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Archive 1

Biden's kids' names

Could someone remove the name Naomi from that list? That was the name of his baby daughter who died in the car crash that killed his wife. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.154.249.10 (talk) 02:18, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Parade route

Can someone make a parade route map using the Washington Post detail? I usually use the TIGER service, but for this district the map has too much going on for me to use it.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 22:23, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

And don't forget to note that Pres. Obama got out of the car TWICE to walk the parade route instead of staying in the car the whole way. [Special:Contributions/4.249.3.223|4.249.3.223]] (talk) 21:30, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Controversies

Okay, the Rick Warren thing could be called controversial (and possible moved to a section solely on Rick Warren, with better elaboration). As could the curfew stuff. But his middle name? I don't think controversial means catching people off guard. Maybe the fact he will use his full name should be mentioned, but I see no evidence that its controversial. Parler Vous (edits) 05:52, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

checkY A contributor moved this info to its own section, "Use of 'Hussein'." Just tips me hat but then 〜on thought bows deeply … 16:29, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
Yea it was me. Parler Vous (edits) 18:37, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Does the fact that official souvineirs are hideously expensive (the bronze inaugural medal is SIXTY bucks!!!!) count as a controversy?Ericl (talk) 17:07, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Probably not. CFLeon (talk) 01:49, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Use of Roman numeral 'II' in Obama's name in event infobox

This is crystal ball type judgement on my part but one I feel fairly confident about. My reading of the tealeaves follows.

Unlike Biden's use of Jr., Obama -- whose father he barely knew and who is now dead -- never has used any designation of his being a "jr." (or else even a II(nd)) on any document I am aware of with the exception of his birth certificate. Thus it would be my educated guess that Obama will not use it along with the rest of his full name at his inauguration.

Is this unusual? Cf. List of United States Presidential names, where seven US pres.'s are listed as possessing the designation Jr.: from James Earl Carter, Jr., of course -- and also Gerald R. Ford, Jr. -- to earlier in the Republic's history with James Buchanan, Jr., and James Madison, Jr.

Which of these men ever used Jr. as part of their formal names? I myself don't know.....but I could note that this list could have even included Andrew Jackson, Jr., whose father died when he was an infant; and this designation for Jackson would have been included in this article's listing too, making the number of "Jr.'s" eight, save for the fact that the nephew that Jackson adopted as his son was named: Andrew Jackson, Jr. -- which, it could be argued, makes the omission of President Jackson as a "Jr." in the listing defensible.

In sum, many have been in fact "jr.s" but never or only sometimes used the designation, resulting in Jr. not having being part of their formal names in habitual usage. (BTW if Biden uses something other than the crystal-balled Joseph R. Biden, Jr. now in the infobox, we might well edit it to reflect this fact as well.) Just tips me hat but then 〜on thought bows deeply … 18:03, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Merging

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Why merge? ABC101090 (talk) 15:19, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

OPPOSE That does not make sense to me.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 16:22, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
I oppose it also, that is why I am asking why it should be merged. ABC101090 (talk) 16:53, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
Also oppose, it's a large scale event and deserves its own article. sean (talk) 20:25, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Please see the discussion at Talk:Presidential_transition_of_Barack_Obama#Merger_proposal. --Happyme22 (talk) 20:34, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Why does this have it's own Wiki Page?

I don't understand....Why does Obama's inauguration have it's own Wikipedia page? I don't see a single one from past Presidents'. So why is he an exception? He's just going to be inaugurated, no need for a Wikipedia page. Gouryella (talk) 12:54, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Go create those articles if you can find enough sources and judge the general notability criteria to be fulfilled. The question of whether or not this article belongs is imho defied by the 100.000 views the article has had in January so far. 78.34.168.97 (talk) 16:18, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
Just because Obama is black does not mean he deserves his Inauguration deserves its own page.Gouryella (talk) 23:40, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

fixbatching Template

I think the fixbatching template doesn't work. It creates a large space between the text and the infobox. Is there any way to fix that? - plau (talk) 00:25, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I believe that Template:fixBunching is used, generally, in order to keep edit buttons from wandering off to where they don't belong on the page (ie their being all, well, bunched up!) Plau, in any case, regarding spacing it renders between infobox and nav template, this isn't particularly noticeable on my browser ie is identical to the distance between two written paragraphs. What does it look like on yours? ↜Just me, here, now … 13:06, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Performers?

Do you think we should add a list of singers performing such as Josh Groban? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.162.208.27 (talk) 03:12, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

The article notes the players of the piece that was put together by John William, but neglects to mention its source material by Copeland, his source material, or even the traditional names of the piece. And in true Wiki form, even the length of the piece would be nice if you wanna get real geeky. SeattleSeamus (talk) 05:47, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Costs

  • Boehlert, Eric (January 17, 2009). "The media myth about the cost of Obama's inauguration". Media Matters for America. Retrieved January 18, 2009. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |curly= ignored (help)

The section on #Fundraising currently cites the --according to MMFA-- wrongly calculated $150 million and attributes the figure to shoddy journalism based on no hard sources of information. Just dropping this note and the preformatted source here for everyone's consideration, maybe I'll edit it myself later today. 78.34.168.97 (talk) 16:13, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Just to back up what's already been said, I've linked two articles below: the first one shows that the $40 million dollar figure for the 2005 Inauguration does not include the costs of security and is located about about four paragraphs in, the second one shows that including the cost of security adds $115 million dollars to the tab of the 2005 Inauguration ceremony and is about two thirds of the way through the article. I think the article cited above does a fairly good job of pointing out that the 2008 price tag is in flux.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.94.214.25 (talk) 08:24, 20 January 2009

I've removed the external |authorlink= parameters you included in the sources. It's normally supposed to go to a Wikipedia article, not to an external link. Hope you don't mind. 78.34.151.9 (talk) 14:06, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Error

The claim that the Georgia 300 car was a part of Abraham Lincoln's train to Washington is not supported by the claimed source and is in conflict with the statement in the Wikipedia article on the Georgia 300 claiming that it was made in 1930. I hope someoone will correct this, as I am prevented from editing this article at present. MattTweedell (talk) 01:55, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Done; thanks for pointing it out. PhGustaf (talk) 02:06, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

inauguration schedule

The inauguration schedule is:

  1. Biden is sworn in at 11:46 AM and Obama at 11:56 AM.[1]
  2. Transition of office is at noon exactly (20th Amendment)
  3. Inaugural address starts at 12:01 (see link above).

Can someone fix the article? 207.241.239.70 (talk) 06:53, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Celebrations at UTS

In Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the University of Toronto Schools had a huge celebration which included many other schools in their auditorium at the same time. There were many people in the auditorium and very meaningful speeches were made showing that not only did the US care a lot about the inauguration but so did Canada. They even stood up for the national anthem and were all greatly moved by Obama's speech. After the inauguration when classes resumed, everybody was yelling "Obama! Obama!" so much that even the people in the streets outside could hear it. Truly this was an important event that should be mentioned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.66.227.110 (talk) 07:46, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Obama Home States Ball

We might as well call that a luau, given that it's half Hawaiian anyway. — Rickyrab | Talk 15:11, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Inauguration of president

It occurred at 17:06 UTC, for anyone who wants to add it to the article. Stwalkerster [ talk ] 17:08, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

His speech just finished now at 12.26 (17.26) 78.145.211.57 (talk) 17:28, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Vincent (talk) 07:14, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Text of presidential oath

Chief Justice Roberts mixed up the placement of the word "faithfully" in the oath of office,while Obama paused to give him a chance to correct himself. Although I'm sure this event will surely give rise to a new cottage industry of conspiracy theories (!), I imagine it should probably be mentioned even if (as I assume) there is no real doubt that Obama is in fact the 44th President. Comments? Richwales (talk) 17:24, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

My understanding of the Constitution is that, simply by being alive at noon DC time, Obama is the President. Now, he can't do anything with that power until he takes the oath specified in the Constitution, which I don't think he did precisely. However, there's nothing keeping President Obama from taking the correct oath anytime. It doesn't have to be the Chief Justice doing it, nor does it have to be televised. I imagine they'll round up a notary and do it correctly within the hour.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.22.52.19 (talk) 17:33, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
Indeed. Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in by a "normal" Federal judge on Air Force One; as for "requiring" TV coverage...well, when was TV invented again...? I'd imagine it just has to be witnessed, so if there's a problem it can and will be fixed very soon. Marks87 (talk)
He needs to use the exact wording (and being alive at noon isn't sufficient), but surely someone in the administration would notice this and take care of the problem as you note above. And if a federal judge can do it, Calvin Coolidge was sworn in by his father, some sort of minor local official. Nyttend (talk) 19:44, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
Oops, I'm the 2nd commenter here, that wasn't logged in. Coolidge's father was himself a notary public, which I think is just a person authorized to give oaths, make affidavits official, etc. I'm not sure, however, if the President needs anyone to give him the oath, or if being recorded/witnessed saying the oath (correctly) is enough to make it good. This can, technically, get hairy because the first thing Obama did as President, after sending off GWB, was to sign the cabinet nomination papers. If he didn't take the oath correctly before that, the case could be made that it didn't count. It's all academic though; I seriously doubt any court would hold that he couldn't "enter on the execution of his office" because he transposed a couple words in the oath. It would take pretty big stones to do that, frankly (even if it's the technically correct ruling). Does anyone know of precedent where a President did not precisely say the oath the first time around?Vbdrummer0 (talk) 21:43, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
Oh course, Barack Obama wanted everbody to have no doubt about him technacly being the 44th president of the United States Of America so, he did it again. This makes him the third(3) president to redue his inaguration again. He did it privetly andwith only a few news repoters were there to witness this.--74.72.176.9 (talk) 01:10, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Discussion has been merged with Talk:Oath_of_office_of_the_President_of_the_United_States#Misplacement_of_word_.22faithfully.22_in_Obama.27s_oath. 71.37.55.209 (talk) 20:04, 20 January 2009 (UTC) "So help you, God?" Is correct and not a mistake by Roberts and should be removed from the article. "you" is always said by the person administering the oath since otherwise they too would have taken the oath! (Maxkon (talk) 08:57, 21 January 2009 (UTC))

  • Claiming that Obama "interrupted" Roberts is a biased statement. There is no standard way of breaking up the Oath for repetition, in 2005 it was broken up as Obama expected (I, GWB -- repeat -- do solemnly swear -- repeat[1]), while others were recited in a single block as Roberts wanted to do it ("I, xxx, do solemnly swear" -- repeat [2]). Wiki shouldn't put blame on either party, just state the facts. This was actually a minor glitch as they correctly finished this part, it seems to me that this "interruption" is used as an excuse to explain what confused Roberts and mitigate his "faithfully" glitch.
  • Obama did interrupt. He was overenthusiastic and he jumped the gun. Can you blame him? Actually, I think the embarrassed grins on both men as they were trying to get the oath right showed how human they are. Vincent (talk) 07:14, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
  • The oath is either administered in second person (You, BHO, do solemnly ... ) or in first person for literal recital. So help you God is certainly possible, BUT it seems inconsistent as Roberts started in first person, "I, BHO, ..." See historical footages: [3]Gligeti (talk) 18:55, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Obama just took the oath again. See Drudgereport.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.83.164.138 (talk) 01:00, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Middle name

Please remove the false claim that Obama has said that using his middle name in the ceremony is part of an effort to "reboot America's image around the world, Obama says explicitly in the source quoted: "I'm not trying to make a statement one way or another. I'll do what everybody else does."--80.216.227.49 (talk) 17:36, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, this statement needs to be removed

156.101.1.5 (talk) 17:48, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

According to the CBS announcers (Katie Couric and colleagues), Richard Nixon only used his middle initial. So I'm not sure that it would have broken with tradition for Obama to do the same. Xargque (talk) 20:53, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Should there be any particular inaugurations listed here? In my opinion listing specific presidential inaugrations could be viewed as an attempt to compare President Obama to those particular Presidents, making the specific links somewhat biased. Perhaps either list the article for the inaugural process in general, or a list of all US Presidential Inaugurations. After all, there are only 43 others... 156.101.1.5 (talk) 17:53, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

It seems like the related articles currently listed have just been randomly placed there without any relevance to the current article. Btornado (talk) 18:32, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Eisenhower's stands out as notable. Dwight David Eisenhower took the oath of office on Tuesday, January 20, 1953. It was the most elaborate inaugural pageant ever held. About 22,000 service men and women and 5,000 civilians were in the parade, which included 50 state and organization floats costing $100,000. There were also 65 musical units, 350 horses, 3 elephants, an Alaskan dog team, and the 280-millimeter atomic cannon.

In my opinion there should be a article for each inauguration. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.255.5.228 (talk) 12:22, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Infrastructure improvements

Perhaps we should mention the infrastructure improvements (such as the facilities brought in for the crowd of 2 million) in Washington D.C.? The NY Times has published articles about the strain on the communications network. And, we should definitely add the note about how the wireless carriers are asking people to text instead of sending data. Webmaster961 (talk) 18:25, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Michelle's Gown

I was a trifle disappointed to see someone completely delete my discussion of her gown, which I thought was perfectly placed after the discussion of Barack's tux, and replace it with a discussion of the dress she wore this afternoon - not the right spot! I did hear on the news that Maria Pinto was the designer she had chosen for her gown - how would I cite this to make sure it stays in the article? FlaviaR (talk) 19:53, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Senator Ted Kennedy's Illness

To what extent should the apparent illness of Senator Ted Kennedy be covered in this article? PinkWorld (talk) 19:56, 20 January 2009 (UTC)Pink

I think it should be mentionned, but Wikinews is in a much better position to cover events so current -M.Nelson (talk) 20:00, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
Probably worthy a small message (for Byrd and Kennedy). Of course if it turns out more serious we'd have to revise. Joshdboz (talk) 20:28, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
Please add that it was speculated that senator Byrd was distraught over Kennedys health on the luncheon at the time of the collapse. Earlier reports said that it was Byrd with the health problems but it was revealed in fact to be Teddy. Remember the first time when Ted Kennedy had these seizures some months ago? Senator Byrd was extremely distraught and sobbing on the senate floor then quite dramatically. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCwwCCQozPM —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jkpi80 (talk • contribs) 12:42, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

How long before this article gets deleted?

It reeks of recentism. The only inauguration which has its own article is the 1829 one, and I really doubt this one will be special; the article is full of mediocrity and really isn't important. I don't see why it exists other than recentism. 207.55.124.60 (talk) 20:59, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

It won't. This event is too notable. Reaching a delete consensus in an AFD would, at least in my opnion, be highly unlikely. Also, problems with tone are not a reason for deletion. If you see a problems with the tone, be bold and fix them. Umbralcorax (talk) 22:03, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
The fact that there aren't articles on the other inaugurations indicates that people need to do the research and create those articles, not that this one needs to be deleted. The peaceful transition of power is highly significant, particularly to Americans. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mbroderick271 (talk • contribs) 22:09, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
This article abundantly satisfies Wikipedia's notability requirements.   — C M B J   22:59, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Presidential Statement During the Parade

It is known and quickly becoming very popular part that President Obama told Al Roker that "It's Warm" During the walk. Why was this removed? It may be a small peice, but it's something that people will be talking about. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fireicefalcon (talk • contribs) 22:06, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Aretha Franklin's song

Does anyone know what song Aretha Franklin sung at the inauguration? My ears must be playing tricks on me because the tune sounded like the British national Anthem, God Save Our Queen ???? Bleaney (talk) 22:37, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, "God Save the Queen" and "My Country Tis of Thee" have the same tune, more or less. She sang "My Country Tis of Thee". -MADELEINE —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.166.26.192 (talk) 22:53, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
The actual name according to the official Inauguration ceremony program is "My Country, 'Tis of Thee." Note the apostrophe in 'Tis and the comma after "Country." --Crunch (talk) 16:47, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Official Balls

CNN is reporting 19 balls that the Obamas are expected to attend. CFLeon (talk) 01:52, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, they've reported 10 official balls. - Ageekgal (talk) 02:34, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
Obama's "Official Balls"? -- That sounds like something Obama Girl would be more interested in than Wikipedia. 76.233.78.160 (talk) 03:23, 21 January 2009 (UTC)


Also... only 49 states are listed as partaking in Balls... Idaho and Wyoming are not included in the "Western Ball" Should they be? They are, after all, western states.Moonraker0022 (talk) 23:08, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

When did Obama legally become president?

Because the ceremony ran longer than normal, Obama legally became President at 12:00PM EST, before being sworn in, per the Twentieth Amendment to the United States Constitution.[15]

Um, if you read the text of the Twentieth Amendment to the United States Constitution, it does not say that the President-elect legally becomes President at noon on January 20. It says that the term of the previous President officially ends at that time. Theoretically, therefore, this seems to mean that for just a few minutes after noon on January 20, no one was actually President. --Susurrus (talk) 03:59, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
Actually, you're wrong. The text of the 20th Amendment actually states: "The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January ... and the terms of their successors shall then begin." Therefore Bush left office at exactly noon and Obama took office at exactly noon. OptimumPx (talk) 04:43, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
The above poster is correct. This issue also relates to the conspiracy theorists who will try to claim that he is not the President because he did not recite the required oath of office ver batim. Per the 20th Amendment, as stated above, he officially became the President at exactly 12:00 noon EST. However, he technically could not perform any duties of that office until he was properly sworn in (which merely has to be witnessed, not televised, and was most likely completed correctly within the hour). 156.101.1.5 (talk) 19:45, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
I was going to repost today to say that I have since discovered my mistake, but yes, I see where it says "...and the terms of their successors shall then begin.". --Susurrus (talk) 22:11, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Obama first president to mix up oath?

Is Obama the first president in US history (as far as it's known) to have mixed up the words in his inaugural oath? I so, it should be mentioned in the article.--jeanne (talk) 05:45, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Nope. And Obama didn't mix up the words, the CJ did as he read them to Obama. NJMauthor (talk) 15:43, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
That is correct. Chief Justice Roberts incorrectly recited the words to Obama, which made Obama misspeak, although Obama did interupt Roberts just before that. The mistake was Roberts and it could of just been nerves. It was Roberts first swearing in of a president. Its nothing to worry about. The 20th amendment doesn't even mention the oath, so the oath is only a traditional holdover, and not needed in the current interpretation of the constitution. At least thats how I see it--Jojhutton (talk) 17:50, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
Actually it is a requirement. Article II Section I Clause 8 states "Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." He became the President at 12:00pm EST, but he cannot execute any of his duties as the chief executive until the oath is taken. Either way, he is still the President, and I am sure that the oath was taken again in the correct way within the hour just to avoid any issues. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.101.1.5 (talk) 20:11, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
Obama didn't interrupt Roberts. Rorberts paused long enough to imply that Obama should repeat after him and as Obama started to repeat (i.e., his name), Roberts started to continue, forcing Obama to repeat the entire thing.--RossF18 (talk) 20:15, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Preliminaries

The article currently states under Preliminaries "Obama began by holding a town hall meeting in Philadelphia's 30th Street Station at 10 a.m. on January 17. At 11:30 a.m." Is it accurate to call the meeting held in Philadelphia a town hall meeting? It was not a meeting of people from a local region, nor was it public. It was an invite-only meeting of 250 campaign volunteers (and possibly others) from all over. Centerone (talk) 08:40, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Man with blue scarf in lead photo

Who is the man with the blue scarf in the lead photo? He is also shown using a small camera during the oath. His photo would be a valuable record here! - Peter Ellis - Talk 08:43, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Number attending

One report that I was just reading estimates the crowd at 800,000 from satellite images. Which is the correct figure? Professor estimates crowds with satellite image --jmb (talk) 11:59, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Has anyone actually looked at the reference for the 1.8 million in attendance? The cited article does not make that claim. Additionally, the 1.8 million is total ridership for the day, which includes going to and coming from the ceremony. Also it includes people who took it to work. So this is at least a two fold over estimate. Also, the Post had a great bit about the actual capacity of the crowd the day before. it could only come close to 2 million if people were packed (to the point of not being able to move) back to the lincoln memorial. And this was not the case. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.178.141.29 (talk) 01:30, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I think we need to revert to the 1.8million figure the satellite photo was taken over an hour before the inauguration happened and the official estimate which is not being contested by the National Park Service is 1.8 million National Park Service 74.62.162.165 (talk) 16:32, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

There were far, far more than four thousand ticket holders excluded. The four thousand estimate came from someone who originally said there were no ticket holders who did not gain entry. Take a look at some of the videos on youtube, or the pictures on flicker, and then multiply it by the three gates effected. I was at the Blue Gate with at least ten thousand other people, from nine to noon. --71.168.124.11 (talk) 15:51, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

International Attention (Jakarta, Indonesia)

I noted the section. You might want to add several things (I would not add it because I am not sure how the article is organised, and prefer to leave it to someone who knows better): [2] [3]

This event involves Obama's sister Maya Soetoro-Ng making a direct call to Jakarta on the eve of inauguration, the message from President of Indonesia and the ambassador of United States to Indonesia. This is in Indonesian, so you might want to translate it via google, then search for English source. w_tanoto (talk) 14:30, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikisource

I suggest include the full text of the Inauguration Address in Wikisource. --Nopetro (talk) 14:43, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Hussein

Why, when President Bush was introduced by the MC as 'George Walker Bush' did he then introduce President Obama as 'Barack H. Obama', Why one earth didn't he say Hussein instead of 'H.'? It's the man's name, after all, and it is very odd not to have consistency of style. Who would have made the decision? 86.133.244.80 (talk) 16:33, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't suppose anyone can speak for anyone else, so we may never know. Anyway, please keep discussions on topic to the article, not the subject of the article. Regards, Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 16:52, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
The MC probably read the introduction as written on the telepromter or whatever. If Bush 41 was in attendance (or expected to be when the intro was written), it might have been done to distinquish the two. The two Bushes have sometimes been confused when people weren't careful to clarify which one was meant. CFLeon (talk) 20:49, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
My understanding is that all the printed programs, tickets, etc. has been printed with "Barack H. Obama" before he decided to use his full middle name. So the announcer was likely just reading. Of no value to the article. PhGustaf (talk) 00:53, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Why not a section on the inauguration speech??

No mention of the speech at all? Is there a concious reason for this, or am I missing something?--Jojhutton (talk) 17:52, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Barack_Obama#Failure_to_take_the_correct_oath_of_office –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 17:56, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
What does that have to do with what I am proposing here????--Jojhutton (talk) 18:17, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

# of Viewers

This CBC article threw out the completely unsourced figure of "an estimated worldwide television audience of more than 2 billion people". Has anyone seen anything similar? Joshdboz (talk) 17:59, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

NBC provided an (admittedly) unsourced number of 5 billion viewers, presumably including the number of people that will see it during the coming days.   — C M B J   19:15, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
I have no doubt that many more people will see it in the coming days, but we should only include the actual numbers who saw it live. That number may be difficult to gauge.--Jojhutton (talk) 20:25, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

23*10+12=232?

The "Inaugural luncheon" section states, "There was seating at the Statuary Hall luncheon for 232 people: 23 tables of 10 people, plus 12 seats at Obama's head table." The breakout of the tables indicates 242 seats to me. Or, perhaps the number of tables is wrong. However, the same math error appears in the cited reference for this statement. How to handle this? I'm tempted just to delete that statement, as I'm not sure the number of seats (not even the number of actual attendees) is noteworthy. Chuck (talk) 19:26, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Not noteworthy, I agree.--Jojhutton (talk) 20:23, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
I noticed this too. It is obviously false information so I'm deleting it. 209.242.154.132 (talk) 20:26, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

WP:OBVIOUS

Shouldn't the lede specifically state that Obama was the first African-American President to be inagurated? 68.46.43.198 (talk) 22:46, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Move to United States presidential inauguration, 2009?

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was Move to Inauguration of Barack Obama. Parsecboy (talk) 00:32, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Note to closing admin: There is another move requested below, at the subsection #New Naming Suggestion. Please make sure to take it into account when closing this discussion. Thanks!--Aervanath (talk) 13:55, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Shouldn't this article be named simply United States Presidential Inauguration, 2009? It would seem more consistent with other politics/elections related articles, like United States presidential election, 2008. As an above poster stated, there are no other articles about inaugurations, but I think instead of removing this one, that those should be created. —GodhevalT C W 17:46, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I was going to propose that article be renamed and moved, pending the outcome of this suggestion. It would be prudent to bring all such articles in line with the same formatting. —GodhevalT C W 22:55, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, Nyttend said the same thing, and that's how I named the WP:RM request. —GodhevalT C W 14:50, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
Note' Andrew Jackson 1829 presidential inauguration was created on Jan. 20, 2009.  LinguistAtLarge • Msg  07:39, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
  • So we have 5 votes in favor of the move and 1 vote against. Does anyone else wish to weigh in on this? If not, then I am going to call it a consensus and move it, followed by making a request that the Andrew Jackson inauguration be renamed as well for consistency. —GodhevalT C W 18:16, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
On second thoughts, it appears that several other inauguration articles (not just the Jackson one) exist and are all titled by the name of the president as well. While I still think the proposed format is better, its probably best to come to a consensus on how all these articles should be titled rather than just moving this one atm. - Chrism would like to hear from you 02:23, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
Note all the other presidential inauguration articles were created or renamed (some by me) on or after Jan 20, 2009 see the blue links in {{US inaugurations}} for a complete list.  LinguistAtLarge • Msg  07:43, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
All except for Lincoln's second (1865), created in 2003, and Kennedy's (1961), created in 2006, and up until recently titled Inaugural address of John F. Kennedy. This one was originally titled "Barack Obama 2008 presidential inauguration" by mistake, when it was created last December. 199.125.109.126 (talk) 15:22, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
Oppose per below reasons of existing standard. Mikemill (talk) 04:23, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
There's no reason to change a de facto namespace standerd. Remember we'd have to get consensus to move each of the eight or so pages that now are titled like this one. That's a lot of work for no particular value. PhGustaf (talk) 02:46, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
Note all the other presidential inauguration articles were created or renamed (some by me) on or after Jan 20, 2009 see the blue links in {{US inaugurations}} for a complete list.  LinguistAtLarge • Msg  07:43, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
No convention has been established. All the other presidential inauguration articles were created or renamed (some by me) on or after Jan 20, 2009 see the blue links in {{US inaugurations}} for a complete list.  LinguistAtLarge • Msg  07:43, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Support I think the suggestion is correct. It is just like an election article. We do not name those based on the contestants.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 08:58, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
    • Note. We don't name the contestants in an election because there are too many - this one started out with 42 names on the New Hampshire primary ballots - 21 Democrat and 21 Republican - and that does not count the ones added later. 199.125.109.126 (talk) 15:39, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Agree per reasons given above. Of course, the move should apply to other articles as well. --Tone 15:01, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Disagree per what I wrote below. I can see fiddling with the order of names and years ([[1961 Presidential inauguration of...), but the objective is to be descriptive. Who searches "United States presidential inauguration, 1789". It's George Washington's inauguration, Lincoln's inauguration, not an election (which would be the 2008 presidential election, etc). Is changing this article's title from Barack Obama... to United States presidential inauguration, 2009 going to help or hurt the encyclopedia? I'd say it's either neutral or slightly negative. It's less descriptive and less widely used to refer to this day. To quote WP:NAME:

... article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity...

99.9% of English speakers would easily recognize Barack Obama 2009 presidential inauguration. How fast can one recognize United States presidential inauguration, 1841 (indeed, there are two that year). Joshdboz (talk) 15:51, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose Among the speeches that would be efected are Lincoln's first inaugural address and Lincoln's second inaugural address. These are two of the most significant, cited, relevant, and quoted speeches in American History and should stand as they are currently structured. I have further comments below. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 16:18, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose The name should be included in some way. This is the inauguration of Obama. I could do without the year though, and move the article if the need for disambiguation should rise in 2013. -- Jao (talk) 16:37, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Neutral on the rename in general, Oppose the proposed name. The current name is somewhat awkward, but I think the eventual name should include the president's name and not "United States" -- election articles are titled that way because the winner is not known in advance ;-) More to the point, I never see a specific inauguration referred to that way; it basically always uses the president's name or indicates a more personal relationship (like "Lincoln's first inaugural address" or references to "his own inauguration"). Since presidents can have up to four inaugurals (historically; three is the maximum now) there is some need to disambiguate. One way would be to the words "first", "second", "third", etc. which is probably the most common usage, but using the year as a standard can also do it -- "Barack Obama presidential inauguration, 2009" or something like that. That style will also be ordered correctly in category listings, and that style also lends itself to be sorted by the president's last name in the presidential inauguration category, instead of all being grouped under "1" or "2" headings (both are true with the current style as well). The Commons categories have also started to use this naming scheme, mostly because of this article, but two of those categories (Bush's 2005 category, and Kennedy's) have existed there for over a year, using the president's name in the title. Carl Lindberg (talk) 18:13, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose (a) The ',' comma in the article name would be unsightly and is a pain when linking as you wouldn't be able to use any convenient '|' pipe expansion. (b) Per WP:COMMONNAME, this is mostly used and linked as "2009 inauguration of Barack Obama" or "Obama's 2009 inauguration" (and varients. (c) The present name is highly concise and does not clash. (d) the inauguration is not like an election; there is only one partcipant, that [primary] participant having been selected months earlier.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Sladen (talk • contribs)
  • Oppose in favor of Inauguration of Barack Obama, see #New Naming Suggestion, below.--Aervanath (talk) 05:58, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Support. It makes sense that all articles with similar things have a standard name issued to them. It is easier to find the presidential inauguration of a country by the name of the nation than by the name of the person. Just because Barack Obama is currently a "famous" character, his fame will eventually go away (Just like so many other people).--[|!*//MarshalN20\\*!|] (talk) 14:59, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Disagree somewhat. & Alternate Proposal. While I agree that we should add "US," I like having the president's name present. Unlike an election, there is only one name tied to the event. Also, it would help searching the correct inauguration from a Category, without having to know the year in which a president was inaugurated. Perhaps something like "2009 inauguration of US President Barack Obama." This would also help it sort by year in the Category. Aaron charles (talk) 03:30, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose Because of the historical nature of this inauguration, it is fitting that it have it's own entry. Similar to those opinions expressed above, I find it hard to imagine people searching for specific dates of inaugurations instead of the name of the president (ie- we search inauguration of George Washington or inauguration of Abraham Lincoln" Tiefoon (talk) 07:24, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

Is there an article about any other inauguration? I can't find any. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:02, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I found one: Andrew Jackson 1829 presidential inauguration. Any others? --Born2cycle (talk) 23:04, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
Looking at the blue links in Template:US inaugurations, it appears that there are articles for 1789, 1829, 1841, 1861, 1923, 1945, 1961, 1963, 1974, and (of course) 2009. Note that all of the existing articles have a title format that matches the format of this article. --Allan McInnes (talk) 00:42, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
It seems to me as if a namespace convention has been established. No goo reason to change it. PhGustaf (talk) 00:48, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
Comment - No convention has been established. All these articles have been created or renamed within the last two days. I have just gotten done creating about ten more stubs, but will hold off until consensus has been established here. You can see them all in this template {{US inaugurations}}.  LinguistAtLarge • Msg  07:31, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
I created the template based on this article's title, considering it was the only article on a specific inauguration. I can see how a rename could be more "standard" in the sense of election articles, however, 1) Inaugurations are not regular things that only happen every four years, many occurred at random times during four-year terms, but mainly 2) articles titles' should be as specific and descriptive as possible when there is no single noun or phrase that is obvious. In an election this is the country, type of election and year (adding candidate names would quickly get ridiculous), whereas in an inauguration it is the name, type, and year (think, do you refer to the "us presidential election, 1861", or Lincoln's first inauguration?). Not to be crass, but it's useful to think, which would someone more likely Google? Joshdboz (talk) 09:50, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
Isn't it kind of redundant to call all of them United States presidential inauguration? It is much more descriptive to give the president's name, even if you don't like him. 199.125.109.126 (talk) 15:31, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
Liking him or not has nothing to do with it. I'm the one who proposed the change, and I support him. The suggestion was made more for consistency across WP political articles. —GodhevalT C W 20:54, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
I propose a name change to 2009 United States Presidential Inauguration. It should have been called this in the first place, in keeping with 1) WP style and 2) logical encyclopedic format. The current title reads as if the event were the 2009 inauguration of [someone?] as the president of Barack Obama. --Crunch (talk) 12:18, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Requested moves

Ok, I've added requested move templates and listed them at WP:RM for all the oher articles we have so far and directing the discussion to here so we can decide whether to keep them all in the current format or move to the proposed one. I've never actually made a move request before, let alone a batch one so I apologise now in advance if I've ran roughshod over policy without realising it. - Chrism would like to hear from you 16:21, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

This is an inappropriate forum The following from WP:NAME makes it clear what the process should be in renaming articles:
The purpose of an article's title is to enable that article to be found by interested readers, and nothing more. In particular, the current title of a page does not imply either a preference for that name, or that any alternative name is discouraged in the text of articles. Generally, an article's title should not be used as a precedent for the naming of any other articles. Editors are strongly discouraged from editing for the sole purpose of changing one controversial name to another. If an article name has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should remain. Especially when there is no other basis for a decision, the name given the article by its creator should prevail. Any proposal to change between names should be examined on a case-by-case basis, and discussed on talk pages before a name is changed.
There is no provision for such a mass change. Ubtil WP:NAME is changed editors who want to make this change should make their proposals on a case by case basis. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 16:27, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
I don't agree. True, the result of the naming discussion for this article does not have direct bearing on the naming of any other articles—there's no holy consistency rule. But if the naming discussions on a certain class of articles will inevitably feature the same arguments, then keeping them separate would be nothing but a waste of editor time. If anyone here wants to make the argument that one or another of the articles is special and should be named in a special manner, there is still nothing to stop them from doing so. -- Jao (talk) 16:34, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
Good -- I accept your statement that "the naming discussion for this article does not have direct bearing on the naming of any other articles". There is already a discussion at Talk:Lincoln's second inaugural address and there are four opposed and none in favor of the change. If folks want to change the name of either of the Lincoln inaugural articles they need to achieve consensus on those article's talk pages.
Since you agree that this discussion has no "direct bearing" on the Lincoln articles, then the tags added by Chrism should be removed from that article. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 16:42, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
PS I daresay the discussion on Abraham Lincoln's inaugurals would differ considerably from any discussion likely to be generated by, say, Calvin Coolidges. As has been made abundantly clear by newscasters in the last week, some inaugural addresses are mre significant than others. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 16:54, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
If you're suggesting that we get rid of the entire mechanism for moving several pages at once, you should probably take that to WT:RM. If Chrism did not correctly format his request per that section (and it seems he only partially did), you might want to help him do that. As for the ongoing discussion on that specific page, that's certainly something he should have noted. Trying to move it (even for centralization) after it's started spells trouble. -- Jao (talk) 16:53, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
I believe WP:NAME, since it reflects actual Wikipedia policy, takes precedent over WT:RM which is simply a "how to" article. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 17:05, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
In any case, related discussions should be in one place. There is no need to add a zillion notices to WP:RM. One is sufficient. 199.125.109.126 (talk) 17:22, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
The problem is that there are different consideration for different inaugural addresses. Issues that apply to Obama don't necessarily apply to Lincoln. Fo example, there is already over a century f scholarly literature on Lincoln that prominently feature the language and signficance of his First and Second Inaugural addresses -- the inaugural ceremony itself receives little comparable coverage. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 17:37, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I think it's strange to have this discussion here rather than on individual articles. One thing I'm absolutely certain of is that it's perfectly fine to have separate articles for inauguration speeches, certainly for famous ones like Lincoln's, FDR's, or Kennedy's. In fact though it would be very easy to have an article on every inaugural speech ever made since all have been discussed in secondary sources. I don't really care how we title the articles on the overall inauguration, but I strongly object to simply rolling all articles on inaugural speeches into overall inauguration articles. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 19:44, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

On multiple page moves with centralized discussions

While WP:NAME does specify that decisions on what the name of each article should be relies on the specific circumstances on that article, there is no reason not to have a centralized discussion to decide on a common convention for a number of similar articles. Just because a centralized discussion is taking place does not mean that the same outcome will happen for all the affected articles, as one discussion can certainly take into account the exceptions taking place on each article. (I have closed Afd discussions where three articles were nominated for discussion, with three different outcomes, one for each article, because each article had different factors affecting it.) There is no reason why the precedent established here couldn't apply to the majority of other inauguration articles. In the minority of cases where individual factors come into play, I have nothing against taking those factors into account in deciding on a different naming format. But the main point is that there has been one presidential inauguration at least every four years since 1789, which means we're somewhere above 55, since there were several inaugurations that occurred mid-term. Which means we'd have to have essentially the same discussion over 50 times. There is no reason to have the same discussion over 50 times for what is essentially same decision on the same issues. There are probably only going to be a handful of cases where the convention decided here wouldn't apply, if any, since articles about the inaugural addresses (which seems to be the main concern above) would not be covered by a convention about what to name articles about the inaugurations themselves.

The tl;dr summary: a centralized discussion for multiple moves is ok, as long as it allows for exceptions for individual articles.--Aervanath (talk) 05:51, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Quite reasonable. How exactly do we go about conducting a centralized discussion as to a naming convention for all US presidential inauguration articles (while allowing for exceptions where needed, of course)?  LinguistAtLarge • Msg  17:48, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Well, if we had had a number of pre-existing inauguration pages, then you'd start a discussion on one page, link to it from the others, and post a notice at WP:RM (one notice would probably be enough) with a link to the talk page where the discussion was occurring. In this case, since most other inauguration articles seem to have been created after this discussion started, they were originally named according to the current name of this article. So any moves to keep them consistent with the eventual name of this article should be uncontroversial; uncontroversial moves require no discussion. The few that were pre-existing should probably be addressed one by one, especially the ones that were only about the inaugural speeches, not the inaugurations themselves.--Aervanath (talk) 06:30, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

New Naming Suggestion

After stepping back, perusing WP:NAME, and thinking about this, the article should be named Inauguration of Barack Obama (my first choice) or Barack Obama's inauguration (my second choice). I think the name should be as descriptive as possible, while being as simple as possible and at the same time avoiding ambiguity. I think this suggestion accomplishes both. For muliple-term presidents, use First inauguration of Barack Obama and Second inauguration of Barack Obama or Barack Obama's first inauguration and Barack Obama's second inauguration. I think the year is quite unnecessary in the title, specifying "presidential" inauguration is unnecessary and only adding cruft to the title.  LinguistAtLarge • Msg  18:48, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Such a proposal was made above United States presidential inauguration, 2009, but the most common English usage is to refer to the person "Lincoln's inaugural", etc. The Congressional Committee that organizes inaugurations lists them as Inauguration of President X (see Washington) and the Library of Congress lists them as X president's first/second/third/fourth inaugural. Nobody uses a generic form because it's hardly recognizable. Plus, this is not only an every four-year routine, for there are many inaugurals that have occurred at non-normal times, such as John Tyler's (the same year as William Henry Harrison), LBJ's first in '63, etc. Joshdboz (talk) 14:05, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
There is absolutely no way to determine or state what the "most common English usage" is. However, it is possible to state what is grammatically correct and what makes sense in context. The citations you give above include the name of the President and not the name of the country or the fact that is a presidential inauguration because it is a subpage of a site that already contains both pieces of information. To omit the name of the president or president-elect (or the Cheif Justice, or master of ceremonies) is not making the event generic, anymore than leaving Geoge Bush's name out of 2007 State of the Union Address does so. Or, leaving the names of Obama and McCain (and all other candidates on the ballots in the various states) out of United States presidential election, 2008] or leaving the names of the Patriots and Seahawks out of Super Bowl XL] does so. To think you could rename this without answering the question "the inauguration to what position?" and "in what organization?" shows the height of parochialism. --Crunch (talk) 17:11, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
In terms of common usage, I never really hear inaugurations referred to that way -- they are virtually always associated with the person, and often in this proposed manner (most common is probably e.g. "Kennedy's inauguration" but that doesn't work as well as an article title). I think common usage is a primary concern when titling articles. Also, your proposal doesn't work when there are two separate inaugurations in the same year (which has happened five times I think). We could use that naming style if need be for future inaugurations, and then rename the article after the election (usually though, there isn't much relevant info prior to the election). Maybe "Inauguration of President Obama" would also be OK, and would have the position, but that has difficulties with presidents with the same last name. Carl Lindberg (talk) 17:16, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
"There is absolutely no way to determine or state what the "most common English usage" is" Come on, don't you speak English? If somebody refers to an inauguration, 9 times out of 10 they include the name of the president (do you think "1961 United States inauguration day" or the "inauguration of Lincoln"?). Please read the discussion above - there's a reason why the creators of this article thought "Barack Obama" belonged in the title.
Context concerns are different. Would it be preferable as 2009 presidential inauguration of Barack Obama? This is essentially what we have, save that it is a bit more grammatically satisfying. - Joshdboz (talk) 17:30, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Exactly! Context means everything. In the context of Wikipedia, an encyclopedia, we have are taking about the 2009 United States Presidential Inauguration, an event that would have take place regardless of who was being inaugurated (see my super bowl or State of the Union example, above). What people may use in other contexts or in conversation (casual or otherwise) means nothing. --Crunch (talk) 19:46, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Hah, good, so we are in agreement, there needs to be enough context. However, regardless of the inherent "parochialism", WP:NAME states "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity... Wikipedia determines the recognizability of a name by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject." And it just so happens, according to Google, that there are 6,300 results for "Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln" and 0 for "United States presidential inauguration, 1861", so the Super Bowl or Olympics analogies don't work, because unlike those cases, the type, year variation isn't commonly used. Joshdboz (talk) 20:16, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
The other events you are talking about always happen on a schedule, and are more associated with the year... not quite true for inaugurations. Your naming scheme simply won't work when there are multiple inaugurations in the same year... as always, it is related to a president's term, which doesn't always change on schedule. "Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama" I could see, but not much more than that. It is fairly unlikely he will be the president of another country ;-) Carl Lindberg (talk) 07:32, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
What does the schedule have to do with anything? In any case, the presidential inauguration happens more on schedule than any of the other events I've mentioned. Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama is absurd. At the very least add the country. This is an encyclopedia, not a newspaper report. Thoroughness is important. Using your logic, just call it "Inauguration of Barack" because everyone knows all the other parts." You guys need to review the concept of Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. --Crunch (talk) 12:22, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
When Barack Obama is inaugurated as president of a second nation, we'll need to add 'United States'. Your point about thoroughness is valid, but only up to a certain point. AlexTiefling (talk) 13:21, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
None of these naming scheme's are absurd. There's nothing absurd with United States presidential inauguration, 2009, save it leaves out the most common and identifying feature of US presidential inaugurations - the name of the president. The challenge is to find a name that is both common and descriptive enough. 2009 Presidential inauguration of Barack Obama is probably the closest we are going to get between the two positions. Adding in US somewhere would certainly make it very wordy, and isn't as necessary as an identifying feature when the name is involved. The question would then be whether this new phrasing, or the current formulation, is preferable. Joshdboz (talk) 16:07, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Crunch appears to be the lone holdout who has not been willing to accept Inauguration of Barack Obama, calling Presidential inauguration of Barack Obama absurd. We all agreed that the word presidential is redundant. Is that the part that is absurd, or is the fact that someone with the last name of Obama is president the part that is absurd, suggesting that it be called "Inauguration of Barack", though I am not sure who Barack is unless it is Barack Obama? I would hope that Crunch would be willing to accept the consensus that has been reached above. Myself I would suggest leaving out the date (see below), because it is not a necessary part of the title. As they say at weddings, speak now or forever hold your peace (except that with WP nothing is ever that final and can always be changed later). 199.125.109.126 (talk) 16:25, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
As an aside, making the current title bold has not been possible, making the proposed title bold would be trivial:
I understand your point, but I still think you are wrong. We have an article called "Barack Obama" without any other qualifiers; presumably we can have a more specific article containing his name which obviously relates to just him without needing to add anything more, and is common usage as well. Something like "1945 United States presidential inauguration" is too vague anyways. I could see adding "presidential" as technically he was once inaugurated as a member of the Senate as well, but the country is overkill. For exactly the same reason, I'm pretty sure the event is known as "Coronation of Elizabeth II", or possibly "Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II", and not "1953 coronation of the British monarch" (which sounds far more absurd to me). There is a Proclamation of accession of Elizabeth II article... similar idea. Using the country name in either case sounds forced. Carl Lindberg (talk) 23:55, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


Change:

The inauguration of Barack Obama as the forty-fourth President of the United States took place on January 20, 2009. The inauguration, with a record attendance for any event held in Washington, D.C., marked the commencement of the four-year term of Barack Obama as President and Joseph Biden

To:

The inauguration of Barack Obama as the forty-fourth President of the United States took place on January 20, 2009. The inauguration, with a record attendance for any event held in Washington, D.C., marked the commencement of the four-year term of Barack Obama as President and Joseph Biden

or something similar. 199.125.109.126 (talk) 17:04, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

OK. Done. Aaron charles (talk) 19:57, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Conclusion

This proposal seems to have pretty unanimous support (with the possible remaining issue being the inclusion of the year 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama or not). I know there were questions about moving all the other inauguration articles based on a discussion on this page, but if there isn't really any controversy, I don't see why the respective authors wouldn't move their pages. Shall this page be changed? Joshdboz (talk) 12:21, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Sometime in the next day or two, an uninvolved admin will see that it's been posted on WP:RM for the regulation five days, and will come over and interpret the consensus. I can't do it, since I've taken part. Just be patient, and it'll get settled in the near future.--Aervanath (talk) 13:52, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Public domain video

I have been searching the internet for a official recording by the government but I have not found one yet. When some one finds one uploaded quickly. Zginder 2009-01-20T19:26Z (UTC)

Video Here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/28738177#28738177
Transcript Here: http://www.bild.de/BILD/news/bild-english/world-news/2009/01/20/barack-obama-speech/first-black-president-historic-inaugural-address.html
I don't have access to edit the page, so if someone else can put it up... Hohlram
The transcript is already on Wikisource. We need a free recording (one by the government) not one that is by a news organization. [unsigned]

I have just uploaded a USNPS video detailing event preparations. Does anyone know if Federal video exists of the inauguration itself?   — C M B J   00:53, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

According to whitehouse.gov [5], "Later today, we’ll put up the video and the full text of President Obama’s Inaugural Address. There will also be slideshows of the Inaugural events, the Obamas’ move into the White House, and President Obama’s first days in office." So keep checking that site I guess. 163.1.146.3 (talk) 01:56, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
The White House have now uploaded a video of the Inaugural Address. [6] Can somehow who knows how, upload it to Wikipedia, since it's on a US Government website and therefore in the public domain? 163.1.146.17 (talk) 02:55, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
I tried doing just the oath of office part, and put it on this page. The video works for me locally but it's not working for me in wikipedia's player. If it doesn't work for anyone else, maybe it should be removed from this article. The full address video is a 230MB MP4 file; it would probably have to be scaled down a lot to make it allowable to upload to Commons (I think there is a 100MB limit). Carl Lindberg (talk) 04:39, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
I'll see what I can do.   — C M B J   01:30, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
I reprocessed your uploaded video, and reuploaded it in two different resolutions. Everything is good to go now. Cheers.   — C M B J   03:59, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Looks good, thanks. :-) It appears wikimedia just can't serve up the high-resolution videos; I guess it doesn't create scaled versions behind the scenes either so that needs to be done manually. If 40 seconds of HD video takes 40MB in Theora, the full speech video (18+ minutes) would be huge... over a gigabyte I think. You may be able to do that with the smaller size. Carl Lindberg (talk) 04:33, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Oath of office

The wording is a bit clumsy. The BBC describes it more clearly: As Chief Justice Roberts read out the oath for Mr Obama to repeat, he moved the word "faithfully" to the end of the phrase. Mr Obama, apparently noticing the error, hesitated. Chief Justice Roberts repeated the phrase incorrectly, and Mr Obama followed suit. Without being a blatant copivio, this more clearly explains the sequence of events. It is also worth noting that this is rare but not unique. Calvin Coolidge and Chester Arthur were advised to repeat the oath for similar reasons. 203.7.140.3 (talk) 03:35, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd also like to add that the section says that Roberts interrupted Obama. Did Obama not interrupt Roberts? (I.E. He started repeating the phrase before he should have?). Also possibly worth noting that Roberts addressed Obama as Senator when at the time he was legally already president even without being sworn in (it was past noon). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.126.174.211 (talk) 05:07, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I think Obama started too soon on the previous section, but they got that one right. For the part in question, Roberts got it wrong, Obama started to repeat it wrong then stopped, Roberts started to say it wrong again but then corrected himself and got it right, at which point Obama continued with the original wrong version (maybe because before stopping he had already said the word "executed" without saying "faithfully"). Don't think the after noon thing bears mention; that is all part of the ceremony at that point. Not sure how much detail we need on the sequence of interruption events for that matter ;-) Carl Lindberg (talk) 05:17, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
There's some debate as to who interrupted whom. Some people claim that Obama interrupted Roberts by saying "I Barack..." too soon. Others point out that "I <name>" and "do solemnly swear" are often recited as separate phrases with repetitions between them (see for example the last inauguration), and claim that Roberts paused between the two phrases then interrupted as Obama started to repeat back his name. Personally, I find it hard to tell who actually screwed up there.
As for the bit about calling Obama "senator", I think you'll find that in many previous inaugurations people who were technically president were still addressed by their former titles until after administration of the oath.
--Allan McInnes (talk) 09:49, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Why was the comment about how his presidency was valid although he did not recite the oath word for word deleted? The constitution states that the new person becomes president at noon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.69.63.234 (talk) 03:53, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Merge purplegate

By consensus, Purplegate was merged and redirected into Barack Obama 2009 presidential inauguration. 78.34.140.134 (talk) 05:46, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should purplegate be merged with this article?  LinguistAtLarge • Msg  07:22, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

  • Against. Purplegate is still ongoing, as investigations have been demanded. Until this is cleared up it is a good idea to have it's own article to see how it goes out. When we can see how big an issue it is then we can judge it's importnance. Katana Geldar 07:50, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Support. I believe that "Purplegate" should be merged into this article. Anyway, when I first saw the article, my first thought was that someone will come along and slap a speedy delete on it, absent merging the content with this article. The only thing that will come out of the ticket problem will be a lessons learned opportunity for the inaugural committee for the next inauguration, since Obama's inauguration has already passed and no more can be done to make people whole for the missed opportunity. →Lwalt ♦ talk 08:05, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment So as not to violate WP:UNDUE, this only merits a sentence or two in this article, so any merge wouldn't save much of that text. So why not continue to improve Purplegate and then see what happens at AfD (if it ever gets there). Joshdboz (talk) 09:59, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
I support this, and it was what my argument was in the beginning. Katana Geldar 00:20, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Support. "Purplegate" is a small element of the events of the 2009 presidential inauguration, not warranting its own article. --Crunch (talk) 13:14, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Support, this article should have never been created and a good example of WP:UNDUE. It is largely media hype and needlessly implies a conspiracy. A single sentence in the inaugural article should be sufficient.--Rtphokie (talk) 14:18, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Support I support the merging of all well-cited information.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 15:07, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Merge and Delete Hardly significant enough to stand on its own; merits about one sentence and three good citations. -- Yellowdesk (talk) 15:24, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, if we merge the material into this article, we cannot delete the redirect for non-negotiable GFDL reasons (all material must attributable to the editor who added it). Also, nothing speaks against a redirect, does it? The term has been picked up by several outlets, so it's reasonable to assume people are going to look it up. 78.34.141.87 (talk) 03:48, 23 January 2009 (UTC) [Correction: The page histories could be merged, but why the fuzz? 78.34.145.131 (talk) 07:49, 23 January 2009 (UTC)]

Support--Rockybiggs (talk) 15:34, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Support - not nearly notable enough to have its own article; brief mention somewhere with a citation or two and its done. - Chrism would like to hear from you 15:36, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Support - not notable enough for its own article and only worthy of a mention in this article in relation to the large crowd size. Rillian (talk) 16:49, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Support per Rtphokie and all fellow support votes above. - 66.25.69.231 (talk) 17:03, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Support merging and giving it only the one or two sentences it needs. Mikemill (talk) 18:46, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, if we merge the content of purplegate into this article, we can absolutely delete purplegate. That's one of the primary reasons you merge articles...to delete the one that may not be notable on its own.LedRush (talk) 17:52, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Um, no... We merge and redirect pages so as to reorganise content in a more suitable way, not to delete anything (merge/redir vs delete happen to be quite distinct alternative options, actually). Moreover, redirects need only be plausible, not notable. Alas, this level of interest (from stats.grok.se) makes it tough-ish to disagree. Still, if we copy any material from there into this article, then we can delete the Purplegate page only if we also merge the page histories (GFDL demands that, see also Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Merging and Wikipedia:Merge and delete. there are alternatives, but they are all rather unattractive); to me, that seems like overdoing it (but you're of course free to RfD the redirect; an admin could then merge the histories). 78.34.140.134 (talk) 01:44, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


What is purplegate? I followed a link to get here, only to find no mention of it anywhere in this article. If it's been merged, why is the word not even used once in the article?

  • Purplegate is a little-known reference to a problem encountered by about 4,000 purple ticket holders who were turned away at the purple gate to the inauguration. The last two paragraphs of the section "Crowds and general ticket holders" make note of the occurrence without employing the term purplegate. Aaron charles (talk) 01:25, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Day of Service

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day that President Obama used as a Day of Service was sort of part of the inauguration week activities. Does it belong in the article?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 08:54, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Image removal

Do people think that this image that shows the Obamas on the JumboTron should have been removed from the page? --TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 00:42, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Probably... there are likely several better images out there; I'm not sure how much interest that particular one adds. The number of camera phones is pretty amusing though.  ;-) Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:27, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes, it's a bad picture.LedRush (talk) 17:50, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Kenya

Given the significant cultural impact that this inauguration has had in Kenya, and taking into consideration the digital divide, we should be extra vigilant in ensuring that the subject receives appropriate coverage in the article.   — C M B J   00:58, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

International Attention viewership claim

The opening statement for the section on "International Attention" claims that the inaugaration "had as much international viewing as the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics", yet the credited footnote does not give this statistic (and cannot do so as it was written on January 19th). Is there a cited source that can verify the statement? Darknote (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Air and Simple Gifts image

Does anyone have a clearer shot of this performance? If so, I think the current picture should be replaced with a higher quality version that's not blurry. If there's not one available, my picture of the crowds watching the ceremony would seem more appropriate in the "Inauguration ceremony" section. For some reason, it was moved to the "Inaugural balls" section even though the picture doesn't have anything to do with those events. Just in case anyone is wondering, it doesn't matter to me if my image is used or not (I'm sure there's higher quality photos available), but the current placement seems odd. Cheers. APK is like a firecracker. He makes it hot. 18:17, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Middle Name

"Obama decided to follow tradition and use his full name, including his middle name Hussein,[23] regardless of its past and present use by detractors, mainly because of the name's association with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.[11]". It is interesting that Wikipedia claims that Obama used his middle name because of its association with Saddam Hussien. I would have never know that if I hadn't read the article. Perhaps editors were tried to say something else and failed, but that is how it reads.Someone might want to check it out as I haven't checkerd the source to see if that is indeed what it says.Die4Dixie (talk) 20:34, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

It's funny how the article says one thing, but you read something entirely different. It says that detractors have used the name's association with Saddam, not that Obama decided to use the name because of that same association. Obama, if he chose to use it, it would be because it is his NAME, and he has no reason to be ashamed of it. READ. Don't project. —GodhevalT C W 20:52, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Godheval, it doesn't parse the way you claim it does. My point was it is ambiguous the way the sentence is structured as well as awkward. Perhaps you should read it again. As far as "project", your crystal ball must be hazy when you can't see the tongue in cheek.Die4Dixie (talk) 21:38, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
To make it a little easier to understand it reads:"Obama decided to follow tradition and use his full name,xxxxxxxxxxx,xxxxxxxxxx, mainly becasue of the name's association with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussien." That might not be what you want it to say, but that's how it is structured.21:45, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
I think you'd have to be pretty stupid to read the section that way, though both ways are supported by grammar rules. Let's just make it that only one grammatical reading is possible.LedRush (talk) 21:48, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

How about, "Even though detractors used his middle name, Hussein, pejoratively because of its association with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Obama chose to follow tradition and use it (for the purposes of taking the oath)." something like that?LedRush (talk) 21:52, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Cool, I hadn't checked the source to know what way it was intended. Ambiguous is a bad thing. I assure you that I am not stupid.Die4Dixie (talk) 21:53, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
I highlighted what you ought to change to make it more suitable for the project.Die4Dixie (talk) 21:55, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
You might also want a cite for the word pejoratively, too.Die4Dixie (talk) 22:02, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Bible

Obama , according to this source, did not use a Bible for being sworn in: [[7]]. Any ideas for wording to incorporate this into that section?Die4Dixie (talk) 22:09, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Hardly seems at all notable. He used Jefferson's Lincoln's bible for the swearing-in ceremony. This second one was just an informal re-do to quell any constitutional concerns about Roberts and his misspoken words. --Loonymonkey (talk) 02:30, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
That may depend on whether or not the other presidents whom retook the oath of office used a bible.   — C M B J   02:45, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
Lincoln's bible, actually. The White House opinion is the first oath is still the official one; the second was a just-in-case-of-weird-lawsuits version. It has in fact been flubbed much worse before, without being retaken and assumed valid anyways... Taft when giving the oath to Hoover used an entirely incorrect word, which is far worse than just misplacing one -- the oath still has the same meaning in Roberts/Obama's case. I think the no-bible-the-second-time tidbit was in the article at one point but was removed. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:30, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
Seemed notable enough that a reliable third party source mentioned it, Loony. And that he used a Bible the first time was notable enough for inclusion. Carl, he took the second oath on the advice of counsel. If we have reliable third party sources reporting the lack of a Bible, I believe that it meets the standard that Wikipedia lays out for sourcing and notability. I can supply other sources, if necessary.Die4Dixie (talk) 08:39, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
The use of the Lincoln bible is worth mentioning because of Obama's overall Lincoln theme. If he had used random_bible_487 it wouldn't matter. In the article given the mention of not using a bible is not the main focus of the article so I'm not sure if it would be considered notable. I think that mentioning the lack of a book would be undue weight. Mikemill (talk) 17:31, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
Several reliable sources have mentioned it. Meets thresh hold of notable.Die4Dixie (talk) 21:38, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
[[8]]. is another. I will collect as many as you tell me is necessary. How many do you think? In fact, every article;e that mentions the redo , mentions the lack of Bible.Die4Dixie (talk) 21:41, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
[[9]]. If no one returns to discuss this, I will assume passive consensus tomorrow. If more cites are needed, please say how many.Die4Dixie (talk) 22:25, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
It's probably notable. Also important to note is the fact that use of a Bible during the administration of the Oath is not stated in the Constitution. --Crunch (talk) 22:31, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
Of course I don't want to attribute anything to it, only that reliable third party sources all mention it. If we have third party sources that make that link between what the constitution says (or doesn't) about it, we can include it. To directly quote the constitution or report it's absence is OR.Die4Dixie (talk) 22:38, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I see nothing notable about this in the least. It is completely false that having a reliable source "meets the standard that Wikipedia lays out for sourcing and notability". Reliable sourcing and notablity are separate issues. Fulfilling the criteria for one does not automatically mean the other is fulfilled. Just because a reliable source mentions something does not mean that it is notable. This is an encyclopedia, not a newspaper or magazine. To make an issue out if it in the article could imply something that is not the case (e.g., things about Obama's religious beliefs). He used the Bible in the swearing in that was supposed to be the only one, so it does not belong in any mention of this technicality. If he had not used a Bible in the first swearing in, that might be notable. But not in the context of the second one. If the Chief Justice had not accidentally flubbed the words this would not be an issue, so it doesn't need to be made an issue because of something completely unintentional. A number of Presidents have not used Bibles, so to lump Obama into that category would be very misleading because he did use a Bible. Ward3001 (talk) 23:24, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Excellent points, Ward3001. The Bible does not have to be mentioned. Adding it seems to be part of a trend on Wikipedia to include every piece of information remotely related to the subject of an article, with the justification that it's been mentioned elsewhere, somewhere, anywhere, regardless of context, source, medium, or intent of the other article(s). --Crunch (talk) 20:44, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
Not notable in the slightest. I might find a source describing his necktie; that wouldn't be notable either. PhGustaf (talk) 21:08, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
If the overwhelming consensus of reliable sources mention it, and the one linked to above has an entire article dedicated to the subject, it certainly meets the level of notable. It has been noted by several reliable sources.Die4Dixie (talk) 22:14, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
Wrong. Mention of something, even in a reliable source, does not make something notable. Ward3001 (talk) 23:51, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
Actually, it meets the 5 pronged ctriteria of notable laid out in ....drum roll please.... WP:Notable.: Significant coverage, Reliable, Sources, Independent of the subject, and Presumed. More WP:DONTLIKE. How predictable.Die4Dixie (talk) 22:22, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
The "5 pronged criteria" are for establishing a stand-alone article, not what is notable enough to include in an article. So unless you wish to start a separate article on Obama's use of the Bible in inaugurations, it's irrelevant. Ward3001 (talk) 23:51, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Obama didn't have to use a Bible in the first place. Pointing out that he didn't, only fits to serve some WP:POV. Grsz11 22:26, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

hey , don't blame the messenger. It is the crushing consensus of reliable third party sources that mention it and make it notable, not me. Ya'll should take it up with their editorial boards for having dared to report it. It is not a NPOV violation to report the reports of the overwhelming consistency of reliable sourcesDie4Dixie (talk) 22:30, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

There can be a thousand third-party sources that mention it, but that does not make it notable. Please read WP:N. On Wikipedia something can be well-sourced and not notable, or notable but poorly sourced. If I find a source that says there is life on Mars, that would be notable but very likely poorly sourced. If I find a half-dozen obscure but peer-reviewed statistical journals that provide sterling evidence that people who live west of the Mississippi River on average are 1/1000 inch taller than people who live east of the Mississippi, that would be well sourced but completely non-notable (except maybe for an article on bizarre facts). The argument that lots of sources say something in no way by itself implies notability. If the Associated Press says something, that can end up in thousands of newspaper, all of which are notable. But WP:V and WP:N are distinct policies. Both are important, but they are not interchangeable. "Keep in mind that an encyclopedia article is a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject, not a complete exposition of all possible details". Ward3001 (talk) 23:05, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Parade Participants

In the article it mentions a few parade participants. One major exclusion from that section is The Best Damn Band In The Land, The Ohio State University Marching Band. This was the bands 3rd straight appearance in the presidential Inaugural parade. They were one of the most exciting bands/groups at the parade. For more information on The OSUMB you can visit their Wikipedia page.The Ohio State University Marching Band Idotter09 (talk) 23:02, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I suggest that rather than adding more parade participants to this list, we pare this list down because each group has its fans, family, friends and supporters. I suggest we change the wording to say "The parade was led off by the marching band from President Obama's high school, the Punahou School in Hawaii" and link to the official JCCIC site for the full line up. --Crunch (talk) 14:31, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Lincoln's 100-year trip

Lincoln began his tour in Springfield, Illinois on February 11, 1861 before arriving in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on February 21, 1961. Someone please fix this ^^ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.145.102.24 (talk) 08:33, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

OK DUDE I DID —Preceding unsigned comment added by FlaMeZeD (talk • contribs) 21:41, 24 January 2009 (UTC) {{editsemiprotected}} Still not corrected. See the "Train ride" section. 199.125.109.102 (talk) 01:39, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Rating Reassessment

I think that this article deserves a rating reassessment. Should be above start-class ASAP. Thanks. Aaron charles (talk) 02:47, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Crowd Estimates

What is the wisdom of devoting so much space to talking about the analyses of the satellite image to determine crowd size? Yes, it would be useful if the satellite image provided good information. However the image was taken at 11:19 am while many people were still in holding areas, underground in walking tunnels or subways or outside the viewing area, or in buildings. It does not seem to be useful, especially since the crowd ranges given by each of the analysts is so great. At the very least we can shorten this section considerably. The point of the section should be "how many people attended the inauguration." If one person's count is not precise or has been superceded by a more precise count, why include it? --Crunch (talk) 12:14, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

The point is that no one count has been deemed better than the others, so the most notable of the different estimates are listed. In fact, I think the different estimates use different definitions of the crowd size -- some count people on the Mall, some also count people on surrounding streets, and I don't know if any of them count people in buildings, including the D.C. Police estimate -- so even the definition of "crowd size" is in dispute. Also, unless you have an estimate for how many people were excluded from the satellite image, it's not really relevant to use that to detract from the satellite image estimates. If you do have an estimate, then it can be used in conjunction with the satellite imagery estimates to give a better estimate. Ketone16 (talk) 19:25, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Speech Gaffe, and how many Americans have been president???

There is no such policy that forbids the speech information. This is the article that it belongs in. As a historian, I am appalled by the president's apparant lack of knowledge on U.S. History. I have no idea why. Perhaps it comes from his many years going to school abroad, but he has a serious lapse in that department. There is no other article or section to place this information. It is best suited there. Regardless of party or support, the sentence was cited properly and has been placed in its proper section. Any removal means that those removing it are not interested in improving wikipedia, but are only here to protect Obama's image.--Jojhutton (talk) 18:12, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Blah blah blah. It was a mistake, a mistake. What is so hard about that to understand? How many times did George W. Bush make mistakes in speeches? Yet we don't record every single one. Why? Who the fuck cares. Grsz11 18:21, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Grsz11. It is apparent that you do not care for me. So no matter what I say or try to do, you will never accept the truth from me, cited or not. It makes no diffrence why or what your motives may be. This, like Obama's birthplace, will not go away. This is not a biography, so WP:BLP can no longer be applied. I would understand your argument if the historical error had occured in a press conference or a speech to the shriners club. But it was his Inaururation speech that was given in front of a world audience of billions of people. If you wish to ignore it, then fine, but do not let your worship of Obama dictate the policies of wikipedia. There is no policy that would disallow the sentence.--Jojhutton (talk) 18:49, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Pointing fingers won't help, I don't even know who you are. As for policy, probably WP:UNDUE. Grsz11 18:58, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Joj, please don't make this a personal matter, and please don't continue to speculate about the motivations of other editors. Cite all the policies you like: the matter is utterly trivial anddoes not deserve to be mentioned here. Do you really believe that Obama can't recite the list of Presidents? Sheesh. PhGustaf (talk) 19:03, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Why not be able to list the presidents if you are going to hold that office? School children can, Bush could, yet he had a BA degree in history. How can it be Undue weight? Its not in the lead, its only one sentence, it was his first actual mistake as president.--Jojhutton (talk) 19:09, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
And also, the bit is about a living person, so WP:BLP very much applies. Grsz11 19:04, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Jojhutton, I'm not sure which "speech gaffe" you are referring to (the flubbed oath or Obama stating that 44 people have taken the oath). The flubbed oath was completely by accident. As for his saying that 44 people took the oath, I think that is a common statement that has been spoken by knowledgeable people (including well-respected journalists). To be "appalled by the president's apparant lack of knowledge on U.S. History" based on one phrase that is quite common among people who know better is ... let's say ... a tiny bit of an overreaction. Do you have any other substantive, documented information that would point to the 44th President's (and that is correct because it refers to administrations, not the person) profound ignorance of U.S. History. Englighten us with a few well-sourced examples. Thank you. Ward3001 (talk) 18:24, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I can see what you are saying Ward3001. I respect your honesty. The flubbed oath is of no concern to me. That I feel was a common mistake and could have (and has) happened to anyone. And it is true that we can't nitpick on every flub in every speech that he ever gives. That wouldn't be fair. But this was no ordinary speech and this was no ordinary event. The statement about the number of Americans who have taken the oath of office is actually quite notable in this speech. I, like many who watched the speech, did not notice it the first time. It was only after going back and watching it again, that I picked up on the mistake. I understand that he is the 44th president. I don't need to be told something that is recorded in history. Yet the way that Obama phrased the sentence in a speech that must have been prepared weeks, if not months in advance is disturbing. If every word was carefully chosen, then why flub that sentence? Couldn't he have chosen a less ambiguous phrase? Both the Chicago Sun and the Associated Press wrote articles on just this flub and agree with me. Very notable citations I would think.--Jojhutton (talk) 19:04, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I still want to see the other evidence that he is so ignorant of U.S. History. Without that, this episode is a "blip" in the grand total of errors that many people make. To me it's not important by itself, but only in the context of evidence that he lacks knowledge of history. But I realize whether to include it is a matter of consensus. If the consensus is to include it (which I am not conceding at this point), then it needs to be only a very, very brief mention. Thanks. Ward3001 (talk) 20:59, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Part of me thinks that this is trivial and not worthy of inclusion. However, we go into great detail about the messed up oath, so, who knows? One thing is certain, Obama made a mistake. When we watched it live at work two smartasses pointed it out immediately.LedRush (talk) 19:10, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
I can see the idea of it being too trivial, but isn't everything. Again I didn't catch the mistake the first time either. I was watching with some students in my classroom. It was only when I got home that night did it occur to me that he said 44 Americans (meaning 44 different people), rather than 44 precidencies. On accident or not, it needs mentioning since the speech was watched by so many people around the world.
The argument about WP:Undue weight can't be right since it only takes up one sentence of the entire article. Its not WP:BLP its an event. WP:TRIVIA can be added in proper sections, which it was. It was not worded to be too long or to draw attention to itself, and its not some WP:Fringe theory that can just be chucked out. This is what he said, it was the most watched speech in the history of the world, and he made a historical error. Sounds notable.--Jojhutton (talk) 19:22, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
I saw it. That is a poor compromise to such a notable mistake, and in fact only strengthens my position. There is a precident to use information from wikisource articles in main articles in the past. Is anyone willing to compromise?--Jojhutton (talk) 19:36, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Joj, I'm not sure how you're getting "notable", you used the same source twice. Tricky. Grsz11 19:39, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with this either way. Why don't you make a proposed sentence (with cite) and where you would include it? Or just be bold and put it in and see how people respond?LedRush (talk) 19:41, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
LedRush, I think your reference to "smartass" applies to this trivial note quite well. At the end of the day, that's all it would at add to the article...an ah-ha! Aaron charles (talk) 20:03, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
NOTE: Aaron charles mistakingly typed "at" when it should have been "add" - ah-ha! Aaron charles (talk) 20:08, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Here is the sentence as it was written:

One historical error was recorded in the speech, when in the third sentence Obama stated that "44 Americans have now taken the Presidential oath". Although he is the 44th president, one president, Grover Cleveland, served two non-consecutive terms, making the actual number at 43 Americans.[4][5]

Two seperate citations, one was from the Associated Press, the other a paper in Chicago.--Jojhutton (talk) 20:11, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

No, like I said, the Sun-Times article is the AP article, which is this one, that you get when you click on the link in the second source you used. Grsz11 20:13, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Grsz11, the problem isn't with cites, though. Doesn't everyone agree this is a misstatement of fact? The problem is with weight. Anyway, I would think two sentences is too much (and perhaps Grsz11 and Aaron are right that even one is too much). Any attempt to make it shorter? Where did you want this?LedRush (talk) 20:51, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
It was originally placed in the section on the address itself. Not in the lead. Here is the edit I made earlier. [[10]]--Jojhutton (talk) 22:30, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
I am really confused why this is the only thing mentioned about his speech. He also summed up the religions of the world to Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and non-believers, but that is not mentioned. I fail to see why it is so vital to the understanding of the reader for this article that the one tiny mistake made should be included but not others. It seems rather trivial to me. Bovineboy2008 (talk) 00:26, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Actually there are several quotes from the speech, but only the ones that some editors think are good. Anything that can be seen as negative has been deleted.--Jojhutton (talk) 01:02, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
I started the "Inaugural address" section on Friday, January 23. I was surprised that nothing was written about his speech to that point. I have been watching the entire article and contributing to it since then. I can assure you that nothing construed as negative has been deleted from the speech section (sans this trivia you seem hellbent on), so please do not make accusations that you cannot back up. Thanks. Aaron charles (talk) 02:21, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Unofficial Inaugural Balls, Salute to Heroes Inaugural Ball

I recommend editing the line about the Salute to Heroes Inaugural Ball. I would recommend replacing it with-

sponsored by the American Legion to recognize recipients of the Medal of Honor. The ball was started as an inaugural event during President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s first inauguration in 1953. President Obama was the first President, since the ball's inception, not to attend. However, Vice-President Joe Biden made an appearance at the ball to honor the guests. [105]

Then add reference [142] for online article at http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=87049

I make this recommendation because of the perceived odds between President Obama and members of the military. This is firstly due to the fact that President Obama has never served in uniform. Secondly, President Obama's political stance on homosexuals in the military is at odds with most of its members. (See http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2008/12/122908_military_poll_DADT/) According to the World Net Daily article (proposed reference 142) many veterans claimed that President Obama snubbed veterans and the military by skipping the ball. At the same time, some of the President's supporters claimed the story was a hoax to smear the President. They claimed the ball never occurred. As historic as this inauguration is claimed to be, it should be recognized that this was the first inauguration since 1953 not attended by the elected President. Moesbob (talk) 02:58, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I concur with the sentence. I added it, for reasons other than your questionable rationale. Just the facts. Thanks. Aaron charles (talk) 03:14, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
I would only state the facts here that VP Biden attend the event without political comment. Otherwise, anything else implies commentary about non-support (which may or may not be true) and veers into WP:UNDUE territory to imply a viewpoint (yes...I've seen the blogs (one that is cited here as a source), forums and message boards where virtually all of the POV comments there were negative because of the no-show by the Obamas). There should be nothing in the article that implies a view against the military just because Obama did not serve in the military (I've not seen any documentation that suggests otherwise). Anyway, speaking on the same subject, Bill Clinton also did not serve in the military...so, should one draw or imply the same conclusion, and does that mean anything really from a historical perspective, even though Bill Clinton made a show at the ball for his inauguration?
The job here is to include just the facts only with a neutral point of view. Also, this ball was not sanctioned as an official ball, not to mention that the inaugural schedule was already behind schedule with the late start of the parade (parade ended after dusk), given the scheduling for an expected after midnight appearance for a WH event that took place closer to 1:00 a.m. the next morning. Except for one newspaper out of the Midwest that picked up the story from the blogs, I did not find the story about the no-show by the Obamas widely reported by mainstream media newspapers, such as the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, among others. →Lwalt ♦ talk 19:29, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Lwalt, are you saying that we should remove the sentence about Obama not attending and only state that Biden did in fact? Aaron charles (talk) 20:10, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Regardless, the citation is to a blog/op-ed sort of piece at newsvine.mobi, and looks pretty dicey in a BLP. If the real media take no note of the matter, we shouldn't either. We don't say which of the other non-official ball the President attended or didn't. PhGustaf (talk) 21:02, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
I am removing it for now, as I added it. I agree the ref is not mainstream. Also, we do not have a roll call of the President's attendance for the other unofficial events either. Aaron charles (talk) 21:11, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Moesbob, as a response to your commentary, Obama did attend the official Commander-in-Chief's Ball, so he is not at odds with the military by your defined connection to ball attendance.Aaron charles (talk) 21:28, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
True, he did attend the C-n-C's Ball. However, it is just as true that he is the first President, since the ball's inception, to miss the Salute to the Heroes Inaugural Ball. That is just as historic as President Obama's inauguration. The last ten Presidents found a way to attend this ball. Furthermore, I never said that President Obama was at odds with the military, I only mentioned that there are some who perceive that there are odds. I only mentioned some of the reasons above to provide some insight of those perceived differences. For some, those reasons do make this a fact worth mentioning. Finally, I would caution using the media as a barometer for the worthiness of a fact or story. Remember, Newsweek was sitting on the Clinton-Lewinsky story for weeks. It finally took a "nontraditional" source (The Drudge Report) to bring the scandal to light. Big media may have reasons to edit their stories. (See http://www.drudgereport.com/flashopp.htm and http://newscycle.wordpress.com/2009/01/13/obama-limits-access-to-questions-at-press-conferences/ and http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.1580/pub_detail.asp and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/21/obamas-revenge-emnew-york_n_113969.html ) I only ask that this simple fact be stated.Moesbob (talk) 22:03, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Obama did not simply attend the C-n-C's Ball, he actually renewed it's place of prominence...on its way to a new tradition, after the first one was held by George W. Bush in 2005. This ball exclusively for the military had an encore as an official ball in 2008. Perhaps by the next inauguration in four years, the C-n-C's Ball will be official again ... becoming a historic tradition of its own. 2008's inaugural schedule was not a snubbing of group by a new president that was suppressed by mainstream media, instead it appears 2008 was an understated transition on a continuum started in 2005 to advance the prestige of an official military ball. Aaron charles (talk) 17:22, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Fundraising

If anyone can find a final total fundraising amount that would be helpful. Thank you. Aaron charles (talk) 16:22, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I was able to update fundraising and budget figures. If someone finds more, please update further. Thanks. Aaron charles (talk) 16:54, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Propose delete: Extended hours for hospitality establishments

Propose delete section. Is this section really necessary? Looking back from the future, will anyone care that the bars stayed open later? Aaron charles (talk) 16:39, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm fine with the deletion, per your arguments. PhGustaf (talk) 18:42, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
It may merit a sentence, as it was a pretty unusual thing to do, but I would agree a paragraph (let alone a section) is overkill. Carl Lindberg (talk) 00:46, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks to Lwalt for merging into "Security." It's still a little long, but at least reads better within that section. If we can shorten it a little more, like Clindberg suggests, that might make it even better. Aaron charles (talk) 15:17, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
I went ahead and removed a sentence to shorten it while still making sense. Aaron charles (talk) 17:13, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Parade map

Can we use this under fair use? If not is there a similar one produced by the Federal Government?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 09:07, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

You linked to a photo of the parade reviewing stand. Ketone16 (talk) 23:15, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Parade images

We need some parade images. This guy is among the best I have seen with freely licend photos. Does anyone have the whole reviewing stand?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 09:09, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

here is an interesting reviewing stand where the DC mayor and city council watched from.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 09:11, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Inauguration of Barack Obama/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Hey Tony. As I discussed with you before, I'm going to review this one; this is my first ever GAN review, so let me know if I miss anything. So far, it seems to fit the Good article criteria, although I still have to read from "Retaking the oath" on. However, I have some suggestions that I can pass along now. For the most part, the article looks really good to me; I actually haven't found ANY grammatical problems yet at all. Most of my stuff below is citation stuff, which should be easy to fix, although I do start with some content related stuff... --Hunter Kahn (talk) 08:09, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Now, on to the easy stuff...

From the intro

From "Train ride: Commemorating Lincoln"

  • Unless I'm missing it, the first source here has no reference to the 10 a.m. or 11 a.m. references you include. (The source DOES include one for the 11:30 a.m. reference.) I know I'm already being a stickler with the citations, but could you find and include one that does have those times? If you can't find one, I'd just take them out altogether and put in that he left in the morning or something; it's not really a crucial detail.
  • The CNN story in the next citation has a mention of fans shouting "I love you Obama," and him replying "I love you back." I know this is hardly important but it is kind of a cute detail (cute enough to make the headline of the story, anyway). Do you think it should be tossed into the article?
  • There are other cool little details in the freep story that you might consider tossing in, like how 40 everyday Americans were invited along, the food drives and the extreme security.
    • O.K.
  • What is the source for Lincolns train "stopping in 70 places along the way?"

From "Concert at the Lincoln Memorial: We Are One"

  • How about adding a {{main|We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial}} tag to the top of the "Concert at the Lincoln Memorial: We Are One" section? If you're opposed to it I won't stand by this suggestion, but I think it would be appropriate.
  • There is no citation after the sentence about all the musical performances. Unless you are counting the citations in the first sentence of the next paragraph, but if that's the case, a number of the performers ( Mary J. Blige, Jon Bon Jovi, Renee Fleming, Caleb Green, Herbie Hancock, Heather Headley, Bettye Lavette, Jennifer Nettles, Pete Seeger, will.i.am.) are not mentioned in those sources. HOWEVER, this site names them all and is a legitimate source, so could you toss that in as a source after all the performers?
  • Not to be a stickler, but in the sentence about the celebrity speakers, neither of the two sources refer to the following speakers: Jack Black, Steve Carell, Rosario Dawson, Tom Hanks, Ashley Judd, Laura Linney, George Lopez, Kal Penn, Marisa Tomei, Forest Whitaker, Tiger Woods. Once again, however, the site I mentioned above has them all, so you can toss that in as a source and you're covered.

From "Kids' inaugural: 'We Are the Future'"

From "Unofficial pre-inaugural events"

From "Inauguration events: Summary

From "Inaugural ceremony: 'A New Birth of Freedom'"

  • I'm not seeing citations for "The oath of office for Vice President Biden was followed by the first playing of four ruffles and flourishes and "Hail, Columbia."" or "which also delayed the administering of the oath that finished around 12:05 p.m. EST (17:05 UTC)," although it's entirely possible I'm missing them somewhere.

I'll finish up the rest of this ASAP.

--Hunter Kahn (talk) 08:09, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


Here's the rest...

From Inaugural luncheon

From Inaugural parade

From Post-inaugural events: Inaugural balls

From Unofficial balls

From Attendance: Guests

  • In your mentions of Maggie Obama and Said Obama's attendance, maybe you'll want to add that fact that Obama's half-brother Malik Obama was also there. Malik is mentioned in the sources you cite.
  • Suggest rewording this: "To address complaints by the ticket holders who were prevented from gaining entry to view the inaugural ceremony, Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, launched an investigation into the matter." into this: "Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, launched an investigation to address complains by the ticket holders who were prevented from gaining entry to view the inaugural ceremony."
  • Drop the phrase "to be distributed to the disappointed ticket holders" from the sentence: "The commemorative items to be distributed to the disappointed ticket holders would include a copy of the swearing-in invitation and program, photos of President Obama and Vice President Biden and a color print of the inaugural ceremony." You already established they were disappointed ticker holders in the previous sentence. Also in that sentence, change "would include" to "included."

From Crowd estimates

  • I found the first paragraph in this section to be a bit redundant. This is how I would word it, you can use all or none of it: "No official count was taken of the number of people attending the inauguration ceremony, although multiple sources concluded it was the highest attended event ever held in Washington, D.C. Government agencies and federal officials that coordinated security and traffic management the attendance count to be 1.8 million, based on information collected by several cameras and individuals on the ground. The Washington Post reported the number and the National Park Service said it did "not contest" the estimate."
  • Can we say 240,000 instead of 0.240 million people in the second paragraphs?
  • You mention those who "showed up for [Johnson]," but there's no context in the story as to what this is. Can you mention at the end of the quote that this refers to the 1.2 million crowd estimates from the Lyndon B. Johnson 1965 presidential inauguration?

From Security

From Internet traffic

From International attention: Europe"'

  • "Ireland toasted the inauguration of Obama with whiskey, bread and even a radio station renamed in his honor. Distant relatives gathered in Moneygall, County Offaly, where Obama's ancestors lived during the 1800s, while the Democratic Party faithful living in Ireland threw a bash in Dublin." This is word for word taken from the source. Could you reword it a bit to avoid any plagurism accusations?

From See also

--Hunter Kahn (talk) 03:11, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Passed. Very nice!

Page name move

Why did this page get moved, while none of the other Inauguraions did?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 03:01, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Home States Inaugural Ball

I tried replacing one of the photos, but the image sizes being used (73px & 130px) are confusing me. Anyway, if someone can swap the Obamas dancing photo with this one, I'd appreciate it. Gracias. APK has a crush on Brandon Stoughton 09:37, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Here's another one if it's needed. APK has a crush on Brandon Stoughton 10:16, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

split article(s)

The article is a bit long at 110 kb. I would suggest doing an International reaction to the Inauguration of Barack Obama similar how there is one to his electoral victory. The reason is as the first black president it is a historical moment.

Another possibility is the balls as they are somewhat in the aftermath of the inagural and there is no policy-making and/or state speeches at them.--Levineps (talk) 20:30, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

The article is only 48.8KB readable prose. Splitting becomes relevant at 60KB (See WP:SPLITTING).--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 20:44, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Reference style

Ok guys - we're working at cross-purposes here. My reading of Template: Cite news is that we should use the "work" parameter for the name of a publication, like The New York Times, which automatically italicizes without adding the ital code, and that for instances where the name of the parent company is essentially the same as the publication - like The Times - we don't use the "publisher" field. The fact that there's a wiki article for the parent company is not relevant here - what matters is that the reader can identify the publication. It's the same logic as using the "location" field to identify a publication - we do not add location=New York for The New York Times because it's obvious; we do add it for Daily Nation because it is less likely that readers will know where it is published. The most important thing, especially if we're trying to get this elevated to a FA, is to be consistent within the refs, so let's discuss and agree on something and then try to follow it, along with guidelines set up for templates, etc. I see that Lwalt has reverted some of the changes I just made, so let's decide. Tvoz/talk 21:35, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I have noted at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Inauguration of Barack Obama that my view is a little different. This is what I said there: There is discussion on User talk:SandyGeorgia#cite_usage_question regarding publisher. Generally, I include the publisher and link it if it goes to a different article from the work. They obviously give different information if they are different enough to have separate articles. Thus, I include The New York Times Company as the publisher regardless of whether the work is The New York Times or the Boston Globe. There does not seem to be consensus one way or the other on this matter, but that is what I have done. User:Tvoz has been removing such publishers from this article.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 21:50, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
Ok, sorry for the duplication - I hadn't seen the discussion on the FAC. I will look there. Tvoz/talk 21:53, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
I am going to set up a note at central discussions to point people here.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 22:19, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
Tvoz, AFAIK, most editors agree with you; there is no need to unnecessarily chunk up the article with duplicate info. TonyTheTiger is the only editor I've encountered who regularly does this, and I've never seen the point. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:28, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
If you recall Sandy. The last time publisher information came up at WP:FAC I pointed out that the majority of articles recently listed at WP:FAL employed this style. This was just a few months ago. You should remember the discussion. Usually, you have a pretty good memory on such issues.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 22:31, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm not aware of that being the case, and I find it unnecessary to bulk up an article and add to the load time. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:56, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather link the newspaper/magazine/broadcaster/whatever, then the reader can find out a variety of things about them, not just who owns the company. Also, note that ownership frequently changes hands; The Boston Globe hasn't always been owned by The New York Times Company, the New York Post hasn't always been owned by Rupert Murdoch, CNN used to be owned by Ted Turner then wasn't, etc. I've cited the Arizona Republic a lot in writing about McCain; am I supposed to know exactly when in 2000 ownership changed hands of it? Did that change effect editorial content right away, later, or never? Should we also include when newspapers had large-scale layoffs and their fact-checking became sloppier? Should we indicate when CNN was independent, when it was under Turner at Time Warner, and when it was just Time Warner with Turner gone? I don't think adding the ownership, by itself, tells us much. I'd rather just link the news provider and let readers follow it down and draw their own conclusions. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:34, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Comment I see little utility for including the publisher; no style guide that I can recall (I just checked Chicago) recommends giving publisher information for periodicals. Citations are for readers; quoting from Chicago: "Enough data must be furnished to allow readers to track down articles in libraries or other archives or databases." Publisher information for periodicals is not necessary to achieve this goal. BuddingJournalist 22:40, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
What is the current convention (Recent WP:FAL, is the best arbiter of the prevailing thought)?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 22:42, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
I just ran through the last 12 FAs at WP:FAL. It seems a couple passed without careful attention to consistent ref formatting, but that none of them consistently list the publisher repeatedly for periodicals such as the NYTimes. Maybe the winds have changed. I have not been paying attention. However, it seems that in large part publishers and works are linked whenever and wherever included in the refs.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 23:00, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
I think Wasted Time R makes an excellent point about when ownership changed hands. That seals it for me, as it seems we could actually do harm by including the present ownership when a reference may well be from a time when there was a different owner, and we can't be sure any editor will get it right (myself absolutely included). Letting readers read the link and draw their own conclusions is much preferable to inadvertently giving incorrect information and any accompanying implications. Tvoz/talk 23:05, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
O.K. so then publishers are no longer in vogue for periodicals.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 04:20, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The only time I use both publisher and work is for citations written by journalists working for the Associated Press. AP stories are often published in many newspapers, so it's not accurate to cite only the newspaper in which I found it. - KrakatoaKatie 20:04, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

  • You probably aren't aware, then, of the new "agency=" parameter that exists in the template for that very purpose. Uncle G (talk) 01:25, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
    • I agree that in most cases it is not necessary to list the publisher. The only times that I do so is if the publication is obscure and the publisher will help a researcher track down the publication. It is completely redundant for a publication like The New York Times. Kaldari (talk) 17:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

'Address' as subhead

Because of the dual meaning of the word "address", I think it is better to title that section "Inaugural address" - I believe that clarifies that we're not talking about where it took place, but rather what was said. I see no harm in having one "inaugural" in the subheads, while appreciating, and agreeing with, why the rest were removed. Tvoz/talk 18:17, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

New articles?

By consensus, International reaction to the Inauguration of Barack Obama was deleted and redirected into Inauguration of Barack Obama. Also, We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial was maintained as a separate article and some detailed text merged from Inauguration of Barack Obama. Aaron charles (talk) 16:51, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

What should we consider for the two new articles that replicate text from this article? They are not being updated with the same consistency. Perhaps they should either be deleted, or the text revised/abbreviated in this "Inauguration of Barack Obama" article and point to them for details:

(1) International reaction to the Inauguration of Barack Obama (2) We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial

Thanks. Aaron charles (talk) 00:23, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Please merge the international reaction article back to the main article. It is redundant and it does us no good to split the second an article seems too long. Reywas92Talk 22:25, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Well, I did move much text from this article to the "We Are One" article per the old FAC. I am fine with keeping the international reaction in the Inauguration article. At this point we just need to nominate the article "International reaction to the Inauguration of Barack Obama" for deletion. Aaron charles (talk) 04:38, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
afd (1); keep (2)--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 04:47, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
(1) shouldn't have been split out, should go back in. (2) should stay separate; it's a specialized form of article about an important musical event. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:32, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
* International reaction to the Inauguration of Barack Obama now under afd.

The admin deleted International reaction to the Inauguration of Barack Obama, but the consensus and admin close indicated redirection to this article was acceptable, so I redirected. Gotyear (talk) 06:55, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Merger proposal for Oath of Office

No merger. Aaron charles (talk) 13:55, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I propose to merge the Oath of Office section from First 100 days of Barack Obama's presidency into Inauguration of Barack Obama. It makes sense for the main content to be maintained in one place. The First 100 days article will likely grow longer. Aaron charles (talk) 16:53, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

His first 100 days are almost done and therefore it is highly unlikely that the article will grow as much as to see it as a reason to merge this content. Also it is just a summary of the main article so there is basically nothing to "merge". Shortening the section still can be done if we're running out of space.--The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 19:18, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
I think we should keep the oath in both. The first 100 days will grow with ex-post analysis. However, I think the Oath was an interesting occurrence during the first 100 days and should probably appear in both places at some level. I do admit the first 100 days article should be a more broad brush rather than a breaking news type analysis, but why not keep the oath info in there.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 19:50, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Difference between JCCIC and PIC

Joint Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies (JCCIC)- Congressional committee, comprised of members from both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, responsible for planning, coordinating and executing all official inaugural activities related to the swearing-in ceremonies and luncheon for the U.S. President and Vice President at the U.S. Capitol

Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC) - A committee appointed by the President-elect that is responsible for planning, coordinating and executing all official inaugural events other than events held at the U.S. Capitol.

In other words, the JCCIC has responsibility for inaugural activities occurring at the U.S. Capitol building or on the Capitol grounds (i.e., its own domain), while PIC has responsibility for inaugural activities held anywhere except the U.S. Capitol (i.e., outside of the U.S. Capitol building and its grounds).

FYI - Another committee that's seldom mentioned - the Armed Forces Inaugural Committee, which is responsible for planning, coordinating and executing all activities related to the support and participation of the military in the inaugural ceremonies.

Source: History of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, United States Senate, http://inaugural.senate.gov/cmte/committeehistory.cfm

By the way, if the distinctions of the JCCIC and PIC are noted in the article, we need to keep this really brief to keep from veering off-topic too much. →Lwalt ♦ talk 02:52, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Captions

Your edit summary justifies delinking Barack Obama and his titles, but why does it improve the article or help the reader to remove the following links from Captions: Georgia 300, We Are One, Oath of Office, Chief Justice, John G. Roberts, White House, National Guard?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 15:22, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

  • I removed the redundant wikilinks in the captions per Wikipedia:CAPTION#Clear_identification_of_the_subject: "If the image depicts the subject of the article, it need not be wikilinked." We agree to not linking "Barack Obama" and his titles. I suggest that "Oath of office" is also central the subject of the article, and is referenced in at least five captions and should not be wikilinked. If we decide to relink the aforementioned terms by TonyThe Tiger, then we should be consistent and link other terms like "Itzhak Perlman", "Gabriela Montero", "Yo-Yo Ma", "Anthony McGill", "Washington Convention Center", "Michelle Obama", "National Statuary Hall", "Lincoln Memorial", "United States Capitol", and "Air and Simple Gifts". Though I do not think it is necessary to link either set of terms as they are accessible to and wikilinked for the reader in the text adjacent to the images. Notice that "Washington Monument" and "K Sreet" remain linked in the captions as they are not wikilinked in the article text. Aaron charles (talk) 15:53, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
    • The policy that you are citing explains why Barack Obama or Inauguration of Barack Obama should not be linked in this article. In one sentence the article is about "Barack Obama and his Inauguration". That is the general subject of the article. National Guard, White House or any of the other participants. They should be linked for the reader. A reader familiar with Obama and his inauguration might be not familiar with Anthony McGill or Georgia 300. These terms are not part of the core topic at hand but are subtopics of it. I don't even think Oath of office of the President of the United States is part of the main general topic. If you were to ask me to succinctly describe the subject of this article it would be "Barack Obama's Inauguration". Links to Obama, his title and the Inauguration are not necessary. The Oath of Office is a subtopic and should be linked for the reader, IMO.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 16:18, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
  • The WP policy about links in the same section (Wikipedia:LINK#General_principles) states "Link only the first occurrence of an item. A link that had last appeared much earlier in the article may be repeated, but generally not in the same section." In that case, a link to "John G. Roberts" in the Oath of Office subsection could be useful, but still not necessary. Aaron charles (talk) 16:45, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
  • That is text policy. It is not relevant for Captions. Keep in mind not everyone reads the entire article and that "Along with the title, the lead, and section headings, captions are the most commonly read words in an article, so they should be succinct and informative." We should caption an article as if the reader were only reading the title, the lead, and section headings, captions, IMO. Caption links redundant to adjacent text links are not a problem, IMO.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 16:54, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Creating a new article for International Reaction section

The international reaction section is becoming rather long, taking up what appears to be about a third of the article. The key points in this section could be summarized to reduce the weight on the article.

The title that I had in mind, "International reaction to Obama inauguration," redirects to this article. However, I believe that the international reaction section should become a new article with a link in this article to it, much in the same way as the one for unofficial balls was used for linking that article to this one. What do you think of this approach for handling the international reaction section? →Lwalt ♦ talk 11:32, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

What is the precedent for "International reaction to event x" articles? I have never seen one. Do you have examples? I believe at the last FAC (but it could be the PR or the talk page) there were complaints that several countries were omitted and the perspective was too local. This is why I spent so much time during the last PR adding international perspectives. I recall responding that you could probably file a valid complaint that if reaction from any G-20 nation is mssing the section is deficient, but that it would be unfair to do so. In that respect one could justify more content in the section rather than less.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 14:03, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

P.S. Why is the Ricardo Alarcón material unsourced?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 14:07, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

An oversight...Corrected. →Lwalt ♦ talk 08:27, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I agree with splitting out international reaction to separate article per Lwalt's proposal and FAC discussion to limit size of table of contents. As there are so few developed inauguration articles, this would set the precedent. Aaron charles (talk) 18:55, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Wasn't privy to earlier discussions about the international reaction. So, I don't know without reading the archives the consensus on this issue. But, the issue remains about the length of the section. →Lwalt ♦ talk 08:27, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Television Broadcasters

I think there should be a section for television broadcasters, since we do have an online broadcast section. I'm guessing the major American commercial television networks and news channels will broadcast it. NorthernThunder (talk) 04:05, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Make that major television networks around the world, both commercial and non profit. This is not just America's event, you know. 121.72.172.186 (talk) 07:27, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
Would that qualify as notable? Should we not cover this under each broadcaster's page (or perhaps create an appropriate subpage) if it is indeed notable? Webmaster961 (talk) 17:51, 20 January 2009 (UTC)


The initial statement that "Based on combined attendance numbers, television viewership and Internet traffic, it was among the most observed events ever by the global audience". This is simply not correct (it's also very poor grammar). There were more TV viewers for Reagan's 1981 inauguration. Royal weddings and such like, and even major sporting events, get a much bigger audience.JohnC (talk) 01:27, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Image

Map showing most important place related to the inauguration

Can someone explain to me why we don't want a map showing where most things happened.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 05:21, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

See discussion on FAC project page. I'm also keeping in mind this issue comes close to skirting part of criterion 1(e) for featured article candidates.→Lwalt ♦ talk 09:36, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
In terms of 1(e) I brought it to the talk page rather than reverted it. That does not explain why it should not be in the article. I will go back throught the FAC.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 13:56, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
As you know, the discussion and feedback about the issue appear on the FAC project page. I see also that Awadewit has weighed in with a comment about the the same thing. →Lwalt ♦ talk 16:54, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
It looks OK. I don't think the size much matters; people are going to have to click on it to get any useful content out of it anyway. I've lived DC area for the past twenty years and I had to look twice at the thumbnail to relate it to real life.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:49, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Does that mean you feel it should or shouldn't be in the article?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 14:16, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
I know...and I agree, coming from a native Washingtonian. →Lwalt ♦ talk 18:31, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Next step

Do we take this back to WP:PR or do we have enough things to work on to improve the article?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 14:40, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Given the feedback regarding the volume of work that this article needs, I'd recommend that a PR should be undertaken before this article goes back through the FAC process. That is, the PR should be undertaken only after a recheck of all citations used in the article (particularly the ones that are not redirected from pic2009.org) and each and every suggestion and critique offered by the reviewers are addressed in full - that is, address the remaining suggestions from both archive 1 and archive 2 not already incorporated into this article.
As for the next steps, we should adhere strictly to the tenets of what makes a passable featured article based on consensus without veering off topic on issues that are not germane to the topic of the article ...and especially without getting into WP:ILIKEIT, WP:POINT, WP:EVERYTHING among other things -- things that will make the article unstable and call to question whether the article warrants FA status. One of the recurring complaints about the article was the overabundance of details and trivia, rather than concentrating only on the summary of the event. To the extent possible, much of the content in this article should be rewritten in the active voice decrease ambiguity in meaning and remove some of the dry reading. Just saying as I reflect back on the last FAC process.
Since I plan to participate in a graduate commencement in two weeks and will be taking a class later this month, I have only a short time to contribute to the effort to elevate the quality of the article. →Lwalt ♦ talk 20:19, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Lwalt, you and AC are the better copyeditors. I am more the researcher on this effort. It seems we are mostly down to stylistic things. I'll help do what I can, but will need your help. In two weeks we will go with this to WP:PR. Hopefully you can help us some with the efforts there.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 22:51, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
I will try to do what I can. I am quite busy these next several weeks. Thanks. Aaron charles (talk) 00:46, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Information on the inaguration of other U.S. presidents.

This article is wonderfully written. That being said, don't you think it is insulting to the memories of other U.S. presidents, who don't have as much information on their inaguration articles. Some of these articles need to be extended and more informative, much like this one is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Austin Tsar444 (talk • contribs) 22:02, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

So you are against creating good articles when there are a lot of similar articles that are bad?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 22:53, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
Easy, Tiger - that's exactly the opposite of what Austin said! The problem is that while inauguration articles are written from an historical perspective, most of the attention to this article hasn't been motivated by historical interest. That doesn't stop people improving them who want to! Bigbluefish (talk) 22:07, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
Austin, Go for it! Joshdboz (talk) 00:15, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
  1. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2B8-RME13I
  2. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQhWtRW-KKA
  3. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQhWtRW-KKA
  4. ^ http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/inauguration/1387524,w-obama-goof-fact-check-speech-012009.article
  5. ^ http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheat-sheet/item/obamas-speech-goof/oops/
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