Talk:2011 Russian legislative election

Russian legislative election, 2011

I've just read the article about the 2007 Russian legislative election. I'm now wondering whether we really need to wait until the 2011 election takes place in December - it sounds to me as if we could probably write the results section of the article already. Twilde (talk) 00:15, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

How to gather votes for United Russia

I guess this article from gazeta.ru could be usefull here [1].

Internet satire

Should this be mentioned anywhere in the article? --Veyneru (talk) 18:12, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

False infobox inscription

In the infobox there is a false inscription. In the infobox stands: "Majority party: United Russia, Minority party: Communist, Third party: A Just Russia, Fourth party: Liberal Democratic". The correct inscription should say: "First party: United Russia, Second party: Communist, Third party: A Just Russia, Fourth party: Liberal Democratic". In proportional vote electorial systems the first ranked party is not always the majority party, because in most cases the party will have less than 50% of the votes or less than 50% of the seats. Also all second, third and fourth ranked parties are minority parties not only the the second ranked.--MBelzer (talk) 09:53, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Dubious photo

Regarding [2]:

1. Is having a poster on 4 Dec really forbidden? The poster was placed long before election day - does one really need to take all of them down on 4 Dec? Does one also have to remove advertisements from magazines that have been published before 4 Dec? I don't think so. Please provide a reliable source saying that this poster was a violation.
2. Was the photograph really taken on 4 Dec? If we only the photographer's claim that it was taken on 4 Dec, that's original research. Nanobear (talk) 14:07, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Party leader?

There appears to be an inconsistency as to the United Russia party leader in the info box and the article's parties table. The United Russia article states Putin is the party leader. Can someone knowledgable please correct the inconsistency? Wikipeterproject (talk) 14:43, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Similarly, the infobox has Sergey Mironov as leader of the A Just Russia party, whereas the article on the party (and the text in this article) states that Nikolai Levichev is the party leader. Did the change take place following the election or is this an error? siafu (talk) 15:20, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

There is a difference between party chairman and party leader in the elections (i.e. the first name on the party's national list). For example, Putin is chairman of United Russia, but Medvedev led United Russia's national list in the elections. Nanobear (talk) 17:46, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

All three places use the term "leader". The infobox on the right in this article lists Mironov as "leader", and the table in the Political Parties section in this same article lists Levichev as "leader", and Mironov as being first in the party list. This needs to be clarified. siafu (talk) 18:35, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

If we count in the infobox list leaders, there is no reason to write since when they are leaders of parties (and Medvedev and Mironov are not ones); if we count leaders of parties - Putin and Levichev should be instead of Medvedev and Mironov, with Putin not being a candidate and Levichev not being No. 1. Fuseau (talk) 19:58, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia as a propaganda tool

I see nothing has changed since I first started editing here a few years ago. Why is it that this article reflects nothing other than the anti-Putin foreign policy attitude of our westeren governments and corporate run media? What ever happened to neutrality? It's sort of funny how United Russia performed notably worse than all previous polling had suggested they would, and yet people still claim fraud (Hillary Clinton is certainly an authority on Russian election legitimacy and there's obviously no political motivation going on there). I know I'm not the only one to notice the irony, although it would appear that way after reading this sad excuse for an article. LokiiT (talk) 23:29, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Are you saying that, just because pre-election opinion polls were mostly consistent with election results, we should ignore countless reports of fraud, ballot stuffing and outright protocol falsification? Personally, I have no opinion about Putin or United Russia, I don't pay attention to Russian politics any more, but I looked at low-level election results and they scream massive fraud to me. This is my favorite. United Russia vote share by polling station, in a homogeneous neighborhood in Moscow: [3] (I've checked the numbers against the official web site, they are correct.) What's wrong with this picture?

All independent sources universally agree that United Russia got no more than 30% in Moscow, but its share was inflated to 46% via fraudulent means. Why else do you think people are protesting? --Itinerant1 (talk) 01:02, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

No, I'm not saying we should ignore anything that's been widely reported on the election. I'm saying the article should be more neutral. As for your image, I'm not an expert on election rigging and really don't know what is a normal or abnormal result. That said, ask yourself a simple question: If there were enough fraud going on to notably alter the results, how did United Russia end up with significantly less support than all previous polling would suggest? It simply makes no sense. Also, as for your claim about 'all independent sources agreeing', source please. LokiiT (talk) 01:24, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

One should first prove that that neighborhood is homogeneous. Judging by a number of polling stations there, there is a huge population, and it is quite often that social level and political tastes of inhabitants of one story building in Moscow is totally different from a neighbouring house (e.g. one house is populated by military pensioners whose pensions have been recently multiplied at least 1.5 times by the ruling party, in another one there are too many flats populated by people from the Caucasus generally voting for the UR, another house owned by community of its inhabitants, and yet one more owned by the state and stood without repair works for a long time, so the inhabitants are against the government, etc.). it is widely known that there is a high social inequality in Russia, high ethnic differences, and the elections just reflect that. GreyHood ^Talk 01:26, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not have to prove anything. Actually, where it comes to controversial topics, Wikipedia is not concerned with The Truth, but with what sources deemed reliable are publishing. --hydrox (talk) 08:35, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

How many millions of people in Russia? A angry group totaling 8,000 people can out-speak the voice of millions? Wikipedia, and Western media in general, is full of shit. I can get you 16,000 Americans who think Obama is a lying fraud. Does that make it so? Fucking hypocrites.

This is quite correct. In this situation, the correct action is to publish all relevant, credibly sourced information. There are massive amounts of relevant information in blogs. Their acceptability is a complex issue. But, at the very least, editors should not be engaged in removing information from universally accepted, commercial sources. Doing so borders on censorship.--Itinerant1 (talk) 14:41, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

On the subject of specific numbers in this specific neighborhood. We are talking about an area where each polling station has over 2000 registered voters, or 5+ large multi-story buildings. It may just happen to be that some buildings are populated by people who vote 90% for United Russia, and others are populated by people who vote 25% for UR and 75% for everyone else. It seems very improbable, but let's say I buy it. In 3 of these 50-ish precincts, voters are so careful and accurate that the vote does not result in any invalid ballots at all (the average among all precincts is 30 invalid ballots). That's starting to stretch my credulity. Finally, let's mention that, in these three, the share of United Russia is 92%, 94%, and 89%...--Itinerant1 (talk) 14:56, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

If they faked the election, they didn't do a very good job. If you're fabricating results, you would probably want to fabricate them in a way that doesn't result in massive losses for your party. Besides, if United Russia really did win only 20% or so of the vote, the excess votes would mostly go to the Communists and far right LDP, parties with even worse authoritarian tendencies. The only real alternative would be A Fair Russia, who only got 13% of the vote. Most of the highly liberal parties don't even get enough votes to be represented in parliament (even if the election results were faked, I don't see why Yabloko would be selectively suppressed to a greater extent than other parties, so you can really only assume that, no matter what, they're far less popular than the Communists). I don't know about you, but I would really hope that the elections weren't fabricated, and that Russia didn't give the Communists and the far-right 40 or 50 percent of the vote. Westerners often seem to cry "fake election!" when they simply don't like the results, apparently reasoning that no truly democratic election would agree with their ideology. Well, the Germans democratically elected Hitler. United Russia really pales in comparison. And westerners, showing little besides their intense parochialism, seem to be complaining that UR, which they kind of dislike, was elected rather than a shamelessly neo-Stalinist Communist party that's worse in every imaginable way.71.12.226.62 (talk) 03:10, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Medvedev as President/MP

If Medvedev was the first candidate on the United Russia list, he has now been elected as MP. Will that mean he'll be leaving his post as President? Surely he can't serve as both MP and President at the same time? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.110.9.153 (talk) 01:09, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

POV

The article as it stands now does not maintain a neutral POV, in that it is given an over-emphasis on anti-government protests by a number of people in MOW and LED, whilst ignoring pro-government protests, which have received as much press, and is basically skirted over in this article. Do not remove the POV tag until such time as there is equal balance in relation to the protests.

Additionally, the lead of the article covers negative info from states such as the US, but exclude information from Russia itself -- which if editors looked, they would see there is a heap of information, both pro- and anti-ER out there in relation, and it makes no sense to me that a soundbyte from Clinton (via the US) is deemed important enough to be in the lead, yet information relating to statements by Medvedev, Putin and other actual Russian political players is all but ommitted. This is another thing which needs to be fixed before the tag is removed. Y u no be Russavia ^{ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)} 04:32, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

• "pro-government protesters" were paid for. English-language media indeed tend to critisize Russian government just in sake of it being Russian government, but it's just not the case here. 178.177.202.33 (talk) 08:02, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
  • "Anti-government protesters", or at least some of the main organisers, were paid for as well. GreyHood ^Talk 13:00, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

    No.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:11, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

    • In case of some organizers it is known for sure. Many people of course, participate in the protests honestly, but the same could be said regarding many "pro-government protesters". GreyHood ^Talk 15:55, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Source? a13ean (talk) 16:49, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Alexey Navalny, for example, receives money for his particular actions from anti-Kremlin politologist Stanislav Belkovsky, as was proven by hacking Navalny's e-mail by one of the top Russian hackers [4]. Overall, the U. S. Department of State openly states it has given $9 million to non-governmental organizations in Russia [5], such as a controversial GOLOS Association, responsible for the escalation of the situation. GreyHood ^Talk 17:18, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

There are no evidences that Navalny or GOLOS Association responsible for the escalation of situation. It should be stressed that people protest first of all not against the government but against the evidently unfair elections. People do not need to receive money for this. --Kdn1982 20:04, 8 December 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kdn1982 (talk • contribs)

I believe that by now the opinions and the information on different aspects of the event are relatively balanced in the lead and elsewhere. Both protests and counter protests are mentioned. So I remove the tags for now. GreyHood ^Talk 19:17, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

"The overall results were not challenged in court by any party which participated in the election" needs a ref, otherwise it should just not be mentioned. Is there some lawsuit from a party which boycotted the elections? Also the quote from PACE seems somewhat confusing as "but were marked by a convergence of the State and the governing party" is not clear without context, I will try to rework this later. Another thing that could be improved is replacing russian-language citations with english ones when easily available -- for example Putin's rejoinder to Clinton has been well-covered internationally.

Also, please leave the tags up for now since there are apparently ongoing complaints. a13ean (talk) 19:40, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Deletions

• I see that Greyhood is deleting lots of sourced information, while making very strange claims as to the reasons for doing so. Here he removes info about Gorbachev, saying inexplicably that "Gorbachev is not in any official position to place his criticism on par with the top politicians in other countries; he is a marginal opposition politician in Russia with dismal ratings". Well, firstly Gorbachev didn't place his criticism on a par with other politicians, the BBC did. As for being 'marginal' with 'dismal ratings' in Russia, that is of little bearing. Should we ignore opposition views??? Moreover, he's respected in most countries around the world (especially those with a free press) and is notable (amongst other things, for introducing democracy to Russia!). For the BBC to devote an article entitled Russia protests: Gorbachev calls for election re-run surely shows this. The notability of his comments is hard to argue with. This is just one deletion by Greyhood that worries me, there are many more.
• For example, here he deletes info by saying: "non-Gaussian distributions are chatacteristic to many countries, such as Brazil and Israel, the sentence is misleading readers on "irregularity" of this data; the source doesn't claim it is necessarily fraud, just peculiarity". Well, where is your proof regarding Brazil and Israel (though it's not too relevant)? Are we just to take your word for it? And the original text in the article said "possibly indicative of ballot stuffing" (my bolding). That "possibly" surely covers the fact that the source isn't sure it's "necessarily fraud". That the source's title is "Истина в цифрах: Как математики ищут следы фальсификаций на выборах" - "Truth in numbers: How mathematicians seek traces of fraud in elections" shows that the text that was deleted was hardly twisting the source's gist.
• There are other spurious edit summaries for deletions, too many to list with the time I have now. Are there any other opinions on this matter? One editor deleting on the scale s/he is (with what seems to me so little justification) shouldn't dictate quite so much on Wikipedia, in my humble view. Malick78 (talk) 21:59, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

The first two things you mentioned are clearly both notable -- someone else has restored the bit about Gorbachev and I have restored the Lenta article. As someone else has pointed out earlier, the Gorbachev thin is notable imply because it has received a ton of press. The data presented in the second one gives a very strong indication that something artificial is going on, but as the article says, it's not really possible to say what. Greyhood, I would be very curious to know what you mean by the "Brazil and Israel" comment, and do you have some sort of reference or data to back this up? a13ean (talk) 22:14, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I fully agree with you. If a former well-known leader of a country is quoted by the media all around the world it's surely notable. Unfortunately it's not just in this article such deletions are being made. Närking (talk) 22:20, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

If there are serious arguments against my actions and edit summaries I'm ready to discuss them.

• The Russian article about statistical analysis makes it very clear, that there might be various explanations of such statistics, and the heading might be just a sensationalized one, as often done by journalists. As for the distributions in other countries, there must be relevant studies on that which I've read once, I'll search for them.
• As for the Gorbachev, I'm not against inclusion of his views in principle, but placing them alongside the views of top politicians and political bodies looks misleading. GreyHood ^Talk 22:29, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

• I can't do more at the moment than to link to my own exchanges with user Greyhood, here. The subject was a credible, major-publication blog on first-hand election monitoring (ballot-stuffing witnessed). Greyhood deleted the work wholesale and refused to discuss it qualitatively. It was just "most blogs disallowed" so "this blog is disallowed", in effect, no further policy cited. So far, I've deferred to him/r, but my patience is fraying some. Swliv (talk) 22:52, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

• Swliv, I agree whole-heartedly with you. The blog is published by the New Yorker, and is by a frequent contributor. If Greyhood had checked this, he'd have known. RS has nothing to do with this Greyhood. Malick78 (talk) 23:40, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
• There is a general policy, WP:Reliable sources, I hope you know about it. It says that only few types of blogs are allowed, and I'm not sure that the blog in question belongs to that part. Also, by now we have sources describing the alleged frauds en masse (such as the Forbes source), not case by case basis, and as I've already said placing the description of one particular incident might be WP:UNDUE. That's one qualitative assessment. The second one is the fact that any report about falsifications might have two different qualities: simply reported by some journalist, which doesn't tell us whether serious falsifications indeed have taken place; or reported in such a way that the results have been challenged in court and canceled (and there were such, for example here in Amur Oblast, here in Novosibirsk Oblast, and so on. Obviously, court decisions have much more weight than journalist stories. GreyHood ^Talk 23:20, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

• I'm getting a little fed up with Greyhood's spurious deletion reasons. If someone feels like reporting him for being disruptive and POV pushing, I'll support it fully. This is scandalous. Ekho Moskwy published it, but Greyhood is saying it's self-published! Malick78 (talk) 23:40, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Malick78, blogs are not acceptable as sources here. If something about the elections is important enough, you can easily find a real published and peer-reviewed article which says the same. The opinion of one journalist is not important enough. Editors often try to insert opinion pieces into articles because they happen to like that opinion. That is called POV pushing, and is not acceptable in general. Nanobear (talk) 23:49, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Here you claim that "many editors" disagree with the material. I count you and your buddy (and barnstar-giver) Greyhood. Who else equals 'many'? You say "discuss and gain consensus" but have discussed very little, and worst have all, have redeleted the Ioffe info - which is being discussed here, but not by you. Even Greyhood admits blogs can be ok. Why did you delete the Ioffe bit with no edit summary? You are edit-warring, if anyone.Malick78 (talk) 00:49, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

The issue here is not just about blogs. Greyhood keeps removing actual published articles citing Eho Moskvy, Gazeta.ru, etc. The whole "Citizen Observer" issue is telling. I made an effort to provide a reference to a respectable published source reporting these results. Greyhood proceeded to remove the whole section, questioning the credibility of "Citizen Observer" and its bias in edit notes. The correct response would have been to add information, to cite published sources accusing "Citizen Observer" of being biased (if any such sources exist).--Itinerant1 (talk) 14:29, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

The Citizen-Observer content is rather problematic, though. For a start, the word "independent" is highly misleading. It is "independent" (независимый) in the sense that an NGO is independent. It's not independent of the political battle. The person quoted, Dmitri Oreshkin, is a political figure and was a member of the Union of Right Forces (SPS) - the pro-Western economic liberal party of people like such as Yegor Gaidar, Anatoly Chubais, Boris Nemtsov etc that later merged to form Right Cause (although leading SPS members generally bailed when they realised they'd been duped into merging with a Kremlin puppet). Citizen-Observer's initial press-conference (in Novaya Gazeta here) makes it clear that "Citizen Observer" was set up specifically to attack Edinaya Rossiya. For example

«Будущие выборы – это даже не трагедия, это уже трагикомедия, – считает общественный деятель Лев Пономарев. – «Единая Россия» собирается набрать на выборах не меньше 65% голосов. Мы объединяемся для того, чтобы схватить за руки жуликов».

— "The upcoming elections are more than a tragedy, they're a tragicomedy," says social activist Lev Ponomaryov. "United Russia are preparing to get no less than 65% of the vote. We are uniting to catch these cheats.

So when they complain about Edinaya Rossiya stealing 17% of the vote, it's really a case of "they would say that, wouldn't they?" (where did that 65% come from, for example?) They're not independent in the sense that we need. I'm not denying there's clear evidence of fraud, but we shouldn't be relying on this kind of source as anything than a statement by an opposition organisation, not an independent observer. In terms of Wikipedia, I would trust their figures like I would trust Edinaya Rossiya spokespeople on the probity of the election. It might be notable as a claim, but it's not authoritative. At the moment the article treats it as authoritative.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 10:38, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Blogs as sources

As this says, "Some news outlets host interactive columns they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professional journalists or are professionals in the field on which they write and the blog is subject to the news outlet's full editorial control." The New Yorker has full control of Ioffe's articles. They may be called 'blogs', but that's not what RS really means (""Blogs" in this context refers to personal and group blogs." says RS, meaning things not published by proper news sites). Does that clarify the situation, Greyhood and Nanobear? Malick78 (talk) 23:51, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Still there is a difference between general newspaper articles and blog opinion pieces, and we always should try to use more reliable sources if we had such ones, especially if the topic is contentious. There are plenty of stories on falsifications in blogs now, and in case of this journalist blog the story is not any better in principle, except for some purely formal criteria. On other hand, we have a Forbes source writing about several cases and even presenting some evidence for them, so why do we need to focus so much on a single incident, for which we have no kind of evidence - no presented protocols, no court decisions, no higher level electoral commission decision, and no even any statistical analysis and no even any numbers. There are also such policies as WP:WEIGHT, and it is quite obvious that in such a large country as Russia there always would be falsifications or allegations in falsifications. So we must focus on the reports on multiple cases with good backing up, and not on single cases with little hard evidence. GreyHood ^Talk 00:15, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

The fact that the New Yorker calls it a 'blog' is just their stylistic choice. In essence, it's just a normal news article that happens to mention the writer more than other news articles would. That doesn't reduce it's reliability. I hope you and Nanobear will now stop deleting all such sources saying that "all blogs" are excluded from WP. As for the content, it gives a good description of what happens - bringing it to life for readers. 'Evidence' is neither here nor there - the New Yorker banner is enough to make it reliable, as per our criteria. Do you think author was lying? I see no reason to suspect it. As for Russia being big - so what? So is Canada. Russian election fraud is on another level entirely.Malick78 (talk) 00:22, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is WP:NOTNEWSPAPER and must present encyclopedic coverage, not republishing a newspaper stories of any scale. So my argument abou WP:WEIGHT stands. And obviously I was speaking about big countries by population, and we all remember scandals with the U.S. elections I hope. The articles on the United States presidential election, 2000 or the United States presidential election in Florida, 2000 might be examples for us. They use fairly neutral tone, discuss the general issues instead of minor ones, and use more reliable types of sources. GreyHood ^Talk 00:33, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

What part of WP:NOTNEWSPAPER are you referring too? You are very vague in citing WP rules. WP:NOTNEWSPAPER doesn't seem to have much bearing on this. Could you quote something? WP:WEIGHT is also strange - the things being deleted are small, yet this is the most controversial election Russia has ever had. Our coverage of fraud allegations is justified.Malick78 (talk) 00:51, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I refer to the bits Wikipedia should not offer first-hand news reports on breaking stories and Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events. While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion. The case in question is too small and very dubious from the point of enduring notability.

And you have agreed that the things contested are small, which also require the application of WP:WEIGHT. Whether the whole election is controversial, is a different question, and note that I'm not against the usage of sources that present evidence for mass-controversy, not small cases. Also, I doubt "this is the most controversial election Russia has ever had". The 1996 Russian presidential election was extremely controversial and the frauds there allegedly determined the winner (Russian wikipedia article gives many details). But since the proclaimed winner was pro-Western, and runner-up deprived of a good share of votes was Communist, the western media didn't find it suitable to cover all the controversy on a big scale. GreyHood ^Talk 12:16, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

• My patience was fraying some, I said, above. I'm impressed with and appreciative of the above exchange, both before and after I linked my own with Greyhood into it. I'm not sure I'm doing it all justice but, for my part and for now, I may be ready to let it rest. I've posted again, there. However, I've also just seen Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#2011 Russian protests re: and with Greyhood, which may draw me in again. Swliv (talk) 17:25, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Swliv, could you explain what do you want from me? What's up with your patience? I agreed in this discussion that newspaper blog sources might be used in principle (in case we haven't better sources) if confirmed to be under full editorial control, but I presented other arguments against inserting this particular case in the article.

The side discussion which you have mentioned arose because I was using latest Russian newsources, while my opponents used outdated English news and facebook. How it is related here? GreyHood ^Talk 17:33, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

• We're OK, aren't we really, sir or madame? Swliv (talk) 22:35, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Fragmented article

IMHO this article is currently quite fragmented (partly due to edit warring?) and the first section does not summarize the article well. Tikru8 (talk) 07:40, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Piped links and Orange revolution

To the best of my knowledge, Putin did not explicitly mention the orange revolution in his remarks, and I think it is inappropriate to use wikilinks to imply that he did. As a side note, I don't understand what you mean by "orange revolution technologies"? a13ean (talk) 16:52, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, I've meant colour revolution actually both in the article and in the summary. It is hard to suppose any other well-known post-election scenario here. By "orange revolution technologies", that is colour revolution technologies, I mean the attempts to use color coding among protesters: see the lead image at ru:Протесты_против_фальсификации_результатов_выборов_в_Государственную_думу_(2011) and the organization site promoting the white band, which interestingly was registered several months in advance, on Oct 09, 2011 10:50:55 AM (the date of creation of url "belayalenta.com" could be checked here: [6]). This means it was well-prepared. GreyHood ^Talk 17:19, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Forgive me for not doing the legwork, but was there a similar early preparation in the Orange Revolution? VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 17:38, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I believe there was, just as in other colour revolutions, which couldn't have been made without a serious preparation. Just read ru:Оранжевая революция#Источники финансирования оранжевой революции - the orange candidate was financed from abroad. There were many reports about preparations, see here for example (in Ukrainian: "Було підготовлено сотні пляшок з "коктейлем Молотова", складено ретельні плани центральної частини Києва, в тому числі з підземними комунікаціями. Відтак, помиляються ті, хто вважає, що Майдан можна було так просто розігнати", in Russian: немало активистов готовились к войне. Были подготовлены сотни бутылок с "коктейлем Молотова", составлен тщательные планы центральной части Киева, в том числе с подземными коммуникациями", in English "There were hundreds Molotov cocktails prepared, elaborate plans of the central parts of Kiev were made, including undeground infrastructure" - all that was done before elections). GreyHood ^Talk 18:01, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

See here, here and here for more information on the Ukrainian story. GreyHood ^Talk 18:04, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

If there is a reliable source for commentators comparing this to either the arab spring or the orange revolution feel free to include a link to it, but let's try to avoid WP:OR or WP:SYNTH by comparing it on our own to previous events. Similarly, let's try to keep our personal beliefs out of the article. a13ean (talk) 18:15, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

CIS: An observer from "abroad"?

Is it appropriate to classify the CIS Election Monitoring Organization (Миссия наблюдателей от СНГ на выборах) as a "foreign observer"? By all accounts, the Russian Federation seems to dominate the Commonwealth of Independent States. Jkrellenstein (talk) 07:53, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

But there are 9 other countries still. GreyHood ^Talk 17:09, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Alleged foriegn involvement?

This section seems way out of proportion, as it comprises almost all the information in the "Campaigning" section. Assuming that it is true, why would it be surprising that an election monitor is supported partially by USAID? Other election monitors are funded by the EU, CIS, etc. Also do reports of election violations have anything to do with campaigning? If it comes up in a less-POV source this might be worth mentioning, but as of now it's way overplayed here. a13ean (talk) 17:22, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

There are other subsections as well. We need, of course, expanding this section with more info on campaigning, yes. But the GOLOS story is notable and widely reported by various news including BBC and the like (they didn't report the end of the story, though). And by the way, why do you believe the source is POV?

As for the other monitors funded, yes, but the GOLOS was largest and it was caught in law violations (such as giving false journalist accreditations), bias and too close connection to USAID. GreyHood ^Talk 17:34, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what BBC story you are referring to -- could you please link it? A quick glance at their election coverage shows a lot of POV sounding language -- "Оппозиционеры атаковали копов в центре Москвы" and "Оппозиции не удалось сорвать выборы в столицах". I also haven't seen this angle of the GOLOS story covered elsewhere, and most of the international press still refers to it as a "independent watchdog organization". However, if you think this is a good source we can bring it up for discussion at WP:RS/N. a13ean (talk) 17:59, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Golos was mentioned in reports on the elections by BBC [7], though not the last part of the story of course. NTV (Russia) is certainly a credible source, it is very popular, it is considered most liberal among top three Russian TV channels and it was the first to report the recent meetings. And LifeNews, in fact presents the story in more neutral light than NTV. GreyHood ^Talk 18:25, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

And the NTV report says only that they were fined by the government, after a complaint by United Russia, and that some critics have alleged that they are supported by foreign governments. This is entirely unsurprising that an election monitoring organization is being criticized by a party that it reports on. a13ean (talk) 18:49, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

To call NTV liberal today surely is a POV statement. The "documentary" about Golos also included a horrible propaganda piece were they claimed that the Swedish embassy in Moscow was working with recruiting young Russians and inspiring them to start a revolution.Närking (talk) 18:57, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I put on an NPOV tag because it was hopelessly biased. No surprise there... seing the editor involved. It was completely anti-GOLOS and some of the 'facts' seem to have been taken at face value, though they seem dubious (the article by Lenta was published on the 2nd with little time for them to analyse things). I also moved it all down, since it shouldn't be the first thing in the section.Malick78 (talk) 19:01, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I've just stated NTV is most liberal among top three Russian TV channels. There are more liberal TVs in Russia of course. And Malick, please, discuss articles, arguments, sources not editors. If we all start claiming bias in others, that would not be constructive discussion. And I really do not understand how you judge that the article by Lenta was published on the 2nd with little time for them to analyse things. Plenty of other sources reported the fact that the organization was fined for violations. If Lenta considered it important to review the report, it would have done it. Also, why a report on Swedish involvement is propaganda? GreyHood ^Talk 19:17, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

It was not just a "report" but very similar to propaganda documentaries aired on Belarusian TV. Närking (talk) 22:11, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Why propaganda? Or, to put it more correctly, do you suppose that only one side in these controversies is engaged in propaganda? GreyHood ^Talk 14:30, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Have you even seen the "documentary"? Närking (talk) 15:21, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Which one? GreyHood ^Talk 20:22, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

If both sides are creating propaganda, surely you can tell Greyhood that Putin and United Russia are the least objective? You can't possibly equate the two sides. If you do, then it brings your judgement seriously into question.Malick78 (talk) 20:36, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Explain this your point more elaborately, please. GreyHood ^Talk 21:21, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Of course the infamous NTV "documentary". By the way do you also think that it's a coincidence that the Moscow schools suddenly have planned tests for the 24th of December? Närking (talk) 20:39, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I've checked it recently. The video with one of deputy directors of the organization obviously shows anti-government bias of Golos. And Golos workers don't deny working for foreign money when asked. Also, btw, they don't deny the authenticity of their correspondence with USAID. GreyHood ^Talk 21:21, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

As for the 24th December, this seems to be off-topic here. Don't know about the 24th, but there are similar regulations for 10th and 17th December, and on 17th december there are both minor oposition and non-opposion meetings planned. The very idea to remove schoolchildren from the meetings seems reasonable, especially after the 2010 events of nationalistic protests on Manezhnaya Square where many schoolchildren were arrested and some harmed by the crowd. GreyHood ^Talk 21:21, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I was talking about the "Swedish conspiracy" part of the "documentary". And your answer about the school children surely tells a lot. Närking (talk) 21:36, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

In that video, some FSB official claimed that some Swedish guy from the embassy worked for the foreign intelligence in Soviet times and attempted recruiting of agents in the USSR. Some students confirmed that instead of discussing Swedish culture on the meetings arranged by the embassy they were engaged in discussing democracy in Russia, something that they were not expecting and were not warned about when they first came to those meetings. Looks like a recruiting of activists. Whether all this is true I don't know and can't check that (though allegations on the U.S. part made in that documentary were later confirmed by Lifenews), but explain me please why do you think that necessarily is propaganda and not truth? I could understand your feelings as a Swedish person, but please bring some arguments or disproving sources. And I hope you do not stand for allowing children to be harmed by the crowds. GreyHood ^Talk 22:20, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it was like a FSB produced report about the Swedish embassy spreading dangerous Swedish culture and democracy, sponsored by the CIA. Very likely. It's also interesting to see you think it's ok when authorities invent tests so students can't go to demonstrations where they possibly can be beaten up by the militia. It's very thoughtfull of you to think of the poor kids so they don't have to think themselves. And of course they could get a dangerous flu or even sars while at the demonstration. Strangely the packed metro is absolutely harmless in that way, but if the allmighty Chief Sanitary Inspector Gennadiy Onishchenko says so it must of course be true, just like we all know that Georgian and Moldovan wine are extremely dangerous to drink. Närking (talk) 20:30, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Seems to be even more off-topic. As for the video, I can't see your arguments. And note that they were spreading democracy rather than Swedish culture, according to the witnesses in the report. Is it really normal for an embassy, which normally is expected to show some neutrality and non-involvement in internal affairs, to teach democracy to other country? GreyHood ^Talk 23:59, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, democracy surely is a dangerous thing. Närking (talk) 07:19, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

It is actually quite normal for embassies to sponsor local instruction in their country's language, culture, and political institutions. Most of the embassies here in the United States do just that; it was recently in the news that the Chinese government is sponsoring a large amount of Chinese language instruction in the US. siafu (talk) 07:29, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Language instruction etc. is OK from diplomatic point of view, but recruiting activists for political actions is not. Hope it is obvious. GreyHood ^Talk 12:37, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't making a value judgment; "ok" or not, it is indeed very common. siafu (talk) 12:43, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

And there were no secret recruiting of CIA agents even if Putin says so. Närking (talk) 18:48, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Party descriptions in infobox ("Majority party", "Minority party", "Third party", "Fourth party")

Can the party descriptions "Majority", "Minority", "Third", and "Fourth" be removed altogether? I find them to be confusing, and in at least one interpretation inaccurate. United Russia is the "Majority" party in terms of seats in the Duma, but not in the popular vote where they received a plurality of votes. Why are the Communists listed as the only "Minority" party, when all parties except United Russia could be described in this way? I recommend removing these party descriptions altogether and let the reader see for themselves by the numbers. I tried to remove these descriptions, but I could not figure out how to do so in the edit page. They're not actually typed words in the edit section for the infobox. Are these party descriptions auto-generated in a template? If so, how can we change that script? "First-place party", "Second-place party", "Third-place party", and "Fourth-place party" would be more accurate descriptions. Ctconnolly (talk) 21:11, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

To describe only one party as the "Minority party" is to use the phrase as it is used in two-party political systems. Here is a quote from Wikipedia's article Two-party system: "A two-party system is a system where two major political parties dominate voting in nearly all elections at every level of government and, as a result, all or nearly all elected offices are members of one of the two major parties. Under a two-party system, one of the two parties typically holds a majority in the legislature and is usually referred to as the majority party while the other is the minority party. While the term two-party system is somewhat imprecise and has been used in different countries to mean different things, there is considerable agreement that a system is considered to be of a two-party nature when election results show consistently that all or nearly all elected officials belong to only one of the two major parties". Yet the third-place and fourth-place parties in the 2011 Russian legislative election won collectively more than 25% of the seats in the Duma. Contemporary Russia, therefore, is not a two-party system; it is a multi-party system.Ctconnolly (talk) 21:39, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

These party descriptions are auto-generated by the template: "infobox election". Yet it is possible to change the party descriptions to "First party", "Second party", "Third party", and "Fourth party" by changing the "type" field in this template from "legislative" to "parliamentary". I have taken these steps, and the article reflects these changes.Ctconnolly (talk) 06:36, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Results section doesn't match source

Someone just pointed out that some of the numbers in this section don't match the linked source. I will make the changes later unless someone gets to it first. a13ean (talk) 19:12, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

It also repeats numbers already given in lead. Elinruby (talk) 08:17, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Dodgy source

Greyhood seems to think that this is a reliable source. Can we get some opinions on it? In my view, the fact that it says "15,000" Nashi members rallied on Dec 6 (when other sources say 5,000), and that it says things like, "В результате около 300 человек, участвовавших в шествии, в том числе блогер Алексей Навальный, призывавший к неповиновению требованиям полиции, были задержаны. В блогах уже раскритиковали организаторов, которые анонсировали мирную акцию, а по факту спровоцировали беспорядки и аресты случайных прохожих." - "As a result [of the anti-government protest], about 300 of those who marched, including blogger Alexey Navalny, who was detained for disobeying police orders, have been arrested. In blogs the organisers, who announced a peaceful protest but in actual fact provoked disorder and the arrest of innocent passers-by, of been criticised.". Does that sound like a neutral, reliable source? The article makes no criticisms of the authorities, and just lays into the anti-gov protesters. It is not an acceptable source (NB. It was written on Dec 6, when many sites were still scared of saying anything against the authorities.) If more proof is needed, the next para says: "По мнению экспертов, обвинения в массовых нарушениях в ходе выборов, высказанные на митинге оппозиции, не имеют под собой оснований, поскольку предварительные результаты голосования по итогам подсчета большинства бюллетеней практически полностью совпадают с прогнозами социологов и результатами экзитполов." - "In the opinion of experts, allegations of mass irregularities during the election, made at the protest held by the opposition demonstrators, have no basis, since the preliminary results of the vote according to a summary of bulletins, almost all concur with predictions made by sociologists and the results of exitpolls." Who are the experts? And the sociologists? They don't say, and don't care. The article is completely anti-protester and makes no attempt to be neutral. For this reason, it should not be used by Greyhood here (scroll down), or on 2011 Russian protests, where he has been using it too. Any thoughts?Malick78 (talk) 21:40, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

There's a real problem in that most of the sources being bandied about are in Russian, so it's hard for non-Russian speakers to understand them except through the small lens of translation we get from either side. English language sources would allow for wider and easier discussion. From what you say, it certainly doesn't sound like a neutral source, but then again, I can't read the entire thing except with the horror that is google translate, so it doesn't seem fair for me to make conclusion. Is there anything else that is known about the source in general, and not just this article? Has it been known to take a pro- or anti-government slant in the past? Are there any known conflicts of interest? siafu (talk) 21:45, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for you interest, we need some new views. To be honest, I had never heard of Infox.ru and it has no article in English WP or the Russian one. The article above seems shoddily written (no mention of who provides info, just vague "experts" as I said above) and makes no attempt to represent the protesters' side.Malick78 (talk) 22:01, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Let's start with the fact that other sources already in the articles are not clear on numbers, they report 15,000 in the city by 4th November and 6 thousand on one particular action and one particular square. For the results of exit-polls, there are other sources, such as this for example [8]. By the way the exit poll was carried out by VCIOM rather than Central Electoral Commission.

NB. It was written on Dec 6, when many sites were still scared of saying anything against the authorities. This is your personal judging of the situation, and it is simply not true. Usual opposition media criticized authorities as usually or even more following the elections, and the situation didn't change much since. State media briefly covered the protests, and some other media just put nore content on the hot topics.

In blogs the organisers, who announced a peaceful protest but in actual fact provoked disorder and the arrest of innocent passers-by, of been criticised. Well, what's up with this description? That the stated reason for the arrest (disorder and insubordination to the authorities), and indeed a number of guys tried to make an unsanctioned march on the 5th November and a number of passers-by were arrested.

And here are the results of the last forecasts from 18th November (here republished by a pro-opposition radio site), before the deadline which prohibited further publishing of such data, It corresponds well to the election results. GreyHood ^Talk 23:09, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

You realise that this data (in both links) is published by VTsIOM (Ekho Moskvy mentions it directly)? It's "the state pollster" according to the Guardian, which here discusses Putin's recent loss of approval. Is it really a surprise the state pollster's predictions matched/were similar to the voting results that were ordered by the government?Malick78 (talk) 20:49, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

This is my problem: you cannot tell a reliable source from an unreliable one. I'm losing all hope.Malick78 (talk) 23:39, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Have you any arguments other than ad personam? GreyHood ^Talk 23:53, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but they don't seem to have been understood.Malick78 (talk) 00:10, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I understand your arguments pretty well and have provided some counter arguments. Could you answer them without ad personam? GreyHood ^Talk 00:15, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

The view that "many sites were scared of saying anything against the authorities" is apparently one that is shared by the mainstream, non-Russian media, see [9]. (nB, just to avoid stepping on any toes, "mainstream" and "non-Russian" are NOT meant to sound synonymous or related)siafu (talk) 12:55, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Your source speaks about TV, not Internet. By the way, the story with Fox News could and should be blamed on Fox News, obviously. The story on Pivovarov and NTV later was refuted by the channel [10] and Pivovarov himself never confirmed if any of that was true. These two stories taken out, the article has little substance. GreyHood ^Talk 15:09, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Reuters is a reliable source. I quote:

The editors were using one of their old moves to evade the threat of state retaliation for reporting on politically inexpedient facts. Instead of reporting the news itself, they reported on the foreigners reporting the news on Russia.

There's nothing to "blame" on Fox News in this article, it's about the fact that Fox News was being used by Russian media to avoid state controls and limitations on free speech. So yes, it says exactly what I paraphrased it as saying originally, and demonstrates that, in a reliable source, it is stated that news media in Russia are believed to be scared of saying anything directly against the authorities. siafu (talk) 15:45, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Part of the Reuters information is refuted. The other part is based on facts, such as Fox News' mistake, but an opinion is built around that facts. That opinion is not fact and there are other simpler explanations possible: American media like Fox News and CNN have a very bad reputation in Russia ever since making similar "mistakes" in 2008 while covering the war in Ossetia, and any more "mistakes" from those media are sure to be noticed and criticized in Russia. GreyHood ^Talk 17:56, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I am honestly beginning to wonder if you are even actually reading my comments at all. siafu (talk) 21:40, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

(I long ago gave up that hope regarding Greyhood and my comments)Malick78 (talk) 21:51, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I can only advice you to re-read my comments: your link talks about TV, not Internet sites which is what our discussion has started from. And I've provided the link which says that much of the information on which the Reuters article had been based was later refuted, so that article is outdated to a large degree. Reuters is RS, but in this case it is outdated and not entirely relevant RS. GreyHood ^Talk 14:03, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I can only "advice" you to reread what I said; Fox News, and anything Fox News had to say is completely irrelevant to the point I was making, which is that the Russian is afraid to speak out against the authorities, which is attested in the (reliable) source. This was a direct response to your statement: "Usual opposition media criticized authorities as usually or even more following the elections, and the situation didn't change much since." I even pulled out the exact quote that said so. It could just as well have been the National Enquirer for all that it would matter to this point, so your continued insistence on Fox News being inaccurate just indicates that you didn't understand anything I said-- you seem to understand English well enough, so the only conclusion I can draw is that you didn't even bother to read what I said. siafu (talk) 15:28, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

When one challenges a source one should provide its name and provide sources that discuss it (or alternatively, ask the person providing the source to provide its name and provide sources that explain it). But neutrality and reliability are two separate things. We must be neutral, while our sources must be reliable - there is no rule that says we should only use neutral sources. TFD (talk) 06:48, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, for me personally, infox.ru is a news site I never heard of before. So, not sure about "reliable". Does not seem to be a partisan source as well. Just some site. Gritzko (talk) 16:58, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Statistical analysis

I like how this section presents an argument in one very cautiously-phrased sentence, and then spends the rest of three paragraphs focusing on counterarguments. I will try to fill this out in more detail and balance it shortly. a13ean (talk) 21:57, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

And also, is it really necessary to use links to Russian tabloids that have NSFW advertisements? Surely this violates some sort of wiki standard. a13ean (talk) 21:58, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Note that respectable Russian media paid very little attention to all those attempts to statistical analysis overall. This is mostly the topic of blogs which was republished by some blogger-sympathizing online sources, and Lenta have done that very accurately directly stating that that are just attempts to analyze. Also, the original analysis which supposed falsification was made by a non-specialist, physicist by education, who seems not to work in the profession. From a scholarly point of view this work has zero weight, and criticism by specialists such as Levada only supports that. GreyHood ^Talk 22:41, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you would suggest that physicists would know nothing about statistical analysis, given that science is completely dependent upon statistics; I would certainly expect a physicist to be far more versed in statistics than the average human being. An exhaustive search for other sources discussing this would be far more helpful than simply trying to impugn the author of this source based on his or her profession. siafu (talk) 22:46, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I have no problems with physicists, in fact, after doing more research it seems that the author of disproving analysis is also a physicist, though a laureate of ICM. But after reading the criticisms it seems that the author of original analysis focused on mathematics and ignored sociological aspects, which just shows why such analysis should be made by specialists. GreyHood ^Talk 23:14, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

It was a statistical analysis; we should not expect to see sociology in such an analysis. The best response is STILL to find other sources discussing this analysis, rather than continue to impugn it indirectly in this manner. Wikipedia is based on sources. siafu (talk) 23:18, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

The author attempted explanations of the data, not pure analysis in mathematical sense of the word. And doing those explanations he didn't pay enough attention to real sociological situation, but rather made assumptions which are mathematically nice but not necessarily corresponding to reality. In particular, a supposition of Gaussian distribution is strange, because living people's voting is not random variable. GreyHood ^Talk 23:28, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Is there some reason that you are philosophically opposed to investigating the sources? siafu (talk) 23:31, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

:) Malick78 (talk) 23:35, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I never said I'm opposed to that. I've just answered to other parts of your comments. GreyHood ^Talk 23:51, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Which is to say that you have failed to note the substantive part of my comments, in favor of continuing a discussion on opinion, but the fact is that our opinions on this issue don't actually matter. What matters is what the sources have to say, and fortunately for you, you seem to be fluent in the language which most of these sources would use, and have the opportunity to move this discussion forward and improve the article if you so chose to do so. Or, you could continue to sidestep the main issue in favor of throwing up indirect and odd objections to a currently used source that don't even seem to attempt to address its actual reliability. You decide. siafu (talk) 07:24, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

The issue was fixed by the other editor (with a minor participation from me), who declared the intention to fix the issue at the start of this talk section. Otherwise, let me decide which part of your comments I would like to discuss. If I don't answer some your points, this might just mean that I agree with them and see no need to comment on that. GreyHood ^Talk 14:09, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Eruditor.ru

The original link (which sometimes contains NSFW images for anyone who cares) is an commentary at http://www.politonline.ru/comments/10036.html, which can probably be used to give an opinion. However, the second link used is Математические распределения и выборы в ГосДуму 2011 (ОПРОВЕРЖЕНИЕ популярного заблуждения) politonline.ru. Note that if you look at the link, this is a simple wrapper page -- the original is not on the tabloid web site, but this guy's personal web site. This is very misleading, but I am sure its inclusion was accidental since it was linked in this sketchy manner from the tabloid site. I think all of us can agree that we should not include personal blogs as references, because otherwise this page would be swamped in links to livejournal. a13ean (talk) 17:47, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Agree on that. The wrapped link needs to be deleted and the parts of the text sourced by it as well. Sorry for not noticing that myself. GreyHood ^Talk 17:51, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Restored line

"...and cites the lack of large scale reaction from the opponents of falsification version, despite making a proper analysis is very easy for an expert in mathematics." What is this trying to say? The meaning of the first bit appears to be lost in translation. a13ean (talk) 21:02, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

This means that at the point when Grazhdankin made his comments, most specialists in sociology and mathematicians simply ignored the claims of falsification based on statistical analysis, despite the fact that it is very easy to disprove those claims for a specialist or for any person with a good mathematical education. GreyHood ^Talk 14:44, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I was confused by the grammar. I will clean this up. a13ean (talk) 22:45, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

wording changes in international observers section

This is a driveby edit in response to a request on the NPOV noticeboard; but reading this makes me feel that mostly I do not have the knowledge to spot non-NPOV on this topic, nor do I have time to fully evaluate the sources. Therefore I have mostly limited myself to minor English improvements, well documented since I see that the article is controversial.

I did make a couple of NPOV edits to this section that I wanted to explain here for the same reason. I felt that "witnessed" implies truth. I am not sure if this was intended, but it did strike me that way as a completely uninformed neutral observer. I changed the first instance of the word to "documented" -- because they did write these incidents up for someone to review, right? The second I changed to "said they witnessed" because based on the copious quotes they definitely do seem to have done this as well. I did not check the quotes against the reference, but the ellipsis made me suspicious. You are probably better off without the "this" if the statement truly applies to the entire electoral process.

As another suggestion, I found it interesting that the two international groups had such different opinions and wondered if their composition might be a reason for that.

Hth Elinruby (talk) 07:20, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

PS: "whilst the preparations for the elections were technically well administered" <= not sure if this means that the technical end was handled well, or that the election was well-administered, but that's a technicality (presumably because the person who wrote the sentence thinks the election was rigged). Might want to address.

weasel text removed from protest section

"The statement of non-recognition of electoral results has been widely spread. Сitizens were called upon to create self-governing institutions which reflect national interests as well as being informed on the nature of falsifications and frauds that occurred during the elections." I suspect that this is quite true but the sentence could use some help and there's nothing to be done with it because there's no subject. WHO said this? Belov? If names are deliberately not being used, at least say "speakers" or something. Try to get some quotes, instead of this bureaucratese. Elinruby (talk) 09:15, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

what tags in statistical analysis section

I see the point but suspect most readers won't, and all the references are in Russian. Try to edit in some explanation, ie "smooth" "bell-shaped" etc; also explain what the threshold is for significance, because I guarantee most people will not understand six to nine signas. Proving fraud statistically is a tough sell, especially in the US where such statements were dismissed after the 2000 election. Elinruby (talk) 09:20, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

PS -- I suggest making the graph bigger to make the sawtooth appearance easier to understand Elinruby (talk) 10:03, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I will try to clean it up when I have some time. I started reading about this sort of analysis after seeing it here, and found | this book to be an invaluable reference, although it was published before this election. (It also has a section where it looks at the 2000 elections that you might find interesting). a13ean (talk) 22:58, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Looking at the graph, the Communist party results (KPRF) also exhibit similar features, with small (relative) peaks at 20, 25%, 40%; have any explanations for this feature been offered? The KPRF results are also rather non-normal. A possible explanation (with the caveat that I know little to nothing about Russian politics) might be that the KPRF has typically been the main opposition party, and officials face pressure to lower KPRF vote percentages to a desired percentage? 141.211.231.232 (talk) 23:06, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Additional allegations

Found this article on electoral fraud in Chechnya. Since this seems to be a very contentious issue, I thought it best to just post it here and let those closer to the article decide how best to include it. siafu (talk) 18:54, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Links changed

Hi! Look what Greyhood is doing again. That guy (Sergey Kuznetsov) eventually agreed that the data indicates mass fraud and corrected his blog post. So, Greyhood removes a link to that original "publication" (a blog post) and leaves a link to a short story at politonline.ru which actually refers to that original uncorrected blog post! Just to make sure the source tells the "right" thing!!! At this point it becomes crystal clear what Greyhood is doing here. He is not any close to a "good faith" editor. He is simply pushing his agenda by all means possible. Gritzko (talk) 06:04, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I would advise you to stop engaging in personal attacks on Greyhood (or any editor for that matter). Greyhood is a long-standing editor on the project, and he is not here to push any agenda. I have seen certain editors twitter feeds, and it is obvious who is here to engage in advocacy. I would encourage you to start assuming good faith on the part of editors on this project, because good faith is a two-way street. Y u no be Russavia ^{ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)} 06:26, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

As to sourcing, LJ and blogs are not reliable sources for purposes of Wikipedia. Greyhood is right to remove assertions and links to blogs, as they do not have an expectation for fact-checking. It is up to editors to tell us why we should regard blog posts as a reliable source, and hence valid for inclusion on WP. Y u no be Russavia ^{ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)} 06:29, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

All this personal stuff aside, if Kuznetsov has personally withdrawn his statements, it would seem amiss to cite the original article that mentions them without noting this. a13ean (talk) 06:32, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Who is Kuznetsov, and why is his opinion of any great importance. He is a mathematician, but does he have a background in political sciences? If the answer is no, then his opinion is likely WP:UNDUE for the article; especially as some of his assertions are reliant on blog postings. Y u no be Russavia ^{ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)} 06:49, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

You just recovered a version by Greyhood which overblows Kuznetsov's opinion in a very inconsistent way. In case you don't consider that opinion noteworthy then you should have done the opposite thing, right? May you explain your actions, please? Gritzko (talk) 09:12, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

In fact, I'd probably agree with Russavia and suggest to remove all this statistical stuff completely. Both Kuznetsov and Shpilkin are non-specialists, and all this statistical analysis are just mathematical games, not something to be found in peer-reviewed scientific articles. It has been shown that "anomalies" in distribution are not necessarily anomalies at all, since voting by living people is by no means random variable; various comparable data for other countries has been presented by Kuznetsov and in some blogs, showing things similar to the Russian election; and the effect of 50%-60%-70% etc. has been well explained to be normal thing in distributions of natural numbers with some fractions like 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 etc. naturally much more frequent than other percentages (some claimed that even removing the natural effects there would be some peaks left, but likely they've just not taken all necessarily correlations into account, such as increasing of the peaks' height with smaller numbers of voters at the polling stations; and anyway the influence of those peaks on election outcome is tiny). GreyHood ^Talk 14:38, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

(1) S.Shpilkin is/was a professional physicist, right?

(2) His observations were published in Troitsky variant, which is academic enough, right? (Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a peer-reviewed journal on statistics of election rigging. What a pity!)

(3) The "1/2 1/3" hypothesis was proposed by Kuznetsov who later admitted it does not explain the data, right?

It looks like Kuznetsov was good for you as long as he was claiming the "right" thing. Now, he is suddenly a "non-specialist". By the way, what is your criteria of being a "specialist" on the topic? Being a full prof in statistics? Or in politology? Or both? Gritzko (talk) 05:19, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

(1) S.Shpilkin is physicist by education. Looks like he is not working in profession. Anyway he is not sociologist or demographer or specialist in elections.

(2) His observations were published in quite a number of sources, but I've not seen any serious peer reviewed publications so far.

(3) The "1/2 1/3" explanation (it is not "hypothesis", since it for sure at least partially explains the effect) was proposed by many people, not only by Kuznetsov. In the PolitOnline article and in the Wikipedia article this explanation is not discussed at all. My criteria for being a specialist are very simple - being a professional sociologist or having peer reviewed published articles about elections. People like Grazhdankin from Levada pass these criteria, Shpilkin and Kuznetsov do not. GreyHood ^Talk 00:11, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify a few things: there is a lot of academic work on election fraud, but it's unreasonable to expect any to be published any time soon. (However, some have started to weigh in -- see the recent WSJ article). Even for a "letter" format article the turnaround time is often several months just for the peer-review process. The fact that these anomalies have been mentioned in several different articles makes them notable, just as the response from Grazhdankin is also notable (although the current two paragraphs based on the single Polit article is perhaps stretching toward wp:undue. As Kuznetsov later noted, the "1/2 1/3" explanation doesn't make sense because it would imply much smaller spikes and spikes at locations where ones do not appear. To paraphrase an earlier version of this article, determining this is quite easy for anyone with a background in mathematics. a13ean (talk) 03:57, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Kuznetsov writes that "1/2 1/3" explanation explains all spikes except 65%, 70%, 85%, 90%, 95%. Other unpublished blog studies, such as this one, find that all spikes are explained by integer fractions. All those spikes are also present at the graph for the hypothetical "Gauss Party", voting for which is random variable.

Claims by WSJ are too much incredible. 14 mln out of 67? The independent attempts to compare all observers' protocols with TsIK data in Saint Peterspurg has shown about 4% difference in favor of the U.R., and less than 2% in Moscow the last time I checked. It is not enough to account even for 1 MP seat on the country scale, and not enough to change UR's absolute majority even if we suppose that a similar scale of differences exist throughout the whole country (while in reality most reports of frauds go from Moscow and St. Petersburg).

Seems like WSJ uses the same two arguments found in Russian amateur studies: correlation with voter turnout and spikes at round numbers (and looks like WSJ simply suggests that all of the UR graph tail, different from other parties distributions, accounts for fraudulent votes, which is so obviously wrong since nobody has proven that correlation of the support with the turnout should be considered abnormal and do not exist in reality). But the correlation with turnout is found in other countries as well, and the spikes are partially or fully explained by high probability of simple integer fractions. Something which WSJ fails to notice, of course. GreyHood ^Talk 13:50, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Here you explain us your beliefs. WSJ lies, but you know the truth. Thank you very much. I think, we passed that stage of dispute in Vladimir Putin. You claimed his popularity is just oscillating somewhat. What happened next? Right, a 100K anti-Putin meeting in Moscow. So. Keep your beliefs to yourself. Gritzko (talk) 17:03, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Lol where is your tolerance for other points of view? Note that I do not propose to exclude WSJ from the article, and I do not claim that it "lies", I just say that it unwittingly reports the same dubious points of view found in Russian amateur studies. And really, there was no 100K meeting just about 50-60 thousand passed with circa 30 thousand at the top moment of attendance, and it is technically impossible to gather 100,000 people at one moment at such a small place. GreyHood ^Talk 17:42, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

You're a cheap liar. WSJ does their own data analysis citing experts. They do not "unwittingly report... amateur studies". They do their own study. Gritzko (talk) 04:10, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

They voice the same points found in amateur studies, but they do not voice the points found in amateur studies which explain everything without fraud. Whether WSJ has got to those points entirely by themselves (unlikely) or took the idea from Russian studies is irrelevant to the point I make. GreyHood ^Talk 15:27, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

I do not see any point here, really. I see some lame attempts to put Shpilkin's article and WSJ article on the same board with retracted claims from a blog post of some guy. Gritzko (talk) 05:04, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I see no indication that Kuznetsov withdrew any of his statements currently presented in the article and published by PolitOnline. He just made some additional statements and analysis, pointing out to anomalies which could be explained by falsifications. He writes: Итого, если принимать гипотезу о фальсификации, то примерно в трети регионов проводилась централизованная накрутка, ещё в одной трети — нескоординированная накрутка по собственной местной инициативе, а оставшейся трети — всё чисто. Но это, повторю, при условии принятия гипотезы о массовой фальсификации. Само наличие «хвоста» (но не его форму) вполне объясняет и эффект голосования военных, которые в большинстве своём и без явных приказов наверняка и обеспечили высокую явку, и проголосовали за правящую партию. This means that falsification is just one possible hypothesis according to Kuznetsov, not a necessary explanation, and he provides a different hypothesis alongside. GreyHood ^Talk 14:16, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Well. Let's start with the fact the guy withdrew his claim that those spikes at round numbers can be explained by natural reasons. That was made by an update on 15.12. Your politonline story was released on 12.12 and it says spikes are OK. So you are quite close to lying, aren't you?

In general, the guy proposes and then attacks maybe ten different hypotheses, including those authored by himself. By citing his blog post selectively (which you do) you may get any desired opinion (which you get).

Not to say that the entire thing is just a blog post and it is far from being scientifically accurate. For example, he suggests an alternative explanation of the abnormal tail saying it might have being caused by votes of the military, without giving any numbers. I'll stop here cause I think that is not a relevant discussion for a Talk page.

So, let's get back to you, Greyhood. To push your POV, you misrepresented a non-reliable source. Isn't it too much, even for you? Gritzko (talk) 15:25, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Lol, you simply couldn't discuss anything without accusing other users in something. Could you cite where Kuznetsov disproves or takes back his earlier statement that regularly spaced spikes in percent voting for each party appear for all parties, not only United Russia (that's what is said in the article and in the PolitOnline review, not whether spikes are OK or not OK)? In an update on 15.12. he starts with looking more closely at periodical spikes at UR histogram and says even falsifications could not explain such a strange form (Никакого объяснения такому эффекту я пока не нашёл. «Никакого» означает «вообще никакого», т.к. даже вбросы бюллетеней и приписки непонятно как могут объяснить такую странную форму.) Later he says that assuming the hypothesis on falsification the tail of the histogram could be explained so and so, but also that it could be at least partially explained by other hypothesis.

And I'm not citing Kuznetsov's blog at all, I cite the more credible and simple points of his study published by PolitOnline, alongside the opinion of the only true specialist on the topic involved, Grazhdankin. And original study by Shpilkin is by no means more scientifically accurate than Kuznetsov. GreyHood ^Talk 19:23, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I am not accusing "other users". I am accusing you.

Spikes in distributions of other parties was not the core of the Kuznetsov's argument. The core argument was: spikes are OK, that is an integer division artifact. He admitted he was wrong, as you say. Then, D.Kobak (ICL) writes in Troitsky variant that spikes are the most strong evidence of fraud not explainable otherwise.

Spikes in distributions of other parties may be a secondary effect of UR spikes, for example (cause all that percents add up to 100% most of the time). Or it might be indeed an artifact of the plotting method Kuznetsov was using. Who knows?

Considering that politonline story again, all strong points there come from Kuznetsov, while Grazhdankin makes more general and cautious points regarding whether normal distribution hypothesis is applicable, which is indeed a complicated matter.

So, long story short, you cherry-picked from a blog post to make some critical opinion out of it. Remarkably, that blog post has a correction dismissing most of the points made! And the blog post does not become more credible once it is referred to from politonline.ru, which is essentially an aggregator. That short story is not even signed!

Am I clear enough or you need additional explanations? Gritzko (talk) 06:38, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm bored with your accusations. Please stop your political activist style of continuously accusing the opponent in something, it's encyclopedia not a political debate. I can only repeat an obvious thing: I'm not citing Kuznetsov's blog at all, I cite the more credible and simple points of his study published by PolitOnline.; repeat again: only those published by PolitOnline. The nature of the spikes is not discussed nor in PolitOnline neither in the current Wikipedia article. It is clear, however that the high probability of certain fractions of natural numbers partially (according to Kuznetsov or Kobak) or fully (according to other amateur studies) explains the spikes effect. GreyHood ^Talk 00:11, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't see how those points became more credible after being referred to by Politonline. I removed Kuznetsov.

P.S. So you brand Kobak's article as an "amateur study" now? Sweet. Gritzko (talk) 04:38, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Please stop cherry-picking the material out of the source. Either we remove all non- peer reviewed non-specialist studies, or retain those republished by established media with editorial control. I do not know what is Kobak's speciality, but anyway so far I see no peer reviewed scientific articles published by him on the issue. GreyHood ^Talk 13:50, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

"Non-specialist studies"? Not competent enough for your taste, right? WSJ gives an opinion by "Walter Mebane, a professor of political science and statistics at the University of Michigan". I did not even expect such a person to exist on this planet. So, what did you do? Right, you dismissed the entire WSJ article. Damn lies! So, Mr Competence Crusader, do you think we should wait till Mr Mebane publishes a peer-reviewed study? I am pretty sure, even then you will find an excuse to attack the citation. At the same time, you push hard to include some claims from a blog post by some guy who retracted his claims later. Based on your opinion that your favourite claim was not actually retracted, right? Gritzko (talk) 17:15, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I've explained the WSJ above. And please cite me the concrete place where Kuznetsov retracts his claims mentioned in the article. GreyHood ^Talk 17:42, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

You explained nothing. In the 15 Dec update Kuznetsov writes, essentially, that he was talking about different spikes than everybody else. Kuznetsov's "1/2 1/3" spikes differ from Shpilkin's "k*5%" spikes in their nature, magnitude and location. The exception is 50% and, to a lesser degree, 75%, where both coincide. So, everything Kuznetsov wrote about "spikes" before 15 Dec became irrelevant, rotten, null and void. He was talking about a different thing. Any attempt to "cite" that is a willful manipulation. Gritzko (talk) 10:49, 29 December 2011 (UTC)::::::::::: I repeat my question: where exactly Kuznetsov makes it null and void that "regularly spaced spikes in percent voting for each party appear for all parties, not only United Russia"? GreyHood ^Talk 15:27, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

I repeat. Kuznetsov's spikes may appear everywhere, but those are different from Shpilkin's spikes. Hence, irrelevant. Kuznetsov's spikes can not be regularly spaced, on obvious reasons. If you don't understand what I say you should not be editing that section. Gritzko (talk) 05:04, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Gritzko, your behaviour on this and other articles is, quite frankly, disturbing. You have only just received a WP:DIGWUREN warning for engaging in personal attacks on Greyhood, and I won't hesitate to file another AE notice in the future to have you removed from this area completely. If you do not start assuming good faith of all editors quick smart, I will tell you that it won't be very long until you are removed from this area completely. And also, as per your request for arbitration, Greyhood has posted a summary which shows that you are clearly obfuscating the reality in relation to his editing on this and other articles. Your own POV is obvious from both your editing and your Twitter feed (etc), so it is obvious that you are here to engage in advocacy, so I suggest that you step back a bit, and think about your editing here and whether it is you who has a potential conflict (just to use the same argument you and others used against Greyhood), and whether you should be editing such articles. If you do continue to edit, then I would sincerely suggest a dramatic attitude adjustment, otherwise you will find yourself blocked and/or banned in quick time. Y u no be Russavia ^{ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)} 12:20, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Greyhood's editing invites other users to engage with him directly (what you call 'personal attacks', what I call 'necessitated by circumstances'). If Greyhood edited more neutrally, no one would feel the need to address him in particular.Malick78 (talk) 14:29, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

RuElect

I don't think it makes sense to mention the work from RuElect as "alternate results" since they only have official protocols from some portion of the regions. If anything it is a estimated upper-bound. I would suggest putting this into a section called something like "comparison with local summary protocols". a13ean (talk) 16:22, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

New source on statistics

User:Greyhood brought in another source "dismissing" statistical analysis of the election results. As an alumni of a math faculty and a PhD I want to express my learned opinion. So. The new "source" is much less crappy than the previous "source" brought in by Greyhood (which was a retracted blog post), still it is a piece of crap, sorry. The author (Simkin) writes: "Regarding peaks I may look into it. However, I need not just percentages, but the actual numbers of votes to make any conclusion." So, the guy authored the piece without looking into the data. Congratulations. Now a small hint: the data is freely available online. I parsed and plotted it myself when I had some doubts in the subject. I also produced the graph in this article. That takes an hour or two. So, my first impression is: Simkin is some random idiot. I have absolutely no enthusiasm to engage in another lengthy discussion with Greyhood (fed up with that, really really). I am going to revert his edits till something happens. Gritzko (talk) 10:23, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• I agree, it was a shoddy article. As for Greyhood - if you think it's useless talking to him (and I agree, it frequently is), feel free to report him for disruptive editing if you think it's gone that far. I reported him last year, so another report will just add to the body of evidence.Malick78 (talk) 15:05, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
• It was not me who added this source, but some IP. I just wikified the reference and made the point more clear according to the source, which seems to be a statistical magazine. Now explain please, why this source is problematic without emotions and without appelation to your own authority. Note also, that the point cited was about the Gaussian distribution, not about the peaks. GreyHood ^Talk 16:39, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The use of vocabulary such as "crappy" together with subjective personal attacks is not tolerable. Please be WP:CIVIL and stay focused on facts. Arguing with one's own knowledge and expertise (=original research) is not onvincing. Please argue why the source in question might not be reliable. I am not a statistician, but Significance (magazine) seems to be a received professional journal (published by Royal Statistical Society and American Statistical Association). So, to claim that it were crappy, is obviously misguided. A check at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard might be helpful. --RJFF (talk) 17:00, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The fact that the author apparently did not look into the data as noted is not a matter of opinion, but it does seem that WP:V would guide us to focus on the value of the source publication rather than try to nitpick the arguments presented in the article or the credentials of its author. siafu (talk) 17:58, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The author addressed one particular issue, the Gaussian distribution, and didn't look into other issues. The topic is complex, and we shouldn't expect every author writing on it to cover every detail. GreyHood ^Talk 12:16, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Please re-read what I wrote, and don't post things just to be disruptive or start an argument. siafu (talk) 15:06, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Please avoid accusations in disruption and read more attentively. The author discussed the question of whether a distribution of votes should be Gaussian in principle (and said it should not). He did not need to look at the particular data at all for that. GreyHood ^Talk 15:35, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

This is getting ridiculous. I am accusing you of being disruptive because you are being disruptive. Whether or not the author needs to look at the data is not for us to determine-- wikipedia is not a place for people to sit around and argue about whether a particular statistical analysis was done correctly. By insisting on verifiability, we leave that to the experts. Fighting about it here is not going to improve the article in the slightest, and the only responses and points you seem to want to make are those that are fighting about this and other points like it. You have been told this before, on this very talk page, by myself and others, so stop it. Please. siafu (talk) 16:29, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Stop what? Please, explain what you mean by "disruptive". I just try to answer the question raised in this section, whether the source is reliable.

"Whether or not the author needs to look at the data is not for us to determine" - than how we can use it as an argument against the quality of the source, if it is not for us to determine?

"wikipedia is not a place for people to sit around and argue about whether a particular statistical analysis was done correctly." Well, that's exactly what we should do, using reliable sources of course.

"By insisting on verifiability, we leave that to the experts". Of course we should use reliable and verifiable sources. We have the source, discussed in this section, which establishes verifiabilty for a statement added to the article. But the reliability of that source has been challenged, and we discuss it. I want to see some concrete arguments, why the source is unreliable. Not the irrelevant suggestion that the author should have looked into the data of the particular election, when he made a statement about all elections in general. OK, we may and should avoid the addition of this source to the article as if it was proof for the claim that there are no valid statistical proofs all falsifications at all. But if the source is reliable, we may use it to support the statement that it is wrong to expect every vote distribution to be Gaussian. GreyHood ^Talk 18:16, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

When I originally suggested that you reread my comment, I naively thought that you might actually do so and see that I was dismissing the issue of whether or not the author needed to see extra data as a challenge to the source's validity. Please consider reading wikipedia policy, since you apparently won't listen to me, and get some idea of how things work around here. Start with WP:NOTAFORUM, WP:V, and WP:NOR. siafu (talk) 14:57, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, in fact I was dismissing the same issue in the same relation, wasn't I? I apologize that I apparently misunderstood you at some point, but I can't understand why in such case you didn't agree with or ignore my first reply to you as expressing the same view, and instead accused me in being "disruptive". GreyHood ^Talk 17:26, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

An interesting fact. The way Grazhdankin is cited in the article creates an appearance he opposes the hypothesis of electoral fraud. Meanwhile, I stumbled upon his comment to Vedomosti. He says that electoral fraud is the most likely explanation to strange results in Moscow http://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/news/1456510/pereschet_golosov So, I suspect his opinion was probably misquoted/misinterpreted at some point. Gritzko (talk) 13:11, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Server in California

The article says: "On 4 February 2012 the Investigation Committee of the Office of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation announced that the majority of videos allegedly showing falsifications at polling stations were in fact falsified and originally distributed from a single server in California, and the investigation on that started." Hmm, from a single server? Must be suspicious! However, the next sentence from the source says: "О каком именно сервере идет речь, Маркин не уточнил, однако не исключено, что представитель СК имел в виду сервис YouTube." (About which server was concerned, Markin didn't specify, but it's not excluded that the representative of the SK had in mind Youtube). Youtube was where the videos were uploaded to! How could an editor think that was unimportant? I'll check who it was in a second... but I have my suspicions. For those interested, the BBC has, as usual, a more balanced version (in Russian).Malick78 (talk) 22:38, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• Yep... it was Greyhood. Why did you miss out the obvious explanation the source you cited gave? You really should be banned - you do a disservice to the whole concept of an encyclopaedia.Malick78 (talk) 22:45, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Personal attack noted, Malick78. If you don't like some users, there is no reason to speak about them banned. As for the California, when I realised that it might have been just Youtube, I've simply removed that from the intro since that seemed for me too trivial to mention in such case. Forgot to fix it in the body, sorry. But your job here is to fix and improve the article, not issuing morals and accusations. GreyHood ^Talk 23:22, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
    • You keep doing it. You must have seen it in the original source and then decided not to include it. I caught you doing that with another source a month or two back... Why can't you just be honest?Malick78 (talk) 23:32, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
      • I keep doing what? Instead of normal editing process, you just try to accuse me under various pretenses, and in most cases too obviously wrong (I remember pretty well your first outburst at me for actions of other user actually, and above you readily support a poorly explained accusation at me for an addition of source by other user, "You keep doing it"). I can tolerate your mistakes and I hope you can tolerate mine, which I admit I make sometimes. But I do not want to tolerate an atmosphere on talk constantly disrupted by incivility, personal attacks and accusations. Hereby I call to you to stop it once and for all. I have no problem with reasonable fixes of my edits, but please stop crying loud every time you see something you don't like. Stirring conflicts instead of solving them is not the right way. GreyHood ^Talk 23:51, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Here is another example of very biased editing [11]. For some reason the editor thinks this news is so important that he puts it on the top of the section. I wonder why he failed to mention all the problems the organisers had to get permission for the demonstrations, which surely has been big news in the media.Närking (talk) 11:50, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Don't you think that organisation of an event always precedes the event, so the information on the organisation should be put before the information on the implementation? Kind of logical, eh? GreyHood ^Talk 12:13, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

As usual you didn't answer the point. The biggest problem for the organisers wasn't the funding but to get permission to demonstrate at all. Närking (talk) 12:15, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Organisers had no problems to get permission to demonstrate at all, they had to negotiate permission to demonstrate at particular place. GreyHood ^Talk 15:22, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Once again a typical case of selective reading [12].Närking (talk) 15:31, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, selective reading from you: The authorities proposed an alternative route starting at Luzhniki Stadium, far from the downtown venue the opposition announced weeks ago, and even suggested changing the day. There was no problem with getting permission to demonstrate in principle, just the place and time had to be negotiated. GreyHood ^Talk 15:40, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

And you don't see any problems as usual! There were lots of news reports about this but somehow it slipped through your eyes. Närking (talk) 15:42, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

What problems? That was the third major protest in a raw. Every time there were reports that authorities and protesters negotiate different variants. Every time it ended in downtown venue. These are usual proceedings, not some new problems and not problems at all. GreyHood ^Talk 16:06, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Your answer says it all. Just like you did earlier on this page.[13]. Närking (talk) 16:21, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Says all what? If you have no more arguments or counter-arguments, better just not write empty comments, please. GreyHood ^Talk 16:26, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• Greyhood, once before on an AFD page I remember mistaking someone for someone else (cos the former didn't sign his comments), but the incident I'm referring to above is this - where you took a figure of "25,000" when the source itself favoured "5-7,000" as the amount present at a protest. See? You cherry-pick. And the result? A band of other editors feel obliged to go through all your edits checking to see if you've misrepresented yet another source. There seem to be 4 or 5 editors on this page who have a problem with you. Why do you think that is? I may not agree with Russavia, for instance, but s/he doesn't write rubbish like you, hence - we have no problems on this scale. As for you saying: "...your job here is to fix and improve the article, not issuing morals and accusations" - actually, I'd prefer not to fix your edits, when there's no need. You are doing this on purpose - picking only "facts" that suit you, even if the source doesn't substantiate them. That is being disruptive - writing false info and expecting others to correct it (or probably, hoping they won't notice).
• One last question: do you get paid to edit WP, or is this just fun for you? Not an accusation you understand, just a question.Malick78 (talk) 18:28, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• I do not cherry-pick. Explained above and elsewhere. I used that source without reading it in full. Just as I did with California server part. When later I remembered that YouTube servers are in California I removed that from the lead as either too trivial or too unclear point. I forgot to fix the other place in the article right at the same time, and some recent news diverted my attention to other articles, so you was the first to fix it, thanks.
• Anyway, it is not a job of every Wikipedia editor too add to articles every single detail or opinion found in sources. There is core information (an event, an official report) and there are journalist comments or expert explanations on that. Obviously the first is more important and should be added first. The second is secondary.
• The answers to your last questions are: I edit Wikipedia exclusively as my hobby, and in fact I get much more fun from editing other kinds of articles, but the complexity of the situation with the Russian election and subsequent protests spurred my interest in that topic.
• I could also have asked you, why you so eagerly accuse me under any pretense including for the actions of other users, why you constantly make personal attacks on me apparently trying to provocate me, what is the reason behind your continuous pushing the addition of certain kind of information (including yellow press stories) to Russia-related articles and your challenging perfectly well-sourced, relevant and due weight information which is inconvenient to you for some reason? But I'm not so much interested in getting the answer "why" as interested in more civil and constructive behavior from you. GreyHood ^Talk 19:58, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• I don't believe for one minute that you didn't see the following paragraph about the servers. You just thought it didn't serve your purpose, so ignored it. If, however, I'm wrong (but I'm not) - then I suggest you never add another thing to WP without reading the full article first. Why? Because: if a source says "A thinks B" - don't add it until you've read the next sentence which may say: "But B is unlikely and A is probably wrong". If you can't understand this concept - that reading the next sentence is vital when citing sources, I suggest you ask an adult to help you edit or, preferably, refrain from editing completely. This is such a basic idea when citing that even the fact you claim to be unable to follow this shocks me to the core. It's like claiming you didn't know you were meant to flush after using the toilet. You should be embarrassed.
• The good news is, though, that I think you know you should flush. You just have fun leaving the work for others to do. Which is bad news for us and WP. (Btw, have you noticed how many people on this page are getting annoyed with you? There's a reason.) Malick78 (talk) 19:43, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• Let me cite something: Hello and welcome to my page. As you can see below, one of my main aims is to add pages on people and things not currently covered. They may not be perfect, but once created, other people will polish them off :) - so you want others to polish your work, but refuse to polish the work of others without escalating drama and lecturing them. Ha. Ha. Ha. GreyHood ^Talk 20:18, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• What a surprise, you twisting a source. I like starting pages on uncovered subjects but leave them neutral. You add info representing only one side of the issue. That's the difference, and the problem with you.Malick78 (talk) 22:24, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• Citing you again - "Mikhail Beketov‎ - Russian journalist beaten up by Putin's thugs" - bother restoring some neutrality here? Mikhail Beketov on the ceremony of awarding the 2011 Government of Russia Prize in Press Media Putin Praises Journalist Courage, Vows Faster Probe Into Assault. GreyHood ^Talk 02:00, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• That quote is from my user page, where there is no need to be NPOV. Are you comparing it to what you put in articles? You have a low standard for your editing. But we already knew that.Malick78 (talk) 15:53, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• Seems you do not feel necessary to improve the relevant article. And you preach neutrality when your own position is rather far from neutral. Ha.
• One more repetition of the obvious thing: it is not my or anyone's business to make ideal additions to Wikipedia which need no any "polishing" in any respect, including neutrality. I hope we all do our best, but Wiki is our hobby, not profession, and we all make mistakes sometimes or just have not enough time to present all the relevant information in the most accurate way possible. If you see a problem - just improve it or if necessarily discuss it in a good spirit of collaboration. Making personal attacks is a low standard for editing pages and edit summaries. Kind of obvious. GreyHood ^Talk 22:35, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• No one's asking you to make 'ideal' edits. But we'd like you to try to be objective. Quoting a fact, but leaving out a caveat that appears in the very next sentence, is the cherry-picking that I and others accuse you of. You know you do it, so why waste our time with pretending you don't? As for us "improv[ing] it or if necessarily discuss[ing] it in a good spirit of collaboration" - you have consistently refused to tone down your edits, provide better refs, accept others' viewpoints... etc. This list is nigh on endless. I and other editors have mentioned this before - and I doubt you are really offering to do what you say above. You'll just carry on with your usual methods. Or am I wrong?Malick78 (talk) 23:35, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• Malick, you press on with preaching objectiveness while refusing to be objective yourself. In my humble opinion, if a person is objective in some relation - of course one hardly can be objective in everything - he/she shows that objectiveness consistently and everywhere - in articles, on user pages, and on talk pages. Above I have given answers to more concrete of your accusations. As for the "tone down", you better implement it yourself on talk pages and in the edit summaries, and I do not think that in case I try to be objective I should accept viewpoints of those editors who use ad Hitlerum arguments, or others who are engaged in political activism off-wiki and in real life, or others who just refuse to accept inconvenient facts about the foreign politics of their home country. GreyHood ^Talk 00:44, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Hmm, while I applaud your knowledge of obscure (and here irrelevant) (cod-)latin terms, I have no idea what you're on about (why should we be NPOV on user pages? It's our user page? Personal space.). Just stop "misreading" sources. That's all we want. Can you try to do that?Malick78 (talk) 20:23, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• WP:UP#POLEMIC. To stop something I should first start something, and I really do not want to start intentionally misreading sources. GreyHood ^Talk 21:29, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Stop wasting our time by fishing. There's nothing there about being NPOV (your original complaint); instead you've directed me to something regarding "Excessive unrelated content". Was one phrase on "Putin's thugs" excessive? Let's keep to issues regarding articles shall we? And yes, you do seem to claim to 'misread' sources, or not read all of them. Same difference. Whatever you do, stop :) And start being NPOV, please. Malick78 (talk) 23:55, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

More interesting news: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/07/putin-hacked-emails-russian-nashi "Polishing Putin: hacked emails suggest dirty tricks by Russian youth group // Exclusive: Nashi runs web of online trolls and bloggers paid to praise Vladimir Putin and denigrate enemies, group claims" Gritzko (talk) 05:26, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, surely interesting news. No wonder they can spend full working days praising Putin. Närking (talk) 08:12, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

But if only there was some way of spotting them! Malick78 (talk) 19:43, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's a problem. But seems like they don't even care to hide the preparings for voting fraud in the presidential elections. You can get 1700 rubles plus lunch if you join the voting carousel for Putin! [14]. Närking (talk) 09:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Interesting, why do you think this is necessarily related to Putin or voting carousels? One can not exclude that variant, but as far as I know, opposition parties also have used this site. And while the lack of description of the kind of work is suspicious, this could be something fairly legal - like a work on polling stations, as observers perhaps. GreyHood ^Talk 22:35, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

No, this has actually been investigated by journalists who has called the numbers on that page. So it´s confirmed it's a voting carousel. You can listen to the radio report here [15]. Närking (talk) 07:47, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Chechnya

Why is the very interesting polling result in Chechnya (and to a lesser degree of the neighbouring republics) neither here nor at least on the protests page mentioned? StoneProphet (talk) 18:29, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't know. If you have a reliable source to verify it, please include it. --RJFF (talk) 22:47, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

KGB

Attention! Page about the irregularities during the election 2011 has been removed from Russian Wikipedia and the discussion was protected from changes by Administrators:

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Википедия:К_удалению/5_декабря_2011#.D0.9D.D0.B0.D1.80.D1.83.D1.88.D0.B5.D0.BD.D0.B8.D1.8F_.D0.B7.D0.B0.D0.BA.D0.BE.D0.BD.D0.BE.D0.B4.D0.B0.D1.82.D0.B5.D0.BB.D1.8C.D1.81.D1.82.D0.B2.D0.B0_.D0.BD.D0.B0_.D0.B2.D1.8B.D0.B1.D0.BE.D1.80.D0.B0.D1.85_.D0.B2_.D0.93.D0.BE.D1.81.D1.83.D0.B4.D0.B0.D1.80.D1.81.D1.82.D0.B2.D0.B5.D0.BD.D0.BD.D1.83.D1.8E_.D0.B4.D1.83.D0.BC.D1.83_.282011.29 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.66.156.85 (talk) 09:49, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Possible copyright problem

This article has been revised as part of a large-scale clean-up project of multiple article copyright infringement. (See the investigation subpage) Earlier text must not be restored, unless it can be verified to be free of infringement. For legal reasons, Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions must be deleted. Contributors may use sources as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously. Mkativerata (talk) 04:15, 6 September 2014 (UTC)