Template talk:NZ electorate result start

Documentation

Thanks for working on a new result template. We have quite a few election-related templates that lack documentation. Can I suggest that the template be developed in parallel with its documentation? Apart from the obvious advantage that this will result in having documentation at all, it will also enable those of us who are interested in this in commenting on and helping with the development of the template whilst that is under way. Schwede66 04:11, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Death of incumbent

What's the best way of showing where the previous office holder died prior to the election? For example Jeremiah Connolly. Schwede66 19:38, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

† = † FanN | talk | 14:30, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Unopposed

We have Template:NZ electorate result new, and that produces a greyed out field for the incumbent field that displays "(New electorate)". Could we please have an equivalent template Template:NZ electorate result uncontested that greys out the runner up field and displays "unopposeduncontested"? Schwede66 19:53, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Some more detail; any queries, please ask.

1. In its simplest form, the "Runner up" field should be greyed out and display "uncontested". This would cover the two columns that are created by the template; one for the party of the runner up, and the other for the name of the runner up.
2. The next level of complexity of solving this is to look whether the results table uses the column "Majority". If yes, this field should also be greyed out; there is no majority if the election was unopposed.
3. The third level of complexity is that there is provision for a third placed contestant and a third party. I've never seen this used, so this may not be needed. But if it's easy enough to allow for this, then the code could make allowance for this, too.

Better terminology for this may be "uncontested". For testing purposes, there are a few uncontested electorates in the 1893 template. Schwede66 05:41, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

mostly done, for third party candidates, you can just us the main {{NZ electorate result}} template, with |third= set to a non-blank value. Frietjes (talk) 15:25, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Great, thanks Frietjes. Appears to work well. I'm not sure that I quite understand what you say about third candidates, but if I ever get to this, I'll ask. That said, I have just started using the |third= parameter for the first time, and it does not appear to work with Template:NZ electorate result new; the problem occurred here. If you have time, would you mind having a look? Schwede66 18:45, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

the general template seems to replace the others, e.g., this works? Frietjes (talk) 18:53, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Loading all the variables onto one template makes it more cumbersome to edit any changes that may be needed to just one template in the future, and it requires more fields - NZ electorate hold is more concise than NZ electorate |hold=true - so to start with I'm removing the (deprecated) tags from the /doc ... just in case someone takes deprecation to heart.

Shading winners would make them more obvious - atm when we have a change of party the winning party is sandwiched between the previous incumbent and the runner-up; usually the same party.       [candidates redacted] denotes a Labour win of a National seat yet the most prominent colour is National's. Worse is when third place holders are added, this example from 2002         bookends first and second with Green. FanN | talk | 14:33, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

In response to the problem with emphasis, I've changed the runners up party to appear in text only. Lcmortensen (mailbox) 10:42, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

How about suggesting changes, arriving at consensus, checking for for possible broken pages before acting unilaterally in deciding to radically change these templates, and then edit-warring when your misguided edits are reverted? I had suggested a possible fix above, but clearly it does not seem worthy of your consideration - not worth a rationale, nor even a rejection. If I sound annoyed there's a reason for that. FanN | talk | 11:16, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Remember WP:BOLD? And how exactly is the template breaking? I checked a few articles and they all appear right. You must be adding to tables outside the template if it's breaking... and edit warring requires at least two reverts, not just one (that's an edit tiff). Lcmortensen (mailbox) 11:25, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Yep, checked another article and someone has been adding to the tables outside the template - that is what is causing them to break since they are not dynamically changed with the template. Lcmortensen (mailbox) 11:41, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

It's not a point of being bold, it's a wholesale change to an established, and consensus-driven, format. And the point that I made several times is that there should be consensus - apparently that doesn't apply to you, can you explain why? FanN | talk | 12:40, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

{{NZ electorate result}}

Template broken?

Not sure whether this is related to your discussion above, but I note that the second-party parameter in the Template:New Zealand general election, 1954 appears mostly broken, as it doesn't produce the party colour any longer (apart from new electorates). Just in case you hadn't seen this yet. Schwede66 05:11, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

They are due to Lcmortensen's edits to these related templates {{NZ electorate result}} etc. - and what I have been disputing with him/her this weekend. FanN | talk | 06:02, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I was halfway through editing when got called away - I'm changing the "new" template now. Lcmortensen (mailbox) 06:10, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I have now looked at the discussion above; my apologies for not following in detail what is going on. I have to say that I am a long way from being convinced that the method chosen of dealing with the perceived problem is the best that we can do. We should definitely have a discussion here as to what we should do, agree on a course of action, and then implement any changes. This may require to do some mock ups of suggested solutions here to inform that discussion. We should also draw this to the intention of other editors via the politics task force page, as not too many editors would have this template on their watchlist. The suggestion of shading the winner has merit. Another option that could be considered is to have the colour band narrower for runners up (e.g. 2px). There may be other ways to deal with this issue, but there may also be editors who cannot see a problem. The chosen approach of not providing colour for runners up, but to provide the affiliation in brackets instead appears clumsy to me, and is, in my opinion, a step backwards. Schwede66 00:43, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

It's been ten days since my comments and the above was an invitation, especially to Lcmortensen and Fanx, to respond to my thoughts. Maybe I was too vague, but what we now have is worse than what we had before, in my opinion. If I don't hear back, I shall restore the previous version. My preference, though, would be for us to have a civilised discussion, agree on something that we can all live with, and go from there. As I said above, we should also invite other members of the politics task force to this discussion (and I am happy to look after the invite), but I only see the point in doing so if you want us to have a discussion. Schwede66 21:20, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

"invite other members of the politics task force" - done. Schwede66 05:20, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

New Electorate problem: the NZ Election Results templates do not work properly now when a Runner-Up is added to a New Electorate, see template for 1969 & 1972 general elections. A wide colour band is displayed instead of the party name. Also the 1905 election template, due to showing the 3rd place-getter? Also 1990. Hugo999 (talk) 00:54, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Links to problems outlined by Hugo999. {{New Zealand general election, 1905}} {{New Zealand general election, 1969}} {{New Zealand general election, 1972}} FanN | talk | 23:02, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Shading the winner

I was initially confused over what Fanx was talking about; I think shading the winner would be better in the long run to make them stand out more. I'll revert the templates shortly.Lcmortensen (mailbox) 00:06, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

I see another problem with the editing of these templates. The default template, {{NZ electorate result}}, by trying to do everything that is covered in the supposedly deprecated templates {{NZ electorate result hold}}, {{NZ electorate result new}} and {{NZ electorate result uncontested}} results in template coding that is difficult to fathom. I tried to include changes I'd made to the uncontested template (added the majority column to the greyed out area) but I couldn't see how to alter it without breaking it as the fields seemed overly linked to the optional 3rd place coding. In general templates should be clear and concise, and if that means we have more templates rather than single impenetrable ones, then I'm all in favour of that. If any templated is to be deprecated it should be the "one size fits all" template. FanN | talk | 22:34, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

I was a bit surprised with the approach of making the top level template do all the various things that are needed, rather than letting the sub-templates do that. But given that I'm not in the league of template gurus, I can't make statements beyond 'surprise' and the like. Fanx, would you be able to create a mock up of a results line that uses shading for the winner, so that we can see what that would look and feel like? Schwede66 00:13, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Originally, I designed them to all be separate templates, until someone decided to roll them all into one. (cant remember who off the top of my head) Lcmortensen (mailbox) 23:42, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Two versions of the shading - one with party colours and the other with grey.

Key

  National   Labour   United Future New Zealand

Napier		Chris Tremain			3,701		Stuart Nash
New Lynn		David Cunliffe			5,190		Tim Groser
North Shore		Wayne Mapp		Maggie Barry	15,228		Ben Clark
Ōhariu		Peter Dunne			1,392		Charles Chauvel

Napier		Chris Tremain			3,701		Stuart Nash
New Lynn		David Cunliffe			5,190		Tim Groser
North Shore		Wayne Mapp		Maggie Barry	15,228		Ben Clark
Ōhariu		Peter Dunne			1,392		Charles Chauvel

Lcmortensen (mailbox) 23:42, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

I prefer the grey version. We have a key with the results tables (which I have added to the options above) and that gives party colours, but not party shading. As such, the key and the colour shading don't go well together in my opinion. Schwede66 19:28, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

If using grey instead of party shading there will be a conflict with {{NZ electorate result new}} and {{NZ electorate result uncontested}}, as well as the very rare NZ electorate new uncontested - the sample result is somewhat appropriately Sir George Grey as an independent. An all grey shading means that a huge portion of the table is just that - grey, and doesn't focus on the winner, or winning party. Seeing a larger number of cells shaded in blue/red/green/purple etc shows at a glance the relative strengths and overall winner or plurality of the sum of electorates. The grey shading of winners in no way informs that one should look left to determine the outcome, even if that is its intention. FanN | talk | 07:44, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Auckland Central	(new electorate)			George Grey	(uncontested)
Grey	(new electorate)			Joseph Petrie	48		F Guiness
Manawatu		Walter Johnston			(uncontested)

In the above example I've deliberately used Independent candidates as they illustrate a further problem, apart from the fact of an almost entirely grey table, the shade of grey is the same as that of {{Meta color}} rather than {{Independent (politician)/meta/shading}} - which would naturally follow if we were using the /meta/shading templates, as per my original suggestion. My point is that we should not only highlight the winning candidate, but the winning party also. Whatever the outcome, the present state is entirely unacceptable, and has introduced a further unwanted template (displaying as N/A) where the runner-up is not known, or unlisted (all but three elections from {{New Zealand general election, 1954}} to {{New Zealand general election, 1987}}. I consider the current state of these templates to be most unsatisfactory and suggest that whatever the outcome of this discussion (entirely a result of the current state) we should revert to the last non-contentious version, and from there make any changes we agree necessary. FanN | talk | 23:46, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Ok, I can see that grey doesn't work. I'm happy to revert to the last non-contentious version for the time being. Schwede66 02:02, 9 May 2014 (UTC)