WikiProject Elections and Referendums | (Rated Project-class) | |||||||||
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Redirects to yearly election lists
- Moved to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (government and legislation) § Redirects to yearly election lists for visibility
Voting surveys are not "opinion" polls
I see the title of a lot of articles (all?) on election and referendum polls in enwiki start with Opinion polling for.... That strikes me as wrong; strictly speaking, voting surveys are not opinion polls. An opinion is what someone thinks of something, not something she intends to do. That's why RealClearPolitics calls them election polls, and YouGov calls them voting intention surveys. An "election opinion poll" would ask people who they think will win, not who they intend to vote for.
I could boldly start renaming the pages in the best spirit of WP:CYCLE, but I'm sure someone will click-revert it without even asking simply bc that's the current norm. So I thought I'd raise the issue here first. — Guarapiranga ☎ 04:23, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
- What do you suggest these articles should be named as then? —twotwofourtysix(My talk page and contributions) 04:55, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
- Whatever is most commonly used by WP:RS:
- Election polls for... (as does RealClearPolitics)
- Voting surveys for... (as does YouGov)
- ... or simply:
- Polls for...
- — Guarapiranga ☎ 06:04, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
- I would say "opinion poll" is the common name, even if formally they are known as voter intention surveys. Number 57 19:41, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
- A cursory, logged off Google search of news articles on elections with poll on the title returned for me 280,000 results, including:
- Cost of living and fixing aged care are top concerns as election nears, ANU poll shows
- Polls show Labor in election-winning lead at campaign’s halfway point
- Labor leads polling at the campaign’s halfway mark
- Poll points to tight contest in Goldstein between Wilson and...
- As the election campaign begins, what do the polls say, and can we trust them this time?
- Polling station opening times today explained and how to find ...
- PCs have ‘pulled away’ from pack as Ontario election set to begin: Ipsos poll
- A search for election articles with opinion poll in the title returned for me 2,250 results. Referring to electoral polls as opinion polls is therefore 99.2% uncommon among WP:RS. — Guarapiranga ☎ 23:37, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
- Guarapiranga, your survey above is flawed. It's picking up articles about elections (e.g. "Polling station opening times today explained..."), not just articles about opinion polls/voter intention surveys. Your survey shows "poll" is a commonly used term: "poll" appears to be short for "opinion poll" or maybe "election poll". I don't see support for your suggestion of "voting survey" or "voting/er intention survey".
- Ergo, I agree with Number 57: "opinion poll" is the commonly used term and what we should use. Guarapiranga, you could add some text to the opinion poll article about terminologies, but I don't see the need for the change you suggest here. Bondegezou (talk) 10:24, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
- @Bondegezou:
I don't see support for your suggestion of "voting survey" or "voting/er intention survey".
I didn't suggest that. My suggestion was to use "whatever is most commonly used by WP:RS." My impression is that opinion poll is not commonly used by WP:RS to refer to voting surveys (yes, my Google search test above is imperfect--what test isn't?--but inferring from that the opposite conclusion, is a logical fallacy).
Having said that, to be practical, here are 3 suggestions I'm indifferent about: - — Guarapiranga ☎ 11:39, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
- I note that the Wikipedia article is called opinion poll. Perhaps you should propose changing the name of that article and, if there is agreement for that, we can follow suit elsewhere. But I doubt there will be agreement for that!
- It is apparent that "electoral poll" and "voter poll" are less common than "opinion poll". I think the only argument one might make is for "poll" over "opinion poll", but I think "poll" is ambiguous as the actual vote can also be called a "poll". Bondegezou (talk) 15:10, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
- I disagree with this, I don't think there's any issue with calling them "opinion polls", because voter intention polls are an opinion (a view or judgement formed on something) of who a respondent thinks they would vote for at that point in time. Part of the Australian polls above are preferred prime minister and leader satisfaction ratings, which are obviously opinions because the vast majority of Australians won't vote for the prime minister unless they live in their electorate. As Bondegezou says, I think calling them polls, electoral polls or voter polls runs the risk of causing confusion with actual elections which are also called polls. --Canley (talk) 15:32, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
- Yeah, ok, I'll drop it; you're right, Bondegezou; no support for the change here. But, no, the main article on opinion polls need not be changed; there indeed are opinion polls, it's just that not every poll is an opinion poll. Shopping surveys, for instance, are not opinion polls (though product/brand satisfaction are).
- Just to be clear, Canley, of course satisfaction ratings are opinion polls; it's voting surveys, IMHO, that aren't. But it seems I'm splitting hairs. — Guarapiranga ☎ 06:35, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, I also think calling voter preference polls "opinion polls" is clunky, and probably inaccurate. It's just that there's probably no other term that's preferable to this either. So we're stuck with a bad term purely for convenience's sake. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 13:05, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
- @Bondegezou:
- A cursory, logged off Google search of news articles on elections with poll on the title returned for me 280,000 results, including:
- I would say "opinion poll" is the common name, even if formally they are known as voter intention surveys. Number 57 19:41, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
- Whatever is most commonly used by WP:RS:
Fictitious results in some local elections
After spending the last days following the very interesting NI elections, I've just fallen on 2017 Clackmannanshire Council election, which (as of the time of writing, I'm going to correct this in a moment) contains some obviously fictitious results (which, on top of that, did not have a proper source to support them until I added one just now). Now, the user who seems to have contributed these doesn't seem to have been particularly active (Special:Contributions/Scottishbanter93); but I wouldn't be writing this here if I didn't doubt that its possible similar fictional numbers also exist elsewhere (2017 Stirling Council election has other obvious examples, but I'd bet it's not the only one). If anybody has some patience, a wee bit of common sense about how STV works, and some know how in finding acceptable sources (this seems somewhat borderline, but its probably accurate and much better than nothing), extending the exercise to other pages might be worthwhile. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:40, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
- Now done on both pages I mention above (you can look at the history to see what the issue looks like). It might also be pertinent to do the same kind of sanity check on the inevitable flood of new similar pages which will arise from the recent elections... Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:01, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
- Might have found the culprit for some more of these: Special:Contributions/Devite... There are dozens of examples like [1] or 2. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:19, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
- You may want to look for evidence that Scottishbanter93 and Devite are the same editor. If they are, you can take this to WP:SPI and at least get the accounts blocked for both socking and hoaxing. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 12:30, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
- CUs only have access to recent data, and both of these last edited way too far back for it to be any use. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:38, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
- You may want to look for evidence that Scottishbanter93 and Devite are the same editor. If they are, you can take this to WP:SPI and at least get the accounts blocked for both socking and hoaxing. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 12:30, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
Talk:Nacionalista Party#New electoral performance tables
Philippines political party results tables were wholesale changed -- in the middle of an election! -- then conveniently a "discussion" was started justifying(?) the change. This changed the look of the tables from the rest of the world. I would agree changes were needed, but a discussion first has to be done, then do the changes next, instead of the reverse.
We'd also be needing templates for tables such as this if ever the project wants a consistent "look" for tables such as this. Howard the Duck (talk) 22:38, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
County-level results in American elections
Is there a template or a recommended way to include county-level results when we're adding the results from Gubernatorial/Senate elections in the United States? I've come into possession of a copy of Dubin's book of results from 1776-1860, so I have the data, but I'm unsure what the best way would be to add it to articles. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/they)Talk to Me! 15:25, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
- In the past when I've had access to the data, I've done it like this, which just matches the presidential county results boxes. Curbon7 (talk) 19:42, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
- Makes sense! Thanks :) ThadeusOfNazereth(he/they)Talk to Me! 14:57, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
Is cumulative voting a type of cardinal voting — or not?
Hi all. I recently discovered this known inconsistency, with cumulative voting claiming to be a type of cardinal voting, but cardinal voting strongly implying that it excludes cumulative voting! Who's right? There are threads on both the cardinal talk page and the cumulative talk page with existing discussion on the matter. Grateful to anyone who can help clear it up! DougInAMugtalk 22:41, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
- Have commented! Bondegezou (talk) 06:01, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
Australian election tables showing full results
Discussion about Australian election tables showing full results in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian politics#Election results if you want to comment.