Jump to content

Talk:Cook County Democratic Party

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Lunchboxhero (talk | contribs) at 19:47, 24 October 2013 (→‎Standing Committees: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.


Boy, is this article ever POV.

This article must have been written by a Republican, or at least someone who really loathes Richard M. Daley. Jhobson1 (talk) 17:48, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, why is there no mention of the Shakman Decrees, which did so much to reduce the power of the machine? Jhobson1 (talk) 15:00, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

GS, what do you think of Jhobson1's comments above? Hugh (talk) 17:36, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What is your opinion of the neutrality of this article today? Hugh (talk) 15:42, 15 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The article mentions the Shakman Decrees. I would note that there's no article about the Shakman Decrees. How about that... another article you can write. As for the comments about Republicans and hating Daley, I don't care to go back in the history and see what the article looked like in 2008. Although Wikipedia is a large place and most of the articles here need work and this one is no different. The Garbage Skow (talk) 04:29, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Do you think this article is neutral? Hugh (talk) 05:43, 18 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Do you? The Garbage Skow (talk) 18:07, 18 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know anything about the topic but this article seems to be extremely out of the neutrality guidelines. I'm just an observer, not a Wikipeditor so I hope someone can clean this up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.215.64.82 (talk) 04:49, 14 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I agree this articles is problematic, in terms of referencing as well as POV. But it's low priority with WP:CHICAGO, and I think rightfully so - I think a better use of our time is to focus on getting the articles on the major actors mentioned here right. I don't deny it's existence, I think the subject is worthy of a brief WP article - after all it has been the topic of books and political science papers - but most of THIS article could go as far as I'm concerned. I think of the machine as an interpretation of the story of Chicago, I dunno maybe analogous perhaps to how some (Oliver Stone) interpret American history as an artefact of a corporate military/industrial complex. Hugh (talk) 20:39, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Cook County Democratic Party

Does the Cook County Democratic Party have an article? Hugh (talk) 06:17, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't look like they do. They probably ought to though. The Garbage Skow (talk) 04:03, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your reply. I agree, Cook County Democratic Party does not have an article, but should. I would like to wl to Cook County Democratic Party, for example, in the bios of members. Do you think Cook County Democratic Party should be a separate article from Cook County Regular Democratic Organization? Hugh (talk) 04:11, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it should be separate. In theory, it should be longer, and should contain a heading and paragraph about the Regular Democratic Organization, with a "For more information, see >...". That's what I think. There should be plenty to write a fairly large, detailed article about the CCDP. It's probably worth starting out in a sandbox until it's in good shape and then requesting deletion of the redirect from Cook County Democratic Part, and then moving the sandbox to that name. Good luck with your writing! The Garbage Skow (talk) 01:12, 15 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your reply. So, the separate Cook County Democratic Party article, separate from Cook County Regular Democratic Organization, don't you suppose Cook County Democratic Party would have a lot of duplicate content from Cook County Regular Democratic Organization? Hugh (talk) 15:41, 15 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Not at all. The history of the Democratic Party begins long before the Regular Democratic Organization existed. The latter did not exist until about 1930-1931 when it was basically created by Anton Cermak. The modern Democratic party goes back into the 1800s. A lot has happened in the Democratic Party that had nothing to do with the Regular Organization... elections, many politicians, etc. I would imagine an article about the Party would be much broader and as I said, a subhead about this article with a paragraph and a link to this article. The Garbage Skow (talk) 01:28, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"I would imagine an article about the Party would be much broader" in talk space but in article space "The organization is not the Cook County Democratic Party itself, but a subset of it." which is it? diff Hugh (talk) 02:18, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand the question. The Regular Organization does not equal Cook County Democratic Party. I've been very clear and consistent about that. As I've said above, the history of the Democratic Party in Cook County and Chicago has a great deal of history, reducing it to an article that is just about the Chicago Machine (essentially a clique that has existed on and off since roughly 1931) is like saying that the English aristocracy didn't exist before Henry VIII). The Garbage Skow (talk) 04:23, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
When you say Cermak "basically created" the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization, did he incorporate a corporation or register a political committee or otherwise establish an organization called the "Cook County Regular Democratic Organization?" Is that what he called it? Hugh (talk) 16:03, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Read this [1] which explains it in pretty clear terms. Particularly, The potent Democratic machine that dominated Chicago politics for nearly half a century formed under the leadership of Anton Cermak, a Bohemian immigrant of working-class origins. Are you planning on writing an article about the Democratic Party or not? There is more than enough material to have both an article about the Regular Organization and the Democratic Party. The Garbage Skow (talk) 04:23, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the reference. It does not mention a Cook County Regular Democratic Organization. It mentions Democrats and Republicans and a Democratic machine. Did Cermak call what he created the "Cook County Regular Democratic Organization?" Hugh (talk) 07:01, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The Democratic machine and Cook County Regular Democratic Organization are the same thing. You know it yourself. Are you planning on writing an article about the Democratic Party or not? This article can either be named as it currently is or can be renamed "Chicago Democratic machine" or "Chicago machine", all names it is recognized by. I don't care which. But the machine is not the party, and vice versa. The Garbage Skow (talk) 04:37, 18 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your reply. "The Democratic machine and Cook County Regular Democratic Organization are the same thing." Do you have a reference for this? Thanks again. Hugh (talk) 04:48, 18 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Are you planning on writing an article about the Democratic Party or not? Do you think they are not the same? The Garbage Skow (talk) 18:08, 18 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion is ridiculous as the Party and the organization are one in the same. The "machine" generally refers to the party during the years after Cermak until either the defeat of Bilandic or Byrne or later - our article has cited, reliable sources documenting the organization's rise and fall as a machine, as well as its early history and continuation to the present . - Homeaccount (talk) 22:16, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"The "machine" generally refers to the party..." A WP guideline specifies how we are to refer to political parties:

The title used in reliable English-language sources both inside and outside the political party's county (in scholarly works and in the news media), should be preferred. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (political parties)

Hugh (talk) 00:02, 2 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That is my point. That is why the article should be moved to Cook County Democratic Party. I take it you also concede that the Cook County Democratic Party and the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization discussed in this thread are one in the same? That would be additional progress. -- Homeaccount (talk) 21:10, 2 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hijacking

Somebody apparently wanted to create an article focusing on the "Chicago Machine" and hijacked this article to do so. This article is not about Chicago, but rather the local committees of the 50 city wards and 30 SUBURBAN TOWNSHIPS that make up the Democratic Party in COOK COUNTY. I have reversed the move and undid much of the uncited edits. Furthermore, the editor who did this betrays a lack of understanding of a number of nuances of the subject. For one, the RDO and the CCDP are ONE IN THE SAME. Any further moves should be discussed for consensus PRIOR to action. -- Homeaccount (talk) 16:43, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

*** First attempt at discussion of geographic coverage ***

"30 SUBURBAN TOWNSHIPS that make up the Democratic Party in COOK COUNTY." (Shouting in original) This article has many sentences of which the subject is "machine," "Machine," or "Chicago machine" but it has no content related to the 30 suburban townships that make up the Democratic Party in Cook County. Who is hijacking? Hugh (talk) 04:46, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"the editor who did this betrays a lack of understanding of a number of nuances of the subject" Are you a subject matter expert on Democratic Party of Cook County? Do you believe only a subject matter expert can contribute to this article? Hugh (talk) 04:46, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Re: your recent redirect of Chicago machine (political machine) to Democratic Party of Cook County, are they the same thing? Are there not areas of the DPCC outside of Chicago? All DPCC members were/are participants in the Chicago Machine and vice versa? Many pages link to both, so we need to be careful here. What do you think? Hugh (talk) 17:36, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you or your commitment to citations. Your recent reversion removed some content without citations but left many others, and removed many inline requests for citations. May I ask, what was your thinking there? Hugh (talk) 17:36, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
May I rephrase more broadly, what do you see as the role of inline citation in this article? Thanks. Hugh (talk) 18:27, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The article should be improved to the standards outlined in Wikipedia:Inline citation. Now that this has come to my attention, I have already begun this process. -- Homeaccount (talk) 18:31, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Here is the fundamental problem with the original re-direct, it pointed EVERY reference to the Cook County Democratic party in Wikipedia to the content fork you created about the machine. Hence, if an article about Chicago Committeemen John Arena or Scott Waugespack mentions they are committeeman of the RDO - the Cook County Democratic Party - the link pointed the reader to the fork about the machine. This unhelpful and just plain wrong. If an article is discussing a suburban committeeman as a member of the Cook County Democratic Party again, the link pointed to your fork about the "Chicago Machine". Much of the content, such as it was, that was removed would be better placed in the Political history of Chicago article, or if you insist, you can try to recreate a fork at Chicago machine (political machine), but I suspect somebody will eventually merge it with this article or Political history of Chicago. What ever is done, this article is about the party and it should remain here. Homeaccount (talk) 18:04, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that our efforts to sort this out are greatly complicated from the unfortunate fact that many articles link to Chicago machine (political machine) and many articles link to Democratic Party of Cook County.
This could not be any more incorrect. A mere FIVE articles link to Chicago machine (political machine). -- Homeaccount (talk) 18:38, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Then let us focus on the redirect. May I respectfully ask again, do you believe of Chicago machine (political machine) and Democratic Party of Cook County are the same thing? May I ask that we review WP:REDIRECT together? May I please request that you identify one or more of the listed "reasons for redirect" that might justify the redirect of Chicago machine (political machine) to Democratic Party of Cook County? Thank you. Hugh (talk) 19:05, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No need to discuss the redirect as the page was found to meet the criteria for speedy delete. --Homeaccount (talk) 00:05, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You wrote "Any further moves should be discussed for consensus PRIOR to action." Thank you for your commitment to concensus. Yet while leaving unanswered attempts at dialog from a fellow wikipedian I see you have nominated Chicago machine (political machine) for speedy deletion and changed the disambiguation page for Chicago machine to include Democratic Party of Cook County. Do I understand from your edits that your answer to my original, as yet unanswered question (above), is that, yes, you do believe that the Chicago machine (political machine) and Democratic Party of Cook County are the same thing? May I ask again for you to please cite, from wp redirect policy, the specific basis upon which this redirect is appropriate? Thanks again. Hugh (talk) 00:17, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"this article is about the party" Not sure if I agree. First, it is not much of an article at all, it has problems with neutrality and verifiability. Also, the content is more Political history of Chicago, as distinct from Political history of Chicago in that it is from the distinct POV of a particular interpretation of the Political history of Chicago in terms of machine politics, which is just one of many possible interpretations of the Political history of Chicago. I agree the Democratic Party of Cook County deserves a neutral, well-referenced article, and the Chicago machine (political machine) deserves a neutral, well-referenced article (better yet in terms of neutrality might be that the content of Chicago machine (political machine) is integrated into Political history of Chicago as one POV), but it seems to me this article is not a very good job of either. Hugh (talk) 18:47, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If you feel this article does not adequately describe the subject, then THIS article should be improved with cited material. Moving it elsewhere is a textbook example of Content forking. --Homeaccount (talk) 18:37, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with this move is it was not a move at all, but a back-door deletion of our article on the second largest Democratic county party in the country. I occasionally google the article when I need to refer to it and it is always the #1 hit. The other day I googled it and it didn't come up at all, which is when the "move" came to my attention. -- Homeaccount (talk) 20:11, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

An interesting observation about an external search engine result. I agree we should endeavour to make our content easy to find, so I support that Chicago machine (political machine) and Democratic Party of Cook County and Political history of Chicago and Chicago should all wl to each other, perhaps at the article or section hat level in some cases where it makes sense. But we have a core principle of neutrality, and neutrality applies to article titles and redirects and disambiguations as well as content. We are prohibited by policy from using article titles to push a POV. Every day we delete creative redirects of "satan" and "slut." WP:NPOV trumps any and all useability best practices or search engine optimization concerns. Hugh (talk) 19:26, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A good deal of content concerning suburban activities has been added. It was never the case that the article had "no content related to the 30 suburban townships", but this charge is completely baseless after the addition of the new, cited material.-- Homeaccount (talk) 19:52, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion of Chicago machine (political machine)

We currently have pages titled: Chicago Democratic Machine, Chicago political machine, and Chicago's Democratic machine, All of them redirect here to Democratic Party of Cook County. The situation was thoroughly explained on the request and an admin felt that the old redirect page met the criteria for deletion. Setting up another page at Chicago machine (political machine) is at best an example of a content fork and more likely would end up being a POV fork. It probably doesn't pass WP:TITLE, either. I would be more interested in debating moving this article back to Cook County Democratic Party, which is the name of the organization as recognized by the Illinois Board of Elections and where the article sat for many years until the bold move of a lone editor. -- Homeaccount (talk) 15:48, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Cook County Democratic Party is the correct title for an article on the Democratic Party organization in Cook County, if that's what this is; it is the name registered with the Illinois Secretary of State, the Illinois State Board of Elections, and on the contact page of their self-published website. Hugh (talk) 19:27, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Let's give it a week and see if anybody else chimes in. -- Homeaccount (talk) 21:16, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Article as it currently stands

All requested citations have been included. The article has been expanded substantially to bring it closer in line with NPOV standards and to further discuss the past and present state of the Cook County Democratic Party. I removed the citation request from the top of the page. This article is not a good article, it is not even "C" class article, but it IS a good start and it gives a basic over of the subject. Much work still needs to be done, particularly enumerating the different chairman and discussing each of their tenures. -- Homeaccount (talk) 05:30, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"This article is not a good article" agreed! Hugh (talk) 00:21, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"a good start and it gives a basic over of the subject" Perhaps a good start and basic overview of the "Chicago machine" interpretation of the 20th century of the Political history of Chicago, but this article is not about its titular subject. It mentions "machine" and "Chicago machine" and "Machine" much more often than it does the titular subject. It is unencyclopedic in repeatedly describing the ebb & flow of undefined "power" and "influence" in poetic terms including the metaphors of a living thing and a mechanism, all the while meticulously avoiding verifiable facts and events. Further, it fails as a stand-alone article, requiring the reader to read the referenced book sources before the article can be understood. Hugh (talk) 00:21, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"enumerating the different chairman and discussing each of their tenures" A minimum requirement for a "good start" or "C" class article on the Democratic Party of Cook County. After all, the Democratic Party of Cook County is a real organization with real members and a real history full of real events and real facts. The "Chicago machine" on the other hand is an interpretation, a POV, on the political history of Chicago in the 20th century advanced by some authors. Other equally valid and significant interpretations of the political history of Chicago in the 20th century include that of economic class corporate vs. worker and ethnicity, but these are given short shrift in favor of one editor's theory, the "political machine" interpretation. Hugh (talk) 00:21, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"Much work still needs to be done, particularly enumerating the different chairman and discussing each of their tenures." We are in agreement that this article is bereft of the most basic facts that might qualify it as an article on the titular subject. With that agreement in mind, may I suggest a way forward for much of the content on this page. I believe it will be easier to change all the references in this article from Democratic Party of Cook County to "Chicago machine", then it would be to clean up all the off-topic references to "machine," "Machine," and "Chicago machine." Rework the intro to clearly explain that this article describes in overview a particular interpretation, a framework for understanding the Political history of Chicago, notable for being advanced by some book authors. Then we retitle (move) it to match its actual subject, "Chicago machine (political machine)," with "(political machine)" suffix to distinguish it from the professional soccer team. We may be criticized for POV-forking Political history of Chicago, but I believe we can defend article deletion, as the political machine interpretation of Political history of Chicago is notable in its own right for the number of popular history books that embrace it. Hugh (talk) 04:27, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sincerely I believe you would be much happier writing an article about the machine interpretation of the 20th century political history of Chicago. Reading the "article as it currently stands" convinces me it is the article you are trying to get out. You would enjoy a little more leeway in that you could clearly state up front that what you are doing is summarizing a particular interpretation: what Royko, O'Connor, Rakove, Kass and others have written in books ("Clout", "Boss," "Pharoah," and others) for popular audiences, and thereby freed somewhat from the encyclopedic constraints of sticking to the facts & events of the topic of the Democratic Party of Cook County. You could write about "power" and "influence" waxing & waning and uniting & fracturing because those are the organizing metaphors those authors used. May I toss out an analogy: we here on wp have many articles on the history of the industrial revolution, and we have an article on Marxism, but the history articles are not Marxist history. What do you think? Hugh (talk) 17:59, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The criticism that the article "fails as a stand-alone article, requiring the reader to read the referenced book sources before the article can be understood" is probably best shrugged off by reminding you that Wikipedia is a work in progress. Give that a read, look at the top of this page, and note that this article is "start class" and not yet "FA class". You don't seem to understand that our article has cited sources that state the Cook County Democratic Party operated as a political machine from the time of Cermak's death until it ceased to function - at the earliest when Bilandic lost the mayoral Democratic primary to Jane Byrne (according to the New York Times) and at the latest when Pat Levar lost to Dorothy Brown for Clerk of the Courts (according to the Chicago Tribune). These points are cited with proper sources. You tagged passages as "citation needed" and when the citations were supplied you went back and tagged the cited passage as "vague" or "awk". That borders on tendentious editing and replacing the tags could be seen as gaming the system to avoid a 3 revert vio. Again, your failure to understand even basic concepts, such as the fact that the Cook County Democratic Party and the RDO are the same thing is causing much of the confusion here. -- Homeaccount (talk) 20:24, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"your failure to understand even basic concepts" Thank you for your attempt to identify a source of the confusion here. Again, may I please repeat an unanswered question from earlier? Are you a subject matter expert on Democratic Party of Cook County? Do you believe only a subject matter expert can contribute to this article? Thank you in advance for your reply. Hugh (talk) 20:31, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"the Cook County Democratic Party operated as a political machine from the time of Cermak's death until it ceased to function - at the earliest when Bilandic lost the mayoral Democratic primary to Jane Byrne (according to the New York Times) and at the latest when Pat Levar lost to Dorothy Brown for Clerk of the Courts (according to the Chicago Tribune). These points are cited with proper sources." Whether or not something is in a reliable source is not the be-all and end-all of whether it should be in wp. We are called to weigh the breadth of rs and embrace multiple POVs and form judgements. That major dailies disagree on the "death" date of the "machine" is not at all surprising - the 2 articles you cite are not obituaries, and the "machine" can't die because it is not a living thing, it is a trope, a metaphor, shorthand used by book and newspaper writers. No one who read the editorial page editor of the Chicago Tribune declaring the "machine" dead when Brown beat Levar did anything except chuckle, except maybe you I guess. Tomorrow some oddball event will transpire and a City Hall beat writer will notice, "No way this would have happened back in the day," and we will read once again of the "death" of the "machine." Hugh (talk) 16:49, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"you went back and tagged the cited passage as "vague" or "awk"." That a passage is a paraphrase of rs does not immunize it from vagueness or awkwardness; rs can be vague and awkward. Hugh (talk) 17:03, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"The criticism that the article "fails as a stand-alone article, requiring the reader to read the referenced book sources before the article can be understood" is probably best shrugged off by reminding you that Wikipedia is a work in progress. Give that a read" Thank you for recommending some reading. May I recommend some reading to you? WP:NPOV If you are not familiar with it, it is a Core Content Policy. Is it your understanding that WP:WIP offers an end-around to our responsibiity to honor WP:NPOV? Since every article is a WP:WIP, no article can be said to violate WP:NPOV, or any other criterion for that matter? Do you think wp editors who create articles can write up their own personal POV, and leave it to other editors to provide balance? Is that how we work here? Will you allow another editor to continue that WIP, or do you get to say when bias has been eliminated? Hugh (talk) 16:01, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Any one can edit this article, but since it was restored to its proper palce you seem to have an axe to grind. What question did I miss? -- Homeaccount (talk) 20:34, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Vague"/"Awk"/etc tags

A flurry of largely unhelpful tags were littered around the article, mostly concerning material that was already cited. LOOK in the original source BEFORE you tag a cited sentence. In many cases, the language was lifted as closely as possible without creating a copyright vio. -- Homeaccount (talk) 18:43, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Inline templates may be used to draw the attention of fellow editors to a questionable citation, but that is only one of many legitimate uses of inline templates. Please see WP:ILT for more information. Hugh (talk) 21:28, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

These tags are unhelpful. For example, our article says "The U.S. Attorney's office contended in 2006 that the machine had been rebuilt." You tagged this as "vague". This is cited with an article from a reliable source which is titled: Chicago rebuilt machine, U.S. says. What is "vague" about that? It could not be any clearer. You tagged "...the Cook County Democratic Party was divided by crippling Council Wars." as "awkward". The reliable source that it is cited with opens with the sentence: "Rahm Emanuel says he doesn't want a repeat of the Council Wars that once crippled City Hall". What is "awkward" about that? -- Homeaccount (talk) 22:52, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Tags are helpful. Inline templates are a legitimate positive contribution to an article. When you delete one inline template added by a fellow editor, without any attempt to address the flagged issue, you are reverting. When you delete all of them, en-mass, without any attempt to resolve the issues, you are edit warring. Hugh (talk) 15:48, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Is the problem that you do not like inline templates, or inline templates in your article? This article is perfect, it has no issues, all inline templates are vandalism? Hugh (talk) 15:48, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"Unclear what the heck you are trying to do" (your edit summary) For you to now pretend you en-mass deleted another editor's contribution because you did not understand it seems untenable in the context of the extensive discussion of the severe problems with this article thoroughly documented here on this talk page, discussion which you for the most part ignored, and when you did not ignore, you derided or dismissed, replies outstanding for days before inline templates were used to direct your and mine and other editor's attention to very specific instances of problems. Hugh (talk) 15:48, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"Machine" is vague. "Rebuilt" is vague. What was rebuilt? How was it rebuilt? Such writing is so lazy, facile, and unencyclopediac as to harmful. What are the verifiable facts and events? This is a history section, not metaphysics. You don't get to write a article about the waxing and waning of an ethereal invisible hand, no matter how keen your person interest, under guise of a history section in an article nominally about a real organization with real history full of real people and real events and real facts. But I repeat myself. You have heard all this before on this page. Hugh (talk) 15:48, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Again, that a passage is a close paraphrase of rs does not prove it is not vague or awkward, because, of course, obviously, rs can be vague and awkward. But I repeat myself. You have heard this before on this page. Hugh (talk) 15:48, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The passage is almost verbatim. The article is from a reliable source. I can make an exact quote as you have forced me to do else where if you like. The author uses the words machine and rebuilt, but I repeat myself as you know that to be case. -- Homeaccount (talk) 21:19, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Again, that a passage is almost verbatim from rs does not prove it is not vague or awkward, because, of course, obviously, rs can be vague and awkward. But I repeat myself. Happy? Sigh. Hugh (talk) 23:19, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I am bone weary of repeating myself, but will assume, one more time, against all evidence of the past week, that you genuinely do not understand this issue, and try one more tack at getting it across. You & I have very similar home libraries. "Clout" is a classic, I greatly admire O'Connor's writing. I pulled it down and dusted it off. What a joy! I notice that pretty near every page refers to "The Machine" or "The Democratic Machine." And that's cool, it is a book for popular audiences, and it has a particular POV, and it has O'Connor's name on the cover. So. Does that mean that we are free to use those terms, in open (non-quotation) text in WP? More generally, do you believe any set of tones, styles, word choices, points of view, levels of detail, that are found in any reliable source - those tones, styles, word choices, points of view are automatically A-OK for inclusion in WP? WP is different, isn't it? WP has its own guidelines for tone, style, word choice, and precision, and of course we are specifically prohibited from over-representing any one POV. This is pretty basic stuff, bro. So basic forgive me but I question your sincerity in claiming not to get it. I only hope this post is not the latest in week long line of futile talk space exercises. Hugh (talk) 16:03, 28 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Basic stuff" should include your knowledge that O'Connor meets Wikipedia's standards as a reliable source. It is a reliable source as laid out here. The article is not over-reliant on any one source and certainly not that one. There are now almost 60 citations currently in the article and about 10 are from O'Connor. None of the material cited from O'Connor is particularly contentious and it can all be cited from any number of other sources, I used O'Connor liberally because it was at hand when you dropped all the {{fact}} tags. If you are concerned about over-representing any one POV, go to that great library of yours. ADD material to this article that represents these other points of view you keep saying exist in your head, but you cannot describe on this talk page. Then cite them with reliable source. Do not reword existing cited material, do not delete cited material, don't put unexplained tags on cited material. ADD the other POVs you think this article lacks. If you have a source that - like your recent edits - describes the party "Under Byrne" or "Under Washington", add it and cite it. If you have a source that says the party did not function as a political machine during the time our article says it did, add it and cite it.

In short, perhaps you are now making yourself clearer. Do you think we should have an article about the Cook County Democratic party that makes no mention of the years it was the most powerful political machine in American history? You asked for citations, they were all supplied. Since that time, you have not been able to explain what exactly you object to. Most telling, you have not offered any new material to this article what so ever. All you have been able to do is fight an edit war against its continued improvement for almost a week now. -- Homeaccount (talk) 22:21, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV

What can be done to make this article more neutral? That should be established before too much more work is done it. --Homeaccount (talk) 20:28, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

May I respectfully repeat some some suggestions posted earlier, to which you did not respond, despite your repeated calls for developing consensus on the talk page? Hugh (talk) 20:36, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
...may I suggest a way forward for much of the content on this page. I believe it will be easier to change all the references in this article from Democratic Party of Cook County to "Chicago machine", then it would be to clean up all the off-topic references to "machine," "Machine," and "Chicago machine." Rework the intro to clearly explain that this article describes in overview a particular interpretation, a framework for understanding the Political history of Chicago, notable for being advanced by some book authors. Then we retitle (move) it to match its actual subject, "Chicago machine (political machine)," with "(political machine)" suffix to distinguish it from the professional soccer team. We may be criticized for POV-forking Political history of Chicago, but I believe we can defend article deletion, as the political machine interpretation of Political history of Chicago is notable in its own right for the number of popular history books that embrace it. Hugh (talk) 04:27, 25 March 2013 (UT)
Sincerely I believe you would be much happier writing an article about the machine interpretation of the 20th century political history of Chicago. Reading the "article as it currently stands" convinces me it is the article you are trying to get out. You would enjoy a little more leeway in that you could clearly state up front that what you are doing is summarizing a particular interpretation: what Royko, O'Connor, Rakove, Kass and others have written in books ("Clout", "Boss," "Pharoah," and others) for popular audiences, and thereby freed somewhat from the encyclopedic constraints of sticking to the facts & events of the topic of the Democratic Party of Cook County. You could write about "power" and "influence" waxing & waning and uniting & fracturing because those are the organizing metaphors those authors used. May I toss out an analogy: we here on wp have many articles on the history of the industrial revolution, and we have an article on Marxism, but the history articles are not Marxist history. What do you think? Hugh (talk) 17:59, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
What you "sincerely believe" I want to do is irrelevant. The notion that we should delete Wikipedia's article about the Cook County Democratic Party and move all the work ever done here on this subject to a POV fork of your creation is not going to get any traction with any other editor. I encourage other editors to chime in. In the mean time, I have supplied citations that were requested and I will continue to add information to the article here - you should, too. -- Homeaccount (talk) 20:43, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

*** Second attempt at dialog on geographic coverage ***

"a POV fork of your creation" This article nominally titled Democratic Party of Cook County as it stands is a POV fork, a "political machine" POV telling of the topic of Political history of Chicago which is in turn comprised of material of dubious quality excised from the history section of Chicago. Again, the political machine interpretation is a worthy wp topic, and the Democratic Party of Cook County is a worthy wp topic, but claiming they are one & the same and trying to do justice to both in one article is futile and misleading and biased, biased against the vast areas of the Cook County outside Chicago, biased against the many unmentioned here courageous members of the Democratic Party of Cook County who did not participate in the machine, and biased against the many other interpretations of the political history of Chicago in the 20th century, including ethnographic models and economic models and others. Again, my recommendation is to use most of this content as a start for Chicago machine (political machine) and some as a start for Democratic Party of Cook County. Hugh (talk) 21:18, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"Daley assumed the leadership of the machine" Let us take one low-hanging example of the pervasive POV problems with this article. To make this claim, do you recognize any responsibility to reflect alternative POVs in wp? What did RJD himself say about him assuming leadership of the "machine"? He denied it. His POV is not mentioned. This is just one example. More generally, the article takes as given the existence of a thing that from another POV does not exist, then treats that thing as a sort of living organism that grows and dies, then is reborn, which in any context is nothing but sloppy writing. It's lazy writing because it's facile to write about an unseen hand, verifiable facts & events are hard. Hugh (talk)
Here's another way to see the pervasive POV problems with this article. Read thru it again, but substitute in your head Democratic Party of Cook County, the titular subject of this article, for each mention of "machine" or "Machine" or "Chicago machine." It doesn't work. It doesn't work because most of this article is not about Democratic Party of Cook County. Hugh (talk) 22:05, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"That should be established before too much more work is done it." I note you made a dozen some edits after this post. May I ask, do you include yourself in your calls to hold off on edits pending consensus? Hugh (talk) 18:27, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I called for a consensus prior to yet another page move, not over any editing. I am somehow STILL uncertain what material you object to - other than all of it. The only position you have been able to communicate is that you own our material and you don't want to see it in this article, where it has sat from the time of its creation on 13 May 2006‎ until you moved it all without any discussion. What edits do you feel need consensus? If you object to discussing the party's well-documented (and cited) machine past in this article, you have an issue with the reliable sources listed, not with me and not with our article. -- Homeaccount (talk) 21:57, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"STILL uncertain what material you object to" For you to pretend this, at the bottom of this talk page, and after en-mass deleting inline templates multiple times, I feel this was posted merely to test my patience and provoke anger. Hugh (talk) 16:33, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, assume good faith, humor me, and explain your position here. Do not ask that the article be blanked and redirected to a fork and do not tag cited material you do not like as being "vague" without an explanation here first. At least on admin agreed those actions are unhelpful. You were warned about disruptive editing and we were both warned about edit warring. Let's work collaboratively to improve this article. I am restoring the Lyons heading as the party never was under Richard M. Daley. -- Homeaccount (talk) 21:26, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"explain your position" I am very proud of my article space percentage, and my humor is running out with you goading me into repeating myself over & over while ignoring me or pretending not to understand. Hugh (talk) 23:12, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I am sure you do great work here, which is why I would hate to see you blocked for edit warring. I take it this means you cannot in fact explain what issues you are having with the article beyond the fact that you don't like it. When you add a tag, come to the talk page and explain why it is there. Try that. -- Homeaccount (talk) 22:23, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Coat rack

"An article about an astronaut might mostly focus on his moon landing. A moon trip that took only a tiny fraction of the astronaut's life takes up most of the article. But that does not make it a coatrack article." Our history section discusses the machine-era of the party's history. There is material concerning the eras before and after that period. How is this article a coat rack? -- Homeaccount (talk) 21:54, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A coat rack need not be 100% coat rack. I agree the article to date includes some scant material that might actually properly survive to a start class article on the nominal subject. But the middle third sadly veers off into this wholly derisive and appallingly non-neutral essay regarding a particular point POV, the political machine interpretation of the Political history of Chicago. But I repeat myself. I have little to add that I have not said before and that you have ignored or dismissed. Hugh (talk) 23:06, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"How is this article a coat rack?" This article is a Chicago machine (political machine) coat on a Democratic Party of Cook County rack. How is that not obvious? Hugh (talk) 00:16, 28 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"How is that not obvious?" is unhelpful. The history section is not an "essay" but rather it is a recounting of events and exact quotes, supported by extensive citations to reputable sources. If there is another point of view that you feel is unrepresented, please add material cited from reputable sources that supports your position. I am removing the tag until you can explain why it is there on this talk page. "How is that not obvious?" doesn't cut it here at Wikipedia and I remind you that there are now admins keeping an eye on our progress here. -- Homeaccount (talk) 21:56, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"If there is another point of view that you feel is unrepresented, please add material cited from reputable sources that supports your position." So, I take it, in answer to my earlier question, which you ignored, yes, you do believe that how we work on wp is that each editor writes up a particular POV and leaves it to other editors to provide balance? I will highlight the earlier question on this talk page since you somehow missed it. I am confused that you seem so naive about WP:Core content policies such as WP:NPOV yet have a demonstrated mastery of such policies as WP:3RR. Please explain, before I believe this discrepancy in apparent experience level is merely in service of POV pushing. Sometimes it seems like your goal is to make me repeat the same things over and over. Hugh (talk 17:11, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Please do not remove article templates or inline inline without consensus. Hugh (talk 17:11, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Do not reword, remove, or tag cited material. Such edits can be reverted as vandalism. Speaking of core content policies, our article discusses the years that the Cook County Democratic Party functioned as political machine as part of a wider section on its history. The article is painfully referenced with reliable sources. The idea that the party functioned for a time as a political machine is not my idea, it is not a fringe theory, it is an accepted fact. It is well within the bounds of, "Ideas that have become newsworthy: they have been repeatedly and independently reported in newspapers or news stories" - as well as numerous cited books. I don't see how anything I have added or cited to this article violates core content policies, nor have you made it clear how this article is a coat rack in its present form. -- Homeaccount (talk) 19:59, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Do not reword, remove, or tag cited material." Please site specific wp policy or guidelines in your commands to fellow editors. Exactly who do you think you are to tell other editors what not to do? We are a community of policies and guidelines. Is your view that a citation immunizes wp content from modification, deletion, or inline templates? May I respectfully repeat an unanswered question from earlier, which you ignored: you don't like inline templates, do you? You do not seem to understand vandalism. Sorry to inform, vandalism is not "stuff I don't like." Do you own this page? Are you are the gatekeeper for changes or deletions? Thank you for clearly documenting in your own words your serious WP:OWN problem. Hugh (talk) 04:56, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"Vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia." The source makes a claim. Wikipedia repeats the claim with a citation. You reworded the claim to your liking, but left the citation in place. The claim is now no longer backed by the citation that accompanies it - compromising the integrity of Wikipedia. Sorry to inform, you can not reword cited material because it is "stuff I don't like." Do you own this page? Thank you for clearly documenting in your own words your serious WP:OWN problem. I know you like inline templates. Had I not reverted your edits, anyone could tag the new statements with this: {{Failed_verification}} -- Homeaccount (talk) 19:07, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Chairman

There was agreement that we should compile a listing of chairmen and their tenures, but nobody has done any work on it other than me. Can anybody help with info beyond what is in our own article - particularly with chairmen prior to 20th century? -- Homeaccount (talk) 02:50, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Problem areas in the History section

The XIX century and the transition of power between Kelly and J. Daley need the most work at this time. Any constructive help would be most me welcome. -- Homeaccount (talk) 06:57, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Refactoring

"Refactoring should only be done when there is an assumption of good faith by editors who have contributed to the talk page. If there are recent heated discussions on the talk page, good faith may be lacking. If another editor objects to refactoring then the changes should be reverted." per Wikipedia:Refactoring talk pages. This is yet another example of disruptive editing rather than productive dialog. -- Homeaccount (talk) 17:59, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

From my talk page

I do not think it helpful to remove this discussion to any individual editor's talk page. This is moved my personal talk page:

29-30 March 2013 reversions to Democratic Party of Cook County

Of your many recent reversions, kindly restore just

  1. the article template for geographic coverage;
  2. the article template for coat rack; and
  3. the sentence from the lead which identifies "machine" as a derisive term,

and I will not request an investigation at this time. Thank you in advance. Hugh (talk) 18:16, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • "the article template for geographic coverage"

What is the purpose of this template? Have you read the article recently? The scope has broaden significantly in the last week.

  • "the article template for coat rack"

The issue you seem to have explained, as best as you can, is not that this article is a coat rack, but rather you feel it has POV issues. I have left the NPOV tag in the hopes we can discuss improvements here on this talk page.

  • "the sentence from the lead which identifies "machine" as a derisive term"

This sentence does not belong in the lead section as it is not cited anywhere in the body. Again, you say you have an extensive library. Add this sentence back in and cite it with a reliable source.

I don't know what kind of "investigation" you want to call, but I have asked for a Wikipedia:Third opinion on these subjects. Let's give it the requisite six days and see what other editors think. -- Homeaccount (talk) 19:03, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

3O Response: I am not sure that the material above was cut & pasted to your talk page or simply copied & pasted. In any event, WP:OWNTALK says it is proper for you to remove (or simply ignore) remarks posted on your talkpage. Removal from your talkpage constitutes acknowledgement that you read the material. You can, of course, post a reply on your talk page. As to the remarks here, on the article talk page, you can reply, etc. – S. Rich (talk) 22:57, 31 March 2013 (UTC) .[reply]

Summary of attempts at dispute resolution

This article has severe problems of POV, style, tone, word choice, precision, and level of detail. The content issues are clear-cut, with straightforward remedies, and would be resolved quickly and collegially were it not for some frustrating counter-productive ownership behaviours of one editor. The record is one of lip-service to consensus but short-falls in practice. If one is to assume good faith, the short-fall may only be explained as consequence of a genuine lack of understanding of fundamental WP policies, guidelines, and practices; alternatively, the counter-productive behaviours are in service of a POV push. These short-falls of understanding need to be addressed, or, failing that, a topic ban may be required, for this article to progress to a start-class article on its nominal subject that is minimally acceptable under WP policies and guidelines.

Index of attempts at dispute resolution

  1. 17:36, 23 March 2013 attempt to engage in dialog on subject of article and on the role of inline templates
  2. 18:27, 23 March 2013 attempt to engage in dialog on the role of inline templates
  3. 18:47, 23 March 2013 good faith suggestion for dispute resolution
  4. 19:05, 23 March 2013 another good faith attempt to disambiguate the subject of this article
  5. 00:17, 24 March 2013 yet another good faith attempt to disambiguate the subject of this article
  6. 00:21, 25 March 2013 attempt to engage in dialog on nominal and actual subject of article
  7. 04:27, 25 March 2013 another good faith suggestion for dispute resolution
  8. 04:46, 25 March 2013 attempt to engage in dialog on geographic coverage and on WP:EXPERT
  9. 17:59, 25 March 2013 yet another good faith suggestion for dispute resolution
  10. 20:31, 25 March 2013 another attempt to engage in dialog on WP:EXPERT
  11. 20:36, 25 March 2013 repost good faith suggestions for dispute resolution
  12. 21:18, 25 March 2013 attempt to engage in discussion of a wp editor's responsibility w.r.t. WP:NPOV, also repeat good faith suggestion for dispute resolution
  13. 21:28, 25 March 2013 another attempt to engage in dialog on the role of inline templates
  14. 22:05, 25 March 2013 attempt to engage in dialog on WP:NPOV issues
  15. 16:49, 26 March 2013 another attempt to engage in dialog on role of WP:POV
  16. 17:03, 26 March 2013 yet another attempt to engage in dialog on the appropriate role of inline templates, also on the relationship of rs POV, tone, and word choice relative to wp guidelines on POV, tone, and word choice
  17. 18:27, 26 March 2013 attempt to engage in dialog on scope of calls for consensus
  18. 19:26, 26 March 2013 attempt to engage in dialog on the role of WP:NPOV in redirects and article titles
  19. 15:48, 27 March 2013 another attempt to engage in dialog on role on appropriate use of inline templates, relationship of rs tone, style and word choice to wp tone, style and word choice
  20. 16:01, 27 March 2013 attempt to convey that WP:WIP is not a license to violate WP:CCPOL such as WP:NPOV
  21. 23:06, 27 March 2013 attempt to engage in dialog regarding WP:NPOV
  22. 23:19, 27 March 2013 another attempt to convey that rs style, tone, word choice is not wp style, tone, and word choice
  23. 16:03, 28 March 2013 yet another attempt to convey that rs style, tone, word choice is not necessarily wp style, tone, and word choice
  24. 17:11, 30 March 2013 another attempt to convey that WP:WIP is not a license to violate WP:CCPOL such as WP:NPOV

Hugh (talk) 07:51, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

RS style, tone, POV, and word choice is not necessarily WP style, tone, POV, and word choice

Editor defends the mistaken belief that text in any style, with any tone, with any word choices, and with any POV, is acceptable in WP as long as it is found in somewhere in RS. Believes a citation to RS exempts WP content from WP policies and guidelines, and immunizes a passage from criticism, inline templates, or further edits. Apparently believes, in effect, WP:CCPOL and WP:MOS need not be mastered or practised, as paraphrasing text from RS the only skill required for WP editting. Acts on this misconception by reverting attempts to conform content to WP policy and guidelines, and demanding that other editors not alter material with a citation.

Examples:

  1. 20:24, 25 March 2013 "when the citations were supplied you went back and tagged the cited passage as "vague" or "awk""
  2. 21:57, 26 March 2013 "you have an issue with the reliable sources listed, not with me"
  3. 22:52, 26 March 2013 "You tagged this as "vague". This is cited with an article from a reliable source..."
  4. 21:19, 27 March 2013 "The passage is almost verbatim...from a reliable source."
  5. 19:59, 30 March 2013 "Do not reword, remove, or tag cited material. Such edits can be reverted as vandalism."

Good faith attempts to resolve this dispute:

  1. 17:03, 26 March 2013 attempt to engage in dialog on the relationship of rs POV, tone, and word choice relative to wp guidelines on POV, tone, and word choice
  2. 23:19, 27 March 2013 another attempt to convey that rs style, tone, word choice is not wp style, tone, and word choice
  3. 16:03, 28 March 2013 yet another attempt to convey that rs style, tone, word choice is not necessarily wp style, tone, and word choice

Hugh (talk) 08:44, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Core content policies such as neutral point of view are the responsibility of every editor

Editor does not accept individual responsibility to conform to WP:CCPOLs. Editor mistakenly believes core content policies such as neutral point of view are someone else's to worry about. Acts on this misconception by including inappropriate content justified erroneously with WP:WIP.

Examples:

  1. 20:24, 25 March 2013 "The criticism...is probably best shrugged off by reminding you that Wikipedia is a work in progress."
  2. 21:56, 29 March 2013 "If there is another point of view that you feel is unrepresented, please add material cited from reputable sources that supports your position."
  3. 22:21, 29 March 2013 "ADD material to this article that represents these other points of view you keep saying exist in your head...ADD the other POVs you think this article lacks."

Hugh (talk) 19:47, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Good faith attempts to resolve this dispute:

  1. 16:01, 27 March 2013 attempt to convey that WP:WIP is not a license to violate WP:CCPOL such as WP:NPOV
  2. 17:11, 30 March 2013 another attempt to convey that WP:WIP is not a license to violate WP:CCPOL such as WP:NPOV

Hugh (talk) 08:44, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus is dialog

Editor peppers talk page and edit summaries with calls for talk page discussions, so that a quick read of the talk page or edit history leaves the impression of an attitude of collaboration, while consistently avoiding actual dialog. Other editors make good faith suggestions, or raise good faith direct questions which might serve to tease out possible areas of consensus or clarify WP guidelines or policy, but the suggestions and questions are ignored or dismissed.

Exempts self from calls for consensus:

  1. 20:28, 25 March 2013 "What can be done to make this article more neutral? That should be established before too much more work is done it." --Homeaccount
  2. 18:27, 26 March 2013 "I note you made a dozen some edits after this post. May I ask, do you include yourself in your calls to hold off on edits pending consensus?"

Repeated direct questions and comments attempting to clarify the subject of this article:

  1. 17:36, 23 March 2013 "Chicago machine (political machine) to Democratic Party of Cook County, are they the same thing?"
  2. 19:05, 23 March 2013 "May I respectfully ask again..."
  3. 00:17, 24 March 2013 "Yet while leaving unanswered attempts at dialog from a fellow wikipedian..."
  4. 00:21, 25 March 2013 "this article is not about its titular subject."
  5. 21:18, 25 March 2013 "Again, the political machine interpretation is a worthy wp topic, and the Democratic Party of Cook County is a worthy wp topic, but claiming they are one & the same and trying to do justice to both in one article is futile and misleading and biased..."

Repeated suggestions for dispute resolution advanced and ignored:

  1. 18:47, 23 March 2013 propose merger to integrate POV fork
  2. 04:27, 25 March 2013 "...may I suggest a way forward..."
  3. 17:59, 25 March 2013 yet another good faith suggestion for dispute resolution
  4. 20:36, 25 March 2013 "May I respectfully repeat some some suggestions posted earlier, to which you did not respond, despite your repeated calls for developing consensus on the talk page?"

Hugh (talk) 17:07, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Closely related to the behavior of frequent calls for discussion in edit summaries and talk pages, while ignoring or dismissing talk page contributions, is the behavior of repeated claims of lack of comprehension accompanied by calls for clarification, even after thousands of talk page words.

Examples of repeated claims of lack of clarity and calls for more repetition:

  1. 21:57, 26 March 2013 "I am somehow STILL uncertain what material you object to..."
  2. 21:26, 27 March 2013 "...explain your position here..."
  3. 22:21, 29 March 2013 "...you have not been able to explain what exactly you object to."
  4. 19:59, 30 March 2013 "I don't see how anything...violates core content policies, nor have you made it clear..."
  5. 18:49, 1 April 2013 "...it should be easy for you to lay out those issues here..."
  6. 22:18, 3 April 2013 "You still have not made a clear case for what you are even trying to achieve."
  7. 20:21, 8 April 2013 "...you STILL have not explained what issues you have with current version."

Generally speaking, one can claim of another editor, "I am somehow STILL uncertain what material you object to," or one can revert that editor's inline templates, but to do both in tandem may indicate a lack of comprehension or lack of commitment to the fundamental principle of consensus. Hugh (talk) 20:04, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hugh (talk) 19:43, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to the so-called "attempts"

Hugh, you wrote, "This article has severe problems of POV, style, tone, word choice, precision, and level of detail. The content issues are clear-cut, with straightforward remedies..."
If that is the case, it should be easy for you to lay out those issues here, with your proposed remedies for discussion. I have been asking you to do so for over a week. This whole talk page is a testament to that. You don't really have any position beyond blanking the article and redirecting it to a POV Fork of your creation. That was the last tangible suggestion you have made and it was about a week ago. Since then, I have provided every citation you have asked for. I have substituted exact quotes for material you felt was vague or synthesized. I have added much cited content and photos.
I have asked you to add cited content to this article supporting your position, since what that position is remains unclear. Instead of constructive editing or discussion, you have been engaging in Wikipedia:Tendentious editing and a quixotic campaign to get me blocked that has been laughably unsuccessful. You claim I am defeating consensus, but what this talk page shows is that you WP:OWN this article and you are enraged that there is another editor trying to work on it with you. You keep talking about my edits vis a vis "other editors" - but nobody else has an issue with my edits except you. Not. A. Single. One. By "other editors" you mean yourself - and nobody else. No other editors have raised any issues here since you started edit warring. In fact no one other than me, you, and a bot have edited this article in that time period. We need for an editor who is not me or Hugh to weigh in on the "problems" with this article. We need more opinions. Thankfully the article has been mercifully locked and we now have a week for editors to provide them. I'll try again to get a third opinion. The next step after that is Wikipedia:Requests for comment, but that seems like a waste since there are only two editors in dispute in this case. -- Homeaccount (talk) 18:49, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"This whole talk page is a testament to..." As I stated above and on your talk page, I believe we need to achieve consensus on a shared understanding of some fundamental policies and guidelines before we invest any more time in discussing content issues here. Thank you in advance for your patience. Hugh (talk) 19:59, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I am waiting on the third opinion on the hat tags before attempting to engage you on any other issues. We seem to have achieved consensus that discussion thus far has been unhelpful. Finally, common ground - good for us. -- Homeaccount (talk) 20:09, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Issues requiring a third opinion

I made another request. Perhaps the last two were unclear:

29-30 March 2013 reversions to Democratic Party of Cook County

Opinion #1

Restoration of

  1. the article template for geographic coverage;
  2. the article template for coat rack; and
  3. the sentence from the lead which identifies "machine" as a derisive term,

Opinion #2

  • "the article template for geographic coverage"

The scope has been broaden significantly in the last week. While this tag was never called for, it certainly is not needed now.

  • "the article template for coat rack"

The case being made is not that this article is a coat rack, but rather one editor feels it has POV issues. The NPOV tag remains on the article pending discussion.

  • "the sentence from the lead which identifies "machine" as a derisive term"

This sentence does not belong in the lead section as it is not cited anywhere in the body. This sentence can be added back into the body with a reliable source. It could then be included in the lead.

--Homeaccount (talk) 19:17, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am assuming point 3 has been conceded by Hugh. His addition of {{blpo}} to this page reminds us we are required to WP:BLPREMOVE contentious, uncited material. We seem to all agree on that. -- Homeaccount (talk) 21:18, 2 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Response to third opinion request:
I want to start by saying one thing: YIKES!!! This article has gotten a whole lot of attention lately! 331 edits in the last 2 weeks... that's certainly something!

Firstly, regarding "geographic coverage"... that's completely bogus. Political parties do not operate under a geographically-balanced model; they focus naturally on their offices, and the homes, offices, and meeting places of their largest contributors (monetary and volunteer-wise).

Thanks for your opinion. Political parties in Illinois, as in many US states, operate at state and county levels; and within the Cook County Democratic Party, the nominal subject of this article, are two committees: one comprised of Chicago ward committeemen and another of suburban township committeemen. AFTER the "geographic coverage" tag was reverted, some progress has been made toward balance, but, fundamentally, far & away most of the content of this article remains a non-neutral POV on Political history of Chicago. Note for example the lack of focus on party chairs compared to the focus on Chicago mayors, and then note the reverts in the edit history of edits which attempt to subhead the long sections about Washington, Byrne, and RJD as to their actual content. For example, the section headed "Under Tom Lyons" has one sentence that mentions that Party chair in two long paragraphs about Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, then note the revert of the subheading edit. Hugh (talk) 17:15, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding political machines: "Political machine" is more accurately defined as a subjective term, not a derisive one. Much like the term "heap." Trying to define a political machine would be a lot like trying to define a heap. One grain of rice (or even five grains) are not a heap; however, a heap of rice as tall as you are certainly is. If you remove one grain from the heap, it is still a heap. At what point does the heap cease to be a heap? Likewise, at what point does a "grassroots movement" transform into being a "political machine?" Much like a heap of rice, I can tell you when I've seen one, but I can't necessarily define it accurately.

This seems like more a comment on Political machine than Cook County Democratic Party. Hugh (talk) 17:15, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A funny thing is that an article making heavy use of the term "political machine" came out on the same day that this went to page protection. Whether your opinion is, "I'm not part of some horrible machine, MY party recognizes ME as a PERSON!!!" or you believe that "OUR party's political machine can really get things done!!!", the goodness or badness of the term is really up to the individual to decide. Some people will hate the term; that certainly doesn't mean that everyone does.

"Some people will hate the term" Thank you for this. We're done! Let us relate this conclusion to WP:BLP considerations. While not technically a BLP, the nominal subject of this article is an existing group of living persons, a group with a century of history, and the article contains material that relates to living persons, such as friends and family of persons no longer living, and many living persons involved in the subject matter. Thus we have an additional burden of neutrality, and neutrality applies to naming and word choice. This page was moved from Chicago machine (political machine). I believe this move was non-neutral, as it blurs an important distinction between a part and a whole. But if that move is accepted by the community, minimally, the lead of this article should explicitly explain that Political machine is an acceptable synonym for Cook County Democratic Party, WP:MOSBOLDSYN, WP:R#PLAT. Then WP:NPOV and BLP as applied to groups require us to explicitly in text mention that "machine" is derogatory to be consistent with ourselves at Political machine. But it is not a synonym, it is part of the story. Outside of one sentence in the lead which explicitly labels the term "political machine" as an derogatory epithet, and delineates the distinction in terms of years, any sentence in this article of which "political machine" is a subject or object invites increased scrutiny as off-topic, non-neutral, and/or non-encyclopedic in an article on the nominal subject of the Cook County Democratic Party. Outside of the lead, the derogatory term Political machine is completely unnecessary except in service of a POV push. We have a goodly variety of perfectly acceptable neutral alternative terms to use for the subject of this article, including the nominal title, Cook County Democratic Party, "the Party," and "the organization." Further, experienced careful encyclopedia editors will note that the term "political machine" is an excellent red flag for quickly zeroing in on extraordinarily sloppy writing. "Living Person X rebuilt the machine" is nothing more than bad writing, so bad as to be wholly unencyclopedic. What was built? How did he build it? What were the facts and events? It's easy to write about a "machine," and fun!, writing for an encyclopedia is hard. Note that this article cannot even agree with itself on when this thing "the Machine" started or stopped, completely unsurprising as the popular writers of machinology do not agree, but this article papers over this discrepancy in its sources by postulating a series of machines that are born and die; "machines" come & go like dragons I guess. "The Machine was revived..." was bad writing in Star Trek: III and it's bad writing here. So, in summary, equating the Cook County Democratic Party with Chicago machine (political machine) conflates the whole with the part and is unnecessarily offensive to living persons, non-neutral, and unencyclopedic. Thanks again. Hugh (talk) 17:15, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Not at all. Some people hate the term "African American," and have gone on record as saying so. It doesn't mean that we quit referring to people by that descriptor. The fact that some people hate the term "political machine" is not of itself a reason to not use it.
Secondly, calling the "Chicago Machine" redirect non-neutral says absolutely nothing about the subject at hand. The material question isn't whether the redirect is neutral, it's whether people searching for "Chicago Machine" will find what they're looking for on this page. Despite the fact that I think that this is a good candidate for that redirect, the redirect question is another subject entirely. Don't muddy the issue.
You do make a good point that saying "Person X rebuilt the Chicago Machine" is less-than-factual. However, the role of an encyclopedia is not to be an endless compendium of facts, but to present information in a clear and concise fashion. (The article on the Civil War states who won, not just a list of "facts" on this battle, that battle, this appointment, that resignation.) I don't know who or what comprised the Chicago Machine in its heyday, but it certainly did exist and merits inclusion in the appropriate articles. On the other hand, the term may be overused here. Perhaps there are better terms to use than "political machine" at several points in the article. Jsharpminor (talk) 19:30, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"The article on the Civil War states who won, not just a list of "facts" on this battle, that battle, this appointment, that resignation." Does WP say Abe Lincoln won the Civil War? and stop there? Does WP summarize to the exclusion of facts and events? The content in this article on the Chicago machine (political machine) relies too heavily on a Great Man theory of the Political history of Chicago, but we are discussing how to improve an article on the Chicago machine (political machine) and forgetting the issue of the coat racking of Chicago machine (political machine) on this Cook County Democratic Party coat rack. Hugh (talk) 20:07, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We have to be able to call African-Americans something to tell the story of Africa and America on wp, so we try to find the least offensive, most neutral term available. We have several terms for the Cook County Democratic Party that are more accurate in delineating the class and more neutral than "Chicago machine." We can provide some variety in our prose by mixing up the official name with "the Party," "the Cook County Democrats" or "the County Democrats" once context is established. "Chicago machine" is a derogatory epithet and also complete unnecessary for us to tell the story. Hugh (talk) 00:21, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a member of WP:CHICAGO, and a Chicagoan. There's Democrats here. (Maybe some want to punish us for that.) When in conversation I discover a neighbor with a mutual interest in local political lore, and I say, "You know, you might enjoy contributing to Wikipedia," I fully expect to hear "Wikipedia will never let me tell the story." At this point I'm comfortable explaining, "You're right, wp has some pretty strict editorial policies, and they might seem strange and baroque at first," but, if I have to explain, "Oh, by the way, we've agreed to use 'Chicago machine' interchangeably as a synonym for 'Cook County Democratic Party,' you don't mind, do you?" we're hosed - we can't grow our project and attract diverse POVs without a real commitment to neutrality. Hugh (talk) 00:51, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You're arguing points I've already conceded. Yes, we need to fix POV issues. However, that doesn't mean that we make demons look like angels to appease potential Wikipedians of one political party or another. Call a spade a spade. Tell the story from NPOV. Fix POV issues where they exist. I don't know about the political history of Chicago, and it's not really an issue I care about all that much; I just dropped by to give a simple 3O. You know much more about the issue than I do; I don't know what literal body was best called the "Chicago Machine" -- in the brief reading of it, it seems that Daley had his own machine that was fully independent from the Cook County Dem Party, which would imply that Daley's Chicago Machine really doesn't belong in this article. I cordially invite you to fix the issues you're bringing up. Jsharpminor (talk) 06:15, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"Call a spade a spade." ouch! Hugh (talk) 21:10, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Finally, the coat rack. I think that the coat rack is really the hardest thing to address here. One question I'd ask is, when most people think of the Democratic Party of Cook County, Ill., do they think of the political machinery of the Daley era, or do they think of who's running for office for county auditor in the midterm election? I think the article should focus on both. It currently seems slanted toward the historical side, and covers that very well. While a little more coverage of the modern party would be beneficial, I see no reason to call this a coatrack article. Among other things, coatrack articles are by definition biased. The historical side of the article appears to be fairly neutral. Jsharpminor (talk) 09:33, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"The historical side of the article appears to be fairly neutral." I'm astonished at this assessment. To take one easy example of a POV that is abundant in RS but conspicuously absent from this article, how about the POV that the "Chicago machine" does not exist? If you are going to write about at thing at length is it not incumbent to mention a competing POV that it is not even a thing? Perhaps it is not mine or your POV but it is represented in RS, and we are tasked that coverage in our articles be proportional to RS. What about the historical figures and living persons mentioned in this article, might it be important to mention their POV? Were RJD or RMD ever asked about "the machine?" What did they say? Should we at least mention that? Further, the article dwells too heavily on causality, as opposed to facts and events, for example, relying too heavily on Great Man theories. To take one of many obvious examples of this pattern "Under the leadership of Anton Cermak, a Czech American, the party consolidated its ethnic bases into one large organization." The historic fact is that the diversity of the Party changed over time, but so did diversity in the City as a whole with waves of immigration, and implying that Party diversity may be attributed to any individual is so simplistic as to be unencyclopedic, ignores competing theories, and is grossly unfair to the many courageous immigrants and sons and daughters of immigrants who screwed up the gumption to walk into a ward office and ask for a job or precinct. More generally, the article is non-neutral in relying too heavily on an overly simplistic explanation of Chicago political history as a succession of bosses. So, in summary, in addition to being off-topic here, the treatment of Chicago political history is non-neutral. Hugh (talk) 18:45, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You're really pushing your own POV here. The Chicago machine doesn't exist? If there ever was a political machine, Richard Daley had one. To say otherwise defies all sense. Yes, "Chicago-style politics" is presumed to be dead in modern times, by many... but you'll find many others that point fingers at such names as Blagojevich, Emanuel, and others, to make a convincing case that Chicago-style politics are alive and well.
It may be well said that the information you are referencing belongs in a different article. Which article should it be moved to? Jsharpminor (talk) 19:30, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(I don't recall stating my POV, it is irrelevant, we are called to write in POVs other than our own). "The Chicago machine doesn't exist" was mentioned as ONE example of MANY legitimately held POVs conspicuously absent from this article, however counter-factual, a POV readily available in RS, and a POV deeply held by many of the historical and living persons covered as actors in this story; further, this non-neutral content is off-topic in an article nominally about the Cook County Democratic Party. Thanks for your agreement on the point of the wide divergence of opinion on the "health" of the "machine," this problem illustrates the fundamental issue of the non-encylopedic nature of the "Chicago machine" telling of the story of the Political history of Chicago (again, the Political history of Chicago being off-topic here). Hugh (talk) 19:52, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So basically, we move most of the content to Political History of Chicago, point the redirect there, include a few opposing POVs such as the idea that the Chicago Machine is a figment of right-wing imagination, and we're set? Sounds like a plan to me.
I don't know if you'd like to continue this discussion somewhere else, but it seems to be relevant to discuss the idea that the Chicago machine did in fact exist, and even suggesting otherwise is somewhat analagous to mentioning in the Barack Obama article that some people have much documentation to support the idea that he is from another solar system. Jsharpminor (talk) 20:00, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"move most of the content on Political History of Chicago" The content in this article on Chicago machine (political machine) would be more appropriate in Political history of Chicago, but has many problems such as WP:NPOV, over-reliance on one source, quality of RS, some OR, and over-reliance on causality and Great Man theory at the expense of facts and events, and so we would be doing Political history of Chicago no great favor without serious rewriting. And I hope we would agree that Barack Obama's own statements about his origins be included in any wp article about the origins of Barack Obama; the POV of the various "bosses" themselves are conspicuously absent from the off-topic material here on the Chicago machine (political machine). Hugh (talk) 20:47, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Machine" is a derogatory epithet for a group of living persons

Really? You need a rs ref that "machine" is a derogatory epithet? Because you're not sure? Really?

  1. How about common sense? We are allowed to use common sense on wp, you know. If you were introducing RJD at a speaking engagement, might you say, "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, the undisputed Boss of the Chicago Machine..." If you ran into RMD on the street, would you shake his hand and say, "Great job rebuilding that Chicago Machine, sir!"?
  2. Failing common sense, any way you might check with wikipedia?
  3. Not to blindly accept everything on wp, might you accept William Safire, one of our leading political rhetoricians? Hugh (talk) 18:49, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Having just written the 3O above, I feel the need to respond to this.
  • Calling someone the Boss of the Chicago Machine sounds to me like you're introducing a retired politico for a Lifetime Achievement Award or somesuch.
  • Secondly, William Safire is the one who is quoted in the Political machine article as saying that it is a negative statement to begin with... so your points #2 and #3 are really just repetitions of each other.
  • Thirdly, I'll repeat my point mentioned above. Some people -- probably even most people -- like to feel that they're part of a "grassroots movement," that most people on the street approve of their cause, whether they personally have time to devote to it or not. However, there are some people who really do like the thought that they are part of the machinery that can steamroll dissenting opinions, and would think that being part of the "Chicago Machine" is a grand honor. Jsharpminor (talk) 09:39, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If you have a reliable source, please suggest it. Really you need more than a source that claims it is derogatory, you need a source that states the CCDP was not functioning as a political machine when our article claims it was. The article has copious citations backing that claim. I have a copy of Ethnic Chicago, a scholarly, peer-reviewed work by two University experts. The book won the Illinois Political Science Association award for "best book on Illinois politics". The chapter titled The Multiethnic Road to Machine Success provides extensive backing for our usages of the term in this article. I will be adding these citations (along side the citations from "popular" sources) and much new material in the coming days. -- Homeaccount (talk) 00:37, 16 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved. EdJohnston (talk) 15:15, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Democratic Party of Cook County → Cook County Democratic Party – The subject of this article is a currently active group with many hundreds of thousands of living registered members. The proposed move is non-controversial; it is to the official name, as registered with the Illinois Secretary of State, the Illinois State Board of Elections, and most significantly on the contact page of the group's self-published website. Also, one-week old consensus on this move above on this talk page. Page is currently edit and move blocked, but not for the name. Hugh (talk) 22:47, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support I think this was approrpiate for a WP:BOLD move. What is the consideration here?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 18:52, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Tony, thanks for stopping by and thanks for your support. I agree, the move is non-controversial, but perhaps an abundance of caution is warranted as this content was moved to its current name just a few weeks ago, 23 March 2013‎. Admin is required at this time. Please be bold AFAIC. Thanks again. Hugh (talk) 19:27, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support There was consensus on this in a thread above. -- Homeaccount (talk) 20:23, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Standing Committees

Given the importance of some of the committees, particularly the judicial slating committee, it would be nice to add details on membership on the standing committeees of the party. At the least it would be good to have the chairs identified. Does anyone know of a source for that information?

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Cook_County_Democratic_Party&oldid=578592795"