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Proposed Merger

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The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
While the numerical majority here is in favour of merging, I believe this is one of those cases where it is necessary to close oppositely to that majority. Opposers of merging cite relevant policy and guidelines like WP:NOTSTATS and WP:LENGTH. Contrariwise, there is a noticeable paucity of such arguments in the comments of supporters. Some suggested including the statistical tables in collapsed form, but MOS:COLLAPSE was cited as a counterargument to this. Considering all of the above, I find no consensus to merge. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 11:26, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]


I propose merging Results of the 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum into this page. I can't see any utility in the split, and a lot of potential confusion. Please indicate your support or opposition. Riposte97 (talk) 10:30, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Support as proposer. Riposte97 (talk) 10:33, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The page was created for state and territory results and individual seat results. QLDer in NSW (talk) 10:45, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Really don't see why two sepeate pages are needed. The individual seat results can go in the main article. --SHB2000 (talk) 11:14, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. There is no need for results to be included in both this article and a separate article. Ultraodan (talk) 11:25, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Per #Results in each electorate, perhaps we should have the per-electorate breakdown in a separate article, and not in 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum , where it adds unnecessary clutter. That would also be consistent with WP:NOTSTATS: "Where statistics [per-electorate results, which individually do not affect the outcome] are so lengthy as to impede the readability of the article, the statistics can be split into a separate article and summarized [per-state, which has a material effect on the outcome, which requires a double majority] in the main article". Mitch Ames (talk) 11:51, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On this point, I can't see why the table couldn't be collapsible. Riposte97 (talk) 10:30, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support, makes no sense to have two pages for referendum. Completely Random Guy (talk) 12:32, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support, for same reasons as Completely Random Guy. Septembertank (talk) 14:14, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I am not really sure what the purpose of having two articles with the exact same info on them is Kingllama100 (talk) 14:57, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, Results for each division do not belong here (will lead to WP:TOOBIG issues). — Preceding unsigned comment added by GMH Melbourne (talk • contribs) 13:55, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per above, the in-depth breakdown of results would clutter this page; it's quite common to have separate results pages on Wikipedia and I'm not sure why this would be different.Yeoutie (talk) 16:43, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, the article to be merged may meet Wikipedia's criteria for speedy deletion because it is holding up acceptance of a draft submitted to AFC. It furthermore does not cite any sources. Creuzbourg (talk) 16:56, 14 October 2023 (UTC)'[reply]
Support I don't see the purpose in having two seperate articles that deal with essentially the same issue. One simply is the end result of the other and it makes logical sense to have them in the same article. Jurisdicta (talk) 03:33, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Interim results by division have now been added to the results article making it large enough for a stand alone article. ––– GMH MELBOURNE 04:22, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I still think a collapsible table on this article is better than having two different articles on the same topic. --SHB2000 (talk) 09:09, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I think they should have a page for Results of the 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum with more details of the vote.Muaza Husni (talk) 09:16, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose it is commonplace to have separate pages for the results of an election or referendum if the data is too wordy for the main article, focus should instead be on improving the sourcing of Results of the 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum. Vreee (talk) 13:11, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - we are currently at 7 support and 5 oppose. I have added to this article a collapsed table of votes by electoral division, which I hope may address some of the objections raised by the oppose camp. Riposte97 (talk) 22:56, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support as the "results" page is quite small and can be easily combined into the main page. PlanetDeadwing (talk) 23:04, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support a single article is less confusing. --Surturz (talk) 23:40, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose each of these articles is already too large. Many articles in the English Wikipedia are increasingly unwieldy. Robert Brockway (talk) 15:10, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support it's basically the same thing Imoutofchoices (talk) 01:58, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per WP:TOOBIG. James (T • C) • 08:57, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Easier for information finding, everything is in one place. Lflin16 - Member of Recent Changes Patrol (talk) 09:53, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose It'll be way too cluttered with every single electorate. A simple overview on here, and an in depth one over there is good. And it's common on Wikipedia to do this anyway. Master1701 (talk) 10:07, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose - too soon lets wait and see what happens over the following months it may be that both articles will need to be trimmed down, and then a merge makes sense. It's also possible that a lot more may come out of this that will cause a rethink in the approach. Gnangarra 10:14, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose same reason Results of the 2022 Australian federal election (House of Representatives) exist. Deatilled results are too long.--Aréat (talk) 20:47, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly oppose. The state and national results, which determined the outcome, are sufficient for the main article. The detailed results, however, should be expanded—to include breakdowns of the large differences (which are being intensively debated) between city and country and between areas with and without a substantial Indigenous population. All that does require a separate article. Errantios (talk) 21:52, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Addition: here is an analysis that drills down to substantial differences at booth level.Errantios (talk) 01:19, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I think it would be easier to find information if it's all in one article, in addition, two separate articles could cause confusion. --Samoht27 (talk) Samoht27 (talk) 22:05, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose and disambiguate at the top of each article. Both are distinctly notable. DarmaniLink (talk) 02:10, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Looking at the other article, it definitely isn't in a good enough shape to be distinctly notable from this article, and it doesn't seem like there's been substantial enough aftermath from the vote to justify splitting the results. As it stands, it should be merged into here and only split later if and only if enough notable events connected with the results occurs, to the point where the the results themselves meet general notability, which, forgive my mistake before, does not seem to be the case. DarmaniLink (talk) 02:24, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - The only thing that page has that this one doesn't is a table of results by electoral division. The only reason this page doesn't have that table is that someone removed it citing the existence of the results article. Riposte97 (talk) 00:46, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So, if we move the table to this article, then that article will be fully replaced DarmaniLink (talk) 05:17, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I Support the merge because there is no need to have two articles when one, which covers all of the referendum anyway, already exists.
Thanks, NorthStarMI. (Talk in the galaxy) 00:56, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: The page is WP:TOOBIG and parts need to branch off. If its not the results, it has to be something else. ––– GMH Melbourne 01:24, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If it's a readability issue you're concerned about, would collapsed tables address it? Riposte97 (talk) 04:38, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. The two articles should be merged, with the large table on the "Breakdown of voting by electorate" being made collapsible. If the results for different electorates were expanded with visual guides to see voting trends, it may be beneficial to make it a separate article due to TOOBIG FropFrop (talk) 03:33, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I don't see why the results shouldn't be included in the main article. Merging them just reduces confusion. Mr.McNuggets (talk) 10:27, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Same reason as Mr.McNuggets. Ethh3rr (talk) 15:42, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. No need for there to be two articles for one referendum. The collapsible table idea is a good one MarkiPoli (talk) 16:05, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per WP:TOOBIG. It’s pretty normal to have a separate page for the detailed breakdown of the results of an electoral vote. See Results of the 2011 United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum, Results of the 1975 United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum, Results of the 2019 Indian general election, Results of the 2021 German federal election and probably hundreds of other pages. NM 18:49, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@User:Northern Moonlight - TOOBIG refers only to prose text. Currently, there is no such text to be migrated from the Results page. Riposte97 (talk) 00:30, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think in this particular case we need to consider text within tables as it is quite lengthy. ––– GMH Melbourne 01:28, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@GMH Melbourne - Even granting we should diverge from the policy, I still fail to see how this presents a readability issue if the table is collapsed by default (as it is now). Riposte97 (talk) 11:31, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This discussion has now been open for well over a week. By my count, we have 18 in favour, and 12 opposed (one of whom wanted to just delete the results article). On top of this discussion, this page has naturally grown to include the aftermath of the results, whilst the Results page has no new information. I'm going to press ahead with the merger, as I'm yet to see an explanation as to why WP:TOOBIG applies here. Riposte97 (talk) 23:57, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Pinging @Happily888 as this explains my intention to restore the electorate-level graph to the page. Riposte97 (talk) 23:58, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@GMH Melbourne @Mitch Ames @Northern Moonlight - Tagging because you voted oppose, and have been quite active on both pages. I'll hold off for a day in case you have any objections. Riposte97 (talk) 00:15, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Per my previous comments on both pages, I still do not think the per-division results belong on the main page (2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum) because the per-division results do not affect the outcome at all - only the aggregated per-state and national totals do. If they are sufficiently interesting to include at all, WP:NOTSTATS suggests that they ought to be on a separate page. It has been suggested that the per-division table be included collapsed by default, but MOS:COLLAPSE says "Collapsible templates should not conceal article content by default ... This includes ... tables". Mitch Ames (talk) 02:26, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've had a read of both policies, and I don't believe either truly apply here, for the following reasons:
WP:NOTSTATS: This policy seems to be designed to prevent reams of stats clogging paragraphs. It explicitly advises that this can be helped by putting stats into a table, as we have already done. There is no issue with readability if the table is collapsed.
MOS:COLLAPSE: This policy is designed to prevent collapsed tables causing glitches for some users. It explicitly allows for tables in supplementary sections to be collapsed by default. Granted, the table will not be auto-collapsed if a user does not have JavaScript enabled, but I don't think it's too laborious to scroll down the page in that case. We could further ameliorate this by putting the tables at the end of the page.
Finally, isn't it a little bit odd to argue that the stats in question are not important enough to include on the main page, but are important enough to retain on a different page that would otherwise add no additional information? NM has pointed out to me that I shouldn't close a contentious discussion myself, so I'm hoping to be able to convince you. Riposte97 (talk) 10:11, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
isn't it a little bit odd to argue that the stats in question are not important enough to include on the main page, but are important enough to retain on a different page — I'm not arguing that they are important enough to retain; I've said that I don't think they are relevant. I'm arguing that if someone else thinks they are important enough to retain, they should be on a separate page. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:35, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You should only merge if 1) there is no further discussion for a while, which is normally a week or more, or 2) there is unanimous consensus. Neither applies here. I think it’s better you get an admin or an uninvolved third party to determine the appropriate next step. You can request it on WP:ANC. NM 08:05, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I'll do that. Never closed an MP before. Riposte97 (talk) 09:56, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Unsuccessful?

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I agree with the removal of the word "unsuccessful" (reinstated by Safes007) in particular with the reasoning that the referendum itself did not fail - only the proposal to change the Constitution failed. The referendum was successful in that it unambiguously determined that a majority did not support the change to the Constitution, eg the referendum process and results were not challenged by the High Court (or anyone else), and the results were accepted/believed by all, even if many were not happy with the results. Similar to 91.113.97.206's edit comment, I think that saying that the referendum failed is akin to presuming/implying that "Yes" was the correct (successful) answer, and that "No" was the wrong (unsuccessful) answer - which we Wikipedians ought not do. Mitch Ames (talk) 09:09, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that Safe007 reinstatement is correct, it is a simple statement of fact. Also note this is consistent with other articles about referendums; for example, 1988 Australian referendum (Rights and Freedoms) states it was unsuccessful and 1977 Australian referendum (Retirement of judges) states it was successful.Ilenart626 (talk) 09:20, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
it is a simple statement of fact — I don't think it is that simple, because the word "unsuccessful" is being used to describe the process (referendum), not the outcome (changing the Constitution) - and the process was successful, in that it recorded the votes. Referendums in Australia are "votes ... where the electorate may approve or reject a certain proposal" - ie rejecting a proposal is just as valid as approving it. An unsuccessful referendum would be one that did not produce a (clear, legally valid, accepted by the public) result. (Eg the WA part of the 2013 Australian Senate election was unsuccessful, in that the results were declared void and we had to have another election in WA.)
this is consistent with other articles about referendums — and I think they should be reworded for the same reason.
Perhaps there is a better way of wording the lead sentence to remove the implication that there was a problem with referendum. Mitch Ames (talk) 09:51, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think this criticism may be true strictly speaking, however I think the "referendum failed" is colloquially used to mean "the proposed law that was voted on the referendum failed to achieve a double majority". I think the benefit of this sentence being concise and getting across the proposed change was unsuccessful outweighs a longer, more technically correct sentence. If someone formulates a sentence that gets these two points across in a concise way though, I'd support such a change. Safes007 (talk) 10:08, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why do you believe so strongly it refers only to the process? I don't take it to mean that. From a google search, the phrase "unsuccessful referendum" appears to be commonly used by both the media (1, 2) and legal scholars (1, 2) alike. At the very least, the world at large doesn't seem to share the same nitpick. I think it's fine. Endwise (talk) 10:37, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Endwise, I agree with you, although your references are a bit erratic. Your first "media" reference is to a newspaper article by two legal scholars, while the first "scholars" reference is to someone who denies any legal background. Nonetheless, you have cited three law professors expert in this area: Paula Gerber, Melissa Castan and Helen Irving. All of them speak of "success" or "failure" of a referendum as a short way of talking about success or failure of a referendum proposal. It is inexact, indeed, but it seems to be accepted. Errantios (talk) 22:55, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I support using the term unsuccessful as it is normal usage.--Jack Upland (talk) 23:38, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why do you believe so strongly it refers only to the process? — because the adjective "unsuccessful" immediately precedes the noun "referendum", and the referendum is a process that "may approve or reject a certain proposal".
nitpick — I don't think it's nitpicking to ask that the lead sentence be accurate. Mitch Ames (talk) 02:51, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What about this:
The 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum was a constitutional referendum held on 14 October 2023 that rejected the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
(Using "Indigenous" here for brevity and to match the link target, but " Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander" would also work.) Mitch Ames (talk) 02:51, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with this, preferring "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice" because that was the wording of the proposed amendment. Errantios (talk) 10:11, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good to me too. Riposte97 (talk) 12:15, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If you are trying to be more accurate, I don't think this solves that problem, as if we define "referendum" as "public votes held on important issues", the voting process can't "reject" the proposed Voice to Parliament. It's the result of the process that led to the proposal being unsuccessful. To be accurate, this would have to have something like "The 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum was a constitutional referendum held on 14 October 2023 in which the proposed constitutional amendment did not receive sufficient votes to be enacted." I think its simpler to stick with the current version. Safes007 (talk) 12:43, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
the voting process can't "reject" the proposed Voice to Parliament — the referendum question was "Do you approve this proposed alteration [to alter the Constitution to establish the Voice]?" Implicitly, "no" means "reject the alteration/Voice". While I admit that there could be a strict distinction between the "referendum/process" and the people voting Yes/No, I suggest that "referendum rejecting the Voice" is a still an improvement on "unsuccessful referendum".
A compromise might be "... was a ... referendum in which the voters rejected the ... Voice ...", but that's getting more verbose. (talk) 13:19, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Safes007, you seem to be offering a distinction without a difference—a voting process is significant for its result. Errantios (talk) 21:18, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How about this then: "The 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum was a constitutional referendum held on 14 October 2023 in which the proposed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament was rejected." Safes007 (talk) 00:32, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Adding my voice to say that I don't think "unsuccessful referendum" should be used as it is both inexact and value-laden. The referendum was not unsuccessful it was actually carried out successfully - the proposal was unsuccessful. The ideas of it being successful or unsuccessful also indicates that success was a "yes" outcome and failure was a "no" outcome. From the perspective of the no campaign, the referendum was actually successful. I think this misconception of successful/unsuccessful stems from the referendum question being yes/no and the government bringing the referendum supporting the yes vote. When you look at the Brexit vote, it would make no sense to call it successful as the vote was not yes/no and the government bringing it did not support it. I don't understand the need to pack everything into the first sentence. We can have a first sentence explaining the referendum and a second one giving the result - just like Brexit vote article. Vladimir.copic (talk) 23:08, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think we need a comprehensive first sentence, like Mitch Ames's alternative:
The 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum was a constitutional referendum held on 14 October 2023 that rejected the proposed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament.
Could we all agree on that? Errantios (talk) 23:31, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Safes007, you have since proposed an alternative of your own, which I reproduce here so as to get the discussion back into sequence:
The 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum was a constitutional referendum held on 14 October 2023 in which the proposed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament was rejected.
I agree with this text, although would prefer "a proposed". Mitch Ames's alternative (in my previous post) still seems better to me and I hope we can all agree on it. Errantios (talk) 12:56, 29 February 2024 (UTC) Errantios (talk) 23:25, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think “the” makes more sense if we use the exact name for the proposed body. I.e. “The 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum was a constitutional referendum held on 14 October 2023 in which the proposed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament was rejected.” Safes007 (talk) 07:25, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When you put it that way, I can agree with "the". Errantios (talk) 11:41, 1 March 2024 (UTC) Errantios (talk) 21:35, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I note that you have implemented this good change. Errantios (talk) 21:35, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What to include in the Aftermath section

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@Riposte97 Currently the Aftermath section includes information about actual positive things that happened as a result of the referendum. Things like how the referendum affected the state based treaty negotiations and other commentary about how the Voice result should affect wider issues like identity politics or welcome to country ceremonies. The comments I removed seemed to just be a repetition of the No campaign's argument of why people should vote no. That sort of discussion should be in earlier sections. There's lots of other commentary by the No campaign about what they think should happen as a result of the No vote (e.g. Price's call for an audit of Aboriginal programmes etc, Mundine's suggestion to focus on individual communities), but just saying that the No campaign still believes in their arguments one year later isn't very useful. Safes007 (talk) 12:18, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

On the contrary, most of that section is currently devoted to repetition of the arguments both sides used, just with a different valence. We could possibly combine the analysis and aftermath sections to get around this. Riposte97 (talk) 20:40, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. What parts of the aftermath section do you believe are a repetition of the arguments of the Yes or No case? State treaties, the role of the flag and the future of the concept of reconciliation in the wake of the failure seem like completely different from the specific arguments of the yes/no cases.
Would you support moving the commentary to the analysis section? That would address my issues. Safes007 (talk) 03:18, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I believe the analysis section should just include details that “analyse” the result, ie surveys from ANU, DesmosAU, and similar commentary.
@Safes007 I agree with @Riposte97 that the Aftermath section already contains arguement from both sides. For example, “Megan Davis and Yes23 campaign director Dean Parkin argued that the referendum debate had been unduly captured by politicians, with Indigenous voices shut out.” This is clearly an argument by yes supporters trying to explain the result. I believe we are better off leaving the Aftermath section as is, with both yes and no supporters commentary being included for balance. Ilenart626 (talk) 04:27, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I can see where you are coming from now with that sentence. I think however we can make a distinction between commentary on the result versus things that happened following the vote. Perhaps we could include a subsection called campaign commentary that could expand upon the internal views of the campaigns as to why they lost (e.g. Davis saying they needed more money and time and "misinformation" laws, that politicians should have been included less versus No refutations) with aftermath reserved for a broader discussion of indigenous affairs post referendum. Safes007 (talk) 06:34, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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