in Israel on 25 October 1983.

It doesn't make any sense to bold-face text that doesn't correspond at all to the article title. MOS:TITLEABSENTBOLD says "In general, if the article's title (or a significant alternative title) is absent from the first sentence, do not apply the bold style to related text that does appear", and it uses 1999 Nepalese general election as an example, pointing out that bold-facing "General elections" in the opening sentence would be wrong.

When I noticed the problem with Israeli election articles, I assumed that one person with an interest in Israeli elections had not read the manual of style and had thus introduced the error. However, as I look into it, I see that the problems goes far beyond Israel, and in fact appears to affect the overwhelming majority of all election articles. For instance, except for the one article specifically highlighted in the MOS, all articles about general elections in Nepal currently misuse bold face in their opening sentences.

So, the problem must lie with editors of election articles in general. So I would like to ask here: why do the overwhelming majority of election articles use bold face incorrectly? 164.134.2.50 (talk) 11:23, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Updating congressional district articles

Many articles on state congressional districts are still outdated and do not reflect how those districts have been redrawn after the 2020 census. I think we need an organized effort focused on updating those articles and the maps of districts used therein to reflect these changes. If such an effort already exists I am not aware of it but would very much appreciate anyone bringing it to my attention. IntoThinAir (talk) 16:24, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

AFAIK, we shouldn't change them until the new Congress, as the 2010 districts are still the current districts. Curbon7 (talk) 16:58, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm not saying you're definitely wrong, but I will point out that the new boundaries have already been added to many states' maps on the Wikipedia page for each district, such as those of Maryland and Missouri. Is there a policy regarding when district articles should be updated to reflect new boundaries after being redrawn? IntoThinAir (talk) 17:14, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

I added those interactive maps and I should say here that I don't follow any policy or guidelines here, I was just coming off of what we had talked about in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums/Archive 21#Interactive maps in congressional district articles. Ideally, I added the new districts as soon as the map is passed/enacted but with a switcher template so users can see the old boundaries first and see changes with the new ones. —twotwofourtysix^{(talk || edits)} 23:08, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Note that this affects other articles, such as Cook Partisan Voting Index where a discussion about this issue is already taking place on the Talk page. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 19:01, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

I started adding new maps with great enthusiasm until enthusiasm wore out (looking at you Indiana, Oregon, Nebraska). I would certainly support adding new maps in parallel with currently used maps. At this point, people would more likely come to Wikipedia trying to find what new district they would be in in the next election, than what they were in in the past. So, it makes sense in the article. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 22:25, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

2021 California recall election's infobox

The bottom of the 2021 California gubernatorial recall election infobox, should read Governor before recall & Governor after recall. As Newsom was not recalled & thus nullified any election result. GoodDay (talk) 01:45, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Decrease and increase templates

Are the decrease and increase templates used in results tables? Do they have to be removed? Yilku1 (talk) 22:29, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't know if we have a settled view. I think they should be removed on the ground of WP:ICON. Bondegezou (talk) 11:26, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

I find them to be visual clutter that distracts from the actual important content in the results box (the results). The same purpose can be achieved with a + or - without being as visually jarring. Curbon7 (talk) 12:39, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

They ought to be deleted, per icon & clutter. GoodDay (talk) 12:48, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

We talked about this last year on the UK politics project here and there was no strong consensus, with more users (including me) preferring the icons than preferring +/- characters. I understand the arguments for +/-, but I don't think WP:ICON forbids or discourages this use case. In particular the icons have the same width and visual prominence as each other, so it is easier to get an at-a-glance idea of changes, whereas minus signs and plus signs do not align at all in columns. Minus signs are very short compared to plus signs. The presence of a matching steady template to complete the set with increase and decrease is also a big advantage, especially for seat counts in summary tables where parties which did not win seats before frequently don't win seats after, for example. Ralbegen (talk) 13:16, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

That's fair. I was thinking in terms of the %change parameter (for example, in 2018 United States Senate election in Florida#Results 2). I suppose it depends on the context. Curbon7 (talk) 13:21, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

When in doubt, look at what reliable sources do. Well, reliable sources usually use +/-. That is the standard approach. Little red and green arrows is idiosyncratic. Bondegezou (talk) 13:59, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Curbon7: I think the icons are nicer in those contexts too but I'm more bothered by the percentage signs being used as a unit for the values when it's already in the column header! Bondegezou: I think this is the best point in favour of using +/-, but personally I don't find it compelling enough to override the legibility of the closer-to-monospace icons. Compare this table with +/i vs with icons (not minding the fact that the wrong numbers are used in the first verison!): +/- produce a ragged left edge that makes it harder to read, whereas the icons are mostly aligned for a given number of digits, in which case the misalignment conveys information by drawing the eye to the two-digit swings. Even if they are idiosyncratic compared to a lot of reliable sources, I think they are a constructive idiosyncrasy that adds value to the encyclopaedia. Ralbegen (talk) 21:20, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

I personally use +/- on results tables and icons on infoboxes. I used to use icons on results tables too but if there are 2+ columns using icons it'll be too visually jarring so I stopped. Howard the Duck (talk) 14:43, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Agree with all the above comments that they are not appropriate for results tables. Number 57 21:31, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

My preference is for the icons, as they convey the key information more effectively than +/- symbols, as they use both colour and shape instead of shape alone. I also agree with Ralbegen's point above about them aligning better in columns of digits. PinkPanda272 (talk/contribs) 22:09, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Primary candidate photos in election articles

How is content like this (on 2022 United States Senate election in Missouri) useful?

Following up on the earlier discussion about this, I think it's become abundantly clear we need an actual solution on the matter. Since the RfC - where reactions were mixed at best - these large image galleries have continued to proliferate in election articles - even in elections with only a single candidate in each primary, like 2022_United_States_Senate_election_in_Vermont. In many articles, like the 2022 Rhode Island Congressional elections, the images are of a visibly horrendous quality, likely screengrabbed from YouTube videos. This image in particular is clearly awful and lacks any real encyclopedic value, as is this one currently being used on 2022 United States Senate election in Arkansas. It boggles the mind how anyone could find value in these.

Moreover, most of these galleries are now accompanied with an obnoxious disclaimer:

The images in this gallery are in the public domain or are otherwise free to use. This gallery should not be construed as a list of major or noteworthy candidates. If a candidate is not included in this gallery, it is only because there are no high-quality, copyright-free photographs of them available on the Internet.

This is, of course, a patently ridiculous and unprovable claim; you cannot, in fact, claim that there are no free-use images on the entire internet. This is an inherently unprovable claim, and putting this ridiculous claim in Wikipedia's voice is clearly not acceptable. Moreover, giving images to some candidates but not others does inherently provide credibility to some candidates but not others, and that's before getting into inherent concerns over clutter and accessibility. Simply put - there's a lot of issues with these galleries and tables.

While it's clear that some editors do want these galleries, there's no project-wide consensus on the matter. I highly recommend we come to some sort of recommendation on to how these galleries are to operate, if we even keep them to begin with. I'm of the frame of mind that they should be removed entirely from all articles except for Presidential elections, per longstanding WP:EDITCON. At minimum, the use of the galleries should not include the claim that there are no free images of anyone else on the internet. Toa Nidhiki05 13:46, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

I do want to note here that how giving images to some candidates but not others inherently provide credibility to some candidates but not others have apparently led to editors scraping the bottom of the barrel to find any images of any primary candidates. You note images of a visibly horrendous quality, likely screengrabbed from YouTube videos but this also leads to many, many uploads of campaign photos with dubious claims of a free license, such as the election in Vermont that you linked to. It's gotten really tiresome and I think editors should redirect their time to adding encyclopedic prose instead, which is considerably lacking compared to election articles in other countries. —twotwofourtysix^{(talk || edits)} 14:04, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

A very good point. I've been removing Twitter endorsements from pages since I put this up and I think, like you said, there's a lot of editors focused heavily on things that don't really matter (galleries and endorsements) rather than things that do (prose). Toa Nidhiki05 14:14, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

There should be no candidate images in any primary sections. Only party nominees at the top, in the infobox. GoodDay (talk) 14:20, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree with everything you all said above. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 06:11, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

It seems like there's a broad agreement here that we need to revisit the suitability of these galleries. Toa Nidhiki05 19:23, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Since there seems to be more or less broad agreement about these, is there anything we can do to either remove these galleries or make them less bad? Toa Nidhiki05 15:00, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

For now, I've gone ahead and removed all of them from 2022 articles I could find. Toa Nidhiki05 22:47, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

I wish we could have a civil discussion about this. Unfortunately, some editors have to act like the world is coming to an end because a Wikipedia page has a picture they don't like. Most of these pictures are very small on the page and you can't even tell that they're a bit low quality, so I don't get the idea that we're destroying Wikipedia's reputation by including them. Some of the arguments here are reasonable but others are just absurd, like the overly dramatic rant about how the disclaimer says "there are no high-quality, copyright-free photographs of them available on the Internet" instead of "there are no known high-quality, copyright-free photographs of them available on the Internet" (which, by the way, would be a reason to edit the disclaimer, not remove the entire gallery). I also don't get the reasoning of "some people add copyrighted pictures, therefore there should be no pictures." This should be a simple discussion about a visual element on a webpage but I know I'm inevitably going to get screamed at about how photo galleries are literally ruining Wikipedia. And that's not even mentioning how Toa absurdly declared that there was "broad agreement" that the galleries are bad even though a grand total of *3 people* participated in their discussion, out of the thousands who edit these pages. If nobody joins your discussion, that doesn't mean everyone agrees with you, it means nobody cares. By your own admission, there are numerous people working on and adding to the galleries. Why don't they count? By your own logic, if I got 4 friends to make Wikipedia accounts and say they love photo galleries, there would be "broad consensus" to keep them. There was an actual discussion about this earlier than ended inconclusively, so you have no right to just nuke every gallery off the face of the planet. BottleOfChocolateMilk (talk) 23:30, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

And a discussion that ended with no consensus doesn't give you the right to force these awful galleries full of abysmal images onto every election page on this website, or to dig through my edit history and begin reverting all of my edits. A project-wide discussion, with a binding outcome, would clearly be the best start here before we try and impose something clearly contentious, like these galleries. Any thoughts, CX Zoom GoodDay twotwofourtysix? Can we at least get a commitment from you, BottleOfChocolateMilk, to stop uploading abysmal images? Toa Nidhiki05 23:37, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, that message on my talk page is genuinely the most hilarious thing I've seen in a while. I'd love to see you explain how I'm acting like I own these pages and you're not. And thank you for proving me correct about being overly dramatic. "Awful," "abysmal," bro it's a Wikipedia page. Anyways, back to reverting your edits. BottleOfChocolateMilk (talk) 23:52, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Glad to know that this can't be discussed with you and that instead you'll just revert and then declare it's consensus. Cool! Time for me to start a binding discussion you can't revert through. Toa Nidhiki05 23:59, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Comment: WP:GALLERY says "Generally, a gallery or cluster of images should not be added so long as there is space for images to be effectively presented adjacent to text. A gallery section may be appropriate in some Wikipedia articles if a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images. Just as we seek to ensure that the prose of an article is clear, precise and engaging, galleries should be similarly well-crafted. Gallery images must collectively add to the reader's understanding of the subject without causing unbalance to an article or section within an article while avoiding similar or repetitive images, unless a point of contrast or comparison is being made." So first, I agree that the caption for galleries needs to be rewritten. Second, I think that for articles with small galleries (1 or two candidate) we can incorporate them into the article similar to 2022 Oklahoma gubernatorial election#Democratic primary since "a gallery or cluster of images should not be added so long as there is space for images to be effectively presented adjacent to text." Large galleries in races with multiple candidates I think are harder. I think part of the question is how do the galleries add to the article and why shouldn't they be moved to Wikimedia Commons photo galleries. --TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 00:05, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

This is a good comment; I'd recommend moving it to the RfC below! Toa Nidhiki05 00:30, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Comment: I generally find the photo galleries to be useful for displaying candidates running. I like it and think it's good for improving reader's understanding. Pennsylvania2 (talk) 02:18, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Comment: Photo galleries with candidates are good, even if the quality on some photo isn't the best. The good certainly outweighs the bad here. GeorgeBailey (talk) 15:37, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

(Biographies) Electoral history sections using {{Election box}}

What is the general feeling on the use of {{Election box}} in electoral history sections (in bios)? Useful purveyors of information or clunky wastes of space? I go back and forth, and can't decide. Curbon7 (talk) 09:18, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

I prefer compact tables like at Patty Murray. Reywas92^Talk 07:35, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Is the infobox inclusion threshold for non-US elections...

... the same 5% as for the US? — Guarapiranga ☎ 03:53, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Supposed to be, but it got overturned at 2021 Canadian federal election & 45th Canadian federal election pages. GoodDay (talk) 04:21, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Is that guidance documented anywhere? — Guarapiranga ☎ 05:23, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

The 5% rule is for elections of individual candidates, not for parties/parliamentary elections. See this later RfC. Number 57 08:04, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm not well aware of all the various RfCs that have taken place in here and other precedents on elections topics. I'll be glad if someone can take up the task of creating a one-stop guidelines documentation. "General guidelines for articles on elections and referendum". That will certainly be very helpful in future for new editors (and me). —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 11:31, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Yep, same here, CX Zoom. — Guarapiranga ☎ 08:45, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

So long ago & I was both in that RFC & brought up the concern about how it would apply to parliamentary election pages. GoodDay (talk) 13:38, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

That's it! Thanks, Number 57. — Guarapiranga ☎ 08:44, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Is there any guidance on which photo should be used in election articles?

Context
A bit of an edit war ensuing at the 2022 Brazilian general election article over which photo to use for Lula, the leading candidate.

Alternatives

1. The candidate's page image
2. The candidate's photo closest to the election date
3. Any photo (no guidance beyond MOS:IMAGES)

Discussion
(2) seems most accurate, but surely can't be the only deciding factor: it needs to be a photo of the face, of the whole face, of not much else than the face, identifiable, good quality, etc. (1) adds consistency across articles, and prevents edit wars as the one in context. (3) seems the least desirable (and perhaps the status quo). — Guarapiranga ☎ 00:08, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Generally the answer is (2), but as you say, I think there also needs to be some nuance – i.e. if the image closer to the date is of noticeably lower quality than an alternative. I would say (1) is not appropriate as a rule, as sometimes photos can be from 30 years before or after the election, in which case it looks odd. Cheers, Number 57 16:14, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

In my experience in editing for Canadian election articles, I would suggest that option 1 is not ideal; editors have often challenged images for making the subject look "too official", or for images looking odd in combination (for example: if the image shows the person looking off to the side, it can create the impression of two leaders looking at one another). That's not to say that candidate's page's image is always unsuitable, or can't be treated as a default, but shouldn't be taken as immutable.

But I like option 2 the most. I think it's best to have a photo from close to the election in question, to better represent the period of time. But as you note, it cannot be the end-all-be-all; common sense should still apply. That means the photo still needs to be good in its own right, that "closest to the election date" doesn't mean that the image should be replaced frequently if someone gets a photo that's a couple days newer, or that it's strictly necessary to have a new photo for this election if the last election was very recent (for the last point, I'm thinking of something like 2021 Canadian federal election, where editors agreed that the 2019 photos were still illustrative and did not require replacement). — Kawnhr (talk) 16:35, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Exceptions for endorsements & UGC

The Wikipedia:UGC policy exists as "Content from websites whose content is largely user-generated is generally unacceptable". I understand this very valid policy and how it protects user-generated opinions from becoming fact in articles about certain topics. Recently, candidate endorsements that source user-generated content have been getting removed and tagged with the UGC marker. I believe that an endorsement, coming from a source that is verified, should not removed under the guise of UGC. If an endorsement is coming from a person or organization that meets Wikipedia's notability guidelines, and the entity in question communicates from a verified account, that counts as a reliable source solely for endorsement listing purposes. What do you all think? GeorgeBailey (talk) 00:08, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

@GeorgeBailey: this isn't just because of WP:UGC; the relevant guideline is Wikipedia:Political endorsements, particularly point 2 under "Endorsements by individuals". You can also read the RfC establishing these criteria. Elli (talk | contribs) 07:40, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

@Elli: This was extremely helpful thank you!