Talk:Hugo Chávez/Archive 9

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This archive page covers approximately the dates between Feb. 1 2006 and May 29, 2006.

Post replies to the main talk page, copying the section you are replying to if necessary.
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Excellent - but the photos!

I repeat the following, which didn't get much of a response and was quickly archived:

*The article is excellent (contender for the Wiki Oscars), but I wonder about the photographs, as they give me the impression of support for the subject: "Hugo - international man of steel, man of the people, smiling family man, shaking hands with other Great Men..."

Does anyone agree that the photos wouldn't be out of place in a Chavez election leaflet?--shtove 02:29, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

To shtove: I mean no offense, but before flinging about any specious accusations (i.e., that your comments were "quickly" archived), first use the "History" tab. There, you would have noted the following:

1. January 16: You posted your comments ([1]), which were duly ignored by everyone.
2. January 25: Nine days later, I "quickly" archive the 194 kb talk page ([2]) to which you posted.

As for the photos belonging in an "election leaflet", I agree: politicians tend to avoid people seeking to photograph them in humiliating circumstances — as would you or I. Go look at any comparable Wikipedia page dealing with a politician — e.g., Barack Obama, Tony Blair, or Viktor Yuschenko — you'll see these politicians dressed as ... politicians. Given this, I'd ask you to point out what is it about the images here that is so special. Thanks. Saravask 20:59, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

What was this "History" tab thingy? Upon pressing it I saw that Saravask had made three attempts to post the above message to me, but without wishing to give offence, of course. My original comments were not "duly" ignored - they weren't even ignored (the point about excessive foot-noting?). And the comments were quickly archived - no accusation there, specious or otherwise: the archive vault swallows things up, ready or not. I resurrected my comments because of my interest in seeing a response to them. Comparisons to the articles on Barack Obama, Tony Blair, and Viktor Yuschenko are fine, but so is a comparison to the article on Adolf Hitler (no, the comparison does not extend to ideology or ethics). Nobody wants to see images of these politicians sitting on the toilet, but plastering each article with the respective subject's "best angle" is not neutral, and therefore not done in WP. And at least Tony Blair carries a satirical cover from Private Eye and an historical election leaflet. The Chavez photos still give me the impression of support for the subject. No offence, chumski. Anyone else care to comment?--shtove 01:27, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

All right. Before I finally quit this subject (soon, hopefully), I'm planning on cutting this article to 1/2 – 1/3 its current size, and I'll dump most of the suit-and-tie images. There's an unflattering image of Chavez posing w/ Castro on the cover of the National Review ([3]), sporting the unctuous byline "The Axis of Evil ... Western Hemosphere version". I'll upload that and insert it in the "Criticisms" section. Or if you have other candidate images, share them here. Thanks for the advice. Saravask 02:05, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Change of photos noted - has the same balance now as Tony Blair (on second thoughts...). You seem to be getting tired of this article? It is one of the best I've seen, so why propose to cut it?--shtove 21:04, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

To shtove: The pictures appear to be in a political/historical/personal context. How can you even complain about bias in the pictures when they are virtually identical in presentation as the entries for Hitler, Bush 43rd, Stalin, Sharon, and Mao. They all reflect the individuals in their respective private/public spheres, not ideology. Robotonic 11:37PM, June 4, 2006

Reference 11, dead link

Government of Venezuela (2005), "Presidente Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías", Gobierno En Línea [January 21, 2006].

Fixed. --Khoikhoi 00:21, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Holy Jesus this article has a lot of references. Gazpacho 05:31, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Bulldozer strategy to fight unsourced allegations. Sometimes its the the only way to go to reach some kind of NPOV... Ericd 20:22, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[No Title]

There are over 70 copies of "This is an example image" images at the top of the article. I suspect vandalism and am deleting them. - Enon Harris 67.106.223.30 16:48, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

UPDATE: the problem is in the headers and cannot be edited out by an ordinary user, so far as I can tell. The probem HTML seems to be: [deleted by EH as no longer relevant - thanks for the fix]Would someone with the needed access please strip out this junk HTML? - Enon Harris 67.106.223.30 17:04, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

It looks like it was reverted. --Khoikhoi 21:57, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Should we mention that his last name is frequently mispronounced as "Shavez" by English speakers (especially by TV/Radio anchors)? --TML1988 00:41, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Sure. Saravask 00:46, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

That's as much a mispronunciation of his name as an English-speaker's Paris is of Paree. In En WP English-style pronunciations are unremarkable.--shtove 23:11, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, Paris pronounced as 'pariss' instead of 'paree', is like Muenchen being pronounced Munich. It just so happens that in the case of Paris both variations have the same spelling. In other words Paris effectively has two separate names in each language (as do most major cities), they just, unusually, are spelled the same. With the case of Chavez and 'Shavez' there is clearly a common and remarkable mistake here. Think about Chirac for example. Don't you think it would be noteworthy if many people pronounced it as it is written? 84.64.197.145 23:47, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Point taken. Is there a relevant WP policy? After years worrying about pronunciation of latin words, I took Churchill's advice: pronounce as you would on sight in English, as an English speaker. Maybe a different approach should be taken to personal names.--shtove 23:37, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

The relevant WP policy is to put the IPA notation after the article title. I'm sure no one would say Boo if you added a note about his name frequently being mispronounced, but there really is no way for a native english speaker with no knowledge of spanish to properly pronounce his name. The 'ch' sound in south american spanish is a slightly different voiceless postalveolar affricate than in english. The inflection is also very different. As said above, Americans don't pronounce Paris Paree... and neither do the French. It's pronounced with an uvular trill. --Kajmal 15:57, 02 May 2006 (UTC)

The official American (ie US) position on Chavez

I cite from page 15 of the brand new National Security Strategy of the US. Source: the White House server [4]:

In Venezuela, a demagogue awash in oil money is undermining democracy and seeking to destabilize the region.

American? Der! you mean the United States position. America is a great continent. Venezuela is a part of America, the US may think it irules the entire Americas which is part of the complaint of Chavez etc, SqueakBox 14:20, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

It has been understood around the world for more than a century who are "Americans". I use the "US" appellation in writing about the official and quasi-official, but your having your sensibilities offended in no way negates what "American" means. BTW, it's two continents. You also might make a better argument if you didn't (apparently) get so worked up. Ten years from now there won't be ten people even looking up Chavez in Wiki.

[Note: The "It's one continent" vs "It's two continents" argument could go on forever with no result. The fact is that in the Spanish-speaking world, America is seen as one continent, and in the English-speaking world it's seen as two. No one is actually right or wrong about it, as the term "continent" is purely arbitrary. Googergeiger 18:57, 4 June 2006 (UTC)]

Also the region has already been destabilised by the US, just look at Cuba (fits US needs and contravenes Latin American needs), SqueakBox 14:23, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

"America" when used in a national sense clearly refers to the US. In a continental sense, it refers, often in the plural, to the entire Western Hemishpere. Why object to the use of "American" in a national sense if one doesn't object to the use of Costa Rican (as if there are no other places in the world with rich coasts) or Ecuadorian (there are many other countries along the equator) or Burkina Faso (not the only place in the world with tall men)? The objection to "America" in the national sense is a red herring and none of the proposed alternatives are any better. The "United States?" But what about "Los Estados Unidos de México," which is also a "United States"? Call it North America? But get a map: that includes America, Canada, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. Interlingua 03:27, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Panfletary

This article is shamefully panfletarian in some sections, it does nothing but promote pro-Chávez positions, particulary about the 2002 coup d'état:

• How dare you say pro-Chávez were fired upon by snipers? The massacre was commited against the anti-Chávez demonstrators and the national "cadena" (In Venezuela it is legal for the goverment to interrupt broadcasting at any given time in order to transmit any message to the population) was intended to prevent the media from reporting it.
• Who proved when that the anti-Chávez demonstration was organised by the same people who execute the coupe d'état? Are you presuming that all the people who demonstrated against Chávez were advocating for unconstitutional solution?
• Let it be said that the goverment owned TV station (VTV) was the ONLY ONE who kept venezuelans from being informed, since the entire staff abandoned it, closing transmition, it's innacurate to say that the private media didn't report it, since all people did know came from the private media, in fact, the only way Chávez' loyalists could have found out of the coup d'état was the private media coverage of it.

Duh.--Buckboard 09:21, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't really know about the subject. Not trying to censor, but... I think you'll find a more proper place to discuss this issues at Venezuelan coup attempt of 2002, since you are discussing very precise details. Perhaps you should discuss in this talk whether this details belong to this article. José San Martin 01:08, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I, too, felt that the article took a drastic turn around the 2002 coup attempt; it was noticeable considering that the rest of the article had numerous (and I mean numerous) citations, yet there is one long paragraph with only one citation to a book I'm not entirely sure about. The Venezuelan coup attempt of 2002 article no longer bears any resemblance to the portion in question--which does belong here, since it is definitely a major point in this man's life and political career. I honestly believe that, to limit the questions of bias, the paragraph that Buckboard mentions be broken down into further citations and/or possibly changing the wording and giving (in parenthesis or whatnot) opposing views since (as the Venezuelan coup attempt of 2002 states) this is still one of the most controversial issues in that country's politics today. 68.53.17.79 03:29, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I checked the history of this page, and it looks like the paragraph was changed by 70.30.138.96 (talk · contribs) on March 20. This is the explanation for the "drastic turn" that you encountered - I have now restored to the original paragraph. Let me know if there are any more problems. --Khoikhoi 03:37, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Growing conflict with the Netherlands

Wonder if there should be some information about the growing conflict between Chavez and the Netherlands. Chavez repeatedly said that 'colonian influences' (=Netherlands) should 'bugger off' from the islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao) close to Venezuala. He was also badmouthing on dutch minister of defense Henk Kamp. Hanseichbaum 19:49, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I think that there should be information on all international conflicts, as long as we cite our sources. If you have a/several particularly informative source/s, by all means include this dispute wherever it feels appropriate. If it's out of place, someone will move it later. --(Mingus ah um 18:51, 14 April 2006 (UTC))

Picture

Has my internet been hijack or Hugo's main photo is a Ostrich? Sitenl 00:26, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Three days have passed (14 April 2006), and we're currently Ostrich-less. --(Mingus ah um 18:46, 14 April 2006 (UTC))

Giovanni Papini Reference!

Chávez clearly states in this speech ( in spanish) that one of his main influences was the Argentinian / Italian poet and later fascist Giovanni Papini. I think this reference is important the in context of (alleged) antisemitism, as Giovanni Papini wrote a "History of Christ" which was clearly antisemitic.

My addition to the article stating this was repeatedly deleted.

Mr. or Ms. Anonymous-user: Can you provide a quote from Chavez (or any reputable source on Chavez) which states that he (Chavez) admires a specific anti-Semetic text or even that he (Chavez) admires the later works of Papini? Many Argentinians and Brazilians admired and attempted to emulate elements of Fascism. Chavez should not be considered anti-Semetic for vaguely admiring Papini (or, if he should, then all of the admirers of Juan Perón should be labeled anti-Semetic as well). If you have something more than a passing reference, please quote it here in either the original Spanish or an English translation. If you do not, this quote from the wiki article should suffice:

Finally, Chávez is criticized for his controversial statements, including his January 2006 statement that “[t]he world is for all of us, then, but it so happens that a minority, the descendants of the same ones that crucified Christ, the descendants of the same ones that kicked Bolívar out of here and also crucified him in their own way over there in Santa Marta, in Colombia. A minority has taken possession all of the wealth of the world...”[83] The Simon Wiesenthal Center omitted the reference to Bolívar without ellipsis, stated that Chávez was referring to Jews, and denounced the remarks as antisemitic by way of his allusions to wealth. Meanwhile, the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, and the Confederation of Jewish Associations of Venezuela defended Chávez, stating that he was speaking not of Jews, but of South America's white oligarchy.[84] Furthermore, it remains a matter of record that Christ was crucified by the Romans. --(Mingus ah um 18:43, 14 April 2006 (UTC))

Mr. or Mrs. Mingus ah um,

I based my assumption on the following paragraph from the above linked speech ( I was not logged in at the time):

Giovanni Papini, un buen escritor de finales del siglo pasado, comienzos de siglo,italiano, escribió este buen libro... él, él era ateo, él era ateo y en el pensar y en el caminar de la vida se topó con muchas dificultades y se topó con mucha gente que vivió muchas dificultades, Giovanni Papini murió en 1956, yo tenía dos años de edad, hace ya medio siglo. Entonces Papini, que era ateo, en el camino se consiguió con Cristo y terminó siendo cristiano y escribiendo esta maravillosa obra sobre la vida de Cristo, la historia de Cristo, la vida de Jesús.

The paragraph continues to cite Papini in illustrating Jesus' birth:

Este es el verdadero establo donde nació Jesús, el lugar más sucio del mundo fue la primera habitación del más puro entre los nacidos de mujer. El hijo del hombre, que debía ser devorado por las bestias que se llaman ‘hombres’ tuvo como primera cuna el pesebre donde los brutos rumian las flores milagrosas de la primavera. No nació Jesús en un establo por casualidad, ¿no es el mundo un inmenso establo donde los hombres engullen y estercolizan? ¿No cambian por infernal alquimia las cosas más bellas, más puras, más divinas en excremento? Luego se tumban sobre los montones de estiércol y llaman a eso gozar de la vida.

I concur that this does not necesarily mean that Chávez is conciously antisemitic, but it does put him in a position far right of his media image. I think that therefore his reference to Papini is of importance when trying to understand his positions. --(rotito 18 April 2006 )

Two things about "Political Impact"

• The labor section is missing its citations.
• The Bolivarian Missions link is a bit out of place. I understand that the missions do have some economical impact, but it's mostly social. In my opinion could it remain there, but instead of saying "Main article: Bolivarian Missions" it should say "See also..." because a reader wouldn't get much about the economical impact by just reading about the missions.

Just some suggestions. --Enano275 00:13, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Chávez the antisemite

The following quotation, from an article by Thor Halvorsen in The Weekly Standard, August 8 2005, relates to the event that has determined my opinion of Chávez ever since:

‘Consider the traumatic morning of November 29, 2004. As parents and school buses delivered children to Colegio Hebraica, a Jewish grade school in Caracas, 25 secret police commandos in combat gear and face masks burst into the main building. Scores of preschoolers were locked in the school as panicked parents tried to retrieve them. The children were eventually freed, but the raid went on. The government-appointed judge who ordered the raid said the commandos were looking for weapons linked to a bombing that killed Danilo Anderson, a crooked local prosecutor who had made a fortune shaking down the government's political opponents. The raid followed speculation aired on a state-run television station that Anderson's killing was the work of Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence agency; presumably this guesswork justified the storming of a Jewish elementary school.

‘The Hebraica raid was not an isolated or random act of state-sponsored anti-Jewish violence. Hostility to Jews has become one of the hallmarks of the Venezuelan government under Hugo Chávez, the radical populist who became president in 1999, and of Chavismo, the neo-fascist ideology named for him. In January, the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor released a "Report on Global Anti-Semitism." The report documents how openly anti-Semitic the Venezuelan government now is. Besides the raid on the Jewish school, it noted that "President Chávez cautioned citizens against following the lead of Jewish citizens in the effort to overturn his referendum victory. Anti-Semitic leaflets also were available to the public in an Interior and Justice Ministry office waiting room."

‘Chávez first ran for president on a reform platform, winning in a landslide. What few understood then was that Chávez planned to revolutionize the country following a plan masterminded by his longtime friend Norberto Ceresole, an Argentinian writer infamous for his books denying the Holocaust and his conspiracy theories about Jewish plans to control the planet.

‘The title of Ceresole's 1999 book on Chávez and Venezuela, Caudillo, Ejército, Pueblo ("Leader, Army, People"), eerily recalls the German national socialist maxim, "One People, One Country, One Leader." (The first chapter is titled "The Jewish Question and the state of Israel.") After denying the Holocaust, he explains that the greatest threat to Chavismo comes from the Jews of Venezuela. A self-described Communist and fascist, Ceresole became an expert in national socialism after designing Juan Domingo Perón's electoral platform in Argentina. In Ceresole's hands, representative democracy mutates into "participatory" systems led by cult-like figures; tellingly, Chávez praises the "participatory democracy" of Libya, Syria, Iran, and Cuba. Ceresole's structure channels the people's will through the charismatic strongman; the military functions as the central political body. Ceresole's roadmap for Venezuela suffered some setbacks, including a 2002 coup that displaced Chávez for 48 hours and a national strike that almost toppled the government. But Venezuela's dramatic political metamorphosis was nonetheless complete by the time Ceresole died in 2003. Chavismo's purpose, however, is not just to create a stable autocracy. At its core is a far-reaching foreign policy that aims to establish a loosely aligned federation of revolutionary republics as a resistance bloc in the Americas. The Chavista worldview sees the globe as a place where the United States, Europe, and Israel must be opposed by militarized one-man regimes.

‘In an interview with Voice of America in 1999, the late Constantine Menges of the Hudson Institute predicted that "Chávez will stir up revolution and violence throughout Latin America. The longer he is in power, the more he can use the oil wells of Venezuela to do so." When Menges spoke, the price of oil had briefly dipped below $10 per barrel. Since then, oil prices have quintupled, making the Chávez government the richest in Venezuelan history and vastly multiplying the damage it can do.

‘There is now incontrovertible evidence, for instance, that Chávez has financed, harbored, and supplied weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, Colombia's narcoterrorists. Last December, high-ranking FARC terrorist Rodrigo Granda was arrested in Caracas. Granda had been living in baronial splendor under the protection--and at the expense--of the Chávez government. Bounty hunters kidnapped Granda and drove him to Colombia, where he is now imprisoned and awaiting trial. Days after the arrest, El Salvador president Antonio Saca announced plans to investigate ties between Chávez and his country's FMLN terrorist organization. In Nicaragua, Chávez has funded Daniel Ortega's Sandinista party; in Bolivia, he funds Evo Morales, the leader of the coca-growers' movement.

‘But Chávez's ambitions extend beyond the Americas. He has signed treaties for "technological cooperation" with the dictators of Libya, Iran, and Syria. He has numerous business interests in those countries, and has publicly described the terror-sponsors who rule them as his "partners" and "friends." The feeling is mutual. Iran and Libya have hundreds of millions invested in Venezuela. Significantly, Chávez was the only foreign leader to visit Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf war. During his visit he embraced Saddam and called him "brother."

‘There is no sign that these alliances proceed from anything other than Chávez's deepest convictions. Less than a month after taking office, Chávez wrote a fan letter to Illich Ramirez Sanchez, the Venezuelan-born terrorist imprisoned at La Santé maximum-security prison outside Paris. Popularly known as "Carlos the Jackal," Sanchez began his long, bloody career by shooting Joseph Sieff, a Jewish businessman in London. He committed terrorist bombings in France, hijacked airliners, and kidnapped the OPEC ministers in Vienna. After retiring to the Sudan, he was captured and sent to France to stand trial for murdering two Parisian police officers. Yet Chávez addressed Sanchez as "Distinguished Compatriot" and lavished praise on him. He described himself as "swimming in the profundities expressed in [Sanchez's] letter," and signed off "with profound faith in the cause and the mission." When the letter was leaked, Chávez dismissed all criticism and said he was simply expressing solidarity with a fellow Venezuelan.

‘THAT EXPRESSION OF SOLIDARITY IS CHILLING. During the last six years, Chávez has restructured Venezuela's institutions and policies to extend his rule; he has concentrated his power, and he has disabled the democratic opposition. Always proceeding with the patina of popular support and the pretense of legality, he has used a constituent assembly to establish a new constitution giving him wide powers. He has packed the courts with loyal judges and purged the military of anyone who might oppose his orders. The Chávez government has severely restricted freedom of the press, most recently banning any public or private expression of opposition to the government. After winning a Jimmy Carter-endorsed August 2004 referendum marred by accusations of fraud and voter harassment, Chávez revved up his revolutionary project. The raid on Colegio Hebraica was a significant shift in the politics of intimidation.

‘Predictably, the storming of Hebraica turned up nothing and the police publicly acknowledged that the search had been "unfruitful." Of course, the raid was fruitful insofar as it sent a message to the Jewish community. Venezuela's chief rabbi denounced the raid's "economy of intimidation," noting that "there is not a single Jewish family in Caracas that was not affected. Many of us have children in the school, grandchildren, great-grandchildren--or friends. An attack on the school is the most effective way of jolting the entire Jewish population."’

Incorrect use of CIA - The World Factbook

"per-capita GDP in 2004 has dropped around 1% from 1999 levels."

From The World Factbook - Notes and Definitions

"Note: the numbers for GDP and other economic data should not be chained together from successive volumes of the Factbook because of changes in the US dollar measuring rod, revisions of data by statistical agencies, use of new or different sources of information, and changes in national statistical methods and practices"

Think you need an alternate data source.

Thanks, Alex

I was not using the CIA fatbook (that was the guy before me) but Central bank figures and population growth estimates, if you think it is original research you can strike it off SuperFlanker 20:12, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Electoral Abstentionism

I'm not sure who has included these figures but it is not the norm in Wikipedia or elsewhere to include abstention levels.

Firstly whilst I don't deny for a moment that they may well reflect voter apathy/trust in the electoral system etc.. and show the real level of support any politician has gained, by only including them on this page - and not, for example, on pages referring to UK or US general elections - it looks very much like some political POV is being made.

Secondly as most people are well aware that such voter apathy exists - and believe me it is the norm more or less everywhere - I can see no reason to include the 'apathy' statistics.

Consequently please reconsider before re-adding such figures.

Marcus22 09:05, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Marcus22, I respectfully disagree with your analogy and comparison to US or UK votes. Voting is not compulsory in the US or UK, as it is in Venezuela, and the abstention numbers are highly relevant in a country where there are penalties for not voting. The abstention numbers are a large and extremely important part of the story in Venezuela, Chavez was elected by default and because of a protest vote in a country with compulsory voting laws, and to not tell that story is POV. In fact, one of the problems with the entire POV-pushing throughout the Chavez story on Wikipedia is that the nature of the compulsory voting laws in Venezuela is not fully covered. Re-instating the numbers, and discussing the compulsory voting laws in Venezuela is the NPOV way to tell the story accurately. Sandy 11:55, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

PS - please take care not to mark major deletions or reverts as minor edits. Thanks in advance, Sandy 11:58, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Update: per subsequent comments below, it appears I'm older than some here and remember things others perhaps never knew <grin>. Numerous websites, including Compulsory voting, state that Venezuela abandoned compulsory voting -- need to find out details/date, but have stricken mention from the article. Nonetheless, I disagree that the data should be stricken from the article without a discussion of the fact that more people abstained than ever voted for Chavez in any election: need to see comparative statistics on that issue relative to other countries. Sandy 00:04, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

POV

"It is highly doubtful that Chávez would have gained any political ground without the manipulation of oil prices by the OPEC. "

References?

"The influx of money has hardly benefited people that are not Chàvez cronies."

References?

(In an effort to goad the Bush Government, Venezuela has gifted oil to poor citizens of Massachusetts while ignoring major blight that is widespread in his own country.) "History will judge him for these grave mistakes."

How can an article be called excellent with such extreme POV? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.56.101.119 (talk • contribs) 18:26 16 May 2006 UTC

I removed an extremely POV sentence from the intro, FYI.--The ikiroid (talk)^{(Help Me Improve)} 19:17, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

POV and not FA quality

Following up on the examples and comments given above ... The series of articles about Chavez are the most highly POV I have encountered in Wikipedia. This article should be cleaned up and restored to something resembling its featured article state. The article is currently about double the optimum size, making it very slow to edit, extremely POV, not well sourced, and not stable. Some of the longer sections need to be moved back into the daughter articles to shorten the article to manageable length. It needs a serious copy edit, as well. Using the examples above, this article is neither well written, comprehensive (a thorough discussion of the nature of the compulsory voting in Venezuela is missing throughout these articles), factually accurate (numerous unreferenced or marginally accurate statements), neutral (it is highly POV), nor stable (good faith edits are completely reverted by both signed and anon editors, not always with edit summaries). It is daunting to work on an article with many anonymous and unsigned editors, reversions of good-faith edits, and a lack of edit summaries, but I suggest we can work together to clean up the articles. I request that we begin to work together on the talk page to correct these deficiencies, so that the article will not be a FARC candidate. Featured article removal candidates Sandy 01:17, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the article needs serious cleanup. I couldn't even say whether this article is unacceptably POV, because I haven't got the patience to wade through all 88kb of it. If it was listed on FARC, I would say removed it on length grounds alone. It should be cut down to about 40kb maximum - very very few articles indeed warrant longer than that, and Chavez is not one of them, having not yet changed the course of history. Worldtraveller 19:50, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

"As a result of the coup, the independent media of Venezuela has lost all credability and is considered by many to be responsible for the 2,000 deaths." cite? that's a rather bold claim. Much of the page has an unacceptably pro-Chavez POV.

---

Sandy said in this section above: "The series of articles about Chavez are the most highly POV I have encountered in Wikipedia".

I agree entirely. What I keep reading is the endless, unsubstantiated, regurgitation of propaganda that comes from who knows where... but sounds as if it was lifted straight from neo-conservative think-tank propaganda, Pat Robertson or FOX News. This article makes a joke out of 'Featured Article' status - Joolze

Coup attempt/popular uprising/events of 11 April

User:Irishpunktom, can you please explain your revert of an edit, including the edit summary: "popular uprising" is POV - it is also false, as it inplies it was an uprising, and was popular.. both of which points are untrue. I'm wondering how you are defining the term "popular uprising"? How are the largest demonstrations in Venezuela's history not described as "popular" and why do you not consider it an uprising, considering the largest protest march in Venezuela's history to that point was spontaneously re-routed to Miraflores? Can you explain why you view that terminology as POV, and why you claim it was not popular? More importantly, how is the use of the word "coup" not POV to describe the events of 11 April ? There may or may not have been a resignation, an uprising, an ouster, or a coup, but to call it a "coup" is most certainly expressing a bias and POV, since there are accounts even from inside military people that there was a resignation rather than a "coup". I'd like to understand your reasoning, so that we can find a term we can all agree on. The most NPOV terminology I can think of is "the events of 11 April", considering the differing accounts and views of what happened that day. Of course I am concerned that you claim these points are "untrue", as none of us is the owner of the truth, and our goal is to agree on NPOV terminology. Regards, Sandy 01:38, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm also not sure "Popular uprising" is acceptable I'm afraid SandyGeorgia. Irishpunktom is not defining a popular uprising, you are by placing it in the article. The largest demonstrations in a history of a nation do not neccessarily signify a popular uprising [5]. Besides, you'd need to find a notable source that described it as such - like this [6] and attribute the statement. Even then you'd open up all sorts of other problems, because if you enter "Chavez popular uprising" into google you get this [7], where the term is applied to Chavez's return after the "coup". So you'd have to accept the term used in that context also. I recommend you revise that complaint, you'd be opening a can of worms that I imagine would not go in your favour. Just my 2 cents.--Zleitzen 02:52, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments, Zleitzen, and particularly the link to an article describing the events of 11 April as a popular uprising. There are/were many, but Google ranking is not necessarily a reliable source of determining historical events. Of course, it's not a question of whether something goes "in my favour". The question is whether the use of the term "coup" is not as POV as Irishpunktom says that the term "popular uprising" is, and whether we can determine consensus around a term which is neutral to describe the events of 11 April. Usage of the word "coup" is not neutral in describing the undetermined events of 11 April. Sandy 03:02, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Having seen hours of inside footage of the event, it certainly looked like a coup. How about "Overthrow"?--Zleitzen 03:32, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Zleitzen, could be be more specific as to what you have seen? I have seen a lot as well and to me it does not look like a either a "coup" or an "overthrow". Did you see any military or armed action against Chavez or his loyalist? Did you notice any armed resistance against the people before and during Chavez come back? There was no coup. Chavez resigned, as his (at the time) army right hand said. This created a vacio de poder (nobody in command), which oposition leader used to take over (no guns, no violence). I think "the events of April 11th" would be the best NPOV expression for describing what hapened. I do not want to finish this comment without stating that even tough I do not consider it a coup, I do not approve the illegal precindency of Carmona either.--Ozzyprv 04:01, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I've seen a lot of additional footage alongside the documentary "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised:Inside the coup". Whether it was a coup or not would be a matter of opinion. But some notable sources say it was [8] which is very important here, others maybe don't. But I agree that users could trial neutral terms, which may be in fact turn out to be more accurate. --Zleitzen 04:44, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Zleitzen, for some reason I knew you were going to cite "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised:Inside the coup". Please try to watch "X-Rays of a Lie" [9]. And about your source, in my humble opinion, all BBC does is quote what the Venezuelan government is doing (of course Chavez and his supporters call the events a coup). Later --Ozzyprv 05:28, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I watched the "The Revolution" documentary with a rather critical eye myself, and the slant towards Chavez was clear. However, this wording issue is about notable sources. The BBC don't quote Chavez and his supporters, they actually use the word 6 times without quote marks. The BBC have chosen to call it a coup. As have Fox news [10], The Guardian [11], The Washington Post [12], CNN [13]. Also encarta [14], and the encyclopedia brittanica [15]. You'd have to work hard to justify keeping that word out in some form. "Described as a coup by..." would have to be in the article somewhere.--Zleitzen 06:23, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

All of which brings us to an interesting juncture in what seems to be a fundamental problem: citing of inherently biased sources, while other sources have been conspicuously absent in these series of articles. (Example: the investigation ordered by Sen. Dodd, CT (i.e., the opposition in the US :-), is never mentioned. I will locate the full report once the building contractor gives me back my house and my boxes of files re-emerge from under piles of construction junk and dust.) The "documentary" is more plainly biased than more conventional news sources, and it concerns me that anyone would consider it as a reliable source. But in addition, the BBC, The Guardian, The Washington Post and CNN, for example, had massive one-sided reporting of the events of April 11. At the time it was happening, one could get two sides of the story by viewing/hearing live video/audio Spanish-language feeds on the internet, and the differences in what was reported in those media sectors were notable from what the BBC and The Guardian chose to report and chose to leave out. More importantly, in the huge leadup of popular protest against Chavez, the US/UK media almost completely ignored Venezuela. A lot of the story was never told in English. These are considered "reliable sources". Can't Wikipedians find a way to rise above this obvious case of bias? Has anyone (e.g.; the person who first introduced the articles and the terms) built a case for how a coup can be called a coup when there was no evidence of a coup, even the military insiders who were present indicate it was a resignation, and it only came to be called a coup in the media, possibly because of limited understanding of the Venezuelan political situation, making it hard to find a label that accurately described the events of 11 Abril? I am still in favor of finding a neutral term, to eliminate this obvious POV in the articles, which is such an affront to the millions of law-abiding Venezuelan citizens who participated in days and days of peaceful marches against Chavez. My suggestion is that we 1) find a neutral term to use in the main article, 2) change the title of the 2002 "coup" article to something NPOV, and 3) tell the whole story/controversy in the newly-titled "coup" article, including the controversy over whether it was a "coup", a resignation, an ouster, a popular uprising, or whatever -- that is, tell all sides of the story in NPOV. The current "coup" article is so one-sided that it presumes a "coup" and barely attempts to address the controversy, except for one or two sentences. One would think, from reading the articles, that what Chavez did in 1992 was the same that was done to him in 2002. This is an affront to the law abiding citizens who respected Venezuela's constitutional process in their attempts to oust Chavez (unlike Chavez's 1992 coup, which was bloody and undeniably a coup) and worked peacefully to return their full-fledged constitutional rights. It is alarming that Wikipedia has been a source of furthering this obvious POV, and that these series of articles became featured with such inherent POV. Another problem with all of the Venezuela/Chavez articles is that POV/bias is introduced as much by all that is not said as by that which is said. (Apologizing for the fact that my files aren't accessible now, due to construction.) Much can be said about the information that is left out, and with the high number of reverts by signed and unsigned users alike, working on introducing changes to the articles may not be useful (yet). Another point: The same thing could be done throughout the articles with respect to explaining better (to those who aren't familiar with Venezuela) the significance of the large abstention votes in a country with compulsory voting laws: can someone summarize (in the referendum article) the potential consequences of not voting (I recall that not having the stamp on your cedula - Venezuelan national identity card -- carried potentially a lot of consequences). I am not aware if Chavez has changed the laws that existed previously. Another question: throughout these articles, I've seen 'recall' used in quotes -- isn't that POV? It was a very legitimate, constitutional recall effort. Why is it in quotes? Another huge blank area in the articles is a discussion of all that Chavez did to make the referendum fail, in terms of legalizing immigrants to change the threshhold percentage, etc. Another ommission is more detail on the consequences of signing the recall petitions, vis-a-vis lack of secrecy and privacy, and how that affected outcomes. But, the first thing that could be done, to make it easier to work on the article, is to shorten it by moving some of the info into the daughter articles. The article is so top heavy that editing it takes too long (even on a fast connection), so I give up on even trying to view history and diffs, or changing info, since so much is reverted without edit summaries and without talk page discussion. Sandy 12:58, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that it is splitting hairs, not all events are exactly the same. In this case not all coups are the same either, this was perhaps the weirdest but nevertheless still a coup by most reasonable standards. Its flashing point was the street demostration (its re-direction specifically lends credence to the coup theory) however the intent to carry it out, its planning and execution is part of the public domain. There is no evidence of resignation either, plus even if it was the Vice president was next in lineSuperFlanker 06:31, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

SuperFlanker, I'm attempting to understand all points of view -- can you explain further your reasoning that it was "nevertheless still a coup by most reasonable standards"? Can you elaborate on those standards? Also, your statement of no evidence of resignation, relative to the statements of military officers present? And, in your context, where do we put the "popular uprising" against Chavez? TIA. Sandy 15:03, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Standards from the world media I guess, none refer it to anything other than a coup, I loathe to use them as a standard but at some point you have to call a fig a fig military and civilian sectors planned the action, the CIA even predicted a date within April, all that they needed was a flashpoint to act. The statements are not proof of resignation, you would need evidence of a contract, or at least a verbal recording, Lucas Rincon also backed off his statement. "Popular uprising" is unsubstantiated, there is empirical evidence that there was disaproval thanks to polls however that is entirely different than wanting a resignation or change under extra-constitutional means. It would be like justifying a military coup on Bush and calling it a "popular uprising" due to low poll numbers. SuperFlanker 04:27, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

The standards we are interested in here are those of mainstream encyclopedias and notable media outlets, Sandy. Regardless of whether you think they are inherently biased or not. When you ask "has anyone (e.g.; the person who first introduced the articles and the terms) built a case for how a coup can be called a coup", I think you're misunderstanding the role of wikipedia. It's not for editors to build individual cases based on evidence, it is to present significant views based on notable sources. Therefore, whoever first used the word "coup" was abiding by Wikipedia guidelines in good faith. Alternative significant views such as "popular uprising" may be presented alongside the mainstream view, but they'll need to be clearly sourced, attributed and given context. Remember, as counterintuitive as it may seem, the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not "truth".--Zleitzen 15:24, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

While I don't disagree with your analysis, Zleitzen, I would point out two general items that concern me about Wiki being "encyclopedic": 1) notable and reliable sources is stretched often in Wiki to "anything someone said in print somewhere sometime", and 2) it's just sad that an encyclopedia can't aspire to a higher level of accuracy than being a parrot of current media bias. Alas and alack, such is the situation. SuperFlanker, everyone with dos dedos frenta a la cara (two finger in front of their face) predicted that Chavez wouldn't last: that's wasn't some inside CIA secret. The popular uprising which is being denied was massive, and his demise was near -- it was no surprise, and the CIA would have to have been asleep at the wheel to not have predicted such. By the way, do you have a reference that military sectors participated in planning ? Sandy 00:10, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Featured article removal candidate?

This article has been seriously getting worse since the last time I read it. I understand that it took a lot of work to make it become a featured article, but I have serious concerns about its current quality. I hope the following comments can help, otherwise anyone could candidate it for a removal anytime, I would do so too if this article doesn't improve quickly. Below there are some of my concerns, fill free to add your own:

• Size, 88 Kb is just too much.
• Unstable. The article changes a lot from day to day and it's subject to a lot vandalism. On May 18 the article had to be reverted 8 times.
• Lacking a NPOV. From both sides (opposition and pro-Chávez), this article is very unneutral.
• Sections such as "labor", beginning of presidency and some facts in "criticism" are missing their references.
• I remembered the lead to be brilliant and very smooth to read, but now the lead and the rest of the article needs a clean-up and copy-edit.
• Not comprehensive. A lot of information is not covered. Nothing about Lula da Silva, nothing about Evo Morales, nothing about his relationship with Iran nor Lybia, nothing about the 2005 parliamentary elections, nothing about the weapon selling prohibition, nothing about the currency control, the 2002-03 general strike information very incomplete.
• Minor things such as:
  • Chávez is spelled as Chavez several times.
  • How can Bolivarian Missions be the main article for economy? I understand how it has some economical impact, but by no means it's the complete topic of economy.
  • Is the Peruvian newspaper really needed?

And I'm sure many more can be found. --Enano275 05:40, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Concur, and agree there is much more to the list above. I fully concur with your list above, and am also concerned about a lot of information that is not addressed at all. I am traveling, and don't have time to detail it all from hotel laptop, but if we can't find a lot of editor concurrence to clean things up, I do agree the article may need to be FARC'd. I will not have time to work on the article until at least mid-June. Sandy 14:19, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I also agree with Enano275. I volunteer to do some writing and cleaning. I will put it in my to-do list.--Ozzyprv 17:07, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you both for your comments on this aspect. I could contribute too, but we will have to call someone with more kwnoledge on this topic for better help. I think User:Saravask could help save the article, he did a lot of job back in november-december when the article got its FA status. I will try to contact him. --Enano275 21:14, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I contacted two users, User:Saravask and User:Anagnorisis. They are both experts on this topic. --Enano275 21:34, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I already raised several of these issues with Saravask several weeks ago. Also, I reviewed some of the talk page history, and viewed the article version at the time it became FA, and noticed some of these issues were present then. Mentioning additional problems as they occur to me: the references need to be redone to conform to m:Cite/Cite.php. I'm wondering if the cumbersome, repetitive referencing mechanism (references are listed twice) used is partly contributing to the very slow load time on the page, making it hard to edit. If we can get the article size down to something manageable first, it may be easier to work on. While perusing the references, I noticed they were a bit heavy on the Wilpert, Weisbrot, Venezuela Analysis, which creates some of the bias (and I see no mention of the infamous Wayne Madsen debunking, as one of the media reports responsible for the "US coup" allegations -- seems to be another thing that is completely left out, along with the report/investigation ordered by Dodd?). The original references list appears top heavy, as a means of justifying some of the statements, and looks a bit one-sided, so that's something we'll need to look at. Also, Personal Life of Hugo Chavez was just voted AfD, and when trying to remove wiki links to it from the article, I find a number of templates which reference it and from which I don't know how to remove it. I read somewhere in Wikiland that single use templates were discouraged. Does anyone know where/how to deal with those templates? (See the bottom of the page, where there is still a link to the Personal Life article, via a template.) Sandy 23:52, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I removed the reference to the deleted article from the templates. Single-use templates are bad, yes; they are best substituted into the article, by replacing {{template}} with {{subst:template}}. Worldtraveller 00:59, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

More. The Presidency section is way too long, and content should be merged to Presidency of Hugo Chávez, in order to shorten the article. Same for criticism section: we need to clean it up, work on POV, and merge content to Criticism of Hugo Chávez, again, in order to shorten this main article. Sandy 00:50, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd just like to note that I nominated the Criticism article for deletion. By clearly defining itself as reporting only one point of view, it goes against the very fundamental WP:NPOV philosophy. I think a 'criticism' section only makes sense in the context of a main article. This article is extremely verbose, and I would far rather see its writing style made properly concise and sharp before content is moved to subarticles. I'm happy to help with this - I think its size could easily be halved without losing any actual information.

The preceding unsigned comment was from User:Worldtraveller (I'm on a laptop on a slow hotel connection and can't find the unsigned template). In fact, several Chavez articles have been nominated for deletion. [16] Sandy 01:19, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I was shocked to happen upon this article and see that the {{disputed}}, {{featured article}}, and {{cleanup}} templates were all on the same page. Give the article a couple of days to resurface from this low point, and if it doesn't, it is definitely time to request that the article have its featured article status revoked. joturner 02:43, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

If you review the article's talk pages, you'll find it's perhaps not so shocking. The POV issues were raised several times in the time period that the article was aiming for featured status, and the main editors working to get it featured haven't actively edited the article for a while. Sandy 14:54, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I will start working on layout modifications, taking things out to the daughter articles and moving to the newer references system. Unfortunately, I cannot work on the content, if I wrote/re-wrote any new stuff it would be subject to my POV, so we need neutral people reviewing the content and revising the references. Neutrality is one of the most delicate things in this topic. --Enano275 04:07, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Just FARC it now — I don't have the time or interest in fixing the problems pointed out. Saravask 04:51, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

That's quite discouraging, since you brought it to FA status such a short time ago. OK, so now we've got a lot of people working on cleaning up the article: shall we take a vote now as to whether we want to continue the work or FARC the article? My concern if we FARC it is that we may lose the attention of some editors who are hard at work now to improve the article. My vote would be to give it another week or so, but definitely put a time limit on it. Sandy 13:53, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

To bad he doesn't want to help :-(. Anyway, the tags have been at the top for some days now, I would say we give it one more week, until June May 30. What does everyone think? If the article isn't ready by then, it will be FARC'd. The good thing is that the presidential elections are coming soon (December 2006), so this entry will get more attention as the date approaches, making it easier to get it FA back again. --Enano275 00:39, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

You mean May 30, not June ? Sounds good. I moved a large chunk of criticism to the Criticism article, and now the Presidency and Political Impact articles need summary work, and moving of chunks to the daughter articles. I don't want to take that on yet: I'd rather spend some time getting in some of the information that is completely left out of the article, rendering it biased. I'm hoping someone else (User:Worldtraveller or User:Ozzyprv ?) will take on the job of reducing those sections and moving content to the daughter articles. We've gone from 93 KB at the start of today, down to 72 KB, and now the article is easier to work on. I've also been copy editing and working on the daughter articles. I added the cleanup tag, and feel that it can probably be removed now (what do others think?) The Political Impact and Presidency sections still need a lot of cleanup, and the POV tag needs to be addressed by telling some things that are left out -- Compulsory voting laws, Sumate, Chavez's statements prior to the recall that he wouldn't leave even if he lost, the report ordered by Dodd, the things done by Chavez to rig the recall numbers, how about the mudslides ? etc. And, the whole notion of a 2002 "coup" still has to be addressed. If it was a "coup," who led it, who ordered it, and who was charged with it? Enano, are you able to summarize Venezuela's compulsory voting laws, the penalties for not voting, and has Chavez changed them? Sandy 03:03, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant May, not June. What do you mean by those laws? If you tell me about it I could work on it. I could also work on the foreign policy, it needs a lot of summarizing. Saw the link, and I think it's right. As far as I know, the constitution does not require people to vote. It could be called a right, but not a duty. --Enano275 20:13, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Enano, maybe I'm much older than you (?) ... and maybe this has changed under Chavez ... but many years before Chavez, in Venezuela, when you voted you got a stamp on the back of your cedula indicating you had voted. If you didn't have the stamp, you could be denied routine legal paperwork, business transactions, etcetera. For example, you might not be able to exit Maiquetia, things like that. It was selectively enforced, but it was definitely there. Wikipedia mentions it at Compulsory_voting ... at some point, it was abandoned? Sandy 23:46, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

As long as it is substantiated it should be added, the article is still litered with accusations that fail to materialize evidence (including Chavez's own accusations), balance should not be forced at the expense of speculation. The article barely survived 5 months it would need another rewrite by the time it is December. If it is FARCed it might not return to its former glory. BTW there are no compulsory voting laws in Venezuela [17] Don't know about 98 though SuperFlanker 05:59, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I see no outside source for the "2000 death" reference in the article, any idea? Should this sentence be removed? Guerby 23:54, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Could it be possible to organize the Foreign Policy section to include a more specific when/what time frame. To make it more readable (or able to reference easily) as to what things he's done/said and when?

References

Enano, you are taking on part of the hardest work (fastidioso), which is working on the references - Kudos to you ! I wish I could help more, but I'm traveling and am on a laptop on a slow hotel line. It will be much easier for all of us to work on the article once it loads faster, and hopefully removing the double list of references will help with the overall length. If you recognize your own POV/biases, and know the history of Venezuela, you will be a fair editor. Problems creep in when people aren't aware of their own biases, or aren't aware of the history of Venezuela enough to know when POV is introduced by leaving out the other side of the story. I think we can remove the tags fairly quickly, if we can get the article to a state that it loads faster for easier editing. Sandy 05:57, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Hehe, it's a ladilla, I know, but it isn't too hard, just a bunch of copying and pasting. --Enano275 18:09, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm glad you've taken it on -- I barely have time to just keep up these days, and recognize that it's a LOT of work, even if ladilloso. The format recommended by WP:WIAFA is cite.php, and it might result in a shorter article than the referencing mechanism you're using. If you want to see a sample of cite.php, you can have a look at Tourette syndrome. Sandy 02:06, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

KUDOS, Enano! Your re-references decreased the size of the article from 93 KB to 78 KB, and will make it easier to now move sections into daughter articles. On the downside, I think all my edits were lost when you uploaded the new version? Does anyone know how to get back old edits without re-doing each one? Can we globally delete all the wiki-links to dates in the references ? Sandy 23:46, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about the edit conflict, I noticed and tried to fixed some, but I obviously missed other changes. I hope it didn't cause much trouble. --Enano275 00:31, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

No Problem -- it was my stupid fault for editing while I knew you were working on references ... I think I got them all. Sandy 00:40, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Enano, Reference numbers 75 and 78 went missing ?? Sandy 01:43, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I found them, and fixed them. Sandy 04:11, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Oil production

It seems there is a mini-edit war going on with regards to Venezuelan oil production, it is a hot topic but IMHO found a neutral source that verifies levels of production at a similar level of 2001 pre-oil strike/mass firings. That being Synthetic oil + conventional oil + condensates + Orimulsion which is defined herein (and by the International energy agency) as oil production. The problem is that people use different standards to compare different periods. So therefore I will correct the passage to match the data and not speculation.SuperFlanker 06:51, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

SuperFlanker, it was an excellent edit. The statement about Venezuela's (as a country) current crude oil production with clarification about the smaller role of PDVSA is accurate and balanced. --Ozzyprv 07:09, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

AfDs

A number of Chavez articles were nominated for deletion [18], but (for example) List of honors earned by Hugo Chávez was not. It appears to be a short list, whose content (if notable or worth mentioning) could easily be added into the Presidency article. I'm not sure why substantial articles were nominated for deletion, and this one was not. We need to review all the subarticles, and see which can be incorporated where. Sandy 15:09, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I did the nominations of the three articles on AfD - I would have listed the honours article if I'd noticed it. If it were to be merged anyway there'd be no need. My motivation for deleting the three articles concerned was that 'Media representation...' almost entirely duplicates what is in the main article in a much more concise way; 'Criticisms of...' is what is sometimes referred to as a 'POV fork' - an article specifically set up to discuss only one point of view; and the speech article just wasn't notable. Careful consideration does need to be given to what subarticles are genuinely worthwhile, covering subjects that can't be treated fully in the main article. Worldtraveller 18:08, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I merged the content of Honors to the Presidency article: should we nominate it for AfD? I agree the Media representation duplicates some of what is in the main article, but we need to lighten the main article, and rework the Media article. Sandy 02:04, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Since the content of List of honors earned by Hugo Chávez has now been merged to Presidency of Hugo Chávez, does anyone know if we can just Prod the Honors article, or does it need to be AfD'd ??? Sandy 13:58, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I tagged the List of Honors article for deletion, since all content has been merged. Sandy 01:07, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Template question again?

Raising the same question I asked above: there is a template at the bottom of the article which I don't know how to edit. It does not contain all of the Chavez articles (another source of POV -- how on earth can the story of Chavez be told without ever using the word Sumate?), and as some of them are possibly AfD'd, we need to know how to edit the template. Can someone please explain? TIA. Sandy 15:33, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Sandy, all templates can be edited by going to "Template:name of the template." In the case of the template you're attempting to edit, just go to Template:Topics related to Hugo Chávez and click the edit button at the top like any other article. --Enano275 18:16, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Enano -- I added Súmate to reactions: not sure if that's the right place for it, but anyway. Sandy 02:02, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Simón Bolívar

How was Chavez influenced by Simón Bolívar, as Bolívar was a classical liberal, quite the opposite of Chavez's politics?MSTCrow 01:00, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

One of the few things that Chávez and Bolívar have in common is the vision of a unified America. Bolívar dreamed with a super state called La Gran Colombia, merging what is currently Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, etc (I may not be 100% accurate about the countries within the Gran Colombia, sorry). As you said, Bolívar was a liberal; but not only that, he came from a wealthy family, something currently considered in Venezuela very much anti-Chavista.--Ozzyprv 01:12, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Compulsory Voting in Venezuela

User:SuperFlanker found a website (see above) which indicates that "there are no compulsory voting laws in Venezuela [19] Don't know about 98 though". Can someone from Venezuela fill us in? Were the laws changed, if so when, and what was the situation previously, when there were penalties (albeit rarely enforced) for not having the voting stamp on the back of one's cedula ?? Sandy 11:46, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

From my reply above: "Saw the link, and I think it's right. As far as I know, the constitution does not require people to vote. It could be called a right, but not a duty." I could be wrong though.--Enano275 20:22, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I also responded above. Wiki Compulsory voting mentions that it was abandoned in Venezuela ... when ? I see I'm much older than you, as I clearly remember compulsory voting :-)) Maybe someone will fill us in. Sandy 23:49, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I can confirm that every voter does receive a sticker in the back of their cédula after voting. However, as far as I know, any citizen—constitutionally—should not be restricted to any kind of legal rights because he/she doesn't have this sticker as a voting certificate. You're saying that you clearly remember times when this was not the case, I don't doubt your word because I have also heard what you're saying from other sources. My older brother just told me that in fact, before the 99 constitution, voting was a duty, so it seems like the change from duty to right happened in the '99 constitution.

I did some more research. This is what I found:

• Quote from a 1984 amendment of the 1961 constitution: "Artículo 110. El voto es un derecho y una función pública. Su ejercicio será obligatorio, dentro de los límites y condiciones que establezca la ley."[20]
• Quote from the current 1999 constitution: "Artículo 63.- El sufragio es un derecho. Se ejercerá mediante votaciones libres, universales, directas y secretas. La ley garantizará el principio de la personalización del sufragio y la representación proporcional."[21]. It doesn't say anything about compulsory voting.
• The compulsory voting link that you gave me claims Venezuela to be between the countries that had compulsory voting laws but are now abolished laws. A reference in that same page proves so. (CIA: [22])

I hope this helped to clear everything out. --Enano275 00:50, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

This link suggests compulsory voting was eliminated in Venezuela "in effect" in 1993.--Bkwillwm 00:57, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Interesting ... I wonder what "in effect" means, considering they still put the sticker on the back of the cedula. (Not that I'm in the habit of trusting what The Guardian reports, particularly when it comes to Venezuela :-) Thanks for the info ... I hope I'm not the only one here old enough to clearly remember compulsory voting, and I wonder why it was dropped in 93 (if The Guardian is correct). Sandy 01:17, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

They don't put stickers on the back of the cedula anymore. Mine is from September 1999, has no stickers and I have voted in all elections since then. JRSP 03:21, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Interesting replies. So the changed happened in 1993, but the stickers were still used untill 1999? --Enano275 21:41, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Theoretically, voting was compulsory until December 1999. However it had not been enforced at least since 1988. JRSP 00:08, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Adding to the discussion above comparing abstention is better done comparing to eligeble voters as opposed to registered voters, under such circumstances other leaders fare poorly in non compulsory countries, such as Bush that lost the percentage of votes cast in 2000 and was only voted by 30% of eligible citizens.SuperFlanker 20:40, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

There is compulsory voting

• There is a compulsory voting law currently in effect Venezuela and it was not abandoned with the current Constitution. Artlcle 63 of the 1999 constitution says that "La ley garantizará el principio de la personalización del sufragio". This is the current "Ley Orgánica del Sufragio y Participación Política":

"Capítulo I: De la Condición de Elector Artículo 85º Todos los venezolanos mayores de dieciocho (18) años, no sujetos por sentencia definitivamente firme, a interdicción civil, ni a condena penal que lleve consigo inhabilitación política, tienen el derecho y están en el deber de votar en las elecciones que rige esta Ley para los poderes públicos que correspondan a su lugar de residencia." CNE Website. (Caracas1830 19:17, 30 May 2006 (UTC))

I really don't see what this adds to an article on Hugo Chavez, other than unnecessary POV. It is much more relevent for articles specific to Venezuelan elections. (Nc11)

It is also my understanding that though the letter of the law may indicate compulsory voting, all fines for not voting were removed in 1993 (causing a 30% drop in voter turnout) and never reinstated, "in effect" (as stated above) eliminating compulsory voting. [23] (Nc11)

I agree it says it is a duty that is very far from it being a compulsory law since there are no punishments whatsoever, the abstention has to be removed unless it is relevant and the only time it was relevant was during the recent parlamentary elections, Alvaro Uribe recently had 60% abstention and is not relevant to his article.SuperFlanker 22:21, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

• Laws are not just a list of punishable actions, but they also provide guidelines for civic conduct in society. The fact that voting is a duty according to the "Ley Orgánica del Sufragio y Participación Política" makes it compulsory (definition of "compulsory":required by law or a rule. Oxford American Dictionary). Hence, voting is compulsory according to Venezuelan law, regardless of having a punishment or not.

Now with regard to the issue "are Abstention stats POV?" If we follow the guidelines of Wikipedia with regard to POV, it states: "Disagreements over whether something is approached the Neutral Point Of View (NPOV) way can usually be avoided through the practice of good research. Facts (By "fact" we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute") are not Points Of View in and of themselves Wikipedia:Neutral point of view".

Facts (not opinions):

Voting is compulsory according to Venezuelan law

Abstention percentages are numbers relevant to an election in Venezuela according to official data. In our case the National Electoral Council (Venezuela).

In this case(other articles are written diferently according to the facts relevant to them) the absence of these known facts turns this particular article into POV, by definition, according to the guidelines of Wikipedia, because it has, as it stands, a political bias. (Caracas1830 10:14, 1 June 2006 (UTC))

I agree with Caracas1830. Compulsory voting was/is a tradition in Venezuela, and the abstention effect in Chavez's election should be discussed. Eliminating the abstention numbers amounts to covering up the issue of Chavez being elected because of the abstention/protest vote, which is another way of introducing POV into the article (failing to discuss the significant abstention/protest effect in Chavez's election). I question how the source which claims a 30% drop in voter turnout due to changes in applicability of the law can determine what actually contributed to voter abstention (whether it was the law or the protest vote). Also, if it isn't clear yet, how laws are applied in Venezuela is not consistent, and the judicial system is not protecting citizen's rights (e.g.; treason and conspiracy for a legal and constitutional recall referendum). If the current law still states that voting is compulsory, as Caracas1830 points out, then Chavez could decide to apply the law. As with other aspects of these series of articles, we find that the stories that are not being told are what contribute to the POV. Add the stats back in, and discuss their relevance. Sandy 14:12, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

His definition of compulsory is arbitrary, on the website linked [24] they have a list of punishments that define compulsory:explanations, fines, imprisonment etc. and their enforcement, in Venezuela there are neither punishments nor enforcement. For it to be relevant there has to be fines and heavy enforcement. What can be done is add the TOTAL number of registered voters without using the retroactive POV of abstentionism as a way to protest.SuperFlanker 14:42, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Superflanker, the same Swedish website that you are using as a reference to support your argument defines Compulsory Voting with regards to electoral laws in the following way "not all laws are created to be enforced. Some laws are created to merely state the government's position regarding what the citizen's responsibility should be. Mandatory voting laws that do not include sanctions may fall into this category"[25]. It is clear that Venezuela, like Italy and Mexico, falls into this category, even if the Swedish researchers failed to include Venezuela in their chart.(Caracas1830 20:10, 1 June 2006 (UTC))

Yes but read what they mean by 'other' "There are no formal sanctions Mexico or Italy but possible arbitrary or social sanctions. This is called the "innocuous sanction" in Italy, where it might for example be difficult to get a daycare place for your child or similar but this is not formalised in any way at all." they are still talking about sanctions whether formal or not, in Venezuela there are no repercusions for abstaining for whatever reason.SuperFlanker 02:51, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

If the abstention annex is going to be maintained it has to be justified in another way since there are no compulsory voting laws, nor was it an issue in any other election save for the most recent one. SuperFlanker 18:57, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I realize that I'm joining this debate a bit late, but I'm in favor of adding voter participation/abstention numbers to the election results for the following reasons:

1. The CNE reports the numbers of registered voters, null votes, number of voters, and abstention rate as part of their official results[26].
2. Every credible election tracking organization includes a combination of this information to gauge voter participation and confidence.[27] Not including this information is misleading by omission. If this information is "too detailed" to belong on this page, then the results should be replaced with links to the corresponding election wiki pages.
3. Voter turnout/abstention is very relevant to any discussion about Venezuela and Chavez, especially after the low voter turnout/boycott of the Venezuelan parliamentary election, 2005 despite a gov't campaign to get 10+ million votes.
4. Voting was mandatory under the old constitution. Chavez changed that in the 1999 constitution, but after the low voter turnout in the last round of elections, members of his party have threatened to fire public employees who do not vote.

Spaceriqui 19:01, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

1. Just because the information is tracked it does not mean it should be added, we could very well add everything the CNE says too under this reasoning. The standard in wikipedia is percentage of votes cast, unless it is important for context to point out abstention (it was not for any election in the article) then it should be removed
2. It can be moved to a more specific wiki page, but the tables and quick results should remain, as for gauging voter confidence through participation is unsubstantiated.
3. The 10+ is for the presidential election not the parlamentary election, that said it should be included for that election which is not about Chavez
4. There was one deputy who said that however given that it was the last election and it was due to candidates withdrawing it should not be relevant at all towards the 1998,2000,2001,2004 elections/referendums SuperFlanker 21:36, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

SuperFlanker, by "percentage of votes cast" i assume you mean % of votes in favor per number of valid votes (ie. Chávez 3,673,685 votes -> 56.20% of valid votes)? If that is so, maybe you can point me to the "wikipedia standard" because all I see includes voter turnout. There's nothing POV or irrelevant about adding voter participation numbers. Spaceriqui 05:24, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Deletion of abstention tallies

A question for SuperFlanker: I see you've mentioned on edit that there are no compulsory voting laws in Venezuela, yet Caracas1830 has established (see above) that there are, and others have agreed that abstention should stand, and listed their reasons. Comments on your edit? At times, I find myself unable to respond to some of your queries or comments here, as I don't always follow them ... am wondering if it might not be helpful to clarify some comments in Spanish as well as English, although I'm still not clear on Wikipedia's policy on the use on languages other than English on talk pages. Sandy 17:06, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

There are no compulsory voting laws in Venezuela, what Caracas1830 linked was a law that stated it was a 'duty', not that it was compulsory nor are there any punishments for not voting. There are no references to any primary source claiming it was compulsory either. I believe the abstention # is an annex at best, and not really relevant to the article, however I removed the footnote that claimed there were compulsory voting laws. Since it is not factual SuperFlanker 17:45, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I wonder if this is not just getting into semantics ("duty" vs. "compulsory")? There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution which makes it a "duty" to vote, so there is certainly something different in Venezuela. Also, there is no punishment in Venezuela for conducting a legal and constitutional recall referendum, but Chavez can still charge you with treason and conspiracy on a whim. Also, as mentioned above, there have already been threats made against those who don't vote. It seems that there is still an issue, which distinguishes the situation in Venezuela from that in other countries; e.g.; the U.S.A. I don't believe the abstention lines are increasing the size of the article, so not sure why there should be an issue? Sandy 19:15, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

It might seem like semantics but I do believe punishment defines it, What was linked was a law not a constititution so the comparison with the USA is still not apples to apples. Lastly it simply it is not wikipedia standard even if it were TRUE, Alan Garcia does not have it referenced and there are strict laws in Peru. I would venture to say that every recent leader on the list I ref does not either.SuperFlanker 20:41, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree, I cannot find any other articles where voter turnout is mentioned in specific articles about politicians. These stats are really only relevent to specific articles on elections. The argument that it somehow shows that Chávez was elected only because of abstention is laughable given his very high approval ratings in independent public opinion polls. The addition of these stats seems like nothing more than a very clever way for Chávez opponents to add POV to the article. Nc11 11:16, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if you are familiar with recent Venezuelan politics and elections, but the problem with your claim of "nothing more than a very clever way for Chávez opponents to add POV to the article" is that there were widespread calls for voter boycotts in all of the elections discussed, so the voter abstention is a known and recognized factor in all of those elections. You can find references on many differnt sources ... the Spanish-language press would be a better source of information, but here is one reference as an example: "Days before the poll, all major opposition candidates pulled out of the race and urged Venezuelan voters to boycott an electoral process they said would not be free and fair." Venezuelans boycott dying democracy As a side note, since everyone has been cooperating together so nicely on the work needed to these articles, the assumption of good faith is appreciated. Sandy 15:43, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Nc11, funny you should mention that, because I looked at the articles on Stephen Harper, Jacques Chirac, Angela Merkel, Romano Prodi, Junichiro Koizumi, Vladimir Putin, Tony Blair, and George W. Bush, and I couldn't find any election tables whatsoever. When the opposition talks about low voter turnout in the latest round of elections in Venezuela, a person reading this article needs numbers of previous elections to put that in perspective. The article shouldn't make a judgment as to whether the numbers prove or disprove that position, but by omitting them you deny the reader the option to make his or her mind and paint the picture that Chavez is widely accepted in Venezuela. I support either adding voter turnout numbers or removing the tables. Spaceriqui 15:56, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

The problem you mention can be solved by mentioning that voter abstention is an issue because there were calls to boycott the elections: there was a (stupid) protest vote against Chavez, that is documented. Sandy 16:01, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Sandy, and Spaceriqui The problem is that it was only happened during the parlamentary elections , every other election it was either weakly called (regional elecions 04) or unsubstantiated. Since neither election has to do with Chavez himself abstention has no room under the ones referenced, if in the Dec elections there are calls for boycott then that election table will have abstention referenced. Also all of the leaders linked don't have formal tables with the exception of Harper( we strive to do better ;) ) but most have election results without abstention numbers SuperFlanker 16:57, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

SuperFlanker, I understand what you are trying to say. But to me it appears that other elections are very relevant to the discussion even if there were no calls for boycott during these elections. They put the Dec 2006 elections in perspective, and in addition the way they are portrayed is misleading by omission. If one talks about abstention, one has to look at previous results. It doesn't have to be "abstention", it could be "voter turnout" if you wish, but these numbers are important to establish the context. Harper does have turnout numbers, but it's missing a % (which I think is an error). Again, all the tables listed here have turnout numbers where available. Let me put a sample table together and see if we can all agree on it. Spaceriqui 17:09, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

The reason I feel strongly about this is that when I heard the news about the boycott and resulting abstention rate in Venezuela, I came to Wikipedia to check out to see what previous elections had been like. Guess what, none of the tables (including these) had any such information. How could I look at the numbers myself and decide what is what? I went directly to CNE and dug up all the information myself. (ie. [28] [29], [30] + others). Not having them is a mistake. Spaceriqui 17:26, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Bias in Chavez articles: Dodd inspector general investigation never mentioned?

I've been attempting to read through the (too many and too long) series of articles on Chavez, and trying to do some copy editing as I go. I may have missed it, but have not yet seen a reference to the full and complete inspector general investigation, ordered by Dodd-CT-Democrat, into the allegations of US involvement in Venezuela. The claims of US or CIA involvement are widely-published and referenced, but the investigation (ordered by opponents of Bush, hoping to turn up something embarrassing) which found nothing is never mentioned. This is the 95-page PDF and this is a shorter html summary. The ommission of any mention of this investigation is another source of POV in the articles. Leaving out the extent to which Venezuelans themselves wanted Chavez out lends the implication that Venezuelans can't think or act for themselves, so the events of April 11 must have been CIA motivated. Comments? Sandy 03:40, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I recently read the piece and have noted that it is more or less in jive with US official policy on the matter, however it fails to answer how they justify the coup post fact and the break in the succession pecking order (even if the VP is removed Carmona is nowhere near the list). However the rest is more or less accurate, there is no solid evidence (only a few testimonials and circumstancial evidence) of US direct or indirect involment prior to the coup, however there is ample evidence of them knowing and failing to inform the government that the coup was taking place around April and who were the main actors[31] more or less being accessory to the coup. Lastly wikipedia is entirely brainless-reactionary, only an accusation is needed to make it in, however the US gov side should be included too. SuperFlanker 20:19, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree, the report seems to be a whitewash. Given the past behaviour of this administration, especially its unprecedented rabid secrecy, one cannot assume that an OIG's report is going to be accurate. Let us not forget that these inspectors are cronies? --Dragon695 16:00, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I suppose I can't object to POV on a talkpage, but the investigation (requested by Democrats) is no more whitewash than all the Chavez propoganda used as references for the series of articles. Sandy 18:16, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

My opinion is that is a whitewash, but my opinion has no room here, we should only debate with facts and in this case the fact is: the US government denies being part of the coup. Also whoever requested it is not really relevant to this article SuperFlanker 19:37, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

It was requested by Dodd, a Democrat, who has consistently been supportive of Chavez (remember the Condoleeza Rice hearings?) ... it is relevant that the "opposition" party in the USA requested the investigation (probably hoping to turn up some dirt, which they didn't find). Sandy 00:48, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

But they did not investigate, it might be relevant if Dodd headed the investigation, instead all he did was ask 5 questions and get 5 answers from the executive branch SuperFlanker 04:09, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

He (Dodd-D-CT) orders, as the head of an important committee, an investigation, and then accepts a whitewash? I guess that means he wasted US taxpayer money on a lark (surprised gasp)? Sandy 22:10, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

But this is not a place to speculate if he willingly accepted or not, 'whitewash' should not be added because it is opinion, however the relevancy of WHO asked the question is not that high, however the PDF should be added as official US policy that is missing from the article. SuperFlanker 22:40, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Added. SuperFlanker 22:48, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Could someone catalog the biases in favor of the government in this article? it would certainly help in removing or adding what is needed, I can only think of a relevant exclusion the issue of security.SuperFlanker 14:51, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Removal of the Oliver Stone subsection

Considering the trimming the article has seen this appears to be rather irrelevant to mention, much less create its own subsection. SuperFlanker 19:01, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I moved it to the Venezuelan coup attempt of 2002 article (right next to the information about the Irish documentary) I also upgraded all the references in that article to the <references/> tool. --Enano275 21:38, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Addition of social impact subsection after economy

Given that as pointed out infant moratlity, education, health and other statistics do not belong in the economy subsection a social one should be added given that is the #1 politcal platform of the government. What other statistics should be included? SuperFlanker 18:26, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Or should both be merged into Economics and social impact? SuperFlanker 19:01, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, since the first priority for this article (for several weeks now) has been to get the size down, I'm not sure how to answer that. I notice no one has taken on the chore of shortening Presidency and Political Impact, and I can't even think about doing it until after I complete some travel (mid-June). Perhaps we do need to FARC the article, as suggested above (several times) since it didn't improve by end of May ? For comparison purposes, it strikes me that if Nelson Mandela can be written about in 31KB, so can Chavez, and to the extent these articles go beyond, for example, the article on Mandela, it's an ad campaign/propoganda for Chavez. Sandy 20:08, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

It would help if you could point out the percieved biases, I have read it multiple times and failed to notice the strong bias you cite, it even has a critiscism POV fork that is against policy. As for the size Mandela is not a good comparison since the size tends to not follow impact but controversy, Chavez is quite controversial as opposed to Mandela who finished his political career, a better comparison of an ongoing head of state such as Bush or Blair which are equally controversial and have 100k and 86k articles respectively although it should drop around 50k which is policy. However a big problem this article has is that it attempts to present information chronologically and topically (Economy, FP, Labor cristiscism etc) so there is a lot of duplication. The big rewrite to FA status focused specifically on adding the chronology part. I believe one has to be chosen over the other. More time might be needed for a rewrite.SuperFlanker

For now I will simply rename the section economic and social impact. SuperFlanker 21:39, 29 May 2006 (UTC)