Talk:Laura Moffatt

Voting Records
Following discusions on other wikipages citing theyworkforyou is not neutral nor helpful.

See discussion Talk:Harriet_Harman - by Annexed - on the topic of theyworkforyou and uses on Wikipedia.

...Talk:David_Lammy, where the final decision was removal. 1a) The information is subject to considerable change and whilst TWFY is updated automatically, Wikipedia is not. Keeping it up to date for all MPs is too big a task for editors, and is unnecessary given the information exists elsewhere, on a well-known site that we already link to. This is particularly relevant as I've just compared the info in the current revision (228403824) to that on TWFY for Harriet Harman and it is different - the current revision says "Has not voted on a freedom of information act", whilst the TWFY page says "Voted for a transparent Parliament". It appears the criteria for this policy issue has been amended, or that it has been replaced altogether with a different one. 1b) TWFY.com is not the source of the information anyway. The data comes from The Public Whip and is interpreted by TWFY (although the two sites are have close links). Individual voting details may be relevant for particular politicians (Iraq for Harriet Harman is probably one, given her change of heart) but block copying is not. And I didn't think it was Wikipedia policy to directly copy blocks of information from other sites anyway. 2a) The choice of topics on which voting has been tracked is definitely POV, as they could almost all be construed as anti-government. There's nothing, for example, on whether an MP voted for/against more money for the health service, or for/against the schools rebuilding programme - issues that Labour supporters might point to to show their MPs in a better light. Who should decide if an issue is 'controversial' or not? TWFY.com have made a decent effort, but it's still their POV. For example, "introducing student fees" used to be one of their controversial issues - but now student fees are widely accepted and considered controversial. It has been replaced by "introducing student top-up fees", the controversy over which has declined and maybe that too will be removed in time. 2b) The anti-government POV aspect is reinforced by the fact that voting record summaries are almost only added to Labour MPs and not those from other parties. And from what I've seen it's often added by the same few editors. 3a) The way the summary of the voting record is calculated lacks subtlety. For example, an MP who voted in favour on all the votes on national smoking ban legislation, but voted against the legislation for bans that would have applied just to Wales or just to taxis in London is considered to be 'moderately in favour of banning smoking'. There is an argument to be had here (and a POV one at that) as to whether voting for a complete ban should over-ride not voting for smaller, piecemeal measures. The context is important for the data to be meaningful, and these crude summaries cannot always do justice to complicated issues. 3b) On this particular article, all the 'moderate', 'strong' and 'very strong' qualifiers to voting behaviour have been removed. This potentially makes the information inaccurate, as MPs may vote for one measure on banning smoking and against another. Having just 'for' or 'against' on Wikipedia is potentially misleading. 4) There is no appreciation in the voting record on the quality of legislation. MPs may approve of the intent behind the legislation, but not the wording of the bill in front of them. The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006 is an excellent example, as the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats publicly backed the intent of the legislation to remove burdensome regulations from business, but voted against the government's bill on numerous occasions until the text was improved - and then supported it at the end. A voting summary could be produced that showed MPs as indecisive on key issues, when actually the way they vote each time is entirely consistent with their principles and reflects them doing their job of scrutinising legislation well. Principle and practice can justifiably be two different things in this context, and voting summaries cannot take into account. 5) The information is of particularly little value in relation to ministers and shadow cabinet members. It is unnecessary not only because there is an overt expectation that they will vote with the party line - it is the nature of being in party politics at the highest levels - but also because senior figures rebelling against the party line on important votes is so rare that when it happens it gets plenty of media coverage. Those occasions are certainly noteworthy, but there will be better source material (e.g. newspaper articles) to explain what took place and why, than a simple voted for or against checklist. Enanen (talk) 20:59, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

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