Talk:List of senators in the 41st Parliament of Canada

Separation of new senators from main table

I disagree with the removal of new senators from the main table. My main objection is that separating the new senators stops users from being able to sort all of the senators together. When they are all on one table, users can quickly look at which senators are from a given party or a given province or find all the one who left for a particular reason. Having two separate tables means that they either will have to sort both lists and add them together, or that they won't notice that there is a tiny second list and will leave Wikipedia with an incomplete list after sorting their target senators to the top. I don't see it as a problem that the names of new senators are repeated in the section about changes in membership. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 10:09, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm sympathetic to both approaches on this - at various times, I've thought both approaches to be superior. Currently, I don't know that I see the distinction "old" and "new" Senators as a critical imperative - why this distinction and not a distinction (as an example) in the main list between Senators at the start who served for the entire Parliament and those who left for whatever reason. This would seem equally significant as separating those at the start from those appointed. However, I can think of two ways that might bridge that might bridge the gap and be acceptable for everyone. The first would be to add a new list with all Senators, in addition to the current ones with those at the start, those who were appointed, those who left and those who changed affiliations. This is probably excessively redundant, but would allow for sorting all, as well as differentiating old and new. The second approach would be to have all Senators in one list, along with a new column in that table which could differentiate old and new through identifying as "Senator at start of 41st Parliament" or "Appointed during 41st Parl.", which would allow for sorting these out (though I'd argue leaving the Senate should logically be integrated as well through having "Appointed during the 41st Parl., "Retired/Resigned (as case may be) during 41st Parl." and leaving a blank for those who served throughout. Mjww88 (talk) 05:25, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I can support the addition of an extra column in a unified list in order to identify joining and leaving senators. I can think of two ways of doing that. The first way is your suggestion, although I would make it narrower by limiting the text to single words: joined, left, both, or a dash. Four symbols could work too. The other way is adding two columns named "Appointed during" and "Left during", where we give every senator's joining and leaving parliaments, thus allowing readers to sort for the number "41st". —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 20:43, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree that a single table seems to be the best solution. One option that would avoid any new columns entirely would be to italicize and colour the cells for events that happened during the 41st parliament. Or we could just place an asterisk on these events. Just throwing some ideas out there. TDL (talk) 22:00, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

The drawback I see to this is the inability to sort (unless there's something I'm unfamiliar with). Maybe it's not important, but it's something I frequently do (in fact, the reason I started editting about a year ago in the first place is because in certain lists of Senators by province, it wasn't possible to sort due to the format of the data)

Right, I figured that the text I threw out was too much, I just wanted to express what I meant clearly. I like the single terms you suggested, they're nice and simple. I would just further suggest an explanatory note below the table with a little more detail to clarify. Symbols could work, but they're not as intuitive if you don't have the key, and since the list has 105+ rows, they key wouldn't always be visible, so I prefer the single words. Regarding two columns with Parl. appointed and left, I considered this but I feel like it's redundant, since we already have date appointed and left, and they'll sort the same way. Also, I don't think it really adds anything, since all Senators in the list are associated with the 41st Parl. and Senators appointed before, and retiring after the 41st won't have anything to allow one to sort by this. Plus, it's more more thing to update when Senators leave. (I apologize if the way I'm nesting departs with convention here. I haven't participated in discussion before) Mjww88 (talk) 02:18, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

After some more thought, the problem with using one column to show both arrivals and departures during the parliament is that you wouldn't be able to perfectly sort: senators who joined and left in the same parliament would be in their own group and would not sort among the joiners or the leavers. The only ways to ensure that all joiners and leavers are sorted together are (1) to add two columns for "Parl appointed" and "Parl left", or (2) to use the existing "date appointed" and "left office" columns by colouring or adding an asterisk for dates within the 41st. I would prefer the new columns because it adds some extra information to the table and it saves readers from having to find the key to figure out what our colours or asterisks mean. I would also merge the "Parl appointed" column into the existing "appointed by" column so that we only had to add one. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 02:03, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

To summarize our options are as follows:

1. Add "Parl. joined" and "Parl. left" columns (maybe merging the former with the "appointed by" column).
   • Pros: completely sortable; adds information for every member, even though not appointed or departed during the 41st.
   • Cons: uses the most space; redundant with dates
2. Add one new column with one of four options: joined during 41st, left during 41st, both, neither.
   • Pros: uses less space; does not change existing columns
   • Cons: requires a legend; the "both" group would not be sortable with the "joined" group
3. Use colour, italics, or asterisks on the dates columns to show dates during the 41st.
   • Pros: uses no extra space; completely sortable.
   • Cons: requires a legend; would not be accessible for B&W monitors or text-based browsers (except for asterisk).
4. Keep new senators on a seperate table
   • Pros: Requires less work (especially if we want to apply this to every list of senators); some stylistic opposition
   • Cons: Impossible to sort all senators in 41st by party or province; could be misleading for readers who do not notice that there are two tables

Only options #1 and #3 are completely sortable, so I would prefer one of those. My first choice is #1 because it adds info, but I'm happy with #3. If we use #3, we should use asterisks (or asterisks along with colour) for accessibility issues. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 23:39, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Liberal senators' designation

See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Political parties and politicians in Canada#Liberal senators' designation. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 18:37, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Missing one

It appears the page is missing Fabian Manning. —maclean (talk) 21:44, 13 May 2015 (UTC)