Talk:1964 United States presidential election in Vermont
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Text and/or other creative content from this version of United States presidential election, 1964 was copied or moved into United States presidential election in Vermont, 1964 on 18:55, 3 August 2013. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists. |
POV?
editI am failing to see what the POV issues are that are being alleged by a recent edit. I don't think there is any POV issue in describing Barry Goldwater as a "staunch" conservative. It's an accurate description of Goldwater that nobody would rationally argue against, regardless of POV. Both Goldwater's opponents and his detractors would agree that Goldwater was a staunch conservative in the 1964 election. There is zero doubt in my mind that Goldwater himself would have described himself as a staunch conservative in 1964, based on his own statements and actions. The man wrote the book "Conscience of a Conservative". At the 1964 convention, Goldwater said "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice" and "moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue". Goldwater in 1964 was clearly not a moderate in any way, he pretty much openly embraced the idea of being an extreme conservative as something to be proud of.... so describing him as a staunch conservative is somehow biased? No way. Left, right, and center would all agree Goldwater was a staunch conservative. Whether you think being a staunch conservative is a good thing or a bad thing is a matter of POV, but that Goldwater was a staunch conservative really isn't disputable. So it's entirely NPOV to describe Goldwater as a staunch conservative. And it weakens the article to remove such descriptive language; if Goldwater were, say, a "moderate conservative", he would not have done so poorly in Vermont, which had a very long history of voting for moderate conservative Republicans. Goldwater's staunch, uncompromising conservatism is what drove Vermont to vote Democratic for the first time EVER in 1964, and that point needs to be made clear in this article. Also failing to see what the POV issue is in saying that Vermont "weighed in as 10% more Democratic" than the nation in 1964. It's standard political terminology to use "weigh in" to refer to how a state voted, and that language is used in countless other election result articles. So the recent edits really just weaken the article, and make it sound poorly written. All the changes made in the edited version overall weaken the writing and make it sound juvenile and banal- less descriptive, less interesting, less informative. And it brings the diction out of conformity with many other state election result articles, for Vermont and also for many other states. So I think reverting back to the original form is definitely the right course of action. The writing quality of the original is superior in every way. Inqvisitor (talk) 03:35, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
- We are an encyclopedia not a media outlet. We try to avoid sujective (unprovable) adjectives. "Staunch" has no particular meaning. Was Reagan "stauncher" than Goldwater? How can one tell?
- Legislators are rated by two organizations on the basis of how often the legislator votes their way: I think the liberal Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) assigns such a number. Goldwater might have had a "zero" at the time. There was a similar organization for Conservatives, American Conservative Union, which does the same thing for their agenda. These could be inserted, I suppose. They are objective. Adjectives are WP:LABELing.
- Note my edit https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=American_Conservative_Union&diff=583006352&oldid=543581983 rm biased language from that article. Hype, even with WP:RS should be rm where found. We're not selling papers or space or time. Just reporting facts objectively.
- We are not trying to meet a journalistic standard. Our material is not marked by an English professor. Maybe a History Professor. People should fall asleep reading our stuff. If they want "hyped excitement," they can always turn on the tv, which is altogether too ready to provide material that is "really exciting," but is imprecise.
- English should be simple where possible within the article. "Weigh in" is journalese. It is American WP:IDIOM and (therefore) like most local idioms, US-Centric. Lots of English users that are trained in formal English as a second language, whose reading/writing vocabularies often exceed native speakers, but who are unfamiliar with local patois. Formal English is generally used. Student7 (talk) 22:22, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
- Actually "staunch" does have a meaning. It's in the dictionary. The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines "staunch" as meaning "very devoted or loyal to a person, belief, or cause". The Oxford Dictionary defines "staunch" as meaning "loyal and committed in attitude". The Random House Dictionary defines "staunch" as meaning "firm or steadfast in principle, adherence, loyalty, etc., as a person". These definitions describe Goldwater to a tee. Conservatives might view thus view Goldwater as a true believer and patriot while liberals and moderates thus view him as a stubborn extremist. Those are points of view. But nobody would argue that Goldwater in 1964 was not a devoted, loyal, staunch conservative. It is not a biased POV to state the fact that he was very devoted and loyal to his cause. And there was no comparative used; describing him as a "staunch conservative" is not comparing him to Reagan or anyone else. It is using "staunch" by its dictionary definition to modify "conservative". Following your logic, we could never even describe a politician as "liberal" or "conservative" since such descriptors are always going to be at some level subjective. Taking your logic to the extreme, ultimately all adjectives are on some level subjective. Two people can argue over whether a piece of clothing should be described as "red" or as "orange"; even though there is one objective truth, adjectives are a human invention based on how humans perceive the world. Perception varies from person to person, context to context. In the context of an encyclopedia article related to 1960s American politics, I think describing Goldwater as a "staunch conservative" is the most objective way to convey the basic necessary information about him to the reader. Describing him merely as "conservative" deprives the reader of information; "conservative" is too broad. Goldwater was certainly not the first conservative to run for president. Many Republicans who could be described as "conservative" would have easily won Vermont's electoral votes in 1964 rather than lost them in a 33-point landslide. Many Republicans who could be described as "conservative" DID win Vermont's electoral votes throughout it's history. It was the attitude that Goldwater brought to his conservatism- being devoted, steadfast, committed, staunch- that shaped his candidacy and the 1964 election. Thus, again, "staunch conservative" remains in my view the most objective and accurate way to describe the candidate in the context of this article.
- As for "weighed in", I agree it is not good language, but it was in use across many preexisting state election result articles, and I do think there should be some conformity across them. If you have a better alternative that can be a new standard used for all such articles, I would welcome that. "Vermont weighed in" is bad, but "Vermont voted 10% more Democratic" was just not an attractive alternative in my opinion. In any case, I've removed "weighed in" from the article.
- With regard to your final point, I must say that I entirely disagree with your opinion that encyclopedia articles should be poorly written. There is no reason why every editor should not strive to use language of the highest quality possible. I disagree even more strongly with your opinion that encyclopedia articles should be written with the deliberate intent of putting the reader to sleep. Maybe the idea of reading, and of learning new information, is boring to you personally, but I don't see any reason why the presentation of facts and information in an encyclopedia must be boring. A well-written article offering new information about a topic I had not previously been familiar with is certainly exciting enough to capture my interest- and millions of people worldwide have learned a great deal of information because they found what they were reading on Wikipedia interesting enough to make them click through from article to article. So I reject entirely your proposition that editors of Wikipedia articles should deliberately express information with writing of inferior quality, that the articles might be used as cures for insomnia. I disagree with that idea 100%. Inqvisitor (talk) 09:18, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
- "Staunch" then should apply to every politician? All want us to think that they are "staunchly" in favor of what we want. The problem is that "staunch" (like most adjectives) does not have a quantitative meaning.
- Wording should be objective, not "colorful." "Colorful" is what the evening news strives for. They want, even demand your attention for material which you realize later is not that important. By avoiding unnecessary adjectives which mean virtually nothing, we avoid the overstatement used by journalists to get attention. Wikipedia is not in the "attention-getting" business. We are in the business of reporting facts objectively. Readers may have ADD from watching too much tv. But that is their problem. We should not fall into the trap of copying the mass media. See WP:PEACOCK, for example.
- We want people's trust on factual issues. We cannot earn this by casually using colorful adjectives. Use of same is what leads the general public to rate the media poorly. See, for example, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-distrust-in-media-hits-new-high. Student7 (talk) 21:13, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
- You claimed that "staunch" has no particular meaning. You were wrong. You're wrong to repeat the claim that this adjective means "virtually nothing." Adjectives have meanings, they are in the dictionary, you can look them up if you don't personally know the meaning. And now, once, again, your initial premise is just plain wrong. No, "staunch" should not and does not apply to every politician. It applied to Barry Goldwater, and it's part of the reason why the results of the 1964 election turned out the way they did. Four years later, the Republican Party nominated Richard Nixon- a man who leaned conservative but was arguably the complete opposite of "staunch." He did not fit the definition of "firm or steadfast in principle, adherence, loyalty", but was willing to betray conservatism on many occasions for the sake of political strategic advantage. Nixon was willing to moderate himself and appear compromising enough to win the 1968 election for the GOP just four years after the party had suffered an historic landslide defeat with the staunch conservative Goldwater. As president he implemented numerous policies that could be considered moderate or even liberal. From the other side, we have someone like Bill Clinton, who leaned liberal but was famous for his successful tactic of "triangulation", and implemented many policies that could be considered moderate or even conservative. So I would argue that "staunch" applies only to a very small minority of politicians. Why? Because staunch, uncompromising adherents of any ideology tend to fail to appeal to a broad enough coalition to actually win an election, whether we're talking about staunch conservative Barry Goldwater in 1964 or staunch liberal George McGovern in 1972. The adjective is entirely necessary in order to accurately describe Goldwater. Removing it serves no purpose other than to weaken the article and deprive readers of essential information for understanding the topic at hand. So again, "staunch" is an adjective WITH A MEANING; I don't know why you keep pretending otherwise. And it, or some other similar adjective, is necessary if we want to provide all the basic, essential information about the topic. There is a Simple English version of Wikipedia if you wish to avoid seeing detailed, well-written language, though I still really am having difficulty understanding why you would actually prefer dumbed-down, poorly written, less informative language deliberately designed to put readers to sleep. Inqvisitor (talk) 00:26, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
Bare facts
editReverted to basic facts. It is now almost a non-controversial article for that reason. Bias (pov) was eliminated. Extra comments about its place in New England belongs in a higher level article, not in a Vermont article. Republican liberalism. Maybe. Hard to place that material within the article though. Rm redundant material. Saying Johnson won by x margin once is sufficient. It shouldn't be repeated over and over. The best (and least pov) wording should be selected and go with that. Adjectives have been rm, per standard encyclopedic wording. It is not a "journalistic endeavor." Readers are researchers and will draw their own conclusions in whatever fashion they choose, which may be pov. Our presentation should not be pov, however. Student7 (talk) 23:02, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
- As mentioned in my response above, this is NOT the Simple English version of Wikipedia. To be completely honest, your edits made an incoherent, poorly-written, uninformative, factually inaccurate mess of the article. I would classify them as not only unnecessary, but downright destructive edits.
- One of the most glaring examples is your line "Starting in the 1940s, Vermont had often voted for liberal Northeastern Republicans"--it's poorly written and makes no sense whatsoever; more importantly it's factually INCORRECT. Prior to 1964, Vermont had ALWAYS voted for ANY Republican the party nominated, liberal or conservative, no matter where he was from, since the very first election the GOP took part in in 1856. It did not just "start" voting "often" for "liberal Northeastern Republicans" in the 1940s. So your "bare facts" are certainly bare, but certainly are NOT facts. Providing full, detailed, factually accurate information to the reader about the historical context into which an election falls is vital to helping the reader understand the election and its result. That's what I have done. Editing the article to provide only "bare" NON-facts severely weakens the article.
- So as someone who values Wikipedia as a source for well-written, informative, accurate articles, I felt absolutely obligated to undo such destructive edits and restore the article to its superior original form.
- I have contributed a LOT to Wikipedia's coverage of U.S. elections; making Wikipedia a reliable, informative source on American elections is of personal significance to me. I've taken the time and effort to create nationwide presidential election result county maps in the SVG format, going through and shading each of the country's 3000 counties with the right winning candidate and right percentage shading, from 2012 going back so far to 1872, in order to share that information on Wikipedia. Each map took me over a week of time and tedious effort to create. But I did it because I want Wikipedia to be an informative source on U.S. elections; I want to share as much knowledge as possible with the world. For every presidential election article on Wikipedia, I've spent hours upon hours to create full sortable election results-by-state tables, each state shaded by the party winner, including raw vote totals, percentages, and margins in every state for every candidate that participated. I have created hundreds of shaded state election result maps, like the one used in this article, for the purpose of creating hundreds of state election result articles for every state for every election- like this one. And I have already created hundreds of such articles, each time striving to make them as informative and well-written as possible. This is one of many. And each such state article follows the same format, a format which was already in use by the hundreds of state election result articles that existed before I commenced upon my own project to improve Wiki's election coverage. The format of this article as I wrote it is in conformity with the hundreds of other such state articles. Including a basic analysis of the results in order to put it into historical context is entirely in conformity with that format- as it should be, because this is an encyclopedia, not just a database of election result numbers. Each article I write, I strive to make as informative and detailed as possible, while maintaining a strict NPOV. I believe this article conforms to the highest standards of NPOV, while providing integral information to the reader: providing not just the election result, but some vital information for understanding the result and its historical significance. I acknowledged your issue with the words "weighed in" and edited it in order to satisfy your concerns. But the further edits you are attempting to make simply are, as I said, destructive, and weaken the article in every possible way. Therefore I would humbly beseech you to cease and desist with your attempts to tamper further with the article. Inqvisitor (talk) 00:31, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
- The article "analyzes" the election. This is WP:POV and biased. Presenting the facts is fine. It is an encyclopedia. Characterizing federal candidates in any terms at this level would be redundant in 50 state articles on the 1964 (or any other) election. Or how we think Johnson or Goldwater were perceived by the electorate. This is why we don't state that most people didn't really care that much for Johnson either.
- Articles on federal election for President should be short. Coverage should be at a higher level. This might differ for Governor or Senator where the material might not be covered elsewhere.
- The article is "colorful" and journalistic, but not very encyclopedic. Student7 (talk) 23:15, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
- No, this article provides historical contextual information necessary for understanding the subject at hand- like an encyclopedia should. Being well-written and interesting, and being factual and encyclopedic, are not mutually exclusive characteristics, no matter how many times you claim that they are. What I have presented are the facts, presented in as NPOV a way as possible. Every article about every possible subject "analyzes" the subject to some degree, a human being cannot write an encyclopedia article without analyzing the facts. That Goldwater was a staunch conservative who voted against the Civil Rights Act is not a disputable POV, nor is it being included as frivolous POV-pushing information to either praise or criticize Goldwater. It is entirely germane to the topic, giving the reader a clue as to why Vermont suddenly ended it's 104-year winning streak for the GOP and gave LBJ a landslide win. Failing to include basic information about the candidates, and how they relate to the election result in a particular state, is to deprive readers of vital information. (And no, there is no rule that an article has to be "short"; in fact this article is pretty short as it is, and hopefully will be expanded along with many other such state articles in the future)
- I'm not sure what your point is about "this is why we don't state that most people didn't really care that much for Johnson either"; the election result, i.e., the DATA, indicates that over 66% of Vermont voters favored Johnson over Goldwater. If your point is that the electorate didn't really like Johnson either and were just voting against Goldwater, well, then you've just answered your own question as to why the focus is on Goldwater when it comes to explaining Vermont's 1964 election result. Goldwater's conservatism and vote against the CRA are highly relevant information to his loss of Vermont, just like they would be highly relevant information in a state article about Mississippi in 1964, when the state ended it's 124-year Democratic winning streak and voted 87% Goldwater. Every article "analyzes" its subject. (In fact many longer election articles include an actual "Analysis" section). Every article is written by humans, for human consumption. Robots don't write encyclopedia articles. And every human has a point-of-view. By your logic, no article should ever contain any written information about anything, since every article is written by a human with a POV, a human who is analyzing the facts in order to put them into words. Instead this article should just provide the raw numbers of the election result and that's it, no text at all, no room for humans and their POVs. Of course at that point it would cease to be an encyclopedia article and instead become a mere database of election result statistics. In reality we recognize that an encyclopedia article is going to be written by human beings, human beings who all have points-of-view, but editors like myself recognize that in order to present information fairly and accurately, we have to acknowledge our own POV, consider all other POVs, and present the information in as neutral a point of a view (NPOV) as as possible. Until we have soulless, thoughtless, automated robots capable of writing encyclopedia articles, following your logic to its conclusion would render all of Wikipedia and its contents "biased" and worthy of deletion. The article as it stands provides a concise, well-written, NPOV source of the necessary facts, including contextual information, for anyone researching the United States presidential election in Vermont, 1964. Inqvisitor (talk) 00:22, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
- The "humanist" pov that these edits have projected into the article are pure journalism. Wikipedia is WP:NOTSOAPBOX, and WP:NOTNEWSPAPER. It is supposed to be an encyclopedia. The material intentionally slams Goldwater which is WP:POV. An encyclopedia should not slam anyone, not even Adolph Hitler or Joseph Stalin. It should present the obvious statistics at this lower level article. Then stop. A higher level article on the (federal) election might contain details about the campaign. Certainly, not the state, over and over, for each of the 50. See United States presidential election in Vermont, 1860. It's to the point. And back when Vermont was important enough percentage-wise to have sufficient electors to "court." By 1964, this had plummeted to the minimum three votes. Not exactly a pivotal state. Student7 (talk) 19:11, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
- Sorry, but the article as it stands is an informative, well-written, balanced NPOV encyclopedia article, not "journalism" or whatever other nonsense you are claiming it to be. You seem to have convinced yourself that being well-written, informative, and even *gasp* interesting to read, somehow makes an article "journalistic", while you have openly stated your belief that an encyclopedia article should instead be poorly written, reduced to bare-bones in terms of information, and deliberately designed to put readers to sleep. And your "bare facts" edits did accomplish your stated goals of making the article poorly written and boring, although it failed in its alleged goal of actually providing facts, instead providing numerous factually incorrect nonsensical statements. I reject these ideas of yours as complete hogwash. There is nothing "journalistic" about an encyclopedia article that is well-written, informative, analyzes the subject matter, and engages the reader, all while maintaining a NPOV. Maybe you personally find learning to be boring, but I personally love learning new things and am often fascinated by reading well-written, informative, analytical yet interesting articles about subjects I am unfamiliar with on Wikipedia. That does not make such articles "journalistic", that means the articles, like this one, are doing their job of spreading knowledge to people around the world. That's why encyclopedias, especially an online free Wiki encyclopedia like Wikipedia, exist.
- The idea that this article "slams" Goldwater for describing him as a "staunch conservative" is utterly ridiculous and quite frankly reeks of nothing more than your own personal BIASED POV. There is nothing slamming Goldwater in this article. You are imagining things. Describing him as a "staunch conservative" is just stating an objective fact. It is NPOV. Whether you think being a "staunch conservative" is a good thing or a bad thing- that's a matter of POV. And the article does not in any way attempt to pass judgment on whether Goldwater's staunch conservatism was a good thing or a bad thing. And quite honestly, as the person who wrote the article, the idea that I would push any sort of POV to "slam" Barry Goldwater, one of the politicians I admire most from American history, is utterly laughable.
- And again, an encyclopedia article about an election result should contain more than just "the obvious statistics", since this is an encyclopedia, not just a database of election result numbers. An encyclopedia article which failed to actually analyze the subject matter would fail to be an encyclopedia article.
- Your assertion that, since Vermont has only 3 electoral votes and is not a "pivotal state", therefore the article about its election results should be reduced to bare-bones, really takes the cake as the most absurd of your propositions. Every state election result article deserves the same treatment, no matter how big or small the state is. Each article should both provide the election result as well as to provide state-specific, election-specific analysis of how and why the election result turned out the way it did in that state. That includes discussion of the candidates and how the candidates shaped the election result in that state. That's the whole point of having state-specific election result articles. Again I personally took the time to create all the state-by-state election result tables on the main nationwide election articles (like United States presidential election, 1964) for people who just want to see the numbers of how a state voted. But this is an encyclopedia, its articles need to provide INFORMATION about the subject of the articles (in this case, the article should provide INFORMATION particularly about United States Presidential Election in Vermont, 1964). It should not just be reduced to a database of election result statistics, as you seem to believe it should be.
- So I'm sorry, but I think your ideas about what the article currently is, and what you think the article should be like, are just totally off-base. And to be honest your entire philosophy toward the purpose of an encyclopedia and what an encyclopedia article should be like (e.g. you claiming an encyclopedia article should deliberately be poorly written and put the reader to sleep) is just totally wrongheaded, and if put into practice across Wikipedia it would severely damage Wikipedia as an encyclopedic source of information and undermine the entire reason for its existence, to share knowledge with people around the world. Inqvisitor (talk) 23:27, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
- The "humanist" pov that these edits have projected into the article are pure journalism. Wikipedia is WP:NOTSOAPBOX, and WP:NOTNEWSPAPER. It is supposed to be an encyclopedia. The material intentionally slams Goldwater which is WP:POV. An encyclopedia should not slam anyone, not even Adolph Hitler or Joseph Stalin. It should present the obvious statistics at this lower level article. Then stop. A higher level article on the (federal) election might contain details about the campaign. Certainly, not the state, over and over, for each of the 50. See United States presidential election in Vermont, 1860. It's to the point. And back when Vermont was important enough percentage-wise to have sufficient electors to "court." By 1964, this had plummeted to the minimum three votes. Not exactly a pivotal state. Student7 (talk) 19:11, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
Redundant fork
editThis is an intentional fork from the main article on the 1964 article. We do not disagree on that point.
Where we disagree is about it being a WP:REDUNDANTFORK, that is, an unnecessary one since the national material is adequately covered in the national article. While the national material should be linked here, it should not be routinely duplicated, over and over, for 50 articles. Student7 (talk) 18:58, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
- It is not "redundant", it includes a link to the main nationwide election result article on top- just every other state-level election article created by anyone, not just me, does. It makes sense to include a link to the main nationwide article for readers seeking a fuller analysis of the national race and candidates, while in state-level articles providing only a brief synopsis of the candidates as it related to the particular state result, which is what this article and every most other state-level article accomplishes. This is the most illogical charge yet you've hurled in some sort of apparent personal grudge against me, choosing this article as your battlefield to wage personal war against me with constant harmful destructive edits. Wikipedia editors should collaborate and work together, as I do with numerous other editors on these election-related articles, not be adamant about waging conflict upon another member based on some sort of personal grudge you have developed against me, after I've thoroughly addressed and refuted all of your attacks on me and this article. I'm genuinely disappointed that you've chosen to harbor some deep personal grudge against me, even falsely reporting me as engaging in vandalism. That really set a new low for my interactions with editors on Wikipedia, whom I am used to collaborating, cooperating, and compromising with, not getting into personal conflicts with as you seem determined to do with me.
- There's nothing redundant about including a link to the national article. Nor is the article redundant to include facts and analysis of who the national candidates were and how the national candidates shaped the election results within a state, and to provide information about how the national race, including issues and candidates, played out in this specific state. A presidential election may be a federal race, but these are still state-level elections, and the candidates who happen to appear on the ballot within that state absolutely need to be referenced and discussed. Following your (non-)logic, every single state election result article on Wikipedia is redundant and and should be deleted. That, like most of your other propositions, is absurd and if followed would severely damage Wikipedia as a source of informative encyclopedic information on a full range of subjects, no matter how general or specific the topic might be. Following all of your suggestions and ideas about how Wiki articles should be would inhibit Wikipedia's overall mission and undermine its greatest asset of serving as a global free source to share information and knowledge with the world. Inqvisitor (talk) 19:37, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
- And btw reporting me as if I am engaging in vandalism really should make you ashamed of yourself. I have contributed hundreds of maps, tables and articles to Wikipedia, as well as contributed many many constructive edits to articles of all different sorts. As I said, I created high-quality SVG nationwide presidential election county maps for every election from 2012 going back so far to 1872 and eventually beyond, in order to share them with Wikipedia. It took quite a lot of time and painstaking effort to shade in each and every county of each and every state, over 3000 counties, with the correct party winner and correct percentage shade, so far for 35 different elections, but I wanted to do it to provide Wikipedia users with high quality election maps. Likewise, it took a lot of time and tedious effort to complete the full state-by-state election result tables in every main national U.S. presidential election article, inputting the total votes, the percentages, calculating the margins, counting up the total votes, and shading each state the correct color, including not just the main party candidates but every third-party candidate as well. None of these tables existed for elections 1872-2000 until I took the time and effort to edit them in. Again, a lot of time and effort I put in to improve Wikipedia's election coverage. I also created hundreds of shaded state-level SVG maps, like the one used in this article (as well as shaded SVG maps for NYC mayoral elections). I created those maps in order to use for creating hundreds of state-level election result articles, following the same format already in use for such articles. I've taken the time and effort to create many such articles already, taking substantial time and effort for each, inputting the data for the tables, filling in the infobox correctly with candidate and party info, map, and map legend, and then providing a basic but informative NPOV synopsis of the subject matter. And I take that time and effort to add new ones day after day, filling in lots of previously red links. Again, because I want to improve Wikipedia's reliability as a source for data and information about U.S. presidential election results. Nobody else was doing this, it wasn't getting done without me, though thankfully I've been collaborating with a few other editors recently who are helping me tackle this daunting task. Meanwhile, I have never once seen you contribute anything of value to any election-related articles, you haven't created a single article, you haven't created a single map, you haven't created a single table. But you accuse me of being a vandal for all my contributions to Wiki election coverage. All of a sudden now you want to pick a fight with me and try to make destructive edits to this one particular article about Vermont's presidential election results in 1964. And all of the edits you have made, were extremely destructive, poorly-written, factually incorrect, and made a complete mess of the article. I have a contributed a LOT of objective content toward improving Wikipedia's election coverage, always striving to be informative, well-written, and entirely NPOV, following the rules of Wikipedia. I am not some random IP vandal as you have reported me as. Get off your high horse and stop acting like you are the dictator of what a Wikipedia article is supposed to be. I doubt the owners of Wikipedia would agree with your openly stated belief that Wikipedia articles should be poorly-written, uninformative, and designed to put people to sleep. I have thoroughly refuted each time you have claimed that the content of this article somehow violates a rule of Wikipedia. Then you shift the goalposts and accuse the article of violating some other rule, which I then thoroughly addressed and refuted. There is nothing wrong with the content of this article as it stands, it is not "journalistic", it is not "redundant" nor does it push any sort of POV. And reporting me, a long-time contributing editor, as a random IP vandal guilty of "persistent vandalism", should really make you feel ashamed of yourself. Inqvisitor (talk) 23:36, 8 February 2014 (UTC)