Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums

RFC - Infoboxes and Third Parties BEFORE an election

The following discussion 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.

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In 2017, there was an excellently-formatted and discussed RFC regarding the 5% threshold for inclusion in Election infoboxes. (Follow the link provided to find the discussion in the archives). That RFC did not ask two important questions regarding third parties. I will present them in separate RFCs. They are intended to supplement, not change, the prior result. The questions arose at the talk page for the 2018 Special election for PA congressional district 18. UPDATE - This is a USA-focused question... I don't know anything about elections elsewhere, maybe this is relevant to some, maybe not. Apologies for not making that explicit when I first posted.

Question

Before the election takes place, may third party candidates who make the ballot be included in an election infobox?

Options - Yes or No or (invent a new one then explain in the discussion section)

Prior discussion - The prior RFC applied to election results but did not ask about the time before the election. I have seen some commenters argue for extending the 5% threshold to polling data, while others assert it is a violation of WP:NPOV to exclude any names that make the ballot. I may have overlooked other perspectives from the prior discussions in this susmmary.

Survey and discussion

• Yes Before an election omitting names that make a ballot violates our WP:NPOV because it gives the appearance we're taking the sides of the major party players and shuttling third party players off into foolish obscurity with Don Quixote. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:55, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
• Yes However, I would say this RfC has a distinct American POV as it appears to assume there are only two main candidates/parties to start with. It's also unclear whether this is referring to single-position elections (e.g. a presidency or single seat in a legislature) or legislative elections with numerous seats up for grabs. In cases of single-candidate elections, I would say that all candidates should be included in the infobox and not doing so would be an NPOV violation (Wikipedia could be deemed to be reinforcing the idea that there are only a limited number of candidates). If the number of candidates exceeds the capacity of the infobox (currently 9), then the infobox should be left empty and the list of candidates set out somewhere else in the article. In cases of legislative elections for numerous seats, all parties currently holding seats should be included in the infobox. Number 57 13:17, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

As the RFC creator, Number 57 is quite correct that I was unconsciously thinking only about US politics. My apologies. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:21, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

• I agree that the infobox should include all parties that are standing candidates unless the limit of 9 is hit, in which case leave it empty. Order the parties based on the order they finished in previously. Some exceptions can be made, for example if the district was previously uncontested or not contested by a major party. In that case, try to find another recent election that can give some idea on the relative prominence of the parties. Otherwise, just order them alphabetically. Anywikiuser (talk) 13:40, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I think alphabetical order would be better in all cases, otherwise we may be subtly reinforcing the order of candidates. Number 57 13:57, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
    • I'd argue it's better to have them ordered by past result. It gives some standing on what the parties are defending. That's an obvious benefit for parliamentary/legislative elections, where the pre-election infobox explains how many seats the parties have prior to the election. For single candidate elections (i.e. presidential, by-elections, etc.) this is a little less important, but you might as well keep the policy consistent. Anywikiuser (talk) 15:50, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
• Yes per the reasoning above. Include all ballot-qualified candidates in the infobox prior to the election to maintain a neutral POV.--TM 15:08, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
• No This would result in election inboxes with a half dozen or more candidates. Aside from being useless information, this would also make reading the article on mobile more difficult. In extreme cases this could be worse - in California's 2002 recall election, there were 135 ballot-qualified candidates. To pretend all of these candidates have a chance of winning is not something any reliable encyclopedia should do A more rational explanation would be to always include both major parties, and also include any parties or candidates that are polling above 5% in at least one poll or who received at least 5% of the vote in the last election. Getting 5% in a poll is a very, very low threshold to meet and any candidate that is notable should be able to do this. Toa Nidhiki05 16:29, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I support this approach. Anywikiuser (talk) 16:56, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Oppose this approach because we could be contributing to low poll numbers by not treating all ballot-qualified candidates the same. That's a violation of our neutrality policy. We agree we need to at least think about this if the candidacy is "notable". Ballot qualification will always result in RSs noting ballot qualification, so that test will be met for everyone who makes the ballot, presumably. After that, people have to form opinions before they answer polls. Some of those people read Wikipedia to form those opinions. If we're treating third party blokes as silly dreamers, naturally many readers will as well. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:10, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose global approach As admitted above, there is a strong US bias in this question. In most democracies "third party candidates who make the ballot" is a meaningless concept. Either they're nominated candidates and thus on the ballot paper or they're not candidates at all - there's none of this "standing but not appearing on the ballot paper" and often the concept of party is formally alien to the process. In many countries it's extremely easy to get on the ballot paper - to take the highest hurdle here in the UK for Mayor of London a candidate needs ten signatures from each of the 32 boroughs plus the City of London and a deposit of £10,000. The last election had twelve successfully nominated candidates. It's also incredibly easy to register as a party here - all you need is a single friend to meet the minimum number of different people holding key posts, a quick constitution and a registration fee. Timrollpickering 16:42, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
• No (1) Can NewsAndEventsGuy clarify whether this discussion is specifically for US elections or more broadly? I think some consistency between countries is good, but I also appreciate that political and electoral systems vary and so may need to be represented differently. (2) On the broader question, we need to be aware of the consequences of any decisions. An infobox is meant to be a summary of the article (WP:INFOBOX): it shouldn't be trying to be a complete description. Election articles already end up with overly large infoboxes, which is against editing guidelines. If listing lots of candidates or parties (as is certainly sometimes appropriate), we should be looking at more compact infobox designs (e.g. Template:Infobox legislative election). (3) If people are concerned about WP:NPOV and fairly listing all candidates, then I would suggest that is the function of the article contents, not the infobox. We need more focus on article prose for election articles and less discussion of infoboxes! There may be times when we should go for a minimal infobox or no infobox and let the article content speak for itself. Many articles for forthcoming elections are quite short and an infobox is unnecessary. (4) As the infobox is a summary, my conclusion from that is that it does not have to list every candidate (although the article proper will) and it is acceptable for the infobox to reflect reliable sources in focusing on the main candidates. We do not violate WP:NPOV if RS say that X and Y are the main candidates in an election and give less attention to candidates W and Z. Admittedly, sometimes this is unclear so the rule-of-thumb used on UK election articles works well (list candidates based on results at previous election and whoever got >5%), although I think exceptions should be made if reliable sources or polls etc. are all talking about a new party or candidate (e.g. as with Marcron and French presidential election, 2017). Bondegezou (talk) 09:54, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

RE 1, yes it is a US focused question. I have updated the preesntation of the question at the top of this post. Thanks to you and others who called me out on my unconscious US centrism in this RFC. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 09:59, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying, NewsAndEventsGuy. Bondegezou (talk) 17:09, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

• It depends, though my view is that (1) if a third party received at least 5% in the previous election, then it should be included within the infobox, and (2) if a candidate is polling at least 5%, then they should be included within the infobox, and (3) a case-by-case determination of exceptions where third-party or independent performance might be significant or there exists significant press coverage (in the absence of a previously contested election to compare to or public polling) – a type of standard that would have been appropriate in, say, AK-Sen 2016 or gubernatorial races in Maine. I don't view the exclusion of candidates from the infobox as a NPOV violation – it's a simple standard to prevent excessive listing of minor candidates, especially when there are many who file. Mélencron (talk) 13:11, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
• It depends Unlike results, polling is uncertain and highly variable over time. If some polls give a candidate less than 5%, and some give them more, how do try to determine an average? That is complex calculation that relies on separating polls by their quality and how recently they were taken. If we just accept their highest results, then we have to ask which polls are considered reliable, and which aren't, since there are a lot of low-quality polls that get produced, and many outliers over the course of an election. If by the method we choose, a candidate is at the cusp of 5%, then it's possible that week-to-week their numbers will shift from above the threshold to below the threshold. Also, for some races polls treat minor candidates differently than major candidates, with two-tiered questions, in order to get better head-to-head results. Additionally, coverage of a candidate in reliable sources may be disproportionate to their rating in polls. All of these problems make it difficult to rely on polling for a hard rule to determine when to include candidates in the infobox. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 17:25, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
• Yes But only before an election, based on maintaining WP:NPOV. Wikipedia takes on two roles here, as a news source and as an archivist. When providing information for a current event, neutrality should trump succinctness. But once the election is over, there should be a greater concern for eliminating clutter. While you could characterize this as US-focused, I would think it is more accurate to characterize this as an issue associated with dominant two-party systems. When there are unusually large obstacles to getting a third party on the ballot, the fact of achieving ballot status is significant and deserves consideration. By the same reasoning, California's 2002 Gubernatorial recall election would not deserve the same treatment, because there were few restrictions on gaining ballot access. I don't know if it matters for this vote, but I see a different situation for the second question (see below) altjira (talk) 17:06, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
• No Only if the third-party candidate is consistently polling more than 5% or is otherwise considered a major candidate affecting the state of the race in the media (such as news coverage of the campaign and participation in debates). There is no reason to have a three or a dozen or so candidates in the infobox just because they are on the ballot. Neutrality is not representing them all equally, it is recognizing the facts that many races only have two serious candidates and reflecting the reality of the election and campaign. Choosing to put no one in the infobox would violate neutrality as it refuses to follow RS coverage of who is actually contesting the election. Reywas92^Talk 23:25, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
• Yes How can you say one party is more serious than the other? This is kind of judgmental in terms of how much media attention someone gets or financial backing. How could one construe eligibility on the basis of conventional irrational past behaviour? Dael4 (talk) 11:44, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
• Unarchived to request closure at WP:ANRFC. There is a related discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Candidates in Infoboxes on upcoming election articles. Cunard (talk) 06:43, 16 August 2018 (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.

Candidates order for upcoming election in Pakistan

The project members opinion is requested at Talk:NA-1 (Chitral)#Candidate order regarding how to order the candidates for 2018 election based on previous party performance or previous individual candidate performance in case of changing party affiliation. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 19:00, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Choice of infobox on articles about constituencies

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see this discussion and follow-up RfC concerning the relative merits of {{infobox constituency}} and {{infobox settlement}}. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:15, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Indian general election by state

There is a discussion on the state sub-articles for on the Indian general election, 2019 taking place here. Input is welcome as it may prejudice other similar articles. Number 57 11:09, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Discussion participation requested

Project members participation is requested here, I need neutral editors who are not coming from Pakistan to maintain NPOV as if we left this content to the mercy of editors only coming from Pakistan then this content will either be completely censored or coatracked. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 17:58, 29 July 2018 (UTC)