Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Parliament constituencies/Archive 9

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Parliament constituencies. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 5

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Archive 7

Local consensus on naming conventions contradicts the broader consensus on article titles

In line with WP:PRECISION, I recently moved several articles that have a parenthetical qualifier to the base name, where the base name either did not have a page or had a redirect to the qualified name. The parenthetical qualifiers are used for disambiguation, and are unneeded where no ambiguity exists. User:Doktorbuk took particular exception to my moves, and lashed out with some bad-faith assumptions about disruption and vandalism on User talk:JHunterJ#Disruptive moves without discussion.

I looked up the past discussions, and Doktorbuk seems to be one of the most ardent supporters of this unnecessary consistency. If the titles truly need to identify themselves as UK constituencies (because that's part of the WP:COMMONNAME or whatever), then it shouldn't be in parentheses. If it's not part of the common name or whatever, the lead paragraph of the article is where such information is supposed to go, unless it is needed for disambiguation.

But, if a WikiProject wants to vary from the broader consensus at WP:PRECISION, there is an accepted way to get there, per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS: "unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope." I asked Doktorbuk to point me to such as discussion with the broader community, and they have not.

Please update your naming conventions to align with the broader consensus, or bring it up at the article naming talk page or at the village pump to convince the broader community that the current naming convention is right. Otherwise, the "wasps nest" will continue to swarm out from time to time, as editors familiar with the broader consensus try to fix the titles of these articles. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:56, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Having looked at all the material cited and the discussion both here and on your talk page, I am unable to understand what the issue objected to is. Clearly, it is not right for any project to formulate rules that are contrary to the general WP consensus. However, the normal rule is that we only have disambiguators in cases where they are needed. Can you indicate what moved are being objected to? Peterkingiron (talk) 20:18, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

These are the ones I had attempted to fix recently:

and here are the previous discussions around the topic (although none with the broader audience than this project):

-- JHunterJ (talk) 21:43, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

User:JHunterJ - you came here looking for permission to make moved. You did not receive that permission. Moving Nottingham South on its own has created approx 700 redirects, a wholly unsatisfactory situation. I cannot revert your grossly negligent behaviour. I need you to do so. doktorb _words^deeds 18:37, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

No, I came here pointing out the problem with the WP:LOCALCONSENSUS contrary to WP:PRECISION. Since the only comment above agreed ("However, the normal rule is that we only have disambiguators in cases where they are needed."), I updated the naming convention and waited. Then today I moved one of the problem articles to conform to the naming conventions. One redirect was changed, and the links to it are both (a) not a problem) and (b) largely addressable through a template edit or two. I need you to stop your grossly negligent assumption of bad faith. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:50, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

JHunterJ, I'm going to stay out of any personal dispute you may be having with Doktorbuk, but I want to ask you one thing: what exactly is wrong with having a consistent naming scheme for constituency articles? This convention has been used in article titles about UK constituencies for almost a decade now (most were created around the time of the 2005 general election), so why the urge to change it now?

Incidentally, I was unaware that you had changed the naming conventions on 11 January because, unlike this page, it's not on my watchlist; that edit seems to have the appearance of a unilateral action. You could at least have informed the project of the change. If you think there is a problem with a "local consensus" that should be raised at the Village Pump or elsewhere, why not do so yourself? --RFBailey (talk) 21:44, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't have a personal dispute with Doktorbuk, despite their possible personal dispute with me. There's no problem with having a consistent naming scheme for constituency articles, and many consistent naming schemes are possible that still conform to WP:PRECISION. It's the selection of a consistent naming scheme contrary to the broader consensus that is at issue. Certainly, if this project cannot agree on a guideline that conforms with the broader guideline, raising it at the pump would be the next step. Bold edits one disagrees with are often cast as "unilateral", but there's still nothing wrong with bold edits, and in this case, the bold edit simply followed from the issue raised here. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:17, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

You acted unilaterally out of spite. RFBailey has found you out, and your response is inadequate. There may be broad consensus in one direction, but this project has agreed to use a standard format, and unlike the suggestive instructions, our consensus has not been challenged, edited or questioned. You had no reason to pluck Nottingham South from the air other than arbitrary petulance. Very good work by Nick to revert your unilateral decision. doktorb _words^deeds 23:31, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

"Found me out"? There was nothing done in secret, or in haste. I "plucked" Nottingham South off of the top of the list above. Your conspiracy theories need as much work as your ability to assume good faith. "This project" (the Wikipedia project) has decided not to qualify titles that don't need it (WP:PRECISION) and that sub-projects can't override the broader consensus (WP:LOCALCONSENSUS). The sub-project's consensus has been challenged, by others and by me. The only arbitrary petulance is yours. -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:24, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't care who thinks they have a dispute with who, but it is clear that a dispute exists. (By definition, a dispute must involve more than one person.) With that in mind, bold/unilateral actions are generally unwise and likely to exacerbate the situation. Furthermore, if you believe that "many consistent naming schemes are possible", perhaps you could suggest one? And why is one which has existed for nine years suddenly wrong? --RFBailey (talk) 02:34, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I dispute the local consensus. The personal dispute and assumptions of bad faith are not mine, and I wisely raised the issue here, waited, made the subsequent change to the guidelines, waited, and then moved a single article, and waited (and didn't have to wait as long). Consistent naming schemes:

use the base name, and add (UK Parliament constituency) if it's needed. This is the consistent approach used successfully throughout Wikipedia
use something like Nottingham South UK Parliament constituency if the constituency identification is really needed in every title -- things that are necessary in the title for reasons other than disambiguation aren't put in parentheses

-- JHunterJ (talk) 02:49, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Consistent naming schemes exist for our project, perfectly fine. Go away and play with somebody else's train set doktorb _words^deeds 05:28, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Moving forward

JHJ has policy on his side; the project has its years of work and knowledge in this area on its side, and an eight-year-old local guideline. We have an impasse. Rather than slanging it out on this page, we evidently need to raise the question with a wider audience and seek consensus that in this complicated area, for all the reasons known to participants here, there should be an exception to allow standardised article titles for all UK constituencies, even where disambiguation is not otherwise necessary.

Can we try to agree (a) where it should be discussed, and (b) what wording we want, before going "external"? Here are some thoughts.

(a): venue: Is a constituency a "Geographic name"? I think probably so, in which case we need an amendment to Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)#United_Kingdom and should raise the question at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names), or is it an entity coming within Wikipedia:Naming conventions (government and legislation), or ... any other thoughts?

(b): text: As a draft:

Proposed text: United Kingdom Parliamentary constituencies (current or defunct) should have a uniform suffix of "(UK Parliament constituency)" or "(Scottish Parliament constituency)" as appropriate, whether or not this is required for disambiguation. A redirect or disambiguation page entry must always be made from the basic name.

Explanation to accompany proposal

Parliamentary constituencies in the United Kingdom have a long and complex history, sometimes corresponding to the name of a place and sometimes not (eg Leeds (UK Parliament constituency), a former constituency, and Leeds North West (UK Parliament constituency), a current constituency with a name not used for other purposes). Some contituencies have been in existence since the 13th century (e.g. Canterbury (UK Parliament constituency), the newest were created in 2010 (Morley and Outwood (UK Parliament constituency)). There are separate constituencies for the Scottish Parliament (eg Mid Fife and Glenrothes (Scottish Parliament constituency)) and the Welsh National Assembly (Cardiff West (Assembly constituency). Since 1979 there has been another set of parliamentary constituencies across the UK, the European Parliament constituencies, such as Leeds (European Parliament constituency) (one of the larger number which existed 1979-1999) and Yorkshire and the Humber (European Parliament constituency) (post-1999).

The Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Parliament constituencies has had a convention since 2005 to use the suffixes "(UK Parliament constituency)" and "(Scottish Parliament constituency)" uniformly, whether or not a constituency name is ambiguous, and a large body of work has been done to create these articles and name them consistently. (Welsh assembly constituencies all have names matching UK Parliament constituency names, so their disambiguation is uncontroversial).

This convention has recently been challenged by an editor who has cited WP:LOCALCONSENSUS and WP:PRECISION. The project now seeks wider consensus for its long-standing convention that the naming of UK Parliament constituencies should be a special case, recognised in the naming conventions, as allowed by those policies.

Any thoughts? Maybe one or two more points as to why it's thought to be useful to have this uniformity? I've set out 4 subheadings below, to try to structure any discussion.

Actually, having laid it all out like that I'm now feeling fairly neutral about the whole issue, as long as we make sure that 100% of articles have a dab page entry or redirect: it doesn't really matter that much what the article title is. But as this matter has been raised and caused acrimony (and it's partly my fault: see 12:27 am, 21 December 2013 !), let's try and have a clear discussion in an appropriate venue so all sides will feel able to accept the outcome.

In the meantime, could I suggest that everyone should hold off from making any more changes to constituency article titles while it's all under discussion? PamD 10:04, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Discussion: venue

Discussion: wording of proposed text

Broadly support doktorb _words^deeds 14:23, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Discussion: wording of proposed supporting statement

Broadly support* doktorb _words^deeds 14:24, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Discussion: other issues

Note: I'll leave this till it's had a week for people to comment, then take it forward. PamD 17:04, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Proposal made

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK Parliament constituencies). I've looked at Wikipedia:Article_titles#Proposed_naming_conventions_and_guidelines and so have advertised the proposal at Wikipedia talk:Article titles, Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), Wikipedia talk:UK Wikipedians' notice board, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums, Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names), Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom and Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (government and legislation), ~~but I'm not sure how to formulate it as an RfC and whether this is really necessary.~~ PamD 14:06, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

And have made an RfC too. PamD 14:15, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Parliamentary borough

Parliamentary borough was since July 2013 a redirect to United Kingdom constituencies#Borough but has just been re-created as an unsourced stub by JASpencer who has also made a redirect from Truro (Parliamentary borough) to the long-established Truro (UK Parliament constituency) and has changed the links in a batch of articles such as Nichols Randall to link to the redirect rather than the article title. It doesn't look to me as if this is helpful, but I leave it to those more deeply involved in constituencies to follow it up if they think fit. There's also a section at Borough#Parliamentary_boroughs, and the second paragraph of Reform_Act_1832#Composition (linked from the former as "Further information") has a more thorough coverage, including sources. All a bit of a mess.

On second thoughts I'm going to redirect that unsourced stub to the existing article which has more info. PamD 14:51, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Parliamentary boroughs (the unreformed two member borough based constituencies) were a distinct form of organisation. What's the problem? JASpencer (talk) 15:10, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Dispute at Ipswich (UK Parliament constituency)

There is an edit war occurring on this page. I am not involved and don't want to be, and have no opinion on who is right over how to use N/A - I would just like it to be settled by discussion and this seems the best place. User:Doktorbuk has already reverted to his version thre times in three days and I don't want it to go beyond WP:3RR. The editors who disagreed with Doktorbuk are User:JASpencer and User:Fanx. Could other editors please help resolve this. Best wishes, Boleyn (talk) 13:23, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

I have read the brief comments made by the editors in the articles edit history. It is difficult to follow the dispute and the editors concerned would have made things easier for themselves had they discussed things more fully on the articles talk page. However, that discussion can now take place here. I have used these tables extensively in my editing and have used the term n/a where I thought appropriate. I use the term n/a as an abbreviation for not applicable. The most common use of n/a seems to be in the % change box for a party intervening in a contest, or where the previous election had been uncontested. Another use for n/a in this particular box could be in those circumstances when a constituency had experienced boundary changes to the extent that it could be misleading to talk in terms of a change in %. In such a case, I think it would help the reader if an additional note to this affect was also included. I do not think that n/a should be used to mean not available as this could lead to confusion. Graemp (talk) 18:26, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Personally I treat blank as not available an N/A as not applicable. Otherwise it's just too confusing. JASpencer (talk) 22:55, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

I have always been under the impression that we use N/A to mean, essentially, both; there is no genuine difference in British politics between the two, and at first glance, any reader can see that a party did not stand in the previous election. I don't understand why Ipswich has been singled out for special treatment, not least because the edits create a very confusing new system without any proper explanation. doktorb _words^deeds 09:26, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

I think that doktorb may have been under the wrong impression about the use of n/a and that if it has happened elsewhere, then it is also I think not beneficial to the reader. The problem with using it in the way that doktorb uses it is that it discourages the information from being subsequently added, as it will be less obvious to editors that this work needs to be completed. You could almost call it a disruptive edit. Graemp (talk) 06:01, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

I have always understood "N/A" to mean "not applicable". This seems to be about calculating swings between parties where a party stood on one election, but not the previous one. An alternative might be to put an em-dash in the box. Peterkingiron (talk) 14:46, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

User:Doktorbuk has edit warred in reverting three times - we (Doktorbuk, User:JASpencer and myself) all want the same thing - N/A to be used appropriately - but Doktorbuk entirely misrepresents, or misunderstands, the corrections that JASpencer and myself have been making. The article currently has candidates that clearly stood in the previous election with N/A in the "change" field, as well as N/A (probably misinterpreted as "Not Available") in "swing" and "majority" fields. No such data is "Not Available" to anyone with a calculator or the necessary math ability. It also has N/A (italicised) and n/a in lower case, and a missing "change=" field - which partially breaks a template. It also has inconsistencies in candidates' names - since I believe a candidate name should be consistent throughout an article I fixed these too. However, because one editor fails to understand the nature of the edits he keeps on reverting. After my two reverts I recused myself from editing as I did not want to engage in an edit war, and a previous contributor to the article (JASpencer) attempted to revert to my previous version but was again reverted by edit warrior Doktorbuk. The use of N/A is clear (although I'd prefer User:Peterkingiron's suggestion of an em-dash) - N/A means the party (or candidate, if an Independent) has no data with which to make a comparison since they did not stand in the previous election. By-elections should be compared with the previous election and general elections subsequent to a by-election should be compared to either the previous election, or the by-election - depending on the convention of the wikiproject. Boundary changes or most renamings are not taken into account - we preserve the fiction that a constituency remains the same constituency throughout its history, since that is how the constituency is treated by the Electoral Commission and the government. I agree with User:Graemp that notes on the talk page may have allowed interested members of this project to follow the discussion more clearly - but as I did explain my edits on Doktorbuk's talk page I doubt it would have had any effect on the edit warring. Finally, Ipswich has not been "singled out", JASpencer identified some concerns he had with the article and made some edits, I outlined my concerns with his edits (on this page), and reverted them while suggesting that if a change was needed this project should come to a consensus. Having visited the Ipswich article I found several errors and started working on them, and engaged in discussion here as to ways to address JASpencer's concerns. Ipswich is not getting "special treatment" (I have no connection with the town or constituency), it is being brought into line with what is expected of all constituency articles (it is not a "new system" - confusing or otherwise), and as the page was on my radar it was a reasonable place to start, and while there may be many other constituency articles with similar issues I hold that every task starts with small steps - but not one step forward, two steps back ad infinitum ... that just sucks the life out of any contributor. Fan

| talk | 04:41, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

At certain elections, the broadcasters have had a set of estimated results from previous elections, taking into account boundary changes. This meant that BBC treated a "hold" as if it were a gain, because the incumbent party started at a disadvantage due to the electorate having changed adversely to them. I only recall this having been done for one election, following a very substantial boundary re-organisation. Furthermore, that data may not be readily available. I suspect that it would not be easy to incorporate. I have purposely decided not to interfere, only to comment. It is important that the constituency articles should as far as possible be consistent in format. Peterkingiron (talk) 12:35, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

City of London pre and post 1707

There is already a constituency article that is split at 1707: City of London (UK Parliament constituency) and City of London (elections to the Parliament of England). Opera hat (talk) 01:41, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

The fact that one constituency has escaped convention is not proof that a split is desirable. All it suggests is that the two City of London articles need to be merged - thank you for pointing out this anomaly. Fan

| talk | 04:21, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

So when you propose the merger of two not particularly small articles your only rationale is going to be uniformity with all the other constituency articles? Opera hat (talk) 16:17, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

In a nutshell. If Wikipedia is anything it is consistency - if there is an established format for a particular class of article then all articles in that class must conform to it. Article size, or the fact that it is the peculiarities of the City of London has nothing to do with it. Fan

| talk | 17:46, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Can you point me to a Wikipedia policy to support this? Opera hat (talk) 22:45, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

These articles depart from the standard of all other articles. I would suggest that they be merged; the dates of Pariaments removed; and the members' lists reformatted to match the rest. If there is a case for a split it is probably at 1885, when the constituencey was reduced to two members. If a further split is needed I would suggest 1547, because inforation on earlier periods is less good. Peterkingiron (talk) 12:46, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Proposed split of constituency history pre/post 1707 Acts of Union

For a minority of constituencies (mostly borough constituencies) with a long historical presence, for example Ipswich (UK Parliament constituency), there are listings of MPs that may not be that relevant to the current constituency. The seats are on different boundaries, the MPs are from years ago, in many cases there were two rather than one MPs, the electoral systems were unreformed and even the parliaments that they sat in (pre-1801) are different. Some of these are admittedly minor differences, but they add up to considerably differences.

I suspect that most readers are looking for current information and comparitively recent political history. So long lists of MPs in forward date order - particulalry in an early stage in the article may not be what the majority of readers need. This is particularly the case when the majority of constituencies are less than 150 years old (some a lot younger) and so have relatively short lists of MPs and elections.

I suggest that in these continuing constituencies there ought to be the option of splitting the article so that there is the equivalent of an historical constituency article which can have the full listing of MPs and if there are other historical details then they can also go in, in great detail. The current constituency article could have a prominent link to the historical article as well as historical highlights such as historically important MPs, controversial elections and who controlled the franchise.

JASpencer (talk) 21:45, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

I must stress that this is a reasonably small subset of constituencies that we are talking about. Essentially these are articles about constituencies that are currently in the House of Commons that have been around continuously for more than two hundred years. For Ipswich there are 26 of these constituencies founded in 1295 (when borough constituencies were founded), 2 before that and around 15 up to 1570. There will be others (I stopped counting) but it is unlikely to be more than about 60, or less than 10% of the current House of Commons constituencies. JASpencer (talk) 22:13, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I see not benefit in splitting off parts of an constituency's history because you think the main article should concern itself more with recent history. The table/timeline should be shown in its entirety, and election result details since they are shown in reverse chronological order more than satisfy the need to focus on recent political history. If there are grounds to separate Ipswich (UK Parliament constituency) from Ipswich (English Parliamentary Borough) then the same could be said for all constituencies existing both before and after the Acts of Union, but that is a discussion that needs to take place on a WikiProject level, and should not be left to one editor deciding that Ipswich is a good place to start unilaterally changing a project-wide standard. Your rationale would suggest that from 1707 to 1801 there should also be Ipswich (British Parliament constituency) - no, I'm not supporting that either. Finally, section title changed to something more NPOV - "MP Cruft" is a poor description of what is proposed. Fan

| talk | 08:44, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I have to agree that this proposal has limited merit. We all know that the project has a few make-do-and-mend elements which could be repaired. The balance, however, is not to cause too much disruption, and this proposal most certainly would. I think notes written into the articles would be more useful than a wholesale change doktorb _words^deeds 10:30, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

So the MPs should be in forward chronological order and the election results should be in reverse chronological order. The see of red that are for a large part the pre-1800 MPs (most specks of blue leading to stubs) should be in front of the election results and the discussion of recent electoral history and election boundaries should be just before the Corporation or freeholder elected MPs? This is sinmply saying that there should be no improvement to these articles because inbalance isn't change and mediocrity isn't disruption.

JASpencer (talk) 21:31, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

There is no suggestion that things must remain the same forever, just that changes to agreed and long-established practices that have been established by protracted discussions and consensus must not be arbitrarily changed. If you want change then you need to raise your concerns here and garner enough support for them. That many constituencies inconveniently have over seven centuries of history is not a reason to park those histories in some dark corner, or to defy constituency naming conventions. I agree there are improvements to be made - I'd like to see the History section include all names and renamings of constituencies instead of just the conventional Foo (UK Parliament constituency) - a minor change that may address some of your concerns in the previous section. I also agree that "the sea of red"[links] is excessive - if a page doesn't exist for Sir Bufton Tufton, MP for Lymeswold, 1392-1393 then a redlink isn't helpful. Fan

| talk | 03:03, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

The constituency articles are diminished by the current attitude. Looking at the restored Ipswich (UK Parliament constituency)there is now a sea of blank spaces, red links and if you are lucky to get a blue link before 1510 they are almost certainly going to lead to a stub. Even more oddly this two screens worth of blankness and dead ends is before the Post 1918 MPs and the election results - which themselves don't go back before 1906, so medieval red links trump the electoral history of Ipswich since its been a one member seat under universal suffrage. These red links do need to be somewhere on Wikipedia, but should they be taking so much space on a current constituency article? JASpencer (talk) 09:15, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Blank spaces exist because the Parliamentary record is fragmented, with several periods where the names of MPs are simply not known, and leaving a blank space shows this - the alternative is probably to write "Not known" in each blank, I prefer it how it is. Contiguous representation through two or more parliaments should be done with merged cells (rowspan= ) - this is done for post-1660 MPs (in the Ipswich article) and I see no reason why it cannot be done for pre-1660 MPs as well. Redlinks should be unlinked - if someone is eager to write up the histories of any of thousands of otherwise unnotable or unknown MPs then that's when they should be linked, until then .. a sea of redlinks is a huge distraction from any article and should be avoided. Fan

| talk | 18:36, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

The best way to avoid this distraction would be to have the information on a separate page. It doesn't matter whether it's pre Act of Union (1707 or 1801), pre reform act or when it was a two rather than one page article. Even if it was a sea of blue it would still be a distraction as it comes before the more current information that the readers are more interested in. JASpencer (talk) 19:36, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

I think splitting the constituency at a particular date would imply that these were two separate constituencies. For borough constituencies like Ipswich, this would be misleading (unlike for Aylesbury or Devizes, see County v. Borough constituencies below). Better would be to have info on the boundaries of the constituency, the sitting MP, the most recent election result, etc in the main constituency article, and then a separate List of Members of Parliament for Ipswich including all the MPs back to the Middle Ages and all the historic election results. This is the format followed for offices held such as Lord Chancellor (an article about the office) and List of Lord Chancellors and Lord Keepers (all the holders since the Conquest). Such a split would not be necessary for all constituency articles, but I completely agree that in cases such as Ipswich something should be done. Opera hat (talk) 18:18, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

A split at 1707 is wholly illogical, because there was no change in the constituencies between the English and British Parliaments. The only change was that Scottish members were admitted. If we need splits at all, the best date will be 1832 (Great Reform Act) when many consituencies were changes: some boroughs were enlarged to take in adjacent areas; some counties were split; rotten boroughs were abolished and made part of nthe county consistuency; etc. Peterkingiron (talk) 12:51, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

County v. Borough constituencies

I know this doesn't help much for the Ipswich example, but how about splitting articles where a current county constituency bears the name of a former borough constituency? After all, they are separate constituencies, with completely different boundaries and electorates, they just happen to have the same name. E.g. Aylesbury (UK Parliament constituency), Banbury (UK Parliament constituency), Christchurch (UK Parliament constituency), Devizes (UK Parliament constituency). Opera hat (talk) 16:17, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

I think that these are clear cut, as there are clear points of rupture - Christchurch and Banbury being resurrected and Aylesbury and Christchurch being transformed from urban to rural. I'm not too dogmatic that any constituency needs to be split until it is in danger of becoming unreadable. JASpencer (talk) 16:36, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Of course the question would be what would you call them as the standard convention is "Foo (UK Parliament constituency)". Would it be "Aylesbury (UK Parliament constituency) (pre-1885)", "Aylesbury (UK Parliamentary borough)" or something different? JASpencer (talk) 16:40, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

I think the current constituency would have to be the primary topic and so remain at Aylesbury (UK Parliament constituency), though in most cases it would be by far the shorter article. Aylesbury (borough constituency) would probably be sufficient for the earlier one, as for much of its existence it was not a constituency of the "UK Parliament". Opera hat (talk) 22:28, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

I've just found Midlothian (UK Parliament constituency) (for the current constituency, established 1955) and Midlothian (UK Parliament constituency) (1708–1918). I suppose as the latter was a constituency of the Parliament of Great Britain for 82 years and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for 117, "UK Parliament constituency" has the edge. Opera hat (talk) 23:06, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Much better to leave well alone. There is no real ambiguity. If we do make a break, it should not be between England/GB/UK, as the constituencies were generally the same for each. A split might be made at 1832, when rotten boroughs were abolished (or amalgamated); some boroughs were enlarged to include countryside beyond the old borough boundary; and some counties were split. There was theoretically a distinction between County and Borough consitutencies until the 1950 election, but I think it was of little practical importance. At present, we have the disambiguator (UK Parliament constituency) for all cases, but if we are going to split them, we might have "Aylesbury (Borough Constituency)" followed by "Aylesbury (County Constituency)". Bewdley is another case of this. South Staffordshire has existed at two periods for quite differnent areas. However, do we have someone who is willing to deal with this consistently over the whole of GB? Making the change would be a major undertaking. Peterkingiron (talk) 14:41, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think this would have to be done in all cases where a county division bears the name of a former borough - only in those where it was felt a single article was getting too large. Opera hat (talk) 18:15, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

I have no problem with the principle of splitting. I merely take the view that English consituencies should not be split at 1707 or 1801 as there was no electoral change when Scottsih and then Irish members were admitted to Parliament. If a split is required, the appropriate dates will be the Great Reform Act 1832 and subsequent major reorganisations. Name changes and such like have caused this to happen automatically in many cases. Peterkingiron (talk) 12:40, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I actually agree that 1832 is a far more approrpriate date to split than either of the Acts of Union as the constituencies in most cases change their nature quite dramatically. The reason why I originally split Ipswich at 1707 was the fact that the name was factually wrong and I thought that was open and shut. How wrong I was.

I also think that we should not get too worried about consistency as there are some constituency articles that are clearly unbalanced and others that aren't. When they get unbalanced then we will have a ready made solution, so it's not the end of the world that not all constituencies are dealt in exaclty the same way overnight.

JASpencer (talk) 08:09, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Byelection Article for Deletion debate

I've started an AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Durham City by-election, January 1871. It concerns uncontested ministerial by-elections where the seat did not change hands. Do they have inherent notability as by-elections or do they have to prove themselves through the WP:NOTABILITY guidelines. JASpencer (talk) 21:50, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Reverse chronological order of election results

I must enter a protest against having even election results in reverse chronological order. Off the top of my head I can't think of any other publication of election results which lists them in reverse chronological order; it is always earliest first. Sam Blacketer (talk) 19:46, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree. Opera hat (talk) 01:41, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Reverse order chronology works better. These are not articles of purely historical interest, these are areas where people live and vote. If someone was looking up something about the constituency it would be firstly about the present state of the constituency, and then the very recent past and the interest will decline in relation to how recent it was. If I knew how to report on the Wikipedia viewing figures then I could probably show this by comparing the views of current constituencies and their predecesors. JASpencer (talk) 07:49, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

I know these articles aren't stand-alone lists, so the guideline doesn't directly apply, but WP:SALORDER shows that earliest-to-latest chronological order should be standard. Opera hat (talk) 15:46, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

It would make it much harder to update an article after every election if the earliest results were at the top.

I think that having recent ones at the top would work very well. That is the information that is most likely to be wanted. The MPs list should certainly be chronological (from earliest), but the election results boxes take up a lot of space. The alternative might be to have a separate "past election results" article for each constituency, comprising all but the most recent. This would not be necessary for shortlived ones, but would be useful for some of the more ancient, which could be cluttered up with dozens of election results boxes. Peterkingiron (talk) 14:28, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
I have noticed that Canadian constituencies tend to have most recent first, so UK constituencies are not unique. I have come across a number of live news blogs that have the most recent event at the top and when that news blog ceases to be live, the events then appear in chronological order. This may be why current constituencies have the most recent elections at the top. For historical constituencies I think it makes more sense to list the results in chronological order. I don't think it is a problem to have the results running in different directions depending on wether the constituency is live or not. Graemp (talk) 19:57, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Standardisation of Format

I really think all current parliamentary constituencies, and eventually historic constituencies, should use the same format for listing elections. I'm happy to do it but I need to know which format people want used. The compact one or the long separate boxes one? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.3.238.222 (talk) 21:16, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you. Personally, I don't like the compact list as I don't think it is reader friendly. These are very much the minority and perhaps could be changed by someone like yourself. Graemp (talk) 20:02, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Page move

Can someone please advise how I deal with this - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lanark_and_Hamilton_East_(UK_Parliament_constituency)&redirect=no ?

I have advised the editor about the naming conventions here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(UK_Parliament_constituencies)

doktorb _words^deeds 08:52, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:48, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Expert attention

This is a notice about Category:UK Parliament constituencies articles needing expert attention, which might be of interest to your WikiProject. It will take a while before the category is populated. Iceblock (talk) 04:44, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

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Harej (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

An alternative approach to old constituencies

We've been having quite a few arguments about whether or where to split the sixty odd continuous constituencies. While I still think that there is merit in splitting the constituencies one way around one of the major problems might be to hive off the lists of MPs as separate pages.

So for example with Ipswich (UK Parliament constituency) there could be a page created called List of MPs for Ipswich which would have the full list of MPs. Meanwhile the previous century of MPs would still appear on both the main and list pages. For any famous MPs from more than a century ago there could be some discussion in the history section but there would not need to be the full listing.

This would neatly sidestep the debate of where to split the constituency (there are a number of candidates), allow for some discrepancy between splin and non split pages, preserve the data and make for more readable main pages.

As most election results are recent then they will not need to come under this.

JASpencer (talk) 12:05, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

As the debate has gone quiet, is this an approach that could work? JASpencer (talk) 19:23, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

I like Contents formatting. Contents makes it easy for readers to locate what they want on a page, no matter how big that page. Graemp (talk) 19:45, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't see any consensus for change. Naming and format of constituency articles has been previously well-covered, but keeps on resurfacing with monotonous regularity - that most editors don't see the need to revisit this topic every few months should not be seen as an excuse to slip changes through. If the case (to move some history from some articles) were accepted it would have to be applied universally, thereby doubling the number of constituency articles - a most unsatisfactory outcome. If you're not interested in the summary of historic results on a small proportion of articles then skip through to the article section you are interested in. Fan

| talk | 05:34, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Why would it have to be applied universally? Opera hat (talk) 09:21, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Two things. Firstly this is not creating two constituency pages, it's creating subsidiary pages. I'm saying that as an alternative to creating an Ipswich constituency article for (say) pre pre 1918 Ipswich, pre 1832 Ipswich or pre (either) Act of Union Ipswich to create a more specialised list page showing the full list of MPs going back to the 1300s. There could be a shorter list on the page itself. Secondly, as Opera Hat says, this clearly does not need to be universal. There are only around 60 articles that have this unreadable MP bloat - and they can be dealt with on an as needed basis. JASpencer (talk) 09:31, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I am sorry to see this proposal, because it seems to me to be a bad solution to a non-problem; bad in concept and bad in practice.

Looking at the article on Ipswich (UK Parliament constituency), the first screenful includes a table of contents which allows me to jump directly to §3.4 MPs 1918–present. That works fine; I zoomed straight past the earlier MPs without seeing the list. But if I had wanted to see them, there was a set of handy links in the ToC to take me right there.

The alternative idea -- of splitting out the earlier MPs -- if a bad idea in practice because it would impede readers by slowing navigation between the different sections. Instead of jumping around one page, readers would have to load another page with a separate ToC.

Another malign side effect of a split is that readers would also lose the ability to search one page for a name. Imagine a reader who heard of someone called Kelly who was MP for Ipswich at some point. Right now, just open up the page, press Ctl-F and search for Kelly: hey presto, a link to Fitzroy Kelly, briefly an IPswich MP in 1835. With a split, the same exercise requires loading a separate page and searching again there.

A split would also be bad in practice for editors, requiring a huge amount of additional work to implement the split across hundreds of articles, setting up navigational devices such as new categories and lists and checking that subpages are clearly linked. Even so, it will still impede checking backlinks, because while an now always appears in a "Foo (UK Parliament constituency)" page, that won't necessarily be the case after a split.

Those are practical problems, but the conceptual problems are as great. Why is a more recent MP regarded as more significant than an earlier one? For example, split at 1885 would retain in the Ipswich list John Ganzoni, an early 20th-century MP who rose without trace to the obscurity of being Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Postmaster-General ... but exclude the noted economist Robert Torrens who was an Ipswich MP in the 1820s, Admiral Home Riggs Popham, Gladstone's brothers John and Thomas, the Tory Thomas Milner Gibson who later became a noted free trader, and the noted land reformer Jesse Collings.

This WP:RECENTIST proposal would sweep all that history away into a dusty cupboard. Why, o why? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:44, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

2015 UK General election results

I have been checking a number of the Wikipedia entries relating to the 2015 election results. The basic results - in terms of how many votes each candidate got - are probably usually correct but the figures for the turnout are not. The reason is that the total electorate for 7 May 2015 has to be sourced from the individual constituencies and not all local councils publish this information. Are Wiki editors dealing with particular areas of the country? There is only a certain amount of time and there is no point in duplicating what others have done. The Electoral commission is supposedly collating all this data and meanwhile the House of Commons Library is quite a good source but not perfect. Cantab72 (talk) 17:16, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Constituencies

Currently a large number of constituency articles start in the following way:

Wycombe /ˈwɪkəm/ is a constituency^{[n 1]} represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Steve Baker, a Conservative.^{[n 2]}

^ A county constituency (for the purposes of election expenses and type of returning officer)
^ As with all constituencies, the constituency elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election at least every five years.

I could not find any discussion of where this style was decided but from the ubiquity of it, I suppose there must have been some. However, there are several problems with this.

Generally, if something is useful and relevant, it should be in the text. If it is not useful or relevant, it should not be in the article at all. Putting information in footnotes makes the significance or relevance of the information unclear.
Footnotes and citations placed in the middle of a sentence are aesthetically displeasing and interrupt the flow of the article
Here, you're interrupting the sentence after a mere 4 words, to give some information in a footnote which is of very little interest and probably doesn't even need to be mentioned at all in individual constituency articles
The second footnote contains information about constituencies in general, which is properly placed in the article about constituencies. Putting it in a footnote in every single individual constituency article is massively redundant.

I suggest that simply omitting the footnotes would improve these articles. If you feel that the information is of such relevance to individual constituency articles that it needs including in the lead, then the following would be an improvement:

Wycombe /ˈwɪkəm/ is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Steve Baker, a Conservative. As with all constituencies, the constituency elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election at least every five years. For the purposes of election expenses and type of returning officer, Wycombe is a county constituency.

I also posted this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom. 66.91.24.128 (talk) 06:50, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree completely. I'd probably tend towards still including the information though - if a visitor to the article doesn't know this already, it saves them having to follow another link to find it out. Opera hat (talk) 08:53, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Updated Maps?

Hi all,

I have created updated maps. But am seeking approval/feedback before progressing with their upload.

This was instigated by MapLift: http://nacis.org/maplift/

Where someone wanted the Edinburgh West map updated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_West_(UK_Parliament_constituency)

Since it is part of a series, the UK Parliament constituencies series, it made no sense to update just one. Rather creating an updated map for all of them seemed the best approach.

So currently you can see the example map in, the second map on that page.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_West_(UK_Parliament_constituency)

As a further set of examples I present: Ashfield: https://www.flickr.com/photos/115987875@N04/21115244688/in/dateposted-public/

Arundel and South Downs: https://www.flickr.com/photos/115987875@N04/21303127025/in/dateposted-public/¨

Amber Valley: https://www.flickr.com/photos/115987875@N04/20682016813/in/dateposted-public/

Altrincham and Sale West: https://www.flickr.com/photos/115987875@N04/21115032090/in/dateposted-public/

Aldridge-Brownhills: https://www.flickr.com/photos/115987875@N04/21311267361/in/dateposted-public/

Aldershot: https://www.flickr.com/photos/115987875@N04/21115246348/in/dateposted-public/

In total there are 632 maps in the series, so none for Northern Ireland. These are also very easily updateable once the boundary commission reviews are completed.

My questions are: Do you think these would be beneficial to the Wiki articles on the constituencies? If so, do you have any suggestions for improvements? Is there any way to upload these in bulk, or will that be a manual process.

Best regards,

Heikki — Preceding unsigned comment added by Heikki.vesanto (talk • contribs) 19:41, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Gloucestershire South/ South Gloucestershire

Would an expert from this project please comment at talk:South Gloucestershire (UK Parliament constituency) and, if they see fit, revert some of today's edits to that article. I've had enough of this editor's idiosyncratic approach to the encyclopedia. (See edits to South Gloucestershire etc) PamD 14:36, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

I've [South Gloucestershire (UK Parliament constituency) reverted] the article edits, which seemed not to contribute anything positive to the article, but would welcome expert attention. PamD 14:47, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

County or Borough

The article on South Gloucestershire (UK Parliament constituency) has identified it as a Borough constituency since BHG added an infobox in Jan 2007 (text doesn't appear till you look at the source, as it's in a no-longer-used infobox template). But the London Gazette 1959 results call it a County constituency. Could someone with a definitive source clarify this? Thanks. PamD 06:41, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

It's also listed as a county constituency in the 1977 Electoral Statistics: Parliamentary and Local Government Electors in Constituencies and Local Government Areas of England and Wales (p.6), so it looks like it was a county constituency throughout its existence. Warofdreams talk 21:34, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Combined English Universities (UK Parliament constituency) listed at Requested moves

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Liberal Unionists

I recently made this addition to the page of an unsuccessful candidate in the 1885 and 1886 general elections. While doing so, I noticed that the Pudsey (UK Parliament constituency) section for the 1886 election lists Arthur William Rucker as the Conservative candidate, when in fact he was the Liberal Unionist Party candidate. Should this be changed? They did merge in 1912, but before that they were separate parties. The 1886 election page initially lists the Liberal Unionists separately, but then gives results combined for 'Conservative & Liberal Unionist'. How should it be done on the individual constituency pages? Rossendale (UK Parliament constituency) is an example where the Liberal Unionist candidate is marked as such. I haven't changed the Pudsey page, as I wanted to check the party is correct - are detailed 1886 election results online? Carcharoth (talk) 17:17, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

FWS Craig in British Parliamentary Election Results lists Rucker in 86 as LU. Craig is reliable on this subject. The source in the Pudsey article calling him a Conservative comes from The Times which is less reliable on this subject. You should feel free to change this label to LU. I think it is helpful to distinguish between the two Unionist parties in constituency articles. Graemp (talk) 17:35, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Just to add to that comment. Fred Craig did his best to get accurate designations but there is a later piece of scholarship which is authoritative - 'The Candidates of the Liberal Unionist Party, 1886–1912' by Wesley Ferris (Parliamentary History, Vol. 30, pt. 2 (2011), pp. 142–157). Ferris in effect corrects the candidate designations given by Craig. As he doesn't mention Arthur William Rucker nor the Pudsey division, Ferris accepts that Craig's designation of Rucker as a Liberal Unionist is accurate. If that wasn't enough, the Leeds Mercury of 17 June 1886 (p. 4) states "There is, it is stated, a probability of Mr. A. W. Rücker, who contested North Leeds at the General Election, opposing Mr. Briggs Priestley, as a Liberal Unionist in the Pudsey Division". Sam Blacketer (talk) 18:40, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks all. Confusingly, the 1993 and later 2004 onwards ODNB article all say that Rucker was a Liberal Unionist candidate in both the 1885 and 1886 elections. Surely that must be wrong as the Liberal Unionists did not form until 1886, though the split appears to be more gradual than that. Would the name 'Liberal Unionist' have formally been used on ballot papers at the time? (Elections back then were a funny business with a limited franchise, I have no idea how voting was actually done given there were 'only' about 9000 votes in the Leeds North constituency, for example.) Carcharoth (talk) 07:00, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Party names were not given on ballot papers until 1970. The ballot itself was fairly new in 1886 (the first UK Parliamentary election held by secret ballot was the Pontefract by-election in August 1872, and the 1885 was the first general election in which all voters used the secret ballot). No Liberal candidate in 1885 would have campaigned as a 'Liberal Unionist' as the issue wasn't live in Britain until Gladstone's support for Home Rule was suddenly announced in December. It's possible, but unlikely, that a candidate in Britain might have mentioned their opposition to Irish Home Rule in the 1885 election campaign. So I suspect the Oxford DNB reference is probably a case of clumsy editing. Sam Blacketer (talk) 10:03, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I suspect a number of other 'Conservative' candidates in the 1886-1912 period may have actually been Liberal Unionist candidates. Is there any way to easily systematically check this sort of thing? Would a combination of Craig and Ferris be the best sources to use? There were seven general elections in that period. How many candidates would need checking? Is there any way to bot-check whether the main election pages and the entries on the constituency pages actually agree on number of candidates for each party, etc? Just for that 26-year period. Would this also have affected local elections? I see from Template:United Kingdom elections that coverage on Wikipedia of UK local elections only really goes back to 1969, though there are three blue-links in the 1890s! How far back does the history of local elections in the UK go? Carcharoth (talk) 10:49, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

A Craig/Ferris combo will probably get most labels right. In my experience, the description is more likely to be wrong in wikipedia biographical articles than constituency articles. I once spent time researching a particular individual who was correctly described as LU in one election and Con in another election. The difference was attributable to the name of the local association that adopted him. If there is doubt about the exact label, it is easier to on-line check that candidate's adoption announcement in the newspapers than to check what was in that candidate's election literature. Graemp (talk) 08:06, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Batley and Spen (UK Parliament constituency) listed at Requested moves

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[1] A county constituency (for the purposes of election expenses and type of returning officer)

[2] As with all constituencies, the constituency elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election at least every five years.

[n 1]

[n 2]