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Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 53

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Latest comment: 15 years ago by Moesbob in topic President Obama's Oratory Skills
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Klein article and POV tag

Latest comment: 15 years ago48 comments28 people in discussion

Proposal

I think we should add some sort of special talk header at the top of the page informing WND propagandists that their website cannot and will not be used as a reliable source for whatever claims they want to add to the article. --Whip it! Now whip it good! 03:45, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Is WorldNetDaily ever considered a reliable source? If not, then I don't see what good adding such a header only to this article would do. SMP0328. (talk) 03:50, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Well, for WP:SELFPUB, in their own article, they can be. Not for anything else. I don't think a header will work. These people are intent on enlightening us as to their views.--Wehwalt (talk) 03:52, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
The hagiographic tone of the article, utterly lacking in content that could be considered derogatory or critical, does more to discredit it than any hit piece by WND could ever do. Gruffbear (talk) 18:03, 9 March 2009 (UTC)


World Net Daily isn't a reliable source for Wikipedia, but Media Matters is sourced all over the place. That's an obnoxious double-standard.
Besides, it has less to do with WND's notability that it does running protectionism for Barack Obama. You can cite very reliable sources (NYT, FNC, MSNBC, Chicago Sun Times) to get plenty of sources for Reverend Wright, William Ayers, eligibility issues, misgivings about his oratory skills.
But for some reason, Libipedia won't allow those well sourced issues to be included. Notability of WND is a red herring. Ynot4tony2 (talk) 22:26, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

No NPOV tag?

discussion moot - full protection signals existence of editing dispute
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

How can anyone assert with a straight face that "Editors are NOT currently in dispute concerning points of view expressed in this article"? As long as these "discussions" rage here on the talk page -- specifically concerning the balance/neutrality of the article -- how can the NPOV tag be inappropriate? Opelio (talk) 09:43, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I completely agree. Lawyer2b (talk) 09:50, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Given the recent disruption, and concern over the legitimacy and intent of a number of the edits, this is not a good time to be considering this. Let the dust settle, see who is truly interested in improving the article, and we can consider it then. However, I do not see that a viable argument has been raised that the article has bias problems or that editors who have participated to any significant degree in the article believe there is such an urgent problem.Wikidemon (talk) 09:55, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Could someone please remove this tag?[1] And please don't re-add it. There is little constructive discussion at the moment, and what is here is a mess. If we get past the sudden influx of suspicious editors, and external assaults on Wikipedia, and can't resolve this after going through the appropriate discussion and dispute resolution channels, then at least you have an argument for it.Wikidemon (talk) 10:08, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Liberal who uses Conservapedia as a source of humour rather than information, but I have to agree that there are serious POV issues with this article. Not to have a single mention of Ayers or Wright on either this page or the presidential campaign page (although they are on the primary campaign page) seems incredible. As several people have said, Wikipedia isn't about truth, it's about verifiability and it's clearly verifiable that both men caused large issues for Obama during both campaigns. The Wright controversy was so big it gets its own article. I would have to say they warrant a brief mention on this page. --Rpeh•T•C•E• 10:43, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I think talk of this article being biased because it doesnt mention those issues is wrong, if they were left off the Barack Obama presidential primary campaign, 2008 or Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2008 articles then that would be clear bias but its debatable if these issues were so important they deserve a mention on Obamas main article when theres so many sub articles going into more details about these things anyway. However a sentence or two at the most in the campaign section on this article mentioning them (or some of the setbacks during the campaign) would do no harm so i agree it should be included, especially the Jeremiah Wright thing because that issue led to his "race speech" which the media everywhere got obsessed with. But even if its not added i dont think the NPOV tag is justified. BritishWatcher (talk) 11:07, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
If you're married and your spouse says, "There is a marriage problem," there is a marriage problem BY DEFINITION, whether you think there is or not. IF the NPOV tag means that some editors think the article may not conform to the NPOV policy, isn't it BY DEFINITION correctly placed on the article? Lawyer2b (talk) 11:06, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I dont think its biased there for i dont think the tag is needed but if many editors do think the article is biased then the tag should remain. Just because one or two editors claim its biased doesnt justify the tag, people disagree and make claims on many articles.. half the wikipedia articles would need tagging if a small minority disagreeing with something led to a dispute or npov tag. I dont see any reason why there shouldnt be a sentence or two in the campaign section on some of the issues mention above and if people cant provide any decent reasons against it they should be added. If someone then removes it with out explanation, the tag would be justified in my mind. BritishWatcher (talk) 11:14, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
There is no way to tell if many editors think the article is biased. Back in the fall we had a bunch of accounts claiming that the article was a whitewash because it didn't disparage Obama enough. They turned out to be a few editors who had each created multiple fake accounts. The article has been quiet between then and now. Now we have a huge surge of people mostly making the same claims, often uninformed and impertinent. Decent reasons have been given over the course of months, which may all be discussed in due time in an appropriate fashion. Nothing under serious challenge or dispute should be added at this point, particularly not an NPOV tag, without some consensus. Wikidemon (talk) 11:22, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia editors are simply blocking the NPOV tag due to their own bias (check history, the most recent edit was removing the NPOV tag with 0 seconds of discussion). If someone removed all of the criticisms in George W Bush's entry, that the leftists here wouldn't slap NPOV on it immediately. This isn't the first time something like this has happened. Criticism of Michael Moore was pushed to a secondary article, and criticism of Al Gore (including his insane ramblings about 'global warming') has been getting scrubbed since Wikipedia has existed. I think you can expect more debate on this subject now that Wikipedia's leftist bias has again been [http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=91114 exposed]. Sniper Fox (talk) 12:56, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes, that's exactly the problem. Can we please remove the tag again now. And make sure it stays off? Wikidemon (talk) 13:11, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
(after ec) I'm sorry, but I couldn't let this last comment pass without saying something. By referring to left-leaning folks as "leftists", making comments about Al Gore's "insane ramblings", and using WND as a reference you have disqualified yourself from usefully contributing to this discussion by exposing shocking right-wing bias. Decisions about what should and should not be in Wikipedia articles should be based on facts verified by a preponderance of reliable sources and carefully weighted to present a neutral point of view (which is not the same as presenting all points of view). The neutrality of this article is only disputed by biased editors seeking to make it fit their own point of view. An examination of the extensive talk page archive will reveal how thoroughly and carefully every aspect of this article has been debated and discussed, and the text is the result of reaching a painstaking consensus on each detail. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:19, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
As I said before, I'm definitely a left-wing editor and I'd still argue that the article is biased - albeit in a way that happens to support my personal opinions. The fact that two highly noteworthy events have been left off the article, both of which had negative connotations for Obama, seems odd. What's worse is that I've not seen any good reason why this should be the case. This debate has descended into "you're a biased lefty" if you want them off and "you're a biased conservative" if you want them on. If there is a genuine reason why neither story should appear - all I'm suggesting is a brief mention in the campaign section - then fine. Until then, it really does appear to be a very biased article that pushes a certain POV. --Rpeh•T•C•E• 13:28, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
The two "noteworthy" events you are referring to have both received considerable discussion (please see the talk page archive). In both cases, they are only noteworthy in the context of one of Obama's political campaigns, whereas this article seeks to represent a summary of his entire life. When viewed from a historical perspective, it is clear that these events are not "noteworthy" at all. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:34, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I'm going to have to agree with Scjessey to a degree here. WND is a little to the right of Goldwater, and a little less reliable than my high school gossip maven. If an article "agrees" with WND, it is a clear indicator the article is strongly biased, and almost certainly contains serious factual errors. KillerChihuahua?!? 13:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

(after ec) They're not "left out" - they're in the appropriate articles. Every major politician has so many items that they do not all fit in the main article, and a great deal of discussion and thought goes into which items are in which article of the family of articles about each individual. Sarah Palin's editors discussed at great length before deciding what was appropriate in her main article, and what was appropriate in her candidacy article, and what was appropriate in her mayoralty article, for example. "Not in this article" does not mean "not here on Wikipedia". KillerChihuahua?!? 13:35, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Ah. As I was typing that last comment and then being eced twice, Thatcher has added a section about Wright, linking to the controversy article. I think that's pretty much fine now. It just needed a mention. --Rpeh•T•C•E• 13:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with KillerChihuahua. The World Net Daily and Washington Times are not widely seen to my knowledge as mainstream sources. Their influence is roughly on par with something like Free Republic or The 700 Club, and they aren't widely acknowledged (or even known) by most of America or global audiences. They ought to be weighted and handled on par with similar sources. rootology (C)(T) 13:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd certainly agree that the WND doesn't qualify as a mainstream source. That would be akin to using Media Matters, Alternet, or some other left-wing website as a credible source. But I don't agree that the Washington Times falls in this category. I understand that you may not see them as credible -- but, then, plenty of people feel the same way about the New York Times, too. Them feeling that way doesn't make it so. The Washington Times is cited as a ref quite a bit throughout WP. It's a legitimate news outlet with a point-of-view -- which doesn't distinguish it from virtually any other. Signed with a Sn00p. (talk) 16:42, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I'm glad the wiki credibility issues are being brought forth in the mainstream media. The wiki entry for Barack Obama reads like a love letter, while GWB's reads like a HuffPo or DailyKOS entry. There needs to be uniformity, or there will be ZERO credibility. This comment will be deleted in 3...2...1 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.12.12.2 (talk) 15:21, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

ROFL - which "mainstream media" are you referring to? Surely not WDN, Drudge or some other fringe website? -- Scjessey (talk) 16:12, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Ummm, I would hardly call Drudge a "fringe" site according to Nielsen ratings: [2]. You may want to check your sources and be open minded a bit instead of letting your right and left wing views obstruct a fair assessment of the current president's praises as well as his several openly discussed controversies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.111.208.119 (talk) 17:58, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't usually bother with the political articles, because they are usually very neutral. Unfortunately, President Obama is a bit of a special case since his political rise and election has been rather meteoric. Scjessey, your analysis would be right if it were not for the fact that, up until now, Obama's 2008 electoral campaign is by far **the** most significant event in his young life. To put a mention of the biggest controversy faced in that time in his life is not bias. WND is not crazy, just decidedly right wing. That does not make it entirely innacurate. Though I am still pretty sure of good faith still being acted upon (especially with the new Wright mention) I think Wikidemon is the most correct here in saying the article should and probably will most likely change some when the hubbub has died down, and the trollers are gone. --XF22B (talk) 15:31, 9 March 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by XF22B (talk • contribs) 15:30, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

But I don't so much think that the sources are the crux of the issue here. Plenty of perfectly mainstream, non-ideological sources for any of these matters can easily be found. I think the bigger issue is what matters belong in what article. And I think an argument can be made that some of these "scandal" issues (such as the Annenberg Challenge and his association with Ayers) primarily belong in some other article. That's not to say that they should be whitewashed altogether from the bio. But neither should they be prominently featured. This seems a fight between one group of people who think these things should be prominent in his bio, and another group of people who think they shouldn't be in the bio at all. I think both are wrong. Signed with a Sn00p. (talk) 16:48, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Clearly a POV or unbalanced tag until the censorship of this article ends. It needs to mention the notable controversies and/or provide wikilinks to those articles. Rev. Wright wasn't a fringe story, it was covered by the mainstream press and was something Obama gave two speeches about. ChildofMidnight (talk) 16:05, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

POV tag

POV tag is moot; full article protection signals existence of a dispute
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Please stop removing the unbalanced or POV tag from the article. Until mention of notable controversies and criticisms are included, this article needs to be fixed. Adding a see also section that links to the notable stories is another possibility. ChildofMidnight (talk) 16:18, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but just because a conservative ideologue manufacturers a BS article for a fringe website claiming Wikipedia left-wing bias, it doesn't mean Featured Articles should be sprinkled with right-wing propaganda and/or labeled as "unbalanced" (a word redefined by FOX). -- Scjessey (talk) 16:24, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
As mentioned by a couple of other people, the removal of certain content from this article been documented by a [http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=91114 news surce], and has been linked to by Matt Drudge, so it's going to get a lot of attention. And yes, it is Obama's supporters that are watchdogging the article. It seems that sourcing is more of a priority, and standards of proof are much higher, when content that is critical of President Obama is posted to Wikipedia. If you look at the George W. Bush, there is a section titled Image and Public perception, which gives a rundown of what his critics and supporters have said about him, and has a link to an artical called Criticism of George W. Bush. Obama has a smaller section called "Cultural and political image" which reads as neutral to positive, with a link to a completely separate article called Public image of Barack Obama (which, by the way, is locked) which also reads as neutral to positive. So yes, I think that there might actually be something to this crazy conspiracy theory that Obama's supporters are censoring content on his Wikipedia entry.--Drvanthorp (talk) 16:44, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Support We should have a criticism section on our current president. Wikipedia's first and formost must have a neutral point of view, not get to the "truth". BTW, i voted for Obama, so i am not some right wing nutjob. Oldag07 (talk) 16:47, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Your vote is irrelevant. That a lunatic fringe of the blogpsphere is up in arms because they can't get their favorite Birther/Marxist conspiracy theories jammed into the Obama article is not notable in the slightest. Don't confuse the reverb of an echo chamber with actual notability/popularity. Tarc (talk) 16:50, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Inasmuch as we are establishing a consensus, everyone's outlook is very much relevant. Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers, and even the recent Stem Cell policy change are controversial and they are very much real controversies. None of those is a fringe theory. There is not a group of 30 people that think Rev. Wright was a factor in the 2008 primaries, he was a factor. Do we give them an entire section? No. But the mentions currently do not give the proper weight to the controversies (Rev. Wright almost lost him the primaries if I recall correctly). Currently all the article says is it made him change churches. Not quite, he was called on to renounce Wright publicly and had to issue a speech that turned out to be very central to overcomming the controversy. The article hardly represents this well, at all. Padillah (talk) 17:09, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Um, no, we're not working to "establishing a consensus" on any of this. We're working on beating the vandals, trolls, and WP:SPA's back with sticks. This is a loosely-coordinated, off-Wiki meat-puppet attack, not an attempt to legitimately contribute to this or related articles. Tarc (talk) 17:14, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia used to be my favorite site. Now it's not. I doubt they care. I don't care about Bush, Obama, the guy Obama beat, the Democrats, or the Republicans. But I do care about bias on this site, and it is very apparent to me that Wikipedia is strongly biased towards Obama. THIS president's page is completely devoid of any negative statements. Not even George Washington's page is so positive.--I Use Dial (talk) 17:04, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
It is one thing to maintain a neutral POV, what is going on here is something different, it amounts to a manipulation of the Wikipedia rules by the administrators of this page to prevent anything that they view as negative or deleterious to President Obama, under the guise and abuse of the neutral POV rule. If they wish to function as acolytes for Obama, they should take a job with the Obama administration, this is not the appropriate venue for such behavior. And worse it damages the instrument of the Wikipedia itself in the process. For better or worse, topics such as Obama's middle name, William Ayers, the Reverend Wright play a role in who Barack Hussein Obama is. To simply discuss these issues in no way creates a non-neutral POV. Frankly the bullying administrators need to go. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.74.33.42 (talk) 17:02, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
This is going to get out of hand, and this isn't a war i want to fight. I got a life to live. However, I am not very happy with the events that happened recently, and I feel expressing that is a responsiblity I must take as an editor. A quick ctrl f search finds the word "critic" twice in the whole article. W, has a whole page. As for the birth certificate, it is no more notable than this quote out of W's page. "Critics allege that Bush was favorably treated due to his father's political standing, citing his selection as a pilot and his irregular attendance." A similar statement on the obama page is all they are asking for. Oldag07 (talk) 17:12, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Well, "they" can go pound sand, honestly. Just because one president has something critical said of him does not automatically justify the inclusion of other critical statements of other presidents. The Wikipedia doesn't have the equivalent of the Fairness Doctrine, y'know. Criticisms are evaluated on their own merits, and judged accordingly. Tarc (talk) 17:18, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
W. Bush had eight years to "gain criticism". Now you want to give Obama the same after barely being in office before any clear results from his presidency will show? Ridiculous.--The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 17:24, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
In my opinion, Wikipedia editors are simply blocking the NPOV tag due to their own bias (check history, the most recent edit was removing the NPOV tag with 0 seconds of discussion). If someone removed all of the criticisms in George W Bush's entry, that the leftists here wouldn't slap NPOV on it immediately. This isn't the first time something like this has happened. Criticism of Michael Moore was pushed to a secondary article, and criticism of Al Gore (including his theory about 'global warming') has been getting scrubbed since Wikipedia has existed. I think you can expect more debate on this subject now that Wikipedia's leftist bias has again been [http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=91114 exposed]. Restored prior delete of my discussion. This is a DISCUSSION page, it's not appropriate to delete someone's comments just because you don't agree with them. Sniper Fox (talk) 17:28, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
If you think there is too much criticism of Bush on his BLP, bring it up at Talk:George W. Bush. Perhaps you should ask the author of this amazing piece of investigative journalism why the editor he refers to (Jerusalem21) has only edited the author's own bio until this time. I couldn't possibly be that Klein manufactured this entire controversy himself, could it? That would mean that all of you avid WND readers (and Drudge's sheep) have been duped by one of your own. Surely not? -- Scjessey (talk) 17:41, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
This section is about one POV tag. Not about the overly long criticisms that have been put on it in the past. that is it. As for the FA arguments, since this guy is a new president, I question whether or not this page should be a FA, based on section 1e of the Wikipedia:Featured article criteria. He will do a lot of new stuff. If anything at least a {{Current section}} should be used on this page. Oldag07 (talk) 17:36, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia's Achilles' Heel

Collapsed and archived due to WP:NOTFORUM and WP:SOAP. Closed this before it devolves into another rant. -- Brothejr (talk) 16:42, 9 March 2009 (UTC))
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.


This talk page is not here to rant about other editors or policies. Please take these discussions to the appropriate policy pages. Brothejr (talk) 16:42, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Barack Obama's entry in Wikipedia highlights and underscores Wikipedia's Achilles' Heel and greatest weakness: an inability to be objective and fair in its treatment of some people and issues.

As the article below* demonstrates, a handful of Internet bullies advocating a cause or position can abandon fairness and objectivity in putting forth a whitewashed version (note to readers: watch for the negative feedback from this entry to highlight how these bullies operate!). Unfortunately, as a result, we the people need to be on our guard and use a grain of salt as we use Wikipedia, since this renders the site unreilable.

See Also

Latest comment: 15 years ago15 comments11 people in discussion

Perhaps we should add a "See Also" section to the Barack Obama article.

The Jeremiah Wright issue was a campaign issue, but is well handled in the Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2008 Article. Could we reference it in a "See Also" section?

Wright is not even mentioned in the current version of Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2008 Fred Talk 21:01, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Same also for Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories.

As time goes on there will be more "issue" articles and "controversy" articles related to Obama. They could all be referenced in a "See Also" section.

Robert1947 (talk) 17:51, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

This is a slippery slope to go down, because "See also" sections are magnets for all sorts of crap that is barely related. This is a summary style article, so much of the detail is explored in daughter articles that are linked to directly in the main body of the article. These in turn link to some of the more trivial or fringey things people are clamoring for. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:54, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I think the huge collection of templates at the foot of the page serve the purpose that would otherwise be placed by a "see also". Guettarda (talk) 17:56, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
The majority of the articles that may have been in a See Also area, are either at the heading of each section, within the paragraphs, or part of the templates at the bottom. The only thing the See Also section would do in this politician's BLP would be a honeypot of whatever articles people want to throw into this article. Brothejr (talk) 17:59, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I think a see also section for major articles related to Obama that aren't mentioned or wikilinked in the text would be good (for example Obama's first 100 days). Perhaps a link to a "list of" type article page for the other stories would be sufficient and act as a kind of disambiguation page to readers can find the information they're looking for. There's no point in having articles if no one can find them. That's the whole point of wikilnks. That some editors don't want those issues covered at all is unfortunate and troubling. ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:02, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Well the sorts of articles people are clamoring for are not "major", and some are only tangentially-related to Obama. We do not want to turn this Featured Article into a link farm for poor quality articles designed to augment the conservative echo chamber. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:14, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
There are already by random guess at least 100 Obama-related articles, and no room to list all of them as it is. Presumably that number will mushroom. We already have six or more overlapping ways of getting to related articles: (1) categories; (2) in-line wikilinks; (3) templates; (4) wikiprojects; (5) Wikipedia's internal search engine, google, and other searches; and (6) the family tree of child and parent articles. Cutting across that to provide direct links in a "see also" section to the farther out, derogatory, fringey ones is a coatrack / weight problem. Collapsible templates do a good job as the equivalent link pages - they can be general purpose or comprehensive on a subject. Wikiprojects and categories also give broad coverage but I doubt most readers know how to navigate them.Wikidemon (talk) 18:22, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I counted 224 last night in the main cat + subcats, although that included 60-70 people he appointed to jobs, and may have included duplicated (articles listed in the main cat + subcats). But I would guess it's closer to 150 than 100. Guettarda (talk) 18:57, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree with the responses here by Wikidemon, Brothejr, Scjessey, and Guettarda - there are many, many Obama-related articles, and we wikilink, have section head links, and have the bottom templates for a very large number of those that are relevant to the main biography. A "see also" section for those that are only tangential (if not, they would have been wikilink-etc'ed in the first place) would likely be a dumping ground, giving undue weight to otherwise marginal pieces that are here perhaps to serve some other purpose. The present system works well. Tvoz/talk 19:04, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I tend to agree that some of the "fringe" articles should be linked in here, simply because they do carry substantial amounts of information that are related to the main topic. When I saw the article, I looked here and was surprised that we don't link out to the controversial stuff. I know those are crank magnets of the highest order, but they should be connected - if only to allow us to point out that the WND article is truly way the hell off the mark. Tony Fox (arf!) 19:07, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes, add the "see Also" section. If it's right in the GWBush article it's right here. The joke's on WND for reporting on a revert war on Wiki and calling it news. Scribner (talk) 19:41, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I withdraw the suggestion of a "See Also" section. Indeed, the other methods of accessing Obama articles pointed out by other users/editors above are more elegant. We have a clean, balanced article for now. Also, much of the other material that Obama critics wish to include is tangential in the Obama biography. The "Wright" and "Citizenship" criticisms are covered extensively in other, more appropriate articles in Wikipedia and such articles are accessible through the means summarized above. Thanks for the helpful discussion. Robert1947 (talk) 19:39, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
One thing that is not mentioned in these talk pages-the WND article is not an article critical of President Obama, Instead, it is critical of Wikipedia. What the Wikipedia process is saying is that, even as a Senator, Obama was without controversy. No controversial quotes, policies, books, associations. Nothing.LinuxSneaker (talk) 21:00, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Put it in a "See Also" section and name it "Dispute over citizenship" and link it to the Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories article. Scribner (talk) 21:32, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

First 100 days

Latest comment: 15 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Given the nature of the world events, economy and huge nature of some of the events, could we please add this section to the Presidency section? Some items to begin adding include the stimulus bill, the visits by foreign leaders, the statements on the economy, the cloning announcement today etc. Let's move on from the campaign issues and document in encyclopedic fashion what is going on today. —Preceding unsigned comment added by EricMiles (talk • contribs) 20:26, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, partly. But this is a biography, in effect a summary of summaries. We also have Timeline of the Presidency of Barack Obama for day-to-day updates and Presidency of Barack Obama for coarser-grained reporting. It will take a while to see which of the things he does in his first hundred or thousand days wind up being important enough to cite here. There's no particular hurry. PhGustaf (talk) 00:08, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Controversy

Latest comment: 15 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Where is the controversy page... My dad had to rub in my face today that, "Your precious wikipedia is getting a lot of negative publicity for reporting nothing negative about Obama in fairness." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.206.181.241 (talk) 16:30, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Facts about Barack Obama

Latest comment: 15 years ago42 comments20 people in discussion
  Resolved
 – And we are done here. If you have something to add that in some what relates to the article, and isn't a crackshoot from WND or the Drudge Report, feel free to post a new thread below. This is not a general forum. seicer | talk | contribs 03:51, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Collapsed and archived per above
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Why is wikipedia not allowing edits that question Obama's eligibility? It has been widely reported from many news sources and there are several court case at various levels of the legal system ranging up to the supreme court. Further his associations with Rev. Wright and Ayers are not allowed to be posted. Why is wikipedia allowing a whitewash of history? These are relevant to the historical account. Facts are facts no matter how inconvenient they may be to someones ideology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pt1604 (talk) 00:04, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

This is an easy one: Wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth. Things that violate WP:BLP aren't "allowed" - otherwise, if you can find citations from reliable sources, it is allowed. But if it can't be properly cited...then it can't be in there, simply put.  Frank  |  talk  00:23, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

The Chicago Tribune isn't a reliable source?

Read Wikipedia's standard: The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true. Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, or the material may be removed.

Guess what? Reliable sources have been used and it's still being edited in a tainted way. The entry should be flagged until bias is removed (bias from anything critical about Obama on his page)

Now, read what else Wikipedia demands: Neutral point of view is a fundamental Wikimedia principle and a cornerstone of Wikipedia. All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. This is non-negotiable and expected of all articles, and of all article editors.

Does this apply to Obama or not? As the entry currently is displayed, bias is clearly showing by censoring ANY and ALL entries that may show controversy or negatively toward the President.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Tlwitness (talk • contribs)

There's an article about his campaign that goes into attempts to paint him with guilt by association. There's also an article that covers all of those frivolous court cases at some length. Those articles have been out there for months, and anyone who knows how to spell "Barack" can find them. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 00:27, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
That doesn't make any sense. This is an ongoing controversy. It is quite easy to verify the truth, from most notable news sources, that this is, in fact, an ongoing controversy. So, again, why no mention of the controversies in the article? 69.248.3.210 (talk) 00:56, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Additionally, if such material is added to the article, I recommend any such material be put into a new section. That way, it will be easier to integrate into the article. SMP0328. (talk) 00:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I have restored the neutrality tag, because this discussion is ongoing. I've seen this discussion over at Talk:Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. As long as at least one editor believes the article violates NPOV, that tag must stay. SMP0328. (talk) 00:51, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Can you point to this ongoing discussion? And no, NPOV tags should be used when disputes cannot be resolved. A single editor complaining about an article does not validate tagging. You've got to have actionable issues with the article. Guettarda (talk) 01:39, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

It makes no sense to apply NPOV when the info about Obama's ineligibility controversy is verifiable by linking it to Chicago Tribune, a reputable newspaper. If anything, it seems that leftist bias of an editor is preventing a discussion about a very important issue. It is hard to believe that one biased part of leftist "machine" can murder our quest to get to the full truth.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Lokietek (talk • contribs)

Wikipedia does in fact have a lot on this subject Barack_Obama_citizenship_conspiracy_theories. Do the fringey theories merit inclusion in the main article? They do not. IronDuke 01:34, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I propose implementing the solution to a similar problem at the Sixteenth Amendment article. I tried doing it, but was reverted. SMP0328. (talk) 02:19, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Because it gives undue weight, i.e. undeserved dignity, to a fringe theory that the courts have already rejected. WND and others are desparate to keep it alive. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 02:23, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
It's clearly fringe material, on the far outer edge of the campaign period blog attacks. Not a single serious reliable source ever reported either questions surrounding his birthplace, or the "natural born citizen" rule, a legitimate claim. The few that reported it at all simply said that somebody made the claim, and the few lawsuits that were filed were not by reputable plaintiffs and all were summarily dismissed. The fact that fringe litigants file frivolous lawsuits against the president, and that partisan publications take up the cause, is not a significant issue in the life of a sitting president. If it were significant the reliable sources would cover it. Most issues that even get a few words of mention have hundreds of reliable sources to establish weight - things that take up paragraph have thousands to tens of thousands of articles. Wikipedia does cover the fringe Obama theories in depth in its own article. But space is limited here in the main article about Obama, and we do not have room for every conspiracy theory people care to believe on the subject. Wikidemon (talk) 02:39, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Correct. It is on Wikipedia; we do not censor. However, a Presidential article is long and we can't have everything in it. Since the Kenya thing has little to no factual basis, we place it in its own article.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:45, 9 March 2009 (UTC)


Neutrality dispute?

The page is tagged, but I can't find any active discussion here. Am I missing something? Guettarda (talk) 01:30, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

See the above discussion. SMP0328. (talk) 01:53, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
The tag is totally frivolous, and every question the original tagger raises is answered elsewhere. I have posted a complaint about that conservapedia/conspiracist drive-by at WP:ANI. This article is under probation for a good reason. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 01:56, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I do not believe the citizenship issue belongs in the main article. The conspirary theories page is appropriate for that. However, references to the Ayers & Wright controversies absolutely belong in there. These were major issues during his campaign and eventually became some of the most prominent arguments against electing him. If that is constantly edited out this article will continue to be in violation of Wikipedia NPOV guidelines KK5000 8 March 2009, 19:58 (EDT)

So why isn't any negative or critical information allowed on the Obama page? As the previous poster stated, Ayers and Wright were legitimate election controversies. If Wikipedia censors only from the left, it is useless as a source.

Those aren't bad points, but they're wrong from a Wikipedia point of view. We have stuff -- lots of stuff, on for example Wright: See here. The point being, yes, there are all sort of wonderful negative things one could cram into this article (and also any other majot politican's article) but there simply isn't room, and it isn't nearly relevant enough to make the cut for the main article. I mean... Ayers? Seriously? That's a footnote in the campaign article, let along the main BHO article. IronDuke 02:17, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't know where Ayers was a "footnote" in the campaign. Maybe on MSNBC. Ayers & especially Wright were covered extensively by the mainstream media. I am not saying an entire section needs to be dedicated to them, but getting a ban for merely adding them to the article when they should clearly be mentioned suggests zealotry on part of the admin. KK5000 9 March 2009, 02:48 (EDT)


I'm AB-SO-LUTE-LY APPALLED to learn the censoring going on with this site. I have heard murmurings in the past on some of the podcasts that I listen to as to the validity of Wikipedia as a source for anything. I have at times felt irritated at the fact that my university restricts citing this site as a source for any material. Now I KNOW WHY! I guess I have to preface by giving my party affiliate so that this post isn't simply passed off as a political rant - I tend to dip left in my beliefs. That being said, there are a couple of key points that the site is missing with clear intent. The Ayers and Wright questions/associations is very much a part of this person's presidential bio in that it outlines how he was able to overcome the accusations of another party and rise to the occasion with the support of his voters. How can we just pretend it didn't happen??? As well, it is public knowledge that he has not made his birth records available to public by the simple fact that it's NOT public knowledge. I have seen the response by wikipedia authors that they rely on facts, but that is a twisted response. As a part of many other bios, there are mentions of accusations without conviction. I can assure you, I will only have a couple more limited visits to this site - for the sole purpose of seeing responses to this post. I am now much more enlightened with the ways on this wiki site, which is extremely unfortunate since it has for a long time, been one of the first places that I go to research a wide range of topics. Very unfortunate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.145.92.22 (talk) 11:28, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Comments that Wikipedia is a whitewash

This page if for good faith, civil questions and comments aimed at improving the article. Gripes about Wikipedia's supposed political bias, article whitewashing, censorship, etc., are unhelpful. However, rather than adding fuel to the fire by deleting them or closing discussions at this point, I suggest we just move them all to this section and let people discuss it here. - Wikidemon (talk) 02:50, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

And yet as long as you separate ALL criticism from Obama's page, you are CENSORING his main page. Compromise: Why not have an entry entitled Criticisms and list all of that there? It appears that wikipedia is carrying obamas water. Pleanty of the "critics" claims about bush are STILL on his wikipedia page yet if you dare bring these you on obamas page you are banned? Shamefull. In fact why not just redirect the entire page to the whitehouse main page? Exactly. Why not remove anything critical of Bush while you're at it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tlwitness (talk • contribs)

Then why not give it a subset in the outline entitled Criticism or whatever you wish? You seem to have plenty of room for negative information concerning President Bush on his main page.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Tlwitness (talk • contribs)

This article is clearly a whitewash. I am not some partisan hack with a dog in this hunt either. I am an expat political atheist who can read. All of the censors should be ashamed of themselves. The Wright issue was one of the most discussed issues of the campaign. It's not even mentioned here. In fact there's not a single non-positive element mentioned in this entire article unless you count the mention of his smoking and that's not necessarily negative. It's as though the Obama campaign wrote it. Shame. Ikilled007 (talk) 03:01, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your first contribution in three months. The article is factual, not positive or negative. Had Obama done something negative of note, let's say being arrested for drunk driving or the like, to be sure it would be in the article. As he has not, we just stick to the facts.--Wehwalt (talk) 03:06, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Wrong. You are censoring it. And the internet has found out. NewsBusters and Wnd.com are running articles about the removal of the ties to Wright and Ayers. I'm really getting sick of the constant Liberal bias on everything I have to look at on a day-to-day basis. This is a blatant violation of the rules and banning users for 3 days after attempting to add referenced material on the Ayers and Wright connections is too. Enough is enough. --Justin Herbert (talk) 03:23, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Squawk! Another WND mindless-parrot heard from. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 03:26, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Your selective editing has extended ad infinitum into cyperspace, your credibility for all to seriously consider has now reached critical mass. read it here: http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=91114

Furtive admirer (talk) 03:22, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

If you actually believe what you read in that rag, you should go back to your college and demand a refund for having produced an ignoranimous. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 03:25, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
This is fun. I'm really hoping Rush picks up the story; these drones are so mindless and so pathetic. The marching morons.--Wehwalt (talk) 03:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

As mentioned from an [http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=91114 article] linked from the DrudgeReport, Wikipedia is accused of censorship. When I look at the two pages (Presidents Bush and Obama), that accusation seems accurate. There is a statement on Pres. Bush's page that states "Many accusations have been made against the administration[120] for allegedly misinforming the public and not having done enough to reduce carbon emissions and deter global warming.[121]" If this is OK, then why can't Pres Obama have a sentence "Many accusations have been made against President Obama that [insert accusation here, see rest of Talk for examples]." There are accusations. Fact. Those accusations have been reported by reputable sources. Fact. Is it a fact that Wikipedia staff are bias? LinuxSneaker (talk) 03:32, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh, no doubt. But as the staff are administrative only, and volunteers all over the world edit the encyclopedia, it doesn't really matter. Oh, I forgot to mention their "bias". They are all very big Yankee fans. Have a nice day!--Wehwalt (talk) 03:35, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Great reply. As an attorney, you deflect the conversation without answering the question. You've done way more editing then I - do you recommend (as a volenteer, not as a lawyer) that Pres Bush's or Pres. Obama's page get fixed? LinuxSneaker (talk) 03:46, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
We recommend that you go back to your fellow parrots at WND, and tell them we're tracking all of you down, which is why the page remains unprotected at this point - so you will all expose yourselves. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 03:49, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Clearly you two are unbiased! Everyone who notes the whitewash must be a Limbaugh listener. What are you, the Obama SS? Your responses here are not helping with credibility. Ikilled007 (talk) 03:53, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
  • There is nothing factually incorrect with the story. It is a true representation of the events on this page. The fact remains is this: It takes 3 Admins, working in unison, to squelch any/all changes to any article on Wikipedia. You make up any excuse you want, then have your buddies swoop in to agree with you; claim a 'consensus", then ban, ban, ban. The word is out. We know you're liberally biased. We are not stupid.64.53.138.18 (talk) 04:48, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
  • You people must be crazy, suggesting a criticism section for Barack Obama. Nobody is allowed to criticize him, how could you not know this? Bush's WP page is allowed to contain controversies and criticisms because he is a Republican, but how dare you suggest that reasonable criticisms be included. The Wright and Ayers controversies were a major part of the Presidential campaign but they may not be included because they may make Obama look bad. I thought everybody knew this. WP editors: YOU HAVE BEEN EXPOSED!. - http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=91114 24.187.128.136 (talk) 03:48, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
is that Barack Obama?
a) yes
B) NO
Case closed, you propagandizing shill.
76.243.106.37 (talk) 07:59, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Editors and administrators are suppressing dissent.....this is a very troubling trend

I don't think all the name-calling is helpful here. We really should be rising above all that.

Having said that, I compared the articles on the previous 4 presidents with this one and any objective observer can readily see that Obama is being treated differently. Unlike those other presidential articles, there is practically no discussion of any of the controversial issues surrounding Obama here. (Don't believe me? See the articles on Clinton and GHW Bush to compare/contrast.) Certainly these controversial topics warrant their own articles, but complete censorship of any mention of these controversies or link to the ancillary articles in the main article damages Wiki's reputation, making this article look like a fluff piece and leaving the controlling administrators wide open to NPOV charges. One of the underlying principles of Wikipedia is that we should be writing these articles from the standpoint of consensus, and clearly consensus is lacking in the way this article has been handled.

I find it troubling when I see negative references to Wikipedia's credibility making their way into the media. It is important that we maintain NPOV in Wikipedia. But no matter my (or your) personal opinion of Obama, the most important point of these discussions is not the content of the article, rather it is the way that differing opinions are being handled by certain factions in the Wiki community. I find it VERY disturbing that questions about the conduct of certain administrators and editors and their NPOV or possible lack thereof are being swept under the rug without a meaningful discussion. The (quickly) deleted comments by a previous poster were unnecessarily inflammatory, but I must agree that certain editors involved with this article seem far too willing to use the "memory hole". Discussion?: yes! Consensus?: yes! NPOV?: yes! Blatant censorship?: I know what my answer is; what is yours?

(Now we get to wait and see how long this discussion topic lasts before it, too, is deleted!) NDM (talk) 08:41, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I have modified the heading here. If you want your contribution to stand you should honor the letter and spirit of article probation and WP:TALK generally, which is to use this page for suggesting improvements in the article. Crying censorship is not a suggestion for improving the article. If any editor's behavior troubles you there are appropriate forums for that but not here. With that out of the way the article is just fine. It is a reasonable, balanced treatment of the significant matters relevant to Obama's life and career. Of course it can be improved. Any article can be improved. But we'll have a hard time maintaining any reasonable discussion until all the ruckus dies down. Obama has not been President for very long, and there are (despite what partisans would wish to say off Wikipedia) simply no scandals or controversies of a magnitude comparable to those involving Bush, and particularly Clinton. Nobody is sweeping anything under the rug here. These pages are all in the open, and these matters have been discussed to the tune of hundreds of pages, each hundreds of thousands of bytes long. Wikidemon (talk) 09:04, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Wikidemon: you have completely missed the point of my posting. Please reread it. I am not talking about "Criticism of Obama", as you have taken the liberty to label my posting. As the heading at the top of the discussion page states clearly: "This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject." I am also not talking about any individual editor's bias or behavior. I am talking about a longstanding institutional bias within Wikipedia which is rearing its very ugly head here in this article, that of a perceived "progressive" bias among the administrators by many of the editors.
Your "modification" of my heading of this section seems to go a bit beyond the pale, especially when you state that "crying censorship" is not appropriate here. It appears that you have just done some censoring yourself. I have undone your revision of the heading, since it does not directly relate to the content of my posting. I would ask that you not modify it again, but instead limit your comments to the substantive issues that I raise vis a vis the conduct of certain factions within the Wiki community.
The fact that "these matters have been discussed to the tune of hundreds of pages, each hundreds of thousands of bytes long" clearly indicates that the Wikipedia community does not enjoy consensus about how the administrators have been handling this issue, determinations of "consensus" by the administrative fiat notwithstanding. It seems clear that Wikipedia administrators can expect to continue to hear the protests from many of the editors as long as these heavy-handed tactics continue, and as long as they continue to label the bona fide dissent that continues to rage in regards to this article as "consensus". NDM (talk) 10:17, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Please don't edit war over article headings. You should know that it is generally considered appropriate to refactor discussion headings so they describe the discussion topic rather than advocate a position, and also to reorganize discussion pages. If you have a complaint about longstanding institutional bias, as you put it above, or "Editors and administrators are suppressing dissent.....this is a very troubling trend" as you put it in your preferred heading, then this is definitely not the page for that discussion. You're wrong about the state of consensus, and you don't seem to have made an effort to understand the history of this series of articles article about which you are being so vociferous, despite never having contributed to them before today. You're accusing me of censorship and going beyond the pale, so I don't see any point responding to whatever point you may be trying to make. This discussion should probably be closed and/or merged with all the other complaints today about supposed censorship, bias, and whitewashing. You have not been notified formally of article probation but I do suggest you read about it at Talk:Barack Obama/Article probation. Wikidemon (talk) 10:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikidemon: Please quit conducting your own edit war over the heading of my comment. Feel free to start your own comment section and give it any title you choose. If you feel you must continue to do so, perhaps we need to get an administrator involved to settle our dispute about this point. I have written my original comment in good faith and your changing of the heading of my comment is inappropriate as it tends to obscure the point I am making. I feel this falls under "Modifying User's comments." I must point out that I have not edited the main article itself, and your continued deletion of the title of my heading on the discussion page is vexatious....please stop. NDM (talk) 10:59, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

As I told you, changing talk headings is fine, and they should be descriptive rather than contentious. I'm leaving a caution on your talk page and closing this discussion as unproductive. Try listening next time rather than doing battle. Wikidemon (talk) 11:04, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

This is a blatant whitewashed version of Mr. Obama. No dissent allowed? Nothing overtly negative about Obama allowed? Come on! Wikipedia needs to be a lot fairer that it is currently. The fact of the matter is that Mr. Obama is a very contentious person, and this should be reflected here. 219.15.120.11 (talk) 09:28, 10 March 2009 (UTC)Andrew

Place of Birth

Latest comment: 15 years ago8 comments8 people in discussion
point made, discussion is degenerating and unlikely to result in article improvement
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I know some people are making a fuss over this, but isn't his place of birth a documented and relevant fact? He was born in Honolulu, Hawaii and this is a proven fact, insofar as anyone's birthplace is a proven fact, at least. I think we should go ahead and flatly say he was born in Hawaii right at the top of the article. To do anything less or more would be a travesty. Timothy Horrigan (talk) 21:55, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Check out the first sentence of the Early life and career section. Opening sentences in the lead generally only include birth date. --Bobblehead (rants) 21:58, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
(ec)We do in the info box and the intro paragraphs. We even include refs. Yet, that does not stop the conspiracy theories from disputing that. It boils down to this: no matter what we say, show, or back up, they still will not believe it. Heck, even if Barack Obama would release his birth certificate, they still will not believe it and will proclaim it a fake. Sadly, there is not much we can do or say that will sway them. Brothejr (talk) 22:00, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

The Obama eligibility issue has indeed been reported extensively by multiple news media outlets. WorldNetDaily has led the coverage. Other news outlets, such as Britain's Daily Mail and the Chicago Tribune have released articles critical of claims Obama may not be eligible. The Los Angeles Times quoted statements by former presidential candidate Alan Keys doubting Obama is eligible to serve as president. Just last week, the Internet giant America Online featured a top news article about the eligibility subject, referencing WND's coverage.

He served alongside former Weathermen leader William Ayers from 1994 to 2002 on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, which in 1985 had been the first foundation to fund the Developing Communities Project, and also from 1994 to 2002 on the board of directors of the Joyce Foundation. Obama served on the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995 to 2002, as founding president and chairman of the board of directors from 1995 to 1991. Ayers was the founder and director of the Challenge —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.42.127.232 (talk) 00:37, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Obama's place of birth is irrelevant. His father's citizenship disqualifies him. End of story. --71.223.114.96 (talk) 01:12, 10 March 2009 (UTC)Mark Yannone

Regardless of if he was born in Kenya or Hawaii the fact is that there are LEGITIMATE QUESTIONS, and as a reference, wikipedia MUST include the claims, even if it is just to say, "There is ongoing dispute as to where Obama was born." To present that Obama was born in the US as fact, when his vault copy of his birth certificate has not been released is to do a dis-service to those who use wikipedia as a reference. 66.252.94.61 (talk) 01:43, 10 March 2009 (UTC)DadOfFour


Actually Timothy, the "President" and his lackeys have made every attempt to PREVENT a provable fact. There is no verifiable evidence that he WAS born in the US, since they refuse to release a copy of his birth certificate. Insofar as it pertains to this article, the controversy SHOULD be included because there is no verifiability to his being a US citizen. Without a birth cirtificate is is impossible to prove he was born in Hawaii. To quote the administration, "Wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth." There is no verifiability to his citizenship, so either the controversy should be included, or any mention of his citizenship or place of birth be EXCLUDED. To do otherwise is to show bias. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.66.254.111 (talk) 02:38, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

The presupposition of his birth certificate not being exhibited strongly suggests its a fake and that he knows it can't stand up to a cursory examination. NPOV as appears for Clinton and George W. Bush on Wikipedia applies just as much to Obama. Read them! NPOV requires that Wikipedia reference the dispute. Sky (talk) 02:57, 10 March 2009 (UTC)Sky

Article and talk page maintenance

Latest comment: 15 years ago23 comments17 people in discussion

Suggest IAR and semi protection of talk page

I'm aware of the policy that both an article and a talk page should be protected simultaneously. Due to the heavy vandalism of this talk page, suggest we IAR and semi protect this talk page anyway for a limited period, say 72 hours.--Wehwalt (talk) 04:24, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

There's a strategy in play, referenced on WP:ANI, to let as many of these lunatics as possible expose themselves here, so that the checkuser case can cast as broad a net as possible. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 04:27, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Are Wikipedia Admins like Bugs allowed to resort to name calling? 64.53.138.18 (talk) 05:01, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
If I am an admin, then I am allowed. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 06:05, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
The talk page is the place for IPs and new users to point out errors on a semiprotected article. Sometimes they make good points, albeit not so much today. But I'm not in favor of disabling that feature. Now, if we could sell tickets to the talk page while the WND zoo is around... PhGustaf (talk) 04:40, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I think what Bugsy meant was Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Barrack Obama. I'm all for cracking down on sockpuppetry, but the downside of leaving the page unprotected for that purpose is having to revert anti-Obama/Liberal/Wikipedia rants and other types of vandalism almost literally every five seconds, which is a real pain in the ass to do. --Whip it! Now whip it good! 04:52, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Indeed. Maybe the user who requested leaving the shields down (was it Wikidemo?) should be consulted to see if he's got enough fish now. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 04:55, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Gosh, who died and appointed me Wiki-dictator? It was just a suggestion. There are people around here who know a lot more than I do about CU and how to manage article melt-downs. But yes, I think we've had enough fun watching this. If there's sockpuppetry I'll bet we will find it at this point. If not, I think playing whack-a-mole with a swarm of dittoheads is not going to help the encyclopedia, and it will only give the dittoheads more to complain about. Wikidemon (talk) 05:03, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I have posted it on the request for protection page. I asked for semi-protection. That should put the breaks on the IP's and the redlinks, anyway. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 05:11, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Semi-protection is warranted in this extreme case. No comment on the content of t6e article other than that it isn't as balanced as it could be. Enigmamsg 05:59, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I think protecting might just give them something else to shout about - they do love a potential conspiracy. Better to just quietly revert and not create another cause. Mfield (talk) 06:15, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, it may be moving beyond the scope of checkuser at this point. As the Good Word trickles down from the WND/Drudge queen bees down on to the unwashed masses, it is likely going to be different people with the same agenda. There's already a topic over at the FreeRepublic ("Wikipedia Scrubs Ayers and Wright From Obama Biography", can't link directly) about this and how to hit protected pages. Tarc (talk) 05:11, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Lock down talk page as well

With Fox News attacking this wikipedia article on air and online, even this talk page will soon devulge into a discussion of whether Obama is a athiest-muslim-marxist in a Che beret -or- a socialist-black liberation theologian-Anti Christ in a Malcolm X tshirt. Please admins lock down this talk page as well, or it will look like Conservapedia's entry in no time. 137.52.150.212 (talk) 01:28, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

anyone with the kind of partisan investment as demonstrated in the above paragraph should not be editing an article of this nature.
actually, the discussion has beem quite hospitable. other than a few drive-bys, nothing extraordinary has occurred. Locking this page would also violate WP:NEWBIES. Whether you like it or not, conservatives are Wikipedians too. Bytebear (talk) 01:35, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for your input here at Wikipedia, sport. It is against the rules here to lock down both the article and the talk page. You can lock down one but not the other. Welcome to collaboration, it can set you free, have a great day.Jarhed (talk) 01:46, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Um, no, it isn't against the rules, which simply state that it should not be done, not that it cannot be done. Please do not misrepresent Wikipedia policy. If this shit-storm persists, then it may not be such a bad idea to prevent new single-purpose accounts from using this talk page for a bit. Tarc (talk) 02:08, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Is there a s-storm? Rarely would a talk page be full protected. Semi-protection would come if there is a big influx of especially troublesome IP vandalism, and it's usually pretty short in duration. Barring that, it's really up to us to police manageable levels of problems, e.g. by deleting obviously impertinent stuff, consolidating identical discussions, closing discussions when they're done, moving stuff that's out of place. And a key component here is enforcing article probation, and finding willing administrators to warn, block, and ban abusers. A slew of editors were blocked a day ago and may be coming back online. Also we do need to start getting some of those RfCU results back. That will hold things down for now, but I don't think we can have a reasonable consensus discussion or return to normal article editing until things calm down. Wikidemon (talk) 02:27, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

So far as I can be bothered to skimread the article at "Fox News", it doesn't attack this article. Rather, it reports what has happened, predictably emphasizing comments from the far right and pushing the significance of Wright and Ayers and the significance of their (near-) absence from the article. The sky is not falling. (But then I haven't seen the teevee version: I think I'll wait for the Onion News Network riff on this.) -- Hoary (talk) 02:47, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

De-collapsed FAQ; collapsed internal questions to make more adhd friendly

Since it's pretty clear that a lot of people are seemingly unable or unwilling to read the FAQ when it's collapsed, I've gone ahead and de-collapsed it, but made it quite a bit less space-consuming by collapsing the answers, leaving only the questions as headers to collapsible sections. Hopefully this will help a bit more. --slakr\ talk / 05:19, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

That's much better. It does take up a lot more vertical space, but that horse is out of the barn already, and people are more likely to read it if they can see which questions are addressed there. — Gavia immer (talk) 06:53, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
If you say so. Personally, I think a bombardment of information upon arriving at the page is more likely to encourage people to scroll past and read none of it, but it's no big deal. Bigbluefish (talk) 11:53, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Quite a few of the recent posters are making their very first edits to Wikipedia. There's nothing to suggest they know what talk pages are, and they certainly know little of policy at this stage. They won't notice this. That said, I prefer the unwound FAQ: it will help new editors who are really trying. As opposed to those who are trying in the other sense. PhGustaf (talk) 15:32, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Conspiracy theory article

Folks might want to have a look at the recent edit history of Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories. I don't know if I'll be reverted again, but I have to go, and besides I'm at my third revert, although I think it's pretty clear that this stuff meets WP:FRINGE and that the overall consensus here is that it is, indeed, a fringe approach. Cosmic Latte (talk) 09:19, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

New section: first African-American

Latest comment: 15 years ago8 comments7 people in discussion
question answered - see FAQ
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

It is a misrepresentation that Barack Obama is the first African-American to become President of the United States. He is the first bi-racial man to become the president of the United States. This is verifiable through the fact that his mother was Caucasian. Michelle Obama is the first African-American to be the First Lady. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Elsie4120 (talk • contribs) 13:26, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

It is how he is commonly referred to, and he has never indicated he prefers another descriptor. We might as well keep it.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:31, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Please review the FAQ at the top of this page as well. Wikidemon (talk) 13:34, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Race is a social construct which depends on self-indentification. Obama identifies as African-American. Reliable sources call him the first African-American to be POTUS. We can only follow available, reliable sources. At the same time, his origins are clear in the article. Guettarda (talk) 13:36, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
As has been said around eleventy-billion times, the "African American" designation comes from the preponderance of reliable sources that refer to Obama in this way. Some reliable sources use the term "bi-racial" (or something similar), but most (several orders of magnitude more) use "African American", and Wikipedia must necessarily reflect this. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:38, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Obama calls himself African-American, and so does all the mainstream, non-fringe media, so that's what we call him. rootology (C)(T) 13:47, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

In addition, Elsie, have you read the FAQ at the top of this page? There is a useful discussion of this very point there.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:53, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't think this is the best place to get into an argument over semantics. Save it for here Talk:African_American--T1980 (talk) 02:28, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Grammar

Latest comment: 15 years ago10 comments8 people in discussion

If somebody who's not on a mission from some loony-right website may raise a point hereabouts....

"Neither Obama nor McCain are is a Martian." / "The race was between Obama and McCain, neither of whom were was Martian." / "Nixon bequeathed Liddy and Colson, neither of whom have has met the fate that he deserves." In my idiolect, anyway.

Obama also introduced Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act, a bill to criminalize deceptive practices in federal elections and the Iraq War De-Escalation Act of 2007, neither of which have been signed into law.

In my idiolect, wrong. However, my learned friend Scjessey disagrees. Polite of him/her to compliment me on my faith; but faith be damned, it's grammar that interests me.

(I'd also stick a comma after "elections", or, better, put the phrase "a bill ... elections" in a pair of parentheses rather than commas.) -- Hoary (talk) 15:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Obama also introduced the Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act, a bill to criminalize deceptive practices in federal elections, and the Iraq War De-Escalation Act of 2007, neither of which have been signed into law.

That's my take on the phrasing. Padillah (talk) 15:35, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

So you're saying Obama also introduced [A] and [B], neither of which have [...] is grammatically correct? If so, I can only say that your idiolect and mine are different. -- Hoary (talk) 15:41, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
"Neither" is singular and should take "has" in this case. You may now resume reverting SPA IPs. PhGustaf (talk) 15:46, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Actually, it is not a straightforward as that. It appears that either usage is acceptable (info on this). -- Scjessey (talk) 15:57, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm saying that either sounds fine, I lean towards HAVE because there are a plurality of bills so they have not been signed. That's my outlook, but I'm no English teacher so take it as the because it sounds better to my ear that it is. Padillah (talk) 17:00, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

"Neither of whom was/were" - does that not take "were" rather than "was" in the same way that you have "if I were" rather than "if I was"? Guettarda (talk) 18:16, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

"if I were" is subjunctive, "Neither of whom was" is not subjunctive in this case. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;dissera! 19:22, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

←In American English "has" is the correct usage - as PhGustaf says, "neither" is singular, in the same way that "either" is. Try reading it as "either of which is/are a good bill" or "neither of which is/are a good bill". Americans would choose "is". I agree with Hoary that at least commas are needed around the description of the first bill, but I think that parens would be better, because even with the necessary comma after "elections" it can be misread as meaning three bills, not two bills. And since this is all in the past, why are we not saying "was" rather than "has been"? So:

Obama also introduced the Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act (a bill to criminalize deceptive practices in federal elections), and the Iraq War De-Escalation Act of 2007, neither of which was signed into law.

That's how my American ear hears it best. Tvoz/talk 19:35, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Strange, I always thought "neither of whom were" was the correct usage in American English. »S0CO(talk|contribs) 03:40, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Featured Article Review

Latest comment: 15 years ago19 comments15 people in discussion

Two of the primary components of a featured article areis that it is:


  • neutral: it presents views fairly and without bias;
  • stable: it is not subject to ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured article process.
    — Wikipedia:Featured article criteria

I believe this article now fails both of those criteria. Regarding neutrality, while there are those who believe much of the brouhaha is due to right-wing political mongering, it appears that enough significant concern about the presence or absence of various pieces of information exist that there is serious concern about the article's neutrality. Furthermore, this article currently is anything but stable, resulting in its needing a full-protection lockdown. As such, albeit the last FAR was in December, enough new issues and instability has arisen that requires us to reconsider this article's featured status until such point as the appropriate issues have all been addressed. I will be filing an FAR for that purpiose. -- Avi (talk) 20:39, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Not the right time. The trouble is clearly due to an extraordinary event. No new issues have arisen between the stable collegial editing of last week and the massive troubles of the last 24 hours. There is no way this is regular editing process. Could you please wait until things die down and editing is relatively normal? Wikidemon (talk) 20:57, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Avi, as evidenced by the first two responders to your FAR, this is not an appropriate time for a FAR. There is currently too many single purpose accounts/new users that are unfamiliar with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines to make a FAR/FARC productive. --Bobblehead (rants) 21:04, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
(after ec) - In full agreement with Wikidemon and Bobblehead - wait until "normal service" is resumed and the crazies have moved along. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:07, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
That post is not useful. Branding people with whom you disagree as "crazies" is only going to stoke up the fire, not help quench it. The article as it stands seems to be to be fine. Earlier today, it had no references to incidents that are absolutely, without question, worthy of mention. Any historical retrospective on the primary and election campaigns leading to Obama's election is going to mention Wright, and probably Ayers. It is not, therefore, unreasonable to include them on this page in the campaign summary as well as on the detailed article on that topic. We have had one group of people wanting far too much coverage of those topics and another wanting no coverage. From my perspective, the current compromise of a brief mention for one of the topics deemed important enough to have its own article is quite sufficient. --Rpeh•T•C•E• 21:50, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Despite the constant interference and chaos going on around, I think we've got a compromise for Wright and will add him. Ayers on the other hand is a different story. Soxwon (talk) 21:54, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Let me get this straight. (btw, thanks for deleting my discussions which are totally valid and even enjoyable to read, thank you) if nothing has changed in the last week, then enforcing Wiki guidelines and correcting the imbalance must wait because of what exactly? JohnHistory (talk) 21:05, 9 March 2009 (UTC)JohnHistory

What I said in response on my talk:

In light of [http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=91114 this screed] published today, I think this FAR is ill-timed, as the need for temporary full protection is likely traceable to that. Overall, I think article probation has handled disruption well and there has not been full protection since well before the election, other than pre-emptively on election day and Inauguration Day. Let things settle down after the flurry of drive-bys ends and see how we're doing then, would be my suggestion. Tvoz/talk 21:01, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
  • WP:NPOV is being challenged by a motley collection of sleepers, WP:SPAs, anon vandals, and the like. Calls of non-neutrality by these types are being made in bad faith, and should be discarded.
  • Combating petty vandalism is not edit warring. Tarc (talk) 21:09, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Mainly what has been going on is a group of people, sleepers, and various wikipedians have read the WND article and have tried to push their bias/viewpoints into the article. So far none of them have remotely brought up any brand new information which might have changed the consensus version of the article. When various editors could not rewrite the article the way they would like, they resorted to edit warring and ranting on this talk page. I feel that due to these extraordinary circumstances, this FAR/FARC is ill conceived and maybe even a little bit of wikiwyllering to prove a WP:POINT. Brothejr (talk) 21:20, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Why do I think waiting just makes it more likely that Jimbo and his guidelines will be once again thrown into the the abyss? JohnHistory (talk) 21:11, 9 March 2009 (UTC)JohnHistory

I can't believe someone just wrote that "calls for neutrality are being made in bad faith" ???? What to sneak a Trojan horse into your fortified Wiki Compound? This evidence of some highly unhealthy and disturbing thinking. JohnHistory (talk) 21:23, 9 March 2009 (UTC)JohnHistory

Who cares what faith they have or are "in" just worry about the neutrality- kapeesh. JohnHistory (talk) 21:25, 9 March 2009 (UTC)JohnHistory

Hey, John, ProTip; the election is over. Rehashing the left vs. right debate within the confines of the Barack Obama article is not a productive use of anyone's time. See WP:BATTLEGROUND. As for who cares, I care, as do many others. You aren't here to edit, you are here to make a point. As such, your contributions to this talk page are simply not taken with any seriousness. Tarc (talk) 21:30, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

It's a fake controversy generated by a lone website as to the perceived neutrality of this article. It's neutral to the all mainstream editors, or else concerns would have been raised by someone else other than a lone far-Right website. The website itself, as seen at WorldNetDaily#Claims about Barack Obama would not be considered a dispassionate, neutral source for use in this. As such, I fail to see how any reporting from them being excluded here could be a consideration in any WP:NPOV concerns about this article. It would be akin to giving Jack Thompson disproportionate weight in any neutrality dispute about Video game, in contrast. This is the same website that alleges our President is a Soviet mole.[http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=88439][3] rootology (C)(T) 21:39, 9 March 2009 (UTC)


OF course wikipedia fails on these accounts. The simple fact that the controversies regarding Rev Wright and William Aries being deleted shows that wikipedia has no true desire to be truly encyclopedic. These issues are well documented and well known as fact, and the leadership of wikipedia have decided to become bias in their views and make this a one-sided praise fest. Wikipedia has become nothing more than an Obama lapdog now, and might even be in the democrats back pocket. 98.20.253.208 (talk) 21:42, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Another fringe news site (FoxNews) talks about this issue. So, let me get this straight...at what step does someone who has a problem admit they have a problem? LinuxSneaker (talk) 21:44, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that a writer for a partisan website has created a tempest in a teakettle, giving his fellow right-wingers an opportunity to jump up and down on Wikipedia as a proxy for not getting what they wanted in November. Did you not notice all of the discussion here? There is work being done here to deal with these concerns. If all of the folks who have surfaced/resurfaced today because this popped up on Drudge (don't get me started on that) would actually offer some constructive commentary instead of the copious amounts of wharrrgarbl that's been popping up in these discussions, then we'd all be better off. (Yeah, and I do still believe there's a pony under there.) Tony Fox (arf!) 21:53, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I have closed the FAR since FAR is not the correct medium for dispute resolution. Joelito (talk) 03:29, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

FoxNews

Latest comment: 15 years ago23 comments15 people in discussion

Be prepared for more activity. Currently on the front page of FoxNews. Jauerbackdude?/dude. 21:41, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Already been mentioned like 4 times.;) --Bobblehead (rants) 21:43, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Oops. Oh well, I wasn't going to troll through this mess to see if it was. Good luck and have fun. Jauerbackdude?/dude. 21:44, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
The only difference from last night is that they will bombard this talk page, and for those who have accounts (and know how Wikipedia works) it will also spill into the FAR. Brothejr (talk) 21:46, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
FAR. I again propose we semi protect this talk page until normal service is restored.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:51, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
It's counter-productive to discussion to dismiss Fox News as "fringe." Is MSNBC considered fringe? I'll say it again...Media Matters (an organization with an admittedly, strictly liberal purpose) is given reliable source status, in spite of it being nothing more than a highly funded blog.
I'm willing to concede World Net Daily is a biased, conservative site and that it doesn't live up to the standards of "reliable source". That being said, can we start scrubbing references from Media Matters? And do we consider both FNC and MSNBC as fringe sources, or neither? Ynot4tony2 (talk) 22:33, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
The fact that Fox is a reliable source is not the issue. It's that Wikipedia shouldn't change an article just because Fox News slams it. Not unless they have a valid point, of course. Honestly, I would have thought they had a little more pressing news to attend to than the goings on of Wikipedia, but I suppose you can only say "the economy sucks" so many ways. TastyCakes (talk) 22:38, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Presumably the actual irritant is that the article is, in fact, pretty hagiographic. Tempshill (talk) 22:59, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I've heard Fox News compare Obama to Che Guevara, twice in the last 2 days. How is this neutral ? 137.52.150.212 (talk) 23:42, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Prolly cause you can't tell the difference between news reporting and commentary. 24.5.139.38 (talk) 01:37, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

the valid point is that Wikipedia claims to be an unbias encylopeidia. It has been documented facts of Obama's relationship with Rev Wright, to the point that Obama even defended him in the early days. So for wikipedia to decide what is and what is not proper to place on this article is assnine. When you do that, then you remove all free reign that wikipedia "claims" to follow and support. It is wonderful to know that the moderators of wiki are the true voice in what is right and wrong in this world, and can decide what should and should not be, even if they are dead wrong. 98.20.146.244 (talk) 23:12, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia claims to strive to be an "unbias encylopeidia" [sic], not that it is one. And it is not "assnine" [sic] to crop information out of an article, it is an obvious necessity to make a vaguely coherent article for any subject with a lot of information. Expecting all the information on every subject to be included even if it makes the article hundreds of pages long is asinine (assuming that is the word you were looking for). Equally obvious is that what is "important" in controversial topics is going to be subjective and often people are going to fight over where the line is drawn. If you think something should be included, make a valid argument in the appropriate place. Don't just whine on about Wikipedia in general and not bother to address the actual problems in the article. (Believe it or not, I agree that the article should have more mention of Ayers and Wright, but you people are going completely the wrong way about getting the article changed.) TastyCakes (talk) 01:03, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Yes, we do use Fox News as a source in many articles, including featured ones. However, like MSNBC or any other news site, Fox News contains both straight news and opinion pieces. So, just like any evaluation of the reliability of sources, we should use sound editorial judgment. The article in question appears in the "science and technology" section, and reads to me like an opinion piece. It even starts right out with the distinctly weaselly phrase "Critics noted..." (and presumably by "critics", they mean WND and some Fox News viewers/readers who have complained to them). szyslak (t) 23:25, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

If Fox News had their way, this article would resemble the laughable right-wing screed at Conservapedia. - All editors please be vigilant. Fox News is declaring war on this article, and the onslaught of lies will be coming. 137.52.150.212 (talk) 23:55, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for that link. Loved the bit on the conservapedia article that suggests Obama is a Muslim Atheist. I assume it was sourced from the guy who is kicking up this fake non story too. - Galloglass 00:06, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
...you do realize that people read these pages, right? I'd rather not have an arrangement whereby Wikipedia sets itself up as an antithetical community to the largest cable news network in the United States - that's absolutely stupid, counterproductive, and sets us up as a partisan group, which (to my knowledge) we are not. MalikCarr (talk) 04:13, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Just as a respectful warning, Wired Magazine has picked up this story. [4] Wikipedia's edititing community is getting increasing internet and 'established media' attention on this issue.C4Cypher (talk) 13:47, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Wired magazine? Really? Well, that and three bucks will buy you a latte at Starbucks.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:50, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Blogs penned by ex-felons probably aren't terribly reliable or notable. Tarc (talk) 14:05, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
I wished to draw attention to the fact that the article was on Wired, brining more public attention to this issue and Wikipedia's reputation. The notability (or felonhood) of the author in question is mitigated by the fact that Wired magazine is putting it's name behind what the guy is writing. Your responses are a bit confusing however. Does being a felon deny the right to public dialouge on wikipedia in the marketplace of ideas? Is notability an issue when commenting on the public exposure of the editing of an article in said article's talk page? I could care less about the author's credibility, people reading his article are going to take that for granted. My point was that the giant curtain behind the great wizard of Wikipedia is getting pulled, and the man behind it is getting more attention than the article he's writing. I'm not saying Wikipedia's content or policy should be swayed by public opinion or whatever some journalist cares to say on the issue. I just wanted to point out that Wikipedia's credibility as a whole is being questioned on the ground of NPOV matters.C4Cypher (talk) 15:17, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
This point is, "Wikipedia's credibility as a whole" is only being questioned by highly partisan, fringe, unreliable people/blogs/websites. If the source of the criticism has no credibility or standing, then its really nothing to take seriously or worry about in the long run. Compare this brouhaha to the melodrama that surrounded the Virgin Killer album controversy a few months back. I think if you ask the average person now "Is the Wikipedia a) an online encyclopedia or b) a repository of graphic, hard-core pornography?", most will go with the former. The overall project credibility did not suffer from the censorship wingnuts, and it will not suffer now from the conspiracy wingnuts. Tarc (talk) 15:31, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Wired.com (more specifically, Wired's Threat Level blog) is a highly partisan, fringe, unreliable website? By what standard do we judge the credibility of sites that bring attention to Wikipedia? C4Cypher (talk) 16:24, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
I believe that you are confusing coverage of the controversy vs. promotion of the controversy. Tarc (talk) 17:12, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Technical definition of McCain

Latest comment: 15 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I just noticed: after Obama became the presumptive Democratic nominee, it says: "Obama now campaigned in the general election against Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee." This should read "the Republican presumptive nominee", as this is what he was at the time. Bigbluefish (talk) 01:12, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I've done that. I rewrote the sentence slightly as well. If that is not satisfactory to another admin, you have my consent to revert or modify without fear of a wheel warring accusation.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:29, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Alternative history

Latest comment: 15 years ago5 comments5 people in discussion

When dealing with political issues such as this biography, might it not be a more honest approach to have Wikipedia post for each of the view points? Clearly it is impossible to straddle the fence to the satisfaction of both camps, and leaning toward the politically correct version only undermines the integrity of Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.30.7.97 (talk) 03:43, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

It's an interesting thought, but seems a little un-encyclopedia-like. I'd rather see minority points of view integrated into the main article. — Charlie (Colorado) (talk) 03:47, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

If this article on Barack Obama was truly the result of “the collaboration of hundreds of registered users” with “editors from a young age to retirement age, of all political spectrums, and from users in countries spanning every time zone in the world” I really do not think that it would look like he, his wife or some other friend or family member wrote it.

Consensus does not make it right or good. Consensus is more an issue of who is asked than it is of fact or reason. Gama1961 (talk) 12:50, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

"All political spectrums" would tend to mean those not on the extreme lunatic fringe, though. It is an tiny, minority point of view that Obama is a secret Muslim/foreigner, that the Ayers connection is deep and critically important, and so on... Such people are not welcome at any collaboration table in the Wikipedia. They get sent to the equivalent of the kids-and-sullen-teenager table at the Thanksgiving dinner. Tarc (talk) 13:08, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Please see one of our core policies Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and the associated FAQ. Basically creating separate articles for separate points of view would violate our core principles. If you're interested in that model, I would recommend Wikinfo. Guettarda (talk) 14:04, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, this is enough....

Latest comment: 15 years ago8 comments6 people in discussion

I won't respond to any posts regarding to this on this talk page, or the talk page of my own.

Articles come to be through collaboration. On Wikipedia we have editors from a young age to retirement age, of all political spectrums, and from users in countries spanning every time zone in the world.

Any particular article, in its infancy, fruition, and maturity is a result of such work.

This article is how it is because of the collaboration of hundreds of registered users and IP addresses. Some edits have stayed, some edits have gone. The resulting article is based upon such collaboration.

If you came here because of a politically biased news channel or website, be it World News Daily or MoveOn.org, you are going to be sorely disappointed with the article. There is no way to alter your opinion on the matter. If you want the article to change, you have to work together with the others. This website is not a forum for political debate, and Obama is not the only subject we have that causes contention. Hell, the nationality of Copernicus caused one of the most strenuous debates we have ever had on this site.

Do not come here to prove a point, do not come here to argue politics. This is a place to work together. If you cannot do that, then yes your words will fall on deaf ears. Keegantalk 05:06, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Well said, the massive constructive community effort that has spent months and years getting this article together, along with related and unrelated articles and the rest of the entire encyclopedia dwarfs the minor and destructive drive-by effort by those with no desire to join in and actually improve what they complain so loudly about. If anybody is interested in contributing rather than complaining and leaving, all they have to do is sign up for an account and participate constructively. All are welcome in that regard. Mfield (talk) 05:37, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Although I have no political axe to grind one way or another on this one. I do have issue with the statement "fringe theories, and/or topics". Because the very ideas, of free speech and ideas to name a few, that allow Wikipedia to even exist were once, not all that long ago, thought to be fringe theories, ideas, and/or topics.

And if this article on Barack Obama was truly the result of “the collaboration of hundreds of registered users” with “editors from a young age to retirement age, of all political spectrums, and from users in countries spanning every time zone in the world” I really do not think that it would look like he, his wife or some other friend or family member wrote it.

And for the record Hitler was supported by a consensus in the beginning. So consensus does not make it right or good. Consensus is more an issue of who is asked than it is of fact or reason. Gama1961 (talk) 12:46, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Automatic argument fail per Godwin's law. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:51, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
I think we should add this page to the alerts for project to remove systemic bias, as well as adding George W. Bush's page. I think there are some issues with the article, not intention, but due to systemic bias. Obama's relationship with Ayers is at least mentionable as a item in the 2008 Election section. It garnered much news. The Birth Certificate thing is a farce though, but I think it (the article) would be well served by a go over by the before mentioned project. Paranormal Skeptic (talk) 13:50, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
I disagree. Obama didn't have a "relationship" with Ayers. That was a fantasy concocted by the right. They met each other a few times as part of the normal activities of civic leaders in Chicago, but that's it. The right used guilt-by-association to insinuate a relationship, which WP:BLP very specifically talks about. It would show considerable undue weight to bring up what is essentially a right-wing smear campaign in a BLP. That is why it is covered elsewhere. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:02, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Fair enough, I tend to stay out of political pages here, but I can see biasing in both pages (systemic) which I think would be served well by having that project take this on as a top priority. Paranormal Skeptic (talk) 14:34, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
At this point I think that both sides have so entrenched themselves in their positions that getting any edits in either way is going to be impossible until the Drive-by WND idiots leave or start making constructive, sourced edits. Soxwon (talk) 14:47, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Some better phrasing

Latest comment: 15 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

As I was looking into the whole Ayers/Wright issue (btw, Wright is already mentioned in a perfect way, really a manufactured controversy), I found right below it these sentences "Obama has tried to quit smoking several times.[201] Obama has said he will not smoke in the White House.[201]" In an FA! How about "Obama has tried to quit smoking several times, and said he will not smoke in the White House.[201]" Does an admin want to adjust that? Thanks. Joshdboz (talk) 05:58, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

  Done Ruslik (talk) 08:07, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Thanks again. Joshdboz (talk) 08:24, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Extent of latest 'Controversy'

Latest comment: 15 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion

According to google, a news search for Obama yields over 671,000 entries: http://news.google.com/news?q=obama&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wn

Now, again according to google, "Obama" + "wikipedia" yields a paltry 300 or so : http://news.google.com/news?q=%22obama%22%20%2B%20%22Wikipedia&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wn

Since no doubt people will be pushing to add this controversy somewhere in the article as a way of trojaning getting Ayers and Wright mentioned, I figured I'd go ahead and let you guys know: with the exception of the fringe, this is going no where. 216.96.150.33 (talk) 18:17, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's in Gawker[5] and Valleywag,[6] not to mention Huffington Post[7], Wired Magazine,[8] and the Washington Independent.[9] - Wikidemon (talk) 19:29, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

With all due respect, 300 mentions by major news organizations is more mention than most subjects of Wikipedia articles. Cheers! Scapler (talk) 21:27, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
It's functioning just like the Ayers-Obama nuttery: their are those pushing that a controversy exists, and those who are denying that anything controversial has taken place. Also WND is not a major 'news' organization. 216.96.150.33 (talk) 21:41, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
It is possible that someone will write an article about this.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:42, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
At the moment though, you are correct that it is nowhere big enough to be included in the main article. Cheers! Scapler (talk) 22:47, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Archive part or all of talk page

Latest comment: 15 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

This talk page is very large, and parts of it should be archived. Do not archive all of it as there is currently a dispute over the article. Griffinofwales (talk) 19:24, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Archiving is done automatically, currently set to happen daily. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:35, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
thanks Griffinofwales (talk) 19:39, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

President Obama's Oratory Skills

Latest comment: 15 years ago17 comments10 people in discussion

Cultural and Political Image

I recommend an addition to the second paragraph of this section starting “Many have argued that Obama is and adept orator on par with other renowned speakers…” While this paragraph goes to great lengths to mention President Obama’s oratory skills, it does not address his use of Teleprompters. While it is expected that he would use it for state addresses, his constant use of them for small trivial appearances begins to question his oratory skills. There have been a few occasions were the Teleprompters had failed and the President was criticized for less than spectacular speeches. I would recommend adding the following after the first sentence of the second paragraph:

However, President Obama has also been recently criticized for the constant use of Teleprompters.

I would also recommend adding the following references:

[10] [11] [12]

Moesbob (talk) 02:01, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps add to the teleprompter article? This article is intended to set forth the facts concerning Obama, not criticisms, not supports. Just the facts, sir.--Wehwalt (talk) 03:07, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

How do the editors here respond to this? http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=91114

Hi, if you read this talk page, you will see several discussions that touch on it. There is also a discussion going on at WP:AN/I. Please feel free to join in, but if you do, please sign your posts. Thanks!--Wehwalt (talk) 02:53, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I would respond that it is biased, unreliably sourced, fringe nutjobbery that has no place in an legitimate encyclopedia such as this. Tarc (talk) 03:17, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
What, the teleprompter question? Anyway, teleprompters can be fun. I recall when LBJ was droning on through one of his boring speeches when he suddenly started to repeat himself - something had gone wrong on the teleprompter, and he had to improvise. One of the funnier moments in a Presidency that pretty much lacked in humor. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 03:23, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I will try again. The last response I posted was deleted. Facts? Then present the facts. It is a fact that the President constantly uses Teleprompters. This includes such trivial appearances as a factory in Indiana and presenting new members of his administration. Even members of the press are beginning to question his use of them. But with that being said, the paragraph I ask that the sentence be added to, presents a positive opinion about his oratory skills. So there are three possible options. One, add the sentence I recommend and balance the opinion already presented. Two, delete the opinion already presented. This would negate the need for my sentence and balance the article. Three, leave the article as is and only present a supporting opinion maintaining the imbalance of the article. If that former is the case, I would guess that we will have to hope that Wikipedia will realize the partisan nature of the current editors and replace them. Or, allow things to continue as is and demonstrate why the Wikipedia experiment has, so far, proven to be a failure. Moesbob (talk) 23:02, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Um, might I point out that many of the presidents have used the teleprompters for the majority of their speeches. This smells like a manufactured controversy/criticism to me. Brothejr (talk) 23:05, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes they have, for major state addresses. However, they have not used them on every campaign stop. They have not used them to unveil an economic plan at a Caterpillar plant in Indiana. They have not used it to present their third choice for Health and Human Services Secretary, and then present an uneasy silence as the Teleprompters are stowed for Governor Sibelius to speak. This article presents the opinion that President Obama is a magnificent speaker and compares him to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Ronald Reagan. I believe that either this opinion must be balanced by the fact that the President constantly uses Teleprompters, or the presented opinion about the President’s oratory skills be removed from the article. This is not a manufactured controversy or criticism. The editors of this article have made it clear that they want no opinions or criticisms present in this article. Therefore, they must either balance their presented opinion or remove it. Just the facts. Moesbob (talk) 00:50, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Don't see that the teleprompter is needed under summary style. Nor that it somehow is "balance". Politicians use teleprompters, some more than others. It's the technology of the day. Go watch the Checkers speech, Nixon is constantly looking down at his text. That is not mentioned in either the Checkers speech or the Nixon article because it is unremarkable. As is this.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:55, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
(ec) The matter certainly fails WP:WEIGHT. It's just not important. Obama used a BlackBerry extensively; Bush didn't. That's not important either. PhGustaf (talk) 00:59, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
You are missing the point entirely. The article currently presents an opinion praising President Obama’s oratory skills. Opinion. It is not a fact that President Obama is a great orator, it is an opinion. If this article is going to present an opinion and remain neutral, it must present a counter opinion or removed the presented opinion. The sentence concerning the Teleprompter is the counter opinion to the presented opinion. Either eliminate the presented opinion or offer the counter opinion. However, do not state that this article is only going to offer facts, neither criticisms nor supports, then offer a one sided opinion. The fact is President Obama constantly uses a Teleprompter. This proves he is a good reader, not a great orator. In fact, there have been a few occasions were the Teleprompters failed and the President delivered less than memorable speeches. Facts, not opinions. Review the references I included on the original post. They present the facts, not the opinion present in this article about the President’s oratory skills. I ask that you not try to simplify the discussion to disregard the fact the article is presenting an opinion. I ask that you not try to redirect the discussion away from the point of the article’s opinion. I ask that you not present a straw man to disregard or ignore the fact that this article presents an opinion. Address the facts and remove the opinions or balance them. Moesbob (talk) 01:20, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

The entire section about his oratory abilities is filled with weasel words and lacks NPOV entirely. I fail to understand why it is present in this form. If there is a section on oratory skills at all, you are not maintaining an NPOV the way it stands. Those asking for the Teleprompter to be mentioned have a point. Either balance the article or remove this entirely. It is not NPOV, it is naked adoration thinly veiled with weasel words. SoheiFox (talk) 01:58, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

The Cultural and political image section is clearly unbalanced, especially the second paragraph. Such a section is not per se improper, but, as it currently exists in the article, appears to violate NPOV. That material should be rewritten in order to be neutral or, if that's not possible, it should be removed. SMP0328. (talk) 02:20, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Reading it, I'm compelled to agree. Either we include a weight-permissible mention of the teleprompter issue to balance it, rewrite to eliminate some of the more florid prose, or we excise the paragraph altogether. »S0CO(talk|contribs) 02:29, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
I recommend the Teleprompter sentence to highlight the imbalance. The best solution would probably be removal of the second paragraph as mentioned earlier. Moesbob (talk) 02:35, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, after reading thru many posts on this subject and others, it appears that statements must be backed up by legitimate sources. So the opening sentence in the second paragraph, "Many have argued that Obama is an adept orator on par with other renowned speakers in the past" needs to be backed up with legitimate sources. If not, then the whole paragraph should be removed.Miker789 (talk) 03:17, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I am happy to see that references were added. And after reviewing the references, I think that substitutes should be found for numbers 205 and 207. Obviously, the authors of these articles are fawning over President Obama’s perceived oratory skills and are offering their opinions on this subject. (This is the same as the second paragraph of this section does.) But more importantly, President Obama is the American President. A Canadian and Australian perspective is important. However, the fact that they are not Americans does lead to question of their understanding of American politics and the effects of the given speeches in America. For example, President Bush’s “with us or against us” speech did a lot to reassure Americans after 9-11 and was received well by most Americans. That same speech drew much foreign criticism. (See http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/july-dec01/bush_9-21.html and http://www.france24.com/en/20090115-bush-make-final-formal-farewell-speech) If you wish to offer an opinion of an American politician’s abilities in America, it should come from an American. I am sure they would do a great job of telling us of Canada’s and Australia’s opinion of our President, far better than our own reporters.
However, adding the references does nothing to address the current NPOV opinions presented in the second paragraph of this section. The paragraph must be balanced or deleted to maintain a NPOV. Moesbob (talk) 00:38, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

John McCain and Citizenship

Latest comment: 15 years ago22 comments12 people in discussion

Both Barack Obama and John McCain are both currently featured articles. Both men have had questions raised about citizenship and eligibility to be President of the United States. Neither the John McCain nor the Obama citizenship disputes ever gained much mainstream traction, but there is an entire paragraph dedicated to the issue on the McCain article while any information about questions raised about Obama's citizenship have been consistently blocked.

I'm not trying to make an WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument, what I am saying is that high-profile and politically sensitive featured articles should follow the same standard if they are going to appear unbiased. -Neitherday (talk) 22:28, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

That's because Obama not being born in Hawaii is the realm of conspiracy theory wackos while McCain was born in the Canal Zone. TastyCakes (talk) 22:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
See here. TastyCakes (talk) 22:30, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Just to point one thing out: A wacko conspiracy theory should be mentioned if it reaches the standards of notability, of course, like getting reported over and over for a year or something. Then we should mention it with due weight and criticism, just like with anything else. Tempshill (talk) 22:54, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes. WP:FRINGE. -Neitherday (talk) 01:18, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
No, we don't adjust article content to placate partisans' sense of bias. I haven't visited the McCain article but if there is a fringe citizenship conspiracy theory in his BLP, you can take it up there. Wikidemon (talk) 22:32, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Okay, I took a field trip over there and think the subject of McCain's eligibility for the presidency, being the first born outside the 50 states, controversy, being the prospective oldest, etc., has entirely too much weight in that article. He wasn't elected so it's pretty trivial. Nor was any of this a significant issue in his life - obviously, his birth circumstances were, but not any improbable legal theories. But like I said, that article is over there, and this one is over here. Wikidemon (talk) 22:35, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I'll bring this issue up there, too. The same standard should apply to both articles for the sake of maintaining an unbiased presentation, however I am neutral as to whether it should be excluded from both or included in both. I believe that there is a need to coordinate certain neutrality issues between articles. -Neitherday (talk) 22:44, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I think you missed the main part of the argument: with Obama it is a debunked conspiracy theory. With McCain it was an actual issue dealt with in the campaign. TastyCakes (talk) 22:50, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Umm ... in the case of McCain, it was debunked too. The only reason to classify it as an "actual issue" in one, but not the other is bias. Heck, in the case of President Obama, there is an actual sourced article about it. To me, that says it is at least worth a one-sentence mention and a link. In both cases, the claim that they were not legally qualified to be President was frivolous. --B (talk) 22:54, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Foretunately, it's not up to you. Remind me when Obama went before a special legal panel for his citizenship, then claim "bias." Soxwon (talk) 23:06, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, B, your use of "debunked" isn't quite right — one was an actual legal question and the other is conspiracy-theory-land. (That said, I personally think the silly Obama citizenship question is on the edge of qualifying to be mentioned in this article.) Tempshill (talk) 23:10, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Really? When did McCain go before a "special legal panel for his citizenship"? In both cases, the claim was fanciful. In both cases, lawsuits were filed. Just because you don't like the Obama claim but you do like the McCain claim doesn't mean they are difference. Both were born on US soil. Both have issues that someone might potentially have a legal question about (in McCain's case, does the canal zone count and in Obama's case, does his then-dual citizenship preclude him from being a "natural-born" citizen). I don't see the reasoning for treating them differently. It can be treated tastefully - a single sentence in the article could say, "Obama's Kenyan ancestry has given rise to conspiracy theories about his eligibility to hold the office of President, none of which are accurate". That way it doesn't get too much into it here and it links to the article so that a reader with questions can get those questions answered. --B (talk) 03:16, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Just a reminder to the editors here: if birthers turn up here, please direct them to Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories and keep the nonsense out of this article. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:15, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

The McCain and Obama situations aren't parallel. In the McCain case, even assuming the WP:RS fact that he was born in the Panama Canal Zone, there were reputable academics who thought the constitutional question was not settled. That's what that article mentioned, after making clear that the legal and political establishments were completely behind McCain and there was no danger he wouldn't become president if he won the election. There was also a conspiracy theory that he was actually born in Panama, outside the PCZ; that we didn't mention, as there were no WP:RS behind it. In the Obama case, all of the objections either claim a conspiracy theory that he wasn't born in Hawaii, or claim weird legal theories regarding foreign/dual citizenship being disqualifying that no reputable academics support. Different story. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
A mention of Ayers and citizenship could both be taken care of with a mention of negative campaigning in one sentence, I don't understand the problem. I'm not fighting for inclusion but I'm a little surprised this wasn't handled better. Nothing should be sacred on Wiki. Scribner (talk) 23:36, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
please discuss Ayers in the section above. I don't want to have to jump around to two different conversations about the same topic. Bytebear (talk) 23:58, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
99% of academics are Democrats. On political issues, the appeal to authority doesn't hold any weight with me. That any so-called academic gave any credence to McCain not being a citizen says more of them than it does of the law. (The same is true on the other side as well - both McCain and Obama are unquestionably native-born citizens.) --B (talk) 03:16, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Academics are trained, usually, to know what they're talking about when pertinent to their field. When they get involved, it's usually because their knowledge is worth something. People tag academics as liberals as a way to devalue their opinion, for no other reason than it's a different opinion. Who do you have more faith in as it concerns your general health? A Doctor or your best friend Ted? You want to trust experts on some things, but not on others. Well cherry pick all you like; it won't change the outcome. 216.96.150.33 (talk) 03:44, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, that must be it. To answer your question, I would certainly trust a doctor with a question about my health more than I would trust a researcher at a med school. But I digress. A liberal "academic" saying that a Republican candidate might not be eligible for the Presidency holds zero weight with me. A federal judge saying it or an elections board saying it would be of some interest. Heck, I'd even take "lots of academics", not just one. Give my best to Lane Kiffin. --B (talk) 03:57, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
There are no partisan facts. If an argument lacks merit, that can be factually shown: in the case of Obama and the birth certificate, the only people who kept up with that 'controversy' were the fringe. That's one of the reasons why it picked up so much steam at the fringe; no one in the 'MSM' was paying attention. The facts are that Obama was born in Hawaii, and is fully qualified to be the President of the United States. The conspiracy about his birth is completely made up. McCain was not born in the United States was is properly implied. Indeed, it was decided and affirmed by Congress that he was eligible to serve as the President. But it was not so clear up till that point, it was as a valid legal question and hence why it was actually an issue for McCain and deserved what mention it does (which is not extensive or negative btw).
Btw, if you don't trust people, there's no reason for them to trust you either. UT Football is going to suck.216.96.150.33 (talk) 04:22, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

(outdent)A key distinction between these two eligibility issues is the one alluded to in the foregoing anon comment: McCain's eligibility was the subject of a formal resolution passed by the Senate. Obama's wasn't (and, when every Senator and every Representative was given the opportunity to raise the issue, at the counting of the electoral votes, not one did so). That difference is an objective indication that the issues concerning McCain had more substance and/or attracted more attention. Therefore, our coverage decisions in the articles are consistent. JamesMLane t c 06:59, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Negative Campaigning, Continued

Latest comment: 15 years ago9 comments4 people in discussion

Mention of Ayers and the Obama citizenship issue are aspects of negative campaigning both brought to light smear and derail Obama's campaign, both should be omitted from this article. Scribner (talk) 00:35, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Please discuss specifics about Ayers and/or Obama's citizenship in the appropriate sections above. Blanket statements are not useful. Bytebear (talk) 00:38, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
My point being that Ayers, Wright and the citizenship issue are all connected to negative campaigning. The only reason Wright is mentioned in the article is because he was a integral part of Obama's life. Scribner (talk) 01:01, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
I understand, but it is hard to follow all the comments about the Ayers issue if there are multple discussions on the same topic. I understand your position. I don't agree with it, but I understand it. Bytebear (talk) 04:00, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes, and I understand your position and I think it violates the Wiki Criticism and praise guideline of avoiding inclusions that contain "guilt by association". Otherwise, I have no problem mentioning Ayers and citizenship in a context of negative campaigning, but not in this particular article. Scribner (talk) 16:58, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
2008 campaign issues of only temporary relevance? If only we had articles like Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2008 or Obama-Ayers controversy or Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories then maybe these claims of bias at wikipedia could be laid to rest. What? Those links aren't red anymore? You guys are fast.Bali ultimate (talk) 20:43, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Those articles have been around for months, ten months in the Ayers case. Scribner (talk) 21:21, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
I think he knows that Scribner, it was sarcasm. Tad Lincoln (talk) 01:46, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
It's probably not wasted energy pointing out that the Ayers article has been on wiki for ten months now. Scribner (talk) 06:35, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I would like to try to help

Latest comment: 15 years ago20 comments10 people in discussion

I believe that there is a cultural difference that is causing the disputes here, and I would like to try to explain. An example of this difference might be the Rush Limbaugh article. That article has a "Controversies" section which takes up about half of the article. Please note that the Obama article has no such section.

Limbaugh's article contains an entire section about Viagra use. This entire section should be immediately deleted, because it is extremely personal, prejudicial, and resulted in no public consequences. Yet there it is, and nobody has objected, because the paragraph is properly sourced, and is for a known public figure. I would object to its removal.

And yet, the Obama article contains not a single reference to Bill Ayers. I'm sorry, wiki-whateveryouares, but that is simply preposterous. The fairness of claiming this association aside, I will point out that this controversy was extremely important in the 2008 election, and that the association continued for years. President Obama started his political career in Mr. Ayers living room. That issue does not deserve a mention?

I trust the editors around here to get such controversies into perspective. When editors make edits that conform to Wiki rules, you really should be more circumspect with your reverts. At the very least, you should not ban someone just because you don't like what they said. Ever heard of NPOV???

I know you have to protect this article against people who make insane edits, and I know that work is hard. But really, edits that meet Wiki rules deserve better consideration. If you really believe in what you are doing here, then please go over to the Limbaugh article and delete the "Controversies" section. That would prove that you are being honest. Have a great day.Jarhed (talk) 00:43, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for wanting to help. This is an example to the Limbaugh article, since this is a FA, not the other way around. Ideally, the controversies in the Limbaugh article should be merged into the text. Even were that not so, your argument is simply WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. Thanks again.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:47, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, no. There is a controversy on the Limbaugh article about maintaining the "Controversies" section, and I believe that it is a real issue. For a public figure, it is possible that multiple controversies are swirling around them all the time. It is not until later that the true relevance of the so-called controversy can be determined. In other words, both Obama and Limbaugh have current swirling controversies. How do you propose do deal with these, other than reverting editors you don't like?Jarhed (talk) 01:04, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Also worth mentioning: Limbaugh is not now--- and never has been--- the President of the United States. His article is, notwithstanding the fact that he is Rush Limbaugh, therefore somewhat less important than Obama's. Timothy Horrigan (talk) 01:01, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
It appears that you advocate different treatment for different people in Wiki biographies of living persons. I would like to see how you can justify that attitude.Jarhed (talk) 01:04, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Like I said, Limbaugh is not now and never has been the President of the United States. Sorry, but he is simply not as important as Obama. So, he deserves different treatment. The Limbaugh article, for what it's worth, is generally favorable and leaves out a lot of derogatory material which could have been included. By the way, have we ever seen the vault copy of Limbaugh's birth certificate? Timothy Horrigan (talk) 23:55, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
While I'm sure I'll get flack for saying this, isn't Rush a much more controversial character than Obama? Has he not made a career out of stirring up emotions? Rush is controversial and he wants it that way. Obama, if anything, wants to avoid controversy, perhaps to a fault. A "controversy section" may, therefore, be more justified (and difficult to blend into the rest of the article) for the Limbaugh article than this one, in my opinion. TastyCakes (talk) 01:13, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
True, but Limbaugh doesn't run the country. That said, let's keep on topics of improving the article. Bytebear (talk) 01:20, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Are you trying to help or looking to argue here? There is a unique standard for every article, in that each person and every other subject has its story, and we tell that story, as best we can, from reliable secondary sources. The Ayers example is not a good one - Obama did not launch his career from Ayers' living room, nor did that attempted smear do anything to change the course of the campaign or election. If you're going to argue that anyone should care about Wikipedia being unfair, based on its refusal to print things that are not true, you're losing me from the beginning. Wikidemon (talk) 01:22, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
please assume good faith and don't attack other posters. I would also argue that we are not telling a story. We have no objectivity. We simply present facts. Also, please discuss specific topics such as Ayers in the appropriate sections. Bytebear (talk) 01:25, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
For pete's sake, dont' lecture me. My comments are on target and I make them here. The editor's comment was soapboxing, based on not reading and/or not understanding the facts. If the editor sincerely means to understand and help Wikipedia they need to read the sources and not lead off by lecturing people out of ignorance on how unfair they are.Wikidemon (talk) 01:42, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Jarhed is right the majority of the controversies section of the Limbaugh article needs to be removed and kept confined to his radio show article. Scribner (talk) 01:50, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Wonderful. Go over to Talk: Rush Limbaugh and discuss it there. This conversation doesn't belong here. Tvoz/talk 03:08, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Actually, it does belong here. It was being used as an example. Scribner (talk) 03:20, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Actually, no, it does not. Argue the topic on its own merits, not on some sort of fraudulent "I saw it there, so it must be here too" rationale. As I noted earlier, the Wikipedia does not have an equivalent of a Fairness Doctrine; just because one article has a critical passage does not mean that another article must also have a critical passage to achieve some sort of magical criticism balance. Nor does it mean that another article's should be removed if there's none here. Each is to be discussed on its own merits, or lack thereof, not bargained with as if in a game. Tarc (talk) 03:26, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
No, criticism sections shouldn't be used in biographies, period. Scribner (talk) 03:42, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Looks like you've got your work cut out for you, then. Happy editing. Tarc (talk) 03:53, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
YOu would think Bin Laden would have more than a single sentence of criticism. But I agree, a section on criticism is generally never a good idea. It's better to weave such items in the content where it relates. For example, Ayers would go into Obama's early poltical career as a community organizer. Now, why does Bill O'Reilly have an entire article dedicated to his criticisms? Bytebear (talk) 04:03, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
I think they call that "live by the gun, die by the gun": there is simply so much material of criticism against him that it just piles on, and it has to be moved to separate article due to WP:SIZE. Criticism of George W. Bush also exists. I believe we call this, in Wikipedia, WP:SUMMARY. Nothing sinister, really. In fact, around Barack Obama we already have one such article: Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories.--Cerejota (talk) 08:46, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

←I actually agree, Scribner, and have argued many times, that separate criticism sections generally demonstrate weak article-writing, and should be avoided - that criticism should be integrated into the appropriate articles, not set apart. But that doesn't mean that the way other articles are written, like Limbaugh, are appropriate for discussion here. Tarc has it exactly right. Tvoz/talk 05:25, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

POV and NPOV

Latest comment: 15 years ago47 comments12 people in discussion

Folks, this really applies to several threads of comments under several headings.

Let's recall some things here. First, POV and NPOV don't mean "correct point of view " and "incorrect point of view." Frankly, the notion — for example — that Ayers, who was the subject of multiple controversies, apparently had some impact on the polls, and was the subject of questions in the actual debates, has not enough significance to even be mentioned in the article, seems to me to be in itself a statement of a point of view. Given that there clearly are a significant number of long-time Wikipedians who feel it ought to be included, it should follow that it should be included. The exclusion of one widely-held point of view on a controversial topic like this is necessarily in itself a POV issue, even if it is a minority position. Knowledge is not advanced by suppression of the minority.

Second, it is possible to hold a "conservative" or "Republican" view, or even to have read WND or Free Republic, honestly. On the other hand, it's difficult not to question the desire to maintain "no point of view" when we're calling names — like "wingnut." So try to recall that pejoratives directed toward any point of view, even wingnuts, are unhelpful.

Third, there are a lot of mentions of such and such being the "consensus". On the other hand, there are a lot of people being banned by admins for inserting certain topics. It is entirely too easy to manufacture consensus if enough dissent is deleted and the dissenters suppressed.

Frankly, we should understand that this is a challenge to the whole idea and organization of Wikipedia. The decentralized nature of Wikipedia is, in my opinion, a strength, but with the corresponding weakness that we end up giving pretty arbitrary power to admins. Accordingly, admins should try to be exceedingly careful when using that arbitrary power. Like Cæsar's wife, it's not enough to be virtuous if we give the appearance of failing in virtue. Giving the appearance that any opinion is acceptable as long as it is the politically popular opinion simply damages Wikipedia's reputation.

(Oops, forgot to sign it. — Charlie (Colorado) (talk) 03:17, 10 March 2009 (UTC))

Ayers was a minor associate of Obama's, nothing more. Ayer's past doesn't warrant him being mentioned in Obama's biography. Scribner (talk) 03:28, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Please post all arguments for or against Ayers in the appropriate section. And your opinion is just that, an opinion. Bytebear (talk) 03:33, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Bytebear why are you here? You seem to have nothing to add to the debate. Scribner (talk) 03:37, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Well, aside from being exceedingly rude, I would say your arguments has no bearing on this page. I have the support of several other editors, and have been very civil. I have heard nothing from you other than a vague argument of "it isn't warranted" with nothing to back up that position. I have presented verifiable facts to back up every position I present, and I am trying to keep each debate focused and not branch into duplicate discussions. Why are you here? Bytebear (talk) 03:45, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Scribner, one might make the same argument about you. Did you have something to say about my point? — Charlie (Colorado) (talk) 03:44, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I've replied to you once. You're very verbose, by the way. Scribner (talk) 03:46, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Usually I charge by the word. You're getting a deal. — Charlie (Colorado) (talk) 03:49, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Correct. Which is why you go to the articles about his campaign to find all of the relevant facts about Ayers and Wright. 216.96.150.33 (talk) 03:38, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
If it's relevant enough to have a section in the Election article, isn't it relevant enough to have a mention and link in this main article? — Charlie (Colorado) (talk) 03:51, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
This may be old news, but has everyone seen this? Landon1980 (talk) 03:41, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Havne' yet, will if I can ever complete an edit here. — Charlie (Colorado) (talk) 03:42, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Okay, had a look. Doesn't seem excessively well-informed, but it's clear the controversy is leaking out. Again, the real issue here — as with other controversies of note, eg, climate change — is whether Wikipedia can manage to maintain a reputation for impartiality. Edit wars aren't helpful, but neither are revert-and-ban attacks. — Charlie (Colorado) (talk) 03:54, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
When people come here for no other reason than to scream their tinfoil POV and vandalize an article, then reverts and bans are not only helpful, but vital. Tarc (talk) 03:58, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
You're making my point for me. Neutral statements of sourced material aren't a "tinfoil POV." — Charlie (Colorado) (talk) 04:02, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
If you were actually proposing the addition of neutral, sourced material then you may have a point. Since you're not, you don't. Wright is already in the article. Ayers isn't going into this article. Birther-gate isn't going into this article. I realize that the conservative POV largely exists in its own echo chamber, where all is right and nothing is ever challenged, so it must be a rough adjustment for some to make once they hit the larger world here. But the reality here is that you simply aren't getting your way, and it is galling you to no end. I'm sorry, but there's simply not much that the Wikipedia can do for you.
Info on Obama is already presented in a neutral and objective manner. What you seek to insert would violate WP:NPOV, among other policies. Obviously, your opinion about that is contrary. But your opinion is in a distinct minority, and cannot and will not be given equal weight or time. This is about as clear a case as can be made on the matter. Tarc (talk) 04:56, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
The Ayers issue is hardly a fringe theory. Every aspect of it has been referrenced by reliable sources. I am sorry, but you don't own wikipedia, and you do not speak for all editors. I am sorry that you are confusing the facts of the issue with the implications that you want to avoid. But facts are facts. Bytebear (talk) 05:16, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Ahem, Ayers does not belong in the Early life section. The view he was palling around with Ayers was Palin's rhetoric, and she was not Obama's biographer. No reliable sources say Ayers had any import. Nevertheless, the POV is included in the Obama vs McCain campaign articles where it belongs. Abstracting it into campaign section summary would be giving the rhetorical POV(s) undue weight here relative to all other campaign rhetoric that occurred. Modocc (talk) 05:29, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Absolutely correct. Tvoz/talk 06:11, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
actually, i have previously pointed out several reliable sources, the best and most conprehensive is probably the CNN article, which is quoted extensively above. Bytebear (talk) 05:31, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
You haven't even a rudimentary grasp on editing guidelines here, I'm afraid. Reliable sourcing is only one of many criteria to meet, it is not the sole arbiter of inclusion. The fringe (and yes, it is) Ayers story already has an article of its own. The issue here isn't sourcing, but relevance and undue weight. Bill Ayers simply isn't important or relevant enough in an article solely about the biography of Obama. Trying to include it here is an exercise in pointy editing, an attempt to link a (in your opinion) unsavory radical to a president. Protip; "pals around with terrorists" didn't work for Sarah, and it ain't working for you either. Tarc (talk) 05:32, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
It's not about undue weight. No weight is POV, undue weight is a significant amount of focus on Ayers. No one is asking for that. But no mention of Ayers, when CNN has clearly defined a long string of political connecitons, regardless of the implications, is POV. If we said "pal around with terrorists" that would be POV, but to omit all mention is equally POV. No one has asked to quote Palin in this article, so please don't use hyperbole to make a false point. Bytebear (talk) 05:38, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes, it is about undue weight. There is no legitimate controversy surrounding Obama-Ayers itself. If there's any at all, is was more about people like you and Sarah trying to make it into a controversy, hence the separate article about all of it. You've lost this debate, rather badly. Time to move on. Tarc (talk) 12:44, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

(Unindent) And the facts say there was no connection. If anything, the entry in the campaign section in reference to Ayers would at a minimum say "A connection was alleged, but all evidence supported the contrary opinion." Thank you for pointing out the obvious, we'll note it in the future. 216.96.150.33 (talk) 05:23, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

CNN makes several points of connection between the two. That is fact. The implications of that are not in discussion, and would be opinion anyway. But that connection did cause a major controversy in the 2008 campaign. No one has made any claim to introduce opinion into the article. Bytebear (talk) 05:26, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
You don't get it both ways. CNN noted that the connections were not really connections at all and were, as everyone with any sense of rationality had already by that time figured out, that the connection was not relevant. Being a controversy isn't enough. There was many many many controversies during the campaign, as fleshed out in the CAMPAIGN ARTICLE (just thought I'd drop a hint dere...) that do not need to be elaborated on in Obama's biography, lest we scour the entire internet and add every controversy ever to the article. That isn't going to happen, so I don't know why you're all still barking up this tree. 216.96.150.33 (talk) 05:31, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Do you have a quote that says "the connections were not really connections at all?" Because the article I read said "... the relationship between Obama and Ayers went deeper, ran longer and was more political than Obama -- and his surrogates -- have revealed, documents and interviews show." which is exactly the opposite of what you claim. Bytebear (talk) 05:34, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
"A CNN review of project records found nothing to suggest anything inappropriate in the volunteer projects in which the two men were involved." Oh look, the article basically says what we new all along: Ayers and Obama were not palling around. "Verdict: False. There is no indication that Ayers and Obama are now "palling around," or that they have had an ongoing relationship in the past three years. Also, there is nothing to suggest that Ayers is now involved in terrorist activity or that other Obama associates are." Source: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/05/fact-check-is-obama-palling-around-with-terrorists/
So now that we've verified that there was no substance behind the fringe theory, we can let the issue reside in the pertinent article instead of misplacing it here, in the biography. 216.96.150.33 (talk) 05:38, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
No one is asking to include a synopsis that Obama did anything inappropriate. But the association did cause a major controversy which is notable, and the other aspects of Ayers certainly apply to his entrance into politics, which is covered heavily in the article, including his work as a community organizer (on boards with Ayers) and the article mentions Alice Palmer who is also mentioned in the CNN article [13], which by the way is not a blog. So why is she noteworthy but Ayers is not? Bytebear (talk) 05:43, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

(Unindent) The association did not cause major controversy. There was nothing of substance in the 'relationship' to offer any credibility to "controversy". What caused controversy was the idea of a controversy that the fringe repeats over and over and over and over and over. They got lucky enough that Palin picked up the line, but once the MSM investigated and found out how much of a non-issue the Ayers connection was, no one took the issue seriously except as a way to discredit the originators of the "controversy." To the extent it effected his campaign, it is covered in the relevant article. "I like this fact better than the other facts" is not valid enough to overturn consensus on what the section should cover.

Also note that Palmer preceded Obama. Who had the seat before him is relevant to the article. Why even bring it up?216.96.150.33 (talk) 05:52, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

You are mistaking fact from implications. The fact is that Ayers did have an association with Obama, and the fact is that there was a controversy regarding that relationship. Now your opinion may be that it was a lot of hooey, and that is your perogative. But it is not your right to supress those facts because you are worried that someone might come to a different conclusion. Wikipedia is about presenting facts, even if we don't like them. And I would re-read the article- Palmer is discussed in more depth than just the predecessor. Bytebear (talk) 05:55, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
You assume bad faith, and you wonder why your edits are looked at with less and less credibility. "Right to supress..." Wash, utter complete, baseless wash from the deepest depths of ignorance. Adding Ayers is only relevant to Obama insofar as the fringe attempted to make him relevant. Is every taxi-driver Obama ever got picked up by relevant enough for this article? Every homeless person he helped during his organizing days? Every reporter from every end of the spectrum he shared the same air with? If there is substance, then you may call something substantial and add it to the article when relevant. There is no substance. It gets mention in the relevant article. This page is not relevant for the purpose of elaborating on a debunked conspiracy theory.
There are three mentions of her name in the article. 216.96.150.33 (talk) 06:03, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Do you have a referrence to the debunking of any of the facts I have presented? Bytebear (talk) 06:06, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Mmm, delicious. If you care about the Ayers connection, you would come in here and make us aware of the fact that we do not have an article discussing the subject. Then, realizing that we DO have an article about the Obama-Ayers "controversy", you would note that it might deserve warrant in the pertinent section of the main Obama biography - but this would be working under the following framework:
(1)That there was a controversy surrounding Ayers and Obama.
(2)That this controversy is significant enough that it deserves mention over the other controversies hitherto deigned worthy of placement.
As it pertains to (1), there was not and has never been an actual controversy (i.e., WND does not count) surrounding Ayers' and Obama's relationship. All sourced material states that their relationship was politically insignificant thereby discrediting the idea that something controversial had happened. The only thing that was controversial was believing and spreading the belief that Ayers and Obama were engaged in a controversial relationship.
In sum: it is incorrect to state that there was any sort of controversy surrounding the relationship, because the only thing controversial (and dear Lord am I furious at having to retype that word over and over and over again as if I'm stuck on some in between dimension in Dante's inferno) was believing in a controversy. This undermines the entire idea that Ayers-Obama is significant outside the fringe which is not to be given undue weight as WP's guidelines state.
(2) You must now, regardless of (1)'s validity, present evidence that this controversy was so important that it overshadows all other issues currently mentioned, or that it is significant enough that it actually warrants including more items within the relevant section. If this is the case, you undermine (2). The fact that Ayers-Obama must exceed all currently listed and accepted items in significance only means that the relevant article needs to be expanded with the bevy of accurate, credible sources you must have to back up this critical expansion.
The argument that there was a controversy is now bunk, as my prior analysis indicates. Also the argument for expanding the article to include the connection anyways is refuted. Thank you. 216.96.150.33 (talk) 06:38, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Bytebear, I don't understand your call for a reference "debunking" any "facts". It's simply not the case that, if we establish that Obama and Ayers were on a nonprofit board together, it will go into the article, and that the fact will stay out only if it can't be sourced or can be debunked. There are lots and lots of facts about a President of the United States that don't go into the main bio article, even though they're magnificently sourced and impervious to debunking. We're writing an encyclopedia article, not a multivolume biography, so we have to make judgments about what to include.
This has always been a problem for the NPOV rule. To give an example concerning a Republican: I've worked a lot on the Sarah Palin article. If I were writing the article according to my views of what's important, her exploitative and atavistic attitude toward the natural world would receive much more attention. In fact, however, putting such emphasis on environmental issues is my personal opinion. I haven't tried to insert a lengthy discussion in the article because I try to apply a standard of what's objectively important about the bio subject's life. Here, every unbiased source that's examined the subject has concluded that the Obama-Ayers connections were tenuous or casual or otherwise unimportant. Therefore, the issue isn't that someone is going to spring out of the bushes with a document proving that one of them resigned from the board before the other one joined, thus "debunking" your claim. The issue is that Ayers was one of innumerable people with whom Obama has come in contact during his life, and this particular contact didn't have a significant effect on Obama. It did have some effect on the campaign. That's why it's summarized in the campaign article, as well as being accorded its very own article for full exposition of the details. You'll note that there's a lot of other stuff in the campaign article that doesn't make it into this main bio article. That's an example of the correct application of the Wikipedia:Summary style guideline. JamesMLane t c 06:54, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Well said, sir! Tad Lincoln (talk) 07:00, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
You clearly did not read the Ayers section of the talk page. You assumed I wanted referrences to conspiracies. You're assuming I want a long diatribe on Ayers. Please read *all* of my thougths before judging me. Thanks. Bytebear (talk) 15:47, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
I made no assumption about what you wanted. (In other words, your assumption about my assumption is incorrect.) Your argument was to set up a false dichotomy to present your POV as the reasonable compromise: One side would be the adoption of Palin's smear as if it were fact (or one side would be the inclusion of a long diatribe), the other side would want to omit the subject, therefore a brief mention is a reasonable compromise. In general, however, we don't try to write our articles by finding an ideological midpoint among editors. Otherwise, as this example illustrates, the process would be subject to gaming by POV pushers who would set up an extreme so as to shift the midpoint. There was never any serious suggestion that we would assert in the article that Obama was palling around with terrorists, which would clearly violate NPOV. By contrast, the position that we should cover this campaign squabble only in the campaign article is fully supported by Wikipedia policies and guidelines, as I tried to explain to you. JamesMLane t c 06:48, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
To address the anonymous poster, your analysis was missing any referrences, so it ends up being opinion an original research. You need to understand the difference between the facts and the implications of facts. You are arguing against the implications, but I am not presenting or suggesting implications go into the article. Bytebear (talk) 15:50, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

(Unindent) Denied. I am not unfamiliar with fence-straddling as a way of pushing NPOV. "It's just the facts!" What the facts say obviously matters or they wouldn't be bothered for inclusions in any articles. Since you have no logically justifiable reason to include the Ayers connection in this article, the idea is bunk and will not be included. 216.96.150.33 (talk) 17:09, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the key problem with this article is the lack of any critical comments regarding Obama. None at all. It may well be sensible to take an editorial decision not to refer to Ayers. It may well be sensible to take an editorial decision not to raise the eligibility question, and not to dwell on criticism of his first budget, etc, etc. The problem isn't that any particular criticism is mentioned in this article, it is that none are. And yet space is given to anodyne comments of praise such as "Many commentators mentioned Obama's international appeal as a defining factor for his public image". Of itself, taking an editorial position to write biographies in this way, may be reasonable, and all of the arguments offered in the FAQ are reasonable. The bias lies in this being the only article I am aware of that takes this editorial stance. The pages of other (living) people often mention criticism - and for some people are littered with it. I think you're always going to create discord as long as you try to take an editorial stance on this article that is so out of kilter with everything else on Wikipedia. Hibbertson (talk) 19:23, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
There are two problems with the approach you suggest. Firstly, there really isn't anything truly notable to criticize Obama about. It's not like he committed the country to a pointless war based on lies, or anything like that. Secondly, Obama is (arguably) one of the most important people in the world, so it is absolutely essential that his biography is a close to perfect as possible. We should not lower the standards and quality of the article just because others don't meet the high standards found here. This is a Featured Article because it is an example of how all biographies of living persons, particularly of notable politicians, should be written. Also, what seems to be fundamentally misunderstood here is that this is a summary style article. The sheer quantity of information means that only the most notable (and in some cases, the most representative) information about Obama's biography (note the scope here) can make it into the article. Much of the detail is necessarily pushed to daughter articles (of which there are many). The consequence of this is that whenever you try to add something, for example, about William Ayers to the article, it elevates the importance of it to a point where it represents undue weight. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:32, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm certainly not arguing to add stuff about Ayers. I'm just very much against taking the approach of knocking back each criticism one by one without considering the criticism in aggregate. Not everyone is fully supportive of Obama or his policies - we should not imply that they are. But these are early days in his Presidency. In six months' time, after what, no doubt, will be further arguments with Congress and 40 senate votes against him, there will be more things to add (just as there will be more things to add in his favour). In the meantime, maybe it would be better to omit bland praise such as "Many commentators mentioned Obama's international appeal as a defining factor for his public image", which is pretty meaningless anyway - so that at least there is not the implication that we are not biased towards Obama, just because we do not offer detailed criticism of him. Hibbertson (talk) 19:48, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
You are advocating that we remove positive-sounding material (it isn't "praise") simply because it doesn't seem balanced? That doesn't seem like an appropriate system at all. Also, you have to remember what we are comparing here. The "Ayers thing" was a campaign-specific right-wing smear campaign, whereas Obama's "international appeal" is a broader issue that is biographically-relevant (and has resulted in a significant improvement in international relations). Likewise, the way certain votes may go in the future will not be a matter for this biography, but rather it will be a matter for the article on the presidency. Again, you are misunderstanding the summary style thing - you cannot put everything in one article. You can only put biographical, particularly noteworthy or highly representative things in the BLP. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:57, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

No. "Many commentators mentioned Obama's international appeal as a defining factor for his public image" is unattributed praise, and weasel words. If there is a particular group of people that considered the point and came to that conclusion, then name them (in the article). If we can go no better than weasel words, then omit it. (I'm not looking to be for or against Obama - quite frankly I'm neutral, and will be at least until he gets a fair way into his presidency so I have something to judge him on.) I'm not misunderstanding a summary style - I am understanding that there are example of weasel words that sound like praise. If I know who the commentators are, I can consider whether they are suitably qualified, whether they are biased, whether they are worth taking note of, why they might consider Obama to have "international appeal". If they are just "many commentators" on Obama's (apparently self-evident) "international appeal", that is bland praise.

I should add that there are other examples of such weasel words (but not too many to be honest). Either firm up the attributions, or omit them. Hibbertson (talk) 20:11, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Just a note...editors should guide criticisms of the Presidency of Barack Obama to that particular article first. I imagine criticisms will be summarized here at some point. Scribner (talk) 20:25, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Quoting without referencing the source (because this isn't meant to be specific to one person): "[T]here really isn't anything truly notable to criticize Obama about." This is a very specific example of the point I was making: the notion that someone might be so much the paragon as to brook no "notable" criticism seems improbable. I could manage notable criticisms of Jesus Christ and Gautama Buddha. — Charlie (Colorado) (talk) 03:05, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

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