I am nominating this for featured list because I feel that these types of lists on United States presidential elections have a great potential to be FL, and promotion of this list would help me in modifying 50 other similar lists. I almost completely re-formatted the list, added a lead, and key for political parties. It lists all the elections in which the state of Arkansas participated, with votes and percentage. I intend to make similar changes to all the lists within this series but first wanted to finalize the structure of the list, which would be best done during this process. I would respond to every comment, and try to bring this nomination to FL standards whenever needed. Check
this page for progress. Thanks! (49 states + Washington D.C. more to go) –
Kavyansh.Singh (
talk)
11:50, 18 July 2021 (UTC)reply
Sorting on the first table has some issues. Van Buren should sort under V, not B, and Cass sorts between Pierce and Polk for reasons that I cannot figure out
Maps could do with explanation. Presumably all the tiny subdivisions are counties? What about the colours - what do the different colours/shades represent?
For ref 1, if the authors are "The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica", those words should be shown in the correct order, not the weird format it currently has
Changes look good, but before I support I would like some input on the maps from somebody who knows more than me about accessibility issues - are there any concerns, for example, about people with eyesight issues being able to distinguish between light blue and light red, for example? --
ChrisTheDude (
talk)
07:23, 19 July 2021 (UTC)reply
@
ChrisTheDude: Sure, I'll wait for an accessibility review by
PresN or any other willing editor. I just took these maps from all the Arkansas election articles. Would definitely consider any possible alternative/solution for the maps. Thanks!
Kavyansh.Singh (
talk)
12:47, 19 July 2021 (UTC)reply
Hi @
ChrisTheDude – I have removed all the map images due to concerns about sources for the election results in each county. I guess, rest all of your concerns are resolved. Please let me know if anything else needs to be addressed. Thanks! –
Kavyansh.Singh (
talk)
16:36, 3 August 2021 (UTC)reply
Comment on the images: Right now I don't have time to check each of the election maps for copyright issues, although I'm concerned that the maps don't cite sources for the election results in each county. If you feel that the maps are adding significantly to the article, I would strongly suggest integrating them into the table where they can be seen along with the other information about each election, and adding discussion of regional variations in presidential elections in Arkansas. (
t ·
c) buidhe17:17, 26 July 2021 (UTC)reply
@
Buidhe – About copyright issues, I guess there wont be any big issue as all the maps are created by Wikipedia commons users, so they are published with a suitable licence. I too was curious about knowing the source for counties, which I had asked a user, but didn't get a response. I have contacted some more users who created maps for elections. Probably they can help. About integrating maps in the table, I think that can be done (
like in this version), but I am concerned about the width of the table. Still, would try. Thanks for your help! –
Kavyansh.Singh (
talk)
17:43, 26 July 2021 (UTC)reply
@
Buidhe – I have removed all the images of maps from the article due to lack of reliable sources (for exact county result). The only remaining image is a US map with Arkansas highlighted. Thanks! –
Kavyansh.Singh (
talk)
07:15, 6 August 2021 (UTC)reply
Fair warning: Since you've expressed an interest in modifying the other states' election articles to match this, I'm going to be a lot more nitpicky just so the standard is set in the right place. Hopefully, this will make any future nominations easier.
won Arkansas by 53.21% → won Arkansas with 53.21% (saying someone won by a given percentage implies the difference between their vote percentage and the runner-up's is that percentage, not that they received that percentage)
Since source 10 is only about Arkansas, I doubt it verifies that Arkansas was the only state in the presidential election of 1992 to be won by a majority of the popular vote.
I would suggest adding a semicolon instead of a period before the new source 10 so it is obvious that Clinton's results in the following line are for 1992.
RunningTiger123 (
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17:28, 1 August 2021 (UTC)reply
The wording for the note in the key is a bit awkward. I would suggest A double dagger (‡) indicates the national winner. (or something similar). Also, I would suggest placing the double dagger after the candidate's name and party in the table instead of before.
RunningTiger123 (
talk)
17:28, 1 August 2021 (UTC)reply
I would suggest moving the 1864 election to the same table as the 1860 election, for two reasons. First, this puts the Civil War-era elections together, offering more justification for creating a separate table. Second, since the 1860 table isn't sortable, there won't be sorting issues caused by having a cell span multiple columns.
Footnote e: What happens if multiple candidates each meet at least one requirement, as in the
1912 election?
That's possible. If that's the scenario for any other state, the candidate on the third position would be mentioned. (and maybe the candidate on the fourth position would be mentioned in an Efn.)
I agree with Buidhe's concerns about the images' reliability; there are no sources on the images' pages to verify the county-level data, so it is currently unsourced information and fails
WP:FLCR #3B.
Citations for Brill 1997 and Guide to U.S. Elections 2009 should use same date format as other sources (Month Day, Year). Additionally, both of these sources link to Google Books but have no preview available, so it would be better to omit the URL. Books don't need a URL; as long as there is an ISBN, it's cited correctly.
Firstly, there is considerable disagreement between the sources about the exact vote totals. I have thoroughly checked all the sources and prepared this table (here). The data from 1976 to 2020 is safe, as it is taken directly from Secretary of State of Arkansas' website (i.e. official certified result) Some of the older election (1880, 1920) have different results in different books. I have taken only those values in the article, which were verified by 2 or more sources. So, do I need to cite the sourced which disagree with the vote total? And, do I need to mention the same in the article?
Secondly, the data for maps (counties results) could be verified by
this website, which have county result of all the elections. These are the
sources which that website has consulted. Should I go ahead and mention this as the source for the map files?
For your first point, as long as the sources in the table match the information in the table, it's fine. (In other words, there is no need to list the disagreeing source unless you want to point it out.) For your second point, I would suggest reaching out to the people who created the maps and seeing where they got their data, then link to that on the file pages. I would not recommend adding the source you provided unless that is where the users got their data. Other comments are included above.
RunningTiger123 (
talk)
17:28, 1 August 2021 (UTC)reply
Hi @
RunningTiger123 – I guess I have made all the changes as specified, except the map sources. I had already asked some users who created the maps, but didn't got any response on sources. I have reached out to another user, hopefully they help me. If not, I will consider removing all the maps. Thanks for your review! –
Kavyansh.Singh (
talk)
10:44, 2 August 2021 (UTC)reply
Hi @
RunningTiger123 – I decided that the best possible alternative is to remove all the map images as (a) they don't cite sources for cross-verifying the shading (b) concerns regarding whether people with eyesight issues being able to distinguish between shading (c) purely decorative, I added images just because they were available, and doesn't really add up much to the article. Rest all of your concerns are resolved. Please let me know if anything else needs to be addressed. Thanks! –
Kavyansh.Singh (
talk)
16:34, 3 August 2021 (UTC)reply
Support – this seems like a good template for other lists, and if you choose to keep pursuing them, that would be a great addition to Wikipedia.
RunningTiger123 (
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01:58, 4 August 2021 (UTC)reply
Comment – Very interesting topic for a list. If this is going to be a series in the future (which I'd love to see), one thing that might be useful is noting any home-state candidates. For Arkansas, I know about Bill Clinton off the top of my head and there may be others I'm not aware of. If nothing else, mentioning this would help explain how he got a majority in 1992.Giants2008 (
Talk)
22:24, 5 August 2021 (UTC)reply
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Giants2008 – Thanks! I have added in a footnote that Arkansas was the home state of Bill Clinton (couldn't find any other candidate). Would surely consider mentioning candidates with home state in other lists. –
Kavyansh.Singh (
talk)
07:03, 6 August 2021 (UTC)reply
The lead consistently uses "in the presidential election of [year]" but there's a reason we put the year before "presidential election" in the article titles, so I'd suggest doing that. I see you did do that in the Utah list.
Sorry, I really don't like tooltips created by {abbr}, that's what the color and key (or a wikilink) are for. Maybe keep those for third parties, but it's really overkill to have it for all of the dozens of instances of (D) and (R). I also expect readers to know what % means, this doesn't need a tooltip for "percentage".
I have added party in parenthesis just to comply with Wikipedia's MOS for colors. As to the Abbr template, it wasn't added initially. But
RunningTiger123 suggested to add them, asserting that "readers don't have to keep scrolling to the key" [for checking parties again and again]. I agree with his point. As to using that template only in third parties, that would be inconsistent (In my opinion) –
Kavyansh.Singh (
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03:38, 10 August 2021 (UTC)reply
Okay well you still don't need it for %, that's a universal symbol, clear by its contents.
This is a nicely compact table, the second table of contents for the years seems excessive.
I guess that the TOC for years is fine. For Arkansas, we have elections from 1836 onward, but some states like Virginia have 57 elections. If I were to add TOC in Virginia list, I have to add here too for consistency in the series. –
Kavyansh.Singh (
talk)
03:38, 10 August 2021 (UTC)reply
It's not needed in the Virginia list either, it's only the slightest scroll between narrow table rows. This isn't what a table of contents is for and is excessive.
I don't quite get the three criteria for the Other candidate column – in which elections if any is the person listed not the third-place candidate in the state? This just lacks clarity.
United States presidential election is linked in the lead and shouldn't be in the see also too. Elections in Arkansas is linked in the navbox so I'm not sure the section's needed at all.
Why are Roosevelt and LaFollette pointed out in notes [b] and [c] in the key when no other candidates are?
Both are from the Party with the same name and same color ("Progressive"). It might confuse many. And there are some other "Progressive" Parties too (like Henry Wallace - 1948). I feel that footnoted are required. –
Kavyansh.Singh (
talk)
03:38, 10 August 2021 (UTC)reply
Aren't these colors arbitary?
Progressive Party (United States, 1912) says its color is red. There's also two populist parties. There's a few others like Liberal Republican and Populist-1984 that are only affiliated with one person so I'm still more confused why these two are pointed out when the separate listing in the key are clear enough they're not the same thing.
Be consistent about whether you include locations for publishers (I would unlink Baltimore, Maryland as well, as it seems unnecessary, but completely up to you).
References
Ref 2 needs a publisher/website/work or something
Hmm, in general, I think the "Guide to U.S. Elections" and "Presidential elections, 1789–1996" in the references should be italicized throughout—if this is something you'd agree with, you can do so fairly quickly with the find and replace under advance tools (top right of source editor, go to the magnifying glass, I believe)