Talk:Opinion polling for the 2015 United Kingdom general election/Archives/2014/April

Add events to graph

Is there any way we can add the events on the table to the graph? It would be useful for people looking at it to see when the events happened and what happened after it. I have no idea how it could be done, maybe a line going from top to bottom and writing underneath that dates? or maybe just have the date of every other month and events, or possibly just the date/events? CH7i5 (talk) 18:12, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Previous discussion decided on a minimalist approach to including events in the tables; the same presumably applies to the graphs. Bondegezou (talk) 01:00, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

New Constituency opinion poll

It seems that just like in the US, where it is very common to have polls of individual congressional districts, this is getting increasingly common in the UK. For the Eastleigh by election earlier this year, 5 polls were taken over the space of a month and it seems like this trend is only going to increase. (http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/nov/26/ukip-poll-boost-thanet)that UKIP is commissioning 8 polls of marginal seats with Survation and they would be very useful to include somewhere. http://www.eastleighnews.co.uk/2014/04/ukip-top-general-election-poll-in-eastleigh/ - Here is another independent Survation poll for the Eatleigh constituency. Would anyone object to a section being added for polls of individual seats just like how for the European elections there is a section for polls in the regions of London, Scotland and Wales Guyb123321 (talk) 11:39, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

What I've done previously, loosely modelled on how polls are treated in US elections on Wikipedia, is add such polls to the articles for the individual constituencies. They make more sense to me there. Bondegezou (talk) 12:01, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

We talked about this on the European Elections page though, In my opinion, My opposition to that is partly based on formatting (i.e. It was put as a sentence which is really messy as opposed to a table) and the fact that unlike in the USA, there will not be a poll in every seat, meaning that a few will, a few wont. Also there is no precedent for this meaning 2015 would be the first elections that this happened in. Finally on the individual constituency page, where do you put it? Right at the bottom seems a little bit obscure and out of the way for something which is quite important information.

In my view a constituency page is almost a "historical" page - hence why results go back all the why into the 1950's for some pages of constituencies that haven't changes a lot, such as the Isle of Wight. As I said there, I object to putting it on the pages for the individual constituencies. On the European Elections page you said - "I take your point. OK, let's say we have a Constituency opinion polling for the next United Kingdom General Election page and it lists the various polls done, and then there's a link on individual constituency articles to it as appropriate? "

Is this still your opinion, and if so, how would you feel about having it on this page instead so that all polling could stay on one page.Guyb123321 (talk) 16:20, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

And seriously, just thinking about it, it really doesn't make much sense to me putting these polls on the constituency page, since only about 8 of these constituency have polls, meaning if someone wanted to look at polls at a constituency level, they'd have to wade through over 600 pages without polls to look at the eight that do, it makes much more sense in my opinion to put all the polls on one page Guyb123321 (talk) 16:34, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea, it will give the most accurate portrayal of the facts and this is the best page to have it on. The title of this page is 'Opinion polling for the next United Kingdom general election', nowhere does it mention nationwide polling in the title. CH7i5 (talk) 17:46, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

I back Bondegezou on this. On on the basis it would be a tad impractical to potentially have as many as 650 opinion polling tables (I admit that that is unlikely in reality but there are a lot of marginal seats). Whereas with the EU elections there are only 12 constituencies...three of which being countries. I really cant see there being polls for constituencies such as the East Midlands etc and even if there are, we're talking about 12 tables tops for the EU elections, in which case we could just split the article and create a polling article. Also I think the individual constituency polls are more useful on the constituency page. That said I am very open to the idea of having a sentence mentioning that "There have been constituency polls for; a, b, c....w, x, y, z constituencies on this page with a link to the constituency page where the poll is located. But to have multiple tables etc on this page would be daft. Owl In The House (talk) 21:32, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you CH7i5 for your comment. In response to Owl In The House, 1) There will not be anywhere near 650 tables, in fact so far there are only polls that I can find for 8 constituencies, sure that will grow as time goes by but since only marginals are likely to be polled in the first place, I cant see that figure going up to an unmanageable number, if it did then obviously something would have to be sorted out but as of yet, 8 constituencies is hardly unmanageable. 2) You say that "individual constituency polls are more useful on the constituency page", I disagree, this page is a dedicated page for opinion polls for the next general election whereas constituency pages are much more historical, they show past MP's, Boundaries, communities in the constituency, as well as the history of the constituency. They are not the place for polling data which after the election becomes invalid, a page like this, which is self described as "opinion polling for the next UK general election" is. Take my local constituency for example, its existed in its current form since 1974, and before that it existed from 1885-1950, having opinion polling data for the 2015 election would look odd and out of place, especially after the election has been and gone, whereas by adding them to this page or as Bondegezou suggested a "Constituency opinion polling for the next United Kingdom General Election" page, the polls stay somewhere they are relevant. Guyb123321 (talk) 22:50, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't myself see a problem with some constituency articles having polls and some not. That inconsistency is going to look equally odd if we have the polls here, or on their own page of constituency polls (thanks for the reminder that I suggested this before!). If polls are on a constituency's article, I feel they will be placed in an appropriate context where people can see what's typical for that seat. If they're here, I feel they may be misleading as the seats chosen for polls are not representative and the individual seat polling this gives a potentially misleading picture of the overall election.

If I want to know what's going on in a particular constituency, I feel I would tend to go look at that constituency's article and I wouldn't want to have to trawl through a list of all the individual seat polling. That was part of my reasoning.

The other part of my reasoning was to look at articles for elections in other countries. In so far as I could see, the model was for polling in different districts to be on different pages, but I didn't spend a long time looking. If others want to investigate further, go for it.

But I absolutely agree that such individual seat polling should go somewhere! Bondegezou (talk) 01:46, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I would just say that this page is already very long in terms of kilobytes. I've nothing against constituency opinion polls being on Wikipedia, but in general I would advocate taking sections away from this page rather than adding new sections. --Wavehunter (talk) 07:41, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I do understand your point Bondegezou, however I think you might be a little confused about the model. You see, the poling data isn't put on the seat page, for example California's 18th congressional district or Montana's at-large congressional district, but is put on the election page for that seat, for example United States House of Representatives elections in California, 2014 or United States House of Representatives election in Montana, 2014. Now it would be incredibly impractical to create 650 pages every time there was a general election entitled United Kingdom general election in (constituency name), 2015, especially considering the amount of safe seats that are totally ignored by most parties. In regards to your concerns about it being misleading, we could have it so there was the 2010 general election result at the start of the poll and then the poll itself, so as to ensure people understood that this seat was already a Labour/Con/LibDem seat. Below is an example of how that would look, if you felt neccessary, perhaps seats could be further differentiated by the party that won them in 2010, so you could have all of the seats that went Lab in 2010, Con in 2010, LibDem in 2010 with subheadings so people understand that this seat is a seat where that particular party is likely to be much stronger than the national average. But to be honest I dont think it will be that confusing, especially considering the fact the 2010 general results will be there at the bottom.

Wavehunter, I too think this page is quite long, I think the way to solve this is by adding a "Hide/Show" button to the general election polls columns for the individual years, with the multitude of polls coming out on a weekly basis though, I wouldn't think that individual constituency polling would add that much to the page in comparison with the UK wide polling.

Date(s) conducted	Polling organisation/client	Sample size	Lib Dem	Cons	UKIP	Lab	<span	style="color:White;">Others]]	Lead
28 Feb	Eastleigh by-election, 2013 Result	42,649	32%	25%	28%	10%	5%	4%
22–24 Feb	Populus/The Times	1,002	33%	28%	21%	12%	6%	5%
21–22 Feb	Populus/Sunday Times	1,001	33%	28%	21%	11%	4%	5%
18–22 Feb	Survation/Mail on Sunday	543	29%	33%	21%	13%	4%	4%
6–8 Feb	Survation/Mail on Sunday	504	36%	33%	16%	13%	2%	3%
4–5 Feb	Populus	1,006	31%	34%	13%	19%	3%	3%
6 May	2010 Results (Eastleigh only)	53,650	47%	39%	4%	10%	1%	7%

Guyb123321 (talk) 08:03, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Guyb, I'm entirely happy for you to put the polls anywhere for now if you're going to do the work of putting them into tables! Said tables can always be moved later if the community comes to a clear view one way or the other. Bondegezou (talk) 09:06, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

So just to clarify, your happy for me to make the tables & put them on THIS page. I just dont want to go to the effort of making the tables and then told I can't use them. :) Guyb123321 (talk) 11:05, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Guyb on the suggestion that the tables should have a hide/show. This would help with overcrowding as we have another year of polling left before the next election and it will be extremely overcrowded by then on top of the individual constituency polls. The data does not need to really be seen all of the time, the graph shows the data clearly, so we could easily hide the tables to make the page less cluttered when view by someone who does not want to look at the table from 2011 for example. CH7i5 (talk) 11:18, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes to Guyb. Bondegezou (talk) 01:00, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I have found 4 other polls for constituencies Great Yarmouth, Crewe & Nantwich , Bognor Regis & Littlehampton and Folkestone & Hythe . It seems with the "rise of UKIP" (to use a media phrase) polling seems to be done in constituencies where they have a credible chance of winning a seat, or at the very most playing a part in ousting the incumbent. So there may be may of these done in the coming months. Maybe these should be their own page? Opinion polling in individual constituencies for the next United Kingdom general election and changing this page to Nationwide polling for the next United Kingdom general election? CH7i5 (talk) 19:51, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not really sure 2 people agreeing among themselves while other contributors to the discussion are still in disagreement counts as Consensus. There doesn't seem to be consensus for addition to this article, although I'd say there is consensus for the material having a place on Wikipedia, its a case of finding a place for it. I too share Wavehunter's concern about this article getting exponentially longer. Also may I point out to you Guyb123321 that about 100 seats changed hands at the last election and since pollsters seem to work to a base year as the last election, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a fair proportion of that 100 constituencies getting polled. We already have 8 constituencies polled as someone else said and you have chosen to only include 2. I am in agreement with CH7i5, we need a new article for this and it needs proper links to other relevant articles e.g on the Eastleigh constituency page, there should be a link to the opinion polling by the 2015 candidates box. I don't advocate changing the name of this page but Ido favour the creation of a new article called Opinion polling in individual constituencies for the next United Kingdom general election. Owl In The House (talk) 08:31, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Can we have a consensus on the proposal to create a new page entitled Opinion polling in individual constituencies for the next United Kingdom general election? — Preceding unsigned comment added by CH7i5 (talk • contribs) 18:13, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Haven't had time to make tables for all of them, but you can find the information here http://survation.com/still-a-3-way-marginal-new-polling-in-eastleigh-constituency-survation-for-alan-bown/ for the other constitituencies polled Guyb123321 (talk) 21:04, 24 April 2014 (UTC)