A news item involving 2008 Romanian parliamentary election was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the In the news section on 16 December 2008.

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The Chamber seat total should be 333: 18 seats minorities 315 seats for the four parties that made the threshold:

• 244 seats allocated in the 43 districts by simple quota
• 71 remaining seats allocated nationally

(for 315=244+71 see http://www.becparlamentare2008.ro/rezul/Anexa%206A.pdf : table on page 1-2) --Bancki (talk) 16:53, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2008-12-03T16:53:00.000Z","author":"Bancki","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-Bancki-2008-12-03T16:53:00.000Z-Untitled","replies":[]}}-->

problem solved: "Both PD-L and PSD+PC won 114 seats each under the proportional allocation of Chamber seats; however, in Arad county PD-L was entitled to four seats but won five single-member constituency seats by absolute majority, which brought its total to 115 seats - one more than PSD+PC" [1] --Bancki (talk) 11:38, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2008-12-05T11:38:00.000Z","author":"Bancki","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-Bancki-2008-12-05T11:38:00.000Z-Untitled","replies":[]}}-->

People, why does this article look as awful as it does? Don't you picture you could make life easier for other editors by adhering to at least a minimal standard of quality? Also, don't you think it would be worth mentioning that this is the first suffrage in which the electoral system was changed to mixed member proportional representation from the party-list proportional representation, and the first one to feature sub-county unit electoral colleges? Dahn (talk) 05:09, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2008-12-05T05:09:00.000Z","author":"Dahn","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-Dahn-2008-12-05T05:09:00.000Z-Well?","replies":["c-Biruitorul-2008-12-05T07:17:00.000Z-Dahn-2008-12-05T05:09:00.000Z"]}}-->

I second that. To the authors: well-written articles on modern elections look like this, this or this. Could we get even remotely close to that? - Biruitorul ^Talk 07:17, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2008-12-05T07:17:00.000Z","author":"Biruitorul","type":"comment","level":2,"id":"c-Biruitorul-2008-12-05T07:17:00.000Z-Dahn-2008-12-05T05:09:00.000Z","replies":["c-Miacek-2008-12-05T07:23:00.000Z-Biruitorul-2008-12-05T07:17:00.000Z"]}}-->

The first thing to do is to re-format the article so that it would be easier to get an overview of the maps. Presently it looks like a gallery. --Miacek (talk) 07:23, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2008-12-05T07:23:00.000Z","author":"Miacek","type":"comment","level":3,"id":"c-Miacek-2008-12-05T07:23:00.000Z-Biruitorul-2008-12-05T07:17:00.000Z","replies":[]}}-->

The description of mixed member proportional representation does not reflect the current system used in Romania:

• only one vote is cast for each chamber, not two as mixed member proportional representation describes
• there is a first past the post system for those winning 50%+1 of votes, which is not part of mixed member proportional representation Pcap ping 15:22, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2008-12-05T15:22:00.000Z","author":"Pohta ce-am pohtit","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-Pohta_ce-am_pohtit-2008-12-05T15:22:00.000Z-Mixed_member_proportional_representation_disputed","replies":["c-Pohta_ce-am_pohtit-2008-12-05T15:34:00.000Z-Pohta_ce-am_pohtit-2008-12-05T15:22:00.000Z"],"displayName":"Pcap"}}-->
• only one winner was selected from each constituency. This led to strong criticism for odd cases like the one in Brasov, where someone (from UDMR I think) won a seat with only 6% of the vote (ranked in 4th place). I'll try to find some reference for this. Pcap ping 15:34, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2008-12-05T15:34:00.000Z","author":"Pohta ce-am pohtit","type":"comment","level":2,"id":"c-Pohta_ce-am_pohtit-2008-12-05T15:34:00.000Z-Pohta_ce-am_pohtit-2008-12-05T15:22:00.000Z","replies":[],"displayName":"Pcap"}}-->

See (in Romanian) [2] for some criticism: a guy that ranked 6th in his constituency won in this case. I'll add a section to the article once I gather enough references. Pcap ping 16:14, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2008-12-05T16:14:00.000Z","author":"Pohta ce-am pohtit","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-Pohta_ce-am_pohtit-2008-12-05T16:14:00.000Z-Criticism","replies":["c-Dahn-2008-12-10T07:13:00.000Z-Pohta_ce-am_pohtit-2008-12-05T16:14:00.000Z"],"displayName":"Pcap"}}-->

That "reference" is a self-published news portal, published by some guys in Braşov (not even at a county level). It thus fails WP:RS and is so marginally relevant as to make it ridiculous. I have no objection to a [neutrally-voiced] portion on criticism of the system or whatnot, but not if this is the type of sourcing it should rely on. Dahn (talk) 07:13, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2008-12-10T07:13:00.000Z","author":"Dahn","type":"comment","level":2,"id":"c-Dahn-2008-12-10T07:13:00.000Z-Pohta_ce-am_pohtit-2008-12-05T16:14:00.000Z","replies":[]}}-->

We need more details here, although the extended version added by User:Bancki was long but still incomplete, and the tone was bit too textbook-like. Compare with South_Australian_state_election,_2006#Electoral_system (a FA). Things that need to be added:

• a bit of history: Basescu wanted 2-round system, but had to settle for the current compromise
• bar for entry for a party: the 5% and 3 in senate, 5 in reps (have to check the details)
• the system was widely advertised as "first past the post" ((in Romanian) "uninominal"), even though it was only so for those candidates that could win an absolute majority in their constituency
• two-level redistribution (regional/national). D'Hondt_method covers this in the variants section for Estonia, but I'm not sure that new Romanian system is the same.
• criticism (see section above)

The level of detail given in South_Australian_state_election,_2006#Electoral_system seems good. Where possible, like that article, we can link to existing articles on different electoral systems. Presuming this electoral system is going to be kept, would it also be better to put most of the detail in the Chamber of Deputies/Senate articles rather than here? Bondegezou (talk) 18:44, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2008-12-05T18:44:00.000Z","author":"Bondegezou","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-Bondegezou-2008-12-05T18:44:00.000Z-Electoral_system_details_(which_were_deleted)","replies":["c-Pohta_ce-am_pohtit-2008-12-05T18:58:00.000Z-Bondegezou-2008-12-05T18:44:00.000Z"]}}-->

There was talk of changing it right after the elections; the media was critical and some politicians disappointed. The advantage of describing it here (too) is that this article will be self-contained even if the system changes later. Pcap ping 18:58, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2008-12-05T18:58:00.000Z","author":"Pohta ce-am pohtit","type":"comment","level":3,"id":"c-Pohta_ce-am_pohtit-2008-12-05T18:58:00.000Z-Bondegezou-2008-12-05T18:44:00.000Z","replies":["c-Bondegezou-2008-12-06T19:48:00.000Z-Pohta_ce-am_pohtit-2008-12-05T18:58:00.000Z"],"displayName":"Pcap"}}-->

I have shortened the newer description of the electoral system, and added a note about the political context you mention above. Some citations for that would be good of course. Bondegezou (talk) 19:48, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2008-12-06T19:48:00.000Z","author":"Bondegezou","type":"comment","level":4,"id":"c-Bondegezou-2008-12-06T19:48:00.000Z-Pohta_ce-am_pohtit-2008-12-05T18:58:00.000Z","replies":[]}}-->

I don't know who came up with the infobox, but it's absolute overkill. In my settings, it takes up more than half of the page in width, and most of the info there is redundant, if not completely irrelevant. Does anyone really need to understand what Stolojan or Geoana look like in this article? (Btw, two if not all of those pictures are most likely copyright violations.) Do we really need to know what constituencies the partly leaders ran in, an info which can be passed into a flowing text in the actual article? Is there any point to having (roughly) the same results in both the infobox and the template? Does the pie chart or whatever it's called really need to be the size of a small house?

I know, inoboxes are enjoyable, but they serve a limited purpose. They are not there to replace articles, they are certainly not there for slowly moving the entire article to. I for one think that the more limited their use the better, but, whatever your generic opinion is, I'm sure you will admit that this infobox and a few others (coincidentally, almost all having to do with Romania) are the only ones to have degenerated into this mushy stuff.

And, dear editors, would it kill you to abide by the WP:MOS when writing an article? Would it kill you to turn embedded links into references using one of the many formats we have around? Would it impair your vital functions to use diacritics (which, I'm tired of saying it, are found at the top of any editing window, in the "Latin" scroll item, right below where it says "Do not copy text from other websites without a GFDL-compatible license. It will be deleted.")? And would you please consider reading WP:OVERLINK? Dahn (talk) 07:06, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2008-12-10T07:06:00.000Z","author":"Dahn","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-Dahn-2008-12-10T07:06:00.000Z-Overkill_and_sloppiness","replies":["c-Miacek-2008-12-17T12:01:00.000Z-Dahn-2008-12-10T07:06:00.000Z"]}}-->

Apparently you're waging a losing battle. A week or so ago I tried to explain here that the graphs and pics are so awfully formatted that the article is almost impossible to read. Well, no changes in the meantime...--Pan Miacek (t) 12:01, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2008-12-17T12:01:00.000Z","author":"Miacek","type":"comment","level":2,"id":"c-Miacek-2008-12-17T12:01:00.000Z-Dahn-2008-12-10T07:06:00.000Z","replies":[],"displayName":"Pan Miacek"}}-->

Could someone actually describe the process which is followed in a constituency in which no candidate has 50% of vote? How is the winner determined? Intelligent Mr Toad (talk) 21:48, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2009-02-15T21:48:00.000Z","author":"Intelligent Mr Toad","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-Intelligent_Mr_Toad-2009-02-15T21:48:00.000Z-Electoral_process","replies":[]}}-->

the results are different from ones in the pdf indicated as source, what you doing??--79.49.21.248 (talk) 10:59, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2009-03-30T10:59:00.000Z","author":"79.49.21.248","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-79.49.21.248-2009-03-30T10:59:00.000Z-errors","replies":[]}}-->