More prominent links to Public Whip OR carry some of the information across

[MyfanwyNixon]

A user has commented that this page is very confusing and indeed it is! Three votes on a single day, one apparently contradicting the others.

She hadn't spotted the link through to Public Whip, but even if she had, would she have known that the full details of each vote and a nice plain English description was to be found there (a further click away from the landing page)?

Can we maybe pull details like "MPs were voting on if the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill ought be given its second reading; i.e.. if they approved the core principle of the Bill and wished to see it proceed towards becoming law. " through? Or if not, make it clearer that users can gain further understanding by clicking to these pages.

[RichardTaylor]

I've checked to see if there's an error here and I don't think there is, the MP's voting record was surprising.

I've considered expanding the single sentence descriptions of the votes here (which is probably the best way to pull in more information); but I think what's shown is already a good summary of the votes even if the voting pattern is surprising.

As for more links to PublicWhip - an option would be to show links to the full vote descriptions as well as links to "show full debate"; in this case the links would go to:

http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/division.php?date=2013-02-05&number=151&mpn=Liam_Fox&mpc=North_Somerset&house=commons http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/division.php?date=2013-02-05&number=153&mpn=Liam_Fox&mpc=North_Somerset&house=commons http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/division.php?date=2013-02-05&number=154&mpn=Liam_Fox&mpc=North_Somerset&house=commons

What might be most useful to readers is a link to the MP in question's speeches in the debate preceding the vote. That's hard to calculate at the moment but a link could be provided to a search for any speeches that MP made that day in Parliament perhaps, with an indication if they didn't make any.

I see Liam Fox didn't make a speech in the debate at: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2013-02-05b.125.0 so in this case that wouldn't help the user's understanding of the MP's voting pattern, but it does tell them they didn't explain it.

As for an alternative description of the voting pattern here - I'm struggling to come up with anything other than Liam Fox voted twice against and once for allowing same sex couples to marry on the same day; all the votes were in essence on simply allowing same sex couples to marry and he said yes twice and no once. I'm not keen on bringing technical terms into the one sentence summaries, the aim is a short plain English description of the impact of the vote.

Overall here if we've got someone questioning an odd voting pattern by an MP then I think TheyWorkForYou is doing its job.

[MyfanwyNixon]

A user was confused by this page today, saying he thought we'd got the ayes and nos the wrong way round.

This was a vote preceding the main vote, which attempted to derail the second reading of the welfare reform act. Vince Cable voted against this motion, and for the Bill on its second reading. The text on Public Whip actually makes it a lot clearer.

To be fair to the user, the introductory text on the TWFY page:

Vincent Cable voted to introduce Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payments and to restrict housing benefit for those in social housing deemed to have excess bedrooms. A majority of MPs voted the same.

does not help differentiate this vote from the main one, and it doesn't help clarify the purpose of this vote, even though I know why it's been included: it's part of what built up VC's stance.