Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Cardinal electors for the 2005 papal conclave/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by PresN via FACBot (talk) 00:25, 21 February 2019 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Cardinal electors for the 2005 papal conclave[edit]

Cardinal electors for the 2005 papal conclave (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): RAVENPVFF | talk ~ 06:50, 29 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In light of the success of my previous nomination, here are the cardinals who elected Benedict XVI in 2005. Comments and suggestions made on the 2013 list have been incorporated in this one, which is almost identical in style, so there should be no major issues. RAVENPVFF | talk ~ 06:50, 29 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

My only comment is that I don't understand this bit at all: "The number of votes required to be elected pope with a two-thirds supermajority and with a one-half simple majority were 77 and 58, respectively". How can there be two different numbers of votes required to be elected? The article doesn't explain this..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 19:30, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@ChrisTheDude: Clarified accordingly. The simple majority would have only come into use in the case of a protracted stalemate (which didn't happen here). RAVENPVFF | talk ~ 02:37, 4 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
OK, that makes sense. In that case support -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:11, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What is the position on this nomination in the light of the withdrawal of Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Cardinal electors for the papal conclave, May 1605/archive1 on the ground that Cardinal electors for the May 1605 papal conclave should be merged with May 1605 Papal conclave? Pinging TonyBallioni, TompaDompa, The Rambling Man, Giants2008, Reywas92. Dudley Miles (talk) 22:21, 1 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I support doing it this way per my view that the lists should be covered separately from the articles and that combining them is harmful to the reader’s ability to understand what happened in the actual conclave. These lists are overwhelming (both modern and historical), and despite the view at the last FLC I don’t think that that mergers are a good idea regardless of the size of the main article. If the main article is short and FLC prefers it longer than the May 1605 conclave article was, my view is that the list should be held off on until the article is expanded so as not to have to deal with complaints here at the cost of reader’s understanding of very significant historical events. That being said: this article is much bigger than the May 1605 article, and shouldn’t pose an issue. We passed the March 1605 list at FLC and from memory the March 1605 article is shorter than the 2005 one. I think the issue with May 1605 was 1) it was a relatively uneventful conclave given that the March one had sucked up the drama, and 2) I’m in grad school which wears you out of writing so I never felt up to expanding the main article in ways it could be expanded in a way that could overcome the objections. I’ll likely take it back to FLC when I get a chance to expand the article because based on my understanding the objection was over that specific list/article pairing, not the split concept as a whole. Like you, I think we should just get a format for these and stick with it regardless of the main article, but that doesn’t seem to be the consensus view. But regardless of whether it should pass FLC, I oppose merging this in the strongest possible terms. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:37, 1 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I fail to understand this concept of "harmful to the reader’s ability to understand". You have sections "Background", "Conclave activities", "Results", or whatever, and "Participating cardinals". Whether a table listing the cardinals is in the same article or another is irrelevant to the contents and its reading level, and this basis is underestimating the reader's intelligence. Long articles with huge sections of prose can certainly be daunting to a reader and warrant a split, but that's hardly the case here involving a formatted table. Reywas92Talk 23:43, 1 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It is extremely distracting and overwhelms the rest of the article by making it about the participants rather than the event itself. The history of these articles was that they were created as lists from an unreliable self-published source years ago. On the historical ones, I’ve been redoing them with academic sourcing and removing the lists as both distracting and as improperly sourced in the overwhelming majority of cases. I looked at the one or two GAs we had before that included lists, decided that the table of 60+ names (120+ for contemporary conclaves) would make it more difficult for me, as someone who already knows a fair amount about this having written 10/13 conclave GAs on Wikipedia, to read the article if I came across it on my own, and went with the separate format that already existed for modern conclaves. I’ve looked at dozens of these articles over the last 2 years, and improved around 15 of them. I can tell you that the inclusion of a list with the main conclave article is almost always a sign of the article being poor quality in this particular area. They are easier to maintain separately as a writer and as a reader easier to comprehend, no conclaves are likely to go to FAC anytime soon, but I would use a table as a reason to oppose there: it just makes for a bad article. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:55, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Just a quick note on this, tables can always be made collapsed (by default even) and allowed to be expanded should the reader (a) find the table "distracting" or "overwhelming" and (b) should they wish to delve into the information in more detail. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:11, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I still think they distract from the overall quality of these particular articles and and that the same result can be achieved in a better way by having a hatnote in a participants section. I view it as somewhat analogous referencing an appendix, which is where you would find such lists if anyone after the year 1970 included them in histories. Anyway, that's a meta discussion, and I don't think the issues raised on the May 1605 list are present here as the article is more than long enough to justify a split of over 100 participants in my view. I'll review later in the week. TonyBallioni (talk) 06:34, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I concur with TonyBallioni above. The 2005 conclave had enough news coverage that its article is sufficiently long enough to more than justify a separate list of cardinal electors. In general, I would also prefer similar lists to be split off into separate articles, unless there is significant benefit not to do so. Such lists could also contain information more pertinent to cardinal electors, which might not be that suitable for the general articles: for example, the tables for cardinals' countries of origin in the 2013, the 2005 and the 1978 lists (so far). While some conclave articles (e.g. the May 1605 one discussed above) are relatively brief, these could conceivably be expanded with further particulars and bibliography in the future, potentially meriting a separate list for electors. RAVENPVFF | talk ~ 12:06, 4 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
As one of the editors calling for some sort of merger at the May 1605 FLC, I think that this list has a much stronger case for a separate article. It has about twice as many entries as the May 1605 list, the extra details in the table make the formatting twice as large, and the main article has quite a bit more meat to it. I can understand complaints that such detail would overwhelm the main article, which is a pretty good argument for a stand-alone list. Giants2008 (Talk) 01:24, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Dudley[edit]

  • Is voting public or by secret ballot?
  • "generally reflecting seniority and honour" What does honour mean in this context?
  • Looks fine apart from these minor points. Dudley Miles (talk) 11:19, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  1. As with all conclaves (Latin for 'with a key'), voting is done in secret.
  2. In general, this reflects the nominal relative importance of cardinals in regards to each other, as shown by the order in which they enter the conclave, sit in the Sistine Chapel, cast their ballots, etc.
@Dudley Miles: Thanks for your comments. RAVENPVFF | talk ~ 12:16, 4 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I see that you have not amended the article to deal with my comments. Do you think that they are not relevant to the article? Dudley Miles (talk) 23:25, 27 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Dudley Miles: Your comments are indeed sensible, but I'm still unsure of how exactly they'll fit in with the rest of the article. Conclaves are necessarily conducted in secret, whereas I think the explanation of precedence should be concise enough for the purposes of this list. I think some details should be best left to their respective articles, rather than here. Do let me know what you think. RAVENPVFF | talk ~ 09:43, 28 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would start the article "The papal conclave of 2005 was convened to elect a new pope by secret ballot" and add a note explaining "seniority and honour". Neither point is crucial but I would like you to say what you have decided before I formally support. Dudley Miles (talk) 10:01, 28 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Dudley Miles: In general, I would prefer to keep such details to their respective articles: for example, if readers wish to know more about the conclave process, they would be able to follow the wikilink to Papal conclave or to 2013 papal conclave, in which it is more fully described. I also think that "seniority and honour" is adequately explained by the previous phrase ("This is the order in which the cardinal electors process into the conclave, take the oath and cast their ballots"). While I appreciate your remarks, I don't see them as a strictly necessary part of this list, which focuses primarily on the participants, to merit their inclusion. There would conceivably also be other details that could be of greater relevance than your comments but not in the list. RAVENPVFF | talk ~ 13:31, 29 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment there seems to be some inconsistency across Wikipedia on whether "Papal conclave" should be "papal conclave". I.e. this list has it in lower case, but linked articles has it capitalised. I think that should be resolved.

  • I'm not sure on the utility of the "Office" column being sortable, it's free text.
  • Is there a good justification for the inclusion of flags or are they purely decorative?
  • " announcing the election of the pope " is piped to a redirect.

The Rambling Man (talk) 11:52, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  1. I would tend to agree, but someone made the case over at List of living cardinals that a sortable Office column allows one to get some form of breakdown of the roles of the cardinals in the table (e.g. archbishops, prefects); I've kept that convention for this list's table.
  2. The flags are largely there to match the table in the Cardinals by continent and by country section, but they could serve an auxiliary decorative purpose as well.
  3. Well, not any more.
@The Rambling Man: Thanks for your comments. Regarding the capitalisation of "papal conclave", I've just had the "YYYY Papal conclave" articles moved to "YYYY papal conclave" (per the topic's article, it should be a common noun), thus removing the inconsistency. RAVENPVFF | talk ~ 06:54, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@The Rambling Man: Would you consider supporting this nomination? Thanks. RAVENPVFF | talk ~ 12:05, 15 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, since this has stalled, and I think there's no good reason right now for it not to be promoted, I'll offer my support in the hope that one of the other FL operatives can now read consensus. Cheers. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:11, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Lets end this eternal conclave! Source review passed; promoting. --PresN 04:22, 20 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FLC/ar, and leave the {{featured list candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through.
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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