Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Election/Evidence

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Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Please make a header for your evidence and sign your comments with your name.

When placing evidence here, please be considerate of the arbitrators and be concise. Long, rambling, or stream-of-conciousness rants are not helpful.

As such, it is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff; links to the page itself are not sufficient. For example, to cite the edit by Mennonot to the article Anomalous phenomenon adding a link to Hundredth Monkey use this form: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anomalous_phenomenon&diff=5587219&oldid=5584644] [1].

This page is not for general discussion - for that, see talk page.

Please make a section for your evidence and add evidence only in your own section. Please limit your evidence to a maximum 1000 words and 100 diffs, a much shorter, concise presentation is more likely to be effective. Please focus on the issues raised in the complaint and answer and on diffs which illustrate behavior which relates to the issues.

If you disagree with some evidence you see here, please cite the evidence in your own section and provide counter-evidence, or an explanation of why the evidence is misleading. Do not edit within the evidence section of any other user.

Be aware that the Arbitrators may at times rework this page to try to make it more coherent. If you are a participant in the case or a third party, please don't try to refactor the page, let the Arbitrators do it. If you object to evidence which is inserted by other participants or third parties please cite the evidence and voice your objections within your own section of the page. It is especially important to not remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, please leave it for the arbitrators to move.

The Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop. /Workshop provides for comment by parties and others as well as arbitrators. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact or remedies voting by Arbitrators takes place at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators may edit /Proposed decision.

Contents


[edit] Evidence presented by User:tbeatty

[edit] Editors demonstrating ownership by edit warring over NPOV tag

Edit warring over NPOV tag. Not quite sure how an editor can immediately dispute a NPOV tag since it simply asserts that an editor believes that there is a NPOV issue with the article.

Tag_Revert_1

Tag_Revert_2

Tag_Revert_3

Tag_Revert_4

Tag_Revert_5

Tag_Revert_6

Tag_revert_7

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This was in the week prior to the RfAr. Most of the reverts happend within minutes of being placed. There is not 1, but 2 separate NPOV discussions on the talk page that outline the issues. As you know, the NPOV tag simply says that the "Neutrality of this article is Disputed." IT is a useful tool to bring other editors who patrol the NPOV category into the article and bring more perspective. The only way an editor could conclude 11 times in a week that the neutrality is NOT disputed is if they believed they owned the article and their own POV is unquestionable. This article reads like a blog (in fact a lot of it's sources are blogs). It needs serious work to become encyclopedic. --Tbeatty 18:37, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intimidation

There are numerous indications of intimidation by the group of editors named by Phil (Ryan, Kevin, et al). This is both to disrupt editing and intimidate other editors. These actions work against the stated goals of Wikipedia.

Example 1: Even though Ryan has voted to keep the article after an AfD, he tries here to get administrative sanctions placed on Phil for a Speedy Keep after bad faith nomination. Ryan voted twice to keep (as did Kevin) on previous AfD keep but here he's trying wikilawyer sanctions against Phil. Example_1

Example 2: In Cabal fashion, the group has tried to get Fred Bauder to recuse himself. Special page created Ryan and Kevin requesting recusal within 8 hours of each other

[edit] Personal Attacks/Ownership issues

Here Kevin is disparaging another editor, by calling him a troll, for raising legitimate POV issues with the characterization of security vulnerabilities. This is on the talk page where the issue was discussed trying to reach consensus, not an actual edit to the article. Again, the only reason for disparaging this person's comments is if Kevin believes his POV of the article is the only legitimate one and that he owns the articles' content and it isn't subject to debate.--Tbeatty 05:44, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by Phil Sandifer

Ryan, Kevin, and Noosphere's actions really do blur together to a frightening degree, and I've not made particular effort to segregate their actions out, because I think that the important thing with this article is the deep systemic failure it represents. That is to say, I don't think carefully tailored remedies that prohibit Kevin from POV pushing, Noosphere from rules-lawyering, and Ryan from incivility are in order here (Or else I'd have raised general cases about their actions.) I'm looking for solutions to this article. All three contributed to the tangled mess that this article has become for editors, and I think all three share culpability for it.

[edit] Phil Sandifer violated 3RR

I violated the 3RR on the main election controversy article. No excuse for it - I lost count, and thought I was at three when I was really at four. I was blocked by William M Connely, made no effort to contest the block, and waited it out patiently. The system thus worked exactly as planned.

I do, however, point out that I have not engaged in revert warring on any part of this article save for the insertion of dispute tags. Kevin, Ryan, and Noosphere, on the other hand, have made a habit of reverting any change to the article that would diminish their preferred POVs.

[edit] Rules Lawyering

Ryan and most especially Noosphere have engaged in petty rules-lawyering, displaying an active unwillingness to consider the spirit behind rules, or to take any policies or guidelines that offer advice under advisement. [2] (In which Noosphere cites the fact that use of blogs is only discouraged to be evidence for using them) This is coupled with a refusal to acknowledge the validity of general complaints, [3] [4] instead trying to force discussions into as specific a context as possible. [5] Noosphere, Ryan, and Kevin have all refused to engage the most basic point regarding the election articles: That our coverage of "controversies" in the 2004 election doubles that of mainstream views regarding the election. [6] [7] The closest thing to a response to this that has ever been given is Noosphere's citation of the rule that tiny minority views can be covered in depth on articles about those views, but this does not seem relevant, since the articles in question purport to be about the election, not the blogosphere.

[edit] Refusal to work collaboratively

When asked about the notability or credibility of sources, or when faced with objections to the article in general, Ryan, Kevin, and Noosphere have all insisted that whomever raises an objection must also do the work to fix it, [8] [9], and that only those who have done research into a topic are qualified to ask questions about sources that it is not obvious are good [10]. This is not an accurate depiction of how Wikipedia works. The entire point of dispute tags and talk pages is so that editors who sense a problem but are not subject experts can ask for clarification, or make suggestions as to how things could be worded better. For such editors to be told by people who profess to have done extensive research on the topic to fix it all themselves, and, more upsettingly, to be told that their objections are invalid unless they fix it themselves is distressing. This is a particular problem for an article on a topic where there is very little opposing knowledge to be found, but where the viewpoint being described is still esoteric.

It is also particularly problematic on an article with large numbers of sub-articles. Stonewalling tactics take up time, and when there are ten articles all of which have greivous problems, it becomes impossible to even get past the first article into the problems of the sub-articles. And the sub-articles aren't tagged either, because, well, the tags were reverted off.

[edit] Assumptions of Widespread Bad Faith

Somehow, the fact that I have complained bitterly about the poor quality of these articles in the past, and the fact that I nominated several of them for deletion over a year ago means that I am a POV-pusher whose opinion should be discounted. (See their statements and evidence in this arbcom case for examples of this)

I also find the repeated removal of the dispute tag by Ryan and Kevin to be a frightening assumption of bad faith – to deny that a dispute even exists seems to me a fundamental refusal to enter into a useful dialogue regarding that dispute. Likewise, to declar a dispute "invalid" due to your disagreement with one of the sides is, to say the least, bad. [11] [12][13] [14]

[edit] Original Research

The fact of the matter is that the majority of serious allegations of misconduct in the election are in the realm of small and partisan press, and got no response. This is shown clearly in Noosphere's own evidence. Of 138 sources in the article, only 26 come from mainstream press, and most of those support facts that are either background (The fact that there were issues with the 2000 election) or tangential (Issues with Ukranian elections). The degree to which the central claims of these articles are supported by mainstream sources is negligible.

WP:NOR forbids the arrangement of established facts into a "novel" point of view. This is exactly what these articles are engaged in – they, as shown by Nooshpere's citation analysis, stitch together a frightenining amount of local news and partisan press to suggest widespread election irregularities where no mainstream sources have ever found widespread election irregularities. Repeated requests to reground the article in mainstream secondary sources (As is preferred on Wikipedia, and ought be more than possible for articles on major political events) were outright ignored, or given the response that no such sources exist. [15] This may well be true, but that also means that the material is not suitable for Wikipedia.

When questions were raised about the quality of sources, the claim "the source is notable" was frequently made with no effort to find any reputable, mainstream source that asserted the notability of the source/perspective. [16] [17] This is classic original research.

This is a situation similar to the POV of the Lyndon LaRouche organization – a POV that was invariably well-cited, but cited through minor sources that nobody saw fit to refute, and as a result was impossible to provide any counter-balance to in articles.

Clarification: I am, despite Noosphere's repeated claims to the contrary, not actually interested in obliterating all coverage of this topic from Wikipedia. I want to restrict coverage to coverage that can be gleaned from good sources. I do not know what such an article would look like, save that it would not look like this one. 00:30, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV Pushing

Kevin Bass has explicitly stated his desire to use the election articles to advance his POV regarding US politics. [18]

Does that diff actually support that assertion? 71.132.145.204 02:53, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes. Phil Sandifer 23:47, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
NO. Prometheuspan 19:42, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by noosphere

[edit] Phil Sandifer NPOV tags the article, starting this dispute

  1. Phil first states his intentions, then NPOV tags the article, starting this dispute on May 4th, 2006.

[edit] Phil Sandifer repeatedly makes vague, unsubstantiated claims

  1. Phil claims the article "violates the 'undue weight' provision of WP:NPOV", without saying why or how.[19]
  2. Phil claims the article consists of "the paranoid ravings of the blogosphere" and "paranoid blog droppings," again without substantiation.[20]
  3. Phil claims "this article is taking primary sources and arranging them in a way that is undoubtedly novel - the very definition of original research," without substantiating his claim.[21]
  4. Phil admits he hasn't substantiated his claims in this dispute, but claims to have done so "some time ago", again without substantiation.[22]
  5. Phil charges the article with being "full of innuendo" and "minor incidents" without specifying what part of the article he's talking about or otherwise substantiating his claims.[23]
  6. Phil claims the article and subarticles are "waste products of a month of blogging", without any substantiation.[24]
  7. Phil admits he has "not made particular effort" to substantiate his allegations against individual editors participating in this arbitration case.[25]

[edit] Phil Sandifer is repeatedly asked to substantiate his claims

  1. Phil is asked to specify which parts of the article he thinks are cited with questionable sources, and which parts he thinks violate WP:NOR.[26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33] (Also please see the "Missing evidence" section on the evidence talk page)
  2. Phil is asked to specify which parts of the article he thinks violate WP:NPOV.[34]
  3. When asked to substantiate his claims[35], instead of providing them Phil expresses his disdain for getting "[bogged] down in specifics". [36]
  4. Phil is asked to substantiate his claim that "this analysis was not repeated or reported by any more mainstream sources".[37]
  5. Mindspillage asks Phil to substantiate his claim that other steps have been taken to try to resolve this dispute before coming to arbcom.[38]

[edit] When pressed to give specifics, Phil justifies his assertions by misinterpreting policy

  1. Phil misinterpreting WP:NPOV.[39][40][41][42]
  2. Phil misinterpreting WP:V regarding the acceptability of blogs as secondary sources, and being corrected.[43][44]
  3. Phil finally specifies which sources he has problems with, noting he thinks they're either "POV" or "local", but neither of this is against policy.[45]
  4. Phil misinterprets WP:RS and WP:V by claiming local news sources are not reliable.[46]

[edit] Phil Sandifer expresses his disdain for Wikipedia process

  1. Instead of striving to reach consensus with other editors, Phil resorts to ignoring them.[47]
  2. Phil promises Mindspillage that by Tuesday, May 16th, he'll substantiate his claim that other steps have been tried to resolve this dispute before coming to arbcom.[48] Now it's Saturday, but Phil has not even attempted to substantiate this claim. -- noosphere 04:36, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
  3. Phil admits he has "not made particular effort" to substantiate his allegations against individual editors participating in this arbitration case.[49]

[edit] Categorization of the references in this article

  1. As of 2006-05-20, at 01:29:51, this article has 138 sources. I have categorized and summarized them here, as this categorization is rather long. (If the arbitrators would prefer me to move this evidence somewhere more appropriate please let me know.)

[edit] Rebuttal of Phil Sandifer's "most basic point" claim

Phil claims Kevin, Ryan, and I did not engage his "most basic point". Here is evidence refuting that claim.

  1. My engagement of Phil on his "most basic point":[50][51][52][53]
  2. Kevin Baas engaging Phil on his "most basic point":[54][55][56][57][58][59]

A detailed analysis and rebuttal of this claim has been posted in the workshop

[edit] Phil Sandifer's "Original research" claim

In his "Original research" evidence section Phil claims the articles "suggest widespread election irregularities", which he claims is a "novel point of view", supported by "no mainstream sources". In fact, some mainstream sources such as Harper's Magazine have suggested just that (see "None Dare Call It Stolen: Ohio, the election, and America's servile press"). Good luck comparing Harper's to LaRouche.

Or take the New York Times, for example: "From seven-hour lines that drove voters away to malfunctioning machines to poorly trained poll workers who directed people to the wrong polling places to uneven policies about the use of provisional ballots, Ohio has become this year's example for every ailment in the United States' electoral process."[60]

Not enough? How about the Washington Post, "Democratic Party officials charged yesterday that the election system in Ohio broke down in last year's presidential race, citing numerous problems that frustrated or disenfranchised voters while concluding there was no evidence of fraud in the outcome."[61]

Or MSNBC, "Yesterday's protest was formally lodged when Ohio Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, a CBC member, objected to the counting of the state's electoral votes on the ground that they were not 'regularly given,' a shorthand reference to a litany of complaints about Election Day problems in Ohio. Many of those problems, from inexplicable shortages of polling machines to aggressive Republican challenges of thousands of voters' eligibility, echo complaints raised after the 2000 presidential election"[62]

So, how about it Phil? Are Harper's, the NYT, the Washington Post, and MSNBC all just arms of the LaRouchian press? Or are they simply "the paranoid ravings of the blogosphere"? -- noosphere 19:36, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Phil Sandifer's curious standards

Throughout this dispute and arbcom case Phil has insisted that only mainstream sources be used, and has decried local news sources and blogs.[63] Yet, when he decides that certain information he cares about must find its way in to Wikipedia (say in to an article about himself) suddenly quite different sources become acceptable.[64]

BoingBoing has suddenly turned from blogcruft to be purged from Wikipedia to a source who's reliability "can be debated".[65] In fact, Phil now argues that the blog article in question "probably meets most people's standards" because it is written by a notable, professional journalist.[66]

It is ironic that Phil is arguing for the acceptability of the very exception to the general blog prohibition in WP:V which I had noted during the dispute,[67][68] and which Phil had blasted as "petty rules-lawyering, displaying an active unwillingness to consider the spirit behind rules, or to take any policies or guidelines that offer advice under advisement"[69][70]. During the dispute Phil had argued that the use of blogs "is only discouraged"[71], and that they are "specifically" only acceptable as primary sources.[72] But Phil's tune has certainly changed now, and not only about blogs suddenly becoming acceptable secondary sources.

During the dispute Phil claimed "Unless the story got picked up nationally or widely reported, one-off local news stories do not provide acceptable levels of reliability,"[73] and insisted on mainstream sources (as noted above). But now all of a sudden the Gainesville Sun is an acceptable source.[74] -- noosphere 05:36, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Detailed rebuttals of Phil Sandifer's and Tbeatty's claims

Please note that I have spent a lot of my time (several days worth) making detailed rebuttals of Phil Sandifer's and Tbeatty's claims in the workshop, per Tony Sidaway's comment.[75] If that analysis is better placed here, or on the evidence talk page, or somewhere else please let me know. I am new to this process and am concerned that all this work is just going go to waste because of a technicality of me putting it in the wrong place or something. Thank you for your understanding. -- noosphere 07:30, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by anonymous user 71.132.142.132

[edit] This arbitration smells funny

  1. The events described in the article were front-page national news while they were occuring or playing out in investigations and lawsuits.
  2. The sourcing, quality of writing, and the neutrality in the article have apparently, from a quick glance at random points in the edit history, improved considerably over the past year, month, and week. This isn't some kind of a devolved edit-war common in arbitration cases.
  3. The accepting arbitrators are clearly prepared to judge on content, as this dispute hasn't seen mediation. Note: The arbitrators might have been misled by implications that mediation had been tried based on unfufilled promises to support such claims -- see below. For a plain-as-day content dispute which has been simmering for over a year, no way could this be considered "exceptional circumstance."
  4. One arbitrator has made his opinions on the subject, and what he believes should be done with the articles, completely clear on the wiki-en mailing list. However, no recusal. Not a single arbitrator has spoken up about this.
  5. The behavior issues alleged by the complaining party are edit-warring over NPOV tags, without even a 3RR violation, and a weak allegation of assuming bad faith? And the complaining party admits to 3RR violations?

Boggle! This is going to be a great test of ArbCom justice. 71.132.142.132 08:40, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

We can't just run and hide just because the case is difficult. Fred Bauder 12:12, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Difficult? For someone who has announced their judgement against and intended remedy for the article months in advance? I'm not saying that your plan to purge anything supported by minor sources in the article is a bad idea for a mediator, but it sets a terrible example to keep get the arbcom involved with de facto content rulings by labling the side that you don't like as POV-pushers. If there's a content dispute, you're supposed to order the case into mediation. You can probably find someone in Wikipedia:Wikiproject Politics#Participants to mediate. If you go ahead with this and dole out bans for the side that you've already decided against, it's going to look crooked and could easily cause more problems than it would solve with the articles. If you really want the weak sources removed, why wouldn't you try to get the article mediated? Based on other arbcom cases where one side is convicted of POV-pushing, if you start handing out bans then the other side is going to take it as open season to start pushing their own POV. 71.132.142.132 19:23, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I encourage mediation. Fred Bauder 12:13, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Phil Sandifer strongly implied that mediation had been tried, promising but failing to support his assertion with diffs, when in actuality he had both discouraged and declined mediation on different occasions

"RfCs have been filed on this article, and the mediation cabal has been called in.... the Wiki method in all of its nice forms has spectacularly failed." 06:01, 11 May 2006, Phil Sandifer

An arbitrator asks Phil to substantiate this claim with diffs, and he replies:

"Happy too, though give me until Tuesday" 03:48, 14 May 2006, Phil Sandifer

No such diffs ever appeared in the edit history, but arbitrators accepted the case anyway.

This is how Phil reacted to attempts to enter into mediation, last year and last week:

  • "I am not sure who the parties for mediation would be - I could be, but it would be a process of my continuing to have to do the research to catch up to what POV advocates already know. And I'm not sure which of the many people who support the article in its current form would be most appropriate to mediate with." 17:43, 19 November 2005, Phil Sandifer

Whether Phil thought he would have much better luck trying to get some arbcom bans handed out than to go through actual content mediation is not the point. The fact is that this is a content dispute, with admitted worse behavior problems (3RR violations) on the part of Phil, the complaining party, than anything he is complaining about. Arbcom isn't for content disputes. This is a blatant abuse of the dispute resolution process.

[edit] Evidence presented by User:RyanFreisling

"Hard to maintain detachment of mind in midst of the raging fire..." -- Gandhi [76]

I (RyanFreisling (talk • contribs • logs • block user • block log)) find myself here having never been the subject of an RfC, having never participated as the target of an RfAr before, having never been blocked for 3RR, nor blocked for any reason for that matter, and with a recent accusation of NP:NPA by one of these complainants having been flatly rejected [77]. Since rebutting the accusations of the complainants basically amounts to a requirement on my part to prove a negative, I believe examples of my prior behavior under similar circumstances will be helpful in assessing whether my conduct has indeed been extreme or unproductive.

[edit] Good faith interaction and collaboration with users of differing POV

  • User:MONGO: Despite a number of strong disagreements over this same family of articles, User:MONGO (an editor/admin who has often expressed a different POV than my own) chose independently to recognize my behavior and ask me if I would consider a nomination for admin. I declined MONGO's offer gratefully.
"have you ever considered, ah, Adminship? You've been around for some time and have been involved in dealing with some hostile editors and have always been fairly even keeled about it." --MONGO 09:40, 16 March 2006 (UTC) [78]
  • User:TheronJ, another user with whom I had a few disagreements over these articles and who advocates his view strongly and with intellectual integrity and vigor, described me in this way:
"I will say that cstoat and ryanf are much, much, easier to deal with on the talk pages though -- if jgalt approached this as constructively as cstoat and ryanf, I suspect the problem would have resolved." {...} "In Ryan's defense on this point, he invited me, and I have (generally) been on the other side of this debate. I think it's fair to assume good faith. (And I appreciated the invitation)". TheronJ 15:24, 6 February 2006 (UTC) [79], [80]

These two editors have strenuously disagreed with me in the past - and I with them. Nevertheless, we found ways of finding common ground, assuming good faith, engaging in the editing process and improving the articles as a result. We did so by dialogue. We continue to do so [81]. Good faith editing on this subject is not impossible.

[edit] Specific evidence in response to the specific charges brought by the complainants

Phil Sandifer hasn't been as willing or able to participate in good faith dialogue with me as the two editors I quote above. After bringing a failed VfD (the articles' second) on the 'Election' articles, he then consciously bypassed the entire process - seeking support off-list [82] and standing outside the process while occasionally hurling claims and tags without substance and specifics. He seems to prefer almost any other approach to any actual effort at substantiating his point of view and improving the article... he has engaged in a prior failed RfAr attempt on policy/content grounds, repeated his occasional tag war, attempted deletion of content on dubious grounds and repeated, unsubstantiated insinuation of unverifiability, and other uncollaborative behavior - but for Phil, mediation is not a viable option. [83], [84], [85], [86]. [87], [88].

It is in fact he who has directly attempted to bully and intimidate me - despite acting on the article as an editor, he threatened me with blocking for a spurious vandalism claim for reverting his repeated and unjustified mass tagging of the articles [89]. As an aside, it was during this exchange that he violated 3RR reverting the tags he had placed on the articles.

As another example, Phil deletes a section whose source he rejects outright, without discussion - and then accuses me of the very same behavior that he has exhibited [90].

Similarly, all of Phil's and Tbeatty's accusations above have been shown to be clear inventions, as I believe noosphere's extensive evidence herein has demonstrated [91].

The complainants' evidence thus far amounts to this:

  1. Representing my having requested recusal as intimidation [92] and the fact that Kevin Baas had the same request as evidence of acting as a 'cabal'. That is pure nonsense and is plainly laughable.
  2. Claiming 'ownership' because I reverted a tag brought repeatedly by Phil, who has admitted not being willing to engage in the process of justifying his personal NPOV concerns with fact. [93] Again, Phil's claim that my rightful reversion amounts to intimidation or ownership in light of his refusal to participate as an editor is patent nonsense.

In short, I stand behind each of my edits brought thus far in this case by Tbeatty and Phil. Here are my actual words, words that are at the heart of a few of the citations they have selected to demonstrate 'intimidation' and 'ownership':

"That's a logical fallacy. The article's problems are identified with section tags. What is the concrete POV complaint? You have still not made a one." [94]
"What is breathtaking bad faith is to apply a tag without justification, and then to sprawl an argument without any concrete specifics. Apply section tags." [95]
"You can't just arbitrarily set aside good faith when you disagree. The issues raised are about POLICY, not about the POV of the particular sources. You added fact tags, not contested fact!" [96] (etc.)

[edit] Tendentious Editing

As far as 'tendentious editing is concerned - if the editing by the editors targetted by this RfAr is to be seen as 'tendentious' (acting to advance a certain POV), then it must be established exactly which POV is being pushed. I have not pushed any POV and if there is evidence of me doing so, please provide it - as I would welcome the chance to further advance my editing and self-discipline. I firmly believe I have demonstrated no such behavior. I have consistently sought to bring the conversation to specifics, but Phil and Tbeatty remain committed to vague and unsubstantiated complaints [97].

[edit] What went wrong in 2004

The facts are that numerous, unprecedented irregularities did occur, and that those irregularities led to various government and public inquiries, hearings, investigations and reports [98], [99], and ultimately, to an objection in Congress on January 6, 2005 by Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs-Jones (D-OH) and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) to the counting of Ohio's electoral votes on the grounds that they were "not regularly given" [100], [101]. This is not an extreme minority view. These are not mere 'blogosphere rantings'. This really happened, for only the second time in our nation's history, in 2004. To hold the point of view that there are corroborated reports of irregularities does not make one a POV-pusher. That they occurred and are noteworthy is a plain fact. Moreover, the article includes the 'other point of view' of this objection, represented in the notorious 'X-files Wing of the Democratic Party' comment by former House Majority Leader Tom Delay. [102] -- User:RyanFreisling @ 02:32, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by Kizzle

[edit] Mainstream?

While I'm not named in this arbitration case, I have participated extensively in the past on this article. I don't have much to say except that I take issue with the claim that these issues were not covered in any mainstream sources (which I take to include established and reputable newspapers). For the issues dealing with voting machines, a simple lexis search for "Bev Harris", "Diebold", "RABA", "ES&S", "Sequoia" AND "voting", or "Walden O'Dell" will retrieve many major newspaper articles that covered the partisanship, security issues, previous glitches (Al Gore getting -18,000 votes in 2000, Bush getting 3,800 votes in 2004), and court findings against several companies within the electronic voting industry. For the allegations of voter suppression in Ohio, I have a .rar file containing over 250 articles covering the period from 9/1/04 to 1/6/05 sorted by date, and all from major Ohio publications such as the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Columbus Dispatch, not to mention numerous articles from the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post. If anyone would like access to this archive, let me know.

That's all, don't want to get too much wrapped up in the heated dialog that has gone on, but the claim that this wasn't covered because it didn't show up on Hannity and Colmes or Hardball (though it did show up numerous amounts of times on Countdown with Keith Olbermann) is false. --kizzle 20:18, 28 May 2006 (UTC)



[edit] Quick comment by uninvolved user PurplePlatypus

The Rolling Stone has just posted a lengthy article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (with over 200 citations, largely to reputable news sources, and some of the rest to government sources) on this very subject. If there is still a claim being made that the problems with the 2004 US election have not been published in notable media, both the article itself and (especially) the extensive references it cites should pretty much put the kibosh on it. Maybe it wasn't as widely reported as the problems in 2000, but that certainly doesn't mean it isn't notable. PurplePlatypus 08:36, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

That article by Kennedy is discussed in detail at Talk:2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities and the general consensus is that Kennedy's work is slipshod, his sourcing is deficient and it's a low quality essay, which is not persuasive. Kennedy likely purloined his material from 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities and that goes to show that this article is trash and should be deleted. → Wombdpsw - @ ← 04:02, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by Kevin Baas

[edit] User:Guettarda, by strong-arming, is trying to own the article

  • [103] - phil adds NPOV tag, citing discussion on the talk page of a different article.
  • [104] - ryan removes tag for lack of "valid discussion"
  • [105] - phil reverts and reminds ryan that the point of tags is to generate discussion, "...so i'm not sure what prior discussion you're refering to...", per NPOV tagging policy
  • [106] -ryan removes the tag again, citing 3RR.
  • [107] - phil puts the tag back, stating that he's not gaming the 3RR because he's putting the tag on the article to try to provoke discussion, and points out that ryan is vandalizing. (this is also evidence of ryan vandalizing wikipedia)
  • [108] - ryan removes the tag, stating that he should initiate a discussion before putting the tag on the article.
  • [109] -Phil puts the tag back
  • [110] guettarda continues the edit war, instead of discussing w/Phil on the talk page, removing a npov tag from a npov disputed section, in violation of W:NPOV.

Kevin Baastalk 15:00, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

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