Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Electoral districts in Canada/Archive 3

Since discussion has lessened in recent weeks, I thought I would test the waters and put together a proposal. I have read every comment in the WikiProject on Electoral districts in Canada. From that, with the help of a few, I created this prototype format for current federal ridings: Langley (electoral district) and Calgary Centre. Remember this is written for non-experts in politics and for people not familiar with the geographic area.


 * What do you like about it? What do you not like?
 * What is missing? What is not necessary?
 * Is there a better way to lay out the page?

There are some holes in the articles that I just could not fill but felt were important. There are aspects about these that I really like and some that I do not. Everything is negotiable; this is just a place to start.

Let me know what you think. Be blunt, I can take. There are just four words I don't want to hear. The first two are "clearly" and "obviously". If you actually have to state the point, then it is neither clear, nor obvious. The third is "ugly" because that is just mean (describe, don't label). The fourth I dare not say.

Think you can do better? CBC has some ideas. There are hundreds of ridings. Choose one and let's see what you got.

Comments
Please leave comments below or on the talk pages of the above prototypes.


 * :( I think Ottawa South makes a good prototype :-D -- Earl Andrew - talk 01:06, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Wait, I am confused. Those articles don't go indepth at all, and lack some information. Hmmm... -- Earl Andrew - talk 01:11, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The election results model is basically the same as the one I'm using, so I have no major objections on that front. ;)  The only real difference is the absence of a +/- column, and I don't ahve any particular attachment to this.
 * The +/- column was removed from only the first table. All other tables have them. I don't particularly care for them either, might make a nice chart though...--maclean25


 * One minor quibble: why include the "%" symbol throughout the column, when listing it in the title row is sufficient? CJCurrie 01:14, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * You're right, technically they shouldn't have "%" all the way. What do others think? Keep them or erase them? --maclean25
 * People don't think/see in columns, but in lines. Visually the % is necessary; same idea as repeating it on TV screens, even though everyone knows the number after the xx,xxx that comes as xx.xx is a percentage, they still need to see it so as not to get confused; always worked that way on reams of office/gof docs; like repeating the dollar symbol at least from time to time on appropriate columns.Skookum1 08:04, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * As to the actual content ... it seems fine, though I trust there would be no objection to anyone (i) adding other salient bits of information and (ii) expanding the historical riding results section. CJCurrie 01:17, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * You can add to the articles, but if you want to experiment please conduct those on one of the many other districts so we can compare the results. --maclean25 01:25, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Just to let you (and everyone else) know -- my current project is to expand and add references to the pages of candidates in the 2006 election. I respect what others are doing with the ridings, but someone has to look after the bios too. CJCurrie 01:35, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I'll try and do what I can for the local riding rosters here in BC. Is there anyone else in BC that's working on the Electoral Districts?Skookum1 08:04, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The prototypes are clearly and obviously missing information on ethnicity and language in the infobox. ;-) Grumble, grumble, I'm now going to have to dig up some evidence that ethnicity and language do matter outside Quebec to convince Maclean25. :-( On a more serious note, I think we need sections on the 2006 election in each riding which should contain the election results (blank, of course, for now) and bios of the candidates as I suggested in WikiProject Electoral districts in Canada/Neutrality. Other than that, it looks good. We might also want links on the CBC's and potentially other media outlets riding profiles.  Luigizanasi 04:51, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Link from [http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/products/highlight/SAC/Page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo=PR&Code=59&Table=1a&StartRec=1&Sort=2&B1=Mother&B2=Counts from census Canada's page on BC.


 * I've been trying to find by-riding census data in the Census Canada site; I think it's there somewhere; I'm pretty sure it's not on Elections Canada anywhere.Skookum1 08:04, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Census data on ridings for the current representation rder is here : . For tother years/rep orders, there is a list of links & sources at WikiProject Electoral districts in Canada/References. Luigizanasi 15:53, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't know how reliable the ethnicity information is anyway; Vancouver on Census Canada's by aboriginal-pop charts shows only 10,nnn aboriginal residents; must be status only and not including off-reserve status because I know it's at least five or six times that. That could only be the Musqueam I think.  The Capilanos and Burrards are in North Van.


 * The only other way to do by-ethnicity stuff is by hand by totalling up all the census divisions that make up the polls; if they coincide, i.e. polling districts aren't necessarily used in electoral district definitions.Skookum1 08:12, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

As for ethnicity and politics, before my long ramble and suggestion-spew below, if you're looking for that recipe look in Richmond, Vancouver, Surrey, Abbotsford, Nanaimo; even the Cariboo riding(s) and north have significant Punjabi-speaking population. And all over BC the First Nations vote matters like crazy, especially up the Coast and in the North; if you can get them to vote, that is. Doukhobor civic righteousness in the Kootenay vs. Mormon polygamy "rights", that makes the West Kootenay riding (Trail-Nelson? not sure what it is now) purdy much on the ethnicity track, doncha think? Then there's Yukon and Nunavut.....

I've had a quick look at the Calgary Centre and Langley maps and layouts. Works. In ridings I've been doing - sans maps for layout - I've bulleted the communities in the ridings, when I get around to writing that (without 19th C. riding maps or descriptions, I kinda avoid it unless I'm sure of the boundaries or locations of towns listed). One thing I've been considering is putting the name of the winner(s) in bold to make them more recognizable - and capitalizating the surnames (especially in the multiple-barrelled names common in politics, now almost as much as "back then" William Wallace Henry Beauregard BOWLER.  Different if it's Patrick Terence MacAuley TYRWHITT-HOLMES); so their votes and percentages also in bold for effect.

Another thing I've wondered if there's a way to write a script that can scan riding pages and their banks of historical election tables and come up with graphs; or we could plot them by hand; Yeah, I know, graphs, but people can look at them and think they know something. Just a line graph, fluctuations in electoral percentages of the respective parties (harder to do in earlier times, with 2-4 member ridings; just did Victoria City 1920 - what a horserace (19 candidates for four seats, votes split every which way and an impressive showing by the post-war Soldier Labour Party).

For immediate election-period interest Wiki I think a 30-40 year bar or line graph showing party showings would be good for each riding; better than bank after bank of tables as they are; graphics give a better idea of party share of the vote; a riding that may have been Tory or NDP for 10-15 years might still have a solid bloc voting for another party; a minor fluctuation either which way. That's what the graphs are - to point to the horserace, if there is one. On the other hand, if you have, say, Surrey-White Rock - riche, bourgeois, and well-dressed if kinda crass, and on top of that a jock/retiree beach town and some really lush farmland and swank estates, or a hardcore capitalist riding like West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country (well, not so much since they added the Sunshine Coast to the Hwy 99 corridor anyway; lotsa money on the Sunshine Coast, but nowhere near the wild bucks you see in West Van or Whistler; and the SC has WAY more hippies and outcountry intellectual/artiste types - you kinda know what the bar graph is gonna show only a blip for the NDP, and a respectable 10 or 15 for the Grits at their lowest; and they've occasionally won that riding (have to scratch my head as to who it was, but I remember when they did; '68 I think). West Van-Cap, which was John Reynolds' riding, is oddly one of the places where the Greens have become a factor; not to win, but to place or show; enough to upset the applecart, but not as much as elsewhere (Sunshine Coast and Vancouver Island ridings, perhaps West Kootenay-Nelson or whatever the new riding is there. The Greens've been more of a factor provincially, but might be players in several ridings in BC this time around; depends on how their candidates do, too, i.e. at all-candidates meetings and on the stump and in front of the mic - some of them are very articulate, and they run establishment-friendly candidates in establishment ridings. That they've been showing in the double digits at all is a miracle given the media lockout and the larger budgets (and subterfuge/tactics) of the big parties. That in a four-way race they could break through to a seat isn't impossible - see Victoria City 1920 election for a nine-way race (in a field of nineteen as mentioned. Same could be said of extreme-right parties, too.  If I were Jim Harris (and thank heaven I'm not) I'd spend half my campaign time or more in BC, and learn to "take the stump" and get various ridings worked up over the prospect; we'll see all of them out here this time, as it'll be down to the wire right down to the last counts in from Skeena and Yukon.  And for the races between the big parties I think it's going to come down to character; people are all primed in politics - and sick of the whole thing - because of the earlier elections this last year in BC (provincial and civic); and in BC you don't vote for a party; you vote against the guy/gal you hate the most.  That's partly where the energy of the fringe parties comes from - discontent with the existing offerings. But in some ridings there's new talent coming up; nothing brilliant that we've seen yet, but this province is notorious for producing guileful demagogue/mavericks; we're overdue for our next one - and they start out as MPs and MLAs, usually.

Back to the subject; if the table formatting available in Wiki can be adjusted to make bar graphs - i.e. lots and lots of cells and rows, then it could be a simple matter of copy-pasting certain rows out of existing tables straight into the new template. I don't know how graphically readable it would be; bar graphs don't work as well for proportions over time as line graphs do - I think so anyway. Pie charts are cool for single elections, esp. juxtaposed with previous elections; gives an idea of the size of the swing vote; and it's swing votes that make BC politics go around, dunnit? Number of party members in each riding might be worth having, too.

Back to Victoria City; I'd meant to get it finished tonight but I probably will stop around 1941. Once I'm done that I'll start working on current BC ridings. I hesitate to write the political geography for current ridings, because of the risk of editorial bias (I'm opinionated, and very snide at times, and come across that way even when I don't mean to; just quips, but politics is bloodsport out here and people take stuff seriously; for better or worse). Another poster commented that there wasn't much there but data; but in an encyclopedia that must remain neutral, as opposed to taking a position, for fear of starting an intergalactic catfight over what's right and wrong (and so went Usenet). So rather than offend by analyzing anything in the entry, unless it's the layout of the riding and the social and economic factors in them (haven't had a chance for the 19th C BC ridings but have been meaning to; that era here is my speciality), I've been playing it safe by not saying anything.

I think during the campaign, also, that we should enlist volunteers to monitor Wiki riding pages to make sure they're not vandalized or have pro-party comments put in them wantonly; as I expect must happen in a campaign, no? And once results start coming in, those volunteers or (someone delegated if they can't) input the returns as they come in; not that people will be coming to wiki for up-to-the-minute information I guess; that's what TV and news sites are for; certainly to update the results that night and affirm them the next day, I guess, is something to set aside time for. It would be neat if we had access to the poll-result maps; but if they were online it would just be easier to link to them anyway, right?

I'd be wary of just copying-over from press kits handed out by candidates and parties, platforms, etc. Unless there's a table showing promises vs results for the last 10 elections (and it ain't pretty); platforms aren't encyclopedia material, nor are press blurbs. History of percentages and party foundations in the ridings is different because they give an idea of the riding's political character and possibilities (some in BC are very volatile), but even it should just stay matter of fact rather than opinionate on white hats/black hats; and with historical ridings you're not writing about current people, and you can slag the track record - or hype the accomplishments and personalities - if you need to; if it's not too far gone no other Wikian will screw with it. But there's a fine line between historical account and political tract, and most historians do cross it (if not obviously so). And elections - current affairs mixed with votethirsty politics and outright lying and smiling and baby-kissing and gladhanding: they're a circus, especially verbally. The risk with Wiki is that it becomes a battleground/bulletin board during the election, with party supporters; that's to be watched-out for, I think.

And all that has to do with why having only text, or only information; nothing more than basics for ridings on the hustings; no politics, other than links to the party platforms and other bumpf, and to the media outlets for their propaganda (mainstream and undeground). Wiki is wonderfully encyclopedic on certain topics, as I've discovered, and many articles are "deep" as well as "rich", and some of the short political bios I've come across are often still interesting and sometimes memorable. I think the most service we might be during the campaign is a clearinghouse for links to the full range of disinformation the voter needs to decide who they're not going to vote for. On the page itself, we have the information; how the riding has voted, major factors and communities in the riding, and odds as posted by the newspapers and columnists. Anything more than that - stuff implying "John Q. Turtledove is going to lose" (if not so blatantly, although I'm sure the occasional vandal might try).

And here's some plans for revanche on the political vandals: monitor the IP addresses and if they can be tracked to party offices or party officials/campaigners....tell the media.

One last thing: should we have photos of the candidates on the riding pages? I'd go for it, having thought of it and reconsidering, only if we had all the photos/candidates for each riding; if there's not the whole set of photos for the riding we don't put the pics up; the pics would link to the riding offices; preferably with "open new window" if they can be done in Wikicode.

The current maps are riding-locators; what about maps of the riding that are for population-density or at least where given communities and routes are; not sure where to source them, and no talent to draw them; Current BC Elections riding maps (colour-block only, very simple) are open license; not sure about Elections Canada maps, or even if they're on-line.ZZZZZXZZZZCXZXZXCZZXZZXXZCZZZZ (snorring with a burr in my throat)Skookum1 08:29, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Intro paragraph
I propose a different approach to the introductory paragraph. Instead of:


 * Langley is a federal electoral district represented in the Canadian House of Commons. It is an xx km² riding with 111,045 people located in the suburbs of the Lower Mainland in the province of British Columbia.

I propose:


 * Langley is a federal electoral district in British Columbia, Canada, that has been represented in the Canadian House of Commons since 2004. Its population in 2001 was 111,045.

My proposal is based on a number of factors, the most important of which is that this is the format that I've used for all of the Ontario ridings and scads of others in the west and Nfld that I've revised. (I don't want to suggest that I think it can't be improved, I just want to point out my bias in this.)

My reason for including the "since 2004" phrase is based on work that i have done on defunct districts. In the case of defunct district, when it was represented in the House of COmmons is important information for the reader. Including "since YYYY" in current ridings serves two purposes: (1) it provides a neat parallel with the defunct ridings, and (2) it makes it easy to convert the article to a defunct riding article after redistribution -- 95% of current ridings will probably become defunct ridings eventually. We just have to change "is a federal electoral district" to "was a federal electoral district" and "since 2004" to "from "2004 to 2010".

Putting the province of location into the first sentence avoids the awkwardness of "It is located in....", a phrase that I have used many times, but have been told by a couple of people now is redundant: something is in a place, so "located" is unnecessary. The location within the province can be dealt with in the more specific description later in the article. I don't really know if the area and population belong in the intro paragraph. If they are included in the infobox, the reader see the information in the better context of the comparison to the average riding -- it is bigger or smaller than the average?

I think that we also have to keep in mind that individual riding circumstances may warrant variations from the standard. For example, in Ontario, all federal ridings are also now provincial ridings. In some cases, separate articles have been created for the provincial ridings, but in most cases, because there is not enough information yet to warrant a separate article, one article covers bother the federal and provincial ridings.

Otherwise, I am pretty happy with the format and content of the prototype articles. Ground Zero | t 15:11, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Pls see table change prototype
I finished Victoria City (provincial electoral district) last night and copy-pasted one of its elections onto my Talk page; with the winners and their parties and numbers in bold and winners surnames capitalized. Not sure if it's all that graphically pleasing relative to everything in plaintext with (elected) after the winner's names. Picked 1933 because it's 20+ candidates; have a look at 1920, '24 and '28 to see the effect of having a long ballot-list; I put the {elected} in of my own volition; the alphabetical order of candidates is the result of my working straight off the Elections BC site; would take a bit to change all my BC historical ridings over to numerical order (most/winner first) but it could be done if the (elected) thing or the bolding doesn't work for you.

After I go get my coffee I'm going to try and fix that preferential ballot problem (see '52 and '53 elections) and post the result here for your review.

Thoughts on your draft text later. I need coffee (I just got up).Skookum1 19:06, 3 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Here's my suggestion, for what it's worth: I agree with you that having (elected) after the candidate's name is unsightly. Putting the winning canidates' names in bold only works if there is a note at the top of the table indicating that the winners names are in bold. Without that, readers would be left to guess what that meant. You might consider replacing the "expenditures" column with an "Elected" column. See Ottawa (City of), which was a two-member riding for several elections. It seems unlikely that expenditure data would be readily available for elections that happened decades ago, so I don't think you'd be losing much by replacing that column. Of course, in the unlikely event that expenditures data did become available, it could be added back in later. Regards, Ground Zero | t 19:36, 3 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks; the alternative is to do the by-order-of-rank listing as on current riding pages; the thing about the alphabetical listing is it sort of forces the reader to look at the also-rans, which as you can see in Victoria City can be a pretty interesting list sometimes.
 * I improvised with party colours, using parties from later eras whose names I knew for parties no longer extant; the Provincial, the Constructivist, the infamous Liberal-Conservative Coalition (which deserves an article as well as a colour). I wasn't trying to be cute in using Marijuana, Natural Law and Rhino party colourings; those were the only names I could remember of figure out (BQ for Bloc?  Commonwealth for that splinter part in NB, Commonwealth-something?  I also haven't been consistent in which colours I use for Govt/Opposition in the pre-party period (up to and including the 1900 election); lately I've been using Conservative for Govt and Liberal for Opposition, and for the Reform caucus of the 1870s I've used the Reform Party's colour; I think in other ridings I might have continued with Reform for Opposition in subsequent elections.  Also NB there's a distinction between the Social Credit League, the Social Credit Alliance and the Social Credit Party; all OK for Social Credit colours but I'm careful to put the other names, as they're not simply "Social Credit" which means Social Credit Party.  Lesser parties I've sometimes put the whole party name in, including the label "Party", e.g. Labour Party of Canada (partly to distinguish it from the Labour Party of British Columbia; both using "Labour" colour scheme).  Skookum1 20:57, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Party colours - historic parties
The following is the list of parties 1903-1986 from BC Elections. Only some of them I'll make colour templates on - the Provincial, the BC Constructivist, the Soldier/Soldier-Farmer/Soldier-Labour, the Oxford Group Movement and a handful of others; either because they're politically unique or interesting or epitomize the circumstances of their times - e.g. the Soldier-* Parties, which were an outgrowth of post-Great War discontent and unemployment. Either that or just because they had a good showing and a relatively long run and deserve an article at some point; possibly the Christian Democrats.

BC Party Abbreviations 1903-1986; colour templates created
Some defunct ridings have already been applied/ these templates were made in prep for doing the pre-1991 elections on current ridings (some of which go back right to 1871, or near to it); these were either electorally significant or politically/historically significant. Many are worth short articles eventually; after the federal election prepwork is done anyway. Colours and tagname table follows; if someone has a better colour sense please fix the colours to suit taste; I basically threw darts at a colour-picker to get what's shown so far; would probably do better to have shades of pink/purple on left and blue 'n' yellow such on right; brownish has become centre-left (NDP) associated in BC colour-culture (NDP govt's colours, esp. 72-75). Some colours currently aren't working - Coalition, Soldier; they're just ##XXXXXX tags so I don't know why not; other I don't like in comparison to others similar; too similar for different political orientations. Had to do these so I didn't keep on improvising on the Gov/Opp tags and early 20th C elections, were variant parties are too common to use 'Other' in all cases (or throw in /Marijuana/, /Natural Law/ and /Rhino/ by whim or device). (Redid colour scheme since original writing of previous; party colours below are slightly different in some cases than on Template:Canadian_politics/party_colours; left this table here for now because of Notes column and also to serve as working-out-bugs template for later entries; will build my own sandboxes soon and put all this in there):

Colour candidates

Of the rest of the previous full list, the ones I'm thinking might be useful/meaningful at some point, but not at present; recurrent enough to need something other than /other/ or /independents/ colour tags.:


 * GAUV 	Grand Army of the United Veterans
 * GWVA 	Great War Veterans' Association
 * ILP 	Independent Labour Party - poss assim to CCF I think; but again see "party lineages"; other large-scale leftist parties (provincial) might be candidates for colours; otherwise some of the tables will just all have the same colour when that wasn't quite the case; that was the point of all the party names splintering; they weren't the same, or didn't see each other that way.

Curiosities and Special Cases to Consider:


 * LBC 	Libertas of British Columbia - notable because of who was involved, I remember, but I can't remember who; might be worth an article; probably gets /Libertarian/ colour currently; haven't seen it yet in my poll-entry work
 * S.CONS. 	Social Conservative - haven't run across this one yet
 * LIB.IND. 	Liberal Industrialist
 * Not sure who that was; haven't come across it in the polls I've done yet; someone like Gordie Wilson I think, i.e. politically established but forced to carve new platform/party because of ambush situation)
 * O.CONS. 	Official Conservative - haven't come across this yet
 * PRO.LIB. 	Progressive Liberal - gave whoever it was "Progressive" colours rather than Liberal; this was an Independent, or a group of breakaway MLAs; late '40s I think; maybe not same as federal Progressive Liberals, for which it turns out there's already a colour. so I'll use that for now; think the BC meaning is different though
 * PEOPLE 	People (Common Herd Party) - '60s I think....or '20s?

Leftist spectrum:


 * LBR. 	Labour (Party) - been getting the /Labour/ colour template; might have its own; I haven't studied the federal color-template list yet. Other Leftist Parties:
 * LPP 	Labour Progressive Party - goes to CPC currently; again ref on early labour movement in BC from TG.
 * LRC 	Labour Representation Committee - ditto
 * LSA 	League for Socialist Action - ditto
 * NALP 	North American Labour Party - ditto, and currently gets /Labour/ colour tag ("other labour parties"); federal-list colour tag may exist
 * N(I)LP 	Nanaimo (Independent) Labour Party - ditto
 * PF 	People's Front -
 * PP 	People's Party - ditto
 * PPBC 	People's Party of British Columbia - ditto
 * SLP 	Socialist Labour Party - goes to CPC I think, rather than to Labour; not to SPC.
 * RMG 	Revolutionary Marxist Group
 * CLP 	Canadian Labour Party (B.C. section)
 * CLPBC 	Canadian Labour Party of British Columbia; I'll ask someone I know who does BC Labour history to come up with a short bit on the leftist spectrum in BC in the early 20th Century; it's his thing and, well, he's citable himself (Terry Glavin)
 * WPC 	Workers' Party of Canada
 * V(I)LP 	Vancouver (Independent) Labour Party
 * UF 	United Front (Workers and Farmers) Party - one-election wonder, related to Soldier-Farmer/Labour I think
 * UFBC 	United Farmers of British Columbia - ditto
 * ULV 	United Labour Veterans - ditto but more leftist
 * All these currently get /Socialist/ colour tags
 * SPBC 	Socialist Party of British Columbia
 * SPC 	Socialist Party of Canada (old)
 * SPC 	Socialist Party of Canada (new)
 * SPC(BC) 	Socialist Party of Canada (B.C. section)
 * and maybe Socialist Labour Party; have to check.
 * NDP-CCF 	New Democratic Party - Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
 * This is an example of why NDP and CCF shouldn't be the same link; there's actually a difference, as well as that of a difference in era; the NDP is the product of the CCF reorganizing and reconstituting itself to adapt to the post-war, post-boom world of the '60s; they weren't the same parties. I'm not a party historian so while I could write a preamble, an actual cited article would require someone familiar with the sources and able to make sense of the bewildering mishmash of labour and populist movements (of all flavours of the spectrum) from the turbulent pre-Great War era
 * PCCF 	People's Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
 * splinter CCF; hard left I think - ??

(Are there colour tables for the People's Liberation Front of Judea and the Judean People's Front, and the Revolutionary Front to Liberate Judea, by the way? (Monty Python for those not familiar with The Life of Brian)

Rightist/centrist spectrum


 * UE 	Union of Electors - someone had changed this to resolve to the BC Social Credit Party; see notes on "issues on party lineages" re multiple ancestry of Socreds and why I think that's an inapt link; situation was more complicated than that

Independence/Separatist Parties

Can't remember the story with these two; earlier in the 20th century I think, not related to the WCC.


 * WIP 	Western Independence Party
 * WNP 	Western National Party
 * RP 	Republican Party - annexationist IIRC or maybe antimonarchist republicanization, can't remember which.
 * NRP 	New Republic Party for British Columbia - should maybe have an article I think; sounds familiar; and different from former, different era

And on the subject of historical templates, I'm starting to think a section header before each election-table would be a good idea; so the elections would appear in the index and you could go to one directly, instead of scrolling down to find it.Skookum1 00:39, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Preferential Ballot Template made
Didn't get a direct answer so went ahead and made a Preferential Ballot Template because of the 1952 and 1953 elections in BC; only applied it to Lillooet (electoral district) so far, pending comments and improvements (?). The 1953 election data on the Elections BC website had a breakdown of all three ballots instead of only the first and last as is usual; I think it's because of the close near-tie in the 2nd ballot (3 votes). What's interesting here, and somewhat typical, is the Social Credit vote, disqualified because of the 2nd ballot, broke about in half to go the CCF or the Liberals; idea is not surprising in BC politics, esp. in those days where Social Credit was seen as a right-wing version of a labour/populist party; in this particular riding the personalities and popularity of individual candidates was also a major factor. James Gordon Gibson, BTW, is I think the father of Gordon Gibson Jr., ongoing Fraser Institute politico/columnist and erstwhile provincial leadership candidate.

I changed the CCF label back to CCF from "Co-operative Commonwealth" because of recognition issues; CCF has better brand-recognition and if you asked people who knew what it was they'd probably screw up on the actual full-word title; I think it's best as CCF. Didn't notice if you'd done the same thing on NDP vs. New Democrat; I know for the earlier Social Democratic Party I abbreviated it to Social Democrat, but in terms of the syntax used for other parties (i.e. the party name, sans "Party", except for obscure/fringe parties where I've sometimes included the whole name) it doesn't scan the same way. NDP and CCF and brandnames in BC; for that matter we could just as easily use "Socred" as an abbreviation for Social Credit; but these pages aren't just for British Columbians, of course.Skookum1 23:13, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Skoookum, a few responses: CCF: I agree that there should be a separate article for the BC CCF because it was a separate organization. So far, only the Manitoba Co-operative Commonwealth Federation is the only provincial CCF that has an article that is separate from its successor party. Until there is a BC CCF article, I think the link to the BC NDP article is appropriate because at least there is one paragraph in that artilce that discusses the BC CCF. Labour Parties: the Labour parties of British Columbia redirects to Labour candidates and parties in Canada, which is probably the best place to go for now until someone writes a separate BC article. It gives the flavour of the variety of Labour parties that existed. It is not a great solution, but we have to make do with what we have until something better comes along. There is a Labour colour (sort of a dutsy pink) which I think you've found. Social Credit: I've been using light green for all of the social credit groupuscules in BC and federally because it is recognizable. I agree that the U of E was not the Social Credit Party, but they were, AFAIK, a social credit party. I looked at the British Columbia Social Credit Party article again, and realize that there was not enough info on U of E in there to warrant the link, and have addressed that gap by putting in some info so that someone following the U of E link and ending up at the BCSCP article will understand why. Of course, a separate article on the U of E would be even better, but I don't see that happening any day soon, so I think that linking to its successor party article is better than nothing. As far as the colours go, if you look at the BC elections articles, you'll see that the colour used changes from the social credit colour (prior to 1952) to "BC Social Credit" (a light blue) for 1952 and after to reflect the Bennett take-over, which actually happened after the election. I don't know if that is necessarily the right break-down since Bennett did actually campaign for the federal Socreds in at least a couple of federal elections, but he didn't really seem to be that interested in social credit per se. People's CCF: I created a People's Co-operative Commonwealth Federation article some time ago. As far as I can tell, it was not actually a party or a splinter group, but just a label used by a few CCFers running without the party's nomination. If you have other info, please add it to the article. A group of Mavericks instead of a lone rebel Independent-CCF. But I'm pretty sure they were hard left; that may be all there is to the story but my friend TG will now. I think what I'm going to do later today is make lighter shades of the various party colours for Independent-Labour, Independent-Conservative, Independent-Liberal et al; they're common enough to bother working with. Regards, Ground Zero | t 17:24, 5 December 2005 (UTC) And, to answer your original question, I think the preferential ballot tempalte you ade works well. I would have left off the expenditures column, but that's just me. All in all, I think it looks great. Ground Zero | t 23:01, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * You've identified exactly the reason that initialisms like CCF should not be used unless they are defined: we're not just writing for British Columbians or even Canadians, we are writing for an international audience. Standard writing style is that on the first use of an an initialism, you spell out the whole phrase, and then identify that you will be using the initialism henceforth by putting it in parentheses, e.g., "Seven Liberal Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) resigned from the party to join the Social Credit Party." This way, a reader who is not familiar with the initialism "MLA" is alerted to it, and can refer back if necessary when it appears later in the article. NDP and CCF will not be understood by non-Canadian readers, and CCF may not be understood by Canadians who are not familiar with Canadian political history. I agree that "Co-operative Commonwealth" may not be the best approach either. There is actually room in these tables to put the full party name, so maybe that's what we should do. I also want to point out that I have been linking the CCF entries to New Democratic Party of British Columbia, which covers the early history of the party as the CCF, instead of to the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation article does not even mention British Columbia in the body of the article, let alone discuss the party's history there. I think that the NDP of BC article is a better link. Ground Zero | t 14:15, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, sounds to me like the shortcomings of the CCF article are at fault; as the CCF was a very different beastie from the NDP, despite the personnel-carryover. For now links to the NDP will have to do; but additions to the CCF article, or a BC-CCF article, should one day be written.  If we started applying your parameters, then the United Labour Party, the Canadian Labour Party (BC section), and several others should have NDP colours; and various Socialist/other leftist parties should resolve either to the SPC or one of the two CPCs, as that's where they wound up at eventually (formally or informally).  The Soldier-Labour/Farmer parties didn't have any successors and were unique phenomena without precedent or later lineage (essentially conservative but services/subsidy-oriented).  I note someone (you?) had changed the Union of Electors colours from "other" to "Social Credit" and added a Social Credit link "behind" the Union of Electors name; again, if we're going to start doing that then there's other parties that should get Social Creditized; AFAIK the Union of Electors was a precursor to the Socreds; but it's not the Socreds; so I changed it back to "other"; other than that or the UE should have its own colour/article - even if they only got a handful of votes.  Which raises the point that the early Social Credit League of BC and the Social Credit Alliance were not strictly speaking to the behemoth of the post-1952 Social Credit Party of BC; Bennett hijacked the name and some of the philosophy; but links to the older Social Credit groups to his own were very sketchy.Skookum1 03:08, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Long overdue then; wish I was qualified to write it. BTW "the Fed" in BC now refers to the BC Fed of Labour; as a term it used to mean the CCF; that's why I at least temporarily adjusted the "short" version of the name to Co-operative Commonwealth Fed.  People either called it "the CCF" of "the Fed".  If it's a matter of recognition then a table of acronyms at the start of each electoral history section is the way to go; could use that for the lesser parties too.  De rigeur on election pagesSkookum1 18:48, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I think your "Co-operative Commonweath Fed." idea is a good one. I prefer that over a list of acronyms. I didn't know that the CCF was called "the Fed." You learn something nnew every day. Which is why I'm here on Wikipeida. Thanks. Ground Zero | t 19:06, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * We'll leave that as-is then, and I'll update any other old ridings to the "long" abbreviated form ending in Fed.Skookum1 20:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Tricky part is some of the labour parties were rightist.....and some fed directly into the CPCs or SPC...Skookum1 18:48, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I see. That is tricky. I don't know what to do about the rightists. Ground Zero | t 19:06, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Most of them were flashes in the pan; the Soldier parties aren't exactly rightist but come close to it; it's more the pre-Great War labour parties (Knights of Labour show up in civic politics only, but they're a biggie) that the right/left thing comes into play; as for the leftist lineages that's all very tricky and I'm hoping my friend TG can point the way.Skookum1 20:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * But it's not a successor party; it's one of the breeds that went into the mongrel-mix. The only reason I can live with the SCA and the BCSCL going into the mix as predecessors is because of the name; but they were predecessors in name only.  UE just shouldn't have a link; give it a shade of green, OK, but there's no validity to the SC Party link that I'm comfortable with....Skookum1 18:48, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * But if there is information in the BCSCP article about the U of E, isn't it worth letting the reader find that instead of giving them nothing? The U of E name was used in Quebec as well by socreds who were not running under the Social Credit name. The BCSCP article does not say that the U of E joined the BCSCP, only tat the social credit movement was split into factions in the 1940s, one of which was the U of E. Ground Zero | t 19:06, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, I'll live with it then; again the deal in BC is that the post-1952 Socreds bear very little relation to other Socreds/precursors.Skookum1 20:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Saw that and amended articles I've been back over for one reason or another (last night but can't remember which).Skookum1 18:48, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Good idea on the lighter colours. Ground Zero | t 19:06, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Will apply lighter colours right now then, and post the new colour table into the main colour table/list (think I got good colours for most).Skookum1 20:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Wiki Syntax
I think there is a small issue with the election results table... The Wiki Syntax page keeps reporting "Unopened or unclosed |}" problem on the pages what use that template. I think this is because the begin table tag {| is "absorbed" into the template, and the syntax checker got confused. Can someone confirm/comment on that? p_b1999 (Talk 19:04, 16 December 2005 (UTC)