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Request for comment on including individual governors' photos in the infoboxes of articles in the US gubernatorial election series

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is consensus not to include photographs of individuals in infoboxes of US gubernatorial election articles (such as 2020 United States gubernatorial elections). As noted by opposers, "The individuals ... are not mentioned ... in the articles"; putting them in the infobox is considered excessive prominence and/or clutter. For clarity, this discussion does not apply to the articles for individual states such as 2020 Washington gubernatorial election. (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 01:45, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

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Should the infoboxes in the US gubernatorial election articles contain photographs of individual governors? Shearonink (talk) 03:12, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

• Presently the infoboxes of the US gubernatorial election articles (as seen at Template:United States gubernatorial elections) from the years 1965 through 2022 contain the photos of 2 governors, apparently the heads of the Democratic and Republican Governors Associations at the time of the elections. The DGA and the RGA are fundraising organizations with no executive powers over their fellow governors. These photos are not captioned or labeled as to their purpose in appearing in the infoboxes and most of them were added with no apparent discussion, by one editor, on December 26, 2020. There has been some discussion of the 2 photos in an article's infobox at Talk:2021 United States gubernatorial elections#Images in infobox and it seems prudent to have a discussion about the 38+ US gubernatorial election articles with photos of governors in their infoboxes in a centralized Wiki-location to come to some sort of overall consensus about whether or not the photos in all these election articles should stay or if they should go. Shearonink (talk) 03:33, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
• Yes. But extremely weakly. For those confused, this is referring to showing the leaders of the Republican Governors Association and Democratic Governors Association on gubernatorial election articles for years, like 2020 United States gubernatorial elections, but not for individual states, like 2020 North Dakota gubernatorial election. There is marginal utility in showing leaders of the relevant governors' associations because it indicates the coalitions, campaigners, fundraisers, and ideological alliances that influenced the elections, taken as a whole. That is appropriate. These are not just fundraising arms, but groups that are involved with policymaking. These associations release group statements, such as this, showing their relevance to the policymaking aspect of gubernatorial duties. But there is often no sensible way to indicate that the chair of the RGA/DGA are those chairs, rather than just random governors, in the text of our articles, hence why I am weakly supportive of inclusion. If there is a decent way to include that information, I would be strongly supportive; there's not (imo), so I'm not. Urve (talk) 03:29, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
  • You could perhaps state in a footnote next to the RGA/DGA chairpersons' name in the infobox something like "As chairman of the Republican/Democratic Governor's Association" if you really can't do without more explanation. JadeEditor (talk) 00:58, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

But MOS:INFOBOX states that "An infobox ... summarizes key features of the page's subject." These photos were added in a series of edits in December 2020 by one editor, there is no overall consensus to have photos of the heads of the DGA and the RGA in these various infoboxes. From looking at the comments here it is confusing to more than one editor, it does not explain or help our worldwide readership to a greater understanding of the US gubernatorial elections in a particular year. Shearonink (talk) 05:51, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

And the infoboxes as they are right now to me does summarize those already. You want to know the gubernatorial political leaders, there's the gubernatorial political leaders. I'm just addressing the concern that people might not have context of what those leaders are due to people not knowing about them either, which is why I suggested it as a compromise, or we can even consider placing a link to the DGA/RGA Wikipedia pages within the infoboxes themselves. Wikipedia is not against things like references to be in infoboxes. [[1]] JadeEditor (talk) 15:53, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

It's true that references are allowed in infoboxes but, in this case, and, regarding all the US gubernatorial election series articles, having photos of the heads of 2 fundraising organizations affiliated with the 2 main political parties at the time of the election and then having to explain why photos of these two people are in the infoboxes...it would make more sense to put an entry for the DGA and the RGA articles in all the "See also" sections of the approximately 38 articles in this series.

As an example, let's take a look at 2021 United States gubernatorial elections and the 2 photos of the 2 governors in that infobox. Does that article's infobox summarize the key points of that article? Are the DGA and the RGA mentioned at length in the article? Are the 2 heads of the DGA and of the RGA treated at length in the article? Are the RGA and the DGA and the heads of those 2 organizations key points in the article?

The answer to all these questions is:?

No. Neither the DGA nor the RGA nor the 2 heads of those fundraising organizations are mentioned in this article.

So let's take a look at MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE (with added bolding and underlining for emphasis)

"When considering any aspect of infobox design, keep in mind the purpose of an infobox: to summarize (and not supplant) key facts that appear in the article (an article should remain complete with its summary infobox ignored, with exceptions noted below). The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance."

I agree with Chipmunkdavis & JohnFromPinckney when they say the infoboxes should be stripped down. I think the photos and the accompanying "leader's seat" parameter should both go, they are basically visual clutter and add nothing to our worldwide readership's understanding of gubernatorial elections in the United States. Shearonink (talk) 04:34, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

I fail to see how it doesn't fullfill a summation more than any other election article that Wikipedia has. It summarizes the seats up as well as the political leaders, and I am not aware of any election article that completely gives context to what the leadership is, which is the concern that many people seem to have for this article series specifically. Even in such things as the Senate article, they don't explain the official caucus leadership system or what the "Majority Leader" is to begin with, even though that would arguably be more important since the Senate is more a majoritarian organization than the governorships are. I fail to see how less facts helps people know more. However, you may have a point regarding that articles do not go into detail into specifically collective gubernatorial campaigning that the DGA and RGA do (which is something that does happen), so I do thing it is worth considering to mention that more. JadeEditor (talk) 15:46, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

• • Just to respond to the above clarification: Chuck Schumer also has no executive power over Democratic senators, but he is still listed at 2020 United States Senate elections because of his leadership role. This relationship is not isomorphic to the DGA and their candidates, of course, but it does indicate that having "power[] over" someone isn't the litmus test, but rather the according relationship between individual senators and the party leader. So since I think Schumer is appropriate because of his policymaking, fundraising, and campaigning roles, DGA/RGA are, too. IMO. Urve (talk) 03:38, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Including Schumer and/or Pelosi et al in those infoboxes is understandable to me because they exist in the political power structure, they outrank their fellow legislators within their decision-making body but the heads of the DGA & RGA? To me, not so much but that's why I opened a RfC, to come to a consensus and all that. I know I am not the only person who was confused by photos of these seemingly-random governors appearing in the infoboxes. If the consensus it to retain the photos, it seem like they need to be labeled or captioned or *something*... Shearonink (talk) 04:14, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Assuming that we do keep the pictures (although let's be clear no conclusion has been reached on that yet), perhaps a footnote is in order. JadeEditor (talk) 15:47, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

An infobox is supposed to be a summary of key points in the article text - a footnote shouldn't be necessary to explain content that is in the infobox. Wouldn't that be against MOS:INFOBOX? Shearonink (talk) 05:51, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

I am not aware of any policy that denies that. I will take a look. JadeEditor (talk) 15:58, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

• No Per my comments above. Reywas92^Talk 04:19, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
• Emphatic NO and I'll go even further: those infoboxes are (how to put this politely?) horrible. They not only don't give me the information at a glance that I expect, they actually confuse me more than before I came to their respective pages. I had to trawl though multiple posts in this Talk page to even figure out what all that stuff is suppossed to mean. And in the end, the "information" is really inappropriate to the article (and certainly doesn't belong in the at-a-glance infobox). My recommendation is to remove everything in the infoboxes above the map. Otherwise, it makes it look as though these two exact individuals, controlling these two exact parties (with no other possibilities, like Greens, or independents), are responsible for some nationwide popular vote and change of "seats". That's quite misleading and does a serious disservice to our readers from the United States and elsewhere. No, no, no. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 04:25, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Just as a side not, it really seems like the issue of being "responsible for some nationwide popular vote and change of 'seats'" seems like an issue with every single election article that does not have a nation (or whatever region) wide constituency. JadeEditor (talk) 15:44, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

• No It's misleading IMO. Infoboxes do not need to contain photos. Number 57 08:15, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

• No Images give little relevant information, I suggest replacing them with the election symbols (see on right). Julio974◆ (Talk-Contribs) 09:02, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

  I do like the idea of using these symbols generally. Elli (talk | contribs) 07:30, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

  These are preferable if there's no explanation of the role of RGA/DGA chairs. I like this. Urve (talk) 05:39, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

• Yes per Urve. Elli (talk | contribs) 07:31, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

So that's an extremely weakly "Yes" then... Shearonink (talk) 05:51, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

@Shearonink: I agreed with their reasoning, pretty much exactly. Elli (talk | contribs) 11:40, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

• No as per my comments in the earlier section and as per JohnFromPinckney. This is a classic case of someone thinking infoboxes have to look a certain way rather than thinking what an infobox is for. Bondegezou (talk) 07:46, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
• No I agree with comments above, these photos are confusing and don't add to the infobox. I would support Julio974's suggestion of replacing them with election symbols. PinkPanda272 (talk/contribs) 09:13, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
• Yes for similar reasons per Urve. Like in many other US election articles, these leaders are not just for fundraising, but actually help formulate, or at the very least promote, policy on a interstate level, while it may not be as centralized as say, Senate leadership (which in of itself is more a political role rather than a legal one), that still doesn't mean that these governors are NOT leaders. Also, on another note in local election articles that don't just include the US but in nations across the world on Wikipedia also have leadership pictures. JadeEditor (talk) 01:09, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

I know UK election articles. Yes, local election articles have photos, but they're of actual official party leaders. US politics doesn't work in the same way and the equivalent people don't exist. Bondegezou (talk) 20:56, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

While no nation's politics operates the same as each other's, as far as I can tell, these organizations are still affiliated with the national parties politically as much as the parties in the US tend to be, and since these governors are the official leaders of these parts of their parties, they are labeled as such. JadeEditor (talk) 01:26, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

JadeEditor: In what way do these people actually help formulate policy on a interstate level? Can you point me to a source for this claim? Even on Wikipedia we do not seem to have any mention of these "leaders" of Democratic Governors Association or Republican Governors Association handling any policy outside of their respective states. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 21:40, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

[2] [3]. Urve (talk) 22:02, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

[4] JadeEditor (talk) 01:11, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

JadeEditor and Urve: In what way do these people actually help formulate policy on a interstate level? Can you point me to a source for this claim? You know, something that says what you are claiming? — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 09:19, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

They don't formulate interstate policy. I understood your original question to be about policymaking generally, not specifically interstate policymaking, which is why I supplied the statements. I see that you're asking something different, but they need not be involved with the individual relationships between states to be important for them.

They craft and advance policy, as I originally stated, and as those links show. But if that's not enough, it's commonly known that they draft policy papers for others; [5]. And they routinely meet with congressional leaders to shape federal policy that impacts states, sometimes crafting it; [6]. That's not always the case for all things -- [7] -- but it is generally true. Urve (talk) 11:11, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Considering that many of the policies citied that said governors have pushed do cross state lines and are specifically pushed to apply to multiple states, I do think that could be considered "interstate policy". JadeEditor (talk) 15:33, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

+1: Agree, but interstate typically means compact-like agreements, which these don't do. Urve (talk) 05:36, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

• No – It's terribly misleading. 24.77.42.223 (talk) 07:33, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
• No and second JohnFromPinckney that the infoboxes should be even further stripped down, leaving perhaps just party and Seat change (or up or won). In addition to above arguments on relevance/importance, the individuals in question are apparently so unimportant that they are not mentioned, not even as an aside, in the articles. CMD (talk) 08:02, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Comment - As CMD says...The individuals ... are not mentioned ... in the articles. Shearonink (talk) 05:51, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

• Comment - I am still failing to understand why the year-dated US gubernatorial election series articles should have the photos of the heads of the DGA and of the RGA for that year in the articles' infoboxes especially since this was a wholesale change instituted on at least 38 different articles without any discussion, on one day less than 4 months ago. Once I was aware that this change was instituted without any apparent discussion I could have perhaps gone in and changed them all back to their previous forms but that might have gone against the possible consensus. Opening a RfC about this issue seemed the best course of action. It still does. Not sure we are any closer to a decision... Shearonink (talk) 03:34, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

  Shearonink, you would have been fine to undo them under WP:BRD. I think having an RFC on this topic is problematic because, depending on the close, the result may very well be that there is a prohibition on pictures included in articles, even if in the future RGA/DGA chairs become super important to a select few articles. And depending on the close, it could also be the case where the chairs are required even if there's no explanation. Neither are rational. I think no consensus is going to be the likeliest outcome here, but if it's not, one hopes that there's nothing sweeping in the explanation of the closer. Urve (talk) 04:15, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

  Consensus can change and another discussion can be held if a change like this happens. A discussion like this with ten against and three in favour (current situation) is not a no consensus situation. Number 57 09:36, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

  There is no consensus for a prescriptive close (one where inclusion is prohibited wholesale), even with your vote counting. (And you know vote counting doesn't matter.) There is only consensus based in the current landscape: where there is no explanation in the body, there should not be pictures of chairs; that's ultimately my view. My concern is that the closer will misunderstand the arguments presented here, which provide no articulation whatsoever for a prescriptive outcome, but because the RFC text calls for one, do so anyway. People find it confusing, but that's based in poor but current article practices, which are irrelevant to a wider prohibition. And that is what I find unfortunate about this whole deal. Urve (talk) 10:53, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

  Vote counting does matter when the issue at hand is primarily one of opinions rather than adherence to guidelines or policies, which is the case here. And it looks to me like there is a pretty clear consensus that these images are not wanted. Number 57 11:33, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

  That is not the case. Urve (talk) 11:42, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

  Urve and others, there is very clearly a consensus here against using pictures of these people. If the situation changes in the future, then we can re-assess the situation. For now, let's remove these pictures and move on. When there's a clear answer, as there is here, we don't have to wait for an external person to formally close the RfC. Bondegezou (talk) 12:40, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

• No. It doesn't make any sense. --Yilku1 (talk) 03:57, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Seat changes

So I've been editing lots of election pages and have come across an important inconsistency that I think needs some specific clarification. On most election result pages there's a place to mark seat changes, but it's not specified what number one should use for the seat change. Some people use the number of the last election while some people use the most recent numbers in the legislature/legislative body. Personally, I think we should make sure seat changes match the last recorded numbers in the legislative assembly. It's not called "seat changes from last election," it's called "seat changes." What do you all think? Jonaththejonath (talk) 14:17, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

There was a previous discussion on this recently that established that we'd be comparing from the last election, at least on those chambers that do not have staggered elections. Howard the Duck (talk) 14:25, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, I found the discussion. The main reason I wanted to flag this was because I'm doing a lot of editing for Indian legislative elections, and there's a lot of horse-trading/party-switching that can drastically change the results from the previous election... making the seat change metric a little misleading. I wonder if there's a way we can make a metric that works for those elections where there's been significant partisan change since the last election? Just a thought. Jonaththejonath (talk) 14:36, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

I find it better to simply show the seat change from the last election, because we also show the vote share change, which is necessarily from the last election. If you start taking into account all the members leaving and switching parties, you end up with seemingly nonsensical result tables in which for example a new party would see a big surge of votes, yet a fall of seats (because it won less seats than previous deputies having switched parties). Or an old party shown with a complete metldown in the ballot but still gaining a few seats, for the reverse reason. Finally, it's a real mess sometimes keeping track of the actual composition of some chambers, for example the italian ones. Better to simply use the votes and seats of the previous election.--Aréat (talk) 15:08, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Agree with Howard and Aréat – seat change should always be compared to the last election for consistency. Any big pre-election changes can be detailed in the prose or possibly with notes. Number 57 16:39, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Also agreeing with Howard, Aréat and Number 57 on this point. Impru20^talk 18:59, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

I agree with above. Comparing "like with like" is the norm and we should reflect that. From a British perspective, general elections should always be compared "like with like" and by-elections essentially excluded. India is a distinct example because of how many parties, alliances, and so-on, and maybe the text can be used to explain the changes in more detail than a graphic or summary. doktorb _words^deeds 19:02, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Results tables can have a column comparing to the previous election and a column comparing to the situation just before the election. That seems sensible in those situations where there has been considerable change since the last election. Bondegezou (talk) 12:58, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I suppose we can do these for countries that routinely have this occurrence, columns for "Previous election" and "Up". India was cited as an example, but another countries that has mad turnover is the Philippines, and we've been comparing with the composition on the actual election day instead of previous elections (at least since 2010). This is where the "One size fits all" argument doesn't work. Howard the Duck (talk) 15:38, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Different countries do have different electoral politics, so while I think it is useful to compare across what different articles do, there can be good reasons to differ.

What's important throughout is the basic principle of following what reliable sources do. In the UK, RS usually compare with the prior election result, so we do the same. If Filipino RS usually compare with the situation before the election, then so should we.

Another principle, and one it's easy to forget, is to say what we're doing! Make sure the table or article or a footnote states what it is doing. Bondegezou (talk) 17:07, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

One point that has just to come to mind. India and the Philippines are distinctly not Western European democracies. We are always reminded on Wiki to avoid, where we can, Western bias. That is important with election articles and results pages, not in all Asian states of course, but certainly in nations where democracy might not be watertight, where party structures and alliances are not always upfront and legitimate, where changes and defections happen often and in all directions. If election boxes and results tables have built-in biases, where perhaps showing significant shifts in seat numbers is difficult or cumbersome, we may need to look at why, and how to fix it. doktorb _words^deeds 20:22, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

This is a good point. Seat changes reflect two factors, voter preferences, and shifts in power. Comparing to the previous election reflects the former, comparing to the immediately preceding body reflects the latter. In situations where these conflict, it may perhaps be best to leave seat change fields empty, as we don't understand which meaning a reader will put into the numbers. CMD (talk) 02:27, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

The TIE/TILE issue

I have just spotted that user Ivan Ch RU has been unilaterally replacing Template:Infobox election by Template:Infobox legislative election in a number of countries (including, as far as I have been able to determine: Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Moldova, Ukraine... and other East Europe countries in general). Changes like this are very big, and doing so on a Wikipedia-wide scale would require a centralized discussion to achieve a consensus on the issue, since it means effectively bringing down a well-established practice of using TIE over TILE throughout Wikipedia. As far as I am aware of, no such discussion has taken place (but correct me if I am wrong). I am pinging Number 57 as well since I see he has been involved in some of the changes.

I am open to hearing the merits of such change and whether those convince myself and the rest of the community in favour of TILE over TIE, if the issue is really to make such change on a massive scale. However, I think a proper consensus with enough involvement from the community should have been sought first. It is well-known than that of infoboxes is a very contentious issue and should not have been conducted without assessing whether the community agreed with it first. Impru20^talk 10:30, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

His changes are a big improvement IMO; the old style Romanian infoboxes in particular (e.g. this) were awful. I also don't think this is such a huge change that it needs a centralised discussion – the only country I can recall there being a big fuss over the infobox style is the UK. If any discussion is required, it's on a country-by-country basis as what is the most suitable type of infobox is really dependent on the political system (i.e. whether a large number of parties win seats or not). Number 57 12:22, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Plus the accusation (in the edit summaries) that Ivan is making the changes 'covertly' is a bit below the belt. The edits are not being hidden. Number 57 12:25, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

They are a big improvement according to you, but you have been a vocal supporter of TILE for a long time. It requires more than two people to conduct such sweeping changes across a vast number of articles, and the issue should have, at the very least, been brought to the consideration of the rest of the community so that it could have been discussed and (if considered to be such a big improvement) approved in a general basis. This goes beyond a couple changes in a selected number of countries: aside from Romania, this has also been done to Bulgaria, Albania, Moldova, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Armenia, Georgia, Russia... and would have been done to Poland had I not stepped in.

I noticed the changes because of me happening to have the Polish election articles on my watchlist; otherwise, the changes would have gone on unnoticed. When I say "covertly" I am obviously not meaning that the edits are not public; of course they are. However, most people may take months to notice edits conducted in Georgian, Armenian or Romanian election articles unless explicitly noticed about them, because those are relatively small/unimportant countries, and by then one could argue that TILE is the "new" consensus because those edits were left uncontested for a long time. When was the issue going to be brought to the community's attention? When the changes reached articles on Poland? Germany? France? Italy? Spain? Articles with many more visits and where the edits are more likely to be challenged quickly.

This said, I have not yet judged on the merits of the change. I see benefits in the use of both TIE and TILE for parliamentary elections, but it is true that there is not a consensus right now on what should be the deciding factor that leads to one country favouring one type of infobox over the other (aside of TIE having been the almost universally-used infobox across Wikipedia for many years). There are not that many differences between Poland/Romania with Germany/Spain/Italy/Portugal, to name a few. Rather than forcing TILE into articles by the way of action and expect the community to simply accept it, it could be much more useful to discuss and consensuate some guidelines on when to use one infobox over the other and/or in which countries should each of them be used. Impru20^talk 13:12, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

In fairness, I did say "IMO". And I completely disagree that this needs to be brought to the attention of anyone. The infobox type is a country-by-country matter, and is best dealt with on the talk pages of the relevant article sets (there are many editors who only edit election articles of one or two countries and would not see any debate here). Why does it matter that you have no idea that the Georgian articles have been switched if you have no interest in Georgian politics? I'm a little uncomfortable by the use of the phrase 'stepping in' given that there was nothing wrong being done here. Also, a few of the countries were switched a long time ago; the Bulgarian articles have been using TILE since 2016, the Albanian ones since 2019.

I'm not really sure any guideline is required on when to use one or the other. But if we did set them, as a starting point I'd suggest that {{Infobox election}} is used when three or fewer parties win seats (the basis being that any {{Infobox election}} with more than one row of images is unnecessarily large) and {{Infobox legislative election}} is used for anything over three parties. However, again, I don't think we need to be prescriptive and it's better to do it on a country-by-country basis. Cheers, Number 57 16:30, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

It does not really matter that you claim that this is applied in a country-by-country basis because, as far as I know, this has not been discussed or consensuated on a country-by-country basis. The criteria ruling which country gets to use one infobox type and which one gets to use another one are quite obscure and subjective. And with such changes being applied on such a scale without clear criteria settled around it, it may not be rare that someone in the close future may wish to force this infobox type into other articles (Spain, Germany, France, Italy, etc.) claiming that "hey, look at those dozens of articles using TILE! Surely we must be consistent and use them everywhere else!" with no other criteria in mind. So that is why it does matter what is done in Georgian, Albanian, Ukrainian, Russian... articles, specially when this is being done systematically and not as isolated editing in a specific country.

"Three" seems a fairly low number; it would basically encompass all countries but the US. Also, it may be misleading to give the impression that the infobox should be made fit to include all and any parties having parliamentary representation. For example: the current Spanish parliament saw 16 parties elected at the November 2019 Spanish general election for the Congress plus 10 ones for the Senate, most of them regional parties, for a total of 26 possible rows in a prospective TILE infobox. Should you use a model based on the 2020 Romanian legislative election (this is, showing full results for the two chambers) you may end up with a 26-party infobox that is more chaotic than it helps in summarizing information. While I agree with the country-by-country premise, there should be, at the very least, some set of defined, generic criteria that helps readers in determining when TILE should be considered and TIE should be preferred. Impru20^talk 18:53, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

It seems your objection here is primarily because you're worried the changes will be used at some point to justify converting the Spanish articles to TILE. I don't think this is an appropriate justification for reverting several hours of someone else's work (there seems to be no other real basis to the objection). The "being used somewhere else" argument swings both ways and has been used against TILE in the past, and I don't think is justification either (and it didn't win the argument on the Israeli elections when a couple of editors wanted to convert them to TIE). Number 57 11:53, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Number 57, although I very much respect Impru20's excellent work in this area and welcome a discussion being started. Different election articles currently do different things: from no infobox, to a "Politics of..." box, to TILE, to TIE. Different contexts may call for different things, and we've never achieved consistency before, so I'm relaxed about different articles coming to their own conclusions about what to do.

I generally prefer TILE for legislatures, particularly when the number of parties elected is larger. I do feel that there is a tendency for election articles to have very large TIE infoboxes that breach the spirit of MOS:INFOBOX and that display poorly on mobile devices (which is generally over half of readers). The infobox is not meant to be a comprehensive table, to which the rest of the article is almost an appendix. The infobox is meant to be a brief summary of the article. We often have TIE election infoboxes that display information that is not even covered in the article (e.g. leaders' seats), which clearly breaches MOS:INFOBOX.

If we can achieve some Project-wide recommendations, I suggest they be based on the Manual of Style. That shouldn't need saying given we are all meant to be following the MoS! Bondegezou (talk) 12:56, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Number 57: My concern is not just on Spanish articles, but on every election article using TIE, and your stance here seems to confirm my view that this was exactly what was intended to be done in the future: to use the newly-changed articles as leverage to justify further changes elsewhere. Yes, you correctly put the example of Israel: you omit that there was a discussion on that. You previously brought the example of next elections in the UK: you omitted that there was a discussion and an explicit consensus reached on that as well. Could you provide me where the consensus is, in the form of a discussion of any kind, for all those other articles where you claim the change was justified because of it being conducted on a "country-by-country" basis? Was it really discussed that it was deemed appropiate for each country? Or did it came just because of automatic actions conducted by one single editor, on their opinion that TILE should be put at use everywhere?

The "several hour" argument is unfair. Several hours of someone else's work, if such work goes against currently-established consensus, just means than that person wasted several hours of their own time conducting edits that could be reverted because of them pertaining to a hotly contested issue where a new consensus was not reached. And as I previously said, Ivan may not be aware of the issues relating to TIE&TILE, but you were. And you did engage with them. You could (and should) have warned them about the hardships of conducting such a change in such a massive scale, rather than just allowing them to happen under your watch. You should have known, at the very least, that this was likely to get contested sooner or later. We have been collaborating in Wikipedia for quite a long time, N57. It is not the first time that someone attempts to conduct changes on a massive scale throughout multiple countries, nor the first time that such times get reverted because of them requiring of a previous consensus, no matter how many hours were put into their work. So please I ask you to not pretend to discharge the burden of wasting "someone else's work" upon my shoulders, please.

@Bondegezou: Seeing your comment now, note that I have not entered yet into discussing the merits of TIE v TILE or vice versa, but rather, on the way this was intended to be pushed through. I think the community has a right to speak and reach a consensus on such a wide-ranging issue, which would also serve to reinforce the position of the result of the choice, whatever it may be, which is why I ended up starting this discussion. Doing it on a large scale, possibly hoping that no one would notice for months until the argument could be made that there were more articles using TILE than not is not fair, IMO.

I agree that some articles use TIE in a flawed way and that maybe TILE is better suited for them. Other ones, however, work perfectly well with TIE, and in some cases (as the 26-party infobox example I put up above), the use of TILE may be even counter-productive in "reducing the size" of the infobox. Here, I generally concur with Number 57's approach of doing it on a country-by-country basis (this would require specific discussion on a country-by-country basis as well, though). Impru20^talk 13:05, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I've no idea where you're getting this from. I have no intention of rolling out TILE to all election articles, and I explicitly stated above that usage elsewhere should not be used as justification. I've also no idea how I have 'omitted' that there was a discussion on the Israel infoboxes when I specifically refer to an argument (I'm not trying to be rude, but it looks like you may be a bit frazzled and perhaps need a time out to calm down? I noticed you broke 3RR on the Madrid article in the last 24 hours). I also don't think there needs to be a discussion each time someone changes the infobox – editors are free to make the change and then a discussion will happen if anyone reverts/objects. I've not seen anyone object to the changes being made by Ivan except you. Number 57 13:15, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Impru20, I am unclear whether your concern is more about what happened in terms of some recent editing, or about laying out some Project guidance for the future. Perhaps these are two separate discussions? On the former point, I would assume good faith and accept the validity of bold editing, while also, of course, respecting the "R" of WP:BRD. Bondegezou (talk) 13:33, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

@Number 57: Firstly, I was just replying to your stated concern on the "being used somewhere else"-argument, which was basically a defense of TILE and a criticism of such argument having been used in the past to block the introduction of TILE over TIE. The use of TIE is widespread and has settled over many years, so yes, the sudden change to a new infobox would normally mean the onus is on the proponents of the new infobox to seek a consensus. This is not bad.

Secondly, your comment of I noticed you broke 3RR on the Madrid article in the last 24 hours is entirely uncalled for. The context is that a WP:SPA created for the sole purpose of introducing pro-Vox propaganda into the article has been edit warring over it for days against multiple users. If you think this user's edits are constructive rather than disruptive, then bring the 3RR accusation on me to the proper venue, but do not dare to bring it here without context, together with a call for me to "calm down", just to downplay my arguments. That sounds pretty much as a personal attack.

Finally, reverting and starting a discussion on the issue is exactly what I did (despite the onus being on the proponents of the change for seeking a consensus on it and not the other way around, as per WP:BRD). Edits taking several hours to conduct are not exempt from this.

And for everything else, you still have my previous comments, which you have left mostly unanswered, to seek for information. I hope this discussion stays in constructive territory.

@Bondegezou: It is both. The core issue here is that, as of currently, there are no clear criteria on when should TIE/TILE be used. This is an issue that has lingered for too much time, so I do think it is about time that there is some project-wide guidance on what to do on such cases and how, lest we risk for the issue to persist in the future. But this also affects the recent string of edits (which were my motivation for bringing the issue here), since whatever decision being settled here may have an impact on those as well. My reverts on the Polish articles were meant to stall any further change there until a project-wide decision could be taken. I left the other countries untouched since those were complete already. Impru20^talk 14:03, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm not trying to downplay your arguments; the issue is that you were saying I'd said things I hadn't. Anyway, to avoid further circular arguments, my view is that any editor is free to change the infoboxes on a set of articles if they wish. If anyone objects, they are free to revert them, and then a discussion should take place on a talk page of that set of articles rather than here. I do not think there is a need for a project-wide consensus on this matter because it is really a country-by-country issue (and in some cases infoboxes might be switched halfway through a series if the electoral/political system changes significantly). Cheers, Number 57 14:36, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Fair enough. Nonetheless, I had already said that I agreed with your country-by-country premise, but Bondegezou, for example, has long pressed for a more general use of TILE in Wikipedia as he has remined us now, and I see some merit in establishing some common string of criteria that helps define when. Even if applied in a country-by-country basis, you would agree with me that, as of currently, that is being done on a very subjective basis: why Poland and not Spain? Why Romania and not Portugal? Ultimately, inconsistencies of this scale will mean that this will be prone to conflict unless some criteria is set out. I myself see some merits in the use of TILE (though I think the infobox should allow for an additional field listing popular vote totals, but that's my opinion), despite being accostumed to using TIE, so it is not that I am closing the door to supporting such change. But it needs to be based on a coherent premise. Cheers. Impru20^talk 14:46, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Having an additional column for the popular vote in TILE is a great idea. Have you suggested that at the template's Talk page?

Call me a pessimist, but I don't think we can avoid conflict! The conflict does not arise because of a lack of criteria. It arises because there are different ways of doing things and editors' preferences vary. We can try to set common criteria (and there will be conflict over what those should be), and then there will still be conflict over how to apply those criteria to individual articles! But I don't want to be too negative. The point of a WikiProject is to consider these sorts of questions.

How can we best come up with consensus common criteria? I think we need a new discussion just on that point. I think we need to seed the discussion with possible options, maybe in a this-or-that format. Maybe we need an RfC, maybe at the end of the process to confirm what's been decided, or maybe that's not necessary?

What's our scope? I'd start by just considering (unicameral?) legislative elections to keep things manageable.

Here, then, are some principles I'd suggest should go in. They are based on my understanding of general underlying principles and my experience with such articles:

• Election article infoboxes should follow the Manual of Style. (But we need to consider what that means? Keep them reasonably compact? No flag icons?)
• Note you do not need to use every field in an infobox. (The templates already state that and it's a general rule of infoboxes, but can do with being re-stated.)
• Focus on good article content first. Consider first whether material needs to be included in the main part of the article. The infobox is a summary of the article and comes second.
• Do not include information in the infobox that is not covered in the article. (This follows from MOS:INFOBOX: the article should be able to stand alone without its infobox.)
• TIE allows information about leaders, like the constituency they represent, when they were elected. Only include these when they are an important part of the story.
• Parties are listed in decreasing order of how many seats they won (not vote share). Ties can be decided by vote share. Do not skip parties (that is, do not include a party that won fewer seats while omitting a party that won more).
• The decision whether to list seats or alliances should follow what RS do.
• What parties to include in an infobox is a difficult subject and editors should take care. A general rule of thumb is to include all parties that won seats. This may be impractical when a very large number of parties has won seats; be guided by RS where possible as to which to include.
• In cases where elections are not free and fair, an opposition group or groups may boycott an election. If RS consider them and their action part of the story, it may be appropriate to include them in the infobox.
• Articles for forthcoming elections exist in a different context: there is a greater challenge from WP:BALANCE/WP:NPOV and there will probably be more contested editing going on. Infoboxes for forthcoming elections sometimes differ from the infoboxes for past elections in the same series because of this. It may be appropriate to omit an infobox or have a minimal infobox that doesn't list parties for elections that are some way off.
• The default approach for what parties to include in an infobox for a forthcoming election is to base the decision on prior performance (who won seats at the last election; or(?) who currently has seats). However, if RS are giving attention to other parties, it may be appropriate to include them.
• Do not include more than one map of election results in the infobox. Maps can go in the article proper. (I'd be tempted to say no maps!)
• There are two widely used templates: TIE and TILE. TILE is better suited when there are a large number of parties. Decisions can be taken locally on whether an election or series of elections should use TIE or TILE.

I suspect some of those are already contentious! Bondegezou (talk) 17:35, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm not trying to curry favour, but can I just say, Impru20, that 2021 Madrilenian regional election, which you've been working on, is looking really good, an exemplar for what election articles can look like. Bondegezou (talk) 13:26, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

@Bondegezou: Thanks! Sorry for the late response, I has been busy precisely with the editing of that article as the election was underway xD Precisely, 2021 Madrilenian regional election (and all other Spanish nationwide and regional elections) is one of the examples where I think TIE works perfectly nice, though it may work differently for other countries where (with all due seriousness) it looks... ugly (2019 Polish parliamentary election is abhorrent. But this also comes because of users using TIE beyond its actual scope, which I'm sure does not provide for... that).

On the additional popular vote column on TILE, I have not suggested it precisely because it's not yet clear what TILE's future is going to be. It is meant to be used specifically for some countries? It is mean to replace TIE in the long term? Depending on the answer, the TILE's template may require some adaptations or others. As for the conflict, of course! This is quite a tricky issue that has showed up multiple times in the past. That's why I think it is about time we tackle it. And, if the best way to solve this is to apply this on a country-by-country basis, so be it! But then let's be clear on how to apply it: as of currently, I myself could very well enforce the implementation of TILE on some countries if required. Question is: which ones? Should I do it? I am sure other people may harbour similar doubts as well.

From here, taking on your principles:

1. Seems right. On the issue of flags, though, I think this is also prone to conflict and would require a different discussion, since interpretation of MOS:FLAG also varies. That's not an intrinsic issue of TIE or TILE, but rather, it affects both, so I would not mix this up here.
2. Right as well.
3. Right, BUT... sometimes you can come up with how to properly design an election article based on the information you intend to put into a prospective infobox. For example: I came up with the current design of the 2021 Madrilenian regional election#Parties and candidates section (already applied for a number of Spanish election articles) based on the information required to fill the TIE infobox there, so that it met the MOS. My advice would be to work on both aspects concurrently: you need to fill the article with proper content in order to justify such information being in the infobox, but having an infobox in place also helps in determining which info may be relevant to include in an election article.
4. Aye, that should be the ultimate goal in the end.
5. I have mixed feelings with those. But ultimately, it may be best to leave these out, even for TIE, since most of the time these two fields would not be mentioned in the rest of the article (not with a proper table, at least).
6. Right.
7. This is one of the aspects that is more subject to particular country's specifics. For instance, electoral alliances in Spain mean two or more parties joining into a single list, whereas in Italy an electoral alliance may be formed by a loose coalition or various, independent lists working collaboratively. Checking how RS put it seems the most sensible approach, though.
8. This is probably one of the most conflicting points when it comes to setting an infobox up: which parties to include. Ultimately, I think this also depends on country-specifics. For example, for Dutch and Israeli elections it can make sense to list all parties getting representation. For Spanish/UK elections, for instance, there are only a very small number of parties that may realistically form a government, whereas showing very minor regional parties in the infobox getting 1 seat with 0.08% of the vote may spark a feeling of undue weight given to those, as well as making the infobox impractical (this is appliable to TILE as well; a 16 or 26-strong infobox may be very difficult to handle, no matter which infobox type you end up picking).
9. I think this may be interesting, to include them in the infobox with a note clearly stating that the election was boycotted (like 2006 Thai general election maybe, though this should be polished up).
10. I think that articles on forthcoming elections may also differ depending on the country. I know that, for the UK (and Italy) it has been decided that TILE should be the way to go, but possibly because prime ministerial candidates are not that relevant within their countries' context and/or it may be impractical to set up an infobox in the way that previous elections in that country are set up because of that country's specifics. For elections in Spain, Portugal and other countries, however, the candidate is a major part of the election process and is relevant for inclusion.
11. Right, though in this point I tend to find a justification in any election result of any kind (or, conversely, in opinion polls) before considering its inclusion in the infobox, lest I be accused of NPOV or UNDUE issues. Normally, I tend to prepare a hidden place in the infobox in advance of a party being expected to enter into a parliament, but without unhiding it until actual results confirm this. The only exception I have come across to this rule in my experience in Wikipedia was the 2015 Spanish general election, in which you had both Podemos and Cs going into the election with 0 real seats, but with about 50-70 seats each (about 15-20% of parliament) in opinion polls, and with them being invited into major election debates. Ultimately, this may also require a case-by-case analysis.
12. Actually, with Template:Switcher you can have as many maps as you want without the infobox looking flooded with lots of maps. I have been applying it for some time for Spanish elections and it works really good.
13. Seems right.

I think I have taken on all your considerations, leave me your thoughts. Cheers! Impru20^talk 14:50, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

I'll write a longer answer later, but, a small thing first... yes, 2019 Polish parliamentary election, that is one ugly infobox. That may be the ugliest infobox I've ever seen. I think you're right that the problem there isn't necessarily the TIE format and that using fewer fields within the TIE format could be the answer. Less is more. Bondegezou (talk) 17:59, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

That Polish election needs 2 separate infoboxes, one for each chamber, stacked on top of each other. Howard the Duck (talk) 18:02, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Or perhaps separate articles for the Sejm and the Senate elections. Carter (talk) 18:21, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

That could work too, but some people here don't want that... Howard the Duck (talk) 18:58, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Or just use an infobox that can combine the results from both houses in a more concise manner like this. Number 57 19:32, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Proposed new naming convention for articles on local elections

We have triple-barrelled compound modifiers in article names for most elections: [YEAR] [LOCATION] [ELECTION-TYPE] election. This doesn't work so well with local elections, because [LOCATION] is often ambiguous. When disambiguation is done with commas (like in Birmingham, Alabama) the result – 2021 Birmingham, Alabama mayoral election – is awkward. Per WP:COMMA, a comma should follow "Alabama". That doesn't make it less awkward in my view.

In some cases, the disambiguation is omitted, or [LOCATION] doesn't follow the name of the main article (see table below), thus circumventing the problem. I propose that we reshuffle the name parts for local election articles a bit to get around all this.

For the above example, the new article name would be 2021 mayoral election in Birmingham, Alabama. This would be a bit like the pattern of articles like 2020 United States presidential election in Iowa and 2019 European Parliament election in France.

The proposed new name for the example would even follow the pattern of its category: Category:Mayoral elections in Birmingham, Alabama (though it's supposed to be the other way around: the category name should follow the base article name).

There are of course locations – 20-something in the U.S. (Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Seattle, etc) – whose name isn't comma-separated, but I suggest that, for consistency, these articles too follow this proposed new naming convention for local elections.

Existing format	New format	Country
2021 Birmingham, Alabama mayoral election	2021 mayoral election in Birmingham, Alabama	United States
2011 Portland, Maine mayoral election	2011 mayoral election in Portland, Maine
1996 Portland, Oregon mayoral election	1996 mayoral election in Portland, Oregon
1973 Atlanta mayoral election	1973 mayoral election in Atlanta
2017 Los Angeles mayoral election	2017 mayoral election in Los Angeles
2012 Geelong mayoral election	2012 mayoral election in Geelong	Australia
2016 Rio de Janeiro mayoral election	2016 mayoral election in Rio de Janeiro	Brazil
2010 Toronto mayoral election	2010 mayoral election in Toronto	Canada
2002 San José mayoral election	2002 mayoral election in San José, Costa Rica	Costa Rica
2002 Amagasaki mayoral election	2002 mayoral election in Amagasaki	Japan
1901 Auckland City mayoral election	1901 mayoral election in Auckland City	New Zealand
1936 Christchurch mayoral by-election	1936 mayoral election in Christchurch
2013 Hamilton mayoral election	2013 mayoral election in Hamilton, New Zealand
2013 Hamilton local elections and referendums	2013 local elections and referendums in Hamilton, New Zealand
2003 Moscow mayoral election	2003 mayoral election in Moscow	Russia
2007 Volgograd mayoral election	2007 mayoral election in Volgograd
2000 London mayoral election	2000 mayoral election in London	United Kingdom
2017 Greater Manchester mayoral election	2017 mayoral election in Greater Manchester

— Preceding unsigned comment added by HandsomeFella (talk • contribs) 18:32, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I agree that the infix location disambiguators are clumsy, but wouldn't e.g. 2021 Birmingham mayoral election (Alabama) be a neater way of doing it? That would line up with, for example, 2020 Labour Party leadership election (UK). Ralbegen (talk) 19:55, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose proposal and agree with Ralbegen's point. Bondegezou (talk) 20:26, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment: the categories are at Category:Mayoral elections in Birmingham, Alabama. Do you mean that they should be moved to Category:Birmingham mayoral elections (Alabama) for consistency? I think the existing category names come natural, and putting a year in front (and removing the genitive-s) for the articles on the individual elections is just as natural a name. HandsomeFella (talk) 20:44, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
    • Wikipedia:Category names#Events is the category naming convention for events in places; WP:NCE is the article naming convention for events in places. We shouldn't try to make article titles match a category naming convention. Ralbegen (talk) 21:15, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
      • Then it appears that 2020 United States presidential election in Iowa and 2019 European Parliament election in France don't follow WP:NCE, doesn't it? HandsomeFella (talk) 06:45, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose, but. I think both proposals are sloppy, though the comment above makes a proposal that might be interesting to build over: using parentheses. For example, 2020 Birmingham (Alabama) mayoral election might (might) be a better option in the case of states names being included (which is just 3 of the 18 examples included). However, 1) It doesn't concern most countries; and 2) I support changing to the proposal by HandsomeFella for local elections when they are part of some larger election, either for local elections in unitary countries or components of national elections for federations (for example, 2019 European Parliament election in Germany, or 2021 French regional election in Île-de-France). Julio974◆ (Talk-Contribs) 20:31, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose The proposed name is clunky and unnatural. The use of "in" creates a form that is not a common search term, and would cause confusion amongst the general public, many of whom only look for these pages during a small window of any given year. We don't need a mass move of thousands of articles for a single proposition. doktorb _words^deeds 21:19, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose, just use 2020 Birmingham (Alabama) mayoral election - less awkward, more succinct. PinkPanda272 (talk/contribs) 22:12, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment:: that's not bad. Something needs to be done. HandsomeFella (talk) 23:43, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose I don't see the issue with the current format, sure a comma might be a bit weird but there really is no better option. Elli (talk | contribs) 00:29, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
• Comment: ok, I'm now 0 for 5 on this proposeal. I did expect some opposition, but not this, in a case that in my view is a slam dunk. I'm genuinely puzzled.

  What I particularly don't get, is why Category:Mayoral elections in Birmingham, Alabama is all good and well, while 2021 mayoral election in Birmingham, Alabama is not? They follow the same format, for god's sake! There's five of you, so one of you must be able to put that in words.

  2020 Birmingham (Alabama) mayoral election is the next best solution, but do you then mean that the categories should be renamed to Category:Birmingham (Alabama) mayoral elections for consistency?

  By the way, Ralbegen, I think 2020 Labour Party (UK) leadership election would be better.

  HandsomeFella (talk) 06:24, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

  @HandsomeFella: imo, the categories should be renamed to (for example) Category:Birmingham, Alabama mayoral elections. Elli (talk | contribs) 06:34, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

  That would violate WP:COMMA, as I explained above. HandsomeFella (talk) 06:45, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

  @HandsomeFella: perhaps MOS:COMMA should be changed, then? It obviously doesn't make much sense for this situation at least. Elli (talk | contribs) 06:51, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

  Should WP:COMMA apply to short titles for elections articles? Julio974◆ (Talk-Contribs) 06:59, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

  Things like grammar and punctuation are basic, so why wouldn't WP:COMMA apply to article titles? You could as well be asking, "this is only an article title, so is spelling really relevant?", or, "Do we really need a right parenthesis after the left parenthesis?". Your question makes no sense. Of course punctuation is relevant in titles too. HandsomeFella (talk) 17:37, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose Current title format is more natural. I would suggest it might be better to remove the disambiguation in the title unless there are two mayoral elections in cities of the same name in the same year (and then perhaps do the disambiguation in the way PinkPanda suggests – so have 2021 Birmingham mayoral election if there is only one Birmingham having an election, or 2021 Birmingham (Alabama) mayoral election if there are others). Also, sorry to be a pedant, but for future reference, this isn't really the right venue for this type of discussion – any proposal to amend WP:NC-GAL should be via an RfC at WT:NCGAL. Number 57 14:51, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Ok, thanks for the tip. HandsomeFella (talk) 17:37, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Displaying seats won and change in infobox?

Hey, for some reason I can't get the infobox on this page 2009 Oxfordshire County Council election to actually display the seats won and the change, even though both those values are there in the infobox? Is there something blindingly obvious I'm missing, thanks. NeorxenoSwang (talk) 20:50, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

@NeorxenoSwang: It was because you entered a non-existent type in the type parameter. Now fixed. Cheers, Number 57 21:13, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Category:Media manipulation theorists has been nominated for merging to Category:Mass media theorists

Category:Media manipulation theorists has been nominated for merging to Category:Mass media theorists. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Place Clichy (talk) 13:33, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Category:Election articles needing expert attention has been nominated for discussion

Category:Election articles needing expert attention has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Peaceray (talk) 18:04, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Question on which candidates and parties to include in the infobox for US elections

I've been working on US-wide articles for each year with state attorney general elections, similar to the gubernatorial election pages. In 2020, 2019 and 2018, only the Democratic and Republican parties have received a sizeable percentage of the popular vote. I'm currently working on 2016, and the Libertarian Party received 4.98% of the popular vote. Should I include the Libertarian Party in the infobox? I'm not sure of the exact decisions around this, but it looks like infoboxes are supposed to only include parties or candidates that

• receive more than 5% of the popular vote,
• has a seat going into the election
• or wins a seat in the election.

Please let me know if those aren't the rules. Regardless, 4.98% rounds up to 5%, so should it be included in the infobox? MrOinkingPig (talk) 15:47, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

I would say "no", esp. for a "national overview" page. We should only be including parties that are, 1) competing nationally, and 2) have a chance of actually winning a seat/race somewhere. For a "national overview" page for s a Governor or "ROW" office, that almost certainly means, 2) no third parties, and 2) no independent candidates. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:05, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Okay, I agree with you here, but I didn't want to violate any set guidelines.

I'll leave them out unless something changes. Thanks for your response.

MrOinkingPig (talk) 16:35, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

@MrOinkingPig: interesting that the libertarian party did that well in 2016. Elli (talk | contribs) 17:13, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

@Elli Yeah, it was mostly because there was no Democrat running in Washington, so they got just under 1 million votes from there and won a few counties. MrOinkingPig (talk) 17:18, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

@MrOinkingPig: ah, makes sense.

By the way, please properly use the imagemap template. I can help you as much as is necessary but what you are currently doing is painful and unnecessary. Elli (talk | contribs) 17:19, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

We often use a 5% cut off. 4.98 < 5, so I'd say exclude. That said, we have previously recognised the principle that these sorts of rules are not absolute and can be overridden by basic principles like WP:BALANCE and WP:NPOV. If reliable sources talk about someone/some party as a serious candidate in an election, then they should be included in the infobox, irrespective of their/their party's performance previously. Bondegezou (talk) 17:35, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, and all of that would be true if we were talking about a race/state-specific article. But we are talking about "national overview" articles for something like governors or state attorneys general elections (and the same would almost certainly be true for U.S. Senate) – at that level, it basically makes no sense to include the "Libertarian total" or "independent candidates total" in the Infobox, as effectively they're not (seriously) competing for these offices on a national basis. It would only make sense to talk about specific strong individual candidates in specific state races at those specific articles. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 18:58, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

The discussion began asking about state attorney general elections, so we are talking about state-specific articles. Bondegezou (talk) 08:01, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

@Bondegezou: I'm pretty sure this was talking about a national overview article of the attorney general races - 2016 United States attorney general elections, to be precise. Elli (talk | contribs) 09:30, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

My apologies: I was distracted by the discussion of Washington, but you are right. I think the basic principles apply regardless. My earlier comment remains. My earlier comment was not suggesting any change in any of the current articles under discussion. Bondegezou (talk) 10:13, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Constitutional Convention vs Constitutional Assembly vs Constituent Assembly

Constitutional Convention, Constitutional Assembly and Constituent Assembly all are used in election articles. What is the consensus here to use different titles? Should be all moved to a new title? --Yilku1 (talk) 03:31, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Huh? You're going to have to be more specific. I'd guess different jurisdictions have different names for their versions of these topics, so of course there'd be different titles. Reywas92^Talk 03:50, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

I think we should either be using the version officially used by the country (or its more accurate translation), or just use "constituent election". Julio974◆ (Talk-Contribs) 18:17, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Constituent assembly is the article name, so that should be okay in a generic sense, but I agree with Reywas92 that when talking about a specific one, the locally used term (or accurate translation) should be what is used. Carter (talk) 18:36, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

It is to have uniformity. Look at 2021 Chilean Constitutional Convention election, 1957 Argentine Constitutional Assembly election and 1948 Argentine Constituent Assembly election, in Spanish all 3 are called "Elecciones de convencionales constituyentes" but have 3 different translations. --Yilku1 (talk) 20:46, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Well the eswiki for the 1948 election uses "Elecciones a la Asamblea Constituyente" in the lead, even though its title doesn't. The 1957 article does use "convencionales constituyentes" so perhaps its title should be changed. I'd see this as more of a local decision based on the best translation for the procedures used, and consistency within countries (assuming the original process was consistent) should be the goal, rather than us setting a rule for all countries here. Reywas92^Talk 22:27, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Agree with Reywas92. What do English-language high-quality reliable sources call each of them? It's more important that we follow what RS do than that we enforce a uniformity. Bondegezou (talk) 14:45, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

State legislative elections naming - why singular?

I was having trouble finding the article 2020 Michigan House of Representatives election, until I realized it contained the word "election", not "elections". While I kinda understand this, WP:NCELECT seems unclear on this topic, and this seems inconsistent with articles like 2020 United States House of Representatives elections. Is there a particular logic to doing it this way? Elli (talk | contribs) 01:57, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

I've rarely ventured around the state Senate & House elections pages. You do raise a great point. Why are those shown as singular form, when the federal level is shown as plural form. GoodDay (talk) 02:22, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Well, there's also 2019 United Kingdom general election, which is technically hundreds of elections for individual seats as well. I think it can make sense either way since the singular body is being elected. Reywas92^Talk 04:09, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

I think there is a big difference: in the UK or in US states, there is a single set of rules to decide the result: even if there can be hundreds of constituencies they are all organized by the same body under the same electoral law. For the federal elections in the US, the rules are still managed by the 50 states that basically each hold their own election to the Congress. I think this is the criteria we should use for plural election article naming: multiple seats elected && elections held by multiple components (not just one at-large body). Julio974◆ (Talk-Contribs) 06:24, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

I think that makes sense, which would maintain the current titles. Reywas92^Talk 06:57, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

This is how my logic runs through naming these articles for elections on legislative bodies:

• Adjective such as "Legislative", "parliamentary", "general", "federal": Singular "election". Our current practice uses singular.
• Named after the chamber such as "Senate", "House of Representatives", "General Assembly": Depends. If there is one district, singular; if there are multiple districts, plural. Our current practice uses singular, except for the United States and Philippine House of Representatives, which are plural. (You can argue that 2020 Nebraska legislative election and 2020 Nebraska Legislature elections are both correct, but the article name is at "2020 Nebraska State Legislature election", which confusingly starts as "The 2020 Nebraska State Legislature elections took place...".)

So ideally, based on this "logic", for election articles on specific legislative chambers in U.S. states, it's plural, as I don't think there are no at-large state legislative elections. The current practice though is singular, and it'll take another round of RMs to change this. Howard the Duck (talk) 14:31, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

We've discussed this before and it is something where usage just seems to vary, not necessarily always in a logical way. I'd look at what language US media and academic psephologists use. So, for example, this article begins, "Michigan Republicans retained control of the state House of Representatives after Tuesday's election" - note singular. The media talks about "the midterm elections", but that's presumably because the midterms are about both the (federal) House and Senate. Ergo, I support 2020 Michigan House of Representatives election (singular). Bondegezou (talk) 14:53, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Here's the flipside to the argument. People have long insisted that it is "Scottish Parliament election". The Scotsman's headline on this month's election was "Scottish Parliament elections 2021 LIVE: SNP win election with 64 seats - one short of majority" (emphasis mine). So, "Scottish election", "Scottish Parliament elections", "election" if unspecified, and probably "Scottish parliamentary election" (that can either mean Holyrood or Westminster elections). Howard the Duck (talk) 15:43, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Threshold for including a candidate in an infobox?

This is to invite people to participate in a discussion a Talk:2016 United States presidential election in Vermont#Should Sanders be in infobox?. It would be good to establish a consensus around a threshold for inclusion of vote recipients in US presidential elections in the article's infobox, if one doesn't already exist. Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 12:40, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I see that Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums/Archive 12#RfC on 5% threshold addresses this question. Perhaps it would be useful to make it more visible at Wikipedia:WikiProject Elections and Referendums#Related guidelines? Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 14:29, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
• Comment' In the UK at least we have largely agreed that 5% (the amount at which you saved your deposit ) is enough for a threshold. doktorb _words^deeds 15:51, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Problematic usage of template:endorsements box and its content

Looking at the articles 2021 New York City mayoral election and 2021 New York City Comptroller election, they are becoming problematic in their encyclopaedia approach and the latter was what seemed to be an over-enthusiastic use of the endorsements section, which I have removed due to some of the editing that was campaign-like. I think that there needs to be better guidance around the usage of endorsements so that it remains encyclopaedic, not campaign. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:50, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

RfC on rendering "independent" in the party fields of election infoboxes

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

A summary of the debate may be found at the bottom of the discussion.

---

The following fields are among those that automatically link to the party entered in Template:Infobox election:

• |party1=, |party2=, etc.
• |before_party=
• |after_party=

A problem arises on what to enter if the politician is independent of any party, or an "independent"—a lower-case word. One solution has been to enter [[Independent politician|Indpendent]], which renders as "Independent". The problem with this is that the capitalization renders in the same manner that party affiliation one of the many Independent Parties would render, creating the impression that the independent politician actually belongs to a party.

My solution would be to make the following entry: [[Independent politician|(independent)]], which renders as "(independent)", yet does not seem glaringly different because of the lack of capitalization or appear to be improperly without a leading capital letter.

I invite editors to weigh in on the following choices of entry in the infobox fields, mentioned above:

1. [[Independent politician|(independent)]], which renders as (independent)
2. [[Independent politician|Independent]], which renders as Independent
3. Some other solution that you suggest.

Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 13:33, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Replies

• Perhaps that's a case for square brackets? [[Independent politician|[independent]]] = [independent]. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 15:38, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
• I don't see the issue. If they are an independent politician, why can't we link to Independent Politician? doktorb _words^deeds 15:48, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
• I don't see a problem either with the existing formats. The concept of being an Independent politician is widely understood, normaly capitalised in election results (for local elections, for example). Sionk (talk) 17:32, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
• Likewise don't see the issue – the location in the infobox means it is a standalone word and therefore the capital letter is appropriate. Also, the proposed solutions shouldn't be used in the infobox anyway as we don't use wikilinks, we use meta templates, so what should really be being asked is how the {{Independent politician/meta/shortname}}/{{Independent (United States)/meta/shortname}} templates display when called. Related to this, HopsonRoad, edits like this are messing up the infobox as putting a link in the party field means the meta colour template won't work (the colour bar below Sanders that was there before has disappeared). Could you revert them please. Cheers, Number 57 18:04, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
• I don't see an issue either - the common meaning of "Independent" is "not in a party", not "in a party called the Independent Party" - at least in the United States. Elli (talk | contribs) 18:37, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
• Don't really see any issues with this. As others have stated, the term "Independent" is already widely understood as someone not belonging to a political party. Kirill.alx (talk) 19:22, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Conclusion

I thank everyone for responding. I have removed the RfC banner, upon seeing no support for my proposition. I had made some edits, consistent with my proposal, as well. I have reverted all of those that were not reverted by others. Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 19:34, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RfC on "Official portrait" caption

For many senators, presidents, and supreme court justices, the image in their infoboxes has the caption "Official portrait, x year". I have two questions regarding when to use this caption.

Question 1
How notable must a person be in order to have this caption? The consensus seems to be that house members are not included. Additionally, about 70% of senators have the caption. Why is it not every senator?

Question 2
What qualifies as an "Official portrait"? Must it be found on a government or campaign website, or taken in a specific location?

Mad Mismagius (talk) 21:32, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't think this is the right place to ask. Try WT:POLITICS. Also, it's not an RfC if you don't add the RfC template. However, your questions aren't really suitable for one – they are more discussion points. Number 57 21:36, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. Should I leave this up or remove it? Mad Mismagius (talk) 21:39, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Adding Articles on Japanese House of Representatives districts...

So I noticed that a large amount of Japanese house of representative districts don't have their own articles yet (about 1/3 to 1/2 do). So I made a kind of outline that people can use to create articles on them fairly quickly. I thought I'd post it here in case anyone wanted to help. I'm also going to post it on "Wikiproject japan".

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[RREFECTURE NAME] [NUMBER] district is a single-member constituency of the House of Representatives in the national Diet of Japan. It is located on the island of [NAME], in [PREFECTURE NAME] Prefecture. As of 2020, the district was home to [NUMBER] constituents.[1]

The district is represented by [REP NAME] of the [PARTY NAME].[2]

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Notes. You can create the article by clicking on one of the red links on the article "Results of the 2017 Japanese general election". You can find the island from the prefecture

[1] https://www.soumu.go.jp/senkyo/senkyo_s/data/meibo/meibo_R02.html, bottommost xls. Download, then go to https://translate.google.com/?sl=auto&tl=en&op=docs, put that xls in, and it will show you the number of constituents for each district.

[2] Go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2017_Japanese_general_election, find the district you are writing an article for, find the name of the WINNER (not "incumbent"). Find the first letter of the winner's last name (for example, Shinzo "A"be) Then go to https://www.shugiin.go.jp/internet/itdb_english.nsf/html/statics/member/mem_a.htm . Select the letter that corresponds with the letter you found, then control-f the winner's name. From there you can find his party.

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Obviously these are going to be stubs, but I thought it was strange that they don't even have articles yet. I would be very grateful if anyone helps me because there are over 100 of these articles still to create.Bwmdjeff (talk) 18:34, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

This is a poor idea, please don't do it. You should not make mediocre stub articles merely for the sake of having articles. Converting List of districts of the House of Representatives of Japan to a table is a better idea, perhaps with redirects for the districts that don't have one. The current members are also listed at Results of the 2017 Japanese general election. So those could certainly be improved, perhaps even to featured list status, but I'd urge against making new articles unless you actually flesh them out with more substantive historical content. Reywas92^Talk 20:20, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

I am going to get starting converting List of districts of the House of Representatives of Japan into tables then. I'll put the "This template page or section is in the process of an expansion or major restructuring" template on it too.Bwmdjeff (talk) 22:01, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

I finished turning the Hokkaido one into a table, others will followBwmdjeff (talk) 23:09, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

We've been doing something similar for Philippine legislative districts lately. The Japanese have the oldest elections this side of the ocean; if you guys have lists if all MPs in history for all districts that would be better than just listing the current ones. We have articles for individual districts in the US and UK, I don't see why Japan can't do that too. Howard the Duck (talk) 13:18, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Standard citation practice on Template:Election results

Hello, I have opened a discussion on the standard citation practice within Template:Election results at Template talk:Election results#Citation format. More input welcome, CMD (talk) 10:53, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

The 10 most-viewed, worst-quality articles according to this Wikiproject

• 37 (rank) 2021 Puducherry Legislative Assembly election 132,248 (total) 4,266 (daily) Stub (Class) Unknown (Importance)
• 61 2022 United States elections 98,779 3,186 Stub Unknown
• 70 2022 Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly election 91,846 2,962 Stub Unknown
• 71 Next Indian general election 90,925 2,933 Stub Unknown
• 85 2021 Iranian presidential election 74,931 2,417 Stub Unknown
• 114 2021 Chilean Constitutional Convention election 56,108 1,809 Stub Unknown
• 135 2020 Delhi Legislative Assembly election 50,131 1,617 Stub Unknown
• 165 2001 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election 42,991 1,386 Stub Unknown
• 193 2022 Punjab Legislative Assembly election 37,633 1,213 Stub Unknown
• 201 Georgia's 14th congressional district 36,157 1,166 Stub Unknown

Wikipedia:WikiProject Elections and Referendums/Popular pages--Coin945 (talk) 06:30, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Please don't add these unhelpful (and unlinked and unexplained) lists everywhere. We're supposed to be concerned that 2022 United States elections (wikilinked for your convenince—don't thank me) is somehow not up to snuff? The article 2022 Punjab Legislative Assembly election has been rated as a stub since its creation in January 2020, when it was a 5,000-word article. It's now at almost 89,000 words, and describes elections still more than eight months away. What is "Unknown"? on every line? What does 114 indicate? Is 2,933 good or bad?

Whatever you are hoping to achieve by posting this, uh, stuff, I don't expect it to happen. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 21:24, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Most of these articles are not bad quality. Don't know what this strange formatting is or why you wouldn't hyperlink them. This isn't really the place for this anyways. MrOinkingPig (talk) 22:58, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Inclusion guidelines for infobox for parliamentary elections

Can anyone point me to some guidelines or consensus on how parties are determined to be included in the infobox or not for parliamentary elections? I'm mostly asking this in preparation for the 2021 Japanese general election. Japan has many parties, some of which are very small and just curious which ones should be included in the infobox or not. Basil the Bat Lord (talk) 02:00, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

There are no guidelines or site-wide consensus. As it stands, it's generally decided on a case-by-case/country-by-country basis. Number 57 07:41, 21 June 2021 (UTC)