Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 58

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Controversy and See Also section

Perhaps there should be a "see also" section. In addition, there should be a link to Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories.Smallman12q (talk) 01:11, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

We've discussed that before but with 160+ Obama-related articles and counting there's just not enough room to put each in a "see also". They are all accessible in various ways though, through the article hierarchy, categories, templates, wiki projects, and of course the wikipedia and google searches. Wikidemon (talk) 02:36, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Seconded. All the claptrap about where he was born struck me as good old traditional US election knockabout fun (and indeed particularly hilarious in view of McCain's birthplace), but it never got that much serious attention in the reality-based community and it doesn't promise to have any effect on politics or government. Very enjoyable to read about, though. -- Hoary (talk) 10:37, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

And particularly hilarious in view of that damn Canuck, Chester A. Arthur. ;-) --Ali'i 13:13, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Well I see what you're trying to say, but there should be a see also section of some sorts. I would also like to point out that there is virtually no "controversy" in the prose or the article despite the fact there is quite a bit from his ties to the reverend to bowing to the Saudi king. And w Do a simple google search.Smallman12q (talk) 23:42, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

If there isn't room in the article, then a sub article should be created. Something similar to that of Criticism_of_George_W._Bush. Currently, Criticism of Barack Obama redirects to Public image of Barack Obamawhich are two different topics.Smallman12q (talk) 23:46, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

The community rejected the "criticism of" article via (I believe) a WP:AfD and a WP:DRV, so that is very unlikely to happen. There is a great deal of coverage of Reverend Wright in the encyclopedia, but in other articles you can find by following the links here. The Saudi king thing is as explained elsewhere a trivial matter that is probably not fit for the encyclopedia at all. There are, and will continue to be, hundreds or thousands of pieces of minor trivia, disparagement, criticism, conspiracy theories, etc., and that's not really the focus of an encyclopedia. Throughout the encyclopedia, criticism and controversy sections and articles are frowned on. WP:CRIT has a reasonable explanation of why. As I note below there are controversies mentioned. But overall, controversies are not all that relevant to a biography. Most of these are political in nature, and specifically, related to elections, punditry, and partisanship. Those are all encyclopedic subjects but we can't make more of them than they are. Wikidemon (talk) 23:55, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Criticism of George W. Bush redirects to Public image of George W. Bush. It has been merged in March. Cenarium (talk) 00:21, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Almost had to, because the POV protectors kept running out of excuses for not having a similar article for Obama.--Jojhutton (talk) 14:06, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Bill Ayers

There doesn't seem to be any coverage of the Bill Ayers Election Controversy. It seems a bit odd as this was a major point of attack from the McCain campaign, whatever its merit. (I was told that this article didn't have anything on Wright or Ayers due to "liberal bias", I came along to disprove this, I'm rather disappointed to be proven only half right).

Are there BLP reasons for not mentioning Bill Ayers in this article?

JASpencer (talk) 13:58, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes there are. WP:BLP specifically discusses "guilt-by-association", which is what the Bill Ayers thing amounted to. You will find that the talk page archive contains many, many discussions about this matter. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:05, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

It is contained to one or more of the many sub articles out there. Tom (talk) 14:33, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Could anyone point me to the talk pages? JASpencer (talk) 15:53, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

At the top right of this page, you will see the talk page archives. There is a search box. If you type in "Ayers" and click search, you get about eleventy-billion results to peruse. Well maybe not quite that many. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:57, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Bill Ayers is a touchy subject because it's very negative, just like Willy Horton. So many people don't want it. Obama could have taken the argument away from critics by going the other way....Were you a friend of Bill Ayers? Answer: Not just a friend, but a close friend. I, too, was concerned over his radical past but he's a logical man that's put bombings behind him. If he were ever to return to bombings, I'd be the first to turn him into the FBI.

But Obama didn't say this and the controversy started. But I clearly see why Ayers is negative and why many don't want his name mentioned in the same sentence as President Obama. MichelleBM (talk) 01:48, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, he didn't say that because it's simply not true. All reliable sources say that they were never close friends. But so what? I'm not really sure what your point is here, but you're veering into a discussion of the subject, not the article itself. Please see WP:NOTAFORUM. --Loonymonkey (talk) 05:28, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Unless you can provide WP:RS to back up your statement, unfortunately your comment would just fall under WP:SOAP as it is your personal opinion. Just a friendly reminder of WP policies.--The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 01:18, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Hard-shell suit

I heard on a Hungarian news channel that Obama is wearing on his events a special hard-shell suit. Probably he is the first US president doing that. Include it on the article. Gordon Bleu (talk) 21:23, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

What is that, ObamaArmor? Is that like UnderArmor, only much, much cooler? Tarc (talk) 21:19, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Kordon, you are so hard boiled. Include it on the article, mmm, none of that namby-pamby "please" nonsense! But look, what's needed here are not dominatrices but editors. How about, possibly, "I think including it in the article might be a good idea"? But if so, just what is it that should be included? "Obama is wearing on his events a special hard-shell suit" with footnote "As heard on an unidentified Hungarian news channel at an unspecified time by Wikipedia contributor 'Kordon Bleu'"? No, I think not. Try looking for this stuff in (or on) precisely specified, credible sources, and then drafting persuasive suggestions. Thank you. -- Hoary (talk) 15:04, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Problem with article, discussion of how to solve it when we have biased people writing here

Looking at the talk page, there are some people who clearly are anti-Obama and want to put all kinds of negative stuff. There are also people who are so pro-Obama that they oppose any negative stuff and even want to sugar coat the positive stuff so that it is slanted.

Can there be an advisory board? Of just writing and see who can write the most often? This article was mentioned in a lecture as and it's true. MichelleBM (talk) 23:51, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, the problems started when a Free Republic group started spamming the place with crap. Since then things haven't quite calmed down to the point where it can edited calmly due constant edit wars and the like. Soxwon (talk) 23:59, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

In all fairness, the "problem" of POV started when the article was first written. It has become increasingly more hostile after attempts by some to reflect the president in an overly negative way, and compounded by the pro-Obamakins resolving that they are going to "make it up" with overly protective editing. But, to the question at hand, the collective wisdom, experience, and fairness of most editors is the only sure way to ensure an article largely free of bias. No "governmental" interference in this free encyclopedia needed here. ;) QueenofBattle (talk) 16:21, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that there is (or has been) government interference in this article? -- Scjessey (talk) 16:56, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I was equating the word "government" with the suggested "advisory board." Involvement of either (or both) is equally needless. QueenofBattle (talk) 18:04, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

The purpose of this talk page is to make constructive suggestions (or questions, or requests) for improving the article. If you do have such a matter please feel free to discussion. However, dividing editors into "pro" and "anti" camps and general discussions of the state of the article and its editors tend to be distracting, and do not lead to anything actionable. Thanks. Wikidemon (talk) 18:28, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Obama brother accused of UK sex assault

Legal "accusations" against (very distant) relatives do not go into biographies of living persons on Wikipedia. That includes BLP's of sitting presidents. --Bigtimepeace
talk
see: Obama brother accused of UK sex assault From the article: "he approached a group of young girls, including a 13 year-old, and allegedly tried to sexually assault one of them." These are the dry facts. Include it on the Obama's article! Gordon Bleu (talk) 13:16, 12 April 2009 (UTC) Why? Is this article called "Samson Obama"? -- Scjessey (talk) 13:19, 12 April 2009 (UTC) There is a "Family and personal life" section in the article.Gordon Bleu (talk) 13:36, 12 April 2009 (UTC) So? He has almost a dozen half-brothers and sisters who have their own lives. It is not really biographically relevant to Barack Obama. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:53, 12 April 2009 (UTC) And he is already the second criminal among them, the first one was George Obama, see: Obama's brother on drugs charge. Wouldn't you think that's quite remarkable that large percentage of the US president's family is/was in under police investigation? Gordon Bleu (talk) 14:10, 12 April 2009 (UTC) No. I don't see it as "remarkable". Obama has a huge family, so it is statistically likely one or two of them would run into a spot of bother. In any case, this "story" is already covered in the appropriate weight at Family of Barack Obama, although it bothers me that two tabloid newspapers have been used as references. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:17, 12 April 2009 (UTC) His having a relative that does x, y, or z is not too biographical. However, if the story grows to the point where it impacts the wiki page's subject directly, that might be noteworthy. Anyway, that's my opinion. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 14:21, 12 April 2009 (UTC) I can give you tons other not "tabloid" references: cnn article, bbc article Gordon Bleu (talk) 14:24, 12 April 2009 (UTC) Just including it in the 'family of' article is probably enough for now, but it doesn't say much about society that having 2 related criminals (for unrelated crimes) isn't seen as a big deal (not necessarily a big deal for Obama himself, but for the world in general).--MartinUK (talk) 14:38, 12 April 2009 (UTC) Is it hopelessly old-fashioned of me to be concerned about a distinction between (a) being arrested for or suspected of a crime, misdemeanor or whatever and (b) being a criminal? (I do realize that I'm in the reality-based community, whereas Right-thinking folk hereabouts will stop at nothing to determine the truthiness.) -- Hoary (talk) 15:15, 12 April 2009 (UTC) Note that Gordon Blue is not insisting on the same treatment for Neal Bush on the g W Bush article. POV pushers can, and should, go elsewhere. Conservapedia likes that kind of writing. ThuranX (talk) 15:17, 12 April 2009 (UTC) Michelle, or Kordon, or whatever name you're using today, seeing somebody call the Dirty Digger's News of the Screws a purveyor of "dry facts" makes it yet harder even to start to take any of that person's suggestions seriously. But thank you for the (presumably unintended) chuckle. -- Hoary (talk) 14:55, 12 April 2009 (UTC) It's worth pointing out that his "tons of other not 'tabloid' references" are actually about a different brother entirely. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:31, 12 April 2009 (UTC) Type in google: Samson Obama+sex assault and you will get currently 14200 hits, select any of them and read. Gordon Bleu (talk) 15:37, 12 April 2009 (UTC) And does George W. Bush or any other major American politician's article mention alleged crimes by their distant relations? George W. Bush doesn't even mention the incident with Jenna and Barbara doing the whole under-age drinking thing that got massive press. This is 1) an article about Barack Obama, 2) it's alleged, not happened, 3) he has scores of relations, 4) it's an article about Barack Obama. rootology (C)(T) 15:34, 12 April 2009 (UTC) Actually, go one further beyond politicians. We don't do this on any WP:BLP, or even related things. If some Famous Person's sibling is in prison, or standing trial, or had some famous negative event, we don't report it on the relation's page. We simply don't. Find me one BLP where we do, and you've found a BLP every admin should be racing to fix. rootology (C)(T) 15:46, 12 April 2009 (UTC) If we don't write the facts, then wikipedia will be a big tale. See what are the two closing sentences in the family section: "Obama has tried to quit smoking several times,[203] and said he will not smoke in the White House.[203] "In April 2009, the Obama family adopted a dog named Bo.[204]" It's a joke.Gordon Bleu (talk) 15:50, 12 April 2009 (UTC) Are you suggesting we should treat the Obama article differently than we treat every article about every other living person, for some reason, and include details that we would exclude on any other article? rootology (C)(T) 15:53, 12 April 2009 (UTC) As explained, the issue of allegations against a relative of Obama is not remotely likely to be a subject covered in the article given the current state of the sources. This talk page is intended for proposals and other matters relating to improving the article in question. Please do not use it to make accusations against other editors. Accordingly, unless there is anything new to this I suggest we wind this one down at some point and then mark it resolved as a proposal that has been considered but rejected. Thanks, Wikidemon (talk) 18:34, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

FAQ question 9 is inaccurate

I accept lots of sentences, but that sentence has raised many red flags for me, lets see: "Q9: This article needs much more (or much less) criticism/controversy."

You can search for that, but you find zero hits. In the current article there is no criticism/controversy about Obama. Kordon Bleu (talk) 20:34, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I forget when and the final count but at one time I looked through the article and found 14-16 pieces of information that would be considered negative, some of which (e.g. Reverend Wright, Tony Rezko) were significant controversies and one which is a fairly harsh criticism in the black world ("not black enough"). The FAQ question is correct in noting that the editors of this article have reviewed ever single significant detail in the article multiple times and feel that it presents an appropriate, neutral, factual description of Obama's life and career, and are therefore not eager to look at the article from the point of view of balancing it to have either more, or less, criticism or controversy. It tends to be unproductive for we editors as a whole to look at things in terms of whether they are too positive or too negative, and when editors start disputing that, there is usually little to be gained. Wikidemon (talk) 21:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

In order for an article to retain FA status, it must (according to 1b of WP:FA? an article must be comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context. ::Your statement "[editors] are therefore not eager to look at the article from the point of view of balancing it" is incorrect. An article must be balanced.Smallman12q (talk) 23:37, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

The article has earned and kept FA status through at least two FA reviews while FAQ#9 is in place. We have several hundred thousand reliable sources, enough to fill hundreds of books, and must choose. The article is already at full length so giving more detail to one thing means giving less to another. Facts have been included or omitted here based on concerns of relevancy, sourcing, weight, and explanatory value given the summary nature of the article. Choosing facts on the basis of balance is not a requirement on FA or anywhere else, although WP:WEIGHT speaks to the need for balance in covering minority opinions. Neutrality is the real operating principle behind NPOV, not balance. The two are sometimes friends, sometimes enemies. Balance is an elusive goal. Exactly how negative or positive should we be -- 40% negative? 20% negative? What does that even mean? Should we balance out all the presidential articles so that Obama comes off exactly as favorably as George Bush? Richard Nixon? Abe Lincoln? Vladimir Putin? So that we give equal time to Obama and his critics, e.g. every time he wins an award we give his rivals a chance to respond? That would all take this article down a rabbit hole. Anyway, my response to the question was to point out that the FAQ correctly notes the community's consensus on the matter, not to try to defend it. It would take a significant change for people to decide that we should try to re-balance the article or even look at it from the point of view of balance. Very little good, and a lot of angst, has come from past attempts to push that. Wikidemon (talk) 23:48, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

The whole point is that information here, positive or negative, should ideally mirror that presented in reliable mainstream sources. I think this article does that quite well. Merely because some blog reports some random opinion of Obama (good or bad) does not mean we need to give it representation in this article. Facts and reported analysis on Obama included in this article need to be given due weight comparative to those facts and reported analysis representation in reliable sources; and that also means that if something does not merit inclusion by a preponderance of reliable sources, it does not merit inclusion here. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 14:18, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

What about a disambiguation page for all of the Obama articles: Barack Obama coverage or Articles related toBarack Obama. Then there could be a single see also to that page. There seems to be lots of interest in some of the more peripheral issues regarding Obama's life and political career and I wonder if there isn't a better way to point people in the right direction and let them know that these issues are covered, just in a different place. Yes I know there are categories, but I don't think it's enough as the same questions are being asked time and again. When I see that it indicates maybe we're not doing something as well as we could be. Cheers. ChildofMidnight (talk) 03:39, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

The same questions are only asked time and time again by anti-Obama folks, however you decide to frame it. You are essentially suggesting we reinvent categories just for Barack Obama - presumably so we can give more prominence to Ayers/Wright/Birther nonsense. -- Scjessey (talk) 03:47, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I see that ChildofMidnight has decided to completely ignore this discussion. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:48, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I've nominated the new "disambiguation" page for deletion. I believe it attempts to reinvent categories, is a misuse of a disambiguation page, and serves no useful function not already served by normal Wikipedia mechanism (such as blue links, templates, and the aforementioned categories). -- Scjessey (talk) 14:56, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Canis est obvius niveus domus

I see that the pooch story has made it to the article, with a brief edit war ensuing. I'd like to propose that the dog is excluded from this article on the basis that it isn't really biographically relevant. It seems to me that it is more appropriate to one of the child articles. Perhaps Presidency of Barack Obama or even Family of Barack Obama. Bear in mind that the canine belongs to the Obama daughters, not the man himself. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:08, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

In case anyone is interested, the White House blog has more on the dog, including two high-resolution images that someone could upload to the Commons if they see fit: Meet Bo -- Scjessey (talk) 17:28, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I really agree with Scjessey. The little doggy is trivial and should be moved to a sub article.--The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 18:11, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

As do I, which is why I reverted the edit including the little guy in the first place. QueenofBattle (talk) 18:15, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of what they say about it, we're not going to keep it. The pooch will no doubt acquire his own article lickety split. But with us telling editors that there is no place for certain issues in the article, I don't think we can justify giving house room to the puppy dog. Anyone for Checkers?--Wehwalt (talk) 19:14, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Dog info is perfect for the Family of Barack Obama article as suggested above, but really has no place here (unless the dog plays an important role in the health care debate or gets the Israelis and Syrians to sign a peace treaty or convinces Obama to switch parties or something). --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 20:34, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

At last, something I can agree with with you all. The puppy is trivial, unless there is precident to add it based on other presidential articles, but I doubt it.--Jojhutton (talk) 03:50, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

There seems to be wide agreement that this dog won't hunt so I think we can let sleeping dogs lie, but as a point of comparison and for future reference I will mention that the famous Millie - who even wrote her own book! - does not appear in our article on George H. W. Bush. That seems appropriate to me and probably worth remembering if this ever comes up again, maybe during the dog days of summer or something when there's nothing better to talk about.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 04:11, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Concrete proposal for adding in a bit of criticism

Many of the detractors of this article (such as the new editor Duálszerver in the previous section) offer complaints but little in the way of reasonable suggestions to make the article more balanced, in their view. So let me offer a suggestion.

The current section on the presidency is understandably short, but the obvious thing to add next is something about the budget. The House and Senate both passed budgets at the beginning of the month, and in the near future (maybe starting next week - I'm not sure) those will have to be reconciled into a final version which Obama will then sign. I think this event will be worthy of inclusion in the article (at least for the time being - as his presidency moves on we almost certainly won't discuss every budget in this biographical article). I think what we can also discuss at that point is some of the objections to the budget. For example, while I personally find them largely incoherent and more than a little bit ridiculous, the recent "tea party" protests were clearly partially directed at what the protesters see as excessive spending on Obama's part. I think that's worth mentioning, perhaps along with grassroots efforts in favor of Obama's budget (which were not covered as fully, and perhaps not especially effective in the end).

Overall I would see this as being two or three sentences which would discuss: 1) The basics of the budget that eventually passes; 2) Some general objections and probably a quick mention of the 2009 Tea Party protests; 3) Also maybe a brief mention of efforts in favor of the budget, or perhaps some general polling data on how Americans felt about it at the time it was passed.

It will probably be a week or two before we can put something like this in place and it would need to stay short, but I think it would be an appropriate addition to the section on his presidency at this point in time. I think without question the most notable criticism of Obama right now relates to government spending and the debt, and I think it would work well to mention that in the context of whatever budget eventually passes. We should have secondary sources galore covering these topics in tandem with one another in the near future. Any thoughts? --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 06:49, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Assuming the budget passes, as roughly anticipated, three sentences on the matters seems like two sentences too much. There is a lot of legislation being proposed and pushed by this administration. A budget is certainly very important in that list, but unless something special happens around this legislation, it's not more than a sentence of relevance. After all, every president, in every year, signs some budget: that fact in itself isn't of special biographical significance; and what significance it has is closer to the "Presidency of" article. LotLE×talk 07:23, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

The exact length is definitely negotiable, but this particular budget is of somewhat greater interest in my view because: A) It comes at a time of enormous economic crisis and thus is seen as particularly important, the best historical analogy would be to some of the measure in the early New Deal; B) It's quite ambitious and a relatively radical departure from budgets of the last few decades; C) A protest movement was organized partially in response to the budget and received significant media attention, which is not at all common when it comes to budgets.

So overall this is not just "some budget" - it's a major milestone in Obama's presidency to date and thus I think a bit more discussion than normal is warranted. Note that I would expect this to change with the passage of time - i.e. two years from now any mention of the first budget in this article would probably be significantly reduced and possibly eliminated. But for now it's just as if not more important than anything else he's done as president.

I would note that another possibility would be to tie a sentence or two on the budget to some mention of the admin's actions with respect to the banks. In my view both of these, separately or certainly taken together, are more important than the admittedly very important $787 billion stimulus bill, and we already have four sentences on that. Maybe we should work on stripping that down a bit and adding in material on the budget and the banks, though really I don't think it hurts to expand the presidency section at this point (particularly once Obama hits the hundred day mark - which I believe will be on April 30th - and some more evaluative-type pieces start appearing in the press). --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 07:53, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

While I certainly agree that most of those at the tea parties were anti-Obama, they clearly had no real idea who was to blame for what is happening. Their protests were ostensibly about taxes. As such, it might rate a mention in an article about taxes, about the bailout, about the deficit, about government spending, about the economic crisis. It's a stretch to even add it to an article about Obama's budget, as we are currently operating under George W. Bush's final budget, which he signed around February 2008 to cover what they call the "fiscal year" that runs from October 2008 to September 2009. It's either deluded or disingenuous to think Obama's to blame for current conditions. It's arguably premature to criticize a budget that is only slightly more than George W. Bush's last budget yet includes the cost of the war in the first year the budget is in effect, when Bush's budgets relied on emergency supplementals like the one Bush's budget forced Obama to request this past week.

There were protests against the Iraq war (and Bush for pushing for it) all over this country in 2003, and an unprecedented series of protests and demonstrations during the Republican National Convention in August 2004, when half a million people marched past Madison Square Garden the day before the convention and maybe a third of that demonstrated the following day, with diminishing numbers each day of the convention. The NYC Police Commissioner declared there were a million protesters that week, in one city. Yet such massive turnout in one place doesn't appear in the George W. Bush article or in the Presidency of George W. Bush article. Why? Because it clearly didn't affect the man or his actions as president. While it was inconsequential to him, it wasn't inconsequential to history (although of course he had a second term), and it is mentioned in the RNC article and in greater detail in 2004 Republican National Convention protest activity.

If these teabag-toting anti-taxers' misunderstandings about who is to blame for their 2008 taxes ultimately has some effect on what Obama does about taxes going forward, then it might rate a mention in the Presidency of Barack Obama article, though it might be hard to prove its causality and in any event would still seem more appropriate for an article about his tax policy or his budget. Of course, those in those crowds who seek only to diminish his political capital (I hate that phrase) aren't exactly being constructive in getting him to do what they claim they want and radically change the financial system as he's vowed to do.

I agree with Bigtimepeace: notably held criticism with real merit arises about every president, and when it rises to the level of inclusion in the man's biography, it should go in. For example, there is some criticism I've been hearing by legal experts and constitutional scholars that Obama is coming dangerously close to being negligent in looking the other way on the issue of the investigation of terrorism and other war crimes on the part of the previous administration. Does that belong in the article yet? No. Because Obama hasn't yet made a definitive decision one way or the other. Putting it in the article at this point would be getting out in front of the story. That people have alleged such things against George W. Bush for years hasn't even made it into his article, much less what Obama or whatever branch as would have jurisdiction has yet to do about it in his second month in office. Duálszerver notes that there is "controversy" about Obama's dog. What do you think the reaction would have been had a shelter dog damaged something in the White House? There are certain things that any president simply could not win. There are certain things this (black) president simply cannot win with a certain vocal segment of society. Those two categories are not terribly relevant to a brief bio here, even if our hyper 24-hour news cycle with various slants screams it at us all night and all day. We should focus on what a president could reasonably be expected to get right, or not completely screw up, and the notable and important criticisms that truly affect the country, the man or both.

Protests against fiscal policy, taxes, government support of corporate interests et al are routinely a part of, for example, the G-20. (These people are usually considered communists or anarchists.) That it happens this year on tax day seems more a delayed reaction to the events of the past eight months, two years, eight years, thirty years, depending on how astute your awareness of the issues is—or, perhaps it merely dates back to January 20th or November 4th. It's clear that Republicans and Fox News commandeered a libertarian issue in an effort to reignite the populism of their vanquished party after so many years of corporate cow-towing. Taking all these elements into account, excuse the pun—Reagan's deregulation, the Gramm/Bliley/whomever bill of '99 (signed by Clinton), the last 8 years of Bush's massive spending and further deregulation climaxing in the recession, the stock market crashes, and the unprecedented bailouts, followed by an awareness of how free those Socialist Europeans are about demonstrating, I'm not surprised that someone decided to do so here with regard to fiscal issues; I'm just a little surprised and saddened to see it be the types of people who hit the ground running on hate for the brand-new president. We basically ignored that faction after Bush became president, and after 9/11 we galvanized behind him hoping he would be able to make the sweeping changes we needed to make us safer here and track down the perpetrators abroad. (Whatever happened to that part?) It's ironic though hardly surprising that some of those who were most patriotic at that time, willing to stumble into expensive wars and the like, are the first to turn that patriotism against their president the moment he's not a Republican. (Imagine if it had been a "she".) This, even though the same resolve for sweeping changes and tracking down criminals and changing laws and accruing some (hopefully temporary) costs are also a part of this crisis. Abrazame (talk) 08:18, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. Well a lot of that was a bit off topic (more political analysis than opinion about the article) but you make your point in the first couple of paragraphs. I personally agree with you that the protests were rather incoherent - but that's a personal political opinion and really has no relevance here at all. They happened, and clearly the big complaint coming out of these protests (in addition to complaints about taxes - which was the really incoherent part) related to government spending, including the proposed budget, but also of course the stimulus, TARP, etc. The fact that we are still operating under G.W. Bush's budget or that Hank Paulson gave us TARP is irrelevant - we don't get to judge whether these protests makes sense or not, we just decide if they are worthy of a mention in the article (most of your comment speaks to the former point).

And please understand what I'm proposing here because I don't think it's especially radical at all. A neutral sentence or two about the budget (maybe combined with some discussion of the bank plans Geithner put forward), and then some phrase like "a number of groups and individuals objected to what they saw as Obama's fiscal irresponsibility - objections which led in part to coordinated "tea party" protests around the country." Not that exactly but something like that, probably even shorter, and probably in tandem with a mention of those who hailed the budget as a good thing. I think we're getting to the point where we need some more detail about Obama's economic plans, and in mentioning that we really need to say something about the reaction to them. Mentioning the tea parties seems an easy way to get at the criticism, but if there's another way to do that I'm open to it.

And again I don't think we should do anything with this yet, I'm just starting the discussion now in anticipation of a final budget being passed in the near future. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 08:49, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I think any proposal that cites as its justification that the article should have more (or less) criticism is basically DOA. Content proposals should be based on normal content questions: is the material verifiable, reliably sourced, relevant to the topic, neutral, etc." If so we can consider it according to other content measures. If not it does not pass the threshold. But testing content according to whether it is positive or negative to the BLP subject is simply not a legitimate criterion. Wikidemon (talk) 09:28, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps I framed it poorly, but the justification for what I am suggesting is not that the article "should have more criticism." Articles of course have to be NPOV and cover a given topic as fully as possible (within the limits of an encyclopedia article) which is the "justification" for my proposal if that's how we want to phrase it. I don't think there's a particular problem with NPOV right now as many are suggesting, but I do think the section on Obama's presidency needs some expansion to cover his current economic and budget policies in a bit more detail, and as part of that I think NPOV dictates a mention of some criticism of those policies since, at this point, that's where the heaviest criticism of Obama has been.

I hope that clarifies the rationale behind this proposal (if not I can try to clarify further) and if so I'm hoping Wikidemon and others can comment on the substance of what I'm proposing - i.e. should we add a few sentences about the budget/bank plans/etc. with a quick mention (in some form) of some criticisms (and perhaps some accolades) for these policies? If a proposal like that is truly "DOA" then we have a major problem here, because that kind of stuff (if not exactly what I'm proposing) is going to have to end up in this article eventually. The section on the presidency is going to get a lot bigger over time, and it's going to be a mix of good stuff, bad stuff, and neutral stuff. I'm proposing a very small step in that direction. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 10:01, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

That's the problem when some (mostly new) people come to the article and propose us to add certain criticism to the article, mostly the requests are only requested to be added because according to the person there is not enough criticism,I think Wikidemon means that those kind of proposals are DOA.If we add criticism just for the reason of their being not enough,we lose the other points that say what should and shouldn't be in the article stuff like, reliability and weight.We will add criticism to the article but they will have to pass criteria to be added to the article.To the three points you brought up early on about how important the budget is, I agree with you on a and b but i can't agree with you on c or with any of the people in the TEA parties protesting against wasteful spending by buying 1 million teabags...Durga Dido (talk) 11:21, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Personally I think that it should be brought up merely as a way of showing that the Obama administration has seen (not responsible for but has seen) some of the highest quality entertainment since Carter got attacked by a rabbit. But in all seriousness, there is another thing that is missing: Castro's reaching out to Obama (or is that still too new?). Soxwon (talk) 14:28, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Ow yeah, that is definitely a big thing,especially seeing as Castro's seem like they want to help,Fidel asking what they can do for Pres Obama and now Raul saying he is willing to talk about everything human rights, political prisoners and press freedom.However I think we should still wait a little bit, and see how serious both sides are to address this issue and to see how far this actually gets.I personally am very happy with what both sides are saying.Durga Dido (talk) 14:45, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I can definitely see something about Cuba ending up here in the not too-distant future, but perhaps we can try to stick to the original topic for this section for now? Discussing Cuba or other possible foreign policy additions might be best done in a new section, though I tend to agree with Durga that we might want to hold off for now.

I can't say that I'm impressed by the overall quality of the responses to this proposal so far (incidentally I'm not remotely "new" to this article if that's what was being implied, and even if I were that's neither here nor there - folks who edit here regularly have become way, way to jaded in my view, though that's somewhat understandable given the constant attacks from SPAs). Durga Dido does not agree with including criticism of the budget/spending a la the tea parties but does not explain why. Just saying "I can't agree" is not really sufficient for an objection - why do you think that particular criticism (or something similar, I'm not wedded to putting the tea parties in, it just seemed like an obvious way to go as a way to quickly mention criticism of fiscal policy) does not belong in a more detailed discussion of Obama's economic policies? Soxwon makes a joke so I have no idea if that editor is serious about bringing in the proposed criticism or not. If other editors can hold off on the tea party jokes that would be terrific, and instead I'd love to see more direct responses to the suggestion here if possible (as, for example, LotLE did above).

Just for the record since questions of political loyalty seem to be an ongoing and unfortunate undercurrent on this page, I voted for and still support Obama on the whole (I'm well, well to his left - and probably well to the left of just about everyone who edits here - so the kind of criticism I have of him has nothing to do with what the the "tea party" folks are complaining about). I'm not proposing mentioning the tea parties or some similar criticism of his economic policies because I want to make Obama look bad or am on some POV mission, rather I think we should start expanding the presidency section a bit within the next two or three weeks and it makes sense (in my view, and in light of the need for a neutral point of view) to include the most notable criticisms of those policies up to this point simply because those criticisms have been widely covered in secondary sources (100 times more than "teleprompter usage" or other nonsense that has recently graced these talk pages). I'd appreciate it if editors here could put aside all of the unending past shenanigans on this page and evaluate this proposal in the spirit in which it was intended - improving the article. I'm fine if folks disagree with it, but I'd like to see policy based rationales for that disagreement and/or alternative proposals. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 19:01, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I definitely haven't seen any evidence that the tea-party "protests" rise to the level of any biographical significance whatsoever for Obama. Anti-tax griping is pretty routine, and the fact that Fox News managed to pretend the routine event was some new and widespread sentiment is something that will be forgotten in a couple weeks. The budget itself is really nothing special. It's a slight increase from the last administration's budget, and it shifts spending priorities to a moderate degree. Other than tax-day stunts and political pandering, the right one sentence to add once the budget is signed is just along the line of what I say in this paragraph: "Obama's first budget [passed by Congress on <date>] represented a moderate N% increase from GWB's final budget, with the largest increases/decreases in [military/education/whatever]." Perhaps a clause could go in there about Obama actually accounting for the war spending as part of the budget, rather than the GWB deception of making it "special expenditure." LotLE×talk 19:20, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree broadly with what LotLE says. I'd like to add, however, that it probably makes more sense to have this discussion at Presidency of Barack Obama, which is a more appropriate venue for this sort of thing. If (in due course) this turns out to be both biographically and historically significant, then perhaps we can look at summarizing whatever went into the other article in this one. Bearing in mind this is a summary style article, in most cases the content of this article should only be briefly summarizing something that exists in another, assuming it follows WP:BLP appropriately. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:28, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

(ec with Scjessey, replying to LotLE above) Well I do disagree with your assessment of the budget, and I think most secondary sources do as well (it's much closer to being an LBJ-style budget than anything we've seen in decades). I think it's a significant departure from recent spending practices (not as much as I'd like to see certainly, but significant in comparative historical terms). However that's not a huge deal so we can leave that to the side I think.

Your basic idea for a sentence works for me. I'd like to see it paired with some discussion of the bank policies (which are extremely important, obviously, and again we have four sentences on the stimulus which in the long-run is less significant than the budget or the bank stuff). I do continue to think that some mention of criticism (and support) for all these policies is warranted - nothing has provoked a stronger reaction among politicians and the general public so far and we should reflect that in the article. Editors are rejecting a mention of the tea party but as I said I'm not beholden to that. I could see a sentence along the lines of "Concerns were raised by congressional Republicans and other critics that Obama's fiscal policies increased the national debt to an unacceptable degree, while others saw them as necessary measures to stem the short-term economic crisis and as wise investments in future economic growth." Better worded than that but something along those lines, obviously we could heavily footnote it and maybe therein would be a good place for a link to a general article news article on the tea protests. Would something like that work? --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 19:44, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Bigtimepeace I did not mean you in the new user and I was being serious although i can believe that it may have not seen so partly because of the last especially because of my last sentence.With the two reason you brought up to show why you wanted to include the sentence int he article I don't have any objections.For me personally it would not make a difference if it was in it or not.The part about DOA I was trying to point out it doesn't really help your point if you say they reason you want something included is because there isn't enough criticism or praise.IF something is to be added, it should be added because it helps the article, not because there is no mention of it or because the other view isn't represented.So if it is important and as important to other stuff in the article it should be included.The same thing goes for reliability.Bigtimepeace I also don't mean you in particular about trying to push a certain issue or trying to push it in bad way,and I don't mean to say the only reason you want it is to add some criticism. I was saying why i thought WD said the proposal was DOA, I know your trying to help because I have seen you help us before. Durga Dido (talk) 19:47, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I like the sentence you gave Bigtimepeace, however I would see if there is a way we could say some of the critics were from he public and so it seen that it was not from critics that would have criticized Obama no matter what he didDurga Dido (talk) 19:51, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

How could this article be featured?

I'm quite surprised. How and when Obama's article has featured? Without controversy/critics section this is a little interesting and raising many red flags. Multiplyperfect (talk) 23:34, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

If this wasn't your first edit ever on Wikipedia, you would know. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:36, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you could re-read what you asked before here. Grsz¹¹ 23:41, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

criticism section

I've already read the new article about Bo Obama, the dog of the president's family. Believe or not there is a disputation and criticism section on that page. It's shame that on the much larger priority page on Barack Obama there is 0 critics. Duálszerver (talk) 06:07, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Honestly, if you can't see the ironic sociopolitical statement about our culture that there would be a criticism section about a dog, no matter who he belongs to (though of course especially because he belongs to a president), then I don't suppose you'd see the point in any response to your lamentation. But at least you've read that article. Abrazame (talk) 07:00, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

How dare you criticize the Messiah? This is Wiki. lol —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.12.184.141 (talk) 08:31, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Obama deception

The obama deception movie has attracted the attention of more and more people. Is it possible to have a mention about it on the page? There are 31 entries on google news, from mainstream news sites: http://news.google.com/news?um=1&ned=us&hl=en&q=%22obama+deception%22 A few are informative, and many negative, but still, I believe it is worth to have it mentioned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Echofloripa (talk • contribs)

There is absolutely no possibility whatsoever of this "movie" being mentioned in this biography. It might possibly find it's way into other articles, such as Alex Jones. -- Scjessey (talk) 00:40, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

That's correct, fringe documentaries about major political figures, of which there are many, do not belong in their biographical articles and that's really all there is to say about it. And Echofloripa, don't dump random links into this or any other talk page - this is your one and only warning about that.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 00:44, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, the link wasn't suppose to end up there. 194.74.151.201 (talk) 13:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Caption

Why delete? I keep on adding an explanatory caption to this infobox, which is one of its parameters, and some users keep on deleting it. I have no idea why. Captions are useful for understanding what it is you are seeing and in the case of a human whose appearances changes over time, it is necessary. There is a reason why this parameter exists, and I don't understand why it shouldn't apply to this article. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:26, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Captions are not generally used for those photographs. See other presidential articles. Tad Lincoln (talk) 05:36, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I find it distracting and irrelevant to note in the caption of a recent photograph of a person what year the photo was taken. If it is a particularly old photo, or there is something else in the context that is not apparent on viewing, a caption would be helpful, but then it would not be a great photo for the infobox. If anyone wants to know more about the photo they can click on it and see the image page. Wikidemon (talk) 09:51, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

FAQ

{{editprotected}} Can someone add this question under the FAQ, probably under article mechanics?

Why is this article featured?

The three featured article criteria often used to justify this question are 1b, 1d, 1e: comprehensiveness, neutrality, and stability. These three are intertwined: people think it is not comprehensiveness because it misses out some controversy, which also makes it biased in some way; or people think that to ensure it is comprehensive, we must sacrifice its stability. However, the article's 100KB-plus size means that we need to use a summary style, which means that controversies that are not ultimately important to Obama's biography are not dealt with in the biography, but in one of the sub-articles. With regards to the question of the stability criterion: instability, in the context of featured articles, is defined as "content changing significantly from day to day". The featured article criteria do not discourage minor updates during a presidential campaign or a presidency; indeed, the article John McCain was promoted during his campaign.

Thank you. :) Sceptre ^(talk) 06:14, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. Can I leave a day for this suggestion to gather consensus? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:09, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I suggest a little more discussion, and some improvement in the wording. Is this really raised frequently, and is it really a question? It seems to have been asked twice by the same editor, perhaps to criticize the article as not being negative enough rather than actually suggest anything. The question of adding criticism is already addressed in other FAQs. Further, there may be a process problem using a FAQ to defend the article's FA status, because FA quality is something to be determined by FA review rather than announced by the article editors. A more humble approach would be to describe when the article achieved FA status and was reviewed, and simply note that those doing the review at the time felt that it met the criteria. - Wikidemon (talk) 09:48, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I've declined the editprotected request. The article is not fully-protected (it is only semi-protected). - Rjd0060 (talk) 14:07, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Well it wasn't a request for Barack Obama, was it? It was for the FAQ. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:35, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

What FAQ? And why is the request here? Ah, I see. Talk:Barack Obama/FAQ. The editprotected request should only be added once there is consensus for the change. Given that you're apparently watching it, there is no need for the tag. - Rjd0060 (talk) 15:41, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

(e/c)Sorry Rjd, I think my comment was a bit snarky and I just came back to reword it but I see you've already replied :) The FAQ is at Talk:Barack Obama/FAQ and is fully protected. Sceptre orginally (and ingeniously) originally put the request at Barack Obama/FAQ, but this obviously could not stand as it was in mainspace, so I moved it here. I can't think of a more appropriate place to put the request. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:45, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

There have been multiple snipes against the FA status for months; including this might defray only a half or third of such trollings, but any reduction in the noise would be a default improvement of the S:N ratio here, which can only be welcome. ThuranX (talk) 21:04, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

There is no section on his citizenship!

question answered - in FAQ and article templates
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
There is a controversy surrounding this man's citizenship, that if true, would bar him from holding the presidency. Obama has not released a vaild birth CERTIFICATE (which is different than a CERTIFICATION) and this article makes absolutly no mention of it. Oh, but it is a minor issue... No it isn't! he just has teams of lawyers working to keep everyone silent! There should be a mention, if only one sentance! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.31.254.77 (talk) 21:38, 20 April 2009 (UTC) Please see the FAQ at the top of the page, question 5, for a quick answer to your query. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:40, 20 April 2009 (UTC) This has already been discussed many, many times before. Feel free to check the talk page archives. Cheers! Scapler (talk) 21:42, 20 April 2009 (UTC) In addition, if you go to the bottom of the page and click the "show" button for the "Public image of Barack Obama" article, you will see a link to the article referenced in FAQ #5, citizenship conspiracy theories. Wikidemon (talk) 21:44, 20 April 2009 (UTC) Can we just start deleting these from now on? Delete it and put FAQ #5 in your edit summaries. ThuranX (talk) 22:26, 20 April 2009 (UTC) I'll comment on your talk page, but in general it's usually best to explain patiently and WP:AGF. Wikidemon (talk) 22:31, 20 April 2009 (UTC) Oh it's under the "show" button for the "Public image of Barack Obama"? Well that makes prefect sense. Is that the 6th or the 7th template? And as you've been so good to point out, it's also in the talk page archives. Why didn't this reader just look there? imagine these people coming here fo find an article about Obama. And they don't even seem to appreciate that we've gone to the trouble of producing Faq #5. I mean it's not like we have a password that has to be used in order to access it. Some people are so ungrateful. It's almost like they expect us to have a list of Obama article subjects so they can find what they're looking for from a single see also link. The NERVE of some people. ChildofMidnight (talk) 22:36, 20 April 2009 (UTC) Wait, you're actually complaining that factually false internet conspiracy theories are not being placed prominently in a living person's biography? You really have a lot to learn about Wikipedia. --Loonymonkey (talk) 22:40, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia's Barack Obama coverage

As the aggressively archived discussion above indicates, we've had reader after reader come here unable to find certain article content even when it's included somewhere else on the encyclopedia. So clearly it's not enough that we have Faq #5 on the talk page or that an article is listed somewhere in one of the many collapsed templates at the bottom of this article page. Whether or not we think an article is worthwhile, we apparently have a problem that readers looking for that information can't find where it's included in the encyclopedia. What should we do about this problem? ChildofMidnight (talk) 23:36, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Really? I think most readers of an online encyclopedia have some idea of what the word "search" means, so readers legitimately "looking for that information", not just trying to strong-arm their views into the article as some of these innocent readers were, would have no problem at all in finding it. Because in addition to what's been discussed in the previous section, if you type "Obama citizenship" or "Obama birth certificate" in the search box on the left of every Wikipedia page, the first article it hits is Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories. And the FAQ here is not collapsed, and this subject is clearly displayed. And there is a search box above to search the talk page archives. And we answer the question each time it is asked. So in my view this "problem" has been well addressed, many times over, and in multiple ways. Tvoz/talk 23:49, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

The page is easily locatable. The push to include its content here is not rooted in any concern about that. --GoodDamon 23:55, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more. Tvoz/talk 23:58, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I think using the search feature is one good suggestion to make to those who are having trouble finding article content. Finding Faq #5 on talk page, the appropriate category, or the right template link is expecting a lot. Are you sure that they are all socks or some kind other kind of devious editor? How can you tell? And I don't necessarily think that type of content needs to be included here. I have noticed there are a lot of "list of articles" and I wonder since there isn't room in this article for all the many Obama related subjects to be wikilinked (most of them unrelated to conspiracy theories and controversies) if it wouldn't be a good idea to have a "list of article" of that sort? It could include all of the Obama related articles. That's what I would like to work towards. What do you think? ChildofMidnight (talk) 23:59, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Let's separate two things. First, regarding proposals that we add links or coverage of the conspiracy theories to the body of this article, I think that's been repeatedly rejected via the consensus process and I firmly support that reasoning. That won't stop people from occasionally proposing it, and because the actual subject matter is a partisan / fringe matter, we get more than the usual share of vociferous proposals. That's one reason to have the FAQ, polite / friendly people hanging out here to assume good faith steer people in the right direction. The second thing is that some people are simply interested in reading about the subject, which is notable and does have its own article. Yes, we can use the search bar here and at google... but if that were enough why do we have wikilinks, see also sections, templates, categories, portals, etc.? If the idea is to have a better organized system for referring people to the information they seek, that can only be good. Whereas there is a policy per WP:WEIGHT of not giving too much text coverage to minor things, there is no parallel policy to make articles harder to find just because we think people's interest in them is unworthy. If people want to find an article they should find the article. ChildofMidnight has created List of Wikipedia articles related to Barack Obama which, although up for deletion or moving to portal space, seems likely to survive. If it does we could feature a link to that as a navigational aid. If not, we could instead create a single master template that comes before or in place of all the little templates. With a good design interface it might be easier to use. Wikidemon (talk) 00:02, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

An Obama portal would be far more useful than this incessant nattering about Obama Conspiracy Theories and daily attempts to engage in rampant recentism. It would be nice to see ChildOfMidnight focus on a portal instead of his POV pushing. We can hatnote it at the top of the article, and move on. The daily attempts to turn this into the indictment of Barack Obama, or to turn it all into a soapbox against whatever actiosn he takes each day, distracts from maintaining a top notch article. ThuranX (talk) 01:18, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

ThuranX, I understand your frustration. But as you've stated, if there was an appropriate linkage, readers and editors wouldn't feel the need to come here and complain (whether as part of some grand conspiracy to try and push that content into the article or out of legitimate frustration that they can't find something they're looking for (which seems more likely to me)). I would appreciate it if you and others would assume good faith on my part. If you look at the history of that article, I don't think you'll find I've made any edits to it in all my time here. This is a reflection of my interest in that particular subject, but even if I were a devout believer that Obama was born in Kenya, Indonesia or another planet (and that it mattered one bit), I don't think it should have any relevance. Whatever my interest or personal views may be, I think we can all agree that notable content should be properly included where appropriate and made accesible to those who are looking for it. ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:29, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Nope, don't buy it. See, Numerous editors here have consistently presented good, reasoned advocacy for not including the material. The 'opposition' consistently says 'oh noes, it's teh librul whitewashing... of the black man...which is racist! Librul racizm!'. It's old, and boring. The biggest reasons why the right is afraid of Obama is that a successful black man who made his millions through use of a brain smarter than theirs is now in charge of things, and they're so damn sure he KNOWS they're bigoted that they are afraid his 'black man's revenge plan' will commence immediately, and will either single them out or ruin the country as the black revenge for slavery. That's it. All this handwaving about tax rates lower than their hero Ronald Reagan's suddenly being socialist is horseshit, thoroughly unsupportable by any logic or evidence. Keeping such alarmist horseshit out of this article keeps is neutral and good. Keeping the panicked thread of 'hope', that he's not really president, alive in this article is similarly stupid. As for Ayers and Wright, both are referenced out to their own articles. We cover his birth, childhood and religion here. We hit all the major marks. Consensus and ration thinking are against the horse shit some few want to see here, and that's tough shit. Go make the portal, and get off this page. Tired of reading your nonsense about 'balance' here. ThuranX (talk) 02:25, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

ChildofMidnight is twisting this to get support for his pointless, policy-violating, category-reinventing, template-reinventing, self-referencing coatracky listcruft. It's all about creating as many links to the birther/Ayers/Wright/teabagger/whatever stuff as he possibly can in order to give them more weight than they deserve. Best to just ignore him. -- Scjessey (talk) 02:35, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Is there even a disagreement here? Navigation aids like portal links and templates (and categories, etc) are reasonable. Better navigation favors all readers. Unless the proposal involves adding links and prose to the body of the article, I don't see a controversy. If that is the proposal, how about a polite "no - been there, done that, haven't changed my opinion"? 02:45, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

<outdent> I haven't made a proposal to include any of those article in the article body. My suggestion is for a see also type link to a well organized list of article with all of Wikipedia's Obama coverage. The controversial ones are certainly NOT the only ones not linked to here. Before I recently added a link, the first 100 days article wasn't linked to anywhere here for example. And I would also point out that hunting for links in this fairly substantial article is far less convenient than a well organized list of article. ChildofMidnight (talk) 02:51, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

The proposals for a "see also" section have been repeatedly turned down. Bringing it up again and again in slightly different forms is not productive and is becoming disruptive. Tvoz/talk 03:00, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

But it's not the same old proposal for a see also. It's a proposal for a single see also to a list of article that includes all of our Obama coverage. That way there will be much less need to assume bad faith and treat people who come here with legitimate questions in such a rude and accusatory fashion when it's us who are at fault for refusing to address the problem. ChildofMidnight (talk) 03:08, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

See also - Listcruft that reinvents the templates and categories just below this pointless section, you mean? That's just plain daft. Nobody comes here to ask where the article on Obama's time in the Illinois State Senate is, or where the article about his first book is. They are all asking where the Ayers/birther/Wright/criticism is. This notion that people cannot find anything is just plain wrong. -- Scjessey (talk) 03:29, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

[ec] And that "article" (the same old "see also" in a slightly different form, as I said) has several items that are clearly inappropriate for a BLP, including as links from the BLP. As has been discussed repeatedly. Sorry, but I'm not buying this as a way to bring civility to these pages - I see it as disruption. I don't believe that there is a groundswell of legitimate confusion about how to find that material - and the rudeness and accusations are not coming from this side. That's it from me - I'm not going to be drawn into this merry-go-round. Bringing it up again and again is disruptive. Tvoz/talk 03:46, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Isn't this the reason we have a search box? Are we assuming these readers are incapable of searching for what they are looking for? Odds are they landed on this article by searching 'Barack Obama' and if one enters 'Obama citizenship' 'Obama and Reverend Wright', 'Obama criticism' etc. you find these articles in question. I don't see a problem here. This is just one of COM's attempts to strong-arm his POV further into the article, a lame one at that. It may be just me, but I view this as disruptive. Landon1980 (talk) 15:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Toy products

Shouldn't we mention some of the products being made of this man? All 'President Obama' toys are very popular in the States and some are sold elsewhere in the world. I think its something worth mentioning somewhere. Here's an example of one on Amazon.com. Ross Rhodes (T C) ^Sign! 15:19, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Interesting point. To be fair, there are bobbleheads of just about everybody these days. Do you have a link to a reliable source that discusses Obama toys? A reasonably sourced, neutral discussion of that might belong in the "public image" article or some other article related to his reception in the world. But on the face of it I doubt that any of this concerns or involves Obama directly, and it is a fairly minor matter compared to his overall biography. If he ever becomes like Elvis and people start having look-alike contests and conventions, maybe that's significant enough to be part of his main bio, but we don't seem to be there yet. Wikidemon (talk) 20:33, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

The Ross raises a legit subject; the selling of the presidency, as there has been since inaug of Obama44 an unending stream of sales of presidential items , as plates, spoons, pics, etc; all with ? kick backs to O44? and that massive selling of these presidential toys, items under the mgt of the Obamacon, raises the further question of the flow of funds of the trillions being spent at the Obamacon44's behest. Are those funds being also mined for revenues for Obamacon et al. e pluribus uberall willy. 69.121.221.97 (talk) 20:25, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't appear to me that Ross was accusing Obama of anything, much less of "kick backs". SMP0328. (talk) 20:37, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

It would seem that it would be more appropriate to bring this up at Public image of Barack Obama, since toys aren't really a biographical concern. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:00, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Why is this considered a featured article?

I am wondering why, given the extreme controversy, this article is still labeled as a featured article.

I thought that if there was even one objection to content, an article was immediately removed from 'featured' status. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.5.171.254 (talk) 01:18, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

They need to be reasonable objects, relating to the Featured article criteria. Claiming that this article is biased because it doesn't include such and such controversy that no reasonable media source accepts as valid is not a reason for it to be removed as featured, as evident from the numerous featured article reviews that can be seen at the top. Grsz¹¹ 01:24, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. Clearly there has been no media coverage of opposition to Obama's spending plans, for example. We like to embrace a see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil philosophy here on Wikipedia. Anyone who disagrees is a right-wing radical nut-job. Even trying to provide accessible links to coverage of criticisms or controversies is a good indication of nefarious activity. ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:55, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, got a comfy perch on your soapy box there, CoM? To the IP editor, the "extreme controversy" is a matter of opinion. "I don't like it" isn't quite sufficient to knock an article out of featured status. Tarc (talk) 03:09, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

There is a process for reviewing the quality of featured articles and having them delisted if the content is judged to no longer meet "featured" status. As you can see from the "article milestones" at the top of the page, three of these reviews have been undertaken in the last 7 months. Apparently on each occasion the decision was made to keep the article's featured status. That strikes me as a lot of FA reviews in a short period of time, but if someone seriously wants to question the featured status of this article that is the way to go about it. I don't think this current discussion here serves much purpose. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 04:44, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

It was tried recently and I think the request to even consider revoking FA status was rejected. So it seems to fall into the "what's the point" category at this time. It doesn't say much for the FA process, but that's another can of worms. It's possible arbcom will reign in some of the worst obstructionists and POV pushers on this page, so we can improve the article and at least have it link to notable criticisms and controversies if they aren't included here. But I'm not holding my breath. ChildofMidnight (talk) 05:34, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Like you? Besides, we do link to some nortable controversies: we link to the Rev. Wright controversy as part of talking about his religious background. Stuff about Ayers is in the presidential campaign article, and is kept out of this article solely because it was ultimately not important to the campaign. And the Muslim rumours and conpsiracy theories are held by such a minority that they don't deserve coverage on Wikipedia, end of (and we don't cover the former, IIRC). Sceptre ^(talk) 05:42, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

The "Royal We" and his opinion. lol —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.12.184.141 (talk) 08:35, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't know the particulars, but if the recent request to reconsider FA status was rejected it may have related to the fact that there were two other ones in the 6 months prior to that.

And to C of M, you really should try to be a bit more patient about including criticism (i.e., patient for much longer than one can hold one's breath). Obama has not even reached the 100 day mark of his presidency. It's almost certain that, in the long run, the main way in which this article will incorporate criticisms will relate to his performance as president (three years from now, issues like Rezko and Ayers will almost certainly be trifling matters and largely forgotten by most Americans). We're just not far enough in at this point to be able to write a good section that evaluates his presidency, including criticisms. That will change obviously. As time goes on, the section on his presidency will necessarily include a fair amount of criticism, but in a balanced manner reflecting the level of coverage in secondary sources (e.g., if Obama's approval rating stays incredibly high and the balance of media stories about him are positive, that will need to be reflected in the article - if not then that will be reflected).

As time goes on and the section on his presidency necessarily expands, I will certainly object to efforts to whitewash notable criticisms. Right now in my view it's too early to be worried about that, and I must say that C of M and many other (often anonymous) editors who rail against the iniquities of this page do themselves no favors by making conspiratorial references to "POV pushers" and a "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil philosophy" (whatever that means). I encourage those editors to take a longer view of the process here and be patient as we work in more information (good, bad, and neutral) about Obama's presidency in the weeks, months, and indeed years ahead. Like all articles this is a work in progress, and the section on the presidency will look a lot different six months from now. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 06:22, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

The issue here CoM is that you were wanting to add controversies and criticisms because they are currently happening, they seem fresh, and possibly more important than they will be in the long run. This is a suppose to be a reasonable attempt at encyclopedia. An encyclopedia is about documenting history, it's not a newspaper or a blog. Current events are much more difficult to incorporate into an encyclopedia because it's difficult to know at the time what will ultimately be truly important and worth mentioning. Let's say the Ayers or the Birth Certificate controversy really picked up steam and McCain won the presidency partly because of it. Then yes, it would be prominent here just as the whole swift boat thing is rather prominent in John Kerry's article. But ultimately Ayers and the "where was he really born" deal didn't seem to have any real significant impact. The former was mostly a stump speech and the latter died on the vine in the courts due to a rather basic constitutional issue of standing and very few people pay attention to it now, if they ever did before. The same is true about the criticisms of his spending plan. First of all the budget itself hasn't even taken effect, and it is too earlier to start declaring that x, y or z was the ramifications of the bailout. No taxes have been raised so I hardly see how complaints about taxes which haven't been raised is significant, yet.

Blog about the teabaggers all you want, but unless they turn out to be significant in the long run it doesn't warrant much more than maybe a passing mention. Frankly the tea party thing sounds like fad that flared up and will fizzle out. I could be wrong, maybe it'll turn into a massive movement, and if that happens, then sure it can be discussed. CoM, you simply are not appreciating the purpose of Wikipedia. It's not meant for every little item that pops up and seems like it could be, like it might be important. I would assume that you don't like Obama. It doesn't matter to me what your political beliefs are, but my point is, the tea parties or people who are criticising spending in general seem really important and big to you. But that doesn't mean that it is really important and big. Let some time go by, let's see how it develops, and then when things have a clearer retrospective focus, then sure we shape the article accordingly. There's a reason why there's a policy about recentism. Pick any president you want and go look at the most detailed Encyclopedia ever. Is every criticism or group which formed to protest a policy mentioned? No, of course not, every President in the history of this country received criticism fairly regularly and there were probably numerous groups which protested policies. It's just the difficulty of putting current events into an encyclopedia, so rather than rant and rave and holler about bias and POV keep in mind the purpose of this cite and have just a shred of patience. And, to be blunt, try and see that your disgust at this being an FA has more to do with your feelings concerning Obama than it does about the content of the article itself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.56.171.108 (talk) 17:20, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

"Obama did not teach constitutional law" (according to Gibbs (according to William McGurn))

According to Robert Gibbs, Obama did not teach constitutional law, so there is a little bit of a conflict with the current information. link

Helen Thomas: Why is the president blocking habeas corpus from prisoners at Bagram? I thought he taught constitutional law. And these prisoners have been there . . .

Robert Gibbs: You're incorrect that he taught on constitutional law. Arzel (talk) 05:22, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

That's kind of already addressed in the references: Fact Check.org While his title was technically not professor, the school considered his status as Senior Lecturer tantamount to being a professor and referred to him as such. I don't know what Gibbs was getting at, other then being uncomfortable with the actual question he was asked, but it doesn't seem to be enough to contradict any of the facts we do know and can verify. —— Digital Jedi Master (talk) 05:42, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If you will look at the article, these reliable sources[1][2] are explicit that Obama taught constitutional law. Constitutional Law III to be specific. It is worth watching, but in all likelihood Gibbs misspoke. Wikidemon (talk) 05:49, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I had reviewed all of the other sources for the statement that he did teach Constitutional Law. The general concensus was that he kind of did, but there is some gray area. I am not here to start an edit war, but just be aware that his own press secretary has now contridicted his own Bio. One of them is wrong. Arzel (talk) 13:18, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Why reading the opinion pages of Rupert Murdoch's The Wall Street Journal will only make you stupider:

1. An April 14, 2009 White House press briefing by Robert Gibbs (Helen Thomas's question at 14:55)
2. An April 14, 2009 White House press office transcript mistranscribed:

   MR. GIBBS: You're not incorrect that he taught on constitutional law.

   as:

   MR. GIBBS: You're incorrect that he taught on constitutional law.

3. An opinion column by William McGurn on page A19 of the April 21, 2009 Wall Street Journal begins with the misquote of Gibbs:

   Robert Gibbs: You're incorrect that he taught on constitutional law.

   to comment:

   All Mr. Gibbs could do was interrupt and correct the doyenne of the White House press corps about Mr. Obama's class as a law professor.

Exceptional claims require exceptional sources—not opinion columns in newspapers that do not do fact-checking.

76.224.20.207 (talk) 15:36, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I believe the technical definition for that is "whoopsie". —— Digital Jedi Master (talk) 01:54, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

For the love of God, this is incredibly stupid. The place of birth thing is absurd enough, but with this, it is incredibly easy to prove the statement wrong. There are finals which he administered which are on the web, U of C law has discussed him being a teacher of Con Law there, there are pictures of him teaching Con Law there, there are numerous former students who have talked about having him as a teacher of Con Law there. Seriously what more do you need? In what way did only "kind of" teach Con Law. Either he did or he didn't. There is no kind of that could even enter the equation. What grey area? How could a "grey area" even exist on the subject. There is only one of two possible answers to the question. What did he show up every day and just lecture and no one had the heart to tell him to leave and then they went ahead and let him create a final exam? Now former students and administrators are just sticking to the lie? There is no quasi Con Law class. You have classes where the Constitution is apart of it, but that's not a grey era. The closest you could come is say a class on the First Amendment. Either the class was Con Law or it wasn't, there is no possibility for middle ground. None. Given the former students, the former co-workers, the administration that all said he tought Con Law, given the subject of the questions on the finals that are posted on the internet and the pictures of him teaching Con Law, I am going to go ahead and state you are a fool if you think that this topic is even worth discussing further. No there is no grey area there is no kind of, there is only a bloggers rant and one dude's awkward verbal slip versus a mountain of hard evidence. End of story.

Um, I think this was pretty much settled a few days ago with 76.224.20.207's comment. Did you read that? It wasn't a verbal slip. Just a misquote. —— Digital Jedi Master (talk) 18:12, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Shel Leanne

Is Shelly Leanne a reliable source on Obama? Glanced at her most recent book, Say It Like Obama, and it's not quite as pedagogical as you'd think. Ottre 17:34, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Is there something particular you want to use from it? I'm not sure I understand the reason for the question. I don't know the book and had never heard of it, but I could imagine it being an appropriate source for certain things, though I'm not sure what, and perhaps it would be more appropriate for a sub-article relating to Obama than this one (something focused on his speeches and the like). Anyhow it's hard to say without knowing what you have in mind since a source might be quite reliable in one context and completely unreliable in another. Also since the book seems to be essentially about public speaking and persuasion it is presumably not at all pedagogical—which refers to teaching strategies and instructional theory—so I'm not sure what you meant by that. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 18:51, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

The couple of pages that I actually read seemed to be analysing his generational appeal. As you imply, it could well be the first of many nn books written for people who want to improve their public speaking, but it appeared to offer a scholarly take on Obama's rise to power in the context of leadership development. Ottre 19:36, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

If that's the case it's possible it could be useful for Public image of Barack Obama, or perhaps for one of the articles dedicated to the campaign if the book is more about how he was able to use speeches and persuasion to win the election. Without knowing for sure though, I'd have to guess we could find better sources (books by historians, political journalists, etc.) that cover in more depth and with more authority some of the issues you say Leanne addresses. I could imagine discussing somewhere in an article (not this one, one of the offshoots) how Obama's speeches have been used to help teach rhetoric and public speaking (assuming that becomes a major trend), and if so this book would presumably be good fodder for that. This is all assuming Leanne is an acknowledged expert in the field. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 19:54, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

What were you doing when Kennedy died?

US Presidents are remembered for having been the first born since the civil war, first born in the 20th century, first that didn't serve in WW2 and so on. Those of us beyond a certain age, 50 something, all know what we were doing the day JFK was assassinated. Obama was 2 years old then so he must be the first US President who is not in the group who remember what they were doing when those bullets were fired. I have been surprised over the years to run into folks who were too young to remember that event, but he is the first US President who falls into that category. --KenWalker | Talk 06:26, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I suppose that's true, but personally I don't really see this as something worth including in the article. Referring to Obama as the first president who doesn't remember Kennedy's death is a bit arbitrary even though that was obviously an important moment in time in American history (then again so was Bobby Kennedy's death and Martin Luther King's, and presumably he has some recollection of those). I think it's more common to hear Obama described as the first post-baby boom president (though I guess he's at the tail end of that group), or the first post-WWII president who did not come of age during (or at least live through) the cultural battles of the 1960s and early 1970s. Or the first "post-civil rights" president if we want to put it that way. I'm not sure we need any of these descriptors in this article, but I think the ones I just mentioned are probably much more heavily referenced in secondary sources than the idea that he's the first president who was too young to remember JFK's death. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 09:36, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

And Kennedy couldn't remember the shooting of the Archduke. So what? Welcome to the concept of 'time'. Not notable at all.ThuranX (talk) 06:16, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I think that what Ken perhaps had in mind was the idea that Obama represents a generational shift in the presidency. Our article on Bill Clinton notes in the intro that "he became president at the end of the Cold War, and as he was born in the period after World War II, is known as the first Baby Boomer president." Obama is arguably the first post-baby boomer president (or something like that), and one way to say this would be to point to the fact that he did not remember a significant event like JFK's death. I don't think it's at all appropriate to put that in the article as I said (perhaps eventually something about his generational significance could be noted), but I also don't think anyone here needed to be reminded about the concept of time. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 06:55, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Bigtimepeace's comments and have had ample opportunity to become familiar with the concept of time, although reminders are useful. The Kennedy reference is only to point out that he is of a different generation than his predecessor. I agree that not remembering the assassination of Ferdinand is not relevant this article (for the record, I don't remember that event either) but the change of generation is relevant amongst the various other changes he represents. --KenWalker | Talk 23:47, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I think this is something we can just bear in mind, and if at some point it seems obvious that Obama is being referred to as the first president of the _____ generation (hey - they should make a song about that!) or of the post-______ era (i.e. in some generational sense) then that would warrant inclusion. I'm just not sure that there's anything approaching agreement on that right now. Perhaps there never will be, and if different terms are used to describe a generational shift in Obama's presidency maybe those could be briefly discussed at Presidency of Barack Obama. It's probably best to wait awhile (maybe even a few years) and see how this whole presidency thing unfolds, but it's definitely worth thinking about. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 00:15, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

How about adding these two words to this sentence?

The article contains this sentence, except for the two bolded words. I propose that these two words be added:

The bill included increased federal borrowing and spending, aid to states, and tax reductions.

Grundle2600 (talk) 00:11, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Seems like an improvement to me; the borrowing is significant. Go for it, see if anyone fights. CouldOughta (talk) 00:34, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm waiting for a consensus before I add it. Grundle2600 (talk) 01:44, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure either way, but did the bill itself actual include "increased federal borrowing?" That is, was the limit on what the government can borrow explicitly raised as part of the bill, or did the bill say "this will be paid for by borrowing x dollars, which is an increase?" If not I don't think we can word it like this. Certainly the government will have to borrow more in order to pay for this and other expenses, but that's not exactly what the above sentence says. If increased borrowing was part of the stimulus bill we would need a source that says that. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 00:49, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

The sentence says they cut taxes. If they cut taxes and increased spending, then where did the increased spending come from? Grundle2600 (talk) 01:44, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

This response sounds like original research to me. Tvoz/talk 02:09, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Grundle if you find a couple reliable sources about the increased borrowing, I think we should be able to work out an NPOV way to include it. As you've pointed out, the stimulus package requires a lot of borrowing. Clearly, the deficit is also related to the economic slowdown, so maybe Tvoz can suggest wording that is NPOV and gives appropriate context? ChildofMidnight (talk) 03:08, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I have no problem with the sentence as it is presently worded, so no thanks. Tvoz/talk 03:50, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't clarify anything, and the problem isn't sourcing. It's a truism that deficit = spending - revenues. There are some complexities like budget estimates, off-budget spending, accounting games, printing money, etc., and all of those are political truisms as well. It does not add to anyone's understanding of things to include an aside, at every turn, that increased spending without increasing revenues requires borrowing. That is a partisan rhetorical flourish - if Obama proposes to spend money it means more borrowing, which means blame Obama for something. Wikidemon (talk) 04:14, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Is it really so simple? The latest issue of Reason magazine says outright by any measure of funding, the general public's reliance upon government will increase with the next budget. Ottre 11:50, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I also want to chime in that the way the sentence is currently written is NPOV and fine. The addition of the two words is in the assumption that there will be borrowing. (Because there is no RS source that says that borrowing has taken place specifically to aid this bill.) This same assumption is also behind the tax day tea parties, that while right now the taxes are being lowered for 95% of the population, the assumption is that sooner or later they will have to be raised again to cover all this spending. The issue here is that there is a big debate between economists whether this is going to happen. Not surprisingly the two sides of this economics debate is also the same two political sides too. Simply put, this is a debate over assumptions and future predictions. If way down the road, Obama does raise taxes, has to barrow money to cover this bill, or someone else, then we can include that. However, to include any derivation of this assumption boils down to synthesis and original research. Brothejr (talk) 12:52, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, Ottre, if ever a statement smacked of panic generation for sake of sales and drama, Reason's statement is it. That's simply a libertarian fear tactic. ThuranX (talk) 13:10, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Here's a source. Fox News says: "The federal deficit is projected to hit a record high of more than $1.8 trillion this year, due in large part to the government providing aid to Wall Street firms and other struggling companies, as well as Obama's $787 stimulus package." Grundle2600 (talk) 13:49, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Quote says nothing about borrowing. ThuranX (talk) 14:21, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 had a CBO reference: The fact that the stimulus package increases debt is neither disputed nor surprising; it's inherent in the idea of the stimulus and was freely if hotly discussed by all parties. There is the objection by Bigtimepeace that the language of the bill may not have addressed the actual borrowing; we may want to use "increased Federal deficit spending, aid to states..." since the increased short-term deficit is what makes the stimulus, at least in theory, work. This addition slightly improves a section that is a little short right now. CouldOughta (talk) 15:44, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Fixing the reference. The cite: and then the reference : CouldOughta (talk) 16:07, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Recovery.gov, the website created for this Act.

I'm not against the principle, but I don't believe it's an accurate way of stating it, because the "aid to states" and "tax reductions" also directly cause an increase of the deficit. A better, more neutral and accurate, way of stating the same thing would be "The bill included increased federal spending, aid to states, and tax reductions, paid for by an increased federal deficit" or some-such. I'm not sure Fox News would be a strong source for citation, however, given their well-publicised bias, but the CBO citation would be a decent source. -137.222.114.243 (talk) 16:16, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

New Pakistan / anti-terrorism info

An editor has reverted this proposal[3] citing length, which gets to WP:WEIGHT. That means that this one matter takes up too much of the entire article in relation to its relative importance to Obama's life. I agree with that, but also see problems relating to encyclopedic tone and WP:NPOV (neutrality), relevance, and focus. To avoid redundant discussions, I'm opening a topic at Talk:Presidency of Barack Obama, where similar material was just added (and where I will remove it for purposes of discussion, if it has not already). This is more relevant to the presidency article than the bio so it makes more sense to hash it out there. This article is even broader than that one, so we have a higher threshold of importance before something is worth adding. Whatever we say here, if anything, would likely be considerably shorter and focus on what it says about Obama's overall life and career rather than the policy / world events aspect of it. Wikidemon (talk) 17:19, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Definitely agree that it makes more sense to discuss this material over at the "Presidency" article, and that we should forgo any inclusion of "anti-terrorism" operations in this article for now. However if we expand the presidency section at some point in the relatively near future, it would not be unreasonable to at least consider including a quick mention of the operations in Pakistan in a paragraph on foreign policy. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 17:39, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

This was originally in the wrong section, but the information is relvant as it immediate follows the President's policy in Afghanistan. It is well supported and most expert's would agree the Pakistan is the most signicant national security threat. This should of been shortend and moved, but not of been removed. Obamiac (talk) 20:11, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Obamiac, and anyone else interested, please see the discussion here as that's probably a better place to hash this out. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 20:16, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually I think we may have a sockpuppet problem here, I'm looking into it. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 20:23, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

FYI Obamiac and HoyaProff (the latter being an account which edit warred on behalf of Obamiac's version) seem to be controlled by the same user, along with four other accounts. I've indef blocked the lot of them for abusive sockpuppetry. See here for relevant information. These accounts do not seem to have had a major effect on the Obama articles, however if anyone comes across any accounts that seem to be part of this sock ring please let me know.

Note also that this obviously does not mean that it's not legitimate to discuss inclusion of anti-Al Qaeda operations in Pakistan in this article, or (much more likely) in the article on Obama's presidency. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:47, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

First Hundred Days

Obama hits his 100th day in office next Wednesday. As I've suggested previously on this talk page, I think the conclusion of the first hundred days will provide a good opportunity to expand/revise our current section on the presidency. Right now we don't talk about anything that's happened in his presidency since late February, and while of course we are not a newspaper, I think some stuff has gone down in the last couple of months that is worth discussing in this the main bio article (I mentioned a couple of suggestions in this now archived thread). We obviously have to make decisions about when and how to expand the presidency section over time - it will necessarily take up more of this article as we get deeper into Obama's term - and I think we're getting to a point where some (fairly small) expansion is necessary.

I don't think we need to necessarily frame whatever is added in terms of the First Hundred Days - there is some truth to the idea that it's an arbitrary point at which to evaluate the administration (though given the constant comparisons between Obama's situation and FDR's, it's rather more historically resonant than basically any administration since WWII). The only reason I think it's good for us to rethink the presidency section right now is that we're about to see (indeed are already seeing) a slew of articles in reliable secondary sources that will evaluate the presidency up to this point. Arbitrary or not, this is seen by secondary sources as a milestone. They'll consider the most important legislation, foreign trips, popularity, criticism and support for Obama's policies, etc. In addition to probably importing/summarizing some material from Presidency of Barack Obama and First 100 days of Barack Obama's presidency (though I'm not sure the latter is, right now at least, all that useful in that regard), I think we can get a good sense of what's receiving the most coverage in secondary sources by culling through a number of these "let's-sum-up-the-first-hundred-days" type pieces. It might make more sense to revise Presidency of Barack Obama first, though I still think it's worth it to discuss the overall approach here.

Any thoughts? Does this strike others as a good time to grow the presidency section a little bit? Also note that I don't at all think we need to/should have this done by the hundred day mark, indeed we would probably want to wait until that passed before making significant revisions. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 10:08, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

And one other thing, which perhaps has been mentioned previously, but the "political positions" section really needs to be reworked. Essentially all of it precedes his election and time in office. I think we'd want to keep a good amount of that, but we'll also want to start to show how his positions evolved (or stayed basically the same) after he took office. That's probably a rather tall order and it probably makes sense to work on that somewhat separate from the section on his presidency (though I suppose it's actual possible it could be easier to work on them in tandem), but I just wanted to throw this out there as well. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 10:24, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I am in complete agreement. Sufficient time has passed, with some of the new legislation and executive decisions having a chance to "bite", to begin thinking in terms of "historical perspective". I'm sure there will be a wealth of material referencing the first 100 from the mainstream media in the coming few days. Regarding your second point, there is a similar discussion going on at Political positions of Barack Obama; an enormous article in dire need of an overhaul. Since the "political positions" section of this article is meant (to a large extent) to summarize the sub-article, work on improving this section should happen in tandem with that. WP:OBAMA is certainly a gigantinormous project! -- Scjessey (talk) 15:13, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I support a small expansion of the Presidency section, importantly adding the car company bailout and the concern over the expansion of Taliban influence in Pakistan. (The Taliban expansion part undoubtedly will need revision as developments develop.) Maybe including his foreign trip, though its effects look minor at the moment and the most notable element was his popularity, which if commented upon is likely to start edit wars. I strongly support not having a "first 100 days" heading. Eventually the Presidency section should go back to having subsections, probably Foreign and Domestic initially, but eventually Economic, Domestic, Foreign Policy, and War Policy. (I was part of the elimination of this breakdown earlier, since the section was too small (and probably still will be for another 6 months).) We need to resist a large expansion at this time-- the Presidency section ideally would grow gradually as his presidency takes form. I'd like to lobby now for avoiding a strict chronological approach in the section. The edit warring is less if we just list events and actions in chronological order, but it's more informative if organized topically. Regarding "political positions", it might be better to wait until the fur settles down over the Presidency section expansion. CouldOughta (talk) 15:30, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

"War policy" seems like it should be part of "foreign policy" if we are going to talk about recreating sections. Also, I was not aware that America had declared war on any nation. Did I miss something important? -- Scjessey (talk) 15:42, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

You really need to check your tone, Scjessey. He didn't say anything about the United States declaring war on anyone; more likely, he was talking about the reshuffling of troops from one theater of operations to another ie Iraq to Afghanistan. If you can't participate without being snarky, I suggest you you're in the wrong place. Ikilled007 (talk) 17:50, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I was making a valid point that you cannot have a "war policy" when you aren't actually at war. No snarkiness was intended, and may I respectfully suggest that it is you who needs to "check your tone" and discuss the article, not the editors. This puts your comment in the proper perspective. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:02, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

The US is at war. That's what its government says. It's "the war against terror" (it sounds nutty to me, but I'm not the government). Or rather less nuttily, a war against Al-Qaida. And the duck test: The US kills other people and destroys stuff, and those nationals kill people and destroy stuff: yes, it looks like war, smells like war, generates body-bags like war. Even if the recently departed Potus didn't actually ask for any sacrifices from those not at war, so in some ways it doesn't seem like war at all. Certainly it brings on snooping and government violations of the Constitution like war. The US does this without declaring war, because declaring war irritatingly starts to democratize the decision or even hinder it. Whether or not the previous administration had any policy for its war, I'd hope that the new one does. -- Hoary (talk) 10:23, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that war is mostly foreign policy; the four headings suggested just seemed like appropriate divisions. If we use "Military Policy" instead, the topic also would include the Defense Secretary's proposed changes to military spending, which might be a nice way to organize the summary.CouldOughta (talk) 00:32, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Both Scjessey and Ikilled007 need to comment on content, not other editors. Too many discussion get sidetracked when folks start attacking each other and that really needs to stop completely, particularly from veteran editors of this page. I don't think we need to have a "war policy vs. foreign policy" debate about sub sections at this time, since I don't think anyone is proposing that we split the presidency section into sub-sections just yet. We can cross that bridge when we come to it. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 00:57, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Record !! During this first 100 days the Obama 44 Admin has spent (at least had authorized, some yet to be spent) more money/funds than all governments on earth since the earth began, clearly a reocrd; but some feel this massive, resulting new USA debt (5 trillion from Obama44 and 2-3 trillion from Bush43) has already broken the back of the USA ultimately bankrupting it and so destroying the most successfull country in global history. added in this edit by some IP

There are so many facts to write up that Wikipedia in general and certainly this article in particular can safely skip writing up what some unspecified people "feel". -- Hoary (talk) 12:32, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Inauguration of Barack Obama/archive2‎

Why are we getting no feedback at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Inauguration of Barack Obama/archive2‎ except a stale oppose for an image that was removed last week?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 00:22, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I dunno. You do realize this is the talk page for Barack Obama and not Talk:Inauguration of Barack Obama, right? -- Scjessey (talk) 19:18, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Obama's plan against swine flu

Discussion has devolved into name calling and bickering, and we are not going to take any action re: swine flu right now so this discussion is finished
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Why there is zero word about it in the article? From http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/27/swine.flu/index.html: Currently 103 deaths only in Mexico and 1614 reported cases. "The government declared a public health emergency." " In the United States, the largest number of cases was in New York City, New York, where the CDC confirmed cases in eight students at preparatory school." I would like to read more about Obama's plan against flu, if there is any. And not after killing 20 millions peoples. Multiplyperfect (talk) 10:01, 27 April 2009 (UTC) Wikipedia is not a newspaper. Oh no, wait, it is a newspaper, but what you're looking for isn't here but at 2009 swine flu outbreak in the United States. -- Hoary (talk) 10:10, 27 April 2009 (UTC) He is the president, responsible for the people's health. Multiplyperfect (talk) 10:14, 27 April 2009 (UTC) Him, personally? Well well. I thought that was the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, etc. Either way, if you want the article to say something, then rather than complaining that it doesn't say it, try drafting it right here. If what you write is cogent, concise, and backed with sources, perhaps you'll persuade somebody to put it into the article. -- Hoary (talk) 10:28, 27 April 2009 (UTC) Exactly. Bring something to the table about this non-issue, and then let us review it. A third world country has a disease, Obama lets the correct group of scientists evaluate the situation and formulate a response, and some right winger runs to wikipedia to bitch about Obama's cowardice in delegating the matter, not flying down there and healing the sick with a miraculous touch. ThuranX (talk) 11:49, 27 April 2009 (UTC) Too early. If they start dropping in the streets in Dubuque, then Obama's response needs to be in the article. At this time, the outbreak has had little direct impact in the U.S.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:54, 27 April 2009 (UTC) "A third world country has a disease" Hm, this would imply that US is also a third world country, because currently there are hundreds of such cases, some of them are already proven. And note that this "third world country" as I remember has got a border with US. Multiplyperfect (talk) 17:42, 27 April 2009 (UTC) Best to let coverage of breaking events percolate up, starting with the article about the thing (the 2009 swine flu article). As we get a consistent picture of what Obama and the administration are doing about it, something that probably won't be apparent for a few weeks, we can make the decision of how, what, and how much of this to cover in the article about Obama's presidency. Finally, once we have enough perspective to know whether this figures into Obama's life story we may or may not add a note about it to this main bio article. It would have to be a huge event that directly involves the president for it to be worth noting here, and we just won't know that... likely not until we know whether this is really a big pandemic, avoided or not, and what the president's role was in dealing with it. Wikidemon (talk) 17:47, 27 April 2009 (UTC) "something that probably won't be apparent for a few weeks," Oh man! What you know about exponential growth? If in a day the number of deaths are doubling (what is currently true) then we have got 2 million deaths in two weeks. Would you wait this point? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Multiplyperfect (talk • contribs) 18:04, 27 April 2009 (UTC) Yes. Regarding the flu, we don't know how deadly it is or how quickly it spreads.[4] We certainly don't know the extent or success of the US reaction to it, or Obama's role in that. It is all speculation at this point. If your guess of two million deaths in two weeks, which would require more than doubling the rate every day, came to pass, we would have more immediate concerns than how to write about it in Wikipedia. Wikidemon (talk) 18:12, 27 April 2009 (UTC) (ec Wikidemon - we had a similar idea I guess) Multiplyperfect this really is not the place for alarmist pronouncements. As of now no one has died in the U.S. and apparently a little over a hundred have died in Mexico. You are the first person I have heard suggest that this will kill 2 million people in two weeks, a notion which strikes me as incredibly, incredibly unlikely. It's not even known exactly how deadly this outbreak is, and indeed that's only one of many unknowns. We need to wait and see how this unfolds before even considering whether to include information on this in any Obama article. And honestly if 2 million people do die in the next couple of weeks we're going to have much bigger things to worry about than editing Wikipedia. I recommend we close this thread in the relatively near future as there's very little to discuss right now and not much purpose is served in a continued back and forth. If this does become a very big deal we can certainly discuss it again at that point. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 18:13, 27 April 2009 (UTC) It looks like you know very little about flu. In an average year flu kills half a million peoples in the world. But in a pandemic flu the deaths is 20-50 millions. Multiplyperfect (talk) 18:35, 27 April 2009 (UTC) But is this a pandemic? And even if it spreads wildly, is the death rate high or fairly low? We do not know, as basically every media source is saying. This is the point. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 18:43, 27 April 2009 (UTC) ← No one is suggesting that the flu is not a serious matter, Multiplyperfect. The point is that this is a biography of Barack Obama, and at this point the flu has no place in this article. I concur with Bigtimepeace that we should close this thread for the time being. Tvoz/talk 19:08, 27 April 2009 (UTC) I'm greeting the guys from White House. Deleting everything that is bad for Obama. Multiplyperfect (talk) 19:39, 27 April 2009 (UTC) Alright, you annoying troll. Let's be fucking clear about this: You're interested in turning this into an attack on Obama. here's the fucking news. Republican Susan Collins removed the Flu preparation package from the stimulus bill. Your party, not the black guy. Nothing about it's going into this article until it matters. A few cases brought back from Mexico by travellers is NOT an epidemic; it's a media frenzy. And what Mexico does is up to their government, not Obama. Grow up, learn to read, stop looking for ways to blame the minority. ThuranX (talk) 19:53, 27 April 2009 (UTC) Name calling is not useful, never has been.--Jojhutton (talk) 20:00, 27 April 2009 (UTC) Spanish flu took 25 weeks and resulted 100 million deaths. We are in the first week. Multiplyperfect (talk) 19:59, 27 April 2009 (UTC) Knock it off Thuran, that could not be less constructive. I've already warned Multiplyperfect about the last comment. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 20:01, 27 April 2009 (UTC) If there's several million deaths on US soil and becomes a defining moment of Obama's presidency then it definitely deserves a mention in this article. Until there is, you're merely trying to mention a relatively minor current event in a tangentially related article and that makes no sense. -137.222.114.243 (talk) 20:52, 27 April 2009 (UTC) OK, wait for millions of deaths in the world. Multiplyperfect (talk) 21:10, 27 April 2009 (UTC) Whether or not that comment is straight, it seems to indicate a withrawal of the proposal - which is unlikely to be adopted at present, and getting increasingly off track. Thus, may we close this discussion as a proposal that does not have consensus? Wikidemon (talk) 21:18, 27 April 2009 (UTC) Go ahead and close. So far this is just a bit of hysteria fanned by the 24-hour news cycle, just like the H5N1 "pandemics" from 2004-2007. --Bobblehead (rants) 21:20, 27 April 2009 (UTC) This thread should be closed. It is becoming a magnet for trolls with unhelpful derogatory comments. The issue has virtually no biographical significance. As with all presidents, Obama will likely follow the advice of the CDC and WHO, while helping to clear any barriers that may crop up to hinder the effort. If this turns into a pandemic with significant mortality, I'm sure the matter will be considered again. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:27, 27 April 2009 (UTC) Yes, Obama saves the world. Again.Multiplyperfect (talk) 21:35, 27 April 2009 (UTC) I hear he was born on Krypton... --Bobblehead (rants) 21:45, 27 April 2009 (UTC) Okay, folks. Show's over. As and when the majority of news sources start writing about the president's response to this, we can start writing about it in Presidency of Barack Obama. In the event that this flu becomes an important part of Obama's life, then we will cover it in this, his biography. Until then, let's not pollute this thread with sarcasm, off-topic discussion, and incivility, okay? In case anyone needs to be reminded, there are some excellent guidelines as to how we should conduct ourselves - and some equally excellent warnings of sanctions if we don't - here. SHEFFIELDSTEELTALK 21:56, 27 April 2009 (UTC) "that this flu becomes an important part of Obama's life," You know something? Is he infected by flu? Multiplyperfect (talk) 21:59, 27 April 2009 (UTC) Just stop trolling. No one's amused by your childish racism. ThuranX (talk) 22:54, 27 April 2009 (UTC) I am not racist. Could you proof it? Multiplyperfect (talk) 23:06, 27 April 2009 (UTC) I could, but you'd deny it. So fine - for the purposes of this section, you're not a racist, just a troll. Stop it, move on to other articles. ThuranX (talk) 23:13, 27 April 2009 (UTC) Seriously Multiply? The Spanish Flu? Millions of deaths? Really? You don't even think that maybe there's a difference in perhaps both the strand of flu as well as medical technology, living conditions of average Americans, general conditions of urban environments from the Spanish flu epidemic until now? I mean why stop with the Spanish flu, hell the black plague wiped out a third of Europe in about a decade. Should we go ahead and just make blind comparisons of a completely unrelated virus while ignoring little facts like we can now effectively treat virus' like the bubonic plague? The number killed by the Spanish flu had far more to do with living conditions in New York City and the lack of adequate health care than it did the virus itself. Frankly, like the bird flu, what is likely to happen is that as it passes from humans to other species back to humans and so forth, the swine flu will begin to lose its potency, it becomes weaker as it mutates. Also given the fact that it has yet to show an ability to kill beyond at risk groups it is simply unlikely to become a full blown epidemic of any size. But all of that is besides the point, and I probably could have just made a sufficient response by calling you stupid. There is absolutely no reason to put the swine flu into Obama's biography, that's ridiculous. Sure it might deserve its own article or subarticle as part of Influenza in general, but in Obama's bio? Should we put West Nile Virus into George W.'s bio simply because people thought that was going to be some massive virus that would just pile up a body count? What happens happens but safe money's on this thing being blown out of proportion. I'm just basing that on how our media works and how influenza works. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jdlund (talk • contribs) 00:03, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I started a new Obama related article!

The Truth (painting)

Grundle2600 (talk) 23:09, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice. I'm not sure this page is great as a general purpose bulletin board though - I'll comment on that article's talk page. Wikidemon (talk) 23:39, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:WikiProject Barack Obama is the proper forum for such announcements. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:44, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh. OK. Thank you, both of you, for telling me. Grundle2600 (talk) 01:13, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I looked at the page. I'm not really sure where to put it. Grundle2600 (talk) 01:19, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

New apologize

This is not a talkboard, this page is for suggesting sensible edits to the article. Editors who are unable to abide to the restrictions placed on this page are likely to find themselves blocked. --Cameron Scott (talk) 13:13, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
See: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/04/27/low.flying.plane/index.html Include it in the article. "A White House official apologized Monday after a low-flying Boeing 747 spotted above the Manhattan skyline frightened workers and residents into evacuating buildings. The huge aircraft, which functions as Air Force One when the president is aboard, was taking part in a classified, government-sanctioned photo shoot, the Federal Aviation Administration said." Multiplyperfect (talk) 12:04, 28 April 2009 (UTC) No doubt this has its own article already. This article only covers major events in Obama's life. The flyover does not qualify. Thanks for the suggestion, though.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:07, 28 April 2009 (UTC) This editor is a POV pushing SPA; with the exception of a single edit to the account talk page, every single edit is to this talk page to push for some asinine anti-Obama material. ThuranX (talk) 12:25, 28 April 2009 (UTC) "No doubt this has its own article already." Not necessarily. Just figuring out what to call the article could take a couple of days! Grundle2600 (talk) 12:54, 28 April 2009 (UTC) Tsk tsk, we mustn't use words such as "asinine" even if deserved. -- Hoary (talk) 13:02, 28 April 2009 (UTC) Dear MultiplyPerfect, I can't even parse the title of your new comment. (In my particular variety of English, adjectives ["new"] don't modify verbs ["apologize"].) But clearly you are upset and outraged. Indeed, you seem to be outraged rather often. I can understand that: I'm often outraged too. (What a coincidence! Small world, isn't it?) Me, when I'm outraged, I go straight to wonkette.com. For this particular outrageous atrocity, I heartily recommend this Wonkette story. Be sure to read all the comments. And then do please join Wonkette and comment there. The rest of its commentariat will be sure to appreciate your insights and make you feel right at home! But as for this website, I think you've had your fifteen minutes. -- Hoary (talk) 13:02, 28 April 2009 (UTC) Nice to read that you think its POV. The real situation is that Obama attacked the New York residents by his new hobby, with his low flying above the city. After only 8 years of a brutal terror attack, who thought that the peoples will not frightened by a jumbo jet? And it's time to call him a sorry guy.Multiplyperfect (talk) 13:08, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Consensus and Tertiary Sources issue

Closing discussion. Please see the answer to Question 2 in the FAQ --Bobblehead (rants) 18:10, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
So if everyone were to still have a concensus that the world was flat, would that mean it was correct to put in wikipedia, as tertiary sources stated so? Furthermore, it should be people of directly mixed ancestry that should decide what terminology to label themselves, not the general public concensus. We do not use this type of labelling for any other race than black, thanks to the slavery etc, and we already know that the concept of the on-drop rule, where everyone with a trace of black ancestry is labelled black was formed in the 1920s by white supremacists who wanted to keep the white race pure, hence labelled any in-between as black. It's an originally racist concept. Why wouldn't any 'african american' with a trace of one-drop of white ancestry, i.e (usually lighter than dark brown)be called white? It's precisely the same absurd principle. Mixed race people's opinions are continuously ignored in all sections of society. In fact there has been evidence shown from 'reliable sources' such as New Scientist to say that mixed race people are discriminated against mroe n the workplace than black people, and govermnet statitiscs form teh UK show that mixed race people are 50% more likely to be a victim of crime than ANY of the other main ethnic groups in the country, including those that are black. If the point in race labelling was to identify these issues, then surely mixed race people should be classified seprately , because statistics have shown these different trends. If they put 1st African American president, they should also include 44th European-American president of the United States. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.192.129.91 (talk) 18:07, 29 April 2009 (UTC) If you have concerns with how Americans label racial backgrounds, this isn't the venue for it. Grsz11 18:11, 29 April 2009 (UTC) So what determines whether a consensus is in fact factual information or popular opinion? There are probably numerous sources in other countries that say the American Government is planning on nuking Iran, it doesn't mean it's true. Could this be stated as factual information in Wikipedia? The race aspect is just an aspect of this discussion, involving reliability of tertiary media sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.192.129.91 (talk) 18:15, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry but this issue has not been covered in the FAQ section 2 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.192.129.91 (talk) 18:18, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

This talk page is for discussing how to improve the Barack Obama biography article. It is not for meta discussions about consensus and sourcing. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:21, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Unsuccessful health politics

Closing discussion. Brothejr (talk) 14:33, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
My proposal for the article: WHO raised the swine flu alert level 5. Currently US has the biggest number of proven swine flu cases 91, compared to Mexico's 26 cases. It is indicating that something is wrong in US, one reason can be that we had no health minister.Multiplyperfect (talk) 22:32, 29 April 2009 (UTC) We don't do original research - and how many times do you need to be told that this is a high-level summary article and we wouldn't cover that level of detail here? --Cameron Scott (talk) 22:36, 29 April 2009 (UTC) WHO fears swine flu pandemic imminent for the source. Multiplyperfect (talk) 22:38, 29 April 2009 (UTC) "high-level summary article" Uff. Without critics, this is only a big tale about superman. Multiplyperfect (talk) 22:39, 29 April 2009 (UTC) What the WHO says + your take that something is wrong with US response = Synthesis and original research. it's not going in. --Cameron Scott (talk) 22:40, 29 April 2009 (UTC) If you can't solve a puzzle then don't edit! I'm a thinking man, not a copy paste machine like you. Multiplyperfect (talk) 22:43, 29 April 2009 (UTC) I've asked that you are topic banned from those articles, you may wish to comment here before that happens. --Cameron Scott (talk) 22:50, 29 April 2009 (UTC) Good riddance. We're better off banning him; his only purpose on Wikipedia is to demonize Obama, using the most spurious of 'logic' and the mast fanciful of 'what ifs'. ThuranX (talk) 00:00, 30 April 2009 (UTC) As discussed before, it is too early in the evolution of this event to know what will happen, whether Obama's role in it is significant enough to mention here, and exactly what that role is. If you're worried about an epidemic, there is a lot to worry about and a lot of places one can go to worry. There is no hurry here - editing the Obama article is not the biggest priority. Wikipedia, as they say, has no deadline. Wikidemon (talk) 01:56, 30 April 2009 (UTC) What are you talking about? Obama is the president, responsible for solving the crisis. Multiplyperfect (talk) 05:31, 30 April 2009 (UTC) It's not going into the article at this time because the sources have not established it as a signifigant biographical or career event in the life of the president. We will keep an eye on it as news stories emerge. I'm not interested in a debate on the subject - at this point we've all explained it. Your disagreement is noted.Wikidemon (talk) 05:44, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

U.S. GDP sees worst drop in five decades

Discussion has moved to Presidency of Barack Obama. SHEFFIELDSTEELTALK 19:28, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I think it would be good for Obama's article: U.S. GDP sees worst drop in five decades The source can't be better. Multiplyperfect (talk) 15:09, 1 May 2009 (UTC) Actually the source is worthless, we don't use wikis as sources in articles. --Cameron Scott (talk) 15:12, 1 May 2009 (UTC) In this case see the sources on wikinews. I'm a little surprised, never thought that wiki is blacklisting wiki. This is weird. Multiplyperfect (talk) 15:14, 1 May 2009 (UTC) Wikis are not considered reliable sources because anyone can edit them and they lack strong editoral oversight - this is why wikipedia itself is not considered a reliable source. I see you learnt nothing from your recent block and it's like the next one is going to be for good. Either you are trolling (and thus shouldn't be here) or are incapable of grasping our policies and/or the purpose of this article (and thus shouldn't be here). --Cameron Scott (talk) 15:17, 1 May 2009 (UTC) This material isn't relevant to this article. Multiplyperfect has been warned. SHEFFIELDSTEELTALK 15:18, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

It is time to stop feeding the troll. Future posts that are not inline with WP:TPG will be removed. BigDunc^Talk 21:01, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Resolved - Troll indef blocked. Mfield (Oi!) 21:04, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism

2nd para of lead. --139.78.10.1 (talk) 00:22, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Redundant discussions

In case anyone is wondering if they have an original comment about one of the frequently-discussed issues for this article, here is a list of discussions at length which have taken place just in the past couple of months.

Race

• Talk:Barack Obama/race
• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 47#Barack Obama is half-white
• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 46#Ethnicity in first sentence
• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 46#Media coverage of ethnicity controversy and the intro
• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 46#Mulatto, the term is Mullato
• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 44#He's Multi-Racial.
• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 43#Obama and race

Religion

• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 47#Religon
• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 46#Religion

Citizenship

• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 46#Supreme Court Controversy
• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 45#Still no mention on the birth certificate?
• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 45#Donofrio v. Wells
• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 44#Unverified Birth Hospital Needs Revision and Reference

Full name

• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 46#Article Name
• Talk:Barack Obama/Archive 44#Barack Hussein Obama JR, not II

Give this some consideration before deciding to start another one. Bigbluefish (talk) 14:24, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Please skim this page first (and ideally the FAQ) before starting a new discussion about Obama's birthplace, citizenship, race/ethnicity, etc. You'll probably find there's already a section there where you can add your comments. Thanks, Wikidemon (talk) 00:09, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

If you want to read about where Obama was born and have concerns about it, read Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories#Citizenship facts, rumors and claims and in particular this source which is heavily utilized in the article.

Where is the archive on Ayers? 68.5.11.175 (talk) 19:42, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Should we select one from this list? ↜Just me, here, now … 19:56, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Any of those should do. I do wonder why the Ayers topic is not included in the "Discussions". Admins getting censor happy?Miker789 (talk) 02:18, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Did you miss the whole WND invasion? They spammed the page and we even got mentioned on Drudge and Fox News for having "whitewashed" the article. Soxwon (talk) 02:22, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Where did the discussion on Teleprompters go? I don't believe that was finalized.Miker789 (talk) 02:22, 16 March 2009 (UTC)