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Table of how many seats changed hands

I proposed this above, and after getting a bit of help on how to format the tables have the finished results here. Given that there were lots of seats that changed hands, and Labour and Conservatives lost a few to each other, I thought these tables would be useful, showing how many constituencies changed hands from one party to another between the 2010 and 2015 election:

Great Britain:

2015 election → Conservative Labour Scottish
National Party 		Liberal
Democrats 		Plaid
Cymru 		UKIP Green Speaker 2010 Total losses
↓ 2010 election
Conservative 295 10 - - - 1 - - 306 − 11
Labour 8 210 40 - - - - - 258 − 48
SNP - - 6 - - - - - 6 -
Liberal Democrats 27 12 10 8 - - - - 57 − 49
Plaid Cymru - - - - 3 - - - 3 -
UKIP - - - - - - - - 0 -
Green - - - - - - 1 - 1 -
Speaker - - - - - - - 1 1 -
2015 total 330 232 56 8 3 1 1 1 632
gains + 35 + 22 + 50 - - + 1 - - ± 108
Net change + 24 - 26 + 50 − 49 - + 1 - -

Northern Ireland:

2015 election → Democratic
Unionist Party 		Sinn Féin Social Democratic
and Labour Party 		Ulster Unionist
Party 		Alliance Party of
Northern Ireland 		Independent 2010 Total losses
↓ 2010 election
Democratic Unionist Party 7 - - 1 - - 8 − 1
Sinn Féin - 4 - 1 - - 5 − 1
Social Democratic and Labour Party - - 3 - - - 3 -
Ulster Unionist Party - - - - - - 0 -
Alliance Party of Northern Ireland 1 - - - - - 1 - 1
Independent - - - - - 1 1 -
2015 total 8 4 3 2 0 1 18
gains + 1 - - + 2 - - ± 3
Net change - - 1 - + 2 - 1 -

I'm pretty sure all the numbers are right, but is there are any amendments that need to be made, feel free.

MoreofaGlorifiedPond,Really... (talk) 13:17, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

I'll be honest with you - I find these really difficult to follow. I think that the idea is admirable but it needs a key of some sort before going live. Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 14:13, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
To go further - it's taken me a while to work out that we read left to right to see where the 2010 seats from the Conservatives have gone, and top to bottom to see where the 2015 seats have come from. It really isn't clear enough that we're meant to do this. One suggestion - could the column '2010 total' move to the left of the table somehow? It makes much more sense to me if we read that first, and then understand that the seats to the right are being taken away from that total. I'm not suggesting that it's finished, but something closer to this perhaps?
2015 election → Conservative Labour Scottish
National Party 		Liberal
Democrats 		Plaid
Cymru 		UKIP Green Speaker losses
↓ 2010 election
Conservative 306 295 10 - - - 1 - − 11
Labour 258 8 210 40 - - - - - − 48
SNP 6 - - 6 - - - - - -
Liberal Democrats 57 27 12 10 8 - - - - − 49
Plaid Cymru 3 - - - - 3 - - - -
UKIP 0 - - - - - - - - -
Green 1 - - - - - - 1 - -
Speaker 1 1 - - - - - - - -
2015 total 330 232 56 8 3 1 1 1
gains + 35 + 22 + 50 - - + 1 - -
Net change + 24 - 26 + 50 − 49 - + 1 - -
They do take a moment or two to understand, but I really like these (don't mind where the 2010 results column goes). Thanks, MoreofaGlorifiedPond,Really..., and I say let's add them to the article (and then produce similar tables for the 2010 result!). Bondegezou (talk) 10:22, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree that these tables contain useful information, so are they going to be added? I would add total seats, gains and losses though:

Table of gains and losses (Great Britain): rows show which party seats went to, columns show which party seats came from

2015 election → Conservative Labour Scottish
National Party 		Liberal
Democrats 		Plaid
Cymru 		UKIP Green Speaker losses
2010 election ↓
Conservative 306 295 10 - - - 1 - − 11
Labour 258 8 210 40 - - - - - − 48
SNP 6 - - 6 - - - - - -
Liberal Democrats 57 27 12 10 8 - - - - − 49
Plaid Cymru 3 - - - - 3 - - - -
UKIP 0 - - - - - - - - -
Green 1 - - - - - - 1 - -
Speaker 1 - - - - - - - 1 -
2015 total 632 330 232 56 8 3 1 1 1 − 108
gains + 35 + 22 + 50 - - + 1 - - + 108
Net change + 24 − 26 + 50 − 49 - + 1 - -
Robertm25 (talk) 23:22, 29 May 2015 (UTC)


Table of gains and losses (Northern Ireland): rows show which party seats went to, columns show which party seats came from

2015 election → Democratic
Unionist Party 		Sinn Féin Social Democratic
and Labour Party 		Ulster Unionist
Party 		Alliance Party of
Northern Ireland 		Independent losses
2010 election ↓
Democratic Unionist Party 8 7 - - 1 - - − 1
Sinn Féin 5 - 4 - 1 - - − 1
Social Democratic
and Labour Party 		3 - - 3 - - - -
Ulster Unionist Party 0 - - - - - - -
Alliance Party of
Northern Ireland 		1 1 - - - - - − 1
Independent 1 - - - - - 1 -
2015 total 18 8 4 3 2 0 1 − 3
gains + 1 - - + 2 - - + 3
Net change - − 1 - + 2 − 1 -

Are these tables ready to be added? Details match the narrative that has been added, but easier to see what has happened and includes total. Robertm25 (talk) 00:53, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

DUP, SNP, UKIP, SDLP, and UUP are all abbreviated in most of the other tables. Your tables might look a bit less awkward and fit on the page better if those were also abbreviated. Additionally, Alliance Party of Northern Ireland could be shortened to "Alliance", as it is in the results table. Inks.LWC (talk) 01:27, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

BNP vote share

Does anybody have a citation for the BNP's national vote? In the table it says 1,667 but using the app on the BBC website it appears to be a lot more than that- some constituencies ever have up to 2000 votes for BNP. I was wondering what the confusion was? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.16.255.40 (talk) 22:22, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

The BBC's website that you linked to says it's 1,667, and if you sum the BNP votes in the file from the House of Commons Library, you also get 1,667. I'm not sure where you are seeing a different number, but 1,667 appears to be correct. Inks.LWC (talk) 00:19, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
The BNP only stood 8 candidates this time. Their highest vote was 489 in Charnwood. As previously mentioned, the 1,667 figure is correct. They used to top 2,000 votes in a handful of constituencies, but not this time. Frinton100 (talk) 18:33, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Green Party vs Green Party of England & Wales

Which convention should we be using here? In the summary box we use "Green" with a footnote to say it's a national result, but in the table above they're listed as "Green Party of England and Wales", with the exact same number of votes. Unless the other Green Parties managed the incredible feat of 0 votes, would it make sense to change the latter accordingly? 109.146.15.91 (talk) 19:24, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

The convention in most independent sources is to list all three parties under the 'Green' title, so I'd suggest doing that in the summary. --Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 08:24, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
I think every page within wikipedia that refers to the Green Parties in the United Kingdom needs to either make clear which party(ies) it is referring to at some point on the page, or alternatively link to somewhere else that does, such as Green Party (UK). Once that disambiguation has been made somewhere on the page, it should be acceptable to refer to "Green" and "Green Party" on the page in the same way without repeating the disambiguation, so there could be acceptable inconsistency within a page. But I agree that listing a result for the three parties combined as "Green Party of England and Wales" is plain inaccurate. I have changed. DrArsenal (talk) 14:22, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
Green Party (UK) is not an accurate description of the Greens in the most recent election as this refers to the party that was broken up into GPEW, GPNI and SGP in 1990. I have created a new page, Green Parties in the United Kingdom which I have linked to from the results table. Frinton100 (talk) 02:29, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Notional majority

The article at present reads:

The incumbent Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, having governed since 2010 in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, was elected for a second term with 36.9% of the vote and 331 seats, this time with a parliamentary majority of 15 (with Sinn Féin's 4 MPs abstaining and the Speaker taken into account).

In fact it is 17:

  • Seats: 650
  • Less: 4 SF/IRA MPs and the Speaker: 645
  • Conservative seats: 331
  • Therefore non-Conservative seats: 314
  • 331 less 314 = 17

This should be amended. 91.213.110.4 (talk) 15:31, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

You've forgot about the Speaker, who is taken from the 331... the Tories therefore have 330 on their benches. The majority is therefore 15. Argovian (talk) 16:38, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
Maths says 330 minus 314 is actually 16.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.47.35.58 (talk) 22:15, 18 May 2015(UTC)
12 is the official figure and 12 is what it should say on the article. 62.190.148.115 (talk) 15:46, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Size of Conservative Majority

Should be 12, no? Article says 15.

650 - 331 = 319 (number of other MPs in commons)

331 - 319 = 12 (Conservative advantage over others)

Multiple sources:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32659720\ http://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2015/may/08/election-2015-live-labour-and-libdems-crushed-in-shock-election-result http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeedukpolitics/general-election-2015-live

Sinn Fein won't send its MPs to Westminster, so really, there are 314 other MPs in commons. Even still, that's a working majority of 17. -Kudzu1 (talk) 15:27, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
It is in a very strict sense 12, BUT in practice (and that's of course what actually matters) 15 once both the Sinn Fein members and the Speaker are taken into account.
650 -4 -1 = 645 effective seats in the Commons
645 -330 = 15 effective majority Argovian (talk) 23:29, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
"It is in a very strict sense 12" That is the only sense that counts and the only one that should be on Wikipedia. SF's non attandance is not taken into account on pages for other recent UK elections and quite rightly so - it is something that goes on after the election, not as part of the election result itself. 62.190.148.115 (talk) 15:44, 17 July 2015 (UTC)
I agree that 'in a very strict sense' is the appropriate, BUT, In a strict sense, as recorded in the article, the no of Conservative seats is 330, not 331.
650 - 330 = 320 (number of other MPs in commons)
330 - 320 = ...
The problem with the 'multiple sources' is that they work on the basis, rejected by this page, that the Speaker is a Conservative MP (when he was elected as 'Speaker Seeking Re-Election' on a non-party basis).DrArsenal (talk) 11:06, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Lib Dems = "Fourth party"?

The DUP won as many seats. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 10:40, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

True, but on many fewer votes. The LibDems were fourth in vote share (ahead of the SNP, who won many more seats, and behind UKIP, who won more votes). The question is how do we represent this. I suggest we discuss the matter in the article text. Bondegezou (talk) 12:19, 12 July 2015 (UTC)


So the order of party designation isnt based on votes won or seats won but on some arbitrary combination of both - this clearly goes against guidelines - for this reaspn - if you publish a list with a hierarchical order it must be transparent what the criteria for the ordering is - and here it obviously isnt transparent. The best thing to do i suggest would simply be to include the DUP next to the Lib Dems or just remove the boxes completely because they have obviously been botched. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.29.112.175 (talk) 03:59, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

I favour switching to the "Israeli-style" infobox, listing all parties that won seats. Bondegezou (talk) 08:58, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
My understanding has always been that we use seat numbers as the main determinant of the order of parties, with vote share being used as a "tie-breaker" if two parties are equal. A good example is Alberta general election, 2015 where the PCs came 2nd in vote share but 3rd in seats (so are listed as "third party") and two parties tied in terms of seats for fourth place, with the Liberals being placed ahead of the Alberta Party based on vote share. There is some merit to the Israeli-style box but it's a bit dull, I think it's good to have the photos.
Personally, I think it's fine as it is with just four parties. There would even be an argument for going back to a three-party infobox. We could expand to add more parties, but then the question would be - where is the cut-off. There were 11 parties, the speaker, and one independent elected in May. Even if we were to stick to parties that won more than one seat we would still have nine. Larger infoboxes are used in other countries such as Danish general election, 2015 and they don't look that bad. Frinton100 (talk) 17:33, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Vandalism

The last three edits alter the results to show a Labour victory, obviously this is false and should be reverted. Extua (talk) 17:15, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Political Compass

Why on Earth is there an embedded Political Compass image? It's a completely unscientific test that just happens to have acquired some notability thanks to being around when the web was getting big.

It has no empirical utility. It's not even particularly insightful - it's literally just a set of questions some guy pulled out of his proverbial twelve years ago.

I recommend that it be removed from the article.

Sairya (talk) 19:43, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Where? I don't know what image you are referring to. DrArsenal (talk) 22:31, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

GA Review

GA toolbox
Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:United Kingdom general election, 2015/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Jaguar (talk · contribs) 19:39, 31 October 2015 (UTC)


Will be happy to review this JAGUAR  19:39, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Initial comments

  • Per WP:LEADCITE, citations are usually discouraged from the lead unless it's citing controversial information. It wouldn't hurt to relocate a few of them to the body
  • Various unsourced paragraphs in the Election process section
  • "Candidates who do not belong to a registered party can use an "independent" label, or no label at all." - not sourced
  • Most of the Great Britain-based is unsourced
  • There's a citation needed tag in the Government finance section
  • Is there any point in the Endorsements section?
  • "(In the event, Michelle Gildernew lost her seat, reducing the number of Sinn Féin MPs to 4.)" - I don't see why this is a separate sentence in brackets
  • "As it turned out, the results were even more favourable" - weasel words
  • The entire Outcome section is unsourced. A tag has been there since September
  • The Seats changing hands and MPs who lost their seats subsection has no paragraphs, sources and looks like cruft.

Close - not listed

I'm sorry, but due to the lack of sources and prose organisation throughout I'm left with no choice but to quick-fail this. I really hate doing this but it doesn't meet the GA criteria and there are a couple of tags that date from two months ago. If all of the above are addressed then it should have a better chance next time JAGUAR  19:50, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Geographical Distribution - different lead party in each country

user:fishiehelper2 added a paragraph about how a different party 'won' in each of the constituent countries of the UK. while logically true, it seems to me that this is original, rather than sourced in reliable sources, so I have reverted (apologies - my attempt to write an edit summary failed!). DrArsenal (talk) 22:55, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

user:AusLondonder there is no doubt that there are references in the paragraph, but it looks to me like the concept of the paragraph itself is original and synthesis, and thus violates Wikipedia policies, unless a Reliable Source is referenced making the overall point. DrArsenal (talk) 10:17, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
I agree with DrArsenal. Is this observation something that reliable secondary sources have noted? If so, a citation can be provided. If not, then why are we noting it? Bondegezou (talk) 13:32, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
Hi all. I appreciate your comments. I didn't realise the point for myself but read it in an article written by one of the polling organisations after the election. I will find that article and then reinsert the information with the source. Regards Fishiehelper2 (talk) 09:02, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, Fishiehelper2. You certainly have addressed my concern as expressed above. I still have two worries, though. Most of the content is about MPs, and thus doesn't fit within a section on 'geographical voting distribution', and secondly I wonder whether it is notable enough to be worth adding to what is already an incredibly long page. Since these issues are nowhere near as clear-cut as the issue as the one you have sorted out, I am waiting for other views. DrArsenal (talk) 10:06, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi DrArsenal. The number of MPs elected illustrates the geographical voting patterns - the extent may be exaggerated by the FPTP voting system but it accurately reflects the leading party in each country. In terms of whether this information is notable enough to include, my understanding is that this is the first occasion when this has happened. We have had situations previously when Labour has been the leading party in Scotland and Wales while the Conservatives have led in England, with Northern Ireland voting for the Ulster Unionists, but never a situation where each of the four countries has backed a different party. Regards Fishiehelper2 (talk) 13:00, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Should only be first three parties in infobox

The convention in previous UK election articles is to include just the top three parties in the infobox. That was even the case when the SNP won 11 seats in October 1974. I do not think it is justified to change the rules to include the Liberal Democrats just because they happen to have come fourth at this election. I propose the infobox be changed to just include the details of the top three parties by MPs elected, as in previous UK General Election articles. Regards Fishiehelper2 (talk) 23:18, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

This has been extensively discussed before and consensus was reached on the current version. UK politics is changing. There's nothing special about the choice of 3 parties in earlier infoboxes: that's just what best reflected those results. More parties are now significant. Infoboxes for other countries' elections often show many more than three parties, so no reason why we shouldn't here too (and maybe we should change the box for Oct 1974).
Personally, I favour switching to the 'Israeli-style' infobox that allows one to easily list all parties winning seats, as we're using for the next UK general election and as adopted for Isreali and Dutch elections. Bondegezou (talk) 13:30, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
it's not a convention to use 3 parties in the info box for uk elections as several already use more than 3 in fact the 1931 election page has 6 parties listed2.26.206.85 (talk) 22:09, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
Fair comments. In that case it may be worth revisiting the previous articles and expanding the infobox to include more parties. Regards Fishiehelper2 (talk) 08:43, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
We should drop the Lib Dems out of the infobox because simply, they are as irrelevant as the DUP (both parties have only 8 MPs). The lib dems got also less votes than UKIP, although more than the SNP. The purpose of an infobox is to quickly summarize the important facts of the election and I dont think lib dems can be called important anymore with 8 MPs. Conservatives and Labour should of course be included as they are by far the most important parties, but the SNP can also be in the infobox because they clearly rise above the other minor parties. 56 is obviously much more than 8. Also I would like to add that we shouldn't add more parties because the imfobox becomes lengthy and doesn't serve its purpose anymore. --37.219.217.85 (talk) 18:11, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
Infoboxes are meant for quickly checking facts and they should not be lengthy (see. Help:Infobox). Now I know that many other countries have up to nine parties in the infobox, but their situation is completely different from ours (for example most of them have proportional representation). There is no point in including parties who have 8 seats (especially not Sinn Fein, they dont even take their seats and they have only 4.) The infobox becomes a complete joke, when we have a variation in seat numbers between parties from 330 to four. Conservatives and Labour are giants compared to these minor parties. Also you can't say that Conservatives with 36.9% of the vote and DUP/Sinn Fein with 0.6% of the vote are comparable. They are not. We need to draw a line on importance scale somewhere, and there is no reason for having Sinn Fein with 4 seats but not having parties like Plaid Cymru or SDLP with 3 or UUP with 2 or UKIP/Greens with one. These parties all belong to the same class on importance scale. And that class is not the same as the Conservatives or Labour. I think SNP on the infobox is needed, because the election was characterized by the huge rise of the SNP and Labour wipeout in Scotland, but it is not justifiable to have the other parties there. The two and a half party state in the UK has not changed from 2010 (at least not in terms of seats, as the infobox is arranged by the number of seats). The only thing that has changed is that SNP has taken Liberal Democrats place in parliament as the third party. Regards Ransewiki (talk) 18:49, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. It is sad that I had to make a bold change to provoke discussion but at least some discussion has started now. However, all you have done is simply revert my changes. What not follow through at cut it down to the leading three parties? That, at least may provoke further discussion. Indeed, if there are no further comments from other editors, I may do it myself. Regards Fishiehelper2 (talk) 19:00, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry that I had to revert your changes and I know the edits you did were time consuming. Indeed I myself wished to provoke attention by reverting the edits (I had to revert manually), and only after getting some reaction, putting the three party infobox in place. If you want to change it to a three party infobox, I support you, but I can also do it myself. Thanks and regards Ransewiki (talk) 19:18, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
Thanks Ransewiki. I will do it now - if other editors wish to argue why more that the main three parties should be included, let them step forward and do that. I'm happy to keep it to the main three as I think that it is logical to just include the main players at Westminster in the infobox while leaving the more details information for within the article under the 'Results' section. Regards Fishiehelper2 (talk) 19:55, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

I will start a new discussion - hopefully editors will contribute. Fishiehelper2 (talk) 23:47, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

I have returned the infobox to its previous state. I suggest we leave the infobox alone until such time a new WP:CONSENSUS is established, if that happens at all. The above discussion clearly does not show any unanimity here.
This issue has been discussed at length before. I would suggest editors familiarise themselves with that past discussion and why this consensus emerged.
What I've suggested before is that we use the more compact infobox format that would allow us to neatly list all parties winning seats: see Dutch general election, 2012, Next United Kingdom general election and Israeli legislative election, 2015 for examples. That's easy to read, to the point, and avoids any issues of leaving out particular parties (e.g. LibDems or UKIP). The information we lose, the head shots and leader's seat, are details we don't need to see up-front.
If we're sticking to this infobox, I have no objection to a 6-party box: the DUP and Sinn Fein are the main two parties in one of the four constituent nations of the UK. If sticking with fewer parties in the box, then given reliable source coverage certainly does not treat the LibDems like the DUP, I'm not bothered with including one and not the other. Bondegezou (talk) 23:50, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

International reactions

Thanks for notifying me, but I don't think these reactions are pointless. They are used on many other election articles, for example with the same format Canadian federal elections 2015 and French presidential election, 2012 or with a different format Irish general election, 2011 and Polish parliamentary election, 2015. In fact US 2012 presidential elections have an entire article dedicated to these reactions, see International reactions to the United States presidential election, 2012 and so do 2008 elections, see International reactions to the United States presidential election, 2008. So this is not definitely the first time these are used in Wikipedia. Also the friendly greetings are not the point, but to give readers of the article impressions about how other world leaders reacted to the surprising result and more importantly what it means for them, especially important are the reactions of other EU leaders, because Cameron has promised an EU referendum unlike Miliband. Regards --Ransewiki (talk) 23:40, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

To explain to others: Ransewiki added a section [[1]], which I reverted, putting in my edit summary "Pointless - of course other politicians 'welcome' who ever is elected. I've checked past UK, German, Belgian, Dutch, Italian, Irish elections - no equivalent in any of them I have seen".
My view is that such a section might be appropriate, but would need to be justified by discussion here first, and care would be needed to ensure that a neutral point of view is maintained in the compilation and editing of such a section. DrArsenal (talk) 22:56, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
I appreciate your efforts but really can't see the point of adding such information as diplomatic convention would be to congratulate any democratically elected leader on their election victory and make some friendly comment about working together in the future. If you could find examples where that was not that case, that may be noteworthy. Regards Fishiehelper2 (talk) 23:08, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
I sympathise with Ransewiki: you do see these sorts of sections on a variety of articles, but I agree with DrArsenal and Fishiehelper2 that such content is generally pointless and not newsworthy {see WP:UNDUE). As per DrA and Fh2, if there was some particularly out-of-the-ordinary or notable reaction, then that might be worth including. Bondegezou (talk) 10:57, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Lead

User:Nub_Cake appears to share my desire to reduce the length of the lead, but Nub_Cake is doing so be working from a version of the lead of about 30th Dec, but without acknowledging in edit summaries that most of the changes resultant are reverting the changes since 30th Dec (or giving a reason to revert, beyond wanting to reduce the length). It appears that part of what Nub_Cake objects to are paragraph breaks I introduced, and Nub_Cake has also deleted the cross-references to "the 2010 election". Can other users please comment on which sequencing is better? If the issue is simply the paragraph breaks, I am happy to remove them, but think Nub_Cake is losing other valuable edits by reverting to a version similar to 30th Dec. DrArsenal (talk) 23:19, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi. If you could list the specific things that I have deleted in an attempt to make the lead more concise, then we could find a way of incorporating them in a shorter manner than before. The only bit of information I remember leaving out was the SNP's swing in Glasgow North West, which I felt was a bit too specific to be included in the lead. Even this, though, can be added back in by using just a few words if you feel strongly about it - In fact, I'll do it right now. I would advise that you take a look at the 'Outcome' section of the article, which was created precisely so that the lead could be shorter and be more of a summary rather than a short list of how well each party did. Nub Cake (talk) 23:24, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi again, apologies for the incorrect information, it turns out that I did in fact leave the bit about the SNP's swing in. Would be very helpful if you could tell us what bits of information you feel have been unfairly deleted and must be put back in. Nub Cake (talk) 23:27, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
As you made the edits, I think the onus is on you to justify them, rather than on me to justify restoration.
why do you think a sequence with discussion of polls and commentators having got it wrong coming before mention of who won is better? Surely most readers who come to the page without already knowing lots about the election are going to want to read the outcome in terms of winner?
Why do you think the co-incident local elections should be mentioned in the first paragraph?
I do think the first mention of 2010 should be a link to the page about that election. Why did you delete it?
I do think that the small overall swing to Labour should be mentioned. Why did you delete it? DrArsenal (talk) 23:46, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
DrArsenal, Let me take your criticisms one by one:
1. You claim that I should justify my edit and its not for you to justify restoration. With respect, I didn't ask anyone to justify anything, I was just asking you to tell me the 'valuable edits' that I had reverted so that we could put them back in a shorter and more concise way, since I honestly don't remember actually removing any information - just rewording it to make it shorter. I've justified my edit on numerous occasions, but I'll do it again: it's to make the lede shorter, more concise and better presented, rather than repeating the 'Outcome' section of the article. Have a look at the leads other election articles to see what it should look like.
2. You're asking me why I put polls and pre-election predictions before discussing who won and who lost. Simple sequencing: pre-election comes before post-election, meaning that chronologically speaking, polls and predictions should come before discussing the result. It is also very dangerous to assume that people who read this article are very knowledgable about the election already. Also I fail to understand your logic here. If people reading the article already know lots about the election, then chances are they already know the outcome in terms of winner.
3. About why the sentence about the local elections are in the first paragraph: Simply because it is the most appropriate place to put it, since the first paragraph actually discusses the date and timing and the conduct of the election. Also, one sentence does not deserve its own paragraph, as it was previously in your edit.
4. About the link to the 2010 election: of course the first reference to the 2010 election should be linked. If this hasn't been done, I am truly sorry and will rectify this error as soon as I am finished writing this.
5. About mentioning the swing to Labour: clearly you are someone who criticises before they read. If you look closely before immediately rounding on criticism, I think you'll find that it's there and hasn't been deleted at all.
I hope that clears things up. Nub Cake (talk) 02:12, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
Fishiehelper2 I hope you will comment here on the talk page about the lead. I suspect Nub cake and I will keep arguing in the absence of someone else contributing.
As for your edits to the lead, thanks for the edit relating to the LibDems. However, I see you added back the mention of Glasgow North East: I really can't see why that amount of detail needs to be in the lead as well as at United_Kingdom_general_election,_2015#Largest_swing. DrArsenal (talk) 10:15, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
I wonder whether Farage's on-off resignation warrants a mention in the lead, too. DrArsenal (talk) 10:20, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi all. Firstly I added the swing record as I felt it illustrated the scale of the shift in the opinion, but I'd be happy to have less specific wording and that detail recorded elsewhere. I will do it shortly. Apart from that, I think the current lead looks pretty good. I see no need to mention the local elections in the lead as the fact of them taking place at the same time would not have impacted on the General Election (though obviously the General Election being on at the same time would be Regards a significant factor to have mentioned in the Local election result page.) Regards Fishiehelper2 (talk) 10:54, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
I would like to keep mention of the locals being on the same day on this page. Many psephologists would argue that it does affect the result of the general election, as well as of the locals. Bondegezou (talk) 12:25, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, Bondegezou and Fishiehelper2. While I agree that local elections should be mentioned on the page, I doubt the need for it to be in the first paragraph of the lead (or the lead at all, for that matter). Even if it remains, I think the mention of Greater London is too detailed to justify space in the lead. I also suggest Margaret Curran does not warrant a mention in the lead. DrArsenal (talk) 12:55, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
I'd keep mention of the local elections in the lede (but I'm OK with dropping "excluding Greater London"). Agree with dropping Margaret Curran. Bondegezou (talk) 13:08, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
Nub Cake is alleging my wording is 'full of factual mistakes', without outlining any, while claiming to want a shorter lead and introducing extra material into it without acknowledging that is what is being done in the edit summary.
I do not think Nub Cake's wording "similar to the 2010 election" is accurate for predictions of the result. DrArsenal (talk) 13:28, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
Nub Cake's wording has "...end of a fixed term parliament following enactment of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011.", mine "...end of a fixed term parliament following a change in the law." Both include a link to the law. Which is better?
Nub Cake's wording has "... becoming the only Prime Minister other Margaret Thatcher (in 1983) to increase his majority after a full term" mine has "...the first Prime Minister since Margaret Thatcher to continue in office with a greater number of seats for his party". Which is better? DrArsenal (talk) 13:53, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
I think the lead needs the context of "This was despite a small swing from Conservative to Labour" immediately after the first mention of a Conservative majority, while Nub Cake wants swing to be first mentioned in the context of Labour's loss of seats. Which is better? DrArsenal (talk) 14:05, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
Personally, I'd go NubCake, you and you on those last three, so "following enactment of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011", "the first Prime Minister" and earlier mention of Con->Lab swing. Bondegezou (talk) 15:02, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
No, see this is what I mean when I say it has lots of mistakes. David Cameron is not the first Prime Minister since Margaret Thatcher to continue in office with a greater number of seats (though this is true, but rather unimportant). He is the only Prime Minister other than Thatcher to do so. It's not just changing the wording to make it sound better - there is a difference in what is being said. Secondly, I made no changes to the bit about the Fixed Term Parliaments act, though I see no reason to include 'following a change in the law' since this pretty much states the obvious. I also see no problem with saying 'similar to 2010'. The reason I put the bit about the swing while discussing labour is because it seems illogical to mention a swing to Labour without discussing them first. Nub Cake (talk) 15:31, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
But that isn't a mistake. The inaccuracy is with your version, since 1979-83 was four years, not 'a full term'. So you claim it is 'full of factual mistakes' and haven't yet identified one. And you still haven't outlined what you have been repeatedly smuggling in under cover of a load of other changes. Now you claim you "made no changes to the bit about the Fixed Term Parliaments act" but it was different after your edit of 12:56, 5 January 2016 from how it was immediatedly before. DrArsenal (talk) 15:55, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
It is not a mistake but by no means notable. And I did not intend to make any changes to anything about the fixed term parliaments act, so any changes I did make were unintended. Also, 1979-83 may not have been the maximum five years allowed, but it was certainly a full term and 1983 was not a snap early election like October 1974. Nub Cake (talk) 16:17, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
I would also add that 'continue in office' is even more misleading. Going back to my example of October 1974, you'll find that Harold Wilson 'continued in office' with a larger number of seats, but this is not exactly notable since the previous election was only held in February that year. There are several other examples of this. The notable information here is that Thatcher and Cameron are the only two Prime Ministers in British history to be re-elected after serving a full term with an increased majority. Also, I'm just not even going to bother replying to your childish allegations of 'smuggling' unless you can tell me (politely) what exactly it is you are going on about. Nub Cake (talk) 16:21, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
Nub Cake, since you have claimed you have not been reverting, you must remember what you have added, in each of your edits of 22:04, 4 January 2016 and 12:56, 5 January 2016 (even if on neither occasion you mentioned in your edit summary that you were adding it). Surely you are not claiming in addition to your other disingenuous claims that you have no idea what you have added twice in the last two days?
Adding something TWICE without mentioning in an edit summary either time that you have added it when you claim to be trying to reduce the length of the lead seems a lot like 'smuggling in' to me, and stands up better to scrutiny than your wild accusation that I have been using wording 'full of factual mistakes'.
As for 'continue in office', it isn't misleading if combined, as I had it, with "since Margaret Thatcher". However, talk of 'full term' when referring to 4 years of a 5 year term is misleading. 80% is not 100%, never has been and never will be. Those who have used phrases like "re-elected with a greater number of seats for his party after a full term" have been making use of journalistic hyperbole of a sort that does not have a place in the lead of an encyclopedia article. DrArsenal (talk) 18:25, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
Oh, and 22:56, 4 January 2016, Nub Cake. So that's three times you have added in it two days, and you claim you don't know what I am going on about. DrArsenal (talk) 18:31, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
Adding in information is not 'smuggling' - a pretty idiotic thing to say that I'm honestly just going to ignore. I checked both the edits that you've referred to, the first contains no change to the bit about the FTPA. In the second, I have to be honest in saying I don't really recall making that edit, but I stand by it since it is better worded than how it looked before. Now coming onto the bit about Cameron and Thatcher, your persistence appears to be nothing more than a childish attempt to score a personal victory. Honestly, what matters more... that Cameron is the first PM to increase his seat number since Thatcher (your statement), or that Cameron is one of the only two Prime Ministers in history to increase his seat number (my statement)? Are you honestly saying that the first statement is more important than the second one? Also, doesn't the second statement basically imply the first one anyway? Is there any point whatsoever in arguing about this at all? I added a source that basically repeats the statement to which I reverted to, I hope that this convinces you. Nub Cake (talk) 18:49, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
Two things matter here Nub Cake: not making edits when more on the talk page oppose than support your version (both me and Bondegezou), and not saying things that are misleading and/or controversial in the lead. It is misleading to talk of "two Prime Ministers in history to increase seat number", since four have done it, and the claim of 'full term' doesn't stand, since four years are not five. DrArsenal (talk) 19:08, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi, a 'full term' only became defined officially as 5 years when FTPA was passed in 2011. Before that, by convention a PM's term lasted between 4 to 5 years. Therefore the term full term stands, as pointed out by the source. If you don't believe me, just read the source. Nub Cake (talk) 19:27, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Logical number of parties to have in infobox

Hi all. I'm trying to move things forward. I can see a logical case for the top 3 parties in Westminster to be included as they all have significant numbers of MPs, or even for the top 6 to be included - but I can't see any argument behind having the top 4 other than just to get the Lib Dems included. Including the Lib Dems with 8 MPs while excluding the Democratic Unionists with 8 MPs does not make sense as both have equal voting strength in Westminster. Since the previous pattern has been to include the top 3 (for many, many elections) we should stick with that format unless there is a case why more than 3 on this occasion - and if more than 3, how many? Regards Fishiehelper2 (talk) 23:54, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

May I first suggest that, as per WP:TIND, there is no need to rush in moving things forward. Please respect how Wikipedia works and have some patience. We can have a discussion, make a decision and then change the infobox if there is consensus to do so.
Secondly, this matter has been discussed at great length in the past. You can go read the archives and see the reasoning that led us here.
Thirdly, I also feel that there are other solutions than simply increasing or decreasing the current infobox. There are many variations on the infobox format that may work better.
Fourthly, British politics has been evolving. Just because three suited many past elections, that does not mean that three represents well this election. It is useful to look at earlier UK election articles, but that should not be an overriding determinant. I note that infoboxes for election articles for many other countries are often much more inclusive that the infobox we have here. Bondegezou (talk) 00:00, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi Bondegezou. Thanks for commenting though I notice you have not made a case in support of having the largest 4 parties rather than any other number of parties. I read the archives and it appears that you were in favour of all parties with MPs being included. So why are you defending having the top 4 rather than the top 3? We can not have a proper discussion unless a defence is made in favour of the status quo that can then set against the arguments for change. I would be happy with top 3 or top 6 but unless someone explains otherwise, the only argument I can see in favour of '4' is to ensure the Liberal Democrats get included. Regards Fishiehelper2 (talk) 00:19, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
My perspective is this. Lets consider ourselves as a curious reader of Wikipedia in 20 years time. We are flicking through old UK general election articles glancing at the infoboxes to see the story of 21st century British politics. In the 2010 article we see the election of the Liberal Democrats as 3rd largest party and their entry into coalition. In the 2015 infobox we expect to see what happened to them. It is their previous performance that makes their current situation notable. So this article infobox should definitely include the Lib Dems. I'm not definitely committed to only 4 parties in the Infobox and happy for others to suggest more parties. But I think we're doing readers a disservice not to show them what happened to the Lib Dems.Andrewdpcotton (talk) 09:41, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
Fishiehelper2, I support 4 parties over 3 parties for reasons given previously. I'd be happier to have even more parties, but I definitely think reducing the number in the infobox is wrong. Bondegezou (talk) 10:41, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Analysis of other election article infoboxes

It can be useful to look at what other articles do as a guide. So, I've looked at the election article infoboxes for our neighbouring countries to see what they do. For each, I've taken the most recent legislative election:

All but one of these lists everyone who won a seat, with two additionally listing the largest party by vote share to not win any seats. Only Belgium does not list everyone who won a seat, but they still go to 6 parties. The smallest parties included range from parties winning no seats (France, Ireland) to the sixth placed Belgian party on 13 seats in a relatively small legislature. In vote share terms, we see parties included on as little as 0.4% (Ireland) up to 8.8% for the sixth placed Belgian party.

Looking at those articles, I think we should be looking to include more, not fewer parties in the infobox. There is a good argument for listing everyone who won a seat. The LibDems got 8/650 seats on 7.9% of the national vote: that would be enough to be included in at least 6 out of 7 of those other examples, and probably in the Belgian case too depending on how you applied that example.

We can also look specifically at UK general election articles. I haven't been through this systematically yet, but I note the Liberals were included despite winning fewer than 8 seats in 1955, 1959 and 1970, while the Independent Labour Party was included with 4 seats in 1935, the Independent Liberals with 4 in 1931, All-for-Ireland with 8 seats in both 1910 elections and Labour with 2 seats in 1900. Bondegezou (talk) 11:11, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Comparing UK elections with other European elections is not a good idea, because we have a different political culture and situation here in the UK compared to many continental European countries. UK has been almost always governed by a government consisting of a single party apart from few exceptions like 2010. This has not changed in 2015, well at least in terms of seats. From the ones you've listed, only Canada uses the same electoral system as the UK. Of course France also has a Plurality voting system, but with two rounds their elections and political scene is much more fragmented compared to the UK and also their political customs are very different. Canada includes all parties in its infobox because it can and the UK can't. This infobox only allows for 9 parties to be shown and I strongly oppose having an Israeli style infobox, because the infobox stops serving its purpose, it becomes a mini-results table and we already have a results table on this article. The infobox needs to quickly summarize the elections main events and parties like DUP and Sinn Fein are simply trivial info compared to the Conservatives and Labour. They don't have any say in who forms a government. If we had proportional representation, then we could include more parties, but this infobox needs to reflect the fact that the UK has First-Past-the-Post. Even when the media was talking about hung parliament before the election, there was no chance that any other person then David Cameron or Ed Miliband could realistically form a government. Regards Ransewiki (talk) 12:28, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi again. If we used the standard used by parliament to give Short Money to opposition parties "Short Money is made available to all opposition parties in the House of Commons that secured either two seats or one seat and more than 150,000 votes at the previous General Election", that would result in all 11 parties with at least 1 MP getting included. If we set a minimum of 2 MPs to be included, that would exclude UKIP who came third in the popular vote but still leave us with 9 parties. If we wish to recognise that the House of Commons procedures give privileges to the top three parties, we would restrict the infobox to the top three parties for that reason (aware that details about all other parties are available elsewhere in the article.) But there is no reason to support 4 parties other than to allow the Liberal Democrats to be included. I do not even accept the argument that 'readers will wish to find out what happened to them at the election' as sufficient justification to include them as all the information is available in the article - it does not also require to be in the infobox. So I could be persuaded that 3, 6, 9 or 11 is appropriate - but not 4. Regards Fishiehelper2 (talk) 12:42, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
An infobox is meant to be a compact representation of the key facts. The current infobox includes stuff like the party leaders' individual seats. You'd have to read a lot of reliable source coverage of the 2015 election before the fact that Cameron stood in Witney got mentioned. It's trivia. Similarly, while I'm all for pictures in the article, we don't need a picture of the party leaders in the infobox. Thus, I favour the more compact Israeli-style infobox. Ransewiki is concerned that this repeats the results table in the article. This doesn't concern me: the full results table carries far more detail. A summary results table in the infobox would be doing precisely what an infobox is meant to be doing.
Ransewiki also notes that the political climate and voting system in the UK is different to many of our European neighbours. There are, indeed, differences. There are always differences between different countries: the question is whether those differences should produce a different infobox approach. The key things you want to know about an election are, it seems to me, pretty much the same in the UK, Canada, France, Ireland and the Netherlands. Ransewiki notes that it was only Cameron or Miliband who could realistically form a government, but exactly the same applies in the other countries I looked at. The leaders of the smaller parties there were never going to be PM (or equivalent) either. So I would reject this exceptionalism: I don't see why the political differences are such that we should be different. Indeed, Ransewiki acknowledges the similarities with Canada, so then let's do the same as Canada. If we can't do exactly the same as Canada, then let's do something as close to that.
I'm a bit unclear what different people are arguing for. Perhaps people can clarify? Ransewiki above argues against including the DUP and SF, i.e against having more then 4 in the infobox, but, Ransewiki, do you want two parties (Sturgeon was never going to be PM), three parties or four? You would be the only person arguing for 2 if that's what you want. Fishiehelper2, you have argued for 3, 6, 9 or 11 -- do you have some preference among those? I would like to include as many parties who won seats as possible, so my preferences is 11, then 10, then 9, then 8...
Where I would disagree with you, Fishiehelper2, is this idea that there has to be an exact logic behind the number of seats. There doesn't. We are allowed to weigh up a number of different arguments and come to some overall view. We don't have to pick one of your rationales: we can recognise they all have value and pick some compromise.
As for your different suggested rationales, they do not, it seems to me, relate to standard Wikipedia policy. We should report what secondary reliable sources do: that's a core Wikipedia approach. While it's interesting what the Short Money rules are, why should they dictate what parties go in an article infobox? Secondary reliable sources talking about this election talked far more about the current 4 parties in the infobox than they did about the fifth and sixth parties, so it is reasonable that we should pick a cut-off at 4. There is a logic there. That said, I'm all for more parties being included.
Both of you: having two or three parties in the infobox would seem odd compared to the 1970, 1959, 1955, 1935, 1931, Dec 1910, Jan 1910 and 1900 elections. Neither of you have picked up on that point. Bondegezou (talk) 13:45, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
PS: User:Andrewpcotton above favours 4+ parties. Given that, current consensus clearly lies against <4 parties. Bondegezou (talk) 13:48, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi again. My suggestion based on Short Money was to try and get an external standard that could be easily applied to future elections without having to have a new discussion every time. My personal preference would be to include all parties with at least one MP, ranked in seat order. Anything less will exclude 2 parties supported by millions of people. However, whatever number of MPs we decide should 'qualify' for inclusion in the infobox, all parties getting that number must get included: arguing that the Liberal Democrats winning 8 MPs should be included but the DUP winning 8 MPs should be excluded is completely unacceptable as both have equal parliamentary clout. So on the basis of what happened in 2015 I could be persuaded to accept anything from 3 to 11 - but not 4. Regards Fishiehelper2 (talk) 14:11, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
Or presumably 7!
Well, if you and I would both prefer all parties who won a seat... What do other people think of that proposal? Bondegezou (talk) 14:25, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
I would favor to keep in the infobox all parties obtaining 2% of the seats and above. Wykx 15:58, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
That's currently 13 seats and would mean an infobox of three parties. Bondegezou (talk) 16:33, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
My opinion is that the status quo is inexcusable in terms of NPOV as it gives a huge favour to the Lib Dems. I cannot understand how anyone can possibly justify including them but not another party with the same number of seats (i.e. the DUP). I would be in favour of the traditional limit of three (infoboxes tend to have a clear cut-off point, and there are three parties massively ahead of the rest, then a number of minor parties with a tiny number of seats), or switch to the multi-party infobox and include all parties that won seats. Number 57 16:43, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
The article is about the election as a whole, not just the outcome of the election. The infobox exists to summarise the most important aspects of the election; and, one of the most important features of the election was the reduction in LibDem seats. Another was the failure of UKIP to be substantially represented, despite the number of votes. To summarise the article most fairly, both should be listed in the infobox - if that means including all the parties who won seats, for completeness, so be it. Ghmyrtle (talk) 16:51, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
The infobox intends to display the First party, Second party, Third party, etc. so we have to be aligned with the titles and the outcome of the election. Evolution compared to previous election shall be commented in the body of the article. Wykx 19:43, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Ransewiki questions my earlier analysis on the grounds that many of the countries concerned have proportional systems. I think they are still relevant comparisons, however I thought I'd look at some more countries using majoritarian systems like FPTP. To make this manageable, I looked at just other OECD countries:

So, again, infoboxes are typically including all parties who won seats (US, NZ, Canada as before), but that's easy when fewer parties won seats. The Australian example is interesting and would seem to provide a good parallel in support of the current infobox here. Bondegezou (talk) 17:47, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

My personal preference is 2 parties in the infobox, but 3 is also fine by me. I also agree that 4 is not justifiable given that the DUP has the same amount of seats as the Liberal Democrats. The other kind of infobox is just visually horrible and actually the party leader images are very important since our elections have become increasingly "presidential" thanks to the media portrayal of Cameron/Miliband. I also would like to say that comparing 2015 elections to much older elections like Bondegezou does is not sensible because, basically nobody was paying attention to them when they were done and they have had much less scrutiny and discussion than this article. Also the political situation is a bit different from those elections because in the earlier ones the Liberals were falling apart and Labour was taking their place as the other party (opposing the Conservatives) in our two party system, and for example the 1970 election has the Liberals simply because they had more than two million votes compared to the fourth party (SNP then), which had only 306,802 votes. Basically the election night in 2015 had two main stories: Conservative majority and SNP landslide in Scotland. We have two parties with more than 200 seats, one party with more than 50, and the rest of them have under 10 seats. The infobox becomes a joke when have parties that had less than 2 percent of seats. A single MP to parliament is not a hard achievement when we have 650 individual races. We need to include John Bercow then too, because he also because holds one seat and is not an independent, but doesn't belong to the Conservative party anymore. Conservatives/Labour/SNP don't seriously even notice if a couple of their MPs is missing. Indeed the SNP has lost to scandals already a couple of its MPs. The UK has a unique political system, because we are not like the US with two parties, even though we are clearly a two party system if it means that only two parties have a realistic chance of forming government. We are not like Canada because Canada became a "three party" system in 2011 when the Liberals dropped out of official opposition and when in 2015 the Liberals became the government by winning a landslide. Two seats in NZ parliament compared to two seats in the UK (not to even mention one seat) is not exactly the same thing when NZ parliament had in 1993 only 99 seats in total compared to todays House of Commons which has 650 seats in total. Australia too has only 150 seats in their House of Representatives. One point also to note is that the SNP has more seats than all of the others combined. Regards --Ransewiki (talk) 18:16, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi. I just thought I'd visit the article to see how things are going only to find that several users are wasting great amounts of time essentially repeating an argument that was made in great length before the result. I've got a few things to say.
(1): Don't bother comparing other countries' election articles to the UK. You will find that every election works differently in terms of electoral system and the number of parties contesting. For example, Turkish elections usually only have a few parties winning seats (largely because you need at least 10% of the vote to get representation), meaning it is very easy to include every party that won a seat in the infobox. See the latest election for example. In the UK, you'll find that the number of parties winning seats is much, much greater, and effectively unrelated to the number of votes they've won nationally. Even the Speaker wins a seat as an individual. By the logic of 'having to include every party that won a seat', we will have to include Bercow in the infobox as well. Not only is it impractical, it is also rather unnecessary given the infobox is supposed to be a summary of the most important developments.
(2): It is nonsensical to use an Israeli-style list infobox. There are some Wikipedians who believe that since UK elections are similar to Israeli ones in that several parties win seats, we should use an Israeli style infobox to present the results. However in Israel, you may find that a party that comes 7th with just 4% of the vote and 6 seats can actually become a coalition partner, since politics there is very fragmented and the winning party usually doesn't win a majority. In the UK, the party that wins usually wins a majority, as was the case in this election. There is absolutely no need to denote small parties that won just a handful of seats, since they are not influential in the way that small parties in Israel are. This aside, suddenly changing infobox style from one election to the next is also pretty unnecessary in terms of continuity.
(3): The infobox is a summary of the most important developments, not a scoreboard. If you have a look at the old archived arguments from before the election, you'll find that debate on which parties to include based on how many seats or votes they won basically resulted in deadlock, since there is no good or objective way to do it. I personally think that even though I despise them, UKIP should get a mention on the infobox even though it only won 1 seat, since it is still an important development and should be noted. The best way to present summarised information is by figuring out what matters most. So here's why the 4 party infobox is the best:
  • Keep the Conservatives for obvious reasons
  • Keep Labour for obvious reasons
  • Keep the SNP because the result in Scotland was one of the two main stories of this election, along side a surprise win for the Conservatives. The political change in Scotland and the rise of the SNP was a huge development and so it should be noted. This is of course besides the fact that they have 56 seats in Parliament and are the third largest party.
  • Keep the Liberal Democrats because their landslide defeat was also a key post-election story. Going down from 46 to 8 seats is a huge development for an outgoing party in a coalition and also given that the Lib Dems have been the third largest party consistently since whenever. Their huge losses in this election honestly should not be ignored. If people are flicking through UK election articles that consistently list the Lib Dems and finally get to the 2015 election, they're going to wonder why this party has suddenly been deleted of the infobox.
  • No need for the DUP The argument that not listing the DUP is unfair since they got the same seats as the LDs isn't really relevant. They could have won 9 or 10 and finished above LD, but we have to ask ourselves whether this is in any way a significant result or development. Maybe if the Conservatives failed to win a majority and formed a coalition with the DUP, there would definitely be a reason to include them. But the way I see it, their result is in no way significant.
  • No need for anything else (apart from maybe UKIP) Similarly, I am unable to really think of any other party that won a significant result that deserves a mention in the summary infobox at the top of the article. Readers looking for a scoreboard of results and for smaller parties can find these in the results section. The only other significant result I believe is UKIP, since they came third in terms of votes, but to be honest I understand that their very low seat count may come as a counter-argument to including them (and also I hate them anyway).
In conclusion, I've seen editors above attempting to fit 6 or 9 parties on the infobox, effectively turning it into a scoreboard. In all honesty, even if you use all 9 slots you will still have some parties left out, meaning that the objective of including every single party that won a seat cannot be reached no matter how hard you try (12 parties won seats in this election). Not only is it impossible, it is also unnecessary since these small parties' results were not significant at all in any way in terms of parliamentary arithmetic. It's best to treat the box as a summary of the most important information and the most significant developments in an election, rather than as a scoreboard that is readily available in the results section. Nub Cake (talk) 22:52, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi Nub Cake. If we were going to adopt your suggestion we would have to have a heading 'selected parties' in the infobox and then still use 'first party', 'second party', 'third party', 'fourth party' for Con, Lab, SNP and Lib Dem respectively, but then insert UKIP as 'tenth party' and possibly the Green Party as 'eleventh party'. That will only work if consensus could be achieved on which parties should be mentioned as being sufficiently significant in the election. Regards Fishiehelper2 (talk) 23:16, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
Well we shouldn't probably then have Greens or UKIP at all in the infobox. We shouldn't include them because this is a First Past the Post election and what actually matters most is not the national vote share (just see where that got UKIP), but the 650 individual races. Of course we need to have the national vote share there because the infobox is a national summary of the 650 individual constituency elections as a whole and its very important too, but we shouldn't start ranking parties by their vote share in the infobox and by share of seats UKIP is very much a "tenth party". On the matter of Liberal Democrats, I've changed my opinion thanks to Nub Cake, and I also think they should be included because they and their downfall are the main reason why the Conservatives got the majority. Regards --Ransewiki (talk) 10:05, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
Nub Cake, I agree with much of what you say. I think your summary of the key points of the election is pretty good. However, I suggest that's an argument for what should be in the text of the article lede. The infobox is a list, it's dumb, it can't do nuance. Saying UKIP got lots of votes but only 1 seat, which is really good in some ways but a poor showing in others, is right, but rather more complicated than can be squeezed into an infobox. I think including UKIP while excluding, say, the DUP, SF and PC, would be indefensible. I mean that literally. It would produce years of edit-warring as passers-by to the article thought it weird that parties with more seats were excluded and constantly tried to put them back in.
You say the infobox shouldn't be a scoreboard. Why not? An infobox should be a brief summary of the article content. A scoreboard delivers precisely that. Yes, there is a full results table later on in the article, but it's much later on in the article and much more detailed. A nice clear scoreboard at the top of the article is what I, as a reader, want to quickly find out what happened. And it's that rationale that applies across election articles for multiple countries.
Personally, I think the current infobox is bloated and hard to read, with trivia taking up space. The compact legislative election infobox takes up much less room while containing more pertinent information. You argue that the UK has a different political context than Israel. You're right about that, but the Israeli-style infobox merely began on Israeli election articles. It's used in other places: like the next UK general election article and the most recent Dutch general election article. Using it does not mean we think the UK has a similar political culture to Israel.
I think the issue of Bercow as Speaker is a bit of a red herring. The compact infobox can easily include a line for the 2 independents (Bercow and Hermon). Bondegezou (talk) 10:35, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
To jump back a few steps in the discussion, I understand and sympathise with your rationale, Fishiehelper2, for using Short Money as a rule to avoid future debates. The problem is that such an approach risks being merely a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS when we have to always follow basic Wikipedia principles of following what reliable secondary sources say, giving due weight to different aspects of a story and adoption a neutral point of view. So, I think it's interesting what the Short Money rules are, it tells us something about the British political system and how an external body has resolved a similar issue, but I don't think it can be an overriding rule for what we do here. So, I'm not entirely disagreeing or agreeing with your suggestion to follow the Short Money rules. I think it's a guide that we can consider, but in conjunction with other lines of reasoning. Er, I hope that makes sense. Bondegezou (talk) 10:40, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
Very clear, thanks :) Fishiehelper2 (talk) 10:47, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
This election is not just a legislative election, it also determines who forms the government, and therefor the infobox should give prominence to the leading candidates: David Cameron and Ed Miliband. The Israeli style infobox is not suited to British politics. "The compact infobox can easily include a line for the 2 independents (Bercow and Hermon)" this is exactly what is wrong with the Israeli style infobox, it looks like the independents are as important as the main parties. We shouldn't include trivial info in the infobox (and I agree we have some trivial info there already with the leaders seats, but we can easily remove them). Both of the examples (Israel and Netherlands) which use this kind of infobox have proportional representation and form coalition governments after elections. This is simply not the case in the UK and 2010 was an exception. Regards --Ransewiki (talk) 11:36, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
This election is a legislative election. The Commons is a legislature. Yes, the legislature also chooses the executive, but that's exactly the same as in the Netherlands and Israel.
I don't see 2010 as being quite so exceptional. Smaller parties have become significant at various times in UK politics. There was a hung result at first in 1974, and Labour lost their majority by the end of the '70s and the votes of the Liberals and SNP were significant. Major lost his majority and the UUP were significant in the mid-nineties. You've already mentioned 2010 and much of the discussion in the run-up to the 2015 election was of the same happening again. It didn't, but the Conservatives' majority is small and we've already had Commons votes where it mattered what the SNP, LibDems or others did.
More generally, other countries that don't use proportional representation (like Canada, Australia) still have election articles that are more inclusive than our current infobox. And I don't buy this exceptionalism that the UK context is so different that other countries' election article infoboxes are not a useful guide.
I don't think an infobox which lists one party with a small number of seats and another party with a much larger number of seats does imply that the smaller party is "as important as the main parties". Give the reader some credit! If you make the infobox clear, they can immediately see who won what. That's what I like about the compact box: it's super clear. With the current infobox, you see these four big photos, but you have to look around to see the numbers. With the compact box, bang, I can see the numbers, see that two parties got a lot more seats than the others, see that UKIP got a big vote share but only 1 seat, and so on.
I agree with you that we should give prominence to the leading candidates. I think that's something that runs through the article text. In terms of the infobox, whichever one we use, they'll still put Cameron and the Tories first and Miliband and Labour second, and they'll still have the preceding and resultant PM listed at the bottom. Bondegezou (talk) 12:23, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
Since you're so keen on comparing this election to others, I would like to point out that most elections in Wikipedia, including all of the previous UK ones, use the normal infobox, not the Israeli style infobox. Why should this election be any different? We just simply don't need to have more than four parties in the infobox, because the rest of them are irrelevant trivia compared to the Conservatives, Labour, SNP and Lib Dems. Canadian and Australian parliaments are not more inclusive, one seat in Canada or Australia means much more because both parliaments are much smaller than the UK House of Commons in terms of seats. Australia 2013 in fact does the same as our infobox currently (including one party with the same number of seats but not the other). I don't see any point in having parties like DUP in the infobox with less than a percent of the vote (0.6%). DUP might be important to Northern Ireland, but to the UK election as a whole they mean almost nothing. --Ransewiki (talk) 18:53, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
I would agree with some of the points already raised- the way that UK election inboxes have been populated in the past doesn't really get the balance right for the situation now. In particular I'm not convinced of the value of large pictures of leaders and where their seat is. Perhaps some of the difficulties come from the infobox starting to get populated before the election (and in many aspect might reflect the outcome of the previous election) and then this needs to be adjusted to accommodate information about those parties that actually get the votes and seats. I agree that the infobox for this election shouldn't show info for less than four parties- one of the parties that was in government after the 2010 election were fourth largest by number of seats after this election. As the article reflects, there was quite a bit of pre-election media coverage addressing the possibility of coalition between the various parties standing. I can see there are arguments for listing all parties that won seats, and so therefore after the vote why another style of infobox, such as that used in the Dutch general election, might be able to accommodate this and yet leave out some of the less relevant fields. Drchriswilliams (talk) 19:10, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
I'd looked at the Israel Election infobox, but not taken a look at the Dutch one before - while the two convey essentially the same info, I wasn't enthusiastic about the Israel one in the way I am about the Dutch one - the extra colour helps enormously: it feels to me like the way we should go. We have space in that style of box -and precedent from elsewhere- to include all 11 parties that won one or more seat. I don't like saying this, but it is unfair on UKIP for them to be excluded when they came 3rd in terms of vote (I think I would probably argue that if UKIP won over about 3% at the 2020 -or whenever- GE and won no seats they should be included in the post 2020 infobox, too. That sort or share warrants mention in other national election infoboxes, let alone the share they won in 2015). DrArsenal (talk) 19:32, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

BPC enquiry into why polls didn't predict Con majority

At Talk:Opinion polling for the 2015 United Kingdom general election‎ there is a start of a discussion about how to describe the outcome of the BPC enquiry. It seems to make sense for something to be agreed for Opinion polling for the 2015 United Kingdom general election‎ before we do the same here, so we don't just repeat everything on two talk pages. Can I encourage contributions on what to say about the outcome of the enquiry on that talk page? DrArsenal (talk) 14:33, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

DrArsenal. Are you asking us to go to that page and comment? SW3 5DL (talk) 19:45, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
SW3 5DL - please do! Sorry I was so verbose! DrArsenal (talk) 23:12, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

RfC: Lead - full term, etc

There is no consensus in the RfC. As Ncmvocalist wrote here:

Nobody understood the question to be answered, and by the time the editor who opened the RfC attempted to clarify, only one further comment was received to which the proposer suggested the clarified question was still not fully understood.

I recommend opening a new RfC with a clearly defined question if the issue still is not resolved.

Cunard (talk) 19:12, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should the lead include statements comparing with "after a full term" instances of elections after 4 years of a max 5 year term? etc DrArsenal (talk) 11:01, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Clarified 17:46, 18 January 2016 (UTC) Nub Cake and I got into something like an edit war over the phrases "becoming the only Prime Minister other than Margaret Thatcher (in 1983) to be re-elected with a greater number of seats for his party after a full term and the first since Lord Salisbury in 1900 to increase his popular vote share after a full term." Nub Cake wanted them in the lead, saying they were important reasons why the election was notable, while I disagreed, because in my view 'full term' was not a fair description of 1979-83, or most Parliaments in the years since 1900. Since placing the RfC I have added to the section on 'outcome': "Cameron became the first Prime Minister since Lord Salisbury in 1900 to increase his popular vote share after a full term, and is sometimes credited as being the only Prime Minister other than Margaret Thatcher (in 1983) to be re-elected with a greater number of seats for his party after a 'full term'" with a footnote - "In the 20th Century so few Parliaments lasted the full five year term that some commentators regarded four years as being a 'full term', thus calling the 1979-83 Parliament a 'full term'" The question, though, is whether this is better in the Lead, or in the section on 'outcome'? DrArsenal (talk) 17:46, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Banedon The issue is the one at stake in this diff [[2]]. DrArsenal (talk) 14:50, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
  • After some thought, I favour dumping the entire sentence. Anything that has to be so carefully couched is perhaps not very meaningful. Let's just lead with the basic facts. Bondegezou (talk) 10:16, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Support. The bot sent me. I do understand the RfC question, but others likely won't. I support including it because the polling council did question the variance between the polls and the election outcome. SW3 5DL (talk) 15:58, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for coming here, SW3 5DL. I'm not so sure you did understand the RfC question, unfortunately - it has nothing to do with "the variance between the polls and the election outcome". I'm going to try re-writing the RfC question - I think trying to make it as short as the advice at WP:RFC meant it was incomprehensible to all but those who were already involved. DrArsenal (talk) 17:33, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
DrArsenal No, I wasn't suggesting that it did. I shouldn't have added that bit. SW3 5DL (talk) 02:54, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
"According to the policy on due weight, emphasis given to material should reflect its relative importance to the subject, according to published reliable sources. This is true for both the lead and the body of the article. If there is a difference in emphasis between the two, editors should seek to resolve the discrepancy. Significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article,..." MOS:INTRO - So certainly it should be in the article if it is worth mentioning in the Lead, but should something that only has one sentence in the article really be in the Lead too? There are 16 currently sentences in the Lead - do RS really suggest that if you were to say 17 things about the election (or 34 if you take two per sentence), a comparison with Lord Salisbury should be mentioned? DrArsenal (talk) 23:46, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Abstainers

To be democratic, the article should put the abstainers in as the second party.Keith-264 (talk) 23:00, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

We're an encyclopedia which reports what knowledge and scholars publish - and no-one to my knowledge, and certainly not leading sources, publishes election results with people who do not vote alongside the political parties. Furthermore, the parties are listed by number of seats, not votes, and by definition 'Abstainers' got 0 seats. As a note, though I don't have figures to hand for 2015, in 2011 there were 46.4 million registered voters in the UK, suggesting that 'Abstainers' would be the largest group, never mind the second! --Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 09:51, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Infobox wrong

Why is the infobox the way it is, when the FAQ says exhausting argument on the topic came to the result to use a different style that includes UKIP? 92.26.141.246 (talk) 11:39, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Where is this long and exhaustive discussion you talk of? Inclusion of a party with just one seat I think is absurd. No matter how many votes they got. UK General Elections, are done on what matters, seats won, and nothing else. Sport and politics (talk) 15:02, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Here, right above, is the exhaustive discussion and we did seem to agree on switching to a different style of infobox and including all parties that won seats (which would include UKIP). However, no-one has yet made these changes. Bondegezou (talk) 18:21, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
Ah, and here I thought people'd just changed it back again. I've done something prospective in talk for the next one....but I like the outgoing members & turnout of this one, I'll try to combine them at some point. Or someone else could. I'm also seeing in this article we want parties arranged by seats rather than importance, as it's the results. 80.42.16.185 (talk) 13:52, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Leader photos in infobox

Why are the leader photos larger than for previous elections? This makes it harder to see them all at once, which is the more disadvantageous for there being four of them in two rows; it is also inconsistent with previous articles. I think I shall alter this if no-one objects. I apologise if this has been discussed and agreed on previously - if that's the case I would be most grateful to anyone who tells me so. Dionysodorus (talk) 02:08, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Ebonelm. Dionysodorus (talk) 18:18, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Turnout?

Turnout seems to be missing from the results tables and infobox? best, 137.205.170.55 (talk) 15:10, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Lead infobox

I replaced the lead table with the table used at United Kingdom general election, 2010 and prior elections as well as used internationally. if the concern is having LibDem but not SNP, see United Kingdom general election, 1951 or prior for exact precedent − every UK election, regardless of other parties' votes or seats, has three and only three parties − Tory, Labour and LibDem. Unlike the SNP and the rest of the minor parties, history continues in that the LibDems like Labour and Tories are the three parties of government. There should be no reason for this election article to have a different infobox. The consensus, by way of what is used in all the previous UK elections, is to use the full 'Infobox election' infobox - anyone claiming consensus for the 'Infobox legislative election' infobox is incorrect. Timeshift (talk) 16:48, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

On the contrary, I think everyone who has participated in the discussion over the infobox agrees that the SNP must be included, constituting a very widespread consensus. I agree that there is no consensus for the Israeli-style infobox though. Dionysodorus (talk) 16:59, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
There is no "strong consensus" or even "consensus" to include SNP. I've searched for SNP on this talk page and found barely any mentions for support at all! It is also the best compromise choice to ensure the prior israeli-only infobox is kept out however - instead of debating an infobox with 4 or 9 or whatever number of included parties and disagree, we should keep what the consensus for previous elections has been - that is, only the parties of government are included - Tory, Labour, LibDem. We should start from this point. Then, if people want to discuss adding parties beyond that, they can do so. Timeshift (talk) 17:02, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
Timeshift, there has been an extensive discussion of which parties to include. Just read through this talk page. Discussions have been had as to whether to have a three-party box without the Lib Dems but with the SNP, a four-party box with Lib Dems and SNP, a six-party box with UKIP and Greens too, or an all-party box. What no-one thinks is that there should be a three-party box with Lib Dems but without SNP. The SNP has more seats than the Lib Dems, and there is a guiding principle among most election articles that we order parties by seats. Perhaps there has been no discussion on this precise question - but in the last page of discussion no-one at all, as far as I know, has thought excluding the SNP but including the Lib Dems is a good idea.
The burden is very much on you to establish any consensus to change it, at any rate. In the meantime, I will change it back. Please don't revert it: it's a substantial change you propose, and very much not founded on a consensus at your end. Dionysodorus (talk) 17:32, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
I'd argue it's up to you to establish changing the consensus from the infobox/style used at all of the UK's previous elections United Kingdom general election, 2010 and prior, as well as international consensus/elections. I fail to see discussion which indicates any form of consensus for the Istaeli-style infobox you've reverted to - you said yourself "I agree that there is no consensus for the Israeli-style infobox though" - so stop reverting to it. So I will revert, and continue to revert, to the consensus of ALL the previous UK election infoboxes AND internationally. Then you can debate which parties should be included from that point. Up until now, the parties included in the infobox for all previous UK elections have been those parties which have formed or had a history of forming government - Labour, Tory, LibDem - so we can start there where there's actually an existing consensus and see what happens. Please don't show signs of WP:OWNing the article. Timeshift (talk) 17:43, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I completely and totally oppose the Israeli style infobox. The British parliamentary system is still, broadly, a two-party system. Labour and the Conservatives have been the two largest parties in the House of Commons since the early 1900's. Elections are conducted by first-past-the-post in single member constituencies. Outside of Scotland and Northern Ireland virtually every single constituency was won by Labour or the Conservatives. UKIP, with one 1 of 650 seats is not a credible reason to change the electoral infobox at this article to be different from every single other British general election article. AusLondonder (talk) 18:07, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
Furthermore, for example, at the Israeli legislative election, 2015 the two largest parties won 45% of seats. In this election, Labour and the Conservatives won 86% of seats. The israeli-only infobox is not suited to the British political system AusLondonder (talk) 18:11, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
Indeed, as soon as one includes either SNP (4.7%/50 seats) or UKIP (12.6%/1 seat), the debate and disagreement starts as to whether % or seats indicate sufficient notability for the infobox. The fact is, both SNP/UKIP have never taken part in forming government (and not to mention are still new), unlike the LibDems who just came out of a governing coalition, have a huge history as a governing party, and therefore have been in each infobox United Kingdom general election, 2010 and prior for a very long time, and are therefore the only party aside from Tory and Labour (and factions) to be in ANY british election infobox. Timeshift (talk) 18:16, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

There is an ongoing discussion about the infobox -- see above. It is entirely inappropriate for User:Timeshift9 to start an edit war over this. We are trying to work in a cooperative manner to solve a difficult problem. The last thing we need is an edit war pissing everyone off. Leave the article as it was and let us have a respectful discussion. Bondegezou (talk) 19:02, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Well done for ignoring Talk:United Kingdom general election, 2015#Lead infobox, for not discussing and for edit warring, and for continuing to ride roughshod. The infobox you're reverting to is used only for Israeli and Dutch (extremely multi-party) elections, they don't even compare to the 2015 UK result in the slightest. The rest of the world uses the infobox that 99% of all UK election articles use. Truly embarrassing, what a disgrace. This has now gone to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums. Timeshift (talk) 19:15, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
Agree with Bondegezou here. There have now been several discussions, occurring across several talk pages, over several months, where various editors have in good faith tried to consider what aspects of the Infobox allow help or hinder the display of relevant information to Wikipedia's readers. There was clearly consensus reached that the old-style of infobox was not fit for adequately representing the information pertinent to this election. Drchriswilliams (talk)
I fail to see what changed this election. The number of minor parties winning seats didn't change. Was it UKIP winning 12% of the vote? AusLondonder (talk) 20:28, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
To go over a few of the details raised previously: In 2010 no party achieved a majority. Shortly after that election result a coalition was formed between the Conservatives and the Lib-Dems. In the run-up to the 2015 election quite a bit of the polling had suggested the election could again finish without any single party winning enough seats to achieve an outright majority. So in such circumstances the smaller parties can have an important role. In the 2015 election the SNP gained a much higher number of seats than the Lib-Dems. In fact, the DUP returned the same number of MPs as the Lib-Dems did in 2015. Useful information to assist Wikipedia's readers might include the size of the electorate, the number that turned out and the expression of this as a percentage. For each party the number of candidates, the number of votes and the number of MPs returned all add something to our understanding of what happened. Large big pictures of party leaders and the name of their seat on the other hand are a waste of valuable space. Drchriswilliams (talk) 21:07, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
I shall perhaps write something further later, but may I point out to Timeshift that I am myself not in favour of the all-party infobox? Unilateral edits of the sort Timeshift is engaging in, bordering on edit-warring, are altogether unconstructive, and even I can see that, especially when they instate a form of infobox (without the SNP) that has, to my knowledge, received no support whatsoever. Timeshift cannot claim any kind of overarching consensus for that, as, if anything is apparent, it is that there are legitimate local differences of opinion as to the right thing to do here, and regarding how important it is to maintain consistency and in what respects it is most important to maintain it. Dionysodorus (talk) 23:03, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

The Six-party Infobox, as per talk.

The umbrella is the 1.000.000 votes, but in order of seats following the electoral system in the UK, this proposal is the result of an opposition to the other infobox in discussion. --GuarénDeBiblioteca (talk) 17:55, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

United Kingdom general election, 2015
← 2010 7 May 2015 2020 →
All 650 seats in the House of Commons
326 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Turnout66.1% Increase1.0%
  First party Second party Third party
 
Leader David Cameron Ed Miliband Nicola Sturgeon
Party Conservative Labour SNP
Leader since 6 December 2005 25 September 2010 14 November 2014
Leader's seat Witney Doncaster North Did not stand
Last election 306 seats, 36.1% 258 seats, 29.0% 6 seats, 1,7%
Seats before 302 256 6
Seats won 331 232 56
Seat change Increase 29 Decrease 24 Increase 50
Popular vote 11,334,576 9,347,304 1,454,436
Percentage 36.9% 30.4% 4.7%
Swing Increase 0.8% Increase 1.5% Increase 3.1%
  Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party
  File:Natalie Bennett portrait (cropped).jpg
Leader Nick Clegg Nigel Farage Natalie Bennett
Party Liberal Democrats UKIP Green
Leader since 18 December 2007 5 November 2010 3 September 2012
Leader's seat Sheffield Hallam Standing in South Thanet Standing in Holborn and St Pancras
Last election 57 seats, 23,0% 0 seats, 3,1% 1 seats, 1,0%
Seats before 56 2 1
Seats won 8 1 1
Seat change Decrease 48 Decrease1 Steady
Popular vote 2,415,862 3,881,129 1,157,613
Percentage 7.9% 12.6% 3.8%
Swing Decrease 15.2% Increase 9.5% Increase 2.8%
Colours denote the winning party, as shown in the main table of results
Prime Minister before election

David Cameron
Conservative Party

Elected Prime Minister

David Cameron
Conservative Party

Personally, I'd prefer we commented out the information of the 1 million mark. Also, change those arrows. Obviously subjective, and yeah this is original research, but they're ugly as hell and I don't think suit Wikipedia at all. Do they work well on mobile? SamWilson989 (talk) 17:59, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
Please don't add this infobox into the article until we have consensus here. I've raised a couple of points that haven't been discussed so please don't take it upon yourself to add it before that discussion. Thanks, SamWilson989 (talk) 18:11, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
Didn't I say we'd immediately get more opposition...? But those arrows are hideously ugly, and I don't see why we should suddenly reduce the size of the portraits and remove leader's seat etc. If we did want to display parties on the basis that they had more than a million votes (and I don't know where that idea came from, and it certainly doesn't reflect consensus), then I think we should just use the old infobox (as for previous elections) and add in UKIP or whatever. Dionysodorus (talk) 19:16, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, GuarénDeBiblioteca, for making a concrete proposal. However, I don't feel it's an improvements. I agree with everyone else about the arrows! (Good to have something we all agree on!)
1,000,000 votes is entirely arbitrary. The infobox excludes parties with more seats than those that are included, which is almost unheard of across Wikipedia election article infoboxes. Elections are about winning seats: you don't get anything for racking up votes, even 1,000,000 of them. Bondegezou (talk) 21:21, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

I have realized changes in my proposal trying to make a better consensus. --GuarénDeBiblioteca (talk) 01:25, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

I would be happy with an infobox that contained the information that GuarénDeBiblioteca is providing. But in the interests of consistency, I would rather we used exactly the same infobox as on previous elections to present it, if we did reach a consensus to provide the information on those six parties.
But GuarénDeBiblioteca and SamWilson989, do you have particular opinions about the issue of which parties should be presented in the infobox (i.e. the previous discussion on this talkpage)? Unless we reach agreement on that issue, then any idea of changing the infobox is totally moot, because it will not reflect consensus. Dionysodorus (talk) 02:08, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
I don't see this as a particular improvement on the infobox that was recently introduced. Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 08:08, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
The box to the right of this seems a fair conclusion of discussions on this talk page. I find 6 to be arbitrary, but then whatever we choose will be arbitrary. I wouldn't oppose changing the infobox to the one on the right, and I think having the leaders' pictures is a definite must to be in line with nearly every other election infobox on this wiki. SamWilson989 (talk) 12:41, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
I do not think that the box to the right is a fair conclusion of discussions. Discussions here (some now archived), on other UK general election articles and on other non-UK election articles has been lengthy, with many different ideas put forwards. In January, we reached a consensus for something like the infobox that was recently introduced. This includes everyone who won a seat and avoids the arbitrary cut-off of the proposal in this section. We also have a much-discussed and longstanding tradition that seat order trumps vote share order: that is, we should not list parties which won fewer seats than parties we're omitting. Bondegezou (talk) 14:12, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
Yeah, on reflection, I think you're right. Prevent any arbitrary removal by having no removal, and seat order should trump votes when it comes to infoboxes, as it does in reality. Thanks for letting me know when I'm being dumb. I don't support this infobox in its current form. SamWilson989 (talk) 14:24, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Well, i made a change following the number of seats, but (the most important) not excluding UKIP and the Green. Isn't better? --GuarénDeBiblioteca (talk) 16:49, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

I'd make sure all the links point to the right person (Peter Robinson/Peter Robinson (Northern Irish politician)), but I like the infobox you've made here. I'm sure someone will have something else to say that I've not noticed, but I think this infobox is an improvement on the current one. SamWilson989 (talk) 16:55, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
Three thing I would like changed, if we were to use this box: there should be commas in the vote numbers, English style; the red and green arrows should be triangular (not arrow-heads) for consistency with previous articles; the turnout share should appear at the top as in previous articles. The more fundamental problem, though, is that this still has the same issue in that excludes parties (UUP and SDLP) who have more seats than UKIP and the Greens. I continue to think that the solution is to keep DUP and Plaid Cymru out of the box too and have the old four parties and UKIP (and maybe the Greens), but presumably Bondezegou et al. will feel that it is unacceptable to omit UUP and SDLP now. Dionysodorus (talk) 18:48, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
I'm quickly agree about the commas and the arrow-heads, to get that points out of discussion. --GuarénDeBiblioteca (talk) 19:27, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
Well, yes. If we're going by seat order, then we go by seat order. There's no point including Plaid while excluding the SDLP. I also think that the end result is too big. Infoboxes are not meant to be huge things. Compact is better. If you want pictures of the party leaders, scatter them tastefully through the article. And their constituencies, that's just an irrelevancy.
So, there's your fundamental problem. This style of infobox, that can go up to 9 parties, is often able to include every party that has won seats in an election, as is often done in many election article infoboxes. But UK politics has become more fractured than that. So, do you exclude some parties (seems wrong to exclude UKIP, but it also seems wrong to exclude parties winning more seats than UKIP) in order to keep the infobox style, or do you switch to a different style of infobox? I say switch to a different style, allowing you to include all parties winning seats AND which gets back to the idea of an infobox as something much more compact. Bondegezou (talk) 22:41, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
See WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE. Bondegezou (talk) 22:50, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
I can't understand your "All or none" position. We are looking for a GENERAL criteria to be usefull in this Article and the other ones (2010, 2005, etc). Changing of template being a slave of the political circunstances it's a bad idea, especially knowing that some countries with highly fractured parliaments are still using the Template:Infobox elections. And finally, what's the big trouble you are founded in the big size of this infobox?--GuarénDeBiblioteca (talk) 00:56, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

On the whole, I think that the version of GuarénDeBiblioteca's infobox (six parties) that has just been edited onto the page by an IP editor is not a bad solution. It solves some, but not all of the problems; with six parties it is not unreasonably big, and there is a certain logic to including those particular six. I don't think anyone who isn't a Wikipedian is likely to care about the DUP etc. I think it is made more sensible by the fact that there clearly isn't consensus for the Dutch-style infobox, or for maintaining a seats-always-trump-everything policy with total strictness; I said that more resistance to it would turn up, and hey presto - so I feel like this is not a bad compromise solution. Dionysodorus (talk) 04:08, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

I think everyone in Northern Ireland cares about the DUP more than the Greens and it's wrong to dismiss the views of one of the four nations of the UK! With a narrow majority, we've had a number of close Parliamentary votes and the votes of the DUP have mattered more than the vote of the 1 Green MP.
I've just reverted the change. The problem is that we don't have a strong consensus for anything: however, I think opposition to the 6-party/vote order solution is clear and the current Dutch-style infobox has more support... at least, we achieved some consensus for it back in January.
We are (and have been) going round in circles, repeating the same points. Whatever we do will get edited and changed; whatever we've done in the past has been. There is no magic solution that will stop "resistance". Thus, I believe the best approach is to reach the best agreement we can and then to stick with that until such time as a clear consensus for an alternative has evolved. We had a push in January to try and resolve this and while the solution wasn't to everyone's liking, there was a genuine effort by all parties to come to some sort of conclusion and respect the result. In the end, I was surprised by the degree of unanimity we achieved!
I would like to stick to the current Dutch-style solution or the .fr Spanish election article version (as discussed previously -- same content, but different formatting). If others want to push for an alternative, of course they are free to do so, but let's not edit-war the article while that discussion is ongoing. What I found worked in the January discussion was regularly laying out everyone's position, so one could see how many people felt what and why. Bondegezou (talk) 11:07, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
I agree somewhat with Bondegezou. Fundamentally, the various solutions have merits and I'm not sure there's a 'right' answer here. We should be wary of constantly repeating debates. That said - I do now quite like this proposed infobox, though still wonder if things like leader's seats are trivia that's not needed, and also question the legitimacy of using the titles 'fifth party', 'sixth party' which are our own creation. Equally, I like the current one. Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 08:40, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
I agree with the lack of need for a leader's seat to be noted, but I disagree with you over the use of '[place] party'. "Third Party" is obviously a common way of referring to a party. These examples show this: The Huffington Post, The Scotsman, The Daily Record, The Financial Times, and the BBC, here, here, and here, with that last one showing this phrasing is hardly a new thing. If we're going to be in line with British media and use third party, then I think we therefore are not being biased or inventing anything by using "fourth party" onwards. The BBC used fourth and fifth recently, here, and The National did the same. The Spectator, although behind a paywall, followed. The Daily Mail even used "sixth", here. These phrases aren't inventions, they're common phrases used by British media to describe British parties. SamWilson989 (talk) 09:01, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
Just on this "third...", "fourth party" thing, thanks for all those references, but I note that the references given can't agree on who the third party is, or on whether the LibDems are the fourth, fifth or sixth party! That, of course, reflects the same problem we have: is it about vote share or seats or, indeed, other elections results/party membership/whatever? So, yes, I agree with SamWilson989 that reliable sources use terms like "third party", "fourth party"... (if not perhaps "eighth..." or "ninth party"), but they're not in unanimity as to which party is which, and that might suggest we should avoid the terms, so I agree more with Super Nintendo Chalmers. Bondegezou (talk) 10:11, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
I hadn't thought of it like that, and on reflection I think you're right. There's really no need to label each party like this when they have their own labels ("Labour") already. I'd support removing them, but I think it would be worth mentioning in the body of the article which party is labelled as "third" or "fourth" following this election. SamWilson989 (talk) 10:37, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

I'd just like to weigh in and say that I very much prefer the six party infobox added by the IP user over the Dutch one used currently, as in addition to being more aesthetically pleasing and in line with the precedent set by all previous UK Election articles, it conveniently presents basic, vital information (who a leader is, which party he or she leads, whether or not said leader was elected to the Commons, etc.) in a simple and easy to understand way that can't really be replicated in a less cumbersome way by inserting this same information into the article proper.

I'd also suggest that including leader's seats in any infobox is more than just mere trivia, as in most cases you need a seat in the Commons in order to be Prime Minister. Including leaders' seats in an infobox allows readers to determine at a glance which leaders were elected to the Commons and which were not, which is relevant information. (A major party leader failing to win re-election would be a key event in any election, as Farage's failure to win Thanet was in 2015.) By that token, I would suggest changing Bennett and Farage's seat labels from "Standing in x" to "Ran in x (lost)" - as seen in Canadian election articles - to portray this. (talk) 20:35, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Absolutely agree with Bondegezou "Infoboxes are not meant to be huge things. Compact is better. If you want pictures of the party leaders, scatter them tastefully through the article. And their constituencies, that's just an irrelevancy." Cao Cao (Mengde) if the leader's seat is relevant and worth space in the infobox, I would expect there would be more than one sentence about the election in their constituency in the article (ie United Kingdom general election, 2015).
...but would prefer proportional map, rather than geographic one, or failing that, both together. DrArsenal (talk) 15:37, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
Backing to the six-party infobox following positions of Dionysodorus and (talk) and Cao Cao (Mengde), anyway we are all failing to install a real consensus.--GuarénDeBiblioteca (talk) 13:11, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Wong 5th and 6th party's

UKIP and the greens are not the 5th an 6th party's as claimed by the info box clams can this be fixed asp as this is not how uk paliment works the only results that really mater are the number of seats in parliament not the vote 2.28.220.166 (talk) 19:14, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

You should learn our bizantines discussions over here. Comments there are better for us --GuarénDeBiblioteca (talk) 05:05, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 15 April 2016 - moving detail from the lead to the content of the article

Because the lead should introduce the article in a succinct way, rather than provide the substantive content, the following text should be moved from the lead to section 9.2 "outcome"

Additionally, in 222 constituencies there was a Conservative to Labour swing, while in 151 constituencies there was a Labour to Conservative swing.[1]

Thanks DrArsenal (talk) 22:53, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit protected}} template. I can't make any changes to the article unless there is agreement among other editors. Please wait for input before placing the request. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:45, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Gareth Piggott (19 May 2015). "The 2015 election – the numbers behind the result". data.london.gov.uk. Retrieved 12 April 2016.
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