Talk:2000 Slovenian parliamentary election

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Election Infobox vs Legislative Election Infobox[edit]

Regarding the subject on which Infobox is 'better', I can list a number of features that disfavor the special Legislative election Infobox (ie. the one without the leader portraits). Some of these are:


-it does not show the number of seats a party has won in the previous election

-it does not show the popular vote of said party

-it does not show the percentage swing from one election to another for a party

and (and arguably the most important one)

-it does not show leader portraits. This is important because most people are visual learners (ie. they associate images to people or objects in order to better remember them). Some people might not instantly recognize Andrej Bajuk for example, but might remember who he is if his picture is adjacent. Listing leaders of parties is important because when most people think about a political party, they will first connect it with known people of that party, and only then everything else (for example, when a regular Slovenian hears about the LDS, he or she will first connect it with Janez Drnovšek, and only then with their actual policy).


I can not, however, list a single reason that makes the Legislative election Infobox better than the regular one. It has all of the features the regular Election Infobox has but none of its own. The only actual downside to the regular Election Infobox is that it cannot list more than 9 parties, but that is a non-issue since that has never happened in the history of the National Assembly (in fact, the only time 9 parties managed to pass the 4% electoral threshold was in 2018, in all the other elections there have been 8 parties or less, with the most recent National Assembly having 5 parties). Yes, it is not impossible for more than 9 parties to enter parliament, but that is currently extremely unlikely, and we should cross that bridge when we get there.

Another matter is that all of the Slovenian parliamentary election pages use the regular Election Infobox, with the only two exceptions being the 2000 (this article) & 2004 parliamentary election pages. Thus using the regular Election Infobox ensures consistency with the other articles.


Now, when it comes to 'legal' technicalities, the Infobox election template page clearly says that 'Users should consider using the Legislative election infobox template instead'. Should Consider is not synonymous with must. Thus I see no reason for users to be restricted to an inferior template when no such restriction exists in the first place. Vladimir Budinski (talk) 15:31, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The purpose of an infobox is to summarise the key points of an article. I don't believe anyone could reasonably argue that this infobox is superior to this one; the first infobox is well over a screen long, meaning a reader cannot see the key information without scrolling, while the second is roughly half a page long. The infobox guidelines state "The less information [an infobox] contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance"; a huge multi-page infobox means readers cannot identify key facts at a glance.
Regarding the points made above:
  1. The number of seats won in the previous election can be easily deduced from the +/– column. Inclusion of the previous election result is actually a violation of MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE, as this information does not appear in the article in question.
  2. The number of votes received is not key information. The most important information is the number of seats won.
  3. In proportional systems, the seat changes is a proxy for swing. And inclusion of swing when it's not in the article is again a violation of MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE
  4. Leader portraits are irrelevant; this is not a presidential election, it is a parliamentary election; people are voting for parties, not individuals. If any images were to be included, the logical thing to include would be the party logos.
Cheers, Number 57 16:09, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]