Talk:2015 San Antonio mayoral election

'Nonpartisan' as a party in the infobox

@SanAnMan:@BottleOfChocolateMilk:, and @Reywas92: (who I'm pinging, since they more or less started this practice in other Texas election articles)

When I first came across removing 'Nonpartisan' from the election boxes, I had my skepticism, but, when weighing the rationals for and against including inclusion of the party parameter, I concluded it's best to not. Firstly, there is no WP policy, guideline, precedent, or whatever that I'm aware of that explicitly, or even implicitly, addresses this issue. So, we are left to our own judgment and reasoning. The only argument that I can think of for including the 'Nonpartisan' under party is to indicate to the reader that the election is officially nonpartisan under Texas law. However, this practice is better at confusing the reader. The issue with many of these local elections is the politicians running are affiliated with political parties. For example, John Whitmire and Sheila Jackson Lee in the recent Houston race are both notably Democrats. Placing that they are 'nonpartisan' under their name and image at 2023 Houston mayoral election would be inaccurate since they are party members; they are only nonpartisan to the extent that the election is legally nonpartisan. What we have to do with this is strike a balance between not misleading readers on the individual candidates actual parties without injecting partisan labels into an election where partisan labels are prohibited. And, just not including the party parameter is the best solution, as it doesn't mislead and doesn't indicate partisanship in the election. I actually think it does most justice to the nonpartisanship of the election. In the ballots for municipal elections, it doesn't say Ron Nirenberg (Nonpartisan) in the same it would say Ted Cruz (Republican) or Beto O'Rourke (Democratic) for a partisan race. Rather, it just lists the candidates without reference to party, and that is exactly what Wikipedia should do to follow suit. Here's sample ballot from Bexar County that demonstrates this for the nonpartisan city council races in the City of Commerce.

San Antonio not adopting this practice of removing parties would make it inconsistent with Houston, Dallas, and Austin articles. Also, I think the 'Nonpartisan' under every candidate is also just redundant and cluttered. Iamreallygoodatcheckers ^talk 07:30, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Agreed on all points. A nonpartisan election simply does not have labels on the ballot, so we should not have such misleading "nonpartisan" labels in either the infobox or results table. Actual partisanship should be included in the candidate descriptions or prose summaries where appropriate. Reywas92^Talk 14:28, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

@Iamreallygoodatcheckers: @Reywas92: - It's a known fact (at least it is for a number of Texas residents) that all municipal elections in the entire state of Texas are officially nonpartisan. That's the reason why ballots don't include parties. However, the thing is not all readers of the article(s) are going to know this. And I think that's the main reason for including the party information in the infoboxes. I'll capitulate to the fact that yes, a large number of candidates in municipal elections are known members of one political party or another. But there still needs to be a clarification in the article(s) that the election is nonpartisan, regardless of the possible political leaning/party affiliation of the candidate(s). A good example of this is in 2022 Austin mayoral election; the article clearly states in the top section about the nonpartisan nature of the election. I'll say this -- if all of the SA election articles were re-written to include a similar statement as the Austin election article in the top of the articles, then I think the party affiliation sections could be done away with. And if a candidate does have a known, referenced political affiliation, then as Reywas92 suggested, we can include that information in the details about said candidate. We would still need to be careful though about these party references -- for example, Nirenberg has strong progressive policies and tendencies, but (to my knowledge) there is no known source confirming he is a Democrat. - SanAnMan (talk) 17:31, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, every such article could say that in the lead. List of mayors of the 50 largest cities in the United States lists Nirenberg as an independent, so that can be noted as appropriate as well. Reywas92^Talk 20:32, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

@SanAnMan: - "there still needs to be a clarification in the article(s) that the election is nonpartisan" - I agree, but I contend the infobox is not the place for this. In my experience, most articles mention the nonpartisanship of the election in the lead. Also, I've advocated for keeping the gray barrier between the candidates, which signals nonpartisanship.

Also, if the compromise solution is have it say officially nonpartisan elsewhere, I'm willing to work with that. Iamreallygoodatcheckers ^talk 22:03, 12 December 2023 (UTC)