Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Pakistani politics

RFC over Naming Convention for Electoral Constituencies in Pakistan

Elections are due to be held in Pakistan soon. New delimitations are underway after the 2023 Census results announced and preliminary report on delimitations has been issued by Election Commission of Pakistan as of now[1]. There has been alot of controversy regarding naming conventions for electoral constituencies in Pakistan on Wikipedia. It has been taken to Arbitration forum as well where it was declined and was advised to use Dispute Resolution mechanism. However it still remains unresolved and it is going to make things further worse after the final delimitations report will be announced in case we do not come with a formal policy in this regard.

Pakistani constituencies' titles in current form has many issues which can be deduced from previous discussions above but one thing is for sure that they are vague and confusing for readers. Let us look at an example,
PP-1 Attock-I is a constituency for Punjab Assembly. I searched PP-1 election results 2013 on Google and it brought the snippet mentioning 2013 Elections Shuja Khanzada of PML(N) won the seat by getting 38,971 votes transcluded from PP-1 Attock-I article while PP-1 in 2013 elections was PP-1 Rawalpindi-I where Raja Ashfaq Hassan of PML-N won the seat by getting 50,982 votes[2]. Shuja Khanzada's constituency in 2013 was called PP-16 Attock-II. Even in history section of the PP-1 article it does not mention about the 2013 results of PP-1 Rawalpindi-I but it mentions the results of the PP-16 Attock-II(which is why Google is bringing wrong information) while PP-16 as of now is PP-16 Rawalpindi-X. It is a complete mess and what if after new delimitations it is again changed?

I brought the issue previously to the talkpage of the constituency article with no response from other editors. An RfC was also proposed previously but it was not properly framed and the process was buldgeoned with discussions without coming to a point. A proper community consensus is required to have an outcome and I think the best course of action in this regard is to have an RFC again with all the proposed and viable options for naming. It will be helpful to have a formal policy for naming of Electoral Constituencies in Pakistan. Muneebll (talk) 14:58, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

First of all, I appreciate you seeking my opinion on this matter. I've been contemplating it for some time and had initially settled on one solution, but I've since come up with additional ideas that I'd like to share with you. Regarding Google search results, it's important to note that we have no control over their algorithm, and we must ensure factual accuracy on Wikipedia regardless of how Google presents information.

1. My initial solution was to create new constituency pages for each delimitation, except for those constituencies where the underlying area remains unchanged, such as the constituency for Chitral. In such cases, a single page can suffice. However, for constituencies that change from one delimitation to another, separate pages should be created for each delimitation. For example, if a constituency in the 2023 delimitation merges areas from three constituencies in the 2018 delimitation, there is no one-to-one correlation. Under this approach, we would abolish all three constituencies from the 2018 delimitation, preserving their pages as, for instance, NA-10 Chakwal-I, NA-11 Chakwal-II, and NA-12 Chakwal-III, while creating a new constituency page for the 2023 delimitation, such as NA-5 Chakwal-III.
2. A second idea I've recently considered is to maintain only the pages for the current delimitation but to obtain maps for all historical delimitations. We could then establish a one-to-one correlation by determining, for example, which current constituency encompasses the largest area from a 1970 constituency based on the maps, and adding the 1970 election results to that constituency's page.
3. Another idea I'm considering is to retain pages only for the current delimitation but to add historical results to multiple pages. For instance, if a constituency in the 1970 delimitation is divided into four constituencies in the 2023 delimitation, all four pages should include the results for that single 1970 constituency. This approach would involve a significant amount of duplication work, and I'm still undecided on the best course of action.

Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 05:45, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Third idea is the best. It would be much efficient and easy to manage. I also suggest we should add table "Result by constituency" which shows constituency name and its winner, runner-up and their vote share, % and turnout. constituency name should be linked to its constituency election result like 2018 Pakistan election and Imran Khan click on constituency name, it will lead you to its result. which would be much easier to find and see results for the readers. Saad Ali Khan Pakistan (talk) 07:24, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

RFC

I suggest the following proposals for RFC survey:

Option A: To have titles just with the constituency number like PP-1, NA-1

Option B: To have titles with both constituency number and area name like PP-1 Attock-I, NA-1 Chitral

Option C: To have titles with constituency number, area name and election year like PP-1 Attock-I (2023), NA-1 Chitral (2023)

Option D: To have titles just with the constituency name like PP Attock-I, NA Karachi-I

Survey

• Option C - More information is better. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:35, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
• Option A - This way we can find all previous constituency details on one page. No confusion and no need to worry about changes in constituency name or limitations every five or ten years. Otherwise, we have to move the titles of thousands of pages after every election. God knows, who lives to do that.--Ameen Akbar (talk) 17:05, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
• Option A is the only solution, there is no other way. Tahir Mahmood (talk) 08:24, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

  This is a statement of opinion without any explanation and may be disregarded by any closer. If you want to be taken seriously, you need to explain why you came to this conclusion. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 11:29, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

Pinging involved users previously @Saad Ali Khan Pakistan, امین اکبر, Obaid Raza, MPGuy2824, Robert McClenon, Cheel, and War Wounded. Muneebll (talk) 20:27, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Another option would be to just use the constituency names only i.e. Attock-2 or Rawalpindi-3. and have the appropriate PP-X redirect to the correct constituency name, as of now. In the future if the constituencies change numbers, the redirects would have to be corrected appropriately. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 05:10, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

I did consider your suggestion from above discussion but there are more problems with having that. Big cities have many constituencies which can be called Rawalpindi-I,II,III, IV etc but for smaller cities sometimes there are only one constituency and even two cities having single constituency so in such cases it is only referred by numbers which are also the common names for constituencies. Secondly we then have National Assembly constituencies as well along with Provincial Assemblies constituencies like NA-52, Rawalpindi-I. We need to have additional information for both these problems in brackets which will take us much away from having precise titles. Muneebll (talk) 07:56, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Please start by listing the total number of seats in the National Assembly and each of the four provincial assemblies since 2002 elections. Idol Destroyer (talk) 17:04, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

These make around a total of a thousand articles but in my proposed Option A, we don't have to create new articles everytime and it will solve this problem once and for all on Wikipedia. Muneebll (talk) 00:14, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

You haven't responded to the question I raised. What were the total no. of NA seats and PA seats of each of the four provinces in each election since 2002? Idol Destroyer (talk) 18:34, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

How is this relevant? · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 05:14, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

The devil is in the details. Idol Destroyer (talk) 07:27, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

That does not answer my question. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 10:19, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

As far as the National Assembly is concerned, please consider this:

Option D - Constituency's geographical area name followed by a Roman numeral if any and the years in parentheses e.g. NA Karachi I (1985-1997) / NA Karachi I (2002-2018)

Note: the NA had 237 seats at the time of 1985, 1988, 1990, 1993 and 1997 elections. While, during the 2002, 2008, 2013 and 2018 elections, the NA had 342 seats in total. The no. of contested seats may vary.

In each election, there's a possibility that certain constituencies are rendered defunct and a few new ones emerge because of demographic changes.

Apparently as the numbering of the NA seats changes in every election and is done merely as a placeholder, it must be ditched altogether from the title (see: List of members of the 15th National Assembly of Pakistan).

Further, it is the geographical area that is the actual constituency rather than some number. Idol Destroyer (talk) 17:08, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

As much as I understood from your response, you want the constituency number to be removed altogether and have it just as the constituency's geographic name and the relevant prefix. It is somewhat similar to the option MPGuy2824 suggested above. So I think it is a plausible option to be added to RfC as the Option D. Muneebll (talk) 15:23, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

I would rather see more information about districts and constituencies for articles about elections in the United States, where I know a few of the regions in a big country, and I think that more information would be useful both for Pakistani editors and for British or American or New Zealand editors. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:36, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

The problem with having such titles is that we have to make around 1000 new articles for all the constituencies with every new elections. Plus what do we do of the problem we're facing with current articles as highlighted above? Muneebll (talk) 07:22, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

An article title should be correct and where possible unambiguous and informative to the reader. The full title is usually more informative, and for something like this, probably specifically chosen to be unambiguous in context, so in this case, what are the full, official titles of the constituencies? Do they not serve the purpose? (I assume there are no unambiguous "common names" for constituencies?) · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 04:10, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

The current titles are full official title like PP-1 Attock-I, however they are vague for reasons cited above. With every new delimitations, they change. Common names for constituencies mostly are numbers like PP-1 and a reader looking for PP-1 Elections results in 2013 is mislead to PP-16 since in 2018 elections PP-16 (Attock) became PP-1 while PP-1(Rawalpindi) of 2013 became PP-16 in 2018 elections. Muneebll (talk) 07:38, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

From the content of the linked article, it seems that the PP number alone is not very useful as the sections list different numbers, presumably the one that was valid for the content of the section.
I assume the important part is the geographical area. I assume the constituency names alone can be ambiguous, as thry may also be used for other purposes, but would they be unambiguous if combined with a class identifier (disambiguator) such as Attock-2 (Pakistan constituency)? Redirects like PP-1 (2023) could take the reader to the right page directly, while a disambiguation page would be needed for just PP-1 as a year would be needed to distinguish the right region target. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 12:09, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

I think you need to define the scope of the page(s). That should help with the naming problem, as each name should suggest the scope of the associated page. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 12:15, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

I assume NA means national assembly. Does PP mean provincial parliament or something like that? Are the same constituencies used for both elections, or could they change between elections? Could PP-1 (2023) and NA-1 (2023) both exist and be different areas? · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 12:24, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Currently the articles are focused on geographic areas of constituency and the area with whichever number it had in past is included in history section but geographic area is also subjected to changes and new areas are included while some areas are subtracted after new delimitations. Redirects alone will not be suffice as it still does not solve the problem when geographic areas within a constituency undergoes changing. Furthermore the history section of article listing a different constituency number is confusing for readers as I explained above and search engines are also misleading for that reason.

Constituency numbers/name alone as PP-1/NA-1 will not be ambiguous for the local readers in Pakistan as these are the common names. For Wikipedia we may need to disambiguate some titles if there exists a similar title already. These articles in history section will list all the results of PP-1 whichever city it was previously which will be convenient for readers and they will not be mislead by search engine too.

NA means National Assembly while PP stands for Province Punjab. Similarly we have PK, PB, PS, GBA, LA for other provinces and administrative units. PP-1 and NA-1 are areas totally distant from each other. There's no underlying problem as to the differentiation between provincial and national assembly constituencies. The main focus here is confusion surrounding constituency titles and content. Muneebll (talk) 00:08, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

So in option A, where the name would be PP-1 or something else following that pattern, the region would vary depending on the year, and the content of the article would presumably consist of sections for each election year, which would. amongst other information, specify where PP-1 was that year, which might be comprehensible to the local readers in Pakistan, but would be rather opaque to the rest of the world. Or am I missing something? Cheers · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 10:38, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Could you give examples of proposed full titles for typical constituencies that would result from each of the options. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 10:47, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

PP-1 in 2013 was in Rawalpindi while in 2018 it was in Attock. In 2023 if it is changed or remains same with minor changes than according to proposed Option A, PP-1 will be updated accordingly in the lede section along with full title while in history section we will mention where it has been previously along with full official titles.

It won't be opaque for people outside Pakistan because if anyone having interest in Pakistani elections will be needing the information same way like any Pakistani reader. Let us suppose an international reader is interested to know about Imran Khan's home constituency in Mianwali. When he first stood for elections in 1997 it was NA-53 Mianwali-I, in 2002 and 2008 it was NA 71-Mianwali-I, in 2013 and 2018 it was NA-95 Mianwali-I and recently the constituency is NA-89 Mianwali-I. He was elected as PM of Pakistan from NA-95 Mianwali-I in 2018 Elections. An international or local reader searching on Google and Wikipedia for NA-95 constituency of Imran Khan's PMship in 2018 will be mislead to NA-95 Faisalabad-I which it is currently.

How proposed titles will look like according to all the options are mentioned along with the options in survey. I have highlighted it for readers' ease. Muneebll (talk) 09:39, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

It seems quite possible that the titles may in some cases need to be disambiguated if anything else gets an article with that title. What disambiguation term/s would you propose? · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 12:19, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

How would our hypothetical reader know which constituency was Imran Khan's home turf for any specified election? · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 12:19, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Have you defined the scope of these pages yet? If so, please mention where. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 12:30, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

If we needed to disambiguate a page, it could be something like NA-1 (Pakistani constituency) or just NA-1 (constituency). About second question I'm open to more inputs that what should be the scope of changes in history section of the article for a reader to get better information about the constituency article he/she is viewing. I have mentioned the need, object and goals for these changes both in RFC above and in discussion, in short it is to change the titles to common names for ease and convenience of readers as well as editors and to address the ambiguity surrounding confusing search results. By having a formal policy will end this constituencies' naming dispute once and for all. Muneebll (talk) 16:29, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Those disambiguators seem appropriate. The reason to define the scope is that the title must be compatible with the scope, so if you define the scope it is relatively easy to see if the proposed titles are appropriate or not. If the scope is undefined it is difficult to tell whether the title is right as different people may assume different scopes from the same title. I have no particular opinion on what should be in these articles, my interest here is purely in finding a solution to the title problem, and for that the problem should be as clearly defined as possible. I suggest you set up a personal sandbox page with dummy section headers and see if it all hangs together coherently, through the kinds of change you can expect. That should help you describe the scope. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 17:31, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

• Ameen Akbar, you say This way we can find all previous constituency details on one page. No confusion and no need to worry about changes in constituency name or limitations every five or ten years.. This would depend on what information is intended to be put on each page, bringing us back to the scope definition. What information do you envisage being provided on a page of this sort, and how would it be formatted to avoid changes if the constituency is revised? Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 07:28, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for the above ping. I will comment another day when I have time.--Cheel (talk) 22:21, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

I have created a Sample Constituency page, that show we can combine all new data in single page without any confusion. I had discuused about this in past which detail is HERE. Ameen Akbar (talk) 20:27, 3 November 2023 (UTC)