Talk:George W. Bush/Archive 34

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Election 2000

This section needs some cleaning up. The following phrases are confusing:

• After defeating Senator John McCain in the Republican primary, both candidates jockeyed for months for the support of moderate and undecided voters. However, election night turned out to be even closer than anticipated. TV networks called the race first for Gore, then for Bush, and finally too close to call.
• Gore had ironically won a slight majority of the national popular vote ...

I'm sure there's more to be done, but those two phrases are pretty confusing. The former jumps from the primary to the general election, and the later protends irony, but there's nothing to suggest what that irony is. glocks out 23:39, 27 October 2005 (UTC) The RED print hurts the eyes!!!!!!!! Maoririder 21:06, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

The first one wasn't dealt with very well. I think the problem stems from the "both candidates" term. It doesn't establish what candidates were contending. The second one wasn't fixed either. There isn't establishment of what is "irononic". glocks out 20:43, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

O.K. but before the article stated that neither Bush nor Gore received a majority of the national popular vote, and that was factually incorrect. Jazz1979 02:17, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

No, that is not factually incorrect. A majority means "more than 50%". Gore received 48.38% of the popular vote, and Bush received 47.87%, with minor party candidates taking the balance.[1] Thus, although Gore received a plurality, neither candidate received a majority. Brandon39 05:44, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

So that's a POV opinion and shouldn't affect the content of an article? -- Tyler 08:14, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

We have a winner!  ;) Brandon39 08:17, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Wow

This article has over 20,000 revisions - more than twice as many as any other article (see Special:Mostrevisions). – ABCD✉ 01:55, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. Apparently, GWB is about 3.5 times as controversial as Jesus.

And remember, the Jesus article is a lot older than the Bush article. If we take that into account, Bush is about 5 times as controversial! I love how we can give controversiality a number! --gwc 01:42, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Intelligent Design

While this paragraph is written well, and does offer a fair look at the topic (IMO), I am not sure the whole paragraph needs to be in this article. I was looking it over to see how to cut it shorter, but I'm drawing a blank. Thoughts? glocks out 21:26, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps more should be put into the article about Intelligent Design. If more people knew more about it, they would realize how ludicrous the concept of it is. I went to the 'museum of intelligent design' in eureka, arkansas, and it was the most pathetic thing I have ever seen. Intelligent design runs on the basis that dinosaurs lived at the same time as humans (though before 'man's sin' they were all vegetarian), and requires that humans were much larger than they are today, something on the order of over ten feet tall. They make these claims in the museum saying that "there is evidence that..." which is then followed by a complete lie, such as the finding of organic material in a T-rex bone, and that humans used to be larger (though homo erectus was sometimes taller than the average human today, it was no where near that required for the ark to be explained by intelligent design. If we put intelligent design into science classes in the United States, we will be the laughing stock of the world--we are laughed at even for considering the idea. 66.139.107.220 03:13, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I feel the way this paragraph is written presently is good. It shows there is controversy and gives the link to the main article on the controversy. Before it had a lot of quotes from a summary of a book with a link to where you would buy it. The book was about creationism and not intelligent design, which are considered two schools of though. The main article will show all the opinions around it, not just one opinion from a summary written by a nameless person. If we're going to put one PoV, we have to put more PoVs in the article. Keeping it short is the best way to go. I don't care either way on the specific issue of ID v. evolution, just trying to keep things as NPoV as possible, and cutting down on the overall length of the article. glocks out 20:01, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Plame affair

This Plame affair section doesn't even need to be included in the Bush article, IMO. It begins with "allegations concerning his conduct", but never even talks about his conduct. George Bush hasn't been implicated in the matter at all by prosecuters, and what his staff does doesn't necessarily need to be included in his article. (ps. 5 felony counts aimed at Libby!) glocks out 22:20, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Constitutional law states that the president is responsible for the actions of his staff. That's why the founders of the u.s. government decided to have a single cheif executive in the first place: accountability. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 22:53, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

That's fine ... for a court of law. Maybe even true of a media outlet. Wikipedia is neither. As a matter of fact, if Bush is responsible for Libby's perjury, then Bush would be indicted. Apparently "constitutional law" doesn't hold the president accountable for every action the individual does. glocks out 23:01, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Well it's not the law that holds one accountable, only people can do that. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 16:22, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Current events are going to keep creeping into this article when they are the headline of the week. More info gets added and the content gets slowly worked into the main body. Two months later, the article will still have a long tangent about some occurance editors wanted to blog about that isn't really relevant to this article at all. Hurricane Katrina and Downing Street Memo are examples.

Proposal...to stem the tide of crap, what about just having a bullet list of current issues facing the administration with links to subpages? I've noticed the most stable sections of this article are in the form of short paragraph, link to subpage, short paragraph, link to subpage, etc. This method is good at showing editors that there is almost always a better place for their info than the main GWB article. For items that everybody wants to soapbox about now and forget about next week, I think a bullet list with links is the way keep things under control.EricN 23:06, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

That's a fine idea. I don't necessarily want to remove this bit of information, it could turn into something as important as Watergate, but it should be short and sweet. Something along the lines of "The Bush administration faced challenges when Vice Presidential Chief of Staff Lewis Libby was indicted for perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements during grand jury testimony. The indictments followed a 22 month investigation about who leaked information to the media about a covert CIA operative." (link). That seems like enough for this article. glocks out 23:13, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

I cut the following photo...

[Image:Plame and Wilson.JPG|left|thumb|200px| Valerie Plame and Joseph C. Wilson in 2004.]Various members of George W. Bush's White House team were alleged to play a role in what became known as the Plame affair. Valerie Plame, wife of retired ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, was identified as a CIA "operative on weapons of mass destruction" in a July 2003 column by well-known conservative pundit Robert Novak.

I know Plame is hot news, but a photo of her with husband doesn't really belong in this article unless she's sitting with GWB, sleeping with GWB, or has even personally talked with GWB. EricN 21:49, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I was the original community member responsible for adding this section to the article. To Steven Kippel, I would say that I agree that with Kevin Baas--this is just one more thing that has happened under Bush's watch. And because no member of any President's White House team has been indicted in 130 years, that makes a blurb about the affair belong in the Bush article. To be fair, some anti-Bush e-zealots have tried to add blatant POV sentences to my original snippet, and I have dilligently removed all attempts at unfair coverage. The main thing that is apparent now, is that this whole Plame situation is raising questions on how the administration dealt with opposition to their to push to war in Iraq. To EricN, I would agree that perhaps the photo does not belong, but you did snip a large portion of the article's intro. I have replaced it. Scientz 21:50, 30 October 2005 (EST)

This isn't an article about the Bush administration though. It's an article about George W. Bush. That's my point. Sure, this should probably be a notation (as I have said above), but it doesn't need to be hashed out in its entirety. glocks out 21:39, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I completely agree that this could be shorter in current events. It doesn't seem to fit in "public perception", because this is not high on the general public's radar. Gas prices, yet, Valerie Plame, who? This is currently media spin that is trying to be stuck to President Bush, and it is better noted and covered in its own article. -- KBecks

130 years

That 130 years figure is way off. Multiple people were indicted in the Clinton Administration and Reagan Administrations. Probably in others as well, but I know there were in those two. i.e. this isn't that historic.--WAHooker 12:27, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

The 130 year reference needs one key qualification. Libby is the first White House employee to be indicted WHILE EMPLOYED AT THE WHITE HOUSE. Other WH employees - quite a number from the Nixon and Reagan admins - have been indicted. But the people had either resigned or been dismissed prior to the indictments being given. So the fact that he is the first in 130 years in this category is quite notable and is being referred to constantly by non-partisan media as a fact. Davidpatrick 15:34, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Fishing for stuff...it's still no smoking gun.--MONGO 04:44, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

A possible bug on the page?

Do any other admins see the "protect" button on the top of the page as reading "unprotect"? The article is obviously not protected, and this is the only article that I know of that has this artefact happening for me. --Fire Star 20:41, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

It's not a bug. I, as well as others, try to make sure its protected from moves. This way no one moves Dubya to STUPID DICTATOR WHO DOESN'T CARE ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE... etc. Redwolf24 (talk) 20:46, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Thanks! --Fire Star 20:49, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Luckily though, no such protection exists for, oh say, John Kerry which is why every now and again, it gets moved to 'John Kerry IS A STUOOOPID FAGIT WHO IS RAMBO AND WANTS COMMUNISM' and so on, well, anyway....--21B 00:58, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Important people in Bush's life and career

This is a pretty good summation. The only issue I have with it is that some of the language reads as if written by a White House PRO. Anyone else feel the same way?Fergananim 14:55, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I think that whole section is poorly constructed, totally redundant, and would improve the article by vanishing. Info about his family belongs in the "Family and early life" section. Info about his staff belongs in the Administration section. Info about what Ari Fleischer was doing in the third grade does not belong in a 95Kb article on GWB. 24.63.71.236 20:54, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

95 KB

I know this is an extremely important topic, but the page continues to grow, and thus, so does the size. I would really hate to lose any important information, as there's so much to say about the man, but 95 KB seems to be overdoing it a bit; we need to split this article off, as per Wikipedia:Article size. Any thoughts would be appreciated. -[[User:Mysekurity|Mysekurity]] ^{[[additions | e-mail]]} _{03:23, 2 November 2005 (UTC)}

Bush the most popular figure on Wikipedia?

Wow I didn't know George W was this popular, my goodness, the guy has double digit archive talk pages. I remember someone saying over on the Hitler talk page that Adolf's page was the most vandalized, I wonder how it does against this page.

Not even close. This is by FAR the most edited page on the site, by a factor of more than two. See Special:Mostrevisions.--chris.lawson 06:01, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

At least until the next election. Then someone else will surely take that spot. --WAHooker 12:21, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

I believe the record for most archives is Terri Schiavo, however. The volume of talk there is mind-boggling. Marskell 12:25, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Number of archives is irrelevant. Some of the archives here, and elsewhere, are incredibly long and could be broken down into three or four more archives themselves (17 here is 666 KB long for instance). I don't really care, just thought I'd point that out. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 19:03, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Not anymore Matt Yeager 01:03, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Of course, the archives can vary in length though I wouldn't call the number "irrelevant." It's indictive of controversy generated. Marskell 08:18, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Right, but I could go put every section of a random articles' talk page into different archives and have probably 50 archives, but put ALL the sections of this talk page (say, around 1,000 sections) into one archive and have only one. It is a matter of size, not numbers. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 15:05, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

so, what title can you think of for the following ranked list?

1. George W. Bush
2. Hurricane Katrina
3. Wikipedia
4. Adolf Hitler
5. September 2005
6. 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
7. Jesus

I vote for "Most Revisions on the English Wikipedia". Good enough? Why am I even feeding trolls? --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 19:30, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Apologies for botched revert

I was reading this page and noticed some left-wing POV. I moved to revert the last anon editor who inserted the POV, yet I wound up accidentally reverting another anon who had rightly removed the fluff (he had gotten to the vandalism before I did). For the future and for those of us who are new, how does one moving against vandalism avoid reverting another anti-vandal revert (and thus restoring POV vandalism)? Thank you. Saravask 11:44, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Science section

Adult stem cell funding has not been restricted, and is vehemently supported by President Bush as a more viable means of research. Some scientists have repeatedly criticized the Bush administration for reducing funding for scientific research and setting restrictions on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

I think "vehemently" is a word to avoid in general, but "vehemently supported"??

The second sentence reads like it is saying that Bush has reduced funding for scientific research. I suspect that this is not the case (if it is, provide a citation). It may be the case that non-military scientific research funding has decreased, but if that's the case, the qualifier should be noted, being careful not to promote a POV that miliatry scientific research is intrinsically less valuable than non-miliatry scientific research (though it may be ok to note that some scientists believe that it is less valuable). Andjam 03:23, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Remove the peacock term if you're upset by it. I would remove it simply because it doesn't add to the encyclopedic nature of this article. glocks out 01:37, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

The subsection on the Vision for Space Exploration seems overly hostile towards the VSE to me. Stating that the policy recieved a "largely tepid reception" implies that there's general resistance to the VSE, while it has been widely welcomed by the public and scientific community. Most of the rest of the section is objective enough, but this paragraph appears to have an unnecessary bias against Bush.VonBraunGuy 04:54, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Bush's human rights abuses vs. Hugo Chavez

I simply have a comment regarding this article:

There is nothing about Bush's human rights abuses. Amnesty International has an entire library of US human rights abuses at Guatanamo Bay, and at Abu Ghraib, still ongoing, today. Bush's closest advisor, Herr Rumsfeld said the Geneva Convention doesn't apply to 'the war against Al-Quaeda'....must be nice to make the Geneva Convention fit however you want it to. It applied to the Nazis, but I guess they were different. Please don't tell me Bush didn't know what Rumsfeld was doing or that he wasn't responsible for it. Anyway, see below links:

http://www.hrw.org/doc/?t=usai_torture (continuing evidence and confessions come out regarding recent torture at Forward Operating Base Mercury in Fallujah) http://www.hrw.org/reports/2004/afghanistan0304/index.htm (Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan abuses)

http://web.amnesty.org/pages/stoptorture-index-eng (US human rights violations continuing at Abu Ghraib) http://web.amnesty.org/pages/yem-040805-news-eng http://web.amnesty.org/pages/stoptorture-090905-news-eng

The US treated the Nazis better at Nuremberg than we have treated any Iraqis (or any suspect in the "war on terror" in our custody). Yet, oddly enough, nothing is said about it.

Bush has killed 2,000 (and counting) of his own people in Iraq over WMD's that were never there in the first place, tortured countless others, and when it became clear no WMD's existed, all of a sudden the rhetoric changed: we were giving our soldier's lives helping the Iraqis be "free and democratic." Now we're seeing people killed just because we're there.

Bush, like Chavez, has also tried to suppress bad press (the photos of coffins returning from Iraq)or any press that says anything against him. He calls those against him "conspiracy theorists" or "unpatriotic," or even worse, "Democrats" as if that party has no right to exist.

Complaints about 'US imperialism' are not unfounded. Bush uses his religion as a foundation for "manifest destiny" in that he believes "God wants him to be President," so therefore, God wants him to spread Christianity and the American way all over the world. If I were president of any other country outside the US and had oil wells, and the country coming to get my oil wells had a war in Iraq that was going badly, like Chavez, I guess I'd feel a little frightened about a superpower trying to arm wrestle me into an agreement that would favour the US overwhelmingly as well.

Never before have I seen such a long article section on any President's religion and ideology and "faith based" initiatives. What should be expressed AS WELL (teach both sides) is the concern regarding evangelical Christianity and how much it influences this presidency, how many of Bush's cabinet have been appointed who happen to share his religion, the Christian Coalitions continued attempts to stack the Supreme Court with Christian Conservatives, (http://www.cc.org/)and the undue influence of the Christian Coalition anyway in the Republican Party http://www.theocracywatch.org/about_us2.htm. (TheocracyWatch is a project of the Center for Religion, Ethics and Social Policy (CRESP) at Cornell University). No other President has ever created a Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives! Why does Bush feel as though he needs it? "Religion is the opiate of the masses..." indeed. I guess he's been reading his political theory.

I appreciate the fact that all of you are trying to be fair,and you haven't done a bad job, but come on. There is nothing here about the Patriot Act and its abuses and potential for abuse, nothing from Amnesty International about the US' human rights abuses. Let's be truly fair.

The fact Bush nominated a personal friend who was a horse show judge of course had nothing to do with FEMA's inability to perform when needed, thus making countless thousands of people suffer longer than necessary and killing more than should have died.

I have included citations, and I voted for Bush initially, before you even start in on me. Let's pretend for a minute that we are from another country looking at this American president. Then,perhaps, we'll be less biased and less concerned with making this man look better than he does. If I want to read political propaganda, I can go to the White House site biography of Mr. Bush. I don't expect to find it here as well. 142.151.143.157 04:55, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you very much.

You know, we do have a pair of articles on the presidency of George W. Bush (George W. Bush's first term as President of the United States, George W. Bush's second term as President of the United States). This article is about the MAN, not the politics. Someone who wants to know about GWB's policies and politics will get a short overview of the major ones here, and then can follow the prominent links to the relevant articles for an in-depth discussion. Of all the things that Bush is, and all the things that he's done, the Patriot Act isn't really important enough to merit significant mention here. The human rights abuses are multiple degrees of seperation away from him (People being abused at a prison that is under the control of the U.S. military that is run by GWB). There's just a lot of more important stuff to mention. That's why we have sub-articles. If you find that those aren't up to par, try improving them. (If you think the Chavez article is biased, try fixing it.) Matt Yeager 05:29, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, Mr. Yeager. However, with any other political leader a section on human rights abuses would be included, especially according to Constitutional law, whatever happens under a President's administration IS his responsibility ultimately.142.151.143.157 05:45, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I get what you're saying, but as the human rights stuff is still unfolding now, it'd be hard (very hard) to write an unbiased, concise summary of the abuses (alleged and actual). If you feel you're up to the task, be bold and do it! Matt Yeager 05:51, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

well, obviously it will be controversial. That doesn't excuse us from tackling it. The human rights abuses are ongoing, not just in Guantanamo Bay, what with the reports of the CIA "black prisons". Of course we don't need a discussion here. A link to Human rights in the United States should be enough. What is more disturbing is that there appears to be no reference to the Bush administration's murky record on that article. I83.79.181.237 13:51, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

The below article from Newsweek today makes it pretty plain that Mr. Bush knew about and sanctioned the torture that has been going on:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9939154/site/newsweek/

It is impossible to write an 'unbiased' article about Bush's sanctioned human rights abuses. Clearly, he knew about it, and so did his advisors. I hardly think the American president sits in the Oval Office, especially this president, who has made it very clear nothing happens without his knowledge, in a happy haze not knowing what is going on in his own administration. He's been so busy playing boy soldier and Kommander in Chief while cultivating a snow white image with the American people that he is only to be admired for his spin doctors and his speechwriters. So,the only reason anybody would attempt an "unbiased" article about Bush's human rights record would be to exonerate Bush from responsibility. Again, if this were any other political leader, we wouldn't be concerned with being 'unbiased,' or 'bipartisan.' We forget people from all over the world read this article and do not hold the same views of "the truth," especially when no one (except for myself)is brave enough to criticize this president. I may just write this article, but I am willing to bet you, Mr.Yeager, that it won't stay up, no matter how many citations I leave.

You are right. There need be no discussion here about this. A link would be sufficient. A link should be put in Chavez' article as well and the lengthy article taken out because he has committed far less human rights abuses than Bush has. 142.151.143.157 17:41, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Actually, one of the founding principles of Wikipedia is that every article be unbiased. There actually is quite a bit of debate on the "bias" of other articles, too. If you keep it relatively brief, encyclopediac (i.e., not calling Bush the Antichrist), get citations, and ESPECIALLY if you list a brief note on this talk page, your edit WILL stay up. You doubt that it will? There's only one way to find out... Matt Yeager 06:56, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Not to interrupt, but the anon here said, "whatever happens under a President's administration IS his responsibility ultimately." This is a common fallacy, and an example of the distortion of responsibility. If I go into my workplace and shoot my boss, is it his fault that he got shot because it happened under his watch? Obviously, No. It would be my fault, not his. People need to start taking responsibilty for their own actions and quit passing the buck onto their superiors (boss, parents, etc.). Okay, I'll let you fellas get back to bickering now. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 15:23, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Though they are probably more appropriate in the two articles describing Bush's terms, edits describing his human rights record are welcome here as long as they keep to WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, and WP:V. The above rant indicates a pretty extreme POV; the author of said rant should read those policies very carefully. android79 15:32, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Images

There are probably too many images on the page crowding out the text. For example, there are two images of Bush on the aircraft carrier for one paragrah of text. We should decide which pictures are the most notable to include. We should also decide which paragraphs are worthy of having a picture. The pictures not only make the article load longer, as the page is edited they move around and bunch up a lot of the text. glocks out 01:54, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

---

Shouldn't the name next to the first image read "George W. Bush" instead of "George Walker Bush". The former is the what he called most often, and therefore is more appropriate.

Bush's impeachment

Archived discussion.

I was looking for new polls given the new senate look into this topic. I can't seem to find any recent polls. I did find this on the Zogby site though, it seems to be contradictory to what is in our article. (This is even linked directly after our article's figures).

In a sign of the continuing partisan division of the nation, more than two-in-five (42%) voters say that, if it is found that President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should hold him accountable through impeachment. While half (50%) of respondents do not hold this view, supporters of impeachment outweigh opponents in some parts of the country. (...) A large majority of Democrats (59%) say they agree that the President should be impeached if he lied about Iraq, while just three-in-ten (30%) disagree. Among President Bush’s fellow Republicans, a full one-in-four (25%) indicate they would favor impeaching the President under these circumstances, while seven-in-ten (70%) do not. Independents are more closely divided, with 43% favoring impeachment and 49% opposed.

We should find the right numbers though (both links in our article show different numbers than in our article). Right now I'm happy with how the paragraph is written. It has been worked over well. There is room for improvement though (just need the right numbers), as more polls come forth in the next few weeks. glocks out 02:08, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Isn't this a dead issue...what exactly is Congress doing to move forward with an article of impeachment?...nothing from what I can see.--MONGO 04:41, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

This paragraph is in the context of "public opinion," and as such public opinion polls are useful in gauging public opinion. It's not so much a dead issue as the Senate is finally looking into what this poll is asking about. That is, misleading congress into approving the war. glocks out 18:54, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

The numbers are correct. There have been two Zogby polls and one Ipsos poll. Do not confuse the numbers from the two different Zogby polls. I have found a link to the more recent Zogby poll, and I am adding that to the article.--RichardMathews 10:16, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Liar

you should add something along these lines:

Pick one in regards to Bush's comments before the Iraqi war:

A) Bush lied to pursue his own end (thus, using Iraq and the American people as means to this end - using American people as means in that he lied to them to get his end, without that lie they would never have agreed to his radical aggressive nature... and iraq as a means too obvious to state. And furthermore, if he can lie so easily about such crucial matters, what would make anyone think he is not lying to us now to meet his own end.... think about it.)

B) Bush and our gov. intellect is in complete utter lack as they are unable to decipher, interoperate, and report the evidence they receive. (thus, such lack of intellect is in the hands of the most powerful and wealthy country in the world jeopardizing the very survival of humanity... so then, we ought to evaluate ourselves, encourage a pre-emptive strike against or own potential aggression (as it is far more apparent then the aggression Bush claimed Iraq/Saddam had). Furthermore, it would be necessary to stop any production of and eliminate all nuclear weapons that are in our hands as such threatens humanities survival)

and/or

C) Bush and our government acted rashly upon slight information. Being rash before properly analyzing what was available. (thus, if we justify this action based upon such errors, we justify any rash action that Bush or any future leader might base upon the slightest doubt or fabricated documentations)

My bets are A.... It is my opinion that Bush's intent was simply for personal gain and exploitation of Iraq under the casus Bellus of a false understanding of terrorism and even more so the anger from 9/11 being misrepresented as an Islamic/Arab phenomenon rather then just an individual radical group. . . Was it worth 100s of thousands of Iraqi lives... Was his lie worth thousands of American lives? Are we just going to stand by and watch this attempt for Western countries to exploit yet another country based upon false ideological arguments and even more so a false representation of christianity? How many times has christianity been used to support militaristic agendas? Why does the church support such agendas? Thanks to this one political leader, I feel that both are politicians and our church leaders have pissed on the very powerful and moral words of a man who fought peacefully and died in the name of love. They pissed on Jesus and all he stands for. They pissed on humanity in its entirety. No more exploitation. No more lies. This is my opinion, and you have the right to disagree - but You must respond in detail for some rational for his lies, ignorance, or simple rashness - and how any of those three can justify a war and allow for us to continue to support such lies, ignorance, and rashness. to me, only a fool would support a guy who demonstrates any of those three especially in the face of such a thing as a war resulting in such catastrophic that we now see before our very eyes.

think about it.

149.169.45.2 wrote this section but didn't sign it.(Prodego ^talk)

Thank you 149.169.45.2 for your opinion. I would counter that everybody (i.e. other countries... even France) thought Saddam had WMDs and through the combined intelligence, made a case for war, but I won't do that. I would say that even the Democrats agreed that Saddam was a threat going back for years, and show you the quotes, but I won't do that either. I will however thank you for your opinion. Thank you. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 16:30, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

You are being facile. If France and and "other countries (who?) in that case thought Saddam was such a threat, why then did they not join with Bush in invading Iraq?Fergananim 00:47, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

To quote Wikipedia on popular opposition to the Iraq War:

"There has been a significant popular opposition to the 2003 Iraq War across the world. It is commonly regarded that this exceeded the opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War in scale, even before the war was declared.

Much of the opposition to the war was organised by anti-war coalitions and organised by people who had opposed the invasion of Afghanistan. The opposition to the war manifested itself most visibly in a series of protests against the invasion of Iraq, and the Iraq war, which took place across the world between 2002 and 2005."

Saddam, in fact, was not really a threat. He had no intention of expanding nor of any terror type mentality. He was attempting to create a better government and get their country back on their feet. Though Western powers kept on wanting them to get back on their feet according to Western interest rather then Iraq interest. In fact, his previous invasion before the first war in Iraq was against a Western favoured wealthy country favouring Western markets due to the colonial period. But for example, during the first war against Iraq by the other Bush, the U.S. gov. fabricated photos to depict that they were about to attack Saudi Arabia. Basically, all these lies and deceptions add up to the question why and what can we actually believe? Thus I am reluctant to even believe a word. Why should I? Until the government stops playing mind games with its citzens (for example, still refering to Iraq in context with 9/11 and terrorism; another example is the use of plaing their film footage, at the begining of the war Saddam made a very patriotic speech to protect their country and their sovernity. All that was replayed again and again after the origin footage was Saddam saying take up the sword against the U.S., but in the context he was saying an effort of defense. We are prone to believe what we want to believe, but when you consder this and many other circumstances, Iraq has been negatively exagerated and treated with an intense Western bias which is unwarranted and we should re-evaluate that before anything else). Things were actually improving - some areas more so, some less so, and some even slight decline - but it did not warent a hastful attack. One ought to not believe everything they are told. Change takes time. Improvement takes time. Radical efforts to change something often is done at great costs and more then not makes things far worse. If we attempted to solve all the worlds problems by an aggressive military philosophy then A) the problems will become far worse in the end, as is apparent in Iraq and B) if such power of global control is given to one nation, would it not soon become the case that they themselves may become corrupt - and with such power such corruption would be FAR more dangerous then iraq would have ever been. Basically, our country pushed their weight around, used way too much deception, and frankly their use of rhetoric makes them seem radiculous and very unreliable. Either way, this war was VERY controversial and despite this our government went ahead and forced it to happen. Does not such aggression and power create fear for the future and potential corruption within the hands of people in rule under such a system? We are human, just like Saddam was. just like Hitler was. Just like Stalen was. Humans mess up and many take advantage of the ability to abuse power. Should we not consider the consequences of such and, basically, even if the end was just (though I doubt it was) for the war in Iraq, the means and methodology in attacking the country is greatly flawed and ought to create great fear.

(ps my 'history of vandalism' is merely my effort to get people to think about Iraq and the Bush admin in a way that is not accepted by the majority. I tend to give out strong ideas, as there is simply not enough people paying attention to how easy we are lied to and forgive and forget those lies. We should not put up with lies. What I write is my opinion, and I am glad that others express their disagrements - for such disagrements are what freedom and democracy are all about (contrary to the thoughts of those favouring the war who are against protesting the war - I mean, without that freedom where would we be? Should we just let the government do what they want even if we disagree? no. Speach and protests are necessary since we are fighting for what we belive is right and best, thus freecom and democracy are preserved so long as we can continue to express our believes no matter if they seem different then the standard) 149.169.45.2 wrote this section but didn't sign it (Prodego

Troll feeding at User talk:149.169.45.2. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 21:41, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

(Moved comments to aforementioned talk page. Not really about improving the article anymore. Feel free to correct me if I erred. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 20:10, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

First term

That heading I moved from within the "campaign" heading to where it more properly fits. Of course, it still seems out of place. Maybe the entire article can be broken down into both terms? There are articles for both terms though ... I'm thinking out loud right now. glocks out 19:44, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Reagan in first paragraph

This should be changed to Ronald Reagan - the page Reagan is a disambiguation page. - syndicate 10:56, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Religion section

I know it doesn't sound POV, but isn't it legit to say there are questions about how seriously he takes his faith (says he reads the Bible every day and then can't back it up with any detail?)

Also, Methodists aren't all "a denomination that espouses a more socially conservative worldview" [2]. That's a wierd statement to make. -Jcbarr 06:19, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Worst Actor Razzie Award

He received the 2004 Razzie award for the worst actor in Farenheit 9/11

Wealth

How much wealth does Bush have invested into the oil industry, and how much money did he invest for his own profit into military production before the Iraqi war started? How much money has he personally made or set up his family to make through this war and his related oil companies' current and future buisness in Iraq? I would find this very important and necessary to mention on a topic such as Bush.

Homeland security

Couldn't the way Homeland security is set up right now become a risk for our own personal libertis, freedom, and privacy. Personally, I would rather risk the one in a million chance of another terrorist attack then to risk losing those three. In fact, it seems that Bush is more interested in fighting Iraq then Terrorism. If he was truly concerned, where is the border protection? Furthermore, how come he spent so little of OUR money on going after Bin Laden (who was directly connected to 9/11) yet so much of OUR money on fighting Iraq (who was not connected to 9/11 much less terrorism in general)? It seems like just a simple Casus Bellus to get support for his war. (In fact, I could add that our actions in Iraq has created far more 'terrorists' according to Bushes standards - though my standards would call 90% those Bush defines as 'terrorists' of Iraq as 'rebels against western control' who would never have laid a finger against the U.S. or any western country if we would not be attempting to economically take over their nation and also create a puppet government under our 'Western wing'.)

Shouldn't the posible misuse of 'homeland security' be addressed? From my experience with it, it merely seems to be monitoring American lives more and invading into their liberty, freedom and privacy rather then preventing any type of 'Terrorism'. I could be wrong, but I do wander what others think.

Are we looking at a police state in which life has no freedom, liberty or privacy? If that is the future, tell me so I can prevent myself from reproducing, because such a world is not the world I want my children in.

Thus, I think there needs to be more negative things about homeland security on this page.

If you really feel that way, you might want to look for the Homeland Security page, not the Bush page. And please, stop trolling. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 14:58, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Talk page

When did the talk page become a depository of opinions? glocks out 00:17, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Since before you were born. Mwa ha ha! Matt Yeager 00:37, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Is not a collection of opinions the very same thing which derives new perspectives and ingenuity in society? Haven't most accepted theories originated at first as mere opinions lacking extensive evidence? Truth is built upon opinions as each opinion allows one to search and discover whether it is true or false. To out right reject them because they are opinions is indeed a great fallacy.

Indeed but this is not a general discussion board about George W., it is a talk page to discuss the article. Therefore please kindly keep your opinions to yourself unless they are in direct relevance to something that is written in George W. Bush. -- Francs2000 01:58, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

In other words, WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR. android79 02:00, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Protected...

until when? Matt Yeager 00:37, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

There is little point to unblock the article, as was stated in the post in which it was protected. 190 out of the 196 articles were vandalism. Is there any benefit in unblocking it unless some major event turns up? This may be one of those articles where it might just be safer to allow the admins to edit it. Cowman 00:49, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

it would be better if only admins edit this article too many people try to ruin it Yuckfoo 01:00, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

If it were possible, I would simply limit edits to this article to registered users. Guanaco 01:18, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I am strongly opposed to allowing only admins editorial rights here but not to a form of semi protection of the page in hich only registered users could edit it, since most of the vandalism is by anons of course.--MONGO 01:30, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Please, not an admin-only thing. I've made enough improvements personally (let alone the thousands of useful improvements by hundreds of registered users) to the article to make me upset at the idea of only letting admins edit.

Registered users only, though? That works. Matt Yeager 01:37, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

How do we get changes acted on if only admins can edit? This page is in need of work, minor and major. Is someone going to monitor and respond to talk messages all day requesting edits? (wouldn't it be easier and solve this problem too if there were more links to detailed pages (1st term, 2nd term pages exist, why here? Legislation, policy, etc could all be split out)? Then protecting the main page about W wouldn't be a big deal). -Jcbarr 01:41, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I suppose, the idea of allowing edits to this page only to registered wiki users in a way is the opposite of what wikipedia stands for, being a free encyclopedia for all to edit, but in some cases (such as this article) it may be a necesary act. I agree now that allowing only admins access to the page would not do much good, but would slow down the editing process, but only allowing members to edit this page would at least deter vandals. As it stands now, however, something needs to be done as this page lately holds little purpose but vandalism. And yes, I realize there are some of you out there who are contributing, but unfortunately the vandals are making it difficult for your thoughts to be properly noticed with the respect they deserve. Cowman 02:54, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Never going to happen. Believe me. That idea passed Wikipedia village pump, went on to Bugtraq, had a lot of support, but is just sitting there. --kizzle 05:30, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Plus, as we've already seen, registered users can still be vandals (see, for example, WoW), and a good number of IPs have good edits. Making this page editable only to registered users is what is sometimes referred to as anti-wiki. -Mysekurity 05:37, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Of course. Limiting to only registered users should only be used as a last resort and only on certain pages, and still isn't perfect. However, considering that an incredibly significant portion of vandalism is drive-by vandalism, this would greatly improve the vandalism rate and is in my mind worth giving up IP edits *on this page*, which in many cases get blind reverted simply because IP edits are often mistaken as vandalism. Don't blindly hold to a dogmatic belief if it doesn't make sense in some applications. --kizzle 06:07, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

To respond to all these concerns; I do not feel that admins alone should take over this article. As an admin, I have had to revert too may edits here, with very little coming as a result. I hate to see something as grand as Wikipedia going to beaurocracy, and allowing only admins to edit an article like this seems counter-intuitive. I propose, however, to create a temporary article, perhaps at George W. Bush/Temp, as has been done with copyvios. This would allow users to work on a newer version, and, after peer review and tweaking, the article may be uploaded to the main article page, thus assuring vandalism will be out of sight from the common reader, but the article will still be editable by interested editors. This would discourage vandals, as their work would not be visable, and encourage editors. This page needs to be pruned greatly, and any help users can give would be greatly appreciated. By splitting off the article into sub-articles, it would make this article much more friendly to new users. You may propose any major editing that needs to be done to this article either here, or at the talk pages of any one of Wikipedia's Administrators (such as myself, Who, and FireFox, and many others.) Thank you and good luck, Mysekurity 05:15, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

The problem is that Bush is the current prez, so this article is going to be vandalized just because of that one issue. Then you add all the other issues in that make him also a relatively unpopular President, especially outside of the U.S. and it's a crapshoot. Kizzle is right...a bunch of us have tried to see if some form of semi-protection would be possible for routinely vandalized articles such as this one so that at least we could avoid drive by vandalisms, but it pretty much stalled in bugzilla. I am not sure that page protection is best, but then again, when 97 percent of the alterations are vandalism, it's hard to support unprotecting unless there is something important to add.--MONGO 05:45, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Based upon my own observations, vandalism to this page appears to range between 93–97% of all edits. While waiting for the much needed enhancements from Bugzilla, the best solution may be to have this article remain in a protected state while allowing the sysops to moderate article changes via the talk page. Yamaguchi先生 05:52, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough. I understand all the vandalism stuff, but wouldn't it just make sense to prune the article before anything more is added? For christsakes, it's 90KB! I'd like to try and organize all those in Category:Wikipedian Programmers to help out with this, and if you'd tell me the language, I'd be happy to spam all of 'em. Thanks and good night, Mysekurity 05:55, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

What's "bugzilla"? Matt Yeager 06:35, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Bugzilla is an open-source bug reporting and software tool. I believe it was created by the Mozilla Foundation for use in the development of the Mozilla Suite, and eventually its other products. Presumably, its open-source as well, so that others can use and adapt. SterlingNorth 22:09, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

If we have very responsible admins, I'm down to setup a system till some developer comes up with a solution for two things.

1. Protect the page.
2. Any change must be brought up here and be supported by at least (2) other signatures, including changes proposed by admins (except for spelling/grammar changes)
3. If 2 sigs are present, any present admins enact the change.

Just a suggestion. --kizzle 07:13, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I want to remind everone of something. From WP:PPol: "When a page is particularly high profile, either because it is linked off the main page, or because it has recently received a prominent link from offsite, it will often become a target for vandalism. It is best not to protect pages in this case. Instead, consider adding them to your watchlist, and reverting vandalism yourself." This page is one of the most high profile. So, yeah, it'll get a lot of vandalism, just like the featured article on the main page will. But there's a very good reason we don't protect it. High profile articles are our face to the world. We need to present a "free encyclopedia" face, and not a "by-request only" face. Think of the literally thousands of people who find this page every day off of Google or Yahoo. What will they think when they click the "edit" button and only get the source? I would venture to say that much of the vandalism (aside from obvious anti-Bush ones) comes from new users taking that edit button out for a spin, just to delete a sentence, add "hello," or even do something a little naughty to see if it really saves your edits. While it's a pain, this is an essential part of Wikipedia, and actually healthy. And if we are going to be Wikipedia anywhere, this article is the place. I think long term protection is not the solution, and would be harmful to Wikipedia. Dmcdevit·t 07:47, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

That simply won't do for this page. Vandalism happens way too quick to this page, it doesn't matter how many people are monitoring it. The level of vandalism this article suffers is simply unacceptable, and some measures need to be taken. I estimate in any given day, a vandalized version of GWB is up for at least an hour per day. Yes, I understand wiki general principles and goals. Yes, such measures will undoubtedly take away power from anon ips. Regardless, something must be done than simply better efforts on our part to combat vandalism. --kizzle 07:53, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

For at least the immediate future, The Powers That Be won't be implementing "semi-protection" (edits by registered users only). As a practical matter, that leaves the choice between protection (edits by admins only) and normal treatment (open editing, with consequent vandalism and reversion of vandalism). As between those two, I favor open editing. Requiring non-admins to submit all proposed edits for consideration on the talk page would discourage them from contributing, and the need for admins to review and implement proposed changes would consume more Wikipedian-hours than the reversion of vandalism does now. Also, I'm not convinced it would reduce the total amount of vandalism of Wikipedia. Most vandals here probably aren't ideological Bush opponents; they're just adolescents (of whatever chronological age) who want to vandalize something and think first of the current President's article. If Gore had been inaugurated, they'd be vandalizing Al Gore. If they find they can't edit their first target, quite a few of them will probably go hit something else. Vandalism on less prominent articles would be seen by fewer visitors but would tend to stay in place longer.

Here's another alternative, which is only a bit anti-wiki: A small group of admins (one, two, or three) is designated to review the article once a week. They select the most recent version that contains no obvious vandalism. The main article remains universally editable, but the selected version is protected as George W. Bush/Nov14 or whatever. A note at the top of George W. Bush warns the reader that vandalism is frequent and that [[George W. Bush/Nov14|this version of the article]] is free of vandalism, though perhaps slightly out of date. Readers could choose to go there with a click. How would this GWB Editing Council deal with ongoing edit wars? I dunno, but any resolution of that question would be better than frequent (let alone semi-permanent) protection of this article. JamesMLane 08:19, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

What an outsatnding idea...I nominate JamesMLane to be one of the "small group of admins" :)--MONGO 08:39, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I like that idea too. I'd be glad to help. But I seriously think this thing needs pruning. Oh, how about this? We protect durring hours that most people are not online (admins included), and unprotect when we're back, so vandalism doesn't stay? Or would that put too much strain on the servers and be too much work? -Mysekurity 12:13, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, MONGO, but I think the tricky subject of edit wars would be easiest to deal with if the Council consisted of editor(s) with absolutely no interest in the article. No one on the Council should ever edit the article except to update the link to the saved version. If this is a clever ploy by you to prevent me from editing the article by sticking me on the Council, too bad, I've seen through you.  :) As for changing the protection depending on the time of day, I don't know whether there's a time at which vandalism tends to remain unreverted longer. A lot of people have this article on their watchlists, and their work is supplemented by the RC patrollers. JamesMLane 15:04, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Ummm... "only a bit anti-wiki"? That is an unreasonable idea. I do not have an answer to the vandalism problem, whether semi-protection, or this idea, but limiting the rights to edit articles is not that good. A small group of Admins might be good way to stop vandalism, but how would they be selected? (instruction creep?) How do we protect from some POV Admins from getting to control controversial articles? Just some thoughts. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 15:06, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

It is not an unreasonable idea. There are approximately 300 admins who could help facilitate the moderation process until some other alternative is implemented. We do not need to elect a committee to do this, we already have one. Yamaguchi先生 15:27, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Just to clarify, my suggestion wouldn't restrict anyone from editing the George W. Bush article. That article would remain subject to completely open editing. In fact, it would be more open than at present, because the occasional vandalism-protections would stop. No editors (whether registered users or anons) would lose any rights that they now have, except that the admins volunteering for this patrolling work would give up the right to edit the main article. The only change would be that we'd create a new page that would be available as a resource for those who wanted it. Certainly we have some POV admins, but my suggestion wouldn't enable them to control the article. My idea requires only that we find a small number of admins who don't press their POV about Bush. They'd perform only the weekly ministerial task of finding a recent unvandalized version. JamesMLane 16:17, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

No ploy, my man. Just chiming in that I thought your idea was a decent one. Obviously the vandalism is keeping good faith editors like yourself from being able to make a change without saving the alteration on a "wrong version" that has been vandalized. I like your idea of creating a subpage that is the also the mainpage for the article. I myself have tired of the vandalism to this page especially and am in favor of any idea that would "protect" nonvandalized editions for consumption by the casual reader. You idea sounds like the best one yet as semiprotection is not going to happen and is unwiki anyway I suppose.--MONGO 16:29, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd volunteer for this duty if I would be allowed to rotate out of (and possibly back in to) the "group" that deals with the unvandalized version. I haven't made any content-related edits to this article in a while, but if I want to in the future, I'd like to be able to. android79 16:23, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think that would be a big problem, but we have hundreds of admins, and it would probably be just as easy to find a few who've never edited the article and never want to. They don't need any particular expertise in U.S. politics to recognize "George Bush is a jerk" as vandalism. JamesMLane 16:50, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

How strictly would we define vandalism for this scheme? Would it include obvious extreme POV edits of the kind that are so often reverted? android79 16:56, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

We have an existing discussion of what vandalism is and is not: "Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism. Apparent bad-faith edits that do not make their bad-faith nature inarguably explicit are not considered vandalism at Wikipedia." If someone writes, "Bush has provided exemplary leadership in the War on Terrorism," I wouldn't consider that vandalism. It's just somebody who doesn't understand the NPOV policy. JamesMLane 17:44, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

(Why I didn't think to review WP:VAND is beyond me.) I was thinking of POV edits even more extreme than your example, which would then be covered by the "bad-faith" clause in most cases. Okay, I'm on board for this. android79 17:50, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Now lets hope they don't get smart and go for the vandalism warning every time :) --kizzle 17:55, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Stop Vandalism (line break for easier editing)

The subpage idea might not be too great though. See Wikipedia:Subpages. And what happens if there is a major incident... do we have to wait until the little "council" agrees on a version? --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 18:02, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

So that they may be addressed thoroughly, exactly what are your concerns Lord Voldemort? Hall Monitor 19:13, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by "a major incident", but, no, nobody would have to wait for the "Council" to do anything. Once a week, a couple of admins would take a snapshot of the page, without vandalism; save that snapshot as a version of the article with a particular date; and update the link that would be at the top of the article. Then they would go away for another week. Edits by everyone else would continue exactly as before. If a subpage is a technical problem, it could of course be a separate page, George W. Bush 2005-11-14 or the like. In that case, the admins would delete that page when they created the November 21 version. JamesMLane 19:28, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

My concerns are thus:

• Subpages are not really kosher. Do we change policy just for a couple of specific articles? Having a subpage where people can edit, but having the main article protected seems to sort of "hide" the editable version, even if there is a notice placed on the main one pointing to the subpage.
• Having a protected version where only a few Admins get to decide what stays or goes is not very wiki-like. What if some Admins want it one way and others want it another? Then we have even more disputes. If Admins cannot decide in that weekly period, what version gets to be saved?
• We should be looking for ways to stop vandalism, not just move it off of the main article page. This just seems to be avoiding the problem rather than addressing it.
• If an incident happens, for instance an assassination attempt, should the "council" of Admins have to wait until the weekly period is up before that info can be added to the main article page? If Admins can edit the main article page, but regular contributors cannot (in a situation like this), then what is the pupose of having a subpage? People would be editing there, but an Admin may want to add that info directly into the main article page. It removes regular editors from the editing process.
• There is talk of instruction creep all around WP, and this is a good example; changing Wikipedia to suit a small group of articles doesn't seem to jive with the guidleline of no instruction creep.

There might not be an answer to suit everybody, and as I've said before, I sure don't have an answer. But I personally feel that this idea would not be good for in the spirit of "wiki". Hopefully I didn't forget anything. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 19:40, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

One temporary solution may be to created a hierarchical page structure at (for example) Wikipedia:Requested_changes/George_W._Bush and allow users to edit there until a semi-protect capability is added to Wikipedia. The change requests could be broken into 52 pages per year, one for every week, i.e. Wikipedia:Requested_changes/George_W._Bush/2005/Week 52. Anyone who is an administrator could then add each weekly page to their watchlist and incorporate requested changes into the article as necessary. Hall Monitor 19:44, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

The problem I see with that is that, how is that any different than protecting this page and requiring changes to be requested on the talk page? Maybe I don't understand this latest idea. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 19:49, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

LV's concerns, in order:

1. The subpage policy is actually a guideline, and even if it were policy, WP:IAR would allow us to break it; we are trying to keep one of the most-vandalized pages on Wikipedia from becoming completely useless.
2. Admins will be reverting simple, blatant vandalism and bad-faith edits only. I propose a "when in doubt, leave that edit in" approach to settle disputes, of which I feel there will be few.
3. You've been around this talk page nearly as long as I have, LV, and we've both seen proposals, good and bad, for stopping vandalism. Those we've tried haven't worked. This might, even if it's "avoiding" it rather than stopping it.
4. If there's serious news about GWB, the "council" could be suspended until the new information is in a stable form. Keep in mind that this idea will not stop the main article from being edited at will, so readers can look to the "live" version for recent news.
5. I don't see any instruction creep here. This is a complex (but not overly so) solution to a serious problem. android79 19:57, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Lord Voldemort, please expand your page history to show the past 1000 edits to the George W. Bush page. This is an example of an article which is being habitually attacked by vandals, the majority of which are drive-by instances of vandalism made by anonymous editors who show no interest in improving this article. The suggested editing-by-proxy solution would be temporary until a semi-protection capability can be added by the developers. This would not be the first page or function to have a limitation placed upon it in order to protect the integrity of Wikipedia. For example, the Main Page of Wikipedia is protected from editing by the general public; only administrators may make changes to that page after a consensus is reached, yet we are able to keep it up to date without any issue. Another example is the recent implementation of new users not being able to move pages until their account has aged for a certain period of time. For now, this appears to be the best solution. Hall Monitor 19:59, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Hall Monitor, yes, I know full well the amount of vandalism that takes place here. But the problem is, semi-protection may never take affect, so what started out as "temporary", might soon become "not-so-temporary", i.e. permanent. And Android, in some order: 1. IAR? Okay, let's just let vandals have their way. That would be ignoring the rules. There is some limit to using the IAR Defense™. 2. The idea is that there would be no Admin reverting of the main article page, because there would be no non-Admin editing of the main article page. 3. Yes, something should probably be done, I just personally don't care for this idea. 4. etc. 5. etc... I don't really want to fight about this anymore. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 20:09, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

LV, you've got it entirely backwards, based on your response to #2 above. Most admins would continue to revert vandalism on the main article, and anyone would be free to edit it. The only changes are thus: 1) a notice at the top of George W. Bush explaining the existence of George W. Bush/Scrutinized Version, and why that version may be more useful. 2) George W. Bush/Scrutinized Version, which is protected, is generated weekly by taking a snapshot of George W. Bush and, based on discussion, removal any blatant vandalism and bad-faith POV by a small group of disinterested admins. It preserves the wiki-ness of "anyone can edit" while maintaining a useful article on our president. Win-win, if you ask me. android79 20:15, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

You know what, why don't we just have a bot watch this article? If it recognizes an edit to this article as clear vandalism, it will revert it immediately.  Denelson83  20:16, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I'll get right on it. It'll take a few decades, though, and lots of money. android79 20:19, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, just remember that "a watch bot never boils."  Denelson83  20:20, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Your comments are greatly appreciated by everyone, please do not mistake this as a "fight"; I welcome your criticisms and concerns. It is a good practice to discuss these matters before making any major changes. The way I see it, any administrator should be able to instantly incorporate any major change made to a subpage. Even if this were a non-temporary solution, what major disadvantages do you see in this style of consensus-based editing? Hall Monitor 20:22, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps we could move this discussion elsewhere? I smell a proposal cookin' at Wikipedia:Experimental vandalism protection... android79 20:25, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm... perhaps I did have it backwards. I was under the impression that there would be a subpage that would be the editable one, and leave the main article page protected. So this proposal is simply like the one for FAs? Have a preserved "good copy", but allow new changes to be made? --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 20:37, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

And I know it wasn't a "fight", I was just a little tired of this discussion. It's been a long day and I am a little tired. I'll try not to get so upset next time. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 20:41, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I'll sketch something more concrete out sooner or later and link to it here. android79 20:43, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm really against protection of any kind on this article, it is high profile and vandalism will happen. We don't protect FA articles do we? Protecting it seems anti-wiki like, what does it say about us that this is a "free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" but our most high profile page, you can't edit. -Greg Asche (talk) 21:10, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Rough sketch here. It might be useful to copy this discussion to that talk page, but I've gotta run. android79 21:26, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

All this seems extremely interesting to me, and there are a multitude of good ideas here, but there are also a few ones that I think could be improved. I don't think we need to have a /week52 or /November 15 page, as we already have a history for that. We could just have /safe or something, and if one wants, they can view the history. I agree about the anti-wikiness, and it's really too bad, but I think this seems to be the best way to deal with all the vandalism. I don't know whether we should protect the main article page, or protect the subpage (the protected page is the safe version). If we allow the main page to be vandalized, we could lose readers. If we don't allow it to be edited, we could lose editors. There are other pages that they can edit that don't have these vandalism problems, and it will give users a chance to use the talk pages. Just my thoughts, I'd be glad to hear others. -Mysekurity 21:39, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Regarding protection: yes we do protect things which are highly trafficked, such as the Main Page, images which are slated to appear on the front page, and articles from being moved by anonymous editors. This was not always the case; these changes were made out of necessity. Unfortunately, it is now necessary that we enact some level of protection against highly trafficked articles like this one. I believe that those with good intentions understand why we need this change. Hall Monitor 22:19, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Would anyone object if I copied all or some of this big chunk of commentary over to here? android79 22:21, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Clearance has been received from the Department of Redundancy Department to copy this over. Hall Monitor 22:53, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

User:Hall Monitor asked me to weigh in on this and I'm honored to do so. The way that article stands now with all of the rampant vandalism makes it pretty much useless as a reference tool. I happen to like the idea of a protected version to be kept under lock and key and simply pasted back over the article space, perhaps once every couple of days. As constructive edits are added, the "dummy" article(s) can be updated as well. Just a fact of life that an open-content article on an high-ranking politician is going to be targeted by some very small-minded people. I'm not saying that because I support the President (which I do), but because it's, well, basic truth. Heck, I just happily blocked an anon vandal who was wreaking absolute and total havoc on the Dixie Chicks article...and we all know what those three lovelies think of Dubya.  :) I like Android79's idea as well, BTW. - Lucky 6.9 22:22, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Don't give me credit! I just mocked up a proposal for it. JamesMLane came up with it, I just... got really loud about it, I guess. :-) android79 22:35, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I've copied the relevant stuff from here to Wikipedia talk:Experimental vandalism protection. In the interest of not fragmenting the discussion, let's continue there. <runs> android79 22:57, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Possible Warning Tag

I put up a warning tag on the page with a template of the article. We should keep this page protected as long as it gets much vandalism(years perhaps) but keep it like this[3]. That way, the actual article is actually unprotected, because it is the template. Only the Vandalism Warning is protected, so vandals cant just delete it. If templates have issues with being that large, then we can have inline page links like the mainpage and RfA, I just don't know how to do them. Jtkiefer reverted this, as it is not supported by a consensus yet. So that is why I brought is here. Lets have a vote.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 02:22, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I've commented the voting sections for now - let's discuss this rather than just vote on it. — Dan | Talk 02:36, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Fine with me :-).Voice of All^T|@|ESP 02:38, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

• Um, what's to stop the vandals from following the template and vandalizing it there? Titoxd^(?!?) 02:42, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Nothing. But at least our new readers will know why is says "Bush is the most incompetent editor ever" or "Bush is a huge loser". Basically it helps to prevent readers from getting the impression that wikipedia is baised due to POV vandals. Obviously if just says "FUCK BUSH" then they know that is vandalism, and likely does not represent Wikipedians. Semi-protection is the only way to help protected the template; any other way just seems like, as JamesMLane said, admin "imperialism", even if the admins are unbaised. However, people seem to dismiss semi-protection quite a bit though.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 03:29, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

• That was my main concern as well, along with the fact that this could hinder and deter legitimate editors who want to edit this article. Even though this is obviously one of the most vandalized articles on wikipedia we also never seem to have issues reverting the vandalism due to having so many editors watching it so this also seems somewhat pointless. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 02:51, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

We cant revert as soon as it happens, the page will just be POV or "SKREW BUSH" for hours of the day total, sometimes actually hours at a time.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 03:31, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, sometimes we do revert as soon as it happens. The CVU watches this article continuously, and we have in cases reverted the vandalism within 10 seconds of it occuring. Titoxd^(?!?) 03:37, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, "sometimes". And sometimes it goes for a few hours. Even when it only last for a minute or 30 sec, when you add that up over the day, that could be 20 turn-off readers, 140 per week, 560 per month, 29,120 per year. And that is for the good days. If we semiprotect, it would go notably down...ahhhh semiprotect. At least a tag will allow for users to who don't know how to use Wikipedia to access older, good, versions. If the tag scares people off too much, then we can change its wording to tone it down and still get the message accross.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 03:42, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

How about "If you suspect vandalism, click here to view previous versions of this article." Without the the "warning:" part? How is this?[4]Voice of All^T|@|ESP 03:46, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

At any rate...this article needs to always be protected from moves.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 23:32, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Semi-protection proposal by SimonP

With an article like this one the vast majority of edits are vandalism, moreover since the page is so controversial even experienced editors should discuss any edits before making them. Rather than a template system, which is essentially security through obscurity, I would prefer the idea of leaving this page protected for the foreseeable future, but having a template directing editors to the talk page to discuss changes. On the talk page editors will be able to propose any changes they feel should be made, and admins can then implement each useful suggestion. For fairness even admins should not be allowed to edit the article directly, but should have to have any changes approved by another admin. This would be extra work for admins, but it would be vastly less work than the constant reversions. - SimonP 15:48, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

• No opposition to this semiprotection, but would like more views (e.g.from the CVU). If a page gets vandalised as much as this I don't see the harm in making life more difficult for vandals and this seems a neat solution. The Land 16:03, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

To clarify: I'm not much in favour of this but I'm also not much against. Ultimately Wikipedia ia an encyclopedia more than it is an experiment in wikis. We currently run a system where we rely entirely on bad edits being reverted. If there are too many vandals and vandalism to a page is causing problems, then we should look at modifying the system. Admin-only editability is an option we should at least consider for high-profile pages which are many peoples' first contact with wikipedia and are often vandalised. The downside of this is that there aren't many admins, and there are other options. The Land 10:42, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

• I remain strongly opposed to long-term protection of this page. (Protection against moves, however, is certainly a good idea.) Voice of All(MTG), I'm not clear on how the template would work. Would implementation mean that non-admins would be unable to edit the lead section, which has no edit bar? Also, how would your template proposal interact with the proposal that Android79 wrote up at Wikipedia:Experimental vandalism protection? I'm concerned that the beginning of the article would look awfully cluttered if there are explanations about possible vandalism and editing the template and checking the scrutinized version. JamesMLane 16:46, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

  If you noticed, I put an "edit article" link below which allows anyone to edit the intro(and the rest) too.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 23:06, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

• I support this form of semi-protection for now. This article is controversial enough (in terms of the attention it receives) that changes should be discussed on the talk page beforehand anyhow. Hall Monitor 17:18, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
• Duh oppose. Least wiki idea of the bunch. Why not turn this into Nupedia? --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 17:32, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose Page protection makes us look bad, is unwiki and sets a bad standard. While I am aware of the vandalisms and recognize the need to do something, long term page protection is not the way to go. Create a "protected" page that can be linked to from the main, unprotected page and of course, the "protected" version will be vandalism free. Enough said.--MONGO 19:42, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
  • It should be pretty obvious why that will not work. Hall Monitor 20:03, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Scanning what is acceptable and what isn't through admins is not the wiki way. The "encyclopedia that anyone can edit" would be no more. I say unprotect and leave it unprotected until a form of semi-protection, in which only registered users could edit this and therefore drive by vandalism will be eliminated, can be implemented. We have plenty of folks that revert this page and even if that means that for 3 hours out of everyday (which is a guesstimate) the page displays vandalism, it is still better than having every edit go through some form of advisory council. The talk pages would become untenable in length. JamesMLane proposed that a protected version be updated as needed by the most recent unvandalized edition and I thought that was a good idea. Otherwise, long term page protection is just plain wrong.MONGO 20:55, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Since people don't seem to like the tag or semiprotect, then I will also back MONGO's idea. We have a protected version that is updated by admins BASED on the public version, so the admins are not the "true editors", they are just making sure that there is no vandalism. I think that this is a good and simpe idea.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 21:06, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
• Vandals win, way to go, guys...
• Comment: Wikipedia isn't just a Wiki; and when we have an encyclopedic article, I think it important to take reasonable steps to protect it *at all times*. This will likely be sorted out with 1.0 standard... where stable versions will be displayed to the public by default, and the Wiki-process will occur behind the scenes... allowing continued (perhaps veted) additions. Nothing wrong with a Wiki-Nupedia model for stable articles; it's apparent something is required here. This proposal will be Wikied and will become something better. As to talk pages becoming even more lengthy; not really as vandalism proposals don't need discussion. Having constant vandalism potentionally being viewed by users of high traffic article, I find, unacceptable. (despite quick rv's) - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 21:07, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

  Yes, the experimental prtection thingy is no more than a push to 1.0 --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 22:15, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

• Support either this proposal or Wikipedia:Experimental vandalism protection, preferably the latter. The amount of vandalism that this article experiences is insane and something relatively permanent needs to be done. android79 21:21, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
• Protect Bush? No really if vandals want to mess around they should go elsewhere? How bad is the vandalism and maybe a lock would help??? Maoririder 21:25, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
  • As was mentioned earlier, over 90% of recent edits were vandalism or vandalism reversion. android79 21:29, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Must tell wikipedians or spamers that you will be blocked forever or something but george w. bush is a corrupt president putting my 2 cents worth. what you have on bush a lock for wiki staff? androidMaoririder 21:31, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Blocking people forever is generally not an option (socially or technically). Your (and anyone else's) personal opinions of GWB are not relevant to this discussion. That last sentence of yours makes no sense, sorry. android79 21:35, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
        • I guess until the people settle down the bush article will be protected {{disputed}} android you know texas android??
          • Please don't put those templates here, they don't belong here. I recognize TexasAndroid's username, but that's about it. android79 21:42, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
• Support. I want a semi-protect feature and a way for wiki to automatically delete accounts with like 50 edits that have not been used in year. Semi-protect will mean that some more accounts will be made, as a few vandals will take the extra time. I would first want the Experimental measures below taken.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 19:09, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Merge experimental protection AND tag proposal

I would like to have the article look like this We have a tag that vandals CAN'T remove(because this page would also be protected), which containts the link to the good page, so people will know where to go if it says "BUSH HATES BLACK PEOPLE". Anyone can still edit the tagged page, just not the tags. This seems like a good idea. The tag I origionally had had limited use, but if we have this tag, use a template for the public(editable) GWB page, we have good meausures that stop vandals from scarring off our readers. The grey tag is needed to elimitate protection confusion. I hope someone can get the EVP tag down to 2 text lines(removed "center" command?), then it would look much better. I made an alternate doubletag bases on the experimental vandalism proposal oneVoice of All^T|@|ESP 23:06, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

• Is the tag proposal technically possible at this point? android79 23:37, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

  What do you mean, is it possible to write up and make the article(which I have pretty much done)? Or is possible by Policy? Check the link in my last post, how does it look to you? The real GWB article would have its text(two tags and the article template), and GWB/Protected would have the scrutinized version text.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 23:47, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Looks good to me Voice of All. Just not sure the updated eekly thing is best wording...maybe have it say updated frequently or something like that.--MONGO 00:49, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Well we have not yet really decided the update rate, daily would be great. Any admin can just paste in the public one, assuming no vandalism. If there are content disagreements, thee we vote. I would like it if "we" could be any non-sockpuppet user, not just admins. Admins would simply execute the consenses, as they generally due already.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 00:58, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism and this article

This is a popular article. People will always vandalize it, and as Wikipedia becomes more popular it will tend to be vandalized more. To protect the article would be to stop people editing it. Think about that. Why would we, who profess ourselves to be engaged in writing an encyclopedia as a collaborative enterprise, deliberately render the article impossible to edit?

The vandalism gets removed, so why bother protecting? Because for a good proportion of the day the article contains the sentence "Dubya is a poopyhead?"

If this article is on your watchlist (and it must be on a thousand watchlists) then the thing to do if you notice that it's been vandalized is to remove the vandalism.

If you intend to edit the article and you notice that it has been vandalized, remove the vandalism in the course of your edit.

If you happen to be reading the article and notice some vandalism, remove it.

That is all that is required to defeat the vandals. There's absolutely no reason to stop everybody editing this article, just because of a few poopyheads. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 01:14, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

When 90% of all edits to a page are vandalism and a vandalized version is shown for at least an hour a day, that is not acceptable. I have personally stopped bothering to check what is going on in this article because to do so would require a page comparison between the current and like 60 versions ago to identify any meaningful contributions to discuss. Rendering an article "impossible to edit" is greatly exaggerated: one simply has to go through, what is in my experience, the easiest account creation page ever. Eliminating drive-by vandalism would remove at least 75% of vandalism on this page, if not more. Those who are committed to building user accounts purely for vandalism sake are much easier to track. Holding to your dogma, what do we do when a page gets vandalized 100 times a day? 1000 times? What happens when 99.9% of all edits to a page is vandalism? How can anyone wade through the history to make sense of the direction in which this page has taken? --kizzle 01:23, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

You have to make your mind up. Are we writing an encyclopedia or are we maintaining a web page in an immutable form? There are thousands or web pages about George W. Bush on the internet that cannot be edited. This one can be edited.

I cannot accept the proposal that this article should only be editable by logged-in users, and as a matter of fact when the article is protected it cannot be edited by anyone, logged-in or not, so registering a user account gets an editor nowhere. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 01:33, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

I've inserted Template:Stopvandalism to deter some of the less malicious vandals. Guanaco 01:47, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

• I have to agree with Tony and sympathize with Kizzle view. Obviously, the vandalism is much greater than it was, especially in contrast to the level of real quality edits from months ago. It seems in the past, there a number of valuable edits that were added everyday. Now, there seems that there is nothing more to say and until there is the article will probably just be a target for vandalism. Good way to up the ole edit count but pretty mindless and tedious at that. I am still in favor of the open version and a link to the protected one.MONGO 01:56, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
  • General consensus over at WP:TFD is that Template:Stopvandalism and its derivatives need to be deleted. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 08:31, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Opening paragraph

Does the following statement in the last line of te first paragraph have any proof to substantiate it's claim? "He is also a recovering alcoholic who has been dogged by accusations of drug use for most of his adult life." This is a rather damning accusation and I have seen no literature that substantiates that Bush is a recovering alcoholic. Though there is plenty of evidence that he did drink, such as a DUI conviction and his own admittance of alcohol use, there has not been anything that I am aware of which states that he ever as an alcoholic, much less a recovering one. Additionally, has he really been dogged about drug use? The question has surely been raised and he coyly sidestepped the issue, but I don't see that he has been "dogged" by this issue.--MONGO 07:24, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I believe that that sentence is immature name-calling and should be removed. It's not appopriate to include such a damning and negative sentence in the first paragraph of the president's bio. Jazz1979 21:22, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I removed this utter POV nonsense, which is by no means citable.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 21:34, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Tag added

It will not put an end to it, do not kid yourself. -Splash^talk 22:53, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I believe this will discourage vandalism if people can still get to the main article, however i am concerned that the vandals will simply move to a less visible page where their vandalism will go undetected for longer. Comments?--Ewok Slayer 22:58, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

It will achieve zero. Nothing. What difference does adding that awful tag make? It says "yes, vandals, you win". THat's not the way to do things. -Splash^talk 23:00, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

• I strongly oppose the use of the tag. As I said before, it does not prevent vandalism from actually occuring, it just disperses it and makes it harder for admins to spot. Folks, this what you got the mop and flamethrower for: reverting vandals. While the "this is anti-Wiki" argument is philosophically nice, I think that the other argument, that having this page unprotected is a way of keeping all the "clowns in a small car" is much more persuasive. This page may be really visible, but the fact of the matter is that since it is such a prominent vandalism target, we can follow the vandals once they come here and revert the changes they made to other much-less-visible articles that we would have never caught. Titoxd^(?!?) 23:05, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
• I also OPPOSE TO THE EXTREME, it would be A) anti wiki and B) counterproductive, it would also make the article tougher to legitimately edit and vandalism harder to spot. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 23:09, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
• I am unable to express civilly how much I disagree with this tag. It is such a bad idea that I am not going to reduce myself to voting on it. It is unpleasant and will achieve nothing. Why would anyone suppose that the mere addition of some HTML code to an article will wash away any of the vandalism? It just says "yes, vandals, you've won, and now we'll fight you to keep this admission up front, too". The tag should be removed on sight, imo. -Splash^talk 23:12, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

  *While I share your concern about spreading vandalism to other pages, something has to be done about this page. It is special to other wikipedia pages as it gets twice as much editing as any other single Page. If users come to the Bush page and see Vandalism platestered over the article, the will get a bad first impression of wikipedia. The will agree with the criticisms of wikipedia that allowing anyone to edit can not possibly produce something intelligible and worth reading. That is why this this tag is a unfortunate, but neccesary evil so that first time users can see the good wikipedia produces.--Ewok Slayer 23:13, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

  If we tout Wikipedia as "The free encyclopedia that everyone can edit", and the edit button is disabled, they'll get a bad first impression too. Titoxd^(?!?) 23:16, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

• I oppose the use of the tag also. I think it adds a very unprofessional look to a page with high visibility, and it's actually misleading, because this page is actually less likely to have vandalism than a lot of pages that aren't watched as closely. As far as bad first impressions go, I think this tag does the opposite of its intentions. Without this tag, the vast majority of the time, users will come upon a good article, because we are closely watching and reverting vandalism. With it, they'll see this tag almost 100% of the time, and immediately be told that Wikipedia is untrustworthy; I say almost 100%, because part of the time, the vandal will have blanked the page or redirected somewhere else, both of which will defeat the tag. —Cleared as filed. 23:17, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

(after 3 edit conflicts) --- This page also has the most people watching it of any page on wikipedia (except maybe Wikipedia ) and any vandalism of the page is quickly reverted, also putting up a system would go against several major wikipedia principles most notably everyone being able to easily see and edit the same version of the same article and I agree with Titoxd that anyone has to be able to edit the page and we also cannot let the vandals win like this. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 23:19, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

"It will not put an end to it, do not kid yourself." Please do not become personal. This obviously wont STOP vandalism, but will make it pointless for this article. Will it therefore bleed into other articles? I honestly don't know for sure...Will semi-protect cause more bogus usernames to fill up the Wiki database...I don't know either.

My problem is the credibility/first impression, whereas the oppose votes are more based on the "anyone can edit...guess not" contradiction. Does having a second version that "only admins can synchronize" really strip away that right? Admins only take the public one and copy/paste it into the locked one, they just make sure that has no vandalism.

Also, you may not notice vandalism until after you print and read the whole thing, as some vandals are more subtle, we will have readers that are not even aware of the vandalism.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 23:33, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd also like to note another major problem I have with this which is that unless there's a massive turnaround in policy it is currently against several policy to have an article where the display copy is permanently protected and indeed policy states that pages should only be protected for the shortest possible time. I'm not going to say that this is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard but even I have to admit that keeping two different copies is a really bad idea. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 23:39, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

That is a mere technicallity. It is protected in the midterm(eventually we can removed the tag, since the water is constantly being tested with the template, but only the tags are protected. The template is the real article, and it would certainly not be protected, so I see no true policy vios. The technical wording of the policy can be re-worded for this technical exception.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 23:44, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

• Shh.... the vandals can hear us talking about them

Semi-protection

Boy would it be nice to have semi-protection right about now. Can I do us all a favor and round up the people who can code (in Category:Wikipedian programmers) and get them all to create semi-pro? Or has it been tried before/objections and such? I think in the meantime, there should be levels of protection that admins can set (I'll write more on this later), and then later have it based on a variety of other factors. Anyone with me on this? -Mysekurity 23:39, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I am for it, but some vandals will just create accounts and waste namespace. I didn't think much of this before, but it bothers me more and more. How many dead accounts do we really want? If clicking edit shows a "you must register window" then they will possible just register. It is an obstacle to vandals though, and if inactive accounts with almost no edit history can automatically be deleted, I am all for it.

I do have to admitt that you would not catch me dead citing this page, I would just use another encyclopedia. I am tired of anyone who proposes anything anti-vandal being treated like a retard; it gets difficult to stay on this project if Wiki is not even cite-worthy. Still, it is a good casual encyclopedia, so I am not leaving this site just yet :).

@Mysekurity: I would not bother trying to push this, you will just be looked down upon for even mentioning the idea of "anti-vandal" proposals. Unless Jimbo wants this, it is not happening.

Voice of All^T|@|ESP 23:52, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think you are being treated badly and I don't see why your taking it personally just because your proposal which is quite a leap does not have the consensus that you would like so that you can implement it. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 00:02, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't care if it doesn't have consensus, that is a strawman, but "dont kid youself", "hard to say this civilly", and other comments on the Semi-Protect Bug page bother me.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 00:06, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Well I agree that the ability to semi protect would be nice but until that gets done I think the best thing that can be done with this article can be to revert vandalism and to protect as needed. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 00:10, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

This article can not be cited...and no one cares about that; I am starting to feel like PurpleFeltAngel right now. I will try not to leave this site, even though it is often not worth the time. RfA's are hideous, people make fun of us being uncitable, vandals get more respect that users....ect.

Everyone, please read this [5]. It is quite true.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 00:17, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

• Voice of All, you have done a lot of work on this and I commend you for it. You deserve a medal. However, I also have to agree that I am opposed to tagging articles like this. I agreed with JamesMLane that perhaps a "protected" version could be made available that would be free of vandalism. Otherwise, as crummy as it sounds at times, the best thing to do is to continue to have an open wiki, in which anyone can edit, and continue to do the reverts as vandalism crops up. Again, you have worked hard on all this and I would archive it to userspace for future reference if it doesn't meet a concensus. Let me know if there is anything I can do for you!!--MONGO 01:05, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

If we dont tag it, than how will anyone know that the protected version exists?Voice of All^T|@|ESP 01:24, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Well according to policy I don't think that a protected version should exist since forking is not really within policy and is strongly discourged and I think replacing the display copy with a template like you suggested isn't the best way of doing it however it would be nice to be able to link to a good copy that has been certified to be vandalism free and that's possibly something that should be proposed and worked on. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 01:32, 21 November 2005 (UTC). Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 01:32, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

That is a simple, good idea. But the flaw is that people might edit, and hence copy over any recent good edits, like spelling/grammar fixes and updates.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 01:35, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

• I agree, what harm is there in having a little protected tag at the top of the article and leaving the rest of the article to the vandals?--Ewok Slayer 01:34, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

The article is always left to the vandals, but that way there would always be a link to a good copy.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 01:39, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

The history is available, and so are permalinks, if people want to find themselves a good copy. They can determine for themselves what constitutes 'good', since WP:ISNOT censored. Then they can copy-paste their chosen history link to their desktop/thesis/whatever. Allowing only admins to determine what is good, bad or ugly is directly counter to the no-big-deal philosophy and misunderstands that administrators on this site have no content moderation role — at all. The best solution is, as I have said elsewhere, to use your rollback button. Anyone can get one, since Godmodelight is freely available. -Splash^talk 01:54, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree, what Voice of All is pretty much proposing would entirely redefine the role of administrators. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 01:58, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

One problem I have with this whole proposal is that yes, it is really great that anyone can edit an article, but I believe we do need a semi-protect feature, and—excuse my french—fuck the vandals and the anti-elitism. No, I am not a professor and I am not a learned scholar in any subject, I simply want to see the Wiki be used for good, be citable, and be able to be treated like a real encyclopeda, not laughed at. I love this project too much, and I've put in too many hours into it to see it all fall apart because users can't agree. I am against the so-called "anti-wiki" philosophy, but I feel greatly that we need to find a better way of dealing with this. No, I don't feel the appropriate thing would be to fork the content, I think we need to work with what we have first, to clean it up, and to make it better. But with an article like this, where vandalism is so swift and often, I am in favor of protection. What is a newcommer going to be more upset at finding: a page where they cannot edit, and simply move on, or a blanked page, a page with allusions to Hitler, or profanity all over it? I personally feel that we need to do more than say "well, I'm a good person, so they are too". Don't get me wrong, I totally apposed to a whole site of anti-wiki, but I feel that an article like this needs to be dealt with. As per the comment about seeming "anti-vandal", I don't really know why that is. If I have to learn a new language and program the feature myself, I will. I honestly can't stand it that Wikipedia can't be trusted, and that vandalism overruns the place. New users will not know to check the page's history when they see a blanked page, and will be turned off by the lack of organized content. I honestly think that the page should be protected, and then, like the Main Page, changes are discussed first, then implimented. Who else is with me? -Mysekurity 02:06, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Then you would need a tag like "if you would like to change something on this page, then leave a message on the talk page". I would not mind this, only because the alternative of new users seeing "BUSH IS A NAZI GAY-HATER" makes wiki look soo bad. If everyone on earth knew about edit history, then, yes, no problem...if...However asking that meausures should be taken against serious vandalism will fall on deaf ears.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 02:14, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Just to keep the entire discussion on this topic intact I have de-archived the top level thread for this discussion. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 02:19, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Somebody wrote every one of the pages on the Wiki. Somebody cares deeply about each of them. Most of all them get by vandalism, with varying regularity. The snowball won't stop: protect X, because it's busy, so protect Y because it's a bit less busy but there's a sympathetica admin around. New users who don't yet understand the way a Wiki works, and the fact that they themselves can fix it will, I hope soon learn. The more ingenious will find the pages we have about this. The less ingenious will complain somewhere, and be pointed to the usual explanations. The non-ingenious will press refresh in confusion and, if things go as they usually do on this article, the vandalism will already be gone. The newcomers who don't think of any of those things are probably the vandals. The notion mooted above of having to seek permission to make an edit to a page is much more severe than simply temporarily protecting a page, or even adding that tag to it. That proposal says you must seek someone's approval before you can improve the article, before you can remove left-over vandalism etc etc. It makes it the domain of admins only, in effect. I hope there's no admin around who thinks admins alone should have such overbearing power. That we protect the main page is entirely unrelated to this article — note for instance that on every Wikicity, the main page is left unprotected. -Splash^talk 02:57, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Splash, you make a very valid point, and I respect your judgement immensely. I too believe in the power of the wiki, yet also believe that we must have standards that we need to account for. I am in favor of having heavily vandalized pages have a difs box at the bottom that showed proposed changes to articles, and users with higher edit counts (or halfway admins, etc.) could choose whether to accept or reject them, much in the same way that we have watchlists nowadays. I believe this would allow the article to maintain a better structure, become more stable, and would only be neccisary for high-profile pages such as this. I understand the need for an open wiki, but I also feel that users with under 10 edits should not be allowed to blank the page, or add vandalism. I think 10 edits is a pretty good threshold (not really editcountitis), and could be useful. Would starting a proposition page be out of the question? I have to say that I was quite saddened when I saw Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedians for encyclopedic merit in MfD, and I hope that we can create an encyclopedia that respects experts, but doesn't give them too much power, nor disallow non-professionals from editing. If these changes can be fixed by programming, I'd be happy to see what I can do. If, on the other hand, they are systematic, we'll need to work something out. Thanks for replying, and thanks for keeping this discussion civil, Mysekurity 03:31, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

The analogy to watchlists is interesting. Any scheme that allows any editor to acquire content moderation power beyond that of other users must be approached with utmost caution. Now 10 edits is about as close to no additional power as it is possible to come without actually changing anything. I would have to think about the question, but generally I don't see anon editing as a problem that actually needs fixing. The fact that Wiki is basically unciteable isn't because of vandalism per se; it is because of the lack of a requirement to be an expert (and remember Nupedia didn't work). So any measure to remove vandals from our shores won't actually improve the citeability or credibility of the Project — unfortunately. I think, however, that blue-sky thinking such as the kind of proposal you make above is always worth undertaking (and the proposal for the orignial idea is worth making, too, it's just not a workable proposal and shouldn't have been applied without sufficient input). There would be nothing at all wrong in making a proposal. Whether I would support it in its raw form or not is a different question. -Splash^talk 03:45, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Watchlist--vs--permission, interesting. A vandal can try to put Nazi in and have it rejected or he can put it in and have it reverted. Obviously, the former is better, because nobody saw the vandalism. There is one issue though, what if an admins just disagree's with an edit? If I actually was given all edits with a veto option, I would reject more items than if they went in without my consent. This is admin bais, so I fear that such an idea is flawed. A counsel of admins would be to slow for this, and a single admin veto is dangerous without policy. Perhaps we can have a policy where admins can only "veto" CLEAR vandalism.

And what about semiprotect? What if it not only meant that only logged in users can edit, but that they must have at least 25 edits(or whatever number) or so? That would really help out.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 04:05, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

See, what you're getting into now is anti-wiki ;). I'm talking about perhaps just high-profile pages. I do agree that admins should only be able to revert clear vandalism, and as always, everything would be logged to correct actions in the future. I believe an approval-based policy, maybe for just this article, or protected pages, would be better than having to read pages of dialogue on a talk page. A admin looking at a protected page would be able to accept or reject changes, but only on protected pages (this may be a bad idea however). I am totally for the idea of admins being able to reject clear vandalism, so on high-profile articles, it doesn't even show up, and means basically that the article'll still be viewable, vandalism will be short-lived and pointless as they cannot see the fruits of their labors, and good edits will get incorporated into the article. Of course, the article will get unprotected from this when something important does happen. I remember watching Attack of the Show and seeing how the admins dealt with the vandalism of "SARAH LANE IS HAWTT!" and such. The comment I believe the hosts made was, "It really shows the true spirit of the wiki", and made me feel pretty damn proud. One issue I have with all this is, however, most has been proposed long ago (a lot of the articles on the issue—like the one VoA provided above—are almost a year old), and no one's done anything about it. It reminds me of Slate's comparison of WP to Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy (and, ironically, one of the reasons I started to be an editor). I've completely lost the point of this post, but basically, I think we need a few small but huge changes, if you get what I'm saying. I don't think they'd be too hard to code, just acceptance might not be so great. I think if we had levels of protection for pages--open, protected, and everwhere in the middle, we'd all be happier as a result. Either an admin can set the page protection level, and the user will have to reach a certain bar to get there, or it'll be software-side. Any thoughts? -Mysekurity 04:34, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I really like the idea of multiple layers. We could have:

1. Open
2. No Moves
3. Logged in Only
4. Logged in with edit count 25+
5. Logged in with edit count 100+(pretty much like protection, but non-admins can edit)
6. Protected

This would MASSIVELY reduce vandalism. It would require developers though.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 05:04, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

1. REDIRECT m:Reviewed article version. I like this idea, but unfortunately, it's been dead for a little while. With some help, I'm sure it could be a great feature. I would honestly love to see this in place. -Mysekurity 05:37, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I have contacted Jimbo about semiprotection :).Voice of All^T|@|ESP 05:38, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Jimbo rarely answers, I think you'll have better luck posting it at the Village Pump. Titoxd^(?!?) 05:44, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

YAY!! Thanks! Would you mind e-mailing me a copy (or maybe drop a line on my talk)? I'd really appreciate it. Thanks again (I'm going to sleep--it's 12:45 here), Mysekurity 05:45, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

(*After edit conflict*) Sure that sounds good, I'll do it tomorrow, if you guys don't beat me to it. Good night! -Mysekurity 05:45, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Sadly....I have never posted at Village Pump before...:-(. Hey...12:45, we are in the same time zone!Voice of All^T|@|ESP 05:46, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

George Walker Bush article is still receiving lots of vandalism well everyone on the world wide web try to stop the vandalism. Mao

I am really torn about this semi-protection business. It is true that the more good articles we have, the greater the workload to keep them from deteriorating. At some point, the greater part of work done on WP will consist of preventing deterioration, not adding new content. The wiki model of "anyone can edit" has proven to be fantastically successful, and we should be extremely careful about changing anything about it. But it doesn't scale. It may be good for a 100,000 article database, maybe even for a 800,000 article database, but who can tell whether it will be beneficient for a 2,000,000 article database? I do think we are approaching the point where the drawbacks are beginning to outweigh the benefits. The 'semi-protection' idea seems like a practical, unideological approach: we protect articles already, why should we not also semi-protect them if the need arises? It will still not be a solution, but it may delay the negative effects I was talking about above. I for one am really tired to spend more and more time just looking after the work I have done on Wikipedia in the past: It really puts me off doing any more work now. dab (ᛏ) 22:10, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

What we really need is a massive discussion with everyone including Jimbo and some developers on IRC to deal with this problem. This is probably a better solution than Village Pump, as this idea has already passed Village Pump several times. If people agree with me, someone should speak up on either Jimbo's talk page or the mailing list. --kizzle 23:39, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I already left Jimbo a note.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 23:45, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I am in complete and utter agreement, both about scaling, and IRC. Our database of articles is not amazing, but it is very good. Complete protection can be very useful, but only in certain circumstances. Implementing this could prevent work from deteriorating, and allow users to add content, but not destroy it. We still need work on our articles, but many are good as they are, or only need a few tweaks, which this would be useful for. I would hate to see all the work by myself and other users to go to waste all because of a bunch of vandals. There are a number of long-term solutions that have been met with opposition, but adding this would greatly help the fight against vandalism, and wouldn't be too huge of a leap. It wouldn't put any new page proposals in place, and in time, could automate itself. Voice of All and I have had a little bit of a discussion (see our talk pages for more), and though we disagree with a few minor details, we seem to generally agree on the major parts. I want to spend my time adding content, not protecting it—especially when it could easily be handled by software. Complete openness worked wonders—when Wikipedia was small; now that we are much larger, we should still worry about new content, but we can only tackle so many heads of the hydra at once, and this will at least blind one of them, the others shall be worked on elsewhere. Name the time and the channel, and I'll be there. Again, do we need a meta or WP page? -Mysekurity 01:34, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

I disagree that there are articles that 'only need a few tweaks', or even "finished" ones. There is also no chance that Jimbo will ever agree to anything like that. All articles need to be continuoulsy improved, that's the truly fundamental difference between WP and Encarta and friends. However, anonymous edits are a little bit like random mutations. The likelihood that they improve stubs is large, the likelihood that they improve extensively peer-reviewed articles is small. We need some sort of implementation of that realization. It will have to be some sort of "web of trust". While anybody should be allowed to immediately edit stubby articles, it will do no harm if uncredited editors have their suggestions go through some sort of pipeline for changes to featured or {{GA}} articles. This is for the future, of course, say in two or three years. For our present concerns, we will need some cruder solution along the lines of semi-protection. All kinds of semi-protection will still be "considered harmful", just not quite as harmful as full protection. dab (ᛏ) 12:57, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

I do agree with dab here...it is just a mater of likelyhood of improvement, not so much as the possibility for improvement.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 14:02, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree too, but I don't think that this should be used on all, or even a significant number of articles, only on problem articles such as this. This would allow the rest to be easily editable and open, and would be a halfway step between Protected and non-protected, which I think would be appropriate here, and on other frequently vandalized pages (yet not floods of sparse vandalism). I agree with Splash in that this page should be left open as much as possible, but having a semi-protect feature would eliminate that. If new users can't edit a few (in the single digits) pages, they'll go on to edit something else, or put a note on the talk page, which would count as an edit. We already have something along these lines with page moves (granted, it isn't even an option for users with few edits), but with semi-pro, we could have different levels of requirements for pagemoves. I think this could be an incredibly valuable tool, and greatly stem the tide of vandalism to this article. As for the "few tweaks" and "already good" articles, perhaps I mis(typed?), or wasn't explaining myself clearly enough. This system would work similar to our RFPP system currently in place, but act as a better median step for continually vandalized pages. I've seen this discussed before, and am very interested in it. -Mysekurity

Goat

Bush read about a goat to florida kids where is the information about that?? MAO

See The Pet Goat. Coffee 09:44, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

The picture was in this article, with a short explanatory caption and a wikilink to The Pet Goat. It was removed in the course of an effort to improve the spacing. I've restored it. JamesMLane 17:01, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

vprotecting this page

Don't. Unless there's something immediate and particularly serious that blocks cannot deal with. An example might be obscene link spam that won't desist resulting in protection for an hour or two. User:Hall Monitor in particular seems to have adopted a personal policy of regularly protecting this page for days at a time, which I really do not think is either useful or appropriate-Splash^talk 15:26, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

petty vandalism

Can't someone lock this page? It's being vandalised on average every ten minutes! Izehar 17:34, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

• no kidding. I'm a new user and I noticed how many times this article shows up in the "Recent Changes" section. Wow. And kudos to those of you with enough time to keep up with it! --Kirby 00:51, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
  • We don't necessarily have the time, we just have a couple hundred administrators with this page on their watchlists! – ClockworkSoul 05:39, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

White Republican men

I removed this falsehood from the article: "His cabinet appointees were largely white Republican men of his father's staff, with a few exceptions like Colin Powell for Secretary of State." Powell, Norton, Veneman, Chao, Martinez, Mineta, Paige, and Abraham are not white men. Norm Mineta is even a Democrat. In his first term I believe Bush matched Clinton's record for diverse appointees. I believe Bush's only cabinet level appointee who was highly involved with the Bush 41 administration was Rumsfeld. Rhobite 17:46, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, that didn't really make sense to me either. Good edit. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 18:02, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Not to start anything but just saying the song Hunter (song) goes well with bush. Maoririder 23:02, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

People of Wikipedia listen people will continue to vandalism Mr. Bush's page so take action i know you are doing the best to your ability keeep it up. Maoririder 23:32, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

It would be nice if you could replace text to help the flow instead of being only a "deletionist." 216.68.118.211 15:10, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd rather remove an obviously false statement from an article and hurt the flow a little than leave it in the article. Rhobite 05:30, 24 November 2005 (UTC)