Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Iowa/Government

Proposed standard for Iowa Legislator Infoboxes

Proposed Sample
Member of the Iowa Senate from the 36th 46th (2000-2002) district
Incumbent
Assumed office 2000
Preceded by	John Judge
Personal details
Political party	Republican

Original Sample
Member of the Iowa Senate from the 36th district
Incumbent
Assumed office 2002
Preceded by	Jack Holveck
Member of the Iowa Senate from the 46th district
In office 2000–2002
Preceded by	John Judge
Succeeded by	Gene Fraise
Personal details
Political party	Republican

As has been discussed here, it is pointless to show a "complete" infobox for Iowa legislators, especially since these are often made unnecessarily long by the redistricting every 10 years. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that long infoboxes exaggerate the stub-quality of most of the relevant articles. In the future this may not be a problem, but it is presently. At any rate, infoboxes are used for "at-a-glance" information, more complete information can be left in the succession boxes at the bottom of the page. This proposal is suggested to be in line with current standards for U.S. legislators, while retaining maximum clarity. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 23:28, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposed:

That where the "complete" infobox of an Iowa legislator would show multiple headers (multiple places that say "Member of the Iowa house from the nth District") for the same house in the General Assembly, and where such change in districts is the result of redistricting and not of moving from one district to another nor of a discontinuity of service in that house, the infobox should show only one "header" for the time in office, listing the original predecessor and final challenger. Examples are provided to the right. Note that this proposal would require a minor change to the template to allow the small text to appear after the word "district" on its own line, as in the section on John Major's Member of Parliament term(s).

Discussion:

Support as author. Avoids problems like at Mike Connolly (Iowa politician), while maintaining clarity. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 23:28, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

If they work in different districts, are you going to put all the Preceded by and Succeeded by people, or just the ones for their current district? Ctjf83Talk 03:22, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

The plan was to put the preceded and succeeded by people for the time in the legislative chamber (not district) if the change was the result of redistricting. If the change was the result of moving or discontinuous service, it would be treated as if it were a separate chamber. Crude, but about the best that can be done without having a lengthy infobox for long-term politicians. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 07:04, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Support. Much more concise. Psychless 23:25, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Conclusion:

Okay, seeing no objections, I'm going to figure out the code change for the template and implement these changes. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 19:34, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

The coding is  Done. You can see the code at work here. I will do the replacement in the articles shortly. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 03:10, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

New Discussion to this old subject:

I support what I see so far. An observation is — do you think a secondary line in small text with a description of either "Redistricting" or "Relocation" as the reason for change in District is needed?

I seem to remember of examples of politicians relocating to improve their chances of being elected. Also for discussion what about a politician who was formerly in that district but was voted out and now gets re–elected? I am new to wiki and this may have been addressed before.

In a related area because of this discussion I went and looked at a Swati Dandekar an article i have done some work on. To my surprise I just noticed the double shaded title boxes for the first time (I may not be as observant as some) but then noticed what I see as a confusing point. Possibly the word "Former" should be placed in front of the "Member of" for previous elected positions.RifeIdeas Talk 16:48, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Vote count formats in articles

It would be nice to have a fixed standard for how we handle vote counts in articles. So far, there are three formats in play.

The one I used at first. This is what is in most articles. (Example from Matt McCoy (Iowa politician).)

McCoy was last re-elected in 2006 with 13,276 votes (66%), defeating Republican opponent Nicholas G. van Patten.

The second uses the "election box inline no change" templates and is used only in a few articles - at one point I was starting to change the articles over to this, before RL overtook me. (Example from David Hartsuch.) This edit was actually added by Ctjf83.

Year	Party		Incumbent	Status	Party		Candidate	Votes	%
2008		Democratic	Bruce Braley	re-elected		Democratic	Bruce Braley	178,229	64%
						Republican	David Hartsuch	99,447	35%

The third is the one RifeIdeas is putting in articles to reflect the 2010 elections. (Example from Tom Schueller.)

2010 Iowa House of Representatives District 25 General Election Unofficial Iowa Election Results

Tom Schueller (D) (5324 votes) (49.31%)

Brian Moore (R) (5473 votes) (50.69%)

write in (0 votes) (0.0%)

Which one should we use throughout the articles? --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 14:49, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I'll go ahead and give my view - I think the second one should be used - it gives a clear at-a-glance view of the election and can be easily expanded to include past elections without compromising readability so much as the text-based versions would. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 16:12, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I think it is important to show the succession of the election cycles and being a new editor I started with the basics here is an example of mine Swati Dandekar but I can see it is getting lengthy as in Chuck Grassley#electoral history. As I just learned how to do expandable boxes I plan to go back and redo the lengthy histories with one similar to Tom Harkin#Electoral history. Although I plan on using a separate expandable box for each year with the header in the box showing only year, election type and won or loss, drop-down would include who ran and and vote count. I also plan to go back and use expandable boxes for Committee appointments as they are getting lengthy also, possibly a combination.

For full clarity look at page Tom Schueller the example Philosopher used above. I just entered the 2010 election results as they were very close and also the header Electoral History. All of these politician stubs I have looked at were started after the 2006 election (example Polly Bukta) and then not updated. A point to be made the committee assignments have no date posted and are therefore out dated and not factual.

As for the second example I like the color but if I understand it correctly and you have multiple election cycles it grows lengthy. My vote is for expandable boxes possibly some kind of standardized system and colors.RifeIdeas Talk 17:30, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

What about using the second example, but putting it inside a collapsable box? --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} via alternate account 21:25, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

(off topic)The problem with the committee assignments is that they change frequently throughout the year, sometimes several times throughout the year, and often without any press release or dates on the official sites. It is, therefore, impossible to have a complete list unless you are willing to read the minutes of each day's legislative session - which is why I had only listed the current assignments or (for those no longer in office) the last assignments they held. If you are going to do a "per term" one, that's feasible too, I suppose - but it should clarify if they are the committee seats held at the beginning or at the end of the term. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} via alternate account 21:25, 12 November 2010 (UTC)