Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Parliament constituencies/Archive 10
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MP lists in constituency articles - format change
@Adam37:@Graemp: An editor has changed the format of the MP lists at Barking (UK Parliament constituency) and about 8 other constituencies, going against this project's guidelines. The proposed new style lists MPs by parliament, numbering the parliaments (American style?), rather than just listing the individual MPs who have represented the seat. I have asked them to stop editing until there has been discussion of their proposed format. This seems the appropriate venue. PamD 09:22, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
- This new format is a considerable change in presentation that does not add or take away information, but spreads it out more. To justify changing to this new format, I think the benefits would need to be so obvious that a number of editors would be motivated to go through all the current and historic UK Parliament constituency articles, changing them to this format. I simply don't see that happening. What I value most is consistency in presentation and don't think we should allow variations.
- A few years ago, we had a similar situation with an editor who didn't like the way we presented our election results. They designed a new list format and along with one other editor, started to change the elections results in the constituency articles to this list format. For those who havn't seen this format, here is an example; Bradford West (UK Parliament constituency) These changes were met with resistance from other editors and eventually they stopped. However, they have resisted other editors who sought to restore the table format that is more widely used. As a result we have about 20 articles that still present election results in this list format. Graemp (talk) 10:48, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
- And they still look far, far better than the format others insist on using. Sam Blacketer (talk) 20:56, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
- They look a lot worse; with information being so tightly crammed the whole look is cluttered and difficult for the reader to take in. They are rigid an inflexible and as far as I am aware, not used to present election results for any other country.Graemp (talk) 21:08, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
- I haven't introduced a new style, I saw it in Battersea first and considered it carefully and completely objectively a great improvement. The other editor's work in Battersea adds visual clues against representatives who have lasted just one short Parliament versus those that have been re-elected a few times! I have in the past admittedly looked too at the US system for the sake of front page headlines and see their elections actually have reliable ranges of polls on whether an election is a "toss up", "weak" "strong" "very weak" for a particular district etc etc. and whilst I am not seeking to emulate that level of data (which is much harder to justify with a more nuanced range of parties in the UK) it would be sensible to at least give some visual statistics rather than bandying about 'safe' and 'marginal' overall judgments in so many of "our" articles. I could see where that editor had come from even though Battersea interests me very little - why do you say above you have kept alternate formats if they are not good. This is most disturbing. Many so-called safe seats have only been in one party's hands a decade. Others just happen to have lacked demographic change and teeter on slim, marginal majorities that news editors love to call "safe" only to create a double-whammy therefore of headlines for weeks to come! If editors here instead want to pander to a casual dichotomy (safe/marginal) in far too many cases yet refuse to show a degree of proportionality in presentation then that would be of little surprise for such an opinion-heavy set of articles!- Adam37 Talk 20:52, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
- P.S. Before you say brazenly and chidingly "going against this project's guidelines" I did not see table format (prominently) as having been either consulted upon or clearly prescribed in any guidelines as last consulted them with deference years ago. I have revised almost every article of the project c. 2012-2014, to popular acclaim in most cases, not least adding references and subduing unreliable, transient, weasel-worded phrases put in by unwitting editors from all sides to copyedit them into neutral form, harmonize styles and neaten. Please also reflect on the truism that change is needed for improvement. Further nothing cuts quite as truthfully as the visual, a more detailed graph or picture tells a thousand words.- Adam37 Talk 21:40, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
- Until this debate is settled I also leave everyone with the bigger thought that until there is a proportional election system in the UK we can continue to read a few articles which suggest a short-lived current seat with one party throughout is "safe", that is, where we live in that seat, and then continue to abstain out of lack of prospects every election assuming we don't like the incumbent party. Alternatively a visual clue it has only been around for 5 elections say might be a little more interesting for people to research the political history of their area and lead them on to a library of interesting political history and interest in boundaries which is the best that can be hoped for under the present system.- Adam37 Talk 21:53, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
I proposed the same idea a couple years ago. It is the same style seen in Canadian parliament constituencies. I like the proposed change, but I remember one of the original concerns was in how we determine the parliament. Is this parliament the 55th Parliament because it's the 55th parliament since everyone had the franchise? How do we count parliaments from the 18th and 19th centuries? These are all things to consider, but other than that I approve of the change. Bkissin (talk) 23:22, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
- Parliaments are actually officially numbered, and the numbering runs from the establishment of the United Kingdom in 1801. It's not mentioned that often but can be seen in Hansard, for example when marking the beginning and end of each session: HC 6ser vol 609 col 766.
- I have reverted the changes and will do so on sight without prejudice. These discussions happen from time to time and they really do mean very little to the Project as a whole. Existing sections show exactly what an article should show: who represented a seat, and when, for whom. That's it. That's all we need, and you'll notice, all the Project has required for many years. The proposed changes merely tart up the existing section for no greater good. Remember the old adage, and Wikipedia guideline no less, that if you care more about the colour of the fence than the location of the Fire Exit, you're doing it wrong. What we have truly isn't broken. I cannot accept these changes. doktorb wordsdeeds 23:50, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
- I applaud the action of User:Doktorbuk as there is clearly no consensus for change, a desire for uniformity and no evidence of a will from a group of editors prepared to go through over 1,000 articles and make this minor change.Graemp (talk) 07:33, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
- Fine but I will ruthlessly spot, discuss and ideally remove any content as opposed to presentation which panders to a trite safe nonsense or other lazy journalism about a seat where there is published controversy in that regard. It may be a patently sick seats system where even the history of a seat's component areas is difficult to establish (even in a good article) and where true, 2-to-3 measure safeness is indeed unusually common (the opposite extreme being all seats being deliberately diverse seats IF ONLY) but it is still true that where only longevity of one party is in one area, or just a couple of big majorities there are such failings in this tome. And it is first principles that such propaganda keeps people at home of all political persuasions rather than question the "fact" that is put about.
- In some respect because of the choas of dates of creation of current seats, showing various personal re-elections even in a small numeral next to a person's name would be pandering to that party's agenda (for it is more often one party locally in overall ascendancy). It would also be suggestive there was no boundary reform whereas a system of simply showing the seat lost or gained areas would be far better for both clarity and common sense. I don't think wikipedia or you lot could quite achieve that or are ready to bring on that sort of level of detail. No disrespect it is the system which is staid and not you all.- Adam37 Talk 22:19, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
- I wonder whether population density could be added so that people can see the present product of the anti-democratic heterogeneity created by successive Boundary Commissions under their rules designed to that effect. This will not be popular. Most people loving having safe MPs, putting themselves in one camp or another firmly and areas that resemble themselves.- Adam37 Talk 08:44, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is not a forum for electoral reform, User:Adam37, though your point is certainly well-founded. I would caution the other editors in this WikiProject not to be so aggressively dismissive of new ideas and other viewpoints, though that can't be helped, knowing how territorial editors are with their articles (myself included). Bkissin (talk) 22:43, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
- I applaud the action of User:Doktorbuk as there is clearly no consensus for change, a desire for uniformity and no evidence of a will from a group of editors prepared to go through over 1,000 articles and make this minor change.Graemp (talk) 07:33, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
Boundary maps from Open Street Map
There are a set of parliamentary constituency boundary maps at mysociety.org: https://mapit.mysociety.org/areas/WMC.html These are based on the Open Street Map maps and data, which will be free-to-use.
The same maps/data also appear on streetcheck.co.uk, where they also talk about wards which might mean that further levels of data organisation are also available. Compare https://www.streetcheck.co.uk/constituency/enfield-north with https://mapit.mysociety.org/area/66050.html
[Edited] Scarabocchio (talk) 13:39, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
Welsh Liberal Democrats vs Liberal Democrats
If someone is on the ballot paper as the candidate representing the Welsh Liberal Democrats (e.g. [1], should the election box entry (e.g. Template:Election box candidate with party link) link to Welsh Liberal Democrats or Liberal Democrats (UK)? Similarly for Welsh Labour and others. Thanks. --Jameboy (talk) 20:23, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
Peers in election result boxes
MapReader (talk · contribs) has recently been cleaning up links to bypass redirects in election result boxes. However, we've found ourselves in disagreement over how to display the name of Members of Parliament who were Irish peers or courtesy peers when elected. MapReader (as I understand it) prefers to use their given name and surname, rather than their peerage title, as the label for the link. For instance, for the Irish peer John Pennington, 1st Baron Muncaster, sometime MP for Colchester and Westmorland, he would prefer to link to the article from the election result as John Pennington, whereas I would prefer The Lord Muncaster (or perhaps "The 1st Lord Muncaster"). You can see our previous discussion on his talk page. I don't think we're going to come to a consensus amongst ourselves, so I wanted to bring the issue here for further discussion. Choess (talk) 01:44, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
- It is worth referring to the specific instance that we have been debating, which Choess (talk · contribs) omits to mention. The article in question is titled John Wandesford, 1st Earl Wandesford, yet Choess wants to link to this by over-piping with The 5th Viscount Castlecomer. It seems to me that the editors who have created and edited this article have arrived at a consensus as to its title, applying WP naming conventions, which for bios rest heavily upon WP:COMMONNAME. Using a different name when the same person is referred to on another page (in this case an election result box) would seem peculiar (and isnt something that would work in a print encyclopaedia for obvious reasons). The primary purposes of both the biographical article and the display of an election result are to name and identify the individual concerned - and therefore it would be better to resolve first on the individual's biographical page how Commonname should be applied to this person.
- It is also worth flagging the consensus reached here earlier in the year regarding election result boxes: that we would adopt a simple easy-to-read approach based on Commonname format, excluding honorifics (which includes honorific titles), awards, military ranks and other detail such as middle names, but rather providing a straightforward link through to the candidate's biographical article where all this information can be found. Further, for someone elected, a fuller description of their name normally appears earlier in the article in the Members of Parliament section. Thus, picking an example at random, in Stamford (UK Parliament constituency), the individual who stood and was elected in 1868 is shown as Sir John Dalrymple-Hay, Bt in the Members of Parliament section of the article for that year, and then later in the same article as John Dalrymple-Hay in the box displaying the result of the 1868 election, in both cases linking through to the individual's bio article Sir John Dalrymple-Hay, 3rd Baronet. Adopting this approach was the strong consensus among the editors of this Wikiproject, to avoid tendency otherwise to expand references within election boxes so that we end up with a clutter of titles, honorifics, middle names, military ranks, qualifications and other personal information added into what ought to be a clear and straightforward reference to an election result inked through to the candidates' biographies wherever possible.MapReader (talk) 06:57, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
- I think I agree with Choess here but i'm struggling to follow the thread of the argument. If at the time they were an MP they held a title that needs to be used. I'm not concerned about Mil ranks or clergy etc... But calling someone who will be recorded in parliament and contemporary sources as 'Lord bloggs' joe smith is helping no one. Garlicplanting (talk) 12:12, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
- Having read the previous discussion on the topic, I think my position is very much consistent with that discussion. "we use their commonly used name at the time of the election"—which is the title of the peerage (or courtesy peerage) that the person then held. e.g., the History of Parliament's treatment refers to him in running text as "Castlecomer" or "Lord Castlecomer". For another example, the 1761 Morpeth election, which returned John Stewart, 7th Earl of Galloway, Bean in 1890, Stooks Smith in 1844 (an important Parliamentary historian), and Hodgson in 1832 use "Lord Garlies" or "Viscount Garlies" to refer to him...and indeed when we click through to his article, the lead tells us "styled Viscount Garlies from 1747 until 1773". The discussion says that "titles should not be used per WP:HONORIFIC", but clicking through that link will show that the "titles" referred to are things like military and ecclesiastical titles, "Rt. Hon.", "Doctor", and so forth; peerages do *not* fall under its scope.
- MapReader rightly deprecates "a clutter of titles, honorifics, middle names, military ranks...", etc.; this is in essence an argument for recognizability, the same reason WP:NAME advises us to use "Bill Clinton" instead of "William Jefferson Clinton". But that example is qualitatively different from "Cat Stevens" vs "Yusuf Islam"; one is a contrast between formal and informal forms of the same name, the other is a complete change of name. When a person has changed names, we can only give one title to the article, but in different contexts, either name might be the more recognizable. (See Caitlyn Jenner for a very socially charged example.) The principle that we have to choose one name for this person and then use that name in all the context, which MapReader has advanced, clearly breaks down in the case of changing names. Peers and courtesy peers change names as they acquire peerages, and WP:NCROY outlines a *consistent* process for dealing with this; in most cases, like Wandesford, the peers are sufficiently obscure that you can't really say which name is most recognizable overall, so consistency (highest title) rather than recognizability becomes the main factor in choosing the article title.
- tl,dr: Ultimately, the assertion that this "would seem peculiar" does not carry the weight of policy or guidelines. The situation of the peerage *is* peculiar: the article titles of peers, unlike many names, are driven more heavily by precision and consistency than by recognizability. In linking to them from election results, we should use the most natural and recognizable name, which is the title they were using at the time of the election, rather than insist on an exact consistency with their article title. Choess (talk) 16:14, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
- Of course we use their title at the time they served as an MP. We use knighthoods, after all, so why not peerage titles? That's what they were generally called. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:00, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
- As this hasn't been marked as resolved or a census reached I'll put my two cents in– using titles seems most logical thing to do here. Peers are in somewhat of a unique position whereby their title effectively becomes their common name. For example, the last peer to be British Prime Minister is usually referred to as Lord Salisbury or The Marquess of Salisbury, and the personal name of Robert Gascoyne-Cecil is almost never used. ToastButterToast (talk) 16:09, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
- Of course we use their title at the time they served as an MP. We use knighthoods, after all, so why not peerage titles? That's what they were generally called. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:00, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
"On the original question, I would prefer to use Lord Muncaster. It has the advantage of being both usage and shorter than John Pennington - and with some Irish peers, with multiple names, much shorter. I prefer Lord Muncaster to The Baron Muncaster not only as a matter of register, but as a gentle reassurance to the reader that he is not a Peer of the same Parlimanet. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:44, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
Percentage change
The percentage change for the Tory vote on latest result at Lewisham_East_(UK_Parliament_constituency) is clearly wrong, and I was going to fix it but then it seema quite a lot of the percentages are wrong. Can't quite work out what methodology is being used here, seems inconsistent. Perhaps some macro could be used.
77.95.178.84 (talk) 08:22, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
- I thought the same - but realise that the party percentage figures represent the proportions of the valid vote, whereas the turnout figure represents ballot papers issued, the difference being those that were spoiled or blank. MapReader (talk) 08:38, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
- The percentage shares look OK to me but the turnout change is off. It's shown as -36.1% while it should be either -35.9% if you calculate then round ( 69.2869% - 33.3474% ) or -36.0% if you round and then calculate ( 69.3% - 33.3% ). I also think the swing should be -19.0% though it's debatable whether swing is useful when the top two parties change. Cavrdg (talk) 09:35, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
Articles on individual wards
What criteria are used to decide whether an individual UK electoral council ward is sufficiently notable to merit its own article? MapReader (talk) 16:04, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
Lists of parliamentary constituencies in counties
I have recently been working on including a section on the History of constituencies and boundaries in the "List of parliamentary constituencies in..." series, most recently for Essex. I think it would be better to split these articles between the List, which details the current constituencies in the county and a new article entitled "History of parliamentary constituencies in...". As well as my section on the History of constituencies and boundaries, this would include the Results maps and the Historical representation by party. JSboundaryman (talk) 09:09, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
Prospective parliamentary candidates
At Talk:Wyre and Preston North (UK Parliament constituency)#Next election entries presumptuous there is a discussion (and edit-warring in the article itself) about whether it is appropriate to list prospective parliamentary candidates for a general election that hasn't even been called yet. -- Dr Greg talk 23:31, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
Outdated info on the York Outer constituency page
Spotted an outdated fact on the York Outer constituency page:
"Most wards are evenly split between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, with Hull Road being the strongest Labour ward".
That was probably true up until 2010 but results at the last two elections have reversed the fortunes of Lab and LD with LD gaining just 10.3% across the constituency in 2017, according to results further down the page. 90.254.108.168 (talk) 00:47, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
Put the EU referendum results for each constituency on the page?
The referendum results were counted by constituency, it would be an interesting result to have on each wiki page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.41.36.232 (talk) 08:02, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
- I think it's a good idea. For provincial constituencies in Quebec, we have results for both independence referenda as well as the 1992 referendum on constitutional reform. Bkissin (talk) 13:40, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
Boundary review article
Hey project people. Just a quick heads-up. I've thrown up the 2021 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies in preparation for the forthcoming review. There are a series of connected articles which we need to keep an eye on if there's any interest. doktorb wordsdeeds 20:02, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
What is the correct formatting for election result table titles?
Should table titles for UK constituencies election results be formatted as <year> general election: <constituency> as per the formatting of article titles? Or should it be General election <year>: <constituency>? There seemed to be no consistency among articles or clear guidelines. The Style guide suggests General election <year>: <constituency> but the template for the Election Box suggests <year> general election: <constituency>.
It seemed to me the most sense would be to go from general to specific information. So, General election <year>: <constituency>. Keeping <constituency> means that table can be easily copied and still retain information specific enough to differentiate it from any other table.
What is the consensus here?
Gharbhain (talk) 17:52, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
- Hey @Gharbhain:. I've spotted you working away in my watchlist, many thanks for the "Wikigophering" you do. I think the usual way is <General Election><Year><Constituency>. That would be my preference and I think it's the most commonly used. doktorb wordsdeeds 17:55, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
- No worries, I quite enjoy doing the formatting. And thank you for the information. The issue came up when a User brought up on my talk page that the format should be <year> general election.
- I also noticed that some articles don't have tables following chronologically? Should they go from latest to earliest? Gharbhain (talk) 18:07, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
- Per WP:NCELECT, "Date [adjectival form of country name] type election/referendum" is the preferred format, meaning "[year] general election" should be preferred. I already explained this to Gharbhain on their talk page. Mattythewhite (talk) 19:30, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
- Perhaps someone can update the style guide if this is the case going forward. Gharbhain (talk) 21:52, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
- Per WP:NCELECT, "Date [adjectival form of country name] type election/referendum" is the preferred format, meaning "[year] general election" should be preferred. I already explained this to Gharbhain on their talk page. Mattythewhite (talk) 19:30, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
- In terms of whether election results should be formatted as Old-->Recent or Recent-->Old, the correct way is the former; the most common way by a country mile is the latter, and as copy+pasting the top to the bottom is so laborious, I doubt that 650+ articles are going to be reformatted any time soon. Not being snippy or rude here, that's just the reality! doktorb wordsdeeds 07:28, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
- No worries, if I see it as Recent-->Old then I'll swap it around. I changed one or two to Recent-->Old since that seemed to be the prevailing consensus. Gharbhain (talk) 08:17, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
- It should be newest first, as that is how it has been on wikipedia for years, most have been like that for a decade, even 15 years, so no need to change. Plus it's how English and Scottish constituencies are laid out for the parliamentary elections and it's easier for readers to see the most recent elections results first, rather than having to scroll down a page to find them. BrendaJones54 (talk) 11:59, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
- I agree. There will be far more users looking for their current or most recent result, or wanting to look at the last two or three, than there will people wanting to research those of decades or centuries past. Furthermore, if the most recent result is at the top, you can see at a glance if you have landed on a seat that no longer exists. If our guidelines really do say the opposite, they should be changed, and changing the guidelines to match the reality will be much easier than the reverse, as per DrB above MapReader (talk) 12:33, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
- I disagree. This issue has been done and run and it should be oldest first. It makes sense, given that changes to vote share, turnout etc. that results would be listed from oldest to newest. That most UK constituency pages don't follow the correct way is neither here nor there honestly.
Benawu2 (talk) 22:52, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
- I don’t see having changes in vote share, etc, in the tables as an argument that plays either way, to be honest. So you’re looking at an election result and it shows the percentage change from the older one immediately below; perfectly clear and logical! We show opinion polls most recent first, because the most recent is the most interesting. Further, that established practice varies significantly from the guidelines is surely telling us something, and shouldn’t be ignored. If it doesn’t matter, we don’t need the guideline at all. If it matters, we should decide, one way or the other. MapReader (talk) 07:51, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- Benawu you say on my talk page that it was "settled earlier in the year, but I can't see it being settled anywhere and then you say "I am right in my approach" but once again I can't see any proof. The UK, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland all put it newest first and oldest last, Wales used to do it like that until you changed it without gaining any consensus first. Many of the Welsh articles you changed had been newest first for more than a decade, some even 15 years, yet you changed it for no reason. Indeed Commonwealth countries such as Canada, Australia, India and new Zealand do it newest first, so why have you changed it as it makes it harder for readers to find the most recent election info as now they have to scroll down. Right now you have 2 editors, myself and MapReader opposed to your unnecessary changes, so I would recommend you revert them since the consensus is against you. BrendaJones54 (talk) 19:28, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- Brenda - I changed the Welsh constituencies because it was consistent with both the election template and the following comment which is also upthread : "In terms of whether election results should be formatted as Old-->Recent or Recent-->Old, the correct way is the former; the most common way by a country mile is the latter, and as copy+pasting the top to the bottom is so laborious, I doubt that 650+ articles are going to be reformatted any time soon. Not being snippy or rude here, that's just the reality! doktorb wordsdeeds 07:28, 22 June 2020 (UTC)". No one argued with that at the time so I regarded it as settled. And no one (until now) has objected. I note that many countries including the USA go from oldest to newest. So no, my changes, some months ago were not for no reason they were changed to be consistent with the template and also obviously because I believe that is how results should be reflected. So no I won't revert the Welsh pages. I would prefer not to go and do the other 610 constituencies to prove a point but will if that is necessary. I would prefer to leave it all as is to be honest. Benawu2 (talk) 22:57, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
- Benawu you say on my talk page that it was "settled earlier in the year, but I can't see it being settled anywhere and then you say "I am right in my approach" but once again I can't see any proof. The UK, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland all put it newest first and oldest last, Wales used to do it like that until you changed it without gaining any consensus first. Many of the Welsh articles you changed had been newest first for more than a decade, some even 15 years, yet you changed it for no reason. Indeed Commonwealth countries such as Canada, Australia, India and new Zealand do it newest first, so why have you changed it as it makes it harder for readers to find the most recent election info as now they have to scroll down. Right now you have 2 editors, myself and MapReader opposed to your unnecessary changes, so I would recommend you revert them since the consensus is against you. BrendaJones54 (talk) 19:28, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- I don’t see having changes in vote share, etc, in the tables as an argument that plays either way, to be honest. So you’re looking at an election result and it shows the percentage change from the older one immediately below; perfectly clear and logical! We show opinion polls most recent first, because the most recent is the most interesting. Further, that established practice varies significantly from the guidelines is surely telling us something, and shouldn’t be ignored. If it doesn’t matter, we don’t need the guideline at all. If it matters, we should decide, one way or the other. MapReader (talk) 07:51, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Swing
I've searched the archive but maybe I've just missed what the consensus was. What's the stance of how Swing is calculated in election boxes? Since so many have swing missing, it might be good to add something to the style guide? My feeling is that it should be calculated in a priority of:
- If the seat was a gain, calculate the swing between the winner party and the loser party
- If the loser party did not stand but the loser candidate did (ie, under a different party), use that to calculate swing? This might cause confusion when describing the swing though. I'm thinking of the case of Aberavon in 1922 when the Liberal candidate switch to National Liberal. Is that really a swing from Liberal to Labour if a Liberal didn't stand?
- If the seat was a hold, calculate the swing between the winner and second place
- But what if the second place was a new party, like Barnsley East in 2019? Do we treat the Brexit Party's votes as votes gained and use that to calculate a swing of 25.6 from Labour to Brexit?
- If the previous election was unopposed then don't calculate swing?
Thoughts?
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Table of list of MPs rather than elections won. Discussion is open at UK Politics project as suggested by another group of editors.
Per Archive 10 limited discussion. You are free to add to the debate at: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Politics_of_the_United_Kingdom#Each_UK_constituency:_Members_of_Parliament:_re-election(s)_to_prevent_the_graphical_bias_of_this_section?_Suggestion
Visually – as people are quite rightly increasingly – which is the whole cause of this debate, the working draft format now suggested is:
Elected/re-elected | Member | Party | |
---|---|---|---|
1885, 1886 | Octavius Vaughan Morgan | Liberal | |
1892 | John Burns | Independent Labour | |
1895, 1900, 1906, Jan 1910, Dec 1910 |
Liberal-Labour | ||
see Battersea North and Battersea South for 1918-1983 | |||
1983 | Alf Dubs | Labour | |
1987, 1992 | John Bowis | Conservative | |
1997, 2001, 2005 | Martin Linton | Labour | |
2010, 2015 | Jane Ellison | Conservative | |
2017, 2019 | Marsha De Cordova | Labour |
- Adam37 Talk 16:41, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
- The above has met with general agreement. Please use this as the basis for the changes needed. I am messaging each fellow project user to ask if they would like to take on this update to their own local county/counties. If so please let me know (so I can avoid overlap).- Adam37 Talk 17:49, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
- That format feels cumbersome to manage especially when MPs change party. The Party name with colour template works great in the party column, this from the Leicester East page based on the above:
Elected/Re-elected Member[1] Party ... 1945 Terence Donovan Labour see Leicester North East and Leicester South East for 1950-1970 Feb 1974, Oct 1974, 1979 Tom Bradley Labour 1981 SDP 1983 Peter Bruinvels Conservative 1987, 1992, 1997, 2001,
2005, 2010, 2015, 2017Keith Vaz Labour 2019 Claudia Webbe Labour 2020 Independent
- We've been down this cul-de-sac before. The summary tables have worked perfectly well for over a decade. Each change of an MP is clearly identified without a list of years separated by commas. There's no need to complicate matters. I urge you to step back and think about the existing table and what it shows. doktorb wordsdeeds 23:54, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
Splitting old constituencies - what are the rules?
Currently entering lots of election results into the Ipswich. I think this is unbalancing the article.
I think there are three things that can be done, but I want it to be consistent with other constituency articles:
- Do nothing and accept it - Create a results page and cap the results in the main article to something like 1945 - Create a new page for the historic constituency, perhaps with 1918 as the cut off point. This would have the additional benefit that the history of the historic constituency could be built up.
JASpencer (talk) 15:38, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
- We've been down this cul-de-sac before with reference to Newcastle and Bradford, where some compass-point consistencies bare little resemblance to their predecessors. Convention and agreement has always landed on making it easy for readers to find the constituency they've searched for. Dividing seats by years opens up arbitrary decisions and unnecessary complication. I would much prefer one seat, one article. doktorb wordsdeeds 23:56, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
- There's a reason these issues are returned to. The articles get massive with old election results and the majority of the interest is in the current constituency. There also seems to be very little narrative history about the nature of the old seat; corporations, restricted mandates and political factions make these seats unrecognisable (and fascinating). The past really is a different country and while abolished seats can show this richness, continuous seats look like a mess of undue weights. JASpencer (talk) 20:31, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
- I agree with doktorb Benawu2 (talk) 00:52, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
- There's a reason these issues are returned to. The articles get massive with old election results and the majority of the interest is in the current constituency. There also seems to be very little narrative history about the nature of the old seat; corporations, restricted mandates and political factions make these seats unrecognisable (and fascinating). The past really is a different country and while abolished seats can show this richness, continuous seats look like a mess of undue weights. JASpencer (talk) 20:31, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
Project-independent quality assessments
Quality assessments by Wikipedia editors rate articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Wikipedia:Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a |class=
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parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 22:08, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
Percentage majorities and changes
An IP editor is changing percentages for majorities and other values in UK elections.[2][3][4] Where majorities have previously been calculated as the majority divided by the turnout, the IP editor is changing them to the difference between the rounded percentages for the candidates. Similarly, they change increases and decreases to be differences between the displayed rounded values. The changes are sometimes a mere 0.1%, sometimes more marked as errors are compounded - a majority's decrease of 0.6% becomes 0.8%[5] at Ealing Central and Acton (UK Parliament constituency) - and I've seen numbers fudged, for example to make 100%.
Their edit summaries today have been "the reader doesn’t use ‘exact values', but they would see this as a mathematical error. Changed to rounded values; we always use these"
. It is true that this has become common, because they've been doing this a long time with great persistence, though I think they stopped for a while after this altercation on my talk page.
Can anyone say what policy is, or what's desirable? Is the IP editor bringing UK articles into line with articles for other countries or making them exceptional? NebY (talk) 20:09, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
Good article reassessment for Peterborough (UK Parliament constituency)
Peterborough (UK Parliament constituency) has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Hog Farm Talk 00:40, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
Dwyfor Merionydd constituency map.
This map is wrong. Can someone please amend it. 2A00:23C5:8E86:1E01:4437:6DEC:1771:F556 (talk) 17:54, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
- If you're referencing the boundary changes, the article currently has the old map, with a new one here. Not sure when to make the switch, soon? DankJae 00:17, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
Kingston and Surbiton
A.Gent Chinners is missing from the list of candidates. The Official Monster Raving Loony Party
Kingston & Surbiton – The Official Monster Raving Loony Party 86.13.244.175 (talk) 03:12, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
- Added to Kingston and Surbiton (UK Parliament constituency)#Elections in the 2020s after finding a WP:RS (statement of persons nominated). PamD 07:27, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
Order of maps in infoboxes
There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom#UK Parliament constituency infobox maps on whether the new interactive maps should be prominently placed in infoboxes, and svg maps moved down. DankJae 16:22, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
List of target seats in the 2024 United Kingdom general election listed at Requested moves
A requested move discussion has been initiated for List of target seats in the 2024 United Kingdom general election to be moved to List of marginal seats before the 2024 United Kingdom general election. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 23:38, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
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