Talk:2007 Philadelphia mayoral election

Recommendations
I like the recent cleanup to put in some better references and remove some of the politically biased statements. Some further style suggestions I have are:

- Footnote individual facts using the ref tag, so you can match up each piece of information with an appropriate article for verification. That also will make all the references line up neatly at the bottom of the article.

- Create a section that discusses some of the published analysis of what are expected to be key factors in the election and/or political topics that published articles are discussing which are expected to influence the outcome or that the candidates are debating. As it stands, all the article pretty much says is that there are so-many democrats running, and there is a poll, but there is no information about what the election "is about" politically or what is motivating the voters one way or another.

- Lay out a nice bullet point list of all the candidates, with quick information on each, along with a link to the candidate's Wikipedia article if one exists. At the moment the candidates are little more than names in a poll.

Thanks again for the recent cleanup. :) Dugwiki 22:36, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Can someone change the name to the 2007 Philadelphia Mayoral Primary Election or at least create separate sections that differentiate the primary and general election? The organization of this makes it is a little confusing since the real election has not occured yet. Sussman79 13:24, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Milton Street
Why are we ignoring the mayor's brother here? This is probably one of the few reasons why the whole city is paying attention to the election now--because of his antics.
 * I agree, he was more important than Larry West. --evrik (talk) 15:22, 25 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Medvedenko (talk • contribs)

Test
(R) Al Taubenberger 100%

I added Bass and White, who submitted nominating petitions but will each get a few dozen votes. I think we should put Democratic in the box header, and eliminate the party column. Aardhart 05:32, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, but we should wait for City Hall to vertify their signitures. I've been hearing that Milton, Bass and Jesus White may get tossed off the ballot due to invalid signatures --206.125.60.59 19:42, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Bass and Jesus White didn't even come close to 1,000 (Queena had only 482 valid signatures and Jesus White had 685) so no point mentioning them here--206.125.60.59 16:54, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I could not find this information anywhere. Do you have a verifiable source?  And why don't you register? Aardhart 17:02, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the following non-partisan result boxes should be used for the primary:

Aardhart 17:02, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

poll trends by poll
Aardhart 03:31, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikinews
wikinews:Michael_Nutter_wins_mayoral_primary Someone want to update that article? --evrik (talk) 18:39, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

The Larry West Factor
It should be worth noting that, despite not being on the ballot, Larry West DID stage a write-in campaign for Mayor, although unsuccessful. He gained notoriety for this action, most noticeably when he announced he could not be on the ballot. Philadelphia City Paper wrote an article about this:

Young Man West, Gone —Preceding unsigned comment added by LuvataciousSkull (talk • contribs) 12:08, 7 November 2007 (UTC)


 * It is worth noting that this sole defender of Larry West's applicability in this article is Larry West himself, suggesting self-promotional bias. Legal ineligibility for candidacy does not merit notability in this article. Tom Knox, Bob Brady, Chaka Fattah, Dwight E. Evans, Queena Bass, and the homeless Jesus White (reference), all of whom received hundreds more votes, were also deemed unnecessary to be included in the listing of main mayoral candidates. Spinecraft (talk) 23:31, 6 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I've checked the Larry West page, and it appears you have something against this guy. It seems like the information about Larry in this article is fine, there's a reference as noted by LuvataciousSkull about notoriety for it's inclusion. The part that was deleted was in there during the entire election, I don't see a reason to delete it now. 208.236.9.10 (talk) 00:21, 7 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The issues I have seen are that Mr. West is using Wikipedia for self promotion, adding nothing of historical relevance, and going against several Wikipedia policies. I do not think this is anything against him personally, just the flagrant violationa and lack of respect for Wikipedia as a project, resource, tool, and community.  On his own page, concerncing this election, he original claimed he received 100 votes.  When it was pointed out that the claim was outright false, he argued that he would keep the falsified fact (for vanity, as it was simply not true) unless someone else contacted the election office to get the real number.  Once again, this demonstrates his desire for self-promotion and lack of regard for fact.  Outright lies and false information should never be tolerated on Wikipedia.


 * Again, your ignoring the fact that the part in question is sourced, it is a historical fact, and the mention in this article is not "self promotion" as listing "Metallica" on a metal page isn't self-promotion. The mention is small and reasonable, and is a footnote, just like his candidacy was. LuvataciousSkull (talk) 04:30, 7 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Larry / LuvataciousSkull, why do you refer to yourself in third person? The same autobiographical guidelines that discourage one from making their own article here surely apply to the edits and content of other articles as well. 66.27.66.160 (talk) 14:38, 7 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Seriously, Going on wikipedia and trying to push your own name in wherever you can while acting as though its not you? Please own up to your identity.  216.49.77.139 (talk) 04:06, 9 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The inclusion of Larry West's name in there alongside the major candidates is highly misleading. Even moreso, detailing his positions on issues in the same paragraph as the major candidates implies that his stances were relevant and of impact in the public discourse. This is simply not the case. An inclusion of Larry West would only possibly be fair if there was a new, brief section for fringe candidates, including, among others, the homeless Jesus White. In such a section each of these names would be weighted equally, and of equal marginality.


 * It deserves to be reminded that Philadelphia is an incredibly foundational city in our nation's history. Our elections are what largely defines us as a country. Keeping accurate historical records of our very democracy, especially in such a city of record, should be of paramount importance to any self-respecting encyclopedia. With that in mind, "get over it" style arguments are frankly insulting. The idea of coy Internet self-promotion making its way into our historical record is disturbing just the same. What if somebody 200 years from now was writing a book on Philly's history and gathered from his sources that Larry West was a major player in 2007 Mayoral elections? What a disservice that would be to future generations.

Past Candidates
I think it is important to note who ran for this office in the interest of historical accuracy. LuvataciousSkull 22:54, 8 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I plan on expanding the Primary section and want to include more information about those candidates as a result. (The primary certainly seemed to be the important part of this election) I just need to finish tracking down sources. Medvedenko 20:08, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Ridiculously misleading introduction
''The two major candidates, Michael Nutter and Al Taubenberger were selected the Democratic and Republican candidates respectively in the 15 May primary election. Michael Nutter won the election by a large margin and with the lowest voter turnout in a Philadelphia mayoral election without an incumbent since 1951.''

Really? This is the takeaway? A low turn out election between Nutter and Taubenberger? Obviously the drama and interest in the race was focused in the Democratic primary, which rates no more than a bare mention in the intro? The introduction should talk about what people are actually interested in about this election, which is the surprising primary contest. NPOV does not force us to pretend that an essentially meaningless general election contest that everyone knew the outcome of six months in advance was the real story here. john k (talk) 06:02, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Note that User:Staffwaterboy removed this comment, calling it "vandalism." No idea what that's about. john k (talk) 06:12, 24 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't find that introduction "misleading" per se, but it does miss how out-of-nowhere the Nutter victory was, the colorful Knox/Brady rivalry, and why Taubenberger bothered to get out of bed in the morning. Part of the problem is the sparseness of the Primary section. Can't pull much into the lede from there. / edg ☺ ☭ 10:18, 24 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm agreeing with the last comment. The primary was the most interesting part of this election, with the entire Milton crap, the Knox in the lead then siding with Jamie Blackwell, to Fattah being called out by Larry West... really interesting stuff! LuvataciousSkull (talk) 13:57, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
 * AKA Larry West


 * It'd be more accurate to say the primary was the only interesting part of the election. What is misleading is "the two major candidates" - the other four Democratic candidates were much more "major candidates" than Al Taubenberger, in that any of them might theoretically have become mayor, whereas there was no chance whatever that Taubenberger would. john k (talk) 15:04, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I've tried rewriting the intro to give more emphasis to the primary campaign. There needs to be a more detailed discussion of the primary campaign in the main text, though. john k (talk) 15:08, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

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