Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 30

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History of Rezko in this article

May I ask what the purpose is of this subsection and whether we can remove or archive it? It looks like something of a data dump and does not seem conducive to discussion. Thanks, Wikidemo (talk) 06:44, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

The purpose of this section is to show that single sentence treatment of Rezko has been the long-established norm for this article. (comment excerpted from User:Newross post

Okay then - then please leave it on the sub-page (link below) summarize and/or discuss here. Adding 50K of diffs makes this page unreadable, and hinders the ongoing consensus discussion. Plus, it's easier to look at that stuff if you care in a page of its own rather than inline in the middle of a 700K + talk page here. Thanks, Wikidemo (talk) 15:46, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

/Historical diffs

Any change to this sentence is subsumed in the discussion of a rewrite to the Rezko material overall -- see the 30+ subsections above. Please review that discussion and feel free to comment. Thanks, Wikidemo (talk) 06:47, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the subpage is a good idea, but I think that Newross' entire comment on the purpose of this section should be here on the main talk page, not just the summary sentence. It's not that long:

The purpose of this section is to show that single sentence treatment of Rezko has been the long-established norm for this article.
Not the contentious, expanded treatment of Rezko, newly added, without consensus, to the Personal life section just one month ago by Wnt / Shem / Scjessey:

• for 3 years, 11 months (March 2004 – November 2006, February 2007 – May 2007) Rezko was not mentioned in this article
• for 6 months (May 2007 – November 2007) Rezko was mentioned in a single sentence footnote.
• for 6 months (November 2007 – April 2008, May 2008) Rezko was mentioned in a single sentence.
• in less than 24 hours on 4 April 2008, a series of edits by KVSTamilNAdu / Andyvphil / Johnpseudo / Fancycats-are-happy-cats (71.0.180.2) and Kossack4Truth / Andyvphil significantly expanded this article's treatment of Rezko with contentious edits that did not have consensus. Single sentence treatment of Rezko was subsequently restored in May and early June 2008.
• on 6 June 2008, a series of edits by Wnt again significantly expanded this article's treatment of Rezko with contentious edits that did not have consensus, which were then used as a basis for modifications by Shem and Scjessey, that were then inappropriately used as a baseline for a month-long discussion initiated by WorkerBee74 and dominated by Noroton arguing for yet further expansion this article's treatment of Rezko to be used as a WP:Coatrack for adding criticism.

Newross (talk) 13:52, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

reposted by Tvoz/talk 17:46, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Please read WP:CONSENSUS and WP:TALK. Noroton (talk) 18:04, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointers. My understanding of WP:TALK is that other editors' Talk comments shouldn't be edited - that would include when copying them in a situation like this. The detailed backup data may belong on the subpage so as to not drown this page any further than it's already been drowned, but the above is Newross' summary, making his point about the relative weight that the Rezko matter has had in the history of this article and how it got there, and I think this context is relevant for any editors coming here to help us through this. -Tvoz/talk 19:12, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I definitely agree with Newross and others that there is currently far too much material on Rezko in the article (either before or after today's changes). This was worked out as a compromise, of sorts, mostly with editors who have been blocked or banned for sock-puppetry, incivility, edit-warring, 3RR, and so on. One remaining editor, Noroton, is still pushing for... something. Who knows what, it appears to be simply a matter of keeping this discussion going forever. On a minor point, the huge diff dump is quite disruptive on this main talk page; that's why I moved it to a linked child. I apologize if I lost some of the relevant summary commentary... but it was, y'know, a heroic effort to try to fix the disruption. I appreciate Tvoz' job of restoring that stuff here. LotLE×talk 20:17, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I see my earlier edits are being used to (somehow I can't quite figure out...) represent a faction increasing the amount of Rezko text. While I have added Rezko text at some points in the past, in fact I do not support a "long-Rezko" version. The times I have added text on that subject it has been to support accuracy and developments, and it was always my explicit goal to keep Rezko text accurate but short. In my memory these edits were generally the result of insertion of entire Rezko paragraphs, which would then get rightly deleted, and then i would attempt some sense of neutrality. So please consider my edits a support of one-sentence Rezko "in the long term", sorry that they appear otherwise to some... the regular editors from the winter probably remember me... 72.0.180.2 (talk) 21:08, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Please see Rick Block's excellent suggestion below at Talk: Barack Obama#Rick's opinion which may satisfy what Newross, Lulu, and Fancy have said here. Tvoz/talk 07:18, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion

Speaking of subpages.. How about moving this entire discussion to a subpage say Talk:Barack Obama/Tony Rezko discussion and leaving a prominent pointer to the subpage. We could do a similar method as they do on WP:AN/I when a discussion reaches a certain length, which is to leave the section header (in this case the Tony Rezko discussion header) and an undated comment saying that an extended discussion about how to appropriately treat Obama's relationship to Tony Rezko has been moved to the subpage. This page has an edit byte size of almost 670,000 bytes and 90% of that size is the Rezko discussion. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 16:12, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

• No, let's end this thing by asking others to come in, review the recent discussion and then support either one of Clubjuggle's versions or the Scjessey-Shem-Tvoz-LotLE version and be done with it. Then let's archive it. Nothing new has come up for quite some time in the discussion -- no new information, no new arguments, no new, novel citations of policy. Nothing. That means discussion is ending. Let's ask people who have previously participated to make their opinions known. Then we'll either have a consensus or we won't and we can move on. It's time. Bobblehead, why don't you cast your lot with one of the versions and show us which you support? Noroton (talk) 17:17, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I've already expressed my preference, doing so again is a waste of my time and having to repeat myself over and over and over again is one of the reasons why I have only been nominally involved in this discussion. Seriously, we're talking about one word here and an unnecessary one at that. The volume of text that have been wasted over this one word is rather remarkable. I'm also of the opinion that whatever version is agreed upon will not end the edit warring over how Rezko is handled in the article. Whatever this discussion has been, it has not been a consensus discussion, it has been a war of attrition that has virtually guaranteed continued edit warring over this article. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 17:35, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

My feelings exactly - and, as usual, said more succinctly than I did. Tvoz/talk 17:53, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Bobblehead, if you don't help us get to consensus with a helpful comment in any of the poll lists, then I don't understand why you're complaining that we're not getting to consensus. How exactly do you think we actually get to consensus if we don't try to constructively discuss and help others understand where we are? Bobblehead, do you really want to force the people trying to reach consensus to go find your past comments in order to interpret which of the current proposals you support? Isn't that just making it more difficult? I just WP:CANVASSed all the user names who have contributed to the Rezko discussion and hopefully that will make it clearer. If there's anything you can do that would help us get closer to consensus, please do it. Same for you, Tvoz. Noroton (talk) 18:00, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

It's like I said before, Noroton. There is already a consensus for the version I proposed. Only the "criticism" phrase in the versions you are advocating remains contentious. We should implement the consensus version and move on. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:07, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Your interpretation is novel. You might want to lay out the reasons why you think this, because it doesn't make any sense to me so far. It would probably be helpful to explain it in a way that uninvolved administrators, trying to apply WP policy and guidelines, would understand. Noroton (talk) 18:17, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

(after EC) - I've gone ahead and updated the text to reflect the uncontested language, seeing as what was there before wasn't technically accurate. I concede that it may be altered at a later date to include the "criticism" phrase, assuming a consensus forms for doing so. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:20, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

It is quite simple, Noroton. A consensus exists for everything except the "criticism" phrase. Everyone agrees to everything except that one little bit. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:23, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)How about this, Noroton, I'll start working towards consensus when you do. This entire process has been a series of concessions made by the majority of editors on this page to a very vocal minority that has, unfortunately, responded to these concessions by whining like little <female dogs> by edit warring, name calling, and sockpuppetting to the point that most of them are now blocked from editing on Wikipedia, or retired in response to being told they have to start complying with Wikipedia's policies or they will be blocked. Now, I'm not saying you have behaved in this manner, Noroton, because except in a few situations where you were responding in kind to other editors out of frustration, you've been on rather good behavior. Unfortunately, the editors that have supported your position in the past have and, as a result, have lost the privilege of having their opinions heard on this matter. Now you are unnecessarily extending this discussion by planting your pole in the ground next to the word "criticism" and shouting "You shall not pass!!" in an attempt to force your minority opinion upon the majority. This article spent a year and a half either not mentioning Rezko at all, or mentioning him in a single sentence in a footnote. Now Rezko gets an entire paragraph and you want to stop consensus because of a single word instead of looking at the entire paragraph and thinking to yourself "Look at the good I've done"? Ridiculous. Suck it up, take your pole out of the ground, and move on. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 18:35, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

1. You're being uncivil in a very tense situation, Bobblehead. Please refactor. 2. Your very emotional, very inaccurate description of my position doesn't take into account that if editors agree with you they could easily state just that. I'm not forcing my opinion on anybody. I'm bringing up reasons which, for all the caterwauling about length of discussion, nobody seems able to simply answer. If you could answer my objections with something that could be interpreted as reasonable responses (not even correct responses, just enough so that uninvolved admins could say, "Well, I don't know if I agree with it, but it's not unreasonable"), then I'd have no reasonable objection. Notice that you, Tvoz, Shem, Scjessey, LotLE can't seem to come up with reasonable arguments to counter my points, as other editors have seen. Don't you think if other editors agreed with your assessment Scjessey's version would have a lot more votes? What is it with these objections that everything but rationale-giving, fact-citing, policy & guideline adhering is favored as a way of getting around the fact that my reasonable objections simply haven't been answered. All you have to do is find reasonable arguments to oppose mine -- I don't even get to decide what's reasonable and what isn't. What is it with you people that you can't decide do that? Is your position so lacking in reasonableness that you have to try every other means to impose your will on the page? Can't you simply follow what Wikipedia wants you to do on talk pages? I'm not the only one who's posted on this page. Most of my posts, I think, have been responding to Scjessey, who has run out of on-topic responses. Please refactor your name-calling. Noroton (talk) 18:55, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Please stop the attack language and belligerence, Noroton! Every single argument you have made have been addressed dozens, if not hundred, of times. At a certain point, it is true, other editors cannot be bothered to repeat the exact same obvious point in response to a hundredth repetition of the exact same argument by you. You don't "win" by writing more words than anyone else can possibly manage, especially when the last time anything even slightly new occurred in those words was weeks ago. There are only three categories of editors who have discussed this: (1) You; (2) Editors who want much, much more discussion of Rezko in this article, but who have been banned for edit warring, sock-puppetry, incivility, and so on; (3) Everyone else, all of whom want less material on Rezko, but who have mostly conceded to having as much as is there now. The train has left the station. LotLE×talk 20:09, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

There's nothing uncivil about Bobblehead's comment, and if this is a "tense" situation, it's because you have explicitly said it's all about one word. Scjessey's version that he posted on the article a few minutes ago and you promptly reverted could stand - there is nothing contentious in it and it is a good compromise - the one that was there has long been abandoned. But you won't have that. Tvoz/talk 19:24, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) Get explicit consensus for your edit before making it, Scjessey. You have less support for your proposal, the one you just tried to add to the page without explicit consensus, than for Clubjuggle's versions. There is no explicit consensus for making some edits and not others, otherwise we'd have done it piecemeal all along. So I've reverted. This kind of thing could be interpreted as you gaming the system. I don't think it's good idea when we have a lot of difficult discussions ahead -- subjects like how to handle Ayers and Wright -- that we've put off but that we know we'll have a difficult time trying to come to consensus on. Please try to be helpful in reaching consensus. If you still want your version, continue the discussion if you have anything new to say. Noroton (talk) 18:39, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

So you're putting us on notice that you plan to mount this kind of contentious debate on those subjects too? Good to know. Tvoz/talk 19:24, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

We are done with this!

We have consensus. I updated the text with the new, non-contested version. Noroton reverted it with a misleading edit summary that claimed my edit was "disruptive" and that a consensus was still being built. We are done with building. It is time for doing. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:37, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

About the only difference between Scjessey's version and mine is that mine mentions criticism, and Scjessey's doesn't. That's a pretty important difference. This means that while we do have consensus on almost all of the language, we have no consensus on that specific issue. The default action in a no-consensus situation is to retain the existing language. In that spirit I've reverted to enact the consensus language. As to the one clause for which no consensus exists, I've inserted the "scrutiny" language that was accepted by all as an interim version pending discussion. I've also tagged the section for disputed neutrality and will seek input via WP:RFC and WP:NPOV/N. --Clubjuggle ^T/C 19:10, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

It is indeed a pretty important difference. It is the difference between Wikipedia adopting a neutral position and just reporting the facts, and Wikipedia offering a characterization under the guise of "a summary". I continue to offer my weak support for the "criticism" phrase, but my recent edit to the article (with a carefully written edit summary) reflected current feelings. Everyone was just sitting around waiting for something to happen, so I went ahead and put in what everyone had agreed on. Not unreasonable, wouldn't you say? Apparently not for Noroton, who has accused me of "lying, gaming the system, POV pushing" at AN/I. Disgraceful tactics. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:55, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think your edit was unreasonable at all. Your edit was unquestionably in good faith but the criticism text remains an open question -- one person's characterization is another person's neutral, and one person's neutral is another person's whitewashing. Since there's still an open question on that phrase, I inserted the middle-ground "scrutiny" text that no one really liked, but that everyone at least agreed to put up with as an interim version. Giving one side everything they want kind of takes away any incentive for that side to discuss and negotiate -- <pov>kind of like Bush's demand that Iran give us everything we want before his administration will talk to them -- and you can see how well that's working</pov>. --Clubjuggle ^T/C 04:51, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken, Scjessey's edit removed both "scrutiny" and "criticism" and had no contentious wording, thereby admirably avoiding this debate entirely. And I recall his saying that discussion could continue about whether to add "scrutiny" or "criticism", but meanwhile the wording was neutral and noncontroversial. I haven't seen the An/I action yet, but if the characterization is correct I think it speaks volumes about why we have had so much trouble here in the last two months since Noroton and the cohort of now-blocked troublemakers arrived here. Tvoz/talk 05:25, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

While I understand the intent of Scjessey's edit (and had even proposed a similar edit before the arguments swayed me to the other side on the mention of criticism), understand that from the perspective of someone who thinks there should be a mention of criticism, that edit is even worse. A mention of criticism indicates that there was at least a significant minority who thought the Rezko relationship was a Bad Thing™. Scrutiny means some people looked to see if it might have been a Bad Thing™. No mention at all suggests nobody cared, or to someone not familiar with US politics (remember, we're writing for a worldwide audience), that things like the Rezko situation are normal enough that no one pays attention to it. --Clubjuggle ^T/C 05:42, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

• Please copy, move and spread my comment wherever it fits.

Revisiting the talk page history thanks to Newross reminded me of my very first stand on this issue when we tried to decide how much information to include regarding Ayers, Rezko and Wright. I realize now how much there is left of what I thought would be appropriate: Basically nothing after all those compromises. Does anyone realize that Rezko is now pretty much on the same level as Wright even so it was just a "no-brainer"? Since none of the proposed versions are fluent to read I'll not bother to discuss that part and just "take" it the way it is. I'd rather give my opinion about the last real consensus blocking "criticism". I prefer "scrutiny" over "critic", etc. because the reader, if interested, has to decide for himself (as I do too). That's all I have to say and feel free to use this in the future as a reference of my basic view point (in case this discussion goes on). --Floridianed (talk) 19:35, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

No longer mediating

Effective immediately I will no longer attempt to mediate discussion, but will weigh in as an editor. Frankly, I am tired of the talk page messages and emails from certain individuals on both sides of the debate accusing my of bias for the other side. While my past experience has shown me that if you're getting comparable accusations from both sides are accusing you of bias for the other, that you're probably near the middle, I am frankly tired of getting beat up. I do intend to file a WP:RFC and open a discussion at WP:NPOV/N. --Clubjuggle ^T/C 05:00, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for trying, Clubjuggle. Tvoz/talk 05:02, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the attempt, Clubjuggle. Rather than an RFC, do you think WP:RFM would be better? This article has had a number of RFCs and none of them have resulted in a successful result. Considering the RFCs that have been tried and your informal mediation attempt, RFM seems like the next step. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 17:35, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Likewise, thanks for your efforts and professionalism. LotLE×talk 18:58, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Ditto the above, both about Clubjuggle's fine work, and about it being high time for RFM. JJB 21:03, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

No longer editing

I've received WP:OUTING-related emails, and am retiring (permanently, this time) from the project. I've had a pretty long run, but I'm leaving my torch in this discussion with Tvoz now; best wishes, all. Shem^(talk) 06:30, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

See my comment on AN/I about this. Tvoz/talk 22:19, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

View from JJB

1. If the only argument is about the word "criticism" in relation to Rezko, I don't have strong feelings on either side, so I will count myself among consensus on either version, rather than commenting in separate sections above.
2. If that summary is accurate, perhaps we can consider a comparison as to how many times a form of "critic" is used against an article subject in various cases, compared to how many times the name plus "criticism" yields megaghits (million Google hits). George W. Bush: 16, .95M; Hillary Clinton: 6, 8.14M; Rudy Giuliani: 10, 1.22M; John McCain: 2, 7.30M; Barack Obama: 0, 6.03M; Ron Paul: 0, 2.92M; Mitt Romney: 4, 1.62M. Seems like Obama and Paul (I'm a Ronpaulican) need the word added to their articles, period, no discussion necessary; and Bush and Giuliani seem overweighted and Clinton and McCain underweighted. Tabooing any form of "critic" against such an article subject is unequivocal POV. In Paul's case it may have been simple oversight, but not here.
3. Of Obama's, .40M include the word "Rezko". Speaks for itself. Perhaps a compromise might be, as I just suggested to Tvoz, something like use "scrutiny" instead for Rezko, but permit a form of "critic" for anything agreeably bigger than Rezko. I'm thinking of ....
4. Wright's paragraph is still thoroughly unacceptable on my reasons now archived, and given the Ayers and Rezko discussions it might easily be filibustered against until election day. This is very disappointing.
5. I may well resist further calls to contribute to this discussion.
6. Cheers to all, but ....
7. Article must be defeatured. Carthago delenda est. JJB 20:11, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I swear I'll scream the next time anyone suggests we should base articles on the number of Google hits certain search strings get. Please refer to Wikipedia:Search engine test where it says things like: "On Wikipedia, neutrality trumps popularity." -- Scjessey (talk) 20:25, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

That's the "Google virus"... --Floridianed (talk) 20:41, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

If I'm to be referred to a "how-to" page, please refer to an essay, WP:CRIT: It should read "Bob has been criticized for doing such and such.", provided that Bob actually has been criticized for doing "such and such." JJB 21:16, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Not only do I scream when people want to base articles on google hit counts, I scream when people want to base articles on word counts in other articles. We're writing biographies here, not refereeing a political contest. Go into a bookstore and find the best real biography published about American political figure X and the best about American political figure Y. Those two books may well have nothing in common stylistically or structurally or in words used. I wrote most of the Hillary articles here and I wrote most of the McCain articles here, but very rarely did I try to make the two similar, and I never looked as to whether a particular word or phrase was used in both in the same frequency. Each set of articles was written to describe that person's life and career as best as possible. Wasted Time R (talk) 21:27, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Exactly right - this is a biography not a tool for political campaigns. Tvoz/talk 22:26, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Rick's opinion

As Noroton mentions above, he has asked previous participants in this thread to comment (actually, he's asked folks to pick one of the proposed wordings). My actual preference is something much shorter than what is currently being discussed, perhaps:

The purchase of an adjacent lot and sale of part of it to Obama by the wife of developer and friend Tony Rezko attracted media attention because of Rezko's subsequent indictment and subsequent conviction on political corruption charges unrelated to Obama.

The full details are in the Rezko article, one click away. In my opinion including more than this brief summary here gives undue WP:WEIGHT to this. If this becomes a significant campaign issue it should be discussed in the campaign article, and perhaps summarized somewhat differently in the campaign section of this article - but for the "Personal and family life" section a 1-sentence summary seems like plenty. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:13, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Excellent, Rick. This is 100% fine with me. At this point I think the link to Tony Rezko is more than enough - there is an incredibly detailed section there about his relationship with Obama and anything more does give undue weight to this in the main biography. Tvoz/talk 07:06, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Far better than the longer version in the article. Contains everything that actually matters without all the extraneous details. LotLE×talk 07:34, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I like the weight, but that's about it. There are two major problems here:

1. A reader could imply from the sentence that it was Rezko's wife who was convicted.
2. Most of the media attention came before the conviction.

While brevity is preferred, it cannot come at the cost of accuracy. -- Scjessey (talk) 11:58, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. Doesn't the second "Rezko" clearly refer to the earlier "Tony Rezko" rather than "the wife of ..."? I've changed subsequent conviction to indictment and conviction above. Is that sufficient for the other issue?

If folks are going to seriously consider putting this version in the article I'll explain why media attention rather than either media scrutiny or criticism as well. The bulk of the coverage has neither scrutinized or criticized, but simply repeated the facts - sometimes with some editorial slant thrown in with ominous words like "these transactions raise questions". Some of the earlier and most critical sources suggest a linkage between Rita Rezko paying the asking price for the lot and the $300,000 difference between Obama's purchase price and the asking price of the house. I believe this particular suggestion is now thought to be completely unfounded, which I think makes sourcing "criticism" to those articles at best dubious. With the current benefit of several years of hindsight, I think we see media coverage, several unfounded speculations (notably the falsehoods that Obama got a discount on the original price and that Rezko buying the lot next door somehow enabled Obama to buy the house), and arguably politically motivated criticism [1] that Obama should have known Rezko was a bad guy and distanced himself earlier. Per Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Neutrality and verifiability: Concerns related to undue weight, non-neutral fact selection and wording, and advancing a personal view, are not addressed even slightly by asserting that the matter is verifiable and cited. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:03, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The edit makes it better, but it still doesn't address the accuracy problem. All this is probably moot though - I would think it would be difficult to achieve consensus over such an abbreviated version for at least a month or two, depending on how things turn out. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, let's try to be optimistic, Scj - what Rick said about NPOV is right, and consistent with the concerns that the article's editors have long held. I don't really think this is inaccurate but would it help to say "because of Rezko's indictment and subsequent conviction" ? Tvoz/talk 16:13, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that would do it. You will understand if I say my usual optimism has been dented recently. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:41, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd say "Keep hope alive", but this week that might not be the best choice of words, so I'll just say "hope springs eternal in the human breast" - or "beast" as I always preferred.... I changed Rick's words above to reflect it - Rick, that's ok with you? Tvoz/talk 17:04, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

It's fine, although aren't convictions nearly always subsequent to indictments? -- Rick Block (talk) 20:22, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) One complaint I have is that the attention Obama received was by more than just the media. Sure the originator of the interest was the media (keep forgetting if it was the Tribune or the Sun-Times that broke it), but once it was put out there, more than just the media was paying attention to it. Heck, Clinton brought it up in the SC debate. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 17:44, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

That would be easy to get around:

The purchase of an adjacent lot and sale of part of it to Obama by the wife of developer and friend Tony Rezko attracted attention because of Rezko's indictment and subsequent conviction on political corruption charges unrelated to Obama.

Clinton's comments were, of course, campaign-related. They are on par with the "as far as I know" comment she made about Obama not being a Muslim. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:56, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd prefer media attention. Clinton didn't specifically bring up the real estate transactions, but rather Rezko's fundraising for Obama and Obama's legal "representation" of Rezko [2]. This is attention to Obama's relationship with Rezko, not the purchase of the lot or the sale of part of it to Obama. We could say brought attention to Obama's relationship with Rezko or was publicized but I think attracted media attention is close enough for a summary (especially in this context in which we're talking about Obama's house purchase). The point of using the "media" qualifier is to avoid the implication that there was a criminal investigation (which I don't think anyone has suggested and is an important point in a sentence mentioning indictments and convictions). Anything that attracts media attention becomes public knowledge, and therefore becomes fodder for political purposes. -- Rick Block (talk) 20:22, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

A Pledge

I have been following the talk page for a while now, but I've been trying to stay out of it mainly due to the contentious nature of it. It is about time that the editors involved come to a basic agreement of how discussions and edits of the Barack Obama shall be from now on. I have been doing some thinking as to how editors can come to an agreement without causing even more ongoing arguments. I then came up with the idea of a simple pledge that everyone signs. If you do sign the pledge it means you are agreeing to a neutral point of view and that you are only working to better the article. Also, if you do sign the pledge you are also telling everyone else that you are willing to work with everyone else who signs the pledge to better the article.

Here is the pledge:

• I pledge to remain civil in all discussions, debates, and reviews of the Barack Obama article.
• I pledge to leave my personal political beliefs at the door when editing or discussing the Barack Obama article.
• I pledge to keep all discussions strictly about Barack Obama and take any discussion not directly about Barack Obama to the appropriate related article.
• I pledge not to use guilt by association, hearsay, web search (I.E. there are hundreds of articles on this controversy so it must be important!), or massive amount of rule citations to push a criticism. I instead will use only verifiable facts to back up the criticism. (Facts within an article/news report, not the article/news report by itself. If the article/news report is properly written then it will have verifiable facts and statements within it that can be cited in here.)
• I pledge to use as few words as possible to describe a controversy, to keep it strictly related to Barack Obama, and to remain as neutral as possible by ignoring all outside pressures no matter how numerous or famous.
• I pledge not to use voting, straw poles, or any similar methods to reach a consensuses or push a point.
• I pledge not to attack other editors by either calling them names or any other way to disparage them.
• I pledge to help each editor and to try to understand their viewpoints.
• I pledge that if I should break any of these pledges that I will take a break and not participant for at least twenty four hours or more.

By agreeing to these pledges, then you are saying you are willing to work with everyone to edit this article in a positive and neutral way. Also, if you are not willing to sign this pledge, then I'd like you to ask yourself why you are not able to edit neutrally and follow these simple guidelines.

If you are willing to sign then please sign here:

• Brothejr (talk) 04:42, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
• Won't per-se sign but will try and follow these ideals, anyway----or as best I interpret them  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 03:16, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

article looks good

I came back after a long break to tell you guys that the article looks better than it did in may/june, even with all the usual whining and BS talk page activity... nice.

[complaint about talk page semi-protection] 72.0.180.2 (talk) 07:15, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

pps- in the future if someone must delete the potty-mouth, please add your sig so others don't have to dick around with the page history. 72.0.180.2 (talk) 03:35, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you missed this exchange - [3]. That's 12 insertions of the N word, with some monkeys and c*m s**king thrown in, from 5 different IP addresses, in the space of 6 hours. And it follows some earlier incidents of the same thing from the same editor. Anonymous IP is nice, but we do have to keep the hate speech out. Wikidemo (talk) 07:38, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

WIkidemo beat me to it - I'll add that BLP concerns are being taken very seriously these days, after a recent Arbcom ruling, so short-term sprot on the the talk page was a prudent move. It's not permanent. Glad you like the article, Fancy.Tvoz/talk 07:41, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

The Rev. Jesse Jackson Comments

Should Jesse Jackson's comments about Barack Obama talking down to black people be added to the article? I think so. If these are removed so should portions of the article regarding Rev. Wright. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DePaul75 (talk • contribs)

The short answers would be "no" and "I disagree". Jackson's comments will be forgotten by tomorrow. Wright's comments (although not about, or related to, Obama) will be remembered for years to come, due to the way ABC cherry-picked all the worst stuff and replayed it in a loop over and over again. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:45, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I note that this has been covered in Jesse Jackson's BLP, but probably with way too much weight. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:52, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Also, please note, this is an encyclopedic entry, not a current events page, a presidential election page, or a criticism/gossip/whatever page. If it does not directly relate to Obama's life (I.E. he did it, or was part of it), then it should not be included here. Wikipedia is not an editorial column covering the latest gossip, controversies, etc of the presidential campaign, but an encyclopedic article coving his life and events he was directly involved in. Brothejr (talk) 15:01, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I understand your comments about it not being a gossip page. But if that is the reason then the whole section regarding the presidential campaign should be removed. You can't just pick and choose what portions you would like to add. My argument is that if you are to remove the part about Jackson you should also remove the parts about Rev. Wright or re-write them to not reflect gossip. Also, Rev. Wright's comments have been forgotten just as fast as Rev. Jackson's will. DePaul75 (talk) 19:06, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

This is a non-event of the type that happens all the time. It's not even worthy of mention in the campaign article, let alone the main bio. It probably doesn't even warrant mention at Jesse Jackson. For context, consider it against the accidental broadcast of Reagan, during a sound check, joking, "My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes." --Clubjuggle ^T/C 16:24, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

That hasn't prevented this from becoming a minor edit war at Jesse Jackson, where it has been given two whole paragraphs. Interested parties are welcome. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:28, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Illinois Senate

I've just reverted this edit on the basis that I considered this to be an unnecessary characterization for the main article. Such details are best left to the related article, Illinois Senate career of Barack Obama, where they can be given a proper treatment. -- Scjessey (talk) 11:57, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd actually meant to edit the sub-article, but must have had both windows open and edited the wrong one. But, in any case, I note that the source also quotes State Senate leader Emil Jones as saying, "Because he had been in the minority, Barack didn’t have a legislative record to run on". So it's something that is relevant to his post-State Senate campaigns in that it answers political opponents who contend he had a thin legislative resume in Illinois.Bdell555 (talk) 15:00, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I find Bdell555's sentence to be helpful framing information. I can see the argument that it is more pertinent to the Illinios Senate child article, but I don't think it is so long as to be WP:UNDUE weight in this main article. Readers might wonder "Why didn't Obama do much legislatively before ----?" The background makes sense of the narrative. LotLE×talk 18:03, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

This talk page is getting too big

Shouldn't we change the MiszaBot's archive tool to 2 days instead of the current 3 days? This page is obviously getting way too big, and people are posting messages faster than MiszaBot can archive. In addition, we should archive some threads manually so the page won't be so long and therefore won't overload some computers. What do you guys think??? Splat5572 (talk) 00:00, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Done! I've manually archived the long (and mostly quite old) Rezko discussion to Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 27. Not sure why it wasn't done by the robot, since nothing new has been posted here for quite a while (more than 3 days). LotLE×talk 00:15, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Even Archive 27 was too big so I split the discussion into Archives 28, 29, and 30, so that each archive page is approximately 200,000 bytes each. Splat5572 (talk) 00:34, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Re Rezco: ya guys see this?

South Side alderwoman Toni Preckwinkle's somewhat cryptic criticism of B. re the Rezco affair to the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza (not much but here it is): “Who you take money from is a reflection of your knowledge at the time and your principles.”  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 22:31, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Lizza: "During the 1992 Presidential campaign, [B.] ran a voter-registration drive that placed him at the center of the city’s politics. That year, Illinois elected the first African-American woman to the U.S. Senate, Carol Moseley Braun, and Bill Clinton became the first Democratic Presidential candidate to carry Illinois since Lyndon Johnson, in 1964. Meanwhile, Obama practiced civil-rights law at a firm admired in the city’s progressive circles, and became a popular lecturer in the law school at the University of Chicago. He was on the board of two liberal foundations that spread grant money around Chicago, and he settled in Hyde Park.
"[...]Considerable (Hyde Park Herald) coverage was given to two institutions: the local food co-op, where Obama shopped every Saturday, and the Independent Voters of Illinois–Independent Precinct Organization, or I.V.I.-I.P.O., one of the neighborhood’s most influential political groups. There was a new political force in Hyde Park as well. Real-estate developers were swooping in to rehabilitate low-income housing. On more than one occasion, the Hyde Park Herald reported on the rise in campaign donations from these developers to South Side politicians; in 1995, it ran a front-page article about Tony Rezko, who was then a very active new donor on the scene."  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 22:44, 13 July 2008 (UTC) "[... ... ...]E. J. Dionne, Jr., of the Washington Post, wrote about this transition in a 1999 column after Daley was reëlected. Dionne wrote about a young Barack Obama, who artfully explained how the new pinstripe patronage worked: a politician rewards the law firms, developers, and brokerage houses with contracts, and in return they pay for the new ad campaigns necessary for reëlection. “They do well, and you get a $5 million to $10 million war chest,” Obama told Dionne. It was a classic Obamaism: superficially critical of some unseemly aspect of the political process without necessarily forswearing the practice itself. Obama was learning that one of the greatest skills a politician can possess is candor about the dirty work it takes to get and stay elected."  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 23:01, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Is this from a New Yorker article? If so, which one? When was it published? Thanks.--Utahredrock (talk) 22:59, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Ryan Lizza (2008-07-21). "Making It:How Chicago shaped Obama". The New Yorker. - I've seen it now, a wonderful piece that I'm looking forward to reading in more detail. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. Though it's more of an essay style than our encyclopedia and covers a narrower slice of Obama's life, it is a biography and it's interesting to see how it addresses things and how much weight it gives to various things. I also note it's more than twice as long as our entire article so more expansive on just about everything. I see it mentions basketball twice but nothing about left-handedness or chili cooking. What are you thinking about it? Wikidemo (talk) 23:18, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

(I gotta leave to go into the West Village here but---- ) Just reflecting on the New Yorker's excellent job: even if quantifying %ages of text is wrong, it wouldn't hurt to figure out what % the NYer piece about B.'s Illinois political career talks about iffy associates. It's probably not that high a % of actual paragraphs within the dozen-or-so paged article, really----yet what is there is pretty nuanced. So maybe we (heh!) we look at our WP article's treatment of Illinois politics and dedicate the exact same percentage? I'm actually (halfway) serious here! (Which maybe would end up making it only a line or two. Anyway, I'm not making any senes------ but I gotta go. Bye for now. Ciao!  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 23:21, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

How's this for a précis?

"I simply said, 'I think this guy is outstanding and is certainly somebody who is worthy of an interview,' " Obama told the Chicago Tribune in a lengthy interview recounting his Rezko contacts. Rezko was later convicted of federal corruption charges, and although the case did not implicate Obama, his Rezko association has caused him significant political embarrassment.----The WASHINGTON POST

 $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 17:47, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Is there any point to these comment dumps? A talk page is for discussing the article, not blogging about the subject. Please stop. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:59, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to everybody for reading me while trying to understand what I'm saying rather than merely to chase away additional input; and I'll assume Scjessey comment is a "one-of" type thing that might be inappropriately "barking at" me as a newcomer to the Rezco debate (without biting me, necessitating his being chained up away from editing here for a piece again). If the brevity in my explanatory comments caused any others of you "War and Peacers" around here to misunderstand or else become disoriented so as to not see the forest of important, secondarily sourced Rezco commentary for the trees of a few, recent, truly exceptional ones, I'd ask folks (speaking more slowly this time) to look over the material I've pointed to and especially examine the précises recited, <sighs> germaine to B's Illinois career.

• (PROPOSAL) Let's expand the portion of this article concerning B's Illinois career. We could do worse than start by paraphrasing such items as the above----possibly even quoting sources in some instances.  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 02:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 04:20, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

• I've added to Barack Obama mainspace,

  Forays into politics
  Obama moved to Hyde Park in 1992, the same year he coordinated a drive to register new voters. Deciding to run for the Illinois legislature soon thereafter, Obama began to solicit funds for his campaign. It would become a source of embarrassment for Obama that one campaign donor later was convicted for corruption, although these charges did not implicate Obama.[4][5]  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 05:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Even better - did y'all see this?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/14/obama.cover/index.html - a new low point of the campaign. Apparently some good natured liberal humor unites the nation in condemning good natured liberal humor. I won't blog here beyond that, but if they keep it up the article itself may become notable in itself now. Wikidemo (talk) 18:05, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

& re B's political image

A précis re B's political image:

Like many politicians, Obama is paradoxical. He is by nature an incrementalist, yet he has laid out an ambitious first-term agenda (energy independence, universal health care, withdrawal from Iraq). He campaigns on reforming a broken political process, yet he has always played politics by the rules as they exist, not as he would like them to exist. He runs as an outsider, but he has succeeded by mastering the inside game. He is ideologically a man of the left, but at times he has been genuinely deferential to core philosophical insights of the right.----The NYer's RYAN LIZZA

 $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 19:52, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Y I contributed mention in the article in its Image section the belief Obama has an ability to play political hardball.  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 04:20, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Two months premature?

In looking at the article about his mother and comparing the date of his birth and the date of their marriage, it would appear that he was born two months premature. If this is the case, can anyone point me towards some documentation to substantiate the circumstances of his conception and birth because if so, it would rightly belong in his biography page.--Die4Dixie (talk) 02:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

That's too cute by half there, Die4Dixie.  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 04:29, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

OOPs. I can't add, it's three months early. This might be relevant considering his views on abortion/ and survivor protection.I'm still pulling duds on a source though.--Die4Dixie (talk) 06:38, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd thoght you were only being "clever" but here goes. How could you know when B was conceived?

In considering that he might be 3 months premature, I was being charitable. In that scenario Durham would have been the victim of a bigamist. The other option is that his mother was involved in sexual trysts with a married man. I naturally assumed that a birth 5 months after a marriage was premature. In looking around for sources, I have only found the most disgusting, nasty, and mean-spirited of unqualified sources.If B. has not commented on the nature of his conception in his books, nor the media reported on it, seems like a mighty big elephant in the room . If B. and the media can ignore it, then I'm able to do so too.Forgive my scrutinizing of the elephant, he was hard to miss, and I assumed that someone had already broken out the calculator( Which I should have done, since my math skills seemed to be sorely wanting last night)--Die4Dixie (talk) 14:10, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Original Research? NcSchu_(Talk) 18:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Since we're editing a 21st c. encyclopedia, not, say, one in the 17th, in the 18th, the responsible secondary sources here generally will say, as the Chicago Tribune does, something like "Six months after they wed, another letter arrived in Kenya, announcing the birth of Barack Hussein Obama, born Aug. 4, 1961" without further comment.  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 20:38, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Damn it, I knew I was not mathematically inclined. I had been thinking the Scarlett Letter was written in the 19th century. seems like I'm off by two everywhere I turn. I guess Fundamentalism is a little pas'e.:) I'll see if I can dig a little more before I drop it for lack of good source. I guess I'll have to read his books to see how he deals with it there. That would be reliable, no?--Die4Dixie (talk) 22:20, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, the Obama-Dunham marriage's timing wasn't something spoken of in polite company (or at all in other than hushed tones) as recently as the early 1960s, I'm sure. But I'm willing to compromise: since The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who Lived Eight and Twenty Years All Alone in an Un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been Cast on Shore by Shipwreck, Where in All the Men Perished but Himself. With An Account How He Was at Last as Strangely Deliver'd by Pyrates, publ. in the year of our Lord 1719, is tho't by some to be the 1st Engl.-lang. novel, I'll split the difference and recast my statement as "We're not the 18th century here...."  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 23:09, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

re sponsor of Obama's voter registration drive - "ACORN" more accurate than "Project Vote"?

According to the Kansas City Daily Record:

Kwaim A. Stenson, 19, of Kansas City, pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to voter registration fraud. Stenson was hired by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a nonprofit organization, in 2006 to work with Project Vote, also a nonprofit organization.

Who did this person nominally work with? Project Vote. But who did he really work for? Who brought him on board? ACORN. Indeed, see the indictment which refers to Project Vote independently just once to say that "Project Vote is a not-for-profit organization that works with ACORN to register voters for federal and local elections." There's no qualification that narrows this definition to just one city, state, or campaign. As far as prosecutors were concerned, "the defendant ... worked as a voter registration recruiter for ACORN".

This suggests that John Frum's Wall Street Journal piece which describes Obama's 1990s employment as "In 1992, Acorn hired Mr. Obama to run a voter registration effort. He later became a trainer for the group, as well as its lawyer in election law cases" and makes no mention of Project Vote, would be an improvement over the current article, which does not identify Obama's legal employer.Bdell555 (talk) 18:39, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence ACORN was Obama's employer. That contradicts all the known sources, despite the vague insinuation made into the WSJ editorial. LotLE×talk 18:47, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

For a contradiction, there'd have to be a source that says ACORN did NOT hire Obama. Please direct us to such source if it exists. Showing us a source that mentions a worker and Project Vote does not constitute a contradiction. That indictment mentions a worker and Project Vote while concluding that the worker ultimately "worked as a voter registration recruiter for ACORN".

WTF?! Do we also need a source saying "Suleiman the Magnificent did not hire Mr. Obama as an Ottoman government attorney" in order to exclude that non-fact?! We don't just include every possible unevidenced claim on the grounds that "who knows, it could be true". LotLE×talk 00:23, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you do need a source in order to exclude the fact that "Suleiman the Magnificent hired Mr. Obama" when you open up the Wall Street Journal and read exactly that in the same paragraph as other claims about what Obama did for or with Suleiman that no one disputes.Bdell555 (talk) 04:04, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

What part of "Acorn hired Mr. Obama", which is the language I'm suggesting for an edit and the exact words in the WSJ, is "vague" and "insinuating"?Bdell555 (talk)

The WSJ piece is not a reliable source and is clearly slanting things, at the very least. If WSJ means "hired" to mean ACORN made Obama a paid officer, employee, or director of ACORN it's flat wrong. It contradicts the overwhelming majority of sources that say he did the voter drive for Project Vote (e.g. this[6]). If they mean "hired" to imply that ACORN obtained Obama's services via a relationship with another organization it's probably wrong still (the previous source said that Project Vote's efforts were supported by various individuals, and did not mention ACORN once) but in any event a vague and misleading use of the word "hired". Wikidemo (talk) 20:45, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

1. Respond to my observations of 18:55, 13 July (above) if you wish to continue to contend that the source is not reliable. I suppose if I cited the Associated Press you'd revert me because AP is reportedly moving from a neutral to a critical POV?

2. "If WSJ means ..." This is a straw man. You say what you imagine it to mean and then bat that down. If my drawing of that observation seems "rude" to you, I'll confess that I think that one should have some evidence before implying that someone is a liar and that the WSJ would print such lies; "... did not mention ACORN" is not evidence, it is a lack of evidence, aka an argument from ignorance.Bdell555 (talk) 21:33, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

No need to respond to anything in particular - the WSJ editorial piece is clearly partisan and either wrong or misleading. As I said it contradicts the vast majority of sources. It's a sound argument, end of story. I'm not going to break this into bite sized logical steps when it's so obvious. If you want to include this disputed information you're going to have to build consensus for it, and you're not going to convince me by telling me I'm imagining things and engaging in fallacies. You'd have to find better sources that to contend that Obama worked for Acorn, which looks unlikely. My standing position is that this is unreliable information until and unless properly sourced. Also, beyond RS efforts to shoehorn this into the article will have to go through POV, weight, and relevancy. Wikidemo (talk) 21:50, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

When I explain why your contentions are based on faulty reasoning, yes, there is a need to respond if you intend to revert me. If I have the time to revert someone, I have the time to justify it on the Talk page. I'm not just "telling you" that you are "engaging in fallacies". I'm breaking it down into "logical steps" in order to expose the fallacies (the details of which are available by clicking on the weblinks I provide). If you don't recognize the validity of such an approach, then, yes, there isn't much more to say. I admit to getting frustrated with your unwillingness to recognize the same rules for "playing ball" that I do. I might add that I think the correct resolution of the issue is closer to a resolution on which intelligent people can reasonably disagree than to one that is "obvious".

If your POV concern is that my edit, even though entirely unaccompanied with editorializing, would necessarily mean that Obama supports an advocacy group with a reputation for playing hardball and that that, in turn, would necessarily reflect back on Obama, I find it ironic you consider that New Yorker article reliable and non-partisan, since that article seems to suggest that Obama is no political babe in the woods much more directly.

In any case, would you object to "an ACORN affiliate hired Obama" (to run a voter drive called Illinois Project Vote!), or is there no affiliation here either?Bdell555 (talk) 22:49, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Stating that Obama was hired by "an ACORN affiliate" makes about as much sense as saying that he currently works for an affiliate of the Supreme Court, that John McCain served in an affiliate of the United States Air Force, or that George W. Bush co-owned an affiliate of the New York Yankees. This is a biography of Barack Obama. As such, to the extent his work history is listed, it should state who he actually worked for. His employers' affiliations are beyond the scope of this article. They can be listed in the articles about the respective employers, and are only a click away for anyone interested. --Clubjuggle ^T/C 23:01, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry. Perhaps I was abstruse. Trying again: if "Project Vote" refers to the name of the voter drive, then in that hypothetical edit ACORN would be affiliated with ACORN, an affiliation that would be rather difficult to deny.Bdell555 (talk) 23:44, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Bdell555 if you add disputed content without first obtaining consensus either I or more likely another editor will remove it for being disputed content that does not have consensus. If you want me to explain why I dispute the content, I have already done so at some length. There is no requirement that I respond to each of your attempts to tell me I am wrong. Perhaps we simply disagree. My reasoning is sound and though I am always ready to admit mistakes you have quite the uphill battle if you wish to convince me I am imagining things and making them up. You would do better to concentrate on the substance of your argument. I do not wish to have to go into such detail again and again on demand to simply say - I find the source unreliable and in contradiction of other sources, and having considered the matter, I do not believe that it establishes the validity of the proposed content. Therefore I oppose its inclusion. Nevertheless, if you must know, I'll include my argument, in small text to avoid cluttering the page: Wikidemo (talk) 23:34, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

It is a perfectly valid technique to take an assertion of fact that appears to be incorrect on its face (ACORN hired Obama), and explore various possible interpretations and meanings based on word definitions to query what else the statement might possibly mean and whether it could be correct under these alternate interpretations. ACORN clearly did not hire Obama in the sense of making him an employee or an independent contractor (or a volunteer, board member, officer, etc). So in what possible ways might ACORN have hired Obama and do they make sense? If I exhaust all of the ways I can think of and none of them pan out, I can dismiss the statement as unreliable. The most logical explanation is the one already posed on this page, and supported by some of the people who want to connect Obama to ACORN - that ACORN and Project Vote had an official or unofficial relationship, and that Project Vote was in that way supporting ACORN's work. Under that most likely explanation, and all the variants I can think of (e.g. that Project Vote was doing ACORN's bidding or acting on ACORN's behalf) it misleads the reader to say that Obama worked for ACORN or was hired by ACORN, because people will take those words to imply an employment or contractor relationship. That's not what I think, that's a judgment about how people are likely to interpret a sentence. That argument is not defeated by saying I am shooting down my own interpretations - it is defeated, if at all, by saying either that I didn't really shoot down one of the interpretations, or that I missed the correct one and explaining why. It is not a straw man argument, nor is it logic at all. It is textual interpretation and critical analysis. Moreover, it is also perfectly valid when most sources say X but do not say Y, and a few sources say Y, to ask where the majority and minority are coming from and to conclude based on the relationship between X and Y whether accepting X as likely true discounts the likelihood of Y being true below a threshold of acceptance. Most sources say that Obama was organizing for Project Vote, which was funded by various individuals. A few say Obama was organizing for ACORN, which has other sources of funding. However, one generally works for one party at a time; dual employment for the same task is rare. Moreover, if Obama were working for two parties it seems incongruous that everyone mentions one and not the other. This too is not binary logic, it is weighing the credibility of sources as indicated by Wikipedia policies and guidelines. There are some premises so obvious as to go without stating. For example, a premise that if Obama had a job it would be mentioned in multiple sources. That dovetails with the WP:WEIGHT - a seemingly important detail that is omitted from most sources does not get included simply because a minority of sources support it and there is no refutation. If three sources say that George W. Bush works for Walt Disney, and three million says he works for the United States Government, we do not need to find sources refuting the Disney connection in order to decide that it is unproven. Another premise is that a person with uncommon knowledge that a famous person in fact has a job few other people have reported, will actually make his case in detail and not simply assert it in unadorned language in an op/ed piece. Going over the common-sense premises behind arguments is tedious and I don't feel obliged to do so simply because you call my reasoning illogical. At some point it's up to you to follow the argument or not. Finally, I take no position for the moment whether the New Yorker article is reliable. It may or may not be, but nobody is considering it at the moment to support the contention that there is an item on Obama's resume that everyone else has missed. Wikidemo (talk) 23:34, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Right, this is a classic logical fallacy. ACORN in Kansas City hired someone to work with Project Vote in Kansas City. This doesn't mean anyone else (let alone everyone) who worked with Project Vote in Kansas City or anywhere else was an ACORN employee. From what I can tell, they're mutually supportive, but different, organizations. Please note that both of your above quotes talk about ACORN and Project Vote as different organizations. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:02, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Where in their finding concerning the relationship is there any indication that it applies only to Kansas City or to this worker? Your are narrowing their finding when no such narrowing exists. They talk of of them as different organizations, all right, but what do they ultimately conclude? The KC Daily says "hired by ACORN", has a headline of "ACORN Worker" as opposed to Project Vote worker, and the indictment says "worked ... for ACORN", not Project Vote.

In any case, I'm not arguing that any given Project Vote worker is necessarily hired by ACORN, I'm saying it's possible. You, on the other hand, have been insisting that it is impossible, since, according to you, "the WSJ claim that Acorn hired Obama to run a voter registration effort appears to be factually false (he worked for Project Vote (empirical source), not ACORN)". An appeal to empirical evidence only supports an empirical conclusion, not a logically necessary one. You're the one making a deductive argument ("He worked for Project Vote, therefore he could not have worked for ACORN"), not me.Bdell555 (talk) 20:58, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

There is little chance of a consensus for inclusion on this matter. What we have here is another guilt-by-association smear. An opinion piece in Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal, written by conservative columnist John Fund, is attempting to create controversy where none exists. The opinion piece appears factually inaccurate, claiming that Obama was hired by ACORN (rather than Project VOTE!). This is clearly deliberately misleading, because without this "error" there would be no way for the author to directly link Obama to incidents involving voter registration fraud and the theft of $1 million from the organization. Fund has attempted to repackage a story about Obama's efforts to "get out the vote" among low-income families as a story about how progressive fraudsters and thieves are the powerhouse behind Obama's campaign effort. It's time to move on from this transparent smear attempt. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:25, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

What if the contention that Obama joined a frat at Harvard appeared in a New York Times opinion piece that went on to claim that this frat was notorious for pot and cocaine use and then conclude that Obama's decision to join that frat says something about him. Would we have a reliable source for that conclusion? No, we wouldn't. Would we nonetheless have a reliable source for the simple, uneditorialized contention that he joined the frat? Yes, we would; - I don't think it is reasonable to assume that a NY Times columnist would just invent such a claim.

As an aside, I find it ironic that deletionists who appeal to WP:BLP (because they can't appeal to WP:RS, WP:NOTABLE, or WP:NPOV to justify the deletion) do so in the name of preventing smearing but have few reservations about implying that the source to be deleted is a liar.Bdell555 (talk) 00:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Scjessey's post just above shows where this talk page so often takes a sharp turn for the worse. A heated discussion that's still a discussion of the issue gets hit with much, much hotter language: another guilt-by-association smear, Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal, attempting to create controversy, clearly deliberately misleading, transparent smear attempt. Some editors might call this "goading", and this kind of comment has certainly had that affect in the past. Let's stay away from harsh language like this and stick to discussing the facts without the wild language and the accusatory suppositions (how can we know that Fund was trying to mislead?). This is supposed to be a discussion among Wikipedians trying to reach consensus, not a WP:BATTLEGROUND WP:SOAPBOX for ideological differences. There is evidence, cited above, that Project Vote works closely with ACORN. I think that's solidly, reliably sourced, but I don't think we have reliable-enough sourcing to be certain that Project Vote is entirely controlled by ACORN, and frankly, if we did, I don't think it would tell us much more about Obama than we already know from the solid, reliable sources telling us he worked with and made a political ally out of ACORN. Noroton (talk) 00:57, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. All editors would do best to stick to discussion about editing the article, rather than complaining about each other. I don't mean to exclude myself from that... let's just keep that in mind and be collegial about this. Thx, Wikidemo (talk) 01:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Norton's "rebuke" makes no sense. I pointed out the many flaws of the source with considered analysis. I addressed no comments to editors. You need to read, rather than assume, what I say. -- Scjessey (talk) 02:02, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Sandy Newman

If "who hired Obama to run the 1992 voter registration drive?" (the event that "raised a new political star" to quote the Chicago Mag) is still a question, I think the indisputable answer is that it was one Sandy Newman. It appears Sandy Newman also founded Project Vote in 1982. If he founded Project Vote as the voter-mobilization arm of ACORN, I think it's fair to say that ACORN hired Obama to run a voter mobilization project in Chicago, although Sandy Newman would be more direct. If Project Vote was not created by ACORN, I'd concede the point that Obama has not hired by ACORN to run this project.Bdell555 (talk) 19:15, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Good, since Project Vote was not "created by ACORN, we can end all this silliness then.

As your source shows, it was Sandy Newman who founded Project Vote.... but in English, we don't attribute corporate action to individuals. So just as Obama worked for Project Vote rather than "for Sandy Newman", I worked for IBM, not for Herman Hollerith (nor even for Samuel J. Palmisano). LotLE×talk 19:25, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

This source says "Project Vote is another get-out-the-vote group. It was created by the radical group ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) and it is set up as a 501(c)(3) charity."Bdell555 (talk) 20:12, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

The Capital Research Center couldn't be described as a reliable source by any conceivable measure. The "radical" characterization should have been the obvious clue there. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:27, 15 July 2008 (UTC) -- Strike that. I had not seen your edit summary until after I responded. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:29, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

That's one reason we have a reliable source requirement. Editors who say things at other places aren't necessarily any smarter or better informed than editors here, and they're likely to make the same mistakes and have the same prejudices as we do here, or worse. In the world of politics, and also when talking about their own accomplishments or networks of connections, people often throw about misinformation about who started what, who runs what, who is affiliated with whom. We really have to insist on accuracy here, and the best we can do is find the best sources that do the underlying research and fact check it with a critical eye. Wikidemo (talk) 20:43, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

From the New York Times, Sept 26, 2004: "... Project Vote, the nonpartisan arm of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or Acorn." Not an opinion piece/editorial.Bdell555 (talk) 20:51, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Now we're getting somewhere. Let's compile a list of top flight sources to make sure it's not a mistake there or controverted by other equally reliable sources, and if it looks solid then it's safe to say the two are connected, on the assumption that in its news stories, profiles, and features (as opposed to op eds) an organization like NYTimes does fact check every statement like that. Wikidemo (talk) 20:55, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Legal name of Project Vote appears to be "Voting for America, Inc". Contact e-mail is given as somename?@acorn.org.Bdell555 (talk) 21:16, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

From the Baltimore Sun, January 12, 2007: "The suit was filed on behalf of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, also known as ACORN, Project Vote/Voting for America"Bdell555 (talk) 21:25, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Don't be so quick to strike out that source. It represents further evidence that Project VOTE! and ACORN are not the same organization. Project VOTE! is an independent, non-partisan charity. Although obviously associated, employment by one organization is not synonymous with employment by the other. It would be a bit like saying a FOX News employee was also a Wall Street Journal employee, just because they were both owned by Rupert Murdoch. Aaarrr! -- Scjessey (talk) 21:57, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I believe I already addressed this point when I provided the Kansas City example of someone who nominally worked for Project Vote but was ultimately considered to work for ACORN. Anyway, the author of this October 2007 article describes himself as "deputy director of Project Vote. Project Vote provides support to ACORN's voter registration program." It suggests that Project Vote is the voter registration arm of ACORN by Project Vote's own account.Bdell555 (talk) 22:14, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

From TIME magazine, October 18, 2004: "... Project Vote, a nonpartisan arm of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)..."Bdell555 (talk) 22:32, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you even bother to read the source you provide, Bdell555? What the Sun article says is: The suit was filed on behalf of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, also known as ACORN, Project Vote/Voting for America and a current director and former activist with ACORN. In other words, there are three plaintiffs in the suit:

1. Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (also known as ACORN)
2. Project Vote/Vote for America
3. An unnamed director of ACORN (who is plaintiff under his/her own name).

My guess would be that the individual joined because of standing issues that the organizations might not have where an individual does; but that's speculation on the reasons. The three distinct plaintiffs part is clear. LotLE×talk 21:41, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it's a fair speculation that Project Vote is legally independent of ACORN for tax reasons only.Bdell555 (talk) 23:04, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

That is quite likely. I even think it's likely that ACORN is one of the major funders of Project Vote, and I don't doubt that many members of the board of the one organization are quite friendly and familiar with members of the other board. But it means something to incorporate a 501(c)(3): it means that the created organization needs its own bylaws, its own board of directors, its own staff, it must file its own tax documents, etc. All of which means: they are two separate organizations (sympathetic, sure; sharing goals, yes; and organizationally independent). I don't know whether Sandy Newman specifically had any formal relationship with ACORN when he founded Project Vote; but it makes no difference. I myself, ofr example, have served simultaneously on boards of multiple non-profits: you are required to wear different hats in the different roles.LotLE×talk 23:10, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe readers are much interested in whether Obama's project was incorporated under subsection 501(c)(3) or not. Of interest here is not legal technicalities or formalities like whether someone works for Ford Canada Ltd or Ford, Inc, but for whom Obama's project was for in non-technical terms. Note that the Beldon Foundationgave a grant "to Project Vote/Voting for America for its ACORN Alumni Mobilization Project to reach out and re-connect former staff into its voter outreach and turnout campaigns"; - although the grant was routed through Project Vote, the project itself was described as an ACORN project. Note also the use of the word "staff" here suggests that whether "staff" are Project Vote or ACORN is not a meaningful distinction.Bdell555 (talk) 23:50, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Figuring out agency / affiliate relationships based on a choice of co-plaintiffs in a lawsuit is awfully convoluted. Standing follows different rules, perhaps, than other things. What's the problem here? Wikidemo (talk) 21:55, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Let's review here. When TIME magazine noted that someone was a "director of Project Vote", TIME believed it necessary or preferable to immediately add that Project Vote is an "arm" of ACORN. When the New York Times noted that someone was "was hired by Project Vote", it likewise believed it necessary or preferable to immediately add that Project Vote is an "arm" of ACORN.Bdell555 (talk) 22:59, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

All of this "proof" you are presenting will not change the fact that the two organizations are independent entities. Obama was employed by Project VOTE! You cannot say he was employed by ACORN, because that would be inaccurate. At the most, you can say Obama worked with ACORN as part of his role at Project VOTE!, which gives you the hook you would need to note ACORN's support for Obama. All that being said, it is something best discussed here. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:48, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, when we report who someone worked for we report their actual employer (or if it's a shell company, IPEO, agency, their nominal employer). This doesn't prove Obama "worked for" ACORN, but it does tend to show that he worked for Project Vote, a _____ of ACORN. The blank might be "nonpartisan project of", "entity formed by the founders of", or whatever. Wikidemo (talk) 06:04, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Edits on cultural image

I strongly disagree with the reverts being done, trying to suppress the explanations of Obama's church attendance. It's not soapboxing, and it's not wikipedia's place to 'avoid hot button issues.' Relevant details that have been removed:

• Obama's conversion to Christianity under the tutelage of Jeremiah Wright. This is a prominent part of his autobiography. I can find and use direct quotes, if necessary. The point of the article is to describe his life and his cultural image. His conversion is a significant part of this, and Jeremiah Wright's role in it is, too.
• The Obama campaign's descriptions of his church going activity. In a section about religion, this is quite pertinent. Trilemma (talk) 22:15, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Two much detail for this bio. I can actually endorse some mention that clarifies a widespread false belief, but exactly how often he attends church, and how that changed slightly after the birth of his children, etc. is just too much minutiae for this. Moreover, Obama's relationship with Wright is already discussed elsewhere, so there is not need for duplication. Wikidemo's edits for conciseness were very good, but I have trimmed it a little farther, retaining the essential point. LotLE×talk 22:58, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

This section should have its own page; then the space concerns wouldn't be so prominent so as to stand in the way of including relevant information. The McCain version is already its own article, so I don't see any reason this shouldn't be either...Trilemma (talk) 23:17, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree. A fair bit of interesting stuff was cut out a while back due to space concerns, but there was no discussion about expanding it into it's own article. Part of the problem is that much of the article would consist of opinion, because a person's "image" is not a tangible thing you can support with straight facts. That would make it a difficult article to keep neutral, and it would (potentially) be a magnet for the kind of soapboxing mentioned above. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:35, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, I think a good starting point would be to compare it to the McCain counterpart page, and then work off that. Trilemma (talk) 22:03, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Obama's birth certificate is fake?

This issue seems to gaining currency. I've read a lot about it on many web sites. Here's an analysis that looks convincing to me.

Pierre.cardoone (talk) 03:18, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

It may look convincing to you, but the link you provided is a personal blog, hardly a reliable source suitable for verifying your claims. The birth certificate claim is an Internet rumor that has no place in a neutral, verifiable encyclopedia. szyslak (t) 05:47, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Szyslak is right. There's no RS that takes this claim seriously. Trilemma (talk) 22:01, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Two issues

There are two problems with adding the claim "Obama worked for/was hired by ACORN" to the article. Having read the entire discussion so far, neither of these has been answered whatsoever.

• The claim is false.
• The claim is insignificant for the general biography

Unless or until both of these points can be addressed (rather than neither of them), the whole digression on who's sympathetic with whom, or who else did or didn't work for whom, is completely irrelevant. LotLE×talk 00:54, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

re the "false claim", allow me to refer you to that New Yorker article Wikidemo called attention to and ask you to explain what "During the 1992 Presidential campaign, he ran a voter-registration drive .... The 1992 voter-registration drive, Project Vote, introduced ..." means to you. It seems to me that the common sense interpretation is that "Project Vote" (or Illinois Project VOTE! or whatever) is what the "voter-registration drive" was known as. To claim that it was the voter drive and not ACORN that hired Obama is like claiming that it was Apollo 13 and not NASA that hired Gene Kranz. Sure, you can say "Eugene Kranz worked for Apollo 13", but that doesn't mean that it wasn't NASA that asked him to take on the project and direct the gang at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston. You could also say "Eugene Kranz worked for the Johnson Space Centre", but what would be the point of that when we know that the JSC is an arm of NASA? My contention that ACORN hired Obama to run this drive (and that while ACORN was not the exclusive financier and supporter of the drive (other individuals and/or organizations with similar agendas being involved) it was nonetheless "smack dab in the middle") doesn't require the claim that what we read in the pages of the Wall Street Journal is false.Bdell555 (talk) 04:40, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

re "insignificant". If his assocation with ACORN is insignificant, then his work with Project Vote is not significant either. This is really starting to seem like a desire to censor any mention of his connection with ACORN because ACORN has a scandal associated with it. From what I can tell there is no desire to link Obama with this criticism, and it appears that Obama himself is proud of his work with ACORN and Project Vote. Arzel (talk) 05:19, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

What association with ACORN? It hasn't been shown that there was one, and there does not seem to be one. This seems to be untrue, and anything the sources do show is true is irrelevant, not of sufficient weight, and introduces a neutrality problem because it is selective coverage of scandalous material. Your accusations regarding motivations and censorship are unhelpful. If you want to argue for including additional content would you kindly concentrate on that rather than impugning the other editors? Wikidemo (talk) 05:31, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't find it implausible that someone at ACORN said to someone at Project Vote (i.e. two separate people at the two separate organizations that nonetheless share some goals): "This guy Obama is a good organizer, you should think about hiring him." I don't know that happened and we lack any specific citation; but that's roughly how things often happen in the world. If that did happen (maybe yes, maybe no), and were well cited, it would remain insignificant to this general biography. The weird stuff the Bdell555 is going on about that Project Vote is more like a spaceship than like an organization (the thing it actually is: a 501(c)(3) non-profit, specifically) is... well, hard to make sense of. LotLE×talk 08:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

We've got a specific citation with respect to who hired him, you just won't accept it, and would rather prefer to contend that the 501(c)(3) non-profit Project Vote hired him, for which there is no cite at all. There's no evidence that (Illinois) Project Vote existed outside of 1992 or is otherwise anything more than the name of the registration drive Obama directed. Project Vote is ALSO an ongoing 501(c)(3) non-profit that may or may not have had any involvement with Obama's registration drive beyond lending its name to it. See this Chicago Reader article from 1995 that says "he came back to the south side, to teach at the University of Chicago and run Project Vote, A REGISTRATION DRIVE that added 100,000 names to the rolls..." NOT the state chapter of a national 501(c)(3) non-profit.Bdell555 (talk) 11:12, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposed language on Obama and ACORN

I think the evidence is clear that there's an important connection between Obama and ACORN (not as important as his relationship with David Axelrod, but important). We don't know all the details about the relationship, and to fully explain what we do know would take up too much space. ACORN is a nationwide organization that's rather well known (I'd heard about it in the 1980s). For Obama to have been so close to this well-known organization is worth telling readers about. Let me recap: He was noticed by ACORN people when he was a community organizer working on some of the same issues they were working on; he worked on Project Vote in cooperation with them (and in an organization created by them); they asked him to teach part of their leadership seminars and he did for year after year; he sought their endorsement when he first ran for state Senate and they gave it to him -- and their members became volunteers for him, and they helped him in later campaigns, including one for Congress and his campaign for U.S. Senate; he asked for and received their endorsement this year for president. Just listing this shows quite a connection.

I think we can pick one aspect of this, or one general description that encompasses a lot of it and then cover it in more detail in the sub articles (the ones on early life, state senate career, run for U.S. Senate, for instance). I think it's sufficient to let readers know a connection exists and give them a link to ACORN. I propose this addition (in the Barack Obama#Early life and career, although I could support a different addition elsewhere (addition in italics):

Obama directed Illinois Project Vote from April to October 1992, a voter registration drive with a staff of 10 and 700 volunteers that achieved its goal of registering 150,000 of 400,000 unregistered African Americans in the state, leading Crain's Chicago Business to name Obama to its 1993 list of "40 under Forty" powers to be.[20][21] One of the groups he worked with on voter registration that year, the Chicago chapter of ACORN, a nationwide social action group, became a longtime political ally, supporting him in his runs for office.

Footnote:

• Foulkes, Toni, "Case Study: Chicago - The Barack Obama Campaign", article, Social Policy, Winter 2003, Vol. 34, No. 2 / Spring 2004, Vol. 34, No. 3 (combined issue?), accessed July 14, 2008

The description "nationwide social action group" comes from this Los Angeles Times article that Rick Block already mentioned. What do other editors think? Noroton (talk) 01:56, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

No. Evidence not "clear" at all. Please refer to all the many reasons already given above. Even if the details were true (and that is disputed), it would violate WP:WEIGHT - rather obviously, I might add. -- Scjessey (talk) 02:15, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I thought I did respond to objections. Please tell me which objections I haven't responded to and I'll look at them. Noroton (talk) 03:04, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe the WP:WEIGHT, relevancy, or WP:NPOV thresholds have been met based on the sources and arguments presented to date. See my WP:WEIGHT analysis of the various things mentioned about Obama in the article. If you look at the relationships all are significant people in Obama's life - his closest advisor, his wife, his children. The organizational affiliations we do have in the article are for the most part resume items, companies where he was employed, ran, or served on the board for months or years. We have not generally listed political allies, groups that his organizations worked alongside, endorsements, places where his employer provided services, or other indirect relationships. There would have to be some special reason to include this one among the dozens or hundreds of others, and why that would be as important as his two daughters, a law firm job he held for eleven years, a teaching job of comparable length, and other matters that get a single sentence in the article. No special connection has been shown. All of the issues mentioned do not rise beyond the type of connection one might expect between a prominent politician and any organization of stature and proximity comparable to ACORN. So far it just looks like an unimportant observation that does not shed light on his bio. On the other hand, inasmuch as this is currently fodder for a number of partisan attacks based on the organization's legal troubles, whether intended or not choosing this one to include rather than any of the others introduces a strong POV concern. Based on all that I would oppose any mention of ACORN based on the discussion to date, and seriously doubt a consensus could be developed to the contrary without significant new information and sourcing. Under the circumstances this discussion has gone on quite long enough, unless anyone cares to bring any fresh arguments or sources to the table (and it would take some strong new arguments and/or quite a few sources). Wikidemo (talk) 02:30, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

We're not limited by what Obama decides to put on his resume. And citing amount of coverage to say there's a WP:WEIGHT problem is an extremely weak reason to keep out a sentence: It's like the effect of gravity on a speck of dust in the stratosphere. Sure, gravitational effects are everywhere, but wind currents are going to have a lot more to do with where that speck is going. WP:WEIGHT is primarily for opinions, not facts, especially one-sentence facts, and you judge facts not primarily by how many sources mention them but by what is intrinsic about them. There is no majority or minority opinion in the sources as to how important this is. We don't weigh additions of facts to an article like that -- not sentence by sentence anyway. When you get to the point of considering length of sections and whether to include paragraphs, WP:WEIGHT matters, but weighing individual sentences for how much media coverage they've gotten is not the standard that's been used throughout this article or anywhere else in Wikipedia, so you're trying to impose a special standard here. I'm not sure how many individual sentences in any Wikipedia article could pass that kind of standard.

To the extent WP:WEIGHT is judged for a sentence, you look at how important the information itself is in relation to the subject: in this case a political figure who was a community organizer. Information that informs the reader about who he worked with as both organizer and candidate is something that should have weight when considering it for inclusion. That he was close to them (sharing goals with them and helping them) and they had some importance for him (helping him get elected) adds further weight. The fact that they have been a longtime national presence that readers may have heard about even before they'd ever heard of Obama is also important, and its an importance that the other associations you mention just above don't have.

You say No special connection has been shown, but he was a community organizer and they were community organizers, so they relate to each other on levels hardly any other political figure ever would. We know of no other group Obama thought enough of to run a class for, year after year between 1993 and 2003 (was the UChicago Law School stint that long?) -- more weight. He got them grant money, their members became his volunteers, he sought their endorsement both for his first race and for the race he's in now, his agenda in the state legislature overlapped heavily with their agenda (on housing, for instance), and they gave him their endorsement. No other entity that I've ever heard of has this level of intimate, longtime support for him other than his wife. You say there's nothing special about ACORN given its stature and proximity to Obama, but ACORN, like Trinity United Church, helped form his base of support, and it's a distinctive one that should be identified. Find me another group he worked this closely with for anything like that long (his law firm, Trinity United and UChicago are three, and they're in the article). When we're considering inclusion of this sentence, I think the proper comparison is not to the most important sentences in the article, but to the least important ones, because those are the ones that should be moved out of the way to make room for this one. It does not have to be the most important sentence just to be included. I don't think there's a WP:NPOV issue here beyond WP:WEIGHT, so I don't know what you mean by mentioning it. Nothing I've proposed depends on POV considerations at all. If there's an objection of yours I haven't met, please point it out to me. Noroton (talk) 04:23, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

The article like most bio articles is currently limited to organizations Obama actually associated with, which seems the most encyclopedic standard. I think it would be a poor idea to start listing second-degree connections. There must be dozens or hundreds of law firm clients, teaching assignments, organizations worked with, parties offering endorsements and support, etc. If not weight, what other standard would there be for choosing a few among all of these whose significance is disputed? The only two ways I know how to do weight are by looking at the amount and significance of coverage in the sources for a hint as to how important the secondary sources think the matter is, and to compare the intrinsic magnitude of the thing with the magnitude of others covered in the article. By both standards there's nothing so far to support ACORN as being a significant issue worthy of reporting on. Your argument that ACORN is a major factor in Obama's life isn't something mentioned by the reliable sources - it's all a plausibility argument inferring importance by connecting random facts that don't seem particularly remarkable. If you feel there are other irrelevant matters discussed in the biography please feel free to delete them or propose them for deletion. We've already gotten rid of the chili mention. This isn't a race to the bottom. The POV issue is that every single time anti-Obama partisans try to tie Obama to guilt by association with something only tenuously connected with him there has been a rush to add the connection to the article. If we only add things that are tainted by scandal the article becomes biased. Wikidemo (talk) 05:44, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Your argument that ACORN is a major factor in Obama's life isn't something mentioned by the reliable sources Of course it is. See the many reliable sources referred to at the top of this thread. I provided a source for the footnote in my proposal. The New York Times article is one of the reliable sources, although I don't think we need to include it -- but it exists, backs up much of this and is reliable. it's all a plausibility argument inferring importance by connecting random facts that don't seem particularly remarkable Not at all. It isn't just "plausible" that he and they worked together, that they supported him and vice versa, it's information with reliable sources to back it up. something only tenuously connected with him You're ignoring my evidence, not responding to it. I've proven, in multiple ways, that the connection is far from tenuous. If not weight, what other standard would there be for choosing[...] I'm sorry, but you're just not listening. I made a very detailed argument about WP:WEIGHT and how to approach the weight of a single sentence, and you've just ignored it. every single time anti-Obama partisans try to tie Obama to guilt by association You're ignoring my argument because this is what's really on your mind, I think. Separate my argument from that and consider my argument, please. I did not make a partisan case and I don't deserve to be treated as if I did. I think it would be a poor idea to start listing second-degree connections. There must be dozens or hundreds of law firm clients, teaching assignments, organizations worked with, parties offering endorsements and support, etc. Find me the ones where he gave seminars every year to teach them how to do what they do (I assume they were yearly) from 1993 to 2003 -- oh, that's right, I already said that. I'm repeating myself now. Because you're ignoring what I said. Noroton (talk) 06:02, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:WEIGHT quote in the "other verifiable, sourced statements" paragraph: An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. Counting sources isn't the point. Significance is the point. You establish the significance of a sentence more by looking at what you know about its relationship to the subject as a whole than by saying "we don't have 1,500 Google hits for this" or, we have only one sentence on his law firm so we can't add a sentence on anything that's less important than that relationship. Noroton (talk) 06:19, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Please forgive me if I'm having trouble finding the sources you describe. The only two I see at the top of the thread are the Kansas City Record and Wall Street Journal pieces. Where is there a list that supports the claim that ACCORN was a significant factor in Obama's life? I have read and considered your argument and I do not believe the facts proffered as reliably sourced add up to anything that meets the weight and relevancy standards. You are drawing inferences from there being a list of disparate facts that tie the two together: they both engaged in complementary voter registration efforts, they endorsed each other, Obama taught seminars. That does not add up to a conclusion that they're significant. You're inferring they must have been significant because of the different facts put together but I am not convinced by that inference.Wikidemo (talk) 06:25, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Seems to me that if there were no controversy surrounding ACORN this wouldn't even be an issue. I personally think that if Project Vote is going to be mentioned then ACORN has to be mentioned. The connection between the two is too large to be ignored. Arzel (talk) 02:35, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Arzel is exactly right--Die4Dixie (talk) 02:43, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree about what kind of material becomes an issue around here but for the opposite reason. The conjecture is impossible to test. If someone proposes for inclusion a new person or organization Obama is supposedly connected to that isn't embroiled in scandal or controversy it will be a minor miracle. There's no reason to say we shouldn't cover Obama's work for Project Vote unless we cover ACCORN. Per the sources Project Vote was a full-time job Obama pursued for six months, and earned significant coverage and recognition for. ACCORN is a different organization devoted to related causes that Obama was not working for, and the only relationship seems to be that the two organizations worked on voter registration together. Wikidemo (talk) 05:56, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

You're ignoring what the sources say, Wikidemo. Please read the sources. Noroton (talk) 06:09, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Exactly what source do you contend I am ignoring? (btw, see my comment below about consensus - I'm willing to go along even if I don't get it) Wikidemo (talk) 06:27, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Noroton (talk) 04:01, 13 July 2008 (UTC) (((added NYT source to item #5 -- Noroton (talk) 04:29, 13 July 2008 (UTC)))) It's a numbered list. Scroll up, please. And 3-4 posts below that I provided another quote. And you really have ignored all that. You wouldn't say half the things you just said in your 05:56 post if you took into account the information I already provided. Which refutes so much of your comment. By the way, I'm not asking you to go read the links: I've helpfully provided the quotes which you can confirm if you want to by following the links. If you're going to oppose what I suggest and do it on the basis that I'm not somehow reflecting the reality that's out there, at least look at how I try to do that. Noroton (talk) 15:58, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

(Outdent) Reading through this, I'm seeing that Norton, and a few others have only proved a incidental relationship here. I also agree with WikiDemo that none of the sources cited by Norton prove that Obama worked for ACORN and thus this should not be put into the article. I do see a lot of guilt by association and many attempts to tie the problems ACORN is facing to Obama. For me, hard proof of association does not come by Google hits, major news paper names, editorials, or blogs. We need hard facts, not articles. I've noticed that those who want to include every controversy, no matter how minor, into the article is quick to quote various Wikipedia rules to back up their assertions and the spit out hundreds of articles backing their argument up. However, when I read the articles they cite and read their arguments, I see no cold hard facts. The onus of proof is on you Norton, Bdell555, or anyone else to show cold hard proof that Obama worked for ACORN (A flier, a payroll stub, a comment from him saying he worked for ACORN, etc). If you can show that proof without referring to an editorial, blog, some article written in a big named news paper, then it should be added to this article. If you cannot show cold hard proof, then there is some reasonable doubt to this issue and thus it should not be included. Let me put it another way using a quick example: if this were a poker game, then the time for continually raising and bluffing has ended and you have been called to show your cards. If you have the hard facts to back up the inclusion and tie of ACORN to Obama, then I would back you up and add it to the article. Brothejr (talk) 12:13, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Initial response: It's not a controversy that Obama has been associated with ACORN. It's not a scandal. Neither he nor it are embroiled in anything. A few media commentators and some lesser-known bloggers have questioned and objected to his ties to ACORN (I'm not even sure that's even accurate -- they've pointed out that he and ACORN have a lot in common). Like Wikidemo, I don't think you read my numbered list at 04:01, 13 July (amended at 04:29) because you give no indication of it and you wouldn't say the things you just said if you took it into account. You'd never say, I see no cold hard facts because that's all I quoted. The onus of proof is on you Norton (It's Noroton, by the way, common mistake.) No, Brothejr, the onus is on you to actually read the quotes I provided if you're going to oppose my proposal. Does my proposed sentence look like it's trying to cover a controversy? Brothejr, please just read the evidence. Then comment. Noroton (talk) 16:09, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I have read the quotes you provided and as I mentioned before down below, I'll support whatever the consensus is. However, I still don't believe you have made your case tying Obama directly to ACORN. While he may have helped the Illinois ACORN chapter, ACORN was just one of many other clients he had. Also, Noroton the onus has been and shall continue to be on you, not me to prove your argument. I am not arguing to include ACORN in this article, but you are. You have not made your case to me and and other editors for saying Obama worked for ACORN or that ACORN and Project Vote were the same entity. I am still not convinced by your argument and you have not proven your point to me. Maybe with some more hard facts I might believe the connection you are trying to make. Brothejr (talk) 18:12, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Since then, we have invited Obama to our leadership training sessions to run the session on power every year, and, as a result, many of our newly developing leaders got to know him before he ever ran for office. Thus, it was natural for many of us to be active volunteers in his first campaign for State Senate and then his failed bid for U.S. Congress in 1996. By the time he ran for U.S. Senate, we were old friends. (Social Policy early 2004, Item 4 in the numbered list you say you've read.) Obama continues his organizing work largely through classes for future leaders identified by ACORN and the Centers for New Horizons on the south side. (Chicago Reader, 1995) Just a normal lawyer-client relationship in which they recruited him, folks. Then just a normal nodding acquaintance in the voter registration campaign he ran for the organization founded by ACORN and which worked with ACORN in that campaign; and then just a normal annual seminar-teaching relationship for a decade or so to train their people; and just a normal grant-giving/grant-receiving relationship when he was on charitable boards and in the state Senate; and then just a lot of help with his campaigns for office, both as individual volunteers from ACORN and voter registration drives; and just getting the local chapter's endorsement in his first run for office and the national endorsement last winter. Why there must be dozens of groups with just that kind of relationship. So commonplace, so unimportant to him and to them. Nothing to see here. Move along, move along, go on about your business ... Noroton (talk) 19:04, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Agreement with short addition

I think Noroton has done a good job here. His addition looks a bit wordier than it needs to be, but I think it can be encyclopedic to mention a longstanding, albeit mostly informal, association with ACORN. ACORN is a well-known activist organization, and Obama's connection to that group has been notable in his career. The false claims about Obama having been mysteriously "hired" by ACORN to work for Project Vote are distracting. Likewise the uncited (according to any WP:RS) that "ACORN created Project Vote". Some of the conspiratorial tone on this talk page that tries to insinuate ACORN "controlling" or "shaping" Obama's career is equally foolish too. There are certainly other groups that Obama has "worked alongside with" and supported, but ACORN is somewhat more important biographically to Obama than other incidental associations.

Maybe a few fewer words: ''While directing the Project Vote chapter, Obama also coordinated with the Chicago chapter of ACORN, a nationwide social action group that has supported Obama throughout his political career. LotLE×talk 02:44, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem at all with your wording change. Noroton (talk) 03:00, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Neither do I if "the Project Vote chapter" is changed to "Project Vote" and not weblinked to Project Vote (see my response under "Two Issues"; - we really have no idea what, if any, his place was in the national org chart of either Project Vote or ACORN). One could also say that "...Obama also coordinated with community organizers and social action groups such as ACORN, groups that have..." since what we really want emphasize may be the longstanding association with groups like ACORN.Bdell555 (talk) 05:24, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

We cannot claim Obama was director of Project Vote as a whole, because he was not. He was director of the Illinois chapter. I cannot fathom the objection to wikilinking to the organization he worked for; that's what we do on WP (the Illinois chapter doesn't have a separate article--nor should it--so the general article is the appropriate link). LotLE×talk 06:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

How do you know he was "director of the Illinois chapter"? How do you know an Illinois chapter even exists? How do you know that it isn't just pure coincidence that the name of the voter drive Obama directed (Illinois Project VOTE!) happens to essentially identical to Project Vote?Bdell555 (talk) 10:08, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

It's hard to see this as anything but bad-faith. Are we to imagine that Project Vote isn't really Project Vote, just something coincidentally named the same, and no one in the press has ever noticed it?! Everything in the world is really controlled by ACORN behind the scenes, being the puppetmaster who pull all the strings?! Wacky, wacky stuff. Anyway, to add to all the existing cites: http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=178; http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jan/20/local/me-guideobama20; http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/January-1993/Vote-of-Confidence/; http://technorati.com/videos/youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DPx1Ut433xPU.

I guess more important to ask is how we know that the WSJ editorial Bdell555 tries to twist into a source is referring to the political organization and not to nuts from oak trees. Probably a word confusion there, huh? LotLE×talk 11:17, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

The video just proves my point. It comes straight from the Obama campaign, and says "In 1992, Barack Obama led Project Vote, a massive voter registration drive in Chicago" NOT "Obama led the Illinois chapter of Project Vote". If Obama had a place in the national organization's org chart, you should have a timeline of his employment. Is there any evidence that timeline begins before or continues after the 92 voter drive, such that it has a distinct existence apart from being the name of a one-off project (like "NASA's flight director in Houston" is distinct from "Apollo 13")? Who was Obama's predecessor in his post? Who was his successor? That Chicago Mag piece says "he took the helm of CHICAGO's Project Vote!"! How do you explain that clear contradiction? In my view, there's no clear contradiction because there's all sorts of contingency here, yet you seem to have full confidence that you know what the formal reporting lines were (such that the national organization Project Vote is the formal "hirer" of Obama to the exclusion of less formal scenarios). "Word confusion" is exactly my contention, and it is not "bad faith" on my part to contend that. Amidst this confusion, "Project Vote", with respect to Obama, is most frequently used to describe the voter drive he directed, not an entity that hired him.Bdell555 (talk) 18:32, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Although I am as yet convinced that ACORN should be mentioned, I will not be a holdout here - if there is no serious dispute from others I'll defer to the judgment of others on this and go along with a consensus around Noroton's proposed language if it looks like it's emerged. We should probably do that within a day or two so we can move on. Wikidemo (talk) 06:50, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Like Wikidemo, I also am not convinced it should be mentioned, however if a consensus emerges after a day or so on LoLE/Norton's wording I won't stand in the way. Brothejr (talk) 12:20, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Why are we proposing words here for something that does not yet appear in the sub-article that this section summarizes? Please take this to the sub-article first. There's plenty of room for improvement there. Summarizing here first seems kind of presumptuous. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand why we need to do one before the other. They're independent matters. I've presented facts and we've begun discussion, let's see if we can come to agreement. I think that since this is a pretty simple factual matter which isn't in dispute (not the language I'm proposing, anyway), we have some hope of getting a consensus quicker than with Ayers, Wright or Rezko. No sense in letting this discussion go stale. I have every intention of adding to the sub articles, including some of the information I posted near the top of this thread, but I've only got so much time. Noroton (talk) 04:29, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Rick Block is absolutely correct here. I can support a brief addition to the main article, but definitely not before there is mention in the child. This main bio is written in WP:SUMMARY style, and hence should limit itself (to a very close approximation) to summarizing material in linked children. I don't see a real problem, Noroton, for you to edit the child to include a concise and neutral mention that we can then (perhaps) summarize.

FWIW, I now believe the association with ACORN is a bit more biographically important than others Obama has had, and hence could merit a short mention. But it's only a bit over the threshold, and I certainly think Wikidemo and others are making good faith judgments in thinking it falls below that threshold. Moreover, I don't actually see any evidence that ACORN has "become embroiled in scandal" or anything of that sort... except in the illusion created by recent and bad-faith edits to the ACORN article. People with politics greatly opposed to those of ACORN have long opposed it, and over four decades ACORN has had a few issues with employees and staff acting improperly, but it's hardly a situation of "newly revealed corruption and misconduct"... except in the imagination of a few extremist bloggers. LotLE×talk 06:49, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with nearly everything LotLE says in the FWIW paragraph just above. It's important enough to mention. The organization is not embroiled in a scandal but it does have critics (don't we all). This is not an association that Obama or other politicians have run from. Should information on the runup to his state Senate race be in the "Early life" child article or the "State senate" child article? It's also rather annoying to be told I've got to do extra work when editors on this page aren't even doing the little bit of work of reading the evidence I've provided on this page. Noroton (talk) 16:59, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Few more words shorter

What about this reduction of a few more words: ''In this role, Obama coordinated with the Chicago chapter of ACORN, a nationwide social action group that has supported Obama's political career.a nationwide social action group that has supported Obama throughout his political career. Any objection to this minor trimming? First thing though, is that we need something in the "Early life" child to summarize by a sentence like this. LotLE×talk 08:09, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

If we cut out longtime we remove a key justification for the sentence. If they were just any old supporters at some particular time, then there's much less reason to mention them. As you've said, there is reason to believe the relationship is important and "longtime" indicates that. There are much better places in the article to save space. Noroton (talk) 16:42, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

My prior version didn't have the word "longtime", but it did have "throughout", which I just restored. It didn't seem necessary, but it doesn't seem harmful either. But you're OK with the relative indexical clause, right Noroton? Since this sentence will follow immediately after "directed Project Vote", we shouldn't need to give the full description of the role in the next sentence (and it doesn't mention the chapter/national thing that Bdell has [strangely] doubted). LotLE×talk 18:23, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'm fine with it. The word throughout makes the importance of the group clear enough. It isn't possible to explain in this article all the elements that make the relationship important, and that should be done elsewhere. I'm all in favor of adding to the child articles, by the way. Noroton (talk) 19:47, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Why is there a proposal for text that explains what ACORN is when it is my understanding that Obama worked for Project VOTE!, rather than ACORN? There is no source that describes any formal association with ACORN that I am aware of. I'm not even sure why any mention of this is being considered when (a) there is very little coverage to speak of, and (b) what coverage does exist appears to be contradictory and largely opinion-based. Any additions to this article (or the daughter article) must be backed up by cast iron sources, not a few that seem to contradict each other. We must be sure of the facts first, and even then a case must be made for its importance to a biography of Obama's entire life. Like others have suggested, I am convinced this is being considered purely because of the perception that ACORN is a left-leaning organization tainted by fraud and theft allegations. Noroton admitted he wouldn't even have been looking at this if it weren't for a whiff of controversy, which seems like agenda-based editing to me. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:02, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

The only ones here insinuating any type of negative connotation between Obama and ACORN are those that are fighting tooth and nail to keep it from the article. I saw the original statement (not even remotely negative) and then saw it removed because of weight concerns. A little google searching indicates that not only did Obama work with ACORN while doing the Project Vote stuff, it appears to be a major connection, and he is apparently proud of his work. I'll state it again, the connection between ACORN and Project Vote is too large to ignore. To fight to not include the ACORN stuff, when there is noone here that is trying to make any claim of scandal implies a censorship because those that are obviously for Obama want to make sure that even an implied negative light against Obama is extinguished before it begins. The fact that some are fighting so hard against this to me is much more suspicious that Obama's connection to ACORN. It should be further noted that the WSJ article makes this connection clear, and Obama hasn't made any comments to suggest that it is not true. If people feel this strongly against the mention of ACORN then take out the Project Vote section. To include one but not the other is extremely misleading and disengenious. Arzel (talk) 15:28, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Arzel's suggestion that the Project Vote section should be removed from the main article. It is not unusual for politicians to get involved in "get out the vote" campaigns. The matter should be fully explored in the daughter article, where the problematic nuances of the ACORN/Project Vote relationship (with respect to Obama) can be properly explained. The WSJ opinion piece by a conservative commentator, if used, can be properly balanced with some left-leaning opinion commentary (if it can be found) to preserve the neutral point of view that is desired. - Scjessey (talk) 15:47, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Scjessey, you have no excuse for ignoring the evidence of the long, close ties Obama has with ACORN, which I provided evidence for at 04:01, 13 July (amended at 04:29 that day), and not far below it, my 05:28 post that day. You've also ignored my argument for the sentence I actually want to put in, which avoids the problematic nuances by stating things in terms that are fully sourced (which you would realize if you actually read the posts I've just referred to). I have no problem at all with more information on this being added to the child article(s), and with Obama's prominence, it's worth a paragraph in the ACORN article, too. This really should be a noncontroversial addition because the Obama/ACORN relationship is clearly important, solidly sourced and a simple fact, which is just exactly the way I'm proposing to present it. Noroton (talk) 16:32, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I think, Scjessy, that this issue became clouded by the initial conspiratorial claims on this page that Project Vote was somehow "run by" or "a puppet of" ACORN caused this to seem like a different issue than it should be. We should not include mention of ACORN because of Obama's job with Project Vote; but that does not necessarily mean we should not mention them period. Some points:

• Project Vote and ACORN are completely separate organizations that happened to have cooperated on some projects. Project Vote is a smaller organization with a narrower purpose (voting rights), while ACORN addresses many issues for poor and minority communities. FWIW, I knew of ACORN since the late-1970s (when I was a teenager), but they've been widely known since the 1980s at least.
• The WSJ editorial doesn't even vaguely resemble WP:RS, it's a screed that we should not consider as a citation. However:
• ACORN is a large and well-known political organization that has endorsed, campaigned for, been trained by, and worked on common project with Obama. This is more true of ACORN than it is true of other large political organizations. If UAW, or League of Women Voters, or Sierra Club, or AARP had a similarly close relationship with Obama for a similar length of time, I'd want to mention it. He has said good things about all of those organizations, and they of him, but the connection isn't as close as with ACORN.
• Project Vote belongs in the main bio. Even though it was brief, state-level director of a major organization is a significant achievement for a young guy out of law school. It might not be unusual for a young politician to be involved in "get out the vote", but it's also not unusual for them to practice law, write a book, get married, and lots of other things that we do want to mention Obama in particular did.

LotLE×talk 18:41, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Again, ongoing accusations of "censorship", "ignoring" evidence, editing disingenuously, and POV-pushing are disruptive and will only increase tensions. If you want to make the case to include this content, perhaps you should actually make the case rather than announcing that you've proven it already. Obviously a number of people are unconvinced. Although Noroton has said many times he has provided ample evidence, I have combed this very long discussion as best I could and read all of the sources I could find, and do not find them persuasive. There is clearly no formal affiliation of Obama and ACORN, and the contacts they have had are either indirect or far too ordinary and minor to make an issue of them here. The negative connotation of ACCORN are not a product of this page - they are being stated vociferously off Wiki by partisans trying to defeat Obama's Presidential campaign. Wikidemo (talk) 18:47, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Project Vote. Please read ALL of the contemporaneous account (1993) at http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/January-1993/Vote-of-Confidence/ which clarifies that what Obama headed up was a Cook County chapter, not an Illinois chapter, and it was indeed part of the national organization. Sounds like some of you read the top third of the article and jumped to some comclusions. This was not some 'typical' political involvement thing. I also don't see the connection with ACORN (and I did read Michelle Malkin's article, but that was about fairly recent issues in other states - I don't see the connection with Obama). Flatterworld (talk) 16:08, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

If you're going to oppose language on ACORN and say that you don't see the connection, you can't ignore the overwhelming, incontrovertable evidence I provided at at 04:01, 13 July (amended at 04:29 that day), and not far below it, my 05:28 post that day. Please look it over. Noroton (talk) 16:23, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Wow! What an utterly absorbing account! The excellent Chicago Magazine piece gives amazing insight into the community organizing Obama was involved in, and it is definitely more elaborate than I realized. Obviously the Project VOTE! thing deserves some mention after all, and there is plenty of material for the daughter article. Tellingly, there is no mention of ACORN, so I guess there is no need to stuff it in the article in the hopes of making an OAK out of it. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:11, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

(whistles, looks up) "Nope, no other evidence around here. I don't see any other evicence at all, no how, no way. Gosh, you'd think if there were anything to this connection, there'd be some evidence on it that editors could post right on this page." Put the telescope on the other eye, Lord Nelson. Noroton (talk) 17:49, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe Project VOTE! is lumped in with ACORN now, but it appears that was not the case back when Obama was actually involved. The organization is specifically described as a non-partisan "get out the vote" initiative, and there is no mention of ACORN. The only reason I can see for bleating about ACORN is to try to associate Obama with ACORN's left-leaning tendencies and issues with personnel in other parts of the country. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:12, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Just to recap your position: The New York Times, ACORN itself and Obama himself and the Chicago Reader and the Los Angeles Times and Social Policy are not good enough for you and therefore there is no connection between Obama and ACORN worth mentioning. Have I got that right? I mean, I could quote from all those sources but ... I already have. You've come up with a new criterion: It's got to be contemporaneous now (and every single source has to mention it?). It's so boring to watch you ignore evidence put right in front of you (repeatedly). Think I'll stop now. Noroton (talk) 18:49, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

That might be wise. If you do want to state the case for inclusion you probably should show us everything you have, in a methodical way in a single place. I see all the diffs. As I mentioned before I (and apparently others) have tried to review arguments and materials from throughout this discussion and remain unconvinced. I don't see that the case been made, and castigating other editors for not agreeing with you is not going to make the point any clearer. Wikidemo (talk) 19:00, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Although I think I've put my case together in a methodical way more than once, I'll do it again on a separate page in my userspace and link to it from here. I find this a burden, especially when Rick Block is suggesting other burdens, but I'll do it, probably tonight, and I won't complain about it. Just read it with an open mind when I do. Noroton (talk) 20:10, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

(after ec) - Yet again, you focus on the editor rather than the subject being discussed. And now you add a layer of sarcastic incivility for good measure. Let me spell out my view one more time. A brief summary regarding Obama's ties with Project VOTE! should be included in the main bio. A fuller description that includes details of how that organization is related to ACORN, and how ACORN has supported Obama (neutrally-presented, of course), should feature in the daughter article. This dovetails with what Rick Block has been saying above. Also, I agree with LotLE that the WSJ is unusable screed. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:16, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I think all the links in my comment at 17:49 speak to what I'm focusing on and what you're not focusing on. Noroton (talk) 20:10, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

(Unindent)Add to article.Just my .02. with 50 more we would have a dollar , and with a lot less a consensus built.Die4Dixie (talk) 22:59, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Case for ACORN proposed language, restated

Per Wikidemo's request, I went over my evidence and my proposal, made it neat and presentable and posted it here: User:Noroton/The case for including ACORN. Please look it over and comment here rather than there. I wrote it up there because it's almost entirely a rewrite of what I said in various spots on this page, so I'm not sure that it would contribute much to this page. Perhaps it should be moved here for archiving purposes (input on that would be appreciated). If it changes any minds or if someone can show me where the case is weak, let's discuss it at this spot. Noroton (talk) 02:51, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

This section is written in summary style. Per Wikipedia:Summary style#Keeping summary articles and detailed articles synchronised editors should first add any new material to the appropriate places in the main article (which, in this case, is Early life and career of Barack Obama). The wealth of detail and references should be applied to this article first. To some extent this is a procedural objection. My intent is to refocus the energy here someplace where it will be more immediately productive. If the energy that has been spent on this talk page had been spent on the sub-article, I imagine the sub-article would be much better. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:08, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Be that as it may, the current summary of Project Vote in the main article simply repeats what is already in the sub-article, so it may be that this entire aspect isn't worthy of inclusion in the main article and the whole section removed and devoted to the sub-section. That said, the wording by Norton is, in my opinion, quite good. Arzel (talk) 04:23, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll be happy to add details about ACORN to the "Early life" article. In reading up about Obama and ACORN, I found a lot of interesting, valuable information about Obama and Project Vote that would be ideal for that article. Project Vote is more important in Obama's career than I'd thought: It really seems to have helped him launch his political career. It sounds like a very good idea to synchronize between the two. Noroton (talk) 15:34, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I read all of Noroton's stuff, even registering to read that story about ACORN, and looked around some more. See http://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=4143 ACORN's 'allied organizations' of which Project Vote is just one among many, and it's a pretty diverse bunch. Some are connected more closely than others with housing issues. Obama was hired by Project Vote, not ACORN, to do the (highly successful) voter registration. As you can see from the article I linked to earlier, people were very impressed with his planning, strategy and execution of the job - it was what got him known in Chicago (as opposed to the communities he was working in). On a broader note, there is NO shortage of organizations eager to inflate, fabricate, or otherwise state a connection with someone as now-famous as Obama. They'd all like to 'bask in the glow', and that's understandable. John Fund in the WSJ conveniently left out connections and dates, as that would spoil his story. It's what he does, and we're all used to it (especially now that he has Murdoch to impress). I certainly don't feel responsible, or even connected, with problems which happened after I stopped working for various companies. Why would anyone rational try to make that non-existent connection? imo any information about the relationship of these 'allied organizations' is best addressed in the ACORN article and/or the Project Vote article. Unless you want to start a precedent in which every mention of the (London) Times, WSJ, Fox News, etc., etc. include a mention of News International and Rupert Murdoch. I'm sure some would like to connect some dots with Obama, ACORN, low-income housing in general and Rezko in specific, but this is really a stretch too far. Obama did a voter registration drive. It was successful. It got him the attention of movers and shakers in Chicago. They were impressed, and saw a lot of potential in him. End of story. Well...maybe the beginning. ;-) Flatterworld (talk) 05:47, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Do any of those other affiliations run voter drives, Flatterworld? Provide a source that says "Obama was hired by Project Vote" quote unquote or "Project Vote hired Obama" quote unquote. Without such a source it cannot be said that Obama was not, in fact, hired by ACORN (as one can read, quote unquote, by opening a copy of the Wall Street Journal) to work with Project Vote in Chicago in 1992. The Obama campaign says "In 1992, Barack Obama returned to Chicago after law school to direct a massive voter registration effort called Project Vote". Why does Obama say that Project Vote was the name of the registration drive as opposed to the name of an organization that hired him? Because Chicago Project Vote is better understood as something that was done (for ACORN) than as something that is. One can say "Obama worked for Project Vote" or "Obama was named director of the local Project Vote operation", but one can just as easily say that "Gene Kranz worked for Apollo 13" or "Kranz was named director of the Manned Space Center in Houston" and that doesn't mean Kranz wasn't hired by NASA. Yes, there is an ongoing national organization called Project Vote, but it is the voter registration arm of ACORN. The ongoing argument over whether he was hired by Ford Canada Ltd as opposed to Ford Inc is ultimately a red herring. What matters is that ACORN was "smack dab in the middle" of an event that the Chicago media says "raised a new political star". The idea that a mention of ACORN is an attempt to tie in scandals makes no sense on its face, because A) the scandals like "Jive Turkey Sr" were, in fact, committed by people who nominally worked for Project Vote as opposed to ACORN (ACORN, of course, is mentioned more frequently in indictments and media reports because it's legally liable) and B) Obama has no objections to calling attention to his association with ACORN; in fact, when he said "I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career", the one example that he pointed to was the Illinois registration drive.Bdell555 (talk) 09:32, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

No, it's obvious that Obama worked for Project Vote, not ACORN. The question is whether the two are so closely affiliated that the connection is worth mentioning. Wikidemo (talk) 09:43, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

It's certainly obvious that he worked for Project Vote, just as it is obvious that Gene Kranz worked for Apollo 13. It is not obvious at all, however, that Obama did NOT work for ACORN (or that Kranz did NOT work for NASA). For what it is worth, Obama himself felt that ACORN's role was "worth mentioning" with respect to the registration drive ("smack dab in the middle").Bdell555 (talk) 09:53, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Bdell555, I've never figured out why it is important that Obama worked for ACORN as opposed to Project Vote. I think you've made the best case possible for it, and there are certainly some statements out there that he worked for ACORN. I just don't think we know enough about the Project Vote/ACORN relationship to know if it's fair to say he actually worked for them, so it seems like a strain to state it baldly when it's just not that straightforward in so many of the sources. Noroton (talk) 15:28, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Noroton, I am NOT taking issue with users like yourself who believe it's "not straightforward". I am rather taking issue with those who claim "it's obvious that Obama did NOT work for ACORN". We "don't know enough" to say that. This claim that he didn't work for ACORN on the 1992 voter registration drive is then used to argue against any mention of ACORN by insisting that all we have left are the facts that subsequently he trained ACORN staff, ACORN staff worked for his campaigns, etc and that those alone don't meet the threshold of notability.Bdell555 (talk) 17:29, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, I read too quikly. I see what you mean. Noroton (talk) 01:03, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

(@ Flatterworld) I agree with you 100 percent that there's a very interesting, important story about Project Vote, and it needs to be in the Early life article. You say, there is NO shortage of organizations eager to inflate, fabricate, or otherwise state a connection with someone as now-famous But there aren't even a handful that can claim the long, deep connections with Obama that ACORN can. The evidence I provided shows a strong connection -- what other organization has been so important in his life story, has that kind of connection with him and is not mentioned in the article? Noroton (talk) 15:21, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Noroton, Chicago is filled with organizations (and individuals), and Obama's worked with plenty of them, particularly as a state legislator. That's goes with the job. ACORN was one of many, but I expect its standing as a national organization, as opposed to a local one, accounts for its higher profile in most reports about Obama. People outside of Chicago simply wouldn't be familiar with the rest. I expect Mayor Washington had a big impact, but how many people outside of Chicago know much about him? Obama's actual "long, deep connections" are with community organizing itself, not particular organizations or particular people. He believes in "bottom up" change, and voter registration is certainly an important step in that. That was the important point that's stayed constant in his career, and who was funding Project Vote and/or who was in charge of it is essentially a red herring. If it was fairly irrelevant to Obama, why is it so important to you? Why this constant attempt to find some 'nefarious operatives' who 'launched his career'? We've been through Rezko, Ayers, Alice Palmer, now we're at Project Vote. I'd prefer we write an article about Obama himself, not what some would like to imagine him as. Meanwhile, my issue remains one of consistency. We don't constantly point out Murdoch's connections with all his owned entities and employees (perhaps we should!) so I don't see why Project Vote should be treated any differently. Anytime someone is adamant about changing precedent, without giving a good reason, I'm skeptical. Flatterworld (talk)

Has Obama ever said "I've been fighting alongside [Rezko or Ayers] on issues they care about my entire career?" If there is a better example of Obama's connections to community organizing, it's time to get specific: name ONE out of these legion of associations you contend would have to be mentioned as well as ACORN on the basis of "precedent" so we can examine whether consistency would really be impossible to maintain were we to exclude it and not ACORN.Bdell555 (talk) 17:57, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

(@ Flatterworld) Your statement Why this constant attempt to find some 'nefarious operatives' who 'launched his career'? is interesting. Why do you think ACORN is nefarious? If you don't think it's nefarious, what's your objection to leaving out of the article a simple statement about it and Obama? If Obama's ties with other groups unnamed in the article are as longstanding or deep, it should be easy to find sources indicating that. I've done the work of looking up these sources, but you don't have any. Instead you're giving us suppositions (I expect and I'm skeptical). Which groups has Obama trained members from for year after year? Which groups have given him support in all his election campaigns? Acorn is worth a sentence. Oh, and you say we don't point out Murdoch's connections with his "owned entities". Actually, we do. It's in the News Corporation box at the bottom of the Rupert Murdoch page. Noroton (talk) 20:58, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

So...point out ACORN's connections with its "owned entities" at the bottom of their own page - pretty much what I suggested. These connections simply don't belong on Obama's page, and it has nothing to do with my personal thoughts on ACORN, but what some are trying to paint ACORN as being. To clarify my point, this constant attempt to find some 'nefarious operatives' who 'launched his career'? refers to the meme that he's a puppet, a Manchurian candidate, a 'front man' (which of course brings to mind Bush and Cheney) with no thoughts, ideas or plans of his own. Is it really so impossible to believe he actually did his own work, launched his own career, is running his own campaign, and would indeed 'be his own man' in the White House? Occam's Razor. Flatterworld (talk) 21:14, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Insults (particularly the removed-from-reality last sentence, which has nothing to do with anything I've ever said) and assumptions of bad faith are not adequate talk page arguments. The existence of memes is not an adequate reason to oppose an addition of information to Wikipedia for Wikipedia's encyclopedia-building. Noroton (talk) 21:53, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know why you insist on taking my posts personally. I of course have no idea of your nationality, preferred political party or anything else. Nor do I care. I was clarfiying my earlier post for you, which you clearly misunderstood. As for our job, it's to stick to the facts, not look for 'evidence' to support memes which are untrue to begin with. We start with relevant facts, and let any conclusions follow. We do NOT start with conclusions, then try to dig up evidence that supports them. Flatterworld (talk) 22:30, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I notice you haven't answered my questions in the 15:21 and 20:58 posts. Nor did you explain how your assigning low motives to me (somehow concluding that I don't believe he actually did his own work) doesn't violate WP:AGF. Here's another: which facts in my proposed sentence do you dispute? If you're going to insult other editors, not provide any relevant facts or bring up policy objections, your not worth replying to. Unless you start doing that, I'll be ignoring you. In forming consensus, we can ignore trolling. Noroton (talk) 00:59, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

"Project Vote, the nonpartisan arm of Acorn" appears on http://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=12047Bdell555 (talk) 06:44, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Bdell555's latest source contains yet another refutation that PV is a subsidiary of ACORN: On September 27, ACORN, working frequently in partnership with Project Vote, recorded our one millionth voter registered since our non-partisan voter registration campaign began in July 2003! LotLE×talk 06:57, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

An organization can partner with its "nonpartisan" arm to work on nonpartisan projects. That's doesn't mean its partner isn't its arm.Bdell555 (talk) 18:47, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Suggest again that this be addressed first in the sub-article

Can somebody please explain to me why we're in such a big hurry to include this here? Checking the history of the sub-article, it's not obvious any of the editors involved in this ruckus have ever contributed to that page. My suggestion (above) to edit there first has been largely ignored. Are we writing an encyclopedia here or waging some sort of campaign? It's been said before but I'll repeat it - this is not the place to conduct a political campaign. I'm tempted to move this entire thread to Talk:Early life and career of Barack Obama but suspect this would be hastily reverted. There's absolutely no way to enforce this but if everyone could please stop and think for a minute or two about why they're editing here (on this page) I'd appreciate it. Furthermore, if the honest reason you're here is more related to the current presidential race than creating an encyclopedia please spend your time elsewhere. Write a blog. Volunteer for whatever political party you choose to. Canvass your neighborhood. But please go away. I'm not going to name names, but if you think this may be addressed to you it probably is. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:42, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I suggest you not set up non-Wikipedia standards for discussion on this page. Personally, I stayed away from editing the article (or, frankly, even looking at it for weeks) when I saw that people would make edits, see them reverted and then start edit warring. I have no intention of wasting my time on that, getting involved in two or more debates about Obama at the same time rather than just one at a time. You've also said we should edit the other "child" articles, but there's no Wikipedia requirement to do that first or second. There's no "big hurry" to include this just because we're not debating it for a month or so. This is still, actually, longer and more elaborate than the normal discussion to get a sentence into a long article. Furthermore, if the honest reason you're here is more related to the current presidential race than creating an encyclopedia please spend your time elsewhere. Who are you to say what interests are legitimate or not legitimate for Wikipedians whose motivation is to have a WP:NPOV-compliant article and who want what's best for the encyclopedia? I've given reasons for my proposed language, please address them above. Noroton (talk) 19:35, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not talking about interests but motivation. If someone's motivation for being here is to contribute to an NPOV encyclopedia and wants what's best for the encyclopedia, then that person is in the right place. Someone who's motivation is to try to help or hurt McCain's or Obama's electoral chances or slant this or any other article (in any direction) is not. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:14, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

All right, I misread you. Noroton (talk) 03:17, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

[ec] Rick is right, because this is a biography of a whole life and career of a notable individual, not a profile of a presidential candidate. And this article is written in WP:SUMMARY style, with an expectation that it summarizes what is found in its subarticles. The same logic is applied to many biographies across the encyclopedia - we shouldn't be putting something into a summary section that isn't summarizing something that is found elsewhere. Tvoz/talk 03:20, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Nonetheless, procedural maneuvers should never discourage contructive expansion of the encyclopedia. Eg a normal sequence for WP's growth is for somebody to contribute Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor to a main WW2 article before a subarticle section giving it coverage would be created and fleshed out.

And as for motivations for contributing here: it's not us WPdian's job to get anybody elected or stop them from being! Yet, due an often liberal bent to the contributors here (including me, actually), how this bias usually gets manifested is through folks' cutting otherwise notable material not because of its own lack of merit but from fear opponents will use it as a coat rack.  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 16:23, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Muslim School

There is some misinformation in the media regarding Obama's schooling. Please read this link. Should we address this issue? Pierre.cardoone (talk) 03:16, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

In a perfect Wikiworld, first, we would have already sourced B's exposure to Muslim beliefs and practice, sourced nativist fears and concerns, sourced neutral campaign coverage acknowleging his campaign's deemphasis of this arguably minor exposure, and sourced partisan criticism that the campaign had thereby mislead the public; and then would have crafted carefully nuanced, encyclopedic coverage of this very noted matter. Finally, we would have been able to build consensus to include this coverage without its being completely vetoed by some faction. (Alas, similar to those making a brouhaha over the NYer cover cartoon, some WP contributors believe that while they themselves can appreciate subtle distinctions and make sense of complicated realities, they can't allow themselves to trust encyclopedia readers to process whatever the facts and draw their own conclusions.)  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 04:51, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Oops, sorry I didn't realize this was a one of the discussion-first pages. I probably should have figure that out with the election months away.

Anyway, I'm thinking at some point we should talk more about the rumors and misconceptions circulating in the new media and online. The New Yorker cover at least for the moment is the posterchild for topic. The edit I attempted to make admittedly is lengthy, but perhaps it can be scaled down and worked into a new part of the prose:

As rumors of Islamic upbringing continued to mount, The New Yorker magazine published a political satire cartoon on the cover of it's July 27, 2008 issue depicting the Obamas as anti-American Islamic militants based on those allegations. The depiction immediately drew criticism from Obama's supporters as well as his presumptive Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, accusing the magazine of publishing an incendiary cartoon helping strengthen the rumors and misconceptions in support of his detractors. Editor David Remnick explained that the cartoon is intended to be viewed as a satire of Obama's critics themselves resorting to tactics of fear, but acknowledged the concern that it can be misunderstood, particularly by those unfamiliar with the magazine. Obama, in an interview on Larry King Live shortly after the magazine issue began circulating, said that he understood the satire, but was disappointed by the results saying, "Well, I know it was The New Yorker's attempt at satire...I don't think they were entirely successful with it...I do think that, you know, in attempting to satirize something, they probably fueled some misconceptions about me instead."

What do you guys think?Thinkbui (talk) 09:22, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

What do I think? I think this is a low point in American politics, of turning simple things any thinking person understands quite well into fodder for political mud-slinging. Of course we hit these bottoms every four years. As far as whether this belongs in the article, no, it is a trivial piece of ephemera. Perhaps worth placement in an article about the various events arising in the run up to the election, but not a bio of the candidate. Wikidemo (talk) 09:48, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

WD's initial, blogworthy comment encapsulates partisan counter-critique of the nature of some of O's opponents' criticms, as parodied by the NYer's notable cartoon. In any case, Lulu's deletion of Thinkbui's entire contribution is another example of how subtle bias creeps into WP's coverage through "proceduralism"; and, in fact, WP's guidelines specifically and plainly discourage the quick deletion of balanced and well-documented, notable information from an article it most naturally at first fits in, until/unless another article somewhere picks it up, to to ensure WP contains as encycopedically complete of coverage as possible.  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 17:22, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

We should accurately describe his upbringing and clearly address any widespread misperceptions. However, that doesn't mean that we should do so by focusing on a particular magazine cartoon that happens to be dominating the news at the moment; it would be preferable to take a wider viewpoint of events and perceptions over the last couple of years in which Obama has been in the public eye. —Steven G. Johnson (talk) 17:30, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, it's July 2008 and WP has somehow managed to avoid doing so (this secret explained by the inequity of some championing such additions' having been banned for warring while others who warred to delete the additions' being allowed to remain). While we look beyond any past inequities, however, let's now stand up to those favoring deletion of balanced, sourced material, in the present case by our leaving cartoon coverage here until the hole otherwise in coverage would be filled.  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 19:06, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

The proposed addition was blogworthy; I responded in kind. A single incident like this is utterly not pertinent to Obama's biography. It doesn't say anything about him, his career, etc. It's just a random incident in the election process. As neutral sourced content of perhaps lasting notability (after the WP:NOT#NEWS hubbub dies down and we see how notable it really is) it may belong somewhere, but not here. Wikidemo (talk) 20:16, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't necessarily call it 'random', but agree that in the grand scheme of things that it would end up as a trivial detail if it stood by itself. What I'm suggesting is that it be used as an example of some of the skirmishes Obama's had to fight on the campaign trail regarding his upbringing. Honest question here: though this cartoon wasn't intended as an attack on him, does it stand out since it's suppose to represent the collection of rumors that are started/perpetuated by his critics?Thinkbui (talk) 19:59, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Comic relief

For all those Wikipedians who have been working so hard on this article, a little comic relief for you. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:09, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

w/ apologies--->Rbt. Zimmerman  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 16:16, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Polling data

I've just removed this from the last part of the "Cultural and political image" section:

Although Obama is Christian, polls have shown that some Americans believe incorrectly that he was sworn in to the Senate on a Quran (12% in a Newsweek poll), is Muslim (12% in a Pew poll), or was raised Muslim (26% in a Newsweek poll).

Although technically correct, I think it a snapshot of public opinion that isn't particularly biographical and has WP:RECENT issues. It may be more suited to the campaign article. I'm not a big fan of parentheses in articles, but that's just my opinion. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:04, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Misperceptions about Obama's religious background have been a persistent issue for months now; it's not just a fad in this week's news, so WP:RECENT does not seem to apply. And widespread misperceptions about someone's background seems to me like an obvious issue to be addressed in a biographical summary of the person. This is not a campaign question per se, as it has nothing to do with Obama's political platform - it's simply an item about his biography that is widely misunderstood. Moreover, it goes well with other items discussed in that section of the article, e.g. I'm not sure why you think it's good to discuss perceptions about his cultural background in connection with the African-American community, but not in connection with the Christian community. And once we say in the article that it is widely misunderstood, it immediately follows that we need to back up that statement with quantitative polling data - we can't just say "some Americans" (see WP:WEASEL). —Steven G. Johnson (talk) 16:32, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree that any such 'discussion' would fit better in the campaign article (or a separate article, or one about campaign tactics) than in this main article. Let's just stick to the facts and not get sidetracked about who said what when to whom and where. We've all seen the photos of the school on CNN, we know it was and is a secular school in a predominantly Muslim country, and we all understand the concept of WP:WEIGHT. Flatterworld (talk) 17:24, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're referring to, precisely, with your reference to WP:WEIGHT. Here, we're talking about one sentence in a a long article, describing misperceptions about someones biography held by 10–25% of Americans, perceptions which have been a persistent issue in the public discourse for months now. How is that giving undue weight to minority views? How is this not sticking to the facts or getting sidetracked? And what do photos of the school have to do with this one sentence? I'm confused...does your comment belong in the previous discussion section about Muslim schools? —Steven G. Johnson (talk) 17:37, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

This article is written from a historical perspective. Adding details that are justified by snapshot polling data presents problems, particularly when these numbers are constantly changing (the recentism issue). We already fully explain Obama's past, and that should be sufficient. You are suggesting we tailor the article to allow for the lowest comment denominator, the so-called "low information voters" who prefer to believe gossip over factual evidence. That isn't a very encyclopedic approach. It is the responsibility of Obama and his campaign to educate these people, not Wikipedia. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:49, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Scjessey that snapshot polling suffers from WP:RECENTism. However, per Stevenj, the general prevalence of a misconception of Obama's religion or religious background seems like a notable biographical feature (it's not really about Obama so much as about a probably deliberate attempt by opponents to engineer a perception, I admit). If we could mention the widespread misconception without going so far into poll-of-the-week, that would be ideal. I don't care whether is is 12% in one poll and 18% in another (with questions phrased slightly differently), nor whether it jumped 2% between certain months, nor whatever false specificity... still, this has been a longtime and widespread thing. LotLE×talk 18:35, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

There's no evidence that these numbers are changing rapidly over time or vary a lot between polls, which would be the only reason to make a big stink about quoting a specific polling number. If I recall correctly, a couple months ago a poll showed 10% of Americans thought he was Muslim, which is pretty close to the 12% in the recent Pew poll. This has been a persistent phenomenon since Obama became a presidential contender, and has been a major issue in his "cultural and political image" (to quote the title of the section we are discussing); it is very far from a "poll of the week" kind of thing. The article doesn't quote zillions of polls and compare margins of error over time or anything like that; it just quotes representative recent numbers on typical issues (whether people think he is a Muslim, or was raised Muslim); I really think the supposed "recentism" is being blown out of proportion. You have to quote some hard statistics, or you are left only with vague weasel words like "some Americans think".

In any other Wikipedia article, there would be no debate about the article directly addressing a major misconception among a significant fraction of the public about the subject of the article; I don't know why there is so much resistance here to a single uncontroversial factual sentence on the topic in a section on his "cultural and political image". To say that a single sentence on a widespread misconception is "tailoring the article for the lowest common denominator" is gross hyperbole, and hence unpersuasive. —Steven G. Johnson (talk) 21:19, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I do not share Scjessey's concern about "low information voters", nor think the mention of the misconception about Obama's religion is "tailoring for lowest common denominator". My only concern with the level of detail, really, is that the current sentence presents three separate figures for "is muslim", "sworn in on Quran" and "raised muslim". While I obviously realize that those beliefs are logically independent, they all seem to fall under the same general misconception; reading them myself, my mind goes off in mostly superfluous directions to try to figure out who falls in the N% gap between the one misconception and the other, what is the overlap, etc. I recognize StevenJ's point that we need to cite something for support, but I'm not sure the concrete figures in the body text really add anything. We might be able to use some more general phrase like "widespread misconception", and let readers consult the footnotes for the numeric specifics. LotLE×talk 21:51, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem with just saying "widespread misconception" is that it is a weasel phrase. How widespread? There's no reason not to make it quantitative, and it much more informative with an actual number in the text, rather than buried in the references. It's not like we are inundating the reader in numbers; we're talking (ad nauseam) about a single sentence here. (At the very least, we should keep the numbers for both whether he is Muslim or was raised Muslim, as the latter misconception seems vastly more common according to the statistics and is quite distinct from the former misconception. I can agree with removing the statistic about being sworn in on the Quran, as that doesn't seem to add much beyond the number of people who think he is Muslim now.) —Steven G. Johnson (talk) 23:04, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any point in saying anything like "widespread misconception", "falsehood", etc. We state that he converted to Christianity and speaks of it regularly (once this gets its own article, the greater elaboration on accounts of his church activity can be restored), and then we say that xyz people still believe he is a Muslim. Anything more than that is redundant and spoonfeeding. Trilemma (talk) 23:29, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

It is still a mistake to quote specific poll numbers, because these numbers are utterly irrelevant when viewed from a historical perspective. These numbers can (and will) change, so having the article reflect a particular point in time is a mistake. Moreover, I am right about the "low information voter" problem. The article already documents the true nature of Obama's background, and it does not need to be repeated in another section to allow for those people who don't read the article properly. Snapshot data is better presented in the related campaign article, because it is polling data that is directly connected to the campaign itself. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:40, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Ridiculous - even when talking "from a historical perspective", you still talk about events and statistics at particular points in time. Sure, it wouldn't hurt to attach a year to the poll numbers. And if the numbers change drastically in the future it should be updated --- but even in that case the widespread false impression in 2008 that Obama is a Muslim is a major part of his image in this pivotal campaign year for him, and it's hard to imagine that a historian writing 10 years from now would not mention it when talking about his public image. How can we have a section on his cultural and political image and not mention in that section a misperception of his religious background that has played a major role in that image to date? —Steven G. Johnson (talk) 00:19, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) I think Stevenj make a good point to distinguish the description of Obama's actual background from a description of his perception. Those things really can be distinct from each other, even at odds. Let's try to move this to something less specific for a moment: Some prominent politician (not Obama for now) might be perceived as being a "bold leader", or being "inept", or being "a womanizer". None of those characteristics are ones we can simply state about the politician as a biographical fact; however, each of them may be significant aspects of the public perception of a given politician. Given evidence of such belief being widespread, I think the belief can be encyclopedic to characterize (especially if citable to specific polls). Even unfair or inaccurate reputations can be biographically important. LotLE×talk 00:35, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely, particularly given that this is a section (and eventually, article) on his image ;) Trilemma (talk) 00:55, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

It is unclear what article it is that you anticipate will eventually exist, but for now let's work with the articles that actually do exist. If you create some new, encyclopedic article, we can take that into account in terms of what to link, summarize, whatever. LotLE×talk 01:09, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm a tad bit busy to be creating a fairly significant full length article right now, and when I do get more time, I want to concentrate on some Rwandan figures, but basically what I think is necessary is a full length article as the Cultural and political image of John McCain exists. Trilemma (talk) 01:43, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

• Back to "polling data

To give it a timeline I would like to add something like this:

After widespread rumors early in the primaries xx % still believe....etc"

Any objection/inputs out there? --Floridianed (talk) 02:14, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

(rings handbell) Hear ye, last chance to comment

@ Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Obama family (2nd nomination)!  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 17:17, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Cultural and political image

To clear up some dispute here, and for better organization, I've created a new article, Cultural and political image of Barack Obama. That parallels the Cultural and Political image of John McCain article, which seems to be functioning well. If people agree that this is the right thing to do, then we can go ahead and condense the treatment here and expand that other article. The new article clearly needs a better lead but my creative energies are low. What do you think? - Wikidemo (talk) 20:51, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Rezko Again

Apropos this addition,[7] are we done with Rezko or not? I've reverted for now because additions like this need to be discussed on the talk page per the steps we took to calm last month's trouble. I thought we had moved on. Is there any need to re-open it now? If we re-open the question of revamping the Rezko material we can consider this new change but we should put cards are on the table, including the possibility of scaling back existing coverage. I also wonder if it's a good idea to consider two contentious matters at the same time. Wikidemo (talk) 06:11, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

This edit looks out of process to me. After a month of discussion, virtually every editor strongly opposed such long and POV description. The addition is brand new, long, contentious, and poorly written paragraph. Maximally oppose adding this material. LotLE×talk 06:30, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Lulu, your I'm sure sincere critique sounds like sloganeering to me. Short and sweet I'd just referenced the embarrassment that an early Obama contributor had later been convicted for corruption unrelated to Obama. But if it was too long you could suggest how to recast it more economically, if it's too yuckily written you could suggest how to wordsmith and phrasesmith it aright. And as for your hyperbole of its contentiousness----although it's never been my goal to imply anything negative about Obama whatsoever (I like O, support him, will vote for him), I think the basic circumstance of the Rezco matter deserves brief mention since it's obviously considered important by the serious sources that go into B's early years in politics.  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 07:22, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

no reaqson not to consider more than one at a time. I suppose if we wait every time, the rate of addition will be eclipsed by the general election --Die4Dixie (talk) 06:33, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Agree completely with LotLE that this material should not have been added - and agree with Wikidemo's revert. We've already considered this to death, Die4 - you might want to spend some time reading the talk archives - but be sure you're in a comfortable chair. Tvoz/talk 06:50, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

The amount of talk generated is indeed impressive. Consensus can change and I for one am willing to go back and work though these things again.Die4Dixie (talk) 13:56, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Considering the bruising debate literally just ended, I doubt consensus has changed since the weekend. Barring new developments surrounding the issue, I doubt you'll find many people willing to take up the matter again. --Clubjuggle ^T/C 16:27, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

"Not I", said the little red hen. Tvoz/talk 03:05, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid if long-time contributors can't see how zero mention anywhere of Rezco mars WP's coverage and don't notice that the guidelines' suggest the inclusion of reasonably balanced and well-sourced contributions, only later to refine them and worry about their most proper placement, this doesn't speak well to the effectiveness of these editors' self-supposed neutrality.  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 18:14, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

"zero mention anywhere"? See Barack Obama#Family and personal life (2nd paragraph). Then click the link in the 2nd sentence. There's an entire article about Rezko here, with a convenient link to it from this article. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:38, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, the talkpage Rezko commentary was so convoluted I never really read any of it; then when I did finally read Lizza's New Yorker mention of Rezko in context of B's initial foray into politics, I made my suggested contribution, but only after skimming the article and somehow getting the impression that mention of him had been excised still pending an elusive compromise among the talk page War and Peacers. But the long and the short of it is that I have to apologize here for my brain lock.  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 19:29, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

JMHN, you can surely be forgiven for that. A lot of good editors were driven off. Even Noroton was driven off in the end. By the time Rick Block called the question on a drastically shortened version, the only editors left were the ones who have been fighting the inclusion of any criticism all along. Minus one of their number of course, who was afraid of beng outed, I suspect, as a Democratic Party operative. Inevitably Rezko must come up again, if only because the conservative 527s are going to inevitably use any controversy to Swiftboat Obama. Hopefully the group of editors who discuss the future editing of the Rezko bit and other avenues of criticism will be more balanced and less acrimonous. WorkerBee74 (talk) 15:02, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Superfluous information

The discussion on the fact that Obama is not a Muslim keeps growing out of proportion. Some editors (mostly one) keep finding material that is "interesting", and expanding the discussion to include each new cite and quote. I do not even disagree that the material is interesting, nor that it's properly cited, but try to remember that this is a main biography. This and that ancillary person concurring that Obama is a Christian, or more-and-more trivia about the fact, doesn't convey anything further about the minimal encyclopedic point.

In particular, this sentence was recently added (repeatedly) without discussion by a certain editor:

James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute expressed in a news report (reacting in part to a satirical New Yorker cover) that ethnic caricature involving faulty depiction of Obama's faith harms Muslim Americans, impeding their "opportunity to participate in the political process."

Zogby's a good guy, and makes an intelligent comment. The New Yorker cover is notable over at Wikinews. All of it adds up to material that has no relevance to a main biography. It's pure WP:RECENTism, and brings the tone down to chatty discussion of issues rather than encyclopedic presentation of facts. Moreover, the real topic of the sentence only uses Obama as a vague touchstone, while actually being about the other (interesting) topic of the position of Muslim communities in the US political process, or something along those lines. This material just doesn't belong in this article. LotLE×talk 20:22, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Setting actual positions aside for a sec, Lulu----let's talk "m.o." When an article is watched by a crowd, if a Wikicontributor makes a deletion that raises a controversy with a Wikicolleague, proper Wikietiquette says, "Wait and see if another Wikicontributor steps in who agrees with ya and if not, just let it be."

Wikiwatchers will murmur, "Whoah! Two casual bystanders in agreement. Powerful"----or else, "Hmm! Noone else around agrees. Must not reflect much consensus, or at least for the moment."

Of course, hovering and multi-deleting is OK----it just makes the person sticking hi/r neck out there into a lightening rod. Which is fine if that's what you want.  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 07:13, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I think I see your misunderstanding. Take a look at the "proper" flow at WP:BRD. If an addition is contentious (as yours have been), it is the responsibility of the proposing editor to take it to the talk page. It is bad wikiquette to try to edit war to force an addition that (so far) only a single editor has supported. Event though it is your job as editor proposing addition to discuss it, in a fullness of WP:AGF, I have brought it here on your behalf. LotLE×talk 08:22, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, as they say, Lulu, concerning our respective styles of contributing. Still, take my feedback FWIW. I see somebody who rides herd on things you just don't like, even when they're not obviously improper; so, you play the Label Game. That is, you so convince yourself of Zogby's Controversiality, you think it a slam dunk to revert-and-rerevert with no need for others' input, even on a page with a history of warring----with you as a not-incidental participant! (Your right to do.) Then you begin the verbal onslaught to color your actions as merely expedient against somebody you label The Other, the Opponent of Virtue, of some kind, eg by coming to "Talk" and saying that my plural contributions are "controversial," but only bringing to this page the example of Zogby. Which generalizing, in my belief, is an m.o. of a controversialist. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, if that's the rep you desire.)  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 09:53, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

You have misunderstood, I am afraid, Justmeherenow. I have no claim about Zogby being controversial. The edits you made adding his comments are controversial. This controversy is self-proven by the sentiment of another editor (me) that the material is not proper for inclusion in the article. This has nothing whatsoever to do with any external politics of whether the inclusion is left or right, pro- or con-, or whatever; it simply a matter of whether there is lack of dispute for the new material's encyclopedic value. The burden for addition of new material is always on the editor proposing addition. LotLE×talk 18:51, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

POV fork nominated for deletion

I urge all interested parties to visit Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bill Ayers election controversy and consider Bill Ayers election controversy for deletion, due to the fact that it is an obvious POV fork to avoid WP:BLP and WP:WEIGHT. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:58, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

.....The whisker of advocacy just above is not a breach of most-proper canvassing, f'r sure; but even if it is, witchit innt, ppl would decide the case on the merits, anyway.  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 03:06, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Just to be clear, the general notification above is the only place I "colored" the notice with my personal thoughts on the matter. The notifications I sent out to individuals who had edited the article in question were unaltered, template-based AFD notices. I do not think this can be classified as canvassing. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:06, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we should capitalize Wikislang to clue ppl in to instances of cyber-street semantics. As in, "I'm canvassing for broad participation while being careful not to be Canvassing." (?)  $\sim$ Justmeherenow (  ) 17:36, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

THE LEAD

All this talk and the Lead still doesn't read well. Does anyone else notice the time disparities? I'm on the Obama bandwagon and I certainly want to respect all the effort here. I will rework and post here before making any changes to the Lead (other than the one I did prior to considering the sensabilities of the many editors already involved). I have not made a thourough check of the history of the article since it is quite extensive.--Buster7 (talk) 04:06, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Obama VP

Who is/are the frontrunner(s) for Obama's vice president? THANKS, Smuckers (talk) 04:25, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

No one knows, and speculation wouldn't be appropriate to add to the article. Tvoz/talk 08:15, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

There is no such thing as a front-runner as there isn't any election process for VP. We'll know in a month, so let's wait until then.--Loonymonkey (talk) 17:05, 22 July 2008 (UTC)