[EM] Wikipedia article needs editing

[Richard Fobes]

Abd ~

Thank you for warning us about this Wikipedia article ("Electoral reform 
in the United States") being a battleground partly populated with 
IRV-FairVote soldiers.

I'm choosing other "fronts" for my election-method reform efforts, which 
is why I don't have time for these edits.

Richard Fobes
(aka VoteFair)


On 8/28/2013 4:22 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
> At 05:12 PM 8/28/2013, Richard Fobes wrote:
>> The Wikipedia article titled "Electoral reform in the United States"
>> contains a heading "Electoral Reform Proposals" and then under that
>> heading is a section titled "Instant-runoff voting". Obviously this
>> needs to be broadened to "Election-method reform" with IRV being just
>> one kind of election-method reform.
>>
>> Does anyone have time to do this edit? (I don't.)
>
> If one doesn't know Wikipedia policy, it can be an exercise in massive
> waste of time, or it might be useful for a time, and it's quite unreliable.
>
> Basically, that there is what we might consider important information,
> even information that, among the informed, is obvious and generally
> accepted, is not enough for Wikipedia, by policy. Indeed, making up an
> article out of your own knowledge or conclusions is called "Original
> Research," quicklink WP:OR, and is prohibited. Everything should come
> from Reliable Sources, but don't copy, except for short excerpts,
> explicitly quoted, and attributed.
>
> "Reliable Source" does not have the ordinary meaning, it is a Wikipedia
> term of art. It means something independently published, and not
> self-pubished by an author or advocacy organization or even certain
> kinds of special-interest groups. Gaming the Vote, Poundstone, is RS. A
> page on the rangevoting.org web site is not. Never cite anything to a
> mailing list!!!
>
> And, then, if someone reverts you, don't revert war, it can get you
> blocked quickly. Don't use the Talk page to discuss the subject, but
> only for evaluating suggested edits. Yeah, counter-intuitive, all right!
>
> The cited article is atrocious.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_reform_in_the_United_States#Cost_of_problems_with_the_current_system
>
>
> is one section.
>
> It's "recentism." Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and is to be written, by
> policy, from an "encyclopedic point of view." Everything in the article
> is about recent situations or proposals or organizations.
>
> There is less reliable source on this than on past reform movements.
>
> The article appears to be written from a reformer point of view, very
> possibly someone affiliated with FairVote.
>
> The history of the article shows extensive editing by
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DavidMCEddy. This user is not exactly
> a single-purpose account (WP:SPA), but close, he's a reformer, writing
> about election reform. He uses what appear to be self-published sources,
> including FairVote. First step would be to take the article down to what
> is reliably sourced. Much of the article looks like Original Research.
>
> A chart showing the advocacy positions of organizations is close to OR.
> Is that a reliable compilation? What were the standards for inclusion?
>
> By the way, the first editor who edited the Talk page, and who worked on
> the article, was Captain Zyrain. CZ was, at that time or thereabouts, a
> FairVote activist, and was, he later told me, sent by FairVote to "take
> me out." Unfortunately, he engaged in a conversation and said,
> essentially, "OMG, I've been on the wrong side." He was subsequently,
> under a different name, banned.
>
> The article had a POV tag on it for years. That was removed by
> DavidMCEddy unilaterally. That's not a violation of policy, but he
> removed it first and asked questions later.... In his discussion of the
> article, he appears to have had the intention of removing the appearance
> that the article was a "sales pitch for Instant Runoff Voting." Indeed.
> But he's not a sophisticated editor.
>
> McEddy makes piles of small edits, also a sign of an inexperienced
> editor. Yes, one should not make one huge edit, that is also rude. But
> section rewrites should be done with a single edit, proofread before
> saving....
>
> The POV tag was added by Devourer09.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Electoral_reform_in_the_United_States&diff=455307060&oldid=455302714
>
> This editor had five edits this year, so far, probably is not checking
> his/her watchlist.
>
> Recent edits:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Electoral_reform_in_the_United_States&diff=570492529&oldid=570491180
> though it appears to be a sound edit, elimination possibly POV language,
> was reverted by a power user, an administrator, "to revert block
> evasion." That's standard practice if an editor is identified as evading
> a block, to revert their contributions without considering them. Anyone
> could revert that back. If they dare. I don't know that any serious POV
> pusher is watching this article.
>
> That reversion is odd. The IP was not blocked, there is no block log for
> it.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=570593657#Harassing_an_administrator.3F
>
>
> Arthur Rubin reverted this IP on a page not related to any of the
> reverts of his edits.
>
> Fascinating. Rubin maintains a page listing all the incarnations of this
> IP editor, in his judgment. He's violating common advice to ignore
> trolls. But this is what I've seen. Blocking an editor becomes a matter
> of personal power, it's a contest of wills. And, generally, the IP
> editor can continue as long as he or she wants. There is no reliable way
> to block every edit, with all the options an editor has. If an
> administrator gets an editor sufficiently pissed, this can go on for
> years, at enormous cost in administrator time, and with collateral
> damage. Range blocks can block an enormous number of users who have
> nothing to do with the problem.
>
> But this current editor hasn't been blocked yet, as far as I could see
> (but the pattern does indicate this is the same editor with IP
> previously blocked, I'd agree). I argued that an administrator should
> never block an editor, except short-term in an emergency, and then
> asking for independent attention, for attacking the administrator. I
> haven't researched this case, I used to go into these in detail. You can
> bet it wasn't popular.... The active core in Wikipedia did not want
> *any* restriction on the power of administrators to do whatever they
> please, so conflict of interest administration was, and probably is,
> common. It's pretty normal, but the neutrality of the project required
> more than that, and failure to understand this is a piece of why
> Wikipedia is unreliable.
>
> Even if Rubin was totally justified initially, he's created a user at
> war with him. Did he ever attempt to resolve this? I don't know. I
> worked with Rubin at one point, not a bad sort at all, by comparison
> with certain others. But this kind of thing happens routinely, Wikipedia
> burns out administrators, and they don't undertand why.
>
> I need to stay away from Wikipedia. I see too much.
>
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