Talk:Canadian federal elections since 1867/Archive

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

This looks like a data dump....should it be wikified (maybe in a table?) or moved to Wikisource? Jwrosenzweig 00:24, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I copied the information that was here to the list that already exists at List of Canadian federal elections. - SimonP 00:45, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)

Contents

Colours for PC Party

This is not really the right place for htis discussion, but I don't know where eelse to put it.

The colour used for the PC party for tables in the pages linked from here is pretty dark, making the data difficult to read.

Here is what we have now:

Progressive Conservative (medium slate blue)

I'd like to suggest changing this to:

Progressive Conservative (powder blue)

This may be to close to the Bloc Quebecois colour:

Bloc Québécois (light sky blue)

which could be changed to:

Bloc Québécois (turquoise)

Any objections?

Perhaps it would be easier to change it to
Progressive Conservative (Pale Dull Violet)
so that the Bloc Québécois color does not need to be changed
Acegikmo1 20:22, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I`m not crazy about that since Canadians generally associate the PC PArty with a shade of blue, not with purple. It wouldn`t be much trouble to change the BQ colour while I`m in there. Kevintoronto 21:38, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
That seems fair enough then (I'm assuming that BC has no generally associated colour). I think the changes would make the table more readible.
Acegikmo1 15:09, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)


Colours (again)

I’d like to get some consensus on what to do about colours in the elections charts, but I don’t want to get into a revert war, so I’m asking people to express their opinions here before any changes are made. Some of the colours that are currently being used are too dark for some monitors so that it is difficult to read the text. The point of adding colours to the charts is to make it easier for readers to derive information from the charts. This goal is foiled by using colours dark enough to obscure the text. The Wikipedia style guide is clear on the issue:

Use colour sparingly. Computers and browsers vary: you cannot know how much colour is presented on the recipient's machine if any. Wikipedia is international: colours have different meaning in different cultures. Too many colours on one page make them look cluttered and unencyclopedic. Use the colour red only for alerts and warnings.

So let’s choose some colours that are light enough that red Wilkilinked text and blue Wikilinked text are both easy to read through. Specificly, the colours used that are too dark are: Progressive Conservative Party #9999FF, (new) Conservative Party cornflowerblue, and Canadian Alliance cadetblue.

Here is the rationale for my suggestions for shifting colours around. I welcome your comments. DeathPhoenix has prepared a comparative table below.

Conservative Party (historical): keep the current "powderblue" colour. The National Party and Canadian Action Party, which currently use this colour, would be changed.

Progressive Conservative: the current "#9999FF" colour is very difficult to read, and since this party is the same party as the Conservative Party (historical), the colour would be changed to "powderblue".

(new) Conservative Party: the current "cornflowerblue" colour is difficult to read, and is the same as Freedom Party of Ontario (on the Ontario election pages). It would be changed to "lightskyblue". This colour is currently used for Bloc Quebecois, which would be changed.

Canadian Alliance: the current "cadetblue" colour is very difficult to read. It would be changed to "lightsteelblue". Ealr Andrew has suggested below that we pick a teal (to combine the CA's green and blue colours. Does anyone know of a light teal colour we could use?

Freedom Party of Ontario: (On Ontario election pages) the current "cornflowerblue" colour, which is the same as the (new) Conservative Party, is very difficult to read. it would be changed to "lightsteelblue", or to some other light blue colour if this is used for the Canadian Alliance.

National Party, Canadian Action Party: The current "powderblue" colour is the same as Conservative Party (historical), even though there is no connection between the parties. The National Party used green, and the CAP uses red and blue. I suggest chaning these to "yellow" and not worrying about their campaign colours. Any other suggestions?

Quebec nationalist parties - Union Populaire, Parti Nationaliste du Quebec, Bloc Quebecois: the current "lightskyblue" colour is proposed for (new) Conservative Party), so these could be changed to the "turquoise" that is used for the Bloc Populaire Canadien, an earlier Quebec nationalist party. It would also distinguish these party visualy from the light blues used for the PC party and the CPC.

Bloc Populaire Canadien: would maintain its current "turquoise".

Confederation of Regions: the current "lightsteelblue" colour (in Ontario elections pages) would be changed to "moccasin", which is already being used for the party on federal elections pages.

DeathPhoenix has proposed changing the Liberal Party "lightcoral" to "#FFE8E8" (which is currently used at List of Ontario premiers) in order to make Liberal party data easier to read.

Kevintoronto 17:09, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC) & Kevintoronto 22:41, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Kevin, you deserve a big kudos for the work above. I support it wholeheartedly. - Jord 18:19, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
They look fine, except for the Canadian Alliance, which should be a shade of teal and not blue. Earl Andrew 18:39, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Not necessarily, the Alliance, though represented mainly with shades of green in the media as the successor to reform used both green and blue as their colours. - Jord 18:43, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Kevin, thanks for your awesome work. I've summarised your colours below, and also added a proposed colour change for Liberals. I left in "Proposed colour B" because I've got a couple of colours I'd like to propose for these parties instead. As we discussed, I'm including a link and a redlink to highlight how bad the text looks for some of the current colours. I didn't really like the WikiCode for tables until now. :-) Hopefully this will make it easier for people to reach a consensus. --Deathphoenix 20:16, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Colour table

Article title Current colour Proposed colour A Proposed colour B
Conservatives (historical) powderblue link redlink (no change) (no change)
Progressive Conservatives #9999FF link redlink powderblue link redlink (same as proposal A)
Conservatives (current) cornflowerblue link redlink lightskyblue link redlink (same as proposal A)
Canadian Alliance cadetblue link redlink lightsteelblue link redlink (same as proposal A)
Freedom Party of Ontario cornflowerblue link redlink lightsteelblue link redlink moccasin link redlink
Canadian Action Party powderblue link redlink yellow link redlink "#FFCC99" link redlink
Quebec nationalists lightskyblue link redlink turquoise link redlink #FFCCFF link redlink
Bloc Populaire Canadien turquoise link redlink (no change) #FFCCFF link redlink
Confederation of Regions lightsteelblue link redlink moccasin link redlink #CCFFCC link redlink
Liberal Party of Canada lightcoral link redlink #FFE8E8 link redlink (same as proposal A)
  • Here's a different suggestion ...
  • Instead of colouring in the entire row, why not just have a column of text-free coloured squares at the left-hand side of each electoral chart? (ie. A small red square would appear just before the rectangular box containing the words "Liberal Party of Canada"; a small blue square for the Conservatives; and so forth). This would completely resolve the question of legibility, as well as retaining the basic "colour coding" information. (Also, this would not require a revamp of the current colour patterns.)
  • Thoughts? CJCurrie 02:31, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The colours that were used originally on party related tables (eg list of Canadian PMs) were light pastels (say rose for the Liberals, not red, sky blue for tories rather than blue or cobalt blue etc.. Then somone changed them to the "official" bright party colours which often made the text either difficult to read or the overall table garish and hard on the eyes. I prefer the muted pastel colours along the lines of column two above and I believe that use of such colours is the norm on wikipedial political charts eg President_of_the_United_States#List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States. However, I think CJCurrie's idea might work - I'd like to see an example of it first though. AndyL 07:14, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  • I added colours to the column for Proposed colour B. I like Kevin's idea for choosing lighter colours, and I decided to try and choose colours that are closer to the official party colours (or at least the colours used in the party web sites) while retaining the same lighter pastel-type of colours in his proposition. Also, I made the change in the Quebec nationalist parties because there seemed to be too many shades of blue, so I went with a shade of purple. Please let me know what you think. --Deathphoenix 15:41, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I am happy with either Proposal A or Proposal B. I think that I prefer using a pastel colour for the whole line to using a colour box at the beginning of the line (CJCurrie's proposal), but that idea does address the problem, and I could quite happily live with that, too, if others feel strongly about it. I would like to get more feedback from others who have contributed to these pages, like User:The Tom, so that we don't do a whole bunch of work only to find it changed back six months later. If you can think of anyone to invite to this discussion, please do so. Kevintoronto 13:31, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
That's a good idea. Maybe posting a message to the Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board will help. --Deathphoenix 05:43, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Voting

I'd like to move this along, and suggest a preferential ballot to choose between the options. To facilitate this, I have renamed "Proposal 1" to "Proposal A" and Proposal 2" to Proposal B". We can let the voting run for a week (to March 10), and then determine what the consensus is.

Here, then, are the proposals:

Proposal A: change current colour scheme to lighter colour scheme to make text more legible as illustrated in table above.

Proposal B: change current colour scheme to lighter colour scheme to make text more legible as illustrated in table above.

Proposal C: maintain current colour scheme, but use a column of text-free coloured squares at the left-hand side of each electoral chart, e.g., a small red square would appear just before the rectangular box containing the words "Liberal Party of Canada" (CJCurrie's proposal). this would maintain the dark colours many seem to prefer, while making the text more legible.

Proposal D: maintain current colour (as illustrated in table above) scheme -- there's nothing wrong with the way things are. (Status quo).

Please indicate your preference in order:

User Name 1st choice 2nd choice 3rd choice
Kevintoronto B A C
Jord B C A
Deathphoenix B A C
Bearcat B C A
Radagast C D A
Earl Andrew D C A
CJCurrie C B D
MS123 D C A
Ontm D C A
Woknuk D C B


What if we put these on the party pages so we can establish a colour identifacation, this way people know what the colours mean and we don;t have to change everything, and replace with dumb looking colours. (seperatists are purple?)

put on Liberal page

Party
Liberal Party of Canada


put on Conservative page

Party
Conservative Party of Canada

put on NDP page

Party
New Democratic Party


put on PC page

Party
Progressive Conservative

Thanks for your comments, Anonymous. I don't think that your suggestion really addresses the problem that we've identified, however, but I'm glad that you're joining the discussion. Using dark, solid colours makes it difficult to read the table on many monitors and for people with poor eyesight. Putting colour codes on the party articles only means that people have to move back and forth between articles in order to figure out what the table is saying. I'd rather go with CJCurrie's proposal to put a coloured square at the beginning of the line and leave the rest of the line white. But the concensus that seems to be developing is to go with the lighter colours.

The Wikipedia Style Guide sets out principles for using colours that these tables violate. I think that we can make the articles and tables easier to read if we don't get hung up on making pretty pictures or sticking closely to parties' official colours. The official colours approach is problematic in any event: many parties use blue, many use more than one colour, and party colours change from election to election. The federal NDP, for example, used brown and peachy orange in the 70s, reddish orange in the 80s, and a brighter orange in the 90s. The Ontario NDP used mostly green with some orange in the 90s, but has now moved back to orange.

Changing these colours will be a big project, and I don't want to rush into something that people will object to, so I want to continue the dialogue before we settle on anything. Thanks again for your comments. Kevintoronto 14:58, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Over on Talk:Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, there has been a discussion about changing the colour for the CCF so that it is different from that for the NDP. The CCF was not simply re-named the NDP, but was a re-organization of how the party function, and supposedly an integration of organized labour. The colour should probably be changed just as we changed the colour when the PC Party was merged into the new CPC. Any ideas for a CCF colour? Kevintoronto 20:21, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Pink, of course! (*grin*) Bearcat

Conclusion

This discussion has been running for about a month now, so it is time to close it off. I had planned to let it run for a couple of weeks more because I believe that Wikipedia works best when the views of all interested participants are considered.

To try to get a concensus, I began this discussion, and tried to get others involved. In addition to posting a notice on the Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board, I invited over a dozen people who had participated in working on Canadian federal and provincial elections pages by posting notes on their Talk pages. I even invited people I knew would likely have a different view from my own, including User:The Tom, User:Jack Cox, and an anonymous editor who seems to be user:MS123. The discussion was worthwhile and brought forward some good ideas.

Yesterday, however, a couple of sock puppets appeared (see below), so the concensus and discussion route seems to have run its course. I personally do not understand why one user would think that Wikipedia is improved when one person casts several votes, but there is no way of preventing it other than to close the discussion down when it occurs.

Excluding the sock puppet votes (User:Woknuk and User:Ontm), the choice seems to be between Option B and Option C. Option B received 4 of the 8 first choice votes, while the remainder were split between C and D. Option A received no first choice votes. Between C and D, C is considerably more popular, with 4 second choice votes to 1 for D.

If A and D are eliminated, there are four votes for B and 4 votes for C.

Any suggestions on how to proceed? Kevintoronto 14:48, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I suggest we use Templates as suggested on the Village pump. That way, we can set colours (and other table properties, if necessaries) just once and have the changes occur for all the table cells in all the elections articles. To keep track of all these colours, we need a central place where we can see all these colours. As soon as we change the table properties on one page, we place new entries in this central place. We either make a project page, or maybe use this talk page as that repository. That way, we know at a glance exactly what colours are being used for what political party. This is a lot of work to set up, but if anyone else gets in a tiff about what colours it should be, they would only have to edit the template, not each table in each article.
I would suggest that the template look like {{tablerows/Conservatives (historical)}}, and that template consist of the following text:
bgcolor="powderblue"
In every single instance of a historical Conservative election result, any time we see a "bgcolor" entry, we replace it with {{tablerows/Conservatives (historical)}}
Thoughts? --Deathphoenix 15:09, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Possible results

Depending on which method we use to interpret the results, here are the winners (not counting the two puppets that I struckthrough above):

It looks like by the majority of counting methods, C is the winner however we are at a very close point here not a broad consensus. - Jord 18:02, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You have a point. My opinion was on first past the post, I believe. In any case, what this would mean is modifying the template to include Wikicode that will allow me to enter an additional cell before the text, and assign the colour to that. That's certainly possible to do in a template, and it has the added advantage that we can simply modify it to get rid of the extra cell if future consensus is that it's not good. --Deathphoenix 18:33, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Oh I agree wholeheartedly. The template is the way to go because we have not only countless federal articles but also a lot of provincial articles that borrow the federal format. The question is which is the consensus not how to implement it. Definately in favour of templates on this end! - Jord 20:22, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Okay, so it seems that option C is the way to go on this. Let me know how I can help with the templates, Death. Kevintoronto 21:12, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)


Sock puppets=

I have excluded two votes from the count because of solid evidence of sock puppetry, which Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales described as "uncool". When we're having a vote, let's keep it to one person, one vote. We can all create dozens of sock puppets in minutes if we want, but what is achieved by that?

Here are some points from Wikipedia:Sock puppet:

  • "The reason for discouraging sock puppets is to prevent abuses such as a person voting more than once in a poll, or using multiple accounts to circumvent Wikipedia policies. Some people feel that second accounts should not be used at all."
  • "A person using multiple accounts legitimately must refrain from using the different accounts in any way prohibited to sock puppets and from using one account to support the position of another, the standard definition of sock puppetry."
  • "Using a second account abusively is not a legitimate use and may lead to the link to your first account being revealed."
  • "In addition to double-voting, sock puppets should not be used for purposes of deception, or to create the illusion of broader support for a position. This kind of behavior is disruptive and unnecessary for any potentially legitimate use of sock puppets. In particular, accounts that are used to maliciously impersonate another Wikipedian should be blocked permanently."

User:Ontm was created at 22:53, 17 Mar 2005, and voted just one minute later at 22:54, 17 Mar 2005. While I would be flattered that someone new to Wikipedia would find my little discussion about colours so quickly upon joining, I don't find it to be credible. Ontm's only other contribution so far has been to post the following message at his/her user page:

hello! Im new and from Ontario, and I hope that I can make some good changes to wikipedia, and so I look forward to improvments I can make!

User:Woknuk was created at an hour and eight minutes later at 00:01, 18 Mar 2005, and voted at 00:06, 18 Mar 2005, after making only one other contribution (to Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories). It should be noted that MS123's previous contributions largely relate to provincial and territorial legislative assemblies. Woknuk posted the following message on her/his user page:

I am from northern Canada and I am glad to be able to work on wikipedia.

User:MS123, whose user page consists only of the message, No NEW COLOURS!!!, was making edits off an on during this time, i.e., from 22:34, 17 Mar 2005 to 03:14, 18 Mar 2005.

I want to note that MS123 has made some worthwhile contributions to articles, although he/she nevers signs comments on Talk pages, so it would be especially disappointing to see him/her resort to sock puppetry.

As I explained above, I began this discussion because I see Wikipedia as being most successful when participants work together and treat others with respect. MS123 has at times behaved aggressively, telling me to buy a better monitor if I found the charts hard to read, changing the colour for the CCF with no input from anyone but me (I happened to be on-line when he decided to make the change), and shown no regard for the Wikipedia Style Guide as cited above. MS123 is concerned about having colours that "look sharp", instead of colours that make the tables easier to read for everyone. It is very discouraging, and I hate to say that I find myself wondering why I bother to work on Wikipedia when it means having to deal with selfish behaviour like this. I hate to think that the Wikipedia ideal would get abandoned and turned over to those who are unwilling to work co-operatively, and who only want things to go their way.

Okay, so I sound bitter, I guess I am. I'll try to get over it and get back to creating more content for this otherwise wonderful project. Kevintoronto 14:48, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I found those two new votes to be highly suspicious as well. Don't worry about it. Let's just work on making this a great encyclopedia. :-) --Deathphoenix 14:58, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wasn't me! see User_talk:Kevintoronto

  • MS123 21:09, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Follow up: on my talk page, MS123 has apologized for comments that may have seemed aggressive, and disavowed any connection to the sock puppets. I continue to believe that the two votes identified above should be excluded from the count on the basis that they appear to be posted by a single user who is attempting to subvert the vote instead of participating honestly in the discussion. Kevintoronto 21:12, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)