This is an archive of past discussions about Barack Obama. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Consensus is against these changes as a whole, and specifically #4 which was also discussed separately. Discussion continues in other venues, but this particular thread is not covering new ground. -- Frank | talk 22:22, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following are my proposed edits to the Barack Obama page, with the intent being to make it more objective and comprehensive, rather than painting a deceivingly rosy picture of him.
1. Proposed Edit to introduction section.
Original: "Obama is the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.[4]"
Proposed: "Obama is the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate[4], an honor which accompanied widespread criticism about his lack of accomplishment[[1]][[2]] and confessed surprise by Barack Obama.[[3]][[4]],
2. Proposed Edit to 'State legislator: 1997–2004' section.
Original: "Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, succeeding State Senator Alice Palmer as Senator from Illinois's 13th District, which at that time spanned Chicago South Side neighborhoods from Hyde Park-Kenwood south to South Shore and west to Chicago Lawn.[42]"
Proposed: "Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, succeeding State Senator Alice Palmer as Senator from Illinois's 13th District, which at that time spanned Chicago South Side neighborhoods from Hyde Park-Kenwood south to South Shore and west to Chicago Lawn.[42] Obama won the election through use of lawyers to subsequently disqualify the petition signatures of Alice Palmer and 3 other opponents after the filing deadline.[[5]][[6]]"
3. Proposed Edit to 'State legislator: 1997-2004' section.
Original: "In January 2003, Obama became chairman of the Illinois Senate's Health and Human Services Committee when Democrats, after a decade in the minority, regained a majority.[48] He sponsored and led unanimous, bipartisan passage of legislation to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers they detained, and legislation making Illinois the first state to mandate videotaping of homicide interrogations.[44][49]"
Proposed: "In January 2003, Obama became chairman of the Illinois Senate's Health and Human Services Committee when Democrats, after a decade in the minority, regained a majority.[48] He sponsored and led unanimous, bipartisan passage of legislation to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers they detained, and legislation making Illinois the first state to mandate videotaping of homicide interrogations.[44][49] This legislation was originally worked on by Senator Rickey Hendon[[7]][[8]], and was among numerous pieces of legislation given to Obama as part of a requested deal with his political mentor[[9]][[10]], Senator Emil Jones.[[11]][[12]]"
4. Proposed Edit to '2004 U.S. Senate campaign'.
Original: "Obama's expected opponent in the general election, Republican primary winner Jack Ryan, withdrew from the race in June 2004.[58] Two months later, Alan Keyes accepted the Illinois Republican Party's nomination to replace Ryan.[59] A long-time resident of Maryland, Keyes established legal residency in Illinois with the nomination.[60] In the November 2004 general election, Obama received 70% of the vote to Keyes' 27%, the largest victory margin for a statewide race in Illinois history.[61]"
Proposed: "Obama's expected opponent in the general election, Republican primary winner Jack Ryan, withdrew from the race in June 2004[58] following a widely-reported sex scandal.[[13]] 2 months later, and with less than 3 months remaining in the election[[14]], former Ambassador to the United Nations' Social and Economic Council[[15]], Alan Keyes, accepted the Illinois Republican Party's nomination to replace Ryan.[59] A long-time resident of Maryland, Keyes established legal residency in Illinois with the nomination.[60] Following a race in which Keyes was heavily criticized as a 'carpetbagger'[[16]] by the press, and with Keyes running a negative campaign criticizing Obama on the issue of late-term abortions[[17]], Obama in the November 2004 general election received 70% of the vote to Keyes' 27%, the largest victory margin for a statewide race in Illinois history.[61]"
Ultimately I may add more suggestions later but this I think is a good start and comprises the bulk of the elaborations about his past I would like to see. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 05:09, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
I'll review them seriously when I have a chance. Whether we agree or not in the end, I appreciate your taking the invitation to start a new section and propose them straight, one at a time. I hope we can all keep up a dignified, collegial, supportive spirit discussing them (kicking several editors, and myself, under the table... ahem!). Thanks! - Wikidemon (talk) 05:52, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
I haven't taken the time to study the other suggestions yet, but the first one, I think, has immediately obvious problems. The introduction should not be longer than is necessary. The mention that he is the laureate merely acknowledges that he did receive the prize. It does not, in any way, project any position on whether he deserved that prize or not. You are proposing a change that changes that statement from being purely NPOV to one that could be called POV. We haven't even had enough time to see how history has judged the 2009 prize, so why are we mentioning this in an article that is supposed to provide an accurate overview of his entire life? WHSL(Talk)05:42, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
Well, just to play Devil's Advocate here, if George Bush received a Nobel Peace Prize and got criticized for it, and we put that in the intro paragraph, people would be up in arms that it was merely mentioned without the opposition factor being mentioned as well. On Bush's page, for example, it spends many sentences discussing the issues of criticism and popularity loss just in the introduction. When an award receives as much criticism and controversy as Obama's Nobel Prize did, to not mention this even in passing in the prominent introduction is to essentially frame the fact in a positive and deceivingly so light. I do think the criticism/controversy should be mentioned at least in passing, or else not mention the award at all, or it is appearing to only provide positive details in the introduction section, in contrast to other profiles (such as George Bush's).
As for the 16 additional words used in the introduction, I think they are worthwhile for balancing out an introduction section that otherwise fails to mention ANY negative or critical aspect whatsoever. This is in sharp contrast to other political profiles which carry no such qualms about mentioning a critical fact or mention in the introduction to provide a more accurate and two-sided summary.
Yes, Bush's page does discuss issues relating to his declining popularity. However, consider when Bush was president. His presidency is now over. It is history. We have had more time to consider the finer points of his presidency. However, Obama's winning of the Nobel Prize is in the recent past. We have not had the time to consider the historical implications of the 2009 prize. You cannot judge how historically controversial something actually was this early.
Also, your statement regarding "positive details" is not one I would agree with at all. I can't see anywhere statements like "he is rated a very popular president". How can something be overly positive if you cannot find obviously positive statements? Could you point me to the specific places where you think the introduction is apparently POV? WHSL(Talk)06:14, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
I very much disagree. I see no difference. For one thing, Hurricane Katrina happened pretty recently too and there is criticism of Bush about that on his profile. If the Iraq War was happening right now, criticism of him about that would be warranted as well. There were protests about that and it was clearly controversial just as there are clearly controversial issues surrounding Obama right now as well. Controversy can be assessed at any time. If numerous news outlets are reporting on it or there are mass protests going on, then it makes sense to mention this in passing.
As for examples of the positive details, it is more what it does mention in contrast to what it does not. It mentions he was president of the Harvard Law Review, but does not mention he published only one article while there.[[18]] It mentions he won the Nobel Peace Prize but none of the controversy that surrounded this, and led to criticism of the committee responsible for awarding the prize. It skims over all his accomplishments while never mentioning anything involving controversy or criticism. If one did not know better, you would think he had no controversy at all surrounding him who makes no waves and not the polarizing figure his presidency is showing him to be. It could mention his excessively liberal voting record or the protests against his lack of a birth certificate. Or that the stimulus and health care bills he made primary talking points are facing skepticism by the American people and delays in Congress, and he has taken criticism from his own party for backing off of his earlier promises on withdrawing troops and continuing the Guantanamo military commissions. Maybe his record drop off in public support, which set a record low for any president at that point in their presidency[[19]]. Again though, from Wikipeda, you would never even consider it from reading the intro. As far as the intro makes it look, everything is just peachy. Palin has faced less controversy and her profile makes it a point to mention ethics complaints. All I am saying is it is not an accurate portrayal of how he appears to the American people. Just something to show that controversy would be accurate, but there is nothing. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 07:00, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
Using Hurricane Katrina and George Bush as an comparative example of controversy is not very good. Hurricane Katrina occurred five years ago, and killed a lot of people, and caused millions of dollars worth of damage. Barack Obama winning the Nobel Prize occurred very recently, and certainly hasn't killed anyone. How can you compare them?
Your examples still do not point to me how the article specifically portrays Obama in a positive light. I have no idea how one can say this article is "peachy". The article only talks about what Obama has or has not done, and what he believes or does not believe in. A person reading this article should have no higher or lower opinion of Obama after finishing it. Nowhere does it say that he was immensely popular etc. In turn:
Only one article as president of Harvard Law Review - how is this notable at all?
Nobel Peace Prize - controversy is mentioned, last section of article.
Controversies - one about Nobel Peace Prize is mentioned, rest are irrelevant to his overall biography and belong to the presidency article.
Polarising figure - source?
Excessively liberal voting record - "Excessive" is a POV term. Obama has a strong history though of being considered a liberal; this is mentioned.
Basically can't prove he is born in US - fringe theory at best.
Stimulus health bills - Don't judge how history will treat this while it is still happening.
Public support - Drop in popularity is mentioned.
Palin has less controversy - Once again, you cannot quantify controversy like this. Palin was a Vice Presidential candidate; Obama is the current President.
Not "accurate portrayal of how he appears to the American people" - Wikipedia is worldwide, and suggesting that we all put articles from the American perspective can be quite offensive.
Controversy is not easy to measure, and certainly cannot be assessed "at any time". The reason is that people will generally think and talk about the latest and greatest ones. Therefore, it is difficult - and not a good idea to attempt - to measure the effect of a particular controversy on history just months after it has happened. Just having multiple reputable news outlets reporting on it is nowhere near enough - they release news every day, covering new and old controversies. Just having protests is not enough either - there are protests all the time. One must wait for the weight of history to truly judge whether a controversy really had historical effect. There are controversies every day, but only a few survive in memories and become truly important. WHSL(Talk)13:28, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
Hmmm... as a side note, would you then say you have no problem at all with my other additions, since all of them have proved controversial over the years concerning Obama and are by no means recent? Furthermore, shouldn't Wikipedia report recent events as well as old ones? If there is a recent scandal, I have seen numerous Wikipedia articles mention this, or other controversies relating to a person or business. It would make no sense to do otherwise. Also, is there any Wikipedia policy stating that controversial events must pass a certain time limit before they can be addressed in an article? --Jzyehoshua (talk) 16:05, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
So basically, you want to change neutral wording in a WP:BLP into negative wording, because you don't like Barack Obama. I don't know about anyone else, but I vote 'No' on that. I can't see how anyone could read the changes Jzyehoshua wants to make(from his accusations of murdering infants to Obama stealing elections) as anywhere near acceptable. This is a user who has worked for and still supports Alan Keyes. Keyes is a 'Birther' who also has accused Obama and his family of lying about his parentage, claiming Obama's father is some other person than Barack Obama Sr. Obviously there is something wrong with the former Diplomat. In any case, it's impossible to allow this type of POV pushing into a WP:BLP. Why doesn't someone just tell this user that and be done with it? DD2K (talk) 15:21, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
Hitler killed millions of people but that doesn't mean Wikipedia should avoid mentioning it because it's negative. Just because an accusation is of an egregious crime does not mean it is untrue or unsourced. And speaking of which, I provided plenty of sources. If you disagree with the sources or statements, then state why and what parts. I am seeing absolutely nothing constructive from you at this point, only criticisms that the charges are too negative. Again, that does not mean they are untrue or unsourced or not being objectively stated.
You are continuing to use ad hominem tactics, trying to avoid addressing what were very objectively stated additions and very well sourced by attempting to attack my character (as I previously predicted would happen). You are trying to take this onto an irrelevant subject matter about Keyes. The bottom line is that Keyes was Obama's 2004 senate opponent, and the 2004 senate race was a prominent part of Obama's history, so mentioning Keyes and the elements of that race is entirely relevant.
If you only want to make personal attacks, rather than addressing the subject matter, please find another discussion to participate in. I am a little surprised actually that the Wikipedia community does not prevent these kind of blatant personal attacks when they have nothing to do with constructive criticism. Usually forums at least do a pretty good job of keeping things from getting out of hand.
As for WP:BLP, you interestingly did not state how you thought I was violating the rules of 'Neutral Point of View', 'Verifiability', and 'No Original Research'. As far as I am concerned, the statements are within the WP:NPOV guidelines which state allowance for POV, just that it must be editorially neutral in tone. In fact, it is a criticism of the Obama article that it does not "clearly describe, represent, and characterize all the disputes within a topic" as the NPOV guidelines say should occur. On the contrary, the article seeks to avoid mentioning any contentious material in the article, which was clearly not the intent of the NPOV guidelines. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 16:05, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
P.S. Nice use of a strawman btw. I did not say anything about changing neutral wording to negative wording. I was talking about negative views, not negative wording. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 16:05, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
DD2K: Why doesn't someone just tell this user that and be done with it? But DD2K, you've just told him that. -- Hoary (talk) 16:25, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I did. My question is, after 30 PAGES and more than 16,000 words, why have Admins constantly kept this obvious POV pushing open? Now there is a comparison to Hitler and accusations that I am using straw men? Me, not him. This whole diatribe is pointless and gives no thought on the many many hours people have worked on this article, or the FAQ. Now the editor not only wants to accuse Obama of murder, but compares the level to that of genocide committed by Adolph Hitler. He doesn't want to improve the article, he wants to destroy it. He can take a simple thing like Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize, and turn that into criticism of Obama. Instead of the praise he received, even by conservatives, on the way he handled the situation(including his speech). Heck, even Pat Buchanan commented that it was ridiculous to blame Obama for the Award. Still, that's a small part of the many, many egregious edits the user wants to make to the article. This is now beyond ridiculous. DD2K (talk) 16:47, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
One thing that concerns me though is that there seems a lot of confusion by users on this topic about what the WP:NPOV rules actually say. Here is a reposting of them:
"Neutral point of view
The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting perspectives on a topic as evidenced by reliable sources. It requires that all majority- and significant-minority views be presented fairly, in a disinterested tone, and in rough proportion to their prevalence within the source material. Therefore, material should not be removed solely on the grounds that it is "POV", although it may be shortened or moved if it gives undue weight to a minor point of view, as explained below.
The neutral point of view neither sympathizes with nor disparages its subject, nor does it endorse or oppose specific viewpoints. It is not a lack of viewpoint, but is rather a specific, editorially neutral, point of view. An article should clearly describe, represent, and characterize all the disputes within a topic, but should not endorse any particular point of view. It should explain who believes what, and why, and which points of view are most common. It may contain critical evaluations of particular viewpoints based on reliable sources, but even text explaining sourced criticisms of a particular view must avoid taking sides.
Bias
Neutrality requires views to be represented without bias. All editors and all sources have biases (in other words, all editors and all sources have a point of view)—what matters is how we combine them to create a neutral article. Unbiased writing is the fair, analytical description of all relevant sides of a debate, including the mutual perspectives and the published evidence. Editorial bias toward one particular point of view should be removed or repaired."
As stated there, it is expected that editors will have points of view. Everybody does. It just requires that the subject matter be written from a neutral standpoint and avoid taking sides. It is not avoiding contentious material, but rather presenting all views so long as they can be sourced and stated neutrally, with this stating then done in proportion to the relevance. Furthermore, it is perfectly alright to provide 'critical evaluations' if based on reliable sources, so long as it's done simply stating the views, rather than providing opinions. For this reason when writing my proposed edits I sought to avoid using adjectives and merely to use a matter of fact tone of voice, merely stating the facts rather than trying to provide opinions or even to frame it in any way. Furthermore, I sought to provide them as concisely and minimally as possible, using as few words as possible, and to not make them more prevalent than necessary, since this is after all an Obama page, not an Obama criticisms page. Therefore, it's meant simply to provide relevant information, not go into depth about the criticism (which I was confused about before since pages did allow controversies sections in the past). At any rate, I'm adjusting to the style requirements and agree with them from what I can see. If anyone has any more to add about how I should approach this let me know. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 16:39, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
As for the WP:BLP rules someone earlier brought up, one of the sections states:
"Well-known public figures
In the case of significant public figures, there will be a multitude of reliable, third-party published sources to take material from, and Wikipedia biographies should simply document what these sources say. If an allegation or incident is notable, relevant, and well-documented by reliable published sources, it belongs in the article—even if it's negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it. If it is not documented by reliable third-party sources, leave it out."
This is pretty specific. It is not a matter of whether it is negative. It is not a matter of whether there is a POV attached to the person writing it (though they must write neutrally). If the incident is 'notable, relevant, and well-documented by reliable published sources, it belongs in the article-even if it's negative' - those are Wikipedia's exact words on the subject.
At the top of the page, in the meantime, it states, "We must get the article right. Be very firm about the use of high quality references. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion."
Therefore, this is not a question of whether my material is negative (though it must be presented with facts only, not opinions, unless stating opinions of a major source from a publication), but of whether the sources are there to back it up. Are my sources used above reliable enough and thorough enough to completely back up everything I said? Was what they were backing up notable and relevant?
These are the questions I was expecting to end up confronting primarily when I made this section. All this talk about whether or not my POV is negative and what I want to include is negative has absolutely no bearing according to Wikipedia rules. All that matters is that it be notable, well-sourced, neutrally stated, and relevant in regards to its position on the page. And when it comes to that, I am more than happy to discuss with anybody whether my proposed edits measure up, and if not, what can be done so that Wikipedia rules are met.
If we covered everything, we'd have a very long article. We need to cover the most important things here, and neutrally, so we don't have time for Republican party-line smears such as the infanticide smear, or even the Nobel Peace Prize "controversy". Funnily enough, Bill O'Reilly put it best regarding the prize: whether it's deserved or not, it's a good thing, so people shouldn't complain about it. Sceptre(talk)18:39, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
Actually, infanticide is not a Republican smear. The ones pushing it originally were the pro-life crowd, like Alan Keyes, Jill Stanek, and the National Right to Life Committee. I am a pro-life Democrat myself who votes 3rd party in all presidential elections. And Keyes is now part of the Constitution Party. It took the GOP a long time to finally pick up on the infanticide stuff (McCain didn't try mentioning it until the election's last few weeks) and only after people like me sent them numerous complaints telling them to knock off the dumb smears that are easily debunked and stick to factually-based criticisms like Obama's history on late-term abortion. It was not the GOP pushing it. It was a matter of us pro-life people harassing the GOP about using sourced and valid criticisms like it instead of their cherry-picking smear campaigns about ridiculous stuff or stuff difficult to prove. My main reason for wanting the Nobel Peace Prize controversy comment included is that it's disingenuous at best to put in an introduction section merely that someone won an award when over half the world not only doesn't understand why you won it, but actively thinks you shouldn't have won it.
Look, why is the Nobel Peace Prize even being mentioned in the introduction? Because it is viewed as an 'accomplishment'. But when there are major news organizations criticizing it, world leaders ridiculing the process, and even his closest supporters are hard-pressed to explain any reason he could have won it - then maybe that should be mentioned, so it doesn't unfairly portray as an accomplishment something that is very controversial, without at least mentioning the controversy. Would you support a proposed edit even of "Obama is the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate[4] (an award accompanied by controversy).[5]" with the link simply going to the bottom section of the page detailing the controversy? For using 5 words simply to avoid framing as an accomplishment something very controversial, I don't understand how anyone could objectively disagree with this. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 05:01, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict - this addresses Jzyehoshua) Those are all good points, and I'll try to address them in a few hours when I have a chance. The answers to why certain things do belong in the main Obama article, don't belong, or are the subject of reasonable editor discretion, are all in the policy / guideline sections you cite, but you have to be careful interpreting them. The main issue, in short, comes down to whether a particular item is adequately sourced and is faithful to those sources (whether it is a fact to state, an opinion to report, or a disputed claim of fact) noteworthy, pertinent / relevant, and, having passed that filter, where to put it. Deciding which article(s), if any, should mention a given thing is a matter of assessing how notable, relevant, and weighty (a cluster of related ways of saying the same thing that I prefer to call "noteworthy", meaning worth noting) it is with respect to the particular article in question. For example, the fact that quiche consumption dropped for many years in America after publication of the book, Real Men Don't Eat Quiche, if properly sourced, probably belongs in the article about that book. It may or may not belong in the article on quiche, depending on whether it is a truly noteworthy event in the history of that food. That can be approached a number of ways. Do many of the sources on quiche mention it? Did it have a major impact? Does it help the reader gain a better comprehensive knowledge of the subject? Is it an established fact or speculation? I don't think assessing whether that represents a pro- or anti-quiche bias is terribly helpful here. The goal is not for the article as a whole to be properly balanced with both positive and negative facts about quiche. It's to promote an understanding of the subject, ideally free of biases on either side, not balanced biasses. And at the extreme, the fact doesn't belong in the main article about cheese, or publishing, or men, eating, or reality. Sceptre has a point, there is only so much information that can go in one article, which is why we have 200+ and counting articles that are about Obama (see the template). This one, of course, is the most read by an order of magnitude so the key facts go here. Anyway, like I said I'll try to give it a more full answer in a while. Thanks for being patient. Cheers. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:56, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
I agree. That is why I did not try to put any mention of those negative elements about Obama in the introduction. However, I do think them relevant to the sections they are suggested in. The 2004 senate campaign was the big step up for Barack Obama, and a few sentences mentioning the general election and topics in it hardly seems out of line. I think as it is, the general election is far too little mentioned in the current section (probably giving undue weight to other factors), which focuses more on the primary, endorsements, entering the election, and his keynote address. Let me put it in perspective here:
-There are 11 sentences and 286 words in the section.
-The first 2 sentences of 76 words discuss Obama's choosing to enter the race.
-The 3rd sentence of 33 words discusses endorsements of Obama in the primary.
-The 4th sentence of 31 words discusses how Obama won the primary in a landslide.
-The 5th sentence of 26 words discusses Obama's new label as a 'rising star' because of his primary win.
-The 6th sentence of 19 words discusses Obama's keynote address at the DNC.
-The 7th sentence of 33 words discusses how many viewers saw it and how the address elevated his status in the Democrat party.
-The 8th sentence of 19 words discusses how Obama's opponent for the general election withdrew from the race.
-The 9th and 10th sentences of 28 words discuss how Alan Keyes accepted the Republican nomination and established residency in the state.
-The 11th sentence of 26 words discusses Obama's win and how wide a margin it was won by.
Now, you realize that in a section supposedly about the 2004 U.S. Senate Campaign, not 1 of the 11 sentences or even 1 of the 286 words used here ACTUALLY MENTIONS THE CAMPAIGN FOR THE GENERAL ELECTION BETWEEN KEYES AND OBAMA. NOT ONE WORD ABOUT HOW THE CAMPAIGN TRANSPIRED, KEY COMPONENTS OF THE CAMPAIGN, WHAT WENT ON BETWEEN BOTH SIDES, WHAT THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CAMPAIGN WERE - A.B.S.O.L.U.T.E.L.Y. N.O.T.H.I.N.G..
This is why I am surprised that there is so much opposition to actually discussing major parts of the general election campaign. As it is, there is zero mention of it in a section where this should be front and center, you would think. Instead, undue weight is given to discussing everything that sounds good about Obama. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 05:01, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
(Response to Jzyehoshua's second post in this edit and his four proposed changes in particular.) Quite. Which does explain the Hitler article, then, doesn't it? Which is the point. An article does not use the Neutral Point of View guidelines as a framework to balance and neutralize our tone to make everybody come out about equal to Hitler in their bios. Farrah Fawcett-Hitler. Thomas Alva Hitler. President Barack Hitler. Regardless what the desperate and vile tactics of someone's partisan opposition or the post-ironic, beyond hyperbolic news coverage ravenousness for same, we do not represent opposing views neutrally if it is clear those views are fringe views with little or no basis in the truth. There are holocaust deniers, but while they are mentioned, they are not given equal time or equal weight because a neutral or objective view sees them for the self-interested obfuscators they are. The point of an encyclopedia is not simply to cover the news, to give equal time to both views for every process on a day-to-day news cycle manner. There are people who have alleged that Barack Obama wants to kill your grandmother with death panels. Protesters ranting about that have drawn a great deal of media coverage, carrying signs that equate Obama with Hitler. But these claims are absurd and disputed by the facts. And so we don't mention in this bio that Barack Obama wants to kill your grandmother with death panels, nor do we mention that a loud fringe gets coverage for stridently and slanderously persisting that he does. Article coverage of negativity doesn't mean simply that anybody can make up something negative about a notable person, get a lot of coverage, and into the notable person's encyclopedic biography for history it goes. There are some negative things that people say about others that are, in the final analysis, not about the others, they're about the people saying them in the first place. These issues you raise happen to be among them. Hugo Chavez et al bitching that Obama doesn't deserve the Nobel Prize isn't remotely as notable as the Nobel Committee thinking he does. That is what the Nobel Prize is, after all, is the collective decision of the Nobel Committee.
The vast majority of people are going to have a problem with the song that's #1 on the charts at any given time, but the fact that Punk rockers don't like power ballads and Hip Hop fans don't like grunge music and classic rock aficionados don't like teen pop isn't relevant to the article about the song that hits #1. Those irreconcilable differences between groups may bear mentioning in some article somewhere, but every pop song article doesn't need a section noting that Kanye West doesn't like it, it's only when Kanye West gets up and makes a big ass of himself interrupting the broadcast at the moment some chick is getting an award that his feelings become notable to mention, and then it's still about him making an ass of himself, not fundamentally about his difference of opinion, which again is presumed. If Hugo Chavez or Sean Hannity or whomever traveled to Oslo and pulled a Kanye West on Obama, that would still be more about them and about the event than it would be about Obama's biography, considering the level of notability and the degree of things that deserve coverage for their direct connection to Obama, his actions and his experiences. If Chavez' comments resulted in the Nobel committee reversing their decision and instead calling for Obama to be brought up on charges in the Hague, that would be an exceptional thing, affect Obama, and would be relevant to his biography and mitigate the mention of his win.
The fact that at this point in time you're a fan of Alan Keyes is probably why you can't see that he doesn't deserve any more elaboration in this article than he already has. This article hits the broad points and only rolls up its sleeves and explains when it has to to strike the proper perspective about the situation. What the media "did to" Keyes or what Keyes' campaign tactics were is simply not relevant to what probably amounts to a three-page biography of Barack Obama. There is an article specifically about that election, and if it isn't already there, it may warrant a sentence or two from weight and relevancy standpoints there. Your own posts state that Keyes knew he couldn't win the election against Obama and took the job to run against him only for the opportunity to smear him with overstated partisan smears from day one, which if you thought about it for a few more minutes should itself explain to you why it's not this biography's responsibility to salvage Keyes' electoral viability. Allowing Obama to run unopposed and smearing him from the sidelines would have damaged the foundation of Obama's then-future prospects more than the cynical way they went with Keyes, is my opinion, but my opinion doesn't belong in these articles either.
Similarly, if there is some filing date legality that prevented other candidates from successfully waging their campaigns at that time, even if it was Obama's lawyers who pointed that out, it has nothing to do with this biography. Your characterization that Obama won the election through the use of lawyers, and not through the sexual peccadilloes of his opponents or the bilious distaste from their negative campaigns—much less Obama's own positive life story and adept campaigning, which doesn't get situational coverage either if you'd take a second look at the bio (no "again in 200X it was his exceptional this and his sterling that that saw him through with flying colors, winning him the XXXX")—should be obvious in its overstated POV even to you.
I will say this, and not for some misplaced sense that I've got to throw you a bone. If the racial profiling legislation was a collaboration with someone(s) else—and I've got to admit that your avalanche methodology has prevented me from the will or time to actually read that long and conversationally written link—that is the sort of thing that we could note within the sentence already there (not by adding an additional sentence), something like:
"He sponsored and led unanimous, bipartisan passage of legislation drafted by Senator Rickey Hendon[Ref linking Hendon directly to the actual bill, as opposed to Op-Ed piece likening the two] to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers they detained, and legislation making Illinois the first state to mandate videotaping of homicide interrogations.[44][49]"
If Emil Jones was an influential mentor of Obama's and that is supported by notable refs (perhaps mentioned by Obama in one of his books? I've not yet read them), that, too, could be noted somewhere in passing. The truth is that all successful people owe great parts of their formative leaps and bounds to various people in their family, in their community, in their profession, etc., and/or have managers and agents and bosses, yet those things are generally only stated in a bio as brief as this one if and in those instances where this influence made a profound impact and was a ubiquitous presence. Credit where credit is due, but again to start going down the road of noting everyone connected with every event is not the purpose of a three-page-ish biography.
I would like to associate myself with Wikidemon's comments about quiche. (Things you can't believe you're typing.)
Finally, somewhere in here you lament that nobody in the Wikipedia community has done anything about attacks on you, apparently ignoring the fact that two editors including myself have entirely removed comments that were deemed unacceptable and interacted with the editor in question, and another one or two here have alternately tried closing the discussion and called for greater discretion here. I have formally weighed in against three of your four suggestions and suggested an alternative to your fourth if the refs and facts so warrant. In the future I recommend taking things one or two at a time and focusing on sources that would be referenced in the article, because quite honestly this is a heck of a lot of reading and writing for anybody to do in their spare time and the goalposts keep moving. Most people could not be faulted for seeing things like World Net Daily and "Hitler", sum you up with them, and make for the door, if not your door.
You are dishonestly trying to portray me as equating the infanticide issue with Hitler. I am getting tired of all the fallacies and misquoting of my words, which exactly repeated were, "Hitler killed millions of people but that doesn't mean Wikipedia should avoid mentioning it because it's negative. Just because an accusation is of an egregious crime does not mean it is untrue or unsourced." The point was not comparing Obama and Hitler, or infanticide and Hitler's actions, but making a point about why Wikipedia should not avoid mentioning negative aspects of a notable person's biography. These mudslinging tactics are particularly detestable for a moderator.
As I stated above, the actual general election and circumstances thereof were not mentioned at all in the 2004 U.S. Senate Campaign section in any of the 11 sentences or 286 words used. This to me particularly seems an example of undue weight and extreme bias. You keep using terms like 'smear' in regards to Keyes about the infanticide charges, but I notice you have not tried to contest any of the original links stating specific evidence involved, such as the article by FactCheck, or the actual statements made by Obama on the senate floor which I quoted verbatim. It is you who are running a smear campaign, because rather than addressing the actual claims and related evidence, you simply resort to name-calling and spurious attacks.
This comment was particularly dishonest: "Your characterization that Obama won the election through the use of lawyers, and not through the sexual peccadilloes of his opponents or the bilious distaste from their negative campaigns". You mixed the 2 elections. His original entry into politics came by knocking off all opponents through extended challenges of their petition signatures after the filing deadline. The Jack Ryan and Keyes stuff was in the 2004 election. You are taking taking elections almost 10 years apart, and then trying to criticize me for mentioning the first because I didn't instead credit the events that would happen almost 10 years later instead! You just said, in effect, "You are mischaracterizing by saying Obama won the 1996 election through use of lawyers [which he did] instead of mentioning the sexual scandals of Jack Ryan and negative campaigning of Alan Keyes that occurred in the 2004 election." Either you are being very, very dishonest or I should give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you don't even know these were 2 separate elections.
(unindent) Let's stick to the edits to keep things moving...
My take on the content proposals:
1. Mention controversy surrounding Nobel prize in lede. Although this is an arguable point and within the reasonable bounds of editor discretion, I don't support this, for several reasons:
(a) It doesn't belong in the lede - the lede hits all the major points but doesn't try to add context like opinions or controversies. It's already long enough.
(b) Criticism is not a salient point about Nobel Peace Prizes. Most or all are controversial, and they are nearly always awarded for political reasons rather than based on merit. As a general point about the prize, that is worth covering in articles about the prize and about this one in particular, but if we are to say things about Obama's winning the prize this is pretty far down the list. The Nobel Committee is an independent body that is not directly affected by public approval - it is not like a politician who needs to be elected, or a film that needs to convince people to watch it. It's kind of like saying that a sports official's ruling is criticized, the design of an airplane, or the name of a private boat. It's not completely unremarkable, just not the most important thing about it.
(c) It seems that nearly everyone agrees that Obama has not achieved or acted (yet?) in a way that would deserve the prize, including Obama himself. He, his supporters and detractors, the press, and probably the committee itself, all acknowledge that the prize was given in response to his promises to change American policy in a way welcomed by much of the international community, partly as a way of encouraging him to follow through on it. Perhaps that's not precisely it, but I don't think there's a whole lot of disagreement on the particular politics the Committee was playing, so calling it criticism is unduly opinionated. The only major differences of opinion are whether this is truly a huge honor for Obama under the circumstances, and whether the committee is going too far out on a limb (but see above, opinions of others don't directly affect the committee or the prize recipient).
(d) Bias. To mention only that some criticize the award, without mentioning that a large number also praise the award, each sometimes from unexpected sources, is to present only one side of the story. As discussed elsewhere, for encyclopedic reasons criticism and praise are best used judiciously rather than filtering all events in politics through the lens of how much positive and negative political gaming goes on surrounding them.
(e) Should be, and is, covered elsewhere. The criticism, support, general consensus, and opinions of Obama and the committee are all covered by at least four consecutive sentences in the body of the article, in the section on the prize. We're not ignoring the issue, but I don't think every four-sentence section justifies a phrase in the lede.
2. Mention lawsuit that disqualified opponents in Illinois senate. This is a toss-up for me. I see nothing wrong with mentioning this if we do it in a neutral way. "Through the use of lawyers" is a loaded, derogatory slant on something that is not negative at all, and mentioning that it was after the filing deadline is pure insinuation. Obama sued, and won, which means his position was legally correct. Of course he sued after the filing deadline - that's when challenges to petitions are heard, after the petitions are turned in. What he sued about were fraudulent nominating petitions, which had become the norm in the corrupt, insular world of Chicago politics - he was the only candidate that was legitimately nominate. These days nearly all close elections are litigated. If that fact bothers some people and draws some grandstanding by opponents, America is always free to change its political process. I'm not sure people would like the results, but that's a fact about elections, not about each politician who undertakes a campaign. Would we say that Al Franken won "through the use of lawyers", or George W. Bush? Well, yes, perhaps, but we would not put it that way. Achieving an outcome through litigation was the defining moment in each of these elections. I think a more neutral way to say it would be that Obama won the election after successfully challenging the legitimacy of each of his opponents' nominations in court. That's the facts. Saying it without commentary or innuendo lets the reader decide what to make of them.
3. Mention that legislation described, and others, were given to Obama by his mentor Emil Jones. Too much relatively minor detail without presenting a complete picture, in my opinion. If we're going to get into the sausage factory of how different pieces of legislation came about we would have to be more comprehensive. It's also a bit of a random mash-up. There are two issues here, Obama's legislative record and his mentorship by Emil Jones. The latter issue deserves its own mention, probably a sorely lacking paragraph about Obama's rise to power and boost from (and ultimately, rising past) the old power structure in Chicago. It's abundantly clear that Jones was a mentor to Obama, and was often described in those terms - do a google search for something like "Emil Jones" / "Barack Obama" / mentor. A couple good sources here:
The latter source, a booklet-length narrative in the New Yorker on Obama's early political career, is a great yardstick to hold up to our article in terms of the weight of coverage of various items from Obama's early career. It's twice as long as this article and covers about 1/4 of the biographical territory of Obama's pre-election life, so we could say it's scale is at least eight times bigger than this one. I did an exhaustive analysis of the people and subjects that got covered, at Talk:Barack Obama/weight - the article devotes 27.5 sentences to Jones, describing the relationship in considerable detail, including the "alliance" with Obama by which Jones "shepherded" through Obama's legislation. The article also mentions a cadre of other, often feuding, politicians who sponsored and groomed the young Obama: Toni Preckwinkle (a big omission in the article), Alice Palmer (politician) (ditto), Bobby Rush (an opponent and then reluctant supporter), David Axelrod (we already mention him), and Abner J. Mikva. I think we could build a paragraph or two about all this, and it is very important as a biographical item. Some of these other articles adequately mention the relationship with Obama; others (such as the Emil Jones article, could be filled out in this regard. The New Yorker article also extensively mentions a protege, Will Burns, but mostly as a source rather than the relationship.
4. Expanded discussion of Keyes. Also within reasonable bounds of editor discretion, but I don't think this much detail is warranted. It distracts from the focus on Obama himself, and that's the subject of this article. Keyes fell completely flat in the election, and is today a very fringe-y figure, so that is all a ditraction. Plus, the mechanics of the various election victories is better detailed in the sub-articles about each election in my opinion.
Hope that helps. As an editorial aside here, can we all please get past any negative comments about each other, and find some other forum if there is any serious concern? There's some good stuff in these proposals, even if you disagree with 90% or even 100% of it. And it's offered seriously and in good faith, even if the editor proposing it is (or is not) opinionated on the subject. Having an opinion is not a crime and it should not hurt our chances of working together, as long as the content itself that results is neutral. That's how it always is in every mature article, even the completely uncontroversial ones... 90% of the content proposals are ultimately rejected and the article gets improved a bit at a time. If we take the best 10% here, or more or less, there are some things to improve the article. - Wikidemon (talk) 13:57, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
Alright, I appreciate the time you took to respond. I made sure to thoroughly think through all my replies:
1.
(a) It is noticeable that the only 2 sentences in the entire Barack Obama article which could even be considered critical of him are the final 2 on the page, which mention the controversy and criticism surrounding the award. Indeed, the entire Barack Obama page is only positive in tone. It goes out of the way, for example, to mention events that increased his approval, but not ones that decreased it. It also states when he had favorable approval ratings, but not when unfavorable. Therefore, this makes it particularly noteworthy that when the award is mentioned, it mentions only the positive, and not the widespread criticism, which is relegated to the very end of the page.
(b) I can see what you are saying. However, when controversy is as prominent as that surrounding the award, I would think mention of the award in the introduction section should at least mention this controversy, if only as a by-the-by. After all, one of the elements in determining placement of material is prominence, and if the award was prominent, it should be noted that equally so was the criticism and controversy.
(c) I was reacting not so much to the lack of mention that Obama did not yet merit the award, but the active criticism of it. For example, Obama when accepting the award acknowledged "the considerable controversy" surrounding the award, while the Nobel Prize Committee chairman, Thorbjorn Jagland, felt the criticism deeply enough to provide a lengthy live interview defending the decision.[[20]] Some of his critics included:
-Polish President, Les Walesa, who won the award in 1983 and said, "So soon? Too early. He has no contribution so far... he is still at an early stage."[[21]]
-Norwegian Progress Party leader Siv Jensen, of the main opposition party in the country the Nobel was given in, said, "It is just too soon... It is wrong to give him the peace prize for his ambition. You should receive it for results."[[22]]
(d) I would have no problem with a comment about any prominent or noteworthy praise for the award. However, what praise there was seemed very limited at the time in comparison the criticism. Even those that did praise it had little they could say but suggesting it was because he created a 'climate' globally (Jagland's term) or else was simply being credited for having made speeches and talks that were inspiring. Again, if you can find praise of equal prominence and relevance I would expect it to be included as well, but honestly expect that you will have a very tough time finding it.
(e) That was my point about the award itself. Does it justify mention in the introduction? If so, why? If because of prominence, how does the controversy surrounding the award compare in terms of prominence to the award itself? Since one of the WP rules involves prominence and noteworthiness, I think it noteworthy that the controversy outweighed the award itself.
2. Hmm... multiple articles cited mentioned that this was a case of him hiring a troop of lawyers, including at least one who was a fellow classmate from law school, when challenging the signatures. Is there an alternative way you think this could be mentioned? The lawyers were the method for the challenging, and given the number hired, which sounds as though it must have been at least 4, it seems noteworthy enough to merit mention. My question is, if the fact is noteworthy the lawyers were a key part of it, do you have an alternate suggestion for how I should word that? As for it being after the filing deadline, we are told that in one of the articles. It seems his most prominent opponent may have had a delay, and also requested Obama drop out, as she'd formerly given him a nod of approval, stating he would made an adequate successor. She was surprised when he not only continued running against her, but ended up suing to knock off her for whatever reason "hastily gathered signatures" as I believe one article put it. As for the lawsuit, it is an unusual aspect that is noteworthy and relevant to that part of Obama's history, and therefore merits mention. Whether it was right or not is questionable. Earmarks are legal too, and many have been falsely convicted by our justice system, so the legality of it and the decision by the courts does not negate the potential controversy. I know I use extreme examples to prove my points, but as an example seeking to portray the view of this from the other side, but Palin won out in her ethics controversies, as did John McCain (Keating Five I believe it was called), yet this does not mean their events don't get mentioned on their profiles (which they do). For these reasons, denying the mention of this history would be disparate treatment compared to conservative politicians. At any rate, I'd be interested in hearing your recommended edits in comparison to mine so that they can be contrasted and if I am leaving anything out or wording anything improperly it will show up. A side by side comparison would allow strong points from both sides to be combined.
3. Yes, actually I ended up mentioning a Google search of Jones Obama mentor earlier, believe it or not. You're right, there is a lot of evidence supporting that fact. I only provided my sources after the fact, since someone questioned it. (Discussion should be on this page somewhere.) I think you have a good idea though, mentioning more about his other mentors and political associations would be a good addition to the article. With Jones, I think it just particularly noteworthy and controversial though since Jones was responsible for much of the legislation he now points too as evidence of his legislative capability.
4. As I stated before, Keyes was entering an election with less than 3 months left. He did not even have much knowledge of the state, or little time to do much of anything. Indeed, his bombastic rhetoric may be viewed as a desperate attempt to stop a politician he strongly despised by grabbing headlines and controversy as quickly as possible. With so little time and so little campaign structure (he relied heavily on grassroots organizing and a largely unregulated free speech forum called 'RenewAmerica' which still exists today) he could not afford a slower pace. Yes, he lost by an unprecedented margin, but I am not sure any major party candidate has ever attempted a run after entering a race so late, particularly in a foreign state. As composing the key part of the general election, and in a section about said election, it seems odd that he is mentioned in only 2 of the 11 sentences. My edits would add 1 more sentence and 55 more words, but I don't think this is overdoing it, considering they'd provide the only current insight into the general election, the key part of the election, in the section which is supposed to be about that election.
Also, good job on the Obama/weight page. I was impressed.
Also, my apologies for the late reply. You gave the most serious feedback about the edits, and I wanted to make sure I didn't just make a hasty reply.
Yes, I wish there were some way to automate that kind of weight analysis, say by taking the 10-20 most prominent sources on a subject and seeing how they treat different issues...
Regarding 1(a), last time I checked there were 6 or 8 items on the page that could be considered negative, but counting pros and cons is not very fruitful. There's no optimum balance, no standard way to count, and the act of inserting things just to add more negativity is antithetical to a lot of content policies. Saying that a person won an award, or a job title, or an election, would be balanced by... what? Mentioning an award they didn't win? Certainly not an act of criticism over the award, that would balance a statement that they were praised over the award. If you look at most articles (e.g. brussels sprouts, or more pertinent, well written biographies of successful people) it's certainly not 50/50. They lay out the objective facts of the career, most of which (for most people) are accomplishments, meaning they are positive if you want to look at it that way. You have to take things one at a time. On 1(b) I would say that criticism of the award, and of Obama's for winning it, is no more great than praise of the award, and Obama for winning it. Here we get into the same issue of deciding what is postivie versis negative. The praise, as I see it, does not counter the facts of criticism, that Obama had no achievements to merit the award and that America is even under Obama not the most peaceful country on earth, it just says that the Nobel Committee was intentionally rewarding and encouraging his statements of aspiration. If you went down the path of measuring public reception you would have to mention both, and as I said that is not the most pertinent thing about Nobel Peace Prizes. I do think that after the coverage reaches a certain threshold that is one of the things to mention, but I'm not sure that our 3-4 sentences hits that point. If other editors thought so I wouldn't oppose it. The article about the award should and presumably does address this more fully.
Regarding #2, Obama's opponents all failed to gather the necessary legitimate signatures, and got certified anyway. Obama mounted a successful challenge. The neutral way to say it (subject to some wording improvement) is that Obama wone the election by default after a successful legal challenge to the adequacy of each of his opponents' nomination etitions, none of which were found to have enough legitimate signatures. One of those opponents was a political patron, who had asked Obama to wait until the next election, when she would suport him. Is that state election tactic important enough to Obama's life story to mention here? I think yes because it's a significant life event.
We agree on #3... although I'll bet Jones is not the only person in Chicago's political machine who would be controversial.
I guess #4 is a judgment call, but the more neutral way to put it is to summarize more objectively that Jones had made Obama's positions on abortion his major campaign issue. When politicans square off on the subject of abortion they often go for emotionally-charged symbols (live-born fetuses, welfare mothers, victims of rape and incest, etc.) to attack each other, when those aren't the real issue. It gets to that in-world thing I mention, in case anyone read my Bunnytown digression.
Not sure where to go from here. I think everyone is busy talking on their own separate part of this page, with reactions ranging from agreement to alarm. Maybe let things simmer down a bit, then start (yet) another section with a more focused proposal, perhaps one at a time. I'd be willing to offer a first proposal on one of these, if you think that might help get it be better received. I think the coming of age in Chicago politics is the most pressing omission, but that one would also take the longest time to research, write, and smooth out. - Wikidemon (talk) 20:37, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
1. Well, with the award, I think it is not merely that it was prominent in relation to the award, but as a controversy during Obama's career (though arguably even more prominent were the 'infanticide' charge which was probably the primary controversy surrounding him, and haunted him much of his career).
"The lead section, lead (sometimes lede), or introduction of a Wikipedia article is the section before the table of contents and first heading. The lead serves both as an introduction to the article and as a summary of the important aspects of the subject of the article.
The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview of the article. It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the subject is interesting or notable, and summarize the most important points—including any notable controversies. The emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic, according to reliable, published sources, and the notability of the article's subject should usually be established in the first sentence.
While consideration should be given to creating interest in reading more of the article, the lead nonetheless should not "tease" the reader by hinting at—but not explaining—important facts that will appear later in the article. The lead should contain no more than four paragraphs, should be carefully sourced as appropriate, and should be written in a clear, accessible style to invite a reading of the full article."
This is what I am concerned the Obama article does not do. The introduction according to WP guidelines should be summarizing all 'notable controversies' and not neglecting important facts that will appear later in the article (in the case of the Nobel Prize controversy, the page's last 2 sentences). Indeed, I think it notable that all of this argumentation has to be done to get even the most major of controversies onto the page, when according to WP guidelines, they should be in the introduction section.
On the other hand, if you disagree the Nobel prize was one of Obama's great controversies, then there is another issue - because then we must identify what were the greatest controversies, and ensure they are mentioned in the introduction.
2. Also, I have no problem whatsoever with your proposed alternative for #2, "Obama won the election by default after a successful legal challenge to the adequacy of each of his opponents' nomination petitions, none of which were found to have enough legitimate signatures. One of those opponents was a political patron, who had asked Obama to wait until the next election, when she would suport him." The only thing I would add is that in the sentence it should also be noted Palmer was the patron, but otherwise I think it a well-written alternative that summarizes the subject. It may also be necessary according to the aforementioned guidelines to mention the controversy element of this as well if it is determined this was a 'notable controversy' for Obama, but either way, I am fine with the alternative you proposed, and think it would work very well.
4. And finally, I agree with your statement that the more neutral way to put it is to summarize more objectively that Keyes had made Obama's positions on abortion his major campaign issue. This is what I was going for, and thought I had achieved. It was why I stated it only as "and with Keyes running a negative campaign criticizing Obama on the issue of late-term abortions70". I even tried to avoid framing it by using the words 'negative campaign' to avoid positive bias of Keyes, and so those looking into the subject would not be swayed by that sentence. Indeed, given its prominent status as the key controversy surrounding Obama, perhaps it should have more mention in the page according to the WP guidelines. At any rate though, I was simply trying to mention Keyes had made it his key campaign issue, and if that could be reworded as such would have no issue with it.
Finally, thanks for the offer to reword some of these statements. Much of what I am hearing I agree with, and was even trying to achieve the effect (and thought I had) when writing the edits. I see no noticeable difference between the versions and would welcome the alternative versions you suggested. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 13:31, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Alright, I just made the proposed edit #2, (I will avoid edit #1 for now, and possibly altogether, due to controversy) but as you will see tried to use the alternative version you recommended. The second sentence was changed a bit though to mention the opponent was Alice Palmer, and to mention some of the details mentioned on the Alice Palmer page about the event which would otherwise seem unclear.
"Obama won the election by default after a successful legal challenge to the adequacy of each of his four opponents' nomination petitions, none of which were found to have enough legitimate signatures.[43][42] One of those opponents, incumbent Alice Palmer, had earlier named Obama her successor,[44] but following a failed Congressional bid, her campaign asked Obama to step down, and when he refused, had to gather signatures with two days left before the filing deadline.[45]"
Also, I incorporated some of the sourcing from the Alice Palmer page which already mentioned these events, and had some very good sourcing. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 07:08, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
I just made the proposed edit #3.
"This legislation was originally worked on by Senator Rickey Hendon[54][44], and was among numerous pieces of legislation given to Obama as part of a requested deal with his political mentor[55][56], Senator Emil Jones, to make him a U.S. Senator.[57][48]"
As you can see, it is the same as that proposed, except I added the last part about "to make him a U.S. Senator" since it's such a well-established quote. One of the articles already referenced in that section even mentioned it (In Illinois, Obama Proved Pragmatic and Shrewd) so I made it a ref name tag and re-cited it. I also mentioned in the edit summary that this information has already been mentioned and referenced on the Emil Jones page. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 08:22, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
And now the 4th edit has been made. Edit is as follows:
"Obama's expected opponent in the general election, Republican primary winner Jack Ryan, withdrew from the race in June 2004[6] following a widely-reported sex scandal.[7] Two months later, and with less than three months remaining in the election,[8] Alan Keyes accepted the Illinois Republican Party's nomination to replace Ryan.[9]
Following a race in which Alan Keyes was heavily criticized by the press both for being a 'carpetbagger'[10] and for evicting his daughter Maya Keyes for her homosexuality,[11] and with Alan Keyes running a negative campaign criticizing Obama primarily on the issue of Obama's voting record on live birth abortion[12], Obama in the November 2004 general election received 70% of the vote to Keyes' 27%,[13] the largest victory margin for a statewide race in Illinois history.[14]"
As before, I made tweaks simply by looking and re-evaluating, but there should be little surprises here aside from the mention of Maya Keyes. I was always skeptical of the accusations during the race of Keyes evicting Maya, but upon following up I found evidence that she does currently still state it happened. For the record, I agree with her that her father is an honest man who did it likely out of a sense of duty and concern he was supporting a sinful lifestyle - but still think he should apologize for it and publicly come clean.
Anyway, that's all irrelevant. Bottom line is, these were the three major issues during the campaign and now being covered objectively on Wikipedia, the article is one step closer to truly being comprehensive concerning a figure that is too often poorly understood and reported on. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 19:33, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Huge long wall of text
humorous but rambling Bunnytown text collapsed by editor who added it
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Well, sometimes the community needs to be kicked in the shins... to be fair, we have had a lot of trouble on this page so people are a bit jumpy. Please accept my apologies if you were treated with disrespect. I'm still not ready to type out my long version but I think Abrazame and I are on the same page, except perhaps we could replace the Hitler example with smurfs or something else a little less nasty. You know, Godwin's Law... Anyhow, the question of how encyclopedic it is to report that other people hold negative opinions on something, oppose it, or detract from it, is an interesting one. In general that stuff doesn't go in the encyclopedia and nobody wants to put it in. We don't report that there are more people who have sworn off tequilla than any other hard liquor... or that black licorice tastes nasty. Every once in a while a negative / detracting thing is either so widespread, or affects a thing so much ... or support for it ... crosses a threshold where it's worth reporting. We could say that mexican cuisine (or maybe Chinese, or Pizza, or something) is the most popular fast food in America. Or that there is an organized movement against high fructose corn syrup. We could probably say that George Herbert Walker Bush hates broccoli (true fact) but I'm not sure where that goes. I regularly patrol the brussels sprouts article and I can't tell you how much vandalism and unsourced personal opinion I have to remove. There was a poll in the UK, and apparently brussels sprouts is the most hated food among school children, I think I let that one slide. Okay, I'm rambling. There are a few fields where negative and positive information, opinions, polls, criticism, are relevant because that is how that particular field works. In music, art, film, literature, popular culture, scientific theories, philosophies, and cultural movements, for example, the success and influence of a work is judged by critical reception and popularity. So most of our film articles have a "critical reception" section. Most articles about restaurants do not, interestingly, but we do list awards and star ratings if they are extraordinary. Politics is a funny area here, because the game of getting people funded and elected, and getting their legislation passed, is a constant grappling match between opponents, fueled by donors, paid pundits, partisan and mainstream press, special-interest organizations, industry pressure, lobbyists, grassroots movements, etc. So we have press releases, speaches, news stories, advocacy journalism, and all kinds of sources that are themselves part of the game of politics. The thing is, not a day goes by without some criticism of Obama (and of almost every other politician, and bill), and defensive support, and criticism of the critics. Politics is a giant perpetual scrimmage. As an encyclopedia we need to cover that when we cover politics. But we have to be careful not to do it in an in world fashion. As a real example, most of us remember how it came out a few montsh ago that Van Jones said some very rash things for a politician, probably not rash for the guy on the next stool at a bar, but rash in terms of someone who wants to be a major political appointee and avoid vulnerabilities. It would be strange to report directly that Van Jones is a communist sympathizer who holds Republicans in contempt because that's not really the issue. Instead we report matter-of-factly the mechanics of how Van Jones was forced out of his position after Glen Beck began advocating against him based on three different issues, and the issue spread first among the conservative blogosphere / opinion pages to the mainstream. As a hypothetical example to take this to an extreme, suppose a politician named Sydney Foo is mayor of a city called Bunnytown where all good politicians are expected to earnestly pet bunnies to show their respect, even though everyone knows it's just a poltiical game and nobody actually loves bunnies, in fact there are no bunnies in Bunnyville so they have to rent bunnies once a year from a band of travelling migrant farm workers. Anyway, when Foo thinks he's off microphone he says something very derogatory about a bunny, like "bunnies are actually considered food in some parts of the world", and the fact comes out in Bunnyville's free alternate weekly paper, which hounds the mayor with his quote for several weeks forcing him to make the now-famous "I am a bunny" speech. Okay, how do we write about that on Wikipedia? If we adopted the language and issues of the local politics, we would say something like "Mayor Foo was a popular mayor who seemed to show the proper respect for bunnies, but it turned out that privately he considered bunnies to be food". But that's in-world, that's like writing about a soap opera, saying "Jenny loved Brian, but then she discovered he was cheating on her with her mother, and found a more suitable boyfriend". To be encyclopedic we would first have to decide whether the whole soap opera plot is even worth mentioning - notable, sourced, relevant, of due weight for the article in question. And if we do include it, we would say "In episode x, the character of Jennifer..." Or for Mayor Foo: "Foo was the subject of negative editorials by the Bunnytown Advocate, a free weekly paper, regarding a comment he made that the paper said evidenced a disdain for Bunnies." Something like that, we have to take a step back and keep the focus on the subject of the article. In this case here with Obama, this is a biographical article that tells the broad story of his life. The substantive question of whether he wants to kill unborn babies, or deprive people of their hard-earned wages, or whatever, is not the point here, but rather whether any of these issues rises to the level where a short telling of his life necessarily includes it. Several embarrassing or negative things clearly make this cut - that he did a substantial amount of drugs, that he resigned from his church after a controversy involving sermons perceived as racially offensive, probably a few others. Several are judgment calls - should we mention the birther conspiracies, the controversy over his supposed relationship with a former radical portrayed by his opponents as a domestic terrorist, a mini-scandal over his association with the perpetually corrupt local politicians in Chicago. I think Jones was indeed a political mentor and that can be sourced, there's a very long Salon article on the point. And then a few are just really trivial, but maybe they get added in for color. He claims to have quit smoking but he sneaks a puff now and then. He loves playing basketball, and is semi-good at it, but even his coach says he's selfish and hogs the ball. Rush Limbaugh keeps calling him Stalin, or Hitler, or something bad. 10% of America still believes he's Muslim. So we sort through all these things, and many things that don't make it into this article get added to other articles. The move of suing his opponents is an interesting one and can be portrayed different ways, which makes it hard to boil down to a single sentence. His opponents in that election were all conducting their elections illegally - their nomination petitions contained loads of paid-for and fraudulent signers. It's almost universal in any kind of petition drive that opponents scrutinize and sue to try to disqualify bad signatures, do recounts, etc., and the election officials try to do their job. But Chicago had a cozy relationship, at least among the power structure there, where politicians got away with it and nobody said anything. Obama was ambitious and did not play by those rules - he saw an opportunity, true. But what he did was clean up the elections. He was the only one of the candidates that got nominated legally. However you tell it, that incident is very interesting. It may or may not belong on this page; if not, it belongs in the article about that election. It's a matter of room. If we have to mention the 50 (or 100, or 200?) most important, emblematic, telling, and well-known incidents in Obama's political career, is that one of the 50? That's something that gets hashed out on this talk page, hopefully by respectful mature people. It's okay if we as individuals have opinions or even advocate for information perceived as reflecting positively or negatively. We just have to check any antagonism at the door, and realize that through discussion and contributions of a lot of different people we'll arive at a better article than any of us could ever write alone. - Wikidemon (talk) 20:17, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
I demand you refactor that comment. Calling Mayor Foo evil is a clear violation of our biography of hypothetical people policy. You're just repeating his opponents' election-year meme. They're just a bunch of wingnuts who can't handle the truth, that Foo loves bunnies as much as anyone else. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:00, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
If you read my post above, you'll see I addressed the Hitler issue. I see what you're saying, "is the material relevant and not just reporting on attacks that might be widely believed but with little basis in fact?" The birther conspiracies could be mentioned in the article, I think, just for the sake of the widespread protests it resulted in. This does not mean going into detail about the reasoning behind the birthers and what they believe, but simply mentioning it as a controversial part of his presidency since it achieved prominence. As for the Muslim stuff, that is more difficult to prove, since it involves circumstantial evidence. Yes, he has an Islamic name, attended an Islamic school in an Islamic country, has Islamic family members, and as an Illinois senator sponsored several Islamic bills (like the Islamic Community Day bill and Halal Food Act), but so what? None of it means he was a Muslim, and even if he was, it shouldn't matter (aside from the disturbing idea that he'd hide his religion from Americans). And either way, shouldn't belong in the article without solid sourcing, which as I've said, isn't since it involves circumstantial evidence that is thus open to interpretation.
However, with the live birth abortion issue, his primary opponent during the 2004 election which vaulted him into national prominence and set the stage for his presidential run criticized him solely on this one issue alone. He voted against the Illinois version of the most prominent pro-life bill EVER passed by Congress, the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. What is more, key witnesses of the testimony that resulted in passing that bill, Jill Stanek and Gianna Jessen, both are critics of him. Stanek has been unceasingly critical of his voting record and senate statements about why newborn infants that survive late-term abortions should be treated as fetuses and not human beings worthy of rights, while Jessen participated in the ad campaign against him in recent years. He has been criticized on the issue by writers across many major accredited news bodies, both on TV and in newspapers, as well as by fact-checking web sources like FactCheck.
Again, I provided from the beginning of this conversation the verbatim statements by Barack Obama on the senate floor that generated this controversy. It is easy to debate why he stated that in cases where children can be born alive after abortions should be left to die unattended. The reasoning is right there and I provided the government links, the senate transcripts, along with page references, for anyone who wants to read the conversations in full. I provided some major news sources covering the issue. This is not something without solid basis in fact. I am more than happy to discuss what Obama's statements were, word for word, on the matter, and whether the criticisms of him are thus justified.
As for Emil Jones being Obama's political mentor, yes, that is a well-sourced fact. Case in point:
Times Online[[23]] :::"Obama has often described Jones as a key political mentor whose patronage was crucial to his early success in a state long dominated by near-feudal party political machines. Jones, 71, describes himself as Obama’s “godfather” and once said: “He feels like a son to me.”"
"Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama has taken the unusual step of weighing in on a high-profile ethics bill in his home state, legislation that had been held up by his political mentor, Illinois Sen. Emil Jones."[[25]]
"An African-American woman who is an Illinois delegate for Sen. Hillary Clinton maintained today that Senate President Emil Jones, a mentor of Sen. Barack Obama, called her an "Uncle Tom" at the Illinois hotel for the Democratic National Convention."[[26]]
"An alleged slur delivered by a mentor of Barack Obama to a supporter of one-time Democratic rival Hillary Clinton has stirred up the volatile issues of race and gender to an already fracture filled Illinois Democratic Party."[[27]]
"Jones -- Barack Obama's political mentor -- denied using the racially loaded slur against Chicago political consultant Delmarie Cobb, but two aldermen who said they witnessed the Saturday night exchange back up Cobb's account."
"Senate President Emil Jones Jr., Barack Obama's political mentor, denied today calling a Hillary Clinton delegate an 'Uncle Tom.'"
Those are all just first page Google search results too.[[31]] I can find more easily, but think I proved my point. There is plenty of sourcing for calling Jones Obama's political mentor, as it was a key phrase used by Chicago newspapers at the time.
P.S.I should have sourced that as far as Jones being a political mentor though, even though I believe it was mentioned in the articles sourced there anyway. I will edit the proposed edits to include some very clear references to Jones being Obama's mentor. Good point about that, I will make the changes.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Yes, you've proved your point if your point is that Jones is a dick. But that's not your point at all, is it? Your point was that he was Obama's mentor, as the first ref clearly establishes and the second ref, well, seconds. The final five refs are just for left-field emphasis, like World Net Daily and Hitler references. (Or would those two be right-field emphasis?) Your riffs on "the Muslim stuff...is more difficult to prove" are not going to win friends and influence people at this page, I can tell you that. I beg you to stick with one issue at a time, because you're not doing yourself any favors with your digressions.
You're also not responding to most of the salient points raised with you. It's understandable if you raise ten suggestions and then five people each raise two or three points about various suggestions, which is one of the reasons why I'm asking you to stick with one general issue per thread and one major thread at a time. This is not a trick or a tactic, it's so that we can digest your point, respond to it, and you can focus on all the salient parts of that response, and it ultimately becomes clear to the reader and to you when no new ground is being covered any longer so the thread can be tied down. I daresay we're past that point already. Perhaps our Rankin/Bass metaphors are too subtle, need music and Mickey Rooney's voice to get their point across, or are being too quickly brushed aside as irrelevant?
We aren't challenging the factual basis of this edit you are suggesting. The facts no longer need to be re-referenced and repeated. (Doing so has been taken by some as a tactic.) We're addressing the editorial requirements of a three page-ish article and you're simply not accepting that as a concept. That is a primary issue here. If there had been a Barack Obama biography at the time of those statements, they surely would have warranted a mention, but for a man whose life is getting more complexly involved in a great many issues by the day, and whose life and career have not really touched on the abortion issue notably since making the statements to which you refer, that would be one of the things that would need to have been culled before this point as the finitely sized article must absorb these other things. To morph your and Wikidemon's analogies, if Sydney Foo went on to become Hitler, the bit about the open mic would be removed from the article not because anybody doubted it happened or because we're rewriting history or trying to make him look better in light of the rest, but because as history wrote itself, some other history no longer fit on the three pages. If this were an eight-hundred page biography, or even one half that length, this issue (I'm thinking we're talking about abortion, you with me?) would surely merit a mention or two, including, as you note, the way Keyes locked in on it (to little apparent avail) in the campaign. However, in a three page bio (my conceit, as of course this is technically a single page), those crazy Norwegians and Obama apparently now suddenly forcing banks to close for no reason have pushed that out of our focus.
Nobody's going to debate Obama's stance on that bill with you because, while it may be a very big part of Jill Stanek's notability and the most recent notable chapter of Alan Keyes' biography, it's not what fits into the three-page overview of the notability of Barack Obama's life. This isn't personal, this is the bottom line in general here, and why there are a gazillion satellite articles. It's not that it didn't happen or that it's not an important issue for others, it's that it's a peripheral and somewhat distant issue relative to his notability.
Unlike other issues raised here which are so far under the radar or so beneath the level of sourcing or relevancy to the article, I would note to you that the word "abortion" already does appear, not once, not twice, not three but four times in this brief biography and his stance is illustrated with the detail appropriate for the article at this time. He's got thoughts on nuclear weapons, too, and they rate five mentions despite being very much more a part of his speeches, efforts and actions. "Terrorism" appears once. If some abortion-related development arises directly relevant to Obama that moves the ball somewhere else on the field, it may yet be further elaborated upon; if none does, we might yet shave some of the verbiage currently there. This is the process at a Wikipedia biography for someone who is required to not only have opinions on, but speak to those opinions and do things about, just about everything, and who, in an average day, does several things that would be notable in the biography of anybody else. Imagine if he'd been a senator for two terms. Abrazame (talk) 09:58, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
That's it, I'm done talking with you. I didn't raise the Muslim issue, Wikidemon did, and I merely responded. If I could put you on ignore I would. I'm going to talk to those interested in actually discussing the issues than throwing out all this garbage non-stop. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 10:15, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
Obama won the election by default after a successful legal challenge to the adequacy of each of his four opponents' nomination petitions, none of which were found to have enough legitimate signatures. One of those opponents, incumbent Alice Palmer, had earlier named Obama her successor, but following a failed Congressional bid, her campaign asked Obama to step down, and when he refused, had to gather signatures with two days left before the filing deadline.
and is about a topic that is too detailed for this WP:Summary style article.
Palmer announced on June 27, 1995 that she would not seek re-election to the state Senate in 1996
Gov. Jim Edgar on September 11, 1995 set November 28, 1995 as the 2nd Congressional District special Democratic primary election—three weeks before the December 18, 1995 filing deadline for nominating petitions to earn a place on the March 1996 Democratic primary election ballot to run for re-election to the state legislature
Palmer introduced and endorsed Obama as her successor when Obama announced his campaign for state Senate on September 19, 1995—the first day of the thirteen-week period in which candidates could circulate nominating petitions to earn a place on the March 1996 Democratic primary election ballot
Obama's mother Ann died of metastatic uterine cancer at the age of 52 in Honolulu on November 7, 1995
Palmer repeated on November 28, 1995, after her loss in the 2nd Congressional District special Democratic primary election, that she would not seek re-election to the state Senate in 1996
Obama filed his nominating petitions with over 3,000 signatures on December 11, 1995—the first filing day for nominating petitions to earn a place on the March 1996 Democratic primary election ballot
Palmer announced on December 18, 1995—the last filing day for nominating petitions to earn a place on the March 1996 Democratic primary election ballot—that she would seek re-election to the state Senate in 1996
Palmer announced on January 17, 1996 that she would not seek re-election to the state Senate in 1996 because she was a couple of hundred signatures short of the 757 needed to earn a place on the ballot after almost two-thirds of the 1,580 signatures on her nominating petitions were found to be invalid
Palmer appointed herself to the state Senate in June 1991 to fill the last nineteen months of the four-year term of 67-year-old state Sen. Richard Newhouse (D-13) following his unexpected midterm retirement. As an incumbent state Senator, Palmer defeated first-time candidate Charlie Calvin, a Cook County Circuit Court juvenile probation officer, in the March 1992 primary election for the Democratic nomination for state Senator from a redistricted 13th legislative district, and running unopposed in the November 1992 general election, was elected to a four-year term as state Senator for the redrawn 13th legislative district.
Obama was first elected to the state Senate by defeating the Harold Washington Party and Republican Party candidates in the November 1996 general election.
Palmer had three weeks to gather the required valid signatures on her nominating petitions to earn a place on the November 1995 2nd Congressional District special Democratic primary election ballot.
Palmer had ten weeksbefore the November 1995 2nd Congressional District special Democratic primary election and three weeksafter the November 1995 2nd Congressional District special Democratic primary election (as did state Rep. Monique Davis—one of Palmer's five 2nd Congressional District special Democratic primary election opponents) to gather the required valid signatures on her nominating petitions to earn a place on the March 1996 Democratic primary election ballot to run for re-election to the state Senate.
This legislation was originally worked on by Senator Rickey Hendon, and was among numerous pieces of legislation given to Obama as part of a requested deal with his political mentor Senator Emil Jones, to make him a U.S. Senator.
Rickey Hendon never served on the Judiciary Committee in the Illinois Senate, never introduced a bill in the Illinois Senate to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers they detained, and never introduced a bill in the Illinois Senate to make Illinois the first state to mandate videotaping of homicide interrogations.
Barack Obama served on the Judiciary Committee for all eight years he was in the Illinois Senate—for four years, he was its only African-American member (in his first two years he was joined by Bill Shaw of Dolton, Illinois in the 90th Illinois General Assembly; in his last two years he was joined by James Clayborne of downstate Belleville, Illinois in the 93rd Illinois General Assembly). Obama was the only state Senator who introduced bills in the Illinois Senate to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers they detained, and to make Illinois the first state to mandate videotaping of homicide interrogations:
SB 0015 VIDEOTAPED INTERROGATIONS introduced by Barack Obama on January 9, 2003 in the 93rd (2003–2004) Illinois General Assembly; signed into law as PA 93-0517 on August 12, 2003.
State Sen. Rickey Hendon, state Rep. Monique Davis (who introduced racial profiling and videotaped interrogations House bills in the 91st, 92nd and 93rd Illinois General Assembly), state Sen. Barack Obama (who introduced racial profiling and videotaped interrogations Senate bills in the 91st, 92nd and 93rd Illinois General Assembly) and other state legislators and staff in the black caucus of the Illinois state legislature may have all worked on this legislation, but Obama was credited with guiding this legislation to unanimous approval in the Illinois Senate in 2003.
Emil Jones was a supporter of Obama for U.S. Senate. When Obama formally announced his candidacy for U.S. Senate—on Tuesday, January 21, 2003 at the Hotel Allegro at 171 W. Randolph Street in downtown Chicago—flanked by 40 political leaders in a small meeting room packed with supporters, newspaper reports noted the presence of U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, state Senate President Emil Jones, Jr., state Sen. Terry Link, state Sen. Denny Jacobs, and former Chicago Bear Chris Zorich—and noted the conspicuous absence of U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush.[32][33][34]
As the state's first black legislative leader since the mid-1970s, Jones, the Senate minority leader, has to weigh what the black caucus wants against what he believes is right for all Senate Democrats—urban, suburban and rural, black, Hispanic and white. To bolster his battles, Jones studies books on political science, ancient Chinese warfare, Shakespeare, particularly "Hamlet," and the " Godfather " series, the latter because they show the value of loyalty and organization.
In the 2nd Congressional District, State Senate Minority Leader Emil Jones (D-Chicago) could win the special election by wheeling and dealing. Jones, 59, the first African-American leader of Senate Democrats in two decades, likes his politics behind closed doors. During the contest for Senate Democratic leader in 1992, other hopefuls got more publicity. But Jones forged coalitions, made secret deals, and got the votes. Democratic National Committeeman Jesse L. Jackson Jr., son of the civil rights leader, who also is running for the Reynolds seat, has referred to Jones as "the godfather." Jones took it as a compliment. If Jackson's name recognition is his biggest asset, Jones has political savvy in his favor. Jones thrives on the politics of intrigue. By running for Congress, Jones is in a strong position to boost the political fortunes of allies. As a member of the State Democratic Central Committee, Jones also is in a position to help shape the 1998 statewide Democratic ticket. If he moves up to the U.S. House, Jones is expected to push for the promotion of South Side legislative allies.
Senate President Emil Jones often recommends that Statehouse newbies watch "The Godfather, Part 1" to get an idea of how Springfield operates. It's a good idea, and I told my intern this year that he needed to watch the flick as well. Loyalty, honor, respect and ruthlessness are the lessons we're supposed to learn from the classic film, which follows mafia chieftain Don Corleone and his sons as they deal with "family business," including killing off all their enemies. Jones often quotes lines from the movie, and his management style is regularly compared to the loyalty-obsessed brutality of the Corleone "family." But his schtick has gotten way out of hand this year.
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The section on Obama's career as a professor of law, especially con law, seems woefully abridged to me. Has he said anything about which legal philosophies he adheres to as per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisprudence ? For instance,
Natural law is the idea that there are rational objective limits to the power of legislative rulers. The foundations of law are accessible through human reason and it is from these laws of nature that human created laws gain whatever force they have.
Legal Positivism, by contrast to natural law, holds that there is no necessary connection between law and morality and that the force of law comes from some basic social facts although positivists differ on what those facts are.
Legal Realism is a third theory of jurisprudence which argues that the real world practice of law is what determines what law is; ie the law has the force that it does because of what legislators, judges, and executives do with it.
Critical Legal Studies is a younger theory of jurisprudence that has developed since the 1970s which is primarily a negative thesis that the law is largely contradictory and can be best analyzed as an expression of the policy goals of the dominant social group.
This might not be much of an issue for research or discussion if the president were just some lawyer, but he was a professor of constitutional law, and now he's the chief executive of the US, so his legal philosophies are pretty important. Do we have any information on his leanings? Ikilled007 (talk) 15:48, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
The degree to which anything on this topic could be included is directly related to the number and quality of reliable sources that discuss it. It may be interesting, but if nobody has already published thoughts on the matter, it's not something we can research and include. Frank | talk 15:55, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Also, it is worth remembering that this is a biography that covers Obama's entire life, so it cannot explore the level of detail being looked for by Ikilled007. That is the biggest reason why this article necessarily has so many child articles - so that some of these deeper issues can be given proper coverage with due weight. Many posters here seem to forget that this particular BLP is written in summary style. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:16, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
I mentioned it earlier - we know of exactly one article Obama wrote while president of the Harvard Law review.[[35]] Covered by Politico, the article mentions he approached the idea of whether fetuses who survive abortions should be able to sue their mothers. As noted in the article, he considered the eugenics concept that children should not be born with injuries more important than that they be born. In his words, "On the other hand, the state may also have a more compelling interest in ensuring that fetuses carried to term do not suffer from debilitating injuries than it does in ensuring that any particular fetus is born."
Just to make a guess, I would say probably Legal Positivism or Legal Realism, from what I have read of his comments in his senate transcripts. His Illinois Senate transcripts at www.ilga.gov are revealing when you look at the ones on controversial issues such as abortion. That would be one place to look.
However, as Frank said, it needs to have solid sourcing as well as relevance to be included. At this point I don't know that even if his legal philosophy could be determined, it would be a well-enough established fact to merit inclusion on the page. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 16:17, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
It would not be suitable for inclusion here, because it would be original research. As background, for clues of where else to look, it may be useful, but poring through Senate transcripts and articles written by the subject are not great places for information to be added to a biographical article on Wikipedia. Frank | talk 16:22, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Agreed, I mentioned it only as a way for him to satisfy his curiosity, not as a primary means of sourcing, which is why I emphasized at the end that it would need the sourcing. I suppose if he could publish research done elsewhere it could then be cited, but without other sources and research would still be questionable. The more reliable sources the better. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 16:51, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Frank, don't you think that an accusations of supporting Eugenics(a concept that is associated with the Nazis) adds to the inflammatory accusations this user continues to make over and over here? I mean, the infanticide accusations and now the eugenics accusations definitely make it seem more likely that the user is also comparing Obama with Hitler above. When is enough going to be enough? Extraordinary accusations require extraordinary sourcing, and in a WP:BLP], it's even more so. Even on the talk pages. It's just ridiculous. I suppose I do not have the experience of some users here, but I would think the same sort of accusations have been made on the other side of the political spectrum, and rejected(hopefully). So I will leave my 2 cents and hope people eventually put a stop to these unacceptable accusations. DD2K (talk) 17:14, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Wow. That is either complete intellectual dishonestly, or you are completely mistaken. That article, and the referenced Harvard Law Review paper, never mentioned anything about fetuses surviving abortions. It was written in reference to fetuses suing the woman carrying the fetus(and anyone else) for negligence. Comparing the sentence that you take out of context to 'eugenics' is way out of line and not at all the case. Obama was referring to the State's interests of ensuring that the fetus is not injured during pregnancy and that proper prenatal care is a good incentive for would-be mothers. That's why the sentence starts out with 'on the other hand'. It is a reference to giving the fetus the right to sue the mother, which would mean that anyone could represent the interests of the fetus and prevent, or force the mother, to abandon her own choices. So 'on the other hand', it's in the State's best interest to ensure that proper prenatal care is encouraged and not to focus on any would-be rights of the fetus. I can't count the times you have misrepresented the truth on here. Starting with your initial edit on the Barack Obama article that accuses the President of supporting 'Infanticide', an innuendo that can be seen as comparing Obama to Hitler, accusing him of supporting eugenics, while also giving links and claiming they state something they do not. A whole pile of completely unacceptable behavior. DD2K (talk) 17:02, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
I think that debating a single source without having a proposed change to the article is very nearly a complete waste of time. If there is a proposed change or addition to the article, let's debate it. If not, what Obama may or may not have meant in a particular paper (which he may or may not have even written) is not useful here. Frank | talk 17:30, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
No, what a legal scholar writes in a paper does not reveal their "philosophy" about the law, nor does a person's legal philosophy bear directly on their performance as a political leader. It's all too tenuous, speculative, and impertinent. Legal papers are written to advance theories and make legal arguments, not to advance an underlying philosophy. They're written in the third person without a direct claim about the author's opinions or motivations. Journals, in turn, select papers that advance novel subjects, theories, and arguments, not restatements of the accepted wisdom. The purpose is to challenge people to think, bring new things to people's attention, not to confirm what people already know. Politicans, in turn, act on all kinds of things - constituencies, influence, legislation, platforms, agendas. The philosophy behind these is far from the most pertinent thing, and even if it were known, the relationship between what's in the politican's heart of hearts and what they do is not direct. Every once in a while a pundit, opponent, advocacy journalist, etc., uncovers a tidbit from a politican's old writings where they seem to say something positive about X, and then say "Politican Y is pro-X". That is more or less hogwash, but as a rule those with political aspirations learn to avoid saying anythign that could be used against them out of context, which in turn makes it even harder to figure out what they truly believe by reading their writings. If anyone has anything specific to propose that would pass the WP:WEIGHT, sourcing, and relevance tests rather than being a curiosity or itself an isolated "gee whiz" news article, let's be more specific. Otherwise, the whole thing is just not fertile ground for reliably sourced content and will just take us into a forum-ish discussion about politics. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:04, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. The bottom line is whether or not the sourcing is there. I probably shouldn't have even mentioned the Politico article, as there's simply going to be too much speculation over the issue unless Obama clearly said he subscribes to a given legal philosophy. If you'd like I can delete the comment, since I made it just as one interested in the subject when the comment, while interesting, can not be applied to furthering this page. I don't think we're getting anywhere here. Without sourcing showing Obama said he subscribes to such a philosophy, or multiple major research sources showing consensus about what philosophy he subscribes to, all of this is just pure speculation.
However, to the original poster, perhaps something less broad and more specific could be achieved. Trying to figure out his legal philosophies is too speculative, but perhaps mentioning articles he wrote, legal associations or organizations involved in, or comments about his legal background by close associates might be something we could put into the article. After all, your point that the section needs more detail might be something that holds true, even if the legal philosophies comment is a dead end. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 18:19, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Too much on Senate campaign
Given that we have more words on his Senate campaign than his actual Senate service, something's out of whack. I know the history of the article, and why it got this way, but it's time to start adjusting things as more information gets added about more recent life events of the bio subject. The campaign section, with lots of trivia and minutia is becoming out of date relative to its current significance to the overall biography (actually, likewise about the earlier IL State race). LotLE×talk08:09, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
I saw you changed the Alan Keyes mentions and details about the large margin won by Obama in the 04 election section, but I may have to change that back, as I have had a proposed edit which will provide more detail about that election. You can see the proposed edit (#4) in the Proposed Changes section on this page. I am just about to make that edit, and afterwards we can discuss whether the section still needs changing. I haven't had a chance to view your other edits yet but noticed you're making quite a few recently. I suspect you will run into trouble though as this page is on article probation, and would advise you to tread carefully here, always proposing changes first on this page and waiting a day at least before making them. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 08:33, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Also, it's not all that surprising about the campaigns, given that the campaigns are what generates publicity and notability. However, it is noticeable that there is only an accounting of his legislation from the U.S. Senate, not the Illinois Senate. Perhaps a section should be created for it. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 18:00, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
I will maximally strongly oppose any addition of more detail to the 2004 election section. We have a child article for that, and any more words (or even as many as we had prior to my slight trimming), is WP:UNDUE weight relative to the overall biography. The biography was initially written before the Presidential election, when the Senate campaign reasonably occupied a larger part of biographical significance, but it's been in need of a trim (and NOT of an expansion) since November 2008 (or at very least, since early 2009). LotLE×talk11:10, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
I just now noticed the primary intent of all these recent edits of yours seems to be to remove all mention of Obama's opponent, Alan Keyes, in the 2004 Senate elections. You even removed mention of him in the sentence saying what the election results were. In a section supposedly about the 2004 senate election, it makes absolutely no sense that the primary election candidate would be mentioned only by name, and that when entering the race. At any rate, I will be making change #4 now. It seems odd that after making all your changes, you would now oppose any more changes. And, for involving the second most important election in Obama's career, it is noticeable that it is one of the shortest sections on the page. The 2008 campaign section, by contrast, is nearly twice as long (389 words to 206). Shouldn't the election sections be among the most detailed on the page, not the least? --Jzyehoshua (talk) 17:45, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
And this article provides a summary, or should, of the election, yet neglects all mention of the general election aside from simply stating results. If you think there is a problem with NPOV, then state how, and how this can be fixed while still stating the primary issues during the general election. I am willing to compromise if you are willing to discuss the matter. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 19:49, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
I support the reversion of this addition by Jzyehoshua of some issues that conservative talk show host Alan Keyes of Maryland campaigned on. The most appropriate place for details about issues that Keyes campaigned on in his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign in Illinois, is in the Illinois Senate campaign 2004 section of the Keyes article, rather than in this biographical article about Obama.
The "following a widely-reported sex scandal" stuff about Jack Ryan was removed from this article nineteen months ago because including embarrassing WP:BLP information about Jack Ryan in an article about Barack Obama was not thought to be necessary or desirable.
How about just saying "six weeks later" instead of "two months later, and with less than three months remaining in the election" since:
the 19-member Illinois Republican State Central Committee offered Keyes their nomination 40 days after Ryan announced he was dropping out
it was reported that Keyes would accept their nomination 42 days after Ryan announced he was dropping out
Keyes formally accepted their nomination 44 days after Ryan announced he was dropping out
because six weeks was the length of time that Obama did not have a Republican opponent, and this is an article about Obama—not an article about Keyes.
I just now saw these comments. I do not understand the reason for excluding the detail about Jack Ryan since it is mentioned in the introduction on his Wikipedia page already. Would the use of the term 'alleged' be more acceptable, as per its use on the Ryan article? Otherwise, you're not really explaining why Ryan left the 2004 election, and it's omitting information crucial to understanding the 2004 senate election.
I also think inclusion of the fact that less than 3 months remained in the election is key to understanding the unique situation involved. Keyes lost by a considerable amount, but was also facing an uphill battle both due to the small time frame remaining in the election, and due to the entrance into a new state. Without mention of these factors, I am not sure the election is fairly portrayed.
I'll agree though that 6 weeks is better than 2 months. I was not the one who originally used the term 2 months, and was simply sticking to the prior version as such. I would be fine with seeing it changed accordingly. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 20:51, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Would it be improper to request that whoever closes a thread sign his or her name to the thread-closing, as part of the historical record? I can't think of any good reason why that information is not immediately available next to the text explaining why the thread has been terminated. Thoughts? Ikilled007 (talk) 10:47, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
The name can be seen by clicking the View history tab at the top of the page, and checking the history of changes. However, it's not a bad idea. The only thing right now is I don't believe you can use the sign tool when making such an edit unless you want to write your ID out manually. Perhaps Wikipedia could perform such automatic signing or allow it somehow via future changes to the website? --Jzyehoshua (talk) 10:54, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
What I would do in that case is to add a comment just below the {{hat}} tag, and I usually indent it and put it in italics to make clear it's a comment about my edit rather than about anything anyone else said, e.g.:
It's best to make closing comments as neutral and matter of fact as possible so they aren't seen as doing battle. I also think it's good that people are waiting until there's really nothing good that can possibly come out of a thread, when even the people who are commenting there are glad to be done with it, and then collapsing them rather than removing comments. That keeps a good record. Now if we can only get back on track... :) - Wikidemon (talk) 11:06, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I just caught on to what the cohesive effort was by scjessey, Sceptre, and Unitanode was. They improperly closed an active thread without reason, 'Neutral Point of View', and then took turns reverting it to try and get me to violate a rule called the Wikipedia:Three-revert rule. Fortunately I caught on just in time to this sinister tactic.
I will ask those initiating this edit warring to explain their justification for closing the thread, as this action seems to be required before posting to an Administrator's noticeboard,[36] where scjessey is already facing potential discipline for a separate incident. He, I found out, has already engaged in similar cases in the past. This was just one of them.[37] He is also coming off a recent ban, and is already engaged in active attacks on other members.
This seems a serious offense for scjessey and his fellow cohorts, and thus I seek an explanation for the events occurring. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 22:02, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
That Frank, Dayewalker, and averagejoe are involved seems clear as well, although to what extent I am still uncertain. I am sure all responsible parties will be held accountable when all of this is said and done. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 22:02, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
For goodness sake. There is nothing sinister about this, Jzyehoshua. The discussion was closed because you were tendentiously pushing an agenda, instead of participating in a meaningful discussion that might have actually led to something. It was overwhelmingly apparent that you had no support whatsoever for your proposed changes, yet rather than accept that you had failed to win consensus, you continued to argue and argue and argue and argue ad infinitum absurdiam. The discussion was closed to prevent you from further wasting the time of ALL the other editors participating on this talk page. Yet here you are again, wasting our time with more nonsense about "cohesive efforts" and "cohorts" and all that typical bullshit when someone cannot admit when they are wrong. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:08, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Your long history of edit warring can be seen from all the violation warnings on your talk page. I found out you have a history just on this page alone.[[38]] Tarc who filed against me recently was according to that page also found to have "engaged in incivility in comments and edit summaries". Sceptre it said, "has engaged in edit-warring and continued to revert Stevertigo outside of the Barack Obama FAQ. and engaged in edit summary attacks." Sceptre and you were subjected to editing restrictions for one year. Tarc was "reminded to be civil when dealing with hot button and controversial situations." According to your talk page, Tarc is also with you on the Climategate article, the other article you are being accused of edit-warring on. You have a long history of personal attacks and edit warring according to your profile, and I, it appears, was just another target by you and your friends in what has been a long history of Wikipedia crime.
That it was a concerted attack is evident from the revision history.[[39]] After I reverted the closed discussion, you reverted it back the same minute. Sceptre reverted after my revert within 1 minute. And Unitanode's was 3 minutes after. You were all just waiting for me to make the reverts, hoping to get me waiting. You must have been waiting and ready all morning while I unknowingly did not make the reverts, for my own reasons expecting an admin to revert the improperly closed article. To the extent that hours later you were so primed and waiting you made the reverts just minutes after mine. I'm not stupid. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 22:29, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Meanwhile, after all those hours of nothing happening, you, Frank, and averagejoe suddenly began commenting almost the exact minute this started happening with comments warning me not to continue edit warring. You must've had them prepared as evidence afterwards that I'd broken the rules, and were likely hoping I'd make all 3+ edits before I could notice the warnings and figure out what was going on. Since I'd already admitted on several pages this was my first time encountering this sort of situation, you must've figured I'd never figure it out in time. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 22:33, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Well, in my case, I started commenting because I noticed you were edit-warring. Nothing sinister about that. And - despite the edit-warring behavior, nobody's called for you to be blocked for it yet, either. Your previous edits were not edit-warring; previously you've been continuing to argue points that aren't gaining consensus. When you directly undo another editor's edits repeatedly, that's edit-warring. That's why you were warned for it; no other reason (at least in my case). Frank | talk 22:39, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
And which is why I said I'm still not sure to what extent you, averagejoe, and Dayewalker are involved. It could've just been coincidence you commented so early on my page when the 3rd revert was close to happening. At the same time, it could've been a pre-prepared comment to be used as later evidence after the fact that I'd been warned at the time, and you've just been covering your tracks very, very well. Like I said, not sure. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 22:54, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
What you're apparently not understanding is that it is most definitely not a coincidence! The point is that the comments were made on your talk page because you were starting to edit-war. The warnings were placed so you could avoid it. In addition, it most definitely is a pre-prepared comment - see {{uw-3rr}}. There's no sinister tactic going on here; what you're seeing is the community doing what it always does, all over the 61,890,606 pages on the project. You have chosen one of the most highly-watched pages to jump in and "fix". Frank | talk 23:03, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
For the umpteenth time, can we please not use this article talk page to accuse other editors of things? There's already a thread on the article probation enforcement page, which is one place to deal with editor conduct. This page is for discussions related to managing and improving the article. If everyone has read this and had their say, can we please close this and move on to actual content roposals? Thanks, - Wikidemon (talk) 22:43, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
I only made this discussion because the Wikipedia administrator's noticeaboard template requires me to discuss this on the article talkpage before reporting an incident.[40] --Jzyehoshua (talk) 22:54, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
(EC) A clear (near-unanimous) consensus exists that thread is resolved. The thread is so large, it's causing slowdowns when people (including me) load the page. Multiple editors have closed it in hopes of moving on, I agree with them whole-heartedly, and would have also closed the thread if I had seen you reopen it. Please accept the current consensus, as what you're doing is tenditious editing. Dayewalker (talk) 22:46, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, funny how everyone decided to close the one active discussion, the most recent and relevant one, as opposed to just archiving the old ones on the subject. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 22:58, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Er, Jzyehoshua, what is it exactly that I "filed against you" ? Have no idea what that refers to. As to the ArbCom case, yes, I received a relatively mild admonishment for general incivility and some rather brusque edit summary usage on this page back in the day. I make it a point to no longer engage in either, though if at any time you feel differently, the proper complaint venue is available for your usage. Tarc (talk) 23:05, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
I made a single comment in that very long section, that isn't "filing". And ironically enough I noted that a ban probably wasn't warranted. Are you going to have a WP:Plaxico moment here and goad me into reconsidering that? Tarc (talk) 01:04, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
I thought for some reason you were one of 3 filers of it. Maybe I read too much into your having commented there by the time I found out about it. If it was just a comment and not actually filing it, I'll apologize. I thought you'd helped file it for some reason. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 08:23, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
If everyone can just keep still and not say anything for a week, it'll all be archived :) Anyway, thanks for the attempt to follow proper procedure but I do not foresee anything good coming out of an AN/I report, just recriminations and hurt feelings. The "I" part of AN/I, "incidents", is a signal that the administrators there generally only deal with current, active, pointed problems, not long-simmering disputes, which this one is by now. We also have a mediation cabal case afoot, and a report over there at the article probation notice board. The best way to resolve this is with a big dose of patience and goodwill on all sides. Failing that I would let the mediation and any existing reports play out, and after that, hope we can encourage a wise, impartial administrator to help play traffic cop to sort through this. I think I could make such a request, as long as nobody flames me for it. Wikidemon (talk) 23:08, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Interestingly enough, I've been on opposite sides of debate from several of my supposed "partners" here. Sometimes, Jzyehoshua, you're just wrong. UnitAnode23:10, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
At this point, I suppose it's best for the admins to sort it out. I tried to take it to Mediation and go through this with discussion, but it seems the opposing users wanted to move against me to such extent that both avenues have become impossible. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 23:35, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
"The admins" don't sort things out. This is still a community, and if there's anything to be sorted out, it will be done by members of that community. The only thing an admin would be required for is if there's a reason to implement a block. As long as nobody does anything requiring a block, there's no need for any admin action. Frank | talk 00:39, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
I'll warn you, if you get administrators involved in this, there's a greater-than-zero chance you'll be blocked for 3RR/edit-warring. UnitAnode23:42, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
I hadn't known what the 3 revert rule meant or that it included the talk page discussions until this, but I think I stopped at 3 reverts on the history, but they might count it as 4 since I did 2 separate edits, one to remove a hat and one to remove a hab, so am not sure. Guess we'll see. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 08:29, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
There's at least one admin who's already involved and I've in fact argued that it's not appropriate at this time. I will say the path is a possible one, but it's always a possibility with any editor. (And, being involved, I wouldn't do it myself, of course, except in a most egregious circumstance. We're not in that sort of situation at all.) Frank | talk 00:36, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
This is getting extremely disruptive. The only "edit war" I see is Jzyehoshua warring with every other editor and then feigning innocence ("apparently there's some sort of 3RR rule"). I try to assume good faith (although Jzyehoshua abandoned any such notion some time ago) but I can't help noticing something extremely familiar about the tireless battle/edit-war/point actions of this editor. And, coincidentally or not, they're editing from the Chicago suburbs.
I've mostly stayed out of these discussions because I can't keep up with the pace of them, but also because have a feeling that when this is all done, we'll be shaking our heads at the ridiculous amount of time that was wasted on this distraction yet again. --Loonymonkey (talk) 18:47, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I already asked, but will provide one more opportunity for those who think edit #4 violates the rules on WP:NPOV to provide solid proof before I make the edit. If you think the below edit violates the guidelines on Neutral Point of View, please state why and make your case.
Edit #4:
Obama's expected opponent in the general election, Republican primary winner Jack Ryan, withdrew from the race in June 2004[42] following a widely-reported sex scandal.[43] Two months later, and with less than three months remaining in the election[44]Alan Keyes accepted the Illinois Republican Party's nomination to replace Ryan.[45]
Following a race in which Alan Keyes was heavily criticized by the press both for being a 'carpetbagger'[46] and for allegedly evicting his daughter Maya Keyes for her homosexuality,[47] and with Alan Keyes running a negative campaign criticizing Obama primarily on the issue of Obama's voting record on live birth abortion[48], Obama in the November 2004 general election received 70% of the vote to Keyes' 27%,[49] the largest victory margin for a statewide race in Illinois history.
When responding, please state on what grounds you think it violates NPOV.
Undue weight to minority view. If choosing this, keep in mind that "in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public".WP:WEIGHT Therefore, this relates to the 3rd bullet, insufficient or unreliable sourcing. Also, "Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject." Therefore, you must also state what the competing subjects are (in this case, perhaps issues during the 2004 senate election) and evaluate the proportion of reliable sources between the subjects.
Editorial bias in wording. If choosing this, state not only where the bias occurs, and why you believe it occurs, but also how the bias can be removed through alternate phrasing. Be constructive.
Insufficient or unreliable sourcing. State why you think a given source is unreliable. This will then involve the WP:V rules, i.e. Verifiability. If the source is not among the "reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy", can another suitable source be found?
Statement of opinion. State why it is opinion, and how you think the wording can be improved.
Editorial bias in not presenting all facts or points of view. State what facts/POV are not being presented, and give an alternative suggestion you think would include all points of view.
Relevance. State why you think the material does not belong where it does. Since the subject is the 2004 Illinois Senate election, why would this not be permissible for mention if it was a primary issue during the general election? Are you arguing that the issue was not a primary issue during the general election? If so, what is your reasoning and do you have sources to show another issue or issues were more prominent?
Other. If you think there is another basis allowed according to the NPOV article, state what, and outline why the edit is in violation of it, and how the edit can conform to the guidelines.
Further points:
-In the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/FAQ it states, "We report views that have been published by reliable sources. We do not report views that are held by tiny minorities, or views that reliable sources do not write about. Beyond that, we make no judgements. No view is omitted because someone might see it as prejudiced; if it is omitted from Wikipedia, it is because reliable sources have omitted it."
Including the late-term abortion stuff gives undue weight to the view of his political opponent. I suggest you log off wikipedia, sit back, and enjoy the rest of Christmas, because you'll be hard pressed to reach a consensus to include it. ~ DC (Talk|Edits) 21:19, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
An interesting point. I hadn't heard that posed as a reason yet. However, isn't the point for reporting on this the fact that it was a major issue in the press and thus reliably sourced in depth during the election, not because it was his opponent's view? Likewise, to take the flip side of that, what would have been the major issues for the campaign when focusing on Keyes as opposed to Obama? I tried to provide the 2 major issues surrounding Keyes during the election as well, the controversy with his daughter and the carpetbagging accusation. I think we need to look at what the reasoning was for including the 'carpetbagging' mention in the first place - because it was a major issue during the campaign and sourced among reliable, verifiable sources as such. Yet even more so was the live birth abortion issue - an issue which proved prominent not just during that election but in years since for Obama as well. However, even though his campaign has been addressing it and putting out press releases and creating fact sheets against it on their web site - it was not mentioned at all on this article. I think that is telling. Again, I don't see this issue as being about whether or not it was a major view of Keyes. I see it as being at issue because it was prominent in the press and during the general election as a historical factor. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 21:30, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
I see that you, Jzyehoshua, have added the above without achieving consensus, and have reverted other editors' attempts to revert your edits because of this. You refuse to stop changing back to your version on the basis that we haven't addressed your argument on the talk page. This is getting ridiculous. There have been a dozen of us, who have given extremely reasonable arguments to reject adding the above, yet you reject those arguments on the basis that we are somehow too liberal, and that we are somehow to understanding you. How much clearer do we have to get? You do not have consensus (yet), and you are adding potentially POV text that gives undue weight to specific topics. That is simply rude. That does not earn you my respect. I demand that you stop reverting multiple editors until discussion is at least resolved. I apologise for the heat present in this comment, but you are annoying me by ignoring everyone else who has commented on this talk page. WHSL(Talk)02:18, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
As I already quoted from the Don't revert due to "no consensus" page and nobody addressed, in the Notable Controversies section, the Consensus page states, "if you can't point out an underlying problem with an edit, there is no good reason to immediately revert it... Reverting a bold contribution solely on the basis of 'no consensus' is a sign that the reverter simply did not like the edit... It is best to first consider whether there is a substantive problem with the edit in question." I also quoted from the Consensus page, "Consensus is not immutable. Past decisions are open to challenge and are not binding, and one must realize that such changes are often reasonable. Thus, 'according to consensus' and 'violates consensus' are not valid rationales for making or reverting an edit, or for accepting or rejecting other forms of proposal or action." Also stated in the Consensus section, "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. For instance, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy does not apply to articles within its scope, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right." And finally, as I already stated in the original post here, in the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/FAQ it states, "We report views that have been published by reliable sources. We do not report views that are held by tiny minorities, or views that reliable sources do not write about. Beyond that, we make no judgements. No view is omitted because someone might see it as prejudiced; if it is omitted from Wikipedia, it is because reliable sources have omitted it."
Ultimately, the bottom line is that a lack of Consensus is, as stated in the guidelines, not a valid rationale for making or reverting an edit, or rejecting other forms of proposal or action. And if you can't point out an underlying problem with an edit, there is no good reason to immediately revert it. No view is omitted because someone might see it as prejudiced; if it is omitted from Wikipedia, it is because reliable sources have omitted it. Beyond that, Wikipedia does not make judgements.
All people keep telling me is that because their personal opinions are such that they don't like the subject, that their consensus is enough to keep the topic from ever seeing the light of day... regardless of how notable and prominent it was in the press, as a historical factor, and how much reliable sourcing there is to support that. And I am saying that, no that is not accurate. According to the Wikipedia guidelines, Consensus is not a valid excuse for reverting an edit. Consensus is here being used as an excuse for biased discrimination against representation of a notable historical fact concerning a notable public figure for which there is otherwise no good reason for opposing its inclusion. Ultimately, "if it is omitted from Wikipedia, it is because reliable sources have omitted it." If you have a problem with the sourcing, that is one thing, but I am hearing no challenges to the primary sourcing. All I keep hearing is, "we don't like that view and our agreement that we don't like it should keep it from being included." Unless you have a "substantive problem" with the edit the Consensus is irrelevant. Ultimately, Consensus only counts if it involves a valid issue with the edit, such as invalid or unreliable sourcing, not merely biased dislike of the topic. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 07:52, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Also, to your other point about POV, I also addressed that earlier (and again, no one responded), in the Proposed Changes section, and bolded it as well so it couldn't be overlooked.
As I quoted from the WP:NPOV rules, "The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting perspectives on a topic as evidenced by reliable sources. It requires that all majority- and significant-minority views be presented fairly, in a disinterested tone, and in rough proportion to their prevalence within the source material. Therefore, material should not be removed solely on the grounds that it is 'POV', although it may be shortened or moved if it gives undue weight to a minor point of view, as explained below. The neutral point of view neither sympathizes with nor disparages its subject, nor does it endorse or oppose specific viewpoints. It is not a lack of viewpoint, but is rather a specific, editorially neutral, point of view. An article should clearly describe, represent, and characterize all the disputes within a topic, but should not endorse any particular point of view... Neutrality requires views to be represented without bias. All editors and all sources have biases (in other words, all editors and all sources have a point of view)—what matters is how we combine them to create a neutral article. Unbiased writing is the fair, analytical description of all relevant sides of a debate, including the mutual perspectives and the published evidence."
Anyway, my point is simply that everyone has a POV. Material should not be removed solely on the grounds that it is POV, just as lack of Consensus is not reason for removing material. Ultimately, it is not removing all viewpoints, but rather showing all relevant sides of a debate with emphasis given based on proportion of reliable sources. All editors and all sources have biases and a point of view. All NPOV means is combining them to create a neutral article. Therefore, as with the Consensus issue, this comes down to sources, not whether there is a POV involved or whether people dislike the topic. And as I have stated several times now on this talk page, I am always willing address the sourcing for my proposed edits so that it conforms to Wikipedia standards. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 09:04, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
(inserting) - None of those quoted guidelines and essays are terribly apt, or overcome the fact that to make a disputed edit you need to establish consensus. If consensus is not on your side you must win it, and if winning it is not going to be possible there is a reasonable limit to the frequency, extent, and vehemency of advocacy of argumentation past which it just takes things off track. It's hard to accomplish much going far into Wikipedia meta-discussions about the nature of policy on individual talk places. The long and short is that if you want to add abortion stuff to the section about Obama's first senate win you'll have to convince people that's the right thing to do. The objections I see are not simply because Keyes' views on abortion represent a small minority position, but more importantly that Keyes' election-year talking points are just not that significant to the overall scope of Obama's life, the subject of the article. That is a substantive objection, and people who oppose the material on that basis can rightly revert it for the lack of consensus. I'm not sure where the whole POV thing comes in, and frankly I'm having trouble understanding why this is such a big deal on either side. The material you are proposing does not seem terribly POV as proposed, nor does the objection. - Wikidemon (talk) 10:18, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Yes. I have come to the conclusion first that administrative approval would be needed, and now that other Wikipedia users must accept it as well. At this point I suppose I will simply end up making my case and leaving the matter alone until other users recognize the need for the inclusion of such material.
However, the issue I have is that this is more than just a 2004 Keyes vs. Obama issue. Perhaps I should not even have tried putting it in the 2004 section. There have been back and forths between Obama's campaign and the NRLC in the years since resulting in press coverage. The issue came up again when Hillary Clinton during the 2008 primary election made Obama's present votes on the bills an issue, and in 2008 during the general election when McCain and Palin mentioned it. And then there's the matter of the federal version of the bill Obama opposed going on to become a major law, and the criticism of his voting record in the press long after the Keyes vs. Obama senate election had ended.
Ultimately this is a much bigger issue than just 2004. I hope some here are starting to realize that, and that the issue isn't the typical abortion vs. prolife partisan battle, but rather a whole other matter unique in and of itself. The issue of partial birth abortion is more controversial than regular abortion to the extent that a federal law was passed against it, and Obama's voting record relating to the Illinois version of that federal law is arguably the major controversy during his life and entire career. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 17:44, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Well, the fact that a major public law, one of the most major ever passed by Congress concerning abortion, is called the "Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act" shows Partial Birth Abortion is another valid term. I would personally question how many people though would be familiar with the term "intact dilation and extraction" as it has been far less used in the press. When the issue has been publicized it has used terms such as partial birth abortion, live birth abortion, or late-term abortion. I don't believe Wikipedia states that only medical terminology can be used on Wikipedia. Rather, the qualifier is whether it has been applied by "reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". For that reason, I think you might actually have more difficulty showing whether that term has been applied prominently than that the other terms have, because when this issue is at a nationally prominent level such as involving an election campaign or legislative event, the other terms are the ones that tend to get brought up. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 07:52, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps the ideal would be to state both terms simultaneously? e.g. "the medical procedure of intact dilation and extraction, also known as partial-birth abortion". My main concern is that people have some idea what is being talked about here. If your term is mentioned alone, that probably won't happen unless the context makes it clear some other way. I suspect that when the term "intact dilation and extraction" is used by the press or a 3rd party published source, it is done either with use of a popular term such as those mentioned, or else with an explanation about what the term means. I'm just concerned with whether or not people know what is being talked about; and the other terms are likely more popular because they are more self-descriptive. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 08:11, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
The only other thing I would mention is that the term may not be technically accurate. Many of the bills did primarily address the procedure of intact dilation and extraction, but some specifically addressed the care provided after the procedure, i.e. to infants who survive the procedure of being prematurely born, killed with scissors or vacuums upon exiting the womb (my apologies to those who prefer the term fetuses), and for whatever reason the procedure goes wrong and they get born alive. Under Illinois law, they could legally be left unattended to die, and the specific law Obama ended up speaking against, in his own words, was summarized as "there was a method of abortion, an induced abortion, where the — the fetus or child, as – as some might describe it, is still temporarily alive outside the womb. And one of the concerns that came out in the testimony was the fact that they were not being properly cared for during that brief period of time that they were still living." Therefore, as you can see it doesn't deal necessarily just with the abortion itself, but the process afterwards where fetuses or children who survive are left to die unattended. It is that facet which makes the whole issue so controversial, not the procedure itself. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 08:33, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Assuming for a brief nanosecond that any of this anti-abortion POV nonsense being pushed by Norman No-mates were to find its way into the article, there would be no need to use the anti-abortion scare language to replace "intact dilation and extraction" because it would be a blue link. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:41, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
At this point, as a result of the federal law, the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, passed in 2003 but not upheld by the courts until 2007, the practice of 'intact dilation and extraction' is illegal here in the United States. Again, I repeat, a federal law uses the term "partial birth abortion" and it passed through Congress with what was not a particularly close vote either. [50][51]
Therefore, I think the burden of proof upon you to explain why you would call a dysphemism what serves as the name of a federal government law.
Also, for those who are curious, in that same document relating Congress' findings on one of the most major laws relating to abortion in U.S. history, it states in section 2(13)(G), "In light of this overwhelming evidence, Congress and the States have a compelling interest in prohibiting partial-birth abortions. In addition to promoting maternal health, such a prohibition will draw a bright line that clearly distinguishes abortion and infanticide, that preserves the integrity of the medical profession, and promotes respect for human life."
As such, both partial birth abortion and infanticide are federally used terms by the U.S. Government to describe the practice of intact dilation and extraction, a practice which is considered separate from abortion. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 10:17, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
It does seem that not much has changed in the few days I was mostly away, as skimming through the above shows we're still on the same "OMG infanticide!" attempts at article inclusion. Giving such weight to fringe causes is a non-starter IMO. Tarc (talk) 13:02, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Ironic that you've kept trying to label it fringe, even though it's now been shown that every single major election opponent of his since 2004 has brought it up (Keyes, Clinton, McCain, Palin), the federal version of the bill he voted against went on to pass Congress with so much support it might even have had enough votes to potentially override presidential vetoes, and the American people oppose partial birth abortions much more strongly than regular abortion. As already stated on the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act page, "A Rasmussen Reports poll 4 days after the court's decision found that 40% of respondents "knew the ruling allowed states to place some restrictions on specific abortion procedures." Of those who knew of the decision, 56% agreed with the decision and 32% were opposed.[27] An ABC poll from 2003 found that 62% of respondents thought "partial-birth abortion" should be illegal; a similar number of respondents wanted an exception "if it would prevent a serious threat to the woman's health." Additional polls from 2003 found between 47–70% in favor of banning partial-birth abortions and between 25–40% opposed.[28]
According to a 2003 ABC News poll, even though 57% of Americans said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, an even higher amount, 69%, said partial birth abortions should be illegal.[53] According to PollingReport in 2007, that number should be 75%,[54] while a 2003 Gallup poll showed 70%.[55]
Even if you could label the pro-life movement as fringe, you would still have more difficulty portraying the movement against partial birth abortion as fringe, since it has led to the most major restriction relating to abortion in U.S. History, and possibly the second-most famous abortion-related bill, the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, and has more public support even than the pro-life movement itself.
It is because Obama voted against the Illinois version of that bill which would garner such an unusual amount of Congressional and public support for what some considered a pro-life bill, that even he himself stated on the senate floor, "it turned out during the testimony a number of members who are typically in favor of a woman's right to choose an abortion were actually sympathetic to some of the concerns [Senator O'Malley] raised and that were raised by witnesses in the testimony."[56] (pp. 86) Even normally pro-choice members of Congress and the public did not support partial birth abortion. You without realizing it are trying to label as fringe the pro-life movement to have garnered the most public and Congressional support. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 15:55, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Just because an entity of a government calls a thing by a given title doesn't mean that wording is correct or accurate. Remember when one administration tried to call Ketchup a vegetable? If you're referring to the "title" of something, then whatever the title is should be used. Otherwise, use the correct word or term. Same with "pro-life". Most living things are pro-life. Some folks are "anti-abortion", a far more accurate term. Indeed, the Associated Press encourages journalists to use the term "anti-abortion". Infant and fetus have definitions out here in reality-land, regardless of what folks with a POV say in documents they write (and regardless of who "they" are). Please use factually descriptive words instead of euphemisms or dysphemisms.
That being said, the topic seems pretty much irrelevant to this article. It's apparent by Jzyehoshua's wording, intensity of insistence, and threats to edit-war that they are desperate to push a "baby-killer" POV into this article. I would say keep it out, and if Jzyehoshua continues with this behavior I'd say keep them out as well.--averagejoe (talk) 16:28, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
I personally don't think ketchup is a vegetable, but if the claim is so ridiculous, then why is there a Wikipedia page on it? --Jzyehoshua (talk) 16:54, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
If one had read the article, one would understand that it was the sheer chutzpah of such a claim - and the ensuing blow-back - that made that fiasco newsworthy and encyclopedic. Calling ketchup a vegetable didn't make it so. Calling Obama a baby-killer doesn't make it so, either. Equating abortion to infanticide doesn't make it so. Again, words have meanings. I'd suggest investing in a good dictionary and not relying on talking points memos, religious tracts, or the rantings of mad men for one's reference sources.
I never said Obama should be called a baby-killer on Wikipedia. I never said that Wikipedia should equate abortion with infanticide.
All I have been saying is that the controversy should be reported on, and that just as Wikipedia mentions the ketchup controversy without stating it is true, so the born alive controversy surrounding Obama must also be mentioned.
Now, what the particulars are in how that is mentioned I am extremely willing to compromise on. Every time an alternate term has been proposed instead of infanticide I have been willing to consider it as an alternative. There were earlier discussions about using other terms, and once I realized infanticide was such a controversial term here, I started talking in terms of using other words such as partial birth abortion, late term abortion, live birth abortion, etc. As I previously stated, I even had no problem with the use of the term intact dilation and extraction apart from the concern that people wouldn't be familiar with it or know what it meant since it is less self-descriptive. I also agreed to compromise on wording and asked for feedback on how to phrase mention of the controversy objectively.
I never said I even wanted Wikipedia to use the terms Obama and infanticide, or any other given term, in the same sentence. All I've been saying is I want to see the controversy mentioned. How that is done is what I wanted everyone to talk about. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 17:56, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
You've said you're "extremely willing to compromise" - but that presupposes the topic you are "compromising" on has consensus for inclusion - which it clearly does not. You seem to be implying that the objection is the specific term used, when in fact, the objections are that it simply isn't worthy of inclusion in an article about Obama's life as a whole. The info you are trying to include here is already in United States Senate election in Illinois, 2004; I'm not sure I like the wording and lack of sourcing there, but it's at least the right place for the content. What one political opponent said - in particularly divisive wording - in a single campaign in the man's career is not major material. And ketchup really isn't important here either. Frank | talk 18:38, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Agree with Frank, as above. There's no need for compromise on adding something when that addition has overwhelming consensus against it. The material is already discussed on the correct article, it doesn't belong here. Dayewalker (talk) 18:57, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps you didn't see it, Frank, but I earlier provided extensive sourcing showing that this has been an issue throughout Obama's career, not "one political opponent... in a single campaign".
Background: Barack Obama beginning from his time in the Illinois Senate opposed numerous bills that would have stopped a practice where children surviving late-term abortions could be left to die. He considered them, though completely outside the womb and breathing, 'fetuses'.[57] (pp. 85-86) Bills included the 2001 Born Alive Infants Protection Act[58][59](pp. 85-88), the 2001 SB 1661 Induced Birth Infant Liability Act[60][61](pp. 88-89), the 2001 SB 1095 Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act[62][63][64] (pp. 50-66), and the 1997 SB 230 Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act[65][66]
Notability: Alan Keyes, Obama's general election opponent for the 2004 U.S. Senate, made the issue his primary talking point.[67]][[68] At the time, activists such as Jill Stanek[69] and Phyllis Schlafly[70] also opposed Obama on such grounds. Keyes to this day continues opposing Obama on what he calls 'infanticide'.[71][72] During the 2008 elections, both Sarah Palin[73] and John McCain[74][75] criticized Obama over the 'Born Alive' controversy as well. David Freddoso, who also covered the born alive issue in his best-selling book, 'The Case Against Barack Obama' in August 2008, wrote in an article for the National Review that Stanek and O'Malley (primary sponsor of the born alive legislation previously mentioned) had teamed up on legislation such as the 1095 bill, and notes that Obama was the only legislator to speak against it on the senate floor.[76]
Prominence: There has been no shortage of mainstream media coverage on this issue. During the 2008 Primary Election, Hillary Clinton and the National Organization for Women[77][78], as well as other Congressmen[79][80], accused Obama of voting 'Present' instead of 'No' on abortion bills. The Washington Post's "Fact Checker" also addressed the issue, noting his very lengthy voting history on the subject, but also pointing out that it was an agreed-upon strategy between pro-choice politicians and Planned Parenthood as a way to avoid public attention on controversial abortion bills.[81][82] Obama defended himself by saying it was an agreed-upon strategy with Planned Parenthood.[83] In 2007 ABC News[84] and the NY Times addressed this Planned Parenthood-Obama-present votes connection [85]][[86] and both FactCheck[87] and PolitiFact[88][89], as well as Time Magazine[90], Fox News[91], the Boston Globe[92], MediaMatters.org[93], the Huffington Post[94][95], and NPR[96], all chimed in referencing the connection as well. In August 2008 there was also a lengthy back and forth between Obama, David Brody of CBN[97], and the National Right to Life Committee[98][99] concerning his record on live birth abortion. Another exchange occurred between Obama's campaign, Jill Stanek, and Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune.[100] As covered by the NY Sun, Obama was facing attacks from all sides, and had first erroneously claimed he would have voted for the federal bill, but then upon confrontation with senate records dug up by the NRLC, his campaign admitted he'd voted against an Illinois bill with similar language.[101] FactCheck shortly thereafter supported this claim, and upon examination of the claims by both Obama's campaign and the NRLC wrote a widely covered[102] article called "Obama and 'Infanticide'" stating that Obama was misrepresenting his record on the issue, though it thought the term 'infanticide' open to interpretation.[103]
Other Notable Coverage: The Huffington Post in April of 2008 attacked Deal Hudson for criticizing Obama on the issue of infanticide.[104]
I apologize that my mentioning of ketchup was misconstrued. I was merely trying to relate that just because the government (or some component/subdivision thereof), or any particular group (such as some National Anti-Abortion Association) calls something something else doesn't make it so. It was merely an example of such events happening, not that the existence of an article on some unrelated topic made a case for inclusion of tripe in this article. I agree with the majority here that this trip should not be included in this article.--averagejoe (talk) 20:25, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
No need to apologize, I consider it a good point, for it showed that Wikipedia can report on controversies without necessarily supporting them, and indeed even has a responsibility to treat other views fairly so long as there is prominent sourcing for them and perhaps a historical component as well, regardless of which partisan demographic they may be associated with. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 21:36, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Jill Stanek, Phyllis Schlafly, Sarah Palin, John McCain, Alan Keyes...we previously covered (and closed) the rogues' gallery of commentators, now we're on to direct political and ideological opponents? Even Hillary Clinton was a political opponent until the 11th hour. Regardless - the issue here isn't what he said or may have supported; there can be endless discussions on that point and no consensus will be reached. It just doesn't rise to the level of interest in a biographical article of the man. It's in his Senate campaign article (which he won by an historical, overwhelming margin), and there may be a place in the presidential campaign articles, but it's not a defining characteristic of the man. Enough said. It's politics. Your attempts to make it significant are not gaining consensus. Frank | talk 22:29, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
But who evaluates whether it rises to such a level of interest? I have sufficiently shown by now that this was a major controversy during Obama's political career that was referenced both in the press and by his political opponents, one which he sought to defend himself against with speeches, ads,[105] press releases, and even website documents.
Other politicians on Wikipedia have the major controversies detailed on their pages. Why is it so different for Barack Obama? All of this debate here is because you didn't want my edit to provide even a handful of words mentioning a nationwide controversy that has spanned years and years of Obama's career and resulted in criticism covered by major news outlets.
Ironically, we have spent days and days and expended thousands of words arguing, almost this entire page, because of a proposed edit whose only mention of the subject was "with Alan Keyes running a negative campaign criticizing Obama primarily on the issue of Obama's voting record on live birth abortion" --Jzyehoshua (talk) 23:14, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Because this is a featured article, which means that it must be strongly and strictly upheld to our neutrality standards—something that 99% of the coverage of political controversies do not do. I don't think it's a major controversy at all (if it was, it'd get some modicum of coverage internationally, and, as far as I know, it did not). Examples of controversies that did gain coverage in the UK are Afghanistan, the Nobel Prize, wavering on gay rights (I remember seeing Lady Gaga piercing our ears shouting "are you listening?" on BBC News 24), wavering on health care, et cetera. Even if it was, the term "live-birth abortion" is not neutral phrasing; the only way it has any chance of being used is by using the medical terminology, not the political, as politicans are well known for outright ignoring the medical community to make a political point. Sceptre(talk)00:09, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't think it's that the other articles violated the neutrality standards. I think it's that they simply reported on prominent criticisms of political candidates. The bottom line is that the status of this as a featured article on probation is being used to treat Barack Obama differently than the other 99% of politicians on Wikipedia.
While I was able to find mention of the subject in U.K. newspapers, I was surprised to see that what little coverage there was was derisory and mentioned the subject as minimally as possible. For example, it would write the protesters at Notre Dame off or falsely equate criticism of partial birth abortion or infanticide to merely criticism of Obama's abortion views. It did not mention major coverage finding otherwise by fact-checking bodies such as FactCheck.org or the Washington Post's Fact Checker. U.K. news seems far more one-sided and less comprehensive to me from what I saw. I had never looked primarily at U.K. content before, and was surprised to see that it appears to be far more liberal than here in the U.S. where both sides are mentioned.[106]
I suppose if you are not from the U.S., I can understand a bit more, since even though this is very prominent here in the U.S., I was not able to find much mention of it at all in U.K. newspapers. However, I don't understand why this should be grounds for excluding mention of the subject on Wikipedia. The article is about a former senator from here in Illinois, and now elected president here in the U.S. Shouldn't sources from Illinois and the U.S. be enough grounds for inclusion of the material? Just because other newspapers outside the U.S. haven't picked up yet on events that primarily concern the U.S. and U.S. events shouldn't mean that the prominence of this issue in the U.S. can't justify inclusion of the material on Wikipedia. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 10:07, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Also, I only switched to the term 'live birth abortion' because the original term, infanticide, was disapproved of by editors. Other major terms used by the press include partial birth abortion and late term abortion. I already stated I would be fine with those terms as well and that my only concern with use of the term 'intact dilation and excretion' is that it's too non-descriptive to be clear it involves abortion, and too rarely mentioned for people to associate with the issue. I would be fine with use of another term though, and already had a discussion earlier on which term would be best used. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 10:19, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
The same problem that we keep circling to is your I think it's that they simply reported on prominent criticisms of political candidates type of statement. I do not know how many times it needs to be said, but it is not a prominent enough criticism to warrant entry into the main biographical article of the president. It gets one line ("attacked Barack Obama for voting against a bill that would have outlawed a form of late-term abortion") over at United States Senate election in Illinois, 2004#Obama vs. Keyes, and that is likely all the light of day this topic will ever see. Please, accept that your edit proposal for this article has not achieved anything close to consensus and let's all move on. Tarc (talk) 14:23, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Awesome. Does that mean we (and by we I mean you) are done with the movement to insert it into this article? Tarc (talk) 17:10, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
No. I think it noteworthy that Wikipedia considers it alright to mention it in all those other places, but not as a controversy on the main page of the politician it most concerns. Until Wikipedia fixes that, I think this should prove a primary concern. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 17:36, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Obama was a presidential candidate, and presidential elections get loads of coverage over here. If it was a major controversy during the (2008) election, it would have been in the news here. And regarding bias in news sources: you've got it the wrong way around. The UK isn't too liberal; the US is too conservative. Sceptre(talk)17:24, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Point taken (too conservative vs. too liberal). However, at this point it clearly was a major controversy over here. Whether you guys report on it or not is up to you. I don't know why you didn't report it over there, all I know is it was major over here. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 17:36, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
It seems the only people who think this is a "major controversy" are those with a very strong anti-abortion POV. The rest of us either don't care or don't agree that it is a pressing and relevant issue. Thus far I've seen little, if any, support for including this trivial tripe in the article. How do we close this topic and move on to more important things (such as Ketchup (or is it Catsup?))?--averagejoe (talk) 18:02, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
So in summary, Frank and Sceptre don't think it has enough international criticism, scjessey and Tarc deny that it's a significant controversy (although how they define significant controversy in such a way that this doesn't measure up I'm not yet sure), and your primary objection seems to be that it's "tripe", a term you've now used 4 times. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 18:13, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
I think a better summary would be: The community consensus demonstrated here is that this material does not belong in this article. Frank | talk 18:18, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
As I stated in my summary: This material does not belong in this article. (Furthermore, it's in several other articles, where it is more relevant to the topic(s) being discussed in those articles. But that is a secondary point; the main point here is that it doesn't belong here.) Frank | talk 18:35, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
(after ec) - A more accurate summary would be this: There is overwhelming consensus that this isn't a significant controversy. In fact, there is overwhelming consensus that this isn't any kind of controversy at all. I would agree that in the tiny universe of extreme anti-abortionists it is probably a "significant controversy", but nowhere else. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:24, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Nobody "decided" anything. Nobody but you had even heard of this alleged controversy, as far as I can tell. Why am I wasting my time responding? I'm going to go and empty the dishwasher. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:36, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
But didn't the 50+ sources I provided and the numerous other articles on Wikipedia referencing the controversy show that at least here in the United States it has been a significant controversy? --Jzyehoshua (talk) 18:40, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Jzyehoshua, this is not a "constructive" thread. Please stop reopening it. There is not a single voice of support for your proposal, and there isn't likely to be any because of the horrendous violations to Wikipedia policy it would entail. Please close this thread, or allow it to be closed without any further intervention on your part, or find yourself hauled up in front of administrators for being insufferably tendentious. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:35, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Currently you write more about his Harvard studies than his role in Iraq's war, what is a blame, shame, and unacceptable, regarding its importance. Róbert Gida (talk) 00:00, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
This isn't the place to discuss blame or shame - we're all volunteers here trying to help improve articles. Please see the notices at the top of this page. I see three main reasons why this article concentrates more on Obama's relatively uncontroversial life events than on current events. First, it is a biographical article, not a chronicle of his political career. If you read any biography from Ben Franklin to George Bush, there will be more chapters on schooling, family, marriage, early career, etc., than their days in the sun. Second, events of the presidency are newer and still unfolding. It will take a long while for history to decide what to make of this, and longer yet for us to sort it out on the encyclopedia. Third, when things are controversial there is sometimes a logjam, with some people wanting to say it one way and others wanting to say it another way. It takes time to work through it, and in the meanwhile the best compromise is to leave the article as-is until people reach agreement. Do you have any specific suggestions for things to add to the article? Maybe you can help unjam the logs a bit. - Wikidemon (talk) 00:08, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
"to add to the article" I haven't said that to add something to the article, first you should remove those items what shouldn't be in an online encyclopeida, for example remove the "most ..." sentences. Everybody know that he is a great talent politican, but write it only once and don't repeat it many many times, currently in the article:
I do share that specific concern that ranked assessments of liberalness, power, and popularity aren't all that encyclopedic. The article ought to be about Obama, who he is, what happened, etc., not a ranking of surveys about him. We cannot say he was the 11th most powerful senator because there is no universal standard for that, and even if they were what difference does it make? So why does it matter that one particular survey reached that conclusion? But each one of these statements did achieve some kind of consensus when it was added to the article so it might be best to go through them one-by-one to see if they are significant opinions per WP:WEIGHT, relevant and helpful to the article, reliably sourced, etc. - Wikidemon (talk) 03:43, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
I'll take the first pair. After markup stripping, under "U.S. Senator: 2005–2008", The National Journal ranked him as the "most liberal" senator based on an assessment of selected votes during 2007; in 2005 he was ranked sixteenth most liberal, and in 2006 he was ranked tenth. I'd never heard of this magazine; Wikipedia (not a RS, of course) says of it: "The yearly subscription rate is $1,160" -- thanks, but no thanks. For now, let's assume that it's worth a sizable proportion of its stupendous subscription fee and is worth citing. I don't see any unnecessary repetition here, although the order is odd and it's a bit wordy. I'd instead say ''The National Journal ranked him as the 16th most liberal senator based on an assessment of selected votes during 2005, 10th in 2006 and top in 2007.
(Róbert, you appear to assume that "liberal" is a term of praise. But you have to remember that this is the USA, where "liberal" is almost a term of abuse to a large section of the population. It's all rather confusing, but this page isn't my soapbox so I shan't attempt to explain.)
Is there some other repetition within the article involving estimates of the relative liberalism of Obama? -- Hoary (talk) 03:49, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
US banks failures hit 140
Political axe-grinding not even slightly appropriate for this article.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Add to the article: Under Obama administration 140 American banks failed. 25 US banks failed in 2008, compared with only three in 2007. Róbert Gida (talk) 23:55, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
No, the proximate cause of the bank failures is the business success of the banks themselves due to their own individual performance, under the circumstances of the Financial crisis of 2007–2010. More generally, "X happened while Obama was President" information is not appropriate to this article, which is a biography about the life and career of the man, not an attempt to tie world events to his indirect influence. It may be appropriate to summarize Obama's policies, bills sponsored, executive decisions, and / or political appointments in the sections on his senate and presidential career, in which the rate of bank failures might be relevant for context, although these are condensations of much longer articles on the subject elsewhere. If you could get past that hurdle you would need a better source, though, because the article says nothing at all about Obama. Tying an article that doesn't mention Obama to his actions as president is WP:SYNTH - you should review that section. Thanks, - Wikidemon (talk) 00:18, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
While a bit blunt, the prose is far too coherent and lucid for it to be our old degenerate buddy Joehazelton, if that is who you were thinking of. I think we can WP:AGF on this one. Tarc (talk) 01:49, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't recall Hazelton or any of his chums; I was thinking of an earlier denizen of this talk page, somebody who favored Hungarian-sounding usernames. Maybe it's just my imagination (or my intelligence deficit caused by some very recent reading of bollocks such as this). -- Hoary (talk) 01:57, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
I really needed to know that Og's (Original Gangsta?) mom died while making his lunch. That article needs some help. Tarc (talk) 04:04, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
Isn't it a personal attack (the above 4 comments) ? It is interesting when Obama fans run out of arguments then starts attack. Wikidemon thanks for your write, the article doesn't mention Obama's name, but I'm using my brain. He is the president for almost one year, responsible for this situation also. To develop this large number of bank failures indicates that he has done nothing. Róbert Gida (talk) 09:17, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
It's not that we've run out of arguments, it's that some of us have argued this point already in the past and another hundred or two doesn't change the game. While I'd hardly call "coherent", "lucid" and "favoring Hungarian-sounding usernames" attacks, please forgive the editors above for likening your failure to understand this issue to that of other editors ignorant about issues they seek to add to an encyclopedia. Welcome and congratulations on your first posts at Wikipedia. Abrazame (talk) 09:55, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
The numbers are important factors of the status of economy, when a year, in last year of G.W.Bush presidency 25 banks closed, and under Obama this is more than 5 times, then I would call it remarkable. This isn't criticism, these are only dry facts, like the 26 years high unemployment rate, what is currently in the article. Róbert Gida (talk) 10:23, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
Okay, you all had your fun. Now its time to say good-bye
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Yes, that's correct in the main article, but please give me another US president on wikipedia where it is written that x.y. is the first president born in z. Sorry but there is no such example for
Ulysses S. Grant is the first president born in Ohio (not in wiki)
John Adams is the first president born in Massachusetts (not in wiki)
ps. write for ongoing topic closers: Could you prove your statement? Why are you closing every topic on wiki? It's talk page. Why are you run away from discuss among peoples? Write your opinion and don't afraid from real arguments Róbert Gida (talk) 01:50, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
There are 21 states where a president born, how many of them contains this detail? 2, that's very few, this proves that it is a side information, just a boring trivia. Róbert Gida (talk) 01:56, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
And just a check on your truthiness, Grant wasn't the first from Ohio, he was the second, and his article does say that (which is even less significant). Also, Lincoln's says he was the first born in the West. Grsz1102:04, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
You are not remotely interested int he truth. But here you go, 366 results from Wikipedia.org for the search phrase"The first President born". Perhaps if you use a bit of that curiosity and actually tried to answer your own questions first, before making these silly accusations, you would be better off and not so angry about having the topics closed. You have access to the internet, and Google is available to you. Try it out.DD2K (talk) 02:08, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
For what it's worth (and ignoring any process issues), I think we should remove the statement that Obama is the first president born in Hawaii. We have 50 states and 44 presidents. For what it's worth the folks over at the Grant article should remove that trivia (but of course report where he was born). Lincoln's being the first in the (then) West was actually significant, it represented a geographical shift in American politics and the geographic conception of the country. Not a huge deal either way, but Obama's is a far less remarkable "first". - Wikidemon (talk) 02:07, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Are you kidding? As I posted above, there are hundreds of references to "The first President born in" throughout Wikipedia, and you don't think that the first President born outside of the Continental United States should be mentioned? I have to say, I think that's off base.DD2K (talk) 02:12, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
I've been saying it for months. The fact that he comes from Hawaii is relevant, of course. But that he's first from Hawaii is not heralded as any kind of breakthrough, accomplishment, political sea change, etc., just a matter of local pride. Putting it in the second sentence alongside his being the first AA president gives it undue importance. It was in and out of the article, I think, and most people don't pay it much attention because it's inoffensive. - Wikidemon (talk) 02:18, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Incidentally, regarding the WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument, there are actually only 19 non-duplicate google hits, of which there are only 4 attributing a president to be the first born in a particular state or geographic area. Another 8 (some about the same president) refer to being the first in various circumstances of birth, e.g. first born a US citizen, first born in the 20th century, first born in a hospital. I would argue that these are mostly cruft. The other 9 include a President of Ireland, a non-English encyclopedia entry, a simple wikipedia entry, talk pages, etc. I don't know about the other 300+ duplicates that google doesn't see fit to show. Of these the only one that seems particularly important is Lincoln. - Wikidemon (talk) 02:26, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
It should be obvious that the fact that Barack Obama was the first President born in Hawaii should be included in the article. It's historic. Definitely not as important as being the first African-American to reach the White House, but an important not nonetheless. I could care less where it's mentioned, although the "as well as the first president born in Hawaii" shouldn't be controversial in any way.DD2K (talk) 02:34, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
That's why I don't care much either, but it's not at all obvious to me that it's pertinent, quite the opposite. Jimmy Carter was the first President born in a hospital, Obama in Hawaii, John Adams first non slave owner, James Garfield first ambidexterous, Taft was first golfer, Virgo, and Yalie, also the fattest president. Gerald Ford, first eagle scout. Reagan, first divorcee.... - Wikidemon (talk) 02:55, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
I get all that from this source,[113] which points out that George W. Bush is the first "honored in a traditional Iraqi shoe tossing". Maybe some people get more out of these factoids than others. Who undid the "hat" by the way? that takes all the fun out of it :( - Wikidemon (talk) 02:55, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Thanks Wikidemon, that reference says also that Ulysses is the first president from Ohio, so I've right and Grsz is wrong and also wikipedia which says that Ulysses was the second. What could cause misunderstanding that William Henry Harrison call Ohio home, but actually he born in Virgina. This is another good example that wikipedia is full not only with trivias but also with false statements. Róbert Gida (talk) 09:45, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
I seem to recall that Jimmy Carter was the first president from the South since Reconstruction. There had been a mistrust of southerners—well, I'll presume you all know the history. My point is that there is meaning, a deeper significance, to things that are truly historic, and that meaning is worth using article space to convey, even if only implicitly. The only meaning, and the only thing implicit in, the mention that he is the first from Hawaii seems to be that he is the first from Hawaii — unless the point is to underscore that he was not born in Kenya or France or Norway or someplace sinister like that. After all, he represented Illinois, and not Hawaii. If someone won the presidency with a constituency and campaign headquarters on a few small islands in the Pacific, that would be quite a feat, and worth its own sentence in the lead.
Frankly, I think the Hawaii comment trivializes the African American comment. As I said, there seems to be no inherent meaning to the Hawaii remark, yet the meaning of his being African American is profound (even if it means different things to different people). In this way, the Hawaii factoid is not entirely inoffensive.
If the argument for keeping the "first from Hawaii" is that we are subtly underscoring the point right up top that, yes, he isn't a fer'ner, then I would support its retention in the lead. If, on the other hand, the argument for keeping it is to give a shout-out to Hawaii, I think it is too trivial a point for the lead, and possibly too trivial a point for the bio. This has nothing to do with its being Hawaii, my point would be the same if we were talking about someone born in but raised and representing someplace other than (shudder) Nebraska.
To Róbert, there was a time when being the first from one place or another meant you were born someplace that was a territory at the time of your birth or had only just achieved statehood, or that you were born somewhere outside of the original thirteen colonies. Despite the fact that I don't think you're aware of the subtle meanings behind some of these other "firsts" — particularly given your comment about Adams, as Virginia had a lock on all the others of the first five presidents, and eight of the first twelve — I have to say I agree with the editorial outcome you seek in this instance, viz to remove such a comment from the lead if it doesn't mean anything. Abrazame (talk) 10:25, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
As the year ends I think it would be good to write this sentence to the article: "Obama gave himself a good solid B-plus grade for his first year in office."
Even if it is prominent enough (which if you're right about the sources would be) it still needs to meet the test of relevance. What section did you think it should be added to? And in what way is it noteworthy enough to deserve mention? --Jzyehoshua (talk) 00:07, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
To the Cultural and political image section. After the recent Gallup results. It is rare that a president gives mark(s) for his work. Róbert Gida (talk) 00:14, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
@ Róbert - This article represents a summary of Barack Obama's entire life from a largely historical perspective. In that context, how significant do you think "Obama gives himself a B+" is, exactly? -- Scjessey (talk) 00:13, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
It would make some sense in the Presidency of Barack Obama article. In this biography it's a little off-topic. It's also a curiosity, interesting mostly for how uninteresting it is. The guy gave himself a "Gentleman's B+" - do you know the 1950s era expression "Gentleman's C"? It meant just coasting and getting by, an acceptable if unremarkable grade. B+ is the new C thanks to grade inflation since then. If he had given himself an A or a C, that would be more noteworthy. - Wikidemon (talk) 09:27, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Obama's work to prevent H1N1 flu
Alright, that's enough
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I am closing because this exact issue has recently been discussed, and there is no reasonable likelihood of a change in that consensus. Further, concern that the proposing editor appears to be a sockpuppet is noted but this page is not a good place to resolve that. - Wikidemon (talk) 17:55, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
USA has the biggest number of confirmed deaths caused by H1N1 flu among countries, this is 2836, see: 2009_flu_pandemic_by_country, and 103840 confirmed cases. It is quite surprising that it is not mentioned in the article, my edit has been reverted. I know that it isn't a success subject for Obama's administration, and the fans usual arguments doesn't works here, because it isn't started under G.W.Bush. But this raise many red flags for me because even, if you don't write about it the problem and the 2836 (and ongoing increasing) number of deaths still exists. Róbert Gida (talk) 13:29, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
There are many things that exist, but that doesn't mean they belong in this article. It's hard enough to keep this article down to a reasonable size covering things that do belong here; adding H1N1 when it isn't notable to Obama doesn't help. Frank | talk 13:32, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Obama has nothing to do with the spread of disease, and trying to score political points with this misleading bit of synthesis is outrageous. The USA ranks far lower in "deaths per capita" (a better measure of how well the disease is being handled). -- Scjessey (talk) 14:32, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Yes, probably, but that is pointless because many countries, US also stopped to do laboratory tests for the suspect cases, what we know the number of deaths. For the number of cases see: US passes million swine flu cases. Obama had the right/money/power to stop the flu, but this large number of cases and deaths indicates that he failed this issue. "On October 24, President Obama declared the 2009 H1N1 swine flu a national emergency." from 2009_flu_pandemic_in_the_United_States, and it contains more sentences about Obama and flu. I think its worth to write about it. Róbert Gida (talk) 15:48, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Well that's because most people don't bother to respond to this sort of suggestion because it is so ridiculous. I prefer to educate, rather than ignore. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:01, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Robert Gida, by that standard any number of other public officials could be said to not be doing enough about H1N1 flu. For one thing, you are not qualifying a standard of what "should be" enough, or providing sourcing about who set that standard (ideally an objective secondary news source or watchdog group), and even if you did, it would seem very subjective either way. Please stick to objective facts, the idea is to provide reliable sourcing from major news organizations or quotes by renowned individuals. Even if it is an interesting idea, Wikipedia has a policy known as No Original Research that requires all material must be cited apart from personal opinion and thought. It may be true, it may be logically proven, but for Wikipedia purposes must still have major supporting external sources that have been accreditably published elsewhere for inclusion on Wikipedia. Therefore, please stick to suggesting only those edits you can provide strong sourcing/references for. Every little fact and inference should either be sourced or able to be sourced easily. Also, please follow the Wikipedia policy when doing so (not saying you aren't) of Avoid Weasel Words, which means avoid ambiguous or non-specific phrasing. For example, rather than saying it is popular, say what groups have publicized it, give references, and quote famous individuals who showed the view. Otherwise the material is irrelevant and unsuitable for Wikipedia. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 16:02, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Well perhaps you are in some cases, but in this accusation of infanticide you don't appear to be, by invoking Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh, Gingrich, and Coulter. That's a strictly partisan crew; not a one would be considered a reliable source for any political article (of either side of the spectrum). They are paid to generate controversy and stir up opinion; they are not reporters. Just because you can reference something that someone said doesn't mean it can appear in this article. That's a major point to consider. Yes, they may have said something negative about Obama. No, it doesn't automatically belong here, even if it can be sourced.
And I only brought them up because a user, Brothejr, requested information specifically involving Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC. I provided quite recently a post with nearly 50 references and only mentioned Fox News once. Ultimately, as the Wikipedia Fox News Channel page states, "Fox News rates as the United States' most watched cable news network, ahead of CNN and MSNBC." What is more, right now in terms of U.S. viewership, it is not even close.[[114]] But as I said, I provided plenty of other references earlier that you could address. These were merely per the request of a specific user. Don't you think it a little - shall we saw 'unfair' - to observe a user asking me specifically for coverage by specific networks, and then when I provide it, to call me out for bringing up that network? Wouldn't the correct time to address this have instead been when the other user asked for Fox News sourcing, if you think it's biased, rather than after I've already replied? --Jzyehoshua (talk) 17:13, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
I haven't mentioned a particular organization; I'm responding to five individual sources you listed. Assuming, for the moment, that nobody disputes Fox as a reliable source (a big supposition, but let's run with it), that doesn't mean that the work of individuals who are known not to be objective would qualify under an umbrella of "Fox news is reliable". So again - of the five individuals you're trying to use that I listed (I left out the sixth one because I know nothing of him), how many of them are used as sources for George W. Bush? Forget the network some (or all) of them may be associated with - that's not the point. How many of them are considered reliable enough sources to use for statements in an article about either the current or most recent prior president of the United States? Frank | talk 17:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
The fact that they have large audiences, e.g. Beck, Hannity, Coulter, Rush, means that they meet the measure of notability required by Wikipedia. As major public sources, their statements can still be noted and quoted by Wikipedia in reference to Obama. That does not mean Wikipedia has to endorse their views, but can (and I never said it should, or that I wanted Wikipedia to) merely mention them as part of an effort to remain objectively neutral in showing all sides of the matter. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 17:51, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Their notability is what is used to justify them having articles about them in Wikipedia. Their lack of objectivity is why they are not considered reliable sources for articles about presidents of the United States. The answer to my question, which you haven't responded to, is that not a one of these individuals is used as a source or for any quote for any of the current and prior three presidents - two from each party. It's not because they are "anti-Obama". It's because they aren't neutral and they aren't reporting - they are giving their own political opinions. And an important thing here is that they aren't used to support Bush either. They just aren't used, period. Sure, they have articles. End of story. Note also that WP:NPOV doesn't mean include all points of view to achieve balance. Frank | talk 18:05, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
As opposed to all the other news anchors who are mentioned on the George Bush page? Fox News is mentioned as a whole at one point, and many times is sourced on the page, but the only specific show mentioned on the whole page is the Colbert Report, and aside from that, no single reporter/journalist/TV News anchor is named in the body of the page. What is your point? And even if that weren't the case, wouldn't you be trying to draw an invalid assumption from an irrelevant case? Simply because Wikipedia does or does not reference the names of specific anchors on a specific page hardly means they are "not considered reliable sources". It could mean that rarely are specific news anchors named on pages not devoted to them but rather their organization as a whole, it could mean that that specific Wikipedia page did not mention them, it could mean that they were overlooked for that specific page, it could mean the Wikipedia community reached a bad decision about them - it could mean any number of things. So what? --Jzyehoshua (talk) 18:40, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
What should be enough? Good question, probably not that currently USA is the top of the leader in the number of reported deaths of H1N1 flu. The government, the president, and Secreatary of Health and Human Services (Obama nominated her) are responsible for this large number of deaths, for this do you need also sources? I can't be responsible for it, I don't have billion of dollars to develop injection, this is the task of government, so Obama's. And I'm really don't understand you, for other quotes I have provided sources, even wikipedia sources, do you mean that those are bad? I thought that wikipedia accepts wikipedia as source. There was a discussion about H1N1 flu and Obama's role here and you said that it is minor, and wait until there will be million of reported cases. It has happened, and there is no change on wikipedia. Róbert Gida (talk) 17:01, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Please read the section on Wikipedia:Verifiability. As stated there, "Articles should be based upon reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." It also says, "Articles and posts on Wikipedia, or on websites that mirror its content, should not be used as sources, as this would amount to Wikipedia citing itself, a self-reference." That is what Frank is referring to.
I will put this simply. In other words, you need to provide references. Wikipedia treats itself like an academic encyclopedia. Do you know how in academics or school research papers or journals you need to cite sources using MLA style or APA style? Well, Wikipedia has similar rules in how you must provide references for facts.
Material provided that does not have clear factual basis from a reliable source OUTSIDE WIKIPEDIA, which source is reliable, such as from a major news organization's press release, is not considered acceptable for Wikipedia. You can read more about the specific rules for citing sources on Wikipedia here. --Jzyehoshua (talk) 17:27, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
"The government, the president, and Secreatary of Health and Human Services (Obama nominated her) are responsible for this large number of deaths."
No they aren't. The H1N1 virus is responsible. By your rationale, we can blame the Republicans for blocking the confirmation of so many administration appointees that we didn't get a Surgeon General until last month. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:08, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
I mean, most of the comments he leaves here are unconstructive, he also doesn’t seem to listen to what other (And frankly, more experienced) editors tell him about the way this encyclopaedia works. I’m getting pretty sick of his blatant agenda, it’s a waste of editors time. (Grumble) --Misortie (talk) 17:16, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Not so easy among only Obama fans. I remember how hard was to include in the main article for example the Nobel peace prize critics, or the double digits unemployment rate. Sometimes I feel you are in China/North Korea/Iran. Róbert Gida (talk) 17:21, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Oh yes, like everyone in those countries are a bunch of evil communists who want to destroy the world with there evil socialism. I suggest you refract that comment. --Misortie (talk) 17:39, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
No, today was my first edit on the article, but reverted, quite quickly. But read this topic for some months. I hope it isn't forbidden to read wikipedia. Róbert Gida (talk) 17:40, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
I am perplexed. Why is your only interest in the biographical article of Barrack Hussein Obama and not in the many other articles about his presidency, for example, which would be more relevant to all the points you have raised on this talk page.--Misortie (talk) 17:49, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Proposal to close
I closed this discussion, per WP:SNOW but it's been re-opened by one of the participants.[115] The question of shoehorning in negative events from the world into Obama's bio has been discussed and rejected before many times, and at least once specifically with reference to swine flu. This particular discussion has devolved into accusations of sockpuppetry, and some other borderline accusations both sides. This pattern is not productive to the maintenance and improvement of the article and has no chance of leading to a content change. If the editor is truly legit, they can be educated on the ABC's of the encyclopedia on their talk page. If they're a sock, AN/I and SPI are that-a-way. Doing so here wastes time and distracts attention from any viable work. Any reason to keep it open? - Wikidemon (talk) 18:39, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
"Further, concern that the proposing editor appears to be a sockpuppet is noted but this page is not a good place to resolve that." This is simply a personal attack without any clear proof, and this user closing topic(s). Not bad. Róbert Gida (talk) 18:52, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
It isn't spent even a day and it is in the article: "On December 24, 2009, the bill was passed in the Senate on a party-line vote of 60-39, with Jim Bunning (R-KY) not voting. The vote marked the first occasion since 1895 that the United States Senate has passed voted on Christmas Eve."
I don't know how important and how related to Obama's personal life the second sentence, but my feel that this is only another boring trivia. Róbert Gida (talk) 23:05, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
(after ec) - Boring trivia? Really? I think the gun was fired a bit too quickly, but this is still unquestionably one of the most significant pieces of legislation to move through Congress in the last few decades. I'd say it is probably several orders of magnitude more important than Obama giving himself a B+, for example. I can only assume you created this thread in jest. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:40, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
That vote was so important that they came in on Christmas Eve to do it. If you look at it from that perspective, you can see how it is significant (to Christians, anyway). -- Scjessey (talk) 00:37, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Then why you don't write that? And give a reference for that from that perspective it is important, unless that is only original reserach. Róbert Gida (talk) 00:48, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
My own "feel", Róbert, is that I have seen your inimitable prose before on this talk page, but with other signatures. But let's put aside the matter of any earlier appearances. Your edits show such an exclusive concern with Barack Obama that your description of this admittedly recent event as "boring trivia" comes as a surprise. I wonder what the really important stuff might be, in your view. (His birth certificate, perhaps?) -- Hoary (talk) 00:46, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Obama didn't vote on the legislation. Wasn't present for the vote. Didn't seem to be much involved in the run-up to the vote. While the event was rare - thus perhaps noteworthy - it doesn't seem relevant to Obama's biography. --averagejoe (talk) 00:50, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Concur with averagejoe. I'm not even sure the bill needs to be discussed in as much depth as it is, since while it was something the president was very much in favour of, the bill was not introduced by him. Certainly the trivia that the bill was passed on Christmas Eve and that the last occasion a bill was passed on Christmas Eve was back in 1895 does not belong in a biography of President Obama. If there is an article about the House of Representatives and its history, such a factoid might be better suited to that - though even then I doubt if it qualifies as anything more than the veriest trivia.¥Jacky Tar03:25, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
I will still stand by my statement below, this is also incorrect. First of all, the reason the "the bill was not introduced by him" is because he is POTUS, not a Legislator. To be sure, health-care reform was one of the, if not the most, critical initiatives proposed by Obama during the presidential campaign. It was a hallmark issue for him. And this will definitely be seen as a victory for the Obama Administration. As already is being reported by the Associated Press. So while I do agree that this shouldn't be inserted into the Barack Obama article, the above reasoning for excluding it are incorrect. There are other reasons, namely that there is not final version of the Bill and this belongs in other articles until the Bill is signed.DD2K (talk) 04:54, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Of course he's the POTUS. This isn't his bill until he signs it. While health insurance reform (that's what the professionally produced signs said at the rallies I attended) is one of his campaign promises, he didn't seem to do much with this bill. Instead, he allowed Congress to drive the process. It will be a victory for this administration if and when it is accomplished. Until then, it's not really significant to his personal biography. You pick your reasons, I'll pick mine. We can quibble over the whereas's, but we seem to agree on the therefore. As a trivia buff, I will say that the early Christmas Eve Morning vote being the first in over 100 years is an interesting tidbit.--averagejoe (talk) 05:34, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Actually, in this case, I don't understand why this was added here on the Barack Obama article(I saw it earlier and was surprised). When he signs the Bill, perhaps it could be added because it was a critical component of his campaign. Definitely added to the Presidency of Barrack Obama, then. But let's not do a play-by-play of the Legislative process in the House or Senate. It's definitely noteworthy(the Christmas Eve vote), but it's not for the biography for Barack Obama. It should be in the United States Senate article. The whole health care process deserves to be wrote about in encyclopedia articles, it's very historic. Just not here. DD2K (talk) 03:36, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Year's most intriguing people
This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Several high-profile articles in the Wikipedia are pretty much on permanent semi-protection, which means anonymous IP editors and newly-created accounts cannot edit them. As for the CNN piece, I don't know if it is a significant enough of a point of view to warrant inclusion. It isn't really a notable list/designation, like TIME's Person of the Year. Tarc (talk) 01:08, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Wow. This thread looks awfully familiar. In the interests of not being bitey, I'll wait for them to... er... multiply before doing the obvious thing. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:22, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Accident Sends Obama Back to Hawaii Compound
proposal considered, no action
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Please take a look at WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS - claiming the existence of one article as justification for the existence of another is considered a very weak argument. There are too many reasons to count but that essay gives some of them. The editors around here have decided, rightly so in my opinion, that "Obamaism" is not an encyclopedic subject. That could change if the concept gets wider acceptance and coverage, but for now, no. You're welcome to try to change their mind but it seems unlikely. Meanwhile, if you feel that Clintonism, Reaganism, Carterism, Fordism, Nixonism, or Johnsonism should have entries (or for that matter, isms based on the last name of non-American world leaders, for why should we limit the argument to the United States), or that Bushism should not, you're welcome to propose that, although that's best done on pages that are closer to those articles. I would hazard a guess that "Bushism" has gained wider currency and it refers to a much more specific, defined phenomenon than could be found for any of these other leaders, although to be fair it is a pretty lightweight subject. - Wikidemon (talk) 19:23, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
I think it is important to examine your thoughts, you told above that there are too few hits for a particular word, lets see: for obamism google currently has got 26,300 hits. Bamao (talk) 19:38, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
On the other hand, I don't see the logic in your arguments. If you believe that this is not an existing word, then in present and in the past are you redirecting every non existing word to the president's article. Sorry, but I see no point of view in that. Bamao (talk) 19:46, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
