Talk:2006 Victorian state election

Article created

Started this article as a skeleton for the upcoming Victorian State Election, based on a similar article for the New South Wales legislative election, 2007. Peter C Talk! 12:24, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Title?

In Australia, isn't "legislative election" a tautology? Wouldn't Victorian state election, 2006 suffice? Artemus Jones 10:21, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

The naming is in line with the vast majority of Australian federal and state elections, so it has become a defacto convention. Now this article has been redirected to a name that no longer fits with this, which I am not sure is a good thing. Peter C Talk! 04:33, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Someone redirected this article to 2006 Victorian state election but this is inconsistent with all other Australian elections so I have put it back. -- Barrylb 12:47, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the first comment. No where in the media or among politicians do you hear "legislative election", it's either "state election" or "federal election". Considering an encyclopedia is all about ease of understanding, doesn't "state election" sum it up and is what most people will understand. I think the heading should be "Victorian state election, 2006". I don't think uniformity with past articles should trump calling a spade a spade.

Can you please sign your postings on talk pages by adding for tildes (4 x ~)at the end of them? Peter C Talk! 07:17, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Marginal seats

The new table of seats looks snazzy, but I don't think their updated status is accurate. I don't think that seats with greater than a 3% swing can really be regarded as marginal - e.g. Albert Park and Benambra. What do other people think about this? Peter C Talk! 06:32, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah the table looks great. What do you mean by "updated status"? I guess marginal status is an arbitrary concept. Some people think it's as high as five per cent. Artemus Jones 09:46, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Article length

This article is already very long, and the election is still 6 months. It needs to contain less detail, particularly in the Campaign section. JPD (talk) 13:21, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I've been trying to remove things that don't realy need to be there. But I don't know enough to cut down the rest. Xtra 13:27, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I think we should keep the electoral maps in the main article, and shift the full district list to the results article. This seemed to work OK for the Tasmanian legislative election, 2006. I think the campaign section is key to the article - and is the main area of interest - other than the outcome.Peter C Talk! 13:52, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

The full district list definitely doesn't need to be there. I don't quite see the need for big maps, either. The polls look like taking up too much space, too. Either some should be left out, or they should be presented in graphical form. The Campaign section is of course the most important part, but there's another 6 months worth of campaigning to go in there, so the current level of detail is probably too much. We must remember that Wikipedia isn't meant to be a news service. The article is already 47kB - a lot bigger than recommended. JPD (talk) 15:38, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

47kb is fine for an article in this day and age - you'd struggle to get an article featured that wasn't pushing that length. The full district list gives important information, and makes no sense being split out until at least after the election. The campaign section can be successively rewritten as new events happen - it's fantastic to have such a good section so far out from the election. This is one of the best election articles I've ever seen, and I really must object to tearing it to pieces on length grounds. Ambi 01:32, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd have no problem with the length if it were the finshed article after the elction, but at the moment it is so filled with small details that it doesn't read well. The fact that it's better than other articles isn't a reason not to improve it. The district list is definitely important information, but until there are results in it, all the information in it should probably already be somewhere like Electoral districts of Victoria. The current table doesn't have adequate space for the results, either, so it's going to have to change at some point. JPD (talk) 09:03, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Small details to you. Pre-election articles are always full of this sort of stuff, precisely because it's relevant. The district list shows the margins needed to win the seat, which is the most pertinent information before the election, and this can be switched to a candidates list when that information starts to come out. There really is no excuse for taking an axe to a perfectly good article. Ambi 09:12, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't want to take an axe to anything - I just find the information not particularly accessible in its current format, and think it could be improved. You can ignore my thoughts - I'm not that bothered. I guess it's sort of inevitable that articles on current events end up like this. JPD (talk) 09:38, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Reaching consensus on the district table

I think the district table should stay because, as Ambi points out, it's the very basis of the election. However, I agree that the list will become redundant if there is no space for updating results. I have a few suggestions to counter this:

• Keep the 55th assembly list as a matter of record. Plus it shows which districts belong to which new upper house regions.
• Post detailed results on Xtra's results article.
• When the time comes, include in this article a table outlining seats which have changed hands or that are tightly fought, that is, those really affecting the outcome. No one needs to read in the main article who won a seat by a 25 per cent margin. Stuff like that can go into the detailed results page. Artemus Jones 05:22, 4 May 2006 (UTC)