Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Electoral districts in Canada/Archive 1

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Formatting results tables[edit]

There is a variety of formats used to show percentages is the results tables: 1.2 - 1.2% - 1.23 - 1.23%. I think we should try to determine a standard format and over time try to move the articles to that format to provide a more consistent appearance for the riding articles, and help readers find information more easily. It comes down to two questions:

  1. include the % sign' or leave out the % sign?
  2. two decimal places or one decimal place.

The second issue is problematic because some editors have been mixing the two styles incorrectly. Here is an example: the New Conservaliberal Party candidate in the 2008 election won 5,604 of the 10,000 votes cast in a riding in 2008, or 56.0% of the popular vote. In 2011, the NCP candidate won 5,600 of the 10,000 votes cast, but the editor adding the results reports the popular vote to two decimal places, i.e., 56.00%, and reports the change as 0.00%. in fact, the change should be shown as either 0.0% or -0.04%. 0.00% shows a false level of precision.

I have not found any guidance in WP:MOS to help us on these two question, so I suggest that we make the decision collectively, and stick by it. Thanks Ground Zero | t 02:19, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

1. the % sign[edit]

Include the % sign: including the % sign helps the reader identify that the number is a percentage more easily -- he or she is scanning across a row of figures, which can include number of votes, percentage of votes, percentage change and expenditures -- it can be confusing. Expenditures are expressed with a $ sign, so why not popular vote and change in popular vote?

Leave out the % sign: the % sign is indicated at the top of the columns, so repeating it is (a) redundant and (b) adds clutter to the table.

Comments:

  • Including the % sign is redundant, and should be removed in my opinion. -- Earl Andrew - talk 02:27, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I would agree with Earl on this one. The column says that it is showing percentages, so including a % sign is redundant. Bkissin (talk) 03:20, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've always believed the "%" symbol is redundant and that it adds clutter to the table. I've never believed that this is a terribly important point, and I won't be overly disappointed if consensus is on the other side, but I'd prefer to lose the "%" symbol on both logical and aesthetic grounds. CJCurrie (talk) 03:22, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support removing the '%' sign. As long as we don't go to three decimal places or something, it's not visually confusing, so unnecessary. - Wmcduff (talk) 11:50, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I always thought including the '%' was for clarity sake, but it is redundant. I have no strong (or moderate) feelings either way. maclean (talk) 19:17, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agreed that it's redundant; in fact, I've often removed it when I've seen it in tables. Bearcat (talk) 04:53, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

2. decimal places[edit]

Two decimal places: this provides more detail for the reader, which can be important especially for fringe parties whose candidates may only a small fraction of the vote -- the additional detail in the % change column can show whether the party has gained or lost support since the previous election.

One decimal place: Elections Canada reports popular vote to one decimal place, so following that convention means (a) we have a reliable source, and (b) editors have fewer calculations to do and therefore are less likely to make mistakes.

Comments:

  • Um, the Official Voting Results uses 2 decimal points, as does the History of the ridings site, so there are some reliable sources for 2 decimal points. -- Earl Andrew - talk 02:27, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm looking here, which is where many editors are getting the results. This shows only one place. Can you provide links to pages with two decimal places? Thanks. Ground Zero | t 02:32, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Elections Canada has used two decimals in past years (e.g., here). Presumably, they'll switch to two decimals for the 2011 results once the page is revamped. CJCurrie (talk) 03:27, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I get numbers from several different sources, including Pundit's Guide, where she brings it to one decimal place. Personally, I prefer two, making results more exact, (especially in the case of fringe parties) but sometimes these can be hard to come by. Bkissin (talk) 03:22, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I prefer having two decimal places, which allows for a more precise rendition of the results. I'm not overly worried about mathematical errors; these can always be corrected. (Btw, I've always double-checked the percentage totals since finding an error on the official Manitoba Elections results page several years ago.) CJCurrie (talk) 03:25, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support two. If your information lacks the second decimal place, calculating it takes only a moment anyway. - Wmcduff (talk) 11:52, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support two significant figures only. What meaning does the second decimal point number carry for anything over 1%? It is an irrelevant degree of precision. maclean (talk) 19:13, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wouldn't you think having 51 and 0.43 in the same table would look odd? It just lines up nice with 51.35 and 0.43. - Wmcduff (talk) 12:23, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Conclusion[edit]

It's pretty clear that the % sign is as popular as Michael Ignatieff, so I don't think anyone will object to me concluding that we should dispense with it. I think that two decimal places is a level of detail that will not be of interest to most readers, but it does not seem that others share this view, so unless there are strenuous objections, I am going to call this discussion in favour of two decimal places. The preferred format for percentages in electoral district tables then is 1.23. I hope that everyone will help apply this format as they are editing so that over time, these articles will converge to this new standard. Thanks for taking the time to contribute to this discussion. Ground Zero | t 02:09, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Area from ESRI Shapefiles?[edit]

I noticed on one of the Election NB pages (http://www.gnb.ca/elections/10prov/10provmap-e.asp) that there is a link at the bottom to ESRI shapefiles. Is it possible to extract the area of the electoral districts from this information? Can anyone do this? - Wmcduff (talk) 06:44, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

em dashes in names[edit]

I started fixing some em dashes to en dashes in joining region names in electoral district names, but then noticed that it's quite pervasive in the BC districts, and maybe the rest of the Canadian districts. I've never heard of em dashes used this way. Is there some odd Canadian style at work here, or is it just that the guy who started these didn't know how to type an en dash? See MOS:DASH. Dicklyon (talk) 04:40, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • The em-dash is used for a specific reason. This issue has come up many times. Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Electoral_districts_in_Canada#Em-dash_use where it is discussed at length. Moving hundreds of articles to endash, and changing the text in all of those articles to be consistent with the new article titles, would be a huge, huge task. I think it would be better for you to restore the emdash to the articles you've moved in order to maintain consistency. Otherwise, we have a few articles using endash in the title (and emdash in the text), and the large majority using emdash in both places. Thanks. Ground Zero | t 09:52, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Canadian Parliaments[edit]

The "History" sections, currently list past MPs, their party, years of service, and Parliaments. However, the Parliaments wikilink to election pages. I propose that the wikilinks be changed to the relevant parliament as listed in Category:Canadian parliaments. I did a sample edit here [1] to illustrate the implications. Are there any objections to implementing this across all federal electoral districts? maclean (talk) 20:15, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is it safe to assume there are no objections to this proposal? maclean (talk) 05:14, 16 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Formal Review[edit]

I have built up the defunct riding Surrey Central as best as I could and nominated at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Surrey Central/archive1. Any comments about the format, completeness, appropriateness (etc) of the content is welcome. maclean (talk) 10:30, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The review is still open. Any comments are welcome. maclean (talk) 19:05, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

History/Members of Parliament[edit]

The elected MPs section can be organized in a number of ways. Some things to keep in mind: some districts are abolished and re-created years later, some MPs change parties or go independent, and then there is Saint John

Examples:

# Name, Party (Years)

# Years: Name - Party

(dot) Years: Name - Party

# Year Name Party (in a colour-coded box)

Comments[edit]

  • I would go with # Name, Party (Years) since that is the one that seems to be most commonly used, from my recollection, and I don't think there is much to be gained from changing things now. I would, however, changes this section to "List of Members of Parliament" to be in line with Wikipedia and standard writing style of not using an initialism at the first instance, but spelling it out. "MP" will not be recognized by many readers from outside the Commonwealth. Ground Zero | t 16:41, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've recently started using the template shown below for provincial pages (the example chosen is the historical Manitoba constituency of Mountain). I don't have a strong objection to the proposed model above, but the version I've been using has the added advantages of (i) colour coding, and (ii) a more orderly presentation.
  Name Party Took Office Left Office
  Thomas Greenway
 Independent Conservative 1879 1882
 
Liberal 1882 1904
  Daniel McIntyre
 Progressive Conservative 1905 1907
  James Bryson Baird
 Liberal 1907 1922
  Charles Cannon
 Progressive 1922 1927
  Irving Cleghorn
 Liberal 1927 1930
  Ivan Schultz
 Liberal 1930 1932
 
Liberal-Progressive 1932 1955
  Walter Clark
 Liberal-Progressive 1955 1958

CJCurrie 23:05, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Me likes!!! - Jord 00:01, 28 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I never seriously considered a table for this. But now that I think about it, since every entry will have common info (ie. name, party, years) perhaps a table is a better organizing structure. Concerning the proposed table above, I would like to see the years centered, the years column-width shrunk as much as possible (without creating two lines), and a generally smaller box (10 pt font?). Maybe even have one column for the years. I'd like to experiment with the background colours to make it different, yet related, to the final election box that will be designed. Also, how could this format of table be altered for a multi-member district like Halifax? --maclean25 00:52, 28 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This is what I was starting to use as a table for Alberta provincial electoral districts, while not as refined it has the same spirit as CJ Currie's --Cloveious 05:36, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Member Party Elected Left office
James McNaughton Liberal 1913 1921
Oran McPherson United Farmers 1921 1935
Peter Dawson Social Credit 1935 1963
Raymond Speaker Social Credit, Independent
Representative, Progressive Conservative 		1963 1992
Barry McFarland Progressive Conservative 1992 present

Naming conventions[edit]

Some electoral districts have the same name. Some current and former electoral districts share the same name. If a district is abolished, then re-created years or decades later, is it the same district as before? or are they two distinct ridings that happen to share the same name?

Consider these following scenarios. Add other scenarios as you see fit.

Use of m-dashes[edit]

Further information: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Canada-related articles § Ridings

Richmond[edit]

Richmond is a municipality in B.C. It is also

Comments[edit]

  • Why no "British Columbia" in the current federal Richmond?
    • Too possible reasons, a) an ommission as the original author did not know there were other districts by the same name or b) it being the only current electoral district, it is named this way much in the way that London goes to London, England as it is likely to be the most commonly sought item under Richmond (electoral district) - Jord 23:48, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Should Richmond (Nova Scotia electoral district) not be called Richmond (Nova Scotia federal electoral district) so as to not confuse it with Richmond (Nova Scotia provincial electoral district). When one thinks about it, typing in Richmond (Nova Scotia electoral district) people are more likely to be looking for the provincial district which is currently in use as oppose to the federal district (which it curently houses) as it was abolished in 1914. - Jord 23:48, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Victoria[edit]

Victoria is a municipality in B.C. It is also

Comments[edit]

  • Why no "British Columbia" in the current federal Victoria?

Strathcona[edit]

Another example

Strathcona (electoral district) Strathcona (provincial electoral district) district abolished 1909 and recreated in 1999 both covered Strathcona county Alberta and Strathcona (N.W.T. electoral district) Strathcona territorial electoral district abolished when Alberta became a province, as the boundaries were redrawn by Liberal MP Frank Oliver so that all of Alberta would be covered, old Northwest Territories riding boundaries had nothing to do with the new map, as they were only created when an area the size of 1000 square miles had 1000 people --Cloveious 06:26, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Kamloops[edit]

Bump this:

  1. Kamloops (electoral district) existed between 1933 - 1966.
  2. Then another Kamloops (electoral district) was created in 1987
  3. It was re-named Kamloops, Thompson and Highland Valleys in 1998.

--maclean25 07:12, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

History[edit]

A proposal has been put forward to comine this section with the Geography section.Discuss here.

This section is intended to present a timeline of how it came into being, morphed, abolished, and also, the MPs elected from this riding. As opposed to the "Geography" section, this one deals strictly with the electoral district itself, as controlled by Elections Canada and Representation Orders (2003).

  • Confession: For every electoral district west of Ontario information is given on what districts gave up area/people to form the new electoral district, and likewise for its abolishment. That information came from this Parliamentary website. However, I later discovered that the top list of old electoral districts do not list what districts gave up area/people to form the new electoral district. Instead the list is of those ridings which have gave up area/people at any time, during any Representation order, to form the subject district, not just the creation Representation Order. Most are correct and I avoided the most obvious ones. Indeed, that is the biggest flaw with this section; only 2003 Representation Order is currently available, the rest are a mystery.

Comments[edit]

Transferred from my talk page:

  1. Regarding the History section of electoral districts, what I wrote came from an easy template that I just copy&pasted. Before you create too much work for yourself, there are several other issues that need to be addressed, aside from formatting. As will be discussed here, my source was this which does not directly give me the ridings used to create the new riding, nor the new ridings formed from the dissolution of an old riding. The top and bottom list of ridings appear to be this but are in fact the ridings that have contributed population or land area to this riding during any representation order throughout its history (ie. not just the first and last orders). Does that make sense? Here is an example: tell me what electoral districts this riding, Kootenay—Columbia, was created from using this referenced page here.
  2. The other problem is that I only had a copy of the 2003 Representation Order to work from. As you can see not all ridings are created equally. Some are created from 90% of former riding X and 10% of riding Y. Others are 50/50. Yet the are all listed as equals in my History sections. Before 2003 the proportions are a mystery. (User:maclean25)

Are you sure that the top and bottom lists refer to all ridings that contributed to/took from the riding during its history? The parliamentary website does not say this explicitly. At the same time, it does not explicitly say that they refer only to those ridings that contributed to/took from at the time of the riding's creation and dissolution either, so my assumption is not supported any more than the contrary one is. If your new assumption is correct, we will have to find some wording to reflect that, but let's make sure that this is the case before we start making changes. Ground Zero | t 16:37, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

    • Your right, it does not explicitly say why those ridings are listed at the top and bottom. As you can see from the Kootenay—Columbia history or Skeena—Bulkley Valley history, it took be a couple of weeks to piece together the pattern. Note: all ridings listed border or partially encompass the subject riding, years listed (mostly) match the creation/abolishment dates, and the ridings created from the 2003 Representation Order match this theory (ie. Abbotsford Library entry matches 2003 Rep Order, as does Burnaby—New Westminster.) So the ridings created in 2003 can be proven correct using the 2003 Representation Order link above. A similar 1996 sheet can prove those created in the 1996 Representation Order. --maclean25 19:14, 28 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I see here that St. Paul's has a riding at the top listed that did not exist until after the district was created. I think that is definative proof that the districts at the top are districts that ceded territory at any time during the life of the district. - Jord 01:03, 8 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Demographics[edit]

This section is intended to present census data and whatever miscellaneous info on the character that can be presented as a number. Three big questions need to be answered: What data? Data from what year? How to present the data?

Data options: population, electors, population pyramid, income, population density, area of district, population change, average age, education level, homeownership rate, vacancy rate, religion, ethnic background, ...

Year options: last census year (2001), last election year (2004), trend over district's history,....

  • Population change worked really well in the B.C. provincial electoral districts but may not be available for the federal districts. Also, how does your choice of census data differ from one district to another, and what does that mean? Is "Demographics" really the best title for this section?


  • In my opinion the current system for displaying demographic information isn't very good. There are already too many tables, so adding yet another is a bit much. The small left aligned box also generates an excessive amount of whitespace. I would prefer if this information were merged into the general riding infobox. - SimonP 22:49, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Let's choose the information we want to present, then figure out how to present it. Personally, I think some of this information belongs in the infobox for election results, since the data changes with each election. The demographics section should contain info for the most recent election (or an upcoming one?), and have a much broader scope. Mindmatrix 21:08, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Which data?[edit]

Make a proposal and defend its relevancy. Vote.

  • Population. Any objections?
    • Gross population pyramid (eg: 0-17, 18-35, 36-54, 55+); this also gives us voting-age residents (but not electors). Large deviations from Canadian/provincial averages should be noted. Mindmatrix 15:40, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Population Change, 1996-2001. Reveals population and economic trend. Voting trends may emerge from areas that are growing and others that are contracting. --maclean25 06:12, 28 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • This could be placed in the same table as population, if we have a data source for 1996 census data in 2003 FED Representational Order. I have yet to find such a table on the StatCan website, though. Mindmatrix 15:40, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Electors. Useful for checking voter-turnout calculation. --maclean25 06:05, 28 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Is there a good online source for this in (X)HTML or XML format? (A queryable database is good too.) Mindmatrix 23:10, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Income and Work. Include only participation rate, employment rate, unemployment rate and average income (individual, household and/or family). Compare to province and nation. Mindmatrix 15:40, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support unemployment rate as a graph. Oppose average income as being easily distorted. Neutral on others because I don't want to bog down this Demographics section. (added ext links to Mindmatrix comment above) --maclean25 08:41, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • When you say as a graph, do you mean tracking monthly/yearly changes? If so, someone would have to keep them up-to-date. I'd rather not bog down the Demographics section either, but I think Income and Work is one of the most-cited stats about a riding, after population, which is why I proposed its inclusion. Mindmatrix 23:10, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Families and dwellings. Include only family structure (married, common-law, lone parent), average dwelling value, and ownership/rental ratio. Compare to provincial and national averages. Mindmatrix 15:40, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose family structure (relevency to voting?) --maclean25 08:41, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • For Toronto, there are some areas with a high lone parent ratio, almost all of whom rent rather than own. This tends to affect voting behaviour in the riding. These areas tend to be left-leaning politically. Mindmatrix 23:10, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested[edit]

  • Religion. Should this be for those ridings which deviate from the typical situation (close split between Catholic and Protestant, with significant non-religious groups), or just do it for all of them? Which data do we present: all religious groups, the 3/4/5 most common denominations in the riding, or something else? Mindmatrix 15:40, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Question does this affect voting patterns (like Conservative vs. Liberal?, or even Christian Heritage?). --maclean25
      • There are some observable trends - strongly Protestant/evangelical areas tend to vote Conservative, Roman Catholics tend to vote Liberal in Ontario and are left-leaning in Quebec, and some ridings are affected by religious split. I'm not sure how strong the trends are though. Its difficult to assert the influence of religion, or any other factor, on riding results, since there are relatively few elections and far too many external factors. (Statistically, its difficult to determine the correlation.) Mindmatrix 23:10, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • But I don't think the available data permits making that distinction between evangelicals and mainstream Protestants. They are all ither under "Protestant" or "Christian". The Catholic numbers are essentially meaningless where 83% of Quebeckers report themselves as Catholics, but very few let that affect their attitudes towards a number of social issues (marriage, abortion, etc.), orthe way they vote. Luigizanasi 08:11, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Other considerations[edit]

Note: These will not likely be implemented unless strong arguments can be presented for their inclusion.

  • Aboriginal identity. Perhaps only in ridings where this is relevant? (how do we define relevant for this situation?)
    • Oppose, inconsistent (and flawed) question over censusesses (censi?), unless the Aboriginal population in New Brunswick actually increased 66% between 1996-2001. --maclean25 08:41, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Support. While there are problems with aboriginal self-identification, changing attitudes have changed people's responses to this. The same was true of German origins which mysteriously declined after the 1st & second World Wars. Or look at the number of people who report "Canadian" as their ethnic origin (even in Quebec) despite being explicitly asked where their ancestors came from. So the ethnic origin questions, relying on self reporting are all ineherently flawed, but the best we have. In any case, it is what people are comfortable reporting themselves as, so they actually reflects the social reality. Luigizanasi 08:07, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Visible minorities. Even better would be a breakdown by ethnic group, but StatCan does not provide this in the standard tables.
    • "Visible minorities" and "immigrant population" sort of give the info. Luigizanasi 08:07, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Education level.

How about percentage with university education? Luigizanasi 08:07, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Mother tongue. Unfortunately, StatCan only list English, French, other or multiple.
    • Support for Quebec only. Language does not manifest itself in voting pattern in any other province. --maclean25
      • Woodbridge is overwhelmingly Italian, and has consistently voted Liberal. Of course, this is probably not due to language, but rather ethnicity or religion. Since StatCan doesn't list non-official languages anyway, my point is moot. Does language factor into New Brunswick election results? Mindmatrix 23:10, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • I thought that the high francophone population ridings in Northern Ontario tended to vote Liberal or NDP, so Support. Luigizanasi 08:07, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Data from years?[edit]

Last census year? Election year? Range of years (eg. in a graph)?

We're restricted to the data that's available to us, so most of it will be from the last census, and elector counts etc. will be from the most recent election. I think we should restrict the Demographics section to only the most recent information, since it changes considerably over time. Historical demographic information of relevance can (should?) be added to the appropriate election results section. We could, of course, have a demographic trends section too... Mindmatrix 23:16, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Format[edit]

Table? List? Infobox? Graph? Illustration? Pie Chart? Please provide an example in a sample electoral district of your choice.

Here is a proposed table. Needs to be prettified, obviously. Note the right alignment. Also, the table entries should be right aligned. These are the figures I consider probably significant. The popualtion by age could be percentages. It is hard to get significant numbers for religion, as the evangelicals, etc. are mosly under "Protestant" and "Christian". Feel free to fix. Substantial changes should probably be presented as another table, so we can choose. Luigizanasi 07:51, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Riding profile
  Yukon
electoral

district

Canada
average
Population (2001) 28,675 97,426
Population 18+ 23,510 81,475
Population 60 years + 2,700 16,761
Per cent English mother tongue 86.2% 58.5%
Per cent French mother tongue 3.1% 22.6%
Per cent other mother tongue 9.5% 17.6%
Percent immigrants 10.5% 18%
Per cent visible minorities 3.6% 13.4%
Aboriginal population 22.9% 3.3%
Per cent with university education 18.6% 17.9%
Average household income $60,236 $58,360
Unemployment rate 11.6% 7.4%
Per cent home owners 62.9% 65.8%
Average dwelling value $140,447 $162,709
  • I like the idea of having the demographics off to the side. Perhaps all the demographics that consist of a single variable (ie. not a graph) can be placed in an infobox. However, we run the risk of having the box run longer than the article. Please see Langley (electoral district) for my selection of demographics. I really like the idea of comparing it to a national or provincial average. --maclean25 08:31, 10 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Geography[edit]

A proposal has been put forward to comine this section with the History section.Discuss here.

What are the implications of the borders? How best to describe, in words, how this electoral district differs from another. This includes a list of communities within it, the character of the communities (urban, suburban, rural), ethnicities, local issues (BSE cattle, drought, religion, pollution), local economy (resource-based, manufacturing), and so forth over the district's entire history, not just the most recent election. Is "Geography" the best title? This section is not intended to discuss the electoral district itself, rather the district's implications from where the borders were drawn.

  • Technically this - geography - is really two concepts; as raw geography in its own state is the terrain and biosphere and hydrosphere in the area. Human geography addresses demographics as well as other issues such as lifestyle/culture, economy and more. But the demographics of each town and the way they interact (if they do, or if one huge one overrides all the smaller towns and rural areas encompassed in a riding, as is now typical and p.c.) and things like economics, all the human geography stuff, are overlain with the separate machinations of political geography; it is the interaction of the two, even though p.g. is a subset of h.g. - well, no historically it's not, not in academia it's not, though at least conceptually. I'm writing up Yale-Lillooet right now, and Coast Chilcotin, and there's heady geographic issues involved (see Paul St. Pierre) to be faced, and also gerrymanderlike reasons why the boundaries get drawn/ that's political geography; human geography is the infobase the political geographers - actually more like political geomancer-engineers - do their infamous work. PS notice how the STV vote and whatever else they'll cook up to fudge that ballet (so it never passes, as is the plan) has been shuffled aside on the issue of having to wait until the ridings are redrawn? yeah, right . . . .Skookum1 05:21, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • The only reason the term "Geography" was used was because it was left behind in an empty stub. It is not to be taken literally. I was just curious as to what aspects of this topic would be relevant to an electoral district. After pondering the subject a bit, came to the opinion that if this section was used by itself it would only be a short blurb, and that it would be better discussed in a combined "history" and "geography" section...called "histography" "geostory"...well, I haven't thought it through quite yet, but a proposal can be found here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Electoral districts in Canada/Geography&History --maclean25 09:56, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, "histography" is definitely wrong; that would mean writing using cell-tissue, or the un-ologistic charting of histological data. Cell biology for laymen? Dunno. Anyway, in BC, riding geography is a BIG issue, especially in the case of the so-called "rural" ridings ("wilderness" is a better term); I haven't finished Coast Chilcotin yet but it and other ridings like it are complex geographic entities which have a bearing on how the vote goes; there's also the political geography issue surrounding "balancing" the proportion of decided voters in each riding - essentially drawing boundaries to cancel out votes, rather than represent them. That's a political/constitutional issue that's not encyclopedia oriented, except by way of mention that it's an issue; but it's definitely "geography".Skookum1 22:09, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Geography&History[edit]

Alone, these sections would only be a couple sentences long and their topics could overlap. A combined History and Geography section could produced a solid paragraph or two with the list of MPs. This section could mention the following:

  • creation date
  • ridings that gave x% of its population to create the subject riding
  • any boundary changes during its history
  • towns and communities that are included
  • relevant human or physical geography (ie. rural vs urban, cities vs villages)
  • local issues (and how their MP dealt with it)
  • list of MPs
  • abolishment date and ridings that the abolishment created

This could provide a nice narrative of the riding. If this were to be created, what should the section title be?

Comments[edit]

Support - Jord 15:38, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • I support this, I would also support just adding the information to the intro when it is only a couple of sentences. - SimonP 02:40, 15 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Contingent SupportSkookum1 22:16, 23 November 2005 (UTC) Following is a cut-paste of your agenda above plus my comments:[reply]

  • Alone, these sections would only be a couple sentences long and their topics could overlap. A combined History and Geography section could produced a solid paragraph or two with the list of MPs. This section could mention the following:
    • creation date
    • ridings that gave x% of its population to create the subject riding
      • hard to chart that data; requires analyses of censuses and preferably boundary-commission's own notes and research and also requires access to historical poll data, i.e. per city/town/village/rural area. There's the gerrymandering issue that makes this so historical-geographical to consider, too, e.g. the infamous Gracie's Finger fiasco during the Miniwac regime, which had to do with a chunk of tres-riche Kerrisdale/Quilchena being saddled onto the Vancouver--Little Mountain riding, home to longtime Socred Grace McCarthy.Skookum1 22:16, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • any boundary changes during its history
      • Elections Canada boundary writeups are surveyor-language nightmares; I had a look at Coast Chilcotin and its description is very intricate; and it's not alone.Skookum1 22:16, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Totally agree. I am not in favour of legal descriptions but rather descriptive language that the layman can recognize (using features on the ground). -maclean25
    • towns and communities that are included
      • w/wo census and poll data? I've been trying to find resources on those, other than going digging around in a university library by hand.Skookum1 22:16, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Prefer without. Many of the article will already be jam packed with data and tables. I took polling data to an individual city article. Took census data (from the entire riding - not just individual settlements) to the info boxes, but we're still working on that: Langley (electoral district). -maclean25
  • (relevant human or physical geography (ie. rural vs urban, cities vs villages)
    • local issues (and how their MP dealt with it)
      • these are often large issues, best mentioned by way of linking them, plus the MPs position/response in text which may or may not be in the linked article.Skookum1 22:28, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • list of MPs
      • and which other ridings those MPs previously represented, if so; and which riding they were associated with after redistribution/revisions of boundariesSkookum1 22:28, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • abolishment date and ridings that the abolishment created
      • also overlaps with provincial ridingsSkookum1 22:16, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • This could provide a nice narrative of the riding. If this were to be created, what should the section title be?
    • "Political Geography", which is the nature of the beast and a proper academic field describing exactly what you're talking about. "Historical geography" maybe, but that would be preferred for a "region" page as opposed to an "electoral district" pageSkookum1 22:16, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • The gist of this proposal is to have a narrative (from start to finish) of the electoral district, as opposed to a description. I embedded some comments above into your replies. --maclean25 04:55, 24 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality[edit]

From Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/discussion:

A number of Tory candidates for the anticipated election appear to have created lengthy vanity screeds--in some cases simply copying and pasting their bios from their campaign websites. Certainly they are entitled to an article; I would like to see more candidates with articles. But the content needs to be encyclopaedic. I am fixing what I can, but with 308 ridings, its not a one-person job. Please, help! -Carolynparrishfan 13:49, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Also, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Niki Ashton for a NDP candidate.

Our election system is inherently bias in favour of the incumbent. People are more likely to vote for the devil they know and name recognition goes a long way. According to Wikipedia policy only the incumbents, those who have done something interesting in life, or those who are leaders of parties get articles. They get the privilege of being described as people. Everyone else is a name on a list. In recent elections a hodge-podge of "non-notable" candidates have gotten articles. Some were deleted, some not and some were deleted & re-created.

Possible solutions:

  1. Follow Wikipedia policy by AfDing every attempt to create articles of potentially non-notable candidates.
  2. Create temporary articles on all candidates, bulk delete them after the election.
  3. Redirect similar candidates to a group article, like Green Party candidates, 2004 Canadian federal election

Comments[edit]

  • I don't think the Green Party candidates, 2004 Canadian federal election format is working very well. I've been filling in past election results for many federal ridings, and I'm repeatedly running into candidates from 2000 or earlier, but whose name redirects to a 2004 list, or to one of the provincial lists. - SimonP 02:35, 15 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Links from past election articles to a list of candidates of different election may fall under Wikipedia:Make only links relevant to the context. If the list is of candidates from the 2004 election then the candidates from the 2000 election (even if it the same person) probably should be unwikified as it is not in the same context and would be confusing to readers. -maclean25
  • I'm simply not convinced that NPOV requires us to have articles about every candidate for political office in Canada even if they didn't win. Although I initially favoured the "unified single list" solution when it was first proposed, I'm far less impressed with it in practice. A person is not entitled to an article on Wikipedia just because they want one. We really have to stick to the same standards that any other political jurisdiction is held to: if they're not an incumbent or a person who was already notable for other reasons, they just don't get an article unless and until they win a notable office. I sincerely doubt any voter is going to decide how to vote based on whether their preferred candidate has a Wikipedia article or not. Bearcat 08:32, 15 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • People don't vote based on a 15 second commercial they saw of some guy hugging some kid. But they pay thousands of dollars for that. It is all about getting your name and face out there, preferably associated with something nice and intelligent. It is about wearing down the voter's defenses and getting the voter to think they know the candidate. Wikipedia is free and that is tempting during an all-or-nothing first-past-the-post race. Anyways, the point is the candidates will get articles. (I don't like this policy but) Anybody can create an article on anything. It may only last 5 days but everybody with access to Wikipedia has that right. If it is not about NPOV then it is about heading them off and not letting their slanted bio linger for 5 days like Niki Ashton up there or the other guy --maclean25
  • I prefer the list system but with an analytical introduction (for the history buffs in the audience). It follows Wikipedia guidelines by avoiding giving every monkey an their own article while presenting a group of people that may be of interest to readers viewing electoral-district or political-party pages. It avoids clogging the AfD system with our monkey-corpses. Plus AfDs will just serve to boost the hit count of that article as people vote. It is easy to watch for inappropriateness (glowing peacock reviews and attack/vandalism). If candidates do create a article(and they will), it is easy to revert to the re-direct. --maclean25 06:28, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think we should just include short bios (one paragraph) of all candidates on the riding page, in a section on the 2006 election, with links to the person's articles where relevant. Any article on a candidate not notable for other reasons should be mercilessly speedy deleted as vanity pages. Links in list of candidates by party should direct to the riding page. Any support? Luigizanasi 03:39, 2 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sounds reasonable; will losing candidates then have that information taken out? If not, pages could get very bloated after a few elections on this system... Radagast 12:54, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Bios for losing candidates (and the winning ones) can be transferred to a list system after an election. That way we won't lose any information. p_b1999 (Talk|Contribution) 19:33, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Do the principles of 'equal time' apply to current electoral district articles?

  • No; because some ridings are unremarkable (perhaps) in their politics, and an MP from one party might not have as much to be said about as an MP from another party. Wikipedia is not electoral material; it is information, pure and simple.Skookum1 05:50, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox[edit]

A template for an infobox has been posted. Obviously it should include a map, but what other data should it include? Which demographics? From what years? Are the proposed maps as good as they can be? If not, what can improve them?

Examples: Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, Winnipeg Centre

Other Examples: Ottawa Centre, Aberdeen North (UK Parliament constituency)

Comments[edit]

The Ontario should be used. The area and population should be in a separate box. -- Earl Andrew - talk 05:01, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Concerning the Ontario box, the MPP section is not relevant to other province since Ontario is the only one that has that direct overlap. I'm ok with province-specific infobox to consider these quirks. I don't understand the linkage between electoral districts and CDs/CSDs. In the example they claim "Ottawa" is the CD and CSD and they both link to the City of Ottawa's Wikipedia page (is the City really the CD, obviously it is too big to be a CSD). As the article doesn't explain this and I'm a non-expert, can you explain how CD and CSD relate to electoral districts? Also, how do "Ottawa city wards" relate to federal (or provincial) electoral districts? --maclean25 01:10, 28 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ottawa is both a census division and a census subdivision. CSD's are like municipalities, while CD's are like counties, or in your case Regional Districts. I think they are of some interest. I also thought the city wards would be of interest too.-- Earl Andrew - talk 02:14, 28 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Here's what I think:

  • I prefer the information presented in the Ontario infobox, but not its formatting;
  • the population figures and electors should be presented in the election results infoboxes, since the information isn't static between elections;
  • the maps don't provide enough context of the area (the one for Kamloops is good, but you couldn't use that for Vancouver);
  • obviously, it should be used only for the current version of the district
  • we could provide some colouring/border/whatever to indicate its current incumbent party

That's all I've got for now... Mindmatrix 20:57, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I like that last idea! It would be neat. It might difficult for Ontario, as some districts are held by a different party provincially then federally. -- Earl Andrew - talk 21:14, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Another reason to split the districts ;) - Jord 23:56, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Here's something: I got bored @ work and made pretty boxes, one of which I thought would make a good infobox for the Canadian federal ridings. See, e.g., Avalon (electoral district) or Cardigan (electoral district). I'm still not too sure what to do w/ all the location-names (cities, villages, etc.). I think it important to include them all (or at least most of them) to be complete, but is the infobox the best medium? I had it as a listing for a while, but that took up way too much room (even in 2 columns), but in the infobox they're condensed, divided by type of place, and (hopefully) useful. I also stopped at Ontario as the discussion of fed+prov or separate pages still goes on (I would vote to have separate pages, upon completion these pages are going to be huge, e.g., Labrador (electoral district), and having the provincial info on there will just make it that much more bigger. FUNgus guy 21:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think an infobox is necessary, both for historical ridings as for current ones; one boxframe should be "status" with either "defunct" as an entry, with dates, or "currently represented by Joe Blow (Tory/Grit/NDP/whatever). Also a riding map, and in cases where the boundary has been mutated the colour-scheme on the map should maybe be able to reflect the gerrymandered bits accurately (this means overlaying two different maps in order to produce a new one with both boundaries and the respective areas coloured in).Skookum1 05:50, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree with infobox as stated by Skookum1; should also include riding population total --Yannick 03:24, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Naming conventions/Ontario[edit]

Electoral districts in Ontario use the same boundaries federally and provincially, though sometimes they come into effect on different dates. Explanation:

Mike Harris' government passed a bill during his first term that makes Ontario provincial districts follow the same borders as federal ones, this was a cost saving measure as it eliminated about two dozen ridings and also saves Ontario the expense of redrawing boundaries every decade or so. The reason why a current disparity exists is because new boundaries only take effect when there is a new election. The most recent boundaries took effect on April 1, 2004, some months after the last provincial election. Thus, the Ontario provincial ridings will come back into sync with the federal ridings for Ontario general election, 2007.

Question: Should these be treated as two distinct ridings, created for two purposes, by two agencies? Or can the info be better presented in one article without the duplication of effort?

Comments[edit]

  • I think there will be odd instances where the provincial boundaries will not follow federal boundaries. I believe that some provision is being made so that Northern Ontario does not lose a seat in the Legislature as it will in the House of Commons, i.e., provincial ridings in N.O. will remain the same while federal ridings are reduced by one. Given the size of some of the articles when election results are added in, I would favour separate articles clearly cross-linked. Ground Zero | t 13:17, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • It would require legislative change to make the above happen and that could happen though I have not heard of the McGuinty government considering any bill. Unless they plan to radically change the law, they would need to move soon as the districts have to be in effect for one year before they can be used, therefore the legislation would have to be passed and any necessary determination made in terms of what exactly would be done with the northern boundaries within the next 11 months which seems unlikely. I am however strongly in favour of having two separate articles for these disricts. The reasoning would be as follows: a) the boundaries usually begin and end use on different years at the different levels of government; b) the list of results at both levels would not only make the page large, but also could make it very confusing to readers. I would suggest the pages have the following text in their intros:
Since the 1999 Ontario provincial election, electoral districts with the same names and boundaries are used for both provincial and federal elections. This article is about the (federal/provincial) district, for information on the (provincial/federal) district, [[(name of corresponding article)|click here]]. - Jord 15:07, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm happy with that approach. Ground Zero | t 15:15, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think splitting the pages would be ideal. I'd prefer a shorter intro sentence though; we can probably get by with:
This article is about the federal electoral district; there is also a [[provincial district]] with this name. Mindmatrix 20:28, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I can't say I support this, but if you guys are willing to do all the work, then fine. -- Earl Andrew - talk 21:37, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Keep them seperate I will give you an example of how large a riding page can get Little Bow (electoral district) in rural Alberta, its 90 years of history for one riding, if the same were to happen in a combined federal and provincial article it would go on forever. --Cloveious 05:16, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • The legislative change Ground Zero references has in fact been passed, as part of a Democratic Renewal omnibus bill this spring, IIRC. FWIW, I'm okay with having post-1999 provincial stuff sharing an articles with the federal districts, but the pre-1999 districts should not be lumped in, even if they shared names, as then we get messes like Ottawa South. Considering every provincial district grew by a good 20% or more when the 1999 switch went through, there's inevitably nowhere near coterminal boundaries. The Tom 04:47, 4 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
What would we do for Ottawa South? If the article were at Ottawa South (provincial electoral district), it would have to include the current riding as well. It never changed names. -- Earl Andrew - talk 05:20, 4 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It seems you are right, though the law has not passed yet, it is at third reading [2] so it is quite likely to pass being a government bill. That said, if the electoral districts are no longer going to be in sync + the fact that in the Ottawa South (and other) example(s) we have federal and provincial districts which at one time had the same name but were substantively different, I would suggest that these districts should be split into two pages. - Jord 22:43, 4 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It would make things cofusing if Ottawa South (provincial electoral district) was not about the current riding. Besides, same MP, same general geographical area. -- Earl Andrew - talk 05:27, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed it would and I am proposing that it would be about the current riding. Ottawa South (provincial electoral district) would be about the provincial riding from its origin to its realignment with the federal boundaries to the present. In the meantime there would be a Ottawa South (federal electoral district) which would cover the federal district as created in 84 to the present - Jord 15:19, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Then where would the current *provincial* electoral district go? -- Earl Andrew - talk 17:21, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
And I quote, Ottawa South (provincial electoral district) would be about the provincial riding from its origin to its realignment with the federal boundaries to the present (emphasis added) - Jord 18:48, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Article splits[edit]

Ok well, I've decided that splitting the articles up might be a good idea, and over the past year or so I've made a few splits. I'm going to list the provincial electoral districts with their new names here to keep track. I would like to see them all finished before the election in October. Help is strongly encouraged!

(Then we have to take into account old ridings too!)

-- Earl Andrew - talk 19:48, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Stubs to expand[edit]

I created a couple of stubs (which need expanding) of former Ontario provincial electoral districts, Wellington West and Wellington East, so I could seperate them from the New Zealand electorates of the same name, some of which I had written stubs for Hugo999 (talk) 07:38, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Em-dash use[edit]

I noticed that the project is using em-dashes in riding names to differentiate from hyphens internally. I started making changes to en-dashes (which are not hyphens), as the em-dash is used for something else entirely—like brackets, actually—and should not be used in riding names. Someone mentioned that this issue was discussed, but I don't see where, and it is clear that the em-dash is the wrong thing to use here. Comments, please.  OZLAWYER  talk  19:53, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Osgoodelawyer and myself were discussing this on our user pages. There was previously some discussion of this a couple years ago at Talk:List of Canadian federal electoral districts. However, Wikipedia:WikiProject Electoral districts in Canada/Naming conventions says nothing about the issue. Personally I do think the em-dashes should be kept, as this seems to be the official typography as used in hansard. - SimonP 20:07, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Mmm. I'm with SimonP... while it's slightly weird typography, it is what is used. (Indeed, in situations where an em-dash is unavailable, ridings are often represented with the double hyphen, ie Cariboo--Prince George, which is emphatically a substitution used for em-dashes, not en-dashes.) To be fair, it's not like using an en-dash in such situations is any more grammatically correct (which is in 90% of cases a means of expressing "to", such as 9 pm – 10 pm), and my sense is that it has been adopted as official style on account of whatever dash-using practices are in French Canada, where they hyphenate (or sometimes en-dash?) compound nouns and thus need to keep Notre-Dame-de-la-Grace—Lachine and its ilk happy (The one English case that benefits is Chatham-Kent—Essex). One thing that always bugged me was that it seems to be interchangingly used as a stand-in for "...and..." or in other cases for "...specifically, the subset around..." You've got your Vegreville—Wainrights and Carleton—Mississippi Millses on the one hand and your Toronto—Danforths and Calgary—Nose Hills on the other. Grammar geekery + Political anorakery = Trouble The Tom 20:35, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Elections Canada appears to use the em dash in its official publications as well, so it's not just a wacky Hansard typesetting tradition. French/Québec riding names have plenty of hyphens in them, but no obvious en dashes, so the reason remains obscure. The official use is the only possible justification for keeping the em dashes, in my view. The en dash is perfectly appropriate for separating hyphenated compound names (though I do see that our article on dashes weasels on this point, claiming objection from "some authorities"). The em dash is not ordinarily used this way, so I'd say that the en dash would, in the absence of official examples, be the correct choice. It'd be interesting to learn the history of its (eccentric) use in riding names. —Eric S. Smith 13:59, 28 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Just noting in passing that while Elections Canada appears to use the em dash, Elections BC doesn't, so I hope I don't see any hyphenated riding names in BC changed to use the em-dash to "conform to national standards" or whatever....the source uses hyphens in BC's case, don 't know about the other provinces....Skookum1 (talk) 16:01, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Since Elections Canada uses emdashes for the French linguistic reason that the Tom identifies, and, as noted above, double hyphens to stand in for emdashes, who are we to change that? Should we be saying that the Elections Canada policy is wrong, and, for Wikipedia purposes, the names will be changed to use hyphens/endashes instead? It is true that most English-speaking poeple would assume hyphens are used, but I believe that the hypenated versions for the ridings names have all been created as redirects to the correct emdash versions, so we needn't worry about readers not being able to find the articles.

As an example, Montmorency–Charlevoix–Haute-Côte-Nord would become "Montmorency-Charlevoix-Haute-Côte-Nord", which I do not think is an improvement. It is not clear how many parts there are to the name of the riding.

Finally, there are so very many articles -- probably hundreds -- that would have to be moved to implement a new policy, and I think it would be better to spend our time improving the articles than on moving them and fixing links to the new names. That would take a vast amount of time. Ground Zero | t 21:15, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Ground Zero; and it's worth remembering that a lot of riding articles are nothing more than stubs with only election results, if that; each one has a political history/makeup and various candidates also need writing up (I guess that's in {{PPAC}}); I'm speaking especially of historical ridings, which as some here know I created for all of BC's; I'd imagine there are many left to do in other provinces as well; and there's an election coming; this would be like merging the Elections Office with the political animal of Parliament; two different subject matters/jurisdictions...BTW this is my last day/night on Wiki for a while; life circumstances require it, so have fun......Skookum1 02:06, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Member of Parliament[edit]

These are two examples of what has been used:

Okanagan—Coquihalla

Its MP is Stockwell Day, has previously been an auctioneer, contractor, and school administrator. He was first elected in 2000. He represents the Conservative Party of Canada and is their critic on Foreign Affairs. He serves as the Vice-Chair of the 'Subcommittee on Human rights and International Development of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade' and as a member of the 'Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade'.

Nanaimo—Alberni

Its Member of Parliament is James Lunney, a former chiropractor. He was first elected in the 2000 election. He represents the Conservative Party of Canada. He serves as a member on the Standing Committee on Health.

All the information is from the biography at the Library of Parliament. Unless the subcommittee was particularly notable (ie. 'Subcommittee on Solicitation Laws of the Standing Committee on Justice, Human Rights, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness' for their examination of decriminalizing prostitution), they were generally ignored them. Single quote marks were used to allow the reader to know when the painstakingly long name of the committee ended. The committees were only listed for the current parliamentary session.

Any objections? Is there better wording? Better format?

Comments[edit]

  • Perhaps instead of a single quote, italics could be used for the names of committees? - Jord 15:37, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • That does look better. --maclean25 05:36, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Okanagan—Coquihalla

Its MP is Stockwell Day, has previously been an auctioneer, contractor, and school administrator. He was first elected in 2000. He represents the Conservative Party of Canada and is their critic on Foreign Affairs. He serves as the Vice-Chair of the Subcommittee on Human rights and International Development of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade and as a member of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

Is this really necessary? I would think this would be better suited to Stockwell Day's page, rather than Okanagan—Coquihalla, and we are providing a link to the currect MP/MLA. - Wmcduff (talk) 01:22, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

CanRiding template[edit]

Note the new CanRiding template I have added to the page, and the demonstration of its use (twice) at Cape Breton South. Any thoughts on how to improve this? I would like to see these added to all electoral district articles, but since it is probably best to use Subst for reasons of server efficiency, we should probably all agree on the language of the text before going ahead and adding it everywhere. BTW, I'm glad this page was finally created, it was long overdue. Fawcett5 02:41, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • I have made some suggested changes to the text by editing Cape Breton South directly here. Ground Zero | t 15:56, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • In Cape Breton South, shouldn't the proposed link template go under the External links sections? Should it replace the parent link: "Website of the Parliament of Canada" link, or fall under it? Also, I note that the parl. webpage at is titled "History of the Federal Electoral Ridings since 1867". As such, I am fine with the current wording. --maclean25 18:32, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with Maclean that the links should go under the External links header, replacing the old generic parliament link. Is everybody happy with the template itself? Fawcett5 03:38, 26 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

Hello! I'm glad to join this project, and thanks to everyone for all your hard work. It's looking great! I've a few comments regarding this:

  • Should election tables appear in descending chronological order (i.e., more recent ones up top) for ridings, and perhaps to have them appear in two columns per page (so a user doesn't have to endlessly scroll down)?
  • Would it be more prudent to include numbers/identifiers for ridings (p. 13), etc. and or abbreviations sanctioned by Elections/Statistics Canada (or logical initialisms) for each party, (I recall seeing some discussion regarding this), with only abbreviations for subsequent appearances? Here's another useful search link at the Library of Parliament website. While clearer, full titles are potentially lengthy and parties (those with longevity) are usually repeated in subsequent tables.
  • Should we consider including brief statistical profiles (template?) with map for each riding (e.g., size, population, etc.), and list summative information regarding current representation (and also narratively, or when different)? While informative, this can also be a huge undertaking given periodic censuses (and changing data) every five years, differences among ridings between federal-provincial-municipal levels, and not throwing in a 'kitchen sink' of data.

Thoughts? Thanks! E Pluribus Anthony 04:50, 28 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

1. For discussion on chronological order go here: /Election results/Chronological order. I like the idea of parallel tables. It can fill a lot of white space. We just have to make the tables small enough so we can fit two side-by-side.

2. If these Federal riding codes are unique to every district perhaps they belong in an infobox.

3. For discussion on demographics and census data see: Wikipedia:WikiProject Electoral districts in Canada/Demographics

maclean25 05:00, 28 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hey; thanks for your reply ... and thanks for this! I noted these comments here in the hope of consolidating our fruitful actions with others. I'll also post elsewhere as you've suggested and as needed. Thanks! E Pluribus Anthony 05:07, 28 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Because there are so many issues to sort out, this has become an exercise in managing fragmented discussions on a single topic. Please keep some pages on your watchlist and don't be afraid to create a new section or a subpage to deal with a specific issue. --maclean25 05:55, 28 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Great; done and done ... thanks again! :) E Pluribus Anthony 06:13, 28 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Partial automation[edit]

I've had a look at some of the data sources and references available for this project, and I think I can automate some of the process. Specifically, I can:

  • automatically fetch, parse, edit and save data about election results sample
  • automatically fetch, parse, edit and save any of the demographic data available from StatCan sample 1 sample 2
  • possibly automate some of the work related to expenses, though that website has an awful interface (especially for querying with a bot)
  • the addition of any infoboxes, templates, or categories

In order to do this, I would need the following:

  • a new bot user account
  • permission from this group to run the bot
  • permission from WP:BOT to run the bot
  • a sample article with a complete set of data, templates etc., as we wish them to appear for all articles, that I will use as the bot's template
  • a group of people, which will include me, to track the activities of the bot

I propose that we select one article, and update it with all the information we want to present for all electoral districts. (This is a worthwhile idea whether or not the bot is created.) Note that there are a few caveats:

  • a lot of this information is under Crown Copyright - I will not do wholesale copying of data
  • I can only automate processes which follow a pattern - I will not automate anything which has any randomness in it
  • I'll write/run the bot only after we've resolved issues regarding data for demographics and electoral results
  • I'll need examples of the current state of articles with respect to content, so that I can program the bot to behave under different conditions
  • if this goes ahead, I'll run the bot on up to 10 articles, and wait for sufficient feedback about those edits before letting it run on all other articles

I propose this because a lot of this work is tedious, repetitive, and can be easily automated; I would rather have humans add interesting information to the articles instead of wasting time adding this stuff in. I welcome feedback, and I'll try to address any concerns you have. Let me be clear, though: I'll respect the community consensus, whatever it may be. Mindmatrix 02:48, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have a bias towards Ottawa South as our example article. What do you all think? -- Earl Andrew - talk 03:48, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well, nobody else has offered a suggestion, so Ottawa South it is! Mindmatrix 14:57, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I would certainly support automation/botification, especially if it can format the tables as well. If it is just about importing the raw data on election results from the Parliamentary site, I don't know if it saves any effort. The real effort is in formatting. Ground Zero | t 14:38, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Data formatting will be a part of the process. This is why I want well-defined infoboxes etc. As part of that effort, I will program the bot to convert names to lowercase (MARTIN -> Martin, MCARTHUR -> McArthur, O'GRADY -> O'Grady), to create any necessary headers, and add relevant infoboxes, in addition to text and tables for demographics data. Mindmatrix 14:57, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I entirely support the idea of a bot. However, could it do some simple calculations (e.g. calculating percentages) on the statistical data? Luigizanasi 16:41, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, so long as the data to calculate the percentages is readily accessible and non-random. It appears that StatCan embeds data for the province and Canada in the riding tables, so I can also program the bot to do provincial and national comparisons. We can discuss the data requirements on the Demographics page; I'll use the results on that page as the basis for the bot's functionality. Mindmatrix 14:57, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
BTW: when I say non-random in that context, what I mean is that the data sources, and the way in which they are formatted, is predictable. The data itself will of course have variation. Mindmatrix 15:29, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Note that for comparison to provincial averages, I would not include such comparisons for the territories since there is only one riding in each anyway. Mindmatrix 15:29, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've written a small component of the bot. Right now, it does the following:

  • fetch a list of electoral districts to edit
  • for each district:
    • query the parl.gc.ca database for info
    • parse the text to find the province of the riding (just in case)
    • parse the text for each election (the parliament heading)
  • create a time-stamped transaction log

Problems I've encountered:

  • StatCan uses original riding names for 2003 Representation Order, but the list I have uses the most recent names
  • StatCan uses javascript for its search page; I'm not going to program a javascript interpreter for this project...

I don't think either problem should be difficult to solve. I can probably generate a sample page this weekend sometime. I'll put it in my user-space, and link to it from here. Mindmatrix 01:33, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Provincial riding names question[edit]

Is there a preferred format for provincial electoral districts, i.e. other than "Lillooet (electoral district)". The case I've come across is the first historical/alphabetical listing of BC ridings, Cariboo; So there's Cariboo (electoral district) and I'm eyeballing it to Cariboo (provincial electoral district). Is that OK? I notice in some other ridings where there's more than one provincial riding (i.e. the same name occurs in more than one province) it's something like "Cariboo (British Columbia electoral district)". Clarification please. For the record, I've assigned myself BC constituencies, both federal and provincial, that aren't done yet, especially historical ones that tie into the career of noted politicians (Walkem, Premier Elliott, George Murray, Amor De Cosmos and so on. Next after Cariboo I'm gonna do Dewdney (electoral district), Yale (electoral district), and Victoria City (provincial electoral district) (vs. Victoria City (electoral district) which is federal) Skookum1. There may be a federal Yale electoral district - I haven't looked yet; I know there was a Yale-Cariboo, so the provincial entry may have to be Yale (provincial electoral district). Dewdney is going to turn out to be a disambiguation because of Edgar Dewdney, the Dewdney Trail and the town/locality of Dewdney, British Columbia, etc. [[Yale22:26, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Vaguely-related drudgework[edit]

Now that we seem to be in election fever again, there're a couple of quasi-tedious jobs I've put off for a bit. I was working my way through Results of the Canadian federal election, 2004: All on one page, converting the older-format results tables to the newer-format tables (which are saved in template-format and then {{include}}d across several pages) in an east to west fashion and generally meandered off the job somewhere east of Peterborough. Anybody who's up for lending me a hand at thrilling conversion work will get my undying affection. The region-specific text needs to be moved to the appropriate regional page (like Canadian federal election results in Eastern Ontario), and then the template created and the other content dumped in. Aside from adding a whack of extra cells, there's also the need to update the footnoting and use of the dagger to match the standards used in the other updated versions. It will change your life. It changed mine.

Also, my pretty little automatically-generated histograms (for an example, see Canadian federal election results in New Brunswick) used to look delightful until some sort of change to the Wikipediawide CSS made the boxes autostack (rather than line up side by side) which makes things rather hideous. I mucked about with my code trying to update it so it meshed with the new order of things but, also gave up when it just hurt my head too much. Anyone technically-minded who wants to take a shot at it would be recieve even more love than the above persons. I fear we may need to go hunting outside our nerdy little political pond to find someone who enjoys wrestling CSS and templates enough to get things back to usefulness.

Merci beaucoup, all. The Tom 10:26, 26 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Nanaimo and other ridings re:...[edit]

In a few cases I'm running into - Nanaimo and Comox primarily - there are existing city pages. Normally for "such and so constituency click here" but in both of these cases there's seven or eight riding names; I gave up on Comox earlier for this reason but just did a Nanaimo (electoral districts) page and gave that a link at the top of Nanaimo, British Columbia. I've been doing the BC historical provincial districts and Nanaimo is one of them Nanaimo (provincial electoral district) - and it's also a current riding, with very different boundaries and population etc. What I've done in those cases is list them separately on a given page, but the links resolve to the same; but as a result the current-riding page has to make sure to carry the historical riding information and a writeup on its politics/geography etc as well; OR if it's felt to be a better way to do it, have one called Nanaimo (provincial electoral district) (long tag, huh? - less so with "historical" dropped from it, now that it's fixed).

Just trying to figure this all out and keep it organized. With the historic districts I try and make sure to do the lineage - the genealogy of the riding; in the Nanaimo area there's been a century and more of gerrymandering (hard core labour unions vs old money, coalmines and estates, big lumber, dairy) so the boundaries got mutated around a lot.

In a bunch of cases unless I hear not to I'm going to have to do this to other riding-name pages where an existing major city page is in place and there's not adequate room to properly list the electoral districts all at once; an intermediary page - a disambiguation, but exclusively on electoral districts - is necessary; or the main Nanaimo or Comox or Tsawwassen page has to get changed to Nanaimo, British Columbia; Comox, British Columbia etc and a new Nanaimo page becomes the redirect; or however that's done. Seemed simpler to do it all the way I'd seen it done, although usually to a wide-disambig, i.e. not limited to electoral districts.

If I'm doing something wrong please let me know.Skookum1 02:35, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a page which lists all the names/colors in the Wikipedia table/box stylesheets? I've been improvising on obscure party names, instead of just using "Other" (e.g. using "Marijuana" for "Government" and "Natural Law" for "Opposition"); Many of the old party names are one-night shows or one-man bands, so they can just have Other; which is what I've used for Conservative Independents, Independent Liberals, Independent Labour and such; came across Soldier Farmer and BC Constructivist Party which were around for a while; on a province-wide election chart/pie they'd need a colour, though they won no seats; and others like them. Haven't been that consistent on the colours I've used on the historical ridings done so far, and am hoping on input as where to index and categorize them; info about them inserted onto current riding pages needs to be done at some point....oh yeah - shouldn't there be a bulletin-list where whomever's working on a riding can post their activity/completion so others can check it over? I think I've got all my numbers right but a fact-checker is a fact-checker; same with proofreading, and it'd be good to keep tabs on who's working where and, if in historical periods, which ones Skookum1 02:28, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]


On your first question, I have been doing the current and former Ontario federal districts on the following basis: one name, one article; and one riding, one article. So where the same riding name has been used two or more times through history, there is only one article, and it identifies the various areas that the so-named riding covered. Also, where a riding has simply changed name Broadview—Greenwood became Toronto—Danforth for example, both are combined into one article with the other name (B-G) serving as a redirect to the main article (T-D). I guess if you gather enough information about both a historical riding and a current riding with the same name to necessitate separate articles, you may want to go with that, but I have not found that necessary. This is just the approach that I have taken, and is not, to my knowledge, established as a policy.
On the question of party colours, I created or revised all of the federal and most of the provincial general elections tables. I generally assigned colours only for parties that were around for a while, and left the others using grey, i.e., the same colour as independents. I also used grey for Independent Conservatives, Liberal Independents, etc. Check the BC elections articles to see if colours have already been assigned. If not, then it's up to you to decide whether to choose colours, or just to leave them grey. If you do choose new colours, I hope that you will adjust the BC general election tables as well for consistency.
Check out this page: Template:Canadian politics/party colours, which captures all of the party colours that I could find when I compiled it. Feel free to add any that you have assigned in your work. Regards, Ground Zero | t 03:32, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Candidate listings?[edit]

Here I thought I was going to be all useful today, instead of working over long-obsolete provincial ridings, by adding in declared candidates and bios for various federal ridings. I started in at it and noticed that someone else has already provided blank tables ready for inputting; should I go on by adding candidate-lists to the text area? Idea was to provide short bios; so far I've only done Abbotsford (electoral district)Skookum1 23:10, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

New elections results/house seatings templates[edit]

Had a start on a simple version of what I was looking for; had to do colours by hand-coding as can't figure out how to get the colour templates to work without them taking up rows/cells. There's two templates Template:LegislatureSeats and Template:CanLeg1 and I've done up British Columbia general election, 1903 for a trial run. Think this could also be used for provincial caucuses at the federal level. Would like to make this look better, more functional; committees/cabinet posts, if any, maybe margins of victory, and ??? Suggestions? Skookum1 21:44, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

BC Elections 1871-1900 (new House template)[edit]

With GroundZero's help tweaking the finished product, I created a legislature-seats table Template:LegSeats3, the results of which you can see on any of the BC elections from 1871 to 1928 or so, and 1952 as well so far. I created it because I needed a way to represent divisions of the House, such as they were, in the pre-party period (ending '03); and it helps all around as a visual display, like the existing electoral tables. Having it also gave me a tool to do the outlines of the BC elections from 1872 to 1900, which hadn't been done (other than 1898 for some reason); so they're down now as well with some rough outline on the history of elections in the period. e.g. British Columbia general election, 1903, British Columbia general election, 1894, British Columbia general election, 1952 (scroll down on each page to get to tables).

I'd like to make the colour-columns narrower, and the same size, but I'm not sure of how to code the template to accomplish that. I think it's useful for other provinces, and maybe also for provincial caucuses, i.e. of MPs, the BC caucus, the Alberta caucus, and so on; even committee composition if there's an article to that effect. With a tweak of the title it could be used for US states.Skookum1 01:17, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Note: the party is put in the riding-name column so that later additions to the Member boxes can be made, i.e. Cabinet positions, dates of resignation etc. Makes it a bit complicated when a multi-member riding has two or three Opposition members from different parties, but I've made those party name-lists, when they occur, hopefully visually correspond to the names in the fields next to them.Skookum1 07:21, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Federal Election Result Templates[edit]

I don't know why our own templates were made for the Canadian Federal Elections. Shouldn't there just be generic tables for any election results? Sort of a waste of space for storing those templates and confusing. It would be so much simpler if there was just one set of templates.--Kelownian 08:15, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The templates are all of 1k large, if that. The British templates have a different visual look, and those for Aus and so on were developed independently. In my own experience the template-pages for the Canadian federal elections were different from those for the provincial ones; and the House-composition Results templates linked in the previous item are completely new, and have not been applied anywhere before other than in (so far) B.C.
The two main templates I've seen for riding results are Template:Election box and Template:FPTP. I made an adaption of the FPTP, Template:Pref because of the preferential ballot in BC in 1952-53, which required two new columns and column-titles. I don't use the ElectionBox template much, but it's common in federal ridings; the FPTP one I originally got from the Provencher federal riding, however.
Wikipedia is an open environment and you can create new templates, or not, as you see fit. In the case of the electoral information we're trying to develop Canadian standards; but the same templates and terminologies used in Canada can not, for instance, be applied directly to US state houses or those in Australia.Skookum1 07:19, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

All BC Provincial ridings now in system[edit]

I just finished North Peace River and South Peace River, which were the predecessor ridings for Peace River North and Peace River South. Near as I can tell that means that ALL historical provincial ridings are now in Wikipedia, although some of those still need historical data filled in - especially the current ridings whose data tends to only go back to 1991; in some cases, such as Vancouver-Point Grey, I "filled in the blanks" but others such as Vancouver-Burrard and any other current riding need doing; I think I did the Victoria (British Columbia electoral district) and new Westminster (provincial electoral district) historical data, but that's it; a couple of the old ridings, like the West Kootenay partition ridings from the 1890s, I don't think have data in them yet ....but I'm too burned out from all this electoral data now; a few more federal ridings notwithstanding.

Turned out I still had the defunct North Shore ridings, Surrey and a couple of its spinoffs, now Coquitlam; not quite done but very close.....many modern ridings still need back-data prior to 1991 though.

Comment: there are two Nanaimo and The Islands listings; one is with a capital "The" and the other isn't - Nanaimo and The Islands and Nanaimo and the Islands. I can't remember if the existence of the parallel entries is my fault; might have been; most of the links are geared around the latter one, but in retrospect and on reviewing the Elections BC website, the capital-The spelling is the normative one; because this riding was a combination of the Nanaimo riding and The Islands. I think the complete data is in the no-capital-the article; but one or the other of these should become a redirect to the other; I vote for the capital-T to be the main article.

Made a few colours in the last few days; sorry about the off-puce for the United Front (Workers and Farmers) Party; if someone can do better please do so.Skookum1 22:20, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No. of BC federal districts[edit]

I just had a look at the BC federal electoral districts (cat); there are thirty-seven, and there are only supposed to be 36, n'est-ce pas? Anybody got any idea which one should be "defunct"?Skookum1 01:07, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

When does a riding become defunct?[edit]

Here's a problem I encountered tonight. Two ridings here in NB had minor tweakings to their boundaries in 1987 (we're talking maybe 2000 people affected combined) that happened to coincide with a name change. One of them (Miramichi) was divided into seperate articles, which I merged back together. Meanwhile, Fundy-Royal, which was totally reconfigured in the last redistribution, is untouched. What's the criteria for determining how much a change there should be before we split riding pages? Kirjtc2 02:41, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've been going by the Library of Parliament website, which is the source for everything that I've been doing on riding articles. It says, in its Northumberland—Miramichi article that "The electoral district was abolished in 1987." I don't know how they determine when a riding is abolished and when its name is changed,
    • it's when the enacting legislation for the boundary changes came into effect. That's why "abolished in 19xx" doesn't necessarily coincide with an election year. In the case of the BC provincial ridings I didn't have information on the dates of the redistribution legislation so did it by election years only, i.e. what year the riding first/last appeared in.

but I suspect that if the redistribution commission changes a riding's boundaries and its name as part of a general redistribution, the former riding is considered to be abolished. Otherwise, it's a name change. For Fundy-Royal and other ridings, if the name hasn't been changed, then it's all in one article.

  • I have no objection to combining the Northumberland—Miramichi and Miramichi articles, but I think that we have to go by the Library of Parliament's description of N-H having been abolished unless we can find another official says (e.g., Elections Canada) that says otherwise. The article could read something like:
Northumberland-Miramichi was a federal electoral district in New Brunswick, Canada, that was represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1968 to 1997. It was replaced by Miramichi riding, which has been represented in the House of Commons since 1997.
  • The article would then cover both ridings. Comments? Ground Zero | t 14:48, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Um, yeah. Rule of thumb I've used out in BC is, so long as it's the same riding name, it comes home to poppa and goes on the same page. Hyphenated or otherwisely combined-named ridings have their own entry. Boundary tweakings accompanied namechanges are totally different ridings (this is how I've treated them) such that provincial ridings Okanagan South and South Okanagan have two different pages. And the reality, at least here in BC, is that the boundary tweakings are usually shrinkings because of population growth; with the result that a same-name riding of 1980 might look a lot different (actually it WILL look a lot different) than its predecessor in 1950, such that Okanaqan South and South Okanagan include the same core cities (Kelowna and Penticton) but outer areas originally part of the riding get assigned to other ridings, or turned into new ones.

Splitting-and-recombining was really had to follow; I suggest you both look at Kootenay (electoral districts) and see the hierarchy tree - which was necessary in this region, which has more boundary changes and name-mutations than any other part of BC. You'll see some names that appear two or three times in some of the hierarchies; those all point at the same page, which when getting to the intermediary riding/year, has a note on the electoral history sending you to the other-named riding. Of BC's federal historical ridings I was really strict; if it was a different name, it was a different riding; so all the 1871 ridings, which were temporarily created until ratified by the provincial parliament in time for 1872, are all listed indepedently of the 1872-onwards ridings (all of which got subdvided in pretty short order as the province's population grew). So Victoria District and Victoria have separate pages, Vancouver Island and Vancouver have separate pages, New Westminster District and New Westminster have separate pages. Problem is just because, say with your Miramichi ridings, is that, say in the last case, there's also New Westminster City (provincial; the provincial New Westminster riding was all of the Lower Mainland except the City of New Westminster), New Westminster—Burnaby (federal defunct), New Westminster—Coquitlam (the current federal riding). And more. Confusing it further, for outsiders to BC, is that the New Westminster riding included all of modern-day Vancouver and the Fraser Valley (until the creation of the Burrard riding); while Vancouver riding was actually Vancouver Island (the city hadn't been founded/named at the time of its existence).

Also worth noting that Yale (electoral district) for several years didn't even include Yale itself (the name was grandfathered from the first set of federal ridings (Yale District in 1871), but the location of the town of Yale was remote from the growing population core of the riding (the Okanagan and Similkameen areas; Yale riding originally was everything to the Alberta border) and the town of Yale wound up in the same riding as Chilliwack (by various names).

I could go on; I just think it's simpler to keep the same-names all together, but if it's hyphenated or combined-name (e.g. Coast Chilcotin isn't hyphenated) it gets its own page, with a link out of the electoral history from the one page, then a link back, e.g. look at Lillooet, Lillooet West and Lillooet East; the latter two existed briefly - three elections I think (provincial) and then Lillooet West got the original Lillooet name back (it's got the town of Lillooet in it; but the Lillooet-only riding sequence is all on the same page, while actually it should be two different ridings (theoretically, if I'd used a different set of rules) with Lillooet West and the later Lillooet (now Yale-Lillooet provincially).

I gather that a lot of your riding-names and boundaries in older-settled parts of the country are a bit more stable? Out here it's complicated by mountains, and shifting populations; either because of immigration or the boom-and-bust nature of the provincial economy. The Kootenay list, for example, had a plethora of new ridings created during the heyday of the galena and copper booms of the late 1800s through to about the 1930s; as those towns (Sandon, Greenwood, Eholt, Rossland, Ymir either faded away or nearly disappeared (Eholt and Sandon) their ridings were combined into the region-spanning ones today.

I could go on; just laying out what I set up as standards out here in BC.Skookum1 17:24, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just to comment on Ground Zero's comments, a name change only occurs between riding re-distributions. -- Earl Andrew - talk 05:01, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Which is why I made them all separate pages, except when the names are identical.Skookum1 06:23, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I understand the BC situation, but the Miramichi example was a minor tweaking at best...three rural communities that don't even have their own gas station changed ridings. Yes, they are fairly more stable, except for when the map is radically redrawn (like it was in the western half of NB in 1997). Ground Zero's idea of merging articles and saying "riding X replaced riding Y" is fair IMO. Kirjtc2 03:31, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • So long as there's only one riding at question; often in BC there aren't, or in a redistribution the same name might wind up having very different boundaries (esp. in the Kootenays or the Central Island, which are the main gerrymandering regions in BC).Skookum1 00:37, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yves Séguin[edit]

Somebody should have a look at the article Yves Séguin. It is not clear to me whether he was minister of Canada or minister of Quebec or both or neither. Thanks, AxelBoldt 04:18, 22 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

He was a Quebec minister, not a federal one (Charest appointed him, and Charest has never been PM to the best of my knowledge, much as he wanted the job). I followed the Montmorency link but the one electoral district I spotted is a federal electoral district; maybe there's a provincial riding of the same name, as there often is in BC.Skookum1 20:17, 22 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Succession box templates[edit]

Just curious, is there a standard box we should be using? Below is a sample of some I had viewed and placed here to show the different styles. HJKeats 19:16, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Norman Doyle

Preceded by Member of Parliament for St. John's East
1997–present 		Succeeded by
incumbent

Wayne Easter

Preceded by Member of Parliament from Malpeque
1993–present 		Incumbent

Serge Ménard

Preceded by
District created in 2003. Please see Laval Centre and Laval East
 Member of Parliament for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin
2004- 		Succeeded by
Incumbent

Joe Volpe

Preceded by:
Roland de Corneille, Liberal 		Member of Parliament from Eglinton--Lawrence
(1988-) 		Succeeded by:
Incumbent

Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team cooperation[edit]

Hello. I'm a member of the Version 1.0 Editorial Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing articles using these criteria, and we are are asking for your help. As you are most aware of the issues surrounding your focus area, we are wondering if you could provide us with a list of the articles that fall within the scope of your WikiProject, and that are either featured, A-class, B-class, or Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Do you have any recommendations? If you do, please post your suggestions at the listing of all active Places WikiProjects, and if you have any questions, ask me in the Work Via WikiProjects talk page or directly in my talk page. Thanks a lot! Titoxd(?!? - help us) 18:30, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Em-dash use[edit]

I noticed that the project is using em-dashes in riding names to differentiate from hyphens internally. I started making changes to en-dashes (which are not hyphens), as the em-dash is used for something else entirely—like brackets, actually—and should not be used in riding names. Someone mentioned that this issue was discussed, but I don't see where, and it is clear that the em-dash is the wrong thing to use here. Comments, please.  OZLAWYER  talk  19:53, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Osgoodelawyer and myself were discussing this on our user pages. There was previously some discussion of this a couple years ago at Talk:List of Canadian federal electoral districts. However, Wikipedia:WikiProject Electoral districts in Canada/Naming conventions says nothing about the issue. Personally I do think the em-dashes should be kept, as this seems to be the official typography as used in hansard. - SimonP 20:07, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I found a page [3] that says that the en-dash is used in B.C. ridings, from 1997, though. Anyone know if there's a change in B.C.'s use today?  OZLAWYER  talk 
Hrm. You guys are using hyphens in the B.C. pages?  OZLAWYER  talk  20:16, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I understand that BC does not follow Elections Canada's model in this regard, and uses only endashes in riding names. Ground Zero | t 21:21, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
MB, PE, NL, YK, NT, NU, MB, SK and AB use hyphens exclusively, while QC uses em-dashes exclusively. ON uses hyphens in the normal text and double hyphens (which could be understood as either en-dashes or em-dashes) in riding pages and pages about committees. NS uses hyphens with spaces on each side in some cases and simple hyphens in others, for no apparent reason for the differentiation, and BC uses hyphens in some cases and en-dashes in others, also for no apparent reason.  OZLAWYER  talk  21:53, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Provincial riding templates[edit]

This comment is blantantly copied from my own talk page:

It crossed my mind that instead of there being one catch-all {{Canada-constituency-stub}} that there ought to be constituency stubs by province. There is currently a discussion[4] for creating separate stubs for politicians by province. The same should go for constituencies by province. However, having recently gone through and flagged a zillion articles with their respective provincial-stub templates, I know that would be a huge undertaking, so I haven't made the proposal. It would certainly do away with having to use two stub templates on a constituency article when one would do.

If you look at Category:Canadian constituency stubs, there are a lot of stubs in the category. It might be more useful to have sub-stub categories, especially for those editors who wish to work on a specific province. The current {{Canada-constituency-stub}} could possibly be renamed {{Canada-fed-constituency-stub}} or something similar, unless it is considered more practical to tag federal ridings with the stub template for the appropriate province. Agent 86 01:20, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

By-elections[edit]

Should we have articles for every by-election that occurs? That's what is done for British by-elections and American Special elections. I was wondering if it would be a good idea to do the same. I know during the Labrador election, we decided against creating an article, by merging the content of one created into the Labrador (electoral district) article. Check out more here: List of United Kingdom by-elections -- Earl Andrew - talk 22:01, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Despite the precedence in the UK and US, I don't think it's necessary, unless the article gets crazy long, then it should be branched. Ground Zero | t 22:14, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Mh. Believing that it would be handled the same way in Canadian electoral articles, I created links to Repentigny by-election, 2006 and London North Centre by-election, 2006 from the respective electoral district articles... Is that a problem? I'd prefer to have separate articles about the by-elections, as that makes categorising and finding information about those by-elections easier... —Nightstallion (?) 14:07, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • In the BC provincial election series, including the historical ones, I included byelections on the ends of pages for the previous general election; I think I did this for some historical federal ones as well. But maybe they should have their own articles, as many have political contexts which should have explanations, i.e. as to their circumstances and consequences and issues; this would seem to make sense, and keep by-elections off general elections pages.Skookum1 02:28, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • I think they should have their own pages, yes. —Nightstallion (?) 19:33, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • My view is that the by-election information belongs on the electoral district page which has electoral history anyway. To be helpful to readers, it makes sense to have a by-election page redirect to the electoral district page as is the current practice. - Jord 21:20, 9 November 2006 (UTC)*[reply]
            • My view is that it is necessary, especially when there is more than one riding having a by-election, like Ontario 2007. A by-election page is a good starting point, and should include all candidates and results, along with a brief description of why the election is occurring. With links to the main riding pages and the candidates for full details. It also aids research when people are trying to look up by-elections. I mostly agree with Skookum1 and Nightstallion (?)'s views. Abebenjoe 23:11, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Standardization[edit]

I've been going though and updating many of the Federal Ridings to be in line with the latest election results, and I've noticed something. Many of the pages have different set-ups both in how the information is presented, and the tables that contain the election results. I think we need to go through, and I know, all 308 pages and standardize them so they all appear with the same form of presenting information. I'm doing the best I can on making the tables all the same, with candidate, party, votes recieved, percentage, percentage change, and expenditures, but I don't want to change the pages beyond that incase there was a reason that certain pages were different. (Grizzwald 03:03, 20 September 2006 (UTC))[reply]

The Format in use on Leeds—Grenville, which I plucked at random, is one I had applied to all BC ridings, historical ones anyway, based on a UK model which is slightly different (I couldn't make the colour bar really narrow like theirs is; don't understand Wikicode enough); so if that's the model you're spreading around, that's nice to know; and it's also modelled on a standard evolved for parliamentary elections in the UK and elsewhere. On a separate but related account, there's varying layouts for showing elections results, both provincially and federally, although I think most federal pages are matching.Skookum1 02:33, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Project directory[edit]

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 18:30, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Riding of the month?[edit]

Should we have a collaboration for riding of the month? This would be a good idea to help improve some of our articles. Perhaps a riding of the fortnight would be better? I'm thinking we can get going on this after the by-elections. -- Earl Andrew - talk 01:19, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Which is, by way of suggestion, a reminder that we probably have a federal election upcoming in April, so we should have a look around to see what can yet be improved etc etc; I was thinking about this during the last week so I guess we're on the same page. Integration/formats, maps/data, whatever else, standardized formatting or whatever. Maybe time to start a Election Prep To-Do List here, huh?Skookum1 02:09, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's also something we should look into. -- Earl Andrew - talk 02:47, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Merger of successor ridings[edit]

(Discussion moved from Talk:Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou subsequent to merger of "Abitibi" article into A-BJ-N-E article)

According to the Library of parliament website, "Abitibi" was created in 1966, and renamed "Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik". It was abolished in 2003, and most of its territory was incorporated into "Nunavik—Eeyou", which was renamed "Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou" in 2004.

I don't object to merging the two articles -- we do not have a consistent policy on this. It seemed to make sense to me to keep the two articles separate and link them in order to avoid having a humungaloid article, but I don't care that much about it.

I do care that we not portray Nunavik—Eeyou/Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou as being a renaming of Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik. I understand that they represent substantially the same area, but the Library of Parliament site says that Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik was abolished. For us to say otherwise is original research, and I'm sure that we can all agree that that would be non-good.

I have tried to restructure the article to avoid the implication, but welcome further changes to improve readability as long as this key point is not lost. Ground Zero | t 19:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I've been thinking in my head that we should set a policy of merging similar ridings together. It makes following their histories a lot easier. To avoid original research, there are books out there on riding histories that have done similar history merging. -- Earl Andrew - talk 20:02, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the Library of Parliament website should be viewed as the authority on the matter. If it says a riding was abolished, who is the author of a book (or us) to say otherwise? Ground Zero | t 20:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is though, there are instances of ridings having the same borders but changing names after a re-distribution. Under your beliefs, this would mean having two articles for the same geographical district. My reasoning for the merger was because if a riding has similar boundaries, it would be nice to have its political geographical history on one page. -- Earl Andrew - talk 21:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are two separate issues here:

  1. Should we accept the Library of Parliament's classification of a riding being abolished and a new riding being created, or should we use some other source and determine that Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik was renamed Nunavik—Eeyou despite what the LofP says?
  2. If we accept the LofP's classification, should the two ridings be in separate articles or combined into one article as you suggest?

One the first question, I am adamant: the LofP should be accepted as authoritative unless it is proven clearly to be wrong. That does not mean, in my opinion, that there have to be two separate articles (the second question). I can live with merging the articles on two ridings into one article as we now have at Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou. There are other examples of this being done (see discussion further up the page.) My concern with doing this as a matter of policy is that we can end up with some very long articles, but I don't think that we have to have a policy that says "never merge articles on two separate ridings even though their boundaries are more or less the same". Ground Zero | t 11:57, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia Day Awards[edit]

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 21:48, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Defunct Ontario Ridings?[edit]

Does anyone have a source for information for defunct Ontario ridings? I'm looking to find out which riding preceeded Durham Centre. Morgan695 21:16, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

templates for defunct BC provincial ridings[edit]

Come to think of it the templates may not be on the defunct BC federal ridings either; I've just added it to those in "A" of Category:Defunct British Columbia provincial electoral districts but I don't have the stomach tonight, or anytime soon, to go through them all and add this to the talkpage:

{{WikiProject Canada|cangov=yes|riding=yes|bc=yes|class=Start|importance=Low}}

If someone else is looking for something mechanical to do, or can bot or parse that, please do; i created all those ridings, didn't occur to me to templatize them at the time....Skookum1 (talk) 05:22, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Possible article deletions while away?[edit]

Hi; I'm sort of back from my wikibreak and just caught a "notability" template on Yale-West, which if left unattended would have led to the article's deletion. I'm wondering/worrying if a lot of other similar articles I created got deleted when I wasn't patrolling my watchlist; there's no List of defunct provincial ridings in British Columbia to check for redlinks....some/most are on pages like Vancouver (electoral districts) but just in case, is there any admin log of deletions? I guess I'd have to know the name of what was deleted; it would help if you could know what category things that were delted were in, so that you'd know if a category's membership had changed and what had disappeared. Can anyone here check this? I'd hate to have to go through the election archives again figuring out if anything's missing....I know I rescued one or two others from deletion over the course of my intermittent visits during the wikibreak, makes me think it's likely a few things have slipped under the radar.....Skookum1 (talk) 00:15, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Check your deleted contributions (this link is found in your "user contributions"). It contains a list of all edits you've made that have since been deleted. You can also load your watchlist and find redlinks there. These two should catch most of the deleted articles you're looking for. However, it will those that were not on your watchlist and that you didn't edit - for that, you'll need the name of the article or the name of the admin who deleted it. Mindmatrix 16:01, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

robo-deletion of articlers while I was away[edit]

I've just been adding the WPCan w. riding switch template to the Category:Defunct British Columbia provincial electoral districts over my morning coffee...so far A-N, gonna take a break. But in the process I've discovered that Prince George South apparently has been deleted (I know I made it, I was very thorough) and recently I prevented a speedy delete on The Islands, I think it was. I also remember preventing some trigger-happy deletion-template-placing admin from throwing away a few election results, period. Is there any way to review what's been deleted or is it just hit and miss, i.e. by finding redlinks where there used to be links? It troubles me especially that elections may have been deleted, or that it's up to someone from outside of BC and unconcerned with its history to decide if our electoral history articles are not notable enough to remain standing. Luckily there's various disambig pages e.g. Kootenay (electoral districts) where most ridings wind up listed, and I'll bounce through the old-elections articles to see what else may have been deleted, ridings or elections. If I find any I'll be back to list them; there's no way to recover the contents of deleted articles I guess, huh? Have to rebuild all those results tables, grrrrr....Skookum1 (talk) 15:34, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, here's the list:

From the 1969 election onwards there's no riding-by-riding breakdown so that's all I've found at this point; NB most of the elections articles do not have the WPCan template yet.....Skookum1 (talk) 15:53, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Almost all deleted edits can be recovered. However, it appears that none of the articles in your list above were ever created - there's no history of these articles in the logs. Are you sure you have the right titles? Mindmatrix 16:20, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thought so, I was pretty thorough when I created the series; I seem to recall Vancouver South and South Okanagan both; Prince George South was short-lived as a riding, maybe I missed it. But like I said I narrowly averted getting The Islands deleted a few weeks ago where someone had placed an sd template on it. I'll check the BC Elections database again.....but, er, I was really thorough in creating the historical ridings; surprised me I missed any......Skookum1 (talk) 16:57, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I was thorough, but glitched the names, as you surmised must be the case; it was the presence or absence of "(electoral district)" in the link; except for Okanagan-Penticton, which does seem to have been deleted; I wouldn't not have made it, I'm that finicky; you sure it at least isn't in the log; The others are notable especially South Okanagan which was WAC Bennett's longtime riding; the Vancouver South link I just made into a redirect to Vancouver South (electoral district), an extant article, likewise South Vancouver which gets complicated because it's one of two municipalities (with Point Grey) which got rolled into the City of VAncouver in its expansion/amalgamation.; but also a riding name, ans well as a contemopary name for part o the city, sort of a macroneighbourhood.Skookum1 (talk) 06:21, 5 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No waitaminit my mistake, it was South Vancouver to [[South Vancouver (electoral district) I created. South Vancouver should almost be its own disambig page....; I'll source the elections pages where the redlinks above were and go to the Elections BC source and check the names over again, then.....might have been a dyslexical error....Skookum1 (talk)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme[edit]

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

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Poll by poll results?[edit]

Has anybody ever created a riding map with poll-by-poll results? Any ideas on what this would look like? --Padraic 18:28, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, see Ottawa South. I've made a few more for private use, since I used a partisan site to get the maps. For provincial elections, Elections Ontario has maps on their site. -- Earl Andrew - talk 22:15, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You, sir, are a political map-making machine. I'm not sure I have the skill to create the necessary base map for Renfrew Nipissing Pembroke. Do you create them freehand or trace? --Padraic 23:40, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I use the base maps and sort of paint over them in MS Paint. Larger ridings are extremely difficult to do, because there are so many pdfs to paste together, and then one needs to make little inset maps for all the towns. -- Earl Andrew - talk 17:07, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Missing Kent—Essex?[edit]

Was working on MP Harold Danforth, who was in Kent (Ontario electoral district) until the ridings changed in 1966. After that, he was in Kent—Essex riding, but Kent—Essex redirects to Chatham-Kent—Essex which only covers post-1996. Seems there is a gap for Kent—Essex from 1966 to the formation of Essex—Kent in 1976. Unless I failed to find something, do we need an article to fill in the 1966-1976 gap for the Kent—Essex of that time? Dl2000 (talk) 00:59, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • This seems to be a bit of a mess. Kent--Essex existed from 1966 to 1976. It was divided between Essex--Kent and Kent in 1976. Essex-Kent was abolished in 1996 and divided between Essex and Kent--Essex. Kent--Essex was then renamed Chatham-Kent--Essex in 1998.
  • So the first Kent--Essex should have its own article. The second Kent--Essex should be covered by the Chatham-Kent--Essex article.
  • I think I've fixed it. Ground Zero | t 02:45, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewing and consolidating the election result table templates (CanElec#)[edit]

We have numerous types of table templates for formatting Canadian election results - see Wikipedia:WikiProject Electoral districts in Canada/Election results. Some consolidation is needed here, and we should take a closer look as to what needs to go into the results, and what is practical to maintain.

For example, {{CanElec6}} adds a Residence column, which is often verifiable information, but that template set is only used in 7 riding articles, and used inconsistently i.e. one or two elections may use {{CanElec6}}, the other elections in a riding use other formats. Unless there is interest in conducting a massive effort to add residence information for all elections and ridings, it would seem we should eliminate the CanElec6 templates. Residence information could be mentioned in candidate articles (or in election party candidate list articles).

Another concern seen from previous discussions in Wikipedia:WikiProject Electoral districts in Canada/Election results/Archive1 is the use of the ±% (percentage change) column in some templates - {{CanElec2}}, {{CanElec4}}, {{CanElec6}}. Should we also attempt to fill in these values (which are not applicable for the first election of a riding's history, and are not as meaningful across riding boundary changes)? Or should ±% be removed altogether as a maintenance burden? Note that if the ±% change is not included in election results, then calculating this out could lead to charges of original research.

Ultimately, this should lead to a single set of Canadian election table formats with parameters to include the optional columns (which would seem to be % of vote, expenditures, and elected flags for the historic cases of 2-MP ridings). Any thoughts or consensus as to the above? Dl2000 (talk) 18:50, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've previously stated this in other discussions: the percentage change column should be eliminated, as it is mathematically useless. The reason it was kept was that some editors felt given its use in the media, Wikipedia should also refer to these figures. As you've stated, the change is pointless when the boundaries change, since the definition of the district is clearly different. Moreover, every riding experiences population changes yearly, skewing whatever value this figure may have had. Another point is that the electors casting ballots may represent different subsets of the population from election to election. I could go on...
Regarding the use of templates, there's absolutely no need to have more than one. ParserFunctions obviates the need to create multiple templates by allowing us to selectively display information based on the parameters present. We should create one new, global template which handles all cases. We should discuss what information to present for these at Wikipedia:WikiProject Electoral districts in Canada/Election results. Mindmatrix 14:39, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Party templates and colours[edit]

The election results tables depend on party row definitions and party colours as seen in {{Canadian politics/party colours}}. I just added one for People's Political Power of Canada, officially registered for the 2008 election. The orangey colour defined for that party was intended to be a sum of the red leaf and golden wheat stalks which are present in that party's logo. However, that can be updated if there a better colour can be agreed upon, as it seems a bit close to PCC and NDP colours. Please advise of any omissions or corrections needed in the {{Canadian politics/party colours}} list. Dl2000 (talk) 21:05, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Federal vs provincial infoboxes[edit]

I just happened to look at Earl Andrew's latest edit to British Columbia Southern Interior and, in light of discussions at Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject Canada about navbox fomats, it struck me that the infobox said "British Columbia electoral district" with a BC flag; I looked at the infobox and could'nt adjust it to "British Columbia federal electoral district"...and although I know the anti-clutter rule, a Canadian flag, or the new WPCanada maple leaf might suffice, in combination with the provincial flag - or provincial emblem (dogwoood in BC's case on the {{BritishColumbia-park-stub}} though at 35px there) in each case, could help to distinguish federal from provincial infoboxes; not just the text; but it should at least definitely be in the infobox title. If one flag/symbol only is the guideline, then for federal ridings it would have to be teh Canadian flag, or the maple leaf, and the provincial flag ot be used on provincial ridings. - ??Skookum1 (talk) 04:39, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I meant to add that, if both flags are used, here or on any template, there's a formal order of protocol as to which goes on the left; it's stage right in Canada for the position of honour I think, I've forgotten; IIRC it's teh opposite in the US, which works out handy as ther's never any arguments about flag placement (theirs is stage left). Not that two flags in the infobox are likely but f they are there I'm pretty sure the Canadian flag would go on the left (stage right, right of the had table etc). Also (further suggestion) a background or border colour be used to distinguish current ridings from historical ones (and the historical ones could even carry the red ensign, which is what those ridings/members served under; BTW instead of the full BC flag the shield version only could be used; or the flag/province-shape or . The shield, despite its protcolic problem (the sun never sets etc) works as a good mininlogo; and there may be a heraldically-correct version of it now (which there wasn't).s fairly common and also authentic, and could be small like the maple leaf; maybe it's already out there, in wiki or in commons, I'll look aroundSkookum1 (talk) 04:49, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Alberta infoboxes[edit]

There Alberta ridings all have a template where the image is supposed to be. The template displays an image with text on it, but it also displays "[[image" before the image and "|200px]]" after. I would just replace the template with the image used in the template, but that would get rid of the links to other ridings. As such I leave it to someone who knows more to fix it or determine it cannot be fixed. -Rrius (talk) 02:19, 15 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some fixing was done on the infobox side, and the maps seem to display OK now. A new parameter for the imagemap spec was created for the special linked map case. Existing regular images should continue to work as is, but bug reports would be welcomed. Dl2000 (talk) 03:13, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1997-2004 gap in Winnipeg North / Winnipeg North Centre?[edit]

Winnipeg North states the riding became Winnipeg North Centre from 1997 to 2004. But the Winnipeg North Centre article election tabulations end at the 1993 election - unless it's hiding somewhere else, there seems to be a 1997-2004 gap (i.e. missing some terms of Judy Wasylycia-Leis). Dl2000 (talk) 02:06, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The info should be in Winnipeg North Centre; there is an external link to the parl.gc.ca site for that riding (1997-2003), but the data contained within has not been added to the article yet. Mindmatrix 14:22, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

quebecpolitique.com[edit]

Hello. I'm considering asking a bot operator to systematically remove external links to the site www.quebecpolitique.com. For one thing almost all of these links (see the linksearch) are now pointing to missing pages (404s) so the links are pretty useless. In any case, this commercial website doesn't qualify as a reliable source: it's more of a blog than anything. More reliable information is readily available (and available in English which is a plus on this wiki) from either the website of the Directeur Général des Élections or the [website of the Assemblé Nationale. If anyone has a good argument for keeping these links, please speak now or forever hold your peace! (Cross posted on the Project on Quebec) Pichpich (talk) 21:57, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Undiscussed merge/redirect of Mackenzie/Powell River-Sunshine Coast[edit]

User:The Tom, or someone, re-wrote Powell River-Sunshine Coast as if it were identical to Mackenzie (provincial electoral district); it is not. The old Mackenzie riding included Bella Coola/Hagensborg and other parts of the South and Central Coast north from Powell River, and those areas are not in this riding now. Just because one riding is a successor to another does not mean they should be merged; if that were teh case the riding data for [[Yale (provincial electoral district) or Vancouver City (electoral district) would have to be merged into at least a dozen other articles each (in parallel). It seems I'll have to look over what else may have been done with historical ridings.....Skookum1 (talk) 01:57, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Even if it's only a name change, it's a change in seating/roster, and because of double-redirect happy "cruisers" the old elections tables will hve the "new" name....very, very very rarely are riding names changed without accompanying changes of boundaries though.....Skookum1 (talk) 01:58, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
further to same issue, see below in "Mergists are out of control"......all such merges MUSt be undone, and the practice of merging similar ridings has got to stop. Name-changes occur for a reason....the wierd part with West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast is that the upper part of the Sea to Sky Country was removed to make West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky. The people who merged such articles enjoy a fait accompli, those who know better are left to clean up the mess (whcih includes incorrect descriptions in the infoboxes/ledes as only the current riding is discussed; removal of whole regions from ridings changes their demographic, that should be obvious. Apparently, to some people, it's not, or is adjudged to be insignificant (which it's not).Skookum1 (talk) 03:34, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

BC Elections links changed[edit]

I just discovered this, after wanting to look up a few particulars on Vancouver (electoral districts); the old links that some of the historical riding pages sported are now all defunct; but therei's a whole new BC Elections History section/site, including interesting table/chronology, which includes the interesting tidbit that in the 1924 general election both the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition were defeated in their own seats....(John Oliver and Bowser). I haven't found the riding-by-riding results yet, they're in the new site somewhere....I'm wondering if there's a way to botomate the switch, rather than doing it manually? Lots of ridings, lots of links to fix (or to add, if the article/riding page is yet uncited).Skookum1 (talk) 02:24, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinators' working group[edit]

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Article alerts[edit]

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URGENT: BC prov ridings need updating before election[edit]

I'm not living in BC at teh moment or might have cottoned on to this a while ago and started on the article-creation/revision needed, but reading this just now I discovered that there are now 85 ridings instead of 79, and many new names have been created, and many ridings drastically changed. Linked from that page is the BC Elections "maps and products" page with both the newly distributed ridings and maps on the old 1999-vintage redistribution used in teh 2001 and 2005 elections....this is the BC Elections page in question. Some riding changes are quite drastic; Yale-Lillooet is now Fraser-Nicola, with the inclusion of Ashcroft-Cache Creek and Clinton (formerly part of Cariboo South, which is now Central Cariboo or Cariboo Centre, whatever it is exactly) and without Keremeos, which is now part of one of the Okanagan ridings; Mission has been split between Maple Ridge-Mission and Abbotsford-Mission (this is the first time that I can think of that Mission and Abbotsford have been in the same provincial riding). the article in The Tyee only briefly notes that the redistribution accomplished the consolidation of 33 safe seats for the Liberals, and only 18 for the NDP, but in the process a numbe of swing ridings were created; some, like the splits in Mission and Maple Ridge and Yale-Lillooet/Fraser-Nicola are clearly gerrymandering to me, but that's OR to state in the article though doubtless there are op-ed pieces about it "out there" for a putative BC electoral redistribution, 2007 (or whatever the legislated date was....In any case, lots of articles need creation and/or modifying, and cats on things like Yale-Lillooet need to be changed to "defunct". I don't have much time in the coming month, I'm moving and my new place may not have internet (which will be a relief to some on wikipedia) but I thought I better apprise the electral districts working group of the needed work....Skookum1 (talk) 14:04, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Skooks, I've made a start of this, and will see what I can do. In particular, I'd appreciate a hand from someone with a graphics background to do up some maps using the shapefile data that's available.
As for the gerrymandering you claim to see, I'd sincerely dispute that. While there's one or two boundaries that are headscratchers to me (i.e. the combining of Abbotsford and Mission isn't in itself weird, as they've been in the same census agglomeration for some time, but the slicing and dicing of Mission strikes me as something that might have been avoidable). For the most part, though, to my eyes geographic good sense generally won out and any partisan benefits were the luck of the draw.
Though the way the map shook out the Liberals benefited from the perspective of consolidating safe seats, the NDP actually were the net beneficiaries when it came to tossups being notionally flipped from one party to the other (Kamloops-South Thompson and Maple Ridge-Mission are two that spring to mind). This sort of thing could, if properly screened for NPOV, be an interesting addition to this article.
As for assigning motive to the changes, I think that's going way too far. This last electoral boundaries commission had a markedly hostile relationship with the legislature, and I just can't see how they could be seen as playing the role of partisan stooges (or, as we often see stateside, the role of bipartisan stooges). The Tom (talk) 22:19, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

British Columbia historical returns - new link....possible to bot?[edit]

All the old references for BC Elections historical elections are now dead due to a restructuring of that site. The new link is a pdf - here - which is a bit less easy to work with, but should/can be substituted for all riding and elections pages that used the old link as a citation. Is there a way to botomate this, given the number of ridings/elections concerned?Skookum1 (talk) 17:23, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

PS I've only changed Kaslo-Slocan so far....Skookum1 (talk) 17:24, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I see I've already been here about this; East Kootenay South and East Kootenay North were bot-tagged for lacking sources so I added:

If anyone feels like working their way through all BC historical electoral districts to do this manually, please do so; if someone's capable of botting it, please do so.Skookum1 (talk) 13:16, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mergists are out of control[edit]

I just came across a good example of the bad idea in merging historical ridings with their current/descendant ones; see Talk:West_Vancouver—Sunshine_Coast—Sea_to_Sky_Country#Mergists_out_of_control.Skookum1 (talk) 03:30, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Expand stubs[edit]

WP 1.0 bot announcement[edit]

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ottawa South discussion[edit]

Hi, I need some input on the Ottawa South article. A user wants to remove the list of riding associations, the brief bio of David McGuinty and the information on political geography. Some input is needed! -- Earl Andrew - talk 15:10, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

He is resorting to personal attacks now, I need some input! -- Earl Andrew - talk 23:50, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)[edit]

This article, in its current form, is written so as to include information about both the federal and provincial ridings. After looking at several other articles for ridings in Southern Ontario (where provincial and federal electoral districts share boundaries), it seems appropriate to have separate articles for the federal and provincial ridings. I've split the article into federal-specific and provincial-specific parts, while including material that's relevant to both in each article. I intend to use the current article title for the federal riding, while calling the provincial article "Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington (provincial electoral district)"; this seems to be the convention in other articles. There was a brief discussion on this at WP:EAR, where it was suggested that I post my intentions here. It also was agreed by another user that this change is not likely to be controversial, so I'm going to run with it. That said, I'm open to the possibility of reversion and discussion if anyone has issues with it. Cheers.

Go right ahead, I've been doing these off an on for a while now with little if any opposition. -- Earl Andrew - talk 21:56, 12 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I intend to "go ahead", with or without your blessing in particular. Also, I'll be seeking a third opinion on Ottawa South in the near future. Cheers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HuntClubJoe (talk • contribs) 22:18, 12 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I see your level of civility has not changed any. I answered with a nice reply stating what I had already been doing, and you responded by bringing up something totally unrelated. -- Earl Andrew - talk 04:35, 13 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"represents the XX Party"[edit]

Please note my change to "Langley (electoral district" re wording ssying an MP "represents his party". No, candidates represent, or "run for" their parties; once in office they represent their constituents, i.e. their riding, not their party. This is a widespread miswording and attention should be paid to correcting it across the board; maybe a better wording could be found than "is a member of the XX Party caucus" but it's entirely not appropriate to say they "represent the so-and-so party", when that's not their job, nor their legal mandate.Skookum1 (talk) 19:57, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Metro Vancouver electoral districts[edit]

See my comments at the bottom of the main WP:CANTALK page about this glaring mis-use/abuse of the "Metro Vancouver" name. It's not even the name of the regional district, and regional districts have nothing to do with federal or provincial electoral district;s all such categories should be ditched; I'll be CfD'ing this to Category:Greater Vancouver electoral districts which it should have been in the first place.Skookum1 (talk) 19:57, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Merging riding articles[edit]

There is again a move afoot to merge riding articles by User:Noname2. I strongly believe that this is being done on the basis of original research. For example, in his/her last article merge, Honoré-Mercier (electoral district), the article was re-written to state that "In 2003, its name was changed to Honoré-Mercier and its boundaries were adjusted slightly such that 95.5% of the riding came from the original Anjou—Rivière-des-Prairies, while 4.5% came from Hochelaga—Maisonneuve." This contradicts the Parliament of Canada website that says here about Anjou—Rivière-des-Prairies: "The electoral district was abolished in 2003."

In addition to contradicting the Parliamentary website, which is a reliable source in these matters, if not definitive, this makes the articles in question longer, which does not help many Wikipedia readers whose web browsers have difficulty with longer articles. I have asked NoName to refrain from undertaking more article merges until a consensus has been developed. Ground Zero | t 04:27, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

NoName replied on my talk page, so I am moving the discussion here for all to see:

If you look up the riding on http://www.elections.ca/scripts/fedrep/searchengine/search_by_listofed.asp, you'll see the boundary of Honoré-Mercier is very similar to the predecessor riding Anjou—Rivière-des-Prairies. Also, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine underwent a much bigger change in 2003, but its still one article for 1997 to present. --Noname2 (talk) 04:27, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So your source then is your own research in comparing the boundaries? An on this basis you are ready to contradict the Parliamentary website? Please review WP:OR. I think this violates Wikipedia policy. Thank you. Ground Zero | t 04:29, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Here are the first few sentences of that policy for you:
"Wikipedia articles must not contain original research. The term "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, ideas, and stories—for which no reliable published source exists. That includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position not advanced by the sources. This means that all material added to articles must be attributable to a reliable published source, even if not actually attributed."
I think what you are doing is covered unamibiguously by this: it is synthesis. Ground Zero | t 04:39, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
elections.ca is a government website, so yes it is 100% reliable. You can see for yourself that the boundaries are very similar, I don't think there's much room for debate. The same website also explicitly says the boundaries of Chambly were not changed, only the name. It's just that when a riding's name is changed, it's legally considered "abolished" and then "created" under the new name. You shouldn't take it too literally. --Noname2 (talk) 04:41, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think if a riding doesn't change very much, there's no reason for a new article to be created. Chambly is a good example. Its borders didn't even change. Technically, districts are abolished after every redistribution, even if they share a name and have the same borders. Sometimes ridings look very different after a redistribution despite having the same name (eg Repentigny (electoral district) in 2003, and some times there's a riding name change for a district with the same borders, like Chambly. I remember during the last redistribution in PEI and/or New Brunswick, most of the districts were just moved to their corresponding new named districts. -- Earl Andrew - talk 05:11, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"You can see for yourself that the boundaries are very similar..." is not an argument to use against WP:OR. If there is an official version, what we think by looking at maps ourselves is not relevant. However, after quite a bit of fiddling, I see from the Elections Canada website the pop-up that says that the name of Chambly was changed to Chambly-Borduas. Elections Canada and the parliamentary website are telling us different things, but I can live with Elections Canada's version. It is going to be very difficult to cite that properly because it appears as a pop-up.
However, I see ask that you refrain from merging articles -- this is creating sprawling lists of election results that are hard for readers to follow, especially since many readers are accessing Wikipedia through mobile devices. We should be looking for opportunities to break articles up into smaller, more readable pieces. Splitting a riding article where there has been a name change seems to make sense -- it is easy to create a link showing a reader where to find more information on a riding under its new name. Ground Zero | t 11:13, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how it's original research. Not only is elections.ca reliable, but it clearly illustrates that the boundaries are very similar. Both me and Earl Andrew can see that, your argument seems to be that we as humans can not be trusted to make that judgement, and that we should rely on the legal language of the parliamentary website. The parliamentary website is truthful but misleading, you saw for yourself that Chambly only had its name changed even though the parliamentary website says it was abolished. Therefore I suggest we rely more on elections.ca for deciding weather a riding is the same. The only time there should be a dispute is if the boundary changes are larger and some people believe it's too different to consider it the same riding. Also, if the Honoré-Mercier article should be split, then Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, Lac-Saint-Louis, and other ridings that had larger boundary changes in 2003 should definitely be split. --Noname2 (talk) 15:30, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The point is that the parliamentary library is a reliable source. It says that these ridings were abolished. If Elections Canada explicitly contradicts that by saying "the riding's boundaries remained the same and only the name was changed" or something like that, then we have to choose one site or the other, and I am willing to accept what Elections Canada says because it is also a reliable source.
But if the parliamentary website says one thing, and you want to contradict that using only synthesis, i.e., looking at illustrations and drawing our own conclusions, then that violates Wikipedia policy.
Further, we should not be looking to merge articles in any event - most of these articles are long enough already. If Elections Canada says that Riding X didn't change boundaries, but its name was changed to Riding XY, then it is better to have two shorter linked articles that explain that process. Ground Zero | t 12:03, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The thing with Elections Canada is, they appear to choose a successor riding in most cases. If you select a 1993-2003 riding and then click to see boundary changes, it will select a successor riding, by shading it in purple. (all other ridings that may have been in the former riding are not shaded purple). If we use this, then it wouldn't be original research. For example, Alfred-Pellan was Laval East. So, if you clicked on Laval East, abd looked at its changes, they have decided that Alfred-Pellan is the successor riding by colouring it in purple. Also note that the original name for the "new" riding was going to be Duvernay, which was the former name of Laval East. -- Earl Andrew - talk 13:47, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What you are basically saying is that we should split ridings if they changed their name. That makes no sense, it's boundaries that are important. If a riding changed its name but had very little or no changes to its boundaries, then it should be one article. Likewise, if a riding kept its name but had drastic changes to its boundaries, then its article should be split. The parliamentary library website decides that a riding was abolished if its name was changed but its boundaries stayed exactly the same, so we shouldn't use it to decide if an article should be split. We shouldn't be looking for opportunities to split a riding into as many articles as possible. Rather, we should only split an article if a riding and its predecessor are sufficiently different. I think readers would like being able to compare results from the 1980s to 2011 on one page. I read the policy on synthesis and I don't see what that has to do with this. I think it would count as original research if I looked at the illustration and drew a different conclusion than what most other people draw. But in this case, the illustration is clear and everyone who looks at it agrees it shows very little boundary changes. --Noname2 (talk) 17:02, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We are not making any headway in this discussion, and have not managed to interest anyone else. I remain committed to Wikipedia's policy of encouraging shorter articles so that people with certain web browsers are not excluded, and I continue to believe that looking at illustrations and drawing conclusions is original research. I understand that you disagree with me. I don't think that we are going to see eye-to-eye on this, and ask for a moratorium -- no article splitting or merging until we get other views from established editors to break this deadlock. Ground Zero | t 01:55, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

New way to divide up BC riding templates?[edit]

I find it a little odd that the Vancouver ridings are separate from the southern suburbs, and also its hard to see very small ridings on the map when they're grouped with very large ridings. Therefore, I propose replacing Template:Ridings in Greater Vancouver and the Sunshine Coast and Template:Ridings in the Fraser Valley with these:

Any comments? --Noname2 (talk) 23:39, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

New electoral district infobox[edit]

Some of you may have noticed that the layout of Template:Infobox Canada electoral district has recently been changed by User:thumperward. Here are some before and after comparisons: http://i.imgur.com/nlJXH.png http://i56.tinypic.com/28rflmr.png http://i.imgur.com/6c7vO.png http://oi54.tinypic.com/29mx8ae.jpg Since he didn't ask anyone first, I want to see what you people think. Personally, I'm in favour of reverting the changes. The way it is now you can barely see the colour of the MP's party next to their name, and I don't like the way the template stretches out on some pages (ie. Saanich—Gulf Islands). --Noname2 (talk) 17:33, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

These changes were to bring the template in line with the default infobox styling used by the majority of the rest of the encyclopedia. There's ongoing work to move this forward on that template's talk page: comments are welcome. The change to the MP styling was necessary because the former layout relies on a gross hack (the entire table is widened from two to three columns for the sake of providing an entire column for the two little coloured boxes) which almost certainly causes accessibility problems with the template. This can be fixed cleanly (and with an output similar to the old version) in time by using a CSS border for the colour instead, but this will require all of these templates to be adjusted and that's going to take quite a bit of work. Nevertheless, this is certainly the right fix in the long term. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 10:43, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Merging the CanElec templates[edit]

I thought that it was unnecessary for us to have 53 different templates in the CanElec series, so I made my own template at Template:Canadian election result that duplicates all of their effects. I've been replacing uses of CanElec with my template, but does anyone mind if I just get a bot to replace all of them? —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 01:39, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I just have a question about your new template: Can it be used for both federal and provincial elections? If so, you have my support to change them all with a bot. Bkissin (talk) 02:51, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It can. For the top template, the first parameter is the jurisdiction, and will link to the appropriate election and riding articles in the header. For the row template, you can indicate the jurisdiction in the party name (e.g. "ON Liberal" or "BC NDP"). —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 04:10, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Peer review request[edit]

I have built up a federal electoral district and I would like some feedback. Please see Wikipedia:Peer review/Surrey Central/archive1 and provide some comments if you can. Thanks. maclean (talk) 03:14, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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