Wikipedia:WikiProject Electoral districts in Canada

Some Wikipedians have formed a project to better organize information in articles related to Electoral districts in Canada. This page and its subpages contain their suggestions; it is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of other Wikipedians. If you would like to help, please inquire on the talk page and see the to-do list there.

For more information on WikiProjects, please see WikiProjects and WikiProject best practices.

Scope
Wikipedia can become the most comprehensive source for federal voting history and electoral district information anywhere. Currently relevant information is scattered throughout a variety of sources on government, media, educational and political-oriented websites, as well as at Elections Canada.

Extracting and sorting information from these sources and integrating it into Wikipedia in an easy-to-understand layout can be achieved with the collective efforts of editors familiar with the subject. Specifically, this effort needs editors who understand Wikipedia, government, and voting; those who can design efficient and aesthetically-pleasing pages; those who can manipulate Wikipedia code to present these designs in an easy-to-edit code; those who can find, use, and reference sources of information (on the internet and in print); those who are familiar with the details and local issues of specific electoral districts; and those who can oversee the integration of information into hundreds of articles.

The electoral district articles have already been created and stubbed. Many have already been developed, to varying degrees, but none are complete. This is not an exercise in dumping as much info into an article as possible. It is about quality; making it comprehensive yet easy-to-understand. The reader should be able to understand what it is and what it is about with just a glance, get a better understanding after reading it and even more details after further analysis. The articles are at a stage now where there are options and alternatives to choose. What sections are essential? What information is relevant? What layout should be used?

Below are links to pages that deal with proposed section headings and layouts. In each page there will be a debate on what information should be presented, how it should be presented, and even if that section should exist. This is consensus-building so if you support an idea please say so. However, it is not a vote wherein the majority rules, rather the best arguments will win. Ideas need to be accompanied by clear, direct arguments. There are hundreds of districts, so please pick one and provide an example of your idea. Following this fragmented discussion a proto-type article will be created and put through Peer Review process: first on the Canadian wikipedians' notice board, then a second prototype on the Wikipedia-wide peer review.

Goals
 * 1) To create articles on all current and historical electoral districts in Canada, including federal districts and districts in the provinces and territories of Canada.
 * 2) To develop common standards and formats for pages on Canadian electoral districts

Sections of riding articles
Most articles about ridings should contain these sections. By and large federal and provincial pages should be able to share a common format, however some provinces may have unique circumstances (i.e. referendum results in Quebec, Senate nominee election results in Alberta).

Titles of articles about ridings should follow.

Introduction
"The first sentence should give a concise, conceptually sound definition that puts the article in context." Only two types of information should go in this section, (a) the most essential & descriptive info and, if necessary, (b) that info which does not belong anywhere else. This may involve value judgement as to what is essential and what is not. How do you summarize an electoral district in three sentences?

All articles about ridings should include Infobox Canada electoral district in the introduction section.

Geography
Include information like:
 * What are the borders of the riding?
 * What changes have been made to the borders over time?
 * What are the implications of where the borders were drawn?

Include maps if possible.

Demographics
This section can include things like:
 * population and population change over time. Voting trends may emerge from areas that are growing and others that are contracting.
 * gross population pyramid (e.g.: 0-17, 18-35, 36-54, 55+); this also gives us voting-age residents (but not electors). Large deviations from Canadian/provincial averages should be noted.
 * average income, occupation fields, and unemployment rate. Include only participation rate, employment rate, unemployment rate and average income (individual, household and/or family). Compare to province and nation.
 * Families and dwellings. Include only family structure (married, common-law, lone parent), average dwelling value, and ownership/rental ratio. Compare to provincial and national averages.
 * Other sociological trends that might be relevant to voting, like religion

History
Describe how and when the riding came into being (for example, was it a merger of two older ridings?).

Include a table of past MPs using CanMP

Election results
This usually takes up most of the space in the article. It is a list of tables made with CANelec. Some tables are made manually or with the older CanElec templates. Often the tables are transcluded from the template space (under a name like Template:Canadian federal election, 2008/Ottawa Centre) to allow the table to be used on the articles about candidates.

Similar and related WikiProjects
Similar WikiProjects are:
 * WikiProject UK Parliament constituencies
 * WikiProject Australian politics

See also: Canadian Wikipedians' notice board

Tasks
All federal riding article now have election results tables for general elections and by-elections for the period 1867-2009. There is still much work to be done to improve these for anyone who is interested: Ground Zero | t 13:08, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) The results for former ridings are generally shown in the "CanElec1" format illustrated above. This means that they could be expanded to include % of popular vote, % change since previous election, and campaign expenditures for recent elections.
 * 2) The results for current ridings are generally shown in the "CanElec4" or "CanElec2" formats illustrated above. Those that are in the CanElec4 format could be expanded to campaign expenditures for recent elections.
 * 3) The candidates' names are often shown in the "LASTNAME, Firstname" format. I think that most people would agree that the "Firstname Lastname" format would be preferable.
 * 4) Links could be added to candidates' names where articles exist. It is not a good idea to link all names without regard to whether or not articles exist because that leads to misdirection, either now or in the future, to article about other people who have the same name as the candidate. My favourite example is when someone linked the names of all of the minor candidates in a Toronto mayoral election. One of the links took the reader to the Kevin Richardson article. This sort of mislinking makes Wikipedia look bad.

A new set of Electoral Districts has been created for the province of Manitoba for the next election. There needs to be an overhaul of the Electoral Districts in Manitoba before the next provincial election. That election will likely take place in 2011. --216.55.206.46 (talk) 21:58, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Projects

 * 1) Cleaning up Former British Columbia Provincial Electoral Districts as well as Current BC Ridings. Election boxes are set up poorly, with the winner's name in bold, missing information and infoboxes, etc. (Examples for clean up: Rossland-Trail, Prince Rupert, Skeena)
 * 2) Developing a specific electoral results box for provincial ridings/elections (the CanElec templates, specifically CanElec4, are usually for federal elections/by-elections)

Assessment Requests

 * Nigadoo-Chaleur - Wmcduff (talk) 13:51, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Categories

 * Category:Alberta federal electoral districts
 * Category:British Columbia federal electoral districts
 * Category:Defunct British Columbia federal electoral districts
 * Category:Manitoba federal electoral districts
 * Category:New Brunswick federal electoral districts
 * Category:Newfoundland and Labrador federal electoral districts
 * Category:Nova Scotia federal electoral districts
 * Category:Ontario federal electoral districts
 * Category:Prince Edward Island federal electoral districts
 * Category:Quebec electoral districts
 * Category:Saskatchewan federal electoral districts
 * Category:Alberta provincial electoral districts
 * Category:British Columbia provincial electoral districts
 * Category:Defunct British Columbia provincial electoral districts
 * Category:Manitoba provincial electoral divisions
 * Category:New Brunswick provincial electoral districts
 * Category:Newfoundland and Labrador provincial electoral districts
 * Category:Nova Scotia provincial electoral districts
 * Category:Ontario provincial electoral districts
 * Category:Prince Edward Island provincial electoral districts
 * Category:Quebec provincial electoral districts
 * Category:Saskatchewan provincial electoral districts
 * Category:Former Alberta provincial electoral districts
 * Category:Historical Northwest Territories electoral districts
 * Category:Northwest Territories electoral districts

Toolserver tools

 * Main tool page: toolserver.org


 * Reflinks - Edits bare references - adds title/dates etc. to bare references
 * Checklinks - Edit and repair external links
 * Dab solver - Quickly resolve ambiguous links.
 * Peer reviewer - Provides hints and suggestion to improving articles.
 * WikiProject Deletion sorting/Electoral districts in Canada.