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update the economic data?

The last sentence of the "Economy" section contains this statement:

"Currently under Bush, the economy grew at a 4.3 percent pace in the third quarter of 2005, the best showing in more than a year."


If Wikipedia wants to maintain up-to-date quarterly economic data, then this sentence should be changed to:

"Currently under Bush, the economy grew at a 1.1 percent pace in the fourth quarter of 2005, the worst showing in more than three years."

Reference: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060127/bs_nm/economy_gdp_dc

Personally, I think that selectively choosing current data could lead to POV problems. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.163.99.9 (talk • contribs) .

  • Then why do you want to report selectivlt distorted economic data? Could it be that you are looking for any pathetic excuse to claim that we have a "bad" economy, and that a little socialism will make it all better? Sorry pal, Clinton's "good" economy is what got us into a recession, and Bush's leadership is what got us back on track. If you try an insert any of that blatent leftist propaganda into the article, I'll see that you're permabanned so fast that your head spins--64.12.117.13 15:57, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

But if you're going to write 'currently under Bush', it should be the most recent economic data, as noted by 67.163.99.9. Choosing the most recent positive data, rather than the most recent data, shows bias, as would choosing the most recent negative data if there was more recent positive data. It's not about attacking anyone, although if you want to get into Hurricane Katrina, it could be pointed out that it would have had far less of a negative impact if people had invested in protections that many countries in similar situations invest in. (ie, Holland) And how's massive CO2 emmisions for a 'magic weather stick'? But that's neither here nor there, and has no bearing on this decision. 11:20, 1 February 2006 (UTC) (Skittle)

I have updated the line to include the most recent data first, but provide the prior quarter's data as well. I do not see how any can suggest this is not the best solution. It is ridiculous to suggest that we can only quote from one quarter, especially when the prior two showed such different results. Most likely, we should not even be using such variable quarter data, but year stats, but for now, using two quarters is a fix.--Plaidfury 15:59, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

GWB

um, why is there a..

"GWB" redirects here. For other uses, see GWB (disambiguation).

..tag on this article? GWB is a disambiguation page, not a redirect--205.188.116.138 16:27, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Because if you were trying, for example, to get to the article on the George Washington Bridge, and hence typed in GWB into the search bar, you'd be taken here, but you wanted to get there. So we link to the disambig page, which is where he was trying to get to. Perhaps GWB shouldn't automatically redirect here after all, but that's another argument. Since it does redirect here, and there are other usages of that TLA (three letter acronym), we need to link to the disambig. Fieari 17:17, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
but that's another argument - see Talk:GWB#Should GWB go to a disambiguation page, or should it go directly to George W. Bush?. Thanks/wangi 17:29, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Could an admin fix this up please following that discussion - move GWB (disambiguation) to GWB and then remove the redirect at the top of this article. Thanks/wangi 15:08, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Done. Shanes 15:29, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for that/wangi 15:42, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Lock out

I have problems with this article (George Bush) being considered a good article. Are the other presidents just as good? or is this a bias in support of George W. Bush? MagnumSerpentine 05:05 4 February 2006 (US-CST)

I'm all for freedom of speech...but why not lock this page out to anyone but admins? It seems that since even registered users are vandalizing the bio, its the next logical step. Thoughts? Squiggyfm 18:57, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

It's not about freedom of speech, see WP:NOT; it is about building a comprehensive encyclopedia. Permaprotecting this page would be equivalent to labeling it 1.0, which is stupid especially given that he's still in office for another 3 years. —WAvegetarian•CONTRIBUTIONSTALK• EMAIL•19:19, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I know the site isn't "about freedom of speech" and the intent of wikipedia. I was simply stating I'm a fan of it, and how that would be the biggest counter to locking the page down. However, look at the revisions made to the page...its easily the most vandalized site in all the wikiverse. Think of all the man-hours wasted in reverting.

I'm also not suggesting that all revisions be approved by the Bush Administration, if Bush sucks...give proof and stick in the the article...but renaming his middle name Doofus just serves no purpose. Squiggyfm 20:31, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Ok fine, so it still gets occasional vandalism, it's hardly a good enough reason to go for full protection, hell, it's barely even enough of a justification to keep it sprotected--152.163.100.74 22:15, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

A short lookback on vandals...
13:31, January 31, 2006 Drini m (Reverted edits by Alfonzo227 (talk) to last version by Malcolm Farmer)
13:30, January 31, 2006 Malcolm Farmer m (Reverted edits by Alfonzo227 (talk) to last version by Skittle)
11:07, January 31, 2006 Skittle (remove vandalism by 123789)
20:19, January 30, 2006 Francs2000 m (Reverted edits by Italiamerican (talk) to last version by Chtirrell)
23:41, January 29, 2006 Vsmith m (Reverted edits by O-Z0N3 (talk) to last version by Lumiere)
16:00, January 29, 2006 (hist) (diff) George W. Bush (Reverted edits by Sambrookson (talk) to last version by Irongaard)
16:00, January 29, 2006 (hist) (diff) George W. Bush (Reverted edits by Sambrookson (talk) to last version by Irongaard)
07:55, January 28, 2006 Latinus m (Reverted edits by DoeGully (talk) to last version by Lord Voldemort) (his winner just deleted the entire page)

Thats only since Sunday, the countersite for this vandalism would be Kerry...
16:45, January 23, 2006 Woohookitty m (Reverted edits by James.Kice (talk) to last version by Lbmixpro)
03:55, January 22, 2006 Johnleemk m (Reverted edits by 67.15.76.110 (talk) to last version by Lbmixpro)
03:46, January 22, 2006 Wayward m (Reverted edits by 67.15.76.110 (talk) to last version by Jpgordon)
16:44, January 21, 2006 Jpgordon m (Reverted edits by 69.254.70.130 (talk) to last version by Blue387)
00:41, January 16, 2006 Mr. Tibbs (Revert to last version by Mr. Tibbs to restore all the info 70.84.56.165 / 66.98.130.204 removed.)

Or about half the vandalism.

Just because you don't agree with Bush, doesn't mean that his page should be vandalized. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Squiggyfm (talk • contribs) .

No. Just because an article is one of the most vandalised pages on Wikipedia does not mean that it should be protected; how would progress be made on the article? Isn't this a Wiki? Administratorship is not supposed to be a greater editing priviledge, and protecting it would turn it into that. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:04, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Moreover, Bush is President, Kerry is not... I would expect the sitting U.S. President's page to be more vandalized than a U.S. presidential candidate. Why does that surprise? -- User:RyanFreisling @ 23:06, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Not to mention the fact that not every vandalous edit is negative. A vandalous edit could just as likely say "George W. Bush smells good" as "George W. Bush smells like poop." · Katefan0(scribble)/poll 23:15, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Not to mention, the John Kerry article used to get vandalized all the time, the only difference is that no one bothered to revert it, so it would sit vandalized for weeks at a time--205.188.116.138 01:35, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Cindy Sheehan arrest

The coward Shrub has his thugs arrest Cindy Sheehan on January 31 and stifles free speech... should this be added? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pwner2 (talk • contribs) 23:04, January 31, 2006.

What does her arrest have to do with Bush? She was arrested for protesting inside the Capitol, by the Capitol Police. I doubt Bush even knew about her presence or her arrest. Rhobite 04:10, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
She was removed from the senate building because she was wearing a T-shirt, which is something not allowed in the senate dress code. A Republican senator's wife was removed as well as Cindy because of wearing a T-shirt. This has noting to do with Bush. Ciperl 17:54, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, I think it was reported that she was removed because of what was written on her t-shirt. I believe she was asked to cover it up and she refused, prompting her removal. --LV (Dark Mark) 17:59, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
As I understand it, she was protesting outside a free speech zone, which is currently illegal. -- Ec5618 18:12, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, technically, I think she was protesting inside a "no campaigning zone". I think it's the same reason lobbyists are not allowed to lobby inside the Capitol Building. --LV (Dark Mark) 18:21, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Its what she wanted. Its drumming up more press for Ms. Sheehan's cause. Also, I'd have to think that having her in attendance was mainly a plub stunt for the congresswoman from CA who invited her. EVERYONE ON THE PLANET knows what Bush is going to say, he won't deviate from his script, no politician ever will, ergo, there isn't any point for her to make a scene other than to generate press. IMHO Squiggyfm 18:51, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Here's an interesting tidbit: the Cindy Sheehan article at wikipedia is bigger than the George W. Bush article :-). No doubt this is due to all of you who have done such a great job creating daughter articles for this article. NoSeptember talk 19:37, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, that, and the fact that people insist on including every minor detail of Sheehan's life on her article page. But that's a discussion for that article's talk page. :-) --LV (Dark Mark) 19:42, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

It's also very interesting, that Sheehan was NOT the only one ejected from the House gallery for a 'protest' t-shirt. The wife of Republican Congressman C. W. Bill Young was ejected for wearing a t-shirt that read "Support the Troops Defending Our Freedom," [1] -- User:RyanFreisling @ 20:14, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, she has every right to her views and the right to voice those views as loudly as she pleases...but I guess there are places where that right is infringed upon, I suppose for "good" reasons. Regardless, it really has little to do with Bush as he didn't say, get her outta here, or have anything to do with setting up the laws against wearing T shirts in the Capitol, etc. IMHO, if she wants to be seen as "professional", she should adopt a less "in your face style" of protest, because surely she knew (or I hope the person who invited her had the decency to remind her) that there is indeed a dress code and a code of conduct in such circumstances. I can't see why she simply wasn't made to leave...why arrest her...oh well, that comment also belongs elsewhere.--MONGO 20:21, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Sheehan, however, was the only one arrested. I think the Capitol Police may have just bought themselves a false arrest lawsuit, and a bunch of free publicity for Sheehan, see e.g. Bynum v Capitol Police (pdf). Interestingly, p 2 of that cites Capitol Police regs that demonstrating "does not include merely wearing Tee shirts ...." Anyway, NO this doesn't belong in the Bush article; he has no direct control at all over Capitol Police.
btw, MONGO, you should look at what Sheehan has to say about this[2]. She at least claims that she had no "in your face" intent. Derex 20:25, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
<joke>Well when your only clean shirts say things like that...</joke> --LV (Dark Mark) 20:43, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Oh, I mean some of her general protesting efforts...besides, what did her T-Shirt say...wasn't it something that was anti-war or something...maybe that violates some "law" in the Capitol under the circumstances of a State of the Union address...not familiar with the laws pertaining to this.--MONGO 20:45, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
See Talk:Cindy Sheehan for more discussion. Let's discuss no more here, as it does not pertain to this article. Thanks. --LV (Dark Mark) 20:53, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Razzie Award

Why is Bush on the category list for Razzie Awards (which are given to the worst actors in bad movies?) This seems childish, but I don't know it could be for something legitimate. WikiSailor 04:38, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, he also won a top screen villain award for his role in that film from the British periodical Total Film Magazine. However, not worth adding to the entry IMO Schizombie 05:24, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Everyone's a critic. :) -- User:RyanFreisling @ 05:27, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Featured article candidate?

I read: "George W. Bush has been listed as a good article; it adheres to certain quality standards, and may become a featured article."

Hmm... If this articles does become featured and linked from the front page, I think that on that say it may be wise to make it editable by admins only... or at least, semi-protected (I notice that the sprotect comes and goes) If not, the vandalism would go through the roof. Admins: please make this a consideration if it does become featured... thanks. EuroSong 19:38, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

articles linked from the main page are not supposed to be protected. That's what in says in WP:PP.--Alhutch 19:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Unprotection

Tony Sidaway: Please stop unilaterally unprotecting this article, and thus rendering semi-protection entirely pointless. Your actions would only make sense if anon vandals were either a) consipiring together, or b) were limited to just one person. Neither is the case. Why did you pick one of the least active times on one of the least active days of the week to unprotect the article? — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-3 11:21

There is nothing unilateral about unprotecting the page, so I have re-unprotected it. Please allow open edit for awhile to gauge the quality of edits. We are actually entering a period of vandalism increase as I have seen everytime at about this time, so please allow this article to be unprotected. Semi policy clearly delineates that it is to be used only during the most active of vandalism cycles. All article experience some level of vandalism and this one just happens to be one of the prime targets.--MONGO 11:56, 3 February 2006 (UTC)


Brian0918, to deal with your last question first:
* Unprotected for over 8 hours, about 1200 to 2000 UTC, Saturday 7 Jan
* Unprotected for over 4 hours, about 2100 to 0100 UTC, Wednesday 11 Jan
* Unprotected for over 10 hours, about 1900 to 0530 UTC, Sunday 15 Jan
* Unprotected for over 11 hours, about 0330 to 1509 UTC, Friday 20 Jan
* Unprotected for over 11 hours, about 0530 to 1730 URC, Thursday 26 Jan
And the latest protection started again on a Friday but at around 1100.
As you can see I've unprotected at times of heavy usage and I've also unprotected at times of low usage. I'm doing so about once or more per week for varying durations. I've also been pretty random in my choice of day of week.
I do appreciate that casual vandalism may interfere slightly with the process of editing--you have to keep checking the history and sometimes a good edit may slip in before vandalism is reverted. However, although semi-protection of this article is a great success, it does have side-effects. Here for instance you'll see that, while vandalism reverts are right down, total non-revert edits are down also, probably more than could be accounted for by vandalism.
On a popular, much-watched article like this, vandalism reverts are normally one-for-one with instances vandalism, so if, say, 20% of all edits over a period are vandalism reverts then double that, about 40%, will be vandalism-related, and the rest will be non-vandalism edits.
In the past three weeks, total edits have been around 150 on average. Around 15% of those are vandalism reverts, so I estimate that roughly 30% of all edits are vandalism-related. This leaves 70%, or around 100 non-vandalism-related edits, per week.
In the first three weeks of December, total edits were around 720 per week. Vandalism reverts were around 32%, so I estimate that total vandalism-related edits were a whopping great 64%. This leaves only 38% as non-vandalism-related. But 38% of 720 is 270, rather more than 100!
Now these are very rough seat-of-pants, figures, and I would certainly welcome any refinement, corrections and so on. I absolutely do not intend to take these figures as authoritative in any way, but they're the only figures that I have that measure collateral damage due to semi-protection, so they're a start. And I hope they illustrate why I think it's important to keep in mind the fact that semi-protection is only a temporary measure to deal with vandalism. If semi-protection hampers normal editing more than vandalism did, then perhaps semi-protection is not right for this article.
In any case, we should not treat semi-protection as a permanent state. As with any other protection, we should regularly remove it to test the level of casual vandalism that is the reason for protection in the first place. --Tony Sidaway 12:38, 3 February 2006 (UTC)


I don't think you (or MONGO, and others) understand the vandalism to this article. We've had this discussion several times before, and the people who disagree with you have essentially been ignored. Semi-protection does not and will not reduce the vandalism to this article while the article is unprotected. That is simply impossible. Vandalisms to this article are almost all newbie tests, and the small minority are by trolls with too much time on their hands. In neither case is semi-protecting going to reduce vandalism in the long-run. There will always be newbies, and they will always come to this article at all hours of the day to try vandalizing it. Trolls know the system and will wait for the opportunity to fill the article's history with libellous edits. The most you can hope for is that the small minority of trolls will leave, but you won't be able to gauge that change with such limited data.

Semi-protection is only useful for stopping vandalism, and that can only occur while the article is semi-protected. I am 100% sure that there is no point in unprotecting the article, at least with the claim that you are trying to reduce long-term vandalism to the article. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-3 18:57

But ignoring an official WP policy is not the way to do it either, don't you think? --LV (Dark Mark) 19:04, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
WP:IAR exists for many reasons. This is one of them. It's the ultimate sanity check, and opening this page to anonymous edits is insane. --Golbez 19:08, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
So we can go around violating NPOV or the blocking policy as we see fit? IAR does not apply to everything. --LV (Dark Mark) 19:11, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
slippery slope or possibly straw man fallacy, we are not discussing NPOV or blocking policy, we are discussing the semiprotection of the most vandalized article on Wikipedia. --Golbez 19:14, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Right, and we're talking about circumventing community consensus as we see fit. The policy was adopted with certain guarantees that are now being revoked. --LV (Dark Mark) 19:16, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
This article is the exception to that rule. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-3 19:34
Oh, see that's funny, because when SPP was being passed, that exact point was raised, and we were told in very conrete language that it wouldn't be the exception. I guess they all lied, right? I just don't get it. This was discussed plenty before SPP was passed, but now none of that discussion matters? --LV (Dark Mark) 20:23, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
If their rationale was wrong, then of course not. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-3 20:40

I agree with Brian0918 that we should not be bound slavishly to Wikipedia policy, and he makes some good points about the nature of vandalism on this article. Nevertheless I still don't see that there is any problem with occasionally lifting protection. It only seems sensible to do this, though we may restore it after five or six hours. Not the least reason for doing this is so that we can build up a picture of the volume of casual vandalism, which is going to change over time. --Tony Sidaway 22:38, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

  • So you agree that semi-protection is not going to reduce the vandalism to this article during unprotected periods? — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-3 22:41
  • Well, I wasn't advocating being bound slavishly to policy, but consensus was developed, and now is being circumvented. I just don't get why the anti-wiki notion of not allowing anyone to edit should take precedence over the "inconvenience" of reverting this article. I put it in scare quotes since no one is being forced to revert it, so if they are sick of vandalism, they don't have to bother with it. They can just ignore it if they want, as there will be hundreds of other editors (who don't mind doing dirty work) right there to revert. --LV (Dark Mark) 22:46, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
    • When the edit summaries get filled with Jimbo's personal information, and the entire article has to be deleted and restored, causing the entire database to be locked, simply because someone decided to create a dozen accounts and start attacking this article, I consider it more than just an "inconvenience". This is exactly what happened several times in November/December. Semi-protection is not "anti-wiki" (whatever that means). It is simply a realization that this site is trying to become a stable encyclopedia, built by a community; not a demonstration of the wiki software. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-3 22:51
      • I'm done having this argument... again. For what seems like the 10th time. There is a purpose to consensus AND policy (despite the common misconception), and there is a reason people shouldn't have to register an account to be able to edit. Just because an account is new, does not mean the user is bad. Even long-time editors can put personal info into edit summaries, so why not just lock the article in its entirety? I've had enough of this nonsense. --LV (Dark Mark) 23:04, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
        • So that's it? You either get your way, or you leave? Is that what happened the previous 9 times you've been in discussion? — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-3 23:28
          • No, I am not leaving altogether, just not having this discussion again. Last time it was archived with no conclusion. I believe you were involved in that discussion as well. --LV (Dark Mark) 23:33, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
            • Don't ever expect to get be-all end-all results on a wiki, unless you go straight to Jimbo. It's not that simple. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-3 23:35
              • Oh, I'm well aware of that fact. I guess I just don't see the strong objection to unprotecting it occaisionally. That way, we are operating within policy, assuming good faith with anons, and not requiring people to log in to edit here. Is unprotecting and (probably) doing manual reverts every once in awhile that bad??? I just don't get why people are hung up on this. I get it, this page is vandalised A LOT, but why restrict editing to this degree? Why not just let us revert if necessary, and if it gets too out-of-hand, then semi-protect. There are editors who, while they don't like vandalism, don't think it's that huge a burden to revert (even, dun, dun, DUUUUN... without rollback!!!) every once in awhile. So what am I missing? --LV (Dark Mark) 23:44, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Well if the edit summaries get filled with Jimbo's personal information again, we'll deal with it then. But now we're just talking about fairly regularly removing semi-protection for a while. I think that is reasonable. --Tony Sidaway 00:13, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh Gawd, has Tony started this crap again? How many times must users say no before he realises that no means no. This page is not his personal plaything to try experiments. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 00:20, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
It's not just Tony that supports the sometimes removal. Please read the thread before making personal remarks again. Thanks. --LV (Dark Mark) 00:22, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Unlike Tony and yourself I've been dealing with vandalism for months here. While you and he can theorize all you want but the rest of us who had to fight vandalism minute by minute don't rely on theories but the reality. All this nonsensical game-playing achieves is open up the article to the very vandalism that the sprotection was stopping. It has been made clear every time that people who had to defend the article day by day, sometimes minute by minute, don't want unprotection at the moment. Every time Tony plays his unprotection games other have to pick the pieces and undo the mess his gaming creates. I'll say it again: how many more do people say no before Tony listens. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 00:46, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Jtdirl, please: it's fine to have discussion, debate, and even constructive criticism, but please don't imply that those who disagree with your position don't do our share of reverting vandalism or contributing to Wikipedia. I, and I'm sure others, don't appreciate this; I don't mind discussion, comments, or criticing on actions, but please don't say that we do not revert vandalism or comprehend the situation. The contrary is true. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:10, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, Jtdirl, you are wholly incorrect and approaching incivility. As fact would have it, I have edited this article about twice as many times as you have, and Tony is so far ahead, you'll probably never catch up. [3] We know full well what happens here. So please refrain from making ad hoc attacks on people before you check your facts. Thank you. --LV (Dark Mark) 04:36, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Some of us were directly involved in getting developers constantly to remove libellous claims posted here, libellous postings that were only stopped when the page was semiprotected. On one day alone I had to block the same user as he jumped between IPs 21 times and approach developers about serious libel posted by him 4 times. Frankly Tony's antics here, where he unprotects the page and then disappears and leaves it to others to deal with the aftermath of his experiments, are getting to be a right pain in the butt. Users have queued over and over again to tell him to stop but as with his other controversial antics on WP lately, Tony just ignores the criticism and does what he wants. If Tony is getting criticised it is because his behaviour warrants it. If the page is unprotected then those doing the unprotecting should be the people guarding it from vandalism and ensuring that all libellous editions are removed from the archives. That has not been other people's experience. He unprotects it, disappears, the page gets repeatedly vandalised, Admins get an extra workload of dealing with the vandals, as do the developers, the page gets reprotected, then Tony unprotects it again and leaves everyone else to deal with the aftermath. And so the saga goes on. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 05:03, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Right now this discussion ranks just above MySpace and LiveJournal, and just below Slashdot. Can we do any better? — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 04:50

I would be fine with Tony unprotecting the article for very short periods of time (a couple hours), provided that he monitors RC for that entire period to quickly revert vandalism, and provided that he interfaces directly with brion everytime Jimbo's personal information is put into the article. It is Tony's experiment, not the community's. Instead, he has just been unprotecting and walking away. I already proposed this scenario before, a couple months ago, but apparently was ignored. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 01:03

There are plenty of folks to revert vandalism and if we never remove the semi protection, then we as admins violate the policy. I've worked off and on with this article for over a year now and have more edits to this article's talk page than anyone else and am well awre of the vandalism problems here...User:Kizzle and I were the earlist contributors to the Bug report in an effort to enact some form of protection here, long before semi was implemented. It would be nice if twice a week at different times, we lift the semi protection for 4 to 6 hours and monitor the progress of edit quality. It isn't necessary for Tony or myself to sit and watch the page that entire time. Just my thoughts.--MONGO 05:03, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
When you unprotected the page, you said in your edit summary, "please allow to remain unprotected for a period to guage the level of vandalsim and be able to monitor how effective semi is working." This shows that, despite your long experience with this one article, you don't understand why semi-protection is not going to be "effective" at reducing the vandalism to this article during unprotected periods. Even Tony appears to be shifting his rationale for unprotecting away from this faulty reasoning. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 05:08
If so, I don't understand that either - I think we need to continuously try to encourage good behavior, not erect undue fences in anticipation of bad behavior. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 05:09, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for the strawman. Can we try to keep on topic? — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 05:16
While you stay on topic (and apparently don't try to help me understand your point), can you at least do so civilly? Your dismissal was rude and unwarranted. A deep breath or two before your next edit, perhaps? -- User:RyanFreisling @ 05:19, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
Brian, I'm not trying to argue, just stating that if we leave semi up all the time, we are all guilty of violating policy that was discussed ad nauseum during the adoption of the protection status, that clearly demanded that semi was not to be a permanent fixture.--MONGO 05:22, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
I wasn't a part of any of this semi-protection policy discussion. If the rationale was bad, we shouldn't have to follow it. As I said above, don't expect be-all end-alls on a wiki. As I've also already said repeatedly above, I would be fine with temporary, periodic unprotection if it was properly done, or if the rationale were sound. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 05:27
No-one is saying the Sprotection here is permanent, just that it needs to be left in place for the moment on this page because this page is by far the most vandalised page on WP. Removing it is absolutely absurd. If it is left on long enough, then the band of vandals (and a lot of them seem to be the same people revisiting) will get the message that vandalism is not an option here, meaning that it can then safely be unprotected. But taking the protection off after relatively short periods is utterly stupid. All that does is send the message "don't worry boys. It may be protected today but it may not be tomorrow, so we'll just come back tomorrow, or the next day. We only will have a short time to wait before we can get it and vandalise again." Unless the protection is left for a sufficiently long spell for the regular vandals to give up hope of being able to vandalise it and so stop visiting it, the benefit of protection is wasted. Leaving them with the idea that maybe in four hours, or eight hours, or one's day's time, the page can be attacked again is utterly, completely, and mindbogglingly counterproductive. It is elementary strategic psychology: prevent an action for long enough for the habit to be broken. Allowing the action regularly will never break the habit, merely increase the length of time the page will have to be semiprotected. So quick unprotections make protection more, not less, necessary. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 05:50, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
Read the policy page that was voted on by over 100 people. It clearly states that sprotect is a temporary solution...how long is this temporary period supposed to last? A week, or the next 3 years until the man is out of office. I dislike vandalism as much as anyone, but if we don't follow a policy as it is written, then we might as well not follow any policies. I do not believe that there is much liklihood that vandalism to this page will end until the man is out of office, and even then it will only slowly die off. Tony and I discussed this matter a day or two ago and we both agreed that the protection should be lifted for brief periods at differnt times to gauge the quality of edits. Don't call admins absurd or their actions stupid when all they are doing is abiding by written and endorsed policy. There is no necessity for the unprotecting admin to sit around and watch the article...but in fact, I did watch it and was beat on any rollbacks by the quick response of others.--MONGO 11:20, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
"Do not follow policy X" does not imply "do not follow any policies". If an argument has bad rationale, it shouldn't be followed. It should be judged on its rationale, not the number of people who supported it. I'm fine with unprotection on other articles, where vandalism is temporary and passes. This is a special situation. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 17:35
The policy page only says to "temporarily" semi-protect a page. It doesn't say for how long. As long as it isn't permanent, it is temporary, and I'm sure everyone would agree that GWB is a special situation. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 17:43
I agree completely. The meaning of "temporary" should scale with the amount of vandalism. It is quite likely that for this particular article, "temporary" means "while GWB is in office". And I don't think there is anything wrong with that. But I think the strenuous discussions here are at least partly due to strongly differing opinions on the priorities of the Wikipedia project. Some of us think the number one goal is to provide a useful source of information (and the "everyone-can-edit" is merely a means to an end) while others seem to think that the process is more important than the product. - Hayne 18:13, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
One further note: all the talk about how there are plenty of editors ready & willing to do the "dirty work" of reverting vandalism is ignoring the effect on the readers. There are many more readers than editors and hence the chances that a random reader sees a vandalized article is very high even with many editors ready too pounce on vandalism. This is another reason why I think that the notion of "temporary" should scale with the degree of vandalism. An article should only be unprotected if the vandalism is infrequent enough that it will be rare for a reader to happen upon the article in a vandalized state. - Hayne 18:22, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Okay, whatever, temporary simply doesn't mean for the next three years. I'll lift the semi from time to time to gauge the level of quality edits..it's supposed to be an open wiki and this article is not anymore special than any other. I will, of course, be there to ensure vandalism is rolled back as quickly as possible.--MONGO 19:51, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Support for regularly removing semiprotection

On the belief that this is just one guy in favor of unprotecting regularly and not listening to many others telling him to stop, this is incorrect. User:tdirl and User:Brian0918 are asking me to stop. User:MONGO, User:Lord Voldemort, and others have expressed support for regular unprotection. In discussions on 7 January, User:Flcelloguy, User:kizzle, User:Splash, User:Greg Asche, User:Antandrus, and (with reservations) User:Voice of All all expressed support for unprotecting the article now and then to test the water.

Opinions change over time, and I'd certainly like to hear from anyone who supported this and has changed his mind in the intervening month. But in the meantime there does seem to be strong support for this pattern of unprotection, and this is in keeping with the spirit of the semi-protection policy and with our historical practice of applying protection sparingly. --Tony Sidaway 12:13, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

The main reason I (one of the extremely few people who did) opposed the new semi-protection policy and implementation was because of this reason; I feared the constant semi-protection of a number of articles, limiting progress and advancement on them. In addition, it is also a little bit detrimental to our image (more on that below.) While I've been pleased at how effective semi-protection has been in other cases and how much it has reduced vandalism here, I am still concerned about the constant use of semi-protection and will stand by my opinion that we don't need constant semi-protection here. As Tony's tool points out, besides reducing vandalism, semi-protection has also lowered the number of "good" edits to the article. Are we to forfeit progress in order to stop vandalism?
The second thing I wanted to say was to relate an anecdote. Yesterday, while looking up some information on Wikipedia while working, a friend asked me what I was doing. I replied and explained how Wikipedia worked to her. I explained how anybody could edit, and that you didn't even need an account. So she decided to try it; her first thought of "encyclopedic article" was George W. Bush. As we all know by now, she couldn't edit. Her first thought: "Didn't you just say that all articles can be edited?" While I appreciate the fact that nobody wants to see a vandalised article, I still believe that this is presenting a bad impression of Wikipedia, where everything should be editable. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 15:08, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Add me to the list that supports frequent unprotection. If a newbie comes here to test editing and finds it protected, he will go to another article where there aren't so many watchers to quickly revert him. Let them do it here instead. NoSeptember talk 15:59, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a democracy

The number of people who support you does not matter if their rationale are bad. As Jimbo said, "There are people who have good sense. There are idiots. A consensus of idiots does not override good sense. Wikipedia is not a democracy." While you are right that some of the "discussion" was merely personal attacks, not all of it (my replies specifically) was, and it is not right for you to group it all into the "personal attacks" category and ignore it. It's simple: give me the rationale for unprotecting the article. It it makes sense, then of course I'm fine with it, provided that the temporary unprotections are done properly, and look less like drive-by-shootings. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 17:27

I hope you are not saying that those of us that support removal are "idiots". --LV (Dark Mark) 17:36, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
Only an idiot would think that is true. I'm still waiting for the rationale. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 17:40
So you are calling me an idiot? I see this agrument here: "A group of idiots shouldn't be listened to, and I don't think you fellas should be listened to, so I think you are a group of..." But we have expressed our rationale. It is per policy, it is a deterrent to good editing of Wikipedia, it isn't an overwhelming burden to revert for a little while once a week or so, and on and on and on. If this whole thing isn't going anywhere, we may want to think about a civil RfC to determine the use of SEMI indefinitely. Just something to keep in mind. --LV (Dark Mark) 17:47, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
That does not follow at all. Also, RFC should be a last resort. We've just started discussion here, and you already want to stop it and bring in the cavalry? — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 18:11
I'm just telling you the way I read it. I'm not trying to "sideline discussion", I was just asking for clarification, not accusing you of anything. And I wasn't calling for an RfC, I was just saying that since I doubt we will agree, it is something to keep in the back of our minds. And this discussion didn't just start either, it has been going on since SEMI went into effect. --LV (Dark Mark) 18:49, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
You have only to read the talk page and its archives, as you very well know. You don't have to agree with the rationale, remember, but disagreeing with it doesn't make it ignorable, and nor does it make those advancing it idiots. Equally, of course, the number of people who support you is irrelevant if their rationales are bad. -Splashtalk 17:44, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm not ignoring the rationale by any means. It's just that, already, the rationale has switched once, and I would like to know what the new rationale is. I am also not calling anyone an idiot, just quoting Jimbo; this should be obvious to anyone who is not trying to sideline discussion by claiming that I'm calling them what I am not. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 18:10

Civility

I note that instead of discussing semiprotection, a lot of the argument is pretty much personal attacks. I'm not concerned so much about it because the target is me and I'm capable of absorbing any amount of that nonsense without taking it seriously. However, it does damage the atmosphere, and it also wastes energy because you end up discussing personalities instead of arguments. So please, let's tone it down a bit. --Tony Sidaway 12:19, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Fully concur here. To echo Jimbo's words, we need to be extremely civil when discussing controversial topics and strive to assume good faith to everybody. I've been bothered about several discussions degenerating into somewhat incivil arguments, so let's try and act professionally here. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 15:11, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
And for my part in this, if I have said anything to offend anyone, I am sorry. It was late, and I am prone to making small errors when sleep-deprived. Again, I apologise. --LV (Dark Mark) 17:02, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Again, some of the replies you got were personal attacks. Not mine. You cannot ignore my replies by grouping them in the ignorable "personal attacks" category. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 17:33

Vandalism - why?

This article has been getting a lot of vandalism all of a sudden - why, as far as I know, GWB has not done anything out of the ordinary. --Latinus (talk (el:)) 14:00, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Dates

I see that lately there has been a string of people formatting and reformatting dates, and reverting each other over it. Could we perhaps have a discussion on here about this? Or has it died away forever? All or most of the people involved seemed like reasonable, responsible wikipedians who just happened to disagree, so it would be nice to work out what's going on. I would add, re one of the edit comments, that while there are differences in US and British readings of dates in 06.07.05 format, and these lead to confusion, everyone reads 2005-07-06 the same way, although it is non-standard in English-speaking countries (as far as I know). And nobody is confused by "6th July", "7th June" either. Skittle 14:56, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I would disagree with you. I feel it is like British English and American English. Since this article is about an American subject, I'd stick with the American's date formatting. Not everybody reads the "standard" dates the same way, hence the reason for all the reverting. --LV (Dark Mark) 15:22, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

The thing is, I didn't see any dates in the 06.07.05 format, hence no confusion. The 2005-07-06 format is international, but not generally used in America or Britain. It is only read one way, but people may not be familiar with it. I thought the reverting was to do with an uncommon (and possibly ugly) use of the international dating method (which it appears the editor thought would render in a variety of ways, depending on the user), and others wanting to use more commonly used, unambigious, text dates. Skittle 15:59, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, either way, I am inclined to keep the dates spelled out the traditional American way. --LV (Dark Mark) 16:07, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Note that the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) says "Do not use numbers to express a month, except in full ISO 8601 format" - that would seem to prohibit dates like 06.07.05 - Hayne 16:23, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Right, but that's not what the discussion is about. It is about dates being in the ISO format. --LV (Dark Mark) 16:56, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

In reality while people disagree as to whether to use dd/mm/yy or mm/dd/yy, hardly anyone uses yyyy/mm/dd. IMHO that form should not be used in a mainstream article because it is so little used by ordinary readers. As this article is about an American topic, the preferred US version, which is [[month day]] yy, should be used. I never use it except when working on US articles here, out of respect for US sensibilities (just as British and Irish topics should always use [[day month]] yyyy. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 23:26, 3 February 2006 (UTC)


Rumors about Dyslexia

I've heard rumors that Bush has dyslexia. Maybe it could be mentioned in the article?--65.167.69.156 02:30, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

  • Make sure you properly cite the rumors and gossip. Any source is fine. That's all that is important... — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 02:35

Vandalism and semi-protection

My goodness! This article seems to be always semi-protected. What's the point in blocking anonymous users from editing? Most anonymous users would fix a mistake when they see one, but will likely ignore it if they can't fix it. Who cares if a lot of vandalism is going on? Good-faith editors still outnumber the bad-faith ones. We can revert vandalism whenever we see it. Bowlhover 15:52, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

It has been suggested, and from time to time, the article is unprotected. Nevertheless, this article is currently under somewhat permanent semi-protection, as it seems to draw in an exorbitant number of vandals. The number of vandals makes it difficult to block the vandals, and the amount of vandalism makes the article quite unstable. Most readers would have no way of knowing whether the version they were looking at had been vandalised. -- Ec5618 15:59, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
The other thing, Bowlhover, is that you haven't been around when the article has been unprotected. It's much more vandalism than you probably realize. Before semi protection, it was typical for us to revert 20-25 vandalism edits an *hour*. Not a day. Not a half day. An hour. This article was the main inspiration for semi protection to begin with. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 16:20, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
Just a snapshot. On December 20th, 2005 (and this wasn't close to one of our bad days), this article had over 200 edits made to it and at least half was vandalism. Someone figured out that the article was in a vandalized state for over 2 hours every day. That's why it's SP so much. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 16:24, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
This is exactly the point I was trying to make. Half of the edits were vandalism, yet the article was in a vandalised state for much less than 12 hours a day. Also, most users would know what vandalism is--the most common form is easily identifiable. Who can't distinguish between obscene language and factual information? Bowlhover 18:35, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
It's not always that simple. I've seen users add information that is hard to disprove into an article as vandalism in quite a subtle way. Deskana (talk) 18:38, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Issues

I've been surveying this scene for quite awhile as of late, and its clearly apparent from the archives that these constant discussions will fail to allow parties to reach an agreeable concenus. As I've grown effectively neutral in the matter, I have taken a short analysis of both parties humble viewpoints and their reasoning for their standpoints. Please feel free to add points in the sub-sections if you feel I've overlooked or negelected to list something.

Constant Semi-Protection

Pros

  • Keeps the vandlism down at a almost non-existant level, whilst allowing many legitimate users to make constructive edits. No single user is ever prevented from eventually being able to edit this article.
  • Editors can have time to place their viewpoints on other areas of interest such as other articles and discussion.
  • The article is undoubtly an exception in regard to vandalism and may qualify for special actions to be taken.
  • Many annonymous editors account for destructive edits, rather than expansion of the article., enforcing the usage of SEMI protection.
  • From the recent poll, it seems there is a growing concensus for the action of consant Semi on this article. However, it can perhaps be assumed opposers of semi neglected to take part in the poll or another factor.
  • RC patrollers do not need to constantly watch this article on the chance that the semi-protection is lifted and vandalism begins occurring again.
  • There is almost no chance that edit summaries will be filled with Jimbo's (or others') personal information, requiring the article to be temporarily deleted, causing the entire database to be locked.
  • It agrees with the semi-protection policy in that semi-protection will not be permanent, only temporary. The length of time, however, will be much longer than that of other articles, for good reason.

Cons

  • Some good-faith editors who access the account through an anonymous IP or new account are missed in making constructive edits.
  • No data can be obtained regarding the vandalism situation, so we can't know when to lift the SEMI.
  • The constant use of SEMI conflicts against consensus and against established Wikipedia policy.
  • Requires people to register to be able to edit.

Regularly- lifted Semi protection

Pros

  • Good faith edits are allowed to be processed into the article.
  • Surveys over the article's progress and situation can be gained.
  • The action is in line with established consensus and wikipedia policy.
  • Locking the article perhaps depicts a sense of superority to new and anon users, and may offend a potential constructive editor.
  • Most of the time people see an article that hasn't been vandalized.


  • Keeps practically all the advantages of constant semiprotection, namely:
    • Keeps the vandlism down at a almost non-existent level, whilst allowing many legitimate users to make constructive edits. No single user is ever prevented from eventually being able to edit this article.
    • There is almost no chance that edit summaries will be filled with Jimbo's (or others') personal information, requiring the article to be temporarily deleted, causing the entire database to be locked.
    • It agrees with the semi-protection policy in that semi-protection will not be permanent, only temporary.
    • Editors can have time to place their viewpoints on other areas of interest such as other articles and discussion.
    • Many anonymous editors account for destructive edits, rather than expansion of the article, enforcing the usage of SEMI protection.
  • RC patrollers do not need to constantly watch this article because it's on nearly everybody's watchlist.

Cons

  • Previous analyses have shown vandlaism edits have been high when SEMI has been disabled.
  • A full data analysis is impossible due to the various factors involved with vandalism.
  • Vindictive and slanderous edits may be processed along with good and constructive edits.
  • Un-protection is done randomly, so users cannot accurately know when to keep watch over the article, leading to missed oppurtunities.


The previous discussions had gotten off to a fairly good start, but future ones may fail unless all parties show good faith and are seen to do this in clear interest of the article. Some cause to doubt good faith has been given on both sides and I'm more than a little concerned. Hopefully, we can all come to an agreement on the matter. -ZeroTalk 18:13, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

  • I've added/corrected a few items on your list, as they were key points I've been trying to make for quite a while now. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 18:29
  • Since this article is unlikely to ever not be vandalised (even when Bush is out of office... example: look at the Hitler article), "Temporary" is just a euphamism for "permanent". --LV (Dark Mark) 18:59, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
    • I disagree, but thanks for fulfilling Godwin's Law. I am not opposed to temporary, periodic unprotections, provided that the rationale are sound. More than likely, once Bush is out of office, the vandalisms will drop low enough to make this article a more productive place to be. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 19:48
Actually, I wasn't fufilling Godwin's Law, but thanks for trying. Godwin's Law involves calling somebody Nazis, etc. I was making a perfectly valid comparison between articles, not political philosophies. The Hitler artilce is another one of Wikipedia's most vandalised articles, but why? He's not in power anymore. So why is his article vandalised? Answer: because people hate him. People too hate Bush, so it is unlikely that vandalism will just magically cease January 20, 2009. That's all I am saying... no Nazism involved. --LV (Dark Mark) 22:50, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
For future reference, yes, bringing up Hitler/Nazis is the same thing. Read the article, not just the first couple sentences. I never said vandalism would cease, just that it would eventually drop low enough to allow productivity to occur. I was very clear about this. How you could confuse my words, I don't know. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 23:19
I have read the article... long before you brought it up, but hey, thanks for talking down to me. I like being treated like a little kid. Next, can you hold my hand while I go through an article? The reference to Hitler in an appropriate situation is a controversial invocation of GL, and your response is a fine example of Hayes' Corollary. But who cares anyway, back on topic. This article, when unprotected, does not receive an unmanagable amount of vandalism, and the thing about putting personal info in edit summaries will not go away when Bush leaves office. My point is vandalism will probably always occur, leaving office will not matter. --LV (Dark Mark) 23:33, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Violates WP:SPP: disallowing pre-emptive protection.
    • This assumes that the protection is pre-emptive. The reality is that this article is going to be constantly vandalized while it is unprotected, reducing the productivity and usefulness of the article, and those involved in its maintenance. It's not as if Bush is suddenly in the news, and we are protecting against the possibility of vandalism. The simple truth is that this article is equivalent to Wikipedia:Sandbox for most newbies. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 19:51

I agree that it's a bit like the sandbox for newbies. I don't really see this as a reason not to occasionally lift semiprotection (as I have done, with considerable support, over the past month). Some of the arguments used against lifting semiprotection occasionally seem a bit odd--for instance the idea that there is only a tiny amount of vandal-fighting resource watching this article and they need to be warned in advance. that's a ridiculous argument. The article is on nearly everybody's watchlist, and of the last 12 administrator rollbacks I'm seeing:

So here we're seeing 9 separate admins doing rollbacks. The interesting thing is that, looking at the next dozen or so rollbacks, I'm not seeing just the same people. The truth is that this article is watched by a phenomenal number of people and they're doing reverts. --Tony Sidaway 20:35, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

  • Straw man. You are rebutting rationale that I did not use. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-4 21:05
    • Straw man, slippery slope. You use those two a lot. However, it is not necessary for Tony to be rebutting you; the information he presents is instructive nonetheless. -Splashtalk 23:36, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
Well I was specifically addressing the argument: Un-protection is done randomly, so users cannot accurately know when to keep watch over the article, leading to missed oppurtunities.
I don't know who wrote that, but I thought that it was pretty ridiculous, given the prominence of this article. --Tony Sidaway 02:02, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes it is ridiculous, and it wasn't what I said. I don't know of anyone who said that. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-5 02:05
Presumably we could find out who did say it by examining the editing history. --Tony Sidaway 20:55, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

This article should not be protected for the same reason the daily FA is not protected; it is very high profile. I've said it before and I'll say it again, what type of example does it set to new users that they can't edit the most edited article on the "free encyclopedia anyone can edit"? -Greg Asche (talk) 00:48, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I definitely agree with Brian0918 that the article is probably going to be vandalized pretty heavily for a good long while now. I think Brian and I are playing on the same team and the argument over occasional unprotection is not so important; we should do it, though. As I remarked a couple of weeks ago, if raw vandalism rates dropped we'd be able to cope easily without semiprotection. As I've shown recently, the non-vandalism-related edit rate of this article has dropped drastically since semiprotection was imposed. --Tony Sidaway 23:55, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
You don't have enough data to make such a claim (only 5 data points at different times of day on different days), and you have not made any comparison against the rates within Wikipedia itself. I also don't know whether you are including vandalism reversions as "non-vandalism edits". — 0918BRIAN • 2006-02-5 23:58

The non-vandalism edit rate of the article is measured over the whole period, and does not pertain to a period of unprotection (indeed I'm measuring the effect of semiprotection on the non-vandalism edit rate). I'm not including vandalism reversions as "non-vandalism edits". Non-vandalism-releted edits are calculated by taking the measured vandalism reverts, multiplying by two on the assumption that vandalism is usually reverted immediately on a popular article like this one and so there is roughly one revert for each incident of vandalism, and then subtracting the total from the total number of edits. It's a very rough estimate, not to be taken too seriously, but it consistently shows a drastic reduction in non-vandalism-related edits starting immediately we introduced semi-protection. --Tony Sidaway 00:28, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Discussions on the Movement to Impeach section

Can we PLEASE just impeach him already? He doesn't care about protectong U.S. citizens from nuclear attack or he would have done something about North Korea instead of wasting resources on Iraq. North Korea could hit our west coast with nuclear warheads TODAY!!! We need new leadership, he obviously can't be trusted.


This whole section seems week, illsupported, pointless and links to an article that states There are no impeachment hearings nor is an impeachment vote scheduled. Retaining this section would be like mentioning Cidny Sheehan's demonstrations against the president, or mentioning the names of celeberties who stated they would move to Canada if the President won reelection. While it maybe something to be linked to at the bottom of the page its not worth a paragraph in this article. --mitrebox 03:01, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

It seems worthy of note to me, whereas mentioning Cindy Sheehan does not. I think most presidents have probably had people demonstrate against them, so that is not particularly noteworthy, unless there is something really exceptional about the demonstrations or demonstrators. However, for there to be a movement to impeach is much more unusual (unless past movements have been underreported?). Schizombie 03:13, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
There is no actual movement. The artice that this section links to lists people who are puported to have given off hand comments and 'what if' scenarios under which they would consider impeachment and it lists these persons as "Endorsements" of the 'movement'. Furthermore the 'movement' largely seems to exist only on wikipedia article. Mentioning polls in this manner is akin to using a list of "If the election were held today (and all the people we polled voted and were the only ones voting)..." polls to not only determine national opinion on a hypothetical situation but to determine the factuality of historical events. Furthermore the section in this article seems to confuse and combine the polls mentioned in the movement's main article.--mitrebox 05:00, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Maybe "movement" isn't the best word, though at the same time it doesn't seem altogether inappropriate. There are people and organizations calling for his impeachment; I'm not sure why you think it is limited to the wikipedia article (maybe I misunderstand your comment) - follow the links, or search the web on your own. Honest question: was there as much talk about impeaching former presidents as there is about Bush? I don't recall anything like it for Carter or Reagan, but maybe there was. Anyway, I think there should be some mention of it in the article; but I'm by no means beholden to what is specifically written there at present. Schizombie 05:49, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Actually there was huge talk about possible impeachment of Reagan during the Iran-Contra affair(what did he know and when did he know it sort of thing), there may have been more if Oliver North had talked. Reagan apologized to the public (something rare in politics) and there was much less support for impeachment after that. I may have mispoke on only existing on wikipedia, but I feel that the 'movement' only exists on a few websites and takes most of its facts from 'what if' and 'under what conditions should' questions from the media and purports them as 'Endorsements'. While there have been protests where people have called for impeachment they often call for a lot of other 'probally not going to happen' things too. This presidency is certinally marked by low support numbers and I would feel fine about mentioning that but I don't feel there has been any sort of real impeachment talk. I do find 'calls for impeachment' more accurate though looking between the two articles I still feel one or the other has the afterdowningstreet and the zorgby poll confused. --mitrebox 14:49, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I am sorry some of you are so disgusted about the topic of impeachment. I know it's horrible to think that the constitution must be upheld. Anyhow, there is definitely a movement to impeach this president, and I'll even link to the more conservative press [4]. You can only imagine what the disgusting, horrible, America hating, commie liberal press is saying about it. Also, I enjoy that this article is locked down "temporarily-permanently". It's like anything else that deals with Bush and his administration; all freedom of expression and free will is locked away, but that is just my .02 - don't hate! Last point on this comment though. I can assure you that the "gay" wiki, and the wiki's of many other popular icons get vandalized as much this one, yet there's no censorship. This is a free country with freedom of speech right? Billions of dollars and the lives of our children go to defending this freedom, right? So why suppress it? Nicholas 04:17, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Your little rant is a reason why the page is locked down. And there is a limit to freedom of speech. You can't say "shit" on TV (broadcast), and you can't yell fire in a theater. What is the purpose of some random person deleting the entire artice and replacing it with the word "douche"? Regardless of what you think of the man, he's still the President and by default has more to say about him besides an immature one word insult. Millard Filmore was a pretty crappy President, but still a President. In any case, he's not loosing sleep over it. Squiggyfm 04:28, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Since when are opinions rants? Anyhow, I do agree that there's no point in someone doing as you said and deleting the article and writing in random crap. Regardless though, many other wiki's are targeted on a consistent basis with idiots making derogatory remarks, yet they're open. But the closing of edits was obviously a choice of a few that "run" this wiki, so be it. Nicholas 04:37, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Main Entry: rant
Function: verb
Etymology: obsolete Dutch ranten, randen
intransitive senses
1 : to talk in a noisy, excited, or declamatory manner
2 : to scold vehemently
Which is what you did...anywho...if you think other articles aren't fairly protected, you should bring that up on the respective discussion pages of those articles. Because unlike Sean Penn's addiction to smoking, the bashing of gays in wikipedia isn't Bush's fault. Squiggyfm 05:20, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
actually, there is no specific law against yelling fire in a theater. And if there is a fire in a theater, you should yell it. But who goes to the movies anymore, now that they cost so much and everyone leaves their trash on the floor, talks the whole time, etc. Getting back on point, eventually, when the final, neutral article on our 43rd President is written there might be a section on the movement to impeach him, or there might not. For the meantime, there is a vocal, if disenfranchised, portion of our citizenry that would like to impeach him, and including current events in an article on the current president should be allowed. Dmcg 02:46, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

semi regular?

Bush attends services at St. John's Church (Episcopal) on a semi-regular basis

Doesn't he go to church almost every week? That seems like a regular basis to me.--Hbutterfly 05:32, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

As President, I'd favor a guess that he is often unable to attend that specific church. -Greg Asche (talk) 18:26, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I suppose that's true. He's not always in DC.--Hbutterfly 20:59, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I believe he's a member of a Methodist church, but St John's is sort of the traditional "presidential" church. --Charlie (Colorado) 17:32, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

quotes

Is this a request for George W. Bush quotes??? --LV (Dark Mark) 01:02, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't know, I didn't create the header, just responded! Quotes!--205.188.116.138 01:03, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Presidential Style

"Alternative Style: Excellency"? Huh? Presidents were forbidden from being reffered to as "His Excellency" I think that this is a thinly veiled criticism.

No they weren't. It is standard diplomatic language used for US presidents in the most formal context (though the times it is used these days are few and far between. It has gone the way of presidents wearing white tie and top hats, ie, very rare but still happens). It was certainly how the likes of President Lincoln was regularly referred to (ettique books of the day reminded people to use it) and is the formal style still used for US ambassadors. In the 20th century "Mr President" replaced "Your Excellency" as the normal style used, just as White House replaced Executive Mansion. However "Your Excellency" is still occasionally used: I heard it being used to President Clinton once. Nowadays even diplomats tend to use the "Mr President" variant, just as, for example, Irish presidents tend to be called "President" rather than "Excellency" though both are correct. It hasn't gone the way of "Your Grace" for British monarchs, which died finally around 1707. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 01:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

People rarely criticize the president in person. Maybe its D.C., maybe its the house, maybe be its the hevily armed expert marksman secret service agents. :)--mitrebox 01:46, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Maybe people respect the office more than the person and would not disrespect the president in person no matter what they think of his politics--Looper5920 12:03, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

You obviously didn't see Coretta Scott King's funeral yesterday Squiggyfm 17:30, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
More right-wing nonsense. Coretta Scott King would hardly have been offended at the political issues closest to her heart being mentioned at her funeral. Her late husband frequently used eulogies to bring up political subjects. This is just another way to hide from what people are saying, and pretend it's the rest of the world outside of the right-wing Christian fundamentalist American wankcircle that's wrong, and not just you idiots. - 146.87.193.90
Stange, the above comment ^ was deleted as being a rant, oddly enough, the person who deleted it is the person whose been making sarcasitic trollish jabs all over this talk page--152.163.100.74 20:59, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Of course I have, every major news channel has taken the opportunity to politicize the issue, and demonize the Democratic Party, pretty much like any other time I turn on my television--152.163.100.74 04:38, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

War President

Any reason why the picture of Bush made from a montage of the war dead is on the page? Squiggyfm 15:47, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I have removed it (again). I can see a possible case for including it in the article, but only if placed in the proper context. It is unacceptably POV to imply that Wikipedia holds Bush personally responsible for the dead, and including the picture without explanatory context does exactly that.
I have also removed "and Iraq" from the end of "Bush proposed tapping the oil reserves in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge", simply because it does not belong in the "Energy and environment" section. As far as I know, there are no environmental issues regarding tapping oil in Iraq. --Ashenai 11:21, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Summary of presidency in the introduction

I would like to see a few lines about his presidency (9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq) in the introduction, which I consider far more important than this: Among his family, he acquired the nickname "W" (for his middle initial; later Dubya, a literal spelling of a colloquial pronunciation of the letter), which has become a common public nickname, used both affectionately and pejoratively. MartinHagberg 17:36, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Why no War President?

I'd like to know why the War President portrait is constantly being removed.M.Kris 11:23, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

By posting that picture, I don't think Bush would be held personally responsible for te war. But he is the man who decided to go to war in Iraq. Hence, he should be held responsible for the dead there. Just saying, though. M.Kris 11:25, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, there are no similar pictures for the other American war presidents. By including it for Bush and not for, say, Roosevelt, we would be implying that Bush is to blame for the Iraq dead, while Roosevelt is not similarly culpable for the dead in World War 2.
In the interest of full disclosure, I'd note that I'm not an American, and I'm highly opposed to Bush's foreign policies myself. But Wikipedia must remain NPOV. --Ashenai 11:30, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Okay. Sorry, then. I was just wondering. Thanks for clearing this up. M.Kris 11:34, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
No need to apologize; glad we could work this out amicably. :) --Ashenai 11:52, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Wow, something Bush related that didn't degenerate into a shouting match. I'm impressed! There is hope for the future!Squiggyfm 15:49, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Just would like to state, that Roosevelt did not start World War 2, unlike Bush who started the war in Iraq. So, having started it, he would be to blame for the dead in Iraq.

Note taken, and thanks for not signing your name by the way...anywho, its from michaelmoore.com and is therefore automatically against the NPOV. Squiggyfm 21:05, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Right, of course, because all the supporting links, they're all NPOV, right?--152.163.100.74 21:00, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Huh?Squiggyfm 21:09, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
I think 152.163.100.74 means the external links in the article. External links do not have to be NPOV. Ideally, they should be balanced; that is, there should be both pro-Bush and anti-Bush links. But the only real requirements are that the links be relevant and notable. --Ashenai 21:19, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't there at least be more of an indication that the Iraq war has been extremely controversial? Regardless of anyone's personal view on the war, the fact that it has provoked extremely contentious and divisive debate is objectively true. The current writing about the war mentions facets of Bush's policies and statements that have been controversial, but doesn't describe them as such. Freddie deBoer 19:42, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, it does say as much in the third paragraph on the article: In the aftermath the U.S. and a multinational force took military action in Iraq, overthrowing and capturing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The war proved controversial both in the United States and internationally. --Ashenai 19:35, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

How often does this page get vandalised and what kind of vandalizations are there

How often does this page get vandalized How is it vandalized For what reason And how do you fix it And how do you tell what is vandalizations and absolut fact, for example some people might call him a murderer which he ofcurse he is. Millions of bakteria get murdered by his immune system each day ;)

Deng 11-02-06 12.30 CET


You can get a rough measure of the history of vandalism on this article from this link. Vandalism is recognised by people using their commonsense. It's difficult to describe the distinction between opinionated statements and vandalism, but in practice the more outrageous expressions of opinion do seem to be intended as damage or at least a test of the wiki principle rather than a serious wish to make the article more useful to the encyclopedia. --Tony Sidaway 17:57, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Text of template

I think we should change the text of the semi-protection template (for this page that is, not for the entire wiki) from "As a result of recent vandalism, editing of this page by new or anonymous users is temporarily disabled" to "As a result of vandalism, editing of this page by new or anonymous users is disabled". That is, take out "recent" and "temporary". I think this would more accuratly represent the state of this article. Oskar 18:22, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Silly me, I just realised that it was un-semi-protected. Well, sorry then, feel free to ignore me :P Oskar 18:24, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps the page should be protected from anon edits again

Looks like mass vandalism from anons has returned ever since the protection was removed. - Damicatz 19:19, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Tony Sidaway has already semi-protected it again. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 20:33, 11 February 2006 (UTC)


Yes. Interestingly one of the few productive edits during the whole period was this one by someone who wasn't logged in. There were about three vandalism reverts per hours, which is comparable with the level of vandalism we had in December before semi-protecting. --Tony Sidaway 20:43, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

pointless

In what may be seen as an unofficial international take on opinion, a multitude of website editors have participated in a so-called "Google bomb", which returns the official biography of Bush on the White House website, when the phrase "Miserable failure" is typed into the Google search engine.

I really don't see the point of including this. A relatively small number of people can make this happen. This seems like someone trying to get their opinion in the article.--Hbutterfly 19:42, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I am the one who added it. And for the record, I myself do not think Bush is a "miserable failure". I am no supporter of him, but I would not describe him as such. So you can see that this is not just "someone trying to get their opinion into the article".
It is entirely NPOV - it's simply stating the facts. If there had been a similar Google bomb for the most popular president ever known, which linked the phrase "fabulous success", then this would be worth including also. You say that you think it's pointless to include this, because a relatively small number of people can make this happen. While that is true (it only takes, I think, a few hundred to do a Google bomb), this particular example of George W. Bush is a very famous one - I believe, the most famous of all google bombs. It's even got its own Wikipedia article! I think it's a bit silly for something so well-known, which is directly related to Bush, to be omited from his own article's section on "public perception". It could be argued that the removal of this information would only be done by a supporter of Bush, wishing to censor criticism.. but I won't accuse you of that ;) EuroSong 01:03, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
I would agree. It is notable, but the MF article does a better job of describing it, so a see also should suffice. --LV (Dark Mark) 01:22, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Mention of the Google bomb is forbidden original research. Rjensen 01:24, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
I would argue that it is a notable Internet meme and very verifiable. The facts hold up and since it has been mentioned quite a few places, meets the notability requirement. However, i do not think that it deserves more than a see also link. --LV (Dark Mark) 01:31, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Rjensen, I do not think YOUR edit was very encyclopædic! In fact that itself was quite childish. If you disagree with the GB mention, then as I said, it can be discussed here. But to change it as per your edit was just silly. As for "original research" - I think you should go and revise the WP definition of that. Reporting a verified and well-reported fact is in no way "original research".
Ilyanep, your edit is absolutely fine: the wording of the paragraph doesn't really matter (as long as it's not silly). Or jpgordon's suggestion is also decent, with a "see also". What would the "see also" be exactly though? "See also: Miserable failure"? Hehe... that looks a bit strange :) EuroSong 01:40, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
See also: "Miserable failure" Google bomb. Simply as that. --LV (Dark Mark) 01:43, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Date format

What is the proper date format for this article. I see a lot dates in international format like 1974-9-4 instead of Setember 4, 1974. Which format is appropiate? I started changing to the latter, but I thought I would ask before I changed all of the dates.

The software is set up so that things like [[1974-09-04]] are rendered as set in your preferences. Example: [[1974-09-04]] will be rendered as [[September 4]], [[1974]] for me, and perhaps [[4 September]] [[1974]] for others, depending on their settings. Now, this works anyway no matter which style you use, which is why I had to nowiki those - the second one looked like the first one when it's wikilinked. However, ISO format is not only neutral, but it's shorter. I consider it still a work in progress, so you can switch them back as far as I'm concerned, and wait until some official policy develops over them. --Golbez 23:55, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Policy is quite simple:

  • Keep the one style all the way through the article.
  • Remember that you have to set your preferences to see the date in a chosen format. So new visitors who may not have done that will see the numbers are written. (In other words, they will see a mess if different formats are used, whereas we might not if we have set our preferences.)
  • If the topic is US, use mm/dd/yyyy, if UK/Ireland/Commonweath, use dd/mm/yy
  • elsewhere, use the form used by the original author of the article.

The problem with the ISO form is that few ordinary people use it and know what it means. For that reason I think it should be avoided completely. I'd hate to see some kid writing an essay about about something he read on Wikipedia and, not knowing if 1974-09-04 meant 9th of April, or 4th of September, losing marks in an essay for getting it wrong. IMHO we should stick to a format that readers will clearly understand, where the month is spelt out. And as this is a US topic, all dates should be in the mm/dd/yyyy form (even though that is a form most non-Americans normally do not write in). FearÉIREANN\(caint) 06:32, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Tenth Crusade

on the Tenth Crusade page it refers to a speech given by President Bush, who is this not an appropriate See Also. When you talk about any Crusade you're reffering to the Medieval ones unless there was another one I don't know about.

When you're referring to " a crusade" it does not necessarily imply The Crusades. Try looking at a dictionary.--Hbutterfly 01:18, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Lead section rewrite

I reverted User:Jtdirl's lead section rewrite. Not saying the current lead is ideal, but it was a problematic change to a highly visible article. My issues:

  • No reason this should be the second sentence of the article: "He is only the second son of a former president to become president himself, and the most recent to be elected by the Electoral College to the presidency having received less popular votes than his opponent." Immediately takes a negative approach.
  • "al-Queda" misspelled
  • Intentionally uses the POV "War on Iraq"
  • Same sex marriage has not been a defining issue for the Bush presidency. Neither has Kyoto.

Rhobite 02:37, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Most of that stuff was more trivia-type issues, not lead information.--Hbutterfly 03:08, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

The above is mindboggling. Do you actually know how to write an encyclopaedic article. A lead section in any article is supposed to contain a quick snapshot that if nothing else was read would give very elementary facts.

  1. That he is the second son of a president to become president will feature in the opening section of every encyclopaedia article on the planet. It is very noteworthy.
  2. That he is the latest to be elected by the EC while receiving less votes than an opponent is also going to feature in the first three lines of every major encyclopaedic article. It is not taking a negative approach about him. If it is negative about anything it is the system. He was validly constitutionally elected.
  3. That spelling of "al-Queda" simply because that is the spelling used in the article. It was done through a copy and paste from lower down.
  4. If War on Iraq is POV that is unintentional. Correct it.
  5. It never said that same sex marriage was a "defining issue" of the presidency. Read the sentence. It said it was an issue during his period as president. It was, just as Kosovo was during Clinton's. It was and is a very controversial issue about which Bush has taken a stance, though arguing that marriage should be gender-specific.
  6. If you don't know that Kyoto has been an issue you must be Rip Van Winkle. Even Blair has come out and criticised Bush on the issue and said the President is "mistaken". Others have been less polite. The Dutch prime minister said he was an "idiot" on the issue. The UN has said he is "illinformed". Republican congressmen privately say he will be condemned in history for his handling on the issue. The Russians have questioned Bush's policy. Clinton has said he is wrong.

How anyone could regard a shoddy substandard opening that in the first paragraph mentions such irrelevant stuff as his involvement in sports ahead of 9/11, his method of election, his family relationship, the issues that were on the public agenda, is astonishing. If someone wrote an article for Brittanica or World Book with such a fourth rate amateurish opening they would be sacked from the project for incompetence. Opening a major article with the standard of a poor school pass level just shows how far from encyclopaedic standards Wikipedia is in some areas. The shoddy writing, the inability even to use a single date format throughout the article (which the version I wrote fixes) is the product of shoddy substandard amateurism. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 03:58, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Jtdirl, please refrain from personal remarks and try to remain civil and calm. Thanks. --LV (Dark Mark) 04:01, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

When users insist on using a fourth rate substandard unencyclopaedic heap of rubbish as the opening paragraph of the major article it makes my blood boil. The irony is while the rest of the article is pretty good, all that work was being let down by rubbish at the start. As this is the most read article, the least we need to achieve is that when people read the first lines of their first experience of Wikipedia they are not faced with substandard drivel but properly written, encyclopaedia-standard text. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 04:39, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but why continue to make controversial edits without even discussing them here first? A few people now have reverted you. I personally would appreciate it if you would use this page before making bold edits like these. Thanks. --LV (Dark Mark) 04:48, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I like most of the new edit but the opening paragraph just does not seem right. I would not call his 2004 reelection easy and the whole second son thing is not important enough to be in the very first paragraph of the article. There has to be a better opening summary, not saying I am the one to provide it but there is definite room for improvement. On another note, It might also help if you weren't so condescending to everyone in your discussions/rants.--Looper5920 04:51, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I believe both leads pocesess valid points in constructing an great opener. Perhaps there could be an agreement to somehow merge the two. -ZeroTalk 04:53, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

The back-and-forth editing is getting a little annoying. Just pick something already...and make it NPOV. I support President Bush but I agree, his re-election was not easy.--Hbutterfly 04:58, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

The facts that are there are pretty much okay, they are just porly organized. How about something like this, bascially a mini version of the main article.

George Bush is 43 president...

(History) Elected govenor. Elected pres in 2000, controversy. Elected pres in 2004.

(Foreign/Military Issues.) Sept 11. War on Terror-Afganistan-Iraq. Palestine. Iran.

(Foreign/Other Issues). Aids. Kyoto.

("Domestic Issues.) Energy. No Child Left. Gay marriage, inteligen design, faith-based initiatives.

Basically, I'm looking for almost a simple listing of the presidential "accomplishments"Ehlkej 05:16, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Kyoto has not been a major issue for Bush in the U.S. Social Security was a medium-sized misstep last year, but it really didn't get much coverage outside of the few months after the 2005 State of the Union. If someone wants to work Social Security into the intro, I'm fine with that. Same sex marriage has been completely off Bush's radar - he throws in some remarks here and there to placate the religious right, and that's about it. It is a non-issue at the federal level right now.
I don't know why people are getting angry here. If you write something that is wrong in the lead section of this article, you will be reverted. If that hurts your feelings this is the wrong article to be working on. I hope my latest changes are acceptable. If not, let's talk. Rhobite 05:24, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

You are completely missing the point. That is never how a professional opening paragraph is written. Never. It is written in discursive style, never ever in chronological order. And again you don't seem to grasp that the issue is not what is on Bush's radar but what are contemporary issues of debate in a state during a particular period. You are completely mixing up contemporary reportage and long scale analysis. Social security is in terms of impact a massive issue. So is Kyoto. Same sex marriage, and the whole issue of definitions of marriage is a debate going on throughout the US, with demands for a constitutional amendment, illegal marriages in California, laws passed on civil unions up and down the US. Bush has taken a clear stance on the issue.

When historians look back on the period, the issue of how the US dealt with, or didn't deal with, these issues will feature and it is vital that they are mentioned as contemporaneous issues of the day that occurred on his watch. So issues like same sex marriage, environmental protection and global warming, social security reform, etc are absolute necessities in the opening section. They are all issues that either appeared on his watch or became big on his watch. Even if he did nothing about them they would still have to feature because the issue would be why didn't he do something about the issues that were featuring in the period of his office. But he has taken stances on each of these issues.

re the reversion - the problem was not the screwing up of an opening paragraph that was being worked on. The dates in the article were all over the place: some using international dating, some US dating, some ISO dating. It was a farce. Your reversions wiped out all the corrections all the way through the text and returned the article to the garbled rubbish that was the dating beforehand, where sentences would say "Bush did x on 21 October 2003. Meanwhile on 2003-11-01 he announced Y before saying on November 2 2003 z."

BTW Sorry guys for being techy earlier. I had a major problem with an internet connection — it crashed after spending 30 minutes correcting the date forms and doing a draft rewrite of the opening paragraph. Rather than risk losing it again I posted it in directly (and inadvertently marked it as minor. That is the default on my system). When I went to explain the edits here the net link crashed again. I can be a bit techy about standards in articles, I'm afraid. I am a bit of a perfectionist for academic standards. I guess I was so busy on occasion dealing with vandalism here that I hadn't a chance to examine the text. It was only when a friend of mine, on his first visit, read the opening and emailed me to say it was, in his words "absolute shite" that I looked at it and concluded that his description was an understatement. An opening section, as with an opening of an essay, or a newspaper, should give a sufficient overview to mean that even if the reader reads nothing else they will have got what we Irish call "the gist of it" (a quick summary).

Re the second son thing: I understand the point. But historically it will be a big thing in articles on him, and will always feature up front. Long after people have forgotten the minutæ of Bush's presidency facts like that will still be referred to. (It is already asked in quizzes). Having written for encyclopaedias in the past my guess is that it will be in the first three lines of every article. That is the sort of "unique fact" that is always included up front, as is the method of his election and 9/11. They are the three things that will be his place in history, just as Kennedy's is "first Catholic", "Cuban Missile Crisis" and "assassination" or Clinton's "Monica", "impeachment", "comeback kid", etc. It may seem trivial but it gives a human context to the man, and some unique human feature always gets an upfront billing, like Reagan the Actor, FDR's disability, Lincoln the loner, Grant the general, Washington with Martha, etc. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 05:43, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Utterly mindboggling. How on earth can you put stuff about Bush's career before becoming president into the opening paragraph when it barely qualifies for inclusion and not put the date for the end of his term into the opening paragraph??? It is practically a classic example of how never to write an opening to article. If someone did it in a school essay the teacher would put a red line through it and write irrelevant. There is no need to go into detail at the start. A professionally written opening contains one sentence about each topic not quoting details, footnotes and references (they go in the body text), never chronologically but thematically. It is so amateurish it is appalling. Please learn how to write an opening section it is simple. Paragraph one: name, dob/dod, key fact. Unique fact(s). Key date. Paragraph two: a sentence without debate on key issues, following a thematic structure. Contemporaneous issues during the period. Final paragraph: minor information. Then detail and references in the main text. It is perfectly simple to do. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 05:55, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
1. If you'd bothered to look at the diff you'd notice that I kept all your date fixes, despite the fact that Mediawiki's local date formatting makes them irrelevant. 2. I now question the ability of this Irish person to judge what is an important issue for a U.S. president. I mean, you don't even seem to know how we elect our presidents (hint: it has nothing to do with "a plurality of the popular vote"). It is not this article's job to decide what historians will probably think is important about the Bush presidency. 3. I think you're forgetting who signed the defense of marriage act (hint: not Bush). 4. You didn't even bother to use an edit summary on your initial edits, and you marked them as minor. This is basically deceptive. 5. For all your ranting about who is qualified to write what professionally, I can't see how your intro is any more focused than mine. We just disagree on which issues are important to the Bush presidency. Anyway, I agree with you that social security should be mentioned. However I assure you that Kyoto and same sex marriage have received almost no coverage at the federal level in the U.S.
And if you want to convince us all that you're a professional writer, you're going to have to find some adjectives other than "shoddy" and "mindboggling". I'm going to take a wild guess: Sci-fi? Rhobite 06:02, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
A historian. Author. Political scientist. Novelist. Journalist. Advisor to politicians. And calling it "shoddy" and "mindboggling" was being polite. Another description would be "amateurish, unencyclopediac, poorly structured, with an evident inability to assess the importance of structure and to convey it in the standard form used in encyclopaediac writing." If an opening paragraph of a major essay or exam question was written that way it would, if the former, be returned to the writer with the request "Please rewrite in a professional manner". If in the latter, it would get a pass grade. Pass grades are given to people who can do nothing but list facts without the ability to judge their importance and thematically explore them. Honours grades are given to people who know the difference between parroting chronological listings without understanding relevance, and being able to assess importance and thematically explore the issues on that basis. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 06:15, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, we'll just go with sci-fi. Hint for future flamewars: Think about toning down the "look at me guys I went to school" bit. It isn't that endearing. Rhobite 06:18, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Substandard writing at pass level in an encyclopaedia is not merely not endearing but also not professional. An article written that way for Brittanica would be binned on sight. And you still have not offered any justification for your desire to treat professional writing as an optional extra rather than a professional requirement in this article. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 06:36, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

OK. I'm sorry for joking about your word choices, but I was offended by your personal attack "Do you actually know how to write an encyclopaedic article" and your repeated suggestions that I'm somehow not schooled properly. I am sure that as a writer you understand that there is no single definition of correct style. I apologize for my snarky responses, and welcome any suggestions you have about improving the lead section. Rhobite 16:57, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry for any offence. Users of Hiberno-English use sarsasm in a way that it meant to be ironic, not literal. Irish users regularly find that what is a standard form of language used in Ireland and the UK is not understood by other English speakers on WP and is taken literally, not ironically.

Re the article - the key thing about an opening section is that it needs to give three things:

  1. A quick resume of facts
  2. The content
  3. Personal details.

Writing things chronologically should be avoided because often that means that less important information gets in ahead of more important things that happened later. Writers use a standard thematic structure which links issues, not timeframe, allowing less important facts to be moved to later on. The reader needs to be presented with key facts first. Writers also tend to put unique features (which are often the things that people remember more than detailed minutae of facts) up front.

With Bush, the key unique facts are

  1. That he was/is president;
  2. The controversial manner of his election in 2000;
  3. That he is only the second son of a former president to become president;
  4. The 9/11 attack;
  5. The Iraq war;
  6. The date his term ends.

So all of those need to go in the top two paragraphs. Numbers 1 and 6 are musts for the first paragraph. Number 2 is also IMHO a must even if just mentioned in one sentence. (It can then be explored in a further two sentences in a later paragraph.) Number 3 is a quirky but important fact that will be referred to by presidential historians for centuries to come, but does not need explanation, so can be slotted into the opening paragraph. If necessary it can be augmented by a later paragraph on family background. Numbers 4 and 5 are big issues that are linked. Though all they need is a line or two of explanation in the opening, the fact that they are linked means that they can probably get a paragraph together.

The basic rule is that opening paragraphs should be no more than 3 or 4 sentences long, with the meat in paragraph 2.

It is also important for a longterm leader of a state (ie, someone who is there for 3 years or more) that the cultural issues of the day are mentioned. That is not to say that they were big issues for that leader, but that they were big issues in what are often called the 'culture wars' (left—right; rural—urban; secular—religious; societal definitions, etc). The fact that a leader didn't take sides in major debates in his era of governance is itself a fact that needs to be registered, not in terms of criticism but simply in terms of "that is how he dealt with the issue". In Eisenhower's time, for example, the 'mom and apple pie' image of American life introduced a degree of civic and communal stability that was absent in the upset of the war years. Ike in many ways embodied that. Kennedy embodied an era of youthful radicalism that everything from Martin Luther King in the US to Wilson's "white heat of technology" in the UK, Vatican II in Catholicism, The Beatles in music, etc. Carter was a reaction to the scandals of Nixon and a type of wiping the slate clean. For Bush, the culture wars revolve around controversial evolving concepts of family law (same sex marriage), environmental concerns (Kyoto etc), the need to reform social security amid fears that the system will go broke otherwise, the rising power of the neo-cons, the clash of cultures between the religious right and the liberal left, the changing concept of America's role internationally in the aftermath of 9/11, etc. So a paragraph needs to explain that Bush's presidency has to be seen against the cultural context of the issues of the first decade of the 21st century in the US.

All these impacted on Bush, even if he did not explicitly follow through on a policy about them. For example, issues of marriage definition energised conservatives which aided his election and affected his choice of judges. Environmental issues impacted on Bush's policy platform and impacted on his international reputation, which in turn impacted on his reputation come the Iraq War. Social security was explicitly part of his policy programme and in what appears to have been their mishandling, may well cost the Republicans heavily in this year's mid term elections. 9/11 effectively killed off the conservative belief in American isolationism.

Bush's family background also needs a line or two, as does his status as a governor of Texas, though that matters less since he became president (hence it needs to be after mention of his presidency, not before it). The stuff on his pre-political career jobs is personal information that can be tagged on at the end.

The point about an opening section is that it needs to give the bare bones (stressing the bare, hence no footnotes, references, specific references to specific aspects of policy) in a way that is in effect a very short self-contained essay that doesn't go into detail. A reader should be able to read the section and nothing else and still get a feel for who Bush was, when he was, the unique facts about him, a general gist of his policies and a general feel for what the world was like, and his country was like, in his era. All the detail, the who, what, when, where and how, belongs in the body text and there needs detailed citations, footnotes, and explicit factual details. The article body text itself here is quite good, but the opening is below par in delivering a good overall resumé of Bush, his life and times.

Good feature articles have strong opening paragraphs, not weak ones. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 23:36, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I propose that we take the debate out of the lead. The rest of this article is really well done and I applaud all those who have worked on it. I see it as a good summary of the presidency of Bush with links to pages that go to other articles in depth. So why not make the intro a summary of the rest of the article. If something is to be mentioned in the lead, make sure it has at least a prominent mention (I dunno, several sentences at least?) in the main article. If you think a particular topic is important to include in the lead, then add text in the main article. If something is mentioned in the lead without being "flushed out" in the main article, something is unbalanced. Like I tried to propose above, the intro could follow the flow of the main article - with maybe a paragraph for most 2nd level sections. Sure it'll probably be dry, but it'll remove the debate about the lead, make anyone who wants to add something they think is important provide mroe info in the main article (with references), and better isolate the debates about whats important or not to the subsections of the article. 136.182.2.222 05:38, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
136.182.2.222 is me. Ehlkej 05:40, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Withdrawing from treaties

Is it just me, or is this a blatant euphemism? You can withdraw from a room, or a club; but a treaty is an agreement, and if you don't abide by its terms, you violate it. Did Hitler 'withdraw' from the Treaty of Versailles?

Paul Magnussen 00:06, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

No, it's not a euphemism. Kyoto was never passed by Congress (a DEMOCRAT Congress) and was never close to passing. Therefore, the treaty was never legally binding by law of the United States.--Hbutterfly 00:16, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

If the treaty had been enacted, the proper term would be "abrogating", and the proper remedy would be impeachment, IMHO. Kevin Baastalk 01:31, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Support of Sodomy Laws as Texas Governor

I personally think it deserves mention that Bush supported Texas's sodomy laws as governor, arguing that they were "symbolic of traditional values" and publicly opposed attempts to repeal them.[5] 69.249.195.232 (talk) 21:51, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

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