Talk:2012 Russian presidential election

A British gambling site... Really?
So someone put in that a British gambling site has so and so odds on this election (should be 1/1 Putin). How is this notable or even relevant? Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 19:56, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Levada
How sociological research organisation can be "oppositional". To what they are opposed?217.23.69.206 (talk) 07:13, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It is common practice in the former SU and Warsaw pact countries that "research" organizations are funded by opposition or indirectly via various foreign funds. Such institutions are routinely considered as in "opposition" to the government. I lieu of that local NGO's affiliated with ruling party or official research institutes are considered "pro-government". Basically, it is assumed as normal that who pays is the one who's view is to be published. This is true everywhere in the world, though not usually reported so openly.195.212.29.189 (talk) 16:13, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Preparings for voting fraud
For 1700 rubles plus lunch you can now apply for a voting carousel for Putin in Moscow. This was today reported on Swedish Radio. The actual post on massovki.ru can be found here. Närking (talk) 09:28, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The reports about blackmailing famous people to show support for Putin in the campaign should probably also be mentioned in the article . And reports about paying people to attend campaign rallies for Putin all around Russia are probably also well worth mentioning . Närking (talk) 21:28, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

More news about preparations for voting fraud. Närking (talk) 11:45, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Calculation of percentages
How have the percentages been calculated? 45,513,001 of 70,686,784 valid votes is 64.39 %, not 63.64 %. – Danmichaelo (talk) 14:50, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The percentage is counted from Total votes, including invalid ones. This is important as first-round victory requires >50% of total votes, not just valid votes.195.212.29.189 (talk) 16:17, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

CNN reporting
The CNN article said:

"The point of an election is that the outcome should be uncertain. This was not the case in Russia," said Tonino Picula, the head of an observer mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
 * "The point of an election is that the outcome should be uncertain". -- Why is it so? WHO said this?
 * Does the opposite brake any low? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.124.40.89 (talk) 11:11, March 8, 2012‎ (UTC)

Observers said they observed ballot stuffing and other irregularities in about a third of polling stations they monitored, and an uneven playing field in the run-up to the election.

The latter statement was rendered in the article in the following way:

"International observers reported irregularities such as ballot stuffing at about a third of the stations they monitored."

Clearly, that passage in the CNN article referenced OSCE observers (prior to speaking about unspecified "observers" they spoke about OSCE mission, so those "observers" likely refer to OSCE). Especially, the OSCE press release said, that

"Voting on election day was assessed positively overall, but the process deteriorated during the vote count which was assessed negatively in almost one-third of polling stations observed due to procedural irregularities. ... “There were serious problems from the very start of this election. The point of elections is that the outcome should be uncertain. This was not the case in Russia. There was no real competition and abuse of government resources ensured that the ultimate winner of the election was never in doubt,” said Tonino Picula, the Special Co-ordinator to lead the short-term OSCE observer mission and Head of the delegation of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly."

That's why I believe that the phrase "OSCE observers assessed the voting on the election day positively overall, but assessed the vote count negatively in almost one-third of polling stations due to procedural irregularities." renders the OSCE observers best. 62.63.90.83 (talk) 20:23, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Campaign section violates NPOV
The section focuses almost exclusively on Putin. Furthermore, this article is about the election, not Putin's campaign. If you look here you'll see that the campaign section should focus on the relevant topics at the time. I've tagged it. Somedifferentstuff (talk) 16:52, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
 * NPOV is about neutrality and presenting different points of view on controversial subjects. The section is just incomplete and needs expansion. Grey Hood   Talk  18:05, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
 * No. Look at the example I provided. Expansion isn't the only issue. Somedifferentstuff (talk) 18:13, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Agree with SomeDS. Less about Putin, more about the others till it's balanced.Malick78 (talk) 16:58, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * There is nothing wrong with the extent of the coverage of Putin's campaign. If you look at the article you will see that the other campaigns are marked with a Expand section tag. If you think the article should be more balance, I suggest you start by expanding the sections. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 23:50, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * P.S. – If it turns out we are getting an extensive amount of material about the Vladimir Putin presidential campaign, 2012, then we can split the material into a separate article. So far I see zero need for that. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 23:55, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Putin's programme articles
- naturally, I disagree with this deletion. These articles were central in Putin's campaign, since he didn't take part in the debates and informed about his programme mainly through these articles. They were widely discussed in the press and they present Putin's plan of development of the country in the next years. The article is rather small currently, it can afford going into details and it should do so. Grey Hood  Talk  16:08, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I also agree with what Greyhood said.Superzohar [[Image:Red star.svg|13px]] Talk 18:27, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * But there needs to be balance. So add info about the other candidates at the same time.Malick78 (talk) 23:24, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * This is rather twisted logic. If more material is needed on other candidates it is not the reason to remove good and relevant material which we already have on one candidate, who by the way won the election and that's why his program obviously becomes much more important than other programmes. Grey Hood   Talk  01:22, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * See the example I provided in the previous section of this talk page. The campaigning section of the article is fundamentally flawed and adding more material about Putin makes it worse. Somedifferentstuff (talk) 12:29, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Russian presidential election 2012 was fundamentally different from the U.S. presidential election 2004 and this article does not have necessarily to follow the example: there were 5 candidates instead of basically just two, but also there was one clear favorite. The structure and pattern of the 2004 U.S. elections is non-applicable to this. To claim that the campaign of the winning candidate who was supported by 2/3 of the voters is WP:Undue weight is obviously wrong. The sections on other candidates should be expanded, that's the issue, but there is no point in removing relevant information about major points in Putin's campaign. Grey Hood   Talk  15:47, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * This article is NOT about Putin's campaign, it's about the election in general. You're free to create an article about his campaign which can be linked to from this article. Somedifferentstuff (talk) 16:59, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Agree with SDS. It's about the election in general. (Oh, and Putin got around 50% of the vote when we discount fraud, and only because the other candidates couldn't get air time Grey). Furthermore, info has been cherrypicked again. Why no mention of people being bussed to his stadium speech and that some were tricked/paid/coerced into going there?
 * PS - we don't really say "Programme" in English. It's 'manifesto' or 'policies'. This page reads like cheap Russian propaganda. Which it obviously isn't. Ahem. Malick78 (talk) 17:40, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Reverting -- NPOV
I have reverted the removal of information from the article, based upon an erroneous understanding of WP:NPOV, and at the same I have also removed a couple of paragraphs of copyright violations. The edits which are WP:COPYVIO can be re-added to the article after they have been rewritten inline with policy.

The use of WP:NPOV to remove information from the article is erroneous (I won't state the obvious of using a 2004 US presidential election article is also erroneous -- apples and oranges and all that). WP:WEIGHT has been used with weird application; this policy does not imply that on this article candidates should receive equal coverage, but "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint." To use the 2004 US presidential election article as a basis upon which to remove information from this article is novel - one can not compare a US presidential campaign and election to a Russian presidential campaign and election.

The fact is, is that Putin's campaign received the overwhelming majority of coverage in reliable sources (both Russian and non-Russian alike); and as such his campaign deserves more treatment in the article, than does say Zhirinovsky's campaign. If one peruses the removed copyvio edits, one will see that, for example, the articles from Putin's campaign which were published in the Russian media, where themselves the subjects of articles in Russian and the foreign media.

Applying WP:WEIGHT to this article would result in the article giving more weight and prevalence to Putin's campaign than any, and probably all together, of the other candidates. Based upon on this reasoning, I have reverted the removal of the information, but removed the copyvios.

In relation to this removal I have re-added it, but added a rewrite tag to it -- instead of simply having links to the articles, use reliable sources to write prose on the actual programs -- as noted above, the articles themselves were the subject of articles -- which gives the articles some degree of notability. I trust that editors (prob Greyhood) will take heed of this and rewrite and expand that section. also Greyhood, you know that all information on premier.gov.ru is licenced under CC-BY-3.0, and is therefore valid for transcribing over onto Wikisource. Russavia ლ(ಠ益ಠლ) 20:24, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Good idea with Wikisource, thanks! Grey Hood   Talk  23:04, 12 March 2012 (UTC)


 * GreyHood has violated NPOV with a pro-Putin slant. This is unacceptable. Have a look at these for guidance: French_presidential_election,_2007, Irish_presidential_election,_2011, Finnish_presidential_election,_2012, Australian_election,_2007. Somedifferentstuff (talk) 21:51, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed, it's still POV. Btw, why is Putin put first? Surely it should be alphabetical? That WOULD be neutral. Also, many sources claim that candidates were blocked from running spuriously. That's not mentioned. And that Prokhorov was just a stooge - to make it look like there was competition but that he was Kremlin approved. That's been discussed widely. But it's not here at all.Malick78 (talk) 22:10, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

The murder plot was just a PR campaign
As no surprise it turns out that the murder plot against Putin was just part of his presidential campaign. Närking (talk) 21:05, 16 March 2012 (UTC)