Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Parliament constituencies/Archive 6

Unopposed elections

Where constitencies are quite ancient, if we have a table giving the result of very election, the articles will become very long. Might I suggest that we add a further column to the MP lists to indicate that an election was unopposed, and if it was that election should omitted from the election results section, which would prosumably become "Contested elections". Comments? Peterkingiron (talk) 21:19, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I can see the attraction of the suggested approach, but it has the disadvantage of breaking up the continuity of the results. A reader, who is interested in following the results in a constituency over a period, would have to consult two parts of the article to find out what happened. The MP list would also become more complicated, as you would have to indicate each individual unopposed return. That could be a problem. There were some constituencies with a long sequence of unopposed returns (particularly before 1832). A post 1832 constituency with one or two MPs, who held a lot of different offices over their career, might also have numerous unopposed re-elections to record. A further objection is that an unopposed result might include more information than just the fact of the unopposed return. F.W.S. Craig does give registered electorate figures for many unopposed elections, in his 1832-1885 results book.

On balance I would leave things as they are. --Gary J (talk) 10:30, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Also in the era when polling was open and over several days a number of elections were determined by candidates seeing the writing on the wall and dropping out, resulting in an unopposed return at the end. This info cannot be easily conveyed by table. Timrollpickering (talk) 13:23, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Also take a look at Ceredigion County Council election, 2008 for the mess where unopposed returns are presented as single candidate zero-turnout polls. Can someone have a go at tidying them? Timrollpickering (talk) 16:02, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

English Democrats Named Lead Candidates - European Union Elections 2009

1 East England - 1 Robin Tilbrook 2 South East England - 1 Steve Uncles, 2 David Knight, 3 Mike Tibby 3 London - 1 Roger Cooper 4 South West - 1 Harry Barstow 5 East Midlands - 1 Derek Hilling 6 North West - 1 Ed Abrams 7 Yorkshire - 1 Michael Cassidy 8 West Midlands - 1 TBC 9 North East - 1 TBC

Source Face Boook - Political Profiles —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.2.97.151 (talk) 03:38, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Source URL - http://www.facebook.com/inbox/?ref=mb#/group.php?gid=32791059486 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.2.97.151 (talk) 03:51, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Constituency names

I could be nit-picking, but there are still a few constituencies that are not at their exact legal names - Birmingham Ladywood (UK Parliament constituency) for example should actually be at Birmingham, Ladywood (UK Parliament constituency) with a comma. This affects those city constituencies that have names of the form "City, District" (as opposed to "City Compass Point", where there is no comma). See e.g. [1]. Any thoughts before I plough on and start moving things around? — sjorford++ 11:26, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

We have been here before, and I think it was decided that, whilst you are technically correct that the comma is required in some cases, the coin landed on the names of most common use. My only problem will be with editing the links to the moved pages to avoid too many re-directs and such...doktorb _words^deeds 12:10, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough, it does seem like a lot of work for not much difference. However, this does leave the odd case of the Ealing constituencies - officially they are "Ealing North", "Ealing, Southall" and "Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush", but we have Ealing North, Ealing Southall and Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush. The last two are slightly confusing - should EASB have its comma removed then? — sjorford++ 12:27, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that is more grammar than legalities :) I think we now have Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, and Inverness, Nairn, and all points west....doktorb _words^deeds 12:34, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Ah, but that's different :) "Normanton", "Pontefract" and "Castleford" are being listed as three separate places. "Acton" and "Shepherd's Bush" are being listed as two separate places within the London Borough of Ealing. Therefore, for consistency with Ealing Southall (which means "Ealing: Southall") and Ealing North (which means "Ealing: North [Ealing]") we should have Ealing Acton and Shepherd's Bush (which means "Ealing: Acton and Shepherd's Bush").

I told you I was nit-picking... — sjorford++ 12:44, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I did look into this question of official names. The statutory instruments are not consistent. Some, particularly for recent redistributions in Scotland, omit any comma between the city name and the the constituency name. Others include a comma. Our policy is to omit the comma (at least until there are three different geographical terms used). To change this would involve considerable effort, for no significant gain. --Gary J (talk) 15:07, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Next UK general election

An editor has moved this article without discussion. I have tried to undo it but it hasn't worked, can someone undo this please? doktorb _words^deeds 18:30, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

It can be undone by placing a {{db-move}} on the redirect, however it may be a good idea to have a clear consensus before reversion. I have started a discussion at Talk:2009 or 2010 United Kingdom general election. Road Wizard (talk) 19:06, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

By-election lists

I believe we now have lists completed back to the 1885 general election. I have started the List of United Kingdom by-elections (1868–1885) article. I have not been able to work out how to add a reference to it, in the box which links with the articles in other periods. Could someone kindly either add the link or let me know how to do it. Thanks. --Gary J (talk) 12:20, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I seem to have solved the problem, by finding and amending the template. --Gary J (talk) 13:41, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

'Others' in results

In the local council elections on the Isle of Wight a number of 'other' candidates were elected. As I understand it, this basically means that they chose not to state a party affiliation. Functionally I imagine these candidates would act as independents, but 'independent' sometimes is taken to mean something more political, that is to say a commitment to remain independent of the party system - there was considerable consternation recently on when 'independents' banded with the Liberal Democrats to form an administration.

Anyway, I thought that I would gather opinions on whether 'others' should be named as independents. I imagine this might only ever be an issue on local council elections which this project isn't exactly concerned with, but seeing as there are a number of intelligent, aware people here it seemed like a good place... --Neil (talk) 16:19, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

This project concerns Parliamentary constituencies, not local authorities. Some local councils have a significant proportion of independents; others may have stood with a party label, perhaps one coined for the election. Only those who stood with no party label or explicitly as an 'independent' should be so labelled. I heard of one deistrict council with a lot of independents, where the independents had to constitute themselves as a 'party' in order to get their fair share of the available committee chairmanships. In other councils, there may be a local party, such as a 'Ratepayers Alliance'. You suggested solution is too simplistic. 'Others' will mean all candidates other than those previously listed. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:08, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Member of Parliament templates

There are many articles on places that mention the name of the local MP. I was thinking how many articles would need changing after elections, and so was wondering if anyone had thought of making templates for the names of elected officials. That way an article could say something like "The Member of Parlianent for Sheffield Hallam is {{Template:MP Sheffield Hallam}}", and following an election that led to a change in MP only the template would need changing. —Jeremy (talk) 15:48, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

It could probably be done with a single template. Something like {{English district population}}. —Jeremy (talk) 15:51, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

That is all very well, if the article merely says 'the local MP is Joe Bloggs', but it may say Joe Bloggs the local MP opened the village fete. If Joe Bloggs is repaced by Jane Robinson, it was still Jow who opened the fete, not Jane. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:11, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I can see this being a problem. There are pages out there such as pages for towns which happen to list who the MP is for that area, and so those articles will need to be updated. A template linking to a current list of MPs would resolve this but I have no idea how to do this. --gtanswell (talk) 17:56 04 March 2010

I am also interested in identifying all the work that will need to be done after the 2010 election results are known: is there talk somewhere about this? Regarding this suggestion, it will not work easily because of boundary changes, so that a town/village currently in constituency A may be moving to B. If a systematic way can be found to spot these pages, I would suggest in general that: (1) the constituency must be updated in the infobox; (2) statements that say "The village is in Central Wessex constituency" should be updated OR removed; (3) statements that say "The MP for the village is MrX" should be removed unless the identity of the MP is particularly needed in the article. Sussexonian (talk) 20:59, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

For changes needed after the election see Wikipedia:WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom/2010 election. You are welcome to add tasks as you identify them. One thing to remember about the vast number of place articles that mention the current MP is that the normal editors of those articles will be doing most of the work. For example, editors of the Birmingham article are bound to update the MP details themselves if there is a change. Political project editors just need to come up with a way with catching the articles that slip through the cracks. Road Wizard (talk) 21:15, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Order of election results

Hi all - apologies if this has been mentioned elsewhere on this page, but I can't find it. Is there a guideline anywhere on the order election results should be listed in the constituency pages? Most constituency articles, it seems, have the most recent results listed first, but some have them in reverse order with the oldest at the top and most recent at the bottom; and a few have them listed in no particular order at all. I've been assuming the first of those (most recent at top, oldest at bottom) is the standard approach, and have changed a few articles to fit this, such as here [2] (I've changed a few others as well, but as my name was very recently changed, they haven't yet been moved to my new contribution history). Does anyone have any opinions on this? Robofish (talk) 21:07, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi Robofish. There has been a certain amount of discussion on this topic at a number of locations quite a while ago and none of which I can remember. I've been one of the proponents of the newest at the top and BrownHairedGirl has been the leading proponent of the oldest at the top along with Gary J. We, along with several other contributors never did come to a unified approach, hence the rather mixed layouts currently extant. But by all means feel free to reopen this particular topic as we might actually come to some agreement this time. Cheers - Galloglass 00:14, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if there is a possible compromise between the two approaches. The most recent first approach may be more appropriate for current constituencies than historic ones. For present day constituencies, with a long electoral history, perhaps the results for the most recent three Parliaments could be given with the most recent result first. Older results could be put in a later section of the article, with earliest available result first. Purely historic constituencies could be standardised, with earliest election first.

It is not immediately obvious that, for a constituency which held elections between 1832 and 1885 say, the casual reader would be more interested in the 1880 result than the 1832 one. However such a reader might well be most interested in the latest result, for a current seat. --Gary J (talk) 12:23, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

To go off on a slight tangent, I've been looking to the next election and looking at wikipedia pages in other countries. There, the tendency is to have one page for a constituency at a particular election and another for the historical results. If we look at, for example the St Ives constituency we now have candidates for the next election buried at the bottom, precisely the piece of datum that will be of most interest to readers next year. So what I suggest is we create additional pages with the full history on, leaving simply the last (or last few) election result as well as the new candidates as well as other relevant info (new boundaries etc). If this was done then I'd have no objection to the oldest results at the top on the historical section. Thoughts please? - Galloglass 12:53, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

In effect, Gallowglass' idea is close to what we have been doing with by-election articles. Each individual election in a constituency could give rise to an article (if sufficient information was available). I agree with the suggested approach. Perhaps an example article could be prepared, as a model for others to use? --Gary J (talk) 13:27, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

In general, I'm happy to compromise on on the emerging consensus here: newest elections first for current constituencies, oldest first for former constituencies. I'd prefer to follow chronologoical order in all cases, but this seems like a good compromise which will bring some stability.

I'm not so keen on the idea of splitting out the previous election results (singly or en masses) as a general practice. To my mind, by-elections are a special case, because the spotlight falls so heavily on them that most by-election in the last century can easily pass the notability threshold, but the same does not apply to general election contests in most constituencies -- some general election battles are very high profile, but in a safe seat, the general election campaigns can be a bit of a sleep-in.

Splitting out the results makes sense to me if they really do get huge, but there are two god reasons to be wary. First is that there are some editors with a desire to delete standalone articles on elections results, and results cannot be AFDed if they are in the main article. A further advantage is that many of us have lots of constituencies on our watchlists, but if results are moved to a separate article will be less heavily watched and therefore more vulnerable to vandals. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:34, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I would support keeping by-elections as special stand along articles. And as I am currently on a mission to keep 2009/10 candidates at the top of any results section, I would prefer to have current constituencies to be in reverse order, but you can't please all of the people...doktorb _words^deeds 21:47, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I am metally comparing with my approach re boundary descriptions
I put current boundaries first, followed by a history sub-section putting oldest boundaries first and charting subsequent changes
Maybe there is nothing in this approach which would work for election results, which readers will want to compare with most recent previous results
Re election results I tend to use narative order if the constituency is historic, and reverse order if in current use
Laurel Bush (talk) 14:00, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

This is an interesting point: it suggests a third possibility, which I hadn't considered, which is 'put the results for the most recent election first, along with the candidates for the next election if known; then put all other results afterwards in chronological order, from oldest to second-newest'. Perhaps that's a bit too unintuitive, but it might work (though obviously only for current, not historical, constituencies). In any case, as far as I can tell the current consensus here seems to be 'newest-to-oldest on current constituencies, oldest-to-newest on historical constituencies', which is what I originally wanted to know; thanks for people's comments, and I'm happy to stick to that system for the time being. Robofish (talk) 21:04, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

• This raises an issue as to the length of some constituency articles. Where a constituency is a very old one the list of MPs who have sat for it can be a very long one. I suspect that we need to split these at 1832 or 1885. On the point under discussion, I would suggest that we have a heading "Current situation" near the top of the page, with two subheadings "last Election" and "next election". This means that this information (which is likely to be popular) will appear accessibly near the top. This can then be followed by Historical lists of MPs and historcial election results. Since the MP lists start with the oldest, it would be leogcal to put the oldest election results first. Peterkingiron (talk) 21:51, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

When editing such articles, I have usually split the list at one of the Reform Acts. Sometimes this is just for convenience, but few constituencies escaped some change in the size of their representation at one or other of the 19th century reforms, so the split also facilitates neater presentation.

However, I think that the idea of splitting the most recent results away from chronological order is in many ways the worst of all situations. Anyone wanting to compare a number x of recent elections then has to jump around all over the place if x is greater than the number of results moved to the top. Whichever direction is used, I much prefer to keep the results of successive elections adjacent to each other, whether in forward chronological order or reverse chronological order. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:53, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps this, involving duplication of latest minus one, is too simple:

Top list of election results consisting of latest (L) followed by L-1 one then history subsection listing first to L-1 (inclusive)

When next become L, L becomes L-1, and L-1 becomes L-2, then the new L-2 is removed from the top list and the new L-1 is duplicated at the end of the history subsection

I imagine this repetition of L-1 might work well enough re enabling read of the complete cycle
By-elections could complicate things somewhat
Laurel Bush (talk) 10:50, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Time of Declaration of Results

What is the opinion in capturing the time of declarations? http://politics.guardian.co.uk/hoc/constituency/0,,-1233,00.html has timings for the 1997, 2001 & 2005 elections for Pudsey for example. Mark.s.shaw (talk) 14:31, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

It seems trivial too me. It might be approriate to have an article capturing the first few general election results declarations, but that is all. There is something of a race to do this, or at least the media suggest that there is. Peterkingiron (talk) 23:10, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Local chapter for the Wikimedia Foundation

We are Wikimedia UK - the group of local Wikimedians helping the Foundation to create "a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge". Love Wikipedia? Based in the UK? Can you support us in projects such as generating free-content photographs, freeing up archive material and media relations? Or are there other projects you'd like us to help with? if so, please click here to Join up, Donate and Get Involved

AndrewRT(Talk) 21:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

The Anomebot2 is currently adding {{coord missing}} to UK constituencies. Do we have any agreed standard for adding coordinates (precision? placement in article? display? decimal or DMS?) I can't see any mention in Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Parliament constituencies/Style. PamD (talk) 09:09, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I have placed a message on the bot's talk page querying the appropriateness of having coordinates at all. Peterkingiron (talk) 23:55, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Alert to new source

What looks like a new and reliable source has appeared for the biographies of MPs since 1979, also including the dates of death of some MPs from before this period. It's a House of Commons Library Research paper, Members since 1979. Sam Blacketer (talk) 14:38, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Socialist Party of Great Britain

In the London (European Parliament constituency) article, it seems the party colour template for the Socialist Party of Great Britain is doing strange things to the table. Anyone know what is causing this?

doktorb _words^deeds 08:18, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

It seems to be the lack of a space after the {{party colour| Socialist Party of Great Britain}} template - this was mixing up the table formatting. I've added an extra space to Template:Party colour to deal with it. — sjorford++ 14:11, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Maidstone pre-1997

I have split out from the article Maidstone and The Weald (UK Parliament constituency) all the material relating to the pre-1997 Maidstone constituency, which is now at Maidstone (UK Parliament constituency). Reasons at Talk:Maidstone and The Weald (UK Parliament constituency)#Maidstone_pre-1997.

I am just about to start fixing the incoming links, to make sure that references too the pre-1997 constituency go to the correct place. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:39, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Constituency histories

While engaged (rather typically) on a search for something else, I discovered that there are a reasonable number of detailed constituency histories now available on the historical Hansard site: http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/constituency-histories/ They are prepared by the House of Commons Library and go into a lot of detail on boundaries. Sam Blacketer (talk) 21:43, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

They may not all be useful - I tried the Sheffield Central one, and that has almost no information, and some of what it does have relates to entirely different constituencies. Some care is needed, to double check the information in them. Warofdreams talk 22:18, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

It seems to have been removed. — sjorford++ 11:08, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Progress on election results

I've updated Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Parliament constituencies/Progress with progress on adding election results for each current constituency. In summary: all 2005 and 2001 results are in the relevant articles, but many results from as recently as 1997 are still not available. Warofdreams talk 18:18, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Old Somerset constituencies and "need for expansion"

Can I ask for some expert help. I've been working my way through Wikipedia:WikiProject Somerset/Cleanup listing & trying to deal with citation needed, cleanup etc tags. When I get to the Articles to be expanded section I find East Somerset (UK Parliament constituency), Mid Somerset (UK Parliament constituency), Somerset (UK Parliament constituency), South Somerset (UK Parliament constituency) and West Somerset (UK Parliament constituency). Looking at some of these they appear to have been abolished in the 19th century. They include lists of MPs but their "Election results" sections are tagged for expansion. Can anyone help with a source for these results or is it reasonable to remove the request for expansion banners?— Rod ^talk 11:38, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I cannot help on election results, but the source for MP lists since 1660 should be {{rayment-hc}}, unless there is somthing better. There is a standard strcuture for constituencey articles, but a great many still need a lot more information added. It is best to leave the sections as they are in the hope that some one will work on them one day. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:38, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I have checked that this citation is correctly given in all cases. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:43, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Best sources for election results are F. W. S. Craig's series for 1832 onwards. There are alternative and less favoured contemporary sources including McCalmont's Parliamentary Poll Book (various editions including a 1971 reprinting) which covers the whole period from 1832. Election results before 1832 are very hard to come by. The best source is the History of Parliament series although this only goes up to 1820; to cover the gap, use Henry Stooks Smith's The Parliaments of England or Crosby's Parliamentary Record (the latter does not include disfranchised boroughs). Sam Blacketer (talk) 10:52, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

The Times Archive Online may also be a useful source, it may well be free at your local library. I have used it to obtain results from the late 1800's, but have not yet tried to get older results. Mark.s.shaw (talk) 02:36, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

If your local library subscribes you may be able to access this at home, rather than physically going to the library. If it doesn't, you can join Lancashire county library online (http://www.lancashire.gov.uk/libraries/borrower/join.asp) , regardless of where you live, and have access to the Times and the wonderful British Library 19th century newspapers database (selected national and regional titles, full text and searchable), at home! PamD (talk) 07:17, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Ooooh great, Leeds only let you access it from the libraries. One new subscriber here!! Mark.s.shaw (talk) 15:15, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Election box

The last two sections prompt me to raise a concern that's been bubbling under for some time. I just don't think the current election boxes are "fit for purpose" and that they are in need of a serious redesign. The first problem is that some sections are barely used: almost no boxes use the swing and there is not enough space to explain what the figure means anyway. The second problem is that there is no easy way to give the figure for the total electorate despite the fact that this fact is known for almost all elections. There is a space for the total number of votes cast but that is a meaningless figure. It is not clear whether the figure to the right is supposed to be the turnout. All this leads to the third problem, that they take up too much space: have a look at City of London (UK Parliament constituency) to see how many screens are taken up. There really is no need for a separate box for each successive election.

Can we not redesign to make the box simpler, clearer and easier to add? When I did a US article with a long run of election results very similar in form to a UK constituency (North Dakota's At-large congressional district), I used a simpler wikitable which looks bland, but perhaps some arrangement can be made to add colour, and also incorporate electorate and turnout figures. Also can we agree that earlier elections come first? Sam Blacketer (talk) 11:24, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I did do a Registerd Electors box template, although admittedly this does just add an additional element to each result (see the results in the Spelthorne (UK Parliament constituency) for an example of the box being used, as well as how I treated the problem of swing).

The problem I see with the swing information, is that (as far as I am aware) we have not clearly defined what we are calculating. There are two ways of calculating swing - Butler swing (which uses the votes of the two leading parties only) and Steed swing (using all the votes). Where there are more than two candidates, the two swing calculations give quite different results. I find it is easy enough to make the swing calculations on a spreadsheet, but manual calculation would be more trouble than it was worth, in my view.

The problem with giving results in tabular form, particularly for constituencies with a long run of results, is that UK election results tend to include more information than US ones. The North Dakota style results could be used, but only at the cost of losing information compared with the current UK results. It is common, in compilations of results, for US sources not to give electorate figures, majorities or turnouts (let alone swing); whereas modern UK sources almost always do give some of the additional information.

In any event, the results from the 4 member City of London constituency before 1885, however we set out them out will use a lot of space.

However there is no harm in proposing a new election result template. It could be posted on this page for comments, if anyone wants to do the work involved. --Gary J (talk) 12:13, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I share Sam's concerns about the bulk, but like Gary I'd not like to lose info. So I tried the following doodle (nonsense data, this is just a layout test):

Election	Candidate		Party	Votes	%	Majority	Change?
General election, July 1945 Electorate: 123,456 Turnout: 99.9%		Bufton Tufton	Conservative	17,156	61.1	12,345 (88.8%)	Conservative hold
		Dave Spart	Labour	9,609	34.2
		Lawrence Livingstone	Liberal	4,804	17.1
		Irene Isaacson	Independent	48	0.2
By-election, 2 March 1949 Electorate: 123,456 Turnout: 99.9%		Dave Spart	Labour	9,609	34.2	12,345 (88.8%)	Labour gain from Conservative
		Reginald Rogers	Conservative	1,715	21.1
		Irene Isaacson	Independent	989	3.0
		Lawrence Livingstone	Liberal	25	0.1

Some of the presentation needs a little tweaking, but I think that I have managed to incorporate most of the detail. It coukd be made more compact by reducing the size of each line of candidates, as with the current templates.

I think this is worth pursuing. If anyone else does, please copy the table and try your own tweaks. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:36, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea but want to have a go at resolving the 'ragged right' (not a political term!). How does this alternative grab everyone? In a long table the reader would see a continuous colour along the left showing which party won, which is an unanticipated boost. Sam Blacketer (talk) 12:03, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Election	Political result		Candidate		Party	Votes	%
General election, July 1945 Electorate 123,456 Turnout 99.9%		Conservative hold Majority 12,345 (88.8%)		Bufton Tufton	Conservative	17,156	61.1
				Dave Spart	Labour	9,609	34.2
				Lawrence Livingstone	Liberal	4,804	17.1
				Irene Isaacson	Independent	48	0.2
By-election, 2 March 1949 Electorate: 123,456 Turnout: 99.9%		Labour gain from Conservative Majority 12,345 (88.8%)		Dave Spart	Labour	9,609	34.2
				Reginald Rogers	Conservative	1,715	21.1
				Irene Isaacson	Independent	989	3.0
				Lawrence Livingstone	Liberal	25	0.1

I've tested this out on real life election results at Blackburn (UK Parliament constituency). Sam Blacketer (talk) 13:15, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Looks a big improvement Sam. The only caveat I have is my usual one being that the most recent election should be at the top of the article. Maybe we could do this with the 2005 election result and the candidates for the forthcoming election being displayed in an 'old style' boxes or similar just after the article intro? - Galloglass 16:40, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I put the PPCs in a separate box at the top to separate them from the election results. I would guess that the reason why some editors think that listing elections in the order 2005, 2001, 1997, 1992 etc is 'the wrong order' is that almost all reference books giving election comparisons give the earliest result first and the later ones further down. (Indeed the only exceptions I have seen put different years side by side) Incidentally I've also added a grey strip to break up the election results: look at this revision for what happens without it. Also see Isle of Ely (UK Parliament constituency) which was a marginal and changed hands several times.

What might be the best solution would be to have information on the most recent election in a separate election box (the traditional or previous type) in the lede section of an article about a current constituency, but also to include it in the historic section at the bottom. I don't think that would be excessive repetition. Sam Blacketer (talk) 17:41, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

This plan shows promise, but I don't think it's quite there yet. Setting aside the eternal debate over whether to list results in chronological or reverse chronological order, I'd like to see the party colours next to the party names - as much as we standardise them, not every party has an associated colour which is generally familiar to readers. The grey separation bar appears too dominant - could this be made paler? Also, I think it might make the elections easier to differentiate if the separator extended right across the box, or at least one further box to the left. It would be a shame to lose the change in vote share for each party, as this can be highly significant. Finally, a point on using familiar names - who is "John Whitaker Straw"? I will always argue strongly for using the names with which people are more likely to be familiar, rather than trying to match full names appearing on ballot papers or announced at the count. Warofdreams talk 23:37, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

• I like it. If you want to give full names I would suggest the form "Jack Straw (John Whitaker Straw)", but it is probably best to use the unpiped article title. any one wnating the full name will be bale to get it from the article.
• However, I would strongly suggest that we should not have redlinks to potential by-election articles: there would be far too many. The link can be added if some one wants to produce an article. Peterkingiron (talk) 00:43, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

This is the 2005 result in Preston using an alternative model someone is working on in Referedna and Elections, or whatever the project is called. Is it you Sam ? . A couple of things I have found now that I am able to play with it - Firstly, the Wiki markup is FAR less user-friendly, so will need tidying. Secondly, we have spent a LONG time trying to agree on the "names" of parties for the Election Box Metadata gizmo. It takes a lot longer to type the party names out three times for this new box, something which should be looked at. Anyway, this is Preston 2005...

2005 United Kingdom general election
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour Co-operative	Mark Hendrick	17,210	50.5	-6.5
	Conservative	Fiona Bryce	7,803	22.9	-0.1
	Liberal Democrat	William Parkinson	5,701	16.7	+3.5
	Respect	Michael Lavalette	2,318	6.8	’’N/A’’
	UKIP	Ellen Boardman	1,049	3.1	’’N/A’’
Majority			9,407	21.6
Turnout			—	53.8	—
	Labour hold		-3.2	—	—

doktorb _words^deeds 15:30, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Bye-elections

Periodically some sees (as in example above) redlinks for by-elections. However generally a by-election will only refer to one constituency. Do we really need articles on every single one? It many cases there will not be much to say, except that the election occurred and what the result was, but that will be given in the election box of the constituency article. No doubt there will be some which were highly notable (and so should have an article). Peterkingiron (talk) 21:59, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps not every by-election does merit an article (particularly some of the uncontested ones). But we have plenty of substantial articles on by-elections, and more could be created - they are generally widely reported in the national press, so there is often lots of material to use. Attempting to incorporate them into the constituency articles might overwhelm the original material, while also obscuring their national implications. Warofdreams talk 23:37, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

No objection to having articles, but we should not encourage every by-election to be turned into a stub. If there is not much known (or not much to say), it may be better to have a short section in the constituency article. Peterkingiron (talk) 00:46, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with parts of what you both have to say on this! I think articles on each by-election should be encouraged as a matter of historical record (I recall explaining to a US editor years ago how a by-election occurs and why it is importnt for the election articles to mention its occurance). However you are right, Peter, to warn against every article being a stub. Recent elections have, of course, been given far more focus than historic ones (ah, the problems with Recentism), so maybe what we should be doing is now going through older by-elections to determine which ones really do require fuller articles and which ones could be merely referenced in the home article. doktorb _words^deeds 10:06, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Blaydon

Resolved

The pre-1979 MP Robert Woof is listed as a Conservative on the page for Blaydon, yet his own entry identifies him as Labour. This page identifies the 1979 result (in which a different Labour candidate won) as a Labour hold: http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/ge79/i03.htm

Done, by Sam Blacketer in this edit. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

Geographical co-ordinates in constituency articles

I am concerned that the application of geographical co-ordinates to constituency articles, which seems to be underway at the moment, may be misleading to readers. I have opened a centralised discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject_Geographical_coordinates#Use_of_co-ordinates_in_parliamentary_constituencies.

More input welcome! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:54, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Project Banner

I have noticed that WikiProject UK Parliament constituencies does not currently have quality assessments for its articles. As all the articles within this project are in the scope of the UK Politics Wikiproject would it be worth sharing banners? That way the constituency project inherits all existing assessments without having to redo the work and we don't have duplicated banners on every talk page.
If acceptable to the members, the constituency project would be listed as a work-group/task force on the UK Politics banner in a similar way to the Biography task forces on the banner shown at Talk:Sir Hugh Acland, 5th Baronet. It feels a little strange calling the Constituency project a task-force as it predates the UK Politics project by a number of years, but it fits the general definition of being a more focussed project within the broad scope of UK Politics.
Is there any support or objections for the merging of the banners? Road Wizard (talk) 20:11, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I support the idea. This project has become less active, and I think it's unlikely that there would be great enthusiasm for implementing our own article assessments. Becoming a task force would allow us to continue focussed work on co-ordinating work on constituency articles, while benefiting from closer links with a closely related WikiProject. Warofdreams talk 20:54, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the move. By the way, I created the shortcut WP:PARLIAMENT a little while back, which should ensure that the new task force will be easy enough to find. WFCforLife (talk) 10:37, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

OK. I will set the banner up in the next couple of days. Road Wizard (talk) 02:03, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Project scope

I am trying to clarify the areas of overlap between this project and the UK Politics WikiProject. The main page of this project mentions that it is intended to cover all constituencies in the UK (UK Parliament, Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Northern Ireland Assembly) but as far as I can tell only the UK Parliament constituencies have the project banner at the moment. There are also a number of discussions on this talk page that fall outside of the scope of a strict "constituency" project such as what to do with election articles. I have no problem with however broad or narrow you want the scope to be, but it would be useful to clarify so that the UK Politics project can refer relevant issues here instead of discussing them in multiple locations.
I would suggest the following scope for this project:

• All constituencies for the UK Parliament and devolved legislatures.
• All elections in the UK (election articles make use of the same templates as the constituencies).
• Local government "constituencies"/wards in the UK

Are there any objections or additions to this scope? Road Wizard (talk) 20:25, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Any thoughts on this? If there are no comments within the next week I will assume a silent consensus and update the main project page. Road Wizard (talk) 18:26, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Most of the discussion has been around constituencies for the Westminster Parliament, but it has also provided a useful role in co-ordinating discussion on issues such as metadata or disambiguation, which can affect any type of constituency or ward, and also leadership elections and the like. Recently, it's been rather quiet, so perhaps that co-ordination would be better taking place at the UK Politics WikiProject, leaving just Westminster elections and constituencies here. Warofdreams talk 20:45, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Are local government constituencies notable? I'm somewhat indifferent to whether or not local elections and/or district/borough councils fall under our scope, but as a rule of thumb I don't think individual wards should have full-blown articles. WFCforLife (talk) 18:26, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I very much doubt that most local councillors are notable. I have observed some articles created to give the results of local elections. The problem with this (and articles on wards) is that encourage the creation of biographies of a lot of NN councillors, which we will then have to delete. There are boundary reorganisations every decade or two, so that wards do not enjoy long term stability. This means that we will not get satsifactory long successions of names, even if they would be useful (and they would probably not be). Peterkingiron (talk) 14:01, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I think the points about individual wards are very well made. However a lot of editors are working very hard on maintaining up to date articles on a council's local elections (see DaveWild and I working on Preston local elections for example. I agree that councillors are not automatically notable because of their place in the UK strata of notability (this discussion has been made on a wider scale during Wiki's policy discussion on notability policy).

This project does focus on Westminster, Holyrood, and Cardiff Bay for perhaps quite obvious reasons. However this leads to two consequences for local elections - great swathes of United Kingdom local elections articles are left with red links for years after the polls have closed, and fewer editoral eyes on pages allow commentary and vandalism to creep in. I would suggest those with more of a local electoral bent to work on this level of Wiki articles during the fallow eweeks leading up to what will be the busiest ever time for us during the run up to March 28/May/June 2010 doktorb _words^deeds 10:02, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

On local election results, I have a record of the Slough results back to 1863, but I have only thought it worth recording results within the last decade on Wikipedia. I think recent results are worth including as it is something the casual user from an area might be interested in. However the topic of local elections probably does not merit the degree of attention national and devolved body elections do. --Gary J (talk) 10:24, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Well indeed! I have access to Preston local elections going back a good 30-odd years, but one quick check at readership stats for the existing pages suggests it would not be worth the effort going back quite that far on Wiki! I think the current amount of local election coverage here is good, it could be better, and should be perhaps focused on by those who have a mind for such things, rather than becoming a massive sub-project especially in the run up to 2010. doktorb _words^deeds 10:42, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest that the UK Constituencies project is concerned with precise factual coverage of electoral areas, while UK Politics has a much wider remit about what the politicians actually do once elected. A parallel discussion here has discussed the name of Wikipedia:WikiProject Elections and Referenda, which of course is not UK specific. There doesn't seem to be any system of sub divisions which would accommodate Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Elections and Referenda, which could then encompass the Constituencies project which after all is concerned with matters electoral. Sussexonian (talk) 20:09, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I see no reason why this project should not regard itself (probably informally) as a sub-project of a worldwide Wikipedia:WikiProject Elections and Referenda, by which this project deals with the UK aspects of the wider one. I suspect that we get effective local elections articles only where there is an enthusiastic wikipedian prepared to work on it. Changes in the policitcal control of councils are probably noteworthy, but I continue to take the view that the identities of individual councillors is not. We do not encourage articles on candidates who are not elected as MPs, becasue they are NN (unless for other reasons), and this should probably apply even to elected councillors. A particularly long-serving leader of a council might possibly qualify: we need not to set the notability bar too low, or we will be flooded with articles. Peterkingiron (talk) 22:22, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:POLITICIAN covers this pretty well - following the guidelines, MPs, MSPs, AMs, MLAs and elected mayors are generally notable, while councillors generally are not, unless they are "major local political figures who have received significant press coverage" - as, say, a leader of a particularly large local authority may well have done.

Some articles exist on wards, but I'm doubtful that there's enough analysis of results available to demonstrate their notability. Articles covering all results for one council in a particular year are more common, but they tend to be no more than lists of results, and I'm again doubtful of the potential for ever including significant content, except perhaps in a few particularly interesting cases - for instance, I've been wondering about creating such articles for Belfast. This leaves summary articles listing, perhaps, party strengths, control and the council leaders. These do seem, to me, to have the potential to become good, well-referenced articles which are potentially useful to more readers, and to realistically be able to cover more than just the recent past - for instance, although it could do with far more work, Sheffield City Council contains most of these details back to the 1880s. Warofdreams talk 01:34, 14 December 2009 (UTC)