Talk:SA Best

The section "Strongest Xenophon/SA-BEST seats" is cited to The Poll Bludger, however to me it feels like an opinion piece, and possibly pushing a barrow. Nine of the top ten seats listed were won last time on first preferences, two of them with over 60% first preferences. I'm uncertain how the tone of the section improves the article, and even less whether it has any chance of staying in a state like it is now beyond 17 March. What can we do to change it to talk about what media speculation showed before the election, instead of Wikipedia providing our own speculation about Xenophon stealing voters from seats thta don't need preference distributions? "...the more strongly performing major party candidate will be in serious trouble unless their own primary vote approaches 50%" doesn't note that the winning candidates in those seats far exceeded that level in 2014. --Scott Davis ^Talk 21:58, 31 January 2018 (UTC) [reply ]

Surely you aren't that ignorant to such basic political arithmetic and history, recent or otherwise? You do realise that nobody got a 50%+ primary vote in any of the 11 SA seats at the 2016 fed election? You wouldn't claim the NXT presence was purely coincidental and wasn't the cause, would you? And surely enough, Mayo fell due to a substantial NXT primary, coupled with a low Labor vote in a safe Liberal seat, where the Liberal candidate's primary vote usually well exceeds 50%? Frome in 2006 and then 2009? In a marginal seat, say a common example where both majors were to once again poll near or above a 40% primary, it wouldn't be possible for a third candidate to win. Even at 34% each. The imbalance is larger in safer seats, and therefore easier due to the lower threshold to poll second and pick up third-placed major party preferences. History is littered with this exact recipe. Lastly, where do you think third party primary votes come from, if not the major parties? They don't just spontaneously appear from nowhere. Timeshift (talk) 01:21, 1 February 2018 (UTC) [reply ]

I didn't claim to be ignorant of arithmetic, or history. I accept that I am ignorant of how the bulk of voters in those electorates will respond to the different political landscape this time. The Poll Bludger and Essential references do not attempt to account for the significant Family First vote in recent elections. Mayo and Heysen have a long history of voting for other parties (I used to live there). SA-BEST might be able to draw on the Karlene Maywald legacy in Chaffey, but she lost the last election she contested, so that might not be a bonus any more. Using Chaffey as the example, 78% (Lib+FF) - (0.6*30% = 18%) (SA-BEST leaning Liberal) = 60% still leaves Liberal well over 50% first preferences. Other electorates might leave that number in the high 40s, but until we know which way Labor will recommend their preferences, neither reference gives us a value for the leakage of Labor preferences to Liberal in an Lib/SA-BEST 2-candidate distribution. I'm not cinvinceed that if SA-BEST are to end up with a signifficant number of seats, they will mostly be won by sweeping past a Liberal leader using Labor preferences. I think if it's going to happen, the voters will have moved far enough that SA-BEST will be chosen, not just best-of-the-rest. However, for the next 6 weeks, that is just as speculative as any other opinion. --Scott Davis ^Talk 13:36, 1 February 2018 (UTC) [reply ]

What you're both saying is perfectly reasonable. Just arrange the whole section along the lines of: "The arrival of SA-BEST is very significant to this election blah blah. Antony Green thinks such and such. Galaxy polling analysed the Nick Xenophon Team federal vote per polling booth across the state to estimate which states seats are likley to be won by SA-BEST. This (blah blah) is a summary of that research. And Politics blogger Pollbludger has done such and such analysis and come up with such and such." We don't have to argue about whether to put this info here or whether we personally think SA-BEST has a chance, just put what political analysts have actually said and name each source in the text. Donama (talk) 22:15, 1 February 2018 (UTC) [reply ]

This review is transcluded from Talk:SA Best/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: LivelyRatification (talk · contribs) 07:59, 15 April 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

Reviewer: Spravato (talk · contribs) 21:35, 25 May 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

Hi, I am going to review this article I am taking my notes in this page(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Spravato/SA_Best_review). I will post a final review when I am done. I’m also new so I may make mistakes.

@Spravato: Thank you very much. I have just seen your notes and read over them, but will reserve comments until you post a review here. --LivelyRatification (talk) 23:01, 25 May 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

Hi. While I am not posting the final review because it's my first time reviewing GAs, and therefore I dont want to make a mistake. My preliminary verdict is on hold because I think that the gambling issue should be in the lead and Darley's view should be more elaborated on in the article. 🥤 Spravato! 🍒/🧋 23:34, 25 May 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

I have seen this at your notes. Again, I'll refrain from commenting until a review is provided here unless you wish for me to respond to your preliminary comments. LivelyRatification (talk) 23:39, 25 May 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

Ok, since the GA mentor haven't gotten back to me yet, here is my final review:

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

The article is very, very close to GA, but there are some improvements

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear, concise and understandable to an appropriately broad audience, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

   The lead should talk abt the gambling policy, as there is a lot of the article talking about it.

2. Is it verifiable with no original research, as shown by a source spot-check?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   B. Reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose):

   C. It contains no original research:

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

4. Is it neutral ?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

   The views of John Darley could be covered more, as they are in an RS(https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-17/nick-xenophon-labelled-complete-dictator-by-john-darley/8817462)

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

   Y

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images ?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

   Y

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   Because the aforementioned problems can be solved quickly and are fairly minor, I will put it on hold for 7 days.

@Spravato: I have added the gambling policy to the lede. I think I did not at the time because I didn't want to flood the lede with policy info but I think you're right in that it should be in the lede given the amount of inline content, and hopefully I have done it in a representative way. I am not sure that Darley's POV is strictly necessary -- his defection and reasons for such are mainly mentioned in passing, and at first I thought further elaboration might not constitute due weight -- but it is fairly harmless to include, so I have put it in. There were a number of other notes and points at your review page that you have not included there -- while they may not be necessary to achieving GA status, are there any particular improvements you'd like to recommend? --LivelyRatification (talk) 23:58, 30 May 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

Thank you! I would love it if you went through and thought to yourself "If I wasn't an Aussie, would I still understand this". For example, im not sure if the average non-aussie would know what the 'Citizenship Seven' is 🥤 Spravato! 🍒/🧋 00:06, 31 May 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

I totally agree that it is an unclear term in that context. It is included and wikilinked to as a jumping-off point for further research or reading, as the alternative would either be excluding it entirely, (He stated that he would stay in the Senate until the High Court ruled on whether he was eligible to sit in parliament.), or explaining at length what the Citizenship Seven were. I think the lengthy explanation would be too off topic and I think the exclusion might create questions for readers, hence adding the unclear reference to the Citizenship Seven. LivelyRatification (talk) 00:17, 31 May 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

@Spravato: Have tried to do a copy-edit of the article with an eye towards a global audience. I think that there are some terms which are difficult to immediately understand (e:g, 'North-South Corridor Project'), while others can be inferred based off context (e:g, 'two-party-preferred', 'as One Nation had at the 1998 Queensland state election') but still might be unclear. For the most part I think this article does well at catering to a reader who may have no knowledge at all of the topic. Some terms are used without explanation relating to parliaments and elections, but the meanings of these are mainly intuitive based off context ('Legislative Council', 'after preferences were distributed'), and I think this article is understandable to a non-technical audience. LivelyRatification (talk) 00:43, 31 May 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

@Spravato: Are there any other issues that remain with this article not reaching the good article criteria? Let me know if there are, but I believe I've addressed all the issues you've raised here. --LivelyRatification (talk) 01:23, 4 June 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

Nope, I will pass the article! 🥤 Spravato! 🍒/🧋 01:38, 4 June 2026 (UTC) [reply ]