Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian politics/Electorates

message: The first issue we're going to have to work out with this WikiProject is what naming convention we're going to use for our electorate articles.
We currently have four states with at least one electorate article, and all four are using different conventions.
* Electoral district of Albany (Western Australia)
* Electoral division of MacDonnell (Northern Territory)
* Electoral District of Mitchell (South Australia)
* State Electoral District of Strathfield, New South Wales (New South Wales
...as well as the federal convention, Division of Melbourne Ports.
I think it'd be nice if these could generally be standardised - any suggestions as to what? Ambi 08:02, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It may be that each state calls them something different - the South Australian ones are electoral districts according to the State Electoral Office. Victoria seems to have districts in the lower house and provinces for the upper house according to the Victorian Electoral Commission --ScottDavis 15:25, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: Looks good to me. Should it be "Electoral District of..." (like Mitchell and Strathfield above) or "Electoral district of..." (like Albany and MacDonnell) when it's the name of the district? --ScottDavis 00:05, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I prefer the latter personally. A bit of a Google search seems to suggest that the electoral commissions don't capitalise it, and this would fit with the convention of not capitalising things that aren't proper nouns. Ambi 02:03, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Any other thoughts on this? Ambi 08:17, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll cast my vote for the latter too.  I had a quick look at the enabling legislation for elections in WA, and it uses "electoral districts" i.e. all lower case. Hesperian 06:12, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Alright, perhaps we should go with this then. Ambi 06:15, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: General conventions

message: The one other issue here is that of disambiguation. Should we just tack (South Australia) or (Victoria) onto the end of a non-unique electorate name, or should we pre-disambiguate all electorates (i.e. have South Australian electoral district of Mitchell. Ambi 08:17, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd prefer full capitalisation for references to a specific district. Looking around Electoral Commission websites and searching specific electorates showed that this was commonplace. I won't push at it though. As for disabmiguating clauses, I prefer the brackets option, as that is done more often for poltics topics in general. I don't like the way the way the Canadian electoral districts are named (which often have no clause at all), but maybe there is something in their organisation.-- Cyberjunkie TALK 09:14, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for picking up the Canadian categorisation - I like that a lot, as it deals with both state and federal-level electorates quite well. I'll wait a little longer to see if anyone else feels like chipping in, else I'll start moving them to the capitalised version. Ambi 10:24, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll agree with "full capitalisation for references to a specific district", but only for the official name of the district itself.  i.e. if the name of the district is North District, then District should be capitalised; but if the name of the district is North West Coastal, then North West Coastal should be fully capitalised but the word district in Electoral district of North West Coastal should not be capitalised since it does not form part of the official district name. Hesperian 06:23, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Is this fine with everyone? There seems to be general agreement in regards to lower houses, and I'd like to get started on implementing this for the lower houses of Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia - the Legislative Councils should probably wait until we sort out the issues below. Ambi 06:36, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Fine with me. I preempted the decision with a few links with a capital 'D', but they can be fixed. --ScottDavis 07:39, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Disambiguation

message: Do you think we'll eventually need an article like Electoral district (Canada), possibly titled Electorates of Australia? It could serve as a parent to federal divisions and state electoral districts.-- Cyberjunkie TALK 10:31, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It certainly wouldn't hurt. It might be nice to have an article about Australian electoral districts in general (as with the Canadian one) and then more specific ones for each state and territory, explaining how they work in that state and listing the electorates there (i.e. Electoral divisions of the Northern Territory, which I know isn't very helpful at the moment, but I hope you get what I mean). Ambi 10:44, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I find the title Electorates of Australia a tad misleading, since for example the Electoral districts of Western Australia are not Electorates of Australia.  They are, however, Electorates in Australia, and I think this would be a more appropriate title.  Hesperian 06:12, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Ambi 06:15, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Electoral district article?

message: I think we've pretty much straightened out the lower houses - I've been going around fixing these up, and they seem to be looking quite a bit better.
There's two more issues remaining - 
Firstly, the Tasmanian lower house uses the same divisions as the federal parliament. What do we do here? They used to have a list of state members as well, but Adam erased them a few months ago, and I'm not sure that was the way to go anyway.
Secondly, the Legislative Council issue remains. Any more thoughts there? Ambi 1 July 2005 09:32 (UTC)
:I wrote something on the talk page for Division of Denison, Tasmania, but this seems like the more appropriate place. Since Tasmanian lower house electorates use Federal boundaries, I suggest we merge them. None of the articles are large enough to justify splitting off, and I think it's valuable to be able to see who are the state members alongside who is the federal member. As well as this, geographical and demographic information is the same. Braue 01:17, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Last bunch of anomalies

message: It would be really nice if there were a set of guidelines somewhere and an easy way to get to them from each of the electorate pages.  An easy way to get to this page would be nice too.
-- Newhoggy | Talk 05:01, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a good point.  Re: duplicate linking, in theory we shouldn't link duplicates, but sometimes it's annoying to have to scroll up a lot if the last Labor member (say) held the seat in the 1940s, and the politician you're looking at now was voted out in 2004, so I'd support the use of duplicate links for parties in particular, and perhaps members as well.  The dash character should always be an en dash (–), but often people will use a hyphen (-) because they don't know how to use an actual dash. fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 10:46, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What Mark said. Rebecca 08:33, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I think just "Australian Labor Party" is best, for clarity — a non-Australian won't need to click on the link to find out who the ALP are.  But it can depend on space constraints, too.  I think in most cases we have enough room to use the full name of a party. fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 14:40, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Which ABC are you referring too? -- Newhoggy | Talk 01:05, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Guidelines

message: How about we list our positions on these things in a table?
Decision                                                                         	For	Against	Resolution
Always use titles in lists for all MPs that have them.                           	   	
* Newhoggy
* Rebecca 08:33, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm obviously coming to this debate pretty late but where a Party is mentioned multiple times would it be OK to use the full name the first time it is used and then shorten it to Liberal, Labor, National, Greens ect.  I am asking regarding my work at the Electoral districts of Thuringowa, Mundingburra and Townsville articles. Thanks, WikiTownsvillian 10:07, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it'd be better to be consistent the whole way through - either use Liberal, and link it to the article at the full title, or use the full Liberal party of Australia all the way through. Rebecca 11:58, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coming to a resolution? 

message: NSW uses "Member", "Party affiliation", "Period", SA uses "Member", "Party", "Term".  I propose all NSW articles adopt the SA column headings because they are clearer and shorter. -- Newhoggy | Talk 05:47, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Table columns 

message: SA uses an assortment custom table attributes resulting in a table with darker column headings.  NSW uses the standard "wikitable" class giving tables with light column headings matching the colour scheme of Wikipedia.  I propose that SA tables be styled using the NSW method, which is more concise, constitent and manageable.  -- Newhoggy | Talk 05:49, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So long as it's consistent across the board, I don't care which format is used.--cj | talk 05:23, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Table style 

message: The way the categories are organised is unsatisfactory - :Category:Electoral divisions of Australia refers to Divisions of the Australian House of Representatives yet contains categories for state electorates. Perhaps :Category:Electoral divisions of Australia should exclusively list Australian federal electorates and, along with categories for state electorates, be placed in a more general category to be named Australian electorates. Thus, the cats would be organised as follows:
:Category:Politics of Australia
::Category:Australian electorates
:::Category:Electoral divisions of Australia
:::Category:Electoral districts of New South Wales
:::Category:Electoral districts of Queensland
:::Category:Electoral districts of South Australia
:::Category:Electoral divisions of Tasmania
:::Category:Electoral districts of Victoria
:::Category:Electoral districts of Western Australia
:::Category:Electoral regions of Western Australia
::etc
MH au 05:42, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Did you mean to have the state categories indented at the same level as ? If so, I agree with that type of structure. However, "Electoral divisions of Australia" does sound as though it could be the name of a the general category. JPD (talk) 10:45, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You are right - that was my intention - I have altered it accordingly. The use of "Electoral divisions of Australia" was for consistency with the state cats. MH au 05:50, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Electorate categories 

message: mForgive me if I don't see it, but in the tables with the results for each electoral district, how are the candidates ordered. For example, I would think the top candidate would be the one with the most votes. Can someone explain the pattern to me? Joe 09:24 6 August 2007 (UTC)
:Presumably it is the order that they appeared on the ballot paper. JPD (talk) 12:07, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Listing it in order of the highest vote makes for the easiest reading. It isn't party favouritism (listing them alphabetically), and nor is it random (ballot paper). Michael talk 01:14, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But presenting them as they appeared on the ballot paper is no longer random, it is conveying extra information, that is, the order in which the candidates appeared on the ballot paper. This may not be extremely significant, but it is not useless, even if all it does is explain slightly strange results as donkey votes. This is probably why the electoral commissions and others usually report the results in this way. JPD (talk) 11:39, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm still a little undecided here - I can see the point both Michael and Rebecca are making, but I'm wondering how abnormal results (like the improbable vote achieved by No GST in the Division of Reid in 2004) can be explained if the candidates are listed in order of votes achieved. The donkey vote may be small, but it can still have an impact on marginal seats. Frickeg 22:56, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Per SA districts, I agree that it should be in order of the ticket. Timeshift 03:14, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see Frickeg's point, but I think that might be better explained in the text. Having them in ballot order isn't so bad when there's only four or five candidates, but where there's a lot - as is often the case in by-elections - it really does make the table a lot less usable. Rebecca 09:23, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Is it possible to put them in ballot paper order, but with the sorting thingies on the top of the columns, so that readers only need an extra click to see them by number of votes or alphabetical? That would sort of support everyone. Also, to Frickeg, what is ...the improbable vote achieved by No GST in the Division of Reid in 2004? I don't see it. If there is one, it should be in the text. --Scott Davis Talk 11:25, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The improbable vote is the fact that this very small party which has little media coverage managed 4.79% of the vote, ahead of the Christian Democrats, Democrats and One Nation, something that is almost certainly a result of the donkey vote. Other probable examples include the 2.42% achieved by the Progressive Labour Party in Division of Cunningham, 1.04% for Non-Custodial Parents Party in Division of Parramatta, all in 2004, and 4.83% for Australians Against Further Immigration in Division of Werriwa in the 2005 by-election (this is unlikely considering there was also an unusual increase in the One Nation vote). At the moment I think it's explained adequately in the election box. Great idea with the sorting things though - I'll go and have a fiddle. Frickeg 02:05, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The PLP result in Cunningham isn't all that random - they campaigned pretty hard there, and being a left party in a left electorate helps. They're more local than small, I think - they do very well in a very small number of electorates. Orderinchaos 02:23, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, perhaps the PLP is not a good example. Here's a few more possible examples: 4.87% for independent Sam Bargshoon in Division of Werriwa (see his by-election result), 3.59% for independent Steve Malesic in Division of Corio (and many other independents), 1.43% for the CEC in Division of Holt ... I could go on. I'm not saying that these results are definitely the result of donkey votes, but that having them in ballot paper order leaves the reader able to look at the results and see an unusual result and say "Perhaps that's because they were at the top of the ballot". If there's another way of saying that without having the candidates in ballot paper order, then I wholeheartedly agree with the order of votes received opinion. Frickeg 03:47, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Or not. The template is very well established, and other countries' electorates may not like sorting things appearing in their election boxes. Is there a way to make this only apply to Australian articles? I've had a go at doing them individually but as they are templates this is impossible. It needs a more skilled coder than me to work this one out. Frickeg 02:12, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: For the moment I'm going to add more of these in ballot paper order as that seems to be the way the consensus is going, but if it ends up otherwise I'll happily change them all myself. Frickeg 03:20, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, we seem to have four in favour of votes received, you I think in favour of ballot paper order, and Timeshift, who I'm not sure about. Can you hold off making any more changes until we sort this out? Rebecca 05:27, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I only just saw this. Yes, I will. However, I think JPD is also ballot paper order. That's four in votes received (if you count Joe, who just seems to be asking), three in favour of ballot paper (I'm pretty sure that's what Timeshift is saying), and I'm not sure about Scott. Are those sorting things possible? Frickeg 23:17, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

text: To add a bit more - Rebecca's suggestion to include unusual results in the text has me wondering how one would do this. I can't see a way without (a) a simple rehash of what's in the table ("Candidate A received X number of votes, a swing of Y% from 2001"), or (b) including original research ("Candidate A received votes due to ..." - we can't verify why people voted or most of those things). Is there another way? Frickeg 02:12, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If it's important, just state that there was an unusually high turnout for X party, presumably due to the donkey vote, or something similar. I'm not sure that it's all that important to begin with. Rebecca 03:49, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not that important, no, but still information that might be relevant for some readers. Do we include that information in between the election boxes? I concede that you are beginning to win me over, however. Frickeg 04:04, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How do you mean "in between the election boxes"? Rebecca 05:47, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, using Division of Banks as an example, would you put notes like this in between the information about various elections, i.e. between the 2004 and 2001 election boxes? Frickeg 07:04, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's too trivial for any of the individual electorate articles. We usually only mention individual elections at all where a) there has been a change of member, and b) concerning the most recent election. I also really strongly object to having election boxes for more than one election in an electorate article - it's pure templatecruft. The main context where such a thing could potentially warrant a sentence or so is in a by-election article, and in that it could just go in the body of the text. Rebecca 06:08, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You object to having templates for more than one election? Where should that information be provided, then? In the British articles, many of them have election boxes going back to the 19th century, which show the electoral changes over a period of time. It's certainly valid information for anyone interested in electoral science or the electoral history of an area. Frickeg 02:40, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It bloats the article beyond usability. I think Wikisource might be a better place for such information. Rebecca 09:09, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmph. Well, I feel really strongly that they have a place in the electorate articles (Wikisource is for freely published material, not election results, is my understanding - which could be wrong), but this is probably the subject for another debate. In the mean time, have we reached a consensus regarding the order in the election box? Frickeg 01:34, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Right, then. If we count JPD and Timeshift as for ballot-paper, and Rebecca, Nightstallion, Michael and Joe as for order of votes received, with me neutral at the moment and so I think are Scott and Orderinchaos, it looks like votes received, unless the sorting things are possible. Frickeg 00:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So I should start changing them? Frickeg 06:22, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Looking at other articles I think that votes received is indeed easier to read, which leaves 5 for, 2 against and 2 neutral. If noone replies, I'll start changing them. Frickeg 00:19, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

text: To return to another point raised above: election boxes for more than one election in an article. I feel that this is an integral part of what the electorate articles should be, providing information about the electoral history of the area. I don't feel that it could be adequately covered with (a) a link to the AEC, (b) a table of two-party-preferred votes, or (c) a text summary. These methods would not allow interested parties to, for example, check the One Nation vote in the "One Nation" 1998 election, or see how the DLP polled in a particular electorate. For examples of how they look, most of the British electorate articles have data on elections going back to the 1800s; all have data on a number of recent elections. Thus I feel that these articles certainly should have a place in the electorate articles (with subheadings separating them into decades, for easier location). Frickeg 01:10, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's just not necessary - it's presenting the information in the most bloated way possible. Important elements of the electorate's history can be covered in the text (such as, say, the often high turnouts for the Democrats in some SA seats). If people want to look up trivia, such as the vote for a particular minor party in a particular seat, they'd be much better going to the AEC or Psephos. At the very least, if that level of detail is to remain on Wikipedia, it should be in a seperate article, so as not to bloat the main one. Rebecca 05:31, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not bloated at all - just important information about the seat's history. After all, an electorate is first and foremost an electoral entity; it represents a bloc of voters and the way they vote. It is a very important part of information about an electorate - just as important as the founding date and the members. And I'm not quite sure what you're suggesting with a separate article - an article for each electorate, eg. Bennelong electoral results? To me, that's bloated - but I think that the current articles are perfectly readable. And "the most bloated way possible"? The tables provide the pretty much the minimum amount of information necessary for an electorate article. Frickeg 06:14, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: On another note, I've been using Psephos recently and while it's a fantastic resource, it doesn't have a list of election results for individual electorates: to see an electorate's history you would have to go into each individual election and find the electorate you're looking for. The AEC only has elections back to 1996 and likewise does not have individual seat histories. This information is not provided anywhere and is used on the many, many British electorate articles. Perhaps someone else would like to add their view - I get the feeling Rebecca and I may be just too stubborn to sort it out on our own! :) Frickeg 04:27, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've got no great problem with splitting that information off into a seperate article for the electoral results in that particular division, but it's way too unwieldy to have it in all in the main article. Let me put it another way: there is absolutely no way that an electoral division article with twenty tables is going to ever make featured status. Rebecca 00:32, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would suggest that an electorate article without tables on election results will never really be more than an expanded stub. Regardless of the final decision, I feel strongly that this should be uniform across Wikipedia and that, if we decide to create a separate article for election results, such articles should be created for other countries' articles as well. Frickeg 22:19, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's hardly the case. Look at the Division of Moore for one example that Orderinchaos only recently started working on. Rebecca 23:10, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That is a great article, of course, but it probably doesn't have all that much room for expansion. The point I was making was that there is a limited amount of information relevant to an encyclopaedia regarding electorates, and that a significant part of that information is past electoral results. Frickeg 04:29, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That article has quite a lot of room for expansion - I and others made quite a few suggestions to Orderinchaos, and I suspect it's got every chance of getting to GA status if he keeps working at it when he gets back from his trip. A significant part of that information is past electoral results, yes - but summarised for an encyclopedia. Pure statistical archives should be put somewhere else other than the main article. Rebecca 04:51, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As I said before (in a roundabout kind of way), the key point is consistency across the encyclopaedia. If the results were to be split into separate articles (and there is some merit in the idea, although I'm not sure exactly how you'd set out the article), then it should be done across electorate articles for all countries. Frickeg 23:56, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you object if I add more tables, as I'd like to get some more done (at least for 2001), on the pretext that they may be moved to a separate page? Frickeg 22:06, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Can we sort this out first? I see no reason why, at least as a preliminary step, we couldn't break out them into Electoral results for the Division of Bennelong, etc., now? Rebecca 23:18, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have no real objections to that, although I still think it would be best if the same applies across Wikipedia, and if the rest of the encyclopedia disagrees, that would be an awful lot of work for nothing. Frickeg 08:56, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Additionally, before this change is implemented, I think that we should (a) decide on a format for the article and (b) raise the point at WikiProject Politics. Format-wise, I would suggest a simple introduction followed by the member list (to show who was member when) and then the results divided by decade, with References and perhaps External links and See also as well. There should also perhaps be a navigation box linking the different results articles, so that one can quickly go through them without going back to the main electorate article. Frickeg (talk) 01:05, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think your suggested format for that article sounds great. Rebecca (talk) 01:28, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you. Do you want to raise it at WP:Politics or shall I? Frickeg (talk) 01:29, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: On second thoughts, perhaps it's better if we just keep it consistent within Australia, and not worry about the rest? Additionally, with the main division pages, I think that if we leave the most recent table only on the main page with a template, i.e. a heading "Election results", a template "Main page: Electoral results for the Division of XXX", and then the most recent election results. Frickeg (talk) 01:42, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good to me! Rebecca (talk) 01:56, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Great! I'll get started. Frickeg (talk) 02:01, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Before I do any more, could I please have your opinion on the first one: Electoral results for the Division of Banks? Thanks! Frickeg (talk) 02:14, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm just going to go on slowly, because they take ages to do! I just spent more than an hour on the Electoral results for the Division of Barton page - but it's a great resource now it's done! Frickeg (talk) 07:10, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: These look excellent so far. They're especially handy considering the technical problems Psephos has been having this year. Rebecca (talk) 05:29, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! Frickeg (talk) 07:51, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Electoral results 

message: Relevant discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums#Electoral district disambiguation jnestorius(talk) 20:08, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  naming standards