SpaceMastadon

Dominic Cardy

When a person wins an election because they're the only candidate left on the ballot at the deadline, that's called acclamation, not "proclamation". A proclamation is a statement, not a process. Bearcat (talk) 19:55, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Acclamation vs. proclamation

The accepted Canadian definition for an election without opposition is acclamation. I refer you to your own source which says "Canadian an instance of electing or being elected without opposition". - Pictureprovince (talk) 17:57, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Also, here are some media sources describing his election as being "acclaimed."[1][2][3] - Pictureprovince (talk) 18:02, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Exactly what "compromise" is or was necessary? You've never made any effort to explain, on any talk page whatsoever, why you felt a different word was warranted for any reason whatsoever. Wikipedia is not an unreasonable place — there are plenty of venues available for dialogue and discussion in the event of disagreement — but you have to be willing to participate in those processes and to explain your reasons for making a edit if people challenge you on it. "Acclamation" is an unquestionably correct word for what happened, and you've offered no explanation whatsoever for why you wanted a different one instead. Compromise isn't out of the question on here — but the onus is on you to clarify and explain why you feel a different word was necessary, not on anybody else to just let you change words arbitrarily. Bearcat (talk) 22:28, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

First of all bearcat I wish to apologize as I am new to the wiki world and attempted to justify my changes in the editing history.

Acclamation is not the correct word in this situation. An acclamation strictly defined is a “oral vote or yell of support”.. It is also not a defined legal term but parliamentary custom in Canada. This was not what happened in the case of Dominic Cardy ascending to the leadership of the NB NDP. Proclamation is a defined legal term and more accurately characterises the process through which Dominic Cardy ascended to the leadership.

Proclamation defined as “An act that formally declares to the general public that the government has acted in a particular way. A written or printed document issued by a superior government executive, such as the president or governor, which sets out such a declaration by the government.”. By this definition Cardy was clearly proclaimed. The “government” in this place refers to the internal governance of the NB NDP. The only act that resulted in Cardy’s ascension were the words, written and oral, of the Chief Etectoral officer. To date there has been no “shout of approval” from the membership of the NB NDP and there are no plans to organize a convention to do such, nor any attempt to do so in a decentralized manner such a mail in ballot, or internet voting.

In this case the “superior government official” was the chief electoral officer who was the highest authority over the electoral process. As you can see the party’s press release, CEO Steven Beam states unequivocally “I have declared Dominic Cardy the winner the New Brunswick NDP leadership race.” Thus no oral vote has taken place or shout of approval has taken place or needs to take place as the “superior government executive” has made a declaration.

The media reports are simply wrong and do not accurately characterise Cardy’s ascension to the position of leader. It is also important to note that there was and still is opposition to Cardy’s leadership bid. Firstly, Pierre Cyr ran against him and was disqualified by the CEO on the grounds of being unsuitable as a candidate. What was more important than this fact is the fact that Cyr enjoyed significant support amongst the party, many of whom have been vocal on facebook and through other outlets demanding a Yes/No vote on Cardy’s leadership. So Cardy’s is not without opposition and if you examine this video. you will see that Cardy has to answer several questions from the media regarding this opposition. For an acclamation there is no opposition.

As the process of Cardy’s ascension to the leadership of the NB NDP involved nothing more than a declaration by the superior authority of Chief electoral officer in the context of significant opposition, the more accurate term is proclamation and not acclamation. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:SpaceMastadon&action=edit

"Acclamation" is, in Canadian politics, a standard and perfectly valid term for a person being declared elected by default because they're the only candidate when nominations close. Whatever the word may have originally meant, in modern practice the term is used to describe exactly what happened here — it doesn't require an oral vote and it doesn't require absolute unanimity that he was the best possible choice, it merely requires that he was the only candidate with registration papers in the pipeline at the moment when the nominations were closed.

It's also important to understand that until you can provide actual reliable sources (YouTube videos and Facebook groups don't count) to verify any claims about the selection process, Wikipedia isn't really the right place to publish unsourced claims about internal party disputes of this type. Until there's actually some media coverage to point to, for instance, we simply don't know what criterion was used to disqualify Pierre Cyr. It may very well have been a perfectly valid decision, or it may not — but we're not the media, so it's not our job to investigate it ourselves. Our job here is to wait until real media (CTV Atlantic, the Telegraph-Journal, etc.) actually publish or broadcast a story which explicitly reveals that something inappropriate or unethical or illegal actually took place, and then summarize their findings — but until that's happened, we can't assert (or write the article in such a way as to imply) anything that hasn't already been reported in real media. Bearcat (talk) 01:01, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Bearcat, if Acclamation is such an accepted term please verify this claim with a referenced definition. I have provided a clear definition for both Acclamation and Proclamation. By the definitions offered and given what has been documented it is clear that "acclamation" is not appropriate in this situation. This pure assertion that a word is a "standard and perfectly valid" term does not negate documented definitions as they appear in official and legitimate dictionaries and glossaries. In this case the accepted definition "proclamation" which is verifiable in several dictionaries and glossaries is more consisted with the facts as they have been presented, i.e. he was declared to the position by a superior executive authority, the Chief Executive officer.

Regarding the youtube video, this is a dated and corroborated historical artifact. It is well established that the press conference depicted the video documents happened. No one would dispute that it is dominic cardy speaking. Whereas I believe you are correct in stating facebook groups are not reliable sources this is video is not a source but a "document" of real events that happened, corroborated and above suspicion of falsehood. The video clearly demonstrates that there is controversy regarding Cardy's ascension to the position of leadership and in the video Cardy admits to this himself.

What the video fails to do is to provide any analysis of why there's a controversy or whether it's a valid one or not; we require reliable media sources (newspapers, magazines, TV or radio news coverage, etc.) which have applied research in order to sort out what is or isn't going on. Raw video footage of a press conference is a primary source, because it requires original research to extract an assessment of whether there was an ethical violation or not; our job here is to collate what secondary sources have said about the topic, not to make unreported claims or to create news ourselves.

If you need to combine raw sources to advance a conclusion that hasn't already been published by a reliable media source, then you're violating what Wikipedia is here for — until a reliable media outlet has actually done the research and published their own conclusion that Cardy's win was somehow tainted, Wikipedia is not the place to create or promote that perception. It's a core policy of Wikipedia that we're after "verifiability", not "truth" — no matter what you think the truth may or may not be, our job here is to summarize what actual media outlets have already published or broadcast about Cardy, not to investigate such things independently or to advance our own opinions one way or the other. And, for that matter, even if such sources do start showing up, they're primarily a reflection on the election process, not on Cardy as an individual. The election article should certainly contain properly sourced information about the controversy — but it doesn't belong in the article about Cardy, unless some media outlet ultimately reveals that he personally did something unethical or illegal.

I don't know whether his victory was clean or dirty; I'd never even heard of the guy until somebody made a Wikipedia edit about him last week, and I have no inside knowledge about New Brunswick politics whatsoever. It may be that something unethical took place, or it may not be — I don't know one way or the other. But it simply isn't Wikipedia's role to publicize or present an interpretation of events that hasn't already been researched and vetted and confirmed and published or broadcast by real media. Until some media outlet has actually published evidence that something illegal or inappropriate actually took place, our only role here is to take the existing media coverage at face value whether you think they've gone far enough to dig into the "real story" or not.

To clarify, I'm more than willing to saw off at a compromise wording that avoids both the disputed word "acclaimed" and the poorly sourced implication that he owes his victory to dirty tricks — but we have to rely on secondary media sources, not YouTube videos or claims of inside knowledge. Bearcat (talk) 17:32, 29 March 2011 (UTC)