Talk:List of political parties in the United Kingdom

Mass content removal

Rambling Rambler There has not been a consensus on this talk page in favour of mass removing cited content involving parish councillors. Your edits also messed up the long-maintained order of parties by number of elected representatives in the "Local" section. A consensus should really be established here before mass content removal. If one is found we can restore back to your last edit, though it will require work to re-establish the correct order of parties by number of elected representatives. Helper201 (talk) 09:07, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes there has, it's almost directly above you, which you were involved with. Instead you mass reverted and reinserted significant amounts of uncited and out of date material making the actually significant principal authority level representation completely incorrect because for some reason you alone want to store spotty parish council figures even though it's not considered a principal authority and not considered a notable level of political party representation to the point independent records of political makeup of these councils aren't kept. Rambling Rambler (talk) 11:55, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Also what are you on about with "messing up the long-maintained order" when the list is sortable by heading, including number of councillors. Rambling Rambler (talk) 12:03, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Let's use Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle here please. You needn’t have simply reverted before we discussed this. You have made very large removals to what has long been established here via a collaborative effort of many editors over a long time. I’d firstly ask that you please respect the time and effort that has been put into this page by other editors when thinking about mass content removal.

To begin, there is no consensus in the above discussion. Plus, that was almost a year ago and you were not involved in it. Instead of getting rid of uncited information you could look to cite it. Also, you don't know that I alone want the page this way. It would seem no one has had a problem with the long-maintained status quo before these significant changes you've made. Very few people were involved in a discussion only partially related to this and what was discussed was almost a year ago with no consensus on this matter. More could get involved if you want to open a WP:Rfc. What is notable is subjective. There are no criteria on Wikipedia outside page creation for what is and is not notable, its subjective. So, one’s own personal view of notability doesn't justify mass removal of cited information. Yes, the table had a sortable heading but it was still kept in descending order as to not do so would confuse the reader as to why higher represented parties were above lower ones. The main issue is mass removing this information instead of finding additional and updated sources does not improve the page, it in fact makes the reader less informed. Instead, it would be far more beneficial to add and update citations rather than mass removing information that many editors have taken a lot of time and effort to add to this page over a long period. Helper201 (talk) 14:40, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

TLDR; Correct, update, improve and add citations, this is far more beneficial than removing. Helper201 (talk) 14:47, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

"Let's use Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle here please."

Except you yourself aren't adhering to that, so glass houses.

"Revert an edit if it is not an improvement, and only if you cannot immediately refine it."

Instead of attempting to discuss the inclusion of completely uncited and/or trivial parish and town council information that formed a single column of the table, you instead blanket reverted the entire article, undoing everything that I spent several hours updating several tables that were unaffected to actually be reliably sourced and correctly cited. So now, once again, the majority of the information you have inserted is completely afoul of wikipedia's policies on verifiability and WP:OR.

"Instead of getting rid of uncited information you could look to cite it."

There are more than 10,000 parish councils in England alone, with no reliable centralised publications I can find detailing the total number of representatives across them each group has. There is therefore no source to cite to confidentially state total members each group has at the completely trivial level that is parish/town level (probably because no one wants to document ~100,000 representatives who change colours every five minutes), and using different sources for each parish council if taken at different times is likely to fall afoul of Synthesis rules.

You claim that there was a "long-maintained status quo" but that status-quo was completely unsourced and therefore I need no reason to remove it. Instead the burden lies with you:

Yes, the table had a sortable heading but it was still kept in descending order as to not do so would confuse the reader as to why higher represented parties were above lower ones

You've literally there just admitted it can immediately be put into descending order by clicking the heading. So there is no problem.

If you want to have a RFC that's fine, but I'm going to revert it back to the version that I made actually compliant with rules on citations and verifiability. If you want the unreliable, WP:OR parish table then you need to get support for it. Rambling Rambler (talk) 15:22, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I could not see how I could refine mass removal. A lot of what you have removed WAS cited. You could have just removed what was not cited. And what about the hours that people had put into that "trivial" parish and town council data that was here long before you arrived? Does that mean nothing? A lot of those 10,000 will likely be politically independent. We have a finite number of registered parties here and only have to attribute parish and town councillors that belong to a registered politically party, not independents. We could even limit this to only including registered political parties with a Wikipedia page. And no, the status-quo was not "completely unsourced", you've removed a massive number of sources in your edits. Yes, I "admitted" the table could be sorted, but as I brought up the WP:READER, who may not know how to this and the new order which had no viable rhyme or reason could definitely confuse readers as to why it was now ordered as such. Helper201 (talk) 15:37, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

"A lot of what you have removed WAS cited."

The principal authorities, sure. Out of date though, which is why I updated them. No central sources for all parish/town council seats by party/group though so uncitable.

"A lot of those 10,000 will likely be politically independent."

Cite it.

"We have a finite number of registered parties here and only have to attribute parish and town councillors that belong to a registered politically party, not independents."

Cite them.

"And no, the status-quo was not "completely unsourced", you've removed a massive number of sources in your edits."

A handful were sourced with links to individual councils. That in no way proved that was the total number of representatives at that level across all non-principal authorities in the UK. Ergo, they're effectively unsourced for a table detailing total numbers of representatives across the UK.

"Yes, I "admitted" the table could be sorted, but as I brought up the WP:READER, who may not know how to this and the new order which had no viable rhyme or reason could definitely confuse readers as to why it was now ordered as such."

Any reasonable person would understand the table was sortable given it has clear indicators it was. Rambling Rambler (talk) 15:43, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Please at the very least sort the "Local" section by number of councillors. This is going to confuse a lot of readers as to the new random order who don't know about table sorting (the vast majority of readers don't edit Wikipedia and many don't know about its functions). A lot of time and work had gone into that by multiple editors. Helper201 (talk) 15:54, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm trying to find solutions forward here. There's been no consensus for this, I've suggested you open an rfc and that we could just list registered parties with a Wikipedia page. We don't need to cite indepdendents, this article is about political parties. As stated here "The NALC says parish councils tend to be run by independent candidates, with no party affiliation.". So that eliminates a large chunk of those 10,000. Helper201 (talk) 16:01, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Rambling Rambler I made a start on the "Local" section for you. I'd appreciate it if you could please finish it since it was your edit that changed it to the non-descending order. Helper201 (talk) 16:13, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't need doing because the table is sortable and the reasonable person is going to see that the table is sortable. When I'm done, if you want to be so pedantic as to manually change every line to be a certain way (even though in the diff you keep reverting to it wasn't even correct then) that's for you to do.

Also that BBC article still doesn't deal with the core problem. Show a database similar to OpenCouncilData but for town and parish councils, otherwise you have no RS to claim countrywide totals by party at that level. Rambling Rambler (talk) 16:17, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

It’s not about being "reasonable" it’s about the reader and whether they will know how to use the sort function, which many won't. I'm asking you to do this one thing and trying to accept everything else. That's not exactly a bad trade off. Please work with me here. There may have been the odd mistake in the last one but a lot of work had been done to try and get it and keep it in the right order. Its also not pedantic, every other party is ordered in a particular way according to elected repetitives (not all via a pure total metric). I'm asking this one thing. Please, it shouldn't be for others to fix what they didn't disorder. Helper201 (talk) 16:44, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

If you want to continue this pretense that the typical, reasonable reader of the site would somehow be of the faculties to access Wikipedia but not have the same ability to understand that a table whose headings have the universal indicators it is sortable is indeed sortable and can just be clicked to list every number in descending order, and use that to justify manually reordering every line then that is entirely for you to do. Rambling Rambler (talk) 17:07, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I explained why the new order could be confusing given the logical order of the old one. I've tried to provide multiple avenues of WP:COMPROMISE on different fronts and tried to be as reasonable as I can ask you for this one thing of which you have caused. Yet you are putting the burden of what you have caused on others. You've literally getting everything in these changes your own way without getting the views of any rfc or compromising on your mass removal. The least you can do is make things work as they did before. Helper201 (talk) 17:17, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

You're not being reasonable. As shown by the last diff (yours btw) before I made any changes you yourself were quite happy with it not being in numerical descending order.[1]

So stop trying to pull the other one. Rambling Rambler (talk) 17:33, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

It was in descending order by the total number of councillors (councillors + parish councillors). I'm not trying to pull anything. Helper201 (talk) 17:47, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Hold on, so now you're arguing that pressing the clearly indicated sort button is beyond the typical user, but your previous completely arbitrary system where you decided the order by adding together multiple columns without making that clear is perfectly reasonable.

You really are pulling the other one. Rambling Rambler (talk) 17:50, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

No, I'm not. To me the fact the previous columns were ordered by totals was obvious. You can bold your text all you like it doesn't change the fact that table sorting is not obvious to many Wikipedia readers and the non-sensical order the local section is now in. Why the heck would I want to pull anything on this? I’ve been putting work into this page long before you were here. Helper201 (talk) 18:06, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

"To me the fact the previous columns were ordered by totals was obvious"

"I’ve been putting work into this page long before you were here"

But that's what I think this is all really about. It was how you like it on the page you clearly think you own. Rambling Rambler (talk) 19:04, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

You're being very accusatory here. I don't in any way think I own this page. As I said, I've proposed multiple compromises and ways forward. YOU are the one that has bulldozed ahead and not accepted any compromises or alternate routes forward by reverting back to your own edits until you get your own way. Helper201 (talk) 19:16, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. This long-maintained article ordering system has been needlessly disrupted without any prior consensus being reached. @Rambling Rambler really should have consulted others on the talk page before making such a bold, controversial, and frankly (in my opinion) quite unnecessary adjustment to the article. @Rambling Rambler seems to have ignited a bit of an edit war, and I think this user was very much at fault here. His/her behaviour in this talk page only seems to confirm that. I propose that the original format be restored. It was certainly a strange decision by @Rambling Rambler to edit the article so that no distinction whatsoever is made between large active political parties with several parish councillors and smaller less-active parties with no representation whatsoever. Alistair McBuffio (talk) 11:27, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Additionally, @Rambling Rambler has now taken to attempting to report me to completely random admins for utterly irrelevant reasons. The admin he/she contacted quite rightly refuted these ridiculous allegations made against me. All of this only seems to confirm to me that this user is very much at fault here. Alistair McBuffio (talk) 14:53, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Furthermore, the effects of @Rambling Rambler's bizarre edits appear to have caused the spread of misleading information, now that at least one article has incorrectly claimed Reform UK has five councillors after its author likely researched this information on Wikipedia after these inappropriate edits were made. @Rambling Rambler appears ignorant of the fact that Reform UK has a further six councillors in Derby. This user has caused enough damage already and has only grown more hostile with his/her attempts to spread accusatory lies about me to random admins. Alistair McBuffio (talk) 15:00, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I asked for advice from an uninvolved admin because your contribution history is nearly entirely involved with promoting a singular far-right party you yourself state to be a supporter of and therefore am suspicious you're a single-purpose account wanting to use Wikipedia as a promotion ground. What makes them seem certainly more the case is that you're now trying to claim I'm "spreading misinformation" when Reform Derby is a completely different party to Reform UK as the source you're using as evidence openly states. Rambling Rambler (talk) 15:35, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Alistair McBuffio In regards to Reform UK and Reform Derby. On Open Council Data UK, these are listed separately as their own separate and individual political parties, per Reform UK and Reform Derby. If a third-party source such as this defines them as separate then we should go with that. To combine these two data points violates WP:SYNTH. Helper201 (talk) 04:48, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:List of political parties in Abkhazia which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 16:28, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Party Descriptions

Why is this the only page that contains a table specifically for written descriptions of a countries political parties and their internal factions? I don't see this being done for France or Germany or the US for example. Tamblingb (talk) 03:07, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Inclusion of minor left-wing political parties

User:Helper201 has been repeatedly removing various minor left-wing political parties from the list; they have not attempted to gain consensus for this, but have presented various arguments in comments as to their reason - initially, that they are not registered political parties; then, that they aren't political parties "full stop"; and most recently, that their repeated removal of the content means that there is no consensus for its inclusion and therefore the onus is on gaining a consensus to reinstate the content they deleted! Rather than get into a cycle of deletion and reversion, it does seem a useful opportunity to discuss whether this list should include all notable political parties in the UK, or exclude some - e.g. ones which are not registered, or which do not regularly stand candidates in elections. Warofdreams talk 22:17, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I have no strong view on this but if they are political parties it should be easy to locate reliable sources which that characterise them as political parties. That will resolve the dispute in favour of retention. Cambial — foliar❧ 23:12, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Literally none of them on their respective pages are cited as political parties. I don't see what the problem is here, that's pretty simple and clear cut. Also, WP:ONUS is very clear, "The responsibility for achieving consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content.". Helper201 (talk) 13:15, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Third largest party

The lead says "The Liberal Democrats were the third largest party until the 2015 general election when they were overtaken by the Scottish National Party in terms of seats and UK political party membership, and by the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in terms of votes." How should this be changed, since they're the third largest party again? Do we just remove the until part, or add that they regained the "third largest party" status to the end of the text? AkiyamaKana (talk) 12:34, 8 November 2024 (UTC)