User:Bearcat/Post-Election Edit War Syndrome

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For many countries, a provincial, state or federal election which results in a change of government has the unexpected byproduct of causing an edit war on Wikipedia which invariably affects multiple articles for an extended period of time.

Stephen Harper did not immediately become Prime Minister of Canada the moment the election results were finalized on January 23, 2006 — his predecessor, Paul Martin, remained Prime Minister until February 6. Similarly, Kevin Rudd did not instantly become Prime Minister of Australia the moment the election results were finalized on November 24, 2007 — his predecessor, John Howard, remained Prime Minister until December 3. Brad Wall did not actually become Premier of Saskatchewan until November 21, 2007. Bobby Jindal isn't actually going to become Governor of Louisiana until January 14, 2008. And on, and so forth.

The transition period between an election and the actual installation of the new government can vary from two weeks to almost three months depending on local convention and circumstance. In every one of those cases, however, an extended edit war was initiated on the entire batch of related articles — the people themselves, the main infobox on the country, state or province article, the position's navbox template, List of current heads of state and government, etc. — on election night, between those who wanted to immediately replace the incumbent with the incoming leader, and those who insisted that we reflect the reality that the winner of the election wasn't actually the incumbent yet. And one revert never solves this problem; another editor invariably comes along within a few hours and changes everything to Harper or Rudd or Wall or Jindal again, followed by another revert, followed by another batch change. And on, and so forth.

And this edit war didn't always wait until the media or the appropriate electoral agency had actually declared the winner, either — in some cases, it began as soon as an individual Wikipedia editor violated WP:NOR by personally deciding that the incoming numbers were sufficiently clear to make a declaration.

Wikipedia does have a requirement to privilege accuracy over common perception when those two principles are in conflict with each other. At the same time, however, if a problem is this frequent and this persistent, we should put some effort into finding a compromise solution.

The most common solution, which resolves or at least heavily cuts down on the edit warring, has been to list both the incumbent and the incoming leader in the appropriate boxes, with the incomer noted as "-elect" (for directly-elected positions such as a US president or state governor) or "-designate" (for indirectly-elected positions such as a Commonwealth PM or premier), for the duration of the transition period between the election and the formal swearing-in of the new leader. However, as there's no actual policy or guideline to this effect, this solution generally has to be found on an ad hoc basis in each individual case.

I would therefore like to initiate a discussion around creating an actual policy or guideline to minimize edit warring during electoral transitions. I'm proposing the following statement as a start for discussion, and would invite any further comment on how to revise or expand the suggestion before it's formally proposed to the policy and guideline gatekeepers:

Following any state, provincial or federal election which results in an incumbency change, list both the outgoing and incoming leaders in the appropriate infoboxes and navboxes and articles for the duration of the transition period between the date of the election and the date that the new leader is officially sworn in. Where appropriate, note the actual swearing-in date, if this is known — if an exact date is not yet known, note only the month and year in which that date is expected to occur.

This policy should apply primarily to the leadership (president, PM, governor, premier, etc.) level rather than local representatives. At the local level, while incumbency dates should certainly be corrected if they're wrong, especially in a short-transition election it isn't worth maintaining an obsessive watch over every individual article to ensure that nobody's ever getting marked as an incumbent MP or congressman a few days early. That is, as long as the actual dates are correct wherever they appear, it isn't worth getting into an edit war over whether the infobox on Division of Bennelong lists John Howard or Maxine McKew as its local representative in the meantime, or whether Saskatoon Greystone's infobox lists Peter Prebble or Rob Norris. At this level of office, the distinction is much more trivial, since unlike the president or prime minister, as the legislature has already been dissolved there are very few, if any, official responsibilities that would actually belong to an outgoing incumbent representative during the transition period.

A parliamentary cabinet minister, however, does maintain his or her official responsibilities until the new government is formally sworn in, although in this case there's little issue on Wikipedia as we obviously can't note new ministers until the new president, PM or premier actually announces them. (Update per discussion below: Do not assume that a person who held a shadow minister or critic's role in a parliamentary system, upon being elected to the government side, will necessarily be appointed to the ministry they previously shadowed, and do not include speculation in articles about what cabinet positions a person might be appointed to.)

Contents 1 Notes 2 Discussion 3 Further specific discussion 4 Next one to watch out for

[edit] Notes

This policy also applies to appointed positions such as the Governor-General of a Commonwealth country, a US cabinet minister, an ambassador, etc. — the appropriate infoboxes and articles should note the new nominee in the meantime, but the outgoing incumbent must remain listed as the incumbent until such time as the designated nominee is officially sworn in to office.

[edit] Discussion

Anything is better than having an edit war. But while it is probable that Kevin Rudd will become the new PM (being leader of the largest party and everything), that is not guaranteed until it actually happens.

I would still prefer infoboxes to reflect fact as it is right now, rather than what it probably will be in the not-too-distant future.

You mentioned Bennelong as well. That is much more grey than who is going to be the next PM of Australia. All the votes have not been counted and until they have been, John Howard is still 'imcumbant'. Unless wikipedia editors somehow know more about the state of the count than the counters do? I'm not sure quite how it works in Australia, but certainly here in the UK when parliament is dissolved MPs stop being MPs and so, strictly speaking, a constituency infobox should be empty. If that's also the case in Australia then that would clear things up nicely. Just remove names from all infoboxes until the constituency results are announced. Biofoundationsoflanguage (talk) 10:33, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Bearcat, your idea is a good one. Bio, lick your wounds and move along. •Jim62sch• 18:55, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

On the UK situation this is actually rather confused (as much is in the British non-constitution), particularly because Parliament isn't actually sitting in the period. As I understand it an outgoing MP who announces they are stepping down at the forthcoming election stops being the MP at the moment Parliament is dissolved but anyone who restands is considered to still be an MP until the election itself - there's an interesting scene in the Alan Clark Diaries where after the 1992 dissolution notice has been announced in Parliament, Clark is blocked from going into the Members' bar immediately afterwards as he is not considered a member anymore; whereas other MPs are. I believe salaries and pensions work on the same basis (as they apparently do in Australia - can anyone confirm/correct this?) and for that matter the basis for the Father of the House doesn't work if people stop being MPs for the duration of the election (and Patrick Cormack doesn't appear to have been disqualified from holding the post in the future by the delayed poll in his constituency in 2005).

With regards the following statement:

A parliamentary cabinet minister, however, does maintain his or her official responsibilities until the new government is formally sworn in, although in this case there's little issue on Wikipedia as we obviously can't note new ministers until the new president, PM or premier actually announces them.

This may need further clarity to cover "shadow" positions. Some incoming Prime Ministers will appoint almost all of their Shadow Cabinet members to the same portfolios. Others will mix up the team. And some will rename and/or change departments around. For example in 1997 Tony Blair appointed Gordon Brown, Jack Straw, Robin Cook and David Blunkett (amongst others) to the exact ministries they'd shadowed in opposition, but made Frank Dobson Secretary of State for Health instead of Chris Smith, made Smith "Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport" which was a retitling of the "Secretary of State for National Heritage", made John Prescott Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions which had previously been separate posts shadowed by other Labour members, and various other changes. (Michael Meacher had been in the Shadow Cabinet since 1983 thanks to the Parliamentary Labour Part electing him to it, but Blair was always clear that once he had full powers to appoint an actual Cabinet he would not have Meacher in it.)

I think the guideline should make it clear that the default assumption should be that the Shadow so-and-so is not automatically assumed to be going to fill that post in government unless there's an actual announcement made. (This may predate the formal appointment, whether of PM or minister.) I'm not sure how best to word this though. Timrollpickering (talk) 19:35, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

To me, that's precisely why the extra qualification "-designate" or "-elect" is used: this is the person who's currently expected to become the next incumbent of this position, but until they're actually sworn in there's always the possibility that things may change somehow.

Again, I can't speak for Australia, but in Canada the situation is that while a person's official duties as an MP or MLA cease when the legislature is dissolved and an election writ is dropped, they're still nominally considered the incumbent representative until the new one is sworn in. While an electoral district is technically vacant during an election if the incumbent isn't standing for reelection, it's not denoted as vacant in official election documents or media coverage if the incumbent was still in office at the dissolution of the legislature. (On the occasion when an incumbent leaves the legislature before the election writs are issued, however, the riding is denoted as vacant.)

As far as I'm concerned, though, emptying the infoboxes on all 308 Canadian federal constituencies, or all 650 UK ones, making sure they all remain empty for the entire duration of an election and then filling them all back in again only after the new MPs are officially sworn in seems like a lot of unnecessary work for a relatively trivial and largely meaningless distinction. Leaders, of course, are different, as there is an important distinction to be had there — it would still be Howard's job, not Rudd's, to speak on behalf of the government of Australia if, say, a major world leader were to die this week or a major natural disaster were to hit Tasmania. But as there simply isn't any meaningful political role for an outgoing MP to serve in the next week or two, it doesn't feel that important to me to monitor individual constituency articles that closely. I'm not suggesting that we should actively encourage people to change constituency articles early — but I don't think it's worth getting into an edit war if somebody else changes them early. Bearcat (talk) 19:43, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

And I should also clarify that my suggestion only applies to countries which have a short electoral transition period — I should state instead that it's not worth getting into an edit war over an early change in a constituency article if the length of time during which the article is technically inaccurate is measurable in days. In the United States, where the transition period is usually two months, electoral district articles should get the "incumbent + elect" treatment. Bearcat (talk) 19:59, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I like the ideas being proposed, Bearcat. How about sending the discussion to WP:PLT, WP:GOC and WP:AUP for a wider audience? Keeping it here might get some attention from the barbarians at the gate trying to edit Australia ;-),but I think policy can be hammered out better over at the Wikiprojects. Kelvinc (talk) 17:37, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

GOC's probably not necessary; I've already advertised it to WP:CWNB as a whole. The others are reasonable enough, though. Bearcat (talk) 04:29, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

You know what's funny? By our logic, the winning US presidential candidate, after November general elections, is the President-designate until the Electoral College votes in December, and only then does he becomes the President-elect, until inauguration in January. I guess it goes to show that taking the designate/elect distinction too far might simply confuse people with little added benefit. Kelvinc (talk) 07:09, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I just read president-elect and apparently someone has already thought of that. Kelvinc (talk) 07:12, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

As an individual wikipedia editor my policy is not to get involved in adding such new facts. Wikipedia already has a huge advantage over paper encyclopedias in terms of speed with which updates take place. Would it kill WP Editors to wait a few weeks before swarming all over the dozens and dozens of relevant Oz Politics Articles? Why add a contentious fact today when you know you can wait a few days and add an indisputable fact? Wikipedia:There is no deadline seems to offer words of sage advice to me. Ryan Albrey (talk) 03:02, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

As a general rule, the Kevin-Rudd-just-got-elected-Prime-Minister-change-this-article-NOWWWWWWWWWW! swarming is done by newbies or anonymous IPs who aren't familiar with Wikipedia policy. So while you are right on principle, it does nothing to prevent the problem in actual practice. Bearcat (talk) 03:52, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Yah I realize. I agree this is worth discussing. I think articles that are clearly about to be the subject of massive swarming should be semi-locked. I guess also there is a reverse argument to what I said above and you mentioned it earlier Bearcat. As much as I feel there is no need to add a contentious fact today when it will be indisputable in a few days time there is also no need to revert a contentious fact that will become indisputable in a few days time. These edit wars are indeed often about newbies being too enthusiastic to add new information. But more often than not these edit-wars are also the result of either sheer bloody mindedness or anal retentivity from more senior editors who insist on reverting additions that aren't technically correct yet. I am as guilty of such anal retentivity as anybody else but considering Kevin Rudd is definitely going to be the Prime Minister of Australia for at least the next 3 years does it really matter if some newbie without an account jumps the gun by 2 days and makes the article TECHNICALLY incorrect for 2 days? I would say no. Ryan Albrey (talk) 09:28, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I think that on a highly visible topic such as a country's main article or the articles on its leaders, it behooves us to be strictly accurate. I just don't think we need to take such a hard line on low-visibility topics where it's a relatively moot point since the outgoing incumbent's role officially ended the day the election campaign began. Bearcat 23:49, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Good Proposal Bearcat. One possible way to stop the newbies would be for an Administrator to protect the article the night before the election and leave it blocked until the next PM or Premier, etc. is sworn in. While this would cause inconvenience with others editing, it would quickly solve the problem. PookeyMaster (talk) 06:51, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

It may also help for a policy page to have specific sub-sections for each country just detailing exactly what sort of timescale to expect for election results. For instance the UK is exceptionally fast when it comes to declaring results (most seats are officially counted and declared within twelve hours with the rest coming in not long after - oh and no provisional figures are released, all the votes for a seat are taken to one location and counted together) and when the government does change it's very quick - in 1997 polls closed at 10pm one Thursday night and Tony Blair was commissioned as PM about fourteen hours later. By contrast in the US actual results, as opposed to media predictions and candidate claims/concessions, seem to take forever, but the term of office has a rigid starting date. Timrollpickering 00:05, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Further specific discussion

Just to let you all know, there's been a discussion on how to handle this for UK elections started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Parliament constituencies#Advance planning - "Post-Election Edit War Syndrome". Timrollpickering (talk) 09:25, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Next one to watch out for

Tomorrow it's the Kenyan presidential election, 2007. Timrollpickering (talk) 16:09, 26 December 2007 (UTC)