Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (government and legislation)/Archive 3

Seeking consensus: executive governments should be called by their name, not "Government of xyz"
Hey! Since only a small number of executive governments (I can only think of Government of Canada) use the naming system Government of xyz, I think it's worth making a resolution for there to be a standard to always use the government's official name (Australian Government rather than Government of Australia) in place of the former. I don't know where this came from (I can't see a consensus or official policy anywhere...), but it looks like most executive government articles are based on that format, even when it's not the actual name of the government. ItsPugle (talk) 07:51, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

We need a new RFC on the issue of how to title initiatives as distinguished from referendums
The naming convention for referendums was the result of a RFC of which most editors had no notice. It directly conflicts with the most basic principle of Article titles: Wikipedia "prefers the name that is most commonly used." An initiative is never commonly referred to by the year first. It is always the year after.

The even bigger problem is how the guideline is currently organized. Frankly, whomever thought it was a good idea to group initiatives under elections and referendums doesn't actually understand what is an election, a referendum or an initiative. An initiative is essentially a form of legislation that is approved directly by the people rather than by the people speaking through their elected representatives. Initiatives should be under the naming conventions for legislation. --Coolcaesar (talk) 17:30, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

US Congress election names are awkward
Elections to the US Senate have article names of the format

United States Senate election in

such as 2018 United States Senate election in West Virginia or 2020 United States Senate special election in Arizona. These are pretty natural and readable.

However, pages for US Congress elections have the format of

's congressional district election

such as 2018 North Carolina's 9th congressional district election or 2014 Florida's 19th congressional district special election, which is REALLY unnatural and hard to read.

I propose changing this format to

election in 's congressional district

as in 2018 election in North Carolina's 9th congressional district and 2014 special election in Florida's 19th congressional district. This is much more natural and readable.

Thoughts? DemonDays64 (talk) 23:07, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
 * The reason they are awkward is because the article titles of the districts (e.g. Florida's 19th congressional district) are awkward. I think it would be better to reconsider that naming format rather than have to create an exception for elections in them. Also, I don't think the proposed format is very precise – it could be deemed to be an election in that district rather than for the seat of that district. Number   5  7  23:19, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Discussion about election pages
Hi we need to change the election name pages of communist systems. It should be


 * 2019 North Korean parliamentary election → 2019 North Korean election of Deputies to the 14th Supreme People's Assembly
 * 2016 Vietnamese legislative election → 2016 Vietnamese election to the 14th National Assembly
 * 2016 Laotian parliamentary election → 2016 Laotian election to the 8th National Assembly
 * 1937 Soviet Union legislative election → 1937 Soviet election of Deputies to the 1st Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union

Reasons:
 * 1) It's the official term of their elections—they don't claim their system to be parliamentary.
 * 2) The communism system is not a parliamentary system—everybody knows this.
 * 3) This is the common name of elections in communist countries; Vietnam and Laos talk about "Elections to the [number] National Assembly]" and the Soviets talked about "Election of Deputies to the [number] Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union".
 * 4) In several articles this is frankly stated in the lead. For instance the article 2019 North Korean parliamentary election starts with "election of deputies to the 14th Supreme People's Assembly".
 * 5) TO take the North Korean seriously... The lead is indeed correct; people are voting for people who've been nominated to serve as deputies to the 14th Supreme People's Assembly.
 * 6) They are indeed electing deputies—either for or against nominated deputies proposed by election committees composed of central party leaders.
 * 7) We need to denote the difference between elections in liberal and democratic countries and elections in communist countries.
 * 8) No communist legislative assembly—as far as I know—calls itself a parliament. This isn't strange; the United States Congress is not a parliament either.
 * 9) The naming difference could also help to highlight the differences between liberal democratic systems and communist systems. There
 * 10) We should also note that communist legislature does not represent the electorate, propose laws, and oversee the government via hearings and inquiries. A communist legislature is elected in accords with democratic centralism (not liberal democracy), the representatives are not nominated by independent parties but rather by a electoral commission, the deputies don't propose laws in the legislatures plenary session and the legislature is not a permanent organ (it meets for a couple of days per year). All this is different.
 * I hereby propose of moving all communist elections to their official names. For once the communists weren't lying they were telling the truth; their electoral system is different from the one in liberal democracies. --Ruling party (talk) 09:02, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose A ridiculous proposal frankly. Titles like 'Election to the 14th National Assembly' leave the reader with no idea when the election happened or which country it was in. There's no reason why elections in one type of undemocratic countries should be named differently to those in others. At most there is a semantic issue here over the term 'parliamentary', which can be replaced by 'legislative' if there are serious concerns. Number   5  7  09:12, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you—you're right. I've changed my proposal :)--Ruling party (talk) 09:19, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It's still unacceptable IMO. There is no good reason to deviate from the standard naming format. Number   5  7  09:22, 14 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Oppose' The proposed alternatives show extreme WP:BIAS. It is not for Wikipedia to decide what is and is not the "official term" for most things, let alone elections. We should use the article to explain the voting process (if there is any), the appointment process, the candidates, and so on, and allow the reader to conclude for themselves whether the elections are democratic, representative, parliamentary and fair. The titles should not skew the article on way or the other. As Number 57 says, the proposed titles are also vague on when the elections took place, which is against the MOS on article naming. doktorb wordsdeeds 09:28, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
 * How is this biased? They themselves don't call their system "parlamentary".. We do—as in Wikipedia...
 * I added years.
 * I did not decide "Official Term". They themselv use that term.
 * With the exception ofparliamentary I havn't discussed any of the terms in this sentence; "reader to conclude for themselves whether the elections are democratic, representative, parliamentary and fair". Communists believe their system is more representative because its not a parliamentary/legislative system of the liberal democracies. The title should showcase. --Ruling party (talk) 11:23, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Discussion about capitalisation of attorney general
Hi, there is a discussion at WT:WikiProject Elections and Referendums about whether elections to offices that don't have an adjectival form (such as 2011 Kentucky Attorney General election) should be capitalised. I would be grateful if someone who is familiar with this guideline could clarify the situation. Thanks, PinkPanda272 (talk/contribs) 09:01, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Change title format of elections with unspecified dates

 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
 * ❄️  Nixinova   T   C   05:25, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

I propose that the following guideline:
 * For future elections of uncertain date, use a form similar to Next Irish general election.

be changed to:
 * For future elections of uncertain date, use a form similar to Nth Irish general election.

mainly to prevent incoming links from being completely useless. The current format uses the same page title for many elections, completely removing the ability to properly link to a page. All links on and off wiki to "next X election" pages break every 3-5 years, leaving the reader confused as to why someone was linking to the 2020 election from 2009 (e.g.). Using ordinals will alleviate this issue as the pages will move from the unique "10th election" title to the still unique "2022 election" (e.g.).  Nixinova   T   C   05:23, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
 * In the specific case of Irish elections, would it be possible to correlate the Dáil Éireann ordinals (e.g. the "33rd" of "33rd Dáil Éireann") with the corresponding election (e.g. 2020 Irish general election)? Are we reasonably certain that the "Next Irish general election" is going to select the "34th Dáil Éireann"? -- RobLa (talk) 06:53, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
 * All parliaments are created as the result of elections so the ordinals would match their corresponding "Nth parliament" articles in all cases.  Nixinova   T </b> <b style="border:1px solid #00a1ff"> C </b>  22:30, 12 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Oppose I think this would create far more problems than it solves. Firstly, 'next election' is probably the most common way of describing the next election and not having 'next election' redirects is going to make it harder for people to find articles. Secondly, what number the next election is will not be widely known amongst readers (I have no idea what number general election my own country is on), also making it harder to locate articles. Thirdly, as RobLa demonstrates, there is potential for confusion/disagreement in many cases due to elections that for whatever reason may or may not be counted on the historical record. Also, how many links actually exist to future elections that aren't via templates? Looking at the incoming links to Next Irish general election, the vast majority look like they are links from the Irish elections template, which will be updated when the election date is settled, while the number of hardcoded links is very small. Number   5  7  08:52, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I didn't say anything about not having "next" as a redirect, just that we shouldn't have it as the main title. And external links should also be taken note of. <b style="border:1px solid #0800aa"> Nixinova </b> <b style="border:1px solid #006eff"> T </b> <b style="border:1px solid #00a1ff"> C </b>  22:33, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose This is not an improvement according to the WP:CRITERIA: it's less recognisable and natural (a lot of countries don't typically consider their elections in an ordinal way). There's no different in precision as "Next _____ election" is unambiguous. Concision would be unchanged, and consistency would be slightly impaired because "Nth" is a worse analogue to "2022" than "Next" is. Ralbegen (talk) 11:59, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose Agree with the above posters that elections are rarely, if ever, known under any sort of ordinal designation and such a system would cause more problems and confusion than it solves. Having articles about the Next election feel much more natural and elegant. PraiseVivec (talk) 11:30, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose Per what other editors have said, the style already in use is already the most natural and obvious method, while the proposed alternative is actually potentially more confusing. CeltBrowne (talk) 19:04, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose We've been here before, from memory. It is far more common to hear widespread discussion about "the next X" than "the nth X" when talking about elections and parliaments. The forthcoming UK general election will be the 50-oddth, even the 60th perhaps, and nobody beyond academics would know it as such. It is "the next UK general election" and our article titles should continue reflecting that. The redirect issue is important, I agree. But it's also easily amended. doktorb wordsdeeds 21:27, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose There shouldn't be a change in the article title. Sea Ane (talk) 00:09, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose per #57. Nobody ever mentions the number of the general election here in the UK, and it may not even be a rigorously defined concept. I imagine it's the same elsewhere, and readers aren't going to know what we mean. That makes the proposed naming a non-starter per the WP:RECOGNIZE policy. I take the point that the OP makes about old links, but in most cases it will be obvious what is being referred to even if the link now points elsewhere. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 00:16, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Invitation to a RfC on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums
Hi everyone, I would like to invite y'all to a RfC started by me about RfC: Convention for House of Representatives special elections in the United States which is within the scope of this WikiProject. Please leave your suggestions if you're inclined to. Thanks! ---CX Zoom(he/him) (let's talk&#124;contribs) 12:35, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

RfC/mass-move: San Marino elections and referendums
Please see Talk:2019_Sammarinese_general_election. Thanks! RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:29, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Additional RfC notification: (at central community location since that is the appropriate place to discuss policy instead of a page which otherwise appears to have little activity) Village_pump_(policy). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:15, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Redirects to yearly election lists

 * Moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums for visibility

Hello. A long time ago (really long - way back in 2008) I noticed that the titles we use for articles listing elections in a year, and several titles that commonly redirect to them, are really inconsistent. I started documenting it but gave up fairly quickly because the only option back then, after tying an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time, was to check by hand. However, we now have Lua and Module:Redirect, so after remembering the idea I was able to programmatically check everything from 1800 to 2021 very easily.

For the entire 20th century, all of " election", " elections", "Election ", "Elections " and "Elections in " are redirects to "List of elections in " - this is good. But then a new redirect appears, "Electoral calendar ", and it turns into a mess. For example:


 * 2009
 * 2009 election points to 2009 electoral calendar
 * 2009 elections points to List of elections in 2009
 * Electoral calendar 2009 points to 2009 electoral calendar


 * 2010
 * Everything in 2010 points to List of elections in 2010, except
 * Electoral calendar 2010 points to 2010 national electoral calendar - another list type that starts appearing


 * 2012
 * Everything in 2012 points to 2012 national electoral calendar, except
 * 2012 elections points to List of elections in 2012


 * later
 * "Election " is missing from 2013-15 and 2017-19
 * "Elections " is missing from 2017-20

...and so on. I've compiled tables of them all here - you can also see that for the 19th century, only 35 of potentially 700 redirects exist.

This is the sort of thing that could be fixed pretty easily with some consensus and a bot. Cheers, —  Scott  •  talk  01:30, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I've no objections to getting consistency in place. GoodDay (talk) 01:33, 23 December 2021 (UTC)