User talk:Arstoien

January 2012

Thank you for your contributions. One of your recent contributions to Alberta general election, 2012 has been reverted or removed, because it contains speculative or unconfirmed information about a future event. Wikipedia has a policy called "Wikipedia is not a crystal ball", which discourages such edits. Please only add material about future events if it is verifiable, based on a reference to a reliable source. Thank you. 117Avenue (talk) 01:44, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi 117 Avenue. Thank you for directing me to the "not a crystal ball" policy; I was not aware of this. However, you also changed two of my edits (below) that had no speculation, would it be okay if I changed those back?

Editing the introduction with less detail about the amendment to the election act; this could go in background if it should be kept

Putting in an earliest election date

Also, in regards to the "not a crystal ball" policy, I think that it is definitely debatable that seat projections are pure "speculation" (I would argue it is a researched projection, just as the government might project Canada's population two years from now). I would also like to know what is fundamentally different about seat projections and opinion polling that allows the latter to remain.

I believe that at least some of my polling-analysis edits would fall under the following (from the "not a crystal ball" policy):

"Predictions, speculation, forecasts and theories stated by reliable, expert sources or recognized entities in a field may be included, though editors should be aware of creating undue bias to any specific point-of-view."Arstoien (talk) 05:30, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

It has become practice, regarding Canadian election articles, to not predict the stability of the governments, and say when the election will happen. The fixed election date legislation has been spreading across the country, and we have been allowing for an early election call, see for example the lead paragraph, infobox, and article titles of 40th British Columbia general election and 42nd Canadian federal election. Alberta is a special case, where the specific date hasn't been chosen, the March 1 date is essentially meaningless, because an election can be called before or after it. I think that the first two paragraphs accurately explain of this works, but I did write it. As for the seat projections, it has been found considerably unfavourable by the community, you can find the latest discussion at Talk:Canadian federal election, 2011/Archive 1#Predictions. 117Avenue (talk) 15:21, 16 January 2012 (UTC)