Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian politics/Electorates

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[edit] General conventions

The first issue we're going to have to work out with this WikiProject is what naming convention we're going to use for our electorate articles.

We currently have four states with at least one electorate article, and all four are using different conventions.

...as well as the federal convention, Division of Melbourne Ports.

I think it'd be nice if these could generally be standardised - any suggestions as to what? Ambi 08:02, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It may be that each state calls them something different - the South Australian ones are electoral districts according to the State Electoral Office. Victoria seems to have districts in the lower house and provinces for the upper house according to the Victorian Electoral Commission --ScottDavis 15:25, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You're exactly right. I just went through and checked each state and territory electoral commission website -

  • District
    • South Australia
    • Western Australia
    • Victoria
    • Queensland
    • New South Wales
  • Division
    • Northern Territory
    • Tasmania

and the ACT isn't clear; Elections ACT seems to just refer to them as "electorates" everywhere.

Which makes me lean towards just using [[Electoral district of ....]] and [[Electoral division of ....]] according to the appropriate local usage. Any thoughts about making that the convention? There's also the issues of what to do about disambiguation, as there's several electorates in different states that have the same names - as well as working out what to do about the ACT. Ambi 16:23, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Should it be "Electoral District of..." (like Mitchell and Strathfield above) or "Electoral district of..." (like Albany and MacDonnell) when it's the name of the district? --ScottDavis 00:05, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I prefer the latter personally. A bit of a Google search seems to suggest that the electoral commissions don't capitalise it, and this would fit with the convention of not capitalising things that aren't proper nouns. Ambi 02:03, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Any other thoughts on this? Ambi 08:17, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I'll cast my vote for the latter too. I had a quick look at the enabling legislation for elections in WA, and it uses "electoral districts" i.e. all lower case. Hesperian 06:12, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Alright, perhaps we should go with this then. Ambi 06:15, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Disambiguation

The one other issue here is that of disambiguation. Should we just tack (South Australia) or (Victoria) onto the end of a non-unique electorate name, or should we pre-disambiguate all electorates (i.e. have [[South Australian electoral district of Mitchell]]. Ambi 08:17, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'd prefer full capitalisation for references to a specific district. Looking around Electoral Commission websites and searching specific electorates showed that this was commonplace. I won't push at it though. As for disabmiguating clauses, I prefer the brackets option, as that is done more often for poltics topics in general. I don't like the way the way the Canadian electoral districts are named (which often have no clause at all), but maybe there is something in their organisation.-- Cyberjunkie TALK 09:14, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for picking up the Canadian categorisation - I like that a lot, as it deals with both state and federal-level electorates quite well. I'll wait a little longer to see if anyone else feels like chipping in, else I'll start moving them to the capitalised version. Ambi 10:24, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I'll agree with "full capitalisation for references to a specific district", but only for the official name of the district itself. i.e. if the name of the district is North District, then District should be capitalised; but if the name of the district is North West Coastal, then North West Coastal should be fully capitalised but the word district in Electoral district of North West Coastal should not be capitalised since it does not form part of the official district name. Hesperian 06:23, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Is this fine with everyone? There seems to be general agreement in regards to lower houses, and I'd like to get started on implementing this for the lower houses of Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia - the Legislative Councils should probably wait until we sort out the issues below. Ambi 06:36, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Fine with me. I preempted the decision with a few links with a capital 'D', but they can be fixed. --ScottDavis 07:39, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Electoral district article?

Do you think we'll eventually need an article like Electoral district (Canada), possibly titled Electorates of Australia? It could serve as a parent to federal divisions and state electoral districts.-- Cyberjunkie TALK 10:31, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It certainly wouldn't hurt. It might be nice to have an article about Australian electoral districts in general (as with the Canadian one) and then more specific ones for each state and territory, explaining how they work in that state and listing the electorates there (i.e. Electoral divisions of the Northern Territory, which I know isn't very helpful at the moment, but I hope you get what I mean). Ambi 10:44, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I find the title Electorates of Australia a tad misleading, since for example the Electoral districts of Western Australia are not Electorates of Australia. They are, however, Electorates in Australia, and I think this would be a more appropriate title. Hesperian 06:12, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Agreed. Ambi 06:15, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Western Australia and Legislative Councils

As noted above, Western Australia calls their lower house electorates districts, so I have adopted the convention Electoral district of..., e.g. Electoral district of Albany. Annoyingly, the Western Australian Electoral Commission have in their wisdom named one of the districts in adjectival form. Electoral district of North West Coastal sounds really stupid, but after talking it over with Adam I am reconciled to retaining consistency, even if the title sounds stupid in this case. We call our upper house electorates regions, although we used to call them provinces like Victoria still do. Our regions are all named adjectivally, so in the name of consistency they would all end up with strange names, e.g. Electoral region of Agricultural. Again I was planning on accepting the silly names as the price of consistency. For electorates that were provinces and were abolished before the adoption of the term region, I was planning on taking liberties with the terminology and using the Electoral region of... convention even though these electorates were never known as anything but provinces. Finally, I am very sad to say that before 1965 the upper house had both districts and provinces. I am not prepared to use Electoral district of... for both lower house districts and pre-1965 upper house districts, as this would just cause confusion. But it seems inappropriate to call these regions, especially as in one case "District" is actually in the name. How bad does Electoral region of North District sound?! I will be very happy if we can all put our heads together and come up with a better solution to this mess. Hesperian 13:02, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree that it's probably simplest to keep North West Coastal in that form, even though it looks really quite stupid. I think you're probably making the right call in regard to the pre-1965 Legislative Council districts as well - things would get too confusing otherwise, and I can't think of a better third option.
I think it would probably be easier not to use a convention for Legislative Council seats, as they only apply to three states which all have quite different circumstances. Because Western Australia uses adjective names, it would probably make more sense to use Agricultural electoral region or Agricultural electoral region, Western Australia there. Under the current Victorian system (which will have changed by the next election), it would probably make more sense to use just Higinbotham Province - which is the most common way of referring to them. I'm really not familar with the Tasmanian situation, so I can't say there, but the three seem different enough that it seems easier to not use a convention in regard to Legislative Councils.
While you're here, too - any thoughts on capitalisation/disambiguation? Ambi 13:28, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Last bunch of anomalies

I think we've pretty much straightened out the lower houses - I've been going around fixing these up, and they seem to be looking quite a bit better.

There's two more issues remaining -

Firstly, the Tasmanian lower house uses the same divisions as the federal parliament. What do we do here? They used to have a list of state members as well, but Adam erased them a few months ago, and I'm not sure that was the way to go anyway.

Secondly, the Legislative Council issue remains. Any more thoughts there? Ambi 1 July 2005 09:32 (UTC)

I wrote something on the talk page for Division of Denison, Tasmania, but this seems like the more appropriate place. Since Tasmanian lower house electorates use Federal boundaries, I suggest we merge them. None of the articles are large enough to justify splitting off, and I think it's valuable to be able to see who are the state members alongside who is the federal member. As well as this, geographical and demographic information is the same. Braue 01:17, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Titles in member lists

I hope this is a good place to continue this discussion concerning lists of members on electorate pages:

Is it really necessary to have a new line in the members list when a member gains the title "honourable" at Electoral district of Marrickville?For one thing, other members on this list don't have their titles included. JPD (talk) 09:09, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

It's probably not necessary. Some existing pages such as those under Category:Electoral divisions of Australia use titles. I've split rows where titles have changed on a number of pages because I was uncertain what title I should use particularly because they change over the political career. If the consensus is that the split is unnecessary, I can go through the tables and remerge them. I'd like to know first if the preferrable format is all titles adopted in the person's lifetime, or no title or some other variant. -- Newhoggy | Talk 11:41, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I would prefer not to include titles in the list at all. The lists are showing who was member when, and showing changes in title is a distraction. Apart from that, I don't think it is not normal Wikipedia style to include titles such as "The Honourable" in the text. JPD (talk) 13:58, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

What they said. Rebecca 03:58, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I also would prefer no titles at all, but would like consistency across all states and nationally. -- Newhoggy | Talk 22:33, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I invited a number of wikipedians from each state because I'd really like some consistency and wide agreement on this issue would be very helpful. -- Newhoggy | Talk 05:03, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree, don't split up because of titles. Tacked-on titles that nobody uses in common parlance ("Rt Hon" and so on) really shouldn't be included in links to that individual; there's a good case for *mentioning* the title on the pollie's article, but we don't need to do it in links, and we certainly don't need to disrupt the flow of a list so as to have one item for pre- and post-title. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 05:04, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Is that an argument against using all titles in links? There are other titles like Dr. Major. Lt. Sir. I agree using titles in the member's name is useful. In that case, should it be all the titles acquired the person's lifetime? Should the titles be listed in any particular order? -- Newhoggy | Talk 06:06, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
There's no need for titlecruft, but I do think it is common sense to refer to people as Sir and Dr where applicable, as they're titles that very regularly are used in reality (unlike Rt Hon, Major, Hon, AO and such). Rebecca 06:08, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

It would seem logical that if honourific prefixes — aside Sir and Dame — are not used in biography articles, neither should they be in lists. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies)#Honorific prefixes.--cj | talk 07:03, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks cj - that helps clear things up a lot. So does that mean that all lists should not use any titles at all? Taking John Hewson as an example, would the lists refer to him as John Hewson rather than Dr John Hewson, and the first sentence in his article begin with "Dr John Hewson (28 October 1946), born John Robert Hewson, ..." rather than what it is now? -- Newhoggy | Talk 07:38, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I think that it'd be best to leave it out to avoid confusion; the use of Dr really depends on whether the person goes by it or not, so for consistency's sake, I'd say sacrifice all or none.--cj | talk 08:23, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I say, don't split rows of any list just to include more than one title. I think it's okay to use a person's title in a list, but it should be either the most recent one or none at all. --Susurrus 12:23, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

For lists, I believe it's a choice between all or nothing. If only some list items have titles and other don't, it may not be wrong - but it isn't possible to know by just reading the list whether the an untitled person actually has a title, or in the case that the a title is specified, if the title is complete. In that sense inconsistently providing titles is of limited benefit to the reader. In the choice between all or nothing, I'd choose nothing because it's much more manageable to update the title in the member's article page rather than all over the place. This reduces the risk of having out of date information persist for a lengthy amount of time. -- Newhoggy | Talk 13:20, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I suggest we don't use titles, but even if we do, the point of this list is to show the period when a Member served in that seat. Separating it suggests some sort of change in their status as member for that electorate has changed, which is inaccurate. Don't split them. Ben Raue (Talk)

[edit] Guidelines

It would be really nice if there were a set of guidelines somewhere and an easy way to get to them from each of the electorate pages. An easy way to get to this page would be nice too.

-- Newhoggy | Talk 05:01, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

The other problem is the dash character separating the start and end dates varies between pages and also whether or not duplicate members or parties in the same table should be linked. -- Newhoggy | Talk 08:03, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

That's a good point. Re: duplicate linking, in theory we shouldn't link duplicates, but sometimes it's annoying to have to scroll up a lot if the last Labor member (say) held the seat in the 1940s, and the politician you're looking at now was voted out in 2004, so I'd support the use of duplicate links for parties in particular, and perhaps members as well. The dash character should always be an en dash (–), but often people will use a hyphen (-) because they don't know how to use an actual dash. fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 10:46, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
What Mark said. Rebecca 08:33, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

One more problem is that sometimes the link ALP is used and sometimes Australian Labor Party, or Labor. Which is the preferred method? -- Newhoggy | Talk 13:56, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I think just "Australian Labor Party" is best, for clarity — a non-Australian won't need to click on the link to find out who the ALP are. But it can depend on space constraints, too. I think in most cases we have enough room to use the full name of a party. fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 14:40, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I support using the abbreviations that the ABC and electoral authorities use so long as they're linked.--cj | talk 15:07, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Which ABC are you referring too? -- Newhoggy | Talk 01:05, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd rather use the full names. There are no space constraints in these tables, as they're typically rather small, and it makes them more comprehensible to non-Australian readers. Rebecca 08:33, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Coming to a resolution?

How about we list our positions on these things in a table?

Decision For Against Resolution
Always use titles in lists for all MPs that have them.

Failed
Remove all titles from lists

Passed
Always use duplicate links in lists
Always use full party names
Always use *space* ndash *space* to separate dates in list
Use Wikipedia's most commonly used separator for dates in lists whatever that is.
Always use abbreviations for party names
used electoral authorities in lists
Always use four digit years rather than
abbreviated two digit years.

Passed
Always use tables for members lists rather
than bullet points.

Passed
All electorate articles in Australia should
use consistent style.

Passed

It seems like "Always use tables for members lists rather than bullet points" has the most support. If there are no objections, I'd like mark the resolution of this item as "passed" and start changing all electorate past members lists into tables while waiting for more feedback on the other items. -- Newhoggy | Talk 02:37, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm obviously coming to this debate pretty late but where a Party is mentioned multiple times would it be OK to use the full name the first time it is used and then shorten it to Liberal, Labor, National, Greens ect. I am asking regarding my work at the Electoral districts of Thuringowa, Mundingburra and Townsville articles. Thanks, WikiTownsvillian 10:07, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
I think it'd be better to be consistent the whole way through - either use Liberal, and link it to the article at the full title, or use the full Liberal party of Australia all the way through. Rebecca 11:58, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Table columns

NSW uses "Member", "Party affiliation", "Period", SA uses "Member", "Party", "Term". I propose all NSW articles adopt the SA column headings because they are clearer and shorter. -- Newhoggy | Talk 05:47, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Table style

SA uses an assortment custom table attributes resulting in a table with darker column headings. NSW uses the standard "wikitable" class giving tables with light column headings matching the colour scheme of Wikipedia. I propose that SA tables be styled using the NSW method, which is more concise, constitent and manageable. -- Newhoggy | Talk 05:49, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

So long as it's consistent across the board, I don't care which format is used.--cj | talk 05:23, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ ndash should not be stood off by spaces: WP:DASH
  2. ^ I changed my vote to this one because I value consistency more in this case.
  3. ^ I've changed my mind on this too. Abbreviations might be okay when discussion only parties currently in existence, but there are various parties throughout Australia's history that have the same abbreviation but are unrelated. Being able to unambiguously distinguish between them in the past members list is important.
  4. ^ why has Newhoggy signed for both this and the contradictory proposal above?
  5. ^ In principle. (unsure about multi-member electorates.)

[edit] Electorate categories

The way the categories are organised is unsatisfactory - Category:Electoral divisions of Australia refers to Divisions of the Australian House of Representatives yet contains categories for state electorates. Perhaps Category:Electoral divisions of Australia should exclusively list Australian federal electorates and, along with categories for state electorates, be placed in a more general category to be named Australian electorates. Thus, the cats would be organised as follows:
Category:Politics of Australia

Category:Australian electorates
Category:Electoral divisions of Australia
Category:Electoral districts of New South Wales
Category:Electoral districts of Queensland
Category:Electoral districts of South Australia
Category:Electoral divisions of Tasmania
Category:Electoral districts of Victoria
Category:Electoral districts of Western Australia
Category:Electoral regions of Western Australia
etc

MH au 05:42, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Did you mean to have the state categories indented at the same level as Cat:Electoral divisions of Australia? If so, I agree with that type of structure. However, "Electoral divisions of Australia" does sound as though it could be the name of a the general category. JPD (talk) 10:45, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
You are right - that was my intention - I have altered it accordingly. The use of "Electoral divisions of Australia" was for consistency with the state cats. MH au 05:50, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Standards with other countries' electorates

I have been adding election tables to the federal electorate articles and have only just come across this page. I had also been adding shading (using the American templates) to the member lists but now see that it would be better to discuss it here first. Should shading be used in some way here? (I think that it adds clarity and provides an at-a-glance look for visual people of the party history.) The American articles (eg. Alabama's 7th congressional district) use plain shading while the British articles (eg. Cambridge (constituency)) use small blobs of party colour a la election boxes. Which should be used for Australian articles. Also, how to create Australian templates for shading if the decision is to use shading? Frickeg 07:27, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Likewise with infoboxes. I feel that they add clarity and allow an at-a-glance summary of an electorate. Rebecca disagrees and believes they are redundant. What is the general consensus on this? Frickeg 01:50, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
1) Use blobs. We do this is most places in Australian articles, and have existing colour templates. We had a relevant discussion on the format just the other day. 2) I agree with Rebecca. The infoboxes are excessive and redundant.--cj | talk 01:55, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
By colour I was referring to older parties like the Protectionists and Free Trade; surely these need colour templates too. Frickeg 01:59, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
Once a colour is chosen (most likely arbitrarily), these are easily created.--cj | talk 02:02, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
Any suggestions? Also, with regards to infoboxes, in all British and many American articles they are present (eg. Cambridge, UK and Alabama's 2nd congressional district). What makes Australia different? Frickeg 02:06, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
With regards to adding blobs, should the tables be revamped to look like the British ones? (see the Cambridge article) I'll start them soon if there is agreement. Frickeg 02:31, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
I've been working on the below timeline image and have come up against the same problem regarding colours for older parties. The suggested colours that I have for the older parties have largely arisen from the need to have contrasting colours and not to repeat any of them. For Commonwealth Liberal, Nationalist, United Australia, the Lib. Federation, the Lib-Country League and the modern Liberal party the colour should probably all be in blue (since they are a simple progression), but they all have different colours here just so you can see where each one existed over time. The term "old liberal" refers to the older governments which were known as "liberal" but are not related to the modern Libs. So maybe some of the colours used here might be a handy starting point. - 52 Pickup 20:07, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
{{Timeline Australian leaders}}
Thanks. Will do. If no one else contributes, I suppose I'll have to start deleting those infoboxes too (sigh!). Frickeg 03:32, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

re: Infoboxes. I looked up my electorate page for a quick run down prior to going down to Australia house to vote (UK resident), and realised that unlike all other Commonwealth countries and the US, none of our electorates had infoboxes. I feel these provide a clear quick summary of the elctorate without the reader having to read the whole article if they do not feel the need to do so. As a result I devised a quick Australian oriented template for a nice clear infobox, which adds a visual element to the otherwise sometimes plain articles, as well as giving a quick summary a student or interested person can use to get a feel of the nature and makeup of the electorate without neccessarily reading all the history and previous members to try and find out about the current state of the electorate. However, Frickeg contacted me to inform me of this debate, and the fact that someone had decided they were redundant. Why?? They are an incredibly useful summerisation of articles, and I add them to any articles I find that don't have them. It makes browsing articles more functional, and less time consuming. I have so far done all the lectorates for SA, WA, TAS, NT, and ACT, and unless anyone can provide a more convincing arguement that a personal opinion that they are redundant, I will complete the task for VIC, NSW and QLD - hopefully in time for all federal divisions to be complete before the election. Rac fleming 11:05, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not really fussed either way. I'm not sure there's a great deal of point in standardising them - practically nothing else on Wikipedia with electorate articles is, from the naming conventions down, and nearly all countries don't even have past division-level results at all. However, if you want to try, be my guest. Rebecca (talk) 01:31, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Electoral results

mForgive me if I don't see it, but in the tables with the results for each electoral district, how are the candidates ordered. For example, I would think the top candidate would be the one with the most votes. Can someone explain the pattern to me? Joe 09:24 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Presumably it is the order that they appeared on the ballot paper. JPD (talk) 12:07, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I was actually just about to ask about this too. I put the ones in the federal divisions, but I'm wondering whether they should be in ballot paper order or in order of who got the most votes. I'd be interested in other people's opinions. Frickeg 00:07, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Listing it in order of the highest vote makes for the easiest reading. It isn't party favouritism (listing them alphabetically), and nor is it random (ballot paper). Michael talk 01:14, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
But presenting them as they appeared on the ballot paper is no longer random, it is conveying extra information, that is, the order in which the candidates appeared on the ballot paper. This may not be extremely significant, but it is not useless, even if all it does is explain slightly strange results as donkey votes. This is probably why the electoral commissions and others usually report the results in this way. JPD (talk) 11:39, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Michael. Listing them in ballot paper, especially in cases where there are a large amount of candidates, makes finding the actually relevant information all the more difficult. While electoral commissions are required to report the data "as it happened", as such, we should be presenting it in the most useful and informative manner possible - and that, IMHO, is to present it in order of votes gained. Rebecca 01:22, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm still a little undecided here - I can see the point both Michael and Rebecca are making, but I'm wondering how abnormal results (like the improbable vote achieved by No GST in the Division of Reid in 2004) can be explained if the candidates are listed in order of votes achieved. The donkey vote may be small, but it can still have an impact on marginal seats. Frickeg 22:56, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Per SA districts, I agree that it should be in order of the ticket. Timeshift 03:14, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
I see Frickeg's point, but I think that might be better explained in the text. Having them in ballot order isn't so bad when there's only four or five candidates, but where there's a lot - as is often the case in by-elections - it really does make the table a lot less usable. Rebecca 09:23, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm very much in favour of listing them in the order of votes received -- it simply doesn't make sense to me to have it any other way, and the information loss is not really terrible; frankly, who cares what the ballot order was? Enlighten me if I'm missing something, but is it really so important what the randomly decided ballot order actually looked like? —Nightstallion 10:07, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Is it possible to put them in ballot paper order, but with the sorting thingies on the top of the columns, so that readers only need an extra click to see them by number of votes or alphabetical? That would sort of support everyone. Also, to Frickeg, what is ...the improbable vote achieved by No GST in the Division of Reid in 2004? I don't see it. If there is one, it should be in the text. --Scott Davis Talk 11:25, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
The improbable vote is the fact that this very small party which has little media coverage managed 4.79% of the vote, ahead of the Christian Democrats, Democrats and One Nation, something that is almost certainly a result of the donkey vote. Other probable examples include the 2.42% achieved by the Progressive Labour Party in Division of Cunningham, 1.04% for Non-Custodial Parents Party in Division of Parramatta, all in 2004, and 4.83% for Australians Against Further Immigration in Division of Werriwa in the 2005 by-election (this is unlikely considering there was also an unusual increase in the One Nation vote). At the moment I think it's explained adequately in the election box. Great idea with the sorting things though - I'll go and have a fiddle. Frickeg 02:05, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
The PLP result in Cunningham isn't all that random - they campaigned pretty hard there, and being a left party in a left electorate helps. They're more local than small, I think - they do very well in a very small number of electorates. Orderinchaos 02:23, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes, perhaps the PLP is not a good example. Here's a few more possible examples: 4.87% for independent Sam Bargshoon in Division of Werriwa (see his by-election result), 3.59% for independent Steve Malesic in Division of Corio (and many other independents), 1.43% for the CEC in Division of Holt ... I could go on. I'm not saying that these results are definitely the result of donkey votes, but that having them in ballot paper order leaves the reader able to look at the results and see an unusual result and say "Perhaps that's because they were at the top of the ballot". If there's another way of saying that without having the candidates in ballot paper order, then I wholeheartedly agree with the order of votes received opinion. Frickeg 03:47, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Or not. The template is very well established, and other countries' electorates may not like sorting things appearing in their election boxes. Is there a way to make this only apply to Australian articles? I've had a go at doing them individually but as they are templates this is impossible. It needs a more skilled coder than me to work this one out. Frickeg 02:12, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
For the moment I'm going to add more of these in ballot paper order as that seems to be the way the consensus is going, but if it ends up otherwise I'll happily change them all myself. Frickeg 03:20, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Um, we seem to have four in favour of votes received, you I think in favour of ballot paper order, and Timeshift, who I'm not sure about. Can you hold off making any more changes until we sort this out? Rebecca 05:27, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, I only just saw this. Yes, I will. However, I think JPD is also ballot paper order. That's four in votes received (if you count Joe, who just seems to be asking), three in favour of ballot paper (I'm pretty sure that's what Timeshift is saying), and I'm not sure about Scott. Are those sorting things possible? Frickeg 23:17, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
To add a bit more - Rebecca's suggestion to include unusual results in the text has me wondering how one would do this. I can't see a way without (a) a simple rehash of what's in the table ("Candidate A received X number of votes, a swing of Y% from 2001"), or (b) including original research ("Candidate A received votes due to ..." - we can't verify why people voted or most of those things). Is there another way? Frickeg 02:12, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
If it's important, just state that there was an unusually high turnout for X party, presumably due to the donkey vote, or something similar. I'm not sure that it's all that important to begin with. Rebecca 03:49, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Not that important, no, but still information that might be relevant for some readers. Do we include that information in between the election boxes? I concede that you are beginning to win me over, however. Frickeg 04:04, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
How do you mean "in between the election boxes"? Rebecca 05:47, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, using Division of Banks as an example, would you put notes like this in between the information about various elections, i.e. between the 2004 and 2001 election boxes? Frickeg 07:04, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
It's too trivial for any of the individual electorate articles. We usually only mention individual elections at all where a) there has been a change of member, and b) concerning the most recent election. I also really strongly object to having election boxes for more than one election in an electorate article - it's pure templatecruft. The main context where such a thing could potentially warrant a sentence or so is in a by-election article, and in that it could just go in the body of the text. Rebecca 06:08, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
You object to having templates for more than one election? Where should that information be provided, then? In the British articles, many of them have election boxes going back to the 19th century, which show the electoral changes over a period of time. It's certainly valid information for anyone interested in electoral science or the electoral history of an area. Frickeg 02:40, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
It bloats the article beyond usability. I think Wikisource might be a better place for such information. Rebecca 09:09, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Hmph. Well, I feel really strongly that they have a place in the electorate articles (Wikisource is for freely published material, not election results, is my understanding - which could be wrong), but this is probably the subject for another debate. In the mean time, have we reached a consensus regarding the order in the election box? Frickeg 01:34, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Right, then. If we count JPD and Timeshift as for ballot-paper, and Rebecca, Nightstallion, Michael and Joe as for order of votes received, with me neutral at the moment and so I think are Scott and Orderinchaos, it looks like votes received, unless the sorting things are possible. Frickeg 00:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
So I should start changing them? Frickeg 06:22, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Looking at other articles I think that votes received is indeed easier to read, which leaves 5 for, 2 against and 2 neutral. If noone replies, I'll start changing them. Frickeg 00:19, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
To return to another point raised above: election boxes for more than one election in an article. I feel that this is an integral part of what the electorate articles should be, providing information about the electoral history of the area. I don't feel that it could be adequately covered with (a) a link to the AEC, (b) a table of two-party-preferred votes, or (c) a text summary. These methods would not allow interested parties to, for example, check the One Nation vote in the "One Nation" 1998 election, or see how the DLP polled in a particular electorate. For examples of how they look, most of the British electorate articles have data on elections going back to the 1800s; all have data on a number of recent elections. Thus I feel that these articles certainly should have a place in the electorate articles (with subheadings separating them into decades, for easier location). Frickeg 01:10, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
It's just not necessary - it's presenting the information in the most bloated way possible. Important elements of the electorate's history can be covered in the text (such as, say, the often high turnouts for the Democrats in some SA seats). If people want to look up trivia, such as the vote for a particular minor party in a particular seat, they'd be much better going to the AEC or Psephos. At the very least, if that level of detail is to remain on Wikipedia, it should be in a seperate article, so as not to bloat the main one. Rebecca 05:31, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
It's not bloated at all - just important information about the seat's history. After all, an electorate is first and foremost an electoral entity; it represents a bloc of voters and the way they vote. It is a very important part of information about an electorate - just as important as the founding date and the members. And I'm not quite sure what you're suggesting with a separate article - an article for each electorate, eg. Bennelong electoral results? To me, that's bloated - but I think that the current articles are perfectly readable. And "the most bloated way possible"? The tables provide the pretty much the minimum amount of information necessary for an electorate article. Frickeg 06:14, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
On another note, I've been using Psephos recently and while it's a fantastic resource, it doesn't have a list of election results for individual electorates: to see an electorate's history you would have to go into each individual election and find the electorate you're looking for. The AEC only has elections back to 1996 and likewise does not have individual seat histories. This information is not provided anywhere and is used on the many, many British electorate articles. Perhaps someone else would like to add their view - I get the feeling Rebecca and I may be just too stubborn to sort it out on our own! :) Frickeg 04:27, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
I've got no great problem with splitting that information off into a seperate article for the electoral results in that particular division, but it's way too unwieldy to have it in all in the main article. Let me put it another way: there is absolutely no way that an electoral division article with twenty tables is going to ever make featured status. Rebecca 00:32, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest that an electorate article without tables on election results will never really be more than an expanded stub. Regardless of the final decision, I feel strongly that this should be uniform across Wikipedia and that, if we decide to create a separate article for election results, such articles should be created for other countries' articles as well. Frickeg 22:19, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
That's hardly the case. Look at the Division of Moore for one example that Orderinchaos only recently started working on. Rebecca 23:10, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
That is a great article, of course, but it probably doesn't have all that much room for expansion. The point I was making was that there is a limited amount of information relevant to an encyclopaedia regarding electorates, and that a significant part of that information is past electoral results. Frickeg 04:29, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
That article has quite a lot of room for expansion - I and others made quite a few suggestions to Orderinchaos, and I suspect it's got every chance of getting to GA status if he keeps working at it when he gets back from his trip. A significant part of that information is past electoral results, yes - but summarised for an encyclopedia. Pure statistical archives should be put somewhere else other than the main article. Rebecca 04:51, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
As I said before (in a roundabout kind of way), the key point is consistency across the encyclopaedia. If the results were to be split into separate articles (and there is some merit in the idea, although I'm not sure exactly how you'd set out the article), then it should be done across electorate articles for all countries. Frickeg 23:56, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Do you object if I add more tables, as I'd like to get some more done (at least for 2001), on the pretext that they may be moved to a separate page? Frickeg 22:06, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Can we sort this out first? I see no reason why, at least as a preliminary step, we couldn't break out them into Electoral results for the Division of Bennelong, etc., now? Rebecca 23:18, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
I have no real objections to that, although I still think it would be best if the same applies across Wikipedia, and if the rest of the encyclopedia disagrees, that would be an awful lot of work for nothing. Frickeg 08:56, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Additionally, before this change is implemented, I think that we should (a) decide on a format for the article and (b) raise the point at WikiProject Politics. Format-wise, I would suggest a simple introduction followed by the member list (to show who was member when) and then the results divided by decade, with References and perhaps External links and See also as well. There should also perhaps be a navigation box linking the different results articles, so that one can quickly go through them without going back to the main electorate article. Frickeg (talk) 01:05, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
I think your suggested format for that article sounds great. Rebecca (talk) 01:28, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. Do you want to raise it at WP:Politics or shall I? Frickeg (talk) 01:29, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
On second thoughts, perhaps it's better if we just keep it consistent within Australia, and not worry about the rest? Additionally, with the main division pages, I think that if we leave the most recent table only on the main page with a template, i.e. a heading "Election results", a template "Main page: Electoral results for the Division of XXX", and then the most recent election results. Frickeg (talk) 01:42, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Sounds good to me! Rebecca (talk) 01:56, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Great! I'll get started. Frickeg (talk) 02:01, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Before I do any more, could I please have your opinion on the first one: Electoral results for the Division of Banks? Thanks! Frickeg (talk) 02:14, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm just going to go on slowly, because they take ages to do! I just spent more than an hour on the Electoral results for the Division of Barton page - but it's a great resource now it's done! Frickeg (talk) 07:10, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
These look excellent so far. They're especially handy considering the technical problems Psephos has been having this year. Rebecca (talk) 05:29, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! Frickeg (talk) 07:51, 19 November 2007 (UTC)