Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New Zealand/politics/New MPs

Post-2020 election thoughts
I thought I'd record some thoughts now that the 2020 general election is over and the results have been finalised. First up, it's been a splendid team effort once again. Excellent work, everyone. We weren't short of too many bios that we needed on election night. The thing that didn't really work at all was that none of the experienced editors seemed to have been online on election night, and all sorts of Wikidrama ensued in one of two ways:
 * editors from around the world started creating drafts for newly-elected MPs for whom we had perfect drafts ready to go
 * in other cases, the drafts made their way into mainspace through cut-and-paste moves as opposed to moving the draft to article space.

Hence, at the next general election, I suggest that we ensure that experienced hands are on deck, or else we need to brief those who will be online with what to do.

Other than that, we could take stock and see whether changes during the term of the 53rd New Zealand Parliament may require some preparation. We have five parties in Parliament. What would happen if one of their list MPs left? Note that any replacement does not necessarily mean that the next person on the list will be offered the role (e.g. what happened when Russel Norman first became a list MP), and sometimes the next person is no longer available or interested anyway. Here's where things are at:
 * ACT – next on the list (#11) is Miles McConway and there isn't a draft for him. Given that ACT has nine new MPs and some are "a bit flaky" (sorry!), I'd say there is a good chance of us needing the McConway article at some point.
 * Greens – next on the list (#11) is Steve Abel and he's already got an article.
 * Labour – they have such a huge caucus that change during this term is almost guaranteed. Next on the list (#54) is Lemauga Lydia Sosene and her draft got moved into mainspace although she did not end up getting elected. As of 9 Nov 2020, she's still in mainspace. We might as well be prepared for more than one change and next up is Dan Rosewarne, for whom we do have a draft. We should thus be all good with Labour for the next wee while.
 * National – I would not be surprised if National caused the first change in membership. The next five list MPs (starting at #21) all have articles so we'll be good for a wee while.
 * Māori – we have drafts for the next four on the list (starting at #3) so no need for any action.

So, if anybody feels like drafting a bio, start with Miles McConway of ACT.  Schwede 66  22:42, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
 * We used to run election task forces so that planning for all facets of our new content could be matched with volunteers - that seems to have died off in the last few cycles to be replaced by an ad-hoc system where things will get done if someone decides to do it, and without any conformity. Included in the task force system was commitment by some editors to turning up on the night to keep pages up to date (and non-speculative). Also gone is our consensus - things seem to change on a whim without ever reaching any discussion here. I fear we've [collectively] lost the enthusiasm we once had.  Fan |  talk  12:37, 29 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Perhaps we could de-clutter this page a bit and delete the Conservative and National bios from 2014 as well as the Janette Walker bio (she has left the Labour Party altogether). All of these are very unlikely to ever be needed in mainspace. Kiwichris (talk) 08:30, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * that's been ✅ (only took 2 and a bit years).  Schwede 66  07:15, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

2023 election prep
Kia ora koutou, I thought I'd ping a few editors who:
 * during the last parliamentary term have edited the 2023 New Zealand general election, or
 * who I know are interested in politics, or
 * who I know as experienced Kiwi editors.

Looking at the item immediately above, we need to ensure that we have editors in place who can take charge and move draft politician bios into mainspace on election night. Those drafts are on the other tab of this page. We missed the boat in 2020 as we were all away from Wikipedia and I spent half of Sunday fixing up a real mess made by inexperienced editors from overseas. Who will be around? Not me, I'm afraid, as I was silly enough to sign up with the Electoral Commission to run a polling booth. I wasn't aware that this will take you out until many hours after the booths close. I was told that I may be home by 10pm but the experience of the lady with who I had shared the last training course was much worse than that; she was home by 1am!

Hands up if you can help on Saturday. What needs doing is to keep an eye on the results and once electoral success is reasonably secure, take the draft, tidy it up (e.g. unhide the categories) and move it into main space:

 Schwede 66  07:29, 12 October 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid I'll be travelling back from Australia during election day so my access to the internet will be intermittent. I won't get back to New Zealand until almost midnight. I'll see if there is anything I can do on Sunday though! Ambrosia10 (talk) 20:03, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I will be busy working on Saturday and Sunday nights. I will also have visitors till early next week but will try and catch up when I am free. Has been hectic and tiring for the past few days. Andykatib (talk) 09:43, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
 * "We missed the boat in 2020 as we were all away from Wikipedia and I spent half of Sunday fixing up a real mess made by inexperienced editors from overseas."
 * ... and this is why I gave up working on these pages. Bloody-minded interference from clueless outsiders just made this work too frustrating. Apologies to anyone who had to cean up the mess. 10:36, 13 October 2023 (UTC) Fanx (talk) 10:36, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

And somebody might want to go through The Spinoff's electorate vote predictions. Do we have drafts for all those potential winners? Who's missing?  Schwede 66  07:39, 12 October 2023 (UTC)


 * I am unavailable during the day, but can do some work during the evening / night. Alas my TBAN covers BLPs, so I can't move / edit the MP bios, so I'm pretty much limited in what I can do. Stuartyeates (talk) 08:17, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I will be around from late afternoon, I think, and looking forward to helping out. Voting closes at 7pm and I see they aim to have 50% of the results released by 10pm, and 95% by 11pm, so maybe we'll have it all done by the time you are home @Schwede66! DrThneed (talk) 08:42, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Bloody hell, Stuart. We've got to sort that out. Needs to be appealed; was the most ridiculous thing to happen in the first place.  Schwede 66  09:23, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Hear hear. DrThneed (talk) 09:31, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I'll be following the results as they come in anyway so I'm happy to help out a bit – the moving of new MPs isn't too demanding if we get to it quick enough. (Ping didn't work by the way.)  J947  † edits 08:41, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * There's a report that the ping didn't work. Here's another attempt; sorry for that:
 *  Schwede 66  09:21, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * That one worked!  J947  † edits 09:28, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I will be available all election day till around 2am sunday to help. :) Kiwiz1338 (talk) 09:31, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * That'll do! Awesome commitment.  Schwede 66  09:36, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * It'll be interesting that's for sure. Kiwiz1338 (talk) 09:46, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I can help, but I can't stay up too late as I have work at 6:00am Sunday morning. Just looking back at the 2017 and 2020 elections, the first electorate seat was called around 10:00pm.Lcmortensen (mailbox) 10:18, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Hello ; I am overseas this election so it will be ridiculously early for me, but I will be awake for a limited number of hours after 7pm NZ time and can help out until I pass out. By the way, for your election night time management, I managed a polling place last time – it was a medium-sized central Wellington one with about six issuing officers and I was home between midnight and 1am. The longest bit, other than doing 7 different counts for the 7 different electorates we held papers for, was sitting in my car, waiting in the line at the Stadium to return the votes back to HQ. But it was a fun time finally being able to check my phone and seeing the results on Twitter. &mdash; idiosyn critic  15:54, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I may not be available at that time but I'll try to help any way I can with page moves and other changes. --Hazhk (talk) 16:53, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I am also available to help, but won't promise to stay up really late.Marshelec (talk) 18:42, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I'll be around and keen to help! Chocmilk03 (talk) 18:46, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm in Karamea on Wikipedian at Large assignment; obviously keen to help with any West Coast/Tasman content, but unlikely to be surprises there! Can stay up late to help as electorates are called. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 20:58, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh. We are in the same electorate but I for one wouldn't put money on the outcome. Checking The Spinoff article referenced above, they also think it'll be rather close.  Schwede 66  00:16, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the ping. Yes I will see what I can do. Pakoire (talk) 21:21, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I am pinged. 10:29, 13 October 2023 (UTC) Fanx (talk) 10:29, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the ping. Yes I will see what I can do. Pakoire (talk) 21:21, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I am pinged. 10:29, 13 October 2023 (UTC) Fanx (talk) 10:29, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

So I wasn't involved in the last election on Wp except for some bios and the DYK afterwards. Was trying to figure out the election night tasks for each electorate, and so far I have:
 * 1) Add results to page of electorate winner, and move any draft bio into mainspace (sort categories, check ref format etc).
 * 2) Add results to any electorate loser who has a bio
 * 3) Add 2023 results table to electorate page
 * 4) If any candidates were on a party list, update electoral results to table on party lists page
 * 5) Add results to electoral table on overall 2023 general election page
 * 6) There's also presumably to be a Results of the 2023 New Zealand general election page which will need updating?
 * 7) (Later) Similar for all the list candidates and results

What have I missed? And how do people organise themselves normally (e.g. do I pick an electorate and do everything required for that result, or ...? I wouldn't mind if I didn't have to go near those massive tables on the overall election and results pages!). DrThneed (talk) 23:01, 12 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Yes, those steps are all needed, DrThneed. The most important aspect, though, is to deal with the draft bios swiftly. The rest is generally less organised and just happens organically. We could, of course, organise ourselves and have lists of articles to work on:
 * successful candidates
 * unsuccessful candidates
 * parties
 * electorates
 * The finer details for most of those tasks could wait until 3 November, as that's when we can expect the final results. But there is always a temptation to post preliminary results. And with regards to candidates, we will have to make use of preliminary results, that's for sure.  Schwede 66  23:58, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I've started preparing the draft, Draft:Results of the 2023 New Zealand general election for future. — Panamitsu (talk) 07:41, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

I have updated NZ officeholder data for all electorates.- gadfium 18:23, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

What's the margin?
It's been suggested that Blair Cameron (which I moved) should have stayed in project space as there will almost certainly be a recount (he beat Boyack by 54). What margin do we apply before we decide not to move a new draft bio though? Thoughts? DrThneed (talk) 10:34, 14 October 2023 (UTC)


 * If they win on the 100% preliminary count, we move them. We can always move them back if the vote swings the other way on special votes.Lcmortensen (mailbox) 11:13, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * OK, so I was right to move him. Thanks! Just wanted to be clear in case there are other close ones involving draft bios. DrThneed (talk) 11:20, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Agree. If the preliminary results indicate a win, that in itself doesn't confirm anything. Special votes are yet to be counted and it's the final results, to be released on 3 November, that will confirm the results. However, anybody who wins based on preliminary results will receive so much media attention that WP:GNG will most likely be met. Hence those articles should be in mainspace.  Schwede 66  23:49, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I feel like we're jumping the gun here. Three National candidates provisionally are not guaranteed their seats after final votes are in. Where have we included marginly defeated candidates in article space previously? Ajf773 (talk) 23:30, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Last election, the most comparable case was Lemauga Lydia Sosene. Her article was moved to main space the day after the election although she had not been elected; if I remember correctly, based on preliminary results, she was next on the list who would become an MP should a vacancy occur. That happened in May 2022 when she replaced Louisa Wall.  Schwede 66  01:40, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Lawrence Xu-Nan
I suggest we better tidy up the draft bio for Lawrence Xu-Nan. Should James Shaw retire from Parliament (it's unclear to me what is going to happen; James himself seems to suggest that he'll stay on while media reporting sees him retire not just from the co-leadership), Lawrence is the next on the list. I've met him (and have given him some Wiki-training), so I shouldn't work on the bio.  Schwede 66  23:40, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Francisco Hernandez
Who would have thought that Xu-Nan is going to replace somebody other than James Shaw? We better get onto expanding the Francisco Hernandez bio as he'll be joining parliament when Shaw eventually retires.  Schwede 66  05:08, 22 February 2024 (UTC)