Talk:2014 United States Senate election in Louisiana

References section has error

One of the references for the article has a print and retrieve date of May 4, which is clearly wrong since Easter/April Fools' Day/Earth Day haven't even gotten here yet.

--184.6.222.14 (talk) 21:42, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Changes

Brandon McMorris lacks a reliable third party news source confirming his candidacy. Until and unless one is found that mentions his candidacy, he should not be included. Also, third parties are not included in the infobox until they're polling at 5%. Furthermore, comments like "Note that these polls were conducted using only select candidates from the Democratic Party and Republican Party. Other eligible candidates were omitted from the polling questions." are not encyclopedic. People can tell for themselves which parties are included and which aren't. Finally, the polling errors. PPP did not poll Landieu/Cassidy/Maness twice, they polled Landieu/Cassidy/Maness and Landieu/Cassidy/Guillory/Maness; and separating the polls for the jungle primary is not helpful. Thank you, Tiller54 (talk) 10:39, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Include all candidates in infobox

To select some candidates and exclude others from the prominent infobox is POV. To try to select candidates to include in the infobox based on perceived popularity or notoriety is unfair and contentious, and manifests a bias toward establishment candidates. I edited the page to include all candidates in the infobox and the edit was reverted. I will put all the candidates back in unless there is a good reason not to based on WP principles. Sparkie82 (t•c) 17:22, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

It's our general standard practice to only go with "serious" candidates, with that usually being defined as polling at ≥5%. None of those candidates you added to the infobox have their own Wikipedia articles, and further suggests they lack sufficient notability. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:28, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Notability is only required for new articles, not inclusion within an article. What WP guideline are you citing? Sparkie82 (t•c) 17:32, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

It might be more neutral to not put any GOP candidate in the infobox, and instead say "pending primary," or "undetermined." Otherwise, it looks like Wikipedia has decided who will win, when in fact it's unknown at this point. FYI, Maness is polling at 8% and Hollis at 5%, according to this [1]. Champaign Supernova (talk) 18:02, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Hollis has withdrawn, hence his non-inclusion in the infobox. None of the other candidates have even been polled and Muboshgu is correct, we only include candidates in the infobox if they're polling at or over 5%. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tiller54 (talk • contribs)

I scanned through the WP guidelines and there doesn't appear to be a precedent or guideline for this case. WP:LISTN says,

"Because the group or set is notable, the individual items in the list do not need to be independently notable, although editors may, at their discretion, choose to limit large lists by only including entries for independently notable items or those with Wikipedia articles."

Nine names cannot be regarded as a large list so there is no reason to try to pare it down, especially in this context of an election which can be very contentious. I think the problem here is that the infobox in not formatted properly, which makes it look bulky. I'll try to work with it to see if there is a way to make it more aesthetic. Sparkie82 (t•c) 18:49, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

I reformatted the infobox. The template was configured for a presidential election instead of a legislative election. I also got rid of the distracting placeholder images and removed the redlinks. Sparkie82 (t•c) 19:18, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

There is no WP guideline, but it's my understanding that it's a WP:Elections and/or WP:Politics guideline. Anyway, I wholly oppose the infobox inclusion of Wayne Ables, Raymond Brown, Thomas Clements, Brannon Lee McMorris, Vallian Senegal, and William P. Waymire Jr. To put them on equal footing of Landrieu, Cassidy, and Maness is intellectual dishonesty. Besides, LISTN has no place here. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:31, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

There is no consensus for listing every single candidate with ballot access to the infobox, either here or in the project as a whole. Tiller54 (talk) 19:38, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Tiller, if there is no consensus, then please don't say that there is in your edit summaries. Mubo, WP:Elections has nothing to do with this, it's a guideline for administrating Wikipedia, not a content guideline, and there is no "Politics guideline". To say that you favor including or excluding a particular candidate is not a valid reason. If there is some reason other than your opinion, then please let us know, otherwise, WP precedent and established guidelines, or objective reasons derivative of those should be followed.

Also, if you look at the examples at Template:Infobox election you'll see that it should be formatted as I had it. Sparkie82 (t•c) 20:05, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Per WP:BRD, it should stay as it is until consensus changes. It is absolutely consensus not to add every Tom, Dick and Harry to the infobox, on this page and every other. The inclusion of people like this or this is silly. It violates common sense. As a compromise, I'd be okay with including nobody, since we won't know who the final two candidates are until the jungle primary. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:32, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

All the candidates are listed in the article anyway, and it's a short article, so the infobox really only serves as a visual element here, so I'm okay with removing it. There's a navbox under it that can serve as a visual element on the page. (And really, the navbox should be up near the top anyway for UI reasons.) So you can remove the infobox. Sparkie82 (t•c) 21:19, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

No-one's proposing "removing the infobox", which will absolutely not happen. I don't know what you mean by "UI reasons", but the "Elections in Louisiana" template beneath it is in the appropriate place. And to correct Muboshgu, there might not be two "final candidates". If someone clears 50% of the vote in November, there won't be a runoff in December. Tiller54 (talk) 23:33, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Tiller, we just had a proposal from Mubo to "including nobody" as a compromise. I agreed. So what is your proposal to reach a consensus? How can we fix it so that it doesn't favor any particular candidate or candidates? Sparkie82 (t•c) 00:37, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

The infobox as it is does not favour any particular candidates. In the latest poll of the jungle primary, Landrieu and Cassidy are in the 30s and Maness is at 10%. Clements and McMorris are at 2% and 1%, respectively, and Ables, Brown, Senegal and Waymire weren't even included in the poll. You mentioned WP:POV, which states that "significant" views are represented "fairly [and] proportionately". Thus, including candidates in the infobox who are at 1% or 2% or not even included in polling questions would violate that policy. Furthermore, WP:WEIGHT states that "avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of, or as detailed, a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects." Thus, including Clements, McMorris, Ables, Brown, Senegal and Waymire in the infobox would give them "prominence of placement" which they do not deserve. Tiller54 (talk) 20:19, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I think I understand your point about giving proportional weight to the various viewpoints. Widely held viewpoints should have more prominence in an article. The question here is, "What is a viewpoint?" There is no doubt that the reason that some of the lower polling candidates are so unpopular is because of their views, and those views should be given less prominence in the article. However, the list of candidates is a statement about who is running for office, not their views or popularity. If there is disagreement among sources as to who is running and who is not, and most reliable sources say that the only candidates are A, B and C, while a small minority of less reliable sources say that the candidates are A, B, and D; then due weight should be given to the majority of reliable sources. But in this case, I don't think there is any disagreement about who is running for office and the most reliable source for the list of candidates is the published list from the State of Louisiana. If there are a majority of reliable sources that say that a certain candidate is not, in fact, running for office, then they that candidate could be given less prominence in a list of candidates, otherwise, a list that says, "These are the candidates that are running for office," should list all the candidates running for the office. Other facts about the candidates, such as their viewpoints and popularity, can be given due weight within the sections of the article that present those aspects of the election. Sparkie82 (t•c) 14:51, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

You appear to have misunderstood. There is no disagreement about who's running for office. Every candidate who is on the ballot is listed in the article. What they don't all get is prominence of placement in the infobox, because they do not all have equal notability or viability and to give them such placement would violate WP:WEIGHT. Tiller54 (talk) 12:53, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

WP:Notability is a guideline to determine whether a person should have an article about them, not a guideline for content within an article, so it does not apply here. WP:WEIGHT does not apply either because it is a guideline on how to handle different viewpoints in an article. A candidate is a person, and person is not viewpoint. In this respect, a list of persons is no different than a list of items in any other list -- if there is a reliable and verifiable source that says the item is indeed a member of the set of things described by the list, then it is listed.

In all this discussion here, and in a similar discussion at Talk:Rhode Island gubernatorial election, 2014, I have not heard a single, policy-based reason not to include all the candidates in the list-of-candidates infobox. Sparkie82 (t•c) 18:56, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

As I said on this page, the issue is not WP:NOTABILITY but WP:WEIGHT. You are mischaracterizing WP:WEIGHT and the article as well. A list of every candidate who is currently running, was running but withdrew, and who declined to run is included in the article. What we don't do is attempt to give equal validity to all candidates running because to do so would violate WP:WEIGHT. People who not only don't have a wikipedia article on them, but don't turn up any results when you search for them, and aren't even included in opinion polls are clearly are not having the impact on the race that would justify their inclusion in the infobox. Tiller54 (talk) 21:42, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

WP:WEIGHT is all about viewpoints. Candidates are not viewpoints. WP:WEIGHT does not apply to what we are discussing. Sparkie82 (t•c) 00:53, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Weight is about determining what information to include and to what length. As such, it most definitely applies. --Ronz (talk) 15:59, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Exactly. Besides, candidates have viewpoints. And if the Supreme Court can rule that corporations are people, we can rule that viewpoints are candidates. Like this guy. Tiller54 (talk) 16:42, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

WP:WEIGHT is clear. It does not encompass facts, only views. The list of candidates on the ballot is a fact. There is no reason not to state that fact correctly. Sparkie82 (t•c) 23:57, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

The article includes the full list of candidates. Tiller54 (talk) 12:53, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

"It does not encompass facts, only views." Howso? --Ronz (talk) 16:58, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

That was wrong. What I meant to say was that WP:WEIGHT does not apply to candidates because candidates are not viewspoints. A candidate is a person, simply a noun; like a rock or a or tree. A view has to have a verb: e.g., "The tree is deciduous." or "Copper is an element." A list of the elements would include copper because there are verifiable sources that say that copper is an element. The list would also include rhenium, even though rhenium is very rare and relatively unknown (unpopular) compared to copper, and there are much fewer sources about rhenium. But there is no disagreement that rhenium is an element and should be included in the list of elements. However, a discussion about the elements, how they are used, etc., might give more weight to copper because there is more to say about it, but a list of the elements would not leave some elements off the list simply because there was less to say about them or because they are less well known. Sparkie82 (t•c) 19:56, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

I have been searching for previous discussions about this issue and finally found a discussion about a previous U.S. presidential race here here. Most of the various arguments made there were not very closely tied to WP policy or guidelines, however, they did determine that using an arbitrary criterion for inclusion in the list, like popularity, was inappropriate. The consensus was to include candidates who had any mathematical possibility of winning, irrespective of their popularity. Probability was not the issue, but possibility was. The only question was whether or not a candidate was on the ballot. In the case of a presidential election, it comes down to whether or not they are on the ballot in enough states so as to have a mathematical possibility of being elected. In the case of a senatorial election, a candidate would need to be on the ballot in enough counties to have a mathematical possibility to get elected. Sparkie82 (t•c) 19:56, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

(There was an earlier mediation on the issue during the 2008 campaign, however it was less productive.) Sparkie82 (t•c) 20:39, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for finding that discussion. Basing the inclusion criteria based upon county ballots might work when those ballots are available. Are they available? --Ronz (talk) 16:36, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

"On the ballot" is not a literal phrase. It doesn't mean that a name is physically printed on a paper ballot. It means that a candidate has qualified to appear on whatever device is used to present the choice of candidates to the electorate. The criterion here is: is there a mathematical possibility of being elected? If a reliable, verifiable source or sources say that someone is a candidate qualified candidate, and there is a mathematical possibility of being elected, then the candidate is listed in the infobox. Sparkie82 (t•c) 21:25, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I should have been more clear. Is the information easily available to us? When are they available? --Ronz (talk) 16:20, 26 September 2014 (UTC)