Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States presidential elections/Archive 4

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Endorsements

Should endorsements be a separate section, or might it be possible in smaller campaign articles to simply add a small navbox off to the side of the text like an image? --William S. Saturn (talk) 00:03, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Peer review/Bob Barr presidential campaign, 2008/archive1

Bob Barr presidential campaign, 2008 is currently under peer review. Comments from members of this WikiProject would be appreciated. Thanks. --William S. Saturn (talk) 00:40, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Images in presidential election articles

There have been a few changes made recently to the images at the top of presidential election articles. They have been made without any sort of discussion, which I think was a bad thing, and in many cases, they have not been reasonable. However, after a little thought, I think some of them were.

The question is, what should be the criteria for including images at the top of the election articles? In answering this question, we need to consider three different groups of elections: In those after the 12th amendment (1804-) there were separate candidates for president and vice-president and there were multiple viable tickets. In the elections of 1796 and 1800, there were multiple de facto tickets of presidential and vice-presidential candidates. In the elections of 1789 and 1792, Washington was the undisputed choice for President and all others were running for vice-president.

In the 1789 and 1792 elections, I think the only image should be Washington. In all other articles, the images are limited to viable candidates for president, and he was the only one. Placing his image alone there emphasizes the distinct nature of the election. In the remaining articles, I think it should be limited to presidential candidates. I don't think the distinction between de facto (1796, 1800) and de jure (1804-) is important. The candidate needs to have had a significant chance of winning, at least at some point in the election cycle, and had a significant effect on the election.

I am not sure that I can quantify the criteria for inclusion better than that, but I think that in most cases I have seen, the choice is appropriate. For example, Taft should be included in 1912. Perot should be included in 1992 but not in 1996. I don't think La Follette belongs at the top of the 1924 article. While he was a significant force in politics, he had little chance of winning and did not have much of an effect on the election — he drew only one vote.

Comments? — JPMcGrath (talk) 10:44, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Since nobody seems to have an opinion on this, I will update the images, starting with the articles for the first two elections. — JPMcGrath (talk) 04:35, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
I meant to look into this but didn't. But I would keep Perot in for 1996. He still had a significant effect on the election, especially in terms of keeping Clinton under 50% of the vote. And it would be odd to include him one time and not the other. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:17, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
Perot's image is currently in for 1992, but not for 1996. I have not changed it, but I think that makes sense. He got 19% of the vote in 1992 and some argue that he might have swung the election. But in 1996, he got 8% and clearly did not affect the results; the difference between Clinton and Dole was more than that. — JPMcGrath (talk) 18:02, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
Looking at this more, I have to disagree with you. In the last 100 years, the five highest percentages of third-party votes have been (not in order) Perot's two runs, Wallace in '68, La Follette, and the 1912 three-way race. Given how hard it is for third parties or independents to get anywhere in American politics, these are all quite notable achievements. And I'd definitely keep La Follette! It was a milestone for explicitly progressive politics, and he didn't win just "one vote", but rather one state and finished second in a bunch of other states. His vote percentage (over 16%) is the highest I think of anyone in the last 150 years or so except for the 1912 race and Perot in '92. The story of the 1924 race is totally incomplete without portraying La Follette. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:20, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
After looking over the Presidential Election articles, I would agree that Perot (1996) should be included before some others that are included. One example of this is Palmer in 1896.
While I am familiar with La Follette, most of what I have read about him focused on his Senate activity and I am not familiar with the 1924 election. I just re-read the chapter on that election in Boller's Presidential Campaigns, and it only devotes one paragraph to La Follette. The book is certainly not an in-depth treatment, but it leaves me wondering what was so important about La Follette's involvement in 1924.
Your framing of the issue, that "the story of the 1924 race is totally incomplete without portraying La Follette", suggests that we are talking about whether La Follette should be mentioned in the article, which is not the question I am trying to answer. This brings me back to my original question: what should the criteria be for including an image at the top of the article?
— JPMcGrath (talk) 15:36, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
I just checked William Miller's A New History of the United States (1968), a text I still have from my college days, and most of his (admittedly very brief) account of the 1924 campaign centers around La Follette and the 'new' Progressive Party. As for image inclusion criteria, I would say that anyone who wins a state should be included (that means by the vote, not through faithless electors), as well as anyone who gets at least X percentage of the overall vote, where X would have to be settled on but might be something like 7½ percent. Wasted Time R (talk) 16:53, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
I think that criteria makes sense, but I would add that the person should be one who was actually running for President. Without that, you would have to include Harry Byrd in 1960, since he won 15 electoral votes, including all of those from Mississippi. Regarding the percentage of the popular vote, I would favor a higher percentage, such as 10%. — JPMcGrath (talk) 20:27, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
Agree re Byrd. As for percentage, we need something grounded in real practice rather than just pulled out of the air. In recent years, the presidential debates have had a "15% in the polls" threshold for inclusion. Perhaps we should use that criterion as well, extended backwards in time. So Taft '12 and La Follette '24 would get top images based on both state wins and percentage, Wallace '68 would based on state wins, Perot '92 would based on percentage but not Perot '96. I'm now arguing against part of my prior position, but that's the way it goes ;-) Wasted Time R (talk) 12:22, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
That sounds reasonable, although I think this should be flexible. For example, if a 3rd party candidate was polling high and declined near the end, possibly imploding as in Perot'92, and ended up with 14% of the vote, I think there would be a good argument to include him. I don't think that applies to any existing elections, but I have not gone through them all yet. I plan to do that soon and apply this standard. If there are any borderline cases, I will bring them up. — JPMcGrath (talk) 04:09, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
Based on this criteria, I removed one image each from four articles:
  • 1820: John Quincy Adams
  • 1848: Martin Van Buren
  • 1896: John Palmer
  • 1980: John Anderson
The 1820 removal leaves James Monroe as the only candidate with an image, but I think that makes sense, since the election was essentially unanimous. Adams received one vote from a faithless elector. — JPMcGrath (talk) 09:08, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
I forgot to mention that the one year that did not entirely fit the mold was 1872. In that year, Horace Greeley was the Liberal Republican / Democratic candidate. He died after the popular election, but before the electoral college voted, so many electors pledged to him voted for four other people. If we call them "faithless electors" (which is not entirely appropriate), then this fits the criteria. I think the Greeley image definitely belongs at the top and the four others do not, but I mention it because it is somewhat of an anomaly. — JPMcGrath (talk) 09:20, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree that Adams should be removed from 1820. I added Palmer just to see if others would approve (Gold Democrat support was vitally important and it represented the party of Jefferson, Jackson, and Cleveland). However, you cannot get rid of Van Buren and Anderson. If Van Buren had not run, Cass would have most likely won New York and the election. And besides, his vote was over 10%. Anderson drained support from Reagan and made some states very close. --Tilden76 (talk) 04:15, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Anderson is an example of someone who initially had a big percentage in polls but then faded the closer the election got. As for effecting the election result, if that's going to be a criterion, then Nader in 2000 deserves the biggest image of all. Wasted Time R (talk) 09:49, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
I don't think the spoiler argument is sufficient. As Wasted Time R points out, Ralph Nader would qualify under that, and I think Pat Buchanan would too. I initially suggested using a 10% threshold, and I still think that would be very reasonable, which would include Van Buren and the Free Soilers in 1848, but not Anderson in 1980. — JPMcGrath (talk) 13:48, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree that Nader does not deserve to be considered. It was by sheer happenstance that he played a major role. I looked to World Book Encyclopedia to help us figure this out. I looked at their small box containing the election results (in the article of every person elected president). In addition to what Wikipedia has listed, World Book mentioned in these very small election results box Wallace (1948), Anderson (1980), and Perot (1996). Wallace perhaps deserves to be considered because it created the famous "two way split" in the Democratic Party that doomed Truman in the eyes of many. In addition, Wallace polled almost as much as Thurmond. Anderson is important because his popular vote % was significant. Just look at the 1980 county popular vote and you will see a lot of 40% counties for Reagan. Anderson has been mentioned on the news recently because of the third party known as the Tea Party. People are warning the Tea Party not to run anyone for President because it almost cost Reagan the election. Perot is deserving in 1996 because his popular vote % was significant and made it so that Clinton remained a minority president (less than 50%). In addition, it would be weird if we included him one time but not another.--Tilden76 (talk) 16:34, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I think we are talking about different standards. The encyclopedia mentions these other candidates and so do the articles. The question is whether a candidate should be featured in a prominent place at the top of the article. I really do not think Wallace played that significant a role in the 1948 election, certainly not one that merits feature status. Since you are the only one who has suggested featuring him, and the other two of us involved in this discussion have suggested a standard where he would be excluded, I have removed the image. — JPMcGrath (talk) 10:06, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I readded Anderson and added Perot to 1996 (Wasted Time R suggested this above). Before you go off deleting Anderson, let's talk about it. I think we need to establish a popular vote % (6.6% and 8.4% are very significant). Wasted Time R suggested 7.5%. I think it should be 6.5%. This would keep Debs out of 1912 (who got 6.0%) WE NEED TO ESTABLISH A PERCENTAGE because Debs won several counties.--Tilden76 (talk) 14:04, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Please calm down. There is no need for yelling (all caps). I certainly agree that we should discuss the issue before going off making changes that others do not agree with. Just to be clear, let's review what has happened here:
  • I noticed that there was a great deal of inconsistency in which images were placed at the top of the articles. Some candidates with no electoral votes and less than 1% of the popular vote (such as Palmer in 1896) were included, while those with many times that were not in other elections. In another case, a candidate who received on electoral vote from a faithless elector was included. In other cases, people who were not, de facto, candidates for president were included.
  • Recognizing that some people may have strong opinions on the issue, I raised the issue here, rather than just going out and making changes.
  • After waiting 18 days with no response, I changed the articles for the first two elections, a change that nobody has objected to.
  • That drew the attention of Wasted Time R, and we discussed the issue.
  • We agreed on several criteria for inclusion, including getting 15% in the popular vote.
  • After everyone involved had agreed on the criteria, I changed the articles to reflect those criteria, and included a link to this discussion in the change comment.
  • Without discussing the issue, you reverted one of the changes (Van Buren).
  • After doing that, you posted a message here suggesting that Van Buren and Anderson should be included.
  • We both replied to your comment, disagreeing with some of what you said, but willing to discuss the issue.
  • You posted another message suggesting others should be included.
  • Without receiving a reply from either of us, you added Wallace in 1948, who received only 2.4% of the popular vote, which came nowhere near the standard that everyone else had agreed to. Your edit comment was "Wallace added as per discussion", although there had been no discussion.
  • I undid this change, and explained my reasons here.
  • You then made two more additions, without first reaching a consensus.
I think it should be fairly clear that I have sought consensus before making changes, whereas you have made changes first, and then demand that others "talk about it" before making any changes. I agree that we should talk about it first. I hope you will do so before making any more unilateral changes.
Regarding the Perot'96 image, it is true that Wasted Time R suggested this above, but you neglect the fact that he later suggested a 15% threshold and said that "Perot '92 would [be included] based on percentage but not Perot '96". Since the only consensus reached on this has been to not include him, I am undoing the change.
— JPMcGrath (talk) 17:14, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Boy, how do you have the gull to say such a thing? If it doesn't go your way, you change it immediately. There is no discussion. I wasn't yelling. I was merely pointing out the the important fact that we really haven't come to a consensus of a percentage. First, it was agreed to make it 10%. Even you agreed to that. Now you have pulled 15% out of the air. Wasted R made a weird suggestion saying PERHAPS we should use the televised 15% rule, and then went on to contradict himself with Wallace and others. As for Henry Wallace, I did it to show you how it feels to discuss something and then implement it (acting like you are the highest ranking officer). I have no intention of trying to get Henry Wallace a position at the time. I will change things the way I see fit (Anderson and Perot) since there is no point discussing things with you. And it's not your way or the highway. You have made no compromises on your part.

"I think it should be fairly clear that I have sought consensus before making changes, whereas you have made changes first, and then demand that others "talk about it" before making any changes. I agree that we should talk about it first. I hope you will do so before making any more unilateral changes." That's great advice..... for yourself.

You are very rude and crude.--Tilden76 (talk) 16:21, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

For the record, I contradicted myself about Perot '96. My position on G. Wallace '68 was consistently for inclusion (which no one is arguing against) and I never said anything about H. Wallace '48. I was merely trying to find some real-world basis for a percentage cutoff, rather than a bunch of WP editors just pulling one out of the air. That said, I don't really care about the image inclusion issue as much as the two of you do, so I likely don't have anything more to say here. Wasted Time R (talk) 16:36, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
------
Please, Tilden76, throwing insults is not going to help things. Instead, let's talk about the facts, as I have done above. If you think I have misstated what has happened, then say what you think is incorrect. But please avoid personal insults. And regarding all caps, the talk page guidelines say: "Avoid excessive emphasis: CAPITAL LETTERS are considered shouting and are virtually never appropriate."
The facts speak for themselves. You have added images on 4 different pages and in each case, it has been against the current consensus. I removed images when everyone involved in the discussions had agreed, and then undid the changes you made unilaterally against the consensus. You have not made a good faith effort to reach consensus. Instead, you have made your changes without discussion, when nobody has agreed with you, and in many cases, when everyone involved has disagreed with you. Now you have begun edit warring.
Regarding adding Ross Perot for 1980, you claimed that "2/3 support it", but that is not true. While User:Wasted Time R supported it at first, he changed his position and opposed it at the time you made this claim. I pointed this out to you, yet you still claim that the consensus supports your position. In addition, I disagreed with this addition, and so has Electiontechnology. So that is 3/4 against your position, not 2/3 for it.
— JPMcGrath (talk) 22:30, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Your hostile tone was the beginning of hostilities. Second, I only used CAPITAL LETTERS to emphasize the important part of my message (and that was establishing a percentage cut off). Apparently, even that did not get your attention and you never addressed the issue after that. Wasted Time R didn't know what he was saying and admitted to contradicting himself. If I had a suspicious nature, I would say you were Electiontechnology. It seems weird that he popped up so suddenly after having a history of doing almost nothing on Wikipedia. And he seems to have the same positions as you. Isn't that weird?--Tilden76 (talk) 21:03, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

No, it started before that, when you posted your message shouting at us, saying "WE NEED TO ESTABLISH A PERCENTAGE", even though that is exactly what we had done before you joined the conversation. It would certainly have been reasonable for you to say that you disagreed with what we had come up with and discussed changing the percentage. But you just stated your preference and then began changing articles to conform to your preference, as if out opinion did not matter and yours was the only one that counted.
I understand that you say you did not intend to shout, but that is exactly what you did, whether you realized it or not at the time. When you couple that with completely disregarding the opinions of others, it seems unrealistic to expect a friendly reaction. But my reply was certainly not hostile. I reviewed the history of what had gone on and gave you my perception of your actions. I expected that if you had any information to add that I was not aware of, you would do so, and that you would explain why you thought your actions were reasonable.
Given the misunderstanding about what all caps means, I will ask more explicitly: Is there some reason that you felt it was reasonable to add images to the articles without discussing it after Wasted Time R and I had both said that those images should not be included? Did I miss something?
Regarding your other comments: Your statement that Wasted Time R "didn't know what he was saying" does not seem at all reasonable to me. Was that really necessary? He discussed the issue and he changed ihis mind. What is wrong with that?
And your insinuation that I am breaking the Wikipedia rules by engaging in sockpuppetry is really over the top. It is certainly not true and there is nothing to suggest that it is. And where did you get the idea that Electiontechnology "popped up so suddenly after having a history of doing almost nothing on Wikipedia"? He has been on Wikipedia for almost 4 years and has over 2000 edits. But if you really think this is true, you should bring it to Sockpuppet investigations, although I woukd not recommend it if you value your reputation.
I think you should take the time to read WP:Talk page guidelines, WP:No personal attacks, and WP:Civility, paying particular attention to items 1a (name-calling) and 1c (accusations of impropriety). Much of what has happened here could have been avoided by following them, It also would be a good idea to read WP:Indentation.
— JPMcGrath (talk) 22:26, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Stub article?

I am having a bit of a problem watching United States presidential election in Vermont, 2008. I thought, perhaps wrongly, that this was the bottom of a long list of forked articles, from one of the smallest states. Several editors have taken this over and are "supplementing" the article, perhaps with an FA, or at least a Pulitzer in mind! IMO it is well off WP:TOPIC. Because it is not read by many people, it is fairly easy to "take it over!" Student7 (talk) 20:20, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Bob Barr presidential campaign, 2008 is a Featured Article Candidate

Please comment at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Bob Barr presidential campaign, 2008/archive2. Thank you.--William S. Saturn (talk) 22:44, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Infobox width

The infoboxes in the presidential election articles are of widely varying widths, so I am writing a script to standardize them. Some of the existing infoboxes are way too wide, and I think maybe they all are. I was wondering what others think of the widths. On the template talk page, one editor suggested a width of 239 pixels was appropriate, mainly because of mobile devices, but I think that is too thin. I was thinking more along the lines of 300-400 pixels, depending on the number of images. Comments? — JPMcGrath (talk) 12:39, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

George Washington

A Good Article review has started on George Washington. It is on hold for seven days to allow issues raised on Talk:George Washington/GA3 to be addressed. SilkTork *YES! 23:53, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

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A consideration for cross project consolidation of talk page templates

I have started a conversation here about the possibility of combining some of the United States related WikiProject Banners into {{WikiProject United States}}. If you have any comments, questions or suggestions please take a moment and let me know. --Kumioko (talk) 20:31, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Suggested policy change to the tagging of non article items

I have submitted a proposal at the Village pump regarding tagging non article items in Wikipedia. Please take a moment and let me know what you think. --Kumioko (talk) 02:13, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Nomination of Religion and politics in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign for deletion

The article Religion and politics in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign is being discussed concerning whether it is suitable for inclusion as an article according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Religion and politics in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign (2nd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:23, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:12

Up for deletion. See Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2010 December 22#WP:12. Simply south (talk) and their tree 19:53, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2010 December 23#WP:08. Simply south (talk) and their tree 12:19, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
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