Talk:Next French legislative election: Difference between revisions

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@WriterOfScrolls: As per this edit, can you provide “neutral, secondary sources” confirming that these events you re-added are important and relevant in connection with opinion polling for the next French legislative election? Note that implying such a connection without sources themselves making such a connection is in open breach of WP:SYNTH. The decision to add events, and the decision on which events to add, is an editorial decision and is, as such, not a neutral one, so such sourcing is warranted. Second, can you please confirm where a “firm consensus” exists for adding event rows in opinion polling tables in this article? And finally, can you please explain why is it more important for you to add event rows in such tables rather than explaining such events in the Background section of the article itself, as I explained in my edit? Because it feels weird to claim such an importance for these events yet they somehow are not relevant enough to merit a proper explanation there aside of a brief mention. Thank you very much in advance. Impru20^talk 19:36, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To be frank, it seems to be whatever there are many sources talking about and which is immediately relevant to the next election. But I didn’t make the rules/convention on this, and I don’t know who did; I just know it’s done in every Wikipedia page like this and have found it helpful.

Other pages with this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2025_Dutch_general_election

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2025_Czech_parliamentary_election

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_Estonian_parliamentary_election WriterOfScrolls (talk) 19:59, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t believe there to be any partisan bias here or in any of these cases, either. WriterOfScrolls (talk) 20:00, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, in your revert you were very explicit and clear about events being important because What is considered and important event depends on neutral, secondary sources. I have asked you to provide such neutral, secondary sources making such connections between these specific events and opinion polls in the French case, to explain where such “firm consensus” exists (I do have problems finding where such consensus exists for the cited articles; in fact, for the UK polling article, I see a slight consensus the other way around in the talk page discussions) and to explain why, if these events are so “important”, and if these are so relevant in “providing context” (which was the reasoning of the edit that added these), these are not explained in the context section itself where you have arguably no character limit to do so (it would seem like some people are engaged in a trend of adding event rows to opinion polling tables for decorative purposes only, because an event row with two words provides little to no context at all).

As for the generic Other pages with this, I am fairly sure you know what WP:OTHERSTUFF is. As far as I am aware, there are no “rules/conventions” on this, and it’s basically each editor in each article doing as they wish and cherry-picking the events they wish. Others doing wrong things does not mean we should replicate them, particularly when none of the above questions is being addressed. Impru20^talk 20:36, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also pinging @Thomediter here on the basis of this edit. “It’s common” is not an argument (also, what is “common”? Some articles, like UK ones, do not include government formation/dissolution events), there is no consensus for including event rows in this article’s opinion polling articles (the fact that for many years opinion polling for French elections has not included events is an argument in favour of an WP:IMPLICITCONSENSUS existing the other way around, actually), and this, coupled with the aforementioned purposes, is concerning. We are not adding content in open violation of WP:SYNTH and WP:NPOV just for decorative purposes. If someone thinks these events are so important so that they must be included for context, focus first on providing such context in the context section itself. Impru20^talk 08:27, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, government changes are obviously very important events to polls, as they are likely to have a huge influence on explaining changes. I don’t understand why it is necessary to prove that they are important before adding them, considering it’s a very common practice to include them, and they do no harm?

What exactly is the issue by including them? It’s not like it’s ruining something else.

Perhaps we should ask what rules or conventions actually exclude these. After all, no one feels the need to cite sources when claiming that “Seats Needed” is a relevant consideration—it’s simply accepted as common knowledge. Likewise, the dissolution of a government is universally recognized as a significant event. Thomediter (talk) 08:35, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, government changes are obviously very important events to polls, as they are likely to have a huge influence on explaining changes. This according to whom? I am not sure whether I am able to emphasize enough the importance of WP:V. We can undoubtely source the events happening, but not the “impact” that any single event (or chain of events) has in opinion polling. “they are likely to have a huge influence on explaining changes” is basically synthesis. Not only that: you have the problem of deciding what events to add (with problems related to WP:CHERRYPICK and WP:BALANCE), how to write the event rows (to balance providing enough context with a neutral language that does not violate WP:NPOV, etc.). So, when you ask What exactly is the issue by including them?, that’s exactly the problem. Combine that with the fact that every editor may think that a different event has a “huge influence” in polling (without any sourcing, just based on what they “think”), and if you accept including events based on their “potential” or “likely” influence, you will end up having more event rows than polls. Honestly, that’s not the work of an opinion polling table to do: if you think an event is important to give context to an election, by all means add it (and explain it) in the “Background” section. Polling tables have serious limitations in that regard. And in this particular case, there is an intention to add specific events based on their “likely” or “potential” impact on polling even before the release of any new opinion poll. This, aside of the aforementioned issues, also raises WP:CRYSTALBALL concerns.

So to sum it all up: opinion polling tables are not meant as listings or timelines of events, nor as a way to project a narrative. They are not a proper channel to explain events or give context, either, because of their space limitations, so it means you must cut a lot of context that may otherwise be important. Who decides which events are important and when? What’s the wording to use for these events? All of this constitute editorial decisions, most of times in open violation of core Wikipedia policies. Others doing it (typically because occasional editors deciding to add them, also because they saw others doing it) only means we have a growing Wikipedia policy violation-issue across many articles. Impru20^talk 10:36, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In my honest opinion, this is an overreaction. It’s obvious that the falling of a government is crucial to polls, and discussions like these should be saved for when a small event happens. Stability of government is directly tied to polls, that is extremely obvious, and does not need defense. Thomediter (talk) 10:40, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It’s obvious that the falling of a government is crucial to polls Ok, explain it in the article. This is one of the questions that has not been addressed above: why you have to use an opinion polling table for giving such context and not the context section itself? And under which sources? Enforcing WP:V and trying to avoid synthesis is not an overreaction. So far, it’s nothing but synthesis, unsourced assumptions and conclusions not stated by sources here.

Stability of government is directly tied to polls Is it? How and why? Has any of the last French governments collapsed/formed because of any connection to opinion polling? Impru20^talk 10:56, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, so far no argument other than “it’s obvious” and “others do it” has been brought in favour of event rows in the opinion polling table. It has been questioned whether there were any issues, and I put them forward. You know: we would not accept adding any other content to any article under such conditions. And there are explicit Wikipedia policies, guidelines and rules against using those arguments for either creating articles or adding such unsourced, synthesized and/or cherry-picked content. Why should we accept making an exception for this case? Impru20^talk 11:02, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you need a discussion, when this is not done on other pages similar. You don’t have to argue for obvious things, how is it not common knowledge that an unstable government has a huge effect on polling? Thomediter (talk) 11:10, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]