Talk:2020 Irish general election/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

March Red C poll issues

Wikimucker Why you keep adding the Red C March poll to the Opinion polling for the Irish general election, 2016 article? That's NOT a poll for the February 2016 election, but for the next Irish election. Its place is this article, not that one. Impru20 (talk) 10:02, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

impru20, can you comment on the correct article page, please? Rather than on a different article's talk page (or a user's page). If you've a problem with something on Opinion polling for the Irish general election, 2016, that's the talk page to use. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 10:26, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Bastun I comment it here because this is the actual correct article for the opinion poll (since it is also included here, and this is its main place). I have no issue to comment it on the Opinion polling for the Irish general election, 2016 talk page, though, but it looked to me that this one would be a more appropiate place. Impru20 (talk) 10:37, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

You'd be wrong. WP:BRD tells you to use the talk page of the article for the D bit of the BRD process, not another page. No biggie, I've opened a section there. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 10:39, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

As you'd see, the opinion poll is also included in this page. Given that this is the page for that poll to be placed, and the one in which, indeed, it is placed, discussion on issues relating to that poll would belong here too, you see. Should further issues arise regarding that poll, we surely wouldn't go to discuss those to the Opinion polling for the Irish general election, 2016 talk. As I said, I don't mind which page would you want to use, but either could be used. Impru20 (talk) 10:53, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

/sigh. I think if I say the earth is a sphere, you'd feel obliged to argue that it's flat. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 11:07, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

This is surely a very constructive and interesting argument, thank you. Impru20 (talk) 12:00, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Opinion poll leading party shading

I don't think it makes sense to include shading or emphasis for the leading party in an opinion poll/election, when they would inevitably won't have an absolute majority and will have to form a 2-, 3- or more-party coalition and/or rely on independents. I know it was done for previous elections, but we can start off the "next" one without doing so. Thought, Impru20, Wikimucker, Spleodrach, others? Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 19:30, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

That's not the purpose of shading. Shading helps quickly differentiate the most-voted party over others; it has nothing to do with absolute majority. Being the most-voted party is not always equal to forming a government, but it indeed helps by a great deal. Can't see any reason as to not to include it, specially when it is used in many other opinion polling articles. Impru20 (talk) 19:33, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Precisely - even in an STV, multi-party election, the lead party still has a clear advantage in forming a government, so shading is important in that regard. Culloty82 (talk) 19:52, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

On paper, yes. In the real world, no such advantage accrued to FG except that Kenny was the first to be not voted in as Taoiseach; the only other party to have "won" an opinion poll (not an election!) in the previous five years is SF, and everybody said they wouldn't go into coalition with them, so no advantage there, either! Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 20:15, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm easy. Looks fine without lead party shaded but I'll defer to others. Agree also with reordering of parties in Opinion Poll section to reflect GE 2016 results. Wikimucker (talk) 20:29, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm wondering how two different parties on the same day both managed to "win" an opinion poll and therefore get shading. Shows how silly the shading is. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 15:44, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Then you can surely go and ask the pollsters themselves, but it's obvious they are showing this. I can't really extract from this opinion of yours how the shading is "silly". The shading is used in most Wikipedia opinion polling articles by now, and it gets to be more used. Impru20 (talk) 15:56, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Because you can't have two different winners on the same day? Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 21:37, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Obviously you can have it (just check the sources). Unless those were from the same pollster (and they aren't), it's perfectly possible for that to happen. Opinion polling is not an exact science. It is prediction. And predictions may vary from one pollster to the other. If the event happens that two parties are so close to each other that they are virtually tied, it's perfectly possible for different polls to cast a different winner on the same days, as it happens here (and indeed happens in other countries too). Nevertheless, I think we're going off the issue, because I can't see what has this to do with shading anyway... Impru20 (talk) 21:44, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

In response to "This is so tiring. There was no consensus to remove this, and you're the only one keeping removing it." - no. Two people want shading/bolding, one is easy, one doesn't want it because as pointed out above, it's pointless. There's no consensus for removal or inclusion. I'll remove it as and when I edit the section. Put it back in if you want. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 10:44, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

The first table version did include the shading, because it was based on the 2016 election opinion polls, which do include the shading. You pressed for its removal and your case didn't win it through. The fact that you waited so much time since this discussion was over to remove the shading without even mentioning the removal in the edit summary just points out how even you acknowledge you have to do it quietly so others don't notice.

That you don't like it is not reason enough to keep removing it. As you say, of the four people that intervened in this discussion, two agreed to have the shading, one (you) didn't and the remaining one defered to what others decided (which, in the end, was for the shading to remain). Just accept it. Impru20 (talk) 11:20, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

You're a right one to complain about lack of edit summaries! Four people who didn't agree means no consensus. Jog on. I've said what I'll be doing. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 11:28, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

I complain about a lack of edit summaries about matters which had been discussed on a talk. Consensus was clear: only you pushed for removing the shading. Two people openly favored it and the other one defered to the majority's decision. That is, three to one. Be mature and accept it. Btw, I hope that what you're suggesting is not that you're willing to engage in edit warring. Impru20 (talk) 12:07, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Lol - I'd forgotten how much you insist on getting the last word in. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 14:05, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Irish Times/MRBI October poll

After much searching, Adrian Kavanagh's website gives the breakdown of Others as AAA-PBP 3%, Soc Dems 2%, Greens 3%, Renua "<1%" and Independents as 15%. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Culloty82 (talk • contribs) 11:45, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Good detective work! What a pity Kavanagh doesn't link directly to the source, either :-( Poor practice on the part of The Irish Times/MRBI not to provide even a link to the full data. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 08:40, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Recent changes by Bastun

There's already a sortable function in the table which allows to sort opinion polls by company. No need to disaggregate them in different tables, which only looks chaotic and adds a lot of unneeded page space (worth nearly 6k bytes, as you can see in the history). Such a formatting (making different tables for each company) is not used anywhere in Wikipedia, so it's fair to assume nobody sees it as useful. And, as said, that function is already accomplished by the "sortable" function.

Btw, I can't see how the fact of one user keeping imposing his particular view on a matter he is known to turn controversial (party shading) helps Wikipedia at all. Specially seeing how he seems to fail to note it in the edit summary, so nobody notices he went on and changed it. The removal of party shading is neither consistent with previous articles, plus the fact it was specifically not approved within this very same talk page. Impru20 (talk) 12:10, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Having seen the back-and-forth over this, I have to say I agree that section should stay as one table and with the shading. Cheers, Number 57 12:14, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

I separated out the polls by the company conducting them - it was briefly visible here before being reverted. Reasons for doing this include:

• Each polling company uses different methodologies, sample sizes, etc.
• Results from different companies therefore tend to show slightly differing results compared to those of other companies - e.g.:
  • Behaviour and Attitudes polls in recent months consistently have Sinn Féin polling 2 or 3% higher than Red C polls conducted at similar times;
  • B & A polls have never had the Social Democrats at more than 2%; Red C polls have never had them at less than 3%.
• Separating out results therefore lets you see trends more accurately, as it's comparing like with like, consistently, rather than the results of different sets of questions/methodologies.
• "Outlier" results are clearly visible as such - e.g., the single Millward Brown/Sunday Indo poll that shows Fine Gael on 30%; no other polling company has put them on more than 27%. (Editors not from Ireland might not be aware of the Sunday Independent's political support...)

Thoughts? Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 12:42, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes. That this issue you claim is already solved with the sortable function within the table itself. If you want to separate opinion polls by company, you can simply use it. There's no need to separate opinion polls in different tables to do that. Impru20 (talk) 12:48, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

6K is absolutely irrelevant in terms of WP. "nobody sees it as useful" is indeed an assumption, one with no basis in reality. I think the instant reversion is much more to do with the fact that it was me who introduced it, rather than anything else. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 12:50, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

One can't use the sortable function within the table, as you can only sort on one criterion. Sorting by polling company means you get the polls in alphabetical order, not chronological order, by company. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 12:52, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

It's a perfect solution, in the sense that it solves your claim. You don't need to separate polls in different tables to separate them by company as long as you can accomplish that by sorting the table. As per the chronological sorting, sure, you can do it without any need to separate polls in different tables.

I could also say that your "we must separate polls by company in tables" stance is an assumption with no basis in reality, specially seeing how you don't need to do that to accomplish what you seek. Impru20 (talk) 12:57, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

And done! A small tweak and now you can have opinion polls sorted alphabetically and chronologically. And it only costs you 400 additional bytes while maintaining polls within one single table. Problem? Impru20 (talk) 13:21, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

No, I would have to say that the by company format is not easy to use. Yes, we can see that the single Millward Brown poll in June is very different to the other three, but we have to flick our eyes back and forth to the other three to see how, and how much, it is different. Similarly, we can see that Red C seems to show a swing from FG to FF over six months while Behaviour and Attitudes had FF consistently in front, but that is even more clear in the single table format. It doesn't help that the by company format doesn't have the leading party shaded (and it doesn't help the editor's case that he seems to have tried to bring in the no-shading format by the back door). Assuming Impru20 is right in saying that other articles on elections don't use this format, I'm seeing no advantage to changing. Scolaire (talk) 14:02, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
Update: I've just discovered Category:Opinion polling for future elections, and indeed no article in that category uses the by company format. All but one of them use shading to show which party is leading, and in most cases it's not because the party with the most votes automatically forms the next government. Scolaire (talk) 15:37, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Impru20, that works well, thank you.

Scolaire, fair enough on the other points, but on the shading issue, I did not try to 'bring in the no-shading format by the back door' - I've explicitly stated that I would remove shading when I added new polls, as there wasn't consensus for it's inclusion (2/1/1 at the time). Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 16:10, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Removing the shading at the same time as breaking up the table, and without stating in your edit summary that you're doing it, is bringing it in by the back door. Trying to justify that by saying you told people a month and 33 paragraphs ago that you would do it, won't wash. At any rate, the onus is on the editor wishing to make a change to get a consensus for that change. You don't have any consensus for that change, so you are editing against consensus. I'd expect a higher standard from you. Scolaire (talk) 16:49, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

I removed the shading prior to that, when adding the latest B&A/Sunday Times poll. The table didn't include shading when it was first added, and nobody sought consensus to add shading, it was just done. By your reasoning, then, it should be removed? This was discussed later, after it had been added, among four people, when I removed the shading introduced without consensus. Two wanted it, one didn't, one wasn't bothered. I don't see how that's really a consensus, do you? Since clearly Number 57 and you are in favour of the shading, that now makes it 4/1/1 in favour of shading, which is a consensus. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 17:11, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Okay. Scolaire (talk) 17:18, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Sindo/Millward Brown February poll

The political commentator, Gavan Reilly, tweeted the figures for the smaller parties, presumably having been issued the data by Millward Brown. Culloty82 (talk) 15:57, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

We have to wait a bit for detailed results. So outside an election cycle we get final (linkable/verifiable) data around 3-5 days after mass media publication date. Gavin is a quality source in this interim period to my mind. Wikimucker (talk) 02:22, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

SBP Red C polls

I noted that the SBP is no longer publishing _any_ content outside their paywall (they used to until recently) so I will drop double link attribution * IE the commissioner and the commissioned* from now on and link to RED C Full Data Only. This is a shame as I really do wish to attribute to the entity who pay for the poll but have nothing to go on. Wikimucker (talk) 12:25, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

That's a pity, but yeah, no point linking to paywall content if there's an alternative source. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 13:07, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

I am really not inclined to link to third party news sites like RTE, but in an actual election cycle I am pretty sure that I would as the attribution nazis will be all over this page for a few weeks. I'll even link to a tweet by a Pol Corr.

Outside an election cycle I'll wait for the pollsters to publish a pdf before I check the figures over and add a REF link, 2 -5 days later usually. Don't see what else I can do. Wikimucker (talk) 23:12, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

A Note on the PDF Full Data Files.

Once I find the PDF 'Full Data' report on a poll I always go immediately to http://archive.org/web and paste the full url into the wayback machine and search for it.

1. The Wayback machine does not find/archive PDFs automatically when it indexes sites so this _forces_ it to archive a copy. 2. Pollsters tend to leave the PDFs around for 6 months to a year and then they are often deleted...or a pollster site redesign banjaxes the link. Given the rising paywall tendency (the Indo are paywalling opinion pieces now) we are therefore left with no functioning link to a canonical data source which is bad if you are an encyclopedia. 3. El Wiki now has a neat bot that fishes for broken links in Wiki articles, then goes to the wayback machine to check and finally changes the REf Link to the copy in the wayback machine itself. Automatically.

This all neatly ensures that our references to pdfs continue to work no matter what and forever. Wikimucker (talk) 23:06, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Excellent procedure - I'll do the same should I end up adding a poll dataset before you have. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 08:43, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I started doing this around a year back so I think that most or all the Data PDFs are in the Wayback machine by now. But the 'previous' article up to the election in 2015 would not be backed up like that. Wikimucker (talk) 13:25, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Last possible date

@Impru20: Thanks, I think that's an improvement.

It would still be nice to have a reliable source giving the latest possible date for the next election. We are currently using primary sources and interpreting them. They appear straightforward, so I think that's fine, but I'm not an Irish election lawyer and I presume no-one else editing is. There might be some sub-clause somewhere else that we've overlooked. We should move to a secondary source if possible. Bondegezou (talk) 17:01, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Agreed, a secondary source would be preferable, but in the meantime, also agreed, Impru20's edit is a distinct improvement over both the overlong previous table and my overshort version. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 17:04, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

New Polling Company Ireland Thinks

They do exist and that poll in early October was genuine

http://www.irelandthinks.ie/projects

Wouldn't be too impressed with some of their methodologies... a margin of error of over 5%? Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 14:47, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Shades of Quantum Research? Culloty82 (talk) 22:36, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

They may have done a poll since but there is very little published data.

http://www.irelandthinks.ie/single-post/2017/01/04/Leo-Varadkar-Fianna-F%C3%A1il-and-declining-party-loyalty

I did try to encourage a PDF output after publication, emailed them, and they were very professional about it....but there is nothing since.

As we have no way of linking to source data we must (albeit to my mind sadly) continue to ignore their work owing to lack of verifiability to a reasonable wiki standard. Wikimucker (talk) 02:34, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

They conducted a poll in Late Feb. Published in the Daily Mail early March and published to their blog early April. See here http://www.irelandthinks.ie/single-post/2017/04/03/Independents-stage-minor-resurgence

I am not going to include them in the main Polls section, I will let others comment first and revert back here in a month or two to see what the consensus is.

I would point out that the data is presented in a graphic in that link that largely matches our layout right now (with IA and RI included in others) and I would point to their large sample size of 1200. We may have enough to go on this time Wikimucker (talk) 12:04, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

They are up to 3 polls now. Another in June. This makes them about a tri yearly poll. Surely that's enough ?? @ Culloty82 @ Bastun Wikimucker (talk) 19:30, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

It's the Irish Daily Mail which I think isn't covered under the decision that the Daily Mail is not a RS. No objection to including them. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 20:41, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

I am aware of the non attribution of The Daily Mail as a serious source of news. The poll is conducted by Ireland Thinks and the data is available from other sources like EG > http://www.thejournal.ie/fine-gael-poll-2-3463552-Jun2017/ as well as from Ireland Thinks themselves. The Mail is merely a commissioner not the unreliable transmission source that Jimmy Wales objects to... if you will. Anyway the Irish Daily Mail is largely paywalled.  :) Wikimucker (talk) 23:47, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

IPSOS-Irish Times poll, May 2017

Well, that's annoying - two sets of incomplete figures are published; some headline numbers, different numbers when undecideds are excluded, and neither set is complete. Wait for IPSOS to publish the full set of figures before including? Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 09:14, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Not sure if IPSOS ever publish separately Bastun . One can look in the Irish Times Poll portal some days later > http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/poll and then click the applicable 'get the data' link to generate a csv but I don't think that is linkable as a ref.

Failing that a Pol Corr in the Times normally tweets the full data, EG Harry McGee or a colleague, and there is always politics.ie if you are truly desperate. :)

@Bastun: @Culloty82: I __think___ I finally figured out what the Times is at.

Current poll is https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/poll/ and that is still the May poll.

Past polls are in the format https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/poll/poll-march-4th-2017 once superceded by the current poll and only then are they properly linkable in their own right . As these lniks appear to be outside the paywall they are usable refs.

As insurance the Wayback Machine first managed to archive https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/poll/poll-march-4th-2017 on the 26th of May (IE when the url was first created). Wikimucker (talk) 10:21, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Wikimucker (talk) 10:21, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

The Entity Formerly Known as the Socialist Party (TEFKATSP)

My head spins trying to keep up with all the new names for what is still the Socialist party but I am referring to the entity currently called the AAA_PBP which should seemingly now be called either:

(source > http://antiausterityalliance.ie/2017/03/aaa-is-now-solidarity/_

Solidarity/PBP ( too long IMO) or Solidarity The Left Alternative/PBP (much too long) or S/PBP (meh) or STLA/PBP ...I like. :)

Or will we leave it as AAA_PBP in case they change their name again?? Pollsters (EG IPSOS in late May) seem not to have bothered with the new name. 2 months later. Wikimucker (talk) 10:32, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

My understanding is that the AAA (which was and is the Socialist Party) changed its name to Solidarity but that the name of their alliance with PBP (which was and is the Socialist Workers Party) remained as AAA-PBP for some time after because of... reasons. :-) Something to do with registration with SIPO or the Electoral Commission? While it's all a bit People's Front of Judea, I agree it's confusing. I would favour Solidarity-PBP or S-PBP when abbreviating, if only because I won't be referring to Fine Fáil as FF-The Republican Party anytime soon - you get a name, not a slogan :-) Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 11:16, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Point taken on TLA being a slogan not a name and S-PBP being the likely namechange in future. And the Socialist Party never quite went away you know > http://socialistparty.ie/ and is encouraging people to join IT rather than STLA/TEFKATSP as I write. Here > http://socialistparty.ie/2017/07/breaking-rules-rigged-game-join-socialists-today/

I additionally note that while the AAA is part of their issues 'tag cloud' Solidarity is not. :) 11:42, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Majority

160 members, minus a Ceann Comhairle who normally doesn't vote = 159, divided by two = 79.5. Rounded to 80. 81 is incorrect. Similarly, 79 is the majority needed in the current Dáil - as explained here. Increase the total seat numbers by two, the number for a majority goes up by one. Maybe things are done differently in Spain. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 22:14, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

The source you just provided to the article says this: Sometimes, as in the 1987 election, a party can form a government - even though it is shy of a majority - once it has the support of another party. Fianna Fáil emerged from that election with 81 seats, three seats short of an overall majority. Overall number of TDs in 1987 was 166. Majority would be 81 + 3 = 84, which happens to be 166/2+1, as majorities are normally calculated elsewhere (indeed, 84 was the majority number set in the 1987 article until an IP user unilaterally changed it to 83 a couple months ago. But indeed, the correct number is 84 as per the source). Indeed, the source you provide says 79 is the number required to govern (textually: ... the party or parties/alliances who can muster together at least 79 deputies will have enough representatives to make up the next government, not an overall majority. 81 was correct as a majority, your own source proves you wrong. Impru20 (talk) 22:34, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

See, I think you're confusing the concepts of majority to rule and overall majority. An overall majority is half plus one of any given legislative chamber. But a party may have a majority to remain in government (i.e. meaning more votes in favour than against) without commanding an overall or absolute majority. 79 or 80 may be simple majorities, but are not overall majorities. And such a field in the infobox is intended to show overall majorities. Impru20 (talk) 22:40, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Now I'm confused. There is no "majority to rule" in the English language. There are recognised phrases like "Controlling Majority' or "Ruling Majority" but not "majority to rule". I am entirely averse to using "majority to rule" in any english language article as it would be a dreadful precedent.

Examples of use of "Overall" in other english world parliament articles would be useful. Especially as the DUP is voting against the Tories in the UK on occasion nowadays despite the confidence and supply agreement there. Wikimucker (talk) 12:04, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, nevermind, I actually meant a plurality or relative majority (having more votes in favour than against). The point I wanted to make was that, in this case, 79 or 80 wouldn't be an overall majority, but rather, a plurality or relative majority (which could be enough to rule, yeah, but still not an overall one). As per own Wikipedia's standards, a majority is the greater part, or more than half, of the total. It is a subset of a set consisting of more than half of the set's elements. This would be half plus one (or half rounded to the highest .0 figure, is the half of the chamber gives a .5 number).

Election articles in Wikipedia are unanimous on this when showing majorities in the infobox: check UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the US (both for House and Senate elections), Spain, France, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Japan... and so on. Irish election articles also respected this up until recently, but in the last months there've been some IP users changing this figure for some Irish elections, and now this one was changed by Bastun after it was reverted from a previous IP edit (some IPs (one of them the same one making the original change) also came up during these days and reverted my own edits back to the 80 figure, leaving no explanation). Bastun even provided a source that, not sure if unknowingly to him, shows an overall majority by Irish standards is still half plus one (it provides an example with the 1987 election. Currently, the majority in the article's infobox is set to 83 because some IP user made the change, despite the Dáil being 166 back then and the half plus one figure being 84. Indeed, the provided source says that Sometimes, as in the 1987 election, a party can form a government - even though it is shy of a majority - once it has the support of another party. Fianna Fáil emerged from that election with 81 seats, three seats short of an overall majority (...). This is, 81 + 3 = 84, so a majority would have been 84 in the 1987 election, which was half of 166 (83) plus one (indeed, articles from 1989 to 2011 still show the 84 majority figure, which wasn't changed there for some reason). I'm not sure if Bastun intended to back up his claim based on the source explaining that the party or parties/alliances who can muster together at least 79 deputies will have enough representatives to make up the next government, but that doesn't say that 79 or 80 means an overall majority, just that it's enough to make up the government.

Given the situation of the Ceann Comhairle, I made a proposal based on the UK example (where the Speaker's position is similar to that to the CC), which would be to show the majority figure (81, because the Dàil is still a 160-seat chamber) but with a footnote explaining the Ceann Comhairle's situation in practice allowing for a government requiring fewer votes to achieve a practical majority (i.e. relative majority, not an overall majority). But this was reverted by Bastun, and the infobox has remained in its current form ever since. Impru20 (talk) 13:21, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Hi Wikimucker. The source I provided is fairly clear to me: for the 2016 election "The Ceann Comhairle generally does not vote (although they have a casting vote which they must exercise in the event of a tie), so the party or parties/alliances who can muster together at least 79 deputies will have enough representatives to make up the next government." Hence 80 next time around. Cheers, Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 18:15, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

@Bastun: Your own source is crystal clear that an overall majority is half plus one of Dáil seats. It does not say 79 was an overall majority for the 2016 election, right? You're mistaking the concepts of relative majority and overall majority here.

Now, I can provide further sources for the 2016 election (when the Dáil size was set at 158) if you wish. Take this one. It says (...) Even at its highest estimate, a combined Fine Gael/Labour vote of 68 would be 12 short of an overall majority. So, 68 + 12 = 80 was the overall majority mark for the 2016 election (158 / 2 = 79. 79 + 1 = 80). So, it's 80 for 2016, and 81 (160 / 2 = 80. 80 + 1 = 81) for this article. Half of seats, plus one. It was correct before all of these sudden changes in Irish election articles. Impru20 (talk) 18:26, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

@Bastun: Please, stop. You're in open contradiction with your own sources, established Wikipedia precedent (which is unanimous on this) and the definition of overall majority itself. "Seats needed to form a government" doesn't equal to an overall majority in a legislative chamber. The sources are crystal clear: RTÉ puts the 1987 example showing an overall majority back then was 84. The Guardian clearly points to an overall majority in 2016 being 80. In both cases, these figures correspond to half plus one of the seats in the Dáil. Your own claim is based on a sentence which says that "79 seats are needed to form a government". Yeah, but they're not saying 79 is an overall majority, so you're wrong. The footnote I added was very clear on this, and is also helpful on telling readers what the CC's position is so I can't understand why you keep changing this and refuse to agree even to a minimal compromise. Impru20 (talk) 19:57, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Whether 80 is an overall majority depends on convention and on the precise role of the chair of parliament, in a given parliament. In some parliaments the chair is independent.

The chair in this case follows Speaker Denisons Rule and is not independent, per se, as they are bound by constitutional convention to recognise a majority over status quo ante in most votes, but not all. On the other hand the chair must support the government on a vote that matters and could cause it to fall if lost. These are a) motions of confidence and b) finance acts.

In an odd numbered parliament (EG 161) the chair must cast their vote with the government in examples a and b there so a working majority is 80. But for the government to EG change Irish Time to Spanish Time they need 81 as the speaker must vote status quo ante in case of a tie at 80 all.

In that case I suspect a working majority is 80 as the government cannot fall when the chair votes with them, but an overall majority would be 81 IMO.

In an even number parliament like 158 an overall majority is 79 and a working majority is 78 by that same logic. But in an even number parliament the chair need not vote anyway.

My understanding anyway, HTH Wikimucker (talk) 19:53, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

@Wikimucker: It's basically what you say (however, in a 158-parliament a working majority wouldn't be 78, but 79. With just 78, bills could be blocked by a 79-strong combined opposition. Also, if there was any legal requirement calling for any given law to be passed under an overall majority of members, the required number in a 158-seat chamber would be 80. Unless Irish law specifically sets that the CC is not to count in any case for calculations and that these should be made as if it was a 157-seat Dáil, but I've not seen so as of yet). For elections in the UK, where the Speaker also follows the Speaker Denisons Rule, the overall majority mark is also calculated as half-plus-one of MPs, and so far I've not yet seen other election articles in Wikipedia or any external source going differently. Impru20 (talk) 20:05, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Yah! I'll rephrase. I think the UK has a fixed number of members, always, in Ireland it is not although it was capped at 166 for some time and suddenly shrank to 158 in 2011 as an austerity measure. Other parliaments may also be a set size irrespective of population changes. Odd number members Ireland working = overall Even number members working is one less than overall. I'll see what @Bastun: thinks. Wikimucker (talk) 20:34, 18 September 2017 (UTC) Wikimucker (talk) 20:34, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Nah, the UK number of members has been also in continuous change (indeed, I think it has changed more times than it has in Ireland). For example, it is currently set at 650 since 2010. In 2005 it was 646; in 1997 and 2001 it was 659; in 1992 it was 651; again at 650 in 1983 and 1987; 635 from 1974 to 1979; 630 from 1955 to 1970; 625 in 1950 and 1951; 640 in 1945; 615 from 1922 to 1935... and so on. And overall majorities are still calculated as half-plus-one of total seats.

Another source, this one on the 2002 election. It says: When the votes were counted, Fianna Fáil was still short of an overall majority, though by only three seats, having increased its total from 77 to 81 in a Dáil of 166. 81 + 3 = 84 seats needed in 2002 to achieve an overall majority. 84 = (166 / 2) + 1.

I also got this one which, instead of depicting what the overall majority-mark was, shows what the different government's majorities were. For instance:

• • 1938: 16-seat majority in a 138-seat Dáil (77 FG minus all other seats including the CC (61) = 16).
  • 1944: 14-seat majority in a 138-seat Dáil (76 FG minus all other seats including the CC (62) = 14).
  • 1977: 20-seat majority in a 148-seat Dáil (84 FG minus all other seats including the CC (64) = 20).
  • 2011: 60-seat majority in a 166-seat Dáil (76 FG + 37 Lab = 113. 113 minus all other seats including the CC (53) = 60).

All of this (coupled with previous sources) shows that for calculating majorities, sources tend to include the CC as well.

I'm, however, well aware of the Ceann Comhairle's position and how this could get confusing for readers not accostumed to the Irish system. Indeed, the CC not voting makes forming a government easier if s/he comes from among opposition numbers, but it still doesn't mean an overall majority is automatically attained. Also, not all Wikipedia readers are Irish, or live under a parliamentary system where Denisons Rule is applied. My compromise proposal would be to extend the footnote I worked out in the infobox at the Irish general election, 2016 article to all Irish elections (with the same or a slightly different wording), so that it helps clarify what the CC's position is and how it may affect government formation. Thoughts? Impru20 (talk) 21:03, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Given this and as per WP:AGF, I'll assume he hasn't seen ALL of the pings to this discussion, so after a courtesy day has passed I'll ping @Bastun: once more so as to give him one more opportunity to engage in discussion and check if he is not limiting himself just to reverting everything without more word than misinterpreting others and random accusations. Impru20 (talk) 11:10, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Wikimucker, there is nothing to add in reply to Impru's wall-of-text responses except to repeat once again that the sources I've used - and, indeed, some of his/her own - point to 79 being a working majority for the current Dáil and 80 being the working majority for the next Dáil. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 11:17, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

You are right on the wall of text up there, it is, to mind, WP:TE when used on that scale. 80 is working and 81 is overall. I did see a useful footnote suggestion by Impru20 at one point , before it was swept away in the text deluge Bastun Wikimucker (talk) 11:39, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

The "wall of text up there" is just a collection of sources, and an highlighting of what those sources state on this issue (I also provided the links so that any of you may check them). Anyway, remind WP:AOTE if you're going to bring WP:TE here. I'm trying to keep a constructive discussion on this and it'd be nice if all three of us try to keep this focused on content. If any of you think there's any conduct issue here, then filling a DR or AN request would be the way to go, not here.

My footnote suggestion was removed by Bastun several times in his reverts ([1], [2]), but it is a compromise solution aimed at providing readers with such an additional information in an easily-identifiable way, without changing what the actual meaning of "overall majority" is. Impru20 (talk) 12:08, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

I liked the footnote suggestion. Bondegezou (talk) 15:42, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Seat numbers

Given that it now appears probable that a GE will be held before the Constituency Commission recommendations are implemented, should the seat number revert to 158 for now? Culloty82 (talk) 14:39, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

I've edited the article to reflect either possibility, and also to address the theoretical possibility of the CC not standing for reelection. Kevin Lamoreau (talk) 17:07, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

It is 79 de jure. But a court case is being held on the issue tomorrow. Wikimucker (talk) 14:09, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

"Likely Date" Section

Since the 25th of November a new section appeared on the page. "Likely Date"

I have excised it and insert it in here in its entirety as it appeared tonight (early on the 30th of November) . IMO this is highly speculative and is a reflection of the froth that occured over the weekend until the the Tánaiste resigned late Monday morning ( the 27th)

I think that perhaps some reflection/discussion is required before it is re inserted into the main body of the article again. If indeed ever.

There was speculation on 'the best' likely date over the weekend when the possibility of long counts continuing past christmas day genuinely existed and the likely date discussed in the media/online was around the 19th December so that these counts could be completed by the 24th.

Right now there is no likely date and if a new likely date is speculated in future it will bear no relation to the content of this section and will be a likely date born out of different circumstances entirely.

Thoughts gratefully welcomed below on what to do with the excised section.

"==Likely Date== Since the adoption of the current constitution, no Dáil has been allowed to 'expire', as per the above provisions. The Confidence-and-Supply Agreement between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil includes a review date of September 2018. It is expected to last for at least 3 budgets (i.e., end of 2018).

The events leading to the resignation of Frances Fitzgerald as Tánaiste on 28 November 2017 illustrated that this agreement may not survive to a third budget. Calre Daly TD predicted in the aftermath that there would be a general election in February 2018. The Next Irish presidential election is due to occur between September and November 2018."

Leave excised - WP:NOTCRYSTAL applies. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 09:42, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Date of Opinion Poll

IIRC this 'should' be the 1 last day of sampling not 2 the day (generally a sunday) when the poll is published or the night before when it normally leaks out. Guidance from contributors please. 1. or 2. Wikimucker (talk) 17:51, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

• 1, where this is available in the source - it isn't always, though. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 19:47, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

The main offender on the sampling dates is the Irish Times who only do around 10% of polls. Luckily I found a source for the polling dates > https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2017-11/Omnipoll_2016.pdf and we can infer 15th or 30th ante from that.

Speaking of source, there is a special new link for BandA polls which are around 40% of all source material. Behaviour and Attitude PDF Links are here > http://banda.ie/Filter/political-social/

References

Bastun When adding dates to notes and references, the YYYY-MM-DD format is preferred, according to Wikipedia:Citing sources#Citation style. As well as for consistency with previous references, that is the format to be used. I can't really comprehend your revertions. You just seem too possessive on those. Impru20 (talk) 16:23, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Bastun I should also note you on this: WP:CITEVAR refers "to change an article's established citation style merely on the grounds of personal preference". In this case, I did not even say that was my personal preference, I just changed it to match the rest of the article's citation style. In fact, the article's established citation style for opinion polling referencing was the use of the YYYY-MM-DD format, so it was actually you the one that changed the established citation style on grounds that can't be justified. Seriously, I can't understand your edit. Impru20 (talk) 16:28, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

You are misreading Wikipedia:Citing sources#Citation style. It does not say to use yyyy-mm-dd, it says avoid using other all numeric styles. dd mon yyyy is not an all-numeric style, so no problem using it. Seeing as references in the rest of the article used a mixture of both yyyy-mm-dd and dd mon yyyy styles, and all of the references in the opinion poll section used dd mon yyyy until you changed them (without an edit summary), I don't think you get to claim "consensus" or that you're changing them now to reflect "the article's established citation style for opinion polling referencing". Quite the opposite, in fact. Your personal attack in the edit summary is noted. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 21:36, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

In the absence of consensus - why don't we leave it that I'll use whatever date format I want, and you leave it alone, and I'll do likewise for yours. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 21:46, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

I may use your date format if you like. I was only pretending consistency. And, since most citations used the yyyy-mm-dd format, it was simpler to change those than do it the other way around. But I can't see what are you intending here. You are treating the issue as if there was something like your edits/preferences and my edits/preferences. In Wikipedia, really, there is nothing yours or mine. It's surely better to have a sole, consistent thing rather than a mixture of things. Impru20 (talk) 22:00, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Most references use the yyyy-mm-dd format; only some ones of those that I did not add don't use it. You now refer to an edit done on 16 April. Yet you didn't change those back then (and don't do it now). So, why did you not go and change all the citation dates to maintain consistency, and keep clinging to your own edits as if those were sacred and unchangeable? You may be clearly in violation of WP:OWN now, and may even be violating WP:CITEVAR yourself. It's quite obvious you're not pretending consistency. You came here right away and reverted my edit accusing me of violating WP:CITEVAR, when there's no grounds for that accusation to stand. Just as you removed twice the shading from the opinion polling section without agreement to do it and without caring to edit summarize it (despite it being an issue discussed in talk). Instead, you come here willing to edit warring on absurd and trivial issues such as those of date formatting, without even caring for consistency. I believe you may be feeling too personally attached or obligued to Irish election articles, to the point you think those are yours and others don't have the right to oppose you. That, or that you are simply coming here to revert my edits for the sake of it. Your behaviour can't be regarded as logical in any other way. Impru20 (talk) 21:57, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Kh1326 It is more courteous to use _both refs_ if this is possible.

In the case of the Sindo polls a link to the _commissioner_ SI and a link to the _commissioned_ (MB) , as well, is the way to go. As other publications are paywalled we cannot do this and must link to the pollsters pdf instead. A tweet or similar from a reputable Pol Corr will do as a placeholder ref till that pdf appears. So I added back the original ref in addition to your new one. Wikimucker (talk) 14:28, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

"Key events" in opinion polling

User Wikimucker keeps adding events to the table, despite the fact that nearly no opinion polling page uses them (only the UK one uses them predominantly, but with many limitations and not an uncontroversial issue, as I think Bondegezou may clarify). Also, my removal of events from the table have received public thanks from both Bastun and Bondegezou, which may also share their thoughts on this.

My view is that events should NOT be mixed with opinion polling. Doing so implies that those events are somehow related to polling, which no one may know and would constitute WP:SYNTH. And it's obvious that we can't just add "all" events as we may very well end up having more events than polls in the table. Wikimucker argues that "key events" must be added, yet actually, we can't know which events influence polling and in which degree so as to consider them "key". The opinion polling section should be limited to that. If anyone wishes to elaborate a list of events happening throughout the parliamentary term, then make one - but do it separately from the main opinion polling table. Impru20 (talk) 21:44, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Wikimucker seems to keep adding the events without entering the discussion here. "Nah, change of prime minister is a key event and IrishTV was on the right track there" doesn't seem a close enough argument to even remotely refute the SYNTH issue that this brings about. Impru20 (talk) 22:25, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

You did what you always do . You FULLY reverted an edit by another user. IrishTV . I noted this while fixing some dodgy links as i have not done anything in this article for quite a while and I saw nothing wrong with what IrishTV did in principle as key events are sometimes embedded in other countries Opinion Polling data sequences on occasion. I therefore edited back in two key events only and checked that the sorting order painstakingly built by Bastun still worked properly on the table.

Then along you came and reverted my partial and proportional manual restoration of the work that IrishTV did yet again.

A change of PM is a key event in an Opinion poll timeline...whatever about Stephen Donnelly changing ship. IrishTV did nothing wrong in introducing key events in principle may I add.

Do not FULLY revert any more edits by experienced editors in this article Impru20 and NEVER EVER EVER EDIT MY TALK PAGE AGAIN...do I make myself abundantly clear on the latter point.

I'll have a look back in here in a few weeks once other editors get a chance to comment. Wikimucker (talk) 22:50, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Wikimucker First I'll address your accusation, then I'll address the issue at hand.

First: what's wrong with a FULL REVERTION from another user, specially if that has been explained, as was the case here? If the other user's edit is susceptible of harming a Wikipedia policy, we may very well revert it. Besides, IrishTV was reverted, his revertion was fully explained, and he has not even complained on the days after he was. It's YOU, not HIM, the one complaining, so don't dare speak for him, because he may very well not be of your opinion. If anything, he should come here and give his opinion, but absolutely, you don't have any right to go anywhere insulting others and then pretending to speak on someone's behalf. Because you called me "weirdo" back at your talk page just because I called for you to discuss the issue here (something which you weren't doing until I come to your talk for a second time after your insult to call for you to discuss the issue here), and you have repeteadly engaged in hostile behaviour against me in the past. You've repeteadly removed my comments on your talk on other issues we have and don't even cared to reply to me, then you go in a rant speaking out against me without any respect or civility. I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S YOUR ISSUE WITH ME, because your behaviour on me is always the same.

WP:SYNTH doesn't provide for that "partial and proportional manual restoration" you speak about. WP:SYNTH explicitly says that (and I bold it to you): Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. You're mixing random events with opinion polling just for the sake of it. What's the purpose of it? You call them "key events", yet are they "key" to opinion polling? How and who says that? Because they shouldn't, and if you call them so, unless there are sources that clearly correlate those to polling, that's SYNTH.

"A change of PM is a key event in an Opinion poll timeline...whatever about Stephen Donnelly changing ship." That's your opinion, not backed up by any sources not by standard Wikipedia practice. You pretend to imply that such an event is a "key event". And then, you pretend to imply that it's key for opinion polling. Who says that? You? Well, if it's only you and no source backing it, I'd say yeah, that's SYNTH. It's not that difficult to understand. Impru20 (talk) 23:04, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Btw, I think this sentence of yours could constitute a clear WP:OWN:

Do not FULLY revert any more edits by experienced editors in this article Impru20 and NEVER EVER EVER EDIT MY TALK PAGE AGAIN...do I make myself abundantly clear on the latter point.

This article is not yours. Wikipedia is not yours. I've not insulted you, so if I've to edit your talk to request you to enter into discussion instead of acting rudely as you do, I'll do it. And without insult, as you did. You have no right to command others what they can revert or what they can't. I fully explained my reverts twice, both Bastun and Bondegezou agreed with them (or that was it seemed), and then I only receive insults and personal attacks from you. Obviously I can't take you more seriously than what you yourself allow me to. Impru20 (talk) 23:10, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Nothing was combined and your stuff on WP:SYNTH is entirely irrelevant. Let other editors comment now like a good lad and stay off my talk page like I told you to. That means Permanently. Wikimucker (talk) 23:14, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

This is just intolerable. Impru20 (talk) 23:15, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

In all my time on the Wikipedia I only ever found the need to tell ONE person to stay off MY talk page and that is you Impru20. Learn to live with that and to use article talk pages and heads up notification methods instead. I never edited your talk page as there is no actual need. Now wait for other editors to have their say like I asked you to twice or three times already. Wikimucker (talk) 23:32, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Impru20 that notes shouldn't be included in the table of polls itself. The table of polls should ideally just be the raw numbers per party/grouping (and ideally with none of them being coloured or bolded, but hey, I lost that one). That said, I don't agree that it's WP:SYNTHESIS - you have a poll with a 'last date of polling' date, an event happens and gets reported on a certain date, a while later there's another poll. The problem is what to include or exclude. As that then comes down to issues of WP:NPOV and WP:BALANCE, I think we're just better excluding any such notes from the poll body. As a compromise, how about listing such notes after the poll itself - a footnote after the polling date could direct to notes such as "Varadkar becomes Taoiseach".

Notwithstanding the above, Impru20, I agree with Wikimucker that it's annoying to have someone come to one's user talk page about an issue on an article, especially when it's already been asked that you stick to the article talk page. Pinging works perfectly well without having to visit someone's page, and it's not the first time you've been asked to stay away from someone's talk page. Please respect that. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 23:56, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Bastun I of course may respect another user's will not to address him in his talk page, but then, I also demand respect the other way around. I used Wikimucker's talk page after pinging him TWICE in this talk and receiving absolutely no response (and in the meantime he edited the article, so we may be very well sure that he was noted on the ping, yet refused to enter in talk until I addressed him in his talk; specially since in the past. I was called a "weirdo" not just once, but twice, just because I asked him to come here to discuss the issue; then come here calling me "good lad". I did not insult him and in return, I got several insults from him. In all my time in Wikipedia, this is the ONLY instance of an user commanding me of what should I do and of engaging in repeated personal attacks on me (this is not the first time that Wikimucker has partly ignored the issue at hand to turn the situation into some sort of personal crusade against me). Users' talk pages are a common place to ping users to enter in discussions in talk pages whenever the pings in the talks themselves are not acknowledged (which was the case), and I'm sure that here in Wikipedia we may and must respect WP:CIVIL. I've been repeteadly harassed, insulted and even threatened by Wikimucker for months wherever we happened to find ourselves engaged in a discussion. I will respect Wikimucker's "wish" to stay of his talk, but then, if that's to be the case, I've a similar wish for him to stay off me entirely and to avoid engaging me either directly or indirectly (and from now on I'll resort to WP:IPAT), because it'd be just disappointing that we might be forced to end up resorting to WP:DISPUTE mechanisms. I'll not stand for any longer for such a WP:PERSONAL and WP:OWN behaviour against myself, so of course, if he wants me to "respect his talk", then he should start by respecting others in the first place.

This said, I consider the issue settled. Impru20 (talk) 06:54, 6 July

2017 (UTC)

This, frankly nonsensical, reference to WP:SYNTH as a justification for fully reverting the work of IrishTV} is what really stands out for me. To quote Impru20 My view is that events should NOT be mixed with opinion polling. Doing so implies that those events are somehow related to polling, which no one may know and would constitute WP:SYNTH.

We all know that if Enda Kenny had an approval rating of 60% in the polls then he would still be Taoiseach. That is simply because we are rational beings who are aware of the effects of opinion polls. No WP:xxxx needed.

As Bastun} correctly said such 'key events' in the OP timeline may very well warrant a contributor review as that then comes down to issues of WP:NPOV and WP:BALANCE.

In the context of this talk page section I am sure nobody is interested in Impru20} then serially referring to the entirely irrelevant WP:CIVIL WP:PERSONAL WP:OWN WP:IPAT in their response.

We might even get somewhere if we could all agree on which few WP:xxx policies are involved but my 2c is that Bastun} has already summarised them accurately. Wikimucker (talk) 10:00, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Wikimucker You still fail to answer what's the issue for fully reverting someone. I've been fully reverted in the past (sometimes by YOURSELF), and I have never said that it's something that can't be done. And again, if someone is to complaing for that that's IrishTV, not you. You've created a whole case out of it, with insults and all of it, yet he never complained for the fully explained revert of his content.

Discussion in UK opinion polling tages (which do include some events) show a great deal of editors against adding events (take the Grenfell fire tragedy as an example. It's WP:SYNTH because by adding them to the table you imply that those have some relevance to polling. Question is: which ones should be added and which ones shouldn't? Or in other words: which ones are "key" or which ones aren't? You can't have a full listing of events in an opinion polling table, and adding only some random events at one's discretion would be WP:NPOV.

Bastun has agreed with me that events shouldn't be added to the table. He may agree with me or not that it may be because of SYNTH or because of other reasons, but this only proves how controversial this issue is, since you can bring up A LOT of reasons so as to why events shouldn't be in the table. Don't manipulate Bastun words: he clearly said that The problem is what to include or exclude (which is my exact opinion). And then said As that then comes down to issues of WP:NPOV and WP:BALANCE, I think we're just better excluding any such notes from the poll body. For me, the issue is one of SYNTH; for him, it's one of NPOV and BALANCE (which I may also agree with, but then, in this case the outcome is the same: no events in the table. So while I may stick to SYNTH and you may pretend to ignore it, I note to you that it's irrelevant, actually, because under NPOV and BALANCE the events should also be excluded).

This is: for now, it's two to one for removing events for the table (the ones that you've kept consistently adding). I don't have any issues with having an full event list somewhere else, but the opinion polling table is a place for opinion polling, not events.

As per WP:IPAT, I'm not replying to your fourth sentence. Even if you are not able to show respect, I will. Impru20 (talk) 11:14, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Question is: which ones should be added and which ones shouldn't? I agree with you. That is the question and the only question. There are 2 events, initially contributed by IrishTV, and left in there now as an illustration. Enda going and Leo taking over.

A change in the SF leadership may _putatively_ be a key event in future but I do not personally see any other events as being 'key' between now and the election.

I ask you simply to 'let other editors contribute their considered views on that single issue and to leave this talk section alone until they get a chance to do so in their own time and without being browbeaten by interminable WP:whatevercomestomindery TIA++ Wikimucker (talk) 11:32, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

You've outrightly determined entirely by yourself without seeking any talk or consensus which events should be in and which shouldn't. I reverted IrishTV because I'm of the opinion that, since we can't determine which events should be added, none should be added. You instead made a selection out of IrishTV's events. As you say: "There are 2 events, initially contributed by IrishTV, and left in there now as an illustration. Enda going and Leo taking over". Well, those two are there because you choose to have those two there.

"A change in the SF leadership may _putatively_ be a key event". Ok, find a source where it's stated that it's a key event for opinion polling and there you go. But we can't base that on personal opinions or on what we may thing is "putatively" a key event or not. Surely, the FG-FF agreement would be far more important to the current Dáil that any leadership contest, and it isn't present. Labour also had its leadership changed in May 2016, and it isn't in the table. We could find lots and lots of events (leadership contests, by-elections, any sort of political crisis) which we may think of as "key" which aren't there. And shouldn't, since that's not what the table is intended for.

This said, I've repeteadly put the proposal of having a separate list for events in place and received no response so far. If you want to have events in, I find that as much more useful (since you'd be able to add more events) and would best fit what you intend to do here. Sort of like what's done for the 2011 Canadian election. Impru20 (talk) 11:41, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

I must ask you yet again. Let *Other* Editors Comment' and we will see what they say over the next few weeks. TIA+++ this time. Wikimucker (talk) 12:55, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

So it's only you the one who is allowed to talk on this now? I commented on Bastun words as you did, and I was answering to you as you seemingly were doing to me. I of course let other editors comment, but you seemingly don't let me do so. Impru20 (talk) 13:15, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

I must ask you yet' again. Let *Other* Editors Comment' and we will see what they say over the next few weeks. TIA++++++ this time. Wikimucker (talk) 13:24, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Wikimucker I've just commented on a compromise proposal (in fact, I've been commenting on it since the start of this discussion) which would solve the issue by showing events and would be also in line with Bastun's suggestion to show events as some sort of footnotes, but not in the table itself. Yet you not only refuse to reply to it, but rather you keep writing me off. Have some respect for once, dude, and stick to the issue at hand. If you wanted a compromise, you'd have already discussed it. Stop being so disruptive and possessive, and stop taking this to personal grounds. I kindly invite Culloty82 IrishTV Bondegezou Number 57 Spleodrach and anyone else who may be interested and/or experienced on these kind of issues. I'm not awaiting for weeks for someone to randomly come around here and post here while your own, controversial version of the article is still here (already stated by two users who have stated that events should not be in the opinion polling table). Btw, if you had wanted for other people to come around, you'd have already pinged them yourself. Impru20 (talk) 13:29, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

and Culloty82 . Now STOP cluttering this talk section.Wikimucker (talk) 13:46, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Focus on content, please. Impru20 (talk) 13:56, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

StopWikimucker (talk) 14:26, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

And respect WP:TALKNO too, please. Stay on topic or just disengage. Impru20 (talk) 14:34, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

I would agree with the Varadkar note, as the election of a new Taoiseach would seem sufficiently significant to have an impact on FG polling, but eliminate the one on Kenny. Other than that, the only other events that would justify inserts would be new leaders in either FF or SF, given that the "Big Three" have dominated the polls in recent years, but both Martin and Adams appear secure for now. Culloty82 (talk) 14:47, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

People have been pinged. Let them contribute. Right now, though, I suggest both of ye walk away from the keyboard for a bit. It's warm - have an ice-cream! (No need to respond to this). Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 14:40, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Agree. Nonetheless, I've opened a separate section here so as to avoid too much cluttering on this and as some sort of "clean start", since we've (at least) identified the conflicting topic at hand, which is the determination of "key" events and how to address them. Impru20 (talk) 14:45, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Would you ever bloody STOP and let others comment like I asked you to 10 times already You are engaging in outright WP:TE now Impru20 with your new 'subsection' below so i hived it off to a separate talk page section as it is in essence about a separate article that I for one do not feel like writing. Wikimucker

Let people comment on key events embedded in the Opinion Poll Timeline ONLY in this section. (talk) 15:11, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Would you STOP dragging on your personal obsession with me? I've called for this to end. Bastun has called for this to end. I've opened a separate sub-section to try to focuse on content and stop the cluttering and the personal attacking. You've been in violation of WP:CIVIL, WP:PERSONAL, WP:OWN and WP:TALKNO. Where is my TE? That's not even related to this! That involves partisan, biased or skewed editing in articles; where do you find partisan editing here? This is a talk page! I opened the discussion to talk on this issue, and you've repeteadly engaged in personal attacks on me, prohibited me from commenting on your talk, prohibit me from speaking out here, prohibit me of making any edit that doesn't seem fit for you and constantly keep making accusations out of me! And you've been doing this with me for months, MONTHS! Not just now. Back up your accusations with evidence, or else STOP-IT-NOW-AND-FOCUSE-ON-THE-ISSUE-AT-HAND, because you just engaged in WP:AOTE, which is to accuse others of tendentious editing for inflammatory purposes.

Is it really that difficult to understand? Next time I'll bring this to a dispute resolution noticeboard. I'm not going to be bothered by you any longer, nor will I address you any longer. Don't address me and don't edit others' comments in a talk as you did with the sub-section I added. Focus on content for once!

With respect to my stance, I think everything has been said, so I'm standing out from this discussion until others come in and comment. Impru20 (talk) 15:17, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Everything was already said the first time I asked you to stop ...never mind the 10th time. I am delighted you are finally allowing the others in for their spake. Thank you. Wikimucker (talk) 15:52, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

"Key" events in general

I propose for the discussion at one of the previous sections to be continued here. Firstly, because that discussion has become a too cluttered place to properly stay focused on topic. Secondly, because the issue has evolved on how to address the allegedly called "key" events rather than just its presence in the opinion polling table (though this should also cover this). The presence of events in the opinion polling table has raised issues of WP:NPOV, WP:BALANCE and WP:SYNTH. While there is not agreement on the SYNTH issue, in any case the question has been rather as to whether can "key" events be determined and what their purpose in the table is.

My compromise proposal is to have a separate list of events, which includes as many relevant events as noted by sources but is not directly forced on the opinion polling tables. Something similar to what is done for the 2011 Canadian federal election, though an article split may not be needed in this case. There was also a proposal of Bastun to accomplish this through footnotes in the opinion polling table, which, if worked out properly, could be another possibility on this. Impru20 (talk) 14:43, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

You are proposing a separate Timeline of Political Events between elections type article, which is what the Canadian example is. Who is supposed to definitively collate and write these???? Wikimucker (talk) 15:11, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Read me again. I'm not proposing that we strictly abide to the Canadian model, but that it may be used as an example. And on "who is supposed to collate and write these", well, it's not something that difficult to do. Specially seeing that IrishTV did it on the opinion polling table, it'd be just a matter of doing it separately. But if events are to be added, this would be much more useful and informative, and wouldn't find WP:NPOV issues as it could hold as many relevant events as identified by sources.

Otherwise, I don't understand the point of having only some selected events and leaving all others out because it may be too costly to do. No one urges to do it in one day, remember that Wikipedia is a work in progress. Impru20 (talk) 15:16, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

If we look at usual practice on other polling articles or election articles including polling, we see that most do not include any events at all: see for example Nationwide opinion polling for the United States presidential election, 2016, Opinion polling for the French legislative election, 2017 and Opinion polling for the German federal election, 2017. There are tens more examples of the same. The main exception is that UK polling articles, e.g. Opinion polling for the United Kingdom general election, 2017, typically include some events, specifically changes in the party leader, other elections (e.g. by-elections, local elections) and occasionally other things (the two terrorist attacks after which campaigning was temporarily suspended during the election period). There has been a fair amount of discussion on this matter at the UK articles, and current consensus opposes expanding beyond those. IIRC, Australian articles also show party leader changes. Party leader changes are usually marked just by when the new person started, so not when the previous person resigns.

I favour the approach taken on most articles, i.e no or very few notes. I agree with the argument that adding a broader range of events constitutes WP:SYNTH as adding a line to a polling table makes a clear implication that the event has affected polling. Likewise, I agree that WP:BALANCE applies: it should not be up to Wikipedians to decide which events matter.

Thus, I suggest removing all notes from the current article; or leaving the line for when Varadkar started, but removing the one for when Kenny resigned. Bondegezou (talk) 12:14, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose, for the reasons already outlined, including any events in the table of polls. However, as a compromise I would not object to listing party leader changes as footnotes - e.g., a footnote after the date listing for the first poll to be published after 14 June that reads "This was the first opinion poll published following Leo Varadkar being elected leader of Fine Gael and being appointed Taoiseach." Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 17:15, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

• Support I don't see why events should not be part of the list, they take into consideration the movement of policy or people when polls are taken, for example SocDems seem to have lost support following the departure of one of their leaders while Leo may have a Honeymoon period.IrishTV (talk) 20:49, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

If that's your interpretation of the situation, that's WP:OR and is not allowed. Do you have any reliable sources explicitly saying that polling has shifted in response for the reasons you give? Without RS, that's a non-starter. Bondegezou (talk) 22:43, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

No but the article is not suggesting either. It showing that a significant event occurred before the poll and this event might be a reason for changes in the poll if any, it is up the read to read the statics as they see them, I didn't say that is how I saw the stats, just what you could conclude but that is up to the reader, not wiki. IrishTV (talk) 16:48, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

If you have a table mostly consisting of poll results and then a few different lines, there is a strong implication that those events are there for a reason. And that's WP:SYNTH, not something Wikipedia should be doing. Ours is not to interpret: it is to summarise reliable sources. Bondegezou (talk) 17:48, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Footnote Added November 2017 on Adams announcing retirement

I added a footnote to the latest red c poll alongside SF as a key event took place in time for the sampling for that poll. Adams announced his retirement and the poll was conducted afterwards. then deleted the footnote but I referred them to the discussion immediately above. I ask you to self revert Mélencron while this discussion is reactivated ...hopefully in a simple clear format. I promise to remove it myself if required once this discussion has run its course in a week or so.

Additionally pinging Bondegezou IrishTV Bastun Impru20 Culloty82 Spleodrach who were involved earlier for their opinions.

Opinions are now sought on whether the footnote should be retained or removed. Simple Support F' or Oppose F comments should suffice from most participants and any new contributors to this overall discussion above are welcome to add a more detailed comment. Thanks all Wikimucker (talk) 21:05, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose F for reasons already stated above. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 22:48, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose F, as previously. Bondegezou (talk) 13:02, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Party Leadership Specifically

The leadership of a party is more than a key event, it is literally the central issue of what the polling is on. It is the norm in polling tables for New Zealand (which takes it a bit far, IMHO), Canada, Scotland, UK, Turkey (TMI IMHO) etc. It is clearly not WP:SYNTH, any more than it is to include the leader's name and picture in a GE results table ("Are you implying that it is because of the leader that a party did well or badly...? How can we know? etc. etc.") A change in party leadership is important information, as it represents a substantive change in the subject matter of the opinion poll. I would not, however, be in favour of the inclusion of any other events. And if it is verboten in the table, why is it allowed in the graph? What you are basically doing is, graphically, saying "SOMETHING REALLY IMPORTANT HAPPENED HERE", but refusing to state what it is in text. It is the opposite of informative. Consistency one way or another, please. Cripipper (talk) 16:38, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

So should I take silence to be agreement? Cripipper (talk) 10:42, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

No, you shouldn't. Discussion happened above, and while consensus may change, the consensus then was to not include events and I don't see how that's changed. Agree it shouldn't be in the graph - whoever maintained that appears to have stopped doing so some months ago. If it's who I think it is, it doesn't matter what the consensus was in any case, they would have done whatever they wanted. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 10:50, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

@Cripipper: You should take silence for what it is: that there was a previous consensus on the issue not to include events in opinion polling tables. And no, the central issue of what the polling is on is the measure of public support for each party, not the party's leadership (in fact, pollsters typically have separate questions on leadership). Agreeing with Bastun. Impru20^talk 10:53, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

The idea that the leader of the party is not central to polling on the party's support is, quite frankly, stupid (and is why it is included in the tables on party support in all the examples mentioned above. If it is not going to be included in the table itself it should be mentioned elsewhere. It is important information for readers to understand the numbers. The purpose is to inform. I can guarantee you everyone contributing to this discussion knows exactly who is the leader of each party, and when they took over, and from whom. Someone not in that possession of that information needs it to be able to make sense of the numbers here. Cripipper (talk) 11:42, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

I could point you to Sweden, Spain, Norway, Denmark, Czech Republic, Germany or Austria (among others) as examples of polling tables not showing events. Of your own examples, it seems that this issue has been only seriously discussed for Canada and the UK (which includes Scotland), and with strong controversy in the later's case. New Zealand looks rather random at which events should be added, and other articles have not seriously discussed the issue of which events to add, if any.

Nonetheless, the fact that you need to defend that the idea of party leaders is central to polling shows how this is WP:SYNTH. Such an idea would only be central based only on what sources state, not on what we guess out ourselves (which is what would be WP:SYNTH). Further, if the purpose of such an information is just to "to inform readers", then it may be added elsewhere (i.e. in the infobox, where there is already a field showing the election date for each leader). Opinion poll tables should be left for opinion polling only, IMO. Impru20^talk 14:37, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Try to amend Infobox from Leader's seat to Leader's constituency?

Leader's seat is correct for single-seat constituencies, but arguably misleading or even incorrect for multi-seat constituencies. This may be relevant to dozens of countries (Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Japan, etc). But I'd first like to get a sense of whether we feel it would be a good idea here. If we do so feel, then one way of doing this would be creating a new Infobox with the 9 or 10 Leader's seat parameters renamed to Leader's constituency, and mentioning in the new Infobox's Docs and/or Talk page that we are using it but that it can also be used by other countries if they wish to do so. (But there are other ways of doing this and there may be arguments over which approach is best.) Incidentally, Leader's constituency is also correct (but inconveniently long) for single-seat constituencies. Tlhslobus (talk) 04:42, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

I think it should be left out of the infobox entirely. Everything in the infobox is meant to be a summary of what's in the article. Nowhere does the article bother to talk about leaders' seats, ergo it's not very important information, and ergo it's not something that should be summarised in the infobox. Bondegezou (talk) 08:22, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Agreed with Bondegezou - it's irrelevant for this article. (On a related note, totally agree with the point about seats in multi-seat constituencies. On the rare occasions when I edit TD succession boxes, I put in all the previous constituency TDs and all the subsequent ones, for that very reason. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 13:15, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for both your replies. For what little my opinion is worth, I should perhaps mention that I wouldn't be in favour of dropping the fields entirely, mainly because there seems to be a long established consensus in favour of having them, though partly also because I myself can see benefits in having them, especially for readers following elections in progress or recently finished who want a quick way to tell them where to look to see how particular leaders did (indeed I suspect that's why they were introduced in the first place). And I don't think it matters whether in theory the infoboxes are supposed to be some sort of summary of what's in the article, as I tend to see that as ultimately in practice an unwitting demand for pointless duplication of information that is most useful in the infobox, at a time when we already have a severe shortage of editors who are needed for more important tasks than pointless duplication. But in any case that has little to do with what I was originally proposing, and since there hasn't been any support for this so far, readers and editors should now assume that I have mothballed or abandoned that proposal, at least unless and until any other editors come out in support of it.Tlhslobus (talk) 13:58, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Opinion poll trend graph

The graph showing the trend in opinion polls hasn't been updated in months and the creator seems to be inactive or disinterested in updating it. Is there any way for someone else to take up the mantle and get it back on track? Kh1326 (talk) 22:42, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

I have commented out for now as it is very out of date. Hopefully someone can update it. Spleodrach (talk) 13:14, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I've created two separate graphs for B&A and Red C, based on all their reported polls from the general election to date. I'll keep these as up-to-date as I can but should be able to manage once a month updates, anyway. I think separate graphs for the two most prolific polling companies is the way to go - their results are different enough that the "jumpiness" between their differing results was a bit jarring. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 15:03, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Data sort values in opinion poll table

I've managed to bork the "data-sort-value" bit of the opinion poll table, for the column with the poll company and the commissioning media. Added in the value for the latest Red C poll, and the text is displayed in the column rather than being invisible and used only for sorting. I added in sort values for the Ireland Thinks polls too and likewise, they're showing up as text. Format is exactly the same as for the lines that are working correctly.

Could somebody with better knowledge of wiki table code take a look, please? (In the meantime, reverting to most recent working version). Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 12:39, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Shouldn't we have an I4C column in Opinion Polls?

Independents for Change (I4C) are at 2% in our latest Opinion poll (this pdf, Page 31). They are (rightly) in 7th place in our Infobox and have more Dail seats (now 3, 4 after the election) than SDs (now 2, 3 after the election), GP (2), and RI (0), all of whom have their own Opinion Poll column. So shouldn't I4C have its own column in Opinion Polls (even if a bit of work may be involved in finding some of its past figures)? Tlhslobus (talk) 13:08, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes, but most polls don't list them separately, so the column would have very few entries. They not much a political party imho, they don't even have a website! Spleodrach (talk) 13:18, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

We should be driven by what the pollsters do. If most include I4C, let's include them. If only a few do, then let's not. Bondegezou (talk) 13:22, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps, but there's a lot of work involved in checking that, simply to deprive our readers of information. I created it here, in case anybody wants to see what it would look like before all that checking. I then self-reverted so it can be discussed further.Tlhslobus (talk) 14:34, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

For what it's worth, my preliminary impression is that RTE include them, but Sunday Times, Independent and Paddy Power don't, and others are hard to check, as are RTE polls before a few months ago (as Red C don't keep their PDFs online all that long). Tlhslobus (talk) 15:07, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

An alternative might be to include a footnote in Others whenever we have separate data for I4C. That way in theory our readers (or at least those of them that are fans of Mick Wallace and Clare Daly) can get the info, tho it's somewhat harder for them to come by, as they may not think of checking the footnotes, plus they won't know whether we've just forgotten to add a footnote, etc.Tlhslobus (talk) 15:16, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

LOL, you're probably right, Spleodrach, and we could all save ourselves a lot of work by deciding to only include parties that were held in high regard by all our editors, as we wouldn't have to include any .Tlhslobus (talk) 14:43, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Given how the revised table would look (per Tlhslobus) there really doesn't seem like any point in including them separately. A single footnote to state they're included with Others/Independents would suffice. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 16:05, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm all for the footnotes. Bondegezou (talk) 22:23, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I've now added footnotes. There would probably be a few more except for a quirk in a lot of recent Red C polls, where they show a Pink 'Other' at 1% (or sometimes '0%, down from 1%'). This seems to be I4C (as its colour is pink, and its support is around 1%), but we presumably can't currently use it as I4C, unless and until somebody can find RS confirmation that it is in fact I4C. And I don't know whether we should put in footnotes saying things like "includes 1% for 'Other'" - maybe some of the rest of you have views on that. Tlhslobus (talk) 10:39, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

To be honest, I'm getting more and more wary of at least some of the polling companies and their methodologies. The most recent Behaviour and Attitude pdfs, for example, seems to indicate they believe Renua no longer exists (this was about two weeks before Renua invited Peter Casey to be their new fuhr- er, leader). Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 15:49, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

They didn't think that Renua no longer existed, but that they had no relevance. Cue Renua desperately offering the leadership of their party to the latest flash in the pan! Spleodrach (talk) 15:54, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

You've seen Page 24 of the PDF? (I'd have copy and pasted except it won't let me...) Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 16:38, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Page 24, do you understand blasphemy? Spleodrach (talk) 21:09, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

All I said was, this halibut is fit for Jehovah! Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 22:30, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Who cares who said Jehovah, or even who said Brian of Nazareth, as long as we note that Page 24 (of this pdf) is of course broadly correct when it writes "Reuna (which is of course no longer in existence)", even if that "no longer" does tend to imply that we did recently have a party called Reuna? . Anyway I assume (at least unless and until contradicted) that all this means that nobody is terribly interested in having footnotes mentioning support for 'other'. Tlhslobus (talk) 11:13, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Presumably the same footnote system could apply to Aontú, if it begins to register in polls, given it's now an official party with Dáil representation? Culloty82 (talk) 16:38, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Remove Renua

This is a very dead duck, a party with no leader and no representatives bar a few councillors.

I propose to remove them from this article on the grounds of irrelevance. Wikimucker (talk) 19:06, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

They did achieve 2% of the vote nationally in the last election, though, and therefore have full party funding until the next election. That might keep them around until that funding dries up (assuming they achieve less than 2% in the next election). Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 19:14, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Might have to indulge the zombie then, lets see if any opinion pollers drop them on include them in others over the next year or so. Wikimucker (talk) 16:47, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Jeez. we might be losing the SDs as well as Renua after that last poll. Wikimucker (talk) 19:26, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

120 weeks later, not too many signs of life. Plus we now have Aontú blipping onto 1% Wikimucker (talk) 17:48, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

They have an active Twitter account, at any rate... I'd not be removing them just yet. Let's see what the locals bring... Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 10:19, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Agree with Bastun. Spleodrach (talk) 11:55, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Latest possible date

Taken from version of 17 February 2017:

The next general election cannot be held later than Monday 12 April 2021. This date is determined as follows:

Law	Requirement	Comments
Constitution: Section 16.5 [3]	The same Dáil Éireann shall not continue for a longer period than seven years from the date of its first meeting: a shorter period may be fixed by law.	A shorter period is fixed by law through the Electoral Act, 1992.
Electoral Act, 1992: Section 33 [4]	The same Dáil shall not continue for a longer period than five years from the date of its first meeting.	The Dáil resulting from the 2016 election first met on 10 March 2016. Five years after 10 March 2016 is 10 March 2021.
Electoral Act, 1992: Section 96 [5]	(1) A poll at a Dáil election— (a) shall be taken on such day as shall be appointed by the Minister by order, being a day which (disregarding any excluded day) is not earlier than the seventeenth day or later than the twenty-fifth day next following the day on which the writ or writs for the election is or are issued.	25 days after 10 March 2021, disregarding excluded days, is 12 April 2021. Excluded days are: Sundays – 14, 21, 28 March and 4 April Public holidays – 17 March and 5 April Good Friday – 2 April
Electoral Act, 1992: Section 2 [6]	(1) In this Act— "excluded day" means a day which is a Sunday, Good Friday or a day which is declared to be a public holiday by the Holidays (Employees) Act, 1973 , or a day which by virtue of a statute or proclamation is a public holiday;

Is this satisfactory? Spleodrach (talk) 14:46, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

It would be better to source the date to a reliable, secondary source. We're in danger of slipping into WP:SYNTH territory. Bondegezou (talk) 20:02, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

From RTE - [7] - It says 10 April 2021. It also says the Dáil would need to be dissolved before 9 March 2021, the above calcs assume 10 March which appears to be incorrect. Using 9 March 2021 as dissolution date and applying the above rules gives Saturday 10 April 2021, same as RTE source. Spleodrach (talk) 16:51, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

I'd agree with RTÉ - "shall not continue for a longer period than five years from the date of its first meeting [on 10 March 2016]" implies the 5 years are up on 9th March 2021, not the 10th. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 20:24, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Opinion polls and EU/local election results

WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS aside, is there a good reason for including the election results (which were for European and local elections, not general) in with the opinion polls? All of the opinion polls ask the question "Who would you vote for in the next general election?" The "results" are skewed if you include the elections - someone in, say, Waterford, might well say "Renua" in answer to a pollster's question; but if Renua don't run a local or European election candidate in Waterford, that voter's preference can't be reflected in the election results. Similarly, there's a >10-point difference in FF's vote between the local and Euro elections. Regards, Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 16:35, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

I haven't seen them being included like this on any other polling table. Take 'em out. Bondegezou (talk) 20:00, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

(Although PhDoctor says they are in Spanish and Italian articles. Bondegezou (talk) 20:02, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Dear, Bondegezou and Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!}. For god's sake, are you two blinded or something? Read Opinion polling for the next Italian general election and Opinion polling for the next Spanish general election. They have 2019 EP Election Results included. Also, they aren't added by me. User:PhDoctor 10:43, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Until you pointed out the Spanish and Italian articles, I had not seen this done before. It's not done this way on Opinion polling for the next United Kingdom general election, Opinion polling for the next German federal election, Next_Romanian_legislative_election#Opinion_polls, Opinion polling for the next Dutch general election, or Opinion polling for the 2019 Belgian federal election. But it is on Opinion polling for the 2019 Polish parliamentary election and Opinion polling for the 2019 Greek legislative election. I will raise a discussion at the relevant WikiProject. Bondegezou (talk) 11:42, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Elections_and_Referendums#European_Parliament_election_results_in_opinion_polling_tables. Bondegezou (talk) 11:50, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

I refer you again to the very first word in this section. I asked is there any reason for including election results other than that. You've come back to say "Otherstuffexists!" and offered no rebuttal or argument at all. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 13:01, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Opinion_polling_for_the_2016_Irish_general_election shows that in our article on Opinion polls prior to the last general election, we showed the results of both the local and European elections in 2014, and that has seemingly been left in place for about 5 years now, suggesting that this is now the long established WP:CONSENSUS on how we should deal with the matter (at least in Ireland - other countries may or may not have different consensusses, for any number of reasons). Since reasons have been asked for, I suppose I might add that presumably that consensus exists because many editors think that many WP:READERS may be thought to find it useful to be able to compare and contrast Opinion polls against actual votes, perhaps as some kind of reality check, even if these votes are not exactly the same as general elections (and if that is in fact what they think, I'm strongly inclined to agree with such editors). But regardless of what the actual reasons for the consensus may be, it would seem that it should be up to those seeking to change that consensus to offer reasons why that change should happen, instead of demanding that others supply reasons why the change should not happen. Tlhslobus (talk) 01:10, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Incidentally, regarding which consensus to use, we seem to be stuck with our Irish consensus, if only because there seems to be no clear international consensus, with different countries dealing with it in different ways (some details in footnote below, if desired). I certainly see no reason why we should inconvenience our readers by changing our existing long-established consensus and depriving them of convenient and useful info while somebody goes and spends perhaps months or years trying to establish some different one-size-fits-all international consensus at some obscure discussion at some Wikiproject which most affected editors and readers won't even know about, let alone have the time to waste on a pointless argument there. Tlhslobus (talk) 01:51, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Footnote: Some details re lack of international consensus, in case anybody thinks otherwise: Note that looking at what has been done for these 2019 elections, as Bondegezou does above, is misleading because Wikipedia is a work in progress and the end-of-May 2019 elections are very recent. For instance, the first above example I checked (after Ireland, of course) was Holland, and they had nothing (yet) for 2019, but they put a link to the 2014 Euro elections in the relevant Opinion poll table (which was for their previous general election). The Belgians had nothing, perhaps because their general election occurred at about the same time (May 2014) so they presumably sensibly included that instead. The Germans and Greeks ignored May 2014, tho the Greeks currently include 2019, and the relevant Romanian article has no opinion polls of any kind before July 2014 (2 months after the Euro elections of May 2014). The Spanish and Italians have already included May 2019 results (even though it was just a month after Spain's last general election), and they previously included May 2014 results in the relevant Opinion poll articles. We in Ireland have included May 2014 (as already mentioned above, and despite the claims that we should remove 2019 because nothing like that had supposedly ever been seen before). The relevant previous Opinion polls for the 2015 Polish elections includes results for both European elections in May 2014 and local elections in November 2014. Bondegezou is right that this is not how it's done in the UK (anomalous anyway due Brexit), but neither is how we currently have it the same as how the UK does it, since we are showing nothing but their relevant opinion poll tables link to the Euro elections in both 2019 and 2014 (as the Dutch have done for 2014, as already mentioned). That's seemingly all the countries mentioned above, but there are over 20 other countries one could check, but there doesn't seem any real point in doing so, because our own past consensus is clear enough, as already mentioned above. Tlhslobus (talk) 03:00, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

So again: WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. There may be a consensus on the Opinion_polling_for_the_2016_Irish_general_election - but we're not talking about that article, we're talking about this one. You have, at least, provided a reason for inclusion in your first paragraph above, and it's a fair point. But since nobody has actually proposed a wiki-wide RfC, your second paragraph is irrelevant. Paragraph three is again all WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Once again - this article is about the next Irish general election. Opinion polling, asking about people's voting intentions in the next Irish general election is relevant, as is how people voted in the last Irish general election. Including results for two entirely different elections - held on the same day, but with quite different results - is a) irrelevant, and b) misleading, because parties attach different importance and strategies to different types of election, run different campaigns, and may or may not put candidates forward for other elections based on many factors, including but not limited to candidates available, funding, constituency size and population, and so on. If a reader wants to know about Irish local elections or Irish European elections, we have articles on those too. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 11:18, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

The reason to not include the figures is that they are very different figures to the opinion polls above and below them. They are not directly comparable.

If they are to be included, we should use shading or something to mark out the figures as being different, as done on some of the other articles linked to above. Bondegezou (talk) 12:58, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

It is not the job of Wikipedia to innovate. We are very clearly warned against interpreting primary sources. If reliable secondary sources interleave opinion polls with European and local results, then we can do the same. If they do not, then it is WP:OR for us to decide it is a useful juxtaposition. Bondegezou (talk) 13:23, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Renua

Now that the party doesn't have an elected representative any more, will polling companies continue to list them as a separate option, and should we still give them their own column? Culloty82 (talk) 11:28, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I'd leave them until the next election now. Aontu seem the logical replacement but they are less than a year old. We had a lucky miss with I4C now that half their members have decamped to Europe Wikimucker (talk) 15:51, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Opinion Polls. Main Article or not.

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.

---

Given that Ireland is small and polls are infrequent compared to other countries I see no real utility in a separate article for polls, it would be different if 2 or 3 were published daily like, say, in Germany during a campaign.

In Ireland it is likely to peak at 3 to 4 a week at most and with a snap Amárach 1 question poll on occasion. I therefore think Opinion Polling can remain in the main Election 2020 article.

Thoughts along the lines of agreed or not agreed sought from other editors. Wikimucker (talk) 12:19, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

@Aréat: already started up top Wikimucker (talk) 12:48, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

@Wikimucker: As said below, the polls may not be frequent, but the table added up over the years still is huge, and force users to scroll down a lot, when the graph alone is enough. And there's still a link to the page with the detailled table for those who want to see the detailled polls. It's how it's done on all election pages with long polls tables, as well as how we did it in previous irish election pages. If it wasn't a problem there and then, I don't see why it would be one right now.--Aréat (talk) 13:17, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

@Aréat:@BrownHairedGirl: It is very difficult for any responsible editor to describe an Irish Election campaign without veering into (WP:NPOV) problems. So far we are 1/3 of the way through this one and only 2 small parties have manifestos. Therefore we are forced to Nowcast what we do have and opinion polls are really important there.

After the election is over the Campaign section will be hugely expanded (with hindsight helping us a lot) and so will the results section with the polls moving out around then as they will be completed. With no polls included there is virtually no article left in my opinion. It would simply look crap until the election is over.

I could say (and most would agree) that the big issues so far are housing and health while the campaign "highlights" so far are 1. A Tent in Dublin, 2 Paddy the Hooligan, 3. Greta 4. Pensions for 65 year olds but not 66 year olds and 5. Beef. But these have no place in the article save in hindsight, if ever. For now we need the polls as we are nowcasting.....and there are not so many of them anyway compared to France or Germany.

I also pinged a senior contributor to Irish Political content in the wiki to see if they maybe have 2c to offer us all here. I would like the polls to remain in the article for the duration of the campaign though. Wikimucker (talk) 13:32, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

It's normal practice to split the full opinion polling table to a separate article once it gets beyond a certain size. Aréat is the third editor to attempt to apply this practice to this article. Number 57 13:38, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

The article is over 90kB long. It wouldn't be an issue if it was just the tables, but it is not (the main scope of the article being the general election, not the opinion polls), and currently, the opinion polling in the article only makes it unnecessarily long to read. Because of this, customary practice both elsewhere and in previous Irish elections has been to split the opinion polls into a separate article, because even if there is not as many as in the UK or Germany there are still a lot of them. I concur with all others in not seeing any reason for this article to be an exception. Impru20^talk 13:50, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

It is normal practice in larger countries with many polls published daily, yes. The Spanish Parliamentary election 2019 page (with no polls) is 107k in size The French Parliamentary election 2017 page (with no polls) is 250k in size Like you say Impru20 this page is 90k in size but it is smaller (with polls) than those 2 are. Your comparison is not really that relevant and the opinion polls can be removed after the event. Wikimucker (talk) 14:06, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

It is normal practice in larger countries with many polls published daily, yes. Sweden, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Norway, Portugal, Finland, etc. All of these do not have opinion polls "published daily" yet they all have their opinion poll sub-pages split from the main articles. So what you say is simply not true, as you have been already told by others.

As for Spanish general election articles, all of them since 1982 have their opinion polling separated from their main pages. Nonetheless, I should note you that the opinion polling article for the November 2019 election has existed since April 2019; this is, the very time the first opinion poll after the April election was published. It is also done as such as of currently at Opinion polling for the next Spanish general election, and it was also done so for the 2015, 2016 and April 2019 general elections. Plus, this is customary practice elsewhere as well. Opinion polls are not split into new articles after the elections, but the other way around: they already exist even long before the date for the next election has been set.

I'm not seeing any good reason being forward by you other than "the article is not complete enough" (not a valid reason, as per WP:NOTFINISHED; that something is not finished enough does not preclude the fact that it will someday, and under that anticipation we already know right now that opinion polls in this page are unsuited for the main article) or "the separate opinion polling article is not updated" (well, if you hide the link from the view of readers, it will be difficult for them to spot the article's existence and update it, indeed). We know already that there are a lot of opinion polls, and even you acknowledge that you accept those being split after the election. There is thus simply no reason to wait until that. Impru20^talk 14:22, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Uk General election 2019 article, 200k+ in size.

The size argument really does not wash when this article is 90k in size and by no means an outlier in comparative terms or in bandwidth terms. Were there substantially more polls then I would concur but there has been 1 since the campaign started and we are 1/3 of the way through. I expect c.1k more in data terms, that is all. Wikimucker (talk) 14:39, 22 January 2020 (UTC

You have not replied to any of the counter-arguments that I presented to you. On the size of other articles, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXIST. The comparison is not even correct because those articles you mention do not even include the opinion polls within it (which would make them incredibly larger). So far, over 2/3 of this article's size comprises opinion polls alone, which is not acceptable and enough of a reason to justify its split. Impru20^talk 14:43, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

I also agree with moving the polls to a separate page. I hadn't commented as I was the one to do so initially, but as it's now up for discussion, I'll add my vote to the separation, on the basis that it makes the page unwieldy, and particularly as in any case, only the very first few here relate to the election period itself. It's also standard practice on Wikipedia for many other countries' election. —Iveagh Gardens (talk) 14:56, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

You did so improperly, it appears... page should probably be deleted, and recreated after the election. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 17:34, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

(Copied from below): Someone who doesnt' want to scroll doesn't have to, because there's literally nothing after the opinion poll section except footnotes and references. Yes, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, but Wikipedia exists for the reader, not the editor. There may be editors who love nothing more than making every election page uniform, but certainly this reader, and plenty of others would like to be able to see everything to do with the next Irish general election, on 8th February, on the one page, thanks. It's been 4 years. You can wait 17 days.

(Adding): We're 17 days out from the election. The opinion polls are here for 4 years. It makes complete sense to be able to see the opinion polls on the 2020 election page, and makes no sense to not have to click off to another page to do so, right before an election. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS doesn't apply. and walls of text from people who [[W{:OWN|love editing multiple election pages]] aside, we will likely see one, maybe two more polls added, from B&A and Red C. That's all. 17 days. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 17:25, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

[Copied from below): Wikipedia exists for the reader, not the editor. This is precisely the point I am trying to make. You have been editing the article for 4 years. It's now, when the election gets close, when the most readers come to visit it. And precisely when this happens, when the page stops being relatively isolated in a bubble to get much more attention, is when people start complaining that it's difficult to navigate. You are making assumptions of something which has not happened, i.e. that "many readers" "would like" to see things your way. Well, where are those readers? Because the more new readers that come to this page and post their opinions, the more support there is for the split of opinion polls into a different article. You are acting like if the few people editing this page for the last four years and other Irish people have any superior right or claim over this article, when that's not true.

(Adding): and walls of text from people who [[W{:OWN|love editing multiple election pages]] aside I'm seeing no one writing a wall of text here, though I acknowledge this is an argument you like to bring when you are not on the "winning side" of a discussion. Please comment on content and not on contributors, shall you? P.S. "Editing multiple election pages" does not constitue WP:OWN. Hinting that none of us should touch the opinion polling section and that we should do as you command until after the election is held because you have been editing this for 4 years, does. Impru20^talk 18:11, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

'I'm seeing no one writing a wall of text here Right you be Ted! You don't do you?? Wikimucker (talk) 18:25, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Looks like it indeed goes down to personal considerations when there are no arguments left. I will not be entering this.

So far, Aréat, Number 57, Iveagh Gardens, Bondegezou and myself have voiced support for splitting opinion polls from the main article. Bastun and Wikimucker are against it now, but do not mind it happening after the election is held. All in all, there seems to be a general agreement for splitting, the main issue being on the "when", for which there is a strong consensus in favour of doing it right now (in fact, it is already done because the split article already exists, the only issue being the information still being shown in this article). So, what should the next steps be? Impru20^talk 18:37, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

I think 5–2 is a reasonable consensus for proceeding with the removal of the polling tables from this article, so someone should just be bold and do it. Number 57 18:40, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

It already was, and was reverted. So if you do it, it'll be reverted as WP:TE. There's a process that needs to be followed. And seriously - it's the last section on this page, so is not in anyone's way. Leave it for 17 days. (The irony of having to talk about splits today is not lost on me... Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 19:20, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

No, it wouldn't be tenditous, and it's really quite a nonsense to suggest it would be (any attempt to report it as such would be quickly dismissed as vexatious). The BRD process has been followed. The bold first edit was made a while ago. It was reverted. We discussed. A clear consensus emerged that the split should be reinstated. Number 57 19:52, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

So just to be clear, Impru says raising WP:OWN is a personal attack if someone says it about them, but it's ok for them to do it about someone else (can't find the actual diff, but it's timestamped in the later section at 15:15/ Also note the existence of the other page is irrelevant, as it was created absent the People's Front of Judea process, losing the history, and should therefore probably be deleted. Size? Someone has added over 9.5kb to this talk page, just in one day... could have been better spent elsewhere. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 19:34, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

I am not entirely sure what the history edit trail could usefully show to posterity. My abiding problem with the sub page was that nobody maintained it after it was first created, around 5 days ago. Wikimucker (talk) 19:49, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Bastun: Making affirmations such as "It's been here since 2016, and we (who have been here for those four years) would like it to stay for the remaining three weeks", "this reader, and plenty of others would would like to be able to see everything to do with the next Irish general election, on 8th February, on the one page, thanks. It's been 4 years. You can wait 17 days", and threatening with edit warring should anyone try to implement the reached consensus here while trying to command others how and when should they edit this or the other article, is clearly WP:OWN behaviour. "Editing multiple election pages", as you suggested, does not even come close of constituting OWN (unless you want to blame Number 57, Bondegezou, Aréat and many others of ownership behaviour just because of being prolific Wikipedia editors). The reference to the "wall-of-text" when it wasn't due is a clear example of commenting on the contributor and not on content.

WP:SPLITTING establishes that If an article meets the criteria for splitting and no discussion is required, editors can be bold and carry out the split. This was done three times by three different users at three different points of time and the split article already exists. All these three were reverted only by the two of you. The full WP:PROSPLIT procedure is required to establish consensus on the issue, but such a consensus already exists here as per WP:BRD. There is no justification for going through the full PROSPLIT procedure just because two users "would like it to stay for the remaining three weeks". Reverting the reached consensus won't be even close at tendentious editing, but such a reverting could very well be considered as a refusal to get the point. Impru20^talk 19:58, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

This was done three times by three different users at three different points of time and the split article already exists. All these three were reverted only by the two of you. I am lost. Can you perhaps explain this sequence in plain english?....no WP anything required. Thx.

Of course: it means that when there is a consensus that doesn't go your way, you are still required to respect it. Plain enough? Impru20^talk 20:17, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

At a moment like this I always ask my children.....'Well WHY was the PS4 in the Pram in the first place?

Nobody touched the sub article...which was not split.

Wikimucker (talk) 20:20, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

FFS. Discussion is ongoing. B, R, D. It has already been pointed out that the split article was created out of process, lost the history, and was challenged. This discussion section isn't even 24-hours old yet, so stop trying to railroad things! If you want to split - fine! Follow the process, Aréat. It's listed here: WP:PROSPLIT. When you begin to do that, I'll happily advertise the debate in the usual locations. While pondering why this article is of so much interest now to non-Irish editors, one of whom seems to have a personal vendetta against WM and I. Seriously, I'm really not getting Impru's impatience to split, when there is nothing to be gained and no benefit to readers, who, as has been pointed out, do not have to scroll past the poll content to see anything else bar references. 00:11, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

You are the only one arguing that this was done out of process. It was not. A discussion has happened and a clear consensus has quickly emerged under WP:BRD; WP:PROSPLIT is for situations where such a consensus can't be achieved the simpler way. I do not have any impatience to get this done, but it looks like you are only trying to unnecessarily bureaucratize the issue so that it gets bogged down for long enough to allow for the election to be held, which is what you have repeteadly insisted on waiting for. For these cases, WP:SNOWBALL exists.

one of whom seems to have a personal vendetta against WM and I. Enough. These are very serious accusations. I have had to withstand both yours and Wikimucker's impertinence and continuous mocking on me for no reason since I chose to intervene in this discussion at good will. As you say, it's not even 24-hours old and you have already run out of arguments and gone into personal attacks on me for some reason I ignore. If you seriously think there is any such "personal vendetta", I dare you to bring me to the appropiate venue, where you would also have a valuable opportunity to explain to any independent third parties your behaviour here; otherwise, stop this routine of veiled accusations, or else the next time I will have no choice but to bring you to ANI myself. I am not here to waste my time on personal disputes of any kind. Impru20^talk 00:40, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

In what world is 5:2 anywhere approaching WP:SNOWBALL - in less than 24 hours?! Get a grip! Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 00:52, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

There is not any time requirement for consensus to be reached. If it was 5:2 in a discussion with substantive arguments from both sides, we could surely take more time for it to receive more input, but it is not the case: essentially everyone in here agrees on the split, the only significative difference being that you (Wikimucker's motives seem to differ) intend for it to be delayed for 17 days because you "would like for it to stay", which does not seem enough of a reason to forestall consensus' application.

Worth noting is that such a delay should have—under your words, twice—the consequence of having Opinion polling for the 2020 Irish general election deleted, only for it to be re-created once the election is held. Unless there was a sensible reason for deletion, such a bureaucratic procedure of deletion and re-creation would be pointless.

In this sense, and seeing how you are so prone of procedure, maybe instead of asking for WP:PROSPLIT when consensus already exists you should nominate the article at WP:AFD and see where it goes. Impru20^talk 01:21, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

The only snowball effect in here is the wall of serially obtuse text that appeared in less than 24 hours and with random reference to WP:Whateveryouarehavingyourselftoday interspersed to make it look in some way considered. Absolutely nonsensical and textbook WP:TE Wikimucker (talk) 08:36, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Seriously, you should really stop. Impru20^talk 08:52, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Further, the discussion may be 24-hour long, but the issue has been ongoing since at least nine days ago and that time has only led to the consensus on the opinion polling's split to be strengthened. I am certainly not seeing any consensus for the opinion polls to be kept in the article nor there has been any in that time. People calling for discussion to be kept ongoing are seemingly (and ironically) unwilling to discuss any further except by issuing unproductive comments and threatening others with administrative action should their preferred version not be respected. Maybe it should be the other way around, and a consensus for the opinion polls' reinstating within the main article should be reached, but it is a certainty that a pair of users can't just pretend to stalemate the discussion forever just because they can't win it over. Impru20^talk 09:42, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Wait, so we're not supposed to warn users that they're potentially about to breach 3RR now? News to me. Can you point to where this new admin rule was discussed? This has now gone beyond a joke. You've expended over 19k of text on this talk page in less than 24 hours! But you're not writing walls of text, right? :-) Why is this issue so important to you - you abandoned the page three years ago? Why are you unwilling to follow the outlined process rather than railroading through your perceived "consensus" in less than 24 hours? Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 10:22, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

You can mark me down as favouring a proper split out of the current Opinion Polling section BUT 2 graphics were deliberately left behind by an editor when the current opinion polling section was deleted and those 2 graphics constituted an immediate (WP:NPOV) violation once shorn of their context. I reverted for that reason.

The 2 graphics must also move in any split to avoid (WP:NPOV) issues arising as a consequence of the split. Wikimucker (talk) 10:33, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

We clearly have sufficient consensus to do a split now. Bondegezou (talk) 11:53, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

@Bondegezou: Consensus is obvious but someone is simply refusing to get the point.

Wait, so we're not supposed to warn users that they're potentially about to breach 3RR now? News to me. You would have sounded much more credible had you warned Wikimucker for the same reason as well: revert1 revert2 revert3. Further, with this revert Wikimucker has essentially breached 3RR already. Where is your careful, thoughtful warning to them?

Why is this issue so important to you - you abandoned the page three years ago? The issue is not important to me, but it's obviously important to you, with it being a problem because of the way you are behaving in this discussion. Any other such discussion in any other article would have already led to the article being modified, but you keep persistently blocking it so as to fulfill your wishes to "delay it for 17 days". Further, it's clear that you are letting your personal feelings to get over you on this. I do not care at all about what happened three years ago (btw, it is not polite to remind someone that you forced them to abandon the page years ago), but you have taken it personally on me from the start by mocking my responses, ignoring to reply to any substantive argument and just attempting to hijack the page. Do not worry. You will be able to explain your current behaviour at WP:ANI. Concurrently, I have reverted Wikimucker and issued the 3RR warning to them, because we are supposed to do this, right? You are welcome. Impru20^talk 12:27, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

You were told to split the article properly were you not?? You were also told to stop relying on a wall of text style of tendentious editing to clog up talk pages to get your way. Not by me but I agree with the wall of text observation.

Your first contribution to this section was to complain an article was too long at 90k. You have effectively added 20k to this talk page in less than 24 hours with the unreadable gloop we all see above.

Show some basic courtesy to your fellow editors, and also the poor admins you now called in on this one , and who ALL have far better things to be doing than read through that gloop. Wikimucker (talk) 12:53, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

A "wall of text" is not the random aggregation of comments made by anyone in a discussion (otherwise, both Bastun and you would be text-walling yourselves) but excessively long posts posted for purely disruptive reasons. You should carefully read WP:COTD before going on to accuse anyone of text-walling: some arguments just need more length than others to be elaborated. It is so that dismissal of legitimate evidence and valid rationales with a claim of "text-walling" or "TL;DR" is equally disruptive. Impru20^talk 13:11, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Splitting proposal

I propose that sections 2020 Irish general election#Opinion_polls be split into a separate page called Opinion polling prior to the 2020 Irish general election, from 8th February 2020. The content of the current page is on-topic, does not interfere with readers in any way, as it is the last section on the page, but such a split happening on other pages and the content being of sufficient size and interest to justify its own article, there is no reason to maintain the content here too after the election of 8 February Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 14:35, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

They are already split into Opinion polling for the 2020 Irish general election. If you really wanted to use a different name, you should have used WP:MOVE/WP:RM instead. On the split, you don't need a consensus for it because such a consensus already exists: the only thing you are seeking with this is to unilaterally abort the splitting until 8 February for your own, personal reasons. This is a deliberate attempt to skip consensus and game the system through persistently disruptive ways. Your call. Impru20^talk 14:46, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

A new split doesn't seem necessary where there already is a page. It's one I created, but I did so on the model of election pages in general on Wikipedia. See 2020 Israeli legislative election#Opinion polls, for example, in the case of a comparatively close election. —Iveagh Gardens (talk) 15:44, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

While yours was a good faith creation, Iveagh Gardens, it appears to me that it missed out reference to the existing section it was copied from, and therefore lost the page history, which is a requirement of WP licensing, per WP:PROSPLIT: "Note: To conform with Wikipedia's licensing requirements, which require that all content contributors receive attribution, the page receiving the split material must have an edit summary noting "split content from article name". (Do not omit this step or omit the page name.) A note should also be made in the edit summary of the source article, "split content to article name..." I've no objection at all to the article being deleted and re-created at your article's name if and when this goes ahead. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 16:10, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I did say earlier today that I am entirely amenable to a proper split as long as the entire Opinion Poll section and all the graphics therein are all hived off separately to the main article along with the relevant history. Creating a new article and copy/pasting loses the history and is a somewhat suboptimal solution here.

I am easy as to the precise date of a split, it could be before or after the 08 February but the 09 could well be better than the 08 as there will be an exit poll late on the 08 to bookend the entire series. Wikimucker (talk) 16:25, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Does not the announced result sometime in the following week do that nicely, too? ;-) Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 16:44, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

@Wikimucker, Number 57, Bondegezou, and Aréat:

If this is about the lack of a note referencing the edit history, I'm quite happy as the page creator to support it being deleted and then immediately recreated with the correct notation. But i would support this solit happening now, rather than on or after 8 February. While short now, we will be adding to this page over the coming two weeks, and polls dating back to 2016 are more appropriate for a separate page, while retaining the graph, as on the Israeli election page linked above. –Iveagh Gardens (talk) 18:04, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

That was the whole problem with those 2 graphs, they are not a poll of polls type single graph which is what appears widely near opinion poll links.

No recognised poll of polls series is published in Ireland and even if there were one the methodology could be questioned until some agreement were reached on its validity. Not before this election anyway. Wikimucker (talk) 19:59, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I'd appreciate that, Iveagh Gardens, cheers. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 21:39, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

@Number 57: I have added Template:Copied to both articles' talk pages (here and here); this should solve any lingering issues on page's history attribution. I have used this latest revision for reference, as it's arguably the most complete, though the constant back-and-forth warring and the fact that the two pages were maintained separate for 10 days means that their histories will inevitably overlap. Impru20^talk 15:57, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Sigh. The only justification for splitting the article that was advanced, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS aside, was that the article was too long and you had to scroll too much, despite the existence of the 'Hide' function. The article was split. New polls have taken place since, and there will be a couple more between now and Feb 8. There is no justification now for removing this content. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 11:23, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

However, seeing as WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is apparently an issue, there is plenty of precedence for including recent polls in the run-up to an election: here; here, and here, for example. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 11:33, 26 January 2020 (UTC) Compromise. It's a thing. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 11:40, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Having read through the ANI on this, I don't think there is anything egregious here. If the main editors working on this article, which is obviously of help to Irish (and other) readers, are happy with a non-controversial structure regarding the opinion poll format, why not let it sit? There is no WP policy on opinion poll formatting (as I know it), and various types of formats approaches are in use. I can see the rationale of both sides, but the materiality of the issue is not high; ultimately, an RfC can be run if needed (but I am not sure it would be worth it)? Thanks. Britishfinance (talk) 11:42, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

@Bastun: One of your latest reasons for opposing the split was that it was conducted "out of process" and that the page history was lost, raising attribution concers. You now do this, despite consensus for the split, meaning that people may be led to add new opinion polls on this article rather than at Opinion polling for the 2020 Irish general election (as happened with the latest Red C poll), thus raising new attribution concerns since people adding new polls just in this article will not be properly attributed once those are added to the sub article. Further, you cannot pretend to circumvent consensus in such an egregious way; you should have raised the concern here, then sought a compromise for 2020 polls to be added into the article. Other participants could have then negotiated the issue. That's what WP:COMPROMISE means. Not "hey, I am adding this unilaterally against consensus because I did not like how it went and you now have to accept it haha".

I have reverted your unilateral reversion until such a specific consensus develops. I am opening a discussion right below. Impru20^talk 11:53, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

2020 polls in main article

As per above, Bastun chose to unilaterally add 2020 polls into the main article, twice (diff1 diff2). The current consensus is for opinion polls to be split into Opinion polling for the 2020 Irish general election, without making any provision for exceptions. I understand that this is an obvious breach of consensus and that this situation of having 2020 opinion polls in this article would require a modification of the consensus above, considering that it would mean having to maintain a duality of information in two pages and that attribution may not be properly conducted for newly-added opinion polls. I am not particularly opposed to this, as long as consensus favours it and care is taken for information to be added and kept up to date in both pages, though I am obviously concerned at the manners in which this was conducted. Pinging the rest of participants in the previous discussion: @Number 57 @Aréat @Wikimucker @Bondegezou @Iveagh Gardens Impru20^talk 11:53, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

So the question being asked is: Should the main article contain 2020 opinion polls ("support"), OR, should all opinion polls be in the separate Opinion polling for the 2020 Irish general election article ("oppose")?

Looks like a clear attempt to game the outcome of the above discussion to me. Number 57 12:23, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Lets see, your first intervention was allegedly because the then article was in your opinion 'too large at 90k' Impru20. It was shorn to around 45k even with the inclusion of that small set of polls conducted during the election campaign. It would likely have reached an enormous 50k at the end of the campaign even with more polls included between now and then.

I see no utility in your removal of the polls, no improvement to the article overall, and would be perfectly happy were all 2020 election period polls included in the article until the election is held on the 08 February after which they can be collected with the rest of them

There are still polls in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2019_Spanish_general_election article despite many being removed to a subarticle on polls and that article is now at 106k despite your initially objecting to this article being too long at 90k when you started your uberextensive giving out about it earlier this week. Who might be the one responsible for that egregious bloat in Spain, one wonders.?

Spleodrach might be interested in voicing an opinion too as might ((u|PaulCler2008}} Leovaradkat CaneFluteMan, all of whom have clearly contributed more of the pertinent article content than most of the people you pinged there. Wikimucker (talk) 12:30, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Lets see, your first intervention was allegedly because the then article was in your opinion 'too large at 90k' No, my point was that opinion polls made up 2/3 of the article's size. That, combined with the article being 90k (well-above the 60kB of readable prose limit) was a reason enough for splitting, in my opinion (important point because it did not even have to be the final overall reason for splitting, as other users also made good points on this with different reasons). I did not mean that any article of that size should be split, but here it was obvious that most of the article covered opinion polls only rather than election issues themselves, which is out of scope. Nonetheless, I was not the only one voicing support for the split, so maybe you should just drop the issue already as the splitting issue was already dealt with. It does not matter what you personally thought or said back then; there was a consensus and you should respect it until a new one develops (what you argued back then was still rejected by 5 to 2. So it conceivably means there is not consensus for it right now).

There are still polls in the November 2019 Spanish general election article despite many being removed to a subarticle on polls No, there is only one graphic chart there. There have never been any opinion polls in that article. Further, it is not that 2/3 of the November 2019 Spanish general election article's size are fully committed to any given topic. I do not know why are you focusing this on me; as I said, there was a consensus on this, as four more people favoured the split. Impru20^talk 13:01, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support having the 2020 opinion polls in main article (and the full longer list of all historical polls relating to this election in the separate opinion poll article); and I take it on good faith that the ask that both articles are kept updated is upheld – which seems fair, and I think is being done? thanks. Britishfinance (talk) 13:14, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
• Neutral - neither particularly supporting or opposing the 2020 polls being shown in this page. What I see as the most crucial point of it would be for polling information to be added and kept up to date in both pages, with proper attribution whenever required (I'd be opposed to the 2020 polls being added and updated only in this article but not in the other). Impru20^talk 13:27, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
  • On a second thought, I think Bondegezou has a point in their comment below. After all, the risk of divergence in the updating of the two tables is real, and probably efforts would be much more helpful if directed on updating one table rather than needlessly having to update two of them simultaneously, which could result in none of them being complete. Plus, the fact that there is no real reason to have it that way aside from two users just repeteadly pushing for it because they "would like it" is not enough to compensate or to sway me. Moving my !vote to oppose as a result. Impru20^talk 10:24, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
    • I think that Bastun's comment that they will maintain both lists address your, and Bondegezou's concern, and should be taken in good faith. Britishfinance (talk) 12:06, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
      • @Britishfinance: I am not making any assumptions on faith, but Bondegezou makes a good point when raising the issue that having to update two duplicate tables at the same time will inevitably lead to the editing effort being split, thus not being as successful or productive as it would be should just one table is maintained. Further, no reason other than personal preference is being brought for the case, compared to the more solid and policy-based reasonings given against. This is what makes me lean towards the 'oppose' camp. Impru20^talk 12:14, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
        • Impru20, you said I am not making any assumptions on faith, but this is what Wikipedia does. WP:5P4, Seek consensus, avoid edit wars, and never disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. Act in good faith, and assume good faith on the part of others. I think perspective is being lost here. A material amount of time (and text) has been sunk into a very (very) minor issue, that we have assurances (from the editors who created all of this content for our readers), will still be covered??? Britishfinance (talk) 12:37, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
          • A material amount of time has been sunk into this because of WP:OWNy behaviour by Bastun. We could have just followed standard practice with other election articles and respected a clear consensus among editors here. Instead, we have all of this. Bondegezou (talk) 12:44, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
            • But that is one perspective; there are other perspectives that an UNIVOLVED person could take having read the ANI and this RfC that could differ with this as the only conclusion. The most important thing is that this dispute is really, post the good-faith assurances below, is now moot. I see no further value to Wikipedia, or to anybody on this thread, from prolonging it? Britishfinance (talk) 13:00, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
              • @Britishfinance: I said I am not making any assumptions on faith: neither on bad-faith, nor on good faith (which is not needed because Wikipedia takes it for granted, as you say). What I do not understand is why do you keep insisting on this: I do not have to agree with the proposal, and you are not providing any new meaningful reasonings that make me change my stance. Conversely, you are complaining about a "large amount of text" being added while you keep adding such text yourself right now by systematically answering to every 'oppose' comment from both Bondegezou and me to complain about why are we opposing it. We have explained our reasons already.

On the other hand, Wikipedia does not exist to satisfy anyone's pleasures, and anyone means anyone. It does not matter how badly you think that some users "created all of this for us": they have still no right to be granted any specific editing privilege, nor for WP policies to be applied more laxly to them. Being the creator of Wikipedia content does not make you the owner of such content, so such implications are out of question. Impru20^talk 13:04, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Impru20, I have not said you "have to", I am implying you "should". There is no Wikipedia policy regarding formats of opinion polls – none. The valid earlier concerns raised by Bondegezou and yourself are now addressed: (1) the amount of opinion poll data in the Head Article is small, and (2) the editors who actively edit these articles and maintain the data have made undertakings to keep it consistent. WP:5P4, a policy, should guide you that there is little more to be achieved here – even for your own sanity and enjoyment of Wikipedia (this cannot be enjoyable, for anyone, and for an issue that is moot)? Britishfinance (talk) 13:15, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Neither I "have to" nor I "should". I am free to give my opinion in a discussion, right? You cared nothing when I posted the neutral !vote, yet since I switched to oppose you are pushing for me to change my stance without any actual rationale other than we should somehow make a favour to other editors. Bondegezou and I validly oppose the proposal just as others (including yourself) validly support it. That's it. In the end, the weight of arguments shall determine the final consensus. On WP:5P4 just highlighting what it establishes: Apply Wikipedia etiquette, and do not engage in personal attacks. Seek consensus, avoid edit wars, and never disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. Act in good faith, and assume good faith on the part of others. Now check who's been breaching that throughout the last days and ask yourself whether you are applying 5P4 on the correct people. Impru20^talk 13:33, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose Nearly all election articles with separate poll articles include no poll results on the main article. Wikipedia practice is to avoid having information duplicated across two articles because of problems with updating. Bondegezou (talk) 17:24, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

• Comment. That is a common set-up Bondegezou, but we have a live election going on with active editors updating the polling (and article) in real-time, so is less of a concern. Where such editors want to use a reasonable, and inoffensive, variation of such common set-up for their readers, then I am sympathetic to it, per my !vote. It can all be restructured in the long-term if needed; the appeal of these editors to combine the main 2020 polls into the head article they are building while the event is live, seems a fair request? Britishfinance (talk) 17:49, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

If there's active editing, then I would have thought that problems with consistency are of greater concern, not lesser concern. The more editing going on, the faster it's happening, the more risk of divergence and having two tables, neither of which is complete. I've edited a large number of election articles through polling days and I've never seen this done before. Bondegezou (talk) 17:54, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't really follow - I would expect an actively edited article to be able to keep both up to date (and there aren't that many polls in 2020?). Who built the original large tables for historical polling on Opinion polling for the 2020 Irish general election – where they also built by the creators of this Head article. thanks, Britishfinance (talk) 18:22, 26 January 2020 (UTC)?

Yeah, barring some huge change in Irish media circles, this is a non-issue. There will be at most three to four more polls by mainstream media between now and the election coverage moratorium, plus an exit poll on the day of the election itself. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 12:07, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

@Britishfinance: the more edits going on, the more confusion there is. These big polling tables are fiddly. This is a context in which errors are more likely to occur. Bondegezou (talk) 12:36, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Per my comment above to Impru20, this concern is of a disproportionate level to the time (and editing) sunk into debating it? I can't see how it is credible to still have this concern when: (1) the number of polls in question is so small, and (2) the creators of almost all these polling tables/content in these articles have undertaken to specifically maintain the integrity of the data? This is not a good use of any of our time, to advocate otherwise makes no sense – the "oxygen" of this dispute is not really the substance of the matter in hand (as it is so minor, and is now no longer an issue given the assurances), but the result of the "unhappy interactions" from discussing the matter? Britishfinance (talk) 12:45, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support 2020 polls in main article. Wikimucker (talk) 18:37, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support 2020 polls in main article. If I want to read about the election happening 12 days time, I should be able to read about them on the article on that election. There is a case to be made for not having all opinion polls since the last election, in 2016, on this page (a case I don't agree with, as the section is the final one on the page and the table has 'Hide' functionality), but there is no merit in removing the most recent polls, i.e., those conducted in 2020. Although I dislike using the WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument, others have done so, and the retention of recent polls is common practice on other articles. I will be more than happy to maintain both tables, including attribution. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 12:00, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
  • the retention of recent polls is common practice on other articles Yes? Which ones? Impru20^talk 12:14, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

The ones listed in my comment above, made at 11:40 yesterday in the sub-section above this one. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 13:32, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

On 2019 United Kingdom general election#Opinion polling, these are not opinion polls, but predictions and seat projections based on polling aggregations (you may see that those are not included at Opinion polling for the 2019 United Kingdom general election, and just one of them is conducted by an actual polling company). The two others you link are sub-articles by themselves, not the main article. I cannot see your point here. Impru20^talk 13:40, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

An irrelevant observation, there is no poll of polls or a reliable derived seat projection in Ireland because of the nature of the constituency and voting system. A few recent polls is as reliable a data stream as there is available. It should be assumed here that Irish editors would have found one.... were there one. Wikimucker (talk) 13:53, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

there is no poll of polls or a reliable derived seat projection in Ireland because of the nature of the constituency and voting system Then that answers your question. Many election articles elsewhere do not report poll of polls or seat projections because they do not have them, yet they do not make any attempt to fill such a vacuum by copying opinion polls from their polling articles (because there is no requirement to add poll of polls at all, the UK article being one of the few exceptions). Why should this article be different? The observation is not only relevant, but very pertinent. Impru20^talk 14:11, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Weak support: Given the short period of this campaign, there is perhaps merit in including polls published since the dissolution of the Dáil, which I think is also the same as those published in 2020. I generally think other countries' elections and politics projects are a good guide, but we don't need to be bound by them,and can still tailor our approach for this campaign. My reason for moving the polls in the first place was because polls stretching back to 2016 were now clutter where there is a focus on candidates and the campaign for this election, but polls since 14 January are different. This is a page we're designing for the general reader, and these recent polls are useful information for them to have immediately to hand, rather than on a separate page. Now, of course, we should still reach an agreement or consensus on this talk page before making a change on the page! –Iveagh Gardens (talk) 14:25, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Iveagh Gardens, you said "Support" in your edit summary (and "seem" to imply your support above; although I am not 100% sure), if you do "support" the motion, you should indent and bold your !vote accordingly for clarity to others. Conversely, if you don't "Support" it, you should clarify that too. thanks. Britishfinance (talk) 14:45, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Consensus is now to include 2020 Polls in the article (and to maintain the exact same data in the sub article on polls). Consensus is not an ad hoc form of guillotine motion so we should all quietly wait until the morning to see if new contributions appear below from those who have not yet contributed. I'll summarise around 08:00 UTC, when this section is 48 hours old, if the section creator has not kindly summarised for us all by then. Wikimucker (talk) 14:55, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Fewer people than in the previous discussion have participated here and there is not a clear consensus for overturning the previous one, which could prove problematic if you choose to unilaterally close the discussion at this stage (specially considering this has become a contested issue). My 2 cts would be for letting it ongoing until further input is achieved and then request for an uninvolved editor to close it, least some may suspect this discussion is only a facade to game the outcome of the previous one, which would only worsen the issue, not improve it. Impru20^talk 15:02, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Iveagh Gardens: You make a good point here. However, wouldn't that be solved by just copying the 2020-pertinent polls from the Opinion polling for the 2020 Irish general election article once the election happens? I see the main point of friction here is on the effort of having to simultaneously edit two pages as new polls are published and a possible dissonance on the updating and attribution issues (I can mainly think of passing-by readers editing one article and not the other, which is frequent for ongoing elections). If the only issue around here is for 2020 polls to remain in the main article, wouldn't a post election edit, once updating is no longer required, do the job? Impru20^talk 14:57, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

I'd actually take the opposite view. After the election, the difference between 2019 polls and 2020 polls is less important, and those reading the page will be those taking a longer view or interested in a different perspective. So a full split makes sense then, with no opinion polls listed on the main page. Up to 8 February, though, those viewing the page would be as interested in using it as a resource for the latest Red C/MRBI as details such as the total number of candidates. There won't be that many polls in the next 12 say that it's impossible to maintain the list in both places. I am strongly in favour of waiting till at least the morning to see what consensus emerges here! –Iveagh Gardens (talk) 16:55, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I do not see the connection between "people's interest in opinion polls before an election" and them being shown in the main article. In terms of views, precedent shows that, heading into an election, opinion polling articles get about equal or even an higher amount of views than the main election articles (except on election day, obviously), which means that, even with them being located at a sub article, this does not hamper such an interest from any reader looking for opinion polls: such was the case for UK, Spain this November as well as earlier in April, the September Israeli election, Poland, Canada, etc. Impru20^talk 17:49, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Aannnd.... we should all quietly wait until the morning to see if new contributions appear below from those who have not yet contributed. lasted all of 2 minutes. I trust you to count the yays and the nays tomorrow morning Impru, and if you don't then I will. Let us all go back to quietly wait until the morning to see if new contributions appear so. Wikimucker (talk) 15:18, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

@Wikimucker: Sorry, but this comment is entirely out of place. You just do not come up to unilaterally determine when should the discussion stop and when should people become "quiet", considering it was not even 30 minutes since Iveagh Gardens first intervened here that you started calling for this be closed (not even close to the 10 days that elapsed between the time the splitting was first proposed and its final enforcement as a result of the discussion above). This openly goes against WP:CLOSE. Further, considering that this issue is anything but uncontentious, probably neither you or I should attempt to close it, but an uninvolved editor. Impru20^talk 15:28, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Back to waiting quietly for other contributors, until morning. Wikimucker (talk) 15:37, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

considering that this issue is anything but uncontentious, probably neither you or I should attempt to close it, but an uninvolved editor Impru20^talk 15:57, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

4th Try we should ALL quietly wait until the morning to see if NEW contributions appear below from those who have not yet contributed. Wikimucker (talk) 17:03, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Jesus Christ, please stop this already, talk pages are not forums. Want to "quietly wait"? Then be quiet. Impru20^talk 17:18, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

5th Attempt. 'WE should ALL quietly wait UNTIL the morning to see if NEW contributions appear below from those who have NOT YET contributed. Wikimucker (talk) 17:30, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

OK so. Looks like I have to do the counting here despite my having deputised that task.

By my estimate 3 support, 3 oppose, 1 weak support. I'd hate to ever call this a 'consensus' but it is 'a small working majority' for the inclusion of the 2020 polls in this article, and only those 2020 polls. Wikimucker (talk) 13:04, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Doesn't look like a consensus at all. a small working majority Huh, read WP:VOTE? In these situations, one would either wait for more input to ascertain consensus, or call for an uninvolved editor to assess it. Impru20^talk 13:14, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

OK. Thank you Impru for not disputing my sums, now does anyone else want to tot up too or add to this section, new contributors to this section are always most welcome. Wikimucker (talk) 13:48, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Wait, what? You literally described a majority of 5-2 as an "overwhelming consensus", but 4-3 "doesn't look like consensus at all"? Maybe something is lost in translation, but I honestly don't know how that works. Sure, it's not a strong consensus, and like WM I wouldn't argue that it is, but on something that's hardly controversial (attracting a massive 7 participants despite over 40k of text and an AN/I thread!) and given the assurance that both pages will be maintained for the additional 3 or 4 polls that will appear - I would ask you in the spirit of collegiate collaboration to compromise on this and not block the inclusion of polls here, until after the election. I'll happily expunge them myself by the 10th Feb. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 14:15, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

There were 7 in favour of split (you and Wikimucker only asked for it to happen after the election), yet it took 10 days for its enforcement amid dispute, refusals to get the point and edit warring. As we all agree, this issue is not even a 4-3 one but a 3 support (some being empty pile-ons), 3 oppose and 1 "weak" support. Combined with the previous, super-recent consensus, this would probably be closed as no consensus should the discussion happen in any other article. That is why I prudently suggest other solutions, such as waiting for further input from other users, calling for an uninvolved editor to assess consensus or, maybe, filling a full-fledged RfC on this (though given the average timespan of RfCs, it would probably still be ongoing by the time the election is held).

I would ask you in the spirit of collegiate collaboration to compromise on this and not block the inclusion of polls here, until after the election. "Collegiate collaboration" is important always, not just whenever you ask for it. Further, WP:COMPROMISE means "negotiation", not take it or leave it. There have been no arguments presented to support the inclusion of 2020 polls other than it being a personal preference and that it would only last until the next election (which would be a further argument against it, not for it: why fix something that is not broken and that will only be a temporary remedy anyway?). Conversely, there are sensible technical arguments against it (right now, I went from neutral to oppose precisely because I was swayed by Bondegezou's logic and because it's an actual fact that opinion polling in separate pages do not hamper readability, but to the contrary). I could change my mind if I am convinced that it would improve Wikipedia, not just because it would please anyone's preferences. Impru20^talk 14:54, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

This talk page has just passed 90k in size after that last contribution and has increased by 400% in size in a week.

90k, lest we forget, was the key trigger level that prompted Impru to say that the original article was now too large and needed pruning.

90k is more than twice as long as the article itself. As this talk page is clearly unacceptably large I propose we truncate the discussion at this point save that NEW CONTRIBUTORS to THIS section of the page are STILL MOST welcome to add their views between now and midnight UTC tonight at which point the THEN overall trend will be noted by me one last time. @Impru20: and @Bastun: thank you both for your own final contributions since this morning. Wikimucker (talk) 15:32, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, it's a pity that I have to reply to users when they address me. You have now added +1k of useless content to this talk page. Congratulations. Now please stop your obsessive behaviour on myself. Thank you. Impru20^talk 15:37, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

2nd attempt thank you both for your own final contributions since this morning

NEW CONTRIBUTORS to THIS section of the page are STILL MOST welcome to add their views between now and midnight UTC tonight Wikimucker (talk) 15:51, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

The second quiet period and 60 hours of considered discussion are now over with 4 favouring 2020 polls in the article and 3 against. Thanks all. Ends. Wikimucker (talk) 23:59, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

Per the above mild consensus, I've restored the 2020 polls and added the more recent ones (Ireland Thinks and Red C). I was expecting another B&A one but the Times went with Panelbase the other day. Per Talk:Opinion polling for the 2020 Irish general election I've omitted the Panelbase poll from here - it's a self-selecting poll, online only, and apparently UK-based (you can't register with Panelbase if you don't live in the UK. If you live in the UK, you can't vote in Irish elections...) Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 11:03, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Great job on updating the opinion poll data on both articles (including the graphs, which look great). I am reading the UK papers this morning and seeing that a big story is developing in the Irish election regarding these opinion polls now that Sinn Fein seems to be equal with FF (and ahead of FG) – who would ever have believed that possible??? Definitely worth keeping the recent polling data in the main article now – very interesting times (there is a DYK in that fact alone?). Sinn Fein draw level atop opinion poll days from Irish election Britishfinance (talk) 11:31, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Indeed - interesting times! Are you familiar with Panelbase, btw? I'm really curious as to how/where they sampled, given that its website won't let people from outside the UK actually sign up. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 19:20, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Never heard of them. I would guess Irish polling is highly sensitive to the age profile of the sample .... turnout mix is going to be even more important than usual. Britishfinance (talk) 19:42, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Yes. I've seen age data reported in B&A and/or Red C polls, certainly - and older people vote. SF also never reach the result predicted by polls. As I say, interesting times... Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 19:56, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

@Britishfinance: a discussion was held in c.2017 on the importance of there being 2 discrete links (if possible) to poll data. One to the publisher/commissioner where possible (paywalls are increasingly making this difficult and a link to a Pol Corrs Twitter for that publication is a next best thing I feel). The other link should be to the full poll data PDF that BandA and RedC eventually make available on their own sites a few days later.

In the full PDF data you do get age and regional breakdowns but we don't get that sort of data from Ipsos or Irelandthinks or Panelbase. For example REDC show a massive SF surge in Connacht Ulster in their latest poll.

It would be possible for a right anorak to extract and to tabulate regional data from the RedC and from the BandA PDF files but that anorak ain't me. HTH Wikimucker (talk) 10:20, 3 February 2020 (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.