Talk:2004 United States election voting controversies/Archive 5

message: Seeing as this recent absurdity about deletion has brought to light the convoluted nature of this article, we need to seriously discuss how we can make this article better, cleaner, more concise, whatever...  So please state here (hopefully in bulletform, short sentences right to the point) what needs to be done to clean this article up. --kizzle 23:40, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)
*Honestly? The first step is to write it like a newspaper article instead of a wild political rant. Use inverted pyramid style, with absolute most important info at top written objectively, less important as you go down. Then stop writing at a reasonable cut off point, like, say, 10% of the length you currently have. Ruthlessly chop out everything that doesn't fit. That's how real encyclopdias do it. DreamGuy 10:08, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)
:*How do we account for new information then? --kizzle 10:23, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)
::*The same way editors of encyclopedias, magazines, newspapers, etc. add new information: Anything you add means something less important gets taken out. It serves as a check to see if it's actually important or just new if adding it means cutting something of the same length. DreamGuy 22:11, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)
:::That's not how editors do it. They make intelligent decisions on copy length based on complexity, interest and available running space. An addition does not come at the expense of another element of the story by default. Of course the act of reconsidering one's content helps one validate its' true value to the story but it does not serve in the simplistic way you describe. And this article doesn't read as a 'wild political rant' to an editor or reader unless one has a deep political bias against it. I do agree that generally, reduction is the right approach in this instance, but informed reduction, not bias. -- RyanFreisling @ 02:27, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleanup Preliminary Discussion

message: With all of this alleged dependence on weblogs, & unverifiable internet sources (I'm using weasel words here because I haven't taken the time to trace every source quoted in the article), why hasn't anyone bothered to quote or cite Greg Palast, an investigative reporter who writes for the BBC & the Guardian? AFAIK, he's the prime source for material on this topic -- & I remember hearing him on Air America Radio not only set forth the evidence for incidents in both states on 3 November, but he also claimed that there were irregularities in New Mexico that were suppressed by the "So-Called Liberal Media". Some of his writings can be found on his website. -- llywrch 18:07, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Good info, it should be added.  We've gotten bogged down just trying to keep the page alive.  There was a systematic effort to damage and delay improvement of the page by people uniterested in debate through: removing links to the page, listing images for deletion, claiming parts/all of it violate wikipedia policy but not debating detailed counter arguements (acting unilaterally in the belief the page is "all wrong"), listing custom header for deletion, vandalism attacks, revert wars and the VfD which is hopefully the last trick in the people that are against the article's bag.  Not to mention the more standard: lengthy talk page discussions, added text POV [in both direction] problems, structure and organizational disagreements, title disagreement and changes, etc. Zen Master 18:22, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Greg Palast]] Info

message: We should add this info but I am not certain how and where.  Basically an electronic vote machine company gave 4 years free to Reno Nevada just prior to the election in August: http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/11/con04490.html
Zen Master 10:17, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sequoia Gives Away E Vote Machines in Swing State 

message: I've scraped a list of sources from here , and it currently resides at User:RyanFreisling/SourceDigest. Take a look! -- RyanFreisling @ 02:52, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Digest of News Sources

message: Removed Diebold’s election-systems division is run by a registered Democrat" and source URL , which points to an article on Diebold's site  which merely repeats the statement without naming the Democrat. if this passage refers to Radke, it can be re-insered and edited properly. Source? -- RyanFreisling @ 05:13, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Diebold's Registered Democrat

message: *Overzealous reading list. 
*News, news news...  
:I don't see a problem with putting news sources like the reading list in the article. They contain lists of articles from verified sources. I'd say add them to the in the news section, or the 'other' section (since it's a digest). Thoughts? -- RyanFreisling @ 23:24, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: still more info

message: Here is a brand new (Nov 17th) analysis of Univ of Penn Professor Steven Freeman's paper The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy, where the Professor had claimed, among other things, that the odds against unusual "anomalies" in three key states -- Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio -- "are 250 million to one".
While the analysis finds much to fault in Freeman's paper, it does admit that, "If NEP were to provide the the actual [probability of exit poll sampling error]... the real odds that this happened by chance alone are still probably at least 1,000,000 to 1. In a business where we are typically "certain" when there is a 5% chance of an error (e.g. 1 in 20), one in a million is still pretty darn certain" noosphere 05:16, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC)
:It  makes other points too, lets not overlook them either. FT2 06:28, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)
::Sure.  I just isolated that particular quote because it addresses the most important point Freeman makes (the one cited in the Introduction of our wiki article).  I have no objection if more of the analysis is pulled out in to the wiki article, except that I personally try to err on the side of brevity (with a citation, of course, so that those interested in more information can go to the source themselves). noosphere 06:38, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC)
There's a new version of Freeman's paper available. I've updated the article to reflect the new findings and text. However I deleted an out-of-date chart and didn't update it, because what I've read of Wikipedia policies suggests that copyright issues don't allow its inclusion. But I'm fairly new at this, so I won't be offended if anyone disagrees. Avenue 13:15, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Analysis of Professor Steven F Freeman's Paper

message: ===Statistics for exit poll/actual result discrepencies===
The article tries to point out that the discrepancies between exit polls and actual results were greater at e-voting places, but the cited reference  does not give a mathematical calculation of this (1 in 50,000 refers to the chance that Bush did better than exit-polls preedicted over-all). Does anyone have a reference for the e-voting discrepancies? If not, it could be fairly easy to calculate given the raw data (by performing a chi-squared test or similar - I assume that someone, somewhere, has done this). The article says that the discrepancies at e-voting booths are significantly greater, but this is a precise statistical term and should be backed up with numbers.  — Asbestos | Talk 23:23, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion of article layout/organization

message: The article tries to point out that the discrepancies between exit polls and actual results were greater at e-voting places, but the cited reference  does not give a mathematical calculation of this (1 in 50,000 refers to the chance that Bush did better than exit-polls preedicted over-all). Does anyone have a reference for the e-voting discrepancies? If not, it could be fairly easy to calculate given the raw data (by performing a chi-squared test or similar - I assume that someone, somewhere, has done this). The article says that the discrepancies at e-voting booths are significantly greater, but this is a precise statistical term and should be backed up with numbers.  — Asbestos | Talk 23:23, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Statistics for exit poll/actual result discrepencies

message: A new VfD has been added, as well as another not-NPOV tag. What gives? Was one attempt to delete this article and mark it as not NPOV enough? Can the 'other side' (whatever that means) actually contribute TO the article, rather than attempt to delete or suppress it? 
The neutrality tag points here, but those who have marked it so have not commented here. Make your opinions and thoughts known, and put them under discussion, or those tags are coming off. -- RyanFreisling @ 17:05, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: In particular, I'd like (duh :-) to call folks' attention to my modets proposal concerning the whole VfD issue. Baylink 23:34, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Another VfD