Talk:1902 South Australian state election

Votes table

I am massively dubious about the UWA database's data in these early elections. They conflate things without explanation all the time to make for simple two-party datasets, and I think the idea that you can have any clear figures for the non-Labor side of politics at this election is really questionable, considering there was no "Conservative" or "Liberal" party organisation to endorse those candidates. They don't explain who they put in what category so their methodology can't be checked, they don't mention the NDL/ANL as the actually existent non-Labor party, the fact they have an "Unidentified" column with nearly 12% of the statewide vote itself suggests that it isn't as simple as they're trying to make out, and having exact counts implies to the reader like there were "Conservative" and "Liberal" parties at a time when they were mostly just informal blocs of MPs who had been elected in their own right. The Drover's Wife (talk) 06:54, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

How formal were the NDL/ANL at this election? Even if they were only loose groupings, they could be used to give some idea of the election's outcomes. Perhaps someone with a bunch of time could go and figure out the party affiliations for each electorate and calculate the totals. Until then, the table may not be ideal, but it's probably better than nothing. Frickeg (talk) 08:36, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

The NDL/ADL were a minor party representing some of the conservative total here. The MPs elected are presumably being identified by who they voted for for Premier, but the table purports to give overall vote totals: they've conglomerated bunches of candidates together based on presumably some (but who knows?) research into their stated views to make a calculation that, if it were done by a Wikipedian, we would throw out as WP:OR. I don't think in this case it's better because UWA did the same shoddy job. You couldn't replicate these figures to verify their accuracy unless you managed to work out who the heck UWA had thrown in what barrel. The Drover's Wife (talk) 12:10, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Well, fair enough, but then where do we show the Labor vote? There has to be a table of some sort, surely. In the long-term we can do our own calculations, which are an exemption under OR. Frickeg (talk) 12:17, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure but it's a valid point. I don't think we've come up with a good solution yet for these (mostly)-pre-party-politics elections. I was going to suggest just chopping the "percentage" and "swing" fields out of the Liberal and Conservative columns, but there are other problems: 15 May 1901 is the day Jenkins became Premier, not the day he became leader of the "Liberal" bloc since they didn't formally exist/have formal leadership (and would have had to have assumed that role informally earlier to be elected Premier). The fact we have "unknown" for the leader of the Conservatives looks quite strange. Maybe it's one for the too hard basket. The Drover's Wife (talk) 12:59, 27 June 2015 (UTC)