Template:Did you know nominations/List of UK Parliamentary election petitions

List of UK Parliamentary election petitions

 * ... that James Deakin lost his seat in the British House of Commons due to an election petition, because allowing his tenants to kill rabbits on his estate was adjudged a form of bribery?
 * Reviewed: Europa Point Lighthouse
 * Comment: The inline reference is in the right-hand column of the list. A reviewer with access to House of Commons Parliamentary Papers can easily access the Sessional Paper; while anyone can access the reference from O'Malley and Hardcastle's Reports on Election Petitions as it is available as an e-book.This is the link to the start of the 1874 Launceston case referred to in the hook. (There's another ref here.)

Created/expanded by Sam Blacketer (talk). Self nom at 21:55, 20 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Symbol possible vote.svg DYKcheck finds only 548 characters of "prose" (the two-sentence lead paragraph; bulleted contents and tables don't count), and the lead section and the "Glossary" section are totally unsourced. Given the amount of prose-like content in the article, some leeway possibly could be allowed on the prose requirement, but the current lead strikes me as very anemic. Not only does it lack reference citations (which DYK requires), but it doesn't even indicate that the article deals with the United Kingdom. I think that addition of some contextual discussion, additional history on election petitions (For example: What happened to election petitions before 1868? Have the rules changed any since 1868?), and discussion of cases deemed particularly significant would easily take the prose part past 1500 characters.
 * "Adequate" citations are needed for DYK. For this article, that means sources for the lead section and the glossary; the table is well-cited.
 * I didn't look at the source for the hook, and I have not evaluated the article for plagiarism and close paraphrasing. --Orlady (talk) 22:13, 5 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The DYKcheck is surely irrelevant. It's a list; the length is in the list. The text is in the list. DYKcheck is not appropriate as a measure of length. Will deal with the other matters in due course. Sam Blacketer (talk) 22:36, 5 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The DYKcheck is indeed relevant, as it is a good measure of prose length, which is the metric of interest in applying rule 2 under "Eligibility criteria" at Did you know. That rule states (in part) "Articles must have a minimum of 1,500 characters of prose (ignoring infoboxes, categories, references, lists, and tables etc.)." --Orlady (talk) 02:59, 6 August 2012 (UTC)


 * But a list could just consist of a brief introductory paragraph and the list itself, and be perfectly acceptable as a Good Article or even a Featured List. What you're saying is that a list may not be nominated for DYK. What a stupid jobsworth interpretation of the rule. A sensible interpretation would be to assess lists as lists. Sam Blacketer (talk) 22:26, 8 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Plenty of lists get featured in DYK. These are lists that are accompanied by enough prose to meet the 1500-character threshold. As I noted in my review, the introductory prose in this particular list seemed "anemic"; I made suggestions regarding additions that would enhance the article and should easily bring it to 1500 characters. Further to that comment, here's an analysis of some deficiencies in the current prose introduction:
 * "An election petition is the only way that the result of an election can be questioned." - In what context is this statement valid? If the scope of the article is the United Kingdom, the lead ought to say so. Does this apply to all elections in all parts of the U.K. and in all political subdivisions, or are some areas and levels of government excluded? Has the applicability changed over time?
 * "The Parliamentary Elections Act 1868 transferred the jurisdiction for determining an election petition from Parliament to the courts." - What is an election petition? (The fact that another article is linked here does not prevent this article from providing some explanation of the topic.) Who/what had jurisdiction before 1868? Which of "the courts" have jurisdiction?
 * "The table lists all those petitions which came to trial." - Shouldn't this state that it's all post-1868 election petitions that came to trial? Why is this list limited to post-1868 petitions? Does information exist about earlier petitions? This is limited to petitions that came to trial; are some petitions disposed of without a trial? The introductions to most list articles include some sort of summary of the list, which in this case might include the total number of petitions, a breakdown of the types of reasons that petitions are brought, and a discussion of any trends over time. --Orlady (talk) 23:56, 8 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Symbol delete vote.svg I recommend rejection. Length and sourcing issues have not been addressed. No changes to the article since 27 July. --Orlady (talk) 21:03, 11 August 2012 (UTC)