Template talk:Election box/Archive 4

Electoral Fusion

For state such as New York which allow electoral fusion, are their plans to add anything to the {{Election box candidate with party link}} template that might allow a |party1, |party2, etc., format, instead of listing the same candidate separately? Sometimes candidates are endorsed by three or four parties, so it would be a useful feature. MrPrada (talk) 07:44, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Election boxes with without the "±%" column

I made some new templates so that you can have the election box without the "±%" column, which is not very useful in many elections.

For you basic election, just use {{Election box begin no change}} and {{Election box candidate with party link no change}}. Together, they look like this:

Election

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Republican	Tom Delay	99,999	50.0
	Democratic	Eliot Spitzer	99,999	50.0

To get inline candidates, use {{Election box inline begin no change}}, {{Election box inline incumbent}}, {{Election box inline candidate no change}}, {{Election box inline candidate with party link no change}}, {{Election box inline end}} to get this:

District	Party		Incumbent	Status	Party		Candidate	Votes	%
1		Republican	John J. Incumbent	Did not run		Republican	James T. Nominee	1500	75.00
						Write-In	Mary Sue Challenger	500	25.00
2		Democratic	Jennifer Contender	reelected		Democratic	Jennifer Contender	2,000	100.00

Box without percentages column

Is there such a version of this template? I don't have the percentages for some election results, but would still like to add the boxes with the votes. Craigy (talk) 00:53, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I think people often calculate the percentages by hand. Simply take each candidates votes divided by the total number of votes.--TheZachMorrisExperience (talk) 02:10, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Thanks. I never was good at maths :-) Craigy (talk) 13:35, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

editprotected

{{editprotected}}

Please add hCard microformat mark-up to {{Election box candidate}} (talk page redirects here), by changing:

|-
! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" |
| style="width: 130px" | {{{party}}}
|               | {{{candidate}}}

to:

|- class="vcard"
! style="background-color:#E9E9E9" |
| class="org" style="width: 130px" | {{{party}}}
| class="fn" | {{{candidate}}}

then remove the redirect from the template page to its talk page, and create {{documentation}}. Thank you. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 23:00, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I did the hCard part, how should the documentation be handled? Should the unused Template:Election box be changed from a redirect, or should the docs go on Template:Election box begin? - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 16:05, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I've already moved some of the documentation to sub pages (it was very long) and was planning to templatise the rest so it could be included on each {{documentation}} page as needed, while allowing each such page to have the appropriate categories. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 16:46, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I'll start adding {{doc to the multiple protected templates involved with this, and leave you to fill them in. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 22:25, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. The documentation now starts in Template:Election box/doc, and is subdivided from there. See what you think. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 23:17, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Uniformity

{{editprotected}}

Please change the following on Template:Election box begin:

! colspan=2 style="width: 130px"|Party ! style="width: 170px"|Candidate ! style="width: 50px"|Votes ! style="width: 40px"|% ! style="width: 40px"|±%

to

! colspan=2 style="width: 15em" |Party ! style="width: 17em" |Candidate ! style="width: 5em" |Votes ! style="width: 3.5em" |% ! style="width: 3.5em"|±%

to conform to Template:Election box begin no change. One uses the entire length of the page but the other uses about 3/4, but both should be the same length. Thanks, Reywas92^Talk 02:33, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

The template is not protected, so there's nothing stopping you making the change yourself. _Gb^T/c 20:39, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Template:Election box begin is protected. All talk pages in the Election box series redirect here to be centralized. 16:43, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, my bad. Misread your request, thought you were asking for a change to Template:Election box. _Gb^T/c 18:55, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

 Done Ruslik (talk) 20:02, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Might want to check the code, I had to revert it as it was producing ridiculously wide colour boxes on Australian articles such as Electoral results for the Division of Mitchell. Orderinchaos 08:26, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Tried it myself (pasting in Election box begin no change and modifying the parameters to match) but got the same result. Orderinchaos 08:33, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Standardizing election results (crosspost)

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums/Archive 4#Standardizing election results. @harej 06:27, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

And now, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums#Template:Election. @harej 03:50, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Change column

The "change" (±%) column is something that seems to be specific to UK elections, or at least is not something traditionally used for US election results. I'm not even sure what's supposed to go in it, and I'm an election geek. I think there should be some suggestion that people may want to use the "no change" versions of the templates if they're not in the UK. —KCinDC (talk) 23:40, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it is not clear at all to most readers. I have learned that it is how many more percentage points that party won in that election compared to the previous. I don't know about US/UK, though another part of the election box is Swing (politics), which is UK, though it unfortunately ends up on many US articles. It's never filled in, so I'm still not completely sure what it means. Reywas92^Talk 02:24, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Can the Change column be removed from being a compulsory column as it is meaning less in election where there is a brand new office or seat. The change stats used are notion only and are misleading as there was no previous election for the office or for the seat it should be an optional column for seats being re-contested on identical boundaries were notional changes are not used.--Lucy-marie (talk) 13:56, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Party links for Independent

Hello, I wonder if anybody here can help? It seems to me that use of the Election box family of templates, with the term "party=independent" usually creates a link to the disambiguation page Independent. Is it possible to revise the code so that it links to Independent (politician)? For time to time I run through all the incoming links to the dab page and end up making manual changes to each page where this occurs; if it's possible to do it in the template code, then I'd certainly appreciate it! TIA, --AndrewHowse (talk) 15:40, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

±%?

Doesn't "±" mean either positive or negative? Hence "±6%" means "either 6% or -6%." Shouldn't this be changed into, say, "+/-"? –HTD (ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens.) 16:27, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Color

Can the column's color prior to the party name be customizable for Template:Election box candidate? –Howard the Duck 18:32, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

• I would suggest you have a look at Template:Election box candidate AU party. This makes use of another template Template:Australian politics/party colours which is basically a lookup table of the colours for party names/abbreviations. Then you could create the corresponding templates for your part of the world. It might also be possible to make a lookup template of full names and wikilinks for the short names of each party. Sussexonian (talk) 10:24, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
  • It could've been easier if we can simply assign a color per template than using a meta one. –Howard the Duck 05:13, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
    • Agreed - it would have been easier to use some logic, the work-around as proffered by Sussexonian suggests s/he doesn't understand the problem as it still requires a metadata color template. Single issue/single candidate parties such as   Paint the Town Red Party,   Custard Party or   Fade to Grey Party should neither be listed as Independent nor assigned metadata just to keep a broken template in full employment. As {{Election box candidate}} was considered broken (and edit-locked) we've been using a version of this on New Zealand election articles (with customisable party color) which I've now renamed as {{Election box candidate minor party}} as it has uses beyond what it was made for. — FanN | talk 22:59, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Apostrophes in change column

If you take a look at Allen West (politician)#Electoral history, you will note that the winning candidate's row has an apostrophe in the ±% column. This seems to happen when the change parameter is left blank. Can somebody tell me where this comes from and what, if anything, is its purpose? –CWenger (^ • @) 23:01, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I have looked into this and tested the templates in my sandboxes. Basically, because nothing was input for the change= parameter, the template cannot parse it correctly with no input. the three leading and following apostrophes used to indicate bold thus wind up being six straight apostrophes. This produces the one apostrophe in the visible boxes.

I will go ahead and change the template to make this not show the apostrophe. After testing various scenarios, I do not think the change I make (adding a space in the template between '''{{{change}}} and the trailing ''' will change the visuals/output of any existing forms that have inputs. It just gets rid of the apostrophe if nothing is input.

That said, though, if the change parameter is not going to be used at all, it would be best to use

{{Election box begin no change}} and {{Election box winning candidate with party link no change}} instead of

{{Election box begin}} and {{Election box winning candidate with party link}}.

Thank you. JoannaSerah (talk) 05:48, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Ambiguity of "majority"

Could the word "Majority" in the template Election box majority be changed to "Margin"?

The word is ambiguous: in the UK Parliament it means "more than 50%" whereas in individual constituences it means the margin the winner has over the 2nd place candidate. I believe there is a UK/US difference too. Other replacements are possible but "Margin" seems best to me e.g. if the margin is small you have a marginal seat. Anweald (talk) 12:32, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I strongly agree with this proposal. I haven't mastered Anweald's word-analyis: To me there's no ambiguity. The problem I encountered is with a three-candidate race where the winner had only a plurality. "Margin" would serve my purpose best too. I'm working on Maine gubernatorial election, 1974. I guess I'll leave it as "Majority", there, for now. The plurality problem shows up here, too. 20:35, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Update: I've figured out how to ask for this edit to the protected template and have reached out to Anweald and explained it all at his/r talk page. I believe we are -- or I am -- moving toward a formal proposal. If there are any opinions pro or con, please register them here now. Thanks. Swliv (talk) 21:51, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Was just thinking about the change and must say that I, too, wondered about the terminology. Although the word majority is wikilinked on the doc page, it isn't wikilinked in the template itself. Also, even if it was wikilinked, the article on majority wouldn't really describe the figure represented extremely well. I didn't create that one, but wonder if it said "majority" instead of writing out the longer phrase "margin of victory" which is more descriptive. Honestly, though, I really don't see the need for the template at all. (Mind you, because it's not a required template, I'm not asking for it to be removed.) Do we really have to do simple math for most readers? This isn't usually info that comes from a citation anyway, but is calculated by the editor putting it in. Even in parliamentary elections where you might have several people/parties running, generally we put the winner on top and the runner up next. Don't we? If readers want to figure that out, it shouldn't be that hard. But getting back to the main question, I would support something different along the lines of "margin" or "margin of victory". Thank you. -- JoannaSerah (talk) 00:41, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome. And you give me the idea of just deleting it since "it's not a required template" if it really clashes with "local meaning" in a particular case. Anweald had a few more thoughts at his/r talk page. I'm not rushing at this point. I expect I'll get to it at some point unless good counter-argument develops. Anyone else is welcome to push it ahead on their own if they wish.

Your comments about whether it's necessary at all have given me some helpful perspective on the whole thing. And I appreciate your support for the change: I think I'd stick with the shorter "Margin" alone unless there were objections. Thank you. Pleasant surprise, really! Swliv (talk) 01:14, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

No graph appears on Wiki-cy

The graph isn't generated on Wiki-cy (Welsh) here. Can someone check, please. The Welsh word for "Template" is "Nodyn". Many thanks, - Llywelyn2000 (talk) 05:34, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Answered locally. Ruslik_Zero 19:01, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Request for help with party=none

Michigan gubernatorial election, 1986 contains |party=none in {{Election box candidate with party link no change}}, which generates a link of [[None|Nonpartisan]]. Since None is a disambiguation page, could someone with experience with these templates change it so it links to Nonpartisan (or somewhere other than the disambiguation page)? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 03:47, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I see how to do this, but wondering if there are other exceptions that we should account for also. For instance, just putting in the word "independent" links to a dab page, instead of "independent (politician)" which is correct. Are there others like this? Basically, should we make exceptions ("if" statements, etc.) in the code, or should we just state somewhere that people should only use "nonpartisan" or "independent (politician)" instead of "none" or "independent"? None does seem like it would be fairly common, but I've not looked through to see how often it is used yet. Thank you. -- JoannaSerah (talk) 14:17, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

For "Independent", I changed those instances to |party=Independent (politician), which generates a link of [[Independent (politician)|Independent]]. However, if the template could be changed to make this happen automatically, that would be cool. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 15:42, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Single-candidate party

How do I use {{Election box candidate with party link no change}} for a candidate who belongs to a party which is fielding just one candidate, who is not a true Independent (it's a single-issue party)? The documentation for the template merely states "see Template talk:Election box", so here I am. This is in regard to Oxfordshire County Council election, 2013#Henley-on-Thames, candidate Stefan John Gawrysiak (Henley Residents Group) and my source is Election results for Henley-on-Thames, 2 May 2013. I have commented out the party name, to avoid redlinks; but it still looks nasty. Do I really need to create a pair of templates like Template:Green Party of England and Wales/meta/shortname and Template:Green Party of England and Wales/meta/color? If so, how do I find out what colour to use? --Redrose64 (talk) 21:13, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Looks as if you have solved your own problem, the answer is in the template name, leave out "with party link". Sussexonian (talk) 21:05, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh yes, thanks. I should have noted that here. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:37, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

General Election

The word 'Election' is not a proper noun in this case and should thus not be capitalised in table headings. Are there any dissenting views? If not, I'll change the page accordingly. Schwede66 07:44, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

±% should be ±

Two things wrong: first, a change in percentage should not be expressed as a percentage, but rather as a percentage point (or point after the first occurrence). On tables it's typical to leave the % sign out, to avoid the ambiguity of plus or minus 10% (does that mean 40% moving to 44%, or 40 to 50?

You've all no doubt heard many times "three-point lead" ... same thing. Tony (talk) 04:07, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand. What do you mean by a percentage point? Can you give examples? Michael Hardy (talk) 01:05, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

I did give an example. So she received 40% of the vote last time, but gained a swing of 10%: does that mean she got 44% this time, or 50%? That is why it's common to distinguish between percentage and percentage point. The two-point lead is 51–49%. Tony (talk) 02:52, 14 July 2012 (UTC) PS and I see someone else has pointed this out above. Tony (talk) 02:56, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree the ±% column should be labelled ±%p or ±pp (whichever represents a percentage point change). To clarify (as it seems is needed), if a candidate receives 40% of the vote in one election and then 50% in the next election, the change is +10%p, not +10%. If 40 is increased by 10%, it amounts to just 44%, not 50%. A 25% increase is required to grow the candidate's vote from 40% to 50%. --141.105.209.188 (talk) 13:16, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

± should be +/−

± means +4(%) or -(4)%. The use here refers to a change in percentage point(s). –HTD 13:36, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Null edit

I've added template data to the documentation page, but per WP:VE/TDT someone needs to perform a null edit to the template to make it work. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 11:02, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

@Arms & Hearts: Not done: According to the page's protection level and your user rights, you should be able to edit the page yourself. If you seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:17, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Oops, right you are. I recently enabled Visual Editor and I think I saw "edit source" and mistook it for "view source". Thanks. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 12:21, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Adding hCard microformats

Unresolved

I've managed to add hCard microformats to several of these templates (see above, and this example edit), but have run into problems with templates like {{Election box inline candidate with party link no change}} because there's no hook on which to add a class, such that it applies to the whole <TR> element. Can anyone suggest how that might be done, please? Thank you. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 23:20, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Anyone? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:39, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

This is still marked as unresolved, even though it has been a long time. Not sure that it is an issue anymore, but wanted to go ahead and follow up just in case: Looking at the coding for the inline boxes, the {{Election box inline incumbent}} template already starts off the row with class="vcard". Since the incumbent is always there, all the other candidates' boxes should fall under that row's class, I believe. You wouldn't need to put a separate class="vcard" with the other inline ones such as {{Election box inline candidate with party link no change}}, just put in the class="org" or whatever in the appropriate places. Thank you. -- JoannaSerah (talk) 14:57, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Belated response; sorry. We need one class=vcard per person; but I hadn't appreciated that {{Election box inline candidate with party link no change}} appears on the same row as the incumbent template. That, separately, may be an accessibility issue; I've asked for advice at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Accessibility#Election candidate table rows. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:01, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

I see. That does present a problem since the incumbent could span multiple rows. Will have to think about that some more. Thank you. -- JoannaSerah (talk) 02:15, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

This is still an issue! Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:35, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Big chunks of colour - help?

Hi. Help is requested at Electoral results for the Division of Bennelong; the long candidate name in the 1998 result is causing the little party colour blobs to swell enormously when viewed through Google Chrome (but not in Firefox or Explorer for some reason). If anyone knows what is causing this issue their help would be much appreciated (prior discussion is at Talk:Division of Bennelong). Frickeg (talk) 13:09, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Replied there. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:26, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

"No change"

Ought to be the default for US elections as the concept is alien there. To do so, add "no change" for each mention of a template at the end of it ... "Template:Election_box_begin_no_change" will do the trick. This is in the archives, but I iterate it now as too many folks think the change percentage is a relavant stat in the US. Collect (talk) 16:51, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Colour in title bar?

Hi. I like this template, but I think that on pages with lists of many elections, one after the other, eg. Sutton & Cheam, it's not that easy to see where one election ends and another starts. Would there be any possibility of putting a bit of neutral colour into the election box header bar to help split up the elections, so it's easier to find the one you're interested in? Below is an example of what I mean. Thanks. Mmitchell10 (talk) 14:56, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

General election 2005: Strangford
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	+/- %

Semi-protected edit request on 18 February 2015

{{Election box candidate with party link|
 |party = Labour
 |candidate = Gemma McKenna
 |votes = 
 |percentage = 
 |change = 
}}

PDreczko (talk) 21:27, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

@PDreczko: if you want something to be changed please say what you actually want changed. For experimenting, you can use your sandbox (click on the link to create it). —George8211 / T 21:30, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

@PDreczko: Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the template {{Election box}}. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:21, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Remove leading empty lines

Please remove the leading empty line from the code of Template:Election box end to avoid the gap after the table in Myanma general election, 2015#State/Region Hluttaw. Petr Matas 17:04, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

 Done I've removed one of the newline characters. That seems to be enough to fix the problem at Myanma general election, 2015. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:23, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Petr Matas 23:01, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Automatic N/A

I appreciate the intent, but I've reverted the automatic insertion of "N/A" when the change field is left blank in Template:Election box candidate with party link. We can't assume the field has been left blank because it's N/A - editors may simply not have had data to hand or may have been otherwise unable or unwilling to complete it themselves. The change leaves no reasonable way for editors to proceed when making new entries and N/A is not appropriate, and is a surprising behaviour which is not mentioned in the template's documentation. Some of the confusion caused by this change and opposition to it may be found at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom#N/A confusion. NebY (talk) 12:41, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I answered here. BTW, could you add &thinsp ; between ± and %? --Obsuser (talk) 20:10, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Did you mean that you've answered at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom#N/A confusion? I've replied there. I can't think of any particular reason not to have a thinsp between ± and %. NebY (talk) 20:46, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes. Can you add it because it is locked? --Obsuser (talk) 04:49, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

I can't, quite reasonably given that the "Election box begin" templates are transcluded more than 18,000 times. NebY (talk) 09:38, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Number of electors

I have started adding the number of registered electors to election boxes. Here is an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_North_(UK_Parliament_constituency) I think it is interesting to readers to see the changes to the voter size of constituencies as well as disparities between constituencies, particularly given that boundary reviews have been an "issue" for some years. I didn't even think to look for election box templates and number of registered electors isn't included. I am proposing to include this in the template.

Keen to hear any thoughts before I do so.

Benawu2 (talk) 00:01, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Or not as the case may be so I went ahead and changed it.

Benawu2 (talk) 05:24, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Exposed possibly useless code

Please remove extra code from the top of Template:Election box candidate with party link. It looks like useless left-over crap.---Coffeeandcrumbs 03:26, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: That is just how it looks on the page when viewing the template. When it used in an article correctly there is no extra stuff. Galobtter (pingó mió) 06:46, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Percentages and changes when a normal election and casual vacancy byelection are combined.

In three wards in this week's Reading Borough council elections a normal election and a casual vacancy by-election were combined.

For example, in Church Ward, the result as on the RBC site was

Candidate	Party	Votes	Elected
CARNELL Paul	The Conservative Party Candidate	609
JAKEMAN Francis	Liberal Democrats	161
LAIRD Heather	Conservative Party Candidate	605
MANCUSO Riccardo	Liberal Democrats	115
MCCANN Kathryn	Green Party	268
MCEWAN Ruth	Labour Party	1129	Yes
PEARCE Ashley	Labour Party	1088	Casual vacancy

The result for the last normal election in 2016 was

Church 2016

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Eileen McElligott	985	50.5%
	Conservative	Paul Carnell	646	33.1%
	Green	Kathryn McCann	220	11.3%
	Liberal Democrats	Ben Thomas	100	5.1%
Majority
	Labour hold		Swing

Rendering the percentages by dividing each candidate's votes by the sum of all the votes and comparing that with their candidates percentage in 2016 gives

Church

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Ruth McEwan	1,129	28.4%	-22.1%
	Labour	Ashley Pearce	1,088	27.4%	-23.1%
	Conservative	Paul Carnell	609	15.3%	-17.8%
	Conservative	Heather Laird	605	15.2%	-17.9%
	Green	Kathryn McCann	268	6.7%	-4.5%
	Liberal Democrats	Francis Jakeman	161	4.1%	-1.1%
	Liberal Democrats	Riccardo Mancuso	115	2.9%	-2.2%

which is clearly not right because the 2016 percentages are deducted twice for the parties fielding two candidates.

Using just the higher vote where there is more than one candidate from the same party gives

Church

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Ruth McEwan	1,129	52.1%	+1.6%
	Labour	Ashley Pearce	1,088
	Conservative	Paul Carnell	609	28.1%	-5.0%
	Conservative	Heather Laird	605
	Green	Kathryn McCann	268	12.4%	+1.1%
	Liberal Democrats	Francis Jakeman	161	7.4%	+2.3%
	Liberal Democrats	Riccardo Mancuso	115

which is more sensible but looks odd for the second candidate for each party. Any bright ideas? Also, for hold / gain, should we show the change compared with the cllrs that have departed, whatever the result of the last election? Cavrdg (talk) 15:09, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Symbol column needed

In Pakistan, candidates are allotted symbols and those symbols identify them on the ballot paper so can we add an additional column called Symbol between Candidate and Votes column to accommodate addition of symbols for the candidates? Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 02:21, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Meaning of "no change" in candidate template

In a template for a candidate, such as {{Election box winning candidate with party link no change}}, what does "no change" mean? Jc3s5h (talk) 17:14, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Documentation example is broken

I don't know what the documentation example is supposed to look like, but I'm seeing "style="background-color: Template:NDP/meta/color; width: 5px;" |" in the upper left cell and similar code in the three other cells in the upper left corner. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:11, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

I have cleaned up the example a bit. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:01, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Change

Why was the election box template changed?VietPride10 (talk) 16:56, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

This template was last edited in 2013. You'll have to be more specific. Provide a link to an article where the template is not working as you expect it to. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:02, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: The election box no change template was change significantly reducing the width of it, (used on most US election articles), I was just wondering why it was changed after so much time & use. VietPride10 (talk) 19:09, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Please link to an article where this change is visible, or to the specific template that you are asking about. There are dozens of templates in the election box family, and there is not template called "election box no change". – Jonesey95 (talk) 12:26, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: My apologies, I am referring to this template: Template:Election box begin no change. It has been recently changed, where the width was significantly reduced. I was just wondering why the template was changed when they were no problems in the first place. This template is used on all major US election articles, for example the 2018 Arizona House elections. This recent change to the template leaves a lot of blank space on the page with the election box, and the election boxes are of varying widths, instead of one uniform size under the template before the recent change occurred. VietPride10 (talk) 18:49, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Let's ask Koavf why they changed the template without leaving an edit summary or a notice on this talk page. There is likely to be an explanation. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:29, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Determining the width of a table is one of the fundamental features of a browser in terms of layout: there is no need to either 1.) elongate cells with empty space or 2.) stuff them with information that doesn't fit on one line. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:20, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Koavf, is this just your opinion, or do you know of a section of MOS that addresses table widths? I was unable to find one. Help:Table explains in detail how to set table and column widths, and I was unable to find a version of your opinion on that page either. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:07, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

I do not know of a page in the MOS that mentions this, no. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:30, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

I think the template should be changed back for what my opinion is worth. Election results boxes of many different widths looks untidy. Benawu2 (talk) 05:28, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

I have reverted the change per this discussion and the previous status quo. If there is a WP guideline that supports removing these widths, that may justify further change. Thanks all for participating in good faith in this discussion. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:05, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks looks much better Benawu2 (talk) 11:33, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Swing

In this Template:Election box gain with party link, the "percentage change" in Swing makes more sense if it is placed in the last column (which is percentage change "+-"), rather than in the second last column (which is percentage "%“). Changes in the last three lines of the template code are suggested as follows:

! colspan="2" style="text-align:right;" | Swing
| style="text-align:right;" | {{{swing}}}
|-
 — Jojoyee^t@lk 16:19, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 1 July 2019

Please change Template:Election box winning candidate with party link no change according to the version in the Sandbox. This will fix som LintErrors if there is no content in for example the candidate parameter. Will also fix linterrors if the candidate paramater has a block level element, and remove an extra erroneous ' that will show if missing the candidate parameter. Tholme (talk) 21:59, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

 Done revert if it broke anything of course. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:40, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 30 November 2019

Replace with:

<!-- Election candidates and results template
     See Template_talk:Election box for details of how to use this template
     -->
|- class="vcard"
| style="background-color: {{Template:{{{party}}}/meta/color}}; width: 5px;" |
| class="org" style="width: 130px" | '''[[{{{party}}}|{{Template:{{{party}}}/meta/shortname}}]]'''
| class="fn" | '''{{{candidate}}} '''
| style="text-align: right; margin-right: 0.5em" | '''{{{votes}}} '''
| style="text-align: right; margin-right: 0.5em" | '''{{{percentage}}} '''
|-<noinclude>
{{documentation|1=Template:Election box winning candidate with party link/doc}}
[[Category:Templates generating hCards]]
[[Category:Election and referendum infobox templates]]</noinclude>

To match {{Election box winning candidate with party link}} –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 18:20, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: Please make the changes you are proposing in the sandbox for the template that you want to change, and then show in a testcases page how your proposed change makes things better. This is the talk page for Template:Election box, which is not a real template. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:54, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

 Done. Never mind, I figured out that this request was for {{Election box winning candidate with party link no change}}. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:00, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

No commas in vote count for Template:Election box winning candidate with party link no change and Template: Election box winning candidate with party link

I have noticed that the winning election box templates produce bolded numbers without any commas. Started noticing this around the end of 2019, unknown what changes (if any) occurred to make this happen.

BWellsOdyssey (talk) 03:59, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

It looks like I didn't proofread the above edit request carefully enough and deleted a "formatnum" from the template. My mistake. I have restored it. This set of templates desperately needs a set of testcases on its testcases page. Anyone care to create one? – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:09, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 15 January 2020

re Template:Election box winning candidate with party link no change if votes parameter is x it returns '''x''', but if votes parameter is blank it returns '''''' . (For the percentage parameter blank it correctly returns ''' '''.) Please fix behavior of blank votes parameter. —Anomalocaris (talk) 07:41, 15 January 2020 (UTC) Anomalocaris (talk) 07:41, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

The only difference I see is formatnum which has been variously added and removed in previous requests. Going around in circles 'til we stumble on the correct format isn't a viable option. So,

 Not done: please make your requested changes to the template's sandbox first; see WP:TESTCASES. And, as noted by Jonesey95 above, this is in sore need of some testcases. Cabayi (talk) 08:13, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

 Done. I got the other one, but missed this one. And yes, we still need testcases. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:57, 15 January 2020 (UTC)