Talk:2010 Timiskaming District municipal elections

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This page should not show preferential treatment to any candidate. Please sort all lists alphabetically by surname, do not include websites for one candidate unless you are showing websites for ALL candidates, and do not put an X beside any person's name. WarrenGaebel (talk) 17:30, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I changed it from future tense to present tense because the elections are currently in progress. I will change it to past tense when the polls are closed. I will also post the election results for Cobalt. WarrenGaebel (talk) 17:33, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Person or persons unknown have been trying to inject favouritism into this Wikipedia article. They are trying to change it from an encyclopedic reference into a political tool. They are doing this by underlining names, putting X's beside names, and putting their favourite candidates at the top of the list.

This will not be tolerated! I will sit here until the polls close to reverse any changes that promote favouritism.

If you are trying to make a legitimate change (perhaps a spelling correction), there is a small chance that your change may get lost in this ridiculous war of changes. I will do my best to make sure that your change persists.

WarrenGaebel (talk) 18:26, 25 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi, the X denotes an incumbent. This is not favouritism, and is standard on Wikipedia. Please see all the other articles in relation to the Ontario municipal elections, 2010 that I have painstakinglingy worked on. Maybe you can help this article, noting that Timiskaming is the only area where I couldn't find candidate information for some of the municipalities. I am not from the area, and have no familiarity with the candidates, I can ensure my neutrality. -- Earl Andrew - talk 20:04, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Earl. I would like to work with you in this regard. However, your statement on your user page that you are a strong NDP supporter calls your neutrality into question. It's not that I like nor dislike NDP. It's just that I wonder how many of the people you gave preference to are on the NDP membership list. My political affiliations have nothing to do with the issue at hand. I see your reordering of lists and underlining of candidates names as blatant favouritism. You say that you are a Wikipedia administrator, but your user talk page is FULL of messages about your articles being rejected because you do not follow Wikipedia guidelines.

Favouritism is not appropriate in Wikipedia! Please do not reorder lists and underline candidate's names.

I see your point about the X. If it is a Wikipedia standard, then I will have to live with it. However, would you be so kind as to give me a reference to the Wikipedia document that states this standard? Hopefully, it will not be one edited by you; you quoting yourself as an authority doesn't go far.

I would like to work more closely with you on this. Please feel free to call me by phone. Disputes are resolved much more easily that way than by typing in a public forum.

P.S. - I will post the Cobalt results when they come in tonight. I don't have access to the others at this time.

WarrenGaebel (talk) 21:32, 25 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi, this is a municipal election and has nothing to do with the NDP. I am not familiar with the candidates. There is absolutely no favouritism. It is a custom on Wikipedia to use (X)'s for incumbents. It is not favouritism, it is a statement of fact. Newspapers use it to identify the incumbents. -- Earl Andrew - talk 22:48, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I notice you focusing on the X's and not dealing with the subject of the reordering of lists and underlining candidates names and posting website URL's for some candidates. Why are you reordering lists to place certain candidates at the top? Why are you posting URLs for some candidates and not for others? Why are you underlining some candidates' names and not others. Other than favouritism, I cannot think of a reason.

I'm glad to see you using the word custom rather than standard with regard to the X's. Those two words mean radically different things. Please consider that a custom is not necessarily a good thing. We are dealing with a Wikipedia page that is posted while the polls are open. In my humble opinion, placing an X beside the names of incumbents gives them an unwarranted edge. This practice is usually done AFTER THE ELECTION. At that time it is quite harmless. But while the polls are open? That gives an edge to one candidate over another. And it is therefore inappropriate.

Again, I'm sure it would be easier to hash some of these things out by phone. My number is above. However, it will have to be soon because I am going out to a post-election party at The Orange Pear.

WarrenGaebel (talk) 23:07, 25 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I never posted any URLs for candidates. A quick look at the page history will note that I removed one. Anyways, I have semi-protected this page until a resolution can be decided. I am also not phoning you, as that is ridiculous. -- Earl Andrew - talk 23:10, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, ridiculous was the word I had in mind, too. I am disappointed that you would take this step rather than deal with the issue.

Wikipedia's neutrality is one of the backbones of its value. Administrators who cannot behave impartially should not be administrators. Putting certain candidates higher up in the list and underlining certain candidates' names are egregious violations of the principle of neutrality. I am disappointed that a Wikipedia administrator would be behind such blatant attempts to show partiality.

If this had been a minor slip up or a random occurrence, a good administrator would have made the correction himself. You not only did not make the corrections, but also you blocked me from doing so. I reordered lists so they were alphabetical. You changed it back. I removed underlining from candidates' names. You changed it back. Of course, you can get away with that because you are an administrator. A bad administrator, but an administrator nevertheless.

WarrenGaebel (talk) 23:34, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

The first thing I'm going to stress here is that if you think Wikipedia has the power to influence the outcome of an election, then I'd invite you to look at Calgary's municipal election last week. Both Ric McIver and Barb Higgins had articles already, due to pre-existing notability, whereas a "minor" candidate named Naheed Nenshi only had a redirect to the article on the election itself. Need I remind you which one of them actually won? Yeah, we've got soooooooo much power here.

Secondly, it's not just Wikipedia custom to denote the incumbent with an X next to their name; it's how every media outlet in the entire Western world denotes the incumbent in an election candidates table. It really isn't Wikipedia's job to simply hide relevant information for the duration of the election — a person who doesn't live in Timiskaming, but is interested in the election, needs to have some way of knowing who the current mayor is, don't they? If you'd like to propose another way to denote the incumbent, that's one thing — but removing the incumbency marks altogether simply isn't acceptable.

Thirdly, it's not a case of "underlining" certain names due to favouritism; the very nature of Wikipedia requires articles to contain links to other articles. If we have an article about a specific person whose name happens to be in this list, then this list needs to link to their article. If we don't, it doesn't. That's just what Wikipedia is.

And finally, partisan affiliations have nothing to do with municipal politics. I couldn't even begin to tell you which of the people listed in this article have NDP affiliations, and I'm fairly sure Earl couldn't either.

The ordering of names has been a subject of disagreement on Wikipedia, I admit, but neither alphabetical order nor "incumbent at the top with challengers in alphabetical order after that" is considered wrong, as such. So I'd recommend that you don't get into an edit war over that.

Please understand, Warren, that we have processes on Wikipedia which need to be followed. Bearcat (talk) 00:01, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I would like to echo Bearcat's comments entirely, and as a note on the issue of partisan affiliations, I am very much a supporter of the Wildrose Alliance in Alberta, but voted Nenshi for Calgary's mayor though he most certainly would not be considered a "Conservative" in the traditional sense. Federal and provincial affiliations are often irrelevant to municipal politics. As to this article specifically, the problems are mostly superficial. Not knowing what the X means is fair game, and frankly, so was removing it because you were confused by it. Earl Andrew's reversion of your removal was also fair game. This is part of what we call the "bold, revert, discuss" cycle. You made a change, he reverted it. The next step is discussion, which is where we are at now. Ultimately, the notation that the X refers to the incumbent has been added, which should resolve that issue. (and as a note, even the ballots themselves show who the incumbent is, so Wikipedia is only following the real world in this regard). Likewise, the issue with alphabetizing is also minor. It appears that the order was set to incumbent, followed by challengers in alphabetical order. It could have gone straight alphabetical, but likewise, is such a minor change that I am not certain it was worth arguing over, especially given the vote was almost closed when this all began. That issue is already moot. Finally, I would strongly advise you to avoid character attacks on editors you engage with. Earl Andrew's viewpoints are just as valid as yours, and accusing him of being a "bad administrator" for having an opinion that is counter to yours is very much a failure to assume good faith, which is something all editors should do. I hope you will remain and work with other editors to improve these articles. I have found, however, that the ability to work well with those whom you disagree is critically important to be successful in this environment. Thanks, and happy editing. Resolute 04:16, 26 October 2010 (UTC)