Talk:Jay Cost

RfC
Should the article on Jay Cost include his election predictions?
 * If they are properly documented, than why not? Vanjagenije (talk) 13:07, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I've followed Cost for years. He hasn't made a conventional prediction since 2006 and did not make any in 2008. Since then his predictions have read more like hunches. 166.137.88.158 (talk) 22:32, 27 December 2013 (UTC)


 * No There is no secondary coverage of his accuracy, and the entire batch of stuff is essentially OR and/or SYNTH. Collect (talk) 14:57, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Why does it matter whether there is secondary coverage of the accuracy specifically? Also, there is secondary coverage regarding the 2012 elections. Orser67 (talk) 04:01, 24 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes If there are reliable primary and secondary sources that are cited only. If there are no reliable sources to cite, then it is obviously no. Is an RfC really necessary when there is longstanding guidance on articles, such as WP:BLP, WP:RS and WP:OR?
 * Perhaps this explains why no other contemporary writers similar in profile to Cost have such lengthy treatments of their prognostications? J11e13 (talk) 22:18, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Why is that? A lack of primary and secondary sources? Or WP:BLP, WP:RS and WP:OR?Wzrd1 (talk) 22:41, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I thought his point was that the standards set forth in WP:BLP, WP:RS and WP:OR justify his deletion of that section based on his (correct) observation that "There is no secondary coverage of his accuracy, and the entire batch of stuff is essentially OR and/or SYNTH." J11e13 (talk) 18:01, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Collect. JohnOxendine (talk) 02:07, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

J11e13's edits
User:J11e13 has deleted major parts of the article on the grounds that the parts deleted were "extraneous information." I disagree, as can be seen on e.g. Nate Silver's page, Wikipedia has plenty of room for election predictions. What do other people think.

Unlike Nate Silver, Jay Cost is not primarily an elections forecaster. He also does not use formal models to make forecasts, as Silver does. Wikipedia does not have 5,000 words on every prediction made by every political pundit over the last 5 cycles. J11e13 (talk) 00:11, 21 December 2013 (UTC) j11e13

Whether or not he's "primarily" an elections forecaster or uses formal models is irrelevant. Cost is a notable elections forecaster who's forecasts are cited in other media; that makes his forecasts notable. Orser67 (talk) 00:22, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

It is relevant. Again: lots of pundits make lots of forecasts. Moreover, in the two articles you cite, Cost explicitly mentions that he is working off hunches. Does Wikipedia spend 5,000 words detailing every pundits electoral hunches? J11e13 (talk) 00:25, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not and should not have information on non-notable pundits. It does and should have information on notable pundits, including their predictions. His method of forecasting is irrelevant to whether or not his work is notable or relevant. Orser67 (talk) 00:28, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

By this logic, every hunch/prediction by every "notable" political pundit from the last decade should be detailed in Wikipedia over 5,000 words. Cost's work is primarily in political history, as the article notes. 24.154.228.93 (talk) 00:43, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Is the same person as J11e13? It's ok if you are, but be careful about violating policies on sock puppets and meat puppets. See: Sock puppetry. Orser67 (talk) 00:58, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

In response to the reply, you say "notable" as if it's unimportant. But notability is a cornerstone of Wikipedia. I disagree that Cost's work is primarily in political history; maybe he's writing a book about it but he's primarily known for his political columns consisting of forecasts and commentary on modern politics. I don't have any objection to the pages of other notable political pundits having details on their forecasts. Orser67 (talk) 01:04, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Cost's work is more wide-ranging than you suggest. "Forecasting" is not nearly as central to his work as the previous version of the entry made it out. He already wrote one book on history (not electoral forecasting) from a major publisher, as mentioned in the entry. That undercuts the claim that he's "primarily known for forecasts." J11e13 (talk) 01:24, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Also, the entry as it reads now includes his forecasts on the last two presidential forecasts, so it is not as if this has been eliminated from the analysis. J11e13 (talk) 01:27, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Just saying that he wrote a book doesn't show that he's primarily focused on history. If you wanted to emphasize that he does things besides forecasting, that's fine. But that's no reason to delete half an article. You don't seem to be very familiar with Wikipedia's policies. Perhaps you should participate in Wikipedia more before deleting the work of others. Orser67 (talk) 03:21, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia's policy is to allow open source editing for exactly this sort of back-and-forth. J11e13 (talk) 03:31, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

The entry as it reads now is similar to the entries for analysts similar to Cost, e.g. Sean Trende, Jim Geraghty, Jonathan Last and Ross Douthat. J11e13 (talk) 03:37, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

I think that all of those entries are ripe for expansion. See Wikipedia is a work in progress

Orser67 (talk) 04:03, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

I think brevity is the soul of wit. The entry as it was gave an imbalanced account of Cost's work, emphasizing just a small subset of subjects he has written about. It also gave a false impression that he is an electoral prognosticator ala Silver, Charlie Cook, Stu Rothenberg, etc. Ameliorating this without excision would have required a massive expansion of the entry, making it over-long and incommensurate with his position within the pundit class. The article as it reads now gives a balanced account without being tediously long. J11e13 (talk) 04:11, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

It is also worth pointing out that the extensive discussion of his previous prognostications did not give a fair impression, either. The cited 2006 forecast was an early one and not his last one, in which he cited Bob Novak's prediction. The mention of the 2010 forecast failed to note that he was arguing 40% from gut instinct. Similarly, the 2012 entry failed to note that the substantial caveat "Accordingly, what follows is a prediction based on my interpretation of the lay of the land. I know others see it differently--and they could very well be right, and I could be wrong" that preceded the prediction (such as it was). Excluding all of this gives the false impression that he makes predictions akin to the professional race rankers, rather than pundits who opine on a whole host of subjects (including elections). Including this context would create an over-long entry that is incommensurate to entries on similarly situated authors. [User:J11e13|J11e13]] (talk) 04:23, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with you making minor changes to create what you think is a more fair impression of his predictions. If you want to say "Cost qualified his prediction by saying that it was based on gut instinct," for example, that's fine. However, I don't think it's right of you to delete so much of a page without reaching a consensus first. I also am rather suspicious of the fact that you created an account, apparently solely for the purpose of deleting Jay Cost's election predictions. Please be aware of Conflict of interest. Also, I don't know about you, but I could read the previous article in about two minutes. I don't call that tediously long. Orser67 (talk) 11:24, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

I did not appreciate the ad hominem nature of this last entry. Check the history page to see who did what. And I think it is almost the definition of tedium to have to read a Wikipedia article filled with references to hunches. To repeat: The article as it was gave an imbalanced and at several points inaccurate account of the subject. It no longer does. J11e13 (talk) 16:14, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Again, please read Conflict of interest Orser67 (talk) 16:24, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Again, please check the history of this article's edits. J11e13 (talk) 16:45, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Ironic that you're arguing that Jay Cost isn't primarily a prognosticator when his most recent article is...a prognostication. Seems like bad timing. Orser67 (talk) 11:48, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

And it's also probably just a coincidence that Cost first became prominent writing for something called Horse Race Blog Orser67 (talk) 11:53, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

First, I do not appreciate your tone. Second, as for the substance of your most recent entries, my responses would simply repeat what I wrote above. In summary, I think you misunderstand this author in essential ways. And I think the original entry exhibits an incomplete, imbalanced, and at times inaccurate view of the subject. To that end, I would note the irony of mentioning his Horse Race Blog as a point in favor of your contention, given that it was excluded from the original entry, and given that in his pre-election analysis in 2012 cited in the original entry he explicitly disclaimed tht sort of analysis. As for his most recent article, his contention is "Republicans stand to do well if they don't screw it up." Lots and lots of people have and will make that argument. It is commonplace, which actually reinforces my point. J11e13 (talk) 19:07, 22 December 2013 (UTC)


 * To be honest, the article's history is noteworthy for inducing headaches. Just for this month! Very little editing done until 20-December, when 11 edits were made, with four from J11e13 and four edits from one IP that seem similar to J11e13's edits. Orser67 then made two edits. Noteworthy is that Orser67 was the first editor on the article and the disputing editor is new to the article. Of interest here is, is the subject noteworthy? Obviously, a current political pundit who is known for making predictions regarding elections and has both the education to knowledgeably do so and had the media access to do so makes one noteworthy. Has me made recent predictions? Yes, according to cited sources. "Brevity is the soul of wit", true, but that is in conversation, not in encyclopedic articles. What I find suspect is the current ramp-up in political efforts for an upcoming election and the suspicious timing of the mass blitz editing from an IP and an account holder, both having quite similar edits and comments, making one suspect a sockpuppet or an organization attempting to influence Wikipedia articles. If the information is accurate, is cited and is noteworthy, said information should be included in an article, under WP:BLP guidelines.Wzrd1 (talk) 00:28, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, I see three people who think that including the predictions is appropriate. I see two people who don't, and one of those, is an unregistered user who is, imo, probably also J11e13. So I re-added the predictions. Orser67 (talk) 16:10, 30 December 2013 (UTC)


 * That is what an RfC is for, to achieve a consensus. I suspect the IP and J11e13 may be one in the same, the use of phrase is nearly identical.Wzrd1 (talk) 17:04, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

That is a tenuous definition of consensus. Three people think one way, two think another and they must be suspect? J11e13 (talk) 01:59, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Sounds a lot like some elections over the past two decades. Still, a majority is a majority. That said, the RfC is still open, let's see if we get more takers.Wzrd1 (talk) 02:01, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't mind the disagreement! But I do not appreciate ad hominem. I'll grant any day of the week and twice on Sunday's that I am new to Wikipedia. But I don't see the need to impugn intentions. I've made arguments that are fair. If the community doesn't accept them, no problem! At any rate, I cleaned up the article while keeping Oser67's revisions. Specifically, I updated the 2006 and 2008 predictions and added 2004. Orser67 added a notation from Tom Jensen of PPP Polls, but his methodology has since been heavily critiqued by Nate Cohn of The New Republic. I thought it best to drop that.J11e13 (talk) 02:16, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Jensen being criticized by one person isn't grounds for his criticism being deleted, so I re-added that back in. In general, I don't think the rest of your edits were constructive (except the nomination reform, that's fine imo), and you're just trying to make Jay Cost look better. You may not like the ad hominems, but I don't like it when people come to an article with an agenda. Orser67 (talk) 12:58, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * To be honest, I'm really not intending an ad hominem attack. I'm actually refraining from reporting a possible sock puppet, as I'm not certain that is what is going on. I merely mention a suspicion, due to timing and use of phrase. It's equally possible that someone forgot to login and edited, I've done that one myself in the past. If I had strongly suspected sock puppetry going on, I'd have reported it to an admin. I also have problems with people coming into an article with an agenda. Factual items, citations on events, statements, etc are acceptable. We also have to consider WP:BLP. Removing cited information because it looks bad isn't a good thing, for what would the article on Adolf Hitler look like once Neo-Nazis got done with it (and for him, we don't have to worry about WP:BLP?

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