Talk:2022 Strathfield state by-election

Candidate list edits

@KoalaAussieBlue: It is better to sort out the issues with the article here rather than edit warring. First the issue of the Belt and Road, the source is Epoch Times which is not considered a reliable source. Even if it was it is a policy issue not part of the candidate's background. Second the local resident thing, if it is an issue it should be sourced, and put in a section discussing the rest of the campaign. Having it isolated in this section gives the impression of an edit for partisan gain. Playlet (talk) 01:11, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

@KoalaAussieBlue:, @Playlet: Fair point well made. If there is added any stuff in the 'Background' section, this should be referenced by a proving reference within 'Notes'. This wouldn't apply necessarily to those candidates who are notable enough to have Wikipedia articles, as their background can be found there. Three of the four non-Wikipedia-notable do not have any reliable sources for support. On these I will add a 'cite needed' temp, and if nothing is forthcoming, I will remove the description. The listing for Laxmanalal has a cite to a Facebook login page... Facebook is not reliable and is largely deprecated as a source. Acabashi (talk) 15:22, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

@Acabashi: Thank you Acabashi for this message regarding Playlet; continuously vandalised by Playlet; previously cited SMH reference continuously ignored on all occasions by Playlet; multiple warnings have been issued to Playlet; this is a direct warning to cease and desist to Playlet; many thanks in advance

@KoalaAussieBlue: Why is there a need to threaten me? You have avoided discussing the issue in the chat and then come on to attack me? The fact is that the SMH article does not say what you claim it says. All it said was that the candidate said we should be open to discussing it, not that he was in favour of it. On top of that, it does not belong in this section of the article, since it is about their personal histories not their policy positions. As I said elsewhere, you are free to include it in a separate section. The reason I have an issue is that this can be seen as partisan edits days out from an election. So, do you have any COI to declare? Playlet (talk) 08:08, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

@KoalaAussieBlue: Your agressive stance has been noted. As you are a new user, please note this page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Harassment In future it is better to come to the Talk page to discuss civilly rather than edit war, ignore and then get agressive. I am open to discuss, but you have yet to convince me that a policy position belongs in the candidate's biographyPlaylet (talk) 08:20, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

 Administrator note: KoalaAussieBlue, dial it down, please. Review WP:NOTVAND, WP:BATTLEGROUND. Thanks. El_C 11:39, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

@El C: I was going to add this newspaper reference, but wasn't able to, would it be at all possible for you to add this reference please:

@El C: Campaign controversy from Labor candidate Jason Yet-Sen Li who is a real estate director, newspaper article on page 2 today says "Mr Li [...] is a director of a company providing accommodation services to international students [...] despite Labor Party rules banning real estate agents from running for election", would it be at all possible for you to add this reference please, given the transparency currently being reported in this by-election:

References

Protected edit request on 8 February 2022

@El C: I was going to add this newspaper reference, but wasn't able to, would it be at all possible for you to add this reference please:

@El C: Campaign controversy from Labor candidate Jason Yet-Sen Li who is a real estate director, newspaper article on page 2 today says "Mr Li [...] is a director of a company providing accommodation services to international students [...] despite Labor Party rules banning real estate agents from running for election", would it be at all possible for you to add this reference please, given the transparency currently being reported in this by-election: KoalaAussieBlue (talk) 17:39, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

KoalaAussieBlue, if no one objects, then sure. Otherwise, all of you should make a good faith effort to reach consensus. El_C 20:06, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

References

I object to those changes. There is a pattern of attempted changes specifically targeting. This is happening days out from an election. I have tried to rectify this and bring in some balance by putting in the Campaign section but the negative points against Li keep coming, much of it unable to be shown to be of much significance in the campaign with only fleeting mentions in the sources. So as I said above this article should not become a hit piece against one candidate days out from an election Playlet (talk) 21:05, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

|answered=yes

@El C: We appear to be arguing about facts published in the ABC and the SMH. The Sydney Morning Herald is Australia's oldest masthead. Playlet is blocking published facts. Looking at Playlet's contributions over the last 2 years, there's a pro Labor bias from Playlet, and that appears to be occurring here too. Playlet appears to be the self-appointed gatekeeper for Labor. I have contributed to 5 out of the 6 candidates in a positive manner using published facts from the ABC, the SMH and the NSW AEC. All candidates may have negative points. It is agitprop to pretend what was published today in The Daily Telegraph, does not exist, just because it doesn't suit one person's biased view. @Acabashi: appears to be a reasonable person who lives in the UK; other people without bias should be allowed to contribute their thoughts about this request today. Of course Playlet will say no, it is a pattern of inflexible black and white thinking. You can also see that I have contributed positively to Labor in the edit history here over the last few days. I am focused on the facts today, and moving forward in a positive and conducive manner for the benefit of this article.

Please do not put any words into my mouth. I have no connection to the Labor party and have never voted for them in federal election (I first voted in 1996). When I have had disagreements with editors I have been very willing to compromise and come to a consensus position. That has not happened here.
-I asked you to bring the discussion to the Talk page. You ignored me.
-I suggested that you start a Campaign section to put the information that did not belong in the biography section of the candidate. You did not do that, so I started it for you.
-You then came and attacked me and threatened me. A pattern that is continuing with your attacks on my integrity calling me a Labor stooge.
-After putting in the initial information about candidates, you have been focused on ensuring that information is focused on one candidate to the exclusion of all others.
-In most of these sources there are fleeting mentions of the issues you are putting forward. I have accepted some of your edits and tried to incorporate it in to my edits, even when I feel they are unwarranted.
-I do not deny the SMH or ABC as sources, but I do deny that these are major issues in the campaign. Your source about Belt and Road was years old, which I would agree belongs in an article about Li, but I have seen no evidence that it is an issue in this election specifically, and the issue of not living in the electorate was a passing mention by one of the other candidates, hardly significant.
So unless you can show me an overwhelming mood against Li, the emphasis you are placing on him is unwarranted in this article.Playlet (talk) 06:02, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

@El C: There are distracting accusations and emotive language being directed towards me here; I do wish to remain focused on the information being provided within this article, linked to reliable sources.

Again, I do not object to the sources. I also do not necessarily object to the sources being used in an article about Li if one gets created. But you have failed to demonstrate that these issues belong in an article about this by-election. If you can demonstrate that these are notable and significant events in the campaign I would be happy to work with you to find mutually agreeable language. Playlet (talk) 13:24, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

@El C: NSW Liberal Government found to have favoured Liberal electorates by distributing 96% of their controversial $252 million council grants program to their Liberal electorates with no merit-based assessment applied to those funded projects
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/troubling-council-grants-program-lacked-integrity-nsw-auditor-general-20220208-p59uos.html

Again, this has nothing to do with the by elections. It may belong on Berejiklians page or Barilaros page. Like I said I am happy to work with you to improve the page but it has to be relevant to the topic Playlet (talk) 20:33, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

@El C: The Greens candidate Courtney Buckley has no info in her bio section. This is quite unreasonable and/or biased against her, and no one is standing up for her democratic rights here. The Greens garner close to 10% of the votes in this State electoral district of Strathfield. It is undefendable to allow her bio to remain blank. The media blackout started at midnight last night. In my meeting with Chris Minns yesterday, Labor will be targeting Greens via socials to place Labor second on their ballots. I strongly advocate for Courtney Buckley's bio to be filled in today, just like the 5 other candidates. @El C: please let me know today. Many thanks in advance @El C:.

 Not done as the page is no longer protected and may be edited directly as appropriate. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:05, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 11 February 2022

Please add in the following text from @Canley: edits to match the other 3 concurrent by-elections:

The Strathfield by-election is being held on the same day as by-elections for the districts of Bega Monaro and Willoughby. The writs for election were issued on 21 January 2022. Nominations for candidates closed seven days later at noon on 27 January, with the ballot paper draw commencing in the morning of 28 January.

The NSW Electoral Commission pre-emptively sent postal ballots to all voters registered on the state electoral roll, under a regulation in a COVID amendment to the Electoral Act. Postal votes will be checked against in-person voting rolls to prevent double voting. The iVote online voting system will not be used at these elections after the system failed during the NSW local government elections in December 2021. KoalaAussieBlue (talk) 07:14, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

 Done -Canley (talk) 07:51, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 11 February 2022 (2)

Please add this line under the Campaign section @Canley:

There is criticism Jason Yat-Sen Li is pro China's Belt and Road Initiative, and has not publicly retracted his 2019 statement of support that "Australia should consider investing in China's Belt and Road initiative".

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/key-labor-candidate-says-parliament-needs-ethnic-diversity-targets-20190423-p51geh.html

KoalaAussieBlue (talk) 09:05, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

 Not done That reference verifies that Li said something supportive of Belt and Road in 2019. It does not confirm that he has not retracted the statement, or that "there is criticism", or who made or is making that criticism (see MOS:WEASEL). Also, "Australia should consider investing in China's Belt and Road initiative" appears to be a quote from the article, which seems to be a summary of what Li actually said, and putting it in quote marks implies that it is a direct quote from him. --Canley (talk) 09:33, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

I’m at a Strathfield electorate polling station all day, and can confirm the number of people voting today is extremely low compared to previous years. This link to Antony Green explains the very high number of postal votes. It appears only 20% are voting today, with the rest by postal vote or pre-polling. His data will be more comprehensive early next week, so perhaps a place holder is needed to reference his data and graph on the postal votes etc etc. Many thanks in advance. KoalaAussieBlue (talk) 03:40, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

https://antonygreen.com.au/2022-nsw-by-elections-tracking-the-early-vote/

 Not done as the page is no longer protected and may be edited directly as appropriate. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:05, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 13 February 2022

I object to the 2022 Results section. This is because only 1 in 3 votes have been counted, and postal votes won't be counted until Saturday 19 February which is 7 days away. Only some of the pre-polling votes were counted, so the tentative data is heavily skewed and biased at present. Within statistics, we call this a non-representative sample with a high degree of built-in biases and sampling error.

Perhaps change the title to "Interim Partial Results until Official Results are Published on 23 February 2022" for audience clarity

The current caveat in small print is too small, too vague and it's misleading as only some of the votes have been counted. Most people won't read that far down, and most people aren't aware of the inherent statistical sampling methodological flaws. KoalaAussieBlue (talk) 07:28, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

KoalaAussieBlue (talk) 07:28, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

If your main concern is that it's not clear enough that the result isn't final, that's a fair point: I have added the {{current election}} banner to each of the by-elections at the top of the article to make it obvious that the results can and will change until the official results are published and the seats are declared.

However, for that concern there's no need to bring statistics into it – where electoral statistics come into play is "calling" the election (saying who won), and to some extent the variance in the vote percentages over time. I've done thousands of result tables and I can assure you that the percentage proportions almost always settle down very quickly (unless it's very close or there is a counting/transcription error).

If you're interested in the statistics of elections, then you should have a look at the work of Ross Cunningham at ANU on forecasting results on election night, which demonstrates that in many cases it is quite possible to "call" the outcome (or winner) of an election—not the exact percentages, but a winning two-candidate percentage (> 50) or swing with a high degree of confidence (e.g. 99%)—from a small sample. If the election count was a true random selection, a 30% sample of the population would be plenty, but as you say there are biases in early counts such as first booths to report (usually small rural booths), pre-poll voting (may not be aware of later events), and postal voting (the traditional "conservative surge" from elderly electors – will be interesting to see if the universal distribution of postal ballots at this election actually reduces this phenomenon, they should be more reflective of the broader population no?) but the science is pretty settled on these and these biases are well known and can be incorporated into the prediction model. Antony Green does all this work and we usually follow his lead in saying which seats are in doubt and which ones are more certain! For example, in Willoughby I have excluded the "Liberal hold" row and the swing because the correct 2CP count was not done and the ABC's estimate is quite close (and the seat is listed as In Doubt).

I don't think there's anything wrong with publishing results tables of figures and percentages on election night or early in the count. Wikipedia and thousands of media outlets do this all the time (without adding unwieldy disclaimer headings or explanations of sampling bias)! As long as it's clear that the results are not final, we are cautious about calling a winner, and cite reliable sources and analysts when doing so, there's a lot of benefit to readers of timely and frequently updated coverage as opposed to a "blackout" on displaying results/outcomes until they are absolutely final. --Canley (talk) 15:15, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Hear hear! Frickeg (talk) 20:45, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

@Canley: AG has been wrong in the past. I like the current election banner addition. Would it be at all possible to add only 33% of the votes have been counted please?

I've added a count progress bar to the infobox, which shows that 37% of the enrolment has been counted as of the time of the last update. --Canley (talk) 08:24, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

@Canley: You are amazing. Looks fabulous. Love it. KoalaAussieBlue (talk) 12:00, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

For the bio section, would it be possible to add Courtney Buckley is a photographer please?
KoalaAussieBlue (talk) 12:04, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 15 February 2022

For the bio section, would it be possible to add Courtney Buckley is a photographer please? KoalaAussieBlue (talk) 00:54, 15 February 2022 (UTC) KoalaAussieBlue (talk) 00:54, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

This edit would need a reliable source - none of the current references include it & even her facebook page [1] (which is not a reliable source) makes no mention of it. --Find bruce (talk) 04:57, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

@Find bruce: I asked her colleague Dylan Griffiths who is a Greens Councillor on the Inner West Council, and it's listed on her LinkedIn page. She also has another FB page called "Courtney Buckley Photography", with a photo of her holding a camera. Hope this info helps. KoalaAussieBlue (talk) 12:21, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

 Not done as the page is no longer protected and may be edited directly as appropriate. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:05, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Done. Many thanks. KoalaAussieBlue (talk) 15:00, 15 February 2022 (UTC)