Talk:Next Irish general election

This article was nominated for deletion on March 4, 2016. The result of the discussion was keep.

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Do we need an infobox that takes up half the article? This is contrary to the point of infoboxes, as per

I agree. How about something like what is being used now in the Next United Kingdom general election? Then switch back to the current format when the election is called? Spleodrach (talk) 20:37, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's a lot neater. I'll amend to that format in the morning, if nobody beats me to it. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 23:22, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Spaastm has removed Independents 4 Change from the opinion poll table (and incorporated their general election result in with Others/Independents). I4C have not been specifically mentioned in any of the reports on polls since the election, but they had one TD returned in the 2020 election and they are a registered political party. Do we include them in the table, or not? What would the basis for excluding them be? Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 12:04, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

They are a registered political party with 1 TD, but if they are not mentioned in the polls, then why have a column which will not have any figures in it? So I would not inculde them, but no strong objection to them being included either. Spleodrach (talk) 12:43, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just to point out that their last TD has a new banner

Right To Change since May 2020. I think that is that for I4C. Wikimucker (talk) 17:19, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

The Irish Mail on Sunday is not the UK Mail on Sunday, but may be considered to come under the same RFC that has deemed the UK Daily Mail to not be a reliable source. However, in Ireland, the Irish Mail on Sunday commissions opinion polls from the "Ireland Thinks" polling company. These have thus far been reported on in this article, with the inclusions cited to third-party sources (i.e., not the Mail). Should the Irish Mail on Sunday polls be included in this article; or not? (These polls had been included in the Opinion polling for the 2020 Irish general election article until also removed yesterday by David Gerard. Thoughts? Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 18:10, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The sources that were removed were the Journal quoting the "Irish Mail on Sunday" and by Filip van Laenen quoting a Mail on Sunday; presumably again the Irish one. The discussion quoted by David Gerard for the removal needs further expansion itself, and is entirely UK based. But, and i quote, "The UK Daily Mail is not to be confused with other publications named Daily Mail". The UK Daily Mail. Arnkellow (talk) 20:38, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And just to clarify, it is the same parent group, but a different editorial and journalistic teams. Also as the RFC states UK, I would hope that a casual bit of anti-Irish racism and lumping together didn't happen as per

WP:AGF. Arnkellow (talk) 20:58, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

I am deeply unconvinced it counts as a different publication. The Irish Daily Mail and Irish Sun are covered by their own UK parents' deprecations, for example. I must say, though, that a claim that treating the IDM as the DM is racism as an excuse for using the Daily Mail as a source is a new stretch - David Gerard (talk) 22:38, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Read.The.Above.Again. Arnkellow (talk) 15:01, 10 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging B. M. L. Peters, following most recent edit to article. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 12:47, 10 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Both the Irish Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday and Daily Mail UK are owned by the same parent company, however they have different editorial staff, although the problem seems to have been solved for the most part in 2017, and 2019. The RFC states that "The UK Daily Mail is not to be confused with other publications named Daily Mail." ^[1] Furthermore the polls are usually reaffirmed by secondary sources, although if some are not, I will search for them and add them. B. M. L. Peters (talk) 00:25, 19 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Everything that lives on dailymail.co.uk is covered, as are all editions of the Mail on Sunday. That line in the

WP:RSN, to get more eyes on the issue - David Gerard (talk) 20:04, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

The decision on

unperson. It, and its stories, can still be reported on by third party sources, as happens here. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 21:49, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

Ireland Thinks polls are reported by multiple secondary sources different than the Daily Mail (even polling aggregators abroad, such as this one), and the polls by themselves have not been shown as being unreliable just because of the source that happens to commission them. Thus, pretending to enforce

WP:DAILYMAIL in such a way here seems rather aggressive and contrary to encyclopedical purposes. DAILYMAIL even states that it should not be used as a source "when other more reliable sources exist" (which is the case here). As a result, these opinion polls should not be removed, IMO. Impru20^talk 10:19, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

There is also the issue that the polls themselves have not been conducted by the Daily Mail, but by a polling company, of which the Irish Daily Mail just gets to be the commissioner. That content, however, is reported by other secondary reliable sources as well. Aside of the aforementioned concerns from other users on whether DAILYMAIL applies to non-UK media, I don't get to understand how DAILYMAIL can even be of application to justify the massive removal of all opinion polls whose ultimate source is not the DM, sincerely. Impru20^talk 10:44, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've reverted the addition of a "lead" column.

• We already have shading to show which party is in the lead;
• The importance of a "lead" between two parties is pretty much irrelevant outside of a two-party or possibly three-party system; Ireland hasn't had single-party government in 40 years.
• If someone does want to know the difference, the maths really isn't hard, so the column adds nothing;
• While
  WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, what other articles do isn't relevant here; that said, there is consensus to leave out a "lead" column, on Irish general election & opinion poll articles, which has existed since 2016 - see here and here
  ;
• Consensus may well change, but until then, we should follow
  WP:BRD - you were bold, it was reverted, we now discuss. Regards, Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 22:45, 4 April 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]

Also, I'd advise checking on the talk page prior to introducing major changes to an article. As a point of courtesy, if nothing else. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 23:00, 4 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

First off I want to apologise that I didn't check the talk page to discuss the changes I made after you reverted them, I should have and it wasn't acceptable that I reverted without discussing it first.

Ultimately, while I may disagree with the consensus regarding the lead column I am not really in the mood to try and change this. However, the other additions I made I do intend to reintroduce, such as using Template:Opdrts for dates (I do actually want to change this to the fieldwork dates rather than the current end dates which provide no real valuable data) the formatting changes (such as the move to {| class="wikitable sortable mw-datatable" style="text-align:center;font-size:90%;line-height:14px;") and the seperation of The pollster and the commissioner.

Below is the changes I am proposing (apart from the date changes).

No worries at all; I'd have to check timestamps but I think my talk page addition was after the revert, anyway. Can you outline what benefits the proposed changes will bring to the article? And how much additional effort will be required for those who currently maintain the table? I've no way of knowing, since I've never seen them contribute directly here, but I'm assuming BSMIsEditing is manually adding data to whatever is generating their graph, rather than it being a bot or scraper, but it might be. Will a change interfere with that? Fieldwork dates aren't always available; some news reports include them, many only include the final date of polling ("Polling was conducted up to last Friday"), and sometimes we have to go digging on poll companies' websites. I've no objection to the separation of pollster and commissioner, as long as we can still sort the table by pollster and date, as we can at present. If we lose that ability, I'd oppose. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 18:59, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Can anyone find a source for this? Can't find any online, and the Ireland Thinks website seems a little out of date; they don't appear to publish the full poll from any of the Mail on Sunday results, at least for the last year. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 12:07, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody has come back on this and I still can't find a reference to it myself, so I'm going to delete (or, well, comment it out for now). Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 19:56, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If we look at other similar articles such as 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election#Opinion polls, Opinion polling for the 2021 Canadian federal election and Opinion polling for the next United Kingdom general election#2022, we see that it seems to be pretty commonplace that notable political events such as the change of leadership in a party and by-elections are noted in the table. Back in July 2021 I tried adding the 2021 Dublin Bay South by-election to the table but it was revert on the basis that it had been already agreed notable events wouldn't be included. Firstly, can I ask on what page was that agreement made, and secondly, are we still committed to that idea? If the government goes all the way to 2025, the polling table is going to be quite large; I feel that the inclusion of events helps make the table more readable giving them a natural break and avoids them being a "wall of numbers". Secondly, I imagine just as with those other articles, the polling section will ultimately have to be split off to it's own page due to its size. Thoughts? CeltBrowne (talk) 17:14, 17 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. Adding notable events will lead to clutter. Keep it clean and simple as table of opinion polls. Spleodrach (talk) 18:59, 17 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I note the current consensus is not to include them. I hadn't seen this discussion before adding them. I'd agree with

Opinion polling for the next Irish general election exists as a redirect with possibilities, I'd recommend holding off until the dissolution of this Dáil, at which point this page will shift to the campaign, and thereafter the result. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 14:00, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply

]

I would prefer to keep it as a simple table of opinion polls. We are inviting

synthesis by adding in events we deem to be significant; and entering such lines breaks the ability to sort meaningfully by anything but date. As a compromise, how about shading the relevant date and adding a footnote along the lines of "First poll after Bloggs became leader of Birthday Party"? Agree on not using the redirect until at least until an election is called. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 15:07, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply

]

I agree with Bastun, as I'd said before it's best to keep as a simple table of polls. Adding events would invariably lead to bloat. Fine with the suggestion about footnotes. Spleodrach (talk) 15:59, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't there just as much synthesis in determining significance of events in a footnote as in a row of a table? I'd be reluctant to add footnotes, I think they can get even bloatier, and actually run the risk of drawing undue significance to a particular poll, particularly given polling companies use different methodologies.

I doubt using separate rows would get too bloated, if anything it breaks up in a way that's easier to read, I do find it helpful for analysis myself, and I certainly find it helpful when reading polling tables from other countries. But I won't press the case for now unless there's more interest in them. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 17:27, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If in doubt then leave it out. No compelling argument has been made for the inclusion of events. Spleodrach (talk) 22:21, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We are inviting synthesis by adding in events we deem to be significant

We can keep it strictly to only the following:

• Changes in party Leadership
• Other elections (By-elections, Locals, Europeans)
• Debates

Which is more or less the format Opinion polling for the next United Kingdom general election and Opinion polling for the 2021 Canadian federal election keep to.

At bare minimum, I think the inclusion of other elections should be done. CeltBrowne (talk) 22:53, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I had added the two appointments of Taoiseach (June 2020 and December 2022), I'd suggest they are as significant as changes in leadership. As to no compelling argument, those in favour have made two arguments: that they add context to numbers, including changes in numbers; and that it breaks up the wall of numbers in a way that makes it easier to read and find dates. For these reasons, I find it helpful when reading these for other countries. But it looks like we need to find more support for this one! Iveagh Gardens (talk) 05:18, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

UK polling articles allow change of leader, other elections (by-elections, local elections) and debates only. Most polling articles don’t allow anything. Look at

I agree, once one event is included, it's a slippery slope to lots more. Again the only arguements that I hear in favour is "I like it!". Just because the British article has events, doesn't mean we have to follow them. As Bondegezou pointed out, the majority don't allow it, so lets follow that (and the Spanish) example instead. Spleodrach (talk) 10:33, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

...it breaks up the wall of numbers in a way that makes it easier to read and find dates. For some. I don't see too much value myself in a table that's only date-ordered, because the different methodologies used by the various polling companies often results in a positive or negative bias to particular parties. There is therefore no real benefit in looking at, say, the polls for the last quarter, where a party might get results of 4, 5, 2, 5, 6, 3, 5, 7, 4 (because the 9 polls were done by 3 companies, whose differing methods are always 'average', 'high', and 'low' for a particular party.) Instead, I would usually sort results by polling company, where I can see a consistent trend over time - company A:4, 5, 5; company B: 5, 6, 7; company C: 2, 3, 4, using the same results as before. If we break the table to include commentary/events, that ability is removed. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 11:53, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Lough Swilly, can you check the a) polling dates, and b) numbers polled on the latest Business Post poll? The reference is paywalled. It was read out on the Brendan O'Connor Show as something like 1,009 people polled, with polling dates finishing during the week, not yesterday. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 11:42, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, my mistake about the polling date. It was 16 Feb-21 Feb. I also wasn't aware the Business Post even had a paywall, because of, well, browser extensions. Annoyingly, other websites have not reported on the poll yet and RED C hasn't even released their report yet. I'm just going off of the Business Post article. What do you suggest we do with this poll? Remove it until this month's report is released and a non-paywalled website reports it? Lough Swilly (talk) 12:15, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No, I'd leave it; we don't have the number polled for others in the table. Just put in a question mark, until we have a source. Cheers, Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 12:19, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just to note, too, the data-sort-value for the date should be the last date of poll; and the data-sort-value name for the polling company/publisher should just increment by one from the prior poll by that publisher. That value is what lets you sort by publisher so you can see all the RedC polls or all the Ireland Thinks polls together. I've update the latest ones. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 10:21, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've added up the poll numbers multiple times just to be sure - the numbers they report add up to 101%... I don't know if there's anything to do about it, I just though I should mention it in case someone thinks it's wrong. Lough Swilly (talk) 18:12, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As one seat is allocated to the Ceann Comhairle, the seats needed for a majority should be 87 right? Boardwalk.Koi (talk) 14:42, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's half the total seats, plus one, so 88 is correct. See, e.g., Government of the 33rd Dáil. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 15:20, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The 2020 Irish general election page states a majority of 80 seats was needed, while half plus one would be 81.

There will be 173 voting seats in the next Dáil, so a composition of 87-Government, 86-Opposition, and 1-Ceann Comhairle, should be possible right? Boardwalk.Koi (talk) 16:40, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

God, I'm remembering the runup to the last election and interminable debates such as this one :-) No objection at all to you changing it to 87, but if a certain editor reappears here, expect more "debate" :-) Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 10:28, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My reading of it is that 174 seats, the government (or parties) will need 88 seats to govern, as 1 seat will go to the Ceann Comhairle, leaving 87-Govt and 86-Opp, and 1-CC. However, as has happened in the past, the govt could entice an opposition TD into being the CC, so the Govt then only needs 87. Our nearest neighbour, have (seats / 2) + 1, see Next United Kingdom general election. Hope this helps! Spleodrach (talk) 10:45, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone with access to the Sunday Independent add in the values for last date of polling, number polled, and percentages for S-PBP and Aontú, please, for the 24th March poll? I don't have a sub and it's paywalled. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 12:02, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Not sure what the sample size is. Boardwalk.Koi (talk) 13:49, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I'll have a look during the week to see if Ireland Thinks puts it up on their website. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 15:31, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I should have access to the print version of the Sunday Independent when it's uploaded to the

Irish Newspaper Archive. I'll keep an eye out for it. Boardwalk.Koi (talk) 17:28, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply

]

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