Talk:United States presidential elections in Arkansas

Reformatting list

Hi @Koopatrev: I just noticed that you are reverting some of the changes made by me. I suppose that you are doing so to maintain consistent formatting across the series, but it would have been better if you has contacted me through my talk page first. Anyways, I wanted to let you know that I plan to re-format all the articles throughout the series. The creator of this page and many other pages throughout this series (User:BD2412) contacted me through my talk page here and appreciated "some" of the changes. While I appreciate your help, I do want to tell you that in my opinion, this version of article is much better than this version. I did not revert back your changes to prevent an edit war. If you have any suggestions or any other concern, please let me know. Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 06:05, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi, @User:Kavyansh.Singh you're right I should have contacted you. My initial assumption is that your version was the old one and I'm just updating. Should we just show both versions as a compromise? Koopatrev (talk; contrib) 06:36, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

And just to add, my main intention is just to add the graph to each article. Koopatrev (talk; contrib) 06:40, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Koopatrev: I do appreciate your efforts in creating the graph and want you to continue with it, but I think the page needs to be back to its older version (this version) of 14:24, July 11, 2021. If possible, revert your edits as keeping both the tables as a compromise won't work. The precious version has {{Percentage}} tags for calculating percentage, and was well cited. Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 07:02, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Update: I have restored your tables, but I added my graph (and I hope you will keep the graph on other states' articles). One suggestion I will make is to show the eletions in reverse chronological order, like the old tables. People will want to see the most recent elections first. Koopatrev (talk; contrib) 07:00, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

I have reformatted this discussion a bit. To your point of reverse chronological order, it is something which might be useful for many readers and is not a big deal, but per WP:CHRONO and WP:SALORDER, the table needs to be chronological. I'll again crosscheck this with another user, and will see what can be done. Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 07:06, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi again @User:Kavyansh.Singh. In addition to the results graph, I was thinking we could add a graph of vote margins (D+1, R+2 etc) as well. Maybe the line could be blue in the D/positive margins and it turns red in the R/negative margins. But my wikitext skills aren't great enough for that so I'd appreciate you reaching out for help for that as well when consulting the other editors. Koopatrev (talk; contrib) 04:44, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Koopatrev – I don't think there is need of any other graph in the list, as it would make the article crowded. The best we can do is add a graph of results to all the articles which lack it (which I see you are doing, and I appreciate your help!) —Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 06:49, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

@User:Kavyansh.Singh I've changed my mind actually. I think the graph of vote margins is much more useful than a graph showing both parties' vote share. If you don't mind I want to replace the graph (so there will still be just one graph on each page). Koopatrev (talk; contrib) 08:12, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

@Koopatrev - I actually didn't understand what that new graph is representing? What I guess it that it depicts by what percentage a political party carried the state, but what it lacks is which party won the state? I see that it is 20% in 1920, which is Cox's vote % - Harding's vote%; but it doesn't state who won Arkansas. I guess the previous graph was more useful. I am open to your ideas! Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 08:18, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

@Koopatrev: Adding to it, the new graph makes it difficult to identify the third party winner (George Wallace won Arkansas in 1968) I now see that all the Democratic victories are above 0 and Republican victories are below 0. Still, it would be if you discuss here before making changes to various different articles. Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 08:38, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

You can determine the winner by checking if it is above or below 0. You're right that it doesn't show third-party winners but they are an anomaly. I wish there were a way to accommodate those but missing just one or two elections in the 18-1900s shouldn't be too big of a problem. The problem with the old graph, as I now see it, is that it is a mess to look at especially when the state is flipped massively and the lines jump around in a way that really damages its readability. When analyzing trends in elections, most pundits and scholars focus on the margin % rather than the share %, anyway. Koopatrev (talk; contrib) 09:22, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

@Koopatrev: Appreciate your reply. Will see what other editors think. On the issue of third parties, they are some elections. (various 19th century elections, 1912, 1948, 1968) where third parties won states and probably need to be incorporated somewhere in graph. Still, I prefer that changes to other lists within this series are made after finalizing the structure of lists, as they need to be similar and I guess the structure would be finalized during the FLC process (planning to nominate this list, bit difficult, but would try). Appreciate your other comments. Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 09:35, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

@User:Kavyansh.Singh Hi again, it looks like there isn't much opposition to your US election list reform. Do you plan to reform the articles for the other 49 states (and DC)? What is your timeframe for that? And btw, my other suggestion would be to make the national winner a bit clearer. I think a double dagger may not be apparent enough. I suggest bolding the national winner, and keeping the statewide winner in the first column. Koopatrev (talk; contrib) 22:59, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Koopatrev – As mentioned, I do intent to reform all 51 articles (50 states + DC). This list is currently an Featured list candidate, and I was waiting before reforming other list as the structure of the list is still changing per FLC comments. Once the structure is finalized when the FLC is archived (i.e. this list is promoted (hopefully)), then it would take not more that 2-3 days to completely reform a list. Reformatting isn't a major issue, but the main issue with these types of lists is the Popular vote data – Various sources disagree on the data. (See this list for example) In that case, I have added only those values which have been verified by two or more sources. For each article, data have to be thoroughly checked. Moreover, the graph you have created also doesn't has much opposition, but move it to end of the table in each article (if possible). As to your point about the national winner, I think these type of lists should be more faithful to state winner than the national winner. Many list in this series have national winner in the first column, which surprised me! I think using boldface can be a solution, but the state winners are already bolded, and I think that a double dagger is sufficient enough. Currently, I am facing difficulty finding sources for county result for the maps. Probably, the maps need to be removed. Rest, I am open to your ideas and suggestions. Thanks a a lot! – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 04:45, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

@User:Kavyansh.Singh Doesn't the data come from US govt sources directly? I didn't think that sources would differ on election data. And don't we already have the maps for all states' county results in pretty much every election? Are many of them unsourced to begin with? Regarding the national winner, I suppose the idea is for people to compare the national winner to the state winner. It's often interesting to see how great of a bellwether a state is, and when viewing state results it's almost always directly relevant to the national results. Koopatrev (talk; contrib) 06:38, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

@Koopatrev – The data from 1976 to 2020 is taken directly from the Federal Election Commission website. (older elections aren't available) The data matches for almost all sources in the modern election (1948 and beyond), but the elections of 19th century (especially close election like 1880) have different popular vote results in different sources. The differ as less as 5 votes, to as high as some 5000-7000 votes! We do have maps for all states, with county results shaded, but almost every map "doesn't cite sources", which fails the Featured list criteria #3B. I asked some users who created the maps about the sources, but didn't got any solid response. – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 07:04, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

@User:Kavyansh.Singh Fair enough. Hopefully we can find some consistent sources because the county result maps seem like a really good idea to accompany the list. And BTW what's the order in which you plan to rework the articles? In my case I just used the alphabetical order. Koopatrev (talk; contrib) 01:09, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

@Koopatrev – About the order..... I have't decided anything but I just started with Utah article. After that, probably I'll work in reverse chronological order of states (and DC) as to their admission to the union. It doesn't matter much! Also, I just received 2 Support votes, so we can now nominate another list, while this is still a FLC. – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 07:25, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Update – @Koopatrev – The Arkansas list is promoted as a FL and the Utah list has received multiple support. I have nominated the Washington, D.C. list for FL too..... You can see the progress on User:Kavyansh.Singh/United States presidential elections#Progress. – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 08:05, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Good news @{{u|Kavyansh.Singh]]. Any luck on including the county results map in the table? And perhaps the D/R margin? Koopatrev (talk; contrib) 08:13, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

@Koopatrev – I guess the county result map should not be included to maintain consistency. The graph with D/R margin seems to be fine, and should be there, but I doubt the benefit of including various graphs (of congressional districts). Rest seems fine. It's a long project...... Hoping for the best! – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 08:28, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

@Kavyansh.Singh I meant if you could find sources for the county maps. Imo they would be a great addition to all 51 lists. And I meant including the D/R margin in the table in addition to the graph. Koopatrev (talk; contrib) 08:36, 23 August 2021 (UTC)