Talk:1837 French legislative election

Infobox and party names

Number 57, can you please start a discussion before reverting edits made in good faith? I'm willing to listen to any issues you raise and I want to work cooperatively to make this article the best it can be. That said, I don't agree on these most recent changes:

• About loss/gain: this is important to show in the infobox, since one of the key takeaways from this election was that Molé failed to gain additional support. Even if that's not how loss/gain are usually used on Wikipedia, it's perfectly reasonable to use it in that way here.
• About party names: unlike for a modern election, few/none of these factions had official names or membership lists; we can't just copy the names from a primary source. Especially in regards to the republicans, the name "Radical Puritans" is clearly not WP:NPOV. If we look at what the parliamentary left at this time is called in other sources (I sourced Quid, but we could use a different source like [1] if you'd prefer), "republicans" is clearly the preferred name. Since La Presse conveniently gives a list of who they consider "Radical Puritans", we can verify this by checking each member. The sample I checked are all considered republicans. The "Third Party"/"Constitutional opposition" name is admittedly more ambiguous (are these really the same group?), but I haven't seen "Constitutional opposition" in any secondary sources. "Ministerial" isn't wrong, but a descriptive translation (e.g., "Supporters of the Molé ministry") would be far clearer and no less correct.
• On the size of the infobox: I'm not sure why you think six parties is unreasonably large, many Wikipedia articles have as many or more (e.g., the 2011 Irish presidential election or the 2011 Finnish parliamentary election). In my opinion, it's only when you start getting into the >9 range where the compacted format is really necessary.
• There's no need for the Roi et President or Election Politique Citoyen sources. The former only has information copied from Quid, while the latter is a deprecated webpage that doesn't have any info that isn't in the other sources.

SilverStar54 (talk) 17:57, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Hello. I'm afraid that's not how Wikipedia works – editors do not have to start a discussion before reverting edits. Regarding the points you raise

1. The only loss/gains that should be shown in the infobox are compared to the previous election. This is clearly set out in the infobox guidance. I've no objection to the pre-election situation being detailed in the text of the afucle, although after your comments on the 1834 talkpage, I am unclear whether the figures are actually pre-election or from 1834.
2. La Presse is not a primary source (for an election, the primary source would be the electoral commission). If you can find a source using different names, by all means do so. However, please do not use names not in the source. As I mentioned on the other discussion, these articles have long been plagued by misinformation and original research, so I am keen to avoid any more being added.
3. The images are what makes the infobox unnecessarily large, and draw attention to individuals instead of parties/groups, which is what parliamentary elections are about.
4. I cannot find any evidence that Election Politique Citoyen is a deprecated source – could you provide the link to the discussion? It was being used to source the date, which you left unsourced in your most recent version.

Also, no need to ping me. I have these pages on my watchlist. Cheers, Number 57 20:40, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps we got off on the wrong foot. I understand your desire to prevent OC or errors from getting onto the page. I promise I'm doing my best to avoid introducing any, although of course I am human and will make mistakes. My frustration was that it felt like you were throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But perhaps my edits were egregious enough to require immediate rollback, in either case I hope we can work constructively

Regarding the substance of the article:

• I agree that we can move the discussion of loss/gain to the body. But I think it would be helpful to at least keep the pre-election figures in the "seats before" part of the infobox
• Understood. Quid does use the labels "republican" and "third party", but I agree that an academic source would be better. A major issue we're going to have to deal with is that these factions did not have official names, they're just (more or less subjective) categories made up by outside observers. So each source will have a slightly different way of grouping/labelling the deputies. For the sake of clarity, consistency, and neutrality, I believe we should try to stick to the terms generally used by academic historians to describe the political trends during the July Monarchy, even if these don't always line up with the labels in a source we use for the exact results of a specific election.
• In some elections, yes, but 1837 was an election where individual leaders mattered a lot. The factions were at least as much about personal rivalries between leaders like Thiers, Molé, and Guizot as they were about politics. This is something that deserves more detail in the body, but I think showing images of these leaders in the infobox would also be relevant.
• Apologies for the confusion. I meant deprecated in the sense of "no longer maintained", not as in a deprecated source. The webpage looks almost completely blank to me; the date is about the only piece of info left on it.

SilverStar54 (talk) 23:57, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

I would prefer to keep the current infobox, rather than the bloated one with images in (the images are WP:UNDUE IMO), and this one doesn't have "seats before". It's also still unclear whether they were actually "seats before" the election, or just theoretical reallocations of the members elected in 1834 (whose makeup would have been altered by by-elections etc).

Re party names, I would prefer that we one source across the series of articles to avoid a situation where the names change from article-to-article depending on the source. However, the breakdown given in La Presse is potentially more detailed than other sources tend to be, and it would be a shame to lose that detail...

A website no longer being maintained not to continue to use it as a source. Cheers, Number 57 11:19, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Sorry for the delayed reply, I was spending my Wikipedia time working on some other projects.

I agree with you that the exact meaning of La Presse's "before" numbers here is obscure. I'll give this issue more thought.

I don't think including pictures in the infobox gives leaders WP:UNDUE emphasis. One of the key issues in 1837 was Guizot's decision to leave the cabinet and form a parliamentary faction opposed to Molé's government. How are the faction leaders in 1837 any less important than party leaders today? Plenty of recent election pages include leader photos.

In that case, the question is whether La Presse drew factional lines the same way historians do today. If they did, great! We can just use the numbers given by La Presse and the faction names given by modern scholars. But if La Presse's way of grouping the deputies hasn't stood the test of time, it's probably for good reason. In that case we should probably drop it as a source, despite it's specificity. SilverStar54 (talk) 05:34, 5 August 2023 (UTC)