[WikiEN-l] So what do we do about this?

[Geoff Burling]

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