[[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.
All of them have been VfDed on two occasions a year or so ago when the election actually happened, and survived. In that time, they've only gotten worse, more bloated, and more absurd.
What can we do about these articles, and other cases of what we might call POV by volume - [[Jack Thompson (attorney)]] and [[Westboro Baptist Church]] spring to mind here as well.
My inclination, quite honestly, is to speedy all nine of these election articles and let people start over. Whatever comes now, a year after the event, cannot possibly be as appallingly bad as this.
And don't just shoot back with {{sofixit}} - there's no good fix. It would involve deleting 90% of all 8 of these articles, a change that would be quickly reverted anyway, and, with the way my editing has been going, probably lead to my getting another RfC, because they seem all the rage.
We need some sort of system that's going to untangle this kind of mess - something that doesn't rely on enough people with a whit of common sense watchlisting the articles and being willing to angrily revert the stupid, because, quite frankly, that obviously didn't work here.
Thoughts? Jimbo in particular?
-Snowspinner
On 10/18/05, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
My inclination, quite honestly, is to speedy all nine of these election articles and let people start over. Whatever comes now, a year after the event, cannot possibly be as appallingly bad as this.
-Snowspinner
don't be too certian after a year it will probably only be the real fanatics who do any real creation.
-- geni
The blogs are not reputable sources in most instances and ought not be there.
Fred
On Oct 17, 2005, at 8:15 PM, Snowspinner wrote:
On Oct 17, 2005, at 9:49 PM, geni wrote:
don't be too certian after a year it will probably only be the real fanatics who do any real creation.
Yeah, but they'll have to go combing the archives of blogs instead of the front pages. It'll slow them down.
-Snowspinner _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I wish you the best of luck with trying to improve these articles, but I hope you're up for a challenge. The amount of resistance to even the smallest change in these articles is simply staggering. I can't even imagine what would happen if they were speedied. Fire and brimstone instantly comes to mind.
Good luck! Carbonite
On 10/17/05, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com 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.
All of them have been VfDed on two occasions a year or so ago when the election actually happened, and survived. In that time, they've only gotten worse, more bloated, and more absurd.
What can we do about these articles, and other cases of what we might call POV by volume - [[Jack Thompson (attorney)]] and [[Westboro Baptist Church]] spring to mind here as well.
My inclination, quite honestly, is to speedy all nine of these election articles and let people start over. Whatever comes now, a year after the event, cannot possibly be as appallingly bad as this.
And don't just shoot back with {{sofixit}} - there's no good fix. It would involve deleting 90% of all 8 of these articles, a change that would be quickly reverted anyway, and, with the way my editing has been going, probably lead to my getting another RfC, because they seem all the rage.
We need some sort of system that's going to untangle this kind of mess - something that doesn't rely on enough people with a whit of common sense watchlisting the articles and being willing to angrily revert the stupid, because, quite frankly, that obviously didn't work here.
Thoughts? Jimbo in particular?
-Snowspinner _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Exactly, but are we all going to be bullied by POV warriors?
Fred
On Oct 17, 2005, at 7:56 PM, Carbonite wrote:
I wish you the best of luck with trying to improve these articles, but I hope you're up for a challenge. The amount of resistance to even the smallest change in these articles is simply staggering. I can't even imagine what would happen if they were speedied. Fire and brimstone instantly comes to mind.
Good luck! Carbonite
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 best solution I've been able to come up with is to just slap NPOV and factual-dispute tags on these sorts of things, nearly indefinitely (or at least until such unlikely time as they don't deserve them). Then we might have crappy articles in the encyclopedia, but at least we warn our readers right up front about it.
-Mark
On 10/17/05, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com 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.
All of them have been VfDed on two occasions a year or so ago when the election actually happened, and survived. In that time, they've only gotten worse, more bloated, and more absurd.
What can we do about these articles, and other cases of what we might call POV by volume - [[Jack Thompson (attorney)]] and [[Westboro Baptist Church]] spring to mind here as well.
My inclination, quite honestly, is to speedy all nine of these election articles and let people start over. Whatever comes now, a year after the event, cannot possibly be as appallingly bad as this.
And don't just shoot back with {{sofixit}} - there's no good fix. It would involve deleting 90% of all 8 of these articles, a change that would be quickly reverted anyway, and, with the way my editing has been going, probably lead to my getting another RfC, because they seem all the rage.
We need some sort of system that's going to untangle this kind of mess - something that doesn't rely on enough people with a whit of common sense watchlisting the articles and being willing to angrily revert the stupid, because, quite frankly, that obviously didn't work here.
Thoughts? Jimbo in particular?
Leave them. Edit them now and then. Cite references for all your changes. Use cleanup tags liberally. Use NPOV tags as necessary.
As they mature, they'll become better articles. It's hard to see the long view of history from this close. Don't abandon them for later, but keep in mind how recent and contentious these events are. Their historical impact is still being defined. Immanuel Kant, on the other hand, has been dead for 201 years, so it's clearly easier to see his ultimate historical impact.
-- Michael Turley User:Unfocused
On Oct 17, 2005, at 11:29 PM, Michael Turley wrote:
Leave them. Edit them now and then. Cite references for all your changes. Use cleanup tags liberally. Use NPOV tags as necessary.
As they mature, they'll become better articles. It's hard to see the long view of history from this close. Don't abandon them for later, but keep in mind how recent and contentious these events are. Their historical impact is still being defined. Immanuel Kant, on the other hand, has been dead for 201 years, so it's clearly easier to see his ultimate historical impact.
A nice sentiment, but in this case naive - I slapped dispute tags on them, and I'm already being threatened with reverts. I fully expect to be reverted by morning. If one cannot even insert a dispute tag without starting an edit war, how do you propose that the articles will be fixed?
Over time? They're as bad now as they were ten months ago, if not worse. Articles do not generally fix in the form of consolidation - as was pointed out in the cases of the [[Bill Gates]] and [[Jane Fonda]] article.
This is not a situation where the usual platitudes about the Wiki process are going to do any good. The articles are scrupulously referenced. The problem is that the references are the paranoid rantings of a bunch of bloggers and activist groups that no mainstream sources considered worth refuting. It's the same problem we had on the [[Lyndon LaRouche]] articles where we finally had to declare that LaRouche sources were all well and good, but just didn't count as sources for the purposes of verifiability.
-Snowspinner
Exactly, excellent parallel; although, this POV bunch is a bit bigger and better organized. And intimidating.
Fred
On Oct 17, 2005, at 11:16 PM, Snowspinner wrote:
This is not a situation where the usual platitudes about the Wiki process are going to do any good. The articles are scrupulously referenced. The problem is that the references are the paranoid rantings of a bunch of bloggers and activist groups that no mainstream sources considered worth refuting. It's the same problem we had on the [[Lyndon LaRouche]] articles where we finally had to declare that LaRouche sources were all well and good, but just didn't count as sources for the purposes of verifiability.
On 10/18/05, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Oct 17, 2005, at 11:29 PM, Michael Turley wrote:
Leave them. Edit them now and then. Cite references for all your changes. Use cleanup tags liberally. Use NPOV tags as necessary.
A nice sentiment, but in this case naive - I slapped dispute tags on them, and I'm already being threatened with reverts. I fully expect to be reverted by morning. If one cannot even insert a dispute tag without starting an edit war, how do you propose that the articles will be fixed?
Obviously just sticking an {{NPOV}} tag on a politically charged article is going to get that response. Like any other use, if you fail to document what it is you take issue with people are going to revert the tag - as they should rightly do. You know that as well as I do.
Ian
Actually I stopped by the talk page of that article this morning, and Snowspinner has done a very good job of listing and critiquing every one of nearly 70 references, most of which seem to have been blogs, agitprop websites, and Michael Moore.
On 10/18/05, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
Actually I stopped by the talk page of that article this morning, and Snowspinner has done a very good job of listing and critiquing every one of nearly 70 references, most of which seem to have been blogs, agitprop websites, and Michael Moore. _____________________________________
Yeah, after I sorted through all the articles I found his comments too (on one of them - I opened the while series and started looking at talk page after talk page with no comments). In addition, if yoiu look at the one talk page where this came up, the citations only came up after Ryan took him to task for the tag, and it doesn't look like this conversation has gone any further, so with regards to his comments above "A nice sentiment, but in this case naive - I slapped dispute tags on them, and I'm already being threatened with reverts", my comments are still valid - if someone slaps disputed tags on an article without explaining the dispute, taking issue with them is the correct thing to do.
Ian
On 10/18/05, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
It's the same problem we had on the [[Lyndon LaRouche]] articles where we finally had to declare that LaRouche sources were all well and good, but just didn't count as sources for the purposes of verifiability.
Is is just me, or does it seem needlessly inflammatory to compare solid editors - admins, no less - to the LaRouchies?
Ian
On 10/18/05, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/18/05, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
It's the same problem we had on the [[Lyndon LaRouche]] articles where we finally had to declare that LaRouche sources were all well and good, but just didn't count as sources for the purposes of verifiability.
Is is just me, or does it seem needlessly inflammatory to compare solid editors - admins, no less - to the LaRouchies?
Ian
If the LaRouchies and the "solid editors" are both citing minor sources published in an echo chamber as quality resources, then no, I don't think it's needless.
-Snowspinner
Is is just me, or does it seem needlessly inflammatory to compare solid editors - admins, no less - to the LaRouchies?
Ian
If the LaRouchies and the "solid editors" are both citing minor sources published in an echo chamber as quality resources, then no, I don't think it's needless.
-Snowspinner
I see. So saying "obviously you support election fraud" would be appropriate too, and not "needlessly" inflammatory? Interesting.
Ian
What evidence is there of election fraud?. As an Australian who follows things in American politics, I would say precious little.
I voted to delete all of these articles because they were written from the point of view of saying "We wuz robbed" rather than taking an objective view of the evidence. Unfortunately, in my mind, the partisan spirit of the majority of voters overcame their good judgement. It seems things haven't changed for the better in any case.
These articles do not reflect well on Wikipedia.
Keith User:Capitalistroadster
On 10/19/05, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Is is just me, or does it seem needlessly inflammatory to compare
solid
editors - admins, no less - to the LaRouchies?
Ian
If the LaRouchies and the "solid editors" are both citing minor sources published in an echo chamber as quality resources, then no, I don't think it's needless.
-Snowspinner
I see. So saying "obviously you support election fraud" would be appropriate too, and not "needlessly" inflammatory? Interesting.
Ian _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 10/18/05, Keith Old keithold@gmail.com wrote:
What evidence is there of election fraud?. As an Australian who follows things in American politics, I would say precious little.
I voted to delete all of these articles because they were written from the point of view of saying "We wuz robbed" rather than taking an objective view of the evidence. Unfortunately, in my mind, the partisan spirit of the majority of voters overcame their good judgement. It seems things haven't changed for the better in any case.
Actually election fraud is an old and established element of American elections. Whether it changed the outcome of the 2004 Presidential Elections is another matter. Given the attention it received, it definitely deserves an article. Everything else is a formatting question.
Ian
On Oct 18, 2005, at 1:33 PM, Guettarda wrote:
I see. So saying "obviously you support election fraud" would be appropriate too, and not "needlessly" inflammatory? Interesting.
I don't know how to answer this, except to say this. I have taught freshman composition at a respected university, focusing particularly on research. If one of my students handed me a paper that used those citations in that way, I would fail them. Regardless of whether there was election fraud, the article is a poorly written, POV mess. And it is not the place of Wikipedia to decide if there was election fraud - it's the place of Wikipedia to accurately describe the controversy surrounding it. A controversy that led to no successful challenges to the outcome of the election, and no lasting media coverage. Instead of this, though, we have 60,000 words of original research.
-Snowspinner
On 10/18/05, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Oct 18, 2005, at 1:33 PM, Guettarda wrote:
I see. So saying "obviously you support election fraud" would be appropriate too, and not "needlessly" inflammatory? Interesting.
I don't know how to answer this, except to say this. I have taught freshman composition at a respected university, focusing particularly on research. If one of my students handed me a paper that used those citations in that way, I would fail them.
What does that have to do with your decision to insult your fellow editors? I would fail students for submitting half of the articles in Wikipedia - but I would not tell them that they were bad people for submitting poorly sourced material. In fact, I'd be thrilled to have someone show some evidence that they were thinking, and not just repeating back to me what I told them.
More to the point though, since you brought up your experience teaching comp, wouldn't you fail a student for submitting an entirely off-topic answer to your question?
Ian
On 10/18/05, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Oct 18, 2005, at 2:36 PM, Guettarda wrote:
More to the point though, since you brought up your experience teaching comp, wouldn't you fail a student for submitting an entirely off-topic answer to your question?
I have indeed stopped beating my wife.
Go back and read the intructions at the top of the question paper.
On Oct 18, 2005, at 2:40 PM, Guettarda wrote:
On 10/18/05, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Oct 18, 2005, at 2:36 PM, Guettarda wrote:
More to the point though, since you brought up your experience teaching comp, wouldn't you fail a student for submitting an entirely off- topic answer to your question?
I have indeed stopped beating my wife.
Go back and read the intructions at the top of the question paper.
I'd invoke Hitler, but this particular line of thought Godwinned all on its own.
-Snowspinner
On 10/18/05, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Oct 18, 2005, at 2:40 PM, Guettarda wrote:
On 10/18/05, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Oct 18, 2005, at 2:36 PM, Guettarda wrote:
More to the point though, since you brought up your experience teaching comp, wouldn't you fail a student for submitting an entirely off- topic answer to your question?
I have indeed stopped beating my wife.
Go back and read the intructions at the top of the question paper.
I'd invoke Hitler, but this particular line of thought Godwinned all on its own.
So you are saying that, as a person running for the ArbComm, you are unwilling to say
1. What you think about personal attacks here on the listserv? After all, you have compared established editors (admins among them) to notorious POV pushers. I don't want to jump to conclusions, but inasmuch as you have chosen to run for the ArbComm, it makes sense that you should clarify your positions, not further cloud the matter with unrelated material
2. You have drawn allusions to the LaRouche case, one of the most famous ArbComm cases. Does this mean that you believe that the people involved in this matter should be treated in a manner similar with Herschel...?
3. You have stated "I just have a lot of trouble with the idea that a large-scale national issue like this - an allegedly stolen election - didn't get national coverage. If there is something worth covering *in an encyclopedia* in this, there is a mainstream, verifiable source for it." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:2004_U.S._presidential_election_controvers... As an ArbComm candidate, do you really think that anything that doesn't make it to the NYTimes should not be in Wikipedia?
Should you, as an ArbComm candidate, expect to be able to just brush these things off by with references to Godwin's law?
Ian
On Oct 18, 2005, at 5:35 PM, Guettarda wrote:
So you are saying that, as a person running for the ArbComm, you are unwilling to say
As a person running for the Arbcomm, I prefer my steak rare.
If you want a serious answer, I advise asking a serious question, not one predicated on transparent straw man arguments. I encourage anyone who sincerely believes that I think any of the things that you are attributing to me to reread my comments, look at the section in [[Wikipedia:Cite sources]] on reliable sources, and look at the articles in question. For added fun, you can look at what Herschel did that merited his ban from LaRouche articles, (Clue: It involves leggings) and look at the ruling in the first Lyndon LaRouche case, which is the one I was actually referring to, particularly FoF 1 and remedy 1.
If anyone has any questions that are actually based on what I'm saying instead of cheap rhetorical games and straw men, I'm happy to answer them.
-Snowspinner
On 10/18/05, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
If anyone has any questions that are actually based on what I'm saying instead of cheap rhetorical games and straw men, I'm happy to answer them.
I was not playing cheap rhetorical games. My first question was rhetorical - "is that really needed" - ie, isn't that a little over the top. The correct answer to that question is, "no,it was over the top". Someone with the character and judgement to serve in the ArbComm would recognise that when they overreach and someone calls them on it, they would admit their error.
But no, you choose to say "I am never wrong".
So I gave you a second chance to redeem yourself - you could make it clear that, no, you do not really think it ok to insult your fellow editors. In other words, it's a chance to take responsibility for your actions. Had you done that, you'd probably have gotten my vote for the ArbComm, because it takes some character. Instead you attack me for calling you on your misdeeds. Very noble, great job. You have made it very clear that you are not suited for a position of authority like the ArbComm. Thanks for the clarification.
Ian
On Oct 18, 2005, at 8:39 PM, Guettarda wrote:
You have made it very clear that you are not suited for a position of authority like the ArbComm. Thanks for the clarification.
If you're not going to vote for me because you don't like the straw man of me you created, I somehow don't think I ever had your vote in the first place.
-Snowspinner
On 10/18/05, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Oct 18, 2005, at 8:39 PM, Guettarda wrote:
You have made it very clear that you are not suited for a position of authority like the ArbComm. Thanks for the clarification.
If you're not going to vote for me because you don't like the straw man of me you created, I somehow don't think I ever had your vote in the first place.
I didn't know you well enough to have a decision before today. I knew you by name, knew you as an established user, and assumed the best. I really didn't have a specific opinion about you. And I didn't think anything much about your posting this morning - I was curious, but mostly took what you said at face value - until I looked at the articles. Once I realised who the editors were - good solid contributors, at least one admin - it struck me that comparing them to LaRouchies was a totally unwarranted accusation. So I asked "was that really necessary"? Up to that point, I still didn't see this as anything major, but your facetious dismissal of a valid concern was enlightening.
How I am building a straw man of you, I don't know. I realise that this is not the whole picture of who you are, but it's a good picture of how you react when challenged. And, it would appear, that your reaction to being challenged is to try to redirect. You made attacks on other editors. You unjustifiably tarred them - people who I have interacted with, and people whose decisions as editors and admins I know and respect. The right thing to do is to call a person on an insult like that.
And the normal thing to do would have been to say "yeah, ok, I exaggerated". That's the answer I expected. That's what a normal person would have done. But you didn't. You could have said nothing. That wouldn't have put you back at the "don't know but broadly positive" opinion I started out with, but it I probably wouldn't have thought any the worse of you. But you chose to answer my question/comment with tangents about teaching comp. What the point of that was, God alone knows. I never challenged you on the issue that the articles were long and poorly sourced. And then you went for "Yes, I have stopped beating my wife", which appears to be your favourite line (since you have already used it in your ArbComm Q&A page). I'm not an English major, I may lack your rhetorical skills...all I can make of that is the fact that you somehow see my question about insults to fellow editors as a "have you stopped beating your wife" question.
I find that baffling. I didn't set out to trick you. You can either say "sorry, I overstated things" or "yes, I think that Ryan and Kizzle and Kevin Baas are POV-pushers on the level of the LaRouchies" or you could say "NPA does not apply to the mailing list". You chose to run for the ArbComm - your opinion on Wikipedia policy are very germane. But you chose to duck the question. So I made the questions explicit. I really do think that we NEED to know what you think about these things. I don't know you that well, I assumed that you abided by the norms of the community. How is asking these questions a strawman attack?
I had no opinion about you. Sure, I held you to a higher standard than I would a person who was not an admin, and I held you to a higher standard because you are running for the ArbComm. I think I asked fair questions, I think your refusal to answer them is telling. Is it unfair to judge your personality and your character from one episode? Maybe. Obviously there is more to you than this one aspect. But it say a lot...
Ian
The key issue here is not the topic at hand but whether or not it is verifiable. The main question here seems to be, "Do blogs count as sources?" In certain rare cases they ought to be, but in general they are no better than citing user pages on Wikipedia. If a blog can cite a source, then we can find that source and cite it ourselves, I assume.
If you remove everything from the article that is cited with a blog, and everything which is not cited but should be, what do you have? Perhaps it would be a useful rhetorical technique to try on one of them, whether it gets reverted or not.
Of course, all of the above rests on the conclusion that blogs don't count as sources in and of themselves for articles of this sort. The people who wrote the articles are obviously going to disagree on this, hence the entire root of this dispute. I think it'd be nice to have some sort of "ruling on high" every once in awhile about what counts as evidence and what doesn't (what Foucault would call defining our "regimes of truth") but I'm not sure there's any way to do it systematically or rigorously. But perhaps that isn't needed -- perhaps a one-time, "this doesn't work in this situation" wouldn't be so bad (seems to have worked out with the LaRouchies).
Again, this doesn't have to have to do anything with politics if it is honestly just a source issue. If "real" sources on these topics come out later, the articles can be rewritten, simple as that.
FF
On 10/18/05, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Oct 18, 2005, at 1:33 PM, Guettarda wrote:
I see. So saying "obviously you support election fraud" would be appropriate too, and not "needlessly" inflammatory? Interesting.
I don't know how to answer this, except to say this. I have taught freshman composition at a respected university, focusing particularly on research. If one of my students handed me a paper that used those citations in that way, I would fail them. Regardless of whether there was election fraud, the article is a poorly written, POV mess. And it is not the place of Wikipedia to decide if there was election fraud - it's the place of Wikipedia to accurately describe the controversy surrounding it. A controversy that led to no successful challenges to the outcome of the election, and no lasting media coverage. Instead of this, though, we have 60,000 words of original research.
-Snowspinner
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
"Fastfission" wrote:
The key issue here is not the topic at hand but whether or not it is verifiable. The main question here seems to be, "Do blogs count as sources?" In certain rare cases they ought to be, but in general they are no better than citing user pages on Wikipedia. If a blog can cite a source, then we can find that source and cite it ourselves, I assume.
If the article is not actually about a particular blog, you'd be on rather shaky ground depending upon it as a "primary source".
IMNSHO
HTH HAND
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Phil Boswell wrote:
"Fastfission" wrote:
The key issue here is not the topic at hand but whether or not it is verifiable. The main question here seems to be, "Do blogs count as sources?" In certain rare cases they ought to be, but in general they are no better than citing user pages on Wikipedia. If a blog can cite a source, then we can find that source and cite it ourselves, I assume.
If the article is not actually about a particular blog, you'd be on rather shaky ground depending upon it as a "primary source".
What about if the author has blogged about (some current event) that they witnessed or attended?
(Yes, I know we're talking about political opinions and such, but I hope you won't throw the baby out with the bathwater...)
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
Alphax wrote:
What about if the author has blogged about (some current event) that they witnessed or attended?
That still seems like a shaky source. That's basically saying, "some guy on the internet claims he saw this happen". If I "blogged" about witnessing an event on my Wikipedia User page, could we cite that as a source?
-Mark
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Delirium wrote:
Alphax wrote:
What about if the author has blogged about (some current event) that they witnessed or attended?
That still seems like a shaky source. That's basically saying, "some guy on the internet claims he saw this happen". If I "blogged" about witnessing an event on my Wikipedia User page, could we cite that as a source?
What's the difference between a blog and any other page on the internet?
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
From: Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com
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Delirium wrote:
Alphax wrote:
What about if the author has blogged about (some current event) that they witnessed or attended?
That still seems like a shaky source. That's basically saying, "some guy on the internet claims he saw this happen". If I "blogged" about witnessing an event on my Wikipedia User page, could we cite that as a source?
What's the difference between a blog and any other page on the internet?
Blogs have no editorial standards, no way of verifying that anything on them is correct, true, relevant, notable, reliable, sane. Blogs are only good as sources for articles about those specific blogs.
Jay.
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JAY JG wrote:
From: Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com
Delirium wrote:
Alphax wrote:
What about if the author has blogged about (some current event) that they witnessed or attended?
That still seems like a shaky source. That's basically saying, "some guy on the internet claims he saw this happen". If I "blogged" about witnessing an event on my Wikipedia User page, could we cite that as a source?
What's the difference between a blog and any other page on the internet?
Blogs have no editorial standards, no way of verifying that anything on them is correct, true, relevant, notable, reliable, sane. Blogs are only good as sources for articles about those specific blogs.
You still haven't answered my question: what's the difference between a blog and ANY OTHER WEBSITE?
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
From: Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256
JAY JG wrote:
From: Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com
Delirium wrote:
Alphax wrote:
What about if the author has blogged about (some current event) that they witnessed or attended?
That still seems like a shaky source. That's basically saying, "some guy on the internet claims he saw this happen". If I "blogged" about witnessing an event on my Wikipedia User page, could we cite that as
a
source?
What's the difference between a blog and any other page on the
internet?
Blogs have no editorial standards, no way of verifying that anything on them is correct, true, relevant, notable, reliable, sane. Blogs are only good as sources for articles about those specific blogs.
You still haven't answered my question: what's the difference between a blog and ANY OTHER WEBSITE?
There's little difference between a blog and any other *personal* website. There is a huge difference between a blog and the website of a respected news source (e.g. New York Times, BBC), or the site of a publically traded corporation, or that of a major non-profit organization, or of an encyclopedia, or a government website, or a UN website, or etc.
All websites are not created equal.
Jay.
Blogs have editorial standards depending on the expertise and capacity of the blogger. In this example, Michael Barone, the editor of the Almanac of American Politics for 30 years has a blog [ http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/baroneblog/home.htm].
Editors should be careful in using blogs as in any source as to reliability of the blogger and to make sure we are quoting both sides of the story. In this case, having blogs as one of our sole sources is a mistake especially when there is a clear partisan bias to the blogs selected.
The same can be said about the "mainstream media". The New York Times has gotten things wrong such as Jayson Blair. So does the BBC - its coverage of the Iraq War was appalling and it was the worst offender in highly exaggerated coverage of Hurricane Katrina. In short, we should be careful in our use of sources in whatever form they take.
The problem with these articles in my view is that they are not NPOV and that they do not use the most reliable sources available.
Regards
Keith
Keith User:Capitalistroadster
On 10/22/05, JAY JG jayjg@hotmail.com wrote:
From: Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256
JAY JG wrote:
From: Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com
Delirium wrote:
Alphax wrote:
What about if the author has blogged about (some current event)
that
they witnessed or attended?
That still seems like a shaky source. That's basically saying,
"some
guy on the internet claims he saw this happen". If I "blogged"
about
witnessing an event on my Wikipedia User page, could we cite that
as
a
source?
What's the difference between a blog and any other page on the
internet?
Blogs have no editorial standards, no way of verifying that anything
on
them is correct, true, relevant, notable, reliable, sane. Blogs are only good as sources for articles about those specific blogs.
You still haven't answered my question: what's the difference between a blog and ANY OTHER WEBSITE?
There's little difference between a blog and any other *personal* website. There is a huge difference between a blog and the website of a respected news source (e.g. New York Times, BBC), or the site of a publically traded corporation, or that of a major non-profit organization, or of an encyclopedia, or a government website, or a UN website, or etc.
All websites are not created equal.
Jay.
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On 10/21/05, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Or not. Strange to equate in any way blogs, which are only online diaries or journals, with media where incompetent journalism can cost a job or career.
Charles
If that was the case most science corospondants would have been sacked long ago.
-- geni
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256
geni wrote:
On 10/21/05, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Or not. Strange to equate in any way blogs, which are only online diaries or journals, with media where incompetent journalism can cost a job or career.
Charles
If that was the case most science corospondants would have been sacked long ago.
I laughed at that because it's so painfully true :)
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
The world is changing. Blogs are becoming more widely read while the mainstream media is losing its audience although obviously it is still more popular and will remain so.
My point remains. There are some credible bloggers and not so credible bloggers. We should be careful in the credibility and reliability of all the sources and be aware of ensuring that our references are reliable and provide a balanced view of the topic. We owe that to our readers.
Regards
Keith
On 10/22/05, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Keith Old wrote
Blogs have editorial standards depending on the expertise and capacity of
the blogger.
Or not. Strange to equate in any way blogs, which are only online diaries or journals, with media where incompetent journalism can cost a job or career.
Charles
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256
Keith Old wrote:
The world is changing. Blogs are becoming more widely read while the mainstream media is losing its audience although obviously it is still more popular and will remain so.
My point remains. There are some credible bloggers and not so credible bloggers. We should be careful in the credibility and reliability of all the sources and be aware of ensuring that our references are reliable and provide a balanced view of the topic. We owe that to our readers.
According to NPOV, all we need to do is make up some kind of reference template for blogs, which says "this is a blog and in no way are we responsible for it's content" - which lets the readers decide for themselves.
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
From: Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com
Keith Old wrote:
The world is changing. Blogs are becoming more widely read while the mainstream media is losing its audience although obviously it is still
more
popular and will remain so.
My point remains. There are some credible bloggers and not so credible bloggers. We should be careful in the credibility and reliability of all
the
sources and be aware of ensuring that our references are reliable and provide a balanced view of the topic. We owe that to our readers.
According to NPOV, all we need to do is make up some kind of reference template for blogs, which says "this is a blog and in no way are we responsible for it's content" - which lets the readers decide for themselves.
No, instead we need to cite only credible sources, a category into which blogs almost never fall.
Jay.
On 10/22/05, JAY JG jayjg@hotmail.com wrote:
From: Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com
Keith Old wrote:
The world is changing. Blogs are becoming more widely read while the mainstream media is losing its audience although obviously it is still
more
popular and will remain so.
My point remains. There are some credible bloggers and not so credible bloggers. We should be careful in the credibility and reliability of all
the
sources and be aware of ensuring that our references are reliable and provide a balanced view of the topic. We owe that to our readers.
According to NPOV, all we need to do is make up some kind of reference template for blogs, which says "this is a blog and in no way are we responsible for it's content" - which lets the readers decide for themselves.
No, instead we need to cite only credible sources, a category into which blogs almost never fall.
If part of the article is the social impact of the topic, including blogs as cited references is sometimes completely valid regardless of whether we know they're reliable or not. In this case, Alphax is correct, but in most others, you are. I don't think we need a special template for when we do cite blogs, but I would always label them clearly for what they are.
-- Michael Turley User:Unfocused
This is true, but even blogs need to keep up their standards or things can fall apart and people go elsewhere. It helps to have accountability in the sense of having someone actually "in charge" -- this kind of comes in lieu of a more institutional "reputation" of a newsgathering organization. Even the latter rests on some institutional assumptions, and recent cases (Judy Miller) might make current newsorgs appear rather Herstian (Yellow journalism) and therefore something to avoid like the flux.
Wikipedia, being neither a newsorg (under reputation), or a blog (editorial paper under personal account) isnt likely to benefit from any static "policy." It may benefit from an editorial board, however, who contribute to a 'policy body' (like a case record for Arbcom).
Dont even ask me about wikinews: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Purpose
SV
--- charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Keith Old wrote
Blogs have editorial standards depending on the
expertise and capacity of the blogger.
Or not. Strange to equate in any way blogs, which are only online diaries or journals, with media where incompetent journalism can cost a job or career.
Charles
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__________________________________ Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com
Sorry to revisit the issue, but banned user Skyring, having been prevented from targeting some pages, is now targeting [[Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents]], as well as creating articles, using sockpuppets in the range 203.xxx and 141.xxx. Help is required to deal with him tonight (how many sockpuppets can one banned user create? He is creating more in an hour than some create in a year!)
Thom
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As an update on this, at the moment the dispute tags remain in place, but I'm being reverted on removing a claim by the founder of Ben and Jerry's on the election (Grounds for removal being that the founder of Ben and Jerry's is not an expert on elections), and a paragraph in the midst of a bunch of stuff about voter suppression in Ohio that tries to present a state senator in Detroit making a comment about voter suppression as evidence of an organized pattern of it - which would be fine if the section were at all about Detroit and Michigan, but as I said, it's about Ohio, so the Detroit quote is just misdirection and poisoning the well.
Several people - notably Delerium, Rhobite, and Voice of All - have come by the page to voice support for the removal. Gue
(Sorry, accidentally whacked send)
As an update on this, at the moment the dispute tags remain in place, but I'm being reverted on removing a claim by the founder of Ben and Jerry's on the election (Grounds for removal being that the founder of Ben and Jerry's is not an expert on elections), and a paragraph in the midst of a bunch of stuff about voter suppression in Ohio that tries to present a state senator in Detroit making a comment about voter suppression as evidence of an organized pattern of it - which would be fine if the section were at all about Detroit and Michigan, but as I said, it's about Ohio, so the Detroit quote is just misdirection and poisoning the well.
Several people - notably Delerium, Rhobite, and Voice of All(MTG) - have come by the page to voice support for the removal. Guettarda has brought his support for the status quo on the article, and was actually the one to make the revert.
So that's the road {{sofixit}} is leading to.
-Snowspinner
And if the "guy on the internet" is notable enough to warrant citation as an interesting/informed opinion, then that's great. (i.e. the Howard Dean example)
But if one is assigning a POV to a non-notable figure, then that's not a good use of blogs as a source.
If Jimbo wrote something on his user page about Wikipedia, we could cite it in the article on Wikipedia. If I wrote something on my user page about Wikipedia, it doesn't belong in any article. Why? Because, in regards to this topic, I'm not at all notable. (Something which implies nothing negative, in my opinion) Allowing excessively non-notable opinions into articles goes down an unpleasant slippery slope: why require citation at all? "[[User:Fastfission]], of Wikipedia, thinks that Einstein was totally wrong in his math, though no physicists share that opinion." Instead of NPOV, you end up with Particularist POV -- a thousand POVs, none of which are notable. Which isn't the goal of NPOV, I'm fairly sure.
FF
On 10/19/05, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Alphax wrote:
What about if the author has blogged about (some current event) that they witnessed or attended?
That still seems like a shaky source. That's basically saying, "some guy on the internet claims he saw this happen". If I "blogged" about witnessing an event on my Wikipedia User page, could we cite that as a source?
-Mark
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Well, exactly. And there a few instances when blogs by people who are otherwise notable could potentially be used. If Howard Dean wrote a blog entry about how he had been swindled in the election, I could see putting that (properly attributed) as a source ("Candidate Howard Dean also claimed to have been swindled,[ref]", etc.). But these are fairly uncommon circumstances, I think.
FF
On 10/19/05, Phil Boswell phil.boswell@gmail.com wrote:
"Fastfission" wrote:
The key issue here is not the topic at hand but whether or not it is verifiable. The main question here seems to be, "Do blogs count as sources?" In certain rare cases they ought to be, but in general they are no better than citing user pages on Wikipedia. If a blog can cite a source, then we can find that source and cite it ourselves, I assume.
If the article is not actually about a particular blog, you'd be on rather shaky ground depending upon it as a "primary source".
IMNSHO
HTH HAND
Phil [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
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Folks,
There are probably reliable reports that we can use:
(1) reports by state and local election authorities on the elections in their states or districts;
(2) the debate on January 6 over certifying the vote in Ohio;
(3) essays in political science journals;
(4) books such as the Almanac of American Politics 2006 by Michael Barone will have articles on the outcomes;
(5) reports on the court challenge.
While blogs can be useful, a lot depends on the credibility of the blogger - Michael Barone. Like in all articles, we should aim for a neutral point of view. For example, in the number of articles on voter fraud, there is precious little on Wisconsin (won narrowly by John Kerry) where an inquiry found clear evidence of fraud see [ http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/may05/324933.asp].
Kerry's margin in Wisconsin was much less than Bush's in either Florida or Ohio by the way. We are now in a situation when reliable sources are available and more will become progressively available. We should clean up these articles for NPOV, make sure we use reliable sources in a balanced way and get rid of the claims in the articles that just don't stack up.
Regards
Keith Old
Keith Old User:Capitalistroadster
On 10/19/05, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
The key issue here is not the topic at hand but whether or not it is verifiable. The main question here seems to be, "Do blogs count as sources?" In certain rare cases they ought to be, but in general they are no better than citing user pages on Wikipedia. If a blog can cite a source, then we can find that source and cite it ourselves, I assume.
If you remove everything from the article that is cited with a blog, and everything which is not cited but should be, what do you have? Perhaps it would be a useful rhetorical technique to try on one of them, whether it gets reverted or not.
Of course, all of the above rests on the conclusion that blogs don't count as sources in and of themselves for articles of this sort. The people who wrote the articles are obviously going to disagree on this, hence the entire root of this dispute. I think it'd be nice to have some sort of "ruling on high" every once in awhile about what counts as evidence and what doesn't (what Foucault would call defining our "regimes of truth") but I'm not sure there's any way to do it systematically or rigorously. But perhaps that isn't needed -- perhaps a one-time, "this doesn't work in this situation" wouldn't be so bad (seems to have worked out with the LaRouchies).
Again, this doesn't have to have to do anything with politics if it is honestly just a source issue. If "real" sources on these topics come out later, the articles can be rewritten, simple as that.
FF
On 10/18/05, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Oct 18, 2005, at 1:33 PM, Guettarda wrote:
I see. So saying "obviously you support election fraud" would be appropriate too, and not "needlessly" inflammatory? Interesting.
I don't know how to answer this, except to say this. I have taught freshman composition at a respected university, focusing particularly on research. If one of my students handed me a paper that used those citations in that way, I would fail them. Regardless of whether there was election fraud, the article is a poorly written, POV mess. And it is not the place of Wikipedia to decide if there was election fraud - it's the place of Wikipedia to accurately describe the controversy surrounding it. A controversy that led to no successful challenges to the outcome of the election, and no lasting media coverage. Instead of this, though, we have 60,000 words of original research.
-Snowspinner
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Snowspinner wrote:
A nice sentiment, but in this case naive - I slapped dispute tags on them, and I'm already being threatened with reverts. I fully expect to be reverted by morning. If one cannot even insert a dispute tag without starting an edit war, how do you propose that the articles will be fixed?
Over time? They're as bad now as they were ten months ago, if not worse. Articles do not generally fix in the form of consolidation - as was pointed out in the cases of the [[Bill Gates]] and [[Jane Fonda]] article.
I think it's actually not completely hopeless, having waded in a bit. I just cleaned up [[Moss v. Bush]], which admittedly was less of a mess than many, and hopefully it'll stay decent. At least 80% of the material in most of these articles appears to have been added by [[en:User:Kevin Baas]] (with [[Mass v. Bush]] he was basically the only person who had edited the article), so it seems more a case of one POV warrior with a ton of time on his hands than a more widespread problem. But we'll see.
-Mark
I apologize, in my counting of words, I missed [[2004 U.S. election voting controversies]], and its 2374 words. The proper word count of articles on the 2004 election and its alleged rigging is 58,459.
-Snowspinner
On Oct 17, 2005, at 9:40 PM, 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.
All of them have been VfDed on two occasions a year or so ago when the election actually happened, and survived. In that time, they've only gotten worse, more bloated, and more absurd.
What can we do about these articles, and other cases of what we might call POV by volume - [[Jack Thompson (attorney)]] and [[Westboro Baptist Church]] spring to mind here as well.
My inclination, quite honestly, is to speedy all nine of these election articles and let people start over. Whatever comes now, a year after the event, cannot possibly be as appallingly bad as this.
And don't just shoot back with {{sofixit}} - there's no good fix. It would involve deleting 90% of all 8 of these articles, a change that would be quickly reverted anyway, and, with the way my editing has been going, probably lead to my getting another RfC, because they seem all the rage.
We need some sort of system that's going to untangle this kind of mess - something that doesn't rely on enough people with a whit of common sense watchlisting the articles and being willing to angrily revert the stupid, because, quite frankly, that obviously didn't work here.
Thoughts? Jimbo in particular?
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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
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
I can't say I care that much. US politics is surely too much covered on WP (but not in terms of its importance); i.e. turgidity rules.
Yes, there should be more on Kant. Let's have it, please. (I can claim to have started the [[neo-kantianism]] article, not that I have the slightest expertise).
The only real way to deal with the phenomenon of 'bloat', I think, is not to change any basic rules - that ought to be resisted, policy should not be driven by the hard cases. Tough edit followed by 'respite' protection of a month, I'd support.
Charles
charles matthews wrote:
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
I can't say I care that much. US politics is surely too much covered on WP (but not in terms of its importance); i.e. turgidity rules.
Yes, there should be more on Kant. Let's have it, please. (I can claim to have started the [[neo-kantianism]] article, not that I have the slightest expertise).
I kan't say that I support the notion that an excess of articles on US politics is an adequate excuse for having no more, but then I tend to resist turgid pronouncements. ;-) That dosn't mean that Cant articles aren't valuable either.
The only real way to deal with the phenomenon of 'bloat', I think, is not to change any basic rules - that ought to be resisted, policy should not be driven by the hard cases. Tough edit followed by 'respite' protection of a month, I'd support.
Speaking of plucking the peacock's feathers ...
Ec
What needs to be done is to remove all information that lacks a source in a reputable reference. I know that is burdensome. Start small on the most egregious example and enter into dispute resolution with whoever attempts to revert; I am not suggesting you revert back even once. As someone once said, "Anyone is entitled to their own opinion; no one is entitled to their own facts." There were irregularities, one occurred in the county I live in, Saguache County, Colorado; here the district judge removed the County Clerk from supervision of the election due to irregularities. That incident was richly documented in the local papers. Rank speculation is quite another matter.
Fred
On Oct 17, 2005, at 7:40 PM, 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.
All of them have been VfDed on two occasions a year or so ago when the election actually happened, and survived. In that time, they've only gotten worse, more bloated, and more absurd.
What can we do about these articles, and other cases of what we might call POV by volume - [[Jack Thompson (attorney)]] and [[Westboro Baptist Church]] spring to mind here as well.
My inclination, quite honestly, is to speedy all nine of these election articles and let people start over. Whatever comes now, a year after the event, cannot possibly be as appallingly bad as this.
And don't just shoot back with {{sofixit}} - there's no good fix. It would involve deleting 90% of all 8 of these articles, a change that would be quickly reverted anyway, and, with the way my editing has been going, probably lead to my getting another RfC, because they seem all the rage.
We need some sort of system that's going to untangle this kind of mess - something that doesn't rely on enough people with a whit of common sense watchlisting the articles and being willing to angrily revert the stupid, because, quite frankly, that obviously didn't work here.
Thoughts? Jimbo in particular?
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