Wikipedia talk:Post-election edit war syndrome

Style and format changes

This page is currently written like an essay and uses several examples which aren't particularly prominent, having not been decided by WP arbitration, and are only notable for being, well, western and recent. I'm gonna do a reconstruction to make this more in line style-wise with another guidelines. Also, I'd like to make the title more succinct by for example calling it "WP:Political Transition". Huadpe (talk) 14:31, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Miscellaneous

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

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

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

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

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

With regards the following statement:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Further specific discussion

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

Next one to watch out for

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

Multiple stage elections

There's been debate on several talkpages relating to the recent US Presidential election about what exactly is the correct term to refer to Barack Obama between now and when he takes office on January 20th. I'm not sure which other posts have such a protracted stage process but this may have wider implications.

The US President has several stages of result with the starting points being:

1. The media projecting the result based on a mix of exit polls and incomplete counting.
2. The people in charge of counting the popular vote making final certification.
3. The Electoral College members casting their votes.
4. Said votes being opened and accepted by the US Congress, with the potential both for challenging the votes and also a contingent election if needs be.

As a result of all this it's not 100% clear when the victorious candidate becomes "President-elect". (The use of the term in the US constitution refers to after the last point so doesn't help us here.) This is creating inconsistency between articles such as President-elect, Barack Obama and List of Presidents of the United States because different discussions are producing different outcomes.

Thoughts? Timrollpickering (talk) 00:17, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

I think the consensus that has emerged in this most recent case follows much of the same spirit as policy such as Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names). Maybe it's time to take what we've learnt and establish something of a specific guideline or policy on the matter.

The issue seems to be that certain people want to call Obama by his constitutional status rather than his de facto status. The problem with this reasoning is that, like with birds and foreign cities, Wikipedia as a tertiary source has a job to document understanding as it is expressed by other parties, not to form its own understanding.

Of course the Obama case has an even more tangled reasoning because of the transition laws which explicitly permit the use of the "President-elect" term. This is really just distraction, other than adding the government to the list of reliable parties who are okay with that term. Constitutionally Obama still has not been "elected" so far as the people who "elect" him have not voted yet. However, this doesn't affect whether he can be called the "President-elect" unless a reliable source says it does.

I think we should make a point of describing politicians' roles as they are described by the published world. If there is a discrepancy with this and a lesser-used constitutional status, this should also be noted if its existence could cause confusion. In this case, I am sure a source can be found which would be helpful to Presidential transition of Barack Obama making this point, even if it's not being technical but pointing out the prematurity of the title.

At any rate, a bit of careful writing and consensus-building could save pages and pages of arguing and edit-warring next time. I find that a lot of the fuss is because people can't accept a prevailing immediate consensus without validating it against an over-general policy. If there is such a thing to consult, there will be less to discuss next time. The Next United Kingdom general election is less than two years round the corner for starters. Bigbluefish (talk) 21:36, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Let's check in with (1) the premiere (non-Wiki) encyclopedia; (2) the prestigious news outlet that is referred to on occasion as The Gray Lady; (3) the particular government that, um, the alleged "president-elect" would have been elected, upon November 4, 2008, to lead; and, finally, (4) our subject, Barack Obama, his very own one-and-only self, shall we?

1. The Encyclopaedia Britannica:
   Barack Obama
   president-elect of the United States
   in full Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.
   born Aug. 4, 1961, Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.
   American politician who on Nov. 4, 2008, was elected the 44th president of the United States, defeating Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Republican candidate.
2. The New York Times:
   Times Topics > People > O > Obama, Barack
   Barack Obama
   President-Elect of the United States
   Vice-Presidential Running Mate: Joseph R. Biden Jr.
3. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress:
   OBAMA, Barack, (1961 - )
   Senate Years of Service: 2005-
   Party: Democrat
   OBAMA, Barack, a Senator from Illinois; born in Honolulu, Hawaii, August 4, 1961[... ... ...]elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in 2004 for term beginning January 3, 2005; elected as the 44th President of the United States on November 4, 2008.
4. CHANGE.GOV: OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT-ELECT:
   YOUR ADMINISTRATION
   President-elect
   Barack Obama
   LEARN
   Barack Obama was raised by a single mother and his grandparents.[...]

Therefore let us resolve that when there is only one "presumed President Elect," a tertiary source such as Wikipedia will follow the sources and refer to him or her simply as the President Elect.  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 12:50, 16 November 2008 (UTC)