Template talk:USParty

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Contents 1 Aesthetics 2 Aesthetics, round 2 3 Peace and Freedom Party 4 What minor parties to include? 5 Color codes 6 New Giant Colorful Template 7 Asterisk 7.1 Fringe parties 8 State-Specific Parties 9 Communist Party USA 10 Progressive Party 11 People's/Populist Party link 12 What historical parties to include? 13 VT Progressive - MN Independence? 14 Working Families Party 15 Some Historical Parties 16 Deletion of the Socialist Party?

[edit] Aesthetics

Wow. Are people really attached to this template? I think it's really unattractive. The images are big and gaudy, and it just basically looks completely unprofessional. If there are no good objections, I'm going to try to come up with something better. —Cleared as filed. 14:30, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Feel free to try. This is a fairly rarely used template, however, so it's really not that important to make it all pretty and such. I doubt you'll run into any objections. Matt Yeager 05:31, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Nice job, DLJessup. Much, much better, and it didn't even occur to me that it could be that simple. —Cleared as filed. 00:47, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. — DLJessup (talk) 01:40, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, seems to work. Not pretty, but what an improvement! Matt Yeager 05:54, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Aesthetics, round 2

Member has reverted this template to the image-heavy version that was objected to in #Aesthetics above with the cryptic comment, "a few problems but its better". I am going to restore the image-free version in a moment. If you believe that the image-heavy version is better, please explain why here.

— DLJessup (talk) 01:51, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Dear God, that is ugly. What about one with small logos? [1] --JW1805 (Talk) 05:59, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Um, when you write "that is ugly", are you referring to the image-heavy version or the image-free version?

— DLJessup (talk) 14:21, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

• I meant the enormous one with the giant images and giant colored boxes [2]. --JW1805 (Talk) 15:53, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Peace and Freedom Party

I noticed there was some challenge to the Socialist Party signficance so I thought I should add why the Peace and Freedom is signficant enough. There are two good reasons. First it is the next largest party after the Greens in terms of the last election. Secondly and most importantly it is known for running highly controversial figures as its candidate. Two I know for sure were convicted of a major crime.(Leonard Peltier was convicted of murder of two CIA officers, and even more controversial(at one time supporting Republic of Vietnam) was Eldridge Cleaver their first candidate and a former leader of the Black Panther Party. Finally their speaker was Bob Avakian who is in charge of a radical Maoist Party in the U.S. finally they ran famous pediatrician Benjamin Spock. 12.220.47.145 01:11, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What minor parties to include?

We can't include every minor political party (there are hundreds of them). Constitution, Reform, Libertarian, and Green are the four biggest, and have a national presence. To address Revolución's edit summary ("The Socialist Party USA is significant because it is the descendant of the Socialist Party of America, one of the most successful third parties in American history"): I question the accuracy of that statement, but even if it were true, it is irrelevant. This template isn't for historical political parties. A party that currently has only 1500 members is insignificant. --JW1805 (Talk) 01:37, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

• Actually, List of political parties in the United States doesn't even include the Reform Party as a third party. I say we use the criteria given there (having ballot status in enough states). --JW1805 (Talk) 01:45, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • It does but keep in mind the Reform party endoresed Ralph Nader last election so thats why they are under parties that have endoresed candidates. The point of a U.S. third party isn't to win the election though but to gain signficant enough vote to force the major parties to act on their ideas. Very rarely(Whig, Republican) has a third party become bigger than a major party. 12.220.47.145 01:48, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • As far as Rev's comments go, I imagine he would agree that we would only include the most notable groups. I have to agree with him that the Socialists are descended from the Socialist Party of America. That party would rank up with the Progressive Party in numbers. Their most famous candidate being Eugene V. Debs. That said we have three options that I see here.

1. Only include the six largest parties
2. Include the most notable parties.
3. Create a third section on the template for parties that regularly exceed 1,000 votes or 5,000 votes. This would require us to upload some more logos though. 12.220.47.145 01:52, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

JW1805, what use do you think this template has with only five political parties on it? --Revolución (talk) 02:10, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

• What is the alternative? Including the Alaskan Independence Party, Aloha Aina Party, America First Party, American Heritage Party, American Independent Party, and so on.... How useful would that template be? There is a clearly defined criteria at List of political parties in the United States for "third party". We should use that. The minor parties can be found by clicking the link found on the template. --JW1805 (Talk) 01:48, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
  • The alternative as I mentioed above would be to inlcude the most notable parties(historically, culturally, significance, etc) or to create another section with smaller pics for parties that exceed 5,000 votes in last election as I mentioned above. 12.220.47.145 23:54, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Here is a possible example.(very ugly, and it needs a lot of tweaking but is the basic idea). 12.220.47.145 00:05, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
      • Do you have a source that shows how many votes each party got? Also, how are you defining 10,000 votes? Is that just for presidental candidates, or are you summing up votes from all the candidates from that party (If so, is that national elections only, or does it include state offices)? --JW1805 (Talk) 02:01, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
        • Good point.(My source was wikipedia). I meant 10,000 presidential votes. it wasn't a very good version which is why I didn't implement it but I was presenting a possibility. I was only including the Presidential Race. Obviously if a third party won a seat in Congress we would include them but that is extremely unlikely. I know it wasn't very good, but like I said above I'm just giving a rough idea on how the template could be done. 12.220.47.145 02:42, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

How about this? --Revolución (talk) 23:15, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Political Parties of the United States
Major Parties	Democratic | Republican
Third parties	Constitution | Green | Libertarian
Other*	Socialist Party USA | Socialist Workers Party | Peace & Freedom Party | Reform Party
See List of political parties in the United States for a complete list. *Parties with at least 10,000 votes in a recent presidential election

• • I like that a lot. It allows for the template to change over time to. 12.220.47.145 01:35, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

• What is "a recent Presidential election". Do you mean 2004? If so, it should be specified. And 10,000 votes? In 2004, 10,000 votes was about 0.008% of total votes. Which is essentially zero, these minor parties have basically no effect on American politics, and they do not belong in this template.--JW1805 (Talk) 02:26, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Uhh, well then the third parties don't either because by your numbers the Greens for example just barely surpossed .08%. And you should notice that they do have influence. I have to say that your expectations are way to high. And numbers is the only way to have influence. 12.220.47.145 01:38, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Another note. It is impossible to really determine the REform votes because Nader ran as both a Reform candidate and an Independent and a few other minor parties. 12.220.47.145 01:39, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Color codes

I really think this template should use colors to represent the parties. I like the way this template is color coded:

Federal political parties of Canada
Represented in the House of Commons: Conservative Liberal Bloc Québécois NDP
Other parties recognized by Elections Canada: Green CHP PC Party Marxist-Leninist Marijuana Action Communist Libertarian FPNP WBP AAEVP PPP
Federal elections
(Results summaries - Electoral districts) 1867 · 1872 · 1874 · 1878 · 1882 · 1887 · 1891 · 1896 · 1900 · 1904 · 1908 · 1911 · 1917 1921 · 1925 · 1926 · 1930 · 1935 · 1940 · 1945 · 1949 · 1953 · 1957 · 1958 · 1962 · 1963 1965 · 1968 · 1972 · 1974 · 1979 · 1980 · 1984 · 1988 · 1993 · 1997 · 2000 · 2004 · 2006

Can we use a similar scheme for the US Party template? Unfortunately, I am not that good with wikicode, so can someone do it? Andros 1337 22:57, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

• We already have an elections template, which I believe we should keep, but it wouldn't be a bad idea. We just have to decide what parties qualify for mentioning. 12.220.47.145 00:43, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I was talking about the colors. Andros 1337 14:55, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

• I think colors are unnecessary for this template. Keep it simple, I say. --JW1805 (Talk) 17:20, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Well the problem would be is that the color of the Socialist Party USA is red, but Republicans also (for the moment) claim the color red. So I don't think colors would make things better. --Revolución (talk) 23:18, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Thats an easy one. Use two different shades of red. Andros 1337 19:21, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New Giant Colorful Template

There's no reason for this template to be so big. It's huge.....it looks like we're drifting back to this version. The eariler version was fine. What is the point of all these colored lines and blank space? --JW1805 (Talk) 01:59, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Demo:

Political Parties of the United States
Major Parties: Democratic Republican
Third parties: Constitution Green Libertarian
Minor Parties with at least 10,000 votes in a recent presidential election Socialist Socialist Workers Peace & Freedom Reform
See List of political parties in the United States for a complete list.

There is nothing wrong with this. It is based on the Canadian version of this template. It isn't very fair that the Canadian template have colors, while the U.S. one can't. It makes the template have a nicer, more creative style. Andros 1337 04:17, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Canada has dozens of parties.....the US has two (and a bunch of insignificant ones that hardly anyone knows or cares about). The template doesn't need to be giant. --JW1805 (Talk) 04:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Canada had exactly 9 parties over 10,000. Granted the population of Canada is much less than the United States, but the dozen you've stated have only 1,000 votes compared to millions in the major party. The situation is not that much different.(4 major parties to 2) 12.220.47.145 01:26, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Asterisk

I've removed the asterisk and the note stating that the "minor parties" received at least 10k votes in a recent election. I fail to see how that's relevant at all to the template, so I simply removed it. (I left a hidden note--you know, one of the <!-- note --> things to discourage people from putting on Uncle Dick's Fringe Party or anything, though.)

Objections? Matt Yeager 03:40, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fringe parties

• No objections from me on removing the asterisk. In fact, I'd advocate putting all parties, no matter how small, on the template. It wouldn't mean an unlimited template— just include any party with a wikipedia article. Anyone have objections to that? —Mark Adler (markles) 11:43, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

• I object to that. Just look at List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_States. There are way too many utterly insignificant parties. The reason for the asterisk was to establish some sort of cut-off for inclusion in this template. Otherwise, people will swoop in and add the Southern Party, Working Families Party, and all the other fringe parties that no one has ever heard of. --JW1805 (Talk) 21:29, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I just noticed the hidden note. I'm fine with that. --JW1805 (Talk) 21:31, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] State-Specific Parties

I had added a section called State-Specific Parties for major parties that campaign only in one state for the offices in that state. I added the Vermont Progressive Party. What do you think? --Revolución (talk) 02:29, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• Actually, that's not a bad idea… —Mark Adler (markles) 03:04, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• • I'm not against the idea in principle; however, why is the Vermont Progressive Party particularily notable? It's not even an official third party in its own state, right? Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 06:32, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• So maybe we could develop some standard for which state-specific parties would be listed?—Mark Adler (markles) 11:39, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Of course it's an official third party in Vermont. It's the most successful state-specific party. The criteria for 10,000 votes in a recent Presidential election (which I originally suggested) doesn't really apply here, since the Vermont Progressive Party doesn't run Presidential candidates. --Revolución (talk) 21:42, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

After re-reading its article... sure, six seats in a state legislature probably merits inclusion (certainly more than the freaking Peace and Freedom party!). However, I'm wondering if there isn't a better way to put them on the template—I don't think that we need to have a whole different level just for this one party (which appears to be an anomaly amongst U.S. minor parties). Could we just group it under "minor parties"? Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 00:03, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

That would be fine with me. --Revolución (talk) 22:31, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't know... is the Vermont Progressive Party really that much more important than, say, the Working Families Party?--Pharos 12:42, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Communist Party USA

Shouldn't it be inside the template considering its historical significance?--Jersey Devil 03:17, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

It has been around, but it's never actually done much... that's a thought, but I don't know if it really ought to be in. Any thoughts, anyone else? Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 01:38, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Progressive Party

I've just changed this template so that it links to the individual historical Progressive Parties rather than the disambiguation page for them. There are two reasons for this:

• First, as a general principle, disambiguation pages aren't supposed to be linked to on a permanent basis (except for other disambiguation). Rather, they exist so that if an editor creates a wikilink to an ambiguous topic, the reader can easily find the appropriate target article (and, hopefully, fix the originating wikilink).
• Secondly, in practice, well-meaning editors see that the dab page is on this template and decide to stick the template on the dab page. With a few exceptions, dab pages are supposed to be as lean as possible and are supposed to contain nothing that doesn't help in disambiguation.

— DLJessup (talk) 14:40, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that's a bad idea. There have been many manifestations of the Progressive Party, and we can't link to them all. Splitting it up is a bad idea, I think, because it makes the template look a lot uglier. If you have a problem with the template being on the Progressive disamb page, then splitting it up here is solving the wrong problem. There's a pretty solid consensus for the way things are right now on this page, so again, take care not to violate it. (I hope that didn't sound mean.) Any other thoughts? Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 01:37, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

You didn't sound mean, but I'm often accused of writing abrasively myself, so what do I know?

Anyway, my wish is not so much to have multiple Progressive Party links on this template as to not have a link to the dab page. I tried to accomplish that end by splitting up the links, but I would be just as happy with no links to the Progressive Parties at all. This raises another question: what are the criteria by which you choose to have one historical party be on this template but not another? For example, why do you have the Anti-Masonic Party but not the Know-Nothings or the National Republican Party, each of which is arguably more important?

— DLJessup (talk) 04:09, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

The disambig should be fine, just put the template on each of those parties pages. After all, otherwise we could end up with a lot more parties. I'm not sure what the criteria should be. 12.220.94.199 23:16, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Seems to me the Teddy Roosevelt one (1912) is the one most people are expecting to be transferred to. The other Progressive parties seem rather minor and should be OK just being in the List of Political Parties. I went ahead and changed the template, but I also put a note at the top of the 1912 page linking to the disambig page. Feel free to revert.--207.230.48.5 04:19, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I reverted this change so that "Progressive" links to the disambiguation page. The three historic Progressive parties were all significant in their years. The later two recieved more than one million votes and represent important political trends that created splits in the two major parties. DJ Silverfish 17:43, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I am the same user as 207.230.48.5. If all 3 Progressive Parties are of the same significance, which I can only deduce is what is meant by "were all significant in their years", then why is there even a need for the disambiguation? Why not just put all 3 Progressive Paties on the template since each one is of equal importance, as is claimed?

The average surfer is not going to "know" which Progesssive Party to click on from the disambig page. For one thing, you refer ro the "three historic Progessive Parties", but there are five on the disambig page. Also, when you goto the disambig page (as well as the other Progessive Party pages, excluding the 1912 page), you lose the navigational tool box. And lastly, I was under the impressing that is was discouraged to link to disambig pages.

If the intention is to guide the surfer to a specific page, such as the purpsoe of the navigational tool, then the tool itself should list the specific pages; i.e., an indivdiual link for each Progressive Party of historical significance (1912, 1924, 1948). One cannot give significance to all 5 parties just because they piggy backed on the name of Teddy Roosevelt's party. Seems to me like this is done for aesthetic reasons to make the template look nice without regard to user-friendliness.

I don't care about the Progessive Party, anyway. I am looking at this from a navigational standpoint. When I click on a link in an infobox, I do not expect to be taken to a disambig page which forces me to hope I choose the right one; when I reach a disambig page, I assume the link is broken and needs to be corrected. There has to be a better way than linking to the disambig page.--167.80.244.204 22:47, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] People's/Populist Party link

I've added a link to the late-19th Century People's (aka Populist) Party. The party elected a dozen U.S. Senators or state governors and controlled several state legislatures. DJ Silverfish 17:42, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I changed the link so it would go directly to Populist Party (United States) - People's Party (United States) redirected there anyway. Besides, I've almost always heard mentioned as the Populist Party and Populist movement. Octavian X 07:37, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What historical parties to include?

In an earlier post, I asked:

…what are the criteria by which you choose to have one historical party be on this template but not another? For example, why do you have the Anti-Masonic Party but not the Know-Nothings or the National Republican Party, each of which is arguably more important?

Now I've already added the National Republicans, on the basis that they were a legitimate Second Party (in the sense that the runner-up in a presidential election identified himself with that party), but I've never really received an answer to my question.

One criterion which definitely should put a party on this template is that of having elected a president. This gives us three indispensible links:

• Democratic-Republican Party
• Federalist Party
• Whig Party (United States)

But what other criteria, if any, justifies the inclusion or exclusion of the remaining parties? Should a party need to elect so many members to Congress? Or win so many electors in a presidential election?

— DLJessup (talk) 17:59, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Drawing arbitrary lines doesn't really get us anywhere... I think we need to just do this case-by-case. Basically, if someone thinks that an old party is exceptionally notable, it'll probably get on, but I can only think of five or six parties that'd get in from the past. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 01:13, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, I find that case-by-case evaluation tends to be pretty arbitrary, which is why I was trying to elicit rational criteria for a historical party to get onto this template. I'd be interested in your five or six parties that'd get in and, more importantly, in the rationale for those five or six parties getting in. Why not include the Liberty Party, the first third party to play spoiler in a presidential election? (It is likely that the Liberty Party swung New York, and therefore the election, to Polk in the election of 1844.) How about the Free Soil Party, which won two Senate and fourteen House seats in 1848, and managed to get former President Van Buren to accept their presidential nomination? — DLJessup (talk) 05:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] VT Progressive - MN Independence?

Okay, so the VT Progressive Party gets a spot. Shouldn't then also the Independence Party of Minnesota, which is recognized as a "major" party within Minnesota, also be on this template? —Cuiviénen 21:02, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

They appear to not have done anything for years. VT Progressives at least have a few seats in their state's house. =/ Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 01:11, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

They ran candidates for governor and Senate in 2006 who won 6% and 3% of the vote. That sound significant still. —Cuiviénen 22:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Working Families Party

Candidates running on the Working Families Party ticket have received over 50k+ ballots in New York alone. Perhaps I misunderstand the criteria? Please explain what would be needed to demonstrate that the working families party is a notable third party. Jerimee 18:49, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

To get a spot as a notable third party you have to have had ballot access in the most recent U.S. presidential election in enough states to have had a theoretical chance at winning the election. See List of political parties in the United States#Current third parties, the companion article. --Tim4christ17 ^talk 22:25, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

To get a spot as a "smaller party", if you can demonstrate that the Working Families Party is more notable than one of the parties currently listed in that area, then you can replace the least notable small party with the Working Families Party (or I'll replace it for you, if you don't want to mess with editing the template.) --Tim4christ17 ^talk 22:36, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some Historical Parties

Some historical parties have held Governorships and House or Senate seats, which would also make them significant. These include the Farmer-Labor Party, Independence Party of Minnesota, Alaskan Independence Party, Non-Partisan League and Conservative Party of New York. —Cuiviénen 22:59, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, the question isn't whether they are significant, but whether they are more significant. If you can demonstrate that they are more significant than currently listed ones, then please do so here and change the template accordingly. I think it's fair to say that we only want one line of parties, so any additional parties listed in the historical party line would have to replace a party currently listed. --Tim4christ17 ^talk 01:36, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I would make a case for the Farmer-Labor Party being more significant than the National Republican Party, which was really just a short-lived transitional organization from the Democratic-Republicans to the Whigs. On the other hand, I see no reason why we should restrict the parties to one line; two lines is not particularly large, and I don't think there are any parties other than the ones listed that have ever won Congressional seats or Governorships. —Cuiviénen 04:34, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I've added the Farmer-Labor Party and the NPL. The otehrs are still technically active, so putting them under historical parties is a bit POV. The template is not in any way large with two lines of historical parties. —Cuiviénen 04:41, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion of the Socialist Party?

I have added the Socialist Party USA back to this box and I'm not sure why it was deleted. The Socialist Party is at least five times the size of the Socialist Workers Party and runs more candidates each year as well. If the SWP is going to be in the box, the Socialist Party certainly should as well. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.93.4.113 (talk) 01:50, 2 April 2007 (UTC).