# Talk:2016 London mayoral election

There's quite an edit dispute over the inclusion of Sian Berry on the infobox, although I think it's been discussed before, I think it would be beneficial for us to discuss it again. I'm personally neutral on inclusion, although I think Berry should be on the second row. A 5% threshold for infobox inclusion is a very valid argument, although it is odd to include Berry when she was never considered a major candidate, and it was always seen as a fight between Khan and Goldsmith.
For precedent, candidates with 5% of the vote have been included on the infobox in 2000 and 2004. They were not included in 2008, and no smaller candidates got more than 5% in 2012. I think that this decision should set a precedent for 2004 and 2008, with 2000 being an exception as Livingstone, Norris, Dobson and Kramer were all considered as major candidates, they should be included. JackWilfred (talk) 00:24, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

If you look at the discussion above under "infobox", there were editors (BondegezouAusLondonder) arguing for 5% threshold and no dissent, so far as I can see.  To change the criterion after the election would suggest bias.  DrArsenal (talk) 07:36, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
As you can now see as you put it there is dissent. Consensus can change applies here and consensus does change. Only the run-off candidates should be included, see 2008 and 2012 results pages as well, the candidates hovering around the deposit retaining level and those on minute votes, came no where near winning, and should not clutter and crown the infobox simply by standing, either include every candidate or just the candidates in the run-off.
Berry is my local councillor, and I've always voted against her. So I've decided to excuse myself from discussions about her as too WP:COIish. Bondegezou (talk) 08:10, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
Comment I think in general 5% would probably be a good inclusion criteria, but I'm not set on it. On the other hand, I can see some merit for only including Khan and Goldsmith. AusLondonder (talk) 03:22, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
5% is an arbitrary limit, there's no reason to stick to that. Independent sources in the vast majority portray this as a race between Khan and Goldsmith, that's how it's been covered and understood, and that's how the infobox should portray it. If we're talking WP:COI  @Bondegezou: then I'm a Green Party member who was previously run for election as a councillor, but I can still see here that Berry is not a major part of this election story, as heartening as her good perforamnce was! --Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 08:47, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
5% isn't purely arbitrary in the way 10% or 4% would be - it has significance in terms of deposit being returned or not, and probably because of this has been used as threshold in past Mayoral elections - eg London mayoral election, 2000 and London mayoral election, 2004.  London mayoral election, 2012 didn't have any candidate other than the top two over 5%, but the post election discussion centered around whether to include the 3rd candidate anyway, or whether to apply a 5% threshold (with User:Bondegezou arguing for a 5% threshold.  So either way, on that argument, Berry should be included this time.
London mayoral election, 2008 is the one London mayoral exception, but it has been an issue of dispute amongst editors and the only discussion on the 'talk' page for it seems to agree a 1% threshold, rather than the current form of the infobox there.
In addition, post election, Berry has received RS coverage [1] about how well she did of a sort that candidates finishing 4th or lower didn't get.  DrArsenal (talk) 09:57, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
I'll grant you that 5% does have some logic to it. I agree that if we were to follow this then Berry should be included. My argument is that taking a percentage in the vote for includsion is not the best way of deciding this.
Of course there have been articles about Berry; there've been articles about the performance of Pidgeon, Whittle, Walker, Galloway and Golding at the very least. I've included a note on Berry's good performance in the 'aftermath' of the article, and that's where it belongs; it's relevant for the page, but not in the infobox. If we look at summaries of the election from major UK news outlets (BBC, [ http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/07/sadiq-khan-elected-mayor-of-london-labour Guardian], Daily Mail, Yahoo and Telegraph) only one, the Telegraph, has a mention of Berry in a results table, which also includes Pidgeon and Whittle. I think we can conclude that in a summary of the election, her result is not notable. Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 10:36, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
In simplicity Berry was so far away from winning she does not merit inclusion in the infobox. The cut off line shoudl be who is in the final round in the infobox. The rest of the candidates, the also rans, can adequately be covered in the main body of the article. Adding Berry just because she passed 5% is arbitrary and not sensible when representing the overall elections. Berry came no where near wining, and only Kahn and Goldsmith came close and they made round 2. So the infobox should be those who made round two and noting else. There is a run off and the infobox should only be the run off. Including more candidates will just have perpetual arguments of include X and Y and then include everyone, which is no good. Berry out Kahn and Goldsmith in. Sport and politics (talk) 21:17, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

I don't see the problem in a case-by-case approach, based upon how reliable sources have summarized the election. If Berry had been considered a competitor, like Simon Hughes in 2004 or Frank Dobson in 2000, then she could be included. We don't need a 5% rule, but we also don't need a 'final round only' rule. We need a 'how have sources reported the election' rule! Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 08:37, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
Interesting that after nothing said in this discussion for days User:Sport and politics contributes and then makes the claim in an edit summary that "discussion is ongoing".  As for the idea she puts forward that "Berry was so far away from winning", well, Berry won well over half the number of votes cast that Goldsmith did, taking account of second preferences as well as first (618991 vs 1159969), getting more 2nd preferences than any other candidate.  A significant part of how far Berry was away from winning is the question of just how far those 2nd preferences were from being 1st preferences for her, which of course we don't know.  DrArsenal (talk) 11:13, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
First thing please focus exclusively on the substance of the contributions, and not on the perceived motives of any contributor. Simply not contributing for a few days does not invalidate a users participation in a discussion. Always assume good faith. No comments for a short period of time does not cease a discussion from being ongoing, a prolonged period, then fine the discussion has either gone stale or concluded. 3 days, I think not. Individuals have real lives outside of Wikipeida and multiple different individuals will comment at different stages. Always work inline with consensus building. My position is simple, the infobox shoudl only contain the two candidates who made the second round. All other candidates are also rans. The split between first and second round is easy to understand for outside users, and is highly logical. The candidates in the second round advanced to the stage where winning was possible, no other candidates advanced to a point where they had any chance of winning. If a candidate won in the first round then the infobox would rightly be different. As the election went to a second round why are candidates who did not advance given the same prominence as those who stood the only chance of winning. finally beginning to argue on second preferences becoming first preferences, and adding second preferences in to a candidate who did not advance to the second round, is a large leap in to original research and wild speculation. Second preferences only count if a candidates makes the second round, and then the candidate they are against in the second round their second preferences need to be removed from those second preferences, meaning the number in the actual final round will vary on the basis of who the two candidates are in the final round, with is more speculation and original research..Sport and politics (talk) 12:39, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
It's not entirely easy to focus on the contributions of someone who as part of a lecture about 'good faith' includes the line "Individuals have real lives outside of Wikipeida and multiple different individuals will comment at different stages."  Of course.  I knew that.  But it is, of course, quite irrelevant to your case, since you had edited pages on each of the days in between: 8 pages in all.  I didn't make any accusations of bad faith: you seem to have inferred them.
And no, "adding second preferences in to a candidate who did not advance to the second round" is NOT original research at all.  You might reasonably have thought it was a  calculation by me, but such calculations are explicitly excluded from the meaning of "original research" (thus meaning your point falls).  But beyond this the calculation was actually done by the people who ran the election [2]. Whether to include such numbers in the article should not be a matter of discussion around original research, so much as whether it meets the (quite generous) limits on what to include.  Now, of course, including in the body of the article unsourced arguments about what the implications of that addition might be would be original research or speculation (on that we are agreed).  But I wasn't suggesting including any such arguments in the article.  I wasn't even suggesting including the data on the page, nor was I even speculating on the talk page - I ended by saying "which of course we don't know".  So, attempting to claim it would be a leap into original research and speculation is a long way from the truth.  If we are going to "work inline with consensus building", making such erroneous claims as part of the discussion really does not help.
So far as I can interpret your position, its logical implication is that articles about the Mayoral Elections in 2000 and 2004 were wrong in including the third place candidate in the infobox.  Is that correct?  DrArsenal (talk) 23:10, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
5% seems totally arbitrary to me - the two round nature of the race makes it intuitive to show only the top two candidates as we did on other pages. Honestly it feels like someone pulled the number out of thin air as a means to overstate the importance of the Green Party in the race. It does not appear she was substantially more reported on than any other third candidate in the race this time round. My preference is definitely for second round only - adding the Greens, Lib Dems, or UKIP because they did well that particular year seems wrong. Maswimelleu (talk) 06:35, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
5% is the legal cut-off for saving your deposit, so it has some foundation and is not wholly arbitrary. Of course, "saving your deposit" is not necessarily the same as "sufficiently notable to be highlighted in a Wikipedia article infobox", but that's why 5% was picked as the threshold. Bondegezou (talk) 15:24, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
You might not like 5%, but it certainly isn't "totally arbitrary", since it is both the threshold for deposit retention and also the threshold, in the Assembly election, for getting representation in the Assembly.  5% was being argued for as the appropriate threshold before polling day, so please respect the possibility of good faith reasons for it having been chosen. DrArsenal (talk) 22:11, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

This article on how the second preferences went, with link to the official results, was interesting. Worth including somehow? Bondegezou (talk) 16:15, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

More generally there is the official 'London Elects' too, which gives an official source for 2nd preferences that weren't counted, but I can't work out how to put them in the 'results' table without breaking it.  DrArsenal (talk) 10:53, 21 May 2016 (UTC)
We could have a second table? They are of interest, but not a direct part of the process that elected Khan. Bondegezou (talk) 09:44, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
My only comment there is that this might be a bit much in the results section, as it's very high up the page. It's also quite complex to explain the relevance and detail of it all (particularly as Goldsmith/Khan voters effectively know that their 2nd preference had no impact). We already had a note that Berry received the most 2nd prefs; the other interesting point might be that Goldsmith came in fourth? I'd be happy to see something worked in, but if it's going to be up at the top of the page, it will have to be brief. --Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 09:51, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
What about an additional section after "Opinion polls" called something like "Analysis of results" with the second preferences and anything else relevant, e.g. geographic analyses of the vote? Bondegezou (talk) 11:18, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
Yes, that sounds like a good idea! --Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 14:04, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
Have made a start. Bondegezou (talk) 16:32, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
Appreciate the start but it damages the page done like that. I suggest starting it in a /sandbox or some place else; I won't contribute myself as to be honest I think that this borders on trivia, but if people want to add it I wouldn't remove it. Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 08:24, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
WP:PERFECTION? People are more likely to pitch in if they see something to start with. Bondegezou (talk) 08:53, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
[reduce indent] There's a huge gap between asking for perfection and removing a two sentence subsection of the page that consisted of a line that had been moved up the article, a statement about second preference votes which repeats what was previously on the page, and one reference added that you couldn't even be bothered to reference properly with a citation template. So yes, given that I'm sceptical of the value of this section anyway, I think that this needs more work. I also disagree with the title of the section, on further reflection - it's not our job to analyse the results. I suggest that this would work as a sentence or paragraph in the aftermath part of the page. Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 11:01, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, that comment is probably a bit grumpy - I didn't mean to bite. However, I do think that if we're going to start sections for people to improve upon, we need to offer a little bit more than was put in the article. Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 11:06, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
No offence taken. I think offering something is usually better than offering nothing: that is the Wikipedia way. And I'd say it is our job to report on how others have analysed the results. I'll have a look for more content at some point.
I feel there's a distinction between a consideration of the results and the aftermath. It's interesting, to one audience, to see the breakdown of the results in different ways. It's interesting, to another audience, what happened next in terms of criticisms of Goldsmith's campaign, certain Mayoral candidates getting elected to the Assembly &c. Bondegezou (talk) 11:14, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

User:Super Nintendo Chalmers and I have reverted edits by User:Tiller54, who when s/he changed the article the second time gave the logic "Election articles are ordered sequentially - the background, then candidate selection, then the campaign, then the results, then the aftermath."  
It may be true that this is what election articles do, but I am not convinced it is the right thing for any of them to do.  Can somebody point me to a discussion where this has been properly considered, please (not just another 'we should maintain consistency')?  DrArsenal (talk) 19:55, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

I've seen it both ways, although chronologically more usually. I personally prefer having the results near the top: that's the bit people want to read. Bondegezou (talk) 08:15, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
The chronological approach makes sense for the broad structure, but I agree with Bondegezou: we've got to accept that the full results are one of the key features that people come here for. --Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 18:21, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

The description that no other candidate received more than 6% in the first round is a clear violation of WP:NPOV. It has been deliberately selected to be just higher than the third place candidate Sian Berry who received 5.8% of the vote. Normally 5% is considered the standard for having obtained a significant result, hence Berry's inclusion in the infobox. This is the same rule applied on all London mayoral election pages, and is also used for most election pages across the whole of Wikipedia. It would be equally true to write that Sadiq Khan was the only candidate to receive over 44% (Goldsmith receiving 35% in the first round, and 43.1% in the second, compared to Khan's 44.2% in the first round, and 56.9% in the second) yet to write that would almost certainly be condemned as breaching NPOV. Only discussing the results of the top two candidates in the lead is a neutral presentation of the facts. Alternatively, we could actually add a line to say that Berry was the only over candidate to receive more than 5% of the vote in the first round. In an effort to remain neutral however I have not added such a statement and would only do so if a consensus was reached to do so. The current attempts to re-add the 6% claim however are frankly unacceptable. Ebonelm (talk) 13:10, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

What you call "deliberately selected to be just higher than the third place candidate", I would call "a description of what the results were". The article makes clear what the results were and there's an infobox right there with Berry and her percentage in it, so she hasn't been shortchanged. But it's a fair summary of the result that there was a biiiiiiiiiiig gap between Khan/Goldsmith and Berry. Meanwhile, the gap between Berry and Pidgeon was pretty small, even if they're either side of a 5% threshold, so I think it would be unbalanced to start going on about Berry early on without mentioning the others.
Having said that, I did say I was ruling myself out of Berry coverage discussions (see above)! Bondegezou (talk) 13:34, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
The mention of 6%, which has been chosen simply to illustrate the size of the gap is not particularly good.  It would be better to say "10%", or "the only other candidate who got over 5% was Sian Berry (on 5.8%)", or "Goldsmith was more than 25% ahead of the next candidate", or even "Goldsmith was almost 30% ahead of the next candidate". In fact, almost anything would be better than what is there at the moment.  DrArsenal (talk) 22:46, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
I can't quite see the problem myself. As Bondgezou states, the point is to provide a quick illustration about the huge gap between 2nd and 3rd. 6% is a rounding up of Berry's 5.8; we could put "No candidate received more than 5.8% of the vote", but it seems a little pedantic. "Goldsmith was more than 25% ahead of the next candidate" is also fine, as is "the remaining candidates received 21% of the vote between them". I think we can reword it, though I do think the current wording seems fine - my reason for reverting is really that I couldn't see quite what Ebonelm's problem precisely with the sentence was, and therefore couldn't really offer an alternative, and the sentiment is a key part of the summary of the election. Dr Arsenal's two suggestions "Goldsmith was more..." both work, through frankly I only see that as a reworking of what's currently there! Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 19:11, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
I just want to say that I think that no matter what wording we have in the intro, having Berry (and no other third party) in the infobox looks bad, especially since her lead over the Lib Dems was quite small and the gap between her and Goldsmith is massive. I'd rather we only listed the two second-round candidates as we did for the 2012 election, but alternatively we could list all the parties that won seats in the London Assembly (Labour, Conservative, Greens, Lib Dems, UKIP). Smurrayinchester 10:51, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
Well the London Assembly Election is a different matter, and has its own page - I don't see a logic there. You can read the discussion above re: Berry - I was slightly on the side of not including as most sources agree that this was a two horse race, but I can see the logic in having a consistent standard of 5% across these elections (which relates logically to the deposit win/loss). I really don't think it makes a big difference either way to be honest. Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 10:55, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
This problem was settled months and months ago I'm slightly confused why its being discussed again six months later while the article has remained stable. The 2012 election is the only Mayoral election so far in which only two candidates have made it into the infobox and frankly its really irritating because it means that we have to present first and second round election results without an candidates appearing to have been eliminated. The point of the 5% rule is that is the threshold required to keep one's deposit in the Mayoral election (and most other British elections), it is a standard threshold used on many election articles across Wikipedia (though inclusion criteria does vary depending on the rules of the country in question and/or the type of election). The point is that the Green's received their deposit back but the Lib Dems didn't. Some would argue that over an entire percentage point of difference is a large ammount (elections have been won or lost by that margin). An additional benefit is that having at least three candidates in the infobox means that the first and second round numbers make more sense. Also having a fixed inclusion criteria is beneficial, with no fixed criteria we would be having endless debates about who exactly should and shouldnt be in the infobox, take for example the 2004 election, is Hughes getting 15% enough? Listing candidates by Assembly election results is just bizarre they are separate elections, and anyway how would you order the candidates would the Lib Dems who came fourth in the Mayoral election have to be placed in fifth position because that's where the came in the Assembly elections? Ebonelm (talk) 15:42, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

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What about the left and Labour Muslims trying to play the antisemitism card trying to win over anti-jewish muslim voters by refering in a negative way to the jewish belief system of the Conservative party opponent?
46.93.240.215 (talk) 02:44, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia is based on reliable sources. Do you have any reliable sources reporting this? Please share them here if you do. Bondegezou (talk) 08:40, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
Here we go:
https://www.ft.com/content/d5b5361c-111a-11e6-839f-2922947098f0
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/will-a-nasty-row-over-alleged-anti-semitism-ruin-sadiq-khans-chances-of-becoming-londons-mayor/
46.93.240.215 (talk) 21:24, 8 May 2021 (UTC)