Talk:2024 United Kingdom general election/Archive 3

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Workers Party

I made this edit to the infobox, but it was removed because the Workers Party are not "significant enough in more than one seat", the one seat being Rochdale. What is the consensus for this being the case? Especially when it is a party with more elected MPs and more councillors than Reform UK and with 152 candidates standing for election? That's a little more than just one seat, per my estimation. Galloway has also represented four different constituencies, only Winston Churchill represented more. Maurnxiao (talk) 13:54, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Plaid Cymru are not included in the infobox despite winning 4 MPs at the last general election and being projected to win between 2 and 4 MPs at this election. However, because they're only fielding candidates in Wales they can only win a maximum of 32 seats. Despite this, they're considered a more significant party than the Workers Party (and another minor party, the Social Democratic Party) by reliable sources. If we have an infobox in this style it makes sense to only include the top 6 parties to keep it manageable, and if we were to include a 7th, Plaid Cymru would surely merit inclusion above the Workers Party. —Paul1337 (talk) 14:12, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

I thought Plaid Cymru should have been included too, but they are only standing seats in Wales and the average person couldn't tell you a thing about the party's leadership. The Workers Party – who are more significant – are standing MPs all throughout the country and have a much more notable leadership and platform. Maurnxiao (talk) 14:18, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

I think the problem is more significant coverage in the media: there isn't any, unlike Reform, Green, Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dems and the SNP. Plaid are covered and they were part of the debates; I don't think Workers Party UK were... — Iadmc♫^talk  14:24, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

They could be included in the body as a "fledgling" party though: BBC, Independent etc — Iadmc♫^talk  14:29, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure if your party leader and most recognizable figure winning a Labour seat in a by-election with 40% of the vote is characteristic of a fledgling party, considering it was, I think, only the second election they had ever contested – and even in the first election Galloway won 21.9% of the vote as Labour's share fell by more than 7%. Galloway is clearly a sizable figure in British politics. Maurnxiao (talk) 14:47, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Ah personality vs party. He's visible not his party — Iadmc♫^talk  14:48, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Same could have been said of Farage and Reform. How can you take Galloway's party away from him during this election in which he is leading that same party? Maurnxiao (talk) 14:50, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

I'd personally remove Reform too but they have WP:SIGCOV — Iadmc♫^talk  14:53, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Why would you? They're polling ahead of the Conservatives who are currently in government, and they're also projected to win some seats including Clacton which is where Farage the party leader happens to be standing. Maurnxiao (talk) 14:57, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

How about like this? Are eight candidates too much, considering the 2023 Finnish parliamentary election had nine? Maurnxiao (talk) 14:42, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Stop the POV-pushing. Galloway is not a key player in this election. His party polls at 0 and he has 1 by-election win. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 14:51, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

You've not provided a single source for these numbers and of course Galloway only has 1 by-election win, you're not allowed to represent different constituencies simultaneously in the UK, unless I'm mistaken. Maurnxiao (talk) 14:55, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Sorry but the onus is on you if you want include not on @Tim O'Doherty for exclusion. He's right this is pure WP:POV — Iadmc♫^talk  14:57, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

No, the one making the claim that the Workers Party is polling at 0% carries the burden of proof because I did not say how the Workers Party were polling. He said the Workers Party are not a key player – but surely neither are Greens, who are included? Maurnxiao (talk) 15:00, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

I mean if you wish to modify the infobox or add info about the party in the body, you need significant coverage in independent reliable sources. You really don't have that. — Iadmc♫^talk  15:04, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

There was significant coverage of Galloway's victory in Rochdale some months ago. Maurnxiao (talk) 15:11, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

That's not relevant to the general election. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 15:30, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Let's see. Beeb sez:

• LAB - 41%
• CON - 20%
• REF - 17%
• LDM - 11%
• GRN - 6%
• SNP - 3%
• PCU - 1%
• Other - 1%

"Other" being NI parties. Any Gallowayites in the north? Tim O'Doherty (talk) 15:03, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

UK doesn't use proportional representation plus that is only one poll, another one has Reform ahead of the UK Conservative Party. What about the north? Maurnxiao (talk) 15:06, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

That is not one poll. Did you even look at the source you were demanding? Tim O'Doherty (talk) 15:08, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, and it has Reform behind the Conservative Party which is different to some other polls. Maurnxiao (talk) 15:09, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

It's a poll aggregator - it includes all the other polls and an average versus independent polls. Meaning it does include the poll that put REFUK over the tories. But averaging it out with all the other polls, which don't say that, means that it is put behind them... DimensionalFusion (talk) 15:13, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

And I doubt such an aggregator does accounts for the omission of the Workers Party from mainstream polls. Maurnxiao (talk) 15:15, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

The reason the aggregator omits WPGB is because no polling companies have found it to be at a significant level of support to include it in their data. DimensionalFusion (talk) 15:19, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Why are we encouraging him? — Iadmc♫^talk  15:12, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

What? Maurnxiao (talk) 15:14, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

For all we know this is George Galloway's wikipedia account 😂 DimensionalFusion (talk) 15:21, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

LOL! It could be! — Iadmc♫^talk  15:23, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, totally, and if this were an article about the 2011 Canadian election and I supported the mention of François Gourd, would I be his Wikipedia account as well? Maurnxiao (talk) 15:25, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Infobox was just reverted (no idea why) to the old table. Happy now? DimensionalFusion (talk) 15:05, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

I think it is an improvement on not including Plaid Cymru and the Workers Party, yes, but I'm not sure that it is the ideal solution given how it differs from previous elections. In Japanese election articles, they all used to use pictures, were changed to the table in this article some time ago, and were recently changed back to pictures, that is if I am remembering all this correctly. So I don't think this new version is likely to last too long. Maurnxiao (talk) 15:09, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

PC was not included in the infobox because it only stands candidates in Wales.

WPGB was not included because in both news coverage and polling it's never discussed DimensionalFusion (talk) 15:11, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

SNP only stands candidates in Scotland, so...? Workers Party has received significant coverage from UK media. Maurnxiao (talk) 15:13, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

No it hasn't. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 15:14, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

That's not an argument. And it can easily be disproven. One, two, three, four... and this is only considering UK media as if the Party hasn't received coverage from other countries as well as the UK. Maurnxiao (talk) 15:21, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

That's just

- report on manifesto launch

- report on manifesto launch

- report on manifesto launch

- report on manifesto launch

I'm not seeing much actual coverage DimensionalFusion (talk) 15:24, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Obviously if the goalposts are shifted to consider reports on manifesto launches not being "actual coverage", then no, the Workers Party probably will not be included in the end. Maurnxiao (talk) 15:29, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Four articles. Not exactly consuming the British media, is it? Tim O'Doherty (talk) 15:26, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Would you like it if I were to dedicate too much time scavenging the depths of British tabloids? Maurnxiao (talk) 15:28, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

SNP is included because it's the 3rd largest party behind Labour and the Conservatives. I have not heard at all about WPGB since Feb 2024 DimensionalFusion (talk) 15:15, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

That's... you. Others will last have heard of it yesterday and still think about it today. Maurnxiao (talk) 15:22, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

I heard of it here on Wikipedia in this thread... Does that count as sigcov? — Iadmc♫^talk  15:24, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't know, I haven't checked every reliable source on the Wiki, I know the Daily Mail, RT and Namu are considered unreliable but, not much more. Maurnxiao (talk) 15:26, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

WP:WINRS — Iadmc♫^talk  15:34, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Neither my "I haven't heard of it" nor your "I think about it all the time" are valid arguments for inclusion in infobox. The fact is that WPGB isn't appearing in polls, doesn't have a large presence in parliament, nor are they regionally relevant DimensionalFusion (talk) 15:26, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Electorally more successful than Reform UK and more notable than the Greens, it's Workers Party of Britain, not Workers Party of Great Britain. Maurnxiao (talk) 15:31, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

"More notable than the greens"? What? This is the Greens who have been around for decades vs the WP who have been around for all of two weeks or so — Iadmc♫^talk  15:33, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

And in that time what have the Greens even achieved? George Galloway alone wins an arm wrestle of notability between the two! Maurnxiao (talk) 15:34, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

The Greens were in power with the SNP in Scotland for a long while. WP? Galloway is better known as a commentator than a politician — Iadmc♫^talk  15:37, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

I think you have a typo there: Galloway is better known as a cat impersonator than a politician, I think is what you meant to say. Kevin McE (talk) 15:43, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Obviously, this discussion has now descended into a monstrous contest of anti-Galloway jokes, quips and witticisms, none of which have any bearing on Galloway or his Party's notability. Maurnxiao (talk) 15:47, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Obviously it cannot be verified (without considerable expense), but I strongly suspect that a survey asking for people's association of images or concepts with the name George Galloway would probably return a result in which his interaction with Rula Lenska would score higher than his by-election result. A joke only inasmuch as I am sure that Iadmc is not that error-prone as a typist. Kevin McE (talk) 16:09, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

The Greens have 160 times more councillors than the WPB and are level pegging in seat numbers. You've still given no reason as to why Galloway or any other part of his miserably unpopular party are worthy of increased coverage in this article. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 15:38, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

And all those many councillors of the Green Party put together are not more notable than a single citation or footnote on George Galloway's Wikipedia page. A "miserably unpopular party" with more elected MPs than a supposed watershed party. The power sharing agreement was with the Scottish Greens who differ from the Green Party of England and Wales. Maurnxiao (talk) 15:44, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

"And all those many councillors of the Green Party put together are not more notable than a single citation or footnote on George Galloway's Wikipedia page" - I don't think so. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 15:55, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

The fact is that politically, the Greens are more relevant.

Whilst they may have the same number of MPs, polling shows them on 5% and WPB aren't even included. The Greens have 800+ councillors, 2 lords, and 3 London assembly reps. WPGB has 5 councillors and only has 1 MP because of their personal firebrand popularity - every source I've seen mentioning them says "Galloway's Workers' party" or some variation on that. They have 5 councillors out of a possible 18,725. In what world is WPGB more relevant than the Greens? DimensionalFusion (talk) 15:57, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

I think I may have also read Sunak's tories, Starmer's Labour, so on... but who knows what about the Green Party? Galloway has been notable in and outside of the UK for many, many years. One might say, the thunderous sound of the name Galloway echoes further around the world than that of anyone's to have ever been associated with the Green Party... but if you want to turn this discussion into a battering ram against Galloway's personality, as others have done, I can speak in favor as well but how would it help this article in any way? Maurnxiao (talk) 16:04, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

"the thunderous sound of the name Galloway echoes around the world" - Yes, maybe in Moscow, Ba'athist Iraq and Syria. Other than that, not really. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 16:10, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

And there he goes with the political jargon... blah, blah, blah, blah... no bearing on his notability but now I might be questioning the neutrality of your own point of view when you previously brought mine into disrepute. Maurnxiao (talk) 16:19, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

I've never claimed to be neutral. I make no secret of the fact that I find Galloway deplorable. The important thing is that I can leave my biases at the door when I edit articles. The question is: can you? Tim O'Doherty (talk) 16:27, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Rhetorical question basically, you're interested in torpedoeing all my contributions to this article because you're upset with Galloway's politics and turn to used-up, disingenuous insults against him and pretend I only want Galloway to be in this article because you believe I like his politics. Verbal and editorial impartiality? Another user on here suggested I could even be George Galloway's Wikipedia account, even if sarcastically. Clearly there is a consensus to exclude any profound mention of Galloway from this article and there appears to be extensive hostility – particularly from you – to any objection to that consensus no matter how well such an objection may have been argued. And I just so happen to find this hostility deplorable itself. Maurnxiao (talk) 16:35, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Agreed the ad hominem attacks are bad. But I do think everyone here agrees, but you, that Workers Party of Britain are just not getting enough coverage in this election campain to include them — Iadmc♫^talk  16:39, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Ah does that mean Scottish Labour, etc are to be discounted too...? — Iadmc♫^talk  16:00, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Scottish Green Party is separate from the Green Party of England and Wales as far as I'm aware. Maurnxiao (talk) 16:08, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Ah OK. I wonder if they are conflated in polls? — Iadmc♫^talk  16:10, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Maybe you'll begin to notice the polls may or may not be reflective of the popularity of the Workers Party. Maurnxiao (talk) 16:21, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

The whole point of a poll is to be reflective of popularity. If a party is not featured in the polls, what does that tell you about their popularity? DimensionalFusion (talk) 16:25, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Once again, @Maurnxiao:, you have tried at length to argue a case and have failed to get consensus. Repeating yourself does not change reality. It's time to leave the dead horse alone. Kevin McE (talk) 15:37, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. Please make it stop! — Iadmc♫^talk  15:38, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

This horse was already dead when it was being beaten in the thread about 'The Muslim Vote'; it did not need a separate thread. The Workers' Party already has appropriate coverage befitting a party with one MP and minimal support outside his constituency. And it already had that before Maurnxiao showed up. GenevieveDEon (talk) 09:28, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Praise and acclaim

Dear all, thank you so much for your hard and ardous work on this article! Keep up the good work! OJH (talk) 11:03, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

National and Regional constituency results maps

I ask again please can we have blank maps made for the results made of the 2024 general election for each of the regions of England plus national maps of England, Scotland and Wales (I think Northern Ireland have already got theirs) please with the new updated boundaries ready for the results in less than 10 days time plus any changes that may be needed to the blank UK results maps for 2024 as we are getting closer now to Polling Day here in the UK I can’t do it myself but it’s needs to be done it is getting urgent as the regional articles need the blank maps too. (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 06:54, 25 June 2024 (UTC))

Can the England, Wales and Scotland maps which have the results from 2019 on the old boundaries be updated to include the new boundaries and be uploaded blank without constituency labels preferably. Also can the hexagon map be remade blank and uploaded blank. Finally do we need to change the UK map at all? (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 07:50, 25 June 2024 (UTC))

Debates table

The debates table has become very complicated, which is good in some ways, in terms of conveying a lot of information, but which is bad in other ways if it becomes too confusing to understand. On the latter, it has become very complex in terms of different colours used, and there's no explanation for all those different colours. I don't think we're complying with WP:COLOUR. Cutting back on some of the colours would seem like a good idea for me: e.g. the purple for when the venue hasn't been announced, or the different shade of green for party leaders vs surrogates. Bondegezou (talk) 12:59, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

It has indeed become ridiculously overdetailed. @Kennethmac2000 added the building, even the room, in which they are filmed, which seems way beyond what is necessary or of any lasting interest, and has shown no understanding of the concept of WP:BRD.

Given that this is not a listings magazine, and that the information we add should remain relevant and of legitimate interest for years to come, the inclusion of times is also, I would suggest, entirely redundant.

The interviews section is also difficult to justify: on what grounds would radio interviews not be as much of valid interest, and given that we have included non-leaders in the debates, so should we not include non-leaders in the interviews list? It would then become unmanageable, but that is the price of consistency, unless we drop it. Kevin McE (talk) 21:12, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Regarding the debates table, wholly agreed it is completely unwieldy at present. Greater consistency with precedents would not go amiss: the debates table in the 2019 article included neither start/end times, individual host names, nor a bifurcated column for venue vs town/city. I think alignment with previous years is ample justification for scrapping these innovations here.

Perhaps also worth noting that the 2017 table did not include viewing figures either, and there are (at time of writing) still only four present over the whole of the 2019 table - the rest still optimistically labelled 'TBA' nearly five years on. I expect this year's figures will remain similarly scanty, and so my opinion is that this is also a less than essential column; if the known figures are considered useful, they could instead be incorporated into the debate section text instead, probably in a single sentence - although this section is already bloated as is.

I'd also vote for removing the interviews altogether. If there is a justification for including the debates table, it is surely that debates are something unique to election campaigns: a format where upwards of six or seven high-ranking figures all take part in a shared (non-parliamentary) broadcast. But singular politicians, up to and including party leaders and Prime Ministers, are interviewed weekly - at times, almost daily - all year round. Additionally, the only inclusion rubric seems to be 'television interview formats broadcast by the BBC and ITV' - which seems not only arbitrary now, but probably sets an unhelpful precedent for the future. 2A00:23C8:3FA2:D201:697D:C985:C5DE:26BD (talk) 09:12, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

agreed, and done per WP:BOLD CipherRephic (talk) 10:30, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

I have reverted the changes, per WP:BRD.

Please, can we do two things:

1) Not conflate multiple things in a single discussion. More specifically:

a) This section of the Talk page is about the "Debates table". The Interviews table, while similar, is by definition a different table. There are different arguments for and against it, and we can talk about those in a separate discussion if people wish. (It wasn't my table, but I am defending the contribution of those who created it.)

b) The original comment in this section of the Talk page by Bondegezou was about the colours in the table, but the point about colours was entirely ignored by Kevin McE and the person only showing us their IPv6 address, who used it to make entirely different points. Meanwhile, we haven't resolved the point about the colours in the table. Can we resolve each point separately?

2) Not rush to make changes before people have had a reasonable chance to be online, discuss, and see if we can reach a consensus. This is not urgent. It is a lot easier to remove information from the table later than to have to add it back in when other parts of the table may have changed.

My view is that the time and venue information in the Debates table is useful and interesting in the present moment - Wikipedia is not only designed to be an encyclopedia to be read in 100 years - but it is also the sort of thing that will be harder to find years down the line if it is not compiled now. I see very little downside to including it, and don't see why Wikipedia shouldn't have it somewhere, as long as it is clean, correct, and well-referenced, which it is. Kennethmac2000 (talk) 20:12, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

@Kennethmac2000 sorry, i'm not entirely sure what you're referring to here. you mention the time and venue information, but that wasn't my edit, that was @Tim O'Doherty's. the WP:BOLD edit i made and was referring to in this previous message was the removal of non-debate events from the debate table - something i feel ought to be fairly cut and dry considering the notes in the table do directly acknowledge that the events were interviews rather than debates. surely it'd make a lot more sense to put them in the interviews section?

CipherRephic (talk) 20:32, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

It's way too big and complicated. 2A0A:EF40:E4A:E101:698A:BD05:47AD:E241 (talk) 22:12, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Section looking a lot better. What do we do about the Question Time specials and the Sky News 12th June programme? They were not debates: they were audience question sessions. They are more related to the sort of phone ins that are a very frequent occurence on radio stations at any time of the electoral cycle, so on that grounds have no more reason to remain than the interviews that have already been deleted. But, essentially because they were badged as Question Time specials, they have drawn far more attention than most. And if we retain them, do we keep them camouflaged among the debates? And why are we giving a programme title, with a misleading link, in a column headed 'Broadcaster'? Kevin McE (talk) 18:02, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

They have been referred to extensively as debates, leaders' debates, etc in the media. Even some of the actual "debates" have included sections where the participants were only answering questions from the host or from the audience (ie, not debating with each other). Rather than constantly trying to remove information that others find valuable, how about looking for ways to retain it with a potentially more precise presentation? Glass half full rather than half empty. Eg, we could refer to the category as "Debates and town hall-style events" (the latter being a description that has already been used in the text in the Debates section). Kennethmac2000 (talk) 20:12, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

My original concern was about the complex colouring of the first table. I still think the colour scheme on the first table is overly complicated and could be simplified. I agree with the other comments here that both tables contain too much detail, like times. Kennethmac2000, your claim about Wikipedia's purpose, while well-meaning, is wrong and goes against policy, as per WP:NOTDATABASE. I think the majority of opinions expressed here favour simplifying both tables. Kennethmac2000, you are probably better able to do that simplification, so I suggest you consider doing so. Bondegezou (talk) 20:33, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Noted. I have reverted Kevin McE's revert, while we look for consensus, on the basis that it is easier to remove information from a table like this later than to have to try re-inserting it later when the rest of the table has moved on. I would propose that we don't waste human time by constantly reverting each other's edits - it does very little harm to leave the information there for now while we seek a sensible compromise (which I am happy to do in good faith). As a further thought on this, some people here seem to think this is the most urgent issue facing humanity, or at least the English-language Wikipedia. We are not all on our computers 24/7, and if it takes a few days to reach consensus, that is not the end of the world. Decisions on a matter as trivial as this do not have to be made within a matter of hours. Let's be patient and let the discussion play out.

On one other process point, Kevin McE isn't just simplifying the Interviews table, he is insisting on removing the entirety of the table, despite that not even having been substantively discussed here. (In fact, one contributor was proposing adding to the Interviews table.) I've created a separate Interviews section for discussion on this - can I respectfully propose we discuss it there instead? (These comments aren't particularly directed at you Bondegezou, just anyone with an interest in these discussions.)

Turning to the substantive point, I note WP:NOTDATABASE, but here we are talking about incremental detail, not whether we enumerate the debates at all, and so the right level of detail is clearly somewhat subjective - there is no Wikipedia authority on this exact issue. The equivalent table for the 2019 UK general election did include the venue, albeit in the same column as the town/city, whereas in the tables we are discussing here, I separated out the venue and the town/city into two separate columns, as I think that presentation makes it easier to see the town/city at a glance, while retaining the venue information as well. If it helped get to consensus, I would be happy to combine these two data points back into a single column (though would contend that two columns is still better ;) ).

(Kevin McE has repeatedly claimed that I want to record the exact room that the debates took place in, citing the example of the University of Glasgow's Bute Hall. University campuses are special cases, as they contain a lot of buildings, and so writing "Bute Hall" isn't actually providing any greater level of precision than writing "Grimbsy Town Hall" - but writing just "University of Glasgow" seems silly when we know it was Bute Hall.)

In terms of the times, would a compromise be to only include the start time? This preserves a historical record of at roughly what time of the day each debate was held, without capturing the additional detail of its length. Kennethmac2000 (talk) 20:38, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Firstly, in reference to the BRD cycle, and despite CipherRephic's self-description, there was a Dabates table before Kenneth's first edit in this article, which omitted presenter, times and building. His edits were therefore 'Bold', but once they were reverted, he should have respected the convention and refrained from re-posting them.

Secondly, town hall meeting is by no means a concept that is common in UK politics, and so is a thoroughly inappropriate name to be given here per ENGVAR.

Thirdly, I have the right to an opinion on the contents and format of the section of the article described in the title of this section of the talk page, even if I do not feel strongly about the colours. A very forked discussion does not help build a consensus on what the section should look like.

Fourthly, the interviews section has been up for discussion, had not argument put forward for its retention, and was deleted, so restoring it under a claim of BRD is, at best, counter to following consensus.(later edit: In the post in which the edit summary claimed was about re-introducing the interviews section, Kenneth also reverted several other unrelated edits in other sections of the article)

I shall therefore revert the edits that Kenneth has made under the invalid claim of BRD. (Later edit: having done so, I have received thanks for the edit from @Scotlandshire44, adding to the consensus against inclusion of excessive detail) Kevin McE (talk) 22:23, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

1) Not true. I wasn't the person who first added presenter, nor was I the person who first added time. Your contention about the BRD cycle is therefore inaccurate.

2) I don't have a strong view on this - however, I see the exact term I proposed still exists in the text above the table. "thoroughly inappropriate" sounds hyperbolic.

3) Noted. Then stop reverting my reverts while we seek a consensus. Not all of the issues you apparently have are even my doing (but I will support the status quo until we come to a decision to change it).

4) There has been some discussion of the Interviews section buried under this discussion entitled "Debates table", but that has included support for the retention of this section. If we want to entirely remove a section that it looks like someone has spent hours authoring (not me), let's at least have the courtesy of having a proper discussion about it. Kennethmac2000 (talk) 20:38, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Consensus needs to be established for something to be included in an article: that is why the BRD cycle determines a default position of the page being without the contentious material while it is under discussion. I see no consensus here for the additional columns in the debates table, not for inclusion of the interviews table. Kevin McE (talk) 20:57, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

That is simply not the case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reverting#Avoid_reverting_during_discussion

The version that existed before 'the war' was the one with more information (as a reminder, not all of which was added by me).

I also see no attempt at compromise here, just repeated reverts, sometimes within a few minutes.

My proposal for compromise is:

1) We retain the venue in addition to the town/city, as is the case for the equivalent table in the 2019 UK general election article, but put all of the information back into a single column. If we agree on this, I am happy to do the editing work required here.

2) We retain the start time, as was in a previous version of this table before I started editing it, but remove the end time. This will make this 50% more succinct. Again, I am happy to do the editing work required here.

3) The Interviews sub-section should be discussed separately in the "Interviews section" section below. Kennethmac2000 (talk) 10:20, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Re: 'town hall' terminology, I would suggest that the concept is no more unfamiliar to UK politics than televised election debates were before 2010. If wishing to keep to more traditional UK terminologies, this would presumably have to be renamed the hustings section.

With that in mind, perhaps a compromise here could be to bracket these as Debates and Leaders' Specials, the latter term having now been used in the titles of multiple BBC events this month. I think I'm right in saying that all of the 'not a debate' events in the table at present do only feature party leaders as participants - and so this could therefore be a useful way of justifying (and codifying) their inclusion alongside debates. 81.155.91.32 (talk) 23:40, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

I would be happy with any of the following:

1) Leaving this sub-section called "Debates".

2) Renaming this sub-section "Debates and leaders' specials", as proposed by 81.155.91.32.

3) Renaming this sub-section "Debates and town hall-style events".

4) Renaming this sub-section "Debates and town hall-style leaders' events".

(All of the above are premised on retaining all of the rows in the Debates tables - the point is to find a name to describe those rows that everyone is happy with. Also, this is separate from any discussion about the "Interviews" sub-section.)

Since you seem to have the strongest views on this Kevin McE, do you have a preference for one of the options above, and/or do you have any alternative proposed naming? Kennethmac2000 (talk) 10:20, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

It's about consensus, not what I think. And in regard to consensus, I believe that you have not established it in any way that justifies re-expansion of the table nor re-introduction of the interviews table; that your insistence that the discussion is not done when consensus is clear is disruptive; and that your citing anti-edit warring policies while actively edit warring is a position that lacks good faith. Kevin McE (talk) 10:42, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

On the specific point of the naming of the Debates table/sub-section, I'm not seeing anyone else but you with a strong view User:Kevin McE. (Whereas there are some views that we shouldn't remove rows from this table.)

That being the case, it would appear you may be able to set the consensus on this narrow point.

Shall we leave it called "Debates", or shall we rename it to one of the other three options? Kennethmac2000 (talk) 20:27, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Please can it stop being changed. The current table is perfect. 2A0A:EF40:E4A:E101:3124:56A7:C17:8C09 (talk) 11:54, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

This page clearly states:

"To eliminate the risk of an edit war, do not revert away from the status quo ante bellum during a dispute discussion."

The status quo ante bellum was the version of the table with more information in it. If you check the history of the page, the table was like that for quite a long period of its existence, until Kevin McE made his bold edit to remove the times and the venues.

I disagree with that, as do some others at least in part. Objectively we haven't reached a consensus, so we should go back to the status quo ante bellum in the meantime.

To be clear, many people in this discussion aren't engaging in the detail - some have expressed a broad-strokes view that the table contains too much information, while seemingly leaving it to other to engage in detailed discussion about what might be a reasonable alternative. Even Kevin McE, who apparently feels most strongly about this, has engaged in very little discussion about the detail (as distinct from making separate points like whether town hall event is part of the UK vernacular) - he is simply pushing his preferred solution without explanation, with repeated unhelpful recourse to comments about my behaviour.

As a point of detail which others have also noted, the equivalent table in the 2019 UK general election does include the venue. I have so far read no justification for including this information in the 2019 table but not the 2024 one. I have, however, heard people mentioning that we should follow the precedent of the 2019 table.

I will be the bigger person here and pause reverting for the time being, but I will revert again if we do not actually come to a reasoned decision on this.

See above for my proposed compromise, which it would be useful to hear comments on. Kennethmac2000 (talk) 20:15, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

I will only say that if @Kennethmac2000 thinks that consensus works by him saying that he will allow X to happen so long as he gets Y, then he has no understanding of the concept of consensus. It seems to me that there is a clear consensus that he is not willing to see, but I will leave it to others to count and evaluate the voices raised and how they embody the values of Wikipedia. Kevin McE (talk) 21:03, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

You are misrepresenting my position. I have already said that I have less of a strong view about the Interviews section, and though I would personally plump for retaining the Interviews table, if others wish to remove it, I would be willing to agree to its removal as part of an overall compromise which involved definitely retaining the Debates table. WP:CON literally describes consensus on Wikipedia as involving "an effort to address editors' legitimate concerns through a process of compromise". There is nothing wrong with saying, "If you give me X, I'll concede you Y". That is literally what compromise involves.

On that note, though others have dipped in and out from time to time, you and I evidently have the strongest views here. Are you now willing to discuss the details and look to come to a compromise position which we can then float to everyone else, or are you going to continue to refuse to discuss any of the details on the basis that you think you have already achieved consensus through your unilateral edits?

If the latter, then I suggest we move to dispute resolution. Kennethmac2000 (talk) 19:45, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Interviews section

Should we remove the Interviews section (or, at least, almost remove it save a brief stub)?

I vote no, for the reason that flagship leaders' interviews that form part of the UK broadcasters' election coverage are just as much part of the package of coverage as debates are.

Why is a seven-party debate in Colchester's Firstsite on the topics of immigration and law and order per se a more notable occurrence than a sit-down interview of Keir Starmer by Nick Robinson? Kennethmac2000 (talk) 20:38, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

I think we should cover interviews, but we should do so in prose in the Campaign section. I don't think a table of interviews is the right approach as we would have to work out which interviews to include and the schedule doesn't tell us the useful information: what was said and what was the reaction to what was said.

Kennethmac2000 makes a valid comparison with the debate section and how debates are covered. I agree debates are not necessarily more important than certain interviews. However, I think the answer there is to scale back the debates section, not to add a table of interviews.

Input from other editors would be welcome! Bondegezou (talk) 10:21, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

I initially missed this discussion, because of its position well above other discussions started later than it. Personally I think that the interviews table is useless, and that the debates table runs the risk of becoming so as well. The relevant material for this article is who said what, about what, to whom, and when. Both of these tables take up a lot of space and entirely fail to cover the what was said, and on what subject element which should be absolutely central to any coverage of election publicity. I know Wikipedia loves tables, but interviews in particular are only important for what is said in them. I think that the interviews table should be replaced with coherent prose covering any points made in those interviews which received relevant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the ones carrying the interviews themselves. GenevieveDEon (talk) 11:37, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

I am happy to concede removal of the Interviews table if we have strong agreement that the Debates table will stay (per the 2019 UK general election article), and we are not going to try to revisit that in a few days or weeks.

Alternatively, if there is a feeling that both of these tables are too much, my proposal would be that we create separate pages for each of them (analogous to the many other "List of XXX" articles on Wikipedia), and then simply link to them from the "Debates" and "Interviews" sub-sections. Tables on those separate pages can then be packed with as much (well-referenced) metadata as is available without cluttering up (as some see it) the main election article.

I am happy to do the required editing work if we decide to go for that option. Kennethmac2000 (talk) 20:23, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

I enthusiastically second GenevieveDEon's points - and if any proof were required of how these tables are confusing the article space, then surely it's that (at time of writing) there are now two different 'Interviews' sub-sections within 'Debates and interviews': one either side of the massive debates table.

To my mind, the main point for removing the interviews table as stands is that it's quite difficult to define what an 'interview' is, such that one could then categorically justify inclusion/omission of any given lengthy television appearance by a party leader. Debates are, by the sheer logistics involved, not nearly so ambiguous. For example, how long is an interview? The four at the start of the table (all broadcast by ITV on 4th June) were a mere 15 minutes each; the interviews that Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer gave to BBC Breakfast on 23rd and 24th May (the former date described in the programme as 'day one of the election campaign') lasted 15 and 12 minutes, respectively. Should these be included, even though they weren't on a 'dedicated' interview programme?

If so, this opens the door to many similar programmes that definitely contain interviews but don't have the word 'interview' in their title. For example, BBC Northern Ireland's The View has been conducting longform interviews with all the major (and some minor) NI party leaders, each of which has been well over 15 minutes: tonight, Mark Carruthers has just finished questioning Sinn Féin's Michelle O'Neill after 25 minutes. Shouldn't all of these be included, or do they not count because they aren't explicitly branded as interview programmes?

If these are included, then the table becomes even more complicated when Scottish and Welsh leaders' interviews are brought into it: for example, BBC Scotland's The Sunday Show has been interviewing each of the Scottish leaders in similarly longform fashion. This coming Sunday's edition will include a long interview with the SNP's John Swinney - and, presumably, this should be included in the interviews table, since Nick Robinson's Panorama interview with Swinney also is. But then, should The Sunday Show's interviews with Anas Sarwar, Douglas Ross, et al, be included as well? If not, it would seem peculiar to include only Swinney's - especially when programmes featuring Sarwar, Ross, et al, are included in the debates table.

And even yet furthermore, when debates from Channel 4, Sky News and even Talk TV are included in that table, why does the interviews table directly below it include BBC and ITV interviews alone? Channel 4 has been running its own (admittedly smaller-scale) interview series, which so far has featured (in chronological order) Adrian Ramsay, Ed Davey and John Swinney. If there is a reason for not including these (and possibly those from other broadcasters), then it should be made explicit, otherwise it just seems arbitrary.

I hope this doesn't come off as mere whataboutery or easy criticism for its own sake. It's more by way of illustrating an opinion that the main flaw in the interviews table is that its volume of detail implies a comparable level of completeness with, say, the list of parties standing candidates - which clearly defines its terms (ie, parties contesting a minimum of 14 seats). By contrast, the interviews table is anything but complete, and currently is more of a listings for two particular limited series and a one-off post-debate special. Prominent programmes, yes; but hardly unique. If the table is removed to a separate article, where it will include every interview lasting over a specific length carried out by specific broadcasters with specific politicians over a specific time period, then I'm all for it - but it hardly seems worth the gargantuan effort that this would require. 2A00:23C8:3FA2:D201:756B:FEB0:F4F8:1B1D (talk) 23:52, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

I think you make a lot of valid points talk. I'm also not sure why ThingsCanOnlyGetWetter added an additional "Interviews" sub-section.

I am not wedded to the Interviews table, but I do have a stronger opinion that the Debates table should stay. I note GenevieveDEon's comments that "the debates table runs the risk of becoming [useless] as well", and so do not want to agree to the removal of the Interviews table if this is going to be part of a push to get rid of all of these tables - ie, the Debates table as well.

I have started a new section below with a proposed compromise for both the Debates and Interviews sub-section. I would appreciate your comments. Kennethmac2000 (talk) 11:55, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

This looks good! A big improvement. --ThingsCanOnlyGetWetter (talk) 13:56, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Infobox suggested edit

Hi editors. I have started a discussion at Template talk:Infobox legislative election#Suggested changes to change possible row headers for future election, suggesting an edit that would allow e.g. this page to say "seats at dissolution" or list the number of seats won at the last election when the "ongoing" parameter in the template is set to "yes" (which it technically should be). --TedEdwards 18:55, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

This would be an improvement if TILE *had* to be used for pages like this.

It may be of limited utility as for elections like eg Netherlands and Israel, with many parties and no really big parties (eg above 25% vote share), there aren’t really any geographic seats anywhere. It seems like it’s a change so that TILE can better fit on pages like this when TIE would probably be a more appropriate usage case iamthinking2202 (please ping on reply if you would be so kind) 06:24, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

@Iamthinking2202: On this talk page, we have discussed (several times) why we should use TILE before the election here, the main argument boiling down to we shouldn't guess based on the last election which parties will be important after the election. If we used TIE, we would have to exclude many parties, even if they become important after the election e.g. the DUP in 2017 or the SNP in 2015. TILE allows use to include all the parties which had seats at the end of the last parliament (or ones who won seats at the last election), thus we avoid implying which parties will or won't be significant after the election as much as possible. Hence for the time being, TILE is a better fit here. --TedEdwards 14:26, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

@TedEdwards For what its worth, I do not think this is a particularly good justification.

- For example, if a Conservative hadn't defected to Reform, under this logic Reform would not be in the TILE infobox, despite polling currently comparable to the Conservatives - and then if they hadn't had an MP defect to them, inclusion would've just been a guess

- Even more importantly, even if a party is exclude from TIE that happens to become important after - which by and large, is the exception and not the norm, the infobox can be edited after the election! That's the beauty of wikipedia, no? Unlike if this were some print encyclopedia.

-- Likewise, if someone else thinks a party warrants a space on the infobox, Wikipedia can be edited to do so.

-- And again, the number of pivotal parties isn't too many like some pure PR system, and nor is it based off thin air. Blind freddy for instance, can see that Labour will get a significant number of seats to warrant an infobox. And while it may be more controversial to say the Speaker will get exactly one (1) seat, this can be checked against opinion polls, current standing of parties, and more to confirm or correct this - it is not "unverifiable speculation".

And TILE is not without downsides, as I have discussed in the infobox thread.

And as for all the talk around consensus, so far I have found an archived talk saying that once an election is called, it should be switched to TIE, rather than kept at TILE. Talk:2024 United Kingdom general election/Archive 1#Switch to standard election template iamthinking2202 (please ping on reply if you would be so kind) 03:12, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

TIE would definitley be more appropriate for this article DimensionalFusion (talk) 11:41, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Just an update on this. Considering that the infobox, until my edit, displayed "This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below." at the bottom of the infobox, while the election has not even taken place yet, a new parameter has been added "seats_title" that lets you alter the header of the column that includes current_seats or seats at dissolution, in this case. I've implemented this, and it looks like it is working. --Vacant0 (talk) 15:34, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Forecasts section

A few issues here have arisen overnight:

a) The heading had been changed from projections to predictions. I would argue that as a mathematical/psephological extrapolation, projections is better.

b) The format has been changed, apparently to match previous elections (something that there is no obligation to do) to a format that has the projections as columns and the parties as rows. I find the previous arrangement (columns for parties, rows for projections) more natural to read, and a lot neater: I'm not sure that there is anything other than personal preference to bring to this, but I think the change merits discussion.

c) A 'One week to go' projection has been introduced, which bears the date of 23rd June in the 'accessed' field in the reference, and 22nd June on the target website, so obviously more than a week to go. But had been (I have edited it) marked as on 26th June. But those weeks are at best unclear. Monday of this week was was 24th June, 10 days before the election. So is that 1 or two weeks? And by Friday it will be less than a week, but still the same calendar week as the 24th. As a header, it is very imprecise, without even checking whether stated date is that of polling of of publishing. Kevin McE (talk) 09:20, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Agree with you on (a).

The format with parties as columns was better, clearer and more concise. We should return to it—the format it has been changed to is worse. One projection from each source that's either authoritative (pollster, newspaper, magazine) or covered by reliable sources as close as possible to the Thursday in the relevant week makes sense to me.

I would also support including fewer tables if we can. Ralbegen (talk) 10:48, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

That section has just been blanked by @Ralbegen with "sc" whatever that means. — Iadmc♫^talk  11:00, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

I replaced it with the more readable version, but accidentally left in one of the projection tables. My second edit removed that table as a self-correction. My third edit replaced the projection from 22 June with one that's actually from today. Ralbegen (talk) 11:07, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Oh. OK fair enough — Iadmc♫^talk  11:13, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

The current format looks good to me. Bondegezou (talk) 12:28, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

A) I can agree on that, projections probably does sound better.

B) As you said this is largely down to personal preference, but I strongly think the previous format (columns for projections, rows for parties; see example) looks better and is a lot more readable. First off, the new format (columns parties, rows projections) feels 'cramped' in a way, the seat numbers feel too close together and the whole thing is too condensed to be easily readable. The old format was a lot more flexible; e.g. you could more easily read each pollster's projection of one party's seat number. Secondly, while consistency across articles isn't obligatory it's still very much preferable as it makes for more continuative reading rather than switching-up the format on each article just 'cause. Overall, even if the consensus decides on columns for parties and rows for projections, I also think we should re-introduce party colour shadings on the majority party's seat tally and solid party colour as a BG on the overall result / majority number (if applicable of course although in this instance it very much is) as again it just improves readability. Icantthinkofausernames (talk) 21:33, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

• This orientation is clearer, but I don't think we should make the majority text bold white on a dark red background. That's not an improvement. It makes the tables much larger, spreads out the numbers so they are harder to see next to each other, and looks garish. Ralbegen (talk) 13:31, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Agree with Ralbegen. The Manual of Style does not support whacky formatting without good reasons. Plain text is fine. Bondegezou (talk) 14:47, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Projections xxxx weeks before the vote - someone changes the format

Someone keeps on changing the format back to the old style, however they crit 2017 and 2019 HOWEVER there modified those tables included more blue etc, so it looks like there is a patten. Personnel I like the new format as it more slick and not over powering on the page esp since this time around there is alot more data and projections. What is everyone views on this? You can see the old sytle here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2024_United_Kingdom_general_election&oldid=1231325130#Predictions_four_weeks_before_the_vote

Also we need to add more text to this section, but some people dont seem to like this point. like can we trust them: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cv22y07ggy6o or how reform will actully pick up half a dozen seats which should be worth a simple metion? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/18/reform-farage-tice-survation-poll-election-lee-anderson/ Crazyseiko (talk) 09:12, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

I think we should maintain the current system that lists all the parties with MPs until the election is over, after which we should go back to the one with party leader's pictures. I however disagree with others on here in that I think we should include the leaders of ALL parties with MPs. There's actually precedence for this in other countries' election articles, but, unless I'm mistaken, there's already an old consensus against this... Maurnxiao (talk) 13:06, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

I think your replyed to the wrong section. --Crazyseiko (talk) 16:55, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Why has interview box gone?

There use to be a box under the debates for all the leaders interviews. Why has it gone? It was really useful. I use to use it like a tv guide 2A01:4B00:88F4:CE00:49F9:2E29:663:6218 (talk) 16:03, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a TV guide. There was extensive discussion on this page about the utility of that table, and it was removed from the article following that discussion. As I argued then, interviews are only notable for what is said in them, which was the one thing that table did not provide. GenevieveDEon (talk) 20:36, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Hierarchy of headings

Betting Issue

Currently, 'Betting Scandal' sits alongside 'Timetable' as a subsection of 'Date of election'. This cannot be right. Make it a stand-alone section in its own right, or a subheading under Campaign (although that is chromologically subdivided), or (my own favourite) as a subsection of 'Candidates', because in time it will be just a footnote that affected three (at the present count) candidates, two of whom were not likely to be elected anyway.

Thoughts? Kevin McE (talk) 19:47, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

How about an entire section dedicated to controversies? Farage's comments about Ukraine also seemed to stir up some controversy, and the entire situation with Diane Abbott, the House of Lords and the Labour Party whip, so I would guess you could muster an entire section without relying too much on a single story. Maurnxiao (talk) 20:02, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia advises against Controversy sections.

I put the betting scandal under date of election originally because it was about betting on the date of the election, and it seemed somewhat tangential to the rest of the campaign. It has since become a bigger issue, so I'm happy for us to look at that again. I think it still sort of works where it is, and it has its own spin-off article for detail.

We have a chronological campaign section and that works for many purposes. We do have some issues that might sit better in their own subsections. If we're going to move the betting scandal section, I would suggest moving it to the end of the campaign chronology. Bondegezou (talk) 10:06, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Debates

Quite apart from discussion elsewhere on this page about the tabulation of debates and interviews, they are surely a subject within the scope of Media coverage, so I would propose lowering that 'Debates' (or 'Debates and interviews', or whatever is settled upon) heading to a subheading under 'Media coverage'

Do people agree? Kevin McE (talk) 19:51, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Sound idea. They are too prominent at the moment — Iadmc♫^talk  20:11, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Fine with me. Kennethmac2000 (talk) 10:02, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Endorsements

This is essentially a single line saying that ther are endorsements, and a link that is not even in the same line of prose. I know there are many WP articles with such sections, but would it not make more sense to just have it in the See Also at the bottom? Kevin McE (talk) 19:54, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

In previous elections these have included newspaper endorsements (as the endorsements that typically get most coverage) excerpted from the endorsements article. Ralbegen (talk) 20:01, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

I endorse George Galloway!194.120.133.41 (talk) 13:05, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Several firsts

It will also be the first general election held under the reign of King Charles III. Should we add this? 79.148.174.160 (talk) 16:09, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

The 1955 United Kingdom general election mentions the fact that it was the first general election under the new monarch, so either we should remove it there or add it here, and I happen to think we should add it here. Maurnxiao (talk) 16:17, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

There was previously discussion supporting including this material in the body of the article but not the lead, which I think would be fine. I don't think it belongs in the lead.

(The format and content of the 1955 article has very little bearing on how we should write this article.) Ralbegen (talk) 17:43, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

I think it should be in the background section, and I support the existing consensus that it should not be in the lead. GenevieveDEon (talk) 20:34, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't think we need to include this in the lead. Charles III is already mentioned throughout the article, so readers will already be aware this election is the first to take place with him as the King. --ThingsCanOnlyGetWetter (talk) 10:21, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Scottish Postal Vote Issues

I think this developing issue from the BBC ought to be mentioned in the election article somewhere possibly on here or on the Scottish article.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cv2g5y6nyr0o MOTORAL1987 (talk) 14:01, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. Maybe under Electoral system? Bondegezou (talk) 14:46, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

I think it should come under a voting section with the mention making it clear that the election date in Scotland falls within its school summer holidays as they have July as their main summer month off as opposed to August in England however since my first post a little while another article on this matter has come to my attention which is here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8vdpvqe24jo (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 14:48, 28 June 2024 (UTC))

This may be a bigger issue than first thought I have some unofficial reports from areas within England who are reporting issues now with Postal Votes i have a link here from the telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/28/general-election-postal-votes-marginal-seats/ and also from Ipswich https://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/24418362.ipswich-residents-not-got-postal-ballots/ (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 12:37, 29 June 2024 (UTC))

Details have Already been added to the page as its its bigger issues and more councils have had to deal with whats going on. --Crazyseiko (talk) 18:53, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Background section verifiabilty

I must say that after reading, and attempting to verify the content, I am quite shocked at the poor quality of sourcing in the section. WP:V says Readers must be able to check that any of the information within Wikipedia articles is not just made up. This means all material must be attributable to reliable, published sources. I've added a few tags, but got fed up in the end, but am sure there are many other gaps. -- DeFacto (talk). 17:28, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

No, DeFacto, that was just egregious WP:TAGBOMBing, out of all proportion to any problems in the text. Bondegezou (talk) 17:42, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

No, that implies unjustified tagging. These were clearly necessary and clearly reasoned to attract attention to the problems, and with enough precision to allow willing editors to easily fix the problems I discovered. I could justifiably have added more. I see you've already helped with the problems I've raised by adding more references, which is good, and is a better way to spend your time than being unnecessarily aggressive here and wasting our time. -- DeFacto (talk). 19:20, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

The Conservative section is now fully cited. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 17:46, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Sub-headings for campaign section

Hi all, soliciting opinions here: how should the dates for the sub-headings in the campaign section be arranged? I've been tweaking things so that 20-26 June and 27 June - Present is now a heading instead of 21 June - Present. This is on the basis of "weeks until election", i.e. 20-26 June is the second week until polling day and 27 June - Present is the final week. But opinions welcome here - should this be done another way? Such as splitting it where it feels natural, etc. DimensionalFusion (talk) 22:16, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Party slogans section

(CCing in @Nolbraltar1704)

I've removed the party slogans section on the grounds that it's extremely bulky and contributes to the general tablespam problem this article has while giving arguably undue coverage to a number of v. fringe parties. I don't think it's worth inclusion unless notable external coverage can be found and would probably better fit a brief mention for the major parties in the campaign(?) section. Would appreciate any thoughts. CipherRephic (talk) 00:21, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Agreed! We need to be looking at where reliable sources are focusing and follow them. They are not focusing on slogans. Bondegezou (talk) 09:46, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Compromise proposal for Debates and Interviews sub-sections

Based on all of the recent discussions, as well as past precedent, I propose the following compromise proposal for the Debates and Interviews sub-sections:

1. In the Debates table, include the venue (eg, dock10, University of York, etc), but in the same column as the town/city. This corresponds exactly to what was done in the 2019 UK general election article.
2. In the Debates table, include the start time of the debate in an additional column (called simply "Time"), but not the end time. This maintains a record of the time of day of these events, without capturing the extra detail of how long each debate lasted.
3. Keep the Debates sub-section called "Debates", for conciseness, but accept that it includes some high-profile town hall-style events (such as the Sky News leaders' event and Question Time).
4. Keep the Interviews sub-section, but with prose only. Remove the Interviews table.

Comments invited. Kennethmac2000 (talk) 11:55, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Firstly, can we stop creating new sections interpolated further up the page, please? It's really hard to keep track of.

Secondly, I think you (Kennethmac2000) are under a misapprehension about 'compromise' and 'consensus'. You don't own this page, any more than the rest of us do. It feels like you're trying to trade off different sets of proposals for the interview and debate sections against each other, as though you have some particular right to make offers and cut deals. That's not how any of this works. We're trying to find a consensus in the sense that we have a common interest in developing a page that conveys the right information in an accessible way, but none of us specifically controls it or any part of it, and I'm not interested in any kind of 'bargaining' approach.

Thirdly, I don't find the tables particularly informative. As I said above, these events are only of interest for what is said in them, and yet that's the one thing that none of these tables conveys. If it were solely up to me, I'd scrap them and simply incorporate elements from them which are reported in reliable sources (that are independent of the ones who carried the original debates/interviews) into the narrative of the 'campaign' section. There's an argument for splitting the debates out into their own article, in which the table could be used to introduce a substantial amount of prose describing the content and its impact in proper context. But I don't think the same can be said of the interviews table - we'd be much better off putting this material into prose only. GenevieveDEon (talk) 12:07, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

I am very well aware I don’t own this page. However, we are dealing here with things which are marginal and incremental, and we can all come up with arguments in support of our respective positions. If we are to reach a consensus, that will likely involve compromise, which means some/most people getting some of what they want but not all. You may prefer to be less candid and transparent than I am about what is going on, which is perhaps strategically very wise of you, but inevitably how this will work mechanically is that people will argue most vociferously for the things they feel most strongly about, while quietly backing down on the things they are happy to let slide. That is an implicit cutting of a deal, compared to my admittedly more explicit version. Anyway, hopefully we can resolve this soon. Kennethmac2000 (talk) 09:20, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't see the need for a time column in the Debates table at all. Can most of the colours be removed? I'm good with the proposed venue column. I don't see the need for an Interviews section. Interview content can be folded into the Campaign section. Bondegezou (talk) 14:12, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

1) That level of detail is just cruft, and has neither importance, wide coverage or enduring interest. It might (but only might) be worth mentioning in the pages of those institutions that these took place there, but no relevance here. No argument has been put forward as to why it would fit within policy to include them.

2) Wikipedia is not a listings magazine. Anyone with experience of UK television will now that such programmes tend to be mid to late evening, but the exact hour is not encyclopaedically relevant. No argument has been put forward as to why it would fit within policy to include them.

3) A note below the heading could suffice for explaining that not all are head to head debates; the phrase town-hall meeting would not fit with the appropriare ENGVAR. (Each leader took questions individually from a studio audience)

4) Interviews should be adequately covered within the chronological report of the campaign: any table is a false prioritisation of one broadcast format over another.

I don't have strong opinions over the colours, but would like input from someone with colour differentiation difficulties on the matter. Kevin McE (talk) 14:33, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Regarding the debates table, I also don't see the need to include either start or end times. There are many far more important times worth noting in this election campaign: the time of day Rishi Sunak called the election from Downing Street, for instance, or the time he left the D-Day commemorations. Neither of these are given in the article text, and I can't see any argument for the times of every debate being more deserving of inclusion than these. Similarly, locations such as where each party chose to launch their individual manifestos are arguably far more significant than where various debates and not-a-debates took place, and none of these are included in the article text either. However, I concede that previous debates tables have included city/town information, so I suppose this should be retained here for consistency.

I find it ever so slightly bizarre that, within a table headed '2024 United Kingdom general election debates in Great Britain', there are a whole five events actually tagged as 'not a debate' - one of which is literally Rhun ap Iorwerth on his tod. In other words, over a third of the 2024 GB debates table is comprised of not-a-debates. As a metaphor for the absurdity of a general election campaign, it's perfect. As a model for constructing a table purporting to consist of debates, not so much.

On a less flippant note, I appreciate that there are always arguments for why things can be included. As an example, take the very straightforward table of parties and candidates just below the debates and interviews. Any number of arguments could be made for additional columns to be bolted on to this: the year each party was established would help in differentiating new-ish parties (such as Alba) from established yet less familiar parties (such as the SDP); listing the leader/s of each party would assist those who can remember the name George Galloway but not the Workers Party of Britain; showing the nation or region each party is running in would aid in differentiating parties contesting 100% of seats in Northern Ireland from those contesting 3% of seats in England. All of this information could be included, but to do so would merely overcomplicate and detract from the table's actual stated purpose, which is to show the relative standing of various political parties in this election. Just because something is interesting doesn't mean it's essential.

On that principle, I come down on the side of removing all not-a-debates from the debates table, and deleting the interviews sub-section altogether. On the latter point, I would have agreed with prosifying its information, as has previously been suggested. But on reflection, the very few genuine points of interest from these interviews so far - ie, the controversy over Rishi Sunak's ITV appearance and Nigel Farage's Panorama comments on the Russian invasion of Ukraine - are already covered in the main campaign section of the article, and so there seems little justification for merely reiterating them in a dedicated subsection.

I don't have a strong opinion about table colours either, but would note that (at present) two of the six colours in both the GB and NI table keys are just legacy items from the 2019 table: 'Absent' and 'No debate', both of which should be removed. Likewise, 'Invited' will presumably disappear from the table as of 28th June, provided both Adrian Ramsay and Nigel Farage take part in that day's reboot of The Odd Couple. The 'Surrogate' colour could then be changed to something less similar to 'Present', so as to better differentiate between the two, if others have found this an issue? (Personally, I think the whole 'Surrogate' concept is an odd way of saying 'this person is not a party leader', but heaven knows this conversation doesn't require yet another subplot. Although don't get me started on the fact that one of the participants in the 21st June debate is an unspecified 'Lewis'....) 2A00:23C8:3FA2:D201:9966:4166:7FDB:37C (talk) 00:52, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Consolidating the most recent discussions, can we live with the following compromise proposal?

1. In the Debates table, include the venue (eg, dock10, University of York, etc), but in the same column as the town/city. This corresponds exactly to what was done in the 2019 UK general election article.
2. In the Debates table, do not include either start or end times.
3. Keep the Debates sub-section/tables called "Debates", for conciseness, but, per Kevin McE‘s suggestion, add an italicised note immediately below the “Debates” heading explaining that not all were head-to-head debates.
4. Remove the Interviews sub-section.

Kennethmac2000 (talk) 09:30, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Once again, it is about consensus, not compromise. What evidence of consensus do you claim you have for the inclusion of information about location beyond the city? Kevin McE (talk) 10:53, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

I've reviewed this page for all references to "venue" and "location" and find the following mentions in support:

• 2A0A:EF40:E4A:E101:698A:BD05:47AD:E241: "Greater consistency with precedents would not go amiss: the debates table in the 2019 article included neither start/end times, individual host names, nor a bifurcated column for venue vs town/city. I think alignment with previous years is ample justification for scrapping these innovations here."
  [Alignment with previous years would mean a single "Venue" column including both the venue itself and the town/city.]
• Bondegezou I'm good with the proposed venue column.
• ThingsCanOnlyGetWetter This looks good! A big improvement.
  [This refers to my proposed compromise which includes a single column including both the venue itself and the town/city.]
• I obviously support my own proposal.

The only direct opposition I can find is from yourself User:Kevin McE.

WP:CON literally is about compromise, so I'm not sure why you keep saying it isn't:

"Consensus is Wikipedia's fundamental method of decision making. It involves an effort to address editors' legitimate concerns through a process of compromise ..." Kennethmac2000 (talk) 10:11, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

As an update on the above:

1. As already set out, there is a consensus to re-add venue information (to a single column combined with town/city), so I have now done this.
2. There is a consensus to not add either start or end times. The current version of the table already doesn't include these, so no further action is required here.
3. I have added a note immediately below the "Debates" heading which says:
   "This section includes reference to some events which were not head-to-head debates."
4. Someone else has already removed the Interviews table again - I will leave others to decide whether to remove the Interviews section entirely, or whether to leave the current stub. I am relaxed either way.

Kennethmac2000 (talk) 10:30, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

"This section includes reference to some events which were not head-to-head debates." - I really think this is a mistake. It's stepping into an editorial voice instead of an encyclopedic one, in order to announce that the section you're about to read doesn't follow its own heading properly.

On the subject of compromise and consensus - your earlier posts repeatedly framed this as "I will accept X if you accept Y". This presents editing as an exercise in compromise, in which there are defined positions which editors, or groups of editors, are entitled and expected to promote and defend, and from which elements may be traded out in order to reach a text which incorporates some parts from each position. This is not necessarily the case, and as I said above, it leans towards WP:OWN issues. I would rather think of consensus as a collective exploration of the possible space an article might fill, working out which directions are productive, and working together to achieve something which is comprehensible and accessible to the majority of the readership. GenevieveDEon (talk) 11:54, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

It was actually Kevin McE who suggested this, when he wrote: “A note below the heading could suffice for explaining that not all are head to head debates”. I then included this in my consolidated compromise proposal 2 days ago and no-one objected to that part of it.

The Sky News ‘debate’ in Grimsby and the various Question Time Leaders’ Specials (particularly the one in York) were widely referred to as “debates” and discussed extensively afterwards (in the way that many of the other interviews weren’t), so I think they merit inclusion in some sort of table of the tier-1 TV events of the campaign. (Drawing the line only at strict debates would imply the inclusion of the Channel 4 News debate in Colchester, but not the Question Time Leaders’ Special in York, which seems an unhelpfully strict place to draw the line).

I would be more than happy if we decided to rename the section from “Debates” to “Debates and <something else>”. Or we could accept that it isn’t a perfect world and keep the current italicised note. The one thing I am against is removing the high-profile events mentioned above. Kennethmac2000 (talk) 14:17, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

I see College2021 has now added a "Format" column. Even if I'm unsure about the values 'Debate' and 'Individual', I think this is another reasonable option. (I'm also content enough with 'Debate' and 'Individual' if we can't think of any alternatives.) Kennethmac2000 (talk) 18:57, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

I further note that, following College2021's addition of the "Format" column, Scotlandshire44 has now removed the line "This section includes reference to some events which were not head-to-head debates." which was added immediately below the "Debates" heading per the discussion above.

If the view is that the new column now clarifies things, such that the line immediately below the "Debates" heading is no longer necessary, I think that makes sense (though I also wouldn't mind if the line was re-added).

The one thing I am wondering is whether "Individual" is the right term - "One at a time" could be better, although it is 3 characters longer. Kennethmac2000 (talk) 09:47, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Additional manifestos

Please can someone add the following manifestos to the external links at the bottom of the article? I can't, due to semi-protection. Both are from modestly substantial parties contesting more overall seats than, for example, Alba (who are also currently represented in this section).

Scottish Greens, contesting 44 seats: https://greens.scot/sites/default/files/SGP-Westminster-Manifesto-2024-web.pdf

Social Democratic Party, contesting 122 seats: https://sdp.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/SDP_Manifesto_2024.pdf 2A00:23C8:3FA2:D201:6408:F88B:4A0C:2642 (talk) 17:08, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

On the contrary, I'd knock Alba out. We don't need every Tom, Dick and Sheila. Same goes for Alliance and Workers. — Iadmc♫^talk  14:34, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Alba and Workers have 3 MPs between them, and their leaders, Alex Salmond and George Galloway, with the latter being a sitting MP, are extremely famous and notable figues in the British political landscape. Maurnxiao (talk) 14:38, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

It's not a popularity contest. Farage would win hands down if it were. (...) It just get cluttered with all the minor parties being mentioned. — Iadmc♫^talk  14:41, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

It's not a popularity contest but popularity is an additional piece of evidence in support of the possibility of both Alba and the workers Party, which have sitting MPs, being important political forces in the British state. Maurnxiao (talk) 14:54, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

How are "popularity" or "importance" assessed? Number of MPs or seats being contested aren't good enough or the article will become cumbersome. It should, as far as I'm concerned, take after notability guidelines: significant coverage in independent, reliable sources. I'm not sure that Alba, Scottish Greens, Workers, ..., get the media coverage that, say, the Eng/Wales Greens or Reform do, despite comparable numbers of MPs. Information on SGs is likely more relevant to 2024 United Kingdom general election in Scotland, if it isn't there already. Irltoad (talk) 15:15, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

These are legitimate political parties with parliamentary representation and you don't want their include their manifestos? It's not, say, the English Democrats. Maurnxiao (talk) 15:19, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

You totally ignored my argument. It is not for us to decide the "legitimacy" of parties, and even if it were this is irrelevant to the matter at hand. We can't discuss everything about every party or the article will become far too long. Media coverage is a good way to assess notability, and not every party in each parliament of the country gets a high level of coverage. Irltoad (talk) 15:38, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

There is extensive media coverage of the Alba and Workers parties. And they both currently have sitting MPs; in the case of the Workers Party, theirs was directly elected. Maurnxiao (talk) 15:42, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

I think would disagree with knocking out the parties mentioned, but I think it's acceptable to only include parties that either already have MPs, or that have significant coverage e.g. in the opinion polls. This would probably include the Scottish Greens but maybe exclude SDP. The other question would be significant media coverage. It's also clear that Alba/Alliance have significant mentions in the opinion polls, being listed in more or less every opinion poll in their respective countries (and Alliance polling in first place on one). Workers party and SDP are not listed in most opinion polls however. Eastwood Park and strabane (talk) 15:41, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

On the other hand, in favour of the SDP/Workers being added, is that they come 6th and 7th respectively in number of candidates, which is significant. These parties have candidates in a large number of seats across the country which might warrant more coverage? Eastwood Park and strabane (talk) 15:47, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

I think every party with MPs when Parliament was dissolved is a sensible starting point. I’m not against further parties being included, e.g. on the basis of # candidates. Certainly, any party that has received significant secondary RS coverage should be included. Bondegezou (talk) 16:33, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Did not expect to find this level of convo when I remembered to check on this today!

To clarify my original request, I was thinking on the basis of including all ten of the largest parties in terms of seats contested: hence adding the SDP (#7) and Scottish Greens (#10). (The Co-operative Party have, of course, not produced a separate manifesto for this election.) Plaid Cymru and Alba make sense to retain as parties that are contesting a third or more of the seats in their respective nation; Plaid are of course standing in every Welsh seat, whilst Alba are contesting 19 of the 57 seats in Scotland (which is a greater proportion than, for example, the Workers Party of Britain, who are only contesting 27% of English constituencies).

The idea of leaving out Alliance is quixotic at best. Anyone who follows Northern Irish politics will know that the parties currently represented are very much the five canonical parties contesting this election, as evidenced by the fact they were all included in both the BBC and ITV debates. Indeed, Alliance actually had an MP elected in 2019, which is more than can be said for the UUP, who haven't returned a Westminster candidate for almost a decade. 2A00:23C8:3FA2:D201:C8F1:B3CD:EA9D:434C (talk) 00:02, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Agreed that we should respect the usual RS approach of seeing 5 canonical parties in NI and include all of their manifestos. Bondegezou (talk) 09:52, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

What happens when party endorsement is removed?

According to Swedish media (e.g. this article in Aftonbladet), candidates Craig Williams and Laura Saunders no longer have the support of their party. As the ballots are already printed, they remain Tory candidates, but will - if elected - be seated as independents. This seems to be confirmed by British media too (e.g. Sky News).

The electoral systems varying much between countries, I think this might merit mentionning/explaining in the article. In a tight race, this could be very important. In this race, it will probably not affect the general outcome but will explain the election results.

1. Should it be mentionned?
2. If so, where? (This article, the Betting Scandal Article, other articles...?)
3. If so, how specific should the mention be? (With 650 seats, this might happen a lot. If so, a more general mention would be suitable, unless it is very uncommon and thus merits a lot of detail.)

Personally, I was thinking something along the lines of

"Both major major parties have withdrawn support for several of their candidates, resulting in the candidates standing as independent. When loss of support occured after deadline XYZ, the candidates remain party candidates on the ballot, but will not be extended (correct wording?) the party whip if returned to Parliament."

OJH (talk) 11:33, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

It's generally always the case if MPs or candidates have the support withdrawn by their party, they sit as independents if they are elected (these cases are still standing under their party affiliation, because nominations had closed). It's not something specific to this election. The specific examples above are already mentioned in the 2024 United Kingdom general election betting scandal and (as are all candidates that have been disowned) on their respective constituency articles. Sionk (talk) 11:57, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, I've just realised that Reform has done the same thing, over racial comments (TT article in Swedish).

So, your point is that, since this happens all the time, it does not need explaining in this article? But that said, I should go look for an article on UK elections and make sure that it can be found there? Have I got you right? Thanks again. OJH (talk) 13:06, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

@OJH, is Candidates in the 2024 United Kingdom general election#Deselected and disowned candidates what you're looking for? DankJae 13:11, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

@DankJae Yes! Perfect! OJH (talk) 16:35, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Background section

The background section is becoming increasingly long. Anyone have any ideas on how to best condense it? ThingsCanOnlyGetWetter (talk) 10:19, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

I actually think it's pretty tight. Compared to how it was shortly after the election was called, it's clear and relevant throughout. The subsection headings help to keep it organised. If anything, I'd add a short introductory paragraph above the 'Conservative party' subheading, introducing the general situation - COVID-19, Brexit, the new monarch. GenevieveDEon (talk) 11:56, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

I've trimmed it down a bit now. Bondegezou (talk) 20:16, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Election Infobox and Maps

Isn’t it time now that we are at the Monday before the election to change the infobox to show all the usual percentages and seats ect as showing the old number of seats that each party had is now kinda irrelevant and also where are we with the blank SVG maps we will need for the results come late Thursday and into Friday? (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 06:42, 1 July 2024 (UTC))

No. The rationale for the current infobox applies until the voting has concluded. We have previously agreed not to have blank SVG maps. Wait until they're not blank! Bondegezou (talk) 20:15, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Good afternoon @Bondegezou thank you for replying as no one else has done until now and I have asked this question at least three times over the campaign with no answer, I appreciate the answer and I do accept that you don’t want blank SVG maps on the main page before results come in however do we have a plan in place for the results and if so does that include regional maps as well. I will appreciate also that this is much more complicated with the new boundaries so I hope you understand why I am asking this. Thank you (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 14:07, 2 July 2024 (UTC))

I'm sorry, MOTORAL1987, that no-one else has answered your question! I see what you mean now about blank SVG maps now. Sorry I can't help there. Bondegezou (talk) 15:02, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

No problem @ Bondegezou and I can’t help either, is there anyone that can help at all as we are very short of time now (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 18:46, 2 July 2024 (UTC))

Projected seats values

I'm not certain of the convention regarding this, so any input is appreciated: it seems that some of the values in the "Projections" section have been adjusted from their sources to aid consistency, such as adding the NI seats to the "Others" section on those sources which only cover GB, and transferring the Speaker's seat to "Others". I understand that this may be helpful for comparison, though since this appears to have been applied inconsistently, I should like to question whether it would be better to have the displayed values match exactly their counterparts in the cited sources for ease of verification. It would be nice to ascertain consensus before adding the polls for this week.

On a side note, I've been unable to verify the values listed for The Economist, since their site doesn't seem to work through archive.org. The values listed do not appear to add to 632/650, which is probably deserving of an explanatory refn.

Cheers, Closingbrackettalk 17:21, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

I've started the process of verifying these myself, and have decided to maintain the original format (as described in the note at the top of the section) given a fair number of the sources choose to publish thereas. Unfortunately, many of the sites, in choosing to update "live", have failed to maintain a static, archivable version.

I'm unsure as to the benefit of retaining the headers organising the tables into separate weeks; this was mentioned above but not resolved. Currently, "three weeks before the election" is missing, and the "weeks" are not well-defined in the slightest. Closingbrackettalk 22:19, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Eligibility

Should a section about eligibility on voting be added? 81.154.237.37 (talk) 13:10, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

You could put something under Electoral System if you want. Bondegezou (talk) 14:50, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Jeffrey Donaldson

A couple of editors have removed the text about Jeffrey Donaldson:

Jeffrey Donaldson, who was the the DUP leader until March 2024, appeared in court on 3 July to face additional sex offence charges.

They have said it is not part of the campaign. I suggest that they are editorialising. Reliable sources are discussing these events in the context of the election. They are expected to have an impact on the election. We should follow reliable sources, not editors' personal views.

But what do others think?

References

Bondegezou (talk) 09:37, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree that this is an important thing to include within the article, although I’m 50/50 as to whether it should be in the campaign section DimensionalFusion (talk) 10:43, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Maybe add it to 2024 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland? 2A0A:EF40:E4A:E101:1D3D:909:A1B3:2F4B (talk) 12:20, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

He is not a candidate, and not a holder of a major position in his party. I am inclined to be opposed to him in just about every possible issue, but his direct relevance to the election is very very low. How much profile did whatever canvassing he had done since the calling of the election generate? Kevin McE (talk) 14:45, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Reliable sources, as given, talk about this in the context of the election. If reliable sources think it's relevant, it's not for us to dispute that. Bondegezou (talk) 14:49, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree with @Bondegezou. The change of three leaders in a few months is also very much relevant as background for the DUP election results, which will be added later on tonight/tomorrow. OJH (talk) 14:53, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I've put something under Background for now. (There was something under Background previously, but it got cut somewhere along the way.) Bondegezou (talk) 14:57, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Put it in background section. 2A0A:EF40:E4A:E101:1D3D:909:A1B3:2F4B (talk) 15:22, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Alliance and Workers Party removal intentional?

In this diff, you can see that the Alliance Party of NI and Reform UK were removed from the Other Parties Background section, on the basis of not being new parties. This was a good edit and based on sources etc.

Reform UK was later on returned to the section, not as a new party but on its own merits, Farage, leadership change etc.

Should the Alliance Party also be returned to this section, and on what basis? They tie up nicely with the DUP story in the second to last para, and SNP, Sinn Fein, Plaid Cymru, and DUP have all got their mentions. What says the crowd? OJH (talk) 15:02, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm all for saying anything (relevant and appropriately sourced) about Alliance. I merely removed the claim that they are a new party on the grounds that they are not a new party (founded 1970)! Bondegezou (talk) 15:05, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes @Bondegezou, your edit was good. But is a mention relevant, based on them having a seat in the exiting parliament? Others are noted based on leadership change. Would the 2022 NI Assembly election be of interest enough ore am I construing encyclopedic value here? OJH (talk) 15:28, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

There is possibly a deliberate undermining of the Workers Party in the mainstream media of the UK, and it seems to have translated into one what might call a weak attempt to dismiss the Workers Party as dismal, forgettable, or unimportant... a lot of people are familiar with the policies espoused by this party. Especially after the Piers Morgan interview, I struggle to understand why one might claim Galloway is a nobody in this campaign. And keep in mind, there is more to the Workers Party than just their leader, George Galloway.

As for Alliance, I am willing to admit that I know next to nothing about them. But it appears that there is an ongoing effort to diminish the importance of Northern Ireland in these election articles. There's a few million people voting there, more than a dozen seats, so surely they ought to be mentioned? Maurnxiao (talk) 16:02, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Past, present or future tense for this article?

This article is of course going to switch from one tense to another soon, but shouldn't it be done once the official results are out? So far, only an exit poll which is not an official result. Maurnxiao (talk) 21:54, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

P.S. I'm aware that the voting has ended but the counting I think has not. Maurnxiao (talk) 21:55, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

"Betting Scandal" subsection

I believe it would be best to axe this section under WP: CSECTION, it could be split elsewhere in the article. Fantastic Mr. Fox (talk) 16:35, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

It is not all criticism though? nor titled as a collection of such. DankJae 17:01, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

What do you mean? It is a controversy that has been dedicated an entire section despite not really being detached/breaking out from the general campaign Fantastic Mr. Fox (talk) 17:31, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Per WP:CSECTION, controversies are protracted public disputes – I would not say this is a "public dispute", rather an account of an event that happened & responses to said event. So long as the section remains neutral, I see no issue with it. Irltoad (talk) 17:34, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes per above, it is a balanced (in terms of pov, including responses) section documenting an event during this election. Not a section on all "controversies with the 2024 UK election". The scandal kinda happened separate from the main timeline, so should remain in a short balanced section. DankJae 17:50, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

That is a ridiculous suggestion and a profound misunderstanding of WP:CSECTION. Bondegezou (talk) 00:54, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Should the map be included before most constituencies have declared?

Separate from the question of which map to use, some users are insisting that a map (which is to be live updated) should be in the infobox before most constituencies have declared. I suggest that this not be done, and that it is more appropriate that the infobox not be live updated. Gust Justice (talk) 22:58, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Map should be used if it is updated live(ish). Remove if it is not. SimplyLouis27 (talk) 23:00, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Map should be included AlloDoon (talk) 23:01, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Agree with Gust Justice. Bondegezou (talk) 01:05, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Articles to be undeleted

Starting this section so that @Number 57: or another admin can undelete significant articles on newly-elected MPs which have previously been deleted.

First one: Ben Obese-Jecty has been elected. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 01:49, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Time to switch the infobox? (or not?)

(ccing in @Bondegezou, @Chessrat, @Impru20, @DimensionalFusion as some of the more involved participants in previous infobox discussions)

Unless anyone has any particular objections I'll be switching out the infobox to a 3x2 TIE setup with blank results based on the exit poll (i.e. LAB CON LDM REF SNP, no 6th as that'll almost certainly be either DUP or SF and there's no data out on that yet) - any advances on that? CipherRephic (talk) 21:23, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Or not! Looks like that's already been done. Still, remains to be decided whether we do a 3x2, a 2x2 or something else. Suggestions welcomed CipherRephic (talk) 21:24, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Yep! It's TIE time DimensionalFusion (talk) 21:26, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Is tie in this context an analogy for strangling smaller parties out of the part of the article people are most interested? Maurnxiao (talk) 21:32, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

It stands for Template:Infobox Election Gust Justice (talk) 21:38, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

@Maurnxiao Please stop trying to make everything about "small parties". Thanks DimensionalFusion (talk) 22:02, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

What is the meaning of this comment really? Maurnxiao (talk) 22:03, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

What was the meaning of your comment? Randomly bringing up the strangling of smaller parties in an unrelated thread about the infobox DimensionalFusion (talk) 22:04, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

An edit with various notable parties with a presence in the British parliament has been reverted without so much as an edit summary. Preposterous? Maurnxiao (talk) 22:08, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, its time. TheBritinator (talk) 21:29, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I suggest doing this, with the 3x2 format including the 5 largest parties in the exit poll. I would also use the same order as the exit poll's ranking by seats. Given that all major media is using the exit poll in its coverage, I think it's appropriate to take it into account for the infobox. Gust Justice (talk) 21:30, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Agreed with the caveat that if Reform does finish ahead of the SNP, there's no need to include the SNP and 2x2 should be used. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 21:37, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I do think October 1974 United Kingdom general election (where the SNP won 11 seats, yet was not included inthe infobox) could be a precedent for that. Either way, the current layout is preferable for now. Gust Justice (talk) 22:55, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, agreed Andreandre011 (talk) 21:31, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Funnily enough, if the exit poll comes to be right, the issue on whether to add Reform based on their vote share alone may not be an issue any longer... Impru20^talk 21:53, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

these things do have a strange way of sorting themselves out! CipherRephic (talk) 21:56, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. Bondegezou (talk) 00:58, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

The updated BBC projection is now only 6 for the SNP and 4 for Reform UK. That would probably put both below the DUP and SF. 7-party infobox? Bondegezou (talk) 02:44, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

I think a three-party infobox might be the most appropriate with such a result. That being said, the projections on each channel do differ, so I say we wait a bit to see how (poorly) the SNP and Reform UK do. If they end up at 6 and 4 respectively, there is a case for only including the 3 main parties. Otherwise we will unavoidably be arguing over whether or not Sinn Fein should be included. Gust Justice (talk) 02:50, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

This seems premature and live updating of the infobox unwise. Wikipedia shouldn’t be trying to be a liveblog. Bondegezou (talk) 00:58, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

2024 election series template (below infobox)

Seeking opinion on this before I do anything too destructive - do we feel this is strictly necessary? Most of the links in the template are in the infobox directly above it already and those that aren't are either elsewhere in the article or can quite reasonably added to a more appropriate spot, so the template feels a bit redundant. Would appreciate any thoughts you may have.

CipherRephic (talk) 19:48, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

@CipherRephicI 100% agree. The current info box is

- redundant

- inconsistent with previous articles

- generally just less sightly than the regular one.

So I think we should switch to Template:Infobox election DimensionalFusion (talk) 21:54, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Switching infobox would be more concise and look far less clunky, completely agree. Ebm2002 (talk) 22:07, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Agree with this change and the rationale presented here. I can understand having TILE much in advance of an election, but it's standard that once the election is announced (and to my knowledge, even before then) we switch to TIE. There's no good reason why we shouldn't have TIE at this point. — Czello ^(music) 08:06, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

So the rationale behind the current style is:

"There is a consensus to use this infobox style, not Template:Infobox election. This is because the latter cannot include all the parties, and therefore if we included it before the results of the election are known, we would have to guess which parties will make a significant impact, against what WP:CRYSTAL says. So do NOT change the infobox without consulting the talk page to change the consensus."

I am not inclined to agree with this argument. The use of Template:Infobox election format is on the basis of the last election results (and typically how many seats are needed for a majority), not, as is argued here, what we think will or is likely to happen in the upcoming election. Mapperman03 (talk) 01:45, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

@Bondegezou Hi, you reverted the infobox change despite there being a consensus here. Why? DimensionalFusion (talk) 09:02, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

We have a longstanding consensus to use TILE before the election. We did this before previous general elections. We should not change from that until a new consensus has been demonstrated. You don't get to make the change you want and then tell people to wait for a consensus: we stick with the long-standing arrangement until the matter is settled. Bondegezou (talk) 09:06, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

To clarify, to demonstrate you have consensus for a major change to the article, you need more than a few comments in a Talk section not even on the topic, and a discussion that has had more than 12 hours to take place. An RfC might be necessary. Bondegezou (talk) 09:15, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Czello, are you being serious with this? You are an experienced editor and you should know you need more evidence of consensus than the above. Do not start an WP:EDITWAR. Bondegezou (talk) 09:33, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Since the topic of this dicussion has diverted to the infobox, I believe I need to explain the reason why I believe TILE is better than TIE until the results of the election are in, since I wrote the note Mapperman03 quoted. There was a discussion now at Talk:2024 United Kingdom general election/Archive 1#Infobox (2) where I explained my rationale in more detail than that note, and I note DimensionalFusion and Bondegezou took part in that discussion. I criticised DimensionalFusion's arguments as unsubstantiated then and I do again now. They have said nothing in this dicussion that they didn't say in that discussion, and so I reiterate my criticisms: "less sightly" is a subjective opinion that falls foul of WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT, and comparing to precedence goes against WP:OTHERCONTENT and is an example of the false equivalence fallacy, as past and future elections are not comparable. I take it when they say "redundant" they are referring to TILE including more parties, but that is a necessity to avoid failing WP:CRYSTAL.

On the subject of WP:CRYSTAL, the reason why I believe all the parties with MPs in the House of Commons now/at dissolution (and therefore my reason for using TILE) need to be included is that we don't know the results of the election, and therefore which parties will have a significant number of MPs after the next election. This means to avoid creating an infobox that implies we are presuming only some parties (probably Con, Lab, SNP and LD) will get a significant number of seats in an election we don't know the results of, we have to use TILE, as that is able to list all the parties in a reasonably small amount of space. It's important the infobox is relatively small, as per MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE's statement The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance. TIE cannot list all the parties necessary to include (either for technical reasons or because otherwise the infobox would be huge), so we should use TILE. This will stay the case until at least the outcome of the election is obvious (when most seats have declared their results). So I disagree with Czello that now or at dissolution is the time to change the infobox, that time will be at the earliest around 03:00, 5 July 2024 (UTC) (that's 4am in the UK) when we know which parties have a significant number of seats for sure. Then TIE will likely be the best infobox. --TedEdwards 14:59, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

@TedEdwards It's interesting you should bring up MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE's statement "The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance". TILE does not meet this. Is knowing all 15 parties and their leaders and their candidates really needed at a glance? Does "Speaker" need to be included in the infobox? "Speaker" is obviously not going to win a landslide of seats, which is the same rationale applied to the rest of the parties- for example, the DUP, SF, PC, Alliance, and SDLP all cannot win huge majorities because they only run in their own regions.

Counter to this, it is much more important for the reader to know what the main parties' standings are. Labour and Conservative are being put on the same list as WPGB. Is knowing how many seats Speaker currently has really key information, vital to the election? I don't think so. DimensionalFusion (talk) 16:39, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

To return to what this section actually began talking about, I would support dropping the election series template. It's unnecessary clutter. Bondegezou (talk) 09:13, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

@CipherRephic: Since this discussion immediately went off-topic because the editor who replied to you first only bothered to read what they wanted to see and not what you actually said, do you think it would be worth splitting this discussion into two? Or renaming this discussion to refer to the infobox, and start a fresh discussion about Template:2024 United Kingdom general election series somewhere else? --TedEdwards 15:09, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

@TedEdwards I'd favour starting a new section with a less ambiguous header but as the significantly less experienced editor I feel I ought to defer to you on matters of procedure such as this - what would you suggest? CipherRephic (talk) 15:53, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

@CipherRephic: Since RealTaxiDriver started a separate discussion on the infobox at #Infobox, I suggest further comments about the infobox go there. As for this header being ambiguous, the thing is I don't think it is, and I can't see what anyone could change it to. You were crystal clear with what you wanted to dicuss, but DimensionalFusion, who only bothered to look at the word "infobox", drove the topic off-piste so she could talk about what she wanted. So it's not your fault this happened.

To summarise to all editors: This discussion is on including Template:2024 United Kingdom general election series in the article, not on the infobox (bolding for emphasis). Further comments on the infobox should go under #Infobox--TedEdwards 22:04, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Apologies, I misread "2024 election series template (below infobox)" as "2024 election series template (infobox)" DimensionalFusion (talk) 08:11, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

I am going to WP:BOLDly remove the series template using CipherRephic's rationale. If contested the reverting editor can discuss it here. --TedEdwards 17:42, 24 May 2024 (UTC)