Talk:2009 Venezuelan constitutional referendum

Not history

These are just a couple of lopsided opinion articles speculating on a possible future outcome of the referendum, I don't think they add much value to the article:

According to the Chicago Tribune, with the price of Venezuelan oil down from $126 in July 2008 to $40; corruption, crime and poverty up; and "personal and economic freedoms ... eroded"; Venezuelans are "thinking twice about a long-term relationship with Chavez". According to the Los Angeles Times, the impact of a global recession "could force Chavez to cut back on many of his welfare and foreign aid projects, which would reduce his popularity"; Chávez may be holding the referendum before the impact of the recession is felt.

JRSP (talk) 16:20, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

No, these are not opinion or editorial pieces; they are hard reporting, cited to reliable sources, and accorded due weight; I don't see any policy based reason for this deletion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:39, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Chicago Tribune is clearly labelled opinion (and it's not like you'd find a sentence like this in a "hard reporting" piece: "Just the guy you want to be president for life.")[1] LA Times source, on the other hand, is not an opinion piece. But you've selectively quoted speculative opinion from unnamed "analysts", backed up by more speculation from the author: "Analysts theorize that Chavez is holding the referendum next month before the full impact of the global recession hits Venezuela. Such a recession could force Chavez to cut back on many of his welfare and foreign aid projects, which would reduce his popularity." You can see how weak it is - it's the last para of the story, tacked on to a news piece about the recent trouble. [2] Deleted. Again. Rd232 ^talk 15:36, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I do not understand at all what those that article have to do with this constitutional reform. The 2007 referendum was rejected because of the heavy abstention from the government supporters, it was somewhat similar to what happened with the legislative election in 2005 when all the opposition parties decided to withdraw except for this time was the other way around, not because of the student "protests", which are only supported by the upper middle class citizens of Caracas. Chavez PROPOSED the amendment of five articles of the constitution and this move was approved by 6.668 million people all over the country and by the members of the National Assembly (also elected through popular vote). Now Chicago Tribune claims that corruption, crime and poverty in Venezuela have gone up? while according to the United Nations those figures have gone down. Where does the Chicago Tribune get their sources from? Yes its true that the global financial crisis has forced Chavez to cut down some of his foreign aid projects but we haven't feel the impact of the world recession here; a small example is that the Caracas Metro was expanded this year
. Off course the United States media will always criticize Chavez just because he is a socialist. I am sorry but I am going to remove the "history" section of the article because the United States media newspapers article cannot be a reliable source concerning Venezuela because the neutrality is disputed. Thanks. Tony0106 (talk) 03:39, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I support Tony's stance on this point. The US press has no relevance to the lives of Venezualans except maybe to influence the policy of a country that has relations with their government. Therefore they have no right in an article on this subject unless they are reporting facts and citeable events. If anything what Tony states about the Chicago Tribunes attack on Chavez's policies belongs in an article on propaganda targetting Venezuala, something that wikipedia helps to combat rather then excacerbates(sp?).--122.107.164.172 (talk) 13:51, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Original research and self-published source

This addition has several problems:

The initial reaction of the Venezuelan opposition to the referendum proposal was that it was unconstitutional for two reasons. First, opposition declared the change to the constitution illegal because it had been considered and rejected before, in 2007. Article 345 of the Venezuelan constitution states that "A revised constitutional reform initiative may not be submitted during the same constitutional term of office [to] the National Assembly." Chávez avoided this issue by declaring that the change to the constitution would be in the form of an amendment, instead of a constitutional reform. In addition, the constitutional amendment was re-defined to apply to all elected officials, not just to the president. However, the constitution states that "The purpose of constitutional reform is to effect a partial revision of this Constitution and replacement of one or more of the provisions hereof, without modifying the fundamental principles and structure of the text of the Constitution." The opposition argues that the change in term limits for elected officials is a major change to the constitution and cannot be effected by a reform, let alone an amendment, which is intended for smaller changes to the constitution, and that a constituent assembly to re-write the constitution is required for such a change. However, the Venezuelan Constitutional Court ruled that such a change was within the scope of a constitutional amendment, and that such an amendment could be re-attempted each year. Second, article 64 of the Venezuelan constitution states that, "All Venezuelans who have reached the age of 18 and are not subject to political disablement or civil interdiction are qualified to vote." The February 15th date is too soon to comply with the constitution and the suffrage law and complete 75-day process to create an election registry that includes those Venezuelans who turned 18 after September 24, 2008, the last time the electoral registry closed.

This paragraph relies too much on a self published source (daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com). References to the Venezuelan Constitution, although sourced to analitica.com actually contain comments from the blog on whether the right preposition is "of" or "to" which does not appear in the analitica.com document. Later, there is an interpretative analysis of article 64, this is original research as the last sentence ("The February 15th date is too soon...") is presented as a statement of fact and not as an opinion of the editors of Veneconomy as the laht source does. JRSP (talk) 19:15, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing up these issues. I'm going to try to address them here in order before I modify the text and/or remove the flags.

1. (Citation 11) The to/of issue: The text reads, "Se declarará aprobada la reforma constitucional si el número de votos afirmativos es superior al número de votos negativos. La iniciativa de reforma constitucional que no sea aprobada, no podrá presentarse de nuevo en un mismo período constitucional a la Asamblea Nacional.", and "a" is "to", not "of". I'll remove the interpretation part of the footnote, but not the fact.
2. (Citation 12) I'm citing the Venezuelan constitution in a direct quote, this can't be original research, except for the "to" issue, which I verified with the constitution.
3. (Citation 13) Again, citing the constitution, don't see how it is OR.
4. (Citation 14) I've mostly stuck to writing about science. I use blogs only as a record of opinions, not as fact. As such, I qualified the beginning of the sentence with "the opposition argues". The next sentence shows that the government decided that it was legal, showing that the law ruled against the opposition after I stated their opinion.
5. (Citation 15) Again, citing the constitution; how is this OR?
6. (Citation 16) It's taking me a while to chew through the whole suffrage law, so I'm re-wording this into a statement of opinion.

Awickert (talk) 20:18, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

The constitution is a primary document. Picking quotes from a primary document is OR, WP editors are not to guess what the opposition arguments could be. It would be fine if a reliable secondary source quotes the constitution but WP editors chosing what to quote and what not to quote is OR. Please check WP:PSTS, it is better to use secondary reliable sources, if the secondary source reports that the opposition is basing their arguments on certain articles of the constitution, then you *may* quote them. The blog can only be used to source the opinion of its author, he obviously opposes Chávez but there is not reason to believe that his opinion is representative of the Venezuelan opposition or even of a significant portion of it; please check WP:SELFPUB for the policy on using blogs as sources. Point 6 is easy to fix, just attribute the opinion to the editors of Veneconomy as the secondary source does. And don't "chew through the whole suffrage law", we are not here to interpret legal texts as this is OR; use secondary sources instead. JRSP (talk) 21:08, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

OK - that makes sense - working. Awickert (talk) 21:52, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

The last sentence looks much better now. Now take a look at the previous one, that is, quoting article 64. The problem with it is that the secondary source does not explicitly mention it. This makes your prose looks as if you were presenting arguments for the opposition, instead of just reporting what their arguments are, as told by secondary RS. The problem with this approach is that sooner or later it will appear some editor arguing that article 341 says "Electoral Power shall submit the amendments to a referendum within 30 days of formally receiving the same." and we'll end up chatting on how the Venezuelan constitution should be interpreted. JRSP (talk) 21:57, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Yep - I was in the middle of fixing that and other things, but I just edit-conflicted with you. And sorry about the typo that you fixed - I was working too fast and thinking too much in English. Awickert (talk) 22:43, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

OK - made more changes and fixes. The blog link is still there for now, but more qualified, and I have the Venezuelan embassy's statement as a counterpoint (the statement looked like it was responding to concerns, so I think somewhere I should be able to find an opposition statement of the concerns). Awickert (talk) 22:53, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I think that's all from me. Thanks for your wiki-linking, proofreading, and help during my first foray into political articles on Wikipedia. Awickert (talk) 03:10, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Ok, now we have a better sourced paragraph. I'm still concerned with quoting the constitution inline, it sounds as if the paragraph were supporting what the opposition spokespeople say. I suggest removing the inline refs to the primary sources and putting external links at the end of the article to both Spanish version and English translation, without taking a stance on whether the proposition is "of" or "to" or supporting any interpretation of any article. JRSP (talk) 03:20, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I looked at it again, and as far as I can see, the inline quoting of the constitution is now limited to what the news articles said that the spokespeople from AD and PJ said. I could take out the inline citations and put external links at the end; though I don't see how that would make a difference, you seem to know these articles better than I do. I could put "of/to" because it really seems unclear to me, and if anything leaning towards "to" because that was in the original Spanish, but I could put "of" because that was in the news article I am citing, or put "of" with a footnote about "to"... so many permutations. Awickert (talk) 05:42, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not suppossed to know these articles better than anybody. The point is that we must be careful when using primary sources, in particular, not trying to interpret them. Things like whose "constitutional period" the Constitution is talking about or if this is a reform or an amendment must always be attributed to notable actors like spokespeople from either side or the Supreme Tribunal. For instance, when we say that Henry Ramos called the proposal "illegal and anticonstitutional" because Art 345 says so-and-so we must present this as something that he said and we have to follow the secondary source, that is HR said the proposal was 'illegal and unconstitutional" because Article 345 says that "A revised constitutional reform initiative may not be submitted during the same constitutional term of office of the National Assembly."' [secondary source]. I think that inline quotation of the primary source sounds as if we were inviting users to check whether he is right or wrong. JRSP (talk) 09:46, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, then: removing footnotes and placing external links at the end of the article. Awickert (talk) 15:46, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Dubious neutrality

This article is of dubious neutrality due to the enormity of the section entitled "opposition," and lack of information on the amendment's supporters. --N-k, 15:04, 16 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.192.206.153 (talk)

In addition, what was the justification for removing the part about international observers deeming the election "free and fair"? This had a citation and was relevant information. --N-k, 15:18, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

It's POV pushing. Think about it: do we need to say the US presidential election was free and fair? No, because we work (or should work) on a presumption of innocence. Sceptre ^(talk) 16:21, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

specious argument IMO. In any case, given opposition claims cited, it is significant that the BBC cites foreign observers saying this. Rd232 ^talk 20:03, 16 February 2009 (UTC)