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User script to detect unreliable sources

Main page: User:Headbomb/unreliable

I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. Some of you may already be familiar with it, given it is currently the 39th most imported script on Wikipedia. The idea is that it takes something like

  • John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14. (John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.)

and turns it into something like

It will work on a variety of links, including those from {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}} and {{doi}}.

The script is mostly based on WP:RSPSOURCES, WP:NPPSG and WP:CITEWATCH and a good dose of common sense. I'm always expanding coverage and tweaking the script's logic, so general feedback and suggestions to expand coverage to other unreliable sources are always welcomed.

Do note that this is not a script to be mindlessly used, and several caveats apply. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable.

- Headbomb {t · c · p · b}

This is a one time notice and can't be unsubscribed from. Delivered by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:02, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Ward articles

While patrolling new pages, I noticed that @Draqueeb: has been creating a large number of individual articles for UK electoral wards. I know this is all done with the best of intentions, but are we really sure that each ward should really have its own article? Consider the pages in Template:Wards_of_Fife, for example. All of the information on each page could easily fit into either Fife Council, which is now basically a shell, or the relevant article for the Fife Council election that year. It is difficult for me to see the value of having a separate article for every council ward in the UK, particularly when weighed against the administrative burden of keeping up all of these separate articles. agtx 18:38, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

This is an issue which has been discussed before. I chose the 'one ward per page' format because that's how similar results in other jurisdictions of similar magnitudes are structured, such as those in Northern Ireland. Draqueeb (talk) 22:02, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
Northern Ireland is also in the UK, so I think that's part of this discussion. It really seems like a bad idea. agtx 12:15, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
I can definitely see your point, although to be fair these entities are fairly settled outwith the end of the 5-year election cycles, it really only takes a couple of editors keeping on top of a few regions each, over the course of a few years, to make sure the information is accurate and up to date. Merging into a single article for each would be OK, although I would insist on this being in a 'Wards of Xshire' format rather than clogging up the council overview article (in Scotland at least, that's all I'm really bothered with), and for there to be redirects for every ward to make it quicker for readers searching. Best thing might be to take one of these articles to AfD for potentially wider input (some ward articles have more info than others, but none is inherently more notable than any other in each country so I'd have thought the decision for one could be used as a basis for changing all the others) - but I would ask that you maybe wait until next week at least for that, since as you are probably aware the aforementioned local elections, which in the short term will use up a lot of editors' time to keep updated, take place on Thursday 5th. Crowsus (talk) 22:42, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
I strongly think we should only have separate articles about wards which have some considerable history, or controversial/notable events. Articles simply to repeat recent election results, which are already published elsewhere in Wikipedia, should be avoided. But as Draqueeb mentions, this topic has already been discussed before and it would be interesting to knw if any consensus was reached. Sionk (talk) 21:40, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
Agree with Crowsus that redirects are appropriate and with Sionk that some ward articles might be still need to be standalone. From searching in the archives on this page, I didn't find any evidence that consensus had been reached on this issue (e.g. this discussion). I don't think that AfD is the right venue to get broader input, however. We're not really having a dispute on notability of a particular article, nor are we planning to delete articles (since there will still be redirects). It's more like a question of how this project is going to manage a whole class of article. If broader input is desirable, an RfC would be the right way to handle. agtx 21:56, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
Could we put ward information in the district articles? Many of these appear very empty and I'm not sure what purpose most of these serve when each has a corresponding local authority article anyway. It's also worth noting that we already have individual parish articles - where articles for the wards and parishes of a certain area exist, while I understand that boundaries may differ slightly, I think we need to better justify having both. FollowTheTortoise (talk) 14:12, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
There is no such thing as a district in Scotland, it's just the Council then the wards below that, plus obviously the Westminster and Holyrood constituencies which are sometimes but not always constructed on a '3 wards = 1 constituency' basis. Crowsus (talk) 21:58, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
To be fair, I'm not sure that it's as straightforward as saying that England is split into districts either. Some places have district councils, but Greater London doesn't and much of the country now has unitary authorities instead of district councils running its local government. The only other place than Wikipedia that I've seen this term used is by the ONS, in reference to lower-tier local authorities/principal councils in Great Britain, which is every local authority/principal council except county councils in England. FollowTheTortoise (talk) 09:03, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
An AfD on the Dundee wards has been started here. No relevant projects seem to have been notified unfortunately; maybe someone smarter than me could put a 'related discussions' template on, when I try to do so I always seem to mess it up. And of course, could anyone interested please contribute to the AfD. Crowsus (talk) 22:51, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
I wasn't aware of this. The AfD, beyond the legitimate concerns expressed there and echoed here, was also meant as a test case to see what the best outcome should be before dealing with other similar articles. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:10, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
I have now knocked up a few drafts using Renfrewshire as the example:
  • User:Crowsus/sandbox/Wards of Renfrewshire‎ uses the maps put together by Draqueeb, the councillor tables by Draqueeb and a few others, the brief territorial descriptions mostly added by me, and transcluded tables of results from the relevant local election pages, condensed within a collapsible table. I quite like how this looks, but I'm aware hidden content is discouraged for accessibility and/or display reasons (?), so...
  • User:Crowsus/sandbox/Wards of Renfrewshire no collapsed‎ is the same but with no collapsed content - the tables are still transcluded but now fully visible. I think most would agree this is simply too much content on a single page to be much use, it just goes on and on - although because of the way the coding works, it is actually a slightly smaller pagesize (48k v 50k) than the hidden tables version.
  • User:Crowsus/sandbox/Wards of Renfrewshire no election‎ is smaller and cleaner still - it does not display the election results at all, instead I have amended the year links in the councillor tables to point to each ward in each election (not all of these jumps work at present, particularly for 2007, if this format was accepted I would make sure they were going to the right place). This version kinda keeps the focus on the wards themselves rather than the election results, but it is no longer a single point of reference for everything to do with the ward, unlike the hidden tables version; if a reader want the results they will have to click elsewhere. I would say that even this less detailed version would appear to be too much content to add to any Xshire Council overview article and would still need its own Wards of article - Renfrewshire's 12 wards is pretty much an average total over the country, there would be smaller ones but a few quite a bit larger. Let me know what you think - I've listed the drafts on the Dundee AfD too, may be better to reply here and avoid clogging up an AfD? Crowsus (talk) 03:28, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
The third version is best. The election results are already included in the election pages, and fit more naturally there. It's worth noting that English and Welsh councils have a lot more wards than Scottish ones, and including historic wards would also significantly swell the size of the articles. There remains the possibility for the same kind of huge proliferation we've seen with ward articles, but (beneficially) contained within far fewer actual articles that are easier to track and maintain. Ralbegen (talk) 08:47, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Councils political data module

Hello all. You may occasionally see me beavering away on various articles relating to UK local elections (mainly creating maps) but I don't believe I have posted here before, despite being a member since 2014! I have been making a start on the 2023 local elections article this week and it struck me how much double-handling of local elections data there is in terms of the number of seats for each council, the political party in control etc.

For example, if I wanted to know which political party held a majority of seats on Bassetlaw District Council, I could look at several articles:

Why not create a Lua module which acts as a central repository for all council election data held on Wikipedia? A module could be invoked to call the relevant data rather than needing to update several articles when there are boundary changes/changes via elections. The module could be expanded to include historic data in time. The 'fields' I envisage being held within this module are:

  • Council name
  • Council type (e.g. county council/metropolitan borough/unitary etc.)
  • Total number of seats
  • Year of the last election
  • Number of seats held by each major party (Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Green, SNP, Plaid Cymru, Independent, Others)
    • Above for previous years.

I have some programming knowledge but I have no experience with using 'Lua' so I am not entirely sure of the technical aspects of how it would work. I have had a very quick read through the Wikipedia:Lua article and, using Bassetlaw as an example, I imagine the data would be fetched in this way:

{{#invoke:UK_Local_Councils|control|Bassetlaw}} Returns the name of the political party currently in control.

{{#invoke:UK_Local_Councils|seats|Bassetlaw}} Returns the total number of seats.

{{#invoke:UK_Local_Councils|seats|Bassetlaw|2015}} Returns the total number of seats as of the 2015 election.

{{#invoke:UK_Local_Councils|seats|Bassetlaw|Labour}} Returns the number of seats held by the Labour Party.

{{#invoke:UK_Local_Councils|seats|Bassetlaw|Labour|2015}} Returns the number of seats held by the Labour Party as of the 2015 election.

Any thoughts on whether project members would find this beneficial, and how the technical aspects of this proposal may work? Mirrorme22 (talk) 12:46, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

That sounds like an excellent idea! I also have no idea about the technical side, but would be happy to help update it, like at Political make-up of local councils in the United Kingdom (that article needs updating, but I'm waiting until other data aggregates have caught up with the most recent local elections before spending a couple of hours on it). FollowTheTortoise (talk) 13:12, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

Local elections articles formatting clean-up

I just came upon the undignified mess that was 2012 Glasgow City Council election; and I realise that probably the same kind of problem exists elsewhere. There are multiple issues:

  1. The entirely unnecessary (and sometimes bug-inducing, particularly in transclusions) {{col-begin|width=95%}} and {{col-end}};
  2. The non-standardised, probably MOS:ACCESS-failing, and occasionally irrelevant-details footnotes. These should probably be converted to use {{efn}} and {{noteslist}}; instead of having stuff like this... In addition, the text of some of the footnotes may need revising even if they are kept as is (for example, to avoid the use of abbreviations or due to other more minor style issues.
  3. Some tables are really wide (this is occasionally not helped by point no. 2; but still) and fit with difficulty on smaller screens (such as on mobile phones). A simple solution for this is to A) round off the unnecessary decimals (these do not usually affect the result in 99.9% of cases: if you find one where they do, please ping me!) to the nearest integer and B) remove the often-times unnecessary final counts.

No. 3 might be more pertinent for Scottish STV elections than for the rest, but these points and similar probably apply throughout. I'm going to address these in 2012 Glasgow City Council election, but there are probably thousands of other similar cases which make this definitively a task too large for one person. No. 1 is probably the most important (as it is an actual obvious even to non-editors problem); but work needs to be taken up on the others too. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:21, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

No. 4: Also, admittedly a more minor issue, but the Ward summary tables often have the unnecessary "Cllrs" abbreviation (when the non-abbreviated and often more consistent with the rest of the article "Seats" is a naturally better solution); as well as unnecessary line breaks (which have absolutely no effect). At least this is an easy search and replace job with a text editor (I use Notepad++; but even the default Windows notepad should be able to do this one). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:25, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
With all the issues I'm finding, it will probably be worthwhile if somebody wants to program a bot to do most of these... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:59, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
Thank you for looking at this. I fixed the {{col-begin|width=95%}} and {{col-end}} issue for the 2022 Glasgow election as it was causing big gaps in ward article transclusions - but that may not matter too much if the existing ward articles are merged together without election tables as seems to be the direction that matter is heading towards. Not sure why that 95% coding was ever included?? Crowsus (talk) 06:05, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
For good measure: no. 5 - some articles use tab characters for whitespace... and some articles have way too much whitespace (again, a bit of search and replace using your favourite text editor can probably go a long way here). Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 11:39, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Headline election results: with or without Speaker?

I've been having a look at the general election pages, and one oddity I've noted is that we have two different ways of counting the Speaker in the infobox/text/results table (thankfully none seem to have an actual disagreement...)

Between 1997 and 2019, the Speaker is counted separately from the party totals - eg in 2017, the Conservatives have 317 seats not including Bercow. In most cases there is a footnote in the infobox saying so. 1992 had no speaker standing for re-election, and then in 1987 we find the Conservative total given as 336 which appears to be including Weatherill - there is no distinct line for him. This approach seems to be the case in all prior elections as well, plus it is the one used at United Kingdom general elections overview - so the summary table there differs from the election articles.

I'm not really sure what the best approach here is, but either way it feels like the 1990s is a bit of an odd cut-off to switch from one approach to the other. Andrew Gray (talk) 15:48, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Consistency would be good: I can't see any particular change in the Speaker's role to explain the shift in style. I think the Speaker should be counted separately from the party totals. The Speaker stands as Speaker and does not vote with a party. A footnote explaining (whatever we're doing) is definitely a good thing. Bondegezou (talk) 18:28, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
@Bondegezou Sounds good - I think I'm leaning that way as well. There's definitely an argument for cutting it off at some point, but not in the past century or so. Looks like it may be a lot of work to check we don't mess up the vote totals etc as well, though, so I'll have a look at doing it cautiously when I've some free time. Andrew Gray (talk) 19:39, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

One bout of Covid later, finally had time to look into this. The Commons Library CBP-8647 report with vote totals handily gives a specific cut-off: "Speakers seeking re-election usually stood as ‘Speaker’ after 1955 but were elected as party MPs until then". However, confusingly, their data gives the Speaker as party-affiliated in some years and not others (eg Selwyn Lloyd is "other" in Feb 1974, but Con in Oct 1974). I wonder if there is some subtlety here about exactly how they stood at that particular election.

So far:

  • Everything looks OK (speaker counted separately or no speaker): 2019, 2017, 2015, 2001
  • Everything looks OK but the vote totals disagree with CBP-8647: 2010, 2005, 1995, 1992, 1983, 1959 (last two no Speaker)
  • Speaker not separated out (and usually the vote totals disagree as well): 1987, 1979, 1974a, 1974b, 1970, 1966, 1964, 1955.

Will keep poking away. Andrew Gray (talk) 20:53, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Part of the problem is that various conventions treat the Speaker as an MP for their old party (even if they've notably moved away from it - Hello Mr Bercow), including the way the Deputy Speakers are allocated between parties so that overall they don't affect the majority. (IIRC this was a consequence of the tight numbers in the 1964-66 Parliament.) However the precise majority matters more at some elections than others. The only significant change around 1997 is that it seems to have been under Boothroyd that a number of myths took hold about the role such as that mainstream opposition parties don't contest their seat, perhaps because it had been a while since the last counter case (and few had the 1987 election results by constituency to hand to check) and the Speaker started being regarded as a formal Independent.
I think the sources for the Commons report are just as confused as others. It's possible that around 1955 sitting Speakers started using the term on election addresses (ballot paper descriptions didn't come in for another decade and a half) but it's a very subtle distinction. Maybe in October 1974 the campaign in Lloyd's seat was more partisan than usual (or the hung parliament elected in February had focused minds on the point) but again it's an odd approach.
1935 may be the best cut-off. Up until then the Speaker was rarely contested (and usually when he was there were particular partisan circumstances) but from that election onwards there's always been a contest. Timrollpickering (talk) 09:56, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
@Bondegezou and Timrollpickering: I played around with a few approaches here but had trouble coming up with one I was happy to implement. The main sticking point is that in order to give actual vote counts we'd have to do a bit of original research, especially since it would need reconciling multiple different sources and then doing some arithmetic on the results. Quite minimal OR, but still, I wasn't greatly happy with it. What I've done as a stopgap is go back to 1955 and add a footnote to the seat totals in "Speaker elections" clarifying that the Speaker is included in the party count - "The seat and vote count figures for the --- given here include the Speaker of the House of Commons". Happy to change it if an alternative wording seems best. Andrew Gray (talk) 20:48, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

No Wikipedia page!

One of the top advisers to the Conservative Party, David Canzini, was profiled this morning on BBC Radio 4. The item began with the statement "He has no Wikipedia page". On the basis of the profile, this can now be remedied. There's some good background in the FT here. There's also an interesting piece in the Guardian.--Ipigott (talk) 08:53, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Max Fosh

I know some of you will remember Max Fosh, who stood in last year's London mayoral election. His article is up for deletion: see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Max Fosh (2nd nomination). Input welcome. Bondegezou (talk) 13:31, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Memoirs

The page List of British political memoirs needs work. At present it's just a long list. I'd like to arrange the authors by party allegiance. Robin S. Taylor (talk) 16:08, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Adding Partygate to Opinion polling for the next United Kingdom general election

There is a discussion at the opinion polling article that may interest members of this Wikiproject. Thank you. — Czello 10:19, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Council articles

A lot of district councils in England like South Hams District Council should probably be merged with South Hams etc per WP:UKDISTRICTS however there are a number of cases where a district has been combined with a settlement (around 40) and thus a separate council article should probably exist but none currently exists for 7 of them, these are:

If we decide to split Gosport and Worcester districts to Borough of Gosport and City of Worcester, England then the councils should probably not have separate articles but redirect to the district articles. Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:33, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Joseph Pearce

There is a discussion in progress about recent additions to Joseph Pearce. Project members are invited to visit the discussion and contribute their views. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:32, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Prime Minister in the infobox of Opposition leader

Why are the Prime Ministers listed in the infoboxes of Opposition Leaders? The Leader of the Opposition doesn't serve under the Prime Minister. GoodDay (talk) 03:10, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Results overkill

Recent UK by-elections articles, like 2022 Wakefield by-election and 2022 Tiverton and Honiton by-election, now show the same results in four different formats. This seems unnecessary. I've started a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Elections_and_Referendums#Results_overkill and input there from this Project too would be valuable. Bondegezou (talk) 21:46, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Leader of the Opposition's infobox content

Why is the 'prime minister' listed in the opposition leader's infobox content? The opposition leader isn't in the prime minister's cabinet. GoodDay (talk) 22:32, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

BoJo's status

We've got a lot of editors & ips, erroneously editing in that Johnson is no longer Prime Minister and/or Conservative party leader. He's not giving up both of those positions until October 2022. GoodDay (talk) 17:20, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

He’s still PM. I think he’s no longer leader of the Conservative Party and the position is technically vacant… but that is somewhat unclear. Bondegezou (talk) 22:11, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
”The race to replace Boris Johnson has begun, after the prime minister quit as Tory leader following a dramatic few days that saw his authority collapse.” [1] Bondegezou (talk) 06:28, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
He's still the prime minister and conservative party leader. Until the 1922 committee decides otherwise? he'll continue as party leader until his successor is chosen. GoodDay (talk) 07:01, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
Source? Bondegezou (talk) 07:04, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
If you attempt to remove his name from the Conservative Party (UK)'s infobox & his image at the Leader of the Conservative Party (UK) page & attempt to put "7 July 2022" as his departure date as party leader in his BLP infobox? Many editors will revert you. GoodDay (talk) 07:11, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
That’s a somewhat baffling answer, GoodDay. I have not made any such edits. May I ask again: can you provide a reliable source for your claim? Bondegezou (talk) 07:13, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
You got my answer. Either he's the party leader right now, or he's not. If you argue he's not? then make the edits on the related pages. GoodDay (talk) 07:15, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
You just told me that any edits would be reverted. It is therefore appropriate to discuss this is Talk space. You either have sources to support your claim or you don’t. If you can’t satisfy WP:V, I expect you will withdraw your claim. Bondegezou (talk) 07:18, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
I'll withdraw nothing. Again, you're free to make the edits to those pages, as you see fit. If you get reverted by others, that's their choice. GoodDay (talk) 07:22, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
I am also free to discuss the matter at an appropriate Project page to spare article space from any edit-warring, as I am doing. I offer some sources saying that he has resigned [2][3][4][5][6] Do any editors have reliable sources saying he remains party leader? Bondegezou (talk) 07:57, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
"Resigned" and "Ceased to be party leader" are not the same thing. Do you have any sources that confirm his tenure as leader of the conservative party has ended? SPACKlick (talk) 09:00, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
I think the most detailed discussion of what sources say is at Talk:2022_United_Kingdom_government_crisis#Did_he_actually_resign? and you may wish to continue the discussion there. I've provided various sources there. There's lots saying he's resigned as party leader. I can't see any sources saying he remains party leader or that he will cease to be party leader at some other date than yesterday (whereas sources do say he remains PM and/or that he will cease to be PM only at a later date). I think we should have wording in relevant articles saying something like "Johnson resigned as leader of the Conservative Party on 7 July 2022." I think the claim that he remains party leader today fails WP:V: that is, I can't find sourcing to support it. Bondegezou (talk) 09:16, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
He is for the moment still Prime Minister, under the caretaker PM convention, though that may change if Labour file a successful House of Commons confidence vote in the government. Technically he doesn't have to leave office, though normal parliamentary convention would have seen him do so several times over the last three years.
As for Tory party leader, it is unclear at the moment whether or not he remains party leader in lieu of the leadership election completing. Much of the internal procedures of the Tory party when it comes to leadership contests is unknown, because it has not been published in the public domain. Former party leaders have typically remained as party leader until the contest has finished, though I seem to have a vague memory of the 2003 Conservative Party leadership election being otherwise, with Iain Duncan Smith's resignation being immediate. The 1922 Committee is technically separate in its leadership from the party, so is unaffected by Boris' resignation, though it too is having its own leadership election this coming Monday (11th July). Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:01, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
Perhaps an RFC on the matter would be best. It can always be ended, the moment BoJo's status is clarified. For the moment, the Conservative Party's website has him as still being party leader. GoodDay (talk) 18:15, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
Given how long RfCs take to reach a consensus, I don't think it's a valid option in this case. A week is a long time in politics afterall, and much could still happen rapidly that would render any RfC or the consensus from it moot.
As is the case in the vast majority of articles, we're better sticking to what reliable sources say on this, even though those too can rapidly become outdated in times of political instability. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:18, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
It wouldn't have to last a month if conditions suddenly changed, thus rendering it moot. GoodDay (talk) 18:22, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
We don’t need an RFC if we can come to some agreement during normal Talk discussion. Hopefully we can do that promptly. Looking at this House of Commons Library briefing, it is clear that the Conservative Party leadership is officially vacant during a leadership election, and this was the case when May resigned and when Howard resigned. I think this is the clearest and best sourcing we’ve had. Bondegezou (talk) 14:50, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
Best we wait until the Conservative Party declares the position vacant, which (to date) it hasn't. GoodDay (talk) 16:27, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
Secondary sources trump primary sources, as per WP:PRIMARY. It is never Wikipedia policy to wait for a primary source to confirm something already covered in secondary sources. Bondegezou (talk) 17:40, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

BoJo status 2

In direct response to media speculation around Boris Johnson's status, his spokeswoman recently said that he has resigned as party leader, while remaining PM for now. This 26 July Guardian article is one of many to carry the quote: "A No 10 spokesperson said: “The prime minister has resigned as party leader and set out his intention to stand down as PM when the new leader is in place.”"

However, a handful of editors at the Boris Johnson article think that Boris Johnson's spokeswoman clarifying his status in comments reported in multiple reliable sources including the BBC, Times, Telegraph, Guardian and Sky is not reliable or specific enough! Article changes saying he has resigned as party leader were reverted. There is discussion at Talk:Boris_Johnson#Conservative_party_leader. I feel the input of additional editors there would be valuable. Bondegezou (talk) 14:17, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Endorsements in the 2022 Conservative Party leadership election

Can I encourage editors to help police Endorsements in the 2022 Conservative Party leadership election (UK) with respect to WP:ENDORSE requirements? Bondegezou (talk) 10:04, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Some of those aren't really "endorsements", last time I looked. Such articles have a habit of counting any positive comment towards a candidate as an "endorsement". I did edit the article a bit, but it probably needs pruning. TrottieTrue (talk) 17:49, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Barbara Roche

I came across the article for former Labour MP Barbara Roche. The article has, in recent months, become oddly obsessed with her views on immigration, with some NPOV wording and dodgy sourcing. I'm trying to clean it up, but some more eyes would be welcome. Bondegezou (talk) 10:45, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

I've tidied the article up. Roche has evidently become synonymous with New Labour's approach to immigration. That, I suspect, is Roche's legacy now. TrottieTrue (talk) 20:11, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Take back control

I have recently created an article on the (in)famous Brexit slogan "take back control". If anyone wishes to expand this stub, or have any improvements they would like to make to this, please go ahead! QueenofBithynia (talk) 21:53, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Death and state funeral of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani#Requested move 25 September 2022

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Death and state funeral of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani#Requested move 25 September 2022 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. UtherSRG (talk) 10:50, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

That probably was cryptic... why do we care about that? This RM involves about 50 state funeral articles, including at least one that is related to this WP. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:16, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

FAR notice

I have nominated Elizabeth II for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. John (talk) 15:02, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello,
Please note that Countries of the United Kingdom, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of the Articles for improvement. The article is scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing!
Delivered by — MusikBot talk 00:05, 17 October 2022 (UTC) on behalf of the AFI team

Request for article reclassification

October 2022 United Kingdom government crisis is a really poorly set up article, it only provides some basic information; granted, it's a new event, but the coverage could be more thorough. It's too big for WP:STUB, but I feel Start class instead of C-Class would be more appropriate. Amyipdev (talk) 16:19, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

List of life peerages (2010–present) etc.

Some IP users have removed middle names and some -shire in "Territorial qualification" (e.g. [[Nottinghamshire]] to [[Nottinghamshire|Nottingham]], [[Dunbartonshire]] to [[Dunbartonshire|Dunbarton]] but Yorkshires were unchanged) which are inconsistent with the gazette. Mike Rohsopht (talk) 00:20, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Request for comment on the contents of lists of officeholders

Please have a look at the request for comment on the contents of lists of officeholders. I hope to discuss whether list articles should contain separate tables pointing out various distinctions (still alive, oldest ever, shortest term, highest number of votes, etc). Surtsicna (talk) 20:03, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

FAR for Norman Birkett, 1st Baron Birkett

User:Buidhe has nominated Norman Birkett, 1st Baron Birkett for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:56, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

RfC: Infobox "appointer" parameter consistency

There are significant discrepancies between the "appointer" parameter of infoboxes on articles related to executive, judicial, and military offices in the United Kingdom. (e.g. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) To establish consistency between these articles, should the parameter say: appointed by...

...on advice of the Prime Minister.

– Colonestarrice (talk) 10:27, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Clarification: this RfC only addresses the offices that are appointed by the Monarch/Crown/Sovereign/King on the advice of the Prime Minister. Colonestarrice (talk) 12:30, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

I think in my personal opinion, Option D is my favorite. Any one works though, and as long as each article is consistent, I'm cool. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 04:09, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
It is not always on the recommendation of the Prime Minister. For example, for judicial appointments the relevant primary legislation, the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, provides that such appointments are made by 'Her Majesty on the recommendation of the Lord Chancellor.' I myself would favour 'the Sovereign on the advice of the relevant minister' Sbishop (talk) 11:09, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
Correct, though for offices where this is the case, let's keep things consistency. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 16:47, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
Oppose supposed consistency. They all mean the same thing and all are equally valid. It's trivial and unneccessary to insist on exactly the same wording. For what benefit? So, long as it is supported by WP:RS it can be left to local consensus. Plus, trying to impose "consistency" can lead to inaccuracy. The first link above is to Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales. According to this, the appointment is on the recommendation of the PM and the Lord Chancellor. Consistency across articles needs to add value to override the general principle of local consensus. This doesn't. DeCausa (talk) 11:04, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
The Lord Chief Justice was included erroneously, thank you for pointing that out; I've removed the office as an example. This RfC was created to establish consistency only between offices that are appointed by the Monarch/Crown/Sovereign/King on the advice of the Prime Minister; all other cases should be decided on an individual basis. And this RfC was not created to override local consensus but to serve as a general guideline for the sake of consistency. I personally don't believe that consistency is paramount but these articles are ludicrously inconsistent and this inconsistency is, at this point, a clear disservice to readers. Colonestarrice (talk) 12:03, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
Option A all of them link to monarchy of the United Kingdom and 'Monarch' is the most widely used term for the British monarchy and all other monarchies on WP. While my personal favourite is Option C, the use of 'Sovereign' beyond legal documentation is scarce. I believe it's hard to ascertain what RS say in this case; news articles conventionally refer to the monarch in gendered fashion (i.e. King/Queen), while most scholarly works use all options interchangeably, the way I see it. Colonestarrice (talk) 12:22, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
  • A - Would be the best description. GoodDay (talk) 17:55, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
Option C or D - "The Crown on advice of the Prime Minister" just feels wrong (and invokes a complex legal term which many may not understand), and Sovereign feels more proper than Monarch. But then again, "The King" does most accurately reflect the position (at present) and might make more sense to those less familiar with the term "Sovereign" or "Monarch", and I would say it is my personal preference. Estar8806 (talk) 01:44, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

I prefer option B, as it is the authority of the Crown that is being used. Maybe not for a while- but could reduce the need to change the terminology until Prince George's heir is on the throne Dbainsford (talk) 20:20, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Article assessment

I have recently created 2003 Falkirk Council election and was wondering if it could be assessed. I am new to article creation so not sure how to get it assessed, or how to get it to show up on internet search, for example. Crumbsx (talk) 14:06, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

British Conservative Party labelled as Fascist

User:Thomasz Wolffe has made a series of edits that identify the British Conservative Party as Fascist or as far-right. Some of these edits have been reverted, but I am unsure of these edits to Fascism and ideology#Contemporary fascism (2008-present), as they provide content that is relevant to the article, and is sourced. I think this contribution is unbalanced, but it may be recoverable. Should this contribution be reverted, or modified, or kept as it is? Verbcatcher (talk) 22:40, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

"Sourced" to readers' letters to the Guardian, a comment piece by a "Wee Ginger Dug", and an academic paper which is explicitly about 1918–1939 (and focuses on Conservative anti-fascism too). The only thing that comes remotely close is the Gale piece at the end mentions Rees-Mogg's 2013 speech at the Traditional Britain Group, but it also makes it clear he immediately distanced himself from them. Maybe there are some decent sources on the comparison out there: it's certainly one I've seen made frequently on social media. But the current ones are a joke. the wub "?!" 01:06, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
I agree - while the claim made is probably true, the references are very weak and largely irrelevant. It's just not particularly relevant to a discussion of fascist ideology, and the evidence of it being widely debated is much weaker than for Trumpism, in the previous sentence. Warofdreams talk 01:09, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
Thank you both. I notice that the paragraph has been deleted. Verbcatcher (talk) 05:22, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

WP:BROY has a new task force

There is a new task force which members of the WikiProject might also be interested in: WP:CIII. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 19:10, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

New article: Commons Privileges Committee investigation into Boris Johnson

Given concerns about the length of Partygate and given that the Privileges Committee investigation section therein has grown considerably, and the hearings haven't even started, I've boldly created a new article, Commons Privileges Committee investigation into Boris Johnson. I suspect this will get considerable attention over the course of the day, so some additional eyes would be welcome. Bondegezou (talk) 10:35, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Yousaf, Sturgeon, Salmond, McConnell, McLeish and Dewar governments/ministries

Hello. I don't pretend to be an expert on Scottish politics, but is there any particular reason why Scottish "administrations" are titled "[SURNAME] government" rather than "[Surname] ministry]"? Seems fitting, considering the Scottish Government was founded as the Scottish Executive, and was known as such until Salmond changed it on the sly in 2007. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 16:38, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Formatting for ministers list

Hello all. I am thinking of unifying the formatting for lists of UK cabinet ministers (in some case a template could be made like Template:Cabinet table minister) as to include necessary information for all ministers' list. Any thoughts on this would be much welcomed. Cheers. ~~ J. Dann 23:58, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

I would support that. There is a need for consistency between them. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 22:59, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Project-independent quality assessments

Quality assessments by Wikipedia editors rate articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Wikipedia:Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a |class= parameter to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.

No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.

However, if your project has decided to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass {{WPBannerMeta}} a new |QUALITY_CRITERIA=custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 20:49, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Leadership approval opinion polling for the next United Kingdom general election

The page Leadership approval opinion polling for the next United Kingdom general election is out of date and missing a lot of content in multiple respects. Every section is at least months out of date. Nicola Sturgeon's polling on this page hasn't been updated since 2021 and there is nothing for the SNP's current leader Humza Yousaf. Some other sections, such as that of the Green Party of England and Wales' current leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay haven’t had any information added at all since they became the party's co-leaders. Can someone please update this page and add missing information such as for that of the Greens etc? I'd also like to request that someone please add this request to the "open tasks" section on the main project page. Helper201 (talk) 18:33, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Ministerial by-election peer review

I have a peer review going on about the old practice of ministerial by-elections, which I hope to bring to FA. I'd like someone to have a deep copyediting cleanse (especially with making sure all citations are properly formatted) and provide feedback on the general direction of the page (I understand it's not fully cited yet, but please act as though it were). – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 01:20, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

FAR for William Wilberforce

User:Buidhe has nominated William Wilberforce for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:24, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

British cultural Marxism redirect

Need your input on where British cultural Marxism should redirect. Please discuss at Talk:Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory. Thanks! AngusW🐶🐶F (bark • sniff) 21:49, 15 May 2023 (UTC)


I've made this an RFD Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2023_May_17#British_cultural_Marxism AngusW🐶🐶F (bark • sniff) 23:46, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Discussion of county council articles at WikiProject UK geography

Hello! I've opened a discussion at WikiProject UK geography about how we write about councils when a two-tier non-metropolitan county becomes a unitary authority, specifically whether or not to have two articles or cover both councils in one (yes it is a dry subject, thank you for noticing).

I've hosted the discussion over there as the UK geography editors understand the counties quite well, but it may also be interesting to editors here. Thank you. A.D.Hope (talk) 19:50, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Converting election results box templates - help needed

I've noticed that several election results articles for Islington London Borough Council don't have the winning candidates in bold, as I believe is the standard. For example, compare 1998 Islington London Borough Council election and 2018 Islington London Borough Council election. As well as 1998, this issue is also present on 2002 Islington London Borough Council election, 2010 Islington London Borough Council election and 2014 Islington London Borough Council election. Is there a simple way to convert Template:Election box candidate with party link to Election box winning candidate with party link, so that the elected councillors show up in bold typeface? Or can it only be done manually? For example, by using "Search and replace" in the 'Edit source' mode?

TrottieTrue (talk) 22:26, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

I’ve now fixed it using "find and replace", although the Wikipedia app was a bit temperamental. TrottieTrue (talk) 21:27, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Hi all. I think we have got ourselves into a bit of a bother on the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom article recently and I want to avoid anything even like an edit war. I essentially rewrote this article a couple of years ago, but I now realise (thanks to a talk page discussion from last year) that I made some mistakes and even at one point may have violated WP:NOR. I have been trying to fix these edits recently, but @Ebonelm has been reversing my edits. I have been trying to speak to Ebonelm about this on their talk page, but they only responded once and have reversed my edits twice since then. Over concerns that my edits were not explained properly, I made sure in my third and most recent attempt at improving the article to do it in several edits so I could explain exactly what I was doing, but my edits were still reversed because of "unexplained removal of content and insertion of claims regarding Clement Atlee disputed by many reliable sources". I am not sure what I left unexplained and, as I explained on Ebonelm's talk page, the only person who seems to have disputed that Attlee was a Deputy Prime Minister was me two years ago (this is where I possibly violated WP:NOR), but I now understand that this was based on a misunderstanding that the monarch appoints Deputy Prime Ministers. Therefore, I was hoping that we could get a third opinion on this matter — the best place to speak may be on Ebonelm's talk page. I think that we both just want this article to be as accurate as possible. Thank you in advance! FollowTheTortoise (talk) 15:30, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

I should (belatedly) add that I have created a table with the 28 specific edits that I now want to make to the article and my rationale for each. It can be found here. I would be very grateful if editors could check this out and give their thoughts at some point! Thanks in advance! FollowTheTortoise (talk) 16:50, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Notification of merge discussion: Somerset Council

There is a merge discussion taking place at Talk:Somerset Council about whether to merge Somerset Council into Somerset County Council, which participants here may be interested in. A.D.Hope (talk) 11:03, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Merger discussion: Metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties

There is a discussion taking place at Talk:Metropolitan_and_non-metropolitan_counties_of_England#Merger_proposal about merging Metropolitan county and Non-metropolitan county into Metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties of England, or merging the latter into the two former articles. Please participate if you'd like. A.D.Hope (talk) 14:27, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Content assessment

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Content assessment#Proposal: Reclassification of Current & Future-Classes as time parameter, which is within the scope of this WikiProject. This WikiProject received this message because it currently uses "Current" and/or "Future" class(es). There is a proposal to split these two article "classes" into a new parameter "time", in order to standardise article-rating across Wikipedia (per RfC), while also allowing simultaneous usage of quality criteria and time for interest projects. Thanks! —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 21:06, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Credibility bot

As this is a highly active WikiProject, I would like to introduce you to Credibility bot. This is a bot that makes it easier to track source usage across articles through automated reports and alerts. We piloted this approach at Wikipedia:Vaccine safety and we want to offer it to any subject area or domain. We need your support to demonstrate demand for this toolkit. If you have a desire for this functionality, or would like to leave other feedback, please endorse the tool or comment at WP:CREDBOT. Thanks! Harej (talk) 17:54, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Edward Heath

I'm trying to build a sidebar for Edward Heath, in line with those of other prime ministers. So far most of it is copied from Thatcher's template and the contents are being replaced piece by piece. Please help.

This article is part of
a series about
Edward Heath
Secretary of State for Education and Science
Leader of the Opposition
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Policies
Appointments
Articles by ministry and term:
1979–1983
1983–1987
1987–1990
Post–prime minister
Publications

Edward Heath's signature

Robin S. Taylor (talk) 20:17, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Latest date of Next United Kingdom general election

There is a slow motion edit war at Next United Kingdom general election between editors who think the latest possible date is 24 January 2025 and those who favour 28 January 2025.

Currently the article says 24 January supported by references that say the 28th. According to Google, gov.uk sites favour the 24th by 667 to 139 for the 28th. However, most of those are local government sites and the Electoral Commission and Parliament, who you'd think would know their stuff, only have the 28th. Cavrdg (talk) 12:53, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

See SCHEDULE 1, Representation of the People Act 1983.
Latest possible dissolution day: 17 December 2024
1 18 December 2024
2 19 December 2024
3 20 December 2024
Saturday 21 December 2024
Sunday 22 December 2024
4 23 December 2024
Christmas Eve 24 December 2024
Christmas Day 25 December 2024
Bank holiday 26 December 2024
5 27 December 2024
Saturday 28 December 2024
Sunday 29 December 2024
6 30 December 2024
7 31 December 2024
Bank holiday 1 January 2025
Bank holiday (Scotland) 2 January 2025
8 3 January 2025
Saturday 4 January 2025
Sunday 5 January 2025
9 6 January 2025
10 7 January 2025
11 8 January 2025
12 9 January 2025
13 10 January 2025
Saturday 11 January 2025
Sunday 12 January 2025
14 13 January 2025
15 14 January 2025
16 15 January 2025
17 16 January 2025
18 17 January 2025
Saturday 18 January 2025
Sunday 19 January 2025
19 20 January 2025
20 21 January 2025
21 22 January 2025
22 23 January 2025
23 24 January 2025
Saturday 25 January 2025
Sunday 26 January 2025
24 27 January 2025
25 28 January 2025
Therefore the latest polling day should be 28 January 2025.--Mike Rohsopht (talk) 01:13, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:William IV#Requested move 14 September 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:William IV#Requested move 14 September 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – MaterialWorks 17:11, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Seeking feedback on Steve Hilton article

Hi editors, I am seeking opinions on this request to update a small section of the biography of British political commentator Steve Hilton about the 2020 U.S. election. Since Hilton is British, I figured there may be some editors here who are interested in reviewing the discussion. Essentially, I am asking editors to ensure the Wikipedia article faithfully represents the source material per Wikipedia:Verifiability. I have a conflict of interest, as I am here on behalf of Steve Hilton, which is why I have not edited the article directly myself. Thank you for considering. SKflo (talk) 18:06, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Edits to Baroness Joanna Shields page

My name is Laura and I work for Joanna Shields, Baroness Shields, a baron, businessperson, and former British politician. The page about her was recently tagged for COI and advert issues due to some poor edits made years ago. I posted here regarding my desire to address the substance of the tags with a re-write or heavy trims, to remove the promotional content. I was hoping you might be willing to chime in on the proposed trims and/or the suggestion for a rewrite. Let me know. Best regards.~~~~ LauTad89 (talk) 16:05, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Photos of non-notable losing candidates

Is it appropriate for pages about parliamentary by-elections to include images of non-notable losing candidates? See 2023 Tamworth by-election and many others. Availability of images seems very patchy - see 2023 Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election, where the runner-up has an article but no image. In the Tamworth case the problem is made worse by the absence of any image of the winner (I have tried: I've now emailed her constituency party to suggest that someone should upload one, to use while we wait for the official parliamentary portrait!) PamD 12:07, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes. We want more images. It would be nice to have a photo of the winner in Tamworth (and we will have that soon), but other candidates are part of the story and should be pictured too. The election is over. No harm is done by having a picture of the runner-up before we have a picture of the winner. Bondegezou (talk) 14:00, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

B-checklist in project template

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council § Determining the future of B-class checklists. This project is being notified since it is one of the 82 WikiProjects that opted-in to support B-checklists (B1-B6) in your project banner. DFlhb (talk) 11:51, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Politics and government § Why do British politicians have such long short descriptions?

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Politics and government § Why do British politicians have such long short descriptions?. — Kawnhr (talk) 23:32, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Turnout

Quick question, in elections where there are multiple winners should the total votes be divided by the number of seats to get the number of votes for turnout TheHaloVeteran2 (talk) 17:32, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

No, because people don't necessarily use all the votes they are given (e.g. in a three-seat ward, someone may only vote for two candidates). The only way to properly calculate the turnout is to get the number of valid and invalid ballot papers cast (and the number of registered voters). Number 57 17:47, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
Sorry I mean In cases where the official source give the number of spoiled ballots and the turnout percentage but not the number of registered electors TheHaloVeteran2 (talk) 18:06, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
You cannot calculate it from that set of data, so should be left blank until a reliable source for it can be found. Number 57 18:12, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

A little milestone

It might interest people to know that we now have an article on every Westminster MP since 1900, all but six since 1850, and we are only I think about fifty shy of "every MP since 1832" - out of approximately 10,300 names. Quite an impressive feat - congratulations all! Andrew Gray (talk) 21:23, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly who's been doing the legwork here, but many congratulations to them - as of today it's down to just twelve people with no article. Looks like we'll have the milestone broken well before the next election! Andrew Gray (talk) 17:47, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

SDP Liberal Alliance

quick question regarding seats that go from SDP-Liberal Alliance to Liberal Democrats should that be considered a hold or a gain TheHaloVeteran2 (talk) 16:40, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Hold MapReader (talk) 19:10, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Target seats

Next United Kingdom general election in Scotland has a list of target seats, based simply on being "constituencies which require a swing of less than 5% from the 2019 result to change hands." I tagged this as WP:OR, but Soosider3 removed the tag and added a link for the raw data used. This doesn't resolve the question of whether a list of target seats is WP:SYNTHy, or whether it can be counted under WP:CALC.

We've encountered this question before. If I recall correctly, we decided it was too WP:SYNTHy, although I may be misremembering. I note we don't have a comparable list in Next United Kingdom general election. What seats a party is actually targeting may be different from simply seats requiring a small swing. What seats a party is targeting can be based on reliable sources. So I would argue target seats should be based on sourcing and not a WP:CALC argument, but can anyone remember better than me what we agreed before? Bondegezou (talk) 14:45, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

It is a well understood convention in Political Parties that requiring a 5% or less of a swing to win a seat makes it a target seat. Many polling sites use exactly the same calculation. Soosider3 (talk) 14:56, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
If there's a reliable source doing this, great. We can cite them. Do you have one? Bondegezou (talk) 16:28, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
https://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/snp Here is one, but most polling sites do very similar 212.84.177.111 (talk) 16:42, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. I am unclear whether that meets WP:RS. What do others think? If people are happy with it, let's add it as a source to Next United Kingdom general election in Scotland. Bondegezou (talk) 09:32, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
If it is not a Reliable source there are many others that use similar yardstick, perhaps a bit of searching on your part would provide the evidence you expect others to fetch for you. Alternatively you could just create a table of all Constituencies and sort them by % majority and let readers make there own minds up, or perhaps a wee bit on each constituency showing % by major Parties. Its all good information and helpful to readers Soosider3 (talk) 10:17, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
The onus is on the editor wanting to insert the material to find a reliable source to back up their additions if challenged, so it is you that is expected to provide it. Cheers, Number 57 11:22, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
A full, sortable table of all constituencies exists at Results of the 2019 United Kingdom general election. A link to that could be added, sure. Bondegezou (talk) 11:34, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Category:Lists of marginal seats in the United Kingdom by election has lists of "target seats" for 2015-19, cited to specific sources, and "marginal seats" for 2005-10, so we apparently have felt OK with including such lists in the past. Interestingly, while the lists are purely majority-based (and make some attempt at explaining this), the 2015 one explicitly acknowledges there were different lists of "target seats" used by the parties and cites some sources for those.
I think as long as we're clear in clarifying that "target seat" is used in the widespread shorthand sense of "lowest majority seat", and can explicitly point at source(s) giving the data and labelling it in this way, it seems reasonable.
However, we could also avoid the problem by simply rephrasing it slightly - "marginal seats", "seats with lowest [notional] majorities", etc? Same net effect, but a little more explicit about what's being shown. Andrew Gray (talk) 18:05, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
I've always felt like these are original research (and removed the tables from the most recent London Assembly artice when working on it). I've not come across the category you've linked there but think those pages can be safely deleted. There are reliable news sources that discuss target seats but typically more focussed on a handful and more nuanced than sorting by majority with an arbitrary cut-off (why would targetting be at all symmetrical, in the first instance?). When the reliable sources exist it can make some sense to cover noteworthy targets in prose, but these tables really don't make sense on Wikipedia. Ralbegen (talk) 10:05, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
There is a significant amount of scientific background to the idea of target seats, stemming largely from the work of Butler and Steed from there work there developed the idea of the swing meter and from that the idea of Target seats ,sometimes called other names but in essence those seats that fall within a range of swing. This is very well established within politics and is global. Further research from Butler showed that it was very rare to find seats changing hand outwith a certain swing and that almost all of the ones that do are within a certain range of swing. It is of course not 100% accurate, there are always outliers or individual seats where local circumstances make them buck the trend. Soosider3 (talk) 12:40, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Changed constituencies

Is anyone doing anything systematic to update articles on constituencies which will have changed boundaries for the next general election. I've had a go at Morecambe and Lunesdale (UK Parliament constituency) (because I live there), but it needs a new map (I updated the map caption), and other constituencies have also altered, such as Westmorland and Lonsdale (UK Parliament constituency) (changed boundaries) and Lancaster and Wyre (UK Parliament constituency) (revived existence; mentioned in lead but not in "Boundaries" which is out of date). With parties announcing their selected candidates, Wikipedia needs to reflect the changes. PamD 12:05, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

ballotboxscotland.scot has done a pile of work on this issue for Scotland, might give you a starting place https://ballotbox.scot/category/boundary-reviews/ Soosider3 (talk) 09:59, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
@PamD, I've seen @Moondragon21, @JSboundaryman, and @Doktorbuk, do some work on this topic. Done a bit on Wales, but not too committed for now. DankJae 15:04, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
I'm on a phone, no access to a laptop any longer, so my contributions are much reduced than my "peak". If I can add new boundaries to local seats (local to me I mean) I'll try my best doktorb wordsdeeds 15:11, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
@PamD, I have just begun systematically going through all constituencies for the next general election, starting with the East Midlands region. I am either updating continuing seats, or creating new articles for new/newly named seats (if not already created), enumerating the proposed boundaries per the Parliamentary Constituencies Order 2023. This is obviously a big task, so any help is welcome. JSboundaryman (talk) 22:54, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
@JSboundaryman I'm delighted to see from your talk page that "my interest is in editing and updating articles relating the boundaries of UK parliamentary constituencies - both historic and recent changes", so that you're the enthusiast on this topic. I had a go at my local constituency, but will probably leave it at that now, happy that the project is in safe hands. I'll get back to creating articles for WP:Women in Red and falling down assorted Wikipedia rabbit-holes: parliamentary constituencies as a whole aren't my specialist subject. Good luck with updating them all as needed, and thanks for doing this necessary updating ahead of the whenever-it-happens next general election. PamD 23:57, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Opinion sought on potential original research in article

Hello. Another editor and I are in disagreement about what constitutes original research in the article on the phrase Tory scum. I believe the article is being held to standards different to other articles as it seems the other editor insists examples of the phrase come from sources that say something like, "This incident is an example of when the phrase "Tory scum" was used". The fullest the article has been, with the most examples given, was this edit. After discussion with the other editor, I suggested this more limited edit. After both, the other editor deleted the section containing examples of use of the phrase. Other opinions are sought as at the moment it's only the two of us so perhaps we're caught in ruts. The active discussion on the talk page is here. Thank you for your involvement. Woofboy (talk) 15:08, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Multiple template errors

Please see Talk:Marcus_Rashford for multiple template errors. - FlightTime (open channel) 15:36, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Scottish Green Party article update

Hello.

I've ended up embarking on a massive update of the Scottish Greens article. I started a little a few months ago with Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater's pages, but have since expanded my ambitions!

Anyway if anyone is interested in Scottish Green politics and fixing up what was a pretty poor article for a party in government, feel free to help me out. Nordrhein-Westfalen-CanlntoSpace (talk) 08:16, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

MPs - everyone since 1832 now has an article

Posted about this impending milestone a couple of months ago, but just to mark the completion - we now have every MP who was elected since the 1832 general election. I added the last twelve this week, but by far the vast majority of the work was by other people, so congratulations all!

The total comes out at approximately 10,290-10,295, depending on exactly how you count some of the edge cases. Probably will jump up past 10,500 in 2024, though... Andrew Gray (talk) 15:20, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Congratulations, and thanks for all those contributions! PamD 16:21, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Marcia Falkender, Baroness Falkender#Requested move 3 January 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Marcia Falkender, Baroness Falkender#Requested move 3 January 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 12:27, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

andrewteale.me.uk

Is andrewteale.me.uk a wp:reliable source? or does it fall foul of WP:Self published source? (Background to the question is that it is being cited at Milton Keynes City Council elections#By-elections.)

(I am inviting comment at this WikiProject, as I doubt that Wikipedia talk:reliable sources would be appropriate for something so niche. Of course it can be transferred there if anyone believes that would be preferable.) 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:39, 4 January 2024 (UTC) updated to add reason for question. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 15:04, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I would say this is an example of where an SPS "may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert". It is cited as a source by this book, referenced in this FT article and the BBC use his maps. Teale is also quoted by various sources including the Guardian and Politico. Number 57 15:33, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
Andrew uses local council websites as his citations and is perhaps the largest compendium of local council election results outside Wikipedia, and perhaps for the same reasons: no news organisation considers such detailed results worth keeping; and local council websites don't archive their pages in a consistent way. I'm someone who believes that Wikipedia can be a record if facts even if notability is questionable because to lose so much information seems a waste. Andrew is doing a great service and I think it's more than self published if he can prove that he's used official results sources himself doktorb wordsdeeds 16:20, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
I’ve not seen many citations in Teale’s summaries? Whilst anyone interested in Uk politics surely enjoys, and is impressed by, the stuff he produces, about local council by-elections in particular, that doesn’t make his blog a reliable source. And much of his content is essentially non-notable trivia that we don’t need within WP articles. WP isnt, and never was, intended as a depositary for every piece of data that someone can dredge up about anything and everything. MapReader (talk) 19:17, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
Without this information, years of hard work would be wasted. doktorb wordsdeeds 23:13, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
This is looking for a problem where none exists. This site is just about the only place I am aware of, certainly online but probably also including books etc, where election results are collated and presented in anything like a comprehensive format. Where the information is considered overly trivial then it shouldn't be added to Wikipedia, but where it has that should be challenged as an unnecessary addition, it doesn't devalue the source because the some of the information is overly detailed for inclusion here. Crowsus (talk) 00:20, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
It speaks to the glaring contradiction of Wikipedia: building a resource of information from across the world, which other websites could never do........ except these thousands of rejected pages chosen from arbitrariness. doktorb wordsdeeds 00:27, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
His blog is distinct from the Local Elections Archive Project. LEAP presents the figures as given by the local councils, whereas his blog does contain personal opinions. Alextheconservative (talk) 15:25, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
I agree with Number 57 that Teale should be considered as a subject-matter expert, at least as far as LEAP goes.  M2Ys4U (talk) 22:28, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

"Government of" articles

Hi, recently it seems an IP resurrected Government of Scotland, and called for a "Government of Wales" article at Politics of Wales (I removed their proposed split as no discussion started and nothing to be split? seems a requested article), to go alongside Governance of England and Government of Northern Ireland? All of which that are existing (so not Wales) are very short. Not fully opposed to the idea, but I have no idea what these should cover and how much it overlaps with the "Politics of" articles?

Like looking at each one that exists, it seems it is either to be on "history of government" and/or "powers and levels of government"? Still no idea. Should they be merged elsewhere or clarify their purpose in hopes of a better expansion? DankJae 00:55, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at Isla Bryson case

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Isla Bryson case#RfC on the inclusion of Isla Bryson's former name, which is within the scope of this WikiProject. This RfC is on the application of MOS:GENDERID in relation to Bryson's former name.— Preceding unsigned comment added by BilledMammal (talk • contribs) 20:54, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hillhouse (ward)

More opinions would be welcomed on the above AfD discussion on Hillhouse (ward), thanks. Crowsus (talk) 17:01, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Copyright on old portraits

A lot of articles on yesteryear British public figures use monochrome photographs by Bassano, Walter Stoneman, Walter Bird Elliot & Fry, Godfrey Argent or Lafayette. A lot of these have been uploaded (including by me) under fair use arguments but there are also several marked as public domain, according to rules which suggest a lot of the fair use uploads have actually been public domain this whole time as well. Do we have any guidance on this? Robin S. Taylor (talk) 21:19, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

With photographs by Bassano, Elliot & Fry and Lafayette, the key factor is whether they were created over 70 years ago. However, under US law, NPG copies might still be copyrighted unless over 95 years have passed since creation. This is due to the restoration of copyrights under the URAA, unless the originals were simultaneously published in the US or the NPG or another holder publishes a copy under a free license.
Regarding Walter Stoneman, Walter Bird and Godfrey Argent, all Stoneman's photographs taken before 1929 are public domain in the US. Photos taken after 1929 and before 1954 are public domain in the UK, but similar copyright considerations apply in the US for NPG-published copies. ‑‑Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 22:45, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
JJMC89 asserts that the files must all be public domain in the USA (whether or not in Britain) to be used freely, which contradicts what I've seen of the usage of other political portraits. DrKay asserts that Stoneman's photographs are not public domain until 2029 (and presumably the other artists seventy years after their respective deaths). Robin S. Taylor (talk) 19:00, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
Stoneman's photographs published prior to 1929 are in the public domain in the US, which means you can upload them locally here, but not to Wikimedia Commons, as Commons requires works to be in the public domain both in the US and in the source country. ‑‑Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 19:15, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
What do I do with those published 1929-53 which are public domain in UK but not US. I was already uploading the files locally.

Also, what particular copyright law is being applied here? It's obviously not life+70 as Stoneman, Bird and Argent were all alive more recently than that. I've seen quite a few of the NPG photographs noted as public domain because they were UK government works prior to 1957, but I'm not confident in how consistently to apply that. Robin S. Taylor (talk) 19:18, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

What I actually said. PD-unknown "can be used only when the author cannot be ascertained by reasonable enquiry." The author is known. See https://cdn.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/information-management/non-crown-copyright-flowchart.pdf. Is the author known. Yes. Is the work a photograph created before August 1989? Yes. Is the work a photograph taken before June 1957? Yes. Copyright expires 70 years after the author dies. If the photographer is not known, for example if it was created by anonymous company employee as opposed to a known individual, copyright expires 70 years after creation, etc. DrKay (talk) 19:21, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

How do I work out which photographs fall under {{PD-UKGov}}, which explicitly applies worldwide? Robin S. Taylor (talk) 19:49, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

File:Viscount & Viscountess Acheson 1946.jpgTake this image for example - it dates to 1946 and is credited to "Bassano Ltd" rather than a specific person so it should be public domain in Britain, but I've no idea when it was first published in the United States. Does this one need a fair use tag?

As for the others, I'm going to abandon my changes for now and revert to how they were before.Robin S. Taylor (talk) 21:21, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

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