The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was not promoted by Giants2008 21:58, 15 December 2009 [1].

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List of Parliamentary constituencies in Hertfordshire[edit]

Nominator(s): WFCforLife (talk) 11:58, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Featured list candidates/List of Parliamentary constituencies in Hertfordshire/archive1

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This article has come quite a long way since I first saw it, and has just undergone a peer review. I think this is a model that all lists of its type should follow, and based on this FLC I intend to create similar lists for all areas in time for the next general election. I believe I've learnt from the mistakes I made in nominating my first Featured List a bit prematurely, and invite your comments. Thank you, WFCforLife (talk) 11:58, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from The Rambling Man (talk) 09:57, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Don't normally bold links... Done. Is that image caption a complete sentence? If not then no full stop required. Done. To be sure, put (UK) after first use of United Kingdom. I've done it on the second use, because I didn't want to bold United Kingdom (UK). "Nine of Hertfordshire's eleven..." I would give this a timeframe, i.e. "following the 2005 General Election, ... " or whatever... Added. "the City of" any reason why "City" is capitalised? Fixed. Originally I was thinking of linking to City of St Albans. "newly formed" hyphenate. Done. Consider linking Watford and Hitchin appropriately. Done. On a related note, do you think I should link the constituencies I've listed in 1983? They come so close to the timeline that it just feels like overlinking. " In this period the United Kingdom experienced a 60% growth in population.[5" - what "period"? Do you mean from 1885 to 1950? Added 1885 to the previous sentence, I believe it makes sense now. Could link " general election in 1955" appropriately. Done. "The next national boundary review affecting Hertfordshire came into effect" - this reads as the review came into effect, not the boundary changes. Changed "review" to "change". Don't use green-only - use a symbol as well. Not done. The green does not convey any information that can't be obtained from the year ranges. Lamb's caption - use en-dash for year ranges, and this doesn't need a full stop either. Done. "with the exact dates " - I just see years, not exact dates... Rephrased. The exact dates would be needless detail, but I felt it worth explaining that the change didn't happen on 1 January. "spend more per head" - could you expand on this? I feel that this would be going slightly off topic. The exact details can be found from both the wikilink and the reference. "seats transferred from" wouldn't we normally phrase this like "Labour gained three seats from..."? Labour wouldn't normally gain three seats from anyone ;). Rephrased accordingly. Not sure why the changes in 2010 are in a subsection of the 2005 section. I'd put it as a level 2 hdg. Done, although I think either was appropriate. Despite the title, the section is quite closely related to the 2005 one. 2nd Gen Ref needs an endash Done (and moved the corresponding page accordingly). Refs 7, 10, 12 need en-dash and normally we use "pp. " for page ranges. Done. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:06, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply] Thanks for the comments, WFCforLife (talk) 15:56, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Support: I recently carried out a peer review, during which the standard of this list passed from goodish to excellent. It is definitely the best constituency list within the project, and could be a template for a series of similar lists that would provide a superb resource for the next and future UK General Elections. Great work. Brianboulton (talk) 16:42, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support withheld until the issue below has been settled and the corrections confirmed. The openness is appreciated. Brianboulton (talk) 23:50, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's been brought to my attention off-wiki that there are multiple issues with the timeline. On the whole this was simply me miscounting the columns, and an incorrect correction. But there seems to be a serious omission concerning Hemel Hempstead. The table cannot be considered reliable until I've had the opportunity to cross-check all of the twentieth century constituencies, and if I have to use the Craig book, this will not happen until Monday. Feel free to review the rest of the list in the meantime, but I thought it was important to be open about this. WFCforLife (talk) 21:35, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: in the map showing the changes in 2010, would it be possible to shade the areas which are moved to make them stand out more? Polarpanda (talk) 10:44, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I think the two biggest changes (between constituencies 3, 6 and 9) are very noticeable. For the smaller ones the geographic area is so small that I'm not sure of the benefit. I'll have a think about it, but I think it would be wrong to do one thing for some changes and another for others. WFCforLife (talk) 13:47, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: Has this article talked itself out of being a list? It no longer seems to conform to any of the formats in WP:SAL - would it be better renamed to Hertfordshire (parliamentary constituencies) or even Hertfordshire (democratic structure) as it also lists all the local democracy wards by locally elected authority as well as by parliamentary constituencies; and it also lists the current elected members, so it's actually four lists in one. Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:29, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Putting aside the fact that those names need tweaking, I'm not sure I understand your point.

The local authorities are there partly because they're the simplest way of describing the boundaries and boundary changes, and partly for the benefit of a serious researcher, who could conceivably be interested in the relationship between local and national politics. If you wanted to know about an individual district (or the local politics within it) you would go to the individual district's page. Those admittedly aren't up to scratch yet, but they should go into far more detail than this does.

As for MPs, it strikes me as a somewhat bizarre concept to have a list about the political makeup of a county, and then make no reference to the politics. I then had the choice between listing political party only, or political party and MP, and opted for the latter. Similar to the local authorities, I've covered what I've deemed to be relevant, with more detailed information for each constituency to be found on those pages.

I'm not claiming that my judgement is perfect (or even correct) on these areas, but I don't see how that stops this from being a list. I would have thought the question is whether or not the "list" goes into needless detail. WFCforLife (talk) 22:43, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the detail is inappropriate or ott - except that I think it might (and I only say 'might' - it's very possible no-one else will agree with me :) have taken it out of the 'List' class. Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:18, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fair comment I suppose. Ultimately the judgement is for the wider community, but I'd ask whether a similar job on London would be considered a list, and if so, what makes this different? WFCforLife (talk) 10:09, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you did it for London, the amount of text you would need to explain the changes would be higher, and the big table (local electoral ward by local administrative authority by parliamentary constituency) would be absolutely enormous. Again, it would be a tremendous resource, but it wouldn't be a list. Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:25, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Been back again and looked at everything Wikipedia has to say about lists. In my opinion, this article is definitely not a list article as defined by Wikipedia. Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:32, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I accept that your argument is consistent. While also accepting that I clearly have a conflict of interest, I still disagree. To respond to it, an individual constituency would be the same size as individual constituencies here. There certainly is precident to include maps in lists, and I believe the text would not be significantly longer, because it would clearly be inappropriate to go into such detail in the prose. With the number of constituencies at one time never exceeding 11, it was appropriate here. WFCforLife (talk) 12:55, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We really could do with a few more voices on this. Since it's not really a FAC question, I wonder if there's anywhere else we can raise it. Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:30, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) If you want more voices on the topic, you can start a thread at WT:FLC. See also related lists at Wikipedia:FL#Politics and government to see how this compares. Dabomb87 (talk) 13:38, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think WT:FLC would be a good starting point. As I've got a conflict of interest, I'll leave it to Elen to start a thread. If the consensus is that this is an article rather than a list, (or there is significant participation yet no clear consensus) I'll withdraw the nom. WFCforLife (talk) 14:18, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thread started

I'd like to withdraw the nom. Partly because I'm busier than I'd planned on at the moment, but also because on reflection this process won't be particularly useful until there is clear-ish consensus on whether this is an article or a list. The distinction matters, because it affects the criteria by which this is assessed, a judgement on whether or not it is comprehensive or goes into too much detail, and the potential scope for improvement. I don't actually know the technical steps for withdrawing this, so if anyone does I'm more than happy for you to do so on my behalf. If the outcome of discussion is that this is a list, I would most likely re-nominate in six weeks or so. WFCforLife (talk) 01:44, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.