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RfC: Guidelines for party inclusion and the choice of infobox style

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This RfC is a continuation of the discussion regarding the 2015 UK general election and the question on which parties to include in that page's infobox. For some context, there has been a longstanding debate on whether UKIP - which received a seat and was the third most voted for party - should be listed. Currently, the consensus from the most recent RfC on the topic is to not include UKIP, but the inherent controversial nature of this decision has meant that debates and occasional edit-wars have sprouted up in the years since, with no full resolution in sight.

This RfC is hopefully an attempt to solve this controversy and to provide more clarity to the longstanding 5% rule guideline surrounding election infoboxes.

The main questions to be discussed are:

  • What criteria, hard or soft, should be met by parties to be included in an infobox? This includes having >5% of the popular vote, earning a parliamentary seat, media noteworthiness, etc. Along with this, are there times that a party meeting some or all of these criteria should not be included in the infobox? If so, why, and when?
  • Should the 5% rule, or some approximation of it, be applied to parliamentary elections? There have been discussion held on this topic in 2021 and 2023, but no formal consensus on whether it should actually apply in some form, either weakly or strongly, to parliamentary election infoboxes has occurred.
  • How should the choice between the {{Infobox election}} and {{Infobox legislative election}} templates be made? Should it be contingent on >9 parties meeting all the criteria listed above, or should it be more dependent on local conditions? There are inconsistencies between countries - and even between different elections of the same country - on the infobox style used, so it would be valuable to have this issue more formally clairfied.

AwesomeSaucer9 (talk) 23:14, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

AwesomeSaucer: A few things. Firstly this is far too long and ambiguous a question for an RFC. See the guidelines at WP:RFC, where a clear question with specific outcomes needs to be set. Secondly this not formatted as an RFC, which requires specific copy to be included to generate the RFC id and populate it at the relevant noticeboards. Thirdly, the 5% rule is not applied as a standard to parliamentary elections. Fourthly, and most importantly, if you wish to hold an RFC on this topic at this central location, where it would be perceived as seeking to apply to all FPTP elections (and thus affecting election articles in some 40-plus countries, including the United States), it will require more input to determine agreed options before opening. Cambial — foliar❧ 23:27, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies for the improper formatting. It has been fixed.
I don't disagree that specific options are important, but I'm unsure where it would be best to discuss & formulate them. Options have been laid out in the 2015 UK general election talk page, but these are specific to the context of that election, and don't necessarily apply site-wide. AwesomeSaucer9 (talk) 23:33, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
no apology needed, I'm just pointing out that without specific outcomes/options, participants cannot !vote, so it will simply be a discussion. Nothing wrong with that - in fact a central discussion will be needed before starting a central RFC. The earlier polls you link to establish that different principles may apply to parliamentary elections and 5%R should not be strictly implemented for parliamentary elections: that doesn't establish it as a standard.
I recommend withdrawing the RFC for the mean time until we have a wording which is clear in its proposal. Cambial — foliar❧ 23:43, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My observations would be the following:
  • The 5% rule cannot be immediately applied to parliamentary elections where multiple seats are at stake, and many parties may end up winning seats. At best it can serve as a rule of thumb, but it should not be seen as a strict rule.
  • The criteria for including a party in a parliamentary election will have to differ from country to country. The most general rule I think you could have, would be that a party winning seats likely is notable enough to be included in the infobox. This rule may be applied for a lot of countries, but it probably won't work for the UK.
  • Where a party wins at least 5% of seats in a parliamentary election, that party should be included in the infobox unless there is a local consensus for not doing that.
  • Where a party wins 5% of the vote, but wins a number of seats less than that (a situation especially relevant for countries using FPTP), its inclusion in the infobox depends on the concrete article. The way the party is covered in reliable sources is especially important to determine whether the party is notable enough to include. The convention for similar articles for that country also matters. If the media treats the party as being essentially irrelevant, it probably should not be included. Whereas if the media treats the party as a "main" contender, it probably should be included. In the case of the 2015 United Kingdom general election I think the most correct approach is to include UKIP. The party received extensive coverage in the media and was treated on the same level as the Lib Dems and the SNP - two parties that are included in the infobox and received fewer votes than UKIP. With that being said, I think you can argue against UKIP's inclusion, and any rule determined here should not overrule a local consensus on that page.
When it comes to which infobox format to be used:
  • There should not be a general rule on this. That said, it would be preferable to use the same format for the same series of articles.
  • For countries where 6 or fewer parties normally win seats, TIE should typically be used.
  • For countries where more than 9 parties normally win seats, TILE should typically be used. This should not neccesarily be followed strictly though.
  • For elections where the overwhelming majority of seats are won by the largest 4-6 parties, TIE may be more suitable even if more than 9 parties win seats. UK elections are a good example of this. As are other parliamentary elections using single-member constituencies. In other words, minor parties winning very few seats may be ignored unless there otherwise are compelling reasons to include them.
Gust Justice (talk) 23:57, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I don't think it is sensible to set a rule for percentage-based inclusion for parliamentary infoboxes due to the differences in electoral systems. In some countries you might get multiple parties with over 5% of the vote with no seats (five parties in the 2002 Turkish general election). I get the feeling this is only being brought up because of the UKIP situation in 2015.
Re the type of infobox, I agree with the first three of Gust's points above, but I think the last ("elections where the overwhelming majority of seats are won by the largest 4-6 parties") will lead to too much debate over what "overwhelming majority" means.
One point to note is that we are hamstrung by {{Infobox election}} being in rows of three parties – for example, it doesn't really make any sense (to me) that Plaid Cymru is excluded from 2017 United Kingdom general election, and I assume they have been purely because adding another row would be awkward. IMO there needs to be some fundamental consideration given to redesigning the infobox to work on a one party per row basis like those in Spanish/French wikis, which would hopefully avoid the inclusion criteria being partly determined by the design of the infobox. Number 57 01:23, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a huge fan of this idea! (I was actually just about to suggest the same thing!) The French/Spanish infobox is a huge improvement on the current design, which takes up way too much space whenever there's >3 candidates. The current design is also a bit of a problem when handling elections under the two-round system. Although, I think that design could itself use a bit of reworking to collapse down some of the clutter. Having a nice infobox template could also address lots of the criticism of Template:Infobox legislative election for being too sparse. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 19:10, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How should we proceed on the issue? 2601:249:9301:D570:701E:FC88:F6FD:DF19 (talk) 20:32, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For now I think we can leave this RfC relatively dormant and keep discussion on the 2015 UK page. Then if/when things change we come back here. Happy Labour landslide day! AwesomeSaucer9 (talk) 22:38, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Number 57: I've just seen your comment and the reason there are six parties in there is because after the 2017 election the DUP formed a confidence-and-supply agreement with the Tories, so they played a significant role in the aftermath of that election, partially by virtue of the number of seats they had. Sinn Fein is only included because it would create an avoidable white space in the infobox due to the 3 per row format. So if we used a French/Spanish style infobox for that page, the DUP would be included but not Sinn Fein probably. So it's not so much Plaid Cyrmu is excluded because of the style, it's that Sinn Fein is included because of the style. --TedEdwards 22:18, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at earlier elections 1935 United Kingdom general election also has white space in the second row (so does January 1910 United Kingdom general election, but that doesn't have any other parties who won seats). 2601:249:9301:D570:F833:C3AF:F37D:5715 (talk) 03:11, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'd note that in the case of Jan. 1910, there is no sixth party to be included. I'm not 100% sure about 1935, although I think it would look better with Ind. Labour or the National Government result rolled up into one entry as it used to be (I think multiple parties there betrays the coalition aspect of it) BitterGiant (talk) 11:20, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I don't really think we need too hard and fast of a rule beyond an understanding of what is being represented in these infoboxes, which is to say: the results which are the subsequent composition of a national legislature. I would caution to heed WP:NPOV in this regard, as to include a party which won less seats at the expense of parties who won more seats on the basis of vote share would violate a neutral point of view, and is just overly editorialising the results and pushing an opinion that a party which won a single seat is far more important than a party which won two, three, or eight. UKIP and its impact, in the case of 2015, is well represented throughout the page, and in 2024 where we have Reform and the Greens winning 5* and 4 seats, respectively, we have a similar issue of parties coming ahead of them. But again, we should resist the temptation to go too far in editorialising these results to show favour to parties who just didn't cross the only really important metric in a FPTP election: winning seats. BitterGiant (talk) 17:47, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I think that this's a good way of looking at it, an infobox is a summary of results, not a summary of the campaign or of the changing political landscape. AnOpenBook (talk) 05:19, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment per opinion above by BitterGiant. I'm not convinced a >5% rule makes any sense for UK elections either, due to the FPTP voting system. In certain scenarios it makes sense to include parties that had <5% of the vote, such as in 2019 when SNP only received 3.9% of the vote but claimed 48 seats, and likewise with DUP's role in the 2017 with less than 1% of the vote. So I don't believe any hard rule should be imposed for parliamentary elections, that would include UK elections. The election infobox template otherwise works fine for it's intent and purposes, and using the legislative election infobox should be on a case by case basis. Given the different edits made to the 2024 infobox, that of 2x2, 2x3, and 3x3, it seems pretty clear that 1x3 remains the best format, despite Reform gaining considerably more than 5% of the vote. This is because overall, the percentage share of the vote was insignificant on the results of the election. CNC (talk) 12:53, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I agree with BitterGiant and AnOpenBook. An election is to elect people (or a person). Infoboxes need to show the result of the election: i.e. who was elected. The result for a legislative election is the number of seats won. With some electoral systems, seats won can deviate a fair bit from vote share. As per above, we should be wary of a rule based on vote share in such circumstances. However many parties the infobox shows, we have to go down in order of seats won (you can split ties by vote share) and you can't skip over a party that won more seats just because you want to mention a party that won fewer seats. That violates WP:OR, WP:NPOV and WP:V! Bondegezou (talk) 15:15, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. If you guys are insisting on using TIE, I have some thresholds; it may not work for all elections though:
    • Include parties/candidates with 5% of the vote, or
    • Include everyone up to 95% of the vote or seats.
    • There are some quirks in TIE: 1x2, 1x3, 2x4, and 2x6 work best. If there'd be 5 entries, add a sixth.
    • For example, in the 2024 United Kingdom general election, I'd be inclined to include the top 6 parties, as the top 6 combined comprise just over 95% of the seats, then ordered by popular vote. I'd defer to the Brits on this one though. I was watching TV and the exit poll showed all six parties (and others); WP:RS have shown these six parties to be the primary ones for this election, someone could argue that we can follow WP:RS if you can't agree on who to include. Howard the Duck (talk) 20:13, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

2024 French legislative election discussions

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Bumping this talk page on people's watchlists to bring a couple discussions regarding the 2024 French legislative election to other editors' attention. Given that we're in the period between the two rounds before this article could be potentially featured on WP:ITN/C within a week or so depending on the results, it would be great to get other views from editors in this space in order to reach a consensus on either or both of them before then. The two sections in question are here:

Thanks, 73.169.176.209 (talk) 00:37, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Unites States and Wisconsin map request (Map of the vote to enter into ww1)

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[[1]] I'm requesting someone make a map based off of the source I linked at the start of this sentence. It would be good to use this map for articles like American entry into World War I. I also want one just for the state of Wisconsin to use in the History of Wisconsin Wikipedia article. thank you. Zyxrq (talk) 23:23, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Error found on the 1928 United States Presidential Election in Georgia page

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I don't know if this is the right place for this but I found a mismatch between the map and results of the 1928 United States Presidential Election in Georgia page. Tattnall County is blue on the map but the results table show the county as voting Republican. Kavoj (talk) 13:51, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free to correct it! :) Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 17:11, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Inclusion of historical context

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Hello all. I was hoping that we could get some sort of consensus on whether the sort of material removed from various elections pages by @Jon698— (usually pertaining to historical milestones of a state or county's results) should or should not be included. I've walked back some of his edits (e.g. this one from 1964, which removed acknowledgement that Georgia voted Republican for the first time ever in that election), but there are many more and I don't want to step on any toes. Jon has always been kind and helpful when I've interacted with him, so I just want us all to be on the same page.

I personally think that it should be fair game in any state presidential election article to include acknowledgments of the following: when it is the first or last time that a state has voted for a party; the first or last time that a county voted for a party (excluding trivial cases like when a jurisdiction was very new); and when it is the first or last time that a given party has won without a state. I also think that depending on the situation, it can make sense to point out when a candidate is the first of his party to win without a county, but only if that county is an isolated case and not one of many. I think that all of this has been general practice for quite a while, but I'd love to make it concrete. I also think that whenever possible, significant trends/swings should have some sort of explanation; e.g. in 1972, Southerners were alienated by McGovern's liberalism. Many articles used to contain that stuff but had it removed by Jon.

Again, I'm not trying to take a jab here; these are just disagreements I've had that could be cleared up/standardized going forward. Looking forward to everyone's thoughts. Best, Cpotisch (talk) 17:22, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that this information can be included without violating WP:OR, primarily because I feel as if it would fall under WP:CALC. AnOpenBook (talk) 23:28, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@AnOpenBook: Agreed, this has been my argument for quite a while. I could use some help identifying and rolling back excessively-restrictive edits if you want to take a look. Cpotisch (talk) 11:44, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

United States presidential elections - Oval on each candidate

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I would like to propose that for every US election, for each candidate that has an oval in the convention page, that we replace the pictures of the candidates with the ovals used on the convention pages. I believe this will further enhance the election pages by color coding them so that they are easily identifiable. Please let me know your thoughts below. Interstellarity (talk) 23:53, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Concerning the change to the 1832 United States presidential election, there's already a blue strip under Jackson and text stating that his party is the Democrats. Why does he also need a blue background in his image? What you're doing is overkill the images are fine as is. Wowzers122 (talk) 05:40, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Wowzers122: How do you feel about removing the ovals on the convention pages and replacing them with the pictures like on the election pages? Just another idea to maintain consistency. Interstellarity (talk) 09:44, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I concur with Wowzers122. Please don't do this. These are entirely unnecessary. I wouldn't be opposed to using the original photographs in the convention pages, but you're overthinking the need for consistency here. Reywas92Talk 13:11, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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