Talk:1892 United States House of Representatives elections

Ohio changes
I don't know what the happened here. The changes made to Ohio make no sense at all. Maybe You'd like to change United_States_congressional_delegations_from_Ohio to fit the illogical changes made here. Please explain Roseohioresident (talk) 20:05, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry I didn't give edit summaries. That was my fault, and I should be doing a better job with that. With other years, we've noted redistricting and new districts this way.  See, for example, United States House of Representatives elections, 1952.  You seem to know a lot more about Ohio elections than I do, so if I made mistakes please correct them.  All I was trying to do is put it into this consistent format.  When an incumbent is moved into a new district, we put the incumbent on the row for that new district and note that they were redistricted.  If there are no incumbents in a district, then we note it as "None (District created)" and the Result is "New seat… Xxxx gain."—GoldRingChip  13:12, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * seems kind of silly to me- but it looks like the issue is settled.Roseohioresident (talk) 20:52, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * No- nothing is settled in Wikipedia! Let's have a discussion.  What do you you think we should do?  For example, let's look at Ohio in the current election, United States House of Representatives elections, 2012, since we're more familiar with that as a currently-happening event.  How would you suggest changing it?  —GoldRingChip  01:27, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Here it is, as it shows today:


 * Wikipedia and wiktionary both define incumbent as the "current holder of a political office". While the way the table above is constructed has internal logic, the heading of "incumbent" and what appears below clash. "New seat", and "none - district created" need better terminology. The third district is not "new" nor "created", it has been there since 1823. The boundary may have changed, but the seat is still the same. I've been reading wikipedia for years, and I assumed the whole "new seat" change was some kind of vandalism. I can imagine a more naive reader would assume it just another case of editors gone wild.Roseohioresident (talk) 19:00, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Maybe we can come up with a better term? Instead of "new seat" pehaps we could use "new boundaries without an incumbent"? Or is there something shorter and more elegant than that? How about "New District" or "Empty District" or "No Incubent"?  (I like the last one the best.) —GoldRingChip  21:02, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * “No incumbent” is better than the others, but seems to me to imply something like “Vacant - died”, “Vacant - resigned” or “Vacant - expelled”. If the district has a rep in 112th congress, "no incumbent" just doesn't seem correct. Roseohioresident (talk) 20:47, 23 October 2012 (UTC)


 * also, Dennis Kucinich is noted as "democratic loss". I think Marcy Kaptur would think differently. It seems that Ohio 9 is democratic now and will probably be democratic next year, thus "democratic hold", while ohio 10 is democratic now, and will probably be republican next year, thus "republican gain". The party representing the seat is what is important, not what counties it represents, or the fate of individuals, at least as far as I see it. The incumbents from ohio 17 and ohio 18, which are lost due to population loss in this state, would be in the fifth column as redistricted, democratic loss, and redistricted, republican loss, and the sixth column would say, "district inactive" . That was the logic behind the table for ohio 1892, as originally uploaded by me, .Roseohioresident (talk) 19:18, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The Kucinich "loss" is because where there were previously two Democrats, and at least one of them, Kucinich, will no longer be in office. Where once there were two, now there is one.  Thus, there is a loss of one Democrat.  The Democrats in Ohio and in Washington see it as a Democratic loss, even if Kaptur still represents some of the same constituents; I think Kaptur is glad she beat Kucinich, but I'm sure she sees it as an overall loss because she'd rather have him in the House with her under a different redistricting.  Furthermore, if she loses re-election, then it would be a "Republican (or Libertarian) gain."  Similarly for the 10th district with two Republican incumbents.—GoldRingChip  20:49, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't have time today to explain myself fully. There is no hurry, wikipedia will be here forever. I'll try to compose a detailed account of the strengths and weaknesses as I see them. One thing I will note is that Party shading/loss and party shading/hold look the same on my screen, very confusing. I have ideas on how I would assemble a table, starting from scratch, but since dozens or maybe hundreds of tables are already there, I will also consider what could be done with minimal disruption to existing code.Roseohioresident (talk) 21:26, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Why not shade Candidates column
If starting from scratch, assuming winners and losers just to make it more interesting, I would probably go with something like:

I think the most important part of this table to me is the shading in column Party and column Candidates. Just compare the two and change in compositon of delegation and change in each district is obvious, kind of like United States congressional delegations from Ohio turned on its side. With the current system, like shown at United States House of Representatives elections, 2012 and United States House of Representatives elections, 1892, the change in composition and change of party in individual district, not so much. Shading in column “Result” would call attention to holds and changes in party. Even for years without any re-districting, I think shading the columns for party in previous congress, and elected party for next congress is the most important change that I think would clear things up. The only times there would be no incumbent would be (1) in cases of death, expulsion, or resignation with no replacement chosen in special election before the new term, or (2) for actual “new districts” created due to population growth. Also, one small thing, in United States House of Representatives elections, 2012, I don't know why Ohio's 1st congressional district has two first elected dates for Steve Chabot. He won in 1994, 1996... 2006, lost in 2008 and won again in 2010. I think we should probably choose either the first election, or the first election contiguous to the this one. This could really get out of hand. Imagine the table for New York Elections in 1888... column 1 : New York's 9th congressional district ; column 2 : Samuel S. Cox ; column 3 : Democratic ; column 4 : Ohio 1856, New York 1868, New York 1884, and New York 1886 (s). This could get silly looking. Roseohioresident (talk) 21:08, 23 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I like this idea! It would take a lot of work to change all the existing pages, though. As for the multiple dates, I think it makes sense for individuals with discontinuous terms to list the first time they were elected and then the start of their current term in office. Although I'd probably go with something like "district eliminated" rather than "inactive" XinaNicole (talk) 03:54, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Though, one small comment, it would be good to be able to show when there are two incumbents running in a single district. Perhaps something like italicizing candidates who were serving in Congress at the time of the election (and both bold and italic for someone who was re-elected) XinaNicole (talk) 03:59, 15 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I disagree. Shading the candidates column leads to too much shading.—GoldRingChip  14:46, 15 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Also, we should not list by representative, but by district.—GoldRingChip 14:46, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect Results from Duplicate Entries
Unfortunately, it looks like the information for the Iowa 1st is an accidental duplication of the information for the Indiana 1st?

Likewise, the New Jersey 8th appears to be the results for the Iowa 8th? Bkmoore (talk) 20:54, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Proposed Changed Format for House of Representatives Elections
In looking over old political data again I've decided to add new information for the House elections, but the information that I want to add is not conducive to the current format. The problem lies in that I want to add the voting data into the tables, but there isn't any way to do so currently as that was meant to be presented in detailed articles on the House elections in a State by State basis; that however only makes sense when done in the context of more modern House elections where information on the campaigns are more readily accessible. What I have done instead was add four additional columns to the right; one for the party color where applicable, one for the name of the State Party of the candidate, one for the number of votes won, and one for the percentage of the vote won. Each District is then divided from each other by an additional row so as to keep the vote numbers and percentages from "blending" into those of the other Districts. --Ariostos (talk) 19:28, 3 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Seems reasonable to me; I like it. But it adds a lot of code, which will make these articles even busier.  Perhaps make this change only on the state-level article, not on the national article?
 * I also suggest keeping the "Result" column to the three-line structure used elsewhere:
 * Incumbent retired. New member elected. Democratic gain.
 * or
 * Incumbent re-elected (only 1-line).
 * If we go forward with this, I suggest developing a template to keep it standardized. —GoldRingChip 21:02, 3 February 2020 (UTC)


 * I see you already went and simplified parts of it, principally truncating the "spacing" sections. I'll admit that I am not well versed in building infoboxes outside of the existing templates, and that has proven to be a struggle when I have a concept 'in mind', but don't know how to execute it. An obvious example is the 1828 Congressional Elections in Georgia which I've posted below; I was working on a basic example case with the 1828-1829 Congressional Elections. The problem is that when you are working with a single Congressional District it is fairly straightforward as seen above, but it becomes convoluted when two Districts are involved in the same election. What I had hoped to find was some sort of wrapping option where there are still rows under the section 'Candidates', but the rows aren't forced to line up with the rest; for example I would have seven rows normally, but then there would thirteen rows under the 'Candidates' section, none locked in with any of the main seven rows as they are now. That would be the optimal solution, provided it is possible.
 * I have also established the Infoboxes at a set width of 1500px, meaning that they'll be uniform the whole way down instead of being at varying widths; I don't know what the recommended width would be, so I settled on what I've been comfortable using in the past. Also, I have no idea why we keep track of when new members are elected within the results section, as it is only useful for when denoting a former Congressmen wins a seat. --Ariostos (talk) 06:10, 5 February 2020 (UTC)


 * I like to keep these tables simple; if more info is needed (which is often the case), then I'd include it elsewhere. So I'm reluctant to make tables that are complicated to read.  Also, the wide width is a problem.  I try to avoid adding columns or rows purely for space. —GoldRingChip 20:23, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I've removed the hard width for both tables given that is a matter of preference and it may not translate well to all screens. I don't particularly agree with the idea of creating the kind of skeletal articles that exist for Congressional Elections 'by State', as those would be very bare bones and have little hope for expansion barring having boots on the ground in local libraries, whereas for those elections of the last two decades there are digital sources accessible to a wider crew. Essentially, it seems little more than a duplicate of what already exists, but with the vote numbers added, which in my opinion seems …. superfluous.
 * In trying to determine how best to represent elections that involve multiple Congressmen, I've actually changed the example of Georgia to have a "single" Results box, with the information of the various results being combined. In practice, the color of the box would be determined by the net result of gains and losses. --Ariostos (talk) 05:55, 6 February 2020 (UTC)