Talk:2011 Northern Ireland Assembly election

Retention
There is ample precedent for articles on the next election, even when the date isn't set in stone - see Category:Future elections and individual cases such as Next Queensland state election. The article needs expanding to outline the main features, particularly the boundary changes that will take effect but should be expanded, not prodded when it's barely been born. Timrollpickering (talk) 22:58, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Images
3 images were removed by another editor for copyright reasons. I have removed the last remaining one to ensure that there is no bias during the election period. I would suggest that unless images are found for ALL party leaders, then none should be published. --Gavin Lisburn (talk) 21:15, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Now that the election's over and we've lengthened the template with maps, I think it would look cleaner with no photos until we can get at least four or five, especially since (in my opinion) some of the free-use ones we're using are not that good, and Martin McGuinness's picture should really be in place of Gerry Adams' (see discussion below). —— Shakescene (talk) 20:48, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I've moved the leaders' images down to a separate photo gallery at Northern Ireland Assembly election, 2011; this allows them to be displayed bigger while collapsing the template to something that can be grasped at a single glance. If we get better free images at small scale for Robinson, Ritchie and Adams/McGuinness, plus ones for the UUP, Alliance and TUV leaders, then we might be able to restore them to the template. —— Shakescene (talk) 02:56, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Sinn Fein leader
Wouldn't it be more appropriate to class Martin McGuinness as Sinn Fein's leader? Gerry Adams may be the party's president but he's not even a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly anymore and Martin McGuinnessis Sinn Feins Assembly leader.--152.78.165.24 (talk) 17:13, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree; when you're talking about an actual parliament, "leader" is usually taken to mean the leader of the party's parliamentary caucus (and theoretical prime minister or leader of the opposition). Even in a presidential/congressional system, the article about the United States House of Representatives elections, 2010 lists Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker, as leader of the Democrats, rather than President Barack Obama or Tim Kaine (who was Chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 2010). ¶ For the parties which sent no members to either the outgoing or the incoming Assemblies, it's a little trickier, especially for all-Ireland parties like the Workers' Party, the Socialist Party of Ireland or People Before Profit. But "N/A" seems a little out of place; surely they had spokes(wo)men during the campaign, or at least a solitary candidate. —— Shakescene (talk) 20:25, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I would not agree. If this route is taken, then the template for the Northern Ireland Assembly would need to be amended from 'Leader' to something like 'Assembly Party Leader'.--Gavin Lisburn (talk) 20:43, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The box names each party's leader. Sinn Féin as a party is led by Gerry Adams; end of discussion. Brocach (talk) 23:55, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

There needs to be a more general discussion about who goes in the boxes as there are a lot of elections around the world where the positions of party leader, parliamentary leader and "candidate for Leading Minister" are split. Timrollpickering (talk) 00:26, 9 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Discussion opened at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums. Timrollpickering (talk) 00:54, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, that discussion doesn't seem to have progressed very far. We may not be able to create and apply some general guideline. —— Shakescene (talk) 15:01, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Agreed it's a problem. It's not entirely clear what people expect to see when they look at the box, but my general feeling is that with a few exceptions the box tends to show the first of "candidate for chief minister" then "leader in the body in question" then "overall party leader", though the latter two can get juggled. Timrollpickering (talk) 17:32, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

I have to say I'm a little less opposed to Brocach's view after visiting Sinn Féin's web site (see Northern Ireland Assembly election, 2011) and seeing that Gerry Adams, not Martin McGuinness, was announcing the Sinn Féin ministerial team on the N.I. Executive. That doesn't mean this question should be resolved by saying "End of discussion" or edit-warring on the article page, but we need to hash this out here, even if it means custom-designing a template to meet the peculiar circumstances of Northern Ireland and all-Ireland (or, for that matter, trans-Irish Sea) parties. —— Shakescene (talk) 15:01, 20 May 2011 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth the Scottish Parliament election articles are showing the "candidate for First Minister" even when a ) the registered overall party leader is the UK wide one and the "Scottish leader" is just the leader in the Scottish Parliament (Labour and, until this autumn, the Conservatives) and b ) the person put forward wasn't actually a member of the outgoing parliament (SNP in 2007). It would feel strange and over pedantic to replace Iain Gray and Annabel Goldie with Ed Miliband and David Cameron in the 2011 election article. Timrollpickering (talk) 17:32, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Still a Stub?
This is rated as "Stub class" above, which is how most election articles begin before a campaign has fully begun. But now I think that whatever its deficiencies might be, this article can no longer be considered a stub. —— Shakescene (talk) 22:41, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Party short names
Party short names are used in all similar articles; please don't make up different short names for this article! If you find any of the short names are confusing, you can propose changes on the relevant template talk page - e.g. UK Independence Party/meta/shortname for UKIP, etc. Warofdreams talk 09:27, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

First preference numbers do not agree
The fp numbers in the InfoBox do not agree with the numbers in table 1.--Gavin Lisburn (talk) 18:08, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Video external links beginning to expire?
Some of the external links to party political broadcasts are no longer available, according to the BBC here, although I can't test them myself since I'm in the U.S.A. (which has a weird, selective and very unpopular iPlayer blackout because of rights issues and also partly to benefit the pay-TV BBC America channel). It appears that the other party broadcast links will probably expire in a few weeks. Could someone in the BBC subscribers' zone test these links? And if they are beginning to wither, are there alternative URL's we can give, either at the respective party sites (as we do for the BNP), on YouTube, or on some civic/academic site like CAIN? Apparently, this is just a problem with the BBC iPlayer links; there seems to be no time or location limit (at least so far) with the regular links on this BBC page: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12926025, so I'll just try to switch the External Links over to these regular BBC news URL's. [added 06:14, 10 May 2011 (UTC)]

I'm glad to say that the foregoing doesn't apparently apply to the May 3rd party leaders' debate, which I can see and hear perfectly well without any obstructions (and where, by the way, Sinn Féin's leader is the Deputy First Minister and not a TD for Louth). —— Shakescene (talk) 05:50, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Gains/losses - against last election or dissolution
The current table is a little odd in that it's showing some changes against the dissolution but others against the elections - e.g. in East Londonderry we're showing an Independent gaining from the UUP but in most seats with floor crossings we're showing Independent seats lost. This is somewhat confusing. Timrollpickering (talk) 13:20, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It takes a while to sort out, but I tried to explain in the Seats Changing Hands section. At dissolution there were five independents, only one of whom had run as an independent in 2007: Kieran Deeny in West Tyrone. Mr. Deeny did not run again in 2011. Gerry McHugh had been returned for Sinn Féin from Fermanagh & S. Tyrone in 2007 and Dawn Purvis for the Progressive Unionists from Belfast East (she resigned from the PUP after a UVF shooting last summer). Gerry McHugh did not run again (see Retiring Members), but Dawn Purvis ran for re-election as an independent last week and lost (see Defeated Members). The two Ulster Unionists who became independents during the last Assembly ran again last week: Alan McFarland from North Down, who lost, and David McClarty from East Londonderry, who won. (Mr McClarty, who left the UUP after it declined to renominate him, has just announced that he will not re-join his former party; the UUP are now disheartened because his absence from their caucus means that the Alliance, rather than the Ulster Unionists, will be entitled to a second ministry.) In tabular form, this is what happened to the one independent who ran as such in 2007, and the four others who left other parties:


 * So while David McClarty did not take a seat from someone else this year, and while the Ulster Unionists didn't have a seat in East Londonderry to lose, by comparison with 2007, the constituency gained an Independent and lost an Ulster Unionist. [And that's not entirely a hypothetical projection or construct: Sinn Féin did succeed in re-taking Gerry McHugh's seat; while the PUP tried without success to reclaim Dawn Purvis's.] There's no foolproof way of compressing all that into two columns of a table, but I hope the written description below it explains the simple details. —— Shakescene (talk) 16:01, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
 * ¶ This relates to a question I had and still have in my own mind about the two rows of gains and losses at the bottom of the table. I wondered whether which conveys information most clearly: the Net Changes that are there now, or just giving the balance of parties at dissolution and in 2007. There's something to be said for both approaches, so other readers'/editors' opinions would be helpful. —— Shakescene (talk) 16:51, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Number of seats on the Executive
Here's another of those items (like party leader) where two answers are both correct and both necessary. The election results produced 10 seats on the Executive to be allocated by an Assembly plenary vote using the d'Hondt system of proportional representation. On Monday 16 May, this produced 4 DUP ministers, 3 Sinn Féin and 1 each from the SDLP, UUP and Alliance. But in addition to that, David Ford of the Alliance was re-elected Justice Minister in a separate vote outside the d'Hondt system, while the DUP First Minister and Sinn Féin deputy First Minister each get to appoint their own deputies with seats (I understand) on the Executive. This would produce 5 DUP, 4 SF, 2 Alliance, 1 SDLP and 1 UUP. And the latter (total 13) is what's used almost everywhere else, e.g. at List of Northern Ireland Executives. [Compare the May 17th Irish Times article and the May 12th RTÉ report.] So which numbers should we use? Alternatively, should we enter "4 + 1" for the DUP, "3 + 1" for Sinn Féin, "1 + 1" for the Alliance and "10 + 3" for the Total? Or would this just further confuse the average reader? Once this is settled, we might be able to add a column to show the Alliance gaining a seat at the Ulster Unionists' (loudly-protested) expense. —— Shakescene (talk) 03:43, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Should two subsections be moved, revised or deleted?
Now that this article's reached a final form, I'm wondering, considering its considerable length, about one subsection that I wrote and another on which I worked extensively (so there's no WP:Ownership, jealousy or partisan interest involved).
 * 1) One is the list of 14 members who left the Assembly between 2007 and late 2010 (Gerry Adams). Eleven of their successors ran and were re-elected this month. Of the other three seats, only one changed hands between parties [all of this being covered in some fashion in the article's other tables or comments.) So while this earlier may have been useful information about unelected incumbents and semi-open seats, I have a feeling this table probably belongs in either or both of the Lists of N.I. Assembly members (2007 and/or 2011); or maybe as an appendix to the 2007 NI Ass'y election article ("where are they now?") Or if we keep that list here, should we hide it in a collapsed table that only the curious need open? I suppose the alternative is to expand even further by giving full election details (1st pref., deciding round) for those 11 members who took over seats mid-term but were only elected on May 5th. What do other editors think?
 * 2) The other is the narrative I wrote in Northern Ireland Assembly election, 2011 about where each party gained or lost seats. I'm a little more ambivalent about this. On the one hand, it repeats and duplicates what's been shown in at least two other places; on the other hand, it seems to give a clear summary of all the 13×2 changes (one party's loss = another's gain). I  wouldn't be surprised if rewriting improved this, but the subsection itself may just be unnecessary and redundant at this point. Again, what do others think?

Right now, I'm just trying to hear ideas and general reactions; it's not really intended for a "Support #1; Oppose #2" format. —— Shakescene (talk) 22:08, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Sinn Fein leader revisited
The matter surrounding the Sinn Fein leader does not appear to be resolved. I propose replacing Gerry Adams, who was not contesting this election to Martin McGuinness who ultimately became deputy First Minister as a result of this election. Precedent for this is at National Assembly for Wales election, 2011 where despite Ed Miliband being overall leader of the Labour Party, first Minister candidate Carwyn Jones is listed as leader. Does anyone have a view on this? LordFixit (talk) 14:52, 22 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I've got a feeling that Sinn Fein's structures and lackof makes this harder. In the case of Welsh Labour there's a clear post that combines being the leader in the Welsh Assembly with being the candidate for First Minister and de facto this person is seen as the "Welsh Labour leader" although I don't know if they have that full post formally (their Scottish counterpart has only been the overall leader in Scotland since reforms later that year; the "Welsh Labour leader" may actually still be the Shadow Secretary of State) but certainly in an Assembly election they are undisputedly the person to go there.
 * However Sinn Fein hasn't been very good at partitioning itself and this has led to problems both north and south where it hasn't been very clear who is the local leader of Sinn Fein and/or who they are putting forward for a position - in 2007 Gerry Adams took part in a smaller parties' leader debate in the Republic despite not standing in that election so who exactly was the Sinn Fein candidate for Taisoeach? In the north they may have a clear First Minister candidate but is he the leader in the Assembly, the de facto leader in the north or what? Timrollpickering (talk) 19:22, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Inconsistency with Scotland & Wales
Scottish Parliament general election, 2016 and National Assembly for Wales election, 2016 both specify the year that the elections are expected to be held in their titles, but this article does not. Is there any strong reason for this inconsistency? Jmorrison230582 (talk) 12:34, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorted. --RaviC (talk) 11:21, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

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