Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Parliament constituencies/Style

Over-disambiguating
I have noticed that all of the UK Parliament constituency articles are disambiguated with the suffix (UK Parliament constituency). This doesn't make sense for those constituencies whose names do not have other meanings. I moved the New Forest East article to remove the disambig but someone has now moved it back. --Moochocoogle 12:52, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * I re-added the disambiguator because thought there was a consensus for this, but now someone else has reverted me :) I'm going to kickstart the discussion again on the main WikiProject page shortly, to try and settle this one way or the other. sjorford &rarr;&bull;&larr; 13:44, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Date ranges in the Members of Parliament section
I realise that this is a rather pedantic point, and that it may be a little late to be making it, however I notice that in June the way this page suggests that date ranges for MPs should be given was changed from 2001–2005 (with an ndash and no spaces) to 2001 &mdash; 2005 (with an mdash and spaces). This seems to be at odds with the rest of wikipedia which follows the former style, as this is what is suggested at Manual of Style (dashes). In fact, I am not aware of any English style guide that suggests the use of an mdash in date ranges. As such, I would like to see the advice in this page returned to the use of an ndash without spaces. JeremyA (talk) 02:45, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
 * You're right, I'm not sure at what point I got it into my head that ndash should be mdash, I think I must have proliferated a typo. oops. (although without spaces I think it looks uglier) Anyway, Mackensen has came up with a much neater way for the MPs list which I think we should implement - see already at Newbury, what do you think? -- Joolz 23:37, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
 * A table works for me. The Newbury page looks very good.   JeremyA (talk) 02:19, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks :) I've updated the advice on the page now. -- Joolz 11:50, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Disambiguating "Entity" in Infobox
Constituencies which are in the County that Used to Be Avon seem to all have Entity=Avon in their infoboxes (except that one or two have Somerset). This produces a link to Avon, which is a disambiguation page. Is there any way to have the infoboxes link to Avon (county) as a piped link as in "shown within Avon"? (...and preferably still have them continue "and Avon shown within England"?) --rbrwr&plusmn; 18:53, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Succession boxes
I'm not quite sure if it falls within the remit of this project, but can someone offer advice on a default style for succession boxes? User:KuatofKDY has created the S-par template to use as a "header" for blocks of Parliamentary succession (or for other legislative assemblies, hence the text), but I still have some questions on style. I'd appreciate any advice that can be given on these. Choess 19:53, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
 * What is the proper text and format to be used in the boxes when a constituency is created, abolished, or membership is reduced?
 * What is the proper wording to be used in the succession box? (I usually use "Member for X", but I've seen "M.P. for X" and "Member of Parliament for X".)
 * How should the names of courtesy peers appear in the succession box, e.g., should "Harry Harble, Viscount Porton" appear as "Harry Harble" or "Viscount Porton"?
 * I've been using (appropriately cited) as a source while adding boxes to various peers, and there seems to be an implied order to constituencies returning multiple members, e.g., if in 1660 Blickling returns Member A and Member B, and in 1671 Member C and D, does C strictly succeed A and D succeed B, or is there no continuity when multiple members are returned?

In the absence of response, I've created a small sample. Constituencies 1 and 2, and the letters representing the names of MPs, would all be wikilinked. Please comment, particularly on the formatting of the title. Choess 14:56, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Well done, Choess, for starting this discussion: there is an unnecesary variety of styles in use.


 * What is the proper text and format to be used in the boxes when a constituency is created, abolished, or membership is reduced?
 * I have been using the following: "constituency abolished" and "new constituency". As to formatting, I have a few strict rules which I apply:
 * no capitalisation, because text such as "constituency abolished" is not a name
 * italise the text, to further distinguish it from a name
 * enclose it in brackets, because italicisation will not usually be conveyed to blind readers, whereas their software does understand brackets
 * So far I don't recall having needed to create a box for one where membership is reduced, but I would be inclined to simply handle it as a variant form of multi-member constituency, as follows:


 * What is the proper wording to be used in the succession box? (I usually use "Member for X", but I've seen "M.P. for X" and "Member of Parliament for X".)
 * "Member for" is an abbreviation used by MPs only within Parliament, but not outside Parliament: in other contexts, they always refer to themselves and to each other as "Member of Parliament", and that is the format used on the Parliament website (see, for example, Alphabetical List of Members of Parliament. I used to use "MP", but since wikipedia generally discourages abbreviations, I have desisted from that … but I see a case for using MP, because the abbreviation should already have been introduced in the article.  However, I deplore the "Member for" usage, and change it whenever I encounter it.
 * Additionally, I link separately from the job and the constituency, like this: Member of Parliament for constituency : the constituency itself is not a job!

There is another tweak which I have recently found necessary, where an MP dies in (say) December 1989, but the by-election is held in January 1990: in that case the link will be years=1983–1989
 * How should the names of courtesy peers appear in the succession box, e.g., should "Harry Harble, Viscount Porton" appear as "Harry Harble" or "Viscount Porton"?
 * I follow this rule: use the name, unless I have evidence that the MP was known within the chamber by the courteousy title. Hence "Lord Balniel" rather than "Robert Lindsay", but "Michael Ancram" rather than "Earl of Ancram" or "Marquess of Ancram".
 * ''I've been using (appropriately cited) as a source while adding boxes to various peers, and there seems to be an implied order to constituencies returning multiple members, e.g., if in 1660 Blickling returns Member A and Member B, and in 1671 Member C and D, does C strictly succeed A and D succeed B, or is there no continuity when multiple members are returned?
 * I'd never thought about that one quite so throughly! Since the concept of "first member" and second member" is a little fuzzy, I think it best to take a simpler view, and say that "C and D" succeeded "A and B", even if that ends up as involving ""X and Z" succeeding "X and Y".
 * One further point: I always link from the dates through to the election at which the MP was elected or replaced. I know that the general guidance in succession boxes is not to link to the year, which I agree with, but in the case of an MP, these dates refer to a specific event (a general election or by-election) rather than just a year, and (more importantly) to an event for which there should be a wikipedia article.

Hope this helps! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:52, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Hey Choess, I was writing a reply as I had to go suddenly, but now I have nothing important to say :-). I've seen User:BrownHairedGirl's Parliament succession boxes many times and they are fine. At this time I think they can't be improved.
 * PS: abbreviations like MP are ugly... Phoe 18:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

History section - earlier and later constituencies
I'm surprised that the "style guide", under "history", only says "This section should be used to describe the history, demographics, and politics of the constituency, and any elections or note (close elections, resignations etc)." I think a key element, for many readers, will be to know what constituencies represented the area before and/or after the subject of the article, and this ought to be stressed - or perhaps should constitute a separate section. Perhaps this comes from living in Leeds, where only one of the five 1885 consituencies has had a continuous existence up to now while others have come, gone, merged, split, been re-created, etc over time! I supppose it's within "the history..." in the above list, but I'd like to see it given greater prominence and priority.

Point of style: is it "recreated" or "re-created", when somewhere like Leeds Central is revived? PamD (talk) 18:00, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I would support the suggestion. I am not a member of this project and do not really have the time to contribute.  I would suggest re-created, to avoid the noun being read as recreation, which has a different sense.  There are categories for constituencies "disestablished".  Is there not a better word?  The text often says "abolished".  I would also welcome as a matter of routine, a statement of what constitency/ies preceded it and succeeded it.  This would be useful as a navigation tool.  It would also be helpful if categories were by county, rather than region.  Though these have boundary changes, they are generally fairly stable entities, these 1000 years in most cases.  Peterkingiron (talk) 12:07, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Style question re:List of MPs
In all the UK constituency articles, the table listing MPs looks like this:

While in the articles for Canadian Constituencies, it looks like this:

I thought I would ask, which looks better to people? I'm personally fond of the Canadian one, as it is easier to look at. That being said, I thought I would ask/suggest that we change the style to the Canadian one. I'm aware of the downside that many constituencies have been in existence since the Glorious Revolution, and therefore the lists/articles would be very long, as well as many other problems, but I thought I would put this topic on the table and gauge response.

Note:I am not suggesting that the current style is not good, I'm merely bringing up another idea.

Bkissin (talk) 03:49, 24 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I dislike the Canadian example - far too much information, too big and too ugly (POV). The UK example has the party colour attached to the election, instead of to the MP or the MP's party - elections do not have a party affiliation, and the tables should reflect that better. Also, with a party colour on the table the party name is more or less redundant. My solution on New Zealand electorates is to use a Key listing the various parties chronologically:

Key


 * We use a lot more templates on WikiProject New Zealand/politics and I've included NZ election link with years that at least correlate to UK general elections. I like the reduction of MPs' listings to significant events only - NZ electorates list all elections and by-elections - with a shorter electoral history, and frequent renaming/recycling of electorates it's not such an issue as it would be here. Note Dave Spart's change of allegiance mid-term. Fan |  talk  21:01, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Missing links
I've just added "A redirect or disambiguation page entry must always be provided from the basic name." in the Article name section. I hope it's uncontroversial, but I think it's necessary. Pam D  10:29, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

MP lists in constituency articles - format change
See discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_UK_Parliament_constituencies - just in case anyone has this "Style" talkpage watchlisted but not the main talk page. Pam D  09:24, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Compact Box
Perhaps this style guide needs updated to reflect the consensus of using Compact election box for election results? --Gharbhain (talk) 12:57, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Opinion polling
In the last few years it has become widespread for media organizations to commission MRP models to extrapolate poll data into constituency-level predictions. Recently, myself and some other contributors have been recording MRP predictions for the new Bicester & Woodstock constituency on its article. There is an active article on national polling, but MRP predictions for individual seats are not detailed there (it would be unworkable to do so). A discussion has begun on the talk page there as to whether such data belongs on a constituency article. This information is of undeniable interest to people, has specific relevance to the topic of the article, and is sometimes only transiently recorded elsewhere. Whilst I didn't add the list to the article, I have helped to populate it, and feel that the information should be presented there in some form (although I'd welcome input on the best format). I also think that keeping the list comprehensive has also kept the article to a WP:NPOV (given that any selectivity would be subjective). NPOV is obviously important at any time, but never more so than the closing days of an election campaign. Could the template evolve to include information such as this? I think it would be beneficial to do so more widely. LilRedCasanova (talk) 22:49, 2 July 2024 (UTC)


 * I think this discussion has occured becuase of my objections on that page! All of my objections apply generally rather than specifically to that page:
 * The fundamental objection is WP:NOTDATABASE. Wikipedia should not be a database of MRP's individual constituency predictions.
 * As can be seen on that page, this produces a vary large table of data. This is clutter and offputting for pages about constituencies. The scope of these articles are the constituencies for their entire existance (which can be decades or centuries), not just the most imminent contest.
 * The burden to maintain these results across the whole wiki would be substaintial. Every MRP produces a prediction for every British constituency. Including all of these, for all constituencies, both retroactively and from this point onwards would be a huge and ever-growing burden.
 * It is unclear how predictive MRPs results actaully are when drilled down to individual constituencies (I guess we'll see on Friday). My favourite quote on this is MRPs are like a low-pixel photo - gives a great overall picture - but zoom in and detail is a total mess in places…
 * This wades unnecessarily into real-world disputes. It is electorally advantageous for local parties to argue that "only we can beat X here", and MRP results are (mis)used to make these arguments, with every side usually able to find a result that favours them. This appears to be the cause of the table existing on Bicester and Woodstock (UK Parliament constituency) and is not a good model to apply Wikipedia-wide.
 * LukeSurlt c 08:16, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Order of election results
I think the style page should recommend an agreed order for election results.

My impression is that most articles list results in reverse-chronological order. Some former constituencies have results listed in forward-chronological order, for example Mid Worcestershire. Other articles use a mix of orders, such as Finsbury (a former constituency) which is forward for 1918–1945 then reverse 1880–1832; and Lichfield (a current constituency) which is reverse 2024–1922 then has a series of forward results, 1885–1918, 1868–1880, 1832–1865.

Elsewhere in Wikipedia I have seen forward chronology described as "more encyclopaedic", and this is the style recommended for timelines in lists(WP:CHRONO), and for events in biographies (MOS:CHRONOLOGICAL). It is also the order stated here for members of parliament.

I certainly think there should be consistency within articles. I also suggest that having election results consistently presented in forward chronology would be in line with other style guidance. I would like to add a statement to this effect in, and would be keen to learn whether there is consensus for such an addition. Mgp28 (talk) 13:09, 10 July 2024 (UTC)


 * I've added notifications about this discussion at the talk pages for the three constituency articles listed above and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Parliament constituencies Mgp28 (talk) 13:21, 10 July 2024 (UTC)