Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of New Brunswick general elections

List of New Brunswick general elections
This article has been moved to List of New Brunswick general elections (post-Confederation) Tom pw (talk) 21:52, 9 January 2007 (UTC)


 * 1) Wikipedia's best work: Provides information in a format that cannot be found elsewhere on the internet.
 * 2) Useful, comprehensive, factually accurate, stable, and well-organised:
 * 3) * Useful: Summarises information on seats won from 35 elections, and allows visitors to easily compare results from successive general elections
 * 4) * Comprehensive: Covers every general election since Confederation
 * 5) * Factually accurate: references given.
 * 6) * Stable: Will be only be updated every four years or so
 * 7) Well-organised: Easy to find any required information
 * 8) Uncontroversial: no edit wars or disuptes
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(Self-nomination) Tompw (talk) 20:52, 23 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Weak oppose Support. I'm weakly opposing this because it doesn't include pre-Confederation election, which already means it isn't comprehensive. You might want to merge General elections in New Brunswick (pre-Confederation) inside this.  Michaelas10   (Talk)   21:08, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
 * WP:WIAFL criterium 1b states "Comprehensive" means that the list covers the defined scope by including every member of a set. The set here is New Brunswick elections since Confederation. The article states "This article only covers elections since the province became part of the Canadian Confederation in 1867". Also, the introductory paragraph refers to the province of New Brunswick, thus excluding the colony of the same name. (I've added an opening sentence for extra clarity). Tompw (talk) 00:13, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
 * The title of this list is "List of New Brunswick general elections", which means it should includes all elections. The title of the article also doesn't state if it's a province or a colony, so both should be included. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Michaelas10 (talk • contribs)
 * The most common usage of "New Brunswick" is for the province, rather than the colony. It lists all articles within its clearly defined set, and thus fulfills the "comprehensive" requirement. Maybe the title isn't as exact as it could be, but if you follow your line of argument, then List of Newfoundland and Labrador general elections should only contain the one election since that province changed its name to "Newfoundland and Labrador". Tompw (talk) 20:59, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
 * A short list should remain as much comprehensive as it can, if there are any very related lists, despite the name, you should merge these. I don't think it would be much of a problem to create a new section stating that it refers to the colony.  Michaelas10   (Talk)   16:32, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, we're clearly go round in circles here, so I shall say that I disagree with you, and leave this for the closing editor to decide. Tompw (talk) 17:36, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh, and it does say it refers to the colony. Tompw (talk) 20:10, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Support Well written, comprehensive, complete within its defined scope. Resolute 07:07, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
 * (Vote changed to support as article has been renamed to accurately reflect its content - Jord 22:11, 9 January 2007 (UTC)) Weak oppose per User:Michaelas10. The change from New Brunswick the pre-1867 colony to New Brunswikc the post-1867 province is insubstantial especially with respect to the elections to the Legislative Assembly.  An assembly elected in 1866 continued in office through Confederation until 1870, as did the Executive Council made up of members of that Assembly.  New Brunswick general elections elect members to the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick, the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick, nor the electoral process, nor the electoral laws changed upon New Brunswick moving from a colony of Britain to a province of Canada.  This list should include all New Brunswick general elections as it once did. - Jord 15:26, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
 * OK... several points I'd like to make:
 * I shall say again that WP:WIAFL criterium 1b states "Comprehensive" means that the list covers the defined scope by including every member of a set. The set here is general elections in the province of New Brunswick, and the list includes all members of that set.
 * There is nothing wrong with breaking up a long list by chronology - consider Canadian federal election results (1867-1879) and similar. Should that come up for FL status, no-one would say that the list should include all federal elections, because the list limits itself to federal elections in a given range. So, a list can define its own scope. (For an extreme example of this, see the List of major opera composers, a FL that definately defines its own scope).
 * I also wish to point out a very direct precedent: List of Nova Scotia general elections includes all general elections for the province of Nova Scotia, and it got FL status.
 * What happened with the Leglislative Assembly is completely beside the point - this is an article about the elections. You're argumenty would be perfectly correct for List of Legislative Assemblies of New Brunswick (if it exsisted).
 * If you continue to oppose, please state exactly which of the Featured List criteria this list does not meet and why. Tompw (talk) 15:52, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
 * My view is that this is not comprehensive, we seem to be viewing the list through two different lenses. You consider a list of provincial elections, while I see it as a list of elections to the Legislative Assembly.  With respect to the Nova Scotia precedent, had I notice that list up for nomination I would have opposed it on the same grounds. - Jord 18:07, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The intro states: "This article provides a summary of results for the general elections to the Canadian province of New Brunswick's unicameral legislative body, the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick", which is why I view as a list of provincial elections. Were it of elections to the Legislative Assembly, it would run something like "This article provides a summary of results of elections to the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick. New Brunswick was orginally a British colony, and is now a Canadian province" (or similar). The article would also be entitled "List of elections to the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick". With regard to NS... someone did raise a similair objection, but this was dealt with by making the introduction more specific. Tompw (talk) 18:47, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The text written in the lead doesn't matter, you can as well add "presidents only after 2000" to List of Presidents of the United States, but it will still not be comprehensive. This isn't true for List of Newfoundland and Labrador general elections, seeing as the seperate pre-Confederation list is for the colony before it was renamed.  Michaelas10   (Talk)   20:28, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * <--(unindent). The problem is partly the article name is ambiguous, so the text in the lead is there to clarify. The name "List of Presidents of the United States" clearly states its content and scope, while "List of New Brunswick general elections" is ambiguous, because New Brunswick refers to a province and an ex-colony. With this in mind, if the article was named List of general elections in New Brunswick (province) would that help? I wouldn't oppose the re-naming of the list to resolve this matter. Tompw (talk) 22:49, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The problem is though that the "colony" of New Brunswick, was commonly refered to as and legally stood as a "province" of the British Empire prior to Confederation. I think the solution here is to (re)combine the two articles. It is problematic to have them separate because the 1866 election and the 1870 election returned the same number of members to the same body under the same electoral laws, thus the should be categorized together. - Jord 18:52, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * In which case, ould you suggest a name that would resolve the ambiguity? What about List of general elections in New Brunswick (Canadian province)? Tompw (talk) 19:42, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

My view is that you only split articles/lists up when they become unnecessarily long. Returning the first 20 elections (pre-Confederation) to the same list is the ideal solution in my mind. WP:NAME says "article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize" and goes on to explain that "names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors; and for a general audience over specialists", this the unnecessary spliting and disambiguating of two lists about the same subject is not appropriate here. WP:DAB says "when there is no risk of confusion, do not disambiguate", I do not believe that there would be any confusion for readers if they came to "List of New Brunswick general elections" and found a list of all general elections that have occured in the political entity the province of New Brunswick both in its British days (1784-1867) and its Canadian ones (1867-present). Conversely, spliting the article and creating disambiguatory navigation promotes confusion. - Jord 19:54, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * "article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize" - most English speakers would associate New Brunswick with the province rather the colony. "names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors; and for a general audience over specialists" - again, most English speakers would associate New Brunswick with the province rather the colony. This is why List of New Brunswick general elections contains the general elections for the Canadian province. "when there is no risk of confusion, do not disambiguate" - but you say that the "New Brunswick" could be interpreted as colony or as part of Canada, thus indicating potential confusion (which I have no problem with)... but you don't want to disambiguate. Further, there's seems to have a shift in your comments from whether or not the article shoudl become a FL (which you have made clear you have opposed, and why); to the nature of the article itself (which really belongs on the article's talk page). Tompw (talk) 20:10, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I have not shifted my comments, I do not believe this should be a featured list because it is not comprehensive. It excludes a great deal of elections that for no reason should be excluded.  If they were added, I would enthusiastically support this list's candidacy.  As for your rebuttals, you are misunderstanding the crux of my argument.  My argument is that there is no difference whatsoever between the election of 1866 and the election of 1870; that "New Brunswick general elections" describes elections to the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick, a body which has not changed since 1784; and, that the change of New Brunswick from a British colony/province to a Canadian province did not change the electoral process which this list describes. - Jord 21:20, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * OK.... we are cleartly *never* going to agree on this one....I think we have both said everything we want to say, and I don't think there's anythign mro I can add. Tompw (talk) 22:24, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * On that I think we can agree ;) - Jord 03:29, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Support - I think that it's featured as it is now, but it wouldn't hurt to change the title to reflect that the list only covers post-Confederation elections. --Arctic Gnome 17:37, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * How about List of New Brunswick general elections (post-Confederation)? (That makes four support votes - counting the original nomination as a "Support" vote...) Tom pw (talk) 00:14, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * That sounds good. I'd make the existing name a re-direct, as most people will be looking for post-confederation rather than pre-.  --Arctic Gnome 17:37, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Done. Tom pw (talk) 21:52, 9 January 2007 (UTC)