Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Parliament constituencies/Progress

Page updates

As the main aim is to get everything election ready I have made a few changes.

• There is now a checklist to ensure everything is done, so there is no extra legwork on the night.
• Added links to key pages to save having to ferret around all the time.

As an aside, I think naming firstName surname would be better than using initials, I don't know whether that is down to information sources people are using, but it is what goes on the ballot paper and it's easier to Wikilink.

I agree that firstname surname is the best format. However, the source I've been using for some election results only has surname, initials. This is the Electoral Commission's spreadsheet of results for 2001, which I believe is OK to use. Most other sources (such as the BBC) have terms of use that suggest to me that they shouldn't be used as a primary source. I assume the BBC paid the Press Association good money for their lists of election candidates. 80N 21:58, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

Good point, although who is to say that we didn't use the spreadsheet, and then found out the name from searching the BBC website? As it's information that is already in the public domain I don't see much of an issue (especially as we are finding out somebody's first name. Copying article content word for word is obviously wrong of course. Perhaps put a link to the spreadsheet on the progress page? Greg Robson 23:00, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

RESEARCH PAPER 01/54 from the House of Commons Library contains first names and is probably more authoratative than the BBC (see Talk:North_Belfast_(constituency)). Call me paraniod, but if I was the BBC, I would seed my data with fingerprint errors like this the way that cartographers do. 80N 00:32, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

We should treat the government report as authoritative. I'll add it to the resources. Greg Robson 07:19, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The pre-generated tables at Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Parliamentary Constituencies/Progress/2001/A-C etc are based on this data. 80N 10:48, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for those, a great timesaver! Greg Robson 16:51, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The election is just over a week away now – but I know we'll be ready on time and will show what Wikipedia is capable of! Greg Robson 19:10, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Result box title

I'd like to propose that the title for the results box be [[UK general election, 0000|General Election 0000]]: constituency name, where the constituency name is that used at the time of the election. See, for example Na h-Eileanan an Iar (constituency) which used to be called Western Isles. The UK bit in the title is redundant as it is already specified by the context it is in. 80N 22:05, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

• Agree It would make sense, especially if people copy the tables into other programs. The UK bit isn't necessary either. Greg Robson 22:22, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• The name change is a good point. I'll create further new articles with the new title format. Uncle G 02:01, 2005 Apr 27 (UTC)

• All entries listed as (ER) (election ready) now reflect the new table names. I'll be able to crack on with this tomorrow and hopefully we'll get all the constituencies ready on time! I'm glad there's only an election every four years! Mind you, next election should be easier as the templates are now in place. Greg Robson 07:54, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

How to help

• Should the How to help information be moved up to the main WikiProject page rather than be hidden here on the progress page? 80N 20:42, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

• Feel free to, this project has only been around for a month judging by the history. Words like "ball" and "rolling" spring to mind! Greg Robson 19:28, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Disambiguation

I see no reason whatsoever to impose an over elaborate system of disambiguation on the title of constituency names. Where there is no other possibility of confusion with another entity no disambiiguation is required, where there is a possibility in of confusion between the name of a constituency and some other entity that is not a constituency in another parliament the (constituency) should be used, ONLY when a constituency name clashes with the name of a constituency in another parliament (i.e. European Parliament or the Scottish Parliament etc..) should it be required to use (UK Parliament constituency). This follows Wikipedia policy on Wikipedia:Disambiguation. The purpose of disambiguation is disambiguation and NOT categorisation. That is what categories are for. 19:32, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

As I told you before, today: Read before you write, Jooler. There's been plenty of discussion on this. The amount of disambiguation that will be needed has been grossly underestimated, as you are grossly underestimating it here. I've done a bare handful of the necessary disambiguation pages already, such as Macclesfield (disambiguation), Neath (disambiguation), Vale of Glamorgan (disambiguation), Rhondda (disambiguation), and so forth, but there are a lot more to come in that vein. There are a lot of conflicting constituencies, towns, boroughs, rivers, names, clans, and football teams. Please leave the article names as they are. The disambiguations are lower priority than the constituency articles, and so will come later. There's a deadline for the constituency articles. There's no deadline for the disambiguation articles. Uncle G 20:14, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)

The has been some discussion, of which I have not been party, but I am bringing that discussion to this page because this project page has been modified today so that all of the links to yet to be constructed constituencies now include the words (UK Parliament constituency). I created three constituencies earlier today (before this modification was made to this page, and using the previous links on this page), these pages were subsequently moved. I moved them back and you have moved them again. I used (constutuency)' because thats what the links on this page were. None of these pages require additional disambiguation with similar named constituencies in any other parliament. So what objection do you have to these pages using the minimal disambiguatino of (constituency)? Jooler 21:35, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A large proportion of these constituency names clash with varying other places, football teams, scottish parliament regions etc. as discussed before. A good 70% are going to clash with the normal place name so will need disambiguation. If we disbiguate to just (constituency) we are going to confuse people. For example:

• Gordon (constituency)
• Telford (constituency)

However both of these places may exist in other countries, either now or in the future so we use:

• Gordon (UK constituency)
• Telford (UK constituency)

However this does not solve all our problems as Gordon is also a constituency of the Scottish government, so:

• Gordon (UK Parliament constituency)
• Gordon (Scottish Parliament constituency)
• Telford (UK Parliament constituency)

If we left Telford as Telford (constituency) we would not know whether it was part of the UK or Scottish parliament and it would be ambiguous. It is not a given that people know the location of Telford. Above all else, the name the article should represent it's contents, ideally we should not need such detailed disambiguation. But using disambiguation only when necessary will leave several naming schemes, and as Wikipedia grows people will change the suffixes and they might not bring them into line with others. I know this isn't ideal, but it does mean that each and every article gets a clear and concise name that truely represents it's content.

We are more then prepared to make sure everything is cross referenced properly and that each term links to the ambig. page and vice versa. But for the time being, we have less than a week to get over 550 pages up-to-date with the 2001 results and 2005 candidates as wikinews will be linking to our pages. I'm sure you will notice that the election ready pages (denoted by (ER)) are extremely consistent in the naming of tables and layout, this should show how commited we have been on getting standards sorted out. Hope this helps to clear things up. Greg Robson 22:38, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Given the time constraints I agree that using a consistent disambiguation makes sense. You've convinced me. So now you need to fix at lease two of the tables (last time I checked anyway) on this page which still link to ....(constituency). Jooler 23:06, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• It is very easy to underestimate the amount of disambiguation that is needed here. The thing to remember is that these are United Kingdom place names, possibly one of the most re-used sets of names in the English-speaking world. One look at Blackburn (disambiguation) should convince you of that. (If not, try Gordon (disambiguation), Southport (disambiguation), and Preston (disambiguation).)
  To remind you of what Earl Andrew pointed out near to the start of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK House of Commons constituencies: There's an informal project to give parliamentary constituencies in the Canadian House of Commons their articles, too. (So "(House of Commons)" is inappropriate as a disambiguation suffix, since there's more than one House of Commons in the mix here.) This has already trodden on some of the redlinks in List of Parliamentary constituencies in the United Kingdom, and has plenty of scope for continuing to do so considering the commonality of names. No doubt Australia, New Zealand, and other Commonwealth countries will get in on the act also, if they aren't already. Given how many place names, and thus probably constituency names, there are in common across all of these countries, something like Blackburn (constituency) simply isn't going to cut it. (Richmond, one of the UK Parliament constituencies, is also the name of no less than three Canadian constituencies.) The disambiguations really do have to be quite specific, because these names are heavily overloaded. We have to be specific to avoid stepping on the redlinks of other countries.
  Not even the constituency names with points of the compass in them are safe. They can and do conflict with the projects to write articles about railway stations, for example.
  The most amusing disambiguation so far (and I haven't looked at them all, by a long chalk, since I'm trying to resist the temptation to do the disambiguations now, when they can safely be left until after the election), is Eccles (disambiguation), where the UK parliamentary constituency shares an article name with a radio show character and a cake. Uncle G 01:01, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC)
• Another amusing one, that puts another nail in the coffin of the notion that names with points of the compass in them are safe and aren't going to conflict with anything: Dudley North. Uncle G 18:01, 2005 May 1 (UTC)
• When I changed the policy in the help section I was not arguing that there is no need for dabing the titles, I agree with most of these discussions. But is wrong to put as policy that all pages should have (UK parliament constinuency) on the end, to do so goes against Wikipedia policy. Pages should only be moved to titles with a suffix if it definitely clashes. Joe D (t) 00:11, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Which is the case for the overwhemling majority, if not nearly all, articles. There's a lot of disambiguation and article splitting to do. If I finish re-colouring the redlinks before election day, which I might well do at this rate, then whilst other editors are scurrying around, spreadsheets in hand, filling in the empty tables with the actual candidate lists (the hard part ☺) I plan on attacking the disambiguations and article splits. Uncle G 03:02, 2005 May 2 (UTC)
    • I agree that's probably the case, but that doesn't mean editors should be instructed to name all articles that way. I'm not asking those participating in the election coverage/constituencies wikiproject not to go on naming new articles in that fashion, but they should not be instructed to move articles which are already correctly named, as your instructions implied. Joe D (t) 03:08, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
      • There is no such implication. It's only your inference. The text is explicit talking about what to call "new pages". It uses those very words. It nowhere actually instructs people to rename pages. If that's your reason for continually changing the plan so that people are instructed to create new pages with the wrong names, then it's wholly unfounded. Furthermore: They aren't my instructions. I didn't write them. Uncle G 03:29, 2005 May 2 (UTC)
        • But others are making this inference and moving pages which should not be moved. My revised instructions did not say to create articles with the wrong names, they said that the disambiguation format was not compulsory. Some editors may wish to take the time to check these things, especially since in many cases constituency pages already exist at other page names. Joe D (t) 03:41, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
          • That last statement is false. We dealt with the pre-existing constituency names at the start. I went through the list of bluelinks that already existed when building the original list of hyperlinks at Wikinews. (Not all of them end in "(UK Parliament constituency)", notice. This is why.) I also drew other editors' attentions to the duplication that was occurring from our all working off different lists (some of which weren't up-to-date), and we worked out a plan. The assertion that "in many cases constituency pages already exist" is false. They don't. We've already checked. (There were a handful created during the hiatus that we didn't catch, which have been caught and merged by Mibblepedia and other editors, since.)
            Your statement about your instructions is false, too. Your instructions clearly say to create "new pages" without any suffix "unless there is an existing page", entirely ignoring the possibility that in doing so an editor could well be recolouring the redlinks of some other project, just as the Canadian constituency project re-coloured several of ours by taking exactly that approach. The original instructions say to create "new pages" with the suffix, a safe name that won't step on other people's redlinks. The next task, which I'm about to embark upon I hope, then involves going over all of the articles and putting what disambiguations are necessary in place. This task is not as simple as merely checking whether there's an existing page by the main name. At the very least it also involves checking "what links here" (which tells us that South Dorset is a breed of sheep, by the way). Uncle G 13:24, 2005 May 2 (UTC)
    • It has become more apparent as I have approached the south of England that disambiguation will also involve splitting existing articles. Several articles combine towns and boroughs of the same name into one, and several articles have two or three sentences (or an infobox) describing the constituency of the same name as the town or the borough, even though it isn't the same as the town/borough and isn't even coterminous with the town/borough. These descriptions will be out of date after the election, and I intend to modify them to more brief pointers to the constituency articles. Uncle G 03:02, 2005 May 2 (UTC)
    • Another thing that needs addressing as part of the disambiguation work is that in addition to the {{otheruses}} and {{otheruses2}} templates, some editors (see Talk:Blackburn (UK Parliament constituency)) have expressed the desire for more explicit links between the three that the wording of the standard disambiguation templates, which just talks vaguely about "uses", is inadequate for. Suggestions are welcome. Uncle G 03:02, 2005 May 2 (UTC)

There is no need to create whole disambiguation pages if there will only ever be 2 other articles linked to - these can both be specified at the top of article. "For the town see {name}, for the borough see {name}". Further, unnecessary disambiguation is completely unacceptable - if there is nothing currently at "Liverpool West", why not put it there? It goes against Wikipedia policy to unnecessarily disambiguate, it is counterproductive and confusing. Of course, a redirect could lead from the disambiguate name, making it easy to find. --Oldak Quill 15:26, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

FYI: Constituency duplication

I have noticed some constituencies are duplicated, so some may disappear, but you may find that it still exists somewhere else on the page. I will copy over (ER) attributes where necessary. This should make it easier to see what needs doing :) Greg Robson 10:15, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Changing the page structure...

From what I can tell people are going through the news article section by section (which is great). However, I don't think this page is being as useful as it could be. Before I go and start making changes I have a suggestion.

For each area I propose making a table using the same strucuture as Results of 2005 GE#Results by constituency as follows:

Name	Quality	Redirects	2005 GE
Aberdeen South	Minimal	Unchecked	Ready

The structure would be:

• Name – Name of constituency
• Quality – State of the article (Stub, Minimal, Substantial)
• Redirects – Have the double redirects been removed? (We have made lots in the process of doing this).
• Election name' – Ready: for when the candidates are listed; Done: when the results have been entered.

I think this may make life easier on the night as well. I can do this without too much disruption to other people. What do others think? It could be used for any future elections to by adding a new column. Greg Robson 10:43, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Greg, you are doing a great job on this. It really helps to see exactly what needs doing. Much better than the old list. 80N 16:08, Apr 30, 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks, I'm hoping to get the rest of them up today and remove the old list. After than, it's on with article creation! Greg Robson 16:40, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Page structure

I am making amendments to the structure as it is unclear whether we have all constituencies on the list. Please use the new tables in preference to the rest of the page, they will appear over the next couple of days. This should hopefully make it clear what the state of each page is and what work needs to be done, it should also help come the next election.

Instructions are given at the beginning of the new section. Greg Robson 09:06, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Project progress so far.

As many of you will have noticed, the page has been tidied and improved, and now matches the Wikinews page. The list has all 646 constituencies. There may be some minor discrepancies in naming conventions, but nothing a redirect couldn't fix. The work done has been great so far, with mistakes rarely appearing in the pages done so far. Now all that stands between us and election day is 400 pages. By my estimates, that means that we need every major contributor to add 25 or so a day? I may crack on with page creation tonight, but first I need to catch up with laundry ;) Greg Robson 17:10, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

After completion

After all are election ready, are we planning on improving the quality of some of the worse Ss to Ls or even Es? --Oldak Quill 11:58, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

I think there are a few things that need doing...

1. Checking all the Wikinews links go to the correct pages.
2. Disambiguation pages, that are complete. Redlinked disambiguation pages are not useful.
3. Removing double (and even triple) redirects.

Then I can see improving content as the next item. Greg Robson 18:04, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

I think we should move all of those with "(UK parliament constituency)" which are not also Scottish or EU to simply "(constituency)". It is Wikipedia convention to not over-disambiguate or do so preemptively. --Oldak Quill 08:27, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Please see the above section: #Disambiguation. We have deliberated this at length, and we came to an agreement on the matter. In summary: large numbers of conflicts of varying types (with existing towns, football teams, Welsh/Scottish Parliament), it would be even more confusing if we only disambiguated when necessary. Greg Robson 11:32, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

There are a lot of other things that need doing, especially after the election. This seems to the most active page on the election so has anybody got ideas or a better page to push the following forward:

• Byelection results need adding. I have done two but that still leaves four:
  • Ipswitch
  • Ogmore
  • Brent East
  • Leicester South
  • Birmingham, Hodge Hill
  • Hartlepool
• Update the bios of each MP (including those who became MPs and those who ceased to be MPs)
• Update the MPs for each region. For example Reading, Berkshire has two MPs listed.
• Update MPs_elected_in_the_UK_general_election, 2005 and fix the consituency links
• Update the constituency links in MPs_elected_in_the_UK_general_election, 2001
• Then there will be things like ministerial changes to follow up

Guess there are more areas that need doing and we really need to keep a track to make sure it all gets done MarkS 20:25, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Party double check

Now all the constituencies are ready (great work btw), I think it's worth doing a quick double check to ensure that all parties that have a colour are not listed as Independent. I am thinking in particular of:

• RESPECT The Unity Coalition
• Socialist Labour Party (UK)
• British National Party

These were not common at the beginning and the template colours were only added midway through. I am going to add another column in the summary table, so people can do a quick double check. Greg Robson 11:03, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

The following parties are currently template enabled. Any that are not in this list are missing because they don't have {{Election box metadata}} on their talk page. 80N 11:42, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

• Liberal Democrats (UK)    
• Conservative Party (UK)    
• Labour Party (UK)    
• Sinn Féin    
• Plaid Cymru    
• Speaker of the House of Commons (United Kingdom)    
• United Kingdom Independence Party    
• RESPECT The Unity Coalition    
• Social Democratic and Labour Party    
• Scottish National Party    
• Socialist Labour Party (UK)    
• Scottish Socialist Party    
• Green Party of England and Wales    
• Veritas (political party)    
• Democratic Unionist Party    
• Communist Party of Britain    
• UK Unionist Party    
• Independent Kidderminster Hospital and Health Concern    
• British National Party    

When we come to earlier election results, we will also need "template enabling" for historic parties such as the Liberal Party, SDP, ILP, etc. Warofdreams 12:28, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

You could probably use the Wikipedia search feature to find individual parties to check against. We should also enable extinct party colours, for historical results ('01, '97, '92, etc.). Further, I don't see a colour for the Official Monster Raving Looney Party? --Oldak Quill 15:31, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Maybe we could make a list of parties which deserve a colour page? --Neo 16:00, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

Other Historic patrties deserving colours if such exist

• Liberal Party (UK)
• Official Monster Raving Loony Party
• Referendum Party
• Natural Law Party (? Stood at least twice on the Isle of Wight).
• Socialist Alliance
• Liberal Party (modern)    
• Ulster Popular Unionist Party
• Workers Party (Ireland)
• National Front

Don't know about the others, but the Liberal Party still has a couple of local councillors, so not completely historic. Shimgray 16:31, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

See Liberal Party (modern) for information on the "continuing" Liberal Party - it is legally distinct from the old Liberal Party. The Workers Party, Loony Party and National Front do still exist, but with a lower profile and fewer candidates than in the past. Warofdreams 16:42, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Of those that:

• Have been long standing (to the best of my limited knowledge)...
• Have many candidates in this election...

...I think that the following deserve colours: National Front and Official Monster Raving Loony Party, with Social Democratic Party (UK) and Socialist Alliance following not long after.

but this is based purely on my own observations of the sections I have worked on, and those I have heard of. This list of number of candidates being fielded by each party (link) may be of use in deciding. Greg Robson 18:21, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

The other parties:

• Liberal Party (UK) - formerly one of the three big parties (yellow).
• Referendum Party - very successful in the 97 election.
• Natural Law Party - stood in large numbers of seats in 92 and 97.
• Liberal Party (modern) - modern Liberal Party, came second in one constituency in 2001 (orange).
• Ulster Popular Unionist Party - had an MP from 1980 - 95.
• Workers Party (Ireland) - small party which has constitently stood in NI and is again standing in several constituencies (red).

Also red for the Socialist Alliance. Warofdreams 09:53, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

And we need the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland     (yellow). Warofdreams 16:03, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

I read somewhere that it is traditional for independent candidates to wear a white rosette. There should probably be a colour entry for generic independent candidates. Before adding too many colours there is a proposal at Template:Election box to change the structure and hence the names of the meta pages - maybe this should happen first. Should we just invent a colour for significant parties, or should we only use a colour where there actually is an official colour? 80N 22:03, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

List of Parliamentary constituencies in the United Kingdom

The page List of Parliamentary constituencies in the United Kingdom contains a lot of redlinks. Now that we know that we have an article for each constituency this list really needs to be updated.

Should there also be a definitive article listing all constituencies by region (this can be lifted from the Wikinews list I suppose).

Now that we've done all this work it would be good to get a link to these lists from the main United Kingdom general election, 2005 page. 80N 15:29, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

I was thinking that List of Parliamentary constituencies in the United Kingdom should be by moved to List of Parliamentary constituencies in the United Kingdom by region with it listing by region, with a link to the category as this will contain the entire list in alphabetical order (remembering that lists in alphabetical order are considered poor style). I used Wikinews as the source for the progress page (and it has been double checked) so it's just a matter of transferring sections and names. Greg Robson 17:37, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Update..., it now sorts by region. There is a "disambiguation" pointing people towards the category for alphabetical listing now. I am still undecided on whether to use the "by region" suffix as if it isn't alphabetical, what else would make sense in the context of the UK? Greg Robson 18:05, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there is a need to add the "by region" suffix. 80N 21:56, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

Citation of Sources

I hesitate to bring this up, because there is clearly a lot of work going on by a lot of dedicated people on short timescales. However one of the consequences of this project is the creation of a large number of aricles containing verifiable information (lists of MPs, results data for 2001, etc.) and there isn't a reference or source in sight on the pages I've looked at. This is in contravention of Wikipedia policy WP:CITE. I guess this can be rectified after the election, provided all contributors have taken notes of the articles they updated and the sources they used. -- Chris j wood 10:58, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Whilst I can understand your intention, I tend to work on the basis of "If it is trivial to find the same fact from other sources then citation is nice but superfluous" and only insist on them where it took a lot of work to discover the relevant information. For most of the seat information and candidate names these are available from so many sources that is effectively not needed. --Vamp:Willow 19:27, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

There are likely to be errors in data from most sources at the moment, just because it's very difficult to capture all that information quickly and accurately. Ultimately the results should be double checked against a definitive source, but that won't be available for some time I suspect. In the meantime it would make sense to indicate the source of the data so that it's pedigree can be judged by the reader. To that end I've just had a first stab at a new template {{Election box source|source=[http://www.bbc.co.uk/election BBC]}} that can be used at the bottom of each results table to indicate its source. 80N 15:27, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

Election night

Add your name here if you'll be here on election night. That way, we'll be able to divide the work of updating the constituencies between us. I suggest dividing things alphabetically. Per-region wouldn't work because I don't think we're evenly spread (I don't even know if we're all in the UK). Per-party wouldn't work because of the radical differences in size between parliamentary parties. Mibblepedia 16:49, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

If there there are not that many people it may be easier to allow a free-for-all. Once the first few come in there should be a steady stream of results to ensure that few edit conflicts occur. So long as people change the Ready to Done in the tables conflicts should be rare. I'd probably tend to take Midlands entries, but it's not a given. Users are more likely to be from cities by probability than rural areas. Just my $0.02 on the matter. Greg Robson 23:03, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

One thing about a 'free for all' though is that we're all likely to go for them in the order in which they hit the screens so highly likely to get conflicts before 1:30am and after 3am. I'd suggest that we each take a region as our focus and then catch up on the missing ones on a 'fill-in' basis. --Vamp:Willow 00:01, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

I've added a "Results by" column to the Progress page to allow folks to designate which region they will process. I've plumped for Wessex, for now. Given the number of people active in this project we'll each probably need to cover several areas. 80N 07:35, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

• Mibblepedia
• Greg Robson

I'm glad elections only come once every four years... The number of edits I've made has gone through the roof this week! Greg Robson 17:41, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

• I don't know if I will yet, I may be going to the Guildhall (to see the candidates and announcement) followed by an all nighter with some friends. If I am here, however, count me in. I will say definately tomorrow. --Oldak Quill 19:09, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
• Vamp:Willow

Similar to OldakQuill, although I had been planning to go to a local count then pub (booked until 5am!) but I'm now feeling like I'd rather do my usual watch-it-on-three-TVs version of election night. If I'm home I'll definitely be online. Will be home and online (Blueyonder permitting). I think there are benefits to geographical rather than alphabetically, which means Scotland is a light load and Midlands / London heavier but each manageable. Thanks to the templates on most constituencies it should be fairly quick and easy. One question though - whose figures should we take as 'gospel' given that past experience shows BBC, SKY and ITV sometimes 'disagree' ... --Vamp:Willow 19:23, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter, as long as we cite which. I would say the best is the BBC - the other two are openly biased (Murdoch), tabloid (celebritism), and commercial (corporation). The BBC at least tries to be unbiased, and is effectively owned by the electorate. Where Sky News may report a seat on a semi-good source for the sake of appearing first, and bouying their viewership, the BBC would not. --Oldak Quill 01:53, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

• I have no idea why I linked up regions to where people actually live. Sometimes my logic confuses even me. I can't find ITN's results pages, and I'd say the BBC was more reputable than Sky. On the other hand, Sky's figures can be copied and pasted. Check both, and leave the pages alone if they differ. I've been wrestling with myself for weeks over whether to go to the local count and see some candidates declared live, or to stay at home and get a full picture of what's giong on across the country. Pub never occured to me, but none of my friends have mentioned it so I'm guessing I'd be alone. Mibblepedia 20:11, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
• 80N
• MarkS I have taken on of the regions for tonight (make take another later if there are still gaps). Can I suggest that when people finally go to bed they remove themselves from the region list so that anybody still up can take over that region.

you mean we should each watch each other drop from exhaustion! indeed a sensible idea though. Could I suggest that trying to keep the 'state of the parties' updated should either be the task of one person or left until the morning. Much of Scotland and some other areas won't be declared until well into tomorrow anyway. --Vamp:Willow 19:02, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

• I'm working on a web-page that will (hopefully) make it easier to update the results. See [1] for the first prototype. Type in the results at the top and press the update button. The results will be sorted and displayed in the pink section in a format that can be pasted into the wikipedia article. I plan to do some more on it to calculate majorities and %age shares etc. Let me know if it helps. 80N 21:41, May 5, 2005 (UTC)
  • My first attempt to use it with Sunderland South was a bit of a dismal failure. Improved version will be along shortly! 80N 21:51, May 5, 2005 (UTC)
    • I have used Excel to generate %ages as well, your webpage is very useful however. In the meantime, I'll try and keep up! Greg Robson 21:58, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
    • Heh, saw that. Not a complete disaster, the results were there and it was fixed quickly. Mibblepedia 22:04, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
• Sunderland South is done, I've updated the Member of Parliament Section. Perhaps easiest to wait until BBC news carries info as they have constituency sizes, and so can give all %ages. Greg Robson 22:15, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

BBC News is going to be useful

BBC News Homepage [2] has a live desktop ticker and self updating pages. Handy to check off results as they come in. I'm poised for Sunderland South... Greg Robson 21:30, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

myself, I'm using their vote/percentage figures as my source. ITV seems to be off in in its own little world with far more declarations that BBC or Sky have ... --Vamp:Willow 00:04, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Notes for those helping

Just a few issues at this early stage in what may be a long night...

• If adding manually, don't put % in the table cells. Use 1 decimal place, i.e. 34.0% not 34%
• For numbers of 1,000 or over use a comma.
• Update the MP section! I recommend the following format (but it is not official):

* [[name]], [[party]] (yearA–yearB)

or

* [[name]], [[party]] (yearA–''present'')

Keep up the good work, this is the first time we have had major election coverage! Greg Robson 23:53, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

• The BBC results are posting a %age change for parties that did not previously stand. Enter ''N/A'' rather than the BBC figure in these cases. 80N 00:10, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

The morning after the night before.

Firstly a big thank you to all those helping out on this project, I know you don't expect any thanks – working on Wikipedia is thanks enough – but it is appreciated!

As we consolidate the edits there is a few thing to remember:

• Don't put % symbols in the actual data rows. Just in the the headings
• Numbers of 1,000 or greater should use commas to make the numbers more readable.
• Don't forget the hold/gain rows at the bottom!
• Use + or - on any change values (unless no change: use 0.0)
• Make sure the MPs are listed in a bulleted list as well.
• Double check the entries that are marked "done", they might not be filled in completely.

See the first few entries of Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Parliamentary Constituencies/Progress#Scottish highlands & islands for how to style the entries.

Once again, a thank you for all the good natured polite discussion of the many issues that surrounded this project and the speed at which people contributed. It wasn't just the vote counters who stayed up all night. Greg Robson 05:43, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

As a typographical pedant, can I just add that when using pluses and minuses typing − will give you a minus sign that's specifically intended to be the same width as a plus ( − ), instead of a hyphen which is a bit shorter ( - ). This just makes the tables look a little more professional I think, and I don't think there are many browsers that have a problem with that character. Great work on our coverage, everyone! I've been doing a little bit and I'll do some more, but I can't see myself meeting the fantastic rate of updates achieved by the dedicated contributors to this project. — Trilobite (Talk) 05:58, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

I used that handy tool of 80N's, and didn't notice for ages that it was puting % symbols in. I also abandoned a lot of details in the rush to get all the results in. I'll fill them in later - although the invincible GregRobson seems to be finishing things up. Meanwhile, I'm sneaking off to bed. Mibblepedia 06:30, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

I'll be fixing that problem shortly - I didn't notice it myself at first. I'm going to try to get it to generate %age change as well which should save some more work. BTW the when a new party stands the BBC is reporting the %age change figure as though they had 0 votes in the previous election, whereas it has been our convention to put N/A in the change column in such cases. Watch for this if you take your figures from there. 80N 07:20, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

Heh, I don't know about invincible... never thought about the − I've been obsessed with using – so far. Considering we had never attempted something on such a scale before it went quite well. I'm sure we'll get everything together in next week ;) Greg Robson 08:26, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Should the 2005 results be ranked in descending votes cast order, as the 2001 results are?. I'd assumed they should be, and ranked a few, but it seems that leaving them in candidate surname order is the norm. I'd say ranking is more useful for the future reader, but what is the consensus?. -- Chris j wood 13:20, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Ranking seems standard to me - all the South Yorkshire results have been ranked. Warofdreams 13:50, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

I have been ranking them in vote order as well and I have changed any that I find which are in surname order. Ranking will match the 2001 results as well. The non-sorted ones I have seen have arisen where users are updating the results outside of this project. MarkS 15:57, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

BBC Results are not definitive

Just want to point out that the BBC is not infallable. While they do an amazing job of getting the results out, they are just as prone to error as the rest of us. At some point the results should be systematically verified against the ONS figures (don't know how many years before they become available though). As an example see Boston and Skegness (UK Parliament constituency) where the BBC has transposed the turnout figure here from 41,689 to 41,869 which has led to all their %ages being wrong. 80N 12:28, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

Results Generator

I've just put up a new version of the results generator (V3.1) at www.gj0.net (This link has been retired - need it for another purpose). It now deals with all of the formatting issues that I'm aware of (no % suffix, leading zeros, thousand separators, −, etc). It also now calculates the %age change from the 2001 election (for most seats - Scotland is an exception and there are a few dozen places that were named inconsistently by the various sources). There's also a couple more buttons that will open up the corresponding Wikipedia article providing it's name follows the standard format. Oh, and the results are sorted in rank order.

Let me know if it helps. Also mention here if you find any problems with it. BTW it works better with Firefox, but then I'd guess everyone here uses Firefox anyway. 80N 14:39, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

Is there any need to use {{Template:xyz}} rather than just {{xyz}}? Joe D (t) 16:14, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

No, none at all. Caused by lack of sleep and a faulty brain... 80N 18:19, May 9, 2005 (UTC)

New "Manual of Style" sub-page

Available at: Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Parliamentary Constituencies/Style.

This is intended to go with Template:Election box to provide a place which summarises all the chat that has been going. Anyone with queries on formatting can be directed here. All improvements welcome :) —Greg Robson 11:34, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

I've added some comments on the talk page... Shimgray 13:03, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

I've made a few changes:

• Removed the Otheruses template because that is used for disambiguation purposes, but either there isn't need for disambiguation or the page is already disambiguated by using the suffix. I know a couple of pages where the otheruses template and a disambiguation page have been used to link between a town, district and constituency, but in cases like those disambiguation should not be used, instead it should be mentioned in the body of those articles that the geographical area is used for other political/administrative uses. Additionally policy discourages editors from creating disambiguation pages full of red links or premtively linking to non existant dab pages.
• Removed the stuff about always disambiguating the page name: overdisambiguating page names is against wikipedia policy.
• Suggested that where the boundaries are already described in another article or where there is very little to say about the boundaries they are put in the introduction, as two line sections are also discouraged.

Joe D (t) 21:23, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Duplication

It seems section 2 and section 4 of the main page here are the same. Perhaps one of them could be deleted. Maltaran 21:03, May 9, 2005 (UTC)

Example page

Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Parliamentary Constituencies/Progress/Example

Can we either take this down or at least remove the categories - the page is starting to show up with convention entries now. Timrollpickering 09:08, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've redirected it to Wikipedia:WikiProject_UK_Parliament_constituencies/Style. I think it was mostly used for creating the articles, since they've been created this is the logical conclusion. -- Joolz 28 June 2005 11:34 (UTC)

This page

Since the election's now over, I've altered this page to reflect this. I'm also updating the tables so we can get more information out of them. -- Joolz 5 July 2005 01:01 (UTC)

Adding Redirects for ampersands, etc

Could someone on this project please go through the Voting section of this page and add redirects for all the constituencies? I have changed the links in the current version to use _and_ instead of _&_ but redirects would be nice too. — Nicholas (reply) @ 17:06, 1 February 2006 (UTC)