On Mon, 17 Oct 2005, Snowspinner wrote:
[[2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities]] and its 8 sub-articles, at present, take up 56085 words. This is five times as much as the whole of our coverage on Immanuel Kant.
The articles are, needless to say, utter crap - full of conspiracy theory rantings and POV, they read like the collected waste products of a month of blogging, which is, not coincidentally, exactly what they are.
The problem with this article is similar in many ways to that around many hot-button topics (for example, Israel & Palestine), but with its own unique twist: one side believes the entire topic is -- if I may borrow your words -- utter crap, & not worth space in Wikipedia; the other side believes that their POV is undeniable truth, & is equally uncompromising about their stance. With this divisive atmosphere, it's no wonder that we can't find someone eager to moderate this dispute.
(I tried, months ago. I mentioned this months ago on the Talk page of the article, suggesting that the article ought to cite these reports, the various recounts, & the published allegations that the voting machines used were not reliable; I was told that although this was a good idea, it wasn't what the folks currently writing the article wanted. Being one editor against three or four, I decided to tackle other topics instead.)
Which is sad, because this *is* a legitimite topic for an article, because there has been a fair number of allegations that there were irregularities in that election. These allegations are not limited to blogs & webforums: I know of at least one reporter writing for the BBC who has written extensively on this matter.
And this is sad because a very partisan Wiki -- www.dkospedia.org -- has a far better explanation (& far more NPOV) of the matter than we do, with ample citations, clear explanations, & is quite concise. (See [[2004 Ohio Irregularities]] at dkospedia.)
If nothing else, these allegations need to be documented & explained as a service to our readers. We have articles on internet memes, Kennedy assassination theories, revisionist histories: so why not an article on this topic? Admittedly, it is a controversial topic, & this article probably won't find a form acceptible to everyone for a long time -- but no one has suggested that we wipe the slate clean for the Israel & Palestine-related articles, & we have tolerated the flamewars there.
Geoff