Template talk:Canadian federal election, 2011A

Inclusion of Minor Parties

After seeing the small edit war over whether or not the Communist Party should be listed I have made the decision to separate the parties into two categories: With representation in HOC and without representation in HOC. I would support that this be based on the make-up of Parliament at dissolution, which would see the Green Party included in the category in 2008 but not 2011.

Not only will this allow the fringe parties to be listed in this template without any editor conflicts, but it will allow non-Canadians to distinguish between which are major parties and which are Fringe parties.

Please use the talk page to resolve disputes, instead of reverting each other. vıdıoman 15:49, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I think this is a very useful. Good work. --Padraic 16:40, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I think "Parties with representation in House of Commons" is too long of a title. How about "Elected" and "Not elected" for the elections that have passed? 117Avenue (talk) 19:15, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

The problem with that is, parties aren't elected, MPs are, so "elected parties" is technically incorrect. "Parties with elected members"/"Parties without elected members" would be more accurate. The federal political parties template separates the parties by representation in the house and recognition by Elections Canada (then lists notable historical parties, which is unnecessary here). Political party navboxes from most other countries (see these in Europe) typically maintain the trend of grouping those represented in a house from those not represented (some omit minor parties entirely). Albania uses the terms "Parliamentary" and "Non-Parliamentary". France also uses non-parliamentary to list parties not included in their National Assembly, Senate or the European Parliament.

However, this is a navbox listing the parties in the election. We have to decide, are we basing this list on Parliament's composition as of the election results, or its composition as of dissolution of parliament? The two are almost never the same, as the 39th Parliament is an example where an entirely new party appears during the course of the Parliament. vıdıoman 21:40, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Distinguishing between "major" and "minor" parties

My suggestion is this:

• For the 2011 navbox, during the election, to list parties as of dissolution (which would be identical to its current form), perhaps mentioning the number of seats or percent support they had at the previous election as some European party templates do, naming the two sections "Represented" or "Parliamentary" for those represented in the house, and "Unrepresented" or "Non-parliamentary" for those not-represented.

• For the other navboxes, and the 2011 navbox after this election, to list parties based on the results of that election, listed in the order of (and perhaps including in parenthesis) the percent support they received in the election, separated into the groups "Represented" or "Parliamentary" and "Unrepresented" or "Non-parliamentary", with a note explaining any unusual situations, like that of the Green MP at the end of the 39th Parliament.

The template for the 2008 election could look like this (just an example, the note about the Green MP could be made a little clearer):

The note about the Green MP might be made clearer by including the number of seats and/or the percent support each party received as a result of the election. It could also be included in the 2006 template instead, since it was that election in which Blair Wilson was elected, and the note for the Green Party in the 2008 election might read "one member at dissolution", or something. In the 2011 election, they would be treated as a minor/non-Parliamentary party.

I didn't include per cent results/number of seats in the template as the (Leader Name, candidates) part takes up a lot of room. Perhaps (Leader Name, candidates 9.98%) or (Leader Name, candidates 49)? vıdıoman 21:40, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that any mention of the previous parliament should be mentioned in a navigational box for an election, except for the outgoing line. Which means sort them by the results of the election, and ignore that there was previously a Green MP. I don't think that "Parliamentary" would be exactly correct, since the 40th Parliament ended March 26, currently no parties are "Parliamentary". I shouldn't have assumed "Elected parties", (also because "Independent candidates" isn't a party), and used my initial suggestion of simply "Elected". I don't think that the number of seats and/or voting percentage should be included, because this is just a navigational box to the leaders, candidate pages, and related articles, not a results list, unless it may not be clear that that is the order they are in. 117Avenue (talk) 22:30, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

If you don't want to include results information, then the parties should probably be listed alphabetically. Even people who follow politics closely likely don't know the order in which the minor parties finished, so it would be better to simply list them alphabetically. If you mention that the election resulted in, say, a Liberal Minority, there would be no real need to list them ahead of Conservatives. Or, you could list all parties alphabetically in a single field, and simply bold the parties that won seats, with a note explaining that. vıdıoman 18:46, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I think that one alphabetical list, with elected bolded, should work. I would like to point out though, I did have one alphabetic list for 2011, before you changed it. 117Avenue (talk) 20:33, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

That was before I thought of using emphasis to distinguish between elected and not elected. vıdıoman 21:46, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

How do you propose wording the note? Something like "Bold indicates parties with members elected to the House of Commons"? 117Avenue (talk) 23:18, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

That sounds good enough. Maybe take a look for other similar templates where some items are bolded and some not to see how they're worded, but I think that should be adequate.vıdıoman 16:21, 9 April 2011 (UTC)