Talk:List of MPs elected in the 1832 United Kingdom general election

Structure of this list

This list is structure very differently to other similar lists, so I would welcome feedback on it.

I had started out by creating the List of United Kingdom Parliament constituencies (1832–1868), and as part of the research for that page I had accumulated a pile of data which it seemed a pity to discard for the list of MPs. So the format of List of MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1832 is very different to the other lists in Category:Lists of MPs elected in United Kingdom general elections: instead of a static 3-column list (constituency, member, party), the 1832 list has seven columns: Constituency, No. of Seats, Type, Country, County, Member, and Party. The whole thing is arranged as one big fully-sortable list, unlike the others which are broken up by letter of the alphabet.

I have also referenced every seat to the returns in the London Gazette (except for Whitehaven, where I couldn't find the return). AFAICS, none of the other lists have a ref for each entry.

I think that the result is a massively more useful list than the others: it's fully-referenced, and by sorting the list first on one column and then on another, it's easy to group MPs in ways which are impossible with a static list.

Want to see which Irish constituencies returned Tories? Sort by party, then by country, and scroll down, and they'll all be grouped together.

Want to look at MPs for English counties? Sort by country, then by type, and scroll down.

And so on. I may be a bit over-pleased with my baby, but I do think it's a big improvement on the other lists.

However, it does have a few downsides:

1. There is no longer an alphabetic key at the top, to jump to constituencies by initial letter. It would be easy enough to add one, but the key would become a bit misleading once the list has been sorted in an order other than the initial alphabetic-by-constituency
2. The list is built using template calls, which make data entry much simpler but increased server load (it falls not far below the limit set in Wikipedia:Template limits#Post-expand include size). As a result it takes a long time to rebuild the page after it is edited; usually more than a minute after the page is saved
3. Because of all the data fields and references, the rendered HTML is quite bulky: over 500kB when uncompressed. It compresses by over 90%, so it downloads quickly, but the sheer amount of HTML may cause problems for browsers on low-powered computers
4. The template markup used is more bulky than raw table markup. If it's all placed together, there is over 200kB of markup, which makes most browsers barf when trying to edit it, so I have split up the data into 9 sub-lists of a more manageable size, which are transcluded to form the main list. With direct links to edit those pages, I think they are manageable, but since watchlisting the main page does automatically add the sub-pages to the watchlist, editors will need to add each individual sub-page to their watchlist if they want to monitor for changes

Despite these issues, I think that because the list is so much more useful than a static list, these problems are well worth putting-up-with. What do others think?

I accept that there may be a consensus for a change to a simpler and less bulky format ... but if such a change is to be made, may I ask that editors consider leaving any such changes until september, when I have returned from my holidays, so that I can participate in the discussion? I do not WP:OWN the page, and nobody is under any obligation to wait for my return, but since I have put a lot of effort into building it I am in a good position to add some insight into the effects of any changes, as well as how they could be done.

Thanks! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:33, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Looks great to me. I think you've chosen the least worst option for alphabetical links though I share you concern at the lack of a more flexible option for sortable tables.

Maybe the constituency and member names do not need to be in bold.

I expect you're aware that the article subpages currently redirect via your userspace rather than directly to the table layout templates. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Richardguk (talk • contribs) 11:19, 28 July 2010

Does look great, and very nice to use with sortable tables! I just noticed a couple of things with regards to the MPs' parties. The article says it's kept to the convention of labeling all Whigs/Liberals/Radicals as Liberals, although there are 3 MPs listed as Radicals - just a simple oversight I take? Also with this labeling - would it be better to label them all as Whigs, as the Whig (British political party) and Liberal Party (UK) articles put the Whig dissolution / Liberal formation after 1832, as well as making it more in-line with the United Kingdom general election, 1832 article where only Whigs are listed. But a great list! Zangar (talk) 14:05, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt feedback!

Richard, I hadn't spotted that redirects via my userspace, and have now fixed those.

Zangar, I'll fix the Radicals -- not sure how that happened, but it must have been unrevised from an earlier draft before I decided that Craig and Walker's standardisation was the route to go. I'm not sure about whether to label the "Liberal" as Whigs; it would indeed fit with the general election article, but it feels like a bit of a stretch to attach that label to individual Radicals. I guess that may be a point on which to seek wider input.

As to (un)bolding the constituency and member names, Richardguk may have a point. I did that because it seems to me that those are the two crucial pieces of data in each line, and those will usually be two key points which the reader needs to extract from the line. with his may data columns, they rather got lost in the details, and bolding seemed to me to make it easier to focus first on those two. Maybe that's not best way to do things, and it can be changed by a small tweak to {{MPs elected in UK election}} and {{MPs elected in UK election/MP}} ... but I just tied removing the bolding and I don't like it.

If I am looking at the name of the MP, and scan leftwards across the line, the first item I come to is linked text which for the county, which in many cases could be the name of the name of a constituency. The second constituency in the unsorted list is Aberdeenshire, which is in Aberdeenshire: identical text displayed, but difft links. It seems to me that some form of visual distinction is needed there, particularly for the likes of Dorset/Dorset and Rutland/Rutland, which are unlikely to ever be sorted anywhere near enough the header to put them on the same screen as it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:22, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Massive effort

Well done BHG. I just added William Evans (politician), but it took me some time to figure out how to do it .... and I'm quite used to wiki editing. I realise that all of this is a compromise of balancing forces. Maybe??? in September and you have some energy then you could put it up for featured list status? I was just thinking that this would allow other list experts to consider if this is the role model or whether it can learn from others. Only an idea... as I should have said by now ... well done! Victuallers (talk) 11:41, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi Victuallers

Just popping in before I hit the road, but yes ... the editing does need attention. You're right that it was all a matter of balancing a few objectives, but the links to edit the subpages are not quite right yet.

I had indeed thought of putting it up as a featured list candidate in september, and hopefully the extra scrutiny at that point will help to iron out a few of the wrinkles. Thanks for the compliments! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:12, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Looks good on a first glance, one point - at that time Bristol was a county in its own right as I believe was Newcastle-upon-Tyne. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 19:46, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

"At that time..." - until comparatively recently (1974)! And again from 1996. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:17, 18 April 2017 (UTC).

Liberal anachronism

The elected members opposing the Tories are listed as Liberal, but as that article explains, "As early as 1839, Russell had adopted the name of "Liberals"" but in 1832 the faction was still called the Whigs. Could do with a change, as the members listed [at least in the instances I've checked] are referred to as Whigs in sources and in their articles. . . dave souza, talk 07:46, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:United Kingdom general election, 1832–33 which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 13:16, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Use of subpages

At Talk:United Kingdom general election, 1832–33#Requested_move_18_October_2018, @Gonnym raised concerns about the use of subpages.

I want to ask GOonym to take a more in-depth look at List of MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1832–33 and its subpages such as List of MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1832–33/Constituencies A–B?

I created this list back in 2010. (Several weeks of work involved; mountains of research and cross-checking of primary and secondary sources). It uses a set of templates to construct each entry in a standardised way which also consolidates referencing to the primary source. These templates were the only way which I could develop to build an easily-maintained list which ensured the consistency of format needed for sorting, and the consolidation of references to the London Gazette.

The functionality of this list is premised on being complete. The benefits of sorting would lost if the list was chopped up into fragments. So my initial drafts in userspace built the whole list on one page. Unfortunately, the servers did not like processing so many templates. I had to consolidate some sub-templates in order to get the template count below the max, and then I found that the sheer volume of processing meant that it took about 5 minutes to complete the save of each edit (no exaggeration). At busy times, the save might not even complete.

The only way around this technical limitation was to break the list into 9 fragments, and then transclude each of those pages into the consolidated list. None of those subpages is intended as a standalone list; they are orphaned, and have remained that way for the 8 years of their existence.

Per WP:TMPG, Templates should not normally be used to store article text, as this makes it more difficult to edit the content. So I thought it best to create the subpages in mainspace.

That then left the choice of whether to name them as subpages, or as standalone pages. I thought (and still think) that if they were not named them as subpages, editors unfamiliar with the structure might be tempted to add navigation and categories etc, to treat them as functionally standalone pages ... which would defeat their purpose.

So despite the guidance at WP:SUBPAGE, this format seems to me to be the least worst way of overcoming the limitations imposed by the server technology.

Please note that both WP:TMPG and WP:SUBPAGE are Wikipedia guidelines. Each of them has a prominent text box at the top which say It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply.

I believe that this is one of those occasional exceptions, because I see no better alternative. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:00, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Sub pages are not meant for article namespace. No search ability... see why its disabled Here .--Moxy (talk) 20:54, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

@Moxy: lack of searchability is desirable in this case. The content of these pages is transcluded in the combined article, which is the one intended for readers. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:49, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:List of MPs in the first United Kingdom Parliament which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 21:33, 2 December 2022 (UTC)