Talk:1910 French legislative election

Unexplained Reversions and Source Confusion

The recent series of reversions and counter-reversions seems to be coming from a place of confusion surrounding sources on both sides, so I'd like to clear up my reasoning here. Further, the language used by Number 57, namely referring to opposing edits as "blind" despite the considerable and valued efforts of other Wikipedians, is strange and unnecessarily rude. We're all just trying to improve the legibility and quality of this site.

There are two main points:

1. The numbers I used when I referred to having changed the numbers of votes and seats in my edit were the very same as the ones used by Number 57, who seemed to be unaware of that fact. They seemed to misinterpret me when I stated that I "Changed numbers from Newspaper source to arguably more reliable source"; I meant that I was changing from my old Newspaper sources ([1] and [2]) to their source ([3]), before I backed up their source with another source, that is, respected french journalist Laurent de Boissieu's French politics ([4]). Though I agree the source is clearly tenuous, it had already seen use on this article and is a source that Number 57 kept on after their edit, and as such I assumed that it maintained some legitimacy. Why wouldn't it have been removed otherwise? Further, I still gave their source precedence.

2. A second point relates to the removal of the Alliance républicaine démocratique (ARD), which Number 57 claimed to have done in their edit. They did not do this, instead lumping the ARD together with their coalition partner, the Parti républicain, radical et radical-socialiste (PRRRS). This is not backed up by any source provided, and is particularly odd since both parties are known to be very distinct both historically and ideologically. Further, the Republican Left group was simply the name for the parliamentary group in which the ARD sat, hence why I identified the two as one in the same for the sake of readers' convenience. If they want clarification, there is a simple link to the ARD wikipedia page. Even Charles Jonnart, Paul Deschanel, Louis Barthou, Jules Siegfried, and others, who were prominent members of the ARD, can be seen as M. Jonnart, M. Deschanel, M. Barthou, and M. Siegfried in [5] under Republicaines de gauche. We should be careful not to confuse French political parties and French parliamentary groups, but when people see Republican Left they should surely be directed to the ARD, given how closely intertwined they are and how their differences are disambiguated on that page.

The data seems to be quite vague on political party seat allocation, but largely clear (going by the sources already mentioned) as to which political group was allocated however many seats. Hence, this election shows the vote count and seat allocation for each group.

Note also that a results table where political parties/groups are missing colours is not "properly formatted", and the old format was in line with the modern french results table. The parliament diagram doesn't even match the numbers you've used.

Please address these before making another edit, because I cannot understand the reasoning behind some of these changes.

– Torshian (talk) 14:35, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you were offended by the use of the term "blind". A "blind revert" is Wikipedia terminology to refer to reverts made by editors where they undo multiple changes rather than ones they are specifically concerned about. In this case, what you are doing is a blind revert because you are undoing multiple corrections/improvements by blindly restoring earlier versions rather than only making specific changes. The issues with your edits are that you are:

• Removing the category sorting
• Removing one of the categories
• Reinstating a results table with a range of formatting issues, such as incorrectly-aligned numbers
• Reinstating the incorrect use of % for swing instead of pp
• Reinstating incorrect grammar in several places
• Reinstating the nonsensical introduction "The 1910 general election was held on 24 April and 8 May 1910."

Regarding the ARD, I'm not sure what happened there, but I have removed it from the Radical Party row (I assume when I was researching to try and correct the article earlier this year, I must have found something that said the ARD ran together with the Radicals, but I can't find it now). However, also on the ARD, none of the sources say they are the party that received 1,018,704 votes – that is simply labelled "Republican Left" in every source.

I'm confused by the claim that "The parliament diagram doesn't even match the numbers you've used", because the number of seats in the results table exactly matches the numbers listed in the diagram (i.e. 148 for the Radicals, 116 for the Repunblicans, 86 for the conservatives). Could you explain which numbers do not match?

Regarding the colours, I have added in the missing ones. This could have been done without reverting to the old format.

Regarding the "groups", these should only really be used for pre-election alliances, rather than simply groupings of parties. Are there any sources that show these were formal alliances? I would have no problem adding these in if so (again, this is possible with the {{Election results}} template, as can be seen at 2022 Malaysian general election#Results).

I hope this addresses all your points, and I'm happy to discuss any changes you propose. Cheers, Number 57 16:12, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Also, regarding the infobox, I didn't revert your addition of the Radicals and SFIO, but I don't understand the exclusion of the Conservatives, Republican Union etc. If we are to have an infobox, I would suggest one like here would be preferable, as it would allow all the parties/groups winning seats to be listed without becoming overly large. Cheers, Number 57 16:21, 21 September 2023 (UTC)