Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics/Archive 1

Deletion

 * This was nominated for deletion on WP:MFD, but consensus was to keep it. See Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Politics for details. Radiant_ &gt;|&lt;  19:48, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Democracy

 * I was reading the article on democracy and this segment (under liberal democracy) was rather misleading. "...and protection of liberties (thus the name liberal)". I find this highly debatable. It would be correct to say "some liberties" because many liberal democracies protect freedom of speech, but on the other hand, do not protect the right for a person to own firearms or use lethal force in self defense. I believe that the usage pertains to classical liberalism, where both social and economic liberties are protected, but in the United States, the scope of "liberal" now only covers social liberties and does not even protect all of them. It would be best to specify which definition of liberal is being used. - unsigned contribution, unknown date


 * I wish to draw to the attention of this WikiProject that the Democracy article is the target of uncompromising POV warriors who are determined to exclude mention of liberal democracy, universal suffrage, majority rule and related ideas. They have attacked a mention of natural equality and the literal definition "rule by the people" as "POV" and "cringe-making". They have loaded the article with references and images from a conservative thinktank called Freedom House, and they have responded to an editor questioning its credibility as a source that he is thereby imposing "OR", which is nonsense. I believe they are engaged in an organised, politically motivated attempt to subvert and misrepresent the meaning of the term "democracy". The article urgently requires the attention of a wider group of editors. Rubywine 08:44, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

RFC
Hi there! I posted this at WP:RFC/P, but was hoping I might get some additional interested people here. There has been an ongoing argument at Flag of Western Sahara about the name of the flag.

Western Sahara is a region claimed by Morocco and a government in exile of indigenous people, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. Both parties control a portion of the territory and both claim the whole of it. The flag is the flag flown by SADR, but it is generally known as the "Flag of Western Sahara", mainly because Morocco does not recognise the term Western Sahara (calling it Moroccan Sahara), so there is no other flag which also might bear the name. There have been extensive discussions about comparisons with Flag of Tibet, and Flag of Taiwan, but up until now no conclusion.

To break the stalemate, a vote has been proposed here, and we would very much appreciate any and every input. The more the merrier!

Thanks and greets, The Minist   e   r of War   (Peace) 16:13, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Mongolian Struggles
Several accounts and IPs are currently transforming pages about political topics in Mongolia into a propaganda platform for just one party. As much as I personally support the goals of that party, I don't think the current presentation is adequate for an encyclopedia. But political discussion is not my greatest strength, so I'd be glad to see some experts have a look at the issue. So far, the primary "victims" are Tsakhiagiyn Elbegdorj and Miyeegombo Enkhbold, but the disease is spreading. Anyone care to comment there? --Latebird 15:26, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Membership
How can I become a member? Can anyone be a member or do I have to meet any special condition to become one? Afonso Silva 12:47, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
 * There are no conditions. Simply add your name to list to note your participation.--cj | talk 08:15, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Portal
The Portal:Politics is in desperate need of baby-sitting. The featured stuff isn't getting updated. I just changed it myself, but unless people want New Zealand politics stuff only, I recommend you guys/gals get out there and do something about it! --Midnighttonight 08:22, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

New Idea?
I was wondering if it was a good idea to have countries constitutions linked to their wikipage? To my knowledge constitutions are public domain and this would make Wikipedia an excellent place to lookup such things. Perhaps it could lead the way to making an international repository of constitutions, treaties and other legal materials.

Hurkummer
 * WikiSource would be more appropiate to hold the info. Linking to the article on the Constitution would be an idea though.  And also, three developed countries don't have unified codified constitutions (Britian, Israel and New Zealand).  --Midnighttonight 21:28, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Major power and Superpower
These articles are in desperate need of attention and it would be good if members of this WikiProject that have some knowledge on the power hierarchy or superpower in general helped the effort to clean it up and get rid of POV.  Noble eagle   (Talk)   23:48, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Here's a list of article for anyone interested in international power.


 *  Noble eagle   (Talk)   06:33, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Request for comment on Vermont United States Senate election, 2006
Recently a user added a listing for a poll done on the subject. The poll is basically a straw poll done on a blog. There was no methodology listed and the comments from the blog post question the findings. I found the data unreliable and removed it, but the same user that cited the poll reinstated it. Also, I think the article might have some minor POV or weasel word issues. I'm new to editing political articles and any suggestions or answers would be greatly appreciated. --sigmafactor 22:23, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

You can help. Use this link as a watchlist against dirty tricks
You can help prevent any dirty tricks Wikipedia is proving a target for dirty tricks. This is making the news (Associated Press, MSNBC, New York Times). You can help. Just use 'Related changes' as a watchlist for any untoward changes in the membership articles for the 109th Congress. --Ancheta Wis 16:47, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Here are the Wikipedia in the News items about this topic.


 * "ATLANTA - Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that can be altered by anyone with a computer, has proved remarkably useful for pulling political dirty tricks."
 * "ATLANTA - Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that can be altered by anyone with a computer, has proved remarkably useful for pulling political dirty tricks."


 * The New York Times "Wikipedia proves fertile ground for political shenanigans", p. 28 Sunday, April 30, 2006 has picked up the A.P. story as well. Steven Jones, University of Illinois at Chicago, has expressed doubts about the ability of Wikipedia to deal with the 'Political Shenanigans'. (He does not know about the Related Changes feature for 109th United States Congress, which Wikipedians can use to easily detect any dirty tricks.)

Someone please volunteer to mediate
Would someone in this WikiProject please volunteer to mediate the 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities content dispute (involving which sources are reliable and which aren't), which made it into arbitration without ever having been mediated. Frankly, I think the article is okay, pretty well sources, and balanced after over a year of contentious editing by both sides. The arbitration committee shouldn't be deciding which of the remaining sources are okay; one of you PolyScis should be. 71.132.143.202 19:57, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Anarcho-capitalism
Anarcho-capitalism is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 21:58, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Lord Chancellor
Lord Chancellor is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 22:19, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

United States Electoral College
United States Electoral College is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality.

Sorry to hit you with the third one: we could use some help :-)  Sandy 01:23, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Notice of Move discussion
There is a discussion going on at Template talk:Infobox President about moving Template:Infobox President to Template:Infobox Officeholder. Hera1187 09:09, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Max Weber
Max Weber is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 14:02, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Idea float: WikiProject Democracy
I know I'm not a member of this WikiProject (sorry if that offends anyone), but I have done a lot of edits in democracy-related articles. I'm thinking that since we already have a WikiProject Fascism (as an example), and there are a great number of articles related to democracy (I'm meaning democracy as a concept and its development, not politics within democracies), that perhaps having a new child project, WikiProject Democracy, would make sense. I've been concerned that, as a whole, democracy-related articles are not getting the full attention they need, and that we keep getting a good number of deleteable original research articles getting created related to this subject. It just would be nice to have a group committed to full coverage of democracy here at the Wikipedia. Any thoughts? Thanks! &mdash; Stevie is the man!  Talk &bull; Work 21:02, 30 July 2006 (UTC)


 * If anyone is interested, please leave a comment in my talk. I'm going to stop watching this page.  Thanks.  Stevie is the man!  Talk &bull; Work 16:12, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Liaison?
Anyone here willing to be a liason with WP Biography? We've reorganized and are re-energized and we'd like to collaborate more with related Projects. Thought it might be good to have some one from here a member with us too so that we can collaborate on political biographies... Also wanted to invite you guys over to where we are currently voting on implementation of task forces, one of which is Politicians. If you'd like to see it get its own task force, vote now :-) plange 02:43, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Commonwealth of Nations
Commonwealth of Nations is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 15:00, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Westphalian sovereignty and Contingent sovereignty needs attention

 * These articles were apparently created as part of a cover history for User:Liliana Dioguardi, who has been suspected to be in the employ of a Kremlin propaganda effort - specifically in her creation and maintenance of the International Council for Democratic Institutions and State Sovereignty article in support of the public legitimacy of that organization. The prominent international news and business magazine The Economist magazine has reported that this organization is likely a front for a Kremlin-sponsored disinformation effort, and has specifically identified the ICDISS article and User:Liliana Dioguardi as part of this effort. See these articles and the ICDISS article talk page.
 * While these articles seem to be legitimate subjects, Dioguardi is responsible for all, or almost all their content - this makes these articles suspect for NPOV reasons.. I urge Wikipedians with a political theory/history/international relations/international law background to help build these articles beyond their sad "cover story" beginnings. Bwithh 05:53, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Liberal Party (Utah)
Liberal Party (Utah) is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 21:00, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Adding Category:2006 United States Congressional election candidates
We had a few problems last night with the article for Christine Jennings, a candidate for the 2006 US congressional elections. It appears that this article, along with the article of her opponent Jan Schneider, have both been edited by interested parties. I communicated with User:Jkelly about this and we came to the conclusion that WP is going to see a lot more of this sort of thing before the election in November. With this in mind, I have created the above category and have begun to add candidates to it using AWB. This should better enable us to keep track of candidates' articles to see when they are edited: I'm in talks with the guy who does Vandal Proof to see if he can make Vandal Proof flag the candidate articles when they are edited.

I'm adding the category for all of the candidates for the Senate, as per a list from wikia which is linked to in the category. However I'm pretty busy at the moment and will not have time to add the House of Representatives candidates. I wondered if anyone would like to help out by adding the cat for these articles?

I've found the best way to do this is to put the list from wikia into a spreadsheet, use "Find and Replace" to take out all of the party names, and then copy the resulting list into the User space on WP: see User:James Kemp/Senate. That list can then be used to generate the pages to be edited in WP:AWB. Obviously if more than one person was working on this we would need to divide the list in some way so that tasks weren't repeated, but I guess I'll leave that up to the community, but one way of doing it would be to divide the list of candidates for the House of Reps into blocks of twenty, and then for editors to sign up to add teh category to that block. I have no problem with my userspace being used for this purpose.

Hope you think the project is worthwhile...--Jim (Talk) 13:06, 21 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Hmm, looks like I added this page to the cat. Whoops. Hopefully amended now. Also, I described the process I was using wrongly: there is no need to use a spreadsheet, just copy the wiki markup from wikia to a page on WP, then point AWB at it to get the links, remembering to take out all of the links to political parties etc. The latter can mostly be done using the "Filter" option on AWB. --Jim (Talk) 13:11, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Biography/Politics and government
So far as I can tell, this WikiProject and WikiProject Biography's Politics and government workgroup are overlapping quite a bit, and it wouldn't hurt to notice the rather exhaustive list of categories/templates that exist over at that workgroup - perhaps use it as a resource page for any articles on politicians. --Tim4christ17 12:43, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Joshua A. Norton
Joshua A. Norton is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 00:10, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 00:28, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Parliament Act
Parliament Act is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 01:02, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Bill O'Reilly
Discussion is ongoing at Talk:Bill O'Reilly as to whether the Bill O'Reilly page should redirect to the commentator, the cricketer, or neither. Your input would be appreciated. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 04:01, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

House of Lords
House of Lords is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 00:30, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Sid McMath
Sid McMath is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 19:13, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Project directory
Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 22:07, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Project upgrade
I Started to make the project 1.0 compatible with the important assessement and importance grading WikiProject Talkpage Template. However I would assume one needs some kind of Bot or whatever on the Version_1.0_Editorial_Team pages showing the status of our Project Articles. I have no idea how to do it. But it would probably be quite easy to copy and edit other project's code. Lord Metroid 14:23, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm not even sure if this project is still active... --plange 15:53, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Policy Question
Is there a consensus on how to handle election results between the time of election and installation in the post? It is an issue, as some editors feel that the candidate assumes the seat when they are elected, while the fact is that the outgoing official holds the seat until the new one is sworn in. How should we handle this? Thanks Stealthound 18:07, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * candidate does not assume it at time of election in the US - which country is this about and what are they trying to insert? Usually you use language like Outgoing/Incoming, but it depends on the context. Can you give an example of where the issue is? --plange 18:10, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * The context is the recent US elections. The problem comes with the boxes that are placed on the bottom of the pages, as you could see at Sherrod Brown, Mike Dewine, or Jim Talent. I have tried to unify the senators with something that is fairly easy to understand, but was seeking outside input also. Thanks for your time, Stealthound 15:49, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Peer review request - Gun violence in the United States
Lately, I have been working on criminology topics which is an area that Wikipedia sorely lacks. Last weekend, I discovered there was no article on "Gun violence", so started one. Most of the research literature pertains to the United States, so the article has become Gun violence in the United States. Obviously, people have strong POV on this topic. To try and rise above politics, I have only included the highest quality reliable sources (mainly peer reviewed, scholarly journals). Personally, I really don't have a POV on this topic, and am staying out of the Gun politics in the United States article. With the gun violence article, I have stayed with presenting the current state of research on this topic. I think is close to featured status, though some "gun rights" folks have already come along and place a neutrality tag on the article. I could really use some peer review on the article, at this point. Do you at all agree with the person who placed the neutrality tag? Any suggestions on making in more NPOV. In reality, I feel that the article deals fairly with both POVs, citing strategies advocated by gun-control folks as ineffective, while citing some strategies advocated by the Bush administration as effective. Do you have any suggestions on improving the article? are there aspects of the topic that are missing? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have filed a formal peer request here, though feel free to leave comments on the article talk page if you prefer. Thanks. --Aude (talk) 18:40, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Assessment
I noted on the project page that you indicated that you were doing assessments, but that you hadn't actually set up all the category and infrastructure created to do so. If you do want to engage in the full 1.0 assessments, all you would have to do is create the categories for article importance and notify the Work via WikiProjects people (of whom I am one) that you are intending to do so. You might also wish to create a subpage for the project regarding assessments. If you wish, please feel free to contact me and I can try to complete the process for you. Thank you. Badbilltucker 17:01, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

redundant/inconsistent party color templates
I discovered this while doing some organization in Category:Party colours templates (United States). Witness Template:American politics/party colours/Populist, Template:Populist Party (United States)/meta/color, Template:Party shading/Populist. (This is the case for a great number of parties.) The first two seem to do the exact same thing. Shading serves a different purpose, but the naming scheme isn't consistent. Thought I'd bring this to someone's attention. &hArr; ChristTrekker 16:47, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy (Talk) 14:14, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

party name templates
Please see Category:Party shortnames templates (United_States). I see lots of instances of people using clumsy manual ways of building links to parties. Here is an alternative. &hArr; ChristTrekker 21:29, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

First Amendment to the United States Constitution
First Amendment to the United States Constitution is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy (Talk) 17:20, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Servants of God
I am looking for some advice on where to place on this article I've done Khudai Khidmatgar, it's already been selected as a good article, and I was hoping to put it up for collaboration and get it to featured status. Your advice will be appreciated.

Thanks --Zak 14:15, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Libertarianism FAR
Libertarianism has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Sandy (Talk) 01:19, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Infobox politician - usage
Could someone put up, either in noinclude tags or on the Talk page, a brief usage guide for Template:Infobox Politician? Is this a template that should be susbt'd? What formatting parameters can be modified? Etc. -Joshuapaquin 05:24, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Collective responsibility
I was adjusting the Kofi Annan story at "In the news", and found the article on collective responsibility somewhat lacking in the application of this philosophical concept to the political sphere. I don't know much about political science, but I know that this is frequently cited with regard to events like the genocide in Darfur — the belief that we all share responsibility for events like these. If anyone knows more about the philosophical underpinnings of this doctrine and its application in international relations, please take a look at the article and see what can be done to improve it. Thanks. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 23:37, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Tynwald Day FAR
Tynwald Day has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Sandy (Talk) 01:10, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Nihilist anarchism
Someone care to look in on Nihilist anarchism? Looks like a situation there where someone may be citing his own work that may not qualify as a reliable source. - Jmabel | Talk 02:30, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards
Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 23:06, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Does this project cover general civics and democracy?
I have been wondering whether this project covers more than just partisan politics around the globe. Is there an interest in this project to also cover general civics and democracy subjects? If so, I may join. Stevie is the man! Talk &bull; Work 16:55, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

When this project wakes up, let me know. Taking off watch. Stevie is the man! Talk &bull; Work 18:39, 6 January 2007 (UTC)