Talk:List of members of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands, 2023–present

Sorting[edit]

The problem with sorting by party, is that almost inevitably some with will switch parties. Then this sorting does not really work. Please note that this has been done for previous terms as well, one of which is a featured list. Dajasj (talk) 06:20, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Dajasj: To expand on the reason for the revert- if you were to use a definition of office holding which defines every member of the House of Representatives as having left office during the election, this contradicts practice that is used elsewhere on Wikipedia for both the Netherlands and other countries- e.g. if one were to go to Geert Wilders's article, the infobox is clear that he has served in the House of Representatives since 26 July 2002. As for ordering, it is quite possible to move someone's position in the list following a party switch so I'm not really sure how that's meant to be an argument against sorting by party- but happy to hear other arguments on that. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 06:23, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

But where do you place a member that has switched parties in the list? With the old or new party?

And we dont use that practice for lists in case of NL. On individual pages that's less problematic because you get more context about that specific person, which avoids the problems above and in the section below. Dajasj (talk) 06:31, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think including with the new party but including the note mentioning the old party would make sense- example box below. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 06:40, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In previous terms, we included both the colorbox of the previous and new party. So that will look weird, breaking up the rowspan

It becomes also problematic because you seem to have sorted by position on the list. But this might also be different from the order in which they are elected. Dajasj (talk) 06:52, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

O I see you actually sorted by seniority, which is problematic because of the discussion below. Dajasj (talk) 06:55, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I sorted by time served, followed by alphabetical order. Whilst I can see the argument for not including the length of time served in past terms, I definitely think that using purely alphabetical order makes the list less easy to read, especially if you're wanting to quickly ascertain the members of one party. I don't think breaking up the rowspan would be that terrible. Note that List of members of the twenty-fifth Knesset similarly sorts by party and has no issues. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 06:56, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

To add to this though, List of members of the twenty-fifth Knesset does within parties sort by the position in which a candidate was elected rather than by alphabetical order. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 06:57, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sorting by time served is not really true, you sorted by most recent starting date. Nicolien Vroonhoven for example has been member in the past.

And it's still possible to sort by party in the table. But when some member switches party, it becomes avtually harder to see it from the start, because the member is either listed with the new or old party. Dajasj (talk) 07:01, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My sorting method is also not unique for the Netherlands, see List of members of the 20th Bundestag. So for consistency and because it fits the Dutch parliament system to revert back to how it was before. Dajasj (talk) 07:04, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Members of the 33rd Dáil sorts by alphabet after constituency, which we do not have in the Netherlands. Dajasj (talk) 07:05, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is true- the sorting option makes it not matter very much which order is used initially- whether the default is alphabetical or by party, it's possible for the reader to sort by the other. So whilst my preference is for sorting by party, it doesn't matter massively and I'm fine with the other being used if there's no strong consensus in either direction.

I think the bigger issue lies in the starting date question, because having 2023 for everyone could definitely feel misleading. Given the difficulties with determining a start date, might a reasonable compromise be only displaying the current parliament in the "Assumed office" column but also including another column displaying previous terms served? Like this. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 07:12, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'd also add that neither List of members of the 20th Bundestag nor Members of the 33rd Dáil lists current terms only- there are more grounds for alphabetization, less so for ignoring previous parliamentary terms. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 07:15, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Fair point ;) But maybe that is less of an issue there, because they also don't include previous terms. Dajasj (talk) 07:16, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose the difference is probably that in those countries, leaving and then re-entering parliament is less common. The closest governmental system to the Netherlands is Israel but List of members of the twenty-fifth Knesset does not include time served at all! I wonder if there are any other similar countries to compare formats with? Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 07:22, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well the Knesset page does not include replacements in the list at all and I have not seen switches of party. So in general it is a hard comparison. And given the diversity of ways in which parliamentary terms are summarized, I don't see why the Netherlands can have its own style that fits the system. And again, one of the pages is a featured list, so it has not been a problem during that review. Dajasj (talk) 07:31, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I also replied below, but I see this table has some changes. First it makes it more cluttered in any case. It still makes no mention of any party switches in previous terms, although it suggests to a lesser extent that a member was member of the same party then. You missed one leave for Ouwehand and did not include her time from 2022-2023, and missed at least one leave for Agema. The column title is also incorrect, but "Previous time served".

But zooming out, are these previous terms relevant? Isnt it better to limit the scope to everything what happens in this term? I believe that would be a perfect scope for the page given the title. There are other pages (lists and the page of the individual) where you can see the entire history of a member. One could also argue that previous terms served isnt the only thing that could be relevant. What if a member has been minister, and perhaps combined boths jobs at the same time? That would also be interesting, but makes it even more complicated. We had that on nlwiki and it was terrible.

An alternative to the new column would be adding notes to the starting or ending date mentioning previous or later terms. Would save a column and a lot of text, but would nevertheless make the entire thing more cluttered.t Dajasj (talk) 07:26, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think the main thing needs to be ensuring things aren't misleading for readers, and implying that someone has only served for the current term is not at all standard for articles like this. I'd be interested in hearing if anyone else looking at this discussion has any other better ideas for how to display the information, as I think I've gone through all options that I can think of- someone other than us two might have more ideas. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 07:33, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well nothing is misleading right? At the top of the table it right now explains that the starting date is always within the term.

And if you really want to added previous terms, would adding notes be an option for you? (I'm not in favor, but could be a compromise). Dajasj (talk) 07:38, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What if, we also created a List of members of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands of all the members ever. That could be the place where one sees everything, while this list can be limited for convenience to this term. This would be radical and labour intensive, but might be useful? I have been thinking about this for a while now and I'm still in doubt. (If I do this, I want to be sure that it wont be removed :P) Dajasj (talk) 10:27, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]


Name		Assumed office	Previous terms served
Fleur Agema	PVV	TBD December 2023	2006–2023
Pieter Omtzigt	NSC	TBD December 2023	2003–2010; 2010–2021; 2021–2023
Esther Ouwehand	PvdD	TBD December 2023	2003–2015; 2016–2022

Previous terms[edit]

Previous terms are more problematic and I'll look up the previous discussion. The first problem is switching of parties: it now looks like Omtzigt has been in parliament since 2010 for NSC. But thats not the case, he has been part of CDA and more recently an independent member. So the current combination of starting date and party is misleading, for many members. The other problem is that some members leave parliament for a short period. So it looks like a member has been in Parliament for a short time, but thats not the case. For example, Omtzigt was also in parliament before 2010. But there it gets more interesting, because Omtzigt also temporarily left parliament in 2021 because he had a burn out. So his starting date should be in that year.

Because of these two reasons, it made sense in the past to keep this page limited to this specific term (for which starting dates are not definitively known). The other information can be found on list per party or on the page of a person. Dajasj (talk) 06:28, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I can see an argument for only including time served during this term but in that case the article should be clear that it is referring to time served during this term, as (as mentioned above) individual politicians' wikiboxes show incumbent terms as lasting longer than that. However it is a good point about previous partisan allegiance- in the interest of providing more info to readers without appearing cluttered, something like this may work. Note that I did not include Omtzigt's leave in 2021 because his article does not indicate that he actually left parliament in this time- but it could be included if he did indeed leave parliament. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 06:39, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The previous articles all have a disclaimer about the start and end dates. I had not included them because no one had been sworn in. I had added it after your contribution to clarify. Dajasj (talk) 06:45, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And regarding Omtzigt, then the article is incomplete or not precise. Because during that time he was replaced and had to be sworn in later. This is also the case for many women who have been on maternity leave in the past. Dajasj (talk) 06:48, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I only now saw the table, because it broke the reply function in the app. It makes it very cluttered to me. Especially because you even missed one leave for Ouwehand and did not mention the time when Omtzigt was an independent member.

@Tristan Surtel, this entire discussion might be relevant for you because it would also impact the page you started and in general you inspired this table format ;) Dajasj (talk) 07:13, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]


Name	Parliamentary group		Assumed office	Left office	Previous service	Ref.
Pieter Omtzigt		NSC	26 October 2010		2003–2010; CDA from 2003–2021
Esther Ouwehand		PvdD	2 February 2023		2003–2015; 2016–2022

I get that it would be nicer to include some of the background of when an MP first joined the parliament. it is relevant whether someone just joined or whether they are on the fourth term. However, some of the difficulty with this has been discussed above and that was also why I decided against that approach for the list for the previous term.

MPs in the Netherlands officially leave the parliament temporarily for sick leaves and maternity leaves, and the subsequent replacements again lead to non-consecutive terms (we would have to mention all three of Henri Bontenbal's term or incorrectly pretend his service was continuous. This is made even messier by cabinet members who have been in and out of parliament (according to the Dutch Wikipedia, Mark Rutte had five separate terms in the House). Then comes indeed the issue of parties; creating a rowspan for MPs who switched during this particular term seems necessary to not favor just the latest situation. However, including all past party switches again complicates the table immensely.

Ignoring past party switches and official leaves from the House would lead to oversimplifications bordering misinformation, while including all of them would make this article about the term 2023–2028 go into needless details about other terms. Therefore, I believe "Assumed office" and "Left office" should refer to the dates for the current term. This makes sense also because every term ends with a plenary farewell session and starts with the swearing in of all members (including incumbents). Just as the 2021–2023 list has, a prominent disclaimer should indeed clarify that those dates only refer to the term discussed in the article. This also removes the need to divulge into past party switches.

Still, the information about how long an MP has served would be lost. A possible solution could be including another column that mentions for each MP the year in which they were first appointed to the House. If not suggestion is made that the terms are consecutive, there would be no need to include all absences and party switches. - Tristan Surtel (talk) 10:15, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]


Name	Parliamentary group		Assumed office	Left office	First appointed	Ref.
Pieter Omtzigt		NSC	26 October 2010		2003
Esther Ouwehand		PvdD	2 February 2023		2003

John Pool[edit]

Hello all, just wanted to make you aware John Pool redirects to a 19th-century American politician. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 05:37, 29 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I fixed that for now Dajasj (talk) 08:26, 29 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]