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Election template and edit war

This page and others appear to be part of an ongoing edit war involving French and South African parliamentary election pages (possibly others) spurred by the edit activity of the user “Number 57.” These are substantive edits to longstanding pages that often come without clear discussion to reach a consensus. Additionally, this edit war has spilled over out of Wikipedia itself into posts on other social media sites displaying a negative reaction to these edits and an incredulity at our inability to resolve these issues. These posts have garnered thousands (sometimes hundreds of thousands) of views, and it should go without saying that this tangibly damages our reputation among the broader public.

With all that being said, I've reverted this page to the regular election template, which had been used for several years before this edit war began. Listed below are the arguments in favor of this template over the election template. Hopefully this will clear up any confusion regarding appropriate templates.

1. It is more informative. The regular election template provides pictures of party leaders, popular vote totals, percentage swing and more information that is cut out of the legislative template.

2. It is less redundant. The main argument I've seen in favor of the legislative template is that it provides a clearer picture of a multi-party parliamentary election by displaying every party to win a seat. However, the results box further down the article already does this, and provides all the information the legislative template provides. Meanwhile, the main infobox should provide more important information, displayed more clearly, such as the most important parties (up to six) and the more extensive information available to be shown under the template.

3. It just looks better. This should go without saying. The regular template provides pictures of leaders and wider columns displaying party information that the legislative template does not. This is generally a format the average Wikipedia user has become accustomed to. PequodOnStationAtLZ ( talk) 14:03, 15 June 2024 (UTC) reply