Talk:Era of Silence

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[edit] Cleanup tag

Sorry, I think that's unfair. The grammar is impeccable, the necessary links are all there, and it's sourced to a perfectly respectable work. Obviously it's not a perfect article, but the notion that cleanup is needed is odd, and I would like a further explanation, else I shall (not immediately, but within a week) consider removing the tag. Biruitorul 04:56, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, mostly I used it because it appears to be copy-paste from the book that you used as a source - and it uses some weasel words ("lame-duck parliament", same as in the source). I think the Estonica source is a bit more neutral then Miljan - also, there are some good sources in Google Books. -- Sander Säde 05:33, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

First, as the book is not available in HTML, I couldn't have copy-pasted the text. Second, I made sure to alter some phrases so as to avoid copyright infringement, keeping in mind that while the author's specific words are subject to copyright, he has no copyright over the facts. Third, there's nothing "weaselly" about "lame-duck" - it simply describes a parliament left over after an election, before a new one has convened (or, in this case, the parliament elected pre-coup), but you (or I) are free to come up with another term. Finally, "cleanup" tends to be for articles with bad grammar, sourcing, formatting... none of this really applies here. Sure, there's plenty of room for improvement, but it's quite readable in its current form. Biruitorul 21:59, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Please understand, that I did not mean to diminish your work by the template, I only thought that the article could use some better wording and explanations (for example, it is unclear if Hitler vas "widely admired populist model" to Päts or Vapsid - while it is for the latter). I am deeply sorry if my edits offended you.

Toivo Miljan is not best source there is, he tends to cut things very short, presumably because of the space limit in treeware books. There are some other sources that are better, in my opinion.

And I replaced "cleanup" tag with {{Expand}}, as that is more suitable, indeed.

-- Sander Säde 03:28, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

No, I did not find the tag offensive, only misplaced, so you have nothing to apologise for. I will try to address your concerns (which are legitimate) soon, and hopefully we can incorporate some more material, leading to the elimination of the new tag as well. Biruitorul 11:26, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 1938 elections

When elections were held in 1938 under the new constitution of 1937, the opposition only managed to elect 26 members to the government's 54, which tends to support the view that the vast majority of Estonians acquiesced in the Era of Silence. — I don't quite think that this can be said, because the 1938 elections were not fair to the opposition, they got a lot less seats than votes because of the unfavourable law.Oth 09:09, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

True. However, that is what our reliable source (Miljan) says. To present an opposing view, we'd first have to source that statement. Once that's done (and I do believe Estonica holds your view), I would support a version along these lines: "When elections were held in 1938 under the new constitution of 1937, the opposition won 26 seats to the government's 54; some^[1] contend this is evidence that the vast majority of Estonians acquiesced in the Era of Silence, while others^[2] dismiss these results as being stacked in the government's favour." Biruitorul 22:44, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Estonian Encyclopedia says that in 1938 Popular Front (Päts' party) got 47% and opposition (various parties) 53% of the votes. The election law favoured large parties (PF in this case) so the number of votes didn't translate to the number of seats in parliament. Consequently, I believe Miljan is in error when he employs this specific argument to say that people didn't mind Päts' autocratic regime too much. I think if other points can be found, they should be used instead. Ufortunately, I don't feel too confident to work on this topic myself right now. Oth 14:50, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't know exactly what electoral system was in use in 1938 in Estonia, but 47% is a pretty good result in a majoritarian system (if that's what it was). For instance, in the 2000 Canadian election, the winning party got 57% of seats but just 41% of votes - but few argued they didn't have a popular mandate or weren't pretty popular. In the 2007 Ontario election, the winners took 42% of votes but 66% of seats - less votes than Päts won in '38 but almost as many seats, yet few are claiming the result is illegitimate (indeed, on the same day, only 37% of Ontario voters supported a move toward a partly proportional system). In the 2001 British election, the winning party got 41% of votes but 62.5% of seats - and this was considered a landslide. So 47% of votes translating into 67.5% of seats, while "unfair" from the opposition's viewpoint, isn't that unusual. Plus, to really counter Miljan's opinion, we'd have to know more: who voted for what parties and why - was it simply dissatisfaction with the regime, or other reasons as well? So again, I welcome other interpretations of the result, as long as they're properly sourced. Biruitorul 16:02, 27 October 2007 (UTC)