Talk:2023 Warrandyte state by-election

Maya Tesa

The following text was removed by user J2m5:

Liberal Democrats member who most recently contested the 2023 Aston by-election as an "Independent Libertarian" (with support from the Liberal Democrats and their members).

Before that, she was as a candidate for the North-Eastern Metropolitan Region in the Victorian State Election 2022 (running for Liberal Democrats party).

Even earlier, she was also a candidate for Jagajaga in the 2022 Federal Election (as part of the Liberal Democrats party).

She has been an advocate against Vaccine Mandates, a supporter of controversial politician Moira Deeming, and a supporter of the "No" Vote in the 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum.

If this is incompliant with a Wikipedia policy in some way, I am happy to be educated, but unlike party candidates, it is hard to find background information on independent candidates.

Especially in this particular case where this candidate is attempting to pivot away from a previous brand despite still holding almost the exactly the same views and is still very much associated with the previous, most recently being a "Libertarian Community Advocate" speaker at the "2023 Liberty Gala" event held very recently - 1st July 2023 .

I am not making a judgement about her views one way or the other, only that she has them, and the people have a right to know and make their own decisions - Some will like them, and some won't. Of course, if she no longer holds these views, she is free to make further statements about it rather than suppressing it. Fazwazzle (talk) 20:49, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

@Fazwazzle: Hi there, the candidates table on these pages generally only have one line describing each candidate in compliance with WP:UNDUEWEIGHT. As one example, we have not listed which side each candidate supports in the referendum for other candidates, so writing such a thing for this one candidate would be giving WP:UNDUEWEIGHT. If there has been media coverage (secondary sources only) of Tesa in relation to this by-election then that would be good to pop down as a subheading similar to how "Liberal" and "Independent" are listed. Sorry I didn't see this until now - in order to ping another user, you can use Template:Re. J2m5 (talk) 08:53, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

References

Biased coverage

The infobox for the election was highlighting the presence of 3 parties, despite the fact that there were 6 candidates last time, and one of the highlighted parties (Labor) hasn't even nominated a candidate!

Parties spend tens of thousands of dollars on signage that says little more than "We exist. Here is our candidate. This is their name", and here is Wikipedia, an impartial observer, giving selective coverage to three parties. Considering the election hasn't even happened yet, and the results are not in, there is no justification for choosing any particular 3 parties as deserving more attention.

Unbiasing the coverage of election is consistent with a Wikipedia-wide proposal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Candidates_and_elections#Bias_in_summaries_and_infoboxes Owen214 (talk) 00:59, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

@Owen214: The parties chosen are based on last election's results. Although I agree that it is not ideal and I would like to see a wider discussion on this with respect to general policy. J2m5 (talk) 00:01, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

It appears that parties are being chosen ad-hoc, with policies being imagined and cited as needed. In the history of this page for instance, @Devonian Wombat claims that the biased approach was the "policy for Australian by-elections". Where is the policy written?

I have a pending proposal to formalise matters − if you have a preferred way of doing things, feel free to join the debate there and discuss it formally instead of breaking Wikipedia's rules about edit wars and biased coverage. Owen214 (talk) 05:31, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Owen214, to be quite frank I do not see how your proposed change would do anything other than destroy the usefulness of election infoboxes. Your proposal for equal attention given to all parties is a clear violation of the WP:UNDUEWEIGHT policy, as it gives undue attention to micro-parties that are of no political relevance. Devonian Wombat (talk) 06:02, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

I'd tend to agree, the infobox needs to be streamlined for ease of use for users. J2m5 (talk) 09:37, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

If you think the average user is too stupid to understand more than one set of numbers the only correct course of action is to shut down this encyclopedia as a failure. Devonian Wombat (talk) 23:34, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Well your points are more relevant for the Wikipedia-wide discussion (feel free to contribute!), not for the Warrandyte by-election. But in terms of giving undue weight to "micro-parties", the election hasn't even happened yet. You're predicting the future to justify biased omissions of facts in the article.

Why can articles about wars manage to list micro-contributors, but for articles about elections, this is impossible? Owen214 (talk) 07:12, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

(a party would not be considered a "micro-party", undeserving of even being acknowledged to exist, if they win the seat of Warrandyte) Owen214 (talk) 07:23, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Because war articles are written with a political-historical encyclopaedic tone - whereas election articles are written with an current-affairs encyclopaedic tone. Whereas Qatari support for the transitional government in the Syrian civil war is of interest to the average reader of Wikipedia, the fact that Kevin Young got less than 1% of the vote in the Fadden by-election is not. Infoboxes are for a summary of information, not trivia. If candidates get a large chunk of the vote then they deserve to be in the infobox. J2m5 (talk) 09:17, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Luxembourg can't have provided more than 1% of the troops for the Korean War, yet it makes it into the info box. Your argument doesn't stack up. Wikipedia is meant to be an unbiased encyclopedia, not a flash-briefing news site. Owen214 (talk) 05:11, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Because war articles are written with a political-historical encyclopaedic tone - whereas election articles are written with an current-affairs encyclopaedic tone. Whereas Qatari support for the transitional government in the Syrian civil war is of interest to the average reader of Wikipedia, the fact that Kevin Young got less than 1% of the vote in the Fadden by-election is not. Infoboxes are for a summary of information, not trivia. J2m5 (talk) 05:18, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

I see you are again raising this total non-issue. The "Wikipedia-wide proposal" you speak of is nothing but your own suggestion that went totally ignored (perhaps because most editors can see that it's not an issue and not worth their time to continually explain why). Asides from the numerous explanations I've already given you elsewhere, I have to agree with Devonian Wombat. Asides from defeating the point of an infobox (being a summary of the significant parts of the article), you're also assuming readers are a lot more stupid than they actually are, and you're giving undue weight to small and fringe groups. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 05:24, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

The election has not happened − each party is just as relevant as each other. Your explanations boil down to the fact that you feel entitled to predict the future and enforce a self-fulfilling bias to the zeitgeist: "this candidate is not going to win, so let's write as though they don't even exist". People looking for information absorb this bias that they don't exist, then they don't vote for the candidate, and you get to say "see, I was right that they wouldn't win."

Why do politicians go to such lengths to court the Murdoch family? Why do parties spend such sums on advertising that just says "Bob is the candidate for the Red Party", if the visibility of candidates is apparently a non-issue?

Yes, preventing infoboxes from having bias would undermine their ability to provide information quickly, but Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a news site.

I've followed the procedures, by making the Wikipedia-wide proposal. Your framing of it as "nothing but your own suggestion" is again channeling the idea that things must arbitrarily remain the way they are; and that the status quo has some sort of inherent right to be treated as correct and valid. Your arguments have no more depth than the tautological "the way it was is the way it always was"; or your inclinations to throwing names at me and the various "fringe parties" you dislike. Please provide some real logic and respond by the appropriate mechanism − the Wikipedia-wide discussion, not the comment box for your edit war. Owen214 (talk) 05:07, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

The election has not happened − each party is just as relevant as each other. Clearly not true. We know, as a matter of common sense, that some parties are more likely to win than others.

Your explanations boil down to the fact that you feel entitled to predict the future and enforce a self-fulfilling bias to the zeitgeist: "this candidate is not going to win, so let's write as though they don't even exist". People looking for information absorb this bias that they don't exist, then they don't vote for the candidate, and you get to say "see, I was right that they wouldn't win." This is one of the most absurd claims I've ever seen in my time on Wikipedia, and the internet in general. My explanations boil down to the fact that infoboxes are a summary of the most significant parts of an article, an explanation you seem to have difficulty comprehending. The article is not solely composed of the infobox: there is plenty of coverage of other candidates in the body of the article, including discussions of nominations, campaigning, and a full breakdown of the results. How you can possibly think Wikipedia infoboxes have an impact on the final vote is absolutely baffling and bordering on the absurd. Minor candidates were failing to get votes long before Wikipedia existed. Elections held without infoboxes in their articles (or without an article until after the election) don't observe a higher minor party vote than elections with articles and infoboxes. There's absolutely no correlation between the two, let alone a causal link. I cannot understand your motivation for persistently making such an obviously false claim.

Why do politicians go to such lengths to court the Murdoch family? Because they have a readership of about 16.15 million Australians every single month ([1]). In the last 30 days, this article reached just over 4000 ([2]).

Why do parties spend such sums on advertising that just says "Bob is the candidate for the Red Party", if the visibility of candidates is apparently a non-issue? There is no equivalence between parties campaigning for a seat and the Wikipedia article on the election in question, and your argument might be a bit stronger if you stopped insisting there was.

Yes, preventing infoboxes from having bias would undermine their ability to provide information quickly, but Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a news site. What? Plenty of modern print encyclopaedias have included infobox equivalent structures. Don't pretend it's some binary choice between having summary infoboxes and providing detailed information. We can and do provide both.

I've followed the procedures, by making the Wikipedia-wide proposal. Yes, you were right to do that, but that does not change the fact that it was completely ignored. It remains just your suggestion and has not been accepted by the editing community at large. You do not get to unilaterally change existing practice.

Your framing of it as "nothing but your own suggestion" is again channeling the idea that things must arbitrarily remain the way they are To the contrary, I've provided plenty of reasons as to why the status quo is far preferable to your suggestion, you've just chosen to reject them in favour of this strange idea that Wikipedia articles can determine the outcome of an election.

and that the status quo has some sort of inherent right to be treated as correct and valid. Not really. I haven't said the status quo has an "inherent right" to continue, I've given an explanation for why the status quo exists and why it's far better than your suggestion.

Your arguments have no more depth than the tautological "the way it was is the way it always was" Literally never made an argument like this in this discussion or our previous one. Maybe you're confusing me with a different editor?

or your inclinations to throwing names at me and the various "fringe parties" you dislike You are making things up now. I've never called you any names, and given our discussions are all recorded in page histories, you should avoid making allegations that are easily checkable. "Fringe parties" is the correct term for many minor parties – and I've never said I dislike them. I vote for and support some of these minor parties myself, which should serve as a reminder to you to avoid misrepresenting other editors' intentions.

and respond by the appropriate mechanism − the Wikipedia-wide discussion I am not obligated to engage with your proposal at the WikiProject. It is appropriate for me to respond wherever relevant, in this case, here.

not the comment box for your edit war. Very funny, but as page history shows, you were the one to make the disputed edits and it's on you to justify why your bold change should stand. At the moment, you don't have any backing for it. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 09:20, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

We don't really need to hypothesise about what other encyclopedias do: Wikipedia explicitly defines itself as "not a newspaper or online news site."

Sure the Murdochs have more reach than Wikipedia, but the point still stands: is our current, rebelliously reverted version of the article any better than the sort of press that would be published in the Herald Sun, changing the result of elections thanks to the way it reports on them? You keep claiming that the Wikipedia article somehow doesn't affect reality, that it exists in a parallel universe and has no influence on what it discusses. My claim is that Wikipedia is part of the real world and that probably every journalist reporting on the election has looked at this page. Bias starts here, then propagates throughout the zeitgeist, and voters don't even hear about various parties existing, let alone what their policies are. Hand-waving it away, that it can't be that bad, is just fundamentally a poor argument.

What would happen if the electoral commission explicitly said "these are the top 3 candidates who are probably going to win"? Why don't they do this, and save time for everyone who's visiting their site? A quick page is a good page right? They're an impartial observer, but this wouldn't actually change the result would it? What if they went one step further and cut out the "top 3"? Just "here are the candidates for the election. All 3 of them, including the party who hasn't nominated a candidate."

What I've proposed is a small, easy step in the right direction, to fulfill Wikipedia's explicit goal of presenting information with a neutral point of view. I tried to do it right, and a bunch of people are blocking me for the sake of the good old ways. The good old ways are the Dark Ages. Owen214 (talk) 08:13, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

We don't really need to hypothesise about what other encyclopedias do: Wikipedia explicitly defines itself as "not a newspaper or online news site." Exactly my point? You tried to suggest it's unencyclopaedic to have summaries in articles, but plenty of encyclopaedias do that, and so does Wikipedia.

Sure the Murdochs have more reach than Wikipedia, but the point still stands: is our current, rebelliously reverted version of the article any better than the sort of press that would be published in the Herald Sun It's not comparable because it's not press, it's an encylopaedia article.

changing the result of elections thanks to the way it reports on them? You have no plausible mechanism to explain how Wikipedia changes the results of elections. It's fairly obvious that it doesn't.

You keep claiming that the Wikipedia article somehow doesn't affect reality, that it exists in a parallel universe and has no influence on what it discusses. Again, you are inventing things. I never suggested Wikipedia is a seperate world, I stated the obvious when I said it does not determine the outcomes of elections.

My claim is that Wikipedia is part of the real world How insightful.

and that probably every journalist reporting on the election has looked at this page. Your point being? It sounds like you have a complaint with journalistic standards in the country and wish to use Wikipedia as a vehicle to correct it.

Bias starts here, then propagates throughout the zeitgeist Again, you haven't really given a mechanism for how this happens. There also doesn't seem to be a logical end to what could fall within the scope of your complaints: you've removed historical election data and TPP results, and demanded we remove infobox summaries of past elections, even though all this information is the result of past elections. If these also propagate bias, where does it end?

voters don't even hear about various parties existing, let alone what their policies are Again sounds like you're unhappy with external issue, in this case, civic engagement in Australia. But Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not a vehicle to promote political diversity.

Hand-waving it away, that it can't be that bad, is just fundamentally a poor argument. It's objectively not that bad. Real-world results tell us this. If any of your claims were true, and Wikipedia did actually propagate bias and uphold the major parties' advantages, then we would see increasing swings to major parties and away from minor parties. Yet recent elections show the exact opposite. So not only do you have no causal mechanism to connect Wikipedia "bias" with election results, you don't even have correlation.

What would happen if the electoral commission explicitly said "these are the top 3 candidates who are probably going to win"? Why don't they do this, and save time for everyone who's visiting their site? Not sure what the point of this comparison is. Wikipedia doesn't conduct Australian elections.

What I've proposed is a small, easy step in the right direction What you've proposed is a step towards making encyclopaedic articles less useful for people looking for encyclopaedic coverage.

to fulfill Wikipedia's explicit goal of presenting information with a neutral point of view. Again, summaries aren't biased. If you were proposing a more formal selection criteria for who we display in an infobox pre-election, then I would probably agree it's worth discussing how we choose who to display. That's vaguely defined and you could make a reasonable complaint about neutrality in a limited set of case. But you didn't limit yourself to that issue, you've extended it backwards to cover elections already conducted.

I tried to do it right, and a bunch of people are blocking me for the sake of the good old ways. The good old ways are the Dark Ages. A bit dramatic. People are blocking you because they do not agree, and you cannot unilaterally impose your views on the editing community. You have failed to gain any consensus for the changes you seek, and you don't seem to be gaining any momentum. Perhaps it is time to bring the crusade to an end? 5225_C (talk • contributions) 04:04, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Removing unrelated results

I struggle to see why the results from a previous election should be included before the actual candidates here. In fact, why are the previous election results included at all? There will still be a link to that previous election. It seems that the desire for some sort of winner and ranking is so strong that we're including just anything, no matter how irrelevant and no matter how much it biases the upcoming election.

Revealing the popularity of each previous candidate will encourage voters to pick candidates who were previously popular. Owen214 (talk) 11:36, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Do not alter content for Maya Tesa

Content for Maya Tesa is being targeted and deleted. Content will be monitored from this point and persons deleting or modifying this candidates information and image will be reported.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by JJMOON59 (talk • contribs) 09:42, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

@JJMOON59: Presently, the section for Maya Tesa is worded like an advertisement. No other candidate description is like that. The fact that you describe it as "content" tells all, in my view. J2m5 (talk) 11:14, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 8 August 2023

Party ! Candidate ! Background JJMOON59 (talk) 22:13, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Cannolis (talk) 02:22, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

I've never done an X-Y edit. Do I do the edit then copy all page code or just an entire section or the one line? Sorry to ask - I just want to do it right. Thanks. JJMOON59 (talk) 02:50, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

see WP:EDITXY, which gives instructions and also links to Wikipedia:Sample edit requests, which will provide some examples. Cannolis (talk) 03:52, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. JJMOON59 (talk) 03:54, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

More candidates per VEC to add

@Marcnut1996 @User:Totallynotarandomalt69 @User:Devonian Wombat @User:Jjamesryan

Please check https://www.vec.vic.gov.au/voting/warrandyte-district-by-election/find-candidates Nominations close today, so by tomorrow the list should be up to date

In particular, new candidates to add are Philip Jenkins. I can't find much info about him. Possible the same guy who ran for Ivanhoe in 2022 for Labor DLP party.

There is also going to be a Ballot order draw tomorrow, so it will need updating again when that becomes known.

Update: I think that nominations closed at 12 noon, and the current order is after the ballot has been drawn. So in fact the order can now be changed and Mr Snake Catcher can be moved into the 'Independents' section because he did not nominate

Morgan Ranieri can also be updated to reflect his background of being an Entrepreneur of a food delivery business or something like that.

Slashback88 (talk) 04:09, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 10 August 2023

Two requests please.

1. For Independent candidate Wai Man Raymond Chow add a Wikilink on "Sameway" to "Sameway_Magazine"

2. For Family First candidate Richard Griffith-Jones, add First=Shannon and Last=Deery to the reference to the story "Warrandyte by-election candidate Richard Griffith-Jones vows to ban drag storytime if elected" (currently #17)

Thank you. Mikey Bear (talk) 12:19, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

 Done ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 22:20, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 16 August 2023

Add photo of Independent Maya Tesa which will display to the right of Greens candidate Tomas Lightbody photo. For full transparency I was requested by the campaign team to request the addition of the photo and instructed to request the photo only and no other changes. Suggested code below: LizTasticVibe (talk) 03:53, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

There is no reason why Tesa should be in the infobox. No media coverage suggests that she will make it to the 2CP count or attain a large vote share. If she does get such a vote share after the election, that would be the time to include her in the infobox. Generally candidates that get >10% primary are put in the infobox. See WP:CRYSTALBALL. J2m5 (talk) 13:23, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: See comment from User:J2m5. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 21:12, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 19 August 2023

Please make the following change to the article in "Other":

−

The Conservative Party, an unregistered party, are seeking to run an independent candidate.

+

The Conservative Party, an unregistered party, were seeking to run an independent candidate.

In the reference for that line add "publisher=The Conservative Party". Thank you. Mikey Bear (talk) 07:17, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

 Done casualdejekyll 23:41, 19 August 2023 (UTC)